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Ladiesship, and my name is Tank and today Special band. It's a very special.
Before we get to the man in the hot seat, we're gonna start with a brother who's sitting in as my co host, my co star. Uh, my brother from another mother. Uh, the brother to the brother.
Of you know what.
We'll get to all that sitting right here, Robert New We like to call him Bob.
Come on building. How you doing, Bob? I'm doing great. You're doing great. Everything good to see. I like your shirt. I mean, you know, I don't figure we'll be a group.
Okay, listen, ladies in the hot seat. As you notice are our shirts. You notice our tire. It's gotten silky. It's gotten silky.
Uh.
This episode represents, uh, hit records and Coco Butter. That's what this That's what this episode represents. Huh if you if you look good, you play good. And if you play good, they pay good. That's what this episode represents. Prime prime time, y'alln we gotta feel like something. It's gotta look like something. Huh gets from inside out. This man been doing this since he was a real little boy, jumping out of boxes and ship dancing everything.
Jumping out of the boxes. Nikka cold with it. My brother a co founder, Colder.
Oh, they are the podcast.
Time to wipe up out what you want. You want to butt into the service right listen. They gotta get it, get it, they gotta get it. Asked brother, how you doing, brother? I'm good man, Yeah, got me to do it. Man.
First of all, we had to you know, as we have you in the hot seat, you know, I had to call somebody you know who knew you best. Of course, I'm saying, you know somebody who can who can who can talk to you like you're supposed to be talking to you. Understand what I'm saying. You might used to kick your ass when you was little. You see the original lead singer. You know what I'm saying. I have to call the bominator himself. Man, this is awesome. Get
this together. Everybody feel like they say a double.
Right now, the same it's already they got signed back up for talk about it and then back up for him.
Don't know how to sing back up, so I was singing back up and lead at the same time.
You don't know how to sing back up. I get out there.
That's your problem. When my shirt comes off, it's my time. It's not your time to take your shirt off too.
Well in that particular, in that particular, in that particular, show tank you you bluff me. And we have been working.
Out, We have been with the honets, we have been working on. I couldn't and I had. I warned you.
I said, listen, when your shirt come off, my shirt come off, and you I didn't know you was gonna you know, you'd be pumped backing now.
I didn't know you was gonna pump fake some mine.
You pump fake and mine came off like a vacuum to yours off.
The girls are screaming. I was like, I haven't taken off you and I looked behind me. Your shirt is off. Yeah, that's I know. His bodyguard as this high was here me d Night was screw is the brother Mark. It was just screed tears. Jan Valentine. First of all, you know, thank you for being in the hot seat. It's been a long time coming because I've been fighting with you for quite some time to get you back into this space of being the lead singer. Yeah, fighting with you
for a long time bro. You know, we had to knockout drag outs about what the fuck Jay? Why not Jay?
And as many as many a young artist that has come up and even come to this podcast and said, oh man, Jay Valentine. When I heard Jay Valentine, and when I saw Jay Valentine, all of this influence that you've had as you know, not just a creator, but as an artist, I just.
Felt like it was so much more left for you to do. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, So thank you for finally coming to the come into the mind of doing what you needed to do. We're here to talk about, you know, because people haven't gotten the full scope of who you are and where you're from and how this all happened. We gonna go back to the beginning about we going back to where this shit started. You know what I'm saying.
And listen, you jumping and you lead it anytime you feel like it.
Okay, this is your world.
So so what you're saying that, I want him because people don't notice. I want him to tell people what it feels like to start in the music business at five.
He started at five, Like.
You know what I mean, I'm talking practicing, learning routines, street performing for change on Fisherman Wharf, Like, tell him what that felt like, because you actually started the music business at.
Five, and I mean, obviously even I don't know what that feels. Yes, it was. It was interesting because to a certain degree it all I knew, all we knew obviously, and shit, I blame you, honestly, I blame you because it was something that you had already done. Like I think sometimes people talk about the Neutrons and Jay Valentine
now as Ryan Newsdream. I think that's only partially true, because I feel like it was five News Dream where it kicked off to where that was something that you were already full throttle into by the time I was five, because you were ten, you and Ronnie were ten, and I was just following suit ultimately and being forced this thing. I mean really, I mean because I couldn't really sing, or to me, I couldn't really sing. I don't really know.
I mean it's funny because we have people, we have guests on here that's like, yeah, I was singing eighteen months and not me. You know, It's just not something that just happened naturally for me. It happened watching you and watching you go after it and seeing how passionate you were about it, and then I think I just kind of started off as the mascot in a sense because I was so little. Thank you, but you mentioned it earlier. I was literally kind of a fucking jack
in the box. I was Jack in the box. I didn't know that I was Jack in the box, but I was Jack in the box because it would be on Fisherman's Wharf and there was a certain time. So Fisherman's Wharf is per thirty nine, is right on the water. If you go to San Francisco, it's something that you just have to go to. You gotta visit. So all kind of restaurants think it's in aquarium over there, like the seals are right there right there on like the
little loading dock thing. And people from around the world come there, and they've been coming there probably since you know, San Francisco was started whenever they could get there, and it was a huge tourist spot. And the story behind us in Fisherman's Worth was our brother Ron. He had from his mom's side. He had family that used to strut. So strutting is like popping and locking and you know, doing the whole you know all this, They still owe
me some money from day. So Ron's family, from his mom's side, which is our family too, they were already street performers. And my father had realized that, oh they're making some money down there, and if he was making some money, ran knew wanted in somehow someway. Well, no, don't forget. He was on probation. I didn't know that he was. I mean, he was always on We.
Was on probation for welfare fraud. He was on probation. So this was a way for him to stay out of jail.
We became a new hole. No, I knew that. Yeah, I do that. I did that. Ladies, disclaimer, Bob will say anything. He's going to tell the truth raw and untut let us continue. We were to hustle, Yeah we were, Yeah, we were. We were. We were the hustle. We would have k new hustle. And he realized that, you know, some kids was down there. They was a little older than us and they were making money down there. And he's like, well, my kids need to be down there,
but not just be down there. My kids need their spots, these spots, these spots because there was like a there was a certain spot you get that money where the parking lot was where if you were dancing right there, you're getting people right either coming out of their car going into their car. Gotcha. He needed that, he needed that spot, the spot that was already occupied. Yeah, so some gangs shit happened, gangs of should happened. And let's
just say we got to our spot. That was our spot, and if anybody had a problem with that, they had to go see in the car waiting whatever.
Yeah, spot, you're gonna get this three to five hundred a day, and don't y'all go nowhere.
Near that spot. Yeah, he would go and he would he would put us out there, put me. I would be in that box. He would put me in the box out there, and then he would go in the car and go to sleep. Yeah, unless we had any issues, if we had isshoes, we was going to the car and then he was coming out the car. And that's not what you want. What you want made me be in the car's chilling. It don't make me chilling. So yeah,
I was the I was the reveal. Yeah, right, because I imagine that imagine you're going you taking the family on vacation and a little five year old pops out dancing and ship. You're gonna give him to You're gonna give you give us something. You don't really got a heart. If you don't, you don't up. You gotta that, nigga, If you don't give a kid that's popping out of you hauled moving box pop pop locking with his three brothers. It was no. China not quit already. Sometimes yeah, she
was with it sometimes. So we were you know, we were Jackson five Wow with a girl. Yeah. Yeah, China played piano too early on. She was our piano player for a minute too. Yeah, she she she was the only neutron who got to quit because the rest of us couldn't quit. He told us, if you quit, you still got to practice, So that doesn't really quit. Still practice. You might as well stay in the group. So that's what it was, not an option. Yeah, yeah, so so so for me, that was my first entry into the
entertainment industry. And you know, as any little kid like, I loved the reaction. Yeah I didn't. I didn't like the rehearsal and not being able to go outside and all of that stuff. But the reaction from you know, these people of all walks of life literally like losing it when we would perform, like they just loved us. They really, they really loved us. And and we made a lot of money out there. I've always been a shrewd business. But my dad used to actually have to
pay him to practice. He's the only one that got paid. But you were a baby too, so yeah, but I just asked, also asked, you know what I mean, like, so, where the money you got? Yeah, you gave me that already. You gave me a dinner car.
Okay, yeah, so that but you were you were at an early age getting like high level tutelage.
You know what I'm saying in terms of putting rehearsal time in. Oh no, no, no, we were because that's a lost We were fully locked in. That's different. We were fully locked in. We we paid our dues as far as as rehearsal and the ten thousand hours that they talk about. Yeah, and I think sometimes you know, people they look at they look at our podcast and they see the way I am as far as how I am about the business and how how strict I am about what you need to do to survive in
this ship, and it comes from that. They don't realize that you did that. Now, it comes from experience. It comes from experience, like you can literally throw me anywhere. I'm going to figure it out. I'm not going to drown. Yeah, yeah, and that's for me. That's the thing that you know, in terms as we talk about artists development, it's missing because that's the saving grace. Yeah. And a true established
work ethic along with the love for the sport. Yes, yeah, right, but a true established work ethic is going to help you, as you say, figure out, figure it out on any Martin Luther King, Yeah, Okay, where I'm at doesn't matter what we're doing. Cool, that's work matter. So so you know from that age that that's I mean, if it just it felt like what I was supposed to be doing,
because that's what our whole house did. It wasn't like I was the kid in the family and it's just me and everybody's trying to figure out, like why is he trying to sing or dance? No, we had a house of entertainment. Everybody was a part of it. You know what I'm saying. It's if it's our mother helping with our father, pick out our outfits or being our role manager or if it's our sister playing piano, or trying to be the role manager or be a part
of it or collect the money. And you know it was it was Bob was David Roughing and these are the temptations in the beginning. No, seriously though, like because he was very serious early on, Like Bob was very serious about the art and about being a singer, you know, Like for me it was obviously my first thing was business because I was trying to get paid for practice and ship. But Bob was really like, man, I want to be famous. I want to sing. I want to
write songs. Bob literally is writing songs at what ten eleven years old? Yeah, elementary love? That was the first because where else is your love at that elementary school? In elementary school? Was Brenda? Was Michelle what you wrote that about? Yeah? So so are you guys? So you are the neutrons at this point? Or does that? We were always in the tru New Trunk five because it had to be connected to the Jackson Ron. It was very adamant on things being connected to that because that's
what was the top of the food chain. Yeah, and these are you know my little boys, you know, they they the next ones. You know, in his mind, this is what his train of thought was. So if I can attach that five, it's going to stick out, right, It's going to stick out the same way Jackson's five sticks out. So for him, I always always feel like, you know, especially as I really learned the music business. He was a marketing genius. He was a marketing genius
and he just he was. He was putting it into children, though, which some of his marketing ideas were grown up ideas. They were. Have you ever seen the Neutrons suits? Yes, we had full suits.
Yeah, we were dropping jumping all the way to the when we had a record. He was having those made. He would go get the garments, take them down. You go down to the garment, take them, have a maid. We got hearts cut into the blazers. It's sequence.
It's our first stuff was made by Lily Nitt, who dressed all the pimps of the Bay Area. If anyone has ever seen the Mac, same lady who dressed all the pimps dressed the Neutrons. Yeah, yeah, and I'm pretty sure were the only kids getting clothes made there.
You know how the name came about the neutrons.
I don't know. Do you know what her name came about? Go ahead, you tell them. So our father just if you look at our name, obviously, our last name is Nuke for people who don't know, my middle name is Valentine, my last name is new we're Newts, and my father's name is Ron. So yeah, instead of Ron Newt, you put the new here, you put the ron there. You got neutrons. Now you have neutron. So we were just him. This was never a bount you never never. That's what
I want you to know. Yeah, yeah, I love it. Yeah, I told I told her a long time ago. I told the story on on uh that part of the story on Soul Train. I had to tell Don Carnelius. I had to let him know what it was.
So so the talent and all of these things had already had been identified and also impressed upon you that this is what we're going to do. When is that recognized for you on you know, on a high level where it pertains to record companies and executives and that type of thing.
So so from five to about eight nine, we're just practicing and doing any performance we're performing at everybody's parties, all the adult events. You know. Somehow we were pulled out of the car at you know, eleven thirty oh midnight.
So yeah, he would be in full nightclubs. I'm talking with drinking women.
Yeah, like it was insane, ladies of the night, ladies of the night.
So RONI would always have like a limo or some type of he'd be sleeping there until it's time for him to come out the box.
Yeah.
And but this would be like one in the morning. Now my wad be like neutrons front and center, and he would be pied.
Because I mean he's he's Hey.
And New Truns Frond Center at like one in the morning in the nightclub.
And so literally that's what was crazy.
Like we what he's saying about the hours, Like we performed everywhere, every talent show you could do, everybody's house, in the right hood, barbershops.
We stayed. We stayed performing in Double Rock. Yeah, so Double Rockyover Rock. The neighborhood exists, but the actual product projects don't exist anymore. They like redid the projects. But we had family there and my father was from over there from you know, Hollister, Holly Rocken Hollister and Double Rock was connected, and he was he was from over there, and we would literally just go perform at people's houses.
There are still people who DM me now talking about us performing at their house as if I want to remember that, but nah, but you know, it definitely brings back memories. But we would perform everywhere whatever, and we didn't understand that he was just preparing us for everything. We thought it was, at least I did. I thought it was punishment. Well, you know me, I just wanted to perform any He wanted to perform anywhere. I want to see all yeah, yeah, But for me, I was
just like, this is punishment. He wanted to get paid, not even that I wanted to get paid, because you got to imagine too, your peers are there too. So these are like kids that maybe we went to school with, maybe you know, maybe it's our little cousin, maybe it's this, that and the other, and I'm like, and I got to sing for them, like why you know what I mean? Like at that age, I didn't get it. And it's not like it's like I look at it now and you know when people remind me, like, man, that was
just so cool. I didn't look at it like it was cool. I looked at it like, man, like, why am I being forced to do this when I, you know, when I don't really want to. But then later on, like I said, I understood that it was just preparation because we were, like you said, it was Neutron's friend center.
It did not matter where we were. We could be in the middle of a meal, we could be in the I could be sleep in the back of the car, and we were ready to go immediately because we had put in so much time and we had experienced so much of it. So over that time, we were performing it everywhere. The Circle Star it was this one venue that we would sing at. We would pull up with whatever big artists was there, you know, like we sang there and like Diana Ross pulled Bob on stage and we were.
Just potatoes and everything killed it. I told her key to put me in. I sang while the foods falling in love. She snatched the mic quick as hell.
So what we learned what veterans do you not? Yeah, yeah, this is not your show. But we would we would just go and we would perform everywhere, you know, fairs, and eventually, like I said, the singing kicked in. Maybe it was quick from just breakdancing to singing and over this time we're just rehearsing, we're performing, and our father is fully immersed in the streets, fully immersed in the streets. At the time. You know, it's it's wars going on. It's a whole bunch of dope, Dylan, it's a whole
bunch of shooting. This is our doors is getting kicked in by the police. Like it's a wild time for our house and our family, and we're just moving around and around. I think maybe seven or eight we lived in Indianapolis. Our father had Our father had a plug
in Indiana. He had a plug in Indiana. And you know, we talked about this a little bit on the podcast about how I hate road trips, and I said, the reason I road trips is because when we would road trip, we would do cross country with kilos and cocaine and it would take us damn there a week to get somewhere.
So that's why I don't like riding in cars for long, because it brings back memories of like and obviously the cars are way more luxurious than than what we was riding in back then yeah, the missions of different you know what I mean, not in a U haul truck or winter Bago, you know what I mean, acting like we moving right, but we moving, we moving, we move, we moving something else? Yeah, yeah, and we lived in we lived in uh in Indianapolis, what about six months? Yeah?
But you remember he took our whole band though, do you remember that? Oh shit, he took the whole band like we had so they would give us, you know, music.
Lessons, you know, vocal lessons. Vocal lesson had a couple of pimps that that could sing. Back in the day, they was all that.
And so we end up with this band and me and he should be like, man, this band is horrible, Like we don't know how we knew, but we knew right definitely. But that same band here, he'll come back to it. That same band actually helped us get a record because unlike the other boy bands, we could sing live and that was one of the things I got us record.
But anyway, going back, so yeah, we go to Indiana. We go to Indiana, which is once again kind of the connection to the Jackson to a certain degree, Gary was because Gary was out there and at that point we had already had we had linked up with the Jackson. We linked up with the Jackson as about what it was about five or six? Yeah I was eleven, Yeah, so I six. So we had linked up with the linked up with the Jackson. Yeah. Ron new said we were kin to the Jackson's. I mean, you know, your
father tells you. And then Joe said it when.
We Pine Bluff Arkansas connection.
Because our family was originally from Arkansas, New to originally from Arkansas, and you know, somehow they had some kind of connection through which I found out later. I don't know if you knew this, Bubbahamp really, So, Bubbahamp, who is family for us? You met, you know, you met our cousins in Vegas, becausin mistering them and his father, his father managed sly Stone got you and as kids
we didn't really know what that meant. But obviously now as a businessman and understanding busy, that's some big shit. But they would be telling you, you know, he had slidestone, and we're like, who the hell is Sliestone? You know what I mean, Like, we're not we baby, So we don't really know you know, all the history of that and that whole thing. But Bubbahamp had legit music business connections.
We don't know that because Bubba, which is like our uncle, is thrown into the group of everybody else we meeting. That's you know, pim stay in the game. And he was in the game too, So it's like we just differentiate. No, not at all, So we think it's all bluff. We think, okay, so that's what dad had got stuff from. But oh wow, bub bub was the connection to that, and so my dad would get you know, plugged from him, like yo, who who can we call here? Who can I tap
tap in? We get to La? Who can you know what I'm saying? That the whole thing. That's the part we didn't know. So we just thinking we're going to La to meet the Jackson's because this is what has been told to us. And we're on a a school bush what school bus that he took the grill off, that's part of his creativity. He took the grill off of the school bus, took the other grill off off of a rolls royceter that he had and put it on put it on the front of the school bus.
So we had a school bus with a rose Royce Chrison Man.
Yeah, it was the biggest rose, the biggest he had it made.
Imagine that on the front of a yellow school but in the school bus was still yellow.
Yeah yeah, but it had like neutrons and graffiti on the side.
It was because we were super because we were kids, so it should be a school bus school.
It was also that was also a candy store.
Yeah what you heard. Yeah, so candy, Yeah, candy house, to believe it, and probably the other can I feel like, probably both the candies, I feel like.
So he did skip around a little bit, but that after we would practice and do all those things singing. Now we got routines. We would go from the Bay to l A trying to.
Get a record deal.
Yeah, and we would sit in Joe Jackson's office for hours.
But before we got into the office, we were in front of the house. We're front of Havenhurst trying to get in, and we're like like some stone called groupies. We're like I thought, he said, I thought he was just going over to Michael Jackson house. I thought, I thought, this is this is like a done deal, and we're just in the car and he's negotiating with the security. Literally negotiating with the security, and Ronnie Knew showed my cousin.
But for him this parton like what you know what I mean, you know he working his wiggle, his wiggle worked. Those gates opened. I took you to Havenhurst with me. I took you to the house for the forty eighth anniversary of of Thriller. That same house, those big old black gates magically opened for us. We was there for a while, if my hours and trying to trying to work as we're going to do his thing, and those gates opened up for us, and that man took us.
Think about this, that man took us to the biggest star who ever lived ever and talked his way into those gates his house, Too's house. And then we were able to audition perform for Joe Jackson. And we had already put in so much time, even in that short span of a year or whatever it was, of every single day rehearsing, going over our shit, waiting for that moment. So when we performed for him, we got busy, like we literally got busy in Mike, I mean, Joe was like,
oh no, I'm signing y'all like y'all own Jackson Records. Wow. So it went from we're just going to in our minds, we're going to we get to meet Michael Jackson to now we're going to sign to Joe Jackson. Now we really gonna meet Mike. Absolutely, absolutely, and eventually we did. Mike was cool a shit, you know what I'm saying. We got to hang out with Jermaine and all the brothers and the sisters, and we end up meeting who became really close friends for us and practically family. We
still call each other cousin to this day. Was the Three T's, which are Tito sons, because they were around our same age and they just became our boys. Like we just we was like, oh, there's some other kids, and they fucked with it. Said it's like wait, but they can sing, and they because they weren't singing at the time. Eventually they became the Three T's and became
a singing group. But they were all playing baseball. So we got to the other part is once we met them, we got to do kids shit because we have pockets, got you, We had pockets of when we could do kids shit because we had to rehearse so much and so much other you know, wild shit was going on that we didn't really get a chance to have like normal, oh little league at that age yet you know what I mean, like little league and youth league basketball and
all the shit that we take our kids too. Saw music. So when we got to see them, it was like, oh, we can go we go play basketball, we can go to their house and go swimming. We was kicking it. But during that time, Joe's trying to figure out what to do with us, trying to figure out what to do with this, because this is what you know, I'm five six, Yeah, I'm six, it's like six, and they're like eleven. Ron is twelve. Because at that time it's four of us. Tryna dropped out so we're no longer
the new Tron five. Like I'm out of here. You niggas ain't making no money. I actually actually we're making money, but Dad's getting it. So I quit. And it was four of us. And I know y'all probably heard that, but yes, it's two runs two Ronni's because Ron Newton would have two sons that both have his name. This is you know, y'all know how the streets go back? You know, George Formulate the only one on out here naming multiple kids the same name. So ro we call
ron and Ronnie, Bob and me. Joe signed us. We moved to la for a minute. We lived in Grenada Hills. We get our first house with the pool. I learned how to swim, you know what I'm saying. Like, we we really think it's going to happen. And this was our first experience with what the music business is. It's not overnight. It's not overnight. It's you know, a lot of hurry up and wait, it's wait your turn, it's
right now, ain't your time? And I think we we had a chance to learn that really early, especially for me being six seven years old at that time, really early. That damn okay. We thought we was gonna put an album out the next day after we meet Joe Jackson. That's how this works, right, It's not how I don't I'm pretty sure I don't think for Jackson Records at the time, I don't even know if they had distribution. We didn't know what distribution was.
But also you got to think about Tank at this time, Michael Jackson is the biggest start the world.
So we like we with his daddy. Yeah, oh, we about to be good. He would have to put on he would have to put on like full, he would have to dress up like it Halloween to go outside.
I saw him doing this, the fake big t wig. He could not go outside.
Like when people be saying that now, no, no, no, no, it's not even close. It's not even close. This man had to put on a disguise to just leave his home or it would have been a riot. I never seen nothing like that, you know, and I'll never see nothing like that again. They met a lot of stars. We didn't met a lot of stars together. They're not
Michael Jackson. Bro, They're not Michael Jackson. And you know, I think for me it was good, good in one sense that it made everything normal to me, but it kind of fucked me up in a sense of, Bro, I can't meet anybody at this point. Same.
Yeah, my wife is saying that it like it don't matter if you meet Michael Jackson. The only next person is Jesus. Listen, hey, Jesus week because everybody else didn't matter. But what I want to pull you back, like, because there's a point we forgot. So when we signed Joe Jackson, he got us our biggest show to date for the Roxy, right,
and we didn't move to La yet. We're still at home in the ghetto, in the hood, and Ron Newt is, oh, d like, we got our ghetto band, and he's like, yo, we practicing twelve thirteen hours a day to prepare for the Roxy.
He's sick.
We did that for three months. You could hear the kids playing outside. It was torture, tank fucking torture because the house was yeah, like and you can hear I'm talking about tons of kids outside and we just intered going over at it again, over and over. We're doing I'll be there. We're doing uh, the greatest love of all that's what These are our cover songs that we're doing. And we're over and over and over. And the payoff though, so the payoff and he's young, so I don't know
if he members all this, but the payoff. We get to the Rocky, which we didn't know was world famous. Roxy is world famous. Of course, we get five standing ovations. They say, oh, and we have a special guest up top El de Barge, right, so we're like, oh, wow, El deball right because at the time he's cracking too. Eld Barge. Wasn't El de barge eld the bars was Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson videoed the neutrons from up top our whole show. We came out, they like they took us upstairs.
He was up there.
Imagine, Bro, all I ever wanted to do was be Michael Jackson, like after we saw Motown twenty.
Five, right of course, Bro, That's all I.
Wanted to do, right, So we go up there. He imagine our faces.
Bro.
Then Joe's like yeah, and he invited y'all to the house. We're like, it's about to go up. We're about to hang out with Michael Jackson, you know what I mean. So we go, bro, and we ghetto kids. He had a full candy store type he had. He had the real it was. It was as big as this.
Yeah it was, and it was I just remember, was air conditioned and everything and imagine.
And he was like, get you a tub, like the big tub for popcorn. And he was like whatever y'all want.
Imagine you can't tell. No. He just had silver teeth at four or five, just just as I just came from having my silver just help. So now this man is offering the candy house man, What did that do to your work ethic? Though for me it's all the way.
I've never worked that hard again in my life. Tank that twelve thirteen hours a day for three months, like it. But we saw the results, so like, because I know how that affected me, how did that affect you?
It made it where that I think maybe that's the point where I felt like it was all worth it. That was the validation for all of it, right, because it's like, it's it's not getting to play basketball with Michael Jordan, Yeah, even if it's an open run, Michael Jordan coming to your basketball game. Yeah, and you're like in video Jay over there and he got it on video. So the VMJ, you know, meeting him and seeing that
he appreciated, you know, what we were doing. Like I said, it validated everything at that point on and we thought, you know, from that, we thought, you know that that we had arrived. But like I said, we realized that the music business doesn't work that way, and how was how wash? What was it? What was the point to where that realization kicked in and maybe even things had
to go in a different direction. When the money stopped got you, When the money stopped because obviously with us signing to Jackson Records, there was a certain you know advance and a monthly and we were living in this you know, this house with the swimming pool, and we made it to all right, we got to move the lights about to get cut off to you know, they're not sending that bread no more because Pops just stopp hustling because he fully focusing on us. So during that time,
obviously we got to move back. You know, we didn't tell everybody, and we hear these stories when we talk to other people that come on here. We didn't tell everybody were going to l A, were going to the Jackson's and I see you niggas on TV. Yeah, I get back to you. We didn't make it to the TV screen just yet. Right, So we go back home and same we back to the same thing we were back in school. We're back rehearsing rand New back in the streets, and you know, he starts hustling during that time.
That's how we ended up getting to Indianapolis. You know, what was maybe going for eighteen in San Francisco, was going for thirty five in Indiana. It's time to get to Indiana. So you know, he went out there. I remember he got he bought two apartments. All the story is great. He bought two apartments next to each other. He busted the wall open and connected it. Instead of having two three bedrooms, now we have a six bedroom apartment right right right.
But there was the grown people's side and the kids side.
We had our own side.
I'm I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he didn't have permission.
No, he went through the closet. He tore their door down. No, he tore the closet down. Yeah, he went through the two cars, the door, I'm sorry, the wall, he literally made it. Yeah, he had two upstairs.
Oh, it was when I said I was a dude at school because everything out there is flat.
The houses, you know meanwayt the houses are flat.
We lived in a high riser that was connected, connected, and we had our and I look, i'm fourteen.
You know you jumped far.
Actually, because I'm fourteen, I'm in high school team.
Yeah, you jumped far. I thought I was eight.
No, that's not you must have been because remember I'm in ninth grade at Augington. Oh ship, Yeah, I'm playing house hard.
I'm playing house because moving I don't know yeah, I mean, I meant he got a plug out there. You know, they in the streets, they doing what they're doing. What was it was the hood out there, Hartesville, Hartville, Harsville, you know what I mean, like Ron News. You know he was moving around and yeah, yeah, I guess I jumped a couple of years. But in that yeah, in that time, you know, he got back cracking. He got back cracking, went back home. That's when he got set up.
Somebody set him up. Uh, and he caught a charge and he went to jail, and we went to jail with him, and that's how we ended up Reno. So we lived in Reno for a high second. Uh maybe boy a year, maybe by a year because he got My father had three years. He got three years in the state and three years in the FED. He had a fair charge and and and the state charge that we thought they originally gave him thirty six years because it was cheers on the sixties on that but they
ran it concurrently. See do you even know what that means? Same time And we didn't, we didn't, we didn't, yeh. Concurrents life is a concurrent.
When he's at first of all, he's representing himself.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a priest has against.
It was against our uncle, who was the biggest police at the time. Kickshaw rest in peace now, ron NEU couldn't wait to get him on the stand so that he could cross examine.
Our auntie, our youngest auntie. My mama married the biggest gangster in the city, and her little sister married the biggest cop.
And they come from this hood.
How about they come from the same hood police. But you know, our uncle just decided to become a cop, and we you know, he married our untie maybe when I think I was like eight, yeah around I say that same exact time he was. He was newly in the family. He was newly in the family at that time. Uh So.
He tells us our dad and well, by the time, we're like at this time, we're like the new the new turre and army. We're like little soldiers for him. Whatever he say has to go. So he was like, what I need y'all to do is I need y'all to make free ron new signs and I need y'all to go out in front of jail, the courthouse, the house, the steps with all signs and I need y'all to protest to help me get out.
He's protesting.
We had Free Run News signs it's protesting outside a fifty Bryant and saying I'm talking about our friends is coming by. It's you're talking about embarrassing, bro. This was embarrassing Tank.
I'm not you think your kids would pick it for you? My kids? Will you think they were free? Bob? I think the better. I think better. Actually a couple of them probably wouldn't, but I feel I don't giving one on it. I got the same kind of story.
We're out there with the Free Run News sons and he's representing himself up as juices didn't work, and then they and then his cousins come in, other gangsters. They're like, oh my god, this is a circus. He's in there representing he's been to jail for and so we're sitting there and the judge. They come back to judge says.
All these years charges, six years and currently, but we didn't know what current. We think that they gave. The protests didn't work, So he gets he gets six years. Uh you know, state time, you gotta go do, you gotta go? Do pretty much fifty percent and and you know, in the midst of them of his transfer, he escaped. He did it stay time he escaped, and it got tricky for us. So from like nine to ten and
a half, it got really tricky for us. Like it just came home like yeah, no, no, I'm gonna tell you. So it got you know, it just nigga. We couldn't survive. It was tough. It was really tough. It was no work and obviously no work in Reno, so moms couldn't really work. We was trying to figure it out, government assistance, whatever kind of assistance, and it was fucked up. And we went to go see him and he was like, oh, no, no, I'm coming home. We're like, no, you're not right. But
this is Ron Newt. He's made miracles happens before. You know, he took us to Michael Jackson. So if he says something, we kind of we kind of believe it. And he tells our mama, He's like, yeah, come get me kid. You you know, they have their grown up conversation of you know what time she supposed to come get him, and you know, she wakes us up, what three in the morning, three in the morning, three in the morning and we're driving in the middle of nowhere back to
where the prison was. Who jumps out the bushes that.
Thing that comes out the bushes like I'm that type of guy who j and all black with a scully on kind.
Of what you got to right.
And see It's funny because hear me from his point. From my point of view, I knew all night we was going to go get him.
Yeah, shook.
I'm like, oh, we're all going to jail because you know, you think about you think about people breaking people out and being on the lamb. I'm like, yo, we're gonna be on the run.
He finish sacrifice all. I'm like, selfish ass, nigga, I'm a kid. We all won't go to jail. So I'm like not.
But my mama, yeah, one of the ones bro or ride or die. When he said come get me, she was like, okay, yeah, and she didn't care that the kids.
It wasn't just us, No, it's also our other cousin. And I'm showing and his mama in a big.
And a big ass was in a big ass Cadillac.
In a big ass I don't know. I don't know what we did.
So he jumps in the whole way. I'm looking, I'm like, they gotta be coming. I'm nervous. I'm like, they gotta be coming.
It never came. It never came. And in Reno, no, we're we're in the mountains. That was yes. And do you drive back to Reno or do you drive back to get our strive back to Rena to get our stuff? And my dad and Ryan Bob's twins, they leave, we stay when they leave. He got to go make a couple more trips to Indiana because he got to get
back on his feet. And at this time back then, you know, you get on the plane with a paper paper I d and you know, I mean you got a kid with you, and you know, let's just say some you know, some country band went and some finances came back. And when he came back to get us, he got money and the U haul he was headed back to l A. And the matter of back on a week's time. Weeks time, we're back to l A. We moved to some you know, little apartment onyall on Crenshaw, very gang infested.
Super gang in I hit him multiple times.
Yeah, he definitely got pressed. Where you're from? Where you from you from right, because you got to say he's so at that point, they those questions. Niggas is getting pressed at that age, you know what I mean, Like, man, we're not from here, We're from the Bay, right, So we get to la. Unbeknownst to us, this over this year and a half whatever it was two years while my dad was in jail, our videos are circulating of us performing, like videotapes are circulating of us performing throughout
the music industry. We have no idea. But back then it wasn't though finding artist on Instagram, finding him, blah blah blah. It was we can't find this family. We don't know where they are. Nobody could find us because, like I said, when Ron Newton went to jail, we went to with him. So it was no finding us and ship we probably had no phone really working at the time. We was just was fucked up. It was bad.
It was bad. But now he out and now all the people you know, he tapping in, He tapping in to whoever, you know, He tapping in enough because he knows, you know, he's on the run so much. And I think what worked out for him is that he was in transition from going to state to Feds, so it already did his state time. So I think the state probably not even they're not they're not looking for him
at this point. Now the Feds, it's a federal thing, so they're looking for him, but they haven't received him yet. It's a different you know whatever whatever, you know, different time. So as this tape is circulating, my dad's getting on the phone. Bubba hamp again is you know, connected to the industry. He knows people, they know him, he's you know, now he's letting people know like, oh no, we found him. They're starting to put people on the phone with Pops.
So the first person that gets to our dad was Scherl Dickerson. Scherl Dickerson, you may know her from as Gaps. She was an ASKAP for a long time and she had been searching for us and trying to get a hold of us. But as she's searching for she's switching labels. She's going from MCA to Sony. But the mistake she made was that she also played us for the young man who was under her. No no, no, no no.
She was leaving MCA with Jill Busby to go to Motown.
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, but the young man that was under them was Louis Silas Junior. Yeah, and obviously Derl Busby had the boys. Yes, So he's like, oh, that's my old bosses. They got the boys. I'm about to get these neutrons. I'm going to find them. We don't know that though, because Cheryl's trying to find us. So my father talks to Cheryl and then he gets a phone phone call from Louis. Louil had an end. Louis from San Francisco. Wait, what this nigga? But I
don't know none of this shit. So Louil originally from San Francisco, have family in San Francisco. I was able to get to dad another way around through the streets. So we meet. I think we met with Cheryl. I think she offered us a deal, offered our data deal. We get a call from Louis. Loul says, whatever she offered you, I'll triple it. We talked to a street niggas. All we know is doubling in the streets. You're gonna burn it though you might get stretched it. Two to
try and sech three. We're gon. We're gonnay man, So you know once that happened, and then he used the Homeboys ship of course from San Francisco, and it was a fly nigga Lou you know what I mean, if you go back and anybody you can google Little Solace man Loul was that guy. Loul looked like the executive version of Keith Washington, because Keith Washington was that. Yeah, absolutely, Keith Watching was that. Nick right Lowell was the executive
version of him. So when you've seen him, it was like, damn is he an artist? He got the drop top bands, He had just bought a house and then seen O. He showed us the crib. Were like, we get to live here. Now you'll get to live here. But if you hang out with we're gonna yeah, yeah, we're gonna, were gonna, We're gonna do what we're supposed to do. We signed the m c A Records Records, and you know,
there was a lot of stinks. There was a lot of things that happened that will be in the movie within you know, just just us signing and us getting our deal and they throw us in the studio, they throw us in the studio and now it's it's really real. Would you say that about now it's really real because we got a major label record. Like, this ship is no joke anymore. Now it's like we've now, we've arrived. Now it's we're getting paid for what we do. We
got paid in things. Oh mhm, everybody got cars. I was too young, So I got a bike. Okay, so I take that. At least I got a bike. Got a bike. I got a bike, right, And we got to you know, we lived in a crazy house. We had a fly house, were out in Diamond Bar at the time. Oh, don't be sad. We had a ball. We had we had we had a we had an absolute ball. And you know, now we're in the music business where it's really serious. And then we start seeing because he would take us and this is something that
I appreciate to this day. He would take us into all the meetings. So I'm just listening. I was that kid. I wanted to listen. I didn't know what the ship meant at the time, but I was hearing those words. I was hearing publishing royalties, advanced, recooled like. I was hearing those words. It wasn't really connecting, but you heard those words. Yeah, when you do a deal at least at that time, they wanted everything that you recorded before
you signed. So what Ryan Newton realized was, I can get another check on top of this triple advance I just got for old songs. So pops started getting old demos that we were on and just selling them the MCA. I'm talking about shit. That was because back then they never wanted old music to come out. They wanted to have everything you've ever done so they can own it
in perpetuity, they can own it forever. They didn't want somebody popping up and saying, oh, we got a little you know, a little ep on the neutrons that were gonna drop too, so they would buy it all. They were giving him five thousand a song. They were giving him five thousand for every song he found that had our voices on it. So he find in all kind of shit.
You can't tell a pimp that he pimped it, and.
All of them actually Bob wrote them. No, I'm just you know, saying by the time, yeah, because he goes the other part. Now. They also have MCA Records, whose mother company is Universal, which has Universal Publishing. So what does Universal Publishing do for your dad? A pubs deal for Bob mc a laid it out for the Neutrons. I can say that when it all kicked off, they laid shit out bro like, and we were like the
kids of the label. So we would just get to run up in there were running through everybody office Ron New taking niggas plaques.
He actually we would be in there. He had keys or something.
I feel like he had a key to the building. Bro.
You know, we would go at night and there would be nobody there and Ron New would just tell us to just we was taking plaques off the walls, like we had new edition plaques we had.
We didn't work on new audition pretty sure. Any heartbreak, Yeah a plaque name had a Bobby Brown plaque. Yeah yeah, that was my provative plaque off for Rocket Black. So two.
Somebody had told him how to play the game tank about the budget. This is what jacked our album out, like somebody told him it had to be one of my old niggas bro from Motown or something. Remember, because he started meeting all of the the guys who were in but not in no more. The niggas that kind of had a foot had learned some ship, but nobody wasn't really fucking with him no more.
They was his partners and he was learning the business from them.
So he punked little Sidness and took over the budget. He's turning in songs. The nigga was out of control. Listen to me, Tank he he. If he would have let this man do his job.
Right, we would have been huge, because it was. It was fully let out for us, Like I said, it was fully they got us anyway. He was. He was in competition. Louis was in competition with so he was like, I'm ready to throw the building. I'm ready to throw the building at it. And these kids are you know we had we had been fine too. If there was a version of the Marines for singers at that point, at that age, that was us, like we were, we were on it, and then they put us with brook pay the legendary.
That's what I want to say to I ain't never got a chance to tell him this. As a ten year old, this nigga was cold. And when I say that, like he was this amazing, amazing singer, but he could sing and he could hold his own, but we had real routines. Next to Michael Jackson at ten, he was he didn't miss because we were doing intricate routines. You know what I'm saying, every beat had something and he ain't missed, That's what he's saying, like precision, like it was missed.
He was amazing. We were in rehearsal. We were in serious rehearsal. I mean even when Brooke got us. Brooke was like all these kids, they really go after it, and we wasn't quitting and we would be trying to throw in all the little ship like I said that when little Steve was here, like trying to you know, because we love Troup, but we love new Addition. But then we love Bobby Brown, who told us he didn't rehearse, right.
I remember, I remember we met him and Hard and Soul at the build I think it was at his plaque. They were giving him a plaque for selling a gazillion records. He's the king R and B at the time. And we asked him, were like, Bobby, like like what y'all be doing? Like the rehearsals in it him and Heart and Soul was like want be rehearsed? What like that? Bobby, I don't know, rehearse it. You niggas gonna rehearse what
the big So we went back to rehearsal. But you know, we was working with did you at least get to from this situation bit to put out a record? So okay, we're speeding all this, all this tank, all this is happening in a matter of a year. Like all these things are happening. You know, people be on the shelf,
all this kind of ship. They couldn't shell for us because ron New would not allow them to because there was some other shit that went on a little label that had nothing to do with us, some other groups that they were going to actually shove us for a minute, which we probably we probably still needed a little development, even though we had been in it so long on that level, we probably still needed some development. It wouldn't it wouldn't have hurt us, and we were still babies.
We're still super young. But Ron k New had a clock in his head because I go back to he was on a round run, so he was fighting that so it was making him put more pressure on them to rush us. And at this point they had given him all this money. So when they told him we had to wait, he said, fuck y'all. Y'all found us a video director partner with him, put the money from this, from advances and all this other shit into the video
himself spend fifty thousand dollars on our first video. He picked our single, My Heartbeat for You, was not supposed to be our single, and if any of you, you know, people go back to it and they're like, oh, Marg Beach us a great record. I hate that record. Honestly, I hate that record. It's not a kid's record, you
know what I mean? It wasn't. We had so many records that were of the time, and you know, but ron Knut was like, you need a power ballad and listen, he come from he come from music, right, So that's what we were. Nigga. We put on a motherfucking you know, sparkly suit sequence and shit, and we had fake rain. We had motherfucking Wokie on the planet. Harp Nigga was a harp. Even a song. What wasn't I get a full ye full orchestra. I just knew it was a hard.
I just knew it was a harp on the damn stage. And I'm like, why is this fucking harp on the stage? Man don't like harps to this day, no, nigga played hard with me, I might kick them up. So he was rushing them and they just gave in. But what I understand about the machine now and what I understand and what I learned then, was that they will show you why they're the machine. So he forced them, he forced their hand. We put the song out. The song is doing good. But the song is doing good because
of how much work we were putting in. It wasn't like it was a radio record. It wasn't like, you know what I mean, we got a fucking power ballot. They're gonna play it on overnights. They're gonna play a ten year old in two fifteen year olds on a quiet storm. That's literally where we were falling. We were get overnight spins. But my father had the idea of like, fuck it, we just gonna hit the chitlinser, We're gonna
hit the streets. So he put together his own promo along with the promo team, like a twenty six twenty six city tour of you know, high schools and malls, and you know that that's when they used to throw the kid acts at all of the you're doing the high school, you're doing in the middle school. You going to the boys club. Then you're gonna do autograph signing at the shoe store, and then we go go to the record store. Throw us out there when we get there.
Were cooking. We're fucking cooking. We're cooking. He bought a he bought a camper. Bought a camper. For some reason, we never really got up to the tour bus thing. He would turn everything into a tour bus. So he gets a camper. He's still on the run. Us three manager, our sisters, the road manager, and our mother. And we got our dogs, and we got our dogs pee wee in August. But I skipped something that is very important that I've never spoke about before. You remember what I said.
It was four of us, four brothers, when we got our opportunity to get our record deal. My brother Ron, our oldest brother, his mother's side, wanted to see the contract. You don't ask Ron new to see a contract. This is his kids, this is his thing, and you're lucky that he's asking you to come be a part of it. Be a part of it. So Ron don't get signed with us. In my opinion, it's our biggest mistake. One
is our brother. You know, and you you family for us, so you know how we are like I have never met a family as close as us to this day, I've never met anybody close as we are. I mean that I've met. I'm sure there are families that are like us, but we really in the trenches together. We really rock out with each other. We still, you know, we love to see each other and hang out with each other. So I personally think, and I'll get back to that a little bit later, but I personally think
that was our biggest mistake. Are my father's biggest mistake in music. Fuck all the other shit with the money and the deals and all that time, but Ron not being in our group, to me was our biggest mistake. So now it's three and you know, we're you know, we're got the record deal. Now we're on the road, the songs out, My Heartbeats for You is out, and all the old people love our shit because it's like it's old people music, you know what I'm saying, Like
we make it grown up ass music. And then the kids love us because we look like them and we danceing and we singing and we just you know, we we a ball of fire going back to the label, showing you what the machine is about. When we get out there, we're selling out everywhere. We fucking we shut down be a mall in Oakland called up East My Mall. Five thousand kids, five thousands tell you they're scared to do. They pulled. They pulled my duct tail man til I'm like, get me out of here.
We had a wall of security around us.
It was so dope.
Tony Tony, Tony is from Oakland. They never did that at East My Mother. They came to our autograph signing. It's something about kid you know what I mean.
It's something about kid acts that it just connects because kids are never too cool. Ye, adults can get cool kids fast. Yeah. Man, they excited. Let's have it. They are excited when they see the artists that they up. They're excited. So they loved us and we was hometown heroes. We should do this video show out there called soul Beat So Beat. That's how that was like.
The ghetto version of BT. Yeah, it was one dude that owned it from Oakland. And yeah, if you was cracking on so Bet.
Because you was playing all day every day, sol Beat was home for us. They loved us. Right, and uh so we're going this. We're going this, uh promo run. What we realized when we get to the stores is one of the radio reps are one of the store people then told Ryan Newton that MCA Records ain't shipping our music. That was the lesson, like we put y'all out. It's not gonna win on our on our you know, on our time, not not why you're trying to control it so they would sell out, We sell it out
around the country and not replish the store. Yeah, they can't get no more CDs in. We were going to autograph signings that we couldn't sign CDs because they were already sold out. So now they're trying to find those A body teams. We just signing those. But we can't sell no records. It's five thousand kids there. You can't sell nobody no music that can be fucked. So Royn
Newp being Roy Newt, he gets on that phone. He going crazy, nigga, when I get back to LA and every threat you can imagine, and actually every promise you can imagine, these were not threats. Every promise that you can imagine. He was on his way home, so he pulls us off the road. We get home and he, you know, Louil won't meet with him because loul know is a promise. He will not meet with him. He is ducking. He is fully ducking. So one day Pop say we're going to We're going to m c A.
Me and Ronnie like, we're going to. I don't know why you didn't go. I wasn't going. You went to bullshit.
I wasn't with it at all. He was about to ruin it. I knew what he was about to do. Yeah, wait, but you you didn't jump too far ahead. You didn't tell him you was on Soul Train with Don Cornelius.
You didn't tell him, so's Yeah, that's part of the m c A roll out. They you know, we got to do these really cool things. We got to do Soul trained Don Cornelius, the real, the real Soul Train with Yeah, we got to do video sol with Donnie Simpson. You know what I mean. We got They were really putting us in places to be successful from a from
a promo sense. But we had an album out, not just a single, like My Heartbeat for You was out as a single, but the album was out, and they weren't reshipping it to one right, So no matter what, they just like the waters cut off and keep it shut. So now we're back in La. We do the whole run. We do the whole run. And when we get back, you know, we were taking this, we're taking this road trip. We're taking this road trip up to the MCA Records. That Vibe ain't fucking with this. I'm not going like
he said, he's about to fuck it all up. I heard him on the phone. It's off with when you go up there, it's a rock. So we get up there and they're not letting us in. They always let us in at this point in the music business. I will credit him. Yeah, so other people will argue with me about what the rappers did, I will credit Ron Newt as the man that made record labels get security. Record labels then' us to have security. They just had it. They have receptionists. You could just get up on the
floor if you got past receptionist. You know, I mean like it was. It was different. It wasn't like armed security in that whole day. And we go up to MCA Records and louis not coming out. They saying he's not there, and then his assistant at the time, a lady by the name of Denise Weathersby two years later gave me my first publishing did crazy at Warner Chapel Music. She was she ended up being a publisher. She brings
out a copy of our next single. Our next single was the record we actually wanted to drop to be our first single. So me and Ronnie are excited. Nigga, they got the cover, they got the twelve inch. They showing it to us because one second single in his record, either mar Her Beach for You was his record, mar Beach for You was his record. He didn't own the second single. So we know the music business now, right, We all know the music business now. Niggas fighting for
they single they record, you know what I mean. And he wasn't going and uh, a friend of his from the streets called him. It was like, come meet with me. Ron You're like, nigga, what they put him on the you know, they put him on the phone with him actually at the label. They put him on the phone when it's somebody that's on the phone for you, and it was, you know, one of his street guys. And we go meet with him and he tells my father don't go back up there. What do you mean, don't
go back up there? You're like, no, Ron, this is your this is your patna telling you. This is not like me telling you threatening. You're like me, No, I'm telling you like it ain't gonna be good. Don't play with them people. Nah, they ain't even promise me. And b B blah blah blah blah blah. And you know Ryan knew, you know, had the artillery and all the shit that you know he wanted to go back up there with. And we go back up there, and when we get off it, when we get off the elevator,
it's four men in suits. We've all seen enough movies. The fans, the fans are waiting for us. This is all the same day. It's not like we left one day came back. No, Ryan new when and took that thirty minute meeting at that gas station right there on Lancashire, right on the corner. Because MCAA Records used to be right where the hotels are now, right like right where I mean, not the hotels, but he used to be
right there. He used to be a Bank of America that they used, and then MCA Records was in a building right there, and then that gas station right on Lancersham and Ventur gotcha exactly. So that's what we took our meeting, our street meeting, and went right around the corner, got off that elevator. It was like Ronnie Newton, he knew what it was. He was like, yeah, put that nigga in cuffs, and he's like my kids, and he was like, well, we figure out, you know what we're
gonna do with them. So, like I said earlier, when Ronan Knew goes to jail, we all go to jail. We made them take us with them. We went to jail with him, not literally cuffing us, but we followed the police car as they put him in the car. Ronnie's driving, Ronnie don't got no license, and me and we knew it. We knew it was over in our minds.
In our minds, we knew it was over. And it was the longest drive probably I've ever had from Universal City to Diamond Bar, which is what an hour, hour and a half hour, and at this point it's nighttime. She's me and Ronnie. He's sixteen, he's fifteen, sixteen, I'm ten eleven. Because it was like a year went by, we you know, doing the album, getting the deal. So yeah, I'm eleven, he's sixteen, And him and I had a
conversation what we're gonna do next? What we you know what I mean, And you know what we're gonna tell mom, what we're gonna tell Bob. We're going to China, you know what I'm saying. Like, and we get home and now he's back in jail. They gotta process him. They gotta do that whole thing, and not maybe what a week they start. They sent paperwork, They sent paperwork stating that if we wanted to be on MCA Records, ron New couldn't be a part of it, could not be
a part of it anymore. And it was finding us a new manager. They was finding us a new manager. Our budget was back, we was you know, they was gonna fix you know, get us back together. But you know it was gonna take some time to get all that going. But and and you know, we end up talking to to our dad in jail and he was like, listen, sign everything. I'll signed off because for him, he just needed to get us to that point. However he got us there. He needed to get us to that point.
That was That was something that he had always dreamt of, giving us to a major record label, major deal. We on TV, we on soul training, we on video, so on BT. My kids are making it. I'll sign whatever y'all want me to sign. But then he also figured out a way to like put the new manager in place. He didn't do that. He did do that. He gotta atage control. And during that time, man our water was cut off though the new budget hadn't kicked in, and as we talk about on this podcast, Ryan Neu spent
it all by the time he went to jail. No, when he.
Says oh, he means all tame. Oh even our United posted. So for kids, it was supposed to be, yeah, money that can't be touched because we were under age.
He touched that money. He touched that too, because he figured out his way into you know, talking to the people at the bank. He was connected to everybody because it's like his personality was so infectious that it didn't matter who he met, they worked for him. Now he worked for them. Whoever he met, they worked for him. He's gonna pimp everything and everybody. It's just what it was. And he was just so electric and his and his
dreams was just so grand. It was like, man, this maybe he and he got these talented kids and his beautiful wife. You know what what you need Ronnie? That's literally like these were grown men, heads of banks, heads of labels, heads of legal What do you need, Ronnie? And he would he would find it, get to a bag, and he spent it. He spent it, all of it. The publishing deal, honey, the advanced money, it's gone, and he controlled the finances. So we don't know that. Once
he goes to jail that day, we're officially broke. Literally, we're broke from that moment on it like fuck, what do we you know what I mean? So they're trying to fast track us, and they put us in the studio with Spider Man and Doctor Freeze. Spider Man and Freezer full of full of fact poison. They're coming off poison, so you already know what they're They love us m c A Records love. The look was different.
We was gonna be the first ones they had us in hockey jerseys. We was about to go nuts town.
We were we were, we were in the whole, We were in the space. Man. We now we're getting to wear Jordan's We're getting to wear the fly ship. We're getting to be kids and young niggas, and they're just they're throwing it at us. They have us in the studio and we're recording for the soundtrack of House Party two to put Jama Jammy jam that was supposed to
be us Tank. So if you look at the movie, if you look at House Party two in the record store, you'll see when they go by the Neutrons album or Neutrons singing is either single or the album, it's the cover of us. Did you know that? Nope? In House Party two, about to go watch it to there's a scene, Jacob, if you can find it, there's a flash of our album of us in the movie. Because we were supposed to be in the movie because MCA controlled that soundtrack.
Tony Tony Tony, our barrier brothers actually took our place in the movie. And the reason they took our place in the movie is because as we're recording for this soundtrack, our brother gets killed, and that goes back to them cutting our water off. He was fucked up, you know what I mean? We was fucked up. And Ronnie was always an extension of that he was his little hinchman. Yeah he was. He was an extension of our father. So he did what he, in a sense, knew best.
He went to the streets. So Ronnie gets killed for people who don't know, he get killed Robin the liquor store. And you know, because he at this point, he's fully immersed. He's immersed in the streets. He's full street nigga. But we have a record deal. If we're going to the studio every day, and the day he got killed, our studio session got canceled. Engineer got sick, his parents got sick. Yeah, and our studio gets killed. Our studio, our studio day
gets canceled. Because if not, we're at the studio, that doesn't happen. I mean, life is what it is. So you know, Ronnie was fully in it, so it could have happened anyway. But that's how that, you know, that's how it came crashing down and we literally had to watch, you know, our brother get killed. On National TV. They used to have a show called what was called hardcod Copy.
The show called hard Copy. I'm eleven years old, bro turning twelve, sixteen, turning seventeen, and you know it comes on the screen and we got like news people outside our house. It's it's insane.
Because it's looked at as a scandal too. Yeah, it's like you know what I'm saying. Kids on the Rise record deal goes out and robs the store and gets killed.
It was on the news, so they were trying to like, oh, it was a gang initiation, and it was. It wasn't none of that. We was what they didn't realize. We were street niggas, plain and simple. He just couldn't get it out of him. And this wasn't anything like we would. Whatever city we went to, we find it. We was finding the hoods, we was finding we was fighting because at that age too, back then, we were like the first mixed niggas in the hoods, you know what I'm saying.
Like that, like now it's like everybody mixed with something, you know what I mean. But other than de Barge where the Jets, the Jets, you know what I'm saying, you pick them out. Were live in all these cities. We were live in all these cities, and they would literally I remember kids asking me, especially in Indianapolis. A kid said to me, Nigga, what are you what am I I'm black. Nah, nigga, you ain't black. I'm nine years eight, nine years old. This is why I'm hearing.
But that's really what it was. So after I punched him in his.
Face, of course, of course I had to get off because that's the other thing.
My daddy tolt us really early. Get off first, early, get off first, you know what I mean. Like we at one point we was the boxing We was the boys Club boxing team. Because ron knew was also golden gloves. He was nice with his hand and he was like, you know, I got these kids and his fucking hair. They got this hair and shiit know. When you our cousins would come to our house, everybody had to put the gloves on. We was fighting every day, was fighting
each other. We was fighting, our cousins was getting to it.
So we was just you know, it was aggressive guys man really early and me and Bob, especially Bob, and I think it's obviously because you know, Bob and Ronnie were paternal they were fraternal twins, and you know what they say, you know, it's just it's identical where they just acted like they talk like they sounded like then they got fraternal twins who were just like holer opposites, and Bob just wasn't with none of that ship man, and me I was in the middle of it because
it was like I had Bob who was, you know, that voice of reason and not wanting to do none of that, and you know, want to sing and we're gonna be musicians. And then Ronnie like, nah, nigga, but we still street niggas. So I'm like in the middle
of my two big brothers. And when Ronnie passed, you know, they fucking showed the whole thing on hard copy, and in a matter of another week or two, we went from this you know, five six bedroom, big ass house, swimming pool and you know in southern California to the project. Oh yeah, off the car. So we got to talk about what did you buy? Let's talk about in the nineties.
By the way, he had a roy with the with the with the with the wheel on the right on the side, on the right side, the old that you know I'm talking about, the European he had that. Yeah, yes, yes, yes, the European. Yes, yeah, we had a we had a stretch limousine on things with mustard and man.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Gold dates on it days. Yeah, he had a sixth series he I mean he said it was Yeah, I mean it was.
I had a bike. It was good, and we're gonna go back to that car everywhere, back to that bike.
Which also was a part of like from what he was saying, you know, like if anybody know that liveing in l a Is like keeping up with the Joneses. So one we had a record deal, Two we had this house. Three we had all these cars, but we didn't have no money.
Mm hmm.
So Ronnie felt like he was next man up, you know what I mean, and that he needed to go out and get it.
Yeah, and got himself, got himself urt. Mm hmm. So in a matter of you know, a week or two, were back in San Francisco winning pro Jack. So when this happens, and you know, when you're talking about it just kind of you know, reminds me of a situation where when when it Lea passed, you know, you you you saw the how heartless the record company can be, her heartless the music business is altogether, and it wasn't.
It was I think maybe a matter of days that everything that their money was connected to in terms of building was shut completely off. Yeah, yeah, no.
They They sent us a letter Tank, which by the way, for me, was always really hard. And I never asked him like how it affected him, because again we had put in real work to get there, and so for years, I don't know if I tell him this, for years I was even mad at my twin, like, nigga, you threw it all away, like you how you you know what I'm saying, Like how you just you do that? Because like he said, we went from we had but
you said, eighteen how many months? You said, Well, I'm talking about screaming girls, soul trained video soul, you know what I'm saying, tour, all of it.
We did say no to drugs.
It was ten thousand people Tank, ten thousand kids by the way, going nuts. And we went from that, like he said, to back to San Francisco again in the hood projects. Not to mention, we had just lost our brother and our group, remember who we had spent all our time from beginning from born to you know what I'm saying, right, and now he's gone and it's just me and him and were back in the hood, and now I got to keep him, you know what I'm saying.
From from getting lost in the hood. You know what I'm saying, This nigga stealing bikes like he's wilding.
But you had a bike, No, not in the hoodie didn't, so I did. I came with the bike. Oh you about your bike? I didn't know you about you the bike? The businessman because I needed money. But before we get to that, you're how old at this point? Twelve? Jesus Christ? Yeah, this is all happened before I'm a teenager. I'm not even I'm not a teenager yet.
So are you are you able at this age to really process what's going on? Or are you able as like, since you're still a kid in the sense, you know, pick up and kind of move on quickly and just roll with the punches because you are our young Is there are these things really affecting you at this time?
Yes and no, because I was just so used to things going left, because that's what that was our life. We up, Pops got the bread, Then the door get kicked in by the police. We up. Can somebody snitch on Pops? Now you're in jail. We get a record deal? Rynie get killed, our first writing Dad go back to jail, didn't write, get killed? Like these were just and numerous things amongst you know, along the way. So it was kind of part for the course of this is what
life is. I didn't know that that wasn't everybody's lives. I thought everybody go through this wild shit until I got older and I'd be telling you stories and you'd be like, nah, Joe, you didn't tell the time you got kidnapped, right right. So it's like, you know, I think that it's for me a gift and a curse because I just knew how to adapt to the worst things that you could possibly throw at me. So now we're back in the hood. I'm a hood nigga, So give me cause you're back in the hood at eleven.
At this point do you decide, Hey, the music business was what it was us and the streets is what it is. And if that's the case, at what point do you say, I think I need to get back to this music ship. Oh yeah, I was out. I was out because in the beginning, music was it wasn't my first love. It wasn't my love at all. It was a chore. It was Bob's love. My dad. Look at to be a kid. Now I get to be a kid, and as we all know, being a kid
in the hood is actually fucking fun. What Bob Bobby Look, But Boble's becoming But you're also becoming a young man, so it's different for you.
Hey, all the hood niggas is looking at me weird. They loved him, but I was competition.
Yeah, I'm fully you know what I'm saying.
They rolling by and they you know what I'm saying. All these are all the top drug dealers are my age.
But all the bras is like, Bob is here, you know what I'm saying on TV?
What Yeah, and he's still bobbed, you know what I'm saying, And so they get I didn't.
Even know why they was giving me. Look so he fit in.
I was at the boys club every day, like I was playing basketball. I was plus, I was already beyond the hood ship.
I was already like that. It's some bullshit. He loved it.
He with his little cousins and they they doing.
All the crazy shit. I gotta tell.
But see still because ron Knew is still in jail right now. So the only day he got his knee, the only person to look out for him and make sure he don't go all the way left and get killed. Like my twin is me to make sure. So I would all the hood niggas that did mess with me. I'll be like, if y'all see that little nigga on the block, punch him in his chest and get him.
Off the block. Shout out to Black Higwie, Black Highwie. That was my guy. It was like a track star from our hood. I would I would see him and I would run and I would think that I got away, but by the time I got there, he was already there. He was literally a track start the niggas like the fast nigga I have ever seen in my life. It was already and you punched me to the chest stone cold athlete, and I had to go home. And I'm gonna tell Bob Nigga. Yeah, I used to want to
tell Bob. You want to tell Bob right right, I'm in the middle of dice games and the old gie niggas just loved me Bro like before they before, like the robber nigga they used to rob all the dice games before would robbed the dice game. He was telling me to get my money and leave. It was already getting tamped on the shoulder.
I'm like, it's sweet, but also tell them also like we so we never really realized how.
The protection, the raw new protection. Yeah, that was real.
It was like a shadow of a boogeyman that was always in San Francisco where man and we could fight niggas, we could do what we could really get away with it whatever.
To be honest, because of they didn't want the consequences of him coming. Yeah, we had a I would say the three part family that all comes from our great grandmother and grandfather. The Newts that branched off had multi you know, families and kids. It's called the Newts, the Tatums, and the Beasleys. If you're from the Bay Area, you know what that means. If you're from San Francisco, you really know that, you really know what that means. And it's a lot of us, just with the Newt last names,
over one hundred of us. We're gonna be around forever. R and B Money. R and B Money is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show, and you can connect with us on social media at Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode, subscribe to YouTube, dot com, forward, slash r, and b money