In a very special episode, Kid n Play share their inner most thoughts on growing up as black men in Hip Hop. Play courageously shares his deepest story of contemplating suicide in his earlier years. Follow, Like, Subscribe and Share @thefunhousepod #hiphop #podcast #kidnplay. Watch full episodes of #thefunhousepodcast with Kid n Play on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@U1PN/podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or visit @urban1podcasts to learn more. Follow us on IG: @thefunhousepod @KidFromKidnPlay @the_playgroundz @Jodi.Gomes If you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers services to talk to a skilled counselor. If you are feeling distressed and need to talk to a counselor, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And my thing was why does my name have to
be last? And they I think they tricked. It was like, well,
because more things run would play that.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Man kid and playing that hey the day. But babe,
but babe, you know you don't want to say kid
is kind of don't know it's not playing kid and
all my underwear there's a skid. You know what I'm saying.
It doesn't work. That's something you know that it just
doesn't flow the same.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's a podcast house, yo, what's good this is playing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Is this kid together with kid and playing? This is
the fun house pocket and funhouse in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We try to be consistent here. I think they call
it branding.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yes, branding you know where branded can't call it you
know what I'm saying, getting our brand on.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yes, we're not raising brand well.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You know we're getting older on.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Morning constitution, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
All right, So you know we're we we we have
a topic that we'd like to call say less whatever.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We're gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
But how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Exchanging? Really?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I just saw you last night.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
We just assume everything's good.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I saw you like eight hours ago. You didn't even
ask me then how I was doing today? How then,
I'm doing great today. It's fun being back in the city.
It's fun being back in the city. Uh, just the energy.
I live in Los Angeles now, so that's a whole
different vibe.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Trying to forgive you.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
New York forgive me York, though I thought you're gonna
say New York's trying to forget you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That too, were forgetting you for what you've done.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We forgive and forget you. What about you? How are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I'm good? You know, I'm the early riser.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, Zach, this dude wakes up. He wakes up the rooster.
That's what you do. Say less, you know, just in
terms of you know, if if you if you mean
something and you feel passionate about it and you're trying
to express it to somebody else, or they'll they'll say
say less, I get.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It, I give it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I give what you're talking about, Like, you know, I
get your but I don't know. One thing that kind
of came across the radar was artists, performers interacting with
the fans. It's been happening, you know, more than more
than a few times lately, where you know, throwing throwing
bottles of water, and stuff and just throwing objects at
(02:17):
artists and artists taking offense. You know, I saw CARDI
got got heated. Uh, they was throwing stuff at at Drake.
I saw that they dude jumped on stage tried to
stab Dave Chappelle. And I'm trying to remember. I don't
know if there's a time that when you and I
have performed, when anybody tried to tried to get on
stage or got close enough to it. I remember a
(02:38):
telling what I used to do by strip fig the
girl jumped up on stage, remembered by.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
The girl came up and.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He pulls he pulls his pants down and he's got
he's got these draws on and have like a just
strippers like a note but it had like too in
the front. Yeah, imagine touxedo draws insert pick.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
This is why we cut to that picture. Pictures out
there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's out there.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But yeah, this woman, uh.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
She grabbed your joint, you remember she grabbed you on
I was like, yeah, I couldn't finish the show. So
it's like it was crazy fine, but yeah, but just
in general, should should should artists? Obviously we can't have
people rushing the stage and I mean, and you know,
on the comedian side of things, you know, we don't
like people heckling, you know what I mean. If you don't,
(03:28):
if you think somebody ain't funny, then you either don't
laugh or or you can leave. But but the thing
about it that people don't understand a lot of times
audience members that that want to heckle or want to
be in the show, like sometimes they're drunk. Sometimes it's
it's just them bacting out. They think, you know, their
friends tell them that they're funny. So so they and
you know, saying, but the comedian is always going to
(03:50):
have the microphone and usually has the last laugh. And
they wish they wish you would heckle them. I wish
mfor would because they will they'll slice indicce you.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I mean going a little off. It's interesting because
when you were saying they wish, I thought you were
going to say that that would add to the show.
You know, people are big on things going viral. So
you know that right there put you out there.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, perhaps perhaps, but I'll tell you this, this is
this is something that that comedians really hate because what
happens is you'll get it. You'll get somebody in there,
and so it could be man, male or female. Sometimes
if the woman wants to get up there and be
heard as well, and so you know, then they get
dealt with and whatever whatever, and then after the show
they'll come up afterwards, you know, for a picture on
(04:35):
the autograph and was like, you know, I mean, you know,
I was trying to help you. I was trying to
help your show, bro. I don't need Joe help. We
don't need Joe help, man, you know what I mean?
You know what I'm saying. They thinking that all they
want to be part of the shows, right clearly, but
they it's that don't really work like that. You know,
you pay, you sit, we rock, you enjoy. This is
(04:57):
the agreement, This is the understanding we all entered this
particular facility. I think. I think, uh, the social media
is the is the steroids. Social media is the is
you know, and and who knows you know, back back
when we once again, back when we were coming up,
said the guy, Back when we were coming up with
no social media there was you know what I'm saying. Then, yeah,
(05:19):
then the world would not know about it, you know,
if somebody had got out, Yeah, it was yeah, and
it could have just been a rumor. So many times
it came round. Oh man, you heard what happened at
getting play show, and you you you could either believe
it or disbelieve it because there was no visual didn't
it wasn't any visual proof.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
How about if the content of the music you're coming
there to watch enjoy isn't one of peace. Well, the
original thing with hip hop was love, peace, unity and
having fun. So if your lyrics and stuff is all
about sticking up drugs, doing this, doing that, coming down
(05:59):
on women in a very objective way, how can that
be in the atmosphere to not.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Fuel it comes to Deacon, not fuel.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That kind of behavior. Isn't that a contradiction? Because if
you're telling somebody stick them up for their thing or
robbing their thing, they punk whatever, and this is what
the cat's gonna come and do to you on stage.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, but guess I'm not taking in to it. Oh
but guess what. But guess what. Back at our concerts
back in the days, if you're talking about the early joints,
late eighties, early nineties, the artists were not talking about
that at all, and people were still robbing ktson like
in Nashau Colisee. They were still robbing people in the bathroom.
That's some of the HAP, that's some of the DNA.
But I'm saying, if an artist, I'm saying, that's what
(06:43):
we don't.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Want you to do. But your lyrics are saying something
different or giving the impression of something different.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Are saying the music here, you're saying the music can't
amp up the audience.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, what's the mindset of a young mind that's
still undeveloped.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
You know what I'm saying. This is what they're hearing
over and over and over in their head.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So now their program, most like video games, their program
to follow the instruction of what they think they've heard.
What's the verdict?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
What's the verdict? Less say less? Say less?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And audience members do less?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay? Please? So what what is this all about?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
What is this all about?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
This is with the origin?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
People want to know a lot of times people want
to know, they know we've been together for a long time. Yes,
they want to know, you know, how it got started,
where we're from, How did we get together? How ask
how the streets are the streets are blabbing streets. I
was born in the Bronx then, but they chased me.
Your introduction to hip hop, my introduction to it was
(07:42):
before Queens, or it was before me. So yeah, well okay,
well yes and no, yes and no. Like I said,
I was born in the Bronx, but by the time
I got out to Queens, I was probably twelve or thirteen, uh,
to our neighborhood, East Elmhurst, And that was kind of
when the hip hop was. The whole scene was just
(08:03):
kind of just vibing and very very early.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
But I always had the impression that you, I don't
know if you were actually there, but at least before
coming to Queens, you were privy to our cold Crush
brothers and the fantastic with the tapes.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
No, no, no. What I did was because I had
just moved out to Queens from the Bronx. I still
had lots of friends and family in the Bronx, so
I would go back there. You know, I'm still getting
acclimated to Queens.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I didn't haven't. We hadn't met, I hadn't made a
lot of friends yet. So I would go back to
the Bronx all the time, and going back to the
Bronx with my old friends. That's when we would get
those Cold Crush tapes and then then I started to
bring those things out with me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So it was your thought, how did you feel when
you first heard you know what hip hop? Yeah, I mean, well,
I don't even like calling it hip hop because there
was a time when it didn't have a name. It's like, yo,
they gamin in the park was playing whatever. So for
you to hear the Cold Crush Brothers, or you could
correct me on whoever you heard it first, what was
it about.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That for me? You know, some of my earliest memories,
you know, and I say this all the time and
he's actually become a really good friend of ours. Was
I'd have to go back to when I heard these
flash tapes and heard Melly Mel's voice. Melly Mel was
the guy that I mean when I heard this, and
you know, I ended up becoming an English major in college,
so I mean, words were my thing, you know, I was.
(09:18):
I was, you know, it was kind of a little
you know, you know, I had big thick glasses and
an afro. I was kind of a nerd, I remember, Yeah,
it was a kind of a nerd and let it
go Yeah, the hip hop. That music just really spoke
to me. And uh so, I don't know. I was like,
I was, I was smitten, and you know, I wasn't.
I wasn't a I wasn't a singer. I wasn't you know.
(09:39):
I became a singer kind of later on. But that
hip hop spoke to me. Melly Mel's voice spoke to me.
So when I started rapping, I wanted to sound like him.
So I wanted to go you know, stuff like that.
You know, I can remember I wrote my first rhyme. Okay,
my first rhyme. I was a freshman.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
About to go viral.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I was about to go viral.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So this is about to go.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
This is about to go fire. Right before I go,
you say say less? All right, too late late, Okay.
So I was a freshman in high school. I went
to the Rocks High School of Science. Okay, So those
y'all from New York know about that. That that proves
I'm a nerd. That proves I'm a nerd. Okay. So
(10:20):
this was this was my first run. I was on
the train coming home from school when I seen this
freak that made me droo. See this freak head on
a local dress that plainly showed the parts that was
the best. So I got off my seat and sat
down next to her. Told this fine young freek she
was a fine young girl. That she rewarded me with
(10:41):
an invitation to her house, and within the exclamation, I
told her I'd be glad to come. But one thing first,
I got I call my mom and tell them that
I'll be home real late. Tell her not to and
not to wait. I rock rock y'all you do. Don't
beat your lady at the but stop. No, you didn't
(11:02):
finish it, right, Yeah, that's all right? Cool?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All right?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So yeah, so it was so it was a back
and forth thing. But like I said, while I was
transitioning to Queen's, ultimately I wanted to feel comfortable in
the neighborhood. So you know, I was doing stuff like
I would pull out the speaker onto my front porch
and play music so hopefully somebody except me, Yeah, somebody
would come by and and be my friend. I had
(11:29):
no friends. I'm sitting there with these coke bottle glasses
and and afro. Yeah you know what I'm saying. Then
your mentality came through and yeah, right, so yeah, and
then you know and you guys, you you and your crew,
you already had it going on in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Trust me.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I would be at the I would be at the
park looking through the fence. They're having so much fun.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
While your father's buy out. Right Yeah yeah, I mean,
and you know we're going to get more into that.
But talking about you know, kid and I and how
this came together. So while that's happening with you, was
happening with me, is hearing well? My friends that became
our friends eventually, in particular Jerome Dows that we call Rome,
(12:15):
and Kenny d and C. C Rock we would adventure
out of the Borough of Queens and go up to
Harlem and Brooklyn wherever the jam was at and wherever
we could get those tapes with Cold Crush and the
Fantastic Romantic four or five five Yes, and them and
the Treacherous three and all the Grandmaster Flash and the
Freest five. Please forgive me. I felt the same way
(12:37):
about Melly mel My. You know, of course, when you
ask people, I teach, you know, hip hop history, and
I've been doing it for several years now at HBCUs.
But I've learned to ask students what's the first hip
hop records you ever heard? And the answers really, you know,
make you feel old. But mine that put an impact
on me was Grandmaster Flash and the Fears five Super Rapid,
(12:59):
Super Rapid, that record like Yo Yo and again Mellie Mel,
but really all of them but Melly Mel.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
But that they were doing they redid seven minutes a
far Yeah exactly, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
But to turn around, as a matter of fact, for
those who you know, true hip hop historians, people are
hip to Mellie Mel's message, Wrap was born in a
state of mind, but he did it first on super Wrapping.
You ready, you know what I'm saying. A lot of
people don't know that that that rap was that was
Enjoy Records. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Bobby Robinson, Bobby Robinson, that's right. Shout out to Bobby
Robinson is still.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Rip's but uh yeah, so that was my very heavy
influence to me. I remember trying to find myself because
I remember my parents home putting together two turntables. They
ain't got no just being put together. I was trying
to find myself because with the crew I was with,
we saw we got attention at the believe it or not,
the house parties. I break dancing.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's what really you used to break dance, mister, mister
fly guy.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
In all of us we did break dancing. It was
we didn't hit. No, we really was like a we
did both. We wrapped and we got on the on
the on the floor.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, I knew Jerome, my friend room he was he
was he was an athlete, you know. I could I
could kind of picture that although he although he's very tall, you.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Know, doing the donkey my thing. I could do that
windmill where you could take your leg on the ground
and the other leg hop around the other. I had
to have something to do. We end up being dancers.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, but we wasn't dancing on the ground, and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I've seen I've seen you go through my legs, So yes,
you did, that's true.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I did right anyway, So say so, the thing is
is that that was my thing was that you know,
and we can't forget.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
About the pause tapes rack in the days. Now there's
a thing called cassette tapes. Let's cut to that. A
real picture of that, real quick of a cassette. Children,
look at this, do not where you'd have a boom
box or something that had the same features on it,
which is the pause button. You could turn around and
if you're so good with it'd make it seem like
(15:00):
a DJ put it together, but there was no DJ
at turntables. Want continuously you just would keep pausing it.
It's something to behold. So that was something that we
enjoyed and put together and did with Rome's little brother
Rock and Bee. But our dogs shout out. So here
we are two people at an accident waiting to happen,
you know.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, and we happened to be, uh living right
around the corner from one another.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Literally. They didn't know it at the time. I didn't
know it. Yeah. Well, anyway, we ended up literally living
around the corner from each other. And we found that
out when it was time for kid to get introduced
to something called cutting school. I introduced him.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
To, yeah, which I which I do. I didn't do
a whole lot of that because you know, the consequences
were merciless, deadly.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So yeah, and we had these two crews. Kids used
to be part of this group called the Turnout Brothers.
I used to be part of a group called the
super Lovers, the Turnout Brothers. Correct me if I'm wrong,
was ones who were really into lily sism. Yeah, maybe
you know ours. We had a gimmick, you know, we
were about lyricism, but we was also about the ladies.
(16:09):
So Quicksilver and the Super Lovers was based on legendary lovers.
You had Herbie the Lovebug, a lot of people familiar
with with Salt and Pepper, U Squame, Dana Dane, the
list goes on. Then you had rome who was Romeo.
Then you had Me which my full name is Playboy.
Then you had Prince charm and am I leaving out
another lover. Now those are the four famous lovers. So
(16:31):
your crew was My crew was me. I was kid
cool out at the time. We had rock and Bee.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We had Clevey O the rock Child, Rock Child, and
then what Marky Brown, Rocky Brown rest of pes Marky Brown. Yeah,
I think he's passed away.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I think so say less, so he's saying less. And
the amazing thing about the two crews, if I do
say so ourselves we ventured out into uncharted territories.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
For Yeah, sometimes when you're young, you have no idea
of the danger that you're venturing into when you travel
outside of your borough, even within the borough. It was.
It was crazy, Like you know, we lived in a
nice neighborhood, nice middle class black neighborhood, story projects, mery,
but Corona was wild. Jackson heightst Was a cocaine capital
(17:21):
of the world in the eighties, you know what I'm saying.
So Queensbridge was Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
New York was a very exciting time, but it always
didn't mean exciting in regards to a good time, you know.
And the thing was gear was very important, was very important,
was very You had to have the latest sneakers caps,
you know, but God, you didn't have the kind of
amount of sneakers to choose from as you do today. Now,
we was going to be uptown procads, which were the
three strike pro pro procads. You were going to have
(17:48):
Pomas and Adidas. Nikes weren't even.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Involved now at all. Nikes was corny at all Nikes
the white dudes that ran at all.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Matter of fact, here's a sneak.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
A lot that ran away from black people.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Here's a snake zinc a lide that was even before
a Nike was even introduced. Believe it, Jordias's Jeans sneaker
had the Jordas sneaker that was sought after by the
hip hop community. But no, it was pro heads uptowners.
You had Pumas and you had Adidas. Now this was
the level of status in hip hop culture. Prokeads De
(18:26):
Lancey Street seventeen dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They were the cheapest fifteen to seven, but accepted sixty
nine because you could get them in all colors that
would match with your mock neck, match with your pants,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
They were accepted. Your next one, which was doing you know, hey,
doing a little something, was Pumas. Pullmas was thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Really, you remember the pricess.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Hell cheap exactly thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Forget sailors, he's like pay less.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
The cats that was getting money. Adidas that was forty
five dollars. Yeah, those were seventeen, thirty six and forty five.
Then you had shoes shoe culture, which was the British walkers,
British Walkers, playboys and what was the other one playboys.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Jellies you know those girls. You could tell when the
girl wasn't keep too clean because when she'd take off
her jellies, the dirt. I think that was one of
your exes, say less so anyway, did you see the
outline of their jelly shoes or there? I remember back
(19:31):
in the days. I remember, back in the days asking
my father, by Jamaican father, there you go for money
for a pair of Adidas, because we heard they had
the green Adidas up town. So that was very very
sought after green stripes. But you had to go all
the way up to the South Bronx to get them,
like Simpson Street. Yeah, run to run the gauntlet, you
know what I'm saying. So I remember asking that, and
(19:52):
people don't understand the sneaker heads, the kids today, they
don't understand forty five hours was a lot of dollars
were for a pair. So I remember asking him and
he's like, fifty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I feel a pair?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I sneak must be crazy, but no, I feel iful,
not sneak.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Got it, man, listen. And the thing about it is,
I just remember this choice. Let's say you had enough
money to get Adidas. You're like, should I spend forty
five dollars to get Adidas or get three to at
least two or three pair of the Pro and be
able to got different colors? You know, you don't know
where you're getting another forty five dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
You got to wear your thing.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But no, you had the lee jeans and you had
a Delancey Street, Simpson Street. All of that was was
the place.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And actually we're not too far from Delancey Street right now. Yeah,
I feel the ghost of people getting robbed.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So anyway, this is some of Believe me, this isn't
even a thing of the culture, the mindset, what was
going on. But you're dealing with two guys, who are
you know? There was no jay Z, There was no
fifty cent. There was no Diddy to aspire to or
to look at in regards to something you would be in,
(21:02):
something that a career out of. None of that at all.
At best, you had black exploitation films at best, you
know what I'm saying. They weren't touching on what we
know hip hop was to be today. We just knew
that we felt really good about what would happen at
the parties and in the parks. We weren't thinking about
making any money. No, it was no money to be made.
It was all about we didn't even think about. All
(21:23):
we wanted was the status laws. Yes, because when we
were doing it, the good thing about us. That fulfilled
us for the time being was when you walked around
your neighborhood and cats was playing your tape from a
performance you did, either Flushing High School or some park
jam and stuff. That was the closest thing and felt
(21:45):
like it is though having a.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Record, you felt like a neighborhood celebrity. O.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
People are playing whoever did have a car and had
a souldism in their car? They're playing a routine, that's
what they were called, routines that you did, usually off
of an already well known breakbeat or disco record. Right
disco and hip hop?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Right first cousins used to be you know, I used
to love her.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
But it was a slick thing about doing that was
because you knew that our audience or listener was already
brainwashed with the disco hit, so you just put a
rap to it and your trojan horse going through the door.
But anyway, here's you and I right, So how did
kidd and play?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
How did we physically coming down?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Like I said, I would see you guys at the
at block parties or at the at the park jams
and stuff, And I remember, I remember, I remember you
and Roman and everybody else and I remember I remember
seeing you and I was like, man, this dude he
had this he was super fly, you know, he he
had his had his jeans man creased up. And you
know what I'm saying. And I was, you know, not
that I was, you know, I don't know, you know,
(22:46):
my gear was pretty cool, but you know I just
looked like a like a madman.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
You know what I'm saying. See that if on pause,
that's what stood out to you, because I did.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
You worked at Keith for I worked at the supermar
local supermarket literally and I would see you everyone into
a while and I'm standing on the corner. Yeah about nothing, Yeah,
just like patrolling. You know what I'm saying, like victim
looking for victim, policeman looking at you. And what stood
out is, Okay, here's the hair, here's the bottle, thick glasses.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
However, Jordan sue jeans. I Adidas, you did have a deal.
I don't remember you and no Pumas or anything like
that stood out to me was Adidas and you had
the like cleanest what did that what coat was that
you had to wear?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Had it was because the white coat you had to
wear topping the meat. No, no, I worked. I worked
in the dairy section. I was I was assistant dairy manager,
charge of yogurt. And then you became friends with Rome,
right because we used to play basketball.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Running basketball. But here it goes the Dory Miller Projects,
Corona Queens. There's a party in the basement, a birthday
party or something, and I guess you're part of a crew.
All I remembers tally Ho or I don't know, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I forgot the name of the crew.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
But you know, as usual, me and my crew, we're
gonna crash the party of something straight out of the
movie Coolie Eye and Cats is on the microphone, and
I'm hearing this voice that demands attention, similar to what
a Mellie Mel would do. And as I make my way,
I'm like that going out of my way was rapping,
but I got in a cool way. I got neck
(24:20):
all high. Let me see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And here's this dude that I would see coming out
of Key Food from work and yo got skills, And
like that's my.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Earliest memory of the first time paying attention to you
as what would be a hip hop artist. I tell
people how dope I was when you first doing what.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, your your your your thing was your your vibe
was was kind of like your was your style, you
know what I mean. I admired your style. You had
the jeans that had like like stuff painted on it,
and I've never seen that before, like the on the
lead and on those bell bottom lee jeans as like
that's like a I was like a canvas. So that
was kind of cool. So, you know, I don't know,
(25:04):
I mean, you know, I guess things just kind of
evolved and and and and those early years it was
kind of like the three of us, me, you and
and Rome.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Well let me ask you this, how did the name
kid cool Out come about?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well? I think back in those days, first of all,
cool Out. I don't even know how I got that name.
I got that name? Uh, I think I got that
name when I was still in the Bronx, if I'm
not mistaken or maybe not. But they used to call
they used to call me cool out period, just just
in the neighborhood. Nobody called me Chris. Really, they called
me cool out. Really yeah yeah, even the thing, they
(25:36):
called me cool Out. But when it came to having
a rap name, you have almost had to have a
title before your name, like you said, playboy, mister C
you know king this, sir that. So I don't know.
For some reason, I just thought kid cool out, you
know kind of sounds you know, kind of alliterative sound
to it or whatever. I thought that sounded cool. So
(25:56):
it was kid cool out that. That's that's how my original.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It's funny with me because out of all the things
I wanted being a young shorty coming up, was the
people I admired in the streets had dope nicknames. It
wasn't even about being an.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
MC that you just had.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And that's what I wanted more than anything, was a nickname.
And it felt like it took forever to finally for
something that I liked, and if I did like it,
for it to stick. So I remember the when I'm
trying to get a name and I'm going to try
and manipulate people to call.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Me that name.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Once I picked one, and I remember one of them
was good because everything was like stink d D. So
it was like Chris C. Well when you say it fast,
it's Chrissy. That ain't gonna happen. Yo, this ain't working.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
That's what my girlfriend calls me, crissy. I'm like, stop it.
I'm saying that in front of people.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But it's so interesting because, like you, I was painting jeans.
I was putting people. I was making a nice lucrative
business of painting people's names on legions. You had a
lot of real estate to work with. Back then. It
was the Lee jeans, but it was you didn't have
skinny jeans back then, so I.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Had respect for our ankles.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
You know what I'm saying. I always loved the Playboy Bunny,
so what I did was for people to know I
did those people's jeans. I'd put the Playboy Bunny real
small on the bottom, but mine's had a tilted ear
like the Playboy man had two ears out, but I
would do mine where one of the ears would be tilted.
And when people my name really got out there, especially
among thugs, I'm doing their jeans and stuff, they just
(27:31):
started putting Playboy with it, like yo, Playboy did these.
Playboy did these. And I used to be Playboy mister C.
Until there's one guy his name was mister C. He
wanted to fight me over the day, and I'm like, dude,
ain't that serious. So we just stuck with Playboy mister
c for a while, but it was just Playboy. But
with our names, when you become cool with somebody, like
your name is Christopher, my name is Christopher. When you're familiar,
(27:53):
you just go Chris. So us being homeboys with our cruiser,
we was with we ain't gonna go your kid cool out?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yo?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
What a kid with me? It was like, yo, what's up? Play?
And that's how those names came about before we were
even you know, a group.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, that's how du That's how kid cool Out and
Playboy became kid and play. We just kind of shortened
it and at that point when we really locked it
in like that, we were kind of vibing off salt
and pepper, you know. And how catchy that that name was,
you know what I mean? I mean, I mean what
I think that I think I remember.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
When we were caause see, we weren't always kidding play.
We were fresh for us to sutral records. You still
had kid, I'm still playing. That's what we're known as
fresh Force, and we were doing what you were called
cover records then like run DMC had my Adidas. We
came out with a record that became like a regional
headed best my Skeezer because back then groupies and hip
(28:44):
hop were called skeezers. So instead of my Adidas. This
is before christ BC.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Anyway, we had that, we had Falco, had Rockney Amideis.
We did a joint called rock Me, so we did
believe it or not. You know, we were rocking in
Philly at times we were rocking. We played I don't
know how many times at Latin Quarter, the Latin Quarter
and other New York places and believe it or not, Ohio,
But I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It's interesting. But anyway, when it was time to get
out of that contract and evolve or get promoted, and
went over to Select Records with Herbie love Bug, it
was time to let all that go right and then
we needed a name. So he was like, where are
we going? And I think Herbie was the one. He said, like,
kid didn't play.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It, yeah, because Fresh was starting to get played out.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Anywhere definitely, And my thing was why does my name
have to be last? And they I think they tricked me.
They was like, well, because more things Ryan would play
and I'm like, okay, and that's that.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Man, kidd and play and to day but Babe, but Blade,
you don't want to say is kind of don't no,
it's not playing kid and all my underwear there's a skid.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
It doesn't work. That's something you know a little something about.
But anyway, that's another story.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
That's it just doesn't flow the same, Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So anyway, that's how Kid and Play came about, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
And then with the help of the girls, because we
had this thing what was our motto with the Idol
makers organization, our creed what was it?
Speaker 1 (30:11):
One helps the other?
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Oh? Okay, right right right, there was some you know,
obviously Herbie Lovebug was our leader. Salt Pepper was the
you know, the highest of the high in.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Terms of the flagship.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, the flagship, that's that's that's the word flags the
flagship group. And yeah, Herbie had a creed of the
strong helping the week get aboard, and we all kind
of did that. Salt Pepper obviously helped us.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We in turn thing right, we're their background.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Dancers and in a few of their videos.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And we also had a cameo as detectives.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Cameos detectives, we were dancing and everybody get up. And
then the first first national stage, I mean a tour.
We did Slammin eighty eight. Slammin eighty eight. Yeah, some
of your kids weren't even alive, I know.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Salt Pepper and Keith Sweat were cold headlining, and part
of their arrangement was with Ricky Smile, not Ricky.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Smiley, Ricky Ricky Walker.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Ricky Walker, very famously known for the Universal Circus, did
that tour, and part of the arrangement was, let these
guys open the show.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Right and open it. We did. Yes, we were for nobody.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We were for your seating pleasure. We were people walking
in the arena trying to find their seats.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
There we are working on kidding. Play was number one
with the ushers and the venders, you know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Saying, And they'd be like looking for their seats, like
we're in G six, but who's that? And so they're
pretty good anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Hot Dogs wasn't even ready, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And we're dancing very humbling, you know, very very humbling experience.
All right, So some of them might be asking.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Who's who's them? The streets, the streets, somebody be shut
up streets.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Like what's going on here? How come?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Normally when we see a podcast is usually if there's
gonna be a third chair would be fit, We're always
intending to fill this chair if you guys, if you
have suggestions, please do that. But in the meantime, what
we're gonna do is something I've never seen, right, and
this is a segment that we're gonna call turntables. We
turned the tables on each other and ask each other
questions that we may have about each other. True, have
(32:18):
we known each other over well over thirty years, Yes
we have, but still questions linger knowing you as long
as as I have known each other, as long as
we have right now. I've always been curious because as
people may or may not know, and you know that
I'm not a particularly religious person, you know at all,
but I do, you know, I'm curious about that journey,
(32:41):
that transition because I kind of I remember at the time,
and I think it was at a time when when
you and I were not we weren't.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
People thought we broke up and were right, and I
would have said, we didn't break up, we grew up.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, we were kind of in a kind of in
a weird finding a solar system or whatever. Yeah, trying
to find ourselves each other as and not as a group.
So I'm just saying I'm curious. Tell me about that transition.
Was there was there a crystallizing moment when you felt
like this, like this is where my life is leading.
(33:17):
You know, take us into that a little bit, because
I've always been curious. Well, first, because you've stuck to
it all these years.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Right, what I will say, first and foremost is not
about a religion, you know, It's about an intimate relationship
with Christ. Religion is like you got to do it
just where you better pray this long, you better go
to church at this time, whether that's religion. So that's
not my deal or my relationship with him. But what
basically happened to me is I put so much mental, emotional,
(33:45):
physical investment in what we became successful in that it
didn't fulfill me the way I thought it was going
to fulfill me. And then it just got to the
point where it seemed like, okay, that means I got
to get more, got to do more, and you just
get tired. And what you do have, which is supposed
to be krem de la creme. You know, you know
who I'm married. You know Sharry Headley. That ain't no
(34:08):
easy feet. You know what I'm saying, Like, this is
a woman that I know. This is a woman that
or symbolizes what a.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Lot of people world it would be, would seek after,
you know, the look to prominence, all of that.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The homes we got. You know what I'm saying, you
got yours and jersey I got mine is a long eye.
And remember we had a pack. You know what I'm saying.
We were going to like, let's do this. We're gonna
get this, We're gonna get that. We hit all those marks.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
We had all these milestones, yet not to.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Say the worship those marks. And I guess sublimately I did,
but it's like just to hit those marks. And the
more I was hitting those marks, the more empty I felt.
It was like a crazy twilight zone. So then when
it got to the point where here's a new music
coming in, you know, the whole I don't know if
you call it gangster.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Or whatever I would I would call. And then and
we did not fit in.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, and neither do we not.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
We didn't really try, but it just wasn't our thing.
I mean, we had movies to rely on. So even
if it wasn't the music we had movies. Don't get
me wrong. I like gangster music. I mean, and some
of those guys, A lot of those guys are our friends,
Yeah exactly. But it didn't seem like we were fitting
into this. You know, this is getting into like the
mid nineties. Yeah, right, so you had that red flag
going on. The marriage wasn't what I thought it was
(35:21):
going to be.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
And no fault of hers, It's just that it's wrong
with me to come into something thinking that was going
to be fulfilling. You know, I had operations I had
for play, the clothing going on at barber shops. You know,
at that time, we had something called beepers, So as
all these when my beeper would go off, I'm beginning
to get an ulsa something because it's like, okay, what now,
(35:44):
you know what I'm saying, all the things that come
along with running a business. So we fays I achieved
everything wanted to achieve. But then when it got to
the point where I didn't want to do cauldn't play anymore,
and I just didn't want to do a lot of
stuff anymore. I just wondered, why are we not enjoying
the fruits of our labor. Why we gotta be on
(36:06):
this trademill or I gotta be on this treadmill. So
the marriage didn't work out. I didn't have the passion
for kidd and play. I didn't have the passion for
the businesses. I just got tired. I was just done.
And to find out that there was it, really, you know,
I'm glad you brought that up or asked us questions
sparked this how I handle it? Really wasn't fair to you,
(36:27):
and it wasn't fair to her because we entered in
this thing like I'm gonna be play, you know what
I'm saying. So for me, I'm losing this passion. She
came into it. Whether it be right or wrong, you
gonna be play, and this is how we're gonna earn
a living. I'm not calling her a gold digger, none
of that kind of stuff. And I wanted to change direction.
I had this praying grandmother. My father, who was like
at the time and still to this day, the biggest
(36:49):
hero in my life. Because you know what my father
was about was what I call a urban pharmaceutical engineer,
a fan I'm saying say less, you know, told us
to the part where he graduated to Robert Banks even lesser,
making the front page of the New York Posts. And
here's a man that turned his life around. And I
(37:10):
kept hearing about this man named christ you know, and
seeing these peace that these people are going through, and
I know they went through turbal in time. So here
I am making the announcement, Kid, I'm gonna be saved now, Sharry,
I'm gonna be saved now. Not to say y'all did this.
It was like, you know, yo, we didn't. We didn't
get a memo on this, you know what I'm saying
(37:31):
to be prepared. So I will say that as a
as apology, probably long overdue for being insensitive, but I
was in such agony for peace. I just needed it.
And then here's a woman wanted a divorce, and one
of the catches to that is here you are in
a high profile relationship and now here it is all
on the radio, and you know, thank God for that
(37:53):
social media back then, but it might as well have
been you know what I'm saying, And things she chose
to do that made life tormenting and other things going on,
and I just wanted to end my life. So the
very gun that I used to use to stick people
up with. I was trying to work up the nerve
to pull the trigger to end my life, and God
interceded and stop that from happening. Thank you Jesus. So
(38:13):
for me, a lot of things occurred over a period
of time. Went broke, you know, lost home, lost in everything,
you know, all of that kind of stuff, pay less,
public humiliation or whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And basically what the Lord just said is, Okay, we're
gonna start over. Can you remember where you went wrong?
And where I went rage? Was getting kicked out of
five high schools. Oh that part, It's like, okay, let's study.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let's go way back and let's put you in school
and fast forward to how I'm involved in now with
you know, HBC.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Can you imagine that that's the such you were becoming
an instructor in college. What it's called is a professional
in residence or an artists in residence to do it
legal to me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
So that's just such a humor.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
That's like ice tea turning into a coptt That's.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, exactly. So my thing was going through so many
things where miracles took place and things you just can't
call happenstance or whatever. Just proved himself over and over
and over again. And it was so amazing because then
when it was time for us to someone would say
get back together, and it was like, you know, I'll
leave it like this. It's like a scripture that was
(39:21):
brought to mine. Is like when Jesus got introduced to
who would be called the Disciples, he met them as fishermen.
When it was time for them to be who they
were going to be with him and doing what they did,
He's like, you are fishermen of fish, but now I'm
gonna make you fishermen and men which made which meant
you're going to do what you normally would do with fish,
(39:41):
but take that cunningness to help save souls. So for me,
it's like a candle shines a whole lot brighter in
the dark than it doesn't amongst other candles. So it
was time to you know, opportunities present themselves for us
to do some more great things together and continue on,
but just be a different person with a different agenda,
better friend, be about the business of getting out there
(40:03):
and just telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So I'm doing right now, Okay, that was eloquently put,
all right, so let me ask you. Let me ask
you this, right, like, yeah, the the the skies have opened. Uh,
you know we're quote unquote you know, back on top.
You know, we're back touring these great opportunities. Well, how
does how does it feel now? You said the first
time you you went through it, you felt empty. Now
(40:28):
now that we're kind of re experiencing a resurgence or
whatever you want to call it, we've reached a certain
level and status. But and and and or you know,
reaping the benefits of it and the love, how does
it feel now?
Speaker 1 (40:41):
As opposed to be the best way I could put
it is, nothing has really changed in regards to what
we go through in this business. What to to have learned?
What you've learned when you did it before, go through
the seven to eight year period maybe longer than I
went through of being off the grid, off the grid,
and now applying that to being it because we know
these waters. You know what I'm saying. It's all like
(41:03):
he said, Okay, now your new gig is you're going
to be a doctor. I'm going to do that, but
I know how to do this. So nothing has really changed.
And this business people can be what people can be.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I mean, the fulfillment, it's there.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
It's there because I don't want or acquire as much.
It's like to me, I like the little things, you know,
it's like to experience love. I love driving, to drive,
to take the fruits of our labor, and to do
things I really do, like when I own the clothing
thing and barbershops stuff. Yeah, there was a genuine thing
(41:35):
for it, but it was really about what people would
think about me doing it. What I look like. Look
at his woman I'm married, Look at his things?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
What an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, all this stuff, and it's like, look at his car.
That's not the momentum.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Look at them repossessed that car, say Lessen, that's not.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
The momentum you want or the engine you want to
keep it going. So for me, it's interesting and it's intriguing.
And the great thing for us is, if I may
say us, is you know a lot of been there,
done that. But it's just sometimes the players change or whatever,
and I think we appreciate it more. Yeah what I'm saying.
But you seem to me as we get together with
our peers, you know, other greats that we know in
(42:13):
this thing. We laugh. We we're all grateful that.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Oh yeah, we used to be very competitive back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
We're still able to do it.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah again when we do shows now with with some
of the you know the cats from from from the past,
if you will, it's it's no longer a competitive the
way he used to be. We all share each other's
green room, call it whatever it is on our riders.
As far as drinks and food, well we share all
share were before anybody. If anything, you get mad because
(42:41):
someone else has in the day in your room, who
took my chicken wings?
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know? And I want to say something. You said, No,
you're you're not religious, but you're not altogether disengaged because
I know very well. You know, you have your moments
with your you know your gospel music.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
You know all well, but that's like the weirdest thing.
That's how it means, that's I'm That's how I got.
I didn't pull the trigger to the gun because I
had as we did a great sound system in my home.
There was an artist that I used to listen to
called Ron Connoli. For some reason, it had to be
in the Holy spirit. I did not touch my system
(43:16):
as I'm crying something like out of Pooky in New
jack City, Like you know, the thing here is a
song called using.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Me by Ron Connoli and going through these steps of
haiking you, and that's what stopped me from pulling true.
But it was a song, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I always thought that was kind of a weird
dynamic on my part because, like I said, I'm and
to your point earlier, it's it is organized religion that
I'm not. I'm not not a fan, but man, I
surely love some gospel music. Man. And I remember one.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Time I stilled, it'll come out of you that you know,
the Lord have tapped me. Like you heard what he
just said. Where you went to church? It was a
few sometimes Oh no, and guess what I go? It
said you with a friend. I think it was a
Christian or something like. No.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
No. He's a fellow comedian, Billy D. Washington who lives
in Houston, Texas. And you know, he and I became
really close. He was like a comedy mentor of mine
when I got into doing stand up comedy. So we
did lot to be the dozens and dozens of show
together and you know, we got to be really close
friends and it was family. And so when I would
come visit them in Houston, he would say, yo, man,
(44:17):
come and becoming me and my church. He has a
church in Houston. It's called the Top, the Tabernacle of Praise,
and it would tell you yeah, yeah, And they would
take me on Sundays and I would and Billy he
was so talented that he was a stand up but
he also played in the in the band, played the keyboards.
And I would go and then, you know, obviously it
wasn't about like, you know, what I got was not
(44:40):
being religious. But I could listen to the pastor and
hear him say, you know, certain things and just apply
it to my life because it was just good. It
made sense here on earth.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
I didn't know, you know what. I don't know if
there's a heaven or there's an after party, but I'm
here now. So when the guy says, treat your fellow
man good, you know, take care of your family, you
know these things like that, I mean I can take
that and use that here here on earth, no matter
if I believe or not.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
So a question I have, Yeah, I had it all along,
but it just don't know if it was a I
don't want it to you know, to throw you off
or whatever. How come I wasn't invited to your wedding?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Whoa curveball in the dirt. But it's it's you know what,
you know what, there's a reason why I accident. This
will land very nicely.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
But okay, you know what, you should have been invited
to my wedding, you know, and you to mine.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, but I have a reason.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You have a reason I wasn't invited.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Or you have a reason why I don't know why. Okay,
I thought you can you can't you do that? Can't
you answer it yourself?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
No, you know what I'm trying to remember, like kind
of what my my mindset was at that particular time,
Like I don't we didn't we weren't we weren't beefing,
no or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
You know. The great thing about our relationship was as
human beings, you can get to because we do so
much together that it's like it's it's okay that it's enough.
It's time even in a marriage, you know, to take
a break. We always knew when to do that without
it having to be an argument or saying you never
did that? We always was on the same page with
(46:24):
and when it was time.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, let it, let it drift and if it's mental,
it'll drift back. So no, all right, So to your
to your question, I'm trying to remember what my mindset
was was then.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I do know that I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Maybe I maybe I assumed certain things that I should
never assumed. You know, my my my ex my wife,
my ex wife. Shout out to ex wife, say no, no,
she's a sweetheart. I know, you know she was. She
she meticulously and this wedding. Okay, this is the thing,
(47:02):
this is her this because the wedding is always about
the woman. Okay, let's let's be clear.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
And so she planned it and we were she wanted
to get married in Maui Destination, so she wanted to
go destination weddings, and you know, she wanted it to
be intimate. I mean I think they were. There were
no more than twenty five people there, and you know,
you should have been one of those twenty five people.
I don't know if I assumed, you know, maybe you
wouldn't be interested in flying all the way out there.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
But you know, in retrospect, yeah, you should have you
should have been there. You should have been there. I
mean if Bill Maher was there or you should have.
Well Bill always says to be you know, playing whatever. Yeah, yeah,
well saying but I always I say less.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I did not have. I didn't have a particular way
of feeling about that. I just thought maybe I was
the one that planted a seed for that kind of
rhythm a thing to take place, because you didn't come
to my wedding.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Right, but the reason, wait, did you invite? You didn't
write me? Did you know?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
I can tell you what happened. You used to get
on interviews and share with people who I'd be seeing
at the time. I did, Oh yeah, you did it
with Cindy. You do a couple of peo.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I was proud of you.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I get that, but me but me being jealous. But
being the private person that I am, I just knew
learning from my father. My father used to say this
praise like, you want to be careful not to blow
up the spot, you know, for people to know what
you got going on. So I never would like that
to be public. So we knew Jarick Healler and I
we're gonna get married, but we wanted to. We decided
(48:31):
to tell you at the last minute, so you didn't
try anything.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Where did y'all get married again in New York?
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Okay? So when it was time to tell you you
were you were somewhere. It was like, you know, and
I didn't calculate that. I'm thinking, okay, you'll be in
New York whatever, come to whatever. So I don't know
why I just didn't still reach out to you and
say hey man, but I just knew you were gone,
and that's how that happened.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So I figured that might have been the trigger. Okay,
I didn't. I wouldn't say you would think like, oh,
you'd invite me.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Mind, I'm not saying you said that, But sometimes things
can be subconscious and you're like, well, you know, it's
been a while since we've been to game.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
You know what now did you mention it?
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I think that's really who's retribution.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
So yeah, that and with my girlfriend now, we were
talking about it and she was saying, why why do
you think that's I said, well, I think maybe because
I never met your wife, your ex wife.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
You never met her you did back in the days.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Not like that, not like y'all being engaged and all that. Okay,
so for me, I could see her going, it's a
destination wedding we got or whatever. When's the last time
y'all spoke have been together? You know what I'm saying.
And a process of elimination type thing. And that's the
way I rationalize it. And now you just confirm that,
you know, I mean, I don't say that.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, that was a good question. But
that was that was a barn burner.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Man. Okay, another question, Oh, how did comedy come about?
Because the thing about it before you know, you answer that.
I one thing I'll say about comedians that's bravery. That's
the word that I associate with that. So knowing you,
how I know you, how we both know each other.
You came for a thing of not being shy. But
(50:11):
you know that's all I was, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
So comedy, Yeah, well, a couple of different things. How
I got into comedy was an interesting kind of journey.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
At that time, you know, you and I weren't we
weren't weren't working, you know, I mean, Kid and Play
was to find work. Yeah, as as as Eminem said,
we was cold. Product two friends of mine, Tommy Davidson,
who you know we've all known for years, brilliant comedian,
and Bill Maher. They they were urging me to get
involved in stand up and Bill Bill was actually on
(50:45):
the Oprah Winfrey Show and they were doing a show
called Funny People and who they Think are Funny. So
you had these famous comedians that would bring somebody else
on and tell Oprah why they think that they're funny.
So you had d l hugely on some more. John
Stewart brought on Lewis Black and a couple of other
ones as well, and Bill Maher brought me on. And
(51:07):
you went on an Oprah Winfrey show and said, this
guy was so funny. He's you know, he reminds me
of you know. He was just very very complimentary. You know,
he was saying things the Oprah that he never said
to me, you know, as a friend. So you started
looking right right. But but a requirement of it was
you had to do some stand up on Oprah. So
actually one of the first times I ever did stand
(51:28):
up was on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And then so
and then I started to like it because it got
me back on stage. You know, I said let me
kind of try to dedicate my stuff to it. So
doing the Oprah set, you know, Tommy helped me write
the Oprah set. Bill gave me this glowing, uh you
know introduction. Oprah was right there while we're doing it.
She was she was laughing her butt off, you know
(51:49):
what I mean. She's always been supportive of us, and
so that's kind of how the seed was sown. So
then I would do stuff like I would call up
the various comedy clubs around the country, like all the
improv and I made I made the promoter a deal.
I was like, look, basically an offer you couldn't refuse.
I mean, we were you know, we were still famous.
I'm still I'm still famous. But I needed to sice
(52:12):
diving board.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I needed to get but I needed to get better
at it. I needed to get I wanted to get
better at it.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
So arrangement.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
The arrangement was I would do something crazy like look,
I'll say I'll come in, I'll do the club. I'll
host from Tuesday through Sunday. I suggested hosting at first
because it would allow me to get back on stage
several times a night. So I would open the show.
I would come in between the acts, and so it
helped me get better, It helped my crowd interaction. And
the thing about it, what I found out was being
(52:41):
a stand up is very similar to being a rapper.
There's a lot of the same. When I got up there,
I was just like, hey, you know, we know about
being on stage, we know about being in stage in
front of forty thousand people, ten twenty thousand people. This
was about, you know, kind of shrinking it down in
a more intimate setting. But a lot of the movements
felt felt similar. But instead of spitting rhymes, you spitting jokes.
(53:02):
So you know, been trying trying to craft your own
style and and you know, just been doing it ever since,
and you know, you have to kind of run the gauntlet.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
There were a lot of.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Fellow comedians that maybe were skeptical, you know, but but
I was. I was dedicated. I was like, I'm gonna
do this. I enjoy it. And then what happened was
when we got back together and started doing our things
that we you know, we could start to really inject
the comedy into into our show, which I think we've
done over the last several years. So yeah, I mean
and stand up. I still love it. I do it,
(53:35):
you know, when we're not doing the kid and play stuff,
I like to do it. You know, check your local
comedy clubs. Uh uh and yeah, I'm I'm I'm. I
can do it till the day I die. And I
think it adds to our I think it adds to
the aora of kidd and play, the side things that
we do. Great question, Well, my friend, what a journey
it's been.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I feel great? To be honest, I wish we'd done
this a long time ago. I'm glad we're here. I'm
glad we're finally doing it, and we hope you guys
keep jamming with us. We'll have lots of great guests
coming up. The chair will not always be empty.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Will not always be We have a great lineup of people.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
They shall remain nameless, safe, less, surprising until next time
say Less set the fun house. You can catch us
on all streaming podcast platforms. Check us out, Check us
out
And my thing was why does my name have to
be last? And they I think they tricked. It was like, well,
because more things run would play that.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Man kid and playing that hey the day. But babe,
but babe, you know you don't want to say kid
is kind of don't know it's not playing kid and
all my underwear there's a skid. You know what I'm saying.
It doesn't work. That's something you know that it just
doesn't flow the same.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
It's a podcast house, yo, what's good this is playing?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Is this kid together with kid and playing? This is
the fun house pocket and funhouse in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We try to be consistent here. I think they call
it branding.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yes, branding you know where branded can't call it you
know what I'm saying, getting our brand on.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Yes, we're not raising brand well.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You know we're getting older on.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Morning constitution, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
All right, So you know we're we we we have
a topic that we'd like to call say less whatever.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
We're gonna do that.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
But how are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Exchanging? Really?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I just saw you last night.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
We just assume everything's good.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I saw you like eight hours ago. You didn't even
ask me then how I was doing today? How then,
I'm doing great today. It's fun being back in the city.
It's fun being back in the city. Uh, just the energy.
I live in Los Angeles now, so that's a whole
different vibe.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Trying to forgive you.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
New York forgive me York, though I thought you're gonna
say New York's trying to forget you.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
That too, were forgetting you for what you've done.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
We forgive and forget you. What about you? How are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I'm good? You know, I'm the early riser.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Yes, Zach, this dude wakes up. He wakes up the rooster.
That's what you do. Say less, you know, just in
terms of you know, if if you if you mean
something and you feel passionate about it and you're trying
to express it to somebody else, or they'll they'll say
say less, I get.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
It, I give it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I give what you're talking about, Like, you know, I
get your but I don't know. One thing that kind
of came across the radar was artists, performers interacting with
the fans. It's been happening, you know, more than more
than a few times lately, where you know, throwing throwing
bottles of water, and stuff and just throwing objects at
(02:17):
artists and artists taking offense. You know, I saw CARDI
got got heated. Uh, they was throwing stuff at at Drake.
I saw that they dude jumped on stage tried to
stab Dave Chappelle. And I'm trying to remember. I don't
know if there's a time that when you and I
have performed, when anybody tried to tried to get on
stage or got close enough to it. I remember a
(02:38):
telling what I used to do by strip fig the
girl jumped up on stage, remembered by.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
The girl came up and.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He pulls he pulls his pants down and he's got
he's got these draws on and have like a just
strippers like a note but it had like too in
the front. Yeah, imagine touxedo draws insert pick.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
This is why we cut to that picture. Pictures out
there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's out there.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
But yeah, this woman, uh.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
She grabbed your joint, you remember she grabbed you on
I was like, yeah, I couldn't finish the show. So
it's like it was crazy fine, but yeah, but just
in general, should should should artists? Obviously we can't have
people rushing the stage and I mean, and you know,
on the comedian side of things, you know, we don't
like people heckling, you know what I mean. If you don't,
(03:28):
if you think somebody ain't funny, then you either don't
laugh or or you can leave. But but the thing
about it that people don't understand a lot of times
audience members that that want to heckle or want to
be in the show, like sometimes they're drunk. Sometimes it's
it's just them bacting out. They think, you know, their
friends tell them that they're funny. So so they and
you know, saying, but the comedian is always going to
(03:50):
have the microphone and usually has the last laugh. And
they wish they wish you would heckle them. I wish
mfor would because they will they'll slice indicce you.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So I mean going a little off. It's interesting because
when you were saying they wish, I thought you were
going to say that that would add to the show.
You know, people are big on things going viral. So
you know that right there put you out there.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, perhaps perhaps, but I'll tell you this, this is
this is something that that comedians really hate because what
happens is you'll get it. You'll get somebody in there,
and so it could be man, male or female. Sometimes
if the woman wants to get up there and be
heard as well, and so you know, then they get
dealt with and whatever whatever, and then after the show
they'll come up afterwards, you know, for a picture on
(04:35):
the autograph and was like, you know, I mean, you know,
I was trying to help you. I was trying to
help your show, bro. I don't need Joe help. We
don't need Joe help, man, you know what I mean?
You know what I'm saying. They thinking that all they
want to be part of the shows, right clearly, but
they it's that don't really work like that. You know,
you pay, you sit, we rock, you enjoy. This is
(04:57):
the agreement, This is the understanding we all entered this
particular facility. I think. I think, uh, the social media
is the is the steroids. Social media is the is
you know, and and who knows you know, back back
when we once again, back when we were coming up,
said the guy, Back when we were coming up with
no social media there was you know what I'm saying. Then, yeah,
(05:19):
then the world would not know about it, you know,
if somebody had got out, Yeah, it was yeah, and
it could have just been a rumor. So many times
it came round. Oh man, you heard what happened at
getting play show, and you you you could either believe
it or disbelieve it because there was no visual didn't
it wasn't any visual proof.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
How about if the content of the music you're coming
there to watch enjoy isn't one of peace. Well, the
original thing with hip hop was love, peace, unity and
having fun. So if your lyrics and stuff is all
about sticking up drugs, doing this, doing that, coming down
(05:59):
on women in a very objective way, how can that
be in the atmosphere to not.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Fuel it comes to Deacon, not fuel.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
That kind of behavior. Isn't that a contradiction? Because if
you're telling somebody stick them up for their thing or
robbing their thing, they punk whatever, and this is what
the cat's gonna come and do to you on stage.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, but guess I'm not taking in to it. Oh
but guess what. But guess what. Back at our concerts
back in the days, if you're talking about the early joints,
late eighties, early nineties, the artists were not talking about
that at all, and people were still robbing ktson like
in Nashau Colisee. They were still robbing people in the bathroom.
That's some of the HAP, that's some of the DNA.
But I'm saying, if an artist, I'm saying, that's what
(06:43):
we don't.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Want you to do. But your lyrics are saying something
different or giving the impression of something different.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Are saying the music here, you're saying the music can't
amp up the audience.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I mean, what's the mindset of a young mind that's
still undeveloped.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
You know what I'm saying. This is what they're hearing
over and over and over in their head.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
So now their program, most like video games, their program
to follow the instruction of what they think they've heard.
What's the verdict?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
What's the verdict? Less say less? Say less?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
You know what?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
And audience members do less?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Okay? Please? So what what is this all about?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
What is this all about?
Speaker 1 (07:19):
This is with the origin?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
People want to know a lot of times people want
to know, they know we've been together for a long time. Yes,
they want to know, you know, how it got started,
where we're from, How did we get together? How ask
how the streets are the streets are blabbing streets. I
was born in the Bronx then, but they chased me.
Your introduction to hip hop, my introduction to it was
(07:42):
before Queens, or it was before me. So yeah, well okay,
well yes and no, yes and no. Like I said,
I was born in the Bronx, but by the time
I got out to Queens, I was probably twelve or thirteen, uh,
to our neighborhood, East Elmhurst, And that was kind of
when the hip hop was. The whole scene was just
(08:03):
kind of just vibing and very very early.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
But I always had the impression that you, I don't
know if you were actually there, but at least before
coming to Queens, you were privy to our cold Crush
brothers and the fantastic with the tapes.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
No, no, no. What I did was because I had
just moved out to Queens from the Bronx. I still
had lots of friends and family in the Bronx, so
I would go back there. You know, I'm still getting
acclimated to Queens.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
I didn't.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I didn't haven't. We hadn't met, I hadn't made a
lot of friends yet. So I would go back to
the Bronx all the time, and going back to the
Bronx with my old friends. That's when we would get
those Cold Crush tapes and then then I started to
bring those things out with me.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So it was your thought, how did you feel when
you first heard you know what hip hop? Yeah, I mean, well,
I don't even like calling it hip hop because there
was a time when it didn't have a name. It's like, yo,
they gamin in the park was playing whatever. So for
you to hear the Cold Crush Brothers, or you could
correct me on whoever you heard it first, what was
it about.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
That for me? You know, some of my earliest memories,
you know, and I say this all the time and
he's actually become a really good friend of ours. Was
I'd have to go back to when I heard these
flash tapes and heard Melly Mel's voice. Melly Mel was
the guy that I mean when I heard this, and
you know, I ended up becoming an English major in college,
so I mean, words were my thing, you know, I was.
(09:18):
I was, you know, it was kind of a little
you know, you know, I had big thick glasses and
an afro. I was kind of a nerd, I remember, Yeah,
it was a kind of a nerd and let it
go Yeah, the hip hop. That music just really spoke
to me. And uh so, I don't know. I was like,
I was, I was smitten, and you know, I wasn't.
I wasn't a I wasn't a singer. I wasn't you know.
(09:39):
I became a singer kind of later on. But that
hip hop spoke to me. Melly Mel's voice spoke to me.
So when I started rapping, I wanted to sound like him.
So I wanted to go you know, stuff like that.
You know, I can remember I wrote my first rhyme. Okay,
my first rhyme. I was a freshman.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
About to go viral.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
I was about to go viral.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
So this is about to go.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
This is about to go fire. Right before I go,
you say say less? All right, too late late, Okay.
So I was a freshman in high school. I went
to the Rocks High School of Science. Okay, So those
y'all from New York know about that. That that proves
I'm a nerd. That proves I'm a nerd. Okay. So
(10:20):
this was this was my first run. I was on
the train coming home from school when I seen this
freak that made me droo. See this freak head on
a local dress that plainly showed the parts that was
the best. So I got off my seat and sat
down next to her. Told this fine young freek she
was a fine young girl. That she rewarded me with
(10:41):
an invitation to her house, and within the exclamation, I
told her I'd be glad to come. But one thing first,
I got I call my mom and tell them that
I'll be home real late. Tell her not to and
not to wait. I rock rock y'all you do. Don't
beat your lady at the but stop. No, you didn't
(11:02):
finish it, right, Yeah, that's all right? Cool?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
All right?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
So yeah, so it was so it was a back
and forth thing. But like I said, while I was
transitioning to Queen's, ultimately I wanted to feel comfortable in
the neighborhood. So you know, I was doing stuff like
I would pull out the speaker onto my front porch
and play music so hopefully somebody except me, Yeah, somebody
would come by and and be my friend. I had
(11:29):
no friends. I'm sitting there with these coke bottle glasses
and and afro. Yeah you know what I'm saying. Then
your mentality came through and yeah, right, so yeah, and
then you know and you guys, you you and your crew,
you already had it going on in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Trust me.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I would be at the I would be at the
park looking through the fence. They're having so much fun.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
While your father's buy out. Right Yeah yeah, I mean,
and you know we're going to get more into that.
But talking about you know, kid and I and how
this came together. So while that's happening with you, was
happening with me, is hearing well? My friends that became
our friends eventually, in particular Jerome Dows that we call Rome,
(12:15):
and Kenny d and C. C Rock we would adventure
out of the Borough of Queens and go up to
Harlem and Brooklyn wherever the jam was at and wherever
we could get those tapes with Cold Crush and the
Fantastic Romantic four or five five Yes, and them and
the Treacherous three and all the Grandmaster Flash and the
Freest five. Please forgive me. I felt the same way
(12:37):
about Melly mel My. You know, of course, when you
ask people, I teach, you know, hip hop history, and
I've been doing it for several years now at HBCUs.
But I've learned to ask students what's the first hip
hop records you ever heard? And the answers really, you know,
make you feel old. But mine that put an impact
on me was Grandmaster Flash and the Fears five Super Rapid,
(12:59):
Super Rapid, that record like Yo Yo and again Mellie Mel,
but really all of them but Melly Mel.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
But that they were doing they redid seven minutes a
far Yeah exactly, you know.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
But to turn around, as a matter of fact, for
those who you know, true hip hop historians, people are
hip to Mellie Mel's message, Wrap was born in a
state of mind, but he did it first on super Wrapping.
You ready, you know what I'm saying. A lot of
people don't know that that that rap was that was
Enjoy Records. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Bobby Robinson, Bobby Robinson, that's right. Shout out to Bobby
Robinson is still.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Rip's but uh yeah, so that was my very heavy
influence to me. I remember trying to find myself because
I remember my parents home putting together two turntables. They
ain't got no just being put together. I was trying
to find myself because with the crew I was with,
we saw we got attention at the believe it or not,
the house parties. I break dancing.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's what really you used to break dance, mister, mister
fly guy.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
In all of us we did break dancing. It was
we didn't hit. No, we really was like a we
did both. We wrapped and we got on the on
the on the floor.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, I knew Jerome, my friend room he was he
was he was an athlete, you know. I could I
could kind of picture that although he although he's very tall, you.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Know, doing the donkey my thing. I could do that
windmill where you could take your leg on the ground
and the other leg hop around the other. I had
to have something to do. We end up being dancers.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, but we wasn't dancing on the ground, and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
I've seen I've seen you go through my legs, So yes,
you did, that's true.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I did right anyway, So say so, the thing is
is that that was my thing was that you know,
and we can't forget.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
About the pause tapes rack in the days. Now there's
a thing called cassette tapes. Let's cut to that. A
real picture of that, real quick of a cassette. Children,
look at this, do not where you'd have a boom
box or something that had the same features on it,
which is the pause button. You could turn around and
if you're so good with it'd make it seem like
(15:00):
a DJ put it together, but there was no DJ
at turntables. Want continuously you just would keep pausing it.
It's something to behold. So that was something that we
enjoyed and put together and did with Rome's little brother
Rock and Bee. But our dogs shout out. So here
we are two people at an accident waiting to happen,
you know.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, yeah, and we happened to be, uh living right
around the corner from one another.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Literally. They didn't know it at the time. I didn't
know it. Yeah. Well, anyway, we ended up literally living
around the corner from each other. And we found that
out when it was time for kid to get introduced
to something called cutting school. I introduced him.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
To, yeah, which I which I do. I didn't do
a whole lot of that because you know, the consequences
were merciless, deadly.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
So yeah, and we had these two crews. Kids used
to be part of this group called the Turnout Brothers.
I used to be part of a group called the
super Lovers, the Turnout Brothers. Correct me if I'm wrong,
was ones who were really into lily sism. Yeah, maybe
you know ours. We had a gimmick, you know, we
were about lyricism, but we was also about the ladies.
(16:09):
So Quicksilver and the Super Lovers was based on legendary lovers.
You had Herbie the Lovebug, a lot of people familiar
with with Salt and Pepper, U Squame, Dana Dane, the
list goes on. Then you had rome who was Romeo.
Then you had Me which my full name is Playboy.
Then you had Prince charm and am I leaving out
another lover. Now those are the four famous lovers. So
(16:31):
your crew was My crew was me. I was kid
cool out at the time. We had rock and Bee.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We had Clevey O the rock Child, Rock Child, and
then what Marky Brown, Rocky Brown rest of pes Marky Brown. Yeah,
I think he's passed away.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I think so say less, so he's saying less. And
the amazing thing about the two crews, if I do
say so ourselves we ventured out into uncharted territories.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
For Yeah, sometimes when you're young, you have no idea
of the danger that you're venturing into when you travel
outside of your borough, even within the borough. It was.
It was crazy, Like you know, we lived in a
nice neighborhood, nice middle class black neighborhood, story projects, mery,
but Corona was wild. Jackson heightst Was a cocaine capital
(17:21):
of the world in the eighties, you know what I'm saying.
So Queensbridge was Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
New York was a very exciting time, but it always
didn't mean exciting in regards to a good time, you know.
And the thing was gear was very important, was very important,
was very You had to have the latest sneakers caps,
you know, but God, you didn't have the kind of
amount of sneakers to choose from as you do today. Now,
we was going to be uptown procads, which were the
three strike pro pro procads. You were going to have
(17:48):
Pomas and Adidas. Nikes weren't even.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Involved now at all. Nikes was corny at all Nikes
the white dudes that ran at all.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Matter of fact, here's a sneak.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
A lot that ran away from black people.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Here's a snake zinc a lide that was even before
a Nike was even introduced. Believe it, Jordias's Jeans sneaker
had the Jordas sneaker that was sought after by the
hip hop community. But no, it was pro heads uptowners.
You had Pumas and you had Adidas. Now this was
the level of status in hip hop culture. Prokeads De
(18:26):
Lancey Street seventeen dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They were the cheapest fifteen to seven, but accepted sixty
nine because you could get them in all colors that
would match with your mock neck, match with your pants,
all of that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
They were accepted. Your next one, which was doing you know, hey,
doing a little something, was Pumas. Pullmas was thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
Really, you remember the pricess.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Hell cheap exactly thirty six dollars.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Forget sailors, he's like pay less.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
The cats that was getting money. Adidas that was forty
five dollars. Yeah, those were seventeen, thirty six and forty five.
Then you had shoes shoe culture, which was the British walkers,
British Walkers, playboys and what was the other one playboys.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Jellies you know those girls. You could tell when the
girl wasn't keep too clean because when she'd take off
her jellies, the dirt. I think that was one of
your exes, say less so anyway, did you see the
outline of their jelly shoes or there? I remember back
(19:31):
in the days. I remember, back in the days asking
my father, by Jamaican father, there you go for money
for a pair of Adidas, because we heard they had
the green Adidas up town. So that was very very
sought after green stripes. But you had to go all
the way up to the South Bronx to get them,
like Simpson Street. Yeah, run to run the gauntlet, you
know what I'm saying. So I remember asking that, and
(19:52):
people don't understand the sneaker heads, the kids today, they
don't understand forty five hours was a lot of dollars
were for a pair. So I remember asking him and
he's like, fifty five dollars.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I feel a pair?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
I sneak must be crazy, but no, I feel iful,
not sneak.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Got it, man, listen. And the thing about it is,
I just remember this choice. Let's say you had enough
money to get Adidas. You're like, should I spend forty
five dollars to get Adidas or get three to at
least two or three pair of the Pro and be
able to got different colors? You know, you don't know
where you're getting another forty five dollars.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
You got to wear your thing.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
But no, you had the lee jeans and you had
a Delancey Street, Simpson Street. All of that was was
the place.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
And actually we're not too far from Delancey Street right now. Yeah,
I feel the ghost of people getting robbed.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
So anyway, this is some of Believe me, this isn't
even a thing of the culture, the mindset, what was
going on. But you're dealing with two guys, who are
you know? There was no jay Z, There was no
fifty cent. There was no Diddy to aspire to or
to look at in regards to something you would be in,
(21:02):
something that a career out of. None of that at all.
At best, you had black exploitation films at best, you
know what I'm saying. They weren't touching on what we
know hip hop was to be today. We just knew
that we felt really good about what would happen at
the parties and in the parks. We weren't thinking about
making any money. No, it was no money to be made.
It was all about we didn't even think about. All
(21:23):
we wanted was the status laws. Yes, because when we
were doing it, the good thing about us. That fulfilled
us for the time being was when you walked around
your neighborhood and cats was playing your tape from a
performance you did, either Flushing High School or some park
jam and stuff. That was the closest thing and felt
(21:45):
like it is though having a.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Record, you felt like a neighborhood celebrity. O.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
People are playing whoever did have a car and had
a souldism in their car? They're playing a routine, that's
what they were called, routines that you did, usually off
of an already well known breakbeat or disco record. Right
disco and hip hop?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Right first cousins used to be you know, I used
to love her.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
But it was a slick thing about doing that was
because you knew that our audience or listener was already
brainwashed with the disco hit, so you just put a
rap to it and your trojan horse going through the door.
But anyway, here's you and I right, So how did
kidd and play?
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
How did we physically coming down?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Like I said, I would see you guys at the
at block parties or at the at the park jams
and stuff, And I remember, I remember, I remember you
and Roman and everybody else and I remember I remember
seeing you and I was like, man, this dude he
had this he was super fly, you know, he he
had his had his jeans man creased up. And you
know what I'm saying. And I was, you know, not
that I was, you know, I don't know, you know,
(22:46):
my gear was pretty cool, but you know I just
looked like a like a madman.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
You know what I'm saying. See that if on pause,
that's what stood out to you, because I did.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
You worked at Keith for I worked at the supermar
local supermarket literally and I would see you everyone into
a while and I'm standing on the corner. Yeah about nothing, Yeah,
just like patrolling. You know what I'm saying, like victim
looking for victim, policeman looking at you. And what stood
out is, Okay, here's the hair, here's the bottle, thick glasses.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
However, Jordan sue jeans. I Adidas, you did have a deal.
I don't remember you and no Pumas or anything like
that stood out to me was Adidas and you had
the like cleanest what did that what coat was that
you had to wear?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Had it was because the white coat you had to
wear topping the meat. No, no, I worked. I worked
in the dairy section. I was I was assistant dairy manager,
charge of yogurt. And then you became friends with Rome,
right because we used to play basketball.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Running basketball. But here it goes the Dory Miller Projects,
Corona Queens. There's a party in the basement, a birthday
party or something, and I guess you're part of a crew.
All I remembers tally Ho or I don't know, I forgot.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
I forgot the name of the crew.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
But you know, as usual, me and my crew, we're
gonna crash the party of something straight out of the
movie Coolie Eye and Cats is on the microphone, and
I'm hearing this voice that demands attention, similar to what
a Mellie Mel would do. And as I make my way,
I'm like that going out of my way was rapping,
but I got in a cool way. I got neck
(24:20):
all high. Let me see what's going on.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And here's this dude that I would see coming out
of Key Food from work and yo got skills, And
like that's my.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Earliest memory of the first time paying attention to you
as what would be a hip hop artist. I tell
people how dope I was when you first doing what.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
No, your your your your thing was your your vibe
was was kind of like your was your style, you
know what I mean. I admired your style. You had
the jeans that had like like stuff painted on it,
and I've never seen that before, like the on the
lead and on those bell bottom lee jeans as like
that's like a I was like a canvas. So that
was kind of cool. So, you know, I don't know,
(25:04):
I mean, you know, I guess things just kind of
evolved and and and and those early years it was
kind of like the three of us, me, you and
and Rome.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Well let me ask you this, how did the name
kid cool Out come about?
Speaker 2 (25:14):
Well? I think back in those days, first of all,
cool Out. I don't even know how I got that name.
I got that name? Uh, I think I got that
name when I was still in the Bronx, if I'm
not mistaken or maybe not. But they used to call
they used to call me cool out period, just just
in the neighborhood. Nobody called me Chris. Really, they called
me cool out. Really yeah yeah, even the thing, they
(25:36):
called me cool Out. But when it came to having
a rap name, you have almost had to have a
title before your name, like you said, playboy, mister C
you know king this, sir that. So I don't know.
For some reason, I just thought kid cool out, you
know kind of sounds you know, kind of alliterative sound
to it or whatever. I thought that sounded cool. So
(25:56):
it was kid cool out that. That's that's how my original.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It's funny with me because out of all the things
I wanted being a young shorty coming up, was the
people I admired in the streets had dope nicknames. It
wasn't even about being an.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
MC that you just had.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
And that's what I wanted more than anything, was a nickname.
And it felt like it took forever to finally for
something that I liked, and if I did like it,
for it to stick. So I remember the when I'm
trying to get a name and I'm going to try
and manipulate people to call.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Me that name.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Once I picked one, and I remember one of them
was good because everything was like stink d D. So
it was like Chris C. Well when you say it fast,
it's Chrissy. That ain't gonna happen. Yo, this ain't working.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
That's what my girlfriend calls me, crissy. I'm like, stop it.
I'm saying that in front of people.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
But it's so interesting because, like you, I was painting jeans.
I was putting people. I was making a nice lucrative
business of painting people's names on legions. You had a
lot of real estate to work with. Back then. It
was the Lee jeans, but it was you didn't have
skinny jeans back then, so I.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Had respect for our ankles.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
You know what I'm saying. I always loved the Playboy Bunny,
so what I did was for people to know I
did those people's jeans. I'd put the Playboy Bunny real
small on the bottom, but mine's had a tilted ear
like the Playboy man had two ears out, but I
would do mine where one of the ears would be tilted.
And when people my name really got out there, especially
among thugs, I'm doing their jeans and stuff, they just
(27:31):
started putting Playboy with it, like yo, Playboy did these.
Playboy did these. And I used to be Playboy mister C.
Until there's one guy his name was mister C. He
wanted to fight me over the day, and I'm like, dude,
ain't that serious. So we just stuck with Playboy mister
c for a while, but it was just Playboy. But
with our names, when you become cool with somebody, like
your name is Christopher, my name is Christopher. When you're familiar,
(27:53):
you just go Chris. So us being homeboys with our cruiser,
we was with we ain't gonna go your kid cool out?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yo?
Speaker 1 (28:00):
What a kid with me? It was like, yo, what's up? Play?
And that's how those names came about before we were
even you know, a group.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, that's how du That's how kid cool Out and
Playboy became kid and play. We just kind of shortened
it and at that point when we really locked it
in like that, we were kind of vibing off salt
and pepper, you know. And how catchy that that name was,
you know what I mean? I mean, I mean what
I think that I think I remember.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
When we were caause see, we weren't always kidding play.
We were fresh for us to sutral records. You still
had kid, I'm still playing. That's what we're known as
fresh Force, and we were doing what you were called
cover records then like run DMC had my Adidas. We
came out with a record that became like a regional
headed best my Skeezer because back then groupies and hip
(28:44):
hop were called skeezers. So instead of my Adidas. This
is before christ BC.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Anyway, we had that, we had Falco, had Rockney Amideis.
We did a joint called rock Me, so we did
believe it or not. You know, we were rocking in
Philly at times we were rocking. We played I don't
know how many times at Latin Quarter, the Latin Quarter
and other New York places and believe it or not, Ohio,
But I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
It's interesting. But anyway, when it was time to get
out of that contract and evolve or get promoted, and
went over to Select Records with Herbie love Bug, it
was time to let all that go right and then
we needed a name. So he was like, where are
we going? And I think Herbie was the one. He said, like,
kid didn't play.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It, yeah, because Fresh was starting to get played out.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Anywhere definitely, And my thing was why does my name
have to be last? And they I think they tricked me.
They was like, well, because more things Ryan would play
and I'm like, okay, and that's that.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Man, kidd and play and to day but Babe, but Blade,
you don't want to say is kind of don't no,
it's not playing kid and all my underwear there's a skid.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
It doesn't work. That's something you know a little something about.
But anyway, that's another story.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
That's it just doesn't flow the same, Okay.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So anyway, that's how Kid and Play came about, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
And then with the help of the girls, because we
had this thing what was our motto with the Idol
makers organization, our creed what was it?
Speaker 1 (30:11):
One helps the other?
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Oh? Okay, right right right, there was some you know,
obviously Herbie Lovebug was our leader. Salt Pepper was the
you know, the highest of the high in.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Terms of the flagship.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, the flagship, that's that's that's the word flags the
flagship group. And yeah, Herbie had a creed of the
strong helping the week get aboard, and we all kind
of did that. Salt Pepper obviously helped us.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
We in turn thing right, we're their background.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Dancers and in a few of their videos.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
And we also had a cameo as detectives.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Cameos detectives, we were dancing and everybody get up. And
then the first first national stage, I mean a tour.
We did Slammin eighty eight. Slammin eighty eight. Yeah, some
of your kids weren't even alive, I know.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Salt Pepper and Keith Sweat were cold headlining, and part
of their arrangement was with Ricky Smile, not Ricky.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Smiley, Ricky Ricky Walker.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Ricky Walker, very famously known for the Universal Circus, did
that tour, and part of the arrangement was, let these
guys open the show.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Right and open it. We did. Yes, we were for nobody.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We were for your seating pleasure. We were people walking
in the arena trying to find their seats.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
There we are working on kidding. Play was number one
with the ushers and the venders, you know what I'm.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Saying, And they'd be like looking for their seats, like
we're in G six, but who's that? And so they're
pretty good anyway.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
Hot Dogs wasn't even ready, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And we're dancing very humbling, you know, very very humbling experience.
All right, So some of them might be asking.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Who's who's them? The streets, the streets, somebody be shut
up streets.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Like what's going on here? How come?
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Normally when we see a podcast is usually if there's
gonna be a third chair would be fit, We're always
intending to fill this chair if you guys, if you
have suggestions, please do that. But in the meantime, what
we're gonna do is something I've never seen, right, and
this is a segment that we're gonna call turntables. We
turned the tables on each other and ask each other
questions that we may have about each other. True, have
(32:18):
we known each other over well over thirty years, Yes
we have, but still questions linger knowing you as long
as as I have known each other, as long as
we have right now. I've always been curious because as
people may or may not know, and you know that
I'm not a particularly religious person, you know at all,
but I do, you know, I'm curious about that journey,
(32:41):
that transition because I kind of I remember at the time,
and I think it was at a time when when
you and I were not we weren't.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
People thought we broke up and were right, and I
would have said, we didn't break up, we grew up.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, we were kind of in a kind of in
a weird finding a solar system or whatever. Yeah, trying
to find ourselves each other as and not as a group.
So I'm just saying I'm curious. Tell me about that transition.
Was there was there a crystallizing moment when you felt
like this, like this is where my life is leading.
(33:17):
You know, take us into that a little bit, because
I've always been curious. Well, first, because you've stuck to
it all these years.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Right, what I will say, first and foremost is not
about a religion, you know, It's about an intimate relationship
with Christ. Religion is like you got to do it
just where you better pray this long, you better go
to church at this time, whether that's religion. So that's
not my deal or my relationship with him. But what
basically happened to me is I put so much mental, emotional,
(33:45):
physical investment in what we became successful in that it
didn't fulfill me the way I thought it was going
to fulfill me. And then it just got to the
point where it seemed like, okay, that means I got
to get more, got to do more, and you just
get tired. And what you do have, which is supposed
to be krem de la creme. You know, you know
who I'm married. You know Sharry Headley. That ain't no
(34:08):
easy feet. You know what I'm saying, Like, this is
a woman that I know. This is a woman that
or symbolizes what a.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Lot of people world it would be, would seek after,
you know, the look to prominence, all of that.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
The homes we got. You know what I'm saying, you
got yours and jersey I got mine is a long eye.
And remember we had a pack. You know what I'm saying.
We were going to like, let's do this. We're gonna
get this, We're gonna get that. We hit all those marks.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
We had all these milestones, yet not to.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Say the worship those marks. And I guess sublimately I did,
but it's like just to hit those marks. And the
more I was hitting those marks, the more empty I felt.
It was like a crazy twilight zone. So then when
it got to the point where here's a new music
coming in, you know, the whole I don't know if
you call it gangster.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Or whatever I would I would call. And then and
we did not fit in.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yeah, and neither do we not.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
We didn't really try, but it just wasn't our thing.
I mean, we had movies to rely on. So even
if it wasn't the music we had movies. Don't get
me wrong. I like gangster music. I mean, and some
of those guys, A lot of those guys are our friends,
Yeah exactly. But it didn't seem like we were fitting
into this. You know, this is getting into like the
mid nineties. Yeah, right, so you had that red flag
going on. The marriage wasn't what I thought it was
(35:21):
going to be.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
And no fault of hers, It's just that it's wrong
with me to come into something thinking that was going
to be fulfilling. You know, I had operations I had
for play, the clothing going on at barber shops. You know,
at that time, we had something called beepers, So as
all these when my beeper would go off, I'm beginning
to get an ulsa something because it's like, okay, what now,
(35:44):
you know what I'm saying, all the things that come
along with running a business. So we fays I achieved
everything wanted to achieve. But then when it got to
the point where I didn't want to do cauldn't play anymore,
and I just didn't want to do a lot of
stuff anymore. I just wondered, why are we not enjoying
the fruits of our labor. Why we gotta be on
(36:06):
this trademill or I gotta be on this treadmill. So
the marriage didn't work out. I didn't have the passion
for kidd and play. I didn't have the passion for
the businesses. I just got tired. I was just done.
And to find out that there was it, really, you know,
I'm glad you brought that up or asked us questions
sparked this how I handle it? Really wasn't fair to you,
(36:27):
and it wasn't fair to her because we entered in
this thing like I'm gonna be play, you know what
I'm saying. So for me, I'm losing this passion. She
came into it. Whether it be right or wrong, you
gonna be play, and this is how we're gonna earn
a living. I'm not calling her a gold digger, none
of that kind of stuff. And I wanted to change direction.
I had this praying grandmother. My father, who was like
at the time and still to this day, the biggest
(36:49):
hero in my life. Because you know what my father
was about was what I call a urban pharmaceutical engineer,
a fan I'm saying say less, you know, told us
to the part where he graduated to Robert Banks even lesser,
making the front page of the New York Posts. And
here's a man that turned his life around. And I
(37:10):
kept hearing about this man named christ you know, and
seeing these peace that these people are going through, and
I know they went through turbal in time. So here
I am making the announcement, Kid, I'm gonna be saved now, Sharry,
I'm gonna be saved now. Not to say y'all did this.
It was like, you know, yo, we didn't. We didn't
get a memo on this, you know what I'm saying
(37:31):
to be prepared. So I will say that as a
as apology, probably long overdue for being insensitive, but I
was in such agony for peace. I just needed it.
And then here's a woman wanted a divorce, and one
of the catches to that is here you are in
a high profile relationship and now here it is all
on the radio, and you know, thank God for that
(37:53):
social media back then, but it might as well have
been you know what I'm saying, And things she chose
to do that made life tormenting and other things going on,
and I just wanted to end my life. So the
very gun that I used to use to stick people
up with. I was trying to work up the nerve
to pull the trigger to end my life, and God
interceded and stop that from happening. Thank you Jesus. So
(38:13):
for me, a lot of things occurred over a period
of time. Went broke, you know, lost home, lost in everything,
you know, all of that kind of stuff, pay less,
public humiliation or whatever.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
And basically what the Lord just said is, Okay, we're
gonna start over. Can you remember where you went wrong?
And where I went rage? Was getting kicked out of
five high schools. Oh that part, It's like, okay, let's study.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Let's go way back and let's put you in school
and fast forward to how I'm involved in now with
you know, HBC.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Can you imagine that that's the such you were becoming
an instructor in college. What it's called is a professional
in residence or an artists in residence to do it
legal to me, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
So that's just such a humor.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
That's like ice tea turning into a coptt That's.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah, exactly. So my thing was going through so many
things where miracles took place and things you just can't
call happenstance or whatever. Just proved himself over and over
and over again. And it was so amazing because then
when it was time for us to someone would say
get back together, and it was like, you know, I'll
leave it like this. It's like a scripture that was
(39:21):
brought to mine. Is like when Jesus got introduced to
who would be called the Disciples, he met them as fishermen.
When it was time for them to be who they
were going to be with him and doing what they did,
He's like, you are fishermen of fish, but now I'm
gonna make you fishermen and men which made which meant
you're going to do what you normally would do with fish,
(39:41):
but take that cunningness to help save souls. So for me,
it's like a candle shines a whole lot brighter in
the dark than it doesn't amongst other candles. So it
was time to you know, opportunities present themselves for us
to do some more great things together and continue on,
but just be a different person with a different agenda,
better friend, be about the business of getting out there
(40:03):
and just telling the truth.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So I'm doing right now, Okay, that was eloquently put,
all right, so let me ask you. Let me ask
you this, right, like, yeah, the the the skies have opened. Uh,
you know we're quote unquote you know, back on top.
You know, we're back touring these great opportunities. Well, how
does how does it feel now? You said the first
time you you went through it, you felt empty. Now
(40:28):
now that we're kind of re experiencing a resurgence or
whatever you want to call it, we've reached a certain
level and status. But and and and or you know,
reaping the benefits of it and the love, how does
it feel now?
Speaker 1 (40:41):
As opposed to be the best way I could put
it is, nothing has really changed in regards to what
we go through in this business. What to to have learned?
What you've learned when you did it before, go through
the seven to eight year period maybe longer than I
went through of being off the grid, off the grid,
and now applying that to being it because we know
these waters. You know what I'm saying. It's all like
(41:03):
he said, Okay, now your new gig is you're going
to be a doctor. I'm going to do that, but
I know how to do this. So nothing has really changed.
And this business people can be what people can be.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I mean, the fulfillment, it's there.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
It's there because I don't want or acquire as much.
It's like to me, I like the little things, you know,
it's like to experience love. I love driving, to drive,
to take the fruits of our labor, and to do
things I really do, like when I own the clothing
thing and barbershops stuff. Yeah, there was a genuine thing
(41:35):
for it, but it was really about what people would
think about me doing it. What I look like. Look
at his woman I'm married, Look at his things?
Speaker 2 (41:42):
What an entrepreneur?
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, all this stuff, and it's like, look at his car.
That's not the momentum.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Look at them repossessed that car, say Lessen, that's not.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
The momentum you want or the engine you want to
keep it going. So for me, it's interesting and it's intriguing.
And the great thing for us is, if I may
say us, is you know a lot of been there,
done that. But it's just sometimes the players change or whatever,
and I think we appreciate it more. Yeah what I'm saying.
But you seem to me as we get together with
our peers, you know, other greats that we know in
(42:13):
this thing. We laugh. We we're all grateful that.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Oh yeah, we used to be very competitive back in
the day.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
We're still able to do it.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah again when we do shows now with with some
of the you know the cats from from from the past,
if you will, it's it's no longer a competitive the
way he used to be. We all share each other's
green room, call it whatever it is on our riders.
As far as drinks and food, well we share all
share were before anybody. If anything, you get mad because
(42:41):
someone else has in the day in your room, who
took my chicken wings?
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know? And I want to say something. You said, No,
you're you're not religious, but you're not altogether disengaged because
I know very well. You know, you have your moments
with your you know your gospel music.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
You know all well, but that's like the weirdest thing.
That's how it means, that's I'm That's how I got.
I didn't pull the trigger to the gun because I
had as we did a great sound system in my home.
There was an artist that I used to listen to
called Ron Connoli. For some reason, it had to be
in the Holy spirit. I did not touch my system
(43:16):
as I'm crying something like out of Pooky in New
jack City, Like you know, the thing here is a
song called using.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Me by Ron Connoli and going through these steps of
haiking you, and that's what stopped me from pulling true.
But it was a song, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, I always thought that was kind of a weird
dynamic on my part because, like I said, I'm and
to your point earlier, it's it is organized religion that
I'm not. I'm not not a fan, but man, I
surely love some gospel music. Man. And I remember one.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Time I stilled, it'll come out of you that you know,
the Lord have tapped me. Like you heard what he
just said. Where you went to church? It was a
few sometimes Oh no, and guess what I go? It
said you with a friend. I think it was a
Christian or something like. No.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
No. He's a fellow comedian, Billy D. Washington who lives
in Houston, Texas. And you know, he and I became
really close. He was like a comedy mentor of mine
when I got into doing stand up comedy. So we
did lot to be the dozens and dozens of show
together and you know, we got to be really close
friends and it was family. And so when I would
come visit them in Houston, he would say, yo, man,
(44:17):
come and becoming me and my church. He has a
church in Houston. It's called the Top, the Tabernacle of Praise,
and it would tell you yeah, yeah, And they would
take me on Sundays and I would and Billy he
was so talented that he was a stand up but
he also played in the in the band, played the keyboards.
And I would go and then, you know, obviously it
wasn't about like, you know, what I got was not
(44:40):
being religious. But I could listen to the pastor and
hear him say, you know, certain things and just apply
it to my life because it was just good. It
made sense here on earth.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
I didn't know, you know what. I don't know if
there's a heaven or there's an after party, but I'm
here now. So when the guy says, treat your fellow
man good, you know, take care of your family, you
know these things like that, I mean I can take
that and use that here here on earth, no matter
if I believe or not.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
So a question I have, Yeah, I had it all along,
but it just don't know if it was a I
don't want it to you know, to throw you off
or whatever. How come I wasn't invited to your wedding?
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Whoa curveball in the dirt. But it's it's you know what,
you know what, there's a reason why I accident. This
will land very nicely.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
But okay, you know what, you should have been invited
to my wedding, you know, and you to mine.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, but I have a reason.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
You have a reason I wasn't invited.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Or you have a reason why I don't know why. Okay,
I thought you can you can't you do that? Can't
you answer it yourself?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (45:53):
No, you know what I'm trying to remember, like kind
of what my my mindset was at that particular time,
Like I don't we didn't we weren't we weren't beefing,
no or anything like that.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
You know. The great thing about our relationship was as
human beings, you can get to because we do so
much together that it's like it's it's okay that it's enough.
It's time even in a marriage, you know, to take
a break. We always knew when to do that without
it having to be an argument or saying you never
did that? We always was on the same page with
(46:24):
and when it was time.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, let it, let it drift and if it's mental,
it'll drift back. So no, all right, So to your
to your question, I'm trying to remember what my mindset
was was then.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I do know that I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Maybe I maybe I assumed certain things that I should
never assumed. You know, my my my ex my wife,
my ex wife. Shout out to ex wife, say no, no,
she's a sweetheart. I know, you know she was. She
she meticulously and this wedding. Okay, this is the thing,
(47:02):
this is her this because the wedding is always about
the woman. Okay, let's let's be clear.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
And so she planned it and we were she wanted
to get married in Maui Destination, so she wanted to
go destination weddings, and you know, she wanted it to
be intimate. I mean I think they were. There were
no more than twenty five people there, and you know,
you should have been one of those twenty five people.
I don't know if I assumed, you know, maybe you
wouldn't be interested in flying all the way out there.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
But I don't know.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
But you know, in retrospect, yeah, you should have you
should have been there. You should have been there. I
mean if Bill Maher was there or you should have.
Well Bill always says to be you know, playing whatever. Yeah, yeah,
well saying but I always I say less.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
I did not have. I didn't have a particular way
of feeling about that. I just thought maybe I was
the one that planted a seed for that kind of
rhythm a thing to take place, because you didn't come
to my wedding.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Right, but the reason, wait, did you invite? You didn't
write me? Did you know?
Speaker 1 (47:58):
I can tell you what happened. You used to get
on interviews and share with people who I'd be seeing
at the time. I did, Oh yeah, you did it
with Cindy. You do a couple of peo.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
I was proud of you.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
I get that, but me but me being jealous. But
being the private person that I am, I just knew
learning from my father. My father used to say this
praise like, you want to be careful not to blow
up the spot, you know, for people to know what
you got going on. So I never would like that
to be public. So we knew Jarick Healler and I
we're gonna get married, but we wanted to. We decided
(48:31):
to tell you at the last minute, so you didn't
try anything.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Where did y'all get married again in New York?
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Okay? So when it was time to tell you you
were you were somewhere. It was like, you know, and
I didn't calculate that. I'm thinking, okay, you'll be in
New York whatever, come to whatever. So I don't know
why I just didn't still reach out to you and
say hey man, but I just knew you were gone,
and that's how that happened.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
So I figured that might have been the trigger. Okay,
I didn't. I wouldn't say you would think like, oh,
you'd invite me.
Speaker 1 (49:01):
Mind, I'm not saying you said that, But sometimes things
can be subconscious and you're like, well, you know, it's
been a while since we've been to game.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
You know what now did you mention it?
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (49:09):
I think that's really who's retribution.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
So yeah, that and with my girlfriend now, we were
talking about it and she was saying, why why do
you think that's I said, well, I think maybe because
I never met your wife, your ex wife.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
You never met her you did back in the days.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Not like that, not like y'all being engaged and all that. Okay,
so for me, I could see her going, it's a
destination wedding we got or whatever. When's the last time
y'all spoke have been together? You know what I'm saying.
And a process of elimination type thing. And that's the
way I rationalize it. And now you just confirm that,
you know, I mean, I don't say that.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, yeah, but yeah, that was a good question. But
that was that was a barn burner.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Man. Okay, another question, Oh, how did comedy come about?
Because the thing about it before you know, you answer that.
I one thing I'll say about comedians that's bravery. That's
the word that I associate with that. So knowing you,
how I know you, how we both know each other.
You came for a thing of not being shy. But
(50:11):
you know that's all I was, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
So comedy, Yeah, well, a couple of different things. How
I got into comedy was an interesting kind of journey.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
You know.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
At that time, you know, you and I weren't we
weren't weren't working, you know, I mean, Kid and Play
was to find work. Yeah, as as as Eminem said,
we was cold. Product two friends of mine, Tommy Davidson,
who you know we've all known for years, brilliant comedian,
and Bill Maher. They they were urging me to get
involved in stand up and Bill Bill was actually on
(50:45):
the Oprah Winfrey Show and they were doing a show
called Funny People and who they Think are Funny. So
you had these famous comedians that would bring somebody else
on and tell Oprah why they think that they're funny.
So you had d l hugely on some more. John
Stewart brought on Lewis Black and a couple of other
ones as well, and Bill Maher brought me on. And
(51:07):
you went on an Oprah Winfrey show and said, this
guy was so funny. He's you know, he reminds me
of you know. He was just very very complimentary. You know,
he was saying things the Oprah that he never said
to me, you know, as a friend. So you started
looking right right. But but a requirement of it was
you had to do some stand up on Oprah. So
actually one of the first times I ever did stand
(51:28):
up was on the Oprah Winfrey Show. And then so
and then I started to like it because it got
me back on stage. You know, I said let me
kind of try to dedicate my stuff to it. So
doing the Oprah set, you know, Tommy helped me write
the Oprah set. Bill gave me this glowing, uh you
know introduction. Oprah was right there while we're doing it.
She was she was laughing her butt off, you know
(51:49):
what I mean. She's always been supportive of us, and
so that's kind of how the seed was sown. So
then I would do stuff like I would call up
the various comedy clubs around the country, like all the
improv and I made I made the promoter a deal.
I was like, look, basically an offer you couldn't refuse.
I mean, we were you know, we were still famous.
I'm still I'm still famous. But I needed to sice
(52:12):
diving board.
Speaker 1 (52:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
I needed to get but I needed to get better
at it. I needed to get I wanted to get
better at it.
Speaker 1 (52:17):
So arrangement.
Speaker 2 (52:18):
The arrangement was I would do something crazy like look,
I'll say I'll come in, I'll do the club. I'll
host from Tuesday through Sunday. I suggested hosting at first
because it would allow me to get back on stage
several times a night. So I would open the show.
I would come in between the acts, and so it
helped me get better, It helped my crowd interaction. And
the thing about it, what I found out was being
(52:41):
a stand up is very similar to being a rapper.
There's a lot of the same. When I got up there,
I was just like, hey, you know, we know about
being on stage, we know about being in stage in
front of forty thousand people, ten twenty thousand people. This
was about, you know, kind of shrinking it down in
a more intimate setting. But a lot of the movements
felt felt similar. But instead of spitting rhymes, you spitting jokes.
(53:02):
So you know, been trying trying to craft your own
style and and you know, just been doing it ever since,
and you know, you have to kind of run the gauntlet.
Speaker 3 (53:10):
You know.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
There were a lot of.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
Fellow comedians that maybe were skeptical, you know, but but
I was. I was dedicated. I was like, I'm gonna
do this. I enjoy it. And then what happened was
when we got back together and started doing our things
that we you know, we could start to really inject
the comedy into into our show, which I think we've
done over the last several years. So yeah, I mean
and stand up. I still love it. I do it,
(53:35):
you know, when we're not doing the kid and play stuff,
I like to do it. You know, check your local
comedy clubs. Uh uh and yeah, I'm I'm I'm. I
can do it till the day I die. And I
think it adds to our I think it adds to
the aora of kidd and play, the side things that
we do. Great question, Well, my friend, what a journey
it's been.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
How do you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I feel great? To be honest, I wish we'd done
this a long time ago. I'm glad we're here. I'm
glad we're finally doing it, and we hope you guys
keep jamming with us. We'll have lots of great guests
coming up. The chair will not always be empty.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Will not always be We have a great lineup of people.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
They shall remain nameless, safe, less, surprising until next time
say Less set the fun house. You can catch us
on all streaming podcast platforms. Check us out, Check us
out
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