Bonus Episode: Compton, Conspiracies, and Mercy

confront the myth, to reclaim the story. On this bonus episode, we're talking about this week's full episode subject Kendrick Lamar, and we're rewinding back to our Grand Parsons episode, previewing our upcoming story on Brian Wilson, and we get into your voicemails, tech dms, and as always a whole lot of rosie. This is the podcast for the musically obsessed. The outsider is the independent thinkers who know that the

best history is the history that gets buried. Disgraceland is where I tell the stories they didn't want told, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. All Right, this goes, Let's get into it. Compton, the setting for this week's full episode of Disgraceland on Kendrick Lamar, located south of downtown LA Is regarded by its residents as a tight knit community, but for music fans Compton Compton gives an outsized impression, one that I would say is actually mythic.

And that's because Compton, from the nineteen eighties on has given us some of the most exciting music and culture up NWA's Straight Out of Compton was a view into a world that captivated those of us who were out in the middle of nowhere America. Drugs, beatdowns, crooked cops, drive by shootings, What the hell was this place? Now? I'm certain that as a kid, the first time I even heard the name Compton it was on that record, and I'm pretty sure it was like that for a

lot of people at my age who weren't from Los Angeles. Now, imagine being born into that world as Kendrick Lamar was, and taking all of that influence as your birthright and using it to turn yourself into one of the biggest and most influential modern musical artists on the planet. It's pretty impressive, and no other modern musician has taken Compton as far as Kendrick Lamar has I said, modern musicians, so slow your role. I know you're gonna come at

me with your NWA Doctor Dre ice Cube takes. But again I said, modern modern muse position. What Doctor Dre did in the nineties was incredible, super impressive. Yes, groundbreaking, sure, but that was then and this is now. But you know, for people like me, and I suspect people like you, that history is more interesting. So let's look at what Compton and the greater self central region of Los Angeles

has given us for great music, shall we. I already mentioned the shot heard around the world, NWA's Straight Out of Compton from nineteen eighty eight. It's indisputably one of the greatest hip hop albums ever, certainly one of the most consequential, and it's book ended on the front side by Easy Ease nineteen eighty seven single Easy Does It and on the backside by Doctor Dre's solo debut The Chronic, which comes a little bit later in nineteen ninety two.

A great record that is also born of this world that doesn't get enough mentioned in my view, is Easy and Dre's bandmate Ice Cube in his sophomore effort, The Predator, also from nineteen ninety two. Now rewind back before Easy and to Seth Central Los Angeles, not Compton exactly, but pretty much the same neighborhood, same area of LA and we get ice T's nineteen eighty seven debut, Rhyme Pays with its gangster rap genre defining track six in the Morning.

All four of these records, Rhyme Pays by ice T, Easy's so first solo album straight out of Compton, Doctor Dre's Chronic The Predator by Ice Cube. That's five records. Actually, all five of these records. They stand up to the scrutiny of time. Nearly forty years later. Kendrick Lamar was in diapers when this music was released, and his second album twenty fifteen's To Pimp a Butterfly It deserves to be on this list, as does kendricks fall in contemporary

Nipsey Hustles, Mailbox Money. These albums more than their great music and influence on culture. To me anyway, they're mile markers that point us toward just some of the wildest true crime stories from music history. It's crazy. The murder of Nipsey Hustle, the survival of Kendrick Lamar, the true story behind Ice T's actual life of crime that no one seems to really talk about except me. I don't know why. And then, of course the strange death of

Easy Easy. Eas official cause of death was from HIV AIDS. However, in twenty fifteen, his son Young Easy claimed that his father Eric Wright ak Easy got sick after an incident with Suge Knight in the recording studio, which okay, And then there are these comments from Suge Knight on Jimmy Kimmel Live from two thousand and three.

It's something that I've never fully wanted to dive into until now because I just I got comped in on my brain. So we're gonna dig into this. Like I said in the exclusive section of this after party, me and Zath, we're gonna bring it to you. We're gonna talk about whether or not we think there's enough here for to warrant its own episode of Disgraceland. But you know, if it is or if it isn't, you're gonna get

more information and to hear it though. You're gonna become a Disgrace Sland All Access member on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Go to Disgrace slandpod dot com slash membership to sign up. It's only five bucks a month. You're not only gonna get these deeper dives into music history and mythology here in the form of exclusive content every month. You're also going to get ad free listening on all episodes of Disgraceland and Hollywood Land. That's disgraceslandpod dot Com slash membership.

Just five bucks to become an all Access member to help support the show and our mission of digging out and discussing the wildest stories for music history. I'll be back in just a minute with your voicemails, texts, dms and more. All right, all right, all right, we are back speaking of all right, all right, all right. Has anybody read Matthew McConaughey's book. I have not heard. It's great. I heard it's really inspiring, and I want to read it.

New True Detective note news as well. Nick Cage supposedly involved. All right, getting way off track. Listen this week True Detective Aside, Matthew McConaughey aside. All right, all right, all right, Kendrick Lamar in your feed right now. Check that story out if you have not heard it. Coming up next in the feed, we are rewinding to Gram Parsons, Our Gram Parsons story. I put my heart and my soul

into everything I write for you guys. But it's hard for me to think of another episode where I lay bear my own emotions as heavily as I did in this Graham Parsons episode and Graham's I sort of use Grams dealings with grief as a proxy for my own at the time and what I was going through. I remember distinctly writing that episode and just how helpful it was to have Graham Parsons, the spirit of Gram Parsons and his music with me during that really really rough summer.

So that is coming out next in our feed. That'll be hitting up next after this episode, and then we're doing something a little bit different. We're gonna We're gonna sneak in Beach Boys Part one Beach Boys Part two in the coming days after Graham Parsons, because we have a new episode on Brian Wilson, who you know passed away a couple of months ago, and I decided, Hey, I want to do a Brian Wilson episode. So I got in there. I wrote this Brian Wilson episode. It's

essentially part three of our Beach Boys story. It's a man Brian Wilson. This was This was tough. This was a tough one to write because so much has been said, written, uh put on film about Brian Wilson and Brian Wilson one of the rare artists who is a couple of things. His autobiography is incredible, It's really really great. He's totally

hard on the sleeve. He tells his story in a way that only he can, so that makes it hard for somebody like me to come in and write, write the story, or tell a unique story, or come in with a unique point of view. But then also the rare thing is Brian Wilson. I'm like most musicians who have biopics. The bio pick on Brian Wilson's actually really good.

I think anyways, love and Mercy, and that just makes it again, it makes it difficult when when the stories that are out there are really good and they cover a lot of the most interesting stuff and there's not a lot, a lot, not a lot left in the cracks for us to mine out, makes it really difficult to tell these stories in a unique way. But I think, you know, I think, I hope, I hope we did a good job. I really kind of leaned into the

spirit of Brian Wilson here and I did not. We just Zeth and I and the rest of us at Double eleve Us. We didn't intend to have the Kendrick episode and the Brian Wilson episode hanging on the same theme. Zeth wrote the Kendrick episode, I wrote the Brian Wilson one. But but mercy is part of the thematically, is part of the same thing here with both episodes, So I just worked out that way. But whatever doesn't really matter.

I like when we're hanging on a theme, and I hope you dig this episode that's coming up next Tuesday. It's our next new episode, just Gray SAand on Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Question of the week for next week when you're listening to that Brian Wilson episode, it's going to be which figure for music history is the best example of a tortured genius. Is it Brian Wilson. Is it someone like Kurt Cobain or sly Stone who also recently departed, Marvin Gay, or maybe it's someone new

like young Blood. I don't know. There's a lot of examples to pull from here, and perhaps to help organize your thinking, give me recommendations, maybe on subjects that I haven't covered yet, we haven't covered yet in Disgrace, and that you might want to hear us cover. Okay, so when you're listening to Brian Wilson for obvious reasons, the question is going to be what is the best example from music history of a tortured genius? Six one seven nine six six six three eight voicemail and text to

let me know right now? Though you know where I am at. I am in the phone booth, the one across the hall. I am hanging on the telephone. We're answering. Last week's question of the Week spawned from our Kendrick episode, which artists demonstrated, uh, the greatest act of mercy. Kind of an esoteric question for us to ask, but I don't know. We went there and let's check in with Cynthia in the five.

wanting to see her since I was seven. So I had to spend the rest of the time in the medic tent, probably about I don't know, thirty minutes. There was a short set afterwards. A friend of mine had gotten to some people backstage, and when she was doing our autograph signing at the end, she had to go behind the desk where she was and asked if I wanted to take a picture. I said yes, I was still kind of groggy it, and you know, she put her arm around my shoulder and she would just look

at me and she's like, are you okay? And I said yeah. She gave me a little squeeze on the arm and then we took the picture and it was so awesome. She was so cool, just a really cool, genuine person. So that was my story. I hope that as well.

It sounds like super cool. Love it. By the way, you got a great friend there who went and hooked that all up where you went backstage, sought out Joan Jet, got you to connect with her. That's no easy thing to do. All right, let's check you in with the seven two four same question here seven two four rights in hey. As for the topic of next week, it's hard not to think of the most merciful artist and

not think of the appellation queen herself, Dolly Parton. That woman through her park, her reading program, helping wildlife, LBGTQ plus support and more. Make whatever jokes you want about the woman's chest, but behind is an absolute heart of gold. I wasn't gonna say anything about Dolly Parton's chest. I've never said anything about Dolly Parton's chest to you, guys, or anyone else that I know of. I hear you,

Dolly Parton is the shit. She's amazing and we should all celebrate Dolly Parton, and she's a great candidate for incredible acts of mercy for music history. Eight one six right saying, hey, Jake Chain from the eight one six, My text is in regards both to artists showing mercy and first concerts. My son's first concert at age three was Cross Canadian Ragweed and if you haven't heard of them,

there are music royalty in the Red Dirt Scene. And not only was the show amazing, when Cody walked out to start the show, he saw my wife standing there front row with a baby and a carrier on her chest, and made the security go get three more barricade fences and box us in on the remaining three sides, so we had our own little corral of front row space so nobody could bump or spilled beer on the baby. True class acts. Look into CCR and the Red Dirt Scene.

Guys who had the opportunity to blow up but chose not to sell out love that eight one six. I will certainly check that out, and I must have made you guys feel pretty badass, pretty special. Let's hear from Arman in Calgary.

me your Lemmy takes regarding Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Okay. Now, let's do a couple of emails, because I've been neglecting the emails lately, not on purpose, it just happens. Claire Bifford or Buyford. I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name right, saying Hey, greetings from beautiful Cornwall, England. I'm a longtime listener of Disgrace Sland and Hollywood Land and loved the interaction between Jake and Zeff and the

new rap parties. She goes on to say, can I recommend a Western read The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt. I'm not especially a Western fan, but this book blew me away. It is set during the gold Rush and as some of the true life grit that is often missing from stories and films of that period. Yes, Claire,

this is exactly what I'm looking for. Claire goesana say, the book has been made into a film with some big names in it, but I haven't watched it as it won't match my imagination which was set alive by the pros. I loved your episode about the Cramps, which explained how the hell they were on the same bill as the Police. For my brother and I saw them at our school's leisure center back in the day. It was round about the time the Police released their first album,

probably before you were born. My brother Simon followed the Cramps round a few more of their gigs in the UK and bumped into Brian Gregory and the bar on one occasion, and he bumped a cigarette off Brian. That's Brian Gregory from the Cramps, hoping for an exotically flavored one, but it turned out to be a good old fashioned Lambert and Butler. Claire email us every week. I love

your writing. This is great. Claire goes on to say, favorite band, Thin Lizzie, favorite mail artist, Bowie, favorite female artists, Gladys Night, top three albums, Diamond Dogs, Bowie, Course Stone Tuble, Pilots. Didn't see that coming, Claire, Fisherman's Blues by the water Boys. That makes sense. Really love your work. Rock a Rolla, Claire, Claire, you even spelled out RockA Rolla correct. Write us back anytime, damn hanging out with the Cramps. Recommending great westerns. Claire,

you're the best. I'm gonna read The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt. I'm looking forward to it. I got one book coming. I'm waiting, I'm waiting. I'm in this. I hate I hate this, this like period where the book's not finished, the last book, the new book's not here, Like what am I going to do? I need to be reading something always Right now, I'm going to read this email from John McNeely aka Johnny Vinyl, who writes, Hey, hey, Jake, your Motorhead Lemmy episode was awesome. You had so much

detail in there. What a cool story about you meeting him back in the nineties. I can't say I met him, but when I lived in LA in the early two thousands, I saw him a few times at the Rainbow Room playing the One Armed Bandit and one of those times I got a head nod. One of my favorite rock docs is aptly titled Lemmy that I own on DVD and I've watched a few times. And to think he lived in a small, rent controlled apartment is so rock and roll, Like Ozzie. They just don't make them like

that anymore. And we were lucky to be alive at the same time as those legends, John mcnealely, John, You're absolutely right, complete legend, and we are lucky to have breathed the same air the same time in place as these dudes. Pretty pretty awesome. Disgrace sampod at gmail dot com. You guys want to send me an email six one seven nine oh six six sixty three eight. You want to hit me up on voicemail or leave me a text at Disgrace Sampod on the socials. I'm going to

take a quick break. I'll be back in a flash. All right, Welcome back to the Disgraceland after party. Listen. You might be one of those people who's just sitting around, You're going through your business, and you're like, look, I'm just so sick of these podcasts that I'm listening to. I got I got like four or five podcasts that I'm that I'm subscribed to that I'm following. I'm really

in on like two of them. The others they just kind of build up in my feed and I don't really check in on them enough to really justify having them still be subscribed to. And you know I'm not I'm never gonna listen to so so you know, I know, I know, you know, there's only so much time, But I just want to tell you something you need. If you need to swap one out and swap a new podcast in, I would highly recommend it. Podcasts called Hollywood Land by Yours Truly and here Me and the Me

and the fine folks at Double Elvis. We put this together before you. We created this massive art chive of Hollywood and true crime stories, and you can get an You can get an archive episode every week plus a new episode helmed by none other than the great Zeth Lundy, where Zeth will bring you through that week's subject in an engaging and compelling way. I'm in there as well, talking to Zesth giving you our recommendations, talking about whatever

that week's subject is. This week's subject was Lindsay Lohan. Now we do this bit where I've got to do music recommendations based on the Hollywood Lands subject and Matt once you give the fine people a taste of Hollywood Land.

entryway song for You guys. Smith's cover the Dumb Dumb Girl's cover of There's a Light That Never Goes Out by the Smith's incredible Smith song and their version is amazing, and it's cool to hear this song from a female perspective. It's from a EP they put out in twenty eleven called He Gets Me High Dumb Dumb Girls, There's a Light That Never Goes Out Lindsay Lohan. I thought Lindsay. I could go Lindsay Buckingham. I could go buckingham Nicks because they're all in the news lately, but that no,

I'm not doing that. I thought low hand Han Hancock, Herbie Hancock. Okay. A lot of people, if they're gonna, if they're gonna recommend Herbie Hancock album, they're gonna recommend Headhunters, and they should because it's a fantastic album, amazing. However, I'm gonna recommend the album that my father once pulled out of a stack of records in my living room about fifteen years ago and gave me a look like what the fuck is wrong with you? And that is

the Herbie Hancock album nineteen sixty nine. Fat Albert Rotunda. Okay, I love that album.

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give me the buzzer beater. There was a time when I was younger and I would listen to sports talk radio in Boston and I would hear these dudes speaking, and I would listen to their ridiculous old guide takes and feel so self satisfied with my youthful perspective, my whatever modern point of view on whatever the hell it was that they were talking about their disdain for baseball's saber metrics, and I was just like, whatever, man, whatever helps Red Sox win. I don't care care what you

do to win, just win. Or how they couldn't deal with Randy Moss's diva attitude, and I'd just be like, who cares? Have you seen what that dude is doing on the field with Tom Brady. Whatever gets us to another Super Bowl. Whatever the argument was, I found myself disagreeing with the old guide take. Fast forward to now and I am filled with old guy takes. My son is playing flag football. He's on the Raiders, So I decided to go on YouTube and show him some clips

from Raider football in the seventies and eighties. And my son is seventy years old. By the way, as soon as the highlights start defensive highlights, that's all I'm showing them. As soon as they start footage, of Jack Tatum, Howie Long, Ted Hendricks just wrecking people on the hard astro turf, pulling him down horse collar and dudes, almost every single hit was head to head contact, just violent and literally from the jump, every single hit, every single highlight. My

son starts going, that's illegal. That's illegal, Dad, you can't do that. And I'm laughing because he's not wrong, because now, yes, all those hits are illegal, but then they were all legal, every single one of them. And of course, sadly, today this type of physical play in the NFL, it won't just get the rest to pull their flags, it'll get the offending players thrown out of the game, suspended in

some cases. Now, of course, being a proud member of Generation X, I love this style of football and I missed this style of football, and this was going to be the topic of my rent today. But then I thought, damn, man, what an old guy take. I'm the old guy, so I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna complain about how things were better back in the day, because, man, Oman Dow, I detest being that guy. Yet here I

am that guy, all right, Matt, how'd I do? Two minutes and eighteen seconds, Jake, damn man, I think I gotta get. I gotta get how we long to put me into some training regimen here to get up to snuff and get in under thirty seconds? All right? That was the sports transponsor by five hour Energies. New confetti, craze, flavor, unleash your party vibes, and as much caffeine as your favorite twelve ounce fancy coffee, but with zero sugar and zero crash, available in stores on Amazon or www dot

five our energy dot com. All right, speaking of football, you know who once played football, not for the Raiders but for the Rams, sug Knight. And then the upcoming exclusive section of this here after Party coming up in seconds, we will be looking into the insane story about Sugar Knight allegedly injecting Easy with HIV AIDS. Once again, here's Sugar giving his best o j Simpson. If I did it to Jimmy Kimmel.

access this exclusive content. Go to www dot disgracelampod dot com slash membership to sign up for just five bucks a month, less than a couple of sug Night's prison teers, and it'll also get you ad free listening on all Disgraceland and Hollywoodland shows and the satisfaction of knowing that you are a real one, a musical obsessive and outsider who supports Disgraceland and helps us keep cranking out stories that you want to hear but that chasm doesn't want

us to tell. Once again, that's disgracelampod dot com slash membership to support us for just five bucks a month and to unlock a whole bunch of exclusive and ad free content. All right, guys, we are back. Let's talk about the disgrace Land Vault real quick. In this episode, we talked about Nipsey Hustle, We talked about NWA Easy

e Iced Tea. We have episodes on all these dudes and they're all waiting for you in the Disgraceland archive with I don't know what two hundred and fifty episodes whatever we got on two hundred fifty different artists or however many and mister Matt Bowden will have the episode information for each of these stories in the show notes of this after party for you to easily seek them out. All right, I gotta go, let's recap. Shall we? Number one,

this week's full episode on Kendrick Lamar. This new Disgracelane episode is waiting for you right now. Number two Graham Parsons is in our rewind slot that's coming up right after this after party. Then we get two Beach Boys episodes we're rewinding as we get into our new Part three episode on Brian Wilson right now in the Hollywood Land feed. This is number four. I think we have Lindsey low hand. You can check that out. Number five, six one seven nine h six six six three eight.

Your voice keeps us digging into the dark corners of music his so keep calling, keep texting with your answers to this week's question of the week, or whatever the hell else you guys want to talk about. Claire hit us back number six. Don't forget disc goes. This isn't just content. It's a community, a community of the obsessed, and no one cares about music, books, record in the crime and crime that ties them all together like you do. And well that's a disgrace, all right, Kendrick Lamar, you've

heard of him before this week's full episode. Subject was born on June seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven, and this is what America was listening to on that day. According to the Billboard Charts, Number one I Want to Dance with Somebody Whitney Houston last week three peak position one weeks

on chart seven. Number two Head to Toe Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam last week one, peak positions one weeks on chart twelve six, number three, number in two d Genesis last week peak position, peak position we read weeks on Shark. Number number four alone Heart last week and six peak position at four position weeks on chart Recept chart number five. I'm Always is the Atlantic start last week two peak position, Quit talking and start mixing, Cut