Roy's Job Fair - DJ Jazzy Jeff

celebrities about their journey through making a dollar. On this episode, I caught up with the homie d J Jazzy Jeff, who long before he was winning Grammy's the first ever Rap Grammy for Best Rap Performance with Will Smith. Before he did all of that, he was frying chicken at Roy Rogers. So we talked to Jeff about that and how he ended up DJ and and you know just where he sees the rap game moving as a whole. Now. It was a great episode. I really think you'll love it.

If you like the show, don't miss new episodes every Wednesday, and be sure to tell a friend. Roy's Job Fair is available on the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts now hiring rod. What are you doing here? You're early now hiring job. There are now companies offering unlimited PTO. Really this smells like a scam, but they say Netflix, Twitter, PayPal. Ever no Oracle LinkedIn, Chronos, get Hub, Broku, ch E, livet Shopping,

Fox and drop Box, amongst. The company's now giving you the opportunity to just live wherever you want and leave whenever you want and collect that PTO unlimited j G. Scam or not, that's a scam. You can't have unlimited anything. Even when you go to a buffet, you can't eat it all. I've seen people track. It's worth the try, though. If the PTO is unlimited, don't do the work. If that's not that's not my problem word, if that's not

my resume. You show up the work the first day and then you just never go back, and when they fire you, you just get to say, yeah, I used to work getting dropped back exactly, and the rest of those companies team names to all of them and don't show up the day and one day at each that's all you do. One day at e But this is my job. Then that after the first annual April Fool's Extraffickance. That was a good time. Shout out again to the

home girl resipis the open in Chicago. Wonderful. My director friend See Craig, who is always representing for Sackleson State Community Coach Leonard T. Falcon was wonderful. I wish they were real. He made some amazing points right, It's really fair, Like, yes, ugly people can't get policies past, so we need more educated, good looking people. Personally, AM very nervous around ugly people.

And I watched them. I watched because because if you look at the news, whenever something crazy has happened, the fucking per protray to ugly as ship. I watch ugly people don't like being around. I'm all for that ship. We have a single guest, you see his name right there in the description, no sense and acting like this is radio and I'm gonna surprise you. D J Jazz Jeff Um we somehow able to sucker in one of the first winners of a Grammy and to be in

a part of this acoustical radio presentation. He'll talk with us a little bit about his journey and the world of DJ and and just that hustle and scams of it. And you know I have no intentions of asking him ship about Will Smith. So let me just establish that right now with you're listening, because I know y'all wondering if I'm gonna ask DJ Jazz Jeff, what's up with your boy? Maybe when we get to ride, maybe ride, maybe we can talk about Will Smith and the slap

before we get into the CMO. I will say this about DJs, mm hmm. I think that DJ is an important skill in manipulating and motivating and moving people. I just wish that songs would give more credit to the other employees in the club. M every song is about the fucking DJ, praising the DJ and DJ turn it up, Go DJ, that's my DJ. Hey, Mr DJ, you're spending that song? What about the bottle girl? What about the motherfuckering, the back cooking, the wind fool? There never songs about

the waitress. There's all the songs about the bottle, but not about a girl brought you the bottle. The bartender shout out DJ and the bartender, and then not only do they only love the DJ and the bartender, it's also fuck security us in man, I know that you're mad because you're standing on the furniture and some my sucking a tight T shirt is politely asked you to get off of this. I kea furniture, but why is

it security and everything? Can there be one rap song where we should appreciate Hey, security, thank you for patting people down and dying first, dying first. We appreciate you, Mr security guard for keeping the club sounds happy than you used. The security man for dragging that drunk dude out the club, for the way you flicker your fleshlight through the crowd as people part, like the red seat. There's a way to solve this. There's a way to

solve this, honey. What you need to do is write a song about the women who work security at the club. El was like, you know those those women that are like six four two fifty. You know they're saying, be out there working security. You know what I'm saying. You gotta get props to the sisters Rolls and the pony til just beating us with the black gloves on. Oh yeah, her back so big, both of us can hide behind her. You know what I'm saying. I feel safer when it's

the women's security there because they don't play. You can hide right behind them. If you're at a club with a woman working security, yeah, you say nobody's going. She ain't got no qualms about swinging first. I've never seen a female security guard get her ass beat, not one time. Every one of them whooping ass, breaking the glass ceiling with your goddamn spine that I want to get into, Jazzy jeff Man, So let's jump Real FAST's most outstanding

employee of the week. You know, j G. I love a good scam, and I believe the college is a scam, a couple of scams, that it's overpriced. Let me put it there. A former Yale administrator found a number of invoices pretending to buy computer equipment for the beloved university, but instead it was found out that she bought a

fleet of luxury cars and several houses. Well done of the computer equipment orders that she made for Yale's medical school over the last eight years, allegedly, we're all focused, and she took the money and lived like a fucking rock star. I bet she had bottle service. Understand How how how did she deviate or get the money to go to awards. What she wanted to buy must have

had a co conspirator. Oh, it was beautiful. She was authorized to make purchases of ten thousand dollars or less without any approval, so she made a bunch of purchases, broke them down into ten thousand dollar parts so nobody checked on it, and then she had a third party she sent the electronics to in exchange for cash. This is brilliant, perfect, great shout out to chat Washington. He's

the one who emailed us this wonderful, wonderful CMO. You know, college is as it's one of those things you know, you stole from the students and the money could have been you for But as much as you overcharge people, especially fucking ivy League schools, I'm okay with this woman stealing forty million dollars tenth thousand dollars at a time over the course of eight years. I respected there's some skeletons in the closet up there. Yeah, she just got

some payback for it. I ain't upset with that at all. For scamming the scammers and enjoying the lavish life. Mercedes land Rods, Cadillac Escalation properties in several states lavish trips for doing that. You are codyes most Outstanding employee of the week. Totally support this one except thirty years And that's all right. We'll see you when you get out of jail. You'll be all right. Where the first time I am excited? G G. We normally you know, we

have guests. You know, this is the people's podcast. We've discussed that numerous times. This is there's a podcast for regular motherfucker's to call in and tell us about their life and their job. But every now and then we get royalty, We get somebody immaculate to get a motherfucker yes, who we trick and giving us. We sent over a nice PDF with pictures of who we are and what I do and what we mean to the world. And they fall for that ship and they agree to it.

And we have one today who number one was the soundtrack of my life? J G. Who do we have on the line because we're talking music today. Music absolutely, and it is a pleasure and an honor to actually enter these Grammy Award d Jazz Jazzy Jazz since nineteen jazz Jeff has wowed us with his flawless turntable skills and innovative production, not to mention his hilarious moments on

The Fresh Prince of bel Air. Most recently, DJ Jazzy Jeff has been busy traveling the globe while chronicling all of his travels in his popular Vinyl Destination, a web series that documents his experiences on an off stage Welcome Grammy Award winning DJ Jazzy Jeff Love that that was great? Mr Philiselphia? Was it at fourteen? You were djaye a block party with one thousand people outside in the street.

How did you find your north star so fast? I had some old heads in my neighborhood that allowed me to hang around. Um, they allowed me to carry records when they had to do block parties and house parties. Um, they just let me hang around because this was one of those things that you almost needed on the job training. Um. I got a chance to play when these guys went

to the bathroom, you know. So when they would go to the bathroom, be like, Jeff, hold it down, and I would always make sure I might have only got one record in, but I always make sure that I would change the record, play something good. Everybody's dancing and it was cool. So it really took um until I was about fourteen that someone actually came and asked me if I could do the block party on my own.

So brought my speakers and I said them on top of a van, and brought a receiver and two turntables and the mixer and the microphone and just started playing music. Excuse me. And you know, especially back then, if somebody else had a block party and a bigger DJ was doing it, your block party would have had no people. Almost the people that lived on the block would go to the better block. So the blessing was your old neighbors. They're just like, oh, DJ Sess and such is four

blocks away, I'll be back, see that real real. Early on the music stop mom man, early snops hard and Philly Man, because the music is so good, they could be like, no, man, you ain't hitting over here. You needed to grandmama, Jeff your own grandma and go up the street. Reason why you need it? You know that one time when there was no other block parties and a thousand people came and everybody got a chance to hear me play, so you only needed one. And then

next thing, you know, your book. The next week and booked the next week. And it was a little different, you know, because being fourteen and that young, I had some older guys that would kind of go with me. Um, and I didn't really have like the most liberal mom in the world, Like she wasn't really gone for that the house party is over at two o'clock, you know.

So I used to get teased a lot because pretty much about eleven forty, I would ask someone to start playing records for me and say I had to go to the bathroom and I would fly home to be home for midnight. Well, and that was the move. I was living dual lives. I was. I was Sarah's son, but I was DJ Jazzy Jeff also. So until Sarah kind of got an understanding of DJ Jazzy Jeff, you had to live dual lives. So then were you doing? You know? And you know, this is a part of

the show. We talk about, you know, worst jobs and first jobs. And clearly I believe if I'm correct me from Rome DJ and was your first job? Did you do anything with a paced up at any point? Oh? Absolutely? Get teenage years on, did you? I was the Chicken Fire and Rory Rogers chicken with a lot of pride. Yeah, I probed the chicken like I seasoned. It came in

the bag. But listen, in my mind, I seasoned that chicken and I cleaned out all of the crumbs of the oil because I wanted people to eat the chicken like I wanted to eat the chicken. You know, you've been to that place where you could tell that the grease was burnt and all of us to that, so, you know, and making sure that on my shift and Roy Rogers, you would get the best chicken that y you wanted to catch. You fry the chicken and then you peek out into the lobby to see the people

take that first bite into the chicken they like. Well, listen, I was cool, and except when they asked me to work on Sundays, because you know what was up on Sundays when that bust pull up. You know how it is on Sundays. Ain't nobody ordering the burger. Everybody's getting chicken. How were you able to put your parents at ease? Hey, I'm done with Roy Rogers. I'm straight on going to college. This is what I want to do. And what should what should parents take from that? Conversation that you had

with your parents. Well, you know, the one thing that I will give my mom credit for is as long as I was doing something productive, she pretty much left me alone. You know, she didn't really have to say

so in what my career choice was gonna be. She just didn't want me hanging around the house doing nothing or hanging in the streets pretty much doing so you know the fact that you know, you might make thirty dollars at a house party on a Friday, I'm coming home Friday and Saturday, you know, with some money, I'm

trying to do it. And you know, once Will and I hooked up, like it got to a point that I kind of became the biggest DJ in the city just by doing like and it was really hard because you know when your mom friends comes up and they're just kind of like, oh my god, you know, so what are you doing? And you tell you know, especially this this now, this is like when you tell somebody I'm a DJ. The first thing they say on the radio now and that kind of that that doesn't really

sound right, I'm a I'm a street DJ. Well, what the hell is the street dj? The only reason it was a little bit smoother by the time we got to the point to go on tour that you know, Will and I hooked up at a house party, same thing, and then we just kind of went all over the city and did everything and kind of became the biggest thing in the city. And next thing, you know, he brings this record promoter over to the house. That was like, hey,

I want to put a record out with you guys. Um. Will was on his way to m I t um, I wasn't trying to meet Glory Rodgers a career move, but that was kind of side. But you have been promoted to hear Chicken Season. I mean, I was proud of my promotion, but that wasn't where I was trying to go for the rest of my life. So, you know, I really looked at it like I'm gonna be able to tell my kids one day that I made a record.

You know, My whole thing is hold it in my hands and I can show my kids like, look, your dad made a record. One day. All right, now, let me go back to the gas company. We ended up doing the first record and we put it out and a week the record was number one in Philly. In two weeks, the record was number one in New York a week and had two two and a half weeks. It was in l a and a month later we were on top of the pops in London. So it was kind of like, I don't really understand what's going on,

how this is happening. Me and Will had to look at each other because it was one of them things that He's like, I think I need to tell my mom and dad that I'm not going to m I T and I want to see how far this goes. And I was already like listening already untild Roy, I ain't coming back, you know, like that meant then I ain't coming back, so and and you know it's it's it sounds cliches, but that was thirty eight years ago

and never stopped being a creative. It means you have no security net if you fall, but you don't have a ceiling. So it's kind of like, listen, I can take the job, you know, listen at Roy Rogers, I was only gonna be the manager. I was never gonna own that ship. I was only the highest thing I can go as being the manager. But I would always have benefits. I would always have insurance. You know, and that's the ceiling and the floor in the creative field.

It's kind of like, listen, if I fall, I'm gonna fall flat on my face. But if I've rise, I have no idea how high up I'm gonna go. So and that's all I've ever known. From the time of Me Make and Chicken and Rory Rodgers, I never had a plan B. Like I've always believed that a plan B means that you think your Plan A can fail. And I had to have it in my head that, by no way, shape or form, am I going to

fail at this. I'm curious about how do you convey to the neo fights, the newbies in this industry that they have to separate the glitz and glamour from the business side of being paid to be in the club. Please help them, you know, I've always had people come to me and ask you for advice, and I realized the order that I've got, it's harder to give advice because I'm giving advice from a night four Jeff, that

that advice does not translate the same way. You know in four you could not become successful in a creative field by copying somebody else. You had to be a rich you had to try to figure out a way that I was going to separate myself. It used to be this big cliche that Tuesday, all of the new music comes out, and if everybody is lined up on the shelves, why are they gonna pick you? What is the defining thing in you to make someone pick you?

In today's landscape, copy what everybody else is doing. Like everybody sounds is saying, you turn radio on, And I'm almost like you can take flash cards and change the names of the artists because all of them the sound is saying. You're like, damn, I didn't know that was to that one, because they all sound and saying, So how do I give the young kid advice and say, listen, man, you need to go and you need to be original.

He's like, Yo, they're gonna laugh me off the club if I don't sound like Beyonce or you know, you started at fourteen and there was no rule book, no manual, you know what I mean. But there's a lot of folks, myself included, who kind of look at you as a as a pioneer, like you you created the Transformer scratch, but like when you created that ship were you really thinking, oh ship, I created this or were you thinking, like, you know, like this is just something that I thought

you were just talking about making yourself separate. So like at the time, was something like that, because I'm curious you already now I feel about that you're a genius. Like did you know you was making the ship? When you were making the ship? You know what I mean? Like no, not, not not at all. And it's funny because, um, Kenny Gamble is like a big brother to me, always been brother, always gave me some of the greatest wisdom.

And one of the things that he said to me is, whenever you're making history, you don't know when you're doing You only know after. We had no clue, no clue. Like I said, this started off with me wanting to show my kids I made a record. I didn't have any dreams or desires for this to be a career. This was Oh ship, I get a chance to make a record. Everybody wanted to make a record back then, you know, And it was fourteen rap groups back then. Yeah,

it wasn't hundred, it was fourteen. And you know, if he an't even saying that on me, you know, I mean, I don't want to be salty because I'm took many years to get over this because I'm ahead. But y'all beat trial called quests for that first fucking Grammy. Bro, I've never forgotten, like if there's no testament to technically how good parents just don't understand what y'all beat fucking tried, Like that's a that's like a collar pop of all time.

Yeah yeah, I mean in Q tip is nice, but we did but for that grammar and like you know, at the end of the day, like I tell people all the time, like the thought that historically where you all stood on doing what you did, that was the first Grammy ever, Like that's just ill like to me if I'm you know again, like to think you all had to be in your team still like the history of that ship, I think, well, no, I think Will might have been like twenty, Will might have been twenty.

I'm I'm like three year m hmm, But I mean still, you know, listen the year that we've won. The year before I was sitting on my mom's floor watching it. I remember going to rehearsal, looking at the row and looking at the flash card with Michael Jackson's name on it and Whitney Houston's name. It seemed like you was in the trade last year watching this on television like this has been up. How the hell did I get here a moment for thirty eight years after the break?

I want to I want to ask you and j G. We'll get to your question on the other side, but I want to talk a little bit about the scams that exists within your in the three and you know you strike me as an honorable brother, but I bet you didn't ran some scams on some of these dayn promoters to get your money, some tricks of the DJ trade. And we also, of course to homing Ardo a k

Rod for short. We'll have him on and you'll drive all of this good wheel right off into addiction and we'll we'll can rebuild it on the other side with d J Jazzy Jeff. That's a job fat. We'll be right back, job fair, back in this thing. D J jazz Jeff. You're gonna get back to him in a second. So much knowledge, man, something good question I need to ask him about the Grammars and weather Out Award shows are scams, which I think Loki are scam. Uh. We'll

get to him in a second. But first, this is the part of the show where we give you the job fair list, or an opportunity to scrounge up a couple of topics to share the co workers of the opposite race. As the country opens back up and you have to head back into the workplace. I'm sure it's getting a little awkward there at cubiclea year moving truck or whatever your face to face situation is, how you get your cheese. Help us do that. We bring on

our resident black people white people ologies. He is the pastor of the first Baptist Church of pimpon right now. He is looking for his fifth first lady, all right now there. He is a peanut butter whiskey connoisseur, international gentleman of leisure. I can't stand simping. But it's not stand simping. He is undefeated. That's over the counterpregnancy tests with a lifetime record of seventy three oh but too inconclusive. We call him Rod for short. Rod. Welcome aboard the

special Jazzy Jeff edition of the episode. Wrapping a little bit earlier there about Yale and still in computers, we bring right on this program and give the topics to break the ice. Rob which which way you want to

go to them? We gotta get back to jazz, Jeff here in the second turn it over the well um, speaking of jazzline, Jeff, I think the only thing there is to talk about right now with what everybody's talking about black people are white people of all races all around the world are talking about Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscar ceremony. Now, there's been a lot that's happened in the last couple of Will Smith apologized.

Bill Smith resigned from the Academy. I think last week project have been suspended left and right now that Will was starring in and producing them. To me, its feeling a little big over cue here, my fu, I made a mistake. Let's wait to see what Chris Strap. It's hard to stand up for unfair sentencing without sounding like you're condoning the actually, because the way the Internet works is you're either A or B. You cannot be in between the two. Yes, was wrong, but just give them

the chair. If you're gonna do all this, ship to it and just give them. That's what's happening though, j G. That's what we're I'm raising my voice. We are approaching this digital lynching that I think it's starting to exceed what the crime was that right, this is a very divisive, especially along race. Finds a lot of black folks who feel like white folks shouldn't even be talking about this time up on that one. That's where I'm at. Ain't okay?

So then, as a white person, how do you bring up the slap to your black co workers and have looked chit chatting. It's a simple thing to do because it's what most people are feeling. You just bring it up under the guise of wasn't that insane? Because I think that the reason people are having such a hard problem process and this is because if you're under the age of fifty, this is in like the top five

craziest things you've ever seen in your lifetime. It goes the Challenger explosion nine eleven, okay, oh J Chase, oh J. Sampson, the insurrection, Will Smith, slapping the ship out of Chris,

rockets oscars. Those those are the five craziest things that have happened since the since and the fact that no one died in the Will Smith This is true, but I think another reason that people don't understand what's going on is because every everybody on this show right now is black and also a professional and his rolled in

upper crust and white circles and corporate circles. You have to understand that the people in that room at the OSCARS and the people who run the OSCARS, people in those type of situations, the amount of nigga ship they are comfortable with is zero fucking percentic You don't this stuff doesn't happen where they're from. This stuff doesn't go on in their society. They don't know that is not the most serious thing in the world, because this is

the craziest thing that's ever happened in the naship. If you're black, you've seen somebody get snapped out of bershop, you know, Fellowship Hall Family, Bob. I feel like I feel like we've gone across many different mediums to try and explain to people, whether it's been cartoons, movies, songs, They're trying to explain to people this kind of ship.

And I really think, right and now I've talked about this the most illustrated moment that I could think of, Or you think this is the boom doctors, the whole world witnessed the Nigamo. I don't care to anybody says that's literally what it was. And to further argue Rod's point here, correctly, a lot of people ain't used to seeing that ship. That's just all it was to it. I mean, that kind of stuff does happen at Pratt meetings and other places that you know, black posts. If

somebody gets offended, that ship goes down. It's not and it's not always most glamorous, right, It's not always the most glamorous and elegant. It really just proves that you never know when it's somebody's gonna have a human ass moment. You never know when somebody's just gonna have a human That was a human moment that was way beyond just on some old offense ship or whatever that was. That was him and that dude at that point, that was some human ship. This is going to be a touchy

subject in a lot of office places. So I just that's why I wanted to bring this up space to figure out. You know, so you're saying, just go to black people. Wasn't that crazy? And then wasn't that insane? You can give your take on the different sides of what happened. But yeah, don't don't meet out any form of punishment yourself. Don't say what you would think should happen to anybody. But there's gonna be follow up interviews.

Will Is gonna have a sit down. They're gonna have to ask Jada and then Chris Rockey, whether it's on stage or something, you'll sit down with Oprah, a Gail King or whatever. And there's gonna be also deeper discussions about black women's hair. It's gonna be discussions about bullying, Like there's so many discussions about therapy and Will Smith's book and talking about him being him, witnessing his mother being a beauty and did what triggered him to protect Jada? Like, yeah,

it's gonna get all their relatives responses and ship. I didn't even know Chris rock had an extra brother to is monkey stuff anybody in the name of absolutely with the ships. You know, we joke a lot, Rob, but I'm being serious, like, how do you navigate this conversation without pissing off one of your co workers? I'm pissing off a woman or you know, Like that's the part of it that I think people need to be thinking about as as this as we unpacked this over the

next couple of them. So you gotta you gotta look at it completely objective. You gotta find a way to take yourself out of the equation and what you would have done if you were in either one of their shoes, and things like that, or like I said, what you think should happen to Will Smith and all of that, because that's that's very touchy because most people who are black, that you're gonna talk about this, they're gonna make it personal.

And because they're gonna make it personal, they're gonna take it personal when you start talking about what your opinion is on what should happen, because black people press and it's very got. You gotta keep your emotions and check. You gotta not be like Will Smith. You gotta keep your emotions in checking this situation because the craziest thing about this situation is that we saw Will Smith, on the best night of his career, do the worst thing

he could have ever done in his career. It's the ultimate irony, and that's really the thing that makes this so crazy. It's also I think an issue for black men who are talking to black women, Yes, who have dealt with hair issues. Man, regardless of how you feel about alopecia, being in a condition to really happened to me? And what about Lebron's hairline? Regardless you're talking to a woman co worker who's self conscious about her hand, she's

got bigs and weaves. Are you feeling flipping about somebody doing a joke about the hair. You gotta be able to navigate that without getting the HR don I just this just really feels like a topic that just talk about something else. Major League Baseball is bad, tough about basically just change yourself as a kid for a moment. I think that there is another thorn to this as well. We have to be careful as women, not too massily

like being as well. I'm not saying that you have to treat them and coddle them or anything like that, but this is basically a symptom of something. And then also, last but not least, I didn't want to see another Bad Boys anyway, but go ahead, Yes, Now that's a very validable in this situation, is that word Boys four has been posed. And that's wonderful news for everybody because we never see the light of day. I agree, and that's a good place to stop because now y'all slandering

an iconic franchise. But I bet you'll cool with Lead the Weapon Part six coming out, Gibson and Danny, I don't want to. The podcast is Uncle Rod's Story Corner. You can get it wherever you download this fine podcast. Rod. That's always brother. Thank you for coming through and see you next week. Thank you Rod. Bless up scam of the week time. Thank you Rod as always being chaotic and unreasonable when we have a decent guest. M uh, Jeff,

this is part of the show. We'd like to talk about, you know, things that you might have stolen from your job. I think you've seen stolen some of the slick ship that's been on your world. I have a couple of questions about award shows, and I want to go back to your comment about the music industry and there being a lot of vocal and acoustic similarities in today's music for the detriment of the culture. J G. I'll literally file first because I'm gonna be angry and I get

to my shop. No, I want to ask you about what you do to make the world a better place, and I know you do. Um. You know it's funny. Uh. I always looked at my job as a DJ as I am a servant of the people. I think people get the job of a DJ misconstrued. It is not about me, it is about you. My job is to make you have a good time. My job is to make nice. If you had a bad week, I'm gonna make you forget about that week. If that girl left you, I'm gonna help you find. My job is to strain

music together to create an emotion of joy. So I'm gonna give you an hour and fifty five minutes of pure joy, and then I am going to show my ass for the last five minutes. And you were going to walk out and say he is the ship. It's djn't like stand up comedy where I get fixated on the one person who's not laughing. If you have a whole dance for a rocket and it's one person in the cut just sitting on the wall, is that who you're kind of like? I listen, I love that. I

love when you got to do what to do? Rag On and he is in the front and he is ice grilling because he is too cool to move, And I look at my partner and I smiled and I said, how long you things gonna take? How long is you gonna take? And I see, I got a bunch of records. If you ever heard me play, I got a bunch of records that start off with the sample and it morphs into the record that they use it. I know, I know it's coming, so I'll throw it on and you always get that what the fuck is he doing?

And which is half as smile on. And as it started morph you start to get the look to the side, and then the odds get big and it's like, oh ship that I'm looking like, got you? Got you? Got you too? Cool? Because it's always somebody's always somebody in the comedy show. It's always somebody at a party that you come for the wrong reason. You're coming because I'm angry and I wanna you know, I'm trying to I want to show I want to show the comedian up.

I don't want to laugh at his stuff. Everybody in the world's laughing, but I'm not. And it's kind of like, you know, at some point in time, I'm gonna break you down. I'm curious, what about taking care of you? You have any hobbies like, are you a candlemaker or something on the back end? What do you do to take care of you? You know what's funny. I have a sign on my wall in the studio that said, um, music is not what I do. Music is who I am. I don't have my hobbies is music. I make music.

I play music. You know. It's that's it. That's it. It's always been like the in, it's in. It's the biggest blessing and it's the biggest curse because I got an internal DJ and he will never stop. He don't ever stop. Like at the most in opportune times, he's gonna play public enemy and you're like, yo, man, I am in church. So the Grammy Awards just happened a couple of weeks ago. Shout out to the Homi Trevor

Nor for Houston and you all were nominated. At a time We're Wrapped was not respected and Rapp was not televised. You know yourself, and Will decided not to even show up for the damn thing. And then you have the thing going on with jay Z and them. A little bit later, as hip hop grew into the nineties, and now we're at a time where you know, they told Kanye he couldn't come. But now the conversation the weekend didn't go the year before, I was like, I don't

get y'all kiss my ass too. Has rap grown beyond the need for mainstream acceptance or do these awards still matter because when we talk about scams, part of me feels like this idea of performing and creating music for the sake of trophies has erased some of the originality of the art form. And what you were talking about earlier in the first break about everybody's sounding the like, I think a lot of that has to do with it.

And you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but as an outsider, and you know, and I and I did morning radio during the Crunk era. I came up bleeding and Gara and Crunk era morning radio. For the most part, Nelly, a little bit of loota. Everybody, every record label wants everybody to sound like whoever just had to hit. The radio stations don't want to take a chance on anybody original because they just want you to play.

They just want you to do the hits, and those are the people who are then nominated for the awards. That's why even today Ralph like a group like Tribes still wouldn't get fucking They still wouldn't win a Graham. And do you think that the awards show machine plays a role to a degree in the record labels deciding who to sign who? Do you give a hunt thou

advanced too? Then that dictates the lack of originality. Where where in the music industry assembly line have we failed the culture with regards to the lack of originality and what we have now sonically? Well, I, you are right, you are a hundred percent wrong. In the order, the coward show is last in the line. The record company is first, the record company is first, so everybody is sounding the same. Is the fault of the record company

because the record company can sign whoever they want. The record company can sign trial, but they just choose to sign someone who sounds like someone who sounds like someone because and and and the harsh reality of it is, none of these record companies give a shit about music. This is this is a numbers game to do. They're not in the music business. So for the artists at heart who really wants to get his art out, they do everything short of saying we don't give a funk

about your art. We really don't we care about is can your art make some money. I've always heard that when y'all dropped Summertime and hit him by surprise, it was always a story I heard like that, because Summertime, as far as I'm concerned, that's like my junior senior

high school classic. I know where that song backwards upside down, drowning in water, and like the story I always heard, and please if you can that because I feel like it kind of goes to your point, like talking to me about that man, Like I always heard that song came out and it was kind of like a left blow, like they didn't see it coming type of thing they

did not. That was the last song that we recorded on album the record label we put our girls in that The Trouble was our first record, our first song, our first big song on the first album we put our parents just don't understand, and it blew up after that everything they wanted us to do. I will never forget. And I've said this to him that Dougie Fresh crushed me because girls ain't nothing but Trouble was a cult

classic and the record company wanted us to do. Parents just don't understand so bad that they convinced us to go back in the studio and re record girls Ain't nothing but trouble. Kind of like parents just don't understand and us not knowing, we were kind of like, Okay, that might be a good idea, and we did it. And I remember Douggie coming up to me at a show and he looked at me and he said, why y'all funk up? Girls ain't not but uh? And I looked at him. He was like, what what that? There

was nothing wrong with that record. Why did you redo that record to make it a pop record? And the funny thing is I didn't know that. What we did, oh like a record company came and said, hey, we want pop success out of your first single. They were just like, yo, you know would be cool is if you re recorded because the recording might have been bad. And we went in the studio and re recorded it

and it wasn't the same thing. We're not gonna give it to the award shows because when you when you go down the chain of events, it's the record first. The record comes out, the radio gets the record, you know, the record company promotes the record on radio, ord and give him a bunch of money. Absolutely, if we believe it, we're gonna give you some some money to play it,

to see if the people will respond to it. And if they respond to it and in in a big way, they're gonna come see you perform, They're gonna buy the record, and it's so on and so forth. But it has zero to do. And I'm talking this is that it had very I'm not gonna say zero, but it had very little do with creativity. Oh it's zero today. It's far that the creative music that we get the the mind boggling. Oh my god, this is great when you think about it. It comes fewer and fewer today, you know, few,

Oh my god. Bruno Mars was an anomaly, like oh, Ship and Pat, what where did that come from. It's not that it's not good music out there. Don't don't get me wrong. Here's a bunch of good news. The problem is you don't turn the radio on and here the good music. You know, I'm not trying to sound bad. Radio is to me, radios are dying. For me. Radio is part of the problem, and it's a dying format

because it's not breaking new fucking music. It's a bunch of it's eighty percent of the stations all playing the same forty songs. So there's nothing special about any of those stations. And that's part of the problem, which is why I love the fact that Atlanta, Memphis, Philly even

back then. I'm not I can't speak to Philly now, but there's certain urban markets that protect the local creatives and fucking put them on And that's why those cities have a unique sound because it was fostered because the fucking radio station gave a funk and didn't listen or didn't care about New Orleans as well, flip where they didn't care about the national sound, like this is what we're doing here, and y'all can either get with it

or not. I don't know the year when the radio station started becoming um pretty much clear channel and everybody else kind of to the point that the radio stations did the car manufact radio mentality that it wasn't about the music. We're trying to sell cars. We're trying to sell cars. And once they did that and use that formula that had zero to do with music, it changed radio.

All right, Let's kick it to a break real quick. Afterwards, I want to talk to you about the hurdles that DJs are facing and like trying to get it, Like I'm trying to get into DJ game. How to hear do I do that job? Then we'll be right back job there braining home O G d J, Jazz Jeffrey and lady. What are some of the hurdles facing DJ two d J you trying to get in the game, Like, you know, how hard is it to try and stand out during the pandemic? Guys like d nice guys like myself.

God's like quest love us streaming. We woke up grown for We woke up because the one thing that I would always say, the grown folks is the most underserved community in the world. We don't have we don't have music, Like I'm sitting there like yo, either, I gotta wear some air. Jordan's a sketchers. Where's my ship? You know? We are underserved. So now what happened is we all home sitting there and the one thing that I've realized,

you know who wasn't streaming young people? People were sitting in the house waiting for outside to open back up. You know, he was enjoying all of the streams us is quarantine. Nic had open quarantine up listening to him play. Ask yourself, did d Nice play any new music? No, nothing but classics. Became the biggest DJ on the face of the earth, playing for people in a pandemic, playing nothing but classic music. I tell you something about the

new music. Like when we were moving from Virginia to Jersey, it was your It was your streams that we played in the background and kept everybody bouncing and moving. When we gotta up here to Jersey and and started barbecuing and ship. It was your joints that we played and put up on Twitch that made the whole entire neighborhood actually come around and be like, hey, who are you guys? Y'all playing some decent ship? So like, thank you, mag

like the streams and stuff. What you're saying. As a grown person who was in that grown person range, I appreciate it, man, Like you you really have like helped a lot of folks, my damn self included, because like man, some of your mixes and your spends over the last couple of years have just been amazing. And you still break new artists always, you still break new artists and

bring out people. There was a Um. There was a young lady not too long ago that you put an ep I with which was beautiful um Aya a Um, yeah, Man, I play music like I want the radio to sell. And I've said, unapologetically, unapologetically, I've said, don't you wish

the radio sound like this? So as we get ready to get you out of here, you know this is the part of the show what we talk about, you know, employment and growth, and you know we've already talked about, you know, your adventures as a creative and trusting your instincts even when you didn't know what was beyond the horizon,

you just knew that you had to run that direction. Now, you spent a lot of time today painting a very bleak picture about the music industry and how motherfucking creative ain't getting there, ain't no money in it, and Spotify taking all the money, and even if you get an award, it's because somebody paid off one of the people that vote for the ship. And then you gotta go and do the tours and they've taken your T shirt money

on the tour because of a three sixty deal. Why the fuck and how the fuck does anyone today get into the me you said in an interview. I think it was on Drink Champ shout out to Nori and them over there and d J F and UH when you talked about how the separation of the rapper and the DJ it forced the DJ to start finding their own way as a performer without the rapper. And now DJ's are as popular, if not more popular than rappers

when all they do is just play hits. They're not having to I d e. They're not having to create all of that stuff. So if you're a DJ today in this digital world, how are you able or what can you do um to to break into any of this world? You know, we don't have to get into rapper. Let's just keep it DJ's for the sake of for the sake of breathty um. I think I don't want to say it's simple. I think you have to approach it like what do people want and what do people need?

And that goes back to when I said a DJ is the servant of the people. Once you understand what people want and how to serve them, then you will work forever. If you can keep people on the dance floor. I can be nine years old and still be working because it's the goal. The goal is to make people have a good time. Now where it gets difficult is, hey, when you go into a club today, nobody's dancing. No,

everybody is taking selfiest. Everybody is. Everybody boys one bottle and you passed the bottle around and everybody takes a picture with it because the bottles three hundred dollars, so anybody can't buy a bottle, so you gotta take a picture. You gotta take you know, you know, people ain't dancing in the clubs no more. When I seen white folks have a dog on Chi chi slide competition in the club, I was like, what the fun is happening? Why nobody

think about it? It went from you know, it went from pretty much open format and then the E d M thing took over, which you know, the one thing that I will say about the E d M thing is the E d M the E d M thing had to dance for a pack that was replaced by track you to dance to trap music. So what happens is now you got somebody who spent ten million dollars on this amazing nightclub in Las Vegas, and the dance floor is full of people taking selfies and they're like, okay, ship,

what happened and app gave way to drill? Yep, okay, why are people just discovering drill in man? Why are people just acting like drill just happened? Jeff, please tell me that why people like drill just showed up like it's just new, Like the UK wasn't doing this ship for like ten years, but now pop smoke is robbin nigg is of a motherfucking xanax and ship and now we drill it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that absolutely. Let me tell you you could grab one of them E. D. M.

Rutgers and line that ship up with Planet Rocket. It's the same rucker there's we just slap a new label on it and say and give it a name. Let me tell you something. There was no such thing as neo soul, Dallas neo soul like everybody needed to give something a latle. It's so music. What's the neo in it? Well, you know cocoa butter when you had cocoa button and soul music is regular lotion, but cocoa butter is inside. I do do so up as well, that black so

that you use. That's what makes it special. But little Chopper instance, and I hope that you're able to do it until you're a hundred and forty years old. J G. Where's he hit it? Later on this spring and summer. I think we all need to go as a group. May twenty six, he'll be in Austin, Texas at the Mohawk Hot Luck Fest. Then and this is beautiful May twenty nine, Pittsburgh p a flying the un Intergalactic Boundaries through stam he's the master of the MIC fundraising Festival.

And then in August from the through it's gonna be in stock Pork u K. So I think we need to travel with him. This all sounds right. If you don't catch him at any of those dates, you can catch him frying chicken at the rail road on the New Jersey turnpick. I still got it with in the

Walt Whitness Service A DJ Jesse Jeff. When I say thank you sincerely for the gift that you've given Black culture over the past four decades, I mean it sincerely, sir, thank you, Thank you for sharing your journey with us. We appreciate you for being a part of the job fan. Anytime you save my life, your sir. Yes's uh. We appreciate Joe J. Thank you so much. That's the show. Royce John FIfF is a product of Paramount Our Heart Radio,

Comedy Central and South Park and Princeton Productions. That was a good episode. Man. We didn't get a chance to ask Jeff why everybody loves the DJ and the bartender in every rap song. That's always my problem. Every song is DJ, turn it up, haves DJ. I loved the e J to give security charity trying to keep you safe. You know what I mean. You know it's the other thing, you know. We didn't get to ask him as well, why the funk at the five hundred and eighty seven

rappers named little in the game. There's five hundred and eighties seven littles. That's a separate conversation Guinness World Book and Records five hundred and eighty seven fucking littles in the goddamn I'm sorry, I got the calm down. I'm I'm just all right. We gotta go because Ralph needs to smoke one. That's the show. We'll be back next week.

Thank you for listening to this special preview of Royce job Fair don't miss new episodes of Roy's Job Fair every Wednesday, available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Comedy Central podcast