Fab 5 Freddy Talks Evolution Of Hip-Hop, Relationship With Basquiat, Blondie’s 'Rapture' + More

Fab 5 Freddy Talks Evolution Of Hip-Hop, Relationship With Basquiat, Blondie’s 'Rapture' + More

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Everybody's the ej Envy, Charlamagne the God. We are the
Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building,
a legend when it comes to this hip hop thing. Man,
ladies and gentlemen, Fab five Freddy welcome, brother hey man.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Pleasure to be here, man, what's happening.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
Pleasure to have you, brother man.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Thanks so much. Man.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
First of all, how are you.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm wonderful. Thank you for asking.

Speaker 4 (00:21):
Yeah, and you know, we just celebrated fifty years of
hip hop.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Incredible.

Speaker 4 (00:24):
What does that mean to Fab five Freddy?

Speaker 5 (00:26):
Wow?

Speaker 6 (00:27):
Man? Like I said, it's been I tell you, it's
been incredible just going through the motions. But at that
Yankee Stadium gig, the vibe in there amongst the people,
the energy, that enthusiasm that like grown folks you know
that lived through it, been through it hurt, all these
hits having an incredible time. And then when the axe

(00:47):
was on, I'm looking way up all around and people
up in the highest points of Yankee Stadium rocking the house.
So that hit me like, wow, this people really feel this.
It's just hard to articulate how how much it resonated
for the community that made this all happen, and to
be in the Bronx like it was just it all

(01:07):
came together for me.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
Did you ever think that hip hop would take it
this farr to quote the lady, I know, I loved
that call.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Not at all, Not at all.

Speaker 6 (01:15):
I mean, I mean I was clearly thinking of, like
you know, in terms of the moves I made, having
some control over the narrative, you know, being that being
aware that people that look like us in previous generations
of our culture didn't have that ability to host the
shows that you know, you know, the footprint that you
guys have and the things that others like us in

(01:36):
media and do these things. So that was like a
super significant thing that I thought about from beginning. But
to see it come to this point globally the most
listened to form of music around the world, still, it's
just astonishing.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Let's let's go back for people that don't know who
Fab five Freddy is. You started off as a graffiti artist, right, yeah,
So let's let's start from the beginning how you got
into this thing called hip hop and what you created
Because you started off as a graffiti artist, right, and
I'm sure you were tagging trains back in the day
because that was the thing to do.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
The trains, that was the thing to do, the trains,
the walls, the buses, right anywhere. It was an audacious
thing to do when when I think back, so many
New York teenagers back then in the seventies just felt
like it was okay to put your name anywhere you
felt it needed to be. And then the competition of
that developed into a real, you know, refined and defined

(02:33):
form of expression, ways of using them spray cans that
nobody ever envision anywhere, Like you know, spray cans is
just just you know, the pain and the old piece
or whatever right around the house. Now we've created, you know,
a way to make murals that kind of tell stories
about who we are and what we you know, where
we are and what we want to be and do

(02:54):
and all those things. It was like a fantasy, you know,
kind of like rap was that too. I'm going to
invent myself and talk about all these things I want
to do, And in graph as it began to really flower,
it was like, you know, I'm a superhero and my
name is Big and you know, all those things kind
of took off in ways that and then you know,
early on I got something clicked in my head that,

(03:16):
you know, looking at pop art and what you know.
I used to go to museums a lot as a
kid and looked at what Andy Warholl and these pop
artists were doing, and I was like, wait a minute,
they're inspired by the same things that we were as
graffiti artists, like like looking at popular culture names, comic
book logos, you know. And then and that kind of

(03:38):
made me want to be a visual artist like those
guys were. And then that began a journey that I
kind of helped lead, taking graffiti art into galleries, turning
it into something called street.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Art, which is also like a global thing.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
You know, probably heard of my homie Rest in Peace
Jean michel Boski io young brother out of Brooklyn, and
we met on that downtown scene. Had similar aspirations figure
out a way to be artists, Like Malcolm X said,
by any means necessarily, yeah, he used to Jean was tagging,
but he was putting up these like poetic phrases, quotes

(04:16):
that were not in any way like typical graffiti, but
it was a part of graffiti.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And nobody knew he was a young brother doing it.

Speaker 6 (04:23):
Initially He started out doing something called same O, which
was sort of short for same O, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
And then that developed and then we met and he
was on the scene.

Speaker 6 (04:34):
He turned out to be a brother like he was
doing stuff around Soho in the village area. People didn't
know he was a brother, and we met at a
party writer as I'm kind of stepping on that downtown
art scene, and we both had similar aspirations to try
to figure this out, so we began to you know,
we kind of linked up and we're in the same circuit.
Blondie was somebody that we met pretty much at the

(04:55):
same time. I'm in their ear about this new culture,
and then they kind of took us under their wings,
so to speak, and brought out work some of the
first people to buy paintings.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
For myself and Jean Michelle and then made.

Speaker 6 (05:09):
You know, took some inspiration from them stories I told
them and made a record called Rapture Altho.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
We Got to Stay Here for a Minute was the
first video on MTV.

Speaker 6 (05:17):
That was one of the MTV's first videos, which I'm
featured in along with Jean Michelle. I tried to get
flash was supposed to have come to be the DJ
i'd met, because you know, it was working on the
first hip hop movie while Style of It in that
same time frame, early eighties. I said, Flash, come down
and be in this video. You know, to think that
there was no MTV at that time, so we did

(05:38):
music video was not a thing. But still I'm like,
they had this idea to create a music video. All
the people we hung out with were in the video.
Flash never showed up. So I said, Jean stand at
the turntables, and I try to tell Majean just stood
there with a grin on his face. So in the raption,
so as Debbie starts to rap in the first line

(06:00):
on this Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
She's saying it to Jean and then she you know,
the song goes on.

Speaker 6 (06:06):
So that turned out to be one of MTV's first
videos when the channel launched, and close to ten years later,
they would they were kind of pressured into trying to,
you know, to do a show about rap music, and
I got the call YOMTV raps.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
I want to hear more about Boski at but I
want to talk about Blondie too, because we had these
conversations about fifty years of hip hop, and when I'm
starting to realize is the role that Blondie played and
helping get helping get hip hop main screaming, we have
all these conversations about white allies. Now, she was one
back then because I saw something. I was watching the
Ladies First documentary and she put shot, uh, Funky is

(06:45):
the Funky Funky four plus Funky four plus one on CNL.

Speaker 6 (06:49):
That's right, And that was me because I had been
in there are playing them old school hip hop party tapes,
breaking it all down, and so a lot of the
things that she's saying in the app with things that
I told her, you know, flashes, fast flashes, coolrefaid. You
told me everybody's fly on the early hip hop scene,

(07:10):
it was fly guys and fly girls. So I'm telling
her the slang, explaining how Flash was the fastest DJ
and how that was a big thing. And I was
amazed that they went out and made that record. I
knew they were feeling me. Her and her boyfriend at
the time, Chris Stein, that was the nucleus of Blondie.
I would they would invite me to come hang out

(07:30):
with them and we would just talk on pop culture.
Chris Stine. He was from Brooklyn. He loved the graffiti
on the train. So when I said, hey, I'm one
of those guys, oh man, I love that stuff. And
then I began to share my ideas trying to figure
out a way to be a visual artist, trying to
make it happen. It was actually them that took that.
The first time I met mister Andy Walholl was through them,

(07:51):
and then we you know, me and Andy and I
became friends. He was a supporter of what we were doing.
And yeah, they made that record and it went number
one across the country and many countries around the world.
And I don't I don't describe it as hip hop,
but it was the first time people heard rapping in
a context. And then also what she was, what she

(08:11):
graciously did was shout me out and mentioned other things
in the scene that I told her later. When Flash
did this record, the Adventures of Grand Master Flasher on
the Wheels of Steel, where he literally made a record
an example of what he would do live, just masterfully
cut up a series of records.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It started with.

Speaker 6 (08:30):
Using that using that rapture song where you hear that thing,
and then he cuts it into a whole bunch of
different other songs are cut.

Speaker 5 (08:39):
In, which is how do you think people like Blondie
avoided the label of culture vulture back then?

Speaker 6 (08:45):
You know what I mean, that's a good question, But
that word culture volta as a concept didn't exist, and
I think it was I mean, if you had really
dived into hip hop, which wasn't that big of an
audience outside of New York.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Most people did know what the hell she was doing.
They just were big Blondie fans.

Speaker 6 (09:03):
She sang as the record opened in her lovely voice
and then broke into this rap and was pretty decent
at it, you know, all things considered.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
It's not like I sat there.

Speaker 6 (09:14):
With her and tried to teach her how to rap.
She had rhythm and just said, I'm going to make
a record. Fat. I've been in her ear a lot,
and this record was a reflection at It was such
a gracious thing because it turned out to be a
calling card for me. Nobody really knew who I was.
I hadn't been on TV then, you know. And then
when MTV happened and they decided to try it out immediately,

(09:34):
it had the highest ratings any show had had at
that time. Then people began to figure out, wait a minute,
that's the guy that Blondie.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Mentioned, let's go back to your TV raps. So your
on TV raps.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
They flipped this channel and they create this hip hop
show called Your MTV Raps. Right, I'm sure at the
time it was kind of like a stab against Ralph
McDaniel's Video Music Box.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
No, not at all.

Speaker 6 (09:56):
No, Ralph was definitely I was a fan of Ralph's
show from the beginning in it. But they were resistant
what MTV was trying to do. It's interesting that you
you guys are now, you know, have this big position
doing radio. The guys like you, well, you know, the
thing was radio was pretty segregated, and in the American charts,

(10:20):
I mean, England was different. That's why I referenced America
pop pretty much meant white essentially, So no matter what
kind of record you made, if you could, you know,
make a record that was popping all the descriptive ways,
the people doing it were black, they would most often
off end up on the R and B or the
soul chart or the dance chart. And so MTV was

(10:41):
set up to try to mirror that a visual form
of what of what American radio stations were and so
when black acts got big, they were like, why am
I not getting any love on there? And so, with
the exception of a little line of Richie, a Little Prince,
there was very little black music to be seen. And
then I think it was Michael Jackson's label, Columbia's CBS

(11:05):
if I'm not mistaken, Epic, whichever one of those really
pressured them and they said, listen, we're going to pull
all out other acts, which included Bruce Springsteen off of MTV.
If you don't play Michael Jackson. I think that specifically
was Billy Jean, and then they played it. The numbers
went through the roof and then came Thriller and everything
like that, so that really they had to realize that

(11:26):
this time to change up that attitude. And then there
with two young white guys at MTV, Peter Doughty and
then Ted Demi Rest in Peace. Peter I've known on
the downtown scene.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
He knew things.

Speaker 6 (11:38):
I was moves I was making with Blondie and hip
hop's first film, Wild Style, and so he was in
their ear. Like records were selling like Crazy Run dmcll.
Some of those first early hip hop records were going crazy,
no marketing, no promo, and so they said, okay, we're
going to try try this out, and they tried it.
Keep them and also I'd like to make There was

(12:01):
a European version called The Yo Show that a female
named Sophie Bromley, a frenchwoman North African French woman who
was really cool, had hosted for a short period of
time only on MTV Europe. And then they decided that's
so that's where the Yo came from. There was a
Yo and then they said, okay, well we're gonna call
it Yo MTV.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Raps and it went.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
And they called you first. You were the first.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yeah, because I knew Peter and they saw the moves
I was making.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
They saw the Rapture video, they saw the film Wild Style,
which you know I produced it all original music.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
For, and then you know, one of the lead characters.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
So I had a bit of a presence and they
you know, made this argument and they said, let's give
it a try. And the ratings were crazy from the jump,
and so I held down the Saturday slot. They'd asked
me about a year or two into it. They wanted
to get a daily version of the show, and I
didn't want to over expose myself.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
Plus, I'm I'm directing music videos at the time.

Speaker 6 (12:57):
The first video I did was my philosophy Carros one,
Carross one, and then a whole string of videos.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
So I wanted to stay in my land. I didn't
want people to be like, oh man, I'm tired of
seeing him him on the screen.

Speaker 6 (13:08):
You know whatever, Like a lot of those other VJs
would be on there for hours introducing all these you know, Duran,
Duran and whatever else, and then they luckily found ed
Love and Doctor Dre.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
How long were you working at Young TV raps before
they brought in at Love and Dre?

Speaker 6 (13:23):
It was about it because it was close to two
years the first two.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
If I'm not mistaken, and you wasn't you wasn't upset
with leaving or you wanted to leave or was it well?

Speaker 6 (13:36):
When it ended about six or seven years in which
was incredible run, it was kind of sad that it
came to an end.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
But I realized, like, you know.

Speaker 6 (13:46):
Those acts that debuted on your TV raps were so pivotal,
they were so defining of the culture. Like the first
time people saw you know, Tupac Nwa, you know, Luke
and then my go to these areas.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
Where were you invented that everybody that's doing these these
these shows now where they go to where people are
that's absolutely fab far Freddy, fab far Freddy invented on
location conversation.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
Yeah, and that was motivated by the way MTV had
been set up. The VJs would be in a room.

Speaker 6 (14:17):
They would have all these crooky images going on in
the background, kind of a crazy you know, just mash
up of visuals and they'd be on for two, three,
four hours at a time, and it was like, I mean,
they're like, man, I just want to see this video,
you know, you know, slame dude on the screen.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
What's going on? So I just was all about lessons more.
It was a thing for me.

Speaker 6 (14:39):
And yeah, so it was, it was, it was.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
It was a beautiful run.

Speaker 5 (14:43):
I know, we're gonna be all over the place because
you just got such a great hit, so many gems
like and I know you said you didn't see hip
hop going as far, but as far as hip hop
becoming mainstream, you played a big.

Speaker 4 (14:53):
Role in that.

Speaker 5 (14:53):
Like when I think of the movie Wild Style, like
what did that movie mean to you and hip hop
at that at that time.

Speaker 6 (15:00):
Yeah, well, you know, that was an idea that I
had had to try to create a better look for us.
A lot of times in the media when somebody was
a young Black or Latin person when they were seeing,
you know, some cool street person was almost always in
a negative context, and I wanted to try to do
something to change that narrative. Also as trying to be

(15:21):
a visual artist, which was the main thing I focused on,
but dabbling in other forms of creative expression.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
I wanted to just put us all in a better
light and then show what we were doing.

Speaker 6 (15:31):
So the idea that I had had for a wild
Style was to show a way to show the connection
between all these elements that are part of hip hop
now that didn't exist before. So the idea was to
make a film that showed the connection between this rapping,
this djang, the breakdancing, and the visual form of expression.
Graffidi and I hooked up with this cat Charlie Ahearn,

(15:54):
who was an underground filmmaker on the downtown scene in
New York. He had made a super low budget movie
about kung Fu that had caught my eye. When I
linked with him, I basically pitched this idea for the movie,
and he said, essentially, let's get busy.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
So then we started researching.

Speaker 6 (16:12):
Going to parties in the Bronx, going to the t Connection,
the Ecstasy Garage, meeting Busy Bee, Cold Crush, Fantastic, Funky
Four plus one more including shah Rock, and that was
how to jump back to the Blondie thing. When they
got the opportunity to host Saturday Night Saturday Night Live,
they also got to pick who the support act was

(16:34):
and they wanted to bring somebody hip hop on.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
So we talked about flashing the Furious Five.

Speaker 6 (16:39):
Of course they were big, but then I said, you know,
the Funky Four, similar to Blondie, has a female like
out front, and I thought it was a nice counterbalance.

Speaker 5 (16:47):
Now what they talked about in the Ladies first Dog,
I don't know you've seen him, but like they break
that whole thing down, Like it was all because of
the shah Rock that Blondie wanted her to wanted them
to be the group correct.

Speaker 3 (16:57):
So that was me behind that and that was incredible.

Speaker 6 (17:00):
I remember being at Saturday Night Live for the taping
of that, and it was a young brother that had
I didn't really get to kick it with him that
much that had just joined the Saturday Night crew, and
that was Eddie Murphy.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (17:13):
Yeah, just started around and I remember seeing because it
was another brother that used to be on Eddie Saturday
Night Live in the beginning.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Garrett Morris was.

Speaker 6 (17:20):
His name, absolutely, and then this young kat Eddie who
would later like blow up all over the place a
little bit.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
It's so interesting because you know, I keep hearing you
talk about you wanted to make sure hip hop was
presented in the right way, right, So I wonder, like,
what are your thoughts on the genre of hip hop now?

Speaker 6 (17:41):
Well, you know, hip hop has continually amazed me with
the different turns and the evolutions that have happened within it.
That's been the most fascinating thing for me. And some
of the things that I've hoped for have come to light.
Like I remember the very early days when it was
all pretty much throw your hands in the air waving
like you just don't careybody say, oh, it's pretty much

(18:03):
a party, uplifting kind of vibe.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
And that was cool.

Speaker 6 (18:06):
But then I said, man, if somebody can figure out
a way to say something that was socially relevant, I
knew that would elevate us, and that was the message
broken glass everywhere, you know, don't push me because I'm
close to the edge. Really articulated how a lot of
people were living in New York and other hoods, and
everybody got the memo that we can now throw our

(18:27):
hands in the air and have a party, but we
can talk about our realities in these streets.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
And that was exciting.

Speaker 6 (18:34):
And then so there's been things that have happened along
the way that I've been really enthusiastic about. Obviously, when
the conscious movement came in me working with KRS one
in the beginning and Chuck d and everything, that opened
up a whole another chamber that was incredible. Didn't see
it coming, but it was definitely needed. And I think
hip hop is gonna fit. It constantly figures out a way,

(18:56):
it evolves. It's a it's like a living organism, and
different affected come in and may go off the track
a little bit with certain things, and then they'll come
back with something that totally blows us away. Like I
think the African even though it's not specifically hip hop,
it's very inspired by the things that we've done. So
the afrobeats and the Ama piano, which is a sound

(19:20):
coming out of South Africa, a young kind of dance
type sound which is unique, is incredible as well as
well as what the cats in England have figured out.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
On the grime side.

Speaker 6 (19:32):
You know storm Z and those cats that were constantly
early in the early days of what they were doing.
They were constantly trying to emulate rap groups from over here.
I went to England and covered them during the Your
TV Raps era. I remember London Posse was one of
the hottest groups at the time that had a New
York East Coast kind of wrap flow. But they never

(19:53):
really blew up as big as they wanted to in England.
But then they figured out how to do it in
their own way, with their own sl in their own
way way of speaking, and they made some dope records
and blew ups.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
What's your thoughts on a lot of the legends and
ogs who are the founders and creators and made this
platform where there are billionaires and people are millionaires, but
they haven't got to just do financially and a lot
of those brothers are not doing well now. But if
it wasn't for them, you wouldn't have the sound. They
wouldn't be the movies, the music, the DJs, the rappers.

(20:26):
What's your thoughts on that? Because I always feel like, damn,
should there be like a union for the creators of this?

Speaker 5 (20:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Wow, there's something coming up that I'm involved in.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
I can't elaborate on it a lot because l said
there something coming up that he said he can't elaborate
on either yet.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Yeah, ll is probably a where I'm a part of
what he's doing with Rock the.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
By the way, he said, you one of the founders, Well, yeah,
he reads you.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
Yeah, I have some equity in that.

Speaker 6 (20:54):
And he made an incredible presentation, flew me out to
really pitch in a proper way.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
I was saying, I'd have got down with him.

Speaker 6 (21:00):
He didn't have to go that, but I was impressed
that he wanted to demonstrate he had learned how to
play that business game properly. And I got down with him,
signed the papers, and I'm super impressed to see what's happening.
So there's something that's coming up, which is something that's
going to address that and do something significant towards people

(21:20):
that haven't gotten there just do but that have had
a significant impact.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
Trust me.

Speaker 6 (21:25):
In the fall, something's going to go down. You guys
are going to get the memo and hopefully we can
continue that and hopefully there'll be more versions of this
that are a significant give back to pioneers. Unfortunately, because
in that very very very early, almost pre record days
or the beginnings of that, a lot of cats didn't

(21:46):
figure out how to monetize and how to do the
kind of good business that you guys clearly have both
figured out, which is incredible.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Brothers like those Earn your Leisure.

Speaker 6 (21:55):
Cats are laying out a road map for how we
can be fiscally attuned and aware of ways of doing
the proper things with our money all.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
The time, exactly.

Speaker 6 (22:11):
Yeah, the Aunlesia guys I met. I ran into them
the other day. In fact, when when when you know,
those cats were here in New York. And so that's
a problem unfortunately that it just is what it is,
you know, But I think there's been examples once once
again on the positive side, you've had cats that figured
out how to how to do business right, how to.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Accumulate not just be rich, accumulate wealth.

Speaker 6 (22:34):
You know, it's difference between rich and wealthy, and it's
great to see cats working on that now.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
Yeah, because I thought about that with y'all, like, what
was the future for VJs back then? Like did y'all
even know what the future looked like? Like what what
did y'all aspire to be after the VJ thing?

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Well, good question. Thankfully for me, I was doing something prior.

Speaker 6 (22:55):
I was already making moves, you know, making art, you know,
making films like Wild Style, and the VJ thing just
came to me really honestly, which was great. People would
run up to me, I want to do this, How
do you do it? I was like, Man, I'd be
awkward because I'm like, I can't tell you how to
do There's no to go to VJ school do this.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
It was just a moment.

Speaker 6 (23:15):
Clearly MTV is a different you know, all that stuff
like doesn't exist. People can do millions of people do
that on YouTube, you know, if you will. So there
wasn't really a clear path if you will, but if
you like you say, like I think interestingly Ed lover
going to radio along with Doctor Dre initially and being

(23:37):
really good at it was a great transition. There were
some people that had worked that radio behind the scenes
and whatever that then came to MTV. Stephen Hill have
been a radio person that then transitioned to become one
of the producers at MTV.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
But yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 6 (23:54):
Man. It wasn't too many clear paths other than radio
or some type of TV announced it and maybe commercials
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
But for me, like I wanted to just get back
to doing the things that I'm doing.

Speaker 6 (24:06):
I'm like an obsessive creative and so that's it, you know,
it's just creating and that's still what I primarily do.

Speaker 5 (24:14):
I mean, you had to be right, and man, when
you hear you talking, I'm like the role that art
played in hip hop when you talk about Boskiyaut, when
you talk about Warhol, I feel like, damn, that might
be what's kind of missing, like that connection to art,
like actual art.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
Well, you know it's interesting too because of the continued
success and awareness of Jean Michelle and other things that
we've done. How street art like hip hop, is a
global form of expression. People and countries around the world
take it to the streets, so people are aware of
art in a way, and I think that's a great

(24:52):
thing about using this tech to inform ourselves. And because
I'd like to say all this stuff that we really
want want to know or to get a at least
an overview is a few clicks away, and.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
You could you know who's Andy?

Speaker 7 (25:08):
Will you know?

Speaker 5 (25:08):
I was?

Speaker 6 (25:09):
You know like me, I was one of those cats
that would go to the library and love spending some
time in some books and which is a foundation of
a lot of things I've done. But now you can
you can click through it and see it and chat
gpt it. You know, use those things before those things
use you.

Speaker 5 (25:28):
Like is has gotten you know, put on him because
of hip hop, and it's like back then he didn't
get the opportunity because he died like before hip hop
kind of took off that eighty eight.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
That was gonna ask were you surprised of the explosion
because it came so late?

Speaker 6 (25:42):
Well it was, it was building though bese Jean was
just a fascinating character. So there was a films and
interest in his life once people heard, like, you know
who he really was and the things he was doing
in the moves he was making.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
And yeah, so it's it's been.

Speaker 6 (25:59):
It's just continue used to grow it like it feeds
and it's like a it's like an organism. The the
awareness of Jean and his work and then the exciting
stories about his life and basically how we lived back then.
You know, this young brothers trying to figure it out
and figuring out a way to get in. It's just that, Jean,
It's exploded in a significant way and inspired a lot

(26:22):
of other people to just dig in and learn more
about art. That was the thing that we both cut
school and went to museums a lot as young kids
and got comfortable with the idea of making art, standing
in front of great paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, the
Brooklyn Museum and things like that, the Museum a Modern

(26:44):
Art and being comfortable with these important pieces that you
would later see in different books and stuff, and then
go and look, I can do this too, and I'm gonna.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Figure out a way in. That was the the strategic thing.

Speaker 6 (26:55):
There was really no clear way in, so we would
huddle and think about ways to get in that weren't
the kind of formal ways in, and that was through
connecting with other people that was making moves like Blondie,
other people on the downtown New York scene at the time,
pulled us in and then we like made things happen,

(27:17):
put our shows up, you know, group shows and things,
and then caught the tension of the major players that had.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
To acknowledge what was going on.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
How many pieces do you have?

Speaker 6 (27:29):
I've had work. Artists that are friends usually will trade
things with each other. So over the years, me and
him being cool, you know a few things would change hands.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
You know how many people called you and be like, yo,
I know you got some crazy when it comes up
some pieces, you know the numbers on his work.

Speaker 6 (27:46):
It's so crazy. It's such an awkward conversation. Now it's
like somebody asking you about the value of things that
you own or can buy now or whatever, which against
kind of personal at a certain point, but the things
got so crazy it's an awkward conversation app because you know,
you think about the security and how you're gonna you know,
how you're gonna hold it down, or can you keep
this in the house now because it's so crazy, like

(28:08):
does this make sense to keep this here?

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Or should you just find a safer place.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Now that not not just being stolen, but you don't
want the house to get flooded or catch five because
it's an investment.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
At one piece that was just your your brother's art.
Now it's like Jesus, you got a lie.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
I'm not saying I'm not gonna get it.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
To come to my credit, you got enough. You have
to think, ain't nobody seen it before?

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Oh well, guys, I'm getting I'm getting I'm getting pressed.

Speaker 5 (28:35):
You know what?

Speaker 4 (28:36):
I do want to ask you about Boskout and Warhall
or two things.

Speaker 5 (28:40):
What were those conversations like, because you see all these
Andy Warholl quotes, Like one of my favorite Andy Warholl
quotes is in the future, everybody will be world famous
for fifteen minutes.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
Did he really talk like that?

Speaker 6 (28:50):
No, But he wrote a book called The Philosophy of
Andy Warhol, From a to Being Back Again, and that
was where he had a lot of other really smart things.
Andy was very perceptive, very astute about the whole pop
culture game before it it developed into.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
Where it is now.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
So he literally saw things that were coming, you know,
And so that was a part of the genius of Andy.
But then his public persona was kind of like simple
answers like oh, g no, you know, so you would
you would kind of come off like he wasn't that
kind of savvy a guy that he but he really was.

(29:30):
It was a very kind of a cultivated persona. So
when you got to know him and you hanging out
and talk, he really was like a big brother in
many ways. And he saw that we were coming up,
we were having exhibits, he would tell you, oh, this gallery.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Watch out for that dealer. Oh my goodness, he's this
and that. I'm like, oh wow.

Speaker 6 (29:49):
So he would be very chatty and very talky when
you got to know him, but his public persona was
a was a whole different thing. The Netflix doc that
I took part in, and then I felt a little
awkward because Andy was gay, and I didn't know he
was gay in that regard because his whole perception was

(30:09):
I'm a a sexual if you will. So I was like, Okay,
you know, he's not messing with anybody, and I've never
seen him around anybody that was his lover, girlfriend, what
have you. But the Netflix doc got really deep into
the relationships he had, and I felt like, almost almost
embarrassed to get all this info that. I was like, man,

(30:30):
he so, you know, he's so strategically kept it positive
to see it all laid out, and I was in
that dock. I took part in that, but I just
it was a lot that I didn't really realize was
going on. You care.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
He probably didn't even cared.

Speaker 3 (30:44):
Really, I didn't really care that.

Speaker 6 (30:45):
It was just interesting just how crafty he was and
how on top of culture he was for a really
long time, way before he you know, like into the
early sixties, like the Walhall Factory and that scene. Almost
anybody could have came up in there hang out and
hang around, and that might be like Lou Reed, you know, uh,

(31:07):
just a whole bunch of you know, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix,
like artists, people just doing wild psychedelic drugs or whatever
would all hang out and then somebody just walked up
in there and basically shot him.

Speaker 4 (31:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
The chick said, you're.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
Controlling my life, like you know, the just the buzz
on him had was driving her crazy. And so that
then shifted him to shut down a bit and to
close the gates, and then he went to another level
with it.

Speaker 4 (31:32):
But but he got shut You got shot by somebody
who's clearly a craze fan.

Speaker 6 (31:37):
Man. Listen, Okay, you controlling my life, stop tuning into me.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
Then that't got it to do with me.

Speaker 6 (31:42):
Yeah, So that that was a It was a wild story.
But yeah, he was a definitely big influence on a
lot of us. He had broke through in ways, and
then when we started making Noise and he started coming
to events we were having, it was a symbol that
we were doing the right thing, and you know, he
was acknowledging the work. And then it took it to
the next level. Him and Jean Michelle collaborated on a

(32:05):
series of paintings together and that was like unbelievable. So
that got Andy to put the brush on canvas in
ways that he hadn't done in many years.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
And was any of those pieces no No.

Speaker 5 (32:17):
When I think about y'all being, you know, young back then,
it's like, yo, what and you I don't know what
were y'all?

Speaker 7 (32:22):
What was youall aspirations? Like what did you and Oboskaya
want to do? Like we were just you know, that's
a good question, too, kind. We were just trying to
have an impact as artists. We were trying to rock
our scene, which was a downtown scene.

Speaker 6 (32:39):
This was obviously thinking this is pre the Internet and
pre access where anybody can have instant access practically to anything.

Speaker 3 (32:46):
Going on in the world, pre big money. Yeah, but
it was pre big money and big money.

Speaker 6 (32:52):
We were looking to be comfortable and be able to
pay the bills and pay the rent and then you know,
have good meals and take you know, hang out with
our friends and party. We didn't have that.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
It wasn't like a like a like a focused on
just getting paid.

Speaker 6 (33:05):
It was really making an impact with with your with
our work and really being heard and being seen.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
That's something that led me.

Speaker 6 (33:14):
At a point when I'm making paintings and was doing
pretty decent at it, I was getting a little restless
with just painting, and Jean and I both had talked
about using any medium we can get our hands on,
so make music, which he dabbled with a bit, produce
films as well as being films, which you know we

(33:36):
both did at that time. And so that was one
of the motivating things that a lot that we that
we talked about and were just driven to kind of
find ways of expressing ourselves.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
Do you remember how much and I know we asked
a lot of questions. Do you remember this was a
long time ago. Do you remember how much paintings went
for back then when y'all soul paintings you or biscout
to even warhole, what like what they were going for
price wise back then in the beginning.

Speaker 6 (34:01):
If you could sell your work for a few thousand dollars,
that's great. And then if things move, then those numbers
could either quickly go up or go up at a
nice moderate rate, because as people acquire to work, and
you know, if the work is accepted and respected and
you know, written about, and other people want to show
the work, there's an incremental increase in the prices. And

(34:24):
then at a certain point it can just go really
really crazy, which it clearly did for Jean.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
But you know, he.

Speaker 6 (34:33):
Received a lot of that, like while he was alive
and then sadly unfortunately, you know, passing really young at
twenty seven, and then it just shifted into a whole.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
Nother level, which you know, was just a part of it.

Speaker 6 (34:47):
But I think the great thing though, is there's a
lot more young artists, just artists of color, even artists
that laid the foundation back in the times at the
Harlem Renaissance, significant Black artists Jacob Lawrence, Romar Beard and
Charles Austin.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
A lot of these artists.

Speaker 6 (35:04):
There's a long list of these artists that were from
the Harlem Renaissance period that was strong and incredible that
because of the way racism was at that time, they
just didn't get the kind of love and acceptance.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
But a lot of that has been changing. A lot of.

Speaker 6 (35:18):
Institutions and museums are reaching out to realize, like we
missed getting these significant works, which is a part of
the story of American expression visual artists. So there's a
lot there's a strong effort and a lot of dynamic
young artists now making moves you know, in America now

(35:38):
way more than whatever doing it that are getting like,
you know, serious, top, top tier, you know, recognition collapses,
et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
What was it like for you in nineteen ninety one
when The New Yorker named you the coolest man in
New York City?

Speaker 6 (35:56):
Yeah, that was crazy, Susan Orlean wrote that article was
a profile. I was about fifteen or sixteen pages in
the New Yorker.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Yeah, I was wow. I remember this.

Speaker 6 (36:05):
You know, I've been written about a lot at that time,
you know, different articles about hip hop, different aspects of
the culture, being on your TV raps. And here comes
this woman who wants to do a piece on me.
She comes and hangs out with me a few times.
She knew nothing about hip hop. And what I loved
most about that piece was how right she got it,

(36:26):
how hard they worked to tell the story accurately.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
People had butchered.

Speaker 6 (36:29):
How to say my name.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
They would always ask.

Speaker 6 (36:32):
How long I think it was gonna last, meaning that
they thought this was all like a brief passing fad.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
And here's this woman, Susan Orlean came and she.

Speaker 6 (36:41):
Got real curious and wanted to hang out with me
while I'm taking your MTV raps, while I'm having meetings,
planning from music videos I'm directing, and just.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Listening to me talk. Obviously you know, I'm into a
lot of stuff.

Speaker 6 (36:53):
And she caught it all and fifteen sixteen page piece
for The New Yorker, which was incredible.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
The only thing about them being in New York at.

Speaker 6 (37:01):
That time, it wasn't read by a lot of a
lot of people in the space that we were in
at the time. Like Vanity Fair was kind of hot
at the time, and I used to think, man, I'm
kind of due for, you know, for like a nice
write up and maybe you know, like in Vanity Fair
something like that.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
And then the New Yorker came along, which.

Speaker 6 (37:19):
Is considered like the greatest magazine. Some of the greatest
writers in American history have written for them. And here
they doing a fifteen page profile on me. You know,
it's hip hop person doing this cultural stuff. But it
was pretty good and it's amazing that it still pops up.
People see it on the Internet and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Did you you go ever get out of control?

Speaker 6 (37:40):
Not really? You know the thing about my ego, I'm
glad you you got you got good questions. I see
why y'all saw y'all y'all both are so nice.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
That means the world coming from you.

Speaker 6 (37:48):
Thank you. So I had like people in my life,
like my father grew up with a jazz legend named
Max Roach who became my godfather. He to the drums
is what Charlie Parker to the sacks, Miles to the trumpet,
Dizzey Gillespie. He's in that category cast that defined a
new form of jazz late forties fifties called be bop,
be around. He's featured with his then wife Abby Lincoln

(38:11):
in Summer of Soul, performing up in Harlem. And so
he come by the house all the time, kick it
with my dad, you know, always wanting to hug me
and hey, man, what you doing? You know what I mean?
And so he was just so cool all the goddamn time.
I could never be like be on some stupid you know,
you know, like with a crazy ego. And then even

(38:33):
Blondie in them would treat me so good. I'd be
up in their house hanging with them. The biggest pop
group in the world, literally number one records all over
the place. So I learned to, you know, always got
to be cool with this.

Speaker 4 (38:46):
So you mean there was always people around that reminded
you like, yeah, I'm not really a man.

Speaker 6 (38:49):
Can well you just can't. Can't go crazy. But you
got to be humble and with this and appreciate the
fact that you have these opportunities. You know, it's just
you just but it's easy to get caught up in there.
You have seen it happen too many times. But luckily
you know some people that they can can pump the
brakes and check themselves and realize, man, you know I'm
out there being a clown. I'm being an asshole right now.

(39:11):
I shouldn't be doing that.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
And so, and how did it feel when, you know,
at the time, when you had all these rappers right,
and these rappers are coming up and now they're not
as local. They're selling millions of records. They're going, but
they're mentioning you in their raps. Do you remember the
first time you heard your name in a rap.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Besides yeah, no, EPMD A couple of guys. Man, man,
that was crazy.

Speaker 4 (39:30):
Man.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
It's just such a humbling experience to just be recognized.

Speaker 6 (39:35):
But you know a lot of casts that really has
seen wild Style so early, like in your TV raps,
A lot of people that was really dialed in on
the game kind of knew who I was, which was
really my first real audience was other people in in
the in the culture really, which was so cool.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
And then that began to spread out.

Speaker 6 (39:53):
But yeah, you know that was a special, special, special dynamic.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Do you uh?

Speaker 4 (40:02):
Do you do you remember that day you shot with
nw A when you went out there?

Speaker 6 (40:07):
Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, and it became
a lot of people's favorite show. I remember vividly. We
have been playing videos by Easy on the channel and
Ted Demi and what he would talk to Easy often
and Easy was like, man, I want you all to
come out.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
We have a new group.

Speaker 6 (40:25):
And I remember them sending us a memo the day
before us to listen. Nobody don't wear anything red or
anything black. No, I'm sorry, red or blue were black,
is what they said. And I was like, man, I've
been to l A a bunch of times, but I
didn't understand the dynamics in the hood, you know, I

(40:45):
being West Hollywood in and out on some art business
or what have you. And so we were like, okay,
so we want to show people this scene. So let's
run a flatbed truck and let's ride around, because you know,
we hadn't seen like what the hood is like or
any semblance of la And so we meet at the
welcome the Compton sign and then we get on this

(41:07):
flatbed truck and ride around and do segments from the truck.
They take us to a swap meet and they give
us a little insight on how they live. And it
was crazy.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
I know it was gonna be a great show.

Speaker 6 (41:19):
I get back to the hotel and I put the
Walkman on, got the cassette of the new album, the
NWA album Straight out of Comptent. I listened to it
for the first time and I'm literally snatching the headphones
off my head can't believe the things that they're saying
f the police and just the aggressiveness and the music
was amazing and incredible, but the things they were saying,

(41:42):
I was like, MTV is not gonna let this this happen.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
They gonna pull this.

Speaker 6 (41:46):
Man, we done shot this incredible show riding around. There's
nothing's gonna happen. Well, the videos, they weren't able to
play the video for Straight out of Compton, but they
still had other videos and other content, and the interview
played it and it took off.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Man, it took off so lovely.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
And was there anything you saw and like Dre or
Cube back then, you know, easy became as an icon too.
Anything you saw in Drea Cube that lets you know, oh,
I can see them being where they are now.

Speaker 6 (42:14):
Yeah. Well I couldn't predict how huge it was going
to be. But they were so smart and they clearly sonically,
particularly Dre had studied what Public Enemy had been doing
sonically with them with the best right with the Bomb Squad,
thank you, and the level of production and using those
samples was the state of the art at that time,

(42:36):
and they had did something similar. And I remember before
I had listened to the record and really understood it.
Cube a couple of times in between the interviews was like,
your fab what's g rap?

Speaker 3 (42:47):
Like, what's up with g rap?

Speaker 6 (42:48):
And I said, Yo, g Wrap's cool and whatever. But
then when I listened and I heard the aggressiveness of
what they were saying, I saw that Cube happened studying grap.
G Wrap was spitting harder than any at that time,
you know, songs like Rykers Island. In fact, I directed
a video for g Rap Road to the Riches, which
is which was the first rap song, and then the

(43:11):
video about the rise and fall of a New York
crack dealer. I'm the first video to put an image
of scarface in the thing, and that led to me
getting in a social associate producer role on New jack
City because when George Jackson came to talk to me,
I'm finishing up Road to the Riches and he bugged out, said, man,
this is what the this is the constant, this is

(43:31):
the idea in the movie The Undercover Cop, which I
see with play.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
I had a hand in casting all those guys. It
was crazy wow. So that was a snapshot of that.

Speaker 6 (43:40):
And yeah, but Nwa man, genius and Cube, you knowing
that he was a person that wrote a lot of
that helped structure a lot of that record. It was
just amazing and the fact that it it had the
impact it had was just one of the great things
in rap to see it come together. And then you know,
in the process of doing that, I'm one of the
first people that once again I'm interviewing these guys, I'm

(44:02):
hearing this West Coast slang.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
I'm getting to hang out with them, and I'm like, money,
what's what? What are the switches?

Speaker 6 (44:09):
When you're talk about witting switches before you knew like
what one eighty seven was, are some of the things
that they were dropping We just as I had to
get the four one one, which is similar to what
other people in other parts of the country had to
do to figure out what we were saying.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
In New York, you know, they had to break down
and slang.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
You know, since you've interviewed so many people and you've
been to so many coaches, whether it was you know,
La the South New York. When you're talking when you
hear the mount Rushmore of hip hop, right, who is
your on your mount Rushmore? As far as artists are concerned.

Speaker 6 (44:43):
Well, you know, when when I get asked those kind
of questions, I'm basically like, I've loved so many and
and I'm also aware that there's different errors where different
people were the most important people at that time, right,
so as the errors have evolved that my rushmore would
it would be various versions based on but I'm a

(45:04):
lyrics guy, primarily based on lyricism. Oh man, it'd be
in the beginning, you know, I'll screw up, and I'm
sure there's names I forget, But in the beginning, of.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Course, you know, only before for every era, look at you,
you know, uh Mo.

Speaker 6 (45:22):
D kaz uh you know, man, who else?

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Man, I'll screw this up?

Speaker 3 (45:33):
Cowboy? You know? And then going on further from that,
you know Caine, rack him, uh g.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Raph man, Jesus, people forget about g rap a lot,
And I don't understand why, because when you listen to
you clearly get it.

Speaker 6 (45:51):
His lyrical game was masterful, just incredible way he played
with words.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Who else was my mother?

Speaker 6 (45:57):
Forth from that in that early period, I guess I
would have to put I'll drop a cube in there,
you know, And then moving forward, you know, you know
Biggie Pack, of course, you know Oh man, I'm stuck
right now. I can't think of all the names that

(46:18):
I would love, but pretty much those that you know,
Nads of course, who I luckily got to direct his
one of his first one one love Yeah, that that
Q Tip produced, you know. So, man, just and then
to see Noads still putting out incredible music on a
consistent basis, it's.

Speaker 3 (46:37):
Like a jazz artist. It just look, I got something
to say.

Speaker 6 (46:40):
I'm not pressure. It's not about the paper. If you will,
I'm just want to express this. I'm gonna drop this
on you.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
And so it's it's just probably he probably get from
his pops.

Speaker 6 (46:51):
Yeah, yeah, Olu Dara who used to live near me
in Harlem and we would talk because you know, and
that's a key thing that Nads had a similar to
something that rock Kim has.

Speaker 3 (47:02):
Both of them.

Speaker 6 (47:03):
Obviously nas Dad's a jazz musician. Rock Kim had jazz musician.
It was a sing I can't remember her name, but
earlier connection to jazz and that sensibility I think is
a is a big part of his flow and his
dynamic as an artist.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
You did Park's first interview the.

Speaker 6 (47:25):
First first time on National TV.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
A lot of those cats.

Speaker 6 (47:29):
The first time I interviewed Park was on this set
of the movie Juice, and and then we held that
show until the movie dropped a few months later, and
then we added you know, and I'm also did a
cameo in Juice as.

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Myself, you know, hosting your m TV reps while the
DJ battle.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
Was going on and talk about that set Juice.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
That was crazy.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
I mean, you know, it was you know, I mean
classic movie to this day.

Speaker 6 (47:57):
Man, amazing stars from them, Yeah, a lot of good stars,
a lot of just really good dynamics. And I'm pretty
sure Tupac definitely have excelled in acting and clearly would
have been OSCAR nominated by now. His dynamism on the
screen was just something I think, like like people like

(48:17):
that have been able to do it in music and
then do it on the screen. It's just a it's
just a rare group of people that have been able
to do that and still you know, resonate to us
in such a powerful way. But your Pock and I
were pretty tight. The second time I interviewed Pac once again,
this was pre death Row. I like to that's when
because it was the first time I knew his background,

(48:42):
like he had a black Panther link family wise, and
that was the first time he'd spoken about that when
I pulled that out of him, and he explained how
his mother was panther father, so that that fire and
that awareness of what they were fighting for.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Was a part of his consciousness, so which was really interesting.
He was a.

Speaker 6 (49:04):
Dynamic cat like I mean, he could be the most
militant f for a while, Fruit of Islam, Black Panther
and then spin on a dime and just be the
illess thug and that was I think a part of
the actor in him. He could completely be those people
or any other people. I'm sure he would have gotten
to play in films. He would have been super effective

(49:27):
and compelling. So that was a great loss. So you
saw that back then even absolutely, because it was just
talking to him and he you know, and then he
flipped and be just super hood. And I think the
persona that he remained in for most of his public
life after was the persona of Bishop in juice like

(49:48):
that was his character that you know, he wanted to
become on everybody and as many people wanted to wish
to have been a big dude on the New York scene,
or a strong cat that conflex like in Harlem and
all that, and juice.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
Was his way to do that.

Speaker 6 (50:03):
And because come on, he he wasn't that dude prior.
But he stayed in that character largely, and then unfortunately
got caught up and this that, and the third on
the New York side, if you know, the drum, and
then and went West coast, and you would think he
was born in South Central the way he rapped, you know,
on out there in Cali, which is so super effectively,

(50:25):
but he could he was convincing in any of those
genres or any of those formats he would put itself in.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
I know, you probably got to go. He's got a
couple more questions.

Speaker 5 (50:34):
Why do you think commercially, because you was there from
the exception, why do you think commercially the West Coast
took off?

Speaker 4 (50:41):
It seemed like to me before the East Coast, like
I'm talking about.

Speaker 5 (50:43):
With the massive mainstream success that we see in hip
hop now interesting, I just I.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Don't know that's but would you say that because he
had run?

Speaker 3 (50:57):
I thought it was their term.

Speaker 6 (50:58):
Yeah, we we blew up big and dug out and
planted a firm foundation. That's why this culture still rocks
so hard to this day because the roots went deep
without anything going viral too early or people jumping out there.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
Tucson, it was deth Row was a months.

Speaker 5 (51:16):
Snoop Dogg sold what eight hundred plus thousand his first
and second week. He was like the first hip hop
artist on certain magazine covers, like he really was.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
It was something else that was something else, and it
started with NWA to me, but.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
It was a big thing.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
They had an incredible movement.

Speaker 6 (51:34):
It was I think it just followed they They added
on nicely to the foundation that was laid right here
in New York. And then once again, I was honored
to get to direct Snoops first video for What's My
Name and turned them into a dog. And then interestingly,
you know, I'm in the cannabis business now with a
brand called b Noble, which grew out of a film

(51:56):
I made which you can see on Netflix called grass
Is Green and got Snoop is in my film and
Snoop tells the story which I didn't know that he Dre.
I spent that whole summer living with Dre in Calabasas
because the first day of shooting Snoops video him performing
on VIP Records. Right after that, we changed locations in

(52:17):
Long Beach. That turns into a near riot. That's like
not more than a year after the LA riots. So
we got shut down dress fabric. I gotta finish Snoop's album.
If you can chill and hang, we will get the
video done with. My priority is getting this record done.
So I'm like, Dre, I'm here, Why.

Speaker 4 (52:36):
Was it right?

Speaker 6 (52:37):
Because you know, LA is deceptive. You can be in
the hood and I'm a New York cast, so I
see cats in the hood. I see cats on the corner,
on the stoop. I can feel the tempo of the neighborhood.
You know what I'm saying. In LA, you don't see
cats out. So I'm scouting locations. I'm like, oh, Dre,
I got this this And Dre was like, man, it's
kind of crazy and Long Beach. But I'm like, man,

(52:59):
I'm been there good. I didn't see the cast that
really live in the hood. At the video shoot, everybody
comes out. Everybody's in the crowd. So you got this set,
that set, I got the foy on set as a
security nobody that's like disrespecting, like a like a priest
on Sunday. These dudes in Foi's face, you know, talker

(53:22):
smack to them. And my assistant director came to me,
I'm at video village checking the monitors, sitting next to Dre.
They said, fab, you know the crew can't work. I said, Yo, Dre,
is it possible? You know you can do to Drason man.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
I can't tell them cast nothing.

Speaker 6 (53:34):
So when I realized they wouldn't listen to Dre, I
knew that was going to be a delicate issue. So
when we finished that location, we went to the next location.
These cats now was ready to get it in. By
three four, fights had started and the police came. The
helicopter swung and they basically shut us down. So it
wasn't like a riot, but it was.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
It was ugly.

Speaker 6 (53:54):
They just had a riot, so they didn't want no
massive gatherments like that. So that lets led me to
and the rest of that summer out there hanging with
Dre and the dog pown, getting to know them real well,
seeing Dre's process in the studio, which was remarkable, and
then we would get a moment to run out and
get some scenes that would be other parts of the video,

(54:14):
and then towards the end of the summer there was
a big scene that I never got to shoot because
Snoop got caught up famously.

Speaker 3 (54:21):
Murder was the case. I said, Man, I'm out of here.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
This is just enough.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
But you know it was interesting. Snoop tells a story that.

Speaker 6 (54:31):
The chronic had become the hot slang word for good
cannabis on the street. He told Dre, the chronic is
the hot thing, and call your album the Chronic, and
Dre went with it.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Was is this just amazing to get that story behind
the scenes and see it come to fruition, see it.

Speaker 6 (54:50):
Coming fruition, and get that story years later, and then
amazingly I make this film Grasses Greener, which looks at
the connection between cannabis and America's music, So from jazz
and Louis Armstrong, the greatest jazz people. That was their
intoxicant of choice, because you know, you get really high

(55:11):
on cannabis, you still can play your instrument. You know,
you like, if you get really drunk, that's not happening, right,
And so it was an important part of that and
laying all that out, looking at all genres and music
from jazz, all the way to hip hop and then
looking at the criminal justice thing inspired me to create
a cannabis brand called be Noble, and I'm really fortunate

(55:34):
that we were able to partner.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
We own the company.

Speaker 6 (55:37):
We made a licensing agreement with the biggest cannabis company
in America, Curely. We give back a ten per cent
of what we earned to organization and we're in nine
states organizations helping people victimized by non for non violent
cannabis offenses, and we donate money and then we take
care of the brother that we named the story that we.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Focused on in the film.

Speaker 6 (55:57):
This brother was given a thirteen year sentence for two
joints of weed and he served seven.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
His case was a big case.

Speaker 6 (56:04):
Many organizations were fighting to get this brother freedom, and
when he finally got a parole, we flew back down
to film him walk out of prison. And then shortly
after that, I got inspired to create this brand which
is doing really well and raising awareness about these issues
while selling fireweed actually, which is a growing business now

(56:25):
which New York, which has now gone legal, is expanding
licenses going out. I mean, there's some bumps in a row.
So that's a fascinating thing because once again, I feel
so just blessed to be working in the space enlightening
people about this powerful plant which has been vilified as

(56:49):
a gateway drug and categorized next to heroin in the schedule.
And there's a fight now because this obviously medical benefits.
With the opioid crisis going on and hundreds of thousands
of people dying, cannabis can be used and a lot
of things that they prescribe opioids for, and it's so

(57:09):
it's a beneficial thing. So that's been been a big
thing that I've been working on now, as well as
all the other creative stuff.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Just to ship you.

Speaker 6 (57:16):
Didn't bring any ship, baby, I got something.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
We got you covered on that, baby.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Well, you got the fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series,
and we'll talk about that before we get about it.

Speaker 4 (57:34):
I want to document fab You need.

Speaker 5 (57:36):
You need a document like you yourself, Like you have
to tell your story because you know, I hear it
in bits and pieces, whether I've seen Black TV interviews,
you know, the New York articles and stuff.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
But I'm like, you need the proper telling of your tale.

Speaker 6 (57:50):
Well, I'm working on I'm gonna I'm gonna soon be
working on my memoir and lay it all out and
then hopefully out of that process we can get a
doctor done.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
You know, it's funny.

Speaker 6 (58:04):
No, we don't have a deal yet, but I got
an incredible collaborator who's a very accomplished writer that I'm
most likely going to work with, and we've had a
few conversations, like I had a brief convo with Questlove
actually started a publishing impress.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
So I'd like to bid on it. Question I got
my post called Blacker was publishing with Simon and Schuston.

Speaker 6 (58:26):
Man without questions charlam Man, I'm sorry, I really should
have known that. But also it's great having you guys
on the podcast that we did, uh, the fifty Years
of Hip Hop podcast series, which.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Was a fun I mean, I mean my man here King, Aaron.

Speaker 6 (58:44):
King, who worked with my very dear friend Rest in Peace,
Combat Jackle Combat Jack Show. So it's great to work
with him and to really, you know, tell some of
those foundational stories about the culture. You can go anywhere.
Your pod casts are living any platform as.

Speaker 4 (59:04):
A Black Effect production.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Yes, yes, Dolly Bishop, who is on your team.

Speaker 6 (59:11):
We work together and you know, it's a it's a
you know, it's an iHeart podcast, and that was fun
to get to relive and tell some of these foundational stories,
and especially with you guys when we did the show
on on you know, hip hop radio, it really hit
me like, you guys have gone at doing this at
such an incredible level, remembering the Supreme Team, Mister Magic

(59:36):
and Read Alert and when those when we just had
an hour or two on the weekends. Now you guys
are doing this at such a major level and sharing
those stories were special. To be able to remind people
of these journeys that we've been on. So easy to
just get caught up in what we're doing now. But
the greatest thing about this fifty years is we've been
able to once again tell the story of this journey

(59:59):
that we've been on and how this thankfully is still
going on and going strong. And the main reason, I
believe is because a lot of people stepped up and
we've been able to take control once again. When Max
Roach my godfather, and I'd hear my dad and those
guys talk about stories and the Jazz era with Miles
Davis and them, they wanted to have their own labels.

(01:00:19):
They wanted to be able to control things that just
wasn't happening in the nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties
because of the way the dynamics and America racism and
things like that. So it was always a part of
me to want to be able to adjust that to
a certain point and be able to put that narrative
in there, which is things that I see you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Guys do, and I really appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
One final question, how did you get your name?

Speaker 5 (01:00:45):
Because your name you predate Fab five from Michigan clearly,
So how did you get your name?

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
And I know that they probably got it from you?

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
Yeah, they definitely the Fab five.

Speaker 3 (01:00:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:01:01):
I became a part of a graffiti crew called the
Fabulous Five. They were the one of the dominant groups
of graffiti painters in New York which were known for
doing murals on this side of the primarily on the
Lexington Avenue number five train. I wasn't a part of that,
but I wanted to take this whole thing to another level,

(01:01:23):
and I collaborated and got down with a brother named
Lee ken Jonis, who was a premium member of the
Fab five graffiti group. And you know, they had kind
of eased off painting the most of the Fab five,
and I connected with Lee and shared these ideas about
taking it to another level, like from the subways into galleries,

(01:01:45):
museums and stuff like that. So with the blessing of
Lee and the other members, I became a part of
the Fab five. So what you would tag up was,
you know, you tag your name and the group you
was down with and then off. And then sometimes I
would be referred to as, oh, that's Fab five Freddy.
You know what I'm saying, that's fab fire fred And
when Blondie made Rapture, it just embedded it and solidified it.

(01:02:10):
When she dropped my name, when she basically was like
Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly and I was like, man, wow,
I never thought of it as the whole thing. But
that's a good look, you know what I mean. She
represented and gave me a look and it it booms.
So that's how that really came together.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Last last question, I know you said that, but I
just want you to tell people how difficult it was
to tag trains back in the day, because it was
it wasn't easy. It's not like the train was just
sitting there and you'll had eight hours to do what
you had to do. I mean, y'all had to deal
with police, you had to do with the train moving,
you had to deal with the electricity in the trains,
like y'all had some ish to deal with.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
It was so just just talk about that.

Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
There was a great documentary that was done at the
same time we making Wild Style early eighties. There was
a documentary called Style Wars that illustrates in fact, Kate
Slay who's young graffiti rider named Dez is as a
young graffiti rider and he's you see him in Star Wars. Yeah. Man,
You had to know where the trains what we called

(01:03:08):
called the called the layup or in times when the
rush hour is not running, the extra trains are placed
in different areas in the city, sometimes in tunnels, sometimes
at the yards. So you had to know which train
you wanted to get to get up on, where that
train was going to be, whether in a tunnel or
way up in the train yards at the end of

(01:03:30):
the train line somewhere, and then you had to be
stealthy on some ninja type energy to get up in there,
because one of the objectives is also you know, not
to get caught, and so you had to have all
those pieces together to get in, get out, and hopefully
not get caught.

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
You ever got caught taken the tray?

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Never? Never, But what what would happen to you back
when it was raging, which was not a good look
if you get caught. One of your sentences was to
go wash walls, So you.

Speaker 6 (01:03:59):
Overalls, You're your bucket and a bunch of chemicals, and
you'd be at some platform and some station having the
clean walls, feeling like, man, I got caught out here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
I feel I'm like a herb now, you know.

Speaker 6 (01:04:12):
So it wasn't easy. It was a very difficult thing
and to really develop it. So that's a crazy part
that we didn't like to talk about a lot because
a lot of the paint was actually uh liberated.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
You know.

Speaker 6 (01:04:24):
It's funny when you go in anywhere that sells spray paint.
Now in New York City, they still have the spray
paint in a cage. It's like under lock and key, yep.
And I had a lot to do with that form
of expression, you know something I'm sorry, yeah, no saying
you know, I had to get that paint.

Speaker 5 (01:04:43):
It just something that people thought was just vandalism back
in the day became something so synonymous part with New
York City.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
It gave the city character. You see it in video games,
cartoons and everything.

Speaker 6 (01:04:54):
That blows my mind. You know, graffiti fonts, you know,
you can get a font and just use graffiti letters.
So that's that's really satisfying to see that. That's a
lot of these ideas we had have really worked. And
I'm excited for the next fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
All right, well, we appreciate you for Freddy.

Speaker 6 (01:05:11):
Thanks Freddy.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
Wanted to be up here with you guy.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
You brother absolute breakfast club.

Speaker 6 (01:05:16):
So I'm getting ready to head out. I'm on my
way to Burning Man tomorrow. I'm a part of the
Burning Man world. I'm also on the board of directors,
so I would be in the Vada desert having a
blast once again. I know it looks a lot of
weird to people if you don't know, but it's an
incredible creative experience where artists come make incredible sculpture. Everybody
that nobody's trying to sell anything. It's just amazing work

(01:05:39):
out in the desert. It's like being in a sci
fi fantasy world of creativity.

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
It's amazing and I just want to tell you man,
you are the shoulders that so many of us stand on.
Whether you are journalist, whether you're a radio personality, the podcasters.
None of us would be here without the foundation.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
That a fab five friend. Are you back in the day, man,
So we love you, and we value you, and we
appreciate you. My brother, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
I appreciate that so much.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
Yes, it's the Breakfast Club, good morning.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
Yes,