Albert Hughes Talks New Series “The Continental: From The World Of John Wick", Filming Menace 2 Society, Fight With 2 PAC & More!!

Director Albert Hughes sits with The Feature Presentation & talks about filming at a young age, his new series "The Continental" which take place in the John Wick universe, making a deal with New Line Cinema, filming Menace II Society, working with Bob Shaye, hanging out with Eazy-E, a confrontation with 2 Pac & much more!!

Hosted by DJ Suss One

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I yeo, what's up. It'sDJ Susswan, the Feature Presentation Podcast,
and we have a legendary, legendary, legendary director in the building. He's
he's done some of my my favoritemovies and your favorite movies for menasin Society,
to Dead Presidents to the book atEli. He comes from a team,
him and his twin brother, AlanAlbert Hughes is in the building.

(00:22):
My brother, what's up? Man? Listen, I'm just hanging on like
a help pap in the fast lane. That's yeah, because of the jetlag.
Okay, okay, yeah, you'reon your You're you're on your grind
right now. Yeah. So I'vebeen watching you, well, not watching
that sounds kind of Starker's right.I've been watching your work. I've been
watching your work for a while,and this is the first time you're on
my platform. And I've heard someof the stories by whiners this. You

(00:44):
know, ask some questions so myplatform can get switched. So you and
your twin brother started filming your yourmom bought you a camera, if correct
me if I'm wrong, at twelveyears old. Yeah, that's when she
officially bought the camera, but Ithink maybe months before that she rented it
from a local video store one andit was so old school you had to
slide part of the VCR out andput it in a pouch. Guys,

(01:07):
who's new to my podcast? Fromthis generation of VCR is a very historic,
a very historic thing. Yeah,device, please google it, slide
out, put it in a pouch. And there was a chord that led
up in a camera because they wereyou were you're not putting the tape in
the camera, You're putting it inin the actual VCR. Yeah, and
you know that's like, you know, you've heard of Dutch tilts, right,
cantid angles, like all our anglesare candid because we were small and

(01:30):
the pouch was making this lean over, you know, like it's too heavy
for her twelve rold bodies. Andthen we stayed up with that Reynold for
twenty four hours, doing everything fromlike the Johnny Carson spoof too, we
rented night Writer or something, orthe Leonard Nimoy. The in search of
show was big back then. Youknow, playing with our g I Joe's

(01:51):
crashing them, burning up. That'swhat I was going to ask because at
that age I was playing with ThunderCatsand he man by no means was I
taking something serious as far as filmingmovies. We weren't either. Oh so,
so I was on the impression attwelve years old. You guys were
like, all right, this isworking to know. No, that didn't
come and think, I think untilsixteen, because being brown's skin, you're
subconsciously telling yourself like, there's nochance. All I see is white man

(02:13):
doing this, right, So Ithink Spike came out and then Hollywood Shuffle
with Robert Townson and we've classed seeingbrown. Oh I love that. That
Hollywood Shuffle is like crazy. I'mlike, well, and still it's subconscious
like and starting to creeping in theconcile brown men or black men are doing
this. Okay, maybe it's apossibility. And I remember telling my friends

(02:34):
at work I was pizza delivering orwhatever. I was actually making gold and
silver ear rings for Macy's and Nordstrom. Really in a boutique operation, like
handcrafting women's earrings. Right wow.And so I tell them by because I
was part time in high school,I'm going to be a film director.
And one of the men laughed inmy face, he goes, you know,
that's a million to one shot.Yo, I'm glad that you said

(02:58):
that, not that he said that. I'm glad that you said that because
people used to tell me that beinga DJ, and people told me,
Yo, you're getting on radio.It's a million of chance shot. I'm
on radio seven days a week.I'm on radio and boss and I'm on
radio seven days a week, sevendays a week year here on Power one
of five in New York. Iused to be on Serious XM and I'm
on the Sherry Shepherd Show on TVcoming from the Wendy Williams Show. And
they told me I couldn't even geton one day of radio. Wow.

(03:20):
Like you know, I've learned thatpeople just can't see the vision in your
mind, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, And if you believe in
yourself, even you can be insecureand have imposter syndrome. We all do,
you know. But if enough peopletell you that and you're in a
wrong circumstance, especially in the areaswe come from people of color, if
enough people tell you that, youmay not make it. But you gotta

(03:42):
have that fire, that that voicethat's overcoming. You obviously have it,
you know, and then you havethe job that I love where I have
to ask you this question. Asa DJ. If you do a set,
whether you're fifteen or now, andyou have a collection of songs from
different artists, doesn't it feel likeyou kind of own it, like it's
your it's it's it's your signature,like it's you. It's not these songs

(04:05):
are now mine as you because it'spart of what you're doing. It does
feel that way, especially when Iput my stamp on it on the radio
and the clubs. I bring adifferent energy to it, and then that
then they brought to it. Yeah, and I just love that part of
DJA. I start feeling like Iown that. Yeah. I was always
meaning the aspect because if I putlike a playlist together or put needle drops

(04:28):
in a movie or something and go, those are mine, you know,
not that I've taken it for Isaac. It's not Isaac Hayes anymore. It's
not very Whites, No, it'sstirs, but it's it's mine. I
feel I understand what you're saying orthe collection of it, because they all
are commenting on each other in someway, you know, Like I don't
know. It's like even when you'removing that's a different thing, and DJ's
moving the crowd or the flow ofthe energy of the room, like that's

(04:50):
that's why I feel that way becausejust playing the record the way it is,
Yes, you know you made agreat record, but when you put
that energy behind it, when youput when you put whatever you say behind
mind it, however you get thepeople motivated behind it, it creates it
brings whatever energy the artists brought toa whole other level. And you're doing
it live, which is not whatI do. Yeah, what you do
is more technical and incredible and yeah, but I get to make mistakes and

(05:13):
cover them up. If you fuckup live, I cover them up because
curses podcast. If I fuck itup live, I just cover it up
and said, that's how you knowit's live. You know what I'm saying.
I can't do that. That's great. Well, I'm trying to think
about suck up live, Yeah,and interviews. It is what it is.
But the reason I really want toknow your journey besides I'm a fan,

(05:34):
is because I'm trying to get intomaking horror movies and stuff, and
you guys started like right now,I feel like it's so I want to
say it's easy I don't want todisrespect the culture, but it's easier in
today's generation, Like they could filmliterally a movie on an iPhone if they
wanted to. You come from thegeneration where that wasn't possible, and we
didn't have YouTube. You didn't haveYouTube where you could hit the people directly

(05:56):
like that. You pretty much hadto go to a movie studio or do
it independently somehow and figure it out. How did you guys get in the
game and make a deal with NewLine Cinema and Bob shays so young at
that you want the longer a shortversion, it's a podcast. We can
do whatever it. Let's do thelong version, which, by the way,
before you tell me the long version, I'm also a fan, and
I don't know what your relationship withhim is now, but I Bob Shae

(06:18):
New Line Cinema because I like,I'm a big Nightmare and I'm Street fan,
and I know you know you shouldif you're really into the horror genre.
Yeah, yeah, Well the eighties, Harrd New Line Cinema was really
built off of Freddy Krueger and thewhole Nightmare I'm Street franchise, so they
really made that happen because Robert,Robert England and West Craven and Bob Shay,
they couldn't get that. That meansyou deep on your genre that you

(06:44):
like. I'dn't even do research.That's just what I know. Like because
I want to make horror movies basedoff of the love I had for a
nightmare. And I'm street in theeighties. Well, I'm still twenty five
years old somehow, by the way, me too. Well it starts like,
first of all, I I recentlythought I have to call Bob Shake
because he must be in his eightiesbecause we didn't fall out, but he
just believed we didn't like him forsome reason. After all the Menace,

(07:08):
there was some weird stuff going on, and I need to tell him and
acknowledge that he is single handedly responsiblefor green lighting that movie and making our
career. Right. There's a lotyes, yes, sir, but there's
a lot of people on the wayup to him. And I'll tell it.
Medium sized story. So I wasin film school. I made a

(07:29):
few films. One was called Thedrive By about a drive By. It
was done in black and white,it was very stylized. Another one was
called Menace to society not related tothe movie. My brother was one that
had an idea to take the titleand put it on the movie. It
was I remember it was originally yousaid rampage, rampage. Oh, Lad's
already out. I think one ofthe interviews did oh so, and then

(07:51):
I did a third one, andwe were we were trying. We were
being told to shop it around todifferent record labels because you can do music
videos. At the time, wewere had some jobs or didn't have jobs,
and my mother was always hard onus. Abot put more than five
applications and don't put all your eggsin one basket. You have to do
it every day and do your fuckingcharts. And you know, like she
was hard, right, So wedidn't be napping and ship when she pulled

(08:13):
up, you know, snap outof an act like we're doing something whatever.
Right, So, but we weredifficult teenagers. Yeah, we were
dropping the tapes though, but wewere dropping the tapes based off a meeting
with a woman called Tamra Davis whoused to direct a lot of hip hop
videos. Did see before as adirector white woman, right, and she's
a Diana Ross to our jackson five, right, And she set us down
and wanted to meet us because Iwas in film school with her brother's girlfriend,

(08:37):
and I was so shy. Itold the part of this story before.
I was so shy. At theparty, they wanted me to show
the films I did. The guysays, you need to meet my sister.
He backs me up, said youneed to meet my sister. I
kind of walk away from them,so shy. My brother's always had a
mouthpiece, well an act, andI've learned to be put the act of
an extrovert on. But I'm painfullyshy, right So, and I'm introverted,

(09:01):
and my brother's an extrovert, andhe was doing comedy on stage at
sixteen. I was shooting that right. He was saying he was eighteen.
Our brother was hosting like a OprahWinfrey style show in high school on public
access called Controversy eighty nine, sohe always knew how to mike it right.
So he grabbed the guy and said, give me your number, give
me everything. We're gonna hook thisup. Had he not done that,

(09:22):
we don't move on to Diana Ross. Okay, So then we're at Astroberger
meeting with her. She's telling ushow to make the real what do you
call it? Like a real?And I've told this story before, but
there's this guy next to her,skinny guy with ketchup falling all over him
be he's eating French fries. Andlater we find out it's Mike Deef and
the Beastie Boys. They were aboutto be married. That was they were

(09:43):
a couple. And I knew theBeastie Boys, but I didn't even recognize
him. I just didn't recognize him. So we go to our house.
We're eighteen years old. She's showingus how to make her real. We're
hanging out the Beastie Boys. They'resmoking a lot of weed. They're all
in long term relationships. Are reallycool guys, and they're kind of like
our uncles. From that going on, right, that's legendary bottle way and
then and they were the super sweetguys right and tamer and then were big

(10:07):
weed. I thought nigga big timeweed smokers, like a cousin to Snoop
Dog type of they would smoke likethey would smoke him. I smoked Snoop
Snoop under one day after that story, what I brought some weed to his
house? He went miss him threehours. He might be one of the
only people on earth that's ever saidthat. I was surprised that they were
smoking Pomona dirt weed. When Igot there. They they were putting weed
and coffee grinders and get rid ofthe seeds in the stem. And I'm

(10:28):
like, he this is two orthree years after the chronic. If somebody
saw this, they would be shocked. You don't put the album's not offensive
weed in a coffee grinder unless it'sbad weed. That's an I don't get
to that. So we put offthis. I'm trying to keep his shirts
going on boring anybody we put out. We started dropping the types off.
Then we get a call from HollywoodRecords Chris Lasao, who was a man

(10:52):
my brother and I have to mentionhis name more because we never did for
thirty years and it's just a notnot kind but that white man is also
in the process of making it.So it's tamer Davis, Chryslasu and A
and our guy who believed in usand said raw Fusion Money b DJ Fuse
spent off group from Digital Underground writea treatment. We Love Your Films wrote

(11:16):
The treatment flew up to San Francisco, did the video and you you didn't
have much going on before you didthis. We didn't have anything, and
they gave you a shot based offof the student films which were shot in
Super eight. Because the thing abouttalent, which I'm not shy to talk
about it now, because I talkabout talent because I think a lot of
people would no talent needed to getthe fuck out away. For people who

(11:37):
have it, yes, I wouldjust recognize if you have talent really early,
or if you can develop the talent, and if you don't have it,
move out or move into a differentposition, because give the opportunity to
somebody else to shine. We knewwe had talent, we didn't know how
much talent we had. I knewI was more advanced than people in my
class. So they saw something easy, even saw something in us before we

(12:00):
made it easy. We hung outwith him for a whole summer, which
I want to get to that afteryou tell the rest of the story,
because you hung around a lot oflegends. Because yeah, so when then
we we go up through the musicvideo, that's when we meet Tupac and
he was great and he was likehe was just killing people at a table
one day at a waffall. Iwas like, I've never seen a person
destroy people with a sense of humorlike that, really, Like Richard Pryor

(12:22):
at his best really could not dowhat I saw him do that day,
really, and we were just like, who is this? I rarely hear
that about POC, Like he wasa real like sense of humor, sense
of humor. I've heard that aboutBig. I haven't heard that about Poc
when he went in. I've neverseen anything like that at a table.
I've seen dozens. You've seen thedozens, street corner dozens, card cane
dozens, backyard dozens. I've neverseen him destroy. He was destroying his

(12:46):
friends like you know, all digitalunderground. And so that the story my
brothers told, that story pop intowe do about thirty music videos twenty five,
I forget a year and a half, we're nineteen, and then this
relates to newline. At the time, my brother is starting to develop the
idea of menutes. We were talkingabout it since we were fifteen, but
he's actually activating because he's more aproducer type. My brother. He has

(13:09):
the mouthpiece and he has to hustlemy brother. I don't have either,
right Well, then then didn't haveany of it, and I didn't want
no part of talking to people.So he started activating our idea with the
writer friend of become our friend,the guy who plays Stacey and Menace,
the football player. He was ourbest friend in high school, was still
a good friend. His brother wasa writer, but not a professional writer.

(13:33):
So we get to do this.They start developing it. They showed
me the first twenty five pages.Whatever you know, and I guess the
tiger Whims tells a story that Iwas in a room and I threw the
grip from the fireplace, and that'show it weirdly not antisocial. I guess
it is antisocial life. I didn'thave any social skills, so I just
threw it in the fireplace. Backthen it was called it was called rampage.

(13:56):
Yeah, Allen did, so wefinished the script. He gets it
to two guys and says, ifyou guys get this it up, you
can produce it. Uh new Linereads it. A woman on the East
Coast office reads it and execution.The West Coast office reads it and decides
that it's not for them. Soour agent tells us, going, they
want to pitch you Last Dragon parttwo. Yeah, I heard this part

(14:18):
of the story, which, bythe way, I'm so impressed that you
guys stick with your idea. Yeah, but Last Dragon was fire. Roy
turned it down. The first oneis fire. You didn't think you could
make make a sequel just as well, it's hard to make a start.
Our career can't start with a sequel. I hear, you just can't.
Come and my brother, being aproducer, again, he pulls. It

(14:39):
was on Robinson Boulevard, remember,and we didn't have enough money to be
going ballet and shit like that.So we pull into the neighborhood we can
park for an hour or whatever,and he stops and he looks at me.
He goes, remember what she says? He goes, fuck that.
We ain't We ain't doing no goddamnLast Dragon Part two. We're gonna go
back. And she said, don'trepitch menace. To fuck that or repitching
menace. Shout to your brother.We go in there and he starts talking

(15:01):
some shit about the Last Dragon Parttwo. Are both stopped. Let's talk
about menace. He went into afull pitch and we left. We didn't
know what was going to happen.Apparently the woman on the East Coast,
who's she's actually ah, I forgother name, but she was she's a
power couple with somebody else in thebusiness. Loved it, and that threatened

(15:22):
him on the West Coast, whowas a little bit more her junior.
So he finally was putting it onBob Shay's radar. Now before that,
we we directed an episode of America'sMost Wanted, probably a few months before
that that we were extremely embarrassed aboutbecause we're working with actors for the first
time, and you don't get thecream of the crop. So these are
these performances are so bad that myfriends and I we we'd roast it,

(15:46):
like we'd we'd say the words likescarf, like scar face, but we'd
a caricature of these actors people likewe have famous line from how bad this
is? Oh my God. Sowe're like, okay, we hope they
don't see this. They got thestudent films, they got the music videos.
Bob read the script and apparently criedand said, what do you mean?

(16:07):
He cried like he was moved byit. Bob Shake cried happy tears,
wow, sad tears, emotional tearslike it made him emotional. Oh,
because of the story of man.Yeah, okay, I get it.
So then he said, and tellme to shut the fuck up whenever
you need to. You know,I need you to keep going. I
love this. Then he says,they said they're gonna put them on Weekend
Read, and that was that's whatthey always say, so that means the

(16:30):
whole office reads it and they decide. But before the Weekend Read, Bob
Shay found out, you guys havean episode of Americans must wind it the
you know, we're like our careersalready over. We're sweating it out the
whole weekend, and then a Monday, they're like green light, you guys

(16:52):
can go. And then an interestingthing happened one day on the way to
the bank. We're in prep andwe get shut because Doug Jackson and George
mckenry. If I got those twoproducers the New jack City, the two
black peers forget their names, Jacksonand McHenry or something like that, right,
they call it Bob Shay and theysay, you got blood in your
hands making this. You can't makethis movie. And we didn't know what

(17:15):
they were doing at the time,but they were trying to be the black
producers in town. They were madthat we didn't because they wanted Menace,
and we were it was New JackCity out at the time, a year
or two before maybe, so whatBoys was a year before and stuff like
that Boys, Boys and Boys inthe Hood Juice came before. So it
shook Bob Shay because two black men, the only black producers in town at

(17:40):
the time, are calling him sayingthis. So he shut us down and
prep and we were angry, andwe were with the writer Tiger Williams,
and decided to go see Edward Jamesalmost as American me, which is gangs,
like people sleep on that movie.That movie hard, right, and
we're watching this movie, like,what the fuck is this movie? We

(18:02):
have to rewrite Menace because it needsto be at least as hard as this.
Everything we're responding to all other stuff. No, we're all responding to
boys. We are saying because I'mtrying to remember that every Boys in the
Hood was out and that put abig stamp in the world at that Yeah,
but we thought it was because I'mforgetting the part of the story.
When we were doing music video.We're at a music video company. We're
at the time. Remember they putthe footage of the soundtrack inside the music

(18:25):
video of the movie. They kindof crossed, you know, insert the
movie footage in the music videos.So we had an early copy of Boys
before they released it, two tapes, and we because we thought our dream
was over. Our dream was thisgangster Hood film. And we saw the
Boys commercial like it's over, wecan't do our movie. Thought it was
the same idea. Yeah, wethought the same idea, and then we
watched it and we're like, shit, we can go hard. We're going

(18:45):
hard. We can think it wasDid you think it was trash? I
think our young competitive hip hop cellswere like, it's like a battle.
We could just do better. We'regonna do better, harder. We thought
it was a good story. Wethought it was a welder rected but Easy
at the time was calling it anafter school special, so we stalled his
line. We stalled his line,and we also were putting out because we

(19:07):
had big mouths back then with nofilters, there always no Twitter and all
that stuff. Right, we wouldsay shit in the headlines like we're gonna
make Boys and Hood looked like MaryPoppins, And there was a front page
of Variety, and we hadn't evenmade a movie yet. That's how stupid
we were. That was confident.Let's just say I was confident. That
looks like, oh my god,like our mouths are so bad. Did

(19:30):
you ever see John Singleton was likeangry. No, we saw him.
He was one of the ones thattried to reach out and produce us.
The Huddling Brothers were a group two, and we knew that we couldn't associate
with any other black We had toset our mark separately, and we sometimes
went overboard and doing that. Andwe're a little I wouldn't say vicious,
but what's the word and rap andhip hop. We weren't beefing competitive competitive,

(19:55):
Yeah, it was competitive. Itwas aggressive, aggressively competitive, let's
put it up because we we hada clear We were raised by a woman
who didn't take no shit and alot of other stuff, you know,
and an immigrant, and she justputs something in us like separate yourself by
racial There's all kinds of things thiswoman set us up for, like don't
be one of the crowd. Idon't know what it was. There's a

(20:17):
combination of things. So we smartlywouldn't even show up to events with other
black filmmakers. We wouldn't be photographedwith other black filmmakers. We wouldn't appreciate
when the press would say black filmmakers, this black woman. What are you
calling Scorsese and Coppola Italian American filmmakers? Are you calling a Spilberg? Jewish
American filmmakers? Why why are youcalling us that? Yeah, I've seen

(20:38):
I've seen people get upset at that, Like why are you separating it?
We're just talented filmmakers, you know. Or like African American as a term
I hate because it's like, well, there's a lot of European Americans in
this country. We never say ourEuropean American friend, Yeah, like why
are we the ones that are labelschanged five times? So we understand that
that's part of all that stuff.And then or as I'm losing, you

(20:59):
have to wreck me Now we weretalking about how you got to Oh then
when they shut shut us down,yeah exactly. So then first I didn't
ask for anything to see this ishow we do it. This is how
you know, it's live for anything. So we decided to go meet Jackson
and mcmanry I forget their names,because we were pissed, and we meet

(21:21):
them at the Warner Brothers commissaries,like, how dare you do that?
To them? Another group of blackfilmmakers and we were twenty saying this to
grown man. They're in their forties, and they're like, listen to us,
listen to us. You want tomake reality. That's what fucking documentaries
are for. You don't make fuckingdocumentaries in Hollywood. If you make a
movie, it can't be that real. And we're like, fuck you,

(21:42):
and don't ever do that again.And we walked out of there right wow.
We left them at the table andthen we got green lit again.
We're already green lit, and wefinished the movie with an attitude. And
part of it is like a hiphop song. We were in the hip
hop culture. Like you can eventake the eggs example of hit him up.
He was motivated by anger. Yeah, and we are motivated by anger.

(22:06):
That can move mountains exactly. Usuallyit always moves mountains that way.
But salute to you guys, becauseit could have went the other way.
You guys had no fear, ormaybe you did have fear in your heart,
you didn't show it. Standing upto guys. That's experiencing the game.
Forty year old execs. No,we were hard, had it,
stubborn, outspoken. We were alot of things back then. We still

(22:26):
have some of it, but notyou know, with age, you know
that someone is shooting yourself in thefoot. And we also didn't realize that.
If the press loved us, butthey also hated us, like they
love to build you up and theylove that we were unfiltered because they can
get the before the clickbait. Yeah, it's kind of like that, that
error's clickbait. Yeah, they lovedus for that, right, but then

(22:47):
they're like, okay, we liketo keep an eye on them, you
know. And you know, wewe had our ups and our downs,
and that's normal and a lot ofit was deserved for sure. So talk
about, you know, Menister Societybecoming a big success. Of course,
we're going to talk about the famousstory that I'm sure you've talked about plenty
of times, but once I haven't. I've only talked about it once.

(23:08):
You've only talked about it once.I'm talking about the Tupac's supposedly supposed to
have been starring in Menister Society,but he was causing a lot of rockets
for whatever reason, and then youguys had an altercation. I want to
talk about that, just talk aboutthe whole process of menister society. Well,
it was. It was a surrealbecause you have to I try to
get people when they asked us,our friends even like we were a walking

(23:30):
freak show from birth. My brotherand I two twins, biracial in Detroit,
Chocolate City. I know DC's thereal Chocolate City, but Detroit is
a close second. Yeah. Andyou know, you're built for being looked
at, You're built for being pokedand prodded, You're built for a shit
show. I didn't have this inmy notes, but I want to talk

(23:51):
about that too, because I'm biracialand I've had experiences in this industry being
biracial, so I wanted to getinto that a little bit later. So
just not enough by racial talk goingon and the white passing and all that
stuff. You know, the trickbaby. I love that that book by
Experencelying, But what was the point. It was like we were built for
going into a movie and not beingstressed or feeling pressure for some reason,

(24:15):
I don't know why we didn't,but what we did feel was in a
third day I remember we both saidour careers over because we had no reference
point for what we were doing,and I was to this day it's gotten
worse because I have a little bitof an OCD problem. I prepare carefully
everything, and even as a youngbecause I draw, so I started my
mom was training me to be orprotecting me to be an artist, and

(24:38):
she wouldn't even want me to takekung fu boxing, which we loved,
because she was trying to protect myhands. But I was a frustrated artist
or drawing. Don't I'm using theword artists very loosely in air quotes because
I don't believe in using that word. So that trained me for how to
draw a movie into a shot list, and we were more prepared than we

(25:03):
thought. So the third day andwe were like, our careers over.
We're terrible, We're horrible, thisis shit. This film is never gonna
do it. We're gonna embarrass ourselveson a global level. Man. Then
we get to post because we don'thave any reference. You don't know you
have ups and downs when you're shooting, you know, bad days, good
days, the range of emotions.Even on this project. Continental it's like

(25:23):
it was the most days I feltgood, but also the during those days
I was the most depressed. Andthen you come back up and it's like
this bipolar process every single day.No one told us. So then we
get to post, we edit it, and we're like it's over. And
then these responses were rolling, andthey do screenings and not critics, but
the journalists would give quotes and theywere glowing, and like, what the

(25:47):
fuck? These responses are the responseswe would hope for for the movie we'd
hope to make. But this movieis a piece of shit? What are
they responding to it? And thenmore came in and more came in,
Like and you know how mind blowingthat day is when you're like, this
is terrible, this film is terrible. You guys saw the same movie that
you guys did that we saw right, Yeah, that what you saw was
what we were saying. That wewere saying it about that you were saying

(26:07):
that was terrible. Yeah, likethis is terrible, holy shit, But
that we didn't know, you're soclose. We didn't know. We didn't
have any reference. And then Ciscoand Ebert came out and they sent us
out to Cans. It's our firsttime we're still we hadn't turned twenty one
yet, because Bob Shay said,I can't get you a drink. I
want to buy you a drink,but you hadn't turned twenty one yet.
And we're walking down the street andwe love Cisco and Ebert. I remember

(26:32):
distinctly them reviewing Scarface and the scenesthey showed Michelle Fighter by the pool.
I said, shit, Tiger,I gotta have her. You know all
that? Of course that's the scenethey reviewed. So we're walking down the
promenade and we get a tap andwe're reading the transcript of Cisco and Ebert
ten best film in the Year,and we're like, the fuck is going
on? Right? Tap, tap, tap, it's Ebert, the big

(26:55):
one? I think, right,can I take a picture with you?
Guys? Wow, we're man like. We just couldn't. It took us
five years to process all that wow. And it wasn't like you can be
confident in your work. We neverwere chess stumpers. We never would show
something, look what we made,This is dope. Even if we were

(27:17):
proud of a scene or proud ofa movie, we never did the the
showing off. We never talked likethat, and it was our mother that
maybe put that in us. Mybrother does it a little bit more now,
a little bit too much for mycomfort, sometimes not in public,
but in private. I can't doit. I think it ruined your creative

(27:38):
soul to do that. I understandit's good to be humble. I mean
I haven't. I have an ego. I have an ego. We all
have an ego, but it's it'sa it's a it's just built in a
certain way. And I think egocan be used in the creative process if
another ego is coming at you andyou need to put that ego and check,
yeah, there's a purpose for it, but just dropping it for no

(28:02):
reason to piss on trees. There'syou know, this industry unnecessary big egos
a lot of time, dude.So before I move on to dead presidents
and the Continental and book Eli,I wanted to talk I know, like
I said, you said you onlytalked about it once, the POC situation,
because I'm very interested in that becauseI hear so many different opinions on
par from people that's been around him. Some people say, yo, he

(28:23):
was gangster like that, but thensome people I've I've watched and said no,
he wasn't. He wasn't gangster untilJuice came out and he saw the
response that he got. I thinkyou've been vocal about that, brother,
really, Michael Jay White's been vocalabout that. But then some of the
people, like from the Outlaws that'sbeen around POC was like, no,
he's really about that life. AndI gotta be honest, I don't know
if he was putting on like anactor not a persona, but what some

(28:49):
of the things he did was fuckinggangster because I wouldn't. I don't think
I would have put out hit himup, knowing the energy that we wouldn't.
Yeah, well that was his emotionalside. He was very volatile,
happy or sad or angry, likevolatile in a creative way, like I'm
not using volatility as a bad wordhere. His pendulum would swing. And

(29:10):
I think everybody is right in someway about their theory on him, right,
but you can actually track him fromthe behaviors and the way he talks
and when thug life came in,when the tattoos came in, we're not
being unfair and the problem with thefan base, and there's the hard stands,
and then that you can't talk realityto them, you know, and

(29:30):
the fact that you know, wegotta respect the fact that the man died,
so they're very protective of his legacyand for good reason, but they're
not in reality and a lot ofthings. And you know, I'm a
grown ass man, And if you'reon these chat boards and I see some
of this ship, you know,it's like you took the time to get
a fucking stupid user name and saysome stupid shit that you never saw.
Welcome to twenty twenty three. Yeah, like, what are you doing with

(29:52):
your time? My man remarked,well, what are you doing with your
time? Like you're saying stuff aboutme, this guy, that guy,
that woman. You weren't there.You're taking one person's opinion, whether it's
Tupacket in an interview which I canbreak down the incident, and then we
can break down the love I havefor him when we knew him and then
when he passed, and the understandinghe's a legend, and understanding he was

(30:15):
a legend even before he passed,and respecting the man, but being also
in reality about like Richard Pryor wasa person who was honest about his life.
Different story right, you have totake the man with his flaws.
He's not a deity, and partof his flaws are would make him great.
Well, look, some people can'thandle the truth. They only have
the perception of what they've seen themusic videos and what they hearing the music.

(30:36):
But this is the entertainment industry andyou have to listen to the people
who are actually there. That shookhis hand, that was hanging around him,
and has never had an evidence ofever being a liar. So no,
that's a key point. If somebodyhas been around the person, shook
the person's hand, was hanging aroundthe person, and never has any history
of ever being a liar. Thatwas going on the record back then my

(30:59):
brother and throwing him under never duringwe kept quiet for thirty years. And
part of it is like the respectof his legend and who he became and
because he passed, and it's nota good well, it's not a good
taste to do that, to talkabout a man who can't defend himself.
But then when these people start chirping, here's the thing, I believe.

(31:21):
I challenge them all, whether theybelieve me or not, or whether they
are hating him, my brother ornot, or whether they're hating him Puffy
or Biggie or whoever now now Snoopthey're hating on Snoop. No, I
mean, are you kidding me?Okay, here's the thing you guys need
to do. It's a I calla convergence of opinion. It can work
with a recipe. You get fivedifferent people's recipe for lasagna, and the

(31:42):
converging elements are the truth to thewhat's going to make that lasagna? Right?
When you do an edit on themovie and ten people are telling you
the same things, the same fivethings, that's a convergence of opinion.
All the five things line up.You take all those opinions of the Tupac
incident or whatever you want to doin Tupac's life. Good to take the
convergence of opinion, and that's probablythe truth. If you want to be

(32:06):
a stand, go be a stand. You know who wants to be a
stand? I want to be afan. I don't want to be a
stand exactly. So in the end, it's like a lot of things got
corrected. And I even don't likelike me and my brother don't get along
a lot. Okay, we're twins, Okay, but even when we don't
talk, I don't like the shotsthat are taking on them for Dear Mama,
because if anybody's seeing it, that'slove. It's a profound love letter

(32:30):
to him. And for anybody tosay anything otherwise, it's like, well,
oh, you're talking about the DearMama documentary you just did. Yeah,
okay, okay, you've seen it, right, I haven't seen it
yet. Actually, dude, itgets you emotional. Really, I guess
I should so nowadays I should say, bro, I'm choking. I was
saying in the truck. I'm notdoing that like I'm oh, I'm too

(32:51):
old. Member, bro bro brood. So, guys, first of all,
I love True Pockets music. Inever met the man you guys had
an altercation with pack because from whatI'm hearing then the things I've heard you
talk about, I guess he didn'tlike that he wasn't the star of menace
society. He was supposed to bea menhis society, and but he was

(33:14):
supposed to do a small role.That's what he wanted. He wanted us.
He wanted Sharif the Muslim part,okay, and he told us and
our brother says it pretty well howit went down about that, Like he
said, John Singletonum, I'm gonnastart in John Singleton's film. My brother
said, you know, we personallyheard because we were boys, and he
was like okay, okay, andhe was gonna help us because they wanted
a platinum act, platinum recording rapperto be in the movie. But he

(33:36):
wasn't platinum. But he's bubbling likea like a platinum guy. Which which
era of pocket is this is?This is after the first album, so
it's really just Brenda Got a Baby'she's trapped and it wasn't you know,
his first album wasn't like he gotbetter quick like he found his voice and
bred. Like if you listen tothe first album, that's not the pock.
Even though Brendan's Got a Baby,it is beautiful, it's a unique
song. It's yet no so Iget around with that. Like my brother

(34:01):
knows the story too. It's likewhen I'm sitting at home, we made
our money, we met our success. And that's what's cool about us in
Tupac because we're all doing at thesame time. And you know when you
get in a fight with somebody atschool and then the kid becomes popular,
and you're like, oh, Ididn't see that coming, right. So
I'm at home and we're still mad, and he's still mad at us,
and he comes out of that frontdoor with those tattoos on back to get

(34:23):
Wrecked, and I go, ohshit, we got a problem, like
this nigga just went pop. AndI'm seeing it on MTV on my big
screen TV, and I'm like,that's my boy, that's my friend.
We had a little problem and we'rehaving a problem now and I'm I know
in the back of my mind it'sgoing to be resolved, but my boy's
gonna pop and the biggest way,in the most nigga way too, Like

(34:44):
I love that interest like this thenote back to get Wrecked, the dope,
I'm like, oh, classic,super classic, this nigga got it
like but there was a sense ofprior and then also a sense of like,
well, we have to we haveto like if it's a rap battle,
we got a rap battle. Thisguy. We ain't winning a rap
battle. Like, we're not winning. I saw what he did at that

(35:07):
waffle house. There's no way weare winning. This public campaign, and
the fruits of it show to thisday that I have to talk about it.
My brother has to talk about itbecause we stayed silent and respectful.
But we would have never won thepublic relations battle against him because at that
moment, and when you see DearMamma, you'll see where you got it
from his mother and the panthers andlike the dude, you gotta watch this

(35:28):
year. I'm watch that, Alan, I'm gonna watch it. Yeah please,
yeah, no, it's moving.I watched it three times. Nice,
so I want to move one ofthe dead presidents. But did you
in pocket for squash? Did youguys in pocket a squash? The person
he did? He was very sweetand we just found some footage my brother
found where I hope to work withhim again. And I'm like, we're
shocked. We're fifty years old findingout you can see that back then.

(35:51):
No, it was outtakes from SamanthaSore and whatever. That interview when he
got out of jail. What's thatwoman from MTV the redheaded? I think
it's Samantha something I forget, we'regonna name They're walking in Venice Beach at
first and then need to sit down, A very famous interview. There was
that, and there was also theapology and vibe. But one thing before
we leave that situation, I wantto say, because I'm glad TV I

(36:14):
do talk about because they always talkingabout me running, and I don't want
to bore your listeners. They justgo watch that section when it comes out.
They only watched the clips here.Yeah, I just watch a clip
about me, right, It's like, I don't give a fuck, like,
so wait, just for people whoknow there, you guys had an
altercation, you, you and yourbrother in pock a physical altercation and they
claimed was it you that ran orher? Me? Ran? I ran?

(36:36):
I did run at one point,I did run, like literally rant
right, and I'm not what doyou call it? Not denying it,
not embarrassed, but I don't givea fuck, like, but the context
is missing because there, if I'mbeing fair to the situation, and again,
if the stands are listening, justshut the fuck up right now and

(36:57):
listen like I'm sorry, Okay,this is the truth. If he's going
on ninety two point three to beatand your MP being saying I beat the
Hughes brother's ass, which is itdid one ran and one got their ass
kicked? Or did you kick boththeir asses? You gotta stick to one
story here. Okay, let's staysconsistent. Okay, if it was a

(37:17):
jumping of my brother with fifteen guyswaiting around, and you happen to be
throwing blows at him with fifteen guys, you didn't beat his ass, you
didn't go head up with him.That's not a one on one. That's
not a one on it's not afair one straight up fate, none of
that. Yeah. When he walkedup to the car, he said,
and I quote exactly what he said, y'all two, get out the car.

(37:40):
I'm about to beat both y'all asses. Okay, And I ain't know
I fucking Einstein or a mathematician,but the numbers didn't add up to me.
I knew it was a beat downcoming because I'm like, he's one
hundred and fifty five pounds, we'reboth over two hundreds at a time.
What twins are just trying to sitthere and just like beat us up.
Well, maybe he felt comfortable becausehe knew he had people. Of course,

(38:00):
which guys, I'm not shitting onTupac' this is human shit. Yeah,
it's a human ata be a realAnd he had legendary stories shooting those
two off duty cops that deserved theguy get shot in the ass. Also,
is you gotta look at it twoways. One is it's it's it's
dope as fuck. The other waysit's he's using a gun, but he's
justified because they were using guns.They were illegal, right. Our situation

(38:23):
is if you want to fight oneof us. And it was really the
beat between him and my brother,but not really because Bob Shay's the one
that wanted him fire. Bob Shad'sthe one that said fire him. But
he said fire him because he wasacting. He would Allan didn't want a
fire. He wasn't making a peacefulworking environment. Yeah, he was very
disruptive, but in the end,what it really was was he was too

(38:44):
big for the movie and we alldidn't process that as nineteen year old kids,
that he was in the bubble andhe couldn't express him. He's very
good at expressing himself, he couldn'texpress that, like this roll is too
small for me, this movie's toosmall for me. I'm he's on the
bubble were we were beginning our bubble, He's already on the bubble and we
didn't know how to communicate back thenthat properly, and it's not about the

(39:08):
role at this or that all thestuff that. No, that's not what
me and my brother says it now, like fifty one year old man.
In hindsight, it's just we werejust young, dumb and full of you
know what, and what happened wasso he said that, and I gave
context the longer story of light,which I never left the house when I
smoked weed and we experimented with ladenlife like eighteen nineteen because I was paranoid.

(39:32):
I was paranoid from a situation likethis happening. Never left because I
was paranoid. It was introverted.I was antisocial. And as we're driving
up when I see fifteen crips onthe corner with forty ounces of smoking weed
and tupac in the middle of him, it was almost like an album cover.
It was like a hip hop albumcover. It's like wu tang right,
I'm like, And by the way, this is the nineties was real

(39:54):
video phones. There was no camerason every code. Okay, well maybe
that would have helped though, becauseit wouldn't have been so so much glory
in the story. Yes, okay, so I'm high and I go,
oh shit, my worst nightmare isabout to happen. I knew before even
pulled up. I go, I'mfucking high as a kite. Like we

(40:14):
had good we me and my brother, we had chronic before he snooped,
got his hands really on. I'mlike, oh fuck, it's about to
go down. We're gonna get ourasses kicked by fifteen cribs. We're I'm
thirty yards away knowing this, andwe stupidly pull up right next to him
about ten yards on the curb.I don't know why my brother did that.

(40:36):
I don't know why we did that. Our friends in the front front
seat. So what happened was whenhe said that, he said, get
out the car, about to beatboth your asses. Alan gets out after
he shot him down. He Tuopofirst brought up some arguments like why did
you do this? While I actuallytried to call you. I tried to
call you three times. You wouldn'tpick up your phone. Your manager told
me this, But my brother hada one on one with him, like
he was not afraid. My brotherconfronted all the bullies in our life and

(41:00):
again stands. I'm not saying Tupacwas bullying, okay, although there is
some elements of it in there.Okay. I knew the beatdown was coming,
so I started mosing up the hill, not running yet. I was
mosyings, you know, mosing.So I'm mosying my way up the hill
because i know I've done thirty musicvideos. There's always a set security or

(41:21):
a set cop. So I'm gonnaget the set security to stop whatever is
about to happen here. And asI'm going up, I turned back and
I see Tupac hit my brother inthe back of head. My brother said,
I don't have time for this.He turns and walks away and he
sucker punches him. It's the truestands. I'm sorry, take take it,
just take it. Stands sunch.Then I'm mosy up more and I'm

(41:45):
high. Remember, don't ever forget. I'm high. And I'm like,
look back, and it's a ratpack. I can't even see my brother,
but I'm thinking I'm making my wayto the set because I hear the
playback. I may even walk througha take. I may have even walked
through a take of a Spice Oneperformance high like this, and they may
have footage of it, right,And I say, to somebody that said,

(42:06):
where is the security at? Andit was like so that way And
I look back fifteen Wu tang withlooking at me not real Wu tang Yaca.
It's like the album covers look likelooking at me like this and they
had like it looked like they hadfangs. I'm like yes. Then I
started to run. Okay, andas I thought back, you know,

(42:27):
what would you do if you'll meetagainst all odds up in the studio getting
blowed? Yeah, speaking the reallyshit I ever spoke a lot of people
like to talk about things and whenthey haven't experienced it, people, reality
is, nobody knows what they're gonnado when you're in a situation like that.
Tupac ran in Marin County. IceCube ran at the New Music seminar.
When you're outnumbered. Yes, mybrother was left behind and that that

(42:50):
hurts. There's nothing I could couldhave done there other than to try to
get them help, which was theoriginal plan to get help to stop this.
Then they're done with him and they'reon me. Now I'm in the
streets. I run down this hilland going there the one ten freeway to
downtown La. I call my kid'smother on the pay phone on the corner
of a vacant gas station. Likewhat am I doing this? This is

(43:14):
like a movie. This is liketwenty eight days later. So I run
down the hill, get on thephone and I'm like I think I'd reach
her, and I'm like, Igotta get out of here. I'm I'm
in the open. Then I seethree cars full of guys, including Tupac.
They spot me and they're running redlights to get to me. At
one point they drive up on thecurb like they're on the sidewalk with a

(43:37):
car in downtown LA coming after me, and I'm like, what the fuck
is this? And my stupid assare smart whatever at the time, I
run into a Korean liquor store theirony, and I'm like sweating and I'm
high, Like god, you're chasingme. Exit this way and I go

(43:59):
through the sexid go up these stairs, come down these stairs, and I
can see across the freeway. There'snothing going on where the fight happened.
It's all calm. They run menow right. So I come to this
doorway. I open it. It'sone of those doors that if you close
it back you can't get back inthere. But it's a street and the
fire department, and I'm like,I gotta make a run for the fire
department at least get them up there, right, And as I'm about to

(44:22):
make my break for it, thethree cars fly by. I'm like,
this is a movie again, Likethis is I couldn't have written this better,
you know. So I go upto the fire department, go inside.
Imagine I'm out of breath, I'mfucking high on my mind. I'm
paranoid now, and you have morestaming than I would have gave up it,
right, but I have adrenaline everything. My brother and they don't know

(44:47):
who tu pockets, you know,Wait, Waite, just slow down,
boy, slow down one cotton pickingsecond. It was exactly like three white
man back there, like, slowdown, boy, and tell us what
are you saying now? And asI'm saying that, it feels like thirty
seconds later, cops full up pulla gun on me. Oh my god,
come outside on the ground at gunpoint, as if you did something wrong

(45:12):
for help. They're thinking, I'mmentally ill. I don't know what.
So that's the And then eventually oneof my producers found his way down there,
and then we go back up onthe hill and my brother is waiting
for me, and he's he's he'sin what's the word. He's in a
panic about me. He's only concernedabout me. He's not concerned about himself
because he didn't take He took abeating. But he goes, I remember

(45:34):
the first thing he said. Isaw a little cutting his nose. I
said, Alan, what are youokay? He goes, No, I
don't worry about you. He goes, I just want you to know one
thing, man, I never wentdown. I never went down. And
this doesn't sound like a movie.Yeah, that sounds like a perfect movie.
It's a raging bull line to it. So Jake LaMotta says to Sugar
Ray Robinson after a bad beat down, he goes, he never got me

(45:57):
down, Ray, he never gotme down. And he told me the
details are fighting and I'm not gonnago into it because I don't want these
stands to go on full fucking blast. Yeah, but it's not a good
look. It should have been astraight up head fade one on one in
a park. Bottom line, Idon't care who says what. You don't
bring fifteen guys, even if itis one on one, you have the
fear of the fifteen guys that mayif you beat bock Off that might jump

(46:19):
in. I've seen that happen inmy childhood. Everybody knows in the hood.
You don't you're not gonna win that. Yeah. Yeah, so that's
that. Well, Look, I'mglad that you guys were able to experience
him wherever. That footage is sayingthat he wishes he could work with you
guys again, and we squashed it. We did, but we didn't have
the opportunity to do it in person. And we would have and then Vegas
happened and we would have worked withhim again for sure. The dude was

(46:43):
too talented. Yeah on a superstarand so what we had a fight?
Who gives a fuck? And that'sa game. That's like, people have
fights all the time. Doctor Dreand fucking ice Cube did the records records
after they had their fights and facts. It happens all the time. So
so we don't have much time shotsthe Peacock family. I wanted to talk
about Dead Presidents. I just wantto say Dead Presidence was legendary, legendary

(47:06):
movie of our culture. Have youheard my brother talk about it? I
don't believe so we always like wewould have changed, would have done some
things different. It's not our finestmine. I have to say, that's
a pretty perfect movie. I don'tknow what you guys would have done different.
I don't know what see this islike putting this in DJ producer like
flames producer, semi beats, andthey always think that the greatest beat that

(47:27):
I've ever heard is their whack beat. Like and they flame me something else.
They're like, Noah, this isthe one. I'm like, too
close to it. They're too closeto it exactly. Well, my brother
crystallized it pretty well, he said, Denzel showed him this lesson. It's
like Cuddy beating him up or goingon the stairs and putting the gun to
him, you know. And yourhero not getting get back is one mistake.

(47:49):
Okay, they're tiny mistakes and someare larger. I won't go into
them all. But one I regret, even though it's kind of iconic for
the movie, is her coming outto guns in the trash can and what's
wrong with that? It's John wuyou know, and also we we and
I even regret menace the final scene, the violence being shot in slow motion.
I think when you're portraying reality.It should be twenty four frames.

(48:10):
You can stylize those twenty four frames, but when you're you're doing something different
in slow motion that it takes theaudience out of the reality the situation.
I have some problems with the highestI have some problems with how brutal it
was because those guys were just securityguards doing their job. Even though they
were white and pull out guns.They were doing their job. They didn't
need to get done out Like well, I gotta say, from a fan's

(48:34):
perspective, it's pretty fucking perfect.I've never heard anybody watch any of these
scenes and say, do you knowthat they shouldn't kill? But it's a
cultural thing, Like we like blackexploitation. They're in perfect films, and
we may think that I think theMac is perfect. It's not, but
I think it is. You know, I think Scarface is perfect. It's
not. There's no movie that's onehundred percent perfect, but it's perfect.

(48:55):
Maybe God Fathered two mm that's apretty perfect one. Maybe Goodfellas, mate.
Oh I'm not saying good Fellas isfire. I know I just doped
Scarfie. Anyways, salute to youand your brother for bringing so much legendary
ship, to the culture, tothe game, especially at such a young
age. All of us grew upon dead presidents men, It's the society
and so many others. You guysdid book an Eli, and I want

(49:19):
to fast forward to today because JohnWick is an incredibly huge franchise that's doing
astronomical numbers right now, and youare now part of that universe with the
Continental. You know what I'm sayingtaking place? Correct me if I'm wrong
in the nineteen seventies in New York, you know what I'm saying. If
you're gonna take from New York,I'm from New York, what part originally

(49:39):
from Brooklyn? Black grew up inWestchester. So I don't know if I
could. You can claim it.Come on, I don't know if I
could claim it. Oh, what'sthe question. I'm sorry, No,
I just want to talk about theContinental, you know, because I guess
it's a It's a really good pivot, because the reason why I wanted to
do it, because normally I don'tthink I would have wanted a worker or
an ip umbrella right off the bat. You know, it's everything we just

(50:01):
talked about the last whatever it wastwenty five thirty minutes. Trauma, generational
trauma, violence, social issues,whether it's the movie, whether it's from
real life. You know, youget to a certain age like I just
want to have fun, man,and I want the audience to have fun.
And I want to use my particularwhat I think I have as a
skill set. I know what Idon't have to. By the way,
I'm very aware of what I'm notgood at, but in film, I'll

(50:24):
tell you, I'll be honest aboutit. But it's like, I want
to use what I've learned in thirtytwo years professionally in higher forty something years
unprofessionally, and apply it to somethingthat's strictly about fun and making the audience
enjoy it. Because being born likeme and you, whether we're biracial or
black or Asian or a woman orwhatever, there's this inherent kind of thing

(50:47):
in you that you don't know it'sweighing on you until you go somewhere else,
or experience a different culture, orexperience a different outlets somehow or a
different environment, and if it's creativeand you get out of your creative comfort
zone, it's mind blowing. Andto me it was the most fun I've
ever had in my career. Alsothat world wise, I'm not claiming I'm

(51:10):
wise. I'm saying the world wiseor a wise man. It's not saying
a person smart. It's saying aperson, to me, is smart enough
to learn from their mistakes or learnfrom the thing good they did, and
you apply it moving forward, andyou become a better at what you do
or hopefully better as a person.And I'm able to take the dead presence
thing that I feel like I fuckedup on the menace stuff. I feel
like sucked up on the communication.Me and my brother are like in the

(51:34):
stories I told about with Tupac,improve upon a communication, So shit like
that never happened. Forget the fightpart done, but even the argument it
was not needed because we didn't knowhow to communicate. And you move forward
and you get to a point you'relike, Okay, I have a skill
set now that's better then now thanthen. And then there's this world of
John Wick where it's like it's wild, you can throw anything at it,

(51:55):
and it's like it's fun. Andnow we're in the seventies, so we
get to see the origin story ofthe continent of the Hotel with Winston who's
played by Any McShane in the filmseries, and Colin Woodall and the TV
show, and you get to dealwith all these needle drops from you can
relate to this. I've been sayingthis all with two weeks. My white
mother's playing Pink Floyd, my father'splaying James Brown, and me and you

(52:16):
both are using in our career mostlythe black culture. We're leaning on something
we really know because they accepted us. Really the white side a little shifting
on. That's what we're growing up, right. It's I've I've had both
sides accept certain things and not acceptcertain things. Yeah. I always gonna
always gonna like what do you callit? Though? No, but that's
because we're outsiders by racial artsy Soyou you're you're an expert, I'm sure

(52:38):
observing human behavior, yes, theugliness and the goodness and both sides,
yes, okay, And that's whatyou're like. Okay, So what the
seventies do for me is I don'tknow if you do this in your music.
I assume you have. You exploresome of your mother's influence on you,
if she was into a different notblack culture, or if your dad's

(53:00):
white, and your mom's black.I don't know what. My dad's white,
my mother's black. Oh my god, thank god, Okay, thank
god. The roxy Roker jeffersons,I love seeing that in America, that
any Kravit shot the Drake, butit's rare in America. My daughter disagrees
when shoots a different generation, mygeneration. Well, I can't talk about

(53:20):
bi racial without you know. I'mMaria Carries DJ shout the Mariah Carry who
has similar stories. I know youfrom are you so one of the concerts.
I've seen a lot of stuff onyou. Okay, but I've seen
I thought I knew you from thepodcast and the YouTube clips and all that
stuff, but now I know Isaw you way before that. I've traveled
the world mariasins two thousand and six. Okay, but let's get to the

(53:42):
Continental because and shout. The peacockis peacock. It's out on peacock right
now, and it's phenomenal the wayit's shot. Yeah, I hope so
no no no, no, no, no no no no, We're not
gonna do that. The way it'sshot is absolutely phenomenal. Have you seen
any of them? Yes? Isaw the first episode and I'm watching the
second and third tonight. But ifthe first episode was phenomenal, the way
it ended was crazy. The wayit was shot, it was crazy.

(54:05):
If you love the violence and theway things happened in john Wick, you're
gonna love this obviously. The onlything I could complain about is a DJ
died in the episode. DJ diedin the episode How dare you kill the
DJ? You've never killed? TheDJ was playing the obvious track, wasn't
he? The DJ is supposed tobe the hero at the end of the
whole entire episode. I love thatDonna summer truck, but he was playing

(54:25):
quite the obvious track at the disco. Yes, but explain the people about
the Continental so that they could goright now on Peacock and watch it.
Yeah, the premiere episode tonight ortoday, it's out. By the time
you see this, it's out already. It's out. It's the origin story
of the hotel and how Winston cameto power, like I mentioned earlier at
the in McShane character and the JohnWick universe or films, I shouldn't say

(54:49):
universe, how he came to controlthat hotel, and it wasn't by design.
It was all happenstance. You cansee by the first episode, and
I think you're gonna love the I'mwatching it too night. The third one
goes off the rails, right,and his bond with Sharone and how it
started. In the film series,Sharona is a concierge, and in my
mind, I have my own backstoryfor them. I thought, I'm thinking

(55:12):
to myself after this three episodes thatthey made a deal that their partners in
this hotel. But Sharona's a front. He's acting as a kind of series
but he's really fifty fifty because Ican't. We can't go out like that,
right. So it's the origin storiesabout them, and it's also about
like New York at the time,the Impressionists. They taken it. The
thing I was tipping to the musicmy mother and my father, your father

(55:37):
and your mother. I'm so happyto hear that you have the reverse situation.
Yeah, because New York is asingular city now and in the seventies,
where you have no choice, butthe mix with cultures. There's no
other city like this in the world. You're gonna hear different music, different
stories, food and ethnicities. We'refilming in New York right now. That's
why we're saying this. Yes,oh yeah, okay, I'm gonna aware

(55:58):
of all that. So we're ableto explore like punk, funk, reggae,
uh disco. How fun was that? Which is you know the catalog.
We weren't able to do it,yeah, because we like you you're
a DJ and you're black music.Because they put it right so and I
love it. It's fantastic, youknow, it's the best music in the

(56:20):
world, of course, But thenwhite people did some cool things in the
seventies too, of course, likePink Floyd is my favorite band of all
time. It's not a surprise,surprise, it's not to Jackson five do
no uh oh no. So thatwas fun. It was great. And
and for the audience to go onto ride like the Wick films, because
I think Black audiences and Latin audiencesknow it too. It's like they have

(56:40):
a good time with films. Theydon't take you know, you know what
happens in a black audience interactive experience, right, you're there to have fun.
We will jump up in the damtheater and scream at the exactly I
saw. I saw in nineteen eightyfive when Untouchables came out. He just
passed away not so long ago.Kevin Costner, Sean Connor, John Conry

(57:04):
exactly. I saw it in Detroitwith a black audience. They were actually
rooting for al Capone. Really,They're like, get them out. So
they hated Kevin Costner, get themout. We root for Scarface. I
want that for the audience, forthe whole audience to know that it was
made with love and care and fun, and for them to go and have

(57:25):
a good time that's it, andgo and get some throwback feelings. See
the beginnings of these relationships. Seesome new rules revealed, See some new
mysteries revealed, new mythology. Butit's all still the John Wig universe because
we all are fans of it,for especially the black crowd, Black audiences,
because they're nodding to a lot ofstuff that influences that we grew up

(57:46):
on Hong Kong cinema, especially HongKong, like John Woo's the man,
you know, Yeah, of course, so John Will changed everything. So
that's what I regret about the influenceof John Will presidents. I don't regret
the influence of John Will on theOkay, all right, well, guys,
I'm gonna co sign from the firstepisode is absolutely amazing. I wanted
to talk about, like before weclose out of how how did you create

(58:09):
the universe in the nineteen seventies Besidesthe music, you know, back then
there's different cars, different different buildings, the way the whole field of the
city was. So how did youeven what does it take to create that?
Well, it's a lesson from DeadPresence. It's even difficult in the
nineties. And you know, nowtwenty years is nothing to us. Right
nineteen nineties like yesterday. The nineties, like two thousand was like a BLINKO

(58:32):
and I. It's exactly okay.So imagine doing Dead Presence in nineteen ninety
four. Blink and I is nineteenseventy four okay, But it doesn't feel
like that when you're twenty at all. So, but we have to do
the same thing. It was hardback then to make nineteen seventies New York.
Imagine doing it in Budapest. It'spretty much the same. If we
shout it would be a little easierjust if you're pointing your camera up,

(58:55):
but everything down the same problems basically, right, and you have to have
a town to production design in VFX, and they were wonderful, wonderful,
And I don't say this a lotwhen I talk about movies. The crew,
especially the Hungarian crew, and thecrew in general don't get enough love
because if they're hitting on all cylinders, you got a fighting chance. A

(59:16):
lot of times there's a missing there'sa weak link, like the piano players
not that good in the orchestra.If you don't identify it right away,
your song is going to be bad. Ye. So yeah, we we
went out there and we had aball and we had to create it all.
We had to source all the seventiescars, so it's difficult, but
I was amazed at what this guydid. Like there's not a lot of

(59:37):
there are collectors, but he hadto get him from different countries, all
the nineteen seventies cars from different countries, and then the clothes had to become
from retro shops and Milan and Paris. I collect retro stuff. So this
just sounds like a dren Yeah.No, no, it's worse than this.
You come to my house. Igot eighties toys and I VHS tapes

(01:00:00):
that I bought recently, not backthen, like I boughted recently for so,
I'm just one of those retual typeof guys. So that just sounds
like a dream come true to beable to be in a in a in
a production that you're just bringing allthese classic times back to life. Yeah,
what year were you born? Seventyeight? That's a good year.
That was a good year. Iwas born that year. Yeah, it's

(01:00:22):
a great year. But not congratulationsman in making just so consistently making so
much great content. The Continental onceagain is out right now on Peacock and
is there anything No, I justrealized that that's the first time I heard
the work content next to Continental.I go, that's kind of dope content.
And Continental, I've never heard that. Write in my check later,

(01:00:47):
So anything in the works coming,a few things, but you know,
we're in the middle of the obviousthat they don't want me to acknowledge.
I guess, you know, strikethey're not looking, they're on their phones.
Okay, you know when that,when that resolves itself, we all
get to go back and do whatwe love doing. And it's eventually going

(01:01:07):
to resolve itself. So hopefully ithappens soon. Yeah, and everybody gets
what they deserve. Yeah, yeah, however you how are you? You
know? However you want to Ididn't say that. I'm saying I didn't
say that. You can't blame thaton me. Don't be blaming that.
I'm gonna call out this this woman, this woman, Vanessa is sitting off
camera and she's my handler. Andthere's another woman sitting off camera too.

(01:01:30):
I won't reveal her because she neverput her foot in my ass, but
but Vanessa, Vanessa's put her footin deep in my ass. All right,
guys, I appreciate you. Man. I wish I could sit and
talk to you forever because there's somany stories I wanted to talk about.
And hopefully we get to do thisagain. No, we have to because
get away from the movie stuff.We got to get into the music stuff.

(01:01:52):
Yeah, please pleasett to just doa music thing straight from the nineties.
Yeah, because you look, youhung out with easy See when he
was leaving. There's a whole thingthat's a whole nother s. Woody Allen's
what's it called Zelig? Do youever see that movie? No? I
don't think so. It's almost likeeven Forrest Gump, like this haphazardly make
your way through life on all thesehistoric events that are happening. You're nothing
really special. You just happened tobe there. You didn't even realize at

(01:02:15):
the time it was gonna be sohistoric. I'm sure of hanging with these
guys and watching drey Cree eighteen.We hadn't made anything. Why did's easy?
You want to hang out with usevery day? I only have his
student films every day for a summer. He would drive us around in this
car. We're eighteen years old.And I looked back and gold, what
did he see? I never lookedat it that way, like that's almost
an arrogant kind of thing, likewhat did he see in us? There

(01:02:37):
was only a couple of little shittyfilms, and he wanted to hang out
with us, and that was ourhero. And then there's all the Dray
stuff. There's a bunch of stories. But so that's gonna be for episode
two. This is part one,Part one, Part one. Whenever he
gets a chance to free a scheduleand come back here, we're gonna do
parts. So I would love to. I greatly appreciate you for coming here.
Man. The Continental is out rightnow on Peacock. It's amazing and

(01:03:00):
go see it immediately. And Iappreciate you, bro, thank you.
I would never have guessed you wereone of my tribe. I would have
never guessed nobody could get when Ihad the hair before I started baalding.
Maybe you could have guessed you havethe gay Kaplan, the welcome Back Carlin,
you know the Jewish bro I had, the I had the just let
yo so good. You know whatI had. I had to I'll be

(01:03:22):
sure. I used to call me. I'll be sure. I looked just
like special, except my nose startedgrowing. It was like it was a
rap, a rap. I've alwayshad the nose. Hey, we're not
listen to the podcast here, allright, Thank you so much, man,
Albert hughes Man love the feature presentation.