David Mays | Ep 172 | ALL THE SMOKE Full Episode | SHOWTIME Basketball

I'm I'm excited. I got some some new things going that are starting to really uh take off and I think can have an impact. Out Here created a platform about a year ago called Breakbeat. You know. It's designed to be a content and technology company for the hip

hop community. Obviously, I've been involving hip hop, you know, pretty much my whole life now, but I see like avoid out here still to create a platform that's a little more authentic, that really has the interests and perspectives of the culture and the community more front and center, and is going to stand behind those across the board and also really try to bridge the gap of the ages.

Because hip hop spans over three generations now, but they kind of divided us through the music, where the older people kind of don't like the younger people's music, and it's all that narrative back and forth. But beneath the music, hip hop is a way that you think, a way that you view the world if you've been you know, grown up and been influenced by it. And I think whether you're you know, forty nine or nineteen, you're gonna have a lot of same point of view and perspectives

and a lot of things in our world. A lot of times people underestimate hip hop. They still just think of it as music and entertainment. There's still not really respecting the culture and everything that comes, you know, really the foundation of it. Talk to us about your upbringing. Uh, well, I'm born and raised in Washington, DC. Um so, I grew up in the city, went through the public schools. Uh, just kind of fell in love with the music and

the culture of the city at a young age. You know, so in those days, this was really when go go was emerging in in DC. So that was really you know, among my first love as well as you know, so R and b M. I just kind of got into all of that from a young age, and yeah, you know that's stuff where it started. I mean, hip hop has never really made it in DC because of Go Go the way it did in so many almost every other city. So I was you know, I got some hip hop when I was in DC. You know, I

heard rappers. The Light that I was the first song I heard when I was in sixth grade and knew all the lyrics to it. But it wasn't until I left DC to go to college. I went to Harvard this is nineteen eighty six that I became more fully like really immersed in in hip hop. Well obviously Harvard

Historical School. Uh what drove you that direction? Um? Well, you know, my family was a family that you know kind of valued education and achievement, and so I always kind of was instilled with the idea that I would go to a really good school. You know, I was, you know, fortunate that I did well, you know, grade wise, but also you know, extracurricular activities and sports. You know, I played a little basketball back in the day. We get what was your game? Like? This is still all right?

Still you know a little little Elvin Hayes. You know, I grew up school. Yeah, but uh yeah, so um, you know, just um, you know, I had the opportunity because of all that, coming out of a public school that was considered diversity for for Harvard back in the end of the days. Um and uh so, yeah, that was really it. But when I got there was it was kind of different because I didn't really know what to expect in terms of, like, you know, the the

culture and the people there. You necessarily don't think hip hop Harvard. Those aren't really synonymous with each other. So what was that? Was it a huge culture shock or you know, I know you were being you, but was it a little different? Yeah? Absolutely. I mean it's Harvard's come a long way now. I've seen some things coming in the last few years where they you know, definitely hip hop as a as a strong presence there. But back in those days, no, it was a total culture shock.

I'm walking around campus with my Fielaw sweatsuit on and you my bringing my DC style up there. People are looking at me like who is this guy? And I couldn't really fit in with anybody there. I started, you know, making friends with people off campus, people that would come into the gym and play ball from the neighborhood, and you know, I ended up starting a radio show and that it was called street Beat, and that really became

like a passion for me. Back in those days, there was no rap music being played on a radio commercial radio. The only time place you really could hear it was college radio. So I was able to actually build a big presence in the city with street Beat because you know, I was just very dedicated to getting the newest music and building relationships with the record labels around around the country,

and it gave me an outlet to the city. So when concerts would come to Boston, I'd be able to go down and you know, tend them in the city, different things like that. So, uh, but I was always an entrepreneur growing up. Um, you know, lemonade stands and had a lawnmowne business and Junior High with you know, eighty clients and business cards. I used to loans too. I didn't have eighty of it, but yeah, yeah, we had a gun, yeah my boy David Scribner. Um. But yeah,

so I always had that entrepreneurial bug. And so through the radio show. You know, this really leads into how the source was created. Because I had listeners all over the city. People would call in. You know, it was late night, you know, Friday night, midnight, one of them type of thing. But people would be calling, so I knew we would building an audience. And one of the reasons I picked the radio station was you could make

commission on ad sales, which was unique. Most colleges you can't sell ads, so but Harvard had a thing where you could sell sponsorships. So that was my thing. I'm like, I'm gonna go around to all these businesses and buston and try to get some sponsorship dollars. And people were laughing at me, like, man, nobody's listening to, you know, rap on a on a Harvard radio station. Because the Harvard station was known for classical music and played almost

all classical music all day long. So I got frustrated and came up with the idea, let me start building a mailing list of my listeners. So every week I would go on the areo, you know, call in join the street beat mailing list, and I would write down names and addresses of everybody that called in. I would set up a little sign up boxes around town for people to drop their name and address, and I built up like maybe a thousand something names and addresses or

hip hop fans in Boston. And then that's when the idea came, let me create a newsletter to give out this news and information because answering those phones all the time and talking to people, what I kept hearing is, you know, people were thirsty for any information about hip hop because again in the eighties, hip hop was big. You have you know, run DMC and you know many others that had had created a huge market, but there

was no information anywhere. You couldn't find it on the radio, newspapers, TV, nothing like that. So people would always call in, when's the new you know, Public Enemy album coming out? Or who produced that you know remix for EBMD or you know, different things like that. So that kind of sparked the idea, Man, I can you know, get information from my contacts at the different record labels and then put it into a newsletter form and sell the advertising on the back. So

that's what I did. The first issue of The Source was one single page yellow sheet, front and back. I saw four ads on the back, total of maybe one hundred and fifty two hundred dollars. But I was happy, but crazy and just kept flipping it from there. Remember, what it was about. What it was about that first one. I mean basically it had a chart of the top maybe twenty songs of the month. It had a column of news that just kind of had little tidbits of

different news and information I had. We had like a list of sneak preview of upcoming albums when they were coming out, concerts coming to town, and like a trivia question it was, you know, do you feel that whole page? Yeah, exactly exactly After college you take your talents to New York to try to build your brand. What was the

ups and downs of of doing that and starting that off? Man, Well, so I start the source between my sophomore and junior years, so it gets going, you know, into junior year, senior

year's growing. You know, very quickly I saw, you know, the vision of trying to create kind of the Rolling Stone for the hip hop generation, because I had been given a book on the history of Rolling Stone magazine, which I didn't know anything about, but I saw all kind of parallels between rock and roll and hip hop and how this guy, Yan Winner had created a kind of underground newspaper and built it up into you know, like the biggest pop culture you know, voice in America

in the age in the nineties. So I'm like, you know, I can do the same thing for hip hop. So quickly, you know, it started going to you know, become more of a booklet and a magazine, and I began to distribute it around the country. I would call up mom and pop record stores in every city around the country and say, hey, I got this new magazine. I'm gonna ship you, you know, ten copies on consignment. You know. I would just get it out there and people started

buying it. And you know, because that was how people got information back in the day. You went to your local record store. Yeah, that was really the only place you can kind of get anything, so the source would be right there on the counter. We started selling hundreds thousands of copies. So it became, uh, you know, I'm in college, but now I got to figure out, how do I move to New York, How do I set up an officer in New York? How do we start

kind of paying salaries to ourselves. I was able to get maybe four different record companies that really believed in what I was doing and the impact that the US was having, and I got them to prepay for a year worth of ads. So that's how I raised a little bit of capital, maybe seventy five eighty thousand dollars. And that was the capital I used to move to New York get things, you know, rolling down there and just kept it pushing. Um. I mean New York was

was incredible. I mean you know that was you know, I moved there in nineteen ninety. Um, and you know, this is again the height of hip hop. New York is still you know, the the central you know, uh place of hip hop, although it's obviously you know, getting bigger and bigger you know, everywhere else around the country. Um, but you know you're you're kind of in the in the center of it all the big the big city and uh but you know we we uh we just

took it on and and uh um became great. I mean, you know, I ended up being in New York like fifteen years and um, you know, just a great, great experience. But like you know, a lot of a lot of challenges along the way. But you know, or did you get and I said, there's a old respect did you get any pushback you know, respectably being a white man trying to kind of I mean, you set the tone

for you know, hip hop information getting out. There was there any pushback because of sure, you like there was there was some pushback in the beginning, Like when when I was still at Harvard, I had three other partners that were Harvard students, but my first partner, his name was John Scheckter, and he was white and also Jewish. Um. So there was like stories coming out, you know, the two Jewish guys from Harvard started Hip Hop Magazine, and so some people were you know obviously like hold up,

hold up, um. But you know, I always let the magazine speak for itself, you know, the credibility or the magazine, the way that I ran the company from the beginning to the end, you know, and the commitment that I had to uh, you know, to the culture and to keeping it real and you know, not being afraid to you know, get into the you know, into the mud and deal with what comes with with with that to

be you know, really accurate about things. So in you know, in the early time, a lot of people began to endorse the source, you know, Caress One and all kinds of you know, he became like a contributing editor or something that those the source in the early days, and John Singleton and different people that you know were getting involved. So you know that really brought more credibility when when you get those kind of stamps from people. But it was the work, you know, it was the work that

spoke for itself. And I was always in the background anyway. I was always a guy that you know, just kind of wanted to be in the back and be head down focused on building you know this uh, you know this empire. You started legendary columns like the five Mics. I got a homeboe. His name is five mics right now, but m and a lot of people rated themselves. I was in rating music off that five mics standard. How did you start that? Um well, five mics started like

early nineties. It actually the first we started with the rating system for albums that was one to five. But in the beginning it wasn't actually mikes. It was like these little broken kind of record images. But we had the rankings from like whack as number one all the way up to a hip hop classic number five five rating.

So maybe a year or so in the idea, somebody on on my editorial team came up the idea to change it to to mikes, and you know, we had the logo that the Source was known for the hand holding the microphone. So yeah, it just became you know,

it became the standard in the industry. I mean again, I think it was just, you know, the Source was a place where people that really loved hip hop, you know, could have an opportunity to you know, get involved in the business of journalism and media, whether they were writers, editors, photographers, graphic designers on the business side, you know, executives, advertising production.

And you know, the whole office in those days was under twenty five years old, like it was nobody over twenty five and the Source quickly became you know, like just that place. People would come and want to just roll up in the office and you know, people would smoke in the office or out in the stairwell or whatever, and uh it was just a you know, just a cool vibe. So a lot of a lot of artists

would come up to the office. I remember Ice Cue, you know, coming up in the in the early days and like, hey, he wants to play us his album, and you know, everybody gathered around the conference room when he's playing his album. And so people really you know respected the Source, just because again we you know, the way that we wrote about stuff, people really felt like it came from people that really understood, you know. And unfortunately that's that's going back to breakbeating what I'm trying

to do now. It's like you don't really have that today. Um. You know, most of the people that are in the media space, you know, I don't feel a lot of them are really uh, you know, committed to the culture. At the end of the day, it's become you know, just a business for everybody and a hustle or what have you. And you know, we've lost some of that authenticity and that integrity, um, and things that will help to unify the community and the culture better. You know,

every artist in the nineties one in five mics. People will go into the studio to make an album, and that was their goal. I'm going to get a five mic album. I got to come up with something that the Source is going to give five mics to. So you know, people were always uh, you know, coming at us and and um, you know, we got a lot of things right, you know. You know, we became famous with Naas for example, you know, with Illmatic, you know, we gave him a stamp very early on because at

the time he dropped Illmatic. He you know, he had a little buzz, but it wasn't like it was crazy at the time, and the source you know, five mics stamp like gave him that boost, you know, the Launch's career before that, you know, Tribal Quests they got five mics. Taylor's Soul u Cube had got one as a few more glad album bet sure man, But we made we made some mistakes too, like you know, the Chronic I still take pride in it. We gave it four and

a half mics is obviously a five mic album. Um, we did go back some years later and revised ratings just you know, we had to just kind of I don't recall about Southern playlistic. I mean, I'm not sure Southern playlist. He is an incredible classic album, I mean, and so influential. I mean Outcasts as a whole is such an influential, uh you know group in the evolution of hip hop and what they brought to the table and the doors that they opened. Um, and they made

amazing music. But I think they got five mics. Forum Stankonia or I'm forgetting, but they definitely got a five mic. They didn't get it on or Southern playalistic, but they did get it. Yeah. Was there was there a time or a cover or anything where you felt like, okay, like we're here, where we are official? Was there a

point of time when you felt like that. Yeah. You know, it's hard because, like I was beginning, I'm the guy that like never stopped to like, oh man, we made it, or you know, I'm already on the next five moves

down the road. So it's like, I don't really I wasn't taking the time to really sit back and say, man, But I can say one of the most you know, kind of exciting moments for me in that era was the first time I heard Juicy playing on a radio in New York and with Big, you know, shouting out the source miles every time I face is up in the Source. Now we had to scu Big. That's another legendary column from the magazine is the Unsigned Hype column.

You know, we we're the ones that reviewed Big demo tape that he made just for the Source, and mister C brought it up to us put him in Unsigned Hype and maybe March of ninety two, a few months later, well, a few weeks later, I get a call from Diddy Puffy at the time, who's telling me about his new imprint deal that he's been given at Uptown. You know, he was in our uptown and that he was looking

for rappers. So I called up my boy, Mattie C. Maddie is the guy who really ran the Unsigned Hype column for years and was the one who picked a lot of the big names that came through that column, including Biggie. So I told him. Matt was like, yeah, we just put big you know in the magazine. Let's get him that And Matt ended up bringing the tape to him and he I signed, you know, a few

weeks later. So y'all connected the dots between Big, Impup, Absolutely, Common Mob, Deep, DMX, all those type of guys, Higned, eminem Component, Noriega, David Banner, Joel Santana, Jail Electronica, Pitbull, Joel Ortiz. There's a few more I'm forgetting, But yeah, it was a very legendary column and it's actually the subject of the first documentary audio series that Breakbeat is releasing in the next month or so, The history of the source. Well, we're doing Unsigned Hype History of the

sources is coming soon. As I say, that's not all, you know, that's something that we need to talk about. Yeah, got be talking more about that. Come on bringing out the show time. But the story of Unsigned Hype is called um it Was All a Dream, The Untold Story of Unsigned Hype. It's an eight episode limited series. We tell the whole story. You know, how do we get Biggies dem or how did he get the deal? What

was going on? And you know Common's life and you learn so much because this is parts of their lives that people don't really know. I haven't really heard these stories before they got signed or right when they get signed. So I'm really excited. We just finished that and we're getting ready to put that out and we have more oops. We have more in that vein coming behind it. I'm also been working for over a year now on the Larry Hoover Life Story. You know, we're the first to

ever get the authorized rights to Larry's life story. You know, that's going to be an eight to ten part audio documentary as well. So I've been in Chicago, you know first, you know, hand like right on the scene with his family and a lot of his people helping, you know, get that together. But such an important, untold story also that I'm really really proud and excited we're going to be bringing later this year to everybody. Rest in piece, First and foremost to DMX, one of my favorite artists.

When you first heard DMX, what was your thoughts? Well, I mean I didn't really I don't really remember hearing his demo. So the thing with DMX is, and you'll hear it when you listen if you listen to the podcast we had. We played some of his early music that was brought to us. He sounded totally different. We put him in unsigned hype, I believe in nineteen ninety one.

He didn't get on until like ninety seven ninety eight really, so his career went through a lot of ups and downs, different record deals before he kind of landed with Rough Riders and Deaf Jam. So we had him an unsigned hype before he really got with the Rough Riders. So when you listen to his demo back then, his voice is totally you know, and his style is totally different.

So I don't really remember hearing DMX until like, you know, get Out of Your Dog came out and you know, he's one of the most amazing artists of all time. I mean so prolific, so talented, such a gifted, you know, lyricist and just you know, storyteller and and just figure. And it's you know, obviously a huge, huge loss to hip to have him pass away. So yeah, rest in peace to any stories you can share with us, some behind the scenes of any photos, photo shoots, iconic photo

shoots you've got, Um, well, let me see. Um. You know, I like to go back to The Doctor Dre and The Chronic because even though we only gave it four and a half mics, we did that like before it came out. Okay, I remember getting the Chronic uh an advanced copy of some songs. Now at this time, you know, Dre had left NWA. People didn't really know what was going on with him. He didn't you know, have a deal he had gotten with Sugar and they were, you know,

making this album. Um, and it ends up coming to me and I'm like, man, you know this is going to be amazing, Like we got to put Dre on the cover. You know, I started making calls. I ended up having to fly out to LA and got introduced to Sug and had to basically go sit with him and convince him like, hey, lets the Source have his

first cover. You know, we loved this album. We want to be behind you, you know from the jump, and he, you know, he blessed it and we ended up doing that photo shoot with with Doctor Dre with the gun to his head. That's one of my favorite and one of the most classic, uh images of the Source covers

of all time. H So that was you know, I was out there for that cover shoot and uh, you know, it was definitely like a view into some of the la you know, life and culture having you know, sug and all the guys that we that So, yeah, that was. That was definitely a one of the one of the memorable ones. You're in the you're in the midst of building uh you know, a hip hop monster machine. Um, you end up partnering or coming together with Benzino. Can

you speak to the early partnership that you guys had developed. Sure? Um, so when I'm in Boston, like I was saying doing my radio show, Um, Benzino is part of a local rap group that was big in the city and they were putting out their own records independently. So Um. I had gone down to one of their shows, introduced myself to the crew and it it was like, you know, you guys, come on up to the radio station and do an interview. That's how we all met. UM started to become friends.

His DJ at the time, my man Well, he was known as Deaf Jeff back then. Um. He ended up joining the radio show and becoming our official DJ for a street bat. Um and I liked their music, so I was trying to help them with their music. I ended up getting them their first record deal with Tommy Boy Records. So you know, he was a friend and someone that I was working with on the music side in the early days. He really didn't have an interest at that time in the source. He was focused on

what he was doing, the music and everything else. But we stayed friends. When I left Boston moved to New York, we stayed in touch and I continued to help him with the music. Got them, you know, deal at Flavor Unit Records, a deal with RCA Records with Steve Stout, different things like that. So there came a time in around ninety four, late ninety ninety four where I had a dispute with two of my original Harvard partners that

were the editors of the magazine. They had been kind of, you know, putting The Source, in my opinion, in a bad light because I felt like the success of The Source was going to their heads and instead of being this kind of supportive voice for the culture and the artists, we were starting to get into these kind of personal

beefs with artists. A lot of people don't remember this, but in ninety three ninety four, you know, Public Enemy made a music video depicting them trashing the officers of the Sauce magazine, and you know Snoop had gone on BT and was like, you know, fuck the Source. And Cypress Hill, who was another group that we really helped discover and helped blow them up at the early stages

of their careers. They end up touring the country burning copies of The Source on stage because of things that in my opinion were unprofessional by the writers and editors of the magazine. And so we started to have a dispute behind that, the Iced Tea conflict. We had a big conflict with Iced Tea over cop killer that went public so ultra Lee. That led to a situation where the editors stage to walk out on me and put out, you know, basically a press release and said, you know,

Dave May's has to step down. He's doing all these terrible things, and you know, we're not going to work anymore until Dave May steps down. And it got like a petition of writers and journalists, um, you know, to to sign this petition. Um. So I ended up getting through this. It was you know, very challenging time, but

I was able to basically replace my staff. I brought in some amazing new writers and editors, people like Selwyn Hines and Carlito Rodriguez and um, you know many others that are still doing incredible things, you know in media and the culture today. Um. But it was a time where, like, you know, I was feeling a tremendous amount of disloyalty from people that you know, I had put on you know, I started, So I put these guys down, gave everybody

you know, percentages, that type of thing. So when they left, I kind of reached a point where I was like, you know, I think Penzano, I think you could you know, help me with the source now, and he kind of helped me. Had kind of had my back during that time because things got a little bit you know rough at that at that moment, and that's when I said, hey man, you know, I want to you know, give you some interest with me in this, and you know,

have you come on board? So this is around ninety five ninety six is when he starts to get involved in the Source, and you know, he basically worked with me for maybe another ten years until you know, we all left. We both left the Source in two thousand and six. Um, what was your point of view? Because you guys were right kind of in the midst of it. The social word started in two thousand, excuse me, nineteen

ninety one. Plenty of iconic performances and moments in hip hop history, but particular one that stands out is the East Coast West Coast Beef. What was your point of view on it? Because you guys are literally writing the thick of it. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, this is the type of thing that me and Stack were talking the other day about the importance of documenting our history properly and how it's not being done accurately. So there's a

lot of misconceptions around this. You know, I haven't told my story yet. I'm you know, part of what I'm doing now with this new platform is you know, bringing my voice out a little more coming and doing stuff like this, and working on other projects that are going to tell my story and the story of the Source. So the Source Awards was an idea that I came up with in the early nineties. You know, hip hop

was being disrespected across the board. It was super popular, like I was saying earlier, you know, he was selling millions of records, but it was being disrespected across the board by anything in the mainstream, the Grammys, any type of awards or institutions for music. Old body took it seriously.

So the idea was, you know, let's create a platform where we can really honor and celebrate these amazing, you know contributions that people are making, artists, producers, DJs, all the different parts you know that we're contributing to the culture. So it started like as a column in the magazine at the end of the year. It was like, we're going to name the best artist of the year, the

best album of the year. And I brought that column to the guy who was producing your MTV raps at the time, and I said, hey, let's do a segment on your MTV raps where we give out these awards, and they agreed. So the very first Source Awards were given out I think in the spring of ninety two on your MTV raps over the course of the day or two and we just had these little trophies and people came on and got them. But that was a start. Then a guy named Mike Elliott had joined working with

me at the Source. Shout out to Mike. He's done amazing things. Also, Mike is the the writer of Brown Sugar the movie, and he's done many other things in Hollywood and continuing too. But he got involved, and he and I came up with the plan to like actually take the Source Awards and make it into a real event with thousands of people. And we rented out the Paramount Theater at Madison Square Garden in nineteen ninety four

and you know, put on an incredible show. There's only a little bit of footage that still exists from that that night out there, but you know, Tupac was there at that first awards. I mean, everybody from Hip Hop, Run, DMC, you know, Wu Tang, the list goes on. It was just, you know, it was an idea like, hey, I'm going to bring all of these different parts of the hip hop world together in one place that's never been done, never been done. It never been done. And I was

really the only person that had those relationships. Because you know, the Source gets some flags. Sometimes people try to say we were biased towards the East Coast or what have you, but we actually, you know, went out of our way to recognize hip hop coming from other parts of the country. Um, from very very early on. You can go back to the earliest issues of the Source in the eighties, late eighties, and you'll see the coverage we gave to you know, certain mix a lot or you know NWA or different

people coming from other parts of the country. UM. So you know I had the relationships with the you know, the Puffies, the Sugs, the Jay Princes, the you know, all the different players at the time to be able to kind of get us on the same accord like, hey, you know, we want to do this for for hip hop. Let's have a show of our own that we can really you know, celebrate. So that's how it started. Um. The second year ninety five is the one that you're

talking about. That's the probably you know, one of the most famous ones of course, um and that was the first televised Source Awards. I paid a syndicator um to get it out on to uh, you know, different affiliate stations and all the major markets you know, NBC, Fox affiliates and different cities. And that's how I got the first Source Awards televised sold sponsorships to pay for it.

But that show in particular, you know, this whole idea of the East West and everything that happened, there's there's so many layers, you know, to that. But one of the narratives that I want to make sure gets you know, corrected, is you know, people kind of try to blame the source, like we kind of the whole East West thing started at the Source Awards that night with the sugar and the puffy stuff. But I mean the East West thing as a whole. In hip hop goes back to the

late eighties, okay. You know, the Ghetto Boys and other people were making songs basically you know, saying, fuck New York, y'all, don't play our music, y'all, don't give us no respect. You know, that kind of back and forth have been going on for some years now. You know, the Death Row bad Boy beef was a whole different you know,

a whole different thing. Um that kind of gets lumped into this idea of East West, but you know, it really came down to, you know, to a personal beef that developed between Shug and Poc and Big and Puff. But that night, going into that awards, there was no like concern, like there wasn't any beef or any you know, at that point, you know, there was no back for Poc was in jail. He had been talking to his shit about you know, Big and stuff from jail and he was mad. But but nobody knew he was joining

Death Row. That yeah, he got out like a month later after the Source Awards, and that's when now you see Sugar shout him out. You know, we want to tell Tupac keep your guards of So you kind of got a hint that you know, he was it was cool with him, but nobody knew that that was going to happen. So, um, you know that night to me, Um, you know a lot of people, you know, Sugar has has been given a bad name and image over the years by a lot of media outlets, and so people

tend to blame him. One of the things that I think contributed to that night when Puff performed because death Row. First of all, Sugar Knight was the biggest supporter of that Source Award. For me, I went to all these guys and you know, you know, rounded them up to support it. But sug actually put up a hundred thousand dollars to build that set the opening show where it is like the jail cell. You know, that was crazy. So you know for us, that made the show on

TV look like a million dollars. And you know, he was the only one that really put up that kind of money, um, you know, and put it into helping us with the show. So you know, I had given him a lot of tickets, you know, like maybe sixty seventy tickets that night. You know, I did all the seating charts for every Source Award, so I'm knowing where everybody's sitting and trying to manage manage that. But again, there was no concern going into that. But Bad Boy

gave an amazing performance that night as well. Craig mac Big fathe total you know, legendary performance. But if you look back at the beginning of that performance, segment Puff comes out. He kneels down in the middle of the stage under a spotlight, and he starts talking and he says something to the fact of, you know, I live in the East and I'll die in the East to me, and I haven't had a chance to ask sug and

I planned to ask him one of these days. But in my mind, that's something that that Sugar was probably sitting there like, oh, really, okay, you live in the East, down the East, okay, Because it was shortly after that when he got called up to stage and made the comments like you know about that, so I think he was just talking shit or whatever. He definitely wasn't like

scared or worry. He goes video because like I said, he had he had maybe seventy tickets puff for them, had maybe twenty twenty five tickets, so you know, he knew he was in there deep and he wasn't really worried about it. Of course, you know, there was some you know, I was walking around the theater when that happened, and you know, I get to you know, call like you know, back here, and I'm rushing backstage and there's all kinds of chaos going on, but there was no

you know, violence, there was no beef. No punches were thrown that night, you know, as you guys saw, you know, Puff came out and kind of took the high road, and credit credit him, you know for that. But the back to the original question, the real beef starts between them. And this is also maybe a month or so later in Atlanta right here when Jake Big Jake, who was an executive for death Row excuse me, one of Sugars homeboys, but he I knew Jake, Jake Roboles rest in Peace.

I knew him very well because we worked together on marketing and things for the label and the source, and he was a cool ass dude. And he's the one that got killed down here allegedly by Kitties Man Wolwolf or somebody around them that night. That's when the beef became a violent thing and it escalated dramatically from there. And that had nothing to do with the source of war. BMF had something to do that. That was all a BMF night. That was a big old whole bunch of stuff.

So I started that night, That's where it started. And the source was always the media outlet, like we were concerned, like we're not trying to put out like incendiary things just to sell magazines. If you go back and you look at the Source, I put sugar on the cover and this is in the height of the beef going on in mid ninety six. On the cover of the Source, it's a class of cover Sugar in front of the

Rose Royce in the red suit. But if you look at the words on the cover, it says Sugar night quote. This ain't no East West thing. So like that was my thing, Like, let me put that message up front and center to try to diffuse things. And you know that type of thing. Now, Vibe Magazine was the ones that were putting out kind of stuff versus West on the cover and like hyping shit up. And you know a lot of people blame them, but sometimes they try

to throw the Source in the mix. So I gotta make sure that people know, you know, the differences that were there and the way. It just comes back to the way these businesses and these magazines and media outlets we'll run. You know, one of the things I take the most pride in and continue to is being independent. You know, the Source was started. I had two hundred dollars to run that first news letter off never took any investors, just kept flipping it one issue after another.

So I was able to build this company up and own it one hundred percent, you know, all the way up until the late nineteen nineties, never had to take loans or investors, and that gave the Source a lot of control, you know, because we were very influential, but we didn't have to answer to anybody. We didn't have some corporate backer that was going to come in and say you can't do this, you can't into that, or whatever.

So that's that's one of the things that was really important with the Source was that I was able to build it into something big and remain independent and put a lot of people on, you know, put a lot of people on. Not just through Unsigned Height, of course we went down the list of those, but there's many many other people that got discovered through the Source. I discovered Tyson Beckford, a supermodel, put him in his first, you know, little fashion page in the Source in the

early nineties. I was how his modeling career got started. I discovered Aaron McGruder of the Boondocks. He was doing a cartoon for University of Maryland's newspaper that I've seen and I was like Boom, I put him in the Sources national platform and he got his you know, newspaper

deals and everything else. You know, a lot of like I mentioned a few of the people that worked at the Source already, and then there's you know, different women like Dream Hampton who's become a very successful author and TV producer, and Karen to Mayou and many many, many others. So yeah, those those are some of the things that I really you know, take a lot of pride in and trying to kind of reinvent and bring back into this new age with what I'm doing now with Breakbeat.

As you see, the unfortunate kind of beefs continue to escalate and then turn tragic, you know, obviously losing Big and Pock, and then fast forward everything between then and til now we know recently lost Takeoff, Rest in Peace, we have the YSL trial. What do you feel like the state of hip hop? The music first and foremost, but then obviously the beefs and to me, the unnecessary violence behind it. Yeah. Um, you know, there's a few

different things that at play here. I mean, the music aspect of hip hop has become you know, corporate driven for a long time now, the corporations. There's a handful few companies that control all music distribution in the world at the end of the day. And you know, they, in my opinion, the music companies found a way to control hip hop in the early two thousands and up till today. And you know, I think there's still the you know, it still comes. You know, there's still an authenticity.

It's still coming from people that are speaking you know, their pain, their struggle, their you know, whatever they're going through. You know. But um, you know, I just think that that between the way the music industry has sort of pushed a certain style of music, I think that's how a negative impact. But the deeper issue is just you know, America racism, systemic racism, all that it's done to contribute to the poverty and the other conditions of our inner

cities and of many of our you know, poor black communities. Um. And you know, you look at what hip hop was talking about in the late eighties and nineties with fuck the Police and you know, bringing life destruction. Yeah, yeah, for a self destruction another one of those. But then you look, you know, twenty thirty years later, and things are the same or worse than they've ever been. And to me, that's a that's a failure on hip hop's part. You know, hip hop as a business, you're talking about

a multi billion dollar business. These resources should be being put back into these communities where you know, hip hop kind of originates and where again that kind of raw energy that really still fuel as hip hop comes from. And so, you know, I think it's just it's a reflection of what's going on, you know, in in our impoverished communities and the gun violence, you know, the increase of gun violence, and you know, the breakdown of of

of structure and a lot of these cities. You know, look at Chicago and what they did taking out you know, the Larry Hoovers and other leadership and you know kind of designed a pathway to create more more chaos out here. So I think hip hop needs something like what I'm trying to do with Breakbeat, you know, to bring a kind of you know, different perspective to create a you know, an outlet where you know, voices that maybe aren't being

heard can be heard. Um, you know, I'm doing it through a lot of influencers right now and social media folks who have been admiring you know, over the years on social media and see a talent in them to kind of become you know, successful in the podcasting game. And uh, we're going to be getting more into the music aspect of it with some some new shows that

we have coming up as well. Um So, but I think, yeah, I think we need you know, better leadership, better you know, awakening uh to and finding ways to connect those dots so we can become more unified. If if we can connect the dots between the fifteen and the fifty five years old people that have all grown up on hip hop and still have a certain passion and love for this culture, uh and bring them together, we can really affect change in a much greater way than we have.

So I don't know if I answered it took it directly, but you know, I kind of have a bigger picture kind of view on that stuff. I mean, we really want to, you know, give you your flowers for being a troupe laser in the hip hop culture. I think what you brought to this community obviously it hadn't been

done or seen. And your ability to be able to galvanize and bring everybody together like you said, you know, you were in touch with a lot of the people they were kind of running the shows, and you were someone they were able to get them together. So I mean, we really want to, you know, obviously give you your flowers for your imprint on what you did and continue

to do for the hip hop culture in the community. Yeah, And I want to say this today to like you do need your flowers because in the day of hip hop and day and time's too many people that we can said as culture vulchers, but you are. You were more of the of the door opener for a lot of people in hip hop, you know, and I and you, I can't wait till we hopefully get a chance to tell your story and you tell your story because it's going to be beneficial for hip hop for the younger

generation to understand how it started. You know, a lot of the ups and downs of the artists that we look at and that we know about how they got they started. A lot I don't even know that. They just think now like all you got to do is put them on SoundCloud and you become a big rapper. That's what you can do now, you know. But when they hear about the biggest the DM makes the stories, the guys that are pioneers to to this hip hop game. I think it's important that that you tell little stories,

so I can't wait to hear it. But I want to give your flowers as well. Yeah, I mean the thing, if you look at what I'm doing with Breakbeat, I am doing those kind of documentary things, But the first stuff that's popping right now is, you know, don't call me white girl, Funny Marco Cornbread TV. You were just with us Bubba Dug a couple of days ago, shown mug Boy. I just did a show that's gonna be

our premier show coming up soon, trash Talk. So again finding these voices out there that are like just really talented and bringing them out and these are people that are connecting with the younger generations more. That was emjoying to me. Yeah, with Breakbeats, to make sure that the younger people connect with us and respect what we're doing. First, you don't try to shove the history down their throats

or whatever. I think the interest is there, but a lot of times it comes off as like you're trying to make people. You know, you have to let them kind of find it and on their own in a sense. So Yeah. That's that's really key with breakbeat is you know, letting people know we got all these shows that they are watching now that that that they love, and we're going to be adding more to that roster. Um, and we're gonna be just mixing it up with you know,

the history, the classic and the current hip hop? Is hip hop fifty this year? It is fifty, right, I mean what does that mean to you? Knowing that you had a huge part in just kind of everything we discussed on this interview. UM. I mean it's it's definitely

a landmark UM, and I'm excited about it. But I, like I was saying before, my mind is like where we need to be a few years from now, Like, because like I said, hip hop, Yeah, it's in a great place commercially, you know, as far as generating money for individuals that are participating in it, but it's not at a great place you know, holistically as something that can really be a force for change in the community and more of a movement for change like it was

in its earlier days. I still think we can bring bring that back. You just got to go and create that platform. It's going to start to open people's minds up to seeing and feeling about things that way and

seeing these commonalities that we have. So yeah, I want to see where we are, you know in five years, hopefully hip hop can really be making a change in a bigger way to you know, like I said, some of the I mean the most underlying, important, worst problems this country has, you know, racism, systemic racism, and the failure to uh you know, accept and address and deal

with it. All of that, you know, is stuff that hip hop was in the eighties and nineties, you know, opening people's minds too, and becoming a movement towards and you know, we have Black Lives Matter now these last you know years of course, and you know, of course, I know how close you were stacked to um, George Floyd and the movement that you know, his his murder you know, created UM. But if you notice, you know, the hip hop and Black Lives Matter, there wasn't really

a convergence of those things. You know, there have been people in hip hop that have obviously been vocal, but it wasn't like it, you know, a movement within hip hop as a music and a culture, so that I think can make it even bigger if we can get that fuse ran together. You know, I just want to say, it's harder today because when they made self Destruction, you had a lot of rappers around that time that was on that that was speaking in social sus, that was

talking about that community. It was talking about the betterment of black people in non neighborhoods back then when they when they created self Destruction. Now you got more rappers talking about shooting each other gag, yeah, doing the destruction. So it's kind of hard for that. But I'm glad you said today because that's a big part of where we need to go to get to where we need

to get. Yeah, I believe there's some artists out there, you know, that that will emerge that will bring that voice and be able to you know, stay you know in a in a lane that people you know who are are not as focused on those things will will enjoy,

but also elevate their thinking. And you know that's again what I'm trying to do with some of my shows is you know, keep it fun and entertaining, but also you know, put some jewels in there and really get people to kind of you know, elevate their thought process a little bit, right quick, hitters. First thing to come to mind. Let us know an album you can listen to on repeat one album, Uh, I would say, I mean, I'm going to go back to the Chronic that's is

personally probably my favorite album of all time. And you know maybe Fromatic and then you know, uh Biggie Life After Death and that was a double album all classics. If you could redo one cover of the source, which one would it be? Oh man redo? Oh uh? And not even in a way of just changing the rough experience again, this was the one that like sticks out to me, okay, okay, um man, that's tough, all right. I had everybody, Uh, let me come up with a

good one. Um m m man um kind of kind of kind of got me stumped on that um when we spoke. When we spoke on it, the first one you thought was it was the Doctor Dre Yeah. Well yeah, Mary Mary is one of my other favorite covers. I will speak to that. Yeah, Mary j We gave a cover very early on in her career. It's a classic cover where she's sitting on an ice sculpture in an all silver outfit, shot by one of the greatest photographers and creative you know, visionaries of hip hop Chi Modou

rest in peace. That was my photographer, chief photographer of the Source, who passed just a couple of years ago. Some of the most iconic images you know that we've all seen we're taken by che including that that cover and again, like that was a step for the Source because we really hadn't been put in R and B artists on the cover yet, so you know, that was a kind of a little kind of edgy move for us to take. But you know, Mary was like she

was straight hip hop. You know, she was R and B, but you straight straight hip hop, so it made made sense. So yeah, just going back, I was there for that cover. Shoot, I remember that I did go to that one and had a chance to talk a little bit to Mary, so probably would have wished I might have talked to a little more, um built a relationship with her. But yeah, that's this one right here. We're gonna put you on the spot for real. Top five hip hop artists in

your opinion, man, all time, all time. This one's gonna this is the viral one. So Dave May said, top five. Okay, I gotta I've been practicing this. It's hard. I switched people in and out. I mean, I go, I gotta say Park first, you know, the most important you heard them, most influential artists You didn't start time, Yes, sir, Um, you know I'll get big in there. Um, it's only right,

you know, I think, Um, it's hard. I mean I think, you know, when when you look at just impact and influence, Uh you know, le Wayne, I think has to get get in there just because of you know, so prolific and so influential least last you know, fifteen years in hip hop. Um after that, I mean it's hard. Like you know, I have like more of a personal favorite of like probably a nas um you know. Um you know, I mean I don't. I don't know if Drake quite makes my top five yet He's probably in the six

to ten right now. I mean, you know you can't overlook rock him. I mean, he's really the foundation of so much that that happened with hip hop in the years that that followed. So um man, I'm probably leaving out Jay somebody. But somewhere around five did I did I get? Yeah? You got laughing the dream concert? Who do you have opening your kind of your dream concert? And who do you have closing that are alive, that are alive some probably some of these same same folks.

I mean, um, I gotta show outcasts some love. I was talking about them earlier, but they are also one of the most incredible groups in the history of hip hop. So I would definitely want to have them on the show. Um, you know, and I would have to close with pop Um. You know. They would be the grand finale and there'd be some other great stuff in between. M pots the closer for Shore five Dinner guests that are alive oh man, um Malcolm x uh Muhammad, Ali, Bob Marley, um shit,

tupoc um more and uh m hm um. I was on a roll. I need another good one. Um oh man, that's tough. Nelson Mandela nice nice, But it ended last question. If you could see a guess on this show, who would it be? But before you answer, you have to help us get your answer on the show, like like Will Smith said Denzel Washington. So we said, well, we need you to get Denzel Washington's coming on the show. Yeah, uh, I mean, who do y'all want? You got a lot

of connects, don't don't do that? Tell me who y'all trying to get that I can help. I mean, Jay Prince would be great. That's my man. That would be a great one. That's my guy as well. Um, and he's doing a lot of interviews right now too, that would be a yeah, he would be nice. Yeah, I got hooked. Jay Prince would be nice. We'll take what I would definitely take the Dawn of the South. Should from prison? Yeah? Should from prison be a hard one.

J J. Prince would be special for me for sure because I've been raised under that so being from Texas, so yeah, Yeah, he's one of the few guys you know, really respect and have looked up to since the beginning, you know, in this hip hop industry because it's it's hard, you know, this industry, uh breeds a lot of you know,

selfishness and greed and divisiveness, and it's hard. And he's one of the you know, the only real ones being able to keep it real and and you know, remain you know, central to things um and the music and the culture all these years. He's done a lot of great things in music, but being from Texas, we respect his morals the things he stand on more than anything. I gotta show up to Nipsey Hustle too. Yeah, he's up there with he maybe should have been my fifth

on the list. I might put Nip up there because I really believe it being in Lauren Hill category. You drop one album like that and be alleged forever Lauren Hills gonna drop one album, right, I'm crazy to think about it right now. She only dropped one album, bro of course. Yeah, she only dropped one album though, and she's a legend. We had one album. We had the Fuji's on the cover, and then Lauren had her own covers.

She performed at the Source Awards. Um, yeah, you get a chance to meet Nip No nipa Ni Briefly, we did get to meet, Um he was in DC for a concert and I got connected to him and you know, we spend an hour just chopping it up that type of thing. And I've been on FaceTime with him because he knew about me and my story and he was interested in, you know and learning more and building with me. So we were kind of having those conversations. Um. But yeah,

you know, another just just huge loss. I mean just because again he's like one of those few that was really committed to giving back to the to the community and you know, trying to make a change. Yeah, there's so few when you think of all the people in hip hop, you know that really have been dedicated, you know to that. So I've you know, a lot of love and respectful nipping what he represents just in peace

and the well. Man, Dave, we appreciate your time. We're definitely looking forward to you continuing to tell your story because I think it's obviously such an integral part of should our lives, to be honest with you, So let's exchange numbers if we can help on this side of a y, on this side of the branch. Showtime would love to do that. You know, Showtime was looking for stuff for this year, for fifty, you know, for the fifty. So who better to tell it? Let's make it? Who

better to tell it? Before you get up at every man, we got some merch for you. Awesome Showtime merch jack. Where can you get that at? And all the Smoke Dot Store. Let me say that again, All the Smoke Dot Store. Pick up your gear there and thank us later. That's a wrap, man, Dave made Showtime all the smoke you can catching some Showtime basketball YouTube and the iHeart platform black Effects. We'll see y'all next week. He beat you.