Terrace Martin

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
R and B Money. We are.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Take Boloti.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
We are the authority on all things R and Ladies
and gentlemen.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
My name is Tank, I'm Valentine, and this is the
arm Money Podcast, the.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Authority, yes, sir, on all things R and B and A.
I'm sick, yeah of you not knowing here how to
use your instrument? All your instrument? Who if these walls
could talk? Oh my my mind? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well studied, yeah, yeah, loyal to it, honestry groomed, yeah,
how musician?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
What? Yeah? Who is it again? I'm sick of the
Tans moment in the building. I made it. I made it. Yes,
I'm on this show. I made it.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I've been pressing you about this show. You can't press
me after you you know what. We're gonna go into
that God sometimes universe roll bumps, No, no, no, no,
let's get into this because he tried me. He tried
me immediately, and I wasn't gonna bring it up because
I don't let nobody cancel it did come?

Speaker 1 (01:21):
They don't cancel it?

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Did come on the podcast after they cancel on this.
If you canceled, you just canceled. But you're my friend
in real life.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
For forgiving thank you, thank you, thank you for I
run into you at the whole fol everywhere I run
to you, I run to your real life. When I
first ran to you, it was you and your father
giving Snoop a paperback with a lot of money again
County late one night. That's what I do know. I've

(01:52):
seen that. I seen y'all that money. You and daddy
come down like clear the roong. Hmm, yeah, clear the wroong. Yeah,
they doing music and money. Yeah. Shout out to j
T the Bigger Fixure. Shout out to j T the
Bigger and Jilly.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah them out man, because they made that happen.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
That happen.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
We came and got a verse. It was called uh.
The song was called Get with This Pimper.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that night.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
It was written by Static and had a trade off
about that record.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah yeah, we traded songs I had.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
I gave him a song called Miracles and he gave
me give it this Pamper and you came down.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Then I went and got the Snoop cat I had
to saw yeah, yeah, all hondles. Yeah. We had to
count it out with Pops too. That was hards family affair.
That is the first time we met Broy. It was
like then I just started hearing them from the Bay Area.

(02:54):
I got folks in the Bay Area. So man, he
born and raising this thing. Oh listen, because you know
when you're from l A. You know, you think LA
is the only place in the world. When you were
a kid, you think l A is like we the
rather you a church or jazz or whatever. You just
think it's l A. You know. But Man, I started
going to those those uh Hawking family type things up

(03:15):
in the Bay Area, those those church God in Christ
conventions up there. Yeah, I know, but but but I
start hearing this meeting like Thomas Prison, all these different
dudes in different Bay Area dudes. But I just always
was hearing your name all through different different circus and
of course your pops for sure, because you know that's
another circuit. You know what I'm saying that's connected to

(03:37):
the church. It is. It's all why not, it's all true.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
You you're you're you're, you're my kind of guy. Come
on now, thank you Undertand what I'm saying, man, that's
you're the you're the cloth.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, yeah, you're of bet fabric, my brother.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're trying to get better that thing. That's what we're
doing every day. But what you've done so far is immaculate.
You know what I'm saying. It is strong and it
speaks volumes for me coming out like you know, coming
from church on the on the east side.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
You know. Of course, the musicianship was the thing.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
It was crazy, right, But then as I got more
into R and B and producing and things like that,
it seemed like the musician ship took a back seat
to the production. And it wasn't until I got to
the West Coast in early two thousands that I that
I saw the musicianship being, if not more, just as

(04:43):
important as the production. As I'm in there with Warren Campbell,
like what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (04:51):
What is all?

Speaker 2 (04:51):
What do you need? All of this ship? Like a
room full of everything? And he could play at all
everything and it was all in the song.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
He don't stop smiling while you do amazing. Battle Cat
is just on everything. I'm like I was working with
my caviar and overdose four knocks. They got me, got
the guitar, nigga got the horn. I'm like hood niggas.
I'm talking about playing full instruments.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Fresh off of selling something into the studio to play
music right. And and then as I as I reflected
my O G. He used to take me to a
jazz night. Big Flint used to take me to a
jazz night. I think it was on Mondays or Tuesdays

(05:41):
in the hood. Say nigga, we're going to get We're
going to hear some Musicga, we are you are you?

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Are you like me?

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Nigga full jazz, come on man like and so's when
I got to this we, I was like, that's and
that was a should't want to ask you before we do
the deep back dive.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Like, how has that always remained a staple for the
West where the musicianship is just always the leader, whether
it be Snoop, whether it be Kendrick Lamar, whether it
be Dre, whether it be what, it's always the music
and the musicians.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
I feel like me, well, I can speak on my
kind of view, yeah, which may not be everybody's thing,
but it it's a lot of people's think me myself, Thundercat,
Kamasi Washington, a few of us, you know, but we
grew up with in musician households and I was telling

(06:42):
my son the other day, I said, at one, but
I thought everybody played music because literally, in South Central LA,
every third house in the eighties was a musician because
people moved here from the South in different places to
do what to do records, you know what I'm saying.
So like to say, I always say, you know, the seventies,
it probably was the most happiest times for black folks
and music. Funk music makes so many people rich, you

(07:05):
know what I'm saying. And the early eighties. I remember
seeing as a kid at the early eighties, me going
to different people's houses in View Park. It was it
wasn't it wasn't regular, but it wasn't out of the
norm for me to see somebody in the Darraw Heights
that father is a producer, not even a famous producer,
but I have an SSL in his living room, Like
that wasn't that was? That was that was? And this

(07:26):
was a black man. Yeah, yeah, because I didn't. I
grew up in South Central I grew up in Inglewood
and View Park and Baldon Hills, all these places. So
I think with the music, I think the music is
such a big part of Los Angeles culture. Like Barry
White's from the hood like we It's like I always
tell somebody just asked me the other day, man, what
you know. I don't like to do this, but somebody

(07:48):
did ask you know, what do you feel the differences
between DJ Quick and Battlecat and that you know, I
hate doing that because it'll make you compare, but it
was a question, and I have to give an answer.
So I had to think, and I think, and I said,
oh t J. Quick is undeniably one of the greatest
record producers that ever lived. Battle Cat, to me is

(08:10):
undeniably one of the greatest orchestrators that ever lived, because
when he writes music, it's when he puts together his music.
It's like orchestration. It's very similar to one of my
favorite composers is named Wayne Shorter. And Wayne Shorter wrote
for Miles Davis everything. But he would do write on
mainscript paper and say that, then maybe another day a

(08:33):
whole different set of paper, write another piece, and then
maybe one day remember that piece of paper and that
piece of paper and put it together. You know, he
would like he would he would have a concept of
nothing is trash. Nothing is trash musically. And when I
seen battle Cap composed, Like I seen him work out

(08:54):
a baseline, because he's a baseline master, work out a
baseline for a while. Will see him do step by
step and bill bill bill, even some of the mistakes
that I thought with mistakes which I probably shouldn't have,
he would save on a separate sequence. Then at the
end I'd be like, what is he doing? And then
an hour later you have like a week of freaking

(09:14):
a ged up. You have all these big records that
he just piece at a time, took his time and
orchestrated those records very detailed. You know what I'm saying,
where quick as a master of like bringing that energy
to that room, had them records feel is how he's
producing it absolute if that record is moving, he's on

(09:35):
that SSL dance in a movie. Why he's talking about
impedance and all these other crazy things back and forth
with people, you know what I'm saying. So that's that's
that's but going. They're both from Los Angeles, I mean
compt in LA. But they're both from Los Angeles. But
they're both strong music based and I think just the
culture of LA. I mean it's a record culture. It's
just everybody in LA even before Instagram. Motherfucker was talking

(09:59):
about they was the record producers and this and that
it was just a record. We don't we grow up
understanding what publishing is because we are able at seventeen
to see a Warren Campbell drive through the parking lot
with a Mercedes that's not even on the fucking in
California yet, and say how did you how did you
get that? And then he says writing music or not

(10:20):
not to but I mean, you just know he's a
record producer, he's a songwriter, he's a composer. So we
see that at sixteen. Then we see the homie Charlie Barrel.
At first we just looking at Warren the same way.
Then the next year he signed the Warren what you
do Man? I did a pub I'm doing, man, I'm
doing I'm producing producing. Huh what what? Then you hear
Walter Mills up except so youious it's rare and you

(10:42):
see it, Kenny Krause making all this money with Eric clapping,
So you see you so you see all these things.
You know what I'm saying. Then you you know, you
get with a Nie sougn and a rapture. Then you
hear you hear things of a guy named Tank coming
through the system. You go to the SAR rehearsal at seventeen,
you see so anxious being right before the world hurt
this ship and you're like, this is shit. You see

(11:03):
they forming playing this is like these are genius. You
see you you see a Nissan Stewart playing drums. Humble Nissan, right,
It used to be this thing called the Praise Connection.
All the beasts came out, all the amazing God from musicians,
everybody came out right. Nissan always kind of played his

(11:28):
thing where it's like I'm confident on me, I'm doing me.
All these drummers to do all this, and for years
that was the biggest thing. And I remember me always
saying to myself like, damn, I'm trying to like what's special.
I'm trying something special about Nissan. I'm getting to a
point something special about n And then when I walked

(11:50):
in thatw rehearsal and saw him play so anxious with
his brother Rapture with two NBC three thousands on the
side being then m D and they playing so anxious,
and I saw a Nissan lock to that click track
and still being able to move air with the kids drum.
I said, oh, these niggas is geniuses, geniuses when I

(12:11):
see when I see Dante play bass, and Dante was
so infatuated with Andrew Bouchet and you know, but then
when I see him now his his his thing that
in the world at one point was like huh, but
now his thing is like the sound like that. That group.
That thing you came through was like monumental, high level,

(12:33):
like Duke Ellington type ship to me, and it was
just it was all under the the Master teacher to me, Davante.
So so anything that you have, anything that goes under
that has the opportunity to be blessed to go under
that fabric. I'm always gonna pay attention to.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
You know, man, listen, you're talking about niggas studying. Yeah,
it's all of them. Yes, please go look up every name,
all of them.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Yeah, shout out the Rapture Man changed my life, man,
Rapture Man Man. One of my not my last casual gig.
I've done plenty of casual gigs after this, but it
sounds good if I say my last one. But uh,
this is I don't know. This could have been ninety
this could have been ninety six ninety seven. It was

(13:25):
my first summer jam. I know that playing with Michelle
like first summer jam and Rapturing that was playing with
Missi and Timberlin. This was like the big deal, like
they got a band and they was smashing all the
Missy Timberlin music with these guys was just because they
was using the cast that was on the record live.
So it was like cheaters, you know, and they had
the best anyway. So what was I saying? Was I

(13:48):
just saying the last time you played a casual gig?
It was it was in Palisades and it was for
a doctor and Nie sounds on drums, raps on the keys.
So you know, when you a casual band, this is
before anybody got cracking your casual and you gotta eat.
You gotta eat on the side by the kitchen. I
can't be mingling with the people you in the band work.

(14:10):
I'm sorry. Hell you all black. You're all black on
this hot sun. It sounds like.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Slavery, That's what I'm getting too.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
So we're eating right. And then Rapture I didn't have
a card then I didn't even have to have my
license or something like that. And then some came to
the conversation, you know, rapped big big energy, rapture, big energy,
and some came to the conversation where like, if if
I was to give five thousand dollars, but what I do?
And he was going down the table. If you was

(14:38):
to get five thousand dollars, what would you do? Right?
And somebody will say by He was like wrong, you know,
you get five thousand, what would you do? I remember,
just like yesterday. And then he got to me and
I was like, if I got five thousand, I'm getting
a car. He was like a car and I was
like yeah, because y'all had to come give me a car.
He was like, man, I'm a well he said, that's

(15:01):
what you're gonna do. Said, I would get a drum machine.
I would get an NPC so I can make more
money than buy me the car. I won't. And for
some reason that's simple logic.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
That day just went it's a light bulb, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, because you were thinking of the now.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
Man. I was just talking about the future. I was gigging, man,
I was seventeen, trying to play the horn, play the Oregon,
trying to make love to who I can make love too,
and just put the NPC.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
It takes you to another level of making love too though,
because you're making love to a different type of woman
once you have success with this NPC.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, and I striving kids. You had to pay for them.
So the NBC helped me a whole lot. You're gonna
have to do that too. Yeah, you gotta pay for
the kids, you know. Uh, you know it's nothing beast
writing a song. Let me give you five. Yeah, you're
a jazz musician. Yeah, my os is twenty seven nodulations brother,
yeah yeah, mind twenty three.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah out there he still got
a little You got a baby, yeah, I mean five
six No, no, no, no, she's not okay.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, my son seventeen. So you know, I'm getting there.
I mean I'm getting there. A yeah, we might go
somewhere special. What he got going over there? I'm trying
to raise.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Let you know, I know what you're doing doing job
trying to I'm trying to raise the future, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 1 (16:25):
It is this whole ship.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
We're trying to retire. You're trying to retire. One of
them retire. But I both let that I let that Terrence,
take me back to the beginning and you even falling
in love with musicianship. You're in the house with music,
and what is the like? I can pinpoint when I

(16:50):
heard two things. My cousin Alfonso Giles playing the panel
upstairs in my grandmother's room, my grandmother's living room and
teaching my mother and my cousin's parts to songs that
he wrote, church songs. And I remember watching him playing
the piano, playing the drums and playing. He went to
Berkeley College of Music and every every summer he would

(17:11):
come back and I couldn't wait for him to come back,
just watch him do whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
He was doing his magic to me.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
And the second moment was walking past the TV and
being stopped in a cold stop like and then Charlie
Browns Christmas was playing. I was like, what is it?
Why do I feel like that? Why is that hitting
me like that? What are those moments for you that
said I gotta do I gotta do this.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
It's three of them. The first one, my earliest memory,
is my first rap cassette we bought. We was we
were staying off of Century in Western and it was
a That's by Eddy's Market the record store, and my
dad was like, man, I met this young man at

(18:04):
the at the liquor store. He said he do rap music.
He was out of taste, but he said this store
got got his tast. I said, my son loved rap.
I'm gonna buy his tape. And it was Ice t
Ryan Pass. So when I heard so Ice t Ryan pays,
you know, my my my dad was a very free thinkerminder.
I didn't have no very similar, very similar vibe, like

(18:26):
very protective of let me be free because I wasn't
gonna get in trouble. He just let me For the
jazz musician himself, super yeah jack and a hustler, you
know what I'm saying, which is which I mean.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
But but honestly, you had to be yeah in in
in that field. Yeah, it's not like you you you
did jazz to retire from anything else. It's almost like
the old NBA where it's like, oh, you go hoop,
but then you go work to go work. You got
a gig, yeah, or you got a hustle or whatever

(18:56):
that thing is. So that's how I look at jazz
musicians and that.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
And that's that is the smart way to look at it. Unfortunately,
the jaz musician doesn't look at it that way though.
The jab spends this whole life trying to get to
this pinnacle of of when they're just on let me say,
a certain type of music. Jazz musician, his whole life
is getting to this this pinnacle of being the greatest

(19:22):
at their instrument. And sometime sometime they spend so much
time being great at the instrument they don't spend the
other time with it takes to survive because because you
you know, you you never mastered this ship. You know
what I'm saying, Well, nothing't mestering nothing, you know what
I'm saying. But the jazz thing, that's that's that's the

(19:43):
unfortunate part about a lot of peersts that just that
just deal with that one. You know, it's not a
lot of I mean I could count, I mean, when
I could count, probably be on two hands, how many
uh jazz cats could could probably afford to live in
a certain type home. And you know you got when
Marcellius and you got all the famous guys. But I
don't come from that. I come from a real South

(20:06):
central how whatever he had to do, you know, yeah,
so he gets you to take we gotta edit this one. Okay.
So my dad just passed like and I'm not I'm
only crying because when you ask that as he's dying,
I'm like, I'm like, hey, man, what uh man? What

(20:30):
are you thinking about? He had cancer? You're like, man,
I want to y'all probably know. But he said, Man,
if I could just think of anything, I said, this
is all the bitches you fuck, nigga. Now, it's all
the kids. You didn't raise, all the cocaine. What was it?
He was like, Man, poor judgment on time, poor judgment

(20:51):
on who I spend time with, and poor judgment on
what I think about. And that's the death to a
lot of jazz musicians. That's the death to a lot
of peers in general. Like poor judgment, thanks wrong, it's
like poor adjudgment. But I just thought about that. It's
just poor judgment on time, man, because you know him.
I got a lot of cats that I know, cat
like I buried about twenty six jagmus just and that's

(21:12):
what we do, me and my own boy. They can't
afford the funeral. And we learned that from I can't
say his name, but it was a cat that did it.
That always paid for the jazz funerals. People know who
I'm talking about. They know, but so we carry on
that that tradition. But it's like, it's a sad thing
to bury a bad motherfucker. It's a sad funeral because

(21:33):
you the obituaries always read like all these amazing artistic accolades,
all these this this, and they're always like and almost
and they read like the almost vibe. It's just is man,
the jazz. The bad motherfucker's funeral is a sad thing
because it's hardly never know money. You always gotta have
a go fund me. Shit is dark. Yeah, that's why

(21:56):
I got the NPC, you know, and really using as
a thing as when I saw it. When I saw
the n PC, I said, oh shit, Warren Campbell, boom
ideas boom, write him down. Kipper Jones said, publishing, Kipper,
what's publishing? Man? You should hook it with water millsap.
He's young, like you, doing deals. He knows it. What okay, Walcher,

(22:20):
what's up? I'm sixteen? Oh you yeah, come over here,
hang with me with the same age. Oh you should
meet my publisher, Big John. Matter of fact, come do
this wedding for him. You got your horn. I gotta
do Jay Brown's wedding. Who's Jay Brown? Just come to
the wedding. Oh that's Ti dollar Sign on base. He's
eleven years old. He's bad on base. So let's go
over to the wedding. Oh, oh my god, we're at
Jay Brown's wedding. That's Mario winning, Mario winning. I know, Mark,

(22:42):
you know you know what I'm saying. Man, All these
connected fibers. Yeah, and those are the.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
Things that that drive you to put it all together.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Those are all the things. And that's why my whole
existence is like, let me just hope I inspire like
enough kids that I'm not tripping on inspiring kids how
to play instruments. Sometimes that shit is boring. I just
love it, you know what I'm saying. But I just
want to inspire kids like to think of other ways out,

(23:18):
think of other things like that. That's why I love like, man,
when I when I see kids that masters on that
fruity loops, it reminds me of I just get just
I get just as excited as seeing Corey Henry play Orgon, Like,
oh this is amazing. Look at this. It's kind of
like the pianos and horn switch to the laptops.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
You know, look at them as cheat codes. No, because
some people do, and some purist dude, that's why I
asked you that.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
That's unfortunate for them. I feel that it's not a
cheat CDE too. I don't because I can't do it.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Only thing I don't like is allto too. That's the
only thing, you know what I'm well, I'm not the
biggest auto too.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
I'm gonna say this, and I tell every artist is
you know, I tell every artist and these are the facts.
What I say. I say, you know, you gotta be
careful about continue on tracking through auto tune. It's gonna
build such a hard crutch for your live show. And
I tell people this, they just whatever whatever. And man,
every time I do a show with somebody, if they

(24:15):
don't got the auto tune, man there, they don't want
to do the show. They don't want to do the show,
you know.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
But I tell certain artists that if your thing is
the auto tune, if your sauce, keep it.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Keep it on you. That's your investment. As you said,
you get your first five thousand dollars. Yeah, but then
a lot of cats, don't you know. Somebody that that
uses auto tune a lot. But we just did seven
nights in a row at the Blue Note, and that's
James Foleroy. We did seven nights, two sets a week

(24:53):
at the two sets a night at the Blue Note,
and that boy sign sign. But always said because everybody,
all the youngsters, well James, James has he's built the option.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, those of us who can sing use it as
as a sonic, as a tool tool.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
But don't get it twisted. Don't get twist. There is
the difference. Yeah, James, the two sets at night at
the Blue Note. That's bad. Hey, that's bad. That's you
know what I'm saying. You got to say a lot
of the they ain't cordless, Mike, Oh no, no, no, no

(25:32):
cards cards the Blue Note. Yeah, we ain't read that.
Come on, man, come on our song shared monitors. Come
on man.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
So we were talking about your pops. Give you that tape.
He gets you an ice tea taste.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
He gave me then ice ta tape. You're a great songwriter.
You've always been great at that. See how you brought
it back you see how you did that. You've always
been good at that. Man, even through conflicts, you're great.
You know you're amazing. This is what I got that
ice t tape man. And I remember the first song
I heard when I popped it in at at the

(26:19):
house my dad left. He didn't know about cussing on tapes,
none of that. I remember. The first thing I heard
was six in the morning, police shot my door. And
I was like, because our house I got raided a
few times. Because when you were a jabb you just
trying to survive. Dad, you say a little dope, ha there,
you know what, whatever, take the help. You know what
I'm saying. So you know you you grew up backspacked

(26:41):
by the door fore visions and different things like that,
And so I was familiar with just the lifestyle he
was talking about, Like he's talking about the police come
to history too. Who I don't feel alone, you know.
So I started alling nice seeing and then my mom
used to go to the Rhodium Swap meet. This is
a place in Guardena where I see a lot of
casts talk about the history of West Coast hip hop,

(27:02):
but they don't bring up one of the meccas in
the place that without this place, none of this ship
would be moving. And that's the Roodium swap Me a
brother named Steve Yannold. This is where like this, this
is the swap me where you could go to the
swap meet and see easy E, doctor Dre spinning ice
Cube on the mic. DJ Yellow. Everybody knows Steve, this

(27:23):
is the radiom and this is this is this would
change my life. So I had the ice Ta tape
that whole weekend, my mama started going to the Rodium
swap me, and and my parents had just separated, and
so now she's on trying to figure out how to
beat a single mama. She young, she l a single mama.
So she like, I'm gonna go to swap meet. I
know you like music. I'm gonna stick you at the
music store, right I drop you off. I'm gonna drop here.

(27:45):
I'm just right there, Mama, be all gone. Don't if
you leave. We knew man. Let me tell you, man,
I remember the first time she took me, my first
blink of I and the first record I can think
about was Christmas Rap and then Public Enemy, and then

(28:10):
Steve came to me and said, man, man, you like rap?
You ever heard of Easy E? And I'm like, this
is a guy who's running there Steve Janno. Yeah, this
doctor Dray Boyce knew. Everybody knows Steve Jannald. The ones
know who I'm talking about. The ones that don't know.
That's why they That's why they music, because they history
and they foundation shaky. That's why they records to this
day is shaky. It all counts. But so Steve Yannold,

(28:34):
and it's like, uh, I said, easy E. But I said, well,
I think you played boys. He played song called boys. Nuh.
I'm like, oh yeah. Because my cousins that lived in Bakersfield,
I had two fine cousins, right, I got a gang
of fine becausin been in the eighties though the basket
Waves and you know what with the dope billers in LA.

(28:56):
But they were from Bakersfield. So my mom would send
me to Bakersfield for the summer. I remember coming back down.
We would take the Greyhound bus bus and get get
off and downtown and they would tell my mom and them, uh,
cousin louis coming to get us. But it always be
two niggas with Jerry Crolls and loud music and Nissan trucks,
just like eighty six eighty seven. I never forget so

(29:17):
we hoping they'd be like, oh, now I know I'm
in the back of everybody, sitting next to the cousin
the shoulders moving. Now I know what's up. You know
I'm older, but I'm like, oh, but I would be
in the back of the figures. And I remember when
I first heard and woke up quick at about noon,
just thought that I had to be in confidence song
Nigga my eyes. I was a kid. I said, what

(29:38):
is this? And then it when I'm about to damn man,
when blond young nigga got the path throwing up gangs.
I just remember and when he said throwing up gang songs,
the two niggas in the cars they threw up their
hood and we was going down cripshaw and I just
got so infatuated with that song and these crips going
to show with this music because my dad that it

(30:04):
was jazz and the Hawkins, it was you andre crowds.
And I was like, man, I'm not with I was
a kid and I was like sowing back to what
what And they started letting me say, cuzin around this this.
Now I know that they turned me out, you know,
you know, because because and my cousins say, now, when

(30:25):
we get off the car terry, don't tell your mama
who came and got us. So I ain't saying nothing.
If we could do that again, nothing, So man, I
started hanging with them, young man. The dudes are all yeah, yeah,
they off off. And I grew up in that neighborhood anyway,
but uh, that was that was the time anyway. Going
to the rodium swapping, Steve Banna said, you heard it
easy to Eat And this happened a week ago. But

(30:46):
I didn't know the artist's name, and I said, I
don't know what I was young like. He got like
a sore voice, sound like a soword voice. Is his
name Sore Void? And he plays this and he played
the remix again. Then he was like, I'm goa he
this record. He was like, it's a radio version on
the other side, that's what you play. But he went

(31:06):
and winked aside, and that record, I tell Doctor Traider's story.
I took that record home and being being my mom
was in the process of learning how to be a
single mom. He's working, so she didn't have a lot
of time. So I'm playing all the cussing. Now I'm
full fledged wearing loaks in the mirror, Cortes in the mirror.

(31:28):
You seven. I'm telling my mama, Mama, how come we
not from Compton? Why are we not from Compton? Why
are we easy from Compton? Why? I want to be
from where easy from? So I would get good grades,
man and her treatment to drive me. She would drive
me in front of the Compting sign when I was

(31:48):
like seven eight because I was like infatuated. Then watch this,
Watch how God work. So at eight years old. By then,
my family's in the music business. My aunties do all
the background at this time for Nita Baker, for any
Cravis to Perry says, we're so at this time, we're
going to all the concerts. I'm I'm now I'm the
child in the black kid in the industry, drawing up
with the other black kids in.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
This initial Mama side though, my mama side, so now
we're all singer and daddy side is a musician, all musicians. Okay, okay,
I had a funny joke.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
But family looks at this. I won't say fucked up joking.
One sized writers, one side of the musicians, and it's
very obvious. But uh so I'm at the Universal Amphitheater
and at this time, this is a this is deep too,
This is this is deep. I ain't gonna bust no

(32:36):
tears on this one, but this is deep because it
had to be eighty eight. It's had to be eighty eight,
and uh eighty eight was deep because crack cocaine I
hit La tough at that time. Crack cocaine was like
everybody was affected by crack cocaine. And if you're around
that air, everybody either if somebody was selling it or
doing it, or one of your cousins you thought was balling.

(32:58):
When you figure out what happened to Leroy Leroyd and
tested this shit, it was a typical story. People were
selling phone cords, people was tearing off roofs trying to
sell you know, VC ours was you know, niggas was saying.
There was cableman with gas station shirt song trying to
get into the house. It was crack was running, rapping
and the music that was that was soothing everybody and

(33:20):
making sure black people dance was one man named Teddy
Roley with new Jack Swing at that time, and so
my mom would always play that album The First Guy Out.
I'll never forget, and that was eighty seven. It came
out eighty seven and she played out of New Year's
part of New Year's e Party eighty seven, going in
eighty eight and piece of My Love Autumn type records.
But going back to this concert, so eighty eight comes

(33:42):
guys coming to the concert. The tour is Guy was
the headliners Empty Hammer with two big mc kidding play
and kwame this with the tour and we was at
the Universe with theater. I was in the pit, and

(34:06):
I was in the pit. I was always in the
front row. Now I'm kind of used to it, but
I'm like, we about to see Guy. I'll never forget. God,
come on. They used to come on with the sheets
like this, Joe Hayron then playing journal. They used to
come on with the sheets where you couldn't see crowd screaming,
and ain't they started doing the running man. I remember
I'm looking up and a joint dropped from somebody's head,
a joint, and I seen it and I picked it up,

(34:29):
and my mama right there, Teeley, my cousin Teey was
right there. I picked it up and I looked up
and it was Eric. It was easy e it dropped
out of his ear and I went and I remember
looking at him and he said, man, he said, you're
gonna be here the whole night. I'm like yeah, He's like,
I'm gonna see you backstage. When we went backstage, it

(34:50):
was Doctor Dre. He's I remember going to Easy I
still got the Raiders hat sign he signed, and he signed,
they all signed my rail sid and he said, stay
in school. Listen to your mama at the joint.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, stay in school though, Yeah, you didn't understand school
after that day.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
No, I'm just now now we just talk. I'm just
bringing I even thought about that till now. Wow, that's crazy.
Did you give miss Dray back? And did you smoke it?
I gave it back? Well, I gave it back and
he talked to my mom that day. See here, that's
a cool little man. He gave me back my joint.
He said, when I was smoking his age. You know
what I'm saying. It was cool my mom. My mom

(35:33):
still remembers that because I was so infatuated with Easy
Eata you know what I'm saying, Like you know, and
then just with doctor Dray and then when Straight out
of Compton came out and ice Cube, and we used
to see ice Cube right around the neighborhood in a
Suzuki Samurai because he grew up less than a mile
from where we all come from, so we to see him.
He's like, we see the ice cube, you know, But

(35:55):
what's good about l A. You grew up seeing that,
you grew up seeing to go battle Cat and that
duley man he put he get his haircut there. Okay, okay,
I'm gonna wait there because I don't want the plug
from this other nigga because he's trying to get some money.
I'm away at the barbershop for battle Cat at good
friend's barbershop in the VNS. I'm gonna walk from the
six sous and walk to the VNS and wait for
battle Cat right there. So when he sees me, you know,

(36:16):
I'm serious because I'm waiting for him in the vans
and I found him how to tape damn? What's up
to tape beats? Waiting my life to see battle Cat man,
I'm you know, is this point I was a little older.
I was I was seventeen right then. I was seventeen,

(36:38):
And is.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
That your first I'm like, obviously you've been playing with
you know you on this circuit. Yeah, but is this
your first kind of entry into trying to get into
the music business side of it though, because like you said,
you got a tape of beats at seventeen before that,
you just is jamming.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
This is my first This is my first entrance into
like battle is a fancy car, fresh jewelry, fresh clothes.
He's with snooped all. This is the door and battle
Cat has given me so much information and teaching me.

(37:16):
So he's giving me so much to where it's like
I'm just like even I'm so spiritually in debt to him,
but it's like I'm it's just like he's like, I'm
studying with him. So I take it he likes your beats. Yeah, yeah, because.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
There's another side to that of if they don't like
your be yeah, you don't get these opportunities.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
You know what I was But at that point, you
know the good part about me being such a focused
musician at that because at that age I'm already playing.
Though at that age, I'm I'm I'm playing. I'm already
in the jazz clubs, I'm already the midnight musicals, I'm
already playing with Andrew, I'm already with I'm already I'm
already on the whole other thing. Club Tank was going
to to hear, ay, I'm already, young God. My my

(38:01):
teachers is Billy Higgins Andrew Gus. I mean, I'm just
I'm La. I'm already moving. But when I told you
I saw Warren Campbell with that Mercedes bro that changed
my life? What what do you mean? Wasn't nobody pulling
up like that? And I'm from La, so I like
all this. I like everything, you know. I like everything

(38:22):
they teach us not to love and not to like.
I like those things you know, meaning finances. I like
the freedom money allowed you to have. I like property.
I like buying my children things. I like food, I
like him from I like shit, I like nice ship.
So so my my whole head, all my life weren't
waiting for the meek to inherit the earth. When I

(38:44):
when I saw Warren with that bance, I followed his program.
I said, Okay, if I know anything, I know to
shut the fuck up and follow a program. So I
followed this program. I start reading his credits. Did that
quit battle cay? Hmm? If he feels like that about that.

(39:07):
I need to I need to something. So what did
I do? I prayed to get with them, like I
prayed to get with Snood Dogg. I like I knew
I was going to I knew I was going to
get with battle Cat. I knew I was going to
study with DJ Quick. I knew these things because at
this time it just wasn't nobody of a fan and

(39:29):
the level of studying with production and frequencies and signing
things at my age as I was, because I was
into knowing who Dave Aaron is the tracking engineer for
all eyes on me? I was. I wasn't just into
knowing who played the mini move. I was into knowing
who was the second who passed the eleven seven, who

(39:49):
passed the prison, who patched? Who whose decision wasn't for that?
I was yeah, because I because I wanted to know why.
And then LA got tricky because I want to know
why niggas said they was good because my dad from
the East Coast. I also going back and forth to
the East Coast a lot where the focus wasn't about
finances and it was about the face value. Are you

(40:09):
a bad motherfucker? Wraether you in church? You in the club.
Can you play? It was just about that. It wasn't
about who you was with, what gigy was on, how
does your watch shine? How do you smile? How many things?
It wasn't about none of that. Can you play tonight?
And can you bring emotion to the table. If you can't,
you irrelevant. That's where he was coming from, you know.
So I had that in me. So when I got

(40:32):
through La because my dad used to talk crazy shit
about LA musicians horrible. I used to hate it, Like, bro,
I'm from LA. You have me corner just motherfuckers, you know,
twirling sticks and dance corny, you know, but you know,
you know, you know, you know, i'd be like ya.
I think I like everything he says. He doesn't like.

(40:54):
I like that, you know what I'm saying. But I
just you know, man, just yeah, where was we at?
You said, don't get too high. You showed a way
too late. I smoked to join the car, wrote you
showed a way too late.

Speaker 3 (41:11):
You are a real musician, though, this is this is it,
This is this is what. And people don't get to
see real creatives, right, They get to hear yeah, real creatives,
but like seeing a real creative, bro. Like, that's why
you were so important for us to bring on this podcast.

(41:34):
Your your resume is your resume. But and I don't
think you know this when I when I call you,
I call you about being a creative Yeah, when we talk,
because I know that I'm tapping into a source for me.
And I have no problem saying that openly and honestly.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
You know what I mean. Look, we never talk about
the ball game. No, we never talk about the ball game.
I have great ballgame talk to No.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
We like when I when I call you, it is
to tap into a source of real creativity and the
mind of somebody who lives music. And people don't always
get to see that. And that's why I said you
were so important for us to bring on here.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
You know what I mean? Because this is unscripted, we
don't do you know what I mean? Like, Man, I've
been waiting to get on this show.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
I want I want you to I want you to
forget the stories in the middle of the story.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Sometimes Yeah, and then it comes to you. It come
to you because you know it's the these are we
talking about in the late nineteen hundreds, Man, We're talking
about something like you know you know this is funny.
I was supposed to play Nissan used to try to
give me on so many gigs. Nothing was coming through

(42:50):
for a while, Right, I'm gonna try and get the
horns and get the horns and get the horns, and
you know, the horn is always last. That's why I
started playing keyboard a whole bunch whole snoop. Really be
cracking to get the horn section. Yeah, you gotta have
a real budget. Yeah, real budget budget. You know. You know,
y'all not cheap, bro, The horn section is not cheap.
I'm never in the horn section keys no now.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
But I'm just saying it goes. It goes your basic
four piece, right, maybe you maybe you get some money
double up on the keyboard player, and then when you
get a little extra.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Change, the percussionist comes in.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
The percussion you're a percussionist, and then you get.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Harmed because horns is like to me on the outside
of like y'all super musicians, right, I do music.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
It's a difference. So for me, I look at whenever
niggas got a horn section. Oh, the niggas is no.
That's I'm like, like, I mean, when you see a
band of when you see an artist. When you see
an artist with a full band, when you see an
R and B artist with a when you see a

(43:59):
black arm and be artists keep going. You had a
full band on stage. They care about the people. We
ain't no money being got made. It's all for y'all.
I got it, like I gotta do the l a
show like this. I gotta do that, you know. It's
it's when I see horn section and this, you know,

(44:22):
when I started seeing dancers and horn sections, I'm like,
oh man, but the horn section is always, you know.
And my job for a lot of artists is to like, Terrris,
how can we make money and kill this? And my
job is to say never mind. But my job is
to protect a lot of the artists and tell them

(44:43):
how to kind of cut the band but still give
the same effects so they can make money for their family,
because a lot of people don't know when you have
a band sometimes, I mean other than the huge top
five arena artists, right, but but having a band and
usually with an artist. For me, even being a touring artist,
is because we loved the fellowship and love the musicians
on stage because sometime we're not even taking on half

(45:04):
the money. I learned something by you a cup. Every
time I bump in the Tank, it's on a flight,
and to one time I was humbled because it was
one of these flights that I was like, I shouldn't
be flying first class because I really can't afford this
first class sticket. But I'm so used to doing it.
I'm gonna do it anyway. And Tank was on the
same flight, right behind me on the Premium Plus with
have the money, and this is Tank. That's when I

(45:26):
told you premium Plus. I told you I saw Tank
four times in the past five years with a pillow.
I saw in Atlanta. I saw taking different. I saw
him for nessing Dorp, at the people at the I
saw Tank Tank as a well traveled touring artist. So
that's why actually I say I saw Tank. No more
first class.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
I gotta get early, build my mileage up Come on
and I can I can get that comfort seat.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, and bet on the upgrade.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Can you get if I don't get guess I still
got a nice window. The TV show you what I'm
leanked over sacks on me some cheese.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
It's and that way. That way you can still have
the band.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
And you have a club membership where you can go
eat before you get on the frame.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
So you good.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
That's that's really the difference on most first class flas.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
The food is the food. You get to eat some food.
The only time I need first classes overseas.

Speaker 2 (46:20):
You definitely need first class. How many lay down Japan?
Your you know you're doing those runs.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, when you're doing those runs. Now we you haven't
been to your Oh, let's do the project together. Let's
go a project of bat ballots. Robert loves his piano.
The hey talks about that. Yeah, he takes record. Yeah, man,
I heard it. Man, you know I'm gonna taken man.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
I was telling him the other day too, like I
appreciate guys like you, Robert.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Adam Blackstone, Oh yeah, Adam.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Guys that are guys that are that are purest in
your thing and in music, but that still can relate
to a tank who is and this is this is,
this is me just speaking freely.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
He got that same type of gift.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
But I think some musicians say because of the songs
that he sings are the way that he looks singing
those songs with his shirt off and all that other ship,
I think he gets judged by that.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
But I don't think y'all do. But yere, but there
are a certain section of these purists.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Who are like, no, no, no, we can't, we can't
include him. Yeah, I appreciate y'all for that.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah, well that will he won't say that, but I'm
gonna say, yeah, Well, I mean, I mean, Tank is
a proven generation bad motherfucker artists. Like it's just he's
done all the all the proper steps from he's done
it's steps to this ship. Yeah, because I'm not giving
this ship up for all the no no no no
no no no no no, no no no. We're talking

(47:59):
about it. Man. You said some years ago on Sway,
uh uh you said, uh about publishing. People just want
to publishing. You said, man, you better write an idea.
You better come home some you better come like just
give me something. Yes, Like when you notice like the
like Tank is in the class of its own, and
usually what happens is is like nobody wants to be

(48:21):
confronted with the truth. Mhm. You know, it's that's hard.
That's that's that's that's hard to no matter what the
theatrics are, what the pyro is, what the that's that's
a hard emotional thing to know. You was talking about

(48:44):
it man with your lady the night before, and you
gotta go on after this man. But he just stripped
the whole band because they missed the flights because we
had to get them certain tickets because you know, be
like that. But he just he put a piano out
there and just tank you only got four minutes. And
then he decides to do something like he looks in
the front five six rolls and see all these beautiful

(49:06):
women and all these men on their phones, not paying
it until they women, and he does, I can't make
you love me. And no matter your pyro, your flips,
even your hits, you can't fight the heart. You can't
when people when somebody has a gift musically to make
the heart, to make another human's heart, do things that's

(49:27):
more powerful than the ear. We all the ears, physicals
and muscles, you go on and you know when you
get older about but the heart, you never forget how
something make you feel. You know that and that so
it's like a lot of people don't got time for that.
They don't got time to make people feel like anything.
They're trying to get to the next thing, and you know,
and that's a reminder of you gotta practice, you gotta practice.

(49:49):
He's practicing every day. He's singing every days in the gym.
That's a serious mind. You I'm from the era of
serious musicians, like are very physically in shape, Like it
doesn't go one way. Like my father was like, because
I'm not like my dad. My dad was a run
three mile this prote you know, till I remember when

(50:10):
he couldn't even walk and he was like that Dad,
what you doing? He was like, I'm working out because
the blood got to go somewhere. He's working out his hands.
The blood gotta go somewhere. Wow. And when he couldn't
move his hands, he started doing his eyelids like he
would read charts and do the claping count with the
eyelids every day, every day, every day. So it's like tank,
I I come from a line and from a thing

(50:33):
where that this this is a product of a this
is this is a real this is R and B.
You know that's really what it. He embodies that, and
I think a lot of people are just worried about
everybody that embodies the truth. You know, these are my
opinions and you know, these are my opinions. He's are
in law. These aren't anything. But I do know, you

(50:55):
know what Herbie always teaches me and Quincy always teaches me.
It really is like everybody has their book. Everybody book
is completely different, and one of the worst things we
could do is pay attention to someone else's book and
timeline because everybody's got a book. It's like, you, man,

(51:15):
you know how this shit go. Man, they're not going
to tell you the shit or we say till we go.
You know, that's one of the prices you pay to
make sure you're doing the right thing to them hearts.
You know what I'm saying. It's a miserable thing that
I got so many friends that focused on the ears
of their career, big houses, nice fast cars and this,
and then I go visit their house and it's a

(51:35):
new nigga this year, standing in the house they had
in the same house. They you know the rotations, you
know the rotation. Come on, y'all, we know the rotation.
And I'm from here, so I grew. I grew up
seeing the rotation, the same the same visitors, same people.
You know. It's so hard for me to go to
some of these award shows now, because I'm like, man,

(51:58):
it's all these either are the same guys have been
fucking everybody over twenty years. They still get the seats.
You know, it's amazing these days, you know what I'm saying.
But uh yeah, man, you know, when it's the truth,
it's very difficult. But when you got to stay on
that path, Miles David stayed on the path, you know.
You know, James Brown stayed on the path. He was

(52:20):
a bad motherfuckers man without the memes and the funny
should that go around. Now, the serious of these of
these catch is serious, man, you know. So as you
start to move into this space of.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Music business, right the recording side of the music business, producing,
making your own projects, doing this whole thing, because now
that that's a whole other world. We all know this
is what is your first taste of success, and you're My.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
First taste of success is really sitting down figuring out
a plan. And I remember when I got done, right
my mother fucking playing what I'm gonna do. I said,
I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna look at Nissan and Rapture
and Warren Campbell. Nissan Rapture was doing beats and was
I mean, it was playing for everybody. Then they hustled
up on the beat thing moved, they moved, they moved

(53:21):
through the musician shit. Warren Campbell was playing on everybody
record and ended up making the name. So I was like, okay,
Warren got that bends. I mean, he didn't stay in
the musician touring chair too long. So I said, okay,
I can't stay here too long. And uh you know

(53:41):
that was that was like, really the the the real
thing is, let me use the saxophone. All those saxophones
my first love and my love I love Charlie Parker,
John colechran SONI instead cannaball Adlie, Eddie Clinton and Vincent.
I love the saxophone. But I also grew with a
single mom in the South, like whatever daddy that played jazz,

(54:03):
but he wasn't one of the famous guys, Like he
wasn't going to Japan like me and my friends are.
He wasn't also lucky, you know what I'm saying. So
I'm aware of what I what. I like this jazz shit.
I like this, I like this. I love this, damn bro,
I'm trying to go to the Marina to the movies.

(54:23):
I'm trying to get the Jays and I got a
baby at fifteen. I got his mom on my head,
shot out on the car, his mom on my head.
I'm like, she on my head. Bro, She's like, you're
gonna work at toys r us. I'm like, I ain't
doing none of that. I'm gonna be a famous jazz musician.
Got me fucked up, but I'm gonna make it. I
was saying that, but in my head I was like this,

(54:44):
Josh is I just it's sounded good, you know, man?
So I really followed what I would like to hope.
I think I followed that Warren Campbell and that I
follow portions of the Warren Campbell and the Nissan and Raptor.
They were the closest ones I seen be a musician.
And then my boy, my friend that really put me

(55:06):
on with Snoop was a brother by the name of
Marlon Williams, a guitarist like the like all the records
I've done with Kendrick Travis Scott, Snoop and my whole
catalog for like sixteen years of catalog music. He is
the guitarist that's writing the guitar parts. Like not just
playing on top of my harmony one note lines. He's

(55:31):
writing parts that if you solo them, the crowd will
sing like King Konna, all these different records, just you know,
if these walks just drill deep records. So he was
already with Snoop, you know, And I never will forget
because I was like, man, I need to get with Snoop.
I needed because I messed with when I was sixteen
and I heard him say, Lok, I know he from
Long Beach from twenty Crip. I'm involved, I'm involved in

(55:55):
I'm involved in the Crip card, the crib Nation. So
I know, I know if I get with Snoop and
Snoop find out that I'm a musical guy that come
from that thing, that is familiar with that thing. And
I was like, if I could get with Snoop, you know,

(56:15):
I never asked battle Cat to put me with Snoop.
I never asked none of them guys to put me
with Snoop. Marlon Williams, I said, man, I gotta get
with Snoop, you know, because I was always a real
respectful musician because I grew up with musicians, so I
knew not to overstep my boundaries. If a producer called me,
I knew when I was a musician to leave when

(56:36):
it's time to leave. You were just you were there
to play session. That's why I work so much. I
knew how to shut the fuck up and keep pushing
keep my job because I saw a lot of musicians
that I grew up. My uncle's in different family that
was very opinionated people, you know. And I saw how
opinions didn't work too well in the workforce in Los Angeles.
People arguing over pins the most stupid shit in the

(56:57):
fucking world. So I knew then to shut the fuck
up if I want to work and make a living
in La record culture. So I never asked battle Cat
and none of them to put me with Snoop. And
I didn't want to ask battle Cap for that because
I didn't I didn't want to be around Snoop and
battle Cat. I just wanted battle Cat. I didn't want
to share no time with battle Cat. I wanted to
get everything I could. Battle Cat is enough of the

(57:18):
star and still to this day he's he's I look
at him the same way I look at Quincy Jones
For me personally, you know, for me personally, I look
at him as the architect. He's the guy from my
neighborhood that was on the radio with Domino that whoa Okay,
so we could still be us. But we could still
be us, still be g with it, love our families,

(57:41):
love God. If we got a trip, slap a niggas,
we got a trip. But love music, you know. And
he loved his He loved his kids, you know. And
I used to love the fact he he loved because
I back then, I'm from the air of you know,
you didn't have no money. The baby mama was not
fucking It was a bad time and in black history,

(58:02):
I call it straight up, you know, And it was
just money was driving the world where I didn't have
a lot of man at a certain age. So seeing
battle Cat raised as kids really helped me maneuver with
my children and they moms just to the best of
my ability at that time. You know what I'm saying.
But Marlon Williams uh Man, I mean, I'm at the GMW,

(58:25):
a Gospel Music Workshop of America. I'm doing credit card fraud.
I'm flying choirs out on fake credit cards. I'm hustling,
but I'm also but I'm also playing with God's problem.
I'm playing now, I'm scamming for me, not the chuck.
We're not gonna put God in that. It's great. So

(58:46):
I was at the gmw A and it was in Minneapolis,
and back then I was doing credit card fraud a lot.
I got in trouble for that. When I was trying
to make my way to be a musician. I want
to fly places and meet up with the homies, So
I knew how to run the plays. You feel me like,
I ain't gonna be broke if the horn break, if
the music stopped me, I ain't gonna be broke. That's

(59:08):
what I ain't gonna do. I ain't grow up like.
We ain't gonna even move like that. So I was
just trying to get it, not to do anything other
than my music career and the fly the homies out,
the fly keyboards out. And you know, we did have
I went to jail for this. So we had these
fake business cars that it's a Dog, the travel agent.

(59:31):
So if we ever get called by the police, we
gave him the car like man. We didn't. We didn't
know we got the ticket from Dog. But come to doubt,
dog bad idea so I flew about five choirs out
to the GMW Way, but for some reason they return
tickets didn't work. They got stuck, and I'm there and
I'm there on these tickets too. But now I'm like,

(59:53):
I get the car. I'm like, don't trip. Let me
get back to my hotel room because I got a
sweet you know, I got my see to my laptop.
I'm u. Back then, it wasn't no fast internet, so
I had to go to Kinko's a lot. Yeah, feel
me surviving. So I'm like, don't trip. I'm gonna get
all y'all homes. Just just I talked to Homie. I
just tell them, tell them, mister glitch cud, we're gonna

(01:00:16):
work it out. Just tell him, pray we're gonna do.
It's nothing. But when I go back to my room
to get on my laptop to do the un my
card ain't working. And then I'm like, but now, let
me tell you. When you when you're doing that life,
you gotta believe in the in the whole thing. So
you like, they made a mistake. So I go down

(01:00:40):
I can't make this ship up. Many I go downstairs.
I'm like, I'm like, my keys not working, and they said, oh,
wait right here, that's what you're supposed to leave when
you committed, because this is when we was you know,
he kind of god what And I was like, get

(01:01:03):
the manager, are you gonna do that? And my sense
in the room, my horn, my bags, everything's in the room.
So I called my dad because my dad's living in Minneapolis, right,
I said, Dad, the thing just boned out. I need
you to pull up and just I'm gonna say some
shit to go and get. I'm gonna say I got asthma.
I'm about to fake this asthma atack. I'm about to
get into this room and get my ship. I need

(01:01:24):
to pull up, get this back door. I'm'na hopp in
the car. We're gonna bone out. And this is when Sprint.
I was doing the burnout phones with Sprint. No next
till to burn out the chirps, right, So I'm like right,
so I never forget. They let me out, like, well
we will, we'll iron out the payment. But let me
get my asthma ship. We'll iron out the payment. So

(01:01:46):
I went up got my ship. That's why to this
day I keep my shit be by the door. Get
got my ship. Hotel, my dad waiting to hop in
the car as I'm getting the car. Because I told Marlon,
if Snoop needs a nigga to roll his blunts, take
pictures to wipe his shoes, to carry the luckas Marlin
had been with Snoop since ninety five and tour him

(01:02:07):
with Snoop forever. So Marlon was the real plug for
all of us to any bit of celebrity anything. So
I said, if Snoop me anything. So a year later,
Marlin said, Hey, Snoop want to try horns. He want
to try horns. I said, what you mean horns? I said,
I said, what you mean? He like he wants you
to he I got it. Situation, try horns. She said, hey,

(01:02:30):
just to burnout, he said, he keep your motherfucking beats
in your pocket. Do not do this gig to give
him beats. You do this gig to do a good show,
to mention the music is right. If you do this wrong,
you're gonna fuck up any window of giving him any music.
Don't be the typical musician fucking up the moment and
rushing the moment because you feel like it's your moment.

(01:02:52):
You're it is, You're I'm going to get this or
it's never gonna happen in it. Just chill, you're already in.
Just chill and man. And for a year I had
a back pocket full of beats, and every day I
just go this minute, snoop, just look at me the
wrong I was right. So one day we was rehearsing,
I flew back and oh mind you, I'm in the
car running. I never got back to choirs. That's why

(01:03:14):
I left the gospel, my gospel career alone. I left
them all there, so I had to come back to
l A. Wait. Wait, I never figured out the choirs.
I see something to this day. Everything cool now. But
they made it back. They made it back. Shout out.
They know me. I was young. I was young. I

(01:03:36):
was just doing my thing. I didn't mean no harm.
But you gotta know if she is a real discount
crazy rate, like, come on, I fly back. My mama
sent me the money. Mama, send me money, fly back.
I ain't got no money. Please whatever me your money, Mama.
I can't talk to you. You know what I'm involved in.
Get me back home, mama, because they could the police.

(01:03:57):
I just I want to go back and I want
to with Snoop. This is I've been praying. So that's
the chirp you get. Just the church, Hello, Mark like
a nigga, get back to La tomorrow. We gotta rehearsal
Snoop on a horn section what I'm out of God's property?
Fuck them get back the dog, won't you. I'm on

(01:04:18):
the way.

Speaker 3 (01:04:19):
Because I probably can't talk to God's property this because
I did you out because they're stuck in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
I came back. We rehearsed s I R my first time.
I'm like, wow, I just how old are you at
this point? Nineteen? Oh, your baby nineteen? Right now. I'm
not letting a nineteen year old nigga book my ticket anyway.
You know what I mean. I'm just not. Let me
tell you somebody respectfully, back in those days, you gotta say,

(01:04:49):
back in those days, you know every you know, the
Black Church is a real culture. Man. Discounts is a
real thing, discounter real thing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Well was a discounting No, No, I mean, I mean
you gotta get to it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
You gotta get how much did they pay you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
Because they paid him on twenty five fifty most ever
got a Sunday was one fifty fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:05:10):
Yeah, sat big. Did you even get that? Did you
get that? It started off at twenty five. He's from
the East coast though, Like that's you you, that's I
mean the campers play, I mean the biggest guys just
I played for. Like, that's just more of the l
A was always different. It's like I feel like LA
had more of a business culture. Nineteen Yeah, close to

(01:05:33):
for sure. The music going out here for sure. Yeah,
eighteen nineteen twenty for me, those three years I was
at Church oft the Harvest and for a week for sure.
I remember ninety eight, I was getting twelve hundred a week.
That's five serve because I was selling for Donald Hayes
for three years. He went on on a play god
for plays was a real Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
Church Harvest was the first mega church I'd ever been to.
Oh that's the real in my life.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
It was real, man. I never seen nothing like that.
I knew I was making money because I ran the
car for three years. What I was making Church, I
was getting paid. I was making I was like twelve
hundred bucks a week. I didn't have no rent. Yeah,
you just cooking. I'm just hanging trying to get the
Snoop Dogg Wow, still trying to get out the church,
though still trying to not play in the church, still

(01:06:18):
doing rebel shit like like like I was doing because
because like mcclennan was on TV, and I was like, man,
I can't be known as as I don't want to
be known as a church dude, like I don't want
to be known as the jazz dude. I want to
be known as a musicians. So what I'm gonna do different?
So I was always early with like I'm gonna die
my hair fire engine red because I'm directly behind the camera.

(01:06:40):
I'm gonna die my hair bright red so everybody could
see me because we're on TV. I ain't got nothing,
no mystery, that's TV, that's business. I was on that thing.
We cut the cameras off. Your were on TV. I
gotta be seeing like you know. But so church I was.

(01:07:01):
I was, I was making and then I grew up
and then like Andrew guhat my mentor, I was doing
like whatever Donald Hayes didn't want to do. I remember
me learning, trying to learn so many Donald hayes uh
way of playing because he he knew how to play saxophone,
where I've seen it creates real estate, you know, high
notes and grace notes and knowing how to play those

(01:07:23):
gospel tunes like be grateful and like really knowing how
to pull out the like the spear come through when
he plays. So I was like, oh, I see, I see.
So I just always saw Donald Hayes rock crowds and Andrew.
Andrew wasn't doing no these the wasn't local church dude.
These are innovators, animals. Yeah, so I was on. I
was young and really not worthy at all, but I

(01:07:45):
was on. They gig, you know whatever Donald didn't want
to do. I do them all. You know, I do everything.
You know, Donald was the only dude and getting bread
all the records shout out to Donald Hayes. Man shot
Donald Hayes like for real, Like, yeah, so you end
with Snoop? When does he hear it beat? I'll hear

(01:08:05):
it go. Yeah. I did one whole tour with Snoop
Red Hot Chili Pepper tour, three months. I didn't say
ship played my role, kept it cool. Uh, I got
close with it. When we got back. We built a
relationship and I ended up staying staying with him, just

(01:08:25):
always going to his house, just pulling up and then, uh,
one day I remember he was a it had to
be one of the days he You know, everybody knows
if you when Kobe was playing a Laker game, Snoop
is not dealing with music when the Laker games playing,
when the Laker games on, and we used to live

(01:08:46):
so far. By the time I get to Snoop's house,
the Laker game had just starts. So and I'm not
leaving right and I'm not that much into sports, but
I learned through this. Like you know, when Snoop says yeah,
you say yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying,
yeah yeah. I feel like I want to say, I
want to say. I want to say one night the

(01:09:08):
Lakers lost or something like that, and uh, I just
happened to be there with the beat, and you know,
he would always playing video games and Nate Dog be around.
And then I remember asking the engineer play some beats.
I'm like, he means like pre existing because now I'm
trying to listen for the clues because I don't want

(01:09:30):
to because Marlin said, don't don't don't, don't pre do it,
don't suck it up, So I don't want to suck
it up. So I'm listening for the cues. I'm like
the beat. And then the engineer took a little while
and then he just for something. It must have been god, bro.
He just turned me and said, you got any beats?
And I was like, and I remember this exact day.

(01:09:54):
He took the b said, I said, these are eighteen beats.
These for you. I made these for these feet, these
for you, like these for you. He probably thought I
was weird because I was like, I'm built to work
with you. I am, I'm built to work with you.
I prayed to work with you at twelve, like I.

(01:10:14):
So he like then. So then he says, he said
I could do whatever I want with these beats. I
said yeah. He say, these beats are all mine. He
said yeah. He said again, I could do whatever I
want with these beats. I said yeah. And the start
of me and his relationship of me by myself without
being a ghost keyboard player like I was for years
on a lot of a lot of major producers by

(01:10:39):
the time I got when he said that, it was
at the time we also met a young man by
the name of Sycamore, and Sycamore was really influencing Snoop
Dogg back then on doing mixtapes and Snoop has started
this series called Welcome to the Church series and it
was tearing up the streets at LA and the first
important series, the ones, was mainly produced by a young

(01:11:01):
terrorist Martin doing most of the music with a jelly
roll and a battle cat and then he'll say my name,
And then I was on the road with him. So
then I start learning. So then I was saying in
my head, I said, as I'm on the road now
records just mixtape records. But I didn't need no money.
I didn't. I never, I never, I didn't need no money.
I was. I'm just gracious you wrapped on the beat

(01:11:22):
of mine. I didn't need no I would have I
would have worked, I would have paid you to do this.
I don't need no money. I'm just happy you did it.
And I was on the road and I started doing
things like how I got on so many records. I
start seeing, you know, most musician behavior on the road
with the artists is either go back, go hang by themselves.
Some go eat with the guys. Some try to hang

(01:11:44):
out laughing joke with the artists. I hate those guys.
They laugh and joke with the artists, you know. For me,
I knew that Snoop stayed in studios in LA, but
it was no studio for him on the road. So
I convinced the security cars. I said, man, can I
ride the security bus? And the securities was intense. Nobody

(01:12:04):
wants to ride a streep. I said, man, can me
give me and my friend k Kmoski Washington Kmosity ride
the security bus because I told you, man, I'm gonna
bring a studio. But he didn't know I was doing this,
so I lie and told security, Yeah, Snoop said it's
cool for me to bring the studio. Because now now
I'm finessing because now I'm knowing he don't talk to

(01:12:24):
the excuse he's a start. He talks to him, but
about security him. He's not worried about the studio with
these guys. So I'm already like, this is what we're
gonna do. So I'm like Snoop saying, man, let me
get the whole back of the bus so I could.
I could because this is before this is the inbox. Absolutely,
I still have to bring a power supplier. It's it's
no soft sense going on right now. So I had

(01:12:45):
that studio on that bus, and I just know every
Snoop because now that I'm already in with Snoop, I
still respected Marylon. Marlon was still with me the whole way,
and I said, what should I do? Now? Should move?
He'd be like, when we get to the next city soundcheck,
you make sure you sit at that keyboard and whatever

(01:13:06):
song Snoop sing, you better know it. And if he
sing a song, you play a song that he knowing
that keyboard. After that he gonna be fucking with you.
And then tell him, man, I got a studio on
the bus, let's get out. So I was like, oh shit,
this is like some some other shit. The snoopid Gun
sound checks and do a blue Magic song and do

(01:13:27):
a temptation. He's a he's a walking DJ. So I'd
be like, oh, I don't have as many years of music.
But at this point I grew up playing the Townhouse
and play black clubs, black weddings, Like I know all
the songs I need to know for a black wedding,
a baby shower of anything. I know all the so
I know your songs. I know I know the songs.

(01:13:51):
And he starts singing, what song did he start singing,
hold on, oh guy. I think it was God will
take care of You. About the Hawkins, it was some obscure.
It was some like esoteric song that you had to

(01:14:12):
have like a love a live album to know this.
And it just so happened to see how God do
he put me ride in place? I had just spent
a year studying this music with with Robert but See
Wright and Dallas R. C. Williams, Sean Martin. I had
just left Dallas for a year studying with all the

(01:14:32):
gospel baddest motherfuckers in the world and knowing all the
Hawkins songs. So I was white when he said God
will take care of You and the band started playing it,
and I was like, right after I said, hey, I
got a studio on the bus because I'm trying to
fuck with you. I'm on the bus. He like, you

(01:14:53):
got a host on the bus YEP. So he started
making that security bus park in the It was I
was looking like, you know, the whole bus with parks
or snoo could get to the studio early, you know,
and I would be the only engineer on the bus.
And that's how we really bonded. Studio. Then when I
got back to La, I would go to his house
because I wasn't going to Snoop Dogg for placements. See

(01:15:14):
that's where everybody got it fucked up. I wasn't. My
quest wasn't to come out on records with Snoop Dogg.
My quest was to be next to him and just
figure out what can I learn from him? What can
I how can I learn? My goal was never how
many records I got on Snoop. If that was my goal,
I probably would have a lot more. My goal was
to be around and be a service, no matter what
I was doing for Snoop. If Snoop needed the baddest

(01:15:36):
musicians in the world done a cat Robert Glass for this,
if Snoop needed that, blah blah, same thing for Kendrick.
It just so happens. I'm I'm you know, I'm a
very good record producer and musician. But if I could
just fellowship the vibe, that's my thing, you know, I
think that's my gift, Fellowship the vibe. You know, that's
kind of my thing. Man. You know. So I think
with Snoop we really bonded because he see I didn't

(01:15:58):
want nothing, you know, I didn't need nothing because I
didn't know I didn't need anything. You know, I didn't
know what nothing about. I was just happy that I
had food and I could be traveling the world. And
I know, damn well, this man could do this shit
with a fucking MP three and they still gonna come.
I never would forget. The band sounded horrible one night

(01:16:19):
cause niggas was being funny. If the band they was
being funny, there was being you know, when band members
get paid a little late, they be little attitudes and shit.
But but now Snoop, he didn't build me. I'm five
years now. He got me. I care about the whole program.
And I'm like, okay, yeah, we gonna uh nah cause
I know so many people when I go back home,
they would love this. They would love this. You know.

(01:16:42):
That's when you see Snoop was the first one I had,
me and the band Kama seeing the band, Thundercat in
the band, Robert S. Bussey right in the like, Snoop
is the fucking Billy eckstein oft this shit. And if
you know about Billy Ecksteon, you know Billy Extern had
Disney Gillespie. Billy extn't had Miles Davis, Charlie Parker. Snop
is that without without Snoop, any equation, Los Angeles is

(01:17:05):
nothing musically, not rap. Rap is one part of Snoop
Doggie Dog, the franchise, the whole thing of UH. The
death Row and the Snoop are are the ones that
hired all the musicians. That's what hired all the musicians.
The musicians was so mad when when Roger Lynn put
out that fucking drum machine. They were so mad when

(01:17:26):
the Lyn drum came out because drummers lost work. They
were so mad when the Yamaha DX seven came out
because horn players lost work. They were so fucking mad
and depressed and broken hearts, families getting lost, people live
in hotels. It was dark. Death Row came that kind
of music, you know. It was when you have a

(01:17:48):
hit record with live music on it on the baseline.
Now those local musicians in that town, they got to
play that record at that club. So you when you
have a hit record with live mentionruments, you supplying the
job for other people. Craig Craig Brockman taught me that. Hmm.
He said, every time you play a horn on the record,
or you play an instrument. We are supplying work for

(01:18:11):
the cats. Never leave the cats behind them. They make
the ship tick, they make the shit tick. Ain't about
the money, because it ain't. It ain't never been about
the money with me, even with Kendrick, I've just been
on all the records. But that's my friend. I care
about that guy because he's so gifted before it, but
I've always cared about him. You know, I just want

(01:18:33):
to be I just know, if you on the vibe,
you good. Get to the motherfucking vibe. People people so
busy trying to get to a spot without they trying
to you know, the sponsors there. Just get to the vibe.
And if you you know, you'll get for make room.
If you're a bad motherfucker, if you all talk, you'll
be the god bringing the bottles all the time. We

(01:18:54):
need them too. But you ain't making no decisions, bringing
no motherfucking bottles. Buy my own damn bottles, you know
what I mean? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Mm hm oh yeah. So let's get into this. Because
you went, you went, you went. You segue into Kendrick
and your work with Kendrick. You were, you have been
a very instrumental part of just the tde family one,

(01:19:24):
but especially with Kendrick and then when you guys get
to to Pimp a Butterfly, that's when to me it
felt like, Okay, they're fully in sync at this point
and in popular rap you had never heard that type

(01:19:46):
of musicianship in a long time. I won't say ever,
but like cause Snoop and death Row had that right,
But in between that, it really wasn't a lot of
you hear no horns on records. You hear no you
know what I'm saying, Like you did you just that
that feeling?

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
Yeah, that feeling at that level.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Yeah, yeah, I felt like Kendrick was taking a real
chance because it could have just been written off of
like ah, yeah, that's just too musical and too creative
and that ain't really what this thing is. I feel
like he figured out a way to merge the worlds

(01:20:25):
and you were a big part of that. What was
the conversation behind you know, like to Pinper Butterfly, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
It's a uh, you know, when you're really in sync.
It's like, I don't trull with a lot of people.
When I do decide to come outside, it's with herb
be Handcock because I learned so much. Okay, you you
are lost in today, he said, handcut. That's that's the
only side I'm not being. That's the only side. Man.

(01:20:56):
I'm gonna be to Herbie forever because I'm in dead
to him. But uh what Herbie always says, like, and
I'm sure both of y'all notice touring that third week
when everything started taking shape, everything started where you ain't
gotta look behind you, you ain't gotta It's like, even
if you make a mistake, your guy is and everything is.

(01:21:17):
It's just you're not even thinking about it. You are
not even going you They're not even going to sound
check right now. It's just it's flowing for what the
mic is there? It's just there? Uh with with me?
With the TD guys, mhm. Top and Punch are masters

(01:21:42):
of getting a bunch of borderline insane crazy people in
one room that all have loud voices and figure out
a way where we all follow a common goal. I've
never seen leaders like like Topping Punch in my life. Punch,
I'm Top, definitely Punch, I'm close to Punch, you know

(01:22:03):
what I'm saying. Just I've never seen leadership done like that,
you know, I've never because we was difficult to deal
with it. You don't know, you know what I'm saying.
One day we all said out with Punch. We was
he could tell you some stories like oh man, ha
oh shit. But the I'm saying that the conversation, it

(01:22:25):
was never a conversation because we've been in sync for
so long. We've been in sinks since the mixtape. Like
I mean, like I produced the first record for them
to get the deal at Warner Brothers. That's how long
it's to start. It's not a I'm not coming. It's
like we just hear you know. That's how God, that's
how the creators just they put us together. Like which

(01:22:48):
is crazy to me when you think about to Peper Butterfly,
because finally, after all these years, I was able to
use everything from the relationships to the skill level to
the breaking rules. I was finally able to use everything.
You know, most of the records I've done, even though
it has been great success. You know, I'm you know,
I love him. I love him when they especially when
they make money, love them. But it's you know, some

(01:23:10):
records you're more connected to, you know, Uh, the conversation
with to Pip a butterfly wasn't really so it was.
It's a lot of loose conversation. A lot of things
was going on in time, and you know, it's a
lot of a lot of that's when the police had
really started turning back up on the Brothers and the
news was getting crazy, and hip hop was had a

(01:23:32):
weird little stand still. Everybody was kind of sound the same,
and you know, he was heavily influenced at that time
by jazz. We was just I mean, one day I
walked in he was rapping. I was like, man, you man,
you like a jazz musician. Man, you rapping like Freddie Hubbard.
And you got one song you sound like Woody Shaw,
And you got one song you sound like classic Clark Terry,

(01:23:54):
and you got one where you sound like you playing
Don Cherry Freeze. You just made all these rhythms because
one day I got I got high as fucking I
transcribed the Kendrick solo. I just wrote it out and
I stood it next to a couple of my favorite
cold training solos that I've transcribed in my earlier days
of transcribing, and I was like, oh, this is deed

(01:24:16):
that has to be ancestral recall this kid, don't even
this de don't know no Cold Train records that that's
that has to be ancestral recall, that has to be
that's weird. And as we start going there and he start,
you know, I never forget what wanted this story will

(01:24:37):
say everything. The horn up until that record was like
it was starting to make you know, but the horn
was always I never bought the horn in the record
sessions because in LA record culture, you come with you.
If I'm a record producer, producer and artists R and
B artists, they ain't going on the fucking saxophone. At
this time. The a't gonna know if I'm alto they
singing alto what I fuck? They won't me. They don't

(01:24:57):
do no, no, they don't want that. And the horn
is it was deemed as two musical to this. It
was to this, to that, to that. So I remember
when sound Wave and Kendrick we was in the studio
and they brought up the record, Uh, we gonna be
all right, And I remember hearing that record like he's like,

(01:25:18):
I want you to play on this record. I'm like,
the fuck do you want me to doing this? Bro?
Like you know, because even even I'm so free. But
even up until this point, I'm kind of a separate thing.
I'm kind of like my production is this guy, because
that's a different set of jokes, that's a different restaurant
you're going to, that's a different perfumea wearing, that's a

(01:25:39):
different kind of boss talk in that world. I've always
kept those worlds separate until to a butterfly. I've kept
my friends separate, like got some wild mother fucking friend.
And then they said, man, nah, just play, you know,
And I started playing on it and I was playing
with I assume that people want to hear side form
player off rap and you know what I'm saying, and

(01:26:04):
Dying Wave said, man, look, man, play that ship that
we you play like this the chance this a for
real baby, just and even then I was like, man,
for real, don't like people playing all this ship because
I know, for real, you know what I'm saying, you know,
I said, Man, maybe I should ask them in my head,
I asked for real first, and they was like, man,
were doing this record. Man play on this record and

(01:26:25):
think about how many people we're gonna help. Think about
what's going on, think about what we're saying. Think about
what's going on in life, like this ain't a record. This,
this a this this this, this is where we at.
This this where we at. Just if we this is
where we at, We're gonna we could get them. We could.
I felt like, you know, the concept was we you

(01:26:45):
gotta get the message across. However, you got to get
the message across. Yeah, you know that horn, That horn
speaks to the struggle. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Yeah, Like I'm sure the record before the horn had
a good amount of soul and spirit to it, but
that horn, yeah, puts something that automatically sent you into
a space of reflection, like it just made you think

(01:27:19):
about some ship intensely. Yeah, that's what that horn did.
That's what that horn does. Every time I hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
That was intentional. Yeah, that that spirit that talk that
that like, man, it's fuck this music, it's some's some
life things going on that's before we Before we are
musicians and ours, we're human with sons, fathers and some
other ship that ain't got nothing to do with this
SSL and this crazy electric bill and it's some ship
that ain't got none to do that. People going through

(01:27:49):
in Omaha, Nebraska, which you talk Kansas and Baltimore, like
it's people going through ship that ain't got nothing to
do with the life we live, and it's more of
them than what we're doing. So that that was like, okay, yeah,
because I've been I've been through a lot of different
struggles as we all have it being you know, being
like that, but that it was it was more like
a continue on conversation. But as we got deeper, I

(01:28:12):
remember I started being like, Okay, this kid is crazy.
He started hey. He's like, hey, I want to do
something jazzy. I'm like, yeah, okay, let me get the
drums out. He's like, no, no, no, I want to do
like some shit. I'm like okay. I started playing ideas
like that my Memories. It was a brand from Marcelli's

(01:28:37):
record that was playing the minor blues with Kenny Kirkland
on piano, Jeff tang Wats on bass, Jeff taint Wats
on drums, Forgive Me, Jeff tang Wats on drums, Bob
Hurst on bass, and he was digging out and I
was like, just what you like? And I was like,
oh my god, if we do this on this album,
this is gonna help so many musicians. If I write

(01:29:02):
the right piece of music. Once again, you're not forgetting
the catch. Yeah, if I write the colds, if I
write little what And I remember the night before because
I was like, nigga tomorrow'mnn come in five ideas. I
got you. But I was like, damn, this is pressure.
The rapper asked me to write a jazz song. Now,
I'm like, I said, my daddy always taught. He's like

(01:29:25):
and went in doubt. The blues, the blues don't never
fail you. The blues. The blues sing, the blues, play
the blues. You gotta hear the blues. We love you
because we hear the blues in your music. You know.
I told camera, we we love that Coco Jones song. Uh,
I see you because we hear the blues in that.
We hear the praise and worshiping that. That's why we

(01:29:46):
love that song. We hear that. Yeah, yeah, connected to it.
So I said, okay, I remember I was hired as
fuck watching MO Better Blues all night because that's what
we was on, Like MO Better Blues, that's like my movie.
I'm like, oh, I gotta I gotta put like this shit.

(01:30:08):
Gotta feel like South, It gotta feel like our shit.
It gotta feel like South Central it came. It gotta
feel like what It gotta feel like our best expression
of what we lived. Because one thing I know about
my brothers and sisters in the art world, the jib
or whatever you want to call it, like, it's not
about money. It's about clues. It's about clues and little

(01:30:30):
keys that people could take from that and open another door.
So my thing was what how many clues? What can
I and what's gonna help Kendrick. So all these thoughts
was going through my head. And when I wrote, I remember,
I was so serious that this was and I could
have taped it, but I didn't. The only person that
has me writing this music and going up with this
band on tape, Kendrick was taping the whole session with

(01:30:50):
his phone. He the only one. And I remember the
first the top of it's a song called for Free,
And I remember, and I remember because my boy marlind
he don't play jazz and Craig Brock don't play the
style of jazz. I was writing. But these are geniuses
and I was hanging now here go to l a ship.
I'm hanging with these niggas every day. He was my folks.
So writing the studient, I'm like, I gotta write apart

(01:31:12):
for them. So that's why the topic goes. And I
was like, Craig and Martin gonna kill that part. But
then when the band get to going, y'all fall back
and y'all gonna let these these hunters go hunt. Yeah, Roberts,
but see right, Brandon owns Robert Glassper. We're gonna hunt
for a minute. And when we started hunting, I remember
that ship was fast and then we slowed it down.
We got a good groove and Kendrick, I'm gonna send

(01:31:34):
you out a picture of that night. Kendrick uh So
Sissor was there too, Kendrick was. He put the mic out,
so you want to go on the booth. Bro He's like, no, no, no, no,
no no, I want to record right now as we write.
He's writing right now, right now, right now. And then
when that first light said this stick came free, I said,
the jazz is gonna hate me. Yeah, I know what

(01:31:58):
do you know? What I'm saying it that that that
record helped a lot of people. Man, it helped, it helped,
you know. And I did Thundercap myself and it was
able to like fly low he went and got you know,
he had been we had been doing music together. But
this I feel like this was the time I was
able to incorporate everything I've learned thus far in my

(01:32:22):
in my music, Catalitee and my social and my showing
up on time. Because Punch Punch will tell you the
story about good Kid, Mad City, how we were so
friends when Kendrick first started blowing. It was so new
and fast, be like, man, you better come on this album, Man,
come on, man, and I you know not taking it
that serious, right, I'm gonna show up. I'm gonna show up.
Punch was so mad at me. So I finally showed

(01:32:44):
up and end up being on a decent far the
album right, but but I did? Yeah, madd City real Uh,
Few and Few I forgot, you know they're they're thereot.
But but what which is one of my favorite songs?
Thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
That's one of my not only just one of my
favorite Kendricks. Some people know how and collectively Kendrick put
together a super team.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
It's not just like you hear my stamp and my
different my imprint on different things more than others. But
it's a super team where it's like even with me,
like my shit is not working on Kendrick record without
a sound way being next to me. Because when they
tell me go as far as you want to go, man,
you're talking to a person that don't even believe in

(01:33:27):
the ocean. I only believe in the world. I only
believe this shit in. So my sense as far as
is a little different. But you got a god that's
in between me and Kendrick like wave that's say you
go far right there, We're there with you, and I'm
like cool, And they still always allow me to go
as far as far as more far than any other artists.

(01:33:49):
A lot of artists called me in to work with them,
and they always want to work with me based off
my history. But then what you hate that when they
never want you to do what you do, but they
call you based off your they just.

Speaker 3 (01:34:00):
Want the same thing, the same thing, yeah right, because
I mean that's just been a tried.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
And true yeah. But it's like if you.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
If you want the same process, that's different because you're
always gonna get a different result.

Speaker 1 (01:34:16):
By the way that process. Now let's talk that talk
real quick. Now this is this is Jimy Evan's exit record,
This is the end of This is the Thing of
the Butterflies, not a It's not a Garage Earth the
Inexpensive album at all. It's it's a guy saying I

(01:34:36):
want to try strings on the record. Can can we
just try them? And commansies writing for strings while we're
having union stream players waiting all day to get charged
at all, the having all the major studios locked down
for years. So it's a very to be that free.
Is so expensive to be able to gamble with. So

(01:34:57):
it's to be able to say even as a business
I'm a business owner, you know, if I'm looking at
the numbers with the artists, if I'm like, okay, you
want to do what you want to get? We like tears,
Tears is good, yeah, Boom album, feeler, god good. He's
gonna keep boom boom, lining up, playing on the records.
He's gonna play on the hits Boom yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:35:18):
But how much of tears you want? Like to do
those kind of things? And they say whatever, is like
you know what I'm saying. So those those those things
are expensive pieces of real estatement.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
You know, And you have to start from a business standpoint,
you have to look at the ro Oi event. For
people that don't understand what that means.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
That's the shout out to Top and Punch and everybody.
Dave a lot of meetings with me, sure because because
also my job is as a record producer. A record
producer is just to help the artists get to the
finish line. So a lot of times Kendrick would say
he wants easy, I want all these boom boom boom

(01:35:59):
boom boom, and I'd be like done, but I wouldn't
check with nobody, and I'd be like, you know, Top
New call me in the room and what is this.
I'll be like, he's a genius. The genius is expensive
to genus. Did you learn that from Quincy? I just know,

(01:36:25):
I knew, I knew. I got so much love and
respect for Top for forgiving me opportunity and dealing with
so much mishap for me, uh but just being always
there for me as a big brid's a business man.
Very He's taught me how to be very firm, because
it's just it's just yes or no, you know. And

(01:36:45):
I think his his leadership is a big part of
them records. Absolutely, he would be in them studio when
he and them studios, you know, because I'm like the
party homie, because I'm like the older brother to the homies.
I'm like at this time, I'm like, I'm the middle
child in the game, but I'm the older bro to Kendrick.
And now so I'm seeing I've seen all the mishaps
and then I'm kind of I'm kind of jaded a

(01:37:06):
little bit at this time. Right, so I'm coming to
the you know, tequila every night, the classic vis couple
of homegirls pull up, just sit in the corner, watch
me do beats all night. You know the vibe and yeah, yeah,
you know. Yeah. So Top Top was very Uh his

(01:37:37):
presence didn't make you want to invite nobody. I'm just saying, now,
you didn't want to and they got studio rules. Oh no, no,
it's rules. And you know, I'll be trying to be
like the bad cousin, you know what I'm saying. But
Top man, uh nah man. I remember he had he
only told me one time, and one time I had

(01:37:58):
some might show up to a studio session that I
shouldn't have had. We was a serious night and I
had a homegirl come come pick me up, but I
left before she came just dumb shit, right, And I
remember when she came by, he left, and then Top
came and said, hey, hey man, I didn't tell you
to invite anybody to the studio. You gotta invite and

(01:38:20):
he said it that's simple. But it felt like a
thousand words to me. And I said in my head said,
I said, don't fuck off your opportunity with this man.
He's giving you opportunity, respect to shit, pay attention, ter hers,
you know what I'm saying. But that the TV thing
was like college to me, like it's so many things.
I and that's the first crew that that that I

(01:38:42):
seen a few million dollars with. That's the first crew
like they you know, like like like them dudes stay
they stay down if you if you love him, they
rolling with you, you know what I'm saying. And that's
the first crew I really like. With Snoop, I saw
the world. I saw my craft get better. I saw
this with the and and the blessings because of the

(01:39:03):
of the things that we've done, thank God in history
that have helped the others and been able to help
us financially. Is it's been a well maintained thing as well.
And that's so rare to say in business. You know
what I'm saying, especially from a producer and a musician standpoint,
But you gotta tell top what you're doing before you
do the beat. I'm gonna play keys, bass, saxophone because

(01:39:27):
he in tune and that's what I learned from him too,
be in tune. Punch the same way. You know what
I'm saying, Like the TDS is like a university. This
should be a university if people are ever so blessed
to go through that tutelage. Because these are brothers that
didn't grow up playing music. See this is different. These
are brothers that consciously said, we gotta figure this shit out.
What are we gonna do with the music? You know

(01:39:49):
what I'm saying. This is Punch saying. You know, Punch
is one of the best songwriters in the world, one
of the greatest things because ever and I've worked with
all of them, all of them, and for Punch to
to to sit back and give his tootelage to to
j Rock Q Dot to app just to his like
his view is so and they're all great em seeds.
But it's like that crew is so magical.

Speaker 3 (01:40:13):
I look at I look at Punch as this generation's
d OC. Yeah, and what he meant to death Row
with the tutelage that he gave to the younger mcs,
you know what I mean. Like, that's how I look
at Punch, Like he gets it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
It's not like, oh yes, an executive that no no
no no no no no.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
This is an artist that understands the executive side and
that is willing to give of himself for someone else's game.

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
Yeah, and a lot of us don't do that. He's
definitely coming under the umbrella. What if I've seen this
before in my career. It's like I'm a little older
than you know, so I grew up under like General Buzzby,
you know these things. But Punch is reminded me of

(01:41:05):
if I was reading a history book. It will remind
me of like Today's on his way to being a
progressive Claire's ain't about of today, because not only does
he understand the music as the massive teachers did, but

(01:41:28):
he also understands relationships. He understands politics, he understands he
understands what people just care about. You know. He's really
a great leader, you know, what I'm saying, and that's
that's like we don't have we don't have leaders now,
we don't have leaders. You know, we see what's going
on with everything, we don't we don't have leaders, like

(01:41:50):
a lot of the leaders at least like when I
was younger, it was so many music industry leaders, you know,
don't we don't have a lot of them right now
that are really serious and not chasing the bag but
care about. That's why the show is. That's why I
be begging you. Yes I did cancel, but it was
a real legitimate thing. I'm sure I don't remember, but

(01:42:10):
I know. That's why this show is so important. And
this this is the looser I've been on. Usually I
have a whole thing, I know how to talk. I'm
wearing glad you know, I got my whole shabamy. But
this show is so important because in R and B music,
other than a couple of cats an R and B,

(01:42:35):
other than the cast that's in it, it's not talked about.
Let me let me give you this clear. It's like
the world needs to know that Davante's Duke Ellington. Like
it's like R and B. Just now I'm saying, is
getting talked about at a real point where I can

(01:42:56):
see this in the schools being taught. I can see
different cultures really understand the lineage and the history and
why we do this, Why it's so important you to
keep doing this? Why and soaring for me to keep
doing what? Why? It's so it's okay to love something
in the air of no love. It's okay to love something,
and it's okay to be great and not just not
just asks every week, what what are your monthly listeners?

(01:43:18):
And you know what I'm saying. Fine, Wait, funny side story.
I just did napp but the Napa Jazz Festival, and
let me tell everybody about these this this monthly listeners
ship for the motherfuckers. I hearna get out some gun.
Eric Roberson, M hmm my god. That's my point. Very talented, talented.

(01:43:42):
I saw him rock the Napa Jazz Festival from stage
to the wall and get these people a crazy show.
Everybody screaming with real fans. That's buying things. You know
what I'm saying. I know what you mean. You go

(01:44:04):
to monthly listeners or whatever whatever that new thing is
people do, it'll make you think like he ain't doing
that doing that. I saw it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:14):
But then on the flip side, the ones with all
these monthly listeners can't go do with daddy.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
Yeah, I know them, you know what I'm saying. We
see them.

Speaker 3 (01:44:25):
You know, listen, once we once we get into computers,
the numbers aren't real numbers anymore, you know what I mean,
all the whole the days of you know, the numbers
don't lie.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
They absolutely lie. They're absolutely you know it don't lie.
You know Michael Jackson videos with them people fainting and
crying and shaking and that feeling emotion the people people
don't lie, that feeling. I remember. I remember when I

(01:44:59):
first saw Snoop dog I was sixteen, and he walked
down the hallway and shook everybody I was. I was
at Studio fifty six. I did school to go and
just see if I could listen to Keith Crouch to
a beat at Studio fifty six and Snoop had walked
out the room and I shook his hand, and that's
when I first met him, and he shook everybody's hand
and said Snoop dog Snoop Dogg, like nobody knew who

(01:45:22):
he was. Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg, you know
what I'm saying, Why the fuck I tell that story
because that's a that's a moment in time for you though.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
Yeah, and it also it also something that stayed with
you as far as humility, I.

Speaker 1 (01:45:36):
Thought, Yeah, that's where I'm getting at, and that's that's
like I never forgot that with him. He was it
was about the people. It was beat and for Snoop,
as we see.

Speaker 2 (01:45:49):
As about as international as he is, about the people.
It's always about the.

Speaker 3 (01:45:54):
People, right, and they've always given back, always given back.
Now that that that's what separates him from anyone.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Yeah, he's from anyone. He is. He's absolutely the guy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:05):
Yeah, you know what I mean because Snoop is everyone's
family member and he supports everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:46:11):
Yeah, he supports everybody. Energy is always amazing energy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
I want to ask you something too, though, about what
you're on now, Nintendo. So that Forever record Bro, Me
and Knife wonder Ah, Bro, that's my boy. I love
that rec Thank you man. I love that record, Bro.
Thank like you got you.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
Got your you got your Roger Troutman on on there.
I did that record sixteen years ago. What that record
sixteen years old, fifteen or sixteen years old, I have
to be doing music, bro, Warren Carroll told me, a
recording artist job is to record every day. I'll be
on the same page off this whole time. I'm recording today.
I have a show tonight. I took a break book

(01:46:55):
Larybie to record and go back to those shows. I
record every day. Songs are my I look at songs
and certain things as apartment buildings, little houses, little this little,
that little that little that real estate. Bro. Every day,
what I got to student? No house, Yeah that's what
that's Yeah, that's how she get paid for I mean technically, yeah, yeah,

(01:47:17):
on some way. So you know, I'm just speaking to
me right now because I got to sit there at
my house and I don't use it talk. Warren Campbell
told me. Say it again. Warren Campbell told me, Warren
Campbell told me that's a T shirt. If you artist,
your job is to record every day. When he told me,
that changed my life because I'm like, what else I
rather I'm not driving a fork lift. Respectfully, I'm not.

(01:47:38):
I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not the you know,
you want to know work, the the it was a
blackout in my neighborhood and the electricians that I got
to climb on that thing with kids at home. That's work.
That's work writing a song, whether I like it or not,
because everything I write ain't good. Most of it is
not good. But I get it out every day. You
know what I'm saying. You know, you know? And I

(01:48:01):
got different buttons from my work, like I know if
I'm going into it, No, I don't have those buttons
no more. I don't have no expectations, no more. Yeah.
But it's also like.

Speaker 2 (01:48:13):
It's how I tell people when it comes to fitness,
and they're like, well, how do you always stay in shape?

Speaker 1 (01:48:21):
Like what do you do? What's your regimen? I said,
My regimen is something? What do you mean by something?
Every day? I do something something right. It don't have
to be the most strenuous thing or I don't have
to lift the whole gym, but some did something. I
do something. I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with that,

(01:48:42):
the workout thing because because I'm that's just a real
thing in my life because my father, I just know
what health is and how important it is and everything.
But I always struggle with like working out and then stopping.
But right now I've been really meditating and just chanting,
trying to just like like I'm going to I want
to fall in love working out about deals in music.
I want to fall in love with it, because I

(01:49:03):
think that's like it's it's kind of weird for me
to keep being his music guy and not be in
loving all the My health is fine, but really I
think if I'm helping people to clearn the music, I
got to help the whole ring of things. Because the
doctor said, man, my dad would have been there five
years ago. The only thing I say to him is
his core, the core, the core, the core, and I

(01:49:25):
never will forget. My dad used to be like, you
better some crunches, you fat motherfucker, so squatch or something. Boy,
he lived five more years because yeah, it's healthy. It
was like even when I mean, he was so strong
from every day. He died at seventy six, so he
stopped working out at like seventy right when he got
real sick. But every day, man, he was for real,
like doing something three times a day, squad. Like my

(01:49:47):
earliest memory is listening to him listening to Cold Train
with a forty five pounds weight and doing squats ore burpies,
burpies squats and then practicing the drums. It never was.
It never was health without music in my in my life.
You know, I think I got that ship from hanging out,
you know what I'm saying. But yeah, the hell thing

(01:50:08):
is real, like the food thing is real. Like that
ship is so real. You know what I'm saying. You
get your blood work, yeah, okay, yeah, your blood work.
Some late night drinks, some stress, the musical nights, some
tequilas hanging make you drink a lot of water. Make
sure you eat. You gotta eat, because what do you eat?

(01:50:32):
You got to carry around like a steak with nose
with pepper on it. Carry it around though. You got
a ziplock in my back pocket. Yeah, are you that
guy that it's like I'm weighing the broccoli. No, it's not.
He just does the work. Most duders are safe, don't.
They eat burgers and everything. But I perceive I don't eat.

Speaker 2 (01:50:52):
I don't eat like I'm a moderation guy.

Speaker 1 (01:50:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50:56):
So, I mean the fancy term is poor in control,
but that's that's not really what I do. I just don't.
I just don't eat a lot of food naturally. So
for me, with the work that I do, I actually
should be eating more food. Wow, but it's hard for
me to. I just had to just program them. Just

(01:51:18):
worried that way to not eat more food. But I
have my snacks.

Speaker 1 (01:51:22):
But you grew up.

Speaker 2 (01:51:23):
Yeah, plus because because it's like plus it was a
balance for me. I wanted to play football and play
for three churches.

Speaker 1 (01:51:35):
See you know what I'm saying. So so that tells
me he just he wanted all. I mean, well at
that time, I was you know, the Lord was first.
I wasn't you know, I wasn't really about that n
PC earlier. It gives you a different different level respectfully.

(01:51:55):
You know a lot of guys be you know, they
get intimidated by the athletes and everything. Like like a
lot a lot of guys, I know you don't understand.
We don't. I don't get that yet, but it's a
real thing for I've always I remember just hanging out
with a gang homegirls back in the day, and one
homegirl let me know, she said, she's so cool because

(01:52:16):
you just be making me laugh. I said, oh, just
be a listener.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
And just hey, man, I started writing the secrets.

Speaker 1 (01:52:28):
Man, I start writing songs because you know, and I
grew I love women. I grew up you know, my
Mama raised me daughters. I love a woman. I respect
the woman. I think women are the most powerful human
beings on this earth. I think that the woman is
so powerful. So I love them all the way. So
I've always loved just to be connected with women. I
love the point of views that I learned so much

(01:52:49):
from them. So like I was always I always had
a lot of homegirls, you know what I'm saying, And
you know, I just used to learn so much. That's
why I was writing certain kind of music like they was.
I sit down listen to my homegirls talk, and they
always say, Man, you know, dude, don't listen, don't listen,
don't listen, don't listen. I said, all we just got
to write a hundred songs about listening, right.

Speaker 3 (01:53:09):
No, Because the other part about it is, as they say,
the gift will open the doors right, all doors the
doors right. But there's something about and I talk about
this here and there, there's something about magic. This thing
that we do is magic. Jumping from the free throw
line really ain't magic. I listen all due respect, catch

(01:53:32):
the touchdown.

Speaker 1 (01:53:33):
I get it. I respect it. I respect it. You
can learn that.

Speaker 3 (01:53:37):
You can learn that. You can't learn this type of magic.
You can learn trickery because that's being that's a magic,
smoking mirrors, that's that's that's trickery. With all due respect,
this thing is not trickery. No, it's either you know
how to grab it out the sky. You've opened up

(01:53:59):
your porter, talk to talk. Are you having That's it,
and that does and that has nothing to do with
with a hit record. It's a feeling. I can sing
something to you or write or play you something that
I wrote that evokes feeling.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
I got you. Listen. He just said that whole crowd
and Eric Roberson is magic, He's.

Speaker 2 (01:54:26):
I saw Eric Robertson at Howard University as a kid
in high school and me, I'm the you know, I'm
the vocal gymnast. I got all, I got all that,
you know what I'm saying. And they keep talking about
this Eric Robson. Okay, he probably cool. And I watched

(01:54:47):
him play and sing.

Speaker 1 (01:54:50):
I don't think he had no shoes on. And he
wasn't doing he wasn't doing all that ship I was doing. Yeah,
I'm doing all that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
He was in their souls focused and I'm looking at
him like, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:55:12):
You what you're doing? You are? I need that in
that bag. When I saw the whole crowd sun dresses,
get the dance, I said, I need to make a subject.
Ain'ted some covers and he's arranged. I'm like, he giving
a show. He's a monster.

Speaker 2 (01:55:34):
You don't want to come behind him as well. He
knows his gift, he knows what he got the millions
on that one song. You don't want to go behind there, Robinson.

Speaker 3 (01:55:43):
Show because in this music thing, as it relates to people,
there's no contract you can look up because the contract
don't matter. I don't care what Kendrick Lamar makes other
than the music that he makes. I don't care about
the money that he makes from it. I don't care

(01:56:04):
that Prince didn't own his masters in the beginning. It
didn't matter because when Purple Rain came on, Jesus Christ,
when Darling Nicky came on, you better talk that talk,
you know what I'm saying, Like, let's let's be let's
be real with this thing.

Speaker 1 (01:56:20):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:56:20):
When Sexual Healing came on, I go, there's no way
I'm not googling the contract that was connected to it,
and that to me is what is the true separator
of music in any other industry.

Speaker 1 (01:56:37):
Yeah, yeah, and you need some records and.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
They're trying because what they're trying to do is put
that on top of what this music thing is. Well,
how many records did he sell it? And listen, between
the three of us, we got that part. We sold
a lot of records.

Speaker 1 (01:56:55):
We've made some good money doing this thing.

Speaker 3 (01:56:58):
That has nothing to do with the respect that we
all have for each other of the music that we've created.

Speaker 1 (01:57:05):
Way different. It's way different. That's true. That's way different.
It's magic.

Speaker 3 (01:57:10):
Like you said earlier, it's magic, bro absolutely magic, and
I thank God every day that I can create magic.

Speaker 1 (01:57:17):
I mean the add to that, I'm even thinking of
the past past, maybe five six years. A lot of
artists I've noticed a lot of younger artists, they go
in and they do the worst. A lot of them
I've worked with. They they go in and do some

(01:57:38):
of the worst mistakes, which is going in trying to
create the hit, trying to create the hit. And I
always I always try to tell the cats, you know,
when you try to create the hit, for me personally
my opinion, some people got the power to say boom,
it's a hit. I bless them. Yeah yeah, but I

(01:57:59):
feel like some of about trying to create something that's
not in your control. It's like a mind fuck and
it kills all the positive frequencies out the whole session
because your name and records that were big records, but
they're not like they're not like us not, but we
know a lot of big Like I was thinking about

(01:58:20):
what's the b side the the Bobby Callwell, now what
you're gonna do for love? Uh? Not? The one common sample,
the one biggie sample. It's not the light, it's not
what you want.

Speaker 3 (01:58:39):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the biggest sample.

Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
Right. So I remember, I'm young, a kid, but I
grew up in a household of mute. I remember when
Bobby Calwell was was a thing you thought there or
did you not know or did you know because of
the cover, nobody knew. Nobody knew, and if somebody said
they did, they lie, it's impossible that was. I talked
to him. I talked to him, and I know him,

(01:59:03):
I knew him, and nobody knew. That was why he
was so soulful. They didn't want nobody fucking know he's
so you know he was, he didn't got so many
black folks married. He's getting it off. You know what
I'm saying. Love but that But this song is like
to me a culture, a love song. It's so powerful.
It's like, but it wasn't the top ten, right, but
it's powerful when you listen to Faith Evans Caramel Kisses

(01:59:29):
on the top ten. But guess what when it comes
on as soon as I get home, chop ten for
us for magic though, first of all, that's that's that's
elerent me. The Faith Evans is she is like I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:59:46):
Know, I had to Catt. I got the cassette as
a gift. That's how much I loved her. I got
it as a gift.

Speaker 1 (01:59:51):
She's the only when I still get starstruck to be around.
I still I just.

Speaker 3 (01:59:54):
Remember Faith looking so angelic on all of her covers.
She had just a different tone, different, just like just
like she's shining.

Speaker 1 (02:00:05):
She was every she was everything for me. But them
songs felt you felt, you felt like we get we
got to know her through them songs like without even
mean her. I felt her story through them songs like
I grew up with that, So I grew up with homegirls,
with aunties, with women, you know, like that was man.

Speaker 2 (02:00:23):
I try to see people and I and I try
to give them a bit of normalcy because I know
that they've been you know, everywhere they go it's fans.
It's fans fans, and you know, then they run into
me and it's one more fans.

Speaker 1 (02:00:36):
I try to I try to give them a little bit.
It was like, you good, you know what I'm saying.
How how's the family? You know?

Speaker 2 (02:00:43):
Try to well, really, I want to be like man,
I just want to shake your head.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
For some reason, when I see Faith, I try to
get regular, but I think I always say some stupid
ship like I don't know, you know, I'm such a fan.

Speaker 2 (02:01:01):
Her something bro everything, man, everything. Let me let me
get Let me get one one thing from you.

Speaker 1 (02:01:08):
Let me get it.

Speaker 2 (02:01:09):
What would you one piece of advice that you would
tell that you would tell a super musician who wants
to do, who wants to produce? How would you tell
him in terms of making that transition about.

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):
Asking him what is the end go? Why does he
want to produce? He said, I wanted to make music
want to make music. It's the whole thing. I gotta
ask him. But but I'll tell you this if at
the end of the day, my questions will be, are
you here to make music, to make a mark in
whatever blessings come from that you take, whatever down falls

(02:01:47):
you take to or are you here to come with it.
I'm coming to get this bread because if you come
and get this bread, I can tell you I do
that too. I know the guy's gonna talk to too.
It's a thing. It's the thing that I don't like
that tell people how to do it, but it does.
It's the thing, you know, and you have to sacrifice
so much of who you are financially, business wise and
everything if you want to go straight to it in

(02:02:08):
my experience, but if you're here to make a mark
and just right you know, the massive teacher Roy Hargove
to say this, this is one of the only business music.
You got to give music one hundred and fifty percent
and hopefully you'll get back fifteen percent. You know what
I'm saying. So if you on that journey, and this
is the journey you want to be on, I got
some things I could definitely tell you, which is love,

(02:02:30):
it all, and you know, you gotta it's so dark
when I say this, but it's not. But you gotta
find a weird way to fall in love with the
pit falls just like the success. And you got to
get to be safe. You got to acknowledge when you
win andcknowledge things. But you got to kind of keep
a steady pace going on because this game is so
many valleys. You know, I've been this. I'm third generation this.

(02:02:54):
So I grew up all publishing. I grew up when
crack came in. We lived in a hotel. I've grew
up in a popular era. This I know all. I'm
a child that grew up in a record business household,
so you know. And I don't have other I do
music for a living. I don't have the ten apartment
buildings over there. I don't I do music. I'm a

(02:03:18):
I'm a real creator. I'm gonna die doing this. That's
what he said. I'm here to do. I can't fit
into no other mode. I could love everything. This is
what I'm gonna do. But if you on that real question,
you you got to fall in love with every aspect
of it. You got to fall in love at every
aspect of it, because that's the only way you're gonna
develop that thing, to stay focused on that art thing,
you know, once you start bringing the emotions to the values.

(02:03:40):
Because it's rough, especially when you ain't got the rent
money and it's bad. You got kids and everybody calling
because it's rough and nobody it's hard to get money
for everybody. So even the person calling pressing for money
is not they want to press you. It's just fucked
up for them. Y'all. Now, y'all arguing in this, but
it's all no, it's all this, it's all these things.
It's all these things that that go down. Why why

(02:04:02):
you're creative because you don't make a lot of money
when you're gambling on yourself in the beginning or whenever,
you know, I'm so much, I'm such a I want
to drop myself so much from my own company because
I keep getting I love I love the music artists
to come from the label, you know. But I would

(02:04:22):
tell a man fall in love with everything and learn
as much as you can and just be in love
and just be in love with it, man, just fall
in love with it, you know. And it's hard to
fall in love because people get the business confused with
the art. It's not the same thing. You know. The
business is the business. You know. You know people people
people do business where it works out for them. I mean,

(02:04:44):
how it the name of businesses. I gotta protect me
and my family no matter what. It is, just business,
you know, So don't be scared of that ship. I
do business all the time. I called you to clear out,
you know, I'm I'm I'm doing business because I'm like,
that's how we're gonna eat, That's how we're gonna live,
That's how we're gonna party and see each other later
on and not be weird when we see each other
in the mall. Because the business is cool. The business

(02:05:06):
has to be cool. The business. You got to focus
on business too. And it's a few ways you could
focus on business. You could go get the book like
everybody was teacher ever, go go get the book. Or
you could build your own book and run your own race.
Because certain books that's written about this business are based

(02:05:26):
off certain views things are done. My journey is completely different.
So my journey doesn't. It hadn't fit in any book yet.
I haven't read my journey yet. It's so weird, Like, yeah,
you know, it's so it's like you gotta get in,
you gotta dive in, and you can't be diving. You
got to dive in. But let me be clear though,

(02:05:48):
because all motherfuckers be you know. It's just it's it's
so tricky, man, because you know, I see so many
other most talented people make the craziest mistakes. Like I
always tell people, like my job for years, I feel
the creator got me here to where when I meet
a young artist, I be friend of doing music with them.
And it's been a couple that I've had to call

(02:06:08):
their parents like you should come get your baby. I
would come get my baby because LA getting to them
in a different kind of way. It ain't my business,
say how but you need to come and get your baby.
Two ways. A kid gonna come out here with a dream,
they gonna make it. They're gonna go back home, or
they gonna die broken heart. That's Los Angeles. That's the
entertainment business. That's what I've seen. That's just what i've seen.

(02:06:30):
I could be wrong, you know what I mean. So
it's like having that head, having that spirit right, making
sure you when you in line with your folks, like
making sure you're in line with your family members, your
mom and your daddy if they're still here. Just making
sure you align with people that got the truth. People
that's praying for you, loving you. If you're gonna be
in this game, like it's it's a real game, you know.

(02:06:51):
I don't call it bad, I don't call it good.
I call it the ball game. And I made a
conscious decision to be a part of this, you know,
So I take whatever with this. But that's that's kind
of that was my view on the streets though, I
take with that. And this is much safer than the
streets for me. When I hear rappers saying the rappers
David's job, man, shut the fuck up, you talking ship

(02:07:12):
getting chased. You, shut the fuck up. You can go home.
You know what I'm saying. You know that, and not
could be sensitive some but you know, you know I'm
from that thing. So I just get let's get home,
you know. But we gotta respect this ball game. I
would tell I would tell all these things, like and
just do good music. If you're good, we'll hear about you.

(02:07:34):
We always do it, don't we. We always hear about him. Again.
I remember hit Boy, and when I first saw hit Boy.
Uh uh. Paulo to Don, Pollo to Don. He was
in l A for a while, and Paulo's like, man,

(02:07:54):
I really want to work with Snoop. And I was like,
all right, let me let me ship. I'm gonna bring
him by the studio. Could press play, I'm bringing bad
So I go pick up Snoopy, go see Paulo and
donnad record plant. He playing these beats. I'm like, oh,
he played when that's a monster. Everybody bobbing their head.
But I see this little kid in the back, a
little kid, a teenager kid, Like you know what I'm saying, Like, Loo,

(02:08:16):
get headphones. He ain't saying nothing. Years later, he said, hey, bro,
remember that studio session, follow Don. That was my beating.
That was me in the back. And I said, man,
I'm glad I was nice to you because you are
a monster. God, I'm glad I'm on the other side
of you, because you are a monster. Hit Boy a monster.

(02:08:36):
He is a monster. You see what he's doing with
his father. That's that's the human. That's that's that's the part,
that's that's that's the trophy that the game won't give you.
But that's the trophy that the universe and the creator
will give you that that that's the thing that after
the game is washed up with you in all this situation,
we all gotta go home and be along. We all,

(02:08:58):
we all got to pay the pipe, good or bad,
I ever gotta go. That's what you do. That's what
you do to secure your family, your spirit, your touch.
That's important this game. That's what you do to secure that.
You don't listen to nobody else. You roll with your folks. Man.
When my daddy finally got cancer, but I did so

(02:09:20):
many records on him, all my records that grabbed me.
Now everything Kendrick loses all my dad playing drums, I do.
That's what you do. That's that's how you put in
a stone for your babies. You know, your daughter sing,
I got my oldest daughters, the beast, the beast. That's
the beast. I thought, you know, I thought about that

(02:09:40):
because that was me and my dad. Like we we
bonded so much over music and recording together. You know
what I'm saying. That's recording man, that's yeah, you know,
I forgot what I'm talking about again. Up let me
say this though, it's do what I want to talk

(02:10:00):
about that. Nobody talks about him, but people talk about
him with a certain era. His name is Reggie Andrews,
the producer and writer for a group called the Dazz Band.
Yeah Teacher, Yeah teacher, music teacher, a lot dh teacher
that taught Patrise, Russian, Tyrese, Tyresse, a real Reggie baby.

(02:10:24):
Shout out to Reese for always being on debt Tyrese,
Jold Albright, Patrise, Russian, Kamasi, Washington, Terrace, Martin Thundercat, like
Jay Swift from the Far Side, like his His list
of successful artists that all could afford place to live
on her own is huge, and that's a hard thing

(02:10:45):
to do, you know. Shout out to Reggie Andrews because
just deep I thought about this. So my father came
to LA from New York in nineteen seventy four, and
in New York in the seventies, in the early age,
it was like, you get to LA, you got a
find Reggie Andrews. He's a big producer. He gonna put
you on. Reggie Andrews. My dad comes, everybody comes. Reggie

(02:11:05):
so cracking. Nobody never finds him. He's in Holly, he's
doing he's he's arranging, he's doing huge records producer and uh,
it's just funny. I think about that story because Reggie
so important to meet me and Thanny Cat always like
without him, Without Reggie Andrews's no to pimper Butterfly. We
started to pimp a Butterfly in Reggie's van in the nineties.

(02:11:26):
That's when that record started. We started coming up with
those weird, freaky, unorthodox, strange ideas because of Reggie, Andrews
gave Thundercat myself all these different keys to unlocked doors
in your brain, young black kids. So my father came
out here to find Reggie and he never found him.
And then ironically I go to I go to Santa Monica. Hi,

(02:11:46):
I'm getting to a little trouble. I got kicked off
for a fighting a gun case. They sat out a gun, right,
So I go to JAM I come out of jail.
I got I gotta change schools. There's no other school
I could go. I'm playing. I'm playing saxophone though I'm
on my shit. I'm but I'm selling guns at the time.
I'm not robbing, I'm not killing it. I'm not a fighter.
I'm a lover. I love making love and music. You know.

(02:12:08):
You know what I'm saying. I'm just selling a gun.
I'm not a punk, though, but I'm just selling a gun.
And because I got to say that so it won't
be this weird, because it ain't no when you're from
the hood, like I mean, you ain't trying to be hard.
That's regular, like you just trying to get some money.
You ain't tripping like that. So it ain't the glorious
hood story I'm giving you. I'm just trying to sell
a gun. I got hemmed up, ended up, getting kicked
out of the whole school district. I had nowhere to go,

(02:12:30):
but I was excelling the music so high. All the
district was hearing about me. But now I had this
like this sixteen year old kid, a concealed loaded weapons
following you, and I would tell you I have trauma.
That's why I keep saying I was selling the gun.
It still bothers me where I stay. I was only
selling them, I wasn't. I don't hurt nobody. I'm not
a gangster. I'm just hanging. You know, I just know
the language. I just grew up around the guys. You

(02:12:51):
know what I'm saying, I'm just doing music. But Reggie
Andrews took a chance because the security man watch out
guy work the security at Santa Monica High School name
was mad Dog. Mad Dog was a drummer. I also
knew my dad. I never knew this, but mad Dog
was a drummer in La. He knew my dad. Mad
Dog was best friends with Reggie Andrews and they had
a little thing where Reggie would tap into all the

(02:13:12):
high schools to see who's the young kids playing music.
I need to get him to my school. I need
to get him to my school. So mad Dog had
been watching me and one day I never catch He said, hey, man,
these folks out here don't understand you. Man, Man, you're
gonna have to get to a real black school. And
I was like, man, I'm going to crench Shaw because
that's my school district. He said, Man. So I got
kicked out. Mad Dog called my mom and said, my

(02:13:34):
friend Reggie Andrews would like to take a meeting with you.
He has a school that your son would excel in.
And he could almost he saw his grades. He could
almost guarantee almost Niggas was saying almost that he would
get into a college, and that was a big deal
then because it wasn't looking like I was going nowhere.
I was just playing a horn and studying Cold Trane,
having a kid young and trying to have other kids

(02:13:55):
probably at that time. And so mad Dog's old Reggie Man,
Reggie came to my mom and I remember sat down.
My mom was like, so what you do. He was like,
I know what to do with him. Like, I've seen
his grades, I heard him play. Everybody talks say, he's
a good kid. He's a little trouble. I know he's
going through some trouble, you know, and he's had he's
at a turning point in his like for he gonna
either go here or he gonna go full fledged here.

(02:14:17):
And in my head, I was never going to go
full fledged here, but I probably would have went full
fledged out of pure pressure of not wanting to be
called weird or not want to be just not want
to be not in the end crowd as a young
black kid. That's I probably would have done some dumb
shit like most, like most a lot of my friends didn't,
you know. So I never wanted to be a street dude.
So when Reggie got to me, my mom was like,
what school you teach at? And when that nigga said

(02:14:40):
Lock High. Now y'all don't know, do y'all research on
lock High? Lock High? At this time? It's one of
LA's crazy at school. This is like one of the
first schools with the metal detect. This is like he's
oh no, no, no, no. This is like they found
a girl hanging from it. Like this is a whole.
This is like we When he said Lock High, me
and my mama say, I ain't going to lock Hall.

(02:15:01):
I'm not going to lock Call. I ain't gotta go.
I'll go to I ain't gotta go to Crenshaw, but
I'm not going to Lot And he said hear me out.
I mean, he broke it down, while I should go
to lock Card. And the best thing I did in
my life, man, was go to lock Card. That first
day I went to that school, tenth grade. The first
day I win. He said, the first day you went,
we have to play. Bill Clint was was doing his run,

(02:15:23):
trying to be a president, trying to be the president
at the time he ended up being coming to President.
Ty Reese was there. He had some brown leather boots.
So then I got oh Man. Anyway, So Reggie Andrew.
So the first gig, Brandy's there, Reggie has me there.
It's a big band and it's with Wayne Shorter. And
this is the first time I'm seeing Kemasi Washington, the

(02:15:44):
first time I'm seeing done that. The first time I'm
seeing really an NPC is at Lock High School. Because
Reggie was building a crew of he knew what he
was doing, and all of us went to colleges. It
ain't one dummy off the crew. Camasi at u c
l A. I went to cal Arts and you seet
Ronald Cayle Larks though the only one did go to
school because he was he didn't. He was already with
Eric about doing doing all the records with thunder Cat,

(02:16:06):
but everybody had options to go to. He made sure
our grades was up and the musical he was up.
He would do things like, uh, terrors, you want to
do this shit for real? He like, Okay, I'm gonna
take you on a field trip. We're going to Tyree's
house because Tyree's graduated two years before me. Right four,
Me and respectful. First of all, we we love Tyree.
I still love Reese. But we used to get sick

(02:16:27):
here in Tyree's name because Reggie, he was so proud
of Tyree. He'd be like, come on, because did you
see what Tyree's doing? So we grew up being like
come on because another Tyree story, like so Tyre's in
high school for us was like he was the model,
right but and I never told Tyree this, And I
never told this is kind of deep. I thought about
this in the shower. This is brand I thought about
this in my life. I was like, when did I

(02:16:48):
first want to? I started looking at my house, like
why am I in this house? Why did I? How
did I get here? How ma in this community? How
am I? I just had a weird brain fart, like
how did I get here? Like night ship?

Speaker 2 (02:17:04):
How do I?

Speaker 1 (02:17:04):
How do I do this? Though? And I said, Reggie
took me on a field trip to Tyreese's house. His
tyres had just started making bread. He had a house
in Temecula. I never seen I never seen. I never
seen nobody close to my age that was still hood,

(02:17:24):
still pulling up. I never seen nobody with a kitchen
with an island in it, like it was life changing.
And I remember I remember it like yesterday. I don't
know his manager. He was filming something and he was
on a strict diet. He didn't say that, but I
knew because it's the first time I seen like this
is this is gonna be funny, this is for real.
I was seventeenth the first time I seen like a boneless,

(02:17:45):
skinless chicken breast with a piece of broccoli with no season.
I just remember like, why is he eating that ship?
But he's all in shape, you know, And I just
remember him being like cool. I remember me asking him.
I remember asking him a question like because I didn't
grow with Tyres, we from the school this class later,
but we feel like he's our bigger if we was
in a attorney, he's our bigger brother, and we have

(02:18:07):
all the respect for Tyree. He's a bad motherfucker. And
where he come from it let me tell you something
you don't but whatever Reese go through, and let me
tell you something, where he come from is a different thing,
you know. So I get the whole artistic bobe with him.
But uh, that fucking island man, He had an island,

(02:18:29):
and I didn't know, why do you need this? But
he was so cool man. And I remember asking him
because I was kind of like, let me see if
he knows what's up. Kim Barell just came out with
Everlasting Life at that time, or it was about to
come out with somebody. Everlasting Life was out, and I
was like, you know, Kim Morell is and he was like,

(02:18:50):
that's my folks hard and he was so like, I said, damn,
that's hip that Tyreese is hip to Kim Barell. You know,
I wouldn't he be if I'm just an asshole kid
that going through the same school he went to, and
my teachers always saying, yeah, he called that, you know,
but tyre has always been like he wrote from Afar,

(02:19:15):
but so close. Reggie Andrews to always want to get
us to work together, like he was busy and I
was always but our birthdays. I think my birthday is
December twenty win this races. This is the December first
I got Reggie's text. All your birthdays around that same
Reggie always said, hey, I'm calling Tyree's next. On thirty

(02:19:36):
twenty five years on the birthday text. You know, ask
Ty's about Reggie's birthday text. I'm sure you know it's
a real thing. Like so Tyree, Tyree comes from that
thing though, see it gets deep. He comes from that channel.
He comes from that channel. So it's like him acting, singing,
being so poetic when he talked, all this is that's

(02:19:59):
he comes from the Reddy Andrews. He's he's one of
our most important black artists in the world that just
so happens to be from Watts. M M. It ain't
it ain't easy. That's a bad motherfucker. It's a bad motherfucker. Man,
Reggy Andrews, you gonna be like talking, Okay, Goddamn. When
I saw Tyree's house, I said, I gotta be like Tyree,

(02:20:21):
cut my hair, go ball, sweet lady. I love him, Man,
TANJ Martin. Yes, your top five R and B singers,
R and B. You know all all that all it

(02:20:43):
all encompasses the whole universe of singers. Let's just say
that half your way. Charlie Wilson, keep running, keep on running,
Faith Evans, yet or not. You better not do this,
not in this order, this order. You better not tank Uh.

(02:21:08):
It's okay, okay, you take it, just takes. It's hard
for me to take that too. People's I just I
turned my head down. Just weird. It's it's it's the
church and it's so weird and the studio. We could
do it though, with a certain kind of but just no, brother,

(02:21:28):
is that four three perfect? Not in this order? Eric Dawkins, Yeah,
since yeah, but way, I've seen all these people make
up things in the moment. That's I'm judging the whole.
It's a lot of things I'm judging off of. I've
seen all these artists create songs in the middle of

(02:21:49):
sound checks and tags the end of songs. I seen
all these artists sang when the mics was messed up.
I've seen all these artists when I've seen all these
artists at all the levels. Yeah, been to so many
and yourself no so uh, I said Eric Dawkins, benefit
of his since ninety five. I'm with you, yep, talks

(02:22:11):
and talkings. Got one more. God rest his soul. Jesse Powell.
Oh yeah, yeah, Jesse. We're talking about the level right, Oh,

(02:22:33):
the level, talking about the level, I'm talking about intonations,
saying performance, theatory syllables. Oh thing, Daniel eye. I've seen
them singing praise and worship. I seen him seeing to
a woman. I've seen I've seen Jesse when I was younger,
Auder and back then I said, man, they oh yeah,

(02:22:55):
the one He's gonna inspire too many good things. They don't.
Nobody even fries to re sing that Record're good, We're
good people leave you alone good. Yeah, that's a record,
We're good. That's the record smash. But nobody plays around
with that. No, leave it alone.

Speaker 3 (02:23:17):
Man.

Speaker 1 (02:23:17):
You remember Jesse's range? What there are? There are lanes
and levels. Man, that that's just five. But though if
I was me and Robert always blasts were always saying
we was going to war and we had to fight
and heal the world with music. What top piano player with?
Those are my five that I know. I could go

(02:23:39):
anywhere from all the levels from heart thriving music core
changes to dexterity to that's just the five. I know.

Speaker 3 (02:23:46):
They taken off phase off Pasey that you know you
don't when need to come to the park like I
got my five?

Speaker 1 (02:23:51):
Yeah, I got my You know what I'm saying, that's
you know, songwriter, I got a song. I gotta all all.
We do this a lot Top five R and B songs.
Whoa oh, he said, I like that list some more
water Man. We got some more water Man. Top R

(02:24:11):
and B songs. Oh okay, here we go, Here we go,
Top five, thank you by the top five R and
B songs. You could tell a lot by a person
about these answers. Jennet Jackson any time, any place. My

(02:24:44):
heart belongs to you. Do that. Next rendition, rest in peace,
Kenny A Ribbon the sky.

Speaker 2 (02:24:55):
Hm hmm.

Speaker 1 (02:24:58):
We don't talk about Kenny A lot that we haven't.
You just brought something crazy that had a song called
coming Side.

Speaker 2 (02:25:14):
Yeah, you let me, if you let me, if you
the tone though, it's the tone, the arrangement, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:25:26):
So that's that's three. Tevin Campbell, Now can we talk.
I know where you're going. Come on, set you by
the fire, your place. You know what I'm saying. Break
it down, can get it down?

Speaker 2 (02:25:46):
Press wrote that bottle stop playing? Yeah yeah, I mean
I don't want no said. I can't let you do
it by yourself. Come on, I need it back. I
need that back.

Speaker 1 (02:26:00):
That's four. You went too crazy on my record. I
need it back. Uh now I need faith even as
soon as I get home. No, no, no, no, come
over sorry come over fight That was once you come

(02:26:22):
over and make a lot of me. Yeah, because that
song hit a certain way in my Honda Core when
that came out, Come on, Chucky, come on man, come
on Chuck. When you finally brought that car boom, dude, dude,

(02:26:43):
oh manm keyboard sounds with and you had two twelves
in the back, that's when that's when that's when you
would just you would pick up the young lady. You know,
both of y'all in high school. Everybody's of age, same age.
You know, everybody's seventeen together to say that these days here,
so I'm in behind the core, I'm banging faith that was.

(02:27:04):
But this is when you on purpose in La you
just drive fast in the Gutta line for no reason,
looking straight while the girl in the car and you're
playing faith that she's scared going fast, but the faith
that was just still than her and you're just looking
and you just you saying the words I lived this

(02:27:25):
R and B ship broke because they're only so cool
in the can push it to the streets. You ain't
going and yo, remember the air your tape collection and
your CD collection was how everybody yea and to see
the evening I want to hear the city booklet.

Speaker 3 (02:27:44):
Come on man, Yeah, I had the black leather boot
want the move, we said, But I was writing my
own songs to the fifteen, so I have you know,
I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:27:54):
Yeah, yeah yeah you go oh yeah yeah Maxill It
was like yeah, Max, yeah, all that was five yeah yeah,
actually hit us with two. That's all good because you know,

(02:28:14):
you get weird when they come around. I love every
time I see be like some music, like some music.
Here we go. Let's make your vulture on your super
r and B artists easy.

Speaker 2 (02:28:30):
We want to know who you're going to get the
particulars from, Who you're gonna get the vocal from, who
you gonna get the performance style from, the styling, the
passion of the artists, and.

Speaker 1 (02:28:45):
What all star musical cast is going to play for
this artist. Yeah, it's different. You expect that one. Okay,
I'm gonna get Aaron Ray going on what vocal? Whole plan?
What vocal are you getting for this artist? One vocal?
Which which second? I know you the singer A right?

(02:29:11):
Mm hmmm, I.

Speaker 2 (02:29:15):
Spelled performing right, styling a right, passion a right? What
group of musicians is playing for?

Speaker 1 (02:29:36):
There we go, Now it's real. The group of musicians
playing for Aaron Ray is uh.

Speaker 2 (02:29:46):
Whom I heard all the names, you know, I know
the names.

Speaker 1 (02:29:55):
I know all those names. You know, you know the
group of Aaron Ray. I would can I get a
little bit in death? I would want to get. I
would go to get. I would find out what spend
a month going to midnight musicals and I would get

(02:30:18):
a bunch of young cats to play with them young cats,
and I would take them, take them to a rehearsal place.
And I was would we would? We would study the
genuine tapes. We will study the genuine tapes. We will
do these things. Because Aaron Ray needs a band that's
he needs a different kind of He needs a band
that's just like that band. But he needs one guy
that's a jazzy, real piano guy. He's a jazzy guy

(02:30:40):
because he likes jazz, but he needs that. He's an
R and B guy. He in the gym right now.
He like Baby Tank, he got the he doing it
and he's serious about that. So he needs a band
that understands that show. The one thing about the genu
Wine band, the music was a high level, but the
show was a high level. The backgrounds and you know
geniu Wine, all these Genie Wine was the first singer

(02:31:00):
shout out to genu Wine too, and this this takes
strength and courage to have the type of background singers
genu Wine used to be. It takes courage even for
some of these bands to say they had Dave Polisher
singing background. Yeah. Yeah, that takes a good person that's
secure and his biceping. He used to dance all crazy,

(02:31:20):
all kind of ship and he could sign don't get
it fucked up. His thing is his thing. But Aaron
Ray is like to me, because I've I've I've I've
had Aaron with me in New York at the Blue Note.
That's like the training ground. It's two sets tonight. But
people that don't know you and I want to see
and he bam. The musicians would be all young casts.

(02:31:42):
But but I would I would go get knee signed,
m M. The anchor, the anchor it that season, to
anger that that new, to blend that, because Aaron Ray
is that songwise, James Finload would write everything. You write everything,
you right everything, He would write everything because I would
have to treat this like a car wash a little

(02:32:03):
bit to really do it, in my opinion, to do
it how I see it. Where it could be done
at this crazy level. I would get James farl Royd
to write it to an R. The an R is
tricky because it's such a high level record. I would
have to go get Sycamore or somebody left to go
an R. You know what I mean, A couple of

(02:32:24):
an rs. I have to get after pay Tina Davis
a consulting fee mm hmm, to figure out how to
push this thing through. I mean it's a whole thing.
M The publicism, now that's tricky. I love them all.
Where we would cut the record, that would be larrybie Man.
He would mix the record, yep. The musicians on the record.

(02:32:47):
We would do a blend because even with James writing it,
I would still blend like I would randomly go get
like a what does James sound like? With exkewoy Q
writing and go get sew you to get like, what
what does that sound like? Because I could put all

(02:33:07):
of them in one wrong. I could do it. That's
my thing is putting oil and water together making it smoke,
you know. But that's what I would do with an
artist like Aaron Rakers because I feel as has everything
going for him. I feel he's such a different type
of artists. He just needs to be surrounded with a
certain type of a thing, you know, because he does
all the work himself, and he's a bad motherfucker. I

(02:33:27):
don't need anyone, but I know with them type of artists,
those special ones. It's the reason why we all work
for a reason. It's the reason why those names are
the names we just. The only thing different I would
do is involved the live band with the live young
because I'm into young musicians. I love young energy.

Speaker 2 (02:33:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:33:46):
I'll even deal with the show up later a few
times to the airport, something about the young musician. I
get monsters, you know what I'm saying. Monsters, Hey man,
I do a fire song album with you all ballt
us with strings though we'd have Derek God to the strings.
We'd have Darrey do the strings, and it would be
we would write the tunes kind of like jazz. Thenny

(02:34:08):
but R and B. You know jazz. They go to
the bridge like, what's the cat? Everybody likes this cat.
I'm not man. I don't want to disrespect the white
guy Blue Black, Michael Blue. Yeah, everybody likes that guy.
That's like small world music to me. But everybody likes
that thing. We don't have nobody in our world that's

(02:34:28):
seeing that kind of music and attacking hearts. The queen
some more joys doing it from a jazz perspector, But
we don't have you. You you could bridge that man,
because the piano with the strings, we don't do nothing
up temple. If it's up temple, it's just a mid
temple box and nova. It ain't nothing fast. It's just
like it's when you do this. We going to the
Kennedy Center. We're going back to d C with the orchestra. Well,
you know what happens when you say stuff on the

(02:34:49):
Army Money podcast. Binding I've been telling you. You know
that's what I'm saying it like you have to do it.
I mean when I was first hearing Tank around, you know,
I used to be on Molly so much. Tank. Tank
was another guy I would I would get starstruck four,
but the Mollys too. I'd be like, hey, Tank. In

(02:35:14):
my head, I had a whole talk with him, like
I love the music.

Speaker 2 (02:35:17):
Man.

Speaker 1 (02:35:17):
Yeah, we gotta problem, era the problem.

Speaker 2 (02:35:27):
The problem ah man, I liked everybody I shouldn't like.

Speaker 1 (02:35:36):
Like everyone. That makes me a lover more of a lover. Yeah,
I used to give good love speeches all night, seven hours.
What talk to me? I used to accidentally confess the
truth when I shouldn't have. Certain times, I've been there,
Like i've been there, I've had to hear the truth.
Don't tell me that.

Speaker 4 (02:35:55):
Man, Here we go, ship, you got cham I ain't
saying no next day, I ain't saying no names.

Speaker 1 (02:36:08):
I ain't saying no names. Ain't saying no name.

Speaker 2 (02:36:10):
He was what you need.

Speaker 1 (02:36:15):
She ain't saying no. That's stupid. Yeah, come on now,
come on you you're here. Now you're here. You really welcome.

Speaker 3 (02:36:32):
He said, you wanted to come on the podcast, come
on there. So it's the moment I saw Punch. I
saw I saw the story. Punch was clever with that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:40):
I like how Punch did it funny and fucked up
a funny and fucked up. Maybe it was high. Maybe
you wasn't. Maybe, Oh man, the only rule to the
game is you can't say no name, not one. That's
the only rule. Oh man. The year was two thousand fourteen.

(02:37:06):
I like what I'm going. I love the year twenty fourteen.
I just got down with some very important records, very
important records that helped. When I say important, I mean
they helped people. They helped more than me, They helped
the people, they helped the whole world. So I never
go on to row. But being a producer, hustler, what

(02:37:28):
you do you follow that record? The artis Wan't you
going to road for a couple of months? Why now
let's go. We just got to know the album. Don't
chip on a weekly money. I'll get you on that
production agreement. Don I got you. Let's go. It's I
go on the road. Now. This is when I I've
came to the realization at this age, I think I'm
like thirty six at this time or something like that.

(02:37:48):
So this is the this is the run that made
me say, Okay, you can't hang with these young motherfuckers
no more. It's you. You gotta hang with your world.
This is different you used to be. This is different.
So we're touring all over. The artist has a very
good record. It's going up, it's going big. It's not
Kenrick Lamoar. So it's not that kill Oh. I can't

(02:38:09):
say nothing, but I gotta say that because I can't
say that. So we're out of town. We go to
New York. It's the artist first time sold. Our show
New York is cracking. Everybody's in New York. Everybody's coming
to this show. I can't say no names, but a
lot of my guest list is very who's who in
New York, like you know, and this is like early,
This is like we we we're just about to start

(02:38:31):
the run. So we already we already kicked them off,
but we now we're about to start to run. So
you know, you know, when when you're hot, everybody comes
to the show. God guy, So everybody's coming to the show.
We have a good time. This is another friend of
mine that was involved and with this that was involved musically,
got in business with a friend of mine from Atlanta,

(02:38:57):
got in business with a tequila company. Right, and everybody
knows I drink tequila. I love tequila, right. I was
drinking a lot more in tequila than though. This is
like when somebody said tequila was a guy that I
started thinking of. At least I'm having ala veria in
my at at least I'm going through this whole thing.
So it's a health benefit to tequila at least, you
know what I'm saying. Liquor courage anyway, So he said, team, man,

(02:39:22):
I know you try this. Man, it's try this all nice.
I said, I'm gonna try it on stage. I'll said
to Tequila about my keyboards. I'm playing and I'm not
it's smooth. I'm like, this is smooth. One of those
expensive bottles, heavy bottles. So I'm like it gotta be good.
So I'm just drinking until I'm seeing, you know, a
little buzz. I'm cool chilling. Now it's the end of
the show. I didn't get too lifted, just coupled. But

(02:39:43):
when we got back backstage, I started trying taking shots.
I'm usually good at this time my life. To be
able to move and now have a hangover and get
that car time and not say nothing out of pocket.
I'm like, I'm good. I'm like a seven to eight shot.
Good dude right now with water consistent moving around the party.
You feel me. I'm like, so, I'm but I got

(02:40:04):
to my sixth shot and I was like, man, it
used to be the show called your TV Rats with
with with Doctor Dray and Ed Lover and aed love
to do this dance like this, No, Chris, Now that's
something holding the show. That's BT wrapped Chris the Mayor,
the mayor on BT The mayor Sorry, sorry lover. The
Mayor used to do this dance and all I remember

(02:40:27):
me for some reason, I'm sober, but my bodies start going.
I'm like, what's going on? It's making me feel weird,
like this liquor. So long story short, I don't remember
what happened. Right. I wake up in the morning. I
met the w hotel in New York. I'm not gonna
say which one, but I woke up. I'm like, where's

(02:40:51):
my clothes? Why am I? Where am I clothes? Where
am I? Where am I? Where are my clothes? No? No,
I'm like, okay, Actually, I'm like, oh, I must have
got drunk and just took them off and got in
a bed. So I got up and like, let me
find my clothes, and I'm like, where's my saxophone. Where's
my clothes? I see my saxophone neck in the mouthpiece.

(02:41:12):
I'm like, I don't have no clothes, no clothes. I'm like,
wear am my clothes? I'm like, I'm thinking. So I
get a knock on the door by the artist I'm
working with, and he brings me my clothes. He said, Hey,
don't even worry about it. Take your clothes. So later

(02:41:36):
I got dressed, I said, man, how'd you get my clothes? Bro?
Was you in my room playing a game and stole
my clothes? Well, how did you get my clothes? Bro?
He said, I heard you banging on the door on
the tenth floor. Your room's on the fifth. You kept
saying you had to use the bathroom. I just looked

(02:41:56):
at my people. I didn't come out, but I just
went back and you got naked in the hallway floor
and start using the bathroom on somebody's door and walk
to your room neckad. That's my story. And that's when
I stopped drinking so much tequila. That much. Yeah, that happened.
That's a real story. If you know, you know about

(02:42:18):
that one to I'll tell you later. It's a different guy.
The jazz. I'm always with the music, but I always
liked having a good time. Respectfully, that is a good time, man.
You just so you got on the elevator room. Oh no,

(02:42:44):
was your like it? I must have still had my
kids next with my keys.

Speaker 2 (02:42:53):
There's so many questions, so many questions. That was that
journey from the tenth floor to the it's gotta be
a movie.

Speaker 1 (02:43:01):
Because I'm like, it's some more. It's some more. Somebody
had to get a key for it. Some more. It's
but that that that was, that was when I started
chilling out. That level of that level, that that was
a real level. That was like, we're just I'm just
because that was when the body, the man's body starts

(02:43:22):
taking change at thirty with the alcohol and everything. You know,
all depends on how much you drink and how much
you've been a part of this, wow, crazy business casually
drinking for so many years. So thirty five is about
that time. You're about to hit the forty soon. So
everything is changing. So I didn't calculate I was ship
was changing, Ship was changing. And now you know, I
can still go, but I gotta do the I gotta

(02:43:43):
do the water as I go. That means I'm not
getting sucked up. I can't even think about it. Yeah,
you don't know no more. I drink a little bit.
I can't even think about it's over, run over, it's over.
Yeah for the turn I'm drinking. Let me tell you
when I the last time I got I get drunk

(02:44:04):
on accident. It happens because when you play at clubs
and ship like that. Let mebody, you will drink And
I'm like, why not what you're drinking? When they ask me,
I'm not the guy. I don't drink what you drink.
If you will buy me a drink, I'm like an
expensive day top shelf. I'm looking up there since But nah, man,

(02:44:27):
but yeah, man, the liquors start changing my body, the weed,
everything start changing, man. And it comes from all of
us just changing. But the late nights in them studios.
The amount of mental stress we deal with don't the
amount of spiritual warfare we deal with. We deal with
so much shit just to sing a fucking note to
pay some mortgage. It's crazy. It's crazy what we all deal.
It's like it's the I mean, it's like war Bro.

(02:44:51):
Like war Bro. We deal with so much weird ship
and we just get through. It's like war the mind
of all. It ain't just that. That's what I'll be
trying to tell you young kids, Like, if you're gonna
do it, just you know, do it to it and
don't believe in what Nicholas, what's that meaning? It's too
good to be true. It's too good to be true
that some of that.

Speaker 2 (02:45:10):
Yea brother, Terrence Martin, Man, we appreciate you. Come on,
I appreciate you as a as a as a brother,
as a as a man of a cloth.

Speaker 1 (02:45:19):
Come on.

Speaker 2 (02:45:21):
As a purist, curator, super musician, and super producer. You
do it all man, You check all the box. I'll
take some taco. I'm with all that.

Speaker 1 (02:45:33):
It is Tuesday, Yeah, it is Tuesday. Y'all should come
to my residency. I'm playing tonight at Verse. Have you
been the Verse yet? That's Maddy's restaurant next door to
Larry Bie. No, you've been, but you went on it
as for an event, for a camper's events event, a
wild night cameraman. That's it, like my but you gotta

(02:45:54):
come one night tonight, tonight. Then I'm gonna take a
break this moment. Pick it back time. We play six
thirty for a couple hours, then we play against nine thirty.
That's the only local shit I do. Because we could
we curate them tables so we know who's in there.
It's all like minded people. I'm on a whole mission
right now, so you know how I'm doing. I tell
you you know I'm doing the table. It's a little
different I'm a you. I'm with you. We appreciate you, brother.

(02:46:19):
Come on, man, I appreciate you. Man. Let's say it. Man.

Speaker 2 (02:46:22):
My name is Tank Valentine and this is the R
and B Money Podcast, the authority on all things R
and B.

Speaker 1 (02:46:29):
Yes, sir, yeah, that's real. Know your craft. You better
tell you a story for the other people telling fuck
it up. That's what this is doing. Giving people a shot.
The fact that we could go see all these cats here,
that that that y'all know who's who is black history. Man,
people are going to this is a real fucking thing
to record. This, to record history of giants that would

(02:46:49):
have never got looked at, and that are giants like
we're talking about a person named Warren k. We're talking
about giants here that will never like giants. That's just
as important to me as Duke Keellington. Man. So I
love you guys for doing this show. I want to
come on this shit a gang of times. I got
so much to say, ladies. Terrence mart

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Tank

J. Valentine

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Terrace Martin