Best of 2025- KING OF THE SOUTH - Lil Jon Opens Up About Mental & Physical Transformation, Origins Of Crunk, Meditation Album , Recorded 2025. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every day.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Finish for y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Done morning.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Everybody is the j n V.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
Just hilarious. Charlamagne, he gud we are the Breakfast Club.
Law La Rosa is here as well, and we got
a special guest in the.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Building, a motherfucking icon.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I thought he was up here, this is his first time.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Yeah, that's that's what I seen you on the road,
I know, but I thought you've been up here.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, Hey man, hey, thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's about time.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
And everybody, we don't say good morning enough to our
fellow brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
I was a victim of that until I started to
change my mindset. Sometimes I would come down, get in
the car going, you know, on the road, I didn't
say good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And once I started to change my mindset.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
I realized that's a good way to start your day
in a gesture to someone whoever you're riding with, you know,
the driver, whoever.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
That feeling, and then that's how they're feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Yeah, sometimes that's also the case. Sometimes just say how
is your day going?
Speaker 7 (01:08):
Yea?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
You know, I found myself sometimes I'm a I'm a
I'm really in tune to my spiritual side.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I've been for a long time.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Sometimes I might just be I remember being in the
club and I might walk by a random person and
I can feel that energy and I'd be like, let
me just give you a hug, And sometimes that just
changes somebody's life absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
What about that?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
What about when you were the person that might have
been creating energy though, Like if you felt like some
aggressive angriness for this person, but it was your fault
because well.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You know, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
One time I was in South Carolina a and a
Hole in the Wall club way back in the day,
and it was supposed to be a night where cash
money was supposed to be there, and they called me
because cash money couldn't come. So these folks in South
Carolina was mad than a motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It was not cash money.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Little johnn Eastside boys show up and so I understand
it's a hostile situation, but I said, I looked out
on that crowd and I said, the biggest dude in
this crowd, I'm about to make him my best friend.
And I made him my best friend during the show,
like playing to him, giving him drinks and hyping them up,
and then he turned like it turned the whole crowd around,
(02:23):
and then they were fans of us after that. But
it was it was a way you can always change
the energy of a situation if you approach with a
calm manner. That's why good security don't go and try
to fight somebody.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They try to defuse the situation. That's the first rule
is diffuse it not be the aggressior.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Lot, John, I want to go back. So this is
your first time.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Real quick, what is a little John morning routine?
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Like I knew you were going to ask me that morning,
So this morning I woke up, had a little water
because you know, I do my I do this Korean
facial stuff, so I do skin.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
You know, my skin is very important to my skin. Look, ladies,
one rule for that.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Is positivity, positive energy, positive thoughts, because if you're a
negative person in all this negativity, it's gonna wear the flesh.
So get up in the morning and do my skincare routine,
burust my teeth, all that good stuff. And then since
I'm on the road, a nice healthy breakfast for me
was two hard boiled eggs, some yogurt, some berries, and
(03:28):
the grapefruit. Wow, that's simple, easy and start with a
positive mindset. It's gonna be a great day. I'm always
in my mind saying affirmations for the day, even before
I go to bed, in my dreams, Like last night,
I was like, it's gonna be a great interview. This
is I look at this as one of the biggest
(03:49):
interviews I've ever done in my life because it's like,
it's a fifty minutes, forty five minutes, fifty minutes a
long interview.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It's a lot to talk about. Charlote man. You you
see me grow from. I think we one time.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
We taught you were like you came to the radio
station and in South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
What time that was early on? He wasn't even on
air yet, right were.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I think it was a phone er you called in.
You had just put out I think you had just
put out be a beer.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Wow. So that's twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
So we were talking about you having the Confederate flag
in the in the video and I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Care about that. So that's what you know.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
You've seen the growth, and it's I think it's important
because yeah, you've seen the growth. You've seen it from
a different angle. You've seen it from a different angle.
You've seen it from a different angle, and you know,
you guys moved the needle of culture and you had
everybody and their grandmama on this show. So I think
it's one of the most important and you know, best
(04:44):
interviews I think I'm going to have because because of
all of that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Let's claim it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Let's claim it. I want to go back.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I want to start from the beginning of these are
the interviews I love because for some reason, I thought
you've been up here before. So I want to start
when you first got into the music industry, right, let's
start with you started working with your main Dupris yep,
ninety three.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Let's start from there.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
So how did you hook up a Jamaine dupri and
what did you do for Jamaine Duprix.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
So I used to be in Atlanta in the nineties.
I was like the hottest DJ in the city.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I was the demand.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I did all the parties and I would see Jermaine
all the time at the clubs. And then I did
this one club called the Phoenix night Club, which was
the hottest nightclub in Atlanta at the time.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We brought Biggie, We brought Biggie.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
I got Biggie and Craig Mac together when they did
the Big Mac Tour, so I got them. That's an
interesting story because we got we we.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I worked on the radio station, but I wasn't the PD.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
And you know how back then you had to go
through the PD because you wanted to get the spins
for your artists. So Diddy, you know, he let us
get Biggie and Craig because he thought I was like
the PD.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And he get there and the club.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
Is slammed like a million people and he's like, Yo,
what the heck, Yo, we need some more money because
this thing is packed. And then he found out that
I wasn't the PD, and so he was extra pist.
And then he even tried to get the rep that
worked for BMG at the time fired because she got
because we got Craig and Biggie for free.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
So yeah, that was normal back then when artists are
on promo, tall.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Like, yeah, but you had you wanted to go through
the station so you can make sure.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
You get to spend get your look. And we wasn't that,
but we were high promoters. So I was doing all
the hot parties and I would just see Jamaine all
the time. But like, even if I wasn't DJing, I
was everywhere, Like I had a thing where I was
I wanted to be from.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I called it from Bankhead to Buckhead. That was from the.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Boogie spots to the the most hood you can get
in Atlanta. So I was literally everywhere. And Jermaine came
to me. Well, for one thing, people don't really know,
Dallas Austin's brother came to me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
First, so his name was Claude Austin. He passed away, but.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Claude Austin came to me first and wanted me to
work for Rowley. But then Jamaine came to me around
the same time, and Claude ended up passing and so
and Jamaine came because I was just everywhere, and he
was like, I need you, someone like you to represent,
you know, my label, because you everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So he hired me.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
In nineteen ninety three, I started working at Social Death
and I was hired to do A and R and
street promotions because I was everywhere, right, so he wanted
he wanted someone that had respecting the city, that could
go anywhere, and someone like me that I was always out,
so that was represent Social Death from Bankhead, Like I
said to Buckhead, and.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
What artist did you have being a and off for
Social Death at that time.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I had I put together all of the Social Death
based all stars and at night I think.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. And that changed.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
That changed music too, like it gave us a whole
genre that had never been created, like had never been
done before. And that all started because in Atlanta we
used to do like it was DJ Jelly, shout Out,
DJ Jelly shout Out, the J Team, DJ Smurf and
all of those guys.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
They would take.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Like slow jam acapellas, like say, one famous mix was, uh,
can you Stand the Rain? New Edition and put it
over a base beat. So they used to do all
of these mixes like that. They would just do a
whole mixtape. It'll be all bass beats and then these
R and B A cappellas, and so I was like,
we love this so much in the city, let's take
(08:32):
that and make a record from that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Nobody made an actual song.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
So I came up with that concept and I went
to my boy DJ Cool Collie aka Rodney, and then
at the same time I met carlmo Uh. He used
to call the phone that Social Death and play his
tracks on the phone. Interesting story about that. So one
day I'm like, these tracks are dope. So I called
(08:57):
him to the to the office and he comes up
there with a freaking keyboard and plays the keyboard like
just playing the keyboard, not like no CDs, no cassette tape,
just playing the keyboard. And I'm like, this is crazy.
So I ended up using him and we did my
Boo and so yeah, I did all of the Soco
Death Base All Stars, and then out of that we
(09:19):
had play a Pancho. He got signed and we did
a couple of records with Player Pancho. And Player Pancho
is actually how I met the East Side Boys, Wow,
Because Player Pancho would always when he would go out,
he would have a whole like twenty ten twenty guys
with him, and the East Side Boys was always with him,
even if it was just like two or three guys.
And so I was always with Pancho because he was
(09:42):
my artist, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And so me and the East Side Boys just one
day we were.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
In the club and I think we were in the
club five five nine, and we just start chatting this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Chant who who you with? Get with? And then everybody in.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
The club start chatting it and then I look at
Big Sam. I'm like, we need to turn this into
a song. And so I know I have access to
people with labels and stuff, so I called somebody I knew.
Actually I called kol Ace. Uh, this guy named kol
Ace and kol A's connected me with this guy named
Carlos Glover and we ended up going in the studio
and we made the song who You With? And that
(10:18):
started everything for a little John as an artist.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
When did you start producing? When did did the production
bug coming?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Uh? Probably like ninety two.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
And you never you never made beats at that time.
You just bought a machine and said I'm on.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
No.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
It started off where me and my partner I used
to do a show in Atlanta called Reggae Jammin on
the like main station in Atlanta, B one O three and.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Me and Paul I was.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
In the sound system with Paul Lewis called four Seasons.
So I was like a selector like Jamaican sound did.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Jamaican music did every time of genre of music.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
We had a we had a dance hall, We had
a reggae show on Friday nights on the station and
and what we would do is I would take hip
hop a cappellas and put them over dance all beats
and dance all a cappellas, put them over hip hop beats.
Through that, we got linked up with Signette Records, and
we got we convinced them to give us the Cableton
Tour a cappella. That's how I got to do the
(11:16):
Cableton Tour remix. When I did Verses, I remember playing
it and people were like, you ain't do that, like
and I remember, like in real time, DJ Scratch pulled
the vinyl out and he put in the chat like
I'm looking at the credits.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He actually did produce it.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
So what we did at that time we would kind
of tell somebody how we wanted to produce the records,
and later on we bought a drum machine. I learned
how to produce by the time we got to Who
You Wit, which was ninety five ninety six, But before
that we kind of just told somebody like, yo, chop this,
chop that, do this da da.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Da da da yo, do you have product your credits
on my boot as well?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I should have gotten some because I really co produced
the song with them, but I thought it's part of
my job description as an artist, the first project I'm
doing that, that was just part of the job. But
I was really there every step of the way of
inception and putting that song together.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
I'm glad you mentioned Sam and Bolto because people always
seem to forget about.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The East Side Boys. What did they bring to the table?
Speaker 6 (12:15):
What made Little John and the East Side Boys such
an amazing group?
Speaker 5 (12:18):
We were just like because we were we were the
sound of the rowdy guys in the back of the club.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
That's where we were.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
We were them niggas that were turned up in the
back that you just be looking back like make sure
they ain't coming over.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Here with that. So we were that.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And what people don't understand about krunk music, I've known
some people are like, why was it? Why did it
do what it do? Why did it spread? Why did
it become big? Because it was an outlet of energy.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
For black youth.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Yes, when you went to the club, you had a
hard ass week, you had a hard life, whatever the
fuck was going on in your life. You hear that
fucking crunk music and you get in that damn and
you let all of.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That out and you feel amazing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
So that's why krunk music was able to reach so
many people.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
That's why I still like going.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Like I see you talking of all the time about
knuck as you Buckets the Negro, and it is like
it touches your soul in a certain way.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And I think we do and and.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Like krunk music tap into music to their ancestors because
they were channing and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
What did you do when you were a band from clubs?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
I remember in college there was some clubs that like,
you cannot play none of that in this club, put your.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Hood up and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
We just kept going because when you when you tell
somebody can't have it, they wanted more, you know. But
it was crazy that the music got people so rowdy
that they were like losing.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I've seen people.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
I was in Louisiana one time we did a show
and it got so turned up they start fighting the
police in the club.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I want to just talk about one thing real quick
that it's been going viral. It's the video of the
two dollars bill concert that we did in Atlanta. It's
a viral video of be performing Get Crunk and that
whole concert, and you can see the energy on each
and if y'all look at the video, each and everybody
(14:27):
in there's face is turned up. It ain't nobody, not
one fucking cell phone in the air. Everybody's enjoying the moment.
Everybody is energized. And even you can see that the
ground was shaking because the camera when it's steady, it
is like moving.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
That's how much.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Energy was in that place. And I think it's just
a testament to like we just brought something different, you know,
And like the kids now think they are turning up,
but they have no idea what a real turned up
time was from the two thousand.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
And Get Crunked with such a great record, because I
didn't think you could get crunker than Kings of the Crunk,
you know, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Think you could get crunkd in that.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
But as soon as you hear who in my Bohagen
being me motherfucker, you like.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
God killed that salute Bohagen out there?
Speaker 6 (15:18):
How did you how did you even have the mindset
to take that to another level?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
How did you take that energy to another level?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
That beat was produced by Little J who produced kno
if you buck. So it was time to you know,
come and work on the album, and you know, everybody
down with be and me. Of course people that don't
know Crime Mob. Part of that was through being me,
so we are part of putting them out there. So
of course I called all of the squad, you know,
(15:44):
Trillville helped me write some of the songs.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And yeah, Little Jay sent me.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I think he sent me some beats and that was
one of the beats and I was like, this is insane.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I thought it was one of the crukest beats ever too.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
I think my favorite beats that I've produced, our co
produced are been on this get crunk and what You're
Gonna Do and what You're Gonna Do is unique.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I was in New York when I did that beat.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I remember I was on TVT and Steve got leeb
and shout out to Brian Leach, my boy, Brian Leach,
she was the ant ar at the time. He was
like Brian Leach. Brian Leash was like, Yo, you gotta
go in and knock out this song for this. I
think it was like a Christmas album or some Christmas
crunk album that Steve Gottlie wanted to put out and
(16:31):
I'm like, he can't put no fucking album out called
Crump without me.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So I'm like, fuck this guy.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And so I was in the New I was in
New York and Brian was like, you gotta go in
and record this song. So I was angry when I
made that beat. I'm never mad when I make tracks,
but that's one of the only beats I've ever made
when I was angry, And that's why it sounds so aggressive,
because I was mad that I had to go in
the studio and record this. I wanted to just go
(16:57):
out like I was like, I'm going on to the club.
He was like, no, you gotta go and do this song.
And so that's my anger coming out through the drummers.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Do you have a trademark the word crunk?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I can't remember. Probably did all my ad libs.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I know that because you're the face of crunk.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
But to me, I would have to give I would
say three six Mafia probably the.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
So that's another argument going around. It's an argument that
says Memphis started crunk. Here's here's my Here's what I
will say. We in Atlanta. You couldn't be Atlanta in
the nineties and not be listening to eight ball MJG.
You couldn't be riding around not listening to master P.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Master P. Master P changed the landscape of the South,
the South period.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
He was the first one that really got us rally.
I would say it was master P, but we was
listening to Balling G. And of course three six Mafia
came around that.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Do you think he got us rody before three to six?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I think about it, about.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
It, about it, yeah, but had a club.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Club was ninety seven? What yet about about it come out?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I was in college.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
I think it was like ninety five. I remember what
happened was in the club in Atlanta. It was playing
bass music. And then when master P came that was.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Over about about that was ninety five, definitely. That was
a freshman of college.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
That was the record.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Motherfuckers in the hood was getting no limit tattoos.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
That's what changes for us. So I will say Memphis
is part of the influence, but our sound is different.
Memphis was getting Bucks.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It was ninety seven. That's even late though.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
When we got when we got Terry Club was when
they redid it. That was ninety seven, because I remember
it says on the Vinyl Terror Club up ninety seven. So,
but it started for us with Master p Master. That
about it about it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Shit just changed it.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
But we are influenced. But it's all different sounds, but
it all intertwined and works together.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
So what would you call what three six was doing?
Speaker 5 (19:05):
They called it in Memphis Memphis buck, but three six
was doing it even we wouldn't even buck music. I
think it was just three six created The three six
created their own lane of Memphis music, and then they
changed the landscape of what Memphis music is.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So salute Paul Juicy and the whole squad. That's family too.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You know what I want?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
You know what the word ask too when you made
when you were making these tracks, did you try to
make it your business not to sound the same, because
you know, when you look at your desiography to see
some of the records that you did, like, I'm so
amazed because they don't sound the same.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Right, you can go to the window.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
To the wall, you could blow your whistle over here
and then you can like the ship is amazing.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
Yeah, Well it depends, well a lot of it. So
so let's talk Get Low. Interesting story of Get Low,
Get load became because I was trying to make Party Up.
I was inspired by part I love DMX's Party Up
so much.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I was like, I want to make something like that.
Let me go in the studio. This was like ninety nine,
and so I go in and.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I come out with Get Low. If you listen to it,
it's got the whistle like Party Up. It's some similarities.
I'm inspired by it. But I sat on the beat.
I couldn't really come up with nothing. And then I
had a session with Yin Yang and I pulled that
beat out and we may get Low. So it comes
out like that just came like I said, because I
was trying to do something different, but it turned from
(20:30):
like a rowdy party up type song to a tork song.
But then like say tell me when to go E forty.
We were in the studio together, and that's the energy
of what he's giving me and his squad is giving me, and.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It comes out into the drummer shoit.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
So every time I make the best stuff when I'm
in the studio, young bloods.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Damn.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
We were in the studio together and it took two
days for us to get that song done. Like I
did the beat the first day. We had the verses
the first day, but we did not have the hook.
And then the second day we just threw a party
in the studio and then Bohagen again, shout out Bohagen.
He was like everybody was throwing hooks out and then
he was just kind of mumbling something. I was like,
(21:12):
what you got, because I'm shooting everybody shit down like
that shits trash and then he's.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Just mumbling son. I was like, what's that?
Speaker 6 (21:19):
That?
Speaker 5 (21:20):
That's it, that's it, go lay that and then I
got the second part, you know, And sometimes that's how
some of the records happened to, like you just stumble
onto it.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Whistle blow the whistle. I did that beat that.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I did that beat the same week that I did
tell me when to go Damn.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
So I was working on E forty's album and I
think we had done muscle Cars that day. So too Short,
Too Short had came to the studio a couple of
days after that. So before, like earlier in the week,
I was making beats and I was going through sounds
and I found that sound and I was like, ooh,
(21:59):
this sounded.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Like rikytails baseline, Like this is a base like that.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
I was like, let me make some with that. And
I don't know what made me instead of making it slow,
make it fast. Because I like to do stuff different.
I don't like to be expected. So I was like,
let me make it one hundred whatever bpms and so
I put it to the side, and when too Short
came to the studio a couple of days later, I
was like, here you go.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know I got something for you.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But first forty turned it down to forty Forty had
to remind me of this the other day. He was like,
you know, you gave me that beat first, and I
was like, this sounded like Todd, so give it to Todd.
So that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Basically, he should get corproduction credits.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
He didn't want it.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
What moment made you realize Crump had officially crossed from
suvering energy to a global.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Move coming up doing MTV.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
They let me get in Times Square on a double
deckord bus with a little scrappy on tr real doing
what you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Bruh MTV.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
I was gonna say MTV too, because I remember watching
the Video Music Awards.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I forgot what year it was.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
They played get Low Going in the commercial break and
the audience went crazy, and Justin Timberlake was Wilent. I
just remember thinking to myself, Oh, get Lowers out of here.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Yeah, and then we end up performing get Low at
the MTV Video Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Get Low, Yeah, Lean Back.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
And what else we did that year, I can't remember,
but that was that was a big time and Dave
Chappelle was the host, So that was pretty insane.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
That was a pretty insane year for me.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
And when when you touched when you started doing R
and B, did you think you could do R and B?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Or was one of the things.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
How did you get introduced to say, let me try
to make R and B records for doing all?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
It was already doing them with the social also.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Well that was different. So here's what happened.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
So Sean Garrett shout out Sean Garrett, incredible songwriter. He
reached out to h I guess he was trying to
get in touch with me and he couldn't get in
touch with me, so he knew somebody that worked with me.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Her name was Delicia.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Delicia had all my beats, so she gave him a
beat CD and that's how he got the beat.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Basically, the freak Elite beat, which turned into yeah. So
she gave him the beat.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
So thank you Delicia forgiving Sean those beats, and Sean
wrote yeah to.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That freakaak beat.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
So crazy thing about that is that beat was for mystical.
Freakalyague's beat was for mystical.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So I did though.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
I used to like have labels booked me in Circle
House shout out be Bat Circle House in Miami, and
I like take a week and I just go and
do as mini beats as possible, and the label could
take all the beats put them on whatever artists they want.
So these particular sessions was for mystical. That beat was
in there. He passed on it, and so I think
CEO shout out Coo. He got the beat and he
(24:57):
wrote Freakalyak my I don't even know this, but he
wrote that and submitted it to the label Pete Pablo.
He ended up recording. But I don't even know this.
So Sean Garrett has the beat. He writes, yeah, usher
don't want to record no more songs.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
He done with the damn Alutum. He's like, I'm good,
I got burned, I got all these other songs. I'm good,
We're good.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
La reads like, no, go record the damn song. So
he goes to record the song and.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
We come out with it.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
I remember going into doing the sessions too, like we
I think we recording La and we were like, this
is a smash, right, And so the song is in
the can and then I remember it was around Christmas time,
the album's done. La Reid is in Miami and he
calls JD going insane, and JD called me on three
(25:52):
Way and La Reid is like, why am I hearing
this Usher record on the radio? And basically it was
the freakingly instrumental plan as a bed. They had released
the song as a single, Freaka Leak, and we didn't
even know.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I didn't even know they had used to beat.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
So La Red is going crazy and then we're like,
all right, we're just gonna go in and do a
new beat. Thank god we did, because yeah over Freaka
Leak is not as good as yeah as Yeah. Now
that's how God worked. And crazy story is when I
went into the studio to like redo the beat, I'm like,
(26:30):
how that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Pete Poplo record ain't gonna be that big? Just take
all the keys off. Let's just play a new stem.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Because it's Usher, you know what I mean, And I don't,
you know, I just didn't think it was gonna be
that big. It could have been a cool record, but
I didn't think it was gonna be a number one
song like it was. So that's why the beats sound similar,
is because I just used the same exact drums, but
I played a different synth line. So well, it got
(26:58):
my boy a rock. My boy Rock played the scynth line.
So we just played a new synth line and here
we are with two monsters.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
It probably helped frequently though, because yeah, make.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Them together lovers and friends, so that I was going
to get to that.
Speaker 8 (27:16):
That origin story tell them.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So when we when I can't.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
We were working on my album Crunk Juice, right, So uh,
instead of going with another up tempo, I like to
be different. I could have certainly went to Usher, John
and Luda with another fast song. I said, let's do
something different. And at at in Atlanta, we go to
Strip club for everything, so we always in you know.
I was in the Strip club one day and the
(27:43):
DJ played the Michael Sterling Lovers.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And Friends, and I was like, huh, that could be
pretty cool for Usher to do.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
So let's let's back up. So this is before Usher's
album is done. I give Usher the Michael Starr on
the City, like check this out. We should do this
over this nigga don't listen to it. He don't listen
to it, so we on my album. So I'm like,
I'm gonna take that Lovers and Friends I did and
do it from my album. So I do the beat
over and I let Usher know, yo, I got this
(28:16):
joint for us, like come you know, let's do it.
So he flies in, he records it, and he's out
and after he does his part, so I'm just like, wow,
this is a smash.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I called Lula.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I'm like, bro, we got another one, like I need
you on his ASAP saying it Luda. He did his
parts and then I go in last because I'm not
the rapper, and so I was like, I need to
take my time to make sure.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
My verse is as catchy as possible because.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
I can't compete against Luda Chris and then it's Ussher
like come on. So I was like, let me take
something from this record. We had a record called It's
a record we did with Ubi.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I forgot the name of it, nothing.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Free, nothing Free. You forget that that's a classic, Nothing's Free.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
So we did nothing Free like in the nineties, and
so I was like, that shady part was really catchy
on that song, but it was regional. Nobody really heard
it out of the South. So it's like, let me
take that same little thing and put that in Lovers
and Friends, and that will be the little catch for
my verse to make it catchier and a little Did
I know that I was gonna be like people's favorite
(29:23):
verses because it's so simple. It's so simple and it's catchy,
and yeah, that's one of That song went number one without
a video because it was the labels and Superstartists and
superstar ad and Da Da Da Da Da. But number
one song rap song of the year without a video
in the two thousands is impossible.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
You got three of and you made me think of
it when you said nothing is for You got three
artists that I feel like should have been way Yeah,
China White, Yeah, Ubie and Bull Hagen.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah what you what do you think? Why did I
didn't connect?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
We worked hard, like Ubi was with me for a
long time. We did a lot of records, but we
just never got the right one. Just how it just
happens like that sometimes with artists. Uh, China went to
jail right when we shot the video for Bea Bea
and me and my boy Rob Mac left the video
at the end of the video shoot. We drove her
(30:21):
to prison after the video shoot, all the way in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
So she did. I don't remember how much time it was.
It was at least five years.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
That sounds she went to fan time for gun Running
Damn yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
So she she didn't even get to perform the song
at its peak at all, so that that messed her
window up. And then bo Haggen the same thing. We
were just trying to get the records. We just never
got the records.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
We said, I set them up nicely and get crunk
and you know he did the hook on Dan, but
we just never was able to translate. Those are things
that you know, hurt me to this day because those
were people that are down with me for a long
time and I was pushing, pushing, pushing and working they
make the record, but sometimes they just it just don't
come out.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
You know, I was gonna say with the Lovers and
Friends video when I when I watched you tell the
story you talked about I know you mentioned labels loosely,
but you said that the labels didn't look at you
as a comparable artist too. Yeah, which when I heard, like,
I just I mean, I don't know, it made me
upset when I heard, Well.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
You gotta think Ludacris is a rapper death Jam in
the two thousands, Usher is fucking Usher at Monster, biggest
guy in R and B.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And I'm this guy doing crump music. You got it.
It's not the time, it's not the same times.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Now as I'm I'm known, I'm established, I've proven myself
over and over again. But early in those in those days,
it hadn't happened yet.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
So yeah, they.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
Feel like you helped the find that whole sound of
the early dude.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But they didn't. I don't feel like, you know, death Jam,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh sure, I don't think nobody got it back then. No, Yeah,
Lotu John was it was.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
He wasn't looked at as an artist per se like
Luda or exactly Usher. He was a host, djuction. Yeah
that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Hype man, producer. Yeah, you know, that's the.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Clubs without you know what was the clubs without crunk music?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Little John back then like no.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
A lot less energy.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Was it ever a low period for Little John?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:37):
I got burnt out probably after after the forties album,
and I think I tried, we tried to do a
second trivial and scrappy album, and I.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Just was fried from all.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
You know, you got to think about I was going
since the nineties ninety three, you know, producing to was
that two thousand and eight or nine two thousand and eight,
and I'm I'm just depleted. I have no creative juices left.
I go in the studio, I'm trying to produce and
trying to make stuff. I think, yet nothing's coming out.
(33:10):
I think that's also what happened with two of those
artists too, because I might have gotten to the point
where I was just had nothing left.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I couldn't I couldn't create it.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
And then so what I started to do was just
go back to the foundation DJJ, go back to the clubs.
And what happened was Reggie Bush invited me out to
the first game in the super Dome after Katrina. So
I went there and that night he had an after party,
went to the after party and it was a DJ
DJ and I was just like, this dude is freaking dope.
(33:42):
So I met the dude and he was cool and
so the next day his.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Name is DJ Spider.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
So the next day we were I was in the
airport and this nerdy white dude come up to me like, hey,
remember me? Like who he was like, oh, Spider, I
was DJing last night. I was like, oh shit, So
what happened was he really inspired me to get back
into DJing by the way he was mixing. So me
and Spider linked up. He like got me on Serado,
(34:13):
he started like giving, gave me, helped me get my
music library up, and we started DJing together. So I
started to kind of get back into DJing, and so
d Jing brought my producer creative energy back.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Is that when the records like Shot Shot Shots and
all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
That came just by me being out and meeting people
and and you know learning this you know Open Format
World and EDM World and and yeah, I ended up
meeting lmfao. I was kind of following their story and
uh a mutual friend of ours named Eric Deluxe who
kind of he wrote shots too. U He reached out
(34:49):
to me and sent me to record. I was like,
this record is a smash. But around that time, I
think I first met them when we did a pit
Bull video.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
We were on like I think it was crazy. I
think they were in that video.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
So I was kind of working with Pittbull because we
did the anthem we did Crazy. Then Yeah shots came
so I was still I started to move into another
world because I saw that EDM world. I kind of
jumped in right at just starting to get crazy, and
I ended up getting a DJ residency in eight in Vegas.
(35:21):
So I've been in Vegas doing a DJ residency since
eight and I'm still there now. So that was a
place where I could really, you know, learn a different style,
just open format world and just get my energy back
from just being in the midst of the people and
understanding what makes people move and groove again. Because DJing
(35:43):
is the foundation of my production. Like I think I
started playing the drums when I was in elementary school,
So drums and DJing are the two key elements to
my production style.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's why it's.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
More beat driven and that's why they're all club records.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
A DJ side when you choose the pivot, because you
know you've pivoted a lot. When you choose the pivot,
is it because of where music is going or where
you're going as a person.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Where my spirit leaves me my spirit? You know, when
I started to get back into djaying, God put these
people in my path to say, okay, you should now
start moving over here. And I remember like telling my
manager and my lawyer, I want to go over here
and do this DJ stuff. They like, Bro, you're making
one hundred grand or beat? What the hell is wrong
(36:29):
with you? I was like, I can't do.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It no more.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
But I saw the future and I just trust. I
always trust my spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, don't listen to
your mind, listen to your spirit. And you got to
learn the difference between the two. And when you learn
the difference, your spirit is never gonna lead you wrong.
Real trust it and it's gonna be fine. And that's
what I've been doing, you know, pretty much my whole life,
(36:55):
and everything's been okay, you know what I mean. Like
I've been able to now have number one medium song,
hip hop song, R and B song, AC song. How
many people you know had a hit song in every
in four decades, because you know, we had a hit
with even the usher Glue song. I think it was
(37:15):
an AC hit number one, I take it. And then
I had a song with Pitt Bull that came out
two years ago called Jumping that was like number one
on some chart. So yeah, since the nineties, I've been
doing this and I'm just thankful every day to wake
up and to still be able to do this, and
to also like, right now is the time where the
(37:37):
two thousands is on fire? Yeah, like, yes, it's on
Like I'm doing so many shows that and and for
crowds that I haven't seen and you know, or maybe
not have done it as a headline. I have never
headlined for ten thousand people until like the last couple
of years Tackles.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
So it's like, it's amazing that people the memories that
people have from that era, the fun time they had,
it's making this music you know now come back and
it's in a major.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Way made you what made you do the meditation. So
that's totally far the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Yeah, turning fifty, turn fifty, a lot of things started
to happen in my life. First thing I it hit
me was like I asked myself, what makes you happy?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And I said, damn, only.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Making sure everybody else good, but that's not what makes me.
Like what makes me happy? I couldn't really tell myself,
and so I was like, you know what, I need
to kind of put myself first.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Like I'm not happy in this marriage. Like, so I said,
I want to do divorce.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
And so around the same time, me and my my
good friend Doug Davis we talk like every year because
he calls and gives me shit because he's he's like
a couple months younger than me, so he's like, oh,
you're old man.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So we're talking.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
And he was telling me he wanted to introduce me
to somebody that was in this space and I was like, oh,
that's interesting because I've been listening to like all of this,
like b neural beats to sleep and relax and ocean
and rain and all of this type of stuff. So
me and this guy kuld Bear, his name is caber Sego,
(39:34):
we connected. And so I'm going through the divorce and
like I didn't like where my mental state was at
because I'm angry, like, ah, why can't she just do
this and that? And so I'm like mad, and I
don't like, That's not me. I'm a positive at all
times person. I don't think negatively. So I'm like, I
(39:57):
started to like medit day. I started to say affirmations
every day, and it helped me to be in a
better mental state, as well as having good people in
my corner, like my queen.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Her name is Jamila.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
She was there for me at that time, and she
would give me like also like just positive. She would
just keep me, try to keep me in a positive mindset.
And she had been through a rough divorce too, so
she can give me some insight and just you know,
help me keep my head up. So the affirmations every day,
I would literally get a cup of tea and I
had a copper pyramid on my deck. I'll drink, get
(40:34):
my tea, go sit in this copper pyramid and meditate
and just say these affirmations. I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm
at peace every single day and throughout the day. And
so all of this happened at the same time I
meet Caber and me and Caber are talking. He's like,
let's do we should do meditation. So I was like, yeah,
(40:55):
let's do that. I'm down with that. I think that's
great because I was saying these affirmations I meditated.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So uh, we went in recorded a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 5 (41:04):
But yeah, it was because I needed it was time
for a change in my life. I needed to be
in more positive mindset. One thing that I also did
was I was like I would say, affirmations of negativity
can live inside of me.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I like, I don't. I try to get rid of
all negative thoughts.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
And when I did that, when I really got rid
of the negative thoughts, I ain't not even saying the
word hate.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I didn't even use that word.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
So I'm always trying to change anything that happens to me.
In any negative situation, it's some positivity you can pull
out of that you focus on that. So I would
always pull that positivity out. And I've learned if you
pull that out, pull pull a positivity out of any
negative situation, and you let God drive, don't try to
(41:56):
drive and trust God every it ain't gonna.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Always be all right.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And so we went in we recorded these albums, and
you know, this time of my life is feeling like
I'm doing what God intended me to do. But what's
amazing is everything that got me here I was supposed
to do. And even like all of the music that
I've given people gave people positivity. So it's always been positivity,
(42:23):
but it's meaning more now when someone tells me I.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Never meditated, you helped me meditate.
Speaker 5 (42:29):
I was having trouble getting over this grief of losing someone.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Your meditation about grief helped me. I'm inspired to do.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
You know how many people have called me about getting
in the gym. It's insane, Like celebrities, all kind of
people are like, you inspired me to get healthy. So
I feel now like I'm doing what God intended me
to do.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
It took me a long time to.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
Get here, but this is the time it's supposed to
be and crazy. I was thinking about this the other day.
I met mister Farrakhan at the Source Awards and he
basically told me, he said, you got power, you got
a voice, and he basically was kind of trying to
tell me, like use it and that like that stuck
(43:18):
with me, like I'm like, okay, but now I'm using
my voice and my power in a good way to
push positivity.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Into the world.
Speaker 7 (43:27):
So that is what makes you happy.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's what that's what you know what Yeah, it makes
me happy that.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
Just to be just to do good, you know, just
to do good, because all that comes back and when
you like, a guy came to me, I did the
col of guard thing, right, A guy came to me
in the club one night in the club and was like,
I did that col of guard test because of you,
and it came back positive, and he did he didn't
(43:59):
have colon cancer, but he had polyps. So just stuff
like that, it just makes me feel like I'm doing
good in the workpiring people and being a good role
model to my son.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I have a daughter now, you know, she's ten months old.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Congratulation.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
I look at life like with health like I got
to be here for her, you know what I'm saying.
I got to be here for her first day of school.
I gotta be here for high school graduation, walk her
down the aisle. So health is even more important than me.
It was something I was doing to just you know,
live a long, full life. But even more so now
(44:37):
I have even more motivation because of my daughter.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
And her mother. I got to be here for them,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (44:42):
So it's crazy to see you cry because a lot
of people who never even thought you had ice.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
No, you know what, black man, we need to cry.
So we need to cry.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
When you get more in tune to your higher self
and you stop vibrating at these low frequencies, you can
let yourself let the energy flow as we should. We
don't have to be tough all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And you're an advocate for therapy.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
I push all brothers that we don't have to suffer
in silence.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
We suffer in freaking silence.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Call your homie sometime to just be like, my nigga,
you good? How you doing not just period, but how
you mentally doing? Bro, Because that one little conversation could
make him not go do some stupid shit or take
his life or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
You know. So I started doing therapy. I push anything,
any knowledge that.
Speaker 5 (45:30):
I got, I try to share with everybody because we
got to help each other.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
We all we got what's the gym? What's the gymy?
Speaker 5 (45:39):
This is a trying, This is positivity abundance and it's
also my daughter's birthstone.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I want to ask you a question about about marriage.
Speaker 6 (45:51):
Like you never hear men say they were tired of
the marriage, like they wanted to walk away.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
What happens is when you start to walk on those eggshells.
It's just not it's just not a positive environment. And
then when you get to the point where a lot
of times in marriage, we're just there making sure everything's good,
and who the hell checking on us, who's making sure
we okay? Who's making who's coming to us and saying
(46:16):
what do you need today?
Speaker 1 (46:17):
What can I do for you to make you happy?
Speaker 9 (46:20):
You know?
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I know we're the providers and all of that.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
But we need that love too. We need that assurance.
Sometimes women go to your men and just make them
feel like, appreciate it because to live in today's society,
to go out and make that money and all of
the things a husband and a father has to worry
about every single day. Like I said, suffering in silence
(46:45):
that y'all have no clue about. Just be that positive light,
make that house a home, make it radiate positivity.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You know.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
So yeah, man, y'all got me up here crime you
might have needed.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
To release you know. You know what I wanted to
know when when Dave Chappelle was doing the skits at first,
did you take it as disrespectful? Did you always was like,
oh this is great?
Speaker 5 (47:10):
No, A cipher sounds called me and he was like
when he did the first one, and he was like, Yo,
Dave Chappelle did this skit on you, Bro, It's crazy,
it's hilarious. I was like on me, I'm like, why
are you doing sketch on me? Like I ain't nobody,
and he's like, bro, trust me. And so when I
saw it, I was like, that's really me.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
That is really me.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
And I got on this show because I went one
day to just tell Dave thank you for doing the sketches,
because we have a mutual A friend's named Corey Smith,
and Cory is the reason Dave is part of the
reason Dave does the sketch too, because I think they
might have heard this song, like what song was it?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I don't give it.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, I don't give him. He might have heard it.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
And he probably was like this would be interesting if
that's all he says. But he's actually intelligent.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And then Corey was like, yeah, John, Corey thought I
went to Morehouse.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
I just was always hanging out in the AUC because
back in the nineties, if you're from Atlanta, you went
to the AUC.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Clark.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
All of that to just get girls, you know what
I mean. So you just used to go holler at
the girls. So I used to be always up there.
So Corey was like, no, he's smart, he come from
this and that. So Dave ran with it, and so
I went to the show to thank Dave and Day
was like, man, hang.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Out, I want you to. Let's do a sketch. Like
he didn't even have it, he didn't even know I
was coming.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
And so we was just we did one sketch and
then he had an idea to do another one, so
he just had me on camera and he was off
camera and we was improving back and forth, and that's
how we got.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
The Little John and Little John sketch.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
And to think that I was able to improv with
one of the greatest comedians of our time. How many
people get to do that? Not many, you know, So
that was that was amazing. And Dave to me places
that music would never ever be able to take me.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
How did that change everything for you? Just that sketch.
Speaker 5 (49:06):
It just opened me up to more people that didn't
get it or didn't would have never listened to the music.
I remember just being in the airport and like all
kinds of white people coming to me, like whole families
and all just all types of people because he was
moving the needle at that time for culture so and
it just yeah, it just opened up a lot more doors.
Speaker 7 (49:28):
And that's when they started putting the t's in the name.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
Little John that yeah so and shout out the cat
Williams soon because he he co signed me too when
he did his Pimp Chronicles. I think that's his greatest
special to. I'm going to record saying that.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
And you know, we he brought me out and let
me do.
Speaker 5 (49:48):
My catchphrases and we ended up going in the studio
working on some songs together. He just come by the house,
shout out the cat. I need to get you in
the gym with me. Cat, you can go work out,
you can run, but can you push them weight up?
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (50:03):
Try to do that to do People come up to
you all the time like come on one time.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Oh my god, could be yeah. Man, they don't do
it as much as they used to.
Speaker 5 (50:12):
But like people that used to hang out with me,
like say too early two thousands are you know twenty
tens used to be like, bro, you don't get tired
of that.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
I'm like, I don't even hear it no more.
Speaker 5 (50:24):
I zone the people out, but like, yeah, I used
to be at like TSA, a grocery store exactly, and
they do it, so they so they expect me to
do it, so they keep doing it and I might just.
Speaker 7 (50:34):
Be like, what's up, bro, meditation album? You do it's
a soft yeah, but you.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah. So that's the new the new meditation album.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
So when we did the first, we recorded a bunch
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
When we you know, early too well, sorry.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
When I did the first Meditation album, I recorded a
couple other projects. So one of the projects was something
that my my god, Doug Davis came up with. He
was like, you should take your songs and remix them
into meditations and I was like okay. So we recorded it,
but I was like, this don't need to come out
first because nobody's gonna take me serious.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
So I'm gonna like, yeah, get low and ground, you know.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
So I was like, we're not gonna do that first,
So now the time we're gonna drop that. I think
it's a fun project, but it's real meditations, but it's
just a playoff of the songs that you know and love.
Speaker 6 (51:34):
I just got a couple of questions, you know, the
industry rewards constant energy, right, like you gotta always be on.
How did you learn the difference between performance energy and
just personal peace?
Speaker 5 (51:45):
I just in myself. It's spiritual again, Like I'm just
I just know when to be crazy, little John.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
I know, be going to be just cool, chill.
Speaker 5 (51:54):
It's just just let my spirit got me everywhere, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (51:58):
So and you talking about the meditation and the mind
from this, like what I would ask when you were
at the height of crump, did you even have the
language for like stress and anxiety and burnout back then?
Speaker 1 (52:08):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 5 (52:09):
I was just go go go go, go, go, go, go, go,
go go go. It was all just cause I don't
I don't know where the peak is, you know what
I mean? And I don't even expect to get where
I got, you know, because I just started off me
and the Eastside Boys. We did that first song who
You With, just to make something for the clubs of Atlanta,
and then that turned into Okay, now you gotta do
(52:30):
an album, and then that turned into being on Anger
Management tour with Eminem and fifty Cent, and then fifty
cent even took me to Australia, I went on tour
with fifty in Australia, you.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
So it's like, I'm just happy to be here. I'm
just gonna keep going because and that's how I am. Like,
I just I gotta work. I gotta keep working, you know,
because these are opportunities that are coming to me. So
I don't want to you know, somebody sitting at home
right now wishing they could be out, or somebody else
could take this opportunity and use it if I don't
use it.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
So I'm gonna take advantage of all of that. Now.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
You are a big drink at one time and totally
stopped Yes, yeah, what made you stop that drinking?
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Turning fifty?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Had to fifty to stop drinking?
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Ye, judge, judgment you damn.
Speaker 5 (53:18):
So I turned fifty and for a while, like a
year or two, I had this constant like discomfort, excuse me,
discomfort in my side and I didn't even know what
it was. So fifty like, I need to go get
a I need to go to a doctor, right, So
I went to the doctor and the doctor is like, okay,
for one is I thought it was my liver because
(53:38):
I'm like, I drink too much. It's got to be
my liver, and I'm scared. So he's like, your liver's
on the other side, it's not yours. And then he's like,
it's probably inflammation in your gut. He's like, you're you're
fifty years old. You need a colonoscope anyway to check
for polyps. So when I'm in there, I can check.
(54:01):
I can do an endoscopy and check your gut. So
comes back and I have inflammation in my gut. So
I had stopped drinking because I was scared of deliver.
So I had already stopped. So by the time I
had the colonoscopy, it had been like six months, and
I was like, I'm good, I'm just gonna not drink
no more.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
So I think I was going like three months and
I was like six months. I was like nah. Then
I was like, maybe I go nine months.
Speaker 5 (54:27):
Then I went to a year, and I was like
when I got to the year mark, I was like,
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
I don't even need to drink no more, you know.
And I think one thing that kind.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Of that that like brought some insight to me, Like
health has been like important to me for a while
because I knew like a guy that had a triple bypass,
he was like thirty five. So that started me first
on my like I need to start correcting stuff with
myself before it's too late, because the older you get,
the harder it is to reverse what's going on. So
(54:59):
that's that started. And then when I was dating my
partner Jamila, she really pushed me into I think she
saved my life because she pushed me into getting my
blood work done and getting lab work done. I found
out I had inflammation in my gut. Like I knew
I had inflammation in my gut, but I candida gut
(55:21):
is the key to a lot of problems in your body,
So you got to get the I saw the rock
talking and he said his gut was messed up too,
So no healthy bacteria in my gut Candida inflammation. And
then I found other like markers in my blood work
that I was like, oh, I gotta.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Change this or take this out of my diet.
Speaker 5 (55:39):
So all of that helped me to like hone in
on exactly what I needed to do also to get
my health like more tuned tuned in too.
Speaker 8 (55:52):
I saw you say it was like you came out
of a like a ah, stop drinking.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
Because if you think about it, I was drinking every weekend,
so I never fully got over the drinking.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Like I would drink a bottle of forty two a night, Jesus, Jesus.
Like so Friday, Saturday a bottle of forty two.
Speaker 8 (56:11):
Acoholic drinking, but all the nights a whole bottle.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Every because I'm doing shots.
Speaker 8 (56:20):
We might do a couple of shots, but we ain't
doing a whole bottle.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
I'm the party guy.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
We don't want to drink with me, and I gotta
drink with everybody. When I turned down the shot, they
were like, bro, come on, man, yeah, so I gotta
damn near a bottle of night. So I'm always constantly
getting over the hangover or the getting My body is
still trying to recover, so I never am recovering. So
when you lay off the alcohol, you come out of
(56:47):
that fog and it's like it's like everything is clearer, everything,
you know. So I just I like the way that felt.
And then you know, when I started working out, like
I can work out like.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
You can't work out when you hungover.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
And then you put an alcohol in your body that's
sugar that's that's not gonna help you get the goals.
Speaker 6 (57:08):
So if you write a book, you know it should
be to have a chapter turned down for what and
you talk about exactly all the reasons why you ask
your turn down.
Speaker 5 (57:14):
Yeah, especially especially when you get in your up there
in the years, you know, because right I'm fifty three,
I'm going down the hill, you know what I mean.
I want to have That's another thing. At my fifties,
I was like, I'm over that top. I don't know
how much time I got. I want to enjoy my life.
I want to enjoy my life. I want to do
stuff that makes me happy.
Speaker 6 (57:34):
Do you think people truly understand the loneliness that can
come with success and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
No, because they just see the private jets and the
trips and all that. They don't realize.
Speaker 5 (57:47):
You know, sometimes you can't go nowhere because people bugging you.
You can't spend time with your loved ones without people
bugging you, or the the I gotta make another hit record,
you know what I mean. Like or even when you
start to go down, you're not as hot as you were.
People not picking up the phone and all that. Yeah,
it's a lot of most people couldn't deal with this life.
(58:11):
It could not deal with it because there's too much
pressure then people on the internet with all their opinions
and all of this and that, and it's a lot
of pressure that you cannot be built weak to be
in entertainment industry.
Speaker 6 (58:24):
So yes, sir, when you my last question, when you
think about legacy, now, how much of it is about
peace and purpose rather than I guess the plaques and
the parties and all that.
Speaker 5 (58:35):
I think my legacy is going to be all about
positivity because every step of the way it's been crunk
was positive. It was a positive release. Then now EDM
stuff was positive, positive part It was all partying based initially.
But it wasn't like I was saying go do a
drive by on the ops, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
It was just like, hey, go release turn up, you know.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
And then you know, now in my latter years, it's meditation, mindfulness,
get therapy, fellas, I'm gonna tell everybody out there, get therapy,
get a therapy.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
If it's going through it.
Speaker 5 (59:16):
You should not be left to your own devices to
deal with some serious issues. Sometimes you need to talk
to someone that's a qualified person.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
And I did em DR.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
Did you ever do MDR?
Speaker 5 (59:28):
EMDR is amazing because it taps into your subconscious. When
I did em DR, stuff came out that I didn't
even really didn't know what's there. So it can tap
to the it can find the root of why you
got that trauma.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
And then like, so, yeah, I have not done any
of that yet.
Speaker 5 (59:45):
I don't want to do it. I'm thinking about it,
but I don't want to. I don't want it to
change me. It won't because I just feel like I'm
already at a certain place. But I do want to
go tap into those things that I have locked deep,
deep deep.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
A lot of people who done E.
Speaker 6 (01:00:01):
D and MAR tell me that the iaching experience is
pretty similar because it's just everything that is in your
subconscious that you suppressed.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
God is like, no, look at it. Yeah, it's all
on the table, that scary feeling, that stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
No, it's just it's profound.
Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
Em DR is profound because it's like that's why I
act like that, or that's why my mother treated me that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Way, or this is why that happened.
Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
It helps you and then like em DR, Like when
I did it recently, I was able to go to
my childhood self and think it's okay, I'm here, it's fine,
You're you're loved, you're appreciated, you know, all of that.
And it helped me to get past whatever that was.
(01:00:44):
So that's why I like it, because it's stuff that,
you know, because I was kind of not worced, but
I was like, someone was like, you should you know, go,
you should try it, you know, because it helped them,
and I did it and I was like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Man, I'm good. I don't need this. And then I
was like, damn, it's like I did not know that.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
And the more you do it, the more stuff comes
to you, and you just realize this is.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Why I'm the way I am.
Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
I can now get past this and I can change
these habits, you know, and I can be living more.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I can live a better life. Wow.
Speaker 6 (01:01:23):
Man, little John, you are an icon and one of
the greatest producers of all time. You bought people so
much joy. In this next chapter of your life where
you are helping people heal, I think it's gonna be
your best work yet.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Brother. I do too. I do to.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
It feels so good when people come to me and
say you help me, you know, without me even directly
doing anything for them.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
I'm helping so many people and inspiring people.
Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
Like with the with the fitness journey, with the you know,
the bodybuilding thing. Coming in third in this competition. I
it was just it was hard to just do it period.
It was hard to just even get there. And I
was just happy to be a part of it. And
I just want to inspire people to say that that
(01:02:10):
say I can't work out, I don't have time. I'm
on the road, I'm a new father, I'm in the studio,
I'm doing a million things, and I'm able to go
to the gym and transform my body, eat right, do
all these things so.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
You can do it too.
Speaker 6 (01:02:25):
Billy Blanks Man, you can do you training hit training
where it's your music playlist, all the crunk music going
body by John.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I love it, Okay, help me out with it. Solon Man,
Oh no, I love it. Inspire.
Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
There you go, well, Little John, we appreciate you for
joining us. And also December eighteenth, you're performing for our
assister station.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Shingle jingle Ball.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
So what what should do people expect for Little John
in that show trunk period?
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
They want it because it says Little John and friends,
it's krunk Crunk.
Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
And friendsunk crunk, you know commercial just it's Atlanta and
I gotta hit them hard. You know, Jermaine talking crap
like but Jamaine my best family. Jermaine actually called me,
was like, who you're bringing out?
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
So I'm gonna I got friends friends.
Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
So but I'm just gonna bring the crunk. That's what
That's what they want. That's what I'm gonna give them.
That's what they ain't seen in the wild, So that's
what I'm giving them. I ain't trying to do nothing
crazy crunk excited.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Could that error ever come back?
Speaker 6 (01:03:36):
Like the way metro Booman just did futuristic some Could
that crunk era ever come back?
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
If it did, it'll I don't know if people can
handle it.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
I think we need like grown people who don't get
the release.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Maybe you have something you put everybody, everybody put their
phones up.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
But you don't heal the same way.
Speaker 6 (01:03:50):
You can't be.
Speaker 8 (01:03:54):
And I don't know how to sprinkle down to the yns,
Like how would they don't need sprinkle?
Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
Think that krunk could be recreated, But I'm glad that
we do have these crunk classics that will never die,
so I don't think it could come back.
Speaker 5 (01:04:07):
Maybe I do something next year, Maybe I do, like
why not you know Metro did?
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Maybe why not? I was talking about it. But it's
just got to be the right.
Speaker 5 (01:04:15):
Everything with me is the right time, you know, when
the universe tell me it's time for it, that's when
it happens.
Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
All right, Well ninety six point one, get your tickets.
He will be performing at the Atlanti's Jingle Ball. Can't
wait to see you, guys. It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Good morning, every day, Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Finish for y'all.
Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
Done,
Every day.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Finish for y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Done morning.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Everybody is the j n V.
Speaker 4 (00:09):
Just hilarious. Charlamagne, he gud we are the Breakfast Club.
Law La Rosa is here as well, and we got
a special guest in the.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Building, a motherfucking icon.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I thought he was up here, this is his first time.
Speaker 5 (00:22):
Yeah, that's that's what I seen you on the road,
I know, but I thought you've been up here.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Ladies and gentlemen, Hey man, hey, thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's about time.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
And everybody, we don't say good morning enough to our
fellow brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That's right.
Speaker 5 (00:41):
I was a victim of that until I started to
change my mindset. Sometimes I would come down, get in
the car going, you know, on the road, I didn't
say good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
And once I started to change my mindset.
Speaker 5 (00:51):
I realized that's a good way to start your day
in a gesture to someone whoever you're riding with, you know,
the driver, whoever.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
That feeling, and then that's how they're feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
Yeah, sometimes that's also the case. Sometimes just say how
is your day going?
Speaker 7 (01:08):
Yea?
Speaker 5 (01:09):
You know, I found myself sometimes I'm a I'm a
I'm really in tune to my spiritual side.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I've been for a long time.
Speaker 5 (01:16):
Sometimes I might just be I remember being in the
club and I might walk by a random person and
I can feel that energy and I'd be like, let
me just give you a hug, And sometimes that just
changes somebody's life absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
What about that?
Speaker 6 (01:31):
What about when you were the person that might have
been creating energy though, Like if you felt like some
aggressive angriness for this person, but it was your fault
because well.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You know, I'm gonna tell you.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
One time I was in South Carolina a and a
Hole in the Wall club way back in the day,
and it was supposed to be a night where cash
money was supposed to be there, and they called me
because cash money couldn't come. So these folks in South
Carolina was mad than a motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
It was not cash money.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
Little johnn Eastside boys show up and so I understand
it's a hostile situation, but I said, I looked out
on that crowd and I said, the biggest dude in
this crowd, I'm about to make him my best friend.
And I made him my best friend during the show,
like playing to him, giving him drinks and hyping them up,
and then he turned like it turned the whole crowd around,
(02:23):
and then they were fans of us after that. But
it was it was a way you can always change
the energy of a situation if you approach with a
calm manner. That's why good security don't go and try
to fight somebody.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
They try to defuse the situation. That's the first rule
is diffuse it not be the aggressior.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Lot, John, I want to go back. So this is
your first time.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Real quick, what is a little John morning routine?
Speaker 5 (02:45):
Like I knew you were going to ask me that morning,
So this morning I woke up, had a little water
because you know, I do my I do this Korean
facial stuff, so I do skin.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
You know, my skin is very important to my skin. Look, ladies,
one rule for that.
Speaker 5 (03:07):
Is positivity, positive energy, positive thoughts, because if you're a
negative person in all this negativity, it's gonna wear the flesh.
So get up in the morning and do my skincare routine,
burust my teeth, all that good stuff. And then since
I'm on the road, a nice healthy breakfast for me
was two hard boiled eggs, some yogurt, some berries, and
(03:28):
the grapefruit. Wow, that's simple, easy and start with a
positive mindset. It's gonna be a great day. I'm always
in my mind saying affirmations for the day, even before
I go to bed, in my dreams, Like last night,
I was like, it's gonna be a great interview. This
is I look at this as one of the biggest
(03:49):
interviews I've ever done in my life because it's like,
it's a fifty minutes, forty five minutes, fifty minutes a
long interview.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
It's a lot to talk about. Charlote man. You you
see me grow from. I think we one time.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
We taught you were like you came to the radio
station and in South Carolina.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
What time that was early on? He wasn't even on
air yet, right were.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
I think it was a phone er you called in.
You had just put out I think you had just
put out be a beer.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Wow. So that's twenty years ago.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
So we were talking about you having the Confederate flag
in the in the video and I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Care about that. So that's what you know.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
You've seen the growth, and it's I think it's important
because yeah, you've seen the growth. You've seen it from
a different angle. You've seen it from a different angle.
You've seen it from a different angle, and you know,
you guys moved the needle of culture and you had
everybody and their grandmama on this show. So I think
it's one of the most important and you know, best
(04:44):
interviews I think I'm going to have because because of
all of that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Let's claim it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Let's claim it. I want to go back.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I want to start from the beginning of these are
the interviews I love because for some reason, I thought
you've been up here before. So I want to start
when you first got into the music industry, right, let's
start with you started working with your main Dupris yep,
ninety three.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Let's start from there.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
So how did you hook up a Jamaine dupri and
what did you do for Jamaine Duprix.
Speaker 5 (05:05):
So I used to be in Atlanta in the nineties.
I was like the hottest DJ in the city.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I was the demand.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
I did all the parties and I would see Jermaine
all the time at the clubs. And then I did
this one club called the Phoenix night Club, which was
the hottest nightclub in Atlanta at the time.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
We brought Biggie, We brought Biggie.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
I got Biggie and Craig Mac together when they did
the Big Mac Tour, so I got them. That's an
interesting story because we got we we.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I worked on the radio station, but I wasn't the PD.
Speaker 5 (05:40):
And you know how back then you had to go
through the PD because you wanted to get the spins
for your artists. So Diddy, you know, he let us
get Biggie and Craig because he thought I was like
the PD.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
And he get there and the club.
Speaker 5 (05:53):
Is slammed like a million people and he's like, Yo,
what the heck, Yo, we need some more money because
this thing is packed. And then he found out that
I wasn't the PD, and so he was extra pist.
And then he even tried to get the rep that
worked for BMG at the time fired because she got
because we got Craig and Biggie for free.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Wow.
Speaker 6 (06:15):
So yeah, that was normal back then when artists are
on promo, tall.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Like, yeah, but you had you wanted to go through
the station so you can make sure.
Speaker 5 (06:22):
You get to spend get your look. And we wasn't that,
but we were high promoters. So I was doing all
the hot parties and I would just see Jamaine all
the time. But like, even if I wasn't DJing, I
was everywhere, Like I had a thing where I was
I wanted to be from.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I called it from Bankhead to Buckhead. That was from the.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Boogie spots to the the most hood you can get
in Atlanta. So I was literally everywhere. And Jermaine came
to me. Well, for one thing, people don't really know,
Dallas Austin's brother came to me.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
First, so his name was Claude Austin. He passed away, but.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Claude Austin came to me first and wanted me to
work for Rowley. But then Jamaine came to me around
the same time, and Claude ended up passing and so
and Jamaine came because I was just everywhere, and he
was like, I need you, someone like you to represent,
you know, my label, because you everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So he hired me.
Speaker 5 (07:16):
In nineteen ninety three, I started working at Social Death
and I was hired to do A and R and
street promotions because I was everywhere, right, so he wanted
he wanted someone that had respecting the city, that could
go anywhere, and someone like me that I was always out,
so that was represent Social Death from Bankhead, Like I
said to Buckhead, and.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
What artist did you have being a and off for
Social Death at that time.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
I had I put together all of the Social Death
based all stars and at night I think.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah. And that changed.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
That changed music too, like it gave us a whole
genre that had never been created, like had never been
done before. And that all started because in Atlanta we
used to do like it was DJ Jelly, shout Out,
DJ Jelly shout Out, the J Team, DJ Smurf and
all of those guys.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
They would take.
Speaker 5 (08:11):
Like slow jam acapellas, like say, one famous mix was, uh,
can you Stand the Rain? New Edition and put it
over a base beat. So they used to do all
of these mixes like that. They would just do a
whole mixtape. It'll be all bass beats and then these
R and B A cappellas, and so I was like,
we love this so much in the city, let's take
(08:32):
that and make a record from that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Nobody made an actual song.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
So I came up with that concept and I went
to my boy DJ Cool Collie aka Rodney, and then
at the same time I met carlmo Uh. He used
to call the phone that Social Death and play his
tracks on the phone. Interesting story about that. So one
day I'm like, these tracks are dope. So I called
(08:57):
him to the to the office and he comes up
there with a freaking keyboard and plays the keyboard like
just playing the keyboard, not like no CDs, no cassette tape,
just playing the keyboard. And I'm like, this is crazy.
So I ended up using him and we did my
Boo and so yeah, I did all of the Soco
Death Base All Stars, and then out of that we
(09:19):
had play a Pancho. He got signed and we did
a couple of records with Player Pancho. And Player Pancho
is actually how I met the East Side Boys, Wow,
Because Player Pancho would always when he would go out,
he would have a whole like twenty ten twenty guys
with him, and the East Side Boys was always with him,
even if it was just like two or three guys.
And so I was always with Pancho because he was
(09:42):
my artist, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And so me and the East Side Boys just one
day we were.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
In the club and I think we were in the
club five five nine, and we just start chatting this.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Chant who who you with? Get with? And then everybody in.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
The club start chatting it and then I look at
Big Sam. I'm like, we need to turn this into
a song. And so I know I have access to
people with labels and stuff, so I called somebody I knew.
Actually I called kol Ace. Uh, this guy named kol
Ace and kol A's connected me with this guy named
Carlos Glover and we ended up going in the studio
and we made the song who You With? And that
(10:18):
started everything for a little John as an artist.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
When did you start producing? When did did the production
bug coming?
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Uh? Probably like ninety two.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
And you never you never made beats at that time.
You just bought a machine and said I'm on.
Speaker 6 (10:32):
No.
Speaker 5 (10:32):
It started off where me and my partner I used
to do a show in Atlanta called Reggae Jammin on
the like main station in Atlanta, B one O three and.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Me and Paul I was.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
In the sound system with Paul Lewis called four Seasons.
So I was like a selector like Jamaican sound did.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Jamaican music did every time of genre of music.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
We had a we had a dance hall, We had
a reggae show on Friday nights on the station and
and what we would do is I would take hip
hop a cappellas and put them over dance all beats
and dance all a cappellas, put them over hip hop beats.
Through that, we got linked up with Signette Records, and
we got we convinced them to give us the Cableton
Tour a cappella. That's how I got to do the
(11:16):
Cableton Tour remix. When I did Verses, I remember playing
it and people were like, you ain't do that, like
and I remember, like in real time, DJ Scratch pulled
the vinyl out and he put in the chat like
I'm looking at the credits.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
He actually did produce it.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
So what we did at that time we would kind
of tell somebody how we wanted to produce the records,
and later on we bought a drum machine. I learned
how to produce by the time we got to Who
You Wit, which was ninety five ninety six, But before
that we kind of just told somebody like, yo, chop this,
chop that, do this da da.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Da da da yo, do you have product your credits
on my boot as well?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
I did not.
Speaker 5 (11:51):
I should have gotten some because I really co produced
the song with them, but I thought it's part of
my job description as an artist, the first project I'm
doing that, that was just part of the job. But
I was really there every step of the way of
inception and putting that song together.
Speaker 6 (12:08):
I'm glad you mentioned Sam and Bolto because people always
seem to forget about.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The East Side Boys. What did they bring to the table?
Speaker 6 (12:15):
What made Little John and the East Side Boys such
an amazing group?
Speaker 5 (12:18):
We were just like because we were we were the
sound of the rowdy guys in the back of the club.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
That's where we were.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
We were them niggas that were turned up in the
back that you just be looking back like make sure
they ain't coming over.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Here with that. So we were that.
Speaker 5 (12:37):
And what people don't understand about krunk music, I've known
some people are like, why was it? Why did it
do what it do? Why did it spread? Why did
it become big? Because it was an outlet of energy.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
For black youth.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Yes, when you went to the club, you had a
hard ass week, you had a hard life, whatever the
fuck was going on in your life. You hear that
fucking crunk music and you get in that damn and
you let all of.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
That out and you feel amazing, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
So that's why krunk music was able to reach so
many people.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
That's why I still like going.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Like I see you talking of all the time about
knuck as you Buckets the Negro, and it is like
it touches your soul in a certain way.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
And I think we do and and.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
Like krunk music tap into music to their ancestors because
they were channing and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
What did you do when you were a band from clubs?
Speaker 4 (13:31):
I remember in college there was some clubs that like,
you cannot play none of that in this club, put your.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Hood up and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
We just kept going because when you when you tell
somebody can't have it, they wanted more, you know. But
it was crazy that the music got people so rowdy
that they were like losing.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I've seen people.
Speaker 5 (13:53):
I was in Louisiana one time we did a show
and it got so turned up they start fighting the
police in the club.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
I want to just talk about one thing real quick
that it's been going viral. It's the video of the
two dollars bill concert that we did in Atlanta. It's
a viral video of be performing Get Crunk and that
whole concert, and you can see the energy on each
and if y'all look at the video, each and everybody
(14:27):
in there's face is turned up. It ain't nobody, not
one fucking cell phone in the air. Everybody's enjoying the moment.
Everybody is energized. And even you can see that the
ground was shaking because the camera when it's steady, it
is like moving.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
That's how much.
Speaker 5 (14:46):
Energy was in that place. And I think it's just
a testament to like we just brought something different, you know,
And like the kids now think they are turning up,
but they have no idea what a real turned up
time was from the two thousand.
Speaker 6 (15:03):
And Get Crunked with such a great record, because I
didn't think you could get crunker than Kings of the Crunk,
you know, I didn't.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Think you could get crunkd in that.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
But as soon as you hear who in my Bohagen
being me motherfucker, you like.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
God killed that salute Bohagen out there?
Speaker 6 (15:18):
How did you how did you even have the mindset
to take that to another level?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
How did you take that energy to another level?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
That beat was produced by Little J who produced kno
if you buck. So it was time to you know,
come and work on the album, and you know, everybody
down with be and me. Of course people that don't
know Crime Mob. Part of that was through being me,
so we are part of putting them out there. So
of course I called all of the squad, you know,
(15:44):
Trillville helped me write some of the songs.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
And yeah, Little Jay sent me.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I think he sent me some beats and that was
one of the beats and I was like, this is insane.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I thought it was one of the crukest beats ever too.
Speaker 5 (15:57):
I think my favorite beats that I've produced, our co
produced are been on this get crunk and what You're
Gonna Do and what You're Gonna Do is unique.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I was in New York when I did that beat.
Speaker 5 (16:10):
I remember I was on TVT and Steve got leeb
and shout out to Brian Leach, my boy, Brian Leach,
she was the ant ar at the time. He was
like Brian Leach. Brian Leash was like, Yo, you gotta
go in and knock out this song for this. I
think it was like a Christmas album or some Christmas
crunk album that Steve Gottlie wanted to put out and
(16:31):
I'm like, he can't put no fucking album out called
Crump without me.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So I'm like, fuck this guy.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
And so I was in the New I was in
New York and Brian was like, you gotta go in
and record this song. So I was angry when I
made that beat. I'm never mad when I make tracks,
but that's one of the only beats I've ever made
when I was angry, And that's why it sounds so aggressive,
because I was mad that I had to go in
the studio and record this. I wanted to just go
(16:57):
out like I was like, I'm going on to the club.
He was like, no, you gotta go and do this song.
And so that's my anger coming out through the drummers.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Do you have a trademark the word crunk?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I can't remember. Probably did all my ad libs.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I know that because you're the face of crunk.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
But to me, I would have to give I would
say three six Mafia probably the.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
So that's another argument going around. It's an argument that
says Memphis started crunk. Here's here's my Here's what I
will say. We in Atlanta. You couldn't be Atlanta in
the nineties and not be listening to eight ball MJG.
You couldn't be riding around not listening to master P.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Master P. Master P changed the landscape of the South,
the South period.
Speaker 5 (17:46):
He was the first one that really got us rally.
I would say it was master P, but we was
listening to Balling G. And of course three six Mafia
came around that.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Do you think he got us rody before three to six?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I think about it, about.
Speaker 6 (17:58):
It, about it, yeah, but had a club.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Club was ninety seven? What yet about about it come out?
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I was in college.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
I think it was like ninety five. I remember what
happened was in the club in Atlanta. It was playing
bass music. And then when master P came that was.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Over about about that was ninety five, definitely. That was
a freshman of college.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
That was the record.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Motherfuckers in the hood was getting no limit tattoos.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (18:26):
That's what changes for us. So I will say Memphis
is part of the influence, but our sound is different.
Memphis was getting Bucks.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It was ninety seven. That's even late though.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
When we got when we got Terry Club was when
they redid it. That was ninety seven, because I remember
it says on the Vinyl Terror Club up ninety seven. So,
but it started for us with Master p Master. That
about it about it.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Shit just changed it.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
But we are influenced. But it's all different sounds, but
it all intertwined and works together.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
So what would you call what three six was doing?
Speaker 5 (19:05):
They called it in Memphis Memphis buck, but three six
was doing it even we wouldn't even buck music. I
think it was just three six created The three six
created their own lane of Memphis music, and then they
changed the landscape of what Memphis music is.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
So salute Paul Juicy and the whole squad. That's family too.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
You know what I want?
Speaker 4 (19:25):
You know what the word ask too when you made
when you were making these tracks, did you try to
make it your business not to sound the same, because
you know, when you look at your desiography to see
some of the records that you did, like, I'm so
amazed because they don't sound the same.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Right, you can go to the window.
Speaker 4 (19:40):
To the wall, you could blow your whistle over here
and then you can like the ship is amazing.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
Yeah, Well it depends, well a lot of it. So
so let's talk Get Low. Interesting story of Get Low,
Get load became because I was trying to make Party Up.
I was inspired by part I love DMX's Party Up
so much.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I was like, I want to make something like that.
Let me go in the studio. This was like ninety nine,
and so I go in and.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
I come out with Get Low. If you listen to it,
it's got the whistle like Party Up. It's some similarities.
I'm inspired by it. But I sat on the beat.
I couldn't really come up with nothing. And then I
had a session with Yin Yang and I pulled that
beat out and we may get Low. So it comes
out like that just came like I said, because I
was trying to do something different, but it turned from
(20:30):
like a rowdy party up type song to a tork song.
But then like say tell me when to go E forty.
We were in the studio together, and that's the energy
of what he's giving me and his squad is giving me, and.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
It comes out into the drummer shoit.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
So every time I make the best stuff when I'm
in the studio, young bloods.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Damn.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
We were in the studio together and it took two
days for us to get that song done. Like I
did the beat the first day. We had the verses
the first day, but we did not have the hook.
And then the second day we just threw a party
in the studio and then Bohagen again, shout out Bohagen.
He was like everybody was throwing hooks out and then
he was just kind of mumbling something. I was like,
(21:12):
what you got, because I'm shooting everybody shit down like
that shits trash and then he's.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Just mumbling son. I was like, what's that?
Speaker 6 (21:19):
That?
Speaker 5 (21:20):
That's it, that's it, go lay that and then I
got the second part, you know, And sometimes that's how
some of the records happened to, like you just stumble
onto it.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Whistle blow the whistle. I did that beat that.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
I did that beat the same week that I did
tell me when to go Damn.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:38):
So I was working on E forty's album and I
think we had done muscle Cars that day. So too Short,
Too Short had came to the studio a couple of
days after that. So before, like earlier in the week,
I was making beats and I was going through sounds
and I found that sound and I was like, ooh,
(21:59):
this sounded.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Like rikytails baseline, Like this is a base like that.
Speaker 5 (22:03):
I was like, let me make some with that. And
I don't know what made me instead of making it slow,
make it fast. Because I like to do stuff different.
I don't like to be expected. So I was like,
let me make it one hundred whatever bpms and so
I put it to the side, and when too Short
came to the studio a couple of days later, I
was like, here you go.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know I got something for you.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
But first forty turned it down to forty Forty had
to remind me of this the other day. He was like,
you know, you gave me that beat first, and I
was like, this sounded like Todd, so give it to Todd.
So that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Basically, he should get corproduction credits.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
He didn't want it.
Speaker 6 (22:44):
What moment made you realize Crump had officially crossed from
suvering energy to a global.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Move coming up doing MTV.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
They let me get in Times Square on a double
deckord bus with a little scrappy on tr real doing
what you gonna do?
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Bruh MTV.
Speaker 6 (23:06):
I was gonna say MTV too, because I remember watching
the Video Music Awards.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I forgot what year it was.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
They played get Low Going in the commercial break and
the audience went crazy, and Justin Timberlake was Wilent. I
just remember thinking to myself, Oh, get Lowers out of here.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Yeah, and then we end up performing get Low at
the MTV Video Music Awards.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
Get Low, Yeah, Lean Back.
Speaker 5 (23:31):
And what else we did that year, I can't remember,
but that was that was a big time and Dave
Chappelle was the host, So that was pretty insane.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
That was a pretty insane year for me.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
And when when you touched when you started doing R
and B, did you think you could do R and B?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Or was one of the things.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
How did you get introduced to say, let me try
to make R and B records for doing all?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
It was already doing them with the social also.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Well that was different. So here's what happened.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
So Sean Garrett shout out Sean Garrett, incredible songwriter. He
reached out to h I guess he was trying to
get in touch with me and he couldn't get in
touch with me, so he knew somebody that worked with me.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Her name was Delicia.
Speaker 5 (24:06):
Delicia had all my beats, so she gave him a
beat CD and that's how he got the beat.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Basically, the freak Elite beat, which turned into yeah. So
she gave him the beat.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
So thank you Delicia forgiving Sean those beats, and Sean
wrote yeah to.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
That freakaak beat.
Speaker 5 (24:26):
So crazy thing about that is that beat was for mystical.
Freakalyague's beat was for mystical.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So I did though.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
I used to like have labels booked me in Circle
House shout out be Bat Circle House in Miami, and
I like take a week and I just go and
do as mini beats as possible, and the label could
take all the beats put them on whatever artists they want.
So these particular sessions was for mystical. That beat was
in there. He passed on it, and so I think
CEO shout out Coo. He got the beat and he
(24:57):
wrote Freakalyak my I don't even know this, but he
wrote that and submitted it to the label Pete Pablo.
He ended up recording. But I don't even know this.
So Sean Garrett has the beat. He writes, yeah, usher
don't want to record no more songs.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
He done with the damn Alutum. He's like, I'm good,
I got burned, I got all these other songs. I'm good,
We're good.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
La reads like, no, go record the damn song. So
he goes to record the song and.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
We come out with it.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
I remember going into doing the sessions too, like we
I think we recording La and we were like, this
is a smash, right, And so the song is in
the can and then I remember it was around Christmas time,
the album's done. La Reid is in Miami and he
calls JD going insane, and JD called me on three
(25:52):
Way and La Reid is like, why am I hearing
this Usher record on the radio? And basically it was
the freakingly instrumental plan as a bed. They had released
the song as a single, Freaka Leak, and we didn't
even know.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I didn't even know they had used to beat.
Speaker 5 (26:09):
So La Red is going crazy and then we're like,
all right, we're just gonna go in and do a
new beat. Thank god we did, because yeah over Freaka
Leak is not as good as yeah as Yeah. Now
that's how God worked. And crazy story is when I
went into the studio to like redo the beat, I'm like,
(26:30):
how that.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Pete Poplo record ain't gonna be that big? Just take
all the keys off. Let's just play a new stem.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
Because it's Usher, you know what I mean, And I don't,
you know, I just didn't think it was gonna be
that big. It could have been a cool record, but
I didn't think it was gonna be a number one
song like it was. So that's why the beats sound similar,
is because I just used the same exact drums, but
I played a different synth line. So well, it got
(26:58):
my boy a rock. My boy Rock played the scynth line.
So we just played a new synth line and here
we are with two monsters.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
It probably helped frequently though, because yeah, make.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Them together lovers and friends, so that I was going
to get to that.
Speaker 8 (27:16):
That origin story tell them.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
So when we when I can't.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
We were working on my album Crunk Juice, right, So uh,
instead of going with another up tempo, I like to
be different. I could have certainly went to Usher, John
and Luda with another fast song. I said, let's do
something different. And at at in Atlanta, we go to
Strip club for everything, so we always in you know.
I was in the Strip club one day and the
(27:43):
DJ played the Michael Sterling Lovers.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
And Friends, and I was like, huh, that could be
pretty cool for Usher to do.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
So let's let's back up. So this is before Usher's
album is done. I give Usher the Michael Starr on
the City, like check this out. We should do this
over this nigga don't listen to it. He don't listen
to it, so we on my album. So I'm like,
I'm gonna take that Lovers and Friends I did and
do it from my album. So I do the beat
over and I let Usher know, yo, I got this
(28:16):
joint for us, like come you know, let's do it.
So he flies in, he records it, and he's out
and after he does his part, so I'm just like, wow,
this is a smash.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
So I called Lula.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
I'm like, bro, we got another one, like I need
you on his ASAP saying it Luda. He did his
parts and then I go in last because I'm not
the rapper, and so I was like, I need to
take my time to make sure.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
My verse is as catchy as possible because.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
I can't compete against Luda Chris and then it's Ussher
like come on. So I was like, let me take
something from this record. We had a record called It's
a record we did with Ubi.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I forgot the name of it, nothing.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Free, nothing Free. You forget that that's a classic, Nothing's Free.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
So we did nothing Free like in the nineties, and
so I was like, that shady part was really catchy
on that song, but it was regional. Nobody really heard
it out of the South. So it's like, let me
take that same little thing and put that in Lovers
and Friends, and that will be the little catch for
my verse to make it catchier and a little Did
I know that I was gonna be like people's favorite
(29:23):
verses because it's so simple. It's so simple and it's catchy,
and yeah, that's one of That song went number one without
a video because it was the labels and Superstartists and
superstar ad and Da Da Da Da Da. But number
one song rap song of the year without a video
in the two thousands is impossible.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
You got three of and you made me think of
it when you said nothing is for You got three
artists that I feel like should have been way Yeah,
China White, Yeah, Ubie and Bull Hagen.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Yeah what you what do you think? Why did I
didn't connect?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
We worked hard, like Ubi was with me for a
long time. We did a lot of records, but we
just never got the right one. Just how it just
happens like that sometimes with artists. Uh, China went to
jail right when we shot the video for Bea Bea
and me and my boy Rob Mac left the video
at the end of the video shoot. We drove her
(30:21):
to prison after the video shoot, all the way in Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
So she did. I don't remember how much time it was.
It was at least five years.
Speaker 9 (30:31):
That sounds she went to fan time for gun Running
Damn yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
So she she didn't even get to perform the song
at its peak at all, so that that messed her
window up. And then bo Haggen the same thing. We
were just trying to get the records. We just never
got the records.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:54):
We said, I set them up nicely and get crunk
and you know he did the hook on Dan, but
we just never was able to translate. Those are things
that you know, hurt me to this day because those
were people that are down with me for a long
time and I was pushing, pushing, pushing and working they
make the record, but sometimes they just it just don't
come out.
Speaker 8 (31:13):
You know, I was gonna say with the Lovers and
Friends video when I when I watched you tell the
story you talked about I know you mentioned labels loosely,
but you said that the labels didn't look at you
as a comparable artist too. Yeah, which when I heard, like,
I just I mean, I don't know, it made me
upset when I heard, Well.
Speaker 5 (31:31):
You gotta think Ludacris is a rapper death Jam in
the two thousands, Usher is fucking Usher at Monster, biggest
guy in R and B.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And I'm this guy doing crump music. You got it.
It's not the time, it's not the same times.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Now as I'm I'm known, I'm established, I've proven myself
over and over again. But early in those in those days,
it hadn't happened yet.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
So yeah, they.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
Feel like you helped the find that whole sound of
the early dude.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But they didn't. I don't feel like, you know, death Jam,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Oh sure, I don't think nobody got it back then. No, Yeah,
Lotu John was it was.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
He wasn't looked at as an artist per se like
Luda or exactly Usher. He was a host, djuction. Yeah
that's what it was.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Hype man, producer. Yeah, you know, that's the.
Speaker 6 (32:24):
Clubs without you know what was the clubs without crunk music?
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Little John back then like no.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
A lot less energy.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Was it ever a low period for Little John?
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:37):
I got burnt out probably after after the forties album,
and I think I tried, we tried to do a
second trivial and scrappy album, and I.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Just was fried from all.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
You know, you got to think about I was going
since the nineties ninety three, you know, producing to was
that two thousand and eight or nine two thousand and eight,
and I'm I'm just depleted. I have no creative juices left.
I go in the studio, I'm trying to produce and
trying to make stuff. I think, yet nothing's coming out.
(33:10):
I think that's also what happened with two of those
artists too, because I might have gotten to the point
where I was just had nothing left.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
I couldn't I couldn't create it.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
And then so what I started to do was just
go back to the foundation DJJ, go back to the clubs.
And what happened was Reggie Bush invited me out to
the first game in the super Dome after Katrina. So
I went there and that night he had an after party,
went to the after party and it was a DJ
DJ and I was just like, this dude is freaking dope.
(33:42):
So I met the dude and he was cool and
so the next day his.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Name is DJ Spider.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
So the next day we were I was in the
airport and this nerdy white dude come up to me like, hey,
remember me? Like who he was like, oh, Spider, I
was DJing last night. I was like, oh shit, So
what happened was he really inspired me to get back
into DJing by the way he was mixing. So me
and Spider linked up. He like got me on Serado,
(34:13):
he started like giving, gave me, helped me get my
music library up, and we started DJing together. So I
started to kind of get back into DJing, and so
d Jing brought my producer creative energy back.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
Is that when the records like Shot Shot Shots and
all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
That came just by me being out and meeting people
and and you know learning this you know Open Format
World and EDM World and and yeah, I ended up
meeting lmfao. I was kind of following their story and
uh a mutual friend of ours named Eric Deluxe who
kind of he wrote shots too. U He reached out
(34:49):
to me and sent me to record. I was like,
this record is a smash. But around that time, I
think I first met them when we did a pit
Bull video.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
We were on like I think it was crazy. I
think they were in that video.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
So I was kind of working with Pittbull because we
did the anthem we did Crazy. Then Yeah shots came
so I was still I started to move into another
world because I saw that EDM world. I kind of
jumped in right at just starting to get crazy, and
I ended up getting a DJ residency in eight in Vegas.
(35:21):
So I've been in Vegas doing a DJ residency since
eight and I'm still there now. So that was a
place where I could really, you know, learn a different style,
just open format world and just get my energy back
from just being in the midst of the people and
understanding what makes people move and groove again. Because DJing
(35:43):
is the foundation of my production. Like I think I
started playing the drums when I was in elementary school,
So drums and DJing are the two key elements to
my production style.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's why it's.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
More beat driven and that's why they're all club records.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
A DJ side when you choose the pivot, because you
know you've pivoted a lot. When you choose the pivot,
is it because of where music is going or where
you're going as a person.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Where my spirit leaves me my spirit? You know, when
I started to get back into djaying, God put these
people in my path to say, okay, you should now
start moving over here. And I remember like telling my
manager and my lawyer, I want to go over here
and do this DJ stuff. They like, Bro, you're making
one hundred grand or beat? What the hell is wrong
(36:29):
with you? I was like, I can't do.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
It no more.
Speaker 5 (36:32):
But I saw the future and I just trust. I
always trust my spirit. Ladies and gentlemen, don't listen to
your mind, listen to your spirit. And you got to
learn the difference between the two. And when you learn
the difference, your spirit is never gonna lead you wrong.
Real trust it and it's gonna be fine. And that's
what I've been doing, you know, pretty much my whole life,
(36:55):
and everything's been okay, you know what I mean. Like
I've been able to now have number one medium song,
hip hop song, R and B song, AC song. How
many people you know had a hit song in every
in four decades, because you know, we had a hit
with even the usher Glue song. I think it was
(37:15):
an AC hit number one, I take it. And then
I had a song with Pitt Bull that came out
two years ago called Jumping that was like number one
on some chart. So yeah, since the nineties, I've been
doing this and I'm just thankful every day to wake
up and to still be able to do this, and
to also like, right now is the time where the
(37:37):
two thousands is on fire? Yeah, like, yes, it's on
Like I'm doing so many shows that and and for
crowds that I haven't seen and you know, or maybe
not have done it as a headline. I have never
headlined for ten thousand people until like the last couple
of years Tackles.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
So it's like, it's amazing that people the memories that
people have from that era, the fun time they had,
it's making this music you know now come back and
it's in a major.
Speaker 7 (38:10):
Way made you what made you do the meditation. So
that's totally far the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Yeah, turning fifty, turn fifty, a lot of things started
to happen in my life. First thing I it hit
me was like I asked myself, what makes you happy?
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And I said, damn, only.
Speaker 5 (38:38):
Making sure everybody else good, but that's not what makes me.
Like what makes me happy? I couldn't really tell myself,
and so I was like, you know what, I need
to kind of put myself first.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Like I'm not happy in this marriage. Like, so I said,
I want to do divorce.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
And so around the same time, me and my my
good friend Doug Davis we talk like every year because
he calls and gives me shit because he's he's like
a couple months younger than me, so he's like, oh,
you're old man.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So we're talking.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
And he was telling me he wanted to introduce me
to somebody that was in this space and I was like, oh,
that's interesting because I've been listening to like all of this,
like b neural beats to sleep and relax and ocean
and rain and all of this type of stuff. So
me and this guy kuld Bear, his name is caber Sego,
(39:34):
we connected. And so I'm going through the divorce and
like I didn't like where my mental state was at
because I'm angry, like, ah, why can't she just do
this and that? And so I'm like mad, and I
don't like, That's not me. I'm a positive at all
times person. I don't think negatively. So I'm like, I
(39:57):
started to like medit day. I started to say affirmations
every day, and it helped me to be in a
better mental state, as well as having good people in
my corner, like my queen.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Her name is Jamila.
Speaker 5 (40:12):
She was there for me at that time, and she
would give me like also like just positive. She would
just keep me, try to keep me in a positive mindset.
And she had been through a rough divorce too, so
she can give me some insight and just you know,
help me keep my head up. So the affirmations every day,
I would literally get a cup of tea and I
had a copper pyramid on my deck. I'll drink, get
(40:34):
my tea, go sit in this copper pyramid and meditate
and just say these affirmations. I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm
at peace every single day and throughout the day. And
so all of this happened at the same time I
meet Caber and me and Caber are talking. He's like,
let's do we should do meditation. So I was like, yeah,
(40:55):
let's do that. I'm down with that. I think that's
great because I was saying these affirmations I meditated.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
So uh, we went in recorded a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 5 (41:04):
But yeah, it was because I needed it was time
for a change in my life. I needed to be
in more positive mindset. One thing that I also did
was I was like I would say, affirmations of negativity
can live inside of me.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
I like, I don't. I try to get rid of
all negative thoughts.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
And when I did that, when I really got rid
of the negative thoughts, I ain't not even saying the
word hate.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
I didn't even use that word.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
So I'm always trying to change anything that happens to me.
In any negative situation, it's some positivity you can pull
out of that you focus on that. So I would
always pull that positivity out. And I've learned if you
pull that out, pull pull a positivity out of any
negative situation, and you let God drive, don't try to
(41:56):
drive and trust God every it ain't gonna.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Always be all right.
Speaker 5 (42:02):
And so we went in we recorded these albums, and
you know, this time of my life is feeling like
I'm doing what God intended me to do. But what's
amazing is everything that got me here I was supposed
to do. And even like all of the music that
I've given people gave people positivity. So it's always been positivity,
(42:23):
but it's meaning more now when someone tells me I.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Never meditated, you helped me meditate.
Speaker 5 (42:29):
I was having trouble getting over this grief of losing someone.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Your meditation about grief helped me. I'm inspired to do.
Speaker 5 (42:39):
You know how many people have called me about getting
in the gym. It's insane, Like celebrities, all kind of
people are like, you inspired me to get healthy. So
I feel now like I'm doing what God intended me
to do.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
It took me a long time to.
Speaker 5 (42:56):
Get here, but this is the time it's supposed to
be and crazy. I was thinking about this the other day.
I met mister Farrakhan at the Source Awards and he
basically told me, he said, you got power, you got
a voice, and he basically was kind of trying to
tell me, like use it and that like that stuck
(43:18):
with me, like I'm like, okay, but now I'm using
my voice and my power in a good way to
push positivity.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Into the world.
Speaker 7 (43:27):
So that is what makes you happy.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
That's what that's what you know what Yeah, it makes
me happy that.
Speaker 5 (43:38):
Just to be just to do good, you know, just
to do good, because all that comes back and when
you like, a guy came to me, I did the
col of guard thing, right, A guy came to me
in the club one night in the club and was like,
I did that col of guard test because of you,
and it came back positive, and he did he didn't
(43:59):
have colon cancer, but he had polyps. So just stuff
like that, it just makes me feel like I'm doing
good in the workpiring people and being a good role
model to my son.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
I have a daughter now, you know, she's ten months old.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Congratulation.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
I look at life like with health like I got
to be here for her, you know what I'm saying.
I got to be here for her first day of school.
I gotta be here for high school graduation, walk her
down the aisle. So health is even more important than me.
It was something I was doing to just you know,
live a long, full life. But even more so now
(44:37):
I have even more motivation because of my daughter.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
And her mother. I got to be here for them,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (44:42):
So it's crazy to see you cry because a lot
of people who never even thought you had ice.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
No, you know what, black man, we need to cry.
So we need to cry.
Speaker 5 (44:51):
When you get more in tune to your higher self
and you stop vibrating at these low frequencies, you can
let yourself let the energy flow as we should. We
don't have to be tough all the time.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
And you're an advocate for therapy.
Speaker 5 (45:05):
I push all brothers that we don't have to suffer
in silence.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
We suffer in freaking silence.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Call your homie sometime to just be like, my nigga,
you good? How you doing not just period, but how
you mentally doing? Bro, Because that one little conversation could
make him not go do some stupid shit or take
his life or whatever.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
You know. So I started doing therapy. I push anything,
any knowledge that.
Speaker 5 (45:30):
I got, I try to share with everybody because we
got to help each other.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
We all we got what's the gym? What's the gymy?
Speaker 5 (45:39):
This is a trying, This is positivity abundance and it's
also my daughter's birthstone.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I want to ask you a question about about marriage.
Speaker 6 (45:51):
Like you never hear men say they were tired of
the marriage, like they wanted to walk away.
Speaker 5 (45:56):
What happens is when you start to walk on those eggshells.
It's just not it's just not a positive environment. And
then when you get to the point where a lot
of times in marriage, we're just there making sure everything's good,
and who the hell checking on us, who's making sure
we okay? Who's making who's coming to us and saying
(46:16):
what do you need today?
Speaker 1 (46:17):
What can I do for you to make you happy?
Speaker 9 (46:20):
You know?
Speaker 1 (46:20):
I know we're the providers and all of that.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
But we need that love too. We need that assurance.
Sometimes women go to your men and just make them
feel like, appreciate it because to live in today's society,
to go out and make that money and all of
the things a husband and a father has to worry
about every single day. Like I said, suffering in silence
(46:45):
that y'all have no clue about. Just be that positive light,
make that house a home, make it radiate positivity.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You know.
Speaker 5 (46:53):
So yeah, man, y'all got me up here crime you
might have needed.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
To release you know. You know what I wanted to
know when when Dave Chappelle was doing the skits at first,
did you take it as disrespectful? Did you always was like,
oh this is great?
Speaker 5 (47:10):
No, A cipher sounds called me and he was like
when he did the first one, and he was like, Yo,
Dave Chappelle did this skit on you, Bro, It's crazy,
it's hilarious. I was like on me, I'm like, why
are you doing sketch on me? Like I ain't nobody,
and he's like, bro, trust me. And so when I
saw it, I was like, that's really me.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
That is really me.
Speaker 5 (47:33):
And I got on this show because I went one
day to just tell Dave thank you for doing the sketches,
because we have a mutual A friend's named Corey Smith,
and Cory is the reason Dave is part of the
reason Dave does the sketch too, because I think they
might have heard this song, like what song was it?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I don't give it.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, I don't give him. He might have heard it.
Speaker 5 (47:56):
And he probably was like this would be interesting if
that's all he says. But he's actually intelligent.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
And then Corey was like, yeah, John, Corey thought I
went to Morehouse.
Speaker 5 (48:03):
I just was always hanging out in the AUC because
back in the nineties, if you're from Atlanta, you went
to the AUC.
Speaker 1 (48:10):
Clark.
Speaker 5 (48:12):
All of that to just get girls, you know what
I mean. So you just used to go holler at
the girls. So I used to be always up there.
So Corey was like, no, he's smart, he come from
this and that. So Dave ran with it, and so
I went to the show to thank Dave and Day
was like, man, hang.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
Out, I want you to. Let's do a sketch. Like
he didn't even have it, he didn't even know I
was coming.
Speaker 5 (48:33):
And so we was just we did one sketch and
then he had an idea to do another one, so
he just had me on camera and he was off
camera and we was improving back and forth, and that's
how we got.
Speaker 1 (48:43):
The Little John and Little John sketch.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
And to think that I was able to improv with
one of the greatest comedians of our time. How many
people get to do that? Not many, you know, So
that was that was amazing. And Dave to me places
that music would never ever be able to take me.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
How did that change everything for you? Just that sketch.
Speaker 5 (49:06):
It just opened me up to more people that didn't
get it or didn't would have never listened to the music.
I remember just being in the airport and like all
kinds of white people coming to me, like whole families
and all just all types of people because he was
moving the needle at that time for culture so and
it just yeah, it just opened up a lot more doors.
Speaker 7 (49:28):
And that's when they started putting the t's in the name.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
Little John that yeah so and shout out the cat
Williams soon because he he co signed me too when
he did his Pimp Chronicles. I think that's his greatest
special to. I'm going to record saying that.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
And you know, we he brought me out and let
me do.
Speaker 5 (49:48):
My catchphrases and we ended up going in the studio
working on some songs together. He just come by the house,
shout out the cat. I need to get you in
the gym with me. Cat, you can go work out,
you can run, but can you push them weight up?
Speaker 1 (50:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (50:03):
Try to do that to do People come up to
you all the time like come on one time.
Speaker 1 (50:06):
Oh my god, could be yeah. Man, they don't do
it as much as they used to.
Speaker 5 (50:12):
But like people that used to hang out with me,
like say too early two thousands are you know twenty
tens used to be like, bro, you don't get tired
of that.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
I'm like, I don't even hear it no more.
Speaker 5 (50:24):
I zone the people out, but like, yeah, I used
to be at like TSA, a grocery store exactly, and
they do it, so they so they expect me to
do it, so they keep doing it and I might just.
Speaker 7 (50:34):
Be like, what's up, bro, meditation album? You do it's
a soft yeah, but you.
Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, yeah. So that's the new the new meditation album.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
So when we did the first, we recorded a bunch
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
When we you know, early too well, sorry.
Speaker 5 (50:54):
When I did the first Meditation album, I recorded a
couple other projects. So one of the projects was something
that my my god, Doug Davis came up with. He
was like, you should take your songs and remix them
into meditations and I was like okay. So we recorded it,
but I was like, this don't need to come out
first because nobody's gonna take me serious.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
So I'm gonna like, yeah, get low and ground, you know.
Speaker 5 (51:22):
So I was like, we're not gonna do that first,
So now the time we're gonna drop that. I think
it's a fun project, but it's real meditations, but it's
just a playoff of the songs that you know and love.
Speaker 6 (51:34):
I just got a couple of questions, you know, the
industry rewards constant energy, right, like you gotta always be on.
How did you learn the difference between performance energy and
just personal peace?
Speaker 5 (51:45):
I just in myself. It's spiritual again, Like I'm just
I just know when to be crazy, little John.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
I know, be going to be just cool, chill.
Speaker 5 (51:54):
It's just just let my spirit got me everywhere, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (51:58):
So and you talking about the meditation and the mind
from this, like what I would ask when you were
at the height of crump, did you even have the
language for like stress and anxiety and burnout back then?
Speaker 1 (52:08):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 5 (52:09):
I was just go go go go, go, go, go, go, go,
go go go. It was all just cause I don't
I don't know where the peak is, you know what
I mean? And I don't even expect to get where
I got, you know, because I just started off me
and the Eastside Boys. We did that first song who
You With, just to make something for the clubs of Atlanta,
and then that turned into Okay, now you gotta do
(52:30):
an album, and then that turned into being on Anger
Management tour with Eminem and fifty Cent, and then fifty
cent even took me to Australia, I went on tour
with fifty in Australia, you.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (52:41):
So it's like, I'm just happy to be here. I'm
just gonna keep going because and that's how I am. Like,
I just I gotta work. I gotta keep working, you know,
because these are opportunities that are coming to me. So
I don't want to you know, somebody sitting at home
right now wishing they could be out, or somebody else
could take this opportunity and use it if I don't
use it.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
So I'm gonna take advantage of all of that. Now.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
You are a big drink at one time and totally
stopped Yes, yeah, what made you stop that drinking?
Speaker 1 (53:08):
Turning fifty?
Speaker 2 (53:10):
Had to fifty to stop drinking?
Speaker 1 (53:12):
Ye, judge, judgment you damn.
Speaker 5 (53:18):
So I turned fifty and for a while, like a
year or two, I had this constant like discomfort, excuse me,
discomfort in my side and I didn't even know what
it was. So fifty like, I need to go get
a I need to go to a doctor, right, So
I went to the doctor and the doctor is like, okay,
for one is I thought it was my liver because
(53:38):
I'm like, I drink too much. It's got to be
my liver, and I'm scared. So he's like, your liver's
on the other side, it's not yours. And then he's like,
it's probably inflammation in your gut. He's like, you're you're
fifty years old. You need a colonoscope anyway to check
for polyps. So when I'm in there, I can check.
(54:01):
I can do an endoscopy and check your gut. So
comes back and I have inflammation in my gut. So
I had stopped drinking because I was scared of deliver.
So I had already stopped. So by the time I
had the colonoscopy, it had been like six months, and
I was like, I'm good, I'm just gonna not drink
no more.
Speaker 1 (54:22):
So I think I was going like three months and
I was like six months. I was like nah. Then
I was like, maybe I go nine months.
Speaker 5 (54:27):
Then I went to a year, and I was like
when I got to the year mark, I was like,
I'm good.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
I don't even need to drink no more, you know.
And I think one thing that kind.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Of that that like brought some insight to me, Like
health has been like important to me for a while
because I knew like a guy that had a triple bypass,
he was like thirty five. So that started me first
on my like I need to start correcting stuff with
myself before it's too late, because the older you get,
the harder it is to reverse what's going on. So
(54:59):
that's that started. And then when I was dating my
partner Jamila, she really pushed me into I think she
saved my life because she pushed me into getting my
blood work done and getting lab work done. I found
out I had inflammation in my gut. Like I knew
I had inflammation in my gut, but I candida gut
(55:21):
is the key to a lot of problems in your body,
So you got to get the I saw the rock
talking and he said his gut was messed up too,
So no healthy bacteria in my gut Candida inflammation. And
then I found other like markers in my blood work
that I was like, oh, I gotta.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Change this or take this out of my diet.
Speaker 5 (55:39):
So all of that helped me to like hone in
on exactly what I needed to do also to get
my health like more tuned tuned in too.
Speaker 8 (55:52):
I saw you say it was like you came out
of a like a ah, stop drinking.
Speaker 5 (55:57):
Because if you think about it, I was drinking every weekend,
so I never fully got over the drinking.
Speaker 1 (56:03):
Like I would drink a bottle of forty two a night, Jesus, Jesus.
Like so Friday, Saturday a bottle of forty two.
Speaker 8 (56:11):
Acoholic drinking, but all the nights a whole bottle.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
Every because I'm doing shots.
Speaker 8 (56:20):
We might do a couple of shots, but we ain't
doing a whole bottle.
Speaker 1 (56:23):
I'm the party guy.
Speaker 5 (56:24):
We don't want to drink with me, and I gotta
drink with everybody. When I turned down the shot, they
were like, bro, come on, man, yeah, so I gotta
damn near a bottle of night. So I'm always constantly
getting over the hangover or the getting My body is
still trying to recover, so I never am recovering. So
when you lay off the alcohol, you come out of
(56:47):
that fog and it's like it's like everything is clearer, everything,
you know. So I just I like the way that felt.
And then you know, when I started working out, like
I can work out like.
Speaker 1 (57:02):
You can't work out when you hungover.
Speaker 5 (57:04):
And then you put an alcohol in your body that's
sugar that's that's not gonna help you get the goals.
Speaker 6 (57:08):
So if you write a book, you know it should
be to have a chapter turned down for what and
you talk about exactly all the reasons why you ask
your turn down.
Speaker 5 (57:14):
Yeah, especially especially when you get in your up there
in the years, you know, because right I'm fifty three,
I'm going down the hill, you know what I mean.
I want to have That's another thing. At my fifties,
I was like, I'm over that top. I don't know
how much time I got. I want to enjoy my life.
I want to enjoy my life. I want to do
stuff that makes me happy.
Speaker 6 (57:34):
Do you think people truly understand the loneliness that can
come with success and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
No, because they just see the private jets and the
trips and all that. They don't realize.
Speaker 5 (57:47):
You know, sometimes you can't go nowhere because people bugging you.
You can't spend time with your loved ones without people
bugging you, or the the I gotta make another hit record,
you know what I mean. Like or even when you
start to go down, you're not as hot as you were.
People not picking up the phone and all that. Yeah,
it's a lot of most people couldn't deal with this life.
(58:11):
It could not deal with it because there's too much
pressure then people on the internet with all their opinions
and all of this and that, and it's a lot
of pressure that you cannot be built weak to be
in entertainment industry.
Speaker 6 (58:24):
So yes, sir, when you my last question, when you
think about legacy, now, how much of it is about
peace and purpose rather than I guess the plaques and
the parties and all that.
Speaker 5 (58:35):
I think my legacy is going to be all about
positivity because every step of the way it's been crunk
was positive. It was a positive release. Then now EDM
stuff was positive, positive part It was all partying based initially.
But it wasn't like I was saying go do a
drive by on the ops, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
It was just like, hey, go release turn up, you know.
Speaker 5 (59:02):
And then you know, now in my latter years, it's meditation, mindfulness,
get therapy, fellas, I'm gonna tell everybody out there, get therapy,
get a therapy.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
If it's going through it.
Speaker 5 (59:16):
You should not be left to your own devices to
deal with some serious issues. Sometimes you need to talk
to someone that's a qualified person.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
And I did em DR.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
Did you ever do MDR?
Speaker 5 (59:28):
EMDR is amazing because it taps into your subconscious. When
I did em DR, stuff came out that I didn't
even really didn't know what's there. So it can tap
to the it can find the root of why you
got that trauma.
Speaker 1 (59:41):
And then like, so, yeah, I have not done any
of that yet.
Speaker 5 (59:45):
I don't want to do it. I'm thinking about it,
but I don't want to. I don't want it to
change me. It won't because I just feel like I'm
already at a certain place. But I do want to
go tap into those things that I have locked deep,
deep deep.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
A lot of people who done E.
Speaker 6 (01:00:01):
D and MAR tell me that the iaching experience is
pretty similar because it's just everything that is in your
subconscious that you suppressed.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
God is like, no, look at it. Yeah, it's all
on the table, that scary feeling, that stuff.
Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
No, it's just it's profound.
Speaker 5 (01:00:15):
Em DR is profound because it's like that's why I
act like that, or that's why my mother treated me that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Way, or this is why that happened.
Speaker 5 (01:00:24):
It helps you and then like em DR, Like when
I did it recently, I was able to go to
my childhood self and think it's okay, I'm here, it's fine,
You're you're loved, you're appreciated, you know, all of that.
And it helped me to get past whatever that was.
(01:00:44):
So that's why I like it, because it's stuff that,
you know, because I was kind of not worced, but
I was like, someone was like, you should you know, go,
you should try it, you know, because it helped them,
and I did it and I was like.
Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Man, I'm good. I don't need this. And then I
was like, damn, it's like I did not know that.
Speaker 5 (01:01:07):
And the more you do it, the more stuff comes
to you, and you just realize this is.
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
Why I'm the way I am.
Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
I can now get past this and I can change
these habits, you know, and I can be living more.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
I can live a better life. Wow.
Speaker 6 (01:01:23):
Man, little John, you are an icon and one of
the greatest producers of all time. You bought people so
much joy. In this next chapter of your life where
you are helping people heal, I think it's gonna be
your best work yet.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Brother. I do too. I do to.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
It feels so good when people come to me and
say you help me, you know, without me even directly
doing anything for them.
Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
I'm helping so many people and inspiring people.
Speaker 5 (01:01:49):
Like with the with the fitness journey, with the you know,
the bodybuilding thing. Coming in third in this competition. I
it was just it was hard to just do it period.
It was hard to just even get there. And I
was just happy to be a part of it. And
I just want to inspire people to say that that
(01:02:10):
say I can't work out, I don't have time. I'm
on the road, I'm a new father, I'm in the studio,
I'm doing a million things, and I'm able to go
to the gym and transform my body, eat right, do
all these things so.
Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
You can do it too.
Speaker 6 (01:02:25):
Billy Blanks Man, you can do you training hit training
where it's your music playlist, all the crunk music going
body by John.
Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
I love it, Okay, help me out with it. Solon Man,
Oh no, I love it. Inspire.
Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
There you go, well, Little John, we appreciate you for
joining us. And also December eighteenth, you're performing for our
assister station.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Shingle jingle Ball.
Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
So what what should do people expect for Little John
in that show trunk period?
Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
They want it because it says Little John and friends,
it's krunk Crunk.
Speaker 5 (01:03:04):
And friendsunk crunk, you know commercial just it's Atlanta and
I gotta hit them hard. You know, Jermaine talking crap
like but Jamaine my best family. Jermaine actually called me,
was like, who you're bringing out?
Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
So I'm gonna I got friends friends.
Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
So but I'm just gonna bring the crunk. That's what
That's what they want. That's what I'm gonna give them.
That's what they ain't seen in the wild, So that's
what I'm giving them. I ain't trying to do nothing
crazy crunk excited.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Could that error ever come back?
Speaker 6 (01:03:36):
Like the way metro Booman just did futuristic some Could
that crunk era ever come back?
Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
If it did, it'll I don't know if people can
handle it.
Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
I think we need like grown people who don't get
the release.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Maybe you have something you put everybody, everybody put their
phones up.
Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
But you don't heal the same way.
Speaker 6 (01:03:50):
You can't be.
Speaker 8 (01:03:54):
And I don't know how to sprinkle down to the yns,
Like how would they don't need sprinkle?
Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
Think that krunk could be recreated, But I'm glad that
we do have these crunk classics that will never die,
so I don't think it could come back.
Speaker 5 (01:04:07):
Maybe I do something next year, Maybe I do, like
why not you know Metro did?
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Maybe why not? I was talking about it. But it's
just got to be the right.
Speaker 5 (01:04:15):
Everything with me is the right time, you know, when
the universe tell me it's time for it, that's when
it happens.
Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
All right, Well ninety six point one, get your tickets.
He will be performing at the Atlanti's Jingle Ball. Can't
wait to see you, guys. It's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Good morning, every day, Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (01:04:33):
Finish for y'all.
Speaker 7 (01:04:34):
Done,
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DJ Envy
Jess Hilarious
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