QLS Classic: Tom Silverman

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. What Up It's Unpaid Bill.

On this classic episode of Quest Love Supreme, we travel back to March eight, twenty seventeen. Tom Zila, the founder of Tommy Boy Records, tells Team Supreme about some of the legendary music this company put out and creating a pathway to make sampling more affordable for producers. Listeners can also check out our twenty twenty two two part interview with former Tommy Boy president Monica Lynch.

Enjoyed all here on uls.

Supremo, Supremo, Suprema So Supremo Ro, Supremo, Sun Sun Supremo Roll So Supreme Sun Supremo Ro.

This is your cult leader. Yes you are my sheep. Yes, Tommy's in the place.

Yeah, Supremo Roll Call, Suprema Son Supremo Ro.

The name. Yeah, here's an example. Yeah, let me clear my throat.

Yeah, but not no samples Supremo Suprema s RO.

Good morning Tommy from Tommy Boy. Yeah, my name is Sugar from Bagel Boys.

Supremo, Supremo, Son, Son Supremo.

Roll pay Bill, Yeah, Steve say, oy, Yeah, about to throw down.

Yeah, Tommy Ro Supremo. So you guys, Supremo Bill is frantic?

Yeah, looking through my jacket. Yeah, must have misplaced on my sex packets.

Roll Supremo Son Supremo, roll call Suprema Son Supremo.

Role Yeah girl, Yeah, and I'm too excited.

Yeah world Ro.

Supremo Supremo, roll call Supremo some some Supremo role ca.

Yeah, I'm Tommy boy. Yeah, I wasn't prepared for this annoying.

Supreme Supremo Rome Suprema Son Son Supremo, Roll call Supremo Son Son Supremo, Roll call Suprema some Supremo ro.

He said, come on, it's hard to promise things, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, and welcome to you another edition of course Love Supreme. How are you guys doing, say a little Team Supreme? Yes, everybody, mama, okay.

Uh.

I have to say that our guest, in my opinion, probably on paper, his his label probably spoke to me more than because usually when you think of the consummate hip hop label or the consumant label, of course, the D word is always the first thing that comes to mind. But uh, as far as pushing the boundary and innovations and one of the greatest logos of all ties, one

Very good? Very good? Starting my fast Day one might as well good day to start it. Wednesday?

You're right, you're right. How long are you going for?

How long it's humpty day? You know it's Wednesday. How long do you go for? I don't know. I you know, I as long as I still feel good. I'm drinking water that you know. I'm starting out drinking water. We'll see if I go to fancy restaurant, I might have to eat. We'll have to see.

But this is day one.

Yeah, this is day one. Man.

The crank is going to start.

But it gets good. Yeah, you're turning about the detox, right, Yeah, that's going to be pretty clean.

I feel for you make well, okay, I know there's a lot that I don't know about you, but I mean I know of your your general story, but I do know that your love and your appreciation for music runs deep.

So yeah, starting with your dad.

That's that's how we first met. I have to say that I didn't think that anyone in the current music world even really knew of the do wop world or any of that stuff. And that's the first thing you came up to me and said, like, I know your dad is I was really so am I to believe that your first passion of music was duop.

No. But you know, I discovered duop just like you talk about how you discover things through sampling and that, you know, I hear heard new things and I went back and discovered roots, and so doop was a route that I discovered. I was way way too young to know doop, but I discovered it, you know, when it's sort of the shinnan nah kind of a thing came

So were you born into a musical family or a musical collective family.

Creative but not musicough. My mom is an artist and my dad is a writer.

Are you Are you born New York.

YA, Westchester, White Plains?

Okay, okay, So like what are your first musical experiences at least.

Out early when I was Yeah, when I was like, my dad was really into jazz and so you know, he used to like play air saxophone to Coleman Hawkins when I was like five years old, and those are my earliest memories. And he used to play Miles Davis, early Miles Davis records and he had like a big high fight. This was way before stereo and built into the wall and the house that we lived in, and you know, and he was you know, they played Billie Holliday and they were really into that kind of music.

So you weren't listening to the The Battle, Dave Crockett or anything that Middle America was into.

You guys were except for show tunes because that you know, you know, that was the mut that had to be in there too. That was a combination of like of bebop and show tunes. It's a weird combination. But yeah, that's what played in my house before I was had my own musical exploration, which probably started in sixty five or sixty six when I started buying my first records.

What was the first record you purchased?

Tommy James and the Schondell's Hanky Panky on Roulette, Ah Roulette turned about forty fives? Yeah?

Yeah, okay, okay, So was it an everyday occurrence like buying bubblegum or was you like buying for forty fives and records? Like was that like?

Yeah? But it was expensive. I mean, you know, for a little kid with you know, on a tiny allow, how much were forty fives back competed? It was either baseball cards or records?

You know, how much were forty fives back?

Now? Forty five is like sixty nine cents or something like that, or maybe even forty nine cents if you went to Corvette's, where would you go? I went to the local store where I bought comic books, you know, and they had records, some records on forty five's.

Okay, But was there a place in New York that was like the Holy Mecha center of.

Not at that time, not at that time. I'm talking about, like, you know, sixty five, sixty six, sixty seven. You know, it's an interesting era too, because you know, then there was New York radio then you know, it was all I AM. There was no effort radio yet, so it was ABC, MCA. Those were like the pop stations, and then there was l I, B N r L, which was the black stations, okay, you know, and I didn't even find out about the black stations until I got into junior high school.

So as far as your your foray into music, by the time you started collecting, I mean, were you then collecting the music of the time as far as your.

I was into blues and duops. Those were the things that were now cast your friends. Totally nobody knew that's what I wanted to do. But by the way, that wasn't just about music. That was about the way I dressed and the things I was into. I mean, I used to get kicked out of school for wearing a Lenen pin or you know, carrying Mao's Red Book to school when I was in ninth grade and stuff. I would wore Bush jackets with American flag upside down on

What makes a person want to do that? Because it would have been so easy for you to just statisfied, kind of blend in with the status quo and kind of reap the benefits of the time and right off into the sunset, Like what makes you?

I guess when I was a little kid, I wasn't the fastest or the strongest. I get picked last in the sports team. I wasn't the best looking, so I didn't get invited to the party. So I had to say, sorry, I guess we have to make my own world, you know. And so I kind of had to reject the status quot because the status quo rejected me. And by the way, if you look at the entire world, everything that moves society forward happens because people are rejected.

How many how many siblings do you?

I have two younger brothers, Okay, Oh you're the oldest.

I was going to say, were you the middle child or the Okay? I was trying to get super over analytical.

And my brothers aren't. Aren't this way I see. So I don't know if it's karma genetic or if it's the results of behavioral rejection when I was younger, but I think, you know, like if Gandhi hadn't got kicked off of train in South Africa, he wouldn't have gotten to India and done what he did. You know, he wouldn't even have thought about that, you know. But he was seeing as colored in South Africa at the time,

So for me, so for you was music more. You're you're calming, your your your your sanctuary.

Yeah, I was also an exploration, you know, like so I was into the Rolling Stones when I was really young, and then I got into all the blues artists that influenced them. So I started buying you know, old blues albums and learning about blues that way.

You know, it's easy now, especially with the with the oncelot of the internet, to get information quick fast. But you know, like if you're listening to uh, say, like if you're listening to zep too, if you listen a Whole Lot of Love or whatever, like who's there to let you know about a Willie Dixon or Blind Lemon Jefferson or.

So I'm looking at the liner notes of course, and you know when you're watching you listen to the record in your room, you're listening to the record on a record player in your room. You have plenty of time to read liner notes, and the liner notes are big because records are big, and you can see that Spoonful by Cream was written by Willie Dixon, so I had to find out what else Willy Dixon did or whatever,

You know, So you initially wanted to start off as a blues musician.

No, I just wanted to be a musician. And actually Albert King played the least notes, so it was easiest to do.

So no high school band experience, so you know, I.

Wasn't you know, as I said, I wasn't picked first for anything. I was picked last for most things, so you know, I wasn't getting it. I wasn't the most popular kid. So you know, if I could be, you know, a guitar player, maybe I could get laid someday, you know, there was that possibility.

So by the time you're playing guitar, like, are we talking about the seventies period or the.

No still sick? Oh well early maybe sixty to sixty nine and seventy. Yeah, Okay, this is the advent of FM radio and you know, psychedelic rock and stuff.

So once FM, what was that? Okay, so Zeppelin one the entire side. Okay, So I need someone who was there in real time to explain to me because I always wanted to know. You know, a lot of people when they explained to me the power of AM radio listen to music, when their transition radios and all this stuff, how magical it was, Like was it really that foreign? Once FM high fidelity radio came into play, Like the clarity of it all, Like, was it a revelation to you?

No, definitely not.

I mean, yes, I hear some people actually prefer the lo fi AM radio station sound as opposed to which well, at.

The beginning, you know, AM radios were small. You know, they're transistor radio, so you could almost put them in your pocket. So that was the first portable music AM radio and it was in the cars only AM. So when FM came. They it wasn't in cars yet, it wasn't in transistor radio. They didn't have AM FM transistor radios for the first few years. So you know, it's

So you're saying at Efen radio actually started the idea of genres or segregating music.

Yeah, rock radio happened dead FM only, and you know, people who listened to that only got rock, so they didn't have to hear you know, Charlie rich anymore. So now no more country influence, now, no more black influence. Everything was that, you know, you know, Richie Havens was as black as it got, or the Chambers Brothers. You know, it was the only kind of things that would get played on those radio stations. So that began the segregation.

You know, that was a wow. Okay, I never even thought about that. I thought, you know, because the idea of Eppen radio men playing like complete sides and playing the full version of a particular song and that sort of thing would have made it better.

But you know, well it did. I mean there were great things about it, and the quality was better and people talk to you more in a different way. They weren't shouting at you as much. It was a more laid back kind of a thing, you know. And then I got when I went to college, I got involved in college radio immediately and became the music director of the college radio station Where'd you go Colby and Maine.

Okay, so what was your vision for your college radio years?

Like? So, you know, I did a So initially I start started doing my own radio station, and I did a du op show, you know, cruising Tom's College of Musical Knowledge every Sunday night. And then I started doing a party show, you know, by seventy four and seventy five, and I play Party Records, which was you know, mostly R and B and funky records. I may have been the first person in America to play Lady Marmalade.

Really yeah, okay, So because DJ culture really wasn't a thing in seventy three seventy.

Four, it was just beginning.

How do you Okay, So take me to what your rider is. In seventy three, DJing for a college like are the idea of big speakers?

I mean, yeah, I mean you do this is radio DJ, not live DJ. Oh Okay, live DJing didn't exist yet. Like that, except maybe in cool Hair. It was happening, you know, on Sedgwick, but there wasn't many other places. It was just starting there really at that point in time.

And so all just bands were still playing the music of a day.

And yeah, and I was in a fraternity house and I used to book the bands that would come in, and they were blues bands mostly that's what I could get, or disco bands. So in seventy five, disco started to take off. And then Saturday Night Fever came out, So disco started, and then Saturday Night Fever came out. So I was doing my a disco radio show. And then a club opened, A disco opened in Waterville, Maine, and I started djaing there with a mixture I built myself

I listening to the record before with headphones.

Well, I knew the record and I knew what it was. But the first DJ, arguably the first American DJ in disco, was David Mancuso, who just passed last year. At the loft and he started playing in seventy two, and he played every record to the end, and then he started playing in another record, you know, And when disco started around the world, that's the way happened. The idea of mixing came much later. There weren't really mixers that had queuing until probably seventy four.

Is that when you started the disco news while you were in college?

Okay, so that started. We'll get there anyway. Yeah, so I'm playing black music for a totally white college.

You know, there was one What were they accepting of it?

There was like eleven black people in the school and there are only two black families or four black families in the whole state of Maine, and maybe two record stores in the whole state of Maine.

Was what was the outreach? Was it just the college or.

Like it reached. We had a ten watch signal, which is what most colleges had, but we were on the top of a hill, so we reached like forty miles. It was pretty amaze, and there wasn't a lot of other radio stations interfering up there. So we used to get We used to do crazy stuff and get away

Did you feel like it was arm rustling. I mean I usually when I hear stories of taste makers, and especially like with Tastemaker DJs, it's always a moment where it's like I'm the almighty, all knowing expert of music and you're going to love anything I play and there's no resistance. But you know, today if I go to a club and play like an unknown demo or something that I think is like really incredible piece of music, it's it's a struggle, like, you know, half a dance

I have this discussion, by the way, with the founder of Pandora on a regular basis, who's a friend of mine. And mainly because you need to be able to play an unfamiliar record enough times to make it familiar. And the greatest records of all time have to clear the dance floor. The records that change the world, nobody will understand the first time they hear them. It's impossible because if it sounds like everything else, it's not moving anything forward.

What about those eleven students that were at school with you, like those eleven black students. Did they ever communicate with you to or did they add to it? Like, did you hear his record?

There was one guy who was a good friend of mine who came from the Bronx who actually turned me onto a lot of stuff. He was actually a DJ in seventy five in the Bronx and he was a year older, I think, and he ran track with me. So I was I ran track and so that in high school, you know, being on the track team was

And by the way, this was Black Power time.

You know, this is when you know, you know, the fifth pick was in everybody, at the back of everybody's head, just the beginning of that era. And we had race riots at White Plains High School and they took the word planes off, so it's at White High School. And the Italians would come to school with baseball bats, and you know, the Blacks picketed, and you know, and I was part of the resolution committee trying to you know,

When did you graduate college.

I graduated high school in seventy two, college seventy six, and then I went to graduate school thinking that there was no way I could get into the music business. So I you know, continued my path, which was environmental science, and went to graduate school in environmental geology in Michigan and Kalamazoo.

Was there any music as you do? That was out of nowhere? Yeah?

Right? And then after two years there, just before I finished my masters, my old roommate from college called me who was working for cash Box, which was the competitor or Billboard at the time, he was doing the R and B charts, and he said, hey, you're you know, you were way ahead of it. You were into disco back in seventy five. It's blowing up. It's a giant thing. This is after Saturday night fever. Let's start a tip sheet.

Case it explain to me exactly you say it was a tipsy, exactly what does that mean.

So it means that we talked. We talked to record pools who gave the records to the DJs and found out what was happening from them. We talked to record stores, we talked to radio stations when radio stations went disco. We talked to everybody, and we had like regional representatives from around the country in Canada that would tell us what was breaking, and we would talk to people about

He's still available, So y'all were kind of like a filter, I guess, like y'all told people what was that We.

Did the research because in that point there was no Internet.

How much for each addition to a buck.

Or something like that, it was maybe a dollar fifty or something like that.

They were the original too Dope boys, right, y'all were the first blog, right exactly it was.

And it was like a newsletter. We had to print it and you know, and we type set it on a typewriter at first, and then we bought a type setting machine. We had all this stuff in the apartment and we were running it that way.

It's interesting, so much work was it? Was it completely national or just like was international? Oh so you even took we took information from you two cample, two people.

You're calling all these details, three of us and yeah, and we were all there were three of us that all went to school at Kolbe and we were calling. We were selling the ads, we were doing the editorial, we were setting the type, we were doing you know, we're having it printed and bringing it to the record stores and putting the stickers on and you know, the name stickers for each one, and you know, and keeping the subscription list and all of that we were doing. It was unbelievable.

So at no time did a bigger shark like Billboard, you know, any any of these other music industry people think like to lease you guys, or to purchase the business to work for them wasndented other people.

Billboard had a disco section that was very significant, and they already ran a disco conference called the Billboard Disco Form, which all the DJs would come to. And when I first moved to New York. I remember August of seventy eight going to the Billboard Disco Form, and disco was very gay at that point. I mean it was you know, the people who controlled disco music and the leaders in it.

Okay, most people and our listeners know about Studio fifty four and that, but I know there had to have been for every Jordan. There's like twelve guys on the playground that are justice talented and ready to whoop possess. So, I mean, what were the other clubs in New York City besides the Folkal or Studio fifty four or.

So, there were probably four accesses in dance music during the period of time there was that sort of studio. Fifty four was the Si Shi Club set the international people and you know, the stars, but it wasn't known for music. Richie Ksor was the DJ. Didn't really play, you know, played good music, but you know, nobody considered him the best. Of course, Paradise Garage at the same time was Larry Levan and he was playing the most amazing music. And the sound system was a Howard Long,

This day year it was Paradise, it was like.

Seventy eight to eighty one.

And all the folklore of those speakers and the lights and all that stuff.

I used to do interviews and go to the house of the guy who built the sound system, who built it, Howard Long, Richard Long, Richard Richard Lungs Sociates RLA. It was amazing and you know, the subworfs would you'd walk by them, you know, your pants would flap from the wind book and they moved so much air. And then they had tweeters, those piez of tweeters hanging from the ceiling, you know, and he had you know, in the booth.

So the Tea Connection, first of all, always wanted to do, is there any connection to the band? Tea Connection?

And t was the guy's name, I guess that owned the space, and it was one floor walk up, just a big space with like another like a balcony, and then there was located. It was located on White Plains Road, right near the l the elevated trains there. You can Google it and find it on Google Maps, which I've done recently.

Because I'm not in New York. White Plains is.

White Plains Road the Bronx. It's it's kind of in the Central Bronx. It's definitely not in the South Bronx. Everyone talked about the South Bronx and maybe Cedric could be considered the South Bronx, but this was you know, Africa. Benbada was from Bronx River Center, which was more central Bronx off off of the Cross Bronx Expressway. You can kind of see it from It's just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway and Knightsbridge is just south of it,

The one common thread that a lot of the guests that are on the show that have experiences with early hip hop, I think that the most common theme is that no amount of fear will ever surpass their need to you hear quality music or quality DJs. So i'man in seventy nine eighty, when you're traveling to the Bronx White guy traveling to the Bronx, Like to you, there

So I just never thought about it, you know, it never It was a weird thing for me because I just because I was rejected always myself. I never really thought about us and them and I. You know, when I went into these places, the thing I noticed is I might have been like twenty twenty five or twenty six at the time, and going up the steps to the T connection because Ben Boda had put me on the list, I was for sure the first white person

No, everybody was super cool.

They must have figured that I was from downtown and maybe I was a record or something like that. So there's there was decent respect. But you know, I wasn't thinking about it. I was just going up there. I just didn't know where to go. I hadn't been there before. I was much more concerned about getting lost and finding the place than it was about that, and you know,

Now, I have a lot of those tapes from the Tea Connection of you know, like Coal Crust Brothers and flashing them performing there. How big is the Tea Connection.

Like the size of it a little bigger than the size of the sleep with a balcony up on top where when I first walked in, I saw Bembodis in front of the turntables and on one side Jazzy Jay and the other side read Alert.

Wow.

When I went up and Avengers and that was the day I met them all cast.

Leave the Avengers over there. So I'm saying the average club size is like one hundred and fifty maybe two hundred people get get in. Yeah. See, when I'm listening to it sounds yeah like And then it's just hitting me that a lot of the game changing aspects of the culture were slightly under three hundred.

Yeah, the Grills was small, but the Bronx River Center was a lot bigger, you know. And the other thing you had to consider is that this is all ages. You know. The kids in there were average age, probably sixteen or seventeen, so they were making their dollar at the door, three dollars or whatever it costs, you know. And you know then I met ben Bada that day and he gave me his business card that said Africa Bambada, Master of Records.

Where did you first meet him? Was he?

I was there? You're right there that day. That was the day I had found out about him by going to Downstairs Records to do an interview about this new room that they'd open because they were one of the reporters to Dance Music Report, uh, and they were talking about they just opened a new room that was like the size of a walk in closet that was called the break breaks Room or the Breakbeat Room.

Is this the subway version of Downstairs or the boy.

Right here on forty third and sixth Avenue down on the mezzanine before you go into the subway.

So am I too assume that I'm not too I'm not too knowledgeable in the history of the owners of Downstairs Records. But am I believe that they're the ones that first started the idea of comping breaks and put them on one record like the No, they're not the guys, they're not. This was when they first sold it though right.

They might have sold records, they weren't the ones who made it. That was like record Lenny and Paul Winley, those were the guys who did that.

We had something to do with with the guys at Downstairs Records.

Like, no that that store had been there for years. It wasn't it. It wasn't a black record store, but it was in the subway, so you know, everyone went by it anyway. That's where I bought my disco records. That's also where I bought my duop records. They had a huge do hop collection. They had, you know, all of like the indie kinds of things. There was a

I think I'm gonna bring that back. It's it's still there.

That record? Is that one there?

The one by the the one Latin Times Square?

I don't know what it's called a Latin name, right, I think so.

I think that's where you get have your jest stuff. Now right now, I mean I went in there a couple of times. It's weird.

What's what do they sell in there? Now? They do they sell wax? Do they sell a little old stuff?

But yeah, yeah, they're still sell vinyl? Yeah, other stuff too.

Where's this It's like in the time, it's right by where you're saying, by the by the shuttle, yeah, by the at the path shut up the s train in Times Square.

I forget what it's called. Make a pilgrimage there, yeah, I I think I'm embarking that. Like I have a dream of opening a spot that sells forty fives in the subway, like a small boutique, kind of like Jero does in Japan. Like oh yeah, right, I mean he charges fifteen milso forty five for five.

Security New York.

I'll make seers in the village somewhere so exactly.

So, uh.

Are you routinely coming to the tea connection.

I mean I went two or three times to the tea connection, but that very night at the tea connection, when I watch what he's doing. I watched how he played the records. I saw the marks on the records. I sort of label steamed off the records. I saw the tape on the records. You know, all of the things he did. You know, at that point I got to know benbody. I asked him, I said, do you want do you want to make a record that sounds

So to start a label in in the early eighties. What does it take? I mean, now, when people want to do stuff, you just put it SoundCloud there it is. But if you're seriously now that you you've studied distribution and DJs and you have connections, how much does if you're you know, starting a label, how much does it cost to start a label today? In nineteen No, in nineteen eighty.

Well, so I borrowed five thousand dollars from my parents, and because I already had my rent covered, you know, I was doing the publication. I already had a medium I could advertise in for free because I already had the publication. So I had a connection to DJs, and I could using DJs. I could break the music through the DJs too, So I was dependent on that.

But so by this time it's dance did discos not Disco News?

Is Dance Music Report officially?

Yeah? I think so, yes. By seventy nine it became dance When disco died in seventy nine, we changed the name to Dance Music Report. Yeah, yes, definitely. And then so yeah, you know this was by this is nineteen eighty one. You know, I'm saying, like, let's start. So I work with Ben Boda. I cut a demo for what would become Planet Rock and eight track demo and uh, and I was starting the label up and deciding what to do.

Quick question. The effects of the disco sucks uh period? The regulation Yeah, racism m no, but the after effects of it, it was actually more homophobic than it was. But did it did that effect or deter anyone from starting? Uh? Independent labels? Because I assume that the independent labels of the seventies were primarily to make disco records them.

And sees, yeah, Prelude, TK, you know west End that you know, Yeah, they were serving that community, the DJ community because it was so hard to get records played on radio, just as it is today. In fact, it's worse today. But as you know, there were less radio stations then and it was hard, but there were no chains, so each radio station made their own decisions. So you can go to one radio station and convince that programmer that it would be a good idea for them to

Hit man. What's his name of Frederick Gan Records Stories.

Yeah, he was one of my mentors. You know, I have plenty of more the shows to share worse right now. But so was dominated again and you know Chris Blackwell and mal Austin.

So you've worked with Mars Levy.

I didn't work with him, but you know I spent some time in his office, you know, having meetings.

Can you can you give us some Marris Levy wisdom that you're allowed I saw while I was So does everybody know the.

You know, what's the what's the famous movie where where the guy owes him five bucks and he wants to chase him across the Bronx tails, you know, in that Bronx tail and he is I want to get my money back, and he says, forget it for five dollars. It's the cheapest way to ever get rid of somebody you don't want in your life. So I'm sitting in follow that rule. So so I'm sitting in in Morris Levy's office and a guy calls and asks him to borrow ten thousand dollars or something like that, or five

Old Left Chair Records, right.

Or a VJ would have been could you imagine?

So were you at all worried about what the climate was going to bring in the eighties by starting your own label, especially with the idea of killing off disco culture or the backlash that it was facing, like for the independent label.

At least, What do you mean no, Because I think disco never really died. That was a press thing because in nineteen seventy nine the music business had a recession. It was the first recession the business had been growing, I guess off the back of cassettes and then all of a sudden, maybe it was I forget what it was, but for some reason, catalog peaked and the record sales dropped and they needed a escapegoat and they used disco

So I'm always hearing about like this is the worst time for music, Like even when Quincy Jones and Michael and Bruce Udina starting a thriller, their first mantras We're here to save the music industry. So I'm always hearing of this time where like sales are down or we need to save the industry. I mean, in your mind, when was the quote the glory years of the industry.

Well, there's two ways to answer that question. There's the aesthetic way in the financial way. The financial way is easy because twenty or nineteen ninety nine two thousand was the peak revenue. By twenty ten, the combined revenues of the US record business were about the exact same after inflation as they were in nineteen sixty six, so we lost about sixty percent of all of the employees in the music business and all of the value of the

But in your heart of hearts, what's your My passion lies with this year, like what's your.

Well because I'm in the duops that era and I was born in fifty four, so that was my ear like of shit, you know, that really touched me and made me cry. And made me feel like love you know, through music and connected to me. But the same thing happened to me when that day at tea Connection, when I saw what Bam Boda was doing in the Connection, I said, this is going to change the whole game,

I mean, but that's with music, I mean, because that's what everything really, that's what's Samplin and Lollen Stones was doing.

And cover records are that, but you know even more interpolations which have happened before. So before I prepared for the show by going online because I know we were going to talk about sampling here. And I want to quote Isaac Newton from sixteen seventy five, Sir Isaac Newton who said, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm only here because I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, and every sample is a sample of a giant that came before. And even if you go to that song,

So when was Tommy Boy born? And why did you name it.

Eighty one Tommy Boy?

Well, no, no, no, I mean what were the other options? Like, did you have any other options for label names?

So I was studying a lot about this and and you know, the label that was existing since seven nine that was sort of inspirational for me was sugar Hill. And you know, in nineteen eighty when we started the New Music Seminar, we you know, at that point we were sort of looking at what was happening and what the changes were happening. And that's when I was, you know, sort of discovered Bambada and jumped into what hip hop culture was becoming. Because, by the way, in nineteen eighty

Who did Cotton Candy?

Cotton Candy was the group. The name of the song was having Fun and it wasn't really a record. That was TB eight eleven catalog number, first Tommy Boy release. The second one was Jazzy Sensation, was was the first Bemboda record, so Bam Boda found like you know, three or four and then I'd go to the you know, to his things and I'd discover the four c mds at the Zulu Nation anniversary party that Bronx River Center or you know Cold Crush Brothers, which I didn't get tough.

Uh you know, Scott, were you there for the Jazzy Sensation sessions? Who was that? Do you know the house was?

I don't remember who the house bend was there was it was Pumpkin and All Stars, I don't think, so, okay, it was it was Arthur Baker that produced that. And after I had given Arthur already the demo that I had cut for what would become Planet Rock, which which had like replays of samples that were built into it more than the ones that were ended up being on Planet Rock, and I gave it to him and he, uh, he said, can I produce this? And I said, yeah,

Because that's night and Day. If anything I can, like, I consider enjoying sugar Hill. It's like Okay, are they the first hip hop labels? Are they last?

Right?

The last of the disco labels? And like I'd consider Tommy Boy really the first hip hop true like modernized between you and Profile, like the Real established a modern hip hop label, which.

Is another story. Is I brought Corey Robbins to the Tea connection to see Benbo to spin he wasn't a hip hop label before he was. He ran a label called Panorama before that, and then he started, uh, Profile Records and Profile Records. Was it like Tommy Boy was supposed to be a dance label because I had a dance publication and my DJs were you know, everything in hip hop was disco the beginnings of people don't think

Exactly? So so one with Planet Rock and what it's done for technology and really just taking hip hop's leaves and bounds above, I mean really starting modern electro music. How what's what's this? The story behind it? Like how it was it just like hey, I have this craft work record, and how can we make it sound robotic and futuristic like this? And Arthur Baker's like.

Oh no, because I told you I already had the demo that had been done a year and a half. A year before that.

Was an A Rock was done in eighty.

No, there was an eight track demo that included the elements that ended up being in Planet Rock, plus just the instrumental part and three other things that we ended up not using, you know, besides craft work.

You're saying the track was done a year, but.

I originally had envisioned using I like it by BT express the beat from that exactly, and Rick James give it to me baseline, you know so, and those things were worked into the original demo as well. Really yeah, okay, and then we decided we didn't need that much. It was too confusing. Does that exist? Does that the original deal will still exist anywhere? I don't have it. It probably does. Arthur Baker might have it as a cassette. It must have. It must exist.

Some last question.

Search, Let the search begin. We got to find it. Everything exists somewhere.

He still alive. Yeah, he's doing great.

He just produced the eight oh eight movie, the movie on eight o eight, which is getting ready to be the story thank you. So what we're talking about here is we had no money, so we decided to buy one reel of two inch tape and record at fifteen

I'm sorry, did you explain? All right? So Flash to the Beat is uh okay. You would probably not as the drum genesis of gang Stars, you know, my Steez the real but it's really grand Master Flash flashes on the bead box Plane play on a very primitive drum machine, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five doing routines.

It started out as a plate. We used to call them plates, but their acetates and those place you used to go to to get an acetate made of a tape and so some people but they'd wear out fast, but people would play acetates.

And then a label independent Bonzo Mika which I have no idea, eventually released it. And that's that boot leg of a boot leg of a boot leg like that just made the rounds across the Tri State area. Gotch which when even when Mattel invented uh since since sonics yeah, back in nineteen eighty one, Like I got that for my tenth birthday so I could do pretend flash and

Well, I used to play craft Work on my radio station back you know, back in nineteen seventy three, so I was already into craft work. That's why it blew my mind so much that Ben Boda could play it in front of a sixteen year old black audience and get away with it work and make it work, and so you know, that's what changed the game. So that was the one that stood out as the most radical departure from what you know, black music or funk music

But even at the time when you're constructing this, like, you have no idea that you're metaphorically speaking, getting in a delurean and going ninety years into the future because essentially, like, all the elements that are in this song will determine thirty years later with EDM music, with trap music. I mean,

Would have been more expensive though we didn't have enough money to pay for a base.

See, I would have thought it was more because That's why I wanted to know how long did it take the craft because first of all, it's a seven minute song, like Who's essentially like putting the pieces together.

Okay, so Jaa is the is the engineer.

Engineer was always the person playing together we have learned anything.

But but then there's the assistant engineer was Bob Rosa, who went on to become super famous himself as a as an engineer and a mixer, both of those guys. And then you know, we had a synth player that we brought in, you know who, who played the lines on it, and and Arthur Baker was the you know, the producer, you know, and all of us were up there just contributing whatever ideas we had using all the technology.

That's why I wanted to know where did that?

Yeah, So I just said, can we figure out a way to use this? And then Robie John Roby was the you know guy who did all the keyboards and stuff on that and played the melodic parts, came over and did that. And so you know, we utilized that we had rented an eight o eight because we couldn't find Flashes drum machine, and we brought that in And.

Did you guys think for a second, like can we ask him if we could borrow it?

Or But they don't, I mean, because they were different. It was the castanover crew. That's the castanover crew. You know, it's like gang stuff, you just you don't. I wasn't going there, I mean.

Like Africa. I wasn't afraid to go.

And I probably wouldn't have been afraid to go to see Grandmaster Flash either, because you know, I wasn't thinking about that either. But I didn't want to create a con.

To ask like, oh, I know, Flash, he'll let me borrow Yeah.

I don't know. I mean I don't know that that he had. They both had relationships with Kurt with herk but I don't know what kind of relationship they had with each other. I mean, even watching the get Down, I still learned how because because Flash was you know, consulting and a producer on the get Down, so to me, I learned a little bit about you know these that was written from the Flash perspective more than the banbody perspective.

By the way, were these afternoon parties or night parties?

The night parties, but they were.

They weren't cardon back then, that's hard.

And they had day stuff two in the park. But I didn't go to those because I was working. But you know, i'd go after I worked, I'd go out at night and and and see him there. The Bronx river ones were even earlier because they were in a wreck room in in the project.

All right. I own an eight o eight drum machine and it as hard as hell too program it and really get it to do what you wanted to do execution wise, Who was the eight o eight monster? Was that author?

Uh? I think Roby figured it out. He was the more technically savvy guy. But and Arthur Baker both worked on it together and and figured out what they wanted to do, and they might have actually had done some programming in advance. I can't remember a lot of that happened all spontaneously there, including the you know, the guys had written their rhymes, and a lot of the stuff that happened with the rhymes was spontaneous too, like, yeah, exactly, I forgot the lyrics. How I forgot the lyrics? And

So when it's over and said and done and mixed, are you too involved in it to really realize that you guys might have read Yeah.

You never know until you play it in front of an audience. The first time we had an inkling that something was going to be crazy, you know, was when you played it in front of an audience. By the way, this was the second bout of Tommy Boy record Jazzy Sensation had come out already the year before and was a hit. It did like forty thousand copies, which for

And at this time, like there was simple clearianicses. Even the things like with the craft Work sample, it wasn't a sample, it was played.

So did the guys that did the Mexican were they like, hey, that's our melody.

Or so we didn't have an issue with that one because they probably stole it from the Good to Bad and the Ugly and it was really any of morricone, you know. So I don't know what. So that's the only reason I can think that after all the years, nobody ever came out. But you know, after Planet Rock became pretty big, I got a letter from the publishing company of uh of kraft work. I didn't know. I

What is your distribution game?

Like?

Is are you in a position now where you're getting more orders than you have and you can handle that? You can handle? Are you like I need a full time staff now to.

I had two employees I had once I got the letter from craft work to hire a lawyer full time.

Well not even I'm talking about to even get the record. Yeah, forty thousand records and that many records.

Just tell the pressing plant we need more, you know, and you know, and we have to pay up front. So yeah, we need to get cash. So we had to go sell records directly to the record store for two dollars instead of two fifty, and we get cash so we could pay for the presses, you know, so you could turn cash flow around fast. Or we give the distributor or a discount and they would pay us

Were you your own distributor?

Or?

Who were you using?

No, I had twelve distributor to cover America in those days, you had to have twelve distributors. There's we had a New York distributor, Philly distributor Universal in Philly. We had a distributor in Washington, Baltimore, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, you know, Cleveland, Boston, Hartford.

I'm telling you it's crazy.

San Francisco, La Texas, and New Orleans.

And then what about a nationally Shreveport is separate one in Shreeport in New Orleans? What about internationally?

How did you do it? And nastually? We didn't know what we're doing. We licensed the record internationally to a PolyGram subsidiary called twenty one and they gave us whatever like a twenty thousand dollars advance for the world.

As a president of the label. How are Africa, Bimbata and the Sonic Force doing this song and concert? Are they? Is there demand to bring them like is I mean, how are you guys dealing with your statics.

Of Like we had to make it, we made it.

How do you make it work on Well, I saw the video, but how do you make it work on stage?

Like?

Are we getting a band to try and recreate this? Is there?

No? The bembodis DJ it Because the other thing the time we boy did was we were innovating in the records themselves. First of all, a lot of the twelve inches at the time were forty five, so we only did thirty threes. We put the beats permitted on the record so the DJs would know what the beats permitt It was, By the way, what's the beats permitted in a plant Rock? Anybody? On twenty nine? Very good? Yeah.

Do you know the Heartbeat story with Larry Levan? I wanted to say this earlier when he mentioned down tempo how he played So Larry Levan defiantly oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, how he played it like twenty times in a row.

Well they said three hours, but I feel like he it might have been under twenty times in a row. That's how he broke it at Paradise. Yeah, he literally was going to force them to dance to down tempo as opposed to disco, and their thing was to have a sit in. So for the first or five times people were sitting under dance. His audience was like, no, we're leaving, and Larry Levan was like, no, I'm I'm the controller here. You don't you know you're not hold me hosted.

Don't try that.

Don't try to sell me.

A few people can get away with that.

He was like, I will, I will play what you want to hear after I see them dance to this, and so after the twentieth time, they're like, all right, damn it, and then they started and then they have been He literally stock him, cindered them into.

That's good to know though, but that heart that heartbeat record was the transition and so that is not it's not disco, but it is downbeat.

And then yeah Tuesday, Yeah, like he literally forced them by gunpoint to you know, it was radical at the time because it was like ninety one bpms, where the average record was disco fied and so yeah.

Yeah, but and he already played dow tempo compared to the White Gate you know discos where they were playing one hundred and twenty ninety thirty so Africa. So the other thing we did was we had an instrumental B side and a version that had Tina Bee on it, which was Arthur's wife, Tina Baker.

Okay she be yeah, oh crap, I did not know.

And that allowed us to get play on in clubs that were gay clubs because it was the right tempo and they weren't going to play a record with a rap on it. So that so our record got played everywhere everyone could play our record. Also, you know, punk rock was fast, so a lot of the you know, people who liked to play rock music couldn't play early hip hop because it was too slow for what they were playing, but they could play Planet Rock. So Planet

Jo Top.

Not to jump the gun, but because you keep talking about how well versed you were on the diversity of the gay community, is that when you like ran into like a young RuPaul, because I mean that's a person of a certain age.

I was just curious.

Because I was much later.

Paul was right.

I didn't know because he's certain.

He used to intern at the New Music Seminar for us. He used to perform perform at a show at the Saint at the New Music Seminar once, you know, uh, and he was an amazing performer. But you know, Monica really, you know, Monica Lynch was the president of Tommy Boy, actually not me, and she, you know, she was the

That, coming out of a Planet Rock.

A lot of the stuff y'all followed up with I guess it fell under like the I guess theyould call it freestyle at the time. Was it like the Latin hip hops? Yeah, Latin hip hop? Who was first they.

Called it Latin hip hop? Then they called it freestyle? Okay, okay, gotcha? Who was some of those artists?

T K A. That was the big one. We had K seven t K A. So the K K seven is the K and t K A Tony K.

Society, I mean didn't really start with Information Society.

Was the Information Society which was salabout Yellow who had the fever, had a club called it Devil's nest Alnido del Diablo in the Bronx also, and Louis Vega used to spin there, and Louis Vega discovered this record and brought them in from Minnesota. These guys are like Vikings from Minnesota, and they came they came in the you know, this white group came in and played an all Puerto Rican club in the Bronx and.

They were white. Never saw the video, not only white way original white.

They weans from.

You know, because Silent Warning like all that stuff just sounded and all the Puerto Rican kids in my high school. I just thought they were Puerto Rican because I guess Puerto Rican.

So yeah, So that was probably eighty four, like two years after playing Rock, or maybe late eighty three because Running was the first record which used a eight o

Well imagine that a group going against their will, playing, playing and surviving off audience. They who would ever have

DS was doctor Rock and the four sim C's.

Yeah, so how did you how did you run into them and and sort of groomed them and like did they already come package as they were swetters? And because I feel like that's.

You, that's me, you know, I already said that, you know, but I saw I saw him perform at one of Africa Bambadi's Zulu Nation events. They were Zulu. I mean there were people that were affiliated with the Zulunation in Olbers. They're from Staten Island, so you know, all of the Staten Island hip hop that came out of Staten Island grew up on four m DS. And you know, they had Jesse d who was the singer who used to do Michael Jackson invitations on the on the Staten Island

Our listeners out there. Like a lot of early hip hop routines were just based on TVs do ron Stone, Cowboy and and by yeah exactly. So a lot of these early hip hop routines are based on uh u h F whatever that is u HF channel uh reruns and about the weird out who wants to be on Quest Love Supreme way he bring it? Yeo, yeah, I will. So back to the Foursome ds. So you saw them do this routine and you.

Yeah, I thought that, you know, they were super commercial and and I thought that this concept of harmony over hip hop beats might be another departure point because you have to understand also at this time, the DJ was the main person in a rap group, not the rappers, and the DJ usually had the musical idea and their name always was first it was Africa Bembada and Grandmester Flesh and Eric B. And you know it was because

Where they easily sold on the Frankie Lineman approach of.

Yeah, they were open to whatever. At the point they wanted a record deal and they weren't going to get a record dealer. It wasn't like there was a lot of competition. Maybe they would have thought it, but I, you know, I said, look, you know, it's the same street corners. There's a great story here. Let's do this thing. And also maybe we can you know, get girls really into this group, because you know girls, you know, and so that would be, you know, a way to expose

At what point did crush groove come into the picture for them and did it have like an effect on the records?

Actually they were right.

I remember O n and I saw the eighty five.

I saw it in the theater.

Call it eighty six indo eighty five eighty beginning eighty six.

Yeah, I think I think for some d's performance and rapping was the that was that was the highlight of the movie.

Of the film, or Griffin Dunn's rap at the end, the horrible rap.

What was the But they weren't, I mean, they weren't cush with tender love was. They did It's and force scratching and.

That was earlier. Rapping was first, So that must have been eighty four eighty five.

Yeah, I mean It's and for scratches, I mean, let Me Love You was it was a good introduction. But really I know that b boys got to open on It's and for scratch and even when they opened for a new edition. I've seen three full force new edition shows and I always felt like full force or forced my god, I said, full force cracker for some ds opening for a new edition, I could tell that they were out for blood, like they performed harder, and you know they were doing all the invitations.

Yeah, they have dance routines.

Yeah, way way past. I mean they were rhyming, they were singing, they were imitating Michael JACKSONI wack costumes.

We have to talk about I think that was me on the record.

That was you exclusive. I don't know my sound effects this stuff, just that part, Okay, I see so well. Yeah, because I always wanted to know why did they By the time Chilling came out and Tender Love had had made noise.

Tender Love was like the first top ten record for Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis.

Yeah, it was, so were they because the cover of Chilling was like them in Offers and they was chilling. I know literally that. But were they telling you, as an executive, like, we don't want to go the bubblegum?

We were over that right away because it didn't work. We tried it, We tried to connect to that audience and it didn't connect, so we went a new way.

My dad actually liked that. He liked the Chilling record because I had to Let Me Love You twelve inch and it looked the way that the photo was positioned, it looked just like the Frankie Liman thing. So my dad instantly got, oh, that's what they're they're coming from, and so damn that did he like the music when you listen to it? Forgive me, it was my It

By the way. He broke with the cover too. His first record was the record somebody had done before.

Really No, no, no, I mean literally the photo.

Yeah, I know what you're talking the cover, Yeah.

With climmcfetter, that's what you mean. Who orchestrated them getting with jam and Lewis? Like was that a thing for the Cruss Grooves soundtrack?

Yeah?

Also, this time you're about to go to One Brothers right, Like, at what point are.

You in the middle of the in the middle of making that. We had already made that record. Then I was talking to my Austin about about doing a joint venture with Warner Brothers where we maintained our independence, but we were half owned by Warner.

M So did you were you executive of the Crush Groove soundtrack because it was on Warner Brothers.

Had we had one record on there and it was gonna the album is going to be on Warner Brothers, but this was going to be the single that drove the album. So this was the single that was going to sell their album for them, so that there was a natural conversation anyway to talk to him about doing something bigger together.

So was that song ever officially on A four C and d's album.

It was on Chilling.

It eventually became on Chilling, but after the Fat Got You. But I thought because you were had one foot in Warner and one foot at Tommy Boy, that.

Didn't the single come out on both labels though like the Warner, it wasn't the twelve inch on time.

Yeah. The deal that we made with Warner was all the twelve inches came through Tommy Boy and they had the albums. So actually Warner released the fourth MD's album Chill, and I think came through Warner and we had the twelve inches. That was the deal. We kept the twelve inches and they kept the forty five's in the albums, and that was important. That was important for you to keep the twelve inches for the branding. And also we were independent. We want we also had international We could

Right when we moved over there?

Who knew?

So how do you how do you curb the enthusiasm of an artist signed to the label that you know, because because by this point, you know, Thriller has gone full bloom and you see the potential of Michael Jackson selling forty million units and Prince is out there like now, black artists are finally getting there just due to live in the or at least the perception of it, because

Look, we could drive back from Cleveland. We don't need to stay over.

Yeah, I see, I'm taking my nineteen ninety five life this before. But you know it's.

Business was ruined by then.

Show. You never knew Hunger. I know. I'm so glad I got on the complete of that train boy, But how do you what's what's an what's an artist expectation? Especially an artist that's not aware of Hey, I gotta pay for this Billboard magazine ad to make sure that you're promoting, and that costs forty thousand dollars. I gotta you know. I'm sure that you've been on the many ends of an argument of an artist versus record exec Weren't we rich.

Only after the majors got into the business and fucked it up for everybody else. It wasn't in the in the eighties, that was never an issue. We had to figure out, how do The issue isn't to get on the charts. The issue is to get exposure. Exposure leads to sales, that's it. Word of mouth leads to sales. Those are the things that we cared about. So how do we focus on maximizing exposure? So Tommy Boy invented the sticker. Tommy Boy invent started doing front page strips

How do you control the bat means that nobody can outbid you on the back.

We had a subscription. We paid for it all we had it, you know, we paid in a FIR three and if in advance when they needed cash flow, and then we just we we had a contract with him for the back page. So you know, there were things that we you know, there are things that Tommy Boy did. You know when Greg Mack left the radio station, well when he when he left Houston where he was a hip hop radio DJ in Houston and we knew him and supported him. He came to K Day and he

That sound bite for Yeah World Wood that was on the Forces D's Unsung, they told a story I don't want to get your side of it about the they wanted to work with Teddy Riley and Teddy Rally was going to do tracks on I can't remember it was the I think it was maybe the third album and the label just didn't want to pay for it because Teddy was charging at that time.

What was Teddy something that Yeah, exactly.

It was exorbitant, But what was your what's your side of that? And was it something that just didn't make sense or how did you determine what to pay for it?

I don't know, you know, I can't remember specifically. I do remember trying to get him, but availability and the kind of you know, like, would I pay fifty thousand dollars to clear a sample on one track? No, I'm not doing that, but you know Kanye will do that everybody. You know, there's economics in the music business, and the difference between indies and majors is the indies are have to make a profit or they go out of business. They just don't have to make a profit. They've been

We aren't.

We aren't even in the same business that they're in. So when they got into hip hop, it changed the nature of hip hop, and it made it very corporated, you know, and kept some of the sort of the street creativity that came from discovering something on the street and starting with nothing and bringing to something to something where the second you signed, you know, the mayboch pulls up, get a bag of money.

You know. So okay, being as though you're you're it was front loaded instead of so being as though you're one of the last execus that built this reputation off of the idea of groups. Now, in hindsight, I hear people say, especially in documentaries, that it's way more easier to control solo artists than it is a group, which leads to uh, I guess my my question about statso Sonic as an independent label owner, are you at any point thinking about the financial hindrance and the burden of

Live I think stet was right six oh with the drummer.

Yeah, Robby, Well yeah to me, that's their anger. Sorry, so well, of course whoever he is. No, But it's just like if I'm if I'm pretending i'm you, I'm thinking about oh, God, a band that's back line, that's

We weren't thinking about touring because we're the label. We're you know, we're only contracted to make money when the group sells music, so we don't profit from their touring. I never really thought.

But you never thought like, okay, well, touring will build up their popularity and thus we can make more records.

And you know that hasn't always been the case for us. In fact, every group we signed, we we had never seen live till after we signed them, and they never really got gigs, significant gigs. I mean, I saw for some d's that made mean is exception for that. But Stets of Sonic, we heard the record, we signed them off the record, you've never seen them live, Dyala Soul.

In an apartment.

Yeah, they weren't home. We recorded during the day.

What song was that? Did you recorded?

Apartment? Just say stet. We tried to re record, but we tried to re record it because they had done it tape in the studio in Brooklyn and all they had was a cassette and something happened, they didn't pay their bill or whatever, and there was no master tape, and we tried to replicate it, and we ended up just using the cassette master from the cassette because we couldn't make it better. That's so dope, like you know, like sugar Hill was flashed the.

Beat, No you chasing the demo?

It's like literally, But we did record other tracks up there as well, and I remember Freu kwand Falling Sleep and uh and also mixed machine Wise, who was like amazing human beat bucks at the time.

Now, okay, the I feel like the idea of Statso Sonic and the legend of stats of Sonic was bigger than what they actually were because and you know, for history sake whatever, I've been respectful on this stuff like okay, yeah, we're the second hip hop band whatever. I never, truly, I never really considered Stetso Sonic a hip hop band because when I listened to their records in instrument, it sounded.

Like Bobby wasn't in the studio.

Well it sounds well no, Well, I mean he was for the three or four important songs he was drumming on. But I always thought that was a marketing angle more than even when that.

I think that was Daddyo's idea. By the way, oh yeah yeah, and.

The Beastie Boy issue of Spin magazine.

They were very interesting. Daddyo was very involved in the uh, you know, the marketing ideas and the concepts. We used to actually fight about it sometimes because we didn't always agree, but a lot of the ideas that are in stets sonic h are those. But you know, records like talking All that Jazz to me is still a classic. The first record about sampling really you know.

It was it was so I'm saying, like, when you're doing this and by the time did they make their debut at the New Music Seminar?

Maybe I can't remember which we're.

Kind of skipping that you started the New Music Seminar.

I co started it with a bunch of other people. There was another there was an so the DJ culture was exploding. There was a there was a rock oriented thing called rock Pool that serviced rock DJs, rock music, you know, post punk, you know, new wave and stuff like that. DJs that played specifically rock music at the time. And because rock was so big with the labels, they got big support from the record companies. Uh and disco was always like the bastard child of the music industry.

We're going to get Sheik in.

Well, you gotta get Nol Rogers specifically because he he'll tell you the story about rappers, the light and the sample, and.

He's a friend of the show. So for the New Music Cement, when was the very first.

One in SII Rehearsal studios. It was a one day event in nineteen.

Eighty Do you who performed?

No, No, There were no performances at night. The first one was just a one day thing, the same day as the Billboard Disco Forum and the disco form fell off, and we packed like one hundred and fifty two hundred people in the room, and we're talking about issues with radio and issues DJ issues. We talked about remixing and things that nobody really was talking about elsewhere. And we didn't see disco as one hundred and thirty beats per minute.

Yeah, that was in Oh yeah, yeah, that was in the pilot.

But now we have an episode where it actually takes place at night.

No, I saw the Coming Attraction store and it looks just like it. They did a fantastic job, Thank you man.

We take We shot that actually at the what's the hotel across the street from penn Station the Yeah.

Shot and shot at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The rats over there, boy, yeah, they got tales to tell. That's why we shot it. That's crazy. So what was your I guess when I first started hearing about the New Music Seminar? Well Search has his tales of that's when Russell first saw him. The night I remember with the infamous Craig g Versus Supernatural battle, like, what are your what are your fond memories.

Of well, because I was running it. You have to understand that I I was dealing with registration, I was dealing with planning.

And everything myself like, and I was.

Doing Tommy Boy at the same time and Dance Music Report at the same time, so imagine all of that. And when this thing was happening, I would move downtown to our office and uh on Lower Broadway and we would uh you know, and I would work there for like three months of the year, and I'd come to the Tommy Boy offices two days a week and being the Seminar offices like three days a week. And then when the two weeks before, I wouldn't even come to the Tommy Boy offices. So you know, it was that

Versus Lynch mob one. Yeah, that's I think.

And I think also Miami was involved because I think what's his name was, Luke was involved with that as well. They were throwing tables. I was told in the panels clubs, and then I had to stay in the green room the panelists ready room to talk to to set up all the people, because I helped put all the panels together.

Who were some of the most notable debuts that happened at the New Music Seminar that now our household names or.

At least Nirvana. I wouldn't call it a debut, but they played a tiny little club and they played this and it was one of his last gigs before he died. Also was at the New Music Seminar, and there was a bunch of rock groups that came and did their debuts. You know, so much stuff happened at the seminar, and there were so many people that would come. I'm still hearing stories I didn't know about about people who got

So what point are you now expanding, Tommy boy? When does Monica lunch coming too? The situation? When do you get a full staff?

Monica was there almost from the beginning, So I started with Jazzy Sensation, and I think sometime I met Monica, probably around eighty one or eighty two, I can't remember which year. Okay, she started right around then, but almost from the beginning, it was just me and her first that were the only two people that worked there. And then we had we got another person as an assistant, and we started to grow it a little bit after that.

What were your I mean, did you guys share the same aesthetic, like what the label should be or is it just like you know, is it her job just to hear with the.

And by the way, we were also running Dance Music Report at the same time, so we were still putting the stickers on and writing the articles. And that while we were doing Tommy Boy too. So when she started, she was doing both things with me.

Okay, she was.

Doing everything I needed to be done, and that's I needed to do everything, So she did it all.

What were your feelings towards the competition at least def Jam? Were you guys looking at them like.

Well, Jeff, we were before deaf Jam started, right.

But I'm saying once def Jam comes and it's like, okay, now the car is getting crowded.

Well, I think run DMC was. It was it was more rush than it was deaf Jam. So run DMC was the first one and that was profile really that stepped into our territory in a significant way. And and you know, I had mad respect for what they're doing. And I'm very close friends with Corey Robin Steele who had that label. And so I don't know, it's you know, I don't know that. I never really was competitive. Really, I'm not a I'm not a good competitor. I'm much

He's not doing it? Brings us to day.

Well, he used to call my music frantic because his music was more R and B influence. You know, he was the guy who would be hanging out at the you know what I would go to. If I would go to the T Connection and Bronx River Center, he would not be there. He would he would be drinking splits of Moe at at you know, at the Fever. You know, he was a fever guy.

You know, wait, it just hit me. You had interactions with Jake King. Would you consider Club Nouveau a Tommy Boy artist or was that just adition?

We put out all the twelve inches, so yeah, we broke all those records with our team.

What about was tom like Social Club also in that? Are they okay?

That was on my Cola Records? Social Club Don McMillan, Yeah.

Liquor that guy the guy who like the last that's the unmalcol record, not Malacola. Yeah, that was digital, that's the West Coast.

Underwater Rhymes was on my Cola. You know, all all of those records. He had also had what's his name from Miami, he had Luke Skywalker was there. You know, all of the Bay Area groups were on the because he owned the pressing plant on Santa Monica Boulevard, so everybody went to him to get records pressed. So he became the default label. He was a tugboat captain from Alaska. Don McMillan. He didn't know to say no, He just said,

Ah.

So you know he he could have been the biggest record company in the world if he had paid people and done things right. But you know, everybody complained that he wasn't. He wasn't straight with people.

So he just got people to the next level, which was well.

He got the record out and got them established.

You know, I see so because I guess, well, you know, me wanted a Grammy. I believe were at least who did deal with it. I'm still lean on Manuva. So, uh, what was it about them at you know, did you feel like we should expand to the West coast and no, I think or did they come to you.

Well, we had a relationship with Warner So that was a record label that was signed to Warner that I liked because I was a big fan of Time at Social Club, which I think was one of another one of the biggest twelve inches of all time. It was one of those record of the year records that never got the credit that it due. And I went and found them, and you know, I said, let me do this because I know what to do. You guys aren't going to know what to do on Warner Brothers really

Is that odd to say that for at that point nineteen eighty five, eighty six, that they still don't know how to like. So that Harvard report stuff was just for not at least the Harvard report from the seventies, like.

I don't know that.

Well, okay, well there was there was a Harvard report in nineteen seventy two that specifically told the majors that you should start investing in black label. So as a result, Philly International gets inquired acquired from CBS Labels start you know, Echo to Atlanta.

I never saw that report.

It's yeah, it's too bads Harbor report.

So but the thing is, I don't think Warner Brothers ever recovered from that though, Like they never really, I mean even when you talked to DJs and they would just tall you straight up. If we saw Warner Brothers logo, we knew it was whack. Like when it came to like hip hop or whatever, like.

That Graham Central Station that was imprint and they had some didn't that at some period that had some George Clinton stuff for a minute, didn't they?

Uh for the Funkadelic, the Funkadelic stuff, Parlotte Parliament, some of that stuff. One Nation Undergroove and and Uncle Jim. But yeah, I would have thought that that. So you actually went to mo Austin just said, yo.

Let me do this. You know I can do it. I can handle the guy, and I can make it, you know, make it work and break it for you. So I got the twelve inches on that.

Which leads me too while you treat me so bad. All right, So my favorite hip hop group of all time day Los Soul.

Uh.

First of all, just the marketings unprecedented. I mean shit. The first time I almost got suspended from school was hanging those damn day Loss stickers all over all over where I shouldn't have h in school.

That was our second sticker, by the way, the first one was st e.

T Stet stickers were first.

That was the first sticker, and it was you know, it was orange and they cost three cents each. And that was sweet market the beginning. It was a crazy street market.

Yeah, yeah, you were the first. I guess, yeah, your label, because that's no other label I recall really.

But everyone so I innovated, and everybody took the stuff and out competed me, you know. You know, they went from stickers to giant stickers, to wrap cars, to wrap vans, to wrap whatever.

They're basically giving you credit for come creating the promo, right.

Like, you know, we just little things, you know that to get to get exposure to me. A three and six sticker that's fluorescent, that just has a few letters on it, if you put it on a payphone or on a latrine at the right club, you know it's going to be seen by a lot of people. We did one for opp Those were the three big ones that I still want that opp sticker. I remember where they went at Magic City during the Jack the Rapper conference.

So when you when you get Daylight, is it you that's trying to sell up the angle of hippie daisy? Yeah, the hippie image. It was.

It was an obvious thing that they you know, I did to find what the front arc cover was with Monica and somebody in the press said that, I mean, there was a review that said that, of course the alliteration saying the hippies of hip hop makes so much sense, you know. But then they got reactionary about all that stuff, which is really what really pissed me off a little bit more than the react than people saying that who

Well, it's my favorite don't jump the gun just yet. I mean, let's talk about the happy period. So uh, I mean, what do you what do you? What are your thoughts?

And it came up with the daisy age? Do you think I came up with that? You think that was a marketing idea? Of course, the sire of the phones, all of that stuff, everything was them all we do.

But it's set a precedent because what because this is now the first time. I mean when Nation of Millions came up, that's the first time I heard white critics salivating over hip hop. But when three f On Rising came out, suddenly kids in my geometry class are having hip hop discussions minus me, Like suddenly, it's I see the I've seen the first hand effects of how that album worked brilliantly. So I'm just saying that, like, at

It I mean when we signed them at the beginning, we didn't know. I remember hearing the record through the wall. They were playing it for Monica and I heard it through the wall and I came in to see what it was. Because usually when a record sounds great through the wall, it has a good shot of being a hit. If it doesn't sound like anything through the WALLBB he

You know, do you remember the Bill Coleman right up in Billboard about that record? Yeah, it's again because the late eighties and just the overall disdain of hip hop with music critics really not treating it as for art. For him, I'll say that Nelson George and Bill Coleman at at Billboard wrote to like major like these three paragraph love letters about the record, which I felt was a game changer, at least for the At the time,

There were a lot of meetings at Tommy Boy where we talked about how can we penetrate you know, culture with this, in the media with this, and Monica had a great relationship with Bill Coleman and you know, and

Oh, Robert Chris Gal.

Yeah, Chris Chris was you know, he still is, you know, but in the era of rock journalism, he was one of three guys, maybe the number one guy. He was so important. Whatever he said everyone had to take seriously. So he wrote wrote it up positively, and he had written up and bought it positively, so he was open to what we're doing because he knew we had interesting stuff and he was interested in that, in that kind of thing. So it was the combination of all of that.

The Potholes was, but that video was crazy.

It was crazy, and that was my first exposure to Dayla.

With the motorized skateboards and all that stuff. It was a new concept at the time. Yeah, and we shot that with the Super eight or something like that eight millimeter video camera because you know, we didn't have We weren't making videos yet. It was till early days and no one was really getting play yet on videos. Also, I think MTV might have embraced Dyala Soul early and they weren't embracing that much black music at the time.

But d TV Wraps was out, so by the time it was kicking in.

The one discussions to do that. To appeal Dayla to white audience never never can And I say that only coming from a place for me.

The early.

Hip hop groups that appeal to white audiences were Dayla, Tribe, clal Quests, and a few years later was the Roots, Like those were the We never actually talked about that. I mean, I just I just wonder about because because that was a lot of a lot when I first started getting into tip hop, the white kids were talking about Dayla, soho on try calal Quest. I feel like those somebody somebody somewhere said something or I don't know how that, How did that happen?

That's why I so penetrating into white media is what did that? So we were trying to get on MTV because we wanted as much exposure as possible, but we didn't label it white exposure. That's what you're saying, we don't want we don't. Like I said when I went into the Tea connection, that's just not the way we think about it. How much exposure can we get wherever it is, if it's white or black. I don't really give a shit if it's Latin or whatever.

And I'm not trying to label it. What I'm saying is how did it happen? Because that was the college and that's that's what I'm interested in. I don't care what you call it. I just I just think that to me that that that was a.

So we did a lot of things that we did. We had a we had a show at the Ukrainian National Home that was the first promo show to introduce them, and we invited the press to that show and they did a thing live there where they did the Bob Dylan thing where they held up the cards, the cards

Did you know, was it when you heard it or was it like, Okay, of these twenty four songs you gave me, this song number eighteen is the one I could probably work well.

So we have to talk about Prince Paul. And this is because Prince Paul produced the record, and Prince Paul was responsible for many of the samples on the album, and Prince Paul's style is obscure samples and it was I used to have fights about that as much with Prince Paul as it is with the rest of the group, because the cost of a sample is almost the same whether you sample something that's unknown or something that people

Song, here's our hit.

We hate the song, but it you know, and you know you could talk to Mason, you know about it. He was a proponent because he's a DJ's a proponent because he knows what that means for the dance. For he claims that he pushed the group to make that happen, or allow that happen, or to even use that and let it beyond the record. But to me, that was the semil record. And you know, you talked about led Zeppelin before. If it wasn't for a Whole Lot of Love,

What is it that's keeping daylight off the streamer services?

I mean the Tommy Boy because Warner Brothers controls those masters, and those masters are no they have samples on them that they they don't have the contracts or something like that, and they haven't recleared them or they're not comfortable that they're covered. But it's you know, the same people that clear those samples, cleared Naughty by Nature, House of Pain, and Digital Underground samples, so and all those are available. So I don't understand why what the reason is, but I'm in there.

You're not personally, you're not responsible, you're not holding it hostage.

I haven't owned the old Timmy Boy catalog since two thousand and two when Warner bought it. I'm trying to buy it back right now. Hopefully by the second half of this year, I'll have it back. And that's my first order of business, Thank you very much.

When all is said and done, this is what three Feet High and Rising has at least achieved, which is every sample on that record has made music experts out of anyone who was between the ages of twelve and twenty two at the time of that album came out. Now I'm searching for it. I mean, did I really care about Houses of the Holy by led Zeppelin and my sister's recollection? Second I heard that break, I was like, oh shit, that's a day long soul. Now I'm a

Their lawyers? But evidently I found out what happened is that one of the daughters heard the record until dad, have you heard this? Now you have to understand the song is called You Showed Me by the Turtles, and I was a Turtles fan. I bought Happy Together when that came out, and I you know, I mean, I liked it. I liked the Frank Zappa version better. But the thing I really thought was interesting about it is that Prince Paul slowed down the record from forty five

Because it's it's not even that loop, isn't even the sample that loop is. Actually you did a thing.

I'm looking at an instagram that you you posted last September saying, this is what's beautiful about hip hop, and this is what I wish publishers and record labels realize. This is this is you quest love by making unattainable and only an option for the rich.

Yeah.

But but what these what these greedy lawyers uh and corporate leeches don't comprehend, is that sampling is an education and it gives back. And you said, driving home from Brooklyn Bowl and I hear on the radio a song that sounds like a familiar sample, I just am it and I copped the original. Actually the entire album evidently

Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, I know for a fact that I've purchased at least I mean, I'm now a guy that collects covers of songs. I know I have at least ten to fifteen copies of you showed me done by other people. You know, so they've actually gotten the return off of that use in other ways,

So besides still running Tommy Boy and still signing hip hop groups today and artists, I am also involved with a new startup business from Sweden called Buzz that's called track lib, and track lib is a company that's designed

Okay, can I believe this song real quick? This is one of my favorite all set. That's all. I just wanted to play the air horn for that might get them a.

Towel, so you know. And we're deep into it. We're very close with all three majors. We got twenty two label signed, we signed VP Records, Regae labels, we're putting, we're loading masters up now. It's in beta, private beta until October. It's going to be a revolution because for two dollars, you can download a wave file, drop it into a new mix. When you're ready to do it, you can you go back online. You can get a license in five minutes or three minutes online for as

We're I've been dreaming of this moment.

That's why I've been trying to reach to reach go on your radio show.

To talk to you. Someone sees it, So listen.

Let me tell you who's The creative Advisory board already includes Prince Paul Large, Professor, Pete Rock, Peanut butter Wolf. You know, I wanted to talk to you about joining it too, because you're the perfect eye. You're already outspoken.

I'm there. Wow, this is the greatest news. What's what's the name of.

The track lib like track Liberation? Thank you?

Where was this in two thousand and three? Wow?

Well, and I talked to these labels, you know, when I talked to Aaron Fuchs or I talked to armand Balading, who controls the Old Judge's Parliament, And you know they're telling me. You know, arm ensued four hundred and seventy seven people for foot sample infringements and at the end of all of it break even. He didn't make any money from it, So if it had gone through track Live,

Now, I'm glad you see it the way that I meant it, like it came from a heartfelt place. One of the aforementioned executives that you talked about actually tried to call my boss's boss's boss at my current job to get me dealt with because he felt as though I was trying to, first of all, be anti Semitic and disrespectful to his way of practice, which was never

That's my argument. When I'm talking to all of them, I said, you've got hundreds of thousands of tracks, and in the case of the majors and even indies, tens of thousands of tracks that you don't get sync deals for, you don't get licenses for, nobody knows about, and they sit there collecting dust. That's the stuff we want. We want create diggers to be digital and find stuff fast and use it often so that you can have a hit. And I got the list of the one hundred most sampled records of all time.

Here hit me.

The first is the B side of a record by the Winstons. It's called Ammon Brother, you know, and that's the most sampled record of all time. The second one is Cheanze labat by B side. The third one is Lynn Collins. Think which is it takes two? Right?

Wait?

What'll second B side change? Labat?

Oh Fresh of course?

Right? James Brown, Funky drummer. And by the way, the James Brown catalog is already in for track lib. The guy who controls the estate wants it to be in Yeah, he does, and universal and I warn a chapel who controls the publishing are you know, are happy to make it available because the artist wants it. Some of the times, the problem is that the artist wants to approve each and every sample, and that won't work in track lib because everything has to be preapproved.

Sorry, Bob James.

Yeah, when you're shopping, you want to be able to know what something's going to cost before you buy it. People who sample have no idea what it's going to be cost or even if they have permission to you. So I'm telling people that ninety eight percent of the sampling that happens now is unauthorized or replaced. So you're losing all the money. And everyone's telling me, hey, our sampling business has gotten way down. Duh. You know at some point, you know there's five people left that can

I was going to say, Pizza President. I thought that been number one. Well that's the one.

Pizza the President is probably going to go to number one, considering the President today.

So here here's a question for you.

Let's say I buy a track off of the service, but it sounds too clean, you know. Let's say I have a vinyl copy that sounds dirty and I want the dusty and all that, you know, I want all that that that sonic character in the sample. Am I still allowed to buy the track online and still use because.

The one that you're gonna get especially fingerprinted and watermarked, and you can always add vinyl crushy sounds as an effect, if that's what I mean. I remember buying Dala Soul a record cleaner so that they could clean the records for the samples, but they never wanted to do anyway. They were also according to a dot which was another thing.

Where do we go to get it? What's the site?

Tracklib dot com?

Tracklib dot com?

Okay, right, I think we're going I forget the show. Wait, we still got lots even we got a lot to cover.

And number nine was Melvin Bliss synthetic substitution. And the number ten was run DMC. Here we go Live at the Funhouse.

Ah yeah, oh damn, I can't tell you.

Another one I thought was really interesting. Number eleven was Mountain Long Red.

Oh yeah, of course I love that. That was a coup I used to go see play when I was a kid. Yes, absolutely, that makes sense. I never would have thought, Wait, you have your top one hundred?

Ye?

Can I hear the bottom ten? Can I hear ninety to one.

Ninety? Led Zeppelin? When the levy breaks? Von Mason bounced for Rock Skate Roll, Herman Kelly and Life dance to the Drummers beat, which I can't believe is that low knee deep Funkadelic. We just talked about Detroit Emeralds you're getting a little too smart, Rob Bass. It takes two already a Linn Collin sample, so it must be a part that's hit. It is often used Blowfly Sysame Street, that's funny. The Brothers j ain't we funking now?

It was.

Okay, okay with that, Yeah, Curtis blow Tough, uh Dja Trace and Pete Parson, Sniper and Dyke.

But and the Blazer's lot of woman be a woman that I let a man be a man, which is we used it with sets to sign it.

Yeah. I was about to say that the Sally thing that's number one hundred, that's I think, well, okay, at least in the especially in the case of when the levee breaks. Yeah, a lot of people just gunsy about using certain publishers because they know that they're going to come for the loot. Yeah, like a lot of that stuff. I mean, there's no reason why in Peace to President is the number one sampled number eight, But there's no reason why it should not be the number one because that's the well.

Yeah, and when it gets to be part of Track Live, it'll go to number one.

Then oh my god, what happens?

You know?

The thing is everybody uses it. So what we really want to encourage is great, we want to have as much of this stuff as we can get, but we want to drive you know, if we can't get Dyke in the Blazers, what sounds like that, So we want

And wouldn't it be cool if questlov had you know, some custom drum breaks available on track lad for sale.

You know what what you don't know is happening right now is like I'm doing my own I'm doing my own homemade version of that now because as we speak, my phone is probably buzzing to death. Ever since late January, I've gathered the entire gods of hip hop beat making, from Primo to Pete Rock to Lars Professor to not to just Blaze the Swiss Beats, to Kareem Riggins to

Them, or I dropped them before they got big? About that?

Forgive Prince Rocky.

You're talking about Yeah, I know you guys are geniuses here. You gotta realize that there's a lot of people listening. If you listen to that beat, that is classic rizz joint.

I mean it's weird though. It's like based off a George Michael hook. I got to Ladies, Wait that wasn't that? Was that? On Faith? It's the song is based on a George Michael and Jody Wattley songs on the Jody Watley album. Oh okay, the first or the second one? Was the first one? Okay? Well, I knew it was.

You guys are scary man, you know everything.

It's literally a collective of of music nerds right here. So so, so who did you Who was a close call for the label besides the Roots New Addition? Yeah, I was going to say, you had Arthur Baker, Like why not?

So no, we had the Johnson Crew. So Michael Johnson's brother is Maurice Starr. Maurice Star produced New Addition. They brought it to me a Candy Girl right. And this was right after I got the letter from kraft Work and I was shell shocked and I listened to it. I go, well, if Kraftwork has a problem with Planet Rocky Jack, we got a big problem with the Jackson five on this and they're ten times more powerful. What will I do? So I passed, And that was one

Lottie Dotty. Yeah. Wow, that was when it was One Records. Well it was Dana's last Fantasy.

Yeah. No, actually it got sold to Fantasy. Later it was Donya. I don't think it was Fantasy. Originally it was Donya as an independent label out of the Bay Area, and then I think it went into Fantasy.

So's an odd choice.

I know, it's really weird.

You pursued him and he was like, nope, I'm going on.

He performed at Tommy Boy offices. He came to our offices up on ninety second Street, and we used to do this Wednesday night thing where groups could come up and audition and do stuff. You know. We did it, didn't do it for very long, but one of the people who came by, and I remember him beatboxing in the office. Was was him, and there were a few others,

He was our second He went to a lecture. He was our second guest on the show. Oh yeah, so yeah, I mean, where was your relationship with Dante?

He was then one of the A and R guys. He's the one who brought in Queen Land TeaF so we're talking about Queen the t for that, that's the expression. So he's the A and OUR guy, the one an R guy and Tommy Boy who brought in the most stuff we got. We had a lot of a lot of A and R guys, dozens. He's the only one I can remember as actually having impact in bringing in artists that actually made money.

So did you trust this year? Yeah, and I mean I know that with A and RS they have to watch the budget make sure that that doesn't go over any of those things. Like was he like your trustworthy, your best student, or however you want to he was.

He was his own best student. You know, he knew what he wanted. He wasn't really interested. You know, he has his own way of seeing things, at least at that time. He's let's call it impetuous.

But at the time, did you know that he was bringing you history?

Yeah? He did with I mean he was he was our trusted A and our guy. So yeah, he brought some stuff in, so that was great. He brought in a couple of cool, really great things. And I can tell you I appreciate him more ten years later, after I went through twelve other A R people who didn't ever bring anything I could really think. You know, what he did was pretty great, you know, but you know,

I was gonna say, uh, Poss told me that the recording budget for three feet High it was like twenty eight thousand dollars exactly. Wow, how's that? How's that even able to have?

I think we might have cleared the samples on that budget too in those days.

That tells you how bad it is today. No, no, but I'm just saying just in comparison. You know, I'm feeling like my early years was like nightmares.

But if I if you know, when you're an independent label I always think about, you know, the days of Morris Leeve. We were talking about before seven inches is all that's sold in seven inches label sold seven inches to stores for twenty nine cents, and they cost twelve sense to make, so the margins were really tiny. So a gold record might have meant, you know, one hundred

Yeah, it's like, yo, if my first one don't pop, at least let me get exactly.

My thing is, what if it's the third swing or the fourth swing. All those artists that signed to the majors, they don't get a third swing. It's strike two, you're out, Strike one, you're out. You know what if their best record is on the second album, You're not getting to the second album. It's just not going to happen in

You said, you have a meet coming up out there, you have a meeting with Naughty by Nature and there's a story about trech and some wildlife in the offices.

Was that real?

Yeah?

Okay, that was real?

Yeah?

What happened?

Yeah?

How did what? What was that situation? And how did that situation go?

First, I want to say, now, Tommy Boy only ever had to have guards or any kind of armed anything in our office two days. In the history of the company, we never had bulletproof glass. We never had beef with

I just want to read one an hour before when he's at like pet Co. Yeah, are you looking at this? A whole house pit something like that by the Snakeable.

But now y'all are cool, now, y'all? Yeah, okay, cool, Now, okay, you're trying to work with them.

You know. The thing about Naughty is all right, so we're There have been some times where we've done shows with Naughty and between the audience reaction and just the orange slaught of hit after hit after hit after hit anthems like I mean, Naughty by Nature is catalog bar none. I mean, I'm so At the time when I was playing it, I was like, Wow, when they came out, I didn't show my full appreciations as I should have. But now in like, there should be no reason in

I would say maybe either them what I'm with you them and like Wu Tang because like the first Wu Tang album, but I don't think.

Wu Tang knew That's the thing. It's like, like Wu Tang's first record is full of all these modern yeah, like they're referencing Donnie Marie and Underdog and the Flintstones and you know, a schoolhouse rock like real. I mean, they're like day La Soul, but it's so grimy that you forget that they're coming from that. But just in terms of Naughty by Nature, it's like they're giving you anthem after anthem after anthem. How come? And I'm asking this kind of is two short questions. How why weren't

Because that is death if we had done that, if we had worked there, I mean, that is Flames the Machete. I mean, they were pop back, but they had to be disguised a little bit harder, you know, otherwise it would have come off as whack.

So you're saying that that's were they aware of it, because yeah, I mean, hip Hop Array isn't a pop song per se. I mean as a Curtis Mayfield breakbeat. He's arguing with you kind.

Of look at Cage's production though, because you always have those nice little pretty keyboard lines, piano lines and stuff.

So I mean, yeah, but so did Tribe and Slum Village. But it's just mightn't have hooks. They didn't have hooks.

That was an arena anthem. And you have to understand, at the same time, Tommy Boy was putting out.

Jack jams about Saya.

And so we had a relationship with all of the arenas in the country and all of their music directors, so we could get when we whatever we put on that record would be played in all the arenas. And so when Hip Hop Array went on that record, it got played in all of the arenas. So one of the reasons that got big and it's still big now, is because a lot of Tommy Boy acts became arena anthems because we controlled jock jams. And you know, I think.

Just discovering that right now, but I mean, I guess House of Pain.

Will fall into that too, because we didn't talk about that which that album was the.

You know, you didn't talk about my favorite, one of my favorite hip hop groups of all time.

Underground. Yeah, one question I had the Tommy Boy was it a Tommy Boy Black Black label and Hilver label? Yeah?

What was?

What was that era?

That was for the underground beats we had, We had Silver and we had Black and Black was supposed to be, you know, for a bunch of twelve inch singles where we were prospecting for things but that we're going for sort of an underground hip hop audience and trying to find something that would be able to launch through DJ specialty shows, you know, and college radio. That's what you know. That was. That was that attempt. Nothing that actually really

So what made the artists leave Tommy Boy? Because I'm looking at all the people you name and like once they left Tommy Boy, like that was kind of it for them.

Maybe that was their time. I guess, you know, everybody thinks that if they're only on a label that spends more money or that's more powerful, they should do better.

But you did you ever have aspirations to turn Tommy Boy into a major? Uh?

Like I said?

Or you always had an independent spirit.

I like to be the innovator more than the you know, the competitor. I like to you know, be the first one in and try to do something nobody else didn't have. People say wow, you know that, that's you know, a turning point for me in my life. And people can say Planet Rock was that for a lot of people day all I was that for a lot of people. You know, I'm sure there are a lot of women who could say Latifa was that for even though her records, you know, never went gold for us. You know, her

That's the whole show.

And I don't want to keep track. I know what could happen, man, I got to get there.

Well, thank you, Tom, I appreciate your wisdom. Just one last question, where do you feel music, dance music, hip hop culture, Like do you still feel that it's thriving, has some life left as this.

Which one dance music.

Just in general?

Like, well, when track Live is successful, it'll be a whole renaissance because if you can unleash all of the catalog in the world and let people access it, we're going to see a musical renaissance like we never did before. And I think if it can happen, well Trump is president, so much the better because I think we're going to have a lot of great music over the next four years in.

Your mouth to God's yours. Well, thank you very much, Tom Silverman, I appreciate it. Man, I'm sorry after he up the the the bomb about the sample clearance. Yeah, that was I just absolutely lost the script to the entire show. I have regrets. I don't have reflections. I have regrets because I you know, there there were some Digital Underground stories and man, damn, I didn't get to ask about AI part one, two and three, and ye did we get put three? We never well I wanted

Here, you know, yo what it is because this is what I learned in this episode. Yeah, yeah, it's okay, this is what it is. This is our dynamic, this is what this is what we gotta be. Okay, I'm the video, you're the pop up bubbles, Like this is how we So it's like if we do it for moving on, or you can meet a video and I.

Can be whatever.

But we have to have just like a continuous track where it's just beats, just boom boom boom, boom boom, and in those beats it's like hey, pop up, bubble for like two minutes and then okay, back to the beat, because like.

We never even get to like I forgot, where do we get lost? Where did I lose?

I think we did good this time.

I mean, whoa cool, But we didn't get to get to like the meat like an audience.

But the thing is, I don't think I also don't think that Tom is full of the stories we really wanted to, you know what I mean, like Latin quarter stories. There was that time when you know they had a machee at my neck.

Well, I don't think you would have those stories. I think, like with people like him, like what we have. I mean, three hours sounds like a lot of time, but when you're dealing with a motherfucker like that, it's really not.

Get on Q tips. So give ourselves some credit. Yeah, so it's like you kind of gotta I think, just have him.

If we just went just beat the beat to beat hell, that's two hours easy, just right there if we just want to see with me.

The first the first hour goes by so slow, and usually when it gets to like one hour fifty minutes.

Yeah, yeah, this is your tweeting right now.

I can see the tweets coming in. Yeah, listening to like a fucking well, First of all, anyone is still sticking with the show. They are die hard. Thank you, Thank you. The best twelve of y'all. We can only build up from there. Thanks mom. I still feel as though, you know, there's there's major knowledge that we game from the show. But I will admit that once he started talking about the idea of sample clearances being a thing again, that's amazing. I absolutely just threw the script out the show.

I knew that was gonna happen to because we were actually talking about that before before we started, and.

I was like, when he's this, the show is over. Well, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of I'm sorry, did you learn anything.

I'll just keep it short and simple. I was just gonna say I appreciated what he said. He was an innovator, not a competitor, you know what I mean? And I just not for nothing. That's dope, and it's good to know that you can. You know, fear is a powerful thing.

And the fact that he was like, you know, the common threat I kind of run through his career is that he's like, I mean, he's essentially a filter. Like he's a person that's saying, hey, like with the dance the discold mag like this is what you need to get on, you know what I'm saying, like kind of being just the you know, just kind to be in that conduit of like helping people sift through all the garbage and saying, Yo, this is what the fuck y'all need to be on. And uh, he's a filtering like

It filters through all the bullshit.

So if you already know there's no in hell I can clear this sample, let me give you a list of samples or library samples that you know you can clear.

I'm just waiting to find out how the major labels are going to screw it all up, because they always.

Forge, always do.

I'm saying, imagine, it's gotta be some kind of scale, because I mean, you can't tell me that like they're gonna charge Kanye the same thing is Rihanna Wright, right right right, It's gotta be something.

It'll be a jig. And I think, but I feel as though if we just come up with and the thing was he was doing percentages, if it's minimum usage, because what what I was trying to explain was the main loop of transmitting line from Mars is really the hay Jude Wilson picket loop. That is just that's the one second turtle thing. And so it's like, you know, if there is a fair percentage thing going on, then

They need to get mad live and Mad live for track live, like just that could be.

A market for the mad Lib DJ Harrison Yes, my man shout out to him, Richmond v A. So, but I think what he's thinking about that kind of ship, that's hot. I thought I needed.

I thought it was interesting how he looked at the artist as a whole. It was about marketing and promos and whatever. It wasn't just about whether the music was good. The music understand had to be good. And then his ability to exploit everything about it was sort.

Of amazing to me.

I thought, I just I don't think like that at all, you know.

So, yeah, the way he thought about it as a label guy, because that was something that I had argued, you know, whereas like back in the day, it's like, okay, well, what if we take a smaller percentage up front? To a smaller advance to ensure that we can get more on along. And like every manager, every attorney they're all like they.

Want to get as much you can up front because that may be the only money you see. And it's like, well, well, ship, if you take five hundred dollars, that it is gonna be the only money you see. You know what I mean? But I don't know. It was it was good to hear him, hear the.

Stickers and things like that, Like you see all those stickers fucking everywhere, and they were all about it was a visual thing as much as an audio thing, which I.

Thought was very interesting. It's called branding, thank you.

It's like a fifteen year old word branding.

Yeah, it's branding. Yeah.

They were more famous like they were was probably next to Death Jam. They were like the only label I can remember that I could I would buy based on market on Tommy Boy if it was a Tommy Boy record, Like, okay.

They could be official. That was the Cold Sign exactly. This could be official. Uh Any thoughts, Bill, I.

Mean, I kind of really want to piggyback off of what everybody else has said about about tom being a label guy. Excuse me, and thinking of the track, think in the way that he thought of it. I mean, I hate to say it, but it reminds me of thoughts that I've had, you know, coming up. I mean actually his whole interview, you know, just from the fact that he was doing tip sheets and stuff like that

I meant your own chart.

Yeah, I was making up charts because no, I was like, when Jet Magazine needs to come home, I read, I read, I read back to the front. I read Jet magazine back to front. I ever read Jet from front to back?

I don't know, I always read it back to front. Did from no, no, no, Did I take the Beauty of the week, Beauty in the week in the back? She was in the middle. She was in the middle. She was like a Beauty of the week. I didn't read it past that. He's like it was a society, it was the same week. And than the quotes, the celebrity quotes that.

Yeah, but from like doing the tip sheets and and just the way that he was, you know, pretty much said that he's contrarian and it's always thinking about what's missing and what's not there. It reminds me a lot of myself paint with and makes me realize that I just wasted thirty seven years of my life.

Gentlemen, I'm paying Bill wasted, Boss Bill Franzigelow. Why are you and Sugar Steve any words? Sugar Steve all the people?

Any words he's supposed to ask me for you, Engineer. That's it, Ladies and gentlemen, come back for next week's question, Love So Free When I'll.

Tell you what I learned last week Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Door. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.