Black Music Month QLS Classic: Just Blaze

For Black Music Month, let us revisit when Hip Hop (and more) producer Just Blaze shared some of his recording secrets and talks about everything from the Jazz great who still prank-calls him to what it was like showing up in New York City with $40 in his pocket.

 

 

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:08):
What's Up, Everybody, It's Sugar Steed from Team Supreme. June
marks Black Music Month.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
We often speak.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
About it on Questlove Supreme and we've had some of
the legends responsible.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
For the recognition on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Every day this June, we are running a different episode
from the QLs archives to honor the tradition and intent
of Black Music Month. This week we are focusing on
some of the great hip hop conversations in the ULS catalog.
Our leader Questlove has a new book out called hip
Hop Is History. Check it out at questlove dot com.
This is a conversation with just Blade, who has been

(00:41):
a leading hip hop producer in DJA for over twenty
five years.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Suprema sub Suck Supremo, roll call Suprema sub sub Suprema,
roll Suprema Supremo, roll call Suprema So Supremo.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Roll Quest Love heard stories, Yeah, legends getting busted, Yeah,
hashtag ass.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Vaughn Yeah or ass dusted.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
Supremo, roll call Suprema something Supremo, roll.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Call Fonte's in the building. Yeah, funky rhymes.

Speaker 3 (01:26):
I bust.

Speaker 5 (01:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
If you see my friend Just Blaze, Yeah, don't give
him any dusts.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Supremo. Roll to hear that.

Speaker 5 (01:37):
Sorry, sure, roll call.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
My name is Sugar, Yeah, Sugar Steve, Yeah, Just Blaze.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, no problem, roll call no um on pay bill. Yeah,
I'm gonna break it down up. Yeah to Just Blaze.

Speaker 6 (02:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:01):
And the NPC four Housing.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Ro Supremo, Supremo roll call, Supremo Son Something Supremo roll call.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Boss Bills in the house. Yeah, still broke as a mofo.

Speaker 7 (02:15):
Yeah, but I'm still going to ask just yeah for
a hookup at Polo.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Supremo, Supremo roll call, Suprema Suck Sun Supremo roll Call.

Speaker 8 (02:27):
It's like, yeah, oh boy, I'm ready, Yeah for Just Blaze.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
Yeah, it's baby roa call Suprema No, Yes, Supremo.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Roll No years online, Suprema son som roll call.

Speaker 5 (02:44):
My name is just Blaze. Yeah, I'm great, No years,
no one that I still brock from state to state.

Speaker 9 (02:49):
Wait, roll call, roll call Suprema Son.

Speaker 7 (03:04):
Suprema Ladies and gentlemen, no problem, yeah, Steve.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yes, Steve actually came up, like why you said rhythm No, no, no,
that was your best That was your best rhythm.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
We're all high right now. Thanks, it was amazing.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
I feel bad, he said, no, yeah, and then we
didn't me to death.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
I didn't. I had a sixteen ready son.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
I didn't realize. Yes, take over the production, but of
course you have the producer.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora.
Please welcome our guest Justin Blaze. What's your middle name, Gregory?
Justin Blakey Blakery.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
It's the Weed.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
It's it's Steve, you know, gentlemen, uh one, one of
my favorite producers, one of the loudest producers, I mean,
the era of the loudest drums ever. I felt ended
with just place for real, like bring the drums back, bro.

(04:17):
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome just Plaze to the show. Indeed,
just since you, I feel are like the difference between
your era production and the era of some guests that
I've been on the show is I feel like your
your second generation Renaissance. Okay, So, thus you were a

(04:42):
fan of the original Renaissance crew, the tips of the
large professors of the Pete Roxy. You grew up you
know on their music before you. So thus I feel
as though that makes you probably a student like a fan.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
You're you're, you're, you're a suit of.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Renaissance rap, and you know, I feel as though it's
time for you to let us know what time is.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Do you guys know what time it is? What it is?

Speaker 6 (05:14):
This time? You do?

Speaker 3 (05:15):
Ladies and gentlemen, It's time for another round of.

Speaker 7 (05:18):
Justin Blaze, Sir, tell him what the game?

Speaker 5 (05:26):
You name this?

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Snare? Oh?

Speaker 5 (05:30):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Special edition, special edition. This is scrutinizing, all right, fifteen snares?
What's this snare? Oh, I'll do it again to name it.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
I can never remember the name of this one either. Yes,
there you go. What's this.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
Meters again? Oh? I used it on game? Yes, I
can remember the name of it. But I know the break.
I've used it the zillion times. No, no, no, I'm tripping.
I know I've used it. I have the break.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
I just.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
South Side movement say the world. Yes, yes, Joe, yes,
Joe text Popois to.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
M M. I know that sport, Yes, that was sport
lightning rod cool mean gang.

Speaker 5 (06:31):
Oh, I know that Hey fellows some people sally so
that woman man be a man. I didn't I didn't
even that happened. Just just keep going.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Now you're gonna get cocky, motherfucker.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
Heads. Yes, God made me.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
The last one. H Actually that's not fair. It is you,
isn't it.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
I was about to.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Say this is the one that.

Speaker 5 (07:17):
I say. I just had the song.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yes, I inserted myself, as I do with everything in life.
But I thought, but the thing is it sounds I thought,
motherfucking no, they wanted to loose me. One of the
biggest almost near like roots melt down fist fight things
was that they.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Meaning not me.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
They wanted to keep the Clyde stubble Field h soul bride.
But I was like, no, I wrapped uphold and so
I thought me and Russell Elevado worked on that ship
for like now.

Speaker 5 (07:56):
You fool me.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
I was always thought that was what that's what that was,
No man, and I kept doing the roles at the end.
Let people know it's not I mean gus me. Anyway,
There's going to be four other rounds of this.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
There's no problem breaking. So I used to win this game.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
I know you, you and I are like this right.

Speaker 5 (08:14):
So, like on the radio, Z one hundred used to
have a morning show where they used to do exactly this,
and this was mymas used to drive me the schools
every morning. We listened to Z one hundred and the
would play a half of a second of a song
and we would, you know, in the car amongst ourselves.
We would play the game every morning. So fast forward
a little bit later. There was a point where it
wasn't Hank eleven and Halfpipe, but it was another one

(08:36):
of the underground radio shows at the time. I was twelve.
I was eleven, eleven or twelve, and they used to
do exactly this, and I won six weeks in a
row because.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
When you guessed the one second.

Speaker 5 (08:50):
Yeah, one second, and it wasn't a stare. It's just
like they play a second of a song. But I
was too young to actually win, so my mother used
to have to accept the prizes for me. So it
got to the point and then and then mister Magic
and I was doing it on in show for a while.
I won that four weeks in a row. It got
to the point where they were like, justin all right,
you put your mom on the phone. I want I

(09:10):
want to set a cold chilling glasses. I want tickets
to see that R and B group of boys. Wow,
remember that you might remembered had a song called Rabbit
stew Yeah, I won that CD just every week for
like two month straight. I was winning off of doing this.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I've heard you sell the story before, and that is
partially the reason why I started bit you guessed, because
based on you.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Know, hearing him. Yeah, here is snippets. We'll do more later.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, I'm kind of going off off of off script
more than I normally do. I kind of want to
continue you and I just came from uh about south
By Southwest, uh months ago, and I more like weeks.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, we my fault. You know, time doesn't exist with me,
that's true. But you.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
So when we were eating you you declared something that
totally blew my mind.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
There's two teams. There's Team Bizarre Ride to the Far
Side and Team Lab Cabin. No, no, well team even
then even then there's a battle, but there's there's Team
Bizarre Ride to the Far Side versus Team ninety three
to Infinity.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Guess what team just plays plays for?

Speaker 5 (10:37):
Hell? Yeah, thank you? Thank you?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Wait you too? Yeah? Yes, wait you too?

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yeah, I mean listen, Bizarre Ride was wait anyone on
my side?

Speaker 5 (10:50):
I am?

Speaker 8 (10:50):
I mean it doesn't matter because it's me, but I
am she has to.

Speaker 5 (10:55):
Be on your side. No, no, no, no, I'm never
on his side.

Speaker 7 (10:57):
I didn't hear Bizarre Right to the Fire Side until
twenty ten, to be wait, honest, that's seven.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, I know, I know.

Speaker 5 (11:06):
I heard it later than that.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Really really, you're wait, y'all got something commented you listen
to it fully as an album for the first Yeah,
for the first time.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
I heard it for the first time as an album
when the box set came out.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
When You Get Out, that's when I got it.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
So like for me, I heard, are you motherfucker like.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
The record? Yeah, it wasn't.

Speaker 7 (11:32):
It wasn't that I didn't like this thing I used
to Well, at the time it came out, I didn't
have money to buy up everything, and I didn't have
time to steal everything like I wanted to.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
So, like it was pick and choosing. Far Side just
wasn't catch up you. You purchased records before you were born.

Speaker 7 (11:46):
Right right, But like Far Side just never. I mean
I had I had passed me by twelve minutes. That
was all I really felt like I needed exactly.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
So for me, what it was was I've been jaking
since I could walk little, whatever money I had went
to records. I got to pass me by twelve and
you had to get that as a DJ. Aside from that,
what was the other single? There was the remix Other
Fish and I got on the Fish, which and I

(12:15):
love both of those records. There classic records to me.
I'll tell you it was two things. A something didn't
compel me to go halfway with that album. And secondly,
but neither one of my local record stores had it
on WAX. I didn't buy some of these and tapes
Infinity came on had then it was only on one
as most albums were back then as opposed to double

(12:39):
a triple vine. So for me that time, by the
time I got to listen to it, I didn't hear
it in the era that it mattered. Now. On the
other hand, it was a whole different animal for me.
It was dudes that definitely rhyme different, but they still
had an East Coast sensibility about them, so the beats
still kind of rock like, even though they're rhyme patterns

(12:59):
and I did we're different. I'm not saying they didn't.
I just I didn't have I didn't have access to
it back then. Right, But now that said Lab Cab
in California, it's one of the best albums ever, and
I will argue to death for Lab Cab versus.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
All Right, yeah, Early are born in seventy eight, right, yeah, yeah,
eighty four? Like yeah, Margaret, I'm born in eighty four, Margaret,
you know that?

Speaker 5 (13:31):
To me, that doesn't really I don't know if that
plays a factor for me, at least personally, because so
this morning, I'm talking about records that came out when
I was four years old and known verbatim. But I
know him from back then, so it wasn't like I
missed the just completely missed that error. I just missed
that album Were.

Speaker 8 (13:45):
You in the Club? Because I think the reason maybe
it got to me was because I was in the
club and they were playing in the club in DC,
Like at ther.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Were you going to be in the club at ten
years old?

Speaker 5 (13:53):
It was I was fifteen.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
I mean, yeah, exclusive, everybody knows that.

Speaker 5 (14:02):
Put on.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
It's weird. I don't like.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
The thing was is that when the Your Mama video
came out and they played a lot on video music jukebox,
I kind.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
Of dismissed him. I was like it was slow.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
It was nothing new about substitution that I haven't heard before,
substitution to break.

Speaker 9 (14:27):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (14:28):
But when I heard for Better for Worse, that was
the one that was.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
That was just a goddamn revelation to me, and I
told him for Better for Worse was the reason why
we put Scott Storche in the roots because Richard Nichols's partner,
aj Sons Simmons, he was our stretch Armstrong and Babeto
of Philadelphia. So Drexel Radio was where we got our

(14:54):
real hip hop because by then, like Poara ninety nine
was just like anti you know, less rap, you know
that sort of thing. So you know, when he got
the record, he was like a state of Emergency's like, yo,
I think we slept on the forest side. You got
to hear this record, so we like it was dead
of winter. We got in that car and listened to
the ship and when for Better for Worse came on,

(15:16):
like I can only describe it as if you ever
seen like the Parliament Motor Booty Affair commercial or just
the color, like the shit sounded like water, and I
can't explain that. Maybe it's the first time I actually
heard offender Rhodes up in the mix of it. But
when I heard that ship, I was like, Yo, this
ship sounds like water, like we need That's what we needed.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Our ship.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
And so Richard's like, yo, a white kid living on
my floor at my house him and then he came
in next day.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
I was like, can you sound like this?

Speaker 1 (15:48):
And Scott just started playing the Roads and it's like
you're in the group. Well, yeah, that's where you say that,
and I'm La Cabin either because I.

Speaker 5 (15:59):
Seem from me, Lab Cabin was more of a revelation
for me just production wise as well, like, uh, the song,
the songs were great, but for me, the production on
that album.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
I'll say when I when I first heard Bullshit was
that the first time I really heard Dyla. We we
were doing a show with the Far Side and this
is when the album just got done, and like when
Lab Cabin had just got done. Yeah, okay, so like
we just started. Actually, do you guys have a Cat's

(16:35):
Cradle the North Carolina and it's in car Bro Okay,
so the Far Side and Roots are doing a show
at the Cat's Cradle and whoever was doing like the
local college nighttime hip hop joint. We opened for the
Far Side, so they came to scoop me to take
me to the College station, and I wanted to stay
just to see Far Sides intro because you know, they

(16:56):
had one of the best stage shows ever, like the energy.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
There's this four men.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
It was like watching bad brains on stage, Like they
were just like all over the place crazy.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
And you know, I saw the intro.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
They came out to uh do do uh Ronnie Laws,
Uh uh yeah, pressure pressure Sensitive is the album, yeah,
title title wave tight Wave. So they came out to that,
and I thought, oh, okay, that's that's that's a good intro.
And then I got in the car, but because the

(17:30):
door of the club was open, you can hear the vibration,
you know, you hear the vibration of eight to eight
outside the club, and dog, all I heard was we
were literally outside the about to go on the highway.
But I kept hearing the vibration of Dyla's kick patterns

(17:50):
and it sounded off and I made them stop the
car and I ran back to the car the club
so I can open the door and listen.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
And I was like, yo, it's like a drunk three
year old.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
Did this shit, and I'm trying to describe to the roots,
like yo, that new Forest sid song has a kick
pattern that's like it sounds real messed up. And the
next night I was like, who did that shit? And
they explained like this kid named JD and that sound
like you know.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
They worked on but I was interning. I might have
been assistant and journalist at that point. They spent some
time at the Student I used to work at Where
did You First? At the cutting room and eighty eight
Keys was working with them at the time. I don't
know if any of the records actually made that album,
and he was working on them during that time, so
a lot of those songs they were bringing up while

(18:39):
they were in there working. So I would say that
was probably my first time hero between that and Well,
I guess no because The Busters the Coming came out
before that bron But yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
The Coming was ninety six. The Coming was ninety five.
Ninety five, damn it was ninety five.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
So I want to say the Coman is the first
time I had heard, but I didn't really know who
he was or you know.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
I was on Mass he was on Skills first album too.
What was that ninety six. That was That's the first
time I can remember hearing him on that album. He
was on He's on Skills, first album, going down the
Jam and Skills and.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, there's the third.

Speaker 5 (19:22):
I go back and listening to the album.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
There's actually a song on the coming. I didn't know
that he did that. The l and that song did. Yes,
he did. That was back Spin, which one which one
would keep it moving, Keep moving.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
That was on ram Page's cousin.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Credits. Yeah, it's credited to the Uma. Really, yes, and
when you listen to that snare, it's you.

Speaker 5 (19:50):
I'm thinking, I'm thinking of the other posse he cut,
the Deaf Squad meets Flipbow Squad. That's what I'm thinking of. Okay,
that was back Spinea.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, and it's it's like I didn't even thought about that.

Speaker 5 (20:02):
I don't even thought about who. For some reason, I
always assumed that Backspin did that because of the drums. Now,
but now that you mentioned it, it makes it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
I didn't even know that that was he did it,
Like I overlooked that.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
In my you know what, I hear it all that.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Right, that there was a Yes, I'm looking for it
as we speak.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
It's not I'm not just keep it, keep it moving along.
So you said you were DJing since you were four
like around that.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
Yeah, so what was your household like that you had
access to those records?

Speaker 3 (20:38):
Like, how did you?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
So in my house it was it wasn't just my house,
but it was my family unit in general, my family
at the time pretty much all lived in the same city,
and me being the first baby in the family. Uh,
you ended spend a lot of time, you know, with
your relatives, spending the nature big cousins, household weekends and
things like that. So in my immediate household, my pops,
uh was a jazz organist, taught himself how to he

(21:03):
reverse engineered reading music. He knew how to play, but
didn't know how to read. So he would get the
sheet music to songs that he knew how to play
and see what was happening on the paper and then say, oh,
so when it says this, this is the nope that
I'm supposed to be playing. So he kind of reverse
engineered reading music.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (21:19):
So he always had Casio keyboards and Yamaha keyboards aside
from his Thomas organ, and you know, he would let
me play with him and that's kind of where the
making music bug really first came about, because we had
like then Casios had uh the drum pattern loops drum, yeah,
the loops, and you can actually you could you could

(21:41):
have on the base side you could hit a bass
note play. So there was that. And then his Thomas
organ was one of the ones that had the drum
pads in it, or drum pads on it. They weren't
there were more like chick lick computer keys and there
was no sequence there, but you could tap a kick
a snare how I had and all that, So that
there was that. And then my aunt was an avid

(22:05):
collector of like late seventies and early eighties fulk in
R and B. Spent a lot of the standards, sheryln Earth,
putting fire and stuff like that. But I used to
spend a lot of time at her house on the
weekends as well, and I would just sit there and
take all her records up the sleeves and have them
all out on the wood floor. And she was walking
into the room and be like, what are you doing
with my records? Like they were out the sleeves just

(22:26):
and I'm just sliding them across the wood look at yeah,
look at the LA fascinated bout labels and the covers.
And then so around that same time, I had an
older cousin. He's seven or eight years older than me.
This was right when New York Mixed show became a thing.
So you had Red Alert and Chuck Chill Out on
Friday and Saturdays on Kiss and then you have Mister
Magic and Mollie Maw on UH one on seven on

(22:47):
Fridays and Saturdays. So he had I might have been
six ish at the time. He's maybe the twelve ish,
so he had he had a boombox and his sister
had a boombox. So on weekends I would stay by
his house and we would uh listen to both shows
at the same time and record them and then just
wear that tape, both of those tapes out for the
next week. We had no money at the time for

(23:08):
more cassettes, so we would just record over last weeks show. Eventually,
you know, I got a little bit older, we started
archiving things, right, But so I remember like when when
they premiered Salt and Pepper the Showstop, or when when
when Red played U Disco three Fat Boys for the
first time, Like so That's what I'm saying. Like, I
didn't really miss a lot in terms of their early things.

(23:29):
I was there for all of that. And what my
cousin would do. He lived run a corner from a
record store, So what he would do is he would
buy all the twelve inches. As they got old and
the albums would drop, he would give me the twelve inches.
So like Suckers comes out, and it's like that comes out,
and then the self titled album comes out, so he
gives me that single. Who didn't he horn a House

(23:50):
of Rock comes out? Then their album comes out, he
gives me that.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
So he would give you the twelve inches because he
had he had the album, so he's like, I don't
need the single. He didn't think about it, like it
plays better as a twelve.

Speaker 5 (23:59):
Inch, you know what I mean. So then and then
in terms of the actual DJ anything, I'm listening to
these guys scratch records on the radio and I'm but
I'm not really sure what it is that they're doing.
I'm thinking they're taking the needle and rubbering across the
actual wax. So then we actually we had this conversation
on our group chat the disco I'm sorry. The Crash

(24:21):
Crew in Fantasy three both had the same melody as
first year rocking on the radio, so right, well, Fantasy
three was first Sylvia heard the melody. Jack didn't ye so,
but but they came out pretty much back to back.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
So he.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
He had a one time table in his room. He
plays the trick coman. He's like, you want to see
me make a record, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
do it. So he plays Fantasy three and then he
stops it and puts he had the Crash Crew record
right underneath it, so he took the Fantasy three record
off and just put the little down the Crash Crew
and I'm like, oh my god, this was the same mellot.

(25:05):
I'm thinking he's doing something, not realizing he's just playing
two songs. But then his older sister had a one
of those eighty star rack systems, and at the time
it was a push button operated like the selector input
selected was a was a Each one had its own
push button, so you would push a button for cassette,
push a button for turntable, push a button for radio whatever.

(25:26):
Long story short, she had two. I want to say
there were Fisher turntables in there and if you pushed
a phone on one in PHONEO two they could both
play together. So he takes he had a copy of Thriller.
She had a copy of Thriller, so he takes beat It.
It takes both copies of Beat It and starts one

(25:46):
right after the other. So it's going boom boom cat
Gat boom boom got gat boom boom cat Cat boom
cat cat making the drum stutter. So it was pretty
much all downhill from there, Like I became obsessed with
with records and yeah, exactly, and then I would I
would say, you know, I'm Cassio comes out with the

(26:07):
s K five, which was liked my no my one
of my best friends growing up down in Virginia. When
I used to steal my aunt down there, he had
a SK one and it was cool, but it was
still just you put one sound in it, and it
was that. That was that s K five. You had
drum pads and four seconds of sampling time. So right

(26:29):
around that same time, that same summer, actually, I think
is when my aunt bought me Nations Are Millions, one
of the only cassettes I've bought because Sam Goodey didn't
have the vinyl so that Christmas, my best friend's sister
gets to SK five. We jacked her for it.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
Christmas, I was gonna say, did you steal like records
or you stole her keyboard?

Speaker 5 (26:50):
NOI stole her s K five, damn. But then I'm
the reason I bring up Nations Nation the Millions is
because I'm realizing that these records I'm finding in my
mother's addict are on this public enemy record, and I'll
never forget the day I realized that what funky drummer was?

(27:12):
I found a forty found of a drummer, a funky
drumber forty five, and.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
You grew up in a funky drummer forty five household?
Yes yeah, your mom's official.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
Yeah yeah yeah, like like all of that, like Isaac
all pretty much all the breaks, all the commercial but
not like the stuff that they used to play in
the park and the stuff he had to date for
but anything like that was on stacks. James Brown involved,
Isaac Hayes whatever, all those breaks and she it was
like three boxes off that I found in the addict
was when I was When I was young, Attict was

(27:41):
a forbidden zone. You didn't go up there. Unless you
had permission from my moms, because it was it wasn't
a finished attic. It was like stuff everywhere. So I
but I went up there anyway one day and found
a box of records. I started bringing the records down
and I'm realizing, I can make these beats that from
here on this public Enemy records have the SK five
and I have these records. And we had a thing

(28:02):
called the Star Studio, which was it was it was
a scam. It was basically a double cossette recorder. And
what it did was it allows you to record to
the left side of the tape and the right side
of the tape signal wise independently. Right but true, that's
two tracks, right, so you can have a song playing
on one side and then record a vocal to the other.

(28:23):
I used to make these things on SK five and
then on the other side, me and my brother would
rap right. And as you know, I don't know how
far that to the story you want to go, but
that was the beginning of me even realizing what making
music or making beats. You would see that that verage
you had to do it all. You had to wrap,

(28:46):
you had to write, you had to break, you had
to do everything. So it was really all of us
in our little crew kind of all kind of attempted
to do all of it, and eventually some of us
just got better at one specific thing.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
Incidentally, where were you born, Hackensack, New Jersey?

Speaker 5 (29:06):
Okay, but I grew up in Patterson Cool but yeah,
So it was like for me, I was pretty good
with the hands of graffiti. I was decent with the
breakdancing as well. I used to get busy and then
it was DJing and rapping and making beats, so the
djang and production things. But I excelled out, excelled at
the quickest, and my rhyms were decent. But I'll never

(29:29):
forget the day my brother turned eleven. My cousin has
taken me to one hundred and twenty Fish Street for
the first time, so I must have been well, not
just turned ten, so I think I was twelve. He's
taken me to go to record shoping one hundred twenty
fifth for the first time, and I'm playing one of
our beats on a cassette and we were having a
rap battle in the back seat with my cousin's driver

(29:50):
and I rhy and then he rhymed. He sent this
front that blew me out of the water, blew mine
out the water, and I hung up the rhymes. After that,
I just said, right, so what we're gonna do is
I'm ana beat Pete Rock and you're gonna bcl Smooth.
And I actually found a demo that we probably made
when I was like fifteen and he was eleven or
or about twelve. I posted it on SoundCloud. If you

(30:10):
look at the picture on it, we think we're Pete
Rock and seals move when you listen to the beat,
I'm actually cutting up, just rhyming with BIZ and I'm
using a I'm using a cannibal alete. I looped up
a capricorn Capricorn because yeah, you couldn't tell us people
was in Pete Rock and cel Smooth.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Okay, yeah, because you were fourteen by the time.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
Yeah yeah, exactly right around like fifteen and shit.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
So weird, man, that's some crazy shit.

Speaker 5 (30:39):
But that was my life period, Like I didn't know
anything else.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
So when did you get your first drum machine? Like, okay,
I want to do this right, So I had was
your machine a choice?

Speaker 5 (30:48):
I had the Roland. Remember they used to make the
Doctor rhythms, So I had a do R six sixty
and then Lexicon, you know, Lexicon makes the we verbs
and the delay unions. They scammed everybody and made it
called the jam Man, and they marketed it as a
sampler to make beats on. But what it really was
was just a delay that you could sink to MIDI.

(31:09):
So you would put a loop in there to sink
to middy and you could start and stop it with
your computer or whatever you were sequencing with, but you
couldn't say anything with it.

Speaker 3 (31:17):
You can what year does this mean the jam Man?

Speaker 5 (31:19):
Oh maybe ninety two ninety three Bob said something about this.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
It's Bob Power. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
I also believe that Marley A. Y the earlier version
of this, like one of the like even I think
that nobody beats the bis break.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
He did it through I can sink right. So that
Christmas that year, whatever year it was, Roland comes up
with this thing called the JS thirty and it was
kind of like looking back, it was called the Sampling Workstation.
Looking back, it was kind of like a very very

(31:56):
low budget answer to like an npcin kind of thing,
so relatively relatively little budgets. It was twelve hundred dollars.
So all I wanted for Christmas was that didn't think
I would actually get it because it was twelve hundred dollars.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
How much were MPC or like yeah, I was like, yeah, twelve.

Speaker 5 (32:15):
Hundred and twenty four ninety five back then. So I
skipped the one thing seeing the Soul to Soul video
and Nelly what's his name, Nell Hooper Hooper is on
stage and back to life and he's got the Mac
that's for a keyboard.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
I remember that.

Speaker 5 (32:31):
So that was like and I got we had gotten
a computer. I used. I used to computer computer program
as well. My dad was a computer program for a
living and he was a keyboard just as I. So
I see Nelly playing the Mac or playing the keyboard
connected to the Mac, and I'm like, you can make
music with computers. So beg mom to take me to

(32:51):
software et cetera. And I walked in and I'm like,
I need the program to that you make music on
a computer.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Wait, I'm like, I'm laughing because of how influential videos are, uh,
in the life of a kid watching it and then
you see something that could just be for show because
you that's it. I watched Prince like do you remember
the Bad Dance video where he had like the laser

(33:17):
dis and.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
I Prince got scratching.

Speaker 5 (33:26):
When cdj's came out, that was the first thing I
thought of, was Prince in the Batdance video. And it
was in Speaking of which also the very first thing
that my mom has ever got me. I skipped this
as well, was the Radio Shack Realistic mixer, the PA mixer.
It was a four channel with a no fader and
only had up and down switches. Right, So I see

(33:49):
Terminator X in the Bring the Noise video and he
turns out he wasn't even really the guy doing the
scratches on the records anyway, but he was their show DJ.
But he's doing in the Bringing Noise video there's appointment
there on State somewhere and he's back spinning two records
and he's only using the up and down faders, not
using the cross fader at all. So I'm thinking at

(34:09):
the time, as is this impressionable kid Tornadox one of
the best DJ's ever, These public enemies DJ. He doesn't
use a cross fader, so the mixed writing is the
one without the cross fader.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Oh no.

Speaker 5 (34:22):
Mixer.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
They later added across had cross Face. You're listening to
Course Love, Supreme and just Plaze. Here is sharing, uh,
the origin of his story with us and New cross Faders. Hey, actually,
since we're at it, let's go around to.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
Drum Fields. Are you ready?

Speaker 5 (34:47):
I might not be as good drum now.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
This is easy, okay, come on, Hey.

Speaker 5 (34:53):
What is it? Parliament is the problem to?

Speaker 3 (34:58):
All right, I'll do it right.

Speaker 7 (35:01):
I don't know, Yeah, I've never actually never heard I've
heard it you Oh well listen. Yeah, I know it's
from Shake Your but I.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
Never knew what another album I didn't.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
I was lated to that one to actually the producer's dream.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
I know, and I still don't like you play baby.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
I'm all, you're just straight mean potatoes. Be you like
to mean potatoes? I like the not the gardens on
the side.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
It's the same, but it's the same story. We'll go
back to the roll to the second in a nutshell.
I didn't buy a Poles boutique when it came out
because I didn't find but.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
I didn't like what's the first thing that lad? I
thought that ship was kind of corny. I wouldn't.

Speaker 7 (35:43):
I didn't even know that album existed until like maybe
five years after it came out.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
Really yeah, I feel like it's.

Speaker 5 (35:51):
For me personally. I can listen to it now and
I understand why it was revolutionary and production. It's not
in my go to Four of the Beast, these catalogs.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Ah, I feel that's their being to me artistic. I
can't even listen to licenses l anymore. This is kind
of grading.

Speaker 5 (36:08):
Oh, I love I listened to that well.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I mean, I respect its history, but I mean as
a guy who lives for record reviews and a guy
who like wakes up at five am to see what
Pitchfork gave something some ship like Rolling Stone was my
Pitchfork as a teenager, and to see those out of
touch dudes give him a lead review and a four star,

(36:31):
Like what's the chances of some freddy white boy uh uh,
mockery hip hop group getting an artistic.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
Come lottery like this, this, this, these accolades.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
So you feel like it was undeserved, many and manufactured.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
I mean I feel, you know, in the in the
and yeah and the pantheon of of of artistic statements.
I feel like the Father's nation a million, the sun
is three fet hot and rising, and the Holy Ghost
is Paul's boutique for the late eighties. Like those three
records opened and also subsequently shut shut the door right on. Yeah,

(37:19):
you had to be my age at the time, like
we weren't expecting an artistic statement from the beastie boys.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Like I was ready for more, just like you know girls.
Yeah they're they're brandy mockery hip hop, and I got
an artistic statement. You know, he slept on it for me.
It was ill communication. That was the one where I
was like, I fucked like, that's the one I come
back to.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
That's when I got back on the train, you know
your head.

Speaker 3 (37:44):
I wouldn't really on that one. Yeah, they were finding
themselves on check yea.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
But yeah, I think I thought that there was they
were discovering something about themselves that wasn't there before. Here's next, LTG.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
Cut cutting it up. I'm actually bad at this. What
the hell.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
Do you want to play?

Speaker 3 (38:05):
Even like he knows this ship? You better know this ship.
Oh bust and Loose, Yes, of course I made.

Speaker 5 (38:14):
I never cut that one up. As a kid, you
ain't into the go go blaze.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
You DJ for old black people, like.

Speaker 5 (38:22):
Busting Loose is still not in my list at all.
I don't I don't play it.

Speaker 1 (38:25):
You ain't doing barbecue late of course, come on man, Yeah,
we'll talk about that later.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
But now what is it? Oh shafton Africa, Oh saff Africa.
Wait one more time? Oh I know what this is?
Justin blaze? What does this feel?

Speaker 5 (38:55):
It's not the shylight it is okay, I'm not trip
from the woman.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Last one cars back guaran Yes, yes, so all right,
so your.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
First official so the drug you tout the drum machine
things too, Yes, a s R two.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
What year was this?

Speaker 5 (39:22):
Right after the Wan? Yes, because I want to say
it was rap Pages did an article on him. There
was uh, it wasn't a production based article, but they
didn't get into that. The ten was the keyboard, right, yeah,
that was no, No, the ten, The ten was a
keyboard interrat should you either got the keyboard or the
rat And then the n s R X was the
npc ST.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (39:44):
So yeah, the a s R ten read an article
that's what I used, that said, that's what we gotta get.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
The s R ten, I shall say to this day,
Michael D'Angelo Archer still uses in a s R ten,
still walks around Steve can verify this.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
I've got some of the floppy disks in my pocket
right here. He doesn't know, Yeah, Steve uh, Like he
refuses to move.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
He feels like it will cripple him if he updates machine,
like if you want something modern, which fontaneasy combusted, have
any new equipment or it's just that he has some
updated equipment, Like there's there was one particular there's one
particular Japanese keyboard company that sends him like some new

(40:35):
stuff that like he used it on Charade, this keyboard
that I wish we had. It's like some it's a
very vintaged Japanese sounding machine that really has some cool
patches on it. Like his true gift is making patches.
Like he will sit there like all all all this

(40:55):
pat sounds like that drippy, wet Klimbu thing.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Like he takes the clember passed from.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
The a s R and knows exactly how to filter,
how yeah, how much reverb to put on it, how
much to.

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Decay And people realize that a SR had one of
the most advanced effects processors at the time. If you
ever familiar with the and Sonic DP four that was
and that was a standard in studios at that time.
That was the effects section of the a s R
ten put into an effect shooting.

Speaker 3 (41:30):
Really yep, so the same but just more advanced.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
It was the same exact thing.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
With company that scam and sell you the same ship,
but you're like cast now busting apple like I mean,
all they did was add one element and.

Speaker 5 (41:48):
They took it. They made it a rack mount. Actually
the SR the SR version was the DP two like that.
That was when they went out of the s R
made the DP too. Then they doubled it and made
a version called the DP four. It just gave you
more effects.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
So as as with most beat makers that I know
or that are at least from the second generation, like
some of their favorite things are remaking, like practicing what
if I made this beat or whatever? Like what was
the first beat you prat?

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Like, okay, how I don't think.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
I ever did that. The closest I ever got to
it was using the capricorn loop that Pete used for
in the house. I didn't but I didn't try to
remake his beat. I may be using it not for sale,
but just for what you mean, for I just never
I never really did that. I don't think I can't remember.

(42:36):
I can't recall having ever done that once.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
Wow, sockers, because normally that's like the go to practice.

Speaker 5 (42:43):
When I see videos of people remaking my beats like
on YouTube, and it kind of trips me out, Like,
but I get it. If you want to get better,
you want to learn how somebody did something, figure how
somebody did something.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
You're gonna it's it's like a guitar player learn how
to play play.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
Standard, yeah, or just a ballplayer who watches, you know, video.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
There's a lot of chefs.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
I know that, like, you know, we'll try to figure
out like how McDonald's made, you know, the Big Man.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
What I was more concerned about was for me, I think,
especially in that formative era, it was more so I
was listening to how the records were engineered and trying
to because I was working with the ASR ten and
a four track, or even before that that roll in
Jams thirty and a four track, and I was just
trying to figure out, right, I have a drum machine,

(43:28):
I have the same samples I see equalizes on this
four track. Why don't my records sound as good as
the records on the radio. And I'm not understanding the
concepts of studios and mastering and mastering. I don't understand
any of that. I'm just like I got I got,
I got beats, and I got eqs and I got
a mic. So for me, it was about squeezing whatever
sound quality I could out of the little bit that
I had.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I will say, and a test that probably next to
doctor Dre who's the cleanest producer that I know, producer
slash engineer, and maybe the combination of a particular era
of Tip and Bob and Tim Laith laughing or whatever,

(44:10):
you have one of the loudest mixes I know, which
is weird because I know that both you and Kanye
kind of came up in the Blueprint Battle generation of
you know, of the jay z era, whereas like twice
in my DJ career that I've been charged with breaking

(44:34):
the speaker, it was just Blazo.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
No over Kanye Records.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Kanye is the only dude like when his product comes out,
I have to re eat, reconfigure, re eq it like
almost remastered myself, or turn the mids and the bass
all the way down.

Speaker 3 (44:52):
Because you know that.

Speaker 5 (44:54):
Study famous changed over the years, because I remember when
his his focus used to not really be about the
If you remember a lot of times this drums would
be really small, and that was one of the things
that like, he's he's actually to call me about, like
how do you get your drums to sound like that?
With the wares were with the bass like, that was
the thing I remember. I would not get into the specifics,

(45:15):
but there were times where sometimes that would become an
issue in the studio where it was like, Yo, the
track is dope, but the drums seem so small. How
we get to the sound sound bigger?

Speaker 1 (45:22):
But if you look at the history of hip has
changed the millions, drums are small as shit, right, And
then I realized, oh they sacrificed. They have small drums,
but the noise surrounds it exactly. And so but a
lot of your production is like your your your accessory
noises whatever, like uh sirens you use and your snares

(45:47):
and your loops and the voice like everything is at
top level lout, but it never it never peaks, like
how do you well.

Speaker 5 (45:56):
One thing that uh like that I would always try
to do is fun make sure that each each element
of the song has its own space, and sometimes you
have you can't just do that with pushing the faders
of any killing, there's dynamics that come into play too,
because I still like to leave headroom at least so
that even if you're blasting it, it still doesn't feel

(46:16):
like it's overpowered still much. Right, So I'll give you
a perfect example. You don't know, those horns are so
shrill and loud, and Jay has that kind of nasally
tone to his voice, so those those horns and those
and his vocals kind of sit in the same frequency range.
So we did on that record was we used his

(46:37):
vocal as a side chain to trigger a compressor on
a certain frequency of the horns, so that whenever he
runs it would it would duck that just that part
of the frequency on the horns. And then when he
wasn't rhyming, the horns were coming coming full.

Speaker 3 (46:53):
A certain compression, right, And that's where compression works for you, right.

Speaker 5 (46:56):
And it's it's not like it wasn't a matter of
making the horns louder or lower. It was a matter
of when that frequent his voice is hitting, make sure
that frequency itself is ducked on the horns.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
So when you when you create a track like that,
it was all right, when I first heard it, that
was a hard song for me to digest. I almost
think it's a good thing when like you're uncomfortable with
something because it's so new to you. Like first time
I Rebel without pause is like, Yo, what the hell

(47:28):
is this? And especially in light of hearing that record
during nine to eleven and all that stuff, when I
heard it, I just thought, you remember the scene in
Casino where Joe Pesci is like, don't make me do
this though, and he's like squeezing the dude's uh.

Speaker 3 (47:50):
The vice. I always imagine that you don't know by
jay Z was.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
That was the soundtrack to the Ship, Like it sounded
like someone's being squeezed, and like, was that your intention?

Speaker 5 (48:07):
Nah? For me, it was just like at that time,
it was just energy. That is what I was trying
to get across really more so than anything else. It's
funny sometimes if you remember, he used to performance sometimes
and he would have the flames in the background, Like
that's when I was inventioning that moment. A lot of
those records, especially during that era and it's still even

(48:31):
to this day, but especially that era, I was thinking
in terms of performance.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
You're seeing the final product in the stadium.

Speaker 5 (48:38):
And exactly so I'm seeing like that moment, or I'm
seeing when he's doing song Crid and it's just the
whole stage is black and it's just the spotlight on
him and he's telling that story and a little by
little the maybe some imagery in the background on the screens.
I would always think in terms of performance, that's why
I showed me what you got is the way it is,
and why climax is at the end, because that was
supposed to be the record. After he does corn walks

(49:00):
off the stage, then he comes back with just and
it's not a beat, it's just And by the end,
everybody's soloing. The drummer's doing his thing, the basis is
doing his thing, the guitar players with the key up
that that's why that record is like that.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
So did it frustrate you that that song came so
early and not later in the sequence.

Speaker 5 (49:22):
Yeah, a little bit, but it should have been something
towards the end of the album more so than at
the top. But the way it starts is also good.
But us to have at the top of a project.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
I was gonna say, in in the case of I
mean illmatic kind of ruined the the idea of one
person watching everything so on on an album like The Blueprint,
which is essentially an illmatic on its own.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
Well, I mean it's you, Kanye, Timberland, Scott, uh, who else? Bink?

Speaker 5 (50:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (50:03):
So who really gets final say on? Like, well, it's
just start here, like who has his ear as in
let me sequence this?

Speaker 5 (50:11):
At that time, I would say a lot of that
would probably have been because Gool wasn't around, was cool around,
you know, Chauncy was done after the Dynasty album?

Speaker 7 (50:26):
Or who was engineering? I remember the Chauncy story. Well,
there's many of those, the one with the up a
tape or something.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
There's a lot of things. And then he tried to
sue Yes, yes, a couple of years ago for seventy
five million for a whole I don't know what the
number was. Chauncey was the engineer on the Dynasty, the
Dynasty album, maybe some of Volume three. Okay, that's a
whole other set of stories. I figure what it was.

(50:55):
But basically he had a bunch of copies of the
Masters and had been storing them at a storage space
in la I think it was Key in California. For
since he got fired, which was after the Dynasty album,
and then came back and tried to sue j for
a bunch of Oh no, he tried to claim ownership
partial ownership of publishing and masters.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Why did he get fired?

Speaker 5 (51:17):
He just kept messing up badly.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
Okay, wait, how do you know this?

Speaker 10 (51:21):
I think he told the story, told stories on Twitter,
because when it came out that he was trying to
take action, I was like, oh no, no, no, let
me set a few things straight here, like he was
not writing anything.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
He was not. He wasn't He doesn't own the masters.
I actually have a lot of the Masters myself. He
might have had copies or clones because that was right
when we were we were doing the hybrid of two
inch to in digital, so a lot of stuff was
getting bounced back and forth. It was just a mess,
and he was really trying to portray it like he
was the driving force behind the sound of Rockefeller for
some years, and he was not. He's actually the reason

(51:54):
why a lot of records have mistakes on him. Do
this go back to the Dynasty album. Listen to get
your mind right.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Right, that's the one that because of him.

Speaker 5 (52:02):
No, no, that's no, it is that your chick is
in a mono because of it.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Whoa to the beat?

Speaker 5 (52:10):
Listen to the beat? Hold up, no, but is uh
what was I saying? Oh yeah, listen to get your
mind right. You'll notice the chorus is performed differently every time.
Sometimes it starts, yeah, you're not a fly. Fly the hooks.
So really there's three hooks. Each one falls in a
different place. Same thing with can't be life. Listen it

(52:31):
can't be life. Go back and listen to that record
with that in mind, you'll see that the hooks don't
fall in the same place every time. So it was
things like that, and then he you know, back then
he used to have the slave two inch wheels together,
so if you have forty eight tractionally slave two machines together.
We were doing stuff from pro tools and the dumping
into real to mix from real. Duros getting the tapes
because he was mixing that soundtrack where we were finishing

(52:52):
at baseline, and every set of reels that got that
Durro got, the sink was off, so like none of
the reels were coming back SYNCD up. So he put
the two tapes up and he used to be playing
a lot of sink.

Speaker 11 (53:07):
And and.

Speaker 5 (53:12):
And eventually it came to eventually it almost came their
hands at one point because Daryl told about himself and
uh dar wants to tell so I'll let him do it.
But yes, Droyl told about himself on the phone, very
matter of fact. He didn't you didn't. He didn't flip
on him. He just told him about himself and hung
up the phone. Charles, you come to deliver and delivers

(53:34):
the tapes and it is ready to scrap and it
didn't happen. And I'm just sitting there in the room
like whoa. That escalated very quickly. It got shut down
as quickly as it happened.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
But but and how does that translate to a guy
like Jay.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
Jay's like one of those guys that, to me, like
doesn't care how something happened.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
So of course he's gonna look at you like, well,
you're fucking up right.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
And because he's looking at how do you explain to
him that, like, look, he didn't line it right and
this is not my fault.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
And I'm trying to maguyver.

Speaker 5 (54:09):
I think we kept j out of it a lot.
He was aware that things weren't right, but he wasn't
really getting to the specific because we were getting handled
between me Guru and Duro. You know, we were making
sure that he got handled regardless. So he might have
known that there were problems, but it didn't get to
the point I didn't get back to him to the
point where he felt like he had to address or intervene.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Well, it was the person that had to lay this
the SmackDown, say oh, you're fired.

Speaker 5 (54:32):
That might have been hip hop. Maybe Okay, it might
have been a hip hop because the thing is, Chelsey
liked that all that stuff aside. I liked him as
a person, and he and I got along, and he
and hip hop got along very well as well. So
I want to say it was hip hop. I probably
had to have that conversation with him. But how do
we get here?

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I'm kind of fault, We're kind of we're kind of
asked backwards? Isn't this? So? I noticed that every major
producer that gets put on has.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
To go through the initiation of getting ganked first, like
going under the tutelage of someone never happened.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
You didn't apprentice under any.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
Never by o g's by teachers. But people who put
me on were the DJs and producers that I group
listening to you like that was school for me. I didn't,
I can't.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
I moved first, but you want so I moved you up.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
With forty hours in my pocket, literally at forty dollars.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
When you said that, I heard the introduction of welcome
to the jungle in my no no, no, no, no,
no no no, him walking on like forty second street
like looking up.

Speaker 6 (55:34):
So my uh.

Speaker 5 (55:35):
You know my old manager, Nesa, she was We know
each other since high school. She went to n y
U uh got got She got an internship with the
cutting room, ended up becoming like the studio manager. Gave
me a shot at the internship for a week, but

(55:56):
she was kind of close to managing the studio with Dave,
the dude that owned it. I always wanted to intern,
but I was in school. She didn't want to just
bring me in like that out of nowhere. You remember
that girl Jane Doe tip short blond here. Jane was
an intern. She gets the stomach flu. This is during

(56:16):
my winter break from Rutgers. So NASA calls me and
she's like, yo, so what if our interns is sick?
Do you want to come intern for a week? Because
she's to be able to stomach flu. So I'm like, sure,
the opportunity of a lifetime for me, I come do
that week. Jane calls the following Monday. I just I
just got signed to em I I'm not coming back,

(56:38):
So they are you want to stick around for a while.
I'm like all right, cool. So it was kind of
supposed to be a temporary winner break kind of thing,
and then the night manager ended up getting fired for
some just some mother some nonsense, so they needed somebody
to take that position. They needed a night manager.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
They need, like right away, where is the cutting room located?
I feel like it was right.

Speaker 5 (57:03):
Next door to Platinum Island and Rockers, So six seventy
eight Broadway.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
Okay, we did cut there.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Okay, I'm trying to figure out, like where that's my
Ladelph half life location.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
That's where do well?

Speaker 5 (57:13):
No door was that Platinum Island next door? You guys
worked at Platinum Mountain, all right, okay, and so Dory,
your door was that Platinum Oultin. I was next door
at the cutting room. So night manager gets fired. They
come to me ask me if I want the job.
I'm like all right, that means I gotta leave school. Basically,
you know, I want to say I was two and
a half years and I was studying computer programming. I

(57:36):
wasn't really happy though at the same I wasn't happy
in school. At the same time, I'm I'm at Rutgers,
so I'm in Newark a lot. So I'm like finding
my way into DJing at open mics and baby play
my beats at open mics, and dudes like the artifacts
are showing up. Bradman came through once or twice outside

(57:57):
as well, there or a lot. It was a spot
called the Pipeline, was the open mic that did on Wednesdays.
So that era where it was like, I'm not really
happy with school. Rutgers had just hired a bunch of
foreign professors and no disrespect to them by any means,
but their accents were so heavy none of us could
understand what they were saying in the classes. So you're

(58:19):
sitting there like and you're studying complex things like Calculus
three and you know, in computer programming, and the dude,
this one dude African guy, we will all just sit
there and look at each other in the class like
what he's saying at all? And then it was an
Irish dude whose accent was also so heavy, Like so

(58:39):
I'm getting discouraged by school. I'm starting to do these
open mics because I'm meeting people locally in NewYork, and
it started to become more human to me. Up until
that point, everything that I had done was kind of
in my own world, you know, with my friends, my
local friends, DJing. I'm DJing little things here and there,
you know, in my city, of becoming the man in

(59:00):
my city, but nothing outside of that DJ just you know,
so I'm selling local mixtapes. They're starting to make a
little bit of noise. I'm kind of known as the
dude on my side of town. But you know, in
that era especially, you have a lot of dudes that
sell dreams, you know, especially the young kids. Like I
remember going to this one dude's house who was actually
an old friend of ours. I didn't know that anybody

(59:22):
could just call the record and get a press kid, right,
So he's walking around talking about how I can't hang
with Puffy, that he drink too much baileies, like that
was just his thing. I'm hanging with this drink and
I'll go to his house and he would have all
these what I found out brivalized years later were press kids.
But he would have all these folders sitting out across

(59:43):
the table with the logos and our artist pictures and bios.
But it's all just press kids, like anybody can get them.
But he was making it seem like he was working
with all of these artists. And you see the logos,
you're like bad Boy or Arista Uptown whatever. Right, so,
and there was another dude name Peter Pan. Yeah so,

(01:00:04):
but so anyway, just point is this, It wasn't really real, right,
you know, at that point. And then I'm just trying
to catch all the important parts being in Rutgers and
then being in subsequently being in Newark, and I'm seeing
dudes like the Outsiders, dudes like like the Artifacts. This
is when Jersey Raps popping the first wave of it,

(01:00:24):
you know, like kind of like righte like post Flavor, Yeah,
exactly like them used to show up. And I remember
being there one day and one of the dudes, young
Z and Rod Digger are on stage raym and none
of them know who I am. I'm playing beats in
between the intermissions.

Speaker 3 (01:00:41):
How are you playing beats without the technology of the
being invented?

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
Yeah, we just had tapes, had the beats on tapes.
So I'm DJing, but I'm also just playing tapes, and
that was I was playing tapes during intermissions. So I'm
playing a beat and I remember Z was like, I
went to put a record on Framing Roan two and
he was like, no, put that on the beat, put
that beat back over. Whatever that beat was that was
just playing, And I was like, it became real in

(01:01:06):
that moment, Like somebody who has a record deal, whose
records I have bought, an established artist, wants to rhyme
on something that I made. It's not my homie from
down the block. It's not a dude I go to
school with. And on top of that, it became a
human because up until this point, all these guys were
guys you see on TV, you hear them on the radio,
you buy the records, you study their album covers. You know,

(01:01:26):
I'm an album art geague. So that's where these guys
lived in those boxes. All of a sudden, he's a
human being and he's you know, it's a real thing.
It became tangible in that moment. So around that same time,
another guy that I went to college with had a
local crew called a BHA and they were making a
little indie records here right there, and I started hanging

(01:01:46):
with you know, running with them a bit, and from
that point on it just became more human. So this
is right at that same time when Jane Doe uh
leaves leaves, I get the internship. I then become the Nightmare.
And another thing I actually ended up right when Steaks

(01:02:08):
Is High. Chemist Steaks Is High was MOS's premiere, right, yeah,
big Brother Bik, it was right. So I'm doing an
open mic I think in East Orange. Rod Digga had
signed to at one point to violate it through Q
tip and a kid called Roots was doing her demo
and and oh I just caught that. So yeah, kid

(01:02:32):
called Roots is doing her demo and it just and
this was maybe like my second week, you no, maybe
I've been there for about a month or so. I'm
dj ning an open mic in East Orange. Digger shows
up and I never spoke to her during that time,
and I just slip the open mics right previously when
I was in college. So she comes, she's like, I

(01:02:53):
recognized you. Wrestling was somewhere. I didn't even gonna get
it at the studio when you were working with Q
Tip whatever whatever. So we have a little conversation and
then most just walks in and does big Brother beat,
and then I play a beat. He's like anybody out
of beats. I played cassette. He rhymes on that. So
all of a sudden, it was like just it wasn't
happening on records, but was just happening organically.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
So just it was kind of like, so, when was
your first beat that you landed?

Speaker 5 (01:03:18):
No mace, like my first real beat for that that
anybody ever bought. I gotta check what song I really
like it, the one when they get shot out of
the cannons, Blinky blink, blinky blink.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
It was only.

Speaker 5 (01:03:37):
So what happens is at this point, I'm working studio
for maybe about a year and a half, two years,
and I'm starting to thinking, all right, things are happening,
but they're not I'm not making any money. I should
probably maybe start considering going back and just finishing my
last couple of specials at school. Whatever. So one of
the things that I used to do, because I'm not
a good salesman, I like to sell myself. So what

(01:03:58):
I would do is when I would get off work.
I would just go to whatever room was available, make beats,
work on records, and leave the door crack so people
would just walk past and hopefully be like what is that?
So whatever, it would have happened here and there. You know,
nothing ever, really uh came about from it. I developed
a few friendships with some A and rs and a
couple of artists that way, but nothing ever came out

(01:04:19):
of it. But then one day, Mace is working in
the next room. They're sequencing a sampler. I forget what
it was, a bad Boy sampler or something, and he
had to fix something on it. So I'm making sure
to play my music extra loud because they were floating
right in the hallways. So this dude comes to pokes
his head the room and he's like, what's that And
I'm saying, that's just something I'm working on. He's like,

(01:04:40):
who are you? My name is just just what just just?
Your name is just just And I was like, no,
it's just just My name is Justin. So he's like,
all right, blame me some more beats. So I blamed
some beats. I don't know who he is. I just
knew he's connected to them somehow. So you know how
Mace used to always reference to a kudahudah love.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:04:59):
Yeah, So this was coolest partner, the cool tot silent
partner in the company. So he was like, Yo, where
you at on Thursday? And I'm like here working, So
you're working. I'm like, yeah, this is my day job.
He's like, come in the hit Factory on Thursday. So
I go to the Hit Factory. He's like, matter of fact,
we give you an idea, you know, an audition popcorn Love.

(01:05:20):
I'm like yeah. He's like, take that loop it up,
put the scratches and whatnot on it. Put He's like,
do all that, trust me make So I probably end
up picking it as his first single. And I'm like
what He handed me the key, like the golden ticket,
like you see, like a nice guy do this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:39):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:05:40):
So I did it that night, went to Hit Factory
that Thursday and playing it for him and as soon
as he heard it, he just started jumping around the room.
This is the Yeah, this is the single. This is
the single. And my man was Sam. He looked over
at me like I told you. I didn't preface it

(01:06:00):
with him, Like he didn't say I had somebody making
this beat. He was just like he gave me the
Allue and Joe when the record came out, I was like, yo,
putting pluced by just blazing. Super said like because it
was it was his idea. He literally strew me the value.
Didn't ask for no money or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
All right, So I gotta figure out how you wound
up at Baseline Studios and so fast forward.

Speaker 5 (01:06:28):
I'm the maze thing happens.

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:06:32):
Matt Fingers MM short redhead kid, one of my best.
He used to have an indie label called Guests Wild
back in the days. Mike Zoo had most a couple
of records early stuff like that. Anyway, he had a
relationship with Penalty Records with Mayhem and UH Martin Morton.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Okay, so he.

Speaker 5 (01:06:56):
I'm talking about one day because he was a clan
at the studio as well. He's song from Mace and
I'm like yeah, He's like for real. I'm like yeah,
He's like, you'll give me some beats, So again, not
trying to get anything out of it. He takes a
cassette gives it to a man at Penalty. This is
right when they were finishing Norway's album and that led
to UH me working with they had just signed half

(01:07:18):
a Milk.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
Okay, so.

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
Now I'm in the story with half a milk. So
that was kind of like the main thing wasn't a fluke.
We just did it again. And then from there I
met Killer Priest, did a couple, which is how I
ended up here in this building. You know, back then
met Killer Priest, Tragedy Kadafi. So I'm working with a
lot of dudes that I respect, that I like, but
it's not dudes that are selling to the records. And

(01:07:43):
then Matt pun I thought it was a print call.
It wasn't.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
First I'm notice is Pawn and I'm like he never
never sounded like a regularly and being on the phone.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
Like cal on my crib and the brox what So
I'm like, so I'm like, all right, So I go
to his crib, played him some beats sam Ash, I
want to say it with sam Ash at the time,
I just wipped them off and sold him a bunch
of studio get he didn't need. He was modeling his house.
He was trying to build a studio in it. So
I'm looking around the house and I'm like, well, you
got a D eighty you got D eighty eights, so

(01:08:21):
you don't need a that's and you got a O
two R so you don't need a Maxi Digital eight
bus like they double. So whatever, right, So I'm just
I'm just on the strength, just telling him, you know,
like he's like, if you don't you want to stand
this stuff? I said, yeah, I engineer. He said, all right,
So when I want to build my studio, would you
come and help me put things together? I said, here,
no problem. He said, all take whatever you want.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:08:42):
So he ended up building like my first studio, like
inadvertently gave me everything I needed to get started in
the crib. So now I can crank out beats twenty
four to seven. I got everything at the crib, I
can record, I'm doing everything in the house, but I'm
still working at the cutting room. Bruce Hornsby was a
big client of ours, and he used to print call

(01:09:02):
me all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
Used to figure out, man, that's crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:09:10):
So me and h Bruce was working I think with
David Byrne I think at the time. So they're working
on something and they were. They were working at at
the studio for quite some time. So being that I
was a dude, who helped him with a lot of things.
Being helped me and us, Me and him developed the report.

(01:09:30):
So sometimes he would hold studio. He'd be like, Hey,
this is uh, you know Joe Blow from Galaxy Records.
You want to offer you offer justin a record deal.
Just be like, God, whatever, Like what do you want?
Bruce like in that kind of relationship, So.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
I can tell her this story is about to go.

Speaker 5 (01:09:51):
So I'm at I've told a story of bits and
pieces of it. I'm trying to speed to it. I
told total bit of it before. So fast forward a
little bit later. Bruce is still pranked calling me. I
meet Dino from Universal right when Rock was finishing up
the eighteenth let and Cannabis had they had just signed Cannabis.

(01:10:14):
I forget how I met him, was a chance of meeting,
but he gives me the sales pitch.

Speaker 9 (01:10:19):
Yo.

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
Uh, I played in like forty beats and I walked
in with a beat CD. Nobody had a CD recorder
at the time. We're not common. I literally probably was
just me and a hit factory, meaning in a hit
factory the only people who had them, and I walked
away a CD, which automatically He's like who brings beats
on a CD. So that quarter is on. So we
go through the music. He loves it. He gives me

(01:10:42):
the sales pitch. He gives me the Gilbert Godfrey and
gas face. We're gonna make you a big, big, big,
big big one big Reacher.

Speaker 6 (01:10:48):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:10:48):
He's like, I got Cannabis, I got rock Kim, I
got this, I got that. I never hear from Dino
again after the whole sales pitch. So I get a
phone call about to two three beats later, uh at
the studio. So I went to the phone studio. Can
I speak to Just And I'm like, yeah, this is him. So,
my name is g Roberson. I work for Rockefeller Records.

(01:11:10):
I'd like to talk to you about a couple of things.
And I'm like, Y're all right, Bruce, what do you want?
I'm like, how does Bruce know what Rockefeller Records is?
This is whatever? And I'm like, so I'm playing, I'm
going back and forth with it, and eventually I just
hang up the phone. So then the phone rings again, like, hey,
I got disconnected. I was trying to speak to us.

(01:11:31):
My name is G from Rockefeller Records, and I'm like, oh, okay.
So he's like, yeah, so you know, I was at Universal.
I had a meeting with Dino two weeks ago, and
I have this artist that I'm trying to sign named
Billy Bathgate and he doesn't have a demo. He's like.
So he's like, you know, my artist doesn't have a demo,

(01:11:51):
but I've been doing it, just taking him around to
different labels and having him roy I'm Live and Youno
played your CD and we want like we love, I love,
like for what I heard out of the twenties, it's
like ten no I love. And I'm like okay. So
he's like, so what's up and he's like, well, I'm
working on a deal for Bathgate. On top of that,
I just started as an A and R Rockefeller Records,

(01:12:13):
and we're trying to build a production team. So I'm like, okay,
so how does this relate to me. It's like, we want,
we would like to talk about being part of the team.
Can you come down to the office. This is when
their office is. I think we're on fifteenth Street, like
you're Union Square somewhere. So I go to Dave. Dave
was the owner of the studio and he's like oh, Dave,
I gotta go. Jay Z's label just call. They wouldn't

(01:12:35):
have a meeting, he said, But you just came back
from lunch break, and I'm like, I just got a
call from jay Z's record label. You talking about lunch breaks.
So he's like, just go go, So I leave, go
to the meeting. They're like, so basically want to do
a production crew. You this kid we just found called
Kanye West Rock Wilder and but rock wider o their buck.

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
Wild and Rock was supposed to be part of the
sign production and.

Speaker 5 (01:13:05):
K Rob from k Robin Ramel. Wow, they were we
were gonna be rock the world, that is what they
were gonna call it. And and yeah, imagine how crazy
that would have been. So it never happened. The you'll
never happen. Uh. But we ended up just having a
good working relationship. I never signed a Rockefeller. I just

(01:13:28):
we we worked well. They paid me a lot of money.
I stuck around. You know they would do They would
pay me in advance for like like down the line. Well,
I'm getting a little bit ahead of it. So the
first thing they give me is to work on a
Mills album. Yeah, so I engineered that album. I co
produced the few of the songs uncredited, but just you know,

(01:13:52):
and UH recorded in track the whole thing. That was
also the first time anybody rockefed I ever even heard
of a recorded on pro tools. They didn't know what
that was. So Bill ran out of She ran out
a budget, she couldn't buy no more to tapes. Something.
We got this thing called pro tools. We'll try it. Yeah,
So so I do her whole album and UH did one,

(01:14:15):
one or two things with Bleak and beans. Jay wasn't
paying me any attention. We get to the end of
the Bill's album. Here's a song that I did with her.
He says, who's on that? Who's that dude on the song?
Or that was Bathket We put bath Gate on the record.
He's like, taking did the classic goal? Take him off?
I'm getting on this? And who did the beat? Oh?
Just oh yeah? He got better? All right? Cool?

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
Telling come down.

Speaker 5 (01:14:40):
Like the tell him come down the baseline.

Speaker 3 (01:14:42):
So he got better.

Speaker 5 (01:14:44):
So I gave him. I had given him a cassette
of what the Becoming Streets is talking like by chance
two days before. I didn't give it to him. I
gave it to g or Hip, who gave it to him.
Get a call from Lenny. Yo, he's he's cut. He
just cut streets watch or Streets is talking likelast night,
and you want you to come to Baseline bring some
more beats. And then the story that I told a

(01:15:05):
million times, I made stick to the script while he
was in the booth recording, parking lot pimping. He comes
out the room and I play him stick to the
script and he's like, yo, when did you make this?
I'm like, just now in the headphones. He's like, but
I was in the booth. I said, yeah, I just
made it real quick, you know, chopped up loop, played
the keys, whatever. And that's when he was like, alright,
stick around And that was pretty much it. And then

(01:15:25):
I guess a year and a half later or two yearsly,
I ended up owning Baseline.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
At its height. What was the typical day at Baseline,
Like chaos.

Speaker 5 (01:15:36):
Was depending on whatever you're talking about. By the time,
like dip sent had come around and everything, Yes, it
was pretty chaotic for a lot of reasons. But I
mean just even schedule wise, because like you have all
these guys and these various crews in there, and there
were the cruise cruise.

Speaker 3 (01:15:51):
You have your room. Does Kanye have his room, No,
it's it's just it's two rooms.

Speaker 5 (01:15:55):
So it's the room, the main room in my room.

Speaker 3 (01:15:58):
He makes ministress on baseline. And so we was in
the big broom.

Speaker 5 (01:16:02):
Yeah. Yeah, So they were in the A room and
I was in the B room. So Bleak was an
early bird, So Bleek might get there by eleven, a
M Jay might show up around two, dip set might
show up around eight. Beans would show up in at

(01:16:23):
four in the morning. Not to be in troublesomewhere. So
literally like a twenty four hour factory. And you're all, yes,
that's exactly what it was.

Speaker 3 (01:16:33):
Answer this for me.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
How did none of them? How did none of them
stop you from giving uh? Uh cool mean gang.

Speaker 5 (01:16:48):
To Joe button?

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
Yeah, Joe, But how did they not stop you?

Speaker 5 (01:16:51):
So I'll never forget that day. I'm at what studio
was in La the same studio Ya was leaving when
he had the accident sound something, and I forget the
name of it, but I'm in there. Uh it say
it was a two room facility. We had both rooms.
Water room is me making beats. The other room is

(01:17:12):
a state propping a bunch of dudes, uh working on
an album or working on different projects. So I come
up with the pumping Up idea that night. I came
up with it as a follow up to rock the
Mic for Freeway and Beings. So that was my vision,
like Rocked the Mic had kind of just had its

(01:17:33):
run and starting to wane. I think Flip Side had
maybe just all no, Flip Side hadn't I don't know
flip Side had come out yet. It was rock the
Mic was on Stay Property, so yeah, Flip Side I
hadn't come out yet, So Pumping Up was supposed to
be to follow up to Rock the Mic. Now in
Freeze case free will pretty much wrap to anything that

(01:17:53):
I give him. At that point in his life, Freeway
would have wrapped to anything anybody gave him. Literally, I
had him rapping on Casey and Jojo all my life.
Still is It sounded like a good idea at the time.
You know, it didn't come out for a reason. But yeah, yeah,

(01:18:13):
it's called my piano. I'll find it in sentences, so
my piano. So I'm in there, I make the beat.
Freeways was ready to like tell me when to wrap,
and but Beans was kind of like, uh, I think
he might have been heavy on the lean length this time,
so he kind of was just like, so he leaves,

(01:18:36):
and then a bunch of random rappers just started coming in,
like local La dudes who are like fans and just
you know those dudes that somehow ended up in your
session and trying to you know, get on your records.
So I won't name names, but there was just one
who was just like, I had to turn the beat
off now, like, but he came in and started writing verses.

(01:18:58):
I was like, oh, yeah, the beat has to just stop.
So I stopped the beat and I started making as
One from Blueprint too, and I was, this is gonna
be the Rockefella song that everybody gets on. It's a
Rockefella song. There's nobody else. The other artists just kind
of sending that. So I started making as One and
then we ended up recording that I gave the Young

(01:19:20):
Guns there, I think because young Guns started with the
Sneath book out the cut out, the cut I figured
whose routine I jacked? It was somebody's part routine that
I had jack. Yeah, so that's what that's came up with.
That idea. Gave that to young Guns. They start, so
you're coming up with the hooks to hooks, sometimes rhymes,

(01:19:41):
sometimes I'm rewriting rhymes, you know, it's it's always something.
So that pumping up beat goes away. So now we're
Blueprint Too era and this is like the first time
that Farrell and Ja really really locked in, like for
just coming up with the record after record after record.
So I'm in the beat room doing what I can

(01:20:02):
really do, just in there working. I remember the pump
It Up beat mm hm. So I go, I go
to jail. I'm like, yo, did hear a song? He's
like all right, So he comes in like five minutes later,
he's like, yeah, that's mean. But I'm finishing this for
our record right now.

Speaker 3 (01:20:19):
So if he finished, excuse me, miss over now, I want.

Speaker 5 (01:20:26):
To say, it was all tonight. Yeah, I'm talking about please.
I love that. That's that's I love that song. I
mean in general, the Forrail records and they were all dope.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
It was like if pump It Up was on Blueprint two,
that could have made a world.

Speaker 5 (01:20:46):
So actually the record that he was working on ended
up not being used. It was where he first did
to come get someone. He took the wrath came around.
He did that another on another frail beat, which I
just found recently.

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
M M.

Speaker 5 (01:21:02):
Yeah, because I have all the tapes, you know, so
sometimes I justkim through the server and see what I find.
But anyway, so so he goes back to do the
Peril record and he kind of was just like, yeah,
that's nice, you know. Like now, Jay's like that sometimes
if he's focused on I've seen him do that to
other people in regards to me, like I'm finishing this

(01:21:22):
dress record right now, I gotta i gotta go back
in the room. So I didn't. I didn't take offense
to it. But it's funny in retrospect. So moving on
from that, pumping up comes out ends up becoming you
know what it does. It's a huge record. Jay walks
in the room one day, he's like, Yo, that pumping
up is crazy. But next time you come up with

(01:21:44):
something like that, like playing motherfucker, you do let me
know about that. Like you know the things that I
never We never had a structure where it was like
I owe them first, write a refusal. But you're not
an idiot. You know where certain records are supposed to go,
and they knew that. I knew that, So it was
never really a thing who.

Speaker 1 (01:22:00):
A skater because when he does it on that organe Scan.

Speaker 5 (01:22:04):
Don't worry Scan, No, I'll give it back soon.

Speaker 3 (01:22:06):
Sc was your nickname or something, Scan Dollar.

Speaker 5 (01:22:09):
It was a clues manager. It was close. It was cluesman.
Scan was basically, uh, clues manager, but that's a desert
storm was clue dur escape.

Speaker 3 (01:22:18):
I see.

Speaker 5 (01:22:19):
So, and Joe had his affiliation with Uh. You know,
Skane was the one who bought Joe to death chair.
So it's kind of that connection. So give me that beat.
Don worry Scane, I'll give it back, right.

Speaker 3 (01:22:32):
So that's what.

Speaker 5 (01:22:32):
So when I told Jay that, he was like, you did,
I'm like yeah. He's like, nah, I remember you said
I'm gonna go do this for real record. He was like,
I can't remember that now. Then he went and recorded
his verse that was that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Okay, So I feel like we're jumping all over the place,
which is we're very unmarrrored to dude.

Speaker 3 (01:22:51):
Back to the beginning. So when you were a kid, yes,
we can do it. No, well okay, well what about
your work with mad Lyon?

Speaker 5 (01:23:01):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (01:23:03):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
Actually well no, no, no, no, no, no back up,
because I think this is something that this this room
doesn't know you're responsible for the club classic?

Speaker 3 (01:23:13):
Uh shake that ask girl, how are you? Yes? How
are you responsible for that?

Speaker 5 (01:23:21):
So I didn't do the original original version that was
tap rest in Peace Dude from Baltimore. But the interesting
thing about what was happening at that time in Jersey
what later on ended up becoming known as Baltimore club music,
which then became, uh, you know, over time a Jersey club.

(01:23:43):
We had that influx happening, but then we also had
a lot of stuff from Chicago that was coming in.
So like the casual stuff shout out to Curtis h
a lot of that stuff was starting to infiltrate, and
it was basically the beginnings of the primordial soup of
what became Jersey Club.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
So, okay, so is Jersey club? Of course you're gonna
say yes, most of you all beat me down for it.
Is Jersey club an actual, legitimate, recognized genre genre.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
That's a question because I didn't know a subject.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
What's the difference between Jersey Jersey Baltimore House. Well, I
know the difference, I know House, but I.

Speaker 5 (01:24:27):
Feel like there you can't mention Jersey club without mentioning
Baltimore House. But I feel like the Jersey Jersey Club
has become its own thing, the way they programmed the
when they chot the samples, when they do certain studies,
it's become its own thing, like it's becomes its own thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
So whereas the think the James Brown Marvel with Link
Collins think Loop is.

Speaker 5 (01:24:50):
Not as prominent in Jersey Club anymore, so that breaks
it's all right. So like obviously all the Jersey Club
records you have to think loop or at least the tambourine,
the shakers or the tambourines in there. I feel like
there was a certain point where it got away from
that and it was more about the bottom the base

(01:25:10):
pause and that pattern that boom boom boom, boom boom boom.
Both of those records are still based on that. But
what I'm noticing with the younger generations that are doing
it now, It's not something that I can necessarily put
in the words because I never really analyzed it from
that standpoint, but the way they are truncating and stuttering
and flipping out of their samples, there's definitely a distinctly

(01:25:31):
different way that they do it in Jersey versus how
they do it in Baltimore versus how like some of
the dudes that are doing it in Philly, like a
like a Sega for example. Are they all do it
a little bit differently? And that's not something that I
could really quantify or put in the words how it's different.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
So I mean, but is this still pulse wise typically
one hundred and twenty eight bpms?

Speaker 5 (01:25:53):
Oh yeah, the foundation, The foundation is still the same.
The foundation is still the same. Se Man.

Speaker 3 (01:25:57):
I feel like I was on to some where you
got Me and didn't complete the miss if you'd work,
I feel like the world.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
I feel like America, like with you Got Me and
with Bombs over bag Dad. I think America is ready
for German bass.

Speaker 5 (01:26:12):
But it's like it's the gatekeepers on what it happened.

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):
You think you're talking about it now. I just feel like,
I mean, I just I just feel like the breaking out.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
I'm praying with this dreat record that the bpms get
sped up more and it really start starts a paradigm shift.

Speaker 5 (01:26:35):
I don't hope that this is so hope they gets
sped up more. I just hope there's more variants in
the bpms.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
Well, it's due time, because it's twenty seventeen, and true
to my five year theory, with things changing on the
sevens and the twos, something new is going to happen
to hip hop. According I meant the last thirty plus
years that it's happened.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
I'm praying that this is it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:58):
I mean nothing against you know, seventy three bpms and
I mean now people getting super slower.

Speaker 5 (01:27:04):
No, now it's it's the lean effect. So now it's
like a half Yeah, it's like literally one fifty to
fifty one bpm.

Speaker 3 (01:27:12):
Do you resent that? I mean not resent that, I
mean I know I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:27:15):
Resent it because it actually allows me in DJ sets
to have a little bit more fun because not for
one reason, but for one of the main reasons being
you can go from the super high energy to this
total shift but still keep people doing the same bounce,

(01:27:36):
you see what I'm saying, like, and then that allows
you as a DJ to get creative with it and say, Okay,
I can go from one hundred to fifty and it
feels the same, but now the mood has changed, so
now I can say, way out of that, it hit
the seventy five bpms, and then after that some way
fun way you get to one to forty. A lot
of the halftime and double time stuff that's happening at
least in my DJ sets has allowed me to navigate

(01:27:58):
more courses quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
You I, We're just saying, but it's just like, as
a person like I can't stand bad segues and DJ sets,
so everything has to make sense to me.

Speaker 5 (01:28:11):
I'm the same way. That's why I like, I watched
some I watched some dudes, and sometimes I immedtedly get
jealous of dudes that aren't that don't mind, just care right,
just stopping the music and totally just shifting tempos and moves,
and you know what, But the more I watch dudes
do that, whether it's somebody that's opening for me, whether
it's somebody that I'm playing before and opening for, whether

(01:28:33):
it's a co headline or whatever it is, I watched
those from the side sometimes and I'm like, I wish
I did not care the way you don't care, because,
to be honest, today's audience doesn't care.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
I don't care as long as I just want to
hear a playlist loud right club.

Speaker 5 (01:28:48):
And when I see that, I'm like, I literally have
said to myself countless times. I wish I did not
care because that terrible, ugly segue that that dude just
did just had put this party on full tilt. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
We I don't know which year the Roots Picnic it was,
but we hired a DJ that was going back from
his iPhone to his CDJs.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
What was that doing that then? But he but he
had them going crazy?

Speaker 1 (01:29:21):
I crazy, right, he had Well, it was like, yo,
there's some new shit I just made and he goes
to his iPhone and he puts it on the whole
place is going crazy right now.

Speaker 5 (01:29:29):
It's it's it's really Uh. Today's audiences have a very
different ear and a very different set of standards.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):
They care more about the end result in the process.

Speaker 5 (01:29:39):
I guess that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
I guess they care more about the end results than.

Speaker 5 (01:29:42):
The process, more so than like there you know, I
will say this and this is something that This is
an argument that I I had years ago in Australia.
I feel like there's this uh divide in terms of
what people want from a DJ across general. Like I
was at a record spot down Under and I was

(01:30:06):
talking to Homie and UH through that random spot and
his wife and we were talking about DJs Uh, this
was I guess six, Yeah, it was two thousand and six.
So we were talking about DJs that play reissues versus
original pressings and bootlegs and edits and just having that conversation.

(01:30:29):
But she said one key thing that made me realize,
that made me realize where are actual divide laid? Because
she said, when I go to see a DJ play,
and I said, that's the problem. You're going to see
him like, I personally do not care where do the
sourcing it from? Like there's some some sometimes certain peerists,

(01:30:51):
certain types of peers would be like the Serado kids. Uh,
when they have when they go into their Serado argument
and they start talking about the fact that, like a
kid now can just go download all thirty volumes or
whatever it is of ultimately beats and breaks and play them.
They didn't know what it was like to have to
go track those volumes down. And I'm like, all right,
I knew what that was like, but I didn't have

(01:31:13):
the struggle of having to discover those break beats and
find all the original pressings with right when Bamana was
playing in the park, whoever was playing in the park,
you know, they used to have to they used to.
They cover the records, they're black, the labels out, and
then you would hope that somebody from Downstairs Records or
Downtown Records, whatever would right, you can sing it to

(01:31:33):
them and say such and such, just play this record
that sounds like this and hopefully, hey, hopefully they have it.
B hopefully they deem you cool enough to give it
to you. There was a lot of gatekeeping, this gatekeeping
at every level. So for me, I'm like, wait, why
are you worried about seeing him play? I'm worried about
hearing him play because ultimately, if he doesn't impress me

(01:31:57):
with what I hear, or if he or she doesn't
impress me what I hear, then it's game over. So
that's what I feel like. Every generation, the qualifications and
ramifications change in terms of what people are looking for.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
And even still when you can, like while it's true
to the Sorato generation can just download volumes to play them,
and you said exactly, you ain't lived with them, like
you still got to live with those records. You gotta
know why eight bars, why they work, and the record
is hot and right, because you can't just play the
whole Frisco Disco right, because people will look at you like,
what you can.

Speaker 5 (01:32:28):
Get to that pump pumpum, it's it's it's a change.
There's very few of those records that you can actually
play front Tobacco. You can play UFO front to back.
You could play Cavern front to back. You can't really
play Big Beat past the break right. You can play
a little bit of it, but he sings, But after that,
that's pretty much it. You're done.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
You know you still got the music.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
I used to be that way in the beginning, and
then we had a bus accident, yeah, and destroyed Myless Heroes. Yeah,
my Headless Heroes was like the first thing in the Yes,
two hundred bucks done. And then I was like, nah,
I'm spending boot legs from now on.

Speaker 5 (01:33:12):
I have friends, like some of my friends are like
some of the bulls either purist or OCD types or
purest o CD types that you ever meet, and like
they won't make beats from a reissue.

Speaker 1 (01:33:25):
Yeah, I know cats like that too, And I'm like, really,
I'm like, why that's weird because I only like in
Peace to President, on the boot on the on the
Ultimate Beasts Breaks versions, what Kenny Do got the Master
to it re isssued it and it's too damn clean.

Speaker 5 (01:33:41):
It's clean. It's too clean.

Speaker 3 (01:33:42):
It too it's not good to me.

Speaker 5 (01:33:44):
I like his I like to play his reissue when
I just want to give people a make them do
you get that? Like? Or when they just stay here
and they're like, yo, this is the same, but it's different.

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
What did you do? You know?

Speaker 5 (01:33:56):
But like other than that, I don't care where you
get it from as long as it's going back to you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
Oh wait, what since we're down the rabbit hole already?

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
Since you said that, do you ever find yourself whenever
your peers are over your shoulder? Do you ignore the
audience and then suddenly you're doing it for them? And
does that ruin your set?

Speaker 5 (01:34:17):
I try to not do that.

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
In another way, if Natasha is over your shoulder right
and you know you got some shit, it's going to
fuck her up right.

Speaker 5 (01:34:24):
Now, you know what? I only I only so a
something like that. We're saying, it's like me, Natasha, my
other record NERD friends. I will only do that at
our party. So at our party and we all know
that anything goes, and that's when we really get to
go in on each other. Like you don't have this boom.
You don't have this boom, or I'll do something crazy

(01:34:46):
like you don't have this boom and I'll play it then.
And I have copies for everybody. You get a copy,
a copy I do. I do the open things sometimes,
you know, like I come out to the moment Monday
more often so like, but when it comes to like
where I'm working, and sometimes a lot of times, like
I do certain types of events that they don't really frequent,

(01:35:10):
but they're curious about them, you know, like if it's
like a big d M thing or something like that.
A lot of them, like I'm not just talking about
Natasha then, but just in general, a lot of my
friends don't necessarily frequent those places, but they're curious about
what goes on. I'm not gonna go and play like
the Ill super Duper Rare, you know, a funk funk
boogie record. You know, when I'm in the middle of

(01:35:32):
playing a bunch of turn up music for some kids
and doing doing what I gotta do for them.

Speaker 3 (01:35:36):
You know, it's it's not it's so you have more
nuanced control.

Speaker 5 (01:35:39):
Yeah, yeah, you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
I can't resist sometimes I can't.

Speaker 5 (01:35:42):
I can't do it now. Now Here's the thing. If
I'm in a venue or playing a party or an
event or a festival where it's kind of more of that,
anything goes kind of thing right, and you can throw
the curveball and the audience is. There's some places that
you will play and people know, people know who you are,
they know your taste. If they're coming to see you play,
they know that they might get a curve ball. People
going to see Rich Pardina because they know he's gonna

(01:36:03):
throw curve balls, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
Oh yeah, your status definitely determines how much you can
get away from your right.

Speaker 5 (01:36:11):
Yeah. So like if I'm playing a certain place and
I'm like establishing myself, Like for example, there are certain
festivals that I play where it's like just Blazers playing.
We are at that stage and as soon as I
you know, my stage could be forty percent of thirty
percent full. By the time I get twenty minutes in,
i'mout one hundred percent capacity. There are other festivals that

(01:36:31):
I play where it's like I'm establishing myself in this market.
So my curveball ability is very low because I'm trying
to establish myself here. I'm not gonna be the guy
that's gonna all of a sudden be like he was
doing great and then he just started playing the theme
from the Jeffersons. I'm choosing as an.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Example, like, Yeah, Kate Turna, I don't know you ever
seen Yeah, he's kind like that, like he did.

Speaker 3 (01:36:56):
I went and saw him.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
He was here a couple it was like last month
and his opening set This is a room for the
like twenty year old. You know, his opening song was
Welcome to the Club by Blue Magic Wow. And I
texted that but that was, like, you just that was revolutionary,
and they he had him jamming too.

Speaker 5 (01:37:14):
But that's the thing. There are certain people that that
certain generations will look to for that. He's somebody that
can do that, not because he has the status of
being able to get away with curveballs, because he's one
of the certain people looked at certain DJs for certain things.
Some people look just like, I know he's gonna play
a good time, play all the songs. I know he's

(01:37:35):
gonna know when to drop the vocal out so I
can sing along, and it's just pretty much a standard
good time. Then you have other guys who are known
as like the Diggers and I feel like Kate Trnado
in a lot of ways is the digger sample.

Speaker 3 (01:37:47):
I he was dropping whispers. I was like, what the fuck?

Speaker 5 (01:37:50):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
It was so people.

Speaker 5 (01:37:51):
That doesn't surprise me at all because I know him,
but because I've seen him play and I've watched the
fact that the crowd respects him when he does that. Now,
it depends on what mark, depending where market we're in.
I remember when I was playing, we played a festival together.
I want to say it was in New Zealand. His
stage was a much smaller stage, but he was able
to do that on the stage that music Me and

(01:38:13):
zay Low on the stage that I was playing at
that would not have worked because just by the way
I'm positioned, I'm positioned on the stage. That's the stage.
So it's not gonna work for me.

Speaker 3 (01:38:29):
Wait, since we're talking about DJ tricks and stuff and.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
You know, surprises and obscure songs, I think maybe now
it's a good time to try part three.

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):
It's part three. I'm going it's a little more advanced.

Speaker 5 (01:38:48):
Oh come on, did that drum roll thing? Was like torture?

Speaker 3 (01:38:51):
No, no, no, no, you did well, you did well?
All right, So can you guess these jawns.

Speaker 5 (01:38:58):
Okay, I can already tell you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:06):
I know that one.

Speaker 5 (01:39:11):
DC LaRue vernon.

Speaker 3 (01:39:18):
What just happened?

Speaker 5 (01:39:22):
Hold up very white brothers?

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
So again? Oh wait? What am I I'll do? Yeah,
I'm going to play trying to play.

Speaker 5 (01:39:29):
That's all.

Speaker 3 (01:39:30):
Play, y'all host this show. Y'all should know this ship.
I don't want to hear it.

Speaker 8 (01:39:34):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:39:35):
Now here's the thing. There's something I don't I don't
know the original bridge, I know who was used by
I better know that I have the record. I don't
know what by name?

Speaker 3 (01:39:42):
Okay, we'll try again. I don't know that I have diabetes.
I'm I'm out.

Speaker 7 (01:39:52):
A couple of let the Sunshine and by who? How
do you know it's let the Sunshine? Because when you
played it, you let it go little and I can
hear the let this.

Speaker 5 (01:40:02):
I just don't know whose version that is.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
It's the three Block singers? Who is this? All? Right?

Speaker 5 (01:40:15):
Then he played that?

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):
Okay?

Speaker 5 (01:40:21):
What is the name?

Speaker 3 (01:40:22):
Is breaks? This version of.

Speaker 1 (01:40:27):
Brace's version of what's the what's the version of Mango
Mango meet by by Mandro?

Speaker 3 (01:40:33):
Okay, do you guys know the mango meat story?

Speaker 5 (01:40:36):
Oh am?

Speaker 3 (01:40:37):
I allowed to reveal it.

Speaker 5 (01:40:39):
I feel like since I've done it, I heard that
Jeff has been redoing that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
Motherfucker I do it?

Speaker 5 (01:40:45):
Oh gosh, what you thought you.

Speaker 3 (01:40:47):
Thought we were going?

Speaker 5 (01:40:50):
All right? Fine, mango meat?

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
Can I do it first?

Speaker 5 (01:40:52):
Okay, go ahead?

Speaker 3 (01:40:53):
Can I do it first?

Speaker 8 (01:40:54):
Please?

Speaker 3 (01:40:55):
Go go? What's about to happen here? All right?

Speaker 10 (01:41:12):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:41:13):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (01:41:14):
Then I got and I got it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:17):
That might that might traveling?

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
Man, the night he revealed that ship, it was confusion.

Speaker 11 (01:41:30):
What is that?

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
Realizing the freeways? What is the what is the uh?
Oh you still don't know? No, I know, I know,
but I just look.

Speaker 8 (01:41:40):
I wanted to ask a dumb question. I guess in
the room, but I was somebody listening, mister Blaize, But
what did you replace whatever that instrument was for rock?

Speaker 5 (01:41:51):
The mic?

Speaker 8 (01:41:51):
Like, I mean, it just sounds it sounds different, like
it's still I can hear the Caden sounds the same,
but whatever the it's production.

Speaker 3 (01:41:58):
He tuned it higher and.

Speaker 5 (01:42:00):
There's a lot there's a lot more to it, but
that's basically right there.

Speaker 3 (01:42:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:42:04):
That was done on the ASRX pro really yeah, randomly,
like I had one. The thing I loved about the
a SRX Pro was or that the SRX in general
was that it was the engine of the sr ten.
But it also had built in a built in sound
module where you can access patches through RAM as opposed
to having to load stuff and through uh A drive

(01:42:26):
or not having to use like a JV ten eighty
or twenty eighty or whatever to get your sound. So
it's basically right. It was basically all in one machine.
Like you had the sampling section, you had your samples,
and you also had built in piano patches, basses and
things like that, and no drum machine to my knowledge
up until that point, had had that all built into
the RAM.

Speaker 3 (01:42:47):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (01:42:47):
Yeah, so I started I started trying to I championed
it for a while. It was no NPC, but I
it was. There was a certain element of portableness.

Speaker 3 (01:43:01):
Of course, right, I mean on that equipment.

Speaker 5 (01:43:04):
So we're not dying.

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):
I know that.

Speaker 5 (01:43:07):
That's the get it together said, that's one.

Speaker 3 (01:43:10):
I never was one of those like switched on back
or hooked on box records. Another let the sunshine and
by the move machine.

Speaker 5 (01:43:19):
Okay, looked that was I do have that. No, I
don't know that one.

Speaker 3 (01:43:28):
Oh congo byte afric.

Speaker 5 (01:43:32):
Oh yeah, no, here Yeah, that's d C LaRue.

Speaker 3 (01:43:37):
Was a squeak? Yeah, that is that a kick pedal
or or chair. Yeah, it's things like the squeak of
the pedal. Pay whole thing. Oh, play a little bit
of it anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:43:53):
That is who is d C LaRue.

Speaker 1 (01:43:55):
Dclu in discreet Industrlet's vernon, vernon, vernon, birch, birch, Get
up like that last night?

Speaker 5 (01:44:03):
Actually that was Sylvester. That Selvester sounds like boon. I
don't think it is what it sounds like. It sounds
like me and the gang, but I know it's not.
You're close.

Speaker 3 (01:44:14):
Yeah, it's it's get it by Mandrel. Can you get it?

Speaker 6 (01:44:18):
Get it?

Speaker 5 (01:44:18):
Get it?

Speaker 3 (01:44:19):
Get it? Oh yeah, okay, last.

Speaker 5 (01:44:24):
Together brothers. I used to us to trol people and
I would like even I still do, yeah instead of
the train. Yeah yeah, but like it wasn't you know,
It wasn't until I really like, it wasn't until maybe
at some point in the two early two thousands that
I realized that's what that was. And now the Train

(01:44:44):
is my favorite bass record because that that that The
together brothers, it's so.

Speaker 3 (01:44:48):
Hard, So I never going together brothers better. I don't
like the way they programmed that the the no no.

Speaker 5 (01:44:53):
Not that I don't like Together Brothers butt, I mean
that's the source. My point is I never listened to
Ride the Train from the context of production. I only
ever listened to it as that song that drove you
nuts when it came on the radio or when the
video came over. So once I found the sample, I
went back and listened to it, and I was like,
for them to take this and making Miami based record
out of it, that was like some old like when

(01:45:14):
uh what was a mister Mixer's crew, the ghetto style
DJs when they would do things like on mega mixes
when they would have no matter how you try, you
can't stop. But making Miami bass flip out of that.
I appreciated that, like because it's typically Miami based. They
were sampling craft work, planet rock, uh, stuff that was

(01:45:38):
already electro. Right when you take something like that together
Brothers Record Together Brothers Records, which is when you listen
to Alontowa, it's completely different styles doesn't lend itself to
bass music. That was kind of like the reason why,
like people ask me, like about the sample flips I'm
the most proud of, or that I had the most
fun doing whatever. Obviously, the Rick James one that you
and I, you know, have a history with like that

(01:45:58):
was one where it was like I took some nothing.
I hadn't been sampled before. It had never been sampled
for that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:03):
It was.

Speaker 5 (01:46:03):
It wasn't supposed to be, hey, look here's you can't
touch this. You know it was, but when you listen to,
you like, there's something about this that sounds familiar, and
then you realize that there's nothing but me chopping it
up on the past.

Speaker 3 (01:46:14):
You did it with ignorant shit with the with the.

Speaker 5 (01:46:18):
Nobody ever listened to, but nobody ever listens to people.

Speaker 3 (01:46:22):
Want to quiet did it was well they kind of
used vicious on the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:29):
He took like a little bit of it. But yeah,
but I mean listening I remember the record. I remember
it was the main part, but like the little hook right.

Speaker 5 (01:46:38):
There as well, or even like the uh, the t
I Rihanna live your life where it was like everybody
knows that record from the fact kid on YouTube doing this.
And the funny thing is now it came about in
almost the same exact way. You know, I did the
Rick James things from my MySpace page, like trying to
figure out a way to just branded, like, hey, this
is my actual page. So I forget what I was

(01:47:01):
trying to brand, but it was the same thing. We
make a track out of something ultimately ridiculous, but trying
to make something incredible and cool out of it. And
I don't know if it was for like, it wasn't
Friends her or something, but it was something else from
that early Internet era, and it just so happened and
Tip called me right after I made it. Well, as
we were making I'm yo, this could actually be a song.

(01:47:21):
So I started writing a hook to it, and it
just so happened that Tip called me like right after
I laid the references, and I was like, yoh, I
had the opportunity to get a Justin Timberlake on a record,
because I guess Justin Oda he owed Justin o him
a favor forgetting on something. So originally it was that's
why it's all false sett of a demo if you
ever hear the demo's all false sett of because I

(01:47:42):
was referencing as Justin Timberlake. But then Rihanna came into
the picture and we ended up going with that because
it made more sense for her to be on that record.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
Okay, now I gotta jump all over the place. Since
you mentioned Kingdom Come, I wish someone was there to
work on the hook writing process of those three songs,
which the show me what you Got.

Speaker 3 (01:48:08):
I'm not mad aged show me what you got, but
just for it was the way got killed it. It
was the wave. I didn't mind the way people don't wave.

Speaker 5 (01:48:16):
But here's the thing. Black people don't wave, right. But
I'll tell you what. I don't play that, but I
play festival I don't, or parties or bigger parties. I
don't play the whole record, but I play it up
until the wave and every but everybody wait, okay, anyway,
it was like, so I think I actually stole something
from mster c When when when the record first came out,
and how someone was running back to back to back

(01:48:38):
to back and missus got hype and started doing the
hands up and wave to the left, wave to the
right way. So for me, that's the perfect way to
get out of that record, because everybody does it. They
all in white people, black people, whatever. Now now that
it's an older record. At the time, it might not
have worked.

Speaker 3 (01:48:54):
It works now.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
I think the resistance to show me what you got
was more about at that point, it was just too
much God damn Hove. At that point it was like,
I think anything would have been overkilled.

Speaker 5 (01:49:10):
Which is funny because that was his come back out.

Speaker 3 (01:49:13):
Yeah, he came. Yeah, he was silent for yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
But I mean it was still I mean it was
still the bad Yeah, the back I mean, you know,
don't I think anything.

Speaker 3 (01:49:25):
Would. I mean, it was too much of it. And
this is the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:49:28):
Whenever he snickers on his record, I hate that snicker
because it's like that, that is the all right, you
ever watched you ever watched.

Speaker 5 (01:49:45):
You?

Speaker 3 (01:49:45):
Ever watched you?

Speaker 1 (01:49:46):
Ever watch uh the Chappelle extras where Charlie Murphy's describing
the guy that says you fucking wore on Yeah, and
now that this gets Yeah, he has a friend. He
has a black in that insults you to the point
where you just want to beat the ship out of him.
He has a way of saying, you fucking moron, and

(01:50:08):
he turns into a white person saying it makes you
want to fuck him up. That's what does that j snicker.
It's not even like the two like the Tupac snicker.
What was the Tupac I mean no, I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:50:22):
Like, I don't know about the Tupac snicker being a thing.

Speaker 3 (01:50:25):
I mean no, Tupac always.

Speaker 1 (01:50:29):
It's supposed to be smart, but it's never as menacing
as Tupac think it is in his head, Like I
think his mind Tupac thinks would be like the super Villains.

Speaker 3 (01:50:38):
And I never even noticed. I never even know the
snicker is a thing. Get I know the Jada, that's
the Jada.

Speaker 5 (01:50:55):
I love this.

Speaker 3 (01:50:57):
All right, here's the super Rappit. We're never going to
get to your career. Sorry, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
So one of the one of the most amazing things
I've found out that Bill and I found out teaching
at NYU.

Speaker 3 (01:51:07):
Does the world even know that you teach at n
YU with me? Or do I teach it n YU?

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
Or do I just hand out papers if you weren't
there would class be as smooth as possible?

Speaker 3 (01:51:15):
Hell no, Yeah, this is the black laugh? Is this
is this the theory? Okay? So it was the whole
class about the black laugh? No, this is actually really interesting.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:51:24):
So what I didn't know was that in general, emotions
were illegal during slavery period. I mean, even with your
parents you're like, you better not cry for I give
you something to cry out, or you know, you can't
get angry at someone or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:51:39):
But you also couldn't laugh. Laughing was illegal slave time.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):
You were Sassin, so it was just keep your head down,
do you work, No crying, no laughing, no whatever. So
the slaves had to invent uh some sort of device
so that they can express emotions if they want to
cry or scream or some then. So the idea of
a barrel laughs comes from a place. They built a barrel,

(01:52:07):
filled it with water, so if you felt yourself wanted
to curse out your master or laugh at a joke
or something, and then one get fifty lashes, you would
duck your head in the water and laugh to suppress
the sounds.

Speaker 5 (01:52:20):
And that's when a term barrel laughs comes from.

Speaker 1 (01:52:22):
That's where it comes from now where it's relevant into
terms of entertainment. The very first spoken word, or I
guess the first recorded material for black people was a
song called the Laughing Song, and I guess it was

(01:52:43):
the fuck the police of its day, because it's like, well,
I'm recording a song, so you can't give.

Speaker 3 (01:52:49):
Me lashes or put me in jail. For laughing. So
ha ha, it's the ha ha ha song or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:52:56):
And so one of our teaching assistants, Amalia Amalia, she
did a study and in her study she noticed that.

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
Laughing on any black records is never laughing. It's an
expression of pain. So when Stevie like the.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
Invention of Michael's he he is from Stevie wonders maybe
your baby, which is about betrayal, so he just most
of James Brown's grunts hot or either laughing is uh
an exclamation term or it's a villain term, like I

(01:53:34):
got you, motherfucker, what you gonna do?

Speaker 5 (01:53:35):
It's it's never just a genuine, genuine, hearty laugh of joy.

Speaker 1 (01:53:40):
Or her laughter on any and she has. She's done
a study of like one hundred years of recorded music
in documentary.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
Now is that class.

Speaker 5 (01:53:59):
Turned me out of find a laugh?

Speaker 1 (01:54:01):
Yeah, Jenny, Literally every laugh she has is either villainous
or an exclamation.

Speaker 3 (01:54:10):
Or an ironic Yeah, not one, all right, So I
can't even backsell it. So this is the Laughing song
by George W. Johnson from eighteen ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:54:26):
Eight Robert Song by George W. As I am, I
was coming around the corner, I had some people sad,
it comes down the dog here, it comes this by

(01:54:48):
you know, he is like a snowflower. His thousand is
like a strap at open rules here for gaps. Then
I laugh.

Speaker 3 (01:55:14):
How was that recorded in the very first.

Speaker 5 (01:55:19):
You know, how was recorded or what it was recorded on?

Speaker 1 (01:55:22):
I mean, whatever it's I mean, I wouldn't say that, yeah,
it's it's on acetate. I wouldn't even say it's during
the time period that what's his name was? Yeah, that
low Max was going around recording people. But I don't
know the history. I can yeah to another, but anyway

(01:55:45):
leading back, leading back to JA yeah, yeah, but I
just never.

Speaker 3 (01:55:56):
Yeah his laugh. It's like being called a moron.

Speaker 5 (01:56:00):
What I'm gonna do?

Speaker 3 (01:56:01):
I'm sorry, Yeah, it's just it irks me. But my
whole point was that I felt.

Speaker 1 (01:56:12):
It got short one. I think people were just ready
for the j backlash to go down. It was time
for it, and to Oh my God and and Kingdom
Come could have used way better hooks, and but I
still felt the thing was I sold him. I told

(01:56:34):
him to start that record with those three songs because
in my head I wanted his comeback to be like
the updated two thousand and six version of America's Most Wanted.

Speaker 3 (01:56:45):
I described, like yo, these three records.

Speaker 5 (01:56:51):
And but see you know the things that he had
his own other other vision, like he wanted it. He'd
always wanted to do a project with Dre.

Speaker 1 (01:57:01):
And if you look like every all their collaborations are
fail Like Dre the first watch It Too was dope.

Speaker 3 (01:57:08):
That song wasn't really, but he came up on that verse.

Speaker 5 (01:57:11):
Dre tried to mix those records. He didn't know, he
didn't bother trying to make sure me what you got.
He tried to mix Kingdom Come and not You. They
had this thing where they were like they had done
deal with Dre, where Dre was kind of supposed to
help oversee the album and also do the mixing. They

(01:57:31):
knew they know how hands on I am with my stuff.
Dre knows that. But I said, you know what, it's Dre.
I can't argue with that, you know, like if he
says is he wants to do cool. I knew it
was gonna happen. I know I was gonna get a
call m H. And that's exactly what happened. I got
a call like yo, because because Dre has already me
and Dred already tried this with when we were working

(01:57:53):
on games first album, you know Dre oversaw right, No, No,
the first album we had like Church for Thugs, Yeah
one a second album. So like Drey had already tried
to mix my records. And because it's Dre, I'm never
gonna say no. You can't attempt that, you know, like
that's it's tray. And Dre has probably one of the

(01:58:14):
the best ears in the hip hop as it relates
to his sound. He knows how to make his sound
sound amazing. But he called me and say, I don't
know how you do what you do with these crazy
bass frequencies and these super high in horns like part
I tried to make it. It's not happening. Uh, come
get on the plane. And I went out to LA
and fixed the game record and it wasn't even a

(01:58:36):
long process. It was just I know how I EQ
what IQ exactly. And then with with Kingdom cod was
kind of the same thing, like I never I never
at this point I was you were doing files and
I never was the type to send files out. Again,
it's Dre, I'm not gonna say no. And I remember
Jay Brown being like doing this solid. You know, I
know that you're you know, you do your own stuff

(01:58:58):
and you're your own factory. But we're trying to do
this deal with Dre where he mixes everything. I said,
all right, fine, sending the files, get the same call, Yo,
it's it's not coming back right like I heard just rough,
you might as well just.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
Have just do it.

Speaker 5 (01:59:11):
Because all he was he what he was trying to
do was retreat my It's like, what just I already
have the demo here, so let me just fix that up.
So the day that they sent me the files back
and j was coming to approve or listening to the
mix and see if he was cool with it, was
the dad played him, show me what you got m

(01:59:31):
and he, because I had to mix up for Kingdom,
come in the b room and then I like, I
have something else you need to listen to it.

Speaker 3 (01:59:38):
I play time. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:59:41):
I want to say this was maybe the last thing
that he did recording wise. At Baseline. We mixed. We
mixed Blueprint three at Baseline, but he didn't record it
the other there. We just bought the files back and.

Speaker 3 (01:59:50):
Mixed it Baseline. Still no.

Speaker 5 (01:59:54):
Baseline. I had the Grand Closing two thousand or eleven,
Waito eleven, twenty eleven. So I did the great clothes
on What was the last thing worked on there? That
is a good question. I'm gonna have to get back
to you on that. I want to say Blueprint three
was the last thing. I want to say I actually

(02:00:16):
worked on there, Like there might have been a few
other random things that came up here and there before
I finally closed the doors, but the last full project
that was worked on there, like the entire Blueprint three
was mixed there.

Speaker 3 (02:00:27):
Okay, now I'm gonna get back in the DeLorean and
go back to.

Speaker 5 (02:00:35):
Let's go back to the shake that ass thing.

Speaker 3 (02:00:38):
Actually, that's why I was saying it because I got it.

Speaker 5 (02:00:41):
So I didn't make the record, but I was in
my in my neighborhood or in my local market. I
would say I was one of the guys that, like
can I guess, helped break it. So I had routines
that I would do. Back then, you didn't have twenty
Jersey House records to play because it worked twenty of
them or twenty Baltimore House records at that time. So

(02:01:04):
I used to have a whole team that I used
to do. So one night I used to do. I
used to do a roll skating rink and from nine
to twelve was roll skating and then from twelve o'clock
on we would shut down the skating rink and it
would just be people dancing on the skating rink. It
was all ages. I was maybe like sixteen when I
was doing at the time. So one night we got

(02:01:25):
little bit of money together and we had Wendy Williams
host Wow and uh, mister c was gonna be the DJ.
Because the party started doing pretty well, so we were
able to, you know, get a little bit of money
together and start booking people. So Whenny Williams comes down
to the host, Carhart Dad like she could have been
an extra in a Youngster's video or what she was,

(02:01:47):
car Heart down from top to bottom like Scully or
shut out Stretch. So she comes down and she's doing
her whole thing. I'm still DJing, and I know that
missus he's about to do his thing. So I'm like,

(02:02:08):
you know, I've always been a type to kind of
respect the headlining DJ, but at the same time, like,
this is my party, so I'm gonna throw out so
my things. I knew that he was gonna do the
hip hop thing. He had never really been exposed to
Jersey just house culture in general up until that point,
because it's very different from what's happening in house in

(02:02:29):
house clubs in New York.

Speaker 3 (02:02:30):
Gotcha.

Speaker 5 (02:02:31):
So I do my usual Jersey house thing, which is
really just the mix of the Chicago stuff, the Baltimore stuff,
some of our local Jersey stuff, some of the Detroit
tech noow, and I ended with this routine that I
used to do, where I used to do a mix,
a blend of shake shake, shake that ass. And the
whole time, he's just kind of in a corner, like

(02:02:51):
you know, being the celebrity DJ, just watching me, waiting
to get on. He's just coming whatever. I play that
and he immediately is just like, wait, what's this? As
soon as he heard to opening dum dump done done done,
like the Bounce called him. Then he looks at the
crowd and he sees with the crowds when we had
just moved the crowd onto the skating ring, so now

(02:03:12):
everybody's dancing. He just watched what's happening, like, Yo, this
is amazing. So I get a phone call from stage
information that night we uh he hits me the next day,
he said, I need that record or that song that
you have. I need to do something with this.

Speaker 3 (02:03:31):
So who is the original artist on that red.

Speaker 5 (02:03:35):
He passed away a few years ago, so I bring him.
I bring him a copy to the Cold He's like, oh,
we meet the Cold Chilling offices. This is when Cold
Chilling still add offices. So I go to Cold Chilling. Now,
me as a kid who grew up on people in
my age, grew up on like, you want me to
come to Cold Chilling. So I called my older cousin,

(02:03:55):
You'd be right over to Cold Chilling the next day
or I actually a couple of days later, and I
give him the record and he literally gives me a
copy of every single record that came out on Cold Chilling,
from the inception like the Prism day to then sealed, yeah, sealed,

(02:04:16):
brand new, unopened. So it's like literally like three boxes
worth and doubles of everything a man.

Speaker 3 (02:04:24):
So I'm including like the looks like a job for
Big Daddy Kane and everything where I want to interview.

Speaker 5 (02:04:33):
That was that was? That was, That was post co chill,
because that was that was.

Speaker 3 (02:04:41):
But Chilling was like was it was? It Prince of Darkness,
I think was.

Speaker 5 (02:04:49):
But but then like because I'm new when I'm young,
or because I'm so young, they like, wait a minute,
we should play start playing them some of our new records.
They're trying to kind of guinea pig me to be
like the kid A and R. So now I'm going
to cold Chilling and like they they had signed a
group called the Brooklyn Zoo. Had nothing to do with
Dirty but they were called the Brooklyn Zoo. And he

(02:05:11):
plays they play me the video and they play me
this song, or they play me the video and I'm
waiting for the Wu Tang symbol to pop up, and
it doesn't pop up, and then the video's over and
I'm like, well, where's the Wu Tang symbol? I don't
know even I'm a kid, like you play it. And
this was right when UH returned to the thirty six
shames that come out, So I'm like, where's the Wu

(02:05:32):
Tang symbol? There wasn't one. I'm like, but they're called
the Brooklyn Zoo, you know, Like it was just so
that I walked up with the Brooklyn Zoo twelve inch too.
It was just you know, like but it was just
that surreal experience of I'm at the CoA chilling offices
and I've just been giving this entire catalog on wax.
So that's actually the first time my name ever appeared

(02:05:53):
on a record was when mister C did his version
of shape that ass. If you look at the bottom
of the twelve inch it's his big being up to
my man DJ just from Jersey. So like, to me,
I had made it. You couldn't something my name was
on a record, period, Like it doesn't matter that it
was a tape kings pressing, it was a record, but
I'm like, I'm like, Mom, look, She's like, who's DJ

(02:06:14):
Judge from Jersey. I'm like, that's me. But like I
still ask you today. I have a framed copy of
that record, like just because it's one of those reminders,
like my first time ever my name was ever on
a record was It wasn't even a record that I produced,
but I knew I had a big hand in it,
and that record ran New York radio in clubs for
god knows how that's I heard.

Speaker 3 (02:06:35):
So all right now I'm skipping the Matt Lion.

Speaker 5 (02:06:42):
That was a really random thing. I don't remember how
it came up. I don't remember how it came up.
Chris had just gotten a job at Reprise.

Speaker 3 (02:06:53):
He was like the right he was forgot Chris.

Speaker 5 (02:07:03):
Office this dude named thorough maybe a through something like that,
and then he gave a line a deal. I don't
remember how the initial like how it happened, but I
end up like my first time ever in l A,

(02:07:23):
like being flown out to l A birecty. My first
time I set foot in California was being flown out
to do this mad Line album. And a lot of
stuff that I was doing was very orchestral at the times.
A lot of string arrangements, uh, a lot of horn arrangements,
timpane stuff like that. And his idea was he was
trying to do like a Conan inspired album like Yes,

(02:07:50):
looked up Mad Lion Predator or Prey Predator p r
e D. Like instead of Predator is Predators.

Speaker 3 (02:07:58):
A Predators the nineties?

Speaker 5 (02:08:00):
Right, we wore Prey album?

Speaker 3 (02:08:03):
God Yeah wow?

Speaker 5 (02:08:07):
Like his talking voices very it's close to close to
his rap bush. I did like eight records for him.
It was my first time ever seeing like a lump
sum of money like maybe like something like almost one
hundred grand check or is that in cash sign of

(02:08:30):
I got a check from Warner Brothers. But then I
forget what. I forget what the situation was. But I
want to say, maybe there was a white label of
one of the records that we did that I ended
up getting because I was still in a record pool
at the time. So I get like by a copy
of my own a record at the record pool and
it just has produced by mad Line.

Speaker 3 (02:08:50):
Mm hm, and I'm like, sure, yes, you did this record.

Speaker 5 (02:08:57):
So we were on you know, we we We're on
the phone.

Speaker 3 (02:09:01):
He manned.

Speaker 5 (02:09:01):
We talked about it. It wasn't he didn't give me
the industry run around. He didn't do it. You know,
we talked about it. He was like, listen, you know,
gave me his opinion on it. I gave him my
opinion on it. He said, well, how about this, how
about we just make it the Madline and just play
his album. I said, no, it doesn't doesn't need to
even be that. I just want to be properly try
for what I did. And from there on that we
had no problem at all. Funny enough, that was actually

(02:09:26):
all That album is the first time auto tunes have
actually used on an R and b record, Wow, what
year is that? I don't know it was before because
Sheriff did it. Obviously that was the first one. And
then I want to say, and then Jennifer Lopez had
it on. I think maybe if you Want My Love
or something like that. We did a record with Total,

(02:09:49):
did he explode?

Speaker 3 (02:09:53):
Am I the only one that really likes Total? I
appreciate Total for what they were, what know theirs? The
first album was JAC Sitting Home. I tried. Look they
had on there called rock track.

Speaker 1 (02:10:11):
I remember it was like having having good songs and
giving good performances are two different, right, And what I
appreciated about Total is that I felt they worked within it.
I felt that they were accessible. They were the girls
next door. They sound right your cousin Tanisia's singing.

Speaker 5 (02:10:32):
And I don't think I ever tried to be anything
more than you know, like So we did the Remember
we did the record. It was it called I don't
remember what it was called, but you look up mad
line Total, it'll it'll come up. But we did the record,
and I'm gonna try something right after. I already I
was using pro tools, you know, early on, so I

(02:10:54):
knew about the auto tune effect, so I put auto
tune I think on pay the Dark Pan was the
dark Skian girl put Auto two on her. She was like,
what's that? So I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna put
all on all their vocals, all her background.

Speaker 3 (02:11:07):
The first of the second album.

Speaker 5 (02:11:09):
This is One Mad Lines was featuring featuring Total, so
we did I did the bag speaking. That's another funny
story that that doing that record is how I met
Joey Longo, Pal Joey this but this was when Thong
song was out and okay, so wait they used drums

(02:11:32):
from Earth People. So I walk into Unique, Wow the
dam I'm doing this session and I look at my
uh track sheet and it says assistant engineer or by session,
assistant Engineer's gonna be Pal Joey. And actually it might
have just said Joey Longo because that was just real near.

(02:11:52):
So I'm in the room and it's just, you know,
this white dude a little bit older than me, you know,
you know what he was talking about. And I started
putting on are you Pal Joey, like the Pal Joey
and he's like, you know who I am. I'm like,
you know Earth People? Soho krs like I was just

(02:12:13):
I was so wide I did so I was like,
why are you working here?

Speaker 3 (02:12:17):
Wait?

Speaker 1 (02:12:18):
Can you stop the story? Yeah, I know pal Joey
from all the Kras credits. Pal Joey did motherfucking so
host hop music.

Speaker 5 (02:12:28):
Yes, that's what I'm saying, Yes.

Speaker 8 (02:12:35):
In a conversation.

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
Now, yeah, I think you should have got it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:39):
You think he probably got a pretty good check because
Mark Ronson sampled him well, credited him on the uh
the last record that the the.

Speaker 3 (02:12:47):
One that sounds like hot music.

Speaker 5 (02:12:49):
So so so I'm like, I'm I you know, looking back,
that was a crazy thing to ask. By the time,
I was just like, he's a hero to me. And
when I hear thongs so he has aside from Hot Music,
his other classic house record is Earth People Dance, So
he had a bonus beats version on the flip that
the DJ's used to rints crazy. So yeah, So at

(02:13:13):
the end of Thong song, I remember it changes and
it gets a little bit more foreign to Flourish. They're
using pal Joey's drums. So not only has this done
done amazing classic records, and at the time, I'm thinking
that all of my heroes are living, rich and lavish
and are doing are well to do whatever. So I
asked him, why are you working here? He's like, well,
I wanted to learn about engineering and I needed a job.

(02:13:34):
So I'm like, but you realized that, like your drums
are sampled in the number one record in the world
right now, you don't need like why are you working here?
And I was just so that was my first time
meeting somebody that was a hero mine, but meeting them
is just in their regular life. And he was like,
you think I can get some money for that, and
I'm like, dude, yeah, those are clearly your drums, your

(02:13:59):
program drums, not a loop you found and no, this
is your program drums are on the biggest record.

Speaker 3 (02:14:06):
Wow, I'm mind blowing this. Pal Joey Yes, ah damn
that's Earth People.

Speaker 5 (02:14:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:14:14):
Yeah, I'm sorry, it's Earth People.

Speaker 5 (02:14:16):
So dude, I'm just the random Sorry. I met Pal
Joey and kind of like was like, yo, dude, talk
to this lawyer. You can go get some money next time.
I don't know the exactly outcomeing, but like next time
I saw him look a lot happier and it was
like yo, yeah, so you know, I'll stop the story
there but I think he was doing he did okay,
uh made out okay over that. But anyway, Yeah, so

(02:14:38):
that Lion situation was the first time that I'd ever
made a little, a nice little trunk of money up
front at once. My first time in LA. Uh was that?
My first experience in Boystown in LA. I have a
great Boystown story. I was talking about Westwood. I don't
know it's like the actual Boystown area of LA. Okay,
I didn't know what Boystown was.

Speaker 3 (02:14:58):
You're the roots in nineteen ninety four when oh wow,
I have a I got a better one though. This
is we're about to get off the air now.

Speaker 5 (02:15:13):
It was this was my second my second time in
l A. I ended up in anybody who's familiar with
La over next time you're in l A, you know
that I hop on Sunset.

Speaker 3 (02:15:24):
Yeah, Halloway Drive.

Speaker 5 (02:15:26):
Right next to that is the Halloway Motel. So the
night of the Grammys, I ended up having to stay
in that hotel. Why, not knowing what it was.

Speaker 3 (02:15:38):
I'll give you the short It's the cheapest hotel on
the not just.

Speaker 5 (02:15:41):
It's not even a hotel. Bro It's a place where wait.

Speaker 3 (02:15:44):
A minute, wait by the air.

Speaker 1 (02:15:46):
Yes, this is what they rhyme about, like thing of
the Bristol Hotel by cool. So it's wait, it's crazy
because it's like, Okay, I see the Roscoes, I know
where the I HOPI.

Speaker 5 (02:16:00):
It's literally right next to the eye. How I'll give
you the shortest version possible. So this is my second time.
This is my first time in LA on my own,
just being there. Me and and hip Hop went to La.
I think we set up some meetings or whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:16:14):
Hip Hop Kanye's manager, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:16:16):
Okay, so we're out there. We're both dumb, young we
do you know, We're just out there. So this was
we were out there while the Grammys were happening, so
we kept We're only supposed to be there three days.
We kept extending the stay, and the hotel's found with
that they're getting money. So the day of the grammysh price,
the price just the rooms aren't even available. So there

(02:16:36):
the Grammys comes and I called out to the front
desk like, hey, so we're just gonna extend our stay.
I'm not going to the Gramies. I'm They're like, oh, sorry,
well that room has been sold out since last year
for this day, Like and I'm like, all right, so
can you help us out? Like we need to stay here.
We don't have a plane to get back home. So
they called all their other hotels like you know in

(02:16:57):
LA trying to find rooms. They couldn't find a room,
they had their rooms available. They start calling other hotels
just to try to help us out because we've been
staying there for like two weeks, so they were trying
to look out for us. Long story short, there are
literally no hotel rooms in l A at all period.
It's the day of the Grammys. There's nothing. You're also
talking like maybe like two thousand. So a lot of

(02:17:19):
those you know a lot of those newer hotels that
are in l A now, like those they don't exist
back then.

Speaker 3 (02:17:24):
This is when records were actually said pre R and B.

Speaker 5 (02:17:29):
They just none of it available. So so me and uh,
uh that's see, I forget dude's name. What was the
what were the what was the crew behind Sunshine Anderson's uh.

Speaker 3 (02:17:48):
Who was City and uh Mike City producer before I.

Speaker 5 (02:17:54):
Forget dude's name, but he was like the guy that
kind of ran their crew or was like, oh they
had him maybe start with a jay he he he
was the industry dud at the time he was popping.
I remember what his name was, kind of irrelevant. He
was having So I'm skipping around. First of all, my

(02:18:15):
homie mo Betta comes and picks me up mh one
of my old homes from the bed. So we're literally
driving around La trying to find our hotel. That's the
reason why I bought dude up to some chinadis, and
dude was because he would start a Grammy party that night.
Hip Hop was gonna help him with the party. So
a hip left like, ya gotta go help homeboy. Can

(02:18:35):
you try to sort out the rooms? I'm like, yeah,
we'll figure it out. At the time, I don't know
how difficult it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (02:18:40):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (02:18:40):
We check out of the room. Hip goes and does
what he has to do. The party is on at
I think the House of Blues on some like that
was right off Sunset or whatever. So I get uh,
we go around at every hotel, nobody has anything. We
plastic place, the Holloway Motel and the Science that's vacancy, right.

(02:19:05):
So we get there and it wasn't even like a
front desk. They had like a or the window. They
had a window so sign number.

Speaker 3 (02:19:13):
Two bulletproof class all you need so hard keys.

Speaker 5 (02:19:20):
You have any rooms. He's like, well, unfortunately, guys, we
only have doubles. I'm like, well that's great because there's
two of us. So he doesn't know that hip, but
he sees me and mo bet he's in my homie.
He's like when you know, He's like, unfortunately. I'm like, wait,
but no, doubles are fine. There's two people. We need
two beds. So there's a jar sitting right next to him.

(02:19:41):
I don't look at the joh I'm thinking it's like lollipops, candy.
I don't know. But I'm looking around just the neighborhood
and there's a lot of prostitutes out here, right whatever.
I'm just kind of this is my second time in La,
my first time really on my own, so I'm just

(02:20:04):
getting the laying the land. Wow, this is I guess
this is the hooker area.

Speaker 3 (02:20:06):
I don't know. So they're like pancakes. I get to
the whole time.

Speaker 5 (02:20:13):
I get it in and it's it's a The room
is clean. It's you know, bare bones, but it's clean.
So I'm in there for a while and I'm like,
I said I'm nobody. So I'm just like, the Grammy
Red Carpet is happening. We're watching it on T I'm
watching it on TV. Hip Hop is doing his thing,
you know, gallivanting with Homeboy at the setting up for
the hard rock calf or the not the House of

(02:20:33):
Blues drunk.

Speaker 3 (02:20:34):
What album is out that you're is this blueprint or
this is pre pre all of that, like two thousand.

Speaker 5 (02:20:40):
Maybe maybe a mill Maybe that's probably it. Maybe a mill.
So I'm like, well, hip hop is having that party,
but back and get into that or always having a party.
Hip Hop is back and get into that. So I
go to get in the shower.

Speaker 3 (02:21:00):
So I.

Speaker 5 (02:21:05):
Start showering. It's like, yeah, I think this is something.

Speaker 3 (02:21:15):
Do you still have what you caught that night? I
don't need to switch seat.

Speaker 5 (02:21:21):
Actually, I think this is the fear that we can
all relate to. And the shower and middle middle lather
mid the water shuts off, there's no water. Yeah, what
do you you do? So? And I had like I

(02:21:42):
literally just stepped in waters on me, soap up, water stops.

Speaker 3 (02:21:46):
And I'm like the timer on the shower, what do
I do?

Speaker 5 (02:21:50):
So I kind of I'm covered in soap like it's
you can't really just tabl it off because then it's
just I had no choice. So that right after that,
the rings got the front desk or the front window
letting me know that there's been a water main break
in the area. There's no water anywhere in the area.

(02:22:11):
So I wipe. I'm still sticky with the soap filleb
all over me. I get dressed, I'm like, what do
I do? Uh Like, I'll just go to the iehop.
Can't go to hop. There's no water, so I hop
was closed, so I was just gonna go back to
the room. So I'm sitting on the in the room,
sitting on the bed watching the Grammy red carpet, still
covered in soap, you know, but like sticky and whatnot.

(02:22:32):
And then all of a sudden, I hear coming from
the next door. So I'm like, oh, I guess, so
somebody somebody's getting it in, so I need somebody is
lucky that I notice. I hear many voices. It wasn't
just like a male and a female moan, or a
male and a male moan, or a female and a
female moan. It was just some all types. I'm like,

(02:23:03):
so That's when it really hits me, like, yo, I'm
in like a hotel motel, like the hotel motel, and
I run back out to I run back out to
the front desk and it's closed, but the jar is
still there, or the front window, but the jar is
still there. And I realized the jars are actually it's
what's where the jar, what's in it is. It's not
lolly pops, it's not bubble gum. It's packets of ky
and kind of so I'm like, right, So I'm like, well,

(02:23:34):
so now I'm just I'm walking around. Remember I said,
I noticed there were a lot of hookers out, So
that's what I'm realizing. That's when I'm starting to realize
what area that I'm in, Like, and I'm staying at
a motel that they're all coming to through their business in.
So then I try to I'm like, you know what,
I'm sticky, I'm covered in soap. I had dreads at

(02:23:55):
the time, so my dreads is all soap and watered
up everything. So I'm like, you, I know where the
House of Blues is, So I was just gonna try
to walk towards there. Maybe I can just get into
the party somehow. But then I realize how I look,
And then I look at the line and I see
the line is down on the block because it's a
House of Blues Grammy party in LA And I realize
I'm not getting into that, but I'm gonna try anyway.

(02:24:16):
But this is really before cell phone was even really
like where I had a cell phone. I want to say,
a hit baby did it. I'm like, I don't know
what to like. I don't know what to do with
this point. So I roamed Boystown for the next couple
of hours. Oh wow, and just not you know, what
do I do with that situation? So eventually I go

(02:24:38):
back to the hotel. I realize what it is now,
water comes back on I you know, finish the shower,
so I lay my jacket on top of the bed.
I don't get in the bed and I just lay there.
So hip hop finally comes in like six thirty in
the morning, and he's tired. He's been at this party
or like they probably went for food after him, god
knows what else. So I come like half asleep, but

(02:25:01):
I see him going to pull the sheets back and
get in the bed. I'm like, no, I don't get
in the bed whenever you do not get in the bed.
He's so confused, like he gets in the bed anyway.
I'm like, dude, stop, like to sleep on. Do you
see what I'm doing? Do you guise where we're at?
You see to drive condoms in ky you know at
the front, there was no wow shout out to search.

(02:25:33):
So uh, next morning, uh mo, better finds uh you know,
now the grand people are leaving. So the next morning
we find a hotel. Oh but then I don't really
know that this is traditionally supposed to be an hourly
thing and if you stay over there, like check out time,
it's still like nine a m. Because nobody goes through
those places in stays. So I'm getting the phone calls

(02:25:57):
and dude is a very effeminate and his medisms on
the phone, So I'm kind of like just kind of like, yo, whatever, dude,
because he's like it was checkout time. I'm like, yeah, whatever,
click because I'm I'm activating. I'm tired. If I've had
the worst of the night from hell, I just want
to sleep inside. Know that I have another hotel room.
So dude calls again a little bit later, still, you know,
being effeminine, and I'm just like, you gotta get up.

(02:26:21):
I gotta get up, I gotta get up. Hip hop
had left righty because he was going to try to
find another hotel room. So dude calls one more time
and I'm like, hey, yo, we're we're about to be
out in fact to be found a hotel room at
this point. Next thing, I know, about five minutes later,
the banging I'm not doing baby, and it's I hear
that same with feminine voice. So I opened the door
like ready to like make it the thing. And the

(02:26:43):
dude is like six foot nine diesel my white beaters,
his muscles, got muscles, and I'm like, sir, we'll be
right out.

Speaker 3 (02:27:03):
That episode.

Speaker 5 (02:27:07):
I bet you.

Speaker 1 (02:27:13):
Man, Let's let's go somewhere. So okay, so sigon, yes man,
what happened with that record? Like I'm now that it's
like over and what endless delays? So wait did it
come out?

Speaker 5 (02:27:26):
It did come out, came out twenty eleven.

Speaker 3 (02:27:30):
I got that mistake with Jay Electronic means.

Speaker 5 (02:27:34):
Lord of Mercy Side was brought to me by like
when Sycamore was first trying to figure out what the
an R game was. Whenever he wanted to work with me, Like,
and I used to just see Sycamore around and be like,
who is this dude? Like I'll be in Chicago, and
the next I'll be in Cleveland, and I'll be in Chicago,
Sycamore is there. I'll be in Cleveland the next day

(02:27:55):
he's there, and I'm like, you know, he was just
trying to I was on a road with Jay and
Fifty at the time, so Sick was kind of just
like finding out where we were playing at and popping
up in every market, just trying to make a name
for him. So so took a lot of control him.
He wanted to do the an R thing. So he
brings me a bunch of artists. One of the artists
he brings me aside off, So I'm like, yo, kid's

(02:28:17):
kind of nice have him coming down to the studio.
Gave SI about four records or four beats. I'm gonna
take these home and let me know, you know, bring
me back what you come up with in the meantime,
Like you know, he'd had his Warning Shots mixtape out.
He had literally like a a a crazy binder full
of press and whatnot already. So I'm like, all right,

(02:28:39):
I think, you know, the kid has some stuff popping. Uh,
letsten to me. He comes back with. You know, in
terms of the music music he brings back is not
mind blowing, but it's good considering he just went home
and one night wrote four songs and brought him right
back to me. So I'm I'm still debating, like what
we can do with this, If we can make it
into something, he's coming around baseline more. I'll giving him
more music. Within a week of that, word starts to

(02:29:03):
spread that we are, you know, hanging out before we
could even do the bidding war thing or anything like that.
Atlantic comes right to the table, like, so we heard
just plays working with a notice name Sagon and Ge
is involved, and hip hop is involved. So we wanted
didn't hear, didn't hear a song, didn't hear a demo,

(02:29:24):
heard nothing. They just saw the names on paper, just plays, Sagon,
Gem Robinson, hip Hop, Rockefeller. Go like, why why would
we not a part of this? And because of the
way his buzz was at the time, at least in
the underground and throughout New York, I think they thought
they were getting like the next fifty cent right, and

(02:29:45):
it wasn't that His music wasn't that and so me,
you know, being young in experience in that field, just
was like, oh they hey, we don't even have to
make a demo. They just wanna sign up because it
was involved great looking back to my the worst things
you could ever do. You already know that. And on
top of that, G and hip hop are gonna be

(02:30:09):
in the building at Atlantic. Now I kind of want
to say that this might have been their entry point
into Atlantic or this was like happened right after they
made their way into Atlantic. So you have, you know,
two of your very good friends now being the heads
of A and R at the labels. Like it's a
no brainer. You know, it's a win win for everybody.
And as soon as we sent them the like so

(02:30:31):
things are bubbling and I knew something was up, and
like we gave them the first record was it Pain
in My Life with Trey songs on it, which they
didn't lift the finger to make it happen. We did it,
got the record played or it's playing out seven, it's
playing on a few other markets. Videos being played on

(02:30:51):
b et. He uh was hosting rap City for a
week or what. I don't know if he was on it,
he had a regular series of like rotation like PSAs
that he was doing on MTV, and I want to
say he holds in Rahap City for like three days
or something. All this is happening when Painting My Life drops.
None of this is from Atlantic. This is either from

(02:31:13):
pds or music directors whatever. Being a fan of him,
a fan of the music. It wasn't me calling in favors.
It wasn't us calling in favors. It was all happening
very organically. So we're looking at the label like, hey,
this is happening on his own without you guys lifting
a finger. How about you lift a finger?

Speaker 3 (02:31:31):
Do you know? How about it?

Speaker 5 (02:31:32):
Like they were like, well, how do we do this?
How do we sell this? And this is right when
they're starting to This was that same year that they
made all that money selling ring tones for the first time,
So they're looking at this like how do we sell
ring tones of this music? This is socially conscious, actual
like real hip hop, how do we sell this? And
I'm like, well, you know, you guys are a label.
You've been selling records for you know, one hundred years now,

(02:31:54):
and that's no slight to them. That's just really what
my attitude was, like we've if I can't, if the
music can organically find its way to MTV b et
ninety seven, most of the other with the exception of it,
like we were get was getting played in Boston, was
getting played in Miami, it was getting played in Chicago.
All this is happening without any of us calling it

(02:32:15):
any heavy favors. And with that, you guys, they were
not lifting your finger. Imagine what can happen if you
guys did. And they just never did. And then they
it started eventually became a parent. They just didn't know
what to do with it. So at that point, I'm
looking at it, all right, let's figure out to get
out of this contract. But to Craig Coleman's credit, Craig
was Craig admitted that and was still trying to find

(02:32:38):
ways to make it work. He still, like it came
time to be forecast budget, he was still, you know,
going letting it happen. We needed a Jay Giles band
sample cleared, which nobody had never really sampled Jay Giles.
You know, he personally made the phone call to like
the manager. Then you go to sample clearance house. They
he personally called a manager made it happen, you know,

(02:33:01):
and while he's trying to put his best foot forward,
size getting frustrated at the delays and things. So he
started to speak out against the label and then he
was like doing things like five page my MySpace posts
rentingas Atlantic. I'm like, dude, I'm trying to get these
guys to either put up more money speaking finishes, to

(02:33:21):
feel way to do it, or let us go. You
keep doing this, You're pissing them off, Like it's gonna
make my job harder. Would you either get the album
finished or get out of there? And at that time,
there was so much transitional stuff happening at Atlantic, which
are you already know all about that? Just the process
of getting out, even after they agreed to do it,

(02:33:43):
just took god knows how long.

Speaker 1 (02:33:44):
I mean, we were able to get out of our
stuff like quick, but like Apathy was that at the
same time.

Speaker 3 (02:33:49):
It shit took like three years.

Speaker 5 (02:33:51):
I remember trying to Apathy. He was over there too,
And you know, I think with us they had it.
They had they hadn't They invested a good amount of money.
Like what I did. The first thing, one of the
first things that I did was all the producers that
had been helping him and supporting him, like guys like
Scram and Alchemists and stuff like that. I went back
right to those dudes and was like, I can't pay
you for your old beats, but I'm gonna give you
all you guys song deals. So I'm paying Scram Jones

(02:34:13):
for three beats up front before he's even made them.
I'm coming to Alchemists and said, I'm paying you for
two beats, like the same guys that helped develop that sound.
I want you guys to be the bulk of this album.
Buck while same thing. So I'm giving dudes checks before
I'm even hearing beats. And for the most part, all
that worked out. But that said Atlantic had put out
so much put up so much money, they weren't about
to just relinquish it without having their right exactly. So

(02:34:37):
by the time they worked out to return and everything else,
now we had a position where his buzzes died. So
it's like, all right, now we're freedom. We have freedom.
We can put the record out how to who wants
to buy it now? So we kind of had to
get him back in the habit of putting on material.
Mace tam s getting him on the road, finding any
distributed for the project, for the project, making sure that

(02:34:58):
all those sample clearances, the things that Atlantic had set
up in good faith, were being transferred over to the
new situation. I have to, like Jay had given me
a feature for the album, and now I have to
you know, hit Jay and be like, hey, it's still
coming out. I want to make sure we're still good,
you know, and all the guys, like all the talent
that was on the album, like just like Fat minus
Scoop doing the intro misinfo, doing skids, screen learning and

(02:35:19):
doing skits like because it was kind of set up
like a radio broadcast, getting on touched with all these
people are making sure that like hey it's been five
years or four years, but you know, I make sure
that we're still good on our clearances. So a lot
of that was really the lay of doing it, and
at the same time him, you know, getting his buzz
back up. It was definitely a learning experience, I think,
one that you know, you kind of have to go

(02:35:40):
through to know what mistakes not to do or to
make over things that I go for the next time around.

Speaker 11 (02:35:45):
So it was five years later, like we started that out,
I met SI, I took over, like officially officially took
over baseline and O three, I want to say, side
came around, uh by and I mess.

Speaker 5 (02:35:57):
Sicamore n O three the same year that I bought.
But so I want to say, ci I had to
start coming around in oh four, middle four, and we
were working and like the deal probably happened by late
O four early oh five came out in two thousand eleven,
So that's six years later.

Speaker 3 (02:36:13):
So let's talk about another frustrating project. JA Electrolysis elects.

Speaker 5 (02:36:22):
His train is running on schedule?

Speaker 3 (02:36:24):
What what schedule?

Speaker 5 (02:36:25):
That's his favorite saying my train is running on schedule.

Speaker 3 (02:36:29):
Was the last time you had a conversation.

Speaker 5 (02:36:31):
With him, a real, real, real conversation, or like that,
we had contact, a real conversation. It's been a while,
Like when when Carrie Fisher died, we had a conversation.
It wasn't about music. It was about carry Fisher.

Speaker 3 (02:36:48):
You cite you too are Star Wars.

Speaker 5 (02:36:50):
We was just like sci fi guys in general, you know,
so so uh that was a conversation. It wasn't a
lengthy conversation, but it was a real conversation about so
real stuff. Just about life in general and things like that.
I want to say after after being Swiss, did did
the back and forth thing he d m me super

(02:37:11):
hyped wanting to work.

Speaker 3 (02:37:13):
Where is he in the world right now?

Speaker 5 (02:37:15):
I don't know he's I want to say, if I
remember correctly, though, one of the last times we did
have a real lengthy conversation, he had told me that
he had bought a house. It was either in New
Orleans or in Texas. It might have been in Texas,
maybe so he'd be closer to his daughter. Maybe it
wasn't like New York and it wasn't in LA. I
want to say that. If it wasn't in New Orleans,

(02:37:35):
it was I think maybe in Texas. You know, Jay's
always been a nomad. Like it's funny enough, you know,
actually how I know James through Shot. It's funny how
many things Shot is randomly behind. But yeah, so het
y'all got this kid. He's amazing lyricist, great artist, doesn't
know a thing about the business, doesn't know how any
of this works. You need somebody to take him under

(02:37:57):
his wing. I'm not that guy, you know. I wanted
to bring him to you. In the meantime, something and
me and this has been in the game days when
you ahould talk on a Yeah, somehow Jay ended up
stealing my am screen name from Shad Yo Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:38:13):
I was thinking as you were talking about this, I
was like, I wonder if I should share this story
about the time when Jay okay, So he's legendary for
this ship. Yeah, you tell you his first so no,
I mean it's it's to.

Speaker 5 (02:38:25):
Be honest, It wasn't that much of a story, like
because I was already aware of him from the shot,
because we shot had already prefaced the conversation, and me
and Mashad had spoken about him a few times. I
wasn't necessarily surprised when I heard from him, But then
I realized he didn't like he was just looking Overhad's
shoulder or at his computer when when was didn stole

(02:38:46):
my screen And I always figured if he stole probably
I doubt that Whi's for shot? Are we talking about?

Speaker 3 (02:38:54):
He's done Biggie's woman chance? Uh. He was kind of
the he was the gutter of of the of Puff's
hip men. He did all I mean, I mean he
did do one try. Yeah, I mean he did it like.

Speaker 5 (02:39:09):
He's one of those guys that could bounce around like.

Speaker 3 (02:39:12):
He'll do Ladies Night for Little Kim, but then he'll
do dreams for Biggie, you know what I mean. So,
but wait real quick.

Speaker 1 (02:39:22):
So during the eight uh campaign and period for Obama,
like when all of us were going heavy doing all
that stuff, one of the greatest pranks I was ever
part of because Jay and I got cool one day
he just aimed me two got my aim and we

(02:39:43):
became fast friends that way. And he convinced me two
kind of go to my celebrity room to play pranks.
And I don't know if I should reveal this, you
should absolutely he he uh somehow managed to get Obama's

(02:40:09):
aim name before Obama thought to you know, like back
in two thousand and eight, you weren't thinking of okay,
let me get my Gmail name, my AOL name.

Speaker 5 (02:40:18):
My son Obama on a name he got.

Speaker 3 (02:40:21):
He got it on Aim and uh brilliant.

Speaker 1 (02:40:26):
First he pranked a Dallas Maverick person to thinking that
he was Barack Obama.

Speaker 3 (02:40:31):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (02:40:33):
Then it sounds like then we got Jonah Hill, which
to this day I'm not sure Jonah Hills forgiven me for.

Speaker 3 (02:40:41):
But the best one of all.

Speaker 5 (02:40:46):
Was not wet. You're reminded me of hold on, hold
on finished.

Speaker 1 (02:40:53):
I can only imagine with oh my god, I mean,
you know, to this, to this, to his credit, that's
when I knew. Actually, I think that's also what subsequently
ended my days of being on AIM.

Speaker 5 (02:41:11):
I used to always be on AIM.

Speaker 3 (02:41:13):
I remember they kind of punk me out of it,
like I stay inside the solitary confinement, I don't go
out to the general.

Speaker 5 (02:41:20):
I remember he tried that with me one time, proposing
as Scarlett Johanson.

Speaker 3 (02:41:28):
Genius. I got about this his genius level finess.

Speaker 1 (02:41:32):
I'm telling you, he had nods, nods, engaged so convincingly.

Speaker 3 (02:41:39):
It was the most vulnerable I've seen him.

Speaker 8 (02:41:41):
He said something prolific, didn't he said, like.

Speaker 3 (02:41:43):
I mean he was just like he was so touched
and for that the and it was and it was
and the way the way that he did it.

Speaker 1 (02:41:50):
I was also like, oh, j might be a sociopath,
like like this is some this is some uh what's
the will Smith six degrees? Since it was the level
I've seen him in situations, just switched characters where he
can talk the whitest of the rothschild white and the

(02:42:11):
g of the gutter and.

Speaker 5 (02:42:13):
Then all of a sudden that so very quickly. Now
one thing I say about Jakes, He's a social engineer.

Speaker 1 (02:42:18):
It was it was at that moment where I realized
that the way that his brain works is just on
some next level.

Speaker 3 (02:42:24):
So what's going on with him? Man?

Speaker 5 (02:42:25):
Like? What the exhibit any fun fact exhibit DE was
sponsored by Guitar Center. We have a Guitar Center thing.

Speaker 1 (02:42:35):
He all, I went to Guitar Center, I see Apple Store,
make it the music Like, that's just real.

Speaker 5 (02:42:43):
What happened was, uh, you know, they do their catalog
of their circulars whatever, like once every season. Mm hmm.
So it was a twofold thing. They wanted to have
myself and an engineer and an artist on the cover
of that particular season's catalog. My homie, Mike, Mike Chev

(02:43:05):
who was uh yeah, he was so Chev had some
kind of insights the Guitar Center, so he hooks up,
where's going to be me and him on the cover.
And then obviously Jay's are connection. I know Shave through
jaz No, I know Shat through ja Electronica. Yeah. Like
so when I said I'm saying, I'm tking about electronica,

(02:43:26):
I'm talking about Hope, I'm talking about so long story short.
Guitar Center, UH does this thing once a year where
obviously most of their employees are aspiring musicians or whatever,
DJ's producers, whatever, they are songwriters. So they do a
compilation every year of their employee's best music to contest.

(02:43:49):
Whoever makes the best fifteen songs makes the compilation. And
this year they wanted to feature something from an established artist,
that artist being me. So the idea was, Okay, we'll
make a song that'll be you mean Jelec trying to
call make a record that will we featured on the

(02:44:09):
Guitar Center compilation. So they bring Rolling into the mix,
and Rolling basically says we want to sponsor the making
of this record. So they basically just opened the vault
and said pick whenever you want. There's no limit to
what you want. So I got about the yead of
the things. There was not much that I really needed
it from Rolling, but like the new June that, like
every keyboard they had that was coming out that year,

(02:44:31):
like the guitar synth that they made, like anything they
had that was hot. At that point, I was just like,
I want one of everything, and within a week we
had an all to the studio. None of it was
really needed, but it was just all right, cool, appreciate
it rolling. So I'm gonna say what it was all
sudden done was probably about thirty five forty grand worth
a year that they sent over. So we do the

(02:44:51):
cover of the guitar set of Circular. It's already been shot,
it's about to come out. I'm trying to find Jason.
We could do Exibit A. I can't find him. I
filed to Detroit because I knew he was gonna be
in Detroit, went to shaves Crib, tracked him down, and
we ended up doing Exhibit say in chavs Attic Wow.
And a week later you could walk into this is

(02:45:12):
before anybody really knew who he was yet, you could
walk into the Guitar Center and get a physical copy
of Exhibit A for free, just for walking into Guitar
Center with like artbreak and everything.

Speaker 3 (02:45:23):
So we do that.

Speaker 5 (02:45:27):
With you know, there were a lot of different conversations
about what we could do, you know, whether we like
at one point that the idea was for me and
him to kind of like be a group. You know,
I'm I'm primo he's guru, you know that kind of thing,
like an actual duo. I went through a lot of
different phases and then uh, he would come in baseline
just hang out. It was funny, actually, Sagon actually kind

(02:45:49):
of felt a little bit of a way when Jay
first came around, right like and his thing was kind
of like, yo, who is this guy? Like all of
a sudden, you know you you know, like we're trying
to get my project right and and this guy just
comes down of nowhere and now the intentions on it,
it wasn't like the tension was ever away from side.

(02:46:10):
I just think he kind of looked at it like,
can we get my thing?

Speaker 3 (02:46:12):
You're no longer the bill of the bar or he ring,
and and it wasn't And.

Speaker 5 (02:46:15):
That wasn't the case that oh Jay was just coming
by like all some hanging out and eventually they ended
up becoming friends and you know, they're good. You know
that That was just kind of the first couple of
days of just like yo, who right, just trying to
figure out who to dude is. So that was also
just kind of the process of me and Ja yetting
to know each other as or you can know each
other as people in general cause up unt to this point,
a lot of our community, you know, keeping we would

(02:46:38):
speak a lot for a week or two, then he
would disappear, or I'd get busy or whatever. So this
is the first time that we were in each other's
company on a regular basis, NonStop for quite a while.
So out of that comes Exhibit See, which has many
people who were listening to this probably or another story
like that was actually we were trying to take it
back to the days of when dudes would do promos
for DJs. So exam was supposed to be a promo

(02:47:01):
for Angela.

Speaker 3 (02:47:01):
Ye, oh my god, what's up with all these women classics?

Speaker 5 (02:47:08):
Yeah, so that's actually that the exact same kind of things.
So that's why if you listen, Angelae used to have
a show call of the Morning After. That's why the
end of Exhibit See, I say the Morning After World premiere.

Speaker 3 (02:47:21):
I thought that was gonna even title that out right,
So now.

Speaker 5 (02:47:24):
So we did the record of the idea was do
the record take it to the Morning after the next
morning and just premiering on there. Jay fell asleep. He
fell asleep in the studio. I wasn't one hundred percent
in love with the mixed yet and it ended up
going from being like I think it was supposed to

(02:47:44):
be a minute long to a now a five minute song.
So we just decided to let go of the uh
that idea of it being a promo for Angelo, and
the record just kind of sat around for a while,
you know, my hard drove. So I was going to
Tony Touch I Shaved forty five and I'm like, yeah,
I can play, like all right, my usual you know

(02:48:07):
everybody you know, it was like I did this record,
did that record? I don't want to do that again
instead of play a bunch of records I've never played before.
It was one of those records. And as soon as
I played it, like the phone lines lit up. PD's
calling into the room like what is this song? People
from other stations in the building are walking into Shave
forty five, like yo, what is this? And it just
became kind of became a thing. Had I never played

(02:48:29):
Tony Touched the show that night that record, but I might.

Speaker 3 (02:48:33):
Guitar Center.

Speaker 5 (02:48:36):
We're talking about, I might have never even played any Worlds,
you know. So I play it, you know, it does
what it does, and it becomes like the first time
in years that you're carrying real hip hop at three
o'clock in the afternoon on New York Radio. It was
anything that hadn't happened in a while.

Speaker 3 (02:48:57):
So I mean, it's.

Speaker 5 (02:49:00):
What is.

Speaker 3 (02:49:03):
What do you think it's gonna take or at this
point it's just too far.

Speaker 5 (02:49:07):
I don't know. Like here's like Jay, like he's an
ideas guy, like I will point him a most proably
gonna be a group. So I had I had, so
I have three jen trying to come most death records.
They did three records. I had them. But it's like

(02:49:29):
then that was then it was another another idea that
it was a different idea. There was a different idea.
Then j comes a law or Hope comes along. Was
to do the deal and was kind of like I
guess his thought process initially was if I bring Jay
and then just place comes with that mm hmmm, because
people were looking at us, you know, as being affiliated,

(02:49:52):
which I can't understand why he would think that. But
that wasn't necessarily you know, it's like it doesn't kind
of work like that. That's that's like somebody assuming that
they signed you, they bring you into work on a movie,
and you know, like and I come along with them,
you know what I mean, Like it's we're still to right.
So Jay's at this point now in London a lot
he's working on the album, and you know, I get

(02:50:14):
to court like from you know, from like come by
the house. So go by the house. We square every away,
everything that we need to square away in terms of
my involvement with the album. So I fly out to London,
We get a I'm speaking to a lot of stuff,
but you know, we get a good amount of the
Corley album. He had demo ideas already, so I took

(02:50:34):
those touchdows up, worked on a few new records, didn't
exhibit g I think, and h maybe like two more
and kind of just got the album to a certain
point and that was it. I don't know what happened.

Speaker 3 (02:50:49):
And ago.

Speaker 5 (02:50:53):
In twenty seventeen. Now this was maybe twenty twelve.

Speaker 3 (02:50:58):
Yeah, damn, get me wrong.

Speaker 5 (02:51:00):
I could be wrong. Way Yeah it might. It might
have been thirteen.

Speaker 3 (02:51:04):
There was a large professor record the Angelo by the album.

Speaker 5 (02:51:12):
From Let me think about this. I'm trying to see,
like I'm trying to figure out what else was happening.

Speaker 3 (02:51:17):
You still feel like you're waiting for a doctor. Dre record,
even though it came out.

Speaker 5 (02:51:21):
That record is not doing but that record is not
that's not that's not the one that happened. I remember
when I started getting calls like for them for me
to come out and work on that record, and I'm like,
but they're like, this is a whole different thing. Like
I've heard. I would to say probably the first a
little bit of the very first Detox because that was
one of the first people he called and he was

(02:51:43):
doing it, so I heard a little bit of that.
Then he went and wiped all the.

Speaker 3 (02:51:47):
Tapes, like literally literally literally, word has it.

Speaker 5 (02:51:54):
There is one debt that is in a location, yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:52:00):
Just in case, like he passes one.

Speaker 5 (02:52:02):
No, he doesn't even he doesn't even want that. I
think there's another person who has this. Dad. I could
be wrong, I could. I know there is there is
a remnant of something. I don't know who has it.
He put it that way, it's an engineer.

Speaker 3 (02:52:15):
But I do.

Speaker 5 (02:52:16):
But the word is. I remember hearing those songs early on,
like Usher's Throwback was supposed to be a Detox record.
It was supposed to be about him leaving the game.
Oh you're gonna want me man? That was the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (02:52:28):
Oh wow, what.

Speaker 5 (02:52:32):
That was a detox?

Speaker 3 (02:52:33):
Right?

Speaker 1 (02:52:33):
Look, we can get just lost in these stories forever.
We got to stop the show. We're going over her
a lot of time. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (02:52:41):
Just players give it.

Speaker 1 (02:52:44):
I won't be having fon take at Lah myself lost
and unpaid Bill and Sugar Steve paid Bill.

Speaker 3 (02:52:51):
Yes, but he's the richest of all of us. Just
look at him us his question signing off, what Love Supreme?
See all in the next go Rep West.

Speaker 1 (02:53:11):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Bendora. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.