QLS Classic: Common

Of Course Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora This Sugar Steave.

On this week's QLs classic hip hop artist, actor and poet Common talks about how being an NBA ball boy brought him court signed for Michael George's rookie season, his musical influences, and personal memories of his time with Jay Dillon. Recorded in front of a live audience, February twenty first, two thousand and eighty.

Here we go, su Primo.

It's up, Supremo, roll call Suprimo, Sun Supremo, roll.

Call SUPREMEA wait, time out of timeout. Let y'all know, we never tell the guests what they're getting into. So those that are familiar that always wonder why the guests always mess up during the theme and why.

His as so big right now, Like what the fuck?

We literally don't tell them. We just pointed them and watched. We have fun at their expense all right. Time for the SI one two three.

Supremo, Supremo, roll call Suprema s Supremo, roll call Suprema something something Supreme, roll call Subpremo something something Supremo.

Roll com reck come from the shot. Yeah, they can looten large amounts. Yeah, Crochet and vegan free. You still can't count.

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My name ain't Sugar, My name ain't Bill. It's not like yah, my name is young.

Sure, roll Suprema something Supremo.

Roll was not nervous stage right. I want to make sure this roll call comes out just right.

Supremo some some Supremo roll call Supremo some some Supremo roll.

Yeah, here it testify, Yeah, and all his lies Supremo, Supremo roll call.

Some Supremo roll call names common. Yeah, I'm for the people. Yeah, my boys from Philly. Yeah, grow Father Eagles, spre.

Supremo, roll Suprema, some Supremo role call Supremo.

Some some Supremo role called Supremo something something.

Supremo roll call. Thank you, Thank you. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Uh, welcome to our very first live recording of Quest Love Supreme. Uh. I am Questlove. To the left of me is show producer. Uh and god boss Bill. That's right. I will try. My goal for this is not to make him angry with my rambling. Uh. And to his right, Uh, it's it's like yah as Yeah, it's like you're not broadcasting on Instagram.

No, child, I would never do that.

Uh. To the left of Uh. To the left of Liaiah is uh Sugar Steve, our longtime engineer UH for uh the hardest kind of the connecting force between uh common rash I'm talking about for he was h part of the engineering crew of Like Water for Chocolate and Electric Circus and Voodoo and all the Roots albums. Young Yea,

He's really trying to make a big someday.

Welcome newcomer, common to quest Love, Superior, Lazy, thank you, Thanks y'all, Thank y'all for having me. I'm excited. I'm gonna put my headphones on so I can hear you. So you said you're excited.

Yeah, man, I mean this feels good like I mean it's for me. It's like we're having a mirror and you is.

The exciting thing probably ever feel well.

In my top, in my top three hundred and sixty three, seriously and sixty two.

It feels great to be coming on here. Thank you.

Yeah, like it's people. I know, it's great to see us.

Yeah, I forgot to warn you that this is going to be live in front of an audience as well. Yeah he did called him like, hey, you want to be on the show, just stop by.

Already already got the warning, Like you don't do no, gotcha, Yeah I do god, he got he do? Gotcha good me? I know I'll get you good. No, I mean we're gonna warm up first.

But actually, you know what, it's as long as I've known you, I mean, I've known you for like twenty years, but I don't know much about uh, your childhood or just your the beginning, your your your pre emc years. I assume that you were born in Chicago, correct, Yeah, born in Chicago? What part?

I was born and raised on the South side of Chicago, the Hospital County Hospital to be specific. And the funny thing, my father always, my father, my father and my mother always argued over if it was raining or snowing when I was born. And that's I put that in one of my new raps now because it's it was always a significant thing. My father used to stick with that, even though when they weren't together. He was like, it was snowing when you was born, and my mother always say it was raining.

But who knows? All right, So can you explain to me? I mean, because now, especially in the political climate that we're in, this whole like hashtag what about Chicago? What about Chicago? I mean, explain, explain to me what the South side of Chicago was like growing up in the seventies and the eighties, and then because my thoughts of it are just like, Okay, well there's good times. Yeah, I know that they've had the largest amount of housing projects.

Yeah, I mean, well, Chicago is a very segregated city. Let me start there, and it was actually founded by a black man, a Haitian brother by the name of

That was part of the culture. But it also was like a.

Black love movement too, Like we had the Black peat Stones and the Black Panthers also existed, and they worked together at certain points, and then you know, we we at one point in the mid eighties had our first black mayor. He was our Barack Obama. His name was Harold Washington Mayor Harold Washington. So it gave our city a lot of a lot of pride to see a leader. In fact, at some point, I believe Barack Obama worked on some in some shape form of fashion on one

You've been there, well, growing up close to a city that was also similarly affected across the river in Philadelphia. It's Camden, New Jersey. And because they had the Coca Cola bottling industry and also Campbell soup factories, everyone was employed and you know, it was kind of like a working class society over there. And then once those those two companies went elsewhere, and it was desolate and then there was a rising crime. Like was there an exodus or.

What was the moment when they started to change?

Well, I think the moment was was Obviously the war on drugs was part of it because that started taking men out of the homes, Black men out of homes. And then on another level, even to be honest, like the when the higher up ranking gang members started getting removed from that culture, then it was like the younger gang guys was like didn't have an order. It's almost like when you watch those mob movies. If somebody that that that's in the top gets taken away, then it's yeah, yeah,

Did you how did you avoid uh? Gang bang and culture? Like how did you avoid or did you or could you? I mean like going walking to school? Is it like well, I mean.

It's it almost is no way to avoid it if you are I don't, din't. It didn't matter what Like I'm my mother's a teacher, my stepfather is a plumber. I grew up like for me, that was I had a decent home, like I had parents that cared. I had an opportunity to go to After the public schools went on strike, my mother was like, we're getting you into private school.

She worked hard.

I got into private school, so I had opportunities, but I also didn't. I still had to rub up against gang culture because on my.

Block it's dudes. This this part of either.

The Blackstones or four corner hustlers. That's when neighborhood. I grew up around vice lords, so it was no way I was avoiding it. My way was to be involved but not go too crazy. And that's just honestly what I did. I was like a part of it, but I was like, I'm not going over here to be to start shooting. I'm gonna go over here to just like make it through. And y'all know I'm down, but I ain't. You ain't gonna see me.

Chill a little, smoke a little, drink a little.

And be on your way right and no fight a little.

Okay. I was about to say, what kind of in school, I'm wondering what that but.

But but my point is it wasn't I had a What kept me out of it, to be honest, was that I had some type of vision for myself or a dream for myself. And honestly, that did start with like first it was basketball. Then it came into hip hop, and I know that sounds so traditional black like, but but then it was just more or less just being like, Okay, I see Muhammad Ali, I see Michael Jackson, I see these people that are thriving that I look as hero look up to as heroes. I want to be something.

But did they look at you like that too? Did they look at you like, dude, look like he got a little potential wing?

Gone?

I wasn't that now. It wasn't like I was a superstar basketball player. Nobody like where they like, we're gonna leave him alone. It just is like they they saw it went and go go all the way over there. And then some of them dudes are just doing that stuff. That man, they ain't have no no parents in the house. And it's like and I had, yeah, two and my mother is a strong figure in my life.

You know. So you were a ball boy doing the classic Jordan era of the Bulls. Correct, Yeah, I was like what year, like idyt was?

Okay, So I was a ball boy from like eighty four to eighty six. So I remember Michael Jordan's first exhibition game. I remember specifically he had a red radio playing Houdini and Rod throwing.

The general manager was like, no, you can't play this music.

And after that first exhibition game, he could play whatever he wanted.

Basically, did you did you know then that? All right? You know, like we knew Diyla and we knew Dila was God even when he was lifting. Was Shee and Michael Jordan that level? Did you already know that this guy is like on another level? That? Yeah? It was.

It was that that rookie year that I really because it was something electrifying about him. And we had never seen anybody hanging in the air enough respect to doctor j but we we hadn't seen we hadn't seen anybody hanging away in the air away Mike did the flare he brought. He brought an energy and a flare and the area that we hadn't seen in the NBA. And then they knew how to market it too, Like I could.

And in Chicago.

But then it started translating across the NBA, so we knew after that first season, we knew and it was like when he came out and started wearing his own Air Jordan gear, we were like, damn, this is incredible. In Chicago, we just embraced it like this is our guy. You got to think we had Oprah.

Around that starting to come at that time too.

So Steve Kerr, that's my dude.

You did you have one of them corny moments with him as a ball boy?

He said, he ever give you like a pair of sneakers from the first year? Oh man, I had, I gotta.

I got a pair of his shoes, and I actually ended up giving them to my father.

No, oh, okay, no, it's just father. Yeah, I heard it, and I was trying to walk it back. The words you know already came out to my dad. My dad, the one who got me the job or whatever.

But my dad used to wear them to my shows and I'd be like, what are you doing when Michael Jordan's actual actual sneakers off the seat?

What year? What year?

This was eighty five? It was the first one, the first one. Yeah, and we used yo, the first Jordan's. I mean, I had him off his feet, he signed them and everything. But in all truth, I used to get all types of nothing as great as MIC's. But I used to get Magic's Isaiahs because I worked the visiting team's locker room, so I would get Magic Isaiah's. I would you know you remember those weapons. Yes, I used to get those. But you know what I would do.

I'll do it.

I need five dollars and then so I went to get Yeah. I when I got the you know paper, went down to Mic and was like, man, you know, can you sign this for me?

Man?

I want take it up to these kids. He's like, oh, Man, you sign it. You know.

He was just kind of in a joking mood. You signed it, you could. So I signed it, took it up to the kids and it was like, hey man, I got my five out of and they was like just the worst part. They was like, wait, Michael was spelled wrong. Man, Michael, get.

The money back.

Yeah, they had to get that money back. I wasn't the best house Sler, but I was in de.

Mi e A l Ex. I always used to mess that up.

It's a lot of prices.

I made that mistake when when uh I had a T shirt made before uh, one of those Iron one T shirts that you get on the boardwalk before I went to the Victory Tour and the guy let me spell Michael Mike Hill instead of A E L.

Yeah, I wasn't. The only one was the victory was the victory? The victory to it? That wasn't your first concert because that was my first concert I ever went to.

Yeah, mine was trying and then Victory Tour.

Yeah, they got that question.

Okay, mine was Steve Kerr. I went to Steve Kerr concert.

So bad. I never saw Michael concerts. But what was I will not admit that. You gotta say it, you gotta say it. Remember that song, Gangstalyn, this song dedicated That was my first concert, Steve?

What was your That was Billy Joel at the Garden?

I mean he's trying to be cool. I think yours was weird. Yank Victor. I mean you just want to be cool on the record and be like, oh yeah, Billy Joe. When did oh God, this is such a cliche movement. So when did hip hop? When did you fall in love with him? Like way back? No, so what what was my life? What was what was by things fall apart? I know? What was hip hop's culture in Chicago growing up? I mean, well, who were the local heroes? Who? Who did you see? It was like I want to do that.

Well, I mean it was honestly just us loving just anything that came out of New York, West Coast Philly. You know, we we were up on any We were just seeking out hip hop because once by the time you know, obviously Africa, Bambarda and and you know grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, that was early. But by the time run DMC that it had us Run demn c l L. Then Eric being Rock Kim came. But so we were we were like just soaking up everything.

We weren't.

That's why even when I listened to some of my first early some of the earlier music I made, first albums, it was like I could hit a mixture of the influence of k Arrest to Ice n W A two to rock Him, you know, like I could hear those influences because we were soaking it all in.

And you know, so, yeah, that's what. That's what.

Because Chicago had a real strong house music scene. So the people that were the Chicago heroes as far as hip hop goes, was more like DJ's on the radio. It wasn't really a lot of rap artists that was like, y'all put Chicago on the map. In fact, our first artist was Twister. They came out for Chicago.

Really that's the first.

Yeah, I mean it came out on record, like that was the first.

So when did you know you could put it? When did you know you could put pen the paper?

Well, I was with my cousin.

I used to visit my cousin in Cincinnati like every summer, and I don't have a big family, so we that was like one of my best friends and uh we we had these dudes that was a little bit older than us. They was like Cincinnati's run DMC. Their name was the bond Hill Crew, so we used to that was the neighborhood my cousin and stayed at bond Hill, So we were like they were. He wrote, So I was like, man that said, this is seventh grade. I remember sitting there. We was we were up late night

Like they knew my rap.

And then I started writing for some of my friends and it was just like, oh man, I.

Could really really do this.

And it came from me loving I loved like James Bowing and Langston Hughes and and then I loved hip hop. Hip Hop was the thing that I'm not like as gifted as this guy over here with with the music and all like her.

Now a man knows all this music.

So so anyway, I'm gonna kick some of my first rap.

Oh ship, all right, let's go.

The first wrap wrote BeBox Force Wait I gotta be no wait wait wait wait wait wait, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on Today today Uh.

Well, let me tell you about a trip A time was go. I was going there to run a cold bloody show. When I was there, I saw some people jamming too. They called themselves the Bond. He'll Cool, Doctor Ice, Romeo and Master eat all of the Bond hell Cool rapp into her tea. I still could day rock with me, that's all.

I remember your first your first, Come on, man, I remember my first verse. I don't. I was always the beat maker. I was. I was the oneach table guy.

He killed the last night you were rock and y'all know you be boxing?

Was she?

She? She style?

It was probably the highlight, and I wasn't expecting it to be the highlight at all, but it was. We did the Death Fresh Crew tonight to get out to. Yeah it was. It was dope anyway. Yeah, for those that are listening, Uh, the roots have nightly jam sessions all throughout Grammy weekend. Last night we had wide Cleft Jean, We had Roxane Chante. Uh, we had Tatha g from him to me. She came and did juicy fruit. What

One of my first names was the Black Poet Cayden, I don't know, I don't know where that came. And then I was just in a group called c DR, which was just still for Corey Dion and Rashid Dian has no idea who we talked about earlier. So yeah, he actually rhymed, but he was more producing, but he was kind of doing the producer rhyme thing. Pete Rackish, yeah, but so them those are the only names. Only Rashied and then the Black Poet K and then I had

They may still have it done.

And one boy was sitting there smoking some weed one time and I was like, my mother used to always say, boy, you better use common sense, and I for some reason the two just connected and I was like, man, I'm gonna use the name common sense, and I just shouted it out. My friends were like, yeah, that's that's decent. Always thought it was like a name that was unique but still kind of every day.

And when when.

The band actually sued me for my name, that's when I lost my hand.

Man, you know I was I was stressed out.

Really yeah, you know I was gonna lose my hand anyway. But but but the gist of it was, you can't be your name no more.

Yeah, you can't.

You know you think you're like, man, I've built up. This was after the resurrection. My second I'm like, I'm just getting to be known as something. Somebody knows who I am. And now y'all taking away the name common sense I was, you know, all the.

Greats go through it, like Biggie Smalls couldn't have been Biggie Smalls. We couldn't have been Square Roots. Yeah that's right.

You couldn't have been Square Roots.

Because there was a band in Philly.

Uh that threaten Are you glad?

I know you glad you took off the squad now and I'm glad. Are you? Do you still miss Commons? Well we still call you common sense? Yeah, but I mean I don't miss common sense.

I actually felt like it was all divine order, you know how you want some bad and then you look look back and be like, oh, this's worked out right, because you know, common kind of represents the every day person that I believe I am, and I think people just really.

Really that to day. Come on, just because he has this perception that because you have a specific gig that you're just disconnected from people like you don't have cousins like you don't have the same friends like you don't. Just because you have that journey to another level doesn't mean that the nine other people in your life are in that position.

Both regular people, I got it.

Yeah, we're common folks. Look, I'm learning sneakers by a kid.

I want to say nothing, but I was wondering if that was a fascist thing.

Man, I did Pete that. I was like, I have you have a deal with that. I'm trolling Kanye So we're you know, even though Adidas is our sponsor. You know, suddenly, uh, when it's time for okay, I just said I was a man of the people, but then I'm about to do someone i'm talking about's office to get my new yeezies.

You're right, what common people do?

Suddenly I feel like I feel like, well, no, it's just my way of hustling. Uh. For some reason, there's been a shutdown of me getting There's a rumor out that I've been disrespecting his brand and by dogging them, And my my argument was like, who told you to make such a comfortable ass sneaker?

Of course I'm gonna work well because you do wear them to the Oh you're supposed to rock them fresh.

Well, yeah, I've rocked a few pair of Yeezis that I've rocked so much that they look like broken down convert sneakers, like sneakers be leaning to the side and all that stuff and so much. Disagreeted, he was sort of like, stop disrespecting my brand, Like, get you some new Yeezy's, Like I can now that's a one percent shit, spend another three thousand dollars on my sneakers like that sort of thing.

Enough, do you automatically get the new Yeasis when they come out or does he let you know what is it?

Well? Sometimes I get them, sometimes I don't. Actually, you know crochets are You're right?

Oh man, he does need to make me some special some like water for chocolate additions.

So anyway, my electric circus, my my protests my protests to UH to his UH blocking me from getting his easies was I took all of my white easies and had them custom pain Holy Ikia Walmart level comm have

What the source is magazine these grown folks, that's right.

But we're broadcasting over on Pandora for four point five million people. So anyway, there's there's a section in the former Bible of hip hop whatever that is called unsigned hype, and we just went through that. Right, Well, I'll do it. See this is what I'm talking about. I don't have anger anyway, so common that's how I knew of you because you were in the unsigned hype back in nineteen ninety one ninety two. So did you work on your demo at.

Florida A and m or I worked on the demo before we got to a FAM, before I got to Florida and them, and then we sent that demo out and we heard that we had got selected for I'm saying we because they always felt like it was collective. It was me and no I d Twilight Tone, even our manager Derek.

You know how everything feels. Wait, r no, not rhyman. No, no, no, let's let's keep things.

I know Derek, I was like, what, yeah, But I mean, you know, like most managers, he wanted to rhyme or do something creative, but nah, he's he stuck to the business. But when we got selected for for that Unsigned Hype, that was like a big moment for me, Like it was being from Chicago and and also like being at a black college. It's just everybody was like, whoa, you actually might be able to do something with this MC

And as you said, the source was the I mean.

Every time I made an album project at that time, like please, can I get five mics in the source?

You know we all wanted that, did you all? You all got five mics for we got to four and a half, but you got a I think four and a half is better than the five, you know what I'm saying. So be got four and a half? Right, yeah? Probably?

So yeah, Yeah.

You were an unsigned Hype longer than you were at them. Is that dumb? I've heard one semester, I've heard a month.

I was there for a year and a half. But I will say, no, you're not gonna tell the story, are you.

No? I got straight a's.

I got straight a's my second's at FAM so and I was majoring in business administration, like going to professional development classes and all that.

What story was you talking about? Man? No, Well, the you remember the Canada border story with so you know, you know you have to tell the story now. No, okay, okay, okay, okay, it's okay. Basically, he was on tour with us. Let him, let him tell the Well, let me set up the preface. I'm just saying that this was ninety This was ninety nine, two thousand and Probably it's easier now because I think now that we're of age, that a lot of officers and people in authority are kind of our age, so

Yeah, y'all had a few situations the roots. I remember that.

Yeah, we had a lot. So the silliest one of all was they made to, you know, the beginning of The Simpsons when Bart has to write on the board like I will not talk in class, I will not like just to mess with Rashid and Tarique for small stuff, like they had to write a two page book report on the merits of human responsibility and how they're you know, And then I asked roch, like, what happened? What's on your record? And you told me the okay, So I mean, just to be real open and stuff.

It's all good. So I was, you know, at college, and you know, I'm a Chicago kid. We had a little bit of just slickness to us, hustle and stuff, and like I said, I was doing different things.

But so so.

One of my one of the guys we knew from Chicago, had a roommate who they kind of looked alike. So me and my guys talked to him and say, yo, you need to get his I D and and checks and we're going to shopping.

So we ended up made so sweet ended real week that this is.

The story we ended up. He got the checks in the in the in the I D. We ended up going all around Tallahassee buying TVs, buying sweatsuit.

Whoa, this is another story. I was you might want to walk this back, Brora.

Obviously I got caught up on this one. I wouldn't be talking about giving a convention to a murder making a murder of course.

Love.

So so we we go shopping everywhere sweatsuits, everything.

We down to the last store.

It's been an all day excursion and and uh, man, we see he taking a long time in that at the mars called Government Square mall.

He taking a long time in Themorrow. He come.

We see him coming out. He coming out handcuffs. Now mind you, I'm just the dude driving and you know, taking them around at every store. So we're like, damn, he got caught. He got locked up. So we were waiting at the house and I remember specifically, we was watching American Music Awards Michael Jackson. We watching it on the new TV, Michael Jackson sitting there and we're telling it, eating it like, man, we got to wait to get that car.

And we had Yeah, We're like, what's up? Who is that? And then it's the police. We got your house around it.

They come in on us, and mind you, it was other it was other cats there with us. Actually it was one of my friends that kind of led the way that actually was a good persuader and led the way out. Like I said, I was the driver, but for some reason a guy who got caught only pointed me out. So I ended up getting knocked up and I ended up having to do the thing where you pick up trash on the on the highway. Yeah, community service community, you said FAM because the other situation was another thing.

But it was this other thing.

If people do.

Look, look, you know that that years it happened. It happened. So sorry for bringing that up. I'm sorry.

I love that you lived all these lives.

I mean, I feel like I feel like at the end of the day, you grow and learn. You know, I ain't you know, ain't nobody trying to move like that now. But you know that was that was the thing where you kind of like get influenced to I take responsibility, but for what what I do?

You know? But it was what I did too.

But it was like, man, you really can't like at a group like because I wasn't initially my idea, but I'm like, okay, I'm driving and what's so crazy on some on some serious stuff like you know, I've been going to visit, you know, going to visit prisons and talking with people inside it that's incarcerated, and I've met people that are doing life sentences for being in the car for something.

So it put things in perspective.

For me, like, yeah, how many times I don't mean it gets so serious, but it's real.

How many times that night did you say the following sentence, I'm just the driver, I'm.

Just the driver.

Yeah, they weren't going for that man, they you know I was. I was sitting there thinking like, why did you only point me out? Not that I wanted to point anybody else, but just like be quiet at that point.

But and this is postman post raight A's just to be clear, I mean.

This is doing fam. This was faum straight A's day.

So that's ill because now you got a daughter. It's funny because I look on Instagram and I see your daughters in college. So it's a totally different experience looking at what she's going through versus what you went through and you sharing those stories with her.

Yeah, I mean that's why I'm grateful that I went through those things. Obviously, I'm grateful that I came out of it on a on a positive side, because one thing I did I always say no matter how much like things that I did, I wasn't like, like I said, I want no killer, but my.

Heart was always good.

I never really wanted to damage people, but I just get caught up in stuff and do certain things. But you know, I know, obviously stealing from somebody was damaging some way or another.

But you made it sound real, innocent and good though. But it was a college Obviously. You a lover, not a fighter. I hear it in your spirit.

I only fight for the right. How can we get to the first record?

So that.

God? Well you you were first signing Relativity Records? Correct, So just that whole? What was your whole? I don't know, like your aspirations. Once you had a record deal, did you feel like well, first of all, how did you explain to your mom that you're not going to go back to school? And you know, my story was that my dad didn't know about the Roots until the second album? No, seriously, he didn't know until do you want more? So Olive organics like I just hit you and he thought I

And I think, I mean similar to a certain degree. My mother didn't even know I was rapping, you know, she just and I said, look, man, I got a contract, and I want to leave school and go pursue my rap career. She like rap you know, she kind of wasn't even she knew about it, like as a maybe saw something out there, but she didn't think of it as a profession. She was like, man, you need to stay in school. And I was like, look, min, this

Life is good.

I made it, but man, it was such an awakening when I released my first single and went around doing promo, going to every city, doing all the work, and it still didn't really get to radio or get to that level of what I saw big records on the box.

Y'all remember the box, right, So your video exactly had everybody calling up and that I was like, yeah, that's what I did. Yeah, you best believe a call from Motown, Philly like every five minutes, don't blinks it right exactly.

So wait, your first deal? What kind of I mean, not to be in your business, but what kind of money is that? Because I'm like, is that your mother was like, Okay, that's that's a couple of dollars. I can chill.

I advanced and to this day, I think, you know, it was a little like Twilight and No Idea. It was like, what the hell? We split five thousand dollars?

What?

Yeah, yeah, man, we spit. We split five thousand dollars. As far as what went into I think, and I think our recording budget may have been forty thousand dollars or something of that nature. I literally remember signing a contract for Relativity at Relativity in Queens, New York and getting in the car and I sat in the hatchback of Peter King, who was our A and R's car, because he ain't have enough room.

So it was like it was.

I said, in the hatch, back in the back in the Yeah. So it was like one of those things where it really became the journey. And I'm super grateful for the journey because when we talk about every day people and stuff like that, like being common, me nor the roots were able to be like come out and just have a big single and things just your life just changes. It's always been like a yeah, a gradual thing, working class works, working classroom. See, as simple as that,

So yeah, and in the early nineties, I mean that was typical for I mean rap record deals. It is sort of like what junk bonds are to Wall Street. No real talk. Deyla Soul's entire first album was twenty five thousand, three Rising cost twenty five thousand. Everything. That's the entire budget. Cypress Hill's debut album seventy five thousand, just to put in perspective, invokes Funky Divas their debut, their sophomore album, that budget was two point five million. Wow.

I was I can think about specifically where I was at and when the.

Time hip hop in its everyday hip hop.

Hip you got revealed. No, that was it? No, that's not it.

Does that makes sense?

No, it's hip hop and its essence and real ah okay, yeah, but in the acronym, you know, you don't put in it. You don't put an acronym. You don't have to put the little small words get semester.

That's right.

That your official official. Okay, Burbon I've been I've been teasing you forever for that anyway. So yeah, for those that don't know, it's it's a story in which he personifies hip hop as a girlfriend, his first girlfriend, and describes her. I guess her movements her, you know, how they first met and how she grew up, and how they fell apart and got back together. And it really touched a lot of people. I guess it struck a nerve, I'll say, But what was the what was the genesis of that creation?

Well, it was, as I said, I've been a fan of just all aspects of hip hop, and what struck me was I started to see people on the East Coast imitating West Coast artists and that was really like for me, one of the things that hip hop was always you would hear people from Queen's be like, Yo,

And couldn't you find a real woman? Hey?

You know this is like a real love story that like, I mean, I could have found a real woman. But no, you know what was so what was so crazy was like and I thought about this this the other day, like when you're young in nineteen and you do a love song, your friends look like, why are you giving

And he was like, oh shit, but that's kind of fucked up up.

I know it is. I was saying, it's a messed up child.

Yes, I mean the reason why I thought about it because I was, you know, you know, with so much going on and we're talking about the change and the culture and stuff women and women, I was thinking like, damn, I couldn't even rap a love song at nineteen, and my somebody supported But eventually, obviously we know, as we know, I went out because when you said when you was like one of or you were talking about one of when I thought you was gonna say the light was my most I forgot.

About the light? How you?

I just thought we was going to.

I'm gonna tell you my light story. But we when we get to when we get to the chocolate ears. But did you were you? First of all? I mean, as an MC, I'll say that you you're probably the most evolved human. I know that's an artist, because I mean, as an MC, you've stuck to hip hop's rules of just I feel like you right in the moment and just be like all right, I'm gonna suff the consequence later.

I said, Man, you brought up a good point because when that was also part of it. Why I Used to Love Her came about too is because it was like once Dots Effects would do something, everybody would start rhyming like that, and I was I was like, the rigid hip hop was always about like what are you doing this fresh? That's why we use the word fresh,

Cool.

I didn't think it was gonna come from the West Coast because I kind of said she broke to the West Coast and that was cool around the same time I went away to school, and I'm a man of expanding.

Well, I know that, but I'm just saying that I know that you meant, and now I see motherfucker slamming and taking her to the sewer. I didn't think that you meant like Dots Effects onyx ice Cube. You meant the clones of those guys clones, But did you ever see Dosa effects or onyx and then not think like, oh, you were talking about us, not our clones or well what that.

Was The one thing that that that I have to say, going back to the South Side that I was still had.

In me was a crew A crew crew.

So so that's effects I actually thought they dis on the song and my boys just brought this up. I went down to their dressing room and with my guys Chicago.

And was doing the forty years. Yeah, I was like, what's up? What's up now? You know, like how you came in the door. They just steal their TV right away.

But by the way, man, I had some yo, my friends, some of my crew. I mean I remember doing the show with Koogi Rap opening up for Coogie Rapping Red Man and this is the we my friends just was didn't know, but they straight went into that dressing room and ate that food from the rider.

No.

Yeah, it like took there for and I had to pay for it. Like anyway, My point is you minuted they minuted it. No, but they just knew like cause we were the first ones there.

I had. It was in my neighborhood. The show was at the Regal Theater.

So it's like, yeah, so anyway, I don't remember what the initial thing.

What were we saying.

Do we just taught lessons?

Yeah? No, I had to learn that.

I learned that and and I was like, look, man, we getting the list and this is what we can do, and we you know, we start you grow from that. You start learning. I can't just roll and just roll have like forty people with me. It just is not productive. And especially once you start putting in perspective this is this.

Is my profession. Oh that's what I was talking about.

Even when when I did the West Coast, I mean even when mac ten and Ice Ice Q to them came out with the disc record. We were in Atlanta doing the show with Grand Pooba Outcast and mac Ten and these and those guys, and uh we saw them at the show and they you know, they kind of just walked past and.

Then when they got to the.

End of the hallway, they was like they hollowed out west Side and we was like, we south side. What that means to us? You know, Like so it was it was put it this way. I was able to speak my truth because I spoke that same truth around people.

I was around.

So if I couldn't do it into into the culture, then what am I really doing? Plus we used to say stuff in hip hop like you could. I was listening to Pooh Bah and he was like talking about Oprah or something. You know, you would say stuff like this raw stuff ignorant.

It don't go viral like it does now. But wait, can we talk about beefs? Can I just ask about fair Con? Because I always thought that was ill and I think maybe it was like one more beef after you guys were he intoed. But what was that like for fara con into your situation like that and being from Chicago? How did that happen?

It was really it was pretty I would say power. It was really powerful in many ways because it was right after First of all, I kind of, you know, got introduced more to fairy con through hip hop through Public Enemy, and people would bring up fairy con and rap. So then you know, some of the cats I worked with, like No Idea eventually with being the Nation at one point, but read yeah, this is around the time they were Derek my manager. They all had been through the Nation

So it was like, you know, it's weird I'm around at this point. You didn't even know that he squashed the beef. I never add to I think maybe the third time we met, you played me uh verse one of the bitching you your response to ice Cube.

And they had beef, y'all.

If you didn't know, well you already skipped to the making.

Up part, right, But I loved.

You like anyway. But no, they won't get it anyway. So I didn't. I didn't know that it got that bad that he had to come and intervene.

Yeah, well it definitely. I mean, like I said, Mike ten and all those guys are real guys on the West Coast, and I gotta respect that, and I know that they will take it there. And like I said, it was people on my side that also would defend me and defend I would defend myself. So it was the tension. We weren't mature enough to be like, yo, man, let's squash this ourselves. It was like that you know that young ego, like, man, you said this and that, and so it was Yo, fay Con had to squash it.

So it was like, man, we got to squash this. He had a meeting.

It was us, Fat Joe, I think some of the Goodie Mob. It was a lot of just just people from hip hop. And he was like, man, do y'all know this is like this is like that Willie Lynch letter where where you know, you pit the pit people against each other East coast and West coast.

Do y'all own the land? He started breaking it down. Do you own the land?

Like you know that whole theory of like man, light skin versus dark skin. He started breaking it down. Or you on this side and this side. It's just like, man, don't let the master.

Don't let it.

Not that they were our masters, but don't let them pit us against each other. Is what the gist of it. All of us recognized that is.

Like the money to be made in beef sometimes too, So yeah.

I mean it was like, shoot, think about it, Like all the money that was made in.

They didn't go in your pocket.

Right, So for first of all, your next album, one day it all makes sense. Crazy, For one day it all makes sense, which I kind of like now when I look at the at your can, I almost see one day it all makes sense, sort of as the flyer that someone hands out at the nightclub that will announce the things to come, like it's its own album, But really it was the preview of because I mean you're you brought Tarik and Q Tip and Erica and me and uh not Dilla yet, but who else was

Oh god do we have to Well here's the thing.

I mean, I know, you know, according to Fox News, you're super liberal rapper or whatever. So I mean, I know I know that your pro choice. I know that your your pro choice in your everyday life. But the narrative of that song seems very conservative, like it's and I know that for you. I mean you're really talking to your daughter who's now a full grown woman in college and whatnot. But just at the time, what was

That's the teenage girl who was making some mistakes. It was like, I can't get through this song right now.

Yeah, but it was it was it was sort of a heartstring your first a comment like sort of a hearing but.

I am about to be in somebody in mamadel comment, so you can just.

I'm just mad. I'm just mad that you made the second song. That's the first thing, Like what do you think of my record? I'm like, why did you make that the second song? Like I was mad at your sequences and work on my next record. I was like, okay, bet I will you need some help? But yeah, I'm just talking about like did you and Lauren go through that? Uh? Talk about that together there? Like how did that collaboration come?

Well, first of all, like it was a I am pro choice. I believe every woman human woman should have that choice to be able to do what they want with their body and their bodies and.

So so I.

Really when I wrote Retrospect for Life, which is about abortion, I just really was writing it from a perspective of what I felt like as a human being, like some of the the fact of just being more responsible for me and not just you know, being out here raw, you know, you know not. So it was more like, I'm I'm playing a part in this and let me. I shouldn't have to put people that I care about, meaning a woman through this, and at the end of the day, I shouldn't put an unborn child through this.

So I kind of was just not wanting to be a deadbeat dad and that cliche.

Yeah, And I just was, you know, it was talking about all the emotions. I remember writing it because I used to go see a lot of poets and this is writer named Gwendolen Brooks and I and I went to an event that she had and I kind of.

All that sparked me to just write it.

I wrote that more as a poetry, so you know, as you know, I mean, you always be like you need to rhyme more on beat, you can't count, yeah, so so so uh, you know, I kind of took that poem and made it into a song. And what I had been talking about talking to Lauren while you all were on tour with her, wasn't you all? It was you all, the goodie mom and the foods. Yeah, yeah, I was talking to Lauren about doing the song, and it's you know, she was on the move a lot.

Started messing with it.

No id did the drums we had because we were going through the process of the song evolving, and Lauren just started trying different ideas and she I think she wanted to do it because you know, she was just supporting. But at the same token, I think she felt that the story was important, and I was super grateful that she wanted to direct the video, and I do agree

Like that, Why did it take three years? Though? Man?

I was stressing out, like over I was going. I was going out touring to get to just support myself. I wasn't happy with the lab, like trying to figure out and they were trying to talk me into They was using peers like Naves or different people to be like yo, you see they making hit records, And I was like, man, it just wasn't I didn't. I didn't have it in me to try to just cook up a hit like like yo, I'm about to make a

Well that that would also be your last record with New Idea, who at that point YouTube were closely associated with each other for your first three records. How did you was the partying amicable or how did you two stop working? Yeah?

No, I think it was more it wasn't like, man, we got beef. It was more like, man, I gotta go grow, and this growth is going to be I don't know. I got to move from Chicago because at the end of the day, it wasn't just like me musically just needing to.

Grow, but I just needed to grow as a human being.

And it was like being in Chicago, even around some of my friends I grew up with, their mentality was still boxed, and I was like, man, I can't I'm out of this box. I was going up to which seemed like nothing to y'all now because everybody experienced it. But I was going to eat at tay Foo restaurants. I was watching like like I was watching movies like four rooms, you know, you know.

What I'm saying exactly.

So I was I would be like, hey, y'all watch the four rooms, and they'd be looking like, man.

What is this superset?

Like so and and and me not being like at that point strong enough to be like, look, this is it, and I just like, I'm going to I'm going to book exactly.

And I came out to.

I came out to New York, were like two weeks worth of clothing maybe less than that, thinking I was just gonna stay for two weeks.

I never went back.

I mean, you know, I went back for home to go, but I moved here to New York and it was just it was one of the best things that happened in my life because I got to you know, I would get to go to the studio with y'all bumping the I would bump in the Primo. I was introduced to a shack of givings. Who was you know, did the crochet said it like? It just was like I would go see a Gordon Parks display and at at a museum in New York. I could go me and belive.

Well I'll say that, you know, of course i'd be supervised to say that. Well, yeah, your Chocolate Electric phase is my favorite period, not because I was involved with it, But no, it wasn't. I mean what you sure, No, But what you did was you provided me with the greatest front seat ever, which is getting to watch Dila work in real time. And I mean that was my excitement. That's the thing, like all the dial of fan worship we do now that he's gone, I mean it took everything.

But but talk about that though, because how did he come into the picture then, because we don't know.

Yeah, I'm gonna get to that. So so in in making like Water for Chocolate, I mean was your because with that album you also went platinum, which is weird because you wanted to make such a radical left turn

Yeah, okay, So first I met Dyla when I was out with day La Soul and they had some beats and maces like you gotta check out Deyla.

No, actually I met him with Q Tip.

We had went and did this Vibe conference that Quincy Jones had and and we left the conference and went to Q Tip's house. And at his house, Dyla was down like fingering through these records and he was sitting there and I didn't He was real quiet, So I did I know Dealer's like Detroit Hood's side to a certain degree because he was just a quiet, good, you know dude. And then Q Tip started playing me all these these beasts that Dila did and I was like,

Was thinking about.

I was on the road with Daylight and I said, JD can you come, can we like lay some stuff? And he flew himself to Chicago and laid some beats for me. I worked on him, and this is in the process of me being I think it was right after that was before one day. It all makes sense. So I never used the beats, but I think it was ninety eight. I went to Deler's house with you all with the roots while you always going to do ill a fifth Dynamite. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. You

Yeah, so so.

You know, and then to watch him like start making songs with me. Jad would do what he wanted because I wanted him to rhyme on the song Funky for You. I wanted all the slum village to rhyme on that song on like Water for Chocolate, Funky for You. And he sat in the studio in and he was he was like trying to come up with something. I guess, but I don't think he really His heart was in the rhyming on that one. But so that night he

To me because even the last time I visited him, I didn't know that he could barely communicate or talk or hold his hands up. And I'm trying to figure out, like, especially the last period of his life, that the whole deal with his phase where he was, I mean, the deal with his face is close to the Donuts album, where it's just the beats were so advanced that MCS didn't even belong on those beats, Like he was basically communicating.

Which man his mind was that, But it was really it was difficult for I mean, obviously it was difficult to see somebody you know, like is one of the greatest and then just one of your friends, like not be able to do the things that they were just like two years ago he was coming to pick me up in the range, Robbo. It might be the escalade

Was hard for me.

I actually like wouldn't stay at the house as much because it just was like, man, this is tough. But then I was like, I gotta be there at a certain point. But it brought you know, my own humanity or what's the word, you know, like when you what's the word on trying to search for totality my own

You know. He and I, He and I had one. It was weird because my the fan worship was so was so big on my level that as executive producer of that record, I also did want to make a misstep and I was wrestling with in my mind on how to tell him I didn't like a particular beat. Which one was it? The light man, that's why you record. Listen, listen. I listened to a mirror a lot to it. Yeah, you know what, you know what it was though. There was a week. I don't know what I had to do.

Hop, and but also at the time you don't want it, but this was you.

You also have to understand that the rules the rules of of like the hip hop elite. I mean, we were knee deep still in that hole. Like we had yet to work with jay Z. So back then jay Z was still the devil.

But you still had your you Got Me formula by the end.

Yeah, but we were the roots. We were never accepted as quote real hip hop. We were always alternative hip hop. So we get away with murder.

But the light was like that you Got Me. I always thought it looked at it.

But the thing is is that even common moving to Brooklyn was seeing as a radical how could you move? You know? And I was more afraid of the perception that I brought him down or that sort of thing. So I just didn't like it, you know what I mean. I mean that's you know, I'd like it now, but I love it now. Man. Look, I honestly that I don't help people for my Mama house, I'm fine for it.

I mean I have to say, like I never looked at that song like it was commercial. I know, I just went on when I heard that beat, and he honestly had that beat on a beat CD, right, yeah, and it was it was for fife or something, God bless his soul something. It was just on a beat CD that I think ffe it either got to and it wasn't complete.

He had just made it.

It was drums, right, So when I heard it, I was like, yo, Dad, what's up with this?

You know?

And then he was like, man, I'm about to I'll redo it for you, and he put those drums and he started scratching the hook a little bit and I was like, man, it was that song just hit my soul. And at the time, you know, as you know, I was like in love with earthy girls and all that, so I could just write, that's.

What were you feeling like that first?

Lie your mind? Your mind. Erica wasn't the first choice for the video. Who was Who was it? We had Lisa Bone for like a week. We had Lisa you don't remember, I forgot man. We had Lisa for a week and then she couldn't do it.

She's never been in a video.

She's been in liney stuff. Oh yeah, I mean, don't count man.

That's what his wife or whatever.

Yeah, but yeah, we we had. We had and I wanted and the thing was, I'm not that dude. That was like, yo, we can exploit the relationship because again I felt that there was danger in the Erica thing because I didn't want the friction of Dungeon family versus so queery things going on, because back then y'all were still friends. It was friends at the end of the day, they were absolutely friends, and so I just felt that was more danger making abundantly clear. No we were I

And then came to essence covering, it was like, well.

That was like two years later.

They were felt like so lightish.

The light that was that was a little later.

That's when that was obviously together were that's when he's wearing footies.

In the light.

We weren't dating, and they weren't lay stop trying to got you.

I'm not I'm trying to get today.

We were not dating like then we say that Bill and.

I just dating.

So it was more more like one of those things that like I really liked her and we had a real connection, but it wasn't we hadn't crossed the line. And maybe maybe it was like it wasn't because of the Dungeon family, but maybe you know, I don't know why we hadn't crossed the line, but it was just like, man, I definitely looked at her. It was like this woman is incredible and I was digging her, but there wasn't that time yet.

He looked her in the eye. To this day, I don't look Erica in the six seconds because.

By the time Come Close came around, it was like, oh.

Yeah, no, that was then. It was we were together at that point. So but but the light was the light was the first time that uh and by the way, Come Close, Amya came with the idea for that video, but I guess I forgot that. Yeah, it was he was like we need to do something like say anything. Wasn't that the movie with John? Yeah? Yeah, sometimes people love the idea of somebody holding up something to a building,

You know that way makes sense that you're holding the scientist.

Yeah, they just gave it another dementia. But I wanted to tell you something about the light. It was like the first time.

First.

First of all, I laid the rap down and didn't I didn't even finish it. That's why I was like, took a time, I'll tell you the rest of it. I see peace, you know that. And I kept trying to go back in the studio and relay it, and it never felt the same. So I knew that record was just about a feeling. But it was the first time that I ever saw little black girls like singing my song. They didn't know who common was, they didn't know common sense, none of that. So it was like incredible.

Because you were living when they came home maybe nine.

Yeah, So it was like I remember being on the radio, you know those radio shows that they have.

I was on One Earth Real radio underground.

I was on the radio on the show and I was like, damn, like girls are singing my songs and like it just it was another feeling.

It felt.

It felt like rewarding that little black girls was singing my song like they didn't because they not singing I used to love her. They not singing retrospect for life. They probably didn't know who I was. So it just moved me to see that, and yeah, I was grateful. Man the Light To this day, DJ Dummy said to me, Man, do you know the Light is like eighteen years old? Now, I said, eighteen years.

And what a full circle moment about that. I used to love a moment too because now you are rhyming about love exactly and now it's cool.

And to this day, I think, you know, probably the Light is the biggest song that I've had.

I mean I might have, I think, I don't know, but more than Glory.

Well no, you have got my radio play, yeah yeah.

But but yeah, so I mean it's a love song. So it is like full circle to be like yo, to me, the whole journey has been like man, you gotta like grow grow into who you are and know who you are at a certain point and then keep learning more and more of what you.

Said a standard for yourself at that moment too, because then it was like, as we started singing light, we were like, oh, I want him to do something else for.

Me, you know what I mean?

Like so then it would come close, and then with the B albums a couple of records, but.

By the time we got to Electric Circus, it was like I was telling Amya, we gotta go out there, like let's go.

Let's go out there, and like we went out there. Well, wait, I gotta ask questions. Uh wait, one question I have. Do you regret giving D'Angelo Chicken Grease? No? No, you're fine with Ghetto Heaven, Ghetto Heaven. I love for those about that trade for those that don't know, I mean not the competition, but just the amount of work that was put on all those records. It wasn't even like, Okay, we're working on this record, work on this record. It was just like we make a jam and then sell

And then it worked. I remember you you called me. I was the first time I was in Brazil. He was like, man, man, come on, man, get this beat to D'Angelo.

And I was like yes.

I was like yes because it was a funky joint that I didn't think I'd already had a funk like cold Blood. It was already and I'm not like the funk master, to be honest, So.

So it was like, it's like I got Heaven was more emotion. You know.

I liked the soul, jazzy blah blah blah. So it was like it was the perfect trade off for me. I was just I was excited and and it had d' angelo already singing on it, because you know, it was gonna be tough for me to try to get D'Angelo right right, So I was like, we're good.

Wait on. It just hit me that even during that period, you were going to Cuba regularly, even before you were doing shows in there, you were you technically or you were the second hip hop act to performing Cuba or y.

I know, I don't know what, you know, where I fall in as far as acts to perform out there, but we you know, we would go out there with Black August, which was an organization that you know, was raising money for political prisoners, and I went out there a couple of times with them.

Most and I went out there and.

To lib and you know, it wasn't probably legal to go out there at that time or whatever, but we fly through whatever country we had to go to and get to Cuba. Cuba was one of the best places

To stay super serious like brother exactly. So, but she was, you know, we would have drinks, have fun.

She started freestyling with me one time, and she was like, yeah, I first got up on you since I used to love Ah, I love the roots.

I loved it. I was like, yo, you up on all this?

Just the woman that's like it was in a shootout with the state troopers and got shot and fought foot and you've been fighting and you were in exile in Cuba and they after you, and you still like enjoying life, having fun up on what it was. It was life enhancing for me to get to experience that with her. And it was crazy, man, Because fast forward. I'm just

You still love her, write it down and be like really, yeah, oh before you performed there, before you performed damn, damn, I didn't even know that. So electric circus. Now he's sixteen years down the line, we can celebrate and say, you know, man, it was so ahead of his time. But that was such a dangerous record and I felt, I mean, I stand by it even when we turned it in and you know, we got to work with

I didn't avoid Like okay, the first my first encounter with Prince was like when the light was out and he was We were at the Riviera in in Chicago and he came up to me like it was like, man, I love the light and it's He was like, it's crazy that you know that song still sounds so for and it's in D major and I was like, oh, yeah, I know, you know, don't please don't test so so we we you know. He saw me kind of just brush over that and was like this, thanks anyway.

Damn he is right analy head.

Yeah yeah yeah, so and every time I play with musicians, if I'd be like, yo, it's in D major, you know, but anyway, Yeah, so he was like we you know, we actually got to do a show for his birthday at at Paisley Park, and of course we got to we were sitting down talking they had to curse. But in the in the in the room, he was talking about spirituality. The doves were in. The doves were right

So we did the show.

We opened it was me Erica and the time during his birthday party, and from that point we kind of built a good rapport and you know, we was, like I said, he said that you can come back and record at Paisley Park, So we took everybody, Steve, Steve came out there. We all we went to Paisley Park and worked on some of electric circuits, which was for all of us. Just like I don't know if y'all remember, but his father was playing piano.

So his father, princess father, John Nelson, he came to visit and it's just playing piano. I just remember that. Even I had shrimp and I was told Prince wouldn't allow any meat or animal products inside the the you know the building, and I was like, you know, it's like tim below zero outside, like I'm supposed to go outside neath this, And I remember them saying that he made Magic Johnson outside need a filet of fish and it was like twenty below So I defiantly snuck those

But I want the Jimmy rock star question. I know about the session. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm really excited as you were talking about Paisley Park.

I'm not going to use my own platform to disassociate the perception that I was behind the wheel of this entire album, least for the the radical movement of it. Okay, No, I think we definitely got some phone calls from some of your friends. Well I know that I know that No Idea was concerned.

Oh, they must have been flipping out the Chicago homies.

Like what doing. But it was just like, what's weird is that Jimmy was a rock star? Dyla was. Dyla brought all these silver Apple records, all of these like these prog these crazy prog rock albums, gentle giant silver apples like giant. Yeah, like just stuff that we never heard before, and like we would just sit and listen to them. It was like a seance almost. He just sit, We sit in the room, look at the turntable and

Yeah, well, I think you know I can remember not only like, first of all the sessions with Jimmy was a rock star. I am music that all those are made in one session. I had you Pinot Deyla and and James Poys are.

All stereo lab. I forgot we had stereo.

Lab on that like two so we were I mean, Electric Circus was a result of me being like, man, I gotta keep growing, I gotta keep it. I felt like I hit a ceiling of and I wanted to go high it, like I wanted to knock off the ceiling and be like, man, hip hop has no ceiling. And because I was listening to Jimmy Hendricks and listening to stereo.

Labs, don't listen to a lot of Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd. What was up that, like you and Erica just went through this pink Floyd face.

I just loved Pink Floyd. I wasn't like. I can remember being young and my and my cousin wanted up. He would play me Jimmy Hendricks and the Pink Floyd's stuff, and I wasn't really into it. I was like, man, this is cool, and it didn't hit me. But for some reason at that point I got to appreciate it. It's funny how things. And I was listening to you know, obviously The Wall, but I was listening to Dark Side of the Moon. That's what I was really and and

They was like we divided the common fans. That's what it did. Yeah, yeah, because Niggas was like we lost them Earth.

It was like we got killed. Yeah.

But I mean, but how you feel it? Did you feel at the time, dude.

It's still The thing is just in general, if I love something a lot that I know that not saying it's not good, but it probably won't hit with the rest of Like my personal tastes are the opposite of what I feel regular mainstream society is into or not into.

I want to ask Steve, because Steve, you was there for what did you what did you think when we was doing it?

Was you like, this ship is too crazy?

You need this well for the for the technical side of things, It's it's funny how it went down actually, because we were in the middle of converting, like we were turning over from from reels from from tape to start to use pro tools more and so on electric circus that that's literally when the turnover was so we were using tapes and pro tools and we were sending out tapes to people, and then other people wanted files and they were sending back files and sending back so

Not really paying attention to the creative side, right, But Steve like, wait, y'all did we did Wait, here's the thing. This show format was supposed to be ninety minutes and we went to two hours. It would I would get murdered if I don't mention working with Kanye West on the B record, So I'm sorry we didn't get to his acting career and in part two, but Obama, at least with at least with B. How did you feel having a new lease on life?

It felt, It felt invigorating. I felt like I really loved and this sounds crazy, I love the the challenges I was getting from Electric Circus.

Really yeah, meaning like oh man, you done and being underestimated. I loved. That's a good feeling because that motivated you. Yeah, it motivated me for real.

And and at the same choke, and I'd been like opening myself up to acting, which was like studying it, and that was opening me up to a certain degree just as far as creativity. And then it was like almost was starting. I look at it career and think of it like a cycle, and I kind of was starting at it on a new cycle at that point, and like a new cipher was starting even and not that I was going down and like it it's not like just on one level, it's actually vertical like the cycles.

I told him.

I remember calling him saying, man, I'll be on your label and then he was like man, you sure that. He's like that's incredible. So I was just on his label, and what that process started was us going. I would go buy records, CDs and I would listen to as many CDs, all the stuff like from all I learned from Dyla, from no I d from the beat Nuts, from you all whatever records, like names, records I knew in I would buy blindly, just records. I would listen to him, put the best records in front of YA.

At this level.

And he's like even like more like confident and just he not even just more confident, he's just more culture because he was confident then he was confident beyond his level at that point, but that confidence caught up with his ability and he was and he just was really

Yeah, it was.

So it was a lot of things I learned doing that process for him. But creatively, you know, he definitely is one of the best man to me, It's like he knows how to push the envelope. But and he has a knack for making He's rooted in hip hop and soul music, but he still has something that he's The stuff he chooses ends up being like really catchy stuff that can reach new audiences.

So but it's rooted and soul. So thank you Rob, thank you for doing the show. Thank you, thank you' all for having me.

This has been an incredible Thanks Steve Layah Deal, thank you comparable a miya.

All right, well, we'd like to thank our audience for for joining us and hopefully we'll do a feature live broadcast of course, Love Supreme enjoy it. Thank you very much, We appreciate it. See you on the next course. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.