Rap Radar Rewind: Dapper Dan

put my good clothes on him. That's a lot of questions in this book. Man, congratulations. How does it feel to have this book finally out? Man? What was that process? Like? The main reason, like I wanted to do this book is because I'm the last generation to all grow up in Hallom and see Hollom before there was drug epidemic, to see Hollom. Win eleven o'clock Sunday morning, you can see everybody coming out their houses going to church to

see Hollom. When everybody go in their buildings and all the doors is open to see Hallom, when anybody, all adults can stop you in the street and say, ain't that literally day soon? And you're be imbrassed if he was doing something more. So that's what this book is all.

This book is like to tell a story by a guy who comes from the corner, who's trying to find a way to keep young men from getting stuck on the corner like I was, you know, because I tell young guys in my neighborhoods the hardest graduation they may ever have in their life is graduating from the corners. Yeah, why was it now the right time to write it? Though? With this platform, a lot of people are paying attention to me, especially young people, so it's the ideal way

to reach them. You've you've had amazing year, right, I mean you already this book is going to be adapted into a film aster right with Yeah, yes, it's gonna

be adopted to film. And you don't know, like, um, I'm in a dream state and I tell my friends, I say, man, look, you're in the underground for twenty years, and yeah, and you know you're going from You're going from gangster hood gangster who I'm traveling like from New York to Chicago, hitting every ghetto you know, then come back and go from New York Stlanta, hitting all the ghettos to stay aflute. Then all of a sudden, you got a partnership with Gucci, a book deal with Random House,

and a movie deal with Sony Pictures. You can't write that. But then, baby, I couldn't believe it, man, And like I tell everybody, if you pinch me and I wake up, I'm gonna kill you. Did anybody would to kill you? Because reading the book it's a page turner, Like a lot of these stories is like really personal. Your family, your friends, Did they have in reservations about the stories

that you told? No? Because you know what, that's a good question, because this is what happened, right, I said, Man, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. I was like reluctant to say a lot of things now I'm walking around and said that for her, you got a book, man, I'd better be up in there. It was the opposite reaction. People would be mad with their name being up in there, and I avoided you know a lot of people, I said, man, because they're not up in my look. Yeah, come on, man,

you know that. You know I was that real dude, quick play man, what chapped out men. I thought it was interesting about the book, like, obviously, you know, you were such a part of building the whole foundation what we call the gold nature hip hop and fashion. But that's asked maybe, like the book really the majority of the book is really about your journey. You're being super personal about every aspect of that was why was that so important? Hip hop and fashion is grounded in culture.

You know what what hip hop has done today, it's an outgrowth and the stories they want to tell and the experiencing it's an outgrowth of my experience. You know, I'm the first generation of the Great Migration. You know this is where this is where it starts. It starts with us, the first that first generation and great migration. Now that here this inner city thing, so the story

starts with us. So I wanted them to know the genesis of what this all is, what they're feeding off, because they're all feeding off, whether they're conscious over or not.

What people going up in the eighties, like being how much of a fan of hip hop was you before you started working with these rap stars like l J. Where you invested in the culture in terms of the music and loving it before I watch, I watched it developed like, UM, A lot of guys like you gotta look at um what they call hip HOPA say, I've been trying to nail that down anyway, because I remember we had a club on twenty fifte UM Charles's Gallery, and that's when the first time I ever saw this

kind of music what you called hip hop to day experience like and guys would come in and say, yo, man, can I get on the mic? Yeah? You know so yeah, yeah, this is like in the sixties, late sixties going into seventies, like um, right before Hollywood, Harold and all of them, you know, right before we became part of it was still like a house party type of thing. The clubs were just starting and that's the first time I saw and then I just so of developed developed development too.

It just it just took took off in the Bronx to because when I was growing up, you couldn't go in the Bronx. You know, Irish gangs up there. You're part of a crew too. You talk about that and your in your book The Souls and all the crews that you was done with when you talk about gangs from back in the day and gang culture from back in the day, there has been We never lost one person to balance, never once. There's nobody who grew up with me got killed from gang roulence, not one. So

it's a different thing. And you might hear you don't even hit them one they say somebody I have a problem with somebody else to say, can I get a fair one? Yeah? And then you and then when the older guys say you got enough and say, okay, that's it, your man. What was it like growing up in that era when you were surrounded by gangsters like you mentioned as a kid seeing Buppy Johnson, you know you were. Okay, let's don't get it confused. These young guys today used

the word gangsters. I grew up with racketeers. There's a difference between gangsters and racketeers. You know, racketeers like they into like bootlegging, bootlegging liquor bootleg licking. Um, they're into the numbers game, you know, the confidence game, things like that. There this this new concept came as what we call this g thing. It's an outgrowth of drug culture. But you up without fitting the dealers of that of that era though, like besides the rap stars Alpo the famous

houses that we know of all got their gear from you. Yeah, they get that credit because of the nature of the time. In particular Alpo Alpo ushered in. He just came along at the same time hip hop was beginning to spread, so he was the first fly guy for them for that generation, you know. But each generation had what we called on like you hear me talking about a boy. Those those are the guys who set the pace. Each generation had that guy who everybody talked about because they

was really flying. What do you think it's like the generation the boy will say, it's shifted because each generation had um a time when money was flowing. Now a drug dealer, man, you know, we don't have like Kingpinn drug dealers back then like they had back then. You know. So now if you was talking about the boy one Dingt Hollo, now everybody's kind of like low key. Nobody's getting that kind of money where they can stand out

that way. There's not nobody I can call out right now that everybody say I want to dress like him. That shifted to the rappers now. And you said at the beginning, you enjoyed something about the person of a poor because the part of the major style so great? Is you really connected with these people that you that you tell are clothes for and credit clothes with, and you have said in the book how much you and you sort of connected more with the rappers than talking

to the hustles. Yeah. Yeah, I like the shift because I like I like what was happening. There was this thing with you know, especially when Rap started, it didn't have that the same kind of nature. You know what I'm saying, a lot of people don't understand how drug culture is and what it does. It implodes, And I didn't see that happening with Rap. I didn't see the death call. You know, with gangsters, you see him every day and you're hearing your hearing stories from both sides,

people coming all the way. Yeah, we know what we're getting ready to do. You know how many reading did you know that didn't happen? You know, it was like it was a a comfortable shift. You know, that's before gangster Rap came in there talking like that that then then they got like that for somebody like you connected with Lucile Jay. You kind of took you guys working together with the magnitude of his startom. So now you're taking something that was more New York based and you

feel like it's going nationwide, worldwide. Do you feel that connection like now l J was kind of like someone who helped bring your fashion to more of a wide mass audience. Yeah, definitely, LLL. And you know the interesting thing about LLL is like I was doing before I got ready, I was just transitioning him because you know, it was what was they called, It's called B boys, And then I was just shifting. If you see how LLL was dressing, like from the like the logo outfits

that was making. Then I was getting him more, shifting him towards how I dressed, and you see him going tod with like these silk outfits all us and l L right here. So I said, l We're going We're starting this thing. Man. We're going from you know, we're going from B boy to be man. Yeah, we we did. We did. Uh we did a shoot like that there with with with Ted Demi and everything. You know, I didn't get a chance to really move in on it like that because Bam, I got readed, you know, I

had to go on the ground. But before that, he was the father of logo Mania. Explained that what you mean when you say that everybody has aspiration, So they're aspirational garments, aspirational things that if you got that, you arrived, right. So in terms of clothes and calls and diamonds, that's what it was. I knew that I couldn't go into the diamond game because it was too lucid, you know,

too much, too too much, bigger investment. So I was starting with first, right, because I knew gangsters when everybody wanna look first. But I needed something else, as like a cash crop. A guy came in the stool one day and he had a uh in fact, this is really important guy. His name was Jack Jackson. Jack Jackson is the one who told on John got his brother Jean Gotti. So if you see me in the in the video with uh pee Wee Kirkland, we're walking through Hallom.

You see me hold up a newspaper. On the headline of that newspaper is Hallom connection. What I was saying in that newspaper this was the end of the Italians controlling drugs and hall when they busted Jack and Jack end up telling on John Gotti. Right. Well, anyway, Jack and Jack came in and store one day, and he had like a louibrattan pouch, like a little pouch filled with hundred dollar bills. Everybody, you know, everybody want to

see what Jack pulling out. And I looked at that bag and I saw how everybody got excited about that bag. So I had already been studying religion and and symbolism and stuff like that, and I said, what is it about the bags? I say, it's the logo. That's the anything that made that different from any other bag in the world. I said, it's the logo. I said, if they got that excited over the logo, imagine if I

can have them walking around looking like bags. And you said, Louis Louis V didn't make clothes, Gucci didn't make Jackie. It's crazy. They didn't make it before you came around. Yeah, none of them. So now here's what I'm thinking. If I can get the same kind of energy, financial energy out of logos that I got out of first. So there's a luxury transference. So they are relating to logos

the way they will relate to furs and diamonds. Right, So I expanded on that, you know, so I started making garments with logos all, you know, the brighter the diamond, the begin the diamond right, the more of course, so you know how many how many letters you want? Who are your style icons? Growing up? Like? Who are your music that you looked up to? Fashion wise? Fashion wise? It was like what the guy called Pee Wee Hammond,

the famous basketball Joe Hammond, his uncle. Well, he was the flies guy I ever seen in Hallom at one point it was the It was these guys from out of Georgia. They called him the Georgia Boys, and it was a whole group of them. They was really fly. But before them came U Joe Hammond, but there was you know, everybody from Hollom was from somewhere else doing I was going up. It was from different parts of the South. So the Georgia Boys was like they was

really really fly. And the head guy of the Georgia of the Georgia Boys is the one that I've had in my street life from his name Joe Jackson. Jackson. Yeah, he was amazing. You know, It's like his ability to hustle, it was, it was crazy. What made me gravitate towards Joe Jackson is that every they called him gentleman Joe Jackson. Everybody in Hallard respected him, you know, everybody. And he was like a masterpool player. He is, he was a

master mac man. He could sing girls, cross country, playing call and game Yeah, And everybody looked up to Joe Jackson and he was amazing Gamma. And when um, when I was coming up, all of all the master hustlers that I came in contact with, all of them got high. And when I noticed that Joe Jackson he didn't smoke, he didn't drink, he didn't get high, I said, that's it. That's he was the street version of Malcolm X. You know, I mean, he didn't do that, none of that there, man.

So I said, oh, that's it. So if I'm gonna be a if i'm gonna be a street demon, I'm gonna be like Joe. But he was a hell of a demon. Because I was reading this book, I was so fascinated that you were so good at dice like playing. I was trying to find some she just still got it. Man, I got it, man, you asked him, man, I broke everybody. What was your technique that? Because I used to play CEO and sometimes like your head cracks a times, I

would ace out. So you you you sometimes you felt lucky, sometimes you pretty much and then that's why you lost, you know things. Look, it's mathematics, you know. I played the mathematic When you hear the guys in how I'm talking about me and said, Dave never shot the dice, I give him mathematical propositions. You know. So you play celo, right, I would bet you don't beat the deuce twice. Sounds easy, right, Yeah, yeah,

you know, I bet you camp five a better. I'm gonna give you a mathematical uh the probabilities of things, yeah, the lot probability that. So I studied like a first, everything I learned in the street, I utilized that. But then I went and board books by the foremost authorities on gambling, and that was like Jon Scanni. I read everything he put out, you know, and then I read books on the percentages so that I would know that.

And so like people think they're gambling when they go to uh Las Vegas and play on the gamma table, but what you what the recently the casino has always live because they have a vigorish like, say, on one side of the table, if you bet the dice on five you you bet straight up. On the other side, they got to lay, they lay odds, so in between that there's a vigorish like. So this is how I do right, here's the proposition. Say I have a a

three sided qu my intention. What I have to do is to get you the bet that you can't throw one of the sides right, So that means you got one side. I got two sides. You know what I'm saying. But but you gotta understand the lower probability has to kick in. I would never bet, like, say, if you had a million dollars and it was like, say ten numbers and I told you, I'm gonna give you a million ten million for your million if you pick the dumber.

I would never do that. I'll tell you got to keep picking the number down and proper proportion so that the lower average can kick in. So it's based on and I can't you man. You know what when I was coming up, it's my life has been about tools. This is the person who I've always was destined to be and would want to be. But when you grow up poor and stuff. The first thing I learned my father was the only one who had a job on my uncle's everybody, all the males that I knew in

my community that I looked up to. You will hustle us. So you use the tools from these people. Two survibs, so there was survival to you. So when you see me driving down these different lanes in my life is because I'm switching. I'm switching games, switching games, switching games, switching games like that, the paper game, you know, the crap game, you know what, everything that I've ever gotten,

you were the first swipe of that. Yeah. Yeah. Taking it back to hip hop for a second, when when I think of some kind of images, I wanted to get your take on the whole thing behind. You know, I kind of cover EARP and R Camp paid them full. Like you talked about the logos before, like how important was that and how did you come up with? What did you want to cry? And that's an important important album cover because whenever it being rock Kim, you see

the the personification of personalities through emblems. You see on the back of rock Kims. He got the five of centners, you know, and Eric we got the Gucci sign you know, so that that that signals like and let everybody know that, but damn you can have it your way, you know, and people just they know me for the logos. But if you see like some of the things that did downstairs, like say Jungle Brothers, they was into Afro citric store, so I made them stuff and and red green and

black and boogie down production. They got into this thing where they was doing like reggae, this reggae type rap, so that made them close and the roster colors. So I did all that and then salt and people were told jackers. It was like a lot of diversity and what I was doing. But it's just that the stuff with logos, it just was like took off there. Anything

you wouldn't do for a customer, I wouldn't produce. I wouldn't never ever would make anybody any clothes with gang symbols on them that you will never see nobody with a garment that Dapper Damn made that had flags on it. But it did get construction. You did make some bulletproof, Oh yeah. I had to protected protect. I get your protect certain little pockets where you can hide. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had all that there. But I got in trouble with that though, because one day for a pound, some like In fact, New York Jack was on the investigation. The DA used to park across the street all the time, right for maybe three weeks, I ain't get no customers. I had to go over there and tell them. What said, listen, anybody know who you are? And that's a I think I learned about d A. And when you see them,

it's over. They're just wrapping up the small stuff. So I'm going over to tell maybe I know who you are. They laughs and drove away. But when they came back looking for the guys that they want to pick up, they said, oh, you're that wise guy. You don't want to be making all that bulletproof for stuff for him, and we got to come get them. So what they were telling me that we don't like what you're doing. So that's why I had to stop that after a

certain times. You said, the story was a heavy psychological toll on you. Right. And he was open for nine years, never closed hours, twenty four hours. Man, they had that bill apartment in the back, so my kids can come spend the night with me. Sometimes it was the store. It so if you involved in the culture, I grew up in the culture and grew out of the culture. There's layers of culture in the home, you know what I'm saying. There's spiritual layers, game layers, you know. It's

just all these different kind of layers, you know. And so when you start making that transition, you start rejecting certain stuff, like to be in some nights, I sit in there and here guys discuss murder, you know, and you say to yourself, damn this, send this, you know, and then I'm reading spiritual stuff all the time, you know what I'm saying. So it was hard. It was hard to live with that. It's hard to live with that. Man,

and I talked about this earlier. If you've been around as long as I have, you know, this culture that they called gangster culture and all that, it implodes and you might hear me say like, you can't be in it and not of it. So although I'm not participating in that activity, I'm right in the midst of that activity,

you know. And then it plodes. So now you know, everybody was making a lot of money off crack right then when it over saturation, you know, when the cartels got into it, they started flooding hallom so the flood of the drugs and Hallm created this enormous amount of competition, and this was detrimental not only for Hallm but from the small towns that we came from in the south. And this is very important. The strong ones could take

over neighborhoods. And if the strong ones long I wasn't getting any money, then the wars were started, you know, the wars the weak ones. You know, like when we got in trouble when we was young, our parents would say, I'm sitting you back down south. You know, I'm sitting you back down south. But this is the uh, detrimental twist took place. The weak ones who couldn't make it here say, damn, I could make a killing if I go down south. So they got on the road and

start going on south. And that's when messed up where we came from. So now there's no haven for the escape and and that went down there. But so and in Halem as the proliferation of the drugs took place and the wars took place, then you had the kidnappings and the murders. So I'm writing the midst of that or we took place. They tried to kidnap this guy in front of my store, right, and it was unsuccessful. And now I gotta make a judgment. I'm watching them

getting ready to kidnap. Do I call the police? In mind of my business? So I'm a product, are you envine? So even though I think I'm not in it, I'm still over it. And I'm watching this take place, right, so the des guy. So I say nothing. The next week they try to kidnap me, and I got shot and got the bullet in my neck to this day. Yeah, and so that's what happened. If you are in it, you think you can't be over it, but you are

over it, you know. And uh And I said this slowly, like when that happened to Nipsey, I got flashbacks because here's the guy who changed his life, had nothing to do it, and it's the same thing. You know, It comes back at you. So you gotta just like remove yourself from it for a while, you know what I'm saying, because if you're interacting with it, it implodes, you know. And and that's exactly that's exactly what happened to him, Exactly.

He didn't have nothing to do that. He is away from that culture the same way as I was away from my coach. It's a miracle that I'm not dead. I'm carrying the bullet in my neck. You understand I'm saying. So, like my friend people, he don't have nothing to do. He ain't talking to nobody who's about that. He's not engaging in any activity that would bring that kind of

negativity around him. You know what I'm saying. So, if you're around the negativity that creates that kind of climate, no matter what your intentions though, you fall subject to the demons, you know. And and so it's the same thing. Man, that's like it hit me like a brick when I saw that. Say, damn, here it is again. Man, here is again. You know what I'm saying. You just gotta you gotta like you gotta get away from him. You can't talk it with nobody, You can't engage nobody. I

had problems with that man. I went to Thankful Pop Daddy problem one time, friend, been friend of the You say, yo, that man, you've been disrespecting me for six months now what you're talking about. You won't accept none of my calls. And I said, listen, man, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not. I don't want to hear nothing about that life. I don't want to be involved in that life. You know, I just got a way. I just like when it and that's what it is. Man, if you got a brother,

you gotta say, I tell my my brother. If I got a brother like the cousin, I said, anybody else, And man, I'm not messing with you. Man, you know me, you know, because you you're leaving them doors open for things that happened to you know, go back and the front front like the back of the days. Though even when you first in a mixture though you was brought selective of who he was social with outside of giving

them outfits and stuff like that. But you and Mike Tyson built a real friendship, right you said you guys would Mike. Mike is incredible man. And like, I can't wait till I have you know, I haven't spoke ton

Mike since it's still closed. It's a long time, right, pictures in the book, can we talk about that, like, so you so that everybody knows that heard of the infamous Mike Tyson Miss Green fight at the Dappa Dance Store and you explained and this pictures, like the book, I didn't know that there were pictures existed until us. So the book. Man, it's a big story behind them pictures. Man, you know, I know the street, you know, I know

the calling game. And if you look at the trajectory that Mike went through, suing his friends, soon everybody around him, and I watched how everybody around him was playing them. You know what I'm saying. And I'm seeing this, I said, damn, damn. And then when the fight, when the fight broke out, the newspaper reporters offered me up to a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. It was a bid and war between stars, you know, the st and the inquire before just to

see if the pictures existed, just to see them. The big war started. My nephew who took the pictures? Now, I said, da, we could get hundred. Didn't want to. I don't even count. You're being distribution. You saw a pitture, Yeah, that's what I'd had something. It was like twenty five years and respect. Yeah, because I knew that if if I showed them pictures, Michael is gonna get sued for a lot of money. Mike was so young and inexperience at the time. I said, I said, Mike, I got

these pictures. I ain't gona show them though he said sell them. But he didn't know. He didn't even he didn't understand. I might have a big conversation with Mike about the pictures to talk about that, but like people don't know, Like what a phenomenon that. When Mike Tyson came into the game, that changed the course of my hole. Yeah, he was running around with Naomi and looking back, he came down to stow a Naomi Camell and miss America the second one. Yeah, Mike, Michael is a hell of

a dude. Man. He he generated a lot of excitement and it's just that after Cuss died, everything changed. Custom I don't want to talk about the people. I'm not gonna talk about going into the deep until I get around Mike and me him talking about it. Is it fair to say he was your best customer? It depends how you look at him. He was the best and the worst. Wrote all the attention that called me to get shut down, It was it was Findy that went after you. Right at first, They Louis Findy and m

c M. Didn't come at me. They got cancer. The albums was too busy on me. But Findy was the most aggressive behind m c M. Because you know mcm took off because of LLL. But Findy was the most suggressive because so Mayo who became one of the Supreme Court justice is the Supreme Court. She was the lead attorney for Findy. All right, Yeah, so I'll never forget when she came for the raid, came in the store. She saw this code that had just made for Big

Daddy Kane, the black black clown call him everything. She said, Wow, this guy's guys, this Scott blows downtown. Yeah, she didn't take me, She took all my stuff. Now, how much that for average? And what was the price for a Dapper Dan ensemble back in those days? A budget one? The lawsuit was the budget ones. And what was the cheapest thing unless you wanted to advise him? What was

the most expensive piece that you made? The most expensive piece would be the I made jacket's like Louis Vuitton, and then when you flip it over, it's all mink reversible. And those ran up to like seven dollars six. Everyone loves the Apple snorical And there was another picture of apple we had like it was at a club and had the matching hat yeah yeah yeah, and the Esper drills. But when you would lay close out to like you said, Andrea Horrell, like an early days of uptime with him

and Puffy you had. They had the bar clothes for Mary j. Blige and Jean to see. Yeah, man, Andrea. Andrea Rolle was like, um, a big asset. Andre got it, you know, he really got it when he started out. He had like a little office in Brooklyn, and I used to go out there. But you know, Andre Harold and the rappers didn't have money. Took a while for them to get money because Andrea I used to loan them, loan them clothes. You know, some rappers still owe me money.

I promised I won't call it out Teddy ye Yeah yeah, paid DApp his money, y'all. Yeah, we can laugh about it, but kick it out, man. But it's all Gucci down literally though that. I mean last year was two years ago when that whole controversy happened, when uh the inspired piece hit the runway, hit the blogs. What was your thoughts of that when it first happened. You know what, I'm probably was the one least affected psychologically for that because I had been seeing it all alone. People just

wasn't conscious of it. Hallam new that's why they got called out, you know. But I said, and you know, it wasn't on social media, just social media just came about. So I didn't know that black Twitter could have that much power when the first Yeah, yeah I didn't. I

didn't know anything about that. I just thought that they was gonna keep being able to appropriate different brands and different people be able to appropriate and not not not gonna say, but when I came out and black Twitter kick and social media, yeah yeah, that was like amazing. I say, what And you're kind of like used to it at this point, like they're just gonna rip me off again. Yeah. Yeah. I never thought that I'd be able to profit from my creativity and I thought it

was like a far stretch. But you know, um, but then Steve Stout stepped into and I helped bridge the connection between you and oh well, my son was the primary force behind that. Yeah, July was the primary force behind that. But you know, other people stepped in after that. But my son is the one who negotiated the deal. My fun is the one who they reached out to and talk to that. I just didn't. I just didn't, you know, go into it. You know, I said, I

told mus I, don't worry about it. You know, I think, yeah, he want that beat more into was the black face incident, Like the black stepped up and you kind of held them up accountable for the actions, and that that's point too. You just at point one, okay, your point two was like the black face you know when you when you look at it. The black face definitely, in my opinion,

wasn't something that was intentional. You know, because I studied like Alexandro, what his intentions was, what his experiences was, his relationship to fashion and how it should be carried out or done, and as well as markol So I know it wasn't intention But when you're getting involved in being creative and you're using elements of other people's culture,

it's easy to make a mistake. So that was but mistake or not, regardless to what you might think of what happened, whether you think it was intentional or unintentional. There's like if you shoot somebody by accident or you shoot him on popist, they're still dead. So we have to deal with the fact that they did so it happened, so we have to deal with the fact that it happened, you know. So I told said, listen, I'm a black man before I'm a Pryan. You gotta come to hallm

and explain what this situation is. And they came and they sat down, and what I did was I had, like all the people that I could gather together in the corporate world, people who are responsible for corporate inclusivity, people who have dealt with issues like this before, people who have knowledge of how corporations work and things like that, and I gathered them together with Gucci and we ironed out this thing on how they should approach the problem.

So so today we have what's called the change makers. So what the change makers do is they're gonna see that a Gucci appropriates the money for different programs, you don't have all recruit young designers up and down the ladder, straight up down. So we got this big Gucci corporate inclusivity, not just as designers, but in every facet of the business. So that's a good thing that happened. As bad positive, yeah, because you know it's hard getting the message out, but

what Gucci is doing is a great thing. In fact, it's so important for us to have a foothold in luxury branding because we don't have that right. That's so important, and so I'm thinking that when everybody sees what's going on with Gucci, we can move this program to other big luxury brands. You see, as soon as Gucci came and got me right away leave its home with got so something that's happening. We can't stifle what's happening. If you don't interpret what's happening in the right way, you

can set us back. We have to forge your head with what we're doing with Gucci and take it to other brands. We should not back up because if we back up in terms of this boycott, this would be the first boycott ever by people of color in America that has zero accomplishments. We've always used boycotts as a means to get in, not to walk away from, you know. So I'm happy with the change it so far, and

I advised everybody to go online. You can go on mom Instagram and pull out their information and read everything about Gucci change makers and see if they're happy with what they say. After you got raided and was shut down, you know, I know, you went underground and started doing your things on that circuit. But you had a quote in the book where you said that when you went to clients, they said, I ain't dealing with that black ship. You know. It's like as if there wasn't as much

reverence for black products or black uh, black things, black service. Yeah, but you know that comes. So that's a result of that's incumbent upon to create the creatives. I'm one of the creators, right, I have to produce something that would make them want aware. Is that why urban brands don't do as well as they used to? Yeah, well, urban brands do. A lot of people look at urban brands and and they don't see what I see. What urban brand that has come about? That was a luxury brand. None.

People have aspirations. Everybody don't want to look walk around looking like everybody else, you understand. So it bottom out. And plus it was it was dating. What I mean by dating is they came out with an idea. Everybody had that idea. Everybody's looking around, you know, and it what I did was like when you customize you constantly, you know they can't they can't pin you down. You know, you are everybody who you come in contact. So my

collaboration was with the customer. So as they change about how they feel, I'm changing with them as a customer changed since those days till now, well, the customers haven't had the ability to change because there's nobody have been there until I came back to give him an opportunity to change. Because what designers do now they designed from their mind. They come up with ideas and they put it down out there. I didn't do that. I come up with ideas and I said, how do you feel

about this? How do you want to look? And we work together. So now I'm tapping into their energy and I'm using my energy for us to be creative together. You know, designers have this like ego thing that they think, well, man, I'm I'm I'm good man. But no, you're only good until people want to wear you, you know what I'm saying. So the bottom line is people gotta feel good with the garment. Wearing the garment can change everything. Change. Its transformative. Man,

It's nothing like yeah and the power up garments transformed. Man, It's like it's new skin. You yes, new skin, because you know, if you come out of the project and you come out of the ghetto, you put on a fly, you go down to town. Nobody knows where you came from, what your story is? The bank account that first first hand, you know, because when I was coming up, I was really poor. But I got flying. I went somewhere. Man,

it's so transformed. You feel good about you. What was it like taking over the World Series of Fashion this year that make Ga takeover? That was it? Savage? Whoa man? That was it? Man? But did you see the variation young? Oh? You know what I'm saying, different styles? That was it, man, You know what I mean? That was it? Like the canvas had everything in man. So that felt good because not only was I there, I had my own table literally,

yes table. Yeah. Many people who have been around longer than me, you know, in terms of even while I was underground, didn't even get that. Man. So I have you know, I have hollom and and every out he whoever believed in me to think for that, man, because that was that's major. It's always major in the hip hop when you get shouted out, you know, from Jay Z to Fat Joe, Like, what was do you remember the first time you got shot out on the on the song Fatro even sells you out in this recent record.

He said, yeah, you Ni is buying Dapper Dam out the Gucci store. I was in Hollida dripping Dap serving Pooky Row and you knew you knew him at a young age, right when he was working at the Sandwich Shot. Yeah that's right, crazy Yeah, yeah, Joe Joe. I'm when Fatro started out and he used to come to the store. I said, damn, this guy. He knew everything about rap man Fat Joe walking inside of inside of the video. Man, I don't. I haven't met anyone that knows more about

the rap game than Fat Joe. And I'm talking about this from day one because I used to listen to Hi when he coming to my first tiny store. He knew everything about rap man. Yeah. He also got a great connection with Asat Fur. Like you knew his father. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I used to mentor his father, Man Defer, Deferred was responsible for a lot of the swag. Puff Daddy will tell you. You You know he got his swag from Deferred. Yeah. He designed a bad boy logo. He was he Yeah,

he was amazing young guy. Man. I saw it on the stool. I used to let him do T shirts and stuff like that in the stool when he was a kid. Man, what's this? What's like? Oh man, he's like, man, he looks like his father to yeah, you look like the father. He's amazing. But you know what, he's hungry for knowledge. Man, that makes him so important. I can't you can't find guys like that. He sought me out. I'm coming out of my house one day and that's this call pull up. I said, damn, so I'm on

g now I'm thinking. Yeah, so they He jumps out of the car and walks up to me. He said, my father told me all about you. I've been looking for you for two years and we've been together every since then. You know. So, yeah, he's amazing. So I'll tell him all about what it was like, what his father went through, what it was like when I was a kid, and everything in the mentorship extends to Rocky as well. Yeah it's rock I'm I feel terrible like that,

and I want to put this message out. I was locked up in a foreign jail, so I know it's like, you know, I did nine months in the far in jail. But it is not a joke. So I'm on all you guys are going tour. This is my suggestion to you, whoever is paying for your tour at the venue that you're at, require that they get to security from that city which you are in. Let them be the first security. Yes, local security, because they know how to deal with the

people there. And then if anything transpires as a result of that, you know, that's on them. It doesn't it's not gonna even cause you that much. Get security for them because that whole city and community is gonna be against you. It doesn't go for one. Just get that security. They know how to deal with their people there. Man, that's a tragedy, man, I hope. I'm really concerned. I've

been calling every day about that. But going back to great relationships, another person that was very low to you through the ups and downs was for Floyd Weather or Florida. Floyda is so loyal man, Robbins should never say nothing about Floyd Floyd. I'm serious. When you can get a guy, you gotta do Eric B. That's crazy, that's crazy man. Back then, I'm saying again Eric B was involved with Floyd back then. Oh yeah, yeah, they all hung out

with you know. It's funny things like Flander. Everything that roses must converge. People go to all these venues and stuff and you get to meet people. You got the parties they don't want, can get them special parties and stuff. So they get to know each other to become friends like that. And every b is a credible guy. You know he's he's a real street guy. You got some wrappers that are really not street, every being rock Cam

jay Z and know those are real street guys. You know Wu Tank, you know all them guys that I can testify that for them. Back to Floyd, you let him design your trunks? Yeah, everything like from for seventeen years. Man, everything you see him, we're in in the ring man. Yeah, that's why it was undefeated. You that but there you can't lose that. Yeah. Your Floyd is amazing man, He's amazing man. Yeah he said we ain't boycotting Gucci, but it was like he gonna, what your boy cotting? I'll

be right back. I'm gonna give me some mogucchi. What are some things that every man should have in their closet that that it's important, like it's essentials. Let me tell you my approach to gain I'm in Gamin. I love gamburse approach to dress to me. Um. Because I was born and raising Hall, I got a lot of

different kind of friends, that's what they call them. So great diversity in here because like the Latinos here, my Porto Rican friends here, my Dominican friends here, you know, my African American friends here and West India, all of them got a little slight different ways they dressed. So when depending on who hang out with, you know, switch

up a little bit, you know. So I think that people should have diversity in their wardroom based on what kind of activity takes place in their life, you know what I'm saying. So you when you get among these people, you feel like one of them, and they'll feel like you feel like one of them. Man. Yeah, so that's what I think I think you should like if if you're a wall Street, Um, you can stay straight with a Wall Street you know what I mean. But I like to be around people that I can like, Um,

I d with, you know what I'm saying. So like on Friday nights, I hang out with my Dominican friends uptown like they're cutting eggs. And then on Saturdays, I hang out with my my my, my Porty Rican friends at La mar get down and we listen to using stuff like that. That's what made Hallan what it is. Man.

If thought every city was like this, man. You know, when I was growing up, we had like Italian point weekends and you know what I mean, Irish, we had all this, all of us together in this cultural pot man. And so I think that's what made all I'm so unique. You know what you see the hall of you see now you see the uh it's grified. But the gentrification, the breakdown, the ethnic breakdown is close to what it

was when I was a kid. The only difference is that it was poor times, poor Irish, poor Porto Ricans, poor African American and so we went to schools the same schools together and stuff like that. So it was a difference, you know, you you know, you mean the Italians here they're not the same as the Italians you find else me, you know, and Porto Ricans here they're not the same. And Dominicans here they're not the same. There's there's something that takes place here, that interaction that

they'd be like just like us. But that what's your secret? How you stay so young? Man? It's like you found the founding of youth for something. You got the globe very. Let me tell you, man, let me tell you what I did, man, when I turned my life around. On twenty three, I read jeffro Claus. I were looking for that book, back to Eaton, that's my family book with all those natural remedies in it. But when I went there,

there was a brother in there. Man, he looked real spiritual, right, and he had this but he said, brother, we don't have that. Try this book. And it was called Man's High Consciousness, right, but help professor helps it Halltimore. And I started reading that book. Say, man, your body's never more than seven years old. He said, every seven years, every cell in your body is replacing. Scientists just confirmed

that even the brain regenerates. Right. So I got heavy into that that carbon costs another one carbon cost survival century. So what I did, I said, you know what, man, it might take me a time before I can come off. So I started studying metaphysics and science. And so I've been a vegetarian for like forty five years. Raised my son Gelanni Vegin and you locked up. You said you were fruititarian. I never heard that one no, his, his his. That's how he breaks it down. He says, um, how

do we start off? He said, we go from breath of breath arian to liquidarian, to fruittarian, to vegetarian, to conivarian to gluttinarian. That's how he breaks it down, you know. But what I really noticed, what when he got me open, was I don't know, maybe about twenty years ago, when they when England and Ireland was having this problem and these Irish guys was locked up in the English jail

and they and they refused to eat. These were guys who wasn't even vegetary and the average and I'm without eating the last ninety days before their faculty is begin to fate. I say, damn, the body is amazing, you know.

But I think the most important thing that I learned from that, and what the whole the teachers, is that you can go like up to ninety days, depending on how you took your kid without eating, you know, if you're lucky, you can go three days without drinking water, you know, but you can't go five minutes without breathing, you know. So the most important organ in your body is the lungs, the breath, you know, when the scriptures start out, they say, you know, God breathed the breath

of life and we became a living soul. So there's something about that man. And that's so I try to get the young kids, like I say, many first time you's puffed on that joint, right, so you cough right, And the second time you call then when you start coughing, the body is reacting to the fact that, oh, I gotta live with this, so it conformed with it. It shortens. Speaking of the youth, what what's your advice to young designers that might be inspired by know your history or

see what Virgil is doing. Like I saw something where you said this, No such thing is ugly. No such thing as over oa is the thing they do to disparage other people ugly. The only thing that's ugly is the way people act in terms of fashion and how people look and things like that. No, there's no such thing exactly. But if you want to make any fashion, there's two things that that I advocate. One is to master your culture. Two it is to stay abreast of

the latest technology associated with making clothes. That's how I did it. On the Stood Through Culture, read a lot about the culture talk to the people like even now, um, I don't take you try not to take limos and none of that. Right on the train, right on the bus. Interact with the people. See how they they respond to the way I dressed and I talked to them. I think it's I think it's very important to do that. Then other people who appropriate our culture come look at us.

How do they know about it? They come look at and see how we do things, so we get the first look. So you gotta if you can translate, that's what we should do. Designers should translate the culture, you know what I mean, That's what rappers do. The rappers, I mean some of them lie about it, but they all they all objectives is to reflect though what's happening in their culture. And I think that's what fashion should do. Also, do you think your background as a journalist A lot

of people don't know that you know you have that background? Um? Is that? I guess you use that to your advantage when it comes like researching and understanding what you're doing. Yeah, um, I had UM When I went back to school, Dr Goody REESI, um my history. I was history major because I wanted to know why things happen, and the he said it as well as the Black scholars said, history is the thing that's most qualified for you to know

about all subjects. There's nothing that you can get involved in that history won't be an asset for you know. And the key to history of no matter what it is, is reading. And so once I once I realized that there, I said, I'm gonna read about it. Every anything that I want to know, I'm gonna read about it. And I would just read my way out of every situation that I've ever been in. A game that you all ready we have your book. Now, what do you before we go? What are you most proud of about the book?

The ability for the book to show people, younger people and other people how far we've come and how important it is for us to read and find out and know our history. That's what this is, you know, this is a book about the history or at the bottom. You know what it means, what it's like to be at the bottom, that rise up from the bottom. That's what I wanted to conquer the world. Yeah, yeah, I felt like I got resilience out of it. That's what

I YEA. You see how you've always overcome every obstacle, yeah, every everything. Your journey has been inspiring that way. Your resiliency, yeah yeah, and it's like it's just something when you everything. I said, the first thing was drugs. I had the first thing I set out to do. I say, when I got us sit down, why did I get high? You know why? I used, like, why did I get involved with that one? And so I said, you know what I'm gonna I went to the County Color Library,

that's the Shaunberg Line most important Black library. You know. I went in there and and study drugs. And then when I found out the situation that China had the Box will be, I said, oh, this is where it comes from. This is how it's happening. Let me tell you something. You could juxtapose everything that China has went through. You know, they had to kick China had to kick the Europeans out of China during the Box of Rebellion because of the Opium Wars where they was pushing opium

in China. They wanted to a period of isolation for engineers until Nixon win in there, right, and look at China today, and if we use that as a pattern, we the Panthers was doing it. The five percenters was doing it, the nation Islam was doing it. In the early days, we knew that the destructive force that was hurting us in America was drugs. You have generations. I'm the last generation that saw Hallom when it didn't have a drug epidemic. It started in the sixties. They don't

even know what it is. They don't even know what it's like not to have a drug epidemic. They don't understand how much effected negative effect that it has on our culture. People will talk about guns and all the things, but it all stems from that drug culture. Man. You know, it drove us away from spiritual Indevor's Man, everybody eleven o'clock Sunday morning was America's most prejudice hour. Everybody in Holland was going to church. I get up someone. Everybody

went to church. Yeah. Man, so well, drugs change the whole culture, man, But it's still great to your parties, community and bring it, bring it positive, positive change to it. They never left and it inspires people. I think if they see the whole story. Man, read that book. Yeah, yeah, read that book. How we're gonna celebrate when this tops Time's best Seller's list because it's gonna happen. What's the

point of that. I probably have a meeting here with all the kids from the block who I've been trying to talk to you for a long time, and I'm just some knuckleheads. Straight. I want them to tell a story better than meat because they I told you to them on a daily basis, kids said about and every neighborhood have been in. Yeah, they're excited about that, you know. So it's on them if I could just change one of them, one like changes the rest, you know. I

think you're gonna do that. Man, time brother, really, so this is jay Z. This is jay Z's with Jay. He said, hello, Jay, Jay, you got a lot to do with what's happening with me today. Man, our story is tied in. I just I must be in your family. Man, Beyonce, where is my jacket? And look what he does for me? You did that video with me and Pete were walking through home. You don't even know the story. We gotta sit there and talk about this time. Ye was saying

that that changed everything. You know, everybody started coming dapadendas on Dad. Young people thought I was They say, oh, Dapadena is a real person, So Jay, we gotta talk. Thank you again, Jay. This must be the start of a new something, a new launching for me. Man, because you did it. You're not chest. We still got dapper damn man. Yeah right up. Podcast Ye