Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Supremo Supremo Roll Call, Supremo Suck Sun Supremo Roll Call, Suprema su su Supremo Roll Calm, Suprema Sun Suck suprem Roll.
What's Loving crew?
Yeah, next hour you stuck with Yeah, Sophia Chain, Yeah, Ain't nothing nothing.
With Supreme Supremo roll Call, Suprema Sun Sun Suprema roll Call.
My name is Sugar. Yeah, good afternoon.
Yeah, from the baddest yeah jew in this room.
Supreme So Supreme roll Call, Supreme Suck Suck Supreme roll Call.
It's like e yeah and the baddest bitch.
Yeah you know what I mean.
It's fia bad because we both speak French.
Oh, I want to for that sub Frema roll So Suprema Supreme roll.
My name is Boss Billy.
If you're wondering who, Yeah, on my grind to be baddest bill in the room.
Supreme Subprema roll Call, Suprema Subpremo Roll.
My name is Sophia and I'm the baddest pitch in the room. And I think it's really important that you understand it. I'm not allowed to.
Curse because.
Supreme Wait is this a first for q l S. Were you about to give a dissertation?
I was about to curse.
I'm allowed to cur Yes.
Oh okay, good to know because you.
Sound effects for you.
That was beautiful.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Quest Love Supreme.
I'm your Emperor, Questlove Emperor. Yeah.
With me today is my Supreme team. We have a blue belt expert showgun Sugar Steve.
Yeah, and we got our red.
Belt twin tongue sword since he laya over here. And of course the man who runs it all keeps us in line, black belt Boss Bill.
All right.
So, for me, a lot of my favorite episodes that we do a Quest Love Supreme and that we conduct, my favorite ones always the behind the scenes episodes in which we kind of poke the pride and dissect the process from the perspective of the person who's usually behind the scenes, you know, the person that keeps the wheels turning behind the scenes, not necessarily in front of the camera or on the microphone. So I would say that
Sophia Chang is definitely a legend in these circles. For the past thirty plus years, she's been near and dear to the soundtracks of our lives, especially that of the Shalloin variety. Her expertise and knowledge was key in the prime days of keeping the Wu Tang caravan, going be it A and R, managing building labels and management Sophia Chang and her legendary Gucci Fedor, which is actually not here today.
There, but I have the head.
Okay, I was about to say, that's your trademark. She's basically seen it at all, and now she's ready to share her story. Her exclusive audible memoir, entitled The Baddest Bitch in the Room navigates. It takes you on a journey through one of the most creative periods of music. Timeline Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our guests on Quest Love Supreme.
Sophia Changy, thank you, Thank you, very glad to see today.
You're so happy to be here. Thank you.
Kind of jealous, like you're killing it with the merch.
Yeah, like five books and I think that I just made like one tea shirt, Like, yeah, I'm kind of I've been kind of scheming on this jacket, even though you.
Know I'm not made this jacket. There may be another one too that I haven't.
Even worn yet. I gotta talk to audible.
There you go, let's talk to.
Can I get a jacket?
See what is that on the back? It says my mother lover hustler warrior.
Indeed, mother love a hustler warrior. Right, I'll see that.
Well, I'll start at the top asking why did you feel at this point in your career now is the time to share your story?
And what do you think we can learn from your journey?
Uh so, amir, I'm sure you were told this for years too. For years people said you got to write a book, You got to write a book. You know, because of our proximity to what we do, you're actually an artist. I was artist approximate and I just couldn't wrap myself around how that was not an exercise in narcissism. And you know what am I going to do?
Talk about?
Oh? I hung out here, I did this, and I was that's not interesting to me. But when I started working at Universal in twenty fourteen, and I took on a number of mentees like you built straight out of college twenty two right, And they were all women, and I understood that my vast and varied experience, particularly as a working mother, as a working single mother, could be instructive. Then I was like, Okay, if I can be of
service to people, then I'll step into the spotlight. But before that I simply wasn't interested.
So you just wanted to strictly stay behind the scenes, and I did.
I did. I was, you know, don't look at the one behind the curtain. I skirted the red carpet. I never wanted to be in the interviews. I never wanted any of that. And now you know, I'm going to
be everywhere. But in terms of what people can glean from my memoir, I mean, what I say is that my memoirs for anybody who ever felt undervalued, underheard, under scene, anybody who said yes in the face of so many nos was, you know, anybody who kind of pushed up against whatever confines were placed on them, in any boxes that were placed on them, and anybody who dared to tell their story. And the lessons that I hope people can glean is that I think that what you will
gather is that I'm pretty fearless. Now, granted, I have always had a middle class safety net, so it gives you a privilege to be a little bit more fearless than others. But I got fired, I got hired, I quit many many times over my you know, my LinkedIn profile is like reading one piece, but it's you know, it's just a matter of I think it's really important to pursue your passion. And for first gen Asian immigrants,
that is really not something that we're taught to do. Right, exactly we are so it is so narrowly prescribed lawyer, doctor, scholar, engineer, right, And if you want to stray from this path, it's very, very difficult. And I understand it now as a mother, but also looking at my parents and thinking of the sacrifices that they made as immigrants, leaving everything they knew
behind and coming to Canada. In my case, they don't really want to hear me say I want to be a sculptor, right, because in their mind they're like, well, that we didn't leave everything we know and we love so that you could go do this profession that we see as kind of unsafe in a way.
Right. Are you the only child or do.
You have an older brother of an older brother?
Did he follow the family?
Did he did?
But he's also extremely passionate about it. My brothers. He saw Chang. He's a tenured English professor at Vassar. He's the tense, smartest people I know, and that's his passion. So French Lit was my passion until I heard the message and I went.
On a second.
Yeah, I was curious about how French Lit became your passion. I was reading about that and I was like, is it Canada?
Yeah?
Right, yeah, but that that still doesn't mean it that becomes your passion to study in college and speak it fluently because.
You are well. What I will say is that I'm fluent in speaking English with a French accent, which is far more interesting and much more fun. You know. I grew up in a family of academics. My father, god Rest the Soul, was a mathematician, you know. Again, my brother became a professor. My mother was a librarian. So I grew up in a household where everybody was reading, you know, and my parents were reading the classics in English,
which I think is extraordinary. And again, because it was just always assumed that I would follow suit, it didn't occur to me to think outside of that paradigm.
So that was the suit, that was that was within the suit, right, so now do they understand, Well, I know your father isn't with us anymore, but your mom does. She noticed you're a pioneer because like you said, you you said you want the first Asian woman in hip hop. That's a pioneer because they are a lot now.
I wonder not a lot, But I don't think my mother would describe as a pioneer. And to be honest with you, did you give your mom this jacket?
Yes? Wear it?
No for thirty two years up until right now when she can actually tell her friends that her daughter wrote a book. My mother couldn't tell you what I did. There's no way, Like she wouldn't understand what it means, Like what does it mean to do A and R? My mother was born in North Korea nineteen thirty two. You know what I'm saying, Like, she's not because she needs.
The guys, like, but it was the moment when she met she.
Did and they were all really gracious and she Yeah, she met a bunch of the artists that I managed.
Yeah, dude, Like I know, people don't understand.
They kind of collectively eye roll whenever whenever I mentioned that. It took me two albums to tell my dad that I was in the roots.
What.
Yeah, but it's that that fear of wanting to disappoint your parents or not wanting to disappoint your parents. And you know, like my dad was busting his ass since I was five to.
Play in private school, yes, like to go his route, yes.
And so for you to like sneak out of it to do something you want to do is hard. So like, when did you well, First of all, Vancouver, what was the environment like before I know that you come to Jesus moment was hearing the message by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, But before then, what was your life generally like in Vancouver?
So it was very comfortable. You know, Vancouver is beautiful and it's green and lovely. Again middle class went to public schools. But I was very much a yellow girl in a white world who wanted to be white, no question. I was born in nineteen sixty five, and so when I'm ten, right, and I'm coming of age, so to speak, everything I see in the media, whether it's television, film, commercials, or magazines is whiteness. Every representation of beauty and power
and sex appeal is white. And so I wanted to be white and to be frank, I kind of wonder, how does a person of color growing up in that, yeah, not want to be white? Right? And as I shared this story, I've had so many people say to me, I felt the exact same way. And so I was, you know, I'm watching these shows and these movies, and I, yeah, it was. You know, I grew up getting called chink jap gook for sure. I got you know, Chinese, Japanese
dirty knees. Look at these all of that stuff, because racism then was just simply not as codified, and so kids would be in your face. And the thing that I learned very early on too, was you're learning this from somewhere right right, And you're probably learning some of
it from your parents. Maybe they're not teaching you that charming little song, but they are somehow instilling in you, or rather not instilling in you, the the you know, the virtue that you shouldn't be a shitty person and judge people by, you know, and make prejudgments about somebody based on their skin.
So you were just in an isolated community.
You weren't and you weren't amongst like your family, and there was never I'll get my cousin's fuck you up or yeah.
No, it wasn't. It wasn't really like that. We weren't that isolated because my parents were part of a burgeoning Korean community, but we were all immigrants. Everybody's parents spoke with accents, right, We all ate food that looked and smelled and tasted different. All of our parents had quote
unquote funny names. So there were all of these things, all of these markers that clearly indicated that we were other, right, And the world never stopped telling us that we were other, whether it was making fun of my parents' names again, saying something about our food. Thank you white people for now acknowledging in the kimchies is superfood, and that you think you involved, you think you had invented bone broth.
I don't think so. You know, all of the all of these things that kind of diminished, right, who who we were. And you know, I've been thinking a lot lately about visibility and erasure, right, And I think that any of us who live on the margins understand what it is like to be systematically and institutionally erased, and so in kind of denying my parents' history, their heritage, their culture, and making fun of it. To me, you
are diminishing and you are erasing them. And I certainly I didn't have this language when I was a child, but I really felt that I was that I would. You know, in making somebody feel other, you are necessarily making them feel lesser.
I see, was Sophia your birthday or was it at.
That's a good question.
No.
So everybody in my extended family has a Korean name. I was the first person in my family born outside of Korea, and my father chose to name me after a Polish mathematician. And that was a conscious decision on his part.
Okay, yeah, I see.
So not many people know this about Vancouver, besides having one of the best, most adventurous ice cream polos of all time. Shout out to La Casa Gelato over five hundred flavors.
They didn't pay for that plug.
Sorry, but you know, not many people know that the national anthem of hip hop was created in Vancouver in mushroom studios. The incredible bongo bands Apache was actually created in mushroom studios in Vancouver.
Holy shit, I didn't know that. That's amazing in mushroom studios, that's amazing.
More you know.
So yeah, So for me, it's not shocking at all that your passion for hip hop culture because I'm sure that you know people Vancouver, how did you find that moment? But you know, the national anthem of hip hop was was born. So tell us about that moment where you heard the message, and I you know, for a lot of us that were around in real time, like, the
message was definitely one of the besides rappers delight. To me, the message was one of the first what I call war the world's moment where you stare at the speaker and you're undering, what the hell is this?
Like?
What was that experience like for you? And how did that transform you?
I want to talk about that, and then I want to ask you about your experience. I'd be very curious to hear about your experience the first time you heard it too. So for me, you know, all I'm seeing around me is whiteness, and then I'm seeing yellowness because there are Asian immigrants there. There are lots of Chinese and Vancouver, and then there are some brown folks meaning South Asians, right, But I have no exposure to black
folks and Latin X folks. And again all of the representations of people of color are coming through the media, and that at the time and still largely is the case, is who the white male lens now? And I also wasn't because I grew up in Vancouver. I'm listening to top forty radio. I am listening to white music. I have no exposure to this remarkably robust and rich tradition of gospel, R and B jazz, none of that. I'm not exposed to any of it. So when I hear
the message, I'm in twelfth grade. There's this kid, Ray, this Greek kid. He loved music, and he brings this twelve inch record to school. We're in the lunch room. We're in this music room at lunchtime, and he puts on the record. Now, the thing that I always loved was dancing, and so but I listened to disco. Actually,
to be fair, I always love dancing. And so immediately the beat hits me in the solar plexus, right, So I have a viscial response, and then I hear the lyrics and I just think, I don't even know what I was thinking, but I remember I found it so compelling, and in retrospect, when I think about it. I think it's because it's the first time. And again I didn't
I certainly didn't have this language. It's sixteen seventeen that I heard people of color talk about themselves and represent their own world as opposed to white Hollywood saying, this is what brown people, yellow people, black folks.
Do, right.
And also there was a sense of urgency and anger and pride that resonated with me really deeply, because again, being a yellow girl growing up in a white world who wants to be white, I didn't feel pride. I felt shame and embarrassment, right, And so I hear the message and then I think wow. And also I'm a French major, so I'm a literature major, and I studied poetry, and I knew it was poetry. There was no part of me that was I don't understand what people don't
think it's poetry. I think it's poetry, and I think it's literature. And then I see the run DMC video for King of Rock. So I've only heard the message, and then I see King of Rock and I'm.
Like, oh, oh my god, right, you know arms rocks, you know, and just exactly the bee boy stance and just this claiming of me, and this is who I.
Am, and I will not let anybody else define me, nor will I let anybody else tell you who I am. I'm fucking telling you who I am. That was revelatory. But I'd love to ask you because the message is the first song that I heard, right, certainly not the first hip hop song that you heard. What struck you as being different about it?
About the message? All right?
So up until that point, of course, like I was eight when rappers Ali came out, so that was just what the hell is this? And the second time I had that moment was not Many people will write about the Adventures of grand Master Flash and the Furious the Ventures a grand Master Flash on the Wheels of Steel basically the first record that demonstrates cutting. So I'm trying to decipher how this noise is made? And can I do this on my dad's think, oh, you know, whippons and all that shit.
So but with the message stop scratching my isa K records, right, I would say that.
Sitting in my dad's car and it came on the radio and even he had to take a pause, like, but everything in that song hit me because I didn't know none of what none of those street terms were.
I didn't know what a pimp was.
Like my six year old cousin had to tell eleven year old me, Like I was like, she had to get a pip like last night and the pips.
She couldn't make it on her own.
Yeah, but literally everything like you know, if the front of the train, I'm like, wait, they're pushing people on the train.
Platforms and midnight train and Georgia platform But to me, to me, the last minute of that song when they got arrested, Yo, that's scared the shit out me.
And then that's that was That was a moment where I feel like the first father and son talk really happened, where my dad told me like, you know, that could be you, that that might be your cousins, that could be the boys on the forty ninth Street.
And just the whole Like.
You know, my first lecture about police came because of that song. I was like, wait, why are they getting arrested? And what's what's going on here?
Like you don't remember the ending? Like what is that a game? Getting the car? Getting a car? I didn't do.
Nothing, Like I wasn't old enough to understand when Stevie Wonder did that on Living for the City. But hearing that that definitely, I'll say the last minute of the message was such just a paradigm shift in my life. That's where I was taught, taught fear the police and whatever you do, like straight up and you know all that stuff. So yeah, that that affected me in ways that I can't even imagine.
Definitely my father.
They impacted people. I really hope they know how they impacted different.
Yeah, them all the time when you know, whenever I see them, how that is?
That's that's amazing. Thank you for sharing.
It really seems like from so many of the interviews that we've done here that the message is like the the equivalent of the Beatles uh Ed Sullivan performance. You know, the people who saw that or people who heard that that's when their life changed.
Well, I mean Ed Sullivan in that way, I mean TV.
I mean the way viral viralness is now with YouTube. Like everyone watched The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday nights at nine pm on CBS. So if you had the platform of being on The Ed Sullivan Show, your career was made. And the Beatles made their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, and everything changed.
After that, Like you think my parents was watching that?
Did they have a television?
Yeah?
Were they born? You just won't be difficult, don't you?
Like, No, I just don't think. I just I don't think that that was forever. Well.
I mean, here's the thing, my relationship with the Beatles.
Steve, I was just saying no, no, no, Actually, I'm.
Kind of with you my relationship with the Beatles. Actually, I knew all the black artists who covered the Beatles before I even got into the Beatles. So it took a lot of unpacking at the age of fifteen and realized, like, oh, Gladys Knight and the Pips didn't do that song first, and Bill Withers didn't do this song first, and wait, Stevie Wonder didn't.
Do we Out and not for nothing, our households were different in a way. That's like my I asked my mom, you wasn't.
At what stock?
She was like, girl, what the fuck?
No, No, I get it.
But I mean the Beatles definitely impacted a lot of music lovers, not just their their target demographic, but you know, you were even if you were black, you were watching at Sullivan's show. So, how when did you make your move to America?
Like I was, I was twenty two and I was literally writing out my graduating essay and I went straight to the airport. I skipped graduation. We were just talking Bill and I were just talking about this. I was so anxious to get back to New York. So I have to I have to give a little bit of context. So as a French major, first of all, living in Vancouver, I knew I wanted to break out of Vancouver, and as a French major, maybe she'll see right. Of course,
it's three pairs. And then I went to Paris and I met the French and I was like, oh no, I'm not doing this. And then in my final year of college, I came to New York and I met Joey Ramone. I thought he was Johnny. I called him Johnny Joey God rest his soul. And I had I had heard the message. I had visited New York and I knew, okay, this is where I want to be. As a French would say, I was like a like
a fish to water. So when I moved here, I stayed with a legendary rock critical named Legs McNeil and his girlfriend, and they introduced me that she got me a job working at Paul Simon and then I kind of in eighty seven and then I exactly on the you're so scold, you really are like this. How do you keep it on your head? Yeah, so it was he's coming off of the world wide Graceland tour.
So do you have a regular job during this time? I'm trying to figure out you said.
So, my regular job is I'm the distant to his tour managers, coming off of.
Grade before Paul time.
And like, how you I think I might like, I had a little job working at a studio. But also at that time, yeah, New York was not as expensive. Okay when me and my friends talked. So this is in the late eighties, early nineties, right when me and my friends talk about it. Where we lived in that time, none of us could afford to live there now, no fucking way we're part of So I was living well.
I lived on the Upper West Side with Columbia students for a while, but then I lived downtown at fourteenth and seventh, and then I lived at the Archives, which is this really beautiful white glove building. Elevator Doorman Building in the West Village. Not a shot. Could I afford to live there now? Not a shot. I mean when I was when I was coming up, nobody lived nobody lived in Brooklyn, Sure as fuck, nobody lived in Queens.
And now all of my friends live in Brooklyn and Queens because we can't afford Manhattan anymore, like nobody can afford the city anymore.
So I can't afford the apartment. I moved to Brooklyn in two thousand and two.
Yeah, that apartment, it's really tough. But there were also three of us living in a three hundred and sixty square foot studio. But we were like in our early twenties, and who gives a shit, it was probably like one hundred dollars.
What was the environment like back then, because it's I would imagine that mid late eighties was more that was post danceitaria. So that's the first era of Downtown New York scene. So what was the scene into So.
What was really amazing about the scene at the time was that it was really small and I'm not going to say insular, because it wasn't insular. It was small and it was focused, but it was also very inclusive and we were all at the same clubs. So you had DJ's, MC graph, artists, be boys all there. But you also had managers, A and R, publicist, agents, attorneys.
I mean, you had every single sector of the industry there, because in nineteen eighty seven hip hop is still a relatively nascent industry, okay, right, and so and again it's localized and it's centralized. And you had DJs like Red Alert, you know, and we would go anywhere where Red was spinning. You had Clark spinning. We would go anywhere that Clark was spinning. So there were there were different clubs. There was a there was a moving club called there was
pay Day, and it was these three promoters. It was Chuck Beaver and Patrick Marxy and they would they would move around and they started to name so they named the clubs after chocolate bars. So there was pay Day.
There was one.
Hundred grand I know, and right, so they were named after a bunch of chocolate bars. And they could roam. Now this was at a time where you could do this. No way could you do this now, not a shot, right, Like I lived down in the Lower East Side, and I'm pretty sure that one of the clubs that I went to back in the day was housed in one of the high schools, like they rented out high school auditoriums, they rented out abandoned like Chinese restaurants and stuff like that.
And it was so amazing because again this is before the internet. There's nowhere out yeah, and we would they would, they would hand out flyers and then we would just all call each other and leave messages on each other's answering machines, google it, and we would, you know, we would just make sure that we were all there and there was a feeling of community because we were all there for the music. This is where records were broken. Clark Kent single handedly broke Color me bads, I want
to sex you up, sex you up. I remember being there. I think it was actually Ditty's house. When Puffy had a club over here on fifty four Street, and you know, none of us had heard the song. Literally, none of us had heard the song. He had a white label and the opening strains come on, and you know, you're on the dance when you're dancing, and then you just stop because you don't know the record, and the record came on and then and then the bee came in
and we were like, oh shit. And years later, at twenty fourteen at Universal, I was in the in an A and R doing A and R admin at Island. Sam, who was one of the members of Color Me Bad, said that they were in the club that night and that was the first time they heard their record played.
Sam, was that George Michael Vanilla James or the Kenny G Kenny G.
How did you know? Because I used to be a Color Me Bad fan. I got the two.
Albums broke, Yeah, two albums, little bit.
I didn't even know the Time and Chance was the second one.
Oh that was my joy.
So they So it was a really really close It was a really really close knit community. And you know, it was such a privileged.
To make me feel bad for like coloring Wait, time out? Wait what side new? Do you know?
Right right before a Fat Cat on Fantastic Body whin, they're doing Time and Chance.
They talk about time and Chance, right, all right? Good? But it was we were a rabbit.
But it's this beautiful community and I was welcomed into the community and I was embraced and I'm really grateful for that. And that was a privilege because hip hop was obviously was not of my making, you know, it was not my world. And yet hip hop was like, come in so and you know the first people were Crazy Legs and DJ Scratch brilliant at the New Music Seminar. Yeah, Legs has the store where he's like, I'll never forget
the first time I saw you. I was looking across, going, who is that little Asian woman that knows all the words of brand Nubian stepped to the rear.
Oh shit, right, So you were there, like I'll say, in the early nineties and not oh see, that's the era are the era that people mostly tell us about this show is like Latin Quarter and all that stuff, but kind of that SOBS period. I don't hear a lot about, so I don't always wondered.
L Q and all that predated me. For sure. I never went to Latin Quarter. I never went to dance Aetyria. Most of my friends all certainly my friends grew up in New York did so. But you know the other thing that's interesting about that era is that so you have these small roaming clubs, right, but you also have mega clubs and they're all gone. Palladium.
It's a dorm, tunnel, tunnel.
Right the tunnel, limelight, these places were you dare go to the tunnel?
Yeah? I did.
I did at a certain point, though I stopped because I think Chris Lighty, God Restless Soul. I think Lighty was like, don't come self. It is like, don't come?
Can I ask you a question?
I don't know if this is uncomfortable, but I'm just as I'm listening, because you are to me a pioneer in ways, because you were in the club, you knew all the lyrics and stuff like that. How did you navigate around the N word? And how did you realize that that was like a hot button because you're from Vancouver and there weren't we weren't around to be like, well this ain't cool and this is cool.
And because even before hip hop, I grew up knowing that even though I was called chink, jap and gook, I knew that the N words it's used against people the way that those words were used against me. So even if it's in the lyrics and my favorite artists are saying it, it never felt right to me.
Ever, because I do know it's that weird thing where it has been made it's different than most slurs because it has been made cool in a way.
So that's why I was.
Like, and others have issues dealing with that, like I don't get it.
It's so cool to say.
Yeah, I yeah, I yeah.
I can't yeah.
So what was your first inside industry job as far as hip hop is concerned?
Where did you first?
It was the job doing A and R at jive? So I met the Captain A K. Shawn Karasov God Rest his soul. He was doing A and R jive. He signed a troupal quest and he said, I'm moving to the West Coast because at the time, the West Coast was had a burgeoning hip hop scene. Right he said, Sealthie, I'm moving to I'm moving to Wila. I think you
should interview for my job. So I interviewed for his job with Barry Weiss, very very very smart president of Drive Records, and Barry gave me the job, although he did tell me he said the second I walked in the door, he went, oh, she'll never get the job.
What what is Barry like? I meet many people that work with him. What is he like as because really, I mean Barry was to me he was almost deaf Jam before death Jam, because he's the one that signed like Philly artists like Shell, took the entire Powart label and made it his own and all that stuff. Before you know, Russell and Rick got established him.
What was he like? Just Barry?
I think I believe Barry is a Cornell grad. Barry is also the son of High Weiss, and High was also in the music business. And Barry is so smart, so smart. You know, you're in rooms with people and as soon as they start talking, you go, oh, holy sh you're so smart. He is also one of the funniest people I know. Like literally, if Barry was sitting here, in thirty seconds, he could add me laughing. He did incredible impersonations. He was amazing as a boss. He could
be pretty exacting. And you know Barry, So, there were all these trades back in the day. There's Billboard, but then there's Gavin, there's R and R, there's FMQB. There are all these trades, and all of these trades, many of them have local record sales reports, right, Barry would go through every single one and if he saw that an artist sold fifty copies of a cassette in Kansas. He'd be like, call that person. So you're absolutely right. I mean Barry signed Short, I mean not Barry, but
you know Jive signed Short. Yeah, they signed Spice one. You know, they had their tentacles out really far. And I think that was Barry's vision to understand really early on that hip hop would expand far beyond New York. So I loved working for Barry. I learned so much.
Who did you what artists were you under? Did you sign anybody a job? Doing your terrain?
I signed foh Nickens, Casual Souls and Mischief. I signed an amazing artist named Miss Kilo from the West Coast. Unfortunately I left and that that didn't ever happen. So those are the artists that I said, yes, oh what a memory, Oh my god, you're in the safe place. And then I worked with Tribe and karras One and UGK and you know a bunch of other I mean, they had an amazing roster.
How did you guys? All right?
So speaking of UGK, you know kind of the globalization or no that not the globalization, for I guess hip hop really going nationalization? How how are you guys able to because even before Depthtam again, you guys were first and going to other terries, not New York, signing artists first with Philly with Jeff and Will and Steady being Schooley, and then expanding out. So what was it about you? UGK and Spice one and well too short? And it wasn't Volume ten also no, no, he was on RCA proper.
But what was it about those artists? Especially with UGK?
I think, for I didn't sign any of those, I can't take credit for signing any of them, but I think a lot of it was, like I said, I think a lot of it was seeing sales figures. I think a lot of it was understanding that. But it couldn't be that alone, right, So then we get in, We get an indication that there is a buzz around a certain artist, and I would literally call a record store and say, so, you have this artist name so and so, how is he selling? How is she selling?
It was always a hea though, how is he selling? And then whoever was running the local record store would give me a sense of what was going on there, and if it sounded promising, I would then say can you please put me in touch with his manager? And then it would kind of go from there. But UGK, how did YOUGK come to us? I don't remember, but everybody had it couldn't It couldn't simply be data, which is different from now because a lot of artists, I
think now can get signed purely off of data. It was data driven, but then it was also talent, you know, and you know there was something so unique god Ress's soul, pimpsy, about pimp and about bun and about what they were presenting. Now we had the ghetto boys from Texas as well, right, But UGK, I don't know. I just remember the first time I heard them they felt really new and fresh, but dirty and grime in a way that I really appreciated, you know, So it was probably a combination of the two.
Well, this is would I always ask an arts when they come on the show. Can you name three acts that got away that you really that you had a chance to sign, or that you had like the sort of buzz on before they got became a thing and they went elsewhere.
Well, everybody's going to tell you Wu tang because we all had the demo, but there's no way I was going to be able to sign them. Dos effects were at my house four days a week and didn't get to sign them. Yeah, House of Pain. I was friends with Mugs from back in the Cypress Hill days Wu Tang Grave Diggers. I wanted to sign and wasn't able to sign. But the funny thing about the House of Pain story is that again I was friends with Mugs
and I had the demo. And now the thing that was really frustrating to Clive Calder, the owner of Jive Records, was that Dots Effects and House of Pain went pop. Now before summertime, none of Jive's hip hop artists went pop, right, I think that, Oh my god, what's that little boy group? They did a song it was five Little Boys. Oh, I'm bugging that. I'm not remembering. Anyway, they had a song about kiss and that was the first, I feel like that was the first number one Billboard song for
oh five, the Kissing Game. So it really got under Clive's skin that I wanted to sign Dos Effects and I wanted to sign House of Pain and they were they were big pop hits. And so after House of Pain, after Jump Around came out, he said, you know he's South African. Sophia come down to my office. Do you do you still have the House of Pain demo? And I said yeah, And so in his mind, when I
played the demo, the you know, the noise. I always say that Mugs was kind of the the the the next generation of the Bomb Squad bringing the noise that that he he was convinced that when I played him the demo original demo, that that sound wasn't in the demo, but it was. And in fact, when I.
That's not it, it is it is? It is not all right?
We will have again, we will have arguments, all right, So the big debate is.
Here's the deal. So that's not Prince's voice. Is Rosie Wan's. We've been having that. I didn't know that. I didn't know what. Okay, so Muggs and them keep saying that it's Junior walking the All Star but I when distorted.
And so we will.
They're saying that it's Junior walking the All Stars. I forget the name of the song, but okay, I'm still maintaining that it's Prince's get Off intro.
So essentially, when I went back to So, I played it for Clive and he was like, oh damn it. And when I went back to mugs. I said, how close is this to the version, the demo version to the one that got on the radio, And he said, it's the version that got on the radio. There's virtually no distance between.
So you're saying that if they lost the yelp scream all right, horn line, that you guys would have signed it, Like that.
Was going to scare you know what he said? What Clive was saying was and he when House of Pain went jump Around became a big pop hit, he was so frustrated that he hadn't let me sign it. And he said, Sophia, when you play me the demo, that sound was not in them. You see what I'm saying. So it was like, do you still.
Have made a difference? That is funny.
So wait, at this point, had you started the relationship?
Will will yet?
No?
Okay, that's why you said you summer ninety three?
Ok So okay, Well that is weird of all, the label like Jive was just not a label that signed any member of the WOU like not even inspected deck.
So my guess is they were too expensive, really, I guess, Yeah, neither did Tommy Boy.
Yeah they already messed up with Yeah, but they had they.
Had a chance, right, right, So that's difference. I'm sorry, I'm just catching up.
On budget wise. Budget wise, Jive really.
Didn't have a they were we were. We were a scrappy little independent and we were we had to be really competitive in other ways.
That is so weird because I, at least with the look of it and the ads that you guys purchased and the artist that you represent it, I was always I never looked at you guys as a Tommy Boy underling or even a rough house boutique label, like I considered you guys absolutely super major.
No, I think that we were. I think we were major, major players. But that had to do with the fact that everything else other than big advances compensated for that, right, So I'm I was competing for hieroglyphics. That was a competitive deal. Well, I can't offer as much as a major label can, but what can I offer. We'll look at our roster, right, And what people need to know
is that talent can be an amazing talent magnet. So when we can talk about the fact, so those boys are from the Bay, they're from the East Oakland, and we have Spice one and we have too short and we have pooh right, and so they So there is also thinking about who your label mates are going to be, and that's how we were. That's how we were able to be competitive. But it wasn't by spending a ton of money.
I see.
Wait, I got to ask, since you're associated with him, what what effect do you think that that battle with Safir had on their momentum? Uh Solz Mischief did a infamous battle against Sofia in on Bay Area radio, and.
All I know is that that's all we listen to.
To me was the equivalent of if you watch kill Bill when oh my god, I.
Was just gonna I'm so bizarre with Lucy.
Lou Yes, well, no, no, no, I mean both battles. But actually I was thinking of when when Uma Thurman just took out the crazy eighty eight.
The yeah, taken out.
That's what I wouldn't say taken out, but I will say that Sophir just one like it's for them, and they had.
Casual so it was like really eight of.
Them versus one of him, and he just took them all one by one and we just never I know that that had an effect on Tarik Treek was like I have to be that good where I can take out ten mcs or that sort of thing.
But I mean, did that do you think that affected their.
Momentum and their or yeah, their confidence at all or was it just like whatever?
Ah, if it did, I didn't see any sign of that. And also, you know, being around those guys, you know kung fu, we say sharpen your blade every day and at the time when I was around them and they're sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old, right, they sharpened their blades all day every day. I mean, to be around them was to hear them freestyle more than you would hear them talk. So, yes, is there this epic battle and you know Sophie is
is dominant. Absolutely, But I don't think that made them kind of shrink and go, oh my god, where we're not good anymore? To this day, I don't think that they that they have any doubt as to as to their skills.
Real okay, oh they're still going strong. Yeah, And I kind of wish Opio didn't cut his hair.
From it again, say it again, that was like when he.
Cut his hair. I was just like, man, they lost their angle like.
And me because I was like where's he at?
I can't want is he now?
Which one is he? For real? I was like, Opio, come on, dude, like.
He did a beautiful hair.
He did go on all right.
So I'll admit when I first saw Protect your Neck, that was a little too low budget for me.
I saw it.
No, No, you know, I've seen it on like a local like we had our own local uh aj Shine from w KDU and and Philly had his own like show of the avenue on Jacksonell University and he would show it and it was just like, ah, this is so cheap.
I mean, I got it though, but.
I kind of feel like people have recontextualized and and sort of the way that people will talk about Princess Dirty Mind. Like I was there at the beginning like that sort of thing. I was like, where you really so for you with the with the early Wu tang, like you were truly aboard and you knew that.
This was going to be a thing. Yeah.
And I also think that there's a little bit of civic pride going on there because simultaneously, if I remember correctly, the West coast was on the come up, oh no, and so there was a sense of like New York, New York. We got this shit, right, yeah, like we you know it's from That's right. And then you have nine guns and they're from Staten Island, and you're like,
how could it? Does anybody care about Staten Island? And they and they did this thing, and I think that it wasn't Look you could talk about Rizzz Beats all day long, and I remember what it felt like to me was I think it impacted me on so many
different levels. So at that point, I'm considering myself a proud New Yorker, even even though I've been there for less here for less than a decade, but it was so New York, right, Like I feel like Rizzes beats and he describes them as grimy were this really unflinching look at the dirty underbelly of the city, and I and then and then you have their rhymes and he somehow Harness's nine guys on what we used to call a posse track.
Right.
So now, if we made that record, you would fly somebody the beat and they'd send you their eight or their sixteen. Right. But back in the day, they were all in the studio, they're all sleeping on Rizz's floor in Staten Island, right, and so you have this kind of you have this osmosis happening, and it just felt huge. That's how it felt. It felt in terms of volume of how many MC's there were, but also the fact that I'd never heard beats like Rizzes before. I was like,
oh shit, what is he doing? And I am far from the musicologist you are, and I could never deconstruct it the way that you can.
But the A and R and you wasn't thinking like I would think that, Yeah, A and rs are thinking fight or flight. I gotta find the next big thing to keep justify my job in my position, So my first thought would be, oh, this is way too low.
Fight like this go on radio? Right?
Oh like that your your inner A and R wasn't already tainted and taking over your consciousness?
Well what the What tainted it was the deal that they asked for. So none of us could sign Wu Tang Klan right, right, So it was already off the table. But it in the same way that the message hit me viscerally. It hit me viscerally, and remember I met them really soon thereafter, So it is one thing to hear the record. It is another thing to see that really grainy, g low fi time going five thousand dollars video where they're not even I don't even think they're
even all in that video. And then to meet them, and I think because I had the privilege of being in proximity to them really really early on before the first album came out, I it was it was really really clear to us. Certainly in New York, all of us knew like, oh, this shit's gonna blow. It's it's gonna blow. Not necessarily because we thought Protecting Neck was a commercial song. None of us thought this is like summertime, right, but it just felt like this swell uh you know.
I say in my memoir there there's this really great Victor Hugo quote which has been kind of loosely translated as something like you you can't fight an idea whose time has come and so, but literally translated is you can resist an invasion of armies. You cannot resist an invasion of ideas. But in my mind they were both. They were this army who had these incredible ideas and
that was all resist vision. Look, he couldn't have done it with that Wu Tang, but it was you know, he was the Abbott and that was his creative genius.
So was he the first member that you met? How did you start working with an organization?
And what were so heard the Wu Tang demo. Loved it. I became a wvangelist. I played it for anybody that would listen. I was like, listen, listen to my shitty little yellow walk sports walkman. Google it and then I uh and but couldn't sign them, but I was a huge fan. And then the Grave digg Is demo came across my desk, and the Grave digger Is he wasn't asking for the same non exclusive, so that was something
that I could definitely try to sign. And I arranged to meet him, and I remember like it was yesterday. I remember the weather, what I wore, what I ate, where we ate like, I remember so much about it. And in that first interaction, of course we talked about the Grave Diggas and the parameters of the deal and the creative vision, but we also talked about Wu Tang.
But you know this as well as I do. When you get a new conversation with Rizza, it's never just about music, right, And you know I've been saying for a while that to me, Rizza is the Bruce Lee of music. And when I say that, I mean that Bruce Lee was took a lot of different traditions. Bruce Lee grew up studying wing shun right, and that is a very traditional kung fu form, but he studied many other forms and then he made his own form called jikundo.
And I kind of feel like that's what Rizza did, as have many producers, like kind of take all of these and not disrespect any of them, honor them, all of these different musical and sonic traditions, and then to blend them and to make his own thing. Now again, many producers have done that. Why I call him the Bruce Lee of hip hop is because he is additionally a philosopher, and I do not I cannot think of other artists or producers that I think are true philosophers.
And this stems from an intense intellectual, cultural, and spiritual curiosity. So riz is the guy that has, like any artists, traveled the world a number of times over. But he is also the guy that doesn't go to whatever city in whatever country and whatever corner of the world and say, you know, just find me the nearest McDonald's, so I can eat food that I'm comfortable with. He will eat that food right. He will find out where is the place of prayer and where is the faith here? What
is the language, what is the culture? And he will immerse himself in that. And I think it really comes out in everything that he does now that that's expanded far beyond music. So he was the first one that I met, and I describe it as being, you know, the first time I met Riza was like going through many different chambers, and then after I met him, I met all the rest of them. And the last one that I met was dirty God rest his soul.
How is it navigating his life?
There's two people on earth that I've met, both of their tour managers with the Roots Organization, My boy Silbert when we were interviewing him, and my first question was, so, what qualifications do you have that you feel would be beneficial to us? And he said one thing he said, he says, I've been Public Enemies tour manager for the last twenty years.
Flavor Flav has never been late or missed a show. Wow.
I was like, wow, you're hired. So what is the amount of Jedi mind tricks that you have to do to keep them organized.
So I could never say that they were never late working with me at all, or that they didn't miss the show. But to talk about Dirty first, I call him Ason. I call him a you know, managing old dirty bastard could certainly seem oxymoronic, but I think that I did as good a job as anybody could look. Ason had an addictive personality, There's no doubt about it, right. He was addicted to sex, he was addicted to alcohol,
and he became addicted to drugs. But when I managed him, he didn't even smoke wheat, Like I remember him being like, wet, get that shit out of here. I hate the smell of that. So I knew him before he did drugs. But he did drink a lot, and he did love women, and so there was a lot of there was a lot of damage control, as you can imagine. But the thing that I want people to know about Ason is that he was so smart. He was he was so smart,
and he had such a creative vision. But he was also intellectually very smart, and he was really really good with people. He was so winsome and he could charm anybody when he wanted to. He was super protective of me,
and he was dead loyal. And I keep quoting my friend Julius Ono, who's a Nigerian American director who made this movie earlier this summer called Loose and it's about a transracial adoptee, and he said in a Q and A that I think that every person in this world should be granted access to the full spectrum of humanity. And I think that any of us who live on the margins are not granted access to the full spectrum of humanity. I think rappers in particular are not granted
access to the full spectrum of humanity. And so what I try to communicate in my memoir is who were these artists to me? So I am far from a Wou Tang expert. I could not tell you what sequence the albums came out, in the names of all the solo none of that that samples any of that. The only thing that I am an expert on, and I am an expert on this, it's who they are as men people to me. And I think that I have a unique lens into the wouniverse because of who I am,
but also who they allowed me to be. And how they let me come into their world, and I think that speaks volumes about them. I also managed, so I managed all three three letter members of WU, tang Od, b r z A and GZA. I managed Riza what I call his extracurricular activity. So I did not manage him as an MC and I did not manage him as a producer, but I managed him as a composer and then his beginnings his transition into Hollywood. Yes, so his first his first GID composing was ghost Dog. That
was not me. That was Nemo, who was very close. I believe he's Jim Jarmis his nephew, and Nemo brought Riza into UH to Jim, and then I kind of picked it up from there. So it was kill Bill and it was Blade and I believe it did soul Plane. So we did that stuff together, and he had already started writing and directing. But you know, the thing that I say about Rizza is he is truly living his childhood dream. So when I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a fashion designer.
I never thought that I'd be doing this and I love my life. But Riza as a child growing up one of I believe eleven children of a single mother, growing up in the projects of Staten Island in Brooklyn. He watched Kung Fu movies and he imagined and dreamt that he would one day direct. And now he's directing Kumfu movies and he is writing them and he is starring in them. And I actually don't know anybody else who had this vision. And he is truly a visionary
from when he was a child. So managing Rizza was a delight. Managing Jizsu was also incredible. I would say that Jisse was my favorite client because and you know Jizz like I do. He's incredibly low key, and he's so gracious, and he is so magnanimous, and he doesn't want to be recognized, and he doesn't want to be famous. He doesn't want to be any of those things. And
he is so kind. And I really love managing him because he allowed me to transition him into lecturing, and not every client lets you do that, right, So somebody might say I've thought about it, so but I don't really want to do it because there's this thing I do and I'm so comfortable and I've been doing it for decades and I'm getting paid and I know how to do this, whereas lecturing is very very different. You're
basically standing naked. There are no pyrotechnics, you don't have a hype man, there's no DJ, there's no lights, there's no sound, and your and your audience they're not drunk, they're not high, right, they're just all sitting there and they're looking at you, and you're standing at a podium and you are speaking. And literally the first place he
lectured was Harvard. That's the Korean in me. And literally the first words out of his mouth was were I'm so nervous, and that's jes what yeah, yeah, and you know what, the same and you know what, I did the same thing with Joey Badass and saying he said the exact same thing.
What was I'm just curious? What was just his first lecture on.
So he spoke about his love of science. You know, he is deeply intellectually curious. He spoke of his love of science. He spoke about his his inspiration and his creative process.
Can you can you talk about real quick?
In the prologue, I had a moment I had to mama where I was jealous of you in describing the relationship with Wu Tang because of a situation that happened with metha man and the god Jamal. And I was jealous because as a woman who's been in the industry for years, we all know what it's like. You know, you're telling beautiful stories, but at some points, being that
woman in the room can be adversarial. It can be dismissive, yes, and question in that moment of no protection, right, yeah, So I don't know if you want to reiterate that story, but sure Also in a way, I also wanted you to tell the the opposite of that story when it wasn't that protection ere with methad.
Man, Right. I mean, so when I when I started doing A and R, I was insecure around it. Right, I'm thinking, I'm a Korean, Canadian French lip major, and do I really deserve this job of being a gatekeeper and an arbiter of a culture? Again that is not mine? Right? And so, but the way that hip hop embraced me was really fortifying and gave me a lot more confidence,
but nothing more than when Wu Tang claimed me. So it was very very early on I might have met Meth once before I go to the studio to see them, and he says, Sophie, you got to see I just
got my video in for method man. And so he takes me to the back lounge, whisks me past everybody, takes me to the back lounge and he sits me down and he plugs in the tape and he stands on the wall, doesn't sit with me, stands against the wall to watch me because he wants to see my response to the video, and sitting next to the television facing me. So this gentleman is not watching the screen. He's looking at me as Meth is is this guy Jamal.
So the video plays and I'm super excited. I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, because I'm already in love with Meth. And so the video plays and as soon as the video ends, he looks at me and he says, where are you from? Now? Anybody, any person of color, will tell you that's a lot question. If you ask a white person that they're going to be like, oh, I'm from Columbus right or or you know my parents are whatever. But this is this is
a loaded question. So I am a petit Asian woman in the inner inner sanctum of Wu Tang, of Wu Tang's world. And it is clear to him, and I could see the calculations. It is clear to him, I'm not sleeping with any of those boys. He also knows that I don't manage any of them. At this point, I don't A and R any of them. So who is this and how did she get in? And again to this day, when I'm around Wu Tang, I am almost always the only woman in the room. And this
is a very privileged place where I sit. So he keeps and so I feign innocence, and I say, well, what are you asking me? Where are you from?
Well?
I don't really know what that means. Where are you from? And then I broke and I said, okay, Well, if you're asking where I was born, I was born in Vancouver. My parents are Korean. If you asking me where my parents are from, there from you know, Korea, if you're asking where I live. But before I could even finish answering this in this very methodical way, Meth just flew in between us.
Now.
I don't know if you've ever met him in person. He is six' four and he is notoriously the nicest with his hands of The, klan and, yeah, no, no, no oh, boy no he can they can all throw the fuck. Down, yeah But meth And ghost forget about. It so he flies in between us and she just expands like The hulk and he was, like That's Sophie chang and she's down with wu. Tag she's some shallon. Motherfucker don't you ever who the fuck are you to ask her where she's?
From don't you ever disrespect her? Again AND i was, like oh my, god my. God now nobody had ever defended me like, this AND i was just it was just this extraordinary. Moment but so the demonstration was. Amazing but to deconstruct in WHAT i THINK i want people to understand is he knew exactly what the fuck that guy was. Saying do you know What i'm? Saying he totally understood that it was there was there was a
racial subtext to, it and there was a gender subtext to. It, right he didn't give a shit WHERE i was, from because essentially he wasn't asking a. Question he was, saying what the fuck are? You and what the fuck are? You what the fuck are you doing? Here because you don't belong. HERE i belong. Here you don't belong. Here and you, know again wanting to tell people about the humanity Of Wu. Tang, Now meth has known this guy
For i'm sure a long ass. Time this might be the second or third time he's met, me and his feeling was, like, Nah, bie we're not fucking doing that because she's. Ours and WHAT i say About Wu tang is, that, LOOK i had several friendships in hip hop and enduring ones THAT i have to this day Before Wu. TANG i was embraced AND i was, welcomed But Wu tang claimed.
Me so it's a thing that you're talking about to mere Right, Like so What i'm saying is that everybody knew that they were going to be, huge and there were hordes and hordes and hordes of people surrounding, them and for whatever, reason they just went.
Like, this you're coming with.
Us we're keeping her right. Here AND i feel that way to this day THAT i will never ever leave that breast.
Pocket and CAN i get.
People right, now layah, Me Bill, Sugar steve and Other bill And fonte are claiming.
You, OH i appreciate.
That that's.
Beautiful we'll protect you CAN i also just make a point to F y because some people might be, thinking, oh she's she's The asian woman and the. Click so she's the one that brought the awareness to all the. Colleges, no can you clear? THAT?
U oh Yeah. No and first of, all WHEN i say, That I'M i was in love with math is the platonic love of my? Life, yeah because.
Yeah he's been married.
Forever, yeah and he and his Wife tamika is just this, gorgeous luminous creature THAT i. Adorre, no he's a platonic love of my. Love, no, no, no, no, no. No in, fact, no they grew up Watching Kung fu. Movies it was their. Escape but they also you, know the themes of brotherhood and loyalty and defiance and oppression really resonated with. Them and so again going back to, It i'm a White i'm a yellow girl growing up in a white. WORLD
i want to be. WHITE i come To New, YORK i get you, KNOW i get into the hip hop, world AND i understand that there's another way to be and that is proud of who you. Are and Then Wu tang embraces me and it is the first time THAT i truly see the beauty and the profundity and the power of my culture BECAUSE i see it through their. Eyes that's. Amazing because they introduced me To John wu And Chaalian. Fat, wow this is the love of my. Life this is my life and kung fu. Movies so before, that.
Before, then none of the folk you Weren't saturday, afternoons.
None of, it because it was total cultural. Denial for. Me, wow it was cultural denial and it was cultural. Rebellion and SO i start watching kung fu movies with my Girlfriend, mariam who's time when He's. American we're, like let's starty Kung. Fu so we go around and we're. Looking we're looking at all these different schools and then we hear there's
a shallon monk teaching kung. Fu and that's that's like hearing that quest love is teaching giving drum, lessons, right or it's like looking here in The Tiger woods is going to teach you golf down the. Street we're like, What so we hunt him down and we find him and that we go in, there we talk to. Him he Speaks mander and she Speaks mander and he speaks No. ENGLISH i don't Speak. Mandarin AND i go home that night AND i call my parents AND i, SAID i met the Man i'm going to marry. TODAY i knew,
empirically empirically and. Absolutely and THEN i left the music. BUSINESS i stopped managing dirty hard right out of the.
Music you said he's A shallon, monk and they, said.
They, said they were, like hang on a. Second my dad's, like hang on a. Second he looks. Up he's, Like shallon monks can. MARRY i don't know what the fuck. REFERENCE i don't know what. Reference But Bomshi, Chang god, rest his soul was right there with his crazy. Daughter and SO i leave the music. BUSINESS i HAVE i don't even think about.
IT i.
Run his name is shri Yen. MING i Run Yen ming's. Temple he's a thirty fourth Generation Shalon. Monk he has a vision that he wants to replicate The Shallon temple In. AMERICA i introduce him To Wu. Tang so THIS i. DID i introduce an Actual shalon mulk To Wu. TANG i also was the person who orchestrated and planned and produced the tour that Brought riza To Shallon. Temple and he was the first artist in fifteen hundred years to
ever perform in front Of Shallon. Temple also took him To Wu Tang mountain where the abbot Of Wu tang clan met the abbot Of Wu Tang. Mountain and SO i created those historical. Moments but had it not been For Wu Tang, CLAN i wouldn't have the two extraordinary children THAT i do right. NOW i wouldn't have an almost a twenty five year practice Of shallan kung fu THAT i did BEFORE i came. Here and that's WHY
i was so. Hungry SO i am eternally grateful To Wu tang because they brought me back to myself in the most essential and important and critical. Way and so in going back to myself again and going through these chambers with, them they know they brought me around to my own. Heritage and you know what's extraordinary is That meth said this to. Me he, said you, know in a funny, way we kind of introduced you back To asian. Culture AND i was, like how he's so ASTUTE i
HAVE I meth is like my. Son he's a he's a piss so he is super in tune with energy and he's deeply empathetic and he knew that in the same way that he knew When jamal said where are you? From he understood that this is a hostile. State this is this is not a, question it's a hostile.
Statement, wow, man that's.
Stop.
Playing of, course, Yes Method, man we want you on, this BUT i think stop. Gushing if we Get Method man booked on the, show she's gonna come dressed like.
Have you met him in?
Person mathe like once that they get.
Interviewed we gotta have method on just as head dressed up like she did for the.
Lin she has a wife And i'm just trying to Bring lenny back to the other.
Side, Anyway, mary.
And she a little older if she got.
A girlfriend a little older than you, anyway and she ain't been this coloring a long.
Time, Hello SORRY.
I was telling.
You sorry, Anyway, sophia we can talk. Forever we can talk, forever but we we have to wrap it. UP i really appreciate.
You coming on the show and and and sharing your.
Story opening the door for all My asian girlfriends who are now manager shout out Since Jennya, zuomi all My korean girlfriends shout, out And Don white like, yes doing.
It thank.
YOU i forgot my.
Man your Manager's.
ASIAN i got nine. Managers, yes, Woman, yeah what's your?
Name?
John she even taught me how to.
Drive oh my, god we taught yay taught me how to drive, anyway thank, you thank you for having. ME i was so excited for this conversation BECAUSE i was, like your mind and your historical, knowledge like that's kind of your left, brain you, know like That. Wikipedia but then there's also this, amazing insane creative challenge and, all and there just aren't that many people like. That so thank you, WELL i thank you so.
YEAH i took a.
Compliment, Guy i'm in therapy now. BREAKING i wanted to run out the door right now like Ques. No, well thank you very much for coming on the. Show ladies and, gentlemen that's another episode Of Quest Love. Supreme thank you very.
Much her audio book in The room exclusively On audible all right on to Be Having, Sugar Steve layah And Boss bill and On.
Paid bill And Fine. Diklob thank you very. Much this is another episode Of quest Pre. People see you on the next go. Round thank.
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