Black Music Month QLS Classic: DJ Quik

The master of blending reggae, funk, and soul, prolific songwriter, producer, and rapper, DJ Quik's 20-plus year spanning career has been anything but ordinary. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
episode was produced by the team at Pandora.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
What up, y'all?

Speaker 3 (00:09):
It's unpaid bill from Questlove Supreme. As you may have
seen throughout June, we are celebrating Black Music Month by
releasing an episode every day, So every day you either
here especially picked QLs Classic, and on Wednesdays we are
dropping new two part episodes Wayne Brady and the legendary
James Poyser, both of which were filmed in studio. Black
music is deeply important to me and has been an
influence throughout my entire career. It's also something to celebrating

(00:31):
here at QLs. DJ Quick joined QLs for an early
twenty nineteen episode. Quick is as charismatic as he is
funk in his conversation covering his career growth and passion
for music. Also look out for Quick's latest album, Chupacabra,
which is releasing this month.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
Suprema Suprema roh Cal Supremeau my role called Suprema Suck
Suck Subprema roll called Suprema Suck Suck Supremo roll call production.

Speaker 5 (01:10):
Yeah greater than Yeah Andrew Young, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I said it.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Supreme s Something Suprema, role called Suprema South South Suprema
role call my.

Speaker 6 (01:24):
Name is Fante Yeah, and y'all might disagree. Yeah, but
my favorite quicks groove Yeah number.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
Supreme up Sun something Supreme A roll call subpremeau soun Suprema.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Roll call Sweet Yeah, black Yeah, pussy Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:49):
M s Suprema roll call Supreme Sun, Suprema.

Speaker 8 (01:55):
Roll call My names Bill Yeah, and I'm no donkey
yeah because I know quick.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, it's way too funky.

Speaker 7 (02:04):
Roll call Supreme something something, Subpremo, roll call Supremo Son
Son Supremo.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Roll call Yeah, and I'm in his town. Yeah, that's
DJ quick. Yeah, can we get that?

Speaker 9 (02:19):
Roll call Supremo Supremo, roll call Supremo something something Suprema
roll call.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
I ain't no joke. Yeah, sometimes I'm funny. Yeah. When
I'm a pimp, I make records like yeah, bitch, better
have my money.

Speaker 9 (02:35):
Roll call Supreme Suprema, roll call Suprema something Supremo, roll
Suprema something something Supremo, roll call Suprema Son Suprema.

Speaker 8 (02:51):
Roll call.

Speaker 6 (02:57):
Suck and Steve with the mic dropping you just want
to stay black. I want to say I had that
album and I had to listen to it very quiet.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, moms, did you have a.

Speaker 8 (03:11):
Quick punishment? I didn't have a quick didn't get me
in trouble. I'm surprised, but.

Speaker 6 (03:18):
Yeah, because my mama loved Tonight like she loved Tonight.
Like man, if the record Tonight, Man, my mama loved Tonight.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh man, yeah, she loved Tonight.

Speaker 6 (03:29):
But like so I bought the tape and I let
her just Tonight was the only thing she heard me
play because the first thing everything rest.

Speaker 5 (03:38):
Oh yeah, I blame Sweet Black.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
That was real low. I'm like, oh my god, well
I'll be able to go nowhere. You know what's funny
about that record, Man, I wasn't gonna do an album.
I was producing this group called the Palu. Yeah, but
they were so righteous and so like hardcore. It was like,
you know, people want to party to like, let's do
a couple of party records. So when I would like,

(04:01):
you know, I was just the producers like players, stay
in your place, just do the beats, We'll handle the lyrics, right,
I'm like, hey, cool man. So you know he had
these big records, words like pestilence, and you know it's
like I don't know, you know, I was like, man,
can we talk about eight ball? Like, so they did

(04:24):
a classic thing too, right? Yeah? Yeah, that sh it
was hot. Hey man, we flipped it right? Was that
was the good old days when the record companies used
to do pos send your check and you just going
to the studio work. But yeah, man, it was that
was out of necessity that I did those records.

Speaker 10 (04:42):
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, and we have one
of the greatest ever in the studio with us DJ Quick.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
Anyway, I'm not doing any long support man, du when
I wish this from day one, bro, seriously, Okay, I
was gonna cut the superlatives down and all that stuff,
but wait, what was the word you were pests? Yeahlativeslist down?

Speaker 10 (05:15):
No, But I will say that, uh, I mean, this
is beyond slept on, because I don't even think it's
slept on because people.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Know, like if you know, you know, if you know
you know.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
But for me, I don't know any.

Speaker 10 (05:32):
Producer this consistent with quality like far in their career.
I believe that Quick produces and makes records like it's
his first album, Like you can tell he actually still
cares about the quality product because usually like after the
I mean, forget rappers with like the fourth and fifth

(05:53):
album usually by like the seventh or eighth, like they
you know, start to wane off or whatever, or they
rely on someone else's swag.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah. Yeah, and I have to say, like it is,
it is criminally.

Speaker 5 (06:11):
Uh insane to me that his name.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Does not come up.

Speaker 10 (06:16):
I agree, great yeah and yeah and in his production game,
his patches, his chord structures, his production is everything, you know.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
What I mean?

Speaker 8 (06:28):
Look, I don't know many rappers that have had songs
with like entire fucking full string sections.

Speaker 5 (06:33):
Like nobody does that, man, no one does. Nobody does that,
but quick, so thank you for it.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 10 (06:41):
I mean, I know I know people that are who
are underrated or whatever, who are under praised or whatever,
get tired of answering the question like how does it
feel to be under you know, like Tarik K's that question.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Like.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
But does it frustrate you?

Speaker 10 (06:58):
Had all that it it did that people don't recognize
or when listener made like it did.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
But now it's like I didn't. I kicked my care
out the window, like don't I don't look for that
no more because I realized you have to have like
a Philip Drummond, like Dre had with you know, Jimmy Ivan.
You got to have the big daddy Warbucks who will
just keep throwing money at you whether you win or lose,
whether you're you know, succeeding or failing, and who will
take the losses with you. I never had that person

(07:29):
to invest, so I ended up having to be independent
and do it myself. And I just refused to pay
somebody to say good things about me in the media's
like or you know, quick, it's going to be you know,
here or there. I'll tell you one one good thing though,
and this is most recent. This is how I know
I'm not that underrated, because the Jackson estate has been
inviting me to really important things lately, really like I

(07:50):
went to Joe Jackson's memorial and invited to Michael Jackson's
sixtieth birthday party tomorrow at Mandalay Bay, you know, per
the Jackson Estates. Evidently I'm you know, And I got
a chance to talk to Janet at the memorial and whatnot. Yeah,
for you to offer you, Jimmy James Terrors hired me
for that, and I've hung out with some of the

(08:10):
best people like you know, uh, Jimmy James, Terry Lewis
and pretty much all of the time. Jesse Johnson is
one of my favorite people. We had him on the
show recently. I love Jesse. He's one of the greatest
guitar players ever, like he you know, you know, Quincy Jones.
I've been in the studio with you know, super great
Colon Powell even wow, you know, not that studio. I've

(08:32):
been in like a meeting. It was it was he
was supposed to be the first black president. But anyway,
like when I realized that I'm in the room with
Colin Powell and doctor Dre and Quincy Jones and Russell
Simmons and Sugar all at the same time, It's like
I'm supposed to be there, So I'm cool. I mean,
you know, maybe maybe I don't put the pomp poms

(08:54):
up and cheer enough of myself, but to me, like question,
you know, I'm still in the studio with buying new
knee testsy threes and teaching my guys how to record
you know, real analog and get a big sound that
doesn't die, you know what I mean, that doesn't date.
That's where I'm at with it all right, So.

Speaker 10 (09:13):
For the one person out there that's listening to our podcast,
could you tell our audience.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Where were you born and raised?

Speaker 5 (09:24):
This is the first question I always asked, Where were
you born and raised?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
I was born. I was born in l A. But
we moved to Compton when I was five years old,
so I was technically raised in Compton, but I was
born in l A.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
Okay, you know what were your What was your childhood
introduction to music?

Speaker 2 (09:41):
Childhood introduction to music was my You know, I come
from a big family, like ten, eight sisters, one brother.
You're one of them kids.

Speaker 5 (09:54):
Where did you fall?

Speaker 10 (09:55):
I'm the baby. I got all the you know, the
beast stuff like that. But you also got the record collections. Yes,
I did, because I'm certain that the trickle down.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, my sisters used to They used to have me
play their records for their boyfriends when they used to
come over, Like look what watch what he could do?
I couldn't even really talk. I was in diapers, but
I could go play Heaven must be like this off
the Ohio Players record because I knew it was on
this side of the record and it was this far in,
so I would drop needles and they loved it. Man,

(10:25):
I couldn't even really talk. You know. That was my thing.
And my mother, you know, she used to have us
listening to like the Impressions, Kurse Mayfield and Reatha Franklin
and you know all the you know Al Green all
that stuff. Like she was. She was heavy onto the
into soul funk and you know James Brown, R and
B all that stuff.

Speaker 10 (10:44):
Any of your other siblings musicians, Uh, you know that
my brother, My mother used to buy him drum sets
and he would just stab them with the sticks.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
He was like I don't want to do this, but
I would get on him and do it. You did.
I played like a little quarter note beach. You know.
They was like it'd be like, get off some drums
and Perry drums. I was like, Perry's just trying to
destroy him, Like can I have them? No, get out
of here. It's like they didn't want to let me
shine with my music, but I found a way to
do it anyway.

Speaker 10 (11:17):
Oh okay, So what was your record collection? Did you
somehow acquire your own or was it just like based on.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
What I used to buy records. I started buying records
when I was like eight. You remember the first one
you caught. Your first record I bought was the forty
five of Chicks Lay Freak on Atlantic Records, Okay, and
it didn't stop. The second one I bought was around

(11:48):
the same time, was the forty five Not Just Needy
by Parliament Funkadelic, you know, and it started there then.
You know, that was before hip hop obviously, but I
was into all those records, like I'll buy Temptations records
and pretty much all the new black records that came out.
We had, you know, Compon had this small record record

(12:08):
store on Rosecrans and we used to go up there
and just you know, we used to buy records by sight,
you know what I mean, Like that looked like that's
a good record, the album cover by the album cover,
so you know them was the days and I collected.
I ended up That's why I ended up being a DJ.
I would by just keep buying records until I had
a bunch of records, you know.

Speaker 5 (12:29):
So we even designated like black DJ or Backyard Party.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Absolutely bro we had you know, I grew up in
the Blood neighborhood, so all the crypt neighborhoods, them niggas
had the money, so We would go DJ some of
their parties and then get chased out of their neighborhood
when they realized that dangerous man. It was dangerous days
back then. We used to DJ crip neighborhoods like Palmer
Block and you know mc nolly or whatever to you know,

(12:57):
because they had the money. And when they realized who
I was was like the neighborhood I was from, they
get the gathering around me looking crazy, even if he
was rocking the park, even if he was dat matters. Wow,
it was. It was weird back then. It's so territorial,
but the music transcended all that. It was crazy.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
So how did how did you assuming that you play?
How many instruments do you play?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
I played piano, I play drums, percussion. I just bought
a violin, but I don't know if I'm gonna get
into that. I play, you know, just bought a little,
you know, to try it out, just to see see
if I could, you know, hold the bowl right.

Speaker 5 (13:38):
And you know, you know what's weird.

Speaker 10 (13:41):
I'm skipping to your record deal, but you know one
that profile really pimped you out to be like the
Warming band. I mean, you're basically Prince aut this motherfucker
and hip hop. But why wasn't that even exploited.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, I don't know if if Jimmy what was his name,
Corey Arlins Steve, I don't know if Corey Corey was
just into the music, like at first he didn't get it.
It was really the Dave Masster hit, the A and
R man who signed me because he was based over
here on the West and he knew what my record
was in the streets because everybody was talking about it.
So he was the one who champion me getting that

(14:21):
deal and I got a big deal, million dollar deal
in all this good shit. But Corey was like, you know, hey,
you're selling records. Just keep doing what you're doing. You know,
you want to come see my apartment in Queen's you
know whatever they was in New York, you know, And
I hadn't been, so, I mean, they didn't exploit that,
and I don't think I played it up, but I
knew that it.

Speaker 10 (14:41):
Really had no clue because it wasn't to like maybe
rhythm atalism. Yeah that I realized like, oh wait, I'm
playing the basic Yeah. I just thought, like you know,
back then, I would at least for the first two records.
I didn't know that you were self produced and doing
all that stuff yourself.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
I was. It came from just not having people. I
didn't have relationships with musicians back then, so I would
just learn how to play the part. Like if I
hear a baseline in my head and it's it's it's
you know, it's it's nothing genius. It's just if I
hear James Brown based down on a baseline that I like,
I learned how to play that and then expand on

(15:19):
that and go somewhere different modulated play than another key.
So you know, it was basically, you know, it was
a you know, a means to an end. I didn't
have the facilities and I didn't have the musicians at
that point, so I would just play some of that
stuff myself.

Speaker 6 (15:32):
How did you How did profile find you? Being on
the West coast? How did the East Coast label find it?

Speaker 2 (15:37):
Just opened up an office on Sussett Boulevard, Hollywood, and
my cassette. I was selling my cassette out of my
underground tape, the Red tape, out of pretty much by
word of mouth, like people will call me be like,
hey man, they want ten of your tapes over here
on you know, one hundred and thirty ninth who am
So I'll just get in the car, go sell ten tapes,
come back with a hundred bucks, you know, can't it

(15:59):
make more copy of it? And then it started getting crazy,
like man, we want they want a hundred tapes over here.
I'm like, dude, you know, as long as a hundred
tapes with the King would double cassette, you know, we
had that. But then I ended up getting one of
the little from the we had this and I love
the facilities in l A. Back then, there was a

(16:19):
record pool called what was it called They're gonna hate
me cording traits, gonna hate me for this, uh Impact
record Pool. Impact used to have a cassette duplicator and
they let me use it. So I have my little
master tape and I'd have the three so I was
just put in, just let it roll, flip, go do
it again. And I was handwriting the you know, the

(16:41):
stickers and put it on, yeah, the labels, and I
was really I didn't realize I was distributing my own product.
What was your what was on the mixtapes? The what
what was on the mixtapes? Pretty much some parts of
my first album like Tonight was on there. I think
Border Raised too. You know, I just started like sampling
stuff and happened. You know, I had this task have

(17:01):
four tracks, so you know I was in there getting
I was multi tracking, you know what I mean, And
you know doing I came from the you know, listening
to like mixed Master Spade and Toddy T and King T.
Those are all the guys that we wanted to immolate
and be like in competent yep, pretty much the way
they was doing it, like you know on cassettes with
the vibe. We all wanted that reverb, that vibe box colleague.

Speaker 10 (17:25):
So I have family out here in uh Pasadena, so
I sometimes visit for the summer, and I remember the
summer of eighty five, no one on the West coast
knew what the show and Lottie Dotty was did. They
were like, well, I meant like my cousins didn't know
because I'm trying to tell them about Slick Ricky Ducky
Fresh and They're like yeah, and but they were like

(17:47):
no man batteran And so when I would go home
back to Philly, I was like, y'all, y'all know about batteran.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Hell, can't stop it. They were just like no, But
they couldn't relate because the battle Rom was the was
Chief Daryl Gates figuring out how to destroy houses and
write it off because they used to back before the
Battle Ram, they used to to the drug houses. They
used to attach chains to the iron you know, the

(18:15):
iron the iron doors, you know, in the bars that
we used to get so they would you know, pull
a tow truck up attached to it and punch out
and snatch the door off and run in there the
battle roum. And but by the time they got in there,
because you know niggas, no niggas can hear them outside
setting up. You know, the niggas is in there flushing
the drugs, you know what I mean, and getting rid

(18:35):
of shit and breaking out the back door and running whatever.
So they figured the battle Ram would cut that time off.
They start catching niggas running up in their house with
that batter um. Niggas shocked and see a tank and
they fucking house cocaine down with a tank in your.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
What was the first piece of equipment that you acquired
for your.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
A cast It was a Cassio easy. It was a
c z one on one, I want to say, like
the little white one with the like the little twenty
or thirty something keys. And I used to just sit
up and practice on that, like practice baselines and you know,
little piano parts or whatever. But it was like nineteen
eighty two. It was the cassio didn't have a drummer
scene on it too, or I had the little just

(19:20):
little rhythms where it's like sixteen beat all the precepts.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yeah, you know, but how would you utilize like how
would you make your mixt sound?

Speaker 2 (19:35):
Yeah, yeah, you already know. Pause mixing was everything, and
you had to have a certain kind of yo, yeah
let out, yeah, swing when you let up. It wasn't
just you couldn't be lazy with it because your mix
or ruined. You know. And back then, if you did
a pause mixed right, yours would become like the gospel
of that song, Like say you did Heartbreaker by Roger

(19:56):
Troutman and Zap. If you pause mixed it right and
distributed that, everybody think that you you know, that was
the version of it. You know what I mean, if
you did it right, it'll become a legendary mix. You know, really,
I mean we were We're so underachieving back then, like
we had a low parameter for now, but everybody talks
about the mix hey man, Sanuel, Yeah, what was it, Samuel,

(20:20):
cassette deck, Sue Fisher, Fisher, so you know, and I
was amazed the first time I hooked up because you know,
back then, we could not count afford two turntables. So
I had one turntable and to try to make it
sound like too, I had two cassette decks, so I
would record half of the program or whatever I was
doing on one cassette and then bring that cassette back

(20:42):
into the mixer and go to a second cassette while
the turntable was live. So I was overdubbing. I was
learning how to overdeub with two cassette decks and one turntable.
And that was you know, you you did what you
had to do back then. Like you know, so from
the demo tape, the red tape you made that guy, Yeah,

(21:02):
they got profile got it from off the streets and
we had I just started working with like AMG and
was trying to bring uh the guy second and then
and and whatnot from the neighborhood, you know, just to
do little local stuff around you know, La and abroad
and a coordney Tracy, who was like myy with my friends.

(21:24):
At that point, they got in touch with Profile. Profile
already heard of me, so they started negotiating a deal
for me. But Fred Manial from Select Records was like, hey,
I want to be in that, you know, I give
him thirty five that They was like, Profile was like,
I would give him forty five, and they was like quick,
just I'm like take it, take it? Come on forty five.
Are y'all talking about forty five thousand dollars? I already have.

(21:48):
I already had that check. Spin I'm finna get a Jetta,
you know, I don't think I'm finna spend it, you know.
But it ultimately went up and up and up until
it was like, you know, over one hundred thousand dollars,
and then it was like, Okay, that's just some bullshit.
This ain't this is a dream, this is a lie.
You know. Niggas like us don't get that lucky. You know,
I come from welfare and hard knocks and shit. Niggas

(22:10):
stealing my equipment and my sister burning it up, being
mad jealous of me, like you ain't gonna be successfulfucker,
throw my turntables in the firtplace. Yeah wow, man, My
sister Jackie, she's gonna hear this too. She taught me
how to sell cracks. So her thing was if I
wasn't loyal to her, she would destroy everything that I
bought in the dope game. So she and she would

(22:31):
do it in front of the niggas in the hood,
like that was the only bad part of my growing up.
She would show off in front of them niggas who
was like oh. Usually as an example, yeah, yeah, exactly,
like checking you know, come watch what I'm finna do. Okay.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
So a common element amongst a lot of the people
that we interview on.

Speaker 10 (22:50):
The show, especially with producers, especially with great producers, is
that they start out as DJs, but they're also DJs
and high pressure situations. So we noticed that uh, Jimmy Jam,
who each week had to entertain at least a crowd
of six hundred people, like no song, could be a

(23:13):
loser in the bunch, like he the pressure to keep
the pressure.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
That pressure gets you right, and of course right.

Speaker 10 (23:19):
And then Doctor D's story of like if I play
the wrong song or the wrong mix and they're gonna
start shooting up in here. So it's almost like being
a DJ in a high pressure situation where lives might
be on the line, makes you a better producer because
you automatically know what's going to work. So what was
your what was your template as far as working on

(23:41):
your your your first record?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
I wanted to do, I mean, because of course we
grew up listening to the album cuts from Deaf Jam,
like I Feel Good about Candy, you know, even like
Chuck Stanley, like the R and B stuff that let
you I'm gonna sample that, never gonna let you go.
It's hot.

Speaker 5 (24:04):
But you know, I never.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Listening listening to listening to those records, like even if
you didn't play them at a club or at your party,
you had to kind of like know what was going
on my chimplet was I figured, you know, I was
really into reggae, like the sugar Mine Nod and Sister
nine C and you know, even more than just by
everybody's by reggae. You know, it's it's a bigger story,

(24:29):
you know, a lot more to my God. So you know,
listening growing up listening to all that what the Bomb
Bomb and all that, I wanted to do a record
that just pretty much show people what my great range
of music was.

Speaker 10 (24:44):
I wrote that kind of from scratch. I say, like
there was a there was a token reggae. Reggae was
big and Compton it was yeah around a big Ducky
like the Cox family. Ducky Dave Sheltering you know right

(25:06):
now and they stars now they used to. They're from
like fruit Town, the neighborhood across the street from us.
Dave is like in the in the Straight Out of
Compton movie, Ducky security for Rick Ross right now, David
security for who is Dave security for nowadays? Little baby
day Dave, David Cox from Fruetown.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
He's secure everybody he You know, these guys used to
play all the reggae in the hood, like they knew
the reggae stuff. So we got our reggae chases from them,
you know what I mean. But it was, believe it
or not, it was people used to be days when
we just played all reggae all day everything. So I
wanted that, all them different elements, all this stuff my

(25:48):
mother used to play. I wanted all that on my
first album.

Speaker 6 (25:50):
Yeah, because I noticed, like you simple, because my mother.
She was a big Emotions fan, and so I was surprised.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
I was like, man, what made him go for that?

Speaker 2 (25:59):
One? Was the one three? What is that? What's that?

Speaker 5 (26:05):
Shuffle?

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Shuffle? Yeah? It was shuffle. That was a hot record
to us in the day. It was the first thing
after the best of My Love. It was like, this
is dope, and I just you know, I've been I
was influenced by Blowfly. I ain't gonna lie and blow
Flying corrupted me, you know, and I'll speed for it
to say that. I didn't realize how vulgar my album

(26:29):
was until I start having kids. I can't play Sweet
Black Pussy around certain people.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
I wasn't born to raising con version, maybe because.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Pussy was funny and everybody in my click life was
like the one.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
It's an attention grabber I was.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
I wrote that at nineteen, so you know, obviously I
had only slept with like two or three people, but
street people, you know, sweet and black Black one another
that black black ones Sweet. If they got nothing here,
I don't care talk about it. Yeah, that's they keep
you coming back. That's how you walking down the street.

Speaker 5 (27:13):
Like shout out to Tina Farris.

Speaker 10 (27:15):
Okay, are you we're we're talking about sweet Black Pussy
on my tour.

Speaker 5 (27:21):
Managers like you better mess weel.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
I didn't realize that it was times I was, like
you said, like the pressure, the pressure or DJ. It
was nights where I would forget to do that record
in my lineup and really like my start right, like
the black girls are just me so bad, like.

Speaker 10 (27:42):
Every every woman that's a DJ quick fan. That's the
first song they mentioned.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Man, I didn't realize I made like the staple record
for the black woman movement.

Speaker 5 (27:54):
I had no idea a compliments, you know.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
But I had this thing, y'all. I would certain people
who got in trouble listen to my record authentically and
they gave me a story about it, like they got punished,
they got whooping. I would let them get that lig back.
I'd be like, you can, but I let them get
their lig back. It would have been worth the punishment. Man,

(28:24):
What was the What was simple clearance is like back
then sample clearance is because of Bis Marquis. It was
a gray area, like we were sampling crazy before it
got legal. When you know, back then you'd had to
clear the record through publishing, through master usage and license
it and you know, but we was like, we ain't
got no instrumentalists. This instrumental is dope. We're gonna put

(28:47):
this on the tape. We're gonna rap to it. That's
what it is. And people liked it when they figured
it out, Like all the people who were sampling figured
it out, they start making new laws. You know what
I mean to, you know, to to to stop that
shit getting junctions against our records and whatnot. But my
thing was, if I blow y'all record up and y'all
assume me, we still win, y'all still gonna get paid.

(29:08):
I ain't gonna I can't run off with y'all money.
Y'all money is being collected over here, and it's gonna
take six to nine months to get to me anyway.
You know, we work out a deal before that's over,
and y'all good, y'all get y'all split. Betty Right when
I sampled tonight and didn't clear it, I met her
in Atlanta doing freaknickow.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
Wait intimate the intimate connections?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
You clear, I didn't clear none of that, but I had.
I gave them. They was all publishing dexit designees. In
other words, when they come after you you just keep
their money there for them. I didn't know until the
second time I start cleaning samples, like motherfucker. The first one,
it was like we was just using the records that
we liked and had. And when I met her, she

(29:51):
was like, she said, you know, you made me a
whole lot of money, don't you. I was like, I'm
a fan. I love you, like we grew up to you,
like you know, whatever, whatever you want. She was like, okay, no,
I'm good baby, and you're a lot cuter in person.
Then on your record, lady, she made she made tens

(30:19):
of thousands of dollars off of that record.

Speaker 6 (30:20):
After that record, like after your first record was says
I read in this It was then interview did in
the source This was guys years ago. You said there
was a record you did between the first one and
way too funky and you scrap you like, no, I
can't put this.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
It was it was starting out to be like weak
and the records like back then, like you you throw
away records you know ain't gonna work again. The pressure
of a producer sometimes, you know, if you're if.

Speaker 10 (30:43):
You're self continued unit, who's your sounding board? I mean
besides the board. You know your boys. I don't know
if you roll with the crew that's like, yeah, that's
dope every time you do something. So who's the sounding
board that you trust that's gonna say like that ain't work.

Speaker 5 (31:01):
Yeah, like I don't like that sample, or you should
not this.

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Greg Jesse Greedy.

Speaker 11 (31:06):
Greg.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
He was like my first manager. He's the one who
actually helped facilitate my first deal and helped to get
second and none their deal. Actually got them their deal,
and AMG got him his deal and second to none.
Them never admitted they to them. They were already the producers.
They told they did an interview on the source. I
was all happy. My thing was we we like the

(31:28):
other n w A we cool slapping hands with him.
Then niggas gon do interviews by theyself and be like, yeah, quick,
he worked for us. We did all made beat. We
put that in sp right. So he helped all of them,
does helped everybody. He would be the one be like, no, man.
He got a high pitch voice too. He'd be like, no, man,
that shits. Why you can't even play the tempo is wrong?

(31:52):
You know what I'm saying. So he was right. So
we tried to stay within these tempos that worked.

Speaker 10 (31:56):
You know, Okay, before I get to the history of
quicks grooves, all fifty eleven of them. I mean that
to me is like I wish you had the greatest
hits of just your quick group. Yeah, yeah, because it's
like I look forward to those, yeah, and I know

(32:17):
a quick album right, Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
Oh, what's quick group? Gonn sound like this time? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (32:22):
Which is weird because you went super ape shit on
the rose Krans groove. Yeah, what was on your mind
with if you heard the rose Krans groove? I haven't
heard that dog. He just I mean we stretched out
each one pushes then envelope further.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
But I had the Crouch. I had Kenneth Crouch, Dave
Forming on guitar, David Balfour on keys as well. You
had a bass player in there, my drummer, Keith Ross Peanut.
So we was just playing around stuff and I just
got the you know, I just got my favorite keyboard

(33:03):
back because I used to have a profit. That was
my secret weapon, Like when I was working on all
Eyes on me, I can recreate like what's your phone number?
The Prince stuff on my profit. But back then they
didn't work that well because they was old. You bought
them used, they was abused. They stayed in the shop,
you know. So I just got my profit back of
profit six the new one. I just started going back
through what I used to remember about how that keyboard worked,

(33:26):
and we just kept building on that little you know,
that four on the floor just go whatever you call
it techno beat or whatever, but we wanted it to
be spacious and have you know, and have fun. And
Ken of Crouch just takes everything.

Speaker 10 (33:38):
Changing kids and modulating here the relative miners and all states.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
That's kend of Crouch.

Speaker 6 (33:47):
Following my following on the keys Man before, just because
you mentioned it before, I get it too, dope, Hearts
of Men.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
How did you clear or we cleared that? Yes, we did.
That was gonna make him some money. That was one
of the first hip hop workerds he ever cleared.

Speaker 5 (34:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
I was gonna say we became kind of cool because
of that, because he liked the way it was done.
I flipped, I flipped the back the other way. I
was like, I was like, yeah, quick as god.

Speaker 5 (34:18):
Yeah, here's the thing. I didn't know that that was
until you told me. For the Prince episode, I'm so mad.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
I never knew. I can't believe that we get it back.
I did it the other way and Prince douget. Also,
that's a song off of George Clinton's Big Band record,
Fred Wesley and the Horny Horns blow for Me Too,
for you that's the okay, yep, that's that looped with

(34:48):
Prince with you know, basically the baseline I wrote, but
the drums is You're getting a little bit too smart.
Detroit Emeralds, De Troy Emeralds. And also people don't know
it was on a rare version of Yeah forty five.

Speaker 5 (35:04):
Did I ever tell the Dyler story about it?

Speaker 2 (35:06):
Yeah? You told me the story.

Speaker 10 (35:07):
But all right, real quick, all right, so we're recording
the light yeah common And I thought Dylan was trying to.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
Not ghost me weapons when what's the term used, blow
your way.

Speaker 2 (35:28):
When I was trying to psych you out and saying
it was one thing.

Speaker 10 (35:31):
But I thought he was trying to play me on.
I'm like, it's toy amos. He says no, no, I'm
so higher players. And I was like feeling some sort
of way for like three hours. I'm like, why is
the motherfucker alignment? Like it's fucking the Troy Animals. He's like, nah, man,
it's Ohio Players. Because I was taking the sample information
down to give to the label and he's like, Ohio Players.
And the thing is he didn't know that that was

(35:54):
Troy Emeralds. And later we found out that Armine had
just put that drum break.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
On the forty five, So why would he do that? Like,
I mean, I know it was Westbound Records. Thing. The
producer did that and put the tag the drum tag.

Speaker 5 (36:07):
From I know that armor.

Speaker 10 (36:08):
The man that owns Westbound Records put that tag at
the beginning. I don't know if I guess maybe for forty.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Fives their radio. Probably for radio.

Speaker 5 (36:17):
Yeah, like, oh, that's right because there's instant talking at
the very top.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Of the thing exactly, and you need the little tag
seven seconds that still works now, j still do that
put they put an instrument in front of some of
my records when they just start on the one and lyrics,
they'll they'll put that tag on there.

Speaker 5 (36:34):
So okay, we already said that quick number three that
was mine.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
That was I mean, I like, but edited, I edited
it was it was actually five minutes forty two seconds
to shorten it. And I cut it by tape, you know,
you record it and spice it, shorten it. But that's
my man, Robert Bacon, who's one of the best base.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
Yeahs asked you about him, man, Like, what's Beau? I've
never like, like, what's he? What's his deal? What's he doing?

Speaker 2 (36:59):
What you do on?

Speaker 8 (37:00):
Now?

Speaker 2 (37:00):
He's out with Sha Ka Khan? And how did you
guys first look up high see my boy? He introduced
me to him. He was a session player out here
from Detroit and uh he played on Hot Seas first
record Scanders, Yeah, And I was like, man, who was
this dude? Like this dude back then we was looking
for the next standing guitar man. Doctor Drake kicked the

(37:24):
door in with having real musicians playing on your records, Like, dude,
we gotta have musicians. And who did I end up
picking for the first? Quack Row staying the guitar man?
Like wasn't nowhere around it? And where was he from?
What was in his history? He's right around the corner
from Dre. He grew up around the corner from Dre.
I think on town Town Avenue and and industrial comptons
like Compton in l A like a borderline where it's

(37:46):
like a little bougie. It's like actually cool over there,
likema village. I want to see me now or back then?
I think he's still over there. I think it's Mama.

Speaker 6 (37:54):
No.

Speaker 5 (37:54):
I meant was it gentrified right now?

Speaker 2 (37:58):
It was back then I didn't had the ratchet part
over here, then had the bougie part right across the street,
and now it's all turning bougie. Yeah, it is. A
property is so expensive over there right now.

Speaker 6 (38:09):
It's crazy after when you went into way too funky?
Were you by the time, because I mean the first
record was a success, Yeah, were you making money then?

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Like were you straight? Yeah? When I got my first
royalty check, I got it nine months after because I
I this was my thing. I read that book This
has this business of music, so I was already versed
in how this publishing, these points, what percentages are, and
I was happy to be up there. They was like, quick,
you got twelve points on your record? Do you know
Michael Jackson got like eighteen twelve or sixteen or eighteen points?

(38:39):
So that put you in a whole different class. And
I was like, it's all sound good, you know, to
the check? Get here you know what I mean. And
I got my first royalty check and it was like
six figures and I just relaxed. I was shooting music
video for I think we was shooting Quick as the Name,
and my man's Tracy and Courtney came up here and
had me signed the check and I was like, She's like, whoa,

(39:02):
that's a house that's motorcycles to Jedi's And I didn't
buy that Jedi. I gave it to myn but you know,
I was like, yeah, this is this is what I'm
gonna be doing for the rest of my life. Wow,
you know. But unfortunately, you know, hanging out with my
man's second to none. You know, the gang thing was

(39:24):
like kind of prevalent, and I was trying to downplay it,
like I want to be a producer. I don't want
to be this, you know where we came from. But
you know, these guys they played it up a little bit.
And we went to Denver and these guys throw a
bottle in the audience and hurt some kids. So I
get sued. Now I'm on trial. So my whole thing
is bittersweet. It's like melancholy, like I'm happy, but I
got to go to court. I'm looking at some jail times.

Speaker 10 (39:47):
Car please, because even to this day when I go
to Denver, it's just like that's the only thing my reference.

Speaker 5 (39:56):
So first of all, what is what was touring?

Speaker 10 (40:00):
Like?

Speaker 5 (40:00):
How much of that song was autobiographical?

Speaker 2 (40:03):
It was the whole record was the truth. It was
super dangerous because at that point I didn't know that
there were other factions of gangs in cities that we
had never been to, and they was waiting on us. Niggas. Wow,
it was guns. It was shootouts to the point it
became so frequent that after a while we wasn't even
scared no more. It's like, yeah, they' gonna shoot to night.

(40:25):
Sometimes they didn't shoot it be like fuck it. You know,
get some.

Speaker 10 (40:27):
Groupies go back to the channel cake, so you be
on stage, not knowing if it's gonna jump on.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
You can see them. They'll be in the audience and
they'll be the only ones that's not dancing. They just
like right, you know, just that weird shit, you feel it.
But these guys they threw a they threw a forty
Back then you could have props on the stage, like
empty forty ounce bottles and shit, you know, it's part
of your stage shit, you know, the fake trash can

(40:53):
and the street light and whatever. And one of the guys,
one of the members of this group, he threw a
bottle into the audience. Had some crips and it didn't
hit them, it hit some little kids. It broke and
hit kids. So already quick concept back was a skating rink.
It was cool, it was all ages, and I thought

(41:15):
this was in the club. No, no, it was a
skating rink. But what he did by him throwing that
bottle into the audience, it let me know that this
guy is gonna be a liability. And I had to
limit my you know. Then I hate to go here.
But you know, everybody got their little bad story when
it comes to this hip hop ship, and my man's
was they were just self destructive, you know what I mean,

(41:37):
and got me in trouble and I had to ride
for that and people used to ask them. I was like,
why y'all didn't come to support me when I went
to the trial. Their whole ship was we don't do police.
It's like, bro, y'all so hard and so cool, y'all
trying to ruin my career. You know how long did
it take you to learn that lesson was done immediately quick? Fact,

(41:58):
there's a lot of the authorize like a decade. And
it's funny because I don't have no like we was
kids back then, but right now, like look he drinking.
He got threatened by the same guy right and he
was like, I want to punch this is a this's
an R and B singer. But he wanted but he's

(42:19):
just a weird Ooh he's like you know some people,
it's just weird though, like you know, you know, you know,
So is it easy to say no? Yeah? And if
I can just finish the touring? That case cost me
one hundred and thirty five thousand dollars to fight it
and to pay off the suits. And my check that

(42:40):
I got was like two hundred grand man, So everything
that I me, she just went to fighting this fucking
case and then I had to pay taxes after that.
So it taught me that you knows, niggas ain't got
your best interests at heart. If they if they ain't
the kind of people that who like insurance and you know,
keeping your copa setic, you can't have them around you

(43:01):
because they they will bring you down. Easily. We're all
so simple.

Speaker 5 (43:04):
We're all those that were like like kk and I see,
like we're all s Is touring with me right now.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Kk Is. You know he's you know they you know,
every time I talk about them, guys, I should say
no comment. Every time I talk about him, they go
public and be like, nah, we told y'all hating. It's like, Bro,
y'all did all the wrong things. And I think that's
why they didn't become successful. They don't have to like
record it's not bad, it's not bad, but you got

(43:31):
to promote it, you know. And they didn't go out
on the tours and really promote those records. And they
talked about the record company. These niggas fucked us and
we got a bad deal. It's like, y'all can't come
into this business, stop smoking, fucking wet and get in
the studio and make the records. And you know what
I mean, trying to gang bang. What's this big East

(43:51):
East coast part?

Speaker 12 (43:52):
You know, stop that ship, like get the money, and
I'm they're suffice it to say, somebody offered them three
million dollars, bro, and they turned it down.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
And Code man, he was Illuminati, Okay, nod.

Speaker 5 (44:09):
They were offered a significant.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Million dollars back then, back in nineteen ninety three. They
did a soundtrack. We did a song for the above,
the Rim soundtrack. They mean to turn Yeah, Yeah, you
a illuminati. Wow, Wow, I can't believe it. I was
like wow, Like, man, y'all could be rich. Y'all good songwriters.

(44:34):
I know y'all good at heart, but it ain't really
nothing I can say cool because I just watched them
ruin a lot of things, Like you know, they didn't
really want it. Nah No, that's what somebody said. They
were scared of money. They like quick, that's money. Scared
some people are they don't even know it.

Speaker 5 (44:49):
Scared of success.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Man.

Speaker 6 (44:55):
One of my favorite productions of yours, Danny Boy Come.
When I called bro Bro talking about that, I'm just saying,
I forget now, but we need to go back.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
If my introduction to Sugar and Death Row was song
second and None didn't mean to turn you on. That
was my first dealings with you know, Jimmy Ivan and
the great company of Interscope Records in that whole system,
which I totally love and I still think is the
greatest West Coast record label of all time, but they
you know, that was when the deal was offered, bro,

(45:27):
and I couldn't believe that anybody would turn that deal down.
But Danny Boy was the second project I did in
that system, and it was for compilations Murder. It was
the case after you know, just all this stuff happened
so fast, right, that was like a year later after
my record that was ninety two, you know, ninety three,
I think I want to say ninety three is when
it came out. But you know, Sugar approached me to

(45:49):
do something for his new signing, Danny Boy, who I
thought sounded like a lot of a lot like my
favorite R and B singer at the time, which was
Stokely's A no brainer. I sat with Michael Henderson, Yes,
I love you, and he cleared it two million. I

(46:09):
just did the aramatic baseline, you know that B A
B A G G flat so just a black black
black white and it.

Speaker 5 (46:25):
Just felt man, Thanks dude, I love that, you know that.
And the remixes though I don't know if you did
the remix, but there was I think the.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Boys six or nine and them or did that remix.
And at that point D J. Rogers started coming into
the click. I found Warren Campbell baby Dog gave his nickname.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
Wow, that's so dope.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
He played on Safe and Sound like he's on all
the pianos. He's on the piano on the favorite quick true. Okay, Yo.

Speaker 6 (46:51):
I heard the story we had premiere DJ Premiere on
the on the show a while ago. It was like,
it was like that two years when we first started,
and he all always told this story. He told me
this story about Gangstar being on tour with you. I
wanted to hear it from your side.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
It was you was on tour.

Speaker 6 (47:07):
It was you Gangstar and father them see yep and
father them ship when he was on some Hollywood shit
trying to be late so uk like so like before
the show, You're like, yo, bring me some towels.

Speaker 5 (47:17):
I need like fifty towels.

Speaker 6 (47:19):
And so you came out during his set, Pat and
your Jerry Curl and like pass him out to the
crowd and like, fucking up.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Hey, I didn't realize that. You know me, back then,
we had been through too much. So our thing was
we wanted to be cool with everybody because we were
new to the industry and follow them. She was already
popular and popping and He used to do this thing
where he would come late. No matter what his position
in the lineup was, he would come late so he
could be the headliner. So you had to you know,

(47:48):
them venues had curfews, so yeah, yeah, you know you're
don follow them. See you know, he'd be like, it's
like yo, man, you late. He'd be like your marfled. Wow,
you know, but hey, Jesus dude, tying to do. But
he Yeah, I got mad one night drinking little millerginal drafting.

(48:10):
I came out during this said and did some buffoon
and ship like that.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
You know, you know, no, no, no, Premo told you
he was like, dude, that's the most gangsy ship I
ever saw, he said.

Speaker 5 (48:20):
After that, father he got his ass in line.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
It was it was flex bro. But you know it's
cool though, is is that keify d was the first
person I ever smoked the blunt with. He told you know,
he rode the blood for the first time. I was
like blown away, like, well, you know we used to smoke,
you know, we had white boll Yeah, so you know
we in Canada with them, and Guru passed me a blunt.

(48:44):
I'm like, like, what is it like a cigar. You know,
I hit that motherfucker. I was friends for life with Guru.

Speaker 10 (48:52):
Wait, it just hit me because you mentioned Jerry Crole
and metal thing. This is from Tina came I tour
managers like one of your biggest fans. She wants to
know how you managed to stay feathered so perfectly.

Speaker 5 (49:10):
You had the best hair because the way, because the
way too funky. That's we had it.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Feathered hair was healthy. It was. I appreciate that. I'm
getting old now, but the trick was to me is
to have the light skinned hairdressers because they knew hair tricks,
the good hair girls, the ones got the good hair,
the best curl. They would put girls would not only

(49:44):
would they put like the what was it called thiod,
the hard stuff that burns, they would put conditioner in
with it when they did your rollers, so it didn't
tear your hair out and make your bridle fall out.
So they would condition with the breakdown process like they
would they was doing some and then they would rinse

(50:07):
it out that and then look when they broke it down,
and I was, you know, curled up when they shampooed
and conditioned me. Then I could go easily to a
feather and it would hold because my curl pattern was
already broken. I don't understand the feather though, it's because
it's dry, I don't. I don't understand. They would rinse
me out. It was a whole process. It was just

(50:28):
like a pressing curl. But because they would keep me conditioned,
it kind of kept my hair healthy enough to take
that heat.

Speaker 10 (50:35):
He's Jermaine Jackson Jackson. When you left the Jackson's was
straight feathered.

Speaker 11 (50:42):
The difference is quick still got his. So this is
like amazing. Those women don't have those kind of stories.
I believe it was the pretty mean ass girls.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
Hair dressing.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Well.

Speaker 6 (50:58):
They used to condition my hair and and roll it
at the same time, so on safe and sound by
the time you made it to your third record was
priority at any profile? Were they just kind of just
letting you do you like yo?

Speaker 2 (51:12):
Just they they were recouping, so I was cool. My
thing was, I just never wanted to be in debt
with nobody because that just seemed like some foule shit
to do to anybody, just take their money. My thing is,
we signed a deal, I'm gonna be live it to
my side of the deal, you know. But they let
me stretch out. They didn't really check in on me,
you know what I mean, unless I was late with

(51:33):
a record, and then they would do mean shit, like
when they realized the gang shit wasn't going nowhere. When
I caught that case, they was like, okay, so if
you want the advance for your next record, we need
you to sign this life insurance policy. Player. So they
got to ensure. I'm thinking I was finna get my check.
They came with a fucking like adjuster and what is
this Just don't say check any event of your untimely face.

(51:59):
We get a million dollars for your death and we
get to keep all your money.

Speaker 11 (52:04):
You know, didn't cite the kind of death. And then
I'm just curious. Did it say something about bullets.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
It's say, if a nigga shoots you on your face,
your ass, you die on rosecrans, nigga face down, we
get a bonus.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
It was definitely that gang shit was so dangerous back then.

Speaker 5 (52:22):
Okay, So by ninety six.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
I was rich as fuck. Yeah, got a poshing deal
with Warner Brothers. You know, I was writing with Elder
Bars Tupac, And there's one thing I got to ask
I go, man, I was writing my ass off.

Speaker 10 (52:40):
Because as many times as we talk about nineteen ninety
five on the show, and most people, uh sort of
talk about outcasts, hold the South, got something to say
and doctor dre Oh, trust me, I know I was good.
You set it off. The very first thing that happened

(53:02):
that had us in the audience, Like when I went
at MT eight, Yo, Okay, this is the thing. I
had no context or I did. The thing was where
we were sitting and you remember the intro was like

(53:22):
everyone came out.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Of death row.

Speaker 5 (53:25):
Yeah, yeah, that whole thing and you were first.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 10 (53:31):
Me not get in the context, but watching the audience
face like holy ship, he's singing right to m C.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
He was in the you know when you uh sound check,
you get to see where everybody seats it they have
the name there. Yeah, they had got an hour before.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
What were you When did you decide that.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
I was gonna go hard? Yeah? It was a lot
going on before that, Like there was a fight that
I had at the l Way Theater where you know,
I was implemented and like a death like you know,
some one of his boys was in the audience and
he was dissing me and I started fighting with him,
but it started this chain reaction where everybody started fighting
in the club. So the club got tore down and

(54:12):
somebody died that night. And it was it had nothing
to do with me, but I felt like damn, you know,
me and this dude fighting and that energy just spread.
So I was hot, Like I was just mad for
some other reasons, you know what I mean, And that
when I knew that he was going to be on
the show, I was like, you know, since we came
in this dis war amicably, like I'm trying to talk
to him, you know, like, man, the sources keeping this

(54:34):
shit going, we just just dead this shit and we'll
be like neighborhood heroes. We both from Compton, Like let's
do it. You know, I'll fuck with you. I even
work with you on some records, Like let's just squash it.
But he had people in his ear that I later
found out through some people in his camp, that were
keeping him from fucking with me. They didn't want that
to happen. They was, you know, like Nigga, if you
do that, Nigga's game over for you, because you get

(54:56):
your niggas over, you know. It's like so they didn't
let us build. Thing was I just thought he was
just mister billy badass, was like just kept going at me.
So I was enough enough, you know what I mean?
I wrote dollars and cents, and when I got a
chance to perform it for him, I was like, man,
and you know you you know you make a nigga mad.
When he started, I was talking gay shit on that motherfucker, like,
fucking this nigga. I've it was over. Like I was

(55:20):
wast my mind. I went crazy. Yeah that's the thing.
We were sitting there like what was it?

Speaker 5 (55:27):
I couldn't see his face, but what was his I did?
Did you worry that?

Speaker 2 (55:31):
Like they were just going to run up? I was.
I really wasn't worried because you know, I was friends
with Snoop and dog Pound, like we was cool, so
it was gonna happen. But little bit, I know Snoop
was cool with eight two, so it was like he
wasn't in it. He wasn't you know he was gonna
do it. Yeah, we rehearsed it, so he knew I

(55:52):
was gonna do that. Dre knew everybody. Dreda one edited
this song, you know, so and I had to do it.
It was like, you know, you you say something, you
gotta back it up. So I backed it up. I
knew the cool thing was. To me, the cool thing
was that I got my hair done in l A
before we came out there, because I didn't know hair
dresses in New York. And I kept my hair bone

(56:13):
straight for four days. You gotta put the pillow.

Speaker 11 (56:23):
Days when the girls had the Bufonts.

Speaker 5 (56:27):
Must have been the winter time. It would have been
more challenging.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
You already know that humidity would have couldn't find the
lights dress in New York.

Speaker 10 (56:37):
Okay, So after that show was over, I ran out
right after that, Uh, let it be know then you
know the snoops, old snoop.

Speaker 5 (56:50):
I ran out.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
That was done. It was like it's over right.

Speaker 10 (56:55):
So that night, what did the death Row camp do?
Did y'all just fly back to California or did y'all.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Know y'all stayed in New York? You want to know?
It really got hit me. Okay, my that night when
the feud started, when she got up there and said
what he said, and we that was a wild pitch
for us. We didn't know what was going to happen.
We just wanted to represent La. We was in Madison
Square Guarden. That was my first time there. So we

(57:24):
was like in all, like you know, we're fans too,
you know, we know hip hop started in York. We
know exactly what it is. We just felt like finally
we got some money and we further in hip hop,
like you know what I mean, and we love y'all niggas,
like I want to work with rock Cam. I want
to work with you know what I'm saying, fucking shit
niggas that was on my label, fucking naught or no

(57:45):
on profile. It was like poor righteous specially I wanted
to work with them niggas, like you know what I mean.
It's like we let you know. And Dana Dane. So
after that, when when she got up there and through
that wild pitch, we felt the heat from the audience
behind it. So me and they dog was sitting next
to each other, we stood up and just stood back
to back like and Nate Dogg said, quick, if you
don't let nobody hit me in the back of my head,

(58:06):
I don't let nobody hit you in the back of
your head. I'm like, bro, you ain't gotta say nothing else.
She knew it was. It was so it was so
chill bump and you know, blackout, like it was just weird.

Speaker 6 (58:17):
We had Steed out on the show a couple it
was a while back, and he was there and he
says like that in a lot of rooms.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
He was, He said, that's the energy was devilish. It
was like it was like everybody could have just got
killed that night. That's what it felt like. It just
felt like red light on everybody. So what we did
was Shug had I think he had the on the
sales the mind you not what you call it? Dope
ast hotel, my hotel. It's not the Paramount, No, it's

(58:47):
the one that Biggie wrapped about. Tupockey is just stayed
there all the time. They have the numbers on the floor,
the park Parking.

Speaker 5 (58:56):
TAC Central part two, the latemark that Parker's.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Were we're there and Sugar had Mia come over. Did
he's baby Mama? WHOA a lot of people don't know this,
this is only on your show, quest And I'm going, Shug,
what are you doing? Like what the fuck? Like that's
did he baby Mama? And she was just like, you know,

(59:23):
hanging out like whatever, you know, and I was like
Mary J. Blige popped up. You know what I'm saying.
It was like I didn't get it. It just got
weird to me. Did she calmed down? Maybe she was
just there to come, I hope. You know.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Well, I always thought it was weird that the Sugar
started working with Joe to C.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (59:41):
Yeah, like and all those, all.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Those he managed them. He ended up managing everybody like
you know, got in their business with NCA, and that's
kind of you know, did you do it in my room?
Did you? Okay? Okay? He was She wanted to be
everybody's manager because he wanted to shake down every record company.
His intentions was good, but I think at some point

(01:00:03):
it started driving sure crazy too. It was just because
the fame and everybody trusted him, like he had everybody
wanting to do business with him. I mean, you'll be
I was there when Hammer was there, it would be
me MC Hammer, Roger Troutman, Leroy Hudson, fucking Josy, nigga, nigga, everybody, nigga, nigga,

(01:00:24):
everybody went to death row everybody, everybody. But that's crazy.
What is it about Sugar?

Speaker 11 (01:00:33):
Because I mean again coming from security to be in
an executive managed super manager.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
Like, what was that charisma? As a he was giving
everybody results. He was getting motherfuckers paid from their record company.
He was shaking their record companies up, and they were
right to check to you, and he was just scaring
the shit out of folks, out of niggas.

Speaker 5 (01:00:53):
Did you work on Sam? Sam?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I worked on one of two songs of Sam to
recognize you. No, it wasn't recognized. That was dre. It
was one thing I did with Sam. I forgot Okay,
let's let's finally get it out there.

Speaker 5 (01:01:05):
Let's get it out there.

Speaker 10 (01:01:06):
In the dog Pound record dog Food, I was, yeah,
are your patches the common patch of are you the
Marley Maul of the West Coast? Marley mal infamously had
you know his president And then next thing you know,

(01:01:27):
a billion rappers are using.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
I sampled Lady Groove by the Fat Back Band, and
I cleaned it up through SSL console and made it
sound like a breakbeat because it was all noisy and
reverb beat. But I tightened it up and I used
it for second and Nun's song be True to Yourself,
the twelve inch we did like this European twelve inch
where I was cutting taping, breaking it down to a break,

(01:01:52):
and Warren g sampled it. No your guy. He used
to do the compilations of European compilations where they would
do no. He was what's my man's name? Uh No,
he was super popular. We'd all buy his records back
like he was from Europe and he would do these
breakbeat records. Simon Harris, Simon Harris. Simon Harris sampled me

(01:02:17):
and put my break on his record and named it
after one of kk's lines in the record Keep Cool
Little Girl called it to keep Cool Little Girl break.
But it was that, you know, it was killing. Warren
sampled it for Indoor Smoke and it became his bottom
beat name. It was used on Black Superman for Above

(01:02:40):
the Law, and it just became the common clap. That's
that West Coast clap. Those are real claps. Some of
them are we you know, we go in the bathroom
with a dynamic mic clap and then eq it and
you know, sample them. But that was the that was
the color like to because we didn't have that that
clap trap that Parliament used to use for like all

(01:03:02):
them them funky records, you know, flashlight arcle boogie. So
we made them ourselves, you know, and I ended up
giving up I samp with some other ones and did
a real dope color that. You know. Claps are colors,
you know, they're either big and buff or they're light
and tiny. And I did some big, buff media ass
claps and gave him the Dre and he used them
for fucking in the clubs. Yeah, the the only the

(01:03:28):
claps are that was Dre snare and kick and everything else.
But the claps they're also the same claps from True
Heart's Addictive. They're I could give them to me and
you shared. You gave me a file bro of some
prince stuff that blew me away, and I wanted to
give you back some you know. I got p y
t and then broke down it that kid, you pee
my tea. I'm like, see this, I know your nerve

(01:03:51):
man with me.

Speaker 5 (01:03:56):
So you get the you get the master, and then
suddenly you want to see what Michael.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
I. You know, I put it in waves and slowed
down and listen to HIMIM like we did the same kids.
You pet you tea, and it's like, wow, that's what
you saying, right man? Man?

Speaker 6 (01:04:17):
I always knew what I knew about the Beef with
You and eight what was the basis of Beef with
You and House of Pain whatever, Last ever.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Last was just being a dick back then, Like he
was friends with Iced Tea and I think I had
said we had this magazine called Rap Pages and I
had seen Tea and I had to apologize back then.
But me being such a big Iced Tea fan, when
I saw him like go hard on a fan one time,
like we were on tour together and he was like,

(01:04:44):
get the funk. I ain't signing your fucking autograph, Get
the funk out of here. I was like, oh wow,
like he had you know, he didn't feel like being bothered,
and that offended me because I wanted to ask him
for autograph. I said, said, man, Ice teas me, Man,
he's fucking dick, like, you know, being emotional at twenty
years old, twenty one whatever. In the magazine they just
printed it. It was like quick, just Ice Tea. But

(01:05:06):
it wasn't like that, you know, and Ice team was
like yeah. He he shot back up and he said, yeah,
give a fuck about quicker. I'll beat quick, motherfucking ass.
I never said nothing else because I believe him. So
at the time Syndicate was signed, the Ice Tay just
before him, like they had this song you know you
make me You make me sick like Nestie Quick. Your

(01:05:27):
rhymes are whack, you ain't the Mac And then that
that went over everybody.

Speaker 5 (01:05:31):
So Heed, you're talking about cleaned up every Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
House of pain, I mean not white Yeah, yeah, the
old schooling with the Syndicate. He just I've seen the
video that we used to watch. What was that music
choice not music I'm watching music box said you make
me Quick, you make me sick like DJ Quick, your
rhymes are whack, you ain't the Mac. I was like,
oh God. And we just got the deal to do

(01:05:58):
that Minister Society track, like to give him a song
for that movie, and we had like screened a little
bit of that movie. I was like, Oh, this movie'd
be crazy because back then it was just about being
honest to the hood. Like if the movie looked like
the Hood, and that shit was gonna automatically blow because culture,
know when it's a culture vulture when it's real. So
you know, that shit was real, and I just figured,
you know, I might as well. I was in between

(01:06:18):
way too funky and all that shit. And you know,
at the time I was producing, I was doing three
albums at a time. I was working on I Did
a Bit Better Have My Money, second in the whole album,
my album, and was starting on way too funky, but
was still stop. When the big ass twenty thousand dollars
checks came from them little soundtrack record, I was like,
gotta get it, need that hell yeah, run it?

Speaker 5 (01:06:38):
How fast? Uh was Tupac's work method as far as
songs per day?

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
He could easily do like five songs today, that's like
doing the album in three days. He could do it.
So we did that also.

Speaker 10 (01:06:55):
I mean you would have to do five songs. You
would have to beat first of all, how many songs
he do on on All Eyes on Me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I did a bunch like I helped with a lot
of them, Like dads really produced most of the ambitions
of a rider. I would just remix some of them
and just you know, finish the musical thought of them.
You know, they needed a little high hat or something.
I put a hat down or some shake. I got
into percussion back then, so I was playing like the
percussion and ship on ship to make it just sound
like you know America's most wanted. That's me on the

(01:07:21):
clap and a percussion just to make it make it
sound different. Yeah, that's that's that little weaker looking it's
like a gordo, a gordo. It's like a silver one.
I had Tupac signed, actually, but it was that that
thing that you know, just to make it sound like
as if you scratch and keep it percussive or whatever.
But I worked on like fourteen songs on that record.
Let me okay, let me say when I first met

(01:07:42):
in two days, shiit seven songs a day. I needed
cocaine back then, bro, we had we smoke headaches right there.

Speaker 10 (01:07:57):
Okay, explain, explain to me your relationship with the FlexIt
tone AKA.

Speaker 5 (01:08:07):
You know it was funny because we didn't know.

Speaker 10 (01:08:09):
Okay, so we back when we were just starting to
work on Chappelle's third season, we started the Tupac sketch. Okay, well,
and Neil Brennan was like, Yo, we need what we
just called the DJ Quick noise. Little did we know

(01:08:34):
you were in the studio next door. Like the assistant
engineer was like, you know DJ Quick's actually next door
was like, yo, dude, we gotta get him to do that,
and sure enough you had your box of percussion Wow,
and you pulled out the FlexIt tone in history.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
I got that from my brother in law, Bill Coverson.
He was like the first person in us with that thing,
and I'm like, what is this crazy thing? But when
he would do it, it was just funny. And I
remember that sound from the song Qutie Pie by One Way.
That's when we first heard it. And ultimately who taught
me how to really get down on it was Carl
Butch Small, this dude named Butch who's the percussion player

(01:09:17):
for Death Row. He was like the played on like
twenty one Jump Street on Doctor Dre's records all the
you know when when when when Dre's records starts sounding
like super percussive and went big exactly that that was
the one yea do That's Carl's from Detroit. Yeah, actual

(01:09:38):
people playing percussion. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
See, I'm thinking about this stuff is just a maculate.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
We know, bro, it's not programmed. This dude had bell trees,
like you go in there. He had this set up
where he had the bongos, bell trees roto Tom's flexy tones,
Guika's Monkey Acid. Yeah, I'm sitting up here with yeah, yeah,
I'm sitting up here watching him do this. And he
played on Dollars and Cents and blew my record up.

(01:10:03):
And when the when the soundtrack Murder was the Case
came out, Dollars and Cents was one of the popular
records on there, Dre locked him down. Dre was like,
you know, I need to sound for these songs. So
he you know, I couldn't get Carl no more, and
I just got the deal to work with Tony and
do the Let's Get Down record. I was like, we
need to continue that sound on here. So I'm calling Carl.

(01:10:26):
Hey Carl, I'm out here right now. Hey Carl Man,
Hey busch Man. We need to get you on this project. Man.
I was like, so he've got real with me, said
hey man. Dre said, I can't work on your records.
I'm like, what man? All right, Reggie. So I hung
up the phone and I was like, I was in
the living room, my little apartment was hi, my condo.
I was like, so I drove to West La Music.

(01:10:49):
I was like, hey, man, do y'all sell percussion up here?
Come on back. So I just was looking at all
the percussion. I would play it in the store to
see what I was. It wouldn't sound like. And I
bought a I bought two flexy tones, the big one
in the little one. I bought the bell tree where
you have to order it. I bought a bell tree,
Chinese bell tree. I bought like bongos. I bought tambourines.

(01:11:12):
I bought the guica, the monkey ass, I bought the
and the cabasas. I bought the big and small cobassas,
and I bought shakers. And I went in there and
I walked around my apartment playing that flexy tone over
and over and over again until I got it to
sound like the record was. Yeah, And you know I
figured out a way to do it. You've been one
of the bells back and you keep one of the

(01:11:33):
bells open and you just ride the tone for as
long as you can ride it. You know, it's like
it's like playing the trombone almost.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
It's hard to get that singular sound.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
There's to hit the bells, any little slight, hit any strike,
it'll make.

Speaker 5 (01:11:48):
It sound like. So the object is the whole one.

Speaker 8 (01:11:54):
It wasn't my parents, but I do remember, no I
remember quick getting me in trouble once. What in band class?
When I discovered the FlexIt tone.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
The best. It was the loudest instrument.

Speaker 8 (01:12:08):
So like, you know, they be you know, trying to
tell us something. I'd be back there and all of
a sudden it's like, Bill, stay off the class.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
We needn't talk.

Speaker 8 (01:12:18):
Wow, It's cool because that ship was great. I would
not trade that ship for the world.

Speaker 10 (01:12:29):
Speaking of which, can you talk about working on smells
like teen Spirit?

Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
I'm sorry, let's get down. It is bro hands down
one of the funnest sessions ever because Raphael is just
the best R and B musician A lot to me.
I didn't know if he was down. We went to
them if they came to you, yeah, well we had

(01:12:55):
bought the Sons of the Soul album. I had it,
you know. I was like, I want to work with
him because you know Anniversary and laid hit them a
pillow and my ex girlfriend as a whole. If I
had no loose, I'm like, these dudes is like this
is better than they albums just got better and better.
So I just became a super fan and I wanted
to work with him. So my drummer George Archie had

(01:13:16):
now one Ye yeah, g One knew him, and he
was like, yeah, I can get you in Ray Man.
I'm like, Ray, who's Ray? Where's Raphael? You know that's
how green I was. So, you know, he set up
a meeting and I'll talk to him. I'm like, man,
you want to do a dance record, Like I want
to do some up tempo with y'all, like, you know,
mix a little bit of this gangster shit I'm doing
with what y'all do? I think it'll work. He's like, yeah,
let's start. You know, so I got the break beat

(01:13:38):
down and he I sent them to tapes back then.
You know, you're seeing a twenty four track, real laid
it down, send her like a rough Now what you
hear is not a dragon, mister DJ Quick got to
bring you know. He's like, he said, let's do it
in eights, like you do you wrap eight bars, I'll
sing eight bars and would do an eight bar chorus.

(01:13:58):
I was like, that's I haven't thought about that, Like,
how's that going? Because at that point we was trying
to do records for radio, you know, sixteen eight, sixteen
eight right right ever, And he was like the arrangement
was just trippy to me, like, you know, I'm wanting
to do the whole sixteen and the way he heard it,
you know, I was like, Okay, that's a good idea.
So I wrote the bass line out and I was like,

(01:14:19):
for his baseline, I want his baseline to be different.
So I wrote his baseline specifically for him for his voice.
And mine was like a copy of my just like
copping record Boodhao boom boom boot nine. You know what's
that mine and nine? Shit like you know, yeah nice
so and his was just a little more funky and straightforward.
And when he played when I tell you, when he

(01:14:41):
played the guitar, he had a dough bro and he
played that fucking plunder game. Damn. When I got it
back against the baseline, I was like, lord a mercy.
I took the chase in the studio and I got
profissioned a little bit on that percussion shit. So I
started and that was my first time ever working with
pro tools. That's when pro tools was in its early

(01:15:02):
early stages. He took the tape, printed it to pro
Tools and start editing and changing things and then put
it back on the tape. He was like quick that's
how you do it. I'm like, hell yeah, because Marsha
was if it wasn't the tape, it wasn't me got
it back to me. I got on that all the percussion,
like the Cabasa and all that ship and you know,
I bought like the chimes used to hear on all

(01:15:24):
the Maze records featuring Franker Beller. I was like, I
wanted all that shit, you know.

Speaker 10 (01:15:28):
You know, I'm amazed that you're playing literally playing these things. Yeah,
because it like I'm in the band and I'm like,
I know that noise is on a high Players record.
Let me just take it from there. And I go
to car Wash for the collapse and then you know,
you know, if.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
You think about it, everything that you hear on records
anyway was kind of done at some point by some
human beings, you know. So I figured, what fuck the
sample because I got tired of giving my money. Yeah,
I mean, the lawyer fees alone on that shit. It's crazy,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 10 (01:16:02):
So, but that's that explains why your prodacast so much
life to it now that I know that it's not
one hundred synthetic, you know, was it a.

Speaker 6 (01:16:16):
Big difference for you or talk about this transition once
you went from Profile.

Speaker 2 (01:16:20):
To Arista, but not really. I was waiting for that
because I got tired of being put on suspension if
my record was late and Corey then wouldn't pay me
and all this. Clive was like dad. Clike Davis was,
you know, a fan of his since the time he
signed like Alon, that group that had the Albarine City.
When I Arister Records was the biggest one of the

(01:16:41):
bigger labels in my collection. So you know GQ, you
know Ray Parker Junior Radio when he hughes all that stuff,
with all that aristos. I wanted the kashif you know
these were nigga records. This guy the white guy writing
this shit. So when I met him, I was like,
whatever you need me to do? You know he was
like dad, bro, It's like, man, it's awesome.

Speaker 5 (01:17:03):
Yeah, rhythm, I love I love that. That's my favorite
quick album. What is what is your favorite quick record?

Speaker 8 (01:17:08):
That's my favorite quick album? And that intro is my
favorite intro do rock and roll music and the intro
with that too for us, right, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:17:21):
I love that record.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Just having fun. Man.

Speaker 6 (01:17:24):
I wanted to always want to ask you about the
divorce song James the bar. How did y'all how did
that come together?

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
James was? James was, you know, he had a situation
with his girl or whatever, and that's how he was feeling.
I'm like, bro, we you always see these wedding songs
like let's make a divorce song. But this was before
I was married, so I didn't understand just how fucked
up divorce really is. I'm just making a record, you know.
I wish I could have thought that one out a
little bit better. The divorce is a bad word, you know,

(01:17:56):
like and then how how much some lawyers get paid
when you go through that ship? I was like, wow,
But you know it was you know, not to put
too much of his business out there. It was just
something he was going through and we just wrote it
out and Robert Bacon played all pretty guitar ship, you
know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (01:18:10):
I can I gotta say the as a DJ.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
I knew this was coming. I knew it. I know
this was going all right as I was going to
bring it up.

Speaker 10 (01:18:20):
If you didn't as a DJ, if ain't got for Serado,
because now I know where the one is.

Speaker 5 (01:18:26):
That part nothing fuss me more than trying to find
the fucking one on hand in hand. Oh, I thought
I was going to go somewhere else with it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Wait, it's all those first the first up there, the upbeats.

Speaker 10 (01:18:43):
No, no, no, I know now because literally I had
to spend seven minutes on Serado like one two, and
then I had to loop it just so that it's
BROI it in my head because when I want to
spend it and I can't find the one, and it
just ruins my life, like it like.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Why couldn't you just or it was like it was
the beat, it was like one.

Speaker 10 (01:19:19):
I know that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:21):
It's like it's like it's an imaginary kick. It's like
kick boom boom boom.

Speaker 10 (01:19:29):
Yeah, I know now because of Sado. But back when
I was spinning the wax, it wasn't my bad, bro.
It's thirty seconds like looping on the record.

Speaker 5 (01:19:38):
I'm trying to figure out what's the one, where's the one,
Whe's the one? What's bad?

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Bro?

Speaker 5 (01:19:41):
I want to know where I thought you were taking
this pitching on the party?

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Dude? Well, yeah, when somebody kicked the extension court out there, Yeah,
and the record is not but that happened that used
to happen.

Speaker 8 (01:19:52):
I know, but like if you're playing at a party
and nobody, like people don't really know the record.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
They think some we messed up. Yeah, I love that record.
But I love that record had that was I was.
I did that for these guys. That's I became friends
with Big Boy and Fuzzy So and they were you know,
they was running Power one the six, so I was
making records that was just like funny, you know, because
I had a little bit of love on Power, you
know what I mean. So that was like a radio

(01:20:19):
DJ thing and it was cool because on the air
when the DJs will play it, they comment right in
that break like it'd be like, you know, somebody kicked
this and you hear the little noise that transient whull
it's all authentic, and be like hey quick man. You
know the air, the radio personalities would chime in and
then come back on. It just became like a little fun.

Speaker 6 (01:20:38):
One of my favorite one, another one of the productions
I love the yours was come Tonight with You First,
We'll do what happened with Well because about addicted the album.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
And well, unfortunately I didn't speak Indian when I sampled
that record, I would have loved to have cleared it,
but we didn't know who it was. Like, we didn't
do our due diligence. We just what we knew. It
was a hot break, you know. And Dre was working
with ro Kim at that point and he was working
with Truth and I gave that record to Truth for
her birthday because me and MC Light tried to do

(01:21:12):
something to it, but I didn't think that I kid
it far enough with Light. I swear to God man
Light is mad at me.

Speaker 5 (01:21:18):
To the day I was gonna say, goes to bed,
knowing that she gave was that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:22):
Was that was empty Light's record. I was trying to
just expand you know, you know like Lights of Rock,
you know audio two, Like I was gonna had to
give her one. She came to the house, we worked
it out, she spit on it, but it was like
I didn't know where to take it from that point.
It was like I'm never gonna be able to finish it.
And I know it was cool. So it was true

(01:21:43):
herst birthday and I was working over there with her
and h Nocturnal and Dre and I gave it to
her this instrument, like, hey, you know, can you let
Dre hear this and see if there's something you can
do Happy Birthday. Here's a beat that I like, you
know what I mean. And she took it to Dre
and Dra called me like two days later, like quick,
what's that? He said it? Come to the studio Like
all right? So I go to the studio, walked in.

(01:22:04):
They just applauded me for the beat, like he's like,
can you can you do it over? Can? I want
to make this a song for for Sherry. I'm like,
hell yeah. So he put me in Lara by North
and I went in there with my little bass player
due Eric Coombs, and we just I just reprinted it all,
you know what I mean? And I like the way
it stops and starts over in the middle of the song.
That was like kind of a thing. And she I

(01:22:27):
went back to the studio. I gave Dre the tapes,
the tapes, you know, the tapes go and he gets
it and I get a call like maybe like maybe
less than a week, like maybe four days or whatever,
and he had he had Static Major come in and
write the lyrics to.

Speaker 5 (01:22:45):
He heard it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
He was so incredible. Bro. When I heard I was
just the backup for a second. How did you find
the sample? It was after the towers fell. I didn't
want to keep watching the news. She was depressing me,
you know what I mean, because at that point, I
love New York, Like I was sneaking out there and
like having fun and ship like, you know, And they
had these channels. I would just change the channel on

(01:23:07):
my Sidellite TV or whatever. And there was just one
channel that they had called z TV. It was like
an Indian channel where they was just remember TV. I
was just demoing it to see if you like, you
paid you know, extra nine ninety nine for the month
and you can watch Indian stuff. I'm like, what is this? Ship?

Speaker 5 (01:23:22):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
You know, I'm waking up, you know, sober. I don't
even baked, you know what I mean. Just got up
and just start brushing my tee. I just turned it
on there, you know that whatever. So I'm in the
bathroom brushing my teeth and I started just grooving.

Speaker 5 (01:23:45):
You know, I'm like, what the fuck is this on
the TV in my room?

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
I run in there and I look at the TV
and see this Indian thing going down and this lady
was belly dancing and the beat was. I was like,
I need this. I just pushed record on my v
c R over. I take good times, and you know,

(01:24:15):
you get lucky, you get that damn dawn down. So
whatever the VHS dude for VHS case, I rewound it
and I listened to it. All I heard was money.
I took. I snatched the v c R out, went
to the studio with d cr r c A out
and ran it through the board and sampled it into

(01:24:35):
my n PC and just arranged it in there. And
then I was like, I need a bottom beat, and
to me, the cleanest bottom beat that goes with it
the same, which lets me know all music is related.
There ain't nothing new in the sun. But it was
what I did to do it. You satisfied. That made

(01:24:56):
Dre I think understood and like it even more because
I put it through this oti filter thing, like where
I took the noise out of it but kept all
the dynamics. It's like you put like five different band
pass filters and expanders on the loop and you could
like take the noise down. It's almost like doing Adobe
Adobe noise reduction. I cleaned it way up and then

(01:25:16):
we added I added them crazy claps and you know,
I don't snitch out myself, but I got a class
from well, you don't know, because this is where I
got these class from. Yeah. But and I gave him
the tapes and it was all recorded and just it
was just clean like that. I never heard anybody use
do it to satisfied because everybody tried to use it,

(01:25:38):
it would be noisy. But the one we did, I
stripped it down, made it super clean. So at the
end of the day, oh wait a minute, so we
get sued, right, okay, great record, we didn't clear it.
We get sued, but you know, and it's like half
a half a billion dollars. But at this point, how
you gonna sue interscope. This is the richest record company

(01:25:59):
in the so I already I wasn't even worried about it,
and Dre was like, like, don't worry about that. I
was all freaked out, Like, dude, half of we got
to pay a half, like half a bill. He's like, man, quick,
don't even worry about that. So they worked it out
to where they pulled the record or whatever. You know,
it was just like an advertisement. But you know what
India did. They used that ship for their own, they
start sampling it themselves. So it just started an international thing. Man.

Speaker 6 (01:26:24):
I always wanted to ask you about Moss Bird because
not I mean, I didn't really know much about him
or whatever, Like what was y'all's relationship and what.

Speaker 2 (01:26:32):
Was he like like as an artist. It's a cool, smart,
dope rapper, like just incredible from the hood, like you
don't even It's like, where did you learn this from?
Because you know, all rappers needed a backstory back then,
you know, and he for him to just come up
from Compton, but it's rapping like as good as Biggie.
I'm like, this just don't exist, you know what I mean.
And he was only like twenty years old, so he

(01:26:54):
was he was signed to my boy Black Tone, and
I was like, I want to invest in him too,
So I started investing in him and recording his record
and developing him. And he got on my down Down Down,
and you know, other records than you know, Warren g
got a hold of him and heard up and Snoop.
He's rapping with Snoop and so he's blowing up. But I,
you know, I feel bad because I didn't know he

(01:27:15):
was bigger than he was and his you know, somebody
ran off with his publishing. I don't want to say
that they didn't help him get out of the hood.
And he made some people jealous, that's all. It was.
Bro such a great dude. I mean, we had just
been working on this record, like the Get Naked record. Yeah,
we're working on that, and we took time off to
go do Fourth of July with our families, and he

(01:27:36):
got killed on fourth of July, and I felt it.
I wanted him to. I wanted to stay in the studio, like,
fuck the holiday, let's finish your record because we're almost done.
Like you need two more songs and you got an album, kid,
And he was like, man, he love you quick man
it shit hard, man, you making my dream come from
I'm like, nigga, you you the next best thing. Brouh.
And then you know, I get the call that night
that he was killed, and it was like I had

(01:27:57):
to go to the studio and finish this record the
next day and shock, you know what I mean. But
I still mixed it, you know what I mean, cried
a little bit, drank some hennessy, fixed it, mixed it
and it still came out. But I like how how
Kendrick Damn used it for King Kunta. Yeah, yeah, I
cleared that. I was like, yeah, that's my other question.
Quick Screw seven with Josy Wan didn't wrap on it.

(01:28:20):
I didn't wrap Davante was mad at me for that.
I didn't know what to do with it at that point,
like sometimes you know, you you you know, sometimes will
be j R. Smith, you passed the ball, we might
run out of bounds with the motherfucker like I blew out.

Speaker 5 (01:28:41):
Casey and akay.

Speaker 2 (01:28:44):
You actually in the studio just having fun, you know
what I mean, big ass studio and I was just
trying to do something, you know. But I should have
finished it. I should have had Davante play music to
it and whatever. People was mad at me for that,
like that's not no jokes. She record trying some ship.
It was just a fillers can fucking quitch or whatever.

Speaker 8 (01:29:01):
All right, wait, hold on, since you mentioned the Joys record,
Let's bring up another R and B collapse, the joy
record on the Midnight Life.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
When did you have to lie? How did that come about?
I was on tour with Raphael Now when they put
Tony Tony twenty back together and I met her. She
was married to Gip, and I just wanted to work
with her because you know what she was doing on stage,
her and fucking uh and DiAngelo. I'm like, I gotta
work with you. So she came in and wrote that ship.

(01:29:29):
I brought the little slinky beat with it, you know,
a little sp twelve hundred. She was just so she's
such an incredible She's fucking so underrated. Joe Joey Gilliam
is everything. And Raphael used to tell me, it's like, man,
you got you got on a trip when you meet Joy.
She's hard like Kenny, fun with this lady singing.

Speaker 5 (01:29:50):
All right, I got one last question. I'm proud to
say that I was.

Speaker 10 (01:29:57):
Heavy and in jay Z Yeah about the black guy,
I was like, remember that I begged him to reach
out to you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
That's dope, bro, but thank you. Why did you? Why
didn't you give him? I didn't have I didn't. I
didn't have that music at that point that we were
in the studio in New York because he wanted to
do the beat in front of him. He wants you
to do the beat in front of him, so that
was I didn't when I when I tried to stretch out,

(01:30:27):
Like you know, I was writing string parts and a bassline.
He's like, no, no, we don't have time for that.
Let me it's something. Let me just press play. You
had the one you sent me. I'm like, I don't
remember the one I sent you. He was like, well,
just what you got and I start pressing playing. Then
he heard that one and he liked the drama of it,

(01:30:50):
and I was like, damn this one. I think we
all were and it was supposed to be something more
than that because he had that idea of doing Justify
my Thug and Madonna was supposed to sing on it
and she flaked on this. That was the draw. She
was gonna be on it, and she flaked and we
had to do something else. And you know, I want

(01:31:11):
you to to make another record, and really, where you
really get to do it? Well, he let me do me,
you know, because I got some surpey ship right now.
That's how I figure my music is. It's surpie I
share this with you. Since she's talking about flexi tones,
I was in the studio with Bruno Mars on a
couple occasions, Yo and twenty four care Magic. If you
hear the flexi tone oh, somebody back to the jay

(01:31:34):
Z thing. Oh. Charlomagne de Gud was like, fuck that record.
It's like black album is dope without that record.

Speaker 5 (01:31:40):
It's like, hey man, man, I just yeah, you gotta
do it again.

Speaker 2 (01:31:44):
I do over, yeah, because you know I could write
the way dra I mean dre the way Jay writes.
He writes drama like he'll he'll follow the drama of
your track. And I got theme records. That's so perfect
for him right now, you know. I mean like that,
our big dramatic dope records, big horns, all that ship.
I just got to get to him again.

Speaker 5 (01:32:05):
Quick for real. Man, you you're one of the greatest.
Yeah ever man than this is, you know, And.

Speaker 6 (01:32:13):
To you and and thank you man, shout out the
h out the buzzy and the way like you did
one of my things. You did your on TV raps.
You're performing and you took the bit from hallm Nights.

Speaker 5 (01:32:28):
I want to know what Quick is trying to say.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
And dope. I was so happy that Eddie Murphy did
that movie and his character name was Quick, but it
was dope. I put that ship all over way too funky.
And when I sent it to them to clear because
we was clearing ship back then, Eddie Murphy and was
that Columbia's Columbia said No, I was like, I'm clearing

(01:32:52):
the pay for like how much you up quick? No,
I ain't have my ass whip since I was born.
We're still looking for the doctor.

Speaker 5 (01:33:07):
Ladies and gentlemen on behalf of Supreme.

Speaker 10 (01:33:10):
It's like you unpaid Bill paid Bill and Bill yo
with you top five bro, straight up for real man.

Speaker 5 (01:33:18):
Yeah, and Sugar Steve Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
Hey, shout out to the Sugar Network, everybody, the Sugar Network.
I just want to share this, y'all. I helped. There's
a lot of producers. I want to shout out that
I helped Tis Martin, Yes, okay again, my beloved Warren Campbell,
of course, g one. There's a couple of other people
who have some success. You remember who else I helped

(01:33:42):
a lot huh, A lot of people that I just
helped him. Thank you, bro, I mean problem.

Speaker 5 (01:33:49):
We forgot to talk about the talk box.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
Oh my god. Roger told me. He said he told
Shirley Murdock and she told me after as she said
that Roger thought that I was the best out of
the people that did it because I understood his nuances,
and I would play what he played like nuance wise,
because anybody could put the tobe in him off and

(01:34:13):
play a key or whatever. But he like the way
I would play just certain licks. Yeah, I wrote that
for him right after he died. Yeah, I sampled that
sample is from Sparkle Aretha Franklin, I get high. Yeah,

(01:34:34):
I just congratulated, but that was Yeah, that was for him. Bro. Well,
I played a lot better now too, like I've learned
some more things. I got better than toys. Well, hopefully
one day we'll work together, you know. Besides when came
that was one of the most fun times in my life.
I'm in the studio with David Chappelle and I forgot

(01:34:54):
just how funny is He made a joke and I
was embarrassed to laugh in front of him, so I
took off running out. My god, nobody's that funny man. Yea,
it should be against the law.

Speaker 5 (01:35:07):
Yeah, all right, well, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:35:09):
Get him on the show one day, you think.

Speaker 5 (01:35:13):
Anyway, This is Quest Love Supreme. We'll see you on
the next go round out.

Speaker 1 (01:35:26):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. This
classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For
more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.