What's up?
And welcome back to another episode of No Sealer's Podcast with your hosts Now fuck That with your loaw Glasses Malone.
So on what's happening man?
What's had? Then? Og Glasses appreciate y'all man for having me on here.
Man, what you know about big and pop situation?
Big and punk?
What do you really remember? Like you you you just you just at the age to really remember you you you.
I don't know if you were super tapped in, but everybody was tapped into hip hop at that time. It was kind of it had the whole world's mainstay. Mmm, what do you remember now? You know it, don't have to don't worry if it's uh the facts or not. But what do you remember what their beef was over? Because I feel like you can give a general perception of it from somebody in that time period, you know what I mean? Like, what do you remember it was about? I think I thought, I mean, I just go ahead,
don't worry about it. Did it come down did it come down to the faith yams faith?
Like?
Like that's what I thought. Eventually it came down to somebody messing with somebody chick. But it could like.
It may not even been them.
It could have just been entourage based.
Like I remember, what did you hear about why you remember when Tupac got shot in New York?
Yeah?
I remember that.
Yeah, what do you remember about it? Your tron were Big? I remember that.
Uh, Well, Pap was shooting a movie and Big had told him, like to watch out for these watch out for these dudes and watch who you roll with. And Pop went up to Believe Quad Studios and they he saw a little seeds up in the studio and Big was up there recording, and then I guess they tried to rob them in Poc, and Poc was upset because like if this is your city, like Biggie, this is your city, but these these nigga, these dudes and rob me.
Okay, Pete, what do you remember hearing about that? You're kind of young, You're younger both of us.
What do you remember hearing about that exact incident or about the broader first? Yeah, I remember being Yeah, like one of those things where it became a controversi ast to whether it was a setup or not. It seemed like a lot of stuff got leveraged and expanded in that whole deal, like it went from being like small to multi dimensional and broader as it went out. And with that matter, I remember being like sort of loosely reported to the extent that the reporting was of inequality about.
Is this.
Was it a setup or was it like perceived as a setup at the very least by Pack, which led to animosity.
So like the Big said pocup Yeah, okay, Tom, So why do you remember Poc being mad at Big? Why was Pac Maddy Big? Was it just a part of this is your city?
Yeah?
Yeah, basically like this is your city. You're the number one rapper in New York right now. You should you should know. Even the the young dudes running running around the neighborhood, you should know. You should me them being friends with each other like them.
Uh.
I guess Pac used to let Big sleep on the couch like it's like you POC's thinking, like you my man's and I'm in your city getting robbed, kind of like if you go to l A, like if you I guess if you check in, you're supposed to be good. So I guess Tupac felt like, well, Pac was from New York too, But I guess Pac was like, yeah, Po's from New York too, So why would he have to check in?
That's like the whole thing seems so stupid, you know, thinking about it, like like you a rapper, you can control what everybody on the streets is gonna do or doing.
And this is why I wanted to have this conversation with y'all. I saw this dope interview with Clark Kent. Clark Kent is a really dope producer from that time period in New York, real managed dope, and he was
saying he was upset. He said he never let it go right because he felt Biggie was killed because Tupac lied about what happened at Quad Studio shooting hm right, which goes to your point tone where you were saying that became the narrative, right, So there was a combination of narratives where it was a narrative that he was upset because Big knew what was going on. It's supposed
to be your city. But then when you think about it, Pop and most of his entorize was theoretically initially from these coasts, so they have relationships with a ton of people from the East Coast as well. Right, Yeah, I've told friends and certain friends in private. This is the first time I'm saying it in public, and obviously it's gonna be rough for me because people saw Tupac must die and they made that this huge thing, like as if I have a campaign against Tupac versus me doing
what I do great, which is explaining gangbanging. That's my job to translate gangbanging, right, People felt that Tupac, like at that time, Biggie, had something to do with his shooting at Qua Studios. The the general interpretation of the public was that Biggie set him up, That's why he made who shot you. Then you had the other people that were saying what you were saying, which is, well, he didn't.
Quite know like he should have.
If you the King of New York, how you didn't know, which that could have been something POC misled.
People also were saying. But the reality is.
And like can say it now with facts and faith, they knew what happened with Tupac.
M they knew Tupac knew what happened.
I think if the laws actually talk about it, they knew what happened everybody around If you was dealing with Pac at that time, and I don't think our laws was dealing with Pack at that time, but I knew they knew what happened at that point when they came around, they knew what happened.
That Tupac had nothing to do with Big at all.
Okay, so this was an isolated incident that had nothing to do with Biggie.
This is about POC's relationship with another power figure in New York. Okay, you know what I mean, and some business or to some dealings that went bad to some degree. That's what happened, and they know it, and Tupac knew it. But I've told my friend this and it hurts his feelings. Shout out to my boy Ron run out the Raymonds. Good dude, good brother, really smart, real financial savvy brother.
But I always would tell him, I'm like Pac went to jail, And if you look at his book list when he went to prison, Pac didn't go into prison upset that big.
I mean, you could add, but he wasn't. He wasn't upset that big in prison.
But if you look at Pok's booklests, at that time, Poc realized how beef worked, how war work, how financially valuable it was to be at war.
So was this so you you think that was a market employee from too one.
Hundred and seventeen percent.
Oh wow, the marketing genius came out of him exactly.
And that's the crazy part.
As I'm telling my homie, he's like he felt like again, like when I explained Tupaca much, he felt like it was a disc and I'm like, it's not. This speaks to Tupac's brilliance of him understanding how to create a crazy situation, you know what I mean, and make it profitable and launch him into the you know, launch him out of the solar system as far as it. Stardom goes like he it was over. And the more you think about it. With Clark Kit being upset, I understand why.
But I also get that Tupac knew as long as he was alive, nothing was going to happen to Big, So he can allow the marketing strategy to work perfect. He can allow the marketing strategy to be everything he wanted it to be because he knew nothing would happen to be death Row and bad Boy ran into each other two or three times. No nobody even scratched each other, nobody even pinched each other. Ever, just a bunch of yelling and theatrics for the camera, but nobody when they
met face to face. If it was on, they would a squabble because death Row was notoriously known for squabbles and bad Boy had a history of doing a thing too, so they ran into each other multiple times. Matter of fact, one of the last interviews, Tupac was talking about the fact when Tupac and Snoop was sitting next to each other, they were talking about the fact that Bad Boy was gonna be here, and they were saying, like, it's nothing
to really worry about. But the energy that was going on with records at the time, and the conversation that the mainstream media and you know, Vibe and everybody was creating, you would have thought it had to be on when they.
Seen each other.
This is no Sinner's gl My man Pete in the spot I Got My Boy Tone Tone one of the greatest podcasts coming out of the West. Thank representative, amazing brother, funny, hilarious, and I know a little something about boxing do his thing, man, but really, more than anything and amazing personality.
Give me really dope power. Coo sel Vibe.
So I just turned you onto somebody that's new. That's amazing. So y'all gotta get with.
Him, man, salute man, appreciate that.
Man.
So back to the point, I genuinely I know it was a marketing strategy. Now, I know you thinks Big was on it, on it not Big. See, Big never participated.
Oh so it was Big yelling like, man, like this is cap like this is that's the.
Whole time Big was saying that.
Big the whole time was like man, this is bullshit, Like this is being alive at the time.
You know, I was in high school at the time. It's like Big like this bullshit.
Like Big never dissed him, Like Big probably made this is and thought about participating and thought about trying, but he realized he couldn't feed into it.
Mm.
But Big whole narrative the whole time, Like man, that shit bullshit. I don't know what the fuck is wrong?
Puff?
Now, Puff played into some of these things. So Puff Puff dropped who shot you with certain things at times strategically to benefit off of what was going on on the streets. But I don't think Puff saw it. Ass Now, I don't know if this is puff idea. But because he's over the label. I know that it's going through him for the decision. It's not even going through Big as much for the decision. Puff is running bad boy
at the time. So even if someone else came up with the idea to drop who Shot You after Pop got shot, that's not that's nothing to do with Big because they had already Premier said they already did the song.
So they were wrecked before.
It wasn't Who Shot You is not about Pop, Okay, okay, it was just dropped.
Around that time, so it became ominous. But Big really gets a lot.
Of slack from it from real pop true fans, believing that like he wrote the song because of something to do with Pop, and it's like it wasn't.
It was really literally just Big.
Rapping and then somebody a bad boy decided this would be an opportune time to drop the song.
Marketing, marketing, you know what I mean.
And that's what I think Pop understood when he came home from prison. He changed his marketing strategy. So I genuinely think there were real facets of that East Coast West Coast shit, right. I know, Death Row Sugar Puff had some issues, you know what I mean over what happened to Jake from Campanella. He got killed in Atlanta, and you know, whatever happened, it was supposed to be close to the Bad Boy Camp. I don't quite know the whole I can find out, but I just really
kind of want to mind my business on that. The situation that happened with Snoop and tray D and the Dog Pound and them going to New York and word was Biggie. You know, they felt that the song was a New York disc What the New York Big City? Yeah, yeah, they were shooting the video in New York.
He stumped the buildings.
That's so, this is the tricky part. Yes, so what the Dog Pound?
What corrupt says is that wasn't the initial direction of the video. Now I don't know if it's true or not. They said the video was something different. The goal was to have all the New York legends come down and show love to them. But somewhere along the line, word
was I've never heard the video. I heard, I mean the audio, but I heard it exists on the radio where Big called into the radio station and said, yo, y'all, let these niggas come to New York in disrespect all niggas trip and blah blah blah, and that's what led to the video shoot kind of being shot up at least.
So.
I think there were subdual hints of what was going on between the East and West, but I think the people within could manage it. But when Pac saw all of this and was aware of all of this stuff happening, he looked at it like a marketing opportunity to launch himself above the game. I genuinely believe that whole shit was marketing.
Dang, But yeah, Pac always said he knew how to sell records, and that was it was equally beneficial for both parties because it made Biggie bigger and it made both of.
Them tears down.
But Biggie just didn't participate. Okay, big was like, yeah, I ain't. This shit looked crazy. I remember seeing interviews with him at the time, like nah. But genuinely, this was all a marketing strategy, And that's why there was never no real shit between them that happened, because everything that was real some shit happened, Like when Luke was
beefing with death Row, they actually had a fight. Oh damn, easy E was going at it with death Row Ruthless and death Row Above the Law and death Row had a fight, like people, you're gonna see each other and you'll have your time to squabble, you know what I mean. So the fact that death Row and bad Boy would see each other and not fight confirmed to my logic that it was just marketing.
There was an interview I saw where Pop even.
Said it was like, I think it was a part of a lost interview. I'm not sure which one, but they were talking asking him about what could you do in the future, could you and Big work in the future, and he just was like, yeah, that wouldn't be no problem, feel me longest day, blah blah blah, you know, and you could just tell at that.
Point his plan had worked and he.
Always saw a way out of it. He always saw a way out of it. Yeah, I mean, he always knew he could end it when he wanted to. And I think part of that is because he saw when you say that, well, because once he realized Big wouldn't get involved, like Big would only say subdue things like Big was not going to participate. Big was not going to drop
his own version to hit him up. Big was not going to get involved, and drop this song with him, so he realized he won the situation and he could end it when he wanted to and come together and make records with him.
He talked about it. You just got a YouTube and you'll find an interview. But it's really dope.
Yeah. I always wondered why Biggie never got busy on pop. It's not like he couldn't like Big. He was phenomenal, But I was like, was it just purely Diddy? Like, nah, just stay away from that.
I don't think Puff could have told Big at that time to not drop a d I think even if Puff wouldn't have put it out through the label, it would have came through the streets.
So I think with them Big it had.
To be something that makes him say, man, I'm not even gonna participate. You know, I would love to talk to Sees or or somebody next time. Matter of fact, we're gonna do a part two on our August seas and get Sees or Gutter or somebody who was around him at that time to talk about why he didn't ever get involved. But I knew he had to make a conscious decision to never release anything. I'm sure in the studio Becuz got some shit, he asked some shit lined up, you know what I mean? As MC, you
start to pin shit immediately. I mean, but why he didn't ever participate is a different story.
But do you think he recorded because on the the jay Z reasonable that album with I think it's Brooklyn's finest.
It's one of my favorite songs.
Yeah, Biggie was like, if they pad twins, she probably like that was the closest he would entertain it. Right, Like I've heard stories from people like as I start to you know, kind of search throughout this conversation and throughout this situation here, people say going back to Cali as a disc record, that can't be a disrespectful record. Yeah, I mean people felt like Big made the worst decision
coming back to California six months after Pop got killed. Right, But it's like, if you didn't have anything to do with it, you know what I'm saying, I would imagine you wouldn't be worried about it. Now as a gang member, I would think about it differently because I know Niggas is looking at me as a prime suspect. I know Niggas is retarded, right, So you know I knew niggas would have attitude even like no matter how you look at it, you size it up even you know.
It's an interesting question. Go ahead, like you think in La, like god like, like anybody in LA that would actually be with the shit enough to do that wasn't conscious of what really went on to a degree or was that detached from reality to actually say I'm gonna go get it.
You're seeing what happened with Big. Yeah, big Ship was a hit though.
That's what I'm saying, though, Like I'm not saying no, no, I'm not saying in response to what happened with Pac, the mentality of people who really on the streets in LA were not perceiving that you'd be way out in the suburbs. They perceived, oh yeah, bad boy took out Pac. I don't know, is it vib All the guys from from Inglewood like really thought, oh man, no, we're gonna go get Bigger. We see him, we gonna get him.
Did we think initially like right, so at this point I'm fut fair selling dope, I'm in high.
School, gang bang and whatever, blah blah blah.
No, none of us thought what happened with Big had anything to do with what happened to Pac had anything to do with Big None of us thought that we actually, in real time knew that they got into it the South Sides and they had junked.
On Baby Lane.
So everyone pretty much put two and two together, and it's soon still an assumption that you know, the South's got at pop over what they did the Baby Lane.
And I'm from yeah, I say, you feel that extended all the way to Inglewood or to the schools or like the whole you know, like the other side of it, like.
Or because you are pretty so people in the street life, we probably all was on the same brainwave, okay, but I do think there were I mean when I went to school, people thought that people who are not in the know of street life.
Yeah, there was some people was like, oh man did pay the South Sides.
And then later on Keith Keivy D from the South is this og legend d boy nigga like super legendary figure.
You know, he does interviews now you can go check him out, you know what I mean.
He like, I see a lot of people saying shit to him because he's doing these interviews. But Keith D was really one of those guys, is I hung the fuck with? Nobody said about him, like you knew his name, Wren Jail's. He had money, he had cars, he had bitches, and he had power, like you knew who keithy Dee was. Like, So I hear a lot of the slander, but that shit ain't in real time because that motherfucker had a
reputation and motherfucker's respect to is get in. But he came out with a book in promoting it saying that that Puff paid the South Sides or offered a bounty on POC for it. So that really changed a lot of perspective, still not in the streets, but to everybody else in mainstream media or who saw the content that Keith was putting up. Do I think that's real? I think Keith is writing books, so he's in the entertainment. I think he's doing interview, so part of it is entertainment.
I think he's making it a lot more sensational than it is because.
It is a book, right.
I figured if he would have went to court and told the faes that that they paid they paid him to do it, it'd be a real case for Puff now. So that's why I don't believe he went into the courthouse and told them, hey, man, bad boy, put out blah blah blah, because murder for hire is gonna come back for you, straight up. So I don't I don't genuinely believe that happened. I don't think he told the people that, But I think he put that in the book as an entertainment piece because Keith is, you know,
Keith Is. Keith was historically known as a big D boy. So I would imagine a lot of the D boys that I'm seeing from the streets are trying to find another way to create income, you know what I mean, based off their experiences. So I think he is writing books, and I do think he has no problem, like any other great writer.
To include fantasy.
But I think all of us in the streets at that time kind of knew what it was over, Like, we all knew what it was over, Yeah, liked Did Pap do anything to like quiet the noise of the streets or was he just like because at what what point of his career was he at before the Quad City Show? I know he had just did Juice, but musically, was he the number one artist in the world at that time.
No, no, no, hell no. Pack was like.
Yeah, yeah, this is so, this is after thug Life. Thug Life was something that was cool, like niggas fucked with thug Life. Thug Life is a platinum group and it was based out of La. You know, all the niggas was from Rolling forty Crip or Cype from IBC, from Inglewood, you know, Imperial Village, Inglewood Crips. So his whole group of thug Life was La guys around the way.
Would you say from a time frames standpoint that PAC's musical presence got the California love was the trampoline?
Oh yeah, well so.
That's that's the Old Testament New Testament defining moment.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
So it's weird, right because I had that conversation on the Breakfast Club with Charlottagne and them, and I was explaining to them, pre all Eyes on Me, Tupac wasn't in the same category as ice Cube.
Cube was a greater act as a.
Musician and as a movie star pre death ro you know, pre all Eyes on Me. So this is with him having the number one record in the country when he's in jail with you know, me against the world, like Cube was huge. So it was people comparing them to Snoop, and I'm like, they wasn't even in the same plan. Snoop was like a phenomenon. Yeah, Snoop is like Snoop and fifty Cent are probably the greatest you know what I mean, Like debuts in the history of music as
far as you know, first album debut. Yeah, just debut period because fifty had power of a dollar. He had singles and other stuff before. But like you had never seen nothing like Snoop Dogg. The closest is fifty Cent, like you never seen, like look at Snoop Dogg now. And this is what this goes back to that point where I was explaining, like Snoop was a phenomenon. Snoop
was like a renaissance all by himself. You remember in school when they be talking about the Italian renners, like Snoop was that by himself, Like death Row comes together and they create the greatest renaissance in all arts, you know, greater than Shakespeare, greater than any of that stuff over there when it was painting in Italy, Like this thing became such a phenomenon globally, you know what I mean, Like cripping is where it's at because.
Of Snoop Dogg. Solely.
The reason is around the country, the reason people felt comfortable to even crip on records later or felt that they pressure.
There were people in hip hop who felt that they was like.
Yeah, I'm not a gang member until Snoop happened, and then they was like people start looking like gang members.
That's real. Yeah wasn't.
And you said, it's fair to say it went from being almost a deal breaker to get signed by somebody to make exact yes.
You like, it's almost expected in LA that you are from somewhere solely because of Snoop Dogg. And I know that sounds crazy, but it's true, bro, Like Snoop is is trail blazing. Snoop is blazing a trail so fucking crazy, like just what he's doing for cripping, Like, and I'm being honest, like for doors that I can walk through and just be a crip, it's because of Snoop Dogg. Like I don't have to not be a crip. Like everybody is not losing their mind because I walk there.
Now it's like it's cool, maybe he's cool like Snoop.
Wow, so so all time, all time, Glasses and Pete, do you think all time Snoop is more popular than Tupac all time popular, all time?
Yeah? Popularity sure, Okay, popularity yeah.
I think the passion index for Tupac is higher. I think that the scope of Snoop is bigger.
I think I think Tupac can go down as a greater artist, Okay, like an impactful kind of person, Like his life was such an amazing yet tragic story that it's gonna always be hard to.
Competele Snoop is.
I mean, there's only a handful of people more famous than Snoop, you know what I mean, Mickey Mouse, Jesus, it's not a lot of people, Michael Jackson. There's gonna be very few people that's more famous.
You got to I mean, you got Snoop up there with Jesus, Like Snoop.
Is close.
Jesus, right, Snoop is close, Like he's not up there with Jesus, but he's really close, Like he's not far behind Mickey MOUs Jess Like Snoop is a different kind of phenomenon, man, Snoop. What's crazy is Snoop shows you the power of hip hop, Like that that's that's hip hop, glaring testimony of how great the street urban influence can be. Where you have Snoop Dogg and it's like he's on the super Bowl chunking of sea sea.
Walking smoking weed.
How like glasses in Pete, how is he able to do that? How is he able to commercialize gang banging and cripping to where he could be on the stage with Martha Stewart cooking delicious hams and like.
He could he could do like Leonardo da Vinci dog. I don't know. It doesn't Pete, you have it. I don't know. You tell me, Pete.
I just feel like some things are just in people, Like Snoop is not a super great marketing strategy. He is a marketing strategy, don't get me wrong. No no credit away from Shure, no credit away from Drake. But what's in him, it's just unique. It's like something that you can't make it. I remember talking to Snoop about something briefly and telling him you couldn't make another artist like you, like, it's not possible.
Yah.
I don't think he doesn't have a strategy. People strategize around his brand. It's a different system. I mean Tupac was a guy with a strategy who didn't have a brand. Snoop was a guy with a brand who didn't have a strategy.
Exactly. That's actually I would say that say that again.
Tupac was a guy with no brand who had a strategy, and Snoop was a guy with a brand who had no strategy.
Tupac changed his brand a couple times. Tupac's initial brand was like black panther and militant. As far as his movement, Tupac became slowly started making itself into like kind of what gangster rap.
Is he turned I'll say this much. We I'm very comfortable saying there would never have been a blood face with Tupac if Snoop didn't exist. All put money on that. There wouldn't have been a need for it, the costs, but if it, analysis wouldn't have existed. There's no business.
True.
A lot of people look at Snoop, you know what I mean, really like that's just such a phenomenon. Man, he really is a renaissance all by himself, and like it's just kind of unique to see it, Like it's it's really special to be alive at this time and see what he's doing with something that's super like he's he's been successful at things that John Gotty couldn't do,
Like John Gotty couldn't do this. The only person that's close to doing with Snoop, like Al Capone couldn't do what Snoop is doing, like any other person that's that's a product of the underworld and crime.
I know that sounds crazy.
They're not Snoop like the movie Scarface with al Pacino is not fince.
Like. He's actually living it all the way out.
Yeah, he's definitely transcending the culture definitely. Why do you think why do you think it's so hard for like, because like in hip hop, you can you can have like a like somebody could try to be a jay Z kind of like mimic like say Drake. But why is it so hard for a second coming of artists like Snoop and Tupac Because when they try to mimic them, it looks just corny, Like you just are they just
too polarized? How come there's net like we can't even have that second tier like fake Snoop or a fake Pop.
So this is what's crazy right now. And I've talked to you about this in regards to Arizona hip hop, right right?
Hip hop? Like now, it's hard because people don't get this.
But if you if you really do, if you do the work on the on the equation that is hip hop, it really breaks down into urban street culture. Urban being Disney populated, street being places you know, written by crime, I mean Disney populated, crime written areas, the culture in those areas.
Right.
What's hard to be where Snoop is the main thing is because culture has already been overexposed. Like one thing that made Snoop a phenomenon is remember Los Angeles street urban culture was starting to be cinema like it was starting to be on cinema Colors, Boys in the Hood. You you saw Rocket. You know, Colors is not about gang members. Colors is about police, police officers, their relationship and dealing with gang members in the field. Boys in
the Hood is not about gang members. It's about black fathers raising their children and what it's like for somebody else who doesn't have a black father. But saw these super special characters Rocket dough Boy, where.
You was like, damn, that shit is real, it exists. Snoop came and voice those characters. He became the voice like Jay Z voiced Nino Brown.
Okay, dang, I don't even think.
Remember R Street urban culture didn't have a true voice. We were always the side piece to decide this to another main course. The main course of New Jack City is it's a police film about trying to solve the crack epidemic.
Facts, and then you got Nino Brown right there.
Rick Ross became a voice for Scarface the actual movie Lean and Suit No Nobody sell drugs and fucking Miami and wear no fucking Lenen suits.
That's from the film. Yeah.
And I was saying, like the time frame wise, like like New York hoodlums, you know, whatever it was was a term like in like the nineteen seven pre hip hop you know, you know, you go get mugged in the in the subway and ship like that, the movie Warriors, all that kind of crap, Like people were conscious of what Marlem was and the stuff like that. Before that, there was the geography of Los Angeles didn't pass through
Compton haphazardly. You had to go you have to have to try to go to Compton, you know what I mean. So I think that also it pulled the curtain back on a large portion of a city that everywhere else perceived as why, it's a lot of maybe a little hair metal bands like Guns and Rows and some cocaine, a little bit of movie stars, and some beaches and surfers.
So yeah, that's that's and and to add on to his point that that's why it's like culture in these huge metropolises are not They're already over exposed, like you have to be the face. Snoop Dogg is the face of probably American's greatest street urban culture, cripping gang Bang.
That's shit is like global.
Okay, now there's there's gangs as people who have met me that have tried to add sections of my gang onto their streets in fucking Canada.
I'm not lying.
Well, there's a page that for some reason I keep getting like I liked the car one time. Well, no, all the low riders in Okinawa, yeah is that what they were called?
And it's all in Japan.
Yeah, like when I did my tour over there with Dazz the first two times, Like the parking lot of be filled with low riders in Japan, Damn every like not this Okanawa, like Tokyo, like all over them.
I just happened to others, and Okanawa was even like its own unique thing with Japan.
So it's like, I think street urban culture was being revealed from first person from hip hop at that time, as far as cripping and the culture itself is a phenomenon, and Snoop was the face of it.
Jay Z was the for he was the face of New York drug dealer.
You know, you heard stories about Nicki Barnes. You saw movies about different people like he's saying.
You've seen the street life, you know, the warriors and ship like you've seen that ship.
That's what made I think New York and l a different. Nikki Barnes was on the cover of Time, Magnet. Fuck, it was a decade before anybody heard of jay Z and then Freeway Rick wasn't on the cover of Shit before Snoop was rolling down Crenshaw.
Which is crazy, which is why LA drug dealing.
What's crazy is we have in Los Angeles probably the wealthiest drug dealers in the history of urban drug dealer. But because there was no president set for people to be interested, they don't care about New York LA drug dealing. Like Snowfalls is not as big as American Gangster and Freeway. Rick made way more money than Frank Luke, is way more money than Nicky Barnes.
Why wasn't it like marketed that way, because like like you got the Supreme Team and then you got Nikki Bonds.
Genuinely, I think I think urban drug dealing is started in New York. It was already spoken for and represented like at the highest level.
And culturally, there was already a cinematic monopoly in New York for crime. That was the Italian Mafia Facts m So that.
Was Austin too, all that whole top of the East Coast up there. So it's those things like that where it's like it's tough, you know what I'm saying, It's tough, Like it's it's it's hard for people to catch up with Snoop and Too. I think artists are just as talented as Snoop Dogg and Tupac, And I think there are producers that are pretty good that can keep up, you know, if nothing else hell, the producers around that produce those guys are.
Still around, you know what I mean.
But I think, like like Peter Sin, we don't have the same, Like what would be that right now? The greatest street urban culture in LA right now is flocking cat burglars, like burglary burglarising houses. Okay, but there's no film about it. I get no colors for flocking.
There's no always in the hood for flocking.
The YG kind of like on his first album, kind of like put that what it is.
Yeah, Like he gave a voice to this culture of people that was burglarizing houses in La flockers, and that's what Wag really got popular for in street urban culture outside of just jerking and dancing.
And I'm not sure that there's so much of a uniqueness for burglarizing houses in La versus in comparison to like LA putting a brand on a drive by shooting that was maybe a little bit more.
For the component LA driven the components of it was, which is crazy because they've been had dropped, like oh, Mafia's been doing dry bags. But we put this name on it. And I don't think we put the name on it. I think they put a name on it and made it popular for us, you know what I'm saying. But yeah, YG is definitely the face of that. But that face also didn't have mass representation before yg Versus Rock Colors was a big movie you had. It was
casting really well, it it did really well. Boys in the Hood did sixty seventy million dollars, like you know what I mean Like this, It's like some of these films were like mainstream appeal joints, so you could even though you know, it was more about Trey growing up with his father versus his mom, right according to Black Fathers, you got a hint of dough Boy.
Yeah, even though.
Rocket is about Robert Duval and Sean Penn and that shit, you got a hint of a rocket, you know, played by one of the greatest black actors ever.
It's so funny. The line I remember from that movie that pops up into my head about probably once every thirty six hours is from my favorite character Frog when they take him it and they say, hey, you want us to raise her bell I got more time than money homes. I'm like, that is how I decided. That is the philosophy behind my present day air travel strategy. Yeah.
Yeah, my favorite is from t Rogers Recupe why Pat Man fucking with me?
What Pat Man on me? Man?
Rogers at the Jungle that was his line. But yeah, it's like I think it's a phenomenon as they started making it a side dish of let's say, the main course is you know, the police.
Or Black Fathers.
The side dish was that street urban culture. We haven't had a great street urban culture movie in a long time, I mean not based out of the West, like not based out of the West, you know what I mean. And so therefore hip hop there's there's no there's no there's no uh trail blazed that you could walk through. Now, whatever you're doing, you have to kind of line it up. So that's why it's hard for hip hop to take that next step like they did initially with Snoop.
Big, because Big was a drug dealer too.
On his records, you know, he was he was like like like Pece said, he was a hooligan. He was a hulium and that already had representation, maybe just not as in the black space.
So like like Kendrick, was that more of like a West Coast version of Knives, like the kid looking at his window explaining stuff that's going on in the hood, or is it like.
Well, I think I think dodd situation is unique because so dot also came at a time when college kids were pretty much this this this when college kids were deciding what was going to be shared in hip hop. Okay, so when the blog era happened, the blogs were started by college kids. You know, rap radar, uh, all these different blogs, a ton of blogs by college kids. Kids in college, you know what I'm saying, And they're like, what hip hop appeals to them?
Hence you have Drake, j Cole, Kendrick Lamar.
Oh yeah, that yeah. College.
Yeah.
College.
Though, Like I don't know, I get it and I don't. I get that and I don't get it at the same time.
What don't you get?
Like I understand wanting to listen to someone that might be a little bit more relatable to you, I guess, But at the same time, I want to hear someone who's more different than me. It's more interesting. M M. I don't want to hear from the guy who saw the guy. I want to hear from the guy.
Well that's the tricky part.
Like I don't think J Cole, Drake or Kendrick in Charles Hamilton because he was a part of that class. I don't think they pitched themselves as the guys like Dodd's first album is very much somebody that was involved with bullshit and admitting it. But I think he framed his narrative as good kid, and I think that made it understandable, like, oh maybe if I lived in this neighborhood, this could be my life. So that was a relatable
piece maybe for you know what I'm saying. J Cole was somebody who went to college and quit Childi's chase his dreams. Yeah, sure, most of those kids could relate to that ship.
Yeah, that's that's what I'm saying.
It's a It is somebody who were them but put in different situations, and that's what it is. So that's a big part of what's happening. It's like your street urban culture needs to have a precedent, and the reality is it's not really creating a ton of new ship every week. Like hip hop the way what we call hip hop pretty soon is going to become rock and roll where it's at now, Oh wow, you know, I mean, it won't have black faces representing it, you know what I mean?
Like rock and roll. We'll move on to something else most likely, and that'll be the end of it.
Will it will continue to have black faces representing it, and it'll just be in the same way that you see some company deliberately go out and get like specific box checkers for their commercial campaign. They just understand the marketability.
I don't know, man R and B right now is represented by Dale and Sam Smith at the highest levels. Well, you mayn't even call regular black singers R and B singers anymore.
They call them neo souls.
Yeah, rock and roll was all black, now it's no black.
Jazz was all black now it's no black.
So you think we going to Jack Harlow era, that's the are we're going to.
It started with It started with Ya, then he went to Drake.
Now it's that Jack got lighter and lighter until it got whiter. See Eminem very much is a product of street urban culture. Mm hmm.
You know what I'm saying.
Just because he's white, he still was a product a street urban culture.
But when when when hip.
Hop stopped being about the culture itself and it started just being about an art by itself.
Yeah, then who look at who's who's be boing?
That face is all Asian, Like if you go online and look at the Bee Boys, the niggas who popping and fucking it up ninety percent is Asian.
Well what it's been like that for twenty years, but likes that's like its own kind of niche. I don't even know if that's it's almost like divorce itself from hip hopping in the broader sense.
But that's what I'm saying. It's because I tell a lot of the legends that I talk to from New York this all the time. If you start to make it where hip hop is just the art and not an expression of street urban culture, of an evolving street urban culture, you're gonna write yourself out of it because
there's gonna be people that's going to teach it. Every day on Instagram, I see a new cryptwalking video, like Asian person, you know, maybe a Middle Eastern person, maybe he's Indian, so that's Asia as well European, and they just have crip walking videos. They have crypt neighborhoods. There's you know what I'm saying, So challenge. The one thing about everybody else's they're gonna teach a lot of our ship is we teach each other. It's one teach one, one,
one teach another. These motherfuckers will have a class of three hundred. Like in Asia, it's gonna be a class that three hundred motherfuckers learning how to be boy.
It's just it's the same way. It's like now there's you can go to gyms and they have pole dance and these have like like the twenty four face one hundred and twenty is to have like some sort of like like twerk and some sort of that class on Mondays at ten o'clock. Paul got out at ten o'clock.
Pole Dancing is huge.
Yeah, you don't have to be a stripper to pole dance, and you ain't gotta be a crypto seawalk.
Yeah, so it is.
It's hard for hip hop to hit that because street urban culture, like you you have to be a part of you know, it has to be contagious. Cripping, gang banging is contagious, super content.
Why it's huge in La It just spread it everywhere.
Now it's people who grew up in You grew up in Arizona, right, you grew up your whole life. See you might have remembered in Arizona when you were really young that didn't have Christian bloods. By the time you got in high school, that shit was done.
Yes, it was s cripting bloods.
And I don't even know. I'm assuming there was. Maybe when you was.
Little, there weren't Crisson bloods. I'm assuming because it might have been Christon bloods in Arizona for sure. I know for sure they was in the eighties.
Yeah, I was in junior I grew up there in the seventies. Yeah, junior High. That's when I was introduced to crippin In blood.
Yeah. So it's like it's people who grew up all over the country.
It's people in New York who are twenty one years old that grew up in gangs their whole life, Like they live in a gang neighborhood, a crypt or blood neighborhood, forgive me their whole life. There's people who grew up in Oklahoma. Oklahoma had gang since the eighties, Crimson bloods. Pittsburgh had Cripson blood since the eighties. It's forty fucking years now. So again, it's one of those things now where it's not so culturally niche, you know what I'm saying.
It ain't special no more.
It was at one time that was just la, that was just things around this part of town.
Now that ship is anywhere where niggas is at.
You're right.
I mean it's a couple of places that don't have them still, the Bay don't really you know, outside well it depends because you know San Jose got Cribson bloods, but Oakland still don't. San Francisco still don't.
Seven all due respect, doesn't have black people anymore.
That's true. They got them niggas bot there the only niggas from Oakland too.
I mean, like, yeah, ok, every day, man, where they put where sack you know, eastward. It's the same as like in La A lot of guys go out to you know, they're getting bumped into the l and m high on the other side of the Yeah, yeah, yeah, high desert in the Lampires, the same in the Bear. It would be like what Brentley or whatever, Antioch or all the way out of anywhere, but there, yeah, fairfields on out.
That's crazy.
So yeah, they're they're taking back control of the urban communities straight up.
So the first place when I was up there was Pittsburgh, California, was the new Richmond two thousand and four. Wow, you know, and and it looked like Corona, California to a degree. Yeah it's been going on, but like the same thing, like like down to a Z. You know a lot of guys out of South Side they out in Avondale in Goodyear now you know. Yeah yeah, Like my boys all were from West Side City. They don't stay there anymore. They're out in the Glendale now.
It's all over so so with like like the south right. So t I started trap music. So when j Z came, did he put more of a like cultural face on it than what t I had it at first?
So this is gonna sound fucked up. Let me just disclaimer to anybody listening to this podcast. Tip ship had more music, okay, was like an animal as a as a record maker, as a publisher, JZ shit became easier to decipher and just hear it and be like, okay, this is what trap sounds like.
Mm you know what I mean?
Like, do you think more of the sound and more of like the detail because I thought j Z was putting more detail into it, Like.
Nah, tip shit was more j Z shit was more fluff. Forgive me and I'm sorry, GZ, I ain't shipping on you, bro. Tip shit was actually about selling drugs. J Z shit was the j Z shit was like more like Scarface the movie.
It was Atlanta exactly where it was, more like he created it based off of certain reality, but then he exaggerated so great.
Timp Ship was actually just really selling dope.
Yeah, Jesus. Thing was why PIMPSI got on the radio and was talking about anybody out here with thirteen.
Like Flip was saying ten the keys, like Nigga nobody. You know, it's they started sensationalizing the concept.
Okay, timp ship.
Is actually about selling dope, but Jez's was more like jesz shit is rooted in selling dope, but it's more like kind of like the fantasy version of drug dealing, like more as an entertainment piece. Not to say Jesz wasn't really selling dope, but that's not what he did with his music. He made his music more like like an inspirational film piece to celebrate drug dealing, to to encourage people to hustle. Tim shit is actually the triumphs and failures in actually hustling.
Okay, Okay, yeah that makes damn yeah, that makes sense.
And Nigga's gonna talk shit, but it's true. Like tim shit is like about a nigga who's really selling drugs. It is more like about a movie nigga selling drugs.
And chronologically like t I came out well after the explosion of the Atlanta scene. I mean he was much far behind, you know, the whole the whole dungeon thing, all all those other rap like young bloods like Little John.
He he came out.
He didn't put Atlanta on the map by any stretch.
Out cast did that.
Yeah, so it's good. Where would you put Gucci into that? Gucci man, is that like the same as Gez or is it more.
Because Gucci is like tip shit on steroids?
Oh ship, Hey, Like it's.
Really like because remember remember Gucci is not from Atlanta.
Gucci was actually snorted cocaine in the truth.
Was like a wild nigga, like a wild street From the first day I heard him, I was like that nigga wild, you know what I mean, Like he was with all the shit, you know what I'm saying when I first at least from from LA perspective of first hearing him early on, like this nigga is wild, like Gucci reminded you of a real country nigga.
Oh okay, he was just wild. Okay.
So it's it's it's it's tough, and that's what makes it hard to get a new big impact or snoop, you know what I mean, because there are no new street urban culture. Like the last one was drill. Yeah, that was the last unique culture. Like kids with these fully automatic weapons and going to do their thing. That shit was crazy and it's a phenomenon steel. But since you know, you have people around the country just doing that. Where if this is they're kind of gang bangers that
sell drugs. So like the slang is what their whole on to the slang, the dialect and how they.
Talk, you know what I mean.
But for the most part, you know, they celebrating like let's say they celebrating using drugs. Let's say, uh, what's Brodie name? Solid nigga too? I love him real good names and niggass too many. We talked about doing some music. You know what I'm talking about. He popping in Memphis right now? Oh money bag yo yo? So like yo, it's talking about drinking lean. That was Houston's thing thirty years ago.
Yeah, I mean he kat was talking about sipping lean and Memphis in the seventies on the trip.
Yeah, So it's like these are all established ideas that's just being presented to a new generation versus Snoop given the definition of a culture to everybody, Somebody seventy never heard this much deep, somebody seven never heard this much deep. But if you're like me, right, and I'm listening to the money bags, I'm listening to Yo go Off.
I heard that before.
So therefore there's no reason for me to overinvest in it because you're not telling me something unique. Versus when I heard Keith Reese and and and darkening and talking, and I was like, I ain't never seen no shit. This is like some third world African shit like from the sixties running around with k's and shit, look, kids, that fucked up. If the music if like I think,
Chop just kind of got caught up. But if the music, like if Kanye would have came and helped them construct that music a little bit more, they would have probably the greatest phenomenon in the country. It just wasn't musically done well. It's hard and stuff pop and Snoop doing. I got you the stuff poking Snoop was doing. Not only was it the first representation of urban street culture, it was also the musically with another kind of detail that made it incredible. The ship Dre was doing for
that shit. Musically, the ship all the brothers from the Bay was doing Johnny Ja. That shit was crazy. So do we blame you two beats for that?
Then?
Like in this generation, because like if you wanted a Dre beat, like you had to go to Dre. But now somebody from like Arizona I could get I go to YouTube and get a drill beat. I could go get me in Atlanta beat because it's it's accessible.
I don't think it's about the beat. And I think you blame technology in the sense that now if some if a trend is small, it can.
Spread out.
Anybody can grab it really quickly. Yeah, even if it's not just simply social media, but like you can get your shit out quickly. I mean, how many years of Hiphi was in Oakland before it became out of the region. How many years of screwed and chopping in Houston before it became out of the region.
Those things means you could perfect it.
Yeah, and and and and you knew it was really really popular. So it was like it's like a company ipoing after two days of business now versus being one hundred million dollar prop.
Which y'all goes to the same thing, right, Pete, even though you feel like it doesn't, But it goes to the music, the stuff that Dre started making with death Ro If that was the same thing as the NWA sound, we don't have the success. He had a chance to perfect it before it was presented to the mainstream world at that level. He perfected it and got it right.
Same thing with all these other movements versus social media today. Right, just like a beef, Like if we brought big and POC into today's era, if we brought big and pop into today's era, you know what I'm saying, Like that beef would probably force them to have to kill each other because you would have people to involved with the beef perpetuating it, putting a different pressure on it. Like I think a lot of the rappers aren't bad today.
Like I know that's the narrative. A lot of the rappers are bad.
They're not.
We're just hearing them early, like we heard Poking Big. Them dudes have been practicing for a long time before we heard them, versus hearing Blue Face's seventh song, which could be Tha Tiana and eight songs of Dead Loose.
And now we're hearing the one hundred and eightieth best rapper of his time because he had a song that was hot for a week. You didn't get that. I mean, you really only were hearing the top thirty. Now you're hearing in the top six hundred.
Good looking out for tuning in too the note Seller's Podcast. Please do us a favorite, subscribe, ray, comment, and share. This episode was recorded right here on the West coast of the USA and produced by my homeboy A King for the Black Effect Podcast Network and now Hard Radio.
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