QLS Classic: Little Brother

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Questloft Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. So y'all, June
is Black Music Momp, and every year we use this
time to knowledge something that really can't be overstated. Black
music is one of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now,

(00:21):
back when Teams Supreme and I we're doing the Quest
Love Supreme and now on the Quest Love Show, We've
always tried to create a space for those stories. So
for the entire month of June, we're bringing you an
episode every day focus on the history, influence, and ongoing
evolutions black music. A team and I dug through the
catalog and selected episodes that build especially meaningful for now

(00:45):
conversations that are formed and entertained and connect the dots
between where this music comes from and where it's headed.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Alongside those, we'll be releasing four new episodes on Quest
Loft Show featuring trailblazers, innovator and cultural connectors and visionaries
who represent the past, present and future.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Of black music. I want you to enjoy the same.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of
Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I'm your host Questlove with Me.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Today is Boss Bill and kind of Weird is Fontigolo
on his own former podcast as Sudds the proud of
his son, his return and the one and only Big Pooh,
collectively known as Durham, North Carolina's finest little Brother. I'm

(01:50):
correct and seeing Durham correct yep, yep, and you claim
dorm as well, Pooh.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Durham claims me.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Like who's one of the tug of war of where
the genesis little brother actually lies? It all started at Central,
you know what I mean with students in North Carolina
Central together, So Durham, for all intents and purposes, it
is the birthplace a little brother. Yeah, I just I
just have to make it clear that I'm from Virginia

(02:25):
originally just what cities Alexandria, all through northern Virginia, but
Alexandria and Fairfax specifically. Okay, all right, So I in
the attempts to treat Fonte as a regular guest, to
not assume that everyone knews his story.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
I do.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
However, I'm not that familiar with your story, Pooh. So
to give us a recap or whatever, I'll start with you.
What was your entry into music?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Probably the radio, but like more importantly BM when they
did the h you could get like.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
CDs for a dollar or whatever.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Were you or were you scamming?

Speaker 3 (03:10):
I was scamming big time.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, I did it about five different times and got
five different groups of CDs. But that was probably my
real intro, just learning about so many different.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Artists. And I had friends from New York.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
I mean everybody probably did at that time, back in
the nineties who would come down with tapes like That's
how I first heard the big ee nas and just
different artists from out of New York.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
At the time.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
And between that and radio, because radio was real regional
in the nineties, so you, I mean we were. It
was heavy go go influence, but you would get when
the artists come through, you will start getting a different artist.
So that's how I got put on to like when
Ray Kwan when he dropped the Purple tape, he came through,

(03:57):
did an interview. They actually debut you incarcerated scar faces
on the radio. I'll never forget it in DC.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
So that was my start.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Man.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
I was actually just talking about this with my wife yesterday,
Like we didn't listen to music in the house. My
mom is not a huge music fan, so I just
had to get into other places because it didn't come
from the crib.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah, I was gonna ask for and the same for you, Fante, Like,
was there trickle down creativity in your life like an
older cousin and older like, Yeah, for me, it absolutely was.
It was it was my mom. I think it started
with my mom. So the thing where you know, I
have very young parents, So my mother was my mother

(04:44):
when she had me, she was fifteen and my dad
was seventeen. So I was pretty much with my mom
like all the time. So wherever she went, I was there.
So during the summer, but during the like the weekends,
that was when we had to clean up well with
my grandmother, So that was clean up time. So that
was when she was playing all the you know, all

(05:07):
just you know, the classic R and B stuff, Luther Patty,
you know, you had Johnny Guitar Watson. She used to
like Love Jones by Johnny Guitar Watson and we would
sing that. And then during the week if she went
out to like the park or whatever. That's why I
heard all like the early eighties, you know, Nucleus gem

(05:27):
on It, Shannon let the music play. That was kind
of where I was hearing all that, and so between
her and my uncle, my two uncles. My one uncle Mike,
he was a DJ, and he would get like all
the promo records from the station and bring them home
and I would go through the promo records. And then
my other uncle, my uncle brid he was super. He

(05:49):
was kind of the more experimental, I guess in terms
of his taste, Like he was heavy.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
P funk heavy. He was a big dance music fan,
so a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Of South Old stuff, southsol orchestra, instant funk that my
mom made up.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
He like Heart. I remember he had like the Heart,
the Dreamboat and the album, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
So he he went all over everywhere. So he was probably,
you know, one of my biggest musical influences in terms
of no regard for a genre.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
If it was funky to him, he just fucked with it.
And that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
So with Pooh, for you you not having that like
what was it just recreational or just an escape or
like I was life playing?

Speaker 3 (06:38):
It was an escape for me.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
I can put on music, had a bite walk man,
just ride around town unless how I was just listening
to music. Had the auto reverse so flip itself and
so you know, I just for me. It was just
something I just.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Always innately enjoyed and just enjoy listening.

Speaker 4 (06:59):
I was always a writer, not necessarily of music, but
like I would write poetry, I would write short stories.
So that inspired like that intrigued me in music. That's
why I took to Nas like I did, because his
rhymes are more like stories to me. So that's why
I took the Prince. His stuff was like stories, and

(07:20):
I mean that was that was pretty much it. I
later learned that my dad is a big music head
and fan, but you know, I didn't meet him until
I was nineteen, so I would not have known that
in my younger year.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Now, I mean, is this the typical narrative for a
young black teenager in the early nineties to go this
particular route, because again, I mean, you know, I'll call
truly ignorant Northerners are and what our thoughts are about
anybody below the Mason Dixon line. So I mean just

(07:53):
in general, because Aucass had this problem as well. Yeah,
like people just are landing whatever, you know, not, So
was there ever a I mean, is this the typical
route of a young black teenager in that time period?
I definitely wouldn't say it was typical, just because you

(08:16):
know where we grew up at where I grew up
in Greensboro, North Carolina. You know, there wasn't There were
people who made music, but there wasn't really the thought
of actually making it as a musician. It was just yo,
we like music, we spend records, you know, we freestyle whatever.
But I don't think there was ever a real thought of, like, yo,

(08:37):
you could make a living doing this. This the South
at that time and still in many ways it's still
very traditional in the sense of you know, you go
to school, you get a job, you get you some benefits.
You know, you bring a steady check home. You know
what I'm saying. That was life, That's what it was. Yeah.
So in terms of just musically though, we were always

(08:59):
the South was always a big kind of melting pot
because and I think a lot of things that people
didn't understand, the problem that cast had and also you know,
a problem that little brother had, you know, people didn't
understand it. In the South, we grew up listening to everything,
like the South was the meeting point for all kinds
of music. So you had, of course, you know where

(09:20):
we were and I talked about this for on the
show where we were in Greensboro, that was you know,
it's the South, it's East Coast, but it was a
lot of traffic that went through Greensboro, be it college students,
be it drug dealers, be it you know, just all
kinds of transplants that was bringing their music, you know,
to our area. And then, like Pool was saying, you

(09:40):
had the Cats coming from DC. They brought the go go,
you know what I mean, and so we were getting
Then you had Florida that was you know, Magic Mike
two Live Crew. You had the base you know from
from Florida and Atlanta. And then you know the West
Coast you know, with like Chronic of course, I mean
Chronic was kind of the bomb that went off everywhere.
But we were students and that was something that I

(10:04):
think we always had an advantage of as Southerners because
we really had to study all types of music versus
New York.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
They kind of.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Got caught off guard, like the South was a sucker
punch to them, Like when they saw you know, when
Master p blew up and you know, no limit, you know,
cash money.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
They got caught off guard. It was like what the
fuck is this?

Speaker 1 (10:26):
But in the South, we knew that shit was coming,
you know what I mean, because we had been studying it.
So Okay, when I first started coming down to North Carolina,
there was a club called is it the Cat's Cradle?

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Okay, So like one of our very first gigs was
at the Cat's Cradle. And I mean, you know, we
were the roots, so of course we're going to attract
sort of an alternative sort of audience whatnot.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
So there was.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Like an element of culture that I was familiar with
down there that wasn't too certain of that. I don't
know if you guys know Dave Tompkins, he was like
a writer.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, he was a writer. I know of him. I
don't know him personally, but I know who he is.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, he wrote for like Vibe and all that stuff
and whatnot. So he was like showing me around North
Carolina and whatnot. So I meant, was there a first
draft of a crew like how how do you two meet?
And a manga mat into what will eventually be known
as Little Brother, Like what's what's the circle?

Speaker 4 (11:29):
I mean, we initially met uh in a dorm room.
Uh Tay came through in this ever ever bubbly personality.
Uh to spit a rhyme he wrote for English class.
Uh and and that's how we met.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
As that was first time we met straight up. It was.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Ari on the hallway, Joe Joe Wright, I remember his
last name today, Joe Wright.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
He was.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
It was his room and he used to just have
mad people come in the room. And I was fresh
on the hallway because I actually stayed in a hotel
for half of my first semester in college.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
But I got there.

Speaker 4 (12:09):
We were in the room kicking it, and Fonte come
in and was like, yeah, wrote this around for English class.
It's called no apologies. And he starts spitting and I'm
just like, what you wrote there for English class? That
could be on the radio or some shit. And that's
when he let everybody know he was quitting football as well.
I didn't know he played football, but he was quitting

(12:31):
out of that you.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Played football for man. I played football.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
I started playing football in the sixth grade, and I
played all through middle school, all through high school, and
I played my first two years in college and I
played fullback. And you know, by the time I got
to college, I realized that it was a much more
of a It was a commitment that I just didn't have.

(12:57):
Like I didn't love the game. I wasn't on scholar ship.
I didn't care.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
You know. I was like, why am I out here? Fuck?

Speaker 3 (13:04):
This?

Speaker 1 (13:05):
Was it a Friday night lights culture for football down
there or high football? And yeah, it kind of was.
I mean it was a big So the school I
played for in high school, Page high school, we used
to whip ass like we was the truth. And so
my senior, my junior, senior year, my senior year, we

(13:26):
got to the semifinals and we almost took state, but
we lost in the semifinals. But we always had a
good program, and so it was something I think for me,
it was just something that was more social.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
In high school, it was just you know, I was
a big kid.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
I had decent size, you know, decent speed, and you
know I like to hit motherfuckers.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
So I was like, all right, fuck it, I play football.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
But once I got the was I got to college,
That's when I was like, yo, this ship is a business,
Like you really got to be committed, and I just
didn't have the love for it.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
And I'm just like, man, while am I out here?

Speaker 1 (14:00):
I love doing music, So let me go do music.
And that was around the time that that was when
me and who met.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
That's where we met, And I mean it morphed into
a different variations of what it ultimately became. It was
a big ass group of us at one time called
the organization. Then that whittled down to give me how.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Many how many people in that organization? I don't know
what nine So it was okay, the organization. It was me, you.
I guess ninth was in it by default. I think
I don't even think he.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Was in the organization. It was people I can't even
remember their name.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
It was this organization.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
It was this organization, So I know, Devin, it was me, you, Joe,
God who you remember? Rosie Rosie it was it was
a girl who used to run with named Rosie.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Who was MC. She was Dope. Uh, Medina of course
she was in that.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yes, yes, it was Theda.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Modina was Medina was A.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
She was another girl she was she was an m
C and Modina was Dope and Medina and and Sean Dawn.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
They had a whirlwind.

Speaker 4 (15:10):
Romance, tumotualist eumotualistuous relationship.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
And it was.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
The original Chris Brown and Rihanna Mann Man.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Old man, listen, Okay, we leave that man to tell
his own his own war war stories.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Those stories are not ours to tell. But we were
a collective of just em c's and and then we
had a Z Yoursell Collins.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
He was he was our R and B singer.

Speaker 4 (15:38):
Yeah, keep them hollering Collins. He had like somebody else
that raped. I can't remember that. I can't remember who
it was. But it was just a very loose and
I used that term loose lee. It was very loose
collective of people who went to school together and we

(15:59):
would just go to each other each other rooms, freestyling style,
and that was that was it. And then it whittled
down to give me which is me sean Dan, give
me a g I.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
M m E.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yep, yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
That was no name. What that was at an acronym,
was it? It was? Of course it was an acronym.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
Of course, give us God the murder me God, I
murdered menyms.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
That was one of them. Yeah, we had a couple
of them.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
That was the main one.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
That was the main one, God I murdered man. It
was so many bad We had so many bad meanings
for the acronym, but that was it.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
I want a group to come out named acronym in
the an.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Accomplished character, resigious, resilience, nigga.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
I don't get that ship way the fun up out
of here.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, but I mean it transformed into many different took
many different shapes, and I still remember this is this
would always be funny to me. I mean, this was
the moment that changed my rap career. But it's it's
still funny because it's ironic how it ended up. Seandan
didn't come back to school one semester, so that was
the end of gimme and h Fante was in my

(17:22):
dorm room and he was like, yo, man.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
We got he went to New York. He went back
to New York.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Yeah, Sean went back to New York. So I was like,
what's good man. He's like, yeah, man, I don't see
as being no duo. So uh, you know you gotta
do some more work. So but if you need me
for something, just.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
I let me.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
That conversation changed my It changed my rap career.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Man.

Speaker 4 (17:44):
It made me work hard at ship, like I never
worked so hard in my life at something. But I mean,
it's ironic because that's we ended up a duo anyway.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
During that period, I mean, how how much would you
say you were committing to your craft as opposed to
like surviving going your job and I write rhyme.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
Maybe I was surviving man. Uh yeah, yeah, it wasn't
It wasn't serious for me. I still didn't I still
didn't believe that it could be more than just something
we were doing in school at the time, because I
never saw this as a career for me. It was
just something I love to do. And that moment let

(18:29):
me know, like, hey man, you gotta step your ship
up or you better start really going to class.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
It was. It was one of those.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah I'm saying I.

Speaker 3 (18:40):
Didn't choose class.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah, that was the thing.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
I mean, I remember at that time because we were
kind of it was a pivotal moment for all of
us because at that time, Shan Donnie went back to
New York and Pool was still me and you. We
were the only ones I think still in Durham and
you were about to go home that summer. We were
about to just go home for that summer, and there
was just this is ninety eight, ninety nine, No, this

(19:05):
was this was probably was it two thousand, It had
to be the two thousand.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
It was two thousand and one because that's the summer.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
We you know what it was two thousand and one.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
It was spring. It was spring two thousand and one.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
I went to Charlotte for the summer and I was
taking the train back to Durham because that's when the.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Justice League started.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
Yeah, that's when little brother became little brother like that,
and that.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Us Spring two thousand and one. That was like dealing.
It was born. My oldest son was born. He was
born December two thousand, so yeah, around two thousand and
one spring old Nigga.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
My head was in a whole nother place. I was like, Yo,
if you ain't.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Real about this shit, nigga, yeah, you better find something
else because nigga, I got a kid.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, I'm not going to say.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
When you have a kid and when you have real
life situations, then how much pressure to pursue your your craft?
Like what's the ratio balance?

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Man? I was scared of ship.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
I was.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
I was.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
I was scared to tell you know, my son was
born the end of December.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Uh he you know, he was Christmas.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
He was Christmas Eve two thousand and so I ended
up finishing my degree in that like that following semester
of like May two thousand and one.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
His mother ended up coming back.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
I think that next the semester after that, and she
finished her degree like in December. So we were young
parents and we had no fucking idea what we were
gonna do. You know, I had no clue you know
what what it was gonna be. And me and Pooh
we were we had started kind of making records. We
had made a couple of records. It's give me and

(20:49):
you know, I felt like we had something. It was dope.
But uh, you know, Seanna went back to New York.
Me and Pool were just, you know, kind of here.
He was going back home for the summer and and
he was going back home to Charlotte, and we had
that conversation was like, yo, man, I don't really see
us being the duo. But that summer, I remember Pooh
went home and that was it was this event used

(21:09):
to call fat City that a buddy of ours was
having its cat dj DR and it was like an
open mic kind of freestyle thing, and Pooh he put
in work and he came back that next semester, and
his rhymes was just different.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
He was rhyming.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
I was like, nigga, you this shit sound good, you
know what I mean? And I could just see he
had really put that work in. I mean, and we
always kind of been putting it in, but I really
just saw in him. I was like, yeah, like he
really he really about it now, and you know, we all,
you know, we took him seriously at that point. Okay,
so where does Ninth come into the equation of the

(21:50):
original incarnation of Little Brother? Ninth originally was man ninth?
Was I met Knife in ninety eight?

Speaker 2 (22:00):
It was ninety eight.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yeah, So ninety eight we were moving into the dorm.
This was like, uh, you the day when everybody moves
into the dorm. I was playing football, so I had
already been there earlier to report for camp. So we
had been in there all the all the football players.
But this is when the civilians we used to call them,
you know, the civilians had first moved in, So all

(22:21):
the niggas didn'tvolve like it's like it's civilians about to
move in, the civilians coming, and so now it was.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Supports at first, and then the civilians come.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, that's when the civilians come after that, because we
had to report early, you know, for two days, with
three of days really and so so man, so i'm
I'm in the joint. I walk into the dorm and
it's like the lobby kind of commons area, and I
see this dude holding a source magazine and I was.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Like, yo, man, let let me let me see that.
Let me let me see that source.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
And at that time, this was again, this is like
ninety eight, so this is master p you know, bad boy.
I mean, this is kind of like the peak of
that era, you know, approaching that era. So to see
somebody with a source magazine that shit was like, Nigga,
that's like manner from heaven, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
It's like, oh my god, you know about this too?
What the fuck? You know? And so he was like yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
So we me and him started going through the source
together and it was an ad for most Steps Black
on Black Side, and I think either me or him
was like, yo, man, I'm waiting on this shit.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
And I was like, nigga, you know about that? Like
what you were you.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
Up on most And from that point on, me and
Knine like we were like that was it you know
what I mean. It was like, you know, I found
kind of another Jedi. So that was ninety eight.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Can I ask? Can I ask something? Sure?

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Well?

Speaker 1 (23:44):
When I met culturally, did you often have to code
switch musically to fit.

Speaker 2 (23:50):
In with whatever social circle you were in?

Speaker 1 (23:52):
So say, if like someone's not into most that is
in your parameter in college, like who else are you
listening to?

Speaker 2 (24:02):
At that time?

Speaker 1 (24:04):
No Limit they ran ship because I couldn't make No
Limit ran ship, bro Like that was for me. It
was different because so I didn't get No Limit until
I got to college because at the time that was
when we was playing football, and so all the football
players like all.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
In the locker room. That was what we was bumping
about it about it the true.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Album No Limit Soldiers, like you know, before we went
to the weight room, like we bumped that ship. So
that was when No Limit clicked for me because I
was like, Okay, this is what the music is used for.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
It wasn't necessarily nothing. I was riding around in my
car playing you.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
Know at no point where you guys like, hey, this
is this thing called the love movement.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
I was called get a hold, you know.

Speaker 3 (24:56):
I was still I was still in high school. But
I mean for us, it wasn't.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
It was just like you like what you liked, and
you learned from other people about other you know, other shit.
So I learned from other people about No Limit. I
learned because I was listening to New York stuff personally.
So I learned from other people about No Limit. I
learned from other people about the West Coast. I had
a homeboy who was from Oakland originally, so he put

(25:22):
me on to drew Down and Too Short and all
the guys from Oakland and and so that's how I
started just taking everything in. But it wasn't like a
if you come into the circle and you be like, yo, man,
I listened to you know, the Jungle Brothers and somebody
was like, man, I'm listening to fucking n w.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
A man Like.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
It wasn't a seemed like they wasn't that. It was
just like, oh well, let me see what that's talking about.
And it was like a sharing experience.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
It was a way a lot more sharing, way more
communal experience. We gotten a no limit, but it was
more like with binoculars, see what they're doing a distance.
Let's see what they're doing. I mean when the movie
came out. We had it on the tour bus. But
it's more like, look at those guys, but we I

(26:10):
didn't realize that that ship was a culture.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
It's it was a that ship, yeah man, Yeah, it
wasn't a movement, nigga.

Speaker 3 (26:18):
It was definitely a culture.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Like you saw that No Limit tank out the way,
And yet the thing that's curious to me is that
you guys still decided to go to another pasture that
not travel before down there where it could have been
easy for you guys to just go that route. I

(26:43):
just think that that wasn't who we were, you know,
because I've you know, I've been asked that question a
lot about, you know, why we chose the route that
we did, and you know, for me, I think it
was just an extension of who we were, you know
what I mean. I mean the No Limit stuff and
like a lot of the South stuff that was popping
at that time. You know, I enjoyed those records, and

(27:04):
you know, they certainly had a place in my life,
but I knew I couldn't live that, you know what
I mean, And so I was like, well, the stuff
that is more connected to me in terms of, you know,
just who I am as a person and kind of
way I want to live my life.

Speaker 2 (27:22):
It was tribe.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
It was calm and the roots, and you know, it
was all the stuff from that kind of native tongue tree,
and that was what felt right to us in terms
of making records. Now, I'll say what attracted me to
you guys when I first heard of you guys was
the fact that, well, first, I mean, our listeners need

(27:44):
to know exactly how ahead of your time you guys
were as far as I mean, what people are doing now,
as far as like do it yourself, as far as
doing stuff for yourself, making records and final product in
your houses, in your apartment, that sort of thing, which

(28:06):
I mean is practically unheard of. I mean, for all
the folklore of Rizza, yeah, making the wood taking stuff
in his apartment, he still brought those a debts to
a real studio to polish them and all those things.
So the first, you know, when you guys told me
that all this stuff was made in your in your
dorm room and on fruity loops and on computers and

(28:27):
all that stuff like that was like talking Greek to me.
I How did you.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Guys even know? I mean, how are you guys.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Even pioneers of just new ways of recording and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
That's all we had.

Speaker 4 (28:43):
We black folk man, you know what I'm saying, working
with what you got, Like, we didn't have no studios,
We didn't have no you know, knife didn't have no
beat machine.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
Like I mean, at no point was it like because
even with us, it was like, okay, well we got
to get to a real studio one day. So like
we pulled it up our money and just went to
a real.

Speaker 4 (29:04):
Studio, and no point is there, Like we heard what
we had and what we were doing, it was like
fuck that studio, like this is and then were good and.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Then too on top of that, and on top of that,
you remember we heard, so we heard the stuff that
we were making in our studio, and then we also
heard the stuff that was coming out of the big
studios at that time, right, and that shit was garbage.
And so I think that kind of gave us even
more confidence because we was like, yo, if we're doing
this shit in our fucking in my homies apartment and

(29:37):
y'all niggas is going to ease.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
You know.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
It was mixed on this twenty four track or whatever,
and the music still ain't good, So I think for
me that was.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
A big That was a big factor too.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
That's when I realized it was the man, not the machine.
That's that's that's what that taught me.

Speaker 1 (29:53):
What were the alternative group names besides Little I mean,
was it Little Brother?

Speaker 2 (29:58):
Just in automatic, like that's what we are? Did you
have other that was.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
The first name?

Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (30:04):
I think another one. The only one I can remember
was Round Midnight. I remember we had that was one
which things?

Speaker 4 (30:10):
That was one we had one that we just all
knew it couldn't be used for a rap group.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Flea market Mannequins.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I'm still hearsing that ship for something.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Why.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
I have no idea where that came from. I remember
that name, but I don't know what the thought of
it was. I think maybe I was, like I was.
I was listening to like Google Dolls and like food Fighters.
I was into that ship. So I was trying to
think of a name that sounded something like that, but
an alternative name that you get you all the booked
at a club, right, Wait a.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Minute, right, A lot of pissed off people.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
So what was the genesis of what we now know
as the listening at the beginning of it, Man, the
listening was, Yeah, by this time, this is around two
thousand and one, it's old one.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
I graduated school in May, and Ninth he was by
this time he was fully fledged, like making beats. So
the thing with Ninth was that, you know, we met
in ninety eight. I didn't hear a beat from him
until like a year later. I didn't even know he
made beats. He came to my room. We met in

(31:41):
ninety eight. He came to my room one day and
he had He's like, Yo, man, I got something I
want to play for you. He's like, yeah, I got
the black Star bootleg.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
I was like, word, you got that.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
She's like hell yeah. And so we played the black
Star album. We was listening to the Blackstar record and
I was like, man, and this shit crazy as hell,
this shit dope. And so then I didn't see Ninth
again for like months at a time because he was
in school.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
But I don't think he was really in school. Yeah,
he was a career student. Like, how do y'all do that?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Likes Yo, if you get if you hang around the dorm,
if you can get uh, you know, if you're good
with somebody in the calf, you can eat. So if
you ain't, even if you ain't got no meal playing,
you know, you can get in the.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
Calf on especially on like Chicken Day.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Nigga, come on on Chicken Day.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Day. Essential was like the club I was gonna say.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
At to Reach school, they did not allow any rentals,
wrap or foil uh inside their cafeteria for fear that
you know, the students would steal the food and take
it back to their dorm. Man, listen, man, niggas took
all kind of ship back from the door.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
We were taking sid everything.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
I'm we had a takeout line in the caf so
you can come and get your food and lead like
get it to go and lead.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Straight up, straight up.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
But so yeah, so around that time, you know, nany
nine Poop ninth wasn't on campus like that. I've just
kind of see him sporadically. But Nan, he bring the
Black Star album to my room.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
We listened to it.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
And then in ninety nine he shows back up. And
by this time we were in a new dorm. We
were in the new residence, and so we had moved
and we had like this little sweet or whatever, and
so he come and he like, yo, man, I got
some joints I want to play for you. And I
was like, and I was thinking he had like another
unreleased album and he plays he puts the tape in,
plays it and I'm like, yo, this shit, dope, who

(33:40):
is this? He's like, yo, this is me? I said, word.
I said, you're like, you made these beats? He was like, yeah,
these joints. I said, what you make them on? He said, man,
I just make him on fruity loops or well no, no, no,
I'm sorry. It wasn't frud loops at the time. This
is even before fruit loops. He was using a program
called beat Nah. This is even before acid. It was
called it was a program called b box, and he

(34:02):
was using b box and cool let it to make
to make tracks. And I mean again, it was unheard
of me. I was like, nigga, what the fuck? Like
really on a computer? And so, but he had some
joints and so one record he had was one beat had.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
I said, man, when you let me wrap over this?

Speaker 1 (34:21):
He was like, all right, cool, he said you really
want to wrap I said, yeah, let me wrap over
this joint. And I did a record called paper Lines
and that was like ninety nine. That was like the
first song me and him ever did together. And I
remember doing it. I played it for Pool, played it
for just Cats and our crew. They really they really
fucked with it. And that was that was kind of

(34:41):
when it all first started. So around the time, by
the time oh one World Around, that was when the
league had all we was just recording so much shit
together and it was still just kind of loose. But
by this time we would had started work on a song.
It was called Speed, and originally it was supposed to
be me and Median. Median never shows up to the

(35:04):
studio and so who was there. I can't remember if
you wrote with me to the studio that night or yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
I think I think I came up on the train
and I wrote with you.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, we came.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
We came to the studio together and I was like,
I was like, well, ship Pool here, like you you
want to rocket? He was like, yeah, I rocket. And
so we did that song together and that was it.
That was just like the Speed.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I know, that was their first joint together. That was
the very first song we ever got together. Oh shit, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
So it's also explained to me who is in the
Justice League. Okay, all right, I'm sorry should I say
Justice League?

Speaker 3 (35:44):
That side was to remember the names?

Speaker 1 (35:47):
It's fifteen of them, and how do you how do
you wrestle with that Justice League?

Speaker 2 (35:53):
And have y'all ever had a meeting a collective meeting?

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Like I talked to Rook I been talked to Rook
in sometimes Rook from the Justice League, but it was
it was always love love. Yeah, we met. At one point,
me and Rook was talking. This was years ago. He
was like, yo, man, we need to do a Justice
League meets Justice League, Like let's let's collab, let's do
some ship and we were talking about doing it, but

(36:17):
you know, it just never happened. But it was never no, no,
smoking's first.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
I think we were first.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
I think we were first.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
I think yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
All right, all right, so so Justice League members, Okay,
so let's we're gonna do this the easy way.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Start with the niggas on the phone.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
Me and.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Do you have nine?

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Did you have Sean Dawn? You have Shamba crisis?

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Uh Nason right com.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
Uhccentric ecentric centric, It's to do the big though.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Legacy though legs legas thirteen crisis crisis, I said crisis.
You got crisis. I said, you show you Allen Poe
and Eiggar Allan poe Or.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
Said flow the flow.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
I said, po Yeah, he gott the flow the reason nig.
I think that's it. I think forgetting.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
So it's fifteen we forget.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
We got Mike Bird, we got eccentric, we got some
of your real got some of your got bird Bird
says all We got.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Book saves off crisis, leg crisis.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
I think what about the weight? You said, the Waight team,
that's prices. I think we got everybody median media damn
median median.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Another dude that showed up intermittently like he was just
vanished for like months at a time and then just
popped back up.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
That was That's that's been meetings and mo since I
know them.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Everybody needs your Molik be in their life. Just shows
up in plano.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
He that was him.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
That was him, so with speed, like when is it
the official like okay, are.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
We a group? Or was it just like okay, what
is this?

Speaker 1 (38:19):
I mean is it like a relationship where you're like,
you know, like after the third date, then she's like okay, so.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
What are we? We are farmers.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
For that, I think like a day or two later,
like we all just kept listening to the song and
noticed the chemistry and said, hey, this sounds good. Let's
let's make a few more and see how it come out.
And a few more turned into a whole lass out.

Speaker 1 (38:47):
Okay, Now I really want to Now that I've established
the story for those that are not familiar, now I
want to get to my real first question, because even
more than the roots, like okay, okay, granted it's like
eleven of us, but really the roots are two people,
and it comes down to me and Tarique, and fifty

(39:08):
to fifty.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Is a little bit more easier than thirty three or
three and third.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So in the beginning, are you guys ever.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Like, what is the the.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Democratic process of how decisions.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Are made man?

Speaker 1 (39:30):
At that time, I mean, it was we had I
think I thought was a fairly a good system that
got kind of you know, corroded over time. But but originally,
you know, it was the three of us. It was me,
poor Knife, and Doe was our manager. So pretty much
whenever it came down to do something, me poor Knife

(39:53):
would discuss it internally. And it's three of us, So automatically,
somebody's gonna lose, you know what I mean, sometimes I lose,
sometime Pool lose, Ninth, flues whatever. But whatever it was
that we voted on, we would then go to our
manager and be like, look, this is what we agreed on,
this is what we're gonna do, and that was it.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Once Ninth left the group, that was.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
When things changed and we no longer had that kind
of third swing vote, so to speak. So that was
when for me, I think just the group became very
taxing because it was just, yeah, it was, but yeah,
particularly and hard as a twosome at that point because

(40:35):
at that point in time, me and Poo hadn't really
I don't think me and.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
You had really talked like that about what we.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Wanted and about kind of at all. We didn't have
none of them conversations. So we were just making a
lot of them decisions on the fly, and you know,
when you don't have a third person there to kind
of help smooth things over, in some ways it made
it really hard.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
But in the beginning, that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
It was the three of us, we make a decision
and then just told our manager what we wanted.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
To do with it.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
So what were your initial goals for the listening? Was
it like, Okay, we'll have these collection of songs, we'll
try to get a major deal.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
Too much.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
It was let's do these songs, sell them ourselves and
see what happens.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, originally we was gonna do We was gonna do it,
put it out ourselves because I was on I think
I had like a credit card at that time. I
had my little Discovery card and I was we was
on disc makers and I was just running numbers.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I'm like, yo, so how much if we just press
this shit ourselves?

Speaker 1 (41:38):
And we moved out the trunk like I was, you know,
doing it just in my mind. And I was talking
to Ninth about it because I remember we were in
we were in the computer.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
Lab at at at in c State.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
So another fun fact about this time, which I'm just
now remembering. Even though the listening was recorded on a computer,
none of us had personal computers at that time. Yea,
like none of us had personal computers. I didn't story, yo,
bro for real, Like I didn't have a computer.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Ninth ain't had one. Ninth was using he was a courting.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
We was recording at Sazar Comanche's crib and he had
a compact for Sario, So that was the computer. So
whenever I wanted, whenever I wanted to get on like
Okay player and ship Nigga, that was all computer labs.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
So my homie Median.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
He was a student at n C State but like
not really a student, but he had an I D.

Speaker 2 (42:31):
So he was there. You know, we used Yo Reil
yeah Leroy.

Speaker 5 (42:41):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
We used LeRoy's roommate, U.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
Louis Cheron like he was the he was the cafe Nigga.
Pretty pretty pretty low when we use this joint. And
and then like when I was at Central like that,
that that my last year. That was when I was
I was on the newspaper. I was an editor. I
was and arts and entertainment editor on our newspaper, and
so I would be in a computer lab all the time.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
That's when I would get all my ok Player post off.
But after that, I.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Mean I was going home, like nigga, we have no
computers at the crib, no.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
Small phone shit Ty didn't he have a cell phone
at that time?

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Yeah, I don't think I got my first cell phone
probably like oh what four something like that.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Some shit like that.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, three four, Yeah, Boss Bill, correct me if I'm wrong. No,
this is literally the Bill Gates story. Bill Gates's story
had a faulty ID that let him stay in the
computer lab, like fifteen hours a time. To be in
the computer lab during Bill Gates day was like attaxing,
like forty dollars an hour thing, but he never got

(43:45):
charged for it.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
So then he was like, all right.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
I'm gonna stay in this motherfucker for fifteen hours a day,
get his figure out how to turn this big ass
room into a laptop. So basically sneaking in computer labs,
barring other people's idea and what not, this is the
Bill Gates story.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
That's well, I.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Wish we made Bill Gates money, but really, but fate
didn't have it that way.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
But but no, that was it. We were just doing
those records.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
So at that time, Yeah, the thought wasn't you know,
at least for me, the thought it was just Okay,
we made this record, let's just get it out so
people can hear it.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
And you know, it was just.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Like, I don't think no one had a thought of
where it was gonna go. I knew my life was
gonna change, like I can specifically remember the night when
we finished everything and like we had the final mix
down and sequence of the album, and I just sat
outside my apartment in the car just listen to the record,
and I just I knew things were gonna change. I

(44:51):
just felt that we had something special. It wasn't like,
you know, yo, we're gonna be rich or we're gonna
be whatever. But I specifically remember having the feeling of
just like yo, like something is around the corner. I
don't know what it is, but I know something's coming.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
And at that time, we just wanted people to hear it.
That was the only that was the only mo O.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
What was the first sign of that, of that assurance.
Was it like your first out out of state show?
Was it like a mentioned in the source or like
what was that moment where it was like, oh shit,
what happened?

Speaker 4 (45:23):
I think for me it was when uh, when Benny
b got in touch with us just.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
To have somebody Benny b from ABB Records.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Okay, so that was not your label, No, No, not
at all at all.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
I always thought that ABB was your Now ABB was
Benny b Uh from the Bay Area. They they had
put out like a lot of dilated people's twelve ins.
That was kind of their claim to fame, uh, dillate
People's the far Ride. They had put out like just
a lot of stuff and they were known for just
moving vinyl. Yeah, And that was how a buddy of ours,

(46:00):
a promoter out this way bum Rush DJ bum Rush.
He had to connected abb Ian Davis, I D and
I D heard our stuff on the n from all
of us.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
We had posted on okay Player and all that.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Shit, and we had the little site that was when
Bossville had the John he had the Yeah, it's like
he posted up to join us up on there.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
So it was just kind of spreading and so I
G I I D from a dB.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
ABB caught wind of it and reached out to the
bum Rush and was like, Yo, you gotta line on
these little brother dudes. And I D caught my crib
you know what I'm saying one day, and that's how
we started talking. And that was how the ABB relationship, Uh,
that was how we.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Came to sign with them.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
So, Bill, were you the okay player that officially introduced
okay player to introduced a little.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Brother to Okay Player?

Speaker 5 (46:51):
I guess, but I mean I got it through Von
p from currently a Tania Morgan and like Vaughn hooked
me up with the Centric, and the Centric sent me
u like the He's for Love joint revisited.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
And like so I was.

Speaker 5 (47:02):
I was a Ninth Wonder fan first, and then I
didn't even know about these two until later, Like I
think I heard speeding away from me, like maybe not
maybe like a week or two after that, and then
I was like, damn, what is this ship?

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Slot funked us too. He was another one.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
He was the one that really cause again we had
no computers, let alone a way to build a website
or none of that ship. So Slot was the one
that had. He had built like a little site for us,
and he was like, yo, I can put some joints
up for y'all. I was like cool, And I was
working at Blue Cross Blue Shield at the time, and
he would call me, you know.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
We would we would he would well he would DM
me or PM.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Me as we would call it back then, and he
was like, yo, man, like y'all, joints just crashed my server.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I gotta like everybody been coming to this ship.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
I was like word for real and we just had
like three folks songes up there, so slop was a
big a big part of that.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
Was it you and ninth or you and Pooh or
were you alone? Would you?

Speaker 3 (47:59):
I wouldn't. I went to the Greensboro show.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
I didn't go to that, Okay.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
All I remember was that we were doing a show
and it was about to rain, and I remember we
were having an argument backstage because Help was bitching and
said we should cancel this show because it's electric and whatever.
And I'm like, dude, you wear Timberland's like no one's.
You ain't getting to eletrocuted. And he like protested. I

(48:29):
think he didn't play this show or like walked off
stage earlier or something shit.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
And I felt bad and.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
I did something very uncharacteristic, like I'm never the guy
that like goes to the audience and like, hey, how
you doing, thanks for you know. But some sid said
all right, go out there and shake hands for the
first time in your whole career. And I did it,
and you put it in my hand. You reminded me
that this was the little brother I read about. Okay player,

(48:56):
oh wow wow, okay. And normally, you know, normally anybody
hands me disc is instant. Uh, you know, coffee table
coaster from Frisby about to break up my draw on
your CD, Nigga, I just I just thought it right now,

(49:21):
I can't do that. I just leave it back backstage.
I don't know, like I'm kind of proud of my
track record like something. I was going to leave it
backstage and I looked at it, and I don't know
if it was the fact that you're handwriting like the
the your your your font or whatever.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
You really Yeah, some spoke to me.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
I'm like, yo, he really puts some effort into this
homemade uh this artwork.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
I was like, And I went back picked it up and.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Listened to it, and I was like, holy shit, like
I'm poor lone jealous of this, like like this ship
and and like yeah, like I I'll say that I've
only you know, Jill Blow, slum Village, Cody Chestnut and

(50:10):
you guys. I'm sure I'm missing somebody else. But like
something told me to listen to that ship. And that
ship like that changed my life, man, because I personally
didn't think I would at that time. I was concerned
because there was the idea of a group existing was

(50:31):
becoming uh endangered and in dangerous species and I was like, yo,
a real group, not not a bunch of soloists. And
you know, from there then I just saw the word
spread and spread and spread. So when it like, what
was the decision to not go the slow and steady
route and like, let's get it real, let's get a

(50:53):
deal through atlantic and poverty.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
So as you're record label, all right, so what is
it back then? What was what were the roadblocks and
the potholes in being your own record label?

Speaker 4 (51:10):
Shit, you should have yeah, distribution, you didn't have director
consumer back then. But I think for for I can
speak for me on this my decision. I think if
abb if that experience would have been a better experience
for us, it wouldn't have been a thing of well, man,

(51:30):
let's go get this deal. We'd been like, it would
have been more like, shit, we good where we at.
But the experience wasn't good because paid So yeah, that
makes the experience terrible. We still haven't gotten paid.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
So can I ask, well, let me ask, let me ask,
all right, So that it came out on two thousand
and two, two thousand and three, Yeah, two thousand and three, okay,
so had technology as we know now in twenty twenty
been available in two thousand and two, two thousand and three.

(52:04):
Would this had been a different outcome? Very different, very different.
I wouldn't have fucked personally. I wouldn't have fucked with
no label had we had it, you know, had we
back then, you know, we already had the means of
our own production.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
So we owned our means of production. We could make
it ourselves.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
You know, if we had a straight pipeline, we could
get it directly to our fans and see the money back. Man,
fuck a label, straight up. But that was but pooh,
But you made a great point, you know, when you
you know, you ask about what made us make that jump.
You know, I really think an agree one hundred percent
that had it, if our indie experience would have been

(52:43):
better and we would have actually been like paid fairly
and you know, according to our contract, if we would
have actually been compensated for our work on an indie label,
I think we would have been much more hesitant about
signing to a major. But at that time, you know,
we we put out the records and you know, you're
hearing all this buzz and you know, everybody saying, oh man,

(53:04):
y'all about to blow up, y'all due whatever. So then
Atlantic comes knocking and it was a bunch of labels
that wanted to sign us at that time, but that
kind of fed uh well.

Speaker 4 (53:16):
Mike Karen reached out first, but we were we were told,
we got the word.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Not to deal with him. So like we ended up.
We met with Warner, We met with.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Jive, and then we met It's Warner and then it
was Warner because Tom Waller.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
That's when we met Tom Wally, Tom Waally.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
We met with Rest of Peace, Chris Lighty and Peter
THEO and Jive.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Chris Rdy to throw something.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
Yeah, yeah, Chris Lighty, man, he came to Day and
Tall out to the club, took us to the house and.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Lighty yeah, like the thing was, man, I'll never forget
this ship. Man. I remember being in there.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
And because this is around the time of Chris Lighty
like g Unit Holland on records, Chris Lighty, right, So
so the thing was, man.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
So we went into the meeting.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
We had a meeting at Jive and you know, Chris
Lighty comes in and we're all sitting there at the table.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
It's Chris Lighty, It's me Pooh.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Doe our manager at the time, and Wayne Williams DJ
Wayne Williams out of Chicago.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
We're all sitting in there.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
Williams from R Kelly, Yes, yes, yeah. R Kelly chosen
a few DJs, Wayne Williams, you know what I'm saying.
So he's in there, and so, man, so we we
talking and stuff, and and I remember Chris saying he
was like, you know, man, I listened to y'all album
and he's like, Yo, it tells a whole story. He's like,
it's not just singles. He's like, you know, it tells

(54:51):
a whole story. And you know, I really think I
love what you guys are doing. I think, you know,
we can push it. And I was just sitting there.
I was like wow, and he was like, you know, man.
I remember he's like he was talking about fifty and
he was like, you know, the whole thing with fifty
was get ready to root for.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
The bad guy.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
That was our whole marketing scheme. And I was like, yeah,
it's like the movie Payback. And he was like, yo,
I like this guy.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
I like this guy. You know, like it was funny. He'said, yo,
I like this guy. And I said yeah. It was
like that.

Speaker 1 (55:19):
He was like, yeah, He's like, you know, that was
my whole thing with fifty and he said, but I
really like y'all. He said, y'all are like different from
everything else that's out and y'all really cut through the clutter.
And he was talking. He started talking about his time
at Death Jam. I never get this shit, he was like, yo,
he said, man, you know when I was at Death Jam,
he said, you know, I was fresh off the Mister
Smith album, so I was the prince of Death Jam.

(55:40):
He was like, I could do whatever I wanted, he said,
And so the next record I signed was this this
record called Crew now Me. You know, hip hop, fucking
rap nerd. I'm like, niggaw, I'm like, yeah, thirty thirty.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
I love that fucking album. And he again, he was like, yeah,
I like this guy.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Like this guy. I'd say this, I like this guy.
I said, no, man, thirty thirty that was the ship.
And he said something He's like, I never get it.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
He said yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
He said, man, I love that record too, but just
because you love something don't mean.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
It's gonna sell. And I was like, damn, that's the
fucking truth.

Speaker 1 (56:14):
But but yeah, man, he was, I you know, that
was just my only encounter with Chris, but I really
liked him.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Man, I fucked with Chris. He was a straight shooter,
you know.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
He you know, He's where we wanted to go.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
We wanted That's where we wanted to go for real,
because you remember, Job was like they wanted to just
re release the listening first, and that was.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
The problem because they them re releasing the listening means
they now take some ownership, if not all, ownership of
the album. And Benny Beef maybe b wasn't given that album.
He wasn't given that album. And I'm sorry, Yeah, we
get we had to go. We essentially had to go

(56:57):
where he was comfortable going. That's how we ended up
at Atlanta. Well, we would have never went to Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
And the only reason I think, well, I wan't to
say the only reason I know, a big reason why
he chose Atlantic was because Atlantic let him keep his
vinyl rights. So Atlantic let him continue to press the
all the LB vinyl, but they retained the rights for
everything else.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
And so that was how we ended up at Atlantic.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
That's almost unpressing in it that did he press anything
up for the second album other than loving it.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Twelve minutes. There was a minstrel show Vinyl. I think
there was.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
Mister Show Vinyl, and I think it was a it
was another single. I gotta look through my records.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
I think a single.

Speaker 4 (57:40):
Again again, I think again. Yeah, and then and then
he reissued the listening in the Mystery Show.

Speaker 2 (57:47):
A couple of years ago. It's like a year or
two ago.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Yeah, didn't he had a courtesy to send us in
me of this fabulous reissues?

Speaker 4 (57:54):
Vinyl ain't paying us.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
Play Boy could have gave us some Vinyl ship that
gold minor look good, it looks, it looks fasty.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
I have to ask you a question, which is like, like,
I know, as not not trite, but as you know,
as it not meaning something today as it once meant
back in the nineties. But did it mean anything to
you to see those four and a half mics in

(58:27):
the source head?

Speaker 3 (58:29):
Yes, yes, it meant everything.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah, anything, Yeah, seeing the four and a half, seeing
you know we got four on the listening because again
this was something that you know, this is pre like
you know social.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Media, you know, for the blocks took over.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Yeah, yeah, so I mean we were literally hearing about this,
so it will be like, yo, your words that y'all
got four in the source, Like what, nigga?

Speaker 2 (58:57):
What? And then you see it.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
I remember like going to the you know, grocery store
and buying the source and you see it and it's
like holy shit, like this is really it's a real thing.
And and I got like the hip hop quotable and
that to me was like holy shit because I grew up.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Wait a minute, what did you get quotable for? I
got it twice. I got it one.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
The first time I got was for the Yo Yo,
and then the second time I got it was course
my verse on the off for you off a Mister show,
And that to me was just like man, holy shit.
You know that was a moment. So yeah, that ship
meant a lot back then. That should have been a
whole lot.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
I tried to act like four and a half mics
on me nothing like, but you know it's still hanging
on my wall.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
No, four and a half is the real five. I mean,
me and you talked about this a lot, but four
and a half is the real five.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
It is. It is absolutely so with.

Speaker 1 (59:57):
In hindsight, how was the Mentell Show experience? Because there
was so much expectations and so much was happening.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
I meant like Hove was co.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
Signing you guys, like everybody was, like all the stars
were aligned.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Like at the end of the day, what happened? Man?

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
So have you been watching the Last Dance Bulls documentary?

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
I just got them watching it, Okay, So I watched
it at eight o'clock this morning.

Speaker 4 (01:00:34):
So the thing about it is like at the time,
we only knew what we saw. So it was just
like you just see the you know, them going for
the the you know, the third championship in the row
for the second time, but you don't see all all
of the underlying stuff that's going.

Speaker 3 (01:00:51):
On during that time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
It's just like, Yo, the concentration the motherfuckers had was amazing.
And I look at the Mintroll Show, it wasn't that dramatic,
but it was dramatic enough for us. You know, I
was twenty four five years old at the time, hadn't
really experienced a lot, and we're trying to record this album,
major label, trying to keep maintain our sound, dealing with

(01:01:19):
our own shit as a group at the time, because
that was when the group really started to splinter during
that time, and so you got all that happening, and
then you have this album that people at the label
say they excited for, but you know there's some trepidation

(01:01:42):
because of the title, and nobody, all the white people,
they don't want to deal with this shit.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Now, let me ask, Okay, so is this Craig Kelman
or or Julie or like what era of Atlantic Craig.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
And jew When? When when death Jam took over?

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (01:02:04):
Or Kevin It's it's right, it's at the takeover. It's
at the Death Jam takeover Warner. And so the real
problem started before the ink was dry. On our contract
with Atlantic. Robert Reef too low.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
If you say, if you say his whole name, then
this might not be good. He's gonna say it was
it was Reefed there because he would seem like your
biggest man.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Well he started there.

Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
And then when we went into his office after the
deal was done, we saw the boxes in there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
And he was on the way out. But it was
it was. It was nothing more telling.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Then we pulled up for a meeting one time and
we were walking into the building in New York. Were
walking into the building and Rob and Reef is coming
in at the same time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
And he waiting at the desk. We're about to go upstairs.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
We're like, yo, what you doing? He said, Man, I
gotta wait to get to get let up our A
and R right because he was no longer They let
him get A and R of the album, but he
wasn't no longer.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
He was no longer employed.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Man's was not an employee of it. Like and this
how you this is how you're finding out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Yes, we found out. We found out Reef was fired
when we came.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Just like Boo said, we came to the building and
you know, we realized that he had to get buzzed
in just like we had to get buzzed and we're like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
What the fuck. So then we get up to his
office and we see all the boxes, be like, Nigga,
like you really fired.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Out this bitch, and you know, and he was, I mean,
I actually funny thing. We actually saw Reef in New
York like last year. We was kind of doing our
press run and I mean it's all love. I mean,
it's you know, it was you know, I mean, everybody
had to do what they had to do at that time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
So it was no like hate or nothing like that.
It was it was it was all love.

Speaker 1 (01:03:56):
But but yeah, reef bound that was when he bounced
something with the Shady right we went to He wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:04:02):
I think he?

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
I know he ended up over Shady Shade for five
But it was just one of the things where we
were in the building.

Speaker 3 (01:04:12):
We're new.

Speaker 4 (01:04:13):
They don't know what to do with us, really because
we're unlike what they have or what they what they
had and we don't have an a n r uh
our marketing guy James Lopez who now runs the Will
Packer Productions. Uh so, James Lopez was marketing. He ended
up being our marketing, our an R our cheerleader.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
All we had him.

Speaker 3 (01:04:39):
Punching bag Rodney Johnson Johnson.

Speaker 1 (01:04:42):
Wait, can I ask is was Rick Morales there yet?
Or was this before he came to?

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Jay Brown ended up being there right before we left
because Jay Brown was Loupe's A and R.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
It's like the Hollywood shuffle of music, Like literally def Jam.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
And Shady are just that's all. It was switching characters.

Speaker 4 (01:05:09):
So yeah, Julie too, man, Julie always was in our
corner and she and she was with whatever, like as
long as we came in and showed her that we
was passionate about what we wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (01:05:20):
She was witty. So shout out to Julie Green Walk.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Okay, so I love the title the minstrul Show, but
humor me, why did you decide to go with the
minstrel show?

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Because we couldn't call it nigga music.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
You wanted to call that, we wanted to call it.
We was like, man, what we call this ship nigga music?
And that was like the running we were with it.
I think that might have lasted for like three weeks.
And then we realized, Okay, we can't call it autum.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
They're not gonna let us do that. We didn't even
think they won't let us do.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
But we nigga music in the pocket. It's like we
did want to call it nigga music to make the wait?
Was there any red flax?

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Like wait a minute, I don't know because and oftentimes
I don't have to explain to white people what minstrel
see is and they.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Never know what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
And then like they're already in the middle of you know,
the swamp, So like, what were people thinking at the time?

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Man, at the time, I think they were.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
I mean, the one thing I got to give Atlantic
credit for you know, they let us do us. And
so my main thought in going into the Minstrel Show,
particularly once we you know, signed to Atlantic, My whole
thing was, we got to show our fans that we.

Speaker 2 (01:06:38):
Can still do us on a major label, because.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
Around that time, you know, signing to a major label
in a lot of ways, it was kind of the
kiss of death, you know what I mean. If you
heard that your favorite band signed to a big label,
the first thing as a music fan is your mind
is like ah man in a scope, about the fuck
they should have Atlanta, about the fuck they should up,
you know what I'm saying. So our whole thing was, well,
man first and foremost, we got to show our fans

(01:07:02):
and we can still beat us, you know, unapologetically us
on a major label.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
And so Atlantic they stood behind that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
You know, it was a gamble and you know, and
they let us the record that y'all hear. That is
the exact record that we took out of our computer
in Durham and put out to the world. And you know,
from the stories I've heard just from so many cats
on uh you know labels, that is something that rarely happened.

Speaker 2 (01:07:33):
Certainly didn't. It wasn't happening back then, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
And we learned it using real facilities this time around,
this was same thing. It was the same. We still
recorded that one. I think by this time we weren't
recording in Comanche's crib no more. We had the chop
shop by that point.

Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
Yeah, we actually had an office space that we dubbed
the studio and it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Was the same ship.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Set up, same setup, just a communal space and not
someone's apartment.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
Yeah, but it was the exact same setup.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
We had a computer, we had uh, we had a mic,
we used the.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Road, we had monitors was Likens.

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
The same, the same mic that I have in my
my setup right now is the mic we recorded the
Mynstry show, Get back.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
All that on.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
But mix wise, uh, Guru, mix it at a real
basically mix the baseline.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
You mix that baseline.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
That was probably like the only kind of upgrade I guess,
you know what I mean, just that, you know, Google,
he mixed the baseline. But everything else, Man, that ship
was straight out of our computers, and you know that
was that was what it was. And I think we
learned a valuable lesson too. You know, when you ask
about you know, what was the climate like in terms
of us calling it the minstral show or whatever. I

(01:08:56):
don't even know if the people around, if the if
you know, the Julie and Craig and all them, I
don't even think they got too much into the politics
of it. I think they were just like, Yo, this
is something new. These guys are buzzing. Let's just throw
it out and see what happens. And one of the
things that we learned that you know, me and Pooh
learned and Pool was even doing now like in his

(01:09:18):
uh career as a manager. You know, we we were
very self contained. So we came to a label and
in our mind we thinking like, yo, we got our
artwork done, we got our music done, we know who
we want to master, Like we came in with all
that shit already, and in our minds it's like, yo,
we're making the job of the label easier. But what

(01:09:39):
really happens is that you don't have anyone to root
for you because they don't have no one can lay
a claim to your success, like no one can.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
Say they're not personally invested in it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
They got no investment, they got no skin in the game,
So you know, that's one of the things that for
us it was like hell yeah, but it up being
a liability when trying to come into the measure label
system because everybody is trying to look for a leg up.
Every A n R nigga want to be VP, every
mail room nigga want to be an A n R.

(01:10:10):
So everybody's looking for that thing to hold on to
that's going to be the star to take them somewhere else.
And if they can't hitch their wagon to your star,
then they don't give a fuck.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
I still remember we gave Sycamore so much. We gave
him the petty that Babyface gave Teddy Riley the other night.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
Like Sycamore down with uh Sycamore?

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Is the DJ? Sycamore was it?

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
What are you wrong with?

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
I remember who he ran, but I just know he was.
He was fresh, He was fresh A and R over there.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
And because the crazy thing is Hip Hop wanted to
be our an R.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
But Craig Callman wouldn't let us go over.

Speaker 4 (01:11:00):
With hot because Hop and G had the office over there,
and Hop was like, YO, give me them, give me
Saigon and it was somebody else and Craig Carman wouldn't
do it, so he ended up giving us the Sycamore.

Speaker 3 (01:11:13):
And I remember us going to New York.

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
We was working on I think, yeah, it became Get Back,
and we went up there and we just had we
were just so off put the Sycamore, man like.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
Man, we know what the fuck were doing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
Man, I don't even know why we're up here with
you no taking us off round all these producers and
shiit nigga.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
We don't need these.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
Niggas, Like, I don't remember that attitude that we had, man.
And I was like, just like like you said, just
thinking back on it as as a manager now with
an artist that signed to Dreamville and the Scope and
another one on indie label Mellow Music, I just I
understand now how.

Speaker 3 (01:11:50):
Off putting we were.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
And we didn't even allow them to treat us like
stars like that was a big thing I noticed as well,
because we were so self con we didn't allow them
to pamper us, if you will, and that is very
off put and to label folk, yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (01:12:09):
They because the thing is man like and the other
thing too, Like I just kind of saw is like
how much the the record industry, you know, at that time,
and I mean even certainly now how much it perpetuates
dysfunction and how much it requires that ship in order
to remain a business model. Because you know, like we
were saying earlier, you know what made the sign the deal.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Nigga was poverty, Like niggas was broke and shit.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
So like when I saw you know, you know, a
couple of weeks ago, months ago, whatever, when when Meg
was going through that ship with her label and all
that shit came out and they were talking about Meg
the Stallion and her deal, and everybody was just, oh, well,
you know, why don't you just get a lawyer and
why don't you just get this Yeah, And it's like, Nigga,
you don't understand the consequences that the artists are living

(01:12:57):
in when they signed these fucking contracts, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
I mean, it's hard to think.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
Two three years down the line when nigga rent is
about to be due on the first, So you know
what I mean, So you can't you know the circumstances
of what you signed this shit. You know, the record industry,
the shit is, the shit is pretty much a goddamn
glorified payday loan, you know what I mean, it's more

(01:13:23):
predatory lending than anything else, you know what I mean.
So poverty and dysfunction, that shit is baked into their
business model. So in a lot of ways, it again,
it becomes a liability if you're an artist that is
self contained, know what you want, show up on time,
do your job, just do it whatever, because at that
point they have nothing. They can't control you with nothing.

(01:13:46):
And we were those dudes, like we just didn't give
a fuck. We was just like, yo, we make the
music we want to make. If we don't get this
look or that look or that look, who fucking cares.
But when you're a part of that bureacracy, you can't
be like that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
So let me ask if.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
If say the outcome of the Menstreal Show turned out
to be more rosier than what happened, Uh, what we
would you guys have delved into your next step, which
was like uh, I mean for Pooh was like the
Sleepers project, Fonte, You're you're making Foreign Exchange, uh with Nikola,

(01:14:30):
like you're doing these side projects, still committed to the well.
I mean, then there's ninth departure, so his leaving to
do more production and whatnot, like your your next step
was splintering up and taking a break for a while.
But had the outcome been different, would you guys have

(01:14:52):
even chartered off into the territory or the.

Speaker 4 (01:14:57):
The the outcome, And the funny thing is the outcome
of the Minstry show didn't even weigh in because the
first for in Exchange and my album, my Sleepers album
were done.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
It was already done.

Speaker 3 (01:15:09):
Four. Yeah, that was done before.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Okay, I thought, I've been sure. It was two thousand and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
It was five, two thousand and five, four.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
Two thousand and five, okay, okay, and Sleepers came out
in February of five.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
I forgot when that first Connecting Connected came out in four.

Speaker 1 (01:15:26):
It was it was like all four, I want to say, yeah,
And we were working on those records like with each other.
So yeah, it was never a thing of like, you know,
if Pool's like, I'm working on a record, I need
a verse for that, all right, cool, I jump on it.
He jumped on you know, Foreign Exchange records. So there
was always you know, me just kind of being a
student of the game. I always saw the groups that

(01:15:49):
allowed themselves to kind of do their own thing. They
seemed to work a lot better, you know what I mean,
Like even with like Gang Star was kind of my
example where Pream was doing remixes for everybody, but Guru
had Jasmin tasks like that was his own thing that
he did, and then they came together and do Gang Star,
And so that was always my thought. So when it

(01:16:10):
came for us doing side projects and solo stuff, even
went ninth with all the stuff he was doing, we
were all very much a part of that and we
championed that. Okay, So without making this you guys's audio obituary,
so then you all right? So I actually want to

(01:16:34):
cut in Tarantino this skipping in the future because I
don't know the story of after me begging and begging
and publicly begging. We've talked about this story before in
the salone episode of me trying to wield a little
brother reunion into existence.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
But what was the straw that at least.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
That unbroke the camel's back for you to be like, okay,
like what.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
You down? You down?

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
I think it was just us becoming friends, Like.

Speaker 4 (01:17:14):
We just had to take time to after we didn't
speak for a while, We just had to take time
to just become friends. And that just really and honestly,
like for almost two years, we didn't discuss making no
music together. We didn't discuss It was more like, yo,
how you doing in life? Like what's going on in

(01:17:36):
your life?

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
And then.

Speaker 4 (01:17:39):
Eventually once we did that show the next day, it
was just it was unspoken, like I went to take
house to pick my money up and he was like, yo,
I'm cooking. He said, I'm cooking. I said, I'll stay.
You know what I'm saying. I'm not gonna turn down
the free meal. And we just was talking before everybody
else pulled up, and it was just one of those

(01:18:01):
things it's like, man, how you feel?

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
It was like, shit, I feel good? How you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
So now I want to go back a little bit.
How hard is it to walk away? Because for me,
I know, for me and Tarique, like, yes, we were
birds of a feather, best friends in high school, spending
night each other's couches, you know whatever, do everything together,
and then we start a business with each other, and

(01:18:28):
we're just slowly now we're just slowly now now that
we're inching to fifty, we're slowly now inching back to
where we were when we were fourteen and fifteen, But
there was a period between.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Ages twenty three to forty seven.

Speaker 1 (01:18:50):
In which we were very committed business partners and it
was like, no matter what, this group is not dying,
which doesn't make for good chemistry if you're you know,
if you're making creative products. So it's playing together for
the kids, Yeah, is.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Defeat.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Did you feel a sense of like a dream deferred?
Once it was like, okay, this group is officially a
rap and just put it on the shelf and you'll
go that way and I'll go this way.

Speaker 2 (01:19:26):
I'll let you goo. Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
I think for me that didn't hit till later.

Speaker 4 (01:19:33):
At the time when we stopped speaking, I think I
was just I was so pissed, and I think we
were so just frustrated at just a bunch of things
and turn each other that it was more like fuck
that ship, I'm gonna show this nigga. And later on
it started to really sink in, like, yo, I think

(01:19:56):
we fucked up, but it's too late to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
Turn back now.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
Yeah, path, Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
I didn't realize that, I think, you know, at the time,
when we you know, just said fuck it, I was
just tired, you know what. I mean, and I just
you know, we had spent so many years just kind
of in a pressure cooker together, just album mixtape tour, mixtape,
album tour, and I was just fucking exhausted, man. And

(01:20:24):
uh So at the time when we said, you know,
it was over, I was like, Okay, well, you know,
we hadn't really been, you know, because because lot of
people asked, well, if the record, if you think if
the record would have sold better, y'all would have stayed together.
The thing about it, at the time when we broke
up in Old Well ninth left and O seven and
then we improved.

Speaker 2 (01:20:48):
Twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
At that time, that was when we were seeing some
of our best shows. So you know, after get Back,
that was when we got a really big black audience.
So our shows were still going up. Like I you know,
we were doing really good business on the road, and
you know, we could have kept you know, going out

(01:21:10):
there and getting that money. But I think it was
a combination of just exhaustion and then just it wasn't fun,
Like we just weren't enjoying each other, We weren't enjoying
the experience. We were literally just coming on stage just
rap rap, rap, And then we would go off in
two separate directions. And for me, you know, I mean,

(01:21:31):
you know, you gotta make money. Money is important. But
the minute this shit started feeling like a job, nigga,
I'm gone. I didn't get in this shit because.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
I wanted to work a job. I could have kept
my job, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
I got in this to, you know, make a living
and be around people I love and us build something together.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
And once it shit became work, it was like, man,
fuck this.

Speaker 4 (01:21:50):
And for me it was, like I said, it was
just I think for me, it was just hard just
looking at the scene at the time and it was like, Yo,
this shit is wide. This is what we fought all
them fucking years for is to get to this point,
and we got here. We're the man in the cave
that all we had to do was hit that take
that pitchfork and hit.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
That dirt one more time, and the diamond the diamond.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
But we turned around and walked away where that where
that guy?

Speaker 4 (01:22:17):
Like, That's that's how I felt, just how everything turned around,
and I was just like, damn, we we missed an
opportunity there. But like you said, man, we just exhausted, man,
just with each other, with the situation with just everything.
It was just like, man, I just need time to
go be free over here by myself or doing some other.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Shit and get back.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
But that was our last album, We Owe ABB And
after that that was like freedom. I felt freedom in
a way that I hadn't felt in a long time.
And that was when I met I was like, nigga,
fuck a label, Like fuck we out this deal. We're
free of Atlantic abb Man, fuck this ship. And that
was when me and Nick form FIEW Music after that. Okay,

(01:23:05):
all right, so everyone that listens to the show knows
Fonte's disdain for me holding on tightly to politically correct
non gotcha questions.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Go in something we talk about whatever. We're in the
age of the Rona, Nick.

Speaker 3 (01:23:27):
Now the age of the Roma.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
So should I will publicly into the future a reunion
of the original unit of this group. Well, I can
tell you this, damn you already started.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
You can, you can, you can, you.

Speaker 4 (01:23:51):
Can say out loud and put into the air as
much as you want, brother emir, I can tell you
what ain't gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
Listen, listen, listen, listen, but wait, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:24:04):
Listen, I listen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Hear me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:06):
I know my ass already, but I listen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
Because I believe.

Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Okay, for those that never heard the salone episode, I
went on Twitter, I think in I was at least
at Fallon at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
It's like twenty twelve thirteen. It nah, this was later
than that. This was this is about twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:24:32):
This when.

Speaker 4 (01:24:34):
This is when you got yeah, oh yeah, that was
about twelve thirteen is I decided, you know what I'm
gonna will.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
I'm a publicly will a little Brother reunion for the
greater good. You know, the road to Hell's paid with
great intentions. Facts I put it. I put a tweet
out there. I was like I want little I forget
the exact wording, but it's like I'm willing a little
brother union because damn it I needed And you know,

(01:25:04):
Fante kind of did the.

Speaker 4 (01:25:08):
You when.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
I was like, nah, man, chill, don't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:12):
Chill. I tried, I tried. I tried to defuse the bomb,
and you did it. Like yo man, my wife and
my wife was here like like what are you doing?
Like that sort of thing right right right. He gave
an example of like, yo, man, this is like me
putting out there like you and Salons and da da
da da da. And then Slan saw our name says

(01:25:35):
wait wait me and a mirror what and then it caused.

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
What a time I saw? I saw all that. That's all.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
Yeah, yeah, we weren't even talking at that time. We
were talking at that time, but that ship went off.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
That was crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
My whole point was that this still happened, and you
said it would never happen, So that's had never happened.

Speaker 3 (01:26:06):
Oh, back back to my answer. That was a nice story, like.

Speaker 4 (01:26:13):
This is the thing this, yeah, this is this is
the thing we when we came back this time, we
realized the fundamental differences as men and you can't get
past that fact, like he is who he is, we
are who we are, and we see things differently than

(01:26:36):
the way he does, and the clarity is there.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
And that's just it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
Like because for me, what the thing I always said
about little brother, even when we weren't talking, when we
weren't making music, the magic in the music was that
it was our relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:26:55):
It wouldn't the fact that T Dope, I'm dope night
beasts for Dope. It's our real relationship.

Speaker 4 (01:27:00):
It's the way we approach records, the way we made
records you can hear the joy in the records.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
In our later records, you can start to not hear
that joy. A little by little, it was gone.

Speaker 4 (01:27:13):
And so when we came back to do which ended
up being made a little watch, me and Tay had
a talk and it basically was like, listen, man, we here.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
To do this for each other. We here to have
fun doing this shit, and nigga anything more than that,
we ain't. It's whatever, like we ain't here for it.
And we realized very quickly that we saw things that
way he did not. And so it's just like, yo,

(01:27:44):
we're good, like we're good, like we're good.

Speaker 2 (01:27:48):
When when's the last time you guys have spoken to ninth?
Twenty eighteen, the twenty for me and you bro, it
was twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
You was twenty eighteen. For me it was twenty nineteen.
It was March twenty nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
Yeah, because it was around the time Nip died and yeah, yeah, yeah, Marsh,
Yeah it was to March sween nineteen. Yeah for me
at twenty eighteen, the last the last time we actually
saw each other like saw saw each other was yeah, yeah,
come back article festival.

Speaker 2 (01:28:23):
Yeah. So August twenty eighteen. That was the last time
we saw each other.

Speaker 1 (01:28:26):
And that performance was just someone saying, hey, who was missing?
Who was supposed to Royce y? Yeah, Royce Man. Who
was the person that was the point person who reached
out to him? It was so's my man Suleyman Massi.
He's a promoter and he runs now he owns the

(01:28:47):
Article festival with the music festival that goes on down
here in Durham. And Royce Miss's Flight and me and Suleiman,
you know, we had a working relationship. He had booked
for an exchanged a bunch of times, so we knew.

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Each other just you know, over the years.

Speaker 1 (01:29:01):
And so he reached out to me and was like, yo, man,
Royce Smist's Flight, do you want to do a solo set?
And I'm literally at home in you know, a T
shirt and my boxers, just like doing nothing. And I said, well,
let me check and see if it's even possible. So
I ended up making the calls. I called reached out
to Flash it was my two DJ. First he didn't

(01:29:24):
get answer for him, so then I reached out to
Knife and me and Knife had been hanging in Durham
that previous night, so I hit him.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
I was like, hey, man, suleymn hit me by wanting
to do this this show. You know, would you would
you DJ for me? He was like, yeah, I'll DJ
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
And I said, man, you know it'd be crazy, man,
what if we get Pool involved in this shit?

Speaker 2 (01:29:42):
And he was like, ah, hell, I mean he was.

Speaker 1 (01:29:46):
He was super reluctant about it, but you know, I
you know, kind of twisted his arm and he was like,
all right, cool, you know, I'll do it. And I
called Pooh and hit suleit mine back and we got
everything sorted out and so that all came together within
the matter of three four hours.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
I mean, it was super super fast. And that was it.
I mean that was kind of what started it. And
that was the last time.

Speaker 1 (01:30:10):
And at the end and at the end, it wasn't
like yeah, I enjoyed that, It was absolutely yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:30:17):
I mean the funny the funny part about it was
foreshadowing in life. I didn't see him when it was over.

Speaker 4 (01:30:27):
Me and Tate no, no, lie, no bullshit like me
and Tate walked back up to the to the to
the RVs which were our trailers, and he didn't because
he went down there to the stage before we did,
and he didn't go back up when we went up,
and I ain't seen him since we walked off that stage.
We took like two pictures together, and then I was like, man,
fuck this, I ain't got to stay down here taking

(01:30:48):
all these pictures.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
We're going going upstairs to get drunk like, and Tate
was like, Nick, I'm going upstairs too, And we went
upstairs and I didn't. I haven't seen him since. Like, no, lie,
no cat, as the young people say, no cap, not a.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
Cat, not a cap at all, No cap, no fedora,
no none of that ship. Because all right, man, twenty
twenty two, I'm getting you all, life coach. We don't
need one man. Were good not for this.

Speaker 1 (01:31:14):
I mean, if you want to have a life coach,
just talk about childhood trauma and shit like that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
We talking about that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
That's that's something totally different. We're good on this, don't
We don't work this out.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
We don't go all the way out. Okay, all right,
I feel you, man, you know you? Hey hey, no, no, no, no,
I'll take that. Look this this is a little this
official Little Brother reunion. I'll take it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
The album's banging. You're happy to have been a part
of it, thank you. So what happens? Uh? Okay, So
obviously we're in the edge of the runa now where
all the breaks have suddenly halted on our professional lives.
And you know what happens now is this time for

(01:32:00):
a new album?

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
We're making it through the rona man. That's all.

Speaker 2 (01:32:05):
That's all you can do right now, one day at
a time, one day.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
You know, people always ask us about another album. Man,
it's one for us. It's just one of them things where.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
It's like, let's be like, you're lucky you got the
one you got.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
Not only that, but like we.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
Both have just a lot of other things that we
have going on.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
And you know, like I managed full time, so luckily
Big Dough my partner, so he was able to pick
up a lot of that slack and and.

Speaker 2 (01:32:37):
What is that into now? Who being a manager being
a suit Listen, man.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
Let me tell you something, bro.

Speaker 4 (01:32:44):
This ship is this ship well you can't see him
in the camera, but I got a lot of grades
down here now, a lot of grades.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
It's you know, it's for me. It's just one of
them things.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:32:54):
I just love music and I love the.

Speaker 4 (01:32:56):
Guys that I have, and I believe in them full force,
and I just want to see them accomplish some of
the things that they want to accomplish, if not everything.
So I'm here, I'm right or die. That's why I
don't have a lot of clients. Man, like I gotta
I gotta feel goosebumps when I hear you for the
first time. And all these guys, I had that feeling.
But it's hard, man, it's stressful. It's three it's three

(01:33:19):
different people, three different personalities, three different levels in their
careers right now.

Speaker 1 (01:33:27):
But you're using You're using the wisdom all of it
that you all right, everything that you have.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
But this is the thing. How old are the thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
Thirty, thirty, thirty one and twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:33:44):
Young? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:33:46):
And this is this is the thing I tell people
I have.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
I have a lot of wisdom, right, I have a
lot of wisdom, But this is their careers. So I
don't I don't rule with the iron fists.

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
I'm more of a.

Speaker 4 (01:34:00):
Let's have a conversation about whatever the situation is. Let's
way to pros the cars. I'll give you my advice.
I'll give you some you know, some anecdotes. If I
have any but at the end of the day, you
have to make a choice for you because it's your
career and I'm gonna ride whatever that choice is, whether
I agree or not, but it has to be your
choice because you gotta go out here and sell it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Shit Exactly. We were always kind of on some when
it came to us dealing with other acts whatever. We
were always kind of on some tigos to the Runner shit,
just in the sense of, you know, like he said,
it's like, I can have my thoughts about it, but
if it's a song you believe in, you the one
that's got to walk out here on this shit, not me.

Speaker 2 (01:34:39):
It's it's your name that's attached to it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
So I could hate the fucking song, But if you
love it and this is what you believe in, then
I'll stand behind you on it because it's you the
one that's got to sell it, and it's gonna follow you.

Speaker 4 (01:34:52):
It's gonna follow you. I think the best thing for me,
the best thing for me and my position is I
have a legacy. See that's cemented. Whether I stopped today
and just go back to being Thomas Jones and go
work at the airport or some ship like my legacy
is cemented already, so I don't have that fear.

Speaker 3 (01:35:14):
Of the fuck up. And it's just like, yo, let's
let's let's go, let's.

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Go fast, let's go hard, and if we suck up
along the way, it's gonna happen. Mistake's going to hunted
and mistakes going ten. There's two different type of mistakes.
Let's go on hunting and that's.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
Just what we do.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
We had Jimmy jam on you know, the other day,
and you know, he was talking about how his wife,
you know, how he got involved in the Grammys and stuff,
and it was his wife that was telling him like, Yo,
this is what you're supposed to be doing now, you
know what I mean. And that really resonated with me
because it kind of reminded me. I think that was
a lot of what me and Pool would have conversations

(01:35:54):
with about. Made the Little Watch one of the earliest
conversations we had. After we finished the record. The first
thing we thought about was, Okay, who can we help, Like,
now that we've done this, how can we use this
new platform we have to you know, jump somebody else
all so help you know, someone else. And so when
it comes to you asked about doing another album for me,

(01:36:19):
you know, that record just took a lot, like it
took everything out of me because it was so much
we knew we had to get right. And I mean,
you know, and you always, you know, not to say
that it's ever been, you know, records that we have
stepped on or like purposely just did some bullshit or whatever.
I mean, we always put our best foot forward. But
we made a little watch that was just a draining

(01:36:41):
process because we did everything ourselves, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:36:44):
What I mean. We cleared our samples, we were budget
label studio, the whole nine, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
So it just took so much out of us both,
and I think in terms of us doing another record
for me, it really just came down to I just
wanted us to do something, so where now the errors
out of the room. So now if I just want
to jump on a song for his album or he
jump on song on my album, we can just do

(01:37:13):
a fucking song and that be the end of it.
It's no more discussion of oh well what does this mean?
And nigga just mean we do the song together, you
know what I mean? So we have the freedom to
do that now. And if another record comes, if we
feel like we got something else to say, you know,
we can do that. But as of right now, speaking
for me, I'm just kind of enjoying the piece of

(01:37:36):
just having you know, my brother back in my life
again and us being able to use our influence to
help other people.

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Like that's the most that's the most joy the joyous
part of it for me.

Speaker 4 (01:37:48):
And we still got cities we ain't touched yet because
of the role now. Man, straight up, we ain't been
to New York, Houston, Detroit, to Rod Boston.

Speaker 3 (01:37:59):
We ain't did a show at the crib.

Speaker 4 (01:38:01):
Sits the festival, like, man, y'all ain't getting no album
to that halfwy twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:38:09):
Hey man, look a burden in hend a burden in hand,
Beast two in the bush. I mean I wanted a
new Little Brother record. You got it, I got I
got a Christmas gift. I'm not being greedy.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you for this man.

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
Yeah, man, oh and I always wanted to thank you
Amir for I don't know if you remember, but we
did a show.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
At the t l A.

Speaker 3 (01:38:32):
This is this is around this is the listening time.
And you came to the show, and I.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
Know what you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:38:40):
I remember you said, Yo, I want.

Speaker 4 (01:38:42):
To buy some CDs from y'all and we said, okay,
how many you want? You paid for thirty CDs. You
left them CDs there, I did so we were able
to resell them CDs money in the half, and we
needed that money.

Speaker 2 (01:38:58):
So I thank you for that purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:39:03):
That's that's a very mere thing to do. But I
think I also did it on dollars. Got niggas back
down ninety five. All right, well, look I'm wrapping up
the show man. Wait, but Bill, you usually have a
trick and thank you Bill, Yo. I want to thank

(01:39:27):
you all for doing this show. You know, under under
these circumstances, I never thought i'd get the Little Brother episode.
But you know what, though, man on some Britain, this
is just my mind working post edible. How poetic is
it that we all met on the internet and now
we're doing our show in.

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
My God, can't do won't do it?

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
It's only right Well on behalf of Big Pooh, font Ticolo,
Boss Bill, the rest of the teams, Supreme, Liah Suk
and Steve unpaid bill and fantic.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
Oh my god, I was about to see you out
getting cigarettes. Anyway, I'm back now, all you good, All right.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
This is quest Love and thank you for tuning in
and we will see you on the next go round
of Quest Love Supreme.

Speaker 2 (01:40:21):
Thank you. West.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Laiya St. Clair

Questlove

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