Rahiem Reveals The Late Tupac Shot Dr. Dre In The Leg !

In this episode of the Gangster Chronicles we sat down with legendary Rahiem from Grandmaster Flash & The Furious 5. We talk about Sugar Hill Records robbing the group blind.. Rahiem also discusses a secret meeting between the hip hop elites that included a plot to use Gangster rap to increase the prison population due to them opening new prisons in conjunction with corporate giant Wackenhut, his time with Dr. Dre as a staff producer and Tupac allegedly shooting Dr. Dre in the leg behind a bet with Suge.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But all right, job.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
All across the USC Compton, Watts Bay to LA. Come
on to California y day from Rowley the Valley. We
represent that Keller County. So if you're keeping it real
on your side of your town, you tune into Gainst
the Chronicles Coronic Goals.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
We gonna tell you.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
How we goals. If I lie, my notes will girl
like Pinocchio. We're gonna tell you the truth and nothing
but the truths the chronic goals. This is not your
average shows.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
You're now tuned into the rail mc ain't big Steals
the Streets.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Hello, We welcome to the Gainst the Chronicles podcast, the
production of iHeart Radio and Black Effect Podcast Network. Make
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five star rate and comment. We like to welcome you

(01:06):
to another episode of the Gangster Chronicles podcast. I can't
say I'm with my co hosts Tonight aight is handling
some business and we'll be back with us next week.
But you know what, though, I do have a special
guest in the house. Tonight Man you know, we have
a habit man throwing this term let this word legend
around just real loosely, I hear it. Just give them

(01:27):
to anybody to the point of this water down. But
we have a real live legend and here with us tonight,
my boy raheem from the Furious five. What's happening? Bro?

Speaker 1 (01:39):
What it is? Brother?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Are you? Oh? Man? I'm good Man, Just glad to
have you up in this piece with me. Man, just chilling. Man,
you're doing your thing. I appreciate you Man, coming to
just chop it up for a spell with your partner. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Thank you for having me Bro for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
For sure Man. You know we've been talking a lot
Man over the pace past few weeks, Man, and that's
why I was really looking forward to doing this episode.
And I ain't gonna lie, Man, I'm actually kind of
glad I get to just kind of just ask her
all the ask all the questions I want to ask,
you know what I'm saying. When you have a co host,
you have to be kind of courteous, you know what
I'm saying, Let them get their questions in and stuff,

(02:16):
so iob be able to just get you know, everything
that's on my shindof I got my own agenda tonight.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
You know facts, let's go. So man, you are raisinally
for the Bronx, BONDI raids yep.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Born and raised, and you got to kind of see,
I ain't gonna say kind of you got to see
because you know, they've been making hip hop records. People
have been rapping on records, man for a long time.
You know, I think longer than with with some record
kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Oh absolutely, yeah. Yeah. The hip hop culture in the
Bronx arguably started in nineteen seventy three when DJ co
Work gave a little a little party for his sister
a sweet sixteen or the system. But it turned out

(03:06):
to be a much bigger deal than what he imagined.
And so from then that kind of you know, put him,
put him in the party circuit and.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Work.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Although he's Jamaican, he didn't really flop or adhere to
Jamaican culture. Uh when he came from Jamaica to the Bronx.
You know, he came from Jamaica to the Bronx in
the sixties and his dad was a DJ, and so

(03:41):
his dad used to forbid him to like mess with
his record collection. But when his dad wasn't all. He'd
go in his pop's record collection and instead of playing
the reggae music, he played the Falk music. So he
liked artist like James Brown Slide, the Family Stalled Graham
Central Station, you know that that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
And so.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
He began to develop a playlist, and his playlist basically
developed as a result of bee boys and be girls
going to the jams. And he noticed that they would
react every time the break parts and the records would
come on. They would getting the circle and do these dances.

Speaker 3 (04:28):
You know, that's anteresting point that should bring up his heritage, bro,
because right now you know what the big debadio is.
You got a lot of brothers one arguing about who
is who started it? Right, you know, because of course
you know, we all know that this is black culture,
you know, part of Black culture and something that we created,
right right, But now you have a continuency of people

(04:52):
that are like, no, this wasn't hurting by no Jamaicans,
no Spanish people. This is all us. You were there
in the beginning, man, Yeah, really.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Who start?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Who kicked this thing off? Man?

Speaker 1 (05:04):
So all right, so first of all, you know, as
as people of color, you know, they push a lot
of powers that be, push a lot of genders off
on us and have us believing certain certain things that

(05:25):
aren't historically true, like all black people do not come
from Africa. This this planet was a black planet.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
And that's why you search the ancestry of every ethnic
group of people outside of black people. They got black
people and they they have this, you know what I mean.
So we was all over the place, including the Americans,
and that in fact, California has uh the old black

(05:58):
name of American uh population thing uh in history. Uh,
the Collifians. That's where the name California actually come.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
Yeah, Theians. You know. Shout out to my homeboy, man Tarita,
and I see he told me that. I just learned
that maybe about a month ago.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
Okay, all right, yeah, And so you know, when when
it started, you know, obviously there's there's black Spanish speaking
people just like you know, just like there's uh uh

(06:39):
non black Spanish speaking people, right, and so it's hard
to distinguish, you know, who's who are party if everybody black?

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Right.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
So with regards to Latins in the beginning, uh, Latins
they were there, you know, they were they were there
in the beginning. But there were aren't a lot of
Latins at the gems in the UH or in the
seventies because during that time, blacks and Puerto Ricans we

(07:09):
ain't really rocked together. But now if you if you
saw blacks and Puerto Ricans hanging out together, usually it
was because the Puerto Ricans were outcasts from their culture
or shunned from their culture, you know, or maybe had
some family issues and then didn't rock with their people,

(07:30):
uh for a little while, and and black culture resonated
with them to some degree, so they had black friends,
but that wasn't the norm, at least not at my
book them. And and you know, throughout I traveled all
over the brus There was no part of the Bronx
that I didn't go or that you know, or that

(07:53):
we we couldn't go because uh that territory was you know,
was too dangerous or whatever. Even like there was a
little Italy in the Bronx in the seventies, and if
you was black and you walked through little Italy even
in the daytime, like you was taking your life in

(08:13):
your own heads, you know what I mean. And that
was walking distance from my hood. But if we wanted
to go to the shopping area that wasn't far from
our hood, and we was walking. That's how we got
you know what I mean. So but but so to
answer your question, the Puerto Ricans staying were there, but

(08:38):
uh and and you know the Caribbean people, Jamaicans, you know, Ashianans, uh,
you know, Colombias all all of the people that that
are there now were probably there at the beginning. But
they were not practitioners. They were and they were onlookers.

(09:02):
They were spectators. They were watching, observing and learning to
be practitioners. Eventually, they were not the innovators. We were
the innovators.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
I don't think nobody can argue that because you were
actually there.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, we we we influenced them. And then afterwards they
took the torch and named Ramy, you know what I mean.
You know, and what do you.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Think about this debate that's going on right now?

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well, and actually a part of it on the side
of you know, black the young Black America, because I
was there and there are a contingency of people like
that Joe krs One, Peep Rock Crazy Legs from the

(09:55):
rock Steady crew. Respectfully, you know, they're all my legendary brothers,
respectful all of them, but with regards to the statements
that they're making about history of our culture, they are incorrect.
And you know, some people have an issue with being correctly.

(10:16):
They take that very personally. And you know, my legendary brother,
Lord Jamar asked, you know, publicly, if we could have,
you know, a little round table discussion to clear the air,
you know, put the animosity, you know, aside, and just

(10:37):
have a grown man discussion amongst the hip hop community
to correct our history, because it's our history. And if
we don't tell that right, you know, somebody else don't
tell it.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
You know.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
So there's a lot of urban legends, you know, and
and embellishments going on about the history of the culture
and how it started. And you know, I don't I
don't like to get into the habit of calling any
of my legendary brothers and sisters wires. So I'll see,

(11:17):
so I'll say that, you know, perhaps some of them
are some of their memory are selling in there.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
You know, it did be that their memories, you know,
getting a little jaded, man, And we ain't here to
start no kind of drama or nothing like that, man,
Because I do think the hip hop is all you know,
music is for everybody to enjoy. But when it comes
to telling those origin stories, we got to have the
facts correct.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Right, I agree the facts. I'm gonna turn the light
up the audience, doo see me enough that.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
To show us all good do your thing?

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Man?

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Do you think then we go? Right there, we're sitting
in the dark before, brother, you sitting in the dark
for man. There we go. We're good and go live
and direct. Now here we go. Yeah, yeah, you all
lit up man, for all your fans. My man just
turned the lights. So I don't think we are just
losing our mind, you know. So so you were around

(12:16):
the Bronx and the Sephonies, man, when there was a
lot of stuff going on. You had you had the
fires that was going on over there, when you were
burning down the apartment buildings.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
It was gangs games running right out.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
Let's touch from that a little bit. Man. It's out
here on the coast. You know, this is the you know,
I think l A and Chicago, man gane, you know, Maine,
capital of the United States. You know, perspectively, I think
Chicago might have got cracked a little bit earlier than
the West coast.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Actually, yeah, yeah, I believe so, yep, yep.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
But the gangs, the games on the East coast, Man,
they were a lot different. It wasn't about it was
it gangs that's signed by Burrow or something like that.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well yeah, yeah, the gangs were well not assigned necessarily
by Burrow. Being a gang from a particular Burrow was
just a circumstance, you know, that's that's just where you live.
But really it was more like your neighborhood represented your
neighbors and and your neighborhood could take up you know,

(13:24):
a few square blocks or whatever. But the largest gang
in New York City, uh, in the seventies u n
eighties or or period, the largest gang in New York
City was the Black Space. There there were other gangs,
but they didn't have like the Black Spades had divisions,

(13:47):
like like how armies, Like how the army has divisions.
The Black Spades had divisions. So the the first division
was from projects called Brunsdale aousand and that's where the
legendary disco king Mario comes and they are they were

(14:11):
the ones who started the Blacks. And then Bronx river
Houses that's where Africa Bam Bardah and and these people
came from. That's where the Zoomu nation started. Now, the
Zulu nation actually started in nineteen seventy seven, seventy eight,

(14:35):
but some of them claimed that they started in nineteen seventy.
Bamboda actually claimed they started in nineteen seventy three. But
that's not the truth. He wants to rival to work historically.
So that's why he makes that clean. That's and so

(14:57):
the gangs in New York City at that time, you know,
very territorial. They wore they wore colors, not necessarily red
and blue, but they wore when they when I say
they wore colors, they wore like uh, jean jackets with

(15:17):
their gang's name and logo on the back. And you know,
if you if you was unlucky enough to go through
their hood, they was goed G checking and and G checking.
Uh really hasn't changed, you know. When you know, when

(15:42):
I say g check, you know y'all can relate because
y'all do. That's what y'all do. I got that terminology
obviously from y'all. But that's been going on here since
hum forever, you know what I mean. So absolutely, and
so you know, and and it was hard to be

(16:05):
neutral if you live, you know, in a in a
hood where idiot the gangs work, because you know they
was gone. They was like storty, you know, before I
became an mc. Uh dudes from the Black Spades. Uh

(16:28):
from from Bambada's division. They from the Baby Spades. They
would ride around around my box, my block when they
bicycles and they would rob everything and everybody. But I
was cool with this dude named David Waters and his
older brother and his older brother named wild Man Steve.

(16:49):
They were actually from Rocks River. So when the dudes
from Brash River would come around block to rob everybody,
they wouldn't rob them. And because I was cool with them,
they me. But they were like on the low extorting me.
Even though one of my OG's was their o g

(17:09):
from Bronx Road. Dude names Fighter rest In PC was from.
He was like the leader of the Gestapo CU. They
was like Bampire's most beard uh hitters.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Son had some games and ship going on. Not to
cut you off, because I want you to get back
in your story. Ben was cracking like that.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Oh yeah, Ben Bada had had the wolves and and
so that's that's really how he rolls to power or
more than more so than his DJing because as far
as Djane, he was all right as a DJ. But
his contribution to hip hop culture with regards to this

(17:51):
DJing was his record collection. He has a maximum record collection,
so he was like considering the master of records. And
you know, he he helped to integrate ah other types
of music into hip hop music. Like you know, we

(18:12):
was already hip hop DJ's were already playing, you know,
groups like like the Rolling Stars or then Lizzie or
uh Boss Gags, you know, records like that. So because

(18:35):
all of those records, even though they were by white artists,
they all had drum breaks, and so the drum breaks
were what what inspired and motivating the break dancers to
get on the but dobate thing and who were hurt?
He didn't even he ain't cut, He didn't scratch, he

(18:56):
didn't spend the record back or he did was put
the damn need on the record and let play. And
he would start the record from the beginning, but when
it got to the break part and everybody would go
nuts and hit the floor.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
And that's the brain that's still the pieces of hip
hop today. Man A two bar Loop two BA loop
or a fourth ball.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Loop exactly, and Graham the Drug and grand Master Flash
was the one who created the loop with Turning Teally
be in the rec bath.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
That's dope, man, That's what I want to get into. Now,
you as an artist, man, how old were you when
you first start getting down?

Speaker 1 (19:46):
I started when I was fifteen, Hm, I got into
I got I joined my first rapping room when I
was fifteen. And that rap group was actually a legendary
called Pomptin four that we battled grand Master Flash and
the Furious Sport made eleven, nineteen seventy nine, having b

(20:06):
A l A Box and grand Master Flash and the
Furious Sport. They won the battle. For a couple of
days after the battle, Melody Roll and at the time
means mister Nuts and later Cheese Scorpio, they showed up
at my mom's crew and they asked me if I
would be there on the join groups, and so I
wound up joining their groups. Because a lot of people

(20:29):
don't know I'm the first MC to mix singing a rap,
so I'm the I'm the Nate Dog of the inception era.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Of skipt So you kicked it all off. Facts and
you know what was crazy about the day. And I
ain't gonna stay in this present time. I don't want
to touch on that till later on. But that's all
hip hop is now. Man, I don't know if you
can be a successful them see in the day's climb
without having a melody right, some type.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Of your ship exactly. Yeah, And you know it's it's
real funny. How how fifty initially how he clowned jar
rule out of uh singing his looks and wound up
singing his hooks himself. And yep did the same ship.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yep, y'all battle limb and they come and they want
you down with their crew. Yeah, how was that man?
At first? That you decline the invitation at first?

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Now I immediately accepted because I was like, even though
nobody said that I was the leader of the Funky four,
I was the leader because I was the one making
up all of the material that we before there's a
group together, and because I would it's a great uh singing.

(22:06):
I would take old Jackson five songs and and and
you know, remix the words and put my group's name
in it and and sing in my best Michael Jackson
impersonation and and and and we were fun those songs, uh,

(22:27):
those routine we call them routines at the time. And
so that's the reason why I was like, uh, a
novel team or unique to the Grand Master Flashes group
because none of them could sing. So when they got
when they asked me to join, they asked me to
join because of that him, because I could run and

(22:54):
and I I recognized when I was a member of
the Funky Four that you know, it's levels to everything,
and you know, not being not being arrogated or like
I'm full of myself, but I didn't feel like we
were on the same level. I wanted to be in
a group that I felt had more boundles as far

(23:16):
as our abilities, you know, the the abilities of a
collective member.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
Now, during that time period, there's no really recording industry now,
especially not one for him hop and rap. At that time,
you just got this immense underground scene that's taking place
in New York. Right, Yep, you guys needed shows. What
was y'all getting paid for them? Shows back then brought
like a couple hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
So so when we first started, you know, we started
in the parks for free, and the summer time and
you know the summertime during free jams in the farm,
that was the testing ground and that's where you proved yourself.

(24:06):
So that if you proved yourself enough to a crowd
in the bar for free when it got cold outside,
too cold for people to jam outside, and you rent
to the club, people would pay three to five dollars
to come see and hear you walk at a club.
So that was the that was the old purpose of

(24:28):
doing free jams outside so that you could build up
your your your reputation you're following, and your skills to
be able to entertain an audience once you once it
got too colder, right, So that's so that's what we did.
And one of the things, one of the unique things

(24:49):
that helped the rap scene to spread around five boroughs
of New York City in the seven in these before
there was any social media or anything like that. Where
it was it was this car service, a taxi service

(25:11):
called ojet oj Console. And matter of fact, if you
listen to the Sugar Old Gang song rappers tonight, big
Bangkank says we're gonna get some gonna get a fly girl,
gonna get some spanking drive off and a death o jet.
So he's talking about a cab basic. Because o j

(25:35):
Cabs service had luxury cards. They have Electra two twenty.
Clive's leak into ours, you know, and so you could
do what we call put an OJ on hole. So
when you put an OJ on hole, we were paid
like twenty five dollars and the O Jane would take

(25:55):
us wherever we wanted to go within New York City limits,
or they would take us to a location and we
for us for one hour for twenty five dollars. So
we would take OJ's all around the city. And when
we're giving jams, whether it's in a park or a club,
we would make flyers and take a fly OJ to

(26:20):
the local high school and give out all of the
flyers at the local high school to make sure that
everybody at the school now where we was going to
be one of that knew that we was going to
be at location. And so that's how the wrap the
park jam tapes and the taps from the cassette tapes

(26:43):
from the clubs and the pop jams. That's how they
spread around New York City by OJ car service. All
kinds of people would put OJ's on old thugs, drug dealers,
you know office you know, businessmen and you know, right,
you know everyday people. But when they got in the car,

(27:05):
then the OJ drivers would be bumping a Grand Master
Flash and a Furious five tape, cool Pluck Brother's tape
or Pumpy Bullet tape. Because there was a record shop
in the Bronx called Rhythm then owned by this dude
named Richie T. And Richie T also formed this club

(27:25):
and the Bronx called the Tea Connection where all of
the uh, the pioneer rap groups were format. So he
would record all of our performances on a cassette and
blast our performance tapes out of his record shop on
East Street Lune Avenue in the Bronx. That if you

(27:47):
was walking by and you hurry it, it was very
you know, very alluring. You you had to go in
there and you know, ask who it was and buy
a tea. So that's how our tape circulated. That's how
we king no all around New York City before before
there was.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
You got it.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
I'm sorry, go ahead, No, that's all I was just
gonna say. That was that's how we became known before
there was any raper.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Okay, you know, during this time like you said earlier.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
I'm sorry what they that we was making life So
Dame Dash, Dame Dash is uncle. His name is Ray Champer,
Rest in peace.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
He was our first manager and right, yeah, And so
we did a we did a jam at the Autoborn Ballroom.
That's where Malcolm X was assassinated. Right, we had the
Autobron ball Room, so jam pat that if you look
up at the ceiling, the ceiling was buckling because there

(28:55):
were so many people on the dance floor, right. And
and I would say, if I had to estimate how
many people was at the Auto Bomb when we had
the jam back, maybe it was like five hundred, six
hundred people. And that was way way more than how

(29:15):
many people should have been in it. And we almost
got into a fight with our manager, Ray Chimber, because
for that show, he paid us forty dollars a mint
and we was like, nah, you know, lord shew mine,

(29:36):
but you're gonna have to come up off that get
some more cash. So after that show, and after we
got into almost got into a physical altercation, he wound
up paying us one hundred and twenty five dollars per
man every part.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Oh wow, So so let me go back to this, right,
so he was gonna pay you can get you guys
forty dollars a piece. Yep. Wow. So people pretty much
been beating other people since this thing started.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
From day one, bro, from day one.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
From day one. So so you guys are doing these
parties and at this time everything is kind of over
these breakbeats. Right, right, When did you guys start doing
more original music? Is that was that much later on?

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah? That's when you know, when when the music industry
began to uh, because there was a period of time
when we became so popular and when the rap scene,
pre rap records became so popular in New York City
that record company executors began and at park gyms and

(30:54):
the clubs where you know, a local rap artists would
be conforming. And so that's how we wound up making
our first record because uh, this this dude, I'm gonna
call him the bootleg Terry Lewis because he's not the
Terry Lewis of Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis, So he's

(31:15):
the boot let Terry Lewis. He approached us at the
jam we was doing uh in Harlem, and he asked
us if we would be interested in making the records.
So we were, you know, we were luke aline about
the idea of recording something at the time. But well
we was like all right, you know, fucking you all right, cool,

(31:37):
you know what what what we have to do? So
he was like, yo, you know, no recording studio. You know,
book some time at a recording studio. You know, some
musicians get some musicians together to have them replay whatever
music is that y'all want.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
So we have some you know, we have first I'm sorry,
I tell you. We got to love to lay a
little bit, a little bit. So he was the first
guy to kind of started sampling stuff. Didn't like interpolating stuff, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
He was, well, he didn't. He didn't take us into
the studio and didn't get the band together to meet
the interprection of the music putting our lyrics to. We
had some musician for friends from our block, and we
got them together and told them what we wanted music

(32:34):
that we wanted to do, and we wound up going
to the studio and uh doing an interpolation of Stephanie
Mills's song put Your Body, And so we recorded our
lyrics to that, and so when it was released. We
didn't get any notification whatsoever from the record label from Bublet.

(32:57):
Terry Lewis ready in one day, I going to be
walking up in the local shopping area and the bombs
called Fordham Road and there was a record shot uh
close to the corner of Webster Avenue, Forton Road, and
uh they'd always add speakers outside lasting whatever the new

(33:17):
music was. And so I'm about to walk by and
then I hear our song playing. So I was excited
because I didn't know it was action out and for sale.
So I go in the record shop and it's a
long line. So by the time I get to the counter,

(33:39):
uh to ask the dune behind the counter for the record,
they had them playing another record. So when I got
to the counter, I say to the dune, yo, yo,
that record by grand Master Flash and the Furious five
that was just playing before you put on this record
I want to buy. He was like, who's it by?

(34:01):
I said, grand Master Flash and the Periods five. He said,
I wasn't playing no record by Nora. I said, what
are you talking about? That's my group and I just
heard you playing our record. It was the record right
before this one, and the name of my group is
grand Master Flash and the Furious, and I have a
copy of the record. He's like, okay, let me, let

(34:24):
me show me. So so he gets the record and
when he shows it to me, it's the name. The
title of the song says we Rap More Mellow, But
the name of the artists on the song doesn't say
grand Master Flash and the periods five. It says the
Younger Generation. So that's not our names, right. So the

(34:48):
dude forbad the counter, of course he doesn't know. So
I buy the record, and I happened to be on
my way to rehearsal the rest of the group. And
so when I get to hresal, I showed him the
record and they was like old ship. So we decided
he was gonna go confront the boot Blaze. Terry Lewis,
he lived with a walking distance or Flash his house,

(35:10):
uh in these projects called in these projects called more
houses where uh the legendary brother H Curtis blows DJ
Cool DJ aj is from resting Beats. And so we
walked over more houses and we go in there. Uh
take the elevator to the floor where where Terry Lewis

(35:33):
lives and we go to his apartment door, and we
noticed that the locks uplin door was missing, so there
was a hole where the lockso that they used to
beat and when we looked at it, uh, you could
see string into the apartment, and there was no furniture
in the apartment. And then one of us lead up
against the door by mistake, and the door flung open

(35:57):
and the bout let Terry Lewis was gone. You're no
fun of chain in there, and we ain't never seen
him again.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
And so you and you know what during that time,
hip hop was such a big novelty right, possibly made
hundreds of thousands of dollars because he had the only hitting.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Record played exactly exactly you know what I mean that
was that was around. It was, uh what I understand.
I think there was eighty five or eighty seven record
Rap Records Need recorded in nineteen seventy not and uh

(36:40):
ball we rap more mellow that song this woman.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
So he just put a fake name and a fake
song title.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
Left well.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
And for him to fleep. Because you said we never
saw him again, so that means he possibly left New
York exactly yep. So he had a plan. So I
never give you guys no money to record the song
and nothing like nothing of that next year wasn't compensated
at all. No, wow, that's a bad business man. After that,

(37:15):
when did you guys cook up with Sugar? Like? How
did you guys hook up with Sugar? Hell?

Speaker 1 (37:19):
So after that we met another dude named Bobby Robinson
who had his own record shop, and he had his
own record label called Enjoyed Records, and we recorded another
symbol called super Rapping and and we actually recorded an

(37:41):
album for Bobby Robinson label and joy. But when it
came time to to give us an accounty or how
many record sales we had accumulated, he was like, he
gave us a bunch of excuses. We didn't think that,

(38:03):
you know, that the record went gold or platinum or
anything like that. But because of our growing popularity, we
knew that the record sold something. It wasn't getting any radio,
but we do a ton of d James uh in

(38:24):
the Tri State area who was playing and we was
getting a shipload of shows as a result of it.
At some point right before we started actually uh, right
before we got signed the sugar Hill, we was doing
like three shows or not, you know what I mean,
Like three shows a night and like every spot we

(38:47):
do with jab.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah right, let's yea. It was making I'm going the
math in my head and now you got paid a
little bit of scratch back then man for some young
dude exactly exactly. Yep, three shows a night. Man, y'all
get a book like five six days a week exactly. Yeah,
that that started, y'all was out there killing y'all was

(39:11):
ghetto fabulous.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Man, exactly fact what they would ricks nigga rich.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
That's exactly what we work, yeah, right around with a
full of cash. So how did how the sugar heel
approach How the sugar heel approach the group?

Speaker 1 (39:32):
So there was this club called disco Fever on the
west side of the Bronx on a street called Jerome
Apple and uh, the owner of disco Fever South Abotello.

(39:54):
He would have all of the rap artists uh come through,
you know to disco Fever, and we got the red
carpet rolled out for us. We'd all, you know, all
of us got in free. That was like our house.
We would be the way we was treated at the

(40:15):
disco Fever, you know, free drinks. Flash had a night
he spawn on the turntables. Uh, Curtis Blow would be there.
Uh fat boys who d run DMC. Uh everybody from

(40:37):
you know from from that era would be there, and
so uh Sylvia Robinson from Sugar Old Records and our
son Joey found out that all of the you know
best local rappers would be hanging out at disco Fever.

(41:00):
So they came there actually looking for us because they
heard tapes of us and they were responsible for producing
sugar Hill Gang uh oo had you know success in
rappers to light and ironically, Big Bang Cank in rappers

(41:23):
delight set a piece of one on my rhymes him them,
then the women fight for my delect like that was
my first one of my first round. That was like
the one of the rhymes that made me pop off
in the bronx, you know, yeah, yeah, yes.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Because he did one of your rhymes. It laid them
to want to work with work wanted did their research
and found out over.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Here right because Big band Cake wasn't even a rapper,
He wasn't even them he like he was. He was
a bouncer who worked with my legendary brother Grandmaster Kazes
group of Cold Crush brothers, and and then he became
their manager and uh, he worked part time at a

(42:17):
pizza shop in Inglewood, New Jersey. And that's how Sylvia
Robertson and Joey met them because they went in this
pizza shot and heard him rapp into a tape that
Grandmaster Kaz and the Cold Crush Brothers did had a
jam that they would him and when they heard him rapping,

(42:39):
they was like, yo, you want to be in this group.
And so that's how he got in the shugar il Gat.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
That's crazy, man, you know what, It's something else sitting
in there here in his history right now, man, Because
I'm I was born in seventy bro.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Oh okay, that's what's up.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Yep. I was born in nineteen seventy. I was a
little boy, you know. So you guys get with her,
were you guys? Hisitn at first because you guys have
had now a couple of bad experiences messed with record label.
So I'm pretty sure y'all was over it.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
The funny ship about that is and so you know,
we we didn't know anything, you know, Sylvia Robinson except
that she was a beautiful black woman and she made
the song Hellow Talk. And so when we were invited
to her mansion and uh at Inglewood clips New Jersey,

(43:38):
uh to to sign to her label. We felt very
at ease and and you know cool about initially. But
so she would she would pay for our cabs to

(43:59):
take cab from the Bronx to Inglewood, New Jersey. So
uh when end back. So whenever we would take a
cab back from Inglewood from the studio back to the Bronx, Sylvia,
the cab drivers would have all these horror stories about

(44:22):
how not to trust Sylvia and her husband Joe, because
they had this group the moments Ray, Goodman and Brown
signed to their label and they was robbing them and
they had a tune of other artists us until to
their label and nobody ever seemed to get paid any royalties.

(44:45):
That's where every cab driver exactly. So that's what every
cab driver that was from Inglewood, New Jersey drove us
back to the Bronx told us about. And so we
didn't start to see evidence of that being the truth
until so what time, Well, every time she would she

(45:10):
would give us money, the money was always advanced. It
was never we never got any royals. So when the
message came out that was like our biggest hit.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Like that.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
She was on a fire playing everyone and we Christmas
morning of nineteen eighty three, we took the message was out.
The message came out the end of nineteen eighty two,

(45:44):
so no, I'm sorry, No, I'm yeah. It came out
the end of nineteen eighty two, close to Christmas, so
I'm sorry. So Christmas Day of nineteen eighty two, the
message had gone goal in like lain one day. So

(46:08):
according to what we were told by sugar Hill, so
we took the bus. We have no one, so we
were alwaying Sular to go get an advance so that
we could buy our kids ship for Christmas. Right, ah, right,

(46:29):
So we took the bus from the bombs to sugar
Hill and we get off ah a corner Powersades Avenue
at Western and chuverar Hill Records Recording studios and offices
were on West Street. So we're on the corner of

(46:51):
West Street walking down towards Shave Hills Studios and we
hear a car coming towards us, bumping the message and
it's bumping that shit mad lot. So when we finally
see the car, it's a canary yellow Porsche and Sylvia

(47:12):
Robinson's son, Joey is driving it and it got a
red ribbon around it and that's what he got for
Christmas with All Royal too much. But we ain't know
at the time.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
So y'all know at the time. Now I've heard the
horror stories, man, not just about Sylvia Robinson's label, but everyone.
It was a really predatory period and still predatory in
a lot of ways, but not as bad as it
was initially. Right, So you guys are putting out, you
guys are selling mad records out there, right, yep? What

(47:48):
was the final What was the final outcome that somebody
confronts Sylvia. Oh?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Yeah, we absolutely confronted Sylvia, you know we uh in
nineteen eighty We we asked for a release because you know,
we felt like we wanted getting treated fairly. We never
received any what teas and so she told us not

(48:16):
so we went to a lawyer. Uh, initially, the whole
group went initially, but then she gained Mellie Mel uh
Scorpion and Cowboy Money behind the rest of the group's
back to stay signed to sugar Hill and Me, Grandmaster

(48:39):
Flash and Mellie Mel's brother kick Creole, sooned sugar Hill
Records and won in court and wound up getting a
deal and signing with Electrom.

Speaker 3 (48:54):
Okay, so can I must go back a minute? So
she went, so she kind of split the rope up
that Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Absolutely, yeah. And you know the name of our group
was just called Grand Master Flash and uh we made
uh you semi semi snoop wong. You know, we did
a joint col girls loved the way he spins. Uh.

(49:22):
We did Larry's dad's things like Larry Love. Yeah, that's
that's actually my voice.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Yeah, big record, that record that you know, big that
record was a Cleveland man.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
It's yeah, yo, we can't Yeah, that's every voice you
hear in that song is my books.

Speaker 3 (49:46):
That right, you know that was you know big Mike
sample of that song.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I believe, Oh it is did Okay, you're.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Not hit to that? No, uh yeah, Big Mike Stample.
That song is the bigger the black of the nigga
coming from the swamp, coming from the straight at New Orleans.
Who I had to go back and research. Man, Sorry,
big Mike man, but I had to drop the dying man.
I don't know you clear the army man.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
It's all off, big we ate because we definitely get
for son, no sample usage from you know, quite quite
a few name brand artists and and and artists that
aren't so mean burn.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah that was a big record though. Man, that was
a huge record. And you was calling me on something
and I consider myself a hip hop story, and man,
I didn't know that. I bet you Ate would have
new that ship. Ate knows a lot about hip hop man, right, Yeah,
it's probably one of the only people I know that
can rival me. Man as far as going back and
knowing with certain stuff, I did not know that was

(50:57):
you guys, so pretty much. That's what splinter came between,
because I think that ultimately hurt both groups.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yeah, it absolutely did. I mean, you know, melod Melon
them recorded step step step step step off because you
got step off because you know a step step step step,
you know, and that that didn't really it didn't really
bang the way that you know, our songs did when

(51:24):
we were all one group, you know what I mean.
And neither did our I mean Larry Larry's dance thing
UH did did decent for us. We had a song
that I also uh wrote most of the broken, most
of the n call you know what time it is

(51:46):
that that yep, and Flash kind of kind of uh
wanted me to wrap in a mono tone voice like
uh like busy bee, uh starsky Actually rock Kim kind
of doing for kind of sounds, and so uh it

(52:11):
kind of put me in Rock Kim in a bad uh,
in a bad space because Rock Kim, I guess felt
like I was biting him, biting his style, but really
I was I was just doing what Flash asked me.
It was an experiment, and I was rapping in the
mond tone style voice. And you know who else does that?

(52:34):
Jadkins raps in that style as well. Death. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
You know what, It's funny that you mentioned that, man,
because I was speaking with some of the homies the
other day and I was telling them, man, that Rock Kim. Uh,
it's almost to see of you the Today's New York MC.
And I'm not talking about the younger kids babies, about

(52:59):
the guys. And it came up in the nineties to
early nineties man, through two thousands, like you know, from
the Nine Sirs Jadakis. Is that influence is still there, you.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Know, it's still it fact and and you know the
irony of that is they you know, there's a tree
you know that and you could trace every the lineage
of all of them seas back seem the origin, you know,

(53:30):
the origin of where their style came from. And so
you know, it's it's a few mcs that's from the
Bronx that you could trace people styles back to. And
you know, but most people don't even know because a
lot of the styles weren't attributing it or aren't attributing

(53:53):
it to those people they originated, you know what I mean, Yep.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
You gotta name, uh you know, even even Mail. I
just think the business prob you know, you know, I'm
not gonna says, but the business just squatched the whole
bunch of really talented people.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Man, oh absolutely, you know, and really just the.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
People that didn't do you know, that did legendary stuff
but didn't do all that they probably.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Should have, right, right, right. And and then you know
another thing, Well with Melly Mail, you know, he's my
brother and the all nine, but uh, you know he
is his perspective on a lot of other rap artists

(54:45):
doesn't really put him in a favorable position, uh, in
a lot of people's eyes, and a lot of the
newer generation of rap artists sides, uh, they and and
and you know his his team partner up my legendary
brother Scorpio, uh laughingly says all the time. And even

(55:07):
Melie Mellow grease he's an are you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (55:11):
But some to some.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
Degree, I understand why, you know, uh, why he's an
hater because the way that rap had has changed from
what was to what it is now. It's it's almost
it's almost laughable, like it's almost a joke, like they

(55:37):
like they they spoofed our ship, like our ship at
one time. Okay, so you know not and not to
point blame at anybody, but you know a lot of
us do things for reasons that we feel would benefit us,

(55:59):
our families and maybe even our communities. But maybe in
the long run, it doesn't necessarily do that, you know,
in the broader perspective. And what I mean by that is,
let's take for example, so so rap music overall, it's

(56:20):
the tremendous platform that we have to be able to
uh spread messages, you know, important messages to masses of people.
Right and and you know, because words are very powerful.
You know, we as a people have been you know,

(56:47):
tricked into believing or or out of believing into certain
things that we once practiced because of certain taboos and
have you. But you know, magic, magic is real. But

(57:07):
we many of us who don't understand what magic is,
have the wrong concept of what magic actually is and
how it works. So to cast a spell only means
to say words or.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
Spell words, and all you needs existence exactly, and all
you need for a spell to be effective are for
people to participate knowingly or unknowned.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
So here's a very simple example of magic spell. A nickname.
So back in the days when I was growing up,
a nickname used to be Usually it was not a
name that a person who was called the nickname be
sold upon themselves. It was usually a name that others

(57:59):
be still upon them And usually it was too uh
to describe some outstanding and feature characteristic or behavior or something.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
Right.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
So, so I had three frings lay mouth and grawled up.
One was fat, one was skinny, and one had bad skin. Right.
So you know how kids, we always clownb in the
ship in the hood. So one day one of the
Melvins was walking down the street. Fat Melville was walking

(58:33):
down the street, and you know like that that we
called them fat. But what he forgot to do or
that he was unaware of was he never vehemently shut
down the spell that we cast over him when we
named him fat met all right, And what and what

(58:55):
made the spell effective was the fact that one day
he was walking on the street and one of us
called out to him, and your fat male, and he
turned around and responded to the shit. So now forevermore,
this nigga name is fat male, and so bumpy face Mal,
same shit, yo, bumpy face Mail, he responded to the shit,

(59:18):
so forevermore, his name is bumpy face Mal and skinny
Mel the same shit. And none of them wanted to
be called these names, but that's their names forever a life.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
You gotta so you probably gotta dude running around New
York called everybody called fat.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
Male exactly exactly. So he might have lost seventy pounds
since then, even yo, even after he lost one hundred pounds,
he was skinny. Niggas was calling him fat male because now,
how that's the only way to distinguish fat male from

(59:54):
skinny mal, even though fat mal is skinny. Now that's something, know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
You know what, that's deep, man, The tongue does manifest, man,
you know that's the word though that Scripture, the Tongue
manifest Life and.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Death absolutely bro so. So my point in saying all
of this is, in nineteen eighty nine, Public Enemy dropped
Fight the Power, Right. It was a massive hit. It
was a massive hit and could have possibly reinsurged the

(01:00:29):
whole Black Power movement. But the powers that be they
couldn't have that shit. So what they did was the
very next year they ushered in gangster rap. Okay, And
if every day of your young, impressionable life, all you
hear in your ear from your favorite artists who are

(01:00:53):
probably in your ear more hours of day than your
parent and your teacher, and they're telling you that the
very blueprint to their success is to stand on the
corner and shoot niggas. Botholes, sold Percot sets, molly coke,
dope and whatever the most influenced or demographics and percentage

(01:01:16):
of the population becoming that.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Now, did you think that was a concerted effort from
the recording industry or do you think it could be
also just because times were changing? You know, you got
to remember around the rise against the Rap, you had
to crack epidemic. You had you know, major companies in
places like Detroit, you know, places like Detroit, Chicago, you know, Indiana,

(01:01:43):
places they were traditionally manufacturing hubs shutting down and that
coincide and the crack apandemic. Do you think that could
have had a little influence on the rap lyrics?

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Well, okay, so let's look at it like this. Let's
look at you know, the way that evolution was right
and the evolutionary process is such that so so prior
to rap music, we we held ourselves to a certain

(01:02:22):
set of standards as.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Far as music.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
You know, we had musical icons legends that predate rap
music like Stevie Wonder, you know, Prince Michael Jackson. We
have you know, Gladys Knight and the Pip, Smokey Robinson,
you know Quincy Jones. So these are musicians and entertainers
who immensely talented and they set the barn right. And

(01:02:49):
so when rap music was ushered in, initially rap music
was you know, non threatening, was about a party, you know. Uh.
And then when we came out message, it changed the
scope and gave people, uh a picturesque view in words

(01:03:16):
of what it was like growing up in the look right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
I think it was the first gamester rap record to
beat for all practical for all intensive purposes.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
I hear a lot of people saying that, right. But now,
so now we didn't. We didn't. We weren't in any
way glaborizing gangsterism. Uh at that time, we were just
talking about what was going on in our community, right, okay.
And so gangster a rap to a large degree, did

(01:03:50):
the same thing. However, uh it beat They adopted a
cookie cutter mentality where every rap artists during that era
was talking about the exact same thing, and they were
doing they were talking about they were doing the same thing.
All of them was, you know, selling crack, you know,

(01:04:12):
shooting me this fucking old selling drugs, right, Okay. So,
now I don't believe in the term conspiracy theorists because
of the fact that you know, it's child in nature
to think, right, it's human nature thing. And so the

(01:04:32):
people who are committing conspiracies are the very motherfuckers who
are who label people who are on today bullshit as
conspiracy theorists.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
So, but this isn't a conspiracy theory. I happened to
know that this these series of meetings actually took place. Uh,
And I actually heard crazy Bone from Bald Dug's and
harmony and saw him on video talking about the exact
same series of meetings. In nineteen ninety, a company called

(01:05:08):
Whack and Lut and a company called Corrections Corporations of America,
and some of the top music industry mobiles and some
artists got together and had closed door secret meetings to
have the artists and the record company executives invest in

(01:05:33):
brand new probably owned prisons and the government. This company,
Whack and Lut and Corrections Corporations of America made deals
with forty eight states to have a privately owned trace
of erecting each respective state based on the condition that
each state could maintain a ninety percent incarceration rate. So

(01:05:58):
if you are rored casting a set, all, right, which
is what radio does. They broadcast, So broadcasting is just
casting spells on a much broader level, right. And the
people who program the radio of what we what we

(01:06:21):
hear on the radio and what we see on television
are called program directors. So they tolgram the music and
the visuals that program the listeners right and the viewers right.
And so visual imagitice and audio signals are two things

(01:06:41):
that enter a person's subconscious mind without our permission. A
right perfect example of that is the fact that once
you see something you cannot unsee. Once you hear something,
you cannot unhear it. So true, so visual imagist and
audio signals enter our subconscious mind without our permission. Kay,

(01:07:05):
So because of that.

Speaker 5 (01:07:10):
Being fed uh a sun room like like uh, which
I loved the song uh by Nate Dogg and Snoop
Uh uh Uh, it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Ain't no fun unless man, right, I love that song.
But hearing a song like that in perpetuity, you know,
in heavy rotation, Uh, even though they're bleeping the curse
words out, they know what the fuck? You know, kids
ain't stupid. They know what the curse words, and they

(01:07:46):
saying every all of the curse words along with the song.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
So, now society already doesn't promote family, They already don't
promote love. Right, we be hard, crusty hell love songs
on the radio and right it's all songs about having
sex as opposed to uh, everything is hyper sexualized. It's

(01:08:11):
not it's not about love, it's about you know, sex. Right, So,
so what is a young man to think of a
young woman when he hears songs like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:26):
You know? Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
Uh? These hose ain't Lord or you know uh or
hose hop Jesus holds that.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
I don't want to interrupt your point, but you know what,
I just had a thought, right, But none of the
rappers that came out that were gangster rappers ever called
themselves gangster rappers. They call themselves reality rappers. The powers
that he called them they did, they did come in
and rebrand that and repackage it. This is gangster wrap facts.

(01:09:06):
You go back, you never heard nobody say, oh, I'm
a gangster rapper. They always say a reality wrapper because
most of those guys. The one thing that the Mexics
did is to show people is everything was a party
up until that point. It's people that, hey, we go,
let's talk about our community and the conditions that you
know that currently got us, you know, up underground right now, right.

(01:09:31):
So you're right, I agree one hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Percent with you.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
And that meeting makes you speak of you said it
was with wacken Hut and what was the other company?

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Corrections Corporations of America. Matter of fact, one of my
legendary brothers, gram Mixer d x T, who did the
scratching on Herbie and Cocksaw Rocket, which y'all friends. He
gave me a photograph of h so uh minister uhh

(01:10:05):
not minister, excuse me Dan. He was the representative for
the Nation of Islam under Lewis Barak Khan at the time,
but he was also the head of the former head
of the NUA A CP Damn. He'll call his name

(01:10:26):
right in second, he'll come to me. But I have
the photograph of him baby from cash money Uh dame
that uh graand mix of d x T and then
a few other people at one of the early meetings,

(01:10:46):
and and all of the meetings that were taking place
between corrections Corporations of America, the music industry, mobiles, artists,
and whack and hut uh were being used as bedding
poss us to determine who was gonna be down with
it and who wasn't. And some people were escorted out

(01:11:09):
of the meetings at gunpoint and threatened with their jobs
and their lives.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
Oh so they really was treading people's lives at these meetings.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Oh yeah, yeah. They was like, Yo, first of all,
you had to sign NBAS so you know, you couldn't
talk about it. But if you did talk about it
and you were opposed to the idea of make it
because they were openly suggested to the artists that now

(01:11:42):
the kind of music that you need to make is
gangster rap, because we need to keep the prisons filled
by influencing the listeners that listen to this type of
music to become criminals.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
And it was a lot of music. I will tell
you that I'm in a green situ with this. During
the nineties, like between ninety one and I would say
ninety five, right, you had a really big influx of
people coming from everywhere. And I'm not I'm not talking
about the NWA's cube, you know, the type of stuff

(01:12:22):
the word they just talking about the community I'm talking about.
You had brothers who was killing five people on the song,
ralling metric times of cocaine just you know, you know,
it got kind of like really wild, and so at
a point it was like, man, damn, this stuff is
kind of going out of control. Everybody kind of looked
like them. It wasn't a MC eight ice cube type

(01:12:45):
of music. It was really fortuitous violence in these songs.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Absolutely yes. And you know, listening to this repetitiously, listening
to you know, gangs to rap repetitiously, I'm sixty one
years old. When I listen to DMX, but when I

(01:13:10):
listen to Tupac and I'm behind the wheel of a
car or if I'm working out, it makes me feel
more aggressive. You know, I'm not saying that I go
out and kill somebody, but it does, you know, put

(01:13:30):
a certain level of aggression, and so I can only
imagine the level of aggression it puts into someone. You know,
who's from seventeen eighteen. You've heard me, Who's Who's a
gang bang? Listening to that ship?

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
You know, there's a powerful influence on everybody's psyche and mind.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Music is music is sour.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Hours. Well, you know the ministry of music was God
supposed right past? Yes, you know so that that tells
you right there, Yes, you have a lot of guys.
It has a strong informance. You have a lot of
guys now that wrap up popping fields to worry. As
Mike generation, when I was coming up, if you was

(01:14:24):
a fiend, last last thing you wanted to do was
a dope? We did just say no generation exactly. It
was like, you want to become no dope thing. That
was the biggest fear, Like, oh man, your brother fiend.
That was like the older man. You feel what I mean,
because everybody saw that with cracking to the communities, nobody
wanted to Nobody wanted to become a base.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Head exactly, but don't want to walk sort of. So
that the funny thing about that is, you know, we
we all experimental and had our at our time with
with co King and Crack and all of that, but
he was prior seeing it being called crack, so we

(01:15:06):
was freebasing. Like we toured with, you know, groups like Parliament, Fun,
Cadelic and Rick James my my big aquarian well rest
in peace. And every time Rick James would come to
New York City he would call me because were the
same sign and he kind of put me under his
wing and hang out and go everywhere. I met uh

(01:15:30):
Eddie Murphy through Rick James, I met Smokey Robinson. Uh
we drove down the uh NBC studios and hang out
at Saturday Night Live and for Murphy finished doing the
show and then go to the studio fifty four and
and you know he was getting high.

Speaker 3 (01:15:48):
You know things I heard he was known for really getting.

Speaker 1 (01:15:52):
Eye Oh absolutely, you know, I mean I recorded me
Mellie Bell and Scorio recorded the song with Rick James
on his cold blooded album called Pimp the Seven. And
when we were in the studio, Rick had he literally
had a shoebox still from the bottom to the top

(01:16:16):
with coke and he was passing that ship around the studio. So, yeah,
shoebox filled with cochin, you know what I mean. So
I did that ship for three years of straight of
my life, every day until I decided I didn't want

(01:16:37):
to do that ship no more. I stopped. I stopped
using cocaine and smoking cigarettes to same death.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Know what. That's what I was saying. The crack was
some different stuff because in the seventies, late sixties, me
and Too Short had the same conversation. Some blow was
ball and stuff. It was looked at his player stuff exactly.
People did blow on the week. We'll go back to
work on Monday. They never had a problem, so we
just quit like you did. But when they started free

(01:17:07):
basing that stuff, well, actually when it turned into crack,
because free base with some ball and stuff too facts.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
I agree, Yeah, I couldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
The average person. It just wasn't a free based It
costs too much money. But when they made that crack.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Uh huh, man. Oh absolutely that. The first time of
a freebase was with certain olds from followed me from
Uncle Delic, and we were on tour together and he asked,
he said, y'all want to smoke some king and so
you know, we was about to go on stage and

(01:17:42):
everybody said no except me, and I thought he was
gonna make a coolie like put some cane and cigarette
and our smoke the light. So he pulled out a
briefcase and had some box of bacon soda tested. It
looked like test two better ninos. Looked like he was
setting up a laboratory and ship. So we started cooking

(01:18:04):
that ship up. And then he put a big rock
into pipes and UH told me to hit this and
hold it in, and so I did. But I didn't
understand what the high I was like. Yo, I didn't
understand what to expect. So I went on about my business.
After I took a few bits, and when we got
on stage, when we got to the message and it

(01:18:27):
was time to start, so I doing my parts. The
ship hit me and so instead of me UH getting
on the mic and saying saying my purse, I go
back to the DJ, to the to the turntables and
I say, the flash your flash, Yo, you've seen sir? Old?

(01:18:50):
He like, what you know? Why he didn't?

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
Yo?

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
FU are you asking me right now? Like we we
in the middle of it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
RYL.

Speaker 1 (01:18:59):
I'm like, I know, but you're the DJ, and you
could stop the record and start the record. Ain't tell
him you want so just start the recond you know.
After I you know, I just asked you a question.
You see, sir, you see him? He like, Nigga, get
your ass back up both So I go back on
the mic and ship. But that's when I realized. After that,

(01:19:23):
it was it was every day after that for like
three years until I decided, Yo, this is some bullshit R.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
You know the thing about that free base man, I
had a brother that was addicted to crack, right, Thank God,
may've been clamping man for like the last ten years,
you know, right, Glad to have him back. But he
told me, man, he said, man, when I hit that pipe,
he said, I smoked some loolies before, but he said,

(01:19:54):
when I actually hit that pipe, he said, man, it
was like the fourth of July. It was like the
whole new side of my mind got turned on and
I wanted to get that feeling again. So I was
looking for it day in and day out, and it
never came back exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:07):
That's that's the absolute truth, that feeling that first still
had never come.

Speaker 3 (01:20:13):
Yeah. So he said he ever got it? Yep, yep. Yeah,
So that's who was going. So were you able to
just stop cold Turkey?

Speaker 1 (01:20:22):
Cold Turkey? Like one day I woke up October nineteenth,
nineteen eighty six. I woke up and I was like, yo,
I ain't doing this shit no more. I was smoking
cigarettes at the time too, So I stopped smoking cigarettes
and cocaine the same day.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
And I double looked back and the crack epidemic was
heavy back then. So you got out just in time.
It really was make it out. A lot of people
didn't make it out that period, man.

Speaker 1 (01:20:53):
And the craziest shit is, you know, you know, I was,
I was going on tour and shit like with Rick
James and all that. I come old to the projects
and I would get my friends high, and so a
lot of my friends that I would get high, like
I actually got the book and that's wuked up. And yeah, you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Said, grocery is a powerful thing influence. Man. You're you're
probably the coolest dude they hang out with and you're
smoking cocaine. Now you got them smoking it. They thought
they was something big exactly, and all the stuff you're
talking about, man, I think it plays into what you
were saying. I think that there's always been a big,

(01:21:36):
crying conspiracy man to destroy all people of color.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
Absolutely, yeah. I believe one hundred percent noted that meeting happened,
because I've been in meetings man as a manager and
you know, working in the industry, man, to where that's
what they want. It was a time that that's all
they wanted. They would take clean ask That's why you

(01:22:01):
find out so many people loanings now because they were asked,
if you want to get this record deal, that we
need you making this type of music exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:22:11):
That that's absolutely right. And you know, you know when
when you're in a position of neediness, you know a
lot of people are willing to do something strange for
a little piece of change and and to them, to you,
you can justify it because you're in a position of needingness.

(01:22:35):
You know, you're trying to get your family out of
the hoods. You've got kids, you know, say day day
of the age where they go in elementary school or
or you know, junior high school or high school, and
you want them to be able to go to decent
schools and decent neighborhoods. So all of these things are

(01:22:56):
you know, are enticing to to make you want to,
you know, uh play the game.

Speaker 3 (01:23:07):
But you know there's a price, a major heavy price,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
And I'm sorry. I just want to say, most of
the artists that you know make that kind of music
that have children that are all the age of influence,
they absolutely don't allow their children to listen to her music.
I've seen, I've seen Cardi B scream on her daughter

(01:23:35):
from trying to listen to her music, her own music.
She won't even let her daughter listen to her music,
you know, I mean right, but you don't never want
to do game right for anybody else kids to do
that ship m And I'm not believing Cardi B, you know, necessarily.

(01:24:00):
I'm just saying that's just the nature of.

Speaker 3 (01:24:02):
The beats you feel, yeah, for real, for real, you know,
speaking the gangst the rap, you eventually wound up working
out with working with a legendary producer. When did you
come out here and start working with.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
Drey nineteen ninety eight, two thousand, two thousand and one.
Nineteen ninety eight to two thousand and one, I was
working Doctor Dre as a staff producer, mean met man.
I don't remember all the other producers that he had

(01:24:36):
on staff with him, but I was signed to him
right up before each side l kit Son.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
Oh wow man, you came in as he was transitioning
into that period, I think, and Dre went through periods
right like he had the nw A period right then
he had the old Snoop Dogg period, you know Snoop
Dogg there from period to where he did that right
then he like took it up. And I think that Trey,
deep down his side always wanted to develop East Coast artists.

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Yeah, I think so as well. In fact, he was
on those guards sign uh Melly mail on scut yeo
uh too to his label, but they were not willing
to change their their style, their look. He wanted, he
wanted them to change their luck and it wasn't. It

(01:25:29):
wasn't with like getting hair cut some ship.

Speaker 3 (01:25:33):
So that I think Tray was right because you know
mail Mail even though no disrespect, like like he's still
going to studio fifty two sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Man right before, Yes, yeah he.

Speaker 3 (01:25:49):
Was like still about on the studio fifty four whereas
you look current now you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Know yeah, you know, well, yes it is that mel
you know. I guess I guess for him. Uh when
when you when you were the ship in a certain
era and and you have ah a narcissistic uh personality,

(01:26:17):
which he does, you always want to be the ship.
I mean, even if you don't have a narcissistic personality,
if you was ever the ship, or if you was
never the ship, you always want to be the ship.
So I guess I guess I would achuse me the

(01:26:37):
way that you know. The reason why he still dresses
the way that he used to is because he was
the ship in that error. So I guess he always
wants to be seen as the ship. So he's still
dresses and he still looks.

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
Like you know, yeah, and that's no disrespect. I don't
want mail look douse. You know how he gets Yeah,
you know what I'm saying. So he's I don't want
no smoke, but you need to change up, man to
come on to twenty twenty four, my dude, basically right,
But you know, so you're working with Drey, I can

(01:27:13):
almost guess the records that you probably worked on. I'm
pretty sure you worked on keep Their Heads Ringing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
Well, no, actually, I didn't work on any records that
that actually at least I just gave I downloaded. I've
done a bunch of tracks that I did, uh at
your rings, you know, at the studio, and he paid

(01:27:40):
me for what what the key note the tracks I
would don't know if he was done for. I'm really
not paying attention like that, but he paid.

Speaker 3 (01:27:54):
Machine right right and machine you know, and before I know,
it's gonna be some people in the comments trading made
no beats. So I'm gonna tell you this a lot
of times, and he had what do you do to him?
They sound like some different stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Yeah, So it working with Dre, I did learn, you
know that he's usually not the hands on actual producer
of the beat. He's usually he's usually the one to
mix the beat. You know, he'll he'll mix it and

(01:28:32):
ever find the beat and you know, bring out the
best in the beat. But as far as you know,
actual producer or creator of the beat, he's usually not. Well,
I don't know how long how long it's been since
he's actually been hands on producer, but I would imagine

(01:28:53):
it's probably been a long time. Yeah, he's a billionaire.
He got a lot of fucking money, which means he
got a lot of free time on his hands to
do a whole bunch of shit that you know, a
lot of us only dream of doing with all that
fucking month ro and and that keeps you, that keeps

(01:29:16):
you away from the studio. Which if you speak to
any producer whoever worked with Dre or for Dre, he'll
tell you dreas hardby for studio. And that was a
problem Topp had with I was I was in Drey

(01:29:37):
was the reason why I moved to La I lived
there for three years. Uh, that waited for the opportunity
to go in the studio with Dre. And I went
in the studio with Dre two tides and three.

Speaker 3 (01:29:58):
Wow, you know in the thing is he actually paying people?
Hey tell me, I was so so Tupac had smoked
with Drey because of Drad's studio etiquette.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
Yeah, dream dreams work ethic and you know, wasn't wasn't
satisfactory to he out problems with how seldom grade would
be in the studio on pop was a machine. So
he you know, he turned them out exactly that he
wanted to be in there with the weak dog until

(01:30:29):
he found out that Dre wasn't really ansalt producer that
he thought he yet was vocal and his displeasure, he
shot Dre and the leg.

Speaker 3 (01:30:44):
Park shot d in the leg.

Speaker 1 (01:30:46):
Yeah, showed the back Pop fifty thousand that he wouldn't
shoot Drake and Pop shining in the left.

Speaker 3 (01:30:55):
Are you serious?

Speaker 1 (01:30:57):
That asks yep?

Speaker 3 (01:30:58):
Wow, man so so so Fock is just on it
like that. So he really so when he was talking
all that stuff from the records, he really meant business. Pop.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
It was a different kind of dude where you know,
I only met him one time and we ones had
fallen out. We were Jack the Rapper in Atlanta and
we were we were staying at the Omni Hotel and
he happened to be staying on the floor right beneath

(01:31:29):
the floor I was staying the Lord, and so I
got on the elevator and to go downstairs to the
lobby where all the ship was going on, and elevated
doors opened up opened up on the next floor and
Tupaca and It's entarage were standing in for the elevator,
and they were signaling to me to step off of

(01:31:53):
the elevator to allow Tupac and his people to get
on the elevator. So I said so, but they didn't
know who I was or anything. So I said, oh shit, Tupac,
I said, Yo, what's up matter? You know, I'm ra
Haen from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, but I'm
not getting off at this snare, so all of y'all

(01:32:15):
could get on the elevated too. You know, it was
signaling for me to come off elevated because part was
about to get on. I guess there was his security
or what it. And I was like, Yo, Rahenes from
Grandmaster Flashing, and we all ride down stairs together because
I'm going downstairs. So he had a plastic cup A

(01:32:40):
field would hit us see in his end, and I
could smell it immediately, and I could tell that he
was slightly nebriated, and so he had a little attitude
because I didn't want to step off the elephant. So
but I ignored it, and and I said to him, yo,
mant it. I said, I'm a fair out of your

(01:33:00):
music and all that, and I just wanted to shake
your hand so he didn't shake my hand, and so
then I said to him, mom, yo, I seen I
seen shot G down stairs in the lobby talking with
Dolly mal and Scalpo for Mark Brook. I said, did

(01:33:20):
you did you happen to see them? And so he
said to me, uh uh, you know, a real fucking
tied of people asking you know where the fuck this
one it is? Where fuck that one? And I don't
need to know where fuck tupac? And some time, so
I said, oh, all right, don't pout, that's what's up.

(01:33:43):
And then I just let him rot. And then when
we got when we got to the lobby elevated door open,
he ice grilled me, ice grill him back, and then
he walked off elevated with his way. And the irony
of that that interaction with him is at the time,

(01:34:03):
I wasn't a fan, and it wasn't until right right
before he passed away that I became a friend. And
now I'm like a tremendous one, like I love.

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
He's one of the most amazing artists of our time.
That's my home.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
He's my favorite.

Speaker 3 (01:34:26):
And then DMX, Yeah, I think you know what it's
funny that you say DM mixed too, because both of
those dudes probably conveyed emotion to anybody in the history
hip hop, you know. And that was the name that
Gottlem And you know, Biggie he was a real lyrical dude.
Biggie Man, Oh my god, he was ridiculous, right, Yes,

(01:34:47):
But motion E didn't the vote the emotion Tupac did. Man,
Tupac make you either want to go out and hurt
somebody or go on and his be the best husband
and the best man in the world, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 6 (01:34:59):
Him and in DMX do that yes, yeah, I agree?
Or yeah there beating on somebody or have you all?
You know what I'm saying, being the leader in your community, right.
I think those they were both as geminis.

Speaker 3 (01:35:16):
Man, So I think that he's just and I definitely
think I definitely think, Man, we lost him a little
to something man facts, and I hate to get into
the just whole conspiracy stuff. Man. It seems like anyone
that has a certain amount of influence and power, man,
they always wind up leaving too early.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
Yeah, they see as a danger. You're going threat to
the power structure, because you know, if you have the
ability to say words that resonate with people to the
point where they take action, where your words can cause
people to take action, like that's some ship, that's some
powerful shit. You are you will absorit, you motherfucker, and

(01:36:00):
scared of you because you're a threat to them, especially
if if you have if you're awake, you know, if
you so called awake, and and you know you ain't
you ain't, no, you ain't. No house snicker, they feel
that ship.

Speaker 3 (01:36:21):
Yeah, ma'am, We're gonna have to do this again, man,
because I can easily go another hour with you. Man,
I really appreciate you coming on. Man, where can the
people get at you at?

Speaker 4 (01:36:34):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
Man, I'm going to uh, you can get at me
on Instagram rahi r h. I em official and that
will pretty much connect you to all the rest of
us social media.

Speaker 3 (01:36:48):
For sure, for sure, for sure. Man, you dropped a
lot of you bropped a lot of heavy, real stuff
on this tonight. Man. I know it's gonna be some
people blowing the comments. Well. That concludes another episode of
Against the Chronicles Power. Be sure to download the iHeart
app and subscribe to the Gainst the Chronicles podcasts for
Apple users. Find that Purple Mic on the front screen
of your phone. Subscribe to the show, leaf of comment

(01:37:10):
and a rating. Executive producers for The Gangster Chronicles of
Norm Steel James McDonald and Aaron m c a. Taylor.
Our visual media director is Brian Watt. Shows audio editor
is Taylor Hayes. The Gangster Chronicles. Here's a production of
The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartMedia. Any questions to
comments hit us up Against the Chronicles Podcasts at gmail

(01:37:30):
dot com. Peace be safe out there.