Morning.
Everybody's the ej Envy, Charlamagne the God. We are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest in the building, a legend when it comes to this hip hop thing. Man, ladies and gentlemen, Fab five Freddy welcome, brother hey man.
Pleasure to be here, man, what's happening.
Pleasure to have you, brother man.
Thanks so much. Man.
First of all, how are you.
I'm wonderful. Thank you for asking.
Yeah, and you know, we just celebrated fifty years of hip hop.
Incredible.
What does that mean to Fab five Freddy?
Wow?
Man? Like I said, it's been I tell you, it's been incredible just going through the motions. But at that Yankee Stadium gig, the vibe in there amongst the people, the energy, that enthusiasm that like grown folks you know that lived through it, been through it hurt, all these hits having an incredible time. And then when the axe was on, I'm looking way up all around and people up in the highest points of Yankee Stadium rocking the house. So that hit me like, wow, this people really feel this.
It's just hard to articulate how how much it resonated for the community that made this all happen, and to be in the Bronx like it was just it all came together for me.
Did you ever think that hip hop would take it this farr to quote the lady, I know, I loved that call.
Not at all, Not at all.
I mean, I mean I was clearly thinking of, like you know, in terms of the moves I made, having some control over the narrative, you know, being that being aware that people that look like us in previous generations of our culture didn't have that ability to host the shows that you know, you know, the footprint that you guys have and the things that others like us in media and do these things. So that was like a
super significant thing that I thought about from beginning. But to see it come to this point globally the most listened to form of music around the world, still, it's just astonishing.
Let's let's go back for people that don't know who Fab five Freddy is. You started off as a graffiti artist, right, yeah, So let's let's start from the beginning how you got into this thing called hip hop and what you created Because you started off as a graffiti artist, right, and I'm sure you were tagging trains back in the day because that was the thing to do.
The trains, that was the thing to do, the trains, the walls, the buses, right anywhere. It was an audacious thing to do when when I think back, so many New York teenagers back then in the seventies just felt like it was okay to put your name anywhere you
felt it needed to be. And then the competition of that developed into a real, you know, refined and defined form of expression, ways of using them spray cans that nobody ever envision anywhere, Like you know, spray cans is just just you know, the pain and the old piece or whatever right around the house. Now we've created, you know, a way to make murals that kind of tell stories about who we are and what we you know, where we are and what we want to be and do
and all those things. It was like a fantasy, you know, kind of like rap was that too. I'm going to invent myself and talk about all these things I want to do, And in graph as it began to really flower, it was like, you know, I'm a superhero and my name is Big and you know, all those things kind of took off in ways that and then you know, early on I got something clicked in my head that, you know, looking at pop art and what you know.
I used to go to museums a lot as a kid and looked at what Andy Warholl and these pop artists were doing, and I was like, wait a minute, they're inspired by the same things that we were as graffiti artists, like like looking at popular culture names, comic book logos, you know. And then and that kind of made me want to be a visual artist like those guys were. And then that began a journey that I kind of helped lead, taking graffiti art into galleries, turning it into something called street.
Art, which is also like a global thing.
You know, probably heard of my homie Rest in Peace Jean michel Boski io young brother out of Brooklyn, and we met on that downtown scene. Had similar aspirations figure out a way to be artists, Like Malcolm X said, by any means necessarily, yeah, he used to Jean was tagging, but he was putting up these like poetic phrases, quotes that were not in any way like typical graffiti, but it was a part of graffiti.
And nobody knew he was a young brother doing it.
Initially He started out doing something called same O, which was sort of short for same O, you know what I mean.
And then that developed and then we met and he was on the scene.
He turned out to be a brother like he was doing stuff around Soho in the village area. People didn't know he was a brother, and we met at a party writer as I'm kind of stepping on that downtown art scene, and we both had similar aspirations to try to figure this out, so we began to you know, we kind of linked up and we're in the same circuit. Blondie was somebody that we met pretty much at the
same time. I'm in their ear about this new culture, and then they kind of took us under their wings, so to speak, and brought out work some of the first people to buy paintings.
For myself and Jean Michelle and then made.
You know, took some inspiration from them stories I told them and made a record called Rapture Altho.
We Got to Stay Here for a Minute was the first video on MTV.
That was one of the MTV's first videos, which I'm featured in along with Jean Michelle. I tried to get flash was supposed to have come to be the DJ i'd met, because you know, it was working on the first hip hop movie while Style of It in that same time frame, early eighties. I said, Flash, come down and be in this video. You know, to think that there was no MTV at that time, so we did music video was not a thing. But still I'm like,
they had this idea to create a music video. All the people we hung out with were in the video. Flash never showed up. So I said, Jean stand at the turntables, and I try to tell Majean just stood there with a grin on his face. So in the raption, so as Debbie starts to rap in the first line on this Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly.
She's saying it to Jean and then she you know, the song goes on.
So that turned out to be one of MTV's first videos when the channel launched, and close to ten years later, they would they were kind of pressured into trying to, you know, to do a show about rap music, and I got the call YOMTV raps.
I want to hear more about Boski at but I want to talk about Blondie too, because we had these conversations about fifty years of hip hop, and when I'm starting to realize is the role that Blondie played and helping get helping get hip hop main screaming, we have all these conversations about white allies. Now, she was one back then because I saw something. I was watching the Ladies First documentary and she put shot, uh, Funky is the Funky Funky four plus Funky four plus one on CNL.
That's right, And that was me because I had been in there are playing them old school hip hop party tapes, breaking it all down, and so a lot of the things that she's saying in the app with things that I told her, you know, flashes, fast flashes, coolrefaid. You told me everybody's fly on the early hip hop scene, it was fly guys and fly girls. So I'm telling her the slang, explaining how Flash was the fastest DJ and how that was a big thing. And I was
amazed that they went out and made that record. I knew they were feeling me. Her and her boyfriend at the time, Chris Stein, that was the nucleus of Blondie. I would they would invite me to come hang out with them and we would just talk on pop culture. Chris Stine. He was from Brooklyn. He loved the graffiti on the train. So when I said, hey, I'm one of those guys, oh man, I love that stuff. And then I began to share my ideas trying to figure out a way to be a visual artist, trying to
make it happen. It was actually them that took that. The first time I met mister Andy Walholl was through them, and then we you know, me and Andy and I became friends. He was a supporter of what we were doing. And yeah, they made that record and it went number one across the country and many countries around the world. And I don't I don't describe it as hip hop, but it was the first time people heard rapping in
a context. And then also what she was, what she graciously did was shout me out and mentioned other things in the scene that I told her later. When Flash did this record, the Adventures of Grand Master Flasher on the Wheels of Steel, where he literally made a record an example of what he would do live, just masterfully cut up a series of records.
It started with.
Using that using that rapture song where you hear that thing, and then he cuts it into a whole bunch of different other songs are cut.
In, which is how do you think people like Blondie avoided the label of culture vulture back then?
You know what I mean, that's a good question, But that word culture volta as a concept didn't exist, and I think it was I mean, if you had really dived into hip hop, which wasn't that big of an audience outside of New York.
Most people did know what the hell she was doing. They just were big Blondie fans.
She sang as the record opened in her lovely voice and then broke into this rap and was pretty decent at it, you know, all things considered.
It's not like I sat there.
With her and tried to teach her how to rap. She had rhythm and just said, I'm going to make a record. Fat. I've been in her ear a lot, and this record was a reflection at It was such a gracious thing because it turned out to be a calling card for me. Nobody really knew who I was. I hadn't been on TV then, you know. And then when MTV happened and they decided to try it out immediately, it had the highest ratings any show had had at
that time. Then people began to figure out, wait a minute, that's the guy that Blondie.
Mentioned, let's go back to your TV raps. So your on TV raps.
They flipped this channel and they create this hip hop show called Your MTV Raps. Right, I'm sure at the time it was kind of like a stab against Ralph McDaniel's Video Music Box.
No, not at all.
No, Ralph was definitely I was a fan of Ralph's show from the beginning in it. But they were resistant what MTV was trying to do. It's interesting that you you guys are now, you know, have this big position doing radio. The guys like you, well, you know, the thing was radio was pretty segregated, and in the American charts,
I mean, England was different. That's why I referenced America pop pretty much meant white essentially, So no matter what kind of record you made, if you could, you know, make a record that was popping all the descriptive ways, the people doing it were black, they would most often off end up on the R and B or the
soul chart or the dance chart. And so MTV was set up to try to mirror that a visual form of what of what American radio stations were and so when black acts got big, they were like, why am I not getting any love on there? And so, with the exception of a little line of Richie, a Little Prince,
there was very little black music to be seen. And then I think it was Michael Jackson's label, Columbia's CBS if I'm not mistaken, Epic, whichever one of those really pressured them and they said, listen, we're going to pull all out other acts, which included Bruce Springsteen off of MTV. If you don't play Michael Jackson. I think that specifically
was Billy Jean, and then they played it. The numbers went through the roof and then came Thriller and everything like that, so that really they had to realize that this time to change up that attitude. And then there with two young white guys at MTV, Peter Doughty and then Ted Demi Rest in Peace. Peter I've known on the downtown scene.
He knew things.
I was moves I was making with Blondie and hip hop's first film, Wild Style, and so he was in their ear. Like records were selling like Crazy Run dmcll. Some of those first early hip hop records were going crazy, no marketing, no promo, and so they said, okay, we're going to try try this out, and they tried it.
Keep them and also I'd like to make There was a European version called The Yo Show that a female named Sophie Bromley, a frenchwoman North African French woman who was really cool, had hosted for a short period of time only on MTV Europe. And then they decided that's so that's where the Yo came from. There was a Yo and then they said, okay, well we're gonna call it Yo MTV.
Raps and it went.
And they called you first. You were the first.
Yeah, because I knew Peter and they saw the moves I was making.
They saw the Rapture video, they saw the film Wild Style, which you know I produced it all original music.
For, and then you know, one of the lead characters.
So I had a bit of a presence and they you know, made this argument and they said, let's give it a try. And the ratings were crazy from the jump, and so I held down the Saturday slot. They'd asked me about a year or two into it. They wanted to get a daily version of the show, and I didn't want to over expose myself.
Plus, I'm I'm directing music videos at the time.
The first video I did was my philosophy Carros one, Carross one, and then a whole string of videos.
So I wanted to stay in my land. I didn't want people to be like, oh man, I'm tired of seeing him him on the screen.
You know whatever, Like a lot of those other VJs would be on there for hours introducing all these you know, Duran, Duran and whatever else, and then they luckily found ed Love and Doctor Dre.
How long were you working at Young TV raps before they brought in at Love and Dre?
It was about it because it was close to two years the first two.
If I'm not mistaken, and you wasn't you wasn't upset with leaving or you wanted to leave or was it well?
When it ended about six or seven years in which was incredible run, it was kind of sad that it came to an end.
But I realized, like, you know.
Those acts that debuted on your TV raps were so pivotal, they were so defining of the culture. Like the first time people saw you know, Tupac Nwa, you know, Luke and then my go to these areas.
Where were you invented that everybody that's doing these these these shows now where they go to where people are that's absolutely fab far Freddy, fab far Freddy invented on location conversation.
Yeah, and that was motivated by the way MTV had been set up. The VJs would be in a room.
They would have all these crooky images going on in the background, kind of a crazy you know, just mash up of visuals and they'd be on for two, three, four hours at a time, and it was like, I mean, they're like, man, I just want to see this video, you know, you know, slame dude on the screen.
What's going on? So I just was all about lessons more. It was a thing for me.
And yeah, so it was, it was, it was.
It was a beautiful run.
I know, we're gonna be all over the place because you just got such a great hit, so many gems like and I know you said you didn't see hip hop going as far, but as far as hip hop becoming mainstream, you played a big.
Role in that.
Like when I think of the movie Wild Style, like what did that movie mean to you and hip hop at that at that time.
Yeah, well, you know, that was an idea that I had had to try to create a better look for us. A lot of times in the media when somebody was a young Black or Latin person when they were seeing, you know, some cool street person was almost always in a negative context, and I wanted to try to do something to change that narrative. Also as trying to be a visual artist, which was the main thing I focused on, but dabbling in other forms of creative expression.
I wanted to just put us all in a better light and then show what we were doing.
So the idea that I had had for a wild Style was to show a way to show the connection between all these elements that are part of hip hop now that didn't exist before. So the idea was to make a film that showed the connection between this rapping, this djang, the breakdancing, and the visual form of expression. Graffidi and I hooked up with this cat Charlie Ahearn, who was an underground filmmaker on the downtown scene in New York. He had made a super low budget movie
about kung Fu that had caught my eye. When I linked with him, I basically pitched this idea for the movie, and he said, essentially, let's get busy.
So then we started researching.
Going to parties in the Bronx, going to the t Connection, the Ecstasy Garage, meeting Busy Bee, Cold Crush, Fantastic, Funky Four plus one more including shah Rock, and that was how to jump back to the Blondie thing. When they got the opportunity to host Saturday Night Saturday Night Live, they also got to pick who the support act was and they wanted to bring somebody hip hop on.
So we talked about flashing the Furious Five.
Of course they were big, but then I said, you know, the Funky Four, similar to Blondie, has a female like out front, and I thought it was a nice counterbalance.
Now what they talked about in the Ladies first Dog, I don't know you've seen him, but like they break that whole thing down, Like it was all because of the shah Rock that Blondie wanted her to wanted them to be the group correct.
So that was me behind that and that was incredible.
I remember being at Saturday Night Live for the taping of that, and it was a young brother that had I didn't really get to kick it with him that much that had just joined the Saturday Night crew, and that was Eddie Murphy.
Wow.
Yeah, just started around and I remember seeing because it was another brother that used to be on Eddie Saturday Night Live in the beginning.
Garrett Morris was.
His name, absolutely, and then this young kat Eddie who would later like blow up all over the place a little bit.
It's so interesting because you know, I keep hearing you talk about you wanted to make sure hip hop was presented in the right way, right, So I wonder, like, what are your thoughts on the genre of hip hop now?
Well, you know, hip hop has continually amazed me with the different turns and the evolutions that have happened within it. That's been the most fascinating thing for me. And some of the things that I've hoped for have come to light. Like I remember the very early days when it was all pretty much throw your hands in the air waving like you just don't careybody say, oh, it's pretty much a party, uplifting kind of vibe.
And that was cool.
But then I said, man, if somebody can figure out a way to say something that was socially relevant, I knew that would elevate us, and that was the message broken glass everywhere, you know, don't push me because I'm close to the edge. Really articulated how a lot of people were living in New York and other hoods, and everybody got the memo that we can now throw our hands in the air and have a party, but we can talk about our realities in these streets.
And that was exciting.
And then so there's been things that have happened along the way that I've been really enthusiastic about. Obviously, when the conscious movement came in me working with KRS one in the beginning and Chuck d and everything, that opened up a whole another chamber that was incredible. Didn't see it coming, but it was definitely needed. And I think hip hop is gonna fit. It constantly figures out a way,
it evolves. It's a it's like a living organism, and different affected come in and may go off the track a little bit with certain things, and then they'll come back with something that totally blows us away. Like I think the African even though it's not specifically hip hop,
it's very inspired by the things that we've done. So the afrobeats and the Ama piano, which is a sound coming out of South Africa, a young kind of dance type sound which is unique, is incredible as well as well as what the cats in England have figured out.
On the grime side.
You know storm Z and those cats that were constantly early in the early days of what they were doing. They were constantly trying to emulate rap groups from over here. I went to England and covered them during the Your TV Raps era. I remember London Posse was one of the hottest groups at the time that had a New York East Coast kind of wrap flow. But they never really blew up as big as they wanted to in England.
But then they figured out how to do it in their own way, with their own sl in their own way way of speaking, and they made some dope records and blew ups.
What's your thoughts on a lot of the legends and ogs who are the founders and creators and made this platform where there are billionaires and people are millionaires, but they haven't got to just do financially and a lot of those brothers are not doing well now. But if it wasn't for them, you wouldn't have the sound. They wouldn't be the movies, the music, the DJs, the rappers. What's your thoughts on that? Because I always feel like, damn, should there be like a union for the creators of this?
You know.
Wow, there's something coming up that I'm involved in.
I can't elaborate on it a lot because l said there something coming up that he said he can't elaborate on either yet.
Yeah, ll is probably a where I'm a part of what he's doing with Rock the.
By the way, he said, you one of the founders, Well, yeah, he reads you.
Yeah, I have some equity in that.
And he made an incredible presentation, flew me out to really pitch in a proper way.
I was saying, I'd have got down with him.
He didn't have to go that, but I was impressed that he wanted to demonstrate he had learned how to play that business game properly. And I got down with him, signed the papers, and I'm super impressed to see what's happening. So there's something that's coming up, which is something that's going to address that and do something significant towards people that haven't gotten there just do but that have had a significant impact.
Trust me.
In the fall, something's going to go down. You guys are going to get the memo and hopefully we can continue that and hopefully there'll be more versions of this that are a significant give back to pioneers. Unfortunately, because in that very very very early, almost pre record days or the beginnings of that, a lot of cats didn't figure out how to monetize and how to do the kind of good business that you guys clearly have both figured out, which is incredible.
Brothers like those Earn your Leisure.
Cats are laying out a road map for how we can be fiscally attuned and aware of ways of doing the proper things with our money all.
The time, exactly.
Yeah, the Aunlesia guys I met. I ran into them the other day. In fact, when when when you know, those cats were here in New York. And so that's a problem unfortunately that it just is what it is, you know, But I think there's been examples once once again on the positive side, you've had cats that figured out how to how to do business right, how to.
Accumulate not just be rich, accumulate wealth.
You know, it's difference between rich and wealthy, and it's great to see cats working on that now.
Yeah, because I thought about that with y'all, like, what was the future for VJs back then? Like did y'all even know what the future looked like? Like what what did y'all aspire to be after the VJ thing?
Well, good question. Thankfully for me, I was doing something prior.
I was already making moves, you know, making art, you know, making films like Wild Style, and the VJ thing just came to me really honestly, which was great. People would run up to me, I want to do this, How do you do it? I was like, Man, I'd be awkward because I'm like, I can't tell you how to do There's no to go to VJ school do this.
It was just a moment.
Clearly MTV is a different you know, all that stuff like doesn't exist. People can do millions of people do that on YouTube, you know, if you will. So there wasn't really a clear path if you will, but if you like you say, like I think interestingly Ed lover going to radio along with Doctor Dre initially and being really good at it was a great transition. There were some people that had worked that radio behind the scenes
and whatever that then came to MTV. Stephen Hill have been a radio person that then transitioned to become one of the producers at MTV.
But yeah, that's a good one.
Man. It wasn't too many clear paths other than radio or some type of TV announced it and maybe commercials or whatever.
But for me, like I wanted to just get back to doing the things that I'm doing.
I'm like an obsessive creative and so that's it, you know, it's just creating and that's still what I primarily do.
I mean, you had to be right, and man, when you hear you talking, I'm like the role that art played in hip hop when you talk about Boskiyaut, when you talk about Warhol, I feel like, damn, that might be what's kind of missing, like that connection to art, like actual art.
Yeah.
Well, you know it's interesting too because of the continued success and awareness of Jean Michelle and other things that we've done. How street art like hip hop, is a global form of expression. People and countries around the world take it to the streets, so people are aware of art in a way, and I think that's a great
thing about using this tech to inform ourselves. And because I'd like to say all this stuff that we really want want to know or to get a at least an overview is a few clicks away, and.
You could you know who's Andy?
Will you know?
I was?
You know like me, I was one of those cats that would go to the library and love spending some time in some books and which is a foundation of a lot of things I've done. But now you can you can click through it and see it and chat gpt it. You know, use those things before those things use you.
Like is has gotten you know, put on him because of hip hop, and it's like back then he didn't get the opportunity because he died like before hip hop kind of took off that eighty eight.
That was gonna ask were you surprised of the explosion because it came so late?
Well it was, it was building though bese Jean was just a fascinating character. So there was a films and interest in his life once people heard, like, you know who he really was and the things he was doing in the moves he was making.
And yeah, so it's it's been.
It's just continue used to grow it like it feeds and it's like a it's like an organism. The the awareness of Jean and his work and then the exciting stories about his life and basically how we lived back then. You know, this young brothers trying to figure it out and figuring out a way to get in. It's just that, Jean, It's exploded in a significant way and inspired a lot of other people to just dig in and learn more
about art. That was the thing that we both cut school and went to museums a lot as young kids and got comfortable with the idea of making art, standing in front of great paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and things like that, the Museum a Modern Art and being comfortable with these important pieces that you would later see in different books and stuff, and then go and look, I can do this too, and I'm gonna.
Figure out a way in. That was the the strategic thing.
There was really no clear way in, so we would huddle and think about ways to get in that weren't the kind of formal ways in, and that was through connecting with other people that was making moves like Blondie, other people on the downtown New York scene at the time, pulled us in and then we like made things happen, put our shows up, you know, group shows and things, and then caught the tension of the major players that had.
To acknowledge what was going on.
How many pieces do you have?
I've had work. Artists that are friends usually will trade things with each other. So over the years, me and him being cool, you know a few things would change hands.
You know how many people called you and be like, yo, I know you got some crazy when it comes up some pieces, you know the numbers on his work.
It's so crazy. It's such an awkward conversation. Now it's like somebody asking you about the value of things that you own or can buy now or whatever, which against kind of personal at a certain point, but the things got so crazy it's an awkward conversation app because you know, you think about the security and how you're gonna you know, how you're gonna hold it down, or can you keep this in the house now because it's so crazy, like does this make sense to keep this here?
Or should you just find a safer place.
Now that not not just being stolen, but you don't want the house to get flooded or catch five because it's an investment.
At one piece that was just your your brother's art. Now it's like Jesus, you got a lie.
I'm not saying I'm not gonna get it.
To come to my credit, you got enough. You have to think, ain't nobody seen it before?
Oh well, guys, I'm getting I'm getting I'm getting pressed.
You know what?
I do want to ask you about Boskout and Warhall or two things.
What were those conversations like, because you see all these Andy Warholl quotes, Like one of my favorite Andy Warholl quotes is in the future, everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes.
Did he really talk like that?
No, But he wrote a book called The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, From a to Being Back Again, and that was where he had a lot of other really smart things. Andy was very perceptive, very astute about the whole pop culture game before it it developed into.
Where it is now.
So he literally saw things that were coming, you know, And so that was a part of the genius of Andy. But then his public persona was kind of like simple answers like oh, g no, you know, so you would you would kind of come off like he wasn't that kind of savvy a guy that he but he really was. It was a very kind of a cultivated persona. So when you got to know him and you hanging out and talk, he really was like a big brother in
many ways. And he saw that we were coming up, we were having exhibits, he would tell you, oh, this gallery.
Watch out for that dealer. Oh my goodness, he's this and that. I'm like, oh wow.
So he would be very chatty and very talky when you got to know him, but his public persona was a was a whole different thing. The Netflix doc that I took part in, and then I felt a little awkward because Andy was gay, and I didn't know he was gay in that regard because his whole perception was I'm a a sexual if you will. So I was like, Okay, you know, he's not messing with anybody, and I've never seen him around anybody that was his lover, girlfriend, what
have you. But the Netflix doc got really deep into the relationships he had, and I felt like, almost almost embarrassed to get all this info that. I was like, man, he so, you know, he's so strategically kept it positive to see it all laid out, and I was in that dock. I took part in that, but I just it was a lot that I didn't really realize was going on. You care.
He probably didn't even cared.
Really, I didn't really care that.
It was just interesting just how crafty he was and how on top of culture he was for a really long time, way before he you know, like into the
early sixties, like the Walhall Factory and that scene. Almost anybody could have came up in there hang out and hang around, and that might be like Lou Reed, you know, uh, just a whole bunch of you know, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, like artists, people just doing wild psychedelic drugs or whatever would all hang out and then somebody just walked up in there and basically shot him.
You know.
The chick said, you're.
Controlling my life, like you know, the just the buzz on him had was driving her crazy. And so that then shifted him to shut down a bit and to close the gates, and then he went to another level with it.
But but he got shut You got shot by somebody who's clearly a craze fan.
Man. Listen, Okay, you controlling my life, stop tuning into me.
Then that't got it to do with me.
Yeah, So that that was a It was a wild story. But yeah, he was a definitely big influence on a lot of us. He had broke through in ways, and then when we started making Noise and he started coming to events we were having, it was a symbol that we were doing the right thing, and you know, he was acknowledging the work. And then it took it to the next level. Him and Jean Michelle collaborated on a
series of paintings together and that was like unbelievable. So that got Andy to put the brush on canvas in ways that he hadn't done in many years.
And was any of those pieces no No.
When I think about y'all being, you know, young back then, it's like, yo, what and you I don't know what were y'all?
What was youall aspirations? Like what did you and Oboskaya want to do? Like we were just you know, that's a good question, too, kind. We were just trying to have an impact as artists. We were trying to rock our scene, which was a downtown scene.
This was obviously thinking this is pre the Internet and pre access where anybody can have instant access practically to anything.
Going on in the world, pre big money. Yeah, but it was pre big money and big money.
We were looking to be comfortable and be able to pay the bills and pay the rent and then you know, have good meals and take you know, hang out with our friends and party. We didn't have that.
It wasn't like a like a like a focused on just getting paid.
It was really making an impact with with your with our work and really being heard and being seen.
That's something that led me.
At a point when I'm making paintings and was doing pretty decent at it, I was getting a little restless with just painting, and Jean and I both had talked about using any medium we can get our hands on, so make music, which he dabbled with a bit, produce films as well as being films, which you know we both did at that time. And so that was one of the motivating things that a lot that we that we talked about and were just driven to kind of find ways of expressing ourselves.
Do you remember how much and I know we asked a lot of questions. Do you remember this was a long time ago. Do you remember how much paintings went for back then when y'all soul paintings you or biscout to even warhole, what like what they were going for price wise back then in the beginning.
If you could sell your work for a few thousand dollars, that's great. And then if things move, then those numbers could either quickly go up or go up at a nice moderate rate, because as people acquire to work, and you know, if the work is accepted and respected and you know, written about, and other people want to show the work, there's an incremental increase in the prices. And then at a certain point it can just go really really crazy, which it clearly did for Jean.
But you know, he.
Received a lot of that, like while he was alive and then sadly unfortunately, you know, passing really young at twenty seven, and then it just shifted into a whole.
Nother level, which you know, was just a part of it.
But I think the great thing though, is there's a lot more young artists, just artists of color, even artists that laid the foundation back in the times at the Harlem Renaissance, significant Black artists Jacob Lawrence, Romar Beard and Charles Austin.
A lot of these artists.
There's a long list of these artists that were from the Harlem Renaissance period that was strong and incredible that because of the way racism was at that time, they just didn't get the kind of love and acceptance.
But a lot of that has been changing. A lot of.
Institutions and museums are reaching out to realize, like we missed getting these significant works, which is a part of the story of American expression visual artists. So there's a lot there's a strong effort and a lot of dynamic young artists now making moves you know, in America now way more than whatever doing it that are getting like, you know, serious, top, top tier, you know, recognition collapses, et cetera, et cetera.
What was it like for you in nineteen ninety one when The New Yorker named you the coolest man in New York City?
Yeah, that was crazy, Susan Orlean wrote that article was a profile. I was about fifteen or sixteen pages in the New Yorker.
Yeah, I was wow. I remember this.
You know, I've been written about a lot at that time, you know, different articles about hip hop, different aspects of the culture, being on your TV raps. And here comes this woman who wants to do a piece on me. She comes and hangs out with me a few times. She knew nothing about hip hop. And what I loved most about that piece was how right she got it, how hard they worked to tell the story accurately.
People had butchered.
How to say my name.
They would always ask.
How long I think it was gonna last, meaning that they thought this was all like a brief passing fad.
And here's this woman, Susan Orlean came and she.
Got real curious and wanted to hang out with me while I'm taking your MTV raps, while I'm having meetings, planning from music videos I'm directing, and just.
Listening to me talk. Obviously you know, I'm into a lot of stuff.
And she caught it all and fifteen sixteen page piece for The New Yorker, which was incredible.
The only thing about them being in New York at.
That time, it wasn't read by a lot of a lot of people in the space that we were in at the time. Like Vanity Fair was kind of hot at the time, and I used to think, man, I'm kind of due for, you know, for like a nice write up and maybe you know, like in Vanity Fair something like that.
And then the New Yorker came along, which.
Is considered like the greatest magazine. Some of the greatest writers in American history have written for them. And here they doing a fifteen page profile on me. You know, it's hip hop person doing this cultural stuff. But it was pretty good and it's amazing that it still pops up. People see it on the Internet and stuff like that.
Did you you go ever get out of control?
Not really? You know the thing about my ego, I'm glad you you got you got good questions. I see why y'all saw y'all y'all both are so nice.
That means the world coming from you.
Thank you. So I had like people in my life, like my father grew up with a jazz legend named Max Roach who became my godfather. He to the drums is what Charlie Parker to the sacks, Miles to the trumpet, Dizzey Gillespie. He's in that category cast that defined a new form of jazz late forties fifties called be bop, be around. He's featured with his then wife Abby Lincoln
in Summer of Soul, performing up in Harlem. And so he come by the house all the time, kick it with my dad, you know, always wanting to hug me and hey, man, what you doing? You know what I mean? And so he was just so cool all the goddamn time. I could never be like be on some stupid you know, you know, like with a crazy ego. And then even Blondie in them would treat me so good. I'd be up in their house hanging with them. The biggest pop group in the world, literally number one records all over
the place. So I learned to, you know, always got to be cool with this.
So you mean there was always people around that reminded you like, yeah, I'm not really a man.
Can well you just can't. Can't go crazy. But you got to be humble and with this and appreciate the fact that you have these opportunities. You know, it's just you just but it's easy to get caught up in there. You have seen it happen too many times. But luckily you know some people that they can can pump the brakes and check themselves and realize, man, you know I'm out there being a clown. I'm being an asshole right now. I shouldn't be doing that.
And so, and how did it feel when, you know, at the time, when you had all these rappers right, and these rappers are coming up and now they're not as local. They're selling millions of records. They're going, but they're mentioning you in their raps. Do you remember the first time you heard your name in a rap.
Besides yeah, no, EPMD A couple of guys. Man, man, that was crazy.
Man.
It's just such a humbling experience to just be recognized.
But you know a lot of casts that really has seen wild Style so early, like in your TV raps, A lot of people that was really dialed in on the game kind of knew who I was, which was really my first real audience was other people in in the in the culture really, which was so cool.
And then that began to spread out.
But yeah, you know that was a special, special, special dynamic.
Do you uh?
Do you do you remember that day you shot with nw A when you went out there?
Yeah, that was a good one. Yeah, and it became a lot of people's favorite show. I remember vividly. We have been playing videos by Easy on the channel and Ted Demi and what he would talk to Easy often and Easy was like, man, I want you all to come out.
We have a new group.
And I remember them sending us a memo the day before us to listen. Nobody don't wear anything red or anything black. No, I'm sorry, red or blue were black, is what they said. And I was like, man, I've been to l A a bunch of times, but I didn't understand the dynamics in the hood, you know, I being West Hollywood in and out on some art business or what have you. And so we were like, okay,
so we want to show people this scene. So let's run a flatbed truck and let's ride around, because you know, we hadn't seen like what the hood is like or any semblance of la And so we meet at the welcome the Compton sign and then we get on this flatbed truck and ride around and do segments from the truck. They take us to a swap meet and they give us a little insight on how they live. And it was crazy.
I know it was gonna be a great show.
I get back to the hotel and I put the Walkman on, got the cassette of the new album, the NWA album Straight out of Comptent. I listened to it for the first time and I'm literally snatching the headphones off my head can't believe the things that they're saying f the police and just the aggressiveness and the music was amazing and incredible, but the things they were saying, I was like, MTV is not gonna let this this happen.
They gonna pull this.
Man, we done shot this incredible show riding around. There's nothing's gonna happen. Well, the videos, they weren't able to play the video for Straight out of Compton, but they still had other videos and other content, and the interview played it and it took off.
Man, it took off so lovely.
And was there anything you saw and like Dre or Cube back then, you know, easy became as an icon too. Anything you saw in Drea Cube that lets you know, oh, I can see them being where they are now.
Yeah. Well I couldn't predict how huge it was going to be. But they were so smart and they clearly sonically, particularly Dre had studied what Public Enemy had been doing sonically with them with the best right with the Bomb Squad, thank you, and the level of production and using those samples was the state of the art at that time, and they had did something similar. And I remember before I had listened to the record and really understood it.
Cube a couple of times in between the interviews was like, your fab what's g rap?
Like, what's up with g rap?
And I said, Yo, g Wrap's cool and whatever. But then when I listened and I heard the aggressiveness of what they were saying, I saw that Cube happened studying grap. G Wrap was spitting harder than any at that time, you know, songs like Rykers Island. In fact, I directed a video for g Rap Road to the Riches, which is which was the first rap song, and then the video about the rise and fall of a New York
crack dealer. I'm the first video to put an image of scarface in the thing, and that led to me getting in a social associate producer role on New jack City because when George Jackson came to talk to me, I'm finishing up Road to the Riches and he bugged out, said, man, this is what the this is the constant, this is the idea in the movie The Undercover Cop, which I see with play.
I had a hand in casting all those guys. It was crazy wow. So that was a snapshot of that.
And yeah, but Nwa man, genius and Cube, you knowing that he was a person that wrote a lot of that helped structure a lot of that record. It was just amazing and the fact that it it had the impact it had was just one of the great things in rap to see it come together. And then you know, in the process of doing that, I'm one of the first people that once again I'm interviewing these guys, I'm hearing this West Coast slang.
I'm getting to hang out with them, and I'm like, money, what's what? What are the switches?
When you're talk about witting switches before you knew like what one eighty seven was, are some of the things that they were dropping We just as I had to get the four one one, which is similar to what other people in other parts of the country had to do to figure out what we were saying.
In New York, you know, they had to break down and slang.
You know, since you've interviewed so many people and you've been to so many coaches, whether it was you know, La the South New York. When you're talking when you hear the mount Rushmore of hip hop, right, who is your on your mount Rushmore? As far as artists are concerned.
Well, you know, when when I get asked those kind of questions, I'm basically like, I've loved so many and and I'm also aware that there's different errors where different people were the most important people at that time, right, so as the errors have evolved that my rushmore would it would be various versions based on but I'm a lyrics guy, primarily based on lyricism. Oh man, it'd be in the beginning, you know, I'll screw up, and I'm sure there's names I forget, But in the beginning, of.
Course, you know, only before for every era, look at you, you know, uh Mo.
D kaz uh you know, man, who else?
Man, I'll screw this up?
Cowboy? You know? And then going on further from that, you know Caine, rack him, uh g.
Raph man, Jesus, people forget about g rap a lot, And I don't understand why, because when you listen to you clearly get it.
His lyrical game was masterful, just incredible way he played with words.
Who else was my mother?
Forth from that in that early period, I guess I would have to put I'll drop a cube in there, you know, And then moving forward, you know, you know Biggie Pack, of course, you know Oh man, I'm stuck right now. I can't think of all the names that I would love, but pretty much those that you know, Nads of course, who I luckily got to direct his one of his first one one love Yeah, that that
Q Tip produced, you know. So, man, just and then to see Noads still putting out incredible music on a consistent basis, it's.
Like a jazz artist. It just look, I got something to say.
I'm not pressure. It's not about the paper. If you will, I'm just want to express this. I'm gonna drop this on you.
And so it's it's just probably he probably get from his pops.
Yeah, yeah, Olu Dara who used to live near me in Harlem and we would talk because you know, and that's a key thing that Nads had a similar to something that rock Kim has.
Both of them.
Obviously nas Dad's a jazz musician. Rock Kim had jazz musician. It was a sing I can't remember her name, but earlier connection to jazz and that sensibility I think is a is a big part of his flow and his dynamic as an artist.
You did Park's first interview the.
First first time on National TV.
A lot of those cats.
The first time I interviewed Park was on this set of the movie Juice, and and then we held that show until the movie dropped a few months later, and then we added you know, and I'm also did a cameo in Juice as.
Myself, you know, hosting your m TV reps while the DJ battle.
Was going on and talk about that set Juice.
That was crazy.
I mean, you know, it was you know, I mean classic movie to this day.
Man, amazing stars from them, Yeah, a lot of good stars, a lot of just really good dynamics. And I'm pretty sure Tupac definitely have excelled in acting and clearly would have been OSCAR nominated by now. His dynamism on the screen was just something I think, like like people like that have been able to do it in music and then do it on the screen. It's just a it's just a rare group of people that have been able to do that and still you know, resonate to us
in such a powerful way. But your Pock and I were pretty tight. The second time I interviewed Pac once again, this was pre death Row. I like to that's when because it was the first time I knew his background, like he had a black Panther link family wise, and that was the first time he'd spoken about that when I pulled that out of him, and he explained how his mother was panther father, so that that fire and that awareness of what they were fighting for.
Was a part of his consciousness, so which was really interesting. He was a.
Dynamic cat like I mean, he could be the most militant f for a while, Fruit of Islam, Black Panther and then spin on a dime and just be the illess thug and that was I think a part of the actor in him. He could completely be those people or any other people. I'm sure he would have gotten to play in films. He would have been super effective and compelling. So that was a great loss. So you saw that back then even absolutely, because it was just talking to him and he you know, and then he
flipped and be just super hood. And I think the persona that he remained in for most of his public life after was the persona of Bishop in juice like that was his character that you know, he wanted to become on everybody and as many people wanted to wish to have been a big dude on the New York scene, or a strong cat that conflex like in Harlem and all that, and juice.
Was his way to do that.
And because come on, he he wasn't that dude prior. But he stayed in that character largely, and then unfortunately got caught up and this that, and the third on the New York side, if you know, the drum, and then and went West coast, and you would think he was born in South Central the way he rapped, you know, on out there in Cali, which is so super effectively, but he could he was convincing in any of those genres or any of those formats he would put itself in.
I know, you probably got to go. He's got a couple more questions.
Why do you think commercially, because you was there from the exception, why do you think commercially the West Coast took off?
It seemed like to me before the East Coast, like I'm talking about.
With the massive mainstream success that we see in hip hop now interesting, I just I.
Don't know that's but would you say that because he had run?
I thought it was their term.
Yeah, we we blew up big and dug out and planted a firm foundation. That's why this culture still rocks so hard to this day because the roots went deep without anything going viral too early or people jumping out there.
Tucson, it was deth Row was a months.
Snoop Dogg sold what eight hundred plus thousand his first and second week. He was like the first hip hop artist on certain magazine covers, like he really was.
It was something else that was something else, and it started with NWA to me, but.
Yeah, it was.
It was a big thing.
They had an incredible movement.
It was I think it just followed they They added on nicely to the foundation that was laid right here in New York. And then once again, I was honored to get to direct Snoops first video for What's My Name and turned them into a dog. And then interestingly, you know, I'm in the cannabis business now with a brand called b Noble, which grew out of a film I made which you can see on Netflix called grass Is Green and got Snoop is in my film and Snoop tells the story which I didn't know that he Dre.
I spent that whole summer living with Dre in Calabasas because the first day of shooting Snoops video him performing on VIP Records. Right after that, we changed locations in Long Beach. That turns into a near riot. That's like not more than a year after the LA riots. So we got shut down dress fabric. I gotta finish Snoop's album. If you can chill and hang, we will get the video done with. My priority is getting this record done. So I'm like, Dre, I'm here, Why.
Was it right?
Because you know, LA is deceptive. You can be in the hood and I'm a New York cast, so I see cats in the hood. I see cats on the corner, on the stoop. I can feel the tempo of the neighborhood. You know what I'm saying. In LA, you don't see cats out. So I'm scouting locations. I'm like, oh, Dre, I got this this And Dre was like, man, it's kind of crazy and Long Beach. But I'm like, man, I'm been there good. I didn't see the cast that really live in the hood. At the video shoot, everybody
comes out. Everybody's in the crowd. So you got this set, that set, I got the foy on set as a security nobody that's like disrespecting, like a like a priest on Sunday. These dudes in Foi's face, you know, talker smack to them. And my assistant director came to me, I'm at video village checking the monitors, sitting next to Dre. They said, fab, you know the crew can't work. I said, Yo, Dre, is it possible? You know you can do to Drason man.
I can't tell them cast nothing.
So when I realized they wouldn't listen to Dre, I knew that was going to be a delicate issue. So when we finished that location, we went to the next location. These cats now was ready to get it in. By three four, fights had started and the police came. The helicopter swung and they basically shut us down. So it wasn't like a riot, but it was.
It was ugly.
They just had a riot, so they didn't want no massive gatherments like that. So that lets led me to and the rest of that summer out there hanging with Dre and the dog pown, getting to know them real well, seeing Dre's process in the studio, which was remarkable, and then we would get a moment to run out and get some scenes that would be other parts of the video, and then towards the end of the summer there was a big scene that I never got to shoot because Snoop got caught up famously.
Murder was the case. I said, Man, I'm out of here.
This is just enough.
But you know it was interesting. Snoop tells a story that.
The chronic had become the hot slang word for good cannabis on the street. He told Dre, the chronic is the hot thing, and call your album the Chronic, and Dre went with it.
Was is this just amazing to get that story behind the scenes and see it come to fruition, see it.
Coming fruition, and get that story years later, and then amazingly I make this film Grasses Greener, which looks at the connection between cannabis and America's music, So from jazz and Louis Armstrong, the greatest jazz people. That was their intoxicant of choice, because you know, you get really high
on cannabis, you still can play your instrument. You know, you like, if you get really drunk, that's not happening, right, And so it was an important part of that and laying all that out, looking at all genres and music from jazz, all the way to hip hop and then looking at the criminal justice thing inspired me to create a cannabis brand called be Noble, and I'm really fortunate that we were able to partner.
We own the company.
We made a licensing agreement with the biggest cannabis company in America, Curely. We give back a ten per cent of what we earned to organization and we're in nine states organizations helping people victimized by non for non violent cannabis offenses, and we donate money and then we take care of the brother that we named the story that we.
Focused on in the film.
This brother was given a thirteen year sentence for two joints of weed and he served seven.
His case was a big case.
Many organizations were fighting to get this brother freedom, and when he finally got a parole, we flew back down to film him walk out of prison. And then shortly after that, I got inspired to create this brand which is doing really well and raising awareness about these issues while selling fireweed actually, which is a growing business now which New York, which has now gone legal, is expanding licenses going out. I mean, there's some bumps in a row.
So that's a fascinating thing because once again, I feel so just blessed to be working in the space enlightening people about this powerful plant which has been vilified as a gateway drug and categorized next to heroin in the schedule. And there's a fight now because this obviously medical benefits. With the opioid crisis going on and hundreds of thousands of people dying, cannabis can be used and a lot of things that they prescribe opioids for, and it's so
it's a beneficial thing. So that's been been a big thing that I've been working on now, as well as all the other creative stuff.
Just to ship you.
Didn't bring any ship, baby, I got something.
We got you covered on that, baby.
Well, you got the fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, and we'll talk about that before we get about it.
I want to document fab You need.
You need a document like you yourself, Like you have to tell your story because you know, I hear it in bits and pieces, whether I've seen Black TV interviews, you know, the New York articles and stuff.
But I'm like, you need the proper telling of your tale.
Well, I'm working on I'm gonna I'm gonna soon be working on my memoir and lay it all out and then hopefully out of that process we can get a doctor done.
You know, it's funny.
No, we don't have a deal yet, but I got an incredible collaborator who's a very accomplished writer that I'm most likely going to work with, and we've had a few conversations, like I had a brief convo with Questlove actually started a publishing impress.
So I'd like to bid on it. Question I got my post called Blacker was publishing with Simon and Schuston.
Man without questions charlam Man, I'm sorry, I really should have known that. But also it's great having you guys on the podcast that we did, uh, the fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, which.
Was a fun I mean, I mean my man here King, Aaron.
King, who worked with my very dear friend Rest in Peace, Combat Jackle Combat Jack Show. So it's great to work with him and to really, you know, tell some of those foundational stories about the culture. You can go anywhere. Your pod casts are living any platform as.
A Black Effect production.
Yes, yes, Dolly Bishop, who is on your team.
We work together and you know, it's a it's a you know, it's an iHeart podcast, and that was fun to get to relive and tell some of these foundational stories, and especially with you guys when we did the show on on you know, hip hop radio, it really hit me like, you guys have gone at doing this at such an incredible level, remembering the Supreme Team, Mister Magic and Read Alert and when those when we just had
an hour or two on the weekends. Now you guys are doing this at such a major level and sharing those stories were special. To be able to remind people of these journeys that we've been on. So easy to just get caught up in what we're doing now. But the greatest thing about this fifty years is we've been able to once again tell the story of this journey that we've been on and how this thankfully is still
going on and going strong. And the main reason, I believe is because a lot of people stepped up and we've been able to take control once again. When Max Roach my godfather, and I'd hear my dad and those guys talk about stories and the Jazz era with Miles Davis and them, they wanted to have their own labels. They wanted to be able to control things that just wasn't happening in the nineteen forties and the nineteen fifties because of the way the dynamics and America racism and
things like that. So it was always a part of me to want to be able to adjust that to a certain point and be able to put that narrative in there, which is things that I see you.
Guys do, and I really appreciate that.
One final question, how did you get your name?
Because your name you predate Fab five from Michigan clearly, So how did you get your name?
And I know that they probably got it from you?
Yeah, they definitely the Fab five.
Yeah.
I became a part of a graffiti crew called the Fabulous Five. They were the one of the dominant groups of graffiti painters in New York which were known for doing murals on this side of the primarily on the Lexington Avenue number five train. I wasn't a part of that, but I wanted to take this whole thing to another level, and I collaborated and got down with a brother named Lee ken Jonis, who was a premium member of the
Fab five graffiti group. And you know, they had kind of eased off painting the most of the Fab five, and I connected with Lee and shared these ideas about taking it to another level, like from the subways into galleries, museums and stuff like that. So with the blessing of Lee and the other members, I became a part of the Fab five. So what you would tag up was, you know, you tag your name and the group you
was down with and then off. And then sometimes I would be referred to as, oh, that's Fab five Freddy. You know what I'm saying, that's fab fire fred And when Blondie made Rapture, it just embedded it and solidified it. When she dropped my name, when she basically was like Fab five, Freddy told me everybody's fly and I was like, man, wow, I never thought of it as the whole thing. But that's a good look, you know what I mean. She represented and gave me a look and it it booms.
So that's how that really came together.
Last last question, I know you said that, but I just want you to tell people how difficult it was to tag trains back in the day, because it was it wasn't easy. It's not like the train was just sitting there and you'll had eight hours to do what you had to do. I mean, y'all had to deal with police, you had to do with the train moving, you had to deal with the electricity in the trains, like y'all had some ish to deal with.
It was so just just talk about that.
There was a great documentary that was done at the same time we making Wild Style early eighties. There was a documentary called Style Wars that illustrates in fact, Kate Slay who's young graffiti rider named Dez is as a
young graffiti rider and he's you see him in Star Wars. Yeah. Man, You had to know where the trains what we called called the called the layup or in times when the rush hour is not running, the extra trains are placed in different areas in the city, sometimes in tunnels, sometimes
at the yards. So you had to know which train you wanted to get to get up on, where that train was going to be, whether in a tunnel or way up in the train yards at the end of the train line somewhere, and then you had to be stealthy on some ninja type energy to get up in there, because one of the objectives is also you know, not to get caught, and so you had to have all those pieces together to get in, get out, and hopefully not get caught.
You ever got caught taken the tray?
Never? Never, But what what would happen to you back when it was raging, which was not a good look if you get caught. One of your sentences was to go wash walls, So you.
Overalls, You're your bucket and a bunch of chemicals, and you'd be at some platform and some station having the clean walls, feeling like, man, I got caught out here.
I feel I'm like a herb now, you know.
So it wasn't easy. It was a very difficult thing and to really develop it. So that's a crazy part that we didn't like to talk about a lot because a lot of the paint was actually uh liberated.
You know.
It's funny when you go in anywhere that sells spray paint. Now in New York City, they still have the spray paint in a cage. It's like under lock and key, yep. And I had a lot to do with that form of expression, you know something I'm sorry, yeah, no saying you know, I had to get that paint.
It just something that people thought was just vandalism back in the day became something so synonymous part with New York City.
It gave the city character. You see it in video games, cartoons and everything.
That blows my mind. You know, graffiti fonts, you know, you can get a font and just use graffiti letters. So that's that's really satisfying to see that. That's a lot of these ideas we had have really worked. And I'm excited for the next fifty.
All right, well, we appreciate you for Freddy.
Thanks Freddy.
Wanted to be up here with you guy.
You brother absolute breakfast club.
So I'm getting ready to head out. I'm on my way to Burning Man tomorrow. I'm a part of the Burning Man world. I'm also on the board of directors, so I would be in the Vada desert having a blast once again. I know it looks a lot of weird to people if you don't know, but it's an incredible creative experience where artists come make incredible sculpture. Everybody that nobody's trying to sell anything. It's just amazing work
out in the desert. It's like being in a sci fi fantasy world of creativity.
It's amazing and I just want to tell you man, you are the shoulders that so many of us stand on. Whether you are journalist, whether you're a radio personality, the podcasters. None of us would be here without the foundation.
That a fab five friend. Are you back in the day, man, So we love you, and we value you, and we appreciate you. My brother, thank you.
I appreciate that so much.
Yes, it's the Breakfast Club, good morning.
Yes,