# A-Trak on Kid Cudi's 'Day 'N Nite' taking over the world, touring with Kanye West, Fool’s Gold records, playing at the FIRST Coachella, becoming DMC World Champ at 15, & G-Unit Going Global

An episode of [The Real Report with Tony Yayo and Uncle Murda](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1875984132), 6 Jul 2026, 1 h 07 min.

Audio: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/808/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8378e0d6-e0bf-4426-b35b-b3e900f219bb/4f6fd95d-a47f-484b-94c3-b47e017dfceb/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=db3112d7-5818-4e64-b076-b3e900f21e30

This week on The Real Report, Tony Yayo and Uncle Murda sit down with legendary DJ, producer, and Fool’s Gold founder A-Trak for a deep conversation on DJ culture, hip-hop history, and the records that changed the game. A-Trak breaks down launching Fool’s Gold, helping introduce Kid Cudi’s “Day ‘N’ Nite,” touring with Kanye West, forming Duck Sauce, winning world DJ battles as a teenager, playing the first Coachella, and why G-Unit’s global reach was different. The episode also dives into classic DJs, crate-digging, overseas club culture, independent artists, technology changing DJing, and what still keeps A-Trak passionate about music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: You know.
[0:00] Speaker 2: One thing I remember too is there's a point in
[0:03] Speaker 2: time when J Unit was really touring internationally. I think
[0:08] Speaker 2: a lot of people in North America I might not
[0:10] Speaker 2: realize that there wasn't that many rappers or wrap crews
[0:14] Speaker 2: that were really international like that, because when I started
[0:19] Speaker 2: working with Kanye and we were going international a lot,
[0:23] Speaker 2: and I was already doing those overseas circuits as a DJ,
[0:26] Speaker 2: and then I was working with Ya and we were,
[0:28] Speaker 2: you know, going to Japan and Nigeria and anywhere. Everywhere
[0:33] Speaker 2: we went, G Unit had been. It was g Unit
[0:36] Speaker 2: eminem akon. There was a point in time where even
[0:40] Speaker 2: Hove hadn't started doing the international thing. Then he became international.
[0:44] Speaker 3: I was locked up, but Rihanna was overseas. She just
[0:49] Speaker 3: came out.
[0:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, I was. I remember that. You
[0:56] Speaker 2: guys really went and hit the whole world in a
[1:00] Speaker 2: way that at that point in time, not not that
[1:02] Speaker 2: many artists that.
[1:03] Speaker 4: He did get sat.
[1:21] Speaker 5: Yeah, this is Turbulent's Tony and this the Boy Live
[1:24] Speaker 5: Jed Lenny Rot and.
[1:26] Speaker 6: Welcome to the Real Reports Show.
[1:29] Speaker 5: Make some Noise for DJ, A track Man, a track
[1:32] Speaker 5: and the build it.
[1:33] Speaker 3: We got the legendary a track in the building. Things
[1:36] Speaker 3: for coming yy man. We're doing make sure y'all like
[1:39] Speaker 3: Sham subscribed. We got one of the fastest growing shows
[1:42] Speaker 3: on the Value Her. We got to Yeah, hopefully we
[1:46] Speaker 3: get that plaque about to get that. Appreciate you and
[1:51] Speaker 3: you know what a track we we we we bring
[1:53] Speaker 3: different things like on our show, we have like a
[1:56] Speaker 3: mogul segment.
[1:57] Speaker 6: Okay when we talk to.
[1:58] Speaker 3: You know, all kind of mogul and stuff like that.
[2:01] Speaker 3: Like you too, because your mogul, you have a You're
[2:04] Speaker 3: not only a DJ, right yeah, you have a record label.
[2:08] Speaker 6: Not too many DJs have done it.
[2:10] Speaker 3: It who else DJs had a record.
[2:13] Speaker 5: Labels a lot, But it's all the success that this
[2:18] Speaker 5: guy right here might have had.
[2:19] Speaker 1: Maybe like that definitely it's.
[2:21] Speaker 6: On another level.
[2:21] Speaker 3: But what I'm saying to you guys is a lot
[2:23] Speaker 3: of uh DJs had like like albums like Clue, Yeah, Flex.
[2:30] Speaker 2: Well you know what it is, and we can get
[2:32] Speaker 2: into that too. But like I've bounced around like different
[2:35] Speaker 2: pockets of the DJ world, you know what I mean,
[2:37] Speaker 2: And like mixtape DJs is one thing, but I mean
[2:40] Speaker 2: I even bounced around between hip hop and electronic music
[2:43] Speaker 2: on the electronics side, it's more common for DJs to
[2:46] Speaker 2: have labels. Yeah, I mean, DJ has just become so broad,
[2:51] Speaker 2: you know what I mean that, Like there's certain DJs
[2:53] Speaker 2: that do the compilation album type of thing, like like
[2:55] Speaker 2: clue like you said, but you know.
[2:58] Speaker 6: You're talking about the electronic music because we are overseas.
[3:00] Speaker 7: Yeah, you know that's so big the world, Like when
[3:06] Speaker 7: we get in the music that we would never dance
[3:09] Speaker 7: to ever in my life no words, yeah yeah.
[3:13] Speaker 2: But the thing about that is because it has no words,
[3:16] Speaker 2: you can bring together like the whole planet, like and
[3:18] Speaker 2: people from every country, I will get down, you know
[3:20] Speaker 2: what I mean?
[3:22] Speaker 6: So how was it? How was it? Because torn for
[3:24] Speaker 6: us we love like going to your.
[3:26] Speaker 2: Right right, but even before, like I just want to
[3:29] Speaker 2: say thanks for having me here, big, my pleasure, my pleasure,
[3:36] Speaker 2: same to you, to say both both of you auely.
[3:38] Speaker 3: I appreciate that when you talk about electronic music. Was
[3:42] Speaker 3: it working with like a big, a big, a big
[3:44] Speaker 3: guy like Duck Sauce.
[3:46] Speaker 6: So Duck Sauce produced.
[3:49] Speaker 2: All right, So Duck Sauce is the it's kind of
[3:51] Speaker 2: a group name for myself and a guy by the
[3:55] Speaker 2: name of armand Van Helden, who's a legendary house house
[3:58] Speaker 2: music DJ. He also came up in New York, so
[4:02] Speaker 2: like in the mid to late nineties all the way
[4:04] Speaker 2: to two thousands. Arman Van Helden's one of the most
[4:06] Speaker 2: famous house music DJs. But he's kind of like me
[4:10] Speaker 2: in the sense that he grew up a hip hop
[4:13] Speaker 2: kid and then got into house music just from being
[4:17] Speaker 2: in clubs and stuff. But we kind of speak the
[4:18] Speaker 2: same language. Like when we met, we clicked. We're like
[4:21] Speaker 2: eleven twelve years apart. He's older than me, but we
[4:24] Speaker 2: kind of clicked because we both grew up in hip
[4:26] Speaker 2: hop and then make house music. So we got together
[4:30] Speaker 2: and around two thousand and nine we formed a kind
[4:33] Speaker 2: of a duo. That's another thing you see a lot
[4:34] Speaker 2: in house music, and EEDM is DJ's you know the
[4:37] Speaker 2: same wather like Daft Bunks a duo or like Basement Jacks,
[4:40] Speaker 2: the Chemical Brothers. There's groups like there's you know. Yeah,
[4:44] Speaker 2: So we formed Duck Sauce and we made music like
[4:46] Speaker 2: that as a duo, and in twenty ten we made
[4:51] Speaker 2: a record. The title of the song was Barbara Streisand
[4:55] Speaker 2: and that song, that song went crazy Yeah No, the
[5:04] Speaker 2: title song was Barbara Streis saying, and we didn't even
[5:08] Speaker 2: we didn't even think that much.
[5:09] Speaker 1: Of it was naming the song. Net that was a
[5:12] Speaker 1: good I was good.
[5:14] Speaker 2: Eventually got eventually it got to her. Look at that lot,
[5:18] Speaker 2: I'm told. But really it was just it was just
[5:21] Speaker 2: one of those like you know when you make a
[5:23] Speaker 2: record and and you don't even think that's gonna be
[5:27] Speaker 2: the one. You think it might be a B side.
[5:29] Speaker 2: It's just something that you may cash like just for fun.
[5:32] Speaker 2: It was one of those, but it had like a
[5:33] Speaker 2: contagious sort of catchiness to it. It ended up being
[5:37] Speaker 2: a record that charted and it was like number one
[5:39] Speaker 2: in twelve countries and something crazy.
[5:42] Speaker 6: I'm still gonna say. Always the one that says he
[5:47] Speaker 6: worked with I would to look it up. I would
[5:52] Speaker 6: have and said.
[5:53] Speaker 3: The soul is called it's all good, you know what
[5:56] Speaker 3: I mean. I don't know too much about the electronics.
[5:59] Speaker 3: Just give me to write on the hip hop side.
[6:02] Speaker 3: I do know you had kick cutting a lot of people.
[6:05] Speaker 3: I know for Kik Cuddy's record Day and Night was label. Yes,
[6:09] Speaker 3: that came out, So had that whole process all right?
[6:12] Speaker 2: So I founded this label, Fools Gold with a couple
[6:17] Speaker 2: of friends around two thousand and seven, and I had
[6:20] Speaker 2: just moved to New York. So I grew up in Montreal, Canada, Canada.
[6:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was supposed to be for Montreal
[6:26] Speaker 3: when my family first came from Haiti bombs came to Montreal.
[6:30] Speaker 6: There's a lot of Haitius.
[6:31] Speaker 2: I know, I was gonna talk to you.
[6:33] Speaker 6: I found you could go.
[6:35] Speaker 3: I've been on tour all over Canada. I've been Sasatoon
[6:39] Speaker 3: Montreal to my man, Peter Jackson. I went on a
[6:43] Speaker 3: whole Peter Jackson, that's my man. And Montreal has the
[6:48] Speaker 3: best Haitian food.
[6:49] Speaker 2: That's for sure. Yes, Montreal, shout.
[6:51] Speaker 6: I tell you know about the Haitian food.
[6:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I grew up with Haitians in Montreal for yeah.
[6:56] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[6:56] Speaker 1: Back to the Kik cutting that whole.
[6:58] Speaker 2: Okay. So, so I moved to New York. I had
[7:02] Speaker 2: already established myself as a DJ. I got known as
[7:05] Speaker 2: a battle DJ when I was younger. But I moved
[7:08] Speaker 2: to New York in two thousand and six. I started
[7:10] Speaker 2: this label called Fools Gold And that was the point
[7:12] Speaker 2: in time where like the scene around the DJs was
[7:18] Speaker 2: was changing and DJs were starting to play a lot
[7:20] Speaker 2: of different music, and DJs we was starting to branch
[7:23] Speaker 2: off and do their own thing, you know, the same
[7:25] Speaker 2: way that now you might hear about like a DIPLO
[7:27] Speaker 2: or a scrill X or you know, Calvin Harris, they
[7:30] Speaker 2: do their own thing. That was the point in time
[7:31] Speaker 2: where one DJ's were really coming into their own as DJs.
[7:37] Speaker 2: But two also the music that we were all playing
[7:40] Speaker 2: was changing. It was like the genres were coming down
[7:43] Speaker 2: and became very eclectic, and we were all just like
[7:46] Speaker 2: I say, week, I was connecting with a lot of
[7:48] Speaker 2: DJs at that point in time. We were all experimenting,
[7:51] Speaker 2: and there was even like this sort of like like
[7:54] Speaker 2: fun club music was coming back, you know how sometimes
[7:57] Speaker 2: club music will be kind of cheesy and not that exciting,
[8:00] Speaker 2: and then there's other time periods where club music is fun.
[8:03] Speaker 2: We started Fools Gold as DJs. It's a label run
[8:08] Speaker 2: by DJs. We speak to DJs first. If if other
[8:11] Speaker 2: people get down, that's cool, but we like our audience
[8:14] Speaker 2: is the DJs around the world, and real quickly we
[8:18] Speaker 2: found a lot of new music that was just different, exciting.
[8:22] Speaker 2: It was just you know, you probably remember if you
[8:24] Speaker 2: think of two thousand and six, two thousand and seven,
[8:26] Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, like everything was changing. It was
[8:28] Speaker 2: kind of a changing at the guards. So mind you,
[8:32] Speaker 2: we were just an independent label. You know, we didn't
[8:34] Speaker 2: have like a big machine, but we had a lot
[8:36] Speaker 2: of people's attention because people knew that we were tapped in.
[8:39] Speaker 2: So like the next thing, right, we were down with
[8:44] Speaker 2: It's a group called the Cool Kids that are still
[8:45] Speaker 2: down with Fools Gold from Chicago. They were doing some
[8:48] Speaker 2: new stuff, a couple of artists like Flostro, Damas Kids Sister.
[8:51] Speaker 2: It was just everything was different and new. So meanwhile,
[8:54] Speaker 2: at that point in time, I was DJing for Kanye,
[8:57] Speaker 2: So yeah, I tour It was so yeah, I toured
[9:00] Speaker 2: with with Kanye from two thousand and four.
[9:03] Speaker 6: I mean I didn't I didn't know.
[9:06] Speaker 1: It's let me ahead.
[9:10] Speaker 2: I got through all of that, right, So I was
[9:12] Speaker 2: touring with Ya and from basically from right after college dropout.
[9:18] Speaker 2: You know, I was involved with Late Registration. I just
[9:22] Speaker 2: scratches on on Gold Digger. I was involved with those
[9:24] Speaker 2: Common albums, yeah all right, you know Commons Record, Go,
[9:31] Speaker 2: Commons Record, Shy City. I scratched on that. And then
[9:34] Speaker 2: when when YA worked on Graduation, I helped out with
[9:37] Speaker 2: some of that stuff, the daft punk sample and then
[9:39] Speaker 2: you know, stronger that record. And so there's this guy,
[9:45] Speaker 2: Plain Patt. He was Kanye's an R, and Plain Pat
[9:49] Speaker 2: pretty much discovered Ki Kudi or he was definitely, you know,
[9:52] Speaker 2: the first person that helped connect some dots, shout out
[9:56] Speaker 2: to shout out to uh to the genius also who
[10:02] Speaker 2: you know really was probably the first person that that
[10:04] Speaker 2: you know, gave Cuddy time and day and gave him
[10:07] Speaker 2: some beats. But between Dot the Genius and playing Pat,
[10:11] Speaker 2: Cuddy was unknown. He was just working at the Babe
[10:13] Speaker 2: Store in New York, right and playing Pat, who I
[10:17] Speaker 2: knew from my work with Kanye because he was Kanye's
[10:20] Speaker 2: an R. He knew that I had this new label
[10:24] Speaker 2: that was that had the ear of people that understood
[10:28] Speaker 2: new stuff. So Cuddy was starting to make music and
[10:31] Speaker 2: it sounded like nothing else. It was just different. So
[10:34] Speaker 2: Pat sent me these two records, maybe two, maybe a
[10:37] Speaker 2: third one, I'm not sure. It was a while ago.
[10:39] Speaker 2: He definitely sent me Day and Night and that new
[10:41] Speaker 2: New and pretty much right away I was like, I
[10:45] Speaker 2: want to, you know, let's do a single on Fools Gold.
[10:47] Speaker 2: So we put out Day and Night and and and
[10:49] Speaker 2: we just built it even though we didn't have this
[10:51] Speaker 2: big machine no no dotor Genius produced. Shout out to
[10:56] Speaker 2: doctor Genius and shout out to Cuddy himself.
[10:59] Speaker 6: Diamond, right man.
[11:01] Speaker 2: So there's a there's a point when Cutty signed his
[11:04] Speaker 2: album deal. He signed to Motown Universal a couple of
[11:08] Speaker 2: months after that, and then they ended up by buying
[11:11] Speaker 2: that master and they whatever the I don't you know,
[11:14] Speaker 2: we don't have the plaque ourselves, but we got it
[11:16] Speaker 2: off the ground for that was like, it's huge. And
[11:21] Speaker 2: the thing that was really special with Day and Night
[11:24] Speaker 2: is there was a there was a remix because we
[11:26] Speaker 2: were talking about that E d M thing just a
[11:27] Speaker 2: minute ago, right, there was a remix by these Italian guys,
[11:30] Speaker 2: the Crookers. They were also on some different ship they
[11:33] Speaker 2: did exactly exactly. So that was one of those that
[11:38] Speaker 2: was a rare record exactly. There's a rare, rare record
[11:42] Speaker 2: where the original version was was popping off and making
[11:46] Speaker 2: its way in North America especially, and then the Crookers
[11:51] Speaker 2: remix was blowing up, especially overseas, so you had two
[11:54] Speaker 2: versions that were blowing up at the same time. And
[11:56] Speaker 2: but that was on fools gold.
[11:58] Speaker 3: Remember, because we was going overseas at the time, was everywhere.
[12:01] Speaker 3: You hear it, every club, but it was organic.
[12:04] Speaker 2: That's the thing that's special. We didn't have and we
[12:06] Speaker 2: didn't have a full school was like five people. We
[12:08] Speaker 2: didn't have like an overseas department or whatever. But we
[12:10] Speaker 2: just we just had people's ear.
[12:12] Speaker 6: That's what.
[12:13] Speaker 3: But this is how I feel because you don't murdered.
[12:15] Speaker 3: This is the thing with DJ's like him, DJ Snake.
[12:19] Speaker 2: Yeah that's my homie, damn Mouse.
[12:21] Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.
[12:23] Speaker 3: Remember when we went to Snake, You've seen the crowd
[12:27] Speaker 3: and he'll have like millions of dollars of pyro and.
[12:31] Speaker 6: Fire put on the show. Another another big DJ. We meant, right,
[12:38] Speaker 6: That's what I'm saying. I told him murder he has
[12:41] Speaker 6: a big change on. This guy had the littlest chain on.
[12:44] Speaker 3: Yeah, since your guys get million of show, no jury, like, yeah,
[12:47] Speaker 3: it's crazy.
[12:48] Speaker 5: But back to my baby, he Mada. He had a
[12:50] Speaker 5: little change. Okay, I had the big change.
[12:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's at this level with the DJs. You know
[13:01] Speaker 3: what I'm saying. And the question I wanted to ask
[13:04] Speaker 3: you was like, how do you feel like being here
[13:08] Speaker 3: versus being overseas, because my experience is like, like I
[13:13] Speaker 3: remember that song We're hold On.
[13:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, listen when that used to come home, like.
[13:20] Speaker 3: We was overseen and like the vodka's flowing, like I
[13:23] Speaker 3: really felt free. Overseas people are still dancing while it
[13:27] Speaker 3: feels like in the US it's more Yo bottles.
[13:32] Speaker 2: Well, it's it's more to it than that. And by
[13:36] Speaker 2: the way, Bob Sinclair who made that record World hold On,
[13:40] Speaker 2: you know, we look at it kind of from the
[13:43] Speaker 2: outside from a North American perspective, and we just think, oh, yeah,
[13:45] Speaker 2: he makes house music, dance music. If it might seem
[13:48] Speaker 2: like we're all from different worlds, but I've I've become
[13:51] Speaker 2: good friends with Bob Sinclaire and this guy all he
[13:54] Speaker 2: wants to talk to you about is like DJ Premier
[13:56] Speaker 2: Records from the Night. He just wants to talk about.
[13:58] Speaker 6: Gangs in the truck world.
[14:02] Speaker 2: Right, and parallels to be like Yo. But Jeru's album
[14:06] Speaker 2: Jerry the Damage, the first album you have the World
[14:10] Speaker 2: the World.
[14:11] Speaker 5: He's in the notes you don't understand music.
[14:14] Speaker 6: This is what people understand. Music bring back what memories?
[14:17] Speaker 3: Yes, so wow, And that that year when that dropped,
[14:21] Speaker 3: we was in the club like overseas, overseas party and
[14:25] Speaker 3: number one, you feel free overseas because it's less pistols.
[14:28] Speaker 3: So you're feeling like, all right, let's it's going to
[14:30] Speaker 3: be a physical somebody might pull a Knight for a
[14:32] Speaker 3: razo me.
[14:34] Speaker 2: But so to your question, what I would say is
[14:39] Speaker 2: the same way, even though hip hop traveled the world
[14:42] Speaker 2: and now house music travel the world and everything's everywhere now,
[14:46] Speaker 2: for a long period of time, the way that hip
[14:49] Speaker 2: hop was youth youth music in North America, you know,
[14:53] Speaker 2: in the nineties and two thousands, most if you find
[14:56] Speaker 2: a teenager somewhere, they're probably listening to, depending what period
[14:59] Speaker 2: of time, either fifty or whatever it might be, or
[15:03] Speaker 2: Fab or Lil Wayne or you know what I mean,
[15:07] Speaker 2: tang right, any of that, that fourteen year old in
[15:12] Speaker 2: Spain or in Italy, they were listening to house music
[15:15] Speaker 2: or techno or trance or whatever like. That's that was
[15:18] Speaker 2: always the youth music, or now I was always before
[15:20] Speaker 2: a long period of time, that was the music of
[15:22] Speaker 2: the youth, especially in Europe and even other places too.
[15:26] Speaker 2: But so that's why it's so big when you go
[15:30] Speaker 2: to Europe, is like that's just what they grew up with.
[15:33] Speaker 6: That's why I always liked who Kid because who Kid
[15:35] Speaker 6: was like always prepared.
[15:36] Speaker 3: For Yeah, he would know have like yeah big overseas records,
[15:41] Speaker 3: like for instance, afrobeats.
[15:43] Speaker 6: We was in London with this is one song that
[15:46] Speaker 6: came on. I forgot how it goes.
[15:48] Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
[15:52] Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.
[15:53] Speaker 1: When you was in London, Yeah.
[15:55] Speaker 3: It was an afrobeat. It's like the club shut down
[15:57] Speaker 3: when that came on.
[15:58] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:59] Speaker 3: So when you go overseas and you hear different music,
[16:02] Speaker 3: it makes you open to the world for sure. So
[16:04] Speaker 3: for me, I had better times overseas partying in the US.
[16:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, for me, well, you know what I mean. There
[16:12] Speaker 2: definitely was a point in time where clubs in the
[16:14] Speaker 2: US became more about the bottle service and the sections
[16:18] Speaker 2: and all that, and that's not fun. I mean, there's
[16:20] Speaker 2: money that comes in that way. But like for me
[16:23] Speaker 2: as a DJ, I don't really like playing a club
[16:26] Speaker 2: that has a bottle section. I want people to be
[16:28] Speaker 2: on the dance floor, right And for you you might
[16:31] Speaker 2: be looking at it in a different way, but I'm
[16:33] Speaker 2: sure it's less fun too. But overseas it stayed a
[16:36] Speaker 2: little bit more about the music, and that festival culture
[16:39] Speaker 2: is really from Europe too. Now you find it in
[16:42] Speaker 2: North America too, and now even since the pandemic, but really,
[16:46] Speaker 2: like gradually in the last fifteen years or so, there's
[16:49] Speaker 2: a lot of clubs that opened up in North America
[16:51] Speaker 2: that are back to being about the music, so it's
[16:55] Speaker 2: less separated. But yeah, for a long time, I man,
[16:59] Speaker 2: I started going to Europe. My career started when I
[17:02] Speaker 2: was a teenager in ninety seven. Basically I started traveling
[17:06] Speaker 2: to DJ I I was fifteen. The way that my
[17:09] Speaker 2: career started, I won the DMC World Championships, scratching and
[17:12] Speaker 2: all that. No DMC, it's the most known DJ battle.
[17:19] Speaker 1: Right, so I said, this is out in Canada.
[17:21] Speaker 2: No, it's I mean the eliminations, Like the first round
[17:25] Speaker 2: that I did was in Canada. But that took me
[17:26] Speaker 2: to Italy, it took me to France, it took me
[17:28] Speaker 2: to the UK. But yeah, at the age of fifteen,
[17:32] Speaker 2: I mean, I came up idolizing DJ's like rock Raider
[17:36] Speaker 2: Rest in Peace. You know, you guys probably remember the
[17:38] Speaker 2: x Men, ex Executioners and a bunch of other DJs
[17:42] Speaker 2: like that. Obviously, Jazzy Jeff people like that, you know.
[17:45] Speaker 2: So I got on winning this big DJ battle and
[17:48] Speaker 2: from that point on, I started traveling. So already when
[17:51] Speaker 2: I was fifteen sixteen, I was going overseas to play.
[17:53] Speaker 2: I was going to Korea, I was going to the UK.
[17:56] Speaker 2: And even though at that point in time and the
[17:59] Speaker 2: beginning in my career, I was just a hip hop kid,
[18:01] Speaker 2: like I mentioned, like you said, I was traveling the
[18:04] Speaker 2: world and I was observing like, oh, in Asia they're
[18:07] Speaker 2: into this kind of music. Okay, in Europe there like this,
[18:09] Speaker 2: and really Europe's not just one thing. In the UK
[18:12] Speaker 2: they might like this, but then in France and it's
[18:14] Speaker 2: you know. And I was kind of picking up on that.
[18:17] Speaker 2: So many years later when I started expanding the styles
[18:21] Speaker 2: of music that I play and I started getting into
[18:23] Speaker 2: the house music thing and everything else, I was already
[18:26] Speaker 2: like absorbing that information for a while. And and but
[18:30] Speaker 2: I the fact that I started my career is so young,
[18:34] Speaker 2: it kind of put me in a position where there's
[18:37] Speaker 2: not that many people that can that know the roots
[18:41] Speaker 2: of DJing, the roots of hip hop, and like we're
[18:43] Speaker 2: like I could talk to Grandmaster Flash and you know
[18:45] Speaker 2: what I mean, yeah.
[18:46] Speaker 3: Yeah, but on some DJ so I could tell you,
[18:50] Speaker 3: like like the first house song that was playing like
[18:53] Speaker 3: back then in the clubs. Yeah, so I didn't even
[18:58] Speaker 3: know where it was because I was just hip hop
[19:01] Speaker 3: when I came on.
[19:03] Speaker 2: So okay, but I'll give you I'll give you an example.
[19:05] Speaker 2: So so my because my big thing over the years
[19:08] Speaker 2: has been to try to like connect the dots between
[19:10] Speaker 2: these different branches, because really all house and techno and
[19:15] Speaker 2: you know, e ed M and all of that and
[19:17] Speaker 2: hip hop, it's all branches that come from the same tree.
[19:19] Speaker 2: It all comes from Planet Rock, it all comes from
[19:21] Speaker 2: Africa and all of that. Right, So the you know,
[19:24] Speaker 2: we we remember like the sugar Hill and Planet Rock
[19:27] Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Sugar Hill that was disco and at
[19:30] Speaker 2: one point hip hop slowed down. I got to the
[19:33] Speaker 2: Run DMC thing and everything, and it became the hip
[19:35] Speaker 2: hop that we know. Shout out to Queens Queen, right, but.
[19:39] Speaker 6: Number one group in the world Run DMC.
[19:42] Speaker 2: You forget that, right, paved a way rights J recipes
[19:47] Speaker 2: but that right. But but it's it's a family tree.
[19:52] Speaker 2: So if you if you start with Planet Rock, and
[19:54] Speaker 2: you start with with the sugar Hill and that kind
[19:56] Speaker 2: of stuff. Hip hop went to one branch and house
[19:59] Speaker 2: and all that stuff into another branch. But that song
[20:01] Speaker 2: that you were just singing hot music by an artist
[20:05] Speaker 2: called Soho but he's also known as it's also known
[20:08] Speaker 2: as Pal Joey. Just to give you an example of
[20:10] Speaker 2: my but my thing about how hip hop and house
[20:14] Speaker 2: music are cousins. That dude that made that record, he
[20:18] Speaker 2: was making beats for for karas One and and so
[20:23] Speaker 2: it's always Yeah Joey. So it's it's always Pal Joey.
[20:28] Speaker 2: You know there's there's Yeah there's karas One Records where
[20:30] Speaker 2: he shouts him out when he made the beat.
[20:32] Speaker 6: So so step into the world.
[20:35] Speaker 2: No, he didn't make Step into the world. I think
[20:37] Speaker 2: I think Kris's brother made that made that Yeah, yeah on.
[20:42] Speaker 6: The show Real hip Hop.
[20:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I love about music and like DJ Yeah,
[20:46] Speaker 3: because I remember like going to parties with my man.
[20:49] Speaker 6: My best friend was a DJ.
[20:51] Speaker 3: So we used to go to Jamaica Avenue Hot Wax
[20:54] Speaker 3: and that was you know, there was no CDJs, there
[20:56] Speaker 3: was nothing, So.
[20:57] Speaker 6: You know we do these holy old parties. All of
[20:59] Speaker 6: them got shot up. You know what. My man got
[21:01] Speaker 6: ten crates.
[21:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, someone's got to help him.
[21:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, right, dunking after the shootouts, Crates Not nobody's leaving
[21:08] Speaker 3: it crates.
[21:09] Speaker 6: Yeah, and you got everything in there.
[21:11] Speaker 3: So that kind of made me musically inclined. So listening
[21:14] Speaker 3: to the old kind of music.
[21:16] Speaker 1: Right, did you see that Vinyl is so like I
[21:18] Speaker 1: think like they said a bill.
[21:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw. I just saw that today.
[21:21] Speaker 1: I was surprised when I saw it.
[21:23] Speaker 5: Yeah, it's got there buying viny They buying them back as.
[21:26] Speaker 2: I said, Yeah, it's it's a bit of a different
[21:30] Speaker 2: thing where like people buy it almost like a collectible object.
[21:34] Speaker 5: Actually white are they buying it like just to hold it? Yeah,
[21:37] Speaker 5: DJs is not using.
[21:38] Speaker 2: Not as barely right. Everything's digital, whether it's whether it's
[21:42] Speaker 2: on the laptop with Torado or whether it's.
[21:45] Speaker 6: This murder DJ's got it easy now. Back in the day, listen.
[21:48] Speaker 3: Back in the days, twelve hundreds, Gemini mixer, party gets
[21:53] Speaker 3: shot up.
[21:54] Speaker 6: You got twelve.
[21:55] Speaker 3: Crates, we gotta carry nigga got a computer like said
[21:59] Speaker 3: the party, you.
[22:03] Speaker 6: Go fuck out of here.
[22:05] Speaker 3: I don't been into clubs with the best jays in
[22:07] Speaker 3: Jamaica Queens, grim Master, Vic, DJ Roughheads, gold Fingers, The
[22:13] Speaker 3: Rockaway twins, DJ dog Tome like, come on, bro, we
[22:18] Speaker 3: we were talking DJ jd Lorello from Merrick. This is
[22:22] Speaker 3: when people was doing blends, just before DJ clue, you
[22:26] Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, DJ, And then you know, you
[22:28] Speaker 3: got your twelve unders and then they got the needles
[22:29] Speaker 3: and all that.
[22:30] Speaker 6: My best friend was at DJ. We go to my
[22:32] Speaker 6: man's house. Rest in peace right now.
[22:34] Speaker 3: He got about one hundred crates right if you go
[22:37] Speaker 3: through a ship classics. Yeah, and this he was doing
[22:41] Speaker 3: this at fifteen. I never even knew that about you.
[22:45] Speaker 5: You think you think social media helped the game for
[22:49] Speaker 5: the DJs or hurt it a little bit?
[22:51] Speaker 1: What you think about.
[22:51] Speaker 2: It both both? I think. You know, now there's there's
[22:56] Speaker 2: a newer generation of DJs that are able to get
[23:00] Speaker 2: known off of social media, and I love seeing there's DJs.
[23:04] Speaker 2: There's young DJs that are honestly they're like eight, nine,
[23:06] Speaker 2: ten years old. Maybe their parents are hand them out.
[23:09] Speaker 2: They're learning how to scratch, and they're posting their videos
[23:11] Speaker 2: on TikTok and on reels. You know, that's a new
[23:15] Speaker 2: way to get known and there's a lot of information
[23:18] Speaker 2: that gets shared. But at the same time, that thing
[23:22] Speaker 2: with the phone and everybody trying to create these viral moments.
[23:27] Speaker 2: It's to a point where that's a little bit artificial.
[23:30] Speaker 2: You know, people are sort of forgetting that just the
[23:32] Speaker 2: feel of being at a party and just dancing to
[23:35] Speaker 2: the music and not worrying about, oh, is someone going
[23:37] Speaker 2: to see me on such and such a story tomorrow,
[23:40] Speaker 2: what should I film this, asking for requests all that stuff.
[23:44] Speaker 2: It's a little bit like, yo, you got to put
[23:45] Speaker 2: the phone down. I just enjoy yourself. So it helps
[23:49] Speaker 2: in terms of exposure, but it hurts in the way
[23:53] Speaker 2: that it just feels artificial. It feels like the feelings
[23:57] Speaker 2: not quite the same. Yeah, yeah, some of.
[24:00] Speaker 6: The biggest festivals you did, because I.
[24:01] Speaker 2: Know, yeah man, I mean I played the first Coachella ever.
[24:07] Speaker 2: I played Coachella a bunch of times, but yeah, cello,
[24:10] Speaker 2: yeah I played. I played it a bunch of ninety
[24:13] Speaker 2: nine I believe ninety nine. Yeah, I was like, I
[24:15] Speaker 2: was like seventeen. It was a raid, really, it was
[24:18] Speaker 2: just it was just a party in the desert, and
[24:20] Speaker 2: then they built into this, they built it into this thing,
[24:23] Speaker 2: and then I've got to play it many times since,
[24:25] Speaker 2: whether it be solo, a trax, set or duck sauce
[24:28] Speaker 2: or collaborative stuff. But yeah, that when I played a
[24:32] Speaker 2: bunch of times and lollaplouos, I played a bunch of
[24:34] Speaker 2: times and yeah, but overseas, I was like that.
[24:39] Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, but he's seventeen years old. That's That's
[24:42] Speaker 6: what I'm saying.
[24:42] Speaker 3: What gives you the drive in the smarts to win
[24:46] Speaker 3: your first big battle contest worldwide at fifteen years old?
[24:51] Speaker 5: Motivate it is great, man. Yeah, it's like a worldwide
[24:54] Speaker 5: on me. Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah's crazy.
[24:56] Speaker 1: I was.
[24:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going up against you know DJ's that
[24:59] Speaker 2: were France, UK, Japan, whatever. So, like I mentioned, I
[25:03] Speaker 2: grew up in Montreal. I got an older brother. We're
[25:06] Speaker 2: super tight. We still make music together. My brother Dave.
[25:09] Speaker 2: Anybody that knows my stuff, you know. He's also in
[25:13] Speaker 2: a band called Chromeo. They're well known for their music too,
[25:17] Speaker 2: but if you no, they live in New York too.
[25:23] Speaker 2: When we were growing up, we were just fans of
[25:26] Speaker 2: hip hop, fans of the music. We would go to
[25:28] Speaker 2: the record store. By the final study the liner notes,
[25:32] Speaker 2: see who produced what? Oh you know, what's who's havocs engineer?
[25:36] Speaker 2: Or who makesed that Pete Rock thing or that, like
[25:37] Speaker 2: just trying, you know what I mean, Oh, what's this feature?
[25:40] Speaker 2: Who's big noise? Like just looking stuff up, you know.
[25:43] Speaker 2: And so we're just students of the game. Grew up
[25:46] Speaker 2: in Montreal idolizing this music. My brother wrote graffiti too.
[25:49] Speaker 2: He would come down in New York and get into that.
[25:52] Speaker 2: Actually we had family and Queens, so he would stay
[25:54] Speaker 2: in Queens and you know, hey, I live in Brooklyn now.
[26:05] Speaker 2: But basically we both fell in love with hip hop
[26:09] Speaker 2: and to the point where, like if you think about
[26:11] Speaker 2: nineties hip hop too, like it's more than music. It
[26:14] Speaker 2: gave you like a code of how to live your
[26:17] Speaker 2: life onside, right, you know what I mean. And as
[26:20] Speaker 2: a kid that was from the outside of it, from Montreal,
[26:24] Speaker 2: I feel like we both paid like extra attention to it.
[26:27] Speaker 2: We would buy the magazines, whether it's The Source or
[26:29] Speaker 2: XXCEL or even before that ego Trip on the Go,
[26:33] Speaker 2: wrap pages all of that and absorb all that information.
[26:37] Speaker 2: And we were just passionate. And my brother was making
[26:39] Speaker 2: beats and I was scratching and djaying, and he was
[26:42] Speaker 2: kind of like my coach because he was a couple
[26:43] Speaker 2: of years older. So I'd be practicing every day coming
[26:47] Speaker 2: home from school and learning my scratches and learning these routines.
[26:51] Speaker 2: And at that point in time, especially if you were
[26:53] Speaker 2: into scratching and whatnot, there was these videotapes of the
[26:59] Speaker 2: d ms TA Battle. Like I mentioned, there's a couple
[27:01] Speaker 2: other ones, but that was the main ones. You go
[27:03] Speaker 2: to the record store by these VHS tapes and just
[27:06] Speaker 2: watch those DJ routines, watch rock Raider and DJ Noise
[27:10] Speaker 2: and Cubert and all these incredible DJs and study them.
[27:14] Speaker 2: And there was a point in time where I felt
[27:17] Speaker 2: like I was ready to enter a battle myself, because
[27:19] Speaker 2: it's you know, that was what I watched was battles.
[27:23] Speaker 2: So once I got and I got good pretty fast.
[27:26] Speaker 2: After two years, I was like, all right, I'm ready,
[27:28] Speaker 2: and I won a world championship.
[27:31] Speaker 3: Since you talk about battles, Yeah, give me your top
[27:35] Speaker 3: five hip hop DJs and then we're gonna go to
[27:38] Speaker 3: other jobs.
[27:39] Speaker 6: But give me your top five hip hop DJs and.
[27:42] Speaker 3: I'll give you my top five all right if you
[27:44] Speaker 3: want them talk.
[27:49] Speaker 2: All I like, you crazy to go my top five
[27:55] Speaker 2: in no order, just five, just five, all right? DJ
[27:59] Speaker 2: Crazy He won? He won, like all the craziest battles
[28:04] Speaker 2: around the scene. We were in the crew together, so
[28:06] Speaker 2: we were kind of like, all right, we're both killing ship.
[28:08] Speaker 2: We're not going to go against each other, and we're
[28:10] Speaker 2: gonna so shut out my man Crazy. Yeah he beat
[28:14] Speaker 2: me once.
[28:14] Speaker 6: Be all right.
[28:16] Speaker 2: I'm gonna say Jazzy Jeff, he's he's big bro for life.
[28:19] Speaker 2: He laid down the blueprint. He even laid down the
[28:21] Speaker 2: blueprint of how to go from battles to having a
[28:25] Speaker 2: career as a solo DJ, to producing to everything. I
[28:31] Speaker 2: mean those who know no, but I think nowadays I
[28:34] Speaker 2: want to make sure people know that Jesse Jeff is
[28:36] Speaker 2: the king.
[28:37] Speaker 1: Are you talking about j Jeff will Smith. I'm just
[28:41] Speaker 1: for people that don't know.
[28:42] Speaker 2: They're right. They might know him from it or even
[28:44] Speaker 2: just being you might not know he's the Illness DJ.
[28:51] Speaker 2: All right, so we got Crazy, we got Jazzy Jeff.
[28:54] Speaker 2: I'm gonna say, my man, Jay Rock from the Beat Junkies.
[28:57] Speaker 2: I don't know if you know the Beat Junkies in
[28:58] Speaker 2: l A.
[28:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, was that the right melody?
[29:02] Speaker 6: Man?
[29:03] Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but.
[29:10] Speaker 6: J Rock.
[29:13] Speaker 2: I'm gonna say premiere, even though he's a little more
[29:15] Speaker 2: known for his production, but Premiere scratches will always be
[29:20] Speaker 2: the funkiest scratches on any record. Everybody always wanted to
[29:23] Speaker 2: have the DJ premiere scratch on the record, right, And
[29:26] Speaker 2: that's Big bro To, So shout out to him. And
[29:29] Speaker 2: then the fifth name that I'll say if I'm still
[29:32] Speaker 2: thinking within hip hop, I'm gonna say Rock Rader Rest
[29:36] Speaker 2: in Peace. And he was a mentor team yeah you know, yeah, Okay,
[29:41] Speaker 2: go ahead, yeah, go ahead, all right.
[29:43] Speaker 3: First, I gotta go with Yes. I'm gonna tell you
[29:47] Speaker 3: what I'm gonna tell you. I felt like Jazz Jeffers
[29:50] Speaker 3: slept On because Will Smith was more of a commercial rap, right,
[29:53] Speaker 3: I say, that's more like a hardcore wrapper.
[29:56] Speaker 6: Yeah. So for me, I'm gonna go with Queens.
[29:58] Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with gim Master Jay because he set
[30:01] Speaker 3: trends with no laces, you know what I mean.
[30:04] Speaker 6: He was they just set trends.
[30:07] Speaker 2: So next he made everyone want to be Next.
[30:10] Speaker 6: I'm gonna go Terminator X.
[30:14] Speaker 3: I gotta go with Terminator X just you never can
[30:17] Speaker 3: forget Terminator X. He got the big glasses, fight the
[30:20] Speaker 3: power he scratched. That's what I'm telling you. When the
[30:22] Speaker 3: DJ was more in the eighties, DJ.
[30:25] Speaker 2: Was they were up on stage with the rappers.
[30:27] Speaker 3: They were saying Terminator X. He was always quiet. He
[30:31] Speaker 3: never said ship. He was like the scary motherfucking nigga
[30:34] Speaker 3: in the back or something, you know what I mean.
[30:36] Speaker 3: Then I definitely gotta go thinking about I would say
[30:41] Speaker 3: D Nice, yeah, because D Nice was he was DJing
[30:44] Speaker 3: for k Iris one until he came out with.
[30:46] Speaker 2: His name is D Nice.
[30:48] Speaker 6: I like that record. I just wasn't used to him.
[30:50] Speaker 3: Being a rapper right there. And then he think little
[30:56] Speaker 3: state number five because I.
[30:57] Speaker 6: Got four right, I think the three man? Get you
[31:00] Speaker 6: gone fo Yeah, I said, I said, what about?
[31:03] Speaker 2: What about? What about DJ scratch with E P M
[31:05] Speaker 2: d oh yes, increble and he and he toured with
[31:09] Speaker 2: bustuf time because I want to put scratches like my
[31:12] Speaker 2: scratch unable mentions. So you didn't just put him.
[31:14] Speaker 6: In here because I said, I said, I said, Master
[31:17] Speaker 6: J Terminator.
[31:18] Speaker 1: X, Eric b okay scratch, scratch, Yeah, I.
[31:23] Speaker 6: Gotta give it to scratch. Oh no ho whoa.
[31:26] Speaker 3: I love scratch, but I gotta give it to cut
[31:29] Speaker 3: Mass to see RECTI peach cut Mas to see that.
[31:31] Speaker 1: He came back in the day.
[31:33] Speaker 3: Come on, niggeh the flat Top chain and all that, okay,
[31:37] Speaker 3: because you got to think for me, the DJs was
[31:40] Speaker 3: as fly as the rappers that there.
[31:41] Speaker 1: Well, I feel like or mister C.
[31:43] Speaker 6: You mean, I mean I was lost.
[31:49] Speaker 2: We lost too many letters.
[31:53] Speaker 3: But mister C when he was doing High ninety seven
[31:55] Speaker 3: at that point, he was killing radio.
[31:57] Speaker 6: That the back in the day she was playing and
[32:00] Speaker 6: all that.
[32:01] Speaker 3: But I remember him being with Big Daddy came back
[32:03] Speaker 3: and how the d J kind of looked like the
[32:06] Speaker 3: drug dealer to Eric B. Come on that nigga look
[32:09] Speaker 3: at as much juryous fucking rock Ken.
[32:13] Speaker 5: Mister Rep so hard for Brooklyn he got meant to
[32:16] Speaker 5: Mister C used to go so odd.
[32:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, brook I mean, I.
[32:19] Speaker 6: Mean he DJ Big Daddy came and he found.
[32:22] Speaker 2: Big Yeah, and you know what, Rest in peace to
[32:25] Speaker 2: Clark Camp.
[32:27] Speaker 1: That's why we got to have the top.
[32:33] Speaker 6: Was my sneaker addict.
[32:34] Speaker 3: Yeah, man, definitely, that's why we get DJs like you
[32:38] Speaker 3: on here. So we talked about these classic moments because
[32:41] Speaker 3: it's like, Yo, the DJs meant so much back then.
[32:45] Speaker 6: The Lord said, be.
[32:49] Speaker 1: We mentioned them before. We definitely got to.
[32:53] Speaker 6: Got to say rest in peace.
[32:54] Speaker 1: Case you ain't lying about yes.
[32:58] Speaker 3: You got your you got your different DJs that are
[33:01] Speaker 3: old history, you know what I mean. Yeah, but like
[33:04] Speaker 3: when you hear a track and like loud Mouse and
[33:07] Speaker 3: DJ Snake, and I'm always thinking overseas even who Kid
[33:12] Speaker 3: like who Kids loves it overseas.
[33:14] Speaker 6: I love the US too, waiting like doing.
[33:16] Speaker 2: I just got back from it.
[33:18] Speaker 1: I got back from the place like home.
[33:19] Speaker 2: I got back from Europe on Monday. I was there
[33:21] Speaker 2: for ten days doing a little tour.
[33:23] Speaker 6: We went.
[33:24] Speaker 2: I went to Poland, I went to to to Paris,
[33:28] Speaker 2: and then I went in the south of France to
[33:30] Speaker 2: like in the Alps, close to Geneva, and then I
[33:32] Speaker 2: had something in Stockholm too, So I did those Yeah,
[33:36] Speaker 2: Sweden love it? Yeah, man, you like the food.
[33:40] Speaker 6: I love the food.
[33:42] Speaker 2: I love the food. I don't understand why people say
[33:43] Speaker 2: I don't like the food.
[33:44] Speaker 6: It feels like it's more. I don't know, it's more.
[33:46] Speaker 2: I feel like, yeah, yeah, you for sure that the
[33:50] Speaker 2: ingredients are more fresh.
[33:51] Speaker 6: What's up spot in Australia, we love we addicted.
[33:53] Speaker 2: To They got that Perry Perry That's right, I feel
[34:08] Speaker 2: But I feel like you you're like you're so like the
[34:11] Speaker 2: ultimate hype man, like your energy and what you bring
[34:15] Speaker 2: to the live show. As you know, with that voice
[34:19] Speaker 2: that you have, it's not that it's not very different
[34:22] Speaker 2: from a DJ, you know what I mean, You're kind
[34:24] Speaker 2: of you're you're almost like a DJ.
[34:26] Speaker 1: Like we're probably like taking over partys DJ.
[34:29] Speaker 6: That's what I.
[34:32] Speaker 3: Used to do that with my man Ruffians, I said,
[34:35] Speaker 3: I come from a real hip hop background, you know
[34:38] Speaker 3: what I'm saying. Like, I can tell you fifties first
[34:40] Speaker 3: freestyle of my man like we used to be down
[34:43] Speaker 3: there mixed records that new Wu Tang instrumentals used to
[34:47] Speaker 3: come out. I wasn't the best DJ. I was just
[34:50] Speaker 3: just playing around. I could put a blend together with
[34:52] Speaker 3: my man Roughians. Gold Fingers they was, you know, they
[34:55] Speaker 3: was the nice one, super fly they like they all
[34:58] Speaker 3: could kill a club, you know what I mean. And
[35:00] Speaker 3: then it was a little more special.
[35:01] Speaker 2: Because Fingers incredible.
[35:02] Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give you a perfect example.
[35:04] Speaker 3: Rest in peace, Mysticy not Master.
[35:08] Speaker 6: Still still alive. Shout to him too, you know, chat
[35:12] Speaker 6: with a knife was actually look so with that look
[35:20] Speaker 6: So with that being said, with Misteric he didn't even
[35:24] Speaker 6: know and rest of Peace, I called him, were talking
[35:26] Speaker 6: on the phone, and he didn't know about.
[35:28] Speaker 3: The gap being okay, yeah, share of troubles. That's like
[35:32] Speaker 3: the south Side anthem, many more than others. Like every
[35:37] Speaker 3: time grand Master Vic used to come on, like so
[35:40] Speaker 3: I was like grand Master Victim.
[35:42] Speaker 6: Yeah you hear that.
[35:44] Speaker 2: It's like, oh my god, Okay.
[35:45] Speaker 3: People start paying homage grand Master Vic projects, you know
[35:49] Speaker 3: what I mean, even wrong G.
[35:51] Speaker 2: Of course I.
[35:52] Speaker 1: Don't know murder no about ron G man the mixtapes
[35:55] Speaker 1: and all that.
[35:57] Speaker 3: No, I know, you know, but I didn't know if
[35:58] Speaker 3: you know about ron G number ten though, was a
[36:01] Speaker 3: class that was the one to me if you ever
[36:03] Speaker 3: go back and you could. Ron G had plenty of
[36:06] Speaker 3: dope tapes, but ron G number ten was like a
[36:09] Speaker 3: drug dealer's anthem. People on the block, all the drug
[36:12] Speaker 3: ron G number ten that's what was playing. That was
[36:15] Speaker 3: a blend era before DJ Clue came shout the clue too, yep,
[36:18] Speaker 3: because he's one of them. Do he changed the game?
[36:20] Speaker 3: It was they went from mixtapes because I'm still listening
[36:24] Speaker 3: to the Dirty Harry and all them.
[36:26] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I'm still listening to yeah.
[36:29] Speaker 3: Serious And then when I go overseas, it's a whole
[36:31] Speaker 3: nother element of music.
[36:34] Speaker 2: Of course, of course, but that yeah, ron G changed
[36:36] Speaker 2: the game with those blends. He influenced the production, so
[36:39] Speaker 2: I feel like him and then could compete with the
[36:42] Speaker 2: blends too, and the next thing, you know, you got
[36:44] Speaker 2: I didn't you gotta Yeah, we gotta talk about.
[36:47] Speaker 1: You watching right now that you think people sleeping on
[36:50] Speaker 1: the cool.
[36:50] Speaker 2: Kids for sure? Like I mentioned them earlier, they're from
[36:52] Speaker 2: Chicago and they just starting in the blog era, like
[36:57] Speaker 2: even a little before that, like from like two thousand
[36:59] Speaker 2: and six, so up until now, they just they set
[37:01] Speaker 2: trends all the time, and from the beats of the
[37:05] Speaker 2: rhymes to style, they changed, they changed the way a
[37:07] Speaker 2: whole generation dressed them. Shout out to Chris Krack, he's
[37:11] Speaker 2: on my label, Full's Bold. Yeah, there's a whole bunch
[37:14] Speaker 2: for sure. But I think what's cool about hip hop
[37:18] Speaker 2: now is like it's so broad that it's probably like
[37:22] Speaker 2: ten twelve different lanes of types of rappers, you know
[37:26] Speaker 2: what I mean? Like I think we can we could
[37:28] Speaker 2: sit here and reminisce about how how great the nineties was,
[37:31] Speaker 2: and at the end of the day, that's that that's
[37:33] Speaker 2: the era that shaped me. But I love the fact
[37:36] Speaker 2: that now you can have so many different types of
[37:40] Speaker 2: rappers that coexist and they find their fan base just
[37:45] Speaker 2: directly online.
[37:46] Speaker 1: It's yes, I just.
[37:50] Speaker 2: Think there's too much music that comes out.
[37:52] Speaker 1: Because because much because it's so easy because of social media.
[37:56] Speaker 6: Too much music.
[37:56] Speaker 3: But what I love about the music now is it's
[37:58] Speaker 3: so much lanes. Like day I might want to do.
[38:01] Speaker 6: Old school yeah Bird or flag yeh.
[38:05] Speaker 8: Fucking I don't know anybody, and then one day I
[38:09] Speaker 8: might want to do you know, the ratchet ship, like
[38:13] Speaker 8: fucking Pool Shike stand Because I'm listening to that, I'm
[38:16] Speaker 8: not Key Glock and sexy Red she want to fuck with?
[38:20] Speaker 3: That beat is take Key for real? When no matter,
[38:24] Speaker 3: that's what sexy Red is just ratchet. It's good music,
[38:27] Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, Like take Key on the beat,
[38:29] Speaker 3: It's always the beat for me. So when I take
[38:32] Speaker 3: Key on the beat and then she got key Glock
[38:34] Speaker 3: on it, so to me, Key Glock is still up
[38:36] Speaker 3: there with Dolph. He's like holding his own. So I
[38:38] Speaker 3: might want to listen to some Whyian ship, and then
[38:41] Speaker 3: I might go to all the dead rappers, Pop Smoke,
[38:45] Speaker 3: Nipsey Tube, hoop biggie, my mind just be all over now.
[38:51] Speaker 2: So I like the fact that at the same at
[38:55] Speaker 2: the same slice of time, you could have like all
[39:01] Speaker 2: the all the stuff that Alchemist is producing, right and
[39:04] Speaker 2: the earth shout out to out.
[39:06] Speaker 6: He's another day.
[39:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a legend. And and you know, it's amazing
[39:10] Speaker 2: that he's kind of at the biggest point of his
[39:12] Speaker 2: career now because we all remember the stuff he was
[39:14] Speaker 2: doing twenty five years ago.
[39:16] Speaker 6: He's doing a record album with right now.
[39:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, but the stuff that he's doing with with with
[39:22] Speaker 2: the Earl or like Surf Gang Mike, artists like that.
[39:25] Speaker 2: You got that pocket, you got like VS and like
[39:29] Speaker 2: I swear Veso and the Detroit guys. You got Kodak
[39:33] Speaker 2: doing his own thing. You got you know, all the
[39:36] Speaker 2: la stuff that's been popping, you know. I like all
[39:39] Speaker 2: the artists that Kendrick put on that last album, like
[39:41] Speaker 2: as Chik and people like that right album. But so
[39:46] Speaker 2: you know, all those different pockets and then the ratchet
[39:48] Speaker 2: stuff too, like you said, and and and the Memphis
[39:52] Speaker 2: Ship and all that, like that can all co exist.
[39:54] Speaker 2: There's a period of time where I think everybody was
[39:56] Speaker 2: trying to work with the same producer and everybody's trying
[39:58] Speaker 2: to make the same kind of record. But now everybody
[40:00] Speaker 2: can do their own individual thing and that's dope. But
[40:06] Speaker 2: the flip side of that is, as a DJ, I'll
[40:11] Speaker 2: tell you there's less records that bring everyone together. There's
[40:15] Speaker 2: way it's way harder to find, you know what I mean,
[40:17] Speaker 2: Like the way like put it through. Like I think
[40:21] Speaker 2: some of these artists and not not not saying the
[40:23] Speaker 2: ones that just named, but some of the current rap artists,
[40:25] Speaker 2: because they can just go straight to their audience and
[40:27] Speaker 2: their niche, they're a little bit less three dimensional because
[40:31] Speaker 2: when you think about the way that in the height
[40:35] Speaker 2: of you guys and stuff and the height of g
[40:37] Speaker 2: unit but also like a like a NAS record would
[40:41] Speaker 2: be lyrical for the heads, but it would be in
[40:43] Speaker 2: the clubs too. The girls liked it, the guys liked it,
[40:47] Speaker 2: you know, the beat heads liked it. It was for everyone,
[40:50] Speaker 2: whereas now lyrical is one thing, the club is one thing,
[40:54] Speaker 2: the girls is one thing, right, you know what I mean?
[40:56] Speaker 1: But who's making it trying to put it all together.
[40:59] Speaker 2: Right, because it's sense like Kanye at his height, Wayne
[41:05] Speaker 2: at his height, because that's even after you you guys
[41:10] Speaker 2: era in a sense, they were still making records that
[41:12] Speaker 2: ticked many of those boxes. It's a little bit harder
[41:15] Speaker 2: to find those records now that for me as a DJ,
[41:18] Speaker 2: where at any record I know, I'd be like, Yo,
[41:20] Speaker 2: this is the record of the year, Like this is like,
[41:22] Speaker 2: what's what's the biggie hypnotize of of last year? It's
[41:27] Speaker 2: harder to find those, you know what I mean. Yeah,
[41:31] Speaker 2: I mean there's a point in time where I started
[41:33] Speaker 2: messing around with house music.
[41:37] Speaker 1: Of course, Yeah, I.
[41:40] Speaker 6: Think it's.
[41:43] Speaker 1: I think it's the artist.
[41:44] Speaker 6: I don't think I think.
[41:46] Speaker 5: I think it's I think like you said, they can't
[41:49] Speaker 5: they know I got this audience.
[41:51] Speaker 1: They they already would be they rocking me. I'm cool,
[41:54] Speaker 1: don't That's whatduction?
[42:00] Speaker 3: Because like back like like in the nineties, eighties and
[42:04] Speaker 3: early two thousands, it be a beat like you hear
[42:07] Speaker 3: a beat like method Man, what was that?
[42:11] Speaker 2: How high? Bring the pain?
[42:14] Speaker 3: Yeah? Bring the one personal have that beat? You know what,
[42:18] Speaker 3: biggie who shot you? It was like one person. You'll
[42:21] Speaker 3: never hear a beat like that again, you know what
[42:24] Speaker 3: I mean. It's different Like when I say dons effects.
[42:28] Speaker 5: I get what you say. Nowadays, do it and do
[42:30] Speaker 5: a lot of beats, do sound familia.
[42:33] Speaker 2: There's just too much of everything. There's incredible producers. Now
[42:36] Speaker 2: there's producers that are doing some.
[42:37] Speaker 1: Ship shut out the Great John and the Beat by
[42:39] Speaker 1: the way.
[42:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just saying that EPMD you got, I know,
[42:44] Speaker 3: when certain things came on, it was just.
[42:47] Speaker 2: Like yeah, god right, yeah. Look, every every generation has
[42:53] Speaker 2: their classics, and people that are just going to the
[42:56] Speaker 2: club now they're twenty years old, they'll they'll hear it
[43:00] Speaker 2: might be Osama's son or someone like that, and they'll
[43:02] Speaker 2: hear that record be like, oh, that's my ship or
[43:04] Speaker 2: the Obviously Cardi and Uzi are super important to the
[43:07] Speaker 2: last five ten years, right, so if a Cardi recond
[43:10] Speaker 2: comes down, people will be like yo, that Like they'll
[43:12] Speaker 2: react the same way as maybe reacted.
[43:15] Speaker 1: You got to thinking the jay Z.
[43:19] Speaker 5: It's just the same way we felt about back then
[43:21] Speaker 5: how these young people feel about right now.
[43:25] Speaker 3: But a lot of music is mike a wave music
[43:27] Speaker 3: like you could play do you.
[43:29] Speaker 5: That's to us though, as I'm realizing now, that's to
[43:31] Speaker 5: us because you realize how the older you remember, the
[43:34] Speaker 5: older generation used to hate.
[43:35] Speaker 2: On right, they would be like what they talk about
[43:38] Speaker 2: the same.
[43:38] Speaker 1: Real hip hop. They talk about streets the same real
[43:41] Speaker 1: hip hop.
[43:41] Speaker 5: Because they got away from the hip then they was
[43:44] Speaker 5: a little mad at at that time they wasn't respecting
[43:46] Speaker 5: the street music.
[43:47] Speaker 6: Of course, all I'm saying.
[43:48] Speaker 3: Is this as a DJ, right, yeah, we're not just
[43:51] Speaker 3: talking about hip hop when we go to Queen's clubs. Right,
[43:55] Speaker 3: you could play hip hop music like when we was
[43:58] Speaker 3: going to the Hole in the World, but it was
[44:01] Speaker 3: a time with Nigga. You better have that jamaking ready,
[44:04] Speaker 3: you better have this ready like that that. Sorry, we
[44:12] Speaker 3: can't say that was every block party. And baby, we
[44:19] Speaker 3: know that Rekie could play somewhere overseas.
[44:22] Speaker 6: It's still knock.
[44:23] Speaker 7: Yeah, the difference is too much you have.
[44:29] Speaker 3: But still as a DJ, you know you still have
[44:32] Speaker 3: to have your ship together.
[44:33] Speaker 2: Yep, yep, you gotta. You gotta be able to shut
[44:36] Speaker 2: up at that party. You might you might think it's
[44:38] Speaker 2: gonna be one style and you show up and like
[44:40] Speaker 2: you said, they might want reggae, they might want old school,
[44:43] Speaker 2: they might want some regional ship. As we we like
[44:48] Speaker 2: us DJs, we need to be able to, like we
[44:50] Speaker 2: was overseas, get there and flip their formula.
[44:53] Speaker 3: Shout to DJ Robbie Rob not to disrespect him, but
[44:56] Speaker 3: we went overseas.
[44:57] Speaker 1: You sound like you're about to disrespect I'm just.
[45:00] Speaker 6: Say you like now.
[45:02] Speaker 3: But he thought he was gonna go overseas and do
[45:04] Speaker 3: all that American ship that she was out the window.
[45:08] Speaker 3: Different ship, afro beats, you know what I'm saying, Different
[45:13] Speaker 3: ship when you go other places. And he learned this lesson,
[45:17] Speaker 3: like you ain't gonna say, yo, when you come over
[45:18] Speaker 3: here for your first time coming overseas, you can't just
[45:22] Speaker 3: think the American records are gonna rock for you.
[45:24] Speaker 6: I haven't seen that who Kid.
[45:26] Speaker 3: I always give it to who Kid because who Kid
[45:28] Speaker 3: will have the world hold DG like how he know?
[45:32] Speaker 6: Yeah, that's one of his joints. That's that's his joy.
[45:39] Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying for DJ. You gotta be prepared
[45:42] Speaker 3: because what's the worst feeling.
[45:44] Speaker 5: Throw a record on and people come on, nobody moving,
[45:47] Speaker 5: but you want that ship. You know.
[45:49] Speaker 2: One thing I remember too is there's a point in
[45:53] Speaker 2: time when g Unitt was really touring internationally. I think
[45:58] Speaker 2: a lot of people in North America might not realized
[46:00] Speaker 2: that there wasn't that many rappers or wrap crews that
[46:04] Speaker 2: were really international like that. Because when I started working
[46:09] Speaker 2: with Kanye and we were going international a lot, and
[46:13] Speaker 2: I was already doing those overseas circuits as a DJ,
[46:16] Speaker 2: and then I was working with Ya and we were,
[46:18] Speaker 2: you know, going to Japan and Nigeria and anywhere. Everywhere
[46:23] Speaker 2: we went, G Unit had been. It was g Unit
[46:26] Speaker 2: eminem akon. There was a point in time where even
[46:30] Speaker 2: Hove hadn't started doing the international thing. Then he became international.
[46:35] Speaker 3: I was locked up, but Rihanna was overseas when she
[46:38] Speaker 3: just came out.
[46:38] Speaker 2: She was yeah, yeah, but yeah, I was. I remember that.
[46:46] Speaker 2: You guys really went and hit the whole world in
[46:49] Speaker 2: a way that at that point in time, not not
[46:51] Speaker 2: that many artists story.
[46:53] Speaker 3: My story is crazy. I remember opening up for Cash
[46:59] Speaker 3: Okay Wayne, Lil Wayne was he was young, he was
[47:04] Speaker 3: on stage like rich already these niggas. Was had all
[47:08] Speaker 3: of the fucking props flying up on the stage, a
[47:11] Speaker 3: million girls fire.
[47:12] Speaker 2: I'm like, oh Ship, shout out many Fresh, that's.
[47:15] Speaker 3: My man, whole cash money come on you.
[47:22] Speaker 1: Pastor what what's next for ah track?
[47:26] Speaker 6: Question?
[47:29] Speaker 1: I got what's next for a trick?
[47:31] Speaker 2: So I got a couple of different projects. That's one
[47:34] Speaker 2: thing with DJs too, is we collaborate a lot, right,
[47:37] Speaker 2: So I mentioned my brother, me and him have a
[47:39] Speaker 2: project we're doing together called the Brothers Macklevich. That's our
[47:42] Speaker 2: last name, Macklevich. So Brothers Macklevich were dropping a couple
[47:45] Speaker 2: of songs with that, and we do we go on
[47:49] Speaker 2: the road, we do some some gigs like that. I'm
[47:53] Speaker 2: working on a new EP myself, but I'm always doing
[47:55] Speaker 2: remixes and collaborations without the DJs, and I'm working. I'm
[48:00] Speaker 2: working on a new kind of concept of like a
[48:02] Speaker 2: new live thing that I'm gonna bring out on the
[48:04] Speaker 2: road probably in a year or so. But I'm really
[48:07] Speaker 2: just always churning out like the way that now a
[48:11] Speaker 2: lot of the music industry is kind of coming around
[48:13] Speaker 2: to doing singles and EPs rather than just albums. Us
[48:17] Speaker 2: the DJs, we've been doing that for years. DJs is
[48:20] Speaker 2: all singles and EPs. So I'm just churning out a
[48:23] Speaker 2: bunch of music, keeping Fools Gold going. I got another
[48:27] Speaker 2: there you go, you gotta say fools and I got
[48:33] Speaker 2: another label called a Track and Friends. That's again that
[48:36] Speaker 2: singles because Fools Gold is more projects. A track and
[48:39] Speaker 2: Friends is house music singles. We do parties that are
[48:44] Speaker 2: that are branded as a track and Friends. So even
[48:46] Speaker 2: just this weekend, I got an a Tracking Friends event
[48:48] Speaker 2: in l A week after that, I got one in Miami.
[48:51] Speaker 2: I'm gonna do one in London this summer. So just
[48:55] Speaker 2: building that and just keeping it going.
[49:00] Speaker 6: All night.
[49:01] Speaker 5: All people want to I love It's you made a
[49:03] Speaker 5: bunch of money off this year, right, Do you still
[49:05] Speaker 5: love it?
[49:06] Speaker 6: Do you still yes?
[49:08] Speaker 2: Yes? Of course. It was never for the money, and
[49:10] Speaker 2: it's in there's a ton of stuff I could have
[49:13] Speaker 2: done for money that I passed on if it didn't
[49:15] Speaker 2: feel authentic to me. I'm still like I got into
[49:19] Speaker 2: it because I was telling you, like as a young
[49:22] Speaker 2: you know, thirteen fourteen year old in Canada falling in
[49:25] Speaker 2: love with the music and trying to understand listening to
[49:28] Speaker 2: records by the Beastie Boys in Farside and Day Last Soul,
[49:31] Speaker 2: Try called quest what are these samples? How did they
[49:34] Speaker 2: make this beat? That passion? That's still why I do it.
[49:38] Speaker 2: And then there's a point in time where I went
[49:40] Speaker 2: from being the student to also being in a position
[49:44] Speaker 2: where I could put other people on. So that's even
[49:46] Speaker 2: the Kit Cutti. Thing that we talked about Danny Brown,
[49:49] Speaker 2: who you got to talk to Danny.
[49:52] Speaker 6: I found one of the nicest yo.
[49:55] Speaker 2: You were early on Daniel Brown.
[49:58] Speaker 3: Danny Brown got ba He's man. He's a machine. He'll
[50:02] Speaker 3: sit in front of the computer, used to be in
[50:03] Speaker 3: my house. He won't even leave the studio.
[50:05] Speaker 2: He'll record himself, record twelve grades.
[50:07] Speaker 6: You know, you record himself.
[50:09] Speaker 2: He will record to any kind of beat you you
[50:11] Speaker 2: give him the sound of like a water dripping from
[50:14] Speaker 2: a faucet, He'll find a way to flow around that.
[50:17] Speaker 6: Yeah.
[50:17] Speaker 3: Tell you one thing, Cutty wasn't playing when Jim Joe
[50:20] Speaker 3: he do with that record, motherfucker, that's.
[50:22] Speaker 2: My record right, hold on a seconds.
[50:27] Speaker 6: I don't like like cut him a couple of times.
[50:30] Speaker 2: I was about to say I'm about to go on
[50:32] Speaker 2: tour with Cuddy. When you say you're still cool with Yeah, Yeah,
[50:36] Speaker 2: that's my bro. That's my bro.
[50:39] Speaker 6: He cond tour forever. He got hit records, YEA and
[50:41] Speaker 6: Night that had to go Diamond.
[50:44] Speaker 2: He's got probably a dozen classics. So in May, I'm
[50:49] Speaker 2: going on the tour with Kit, Cuddy and m I
[50:51] Speaker 2: A and Big Boy from Outcast. So sure will be
[50:55] Speaker 2: name name, the city will be there, so that's dope.
[50:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because you gotta remember day and night. I
[51:01] Speaker 3: remember like being overseas that had to be played every
[51:06] Speaker 3: club at least ten times a night.
[51:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, and in every type of club. I'm always a
[51:11] Speaker 2: fan of records that are just like that stand out,
[51:14] Speaker 2: that don't sound like anything else. Like there's there's hits
[51:19] Speaker 2: and classics that sound like their era, that sound like
[51:24] Speaker 2: other stuff that comes out, but the ones that really
[51:27] Speaker 2: really survive the decades are the ones that sound like
[51:31] Speaker 2: nothing else. You know. I'm always just I'm always looking
[51:34] Speaker 2: for stuff that's kind of left the center, a little weird,
[51:37] Speaker 2: a little you know, stuff that doesn't really fit in
[51:39] Speaker 2: the box, because I know that that has the potential
[51:42] Speaker 2: to reach even more people. You know. But I feel
[51:46] Speaker 2: like even just like both of you as artists have
[51:48] Speaker 2: always been clever and like figuring out ways to stand out,
[51:51] Speaker 2: because you the way that you would always do the
[51:54] Speaker 2: wrap up records for every year, Like I feel like
[51:56] Speaker 2: that's like that's almost like a thought that a j
[52:00] Speaker 2: would have, like what can I do? What can I
[52:02] Speaker 2: do that's different? That can you notice? Yeah, just kind
[52:06] Speaker 2: of every year have people talking, Yeah, what what year
[52:10] Speaker 2: did you start?
[52:11] Speaker 5: What was the first started in two thousand and fourteen?
[52:14] Speaker 5: Okay fourteen.
[52:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something in DJ would do the same way
[52:19] Speaker 2: DJ would think of a bland. You were like, all right,
[52:22] Speaker 2: what can I do? That's that's not gonna be like
[52:24] Speaker 2: everybody else's.
[52:25] Speaker 5: It's gonna keep it going, shut out the mad skills
[52:27] Speaker 5: because I know he's gonna.
[52:28] Speaker 2: That's the whole yea and him cool, Yeah, he just
[52:35] Speaker 2: wanted he want to know, he.
[52:37] Speaker 1: Just wanted to grant me something like that.
[52:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, for like a spoken word album, because he made
[52:40] Speaker 2: he made a different type of album. It's it's poetry
[52:42] Speaker 2: and it talks about it's some real like.
[52:45] Speaker 6: Murder with the God.
[52:54] Speaker 5: He even acknowledged that he recognized that wrap up is murder.
[52:59] Speaker 5: Murder kind of took that.
[53:08] Speaker 3: How do you feel about the technology? Like how said
[53:11] Speaker 3: the Crates. That's say, let me give you a scenario.
[53:15] Speaker 3: You got your computer, fucking your DJ and somebody spilled
[53:20] Speaker 3: some ship on it.
[53:20] Speaker 6: Fry.
[53:23] Speaker 2: You gotta be ready. You gotta have like the flask
[53:25] Speaker 2: drive in your pocket something. But yeah, I mostly play
[53:29] Speaker 2: off the flask drives. Now it's even more portable. I
[53:32] Speaker 2: show up with my headphones, plug my ship in, let's go.
[53:35] Speaker 3: So you think that's like the equipment is better now,
[53:38] Speaker 3: like the mixes and you know how they got like
[53:40] Speaker 3: the echo chambers.
[53:41] Speaker 2: In there's you can do more with the equipment. Now,
[53:47] Speaker 2: you can do more effects and loops. And I'm a
[53:50] Speaker 2: DJ that does tricks, Like I told you guys, I
[53:52] Speaker 2: started with scratching and you know DJ battles. So all
[53:57] Speaker 2: the new equipment that has all the technology, it just
[54:01] Speaker 2: gives me ideas. I'll be like, oh shit, I'm gonna
[54:03] Speaker 2: have a loop on this one, and I'm gonna have
[54:05] Speaker 2: this other thing underneath and then the drum beat, and
[54:08] Speaker 2: I'll just come up with crazy tricks with with all
[54:10] Speaker 2: all the gear that I get. But I do think
[54:14] Speaker 2: that when it was just two turntables and a mixer
[54:18] Speaker 2: and no effects and and and just vinyl and the
[54:21] Speaker 2: ten crates that you talked about, you had to get
[54:24] Speaker 2: creative and you had to Everything that you were doing
[54:27] Speaker 2: was really use just from your hands to to the
[54:31] Speaker 2: to the vinyl and to those faders and and there's
[54:34] Speaker 2: no no way to cheat it. Tomi Gemini, Yep, you know.
[54:43] Speaker 5: When it when it comes to artist, like as far
[54:46] Speaker 5: as you looking for to sign what you look for.
[54:50] Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of like the thing I was saying,
[54:52] Speaker 2: where like it needs to stand out. You know, maybe
[54:57] Speaker 2: there's other you know, because a fool's goal. I wear
[55:00] Speaker 2: many hats like you know, but I'll be I'll be
[55:02] Speaker 2: the A and R the same way that I will
[55:04] Speaker 2: organize the events the same whatever. So if I'm putting
[55:06] Speaker 2: my an R hat on, there's probably other an rs
[55:09] Speaker 2: out there that are better at finding the quick hit,
[55:12] Speaker 2: finding the thing that will hit the charts now. But
[55:15] Speaker 2: I just I just try to find stuff that that
[55:18] Speaker 2: that stands out because I think that stands the test
[55:21] Speaker 2: of time more. And there'll be stuff that I'm excited
[55:23] Speaker 2: about where I'll think about the different pockets of DJs
[55:26] Speaker 2: that I could try and reach with with those records.
[55:29] Speaker 2: So the standing out thing is important. I mean, there's
[55:32] Speaker 2: so many artists that I've been involved with that are
[55:34] Speaker 2: just their characters, you know. They they got that extra
[55:38] Speaker 2: little thing to them.
[55:40] Speaker 6: And the standing out keeps you torn. That's just torn.
[55:43] Speaker 6: Now he's torn.
[55:44] Speaker 2: He's still look at the road.
[55:48] Speaker 6: Yeah, Brown, he's still torn.
[55:50] Speaker 3: Just like when we go overseas and we running the
[55:52] Speaker 3: j rud of damage Ye or Boys to Men or
[55:57] Speaker 3: Kris One.
[55:58] Speaker 6: We ran in the blouse, that's.
[56:03] Speaker 2: In the house.
[56:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's why we bring DJs with you.
[56:12] Speaker 6: Like I looked at you as just d M d J.
[56:15] Speaker 3: I didn't know you was like in the hip hop
[56:18] Speaker 3: like because I looked at him with Fool's Gold record,
[56:22] Speaker 3: you know what I mean? And I thought I looked
[56:23] Speaker 3: at him like on the E d M side, because
[56:25] Speaker 3: you know he's like there with Diplo and you know
[56:28] Speaker 3: so so when he tells me these hip hop stories
[56:30] Speaker 3: and how he was cutting out, I'm like, man, I
[56:32] Speaker 3: gotta gotta go around.
[56:34] Speaker 1: He look like you work with Kanye. What's going on?
[56:38] Speaker 3: Not even the Kanye to me? So win a DJ
[56:42] Speaker 3: tournament at fifteen worldwide, you got to be. I was
[56:49] Speaker 3: in the party. I told you my best friend was
[56:52] Speaker 3: a DJ.
[56:53] Speaker 6: I had this. I know how it is.
[56:55] Speaker 3: When you bought you go to your your storm Montreal
[56:58] Speaker 3: and you know something WU tangers about. Like I remember
[57:01] Speaker 3: when they came out with a double album back then.
[57:03] Speaker 3: Yeah it was an instrumental album too. Remember when that
[57:08] Speaker 3: came When that came out.
[57:10] Speaker 2: Come on, when Cuban Links came out. Nothing sounded like that.
[57:15] Speaker 2: With that come and nothing sounded like that.
[57:21] Speaker 6: Label?
[57:22] Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
[57:23] Speaker 2: I mean, I have an independent label. I'm very pro independent. Certainly,
[57:28] Speaker 2: if there's an artist that's making records that are just
[57:31] Speaker 2: made for radio that need to hit those international departments
[57:37] Speaker 2: that are the majors, can still do that like no
[57:39] Speaker 2: one else. But everything else, I think at this point
[57:43] Speaker 2: it's it's it's independent because especially now that you know
[57:48] Speaker 2: what I was going to say the other thing I
[57:50] Speaker 2: was going to add to when you ask what I
[57:51] Speaker 2: look for with the artists that I might want to sign,
[57:55] Speaker 2: I think now it's also important to have artists that
[57:57] Speaker 2: are clever with the own marketing and that know how
[58:00] Speaker 2: to how to go and find an audience. You know,
[58:04] Speaker 2: it's for better for worse. It's it's not just about
[58:08] Speaker 2: the music anymore.
[58:10] Speaker 1: Social media, you got to have a following.
[58:12] Speaker 2: And I'm not saying I'm looking for someone that knows
[58:14] Speaker 2: how to do a TikTok dance, but it might be
[58:17] Speaker 2: they might not even look at it as marketing. But
[58:19] Speaker 2: sometimes you hear someone's name, you see the way that
[58:21] Speaker 2: they look, the way they address, the way the way
[58:23] Speaker 2: they get their friend to do their artwork and everything
[58:25] Speaker 2: just it just stands out even visually. Yeah, that too,
[58:31] Speaker 2: they're not jumping on every tent, every trend every six months.
[58:34] Speaker 2: It's just you know what I mean like that that
[58:36] Speaker 2: that consistency is important too. So so what we're saying
[58:41] Speaker 2: just now about the independent thing. You know, every project
[58:46] Speaker 2: now should be marketed in its own way. There's no
[58:49] Speaker 2: longer just one way to do things. And I think
[58:51] Speaker 2: a lot of the majors stayed in that sort of
[58:53] Speaker 2: cookie cutter thing where they just those departments are doing
[58:56] Speaker 2: they're trying to fit you in the same old, same
[58:59] Speaker 2: mold as an artists they put out the previous quarter.
[59:02] Speaker 2: But the indies they'll they'll custom tailor and and they'll
[59:07] Speaker 2: go straight to their audience and sell them the vinyl
[59:09] Speaker 2: and and do the and take take the email addresses
[59:13] Speaker 2: from the tour pre sale and use that for the
[59:16] Speaker 2: marketing on the album rollout, and that it's just more
[59:20] Speaker 2: it's it's more involved in more custom tailor.
[59:24] Speaker 3: I feel like like artists now that like like a
[59:27] Speaker 3: talent creator. You'll never be on the radio and be
[59:29] Speaker 3: a young boy. You'll never hear Danny Brown on the
[59:33] Speaker 3: radio with these guys a touring, Yes, making money. It's
[59:36] Speaker 3: different right now.
[59:37] Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it is different. And and I think that
[59:42] Speaker 2: that is where the culture is now, is like sure,
[59:47] Speaker 2: if a record gets on the radio, will hit another
[59:49] Speaker 2: another plateau in numbers. But there's a lot of artists
[59:53] Speaker 2: that are on the radio that can't really sell out
[59:56] Speaker 2: the garden, right. Maybe they can do New York in
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: LA or maybe their hometown, but you you know, you
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: put them in in Madison, Wisconsin, and it's not it's
[1:00:07] Speaker 2: not moving like that. But the artists that have their
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: audience and that are and maybe they you know, maybe
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: the YouTube shit is popping or whatever it is, but
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: they're you know, they're they're going straight to their audience.
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: They're reaching people everywhere and they can go overseas two
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: And yeah, I think and and I'm I'm more a
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: fan of that approach because the other thing that just
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: to sort of connect the dots is like when I
[1:00:32] Speaker 2: came on the scene, even when I was just doing
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: hip hop, like ninety seven is when I won that
[1:00:37] Speaker 2: that big DJ battle ninety seven, who's also we mentioned
[1:00:40] Speaker 2: Lord Syr Rest in Peace because I went on the
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: Stretch and Bobido radio show that year too, like shout
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: out to Stretch and Bob. Ninety seven was a period
[1:00:48] Speaker 2: of time where in hip hop there was a revival
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: of that indie thing, Rockets Records and groups like Company
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: Flow and Dilated Peoples and non Fiction and.
[1:00:58] Speaker 6: All of that.
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: You know, it was it was. There was indie labels
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: Stone Throw that's still a big label now, and they
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: got known. They got even more known when they put
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: out the Mad Lip Stuff and Mad Villain with MF.
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: Doom and all that. Like that sort of alternative, independent
[1:01:15] Speaker 2: side of hip hop. That's that's what I was into
[1:01:19] Speaker 2: when I came on the scene. And that's what like
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: just going to Fat Beats and looking at all the
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: records on the wall and being like, yo, I want
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: to do this. Like that taught me a certain ethos
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: of you know, if you and your friends are doing
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: some cool shit and your friends got making music and
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: it's and it's different, you could just put the ship
[1:01:40] Speaker 2: out yourself, right And and I learned that by going
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: to Fat Beats and by listening to Stretch and Bob,
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: and by listening to these independent artists that were just
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: doing some different shit and and and they knew how
[1:01:56] Speaker 2: to get to their audience already.
[1:01:57] Speaker 1: Then you know he was fifty.
[1:02:00] Speaker 6: I never knew he was fifteen.
[1:02:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm forty three now, so it's been a minute.
[1:02:04] Speaker 6: That's crazy. Thirteen years old, that's crazy.
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: That's dope, that's super dope.
[1:02:08] Speaker 6: Ye appreciate you have to stay on the crazy.
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: DJ I had. I had to say, yo, because if
[1:02:16] Speaker 2: you as.
[1:02:16] Speaker 1: Soon as you asked, my man, I'm gonna tell you.
[1:02:19] Speaker 3: Look, I'm I looked still circle one bow wow dj DJs.
[1:02:28] Speaker 3: He was like seven eight years old, like yeah, like
[1:02:33] Speaker 3: ten probably like so depending on how tull you.
[1:02:37] Speaker 2: Was, and I looked I looked eleven when I.
[1:02:40] Speaker 3: Was That's what I'm saying. So just set you know,
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: back then you had to call for everything.
[1:02:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, so did you have to stay on the casey sometimes?
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: And you know it correct?
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: He's right. And if you go to YouTube and you
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: look up nineteen ninety seven eight track d m C,
[1:02:57] Speaker 2: you'll see the video of me winning this battle and
[1:02:59] Speaker 2: I look like a child. He's gonna put it in. Yeah,
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: it's all good when I'm at yo. That's that's that's
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: where it all started for me. And yeah, I used
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: to have to travel with you know, I would go
[1:03:15] Speaker 2: to some of my gigs. And the bouncer wouldn't let
[1:03:18] Speaker 2: me in, and that was the DJ, and I would
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: have you know what I mean. I'd be like, I
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: am djaying, and they'd be like, I'm not letting you
[1:03:24] Speaker 2: in kids, and you still milk, And then they would
[1:03:30] Speaker 2: have to send out the promoter, and the promoter when
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: bouncer would get into an argument, the bouncer would be like, yo,
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: if the cops come in and they see him, that's
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: on me. A lot of gigs when I was first
[1:03:40] Speaker 2: starting out, they would just have me wait, like in
[1:03:42] Speaker 2: the manager's office, the club manager's office, wait for it
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: for it to be time for my set. All right,
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: come up, do my little thing.
[1:03:51] Speaker 1: All right, come back. That's crazy.
[1:03:53] Speaker 2: But I was just so passionate. That's you know.
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's when you know you super dope.
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: You think.
[1:04:02] Speaker 3: So real DJ right here. You know, I thought it
[1:04:04] Speaker 3: was just you know, of course fools records.
[1:04:08] Speaker 6: We know you for that.
[1:04:09] Speaker 3: That's legendary label. I didn't know you. You know, the
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: DJ battles back at fifteen. Yeah, learned something new every day.
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: Man, That's what's up. But that that's again, it's also
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: that thing about being students of the game, about just
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: wanting to understand how these records were made and where
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: the samples were from, and knowing about your freestyles and
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: your freestyles and the mixtapes. Man, when you guys came
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: out with that run of mixtapes, no one was touching that,
[1:04:36] Speaker 2: you know, and and and you know, you could people
[1:04:39] Speaker 2: could look at it now as marketing or this or that,
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: but like it was, it was just like the best,
[1:04:47] Speaker 2: like those like fifty Cents the Future and and and
[1:04:51] Speaker 2: and come on, man, that was better than the albums
[1:04:55] Speaker 2: that were coming out.
[1:04:56] Speaker 6: That's what I'm saying, like nostalgic, nostalgic moments, Like I said,
[1:05:00] Speaker 6: going to Jamaica Avenue. Yeah, you're going to the Bootlegger
[1:05:02] Speaker 6: every mixtape.
[1:05:03] Speaker 2: The rootleg.
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, like I said, our best friend was the DJ Ruffians.
[1:05:09] Speaker 3: He'll go to Hot Wax. What record is there? What
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: instrumentals is there? Because remember you had your A side
[1:05:14] Speaker 3: B side instrumental albums all of that, you know, so
[1:05:17] Speaker 3: that that was dupe because people wanted the instrumentals too. Yeah,
[1:05:20] Speaker 3: and it was like you know, now you get everything
[1:05:22] Speaker 3: on your phone, it's not a special nor more you
[1:05:24] Speaker 3: have to get on the dollar bend.
[1:05:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I'm saying you had to choose
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: no really also.
[1:05:29] Speaker 1: Had to get those instruments.
[1:05:31] Speaker 2: You know, you had to choose which records you were
[1:05:34] Speaker 2: buying that week because no one had enough money to
[1:05:36] Speaker 2: buy everything that came out, So maybe you might just
[1:05:39] Speaker 2: have enough money in your pocket to buy three twelve inches.
[1:05:41] Speaker 2: And you're like, all right, am I getting this Pete
[1:05:43] Speaker 2: Rock and Seales smooth and this you know, uh tribe
[1:05:47] Speaker 2: and this far side thing, But damn this Rakwon thing
[1:05:50] Speaker 2: is kind of different and cool or damn Meth the
[1:05:52] Speaker 2: man red Man, how hot? Damn sul and that one's
[1:05:54] Speaker 2: got an a cappella. If I buy that, I can
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: use the a cappella to do a blend. So you're
[1:05:59] Speaker 2: just sitting there, You're like, got enough record money for
[1:06:01] Speaker 2: three records?
[1:06:03] Speaker 6: So Okay, I didn't.
[1:06:05] Speaker 1: I didn't.
[1:06:06] Speaker 6: It wasn't was still was still the records. Yeah, I
[1:06:10] Speaker 6: had that cracked money. Give me can you instrumental?
[1:06:17] Speaker 3: You made the right enough, but we were happy to
[1:06:22] Speaker 3: have you in.
[1:06:22] Speaker 2: Thanks ship.
[1:06:24] Speaker 6: I learned a lot of ship about the culture.
[1:06:26] Speaker 3: I looked a lot of ship about DJing, loked a
[1:06:29] Speaker 3: lot of shout the fools goes record.
[1:06:31] Speaker 6: You want to shout anything out.
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you said that you got coming, but
[1:06:35] Speaker 2: I got coming. The tour with Key, all these releases
[1:06:39] Speaker 2: on Fools, Gold and A tracking friends, brothers, Maclevich. We're
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: gonna do up more Duck Sauce soon. In the meantime,
[1:06:46] Speaker 2: my joints.
[1:06:48] Speaker 1: Definitely eight tracking the buildings records.
[1:06:53] Speaker 6: You know what it is.
[1:06:54] Speaker 3: We're doing it big and we don't do everything with
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: everybody else. Do make sure you're like share subscribed report.
[1:07:00] Speaker 3: You know the vibes man, you're out
[1:07:08] Speaker 1: H

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