October 28, 2024 • 49 mins
The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Talib Kweli To Discuss Conscious Rap, Kanye's Rhetoric, The Dark Side Of Hip Hop, And New Album. Listen For More!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Op's the World's most Dangerous Morning to show to
Breakfast Club. Charlamagne and God, Lauren l Rosa, DJ Envy
is sick, Jesse Larryus is on maternity leave. But nowle
Simone is here and the good brother Tyl kwal Lee
is here.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
What's up, King?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You say my name like my parents do. That's the
right way, right, That's how my parents said. You know,
the Muslims say Talib, but I was raised as Tali.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I live.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
That's how you know. I've known you for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
How are you, King?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm gret good to see you new album.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The confidence is knowing?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
What is the confidence annoying? Not just the album, but
that mantra? What is that? What is that?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well? First of all, shout out to Jay Rowles, the
producer professor at the Ohio State University, producer Brownskin Lady.
He's my partner on that album, So shout out to
Jay Rowles. But the confidence of knowing is a quote
that I got actually from Jay Z. He said it
off the cuff in an interview and I feel like
he heard it somewhere. But it stayed with me for years.
It's the idea that as an artist, you have to
(00:59):
know that you're on the right path. You have to
know that you're doing the right thing, even when the
world tells you that you sound crazy when you say
I'm gonna be a artist for a living, you know
what I'm saying, Even when the world says, nah, that's
not gonna work. Your chances of succeeding in that world
are so small. You should get a regular job. And
there's a lot of voices like that for artists. So
for art you have to have the confidence to know that,
even though the world is telling you that you're crazy,
(01:20):
that you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know. It's interesting, but that I remember when Hole said,
you know, skills sold lyrically, I'll probably be talib kwali.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I wonder if in that moment was he truly confident.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's a great question. I feel like he was in
that moment. He was telling us that he feels restricted.
You know, he'd still had to like drop an album
every fourth quarter to get the sales of Rockefeller up
at that time. He still had to make records for
the radio, records for the club. The business of it
the business of it, and then after that when he
(01:52):
was a billionaire, he no longer has to do that.
Now you got the Basquiat dreads. You know what I'm saying.
Now he looks like how I look like in high school.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
He sounds like, do you ever feel restricted?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Because I know like you do your own thing a lot,
like so, have you ever felt that restriction? Even like
with the release of this project, I've seen you talk
about like you tour so much, and like just some
of the comments you've made about yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I think you're in a really great space and you
love the space you're in.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
But it's a lot different artists normally, Like you said
it yourself, you would understand. My son will call you
a one hit wonder depending on where they listened to
in hip hop and whateer. They are a lot of
artists to be upset about that, But you are very
comfortable with where you are. Do you feel restricted sometimes?
Like you have to fall into the business because of
whatever reason.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I think I've gone through that I could listen to
records I've made. I like all my records, and I
think that I'm good at my craft. But I can
listen to records I made five years ago, ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, where I'm like, okay, I could tell
the intentionality behind this song was to be in the
music business, trying to get a single on radio, trying
to get more ears and eyes to what I'm doing.
(02:53):
And the less I do that, the happier I am.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
When did you start doing that less though you remember
that moment?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Like man, I think it was a gradual process. I'm
not sure when I really stopped doing that, but I
think around the time when I started, I did an
album called The Seven with styles P and on that
album it was no pressure to have a hit single
or have a radio single or anything. It's just like,
we're just gonna bar everybody out. And after that, I
(03:22):
did an album with Diamond D, you know, did the
album with mad Lib. I try to work with people
who I don't have to meet that expectation.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, wasn't that the.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Meaning behind rugues back in the day, Like there wasn't
that label. They're so artists didn't have to compromise.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, But then Simon says happened and it was such
a huge record. Like the first Ruckus song that made
it to radio was Definition. Me and most death and
Flex like that he was playing at it. If you
remember in the error, Flex was so big in that error.
And so Simon says, comes next and uh, and Simon
(04:00):
says before before Simon says, the raucous thing was independent
as fuck, like we don't need the radio. We independent
until you get a radio single. Then the label started
chasing them hits. Remember they signed g Rap and they
sign Smith and Wesson. They had g Rapping Jagged Adge record.
It's like, you know, with all due respect to both
g Rap and Jagged add that record did work.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That's not what you want to hear.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
That's not what you want to hear from either one
of them. And so they got kind of caught up
in that trying to chase them hits.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I was gonna say.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
And the confidence of knowing, because I feel like, especially
the type of rapper that you are, when you talk
about knowing is like understanding life and just like the
amount of knowledge that you drop, it's kind of like
how do you how do you navigate? And just like
staying balanced because the thing that you talk about aren't
really liked subjects, like it's it's real life.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I think for me, it's been rewarding to be this
type of artist and to you know, I love what
I do and I'm I'm someone who focuses I try
my best to focus on the culture hip hop, and
I think people outside of the culture see hip hop
one way. They see it as just greed or sex
and violence, and it's easy for them to critique that.
(05:16):
But I think for me and the community that come
in come from, it's just always been about the culture.
I'm excited about. I wake up excited about it. I
think just trying to be excited about and doing what
you love for a living. Like I'm not I'm not
in it to make money. I want to make money,
but I'm not. I don't wrap to make money. I
(05:37):
try to allow who I am to create revenue streams,
and I encourage other artists to not depend on the
art for revenue because it ain't out there like that.
But yeah, I hope I answered your question. It's a
good question. I'm not sure I answered the problem.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Now you do.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
I just I feel like because I'm a person who
gravitates towards like conscious music, and I feel like at
times I don't want to be aware, but I can't help.
But be aware because this is just where I'm like,
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, because music, especially for people who are marginalized in
the communities that we serve with our music. These people
have hard lives and so music should be an escapism,
and it often is. And so a lot of people
go to the club. You go to the club. People
work hard all week, they save up their coin, they
go to the club. They don't want to hear somebody
talking about the election or black nationalism, you know, saying.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
That in this room.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You gotta let me say it with you.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Yeah, because I basically was trying to say that as well, too,
Like even if I have like conscious music that I
listened to, like when I'm out and I'm partying, I
really don't.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
It's stuff gets heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Like she started off, hear that ship.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
I said, that's how it was edited. Ask the question.
It's not what I said, It was how it was edited.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
And I was asked the question, Yeah, right, I think
he edited with his own fingers. What I was basically
trying to say is like, even if the music is
great and it has a place, I think like more
people feel like they want the escapism at a time,
and I feel anyway I'm.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Not this movie. This movie that did years ago. She
kind of like set us up for the Kendrick and
Drake battle forget what It's called, and la Keith stands
in that movie. It was an argument between about Kendrick
and Drake.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
It was joint.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, but the whole movie is based on he liked Kendrick,
she liked Drake, and at the end of the movie,
he like, I don't mean to spoils spoiler alert, but
he buys her tickets to a Kendrick Lamar concert because
it was like the philosophy of what Drake represents versus
what Kendrick represents. But she she was early on that.
(07:49):
I'm saying she was early. She's just acting in the movie.
I don't know if she wrote and produced it, but
she's you know, she was a catalyst behind the movie.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I don't know why that have them come up. I
haven't heard that all year long.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I just do it about it just when you just said,
I just thought about it. But you know, I got
the song get By. It's my biggest song. Whenever something
bad happens to black people, y'all playing up here.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
In the radio station.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
You know, you know what it is. But but you know,
I used to go to strip clubs a lot. I didn't.
I didn't go to strip clubs until I became known
as a rapper, you know what I'm saying. Like a
certain era of rap, strip clubs were very popular, and
I would go in the strip club and the DJs.
A lot of the DJs is before like step you
could get title on your sido. The DJ is a
lot of times in the script strip clubs, they might
(08:33):
have just get by and they and they creates. So
I'm walking to strip club and they play and get
by and them strippers just like I want to hear this.
I have to talk to this, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So yeah, even though the doing what they need to
do just to get by.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So I get what you're saying. But I will say
this to that point because what you're saying is correct.
The hardest thing to do is to make conscious music
agree with you. And that's and and that's the that's
I challenge myself. I run to it and knowing that child,
knowing people want to hear that escapism, how can I
be so dope that even though they don't want to
hear this, that he's still going to have to hear.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And that's why I.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Considered I consider you that and that's why with the
when you were I think it was Toy Races yead
a Toy Race show when you were on his show,
and you said the thing about like you're a most
touring rapper, Like you tour, you make money. But at
the same time, you would understand why some people would
say the one wonder thing because they're not tapped into
the conscious.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Or whatever, how are people label you?
Speaker 5 (09:30):
I really was like, Wow, I've never heard the artists
like kind of use that to big themselves up. And
I commend you for that because a lot of artists
take that personally, like I can't go to ship club
and hear my music, Like, are y' all crazy?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You should be playing my mind.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I'm just I'm really self aware. I think I try
to be self aware. I try to understand my worth,
my value, but I also try to understand perception. Perception
is not always reality. The way people perceive me, it's
not what it is, but I still have respect for
their perception.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I want to go back to something you said about
Simon said because it just made me think about it, right,
Simon says, was necessarily what you would call a radio record.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So why would rockets say, hey, who would you rap?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Do a song with jagged ash instead of just saying, hey,
make the best art y'all can possibly make.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And if radio messages with it, clubs messing with it,
they just do it.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I mean, think about how big I mean radio still
terrestrial radio is still very important, still very big, but
it was bigger back then. It was like you without
the radio, you know what I'm saying, Like soul's a
mischief or if you really dope, why aren't you signed yet?
That was the mentality, why aren't you on the radio?
Why aren't you on? And so that's just what it was.
(10:32):
Simon says, I don't think was made for the attention
of getting on the radio. Pharaoh is trying to make
a hot joint. But it's such a good song that
they tasted a little bit of that success and now
that's the only thing they focused on.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
That's how I feel about get By. Like get By
not a radio record.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's just a super dope record that means something to
a lot of us, and when you hear it, it's
like a feel good joint.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Matter of fact, to sink the video Forget By myself
and Rooks put our money into it because we were
a distribution with Priority. I think I had put out
a single for that album, two singles already, and the label,
the major label, the distribution, they wasn't going to give
us no money for it. I'm like, get By this
to me was a hit record in my head. I'm like,
(11:18):
this is a single, but they didn't support it, so
we put it out on our own. So it's like
to your point, it's like the machine didn't see it.
They were like, that's a mix, a mixed show record.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
When did j When did Jay call you and say, yo,
I'm getting on that or did he just dropped the
birth and you heard it somewhere? Nah?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I met Jay at a Lincoln Center at this roots event,
which is crazy because the day I met Jay is
is actually on YouTube somewhere. You can see the day
we met wow and and I told him we should
work together and get but he gave me his two
way number. It's two way pager. Remember you had to
like do the put it next? And I paged him
and I was like, yo, get on this remix and
(11:55):
he was like, I got you, and then I didn't
hear back from him. I hit him up like two
three times. He never responded, and then one day he
hit me said what's your email address? And I sent
it to him and five minutes later the verse was
in the email. Wow, and then I You know, if
you listen to that remix, there's many different versions of it,
but the one that people listen to the most is Me, Kanye,
(12:16):
Most Most, and jay Z. So when I got the
whole verse for me, it was gonna be me and
jay Z. I laid eight bars as a reference, and
then I left to go get some food. Kanye and
Most Death was in the studio. They each laid like
twenty four bar verses and then they gave it to
DJ enough and then it came out. So I have
eight bars on that remix. Everybody else got wild.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, real wild, real wild.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I'm triggered.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Whatever people talk about that remix, that is crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
But shout out to all of them, because that's how
excited people were about that record. Fifty Cent jumped on it,
Bust the Rhymes jumped on a, Snoop Dogg jumped on it.
It just became like a Lightning Rod.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
I kind of miss that era though. Just give it
to the DJ, just put it out. I'm excited about
this this Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The label still even mad, like like what, like what
has changed since the since the nineties early two thousand,
Like if.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It ain't radio, if it ain't labeled, like what do
artists do?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I think it's you know, the power of the people.
You know. I don't. I don't know how this show
works anymore because I don't know what's y'all tape or
what's live. I'm so confused, but you know what I'm saying.
Like I was, I was listening to y'all talk about
Tyler the creator that was that was live, Okay, So
I think what people from his generation, like the conversation
(13:28):
that Tyler that was had around Tyler and DJ Khaled
when their records dropped at the same time and Kala
was on social media like not understanding how Tyler went
number one. I think that to me signified the change
where we're going from this like very industry based radio
with your relationship with radio, to like the internet, the Internet,
(13:50):
Tyler developing organic fan base, and I think, uh, Tyler
and odd future and you know, people like that are
they now like that, like I I was alluding to,
they now the old school of that. Now there new
kids who I probably not don't even know about.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
It's it was interesting, right because when you have these conversations,
even about the talent to creator and I even think
about you know you and most and all of them,
you got to sit back and think, why aren't those
guys in like the top five top you know, greatest
of all time conversations are the best of their era
conversations because it's almost like machine.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
But I think they are for the for those we
I think we not in those conversations, people like our
age are not having new conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I think that the kids are.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, even when even when you hear people say like for.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
You've heard this right future because that whole like is
he more relevant in the streets conversation?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think just like it goes from errors like for
there's a certain error. It's regional too, but there's a
certain error that for certain error, nobody's better than Lil Wayne.
For a certain era, nobody's better than Future, and nobody
ever will be for a certain era, nobody's better than
Biggie jay Z and os I think it just.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Keeps that I have Future in my Fantastic four.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Okay, so for this era, so it's.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Kendrick Cole Drake Future.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
But then I sit back and think of myself, why
than Tyler in that conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Tyler is not a product in the industry.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Maybe that's what I'm so even with guys like y'all,
like the Machine wasn't behind y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And I've heard people say.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Y'all always say Future is a product of the industry,
I don't feel like.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I don't feel like Future is a product of the industry.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Honestly, I feel like he got some industry vibes when
like the whole like dating Sierra thing happened just because
of his relationship. But music wise, the industry doesn't like
really push in futures.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
He got fifteen years old.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
But I mean, like the Machine, when I hear product
of the industry, I think like these are artists that
had that, Like it's obvious the machine is there.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I feel like Future does his own thing.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I might be mistaken, I don't know, because I know
Future was bubbling in Atlanta in a way that you know,
I wasn't really a part of that to see how
he bubbled.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah because the street.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
He's still there are a lot of product of the
industry people like they can't still bubble in the street.
That it's hard to do the balance, Like I think
bubble bubbled in the street versus a future bubble the street.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
It's different.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
Conversation one street was the woman.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
It's different. We don't got to argue about it right now,
about you.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I say this when I say product industry, I'm not.
I'm not saying that you like a plant or like
you know, I'm not That's not what I'm saying. What
I'm saying is a certain point, a button was pushed
and and and the building got behind you. And the
building absolutely got behind future. And the Tyler's case, I
have to clarify. I feel like in this case, the building,
his labels, they got behind him, But it's not they
(16:47):
didn't get behind him in the way that they would
get behind an artist they would push to urban. They're
not bringing him up to to see y'all the way
they would bring up a certain artist. They're not pushing Tyler.
And maybe that's just because I had Tyler and his
crew moving he's not being pushed to the urban.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
I think it's because of how they're moving, because they
were like early strategic on internet with trolling, and he
was creating like his own like TV episodes, like he
was an innovator.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I still want to answers for this. He he did
a video years ago where he said he was in
his house or someone's house and he pretended to fall
down the steps and he got to be said, Hey,
I'm TALLI quality, And to this day, I still don't know.
I still don't get the joke. Yeah, I hope he
wasn't trying to disney.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
A birthday party. I don't know, like wearing a birthday.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I don't remember what he was wearing, but I remember that.
But I never got an explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But I guess that's what I'm the question I'm trying
to ask when I look at a group like Black Stole,
most quality should be mentioned in the greatest hip hop
groups of all time?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Is it because there was no machine behind you to
push that?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But well, we had a button push though, Okay, fair raucous.
Raucous gave the illusion of independent, But what made rook
Is different wasn't just the artists they signed. It was
because they took Black Star and Company Flow and Cuji
Rap and all these people, and they spent the money.
They paid the payolas, they paid the they paid for
(18:14):
the parties. They had this house in the hand, but
they paid for When you in that era, you saw
Rookus videos on Rap City on one O six and
Park on They and they they they the radio promo,
all that stuff. They did all the stuff the major
(18:35):
label did. While saying were independent, I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So it was a lie the whole time.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
They were technically yeah, technically they were independent, but they
were independent spending the way the majors were spending.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Did y'all get more money for your albums? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, the deals, the deals that we got, the advances
we got were comparable to major label deals. But it
was like it was presented. They do that now though, right,
so now when they roll out artists, they'll have a
big major label, but they won't even tell you the
artists a sign. They'll let the artists bubble and social
media and get your own because they realized that's how
people discover art. So that's what Rucus was doing back then.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Did y'all have a flirt with signing with somebody bigger,
like a def jam.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Black Star had a deal on Geffen, and we had
a deal in MCA, and then Rucus got scooped up
by Geffen, and Geffen got scooped up by Interscope. I've
had major I've been signed to Warner Brothers, Interscope, Capitol.
I've had major deals. I've had independent deals. I've put
it out myself. I've done it all.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Do you feel like a Black Star made a wise
decision or a poor decision by putting by not putting
the last album out?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Why? That's a great question. There's pros and cons to it.
The pros are the deal I did with Luminary, which
was a podcast company. To put the Blackstar album out
with Luminary meant that by the time you heard the album,
I'm in the Black. That's never happened career.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Normally I have to go out and beg people to
come by the album. Hey, y'all got a new album out,
and I didn't have to do that. I already made
my money back before the album ever came out, and
so financially lucrative wise, it made a ton of sense
in the world. But I'm still a product of this culture.
I still want to be involved in the culture. I'm
a rapper. I want people to hear my raps. So
(20:21):
the trade off is we made our money. I didn't
lose any money, but a lot of people didn't get
to hear the album. I will say that I wish
and this is a wish and to hope that people
would be more to your I wanted to say this
to you earlier about being a conscious consumer, because you
said you're into conscious music. But I think too often
we put the onus on the artist to be conscious,
(20:43):
particularly rappers, and we don't put the onus on ourselves
to be conscious consumers. Conscious radio hosts, conscious radio programmers,
conscious DJs, conscious whatever, conscious teachers, conscious garbage collectors, everything.
And if you're a conscious consumer, you got don't want
to meet the artists where they're at. But the fact
is is that these people have been a lot. We
(21:04):
have a generation who was raised to think music was free,
to not have to pay for music. It's already available
to them on the apps. So when you come to
people and say you know what to hear my album,
I need you to click two or three extra buttons
on your phone. They'll be like, what, how dare you?
What's wrong with you? You don't care about the people, and
(21:24):
they get very upset about it.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I think we're kinda like low key getting back to
that though, because a lot of people are putting their
music out on even and like behind a paywall before
they put it on major DSPs. And I mean, yeah,
I'm guilty of I mean, you know, I grew up
on long Wire.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Then artists I support though because I know that. So
like if I support, you know, not really lock it.
Like while I always pay, I will pay for stuff
even though I don't even to be honest with you,
like it goes to the other side of your Apple
music library, like when you actually download it, and I
never go over there. But I just do it just
because I want to support him. So it's a little
bit different for us.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Yeah, I actually buy music for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, I can't be mad as someone who doesn't. I
wish more people had the knowledge, you know, because it's expensive,
not just financially but spiritually mentally. You know, we put blood,
sweated tears into this and it's like, you know, and
now in order to be successful in the streaming error.
You have to feed the machine. You have to keep creating,
keep creating, keep creating, and you're rewarded by that.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
That's actually what I really was trying to ask, and
the confidence of knowing, because being conscious is like you
know so much and you'll say these things but people
don't really hear you, and like, is that frustrating.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that I that I
hate being correct about and I get frustrated. But that's
just ego. So I have to remove my ego from that.
And that's that's why I laughed, because I'm working on
that a lot lately.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
What were you correct about that?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now?
Speaker 5 (22:54):
You'd be like I told yall, like you were correct then,
but now it was so much there's I know there's
one you mean.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Like I told you, I don't think that to give me.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Like the top two of like okay, the top two.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Uh. I used to be on social media a lot.
I've been kicked off a bunch of social media because
I argue with people and I gauge and they don't
want that, and I with the argument I'm having are
over like bigotry in politics. It's not like for in
my in my opinion. It's not trivial stuff. It's stuff
that's imported to talk about. But man, if you ask
anybody about me on social media who's not a fan
(23:34):
of me, you'll hear this often. Ty calls everybody a nazi,
he said, he why is he always saying everything is
white nationalism? Everything is and what's in the news, what's
dominating the news cycle? Right wing general who in his
it gave the definition of fascism. He said, fascism is
(23:55):
a right wing extremist, authoritarian philosophy. That this guy that
I worked under when I was his military advisor is
a fascist. This guy praises Hitler. I've been ringing this
bell for years, since twenty sixteen. I was out in
front of the White House protested because he was saying
fascist Hitler like things, and people were like, you're crazy,
(24:19):
you keep saying Nazi. People would come to my page.
I put up an anti Trump post, and people would
stop what they doing in their day and come to
my page and be like, you shouldn't do that. You're
a democratic puppet. You're a puppet of the Jews. This
is the type of things people say to me. You
tell me that I'm because I'm against Nazi, that I'm
a puppet of the Jews. You know who you You
(24:40):
sound like a Nazi. And I felt like I was
going crazy a little bit because to me, it's clear
I'm a little disappointed in our mainstream media because the
way that the CNN and MSNBC and all them, they're
on the story now, but it's like this is nothing new.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I just had this conversation with last night, like literally
because I've I've been talking about this double standard. The
fact that we treat Trump so normally is mind boggling day.
And if you've ever read like a book like The Fault,
the Rise and Fall of the Third Right, you can
see exactly we're on this same exact path, a fast
track of fascism in a it.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Is when Trump comes out and says, Kamala Harris is
the socialist, communist, Marxist, those are the enemies of the Nazis. Politically,
that's the opposite political spectrum. So if someone is trying
to pander the Nazis, they're gonna call you a socialist,
they're gonna call you a communist, They're gonna and Kamala
Harris is not any of these things. She's an imperialist,
(25:37):
she's a capitalist. She's not a socialist. She's never been
a socialist, she's never been a communist. These are just
boogeyman words. And and the the Democrats, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden,
you know all of them, Barack Obama, Bill Clan, the
Democrats as a party. There's so many things you could
say that they've done wrong. There's so many flaws, there's
(25:57):
so many times they've taken advantage of the black community.
There's so much out there you could criticize them for.
And a lot of these criticisms are valid. But what
I find disheartening is you have people who can now
become experts and can eloquently tell you how racist the
ninety four crime Bill was, and why Joe Biden shouldn't
have said on this show, you know, vote for me
(26:19):
if I'm black. They can, they can, They know all
that stuff. But then you point the Trump's racism.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And I don't see it. I don't see it.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I can't trust you. I'd rather trust someone who says
I don't trust either one of them. Right, there's someone
who's trying to convince me to support Trump. So the
fascism thing is very because to me, that's to me
the difference. Even though I don't agree with a lot.
I don't agree with the Democrats on Gaza. I don't
agree with the Democrats on certain immigration policy. There's a
lot of things I don't agree with them on, but
(26:51):
they're not fascist.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
None of us want to. You do not want to
live under authoritarian rule, and you just don't want.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
These guys, the right wing, they straight up say they
do not believe in democracy anymore. They don't want a democracy.
They don't like the idea of the d DEI right.
They don't like a diverse America, all these foreigners coming
in having a vote. They don't like that. They want
minority rule. That's why they have the Electric College. The
Electric College was designed so that rich white men have
(27:17):
all the power. Even if the majority says that's the
people we want, they said, well, we're the landowners, so
that's the people we want, you know what I'm saying.
So that's one thing, And then the other thing is
you would.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Be jailed right now for having that conversation, like literally,
that's what that's what we're headed towards.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
When he's talking about.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Putting towards potential is.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
We got eleven days Like he's talking about putting journalists
in jail, talking about jail and his political opponents, talking
about putting people inttention.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
If you vote for me, you won't have to vote anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Ever again, how what?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
How much? Like that's clear fashion.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Its mind boggling. Bro let it and he let an
attempt to cool it his country. We saw it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
He's trying to he wants to get rid of the
Department of Education, which is what's one of the top
things that that says in Project twenty twenty five something
he said he has nothing to do with even though
all his advisors and all his people are the ones
that put it together. Anyway, I don't want to talk
too much about that guy.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It is what it is.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Well, I do have one question. It's kind of related
to that guy before you get off.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Okay, I mean, look, if y'all want to talk about that,
I could talk about all the day.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
It kind of gives It goes back into music.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
When Kanye was on Drink Champs and he made the
comment versus you conversation and then you had responding was
like you talked about how he told you that he
didn't really want to be down for Trump that Rick
Ruby made him do that and like all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Right, have you talked to Kanye sinto all of that stuff?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, The last time I spoke to Kanye was a
last I ran into him at a hotel maybe last
March is after drink Champs.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
After drink and this is after your comedy. Had he
saw what you said in response?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes, I this is the first time I saw Kanye
after drink Chimps. And I walked up on him and said,
I knew that was you. I could tell from your
silhouette of your baseball hat from across the room. And
then he we had a long conversation and he told
me then that he does not support Trump anymore. He
said things since then publicly that would lead me to
believe he still supports Trump. This guy goes back and forth,
(29:06):
but when he sees me. Both times I saw him,
he says, I don't support Trump. I feel like he
don't want to say that in front of me. But
if you watch the Drake Champs, he says, uh, talim
quality is always telling me to read. I wish he
would read himself to death. That's what he said. On
the show. And it's because a lot of the things
(29:27):
he says, I would send him links and articles instead
of just you wrong, I'd be like, you read this,
And so he was. That's what he was reacting to
the fact that I keep trying to make him read.
And I feel like Kanye is a genius. He's an icon.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Musical genius.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, musical genius, I cut fashion icon. Culturally, he's very important,
but he's not very well read.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Admittedly, admittedly I don't read, admittedly, and I think.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Not being well read I don't education shame. I try
to be careful because my parents are educators, or try
to be careful, but I feel like the education American
education system is failing us. And this is why where,
this is why someone who's been indicted for rape has
a very strong shot of being president for the second time.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
And so you haven't talked to him recently to know
like where he stands with the Kamala the Trump right now?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know what his
position is on this now, but I do. Last time
I spoke to him directly, he seemed personally offended by
like not getting what he the relationship he wanted from Trump.
I think you know Kanye, Kanye, Kanye, Kanye goes where
he's liked. There was a documentary made about me a
few years ago. Someone interviewed Kanye and he talked about
(30:47):
how he met me and most Death and Yah Seen Bae,
and he said, nobody liked my beasts, no one liked
my ROMs. But I started working with these guys because
they like me. When you see Kanye talk about his
love for Trump, it's rooted in Obama dissing him. These
guys like me. You know, when you see him wear
the red hat is because it's like the mag of people.
(31:09):
They're supporting me, even when nobody else is. These people
support me. I think in the era of likes and
wanted to be liked, I think Kanye just wants.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
To be liked.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I mean, you know, man, once you see him
hugged Trump in the Oval office and say you.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Like a dad to me.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Made me feel like a man.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I really have not looked at him.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, man, I got a lot of love for that guy,
but he'd be saying wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
How do you feel about the state of hip hop today?
For for for just just from just cultural actions like
when you think of the Kanye's, when you think of
the diddies like you know, like Russell Simmons, it's like
these pillars of our of our of our culture, and
you know the.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Stains that are on their legacies. Now what do you
what do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's twofold. I don't think we could separated at about
this a little bit. I don't think we could separate.
I don't think we should separate these people from hip hop.
Hip hop is beautiful, it's ugly. Hip hop is good,
it is bad. We have conscious activists who are uplifting
the community in hip hop. We have abusers and rapists
(32:15):
in hip hop. We have all of it. So I
think we do a disservice to ourselves to be like, well,
uh that you know, to to not talk about it
in that way. We have to hold each other accountable.
We should be in the hip hop community. We should
hold these people accountable who are doing these things before
it leaves our community, before we see I have to
(32:37):
see the mainstream media explain to us what the freak
off is? You know what I'm saying. We should this
should already be issues handled in our community.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
With that said, yeah, yeah here from down now exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But I will say that in the conversation, and I
alluded to this earlier, we have to also understand that
the conversation about hip hop is not being had with
people like me and mind, with the conscious artists in mind.
And so, yes, hip hop is all those things, but
hip hop is also it's also very beautiful. I don't
think hip hop should be held accountable for what Diddi
(33:21):
is accused of.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I don't think hip hop should be held accountable for
what any of these people are accused of are doing,
or with Diddy, even with Diddi, Like there's the accusations
and then what we actually saw on the tape, so
that's not an accusation, Like we saw him hit that
girl like that and beat on that girl like that,
and like we have to deal with that. But to me,
that's not a hip hop thing that we can't blame
hip hop for that. But as a hip hop community,
(33:44):
we should circle the wagons and address.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
It because it's gonna be impossible, right, Like, I think
about what happened with the fifty years of hip hop,
when or even now it's fort I think it's forty
years of Death Jam. You can't tell the story of
death Jam without telling the story of Russell Simmons. But
you gotta tell them. But you got to tell everything
in totality. When they do these bad in the future,
you're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Most of that with Russell. I know they said he
was served in Bali or something like that, but yeah,
I mean, you know, we have to address it. Russell,
He's important. What's even deeper than Russell is somebody like
a band body right Africa, Like there is no hip
hop without him. But there there have been several allegations
(34:24):
and accusations. As far as I know, he hasn't been arrested,
he hasn't been to court. But you want to. You
want to you want to respect victims and you want
to uplift their voices. If I'm to believe these victims,
this is something we have to be able to address.
But to be honest about what these people are now.
(34:46):
Karas One got in trouble on drink Champs years ago,
because first of all, on drink Champs you get drunk
and you're saying, wow, ship he got in trouble because
you know he was there in the Bronx at that time,
he was trying to he was trying to say that
he's not he was trying to pick up the legacy
of ben Bada and not ignore it. But but people
(35:08):
felt like he didn't do enough to support the victims.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
I think it's because it's sorry to cut you off.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
But just as a as a woman, I think the
biggest part of that is there's always this like should
we believe? Should we not believe, especially when it comes
to power, celebrity, money, power dynamics exactly. So I think
it's always just it's such a weird line of hope
just because of that. It's like, so you don't blame
hip hop, you can't separate them in from the music.
(35:35):
Some people won't do that right, and that keeps a
celebrity and the power in it. And then you ignore
and you blame a Cassie and say, oh, she just
wants money until you see her being dragged up, like
up and down a hotel hallway. So I think that's
where the tuggle with how do we deal with it
as a community in hip hop?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Right?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Like that's that's for me where that line always comes
and it's hard to kind of figure out. I mean,
like us, Like how he said we need to deal
with certain things before his mainstream and others. That's what
I mean by that, and not just hip hop as
a music genre, but like just us as black people.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
People who are aware of this behavior the whole time
and never said anything about.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, I mean if you were aware. I've been around
these people and I haven't seen any of these type
of things. But I'm sure there's people who've been around
who have seen these type you know, the stats tell
us that women aren't often lying about these things when
they say in their abuse in this way. So you know,
(36:35):
I definitely believe in innocent until proven guilty. But at
the same time, we have to we have to uplift
and support victims that we have to. To your point,
understand when there's a power dynamic involved that it's somebody
like a Cassie. You know, there's a lot of criticism
about how she went about doing it. None of us
(36:55):
were in her situation. It's very dangerous for her to
come out and say these things. You know, not just
in terms of what people think someone like a Diddy
is potentially capable of doing her, but just in terms
of how society looks at her her mental health to
be have. Yes, it's a lot, man, God blessed Cassie.
She's very brave and it's a shame that she went
(37:15):
through that, and it's a shame that it got to
this point that we had to see this videotape for
it to get for it to get any semblance of justice.
And I don't even know if she feels like she
got justice.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
It's also interesting because I feel like when you do
like call out something on culture that hey, guys, this
is something we should actually be paying attention to, like
this is a problem. It kind of falls on deaf ears,
like because like how are you actually going to get
the message across? Like I don't even know. It's almost
kind of like seeing like police killings, Like you see it,
(37:45):
it happens, you feel away, but then you just keep
like it's already normalized so much that I don't see
a change.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I want to share a story to your point about
a lesson I learned in that years ago. Rick Ross
had a lyric on the song oh Yeah, and people
were upset about this lyric rightfully so Me and uh
Me and Lupe Fiasca were arguing about it on on Twitter.
It caught Mark Lamont Hill's attention. He invited me on
(38:15):
his show. He was on huff Post Live at the time,
and I was on with Rosa Clemente and uh Jamela Lemieux,
and we got into an argument and their point. These
were friends of mine, but their their point was that
what he's saying should not be tolerated in hip hop culture.
(38:35):
And I was like, I agree with that, but I
don't think we I don't think we should separate what
he was what he's saying from hip hop culture, Like
there are rape lyrics in hip hop culture before, right,
so I think we need to have context. And I
was trying to make a nuanced point, and a lot
of people didn't agree with me. You know. Dream Hampton
(38:56):
was somebody who I thought was a friend of mine,
came out against me and was like, Tyler Qually is
enabling rape culture. There's another lady of Brittany, Brittany Cooper.
She had the crunk feminist thing and she wrote an
essay about how I am a poor example of I'm
not an ally to women because I'm protecting Rick Ross.
(39:17):
And then all the Rick Ross fans was mad at
me because like, why are you calling out Rick Ross.
So I was like caught in a in a rock
and a hard place how I felt about it. And
I wrote a response to Britney's thing about me because
I felt personally offended by it, and I stand by
everything I say in that response except for one thing.
One thing I did in my response to her was
(39:38):
I talked about my activism. I talked about the work
I've done my songs, and you should. You should take
it to context who I am. But I declared myself
an ally to women, and I learned in real time
that that's not my place to do. And so I
dismantled my own argument by declaring myself an ally to women.
It's not my place to do that. It's for women
(40:00):
tell me that I'm their ally, and that's something I
had to learn. That was a blind spot that I
had had to learn. So even though I felt like
I was being treated affair, you can be treated affair.
You can be right about something and still respond in
an incorrect way.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
And I think that that's important too with hip hop artists,
because I feel like a lot of times when things happen,
you really don't know where to lie. Because certain things
have been normalized and also to you want to believe
all women, but then sometimes we find out and through
court cases that things aren't true. But I think it's important,
Like what you just said is like you allowed, you said,
you know what, I got that wrong and then being
(40:35):
able to set back and learn. For me as a woman,
I've learned so much from my male friends about that
on my side of things, and I think if men,
especially men and hip hop, were able to remove their ego,
the chains, how big the chains are, how much they cost,
and really listen to some of the women that are
in their lives, just your mom.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
It's certain things that even even if it's just music,
you can understand it. And sometimes I think there are
certain things in music that we allowed to just be music.
And I'm not here to argue whether that's right or wrong,
but there are certain things that happen, and I'm like,
I hear certain men speak on it in hip hop,
and because of your ties to this person and what
they meant to your life, the stuff that people are saying,
(41:15):
I'm like, bro, you should have been quiet because.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
You know what Lauren.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I will say this because Lauren's absolutely right and everything
that she's saying.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
The things we thought was just music are the things
we thought was just jokes did trigger somebody because somebody
actually went through that, right, So it's like, I think
that's that that was always the blind spot for I
think all of us and Nicolech's.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's interesting because you know, you have you have what
you say on social media and public, and then you
have your private group chats with your friends and family,
and that's how.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We raises black people. You don't need a house and
some and you.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Know, in this private group chats, you and your family members,
y'all might share memes and say things that are off
color that you want to say in front everybody, just
you know, make a jokes that you know is not
appropriate for public. And so when the Diddy news broke,
you know, I have a group chat with my whole
crew and men and women from all different races of people,
and people start posting memes baby oi and memes and
(42:11):
stuff like that. And one person was like, this is
not funny. We shouldn't be joking about this, and I
had I I had to have a compentity joke. She checked,
She checked someone who made a joke in the in
the public group chat, and so I went and spoke
to her separately, and I'm like, maybe you should have
hit that person on the side, because now now people
(42:31):
don't don't feel like they could express theirselfs in the
group chat. And then she's like, I'm sorry, it's just
that I have a friend who went through this and
was in a situation at one of these parties, and
I just but but she understood my point, and I
understood her point.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know what I learned that too. I learned that watch.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I learned that watching the Dreamhampton doc that she did
on All Kelly. When I when when the victims were
talking about how Chappelle's jokes and Boon Dogs jokes and
everybody's jokes had affected them, and I was like, y'all,
I never thought about that because in my mind we
was clowning R Kelly.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Right, you never thought about it.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And some people need the jokes to get over it.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Some people, oh, something just funny, and some are just
someone just fun like that's just funny. But the confidence
is doing right. I wanted to ask you something about
the album that slipped my mind. What the hell slip? Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You got a lot of new artists on this album. Yes,
a lot of new artists. Why was that intentional?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And shout out to Jay Rowles. I've done more features
than anybody, maybe sized busted Rhymes, and so I'm kind
of like tired of asking people for features, you know,
because you feel like you have the favorite bank with people,
you don't want to exhaust it. And I Rolls like
we should need some features, and I said, Okay, Rolls,
I don't feel like calling up any more favors from
these artists, but you tell me what your wishless is
(43:44):
and I'll make one phone call and if they deliver
within the next couple of months, I'm not chasing nobody
for these features. I'll put the call out and God
bless everybody on the album. Every person on that wishless
is on this album. So that was Jay Rolls. I
want to He's like, I want to work with your
meta Rose. I had never heard of your Meta Rose.
I want to work with Coast Contract I was familiar with.
(44:06):
I was like, yes, but I wasn't sure they were
going to get on the album. Even with the song
I did with them, it's probably the most the song
that's gained the most traction for album Swat. I sent
them five beats before they picked the beat. They were
very serious about like you know, Georgia An mouldro someone.
He he said, I want buck Shot on the album.
I was like, that's nothing. We could get buck shot
on the album. So yeah, it's like shout out to
(44:27):
Jay Rowls for making that decision.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
But it's definitely just like lyricists. Buck shot man Sko
was actually my cousin.
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Everybody.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I'm actually disguise you right now. I've been on to
Risk all summer. It was just you do a lot
I do. I'm leaving to Ireland tonight.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Are you jet like? You said where did you say that?
Speaker 5 (44:50):
You said jet lag is your perpetual state of being
jet leg right now, that's correct.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yes, I'm always jet like. It's like the whole of
the Avengers movie. I'm always I'm always chet lagged.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
But you said that earlier.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
You said artists don't make money off their art, so
that's like, this is the way for you to make
your money.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Yeah, touring is absolutely my My most revenue stream is
how I feed my family off of touring. I try
to As I get older, I want to do it
less trying to increase the revenue streams, trying to have
more stuff out. I wrote a book, I've been podcasting
other things, but yeah, touring is it?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
What's up with you and Dave y'all? What the part
with you and Dave y'all?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Dave kind of does that. We recorded the Summer Pandemic.
We recorded man some like eight hundred hours and stuff
like it's crazy and Dave. I think he gets distracted
with specials and getting awards and stuff like that. You know,
he has so much going on. There was a time
for a year what all he cared about was that podcast,
and that's when you saw episodes come out. I think
(45:49):
he's gonna get back to that. He talks about it
all the time, but we haven't got back to actually
like cheffing it up. But as Midnight Miracle is a
great situation. Shout out to y'all seen Bay and Dave Chappelle.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You got the song Native Sons on that Yes? What's
that song represent for you?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Man?
Speaker 3 (46:03):
That song means so much to me. That song means
so much to me. The Native Tongues is my foundation.
Junger Brothers, Trump, Real Quest Soul, Queen Latifamony love Black Sheep,
Russell rhymes Leaders, New School chi Ali beat Nuts. What
they laid down is like, that's really my blueprint as
(46:24):
an artist, and so.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
That song.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I'm trying to figure out how much I want to
share about this story, but because I was asked not
to share certain aspects. But what I will say is
that song started out in a darker place and because
it's a tribute to the native tongues, I sent it
to Q Tip and he was like, that's not the
right energy, and Q Tip gave me suggestions on what
(46:52):
I could do with that song. That took his suggestions
and because of that, the song is one of my
biggest songs. Recently, we went on Jimmy Fallon with the song,
I got a remas come in with some special guests
to people gonna really love. Some of them are okay,
some of them are And I just gotta thank you Tip,
because I sit the last bar on that song was
(47:13):
a trip Coal Quests in the Hall of Fame, because
when I wrote that song, I was like, this song
gonna come out at around the time the Tripical Quest
is in the Hall of Fame, and I went to
see Tropical Quests get adducted in the Hall of Fame.
It was one of my greatest memories of my whole life.
And then I DJ'ed the after party, Cooling the Gang.
After party, me and Jay Rolls DJ the party. I
didn't even know Roles was gonna be there, so it
was like synchronicity and Cooling the Gang was there, Chuck
(47:37):
d In Flavor Flave, Mary J. Blige, Common Jennifer, you
know uh de la soul Qte Tip didn't perform at
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because I imagine
it's hard for him to perform without fife recipes to fife.
But at the after party, he jumped on the mic.
It didn't need the apple bum and Mary J. Blige
(47:57):
did the Blackest Black And it's like for me to
be in that room with DJ read Alert downstairs DJ
and the Cooling the Gang in the next one. I mean,
it's like, this is my whole life in one room,
and man, big up the Native tongues and a lot
of new music. A lot of new artists are finding
it hard to inspire the people because the music is
(48:19):
being made like an assembling line. It's more it's disposable
these days. But what a tribe Core Quest and day
La Soul, Jungle Brothers and all these people, Queen Latifa
and all these people only love represent is uh timeless
and priceless And man, I just had such a great
time this weekend.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
What does it mean for you to see Tribe Call
Quests get inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
It's it's it means that I'm we're doing the right thing.
It means that it means that when when I had,
when we had the confidence of knowing back then, when
hip hop wasn't this global thing, that we were right,
you know. And I feel so good for the family
(49:06):
of Fife and q chip Is. If you watch that
documentary that Rappaport did about trip Co Quests, Uh, Pharrell
in that documentary says, we're all they sons and musically,
I believe.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
That Tyler Kwali the confidence of knowing new album with
Jay Raws is out right now.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Thank you for coming to my brother shout out to
this wonderful energy. I really liked this interview. Y'all did
a fantastic job, and y'all talk about important things, and
I'm glad I got to come up here and thank y'all.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Absolutely, it's the Breakfast club, wake that ass up in
the morning. Breakfast Club
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
The Op's the World's most Dangerous Morning to show to
Breakfast Club. Charlamagne and God, Lauren l Rosa, DJ Envy
is sick, Jesse Larryus is on maternity leave. But nowle
Simone is here and the good brother Tyl kwal Lee
is here.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
What's up, King?
Speaker 3 (00:17):
You say my name like my parents do. That's the
right way, right, That's how my parents said. You know,
the Muslims say Talib, but I was raised as Tali.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I live.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
That's how you know. I've known you for a long time.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
How are you, King?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm gret good to see you new album.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
The confidence is knowing?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 1 (00:33):
What is the confidence annoying? Not just the album, but
that mantra? What is that? What is that?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well? First of all, shout out to Jay Rowles, the
producer professor at the Ohio State University, producer Brownskin Lady.
He's my partner on that album, So shout out to
Jay Rowles. But the confidence of knowing is a quote
that I got actually from Jay Z. He said it
off the cuff in an interview and I feel like
he heard it somewhere. But it stayed with me for years.
It's the idea that as an artist, you have to
(00:59):
know that you're on the right path. You have to
know that you're doing the right thing, even when the
world tells you that you sound crazy when you say
I'm gonna be a artist for a living, you know
what I'm saying, Even when the world says, nah, that's
not gonna work. Your chances of succeeding in that world
are so small. You should get a regular job. And
there's a lot of voices like that for artists. So
for art you have to have the confidence to know that,
even though the world is telling you that you're crazy,
(01:20):
that you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You know. It's interesting, but that I remember when Hole said,
you know, skills sold lyrically, I'll probably be talib kwali.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I wonder if in that moment was he truly confident.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
That's a great question. I feel like he was in
that moment. He was telling us that he feels restricted.
You know, he'd still had to like drop an album
every fourth quarter to get the sales of Rockefeller up
at that time. He still had to make records for
the radio, records for the club. The business of it
the business of it, and then after that when he
(01:52):
was a billionaire, he no longer has to do that.
Now you got the Basquiat dreads. You know what I'm saying.
Now he looks like how I look like in high school.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
He sounds like, do you ever feel restricted?
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Because I know like you do your own thing a lot,
like so, have you ever felt that restriction? Even like
with the release of this project, I've seen you talk
about like you tour so much, and like just some
of the comments you've made about yourself.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I think you're in a really great space and you
love the space you're in.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
But it's a lot different artists normally, Like you said
it yourself, you would understand. My son will call you
a one hit wonder depending on where they listened to
in hip hop and whateer. They are a lot of
artists to be upset about that, But you are very
comfortable with where you are. Do you feel restricted sometimes?
Like you have to fall into the business because of
whatever reason.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
I think I've gone through that I could listen to
records I've made. I like all my records, and I
think that I'm good at my craft. But I can
listen to records I made five years ago, ten years ago,
fifteen years ago, where I'm like, okay, I could tell
the intentionality behind this song was to be in the
music business, trying to get a single on radio, trying
to get more ears and eyes to what I'm doing.
(02:53):
And the less I do that, the happier I am.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
When did you start doing that less though you remember
that moment?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Like man, I think it was a gradual process. I'm
not sure when I really stopped doing that, but I
think around the time when I started, I did an
album called The Seven with styles P and on that
album it was no pressure to have a hit single
or have a radio single or anything. It's just like,
we're just gonna bar everybody out. And after that, I
(03:22):
did an album with Diamond D, you know, did the
album with mad Lib. I try to work with people
who I don't have to meet that expectation.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, wasn't that the.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Meaning behind rugues back in the day, Like there wasn't
that label. They're so artists didn't have to compromise.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, But then Simon says happened and it was such
a huge record. Like the first Ruckus song that made
it to radio was Definition. Me and most death and
Flex like that he was playing at it. If you
remember in the error, Flex was so big in that error.
And so Simon says, comes next and uh, and Simon
(04:00):
says before before Simon says, the raucous thing was independent
as fuck, like we don't need the radio. We independent
until you get a radio single. Then the label started
chasing them hits. Remember they signed g Rap and they
sign Smith and Wesson. They had g Rapping Jagged Adge record.
It's like, you know, with all due respect to both
g Rap and Jagged add that record did work.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
That's not what you want to hear.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
That's not what you want to hear from either one
of them. And so they got kind of caught up
in that trying to chase them hits.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I was gonna say.
Speaker 6 (04:29):
And the confidence of knowing, because I feel like, especially
the type of rapper that you are, when you talk
about knowing is like understanding life and just like the
amount of knowledge that you drop, it's kind of like
how do you how do you navigate? And just like
staying balanced because the thing that you talk about aren't
really liked subjects, like it's it's real life.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I think for me, it's been rewarding to be this
type of artist and to you know, I love what
I do and I'm I'm someone who focuses I try
my best to focus on the culture hip hop, and
I think people outside of the culture see hip hop
one way. They see it as just greed or sex
and violence, and it's easy for them to critique that.
(05:16):
But I think for me and the community that come
in come from, it's just always been about the culture.
I'm excited about. I wake up excited about it. I
think just trying to be excited about and doing what
you love for a living. Like I'm not I'm not
in it to make money. I want to make money,
but I'm not. I don't wrap to make money. I
(05:37):
try to allow who I am to create revenue streams,
and I encourage other artists to not depend on the
art for revenue because it ain't out there like that.
But yeah, I hope I answered your question. It's a
good question. I'm not sure I answered the problem.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Now you do.
Speaker 6 (05:50):
I just I feel like because I'm a person who
gravitates towards like conscious music, and I feel like at
times I don't want to be aware, but I can't help.
But be aware because this is just where I'm like,
that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, because music, especially for people who are marginalized in
the communities that we serve with our music. These people
have hard lives and so music should be an escapism,
and it often is. And so a lot of people
go to the club. You go to the club. People
work hard all week, they save up their coin, they
go to the club. They don't want to hear somebody
talking about the election or black nationalism, you know, saying.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
That in this room.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
You gotta let me say it with you.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Yeah, because I basically was trying to say that as well, too,
Like even if I have like conscious music that I
listened to, like when I'm out and I'm partying, I
really don't.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
It's stuff gets heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Like she started off, hear that ship.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
I said, that's how it was edited. Ask the question.
It's not what I said, It was how it was edited.
Speaker 5 (06:55):
And I was asked the question, Yeah, right, I think
he edited with his own fingers. What I was basically
trying to say is like, even if the music is
great and it has a place, I think like more
people feel like they want the escapism at a time,
and I feel anyway I'm.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Not this movie. This movie that did years ago. She
kind of like set us up for the Kendrick and
Drake battle forget what It's called, and la Keith stands
in that movie. It was an argument between about Kendrick
and Drake.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
It was joint.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, but the whole movie is based on he liked Kendrick,
she liked Drake, and at the end of the movie,
he like, I don't mean to spoils spoiler alert, but
he buys her tickets to a Kendrick Lamar concert because
it was like the philosophy of what Drake represents versus
what Kendrick represents. But she she was early on that.
(07:49):
I'm saying she was early. She's just acting in the movie.
I don't know if she wrote and produced it, but
she's you know, she was a catalyst behind the movie.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I don't know why that have them come up. I
haven't heard that all year long.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
I just do it about it just when you just said,
I just thought about it. But you know, I got
the song get By. It's my biggest song. Whenever something
bad happens to black people, y'all playing up here.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
In the radio station.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
You know, you know what it is. But but you know,
I used to go to strip clubs a lot. I didn't.
I didn't go to strip clubs until I became known
as a rapper, you know what I'm saying. Like a
certain era of rap, strip clubs were very popular, and
I would go in the strip club and the DJs.
A lot of the DJs is before like step you
could get title on your sido. The DJ is a
lot of times in the script strip clubs, they might
(08:33):
have just get by and they and they creates. So
I'm walking to strip club and they play and get
by and them strippers just like I want to hear this.
I have to talk to this, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So yeah, even though the doing what they need to
do just to get by.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So I get what you're saying. But I will say
this to that point because what you're saying is correct.
The hardest thing to do is to make conscious music
agree with you. And that's and and that's the that's
I challenge myself. I run to it and knowing that child,
knowing people want to hear that escapism, how can I
be so dope that even though they don't want to
hear this, that he's still going to have to hear.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And that's why I.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Considered I consider you that and that's why with the
when you were I think it was Toy Races yead
a Toy Race show when you were on his show,
and you said the thing about like you're a most
touring rapper, Like you tour, you make money. But at
the same time, you would understand why some people would
say the one wonder thing because they're not tapped into
the conscious.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Or whatever, how are people label you?
Speaker 5 (09:30):
I really was like, Wow, I've never heard the artists
like kind of use that to big themselves up. And
I commend you for that because a lot of artists
take that personally, like I can't go to ship club
and hear my music, Like, are y' all crazy?
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You should be playing my mind.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
I'm just I'm really self aware. I think I try
to be self aware. I try to understand my worth,
my value, but I also try to understand perception. Perception
is not always reality. The way people perceive me, it's
not what it is, but I still have respect for
their perception.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
I want to go back to something you said about
Simon said because it just made me think about it, right,
Simon says, was necessarily what you would call a radio record.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
It wasn't.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
So why would rockets say, hey, who would you rap?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Do a song with jagged ash instead of just saying, hey,
make the best art y'all can possibly make.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And if radio messages with it, clubs messing with it,
they just do it.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I mean, think about how big I mean radio still
terrestrial radio is still very important, still very big, but
it was bigger back then. It was like you without
the radio, you know what I'm saying, Like soul's a
mischief or if you really dope, why aren't you signed yet?
That was the mentality, why aren't you on the radio?
Why aren't you on? And so that's just what it was.
(10:32):
Simon says, I don't think was made for the attention
of getting on the radio. Pharaoh is trying to make
a hot joint. But it's such a good song that
they tasted a little bit of that success and now
that's the only thing they focused on.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
That's how I feel about get By. Like get By
not a radio record.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
It's just a super dope record that means something to
a lot of us, and when you hear it, it's
like a feel good joint.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Matter of fact, to sink the video Forget By myself
and Rooks put our money into it because we were
a distribution with Priority. I think I had put out
a single for that album, two singles already, and the label,
the major label, the distribution, they wasn't going to give
us no money for it. I'm like, get By this
to me was a hit record in my head. I'm like,
(11:18):
this is a single, but they didn't support it, so
we put it out on our own. So it's like
to your point, it's like the machine didn't see it.
They were like, that's a mix, a mixed show record.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
When did j When did Jay call you and say, yo,
I'm getting on that or did he just dropped the
birth and you heard it somewhere? Nah?
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I met Jay at a Lincoln Center at this roots event,
which is crazy because the day I met Jay is
is actually on YouTube somewhere. You can see the day
we met wow and and I told him we should
work together and get but he gave me his two
way number. It's two way pager. Remember you had to
like do the put it next? And I paged him
and I was like, yo, get on this remix and
(11:55):
he was like, I got you, and then I didn't
hear back from him. I hit him up like two
three times. He never responded, and then one day he
hit me said what's your email address? And I sent
it to him and five minutes later the verse was
in the email. Wow, and then I You know, if
you listen to that remix, there's many different versions of it,
but the one that people listen to the most is Me, Kanye,
(12:16):
Most Most, and jay Z. So when I got the
whole verse for me, it was gonna be me and
jay Z. I laid eight bars as a reference, and
then I left to go get some food. Kanye and
Most Death was in the studio. They each laid like
twenty four bar verses and then they gave it to
DJ enough and then it came out. So I have
eight bars on that remix. Everybody else got wild.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Yeah, real wild, real wild.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I'm triggered.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Whatever people talk about that remix, that is crazy.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
But shout out to all of them, because that's how
excited people were about that record. Fifty Cent jumped on it,
Bust the Rhymes jumped on a, Snoop Dogg jumped on it.
It just became like a Lightning Rod.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
I kind of miss that era though. Just give it
to the DJ, just put it out. I'm excited about
this this Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
The label still even mad, like like what, like what
has changed since the since the nineties early two thousand,
Like if.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
It ain't radio, if it ain't labeled, like what do
artists do?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
I think it's you know, the power of the people.
You know. I don't. I don't know how this show
works anymore because I don't know what's y'all tape or
what's live. I'm so confused, but you know what I'm saying.
Like I was, I was listening to y'all talk about
Tyler the creator that was that was live, Okay, So
I think what people from his generation, like the conversation
(13:28):
that Tyler that was had around Tyler and DJ Khaled
when their records dropped at the same time and Kala
was on social media like not understanding how Tyler went
number one. I think that to me signified the change
where we're going from this like very industry based radio
with your relationship with radio, to like the internet, the Internet,
(13:50):
Tyler developing organic fan base, and I think, uh, Tyler
and odd future and you know, people like that are
they now like that, like I I was alluding to,
they now the old school of that. Now there new
kids who I probably not don't even know about.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
It's it was interesting, right because when you have these conversations,
even about the talent to creator and I even think
about you know you and most and all of them,
you got to sit back and think, why aren't those
guys in like the top five top you know, greatest
of all time conversations are the best of their era
conversations because it's almost like machine.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
But I think they are for the for those we
I think we not in those conversations, people like our
age are not having new conversation.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
I think that the kids are.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, even when even when you hear people say like for.
Speaker 5 (14:39):
You've heard this right future because that whole like is
he more relevant in the streets conversation?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
I think just like it goes from errors like for
there's a certain error. It's regional too, but there's a
certain error that for certain error, nobody's better than Lil Wayne.
For a certain era, nobody's better than Future, and nobody
ever will be for a certain era, nobody's better than
Biggie jay Z and os I think it just.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Keeps that I have Future in my Fantastic four.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Okay, so for this era, so it's.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Kendrick Cole Drake Future.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
But then I sit back and think of myself, why
than Tyler in that conversation.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Tyler is not a product in the industry.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Maybe that's what I'm so even with guys like y'all,
like the Machine wasn't behind y'all.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And I've heard people say.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Y'all always say Future is a product of the industry,
I don't feel like.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I don't feel like Future is a product of the industry.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Honestly, I feel like he got some industry vibes when
like the whole like dating Sierra thing happened just because
of his relationship. But music wise, the industry doesn't like
really push in futures.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
He got fifteen years old.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
But I mean, like the Machine, when I hear product
of the industry, I think like these are artists that
had that, Like it's obvious the machine is there.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
I feel like Future does his own thing.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I might be mistaken, I don't know, because I know
Future was bubbling in Atlanta in a way that you know,
I wasn't really a part of that to see how
he bubbled.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah because the street.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
He's still there are a lot of product of the
industry people like they can't still bubble in the street.
That it's hard to do the balance, Like I think
bubble bubbled in the street versus a future bubble the street.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
It's different.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
Conversation one street was the woman.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
It's different. We don't got to argue about it right now,
about you.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I say this when I say product industry, I'm not.
I'm not saying that you like a plant or like
you know, I'm not That's not what I'm saying. What
I'm saying is a certain point, a button was pushed
and and and the building got behind you. And the
building absolutely got behind future. And the Tyler's case, I
have to clarify. I feel like in this case, the building,
his labels, they got behind him, But it's not they
(16:47):
didn't get behind him in the way that they would
get behind an artist they would push to urban. They're
not bringing him up to to see y'all the way
they would bring up a certain artist. They're not pushing Tyler.
And maybe that's just because I had Tyler and his
crew moving he's not being pushed to the urban.
Speaker 6 (17:01):
I think it's because of how they're moving, because they
were like early strategic on internet with trolling, and he
was creating like his own like TV episodes, like he
was an innovator.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I still want to answers for this. He he did
a video years ago where he said he was in
his house or someone's house and he pretended to fall
down the steps and he got to be said, Hey,
I'm TALLI quality, And to this day, I still don't know.
I still don't get the joke. Yeah, I hope he
wasn't trying to disney.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
A birthday party. I don't know, like wearing a birthday.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I don't remember what he was wearing, but I remember that.
But I never got an explanation for that.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
But I guess that's what I'm the question I'm trying
to ask when I look at a group like Black Stole,
most quality should be mentioned in the greatest hip hop
groups of all time?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Is it because there was no machine behind you to
push that?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But well, we had a button push though, Okay, fair raucous.
Raucous gave the illusion of independent, But what made rook
Is different wasn't just the artists they signed. It was
because they took Black Star and Company Flow and Cuji
Rap and all these people, and they spent the money.
They paid the payolas, they paid the they paid for
(18:14):
the parties. They had this house in the hand, but
they paid for When you in that era, you saw
Rookus videos on Rap City on one O six and
Park on They and they they they the radio promo,
all that stuff. They did all the stuff the major
(18:35):
label did. While saying were independent, I think that's the difference.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So it was a lie the whole time.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
They were technically yeah, technically they were independent, but they
were independent spending the way the majors were spending.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Did y'all get more money for your albums? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, the deals, the deals that we got, the advances
we got were comparable to major label deals. But it
was like it was presented. They do that now though, right,
so now when they roll out artists, they'll have a
big major label, but they won't even tell you the
artists a sign. They'll let the artists bubble and social
media and get your own because they realized that's how
people discover art. So that's what Rucus was doing back then.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Did y'all have a flirt with signing with somebody bigger,
like a def jam.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Black Star had a deal on Geffen, and we had
a deal in MCA, and then Rucus got scooped up
by Geffen, and Geffen got scooped up by Interscope. I've
had major I've been signed to Warner Brothers, Interscope, Capitol.
I've had major deals. I've had independent deals. I've put
it out myself. I've done it all.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Do you feel like a Black Star made a wise
decision or a poor decision by putting by not putting
the last album out?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Why? That's a great question. There's pros and cons to it.
The pros are the deal I did with Luminary, which
was a podcast company. To put the Blackstar album out
with Luminary meant that by the time you heard the album,
I'm in the Black. That's never happened career.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Normally I have to go out and beg people to
come by the album. Hey, y'all got a new album out,
and I didn't have to do that. I already made
my money back before the album ever came out, and
so financially lucrative wise, it made a ton of sense
in the world. But I'm still a product of this culture.
I still want to be involved in the culture. I'm
a rapper. I want people to hear my raps. So
(20:21):
the trade off is we made our money. I didn't
lose any money, but a lot of people didn't get
to hear the album. I will say that I wish
and this is a wish and to hope that people
would be more to your I wanted to say this
to you earlier about being a conscious consumer, because you
said you're into conscious music. But I think too often
we put the onus on the artist to be conscious,
(20:43):
particularly rappers, and we don't put the onus on ourselves
to be conscious consumers. Conscious radio hosts, conscious radio programmers,
conscious DJs, conscious whatever, conscious teachers, conscious garbage collectors, everything.
And if you're a conscious consumer, you got don't want
to meet the artists where they're at. But the fact
is is that these people have been a lot. We
(21:04):
have a generation who was raised to think music was free,
to not have to pay for music. It's already available
to them on the apps. So when you come to
people and say you know what to hear my album,
I need you to click two or three extra buttons
on your phone. They'll be like, what, how dare you?
What's wrong with you? You don't care about the people, and
(21:24):
they get very upset about it.
Speaker 6 (21:26):
I think we're kinda like low key getting back to
that though, because a lot of people are putting their
music out on even and like behind a paywall before
they put it on major DSPs. And I mean, yeah,
I'm guilty of I mean, you know, I grew up
on long Wire.
Speaker 5 (21:41):
Then artists I support though because I know that. So
like if I support, you know, not really lock it.
Like while I always pay, I will pay for stuff
even though I don't even to be honest with you,
like it goes to the other side of your Apple
music library, like when you actually download it, and I
never go over there. But I just do it just
because I want to support him. So it's a little
bit different for us.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
Yeah, I actually buy music for sure.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Yeah, I can't be mad as someone who doesn't. I
wish more people had the knowledge, you know, because it's expensive,
not just financially but spiritually mentally. You know, we put blood,
sweated tears into this and it's like, you know, and
now in order to be successful in the streaming error.
You have to feed the machine. You have to keep creating,
keep creating, keep creating, and you're rewarded by that.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
That's actually what I really was trying to ask, and
the confidence of knowing, because being conscious is like you
know so much and you'll say these things but people
don't really hear you, and like, is that frustrating.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, there's a lot of things that I that I
hate being correct about and I get frustrated. But that's
just ego. So I have to remove my ego from that.
And that's that's why I laughed, because I'm working on
that a lot lately.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
What were you correct about that?
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Now?
Speaker 5 (22:54):
You'd be like I told yall, like you were correct then,
but now it was so much there's I know there's
one you mean.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Like I told you, I don't think that to give me.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Like the top two of like okay, the top two.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Uh. I used to be on social media a lot.
I've been kicked off a bunch of social media because
I argue with people and I gauge and they don't
want that, and I with the argument I'm having are
over like bigotry in politics. It's not like for in
my in my opinion. It's not trivial stuff. It's stuff
that's imported to talk about. But man, if you ask
anybody about me on social media who's not a fan
(23:34):
of me, you'll hear this often. Ty calls everybody a nazi,
he said, he why is he always saying everything is
white nationalism? Everything is and what's in the news, what's
dominating the news cycle? Right wing general who in his
it gave the definition of fascism. He said, fascism is
(23:55):
a right wing extremist, authoritarian philosophy. That this guy that
I worked under when I was his military advisor is
a fascist. This guy praises Hitler. I've been ringing this
bell for years, since twenty sixteen. I was out in
front of the White House protested because he was saying
fascist Hitler like things, and people were like, you're crazy,
(24:19):
you keep saying Nazi. People would come to my page.
I put up an anti Trump post, and people would
stop what they doing in their day and come to
my page and be like, you shouldn't do that. You're
a democratic puppet. You're a puppet of the Jews. This
is the type of things people say to me. You
tell me that I'm because I'm against Nazi, that I'm
a puppet of the Jews. You know who you You
(24:40):
sound like a Nazi. And I felt like I was
going crazy a little bit because to me, it's clear
I'm a little disappointed in our mainstream media because the
way that the CNN and MSNBC and all them, they're
on the story now, but it's like this is nothing new.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I just had this conversation with last night, like literally
because I've I've been talking about this double standard. The
fact that we treat Trump so normally is mind boggling day.
And if you've ever read like a book like The Fault,
the Rise and Fall of the Third Right, you can
see exactly we're on this same exact path, a fast
track of fascism in a it.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Is when Trump comes out and says, Kamala Harris is
the socialist, communist, Marxist, those are the enemies of the Nazis. Politically,
that's the opposite political spectrum. So if someone is trying
to pander the Nazis, they're gonna call you a socialist,
they're gonna call you a communist, They're gonna and Kamala
Harris is not any of these things. She's an imperialist,
(25:37):
she's a capitalist. She's not a socialist. She's never been
a socialist, she's never been a communist. These are just
boogeyman words. And and the the Democrats, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden,
you know all of them, Barack Obama, Bill Clan, the
Democrats as a party. There's so many things you could
say that they've done wrong. There's so many flaws, there's
(25:57):
so many times they've taken advantage of the black community.
There's so much out there you could criticize them for.
And a lot of these criticisms are valid. But what
I find disheartening is you have people who can now
become experts and can eloquently tell you how racist the
ninety four crime Bill was, and why Joe Biden shouldn't
have said on this show, you know, vote for me
(26:19):
if I'm black. They can, they can, They know all
that stuff. But then you point the Trump's racism.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
And I don't see it. I don't see it.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
I can't trust you. I'd rather trust someone who says
I don't trust either one of them. Right, there's someone
who's trying to convince me to support Trump. So the
fascism thing is very because to me, that's to me
the difference. Even though I don't agree with a lot.
I don't agree with the Democrats on Gaza. I don't
agree with the Democrats on certain immigration policy. There's a
lot of things I don't agree with them on, but
(26:51):
they're not fascist.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
None of us want to. You do not want to
live under authoritarian rule, and you just don't want.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
These guys, the right wing, they straight up say they
do not believe in democracy anymore. They don't want a democracy.
They don't like the idea of the d DEI right.
They don't like a diverse America, all these foreigners coming
in having a vote. They don't like that. They want
minority rule. That's why they have the Electric College. The
Electric College was designed so that rich white men have
(27:17):
all the power. Even if the majority says that's the
people we want, they said, well, we're the landowners, so
that's the people we want, you know what I'm saying.
So that's one thing, And then the other thing is
you would.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Be jailed right now for having that conversation, like literally,
that's what that's what we're headed towards.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
When he's talking about.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
Putting towards potential is.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
We got eleven days Like he's talking about putting journalists
in jail, talking about jail and his political opponents, talking
about putting people inttention.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
If you vote for me, you won't have to vote anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Ever again, how what?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
How much? Like that's clear fashion.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Its mind boggling. Bro let it and he let an
attempt to cool it his country. We saw it.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
He's trying to he wants to get rid of the
Department of Education, which is what's one of the top
things that that says in Project twenty twenty five something
he said he has nothing to do with even though
all his advisors and all his people are the ones
that put it together. Anyway, I don't want to talk
too much about that guy.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It is what it is.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Well, I do have one question. It's kind of related
to that guy before you get off.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Okay, I mean, look, if y'all want to talk about that,
I could talk about all the day.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
It kind of gives It goes back into music.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
When Kanye was on Drink Champs and he made the
comment versus you conversation and then you had responding was
like you talked about how he told you that he
didn't really want to be down for Trump that Rick
Ruby made him do that and like all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Right, have you talked to Kanye sinto all of that stuff?
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Yeah, The last time I spoke to Kanye was a
last I ran into him at a hotel maybe last
March is after drink Champs.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
After drink and this is after your comedy. Had he
saw what you said in response?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yes, I this is the first time I saw Kanye
after drink Chimps. And I walked up on him and said,
I knew that was you. I could tell from your
silhouette of your baseball hat from across the room. And
then he we had a long conversation and he told
me then that he does not support Trump anymore. He
said things since then publicly that would lead me to
believe he still supports Trump. This guy goes back and forth,
(29:06):
but when he sees me. Both times I saw him,
he says, I don't support Trump. I feel like he
don't want to say that in front of me. But
if you watch the Drake Champs, he says, uh, talim
quality is always telling me to read. I wish he
would read himself to death. That's what he said. On
the show. And it's because a lot of the things
(29:27):
he says, I would send him links and articles instead
of just you wrong, I'd be like, you read this,
And so he was. That's what he was reacting to
the fact that I keep trying to make him read.
And I feel like Kanye is a genius. He's an icon.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Musical genius.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, musical genius, I cut fashion icon. Culturally, he's very important,
but he's not very well read.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Admittedly, admittedly I don't read, admittedly, and I think.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Not being well read I don't education shame. I try
to be careful because my parents are educators, or try
to be careful, but I feel like the education American
education system is failing us. And this is why where,
this is why someone who's been indicted for rape has
a very strong shot of being president for the second time.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
And so you haven't talked to him recently to know
like where he stands with the Kamala the Trump right now?
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't know what his
position is on this now, but I do. Last time
I spoke to him directly, he seemed personally offended by
like not getting what he the relationship he wanted from Trump.
I think you know Kanye, Kanye, Kanye, Kanye goes where
he's liked. There was a documentary made about me a
few years ago. Someone interviewed Kanye and he talked about
(30:47):
how he met me and most Death and Yah Seen Bae,
and he said, nobody liked my beasts, no one liked
my ROMs. But I started working with these guys because
they like me. When you see Kanye talk about his
love for Trump, it's rooted in Obama dissing him. These
guys like me. You know, when you see him wear
the red hat is because it's like the mag of people.
(31:09):
They're supporting me, even when nobody else is. These people
support me. I think in the era of likes and
wanted to be liked, I think Kanye just wants.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
To be liked.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Yeah, I mean, you know, man, once you see him
hugged Trump in the Oval office and say you.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Like a dad to me.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Made me feel like a man.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I really have not looked at him.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah, man, I got a lot of love for that guy,
but he'd be saying wild stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
How do you feel about the state of hip hop today?
For for for just just from just cultural actions like
when you think of the Kanye's, when you think of
the diddies like you know, like Russell Simmons, it's like
these pillars of our of our of our culture, and
you know the.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Stains that are on their legacies. Now what do you
what do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (31:55):
It's twofold. I don't think we could separated at about
this a little bit. I don't think we could separate.
I don't think we should separate these people from hip hop.
Hip hop is beautiful, it's ugly. Hip hop is good,
it is bad. We have conscious activists who are uplifting
the community in hip hop. We have abusers and rapists
(32:15):
in hip hop. We have all of it. So I
think we do a disservice to ourselves to be like, well,
uh that you know, to to not talk about it
in that way. We have to hold each other accountable.
We should be in the hip hop community. We should
hold these people accountable who are doing these things before
it leaves our community, before we see I have to
(32:37):
see the mainstream media explain to us what the freak
off is? You know what I'm saying. We should this
should already be issues handled in our community.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
With that said, yeah, yeah here from down now exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
But I will say that in the conversation, and I
alluded to this earlier, we have to also understand that
the conversation about hip hop is not being had with
people like me and mind, with the conscious artists in mind.
And so, yes, hip hop is all those things, but
hip hop is also it's also very beautiful. I don't
think hip hop should be held accountable for what Diddi
(33:21):
is accused of.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I agree.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
I don't think hip hop should be held accountable for
what any of these people are accused of are doing,
or with Diddy, even with Diddi, Like there's the accusations
and then what we actually saw on the tape, so
that's not an accusation, Like we saw him hit that
girl like that and beat on that girl like that,
and like we have to deal with that. But to me,
that's not a hip hop thing that we can't blame
hip hop for that. But as a hip hop community,
(33:44):
we should circle the wagons and address.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
It because it's gonna be impossible, right, Like, I think
about what happened with the fifty years of hip hop,
when or even now it's fort I think it's forty
years of Death Jam. You can't tell the story of
death Jam without telling the story of Russell Simmons. But
you gotta tell them. But you got to tell everything
in totality. When they do these bad in the future,
you're gonna have to.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Most of that with Russell. I know they said he
was served in Bali or something like that, but yeah,
I mean, you know, we have to address it. Russell,
He's important. What's even deeper than Russell is somebody like
a band body right Africa, Like there is no hip
hop without him. But there there have been several allegations
(34:24):
and accusations. As far as I know, he hasn't been arrested,
he hasn't been to court. But you want to. You
want to you want to respect victims and you want
to uplift their voices. If I'm to believe these victims,
this is something we have to be able to address.
But to be honest about what these people are now.
(34:46):
Karas One got in trouble on drink Champs years ago,
because first of all, on drink Champs you get drunk
and you're saying, wow, ship he got in trouble because
you know he was there in the Bronx at that time,
he was trying to he was trying to say that
he's not he was trying to pick up the legacy
of ben Bada and not ignore it. But but people
(35:08):
felt like he didn't do enough to support the victims.
Speaker 4 (35:12):
I think it's because it's sorry to cut you off.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
But just as a as a woman, I think the
biggest part of that is there's always this like should
we believe? Should we not believe, especially when it comes
to power, celebrity, money, power dynamics exactly. So I think
it's always just it's such a weird line of hope
just because of that. It's like, so you don't blame
hip hop, you can't separate them in from the music.
(35:35):
Some people won't do that right, and that keeps a
celebrity and the power in it. And then you ignore
and you blame a Cassie and say, oh, she just
wants money until you see her being dragged up, like
up and down a hotel hallway. So I think that's
where the tuggle with how do we deal with it
as a community in hip hop?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Right?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
Like that's that's for me where that line always comes
and it's hard to kind of figure out. I mean,
like us, Like how he said we need to deal
with certain things before his mainstream and others. That's what
I mean by that, and not just hip hop as
a music genre, but like just us as black people.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
People who are aware of this behavior the whole time
and never said anything about.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yeah, I mean if you were aware. I've been around
these people and I haven't seen any of these type
of things. But I'm sure there's people who've been around
who have seen these type you know, the stats tell
us that women aren't often lying about these things when
they say in their abuse in this way. So you know,
(36:35):
I definitely believe in innocent until proven guilty. But at
the same time, we have to we have to uplift
and support victims that we have to. To your point,
understand when there's a power dynamic involved that it's somebody
like a Cassie. You know, there's a lot of criticism
about how she went about doing it. None of us
(36:55):
were in her situation. It's very dangerous for her to
come out and say these things. You know, not just
in terms of what people think someone like a Diddy
is potentially capable of doing her, but just in terms
of how society looks at her her mental health to
be have. Yes, it's a lot, man, God blessed Cassie.
She's very brave and it's a shame that she went
(37:15):
through that, and it's a shame that it got to
this point that we had to see this videotape for
it to get for it to get any semblance of justice.
And I don't even know if she feels like she
got justice.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
It's also interesting because I feel like when you do
like call out something on culture that hey, guys, this
is something we should actually be paying attention to, like
this is a problem. It kind of falls on deaf ears,
like because like how are you actually going to get
the message across? Like I don't even know. It's almost
kind of like seeing like police killings, Like you see it,
(37:45):
it happens, you feel away, but then you just keep
like it's already normalized so much that I don't see
a change.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
I want to share a story to your point about
a lesson I learned in that years ago. Rick Ross
had a lyric on the song oh Yeah, and people
were upset about this lyric rightfully so Me and uh
Me and Lupe Fiasca were arguing about it on on Twitter.
It caught Mark Lamont Hill's attention. He invited me on
(38:15):
his show. He was on huff Post Live at the time,
and I was on with Rosa Clemente and uh Jamela Lemieux,
and we got into an argument and their point. These
were friends of mine, but their their point was that
what he's saying should not be tolerated in hip hop culture.
(38:35):
And I was like, I agree with that, but I
don't think we I don't think we should separate what
he was what he's saying from hip hop culture, Like
there are rape lyrics in hip hop culture before, right,
so I think we need to have context. And I
was trying to make a nuanced point, and a lot
of people didn't agree with me. You know. Dream Hampton
(38:56):
was somebody who I thought was a friend of mine,
came out against me and was like, Tyler Qually is
enabling rape culture. There's another lady of Brittany, Brittany Cooper.
She had the crunk feminist thing and she wrote an
essay about how I am a poor example of I'm
not an ally to women because I'm protecting Rick Ross.
(39:17):
And then all the Rick Ross fans was mad at
me because like, why are you calling out Rick Ross.
So I was like caught in a in a rock
and a hard place how I felt about it. And
I wrote a response to Britney's thing about me because
I felt personally offended by it, and I stand by
everything I say in that response except for one thing.
One thing I did in my response to her was
(39:38):
I talked about my activism. I talked about the work
I've done my songs, and you should. You should take
it to context who I am. But I declared myself
an ally to women, and I learned in real time
that that's not my place to do. And so I
dismantled my own argument by declaring myself an ally to women.
It's not my place to do that. It's for women
(40:00):
tell me that I'm their ally, and that's something I
had to learn. That was a blind spot that I
had had to learn. So even though I felt like
I was being treated affair, you can be treated affair.
You can be right about something and still respond in
an incorrect way.
Speaker 5 (40:14):
And I think that that's important too with hip hop artists,
because I feel like a lot of times when things happen,
you really don't know where to lie. Because certain things
have been normalized and also to you want to believe
all women, but then sometimes we find out and through
court cases that things aren't true. But I think it's important,
Like what you just said is like you allowed, you said,
you know what, I got that wrong and then being
(40:35):
able to set back and learn. For me as a woman,
I've learned so much from my male friends about that
on my side of things, and I think if men,
especially men and hip hop, were able to remove their ego,
the chains, how big the chains are, how much they cost,
and really listen to some of the women that are
in their lives, just your mom.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
It's certain things that even even if it's just music,
you can understand it. And sometimes I think there are
certain things in music that we allowed to just be music.
And I'm not here to argue whether that's right or wrong,
but there are certain things that happen, and I'm like,
I hear certain men speak on it in hip hop,
and because of your ties to this person and what
they meant to your life, the stuff that people are saying,
(41:15):
I'm like, bro, you should have been quiet because.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
You know what Lauren.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
I will say this because Lauren's absolutely right and everything
that she's saying.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
The things we thought was just music are the things
we thought was just jokes did trigger somebody because somebody
actually went through that, right, So it's like, I think
that's that that was always the blind spot for I
think all of us and Nicolech's.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's interesting because you know, you have you have what
you say on social media and public, and then you
have your private group chats with your friends and family,
and that's how.
Speaker 4 (41:45):
We raises black people. You don't need a house and
some and you.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Know, in this private group chats, you and your family members,
y'all might share memes and say things that are off
color that you want to say in front everybody, just
you know, make a jokes that you know is not
appropriate for public. And so when the Diddy news broke,
you know, I have a group chat with my whole
crew and men and women from all different races of people,
and people start posting memes baby oi and memes and
(42:11):
stuff like that. And one person was like, this is
not funny. We shouldn't be joking about this, and I
had I I had to have a compentity joke. She checked,
She checked someone who made a joke in the in
the public group chat, and so I went and spoke
to her separately, and I'm like, maybe you should have
hit that person on the side, because now now people
(42:31):
don't don't feel like they could express theirselfs in the
group chat. And then she's like, I'm sorry, it's just
that I have a friend who went through this and
was in a situation at one of these parties, and
I just but but she understood my point, and I
understood her point.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know what I learned that too. I learned that watch.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I learned that watching the Dreamhampton doc that she did
on All Kelly. When I when when the victims were
talking about how Chappelle's jokes and Boon Dogs jokes and
everybody's jokes had affected them, and I was like, y'all,
I never thought about that because in my mind we
was clowning R Kelly.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Right, you never thought about it.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And some people need the jokes to get over it.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Some people, oh, something just funny, and some are just
someone just fun like that's just funny. But the confidence
is doing right. I wanted to ask you something about
the album that slipped my mind. What the hell slip? Oh?
Speaker 1 (43:19):
You got a lot of new artists on this album. Yes,
a lot of new artists. Why was that intentional?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And shout out to Jay Rowles. I've done more features
than anybody, maybe sized busted Rhymes, and so I'm kind
of like tired of asking people for features, you know,
because you feel like you have the favorite bank with people,
you don't want to exhaust it. And I Rolls like
we should need some features, and I said, Okay, Rolls,
I don't feel like calling up any more favors from
these artists, but you tell me what your wishless is
(43:44):
and I'll make one phone call and if they deliver
within the next couple of months, I'm not chasing nobody
for these features. I'll put the call out and God
bless everybody on the album. Every person on that wishless
is on this album. So that was Jay Rolls. I
want to He's like, I want to work with your
meta Rose. I had never heard of your Meta Rose.
I want to work with Coast Contract I was familiar with.
(44:06):
I was like, yes, but I wasn't sure they were
going to get on the album. Even with the song
I did with them, it's probably the most the song
that's gained the most traction for album Swat. I sent
them five beats before they picked the beat. They were
very serious about like you know, Georgia An mouldro someone.
He he said, I want buck Shot on the album.
I was like, that's nothing. We could get buck shot
on the album. So yeah, it's like shout out to
(44:27):
Jay Rowls for making that decision.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
But it's definitely just like lyricists. Buck shot man Sko
was actually my cousin.
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Everybody.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I'm actually disguise you right now. I've been on to
Risk all summer. It was just you do a lot
I do. I'm leaving to Ireland tonight.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
Are you jet like? You said where did you say that?
Speaker 5 (44:50):
You said jet lag is your perpetual state of being
jet leg right now, that's correct.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
Yes, I'm always jet like. It's like the whole of
the Avengers movie. I'm always I'm always chet lagged.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
But you said that earlier.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
You said artists don't make money off their art, so
that's like, this is the way for you to make
your money.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
Yeah, touring is absolutely my My most revenue stream is
how I feed my family off of touring. I try
to As I get older, I want to do it
less trying to increase the revenue streams, trying to have
more stuff out. I wrote a book, I've been podcasting
other things, but yeah, touring is it?
Speaker 1 (45:22):
What's up with you and Dave y'all? What the part
with you and Dave y'all?
Speaker 3 (45:27):
Dave kind of does that. We recorded the Summer Pandemic.
We recorded man some like eight hundred hours and stuff
like it's crazy and Dave. I think he gets distracted
with specials and getting awards and stuff like that. You know,
he has so much going on. There was a time
for a year what all he cared about was that podcast,
and that's when you saw episodes come out. I think
(45:49):
he's gonna get back to that. He talks about it
all the time, but we haven't got back to actually
like cheffing it up. But as Midnight Miracle is a
great situation. Shout out to y'all seen Bay and Dave Chappelle.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
You got the song Native Sons on that Yes? What's
that song represent for you?
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Man?
Speaker 3 (46:03):
That song means so much to me. That song means
so much to me. The Native Tongues is my foundation.
Junger Brothers, Trump, Real Quest Soul, Queen Latifamony love Black Sheep,
Russell rhymes Leaders, New School chi Ali beat Nuts. What
they laid down is like, that's really my blueprint as
(46:24):
an artist, and so.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
That song.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
I'm trying to figure out how much I want to
share about this story, but because I was asked not
to share certain aspects. But what I will say is
that song started out in a darker place and because
it's a tribute to the native tongues, I sent it
to Q Tip and he was like, that's not the
right energy, and Q Tip gave me suggestions on what
(46:52):
I could do with that song. That took his suggestions
and because of that, the song is one of my
biggest songs. Recently, we went on Jimmy Fallon with the song,
I got a remas come in with some special guests
to people gonna really love. Some of them are okay,
some of them are And I just gotta thank you Tip,
because I sit the last bar on that song was
(47:13):
a trip Coal Quests in the Hall of Fame, because
when I wrote that song, I was like, this song
gonna come out at around the time the Tripical Quest
is in the Hall of Fame, and I went to
see Tropical Quests get adducted in the Hall of Fame.
It was one of my greatest memories of my whole life.
And then I DJ'ed the after party, Cooling the Gang.
After party, me and Jay Rolls DJ the party. I
didn't even know Roles was gonna be there, so it
was like synchronicity and Cooling the Gang was there, Chuck
(47:37):
d In Flavor Flave, Mary J. Blige, Common Jennifer, you
know uh de la soul Qte Tip didn't perform at
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because I imagine
it's hard for him to perform without fife recipes to fife.
But at the after party, he jumped on the mic.
It didn't need the apple bum and Mary J. Blige
(47:57):
did the Blackest Black And it's like for me to
be in that room with DJ read Alert downstairs DJ
and the Cooling the Gang in the next one. I mean,
it's like, this is my whole life in one room,
and man, big up the Native tongues and a lot
of new music. A lot of new artists are finding
it hard to inspire the people because the music is
(48:19):
being made like an assembling line. It's more it's disposable
these days. But what a tribe Core Quest and day
La Soul, Jungle Brothers and all these people, Queen Latifa
and all these people only love represent is uh timeless
and priceless And man, I just had such a great
time this weekend.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
What does it mean for you to see Tribe Call
Quests get inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
It's it's it means that I'm we're doing the right thing.
It means that it means that when when I had,
when we had the confidence of knowing back then, when
hip hop wasn't this global thing, that we were right,
you know. And I feel so good for the family
(49:06):
of Fife and q chip Is. If you watch that
documentary that Rappaport did about trip Co Quests, Uh, Pharrell
in that documentary says, we're all they sons and musically,
I believe.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
That Tyler Kwali the confidence of knowing new album with
Jay Raws is out right now.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
Thank you for coming to my brother shout out to
this wonderful energy. I really liked this interview. Y'all did
a fantastic job, and y'all talk about important things, and
I'm glad I got to come up here and thank y'all.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Absolutely, it's the Breakfast club, wake that ass up in
the morning. Breakfast Club
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