QLS Classic: Dan Charnas

Of course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora Yo Yo it Up.

This is Fonte Fontigaelo with this week's QLs classic.

This week we go deeply talking to my man, my.

Brother, Dan Charnas, writer, radio hosts and music ezech. Dan talks about his early days, a say about journalists, some of the artists he did and didn't sign in the nineties, and how a simple grandma mistake can cause big trouble. This one was originally released February twenty second and twenty seventeen. His new book, Diller Time, which is absolutely incredible.

It releases February first.

Of twenty twenty two and it is just an amazing book and a beautiful lergy too, and an incredible producer. Dan Charnas gls classic Fontigolo YEP.

Crazy Suppriva Ro, Suppriva Suppriva roll call subprev some Supreme roll Suprema some SUBPRIMEO.

Rod Harriet Tupman Rosa Parks. Yeah, a million more Black Americans America. What is today?

Impact Supreva ro called Suprema son, Suprema Ro.

My name is Fante. Yeah, shout out to my Jews. Yeah, Quest of Supreme, Yeah, fake news that suprema so supreva road.

I met Darryl Yeah when he was defending on television.

Yeah.

And the people that were on the other side of the argument, Yeah, didn't stand a chance, right, Suprema suprema some Suprema.

Rod called thank you Linda Bean, yeah of ll Bean Yeah for your great support. Yeah by ll B Suprima. That was like brama roll call.

Very incredible people. Yeah, and I want to think, Carson, what's gonna be heading up hud.

Yeah, that's a big job. That's all you ever done in your life. Rics Suprema. My name is Dan.

Yeah. I didn't meet Darryl, but I now missed the president.

Yeah.

It was played by Will Ferrell. Suprea roll Suprema Suprema.

Roll call, Suprema Suprema, roll call so Breema so Agreema.

Roll call.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are This might be the most roguus episode of Quest Love Supreme, probably since the Christmas special. Yeah classic Yeah, uh wait llll Bean is black. No, it was I was reading the Trump tweet. We should explain what we were were well, Yeah, to celebrate month we read Trump's Those are excerpts that was Trump quotes Black quotes from his Black History speech that he gave. Okay, wait, was just a random tweet that that I was about

He's making Herdergie trumpson.

There he is. Yo.

Listen, man, I feel like we need to do something. I feel like we need to do the photo negative version of Black History Month.

Explain that was the rest of the month, yo, Well, because I feel like, you know, it's a lot of stuff going on now, and you know it's you know, we're having this war I think between like people that are globalists and nationalists and everything and.

You know, pederalists, everything, all the I s T s all the so.

I feel like every Black History Month we try to show like what black people have contributed to the country. I feel like, in order to really show people what we've done, I feel like maybe it might be time for us to just remove ourselves like a mon like just just for one month, day without yeah, a day without niggas, like an.

The Mexicans did that and it worked.

I feel like like every like for real, like we take like for one month we show you for all the people just like go back to your country if you don't like to hear for one month black people, we take away our music, We take away all our seasoning.

About to make a living on the music.

Well, no, I'm saying, listen, if I can go a month, you know, I mean, do we have the discipline?

You know?

Right now, a dude who's not eating any cereal or fried chicken or whatever cheese steaks that I've been noons and dulging for as of this taping, we're in the eighties.

Your resistance down.

That's yeah, that is one of the I think that's all I can I can't do no more. Ain't got no more. I can't do no more. You put in your time, man, I understand, but I thought about that, like what if we just did like a just a cultural enema, and well, we just removed ourselves just to really show, like all these folks that really won't black people go away if you go, and not just black people people of color, if we are like your your your uncle that like needs heart surgery, No doctor Patel

A good TV though, we should do like a TV should write it right it.

Up, Which brings us to our guess.

With us, this is all you dog today we kind of celebrate.

Your own guest ship. Okay, welcome, I got the beats.

What you did?

Okay, man today on a quest of Supreme. We have a guy that is man has written the what I would consider like the hip hop Bible, you know what I mean. He wrote a book called The Big Payback and uh, the best way I can describe it, I've never seen Star Wars in my life but that. But you know, for the Star Wars people, it is this book that shows how all what still to this day still.

I gave him last year and that was your first time seeing it. For Yeah, you ain't going to see Billy d.

You ain't gone.

I was four when that nigga was popping.

I'm watching that, all right. I'm sorry to mean to digress.

It was you know, I wasn't watching that. Okay, I missed Star Wars, but hey whatever, So as I was saying Billy G was in the Empire strikes back, that's the second one, right, Yeah, that's the one I heard was kind of live. I heard that one was dope. I can't believe we're having this conversation. No, I just missed that.

Whole was like hip hop Bible for Star Wars people, Star Wars people.

His book showed how all the Anakins became Darth Vader's like if you want to see how every all the major players in the game, the Russells, the Rick Rubins, the Jesus Christ, everybody, everyone who's someone in the world of hip hop. If you want to see how they became who they are, this book shows it, and it shows how hip hop played a role. It starts off in nineteen seventy eight. I want to say, is it seventy sixty eight? Oh shit, I missed the whole decade technically.

Okay, Well, the beginning of the book, which is amazing to me, which I know, so we gotta build it up. So no, nineteen sixty eight. It starts with.

DJ Hollywood, uh, and it ends with the election of Barack Obama, and it shows how hip hop played a role in all of that and all just the mini the thread.

Hip hop was a thread that ran through all of that. And it's an incredible read. And on top of that, he's uh played a hand in some of my favorite hip hop records. And he's also the writer creator, well one of the writers co creators of The Breaks on v H one, which I played a small a little bit, you know what I'm saying, big bro, and uh nah, And he's like you know, real good friend of mine,

Well?

The thing was I the thing that grabbed me about the Payback book is the fact that you really started the book in the eighteen hundreds. And what I wanted to ask you, what I always wanted to ask you, was what were your feelings about Hamilton? Because you now now, that's the one thing I wanted to ask on like, and I never got to ask him, like was he

Or I think we both read Cherno's book at the same time and had different reactions to it. He was a playwright and he started on this amazing work, and I was working on a book about hip hop, and it just made sense. The guy who invented American money lived and died in Harlem. That's the first sentence of the book, and so it ends. And sugar Hill is Alexander Hamilton's estate.

That's where he lived.

So I when I heard about Hamilton, I.

Just no, no.

I thought, I was like, oh my god, he gets it, he really gets it. Somebody else gets it. And Lynn knew something else that I couldn't believe anybody else knew, is that the very first rap record, really the first rap on record, like like Bronx style, Harlem style. M Seeing was not sugar Hill Gang was not Rappers, Delight was not King Tim iid. It was on the soundtrack the Broadway recording of the original soundtrack recording for Runaways

Really, Yeah, that's brilliant. Lennon of Miranda, So you have you seen Hamilton? Yeah yeah, yeah, So okay, I always wanted to know what the feelings were. Yeah. I mean, it's why you took that position though, because because we live in.

Harlem, so we feel like really connected to the soil of the place, you know, and you know, my son. He plays little league baseball in Jackie Robinson Park, which is right on that cliff under sugar Hill, And it's it's like you you feel the presence.

There of that and is that that's where you were born and raised or not?

I was not born in Harlem.

Where were you born?

I was born a few blocks south of Harlem, Lennox Hill Hospital on seventy seventh Street.

So, yeah, as a non New Yorker, how do you differentiate as a as a non New York or for me as a non New Yorker asking you, how do you differentiate what's Harlem and what six?

You know, the border on the east Side.

Yeah, okay, so ninety six is considered up upper west Side.

That's your border between the Upper east Side and Harlem. Now I live in Harlem, but but that's in the traditional border.

It gets a little tricky because I've been looking for a few cribs or whatever, and when I went to check out a spot in Harlem, they've now re christened sugar Hill as in Hamilton Row. And when I and when I asked they were they kind of yeah, they kind of kicked it to me, like, yeah, this does an excuse for us to add an extra extra.

Zero zero to the yeah to the to the press, and a lot of a lot of that stuff gets named for real estate, like morning Side Heights two to be Harlem Heights, but then when the name was out of vogue, they changed.

It's like stages of gentrification changed anything. Heights like that just.

Sound real project to me, Like in around our way in the South, like heights, Garden, y'all have heights, heights, heights, gardens, homes, homes of the jack, any of them, Like oh yeah, oh yeah, it's real. Yeah, it's yeah. It's a lot of wik vouches, it's it's real. It's real out there. So that's where I stayed at. But so I want to go. In the words of our Coult leader, I want to start at the beginning. You've always wanted. I want to start. Want to start the beginning.

So act as if you know, because we me and you have had a lot of conversations about, you know, everything. So it's like Eddie Murphy are sitting on home. I want to be okay, So tell us the beginning, Like, you know, what was your upbringing like as a kid.

Uh, well, I guess the most important thing about my upbringing is that, you know, my mom raised me in this town that was in between Baltimore and Washington, d C. So I grew up with a lot of you know, soul and funk radio Columbia, Maryland.

Yeah, so are you from there to No.

No, Columbia, alas, I'm from the DMV, but not like Columbia, because Columbia kind of not you know, like you said, it's on the edges in between DC and Baltimore. Your cooler in Baltimore.

You know, I grew up listening to w h U R Howard University Radio, listening to uh, you know, V one O three in Baltimore. So it was an interesting sort of class and race integration of an interesting place to grow up, and yet it was the most segregated

What was your people's playing in the crib? What was mom and dad?

Earth Wind and Fire? Marvin gane oh, Stevie Wonderer.

Yeah, wow, Oh so you was raised on the essential?

Yeah. My mother still angry at me that I stole her Earth Wind and Fire records when I left for college.

So that's dope, man, that they would listen to that. So that was was that your entry way of like saying, hey, I want to do this one day, like I want to do it for myself.

I was actually when I went to college, I was actually thinking of becoming a like a school teacher, high school teacher. And my major was Afro American studies. They called it Afro American Studies at that point, and I did a I just decided that I would do my thesis on I called musical apartheid in America.

Say what, wait? First, let me just ask you this. We talked about your background. This is radio. Let me just not assume you're not African American.

I'm Jewish, So I always wonder.

Y'all didn't know that either because y'all would have been celebrated. Oh wow, y'all didn't know you thought he was like John B.

No, you'd never assume, because you know, black comes in many forms. You know what I'm saying. Mariah Carey is black, So why couldn't he didn't? Because I asked that because I'm always interested when non blacks do a major like Afro American studies, like that's interesting to me, Like what made you?

I did? No for a major to West African? Still the Muppets every day has nothing to do with West African. I did. That's been to Africa more than you have.

I've never been there, no, never, Most of us have never been there.

You'll find that I've been that. I've been to the South Africa.

They're artists. Most regular black people people don't. We've never been there.

So the only people that can afford to get to Africa those a can exploited.

So I'm interested in.

Singular click.

So now that we have, that's interesting. So now we have two Jewish men who majored in that, both of y'all, I will be interested in y'all.

Like the Total song Africa Sugar for the Wind, I can't. Yeah, yeah, I saw, yeah, so I thought you do. Well. No, he's a member of the tribe. He's my brethren.

M O T.

Wait what's the answer for real? No, seriously, what makes you major in African Americans?

More about to the house.

Just okay, I just okay, okay, I'll be honest with you. I was kind of you. Yeah, I mean you had so much flavor. I just thought, okay, you one of us, like a Sean king. I didn't want to zoom. I think it's appeared in the glasses. I think that's I think that's what it is.

Could be Latin too, you know, just hand but okay, if I come without the beard, it would have been completely different.

Yeah yeah, the beard kind of you give it a little play tops at home and my pass.

How come the Beastie Boys and Rick Rubin don't automatically give us credit right from the beginning.

Well, okay for having bounce or funk or whatever you're talking about.

It's weird when listen. As for me, when I first heard the original Maroon era parties getting rough, like, I thought they were Puerto Rican, Like have you heard rock hard? And all right, maybe not rock hard, but definitely with this party is getting rough? Have you have you heard this party is getting rough? Uh? Yeah, I have. I we talked about it in the previous Yeah. So, I mean basically I thought they were Puerto Rican and it wasn't until you know, I opened the inside leave a

Yeah, oh wow, that's a whole nother culture, right, do you not You don't remember this Dan in DC? This is no Okay, hadn't gotten there yet because that was like the early eighties.

Okay, that was that was when all the coke was getting moved.

Listen. I don't know so Dan after.

Left.

Man, Well, anyway, nobody answered my question. Just assume in the future that all Jewish people are funky. Well yeah, some of the I'm just joking, but I'm saying you shouldn't. I mean, certainly, you know, you can he was offended by s.

There is a bit of a special relationship. I don't want to make too much of it, but there is a bit of a between me and between the three two.

I'm feeling, what do you mean.

Between uh, you know, black folks and Jews in America?

Here we are, We're on the same game civil rights.

I'm just saying you shouldn't be surprised that that there's a Jew in the room.

I was never surprised. You know who has bounce or whatever you want to be said flavor flavor? I mean you know I Search episode. I said that Search had more flavor. Yeah, because that was the term of the time. That was what it was. He had flavor. So all right, if you're just joining us, uh, this is the prame.

Boston University.

Boston University.

Graduated eighty nine. Okay, okay, you know so you got connected.

I knew, but I don't want to play that game, like, you know, start naming proper nowns. Did you know a Lloyd Stare It? Okay?

And I'm Google searching that ship.

Alright.

So however, I did go to college at the same time as Paul Batty.

Okay, so there's that Paul Batty who's.

Wrote to sell out just one of the man Booker Prize.

Paul college friends. Man, damn read a book. I am read Dan's book. Okay. So what was your major in college?

Afro American Studies?

Oh, that was like your major major. Yet it wasn't like I got excited. That's real, Okay, especially in Boston, right exactly are.

You looking at me like what's wrong? I'm to see if this makes sense. I'm like you, you went to Boston University. Yes, you majored in Afro American studies. You came from the DMV. That's like a lot of different things, Like you came from a whole freaking different culture in the DMV, went to Boston and then studied afrom like.

Going up there from.

Yes, because they didn't have any radio stations that played any funk soul, R and B you know.

So that was graduated eighty nine, so I went there in eighty six eighty five, right, so this is so of course this is how okay, I know it was this leading Okay, So all I have to listen to the college stations and all they're playing is like this electro and hip hop.

Right, So that was my induction into more hip hop, because hip hop was always just sort of like a subset of R and B to me, and then it just started to become more important to me. And then, you know, when you're in college, it's the first time I ever read Malcolm X. It was my sort of really like kind of getting politicized, and then the music was getting political at the same time. So by the time I graduated, it was the only thing that was important.

Right yot steps, Oh wait, Soul so first one.

Yeah, So Bill and Hank, Bill left def Jam to form this record company with Hank and Chuck. And then you know, Griff you know, was talking to Dave Mills at the Washington Times and R. J. Smith at The Voice picked it up and then it was just it was like postponed for a year.

What was the controversy for those that don't know.

What happened, was that Professor Professor Griff said something to the effect of, why do you think they call it jewelry because of the Jews?

You know, yeah, it is right. I'm like that, I don't know, it's not that, it's not I assume, said Thompson. I've always assumed it was. But at that time that was crazy.

I remember, I remember that ship was. Yeah, like Griff they cut him out. They had to kind of like excommunicating whatever, Like was no, no, for real, Like that ship was.

Like I'm looking.

That's one of the questions I forgot to ask MC search was there was a confrontation between him and Griff. The reason why that jam had to put guards in the you know, uh, that was one of the main reasons.

Like, it was a lot of confrontations.

I remember that summer. So that put everything on hold. Once that happened, that kind of put soul on hold.

Yeah, So what I ended up doing was getting a job in the mail room of Profile Records, and that was the home of Rob Bass run DMC special ad right in the summer of like the fall of nineteen eighty nine. So my first job was answering phones and stuffing envelopes a profile.

So you're saying that had that not happened, so would have gotten developed by nineteen eighty nine instead of nineteen ninety one. That's right.

Wow.

So I wonder if those young Black teenagers and the Sun of Bersik album were ready to go in nineteen ninety like earlier than when it got released, because it didn't come out to what like ninety ninety one.

I do recall Bill still waiting for those things to be complete in nineteen ninety like it was.

He was still you know, those two records, man, are like to me, I mean as far as like I loved anything and everything that the Bomb Squad has ever done as a production unit. But it is so weird because do you have a product musically it could be hip hop or whatever that you hold near and dear to your heart that you know won't translate to anyone

Remember that.

Oh I've memorized record. Yeah, because I don't want to scare you and I hate to change the subject.

But you know what I remember. I remember your columns. I think they were wrapped sheep right, yeah, we're a columnist. That's how I first got yeah, she she she she hooked me up.

Man. So with those records of soul gets, it's those solos on whole you a profile. I was even one. We were talking about this today, man, like, like, do mail rooms still even exists anymore?

I really don't know.

I don't know record labels, but NBC, NBC there's always someone putting mails flowing. That's the way I get record companies. Ghetto.

I am.

All my mail gets to the NBC now, so everything like cards from families. People be like what's your address, And I'm like, well, do you want me to get actually get letter or package or yeah? So all I just you know, that's my house and they'll bring it to you sleep there. Yeah, I mean some weekends, I'll make it a weekend there. I guess it is your house.

Then record companies barely have offices, so do they because that's started.

To get out of the mail room.

Now was that?

So at that time were you getting were you like getting to please listen to my demo? Like, were you getting that? Yeah?

I mean it wasn't. It wasn't. The thing about Profile at the time, there really weren't any It was a hip hop label. I mean had a lot of hip hop on it. There were no like hip hop heads there. You know Brian Chin who signed Rob Bass and special Ed. He loved hip hop, but his first love was dance music, right, So I guess that's why Corey gave me a job, you know, listening to demo tapes and doing ain't R and I was not very good at it.

But who were your signings? Why do you say you were? Well?

I mean I just wasn't successful in getting anybody across. Like I found Geno Excel when I was you know, at Profile, but I was not successful in making the sale and getting him signed. So but it wasn't long. You know, while I was working at Profile, I also was writing for The Source. They had were in the process of moving from Boston to New York. Were you in that first summer issue, the one I wrote the ll cover story?

Sorry a couple of years.

All right, you wrote that cover story, the one the Mama said.

Notack you out? Yes, I remember, oh Man, the nerd, the nerd of me is really about.

To go in, go in, oh Man.

Yeah, Lego heart just like exploded exactly like that that issue.

I mean that probably next to the first five issues of Grand Royal Magazine. Wow, like Royal somewhere in one of those eighteen storage units are like, I'm an I would buy the Source like three each and just preserve them. Because when I first got that l issue, am an easy issue. I'm like, that's the first time I ever saw people truly understand and really wax poetic about hip hop culture in a way that Rolling Stone would or

I didn't know you wrote that cover story. I was just shot in the dark. That's crazy, and that was what nineteen ninety ninety.

So I wrote the Public Enemy cover story, the ice Cube cover story, and then the the lo one.

Oh man, did you review America's Most Wanted?

I did, well, it was more like it was more like an essay on ice Cube.

Okay, well, I know that. Nice to give an issue you didn't know. Okay, okay, well, but I remember that was like the summer issue, right yeah, yeah, because the most One got a five. I want to say, yeah, Tribe got a five, Edu Teament got a five. It did, Yes, it did. A fourth album got a five that I nineteen ninety and I'm also shocked that I knew. I knew you guys were the deal. When some didn't sit right with me with Fear of a Black Planet, but it was kind of like, you know, I'll ride with it.

No, it was.

It was a bronze to me, and there was a review. They gave it three and a half mics in that Source issue, and I was like, whoa this is? I said, Wow, they're not salivating over this. And it wasn't like the dismissive you know, Spin magazine like this is a ghetto music,

There was so much ambition in that era and those issues like just to really have a voice that was exclusively dedicated to hip hop and and just smart and political, and just the people there were. I mean that was Dream and Kirna and you know, Maddie.

Where was your era there? Well you there from the beginning too.

I was there when they were still in Boston when that Summer issue was being written, and then I left to go work for Rick Rubin in ninety one ninety one, so ninety one was sort of my swan song with the Source.

Do you remember your last issue the last article I wrote?

Oh man, I don't even remember it was I don't remember. Sometime in ninety one, I think was my last piece, or ninety one or early ninety two.

Well, yeah, that's a classic as it gets. What do you remember the album's even reviewed?

I did cover stories, I didn't and like feature articles. I didn't really do the album reviews because that was the the that was like the core group, the mind squad, you know. And I sometimes I regret not participly stopping my writing career to go into the record business now feels like, you know, I mean, because I had a lot of catching up to do. When I moved back to New York. I went to go work for Rick Rubin, you know, in LA for about thirteen It was ended

I thought.

So you went from Profile to the Source, went from Profile, and I'm you know, just wrote for the Source while I worked at Profile. Year was Profile eighty nine October eighty nine to April nineteen ninety one.

So you were there for the first was Naughty by Nature's First John on no, no, that was it was Tommy Boy. That was right. So honestly the first honest yeah, the first on like this.

Ah so wait what was the rosters?

Just because I'm now I'm profile.

Rob Bass special ed U Poor Righteous Teachers, which is my very first record that rocked this funky joint promotion. L A Star. I don't know if you remember her, I remember.

Or yes she was.

She was on B Boy Records for a while, then Brian Chin signed her and she made a pretty good album. But she got into this battle with Tretch at the New Music Seminar, this MC battle, and he said the only kind of star you could be as a mon star.

Was she not cute?

She was not I liked her. That was not would about l a star her career right there.

Ship Yo, It seems like it'sunny because you said Poor Teacher was your first record that you promoted. For some reason, it seemed like you got really well received in my area, like the d m V area. Did you feel like it was easier to promote because you kind of felt.

Yeah, although there weren't really a lot of mixed shows in DC at the time because remember they weren't playing it on WPGC at that time.

What was it like, Okay, well you left in ninety one. Did you have to work back from him? Then I have to back back? Was that was that ninety one?

Yes? Oh, so here's the story, right, here's the story. So man, Rick comes call. I literally just get a call out of the blue, and the receptionist says Rix on the phone, and I knew it was him. I knew it was Rick. Yeah, not because anybody told me he was calling, but because I don't know. Gino Excel and I had been working on some demos and we had been talking a little bit and we just did like this, It's almost like this little incantation to sort

Whatever.

Anyway, why was hell was I telling you the story? Oh?

The story? Right?

So Rick brings me out to Los Angeles sort of like a courtship, you know. Uh, he's thinking of hiring me for Deaf American. And one morning I'm staying at the Riot High on Sunset and one morning he calls and he says, uh, come downstairs, We're going to breakfast with Russell. It's like Russell's in town. So we go to the Beverly Hills Hotel and Russell comes down and Russell's talking a mile a minute, and Rick is laughing

Which.

You know, So what do you think of Faith?

And I said, and I said, uh.

I said, and I just the wrong answer. I was such a punk. I was like, well, Russell, you know, I just think as far as rap R and B fusion, I think the kids are really listening to in Vogue, and you know, they don't really want to hear rappers doing it the opposite way. Faith is a louder record than in Vogue.

I went into a club that ship was so loud.

It is much louder, and Rick is losing his mind. Rick must have called three different people in the car after we left that breakfast saying, and Russell said, it's a louder record and that's why it's better. And that's what I saw like the nature of their relationship is that Russell makes Rick laugh, you know, and so.

It's like a bad way, right right, I think in a Rick way. I mean you remember Faces, Yes, dude, I had the Back from Hill album. Wait, just you know, I gotta this face is by nineteen ninety era Run dmcme fun and the thing was that because it was Faces. But the single before that was Pause, which was even more kind of new Jack swingy. But they got away with Pause. Ter J Jay something the trade and asked

Le Or was so mad that didn't sell. I have a copy of a memo that he sent.

To the ice Cube remix Ice Cree remix of Back from Hell. That happened. Oh, I think I remember that there was an ice cube. It was it was a Chuck d and ice Cube and Run Back from Hell remix that. Yeah.

So because at this time, and I wanted to ask you about this if you were involved, because at this time that was after Tougher than Leather and you know, run D m C had been kind of away for a minute because they were going they were worn with Death Jam, well War. You know, Russ wanted to get him on Dead Jam and Profile was like, no, the did you have any input or at that time, like you know, working directly with them, like to.

Try to say like, hey, fellas, you know, no, no.

I mean you know they were they were at that point working on their own. I mean I was just the kid, you know, bringing that tapes back and forth from the studio. That was.

Yeah. So when you hear this record, like, I mean what, I have zero ownership of it spiritually, financially, So for you it's just straight up like I just gotta work it and it's just the job.

Like and I mean, listen, they gotta they got they got a certain amount of respect, you know regardless, right, you know, I take the record the Red Red Bull, play it, take it to Chuck, Chuck will play it. It's not Uh that was.

Okay, what else? Sticky did you work special ads legal album? Did that wow? Ship well let's move it? So no, but that whole know that whole that could the five due the five minute of my Yes, Yes, that entire I just I just found that record, uh, to p astronomical amount of it for the CD. Yeah it is, yes, but yeah, that's so slept on. It was so entirely t was great.

So I just want to know how did Rick feel about your answer to Russell? Because remember you said the whole reason that you were coming to l A is because of the possibility of you working with Rick, And then you said you felt uncomfortable with the way that you made him answer the question with Russell.

So Rick was laughing his ass.

What you said, and so you were you were? You hired?

And then well then then Russell called and left the message on Rick's machine. He said, Uh, if you don't hire that kid, I'm gonna hire him. He don't know nothing, but like his attitude.

I'm glad they were amicable at least I really were.

Russell used to call me like in the mid nineties when I was working for him, when they were really when Russell was trying to put together his PolyGram deal and get off of Sony. They were heading into their they're trying to put their tenth anniversary thing together and Rick still had not finished the negotiations, and he was like, can you you know, can you get to Rick is not doing anything? He needs to move forward. So he would call me sometimes and ask if I could push it forward.

So when you went to Rick, is this before or after the original Ghetto Boys uh debut on his label?

That was during Yeah, so he had just signed them and then Geffen dropped Deaf American because of it, right, and that's when I started to, you know, have that little like four month courtship period, and that's when you know, we got the I guess we can't be stopped?

Right. That was when that was drop.

And I think that Rick felt some pressure, not really pressure because Mo Austin, So he had an.

Option to have we can't be stopped before they went to rap a lot.

That's right, that's right. And I think he decided once he moved to Warner Brothers that you know, he had fought well enough for the first one, and then he didn't feel very strongly about we can't be stopped, which is ironic.

Really, that was the one that was the one. I mean, yeah, the first one was that was it was Gripping on It was Gripping Level, which is basically the same record. Yeah, some engineering was was a little different. And did they not add an H to Ghetto Boys on the original I think the original pressing of g yeah, right, but then they went back to G E C O. Right, but there initially when they were on Deaf American, they tried they were.

He was on Deaf American when he got shot, right, yeah, he got shot in the eye, and so that was you know, we were still like concerned about his health and everything. And but you know, now we're getting the era where like the sum of my A and R mistakes far outweigh any successes, you know, I mean, what were your mistake? Okay, here's an example. Paul Stewart was probably the best you know, all around uh talent scout

That's a good Rick, That's a good and uh.

And he says, I really like that song, so I like it too. He says, but do you think there are any other Do you think they have any other songs on this? Like do you think thing? And I said no, I think this is the only one they've got. And then we just let it go and we were right, but.

We were so wrong. Who else give us another one day? And I was just like, this is your greatest missus?

Really the Far Side demo?

What what if you're just now quest love supreme? And he was talking about all his greatest missus? So how did how did you? How did you miss out on that? What? What was the story?

Yet another you know sort of Paul Stewart incredible demo? And I liked it. I guess you know what was I was just on some ship. I was like, I work for Rick Rubin and everything I do has to be perfect, and you know, I just don't know.

I don't know if this adds up.

It seems kind of silly, you know, And I don't, you know, stupid, you know, because once I heard for Better for Worse.

Wait, that was one of the demos.

Not on the demo. It was not a demos, it was it was mister.

Officer and uh in its current state.

But passing me by was.

You didn't feel it.

It's not that I didn't feel it. I just didn't get behind it fast enough, you know what I.

Didn't. So yeah, it took me a minute because your Mama came out. I fronted on it. Yeah, your Mama was like your Mama, and then the remix of your Mama when no, the remix of your Mama that was and even they said that your Mama remixes whack dude, it sucks dick in the album. Yeah. But then when we got the record and when for Better for Worse

You know?

Because I mean like the Knots, that was like world the.

Knots was on.

Yeah you signed them? Yeah yo, I swear to God, dog I listened to on the air maybe no saggeration, maybe nine hours in a row. I kept that ship on loop all Christmas Day, just on the edge God, that whole. Like when we first came to Los Angeles, the mixtapes was and see mixtapes. I wasn't big on I was. Bus Stops was the ship though. Bus Stops was the one. That's how we met the Jazzy vat Nasties. They were in that video. They were in the video

It was more like these were artists, like you know, Chino and Quest back in New York. They didn't have a place, mad lad Yeah, so you know, they would come to my apartment, you know on ninth and twentieth right there in Chelsea when it wasn't a getrified neighborhood, and uh, you know, so it was just they liked some of the stuff they were doing with me, and I managed to, you know, get a couple in there, which was good.

So you were and you were making beats on the SP at that time.

I was making beats on an ASR ten and a rolling W thirty And then I bought King Texts SP twelve hundred from him and added that to the repertoire.

And how did you learn it? How did you? Because I mean it wasn't no manuals, no shit. I imagine it's just just trial and error, yeah, and error and error in error. What did you produce on on their records?

Well, for Tino Excel, I did a song called Rise, which was the last song on the album, and Question Mad Lad, I did a song called one hundred and one to do while I'm with your Girl.

So you you yo? I was so mad at you for using that Brick sample. Oh yeah, that was my wait. I hate that. Every everything that he's done is like a childhood memories mind. No, that Living from the Mind sample is like I got that ship when I was six years old. That was the first eight track I ever got as a kid. Damn, you actually got an eight track for Wow. This is Sleepy Brown's pop singing Wow.

Record.

Yeah, living Living from the Mind from Brick. They were from Atlanta's Sleepy his dad, Jimmy Brown. Yeah, but when that was like not even like you know, like records when you're making beats and like, oh, I'm a sample that one day, but then there's like records from your childhood. When I heard that ship, I was so I've never been so mad at a sample use. I'm sorry I was like, no, but it was perfect, man, Like even the wait, when was the drum break? It was new birth? Did you flip it?

Yeah, it's a new it's a kick. Boom boom, it was a yeah.

So what a point in your career did you know? Because you went from I'm just I'm backtracking. I'm like, you went from mail room and our writer and then you when did you know that you could even make beats?

Like?

When did you even did.

It all along?

You know, like even in college, you know, worked on music and stuff. I was in the Inner Strength Gospel Choir. I was the bass player the Inter Strength Gospel Choir.

Whoa, that's that's the African American States. Yeah, the Inner Strength Gospel Choir.

You're a musician by nature anyway. That's just something that you left out at the beginning. But I mean a bass player, that's not something that just you do.

You failed musicians become producer? Was this a failed producers become.

Was this? Was this a black gospel choir?

Yes?

Someone wants to I forgot who it was? Shut up, Bill, when's the last white gospel choir you saw? I'm just saying I don't think there's a lot of them literal. Look, you know someone during the voodoo toward joke, it was like, what made a new penal that? Well, he said, Man, if your bass player is a white boy in an all black group, you know he a motherfucker. Yeah, yeah, so you're the bass player? It was, And did you

Well, here's the story behind that, kause Shehena was at a at theime and Shea was a friend and she heard the advance and assigned Bobby Garcia to do the cover story. So Barbito wrote that cover story. But here's the thing. We were putting our rap releases not through WEIA, which was the big Warner distribution company. We were putting

Yeah, dude, I mean, you know, in case you think that you threw pebble out there and didn't ripple and didn't dog.

I love that record, man, Yeah, like yeah, yeah, Death American like again, like y'all made the records that I bought and they were dope, but it was just something And maybe it was like the distribution that you mentioned. I don't know, but it just seems like they didn't get that same love that I guess a lot of other records were getting.

I don't know why that was, you know what I'm saying, because the ship was dope. But Bill, did you know about question matlet. Nope, all right, I gotta play. I gotta play.

You're not alone alone? Was hit a song?

I know, just like question mad lad, one hundred and one things to do while I'm with your girl. It's a great title. Hell's us speaking of all the niggas out there that got girls on the rail, you gotta stop hitting them and mistreating them and neglecting them, because no, no joke, no, I'll fuck them.

Wa chackie. Now this when it sounds about messed up war on machine.

But if you and your girl ain'txite, you know, I'll fuck your lady. Get better. Good of a chat because it only takes one more move to make me get right in case? It so much classic ship man and yeah, it just got a little story about that.

You hear that eight oh eight? Yeah, that's an actual eight oh eight drum machine. It's ricks eight o eight that's making that.

We're into the first hour of Quest Love supprint only on Pandora. Here with Uh, the Illustrious and Press were the Dan shawnas Uh renaissance man, Jack of all trades, the Black Black, the Black whites player, the white basel yes black, the white bass player in the Black ensemble Black gospel man. Yeah, that's that's some ship, sir, mix a lot, Yes, sir, that was like the biggest song ever. Like what was it like working that ship?

So that starts, you know, Rick calls me at Profile Records says, I'm in town. I'd like to meet you, you know, uh, And so he he asked me to come to ninety eight Elizabeth Street, which was the old Rush def Jam offices, and he still had his apartment on the top two floors and he threw down his keys from the fifth floor so I could let myself in because the buzzer wasn't working or whatever, and def

Yeah, some that's not surprising, and so I can kind of it just was not his era, you know, he that was the era.

That he left hip hop, right, And then what did he play me? He played me Audio two Milk Da and Sir Mix a Lot, both to MC's with really hazily voices, and I'm like, they both sound like ad Rock? Does he just like MCS? And then so for whatever reason, he hires me anyway, which I thought was a great leap of faith for him, right to give me a shot. And then a month after that he says, I signed Sir Mix a Lot, right, So.

His first rigor is swah, I can't remember the the one with beepers was yet, don't forget that was. That wasn't on Deafam.

That was on Nasty Mix ofle. So he signed Sir Mixed a Lot off for that, got him out of that deal, put him on his new deal with Warner Brothers, and had a finished album and he sent it to me and he says, listen to it and tell me what the single is. And I am not looking forward to listening to this Sir Mix a Lot album because I am not a fan and I'm supposed to pick

Yes, first or Jesus.

So I was like, he's doing you know exactly, He's saying exactly what Lisa Jones was saying. So makes lots of feminist right. So, uh Rick calls me, he says, sod, you listen to the album, Like, yes, Baby got Back it's a single, says I think so too.

So was that all your conversations like yeah, did he ever have like a conversations where you were like, hey, Dan, you do it?

It was always no that he would. He would like come back from Lollapaluz. I say, hey, Rick, how was la Palooz? He said, there's a lot of jumping. He had a crazy sense of humor and not to get off the topic. But he would. He would come into a recording studio and if he didn't like what he was hearing, he would just say, I've got to leave. My doctor says my homeopathic doctor says, I can't be allowed around a lot of heavy electronic equipment. Would say, Wow, I had to make a I wanted to make a

Wow.

So the first thing I did when I moved to LA was, you know, go to the Chaplain stage was the old A and M lot, and that's where we shot Baby Got Back. And I walked into the set and I thought, oh my god, this is a cartoon, Like they're going to totally ruin the politics of this song.

This is a serious, dude, you thought you were going to make a political statement. I just thought the direction You're not look at the did you not look at the treatment where it's like this big.

Ass was Apparently the treatment was Mixed a Lot told the director, it's me rapping on a big ass.

So you didn't tell Sir mix a Lot that there was a political that we could win with.

It was his angle to have. I just walked into and I'm like, oh my god, is this going to be a cartoon? How's this gonna be? Because now we see it as an iconic video, But walking into that room it felt like because then mixed Lot was upset because he said none of the dancers had asses, right, so that was a problem for him. Then they put.

Yeah, I've heard all right, I got a minute now.

I was like, yeah, baby, ones in gold, not the one in yellow. The one in yellow is fine.

In the beginning, the ones din't gold with the little shorts, the shorts, and.

Then there was a woman of color who they were dressing as a mermaid for some reason, and they put a blonde wig on her and that was like no, no, no, no, no, what are you doing? So mix Lot's getting ready to walk off the set. Adam Bernstein's the director is getting ready to walk off the set. Ricardo the man, Ricardo Frader, his able manager, managed to, you know, pull everything together, the video happened and it ended up being fantastic, and all my fears and anxiety d's you know.

It ended up not being warranted, all right, So baby got back, shit goes through the roof.

Did you feel a little, I guess vindicated as an an R, like did you pick the right one that time?

I didn't because I wanted I signed to become a hit. So I had put a lot of faith in Quest and a lot of energy into Chino cell and Gino Excel. That was another story because he was part of a group called the Art of Origin, a duo from East Orange, New Jersey, and his partner was Carrie Chandler. Now, if you know the house music, carry Chandler was then an incredible deep house producer. But now he's a legendary, you know.

What happened with Chino's record?

I remember there was a got what was the It was a sample clearance that I think you guys had problems with because he's said it was a line about Miles Davis or something, and it was like everybody, yeah, yeah, he was talking everyone.

I think lightly after after.

You know, he had been trying to get a deal since nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety and it was already ninety four, ninety five, and he just had it. Says, you know what, I'm just going to tell the truth the way that I you know, I'm going to say what I what everybody's afraid to say. You know, the relationship between you know, Eddie Murphy and another actor who

And she was gonna say what offended to I don't know the line that offended. I know that it must have got under his skin because I've never heard the words fuck you utter so hard and with like you heard the scheme of venom, fucking fucking what was?

What was? Now that I am a professor at the Clive Davis Institute, I understand the importance of writing instruction and the importance of a misplaced modifier. That's the problem with Gino, Excel and TUPAC because Chino said, by this industry, I'm trying not to get fucked like Tupac in jail. What he meant was Tupac's trying not to get fucked, right.

But what was this is not this is a cactus turn had his mother out. Yeah, this is a second grammatical era. That's like some ship. This is a ship, That's what it was. Did they have you know, they have to make bees there squashed?

You know Tupac died.

Yeah, because that's you're hears it all come out ninety five. I can't.

I do remember though, when Tupac died, Chino called me and he was crying because he really liked Tupac. I mean, he liked him as an m MC, he liked him as a lyricist. He I think he wished it had gone another way. And I remember going to we went to Vegas with James Lopez. Was when Mackavelly came out and James and I went up to the up to the room, and Chino stayed in the car just to listen to Macavelly alone, you know, like to have that moment.

Yeah.

Man, So after so your two main extitute signed Chino inquest and then baby got back like goes through the roof.

The follow up to that album it was was it put him.

On the Glass, which didn't become a huge hit, but it made Seinfeld, so that made me proud.

The video.

She's not going to put him on the glass.

Because that was okay, mack Daddy was the baby Baby? What was that album? The one after to put them on a glass album?

They'll make a liar out of me, Chief, Chief, Chief boot knocks.

How do you know that?

Chief? I could see it, but I couldn't call it. Was that the one with fake Louis on it?

That was Swap Meet Louis?

That was mac Daddy. That was that was mack Daddy.

Did you ever see the Lauras Tucker?

Was that like that?

No, we were not important or successful enough to ever. That's the one good thing about my in R career sort of flew.

Under the radar with old little Time Warner controversy, nothing.

But I was there during that whole thing. I mean, that's actually one of the scenes that ended up in the book that Moe, Austin and Warnicker called a huge meeting of all of the important rap artists and their managers. So everybody came, Tom Silverman, came, Bill Stephanie came, uh Coolgie, Rap came, Ice t came Georgie, and Josa came. You know, everybody was in one room. Paris was in the room, right was so that this is for context. This is

You know, no problem.

Moe was a good guy and he was in a really really bad position and put in a really bad position by Bob Morgato and Jerry Livin who.

Had you know, we're over him.

How long did Elas?

It didn't last long because once there were two phases to the culture Wars in the nineteen nineties, right, the first phase was nineteen ninety two, which was the Body count Cop Killer where the police unions all of the country were boycotting Time Warner. That subsided after the because that was an election year, right I was in Clinton

That actually scared me.

Now you can't. In other words, it's you can't. It's like whack them all, you know, you beat it down over here, It's just going to end up over there. And so that ended pretty much ended the culture Wars.

So when did you leave Deaf America?

When Rick lost his Warner b Others deal when he sort of had got a smaller deal over at Sony in ninety god what year was it? Ninety seven?

Okay, I won't to have a chance to ask him this unless he does the show, but would you happen to know what his opinion was of the Paul's Boutique record? Did he ever mention or the BC Boys at that point in that moment, like.

I'll tell you this, I can only give you sort of little vignettes, right. So the first vignette is me going to LA for the first time with Rick and him being in line at Club Lingerie I think it was, and like ad Rock is in front of us, you know, and just having a very terse conversation with him, like these were best friends, you know, and they're being civil to each other, but there's no like, there's no connection there.

You know.

They were financial betrayals, there were you know, friendship betrayals.

But I do know that he.

I think he liked Paul's boutique. He really admired Matt Dyke, you know, Matt Dyke was his friend. And I think Dyke helped on that album a bit, but I think he was more sort of there was a little bit of shadenfreude because Paul's boutique lost money for capital, you know, because they had caused him so much tumult when they left, you know, So I mean.

It was you a good businessman or was he a creative man?

Rick is a creative man. There's no question. He didn't have a Russell.

That's the problem.

That's why that's why American Recordings did not do well really ever. I mean they had a few hits, but he didn't. He didn't have somebody, a partner who could do what Russell did, and that's why they were so good together. And you know, Russell never found a creative person like Rick again, but he found another kind of symbiotic relationship with Lee or.

M Yeah, if you could call it symbiotic, but I would say it. So ninety seven you leave, uh, you leave American? Where do you go? From that point?

I went to work for Forst Whittaker. Forst Whittaker was starting a record company, and yeah, Spirit Dance Music distributed through Epic, and I tried to sign the Far Side again in ninety seven because they wanted off of Delicious Vinyl or whatever, and and I was trying to make a way from We ended up signing Trey.

Oh just train from the Far Side. Oh Man, did anything ever happened?

No?

Because with not Doogie howser? Uh, Parker Lewis can't lose. No, no, no, it wasn't. No, you're talking about Green? That was yeah? That was yep. Okay, that album actually wasn't bad. It wasn't It wasn't bad. I heard I heard it was you never heard it. But if you've heard everything not, that album wasn't bad. I mean, Bill, you'll be if you really knew what we were talking about. I just love that you got to Brian as the Green from Dougie House, you know White Boy TV. Come on, no,

I do remember a video that do you send me?

It was like Trey was singing on it. It was respectable joint. He was like the first Drake. He was like the first like TV star. No, damn, we haven't had a good rabbit hole in a second.

You know what, though, when I work for Forrest, I tried like hell to sign Crosswalk, Crosswalk, Cody Chestnuts before, but it wasn't it was it was like Beatles esque rock.

It was dope.

He was dope, and uh, you know I remember seeing him live. This is really early on this before I think he was ever making music with you guys, and he's like this next song is white record Companies can't sign my group because of me, you know.

Ship like that just funny and really good. And I bagged for us to sign him, and so so far as was really doing his business. It wasn't like a vanity thing where it's just like, no, it wasn't van anything, just like like Michael Jordan's wasn't hidden beat.

Yeah, so Trey was like the start I was.

That was Acclaim else they never released anybody Ghost. Uh, that was happening right when I was there. Actually there there was a film with Jim Jarmush and Rizza's first score.

Yep, it was I remember.

They were doing radio promotions behind that because they came to see is Rizza and Forrest.

But that's when I decided I kind of had enough for the music business.

You wanted to tell them about themselves. I wanted to write again. So since I was in LA.

The first thing I did was, you know when you when you're in l A and you want to write, you you tend to think of writing for the screen. So I ended up writing for the Lyricist Lounge show and and then for You'll Love This be ET's Comic View. Comic View, they had sketch comedy for a little while, so I helped out for a season.

How was that experience?

It was great? I mean I loved writing comedy and in a way it set me up for the breaks later on, you know, just in terms of that being in a room of writers, really really funny people Alison Foos and oh Man, they're just really you know a lot of them had worked for a Living Color and I just learned a lot.

Well, Lyris's Lounge was phenomenal, like that was a that was the that's where I don't know what, and.

Most words were like he had a chance to write with most a little bit like not like on the sketch side. So he wrote the rhymes and I sort of contributed ideas for the sketch, but most came, and common came, and Erica came. It was a really good, really good tough.

I believe there did an episode or not.

I don't remember.

When did you know you were funny in the realm of you? You've had a lot of hats. Okay, So what I'm just saying, Well, well, here's.

What I used to do.

I used to do this segment, you know, the wake up show, King Tech and Sweat. So I used to do this thing where I would read, I would read like the Steve Allen gag right, I would read rap lyrics as poetry and I ended up doing a bunch of sketches for them, and so that led to the gig with with lyrics.

Why did you think that worked? Man? Because I thought that was I mean, I thought it costs too much.

Did great in the arratings, but it costs too much to make.

What would the what would the twelve hours late?

I think he was on time. I think he was.

In South Africa.

You what was the what was the what was you wait, fooling nobody? He was. There was like a presidential debate between him and uh master fool remember yeah, I.

Mean f u o l oh my god? What what? Why was it so expensive? What were the what were the call involved?

Just sketch comedy, wardrobe and Union, and I mean it was a real production and it was not something that MTV was used to doing. I mean they were doing reality shows which are just bank Yeah.

Yeah, what was it about TV that you love? Because I mean at some point you were like, I'm staying.

The ability to write something and then have it uh you know produced and on TV media it was so immediate and I got a chance to actually act and like to be a part of that thing, and.

That was It was dope. It was his favorite jobs. It's also ahead of his time because MTV still has uh next show while 'nout yeah, which the cheaper version, much cheaper version. But no, yeah, it was I think it's a show that would do much better now in like the snapchat you know, uh meme era then you know back then.

So at some point you decide, okay, you want to you're writing. When does the I guess the beginnings of the Big payback the Bible, Like when does when do you start writing?

It started when I wanted to do hip hop journalism again, and so I pitched, Uh, I pitched an article that nobody would buy. Vibe wouldn't Vibe wasn't interested in it. Double XL wasn't interested in it. It was called Last Night, a DJ Saved My Business, and it was about these guys who owned these disco labels in the eighties who thought they were going to be disco kings and ended

Damn.

And I was like, all right, you know what, maybe this is a book. So I had enrolled at Columbia Journalism School to get my masters, and I did a lot of things there, like I ended up I did my master's project in the West Bank in Palestine.

And.

I was either going to do a book on that or I was going to do this hip hop business history, and so it ended up being that. And my mentor there was the great Sam Friedman, who teaches this book writing class every year and only twenty five people a year. Getting you have to pitch him a book I did to get into.

The class, and was the big payback was that your pitch.

The big payback was it was called Beats, Rhymes and cash at first, right, And so I got in and then the very first day we're supposed to bring in like a sample chapter, and NPR is taping the class for a piece on the class because like so many people get published out of this class, and so on NPR to this day, there is a First of all, I won the Cliche Award, like every the most most cliches per It was like, you know, so I having a bad day anyway, And we got into this argument

Dang, that's my, that's my. But he's the guy. He's like that tough love Sorry, he's.

Like that tough love teacher that got that treatment out of me. And I got out of that class.

You know.

A month later that treatment was sold, and then I spent the next three years reporting the book.

So how did you?

How did that make you a better writer? Because I've only known you, I only know you now, So what did that class do for you as a writer? How did it make you stronger?

Just pouring over every word in every comma, trying to make every sentence as as elegant and efficient as it can be. You know, every every sentence has a function, Every word has a function. But even more than that, I kept getting sidetracked because I'm a nerd, you know, about music, and I wanted to talk about the emergence of the AO eight drum machine, and I wanted to take these divergent paths into what Marley did and how much the bridge was so important.

You sound a lot like somebody I know. Yea, So.

He says, right there, So he says, Dan, it's about the music. Sorry, he says, Dan, It's about the business, not the music. It's about the business. It's about the business. He kept saying that mantra to me, and and so I listened to him, and that's I remember that first chapter. I turned and he says, you can't write this chapter without getting the voices of Sylvia Robinson and Bobby Robinson, Like I need to know what they were doing while jay Z was getting his Grammy Where were they not Grammy?

Oh?

Sorry? When he was at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awarding the uh you know, the Grandmaster Flash of the Furious Five for the first people to get inducted. So that was a motif for the book. J D was a jay Z was inducting them, and he wanted to He knew the reader would want to know where the founding mother and one of the founding fathers of the business were at that moment, and if all the listeners were big Sylvia was in the hospital and Bobby Robinson was at home watch them.

So do you acknowledge this as the hip hop Bible?

No?

I kind of see it more as the the forty forty eight Laws of Power. You know that that one book that every guy that went to jail has that like, like, it's no, I don't mean your book. I'm just saying, like you, I always see the forty eight Laws of Power book and every like when Jay first got his office at Deaf Chair that book, I was like, are you strategically placed in this areas? He had a nerf ball and it's forty eight Loss of Power book. But I mean it is very informative and and sort of

Because it wasn't out there or hip hop is so big that there are so many stories you can tell about it. And I couldn't have written my book without Jeff Chang having written Can't Stop the Albums Right? And I couldn't have written it without Brian Coleman having done check the technique. And not to even mention the smaller books that that the earlier ones that you know, David Tube had done and Nelson George had done a pretty good book hip Hip Hop America. I think it was

Yeah.

So all of them are really important, and and I stand on the shoulders of all those folks. But my issue was people really didn't understand that hip hop almost didn't happen, right. They didn't understand like when I would read accounts of hip hop history, it was almost like run DMC made a record and then they were huge, right, And that's not how it happened. People fought tooth and nail to make this stuff successful. It almost didn't happen.

Can I ask, so since you were in Los Angeles for the greater part of the nineties, I mean, of course. Now, it's just it's such a different way, different feelium vibe and quick, quick backstory. So usually when guests come on, notable guests, especially New York based guests, come on the show, I'm always fascinated. One of the common denominator stories and experiences they have is they always have a tunnel not

It was like that.

Yo. It's like Santha Nico so in to be in La during the period of Shug's rain, where any moment could be the moment where you could get got Like what was that like in that period? Like was it an enjoyable time or did you feel like you were so out of the circle that you could I wasn't that close to power, I guess in that way. And I didn't fetish death row, you know what I mean. I didn't.

I didn't want to be around those folks. I didn't you know what I mean, You.

Couldn't avoid it, Like the roots are the furthest thing from death row. But you know, Sugar and Pok once came to a show and I swear to God, even the air just suck out the room like it was like it was like unavoidable. So how like, how did you manage m a atmosphere and musically magical but also questionable as.

Far as being naive and also the feeling that it's it was normal, you know, like when you're you know, that whole thing about the frog and water or whatever, and you you know, it was just that was part of the environment. And I I just also have this philosophy that bullies go away. You know, if you wait long enough, they're going to fuck themselves up. So seven years man, well, you know, in terms of his power,

Yeah.

Now I'm like, yeah, I didn't, he didn't.

I mean, you know, did you have first an experiences with any besides Russell? And uh? I mean first hand experience is non interview, but just like and just daily interaction with any of the uh, the subject matters that you profiled. Like as far as you being in the business, well, there are a few run ins with Dame Moore that that's sort of There's just a few.

Things that you know in the book that I was present for.

Right.

So there's that meeting, you know, that big cabal meeting, you know, I mean there's that. You know that that that fake email that's been going around for years about the secret meeting in la you know where the prison industrial complex and getting all the rappers this like.

That wasn't really I.

Mean, but I did attend the real meeting, which was you know, mo Austin calling all of his artists, the extended family of artists and into a conference room and saying, look, here's the deal, you know, And it was a very sad meeting. You know, I think he was sad as the person who signed to Prince and Joni Mitchell and James Taylor and you know all these other Jimmy Hendrix held uh you know, to be in that position it

Came scarface, scarface because that was that the one that's sleeping with the enemy came out on which which Ricord was it? Was it because that was the one he wanted to call bush Killer.

Originally I think bush Killer remained dude, but uh, I have to actually read The Big Payback to remember. So after this you write the Big Payback? Was it anyone that was reluctant to talk to you? Like anyone that was just like nah.

Yeah, it just writes itself.

There were people like I really wanted to talk to Cindy Campbell, like Kirk's sister, because Jeff had done herk right the artist, but I wanted a profile the business side, and I approached Cindy Campbell and she wanted money, and I said this, I just don't do that. I'm a journalist. I don't pay anybody for an interview. So by you know, and obviously you're never gonna get Jay. You know, Jay Z in a room to interview him. So what you

So you never just do it blind. Just like everyone got yeah, they know, they knew what it was going to be before.

Absolutely. Yeah.

There were people who were mad. More more people were mad when they got left out of the book.

I was going to say, like it wasn't disrespect no, no at all.

Search was mad at me for a little while because he gave me a lot of time and I the section that he was in ended up getting cut and I apologize to him over that.

Now search has a lot of stories.

Great, he was great and he's still great.

We'll put it this way. We barely got to the Cactus CD for de second album. Yeah, we barely got to Derrelick's dialect before. It's like, oh, hey's trying to wrap like three hours.

Talk about the Latin Quarter.

Yeah, yes, the quintessential Latin Quarter stories, the Big Pigback. So how does this go from because now you've never even told me this story, I don't know. How does that go from book to movie to series on h one? Okay, what was that journey?

Like?

Even before the book came out, there were some Hollywood types calling, you know, hey, like a meeting whatever, and you know, so originally I wanted to do it. Have you ever seen the HBO movie The Late Shift, Yes, about the whole letter let fight. Yeah, so I wanted to do a you know, a drama, but with the real characters, right a Rick Russell dre you know, hiring actors to play the real people. And that's a real problem for Hollywood, Like they have to buy all kinds

It was the year that.

Run DMC and Beastie Boys were blown away in sales by Hammer and Vanilla Ice, and it looked like the future was going to be this minstrel show, right, So UH shout out to a little brother.

So he bought.

But I'm not.

Now let's talk about it, okay.

So Uh, I worked on the on the on the pitch, and I pitched it in a room in about ten minutes and they bought it. And then there's the long process of developing it. And the first part of development is to find a director, writer who can actually get this stuff on the screen. And I just I wasn't selling myself as that person, so I remained as an executive producer. But seeth Man was the the guy we luckily found to helmet.

And Seeth is uh for those Seeth is a god TV director. He's done Man, several episodes of The Wire, He's done did he do? Did he work on t did he do?

Or did? But he did Walking Dead? I want to believe and Elementary at least did.

He Yeah, I don't want to give that away with you.

So Seith is great and Seeth, you know, I grew up in Columbia, Maryland. He grew up in Silver Spring. Were up listening to the same stations. We both listen to hip hop and and and Go go, and so we have even though he's like seven feet tall and I'm four feet tall, and you know, he's black and I'm white, and he's got dreads and I got no hair, we were you know, we uh, he's my brother, you know, and he has done so. He did a great job on the pilot script. And then it came whore, how

A while Pitch.

There was like a little slumber of time before I worked for Profile.

I did it.

I interned for eighty nine.

So was that Uh as a jet sledge, as a hip hop astorian? Do you have multiple copies of Bust to Move Boy? And if you do, can you share gang stars?

Uh?

I had three twelve inches before no more mistic a nice guy out.

I'm afraid I do not, damn, but I think I know somebody might.

No, I knows a guy. Yeah, I'm looking for Bust to Move boy. I would do anything to have a one records back in running order, not online, but like not a one the sound library, Oh.

Celebrary man, Well, guys, a writer question, when you went to bah one with your pitch, what did you have exactly? Because you didn't have a rundown of with the show totally was gonna be for the season.

I did.

It was just in my head. So I pitched in a room from off the dome freestyle.

That son and what was so what was the line? Like what was the tag? Like the one line the long line of the show kind of that way like the really summer Yeah, I.

Mean I think we may have said something like it's sort of like the hip hop mad Men. You know, we might have said something like that, but you know, it's it was about the business and what was really important is that we had a really strong female lead character, really interesting and very complex, and you know, a liar, a pathological liar makes her interesting.

I didn't pick up in the pilot.

Wait a minute, is fucking oh god, she's And we talked about it how and you know the way it worked out, we're we kind of have a I don't know if it's a renaissance, but there's a lot of you're seeing kind of the black female anti hero character on TV now where you have you know, I mean Cookie and Mary Jane and Olivia Pope.

You know what I'm saying, where you have anti they're not the typical well anti hero in the sense that they are people that you They're not just a foil.

Yeah, they're not just like the good person like I mean, they're they're complex people, you know what I mean, And they're not just totally all good. And Nikki's character when I when you sent me the script, I read it, I was like, yeah, she's gonna fall.

And I didn't know who you were gonna cast. I didn't know who.

We didn't know either.

You get involved in the show.

How did I get involved in the show. I don't even how did I get hired. Preme was the first step right, the music right.

So I wanted to make sure that we had somebody who understood the vocabulary, the sonic vocabulary at the time, and would be able to make beats that sounded like they were because if we have a character who's a rapper and another character who's a producer, the producer has to make beats exactly like they would be made in nineteen ninety, using the same samples, and using samples, using breaks,

Yeah, that was that was wild. That was wild.

I mean when y'all reached out to about it, I was just coming off of an HBO pilot that I was working on, and so I mean TV, you know, yeah, the Maya thing, the thing with Mayam Buthar.

Maya Maya. So yeah, so I was coming off of that, and so so you were like, yeah, man, so I got this thing. I'm like TV, I'm like, oh god, I'm ready for like a million rewrites a million edits whatever. I'm like, all right, whatever. So you're like, yo, man, I got this thing and I don't know exactly what it's gonna be, but you know, this is what it is. I'm like, look, dude, send it to me. Let's do it. And yeah, those records that for those first records, we did the arm.

God it was the arm song his song God at least expected Yeah, God, we did that. Those are records that I cut in my house, and I mean we pretty much. I wanted to make it so that it's kind of tricky because you're writing in nineteen ninety. You're writing for nineteen ninety, but you're writing for an audience that is current day.

So it has to work on both levels. It has to be true to the times, but at the same time, it has to while the audience of now so that they can understand why this guy would be the shit in nineteen ninety, you know what I mean.

And the fact that it's fictional makes it a little bit harder as as you know, as MC, because you know it's fiction. So it's like, you know, the Zample always give the scene in Notorious where Biggie is freestyling outside, you know, what I'm saying, and they're kicking his actual that was his actual freestyle, you know what I mean. And that freestyle lyrically, it ain't miraculous, you know what I'm saying, but it's accurate to what he was saying

I love it, But I'm just saying it was dope because that was accurate to what he said then. From now in twenty seventeen, I mean, someone that's hurt Royster five to nine or black thought hearing that shit is like, Okay, it was cool, you know what I mean, But at the time it was ahead. So so that's kind of

And I will be honest. One of the problems with making TV, especially making TV while you accurate teaching, uh you know, as a profession, is that you don't get to watch a lot of TV. So I watched the first couple episodes and I understood right away that you get down to a very different animal. And it's magical realism. And that's not what we were trying to do. We're we're doing you know, realism, right, And there's nothing wrong with magical realism.

Like it's an interesting term.

It sounds like alternative facts.

It's like what it's like what Tony Morrison does right, except for film, right, It's like it's it's it is a beautiful romantic vision of what the Bronx was and is in people's minds. And even that it's funny because you would people from the Bronx from that time, that's how they remember it as beautiful, right, even though it was a really really I mean, there were parts of The Bronx that felt and looked desolate, but it didn't

But it's like, okay, so after you developed something and then you put it in the hands of the production company, the producers, the directions like other people, and how much are you willing to let your child metaphorically speaking, play with others? Are you willing to turn your back for a little bit and do something else and trust that it's okay? Is it just like all right, let's cut corners?

I'm a stickler because Seeth believes in it, you know what I mean. Seeth really values the authenticity part of it. And we have this sort of language with each other where we talk about the Authenticity Bank account, right, and you know you're gonna make withdraws right, we have like I think it takes place in the summer nineteen ninety, but maybe looking at the front door, I think was something that we made a slight you know, exception for it did come out in nineteen ninety, but it came

I was going to say, you know, premull get away with one in this business of Repnah. No, we kept it. Now we keep it well, all of our you know, with the scratches, we keep them so far, we keep it all you know stuff. Oh yeah, stuff that was of that time, well before that time actually.

So we've actually been in the studio right with Preem and there's been something that he wanted to do or whatever, and we're like, oh no, that's too it's too early. And even with lyrics, we've had a few. Yeah, I think it was the lyrics I said it was. It was one lyric in the in the uh in the pilot, I said something like, oh god, what was it? It was.

Puff mad l's I think was the line, and we was like, in nineteen ninety it wasn't puffing mad ls. So we changed it to something else because the original line was, how was it girlies on my job? Puff mad ls till I see blue like gargamele. So we changed it to girlies on my job hard as hell, make him do the smurf like gargamele.

And so that was what that was.

That was even but even the chorus.

We were talking about the chorus right in your chorus was Joe Rock Baby Baby, And.

I thought it was even and that's something I got. It was, but I thought it was too much of town Baby, which is I was totally not even thinking that.

So I was like, we'll just do Joe rock y'all NonStop, y'all is more.

But I think we kept rock Baby, rock Baby, Joe Baby. What is the quintessential hook in nineteen ninety, Well, the thing is like Trive had no hook.

Or well in nineteen ninety what it was was it wasn't really hooks. Your hook was the last two bars of your rhyme. So it would be the last two bars of your song, so what you're.

Saying, and then it goes into the break the scratches or an instrument or horn or whatever the fuck. So that was kind of the way we play it. And uh, yeah, man, I mean I'm lucky that we are. We have actors like Antoine is just a motherfucker unbelievable.

Can y'all break down how many different personality like rap did you have to write for different personalities from Antoine?

Who are so I said, tough job this season?

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was, but we made it through it though for this one.

Okay, so uh for those that watch the show, it's the story of you know, it tells, like Dan was saying earlier, tells these different stories of different people in the business at that time. And so, uh, the main guy that I write for is played by Antoine Harris.

Big ups to him. He is like the street guy who is you know, really talented. So he's a guy. And I don't know if this is something that we can maybe if y'all are still figuring out, I think we're still last conversation we had, I think we're still trying to see if he's gonna be the guy or if he's gonna be the guy who inspires the guy, you know what I mean, Like that's still because he's a motherfucker, but like is he gonna be jay Z or is he gonna be Jazz?

Oh?

You know what I mean? Like that's still that still remains to.

Be because he's like hell respected in the streets. Like it's like you got to go through hell people to get to him.

Yeah, he's like the he's the man. And then in like season one, this you know, as this season.

Goes on, you'll see other stuff that solidifies, like he's really like the fucking he's the guy.

So it's him, He's the He's the main guy. Then there's uh oh Man. Then there's uh Imani X played by Tianna Taylor. She's the girl who is like, she's like a like a Latifa like, she's kind of tom boyish. Me isis revel So she's that ship.

And the kind of the conflict that we'll see later on uh is her mother played by Kim Wayns a hilarious fucking Kim Wayns plays by Kim Wayns.

Her mother kind of wants her to be more of like a kind of salt and pepper, you know, uh female lem see. So that's you know, her thing. So I had to write for her. And so the not really the conflict that we had, but just the thing that we hit towards the end of this season was that I didn't want Imani to sound like a female version of So you have to I had to. You

Man?

You just gotta you just gotta just write it. I mean, what is your process? You just sit alone? Yeah? I generally always work alone. I never really work with anyone, you know, record myself and like injureding myself and uh, I pretty much just in the time of like for arm for his main song, the idea was, without giving away too many plot points, well, in the within the pilot,

So the first song that he does is you know, it's just straight anger. It's just like, we're gonna get them niggas, y'all kill my homie.

We about to set it. It's just anger. And then later on in this season you'll see he has some other stuff that takes him through the other stages of grief. So it's just putting yourself in that character and what they would feel.

First of the first season feels more like denial.

They're not exacts, so it's just I try to put myself in each character's shoes and seek how they would feel and just you know, right in from that perspective.

But what's interesting is and just by talking to you, like those are the two dope people, right, So is it easier to write for the dope lyrics or because now you got to write for like mediocre purpose fun.

I feel like it's fun to write for It's well, okay, loves it. I had, but I run into a problem I just drew on. Yeah, I have problems. So we have battle scenes as well, right, so we have battles.

That you have to right and so battling yourself basically.

Yeah, it's a mirror match. It's like the fucking mirror match in fucking uh In in Mortal Comeback. So for me, the problem I was running into was that I like to be the villain. So like my villain versus was murder and the guy that was actually spposed to win the battle on camera them versus was like cool, Like my first draft would be like it's cool, but you need a little more.

So I had to and that was the only network note you got on the pilot.

Yeah, that was like she was like, She's like, I really think it feels like uh.

Yeah, yeah, the other guy won and so I empires good. You corrected that.

Yeah, I went back and like I did another draft and they okayed it. And so the thing was in that first battle with in the pilot with Sieg and uh Sig played by u Si play by the idea was that, Okay, toy Ray is gonna the main guy.

Is gonna win the war, so to speak, but to Ray is still gonna kind of win the battle. And to me that felt authentic because I remember coming up battling. You would see all those guys who would win all the battles. They would just be freestyling and could just go on and talk about your mom and make up ship whatever. But they couldn't make records to save their fucking lives. Like they fucking suck.

I have a story.

Uh.

The first week that we mixed do You Want More? At Battery Studios, we were next in the b room was supernatural. Now if you remember, wait, I just said I just coughed all right, all right, so okay, boys

You know, I meantyle union.

Yeah, I used to Friz. I mean, that was what I did. But after a while, Yeah, it kind of It's like a parlor trick. Otherwise, like, look, write a fucking song, dude.

So we need to talk about the best part of that battle, which is the character, the impromptu character we created with Fante's blessing named mom Ali. Yes, talk about it because we really, we really wanted to. I mean, it's an afrocentric period and you know, not to make light of it, but there was always that dude who came to a battle to teach, to educate, you know.

So, uh, I knew you were going to make I knew you were going to make it. See that damn verse shout out to Caitlin. Yeah. So this was one of the one of the times. I remember we was up I was up there, and so we had to do this battle. So there's a battle in season in episode one of the pilot where Arm is battling this guy six hours and so this is essentially the battle where Arm wins the battle. And this is where DV the producer sees the battle and realizes, Yo, Arm is

Would you be willing to step in? And I'm just like yeah, I mean I can write some shit for whatever. I'll write somebody some shit.

It's cool. He's like no, no, no, no, no, I need you to write it. Yeah, but I need you to step in. And I'm like, fuck you me step in. He's like like step in, like be on camera, Like oh shit, I said okay. So he's like, well, I got an idea for this character. His name is he Mama Lee. I was like, say no more. I just knew what that meant, sort of like doctor York meets you know, my man, doctor York, Doctor York meets whatever you add with that.

I told he did it so well. I saw the pilot the pilot episode, and I was like, I think I thought you were ode or something because I really did not know.

That was you. That was me and the cooofie in coof the in the Shades.

So the good news is that that mam Alee comes back, go back in the season. I really really wanted a whole subplot around in Mama Lee. I didn't get it, but I'm still angling for it. If there's a season two.

Yeah, that means you can't share it because you'll want to that's right.

Yeah we uh we shot that, and yeah, I hope well I spin off.

Yo.

I just saw him like I just want mam he gotta have a white woman, because that's what all like the whole dude, you gotta I was really you. I thought it was due. Now you gotta have a white woman. You gotta be authentic hotep, come on, like, there's no one that wants to fight for black people more than the nigga with a white woman. So like it got, it's gotta work. So yeah, man, we shot that and it was funny, like that was like my culture shock. So the scene was supposed to be imam Ali is

Well, the thing was the guy who was facing he was a real MC, but he he was very nervous because his first time on TV, so he kept forgetting his lines. So now Fante's oh, you know, improvising in characters like well, come to the youth center. We have memory pills.

We got genkkobal Bo. It was just I was just saying all kind of shit and so, and the thing was my verse.

I had to write it the night before, and that's something you know, it's extremely hard to do, like to write something and then have to memorize it. So I'm an extra end the scene, and in between takes, I'm going out and listening to my phone, like playing the verse over and over and over again.

And so finally we shoot it, and you know, the kids reacted to my shit. They was like yo, this they was laughing and like they was hooting hollar. And so afterwards, me and Dan was talking. I was like, man,

So it's just like in the pilot.

This is in the pilot. This is the pilot.

How my wish is that people can hear the whole verse. Unbelievable and listen. Jay Smooth was an extra in one of our scenes. I remember you your demo came in when Jay Smooth was and Jay Smooth and I had such fun listening to that demo.

Yeah, I cut the demo that because you because again you hit me that night.

It's like eleven twelve o'clock and I was I just left blue note with glassper and it's like twelve o'clock. I'm getting back in the joint and he's like, so I need you to do this scene. And by the way, we're taping tomorrow, you know, like afternoon, so be read. I'm like, all right. So I literally cut the demo in hotel room with my little bull speaker, my iPad and my iPhone and I just wrapped into that and that was how we did it.

And so yeah, that was it. So that was a character I had to write for. It was what else your girl im imani imam a lee. Uh, there is a but I'll give you away too much. There is a audition audition scene scene coming up. Uh, it's like three or four acts I had to write for them. Uh, you did a great job on that one, thank you man.

I mean, well, here's the thing is, it's not just lyrics because again this gets back to my horrible an our career. You know, we had to decide because there's the banger at the end of the season, right, and and what is the beat that we're going to use. But there's a problem. And the problem is there's a there's a plot line that involves a using a particular Bob James sample and or rather use a sample a record by Bob James, and which record was it going

We couldn't use knowledge.

I was like, we can't use knowledge and it was so great, Well it's nine, it was nineteen ninety. But the thing was with Preing, like, I mean, just fucking Preing. So we're talking samples and he's.

Like, oh yeah, I'm about chop that back in ninety two, you know what I mean. It's like, ah shit, you did do that, you know what I mean? So a lot of that stuff.

So I'm not going to mention the Bob James song, but you suggest it, and I think I.

Was just thinking, I tell you after it's over, but nah, it's not that, And I thought I was.

Like, oh, that is never going to work. It's never gonna work. And I'm busy, like, Okay, you know what, maybe it doesn't have to do Bob James. Maybe we do a cooler gang song. Here's ten cooler gang songs you can sample. I'm you know, panicking and Funk is back, I mean co Cools back.

We had that that was like it were.

Posular, like four different artists that we could use to make this plot line work. And Cream takes Fante's suggestion and makes this. It's just unbelievable. The coolest no no, no no Bob James record that that you have heard in another classic Golden era hip hop hit that I never thought could have been flipped in the way it was flipped.

And if you know, I'm I guess it right, I want you to guess it. You know, I'll confirm it all right? Yeah, I mean ye say you probably guess it was No, Steve, I don't think it is Holy Ship. He's a tappan Zee Tap Records. Ye, yes, he's a tappan Ze. Matt. You're saying that the name of No, I'm just saying that I didn't give it away the west Tester lady. Nah, No, ain't that Wait a minute, hang on, he I mean take me to the Marty

Age act that used this particular Bob James record didn't exist yet, so it had not been used. So it wasn't really a flip. It's a flip to us, Yeah, in twenty seventeen. But uh, the producer DV thought it up all himself in nineteen ninety.

It's not Westchester lady.

Nah.

Well it's not the on example.

Nah Nah, that one is flip like a technical thing.

Well, just to flip.

Take my sample that's already been used in using it.

In other words, if you have a roof excube, once all the sides are completely done, that's nineteen ninety. Cats just started mixing it all up and you know, all the colors up and messing it up like by n.

It's like, you know, you know, player's anthem by Junior Mafia, Right, So Prem and Jabru to sort of poke fun at it, they take the same sample, which is a new birth sample, and they flip it.

Yeah so yeah, so but nah, that was I mean, it's been an incredible like just to be able to, you know, do that shit like so I like it. It puts me in his own where I like to be like kind of behind the scenes and like live my life through different people. And you know, it's that's just fun to watch, Like with hearing other people interpret your words. That shit is amazing to me. It's a lot of fun. The first episode of season one is aired.

What can you tell us about where these characters are going without giving stuff away?

Well, you know, they're on a collision course with destiny, I think, you know. I they're dealing with what we were dealing with in nineteen ninety. They're dealing with major labels coming in and sniffing money and sniffing around and offering a lot of personal opportunity to folks. Do you take that or do you not take that and what what do you you know, what are the risks taking that big, cushy, major label job and what do you sacrifice in the process? You know, what does DV do

What Harris his character? I want to ask you about him because I feel like some of these characters are like an amalgamation of a few people. Some of them may be just one person that you knew, But what Harris's character a few people, one person.

Few people, you know, I think they're definitely shades of Russell there would when he plays them, he channels a lot of Dame you know. Yeah, there's a manic energy there that even Russell. Can't you know, it's not it's more Dame or Puff than it is Russell. But he's also he's the great thing about watching this season, one of the best things anyway, was watching these characters make like Barry Foray is his own thing. Now. He's not Russell,

Love the way into it. For the lead character, the female, I'm start forget her name after the actress Chage.

Yeah she is.

You are introducing the concept of the intern and really that because you know that time is over now. So it's interested in telling the story of a music intern and what they had to go to a female music intern in that world. And I almost wonder with two males in the situation, who like, is there another female to kind of come in and be like, this is a whole different aspect that you don't made me know or did you just already?

Like Nikki will have a few mentors to choose from, say, over the course of the season, and Mac, I mean yeah for me, didn't even talk about the DJ battle. Mac enrolled himself in Scratch Academy to learn how to DJ so he could participate.

And wow, what's that? What's his name? Your boy? Ryan gosling Uh took up six months of piano lessons to play all the actual he's actually playing all that jazz stuff and the fingerings correct and the chords are correct. Wow, that's him actually playing.

We'll talk about back in that way. And also his like history with music because he's like a different kind of actor in the sense of playing a role like this, his relationship with hip hop and his commitment, it's different.

I feel like, yeah, well, he grew up in stat Ny and his father cut all the dudes from the Wu Tang clan's hair.

You know.

He he's known method man since he was a kid. Who plays his dad, right, who plays his dad?

Fun fact, but actually read for that role somewhere, hopefully on a hard drive, fucking buried way somewhere audition audition for for his role, and I didn't think it would work. I was like, I'm gonna just do this shit anyway. I don't think I maybe play his uncle, but I didn't play.

That dream had to die. So in MoMA leve Yes.

Yet there was also a character we had. It was a scene we cut the Fred Jamal, the record store guy, and that was one of the things that like, really I like because we kind of get the show. You know, we're playing with history and you sometimes you get to

And so he then takes those pictures and goes to his you know, goes to his boss and it's like, yo, these people are like hip hop. But the thing is, the guy at the store is saying, Hey, I don't want them to play hip hop on the radio because if they played on the radio, they're not gonna buy it. Not yeah, not even getting that, Like, no, motherfucker, that is what will bring people to me. But he was just, you know, he got it so fucking wrong, you know

Don't once told us that Pete crap, are you serious? When he was doing his long time first he was like, yo, man, I don't want to come out with a record because like, once you make a record, you're whack. I don't it's like seeing you want to just do mixtapes all your life. So yeah, there's a mystery to it, like people are still waiting for me. But like once the now comes out, wow, then you know wow.

I don't think he never did.

He never he could be an aquarium. I'm sorry, but yeah, but but yeah, we.

Have little moments like that that are really uh you know, you're watching it with the knowledge of what happens to these people or people will held those thoughts, and that's been fun for me, like kind of seeing how that plays out, just tuning in before you.

I I'm looking, Okay, is it.

This?

No?

Damn wow? No, I guess it's right up under your nose like you. I gotta watch it again on television. No, no, no, you ain't gotta know this is. This doesn't happen till later, So it ain't. It ain't air yet. It hasn't air yet. It's the final episode. Yeah, it's coming so but you closed though, saying when I hear this joint, I'm gonna want to kick my television off the plasmas.

Like yes, because that's something that's so obvious and it's something that has been and it's not Artilus.

No, it's not that. That was one of the ones that we were looking at. But he Prema already used part. No, it's not all less because PREMI used it. My mind spray.

Already did that for Jay Rue.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah did my spray and the and the group home? Yeah yeah, that sounds like, yeah I did that one. You know what I'm saying. We did that one and the night ju you know what I'm saying. And then my mind spray. You know what I'm saying, we did that one. I was like, okay, Primo, so yeah, but no, it ain't that one. It ain't that But I mean you it's right up on your nose like you he be like, what the fuck? The only last

He never used it, which is why it sounds fresh.

Oh man, did red Man use it before? I know what you think?

Not?

No, one just tuning in is ques Low Supreme. We got him playing bitch. You guess I'm right, God, I got a question? Can I ask a questions? Quose your show bill?

First of all, Dan is also a teacher, and we didn't we haven't got to that part. Yeah, we teach at the same school, I know, which is amazing.

I forgot fantastic.

But you walked in you said, you said Martin Man was in my class, and I feel like that was a big thing that we then went into this whole crazy batshit show and the real because he was on this show and he was it was amazing. And I'm sure you have a story too well.

I mean, he's just first of all, to even come to a small class and to and to talk about his career. You know, we were really just talking. I'm teaching a class on the Golden Age of hip hop and we're sort of pinning it between the years eighty seven and ninety three for a few reasons. And you know, he came to talk about the bridge, he came to talk about that jump to sample drums, right that, uh, And I never knew And this is a whole sort

No, he talked about dude. When he told us that we just that, and when he told us that the shakers, oh my god, the shakers that make the music is him, that's him doing. He's literally making the music. Was the whole four hours was like, No, you didn't, Yes, it did. That was pretty much. I mean, next to Whitney and TEJ Swin. Oh my god. So apparently there was a story that was close to being a Whitney and TJ. Swan duett there's no place right, Yeah, Whitney.

Exactly make the music with your mouth, Bobby.

Whitney and Thomas Jerome Swan together. Yeah, Bro, Marty had crazy stories. So like did the kids like, so when you have someone like Marty come in, are they aware of who they're looking at? And like, you know what that means?

Surprisingly? This class really was so, you know, because they're young, and I'm not saying surprising because they're really good students, but I mean they were born after Tupac died, you know, so what do they know what?

And ap right? Right? Wow?

Yeah, but I love I love teaching.

One of your students was Maggie Rogers. That's right. That was Oh she's dope. I can't claim her either. No, No, she's my student too, but she's more. Yeah.

Yeah, she was my first student, my very first class that I ever taught.

She Maggie Rogers is she's a young singer songwriter. Pharrell did a video, Yo, this has been your Bob power where they just you know, they played records. You know, you could play your records for phar real, you know what I mean. He came in and and kind of gave him notes, and so Maggie played her joint and that was the joint where he was just like, yo, I have no notes for this. This ship is crazy,

Yeah so great.

Yeah, but she's she's dope. She's really she has her it's completely singular. She sounds like nothing else. How many semesters do you do at the school?

Fall and spring?

You do too? Yeah, I can only do. This is the first year that I opted not to do it. I wanted you to teach the Dela Della class. Well, no, no, no, I'm gonna still come in good. But you know what when they first when when when they approached me about doing it, the idea of doing it because they wanted it, like last year's or whatever. I felt weird about it because there were there was no no curriculum and no periodicals or or or books that I could use to teach.

For like the three inventors I called the three Kings of American rhythm. There's Louis Armstrong who basically established swing, you know, as sort of the American approach to meter in rhythm. James Brown who turned every instrument into a drum and the one obviously, and then Dila, who freed us from the grid. You know, he established.

I had to it's only right, you know.

He he sort of renegotiated the relationship between man and machine. To me, now it's different because if you look at I know, you got soul right. You have these two breakbeat records that really made hip hop funky in a way that a quantized drum machine couldn't. But there was something about what Dila was doing that for the first time,

Wait, wait, who is it? Like, I gotta know who it is? I forgot. I mean, yeah, it's it's it's weird, man. It's just like during that period, I was the exact opposite because I had such a chip on my sto. Yeah, I wanted to be perfect and and it took d and Dyla for the most part to unravel that, that that yarn that I had wrapped myself in a perfection

I don't claim to be a Della expert by any stretch. I mean, my personal history is weird in this sense because my very first trip to Detroit was to work with him Gino and Gino excel and I flew to Detroit. Yeah, and the other one, the one would Sphere and how it Goes, I think is the name of that song.

So we flew to Detroit.

We stayed, you know, downtown, We drove out to Gardens we yeah, athanaeum right, and we went to his house on Nevada and met my duke's and went downstairs and Common was recording like Water for Chocolate with him. Around that time, we went to the Mongolian barbecue and deeborn dearborn across from studio A like the whole thing, And what was really weird is Adilla laid the tracks and then vanished. Oh wow, and that was it, basically, you know.

So does she say what up? Though she does not. She does.

She's a poet and a tenured professor at the New School, so she does not say, yeah, but I want to here's the theory. Here's the theory about Dila time. I wanted to run it by you, and I'm thinking of sort of staking a claim that because everybody's talking about what is what is Diyl time? Oh well, it's just he doesn't quantize the beasts. That's good, that's not exactly it. And oh it's septuplet swing. But yeah, but that doesn't account for the for the rushed snare. So my feeling

That's that's that's the Thelonious Monk theory, remember his idea of subnes. But there's the rhythm version of it. And it's weird because between Dyla there's Prince and the risk, both of them, both of whom I consider the risk more the accidental tourist where you take a song like uh yeah. Verbal Intercourse is a perfect example of that, where it's just like sounds funky, leave it like it is.

Well, you were the person who described the toree in his book, the the straight clap from the drum machine and Lady cab Driver. But he's playing by hand, right, Yeah, then he does this other thing rhythmically with the bass. Right. If you listen to like Irresistible Bitch or Tricky, he will give you almost a shell of what the baseline is. He'll play like two notes out of eight, right, but for the eight, so you hear the eight, but you don't hear the eight.

Oh my god, we're brothers. That's why I was surprised that I had never met each other. I was like, you have you have met boys show? Wait?

Were you there at the time? I may have been there, But here's where we met. We met when I worked for Forrest. I came to Sigma Sound to meet with Richard right who rest in peace man. I never had a chance to tell you in person. I was so sad to hear his passing. And then after that, the next saw you was out in the musicology tour in the meadowlands. It was it was you were just walking and getting a drink from the water fountain in the middle, you know, in the middle of this Prince concert for

Yes, what did I tell you already?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, I'm waiting. I'm waiting. Yeah, we'll talk. Okay, we'll talk after hey, but it's a pleasure to be here now.

Better late than never.

Like I want to talk about meats and plots, man, I want to talk about you know, so this book it was after you wrote The Big Payback. Uh, this is a book about how shifts can teach you how to organize your life. So tell us about like the principles of that, Like what are the and by the way, I actually bought this book, I have to read it. Work clean is the name, So tell us about that, like just the philosophy of meats and plots and what that means.

After I wrote The Big Payback. You know, it's a six hundred and sixty page book, and I just was drained, you know, and I had a wife and a baby and a you know, I didn't I couldn't imagine myself writing another book, and you know, we were developing the breaks, so you know, I had other things to do.

And how long did it take you to write?

Just four years? Really really heavy. But my first interview I did for The Big Payback was ten years before the book came out, So, you know, work Clean came out of the pain of the interim. You know, after The Big Payback came out, and I was still working at a corporate media company which shall be unmentioned, and it was just painful to see.

At you working there with boss Bill with a branch out that's.

Right, that's right where where This is a very funny story when when Bill came in to interview for the job and I found out that he was actually DJ brainchild, I got down on my knees, literally got down on my knees and bowed to him. And Jerry Barrow said to me, you know, that's really not going to help with the salary negotiations. Yeah, well, he's a genius and

Right.

It's a way of relating to time, space, energy, and motion. And it was the only thing that I really wanted to write about, and the reason I wanted to write about it because I look for a book on meson plas and nobody had ever written one. So I just used the tools of the journalist again, and I interviewed over one hundred people from the culinary field over the

Have you seen have you seen the founder the Michael Doug Michael Douglas, Michael Keaton knowing about McDonald's across you saw it? I seen it and almost broke my my uh my vegan run cheeseburger right after they talk about oh it's it's really good. It's like it's cold blood as fun but it's good.

But they kind of the McDonald brothers they kind of were doing that, like the way they set up their original you know, McDonald's restaurant. It was based on you know, economy of movement like everything. It's funny to hear, like choreograph perfect it was. Yeah, it was really like a routine like the like they practiced in the court on the tennis court.

Yeah.

Yeah, they practiced before they even got McDonald's, Like, okay, you do that most in that motion, like not even carrying anything. They were just practicing the body motion of how to get you once is off, they go here and then we switch and then like this ship is crazy.

Y'all have like a quest love supreme movie night where y'all just go to the Marines together.

We need just you know, I mean a book list, a movie night.

Well, now we won't get the should we barely watch Uh we did watch what's called as a family kind of not sleep out with meis joint? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah twice don't they watch that we did the musical lesson?

Uh, that was good exactly. There's one that you one of their principles that really spoke to me. You talk about clean as you go.

Very important.

Talk about that one. Well.

The science behind clean as you go is that anybody and create a system, like you decide you're going to organize your desk, right, and you spend two hours or three hours or a whole day organizing your space. And it's great, right, And it doesn't mean shit because unless you maintain a system, you can't keep a system. And the only way to maintain a system is to clean as you go, is to keep the system through motion.

Right.

A system is not to be looked at, right, Oh, I've organized things. It's like, you know, the system is not a noun, it's a verb. Right, So you have to be able to move through things. So you have to make that commitment to you know, put things back where they go, right. And that doesn't just work for the physical world. It also works for the virtual world. It works for the emotional world, right, And it's just about taking that extra two seconds to put something away

How do you apply this to your life?

Because I know you're like we like, I mean, you talk a lot about like meditation and stuff. You're like heavy into yoga orly you know what I'm saying.

And you were telling me about like last time it was a it was like some kind of squat that you do that transfers the sexual energy out of your body so you don't be thinking about fucking these holes. I can't I can't remember the name of that squad, but it was no but he no, he was. He was giving me game for focus.

I'm saying, I'm really real, I.

Like everybody, So how do you applow this? Because I mean, dude, like from I know what life was like for me when we were working on the breaks, and I can only imagine what the fuck was like for you in between that and NYU and you know, family, how do you apply this to your life?

I'm not perfect at it. I mean I have I do too much and I get sick, you know, and that's not good. You know, I got pneumonia last year.

Like it was. It was bad, Yeah, damn.

But uh, you know, for me, you know, one of the principles that's really helped me is, you know, the idea of what do you do? What do you choose to do first?

Right?

And all of the systems of organization that are very popular talk about you do the worst first, right. Stephen Covey all of his books like talks about you put the big rocks in the jar first, not the small rocks, because the big rocks are what counting. If you don't get the big rocks in first, you know, and you put the small rocks in, how are you ever going to get the big rocks in?

Right?

All that do the worst first, And the thing is you don't do.

The worst first out that it takes it out of you, Like you don't do it else.

For another reason is that chefs actually see the world in two separate, like parallel kinds of time. There's process time and then there's intensive time, right, processed hands on and hands off time essentially, right, something intensive like oh, I need to make a beat, or I need to write this essay, or I need to do whatever with my hands, right, you can't delegate that. You can't. You know, you have to be there. So three hours is worth three hours of you know, your work is worth three hours.

Damn.

So that's helped me.

I gotta redo my book again. I feel inadequately.

Now you're you're working on a box Wiley or something.

I heard. Oh no, no, no, no, I did mind. I mean mine was more or less about the creative process. Yeah, I bought both yos something the food about. I bought both y'alls on the same it's about the creative process. But I mean, yeah, you go to the ninth level of hell to get that these theories that I didn't even think about. Like, I'm just thinking that chefs are like musicians in their creative process, but you're taking it to a whole other level.

It's still parallel. It's interesting because y'all too still went parallel. It's still the same. It's you know, the food, the music, the teaching, it rounds out. It's just interesting.

That's what I learned. Well, we were about to wrap up, but I was about to say I learned that I really have a Yeah, who knew we look alike. We love Dylan and Prince and Prince bootlegs and yeah, yeah, we both loved Bill Johnson, Bill Johnson unpaid Bill, and we have projects that use night on ball Ball by Bob James. No, no, it's so obvious that like it's yeah, tell him. Is that what we do is that this story end I totally forgot about.

Yeah, yes, oh yes, give it to him.

May give it he said, He said that he kind of gave it away.

I did. I played it, Yeah, you played it good? Wow? I think I got it on my phone. I learned that Steve is the jazz master of the Circle. I just said, cheated late like he said it like an hour ago.

All right, Well what he did with that beat, it's unbelievable.

Is the intro I play it I live. I think it was the intro is used because I never get past arrested development right, There's other parts of the song, no, but.

I couldn't get past me. I said, how can anybody make anything not corny? This? Sorry?

And I sent him. I was like, yo, I think this part is you know in prim us you were right, you were so right.

And what makes it great is that prem also flips the NT drums. I think I think he uses the you know that right, the one that everybody likes.

Because they originally I think the first draft of that song it was it was he he had used misdemeanor and at that time, I'm just like, well, you know, this is nineteen ninety so it's funky enough. Pretty much killed misdemeanor. So I was like, I don't think we could you know, use that, but uh but yeah, y'all take it into the next level. Even I would have let that slide. Yeah, I was like, nah, that's that's DC so but uh but nah. Man. So right now,

It is? It is?

When do you go back into the writer's room next month?

Ship?

Are you serious? So get back to work, gran wake up call. Wow.

I'm also working on a bit of a I told you a little project for Russell as well. Yeah, so you actually did hire me after all those years.

I feel like, you say, a little project for Russell will be like Crush Groove two. All right, So, Dan, i'd like to thank you for doing our show.

We appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. It's very hard.

I'm like, it's the normal length of the show. Y'all going to edit this down to like fifteen minutes.

This is Quest Love Supreme. We go along.

This is.

I mean Wow Yeah the Breaks. Check us out Monday nights nine eight Central on v H one every Monday. Yeah, nope, come come, I let us well, thank you very much. On behalf of the Question Love Supreme team, this is Quest Love apparently not the Bob Jeams expert. I thought I was h whatever. We will see you next week Wednesday at one pm with an all new episode of Question Love Supreme. All right, y'all next week. Court Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was