# Jason A. England on How A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees & Mobb Deep Defined 1996 | 03.10

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 10 Mar 2026, 1 h 00 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/cd20622b-3e0d-4f24-88fd-b4bb0115cb09/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

In this episode of The Right Time, Bomani Jones and Jason England continue their discussion of Hip=Hop in the year 1996. From classic albums by A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul to the massive breakthrough of The Fugees, the conversation explores how 1996 produced some of the most important rap records ever made. But it was also the moment when hip-hop started shifting—from a culture-driven scene to a more commercial industry. Bomani and Jason break down why albums like Beats, Rhymes and Life, Stakes Is High, Hell on Earth from Mobb Deep, and Ironman from Ghostface Killah captured a turning point in the genre. They also discuss how artists like Lauryn Hill helped expand hip-hop’s audience while changing the sound of rap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
[0:09] Speaker 1: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
[0:11] Speaker 1: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
[0:16] Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
[0:18] Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe.
[0:21] Speaker 2: You are a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesdays.
[0:24] Speaker 1: We are here with part five of our series on
[0:26] Speaker 1: the year 1996 in hip hop. Thanks to my man,
[0:30] Speaker 1: Wally Sparks, who was on from the last episode. We
[0:33] Speaker 1: talked about the emergence of the South in 1996. Now
[0:36] Speaker 1: back with us with some sunglasses on his side, the
[0:39] Speaker 1: homie Jason England.
[0:40] Speaker 2: He has returned. I see you have also given us
[0:42] Speaker 2: a new backdrop.
[0:44] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. You know, back again like tag team. And
[0:47] Speaker 3: since Eminem's Infinite came out this year, try to keep
[0:50] Speaker 3: it slim and shady. New pair though. New pair. Keep guessing.
[0:54] Speaker 2: Back again like tag team. Boy, that is an immediate change.
[0:59] Speaker 2: The radio station bar right there.
[1:04] Speaker 4: Hey man the tag team boys they stumbled on gold
[1:07] Speaker 4: didn't they we'll get to 1996 in a minute but
[1:10] Speaker 4: for those who don't remember this about 1992 and this
[1:12] Speaker 4: was the best part there was whoop.
[1:14] Speaker 2: There it is and then there was whoop there it is.
[1:18] Speaker 1: And so what was interesting to me is whoop there
[1:22] Speaker 1: it is got no play in Houston but whoop There
[1:25] Speaker 1: it is. By 95 South, I believe it was. That
[1:29] Speaker 1: one was the Houston joint. I didn't know that the
[1:31] Speaker 1: one that was in the top five was a completely
[1:34] Speaker 1: different record.
[1:34] Speaker 2: So, yeah, I don't I don't know how that worked out,
[1:37] Speaker 2: who coordinated what. But it was a whoop and a whoop.
[1:40] Speaker 2: There it is.
[1:40] Speaker 3: Yeah. Whoop there. Oh, my. I was in Wilmington, North Carolina,
[1:46] Speaker 3: doing a summer program. I remember there was a woman's
[1:49] Speaker 3: hoops program and a woman's cheerleading program there. And I
[1:53] Speaker 3: was 16 going on 17. I fell in love with
[1:55] Speaker 3: a woman named Tamekia. And that song was one of
[1:58] Speaker 3: the anthems of the summer. I didn't hear that one
[2:00] Speaker 3: out of D.C.
[2:01] Speaker 5: Either.
[2:02] Speaker 3: But they made all the money, right? They were even
[2:03] Speaker 3: in commercials recently, like last couple of years. Yeah, Tag
[2:06] Speaker 3: Team made all the money.
[2:08] Speaker 1: And they jumped that off because one of them was
[2:11] Speaker 1: the DJ at Magic City.
[2:12] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[2:13] Speaker 2: And that was like the magic city call. It was whoop,
[2:17] Speaker 2: there it is.
[2:17] Speaker 1: It's impossible for me to imagine a time when whoop,
[2:20] Speaker 1: there it is was not corny and played out.
[2:23] Speaker 3: I know. Do you remember Daisy Dukes? Yes. Around that
[2:28] Speaker 3: same time, someone had remixed it and they had a
[2:30] Speaker 3: song called Look at Fat Girls.
[2:32] Speaker 2: Doing Daisy Dukes Wrong.
[2:35] Speaker 1: And I have to say, certainly coming from a flawed perspective,
[2:39] Speaker 1: one might argue problematic, but funny.
[2:41] Speaker 2: Funny is a completely different discussion.
[2:43] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[2:44] Speaker 3: All right. So.
[2:45] Speaker 1: 1996 is an interesting year in that I think this
[2:50] Speaker 1: is the best way, I've been trying to figure out
[2:52] Speaker 1: the right terms to talk about the wing of albums
[2:56] Speaker 1: that I wanted to talk about for 1996. And boom
[2:59] Speaker 1: bap feels inappropriate because I think a boom bap rap
[3:02] Speaker 1: is very, very specific.
[3:04] Speaker 2: And what we're talking about is a little bit broader
[3:07] Speaker 2: than that.
[3:08] Speaker 1: But what I mean by, what I'm talking about is,
[3:11] Speaker 1: and this is the best way I can make the point.
[3:13] Speaker 1: For those of you who don't remember, It was this
[3:16] Speaker 1: cat named Mike Geronimo, right? Mike Geronimo had a joint,
[3:19] Speaker 1: came out in 95 called Master I See.
[3:22] Speaker 2: I'm so high. You so high.
[3:24] Speaker 3: I be getting money to the day that I die. Right.
[3:28] Speaker 5: Right.
[3:28] Speaker 2: Like it was a rap. It was very much a
[3:30] Speaker 2: rap city song, right?
[3:32] Speaker 1: It would be in the top 10 or whatever, but
[3:34] Speaker 1: it was, I want to say that's like a, like, like, um,
[3:37] Speaker 1: like beat modders type joint or like bootcamp club. One
[3:39] Speaker 1: of them, a butt shot, I think is the one
[3:41] Speaker 1: who produced that one. But anyway, that's the aesthetic that
[3:44] Speaker 1: we're talking about. 1997 comes around, this motherfucker got on
[3:48] Speaker 1: a shiny suit and a puffy beat and a Kelly
[3:51] Speaker 1: Price hook and he dancing and singing in the video, right?
[3:55] Speaker 2: In 1996, there was not.
[3:58] Speaker 1: An expectation that your album had to have a club song, right?
[4:02] Speaker 2: That was part of, you talk about this a.
[4:04] Speaker 1: Lot, the first single off of, it was written by
[4:07] Speaker 1: Nas in 96 being If I Ruled the World. He
[4:11] Speaker 1: had made a compromise at that point. Like it was
[4:14] Speaker 1: him feeling like this is what, you know, this is
[4:16] Speaker 1: what I need to do to aspire to the heights
[4:19] Speaker 1: of success that I wish to have. After 96, it
[4:23] Speaker 1: didn't even feel like people were doing that because it's like, oh,
[4:25] Speaker 1: this is where I wish to go.
[4:26] Speaker 2: It was like a requirement for everybody. Like that is
[4:28] Speaker 2: maybe the.
[4:29] Speaker 1: Biggest puffy biggie influence in all of this is that
[4:33] Speaker 1: nobody was too hardcore.
[4:35] Speaker 2: To make a dance record, right? 96, it feels to.
[4:38] Speaker 1: Me, and if I'm overstating this, let me know, but
[4:41] Speaker 1: we got a lot of super dope classic albums out
[4:44] Speaker 1: here that were not made with the gaze of pop success.
[4:48] Speaker 1: And I think there were very few records after this
[4:50] Speaker 1: year that were done with that sort of outlook.
[4:52] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[4:53] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
[4:53] Speaker 3: One thing I'll say, just to give him his proper credit,
[4:55] Speaker 3: it was Buckwild, not Buckshot, who did Master I.C. But, yeah,
[5:00] Speaker 3: it's crazy. I think about this not just in 96,
[5:02] Speaker 3: but let's go way back. This is what made hip-hop,
[5:04] Speaker 3: for me, so incredible as a genre. It was like
[5:07] Speaker 3: punk rock in that you didn't know where it was
[5:09] Speaker 3: going ever. So when Tribe First comes out and they have...
[5:13] Speaker 3: an album about a small person in a weird hat
[5:17] Speaker 3: and they're in El Segundo looking for a lost wallet.
[5:20] Speaker 3: I didn't know. It was capacious. Like where, where could
[5:23] Speaker 3: a record start and stop? And it was dope because
[5:26] Speaker 3: it sounded great. Right. It had no marketing aim like that.
[5:30] Speaker 3: And you talk about the radio. Legitimately, we joke a
[5:33] Speaker 3: lot about my cousin, Kool Keith, and his multiple aliases
[5:36] Speaker 3: and his alt career. But him and Ultra Magnetic, they
[5:39] Speaker 3: had 1212, 1212. That was on the top 10 radio
[5:44] Speaker 3: primetime in New York City. They used to play records
[5:46] Speaker 3: like that. which made the scene totally different. So yeah,
[5:50] Speaker 3: so we have the very last whiffs of this. We
[5:52] Speaker 3: have like groups like the Cellar Dwellers are still trying
[5:55] Speaker 3: to come out in 96, you know, but there's no
[5:57] Speaker 3: real lane for them except the underground. And then, like
[5:59] Speaker 3: you said earlier, as we were talking up here, Pride
[6:02] Speaker 3: comes out and they kind of put out one of
[6:04] Speaker 3: the last records where, and even though they did have
[6:07] Speaker 3: like a somewhat radio single, it's still like a regular
[6:09] Speaker 3: Tribe album because they were the ones who kind of
[6:12] Speaker 3: set that in motion where it's like, yo, if you
[6:14] Speaker 3: have a movement and a sound, then you can break
[6:17] Speaker 3: an album. And I think that was the end of
[6:19] Speaker 3: it right there. We're seeing the very, like a comet,
[6:21] Speaker 3: the very tail ends of a comet of an era
[6:23] Speaker 3: right here. And it's, it's a really depressing era to
[6:25] Speaker 3: look back on in some ways. It's almost like you're
[6:27] Speaker 3: holding a funeral for a certain era of hip hop. Yeah.
[6:30] Speaker 1: Like the tribe build is interesting because beats rhymes in
[6:34] Speaker 1: life is the fourth tribe album. So we start with
[6:37] Speaker 1: people's distinctive, um, travels past the rhythm.
[6:41] Speaker 2: Been in an apple bomb. Can I kick it? Left
[6:43] Speaker 2: my wilder nail segundo.
[6:45] Speaker 1: Um, And there really had been no record like that
[6:48] Speaker 1: up until this point. The next time out is low-end theory, which.
[6:54] Speaker 2: Bob Power just died in the week that we are
[6:57] Speaker 2: recording this. Rest in peace to him.
[6:59] Speaker 1: And I think I was talking about this with my
[7:01] Speaker 1: man Ben Hameen on his podcast For All Nerds.
[7:03] Speaker 2: The other day.
[7:04] Speaker 1: One of the things that's interesting about Bob Power was
[7:06] Speaker 1: Bob Power, who was a famous engineer, like the D'Angelo
[7:10] Speaker 1: Brown Sugar is basically D'Angelo and Bob Power. Like a
[7:12] Speaker 1: lot of that guitar work on there is Bob Power,
[7:14] Speaker 1: all of this. But he said the only rap he
[7:16] Speaker 1: listened to was the rap he worked on, which is like,
[7:18] Speaker 1: A testament to what it was to do rap back
[7:21] Speaker 1: in the day in the sense that it was so
[7:23] Speaker 1: freeform that this white man could be the one helping
[7:25] Speaker 1: you get all the sounds that you want without really
[7:28] Speaker 1: having a strong familiarity with the genre because the genre
[7:31] Speaker 1: was still so freeform that it could be there. But
[7:34] Speaker 1: Low End Theory is one of the best sounding records
[7:36] Speaker 1: that anybody has ever made. And it is Q-Tip, who
[7:39] Speaker 1: to me is the epitome of... of rapping like a producer,
[7:43] Speaker 1: which is to say he raps like an instrument, right?
[7:46] Speaker 1: Like all the flows on a Tribe record are laid
[7:49] Speaker 1: down and vocally produced to be instruments as part of
[7:52] Speaker 1: the aesthetic of Q-Tip the Genius that he has put together.
[7:55] Speaker 1: And so they take these jazz records and they make
[7:57] Speaker 1: this incredible record with Low End Theory Then come behind
[8:01] Speaker 1: after that with midnight marauders, which they're also rising in
[8:05] Speaker 1: chart success as they do this. And midnight marauders is
[8:08] Speaker 1: a bit more, it's, it's a bit grittier than like
[8:12] Speaker 1: low end low end theory.
[8:13] Speaker 2: I think had more whimsy to it.
[8:15] Speaker 1: And I don't feel like midnight marauders really has any
[8:17] Speaker 1: whimsy at all, but they went as far as they
[8:20] Speaker 1: were going with that sound.
[8:21] Speaker 2: Jay Dilla, um, who at the time was going by JD, he.
[8:25] Speaker 1: Emerges in 95 with those far side tracks with running and,
[8:29] Speaker 1: with Drop, a couple other joints. Now 96 comes, he
[8:34] Speaker 1: does this album with Tribe together. Tribe has gotten so
[8:36] Speaker 1: big now that they are, like, it's the number one record.
[8:39] Speaker 1: This record debuted at number one, but we wasn't that
[8:45] Speaker 1: thrilled with it. Which I can't tell, even going back
[8:49] Speaker 1: and listening to it, it's hard to get, it doesn't
[8:51] Speaker 1: feel like the problem was the record, it just felt
[8:53] Speaker 1: like the times were changing on them But they were like,
[9:00] Speaker 1: we always did this for us anyway.
[9:02] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the times were changing on them. And
[9:04] Speaker 3: then with Dilla's edition, they were changing on what people
[9:07] Speaker 3: expected from the Tribe record. And I was one of
[9:09] Speaker 3: those people where I was like, yo, this doesn't sound
[9:11] Speaker 3: right to me initially, grew on me slightly. And then
[9:14] Speaker 3: when I went back to it a decade later, I
[9:16] Speaker 3: was like, oh, I was out of my mind. The
[9:18] Speaker 3: sound is dope. It's just like anything else. You can't
[9:23] Speaker 3: have too much. And we've talked about this in terms
[9:25] Speaker 3: of people in places and also music and celebrity. You
[9:30] Speaker 3: want to be a pleasant surprise rather than an expectation.
[9:34] Speaker 3: Once you become an expectation, people get bored of you.
[9:37] Speaker 3: When you're a pleasant surprise, people are always happy to
[9:39] Speaker 3: see you. Tribe just loomed so large that I felt
[9:42] Speaker 3: like they'd become an expectation. And that meant we set
[9:44] Speaker 3: a standard for them that was impossible to live up to.
[9:46] Speaker 3: And I think they were outgrowing things too. You talked
[9:48] Speaker 3: about how gritty Midnight Marauders sounded. And I think there
[9:52] Speaker 3: was this tension both in the group between Tip and
[9:55] Speaker 3: Fife and also with Tip and his ambitions and the
[9:59] Speaker 3: fact that And I talked to my homie Shaka about this.
[10:03] Speaker 3: The definition of what street or nerd was and real was,
[10:07] Speaker 3: people had kind of pigeonholed Q-Tip almost like he was
[10:10] Speaker 3: a bohemian nerd rapper. And Q-Tip was like, but I'm
[10:13] Speaker 3: out here. I got chicks. I got hands. I'm really
[10:16] Speaker 3: from these streets. I'm hanging with real street dudes.
[10:18] Speaker 1: I just did Give Up The Goods last year.
[10:20] Speaker 3: Yeah. y'all acting like you don't know who I am.
[10:22] Speaker 3: And I think that his ambition and maybe even his insecurity,
[10:26] Speaker 3: and I don't mean that negatively. I mean, just the
[10:28] Speaker 3: insecurity between who he really was and who people started
[10:31] Speaker 3: to view him as bothered him. And that changed things too.
[10:34] Speaker 3: I mean, that's why he goes off and he does
[10:36] Speaker 3: a solo, I think. Yeah.
[10:38] Speaker 1: And it really, like I said, it really jumps off
[10:41] Speaker 1: when Viber thing comes out. Because what makes Viber thing
[10:44] Speaker 1: so amazing to look back on is that beat is amazing.
[10:49] Speaker 2: That's a Dilla beat. It is a slapper. It comes
[10:53] Speaker 2: on everybody.
[10:54] Speaker 3: Incredible.
[10:54] Speaker 2: It is the opposite of Scared of.
[10:56] Speaker 1: Girls music made by an ultimate Scared of Girls producer.
[11:00] Speaker 2: All of that is there. But we ain't want that
[11:04] Speaker 2: from you.
[11:05] Speaker 3: No.
[11:06] Speaker 5: Right?
[11:06] Speaker 1: You out here with no shirt on and a fur coat.
[11:10] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[11:10] Speaker 2: We don't want that from you.
[11:12] Speaker 3: Arguably... my favorite hip hop figure ever. I think a
[11:16] Speaker 3: singular genius. When I really sit with it, those formative
[11:19] Speaker 3: years for me, he was somebody who for me was
[11:23] Speaker 3: a role model where it was like, all right, you
[11:25] Speaker 3: don't have to put on airs. You can be from
[11:27] Speaker 3: this sort of urban environment and you can still do
[11:29] Speaker 3: artistic stuff. And so when I saw him like that,
[11:33] Speaker 3: And then when I saw him kind of in that
[11:35] Speaker 3: era hanging out with, what did they call him? The
[11:37] Speaker 3: Pussy Pack or the Pussy Patrol? It was him and
[11:39] Speaker 3: Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio. And he was breaking cameramen's cameras,
[11:44] Speaker 3: paparazzi's cameras. I said, this is not the guy. I
[11:47] Speaker 3: had put him on a pedestal. And this was unfair
[11:50] Speaker 3: to him. I had an idea of who Q-Tip needed
[11:52] Speaker 3: to be. He had gone in a totally different direction.
[11:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he was like, no, no, no, no, no.
[11:57] Speaker 2: And it's an interesting thing.
[11:59] Speaker 1: I once saw, 50 Cent once edited an issue of XXL,
[12:05] Speaker 1: and he did an interview with Talib Kweli. And Talib
[12:08] Speaker 1: was explaining, he was like, yo, I wish I could
[12:11] Speaker 1: come up with hooks in the stuff that you want
[12:13] Speaker 1: to do. Which is to say, in many cases, your
[12:16] Speaker 1: favorite underground rapper is not there because he wants to be.
[12:20] Speaker 1: He has simply not figured out his path to being
[12:23] Speaker 1: the guy that's in the video with all the girls
[12:26] Speaker 1: by the car, right? Q-Tip, it took him a long
[12:28] Speaker 1: time to get there, but he figured it out and
[12:30] Speaker 1: he got there. But you're right, Beast Rhymes and Life,
[12:32] Speaker 1: I look back on it and I listen to it
[12:34] Speaker 1: in retrospect, and it's like, no, no, no.
[12:36] Speaker 2: It was fine.
[12:38] Speaker 1: I just think what happened was it was such a cluttered,
[12:40] Speaker 1: chaotic year. And so much had come out that for
[12:44] Speaker 1: you to rise up and really stand up as like, oh,
[12:48] Speaker 1: this is a super dope record. We already talked about this.
[12:50] Speaker 1: By the time Beats, Rhymes, and Life comes out, Tupac
[12:54] Speaker 1: has already dropped and given us a banger. A bunch
[12:57] Speaker 1: of other records that we're going to talk about, like
[12:59] Speaker 1: the Busta Rhymes emergence has already taken place by the
[13:02] Speaker 1: time Beats, Rhymes, and Life comes out.
[13:05] Speaker 2: Too Short getting it out with number 10.
[13:08] Speaker 1: Like all kinds of things have finally come out. And
[13:09] Speaker 1: now it's like, yo, the Jay-Z has come out. We
[13:12] Speaker 1: have so many new things that are stimulating us. And
[13:14] Speaker 1: then you get to the Tribe record and you're like,
[13:16] Speaker 1: you know, just like it came out the same day
[13:18] Speaker 1: as Rotten Dirty. It wasn't even the best record to come.
[13:20] Speaker 2: Out that day.
[13:21] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[13:22] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[13:23] Speaker 3: You mentioned Too Short, man. I think about him a
[13:25] Speaker 3: lot in terms of people who supposedly couldn't rap. I
[13:28] Speaker 3: always think about them saying, they say the dog can't rap,
[13:32] Speaker 3: but my pink account approved that. That was my guy.
[13:37] Speaker 3: I mean, I think that maybe more than, um, The
[13:41] Speaker 3: other guys who get credit for it, the more popular ones,
[13:43] Speaker 3: he was the one who opened my ears to West
[13:45] Speaker 3: Coast music. It was just so fun.
[13:49] Speaker 2: He made very good music. It depends on what you
[13:52] Speaker 2: mean by a great rapper, right?
[13:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[13:55] Speaker 2: He's got some incredible verses, right?
[13:57] Speaker 1: I don't know how much rapping he was doing, but
[13:59] Speaker 1: he's got some incredible verses.
[14:00] Speaker 2: Now, I'm going to go through some of these records
[14:01] Speaker 2: really chronologically, right?
[14:03] Speaker 3: Sure.
[14:03] Speaker 1: And the first one I want to talk about, and
[14:05] Speaker 1: this is a record that you and I have talked
[14:07] Speaker 1: about a lot off air. And I think it's really
[14:10] Speaker 1: interesting with the way that it looms large and the
[14:12] Speaker 1: magnitude of it.
[14:13] Speaker 2: And by the way, came out the same day as
[14:15] Speaker 2: All Eyes On Me.
[14:17] Speaker 1: To me, the most unexpected blockbuster record in the history
[14:21] Speaker 1: of rap.
[14:22] Speaker 2: The Fugees, the score comes out in February of this year.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Okay.
[14:30] Speaker 1: The record is universally considered to be a classic. Fuji
[14:37] Speaker 1: Lai come out into 95. That was like the first single.
[14:40] Speaker 1: What jumped this record off is their cover of Killing
[14:45] Speaker 1: Me Softly, right? Like that comes out. Lauryn Hill is
[14:48] Speaker 1: a giant star. The stardom comes from here. But it
[14:52] Speaker 1: is wild how this record is viewed as such a classic.
[14:54] Speaker 1: And I'm inclined to agree that it's a classic, but.
[14:58] Speaker 1: I don't hear people play it. I don't hear people
[15:02] Speaker 1: talk about it. If you ask people to start running
[15:04] Speaker 1: through all the jams on it, it's not really that
[15:08] Speaker 1: easy to do.
[15:09] Speaker 2: And a record with three rappers, and one of them
[15:14] Speaker 2: is good. She's great.
[15:16] Speaker 1: She's all-time good. Then one of them is there, and
[15:20] Speaker 1: the other one always went last. Because if you went first,
[15:23] Speaker 1: you wouldn't listen to.
[15:24] Speaker 5: The rest of the shit.
[15:26] Speaker 3: Really fascinating record for me personally. I couldn't stand it.
[15:30] Speaker 3: I thought it was a sellout record. It was an
[15:33] Speaker 3: obvious pop record. They were sampling Enya. I'm talking about
[15:37] Speaker 3: my views back then. I understand why. It's like all things.
[15:42] Speaker 3: They exist in a larger context, and I can understand
[15:44] Speaker 3: that context now. I was the audience for rap for
[15:48] Speaker 3: a long time. That audience expanded and they pushed and
[15:52] Speaker 3: expanded that audience with that album. So, yeah, it came
[15:54] Speaker 3: out of nowhere because most of us were not expecting
[15:56] Speaker 3: something like that to have broad appeal. It didn't have
[15:59] Speaker 3: knockers the way we thought of knockers, but it did
[16:02] Speaker 3: have knockers the way that a larger audience, whites, black
[16:06] Speaker 3: people from different countries who were becoming a larger base
[16:09] Speaker 3: of consumers, too. understood and saw themselves in music. And
[16:12] Speaker 3: Lauryn Hill's just a phenomenal talent. That's a one-on-one. You
[16:15] Speaker 3: want to talk about a comet, there you go. She's
[16:16] Speaker 3: a comet, right? And you could ride that comet to
[16:19] Speaker 3: great success. And to give Wyclef his credit, Wyclef has
[16:24] Speaker 3: made a lot of questionable music for me, a lot
[16:26] Speaker 3: of questionable personal decisions, and sometimes just seems a bit
[16:32] Speaker 3: like a cornball, but you can't say he had no
[16:35] Speaker 3: ear for music and he wasn't producing his ass off. He...
[16:38] Speaker 3: understood a sort of pop sensibility, and he took it
[16:43] Speaker 3: and he let that group ride it to commercial success
[16:46] Speaker 3: that we never saw coming. The stuff that happened after
[16:50] Speaker 3: with some of his solo stuff, I know you're a
[16:51] Speaker 3: fan of his first solo album, but it just got
[16:55] Speaker 3: confusing to me where he was getting funded for it.
[16:58] Speaker 3: I was like, where's the money coming from? Where is
[17:00] Speaker 3: it coming from? Like dark government? Yeah. It felt like
[17:04] Speaker 3: a money laundering scheme, but he was on his shit
[17:08] Speaker 3: on that first album.
[17:09] Speaker 1: So part of what's funny to me is when I
[17:11] Speaker 1: think of the sound of this record, outside of like
[17:12] Speaker 1: Ready or Not, which is to me the only track
[17:15] Speaker 1: on that record that really sounds like they spent a
[17:16] Speaker 1: lot of money on, right? I don't hear it as
[17:20] Speaker 1: a pop record as much. I do hear it very
[17:23] Speaker 1: often because one thing Wyclef was is a little bit
[17:25] Speaker 1: of a try hard, right?
[17:26] Speaker 2: Like, ooh, I want to play.
[17:28] Speaker 1: One thing Wyclef loves to do is make sure you
[17:30] Speaker 1: know that he listens to white people music.
[17:33] Speaker 5: Right.
[17:33] Speaker 1: Like he like he really wants to make sure that
[17:36] Speaker 1: you understand that that sampling in you.
[17:38] Speaker 5: Right.
[17:38] Speaker 1: Like, I just want to make sure that you understand
[17:40] Speaker 1: that I'd be over there, too.
[17:42] Speaker 2: Like, I thought that it.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Was still pretty squarely within a very particular East Coast
[17:49] Speaker 1: sort of aesthetic that they were going for. It also has,
[17:54] Speaker 1: for my money, the greatest interlude in the history of
[17:57] Speaker 1: rap music, which is the Chinese restaurant that.
[17:59] Speaker 2: Never stops being hilarious. There was no way to see
[18:02] Speaker 2: it coming.
[18:02] Speaker 1: And I can't believe, like, who thought, who, Wyclef is,
[18:05] Speaker 1: Wyclef is, guy, I will give him that. Like, if
[18:08] Speaker 1: he just, all he did was tell jokes, it probably
[18:10] Speaker 1: would have worked out a little better for him in
[18:12] Speaker 1: the end. But to me, it's all about the comment
[18:16] Speaker 1: that Lauryn Hill was such a supernova in this moment.
[18:20] Speaker 2: Because look, She sang I on there. She was I.
[18:30] Speaker 1: She's not a legend in two games like Pee Wee Kirkland, okay?
[18:34] Speaker 1: She is a rapper who can do a little bit
[18:36] Speaker 1: of singing. But rapping, I felt like she could have
[18:38] Speaker 1: been the greatest rapper.
[18:38] Speaker 2: Of all time, and she decided she wanted to keep
[18:40] Speaker 2: doing that. She was perfect.
[18:42] Speaker 1: In every single way and she had this interesting thing
[18:45] Speaker 1: of rap is a very masculine genre and she always
[18:49] Speaker 1: sounded just like a rapper but not like she was
[18:52] Speaker 1: rapping like a man you know what i mean like
[18:53] Speaker 1: it was a feminine energy that still went through all
[18:56] Speaker 1: of that on top of the fact that she was
[18:57] Speaker 1: bad and she was better at rapping than every single
[18:59] Speaker 1: one of them like she nobody's ever carried the rest
[19:02] Speaker 1: of them i felt like quite like she carried everything
[19:07] Speaker 1: on that and just about always with verse two Because
[19:09] Speaker 1: you know she was going to have to get it
[19:10] Speaker 1: really high up there so y'all would be cool with
[19:12] Speaker 1: what was coming after that.
[19:14] Speaker 3: She had an absolute irreducible confidence that bolstered her voice. So,
[19:19] Speaker 3: like you said, it's not masculine, but it's so confident.
[19:22] Speaker 3: I think Rod Diggins has that. MC Lyte had that.
[19:25] Speaker 3: You stood at attention any time you heard their verse
[19:28] Speaker 3: come on, right? And she had, on top of that,
[19:31] Speaker 3: you know, she's young. She's gorgeous. She's confident. She can sing.
[19:36] Speaker 3: I mean, this was very lamentable. for a fan that
[19:41] Speaker 3: she decided she didn't want to keep going with this
[19:44] Speaker 3: for many reasons that are personal, right? It seemed like
[19:48] Speaker 3: the sky was the limit for her. And this is
[19:50] Speaker 3: someone who came out of a scene where Wyclef, when
[19:53] Speaker 3: they were making those early songs, no one cared about boof, boff, and...
[19:57] Speaker 3: and Mona Lisa, can I hear that day on Friday?
[20:00] Speaker 3: They're beefing, they're competing with Natural Elements, who no one
[20:03] Speaker 3: even remembers, but I love Natural Elements, who's a college
[20:06] Speaker 3: rap group, or a rap group that was on those
[20:08] Speaker 3: college stations, and then beefing with J. Rue to damage
[20:11] Speaker 3: it very, very openly, right? And then all of a sudden,
[20:14] Speaker 3: they can't even get a conversation with the Poojies, right?
[20:18] Speaker 3: Poojies don't have to talk to anybody. Now Tupac's dissing them.
[20:22] Speaker 5: Right. J.
[20:22] Speaker 2: Rue's another dude that had an album come out this year, right?
[20:25] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Um....
[20:28] Speaker 1: And again, the idea that someone like J. Rue the
[20:30] Speaker 1: Damager could be famous. That kind of stops at this point, right?
[20:35] Speaker 1: Like after this point, it feels like you either had
[20:38] Speaker 1: to go in, and I'll use it was written as
[20:41] Speaker 1: the example, and call that a commercial lane for purposes
[20:43] Speaker 1: of this discussion. Or you had to go the Rockets
[20:46] Speaker 1: records way, right? Like you had to make a decision.
[20:48] Speaker 1: You trying to get yourself some money or not? Which
[20:50] Speaker 1: direction you going to go in? And a dude like J.
[20:53] Speaker 1: Ruda Damager could just exist as J. Ruda Damager, and
[20:56] Speaker 1: we would all know who he was off of a
[20:58] Speaker 1: couple of tracks, right?
[21:00] Speaker 3: Well, part of it, too, was that the media that
[21:03] Speaker 3: covered hip hop cared. So that first album, people discussed
[21:07] Speaker 3: it as a potential classic. And so people paid attention.
[21:10] Speaker 3: Second album came out. Nobody cares as much. It's like
[21:12] Speaker 3: Jay with Reasonable Doubt. One of the interesting things about
[21:15] Speaker 3: Reasonable Doubt and how it was unrecognized by so many
[21:17] Speaker 3: people is that it didn't get reviewed until Dream Hampton
[21:22] Speaker 3: snuck it in. and attached it to the It Was
[21:24] Speaker 3: Written review, right? So no one knew about it. No
[21:27] Speaker 3: one knew to talk about it until they were told
[21:29] Speaker 3: to know that. Those channels, they stop existing in that way,
[21:33] Speaker 3: and they serve commercial purposes. That hurt J. Rue, but also,
[21:36] Speaker 3: flat out, some of these records started sounding a little
[21:39] Speaker 3: bit stale. they weren't quite as good as the debuts.
[21:42] Speaker 3: There were several in this year specifically, right? But that one,
[21:47] Speaker 3: you came out with playing yourself over the... J. Rue
[21:49] Speaker 3: comes out with playing yourself over the repurposed, sort of
[21:51] Speaker 3: reimagined Junior Mafia beat. It was provocative because of what
[21:55] Speaker 3: it was covering, but it wasn't a great record to me, right?
[21:58] Speaker 3: He comes out with Whatever is another record on there,
[22:01] Speaker 3: which uses the same sample as Give Up the Goods.
[22:04] Speaker 3: And Give Up the Goods sample, the way they flipped
[22:06] Speaker 3: it was just a little bit better, and it was
[22:07] Speaker 3: a better record, right? So, like, there was... Me, Not
[22:11] Speaker 3: the Paper is an incredible beat, and there's a remix
[22:14] Speaker 3: to it that's also incredible, but there were just a
[22:17] Speaker 3: few highlights, and that was it. It was a very
[22:19] Speaker 3: forgettable album. It made me very sad because it kind
[22:21] Speaker 3: of faded away after that.
[22:22] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[22:23] Speaker 1: The ultimate in-between on those two lanes that I was
[22:25] Speaker 1: talking about, these guys, they got a career where every
[22:30] Speaker 1: song that was good, you heard on the radio.
[22:32] Speaker 2: And if it didn't make it to the radio, it
[22:34] Speaker 2: was not good.
[22:35] Speaker 1: But this was the year the Lost Boys put out
[22:39] Speaker 1: four monster singles.
[22:41] Speaker 2: On that record, right?
[22:43] Speaker 1: The rap group with two dudes who I don't really, well,
[22:47] Speaker 1: at least one, I don't really know what he do.
[22:49] Speaker 1: Another one who just pop up and be loud every
[22:51] Speaker 1: now and then. The DJ and the most unlikely like
[22:55] Speaker 1: pop rap maestro in Mr.
[22:58] Speaker 3: Cheeks.
[22:59] Speaker 2: But them tracks is hard. Like for the most part,
[23:01] Speaker 2: that stuff was banging.
[23:05] Speaker 3: I liked one of the ones that wasn't a single
[23:06] Speaker 3: to get up and clap your hands. That was an
[23:08] Speaker 3: incredible song, but they were wild because people have to remember,
[23:13] Speaker 3: people make fun of Staten Island and they talk about
[23:16] Speaker 3: how the Wu came out of nowhere. When you're coming
[23:18] Speaker 3: from South side Queens, that might as well have been
[23:22] Speaker 3: Staten Island to a lot of people in New York, right?
[23:24] Speaker 3: It was way out there. So for them to come
[23:27] Speaker 3: out of there and Lost Boys being a street crew,
[23:30] Speaker 3: as well as just their group name, they came and
[23:33] Speaker 3: they bum-rushed with a whole crew. And they had serious
[23:35] Speaker 3: ties to the street. And they had this authenticity, this
[23:38] Speaker 3: incredible energy. And I think that the sum was greater
[23:43] Speaker 3: than the talent. Maybe Cheeks wasn't rapping his ass off
[23:47] Speaker 3: on every song, but he was generating a feeling. That
[23:50] Speaker 3: album was everywhere in New York. It almost reminds me
[23:52] Speaker 3: of Onyx's first album, where it's like, this came out
[23:55] Speaker 3: of nowhere. And I don't think people would believe you
[23:58] Speaker 3: if you're like, yo, these were the biggest rappers in
[24:01] Speaker 3: the world for half a second, right? Like, seriously, you
[24:04] Speaker 3: couldn't go anywhere in New York without hearing this music.
[24:07] Speaker 3: And of course, the most comical bar of all time
[24:09] Speaker 3: for me, you know, when he said, Shorty want to
[24:12] Speaker 3: be a lawyer? She said, you want to be a lawyer?
[24:15] Speaker 3: In other words, Shorty study law. Yes.
[24:19] Speaker 4: That song is, the narrative of Renee is preposterous.
[24:23] Speaker 2: It is utterly ridiculous. There is no explanation how or
[24:27] Speaker 2: why she got shot. Any of this.
[24:29] Speaker 1: Like, they was just like, yo, we got to do
[24:30] Speaker 1: something for these girls. I got an idea. Okay, let's go.
[24:35] Speaker 1: It also, I think, is an interesting record in explaining
[24:39] Speaker 1: what a single could or could be that changed over years. Like,
[24:43] Speaker 1: Easy Mo B's got two of those big singles on
[24:45] Speaker 1: that record, right? Like, the idea that a dude with
[24:47] Speaker 1: his style has singles for you.
[24:50] Speaker 2: This is.
[24:52] Speaker 2: It couldn't happen like that for much longer, though.
[24:55] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[24:57] Speaker 3: But he slayed a comeback, right?
[24:59] Speaker 2: He did.
[25:01] Speaker 3: That was a smash.
[25:02] Speaker 2: He is the most unlikely of all of this.
[25:06] Speaker 1: He found himself a bit of a lane because after
[25:09] Speaker 1: Freaky Todd died, they decided they couldn't be the Lost
[25:11] Speaker 1: Boys no more.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Whatever they were, they could have continued. But that's how
[25:16] Speaker 2: they felt.
[25:17] Speaker 3: Okay.
[25:18] Speaker 2: There we go. But hey, coming up next, we got
[25:20] Speaker 2: more from the year 1996.
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[28:40] Speaker 1: Terms and conditions may apply. All right, we are back
[28:44] Speaker 1: with my man Jason Engel. We're talking about rap in
[28:46] Speaker 1: the year 1996. To me, and I need.
[28:51] Speaker 2: To revisit this.
[28:52] Speaker 1: I haven't done like a thorough revisit, but I've always
[28:54] Speaker 1: said this over the years. I have always felt like
[28:56] Speaker 1: the best record that came out of this year was
[28:59] Speaker 1: De La Soul, Stakes is High. And the reason for it,
[29:01] Speaker 1: on top of the fact that it is an incredibly
[29:03] Speaker 1: produced record, it has also proven to be just a
[29:05] Speaker 1: little bit prophetic, right? Like, hey, guys, here's where the
[29:09] Speaker 1: game is going. If we don't do anything about it,
[29:11] Speaker 1: it's going to get out of hand and we're going
[29:12] Speaker 1: to hate what happened.
[29:13] Speaker 2: And then that is exactly what happened.
[29:17] Speaker 3: Phenomenal sounding record, man. You know, everybody talks about De
[29:21] Speaker 3: La Soul. I'm not going to say that they're forgotten groups.
[29:23] Speaker 3: And their albums not being on stream and played a
[29:26] Speaker 3: little bit of a part and the albums falling off
[29:28] Speaker 3: people's radar because they just weren't played every day the
[29:31] Speaker 3: way everything else was. But I think somehow still a
[29:34] Speaker 3: little bit unheralded, still a little bit underrated.
[29:39] Speaker 2: I would say.
[29:40] Speaker 4: By Black people, the white people who like to say
[29:44] Speaker 4: they like rap or who they love De La Soul.
[29:47] Speaker 3: They do. This is true. This is true. But I mean,
[29:50] Speaker 3: De La made three of the best albums I've ever
[29:52] Speaker 3: heard in rap history. And people don't talk about them.
[29:55] Speaker 3: And something about them Reminds me of Outkast, which is
[29:59] Speaker 3: to say, and I was talking with a friend about this,
[30:01] Speaker 3: certain groups are unbiteable. You cannot replicate them. MCs don't
[30:05] Speaker 3: even try. What they had was so their own, so
[30:08] Speaker 3: out there, so unique, right? And so whenever I listen
[30:12] Speaker 3: to this album, that's when I'm thinking to myself, like, man,
[30:15] Speaker 3: this is, nobody else could have made this album. Just
[30:18] Speaker 3: like the first two. No one could have made these albums.
[30:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, positive news is, There's one guy that sounds like that, right?
[30:25] Speaker 1: And what's so dope about a pause bar is when
[30:29] Speaker 1: he drops it in there, he'd be like.
[30:31] Speaker 2: Damn, why wouldn't I have thought of that?
[30:32] Speaker 5: Right?
[30:33] Speaker 2: Like, he's not smashing Adams here, but it's always the
[30:35] Speaker 2: right line.
[30:36] Speaker 1: And the meter that he would typically use or when
[30:38] Speaker 1: he drops in on the flow, the timing is so
[30:40] Speaker 1: different than just about anybody else that would be out there.
[30:43] Speaker 2: Like, he was one of one.
[30:44] Speaker 1: Then you had Dave in there with him, and Dave
[30:47] Speaker 1: was kind of like perfect compliment sort of situation.
[30:50] Speaker 2: It did not feel.
[30:52] Speaker 1: It didn't feel the same as it did with Tribe
[30:54] Speaker 1: where there was a clear A and B.
[30:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[30:57] Speaker 5: Right?
[30:58] Speaker 1: I thought it was clear that Paz was the better rapper,
[31:01] Speaker 1: but Dave served a, it felt like a different purpose.
[31:05] Speaker 3: Yeah. It depended on the song and how I felt
[31:08] Speaker 3: about them. And conceptually, I think they remain unrivaled. You know,
[31:15] Speaker 3: I think about a song like, not on this album,
[31:16] Speaker 3: but Bitty's in a BK Lounge. They would rap about
[31:20] Speaker 3: anything and everything, and it was compelling. It pulled you in.
[31:24] Speaker 3: It made you laugh. Their skits were incredible. Daylight's a one-on-one.
[31:28] Speaker 3: I'm happy that they're kind of catching this swan song
[31:30] Speaker 3: right now. I just saw their Tiny Desk performance, and
[31:33] Speaker 3: their new album had some songs on it I really enjoyed.
[31:38] Speaker 1: Speaking of another great interlude on an album, because this
[31:42] Speaker 1: is also, by the way, this is the year before
[31:44] Speaker 1: the interlude thing got out of hand. And everybody thought
[31:47] Speaker 1: they were a comedian and they had to have like
[31:48] Speaker 1: four or five of them. But that's the one I
[31:50] Speaker 1: still need to find when they got that clip of
[31:51] Speaker 1: that white man rap.
[31:54] Speaker 2: I don't like it. I don't like it. It's just
[31:58] Speaker 2: in words talking.
[32:02] Speaker 3: I've referenced that. All the time, man.
[32:05] Speaker 5: Same.
[32:06] Speaker 3: Same.
[32:06] Speaker 1: Me and my partner, we've been, for years, we have
[32:09] Speaker 1: been like, yo, we have got to get NT.com off
[32:12] Speaker 1: the ground. Like, we got to make it happen. Because
[32:16] Speaker 1: that's just all it was. And then the problem is,
[32:18] Speaker 1: NT.com is just podcasts.
[32:20] Speaker 2: The whole world. That's all it is. That's why somebody
[32:24] Speaker 2: needs to redo that. Podcasts don't like it.
[32:30] Speaker 3: Bunch of them talking.
[32:31] Speaker 2: They just talking.
[32:32] Speaker 3: That's all it is.
[32:34] Speaker 2: The epitome. That's what we need.
[32:37] Speaker 1: When they changed it to X, no, partner, it was
[32:40] Speaker 1: a name just sitting here right in the tuck.
[32:42] Speaker 3: Waiting on you.
[32:44] Speaker 2: InBirdsTalking.com. Got it for you.
[32:50] Speaker 1: Oh, I had forgotten also, this was when the Helter
[32:52] Speaker 1: Skelter Nocturnal album came out.
[32:54] Speaker 3: Love that album.
[32:54] Speaker 1: Because this is the year before the Boot Camp Click
[32:57] Speaker 1: album that disappointed us all came out.
[33:00] Speaker 2: That one in the OGC The Storm. Ooh, that was tough.
[33:03] Speaker 2: That was tough. But the Helter Skelter Nocturnal, bang.
[33:06] Speaker 3: Helter Skelter Nocturnal is an incredible album. Operation Lockdown still
[33:10] Speaker 3: gets played to this day, probably weekly for me. John
[33:14] Speaker 3: Price had one of the greatest reinventions ever when he
[33:18] Speaker 3: reemerged on the solo tip. And Rock Ness Monster is
[33:22] Speaker 3: just an incredible voice. And I mean, I think bars
[33:26] Speaker 3: from them all the time. And that was a group
[33:29] Speaker 3: that once again, we said this before, people act like
[33:30] Speaker 3: it's crazy to say, when... The movement was strong with
[33:34] Speaker 3: Boot Camp. They were compared to the Wu-Tang, and it
[33:38] Speaker 3: was questionable in New York who the better crew was.
[33:41] Speaker 3: And then we saw who the better crew was, right?
[33:43] Speaker 3: But the star power and the talent in that group,
[33:46] Speaker 3: if you go back and listen to Nocturnal, you hear
[33:48] Speaker 3: it very clearly. You got one of the dopest voices
[33:51] Speaker 3: in rap, and you got a dude who's incredibly underrated
[33:53] Speaker 3: with a sense of humor who's just barring you to death,
[33:56] Speaker 3: who inspired a whole generation of rappers. Sean Price's influence remains,
[34:01] Speaker 3: even with the young kids coming up today, in a
[34:03] Speaker 3: way that, like, an MF Doom does. And it shocked me.
[34:06] Speaker 3: But I think that speaks to the legitimacy and authenticity
[34:09] Speaker 3: of his personality and his talent.
[34:12] Speaker 1: And that music sounded like a New York that no
[34:14] Speaker 1: longer exists. Like, I think you and I talked about
[34:16] Speaker 1: this when I watched He Got Game not that long ago.
[34:18] Speaker 1: And I looked at it, and it was like, I
[34:20] Speaker 1: had been to New York a little bit in that
[34:21] Speaker 1: time period, and I remember how that felt. But I
[34:23] Speaker 1: remember watching those shots of Coney Island at the basketball
[34:26] Speaker 1: court and being like, oh, okay, this is what the
[34:29] Speaker 1: rap sounded like. Like when I first moved here, somebody
[34:31] Speaker 1: told me, they were like, yeah, you're going to have
[34:33] Speaker 1: them cold, rainy days. You throw on that Mobb Deep
[34:34] Speaker 1: Infamous and it's going to make sense. But I also
[34:38] Speaker 1: think records could, sounded like a New York record. This
[34:41] Speaker 1: is also the end of you being able to do that.
[34:43] Speaker 2: And that just be what you had to do.
[34:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[34:46] Speaker 3: You're not the home team anymore for hip hop after
[34:48] Speaker 3: this year, really. And it sounds like Brooklyn for sure.
[34:52] Speaker 3: And this is a conversation I had when I was
[34:54] Speaker 3: just back for a brief trip in New York. I
[34:56] Speaker 3: had it with a close friend and I had it
[34:57] Speaker 3: with you too. It's so wild because it's not just
[35:00] Speaker 3: that this album sounds like Brooklyn, it sounds like New York.
[35:03] Speaker 3: Like truly, there are just no Black people in Manhattan anymore.
[35:07] Speaker 3: And Manhattan used to be teeming with Black people. There's
[35:10] Speaker 3: an era where a lot of people remember that even
[35:12] Speaker 3: in Midtown Hell's Kitchen, like there were Lower East Side,
[35:17] Speaker 3: so many Black people in Manhattan. And I was back
[35:19] Speaker 3: there and it's like, yo, as you said, I think
[35:21] Speaker 3: after 110, no, right? Who stole the soul, right? So-
[35:27] Speaker 3: It's a reflection not only of how the music changed,
[35:29] Speaker 3: but how the city just totally changed.
[35:33] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[35:33] Speaker 1: Well, like if you told people that the cage, the
[35:35] Speaker 1: basketball courts at West 4th Street that are famous for that, right?
[35:40] Speaker 2: That's in the West Village, man.
[35:41] Speaker 1: If you know New York in current terms, and I'm
[35:44] Speaker 1: telling you that they was hooping at the West Village,
[35:46] Speaker 1: it took me forever to understand how that worked.
[35:49] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, West Village was super duper hip hop hangout too.
[35:54] Speaker 3: There was so many underground MCs all around the West
[35:56] Speaker 3: Village every day.
[35:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, and see, that's another thing about what New York
[36:00] Speaker 1: was that it is not also was a place that
[36:02] Speaker 1: people came to be rappers. And so you just had
[36:04] Speaker 1: all these people around and like a scene built up.
[36:07] Speaker 1: Like it's hard to, scenes are hard to come by
[36:10] Speaker 1: these days. And this is also kind of the end
[36:12] Speaker 1: of like things coming out, not just out of your city,
[36:14] Speaker 1: but specifically about a scene, something within that city very often.
[36:18] Speaker 1: MC Lyte, I forgot, she put the Cold Rocker Party
[36:20] Speaker 1: album out also this year too.
[36:22] Speaker 2: Like this is a crazy high level of volume. Mm-hmm.
[36:26] Speaker 2: that was coming out. The Roots.
[36:29] Speaker 1: So Illiduff Half-Life is my favorite Roots record. Like it's
[36:32] Speaker 1: one of those that the second it goes, like as
[36:34] Speaker 1: soon as you get into Respond React, you're like, oh,
[36:35] Speaker 1: this is different. Because the first one was like the
[36:37] Speaker 1: Jazz Joint, which was a very, really, really good record.
[36:41] Speaker 1: But the same way I say on Riding Dirty, Bum
[36:43] Speaker 1: B was like, I'm going to show you guys that
[36:45] Speaker 1: I am colder than all of you. He and Black thought,
[36:47] Speaker 1: like this was their 1996. Black gets on and smokes
[36:51] Speaker 1: everything in front of him for like 75 minutes worth
[36:54] Speaker 1: of music.
[36:54] Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a sad album for me to look back
[36:58] Speaker 3: on because Malik B and Mars are now past, right?
[37:04] Speaker 3: Where it hit, and Mars was one of the rappers
[37:09] Speaker 3: on Clones. Where it hit, man, it was Razor Shark.
[37:14] Speaker 3: I prefer the first album. It was a little, or
[37:17] Speaker 3: I should say it's really the second album, right? But
[37:19] Speaker 3: the first big album that they put out. Do you
[37:22] Speaker 3: want more of I Get Chills When I Listen to It?
[37:24] Speaker 3: but I get chills when I listen to certain records
[37:26] Speaker 3: off this too. You're talking about a rapper who's functioning
[37:28] Speaker 3: at such a high level. I love Black Thought. He
[37:32] Speaker 3: still can, you know, cook up a verse that sounds
[37:35] Speaker 3: better than almost anyone, right? But I don't love this
[37:37] Speaker 3: era of Black Thought where he comes and he's an
[37:39] Speaker 3: expectation again. I loved it when he was almost, it's
[37:42] Speaker 3: like a cutting edge author who no one has any
[37:44] Speaker 3: expectations of, and he can go in any direction he wants.
[37:47] Speaker 3: Now he feels like an invited guest that you paid
[37:49] Speaker 3: a real serious fee to, and you know exactly, and
[37:53] Speaker 3: he knows exactly what is expected of him. And so
[37:56] Speaker 3: he just spits these like 7,000 bars, but he was
[37:59] Speaker 3: at his most unpredictable and whimsical back then. So those
[38:03] Speaker 3: two albums for me are the best black box. Yeah.
[38:06] Speaker 1: Like I felt like he was rapping in a way
[38:08] Speaker 1: that when I'd heard that I had never heard anybody.
[38:11] Speaker 2: That rap like that. And like the way.
[38:14] Speaker 1: Biggie does, Biggie did a decent bit of this, but
[38:16] Speaker 1: I don't think anybody was better at like changing the
[38:19] Speaker 1: stresses on syllables and pronunciations, like to make the bars
[38:24] Speaker 1: fit the way that he wanted to and to throw
[38:25] Speaker 1: the other words in there.
[38:27] Speaker 2: Just wrecking shop. Like I thought about being Malik. I'd
[38:29] Speaker 2: be like, y'all supposed to go after this?
[38:31] Speaker 3: Again? Yeah.
[38:33] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[38:34] Speaker 3: No, I mean, look, God's in his own class. I
[38:36] Speaker 3: thought though that Malik balanced him so well. And I really,
[38:41] Speaker 3: there are times on the album before, this is where
[38:46] Speaker 3: you can tell what Thoughts Evolution was. There are times
[38:48] Speaker 3: you can't tell them apart. There are a couple songs
[38:50] Speaker 3: you can't tell when the one starts rapping after the
[38:53] Speaker 3: other stops rapping, that they were that connected on that album.
[38:56] Speaker 3: And then suddenly it's starkly clear, every record, who's rapping when, right?
[39:02] Speaker 3: Like Thoughts just went to another galaxy.
[39:06] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[39:06] Speaker 1: Also this year, by the way, them grimy MOP cats drop.
[39:10] Speaker 1: And you know, DJ Premier, all producers have guys, they
[39:13] Speaker 1: just love their voices. And me and Primo probably have
[39:16] Speaker 1: more disagreements about who is worthy of Primo beats than
[39:20] Speaker 1: I would ever have ever with any producer, except for MOP.
[39:24] Speaker 2: Except like this. What do these guys do?
[39:27] Speaker 1: They come from the most treacherous part of the city.
[39:30] Speaker 2: And basically they're going to rob you.
[39:32] Speaker 3: Yeah. Downtown Swinger was my joint, man. Wow. That's an
[39:37] Speaker 3: incredible song. This is some of the hardest tracks that
[39:40] Speaker 3: have ever been produced. I don't understand how this caught
[39:43] Speaker 3: on and how M.O.P. To me, you want to talk
[39:46] Speaker 3: about a group that just sounds totally Brooklyn. and should
[39:49] Speaker 3: have a limited audience. How did Ante Up become a
[39:52] Speaker 3: joint that's persisted for decades in commercials, white people love it,
[39:56] Speaker 3: punk is up, Ante Up is up. Everyone's like, yo,
[39:59] Speaker 3: play the song, or they're going to rob you.
[40:02] Speaker 2: That's the answer. Yes. My brother talked about this once.
[40:06] Speaker 1: He said he was on a cruise and they played
[40:08] Speaker 1: Ante Up, and he was like, it set the party off,
[40:11] Speaker 1: but this doesn't make, because my brother's whole thing is
[40:13] Speaker 1: that there's no greater example of player hating than robbing people.
[40:16] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[40:17] Speaker 3: Right?
[40:17] Speaker 1: Like just the idea that that's what you're going to
[40:19] Speaker 1: do is like the ultimate example of straight up player hating.
[40:22] Speaker 1: But them having what is effectively a pop classic that
[40:26] Speaker 1: has persisted for 25 years and change.
[40:29] Speaker 2: That's not even this album, but it's 25 years and change.
[40:32] Speaker 3: Idiot!
[40:33] Speaker 2: Kept that fool!
[40:35] Speaker 3: Kidnapped!
[40:36] Speaker 2: Kidnapped that fool!
[40:37] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[40:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[40:41] Speaker 2: It's not even a primo beat. That's the other part.
[40:43] Speaker 1: Like, none of it makes sense, but they had a vibe.
[40:47] Speaker 2: It was just a real energy.
[40:49] Speaker 1: It was just a very ominous energy that did not,
[40:53] Speaker 1: somehow it did not feel gratuitous, but it should have been.
[40:57] Speaker 3: To this day, Rugged Never Smooth is a song that
[41:03] Speaker 3: stays in my gym mix. For Alon Blaze with Jay-Z
[41:07] Speaker 3: is one of my favorite Jay-Z verses too. That stays
[41:09] Speaker 3: in my mixes when I do a cardio session. They
[41:12] Speaker 3: just had high energy, grimy. It's like rewatching The Godfather
[41:17] Speaker 3: or something. This seems real to me. I see myself here.
[41:21] Speaker 3: I don't want to be like this in real life,
[41:23] Speaker 3: but for this moment, I see myself as Michael Corleone
[41:26] Speaker 3: making some difficult decisions, killing some people.
[41:31] Speaker 1: Yo, where are you on Ghostface Iron Man?
[41:35] Speaker 3: I think it's a slight step down, but I still
[41:38] Speaker 3: love it. Ghosts and M.O.P. have something. It's so funny.
[41:42] Speaker 3: I heard this rapper who I'm really enjoying these days
[41:44] Speaker 3: named Errol Holden. And he was talking about Ghosts and M.O.P.
[41:48] Speaker 3: And he said Ghosts and M.O.P. were rappers who rapped
[41:51] Speaker 3: at you, right? They're not rapping for you. They're rapping
[41:53] Speaker 3: at you aggressively. And it works for them because of
[41:55] Speaker 3: their cadence and their material and authenticity. And so Ghosts
[42:00] Speaker 3: always wins for me. Always. But it was a slight
[42:03] Speaker 3: step down for me, like most of the albums released
[42:05] Speaker 3: this year by Luminance.
[42:08] Speaker 1: So I felt like Iron Man was just a little
[42:12] Speaker 1: too long, right?
[42:13] Speaker 2: And it's also done.
[42:14] Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched that Wu-Tang Doc, the
[42:18] Speaker 1: Sasha Jenkins one, where they were talking about the beef
[42:21] Speaker 1: over RZA putting out that one album that he just
[42:23] Speaker 1: sold to fucking Shkreli, right?
[42:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[42:25] Speaker 1: And RZA's point was, I never told them when an
[42:28] Speaker 1: album was coming out. Like they would just constantly make music.
[42:32] Speaker 1: And then one day RZA would put it all together
[42:35] Speaker 1: and then boom, there was an album. And so for
[42:37] Speaker 1: whatever reason, RZA saw really both Ghost and Ray as
[42:42] Speaker 1: cats that needed each other.
[42:44] Speaker 2: In order to get it done.
[42:45] Speaker 1: And so the Ghostface album, the Ghostface Iron Man feels
[42:48] Speaker 1: like a bit of a continuation of Only Built From
[42:52] Speaker 1: Cuban Links. Ghostface is all over that one. And then
[42:54] Speaker 1: they throw Capadonna in this. And so it's like, okay,
[42:56] Speaker 1: there's like a couple tracks too long on there. They
[42:58] Speaker 1: put Winter Wars on there, took it off the soundtrack
[43:01] Speaker 1: for Don't Be Admit It, put it on there so
[43:02] Speaker 1: you get the Capadonna victory tour.
[43:05] Speaker 2: But all that I got is you.
[43:06] Speaker 1: I remember when that album came out and my brother
[43:09] Speaker 1: brought it home and was like, I'm about to play
[43:12] Speaker 1: for you The best one verse I think I have
[43:15] Speaker 1: ever heard in my life.
[43:17] Speaker 2: And he plays it, and it is the.
[43:18] Speaker 1: Most heart-wrenching, evocative, like, I did not fully understand the
[43:24] Speaker 1: Ghostface situation until that one, because that's when you realize, oh,
[43:27] Speaker 1: this is actually, tough talk though it may be, all
[43:31] Speaker 1: vulnerability all the time, just in a really weird sort
[43:34] Speaker 1: of way.
[43:36] Speaker 3: I've never understood how the Wu got popular. I got
[43:38] Speaker 3: to be honest with you. And I love them, but
[43:40] Speaker 3: I do not understand how this material connects with such
[43:43] Speaker 3: a large group. And it has to be about the energy, right?
[43:47] Speaker 3: Because I love it. And it feels very specific. It
[43:50] Speaker 3: is Hood Poetics, Daytona 500. Doing forever shit like pissing
[43:55] Speaker 3: out the window on turnpikes, right? It was years ago.
[43:59] Speaker 3: I have a literature background. You know, I was a
[44:02] Speaker 3: professor of writing fiction and nonfiction for many years. And
[44:06] Speaker 3: I've read a lot of literature, a lot of poetry.
[44:09] Speaker 3: I was reading a famous poet named Charles Simic. And
[44:11] Speaker 3: he talked about pissing into a sink with the feeling
[44:14] Speaker 3: of eternity. I said, brother, Charles Simic and Ghostface are
[44:17] Speaker 3: lining up with the same idea because that's how much
[44:21] Speaker 3: of a poet Ghost is on the hood tip instinctually, man. Like, man,
[44:27] Speaker 3: he just caught me off guard. It shouldn't have made
[44:29] Speaker 3: sense and it always made sense to me.
[44:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, and that is, again, the energy on every Ghostface track.
[44:35] Speaker 1: It's just like, he is all the way in here.
[44:38] Speaker 2: It was also....
[44:41] Speaker 1: RZA, Jimmy Page is kind of like this in rock.
[44:45] Speaker 1: Geniuses who don't exactly know what they're doing.
[44:49] Speaker 5: Right?
[44:50] Speaker 1: Like it all comes together in the end, but like
[44:52] Speaker 1: if you really wanted them to try to explain it,
[44:55] Speaker 1: that's probably not going to go down. RZA's ability to
[44:59] Speaker 1: work all those movie clips in, the way the tracks
[45:02] Speaker 1: would always be sequenced. So what if he's got his
[45:05] Speaker 1: machine set to the wrong settings and everything else?
[45:08] Speaker 2: They would all just come together. And again, even this record,
[45:11] Speaker 2: which is just a little bit too.
[45:14] Speaker 5: Long, right?
[45:16] Speaker 2: It goes.
[45:16] Speaker 1: Now to answer your question of what it was that
[45:19] Speaker 1: made them so successful, I will point to this. When
[45:24] Speaker 1: Cambridge Analytica was like, people were first getting word on
[45:27] Speaker 1: this and what Cambridge Analytica was doing was they were
[45:29] Speaker 1: using like your Facebook likes and everything else to know
[45:31] Speaker 1: what ads and what things to suggest to you.
[45:34] Speaker 2: That's when this idea was very new.
[45:36] Speaker 1: And one thing that was interesting about it was they
[45:38] Speaker 1: felt they were capable of they could tell if you
[45:42] Speaker 1: were gay, even if you hadn't come out just based
[45:45] Speaker 1: upon your.
[45:46] Speaker 2: Your online activity.
[45:47] Speaker 5: Right.
[45:47] Speaker 2: Which is create some dangerous stuff.
[45:49] Speaker 1: But anyway, they said that the number one indicator that
[45:54] Speaker 1: you were dealing with a straight man was fandom of
[45:58] Speaker 1: the Wu-Tang Clan. It is the straightest, malest.
[46:03] Speaker 2: Music that has ever been made.
[46:06] Speaker 1: And whether people like it or not, ain't much in
[46:10] Speaker 1: this world more popular than straight men. Think about this.
[46:15] Speaker 1: After hearing a song where the hook was, watch these
[46:18] Speaker 1: rap N-words get all up in your guts, girls wanted
[46:21] Speaker 1: the t-shirts.
[46:22] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
[46:26] Speaker 1: That's the only explanation for this is it's just undistilled masculinity.
[46:34] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[46:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[46:35] Speaker 3: Brimming with machismo every step. Yeah. And hood poetry and machismo.
[46:40] Speaker 3: I can't disagree with that. And about RZA, I'm thinking
[46:43] Speaker 3: now about Bob Power, who we talked about when he
[46:46] Speaker 3: was talking about Tribe and he was talking about Dilla.
[46:48] Speaker 3: He was talking about the imperfections in hip-hop beats being
[46:51] Speaker 3: where the funk comes from. But that's kind of what
[46:53] Speaker 3: makes a great record great. And there was this grime
[46:56] Speaker 3: in all of the RZA stuff that I don't know
[46:58] Speaker 3: what to attribute it to. First of all, you've got
[47:00] Speaker 3: to attribute it to his vision and singular genius as well.
[47:03] Speaker 3: When he was in his bag, never had there been
[47:05] Speaker 3: a producer who's been more profound of a producer. Never.
[47:07] Speaker 3: Not one of them. He's right there with everyone when
[47:10] Speaker 3: he's in his bag. But also, I don't know what
[47:14] Speaker 3: kind of dust he was smoking. You know, I'm not
[47:16] Speaker 3: going to just put it out there. I think he
[47:18] Speaker 3: was just smoking dust all the time. But there might
[47:20] Speaker 3: have been something about the dust that made him see. Like,
[47:23] Speaker 3: my homie had a, he had a home, my cousin
[47:26] Speaker 3: had a homeboy who used to listen to these records.
[47:28] Speaker 3: And he would smoke laced weed while he listened to them.
[47:30] Speaker 3: And he told my cousin, if you smoke the laced weed,
[47:32] Speaker 3: you hear the hidden beats. And I said, maybe this
[47:36] Speaker 3: dude was on the same wavelength as RZA when he
[47:38] Speaker 3: was making it. He could hear the.
[47:40] Speaker 2: Hidden beats in it.
[47:42] Speaker 1: And if RZA stopped smoking dust, I normally wouldn't say this,
[47:45] Speaker 1: but he should start again.
[47:46] Speaker 3: I try not to pay much attention to the RZA
[47:51] Speaker 3: music post when it mattered to me. He was coming
[47:55] Speaker 3: out with rock songs with a group called Faulkner about
[47:58] Speaker 3: New York City. I don't know what that was about.
[48:01] Speaker 3: There was just some really troubling thing that came out
[48:03] Speaker 3: from his cousin the other day where she was saying
[48:06] Speaker 3: she went on tour with him at 17 and she
[48:08] Speaker 3: was actually sleeping with RZA. Yo, that was a big story. Now, allegedly,
[48:14] Speaker 3: she says that. But the more I learn about my heroes,
[48:18] Speaker 3: the less I want to know. And then I just
[48:19] Speaker 3: go back to the music. Let's light a jade and
[48:22] Speaker 3: listen to the music and stop thinking about them as people. Yep.
[48:25] Speaker 1: Awkward Supper Change. Where were you on the Def Squad Cats?
[48:28] Speaker 1: Because we had a Redman and a Keith Murray record
[48:30] Speaker 1: drop this year.
[48:31] Speaker 2: I love that.
[48:31] Speaker 1: Keith Murray Enigma. I like that record a lot. It's
[48:35] Speaker 1: directly tied to the fact that I had the tape
[48:36] Speaker 1: in my car. But I like that one. And then
[48:39] Speaker 1: Muddy Waters. is another it's a banger guys.
[48:43] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah you can't go wrong with death squad um
[48:46] Speaker 3: i probably wasn't as high on death squad as some
[48:48] Speaker 3: of my friends were and keith murray was the ultimate
[48:51] Speaker 3: of that for me he sounded really good sometimes the
[48:53] Speaker 3: other times he was a little too astrological phenomenological and
[48:57] Speaker 3: numerology school and all that but but yo there has
[49:01] Speaker 3: never been a gullier dude who had access to a thesaurus.
[49:06] Speaker 3: Keith Murray wasn't playing around. You know, like you might
[49:08] Speaker 3: hear one of his rap.
[49:09] Speaker 2: Records and think he was a nerd.
[49:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like the halfway between David Wayans' character on
[49:15] Speaker 1: In Living Color and T.I.
[49:16] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[49:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're not really catching Keith Murray at fat beats.
[49:22] Speaker 3: You might think that because of what he's rapping, but nah,
[49:24] Speaker 3: you're catching him out in the street smoking a blunt,
[49:26] Speaker 3: drinking too much, fighting somebody, right?
[49:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, beating somebody with a bar stool, because that's what
[49:31] Speaker 1: he went down for, right?
[49:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. But most beautiful thing in this world is
[49:36] Speaker 3: a wild single for somebody to have, right? It's so good.
[49:39] Speaker 3: That's an impossible single to imagine charting these days, and
[49:43] Speaker 3: that was a hit.
[49:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, just on the strength of how he sounds on
[49:48] Speaker 1: the hook. I mean, that's an Eric Sermon knocker. Eric
[49:50] Speaker 1: Sermon somehow wildly underrated as a historical figure in rap,
[49:55] Speaker 1: which is why every interview with Eric Sermon is him
[49:58] Speaker 1: explaining to you all the things that Eric Sermon ever
[50:01] Speaker 1: did in rap, which I normally find problematic, except I
[50:05] Speaker 1: can't blame him because nobody else does it.
[50:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. I have to say, the last few interviews I've
[50:11] Speaker 3: heard from him, He was saying he passed on signing
[50:14] Speaker 3: and producing for Nas, Big, and the Wu-Tang. Although I
[50:19] Speaker 3: think it was specifically Raekwon. So those are some big whips.
[50:22] Speaker 3: He was busy. He was too big at the point,
[50:24] Speaker 3: I think he thought, and didn't see the vision. But
[50:25] Speaker 3: the other thing that really blew my mind is taking
[50:28] Speaker 3: nothing from his producing because he's a brilliant producer. And
[50:31] Speaker 3: like you said, totally underrated. It's criminally underrated. I was
[50:35] Speaker 3: surprised to hear him say on a review that Harry
[50:38] Speaker 3: Smith made a lot of the beats that we thought
[50:41] Speaker 3: Eric Sermon did the first couple albums. And that, in fact,
[50:44] Speaker 3: their first album was just them telling someone in the
[50:47] Speaker 3: studio what beats to make because they knew how it
[50:50] Speaker 3: sounded in their heads, but they didn't know the equipment yet.
[50:53] Speaker 3: And those are some knockers, right? Those are some incredible knockers.
[50:57] Speaker 3: And they kind of ghost produced those.
[51:00] Speaker 1: We could have a discussion the whole other day about
[51:02] Speaker 1: how somehow EPMD has slipped through the cracks of the...
[51:07] Speaker 1: historical discourse in rap because they are incredible.
[51:11] Speaker 2: They were incredible.
[51:13] Speaker 1: And then had this breakup that I guess it felt contentious,
[51:17] Speaker 1: but it never feels contentious when they talk. Now I
[51:19] Speaker 1: guess they've broken up and gotten back together enough times.
[51:22] Speaker 1: But Eric Sermon kept going. That Paris Smith thing, never, never.
[51:27] Speaker 1: He put out a record in 96. Don't ask me
[51:29] Speaker 1: if I've heard it, but it came out.
[51:31] Speaker 3: Went solo on that ass, but it's still the same.
[51:34] Speaker 3: I saw it coming. That's why I went solo. Suddenly
[51:36] Speaker 3: his flow aged overnight. It was like he was rapping
[51:40] Speaker 3: the way Kool Moe D looked. It just was old, bro.
[51:44] Speaker 3: What was going on?
[51:46] Speaker 1: Well, he's a person who needed a co-star. Yeah.
[51:52] Speaker 2: Right?
[51:52] Speaker 1: He needed, he was not enough. I mean, Eric Sermon
[51:55] Speaker 1: wasn't either, to be perfectly honest. He just, in that
[51:57] Speaker 1: split that they had of the crew, Eric Sermon got
[52:01] Speaker 1: a better package. Even though Paris got some good, like
[52:05] Speaker 1: Paris got DOS effects.
[52:07] Speaker 5: Right?
[52:07] Speaker 1: Like, it wasn't like Paris got nothing, but it just
[52:10] Speaker 1: didn't go to say. Last one I'll get to before
[52:13] Speaker 1: we get out of here. I don't think we've ever
[52:15] Speaker 1: talked about this one. I always wonder if Hell on
[52:18] Speaker 1: Earth came out before The Infamous, would people say they
[52:21] Speaker 1: liked Hell on Earth more than The Infamous? Because Hell
[52:23] Speaker 1: on Earth, which I think comes out in one way
[52:26] Speaker 1: in a very interesting time, which is Tupac is dead,
[52:29] Speaker 1: but we still gonna fire his ass up.
[52:31] Speaker 2: We ain't forgot, you dead motherfucker.
[52:33] Speaker 5: Right?
[52:33] Speaker 2: Like, drop a gentleman on there.
[52:34] Speaker 1: But you go back and listen to Hell on Earth,
[52:37] Speaker 1: and it also is very clear they had more money
[52:39] Speaker 1: to record the record. Like, it sounds cleaner, but it
[52:42] Speaker 1: still knocks. Like, it's still a hard-ass record.
[52:44] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[52:45] Speaker 3: Havoc was real comfortable, I think. He had found his zone.
[52:49] Speaker 3: First album is Havoc with other outside influences. This feels
[52:54] Speaker 3: very much like he's in his element. And he just
[52:57] Speaker 3: could rap, man. P, I think, was someone that was
[53:01] Speaker 3: underappreciated in his heyday because there were so many heavyweights
[53:04] Speaker 3: who were solo, who were making noise. But the album
[53:06] Speaker 3: sounds great. I think The Infamous, For My Money, is
[53:08] Speaker 3: still a better record. It just feels like a giant
[53:12] Speaker 3: record in a way that... Hell on Earth doesn't feel giant,
[53:16] Speaker 3: but it feels focused, and it feels in its own
[53:20] Speaker 3: way like a very dark, thematic album. It's a beautiful
[53:25] Speaker 3: album in a way that a violent street album can
[53:29] Speaker 3: be beautiful.
[53:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, The Infamous is definitely more cinematic.
[53:37] Speaker 2: Right?
[53:37] Speaker 3: Like, I can.
[53:38] Speaker 1: I think I can more readily see the scenes that
[53:42] Speaker 1: are painted in The Infamous in a way that I
[53:44] Speaker 1: can't quite capture off of Hell on Earth. But it's
[53:48] Speaker 1: that thing where it's like, it's wild. We're all better
[53:51] Speaker 1: at what we do. Like, I probably rap better on
[53:53] Speaker 1: this record. I probably made better beats on this record,
[53:56] Speaker 1: but it ain't, it's still not that record.
[53:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, Dropping Jim on them is one I run all
[54:01] Speaker 3: the time still. It sounds so sinister.
[54:05] Speaker 1: And look, and they got it off in time for
[54:07] Speaker 1: Pac to hear it. It was just a little bit
[54:09] Speaker 1: wild that they still put it on the album. There
[54:11] Speaker 1: was plenty of time to jump off of that decision.
[54:14] Speaker 3: And everyone was playing a little bit hokey pokey, left
[54:18] Speaker 3: foot in, left foot out, on whether or not they
[54:20] Speaker 3: were going to just publicly despot. They said, no, we
[54:24] Speaker 3: are in it. They made L.A. L.A. too. They were like, hey,
[54:27] Speaker 3: give us all the beef. We want it all. These
[54:29] Speaker 3: little niggas wanted everything, right? I got to say, I
[54:33] Speaker 3: got to say, man, you know I have to do it. Dr.
[54:37] Speaker 3: Octagon and Big Time, two cool Keith albums in 96.
[54:40] Speaker 3: Had a song called The Industry is Whack that's still
[54:43] Speaker 3: one of the funniest songs that you've ever heard in
[54:45] Speaker 3: your life. And every song on Dr. Octagon is hilarious.
[54:49] Speaker 3: Got to promote my song.
[54:49] Speaker 2: It has been so long since I've listened to Dr.
[54:52] Speaker 1: Octagon that I had forgotten that it came out in
[54:54] Speaker 1: the course of this year. And being 16 and listening
[54:57] Speaker 1: to Dr. Octagon, I was like, what the fuck?
[54:59] Speaker 2: What the fuck is this? How is this real life?
[55:02] Speaker 3: Bo, I promise you. So I think that was the
[55:05] Speaker 3: first album on DreamWorks, and he got booked on Lollapalooza
[55:07] Speaker 3: but then skipped it. That album was actually huge. You
[55:10] Speaker 3: want to talk about an album huge with white people.
[55:12] Speaker 3: When I went back to college after I dropped out
[55:14] Speaker 3: the first time, people used to run up on me
[55:17] Speaker 3: and start rapping Kool Keith verses at me because they
[55:20] Speaker 3: heard he was my cousin. Charlie Brown and Snoopy, check
[55:23] Speaker 3: out the group, like rapping in my face. There was
[55:25] Speaker 3: a woman with dreads, a white woman with dreads, who
[55:27] Speaker 3: showed up to my college apartment, knocked on the porch door,
[55:32] Speaker 3: and came and bought weed to smoke me out so
[55:35] Speaker 3: we could listen to Kool Keith together. I had to
[55:37] Speaker 3: turn her away. I said, this is gone too far.
[55:41] Speaker 3: But his fans are real fans. And you know that guy, Passion,
[55:44] Speaker 3: the Weiss, Jeff Weiss, the rap critic, he just tweeted yesterday.
[55:48] Speaker 3: A friend of mine, Shamira, sent it to me. He said,
[55:51] Speaker 3: at 63 years old, Kool Keith is still making dope music.
[55:55] Speaker 3: And brother, I've seen him touring. I've been on stage
[55:57] Speaker 3: with him whenever he comes through my town. and he
[56:00] Speaker 3: is still rocking shows, and those fans still come out.
[56:02] Speaker 3: They don't look quite as young or as good as
[56:05] Speaker 3: when I remember him at 21, but they are as loyal.
[56:10] Speaker 1: My favorite thing with you about this is, as you say,
[56:13] Speaker 1: how totally unimpressed your family is with the idea of
[56:16] Speaker 1: Cool Keith, your cousin, showing up to stuff.
[56:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's no insult to him. My mother has
[56:22] Speaker 3: 14 brothers and sisters, and it's a group of Harlem
[56:26] Speaker 3: and Brooklyn street players, hustlers, that sort of thing. So
[56:30] Speaker 3: there's a hierarchy in our family. And you got to understand,
[56:32] Speaker 3: back in the day, of course, in New York, we
[56:34] Speaker 3: had LL Cool J posters on the wall, right? And
[56:37] Speaker 3: then we had this ultra magnetic funk your head up poster.
[56:40] Speaker 3: And no one who came over to the crib knew
[56:42] Speaker 3: who it was. So it wasn't until I got into
[56:45] Speaker 3: my mid-20s, I started really listening to my cousin's music
[56:49] Speaker 3: more and being like, you know what? This dude is
[56:52] Speaker 3: brilliant and half crazy. And I fuck with him. His
[56:56] Speaker 3: humility around my family is also incredibly impressive. Keith comes
[57:00] Speaker 3: from the projects in the Bronx, man. He's a real
[57:02] Speaker 3: street dude. And that's what makes the space music and
[57:07] Speaker 3: the scat music so much wilder, you know? So love
[57:11] Speaker 3: to Keith, man. Love to Keith.
[57:13] Speaker 1: Well, you tapped on something interesting and I think it's
[57:15] Speaker 1: a great way to wrap this. And I think that
[57:17] Speaker 1: 96 is a year where we start seeing the end
[57:19] Speaker 1: of this truly being present, which is the broad definition
[57:22] Speaker 1: of what it meant to be street, right? Like, Explaining
[57:25] Speaker 1: to people, for example, that public enemy, it takes a
[57:28] Speaker 1: nation of millions to hold us back.
[57:29] Speaker 2: That's a street record.
[57:30] Speaker 1: Like street and gangster are not perfect synonyms. Gangster is
[57:35] Speaker 1: within the confines of what it meant to be street.
[57:37] Speaker 1: But what it meant to be street is all over
[57:39] Speaker 1: the place in the I'd like Q-tip. being a dude
[57:42] Speaker 1: that had these connections, but was also a bit of
[57:44] Speaker 1: a nerd cat, like there was room for that. The
[57:46] Speaker 1: idea that the nerd acts white only exists in a
[57:49] Speaker 1: world where white people are part of the equation, right?
[57:51] Speaker 1: If it's all black people, then it's all black because
[57:54] Speaker 1: all you know was black people. And so the industry
[57:56] Speaker 1: at that time had a better reflection of that than
[58:00] Speaker 1: we wound up getting down the line. And this year
[58:02] Speaker 1: is something that kind of gets into what we're discussing there.
[58:05] Speaker 3: Yeah. Hip hop is still in the show business. It's
[58:09] Speaker 3: a culture in discussion with itself. It's self-referential. You have
[58:13] Speaker 3: to be part of the in-group to understand what the
[58:15] Speaker 3: records mean. But it's finally starting to drift away and
[58:18] Speaker 3: become music made by Black people for an audience that
[58:22] Speaker 3: isn't Black, with music that isn't Black serving as the
[58:25] Speaker 3: sample sources. And that gets a little tricky. But I
[58:30] Speaker 3: think about this all the time. It's the last thing
[58:32] Speaker 3: I'm going to say. People tend to think the hood
[58:34] Speaker 3: is just drug dealers and bullies. If it's all bullies,
[58:36] Speaker 3: who's going to be bullied? If it's all robbers, who's
[58:39] Speaker 3: getting robbed? If there's nobody who's a nerd, who's making
[58:43] Speaker 3: all this music? Who's digging through the crates? That vision...
[58:49] Speaker 3: And of this idea that only people who were suburban
[58:52] Speaker 3: in integrated high schools were nerds is really bizarre to me.
[58:56] Speaker 3: Sean Price is a nerd. He's a nerd that could
[58:58] Speaker 3: beat you up, but he does graffiti. He can dance.
[59:01] Speaker 3: He's like, yo, let me do some art. He's got
[59:04] Speaker 3: a sense of humor and an encyclopedic recall of culture
[59:06] Speaker 3: that he works into his lyrics for humor. That's nerd shit.
[59:11] Speaker 2: That's my man, Jason England. Check him out. Google him.
[59:14] Speaker 1: Check out his work. You'll find him at Chronicle of
[59:16] Speaker 1: Higher Education. See some of his stuff at The Defector.
[59:18] Speaker 1: My brother, I appreciate you for joining us here, working
[59:21] Speaker 1: on this series, man.
[59:22] Speaker 2: Really, really appreciate it.
[59:23] Speaker 3: Thank you for having me always, man. Appreciate you.
[59:25] Speaker 2: No problem, man.
[59:26] Speaker 1: And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us
[59:28] Speaker 1: here on The Right Time. We do this four days
[59:30] Speaker 1: a week. Ryan Brumley handles everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember,
[59:35] Speaker 1: follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us,
[59:38] Speaker 1: give us five stars. You only give us four stars.
[59:41] Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe.
[59:41] Speaker 2: You are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in
[59:43] Speaker 2: a couple of days. Take it easy.

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