Mannie Fresh

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Good People, Good people. Welcome to the Quest Loft Show.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Today.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
We have an absolute legend, an architectural mastermind of hip
hop culture from the heart of the Big Easy New Orleans.
Our guest today has brought a sound I will say,
really brought the sound of the South to life and
to prominence, anti dominance, literally defining an era with his

(00:41):
unmatched production talent.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
We know all the icons that he's collaborated with.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
It's part of our daily fiber, our daily nutrients, if
you will. From of course, his comrades Juvenile and Weezy
and UGK and Trina and Ti I and two Chains,
and the list goes on and on and on and on.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
A longtime fan.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
If you are a hip hop historian, of course you
know of his entry into the game in the late eighties.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Of course with M. C.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Gregory, d our guest today is literally the Army and
the Navy, the Space Force, and the Air Force and
the Marines. He is the number one, two, three, four
and five stunner. I'm glad I get to say these words.
Manny Fresh, Welcome to the Quest Love Show.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
How are you?

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Thank you? Bro? That was an awesome intro. I'm gonna
have to use that or something. You deserve it.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
You deserve it, man.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Thank you, brother, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
This time we hold each other up in light.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yes, yes we should.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
You and I have done occasional gigs together.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, but aside from like the casual pleasantries and given
pounds and whatnot, we really haven't officially kicked it.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And I have so many questions. I have so many questions. Yeah,
what is your very first musical memory?

Speaker 4 (01:58):
I just remember my dad always had in a gang
of forty fives and just all of these soul songs
that they made the house feel better, like you know,
the songs that were like the cool, the Sam Cook
songs like you know. When my dad would play those
songs or whatever, it just made the whole structure of
our house feel better, like you know. And we had

(02:19):
no clue that we lived in public housing. We had
no clue. And because those songs made it feel that good.
So my introduction to music was through forty fives. That's
what my dad was playing first, you know. And one
of his favorite artists was Sam Cook and he played
I mean, like the hell out of Sam cook songs

(02:39):
and you know, and we knew the songs, you know,
by my dad playing them, so we knew the lyrics
to all of those songs. But to see my mom
and my dad interact when those songs played, you know,
it showed you that this is a part of.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Music, is the glue to you know, to make things better.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
How many albums were in the household?

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Oh my god, God, bro, we lost.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
I wish my mom was here right now because you know,
people would be like, nah, he exaggerating. I think we
probably had over over the years, maybe thirty to forty thousand,
forty fives that my dad acted. We had stacks and
stacks of forty fives, like you know, because from his
era of DJing, like you know, and that was the
that was the first thing that DJ spent forty fives.

(03:24):
And the crazy thing was a lot of them wasn't
in the sleeve. They was just stacked up. And even
some of my younger baby pictures, you know, people were like,
well was that AI did you know? I'm like, that's
really what I played with forty fives like that was
that was my talk?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
I got you, no, this this is I'm glad to
finally talk to someone that I had the same childhood.
You know, growing up, we had about maybe four thousand,
five thousand albums. I would judge records based on how
they looked label wise, Yeah, hitting on the turntable. So

(04:03):
can I assume that as a kid, were you a
record obsessive or was it a thing where it's like.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Your parents ramp it down your throat, so you just inherited.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
My parents kind of rammed it down my throat, like
you know, my dad on played keys, he played drums,
you know, and he didn't play professionally, but he knew
how to play by ear. So it was always around
me that you know, like this is something that you know,
you're gonna have to tangle with it for a little bit,
or you're gonna have to mess with it, you know.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
We had an old piano. Of course it wasn't on.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Tune, but my dad would mimic the old songs, like
the Duop songs, because all of those songs was probably
two cards and just you know, like a little bass
part and you know, and then I started on going, oh,
it's kind of easy to play, you know, mimicking that
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
And then before you know, it.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
You know, you're doing things on your own and you
don't even know like this is really you creating something
because that genre of music, there was so many ripoffs
of a song that you know, it was the same
song where you were just like, well, you know, this
is that song and it's also the Beach Boys song.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
You know the Blues and yeah, just yeah, I get it,
I get it. You know. A lot of this is
coming of course.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
I was raised in Philadelphia, in the Northeast.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I was basically just led under the impression that damn
near one out of three people in New Orleans had
some sort of musical talent. Was that just like a
kind of like breathing air or eating bread, Like, oh,
you have to eventually figure out some sort even if

(05:38):
your desires not to do me.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Yeah, and every neighborhood, every project that was a band
being started somewhere like you know, and that was the norm. Like,
you know, if you didn't pay attention to everything else
around you, you played instruments, you know, And one of
the cool things about New Orleans was if you did
do that, you know, the street dudes would leave you
alone because they knew how important it was to the culture.

(06:03):
It was respected that you know, you did that. You know,
it's tons of people that can tell you stories, like,
you know, growing up in New Orleans, like they would
just raise up my window and leave the window open
because I was DJing, I was in, you know, playing something.
They was like, hey, bro, can we just listen, you
know while we're out here doing whatever we're doing. And
I'm like, yeah, I just leave a window up, you know.
And it was just you know, because I was in,

(06:23):
I was trying to figure out whatever I was doing,
whatever that mix was, whatever I was creating, but it
was cool to them, and you know, and it would
be like even if I tried something crazy growing up,
they would send me on my way. They would be like, hey, bro,
get back to music, dude, this is not for you.
Go back to music.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
So in your childhood, what was what I would call
hustle culture or get like how prominent.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Again around all around me, dude.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
And luckily I grew up with guys that respected what
I was doing and saw something in me, like you know,
that was just like and I knew after trying something,
you know, people always glorified that I was horrible at
that that was not my thing, like I would have
got everybody killed in myself tried it, but I was
just like, nah, this is not for me, you know.

(07:10):
And then when you're home, you know, somebody who you
grew up with, one of your homies, he's just like, hey, bro,
get off.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
The streets, get back to music, you.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Know, and hustle. That just wasn't for me. And even
I'm so glad my dad was just like, if you
get in trouble for that, I'm not coming get you.
Because I respected my dad like to the fullest, you know,
and he was just like, there's so many opportunities out
here for you, but if you if you're trying to
hustle with your friends and you get in trouble for that,
I'm not coming get you.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
And that's scared that he be g be was out
of me.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
I know that film, bro, Yeah, I know that.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
I'm always curious about kind of the first generation of DJ's,
those DJs that had to operate with one turntable or
sock op DJs or whatever DJing was in the sixties
and seventies, When did your father start dj.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
My father, he was a cook at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
He was a chef there and he actually heard a
DJ like heard I forget who the popular DJ was.
This was his story from what he was telling me.
That was on a radio station, just on a radio station.
But he said, when they had sock hops or whatever,
you could not get those records. You couldn't get those
songs or whatever, like the really really good songs like

(08:26):
you know, because in those days you had you know,
the way they operated, the way New Orleans operated or whatever.
Everything was a paola. It was mafia influenced or whatever,
and all of that even music. So he was just
like they weren't invited to certain things, you know, like
basically they would get the bottom of the bowl if
it was a sock hop or whatever. And he was
like a DJ didn't have the music of our culture

(08:50):
or whatever. So he seen it as an opportunity to
say like, hey, you know what this is missing. This
is what's missing from our culture if we if we
go somewhere, it was like we got to hear the
same three songs over and over again. Where if it's
on the other side of town, they get everything, you know,
because there wasn't really no good DJs that could get
good music. So what he did was he started hanging

(09:14):
out at the radio station and figured out, like the
way this worked, the way Paola worked in that time,
was they would actually give the DJs. If you were
a so called DJ, they would give you the records
and give you a little money to break it, you
know what I'm saying. So that's the way our whole
collection of forty five's and all of that started. My

(09:35):
dad would get records that, you know, some of them
was good, some of them was horrible, but a lot
of it was because he was he was going up
in the ranks, and when he first started DJing, it
appealed to black people. So you had all of these
record companies going, this is the guy to go to.
And he decided to make a living off of it.
He was just like, you know what, I think I
could quit my job and do this. And you know,

(09:57):
he raised me and my two sisters off DJing. That
was the only job I know my dad ever had
after quitting, you know, his job from being a chef.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
What types of parties did he do?

Speaker 4 (10:08):
What was big in A in A in the sixties.
I remember even talking about this with him. They had
this gong show that they used to do. And the
Gong Show was kind of like kind of equivalent to
you know, mimicking a song or whatever and somebody would
dressed up like the act or whatever and sang the song.
But that was big, like you know, like like karaoke basically,

(10:28):
like but that was big that you you dressed the party.
If you did Little Richard, you had to show up
dressed up like Little Richard, like you know what I'm saying.
And and my dad was the orchestrator of kind of
the Gong Show and that was a big thing for
people in New Orleans to go out and do. And
then from there it went to you know, like the
little sock hop or maybe the gym or whatever, and

(10:49):
all of and evolved. I remember finding like some of
my dad's first amps, like the tube amps with no
back on him, with just a plug in them.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
How did the music project in? I mean in days
now we have cabinets and yeah, yeah, and.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
My dad had a lot of old equipment, like you know,
the first generation PV speakers. Well you know, like those
those speakers were you know, just loud. You know, you
couldn't tune them or whatever. In the first generation apps
that you know, you just plugged in them and the
back was open, so if you stuck your finger in
there or whatever, you was dead. And I saw it

(11:26):
evolved from that to better equipment, you know, and I'm like, oh, well,
you actually are moving, you know. And then from there
it became like every hole in the wall bar, every
every place in New Orleans my dad played. And then
around somewhere around fourteen fifteen, I started hooking up my
dad's equipment wherever he was playing. You know. He was
just like, hey, could you go hook this up and

(11:48):
then before you go to school, come back and get it.
You know. I was driving without a license, me and
my friend Wap, you know, my dad was she was
this DJ van because that's what you had at the time.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Right, Okay, so you got tricked into the family.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, I got tricked into it.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
I got tricked into it by literally bringing his equipment,
hooking it up, and coming back to get it. And
one late night it was like a smoky hole in
the wall bar or whatever. I kind of got there early,
and my dad was like, long as you stay in
the background, you know what I'm saying, and just stay
out of the way. You can stay here because you
can't get you know, So I was just in the

(12:23):
background and I saw, like that changed my life for forever.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
I saw what the DJ do and what music do
for people.

Speaker 4 (12:31):
What year was this, This was probably somewhere on early eighties,
early eighties, like very very early eighties.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
In your observation of being your air quote your dad's apprenticed,
when are you taking note of what works and what
doesn't work? Because what I noticed about the most successful
producers in black music the common denominator that they have
handful of them. Jimmy jam is one of them. Doctor

(13:02):
Dre's a great example of them. Of course, you know
most people before they produce, they were once DJs. Like
Dre's example is the reason why he's so good is
because he DJ'd in some of the most hostile environments ever.

Speaker 1 (13:19):
And if you played the wrong song, that was your ass.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Like you're responsible for the lives of if you play
something that doesn't work. Yeah, so the pressure is on
you almost to build the perfect house of cards. You're
the perfect person that asks this question, because I will say,
now you.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Hold the key.

Speaker 2 (13:41):
There's the one record that will last fifty years that
no matter what environment it's in, it works. When people
play the intro to Michael Jackson's Don't Stop to Get Enough.
It was that feeling when I play Smells like Teen Spirits.
Sometimes there's that feeling there's no in the world, Like

(14:02):
when the first four bars of back that Ass Up
comes on. Yeah, it's almost like Pandemonium's gonna start in
fifteen seconds. In your opinion, what was that record when
you first started as an apprentice with your dad observing
him DJ.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
Believe it or not, Marvin Gase got to give it
up when that came on.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
It worse to this day when that came on wherever.

Speaker 4 (14:28):
He was DJ, and they went nuts, like you know,
and I used to go out in pond, you know.
And the crazy thing was that was the era when
you could play the song three or four times, and
he would play that song three or four times and
the set probably was four hours. But every time it
came on, it was like it was brand new. It

(14:48):
would be like it was brand new to the crowd
where you're just like wow, like.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
This really, you know.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
And we had so many songs that did that in
New Orleans. Like how some people say playing the wrong
song you would get fucked up. I was grew up
on playing the right song. Like you know, I know
exactly what he mean by if you played the wrong song,
you would be you know. But mine was always kind
of like play the right song, like you know, there's
a moment where you know, drop this right now, and

(15:17):
you know you're going down in history for you.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
How hard is it to break a new song?

Speaker 4 (15:23):
It's very hard, because let me tell you what's one
of the things. Even with me, I have nothing against
a young crowd, but I don't want to play for
a young crowd. And that's one of the way even now,
I don't want to play for a young crowd.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
I really don't.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
I have all of the songs, I have all of
the ammunition, but I don't want to play for a
young crowd because I have not figured out how to
break young songs yet. I'm figuring them out as I go,
Like I'll say, like, oh, that one is worthy, that
one is worth, and you know, and it's and I
got kids, I call them kids, but they grown ups,
like you know, my own youngest son, it's twenty one,

(16:01):
you know. So this is his error. And sometimes you know,
he'll put the fear of God in me because because
I'm listening to him, you know, when I'm riding with
my son, is something I think is a jam and
he's like, nah, Dad, that ain't it. That ain't the one.
So I'm being polluted by sometimes that. So I'm like,
you know what, I need to stick with what I know.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Wait, wait, time out, because this is the thing. Though
there's no cap, there's not brown nosing. But literally where
we are now is derivative of what you created. Yeah,
texture wise, what's hidden today is derivative from what you created.

(16:41):
That it's like a kid in a candy store for you.
So even you have doubts of what works and what
doesn't work.

Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the younger me, I never thought
that way.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
I never did.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
But but you know, there's a thing that I don't
mind saying it, even if you know it rubs some
people to the wrong ways.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
There's too much.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
Music being pushed on us, and some of it is
not music, you know what I'm saying. So that's that's
what's kind of making it hard to say, like, well,
what do I work?

Speaker 3 (17:11):
What song do I break? What song do you know?

Speaker 4 (17:14):
Because if I get if I check you know, my
pool and I see like I got forty records today,
and I'm like, how is this possible? And when you
listen to like, I don't know, thirty eight of them, you're.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Like, who let these people do this?

Speaker 4 (17:27):
And I understand, like some songs are supposed to be
just a parody and sometimes it's just a fun record,
but we got too much of that going on right now.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
See to this day, you still trust and engage your
record pool.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah, I'm shameless, brou I willzam the shit out of people.
You're like, wow, man, I open for you back, and
dah da da da da da dah. I'll be like, yeah,
just here to listen. I will zam the shit out
of it.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Just so I definitely do that if I hear you play,
if you play something that I like, I'm a savanna.
You might catch me over your computer taking a picture.

Speaker 1 (18:04):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
See if if the legendary man in Fresh feels that way,
then I don't feel so Baday.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
You know I've done it to Jazzy Jeff like, what
was that what you just played? Jeff Like He's like, what, Like,
what was that that you just played? I need to
get that record, like, you know.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Back in two thousand and five, there was a moment
where Lenny Kravitz had a spot in New Orleans. Yeah,
and so did Solange and the Fellas and I were
about to make a new record, and we decided, Okay,
New Orleans is the probably one of the last real

(18:56):
like three places in the United States that still as
a musical identity that's sort of singular, you know, like
the DMV has it with go go culture, you go
to San Francisco, whatever, There's just a different type of
hip hop culture there.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
And for us, it was like, Okay, we're.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Gonna buy two houses, move to New Orleans. You know,
mess with some jazz cats, mess with some brass cats.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
We wanted to hook up with you.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
So initially, from January to like August of two thousand
and five, our plan was we're gonna tour for eight
months and then when it's time to make this new record.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
We purchased the two houses.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
We were ready voptorship ourselves literally two nights before Katrina.
We were going to move down there, And part of
me wonders, in some sort of alternate timeline, what would
have happened if had we moved down there?

Speaker 1 (19:52):
For you, does it still feel the same to you?
As it once was.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Like now live with a bunch of disgruntled New Yorkers
that are like gentrification, and this is not the New
York I loved, And everywhere I go it sort of
goes through that.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
What is Well, one of the things what's difficult with
me too, is because I'm fighting for the identity of
New Orleans to because we're not the same.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
We are not like, you know, culture wise.

Speaker 4 (20:19):
I think what happened was so many people after Hurricane
Katrina moved away somewhere else and picked up they habits,
you know, and some of them came back. You know what, Okay,
you sound like you're from Atlanta. You sound like you're
from just as small as Baton Rouge. You could have
moved one hour out and you're just like, but you
sound like you're from Baton Rouge. You don't sound like

(20:40):
New Orleans no more. You don't move like and and
I get it. That was a tragedy, so people had to,
but it kind of it messed with our identity. It
messed with our creativity and everything. So we are a
city rebuilding our sound, you know, we and it's still
you know, we're still waiting for some people. I don't
know to come back or either to contribute, but we

(21:02):
we we definitely we're a city that's rebuilding our sound.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
I was gonna say, twenty years after the fact, have
you recovered twenty years after the fact?

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Or is this still something missing? Man?

Speaker 4 (21:15):
No, Yeah, that's something that does a disconnect with like
even what I'm telling you with DJing, how that, how
that has happened? There's a disconnect with younger New Orleans
and older New Orleans as artists, Like, you know, you
have younger artists that feel like, you know, if you're
OJ status, then you know, you will waste the time,
like you know, they just like, oh well, and when

(21:36):
I grew.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Up, we actually looked up to the.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
Meters, the Allen two Salts, you know, Erma tones, We
looked up to everybody that was our you know, and
we actually went to them for advice on how you
got that sound or how you created this?

Speaker 3 (21:48):
How was that that warm? How is that? You know?

Speaker 4 (21:51):
And they didn't mind. But they're like, if you saying
something to somebody young, because it's still that chip on
their shoulder, you know, they're just like, well, dude, you
just wasting time and the art of producing a song
is gone. Like you know, when you produce a song,
you sit with me, and we produced that song, not
me sending you a beat, and like, hey, let's see

(22:12):
what comes out, you know, And that just one of
those that was so great about New Orleans that you
could get a bunch of musicians together from from a
jazz band, from a brass band, from a you know,
and we can sit in the room and see what
we come out with. You know, on the earlier Cash
Money songs, Trombone Shady played on those songs when he
was a kid, like you know, and that foundation some

(22:34):
of that turned into Trombone Shady and then you're just like, wow,
look at this played you know on some of these
songs for wrestling tickets. That's all he wanted to do
is go to the wrestling match, and then he turns
into this icon like you know. And but but it
was because we wanted to keep that guy off of
the streets, because we saw how talented he was, and
we also wanted to tell him whenever we got a

(22:57):
chance to celebrate him, hey, bro, keep practicing, You're going
to be something great. Now. There's a disconnect, like you know,
when you when you're saying that to a younger artist,
or you can't even call a younger artist. I'm going
to show you. Notice, like I see kids all the
time on the internet like spasing out, going crazy, and
I just the inner me wants to reach out to
them and say, hey, bro, what are you doing.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
It's not that serious.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
This is music, right, But if you do that, then
you get called the clown or you ought to you know,
you the week And I'm just like, well, I don't
know how we fix that or how we you know,
make that work. But there's something going on in the
water or whatever happened that were not gelling the way
we used to.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
There's a question I always wanted to ask a knowledge
resident that's closer to my age that I never got
to ask. Okay, I know that, you know, oftentimes music
lovers will reminisce about yesteryear and how it was back
in the day and music was way better back then.
Da da da da da, And sometimes you know, I

(23:57):
in doing research or just listening, I'm just under the
impression that it's always been the same, meaning that there's
a commercial artist, there's a moderately loved artist, there's an
underground artist. There's a niche artist. Now here's the deal.
I grew up in my crib with. In my actual childhood,

(24:20):
I had one meters record. Yeah, it was reprise era meters.
We know, there's two levels of the meters, the breakbeat, yeah,
and then the more poly sophisticated I mean, you know,
just kiss my baby, some shit works, you know what
I mean. However, you know, I didn't discover air quote

(24:42):
that meters until nineteen ninety when those first like five
records were reissued. Were they a niche New Orleans group
in terms of like if you know you know, because
I'm just under the impression that even in nineteen seventy two,
I can't imagine Sissy Struck getting airplay on the radio

(25:04):
or that sort of thing. It's like, how popular were
they in their time period?

Speaker 4 (25:10):
I think in New Orleans it was, you know, the
Meters were gods. But outside of that, they were still
trying to figure it out, you know, and nobody didn't
Nobody thought this music was great because it still sounded
New Orleans, you know. And then, like you said, the
breakbeat era came and everybody was like, whoa the drummer
and what he's doing? And these sounds are you know,
they something crazy. But that showed you how much these

(25:34):
dudes actually loved music, because I don't think they sold
a lot of records. I don't think you know what
I'm saying, they sold a whole butt to go back
in right now, that's considered a failure, you.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Know what I'm said. And there was a band who
like we going back in there.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
We're gonna do another album, right you know, and we're
gonna do another one. We're gonna change our name to
Chocolate Milk and we're gonna do this, like you know
what I'm saying, and then we're gonna go back to
the meters. So and you got a lot of songs
which which is so cool about an older era. And
I'm not I'm not comparing like nothing new, but what
was older Like a lot of those songs were the

(26:08):
band members from other.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Groups that were cool groups like.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
That that that sound was linked to other people, you know,
like you take mister Big Stuff Gene Knight. You can
hear the influence of Alan Tucson in that song, like
you know, you can hear like some of the medias
you know, like so that that that right there, that that.
That's the energy that I think.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yes, music is.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
Still great, but we're killing that energy of the experience
of knowing other people like you know, I think it's
a big deal. Leo from the Meters called me like
two days ago, but he's been calling me all my life.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
I think that's a big deal.

Speaker 4 (26:43):
When that guy calls me like you know what I'm
saying and he'll just call it me like, hey man,
I'm just checking on you. What you're doing, bro, Like
you know what I'm saying, And I'm in my car
going that's that's the meat.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
That's Leo the bass player.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
Leo is the king of the cold call boy, Yeah,
it hit you like seven exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, you can you tell me how did you discover
hip hop?

Speaker 3 (27:11):
Run BMC? Believe it or not, I thought.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
So even not even sugar Hill I was.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
I was okay with that.

Speaker 4 (27:20):
That was alright with me. It wasn't life changing until
it's like really yeah, because I can tell you everything.
Treacherous three, you know what I'm saying, Fearless four, all
of that Grand Master Flag.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
How did sugar Hill era hip hop trickle down in
New Orleans?

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Oh? That was incredible. That was phenomenal.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
My sister used to drag me to all of these
school parties and I hadn't found myself as a DJ yet.
I was just somebody who loved the music, like you
know what I'm saying. And but that was the sugar
Hill era. Flash to the Beat was one of my
favorite all time songs. I heard that one time, and
of course I was under age at my sister's high
school dance and that came on, and that was one

(27:58):
of the songs that changed me for forever. Like I
was just like, oh my god. And there's a break
at the end of Flash to the Beat where the
beat changes and it's like boom boom boom. When you're hot,
you're hot, and I was like, what is that when
you're not?

Speaker 3 (28:16):
But that was you can't get to the machine, you
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
I was going to say.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Most people don't know that there are two versions of
Flash to the Beat because there's the professional sugar Hill version, yeah,
and then the version that they captured live at the Yeah,
I believe right exactly. So wait, did you guys get
both versions or were you Yeah, we had both versions.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
We had cat versions because you know, some kind of ways.
Somehow my dad used to get these songs, you know,
but he wasn't big on hip hop unless it was
a song that everybody and they just stayed in a pile.
So when when, So when I actually fell in love
with hip hop, I went back to the piling and
found all of these incredible songs that was like, oh

(29:04):
my god, like you know, because my dad didn't play that.
He played mostly disco. He played mostly soul records. And
I was like, this is an incredible stack of records
that you know, I want, like I want to hear this.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
But when I remember, so the reject pile is how
you started building your.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
The reject polish listen, I had say, well, my dad
didn't want I got, and then that's that's what built me. Okay, yeah,
that's dope. And let me tell you one of the
songs my dad slept on. He didn't not think it
was a good song. She good times what and yeah,
And that song was in that pile. And I remember

(29:43):
playing the song and I was and I'm telling my dad,
I'm like, dude, this song is bad ass. I don't
know why you put that over here, but you might
want to put this back put this in rotation in
your you know, and because New Orleans was a weird
place at the time, New Orleans, you rejected a lot
of stuff like we had.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
A moment in New Orleans where we only played New Orleans.

Speaker 4 (30:03):
And we've had those moments a lot of times over
you know, over time, where we're just like now, we
don't want to hear nothing else but what we playing.
And there was a few songs that you know that
came through, but most of all it would be songs
that kind of they sounded right to New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
I was gonna say, what is the ratio between local
support and local talent versus FuMO, Like, oh, we need
to catch up with the rest of America. This is
what the rest of America's playing. We need to get
with it. But is just depending on you knowing what
they want.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
I think New Orleans real real talk my era of
when I started actually djam and started doing house parties
or whatever, it kind of changed the scope of what
New Orleans hip hop was because we were open to
playing West Coast songs. We was open to playing East
Coast songs. Before that, DJ's didn't do that.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
But this is a shift.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Here comes hip hop, you know, and now everybody loves it.
Everybody likes it, you know what I'm saying, and we're like, oh,
we got easy Ease, we got you know what I'm saying.
We got the West Coast is popping off and those
songs are big. And at the time, I remember every
time somebody came to New Orleans, I opened up, Like,
you know.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
If it was a tour, but the tour was East
and West Coast, you would.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
Be the opening DJ for whoever was in jail.

Speaker 4 (31:22):
Yeah, yo, what was your first l coolj easy, anybody
that can run DMC, anybody that came to New Orleans,
Like if it was a major concert, I would always
be the opening DJ. I would always be you know,
the guy who used to MC with me way back, Denny,
Him and cut Creator grew up together. He was from
New York, so I was in the group New York Incorporated,

(31:43):
but it was my friends Denny.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
He started this group.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
Denny was one of.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
The first people who I saw transformed.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
We had no idea what that was, but he came
from New York with it, and then he showed me
so many different things that you know, because I thought
I was God on the turntables, you know, because I'm like,
I know how to back spin, I know how I
got a little good but right right, And he just
came and just read. And the crazy thing was he
had a Newmark mixer with the turnnob. He didn't have

(32:12):
a face, oh no, and you know, but he was
doing all of this crazy transform stuff with the turnnob,
like you know, and I was just like, wait, hold on.
But that was my first time ever seeing the Newmark
mixer and seeing twelve hundred turntables. My dad had a
big Meter mixer. I think that was the company that
made it. It was called Meter or whatever, but it was

(32:33):
a huge, huge mixer and he had Technique turntables, but
there was belt driven with the belt driven had some
sheeper turntables without pitching. Nothing on it, belt driven, no pitch,
no pitch, radio shack mixer, the.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Realistic mix you had to be good. Yeah, no pitch.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Wait, there's one particular record.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
I want to shout out my comrade Nordwar for bringing
this to light because when he interviewed Lil Wayne, I
was really unaware of just your origins. How did New
Orleans discover and adopt trigger Man's Showboys? Like for people
listening right now, the trigger Man break is what I

(33:20):
typically called the New Orleans break, the Bounce break, which is.

Speaker 1 (33:29):
With the break. I did not know that was a
New York record, and I never heard it.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I mean I was pretty much aware of you know,
hip hop radio as far as like cousins given me
tapes from WB, like from Mister Magic Show, and of
course we had Lady B in Philadelphia. But how did
that record wind up defining a city?

Speaker 3 (33:56):
DJs? Honestly DJs. So this is what happened.

Speaker 4 (33:59):
For for maybe five years, we played the vocal side
of the record, like, you know, just the regular vocal
side of the record, and everybody in New Orleans knew
this record, everybody in New York because that's that's an
example of DJ's breaking the record. But it was broken
New Orleans because like it just the storyline of it.
The storyline of the song is like it's a criminal storyline,

(34:21):
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (34:22):
It's two gangsters fighting over whatever.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
So that that fit in that era of you know,
and plus it had that eight oh eight beat. For
some reason, we have always been a city that's drawn
to the eight oh eight, you know, I don't know.
Maybe my earliest stuff was Miami bas and that was
New Orleans introduction to you know, a hip hop producer.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
So all my earliest stuff was eight oh eight bass.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
So everybody thought like, okay, that's what this is kind
of like what you gotta follow, like, you know, this
is this is how you produce a song like and
this is what we used to hearing. So the eight
of eight always resonated with us. And then we start
like the essence of hip We started doing calling response
and what's nuts is this kind of started with my dad.

(35:05):
My dad would let juven them rock the mic off
of the trigger Man beat. And this was before a
bounce was even called bounced. This was just in the
projects where you would give an MC a mic and
be like, hey, let's see who you know. But when
the eight oh eight part dropped, that's when the crowd
went crazy. It had like heart Linde drum sounds or whatever,

(35:27):
and then it went and then it went then it
went to that eight o weight drop. But when the
eight o eight drop happened, that's when the crowd went.
You know, you're just like, oh that part right there,
and so you had MC's going well, can you make
that part go back and forth? So that part became
a part of the show, going like, hey, so just

(35:48):
back spend just that part like on some grand Master
flash it where you find a break in the song
and you just like just this these four bars right here,
this guy repeat and it became just calling response and
mostly projects and block parties, and it would be like
back and forth, Uptown did this Downtown, y'all gotta come harder,

(36:11):
But it was always over that beat, like you know
what I'm saying. And then if it was something where
say like if it was a school dance and I
was DJing or something, everybody met up at that school
dance and then the best people would be like, hey,
let's see who rocked this song the best. And before
you know it, it evolved into Bounce and even the
reason why we even call it bounced because everybody used
to just kind of like do this off of every

(36:33):
time it came on, you know, and we always shortened
everything up. In New Orleans, the original song is called
drag Rap. We called it trigger Man because there's a
delay part in the song that go trigger man, trigger
and everybody was like, so of course.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
It's called drag rap.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
It's called drag rap. But there's a.

Speaker 4 (36:55):
Part, the the lay part that says trigger man. Everybody
always liked that little part, so this the calling the
song trigger Man.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
It was like, hey, play trigger Man. I'll give you
some history.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
So even that beat, like when we say that beat
is more of like a bounce beat, It started with
people beating on the DJ, like beating on the plexa glass.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Go and play that beat.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
Play that beat, you know, play that beat, and then
you know, people start calling it that beat. They're like,
you know, you know what that beat is, and that
beat is always a bounce like.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
I never knew that.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Yeah, the earlier days, the essence of it, like the
hand claps and all of that. I created that in
the club that I was DJing at me and KLC,
I used to bring my SP twelve because I was
up against some dope DJs. It was KLC and it
was this dude DJ Duck, and I was like, to
make it a little bit better, I'm gonna start bringing
my drum machines just on. So when the SB twelve

(37:48):
came out, of course it ain't have nothing but probably
four or five seconds, but it was genius because I
could take this trigger Man loop, sample it and put
some hand collaps on it. And whenever I did that
in the club, and you know, it went crazy because
everybody would be like, who has this song?

Speaker 3 (38:03):
What is this song?

Speaker 4 (38:04):
And I'm like, no, this is a sequence. This is
something that and that became a big deal. And and
every time you hear that that was something that I
created in the club, and you know, and more and
more people was asking for it.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
You know, Jubilee is getting ready, getting ready.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
That's people are like, wait, you did that song.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
I was like, you did that song? Yes, I did
that song.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Yeah, yeah, And folks is like, I didn't know y'all
was like, yeah, that's one of my beats.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Like you know what I'm saying. And that's kind of
like the essence of hip hop.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
Hip hop, you know how it starts with a beat
of breaking just some just a crazy idea. But Bounce
is really Cameron Paul that the Brown Beat song and
trigger Man. Now before Brown Beat, there was this dude,
Derek Beat, who made rock the Beat a profile. Rock

(38:57):
the Beat is actually the same song. We used to
play Rocked the Beat all the time in New Orleans,
just the instrumental woman.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
Is that boom boom ke boom boom?

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Yes, yeah, So we would always play rock to Beat,
but nobody in New Orleans knew the name of it,
so they just start calling it that beat.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Wow. Okay, Okay, that's what's up.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
This is everything I ever wanted to know about New
Orleans culture that I never got to ask.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah, because you got to think both of these songs
by label status, I mean, by labels it was failures.

Speaker 3 (39:32):
Derrek Beat, Rock the Beat.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
You just like, nobody ever jammed that song or whatever,
but New Orleans, yeah, trigger Man, nobody jammed that song
New Orleans, like and Ali, both of them. Still they
are legends in New Orleans. They could pretty much do
whatever they want. And I remember the first time the
group came to New Orleans, right and they performed, and
this drug dealer dude got them, you know, and got

(39:55):
them to come to New Orleans and they were singing
like I think they had a song called Cartoon something
or whatever at the time, and they did that and
we was like, bro, y'all got to sing, just do
the song, yeah, just do the song. And it was
just like it was like, just do the song. And
when the song came on, the crowd went crazy and
it was just like dude, and we were just like, yeah,
that's the anthem die.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
So they had no clue.

Speaker 4 (40:17):
Yeah, they had no clue none whatsoever. And they had
to do that song three times back to back.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
All right, So you said run DMC was kind of
your calling the hip hop Yeah?

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
What was the first live show that you saw with
hip hop in it?

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Or releast, what was the moment where you decided, Okay,
this is my calling, I'm in this culture.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
The first live show I think I saw was a
young ll COOLJ when he was on Death Jam. And
I want to say he's he was on that show, okay,
and who else was on there? Nikki B what daddy?
Don't no one heard him?

Speaker 3 (41:10):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
But to see when ll cool J came out in
the crowd response and you know, this is your backgroard,
this is your backyard, you in New Orleans. But to
see everybody just damn like this is phenomenal, Like he
got their attention for everything he does, everything he do,
that was life changing. That was you know, and I
was like, this is definitely what I need to do.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
When do you feel is though New Orleans really got
its identity because I know that for first generational hip hop,
it was like, all right, let's do what New York
is sort of doing and try to sort of acclimate
ourselves to what New York is doing or what you know,
what's popular. But when's the period that you feel is like, yo,

(41:52):
this is our shit and this is our culture and
this is what we're gonna do.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
Believe it or not.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
It still has a lot to do with outcasts, like
you know, the whole South's identity. Like, you know, I
don't think production wise, we was there yet, you know,
because the first generation of cash money a lot of
people don't notice. They think like you know, from Juvie,
and that wasn't the first generation. The first generation of
cash money was bounce artists, you know, and we was

(42:18):
trying to figure out what we was gonna do, if
we was gonna stay there or whatever. And then you know,
you got outcasts and they come out with songs that
we can do this, but we were scared to do
it where we actually you were scared. Yeah, we heard
musicianship or whatever and all of that. We just didn't
think that it was gonna be received well, you know,
to say, like, you know what, this is not what

(42:39):
hip hop sounds like to us, because a lot of
stuff we was masked from, like you know, even though
we was getting songs, but the favorite was the West Coast,
over the East Coast and down South, I mean down south,
but West Coast sounds songs sounded like kind of like
Miami bass sounds just slowed down.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
They were all eight to eight driven.

Speaker 4 (42:58):
Like you know what I'm saying, So it kind of
resonated easy to us. But then you had Dre that
picked incredible songs the sample that we kind of knew
them because my dad knew all of these songs, you know,
he would call them.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Out whenever dah da da dah.

Speaker 4 (43:11):
But it was just so genius, and I was just like, well,
I want to do that, but I don't think they
ready to let me do that, you know, because I've
been known I'm still a DJ. I'm starting to get producer,
you know, these credits and accolades or whatever, but I'm
still a street DJ, and my job is to keep
the party going. And what I was good at was

(43:32):
finding these incredible eight to eight breaks from songs that
you know and making that something my own. I was
fearful of musicianship for a certain you know, and then I.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Hear the way the way that I would dig for
break beats from the seventies record you're digging hip hop
to dig for eight oweight breaks?

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah? Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
Do you like Original Concept?

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Yeah? Yeah. Pumped that bass and all of that. All
of that was big in New Orleans. All of that.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, that acknowledged me. All of that was big. What
all of that was big in New Orleans?

Speaker 2 (44:06):
That's so crazy because like Original Concept, I'm not saying
couldn't get arrested. But again, it's one of those if
you knew, you knew, and because they have the deaf
jam shield behind them, I always wanted them to be
bigger than what they were, but only certain few knew
about Original Concept.

Speaker 1 (44:27):
But you're taking this all in and.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
You ask any DJ from my era, anybody that grew up,
not just DJs that grew up in my era of
the House of Blues.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
When Pump that base came on, it got crazy. There
them that.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
Get a little stupid, get a little stupid and pumped
that and that's all it was, was an instrumental eight
to eight instrumental.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
And you just rocked that the whole time and rocked
that the whole time.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Once I dug into your history and I'm talking about
like like buck Jump Time, Yeah, the fact that you
and Gregory and yeah mc gregory did a Freddy Krueger rap.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah before Jazzy Jeff in the.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
Fresh Jeff the Fresh Prince did it and the Fat Boys.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
So the musical underline was it was almost like it
was at oh but with I assume that was a
live brass bend inside the at least on buck Jump Time?

Speaker 4 (45:26):
Was that a buck Jump time? That was? So what
happened even with that, it's a crazy story. I was
doing a song for somebody else and they didn't show up,
and it was an Alan Tucson studio and he was like, hey,
you can have the studio since they didn't show up.
Whatever you come up with, you can have it. So
I called a couple of people. Greg was the only
one that came. I was like, hey, I got a
studio for a day, let's make a record. Like we

(45:48):
could literally make a record. And that's what came out
of it. Buck Jump, Who's on the phone? That was
a sample that I got from actually his son, Reggie.
He played me some stuff and I was like, and
at the time, I had an SP twelve, so I
only had a few seconds, and I was just like, hey,
let me jack that that little sound right there or whatever,
you know, And you knew on SP twelve you had

(46:10):
the slide to make the baseline to make the notes
or whatever. So I just made the notes on the
slide or whatever out of just like a little bass
clip or something that I fought, and you know, and
me and Greg made that song and that was like
that ran New Orleans for like ten eleven years.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Okay. So in my mind again when I told you
the story of like us.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Wanting to move down there, yeah, there was a brass
band that we took a liking to that we were
going to adopt and have them on the album like
incorporated with us.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
They were called the two b Continued Brass Band, Okay.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
And the thing was, I'd never heard buck jump time,
So in my head, I'm like, yo, like, okay, I
know with bounce music they're using eight o eight's and keyboards,
but then we have like brass bands over here, like
how come they never murge?

Speaker 1 (46:56):
Both magamated it.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
And then when I heard that, like, to me, that's
what I wanted to achieve, to see if that could happen.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
How can that hasn't happened more?

Speaker 4 (47:07):
I think the thing was after me and him did it,
because that song ran so long. By then hip hop
had them changed, Like you had people that were scared to,
you know, do brass music that you know, because hip hop,
you know, everybody start to be, oh, I'm cool now
I can't be associated with what this sounds like, you know,
like with second line music sounds like or whatever I

(47:29):
wanted to be. Yeah, because they felt it was old,
like they felt like, you know, it's a lot of
people that felt like, you know, it was old, you know,
and it was just like and that was that was
part of okay, something changing because this still this is
still jamming music, you know. And even I was having
a conversation with Kanye one day and he was telling
me about huh and he was like, I don't understand,

(47:50):
like how you did the drums like the snare rows
and the dah da da da, And I was like,
it comes from second line. I'm like a lot of
it is second line because that's what I heard drummers
do the little you know what I'm saying, And he
was like, well, I was like I kind of just
that was self examing, like before we had Sazam. You know,
you heard somebody do something. He was just like, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna keep that. What you said about on teen Spirit,

(48:14):
the guy said, you know he got it from the
Gap bandit the way it starts, right.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
Were you at all shocked at the way that How
was embraced Because I tend to notice when big moments
happened in hip hop history and how it affects people.
Usually the first time when something stops you and you
look at the speaker and you're like, is that allowed
to happen? And the thing is is that I'm hearing

(48:43):
it on Hot ninety seven.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I wish I could describe to you.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
The week that this came out, like it was almost
like giving a baby a t bone steak. Yeah, I mean,
something good but just absolutely foreign to you.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
It's like we looked at it and just didn't know
what to make of it.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
But it was catchy as hell, and I feel like
How was one of the songs that I wish I
knew a better term than to make new York vulnerable
because you know, like how stubborn New York was, like
we're the Kings were and we're ruling shit and none
of y'all saying we're number one, We're number one, like

(49:25):
whatever New York's hip hop's version is of America first,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (49:30):
And in one.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Fell swoop, people thought it was going to be Notorious
Thugs with Biggie and I'm certain had had he survived
and it probably would have had a video and would
have probably did it. But how I managed to do
something that I thought was impenetrable, like absolutely impossible, which

(49:54):
was it broke New York down?

Speaker 1 (49:57):
And then jay Z turns around?

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Can you tell me even how jay Z wound up
on the remix to it?

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Honestly, just knowing Jay you know, he's a fan of music,
like you know, to just say, hey, this is my
introduction to y'all culture, and this is y'all introduction to
our culture, and it's all so crazy. At the time,
baby them had no clue of what jay Z was
and hip hop you know where you know what his
stamp was. Then they knew nothing. Me and Julie was

(50:25):
just like, hey, bro, this got a state like you know,
and it was just like, well he wont he won.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Our sound, he just won our dah da da dad.

Speaker 4 (50:31):
And we was like, hey, bro, we're trying to break
this market like this is we need this to happen.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
And it was like, well, we don't even know who
this dude is. Who is dadda?

Speaker 4 (50:39):
You know, because one of the things in cash Money
that was big to Baby and Slim was cash money.
That's it. We ain't doing nothing else. We ain't doing
nothing outside of it. Outside of that, we ain't listening
to nothing outside of that. You know. What made me
a little different was I was a DJ, you know,
I had to listen to everything, and they had no
clue like some of these songs were influenced by other things,

(51:01):
you know, huh. To me, it's kind of like a
modern Man Tronics you know what I'm saying, Like it
has you know, like it's it's more it's kind of
like a Man Tronics song, you know, And I'm a
big fan of Man Tronics. Like I'm a huge fan
of Man Yeah, like you know, so to me, like

(51:21):
there's elements of that in that song, like you know,
from the drum switch to yes yeah, yeah, you know,
you're right, it's a lot of that, you know, but
talking to a slimming baby, you know, they kind of
was like, no, this is and I'm like no, we
all kind of influenced from different things. And then when
Jay did it, me and Juvie of course, we was like,
oh my god, this is it. Jay Z jumped on it.

Speaker 3 (51:44):
They you know.

Speaker 4 (51:45):
Baby then was like, na, bro, we don't. We don't,
and I'm like, we do need this. I'm like, we
need this co sign, you know, as well as what
he's doing too. He wants the South, we want that,
you know. And we did the Tunnel and it was
terrifying because people told us just like you know, like
like you you got folks whispering to you and your
ear going, Bro, they're gonna kill y'all in there, They're

(52:05):
gonna you know, and we just like damn, like even
you know what I'm saying, We doubting each other before
the performance, like you know what I'm saying, because we
don't know the song has really took an off, you know. Okay,
we get booked to do the Tunnel, but we don't
know that New York is jamming this song.

Speaker 3 (52:22):
Y Yeah, hell. Yeah. We were scared. Forget nervous.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
We were scared, scared shitless, like you know, because it
was so many, like you said, that New York attitude
where they was like, bro, y'all gonna bomb y'all, you know,
just right off through. Nobody telling you it's gonna be
all right. It was just constantly y'all ain't gonna make it.
This is it right here at the tunnel about the
tell y'all up, they gonna tell y'all. And if you notice,
when we did it, the crowd, you know, went crazy.

(52:48):
But the after, the after it was like Julie winning
the Olympics or whatever.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
He was talking so much shit.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
After after we performed, Like you know what I'm saying,
he stuck his chest out and was.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Like, yeah, we did it, and da da da dah,
New York.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
You can't tell me nothing.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
It was just because it was so much pressure.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
It was so much pressure put on us where people
was like, this is New York. You're not coming here
with this shit. Y'all not gonna do this. And when
the song dropped and the crowd went crazy, Bro, it
was it was such a relief for us because I'm
telling you to the time the song came on. We
were scared as shit because it was that many people
told us that this was not going to work.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Dude, Like I would have thought the complete opposite, if anything.
I thought the annihilation was y'all coming to New York
and annihilating us, like not knowing that you guys were
nervous about that at all, Like.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Yeah, because it was told to us like, you know,
like this this is no social media because we had
no we had no idea what was going on on
Hot ninety seven or what was going on in New York.
We just heard that the song had momentum, you know
what I'm saying. So we going, okay, did they did
they book us here to you know, make fun of
us and poke at us, or did they book us,
you know, to have a good time. So it was

(54:02):
it was, you know, and everything that we were getting
from people that we really didn't know, but just that
New York attitude was we was just getting y'all not
coming in the tunnel with this ship, y'all not going
you know what I'm saying, And every every artist in
that era knew the tunnel was. It was brutal, dude.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
This is also the Penn and Pixel era of hip
hop album covers. Yeah, so I was under the impression
that every Penn and Pixel album cover was just under
the same umbrella. So at one point I did think
that No Limit and Cash Money were part of the
same family until someone that's explained to me otherwise, No,

(54:41):
these are two different camps.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
We all grew up together. Everybody just picked the side.
That's the weird thing. But but but you know, that's
that's kind of like how the East Coast and West
Coast battle even started, like with people kind of putting
their own spin on it.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
We never really had beef.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
The world assumed that we had beef because we was
from different projects, different areas. But me and KLC, the
dude from Beach by the Pound who did most of
their stuff, we dj together as kids. You know, we
grew up toget. We're still good friends. Mia X was
in a group with me, you know, in New York
Incorporated and she you know, and Mac who was on
their Max's first song. I think he was nine years old.

(55:20):
I did his song like you know what I'm saying.
Wait what, Yeah, he was nine years old. He had
a song called I Need Wills. It was a parody
of I Need Love, Like you know what I'm.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Saying, Well, was he won a bicycle.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
He was on a.

Speaker 4 (55:33):
Street car like saying the song to you know, to
some girl, and it's.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
A video for it.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
It's literally a but but we all knew each.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
Other at the height of the madness.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
Not once was there a summit meeting that said, like, hey,
let's do an all star record.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
It was friendly competition and people kind of made you
know when you got those outside influences, like you know,
when you start letting street dudes in and you know,
and in that era that was big and hip hop,
like you got your street friends with you and you
got all but you didn't know like your street friends
were the ones who was the authors of destruction, you know,

(56:09):
like you like, this dude is the problem. He's telling
you that these dudes is saying this, and they got
some dudes over there saying, well, these dudes are saying that.
So it kind of created a riff. But whenever we
saw each other, like let's just say, we went to
a club on a Friday night, the House of Blues,
and we saw folks from No Limit. We saw we
all got together and we kicked it and we hung
but when we went our separate ways, it seemed like, oh,

(56:32):
they hate each other, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (56:34):
But that never really occurred.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
As far as D Jay's concern and support, is there
local mainstream radio support of the culture or did you
have to figure out other ways to get the word out.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
We definitely had to figure out other ways.

Speaker 4 (56:53):
You know. It was a little different from us because
we was kissing baby, shaking hands, making deals out the trunk,
you know, doing things the old school way of making
it work, you know, going from city to city, sharing
the car, whatever we had to do, like, you know,
and we would we would stay in the city till
they got tired of seeing us, till they start playing records,
you know what. We just like, well, we're gonna be

(57:13):
here and we gonna find all of the good DJs,
you know, and service them with these records and bother
them or either pay them whatever it took, like, hey man,
give that guy a little money and let him play
this song, you know. And a lot of times the
greatness was the song played two or three times and
then it was instant, you know, people liked it, and
then that that right there showed you if you do
a good record, you make it easy for DJ like

(57:35):
but it was if it's a hard record where you're like, ah,
and we've all been in that position where somebody like
break this record and you're just like, I don't know
about one. But when you give them something to work with,
they like, okay that this could possibly work. So and
a shift what happens in Cash Money was Beiji chop

(57:55):
of City.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
The format changed from bounce.

Speaker 4 (57:58):
To rap and and I was like, if we're gonna
do this, it's gotta be something that's so incredible that
you know it can't be you know, like denied. And
when we did the Chopper City album and it was
rapping and it had musicianship and it had you know,
different like you know, and everybody was like, this is
many fresh. We not used to hear them, you know,

(58:19):
we know the bounce mann afresh. We don't know him
to do like full production on you know, a whole album.
And these songs got guitars and they got you know, keyboards.
And when we did that, the radio and everybody jumped
behind it because the streets were so hot on it.
It was one of them albums where every car was
planned so radio had to start playing it just by

(58:40):
it was being forced on them by what the streets
was doing. And when that happened, you know, we saw
a shift.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
I've never seen an M depth interview with you. So
the reason why I'm kind of nerd out on you,
you know, peer to peers, because like I'm asking questions,
I never got.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
To hear you answer because yeah.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
As far as so, I mean now that decades of
going by and you've seen the effect of it, like
is this the way that you imagine that it would
happen when you first started out, or.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Yeah, let me tell you.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
One of the things that even you know Juvie will
say right now interviews, he says, I got on their
nerves with my talks of how I knew this was
going to play out because I always was like, dude,
that's going to yeah. I was like, this is going
to be big. I don't know about y'all, and if
y'all don't like it, go home, like you know, I

(59:45):
would literally you know, and it was just like, well,
how did you I'm like, bro, I know, I know,
I know, I know, Like you know, even when we
was doing back that ass up. I changed the song
three times and he was like, why are you doing
this and what are you and I'm like, because this
song is huge, you know, and at the time when yeah,
I knew it at the time when we did it.
The whole reason why I put the intro on it.

(01:00:07):
It was kind of like like from old songs, from
seeing my dad do things. When it came back to me,
they was like, well, why do the intro when it
was already done.

Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
I was like, well, the intro is the setup.

Speaker 4 (01:00:17):
I'm like, it's giving you a second to get ready.
I'm like, this is going to give you a second
to get ready when it drops down. It's on from there.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
We had already done the song and I went back
and did the intro to it, and it was like, well, why.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Were you wanted the intro in mastering or.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
Yeah, yeah, And I was like, I want the intro
on it and they was like, well why, I'm like,
because this is the setup. I'm like, this song is
going to play for forever and you know, and it
was just like see when you start talking like that
that shit you and I'm like I know this. I'm like,
I know this song is the one this is going
to play. You know, Julie will say, I didn't see it.
He was like many saw it. Man.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
He was like, this is, you know, one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
If you're gonna give yourself credit, and you know, you like,
you know, I'm not braggadocious, but I will say I've
foreseen that song being here that long.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Of your creations, like what are your top three Manny
Fresh creations?

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Still Fly?

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Because still Fly it's not really it's not a super
produced song. What I'm saying like, it wasn't hard to create,
but it was hard to do because I wrote.

Speaker 3 (01:01:22):
It from a real place.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
And when you would have a labeled at the whole
premise of what the label thinks is we get money,
you know. That's all we do is we get money.
And they like and you talking about being broken, you
talking about a quarter tank of gas and you eat,
you know, and it was just like bro. And I
was like, honestly, I'm like, this is on real life.
I'm like, yeah, it's relatable. I'm like, this is everybody's

(01:01:46):
real life, you know. And that was one of the
songs it was hated on by everybody. Then it was
just like, I don't know what he doing in there
right now, but he about to destroy this with this song.
And I'm like, this song is everybody's life in the world, like,
and I'm like, you've been here one of these lyrics,
you've been here, one of them, or all of them
in the hook, you've been there. So when I was

(01:02:08):
doing it, you know, it was it came from a
real life place. I need to say this, and they
was just like no, you know, like our whole thing
is our asana is get money, get money, get money,
and you know, and I remember saying this is the
gift and the curse. And I had an argument with
Baby about this cause I was like, I don't want
to turn hip hop into get money, get money. I'm like,

(01:02:29):
this is our thing. But I'm like I'm seeing all
of these labels and all of these kids under a
switch to.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
That's all hip hop is now.

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
And I'm like I had to explain it to him
and break it down like just a little bit, like
you know what I have to and he was like, well,
I don't understand what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
I was like, there's genres in hip hop. We figured
out that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
We would be, I mean, the boldest, the biggest, and
whatever that was that was cash money thing. I'm like,
that's not everybody's thing, but it's turning into everybody's thing.
That's this is what hip hop is turning into. So
I'm like, you gotta be careful on how you doing
this because what we're doing is we're making people believe
that hip hop is money, girls and bitches.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:03:12):
What I'm saying instead is a culture is a love
for this. And you saw a shift where it just
turned to the bling and we're still in the bling
era of hip hop where everything is get money, get money,
get money. So when I did that, it was all
kind of feelings of you know, like I said, what's
big about that song to me is not how you know,

(01:03:33):
like the production or none of that. It was the
backstory of it. The backstory was I had to fight
for all of that. Like what I'm telling you where
I'm going, Like, hey, bro, I don't want to just
do songs that are just that's all we do is,
you know, we glamorize this. Like I'm like every album
that we do that should be at least one two
songs that got a message that comes from.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
How you really feel.

Speaker 4 (01:03:57):
Yeah, that's relatable and that was one of even some
of the parts of you know, people are like, well,
when you stepped off, what happened? Was it financially? Some
of it was financially, but some of it was it
was growth, you know, as a musician, as a producer,
it was growth when I'm like, hey, I want to
do this, I want to try this, and you're like, nah,
but this works, and I'm like, it don't work for me,

(01:04:18):
no more?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Gotcha?

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
All right, I'm looking behind you and over your right shoulder.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Uh huh do you still use and that's be twelve hundred?

Speaker 4 (01:04:26):
Yes, sir, I got the SB right here, and I
got the eight aweight right here at old MPC.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Yes, this is my baby, bro, my sp twelve hundred to.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
This day, Like that's your weapon of choice.

Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
Yes, yes, yes, all right, let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
To the opposite of still fly, which I would say
is probably blink bling.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Now, it's so weird how a perception of a song
can alter your perception of even patches, because everything that
you used and bling bling, it's such a shiny sound,
like the did the idea come first? Like, Yo, I'm
gonna make a song about diamonds and you made it

(01:05:09):
or was it just I know just how it came.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
I know how it. I was listening to Johnson Crew
Space is the Place boom boom bum bum bum bum
blah blah blah bum boom boom bum and I was like, God, damn,
that's jamming.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Like shit, look Arthur Baker right now here in this
all right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
You know what I'm saying. So I was playing like
the Johnson Crew album the whole day, like Space Cowboy
all of that, and went to sleep and the hook
of bling bling came to me, like you know what
I'm saying, Like I just and I was like, I
better get up and recard this before.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
I forget it.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
I recorded it over what you call I recorded because
I was listening to the Johnson Crew all day. I
just recorded the hook over Space is the Place, you
know what I'm saying, because I was like, you know what,
just because I had my little recorder, you know what
I'm saying, I'm like, the only thing I got was this,
So I played it and I just did the hook over.
So I was like I kind of wanted to have
that feel, like you know what I'm saying. I was like,

(01:06:04):
I wanted to have that, and I recalled and the
next day I went in the studio and put it down,
but I recorded it late at night because it kept
coming to me.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
This is so crazy to me that like records that
I think don't have an impact. You know, it's you
mentioned the Johnson Crew. I just had Arthur Baker on
the show, yeah, a little while back. And of course,
you know after the deluge, the after effect of Planet Rock,
you know, coming with play at your Own Risk and

(01:06:33):
all this stuff, and then you know, pack Jam comes
from the Johnson Crew. And I remember that summer of
eighty three buying. I brought Nuclears and I brought the
Johnson Crew, Space Cowboy, all that stuff. And I was
just under impression that because no one, none of my
friends knew that song except me, and so my mind,

(01:06:56):
I'm just like, oh, this is probably like a flop
record that's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Going to make sense to nobody but me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
I Wow, Okay, that's amazing to hear that. One question
I always wanted to know actually has to do with
probably the most surprising cash money signee, How did Tina
Marie wind up in you guys's stratosphere?

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
All of us are fans, all of us. Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
So, so Tina Marie was huge in New Orleans. I
mean like like you know, she she would be equivalent
to like Supernova in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:40):
So I think somebody told Slim that I think it
was one of her attorneys that Tina was looking for
a deal, and he was like, we'll sign her.

Speaker 3 (01:07:51):
We you know, we we we'll sign her. We'll do
whatever it takes, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:54):
And he said, I know many loves Tina Marie, like,
you know, because I had these times where I'm gonna
educate you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
We about to play some R and.

Speaker 4 (01:08:01):
B music if this is the last ten minutes of
my set, and it was always square Biars, like I
would you know I start off with Slim was like
that he go with that every time. You know what
I'm saying, right, I'm like, but Square Bars was always
in the set, and I think it was it was
just pure coincidence that this guy reached out to her
and she was like, okay, I'm willing to do it.

(01:08:21):
And when I met her, I told her like, I'm like,
I'm a huge fan. You know, I love everything that
you've ever done, you know, And we could have went
on and on it because I definitely do know all
Tina Marie songs, like just like anybody else in New Orleans.
And I called my dad and I said, hey, you'll
never believe who. And my dad was like, now you're
doing something. All that other shit is all right, yeah,

(01:08:43):
but that like you got Teina Marie.

Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
Don't you fail team to Marie?

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
That is crazy. That's why I asked you the Meeters question.

Speaker 2 (01:08:52):
There's some artists that are so big in your life
that you just assume, yeah, the world knows about it.
Like when I was in ninth grade, love a girl
just went top ten. Yeah, she had one pop hit
that like the rest of America got introduced to her,
you know, like they thought that was her first song,

(01:09:12):
you know what I'm saying. But that's what I learned, like, oh,
the world doesn't know about Tina Marie, Like she only
means something.

Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
To us that is up in my own When you say,
like your top accomplishments, that is one of them that
means the world.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
To me, Well congratulations man. Yeah for me, it's I'm
sad that that was her swan song. Yeah, but I
too also got to meet her, like in the late
nineties and whatnot. And you know, I knew of her
struggles to try to get back in the game and
get the lawsuits with her previous labels and whatnot. Yeah,

(01:09:48):
I'm just so happy that not only like does she
land the plane, but she got reintroduced to like a
whole nother generation because oftentimes, like our greats, can easily
get it just discarded and got about like yesterday's news.

Speaker 4 (01:10:03):
One of the things she asked when we was doing
the song she wanted to she wanted something like still fly,
she was like, and I was like, no, miss Marie,
we're not you know. And she was like, you stopped
calling me. And I was like, miss Marie.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
I was like, she want that bounce?

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Yeah, And I was like, I.

Speaker 4 (01:10:20):
Love your music and we gonna make music for you.
So when we wrote the I'm Still in Love song,
you know, she was open to it. She let me
write some of it, she let me you know, and
and I was like, we could do like this al greenflip,
tell me what you like, and she like the dome
throw to the do throw, and I was like, yeah,
I'm like that's easy. I'm like, We'll come up with
something real simple. And I'm like and we'll keep it

(01:10:41):
with your crowd. I'm like, I think if we do
something outside of that, you're going to lose your core audience.
And you know, and she trusted me and and that
right there, and that's like sometimes that's the difference between
beat making and producing. You know, we got a lot
of beat makers. We got a ton of that. We
don't have a lot of people who in invest in
who you're working with and and vice versa and who

(01:11:03):
they working with.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
There is a period where I forget what year it was,
but most told us like, yeah, like dog, I'm gonna
mess with Manny Fresh and do some joints together. What's
the personal work that you got to put in to
know what fits an artists or not? Because I'm certain
everyone's coming to you expected, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:20):
Talk to you. I personally want to talk to you.

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
And and one of the things I'm going to start
off with and I've always been this way, I don't
make hits, like you know, I'm like, songs can evolve
into hits.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
I don't know how to make a hit record.

Speaker 4 (01:11:33):
There's you know, because a lot of people are like
I need a hit, and I'm like, I don't know
how to do that I know how we can be
in hear and do some good songs and because and
God's on is truth. If the song get handed off
to the wrong people and they don't work it, then
it's not a hit record. You know, it takes a
village to make a song a hit.

Speaker 2 (01:11:52):
Okay, let's say this is five hours after you finalize
the final mix of what we know as back that
ass up. Where's the first place you're taking it to
to know if it works or not?

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
Oh, I'm definitely gonna The way I worked it was
always a party. It was always the way I recorded,
it was always a party. So our studio sessions, a
lot of times I would gel off with people like
you know what I'm saying. So if we had people
around and and I and I saw that reaction of
this is the one you know that that was it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
That was the homework for you mean, the actual studio
and the actual studio.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Ah, but it aren't you afraid of a yes man?

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
But this would always be outsiders like where I'm just like, hey,
what are y'all doing? Like, like, let's let's say, for instance,
somebody else is in the other room. Well, we'll even
say something completely different from me. They like, hey, you
know John Legend is creating blah blah blah. And I'm like, okay,
how many people that there's ten people? Come over here, man,
y'all just check this out. Might not even say it

(01:12:55):
was something that I produced or whatever. Just played three
songs then let that one come on, just to see
what the temperature was like. As a DJ like, I'm like,
you know what, I'm gonna play like three songs and
then I'm gonna sneak this one in somewhere and let's
see what happens. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Okay, So for me, if the person stands completely still,
I trust it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
If they bounce their head in the first six seconds,
that to me is the death.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
I don't know why, but I feel like if someone
is afraid to be honest with me and tell me
they don't feel it, yeah, they forced themselves to look
at the ground and then they bounced their heads. How
do you know if the response is genuine or not.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
But with us, a lot of times my DJ radar,
you know, because I always picked the singles like for
everybody on every album. You know what I'm saying. But
it was always my DJ radar that was like this
is the song, this is the one, so you know,
and there was a weird period where, you know, where
my Jedi powers were incredible and what I mean like,

(01:14:02):
I would you literally say we're doing the single today,
you and everybody would be like, oh shit, how you
know that. I'm like, today is the single day? Like
you know what I'm saying. And we might have did
twelve songs and I'm like, but today we're doing the single.
And that always worked, like you know, so my process
was always like, Okay, this is cool, but none of
these aren't the single, and today is going to be

(01:14:24):
you know, what.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Other talent do you have that we don't know about?

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
Oh? Cars, definitely, you know. I rebuild motors, I restore
my cars, all of that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
I want to ask you so bad about car culture.

Speaker 2 (01:14:35):
But I'm not a car person, but I know that
you are infamous for your car.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
How many cars do you own?

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
Right now? Shit, bro, probably like about thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:14:47):
What is it about car culture that attracted you? It
was always something with me and my dad. We always
worked on and you know, and even if you was
young and you had horrible cars, you learned how to
work on them to make them, and that was the connection,
my connection growing up. My dad had horrible cars. Then
I had a.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Horrible car, you know, and we always worked on them together.

Speaker 4 (01:15:08):
My first car was a Cavalier like a you know,
a Chevy Cavil that was horrible, like you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Everything was wrong with.

Speaker 4 (01:15:16):
It, you know. And then I got a mighty Colo
later on. But you know, back then, you worked on
your car. You couldn't send it to the shop. You
figured it out.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
So you know, my.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
Actually work on it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Yeah, I had to work on my car.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
You know. My dad would you know, give me tips
and pointers on how to do it because I worked
on his van or his car with him. So that
was that was the connection to doing it. And I
think having crappy cars and just playing that's my car
when you were young, when a nice car passed, it
was like one day, I'm gonna be able to get
some of these things, and I didn't believe it or not.

(01:15:50):
That's my cool off period to me, that's my reset.
If I'm working on my car or whatever, I'm calm,
I'm good and the world passes slow, you know, because
sometimes music gets crazy to me, like you know, and
sometimes what people expect from you on what you just said.
Folks always say, make me a back that ass up,
and I'm like, I can't. That's that one is already done.

(01:16:11):
It's in the camp. They'll never be another one of them.
We might come close to it, but there there's you know,
and we're not gonna try to redo that song over
you know where it sounds, you know, like it's that song.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
And somebody like, I know what you tried to do,
you know, got you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
I considered working in the studio, going to the gym.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
Yeah, what's the longest you can go without creating a song,
Like if you have an idea in your head that like, goddamn,
this would work.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
But and I'll let it go.

Speaker 4 (01:16:41):
It's been a couple of months, you know why, Because
I'm finding that the older I am, I can concentrate
on one thing, I can't do both. So if I'm djaying,
I really don't have no interest in doing beats, I
really don't have no interest at all in doing beats.
Last night, I did like some soul songs like the
King George Got My Whiskey and and but and and and.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
Everything clicked so well.

Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
I did like five of them, like cause cause I
got a guy that I work with that's asking me
to like he was like, man, and I'm like, I
love them songs. I love that circuit of like you
know them them classic bluesy top like soul songs like
you know one Monk, you don't stop, no show like,
and I'm like, yeah, I'm like, bro, let's do them.
And and last night, just last night, we did like

(01:17:24):
four of them and dude was like, Man, you in
the pocket right now? You really And I was like
maybe because I haven't been around this that long and
this is a different genre for me, you know, to
to do this. But I also know for me to
be good, I have to challenge myself. And and I
know sometimes people don't want you to grow up. They
want you to stay in this one little box or whatever.

(01:17:46):
And you're just like, I'm like, that's hard for me.
But I can express myself in DJing and and I
love that because I can play Nirvana, I can play
you know what I'm saying. I can play a hip
hop from from from that to easy eat whatever I
want to play or whatever, And that feels good to me.
And that's the space that I'm in right now.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
If given an opportunity to just pick one artist to
do an entire album with, who would it be?

Speaker 4 (01:18:24):
That's easy? It would be Marvin Gay. I mean, he
is gone, but that's by far my favorite artist, Like
you know, his truthfulness and in a lot of his songs,
and you know, I'm like, damn, this took some guts.
I mean, now it's easy to do that, but back then,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
Exactly here, my dear is man.

Speaker 4 (01:18:45):
You know, if you listening to that with your significant other,
you're just like, are you hearing what he's saying?

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
My second and last question to you is, and I
know that you know there have been.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Fractured reunions, whatever one.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
I know you're tired of getting asked this question, So
I'm framing it in another way. Is the cash money
era or at least I don't know what it is
as as a cash money fan that I'm hoping for,
like a true reunion. Whatever is that in your rear
view mirror now? Or is it still something?

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
This is the problem we have like members that I
would say, like incarceration came out, you know, went to
jail came out in the world, changed the world changed
around them, so I still think they playing catch up,
you know. And it's the truest answer I could give you.
And social media and the internet is not your friend.
It's a tool that you use to sell something, you know,

(01:19:50):
And we have this thing where it's like, hey, bro,
you gotta stop with whatever you know, airing out your
your goods, your bads and your uglies, you know what
I'm saying. And when it comes to this, I just
want you to come to work, like you know what
I'm saying. And there's a disconnect to that. As a
cash money fan, they want to hear cash money, you know.

(01:20:12):
And what I mean is I get that we're all
different individuals and you might have your record company thing
going on right now and whatever you're doing, but you
can't make it on this on this stage. And a
lot of it is creative. That's that's that's what the
argument to be. Like somebody going, well, you know, I
got my own label and I got my own artists,
and I want ten minutes to do that, and I'm like,
we can't do that. That's not what our fans came

(01:20:34):
to see. It's unfair to them. You can't make your
label and your new artists off of this show. They
are die hard cash Money fans. They came to see
cash Money. They want us to sing the hits.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
Who's the diplomatic member of the crew that has the patience?

Speaker 4 (01:20:50):
Definitely say not everybody always say if anybody could put
it together.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
Is me Alburnhams. Is that to lay on your shoulders there.

Speaker 4 (01:20:58):
Very very very very very because the truth hurts a
lot of times. But I'd rather tell you the truth
when I'm like, hey man, you're doing too much. You're
doing this, or you're doing like exactly how I'm speaking
it to you where I'm going like, hey, dude, I
get it. You want to make your you know, whatever
this thing is that you're building, but you got to
understand that this is not what we're getting together for.

(01:21:18):
We're not getting together. You got to do that on
your own. You got to you gotta make whatever this
thing is that that you're trying to do. We can't
give you fifteen minutes for you to say something that
you know nobody don't want to hear, you know, because
it's not made yet. You trying to make another identity
off of something that that's that's not what people came
to see. Now I could tell you what we're working

(01:21:40):
on right now. It's and it's looking up. We're working
on a no limit and cash money tour. Like whereas
both of us and I keep saying this, Bro, I
can say this to you and you're gonna get it.
I'm like, listen, sir, this is the fourth quarter. I
keep and I've been saying this to everybody that's involved
with me. I'm like, this is the fourth quarter. This
is probably all throughout your career. This is the money

(01:22:03):
that you didn't make. You can say it right now, this.

Speaker 1 (01:22:07):
Is Rolling Stone's money time.

Speaker 2 (01:22:09):
And I'm not and I don't want to, Okay, I
don't want anyone who's listening.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
I don't want to prioritize the monetary benefits of it all.
But it's like everything that you work for and building
a legacy comes to this moment. This is this is
where legacy truly starts. Yes, and if you just show
up and curb your ego, just show up.

Speaker 1 (01:22:32):
Yes, ah man that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
You know And dude, I'm not even ready for this,
Like how big would that combination be?

Speaker 4 (01:22:41):
What you just said and meet and saying that, listen, bro,
put all of that aside, you know, and I even
have to bring up things that but they're very true.
And I'm like, all throughout your mother's life or your
father's life, how much money did they make, how did
they get treated in life, and all of that, Well,
this is the time right now that all of that
is paidback, right now, at this very moment. If you
put all of this foolishness aside, think about what you

(01:23:04):
make a night, like, you know, for something that you love.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
This is something that you love to do. It ain't
hard to do.

Speaker 4 (01:23:10):
Don't You're being doing everything you can do to destroy that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:15):
That's crazy, that's insanity.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
Look at new addition, Yeah, and you know, I mean,
without being too TMI with it, I mean, there's a
group of six individual members and at one point I
know some of the ins and outs of certain beefs
or whatever. But at the end of the day, when

(01:23:37):
that introduction happens, the sixth of them are on stage
thy and I know mentally, you know, there's a lot
of Jedi mind tricking you have to do and juggling
personalities that stuff. But man, if people could just especially
for hip hop, man, I mean, one is surviving just
just making.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
It to fifty, making it to sixty, make it at
the seventies.

Speaker 4 (01:24:00):
Yeah, Bro, we're unicorns that don't happen in hip hop.
It does not happen, you know when you're telling somebody
that listen, bro, this is this.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
Is you are here.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
Yeah. Yeah, also you are on Earth. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
And thirty years later they still want these songs that
will that ever happen again in hip hop? You know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:24:25):
Here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
I'm not even gonna front like I am the quirt
carrying flag waving member. I meant what matters is I
came to the altar. I was slow to come to
the altar, but I can to the altar, and dude, like,
I hope, I really hope it happens just just so

(01:24:46):
that hip I mean, hip hop needs it, not even
you need it or your kids.

Speaker 4 (01:24:50):
Absolutely right, there's a great thing in our culture that's
happening right now. We are so brotherly love and sisterly
love right now to its us our generation, you know
what I'm saying, And that just that example can save
hip hop and save this younger generation, like you know,
by by giving examples, we are so like you know,

(01:25:13):
like we man when we do shows, like you know,
me and Juvie did a tour and that's kind of
what started the whole talks of us.

Speaker 3 (01:25:19):
Doing it when Me and Juvie did and it was
a very successful tour.

Speaker 4 (01:25:23):
But we also paid attention to what the fans were
saying to us, you know, and we realized, like, y'all
not just fans, y'all family, y'all been with us for
so long, like you know what I'm saying, you know,
and they just like, hey, dude, you know when somebody
tells you like, man, Bro, I was in a dark
place and this everything that y'all did, you know got

(01:25:44):
me out of that. Bro, Your music, you know, just
sometimes watching an interview and you say something positive you
know that got me, And I'm like, this is a
connection to a lot of people, and you know, and
telling somebody why be selfish? Why are you something that's
a gift, that's a blessing, like and this is something
that you know your family wants, not just your fans,
your family, because I consider anybody that way. You know,

(01:26:06):
when you go somewhere and you got everywhere you've been
like as the roots or whatever, when you was doing
stuff everywhere that you've been. I'm more in a show.
You have picked up some people that they friends, they
genuine friends. Well, you know when when you're coming through
somewhere and somebody's like, oh, that's that's my man. You know,
I've known him for fifteen years coming to this and
we have people like that in cities where I'm like, bro,

(01:26:28):
there's no we are connected to these people. Come on, man,
let's get out here and give them what they what
they need and what they want.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
From your mouth to God's ears.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
Man, whatever you have planned in the twenty twenty six
and beyond, I support it, and I thank you so likewise,
and I'm glad we finally had our first conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:26:48):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:26:48):
I thank you for coming on the Quest Left show. Brother,
thank you man, Freaky Fresh. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:55):
Well, you already know I'm gonna see you somewhere, bro,
because you know, I'm all over this, all over the place,
you know, with this DJ thing, and that's healing to me.
So I don't like to say, you know how some
people say I could, I'll be all right, you know,
I don't like that. I'm like, I would love to
have my group, you know, and let's go down in
history and make some incredible songs like the other people do,

(01:27:17):
like the other races do, and other faces do, Like, hey,
we need to do that, and you know improve you
know the negativity and all of that wrong and everybody
that said we couldn't do this as black men and
we can't put this these beefs aside, you know. But
until then, yeah, I will continue to DJ and you know,
and heal people with music and bring my a game

(01:27:37):
everywhere I go. But I would love, love, love love,
and I hope all of them see this to have
them all together on the stage and let's do.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
It, manifested, It's gonna happen, Yes, sir, it'll happen, all right, Well,
thank you very much, and for all of you listening, Yo,
this is a great grant, incredible Manny freaky fresh on
The Quest Love Show.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
See y'all next week, you sir.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
The Quest Love Show is hosted by me a Mere
Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian
Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jacob Payne.
Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex conn

(01:28:25):
iHeart Video support by Mark Canton Logos, graphics and animation
by Nick Blowe.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Additional support by Lance Coleman.

Speaker 5 (01:28:37):
Special thanks to Kathy Brown, Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel.
Please subscribe, Brain review, and share The Quest Love Show
wherever you stream your podcast. Make sure you follow us
on socials that's at q LS.

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including The
Quest Love Supreme Show, in our podcast archives. The Quest
Loup Show is a production of iHeart redem

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Questlove

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