Speaker 1: Owning everybody.
Speaker 2: It's stee J M V Charlamagne to God. We are
Speaker 2: the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We got some special guests in the buildings, some legends,
Speaker 1: some icons.
Speaker 4: Of course, we got the Roots Black Thought and Quest
Speaker 4: Love Welcome.
Speaker 3: Everybody is black from the roots.
Speaker 1: They've been up here before.
Speaker 2: And we got another icon that's never been up here before,
Speaker 2: the legendary icon L L cool J Welcome Queen Tim
Speaker 2: his first time.
Speaker 1: First time LL stand for a living legend at this point,
Speaker 1: I appreciate that absolutely, absolutely. So let's first start with
Speaker 1: you know, why you guys are here together, because people
Speaker 1: are like, well, why is LL and the Roots together?
Speaker 1: So you guys are going on the road on the tour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so how did this all come about?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 5: Who's whose version?
Speaker 3: Really? Who ensure?
Speaker 6: You know, the planet Center stars sort of aligned themselves
Speaker 6: and and you made it possible for us to work
Speaker 6: together on this huge segment that we did for the
Speaker 6: Grammys this year. And I think you know, from that
Speaker 6: the idea of us always having wanted to, you know,
Speaker 6: work together in some way, just you know, it opened
Speaker 6: the collaborative path and it was like, Yo, why don't
Speaker 6: we try to.
Speaker 3: Take this show on the road.
Speaker 5: It was huge.
Speaker 6: What we did just in that one fifteen minute segment
Speaker 6: was so huge for the culture. And you know, this
Speaker 6: being hip hop's fiftieth anniversary, and you know that that
Speaker 6: whole deal, it made sense to try and you know,
Speaker 6: do something celebratory in that way.
Speaker 3: You know, from region to region. You know.
Speaker 2: The great thing about hip hop fifty is a lot
Speaker 2: of these stories that we haven't heard or that we've
Speaker 2: heard whispers are coming to light like and you're starting
Speaker 2: to see more and more and more and more videos.
Speaker 2: I was online yesterday and it was just random because
Speaker 2: I DJ for Havoc the other night in Queen's Bridge,
Speaker 2: and it was one of the most amazing things for
Speaker 2: me because it's Queen's Bridge and it's Havoc right when
Speaker 2: he did shook Ones. I just seen the original and
Speaker 2: I'm just googling, and then I see a video of
Speaker 2: quest Love looking at Jazzy Jeff play the original right
Speaker 2: and go through the samples. And then I was looking
Speaker 2: at another video the other day and it was talking
Speaker 2: about LL talking about Biggie and he was in the
Speaker 2: studio when he wrote.
Speaker 3: Who shot you?
Speaker 7: I shot you?
Speaker 3: I shot shot you? Who shot you?
Speaker 2: And then I was talking about another another video I seen,
Speaker 2: and somebody was saying.
Speaker 1: That Biggie had beef with the Roots back then. So
Speaker 1: because people can't hear, these stories are amazing, can we
Speaker 1: put that one to rescue ones in ball the Biggie beef?
Speaker 1: People don't know, like the the Goots from different strip right,
Speaker 1: It's just you know, you could tell it was like
Speaker 1: born before seventy eight and after seventy eight, like it's
Speaker 1: that generation thing. Anyone after seventy eight is like, oh
Speaker 1: the Roots.
Speaker 5: No, it was never And even when.
Speaker 8: Y'all did the video for what they do, I think
Speaker 8: people don't realize all of hip hop, well not all
Speaker 8: of hip hop, but a large portion of hip hop
Speaker 8: was that player lifestyles.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, And folks didn't like that at the time.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. I mean you know it was a choice.
Speaker 3: You know some people did, did y'all?
Speaker 5: That's not good, y'all, y'all are to.
Speaker 6: Did we catch any flax from there? I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: Big was so chill man.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. Big was a huge Roots fan and
Speaker 3: he always made that known.
Speaker 6: Anybody that I ever met from Junior Mafia, Little SE's,
Speaker 6: Little Kim anybody remotely related to Big, they would always
Speaker 6: lead with Big as a huge roots fan. When I
Speaker 6: met Big, uh, he came out and sank silent treatment
Speaker 6: to us, like that was his intro to the roots.
Speaker 6: So he definitely he did feel a way. But I mean,
Speaker 6: he wasn't gonna be like, yo, like why'd you play me?
Speaker 6: Because he didn't feel enough of a way to feel played.
Speaker 6: But what he did was he did an interview. I
Speaker 6: can't remember what publication it was, but he did. He
Speaker 6: did an interview one interview where he may mention of it,
Speaker 6: and what he said was he said, look, it's not
Speaker 6: like I'm going to, you know, go after the roots
Speaker 6: like the roots.
Speaker 3: He like, I'm a huge roots fan. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to you know, do x Y and Z.
Speaker 6: But then he said that, but I can't speak for Brooklyn,
Speaker 6: you know, but yeah, you know, you know, definitely Big
Speaker 6: Rest and power Man and uh that that was definitely resolved.
Speaker 3: We had a chance might have a different opinion, right, right, We.
Speaker 6: Had a chance to you know, to resolve it, you know,
Speaker 6: because it was it was stupid, you.
Speaker 7: Know what I mean, you never regret doing that video.
Speaker 3: I didn't regret doing a video I just you know,
Speaker 3: I just wish I had been more informed, you know,
Speaker 3: and forward. It was. It was definitely a teachable moment,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: At the time, like I will say, like I was
Speaker 1: really neglectful about like our martwork or videos of those things.
Speaker 1: It was more like, all right, where do we stand?
Speaker 1: Or this is what we do? And it didn't even
Speaker 1: really occur to us like we might be ruffling feathers
Speaker 1: or you know, of that level.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 3: I mean, you see the look at the video, and
Speaker 3: I understand why they would.
Speaker 6: It looks that way you could say you had to know,
Speaker 6: but not like we. We didn't we literally, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. I was, I'll be focused on my
Speaker 6: own ship. So I'm not I'm not about I'm not
Speaker 6: the I'm not always abreast with you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: Like the I mean for for you know, just kind
Speaker 6: of petition's sake, and you know, just to stay up
Speaker 6: on what's going on with you. I don't be I
Speaker 6: don't know your video set being you know what I'm saying, respectfully,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, I don't you know, I'm
Speaker 6: I was on my own ship. So it was very much.
Speaker 6: Where do I stand? And you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: we were it was it was business and it was
Speaker 6: just transaction on that way. And then and then in
Speaker 6: that in that video, everything was nonspecific except.
Speaker 3: For just this one scene. And you know, I had
Speaker 3: no idea.
Speaker 6: I was like, why would I try to single out
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying like one of my peers
Speaker 6: to to you know, I mean no knowing me over
Speaker 6: the past thirty forty years that we've been doing what
Speaker 6: we do.
Speaker 3: That that that just doesn't speak to my character.
Speaker 4: Now, lady ladies, love cool James.
Speaker 2: Now, what what got you into We're gonna start you
Speaker 2: from the beginning because it's your first time here. What
Speaker 2: got you into hip hop? And said you know what
Speaker 2: I want to be MC? Where where did the love
Speaker 2: come from? As a kid from Queens and say this
Speaker 2: is what I want to do?
Speaker 3: You know into the mic? Can you can you hear me?
Speaker 5: Yep? So you know when those first wave of tapes
Speaker 5: came around, like you know, Cold Crush Brother and Fantastic
Speaker 5: Romantic five and Foursome Seas and then you know Treacherous Three,
Speaker 5: you know, Grand Master, Furious five and all of those
Speaker 5: groups when they were just tapes run around, you know,
Speaker 5: Harlem World tapes, and then the songs came later. That
Speaker 5: was the first time that I heard, you know, young
Speaker 5: black kids sounding powered. It was the first time that
Speaker 5: I heard, you know, or could envision us doing something great,
Speaker 5: because before that, all the images I had seen were
Speaker 5: us like handcuffed, being put in a police car or
Speaker 5: some sort of charge or you know. So that empowering feeling,
Speaker 5: you know, the braggadocio thing that you know that we
Speaker 5: really focused on came not from a place of looking
Speaker 5: down on high on people, but more about I could
Speaker 5: be somebody, you know what I'm saying. The world looks
Speaker 5: at me and like I'm invisible. My friends up the
Speaker 5: block get killed, and nobody says anything. So when I'm
Speaker 5: bragging and I'm boasting, what I'm really doing is saying, hey,
Speaker 5: look at me, I exist, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So for me, that was, you know, a real special
Speaker 5: thing and a spectacular thing. I mean, I'm eight, I'm
Speaker 5: nine years old. I'm ten years old, and I'm being
Speaker 5: introduced to this thing and I just completely fell in
Speaker 5: love with it. And then you know, you know, eight nine,
Speaker 5: I'm a fan of the wrap. My grandfather broughts me
Speaker 5: some equipment at eleven. I'm DJing, I'm messing around with that,
Speaker 5: but I'm still rhyming, and I'm going back and forth,
Speaker 5: and then you know, eventually one thing led to another
Speaker 5: and you know, here we are, def jam and the
Speaker 5: whole whole nine.
Speaker 8: Do you consider yourself a founding father of hip hop?
Speaker 8: Because you know, people always gonna say, you know, cool her,
Speaker 8: you know, Grandma's to Flash, people like that, But as
Speaker 8: far as hip hop as we know now, I would say,
Speaker 8: you and run DMC.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So so I'm you know, I'm definitely generation one
Speaker 5: point five. You know what I'm saying. You got to
Speaker 5: give Flash and HERK and Force and all. The grant
Speaker 5: was the Theodore They're due. The thing that myself from
Speaker 5: run DMC did, what we did is we took it
Speaker 5: to the world. We took it global, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. We took it from the city and took
Speaker 5: it around the world, you know what I'm say saying.
Speaker 5: And that was the difference. So they they brought it.
Speaker 5: They took it from from the Bronx and Harlem, you know,
Speaker 5: out to the Five Boroughs and you know, around the
Speaker 5: world somewhat on a slow on a on a you know,
Speaker 5: not quite as they didn't penetrate the market quite as deeply.
Speaker 5: Then we took it and made it global.
Speaker 6: And I think I think from from a Philadelphia standpoint too,
Speaker 6: you know, just from the outside looking then with that
Speaker 6: that one point five generation with with you and and
Speaker 6: alltist like running du that was our first time sort of.
Speaker 3: Seeing our own reflection exact stage.
Speaker 6: It was like, you know, like again, I was a
Speaker 6: huge fan of all the other founding fathers, but they
Speaker 6: didn't look like people from around my way, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. And when I saw a run jam
Speaker 6: Master j L, they looked like the corner boys. Like
Speaker 6: that was outside and I saw myself in that. So
Speaker 6: you know that that's where a lot of the inspiration
Speaker 6: for me to do what I what I do came from.
Speaker 3: Not to mention you know, ella.
Speaker 1: You know, L is very modest, but L literally invented
Speaker 1: what I call postmodern hip hop, like the three minute
Speaker 1: rap song sixteen bar like before LL even Run DMC's
Speaker 1: first album, Like it's like that's like eight minutes, like
Speaker 1: seven verses, you know what I mean. Like LL literally
Speaker 1: invented the sixteen you know, maybe the twenty fourth the course,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, oh, the song has
Speaker 1: courses on it.
Speaker 3: So I love rap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like literally emotions on rep Like he's he's pioneered
Speaker 1: for like so so many things that he never gets
Speaker 1: credit for, and I think, like he's so good at it,
Speaker 1: you know, like you roll your eyes when like Steph
Speaker 1: Curry just like any shot goes in with Steph Curry
Speaker 1: and it's sort of like you're like, Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're good.
Speaker 3: It's like it well black thought, killsh it again on
Speaker 3: another joint.
Speaker 5: No, but it's lots of given.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying, it's like that, and oftentimes think
Speaker 1: amazing shit, look at listen, right, And oftentimes the thing,
Speaker 1: especially now that I'm in more of the business of
Speaker 1: rear view mirrors, like looking at his history and like
Speaker 1: I'm also on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame committee,
Speaker 1: like the people that nominate the people that get in,
Speaker 1: and you know, even in trying to get him nominated,
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, like we're really like penalizing people
Speaker 1: for being too good, like too effortless, Like he's he
Speaker 1: was like the first teen idol, the first, Like there's
Speaker 1: so many first with him that you just you take
Speaker 1: it for granted.
Speaker 8: So you think because people are prison of the moment,
Speaker 8: like you know, it seems like that whole era, especially
Speaker 8: that started in the eighties, don't necessarily get the credit issue.
Speaker 1: It's not and people just don't look at it as art.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing, like we have to.
Speaker 1: Now, that's the one lesson I learned, especially like in
Speaker 1: when we were organizing the Grammy thing. You know, you're
Speaker 1: using words like your legacy, your history or whatever. And
Speaker 1: you know, I understand sometimes with artists, like there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of eye rolling and I don't care about this
Speaker 1: like that sort of thing because for a lot of
Speaker 1: us like this just this is survival and you know,
Speaker 1: but what it really is is it's art and it's
Speaker 1: our lives.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 1: I think what we need to do, especially as whatever stages.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say elder statesman because hip hop
Speaker 1: soil ages, but.
Speaker 7: Oh geez, yeah, I take it off.
Speaker 3: I take other statesmen.
Speaker 1: So that said, it's like we need to collectively like
Speaker 1: really start looking at this like art high art, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, And especially now where we're all
Speaker 1: just dying by the thousands, you know, like we can't
Speaker 1: take it for granted. So like he's in fine form,
Speaker 1: like in fighting shape.
Speaker 5: And you know, I.
Speaker 4: Was gonna ask when when you you talked about deaf Jam.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about that.
Speaker 2: When they when they came to you with a contract
Speaker 2: to sign, do you remember what's your first contract like
Speaker 2: and how much they gave you?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean talk about that for you know,
Speaker 5: you know, you got to remember that. So, so deaf
Speaker 5: Cham was a production company. There was no label. Okay,
Speaker 5: It's Yours by Tila Rock was on Party Times street
Speaker 5: Wise label. It was deaf Cham Productions, which was Rick
Speaker 5: was the producer along with Jazzy J. And it was
Speaker 5: so it was it was more than a contract. They
Speaker 5: were actually forming a label. Rick was having a problem,
Speaker 5: you know him, and he was having problems getting his
Speaker 5: money from the other label he was dealing with.
Speaker 7: So they wanted to start this new thing.
Speaker 5: So you know that first contract, you know, at the time,
Speaker 5: you know, I had we split the publishing.
Speaker 7: They gave me like fifty thousand.
Speaker 5: But but before that, actually, my first single I ever made,
Speaker 5: I didn't have a contract when I made I Need
Speaker 5: a Beat, which was the very first song I ever made.
Speaker 5: I had no contract. It was just like, yo, let's
Speaker 5: just get it and we'll figure it out.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you gotta be willing to crawl over the barb
Speaker 5: wire fence with no shirt on, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: to get what you want.
Speaker 7: So I did that and then, you know, with no
Speaker 7: shirt on.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. By the end of the story,
Speaker 3: I have one hundred lls. I'm number six already.
Speaker 7: That was what it was. And you know it wasn't Listen, man.
Speaker 3: How old were you at this point?
Speaker 5: Sixteen? I was sixteen when I mean yeah, when we
Speaker 5: started death Jairing, I was sixteen. So my first song,
Speaker 5: you know, when I may rock the bells or sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 5: You know, why do people see so much about why
Speaker 5: people seem way more mature back because I was like
Speaker 5: kind of like in that that Kobe kind of you know,
Speaker 5: straight out of pros, trade out of high school into
Speaker 5: the pros as opposed to like kid rappers, like you
Speaker 5: do have kid rappers who are fifteen sixteen and their
Speaker 5: kid rappers.
Speaker 7: I wasn't that I was ready for the big leagues.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Because you were out in
Speaker 1: the streets, you were out around the local drug dealers.
Speaker 4: You've seen what was going on.
Speaker 3: Well, that's queen was ed.
Speaker 5: Was a bunch of hosts and put that out.
Speaker 3: Yo.
Speaker 7: Now you know what it was is that all of
Speaker 7: my I was listening to my heroes.
Speaker 5: I was listening to the dudes that was really spitting
Speaker 5: and it was going hard and there was no holding back.
Speaker 5: And you don't get that. You don't get the right.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: One thing about the inner city that's funny is like
Speaker 5: once you walk out on the block, you really don't
Speaker 5: get an opportunity to be a little kid.
Speaker 4: Correct.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, Like, you know, we're gonna
Speaker 5: treat you, sir where you get. You got. You had
Speaker 5: that one dude to treat you like a little kid.
Speaker 5: Everybody else is like and what So when I stepped
Speaker 5: on the court, you know what I'm saying, When I
Speaker 5: stepped in the ring of hip hop, it was just yo,
Speaker 5: this is what it is, you know. So I just
Speaker 5: went for it, man, and I love it so much.
Speaker 5: I signed a ten album deal. What yeah, and it
Speaker 5: was it was I remember going home saying to my mother, MA,
Speaker 5: guess what, and they're gonna make let me make ten hours.
Speaker 5: And I blew through them ten albums like nothing. And see,
Speaker 5: see the thing when you do it for love, the
Speaker 5: rest of everything else happens. Remember when you see people
Speaker 5: in the in the in the locker room after the
Speaker 5: NBA Championship and they got the cigars in the champagne,
Speaker 5: that's because they loved the game all day life and
Speaker 5: they really worked hard and they really had fun. The
Speaker 5: contracts in the champagne and the cigars come later. So
Speaker 5: all of the things that all of the accolades that
Speaker 5: people see me with, that's because I love it so much.
Speaker 5: I didn't get into this to get paid, even and
Speaker 5: I did get paid. Did you ever feel like you
Speaker 5: should have had like equity and depth Jam? I did
Speaker 5: have equity in Death Jam. I did have equity and
Speaker 5: Death Jam. I just sold it a little early. But
Speaker 5: I definitely had ownership in Death Jam, ownership in Foobu.
Speaker 5: You know, I have ownership in NCIS Los Angeles, ownership
Speaker 5: and lip Sync.
Speaker 7: Battle I have.
Speaker 5: You know, I own my catalog, you know, like so
Speaker 5: the things that I do, you know, I did well,
Speaker 5: but I didn't do it for the money.
Speaker 2: And where did you get the business mind from? Was
Speaker 2: it was it your mom's? Was it you know, an uncle?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: Where did you get that? Because I don't think a
Speaker 4: lot of people were thinking ownership back then. They were
Speaker 4: just thinking I need to blow.
Speaker 5: Up, you know what? You know what I've learned man?
Speaker 5: You know, like, and people may have heard me say
Speaker 5: this before. You know, if a homeless man tell you
Speaker 5: not to do push ups in traffic, you should listen
Speaker 5: because you might get ran over. A lot of times
Speaker 5: people are like, yo, yo. A lot of people are like, yo,
Speaker 5: you homeless?
Speaker 3: What do you know? All right?
Speaker 5: Brown today in the news. So it's like, so so
Speaker 5: the business thing I learned from people before me and
Speaker 5: after me, I hear, oh oh, you know you just
Speaker 5: stay cheerious and then you ask questions and then being
Speaker 5: blessed by the grace of God to be so successful
Speaker 5: for so long that I got a lot of bites
Speaker 5: at the apples, so at the apples, So any mistakes
Speaker 5: that I may have made got a chance to be
Speaker 5: corrected because I just, you know, because of the amount
Speaker 5: of time that I'm able to be successful.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, because you got to remember,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 5: I've been professional since eighty four, professional now in terms
Speaker 5: of as in pop. It was, you know, way back
Speaker 5: before that, and I was already ready. See think about it,
Speaker 5: you know, because you gotta get ready. So it's just
Speaker 5: a matter of just being curious. You know, reading is
Speaker 5: my hobby, you know what I'm saying. That's always been
Speaker 5: my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 1: That was the Monica Ladies Love cool j Right. Did
Speaker 1: you always feel like these dudes gonna think I'm sweet?
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I have to have these these rhyms
Speaker 1: in the corner just in case.
Speaker 5: The Ladies Love cool Ja thing was just wish for thinking.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm fifteen on one girls, I'm Ladies love
Speaker 5: cool Jack. It was. It wasn't really that ended up
Speaker 5: not being true. It didn't have to be that like
Speaker 5: people took that a little. It just kind of worked out.
Speaker 5: Let ill cool Jack. I hope lady, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 7: But you never rebelled against the sex symbol image. I
Speaker 7: saw no like.
Speaker 5: I mean, look, I made I need love because I
Speaker 5: like girls. I made like rock the bells because I
Speaker 5: like to do the hard ship. You know, I don't
Speaker 5: I don't have I don't understand really, you know, like
Speaker 5: for like me growing up, I like girls, right, so
Speaker 5: I don't understand like what we're really talking about when
Speaker 5: you think about it, like what are we talking about?
Speaker 5: Like if we're in the car, Like we're not going
Speaker 5: to talk about no girls, we're not doing that. You're
Speaker 5: not with that, y'all don't want to go to that state?
Speaker 3: What should we do?
Speaker 5: Should we play corners in the car like the whole time,
Speaker 5: whole ride, like how you know, how we move? So
Speaker 5: that's why I never had a problem with that, and I,
Speaker 5: you know, and then leading that.
Speaker 7: It's all love, you know, I don't have no.
Speaker 1: I think it's important though, because it's like what what
Speaker 1: that what those songs really represent is like vulnerability, which
Speaker 1: you aren't allowed to do that in the hood because
Speaker 1: you'll be seen as weak or an easy target. But
Speaker 1: I guarantee you anyone.
Speaker 5: You know, you know what question honestly, let me tell
Speaker 5: you something. What the you know the dudes that that
Speaker 5: feel like they'll be perceived as weak or target with
Speaker 5: that kind of when they're dealing in that area, they
Speaker 5: all weak, like they are weak, bro, Like, Like, let
Speaker 5: me tell you something that like that shit, you know,
Speaker 5: doing putting I.
Speaker 3: Need love out of me.
Speaker 5: Doing love songs is the equivalent of me walking into
Speaker 5: projects with a neck full of jury. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 5: same thing, because you know, you open and you know
Speaker 5: it's what it is. You know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 5: there is no nervous noodle like with that. Like it
Speaker 5: ain't even about that. Like I don't even think that way,
Speaker 5: because my thing is, here's here's the strength isn't doing
Speaker 5: what you want to do artistically.
Speaker 1: That's where the strength is. I do what I want
Speaker 1: to do artistically.
Speaker 5: I don't do what they say I should do because
Speaker 5: then I'm not being me.
Speaker 1: I'm fronting. I'm being somebody else. Right, So I don't
Speaker 1: even think like that. That's why I.
Speaker 5: Could be in a picture smiling. Don't make me feel weak,
Speaker 5: you know, go do a TV.
Speaker 3: Show, cessiment street. I've done it too right.
Speaker 5: We can do all that right.
Speaker 7: We could do these things right because you don't limit yourself.
Speaker 5: See I think that you know, and I just say,
Speaker 5: just a lot of young men in general, never limit.
Speaker 7: Yourself to to to the to.
Speaker 5: The what others, the perception of what other people think
Speaker 5: you should be, right, don't limit yourself to that be yourself, right?
Speaker 2: Does that have a body with both of y'all that
Speaker 2: you know, yell are so legendary and hip hop, but
Speaker 2: people might not look at you as a rapper. They
Speaker 2: might just look at you as an actor, or people
Speaker 2: might not look at y'all as the roots as in
Speaker 2: a group, but just the guys we're banned for to
Speaker 2: night with people the younger generation especially, No, I.
Speaker 6: Think I think there's value in that we've been able
Speaker 6: to reinvent ourselves in a way that you know, like
Speaker 6: our brand has had, you know, different iterations, different complete
Speaker 6: just lie. So the fact that yeah, we've been on
Speaker 6: you know TV every day for the past fifteen years,
Speaker 6: it's a whole demo. They only know us from that,
Speaker 6: so that leaves a whole new space for them to
Speaker 6: explore when they discover our body of work.
Speaker 3: And then there's people who've been die hard fans.
Speaker 6: Of you know, l L and the Roots forever, who
Speaker 6: you know, may have lost track of our musical contributions
Speaker 6: along the way. So I just appreciate the chance to
Speaker 6: sort of keep reintroducing myself. Me and Elle was just
Speaker 6: talking about how you know, you just pop out every
Speaker 6: now and then as an artist to shut shit down
Speaker 6: with those little, you know, not not so general reminders.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. And you're good, and that's
Speaker 3: sort of how we navigate the space.
Speaker 5: And you know, the way I look at it is
Speaker 5: it's just an opportunity, you know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 5: a beautiful opportunity to put you up on something new.
Speaker 5: And if you don't know, to come find out, come
Speaker 5: to the show. You know what I'm saying. That's why
Speaker 5: we're on tour. You can come see some music. It's
Speaker 5: multi generational, you know, just like the festival, multi generational.
Speaker 5: So come out to the tour, come to the Force tour,
Speaker 5: see what we're doing. You know what I'm saying, Get
Speaker 5: put onto something new.
Speaker 7: That simple. You know what I'm saying. If you don't know,
Speaker 7: come find out.
Speaker 8: And I think, you know, as media personalities, I feel
Speaker 8: like we got to do a better job of preserving
Speaker 8: those legacies. Yeah, you know, because there's been times I've
Speaker 8: I've critiqued LL's like a freestyle.
Speaker 4: You might have did he want to box out of you?
Speaker 4: He did?
Speaker 8: But you know what I'm saying, But what I realized
Speaker 8: in that is, people would hear that and not realize
Speaker 8: that LLLL got a whole catalog, Like there's no way
Speaker 8: you can ever say ll cool J is whack. He's
Speaker 8: one of the coin the term goat. Of course he's
Speaker 8: an icon, he's one of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 8: But sometimes the younger generation don't know that. If they
Speaker 8: hear us critiquing something.
Speaker 5: Well, you know what, shaw I put it to you
Speaker 5: like this, And I will say, I'm not even tripping
Speaker 5: off of that, because the reality is, you know, every
Speaker 5: now and then, you're gonna miss a dunk, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: So you know, if I miss a dunk, it'll be
Speaker 7: a highlight. But I got some good.
Speaker 5: Ones, you know, so so maybe I'm and if you
Speaker 5: step into the ring right, and I'm talking about like
Speaker 5: in music or art or anything, right, like if you're
Speaker 5: gonna win championships, you know, great box, you're gonna get
Speaker 5: punched in the face. So you're gonna miss some it
Speaker 5: is what I'm saying. So you know, the critique ain't
Speaker 5: necessarily wrong. It's all right for you to you know,
Speaker 5: say what you feel. You know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 5: a matter of you know, my job is just to
Speaker 5: give people consistent Like this new album I did that
Speaker 5: that that Q Tip executive produced. I look forward to
Speaker 5: introducing that to the world and looking at that hearing
Speaker 5: your you know, your critique and your your you know,
Speaker 5: your opinions of.
Speaker 7: It, like this is the thing we got to do. Like,
Speaker 7: my my goal is this.
Speaker 5: I just want to show people that you can have
Speaker 5: a career that last decades and decades and decades at
Speaker 5: the highest level.
Speaker 7: I want to show people what's possible.
Speaker 5: You know, in hip hop, we haven't had somebody who
Speaker 5: started from the beginning and went to another level you
Speaker 5: know this many years later. So this is a very
Speaker 5: unique thing that we're dealing with. So it's new to
Speaker 5: all of us. You never dealt We never dealt with
Speaker 5: a LLL cool JA. You have the roots band and
Speaker 5: like these like this is a whole num the level.
Speaker 8: Now, that's why I think you, I actually think you're
Speaker 8: above critique. I'm not even I think we're one of
Speaker 8: those people that you can't critique.
Speaker 7: J has done it, He's home already.
Speaker 5: I think I think everybody can be critique. You know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. I think that I'm not immune to critique.
Speaker 5: I will say this though, you know, I put a
Speaker 5: lot of work in and I got a lot of
Speaker 5: I got you know, a lot of hardware, and you know,
Speaker 5: you know, but Wikipedia is pretty long, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So it's like you got rhymes at the hood that beautiful,
Speaker 3: which this told.
Speaker 7: Me happening without the writer strike in Hollywood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely it was.
Speaker 1: I mean we planned it sort of around like our
Speaker 1: breaks that would have happened during the Foulon period, but have.
Speaker 5: One week okay, ok, yeah, because we both was working
Speaker 5: and and that was why it really made so much sense.
Speaker 7: You know, is it true that Jimmy Fallon is paying
Speaker 7: the staff out of pocket? Why, y'all stripe?
Speaker 3: Uh, that's a question.
Speaker 4: Let me check my check, Let me check my bank
Speaker 4: account right now.
Speaker 3: Now, I got like nineteen other jobs. It's not like money,
Speaker 3: you know, No, no one, no one.
Speaker 5: Is getting paid. Uh. After that, that's kind of a myth.
Speaker 8: And this may be a stupid question, But what changed
Speaker 8: your life more Hollywood or hip hop? We know hip
Speaker 8: hop changed your life and it probably would be no
Speaker 8: Hollywood without it, But what has elevated your lives more?
Speaker 1: I will say For me personally, hip hop has definitely
Speaker 1: changed my life. Like I grew up in the house
Speaker 1: with three thousand records that I didn't like in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly I'm starting to listen to hip hop, like, wait,
Speaker 1: this is what dad listens to, Like, let me see
Speaker 1: when my dad got over here and so, and that's
Speaker 1: what enabled me to sit here today. So it starts
Speaker 1: with really hip hop and our our shared love of it.
Speaker 1: You know, to me, that's hip hip hop is the answer.
Speaker 6: I don't know, yeah, yeah, for me, it's definitely a
Speaker 6: you know, the same I would say, I would say
Speaker 6: hip hop. I mean not only hip hop, but just
Speaker 6: the arts right has been my my my saving grace.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I come from, you know, just a place and time
Speaker 6: where you know so much and so many were lost.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. Both my parents have murdered victims.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: My brother institutionalized, spent over thirty years in prison. So
Speaker 6: that that's that's where I come from. And that's not
Speaker 6: I'm not a you know that that I'm not unique
Speaker 6: in that. That's that's everybody on my block, you know. So,
Speaker 6: But I also come from a place where it's something
Speaker 6: in the water. And you know people who I've seen
Speaker 6: invest all their you know, effort and time and energy,
Speaker 6: you know to making it.
Speaker 3: You know, Beyond the Block has has done extremely well.
Speaker 6: I've seen you know, I've known Wallow you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying in the Meeks and Kevin Harts and you know,
Speaker 6: and you know people who have gone on to Philadelphia greatness,
Speaker 6: you know Eve and Jill Scott, you know, like people
Speaker 6: when when they were still Olympic hopefuls.
Speaker 3: You know. So it's just dope. I mean, that's I
Speaker 3: get a different kind of.
Speaker 6: Reassurance and inspiration just coming from where I come from,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And yeah, that really just you know, just lets me
Speaker 3: know that the sky is the limit.
Speaker 4: Did y'all ever get it to it?
Speaker 7: What about you? Hollywood?
Speaker 3: Hip hop?
Speaker 5: Oh man, hip hop? I mean hip hop changed my
Speaker 5: life and made it amazing. Way before I went to Hollywood,
Speaker 5: I was many albums and I was, you know what I.
Speaker 3: Mean, like him.
Speaker 6: Hip hop is something that has been this important to
Speaker 6: us since before it reached since before there was a
Speaker 6: you know, an intersection of hip hop in Hollywood. You know,
Speaker 6: hip hop. Hip hop is fifty this year. I'm fifty.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying. These brothers are my elders
Speaker 6: there little but you know, like me and hip hop
Speaker 6: were born.
Speaker 3: Right at the same time, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So I definitely have always felt like, you know, the
Speaker 6: culture is my contemporary.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean, you're founding father in that
Speaker 8: to hell, like as far as like hip hop artists
Speaker 8: who moved here, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Because you know, like even you know, like we did
Speaker 5: Crush Group in eighty five, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 5: you know, my first appearance you know, to the world,
Speaker 5: you know, was on a movie screen through hip hop.
Speaker 7: So I guess Hollywood has been there all along for me.
Speaker 5: Did Wildcatching eighty I've been like thirty forty movies, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, listen, man, I love the culture,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I do this because
Speaker 1: I love it. I could have took my ball and
Speaker 1: went home along time ago.
Speaker 4: I was gonna ask, was there any at any point
Speaker 4: of any of your lives did y'all lose love for
Speaker 4: hip hop?
Speaker 2: Maybe it was the sound change, maybe it was it
Speaker 2: wasn't received the right way, or maybe it was I'm
Speaker 2: getting money over here.
Speaker 4: Was there any time at that at all for me?
Speaker 5: No, because I'm getting money over here has nothing to
Speaker 5: do with loving hip hop.
Speaker 7: You know that it has nothing to do with that.
Speaker 7: You know, I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't do I don't make rap music and do
Speaker 5: hip hop culture and rock the bells and all this
Speaker 5: to make money to survive.
Speaker 7: Rather, you know, I do it because I love it
Speaker 7: and I get.
Speaker 3: Paid doing it.
Speaker 1: But I would say, well, I will say that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's times if you're creative and your passion turns into
Speaker 1: your livelihood, that sometimes you might have to leave it
Speaker 1: for a second. I mean, there definitely been moments where,
Speaker 1: like you know, like he and I have put since
Speaker 1: ninety three, probably somewhere between one hundred and fifty to
Speaker 1: two hundred shows a year, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: from ninety three up until like when we start fouing
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, like our lives was on a
Speaker 1: tour bus, and you know, the grass is always green
Speaker 1: on the other side, and so during the tonight show
Speaker 1: allowed us especially to see what other magical powers we had,
Speaker 1: like I didn't know, like, oh, I could write books,
Speaker 1: and both of us are professors at NYU. You know,
Speaker 1: he wrote a play, I did a movie and all
Speaker 1: those other things. So a small team man, not more
Speaker 1: than spart just curious, like we're I think all of
Speaker 1: us are creatives. And that's that's the thing, Like we're
Speaker 1: creatives that are discovering that sometimes our talent is transferable
Speaker 1: to other mediums. In avenue like Tarik, you think of
Speaker 1: that hot ninety seven freestyle, he is a better chef.
Speaker 1: He's a better cook than that freestyle. That's how I'll
Speaker 1: put him against any three micheline star chef or black
Speaker 1: grandmother or whatever.
Speaker 3: About to have my now for real, Like he's the king?
Speaker 3: Is Gordon Ramsey? You wanted to smoke? Now?
Speaker 1: He is getting up before m Yes, you know I.
Speaker 6: Think I cad. I catered for the roost other night. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I brought a bunch of grubs to the up to
Speaker 6: rock the bell. So you I mean you're go ahingad
Speaker 6: and tell him what I brought?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yes, everything from crab legs to lobster to Colin Greens
Speaker 1: to like his cookie.
Speaker 5: But that's what I'm saying, Like his check all the
Speaker 5: box you left the Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love the
Speaker 5: Chillings on the grid.
Speaker 7: A moment in your careers where y'all questioning things though.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, yeah, definitely there have been many moments, uh,
Speaker 6: you know where I've questioned you know, myself and where
Speaker 6: we've questioned ourselves, you know, I mean as a collective,
Speaker 6: and you know, in those moments of pause, that's when
Speaker 6: you're able to answer the call and I think, you know,
Speaker 6: you just get those bursts of of clarity. And it's
Speaker 6: been a blessing that we've been able to reinvent ourselves,
Speaker 6: you know, because yeah, you know, I just like I
Speaker 6: was saying, I would be making music. I would be
Speaker 6: writing songs and you know, creating art, whether I was
Speaker 6: able to you know, support myself and my family off
Speaker 6: it or not. So it's it's a blessing, like you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, the plus is that I'm also able to
Speaker 6: make a career out of it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: But yeah, there's been times that I've questioned, you know,
Speaker 6: like what the next chapter would look like, or what
Speaker 6: the next you know, sort of act like act three
Speaker 6: of my career, you know, am I gonna be able
Speaker 6: to swing another you know, reinvention and yeah, you know
Speaker 6: it's you.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 6: It is those moments when you sort of listen to
Speaker 6: the universe and you go with your heart and and
Speaker 6: things become more clear.
Speaker 4: You know, I was gonna ask you what hip hip hop?
Speaker 7: Do you have a question? Things?
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, listen, man, There's always gonna be a
Speaker 5: time in life where you have doubts and you have concerns,
Speaker 5: and you have insecurities, and you feel like uncomfortable or
Speaker 5: discomfort about certain things. But like like Tarik said, you know,
Speaker 5: answering that call and following your intuition, following that that
Speaker 5: small voice inside of you and go for it. You know,
Speaker 5: you can't be fearful in life. You can't be scary
Speaker 5: and you the person that has to be able to
Speaker 5: you have to be able to trust the most is yourself.
Speaker 5: And you have to be able to trust yourself in
Speaker 5: moments when you are susceptible to fear and weakness, and
Speaker 5: you just have to find that strength and keep moving through.
Speaker 3: Like you got.
Speaker 7: What is the ll cool JA in security?
Speaker 5: Well, it would be like maybe, Okay, it's been a
Speaker 5: thousand years, should I make another album?
Speaker 4: Them?
Speaker 7: Do I make another album, should.
Speaker 3: I go on the road. You haven't done this, you
Speaker 3: haven't done that. You know.
Speaker 5: The other day, you know, Sway asked me to rhyme,
Speaker 5: like do you do you say the rhyme like their
Speaker 5: little things that you know what I'm saying, You know
Speaker 5: what I mean? You know, you know, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 7: Is it a dolphin?
Speaker 5: So so you know that's that's But you know, like
Speaker 5: I said, man like, when you want to do something,
Speaker 5: when you want to build something, you're gonna deal with
Speaker 5: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 7: You're gonna deal with them feelings.
Speaker 5: Like there's people listening to us right now who you know,
Speaker 5: are going through things and they're scared, they're on the edge.
Speaker 5: You gotta be able to push through that fear. You
Speaker 5: dig like, that's what it is, and that's a part
Speaker 5: of being great. You know, Greatness is not about comparing
Speaker 5: yourself to others greatness, other people's greatness. Greatness is about
Speaker 5: maximizing your personal potential. That's what makes you great. When
Speaker 5: you maximize your potential, you're great, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And as he said earlier, like you gotta stop like
Speaker 1: I just started, like the practice of not people pleasing
Speaker 1: and oftentimes we do things in the eyes of like man,
Speaker 1: what's that? And I going to say or I don't know,
Speaker 1: and the second that maybe it comes with being fifty,
Speaker 1: like start your I don't give a fuck face around
Speaker 1: that time we.
Speaker 5: Question so so you know, always people always ask me
Speaker 5: about that look. Always tell people I'm not a nice guy,
Speaker 5: I'm a good guy. It's a difference, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. Like like if if a little old lady
Speaker 5: is walking down the street and some god grabs a
Speaker 5: pocketbook and you grab the guy and break his nose
Speaker 5: and break his arm, you're not a nice guy, but
Speaker 5: you're a good guy, you.
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So there's a difference. So in life it's all right
Speaker 5: to say no, you know what I'm saying, I'm not
Speaker 5: in this to be nice. I mean it to be good,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. And when you so that
Speaker 5: goes back to your people please that I'm agreeing with you,
Speaker 5: that people please, like you don't have to please people.
Speaker 5: What it is is you put your oxygen mask on first,
Speaker 5: then you helped the person next to you, right, So
Speaker 5: it's the appropriate selfishness, you know what I'm saying. When
Speaker 5: you've beaten people up you felt bad about it depends
Speaker 5: on who would be got you?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like, you know what I mean, beautiful, I'm saying you
Speaker 5: don't feel bad at all.
Speaker 1: You feel phenomenal because because you saved the old lady, right, you.
Speaker 5: Feel great like you But but that's not nice if.
Speaker 1: You beat Arlamagne, but you have felt good at that
Speaker 1: time time, Yeah, I'm sure I would have felt.
Speaker 3: Terrible, terrible.
Speaker 4: I gotta ask you.
Speaker 2: We got to discuss the lyrical sparring, right, so you
Speaker 2: have times had been challenged and you threw shots, whether
Speaker 2: it was more d back and day canna bus or
Speaker 2: people even say, oh, have you ever ran into the
Speaker 2: people that you've ever had into a lyrical sparring? And
Speaker 2: is it all jokes and fun now or is it
Speaker 2: still like standolphish?
Speaker 7: No, I ain't no standolfish man.
Speaker 3: That's a sport. I don't.
Speaker 7: I don't have no beef with none of the guys.
Speaker 1: Of course, not beef.
Speaker 3: But is it No? No, I don't.
Speaker 5: When I say beef, I'm not talking about like real
Speaker 5: street be problem. Like I'm just saying, like I don't
Speaker 5: you know, No, I don't have any tension, Okay, there's
Speaker 5: there's no I mean some dudes. Look, everybody is different, man,
Speaker 5: some people, you know, it really bothers.
Speaker 3: Them, like you know something.
Speaker 1: Like post Jack the Ripper, right or post how you
Speaker 1: like Me?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: Like were you and mod ever in the room together
Speaker 1: at any of that those periods like I walked out
Speaker 1: on stage of this concert before like I'm crazy, Wait
Speaker 1: what there was.
Speaker 3: No there was no social media. Man, we see each other.
Speaker 3: We laugh.
Speaker 7: When you walked nothing.
Speaker 6: That's ridiculous kind of l kind of pioneered the move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, but.
Speaker 4: Then with cannabis, you know what I mean, have y'all left,
Speaker 4: y'all spoken.
Speaker 3: Brought them out of Barclays when I perform, Remember that's right.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You know, I see you and I see see pictures.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, we got the you know we're doing
Speaker 5: we got things we're doing now together.
Speaker 7: You know what about you and what was what was
Speaker 7: you in Hohode? I never understood that one either. That
Speaker 7: felt like just ego.
Speaker 5: I really, I honestly couldn't tell you, bro, I have
Speaker 5: no idea. All I know is it's all love. You
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like you know, it's we Gucci,
Speaker 5: like for real, like you know, you know, listen, man.
Speaker 8: Does a conversation make things straight or just over time
Speaker 8: and just you realize it wasn't really about nothing.
Speaker 1: They said you at the time that you didn't like
Speaker 1: him as president or death ya, and that's where they
Speaker 1: say it came from.
Speaker 7: Dude.
Speaker 5: Next question.
Speaker 7: Is a question y, y'all in the old street stuff
Speaker 7: and the stuff.
Speaker 5: Like yeah, next question, I tell you like this. I
Speaker 5: tell you like this man, Listen, listen. You know, at
Speaker 5: the end of the day, you know, I got love
Speaker 5: for everybody. You know what I'm saying. I just want
Speaker 5: to do great things.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I think there's a part in the show where I
Speaker 1: actually get into this stuff a little bit with a freestyle.
Speaker 1: So you know, people should just come to the show
Speaker 1: and check it out. And he how I address it?
Speaker 8: What did oil up your ankles, make your TEMs tap?
Speaker 8: Mean oil up your ankles, make your TEMs tap?
Speaker 7: What did that mean?
Speaker 9: Put a legs in there? Got you?
Speaker 5: He didn't understand.
Speaker 3: He didn't understand that.
Speaker 5: On Skeevy he was like, He's like, we've never heard
Speaker 5: Skeve before.
Speaker 3: I'm like me, that's me and top Fight running round
Speaker 3: like ship me and Top Fight. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's all good.
Speaker 8: Okay, are you done with movies? Because it's been like
Speaker 8: and I just this just came to my my radar.
Speaker 8: It's been ten years.
Speaker 3: It's been a long time.
Speaker 5: I'm actually I'm actually thinking about I'm looking some scripts
Speaker 5: now and I got some things that I'm working on,
Speaker 5: you know. I also, you know, I'm gonna be doing
Speaker 5: uh you know at the time, you know, but right now,
Speaker 5: I can't really talk about that because there's a strike
Speaker 5: going on, so I can't really get into you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying that I want to be supportive of
Speaker 5: all my fellow actors and writers out there, so I
Speaker 5: can't really get into it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: Let's talk about music.
Speaker 8: Then, how do y'all feel about we all celebrating fifty
Speaker 8: years of hip hop icons that haven't gotten paid, like
Speaker 8: icons that really paved the way, laid this foundation, but
Speaker 8: they haven't gotten paid the way they feel like they should.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the million dollar question in music isustory
Speaker 1: because it happens with blues Artists's happened with my dad's
Speaker 1: O generation and.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, good, no good.
Speaker 5: You know, look, I started Rock the Bells as a company, right,
Speaker 5: So I gave DJ cooherk equity run DMC has equity,
Speaker 5: and Rock the Bell's ownership. Roxanne Chante has ownership, Big
Speaker 5: Daddy Kane has ownership, Salt and Pepa has ownership. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I gave Eminem actually invested, he wrote a check. He
Speaker 5: has some you know, Ernie panacolea the photographer hip hop photographer,
Speaker 5: has ownership. I gave you know, quite a few different people,
Speaker 5: Fab five Freddy as ownership. And because we've created such
Speaker 5: a high evaluation with Rock the Bells and what that's become,
Speaker 5: that equity is going to mean something for them in
Speaker 5: their states. So my why did I answer like that?
Speaker 5: Because my thing is this, you don't get better, you
Speaker 5: get better. And instead of like when I felt like,
Speaker 5: oh I don't feel like they play my music enough,
Speaker 5: I got my own channel, right. But then I decided,
Speaker 5: you know what, it's not about me though, It's about
Speaker 5: the culture. So I'm gonna play. I'm not gonna be
Speaker 5: a pig, I'm a flip it. I'm gonna make sure
Speaker 5: that I take care of everybody. So with Rock the Bells,
Speaker 5: that question is being answered through action. You feel you
Speaker 5: feel what I'm saying, and that that's the really the
Speaker 5: what it's about, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So like, but I'll tell you this.
Speaker 5: You know, for every sob story that we hear about,
Speaker 5: there are a lot of great stories too. Run DMC
Speaker 5: are doing phenomenal really well financially, Like there are a
Speaker 5: lot of artists that.
Speaker 3: You know, have come from that era that really did well.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 7: I see running the grocery store with the fur on
Speaker 7: and it's the summer.
Speaker 5: Ghost.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 7: So so look where there's some people out there.
Speaker 5: Look what I can say about one thing I can
Speaker 5: say about Russell and you know, uh, you know even
Speaker 5: le or later is that well Russell and Rick, especially
Speaker 5: with that first deal, they didn't bang me out, they
Speaker 5: didn't screw me over, they didn't you know, you know,
Speaker 5: like they started it with a fifty fifty published and
Speaker 5: obviously I got it all back now, but even that
Speaker 5: start at fifty to fifty could have been zero.
Speaker 7: I would assigned for zero, right, So like I think.
Speaker 1: We just got to take graam Mastic cast has equity
Speaker 1: and rock the bells like real ownership, so that that
Speaker 1: kind of a thing. So when you see the festival
Speaker 1: and when you see all the things we're doing, and
Speaker 1: when you see all the stuff in the stores and
Speaker 1: all the stuff.
Speaker 5: They're gonna they're getting paid. They're gonna get paid from now.
Speaker 5: So that's how you deal with that, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, Charlam, That's how you deal with it. You
Speaker 5: don't deal with it by complaining and pulling out the
Speaker 5: world's smallest violin and just talking about how sad it
Speaker 5: is that it happened again. You do something about.
Speaker 3: It, you know, I mean.
Speaker 1: Not only there are things that are happening as well
Speaker 1: that well you'll know about later, like a union or
Speaker 1: something you'll hear about it later.
Speaker 2: But you're also hiring DJs too, like in hiring people
Speaker 2: and hiring personalities and hiring people on your show and
Speaker 2: concerts and festivals. Like I speak to a lot of
Speaker 2: DJs that are an older statesman, and they say that,
Speaker 2: you know, Ella is keeping them alive with the mixes
Speaker 2: and the programming and the shows and the tours. And
Speaker 2: that's very important because you know, people have kids, they
Speaker 2: have families, they have.
Speaker 5: We got to take care of each other, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, Like, Yo, let's take care of each other.
Speaker 5: That's all Yo. Listen, it's kindergarten. It's really just kindergarten stuff.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Share That's right, you'll be that's another one a little bit.
Speaker 5: Here's that one.
Speaker 1: It's real kindergarten. He's my granddad, like that's he's the
Speaker 1: king of every idiom. I wish older man that told.
Speaker 5: Me in my life what that said?
Speaker 8: Is there anybody that hasn't gotten credit or light shined
Speaker 8: on them that should for what they contributed hip?
Speaker 3: I feel like it's a lot of artists.
Speaker 1: There's a lot, you know, so many, but you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully uh fantastic romantic with what we're doing. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: hopefully what we're doing it'll sort of elevate their their situations.
Speaker 8: And I keep seeing Philis four brand Wizard Theodore. You know,
Speaker 8: you keep talking about somebody named Hollywood.
Speaker 5: DJ Hollywood was on the festival. Yeah, DJ Hollywood. You
Speaker 5: know he got a show coming to rock the bells.
Speaker 5: I mean, so many artists, you know what I'm saying, Listen, man,
Speaker 5: all of the cold crush, you know, or you know,
Speaker 5: so many of them.
Speaker 3: You know, you think.
Speaker 5: About these different guys and people that rock, you know,
Speaker 5: Disco Dave, you know Easy Mike, you know, different artists,
Speaker 5: different people. Man, this culture is very rich, you know
Speaker 5: globe how these these.
Speaker 6: Are mister Big who you know largely made their contribution
Speaker 6: before there was any you know anything right set up anything, Yeah,
Speaker 6: a model set up for you to you know, even
Speaker 6: be compensated for your art in that way. So you know,
Speaker 6: folks who I mean, they did it from the muscle
Speaker 6: for the love, you know what I mean, for the
Speaker 6: the art, you know what I'm saying. And you know,
Speaker 6: had it not been for the courage of to feel
Speaker 6: his crew to Meno would be lost.
Speaker 1: As they say, you know, you know when you look
Speaker 1: when you look at when you look at those when
Speaker 1: you look at you know, space X going up in
Speaker 1: the air, just you know, you know, Sender send a
Speaker 1: little kiss up in the air for the right brothers.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, you just gotta remember, like you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like they harnessed you know, the
Speaker 5: physics if physics exists existed, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: They figured out how to harness the laws of physics
Speaker 5: that already existed. Once they harnessed it, then people were
Speaker 5: able to take that and elevate it, take it to
Speaker 5: another level. So that's why, that's why the credit for me,
Speaker 5: Like I look at a roots band, and I look
Speaker 5: at how exceptionally talent they are thought as a as
Speaker 5: an mc quest, as a as a drummer and producer,
Speaker 5: and both of them as artists in general, right, like
Speaker 5: the credibility in art and music, you have to look
Speaker 5: at that.
Speaker 7: The one thing that I would say is what we
Speaker 7: have to be very very careful of.
Speaker 5: Is measuring artistic greatness by the number of commons in
Speaker 5: your bank account. They are not the same thing, and
Speaker 5: that is that we have to be very careful of that.
Speaker 5: The Wright brothers did not have what you know Boeing
Speaker 5: has financially even if you pro rade it go back
Speaker 5: then they don't have that.
Speaker 7: So we have to be more mindful of that.
Speaker 1: Artists art, and I want hip hop, Like Quest said,
Speaker 1: hip hop needs to be judged artistically, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not about like, look, the ability and I've been saying
Speaker 1: is the ability to be a businessman and an entrepreneur.
Speaker 5: Capture value is very important in society. It's very important
Speaker 5: for what we do. You know what I'm saying, you
Speaker 5: gotta get to the back. That being said, that's not
Speaker 5: the only measurement for art, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Nobody cares about how much Leonardo da Vinci made off
Speaker 5: the Mona Lisa.
Speaker 3: We don't even know.
Speaker 7: We don't know. Yeah, we don't have no idea.
Speaker 3: We just like the painting. So you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like hip hop has gone there in
Speaker 1: a nasty place where people are more concerned with the
Speaker 1: finances and less concern with the actual art.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think with any.
Speaker 1: Anything that was once in underground or you know, sort
Speaker 1: of below radar that becomes the mainstream suddenly turns into
Speaker 1: the thing that it was once against, you know.
Speaker 5: For hip hop.
Speaker 1: You know, jazz at one point was like an outlawed music.
Speaker 1: You know, the FBI is shutting everybody down, like jazz
Speaker 1: was the gangster rap of his day back in the forties.
Speaker 1: And you know, hip hop was definitely outlaw music in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, and now like suddenly it's like
Speaker 1: your grandparents' music. I mean, it's just the evolution of
Speaker 1: it all. But you know, I was just thinking as
Speaker 1: a people because we were you know, you're pressed to
Speaker 1: find any black person that doesn't live in fight or flight,
Speaker 1: you know, in sort of a panic, and hip hop
Speaker 1: Woord's like Hustle survived that sort of thing. Like we
Speaker 1: really weren't ever given a space to be creative or
Speaker 1: dream or all those things, which you know, these brothers
Speaker 1: over here like made exceptions to that because they definitely
Speaker 1: came from environments in which they could have been statistics,
Speaker 1: you know, but because we allowed ourselves the space to
Speaker 1: dream in that. So I think at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, hopefully, especially as a people thing after the pandemic,
Speaker 1: more and more Black people are getting into like mental
Speaker 1: health space and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Hopefully the art will change.
Speaker 1: But you know, hip hop is what it is because
Speaker 1: you know where we are as a people politically, financially, monetarily,
Speaker 1: artistically in twenty twenty three, and you see what's happening
Speaker 1: in the news right now, like it's it's every man for.
Speaker 3: Itself and that's why we're doing it.
Speaker 5: Like that's why the tour is all about, like just
Speaker 5: doing it official and doing it, just doing cool shit
Speaker 5: and doing stuff that's like really you know official, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, Like like we're not playing Like
Speaker 5: that's why when you come to when you come to
Speaker 5: see us on the road, it's crazy, you know, it's
Speaker 5: really like we're not we're not doing the commercial thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, we have commercial aspects to the to the show.
Speaker 5: I have commercial some commercial songs in it, but are
Speaker 5: also digging into crates and doing some things that people
Speaker 5: aren't even familiar with and doing things that people haven't
Speaker 5: seen before seen live. So this is an opportunity really
Speaker 5: to get reintroduced to, in my opinion, how hip hop
Speaker 5: originally was supposed to be presented to the world.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm really presenting it
Speaker 3: that way.
Speaker 8: It's a balance, though, right, because you're not LL cool
Speaker 8: J without those big commercial smashes, right, Like you still.
Speaker 7: Might be an LL cool J, but like you might
Speaker 7: not be the guy we.
Speaker 8: Know in black thought you one of the nicest people
Speaker 8: to ever pick up a microphone, but you necessarily don't
Speaker 8: have the mainstream hit, so people may not recognize that aspect.
Speaker 3: So it's a balance, right, It is definitely a balance.
Speaker 3: It is if you know.
Speaker 5: But the thing about what I would add to that
Speaker 5: is that you know, for me, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 5: have made the songs that you're the songs that you're
Speaker 5: referring to, if I didn't have the fundamentals as an MC. See,
Speaker 5: people don't realize the degree of difficulty of creating those
Speaker 5: kinds of songs. They think the freestyle is harder, but
Speaker 5: it's not. You know what I'm saying. The difficulty associated
Speaker 5: with creating the level of songs that I created, that's
Speaker 5: you know, if it was that easy, then everybody would
Speaker 5: do it right. So but the difference is because that's
Speaker 5: not all I did because I was really I'm really
Speaker 5: a m C from the ground all the way up,
Speaker 5: all the way up from the beginning. I'm able to
Speaker 5: do those things and still do the other thing. So
Speaker 5: that you know, because if you think about the different
Speaker 5: styles of songs that I made, like you know, you
Speaker 5: have a lot of people who, like you're talking about,
Speaker 5: only familiar with those kinds of records. They don't even
Speaker 5: think about ill Bomb, they don't think about Nitro, they
Speaker 5: don't think about it gets No, they don't think about
Speaker 5: all these other songs. They know a Roundaway Girl and
Speaker 5: I Need Love and Mama said knock you out, which
Speaker 5: is hard of you know doing it. They know those
Speaker 5: songs head Sprung, you know which. By the way, it's
Speaker 5: big Ellie, a big silly, big money big. Really, I
Speaker 5: just want to be They called me big, you know,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: They probably.
Speaker 5: You know for that matter. I mean, when was the
Speaker 5: cool j era?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 5: I mean you know you caught yourself what you want
Speaker 5: to call yourself?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So now what was your what was your most favorite
Speaker 2: hip hop moment? All of Yeah, was the most memorable
Speaker 2: memorable favorite moment?
Speaker 3: Hmm for me?
Speaker 6: You know, I mean, there's been very many of them.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, I can't take anything away from
Speaker 6: again the Grammys earlier this year.
Speaker 3: It was phenomenal for me, and not as much.
Speaker 6: I mean, I feel like the rehearsals, you know, maybe
Speaker 6: more so than the production, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: in that it was just such.
Speaker 3: It was it was you.
Speaker 6: Know, it felt like, you know, I was part of
Speaker 6: a thing that there were generations of. It was multiple
Speaker 6: generations up in the room, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Me being in a room with DMC and DMC standing
Speaker 6: in next to the rapper that made him want to
Speaker 6: do it, and you know, just so on and so forth,
Speaker 6: grand Master Flash, Jazzy Jeff, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: going all the way down the line.
Speaker 3: That was huge for me.
Speaker 6: But you know one, you know, a standout moment for me,
Speaker 6: like when I felt like I had a ribbed as
Speaker 6: an MC was many years ago.
Speaker 3: Was it ninety six a Great day of Hip Hop?
Speaker 3: Ninety eight?
Speaker 1: What was that ninety Soalst Magazine show Double Excelo.
Speaker 3: It was the day we mastered things for all apart.
Speaker 1: It's like September twenty eighth, nineteen ninety eight, were yeah.
Speaker 3: So yeah, Like in ninety eight when you know.
Speaker 6: Everybody, they got all of hip hop essentially together or
Speaker 6: at least, you know, people who represented every genre, you know,
Speaker 6: every region.
Speaker 3: We all got together in Harlem and took a photo.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I remember that was based on the image
Speaker 6: that Gordon Parks took, uh, you know years ago. That
Speaker 6: was a great day in jazz where you know, all
Speaker 6: the jazz musicians took the same photo on these in
Speaker 6: front of these brownstones in Harlem, and I had to
Speaker 6: step out right before this photo was taken. I had
Speaker 6: to step out to like one like use a bathroom
Speaker 6: and some stupid shit. And I left and when I
Speaker 6: came back there was ready to take the picture. So
Speaker 6: I'm like, you know, excuse me, like ushering my way
Speaker 6: back through the crowd because I think what they had
Speaker 6: the roots was way in the nosebleed of this of
Speaker 6: this image and that you know, making my way back
Speaker 6: up to the top, I bumped into rock Camp, you know,
Speaker 6: when it was my first time meeting him in person.
Speaker 6: And when he looked at he had like a hoodie on.
Speaker 6: You know, I ain't know who I bumped into. When
Speaker 6: I looked at dude, it was like a druid or somebody.
Speaker 3: He lift his head up, pull the hoodie back. He
Speaker 3: was like, oh ship thought and he was he was
Speaker 3: like more excited to meet me.
Speaker 6: And I was like, yo, like I must be that
Speaker 6: dude like I'm fucking here, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: and uh yeah, that was that was a huge moment
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 6: I went back up there and you know, I took
Speaker 6: I took the pic and uh that think things have
Speaker 6: never been the same for me.
Speaker 5: I think the biggest moment in hip hop for me
Speaker 5: in my entire career the moment that like really it
Speaker 5: was they called me big.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 5: I want I want to I want to speak there
Speaker 5: and that was a moment, I mean, that big elle moment.
Speaker 3: Listen, I want to talk.
Speaker 6: I want to talk about just how fun it is,
Speaker 6: you know for me as an artist, as someone you
Speaker 6: know who came up just quoting all these lyrics to
Speaker 6: what you know, to have a chance to support my heroes,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean. It's always a full circle
Speaker 6: moment for me when I get up there and I
Speaker 6: get to sort of play the support and roll to
Speaker 6: an l L or a cane or rock camel, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Heroes, man, Yeah, it is huge for me. It's not
Speaker 5: you know what's impressive though. What's suppressive is you know
Speaker 5: everybody's catalog have you have? You have a photographic memory,
Speaker 5: and you sound great and you know it's like it
Speaker 5: comes natural.
Speaker 7: So it's like you're a pro, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So you know, and you got a why Mike is
Speaker 3: still can stay out the way, So that's some.
Speaker 5: Real like you know, you know, everybody don't know how
Speaker 5: to do that, like I'm used to that, you know
Speaker 5: what i mean. So it's like those kinds of things like,
Speaker 5: I mean, look, I love working with them, I love
Speaker 5: the you know what we're doing. You know, I think
Speaker 5: that when people come and see this tour and see
Speaker 5: how we're doing it, the guests we bring in and out,
Speaker 5: you know, from from the Rick Rosses to the whether
Speaker 5: depending on what city where, Queen Latif or a method
Speaker 5: man of red Man or Juvenile or even Iced Tea.
Speaker 7: He got some dates on the toy.
Speaker 5: He's gonna be out there with me on stage to
Speaker 5: I mean, so many different acts that will be on
Speaker 5: the stage.
Speaker 7: I think people are gonna be blown away.
Speaker 5: So you just this is one of those times when
Speaker 5: I would just suggest that people come in witness history.
Speaker 7: You know, you you ask questions about hip hop.
Speaker 5: You have questions about fiftieth anniversary of hip hop, you
Speaker 5: have questions about Okay, l you were there since the beginning,
Speaker 5: You've seen it, You've done a lot of things. This
Speaker 5: is a chance for you to come and witness how
Speaker 5: it's done, you know, for real, at a high level.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, on a plus stage high level.
Speaker 1: So Scoot how Scretchful.
Speaker 8: Was putting together the fiftieth anniversary tribute for the Grammy, because.
Speaker 5: I know you.
Speaker 3: Make money to.
Speaker 5: QUESSI.
Speaker 3: I'll put it this way.
Speaker 1: Two of the artists dropped out an hour before taping.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that it's so tightly choreographed
Speaker 1: that you're not just dealing with like we make it
Speaker 1: look easy, like okay, that is not here right now,
Speaker 1: so let's just skip his part.
Speaker 5: No, because the show is live.
Speaker 1: So this means that now I personally have to run
Speaker 1: to the light people to tell them, yo, the seven
Speaker 1: minute and thirteen second portion till eight twenty three is out,
Speaker 1: and they while they're doing the show live doing commercial breaks,
Speaker 1: they have to now edit. Then you have to run
Speaker 1: to the dancers and tell them, hey, guys, bad news.
Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah blah's not here anymore. So and
Speaker 1: they're all like dejected. But then you got also you
Speaker 1: literally have to like I had an it was the
Speaker 1: most magiver thing I ever did in my life, where
Speaker 1: and it still came off like I wasn't even and
Speaker 1: aware that lou uzi Vert had got my text for
Speaker 1: him to come on stage to do that. So I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember Purple Range when like
Speaker 1: Prince stormed off stage after Prople Raine because he thought
Speaker 1: like he fucked up, Like I was about to have
Speaker 1: a panic attack.
Speaker 3: Like it's over, it's over, and all the routes are celebrating.
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, what do you celebrate war?
Speaker 6: And they're looking on Twitter like you see this, and
Speaker 6: I was like, wait, Uzzi was on stage only because
Speaker 6: only because where I was positioned, I couldn't see my
Speaker 6: like couldn't see if he actually like literally I will say, yeah,
Speaker 6: the way the stage of the Grammy's Ship was set up,
Speaker 6: it was two complete different stages. Yeah, you know, so
Speaker 6: like half the band was, you know, essentially in a
Speaker 6: different room.
Speaker 1: So it came off. But just as the person who
Speaker 1: was the traffic cop making up for you know, okay,
Speaker 1: we gotta skip this song that or whatever, Like it
Speaker 1: was a difficult one. It was a hell Mary throw
Speaker 1: and then you know you can caught it. You gotta
Speaker 1: talk to people, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: You gotta you know, everybody has to be you know,
Speaker 5: you have to you know, some people you have to
Speaker 5: like you know, Lavender synth Under then No was another
Speaker 5: dude needs a goddamn he needs a black cup of
Speaker 5: black coffee. This one over here. You gotta put your
Speaker 5: thumb right on his trap, right to him. This one
Speaker 5: you gotta pay. You gotta snap your fingers. Okay, okay,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. So it's like, you know,
Speaker 5: somebody is distracted, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: I feel like that's an impossible show to do, though,
Speaker 8: because you're going to miss people.
Speaker 4: And people are gonna get me.
Speaker 1: I don't recommend it. Well now, I don't recommend it.
Speaker 1: I just recommend that you you make sure that you
Speaker 1: know what you're getting into. Back in November, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to do this, and then by January I
Speaker 1: was like, I see what y'all did.
Speaker 7: No good guy, not nice guy?
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: We knew in advance we couldn't have everybody. It'd be
Speaker 5: ten thousand people. We can't do ten thousand songs in
Speaker 5: a row.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: My first draft was like twenty eight minutes because I
Speaker 1: included everybody, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean.
Speaker 3: So we had to whittle it down.
Speaker 7: To hip hop deserves that though, right, I think so
Speaker 7: pop deserves it. Twenty eight minutes on.
Speaker 3: It would have.
Speaker 1: We weren't made it live, but it know, Grammys a
Speaker 1: three hour fair and there's other categories and.
Speaker 3: All that stuff. So again, something's going to happen.
Speaker 7: That's what I heard. I heard L was doing. I'm
Speaker 7: hearing that that you're doing one.
Speaker 5: Well, we're talking about all of us, you know, we're
Speaker 5: talking about some things, and yeah, you know, we got
Speaker 5: some cool stuff.
Speaker 1: And when the L is involved, like it's extra special.
Speaker 1: So it's not just like something's gonna like something monumental
Speaker 1: is really going to happen.
Speaker 8: I feel like you gotta be regional ones, like it
Speaker 8: gotta be somebody curating Philly, somebody curating New York, somebody
Speaker 8: curating l A, somebody.
Speaker 5: They all need to be represented like me, like you know,
Speaker 5: like I love like look, Philly was like come on man,
Speaker 5: between Philly and Baltimore, I mean Philly going to Lady
Speaker 5: B after midnight you know, doing all that you know
Speaker 5: for me was unbelievable. I love Philly.
Speaker 7: I used to do Philly shows like two three times
Speaker 7: a month.
Speaker 5: But you better believe it. You better believe it.
Speaker 3: We literally fought, we literally all the way live.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: We we literally.
Speaker 1: Thought to tooth and now to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: was included, like because I know everyone had their criticisms,
Speaker 1: like where is that as it was just like we
Speaker 1: were what we were working with was really you know,
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be eleven minutes, and we fought
Speaker 1: hard for those thirteen minutes, like we just and.
Speaker 5: You got to remember how many millions of dollars those
Speaker 5: minutes costs, right, you know what I'm saying, question Like
Speaker 5: it's not you know, we were doing right by our culture.
Speaker 7: And that's the thing.
Speaker 5: Quest Look did a massive job curating it, you know,
Speaker 5: orchestrating it, kind of moving these pieces around, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, Like, you gotta have.
Speaker 7: You know, you do the best you can, right.
Speaker 5: We knew we couldn't please everybody, you know, he did,
Speaker 5: he did, He went, He did everything within his power
Speaker 5: to make sure that everybody was represented on some level,
Speaker 5: everybody from Chuck D to glow Rialer and little Baby
Speaker 5: right like.
Speaker 7: You know we you know, and that's it. So now
Speaker 7: here we are.
Speaker 5: I know y'all got to go.
Speaker 7: But I got a couple more questions. How do y'all
Speaker 7: feel about lists?
Speaker 8: Because Billboard had y'all ranked number ten group of all time?
Speaker 8: Really yeah, ll they had you ranked number fourteen of
Speaker 8: the top rappers ever and you coined the term goat,
Speaker 8: but for some reason, your name doesn't always get put
Speaker 8: in those goat conversations?
Speaker 5: How did that?
Speaker 3: Because he's too good? People can never look at it?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, you know, I guess I just got
Speaker 5: to do something about it. You know, I guess that's uh.
Speaker 5: You know, that just means I got some work to do,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I guess that's what it means.
Speaker 5: I mean I could sit here and come up with
Speaker 5: a thousand different excuses, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: I guess my job is to change that narrative.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, to be continued.
Speaker 7: What about y'all.
Speaker 3: Thought for me? Man? Like, I'm not you know, I'm fine.
Speaker 6: Like whoever, when I do fall like on those lists,
Speaker 6: it's always, you know, just an honor to be held
Speaker 6: in the company that I'm held in. You know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. It's never any other artists on those that
Speaker 6: I don't feel, you know, deserve it.
Speaker 3: But you know where you rank.
Speaker 6: I think that you know, it's relative, and I think
Speaker 6: that you know, it varies from person to person, different
Speaker 6: folks opinions. Yeah, I know, I'm I'm a force to
Speaker 6: be reckoning with. I know, everybody know that, so I'm
Speaker 6: fine with it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, the other thing I would add
Speaker 5: is that, you know, I think this is an overused term,
Speaker 5: but in my cases, I'm different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying, fact, I really am.
Speaker 5: So it's like, you know, you know a lot of
Speaker 5: times those lists are based on what have you done
Speaker 5: for me lately? And there's a lot of recency bias
Speaker 5: kind of sprinkled in those lists recent. You know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying, Yeah, you know, you know, so I understand that,
Speaker 5: and I get it. It's the it's the equivalent of
Speaker 5: asking somebody who's a better basketball player? Like, yeah, I
Speaker 5: don't like the sports analogies because artists in the sport
Speaker 5: I can be seventy and do this. But I would
Speaker 5: say that, like, you know, you have people who have
Speaker 5: seen you know, different ball players play in the post
Speaker 5: in the post Internet era, and then you've had people
Speaker 5: who didn't play in the Internet era, and then you're
Speaker 5: trying to compare them, so you can't you compare Jordan
Speaker 5: to whoever you want to pick in the new era,
Speaker 5: and people don't get those comparisons. So if they don't understand,
Speaker 5: like how much the world changed how much I changed
Speaker 5: the world. If you wasn't dead, you just don't understand that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? You don't like you have
Speaker 5: to remember that. Okay, just just just with deaf Jam alone,
Speaker 5: name the artists that will signed to death Jam. Just
Speaker 5: name no, just over time, name five. So let's stop
Speaker 5: right there, right. So, I'm the first artist on death Jam.
Speaker 5: It was a production company, Tela Rock. I'm the first artist.
Speaker 1: I put the label on my back and I got
Speaker 1: us distribution deal with my album.
Speaker 5: Wow, what are we talking about? What are we really
Speaker 5: talking about it?
Speaker 3: Like, so.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying that, like that's putting the work into
Speaker 5: really be a pillar. So now creatively with this new album,
Speaker 5: what I look to do with the Force, because the
Speaker 5: album is called The Force.
Speaker 7: Frequency is a real creative energy.
Speaker 5: And what I'm looking to do with this is to
Speaker 5: give people, you know, you know, a body of work
Speaker 5: that really gives them an opportunity to go a little
Speaker 5: deep into what I do, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: and really get into it so that we can have
Speaker 5: these maybe those listeners.
Speaker 7: I think the list will change.
Speaker 8: So you know, I think I think certain people can't
Speaker 8: be ranked. I think you're one of those people who
Speaker 8: can't be ranked.
Speaker 3: You know what I really think.
Speaker 5: You know what my honest opinion is, Charlamagne, I think
Speaker 5: that every I think art is about.
Speaker 7: The observer or and music is about the listener.
Speaker 5: And it is how that art affects the observer or
Speaker 5: how that music it affects the listener. That that's so
Speaker 5: the fans. Let the fans judge it. Like people always
Speaker 5: ask me, what do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker 5: It's like that's you're never going to be able to
Speaker 5: decide that. You put all your work in in the
Speaker 5: moment and then you let the fans decide that. You
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying. So when it comes to those lists,
Speaker 5: let the writers decide that if that's what the people
Speaker 5: in that room felt.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 5: We also know that there's some people running around right now.
Speaker 5: There's a guy in the barbershop who said he's been
Speaker 5: loving me and I saved his life for years and
Speaker 5: he loves everything I do, and there's a girl that
Speaker 5: feels the same way. So it's not really those judgments
Speaker 5: are not really what it's about for me totally.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, I just want my fans.
Speaker 5: The ones that love Llo COOLJ, whether the day Ones
Speaker 5: or the new fans, to hear my music, to come
Speaker 5: on the road, to enjoy what I do, to love
Speaker 5: what we're doing together.
Speaker 3: And that's it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: How do we create those conversations though?
Speaker 8: Because you did when you said you're the goat, right, Yeah,
Speaker 8: started a whole new conversation. How do you start those
Speaker 8: conversations to let people know like, nah, this is a
Speaker 8: revered icon.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're Reac and I are in the production
Speaker 1: business now, So it's.
Speaker 6: It boils down to telling those stories, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying, and in us being able to tell our
Speaker 6: own stories, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: I might have to do a documentary.
Speaker 1: I might, I would hope, So yeah, I might have
Speaker 1: to do a document absolutely. I just never wanted to
Speaker 1: do a movie or documentary because I just didn't feel
Speaker 1: like looking at myself for hours.
Speaker 3: And hours dealing with that bullshit boring camera.
Speaker 1: You're in tire, Like do you have a collection of
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm coming.
Speaker 5: Here the perfect person to do that and help me
Speaker 5: with that.
Speaker 4: I mean, tell you the story.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I gotta ask who I know, you gotta go
Speaker 2: but the mount Rushmore of hip hop to y'all, who
Speaker 2: would be the four faces on it?
Speaker 7: Not even personally. You can't do personal as.
Speaker 1: People put hisself on.
Speaker 8: I mean to say, like your personal favorites, like in
Speaker 8: the future when we're not here and somebody's looking like,
Speaker 8: who are those people?
Speaker 3: The big I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to do it.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All right.
Speaker 1: So, my as as as a music lover, DJ and
Speaker 1: a producer, and you know, I'm representing my my era.
Speaker 1: You know, I was seventeen, eighteen and eighty eight. So
Speaker 1: for me to hear my record parents, to hear my record,
Speaker 1: my parents' record collection come alive in these records was everything.
Speaker 1: So I would say that probably my mount Rushmore of
Speaker 1: albums would probably be.
Speaker 7: Uh, you're doing albums not artists.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's cheating. No, it's too monolithic.
Speaker 1: Like everyone answer.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 1: Albums wise, I would say A Nation of Millions, three
Speaker 1: ft I and Rising, and then the thirty six, and
Speaker 1: probably lastly I might say Midnight Marauders, Like those four
Speaker 1: records sort of informed me to go deep into the
Speaker 1: culture and actually to get my own career. So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have face. I mean they'll have MC's or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I mean those are what's the
Speaker 1: criteria for the mount rushmore? What is the criteria I.
Speaker 8: Think people I would I would look at people that
Speaker 8: are founding fathers but also shaped hip hop as we
Speaker 8: know now in its whole totality, from the music to
Speaker 8: commerce everything.
Speaker 3: See that, I think, get in the commerce.
Speaker 7: When you start talking commerce.
Speaker 1: No commerce, no commerce, But I mean the commerce like
Speaker 1: are because we're talking about but there are people.
Speaker 8: Who transformed the game with their art, like like Doctor
Speaker 8: D transformed the game.
Speaker 7: They just happened to sell millions of records doing it.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: The commerce on that, But I would say the beats
Speaker 5: would be the commerce. Correct, now put those records right
Speaker 5: if you're entire I mean the selling of records is commerce.
Speaker 5: But you know what I mean, Like when when you
Speaker 5: say commerce to me, I'm thinking about like business outside
Speaker 5: of music. Yeah, that's how I took it.
Speaker 1: Your entire hip hop record collection and tape collection, we're
Speaker 1: taking away from you. Which four would you want to
Speaker 1: save just.
Speaker 3: For your own listening pleasure?
Speaker 5: I mean that you know for me, it's it's on
Speaker 5: the album side. Yeah, you mean, just like house is
Speaker 5: burning down, you get I need you know, look, man,
Speaker 5: I just keep it. Keep it simple to me. When
Speaker 5: you talk about like a real rush More and you
Speaker 5: talk about the shaping of the culture, you have to
Speaker 5: look at it's first principles. You know, it's like anything else,
Speaker 5: you break it down the first principles, right, and you
Speaker 5: know you got to put DJ cool Hirk he started
Speaker 5: the ship. He ain't on Rushmore. I just he just
Speaker 5: started it. No big deal, no big deal, this something
Speaker 5: I did, Okay. And then you have to put run
Speaker 5: DMC up up there because they kicked down the doors
Speaker 5: in the walls and you know, put me on their
Speaker 5: back to a certain stand as well. And I was
Speaker 5: the solo guy who went out there got shot out
Speaker 5: of that you know cannon, right. And then you have
Speaker 5: to put you know, Flash and Mail because Flash, because
Speaker 5: you know, he made he made us dream of the culture,
Speaker 5: the DJ, the art of the DJ, the idea that
Speaker 5: a DJ could affect culture.
Speaker 7: And move culture. Flash made us do that.
Speaker 5: And then you gotta say Mal because he was the
Speaker 5: first original prolific writer that wrote songs that were beyond
Speaker 5: just the brag, not just the bragging, because the bragging
Speaker 5: was very important. See now you know we got all
Speaker 5: sophisticated and we looked down on the bragging. But like
Speaker 5: I said earlier, the bragging was our way to get
Speaker 5: out of our turmoil and out of that that drama
Speaker 5: that we were in in that inner city.
Speaker 7: That's the that's the core what we do. Like those
Speaker 7: are the core. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: You have a couple of others, but like that core,
Speaker 5: right there is the real core. Now we could get
Speaker 5: in anything after that. Fan based this you know, it's
Speaker 5: based on oh he made money or oh he had
Speaker 5: a lot of platinum albums. Oh he got people to
Speaker 5: change their shirts. Oh yo that he got you know,
Speaker 5: all of that is cool. But DJ Cool, Hirk Run, DMC,
Speaker 5: Grandmaster Flash and Mail like bro like you removed that
Speaker 5: in like.
Speaker 3: What you got?
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: For me, I think it boils down to, uh, just
Speaker 6: who had the most impact, you know upon my craft
Speaker 6: and right, I think it's always been just like a
Speaker 6: balance between you know, uh uh a certain cadence and
Speaker 6: you know, something more stylistic.
Speaker 3: So I'll give props to.
Speaker 6: You know, the the ls and you know the BC
Speaker 6: Boys and the Chuck D's and even running them even
Speaker 6: though they weren't depth jam artists. But that whole first
Speaker 6: wave of depth jam artists were the first people that
Speaker 6: I heard had you know that yeah, that that that
Speaker 6: that that rush roster. They had that powerful cadence that
Speaker 6: was just different from with Mel and Curtis Blow and
Speaker 6: everybody was doing.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, run DMC, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 6: They came out like balls going on el el cool
Speaker 6: than Chuck d you know what I mean. Yelling There
Speaker 6: was the yelling, so it was you know, that was
Speaker 6: like wow, like they had arrived.
Speaker 3: They you know, changed the way I wrote, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: After I was exposed to that, So that whole wave
Speaker 6: would be you know, half of my Mount rushmore and
Speaker 6: then the other half would be once artists you know,
Speaker 6: started doing something stylistic that you know, made the voice
Speaker 6: more comparable to an instrument.
Speaker 3: Right, so you know the rock km's and knes and
Speaker 3: g raps.
Speaker 6: You know people who you know that next graduating class,
Speaker 6: so you know, the you know, one point five version
Speaker 6: of what Ellen was doing, who came out and said,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm gonna challenge myself to do this and
Speaker 6: not have to yell you know what I mean, I
Speaker 6: want to draw you in in a different way. So
Speaker 6: I think what I've done is always been a balance
Speaker 6: between the two. So that's sort of my mount Rushmore.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, one one artist that I think
Speaker 6: has definitely navigated that well. I mean definitely earlier on
Speaker 6: in his career was Cute, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, when when Q came out, you know,
Speaker 6: when he broke off from n w A and started
Speaker 6: doing his solo ship, it was like that was the
Speaker 6: space that I.
Speaker 3: Wanted to occupy.
Speaker 6: I felt like that was, you know, reflective of sort
Speaker 6: of where I was, you know, in between a chuck
Speaker 6: and you know, like the narrative storytelling of a g
Speaker 6: rap You know, So did you write for.
Speaker 1: You collaborate on on that?
Speaker 3: You can still tap? You can still cob.
Speaker 5: Now, we never did any music together, no, no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: people people have a fantasy d on your old absolutely
Speaker 5: asolutely DJ Pool Bob Cat because remember my second album
Speaker 5: was part of that crew. Yeah yeah he was. He
Speaker 5: wasn't in the l A possible, but he was. But
Speaker 5: he was definitely part of our crew when we produced
Speaker 5: Big and Deptha and yeah, yeah, DJ Pool, Bobcat, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying, La, Dwayne Simon, Daryl Pierce, they
Speaker 5: all were you know, part of that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, no question, Yes, somebody I saw this on the internet.
Speaker 8: Somebody said around that time, Cube was helping you. You
Speaker 8: know what, people have this, you know, you know people,
Speaker 8: they got a lot of stories, bro, They come up
Speaker 8: with a lot of stories, you know what I mean.
Speaker 7: Hey, Hey, Michael Jordan, did.
Speaker 1: Uh somebody ever bounced the ball for you and shoot
Speaker 1: your jump.
Speaker 5: Shot for you? Like?
Speaker 3: No, I shot the jump shot.
Speaker 1: I just always find answer who did you write? Like,
Speaker 1: because I just heard the story of you writing for
Speaker 1: lights Verse on self Destruction?
Speaker 7: Who else have you written.
Speaker 3: For different people? I don't you know, you know I have.
Speaker 1: There been some legendary rhymes from classic stuff that you wrote.
Speaker 1: We will never know about that you'll take to your
Speaker 1: grave like yeah.
Speaker 5: Why because it's just it was a different time and
Speaker 5: people just don't talk about it. And I just but
Speaker 5: I you know, I wrote for people. But at the
Speaker 5: same time, like listen, I'm not above collaborating on a
Speaker 5: chorus or working on something like I'm not picky like that.
Speaker 5: If I was writing a rhyme and somebody said, YO
Speaker 5: said a word up, be like, all right, I like
Speaker 5: that word.
Speaker 3: I'm cool with that.
Speaker 5: But you know, I write my songs, you know what
Speaker 5: I'm saying. I have to because it has to come
Speaker 5: from me. And if you collaborate too much on the
Speaker 5: at least from ll COOLJ fans, If I collaborated too
Speaker 5: much with somebody on writing, it would affect what they're
Speaker 5: listening to.
Speaker 7: It wouldn't sound like me, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Because they are.
Speaker 5: Very unique things to ll COOLJ, to black Thought, to
Speaker 5: quest love, so you have to be you know, very specific.
Speaker 5: Specificity is universal.
Speaker 6: One of my I one of the things that I've encountered,
Speaker 6: you know, as a writer in my career is I'm
Speaker 6: a little bet at it now since I worked on
Speaker 6: musical theater. But you know, people would hire me to
Speaker 6: write for them, and it would be hard for me
Speaker 6: to write in their voice or to write in a
Speaker 6: way that's gonna make them sound together than you know,
Speaker 6: like someone.
Speaker 3: Who's doing the Black Store. It's hard to impressure, right,
Speaker 3: you know, it's hard to dump down.
Speaker 6: Not even I wouldn't say it's a dumbing down, it's
Speaker 6: just you know, composing and the ranging in a different
Speaker 6: voice other than your own. It's it's not as easy
Speaker 6: as one would think it is, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 6: you know, it's definitely like people who are like ghost writers,
Speaker 6: who are able to you know, be like water in
Speaker 6: that way. And if I'm writing for you, like it
Speaker 6: feels like you, that's a that's that's that's that's not
Speaker 6: a quiet gift that people people sort of learn over time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I'll give you I'll give you an example.
Speaker 5: So I tried to do a more collaborative writing album.
Speaker 5: I did a whole album with fifty cents. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: we were writing together on this album. And when it
Speaker 5: was done, I listened to it. I'm like, it sounds good.
Speaker 5: I like the music, the rhymes, it sounds cool, but
Speaker 5: it ain't me. So I didn't put it out. It
Speaker 5: wasn't nothing against fifty. I love fifty. I just wanted
Speaker 5: to try something different. Maybe we collaborate right together. It
Speaker 5: didn't work. I think Paradise was.
Speaker 7: No, no, no, no. Paradise is totally different.
Speaker 5: Fifty wrote the chorus on Paradise for a Marie what
Speaker 5: she sung. He didn't write my rhymes. You know what,
Speaker 5: I mean, like people get that a little, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That being said, when that happened, I didn't even know
Speaker 1: fifty was involved.
Speaker 5: That was the track masters. They got that done right,
Speaker 5: so and they played with the chorus. I liked it,
Speaker 5: et cetera. But you know, we tried to work together,
Speaker 5: and that's my man, you know what I'm saying. We
Speaker 5: real cool, But the collaborative thing when it comes to
Speaker 5: my verses, that doesn't work for me. And you know,
Speaker 5: I'm kind of like, it's funny when you do this
Speaker 5: a long time. The longer you do this, the more
Speaker 5: people does he still got it? Can he still do it?
Speaker 5: Is he gonna be able to do it? It kind
Speaker 5: of reminds me of the Crawfit fight the other night.
Speaker 5: There were a lot of people who like were really
Speaker 5: like nervous for off it. Yeah, it was a lot
Speaker 5: of people that were nervous for Crawfit when he was
Speaker 5: walking in the ring and he showed what it is.
Speaker 5: And I think with me it for whatever reason, people
Speaker 5: are never quite sure if how it's gonna be.
Speaker 3: But do you like being underestimated?
Speaker 1: I love it. I actually love it. I'm good with that.
Speaker 1: I'm good with that because that, you know, that only
Speaker 1: makes the jab that much.
Speaker 8: Stiffer underestimated as the fact you've been winning for so long.
Speaker 8: It just comes to a point where people just like, god, damn,
Speaker 8: can he lose at something?
Speaker 7: Or they may be bad at something? Can you know
Speaker 7: what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's just or they forget what happens to every dynasty.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, you know it all comes with the territory,
Speaker 5: right Like, I'm a big Denzel Washington fan of love Denzel.
Speaker 7: There's great movies.
Speaker 5: You could take him for granted because he's so nice
Speaker 5: with his thing, Like I don't I don't you know,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna be real with you, man. I feel very loved.
Speaker 5: I feel very respected. I feel you know, like number one,
Speaker 5: I feel like the goat. I feel good, I feel recognized,
Speaker 5: I feel appreciated. I don't have I don't have have
Speaker 5: hang ups about like how people perceive me. I'm not like,
Speaker 5: I'm not pretending to be fourteen and I ain't gonna
Speaker 5: pretend to be sixty.
Speaker 3: I'm just who I am. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You know, I know you guys gotta go.
Speaker 5: I got well you know you say that like once
Speaker 5: every half an hour.
Speaker 3: Once once every hapf I gotta.
Speaker 1: Ask, right, So we all go out to dinner, right,
Speaker 1: LL is paying for dinner because we usually the person
Speaker 1: the richest money.
Speaker 5: The richest person pays right to la.
Speaker 1: Now when you go when y'all in Magic go out
Speaker 1: to y'all uh big billion dollar boats and y'all traveling,
Speaker 1: y'all go to SpaceX and all that.
Speaker 3: Who pays for that? Most of the time Magic?
Speaker 5: Most of the time Magic pays every now and then
Speaker 5: I pay, I do pay, I do pay.
Speaker 3: But you know, I got much be nice, Like.
Speaker 4: How many do your own l like you have a
Speaker 4: halt closet?
Speaker 3: I probably is probably as many as you got sneakers,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? You have already do.
Speaker 7: What time you was insecure to take the head? Of course?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But then you know we get over that too,
Speaker 5: don't we. Like it's pretty obvious. I mean, see, I
Speaker 5: mean it's pretty obvious. I did fourteen seasons and TV,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, with a ball head so
Speaker 5: into deep ball Head.
Speaker 7: I just didn't like that. I just always felt.
Speaker 8: Comfortable classic role, very underrated role when you played God.
Speaker 3: Yeah too deep?
Speaker 5: You know, actually, Omar, we've been you know, I talked
Speaker 5: to Omar every now and then. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: that's my man. Into Deep was definitely a fun movie.
Speaker 5: People should see it if they haven't seen it, it
Speaker 5: was fun than we appreciate.
Speaker 4: Make sure the tour. How can they get tickets if
Speaker 4: they need to.
Speaker 5: Go to I mean, just go to ticketmaster dot com
Speaker 5: and check it out. The fourth tour. I love Cool
Speaker 5: Jay and the Roots and oh one other thing. I
Speaker 5: want to tell you. This show is not like the
Speaker 5: music stops, then another artist comes on and the music
Speaker 5: starts in another.
Speaker 3: Out of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't show up. This is one long what is
Speaker 1: it two three hours? Yes, it's a one long mixtape.
Speaker 1: It's a mixtape, I mean, And that's how we're fortunes
Speaker 1: another day.
Speaker 5: Okay, right, so get there, you know, get there on time.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. We'll be trying to make
Speaker 5: a grand entrance to ship, seet hurting and all that.
Speaker 5: Just get in on time. Let's have some fun.
Speaker 7: Hed sprung. The first song that comes, they called me.
Speaker 5: Big hell, oh cool, glazy gentlemen, it's the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 4: Good morning,