# Fab 5 Freddy Part 2

An episode of [The Questlove Show](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1485250501), 15 Jun 2026, 56 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/86918ee4-4aa4-497b-995a-ae32006cd4b7/cf0f5ef7-c1e2-4c66-a618-b46a0006912e/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=ee132490-ba24-4965-b558-ae32006cd4c0

The second half of Fab 5 Freddy's in-studio conversation with Questlove explores the enduring legacy of Wild Style and revisits key moments from Yo! MTV Raps. Fab shines a light on the unsung heroes of the graffiti movement and reveals how a botched audio recording shaped one of his film's most iconic sequences. The conversation also traces his role in bringing N.W.A to television, directing a classic video for Snoop Dogg, and helping develop a groundbreaking Chicago Rap group as an executive. Along the way, he reflects on the legacies of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, and discusses building a modern-day renaissance through art and cannabis advocacy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeartRadio. All right,
[0:08] Speaker 1: welcome back to the Quest Love Show.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Now.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Last week we gave you part one of my end
[0:13] Speaker 1: studio conversation with Fab five Freddy.
[0:15] Speaker 2: His memoir Everybody's Fly is out now. Now we spoke about.
[0:20] Speaker 1: Fred's Brooklyn childhood, is coming up from a family ties
[0:24] Speaker 1: with legendary figures and jazz and activism, and he schooled
[0:27] Speaker 1: me on the late nineteen seventies graffiti scene.
[0:30] Speaker 2: You haven't heard that? Check it out all right now
[0:34] Speaker 2: with part.
[0:34] Speaker 1: Two as a reminder, please please please drop us a rating.
[0:38] Speaker 2: A review, or tell a friend.
[0:40] Speaker 1: Okay, without further ado, here is Part two with Fab
[0:44] Speaker 1: five Freddy on The Quest Love Show. Of course, in
[0:51] Speaker 1: the mainstream you hear about celebrated artists. You hear, of
[0:54] Speaker 1: course Herring and Boskyat hear other names like Lee ky
[0:58] Speaker 1: On and on that. Yeah, who's the unsung hero that
[1:01] Speaker 1: just never got any flowers? Even in the age of
[1:05] Speaker 1: us celebrating all these great.
[1:08] Speaker 2: Writers like well, you know, that's a good question. I
[1:12] Speaker 2: couldn't give you a clear answer right now, because there's
[1:15] Speaker 2: been many that didn't get and that's an objective determination.
[1:21] Speaker 2: Who got what? They really deserved because when we transitioned
[1:27] Speaker 2: a charge that I led into these other spaces of people,
[1:30] Speaker 2: I can really look at our work for its esthetic
[1:33] Speaker 2: value as opposed to the criminal illegality of it, which
[1:38] Speaker 2: we've just kind of talked a bit about. But that
[1:41] Speaker 2: was the idea, is to move us into space because
[1:44] Speaker 2: for a lot of guys doing this, like I said,
[1:46] Speaker 2: were primarily teenagers, and at a point when you're eighteen
[1:49] Speaker 2: nineteen and it's like it's time for college, it's time
[1:52] Speaker 2: to grow up and be an adult, paid to pay
[1:55] Speaker 2: rent and stuff like that, it's like, you know, most
[1:58] Speaker 2: guys would grow out of it, so to speak. And
[2:02] Speaker 2: I was like, man, this is I saw some value
[2:05] Speaker 2: that really represented something a lot stronger that could transition
[2:09] Speaker 2: and could live on in that way. So understanding how
[2:12] Speaker 2: to move in the art world is the education process
[2:16] Speaker 2: that a lot of other cats didn't really grasp. There
[2:18] Speaker 2: were people that I pulled in, if you will, under
[2:21] Speaker 2: my wing, so to speak, Rammelz Futura, what we did
[2:27] Speaker 2: with Wild Style and the graffiti painters that we included,
[2:30] Speaker 2: Crash Days Pink, these guys learned quickly how to make
[2:34] Speaker 2: moves in the art world and go out and like
[2:37] Speaker 2: for themselves and know how to move in that space.
[2:40] Speaker 1: Was there ever a you know, like some artists are,
[2:45] Speaker 1: they'll get in their own way. Was there ever a
[2:47] Speaker 1: fear of like a man like the commercialization of it all?
[2:51] Speaker 2: Or there was some people In fact Zephyr, who is
[2:56] Speaker 2: a legend in the graffiti space and is in Wild
[2:59] Speaker 2: Style and plays a character a lot like how he was,
[3:03] Speaker 2: he's like a purist. So literally we have a confrontation
[3:07] Speaker 2: in the film Wild Style where he's trying to tell Lee,
[3:12] Speaker 2: whose character is Zorro, man, I'm bringing the publicity. There's
[3:17] Speaker 2: a journalist coming to cover what's going on, and we
[3:21] Speaker 2: have this confrontation where he said, no man. Later for
[3:24] Speaker 2: this chick, he wants to bring a reporter intoto the yard.
[3:28] Speaker 2: Nah man fucked that. And then classic like Q Tip
[3:31] Speaker 2: used to always laugh and people go, I go, man,
[3:35] Speaker 2: fuck this guy. I know how the publicity machine works.
[3:38] Speaker 2: You might not get the money like right now, but
[3:41] Speaker 2: you'll have money like Barry White. But it was so
[3:46] Speaker 2: cool doing that scene because what we decided to do
[3:50] Speaker 2: in Wild Style was use all the real people enrolls
[3:55] Speaker 2: comparable to what they were doing. So Zephyr This was
[3:58] Speaker 2: how he really got down. He was purists and still
[4:01] Speaker 2: is in a way. In fact, Zephyr matriculated into painting
[4:06] Speaker 2: the freight trains, which is a huge ongoing scene that
[4:12] Speaker 2: mirrors exactly what we were doing on the subways. A
[4:16] Speaker 2: great documentary if you google freight train graffiti painting that
[4:21] Speaker 2: came out of just a couple of years ago. Roger
[4:23] Speaker 2: Gassman was involved producer. He's a brother cap from behind
[4:28] Speaker 2: the Streets and I was blown away to see that
[4:33] Speaker 2: these freight trains run coast to coast. There's guys in
[4:36] Speaker 2: their fifties with families that are out still painting freight
[4:39] Speaker 2: trains and having beefs with each other. This guy in
[4:43] Speaker 2: the other state, if I catch him, I'm a whip
[4:45] Speaker 2: his ass. I'm like, holy shit, it's still going on
[4:47] Speaker 2: the same shit that I've talked about Star Wars, So
[4:49] Speaker 2: that still goes on. So but like I said, there
[4:53] Speaker 2: have been guys that didn't get but those that transitioned
[4:57] Speaker 2: into galleries somewhere a to get recognition and be able
[5:03] Speaker 2: to move on some touch galleries, but weren't able to
[5:06] Speaker 2: figure out how to navigate those spaces. So there's a
[5:10] Speaker 2: lot of guys. But what has been good is there
[5:12] Speaker 2: were legendary guys that painted the trains. Like there was
[5:15] Speaker 2: one that was a huge inspiration to me. He passed.
[5:19] Speaker 2: It was about ten years ago now Stay High one
[5:21] Speaker 2: forty nine, and this was an older brother that people
[5:25] Speaker 2: when you heard about this guy, I mean he was
[5:27] Speaker 2: one of the most prolific. He had this little stick
[5:30] Speaker 2: figure character smoking a joint that always went alongside his name.
[5:36] Speaker 2: He would make these New York City subway maps and
[5:39] Speaker 2: he would embellish them with his tag. He gave me
[5:41] Speaker 2: one of them things. Man. Literally for me, it was
[5:44] Speaker 2: like meeting Michael Jackson to kount of Stay High. He
[5:48] Speaker 2: was that huge. Phase two was another cat that was
[5:52] Speaker 2: a pivotal pioneer that then make the transition into the
[5:55] Speaker 2: art world. He was like a scholarly cat. In fact,
[5:59] Speaker 2: he was inspiration from my character in Wild Style because
[6:02] Speaker 2: I'm one of the few people literally acting. A lot
[6:04] Speaker 2: of people think I'm from the Bronx. On the strength
[6:07] Speaker 2: of me, I thought of it. Yeah, that's what because.
[6:09] Speaker 1: That it saw to me, it was almost like the
[6:11] Speaker 1: first reality show. Was there an actual script or was
[6:14] Speaker 1: it like that.
[6:14] Speaker 2: Was a semblance of a script, but because when she
[6:17] Speaker 2: got stuck in them, when her car broke down there,
[6:19] Speaker 2: that was that was sort of scripted what we said
[6:23] Speaker 2: and how it was said. We left leeway. Okay, here's
[6:27] Speaker 2: the idea, you've got to say this, but say it
[6:30] Speaker 2: how you say it. We didn't like adhere to say
[6:33] Speaker 2: every line on the page. The idea was, Okay, here's
[6:38] Speaker 2: what needs to happen in this scene, say it in
[6:41] Speaker 2: the way you would actually.
[6:42] Speaker 1: Say, like a reality show. That's how it is very much.
[6:46] Speaker 2: Like reality, which is a kind of a step son
[6:50] Speaker 2: of the documentary format, if you will. If you want
[6:52] Speaker 2: to look at the origins of the reality genre, it
[6:56] Speaker 2: grows out of the documentary kind of context, if you will.
[7:00] Speaker 2: So yeah, we did do that in wild styling. We
[7:04] Speaker 2: allowed people to have leeway and how they would say
[7:08] Speaker 2: it to keep it authentic. Hence the scene between me
[7:11] Speaker 2: and Zephyr, he's pretty much freestyling, but it's a lot
[7:14] Speaker 2: of the passion that comes down in that scene is
[7:16] Speaker 2: how he really felt, and that's what we wanted to
[7:20] Speaker 2: do and that's what we were successful doing.
[7:22] Speaker 1: You've closed the thing for me because basically, as a
[7:27] Speaker 1: soul train head, there's a moment where Don Cornelis is
[7:31] Speaker 1: interviewing Mike David Beastie Boys.
[7:33] Speaker 2: Okay, and he actually quotes that.
[7:34] Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, you know, we're just out here trying
[7:36] Speaker 1: to get money like Barry White, and the joke.
[7:41] Speaker 2: The joke didn't quite land silly, but I instantly knew, yeah,
[7:48] Speaker 2: that's wilden. I just thought very White was one of
[7:51] Speaker 2: my favorites, and it was an album where he had
[7:53] Speaker 2: like all his gold jewelry and stuff lade out on
[7:56] Speaker 2: some mink. I mean, Barry was everything.
[7:58] Speaker 1: And well, I think I know how the legend of that.
[8:00] Speaker 1: There is an episode, there's a seventy seven episode of
[8:04] Speaker 1: Soul Train in which Don actually goes offset and host
[8:08] Speaker 1: it from Barry White's crib.
[8:10] Speaker 2: Oh wow, it was like opulent and you know it's like.
[8:13] Speaker 1: Waterfalls and everything like and he performs its ecstasy.
[8:17] Speaker 2: Like in his pool. I love to see that.
[8:19] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy, and yeah, I think that's where the
[8:23] Speaker 1: myth of Barry White get money, Like it was a
[8:27] Speaker 1: complete episode of Soul Train at Barry White's mansion.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Yeah that was yeah. I just thought Barry White was
[8:33] Speaker 2: so cool, the where he was like kind of talk
[8:35] Speaker 2: singing his vibe. The whole image of him was just incredible.
[8:39] Speaker 2: His love unlimited Orchestralian. I was a big Barry White fan.
[8:42] Speaker 1: I have a Quadrillian wild style questions, but I'll look
[8:46] Speaker 1: down to a few.
[8:47] Speaker 2: Number one. Okay, let me just get this out the way.
[8:49] Speaker 1: Sure, because the flash scene seems very disconnected, because let
[8:55] Speaker 1: me not say that how hard was.
[8:58] Speaker 2: It to get flashed? It wasn't hard at all. So
[9:00] Speaker 2: let me explain what happened with getting flashed and why
[9:04] Speaker 2: wasn't there more footage? Yeah, because what happened was the
[9:07] Speaker 2: flash scene where I'm in his home as he's cutting
[9:12] Speaker 2: in his kitchen, which has now become an iconic moment.
[9:15] Speaker 2: You've seen it if you follow the culture, you've seen
[9:18] Speaker 2: it before. Yes, that literally was me. There was some
[9:22] Speaker 2: dialogue that a company that with me getting him to
[9:27] Speaker 2: bring the group to perform at what was the final
[9:32] Speaker 2: concert moment in the film. Okay, we'd film that moment
[9:37] Speaker 2: with the original flash in the Furious Vive the Cold Crush,
[9:42] Speaker 2: and we had a couple of thousand kids come out.
[9:45] Speaker 2: We screwed up the audio for that big moment, as
[9:49] Speaker 2: well as the other big performances at the Dixie Club.
[9:54] Speaker 2: We screwed up. Back then, you would record sound on
[9:57] Speaker 2: a recording device called a Nagra, and we had a
[10:00] Speaker 2: stereo NAGRAA. This was like a super heavy duty, little
[10:05] Speaker 2: real to real machine. We didn't know what the hell
[10:07] Speaker 2: we were doing. We didn't have the sound adjusted right.
[10:10] Speaker 2: We screwed up all the audio, so we had to
[10:13] Speaker 2: go and live audio. The audio was garbage. In fact,
[10:16] Speaker 2: somebody just mentioned to me and I ran it by
[10:19] Speaker 2: Charlie hey Man, you know AI AI. If we can
[10:26] Speaker 2: get some AI experts to reach out to us that
[10:29] Speaker 2: may want to help with this, because it's the restoration
[10:31] Speaker 2: of it all so that we don't haven't seen once
[10:35] Speaker 2: again there you've seen the Wild Style film, the performances
[10:39] Speaker 2: at the Dixie Club, but you see busy Bee, Double Trouble,
[10:42] Speaker 2: Cold Crush, Fantastic in a club that's the Dixie Club.
[10:47] Speaker 2: Then we have the big final jam outside at the
[10:51] Speaker 2: park the Amphitheater, the climax of the movie. We had
[10:53] Speaker 2: to reshoot all of that. So what you see now
[10:56] Speaker 2: is what we reshot because we screwed up all the
[10:59] Speaker 2: audio and we had just restage and reshoot all of
[11:02] Speaker 2: those moments because we had a big boobo in what
[11:06] Speaker 2: we did. The audio came back. This is the classic
[11:09] Speaker 2: old school where we have the Steinbeck editing. We got
[11:13] Speaker 2: the film separate, we got the audio septing. You put
[11:15] Speaker 2: it on the machine and you know, it's the old
[11:18] Speaker 2: school film editing analog, classic analog, and we put this
[11:21] Speaker 2: audio one and we couldn't believe it. Sound with shit
[11:23] Speaker 2: was like, what the hell happened? And we just totally botched.
[11:27] Speaker 2: We didn't have the machine set up right. This is
[11:30] Speaker 2: classic independent filmmaking. This is what happened, so we.
[11:33] Speaker 1: Could have seen an authentic Grandmaster Flash and the furious
[11:36] Speaker 1: fire performance of that era.
[11:38] Speaker 2: I'll never forget because by the time we reshot six
[11:43] Speaker 2: months later, how the long it was flashing, those guys
[11:47] Speaker 2: had elevated. Now they're opening for Rick James and they're
[11:50] Speaker 2: going on real R and B big tours and they
[11:55] Speaker 2: were gone, Like, we blew that moment. So using that
[11:59] Speaker 2: flash seen, we had a brilliant editor, rest in Pece
[12:02] Speaker 2: Steve Brown, who intercut that with the breakdancers, and we
[12:06] Speaker 2: just had these moments. So you know, it's somewhat disjointed
[12:10] Speaker 2: based on what the original idea was, but still when
[12:14] Speaker 2: people this is Grandmaster Flash, doing the amazing things he
[12:18] Speaker 2: did the world had not seen any of this yet,
[12:21] Speaker 2: and for most people, this is their first look at
[12:25] Speaker 2: what a DJ does and watching Flash do that. When
[12:29] Speaker 2: he spinned around, he had the classic gram Aster flash letters. Yes,
[12:33] Speaker 2: press on letters. I'm just sitting there loving it because
[12:37] Speaker 2: I mean, that was everything to see him. It was
[12:39] Speaker 2: such a mystery at that point in time. And like
[12:42] Speaker 2: I said, it was so remarkable that and I detail
[12:46] Speaker 2: all of this and how we set all this up
[12:48] Speaker 2: in the book Everybody's Fly, But it was just such
[12:50] Speaker 2: a remarkable that we got up that we were able
[12:54] Speaker 2: to pull a film out of all of this, because
[12:57] Speaker 2: it was we had some we had a few problems
[12:59] Speaker 2: here and there, as you offer.
[13:01] Speaker 1: Can you talk about the scoring of it all? Like
[13:05] Speaker 1: I'm assuming that Christine is part of the solution.
[13:08] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so what happened was I wanted to use
[13:12] Speaker 2: the original breakbeats. I mean, it was so early on
[13:14] Speaker 2: I'm really just grasping the essence of what this coach
[13:18] Speaker 2: is about. It was super underground. It were little to
[13:22] Speaker 2: know maybe Rappers D Light had maybe come out by then.
[13:25] Speaker 2: I'm like, Charlie, let's use the original music. Charlie thankfully.
[13:29] Speaker 2: It was like, no, no, no, we can't fred somebody
[13:33] Speaker 2: will eventually come for us. I was like, ah, it's okay,
[13:35] Speaker 2: I'll go and make so is that why they're not
[13:38] Speaker 2: rhyming over catch a Groove and impeach the President?
[13:40] Speaker 1: Like the original breakbeat? I always wonder. I'm like, what,
[13:43] Speaker 1: everyone has a copy of this one record, so here's
[13:46] Speaker 1: what now?
[13:46] Speaker 2: I lost classic and shit, thank you so much. So
[13:49] Speaker 2: what I did was I said, Okay, let me figure
[13:51] Speaker 2: this out. So of course I'm friends now with Christine
[13:55] Speaker 2: and me. I've met all these cool people on the
[13:57] Speaker 2: new wave post punk scene. We're all tight, and I go, okay,
[14:01] Speaker 2: I'm gonna definitely was bouncing everything off of Chris anyway,
[14:04] Speaker 2: because they were super supportive and helpful. I said, okay,
[14:08] Speaker 2: so I'm going to produce this. So I one of
[14:10] Speaker 2: the things that the Supreme Team's radio show would do
[14:13] Speaker 2: is they would have a section where they would play breaks,
[14:17] Speaker 2: and these were the real break beats that the real
[14:21] Speaker 2: hip hop, early hip hop DJ's used, So he would
[14:24] Speaker 2: play these, and I had a recording of some dope stuff.
[14:27] Speaker 2: So I got this cat named Lenny Ferrari. His actual
[14:31] Speaker 2: name was Lenny Ferraro, but we would call Lenny Ferrari,
[14:35] Speaker 2: who was a real cool cat, white cat, but he
[14:38] Speaker 2: had played for Rita Franklin. I mean he was a
[14:40] Speaker 2: dope ass drummer, So I said Lenny. I didn't really
[14:43] Speaker 2: understand how the recording process. I later learned I should
[14:45] Speaker 2: have had the bass and drums record together, but I
[14:48] Speaker 2: did the drums separate. Oh so the drums were first.
[14:51] Speaker 2: Drums are first. I know, we're figuring it, making it
[14:54] Speaker 2: up as we go along. Went to a rinky dink
[14:56] Speaker 2: studio that I'll never forget. The studio had tubes, and
[14:59] Speaker 2: I know that became my hot thing of late people
[15:01] Speaker 2: trying to recreate the quality of those early sixties seventies recording. Yes,
[15:05] Speaker 2: this two bit studio I found, which I remember was
[15:08] Speaker 2: on the same block as the Beacon Theater. I can
[15:10] Speaker 2: never remember the name of it. It was upstairs they had.
[15:14] Speaker 2: It was affordable enough. I know it wasn't twenty four
[15:17] Speaker 2: maybe a twelve track whatever, but I know the board
[15:20] Speaker 2: had tubes because I remember you look, I said, oh man,
[15:22] Speaker 2: there's there's tubes. You know. It was typical TV's old
[15:25] Speaker 2: school high fives had tubes. Anyway, I record the drums there.
[15:30] Speaker 2: Later get a buddy of mine who played bass to
[15:33] Speaker 2: lay the bass down. That's when I learned, oh, you
[15:35] Speaker 2: should do the bass and drums together. Because it was
[15:36] Speaker 2: a couple of points when they were yelling. He kind
[15:39] Speaker 2: of wasn't yelling myself. I was able to get it.
[15:41] Speaker 2: And then Chris Stein came in, brought Christen. I think
[15:45] Speaker 2: we went to another studio at the time, because Chris
[15:47] Speaker 2: would do a lot of stuff out of a studio
[15:49] Speaker 2: called blank tapes, and Chris had all these effects and
[15:53] Speaker 2: things that he could trigger from his guitar, all these
[15:57] Speaker 2: little toys that he would so I said, Chris, we
[15:59] Speaker 2: got to make them. So basically it was like the
[16:01] Speaker 2: whole idea was I'm going to make a record of
[16:03] Speaker 2: break beats. Nothing is going to be longer than a minute.
[16:06] Speaker 2: The purpose being the DJs when we film would be
[16:10] Speaker 2: able to cut pladies live as the rappers rap, and
[16:14] Speaker 2: that becomes the soundtrack, not quite the score, yeah, but whatever.
[16:18] Speaker 2: And so Chris comes in and with these ten to
[16:21] Speaker 2: twelve different little tracks, he makes up different little sounds
[16:26] Speaker 2: and plays different things. He triggers it all from his guitar,
[16:29] Speaker 2: all these little toys he had, and that's how we
[16:31] Speaker 2: create the original break beats, and down by Law becomes
[16:37] Speaker 2: the most popular among the rappers, which most people use
[16:40] Speaker 2: for performing.
[16:41] Speaker 1: At the time, were you feeling like a man, I'm
[16:44] Speaker 1: making TMU breakbeats? Like this is not the authentic what
[16:47] Speaker 1: data the real shit we need? Like at the time,
[16:49] Speaker 1: do you?
[16:50] Speaker 2: And you know? I wasn't quite feeling like that, because
[16:52] Speaker 2: once again, hip hop is at a point where very
[16:54] Speaker 2: few people understand what this is about. Is the first
[16:58] Speaker 2: rap records that come out, especially what sugar Hill and
[17:01] Speaker 2: them did, hip hop hadn't got yet. House bands playing
[17:05] Speaker 2: whatever they knew. The popular records were their kids liked
[17:08] Speaker 2: in the street. But the idea of hip hop understanding
[17:11] Speaker 2: how to recreate the grit and the dirt and the
[17:14] Speaker 2: funkiness of the sound, the patina, if you will, that
[17:18] Speaker 2: would come later people like Molly Mahr and even what
[17:23] Speaker 2: Malcolm McClaren did with the Buffalo Girls record used incorporated
[17:28] Speaker 2: all the elements in a really interesting way. But overall
[17:32] Speaker 2: that wasn't known yet. Cats were working to get to
[17:35] Speaker 2: that point. So I wasn't tripping if my main barometer
[17:40] Speaker 2: was when I So what we did was when I
[17:42] Speaker 2: finished all those records. We pressed up one hundred pieces
[17:46] Speaker 2: of vinyl, I believe at forty five speed, and I
[17:50] Speaker 2: went around and gave each of the DJ's two copies.
[17:55] Speaker 2: So that was Tony Tone and Charlie Chase from The
[17:58] Speaker 2: Cold Crush? Was it theadore just white labels? No, just
[18:03] Speaker 2: white label I judhit a couple that popped up any
[18:07] Speaker 2: originals left? Sorry, so what man? Listen? I remember meeting
[18:12] Speaker 2: DJ Mark the forty five King and every real DJ
[18:16] Speaker 2: cat wa y'all, what's up with those records? I'd be like, yo,
[18:19] Speaker 2: we got a couple months, so those all went. But
[18:22] Speaker 2: later as the nineties really kicked in, it became the
[18:26] Speaker 2: super sought after what the hell did they use? Because
[18:30] Speaker 2: everybody assumed I had sampled something. Nobody knew this story
[18:35] Speaker 2: that I'm telling you, so when I would meet guys,
[18:37] Speaker 2: I would explain it. I remember meeting Jazzy B from
[18:40] Speaker 2: Soul to Soul and they were able to grab a
[18:43] Speaker 2: couple of sections of down by Law off the soundtrack
[18:48] Speaker 2: and looped together his own kind of instrumental, if you will.
[18:52] Speaker 2: Because people became obsessed. I was blown away to learn.
[18:56] Speaker 1: That that's provided many a deep snare many and open drum,
[19:01] Speaker 1: you know God.
[19:02] Speaker 2: So that became a really fun thing. In fact, I
[19:05] Speaker 2: used on the audio book for Everybody's Fly. I used
[19:10] Speaker 2: some of the actually down by law, and I tell
[19:13] Speaker 2: the story of how we This is a story I
[19:15] Speaker 2: just shared with you how luckily because you know now
[19:19] Speaker 2: Rogers was a friend and I got now to get
[19:22] Speaker 2: us the ability to use good times in the end
[19:26] Speaker 2: at a decent rate. Okay, Marti Gras is what Flash
[19:31] Speaker 2: is actually cutting cutting but instead of yeah, he's just
[19:37] Speaker 2: Mardy Gras, Bob James. But then one of the reissues
[19:40] Speaker 2: that we did some years back, we weren't able to
[19:43] Speaker 2: get that cleared. So I had to find some guys
[19:47] Speaker 2: that came in and did a close a pretty good approximation.
[19:51] Speaker 2: It wasn't the real deal. Real heads would be like, yo,
[19:54] Speaker 2: it's not you didn't. But the recent reissue of Wild
[20:00] Speaker 2: Style that just happened, we were able to get it cleared,
[20:16] Speaker 2: he explained.
[20:17] Speaker 1: Or give me the history of making Change the Beat
[20:20] Speaker 1: twelve inch, which, of course, yeah, all uhip hop historians
[20:23] Speaker 1: know that the last second of that record has been
[20:26] Speaker 1: cut up many times.
[20:28] Speaker 2: This stuff is really fresh. Who's saying as that Bill
[20:31] Speaker 2: Lasmo is that you. For a long time I assumed
[20:34] Speaker 2: it was me because it was put together after I
[20:37] Speaker 2: had recorded, and I was always like, yeah, that was me,
[20:41] Speaker 2: because the term fresh had just really begun, and I
[20:44] Speaker 2: remember casting the Bronx was like, Yo, this is fresh.
[20:47] Speaker 2: The Fantastic Romantic popularized that term first because a part
[20:53] Speaker 2: of their routine they would go, we're fresh out the
[20:55] Speaker 2: pack and you gotta stay back. We got one Puerto
[20:58] Speaker 2: Rican and the rest are black. Being fresh out the
[21:01] Speaker 2: pack was their thing, and they just abbreviated to fresh,
[21:04] Speaker 2: and so I knew where that came from. But it
[21:07] Speaker 2: turns out that it was Bill's Laswell's manager. I think
[21:11] Speaker 2: Roger Trilling had said it goofing around in the studio.
[21:16] Speaker 2: So when they presented it to me, they were like, yo,
[21:19] Speaker 2: do you approve this? Because they tacked it on to
[21:22] Speaker 2: the B side of the record with the female that
[21:27] Speaker 2: was my French teacher, I decided to use her on
[21:29] Speaker 2: the B side as opposed to the B side being instrumental,
[21:33] Speaker 2: which was the typical thing for rap singles at the time.
[21:36] Speaker 2: She sounded great to me when she emulated mimicked me
[21:41] Speaker 2: with the rhythm. She didn't had the rhythm, but her
[21:44] Speaker 2: French was perfect, her voice was sexy. Right, what am
[21:47] Speaker 2: I going to be called? I got to come up
[21:49] Speaker 2: with a rap name. I'm like, well, you're going to
[21:51] Speaker 2: be on the B side. She was like, yep, B side,
[21:53] Speaker 2: that's it. I'm gonna call myself B side. So that's
[21:57] Speaker 2: how she was on. She would make a few other
[21:59] Speaker 2: records after that, and so basically I approved this weird
[22:04] Speaker 2: sound on the B side. Now, what makes it go
[22:08] Speaker 2: viral if you will. Back in that time was Grand
[22:12] Speaker 2: mixer DST. Now d XT was the first shit to
[22:19] Speaker 2: use it on Herbie Hancock's Rocket Bill aswell. Bill Laswell
[22:23] Speaker 2: producer like Glaswell produced that he met Herbie through our
[22:27] Speaker 2: little connection that we all connected, and Bill brings he's
[22:32] Speaker 2: trying to turn Herbie onto this. Herbie's open because working
[22:36] Speaker 2: with Miles Davis. Miles was open to working with doing
[22:39] Speaker 2: different things, you know, as he did electrifying the horn
[22:42] Speaker 2: and everything. So Herbie, coming from working with Miles, Bill
[22:46] Speaker 2: Lazo says, hey, man, here's this new thing popular. He
[22:48] Speaker 2: takes Herbie to the Roxy whatever and then they give
[22:52] Speaker 2: him the basis of that track and DXT goes crazy.
[22:57] Speaker 2: In fact, it's Herbie that said ds he's a pianist,
[23:02] Speaker 2: he's a guitarist, you're a turntableist. That term really begins
[23:07] Speaker 2: with Herbie telling DXC you're a turntableist, because he had
[23:12] Speaker 2: DXC going a tour with him or run a tour
[23:14] Speaker 2: as part of the band. Yeah, and that was the
[23:17] Speaker 2: first at that time, and so DXC uses it and
[23:22] Speaker 2: it becomes the ubiquitous example of scratching because so many
[23:28] Speaker 2: other DJs on so many other records used that sound,
[23:33] Speaker 2: which became synonymous with this idea of scratching.
[23:36] Speaker 1: And that's my record, and not once have you tried
[23:40] Speaker 1: the because literally, if you had ten dollars for every
[23:44] Speaker 1: time that shit was used, yea, you'd be a trillionaire.
[23:49] Speaker 1: It's a water, it's bread, it's just part of the fiber. Look,
[23:52] Speaker 1: it's been a blessing. I gotta get to MTV. I
[23:54] Speaker 1: gotta get I'm skipping so much. No, we must buy
[23:57] Speaker 1: the book.
[23:58] Speaker 2: No, it's a lie for you. The NWA episode, Yeah,
[24:05] Speaker 2: there's so many I have to ask you, but yeah,
[24:07] Speaker 2: that was a great one. What most people's favorite episode?
[24:11] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, like that was my first. What even made you?
[24:14] Speaker 1: Because I was resistant to them. You know, I saw
[24:17] Speaker 1: Jerry curls and whatever, like what are they doing?
[24:20] Speaker 2: Lay? Yeah?
[24:20] Speaker 1: And then I saw that episode and then we all
[24:23] Speaker 1: ran to get that out.
[24:24] Speaker 2: Like what was that? Like? Man, it was incredible, Like,
[24:27] Speaker 2: you know, we had already developed a reconnection with Easy
[24:30] Speaker 2: because he had we Want Easy and Ted Demi rest
[24:34] Speaker 2: in Peace, one of the original producers, and Easy had
[24:37] Speaker 2: developed a really close friendship and Easy was like, hey, man,
[24:43] Speaker 2: we come on out to LA and I got a
[24:46] Speaker 2: new group. I'd like, you got you know, the showcase
[24:48] Speaker 2: to group. So we One of the things was instrumental
[24:51] Speaker 2: with your MTV raps with different groups is finding a
[24:54] Speaker 2: concept to interview the group that we could show the
[24:57] Speaker 2: audience where the group's from, so we could really you know,
[25:00] Speaker 2: this is now wrap spreading around the country. And so
[25:04] Speaker 2: the idea we came up with is We're gonna rent
[25:06] Speaker 2: a flatbed truck and ride around LA. Now I've been
[25:09] Speaker 2: to LA a bunch of times, but I didn't really
[25:12] Speaker 2: go too much out of West Hollywood, and I didn't
[25:14] Speaker 2: know about Compton and the hood yet. I didn't know
[25:16] Speaker 2: that stuff. So they said, we're gonna rent his flatbed truck.
[25:20] Speaker 2: We're going to ride around with Easy in this new group.
[25:23] Speaker 2: But he said, but listen, Fab, this is the night
[25:25] Speaker 2: before he said, listen, don't wear anything red or anything blue.
[25:27] Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, Well I didn't know what
[25:29] Speaker 2: that meant. So I had a black outfit. No problem.
[25:32] Speaker 2: I show up the groups all in black and we
[25:35] Speaker 2: were at the Welcome to Compton sign. Was the first
[25:39] Speaker 2: segment of that show. I asked everybody to introduce themselves.
[25:43] Speaker 2: One of the people there, who is a great story? Now?
[25:47] Speaker 2: Who's going to be a part of the next paid
[25:49] Speaker 2: and full benefit that we I'm a part of is
[25:52] Speaker 2: the doc And I don't know who any of these
[25:55] Speaker 2: guys are except Easy. Ice Cube is in my ear
[25:58] Speaker 2: in between segments. It's asking me about g Rap. You're Fab,
[26:02] Speaker 2: what's up with g Rap? Keep in mind I haven't
[26:04] Speaker 2: listened to the album yet, so he's like, I'm like,
[26:08] Speaker 2: g Rap is cool. You know. Later, when I listened
[26:11] Speaker 2: to the record and I snatched the headphones on five times,
[26:14] Speaker 2: I can't believe what they Oh my god, he's not
[26:16] Speaker 2: gonna let this shit play. I mean, they're going stand
[26:19] Speaker 2: so edgy. But I get why Cube kept asking me
[26:22] Speaker 2: about g Rap because he was the edgiest at that
[26:26] Speaker 2: time on what would become Gangster and I said, oh,
[26:30] Speaker 2: I get it. Anyway, that goes on to blow up
[26:34] Speaker 2: and that was my introduction to really meeting NWA and
[26:38] Speaker 2: the revolutionary aspect of the game. I would later direct Snoops.
[26:42] Speaker 2: First video me and Dre crazy was that video shoot
[26:46] Speaker 2: for the first day to shoot after he performs on
[26:49] Speaker 2: the top of VIP Records when we change locations as
[26:52] Speaker 2: a near riot, so the police flew in helicopters. They
[26:55] Speaker 2: shut us down and Dre tells me, look, fab, that
[27:00] Speaker 2: was crazy. I knew Long Beach is a very crazy place,
[27:03] Speaker 2: he said, but if you can hang out, I've got
[27:05] Speaker 2: to finish Snoop's album, we will get the video done.
[27:07] Speaker 2: I ended up spending the rest of that summer with
[27:09] Speaker 2: doctor Dre at his house, really bonding with him way
[27:13] Speaker 2: until they finished the Rector. Well, we would shoot, moments
[27:17] Speaker 2: would come up and we would schedule some time to
[27:19] Speaker 2: shoot this. We would shoot that scene. It was different
[27:22] Speaker 2: pieces of the video, the whole picnic with all the
[27:26] Speaker 2: I had dog trainers and stuff. I had morphing technology
[27:31] Speaker 2: going in, so it was a lot of pieces. It
[27:33] Speaker 2: was a very complex video. That took a lot of
[27:35] Speaker 2: little elements, and in between we would Dre would let
[27:38] Speaker 2: me know, look, I'm gonna be good on this day
[27:40] Speaker 2: that there, so I schedule some pieces to the video. Sadly,
[27:46] Speaker 2: the end of that summer happened with the murder. Was
[27:49] Speaker 2: the case Snoop got charged with murder because he was
[27:52] Speaker 2: in a car when some guy got shot. Snoop wasn't
[27:54] Speaker 2: he didn't pull the trigger. But there was a whole
[27:57] Speaker 2: morphing set up. I never got to pull off of
[28:00] Speaker 2: getting his hair braided. No, there was going to be
[28:02] Speaker 2: a woman petting a dog and that was going to morph.
[28:06] Speaker 2: But anyway, I was able to get the video done.
[28:09] Speaker 2: It's called What's My Man? Introduced Snoop to the world.
[28:12] Speaker 2: And I also remember the Wu Tanger episode was craziest.
[28:15] Speaker 1: But the one episode that I think was probably the
[28:19] Speaker 1: craziest of them all was you were there when the
[28:23] Speaker 1: leaders of the news school included yeah, what so?
[28:27] Speaker 2: What happened was they literally broke up, literally implode. And
[28:31] Speaker 2: luckily this is the genius of what happened. The video
[28:35] Speaker 2: shooter the cameraman had grabbed some footage I had interviewed
[28:39] Speaker 2: them initially on the show when they first popped off,
[28:42] Speaker 2: it was a wild great show. Dink O d Charlie Brown, Buster,
[28:47] Speaker 2: they guys were incredible Today. First record came out, they
[28:50] Speaker 2: blew up in the interim period and I'm not sure
[28:54] Speaker 2: exactly what they were beefing about, but Buster has become
[28:56] Speaker 2: a star. Scenario happens. He might have guessed it on
[29:01] Speaker 2: whatever else. Buster was off in a moment. Buster was
[29:04] Speaker 2: having a moment they reconnect for this next video, next album,
[29:10] Speaker 2: and they go off to a huddle on the side,
[29:12] Speaker 2: and the huddle goes from five to fifteen to twenty
[29:15] Speaker 2: minutes and we're like, we're all waiting around. So the
[29:17] Speaker 2: cameraman grabbed a few moments of them having this huddle.
[29:22] Speaker 2: One of the moments you may have remembered seeing was
[29:26] Speaker 2: Buster turned to the camera and it says, Yo, b
[29:28] Speaker 2: please don't don't shoot this man. You know this is
[29:31] Speaker 2: you know this business. So I was like, oh, what
[29:34] Speaker 2: happened was they were doing a Yo MTV like special
[29:39] Speaker 2: and they pull that footage because the show never was shot.
[29:42] Speaker 2: Because after this huddle, Buster comes to me and says,
[29:46] Speaker 2: you're fab man. I have to apologize, man, but we're
[29:48] Speaker 2: not going to be able to shoot this, so the
[29:50] Speaker 2: beef that they were having and talking about was got
[29:54] Speaker 2: so intense. I think they literally were breaking up right
[29:58] Speaker 2: at that point. Yes, but we never had had an
[30:00] Speaker 2: actual episode that we filmed. Once again, the cameraman had
[30:04] Speaker 2: grabbed a moment and that moment completed visually telling this,
[30:10] Speaker 2: So that never came on with never because I've seen
[30:13] Speaker 2: it as an episode. It was your TV wrapped retrospective
[30:18] Speaker 2: look back, and they were able to then shape that
[30:21] Speaker 2: to tell the story. This is what happened and what
[30:24] Speaker 2: really emphasized it when when Buster looks at the camera
[30:28] Speaker 2: like he's just getting a little b roll waiting to
[30:31] Speaker 2: do something because we all there to shoot, and the
[30:34] Speaker 2: Buster turns this is na be you know, It's like
[30:37] Speaker 2: with a real serious Dowur look. The group was literally
[30:40] Speaker 2: so I.
[30:40] Speaker 1: Know, Charlie Brown says something like, you know, I'm I'm
[30:43] Speaker 1: look out for Ce brown Man, you know, I gotta look.
[30:45] Speaker 2: Out for myself or whatever, and I see Buster look
[30:47] Speaker 2: at him like and what I thought, once again without
[30:53] Speaker 2: getting confirmation, it just felt like Buster was on fire.
[30:57] Speaker 2: He clearly was getting paid for the moments he you know,
[31:01] Speaker 2: was on fire for I kind of assumed they thought
[31:04] Speaker 2: they were supposed to be a part of That is
[31:06] Speaker 2: what I just assumed in my own accord without knowing
[31:09] Speaker 2: the specifics.
[31:10] Speaker 1: All Right, So I first met you at this uh
[31:16] Speaker 1: kind of a I think it's Deanna Williams's I AM convention.
[31:19] Speaker 1: It came to DC or whatever, and you had given
[31:24] Speaker 1: us I mean, we just started, so I don't even
[31:27] Speaker 1: think you knew we were I definitely knew, but you
[31:30] Speaker 1: had these guys from Chicago with you that were.
[31:33] Speaker 2: Dressed real crazy Crucial Conflict.
[31:35] Speaker 1: Yes, and you said, I guarantee you've never seen nothing
[31:38] Speaker 1: like this before. It's almost like, I mean, now it's
[31:41] Speaker 1: like bounce, But back then we looked at him like,
[31:44] Speaker 1: what was this country rap or something? And you played, hey, yes,
[31:47] Speaker 1: hey the first time. I remember like us driving back
[31:53] Speaker 1: and mind you, we just never heard of hip hop
[31:56] Speaker 1: in that bpm before that speed wrap. The way they
[32:00] Speaker 1: was acting the video was crazy. What was your involvement
[32:03] Speaker 1: with Crucial Confce.
[32:04] Speaker 2: What happened was after having directed so many music videos,
[32:08] Speaker 2: you'd have a connection with a certain artist that you know,
[32:11] Speaker 2: we can continue this. Just like a great producer create
[32:14] Speaker 2: some good music, you'd want to continue that incredible synergistic
[32:19] Speaker 2: relationship you. Oftentimes I'd do a video I should I
[32:24] Speaker 2: felt like we should work some more, and the label
[32:26] Speaker 2: would go off and you'd see the visuals not be
[32:30] Speaker 2: up to par, and based on my judgment, I'd always
[32:33] Speaker 2: say to myself, man, I wish I could have At
[32:35] Speaker 2: one point, I wish I could have a label or
[32:38] Speaker 2: a runner label, so I could control the whole imaging
[32:40] Speaker 2: of a group video, the whole nine yards. The opportunity
[32:43] Speaker 2: came up. It was a wealthy Japanese man that had
[32:47] Speaker 2: gotten involved in this label called Palace Records. I knew
[32:50] Speaker 2: some of the people involved. They weren't going good. They
[32:53] Speaker 2: came begging for me to come in and help, and
[32:56] Speaker 2: I was like, hmm, I wasn't trying to, you know,
[32:58] Speaker 2: I mean like a creative prome, Like, wait a minute,
[33:01] Speaker 2: this could be my opportunity to direct a label and
[33:04] Speaker 2: run a label and create the whole imaging. So we
[33:07] Speaker 2: took over this label, and me and my business partner
[33:11] Speaker 2: at the time, brother named Roy Cormer, had talked about,
[33:14] Speaker 2: you know, to us, most of the country feels and
[33:18] Speaker 2: has a Southern vibe, even though they might not be
[33:20] Speaker 2: from the South, but from us New York Northeasterners. We
[33:24] Speaker 2: knew that guys that sound like that are going to
[33:26] Speaker 2: be looking for their own heroes eventually, so that was
[33:29] Speaker 2: the target to find a star artist GROUW. So you
[33:34] Speaker 2: knew that there was an underserved community. Yes, we definitely
[33:37] Speaker 2: knew because everything Dominant was from New York and also Philly,
[33:41] Speaker 2: like there was the Northeast. They all just what we wanted. No,
[33:46] Speaker 2: so when other people were trying to immulate New York,
[33:48] Speaker 2: but they weren't being who they really were. So this
[33:52] Speaker 2: demo comes across the table at Palace Records and me
[33:55] Speaker 2: and Roy lose our minds. We like, you know, what
[33:59] Speaker 2: are my hearing? We hadn't heard anything like it. Some
[34:03] Speaker 2: of their harmonies were a little bit bone thugs in harmony,
[34:06] Speaker 2: but their rhythms and everything when we connect and lean in,
[34:10] Speaker 2: they had developed their own iconography. They had this southern
[34:14] Speaker 2: western hay in the middle of the bond, the rodeo.
[34:18] Speaker 2: Their style of music, they call it giddy up. I
[34:21] Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, this is perfect. But the
[34:24] Speaker 2: surprising thing was these guys were from Chicago, so I
[34:28] Speaker 2: was always curious about Chicago and in developing and signing
[34:32] Speaker 2: and working with this group. I immersed myself in the
[34:34] Speaker 2: Chicago scene, looked into the blues history, knowing that it
[34:38] Speaker 2: was when these southern Mississippi Delta blues acts go to Chicago,
[34:43] Speaker 2: they get electricity and the electric guitar for the first time.
[34:46] Speaker 2: So I was like, this is the shit that the beatles.
[34:49] Speaker 2: I was like, let me, I need to really understand
[34:51] Speaker 2: what's going in. So I went into the rabbit hole,
[34:54] Speaker 2: signed this group and they blew the hell up. But
[34:57] Speaker 2: what was surprising is black folk folks that migrated to
[35:02] Speaker 2: Chicago in the Great Migration, those that went to the
[35:06] Speaker 2: West Side of Chicago retained a lot of their Southern flavor.
[35:11] Speaker 2: The whole energy was Southern. And the group literally told me, look, man,
[35:15] Speaker 2: we was trying to get on and the one thing
[35:18] Speaker 2: we realized we all had was a Southern country vibe.
[35:21] Speaker 2: We was like, let's just build on it. That was
[35:24] Speaker 2: the genius thing that they did.
[35:26] Speaker 1: And when that thing, it was nothing like it.
[35:29] Speaker 2: And I went to work. I did the first videos,
[35:32] Speaker 2: we imaged them, we put an independent team together, we
[35:35] Speaker 2: got a couple of gold records. We could have went
[35:37] Speaker 2: a lot further, unfortunately we did. They were literally rock stars.
[35:41] Speaker 2: There was some street shit. Unfortunately too often times is
[35:45] Speaker 2: the case that really made it all go sour. I mean,
[35:48] Speaker 2: Kanye was in this peripherals because they had a deal
[35:53] Speaker 2: and we Kanye was I think he might've been with
[35:55] Speaker 2: a group then, but we were hearing about all these
[35:57] Speaker 2: other little things that was twisted. It was there was
[36:00] Speaker 2: Oh man, it was an interesting thing around them. That
[36:06] Speaker 2: was incredible because I'm like, this is a megacity. How
[36:10] Speaker 2: come Chicago hasn't emerged with a hip hop group yet?
[36:14] Speaker 2: And it was our turn and they were ready and
[36:16] Speaker 2: we were able to have some success with them at
[36:19] Speaker 2: that point in time.
[36:32] Speaker 1: All right, So I luckily and then, as I explained earlier,
[36:35] Speaker 1: that we moved to Europe where half the people I met,
[36:42] Speaker 1: half the girls I met, Like that's how they're learning English.
[36:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, but was through through TV reps.
[36:51] Speaker 1: I've heard that story to do is what cigarettes are
[36:55] Speaker 1: to prison, while tapes of Yodam.
[36:57] Speaker 2: TV raps was literally some of my favorite stories is
[37:01] Speaker 2: hearing people share about how they viewed the show from Yeah,
[37:04] Speaker 2: I would VHS tapes, I go home and then bring
[37:08] Speaker 2: it back to Europe and it was like I was
[37:10] Speaker 2: the Internet.
[37:11] Speaker 1: So we were lucky enough to get on the last
[37:14] Speaker 1: week of the show.
[37:16] Speaker 2: But the ED and dre version, how did your TV
[37:19] Speaker 2: reps end? Like I know they may not recall, I
[37:22] Speaker 2: just want to refreshment. I'm so glad you put that up.
[37:24] Speaker 2: So it was just a whole bunch of things going on,
[37:27] Speaker 2: the videos having to be cut this out, got to
[37:31] Speaker 2: cut that out, can't wear this brand, can't wear that brand,
[37:33] Speaker 2: and that would be on the labels to have to
[37:36] Speaker 2: make these edits when the videos were already getting exposed
[37:40] Speaker 2: on other platforms, whereas we had had the free reign,
[37:43] Speaker 2: the standards and practices as you know. But you guys
[37:47] Speaker 2: had come in and did a performance and we turned
[37:50] Speaker 2: that performance into a music video that we would play.
[37:53] Speaker 2: If you may not recall that you guys had performed
[37:56] Speaker 2: in the studio from my show your TV raps, and
[38:00] Speaker 2: we filmed it two or three cameras, there's the basic
[38:03] Speaker 2: cameras in the studio and we cut I can't remember
[38:05] Speaker 2: it was from the first album, and we cut that
[38:08] Speaker 2: into a video clip that we were that we then
[38:11] Speaker 2: would air because we were so into what you guys
[38:14] Speaker 2: were doing. Even though stets A Sonic bill themselves as
[38:16] Speaker 2: a hip hop band, you guys were an actual band.
[38:19] Speaker 2: We don't say that I want to smoke Daddyo. I
[38:24] Speaker 2: mean no, Daddyo was definitely a band, but it was
[38:27] Speaker 2: like the Roar jazz group. I'm like, okay, I'll be
[38:30] Speaker 2: but you guys had a full on band. You remember that,
[38:32] Speaker 2: you know, the upright base playing the whole star of course,
[38:34] Speaker 2: and I love Daddy Yo. I directed talking all that job.
[38:37] Speaker 2: I know you this that's a son which I love.
[38:39] Speaker 2: But but you guys were great and we just loved
[38:41] Speaker 2: what you were doing. You came in with instruments and
[38:43] Speaker 2: we cut a performance you had did on the stage
[38:46] Speaker 2: into a video. Anyway, we was just huge fans. Wow,
[38:49] Speaker 2: thank you guys. Like, how did the show end? Well?
[38:53] Speaker 2: Once again? Because we kept having to edit. I guess
[38:56] Speaker 2: you know, look, I didn't want to be married to
[38:58] Speaker 2: doing it. I felt like it had it had a
[39:01] Speaker 2: good run, could have maybe could have maybe got another
[39:04] Speaker 2: year out of it, but we were getting so much competition.
[39:07] Speaker 2: It just they've just pulled the plug.
[39:10] Speaker 1: But it's weird because like when y'all ended, that's when
[39:12] Speaker 1: hip hop really became big ass business.
[39:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we kind of planted those seeds and set
[39:17] Speaker 2: the stage for it to do what it did. Look
[39:20] Speaker 2: it was a miraculous thing that happened. I detail in
[39:24] Speaker 2: the book. Peter Darty was one of the original good
[39:27] Speaker 2: friend of mine that lobbied up and down the hallways
[39:30] Speaker 2: to get this show on the air. Pitched me as
[39:33] Speaker 2: the host. I always thought that was a pie in
[39:36] Speaker 2: the sky, get out of hire, Peter, ah whatever, but
[39:39] Speaker 2: he kept at it. Ted Demi came into the mix.
[39:42] Speaker 2: He was a huge rap fan. He was campaigning along
[39:45] Speaker 2: with Peter. They gave it a shot. Ratings broke. They
[39:49] Speaker 2: thought the Nielsen machine broke. Was it debatable or like?
[39:53] Speaker 2: Was it like, we don't know this is gonna work
[39:55] Speaker 2: for we TV. Early on was following the radio playlist,
[40:00] Speaker 2: so to speak, which was pretty much segregated. Pop meant white.
[40:06] Speaker 2: They had to soul the R and B. There wasn't
[40:09] Speaker 2: even a rap chart yet. A lot of black folks
[40:12] Speaker 2: wasn't checking for rap. It was too ghetto five. It
[40:15] Speaker 2: was they were trying to move on up George Jefferson's style.
[40:18] Speaker 2: It wasn't trying to be cats holding their dick stand
[40:21] Speaker 2: on the corner looking thuggish, the Frankie Crackers the Dawn
[40:25] Speaker 2: Corner even know Frankie was a hero. These cats, I
[40:28] Speaker 2: understood that wasn't their thing. They were trying to put
[40:31] Speaker 2: the three P seed on and popped air collar and
[40:33] Speaker 2: they wasn't trying to represent that. And so but once
[40:38] Speaker 2: again MTV was following the model of radio, which was
[40:42] Speaker 2: essentially segregated, essentially structured racism, and that's what it was.
[40:48] Speaker 2: And Rick James threatened to sue and other groups made
[40:51] Speaker 2: a big stink. We all know that Michael Jackson stories.
[40:53] Speaker 2: How yetting the car threatened to pull all all the
[40:56] Speaker 2: stuff that we heard Peter lobbying. These guys really got
[41:00] Speaker 2: them to give it a go, and the numbers went
[41:02] Speaker 2: through the roof. So we had an incredible run. What
[41:05] Speaker 2: makes the run for me so significant and important, It
[41:08] Speaker 2: wasn't obviously just the fact that I was hosting, but
[41:11] Speaker 2: it was so many pivotal groups define different moles of
[41:16] Speaker 2: the culture. The first time you saw ice Cube, you know,
[41:21] Speaker 2: Nwa slick Rick, We'd go to Philly. Somebody just shot
[41:25] Speaker 2: me the link. And when I went to Philly and
[41:26] Speaker 2: did three times Jazzy Jeff, I'm getting cheese steaks, that
[41:31] Speaker 2: was we got to do that. The Gettle Boys in
[41:35] Speaker 2: Houston We got to go to Liberty City and film
[41:38] Speaker 2: when it was Luke skywalking the two live crew, so
[41:41] Speaker 2: to show that for the first time and to really
[41:44] Speaker 2: shake up the viewership of the country. Black, white, and
[41:48] Speaker 2: otherwise all tapped in at a pivotal time when those
[41:52] Speaker 2: groups all emerged. Tupac, who was on the show numerous times,
[41:56] Speaker 2: so so many people that defined the culture even to
[41:58] Speaker 2: this day. If you will, you got to first see
[42:01] Speaker 2: them along with me and also Ed and Dre on
[42:06] Speaker 2: YourTV raps. What was your favorite episode? Like what is
[42:09] Speaker 2: your Well, the NWA episode ranks high, but I feel
[42:15] Speaker 2: like an important episode. Yeah, no, it's an important episode.
[42:18] Speaker 2: But my favorite episodes because I'm a globalist, we got
[42:23] Speaker 2: to travel. A lot of people don't know that MTV
[42:25] Speaker 2: was sort of a franchise at that time. We were
[42:27] Speaker 2: the only show that was on in every other market
[42:30] Speaker 2: around the world, so that was MTV Europe, MTV Asia,
[42:33] Speaker 2: MTV Brazil. So to get to travel to those places
[42:37] Speaker 2: and film your MTV rap to be in real interviewing
[42:41] Speaker 2: hip hop acts was incredible for me because I'm like,
[42:44] Speaker 2: I can't believe I'm here doing this. To go to
[42:47] Speaker 2: Japan in the early nineties and interview hip hop, to
[42:52] Speaker 2: to find Japanese rap groups and showcase the culture there,
[42:56] Speaker 2: to go to Europe to be in England. So the
[42:59] Speaker 2: times when I went out of the country were for
[43:01] Speaker 2: me the most significant and important because I knew that
[43:05] Speaker 2: the show was being seen in Europe and just to
[43:09] Speaker 2: be to see I'm curious and fascinated. How did you
[43:13] Speaker 2: guys connect with this was a big thing for me.
[43:16] Speaker 2: What episode were you not able?
[43:19] Speaker 1: Like, surely there has to be an episode that you
[43:22] Speaker 1: thought was going to happen and didn't happen, or like.
[43:26] Speaker 2: Well, what becomes that episode is that leaders of a
[43:30] Speaker 2: leader school breakup. It was only a moment that the
[43:33] Speaker 2: cameraman caught that showcases what was happening, but it would have.
[43:39] Speaker 2: It's just one of the most incredible things that occurred. Unfortunately,
[43:44] Speaker 2: a really impactful group and Buster goes on to become
[43:48] Speaker 2: a superstar. I'm sure the other guys would have as well,
[43:51] Speaker 2: but it was just it was a lot of great moments,
[43:53] Speaker 2: I tell you. One of the greatest moments for me
[43:55] Speaker 2: early on was when the Grammys finally decided to represent
[44:00] Speaker 2: hip hop, but not to televise top episode. The episode
[44:05] Speaker 2: and So what we came up with was we're gonna
[44:07] Speaker 2: give a post Grammys boycott the Grammy party that everybody
[44:14] Speaker 2: showed up at this was the big thing, including little Richard,
[44:18] Speaker 2: including Malcolm Forbes, the billionaire owner Forbes magazine, Dennis Hopper,
[44:25] Speaker 2: a whole array of people like I couldn't believe I'm
[44:27] Speaker 2: getting the interview, these people on young TV raps in
[44:31] Speaker 2: support of this something that now you know is rappers
[44:36] Speaker 2: get the television time when the Grammys happened, But it
[44:40] Speaker 2: didn't happen at that point.
[44:41] Speaker 1: Okay, as I wind down, Yes, my final questions. Look,
[44:46] Speaker 1: I know y'all like you didn't ask about trust me.
[44:49] Speaker 1: I got Jimmy jam this and literally make this a
[44:51] Speaker 1: six hour interview.
[44:53] Speaker 2: But Jimmy jams this like a seven hour interview. I
[44:57] Speaker 2: got a day job. Though.
[44:59] Speaker 1: So as far as your artifact or your art collection,
[45:03] Speaker 1: which I'm sure now is in the Schamberg.
[45:05] Speaker 2: Has a lot of stuff, is what is what is
[45:08] Speaker 2: your not most valuable?
[45:10] Speaker 1: What is your most prized possession as an artifact collector?
[45:15] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't know if it's most prize.
[45:18] Speaker 2: I have collected and saved a bunch of stuff. What
[45:21] Speaker 2: is your art game, like I always wanted to know.
[45:23] Speaker 2: You know, listen, when you're an artist and your other
[45:26] Speaker 2: friends are artists, you typically give each other work. So
[45:29] Speaker 2: among my friends that were artists, Keith, Jean Michelle, Boskiya
[45:34] Speaker 2: Futura two thousand, Lee Kenyonis, we would give each other work.
[45:38] Speaker 2: I have work from my friends that made art. They
[45:41] Speaker 2: have work of mind. That's the greatest art collection of all.
[45:44] Speaker 2: It's not the greatest, They're not the most important pieces,
[45:48] Speaker 2: you know, but I have work and they're like mementos
[45:51] Speaker 2: from friends that you just look at as almost this
[45:55] Speaker 2: is my friend, you know what I mean. It's not like, oh,
[45:57] Speaker 2: I have this thing and it's now worth this because
[45:59] Speaker 2: that it's kind of crazy, particularly around Jean Michelle. You know,
[46:02] Speaker 2: those numbers went so out of this is that feel
[46:06] Speaker 2: to see the I wish there was a better word
[46:11] Speaker 2: than the commercialization of it all. But would you ever.
[46:13] Speaker 1: Imagine the day where, like with Harry and with Mosco,
[46:17] Speaker 1: that there now.
[46:18] Speaker 2: It's unimaginable the level of success. But what's so satisfying
[46:24] Speaker 2: is that this was what we all planned and talked
[46:27] Speaker 2: about when we were homies hanging. We basically aware and
[46:32] Speaker 2: that's what grew me and Jean Michelle to be close
[46:36] Speaker 2: because from a very young age, cutting school and going
[46:39] Speaker 2: to museums, which is a big adventure of mine as
[46:41] Speaker 2: a kid, I learned about and became very comfortable around
[46:44] Speaker 2: the idea of making art. I read about Giorgio Vasari,
[46:48] Speaker 2: the person that literally invented the idea of the Renaissance,
[46:52] Speaker 2: and understood the significance and why I and Jehan and
[46:56] Speaker 2: Keith wanted to force ourselves into that space and find
[47:00] Speaker 2: the way around the kind of gatekeepers to be looked
[47:04] Speaker 2: at and accepted as visual artists. The fact that we
[47:08] Speaker 2: were able to pull that off is remarkable. The fact
[47:11] Speaker 2: that Jean Michelle and Keith are not here is satisfucked
[47:14] Speaker 2: because clearly, you know, they just fit this. You know,
[47:19] Speaker 2: live fast, die young model if you will. That's unfortunate,
[47:25] Speaker 2: it's a part of whatever. But the things that particularly
[47:29] Speaker 2: Jean would have went on to do. We both talked
[47:31] Speaker 2: about making music, making film, being involved in other areas.
[47:36] Speaker 2: Jean put his foot in those waters and would have continued.
[47:39] Speaker 2: He starred in a film called Down Tent eighty one
[47:42] Speaker 2: that all of our crew is also in. He made
[47:45] Speaker 2: a record after I turned him on the hip hop.
[47:48] Speaker 2: He took rammel Z and this kid k Rob into
[47:51] Speaker 2: the studio and made this record Beatbop, and he would
[47:54] Speaker 2: have went on to do a lot more of that.
[47:56] Speaker 2: We would have probably produced films together. Keith was very
[48:01] Speaker 2: fascinated with animation early on in the Times the spectrum
[48:05] Speaker 2: board in Times Square, which was this little digital thing.
[48:09] Speaker 2: It looks like a pixel. It's so low budget looking
[48:13] Speaker 2: compared to where we are now with digital imagery. I
[48:15] Speaker 2: remember when Keith got to put his little characters on
[48:20] Speaker 2: that spectrum and all of us went to Times Square
[48:22] Speaker 2: to watch his stuff in Times Square. That was exciting.
[48:25] Speaker 2: He would have went on to do so much more
[48:27] Speaker 2: with animation, probably would have came up with a family
[48:32] Speaker 2: guy type of animated it. Because these are other interests
[48:35] Speaker 2: that we had and wanted to pursue. So it's sad
[48:38] Speaker 2: that these dear friends of mine are no longer here,
[48:40] Speaker 2: but it is so satisfying to see their legacies thrive
[48:45] Speaker 2: and undisputed like major figures in modern art. And that's
[48:52] Speaker 2: just incredible that that happened.
[48:54] Speaker 1: Okay, so, because you're a renaissance person, what would you say,
[48:58] Speaker 1: You're three proudest that you and everything that you've done.
[49:02] Speaker 2: Helping people, Probably the first and foremost and somehow connected
[49:07] Speaker 2: is the idea that I brought to Charlie for Wild Style,
[49:10] Speaker 2: is to show these forms as coming from one place
[49:16] Speaker 2: or space, so to speak. There was no connection between
[49:20] Speaker 2: this idea, and keep in mind everybody doing graffiti wasn't
[49:24] Speaker 2: into hip hop and vice versa. But to make it
[49:28] Speaker 2: a strong representation of youth culture in New York at
[49:32] Speaker 2: that time, I wanted to tell this narrative and that
[49:36] Speaker 2: was what I proposed to Charlie Ahearn, who said, let's
[49:40] Speaker 2: make this movie. There was no previous connection between this music,
[49:45] Speaker 2: this dance, and this form of visual art as such.
[49:49] Speaker 2: And the idea was to make a film that showcased that,
[49:54] Speaker 2: because not just that I want to create a platform
[49:59] Speaker 2: for myself a visual artist, but I wanted to represent
[50:03] Speaker 2: us in general, because there was only negative depictions of young, hip,
[50:08] Speaker 2: urban black and brown youth in New York press. It
[50:12] Speaker 2: was always connected to some negative criminal shit. I'm like,
[50:15] Speaker 2: we are more than that. And I didn't want to
[50:18] Speaker 2: be perceived as a folk artist outside of artists, you know.
[50:23] Speaker 2: And I didn't come from a fly expensive art school,
[50:27] Speaker 2: but I wanted to like figure out a way to
[50:30] Speaker 2: slip in and get in. That was the mission. When
[50:32] Speaker 2: I connected with Jean Michelle, he was in sync with
[50:35] Speaker 2: that whole shit you feel me, and we got busy
[50:38] Speaker 2: and that was an underlying thing. And then we wanted,
[50:40] Speaker 2: when we got the door open, one to pull other
[50:42] Speaker 2: heads in with us. So we was able to get
[50:45] Speaker 2: a lot of that done, I'm happy to say. And
[50:48] Speaker 2: I go deep into all of that, and everybody like
[50:50] Speaker 2: you better get your copy, baby, stop fronting it. And
[50:52] Speaker 2: the audiobook is crazy. Audiobook is crazy, by the way.
[50:56] Speaker 1: You said something, and it just hit me. I had
[50:59] Speaker 1: an epiphany. So we are now living. I will call
[51:03] Speaker 1: him the real hip hop Mayor with Madonna.
[51:07] Speaker 2: That's incredible, Yes, real hip hop. I have a dream
[51:12] Speaker 2: and that dream is.
[51:15] Speaker 1: Like I think he will allow if there's some sort
[51:19] Speaker 1: of art week or graffiti week or whatever, like, what
[51:23] Speaker 1: is the likelihood if he were to greenlight a project
[51:27] Speaker 1: in which you guys were, let's take ten trains and
[51:32] Speaker 1: tag the shit like really, just and it doesn't have
[51:36] Speaker 1: to be every New York City train, but just I
[51:38] Speaker 1: have a dream, and I believe that we are of age,
[51:42] Speaker 1: which we now see it as art and we'll actually
[51:46] Speaker 1: be there at eight o seven am to go to
[51:48] Speaker 1: work to see on the Freddy train or.
[51:51] Speaker 2: Kill like would you be willing to like how is
[51:54] Speaker 2: your hand now? As far as it's there, I mean,
[51:57] Speaker 2: it could happen. But I'm a big fan of the man.
[52:00] Speaker 2: I'm so happy that listen as a filmmaker. His mom's
[52:04] Speaker 2: films be Salaam, Bombay, Monsoon Wedding. I mean, big fan
[52:09] Speaker 2: of those films. Even Kama Sutra was my major date
[52:14] Speaker 2: movie back day. Already know, I get him over to
[52:19] Speaker 2: watch Kama Sutra and no, it's really going down with
[52:24] Speaker 2: the Kamma Sutra. Baby, that was like a joint. You know,
[52:28] Speaker 2: I've got a second out this DVD. I think we
[52:30] Speaker 2: should watch so nah, but I'm super excited about the man,
[52:34] Speaker 2: anxious to meet him, and I dig the fact, you know,
[52:38] Speaker 2: a thing that we didn't touch on. So I made
[52:39] Speaker 2: a film about cannabis about five or six years old,
[52:42] Speaker 2: called Grass's Greener, which led me to become a part
[52:45] Speaker 2: of the cannabis business. I created a brand called b Noble,
[52:48] Speaker 2: inspired by a gentleman that was given a thirteen year
[52:51] Speaker 2: sentence for two joints worth the week. So we've been
[52:53] Speaker 2: working with kure A Leif wherein We've been in different
[52:56] Speaker 2: states around the country with this, and we've expanded our
[53:00] Speaker 2: business internationally and we've set up in Kenya and also
[53:05] Speaker 2: about to do medical cannabis in Uganda. So my business partner,
[53:10] Speaker 2: Ron Samuel, who's over there right now, has met people
[53:13] Speaker 2: in Uganda who told him before he got elected. Yo,
[53:17] Speaker 2: I know this dude. We used to rap. We used
[53:19] Speaker 2: to all hang out and rap together. I'm like, and
[53:22] Speaker 2: my man told me. I was like, what are you
[53:23] Speaker 2: talking about? And then he gets elected. I see the clips,
[53:26] Speaker 2: I see his videos. Yes, so the cannabis connection is
[53:30] Speaker 2: real and mom DOMMI, yeah, I'd like to talk. And
[53:33] Speaker 2: I'm sure he's going to support the efforts for the
[53:36] Speaker 2: hip Hop Museum which hopefully it was soon open in
[53:39] Speaker 2: the Bronx and all that good stuff. So yeah, super
[53:42] Speaker 2: super excited about all that. I've always wanted to have
[53:45] Speaker 2: this conversation with hang out with you. I'm a big
[53:47] Speaker 2: fan forever. Remember I used to try to get at
[53:49] Speaker 2: you about doing a Max roach. Yes, yes, much. Yeah,
[53:53] Speaker 2: we probably have this conversation. Thank you for coming.
[53:56] Speaker 3: Thank you for having me, Thank you huge roots Fan
[53:59] Speaker 3: Forever and Everybody's Fly best and one of the top
[54:03] Speaker 3: five mcs that ever did it. Thank you Huge Fan,
[54:06] Speaker 3: Thank you, Fradi Freddy, thank you Everybody's Fly Please buy it.
[54:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see you on the next go round. Think
[54:12] Speaker 2: the Quest Love Show so pleasure. That's a pleasure to
[54:14] Speaker 2: be here with a lavely discussion Quest.
[54:21] Speaker 1: The show is hosted by Me Amir quest Love Thompson.
[54:25] Speaker 1: The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me.
[54:31] Speaker 1: Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jacob Payne. Produced for iHeart
[54:37] Speaker 1: by an Old Brown, Edited by Alex Conroyman iHeart Video
[54:42] Speaker 1: support by Mark Canton, Logos Graphics and animation by Nicko Halovie.
[54:49] Speaker 2: Additional support by Lance Coleen Special thanks to Kennedy Wrong.
[54:56] Speaker 1: Special Thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscript, I break
[55:00] Speaker 1: the view and share The Quest Love Show wherever.
[55:03] Speaker 2: You stream your podcast.
[55:04] Speaker 1: To make sure you follow us on socials That's at
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[55:20] Speaker 2: Quest Love Show is a production of iHeart Radio

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