Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Ladies and Gentlemen. Another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Is upon us.
Very happy day today here with my family, my Team Supremist.
How you guys doing? What up? What up? The way that we're progressing? Uh in the world.
It's only a matter of time before we can actually take our themes on back.
Oh something, I I think tonight would have been a good night for tales from the Latin Quarter and uh, all kinds of things tonight. See our guests, you'll she just had some.
Some or we just might have to insert those things.
I'm here with Team Supreme. Uh, here with almighty Unpaid Bill. Oh hey, I'm pivot. Wait Unpaid Bill? Are you part of in conto at all?
Like?
Is that any of your music? No? No, I'm friends that's hitting Bruno.
No, I wish I was, honestly, my my my bank wishes that I was know something about Bruno. But I don't talk about him or anyone I have. No, I have nothing to do with Bruno. I wish I did, though, man, like ten weeks at number one or some ship, Like I wish it's still number one, right?
Yeah, Like you know liv Manuel is going to mess around and and like beat boys to men. M Mariah Carey, is that still the longest number one number one song sweet Day? I think it is, Okay, I mean I'm from the old school sound scan so you know, or whatever.
Method they use now to.
Yeah, this new math don't count. Like we come from an er when motherfuckers had to lead their house to buy ship. Exactly exactly, That's exactly, dude, that was the way we did.
Yes, Okay, I'm sorry because La is you know, she's uh, she's how you doing?
Like, yeah, I am doing amazing except for this man, this little gas situation.
But I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. What's what's gas looking like in LA right now?
Well, it's funny you asked that my rich friend. Uh, currently gas in Los Angeles is six dollars. We are at about five ninety something.
Yeah, we'd like it was like four dollars out here. Y'all got iron legend gas prices out there.
Wait a minute, this is something, fante. Do you drive? Oh?
Yeah, I mean this is the question you never I mean, spent five years, but I just don't.
I can't see kind of like, what car? What kind of car do you have? I got a Lexus RX three fifty. That sounds swanky.
Yeah, I mean, hey, it's paid for. I ain't buying another car, So you write it out.
All right?
I want I want FaceTime Fante while he was in his car outside of the chicken shop, I believe is what happened?
Do you have like a cigarette hanging out of his mouth with just one hand on the wheel. Nah, I just had to do it the way back, like like Dame Dash and painting for Yeah, I have my black father, you know, just get you get home and you pull up in the driveway and you just sit there for about an indeterminate amount of time.
Am I the only I don't know if this is a tea in my movement?
Am I the only one that sometimes just has to sit in the car for ten minutes just so you can brace yourself for whatever is waiting for you.
You're not alone? So that's universal talk.
Oh yeah, straight up, Okay, I'm still happy with my relationship. I was just asking for a friend. So, Steve, how you doing, I'm good man. Any anything interesting happening in the network or you know, oh gosh, I mean, you know, I didn't anticipate you asking me that question.
So okay, well let me just start again.
How you doing, Steve, I didn't anticipate you ask me that either, so I don't know what.
Ladies and gentlemen? All right, So and I'm I'm I'm winging this.
So I'm trying to keep it real sustinct because I realized that our guest hasn't spoken a word yet because I didn't address her or all.
Right, I know, I know. So look when when cats, when when dudes my.
Age start reminiscing about you know, quote unquote the good old days or real hip hop or true school or
whatever we say, our guest name should ring familiar. I think that the thing about well, the thing is is that even though I've never read an interview or seen a television interview, heard it at radio interview on the radio, or even exchange any sort of casual banter with our guests or even DM crept my way into a friendship or a relationship, which is I know that may I made that sound weird, but you know, DM creeping your way into free friendships is kind of real.
Like I can actually say that.
I'm genuine friends with like Henry Winkler and Working Fairchild just from DM Creeping, which kind of weird.
I'm also friends with Tasty Cake Steve wait wait wait wait wait, I like with.
Friends with with with non human entities on Twitter. But Morgan Fairchild, dude, it's so random. She started liking, like she started liking a whole bunch of my tweets, and then we're actually BFFs, like, like, hey, when you're in town, let's go to dinner. I mean, I haven't done it yet, but I think I'm down with Morgan Fairchild.
Yo. Oh my gosh. I know.
It's like the the eight year Old News kind of like happy right now, right, I'm thrilled, thrilled.
I know, I know, because like house is going to relate to me. All right.
My whole point is that, you know, I don't exactly have a relationship with our guest on the show, having grown up in the age of hip hop, where you know, a transition from twelve inch and singles to LPs, and I'm part of the generation that lived for liner notes and seeing who did what. Our next guest name should ring familiar to hip hop heads. Because she was literally president of one of the most powerful labels of the genre.
And I don't even want to limit it to hip hop, because you know, I mean, Tommy Boy had hits from club hits to pop music to freestyle to I.
Could name them all.
De La Soul, Coolio, Digital Underground for Some D's House of Payne, Club, Nouveau K seven, LFO Information Society, Ardi by Nature, the Riza back when he was Prince Raquin
RuPaul Queen Latifa, the original hip hop band Statso Sonic. Y'all, y'all really have to understand that the muscle that this label operated with, probably the only other rival label that can even say that they held that same space was probably def jam So Ladies and gentlemen, the very legendary president or former president, Tommy Boy, the one and only Monica Lynch won Quest left set mere.
Thank you. I'm doing great, And I really appreciated the conversation about gas prices because now that I'm sixty five, gas price means a whole different thing. I've never driven, I don't drive. I just got a match. You New York say, what's the gas situation. I'm like, let me look at my medicine cabinet. That's what I'm doing.
Wait, you're telling me you never had your license or you never owned a car.
We have my license, but I only use it for ID. And the only car I ever drove was a gold Cadillac with power windows that my father owned back in like the early seventies. So the die was cast at a young age.
So this is definitely going to lead to my first question, what part, Well, I don't know, were you a natural born in New.
Yorker or Chicago? You could hear it from Chicago?
Okay, yeah, Chicago. I'm sixty five, I'm from Chicago, grew up there. Yeah, well, you know, I grew up there and I was, you know, really weaned on Top forty radio when it was still a hugely amazing thing in the late sixties. Heard all the great great pop songs from that era, and back then, you know, blues was definitely still a big thing in Chicago, but it was mostly I would say a lot of white guys. They were checking the blues back in that scene. You know, Paul Butterfield Blues.
Band, the Electric Blues.
Yeah, right, yep, exactly. And then I start of got into the disco scene. I was a big disco dancer, hustle contest, was a dancer at the big gay bar in Chicago, which is sort of like a It was the Studio fifty four of Chicago. Then I was in a punk band and we'd work at a punk club and did all sorts of things before I came to New York in nineteen seventy eight.
So you got history. What was your first musical memory.
My first musical memory was listening to my parents' records in the basement, and they, of course had the sort of records that you would find in the sixties and a lot of collections. It was everything from Nicholson May to My Fair Lady soundtrack to you know, Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass, that sort of thing. I had a big crush on Herb Albert back then. And I got my first record player the same year that Rubber Saul came out. That was the first record I ever owned. Was Rubber Saul.
That would be sixty five.
Uh no, I think it was a little earlier. I think, well, yeah, maybe sixty four. Sixty five was Rubber Saul.
I think, yeah, okay, wow, that's cool.
So would you like Did you have any ambitions or goals to be in the music industry or did it sort of find you as you became an adult.
I had no ambitions, no goals. I just loved music. I was like I used to buy forty fives all the time. I don't know if you remember that there was something called the Phonologue, this huge like yellow paperback compendium that you could go and do special orders of forty fives at record stores back then. Do you remember that?
Well?
Yeah, when I shot at specialty stores. Now they it looks like the yellow pages, like it's just a masterless.
So what was the spot we used to stop at them? Philly Steve Val?
Yeah, yeah, so like you go to Val Shively and you know, next to Jerry's Rest in peace, to Jerry's who just passed away like a month ago or whatever. Like those specialty record stores, like record stores that have over one hundred thousand records in.
Stock, they still have those books there.
So you didn't work at a record store, So how would you get access to those records or how would you get access to that book?
Well? I was always listening to the top forty stations in Chicago w LS and W CFL and I would go down to the Marina City, those two buildings that look like corn cobs in Chicago, and that's where WLS was, and I was a kid. I would just take the l train down there and you could stand in the lobby and watch the DJ on the air, and they would have these little surveys that they would give you
a the top forty records for the week. I know this is really kind of going back like a rocker, but I figure you probably no.
Literally, the show is based on long winded rabbit hole. The whole point is that get me to not talk so good.
Well, so, anyway, so I started, you know, really saying, oh, I want to special order these records because I can't find them at EJ. Corvette's or Montgomery Wards or something.
And so back then, as you know, there were always like these great independently owned records stores and you could go there and if you struck up a good relationship with the owner or a clerk, it was a tremendous source of knowledge that was passed along and you could special order these things and just basically loiter in the store and learn a lot and that in fact, you know, we could talk about that in the hip hop era as being a big thing here in New York and
other places. But no, I came here, you know, I always say, I came here with you know, on a dollar and a dream, no plans except to go to Studio fifty four. And I landed in New York during the time when it was sort of like the uh, the perfect nexus of punk and disco and no way was happening, and sort of the downtown arts scene and all that stuff that people lieon eye so much. But it was a great time to be in New York
because it really was cheap. And I lived on Saint Mark's Place between Second and Third, which was basically like the main runway for you know, people would get up at two three in the afternoon and then sit out on the stoop to watch so and so, you know, Richard Hell come down the street to cop is Dope or whatever you know it was.
And I wouldn't say except it's ginger right now it's expensive property, but back then it was cheap.
It was something to behold.
And yeah, and there was this woman named Anya Phillips who was sort of the one of the co founders of the Mud Club and She was really sort of a downtown duyenne. She was a girlfriend of James White or James Chance, you know, contortions.
And she.
Sat me down one day. She's very stern, serving a dominatrix sort of way. He said, you're going to be a topless dancer, and I'm going to make g strings for you. Because I had no money, and so I said, okay, sounds like a plan. And I went to this place called the Go Go Agency. And I've recounted this tale many times, but there was a guy there named Johnny and it was like a scene out of Broadway Danny Rose.
And you walk up the stairs in this midtown building and there's these big boards and it lists all the topless bars and all five burrows. And he would assign you,
you know, he was an agent. Yeah, And so he would send me out to places and queens like the Carousel, or the place up in the Bronx called the Slice, or there was a place over in the meatpacking district when it was still a meatpacking district that you do these and a lot of stuff in Midtown because you got a lot had a lot of customers in Midtown back then. But but yeah, it was wait.
I gotta ask, so I you know my era of I say, I'm part of the deaf leopard generation where there's no time where I've not entered a strip club where they forced you to listen to pour some sugar on me, except for Atlanta, except for Atlanta. But back then, like would you have to feed the forty five jukebox? Or was there or was it like it is now like welcome to the stage.
No, no, no, I wish I had an mc welcoming to the stage. It wasn't quite that.
Grand I was going to ask if you had a numb to plume?
Did you? Did you have a yes? A title? What's her name?
It was mister Smnique. And this was all sort of in the late seventies, you know, so the type of records that you were hearing, I mean, if I hear you know, ring my bell one more time.
It's that was sort of like that was yours sugar on me?
It was it was the poursome sugar of Me of nineteen seventy eight, seventy nine. Yeah, totally, you know, but it was disco, you know, because it was certain it was sort of like when disco it kind of peaked, and it was much more like, uh, these mechanical type of records, which not that I'm mad at that, but it was those type of records. Ring my bell seems to be the one that always comes back to me
in my dreams. But I worked at had what I call extended residencies at show World, which you might be might remember that and peep Land, which was also a big player on the on the deuce back then. But yeah, it was steady money, good money. I made cleared fifteen hundred dollars a week at the peak.
Okay, I gotta ask the question, so is this all right? You?
You remember how it wasn't Papa, don't preach like open your heart. Was it like you sat in a booth and you in started a coin and the thing went up? And you does that type of strip club still or is that like a thing of the past.
Now it's called only fans, Yeah, it is it is that. No, we need somewhere, oh man, No.
It was, Hey, these only fans chicks. I think they're pretty smart. They're much more entrepreneurial. I mean, back then I got hired and well, like to say you, for example, the show World, my boss's name was a woman named Thunder and she had huge red hair. She was like benson Hurst type of gal. And the place was owned by a guy who died recently, but it was all mob owned. It was oh who is there was one of the big mob characters that Frankie the horse Eyanello. There was the guy who ran the whole.
All that he is named after an animal. Then you know that's bad.
That's right, that's right. So you know they paid you a flat fee, but you made your money. You really made your money by getting these guys to keep putting the coins in and keep the window going up. So I would sit on one side and then there'd be the curtain, the metal curtain, and the guys would be on the other side, and a lot of we had a lot of Hasidic customers.
Man.
Thing is, let's get into it. Let's talk about it a botica.
But you know it's because it's such a repressed, sexually repressed culture. I think you'd get a lot in in the peep shows.
All right, I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna go there, go there. What happens on the guy's side of the booth? Though, Like, well, is there a clean up afterwards, like.
Oh, yes, there is mop patrol, isn't isn't this where there's like first, that's right. If when you walk into the place, you give them cash and they give you these tokens, and the tokens are what allows you to go to the boost or to watch a Peep movie or things like that. There were They also had live sex shows at show World. I didn't do that there, but they had. But yeah, the idea was to keep
them putting the money in. So these these were skills I was able to apply to the music industry not too long afterwards.
With you said you didn't do the live there? Did you do it somewhere else? Leave it alone?
You have to you'll have to ask me back. As I guess to answer the second part of that question, I.
Hear a long time New York residents like begging for the time when Old New York returns.
Is this what they're talking about?
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of romanticizing about dirty New York of the seventies. I mean literally, the summer I got there is when they let out a lot of people with mental health issues onto the street. They just dumped them on the street. There was a huge
garbage strike. There'd been a big blackout in nineteen seventy seven, as the Tramps told us about, and there was you know, it was definitely grungy and dirty, and people liked to say, Oh, wasn't it great back then because it attracted all these you know, creative people and blah blah blah. But I don't really get all. I mean, I like to recount the stories about that, but I wouldn't want it to go back to that necessarily.
So you liked post ninety four Disney Giuliani era a little better?
No, No, I think I've shared this on the show once before, Like the first day that we arrived in New York, when the roots like really first came to New York to start mixing.
Do you want more?
I believe like in December of ninety three was pretty much like I think the.
Day that whatever.
I Okay, maybe I've been on forty second Street once or twice in my life. Like I know we went to go see the Whiz, but I don't remember that much at the age of seven, but you know, I do remember us going on forty second Street near our hotel and like Rich, like my manager what not being really disappointed that forty second Streets disnified and not the
CD you know New York that he remembers. And I remember like people telling us like that week is when the transformation started and everybody was pissed at it.
So hey, it's nice to be able to be old enough to look back at it and to remember it as it was back then. But I'm not getting all tears in my beer over you know.
Hey, that's perfect.
Wish it was back, you know, so.
Club wise, you know, I've been trying to get another downtown New York diva that made a billion dollar career for yourself on this show, but that hasn't happened yet. So I guess you are really our first witness to that era, can you assuming that by this time you're watching hip hop culture creep into downtown? First of all, like, did you go north of the Bronx to any of the what was known as the classic eras of hip hop, like whatever, the Fever or any of those clubs way north?
Yeah, I mean I've been to the Fever course, I know sal from back then. Tea connection. Actually, you know, a funny thing was I ended up bringing Martin scores as to the Tea Connection one night to hear Bambada play, and that was sort of an odd set of circumstances. But uh, you know, yeah, he knew got describe that.
They wait, what era of Raging Bull King of comedy?
What era do you This would have been circa eighty two eighty three, so you tell me comedy. Yeah, And he was friends with this guy named Jay Cox, who was the film at a film critic at Time Magazine who was related to Tom Silverman, and somehow there was a conversation, Oh, Marty would really love to go up and check out this hip hop thing, and bah blah bah, and and you know, I was like, hey, be happy to show him, and you know, take him up there.
And so there's a car service, which back then, you know, it was a rare thing for maybe have any car service or anything. But he went up to Tea Connection. He was pretty quiet, you know, I think he was just checking it out, observing. And you know, the Time magazine ended up doing a big story about sort of
the emerging hip hop scene back then. But yeah, I used to go to some of the places uptown, but more frequently I would go to every Friday night, we went to Negrill when that was having when cool Lady Blue you know, had started doing her nights at Agrill. And then I would always go to the Roxy on Friday night, and then following the Roxy, I would head up a few blocks and go to the Fun House. I was very friendly with Jellybean and would hang out
with him a lot. Yes, So those and then the Dance of course, Dance Aterria was a really great play to hang out at. And you know before that it was like Studio fifty four in the mud Club were staples for me. But you know, but yeah, Union Squares was a place I went to a lot and Amazon Hotel. That was a big place. Patrick Moxy had Payday I don't know, okay, yeah, oh yeah, total that was a big one. Dala Soul did a big premiere performance there.
And I didn't really hang out at Latin Quarters that much. I left that to Dante. But but yeah, those were the those were the big clubs that were sort of happening back then.
Yeah, the lure of the or the yeah, the focalore of Studio fifty four, like assuming that it really started to rise in seventy seven, When when did it peak, even though I've heard Studio fifty four stories like in eighty one, eighty two, eighty three, eighty four, like in the half first half of the eighties, like when did the allure of Studio fifty four died down?
And when did it become? Was it ever uncol to go there?
Yes, it was uncool to go there after it closed and then it reopened. I would say it peaked in seventy nine. It burned fast and hard, and it's extinguished pretty quickly, I think that. But you know, i'd say by eighty you know.
Were you there?
Have you ever went there at its peak? When like oh yeah, yeah, even she couldn't get in even though they had like the number one song on the.
Charts, Like oh yeah no, I literally, you know, laughed that I you know that I landed at Laguardi Airport and proceeded straight to Studio fifty four. But it's not it's an exaggeration, but literally I was like a homing pigeon. I have to go to my spiritual home of Studio fifty four. And you know, back then, so this is in April of seventy eight, and back then, you know, you had all the you know hand von Furstenberg and Warhol and Liza and all these people, you know, is
razzle dazzle. But there was always this. They always let in a group of young kids that if you were dressed interestingly enough and added youthful flavor to the crowd, you'd stand outside for a little while. And Mark Bennecky, who was the doorman, who would stand on this perch in a huge norma kmali red cocoon coat, would you know, sort of look around and act like, you know, he'd sauce out the crowd. I always had a strategy, though.
My strategy was to take the subway up to as close as a possible to fifty four at eighth and then take a cab from the corner to directly in front of Studio fifty four, which could take anywhere from thirty to forty five minutes because the street was already always packed, right. The trick was that split second when
the cab door all opens. Mark Benecky is always looking to see who's getting out of cars because it could be Truman, Capodi, you know, so, but he would at least register you, so you know, I spend whatever seventy five cents on the subway, another maybe four bucks just going half a block and a taxi to make sure to get in.
See, now Rogers should have learned that. Listen. Yes he should also been white, but you know, oh.
Yeah, well listen, there is there's no question about that. But yeah, no, it was not a democracy. It was far from it. So yeah, seventy nine with the peak seventy eight.
Maybe so once that peaks are you would you say that Paradise Garage replaced it? Or then what was your like what replaced Studio fifty four? As okay, that's not cool, no more, let's go to this spot, you know what.
It wasn't an either or. I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on simultaneously. There was a place called Hurrahs that was very popular. There was a place called the Continental Bath, I mean not the Continental Bands. That's another place, the Continental Club. There was dance materia, there was a mud club, there's a Cbgbi's was still you know, it was very big still back then. And then there was a course places like Xenon which was sort of like the poor relation to Studio fifty four.
You know, if you couldn't get into Studio fifty four. You would go to Xenon and then there was also what's that sex club? Oh, what's a sex club that everyone went to? That the Swingers Club. I forget the name of it. It was very popular.
Hey, son, you know it's in my mind right now, Like, yeah, then.
You eluded him. This is why we have guests on the show. I'm trying to you know.
I was going up there, but at this rate I was doing Oldie. It was like, I didn't see this part of New York.
Well, you know, amir, you certainly have Vinceletti's Disco Files book.
Yes, I think the.
Disco Files Book is a really great lay of the land. Okay, the clubs that were happening and when they were happening, because it didn't just like jump from Studio fifty four to say, Paradise Grash and Paradise Garage was such a different There might have been some overlap, but it was a very different vibe, very different crowd. I was not a member of Paradise Crash. I did go there on many occasions, but you had to it was had to
reach out to the guy. Was it Richard Brody I think was the name of the guy that owned the club and get on the guest list for the night and all.
It was too hard to get it.
Okay, well you had to be a you know, as a membership club.
Question before your record label days, were you seeing any bands or artists like forming clubs or were you strictly just like a club kid listening to DJs?
You know, I was actually more interested in the DJs, to tell you, and I still am the I mean, yeah, I see these shows and everything, but I didn't have I never had the same fervor about seeing live concerts except for Roxy Music and I'm a rough, total Roxy music geek fan. Love Brian Ferry, like going back to the mid seventies. But so that was Oh and I
was also loved to go see Bowie and LaBelle. LaBelle was a definitely appointment, you know, that was like a big deal to go to Labelle's shows back in the seventies.
But were you there for their infamous where I think they did something at the Lincoln Center where everyone had to wear something silver?
Oh yeah, no, no, no, yes, that was the Chameleon Tour, I believe, yes, with all the costumes that were by Larry Lagaspi, the Lake Larry Lagaspi, who's being there's a big book that Rick Owens is doing a tribute to Larry Lagaspy. But this was in I believe seventy six, because I think after the Chameleon tour they kind of broke up, if I'm yeah, But I was in Chicago and me and all my friends, I was hanging out with this huge, gay, glamy crowd and we all dressed
as reptiles to go to the LaBelle concert. And I dressed in this green sequined lizard outfit that I put together, and actually and all my friends did. I still have photos of it, and I was invited to go up on stage and dance with Nonah and Sarah, and I have the photos of it to I have the receipts. But it was it was incredible. I mean this, this is when the audience was really at one with the LaBelle and you know, people felt that way too about
going to Bowie and Roxy music. Everyone wanted to dress as glamorously as Brian Ferry, you know. So. But but I'm not going to be that. I'm not that personally to say, oh, yeah, I was at such and such you know concert or anything like that.
Okay, so for you, did you know an immediate sonic difference when you were frequenting clubs that were more hip hop based and and I mean way before there were rap labels or even before your time at your tenure at a Tommy Boy. Like if you're seeing like, do you remember your first rap club experience pre your record label days?
Hmmm, No, oh I don't, because I think I started. I think probably the first club that I recall going to was probably Negrill. So it's not like I was, oh yeah, I was at Harlem World in seventy nine and blah blah. No, it wasn't like that.
I was is this the Negrill that's on twenty third Street?
Negrill I think was down on like Second Avenue around maybe fourth sixth Street. Lady Blue Freddy was very involved in sort of helping, you know, coalesce the uptown downtown scenes together. You know, Bam was djaying there and I think I think rack Steady performed there. Is it was like a small, sort of cramped basement space. It was really you know, not.
Yeah, okay, I get it now when people mentioned the Grill. Of course, me being an entry in the nineties, I'm thinking of the upscale Jamaican restaurant. Yeah, thinking that maybe it was once a hip hop club like in the eighties or whatever. But I'm realizing that I got fooled. So can you tell me how you got pulled into the record industry.
Well, I was waiting take I left my thriving career at show World and people in and you know, I made this, you know, incredibly brilliant determination that the people who I was, you know, the people I was working with, the people I was working for and the customers were all pretty much a dead end. And I wasn't and I wasn't getting any younger. So I started waiting tables, ended up working graveyard at a place called the Empire Diner.
I was living in the Chelsea Hotel. So there's like all the bona fides for like, yeah, she checks all the boxers late seventies, early eighties. But because I had always been such a music fan and I was always like, what's that you're playing? What's that you're playing? You know, but you know, I loved it, I decided to go
to this. I heard about something called the New Music Seminar, and it was the first conference that Tom Silverman put together with his two partners, Mark Josephson and I'm not even sure Joel Weber was part of it at that point, but it was in a small It was in recording studio up in Yorkville. And this was probably nineteen eighty or eighty one. So and I, you know, met Tom at a pizza place during a break. I said, hey,
I'm Monica, you know, okay, whatever. And then a guy named Bob Pittman was speaking at this conference and he started. He announced that there was a new new thing that they were about to launch called MTV, and I approached him afterwards. I said, oh, man, this sounds great. I would love to work for you. He you know, completely ignored me. And about a year so I just kept waiting tables. And then about a year later I saw an ad for a guy, Gal Friday in the Village Voice.
This is back when people where there were no there was no LinkedIn.
Uh, you had to buy a Village Voice to get a job.
You had to buy the Village Rights or the New York Times, you know, and you on the Sunday New York Times, you know, and go through all these little, you know, mouse type listings, and I saw an ad for a guy, Gal Friday for a dance music I think it was a dance music publication slash record company. I still have the ad. I still have it on Oh yeah, a little yellow piece of paper that I
cut out. I have it in an envelope. And I called the number and it was tom and he didn't remember me, but I remembered him, and he told me, yeah, you know dance music. I have dance music report. I just started this label called Tommy Boy. And you know this would be to be like my right hand person. Blah blah blah, and there were At this point, I was actually living in servants quarters up on Upper West Side. I was bouncing around a lot of places.
That's always the top floor of a that's right. I was second. I was second. I was seconds away from buying a five story house in Harlem in the Heights before after Hamilton. Then them prices really jacked up. It was like Hamilton's Row and it looked as large as like the Huxtables crib in Brooklyn. But you know, the basement was tricked out. The first floor, then they had the second, fourth, third, fourth, fourth floor, and then on the fifth floor that's usually where the maid or the nanny.
You know, these houses are also hundreds of years old. You imagine that's where Yeah, the help, So that kept your legs, That at least kept your legs in shafe because you'd have to go up five flights of stairs.
Yes, for these tiny little rooms. It wasn't you know, shared bathrooms.
Whatever.
It was fine. It was like maybe fifty seventy five bucks a week or something. But I had these numerous phone calls with Tom trying to convince some way he should hire me because I didn't have a college education. He did. He's like, well where you know, what have you done before? And like, well, you know, I worked at peep Land and this was you know, you know, And he wasn't thoroughly convinced. But then once he said, well, okay, listen, tomorrow, I'm going out to pick up the twelve inches of
the new Tommy Boy release and you can come. You can ride along with me. So I'm like, okay, cool, this is my shot. And so I meet up with him. He lives in this uh, two bedroom apartment over in Yorkville, Let's face it, the heart of exactly the Upper East Side. On the fire, he said you know where the mayor's home.
Is, where York Street starts, Yes.
York Avenue, right exactly. It's you know. So we drive out to Long Island City and his hatchback. I don't know if that's a thing, if they even make hatchbacks anymore, but it was. We drove out there in his hatchback to this uh pressing plant called Apexton, and it was
owned by these two Polish brothers. And so what they do is, when you know, when Tom had ordered a pressing if I don't know, a thousand or whatever of this record, they wheel them out to the curb in fifty count boxes, and you know, Tom opens up the back of the hatchback and I started slinging in these fifty count boxes. And I'm a girl from Chicago. Man, It's like, I'm a big girl from Chicago. I have no problem lifting up heavy shit and slinging it. So he was like, oh, she got some muscle on her,
all right, you got the job. So that's how I started. But I had to keep waiting on tables when I started because I couldn't afford you know, the pay wasn't a whole lot. So I was working tables at night and working for tom.
During the day. Was this is this after Planet Rock or like what years? No? No?
Before December of eighty one, I was the first employee.
Your memory is incredible, Monica inch, I can't even your memories.
I believed. I love this. This tells me that you didn't do much drugs in the eighties, because.
Oh no, that's not true.
Do you take me never mind? Usually our guests are like, hey man, I don't remember selective member. What you know it is?
You have selective memory about certain things. If you asked me other things, I say, I can't remember. But this stuff I do remember.
Was this the jazzy j like funky Sensation era of yes?
Okay, in fact, it was.
That's right, That's what it was like exactly. That was when I started in December of nineteen eighty one. Tommy actually about a week after I started, went away for a couple of weeks to Jamaica for an extended vacation with his girlfriend, and Jazzy Sensation had just come out, right, and so you know, my duties were split between Tommy Boy, this fledgling label, Tommy Boy, and Dance Music Report, which was which was a disco DJ tip sheet, which I don't know if you remember that, but it was an
important publication in its time. So he went on vacation and left me with, you know, my sort of semi defined duties, and one of them was, you know, to make sure to you know, take the orders for Jesz Sensation, and you know, make sure the pressing plant has got the records going and all this other stuff. Well, sure enough, I took an order from a one stop. I don't know if you know what a one stop is. Yes,
there's a sub category of an independent distributor. And it was an account that we didn't weren't open with, and so I took an order and then come to find out that it was some guy who was a gonif and wasn't going to be paying us. And Tom totally liked reamed me about that.
But when you say you mean like some friends of ours.
Some friends of ours, well, I just bought a hardcover copy of The Joys of Yiddish for a friend of mine today. Because when you say because I said, I said to her, I said, oh, you know this person, bubbah, they're great, but they have no rookmonnas. And she said, what's rock Munas. I'm like, you've never worked in the music industry. You don't know what Ghani or Rochmunnis is or you know, oh yeah, so yeah, I mean it basically meant the guy wasn't who serve of a thief, wasn't planning on paying us.
In my mind, the difference between Tommy Boy and well, I'm saying the hip hop labels that came before it, because really we're talking sugar Hill is what I feel is notable about those two labels is that you know, with enjoy in sugar Hill, I definitely know that, you know, Mars Levy had his hands or quote Mars Levy types more gangster run era of the music industry.
How is one able to start.
A label, an independent label in the early eighties without someone trying to muscle you for a piece? Now, even though okay, so Jazz's instation wasn't exactly Planet Rock, but for our listeners that are are peep in Jesse Sensation is a hip hop rendition of gwymccree's sort of timeless Can you feel it?
Can you feel it? Our sensation or jazz sensation?
Yeah?
Right? So, like, are you aware of the strong arm of.
The connective folks that sugar Hill and Enjoy Records definitely were.
Uh, you know, that's a good question. Sugar Hill was definitely you know, Joe and Sylvia. And there was a guy named Maldon who was sort of the other co founder of Sugarte Michael No, no, not Michael moll. I was like, okay, now this guy was Yugoslavian. He was sort of put in thereby Morris Levy to you know, make sure the money situation was whatever it was going to be. And uh, but but I would say that there it was a very much a entrepreneurial cottage industry
at that point, you know. And I think Enjoy Records Bobby Robinson's label is more in that vein. But you what you also had. And I just have to give a shout out to Corey Robbins because Corey, yes, co founder of Profile Records. Corey actually came to the office when Tom was away and he just knocked down the door and said, hey, I'm Corey. You know I have Profile Records. If any if you need anything, if anything goes wrong, you have any questions, please feel free to
get in touch with me. And it's like, wow, thank you, I appreciate it because I didn't have a lot of questions. But there was this There were labels that were really the the you know dance, the post disco dance labels like west End and Prelude. Who there. It wasn't so much about some sort of cultural bubbling up. It was more about what was selling. Okay, cell Cell's over or
peaked or whatever. So maybe it's you know, Tanya Gardner or you know something right exactly things that are bubbling up that are more from the street and including hip hop, but it was more of a commercial imperative, I think, than an artistic decision or a cultural reflection so much. And I think the same thing is absolutely true with sugar Hill and Enjoy. I mean, you've got you know,
Bobby Robinson and Joe and Sylvia. I mean look at their histories with the labels that they had, so I think that they were all these were independent labels owned by people who were looking around the landscape and saying where can I make money next?
Okay, so if you're doing jazzy Sensation, assuming that you were there for its very first order, how many pieces are you ordering and how many like just walk me through how does one spread it? So how many go to DJs so they can get played? Are you hoping that Frankie Crocker plays it so that it might go national?
And then if it does well? In other words, the problem that was presented in Crust Groove, which I forget what single it was like they had a single so successful that they didn't have enough money to print it.
Yeah, then yes, yeah, the worst thing that could happen to you is a hit like the producers.
Yeah, okay, so let's even though I want you to lead up to Planet Rock, I'm certain that that was a problem for you guys, because that was a worldwide smash. So how do you operate and service the world? And how do you know what the world wants? How do you know what a local record store in Germany wants? How do you know if Doctor Dre or Uncle Jam is playing it in la Like?
How how do you spread the word?
Like who's the person that you're trying to get this record to hoping that it will become a thing.
Well, listen, back then, it was a very small network. And when Jazz Sensation was out, I mean I always tell people, you know, Jazz Sensation really was what I would call a regional record It was popular in the mid Atlantic area. Tommy Boyce certainly didn't have the we had not set up sort of a national network, which may or may not have even been you know, might have made a difference, I don't know. But the thing is is that back then there was such a small
number of people to even go to. You know, we were dealing directly with Magic when he was still on HBI Wow, you know, Islam Head, Zulu Beats, Supreme Team, there was I mean, this is before Red was on Kiss. I mean there was you know, a a lot of this was through club DJs and to some degree these sort of specialty mix shows that were starting to merge,
some of them on college, college and university stations. But at that point, I know you were talking nineteen eighty two, it was it's a short window really between Jazzy Sensation and Planet Rock. As Planet Rock came out, I think it was April of eighty two, so it's a really big difference. So you had the independent record stores who by the way, you know, I have had a recent conversation with someone about this that if there was ever
a documentary that someone was going to consider doing. I think the history of independent record stores, Black independent record stores and their role in hip hop and dance music as an untold story, But I would say the record stores played a big role in spreading the word and play the records. The club DJs were more important at that point servicing record pools. I mean, I still have.
About record pools.
Yes, I still have lists of the record pools and the record pool directors and we would keep a running, you know, running list of how many members do you have and who do you service and blah blah blah, So how.
Many counts do you have to service? How many counts do you have to service for a record pool?
You know, some of these record pools might have like the Shore record pool that was run by a guy named Bobby Davis up in the Bronx. He'd say, oh, you know, one hundred and fifty members, two hundred members, or you know, you'd have maybe a Rickets Records out in New Jersey and they might have seventy five members, or some record pool out on Long Island or you know,
whatever it was. But you know the thing with the record pool directors is that they sort of were had more, uh more power than that they did in the in the years to come, and then well you have to give us full service or nothing, even though.
I know it's about to happen.
Yeah, a lot of their members would never touch a wrap.
Record, okay, so they would just sell it.
So they would sell it or you know, or it would just be like, you know, go into the uh you know, the vinyl dump or whatever. But it was you know, so.
Is that why sometimes when I get records then they have that little uh cut open hole on the top left corner. Is that to differentiate a promotional record?
Yeah? I always wanted to know what that was for.
Yeah, that's yeah, they were.
They were notched a punch hole.
Okay, like a neutered cat, you know. You know, it's a promo, you know, but that didn't necessarily prevent something being resold. But you know, it only would resell if it was a hit. Who fucking cares if it's not a hit record, you know out so you know anyway, but it was a small world, you know in New York. Uh you know, yeah, you'd want to make sure Chef Petty Bone or Sergio Munzubai or the Latin Rascals on w k T you or DJ Jose Animal Diaz. You know, you had Carlos DeJesus on w K t U Rest
in Peace. You had Barry Mayo and Tony Humphries over Kiss Wow. Barry Mayo still friend, really fantastic guy.
Very all these guys were DJs first before I got to know them as remixers and editors, because you're mentioning Tony Humphries and the Latin Rascals and they were actual DJs first before.
Oh yeah, Tony, Yeah. And Chef Pettybone was very important the master mix on Kiss FM, you know so, and yeah, of course Frankie. He was always at the top of the you know, top of the food chain, you know, like if you could get Frankie to play a record, you know. And Frankie was someone who I mean I knew him and counted him as a friend, as many did. But uh, and he was always very interested in what
was coming up from the street. You see all these photos of him hanging in the booth at Paradise Garage or whatever. He didn't want to be left behind on any of this stuff.
But it was, uh, you know, one of the original human shizan looking over his shoulders trying to copy what was he wanted.
He was very savvy about knowing what was coming up. He that was he had to do that, and he did it so successfully for so many years. But you know, Frankie was Frankie and he was very uh, you know, you had to deal with Frankie like, you know, he was royalty. He was radio royalty. You know.
So in order to are you allowed to speak of the methods of how you were able to get a record played? I would like to think, I mean, I would like to think that a song like Planet Rock was so futuristic that DJs would naturally be like ya, I gotta play this shit. But for an album like that, did you have to ensure ways? Like how were rap records broken in markets that were unpenatable but you managed to get them on anyway?
Well, that's that's another good question. The answer is, yes, we had to take care of business. And I want to mention, by the way, since Philly looms so large here, that there was a really great remembrance of a guy named Snooky Jones in Philadelphia who passed away recently. He was a record promoter and there was a there was a great remembrance of the scene in the WDAS parking lot where Butterball tamp Buro of course reins Supreme, and how all the promo guys would pull up on I
forget what record day was there. I don't know what record day was. H let's say it was Monday, doesn't matter. They you know, they all be there in the parking lot, jammed up waiting for butter to you know, a light from his car and get at him about whatever their releases were. But the answer, the short answer is yes, it doesn't listen. If it was a hit, you definitely had to pay, and if it wasn't a hit, you could waste a lot of money. But and people were
happy to take your money. But that doesn't mean you're going to get any airplay.
So what turned out?
You mean, if it was a hit, as in, if it sounded good and you felt it deserved to be on the radio, then you determined this is going to be a hit.
Yeah, sure, there's there's there's things that deserve a lot of things, but there's but you still had to pay to play if you want to. There's one thing to get play on a mixed show, or even play or as they used to say Daytime, you know, like fact, it was like yeah, but you didn't get Daytime, you know, But if you wanted that official ad that's getting reported to Billboard and R and R and whatever the other bibles were at that point, you had to take care of business, and we did.
How Nightmares was the Planet Right experience.
Well, I would say.
It was less in terms of demand. In terms of demand, well, it was.
An immediate hit, and it was something that you know, of course we weren't necessarily prepared for, but you do everything you can. And what we would do is essentially get try and get advance payments from distributors in exchange for a discounted rate on the units, you know what I'm saying. So somebody said, yeah, we'll pay you whatever, say twenty five thousand dollars or you know whatever. You know, if we pay you up front, can you give us this many units at this price as opposed to what
the regular price was. So those are the type of things we had to do to make sure that we kept the pressing plant. You know, we were able to pay for the pressing and all the other you know, jackets, labels, all the other stuff, shipping, you know, all that stuff.
Well, hopefully by this point, you guys ramped up to more than just a two person operation, correct.
Yeah, well that record allowed Tommy Boy to ramp up to more than a two person operation. You know, it literally exploded. It created opportunities and marketplaces that we didn't have at that point because it was because this record did go national and it went global, and it was the type of record. It's been recounted many times, of course,
but it was the type of record that really traveled exceptionally. Well, well, it was a car record, you know, had that percolating melodic sound so automatically you know, California, Florida, Texas, Detroit, Detroit, you know, all these places that were not necessarily hip hop markets yet that really cracked the code. You know in a lot of those places that electro sound. Tommy Boys early days, the first wave of success that Tommy
Boy had was definitely with electro records. It was the Arthur Baker John Roby productions with So Soonic Force, Planet Patrol, and then of course we got Johnson Crew with Michael Johnson and you know, uh, there were that had some like Space Pelic was huge, like in Houston, that.
Was big in LA.
When I visited family in Pasadena and summer of eighty three, they were only playing the Space Cowboy and it was like, that's when I realized things were regional because I never heard of Space Game.
It wasn't an East Coast record.
Well, I knew about Pac Jam, but I definitely didn't know about Space Cowboy.
That's right. That's right, that's right. Because we were like, well, why is it big in Houston? And it was like, oh, because there's like a big I guess Nasaurs, you know, whatever was going on down there. There's a huge space thing in Houston. Oh okay, So there was so yeah, and some of these things were like that slower sound was sort of also, you know, like in the South and some places there were just these different vibes and cultural geographical differences that you know, you could see with
some the records. But we had also Globe and whiz Kid play that beat, and you know, and with the Double Dance Ninsky remix. And I'm probably overlooking some things, but there was there was this brief window between say late eighty one into maybe eighty four where we had this really dominant electro sound and then I think once I heard, you know, it's like, oh shit. As soon as I heard deaf you know, run DMC, I'm like, okay,
sea change. And you know Keith LeBlanc, who I'm sure you know who he is because it's a fellow drummer. You know. He told me a story recently about how as part of the sugar Hill Band he remembered traveling with sugar Hill Gang and you know, working in the studio there on all these records and all this stuff, and he said, yeah, you know, I remember one day waking up and hearing Planet Rock and saying, I think there's a sea change going on here, guys.
Oh because theyd Scorpio that's right, yup, that's right, you grandmassive flats and the few yars five did well?
Really Keith a plank and.
Uh uh skip Yeah yeah, Doug, Doug wim bust and skip did scorpio?
I get it?
Yeah. So from the live thing into like this electro thing was a different thing. Yeah.
I mean, obviously you maintained the trust of Tom. Did you get immediately Helm president or were you head of A and R first, or I mean was the position real or it was this a title for paper only?
Look I work my fucking ass off. I did a lot of different.
Things right, And no, no, no, I don't mean in a dismissive way, but I mean, like, you guys have a real office in a receptionists and oh I.
Know, well, you know, back then it was like it was all these all the labels were just scrappy operations. I mean, we didn't have like any fanciness or nothing. Really. I tell you, we worked in the second bedroom out of Tom's apartment, and then we moved into two different basement offices and your and then we moved in above the soccer store on First Day Avenue in New Yorkville and sort of built it out there, but it was never fancy.
Four some D's made their entry in eighty five, and four some D's, I think at the time was way different than what you guys were normally associated with. And I know Tom's love and history of old school do wop music and you know, so basically, you know what boys, the men really pulled off successfully in ninety one. I mean four some D's was that in terms of the.
Blueprint for that. You know. The thing is is that the four m D's came to us actually through mister Magic. The four some D's had been on the scene for some time, which I didn't even realize at.
That as the four Cs.
Yeah, as a four MCS and Tom loved do wop and he starts saw this hip hop do wop group in the four MDS. And the woman who was his first wife, her name was Robin Halpin and she's very very talented jazz musician and she actually uh co wrote and produced a lot of those early four MDS records. You know, let Me Love Kitchen for a scratch, you know, let's not forget they were in that first movie, was it Happin? Yeah, they did the record with the Fat Boys. Yeah, uh,
here I go again, all these really beautiful records. But they were the thing with the four m DS. They were always pitted against New Edition, and New Edition was the group at that point that had the more of the female audience that was really sort of going crazy for them. But it was always the four m DS and New Edition that were sort of going head to head in that early sort of boy group uh vocal hip hop you know ar you know, R and B thing.
But the thing, the big turning point for or the four MDS and This is a story that I was very involved with. Was when Crush Groove was being made. One of the producers was my boyfriend at the time. His name is Doug McHenry n.
Yes, Yes, oh word.
Okay, Yes, and Dog, and I was staying with Dog at the Mayflower Hotel while they were doing the film, him and his late partner George Jackson.
George Jackson, George Wait, slight, wait, I can I insert one story only mere style.
You remember the.
Boom, the internet boom of the early aughts, when everyone thought the Internet was going to be like this gold mine of a thing, same way that bitcoin is now. And we struck a deal to sell Okay player in Yeah, nineteen ninety nine, and I believe we broke her to deal with George Jackson and the way that I was metaphorically burning cigars with one hundred dollar bills like all of y'all kiss my ass like I'm about to do rich rich rich and Monday. Richard calls me and says,
deals off. I'm like, what happened? And He's like, George Jackson died anyway, I'm sorry Yes with George Jackson.
Interjection is obviously the art of the of the game here. So but anyway, so I was so, I thought, you know, here I am, I'm with Doug. I'm dating Doug. It's like, you know. And he's like telling me, Yeah, we're doing the soundtrack on Warner Brothers for Crush Coove and blah blah blah. And I'm like, awesome, let me get a slot on there for the four c mgs. You know, he says, you know. But New Addition like, ah, sorry, you know, you're everything. So I'm like, so, I'm like, really.
My secret. They did my secret in the movie.
It was so but here's what happens. So the Crush Groove sound track, the movie's getting wrapped up the soundtrack because you know, lead times were crazy back then. They had to master the soundtrack all this. The deadlines were crazy. And then I get this call from Doug and he's like, there was supposed to be this big ballad slot on the album and it was dedicated to New Edition and Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis. When they produced this song
with New Edition, I'm like, fucking man. And then he calls me, he goes, you're not going to believe it. New Adition had to pull out because some sort of crazy legal issues. They had a lot of problems back then New Edition with their management and lawsuits. All this shit was going on. So he goes, can you get Force mds up to Minneapolis tomorrow? And I'm like, yeah, what do we gonna do? You know, bla blah blah
blah blah. Of course it was not exactly the next day, but it was within a matter of two or three days, and it was like involved calls with Ron Sweeney and Jimmy and Terry and all this other stuff, And of course the Force mds in there and the father who is a manager of Bob Lundi. They get up there, they record this record called Tender Love, and it goes on the soundtrack at the very last minute, and guess what. It's the first top ten pop hit for Jimmy and Terry and it was the big lead. It was the
big smash hit of the album. And it was through that that Warner Brothers got interested in doing a deal with Tommy Boy.
At this place.
Are you shocked that, even though you know, Sylvia Robinson was running sugar Able Records or whatnot, were women in executive positions.
Really not a thing?
And I'm taking it out of hip hop just general at labels, Like I know about Sylvia Ron at least her, you know, coming up at Atlantic and starting East West, and maybe I mean was more.
At Casablanca before then?
Well okay, well I knew about Neil Bookgart, but who was running who was at Casablanca?
Well, I believe Sylvia had started that.
I did not know. Oh wow, all right, we give fact check it.
This is a great, great subject matter, and I'm really happy you brought this up because you know, there's a lot of women from that early eighties period who didn't necessarily get their shine or necessarily get titles. I was. I think I was made president in eighty five. I still have the press release. And why do I have it because I had to write it.
The It's like writing your own Wikipedia entry.
Yeah, like, yeah, your president. Now, could you go write this up? Yes, okay, fine, so, but yeah, before in that early eighties period, I would say that the people that really come to my mind is like women who were doing a lot in the early hip hop labels would be Ann Carly at Jive Records. You know who. I actually knew Anne when she was working in the New York Office of e G Records. I used to harass her for rocks and music tour tickets and that.
Uh.
There was Jeanine Leclair who was at Next Plateau Records that worked with Eddie o'lachlin. There was d D. Joseph who worked with at Prism Records, which became you know, which began Jill. Of course, there was Sylvia and there
were others. And I'm really sorry because I should have prepared a list for this because it is important and there's a lot of people who you know, it was a bit later in the eighties when there were more women who were getting into the business, but there were a lot of women who were in the business then and they just didn't necessarily get as much recognition. They might have started as eceptionist and became press or promo.
So there's there's this whole wave of women that were part of the even like late seventies and early eighties, whose whose names just don't tend to come up as much. So much in hip hop has been told and told again through books and documentaries and everything, but there's still a lot of terrain that hasn't been touched really, So.
What's the difficulty level of you, like really as far as like pounding the desk and demanding that respect, like do you have to be tough as nails?
It was what's old girl from uh who ran book? And uh winter? Right?
And when we have to come do you have to run it in a winter style? And you know, no, no, well I don't.
Yeah, no, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. You know. I get asked a lot over the years people said, well, what was it like being a woman in the hip hop world? Or what was it like being a white woman in the hip hop world? And I'm like, my response is usually like, you know what, there were so many opportunities for women in the fledgling hip hop industry. Again, it was so small back then.
If I had gone to say, oh, you know Columbia Records or Mercury or PolyGram or whatever Warner Brothers, you know, and said, hey, you know, I'm looking for a job, I would have been lucky to get, you know, be the coffee runner for some guy doing mid Atlantic radio promotion. Okay, so in hip hop because it was just a small little industry and no one was really checking, you know, like a lot of women were able to sort of get ahead in this business because there wasn't like a precedent.
It wasn't an old boys network, you know. So it was still being It was still being the story was being written, and you know, there was a lot of of opportunities. Although I will say when I went to the first Jack the Rapper Convention, a lot of people thought I was hired help for another reason. So, you know, the Rapper Convention. That's another documentary.
Somebody should too, Ah boy tails from the Rap Convention.
So okay, when when? Okay?
So in eighty six, when Club Nouveau starts hitting, you know, lean on me and jealousy and all that stuff was highly it was unescapable. Like by that point, you guys are just you know, a force. Was there ever a
temptation to say leave Tommy Boy? And maybe and I don't want to discredit hip hop's you know force or whatnot, but in the mind state of eighty seven, did you ever have the temptation or did someone from RCA or Warner Brothers or quote a legit major label try to hold you away and say come work for us.
Yeah, there was a label A and M actually and and a and M was a real class operation, you know, it was. I mean, there was like and they even bought me a plane ticket and put me in a hotel. I was like, oh my god, you know, this is
pretty great, but it didn't happen. I really sort of sense that I was better where it was, and it turned out to be true, you know, because it was towards you know, it was made president I guess eighty five, eighty six, I can't remember exactly, but you know, it was towards the end, you know, towards the late eighties where I really oversaw A and R and the creative direction for the label. I was already doing quite a
bit already in both of those areas. And and also you know, in the early days, whether it was collecting money from distributors, or putting in pressers with the pressing plant, or getting the label copy typed off, or sitting with Bambada while he wrote out of special thanks, or creating a press list and writing press releases, talking to you name it. It's like you got to do a lot of
different things. But it was, you know, in the late eighties where I sort of really I think that was a really golden era for Tommy Boy in the late eighties and the early nineties.
In nineteen eighty eight, you know, for me, at least in my life, one of the greatest paradigm shifts that really affected. I mean, eighty eight was such a banner year. But you sign a group that literally changes the course.
Of my life.
And we've had various people involved with day Las Soul projects, so we you know, you don't have to go through the every day. But what I do want to know is who was responsible for the genius marketing of day La Soul Because from the from the press photos to the fonts to the stickers. You know, for only time on life I ever got sent to the principal's office was because I put day Lost Soul stickers all over my high school.
Like, so, who was responsible?
Like what was the brainchild operation of we could make these guys bigger than hip hop?
And I read that hip hop for hippies. Wasn't that your ship?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I was very involved in all of that, but it was also there's a lot of people at Tommy Boy that I would credit for being a huge part of this campaign. I think that it was a very critical decision to have the Gray Organization, do the all the you know, all of the daisy, the imagery
for the for the album cover. That was so that was I would say such a radical move at that point because they basically sort of threw down a gauntlet to what the prevailing visual aesthetic was of hip hop. And I think it was the type of thing that a lot of people were like, what is this? But you know, but the thing is before the album, before the album, and you saw all those visuals, you know,
plug TuneIn was a radical record. And I still have I still have the demo tape and I still have the write up that I did after my meeting with Daddyo, And I want to make sure to credit Daddyo because it was Daddyo from Stetso Sonic who called me and said, Hey, I've got these groups I'm shopping. Can we set up a meeting. I'm like, yeah, da, da da, And you
sat on the phone. There were three groups. Two of them were like sort of these more mainstream like Rene and angela type of groups or something, and he mentioned, uh, Dala Saul. He said, oh, and there's this group that Paul's working with called Dela Saul. And I do remember thinking that's a really intriguing name. You know what is that it didn't sound like a hip hop group, and so I met with him and that's in that demo
tape of Plug Tuning and Freedom, Freedom of Speak. I think uh was on the Freedom, yeah, but it was the two tracks on the on the one cassette, and it was like you immediately knew that it was either going to be big or nothing. And that's where I think Tommy Boys legacy largely lies with signings that were sort of in that category you're gonna love it or you're not gonna hate it, but it wasn't in the middle.
And Dala Soul I think personifies that. And you know, the the demo of Plug Tuning sounds pretty much I'm pretty sure. I don't think that it was even even mixed, you know. I think was an eight track that Paul did and I don't think it even went beyond that. By the time it was mastered. I think it was still like this eight trick demo sounding thing. And we had this we did this ad campaign where we got all these different people to say, you know, you know how it is, you know, like when.
You know L's mom she was part of it.
Latifa's mom, the lake Rita Owens. We did we did a campaign that I came in for Dala Soul. I came in for Patty LaBelle. I came out with Dala Saul. We had this one with like some goofy, you know, sort of straight looking white guy like you know, I came in for I forget it wasn't steely dandy.
We hung that up in Sam Goodies. I worked at Sam Goodies at the time.
Oh man, well then you know, so this part that imaging campaign I think was fantastic. We had a great full page ad and billboard that said Dala Gold when it went gold. But you know, I think it a lot of it sprung from the group itself, because you know, I still have and I shared this with Pass actually
just last week. He sat down in the office and with this he has a very distinctive style of cursive and he was writing down the history of Dla Soul on this notebook paper set, describing who each group member was, and he was writing it in day last speak. And that was another thing too, because like nobody knew what the fuck they were talking about. They had their own language, like what are they talk? What what do you mean plug tune? And what's that you know? And what is true?
Guy the dove? You know? What is all this stuff? But they but they had a different look, they had a different sensibility. So there was a lot there to already work with and to sort of get inspired to do interesting and creative marketing and motion. Uh, you really can't do something unless the something that the project and the recordings and the artists that you're working with are interesting in and of themselves. You can blow it up and magnify it. But if they're not, if it's not
inherently interesting and great, you can't really do anything. So so they really they were like, wow, this group pretty interesting. There a lot of people played role. I don't know if you know Rod Houston because he's also from from from Philadelphia. He's now one of the biggest voice.
He's huge.
He's huge, and Rod I still have the copy that he wrote up because we did this contest to name the sample.
And yeah, yeah, did you.
Did you enter? I didn't.
I didn't know the LIBERACEI or any Yeah I didn't know that.
Yeah we got I still have a lot of the entries from the contest that I kept. A lot of people thought it was Bobby Bloom and the only person who got the who the only person who got it right was Joel Weber, as I mentioned to him earlier with the Partners in the New Music Seminar, And he's the guy who put out He was an A and R guy at Fourth and Broadway in Island. He put out The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight. And he was the only one who identified the invitations right. It's written on the
wall is the sample right record? So they So there was a lot of really great things that sort of sprung from the fact that the group themselves were so different and so interesting. And I think that that whole Daisy age imagery, you know, was certainly a blessing and a curse for the group because then they didn't really like being named the hippies of hip hop, and you know, pushed back against it, you know. But that was that album Three Feet High in Rising, you know. And that
was actually the first project I assigned to Dante. I know that the Dante make sure you get to this, get the clearances for so and so and so and so, But it was the first project that he worked on, which was fantastic. He did an amazing job. And Paul, of course, you know, yeah from one to ten.
How much of a headache was the the Flow and Eddy situation because of course, uh, Flow and Eddie of the Turtles sort of you know, recognizes their sample and then you know, we're taught that that was the that was the gauntlet moment of rappers clearing samples for you know, was it a quick one and done, Oh my bad, here's forty thousand bucks, or were they like we wanted a billion dollars and you know, this is.
That's you know, that's another great topic because the Dala Saw three feet High and Rising really did become the litmus test for a lot of sampling issues, and it became the postage for everything that could go wrong is all here on one album. And you know, so it wasn't just flowin Eddie. You know, I still have the letter from MCA Publishing about Steely Dan or by the way, they misspelled Donald Faken's name. But it became sort of
a blessing and a curse. It was, well, I should say maybe more of a curse because look at everything that the group has had to go through all these years.
Yeah, here's problematic now trying to clear these samples again.
Still yeah. So, but it also became it was certainly a news story. I mean, as you Kurt Loder, you know, and there was all these like news stories about sampling. It became a big thing, you know. And of course, you know, uh Danny O Stessisnic addressed this very brilliantly and talking all that as one of the best records over and but yeah, it was certainly costly. It was
a distraction. And the thing about it is this, this is my takeaway from it, is that at that point in nineteen eighty nine, a lot of these rock guys were really of the mindset of like they're stealing my fucking art, and they weren't down with the hip hop, they weren't down with the sampling. They had very closed minds about this. There was not a it had not been established as a path like oh yeah, okay, we'll
just get this sample clear like today. I mean, now, you know, I think a lot of people maybe avoid sampling to a large degree for all the problems and costs associated with it.
But it's ironic to me being as those same guys sample old Blues records to create their songs.
Oh yeah, who had these guys who were older rock guys with big you know, they had egos and they just had they were their mindset was completely divorced from hip hop being a cool, interesting thing and oh wow, they're taking something I made and doing something cool and flipping it. A lot of these guys did not see it that way at all.
Well, now, I know that George Clinton was extremely He had gratitude for me, myself and I at least because you know, he instantly saw that, okay, this is bringing me back clearly to a new audience.
So well yeah, well yeah, and you also had Westbound Records armand Baladian, thank you very much.
Oh jesus.
Yeah, So Armond Baladian was was definitely playing ball. I mean, you know, he saw that there was money to be made in doing sample clearances. So you know what was Digital Underground or daylor or whoever it was. He's you know, he owned a lot of this stuff, and so he wasn't reluctant in the way that a lot of the
rock guys were about, you know, violating their art. You know, it was just it was a different Again, you have commerce on the one side, and you've got these guys who were like, man, that's you know, don't touch my ship man.
You know, so right, I was gonna ask Monica, what is your involvement, if any, with the current Daylight situation with trying to get their catalog on to streaming.
None is my I don't have any involvement in that except to be supportive of the group. And you know, uh, you know, I occasionally have back and forth with with PAS and you know, I have a lot of love for those guys, and I hope that you know, they've been through a lot. They've been through a lot, so but I don't I haven't had any sort of dealings with their business.
I believe our good friend Faith Newman is now at the helm of that project and trying to re clear the samples and all that stuff.
I hope for Jail's sake that that comes through.
Well.
I mean, they have it, but you know, now it's like they got to do the work and you know, find somebody to fund. You know, they're they're doing it, but it's just a very slow process, song by song, and they want it as they do.
You know.
Thank God, I'm so relieved that they're not doing you know the sit now where people like redoing their sits on iTunes and gagging you with like these kind of subpar versions of their so.
Re records or whatever. I hate that.
Wait, okay, well I want to give a shout out to Dart Adams, who a surefire way to make him angry is to acknowledge that Three Feet High and Rising came out March third, nineteen eighty nine.
Dart Adams, I never.
Met a person more angrier when he's like, it wasn't March third, it was February seventh.
Yes, oh really, see he's thinking of the promo.
The promoh he.
Oh my god, you just you're about to set Dark Eyed using opinions of Monica Lynch are not like.
No, listen, I say, I have a lot of Tommy Boy archival materials. I could probably.
I'm not saying you can officially tell us when the release date was, because I swear to God he makes this every March third. He gets mad as shit when Pass or any member of Daylight Soul gets the date wrong, but he swears to God that like March third. He's like, like Wikipedia is wrong, everything's wrong, Like he knows listen.
I'll just say this. At some point I'll go through all go all is if I find anything that might have led to his belief photo. The only thing I could possibly think is that maybe you know, because again, lead times for things like press were significant back then, so maybe just maybe there was an advance copy. But I don't want to you know, that's not official.
So I have one quick question about Cessy Sonic now, the way that you guys, the way that you guys pushed for some ds to be you know, the do wop you know hip hop thing in daylight where the hippies of hip hop the exception of a brief write up and spin like, I felt like not enough was done to really drive home, at least of marketing that this is a hip hop band.
Yeah, it wasn't an easy sound.
And I've never seen them.
I've never heard stets of Sonic live ever, Like even when you re YouTube, no, there's no there's no footage of them on YouTube or anything.
Like I'm taking you guys's word for it.
That's that's a Sonic live in concert is a band, but there's there's no I mean, you know on in on Wax, you know besides Bobby Simmons playing drums on stuff, and you know, I know they did live stuff on keys, but I've just never seen that's a Sonic on stage. And there's no footage of them, and they're almost like the Harlem Cultural Festival, Like I don't believe it.
That's that's pretty interesting. I had never really thought about that. I didn't go to look, but I mean I'd seen them perform live and they were really, you know, fantastic. I think the man it was very frustrating because they, you know, sets a Sonic as a group, they really worked hard and and you know, it was frustrate rating. I mean, everyone wants to have big hits, and they had some hits, but they weren't on the level that is going to push you into a certain territory.
You know.
I think talking all that jazz was like a really you know, when you look back at the catalog, I think that one to me is like and they had, you know, Sally was like a record that did really well in Florida and other markets. Oh and you know Ghostats of Brooklyn, Go Brooklyn. You can't even soon did you put Somebody has told me recently said you put that record at the Union Square, and that was a signal for stick up kids to like get there, get the loot, you know, Like that's why I always stood
near the door at that place. I was like.
Traumatizing, Yeah, totally.
So they always got huge respect and they had great records, but they they just you know, and it's it's it's a frustration even to this day, you know that we weren't able to break them out in a Huger way. It happens.
And I was going to ask you, Monica about Shock G. I just hate He's someone that we had on our list for a long time, but you know, we you know, sadly.
Didn't get an interview before he passed.
What was he like just as an artist, as a producer, what was it like working with him?
You know, I've actually just had a long conversation with his former manager Atron last night. We stayed lunch. Yeah and Shock we used to talk on the phone and he Shock was He was incredibly intelligent, so smart, so funny, He was very charming. He had an enormous gift as a visual artist. You know, I had a lot of dealing you know, he was We had a great relationship. He would always be very very specific about artwork. I have some like layouts that he would send me, these
rough layouts. You know, this needs to go exactly here. This goes exactly here. Because he did all the artwork for all the digital Underground releases and even starting with the early version of Underwater Rhymes and Life's of Cartoon, that the twelve ings that they had before mccola before they came to Tommy Boy, but the well T and T recordings, the But he was someone who was very deep. I spoke with Latifa recently about him too, well, shortly
after he passed. We spoke about it because she talked about how she went on tour with him and they would just go to the hotel lobby and he would stare just noodling on the piano. He's a great jazz musician and she loved jazz and they had a strong connection there. He was just he was an artist with a capital A, you know, and and you know, obviously he brought Tupac. You know, it was largely responsible for bringing Tupac into the world as an artist. And yeah,
really really special guy. I've never met any you know, like especially these days where everything marketing beefs seemed to be a marketing tool, and there were beefs back then. You know, you could look at karras one or you know, whatever was going on. There's always some sort of beefs going on. But no, with Shock, he was everyone loved him. You know, I was tuking to Pete Nice when he was traveled with the Third Base with them, and he
had huge love for him. I don't know, I don't know what I can say about shaq g other than he was just We'd have late night phone calls with him and he could just expound on just about he was a guy. He was very cosmic. He was very cosmic.
So okay, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you guys that we will have a part two with Monica Lynch, the legendary Monica Lynch on Quest Loft Supreme.
This incredible conversation. Uh.
We will be back in a later episode to talk about basically the nineties with Coolio, with k seven LFO, with the Rizza.
Yo.
There's so much more that that will happen on the next episode of Quest lof Supreme.
Uh. And you will promise to come back with this Monica.
Correct, absolutely thank you beautiful.
All right, So in Biabo Sugar Steve and unpaid Bill and fon Digelo and layah, this is questo and shout out to cousin Jake holding us down on the leads and uh you know we will see you on the next ground.
Thank you very much, Happy with Mom.
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