Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey everybody, it's like yah.
So we're back with part two of our Quest Love Supreme in Atlanta with Dallas Austin. Now, if you missed part one, that's when Dallas spoke about growing up around some amazing musicians. He talked about his earliest credits and making those big ass hits with Boys to Men and t LC.
Make sure you check that out.
In the meantime, get ready for this amazing part to enjoy.
Yo. All right, look illegal, just stay on.
Because do you remember the Snoop story and the source oh with when Jamal.
What was that? Because they had me to the beefing against.
The everybody dude When I first so left eye, she she bought me these kids one day to the studio and she was getting ready to go on the road. So I got this group. You gotta sign in the rowdy. They're dope. There's like a little red mantle. And when they came to the studio, they were finishing each other's sentences. They were like them dudes was like dope. They was like yo, no, no, they're throwing dice with each other. Like
these little dudes is bad. As ship. She's like, well, keeping with you, I gotta go into her striking, right, So they stayed in the studio with me at dark We have rooms in there, right, So the kids of everybody's loving these kids, like Eric Simon, Buster rhymes, everybody that's in my studio work diamond d. Everybody's working with me already. So the kids come in and they out
wrapping everybody. They are rapping and cussing and rapping and cussing, and you know, hit a gud way you wanted hit a good pop pop. So nobody's ever seeing kids curse, like I forget when they started twelve eleven. So then I took them to Arista so Cloud because and they jump up on the them conference room table, check off everybody's coffee cups like I'm like, okay, just ruined this ship like we did after class was like amazing, amazing start.
I'm like cool, we started to work on this record, right, And so Lisa goes out of town the two of them. About three or four days later, Malik comes up to me and say, yo, man, you got the blunt? I said, what you twelve I'm smoking? What is the blunt? By the way, And I'm not smoking up with you. I don't even know it was. Everybody's still smoking papers. He
dumped done out. He said, okay, he futed, got his pocket on his own and his own wie dumped it out and start rolling in front of me, and I'm like, what's going on? Man, I gotta talk to you d he said. He said, this is Malik. He said that motherfucker Jamal. I don't know him. What wait what I said, hold on, hold on, hold on. We sid the head. We had just shot the head of that video, and then they want to go solo because he's like, man, he said, let me tell you something. I don't know
this motherfucker. I've made him the same day with left eye. We've been together like that. I said what he said? Yeah, he said, I don't trust that motherfucker. Have to sleep with one. I open. He's twelve, by the way. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get my solo. D. I'm gonna get my this So I'm not hold on, hold on. We just spent y'all gotta do head of gut. We just did the video. We did it. Gets busy, y'all gotta follow this out you can't go solo right now, right,
So check this out. The first promo tour started in La a right, there's five hundred thousand dollars promo to it. They got because Clive Davis is going crazy about them.
Right.
So they get to LA and they decide that they're gonna stay with Dre and Snoop.
Right, Oh no, no, no, let them influence.
Oh parents are on the way, their parants are. They're the PICGMIC one day and they don't got with Dre and Snoop and they death Row and they turned that they did. Right. So now Arista's calling me, like, yo, man, the kids they won't leave LA. They're threatening the BMG reps and everything else. But hit them with the hammers in their head and you know they got little guns and all this shit. So I'm like so I'm like, all right. So Clive calls Dallas, this is crazy. You
have to go get the kids. To go get the kids from where from death Row? You gotta go meet with Sugar.
That sentence don't sound right.
Rock these little dudes. I'm not going through that, Dallas. We have too much money on the table. You have to go get the kids. You get them, so me, yeah right, so me my man, k wells we go out to death row. Pull get up in the elevator. Man, get off the elevator. It's just big dudes everywhere. Ain't no posters, ain't no plaques, ain't no record from stress.
It's just like.
Woods, paneling walls. Right. So walk into another room. It's a fold out table, fold out chair. That's when we sugar desk, get a red carpet. That's a death row, like a red round thing. Right. But that's it knows nothing else, right, So we walk in there saying that's so she'll come in. Man, what's up? D Man? You know so good man. You know artists ain't loyal man, you know how artists get. Man, I'm like, here we go.
So he's like, the boys got out here with Dre and snoop Man, and you know they just they just want to be on death row now, you know, they just want to do I said, I'll tell you what, just give me back when we spent, you can have them. He said, no, No, I was thinking we could do them together. You know, rowdy death bro. What I was like, Man, I'm cool on it, Like you can just just fly back with this spend, you can have them. I said,
I'm just trying to get out of here, right. So he goes, well, man, what the kids want to see you real quick? Man? They want to say hey. You know, so they come out of it. They come out of the wall that looked like they.
Came out of the wall. The wall like the Wizard of.
The Panel wall open up. And these little dudes, now they're about thirteen fourteen. They still can't drive right, all right, thirteen fourteen. So they're like highs. I don't know what hey man, Dallas and me and him man, me and shoot niggas ain't me and they are high on sherm or whatever it is. So I was like, I'm cool, we can work this out later. I'm just let me get out of here, right. So I get back to Atlanta. Two days later, Malik shows up. Oh party of Oh yeah.
He's like, no, no, I can. I can't deal like that. He says, let me tell you something, man, Jamar Grandma put some roots on me. When you huh, you say, what a legal story you're here? Jamal Grandma put some roots on me, said what do you talk about? Man? He's like, man, well, I'm just tell you like this man, my ship swrolled up and I said, so that's because you're out there with death Rod Charlie, messing with them girls whatever.
God wrapping it up.
He how you talk to you? No, I'm a verge of my.
Nigga and that is our clip for the Dallas Austin episode.
The next question left free.
So talking about but check this out even worse. So he said, So I went to the doctor. D took me to the doctor, he said. So the doctor said they didn't know what this was what happened to me. So then he said and said, we got to take you to this lady in the hood. Say take it to the ladyhood. Ladyhood says, oh yeah, yeah. Somebody puts some on you need to take a bath in this milk and then this stuff he gave me, he said,
So I did that. They went down, I got my ask on the plane and here I am here ready to do my solo record.
Solo record.
Okay.
Now the other part about this is meanwhile they got a record out, gets busy, they got ahead of it out, and Arista's just trying to do everything they can to push the guys that they can't get hold to.
It was the red tape I had to take.
We get all the way through the whole down. They never went on no promo tour. That all got kicked out of the window from them being crazy or whatever, and they stayed out on death Road that long. Well, we get to the Billboard awards that year. Right now, Clive Davis is getting twenty something awards that he's getting all the Whitney Houston's all. You know, he just racked. He's just doing this thing. You know, so rap category
come up cool like that planets hip hop parade. In my nature, we gets busy ilegal people like, okay, then the winner is illegal. We gets busy.
Stop it.
You can see us looking at each other. Now, if the kids did what they were supposed to do, it it made sense, right because they would have went on the promo tours. The people would have got you know, they would have been blown up. But Clive got to put his bids in early. It was almost embarrassing.
You know.
He wasn't as big as Digable Planets or Hipapa another.
Because Jamal ended up getting the solo deal.
Jamal both of them did so Malik ended up doing his solo deal. We did that. Malik goes on.
Keep it real was the one though, and they were.
They were again on that track. They were right there on stuff. I had to publishing company set up for them as kids.
I'm afraid to ask.
Yeah, please, I want you to ask, and I want to know to go ahead.
Where are they now?
Oh my god, Sin's something sweet around. I see, we'll see Jamal living now and then. But they have had times with me before. This was like, man, we fucked up. Sorry, man, we just like me. They were doing contu pistols and like you know, driving cars in the people's houses, still in the engineer's cars, sitting on pillows, driving the engineer cars to North Carolina.
Like at least it just chilling.
She told me. They was. I feel like everybody, everybody just use the kids instantly fall in love with him because they gamble. They're like the coolest little dudes.
They just it's cute if you spent a little time with them.
But not when you invested five hundred thousand dollars. No, man, two hundred dollars, that was that was cute.
Damn.
I hate to ask about y'all so stupid.
You're also stupid was cool because they were like, you know, they're like a fartside. They were like skateboarding and drawing and doing graffiti and doing art and you know, and so H two still does the same thing, still doing art and drawing. And how was was the King get out of that was one. They were cool because they were just out of New York and it was just like your majesty was doing stuff, doing a lot of production back then, and I think he was in Juice or something back then too.
It's not I mean, we're going down there because I want to ask you about and did Davenport but that's way later.
Okay, I didn't know what we were doing.
But we did skip Highland and placed Monsters.
Oh yeah.
There's always a point where we asked, like if the producers themselves get their own project out or whatever.
But I personally liked, let's get naked.
Holland place Monsters was crazy because the guy Chip who was the lead singer.
Who I heard he actually would get naked, were.
Getting naked on stage and this is the time where that was really cool. Like that right, So like the first show we ever did, we did here in Atlanta, and so let's get naked and he's he's different. This guy, he's very, very different.
I don't remember him.
They called the maniac in the group and he always out on the straight jacket.
I would have said they were way crazier. Jodas like, yeah, what I wanted Joasy to be for fast songs, that's what Land like.
Besides get on up. Jodasy never had the fast.
Song that like engaged me. So I saw him as a balance right there out. But these guys, the bad boy your daughter's.
Group was Highland placed mobsters and that ship should have made it.
Chip was like, this is this is what kind of this how the kind of the minds went down? So we did this show with the b R Yeah. Yes, And so I was telling him like, okay, on this show at the BRI, you cannot take your overalls down because he'll snap the overalls me and they just come down and he's just but ass naked with his socks on. You just told get it because he had did this before at one show we did, and he when he did it in Atlanta, I was fun. I had to be.
I'm chasing him around the stage like trying to hold but he but I couldn't so in Atlanta, he had jumped out on the rafters of the You know how the light rafters be in front of the stage too, so he's now here on the rafters and he just naked My mom. Everybody's an audience kids, it's just you know. So it went. It went across well on the sky pages back then, because everybody's talking about you've seen how the place Master Show. You've seen how the place Master Show.
So there's like gifting. The courage was like, Okay, now you guys got to perform at br I'm like wow, I said, but that's Black Radio Exclusive. That's gonna be like crazy, y. Yeah, you got to though, we need to do it. So we go to do it, and when we get there, so the hell of the world. Yeah. So we get there, the stage is like this, so it's not high enough. So I'm telling him off the back, yo, my man, okay, don't drink no old e to night, and do not take your clothes off on the stage
like this a Black radio people. He said, Oh man, I got it in and I worry about it. I go to the damn room. Right. We're doing an interview with Cynthia Horner at the time he doing an interview with her. I look at him, he's licking, like what is he doing? He got a eighty four ounce handcuffed to his hand of old English, like a big apple juice jug of old handcuff to his hand. Yes, because they had a little ring and that's why he put the handcuff in. And he had that handcuff to his hand.
He's like, man, I got this ship, no way about the I'm like, my god, we're about to go on stage like this. So we go to the stage and he got that damn thing handcuffed to his hand, right. So I finally get to get the old e off of him. I say, man, you can't jump around this thing, gonna take it off? Okak. He seems like cooking somebody, like like ras real. Absolutely, So we make it through one song and then we get to Let's Get Naked. So he's jumping around the stage on Let's get neckd
and I see him taking off his damn things. So I got a key tar on by the way, so I'm just like on the stage holding onto that damn thing, right. So he decides that because you know I'm holding on him like that, that he's gonna stage dive. Oh he's stage dive. Well, he still had the top, he still had the bottom pot of the overalls on because I was doing this when he staged. He stage dies and he jumps out into the audience and lands on somebody. Stage is like this tall, So I told him don't
stage dive is not high enough. Right. Well, we get to finish the performance and go upstairs. All of a sudden, like La and Babyface come come running upstairs, Yo, sugnighting him downstairs and there looking for the boys with the blond hair. Why well, he has a group called Poor Broke and Lonely, and he landed on the girl's neck and she's at the hospital. So Sugar Night, doctor Dre and everybody with them is ready to kill all y'all. We're like, oh ship, now, La and Babyface, we got
another knock at the door. Sugar came La, Babyface ran the bathroom.
Shut.
What's going on? What's going on? Sugar got the door? Like, Yo, open the door, try to get to the blond. Open the door, try to get a blond due. So now Chip, who's nobody to be? He's crazy too, he's out of his mind. I met him bleard machine guns and he's crazy karate all this. So first he turned into let's go check it out man to see the girls. All right, No, you don't want to go out there. They trying to kill the blond due we're bringing the motherfuckers. Hey, you're there,
let's go. No, no, no, So we got to calm this down. Well at this point, the police then came up and took Dre and Sugar. You know, soy y'all got to get out of hallways because it was being on the doors and stuff. I wasn't waiting a lot before them to come downstairs. Police came in. They said, look, we got a problem. It's about two hundred people and
red and down downstairs wait waiting on y'all. So we're gonna need y'all to leave, and we're gonna take y'all down through the kitchen and put y'all on the bus and y'all going to Atlanta. So they had you walk out. It's police lined up all down the hallways. Right, we get on the bus, take off, get to Atlanta, I mean take off to get out of there. And then
that was just ow if y'all remember this. But they got into a riot and that bry that time in the hotel room and they I mean in the hotel lobby and they brought the horses in and they had people that were hitting them with the sticks and stuff to get them out of there's a big related yep.
Yeah, okay, I remember Luke telling the story. Ye, so that distracted them.
That was all. Yeah, all that was going on. So after that the Hollow Place monsters.
I heard that same story my man Eric, and he was at that event. He told verbatim, word for words, told me that same story. So dude, like, okay, so this answers my question, Like we were beg to go to these jack rappers, how can I be down events?
And the label would never let us go.
And now get the sneaky suspicion that that was orchestrated because they.
Were scared for you.
It was.
Yeah, she wasn't always like that, but look, this is Dallas.
It started to get like you know, at this as time went on, the music started to change, it started to get a little more like that because you're gonna have the gangster showing up and you know, they're not showing nobody theirself. They're gonna bring the whole airplane.
Oh, speaking of gangsters, your relationship or dealing with Haitian Jack O Jack.
Jack.
Oh yeah, wait, how do you know he knows? He talks about it on this in the document Time in Atlanta. Yeah, yeah, I didn't watch that.
It was good.
It's like it's thorough.
I didn't know. But when I first met him, he was down, you know, he was down in Atlanta. He had his eight fifty and I think they were like they were notorious. It wasn't really like dope boys. It's like getting the dope boys or whatever. They was taking the money. So it was in Atlanta, and man, it got cool, Like everybody kind of liked me, you know, because I don't.
Know, are you crazy magnets? Like how do you not?
Like literally everyone that you work with has a level of edge. Yeah, that his voice, men, I mean.
Yeah, they just like, you know, they feel safe. For man, the music business so cool and like, no, you know, they feel like they want to protect you. You know, that's my man kind of thing. So, like I was in New York with Jack for the first time. When I when I met him in New York, and uh, He's like, man, you don't want to take you to uh,
what was it? The supper club? Okay, So we go there and we're standing outside in the line, and Jack's trying to, you know, say that the guys, hey, you know, I got my guest here, got Dallas and were getting table till Vincent I'm here whatever, right, So the guy ain't coming. This is why I really try to realize who this was. The guy's not showing up. So Jack's like, Yo, did you tell Vincent about here? He's like yeah, yeah, man. Jackie said, hold up, all right, I'll tell you what
you tell him. I'm coming back and I'm shutting this motherfucker down. Everybody. Everybody in the line that was standing outside, they just started to leave. Yeah, And I was like, okay, okay, then the dude can run up. Jack Jack Jack Jack John. I'm like, who then is this dude?
You know?
And then as I started working with Madonna people like that, then Jack Jack started to be around me and that, and you know, being I know that, wait what.
Hasian Jack and Madonna?
Yeah, she's the words when it came from me first, and then I was.
Afraid to ask yeah, because we're kind of friends. But I feel like, you know, the edge of your Madonna.
Yeah, I got he was hanging out a little bit first friendlier Madonna, Yeah, trying to Yeah, but then it was after that rob Man and Jack and Tupac, all that was in that same kind of little circle where she was trying to have a little edge at the time, she was trying to be in.
The streets, and you gave her the first taste brown then.
But then Jack out a whole too. I mean, this is a funny story. So after I finished working on the album, Madonna took the record and mixed it with Nelly Hooper Nello. But I was supposed to go out and mixing on that day. So it's like August twenty if we mixing the record, come to La all right, it's airy cool. And when I'm going there, She's like, well, already mix it. I already mixed the album with Nelly and it's coming out and here it is sent it
to me. So I was like, well, are you want to take my stuff and mix it?
You know?
So I'm pissed off. I don't you want to talk to you no more? You don't take my joints and honest. So then I'm in New York and I'm riding with Jack. He goes, that's fun. Yeah, yeah, and with Dallas. He's right here. Hey, Madonnad want you to come by and hear the album. Man, she said, she really wants you to come by the house. Man, she really wants you to come here. I said, I'm trying to go over there. He said, I don't want to time out. She said, please, man,
just come by. I said, why am I talking to you? To talk to the phone, right, So we getting up going over the house to listen to the record. I was like, uh, it was just weird because I want to listen to it. So I said, well, you know what you did? This mess up my mixes. You messed up everybody mix it. So I feel all right.
I was going to say, are you allowed to be honest?
Yeah? And I was pissed off.
And this is what record is?
This human nature, this is a secret, this is survival. We did all these songs together and it just started going south, you know. But at the end of the day, you know, like we ended up making up because it was just like firing. At one point, I wish I still had the letter that she wrote me.
Yeah, I wanted to it's this miss Museum.
She wrote me a letter going off, I should understand her struggle because it's the same as like a black man and this that and the other boy wire you another. So then after about but after a few years, it was like, you know what, I don't have no bad energy with nobody on the planet, and I don't want none. And so one day I called her. She was doing like a vida or something. I just called out of blue and I was like, hey, She's like, Oh, what did I do to deserve this call? Now I'm like, nope,
it's your record. You know what I'm saying. I learned a lot from you. As long as it turned out the way you wanted to be, I should be happy with that because it up to you is your record. I'm working for you on that. Squash this energy and let's just be cool. And then from that point was good.
Do you think that was?
Like, was that the first time you learned that lesson as a producer of just learning just to let things go?
Yeah? Well, the Boys the Man when they put out the rough mixes, I had to let that one go because I wouldn't even listen to it. I didn't listen to that record. For years, I was selling millions of records, and then just like my mom was working at this as at barbecue too, so I was like in bad contracts. So I really wanted my stuff to be like what Teddy's will sound like, or with some of what you know,
the other records I would here sound like. And when they put that out, I was just like, that's one. So then working with her was another one. I had a lot of humbling experiences because when you come from being a creator and then you get to the label side, you have to look at it both ways, you know.
So even Motown Philly was a rough mix.
Rough mix.
I mean you kind of acknowledge now like it's effective in a banger, but the version in your mind was way bigger.
Or yeah, it's like, you know, I had drums still on four tracks instead of having them all.
Yeah okay, yeah, I feel you there. It's hard to take about it yesterday. Was that always an a cappella or did you initially have music behind it and stripped it?
It was always a capella. I just did put it like a bass and the and the snaps to it and kind of let the ooze and stuff be the music.
To it.
Okay, oh man, one of the producers used to spearhead X oh yeah, what's up with That's who just called me?
When they called me? Maybe when on what's the Coalition DJ? Is that the biggest DJ group? You got records that you need to get placed and play in the strip clubs whatever? That's x he was. He was my n R for like all the y'all so stupid, Yeah, because he did legal album. Uh like legal records, Yeah record.
Can we talk Joy and Enjoy?
Yeah, yes, beel vibe, don't say nothing this like this like snoop now.
Yeah, it was. It was cool because during that time, you know, I it was D'Angelo and Joy and like, it was just that phase of what they started to call neo soul that was coming out of Yingang out here Cafe had everybody in there. It's like that's when I think music that's before that actually kept starting to come out as neo soul when you have Ndiri, Enjoy and Erica and everybody's kind of playing in Yin Yang. Yeah.
And when we did the Sunshine and the Rain record, just a whole record, it was such a different record for what I was working on at the time. I didn't want to go do the same I never wanted to do the same thing on anybody. I kind of couldn't. I didn't know how to do it. So I would just go do whatever that person was. I would produce
that person and enjoy was just like full on. She bought so much knowledge of stuff I didn't know, the table, like the Betty Davis and stuff and like and just being her own element that it just it was amazing. And she's just one of those artists that somebody's gonna keep it real. They gonna keep it one hundred percent on the ground they don't care. Fishbone was the same way.
You know.
I talked to Fishbone one time and say I wanted them to do Spirits at the Material World over right.
Ah wow.
I was like, we had Arista bro right, we gotta deal at Arista. We can do the whole punk album, we could do Alcoholics, we can do everything, but just give me Spirits and Material World so the Clive and them can take it and do something with it.
Like, man, that's being crazy.
He's like, no, Man, that's the police. That ain't real sky Bro, And I'm like, we ain't selling out. I'm like but I know, but we at Arista, now, you just did All the Palosa last year, would Swim and you were huge with that record, so let's keep going your fishbone. Nobody cares if you're sing a Garth Brooks record,
You're still Fishbone. So they wouldn't do it. And then I ran in the flee and they had just did roller Coaster, right, and I said, uh, and we all the studio and I said, yo, man, So did y'all feel like y'all sold out doing roller Coaster? He said, no, man, we had fun. MTV wanted it. It was cool. And so I'm trying to get Fishbone to get because we're alternative. And I understand it because I grew up an alternative to the Max. I was just like, I was that guy.
But I also grew up watching alternative turn big and become the mainstream. And it turned with the Chili Peppers. The difference in them doing the George Clinton records and doing the record you know, I'll try to went to another spot. And that's why even with even with Joy's and I think a lot of the artists that you know, they have a certain kind of integrity, They just don't want to cross over into doing anything that.
Does they feel like they compromise themselves, feel.
Like they compromised themselves.
What was the deal with her second album, The Beaba Cleansing Syndrome kind of the same, we you know, because it never got officially released.
We never got officially released because in between that, you know, and then E and I round the same time starts to say, Okay, now we you know, stuff is happening. We have diagelos and now we need more of this.
You know that when you start to say that to an artist, they just be like, especially the artists like Joy because she feels like she was a spearhead of a lot of it, you know, so it's kind of hard to take tell her to go back and do something you know that she didn't want to, that she didn't feel like doing.
Time to Smile. That was my one on that record.
A smile.
Yeah, you know you worked with back when he was still Terence string Derby. It's a Nanda's Ananda Montreal.
Yeah.
Yo, It just hit me that you literally have every eccentric artist every because next I'm going to Michael Jackson.
But what was it like working with him?
It was a trip because he so he had just turned hisself into Sonanda. So he was in that middle kind of thing.
You know.
He had a dream where the angel came and told him they needed to change his name, and he he did it and so but his as soon as you hear him sing, yeah, it's like when you hear that voice, it's like when I was working with Duran Duran, as soon as you hear that voice, like the Simon, you're like, oh man, that it just resonates instantly to you, and you're like, and he was amazing. He's like I think he was still one of the artists that at that time we worked together. You know, coming off of all
the success. When you get in that era, when you got a lot, a lot, a lot of success like that, some people just start hating it. You know. Same thing with Kurt Cobaine and the people. They started hating success, and then they don't want to Sometimes when they do that, they don't want to make the best record.
There's a lot of self savage it and all that. But who is your ideal subject that you work with? They take your constructive criticism good and who can't you tell anything to Nope, I'm doing one take or whatever, like.
Oh, Jeded Jackson was the easiest one. Okay, she's the easiest person I ever worked with. Yes, Dallas, what are you, Dallas? What do you want doubts? Yes, Dallas, I mean not one throwback on nothing and then task the hardest. What I probably worked was Macy great.
Macy great. Yeah, based on what I mean. I'm not trying to be reductive, but she was just.
In the epitome of a Macy moment.
I think, you know, different day.
It was insane, but it was. You know, it's because also she's she's an own artist with her own like you know, you're show up to the studio, we're supposed to be there. Three. She already one with musicians that's been sitting around forever like just like and then they're doing their own thing. They hold on wait and then label's busy on Dallas get control of everything, and I'm like, oh, I thought I had it. I know, but you know, I've never really worked with anybody that I try to.
I try to source that out before, you know, like if we're going to have good energy or not, because sitting in that room with people like that, no, that's not what we do. It for you know, I don't. I don't do this. We have drama, trouble. I try to make the best music we can make with somebody who gets it. And you know, so I've never really.
Had a bad, bad one, you know, Deon Sanders must be the money's coming.
I keep going back to Sugnight my stories doing it. Okay, so yes, so exactly studio and we're working on Deon's working on being on Death bro Right because we went to Death roll Right. So sull comes studio and he goes, yo, man, Dean Sanders really wants you to do this record must be the music over, this must be the money. I was, oh, no, man, that's probably not a good idea.
You know.
He's like, well, you felt comfortable saying no. Well, I just said that probably is not a good idea.
That's a guess.
That's not so.
Then he had a book, a photo album full of cars. He opened it up. It's Lamborghinis, it's Rolls, Royces, it's Faris. It's like he said, big one. So good man, you know what I'm saying. I don't want to take a car. You know, I don't be in debt at you know, something like that. I understand you. So he said, all right, all right, I catch you. I got So he gets on the phone. I'm thinking myself, I just want this to be over it.
You're a darned double.
So then he gets records. When he comes back in, he goes, man, look, DI don't want you to do the record. He really wants you to do the record. By that time, I was about to just say, okay, right, we'll figure it out, but he goes, so what if I do this? Man, I give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars right now. I said, to do must be the music overhim, he said, yeah, I got that record in the back. We can do this. Now. Let's get to it if you wanted to night it's the
fastest record that ever did. With the fastest but I ever made the most money ever made on any song like.
Events like wow.
He was happy with it, and I was happy with it, and everybody that.
Yeah it didn't. First off, I didn't even know you you know, but yeah it wasn't.
That was one of those things where I don't think anyone was expecting Dion to like bar up, you know what I mean.
So to us, it was just funny to us, you know what I mean.
Like we be singing that because he had to ran at the end. They say, money ain't gonna change me. It's gonna change it's gonna change my address, it's gonna change my bank account, it's gonna change my gators.
Like I had. Are you telling the last.
Shout out to Sanders and.
Coach bry you know, let's go to it, Michael. Oh yeah, Now, how many songs did you do for history?
From Blood on the dance Floor? They don't care about us too bad this time around. Probably a couple of other ones.
But I'm at the ones that are somewhere in the vaults, Like it's.
A couple of them in the vaults, just tracks. Yeah really, But what's crazy is I got him. I still got his beatboxing because he would beat boxing to the thing to show you what he wanted to boom. Okay, sample that, So I.
Got discussion now, Okay, I'm so glad that the cameras are here. But here's the deal.
Now, at the time, it is probably the first time that I'm a little lukewarm on a Michael record, because every album Michael Jackson is like a goddamn event, you know, I'm a diehard fan to the end, but you know, I also understand that he's probably been working on it for some time and too bad. Just I finally warmed up to it maybe three years ago because I initially
thought jam and Lewis did it. But the thing that always killed, like, I know Michael is a dancer, and I know he wants an audio accountability aboutever his bones move, so the particular rhythm, and too bad, which is.
Like I can they tell you, They'll tell you that he doesn't want the same thing. I want to do something different.
And so the thing is is that.
History is not a bad record, and this is and this is why I applaud what Beyonce did because you know, I heard a record in the car, I heard her record on her headphones, on my computer, whatever. But when I went to the night club and they played it three times the second time, I was like, let me not stand next to them and go on the other
side and see how people reacted to it. They played the entire record, and she achieved something that I know that Michael's been dying to do, which is cannot put a record on that's high adrenaline that lasts from beginning to end. She managed to do it because she managed the highs and the lows part, which for Michael Jackson always felt like every song has to be adrenaline, has
to be adrenaline, not dynamic. So yeah, by the time you get to the seventh song, you're already worn out because it's not like anything's executed bad or whatever, but just in one full setting, it's like four grod like he's stuffing you with And by the time I got you know, I just I heard too bad on its own. And but the thing is is that the rhythm of that song can only be for a person that walks like Michael Dan. How do you craft something with Michael Jackson if you're not a band playing it.
Like like he does all that, He'll be in there with what you're doing. The This is how I wanted to feel it. I wanted to and he said, amos sticks, amos sticks, take it. But his his, you know, I think like anything else though. His when I first worked with Michael was like with Bruce Swedeine and them. And then I said, well, you know what, this is really my vibe. So I left went back home.
When I came back, you were allowed that's the one person he walked away from.
Yeah. I was just like it was too much going. Like, you know, Bruce Swotine and Renee Moore was working with him, and it was kind of like yeah, and they had their own little things going on. You know, the project's huge, so they got their own little side. Energy was not good, you know. So I left went home. Michael called me back and like, Dallas, why did you leave? I was like, well, you know, I was at the studio with those guys and I'm not really going to be a part of
what's going on over there. And he said, oh no, no, we'll come back and work over here with me at this studio. I'm in the studio here and then Jimmy jam and it was here. Oh yeah, that's why I want to be. So I come back and I walk in the room and Jimmy jam is in there and he's playing and I see him and I just fanned out.
I was just like, Jimmy, jim Man, you don't understand what if you wanted how to play keyboards whatever, you was a little The first meet him, I'd seen him like before the first time I met it was at flight time when they when they had Rhythm Nation, the Rhythmation premiere of it, and I got so depressed. I just wanted to kill myself. I was like, I went to Flight Time they had they was showing the Knowledge videos and the whole Rhythm Nation in eighteen fourteen thing,
and I was just outside, just like crying. Was like, I'm never gonna be this good. This is awful. I don't know. That's that's when I did I want to tell CP record. I was like, gotta make it where you can see it. It's a little more vivid, you know. So when I saw him with Michael, I was just like, yo, man, he had to be like this is Michael was like Michael hey man, Jimmy jam so and I felt like
Michael didn't get enough energy from me that time. So he and then he played Scream and I was just like, I go again, God damn, what out that just here? He's like, and I was like, okay, now how am I going to? What am I going to do now? Like because this ship just sounds crazy, you know. And then it's Jimmy jam Tey Lewis doing Michael Jackson. So it was like I was just kinda loss for it.
So then he took me, and it took us in this room after a while, and like, you know, a room where you have all your like Teddy Bears and your you know, if you're gonna be in the studio for a long time, it's like your room. You're a loud Yeah, And this dude just start putting it in tapes like he's like, so, so this is when I was like, you know, there's three hundred thousand people outside and three hundred thousand people inside, and you know, and and so you see.
Him chat Michael Mike, he carries on the highlight.
After he took that out, he's like, oh ship. Then he put in another one, and this is when boom, you're looking at it and it's Africa, Michael Michael. That's all they could say. And he's I was building hospitals and and this is me with Charlie Chap. So every time he's sticking another tape, I stopped being scared to look at him because I'm like, that's that mother. You know,
it's working, you know what I'm saying. And the last one he put in was that I don't know if you've seen this before, but it was him sitting at the piano and he's singing I'll be there, and he has a tank top on and it's like doing the like remember the time kind of phase right right, and then he keeps seeing Little Michael saying I'll be there,
and he's in the doorway. He looks back and Little Michael is in the the Pepsi commercial, a Pepsi commercial, but at that time he shot it as a like he would shoot commercials like that as demos and then wouldn't even.
Use him what like, he shot that on his own and sold it to Pepsi.
Yeah what.
Wow?
And I said something like isn't it good to be great? Or something on it doing the project. He was just so, you know, adamant about being parent, was paranoid in a different way because that's the history record, you know.
I was going to ask about they don't care about us? And also this time around, were you there for when they tracked Big Vocal?
Yeah, being Big is sitting in the car outside Larabie. I called Puff and I was like, yo. First I asked Michael. He said, one rapper for this song on Somebody that's really street, you know, So what about Naughty by Nature? I need somebody harder. I said, oh okay. So I said all right, well, well well Biggie yeah yeah,
you know you know him say yeah. So I called puff I said, yeah, bigg out of work with this Michael Jackson record with me, Like yeah yeah, now, so big he comes out me and him sitting in the cars smoking and playing a song went over again, and He's just like, yo, I can't believe him sitting in the car with you bro writing on. So Michael Jackson said, this is crazy. It's just like you know, And so he's writing around. So after finished, he says it to me and I'm like, oh no, that might be too hard.
He's like making a prophet. G I'm kill a motherfucker. I ain't joking. Then those smoke got me talken like. So I was like, all right, well, let's just go play it for him, but I don't know Mike about to tone down something. Oh no, right. As soon as he played it, Michael's like, I love it. That's exactly what I wanted to say.
What I want to know is because you know, at the time, you know, Tom Sneedting was on it was it on his ass, So I know that Mike was was riding the razor of well to just situation, you know, changing his name around and all that ship was there anyone that was in the room. That's sort of like, hey, dog, you shouldn't talk ship.
Well, dude, you realize this. During that time he was the most you know, sought out the person on the planet. Remember, the plane kept landing in different places, so he said, he said, it's a Dallas. This was horrible. You know, they are you know, he said, the plane was landing in different places and taking off, and they're looking for me, and I'm sitting in the hotel room in Russia looking at it. The Russian government hit him and that's when
he rote stranger Monscow. He's watching it on TV. The planes keep taking off and landing, but he's in the KGB is after me. He's writing the song, watching this happening with the whole world is looking for him, and Russia's hiding him. Right. So by the time he comes up from all of this, his history record was to like show everybody. So the first thing he did was he went and got the whole Brazilian army. So when you look at the history trail again and I was
wondering why he told us to do this. He sent us to the Museum of Tolerance. You ever been there on Pico and walked past it, I didn't know what was in there. Place is fucked up. So because you go in there and it's the Museum of Tolerance, it tells you, you know, when you walk through, when you first get in, and start calling you names like spig, nigger, cracker,
white boy. Yeah, And then it shows you what happened to all these different races, like you know the kids and Africa kids, and you know Atlanta where they spreading the kids with the water holes and stuff like that. So you're going through this whole place and at the end that you're in the gas chamber in the Holocaust, and by the time you get out of that place, you just like everybody's looking at each other all fucked up because you didn't know that this race did it.
That people are crying, you know, and so I'm like, why did he make us go see that? So I get back and he's takeing the film that they show in there is the is the Hitler film, and he's got the army and then marching past these like these pillars and then you see a little dog and then you see the army marching more and then when Hitler gets to the top, the flags come down. Right. So Michael, they make the same film History, right. Okay, so if you look at the History trailer, now I got it.
He got the whole Brazilian army. He went to just say, hey, can we shoot the thing with the whole Brazilion army goles. Yeah, we'll be in your trailer for your new album. So their marching, their marching, They got a little dog come around just like the thing and then the flags come down. It's the same thing. Then he had the silver statue
with the helicopters flyer right. So yeah, so when when he started going at Tommy right and start going at Sony and all that, the first thing they said was, okay, well you said caike me, and they don't care about us. Take those records off the shelf. So they took all the History records off the shlf. Remember that, right, because he said kike me. But then it wasn't just kike me. He had the whole He did the whole Hitler thing.
He mimiced the Hitler video. So they started coming to him hard then going you know, and for him.
So for reference in case our audience is a little confused, like he's basically going down the list of everyone in history that's been disparaged and spit on it whatever.
But again taking out of context.
Yep. Uh, you know he never saw that one coming either, because that's both.
Versions of the records where both references are on. But yeah, I feel like the blackballing of him started really when.
It started them, and it started with the war with him and like Sony and then a t V and then it just started that whole member. Then he's going down to he's going down to New York City with Al sharping and the red.
Busses and the videos of him with the f O I coming out.
In the video with him when he said, you know, I had to help Mariah out a little bit, remember that press the press conference, she had to come crowd my shoulder a little bit. Turned came out, I'm like and and his voice got deeper when he said.
Yeah, Jacksons, Yeah he's from Indiana.
He was. And then at that point, but what's crazy is he would say like you know, he would broadcast itself, like you know, when he when he had the shirt on, he broadcast itself, the Red Shirt, and he saying, I've been humiliated. I've been they you know, they've checked my house, they checked my private parts. All this. He took a satellite to Netherlands and broadcasted that hisself and then said, okay,
y'all can tap into this. He's like so because he was saying, Dallas, if I go to their networks and do it, they're gonna cut up my words and they're gonna make it say what they want me to say. So he told them, Okay, anybody want to know what I got to say, y'all seven o'clock, you can call into my satellite. And that's what was the first. He had relationships with people that the most countries didn't have. Like you can go into any country and they're gonna
love Michael Jackson. They might hate our president, they might hate the government. So all different presidents all around the world love him. And when we were at the studio one day, he said, Dallas, I did a hospital in Africa. But look what the United States did. They put on the govern that Michael Jackson thinks Africa stinks. Because he's holding his nose and he said, this is what I'm
talking about. This is what I'm talking about. Look at this, So people are going to come by the day from the studio just to thank me whatever, dude, it looked like coming to America. They came in with the rose petals, they came in with the giant lion heads and gold, and there was a King clean of some point in Africa's coming to thank him for the hospitals and what
he had done. And you know, so when you have that kind of like influence around everybody, when you get on somebody's bastard, then it just you gotta watch out for everybody, right, You don't know who's coming at you. That kind of power don't exist, no one, Oh no, no, he's the last of that one.
Okay, just as a fan and as a person that had an immense crush dog man, what happened.
With for real?
I love they was so dope?
Yeap wait side story. So maybe the second time I went to La I was supposed to meet them, like four beautiful sisters.
They all had close cropt.
Right sexy at ship. They couldn't make it.
And I happened to be across the street at a restaurant like a health food thing, and that's how I met the Jazzy Fat Nasties just then wound up moving in my crib and all that stuff. But my intention was like to sort of bring for Real.
Into like a couple different bodies.
They came out like you produced this joining us like straight sixties on the Amy Winehouse tip and all that stuff, and.
They all had short they were like the original like.
Before it was yeah, no, no, they all were different.
I remember this, you know, but it's weird.
Yeah, like it's weird because like I was looking to like team up with them. There there was a group called for Real. There was another group called I Think step Brother, Ye, I'll be Dan, you know round Like they were like the singing far side. Like I thought, okay, let me collect them and then I'll make a crew whatever. But step child, step child, yeah, step child, but yeah, but for real.
Uh.
She ended up ended up marrying David Gates, who was my right hand man at Rowdy all those years, and then they even having children and then just going on with life.
I remember seeing some of their names on like Stevie Wonder record, so he would occasionally have him sing background. But I always wanted to know what happened with them, man, Like, what was the reason for your two labels? You had Rowdy and you had.
God the label limp rowdy or like Limp. Yeah, I had Limp and I just because it was supposed to be like the things that were slightly different. So yeah, and then Cloud was giving me junk about Rowdy at the time, you know, because I wanted to keep it rowdy and not. I didn't even I didn't want to sign that like Monica. I didn't think it was rowdy, but I had Why wasn't she on rowdy? Well she was on rowdy, That's what I'm saying. But I had to remember seeing on the face or she was on rowdy.
But I had to end up signing her because of all the other deaths, so Fishbone and other stuff like that, you know, And so I said, let me just go do what another do, and so we end up signed Monica there. But it was always the kind of offset, you know, having a different brand in different places of the type of music making.
Is she one of your artists that you're always make music?
I love Monica, She's I wanted. Monica's like my daughter. She's always been my like, Yeah, she's she's got the same team around her that's been around her since we signed her.
Oh good, so when we come back we can get her because.
Oh yeah, she's the same Melinda and Mom and she's the most thing about Moa is that she grew into the songs that she got older because the songs were so grown, so singing well I love you so much now makes sense. It's like you hear people singing in the audience, You're.
Like, and when she sings it now, it's like, yeah, she feeling it different.
Yeah, yeah, it's a whole different story.
Now she sounds so great.
Still, What was the for for just one of them days? Backseat?
Ll Yeah, dude, that's what me and Clive got into it about. That's when I was gonna leave Arista because I turned in, don't take it personal, and he's just like, oh man needs a bridge. Was like, no, no, no, she's fourteen. She's singing over the back seat of the jeep, just one of them days. Don't take it personal. It's ignorant. It's supposed to be like that because they was trying to say them days And I'm like, did you know how.
We would affiliate that with something biological or or did you just.
It's just one of them days and it's gonna be, you know. And for her when I first when I first saw one, because she would always come in she had his little green brow gold rings on and a little sweatsuit with a bunch of little bitty chains on, like you know all the ghetto girls look and back then. And she would come in and she was saying the greatest love of All and she'd be like, okay, am I done? And then she's gone by the business. I'm like, damn,
this attitude is bigger than us singing. It's crazy. So I kept telling Clive and them, they kept trying to come with these dying warren and all that. So not yet, It's not time. You got to sell this attitude. Like she's d from what's happening. You know what I'm saying. She's always in grown folks business.
And she always like anthem. So yeah, he was like, I don't take a person one.
I'm so proud of what she's grown into just as a mother and a person period. You know, she's she got to always had her head on straight, always been just like the best.
Is there anything that you have yet to do? Is there anything left on the bucket list.
Yeah. I mean what I'm doing now is having having my own distribution company dad wow. And over the course of the pandemic, I just dove really hard into my distribution company because I want to make a difference in the way stuff is distributed, because you're making no money. So luckily blockchain came along, and now I have a protocol that I launched in November will allow you to choose your own streaming rates. So you can choose your
own streaming rate on music. You can stream for ten dollars, ten cent, two cent, you can stream for a year, five months, forever, it's up to you. You can sell it as an artist, as an artist for all your content. And I'm implementing it not just on my platform, but in other platforms like Amazon, Like I want everybody to use it, because that's how we're going to change the course of how the industry is at this point. You know, Spotify and all those blanket license and the blanket license
trip is over. That was a band aid in the first place. Like, you can't blanket license all of us because that means that nobody's gonna make no money. So you got people well, I can see people with three four five million streets, ten million streams, and you're still not really making no money. So you know the next step is when we launched this is to you know this dope. I saw Meek mil tweed about it one day. He's like, man, as soon as somebody made this direct
consumer to artists, you know, we already got it. Just launching. You can go to for your Apple, pay your Google, pay up to fifty contracts on one song, so all of us. Yeah, and it comes to you instantly to everybody.
What's crazy is my auntie brain was like, you know, when you hear distribution, it was such it used to be such a physical word, right, it's changed physical nothing.
User generated content killed that. Soldier boy killed that all because the manage you can make it in the Mac and then distributed to your myndspace or Facebook or whatever it was that was that ended up being distribution. So it took away all the trucks and machines and brick and mortar stores and warehouses and all that. And you know, we distributed over two hundred DSPs.
So like because back in the day, a person, a person like you saying I have a distribution company, that it was no such thing.
Yeah, like this is the dream. This is why people went to labels because they had no distribution.
So I'm just like, yeah, I love it because I see people signed up from around the world Children's books Cube, but Canada, everywhere. It's just all kinds of stuff. And so because of my music person, I don't really the volume is one thing. The most distribution companies about how much volume can we get because that's how they make money,
And I'm about, like, no, who's really dope. So I'm like, you see me on Sundays just scrolling through my backside looking at labels, looking at what they got, clicking in who is this? What music is it? And I have to say, we don't. I haven't seen a lot of badass like music that would come through that, like it's a dy you can little up at home. But I think they're trying to live up to the standard of my song, right, No, my brand in a way, and
it's really good music that comes. So I'm like, we got to help these people out.
Are you pissing off the labels?
Not yet? Okay, soon comes we're going to disrupt that process. That process is old. You have things for future, and you can't think of how they did it or done and all that is just done already. You know.
One last, one, last question about just two songwriters that I've never really talked to anyone that like knew Arnold Hennings.
Oh yeah, this is crazy. I asked for everybody to just call them my phone.
Oh that was outside like and uh and also dev Killings.
That was like the best kept Atlanta secret. She's she She sung on every song I've ever done from like all the backgrounds on Creep or what about Your Friends, or like all the Outcast records, and she's an amazing based.
Her bass player was like, she's a base player. ND he didn't cut it.
He didn't cup it once twelve, but he also did take our time. I thought that was you for the loss on the TLC.
Hennings was a dope man. It's like one of the things I did when I came in the game is like I bought producers together to try to give them the opportunity I wish I had, you know, instead of me getting ripped off of and work for higher contracts or whatever. I was like, well, let me just find people that are dope and then give them the same opportunity, but make it where they gonna make their money, you know, so on him and timbabw Wan want to be you
know way out here. Yeah, bro, so we just love music like that, and I just want to make it where I feel bad when I feel glad that I came up in the era where we made money. But now it's just you know, it's shady. It's sixty thousand records going out out there and it's not enough. It's just not enough money in that blanket license to pay everybody.
Okay, why didn't Silly Hope.
Like I wanted it just because I'm serious, Because it was like it should have had a video.
It sounded so industrial, like I felt like Rhythm Nation meets like Yes and all that shit.
Yeah, fan Mail was one of my favorite albums I did because it was just the concept along when Lisa first came in. When she goes, yeah, I got a concept. It's called fan mail, and we can put all the artist names on the back that that the senters letters from the fire and all this. I said, oh, yeah, that's brilliant. I can hear that already. I know what to do. And then she goes yeah, and then the rest of it's called fan tc dot com. And I said, what is that? Well, you know, we could be playing
with ourselves and doing this and that. Oh what's interesting is the first only fans. She it was what only fans is now? Back then, of course me and all the rest of the girls like, are you crazy. You know, She's like, look Ki, I'm doing it, and this person doing it, we gotta be like. And so then because me and the girls were like, no, we can't come off waterfalls and you guys are having you know, people play play with yourself and keep your money. And then she goes, okay, well I quit.
Oh wow, that's what she quit.
That's when she quit the second time. So she quit right at the beginning of fan mail, and so then I had to like, so all the created virtual Viki. I had to go to my computer and take the voices, sample each word and make them rap that you know you can't get with this one not you just go and find give it up the rhythm. So you had to put it on the keys to make it have rhythm. Because she quit and we have rapper, So I said,
we create a rapper and we created the virtual Viki character. Right, So at the beginning, she goes, welcome, we dead had this album. To everybody that sent us fan mail, that's computer talking just like you. I get lonely too, that's computer. The silly Hole rap all the way up to the whole.
Created I'm a sucker. Don't you go ahead and ask that question?
Yeah, she wasn't, And so we did Silly Hole. We had, we had the album done, but we didn't have no scrubs, and so I heard I went over to Tricky and Shakespeare because I had them working on I had Shake and Tricky working on the JT money stuff for me at the time, like who that. So when I went to check on that, they played me no scrubs. It was for Candy and Tiny and I was like, give me that song for TLC. I make it the single, silly Hold. It just rolled out as like a pre
It was like all that TB Gangster. But I'm like, if you give me that song, I'll put chili on the verses, which we haven't done before, and then this will be the single. They said, you guarantee it. I guarantee you give me that song would make it the single. And so then because no scrubb came in last like that.
So wait, tiny and lower, how to get Candy? Tiny and Candy not pissed at all?
Did they understand that?
Oh no, no, it was because they wrote it, That's what I'm saying. They were didn't have to sing.
Oh no, they wrote it, and then that took That's what made Candy take off. After no scrubs, then Bugaboo and Destiny, all that stuff started to come ahund in Shakespeare.
So that was like, you know, remember that is trying doing anything musically.
Now was doing music. He's doing his own How was he now twenty five?
God?
Sorry, I can't even imagine trying trying. Oh yeah, making.
We've been waiting for this. This is way beyond Yeah we expected. I don't think she's going to come with stories.
And oh man, I'm walking stories all my life. Bro I worked with So I've been blessed to work with so many people.
That the next movies will be just saying, Dallas.
I got a couple of them coming up now.
Okay, well yeah from Sugar Steven like and Fan Takelo and Unpaid.
Bill, the Great Dallas Austin, thank you, thank you, thank you for music.
Man.
I appreciate it, it was awesome and uh we will see you next time of course, Love Supreme check it all later.
H H.
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