Speaker 1: Of Course Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 1: Hey this is on pay Bill. This week's quelst classic
Speaker 1: is with Chris Schwartz. In September two thousand nineteen, Combo
Speaker 1: Chris talks about co founding rough House Records, growing up
Speaker 1: in Philly, and giving our very own quest Love his
Speaker 1: first internship episode one thirty two. Here it is suprema
Speaker 1: suprema role call subprema suprema role called subprema so surema
Speaker 1: role called suprema role. It's my turn. Yeah, living you learn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking to the man. Yeah, who let me in
Speaker 1: turn suprema role call supreme su subremo role fontes in
Speaker 1: the building. Yeah, and it must be said. Yeah, rough
Speaker 1: House Records. Yeah, they got all my bread subma roll
Speaker 1: call subprema sub prima role called my name is Sugar. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Last time I lived here, Yeah, I lived with a mayor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a rough house subm roll suba subma rolls
Speaker 1: bills in the house. Yeah. No, I ain't on a plane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I just might be a little yeah insane in
Speaker 1: the bread roll I never got roll call sub prema
Speaker 1: sub prema role called my name yeahs yea. You may
Speaker 1: not know this, but he was my boss once Suprema
Speaker 1: sum roll call sua su premo roll call short hanging
Speaker 1: out quests love just Supreme, Surema roll call so prima
Speaker 1: sum roll call Surema so fremo role. See it wasn't
Speaker 1: it was pretty bad? You be like life ending Ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: Uh quest Love and we have a team Supreme here. Hello,
Speaker 1: this is your life. Yes, I know right. Fron Tikolo
Speaker 1: in the house. Yeah, yeah, and I'm paid. Bill is
Speaker 1: in spirit. I'm sorry. Yeah, he's recovering. Uh boss Bills
Speaker 1: in the house and uh Sugar Steve, good scene. Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you doing good? See everybody. Yeah, it's nice
Speaker 1: to see. I will say that um our guest today
Speaker 1: was instrumental um and giving us a lot of classic
Speaker 1: nineties hip hop man listen that shaped us. Uh not
Speaker 1: to mention. Uh. This man also gave me one of
Speaker 1: my first jobs that got me into the industry. Gave
Speaker 1: me an edgy vacation. I asked for internship. It's like
Speaker 1: show up at ten in the morning, be on time,
Speaker 1: and then Uh, I was there. Um, what can I say?
Speaker 1: Like rough House Records, Philadelphia's premier recording label that gave us, uh,
Speaker 1: Larry Lair, Cypress Hill, the Fuji's, the Goats, um Criss Cross,
Speaker 1: a little unknown group called Chris Cross. Uh even Jamal
Speaker 1: oh Man, Jamal Ski I used to play that jump
Speaker 1: don't do it like Jamal started the Jamalski started a
Speaker 1: slew of impostafari in or on their label. But um,
Speaker 1: even DMX not many people know that X is first
Speaker 1: thingle was on rough House. Uh, I mean school. There's
Speaker 1: so many book coming out when in the title of
Speaker 1: the book rough House from the streets affiliate to the
Speaker 1: top of the hip. Yes, I didn't know what the
Speaker 1: purposes is called ladies, don't give it for the one
Speaker 1: and only Chris Swartz. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you man full circle. Yes, yes Swarts.
Speaker 1: I mean last time I've seen you Man, you know
Speaker 1: we were I I talked about this all the time.
Speaker 1: I remember, Oh, he's seeing you either at the airport
Speaker 1: or the trains station. You were always on the move.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was telling Layah I was driving
Speaker 1: to thirty Street station with somebody from New York, and
Speaker 1: I said, I'll bet you right now, like twenty bucks,
Speaker 1: that we're going to see a mirror. Right. So we
Speaker 1: got to the train station, you weren't there, and I
Speaker 1: forked over the twenty. But then when we we're leaving
Speaker 1: New York to come back, you were at the train station. See.
Speaker 1: I'm never well, see on the opposite of general, never
Speaker 1: on time, but always there, never there. Um. I have
Speaker 1: so many questions. I mean, I've known you for so long,
Speaker 1: but I never knew your true story. Right, but where
Speaker 1: were you born? Were you born in Philadelphia in a
Speaker 1: hospital in Philadelphia technically, yeah, I was word at Jefferson Hospital. Okay,
Speaker 1: what part what part of Philly did you grow up in?
Speaker 1: I grew up in Evan. I grew up out in
Speaker 1: the farmlands. You say that with pride a lot of people. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not rinking. I'm just saying that when
Speaker 1: people who are not in Philadelphia see me, they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm from Philly. I was like, oh, where we're a
Speaker 1: part And then they get the same like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: or you know yeah, um Devon, yeah, Devon, Uh where
Speaker 1: I was where I grew up? It was um, like farmland,
Speaker 1: and then my neighborhood was this little like uh, I
Speaker 1: guess it was like a World War two, you know,
Speaker 1: post World War two little development and um, but you
Speaker 1: know I uh I left home at seventeen and uh
Speaker 1: joined the service and spent really yeah okay navy. Yeah
Speaker 1: oh yeah, it's on the book. But never I'm like
Speaker 1: on that discipline. Yeah, yeah a lot. Uh what do
Speaker 1: you I mean, were you always uh sort of drawn
Speaker 1: to music? Word? Oh? Absolutely absolutely, I mean since uh,
Speaker 1: well I got I grew up in a family of
Speaker 1: ten kids, so uh, number seven. So I have four
Speaker 1: older brothers and two older sisters. So growing up, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I was born in nineteen sixty so
Speaker 1: having old you see, it's a thing. My family was
Speaker 1: set up. It was like two groups of kids. There
Speaker 1: was the older kids, right and um, and then my
Speaker 1: parents had another five kids later on. So um. For instance,
Speaker 1: when I was I guess five or six, my oldest
Speaker 1: brother came home from he went to college and he
Speaker 1: started his first job, and then he moved back from
Speaker 1: Ohio to our house. I didn't know who he was.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, literally now, it was like one day,
Speaker 1: one day, I'm you know, my mother wake up, and
Speaker 1: my mother is talking to this guy and you know,
Speaker 1: he's got like bushy blonde hair and a scraggly beard,
Speaker 1: and he's standing at the top of the stairs in
Speaker 1: his underwear talking to my mother. And my mother's talking
Speaker 1: to him like you know, she's do him all her life.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I'm standing behind her, like who, like
Speaker 1: who is this? You know? So um but but but
Speaker 1: back to you know, so I grew up in a
Speaker 1: house like a lot of music from the sixties and
Speaker 1: the seventies, you know, was constantly playing from different rooms
Speaker 1: and um so yeah, um I was particularly you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot. There was two things going on.
Speaker 1: You had the definitive pop radio, which was AM radio,
Speaker 1: which was just pop hits, and then you had, uh
Speaker 1: the progressive FM rock station. So were you a wizard
Speaker 1: one head? Uh No, it was actually w f I
Speaker 1: L Yeah, And then and then there you had w
Speaker 1: Y s P and w M w m m R
Speaker 1: w m m R from for people from Philly you know,
Speaker 1: probably don't know that it was actually one of the
Speaker 1: first underground FM rocks the country. Every Saturday at twelve
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, they play an entire album like New
Speaker 1: Albline artists and you, and they would tell you how
Speaker 1: to set your Dolby on your tape deck to record it.
Speaker 1: It's really yeah yeah really yep, damn I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: So you you weren't You weren't part of the generation
Speaker 1: listening up because I know that Wizard one hundred um
Speaker 1: on the AM dial um was kind of like that.
Speaker 1: That actually may have been a little bit before my
Speaker 1: listening years. Okay, yeah, yeah, all right, No, I just
Speaker 1: you know, the house was always on my radio, like
Speaker 1: in the house, that radio was always on house wasn't
Speaker 1: always on my radio. Radio always on my house, um yeah,
Speaker 1: but usually on the weekends, uh, like Saturday and Sunday,
Speaker 1: like Casey Casum's countdown would come on that station whatnot.
Speaker 1: But all right, so you're straight up FM kid, Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what the music environment was like in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia as far as the nightlife was concerned or anything,
Speaker 1: or did you have to go to New York too? Well?
Speaker 1: When I was I mean what like when I was
Speaker 1: when I was like my like uh teenager, Um, the
Speaker 1: music of Philadelphia was really more primarily known because of
Speaker 1: p I r you know, it was really known as
Speaker 1: the you know you had you had you had in Motown,
Speaker 1: oh ease. But Philly, Philly was known is is the
Speaker 1: place where you know, it played a big part of
Speaker 1: the disco era. You know, um did the Tramps and
Speaker 1: everything like that. So but you're coming of age was
Speaker 1: more post yeah, assuming twenty two whatever like, yeah, well
Speaker 1: I would well I was, I would have been twenty
Speaker 1: one in nineteen eighty yeah. Yeah one. So what were
Speaker 1: the musical options after the initial primary disco Well, OK,
Speaker 1: so we're talking about that period. Yeah, one, it was
Speaker 1: um it was you know it you had Lady b
Speaker 1: Power Nay, yeah, that's a hip head. Oh yeah mostly yeah,
Speaker 1: well here was it was. It was two things. It
Speaker 1: was hip hop on one part of it and then
Speaker 1: uh my my sort of bass formative thing was I
Speaker 1: was really into electronic music. That was that was it
Speaker 1: like to me? Craftwork? Yeah, craft work because I I've
Speaker 1: been listening to craft Work since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to see um, I want to
Speaker 1: see them perform Audubon at the value Forge Music Fair
Speaker 1: because Audubon. Here's here's what a lot of people know.
Speaker 1: W F I L used to play the entire album
Speaker 1: version of Audubon. The three longest songs in history of
Speaker 1: a M pop radio were Tubular Bells by Michael Field,
Speaker 1: which was he because it was the theme for The Exorcist. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it got a Vida Buy Iron Butterfly, and then
Speaker 1: you had um Audubon and they used to play it,
Speaker 1: you know, the entire thing on pop radio. So they
Speaker 1: they did a show at the Value Forge Music Fair
Speaker 1: and I went there with my best friend. Yeah. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, that's the new value for it. That's the
Speaker 1: later on. Value Forge Music Fair actually started as a
Speaker 1: tent really yeah. It was a big tent. It was
Speaker 1: like a seasonal thing. They'd have like you know, fiddler
Speaker 1: ro on the roof and stuff like that, and um
Speaker 1: they had just built the first one, the first incarnation
Speaker 1: of it, and uh yeah and it was like I
Speaker 1: went there and it was just two guys, you know,
Speaker 1: Ralph and Florian and like big stacks of keyboards and everything.
Speaker 1: Uh and it was it was it was very cool.
Speaker 1: I was so futuristic. Yeah, they were the daft punker. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well it's it's funny if they were, you know, the
Speaker 1: way I kind of see it daft punk really yeah
Speaker 1: if with if there's been no craft works, I'm not sure. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I see what you mean. Um, wait, is the Valley
Speaker 1: Forts Music Fair still around today? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I think there's a there's either a red Lobster or yeah,
Speaker 1: like Chris Crawls did the show there dr Dre and
Speaker 1: yeah yeah so yeah, um it closed really damn. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's always my dream to to play there, like my
Speaker 1: dad played there once. But like they would have a
Speaker 1: rotating stage in the round thing and yeah, one could
Speaker 1: get dizzy or lose their sense, so depending on how
Speaker 1: many degrees the how fast the stage was turning. When
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, I worked at a banquet house down
Speaker 1: the street washing dishes, and all the whoever was playing
Speaker 1: at the value of Forge Music Fair used to come to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they go there and eat and uh I um, I
Speaker 1: met a lot of people like um mac Davis. Oh damn,
Speaker 1: I changed a flat tire for zero Mostel's limo. Yeah
Speaker 1: in the game your gave me ride home, gave me
Speaker 1: fifty bucks. Wow, fix a limo and get a lift.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the club Cahoots? Uh, there was like
Speaker 1: a Sheridan, a circular Sheridan Hotel like in the area
Speaker 1: in uh yeah, in value. Yeah. I never had reason
Speaker 1: to Frequency club. Yeah, but I know they had that.
Speaker 1: That's the place that had the themed hotel rooms in
Speaker 1: the top. Yeah, I'm going down Philly memory lane. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I always wanted to go. Um So for
Speaker 1: you like listening to Lady B, Well, Lady B started
Speaker 1: off on w H A T um Mary do you
Speaker 1: remember Mary Mason? Yeah, she was still on. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: like they had a Saturday hip hop show, um, one
Speaker 1: of the very first ones that Philadelphia had. Um So,
Speaker 1: I know that Lady B started at H A T
Speaker 1: like nine till, which is weird considering that hip hop
Speaker 1: you know, two years in having a two hour format.
Speaker 1: You know, you only had like thirty records to choose from,
Speaker 1: so you had to play all those sixteen minute songs.
Speaker 1: And then they took over the station that was the
Speaker 1: there was the h I think it was w I
Speaker 1: o Q. Then they became it was Yesterday's Now Music Today.
Speaker 1: It was like new wave. Then I think they moved
Speaker 1: her there and they build up the ratings like they
Speaker 1: she was there, like it could have been you know,
Speaker 1: I might have my facts wrong, but I believe it
Speaker 1: it would played. It was all hip hop. It was massive.
Speaker 1: They sponsored shows at the after midnight and then they
Speaker 1: sold it. Oh and I think she went to Power nine.
Speaker 1: Once she came to Power ninety nine eighty four briefly
Speaker 1: had an afternoon Sunday show from like twelve in the
Speaker 1: afternoon till maybe five pm on Sunday afternoon. And I
Speaker 1: mean there she would play hip hop and uh, the
Speaker 1: electronica of the day, so sort of like nucleas and jam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sort of you know, anything that sounds like planet rock.
Speaker 1: And then she went away and then yeah, and then returned.
Speaker 1: Uh did you start out as management? First? Like, what
Speaker 1: was your first job in the I played? I played
Speaker 1: in bands, and um, who did you play with? Well,
Speaker 1: my first my first thing when I when I when
Speaker 1: I joined it, when I joined the navy, Um I
Speaker 1: played in I started a band for a bunch of
Speaker 1: other sailors and we did a bunch of gigs. And
Speaker 1: when I came home, I um regrouped with my best
Speaker 1: childhood friend, Jeff Coulter. He was a drummer. So when
Speaker 1: I was in the service, he started really getting into
Speaker 1: you know, because the craft work. He started getting into
Speaker 1: these other I mean craftwork is kind of like at
Speaker 1: the at the apex of this whole like community, like
Speaker 1: of all these German groups like Klaud Schultze, Tangerine Dream, NOI,
Speaker 1: um everything. And so when I came home, he had
Speaker 1: like literally over a thousand records of this stuff and
Speaker 1: he we get him at either Plastic Fantastic and Ardmore
Speaker 1: or the basement basement of Third Street Jazz. You mentioned
Speaker 1: Plastic Fan, one of the greatest record stores ever right
Speaker 1: down the street from when. Yeah, I would entire set
Speaker 1: and here's the thing, the the the the basement of
Speaker 1: Third Street Jazz, that's all that was. And you would
Speaker 1: you know, like a cloud Schultz import was like a Bucks,
Speaker 1: but you bought it because this was like, you know,
Speaker 1: Klouss doing a um like two sides of a duet
Speaker 1: with some famous cellis in Clouds is playing with the
Speaker 1: g d S computer and you know, it's just very
Speaker 1: cool stuff. So so um, I had a set of
Speaker 1: Degan Electric vibes. It's a portable vibe set of vibraphones
Speaker 1: that you like a suitcase and you stands. So I
Speaker 1: bought all my equipment, had it shipped back and him
Speaker 1: and I joined up and we started this group called
Speaker 1: Tangent and we were, you know, just devotees to electronic music. So,
Speaker 1: um you were, oh well yeah with w xp N
Speaker 1: so w x b N at two radio shows. One
Speaker 1: was called Diaspar and the other what to call Stars End.
Speaker 1: They played and supported electronic music. We did shows. Um,
Speaker 1: so we did a tape for them, and uh, I
Speaker 1: remember we drove down to their station on Spruce Street
Speaker 1: and UM jumped out of the car, double parked, ran in,
Speaker 1: knocked on the door. Some guy you know, the buzzer
Speaker 1: opens the door, takes the tape, and like three nights
Speaker 1: later we're we're you know, every night. That's all we
Speaker 1: did was jam and record. And we stopped to listen
Speaker 1: to UM two. Uh Star's end and John d Liberto
Speaker 1: comes on and says, yeah, we got a new tape
Speaker 1: from a group from Philadelphia called Tangent, Chris Swartz and
Speaker 1: Jeff Coulter, and we're hearing this stuff. Now I've been
Speaker 1: at you know, I've been at the Navy now three
Speaker 1: months and I'm already you know. Yeah. So so they
Speaker 1: this week we went and played their picnic that they
Speaker 1: had and UM, then we were We did a show
Speaker 1: at the east Side Club where we did Audubon. We
Speaker 1: played the whole version of Audubon there and UH met
Speaker 1: this this girl who was a filmmaker, and she introduced
Speaker 1: me to these guys who had a band called Rhythm Aligns.
Speaker 1: Uh at this in this period in Philadelphia. Philadelphia had
Speaker 1: this really amazing live music scene for for bands, and
Speaker 1: there was you know when you go down the South
Speaker 1: Street or and you'd see these bills on on telephone
Speaker 1: polls and they'd be like shows every night. You could
Speaker 1: go out. You could go out and see any number
Speaker 1: of uh the Stickmen, the Bells, Pretty Poison, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: Pretty Poison. So yeah, So so we joined Jeff and
Speaker 1: I joined this bigger band called Rhythm a Lines and
Speaker 1: it was more like a New Order Talking Heads type thing,
Speaker 1: and we we we did a bunch of shows opened
Speaker 1: up for Pretty Poison, the Bells shows to stick mean,
Speaker 1: we did shows that Blondie's, Emerald Cities, Bigelow's, Phillies, um
Speaker 1: and the east Side Club and um. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to get a record deal. That was my big thing.
Speaker 1: I wanted to you know, get a record deal, and
Speaker 1: you know, the guys. The other guys in the in
Speaker 1: the in the band, they weren't I don't know, they
Speaker 1: just had their priorities were in peculiar places, I'll know.
Speaker 1: So Jeff and I left. We uh we ended up
Speaker 1: moving to a house in West Philly. Uh that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine, Rich Murray, who was a Temple film grad. Yeah, yeah, Rich,
Speaker 1: and so we all we moved in together. We uh
Speaker 1: we put a student, we created, put our studio in
Speaker 1: one of the rooms, and uh so Jeff and I
Speaker 1: were now doing more traditional dance music. Um, and I
Speaker 1: met this girl, Robin Carter, who was her. They called
Speaker 1: her astro Girl because she had this, uh, this total
Speaker 1: affinity for anything related to NASA and space travel. She
Speaker 1: actually went on to get her degree in astrophysics and
Speaker 1: she does work for NASA as we speak, crazy, but
Speaker 1: she was a saxophone player. Her her her landlord was
Speaker 1: Jack right from spring Guard Music. So, um she we're
Speaker 1: naming all these like Philly legends of Yeah, shout out
Speaker 1: to Michael mcquokin also from Third Stree Jazz. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: we um we uh she she joined up with us.
Speaker 1: We came up. Was that we called ourselves the Ultronics,
Speaker 1: right and we, UM, we started doing gigs and she
Speaker 1: got us a gig at to get Alorie Mall. It
Speaker 1: was it was a little different, you know. UM, so
Speaker 1: you know, we're doing our thing and people are kind
Speaker 1: of coming. They're standing there carrying their shopping bags. They're
Speaker 1: looking at us for about three or four minutes and
Speaker 1: walking away. But there was a group of kids who
Speaker 1: were like watching us intently the whole time, and they're
Speaker 1: like talking amongst themselves, right, and they're just like so
Speaker 1: when we're done, they kind of like, uh, they they
Speaker 1: they they walk over and uh, this kid introduces himself.
Speaker 1: His name is Clinton Shirley and UM his stage name
Speaker 1: was Kid Fresh and he and he said, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we're hip hop group and we'd like to know could
Speaker 1: you guys help us do some beats. So we bought
Speaker 1: them over to our house and UM like the next
Speaker 1: week and we did a bunch of tracks on the
Speaker 1: second floor, and UM made this tape. And so you know,
Speaker 1: by this time, we had amassed a bunch of twelve
Speaker 1: inch dance records. So I started looking through these these
Speaker 1: records because I remembered there was a record label in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia and it was Virtue Virtue Records, and I got
Speaker 1: the phone number. Now I gotta go back a little
Speaker 1: bit because Rich being you know, as a filmmaker, he
Speaker 1: was doing these videos for Philly World Records and he
Speaker 1: got me the gig as being the cater during these
Speaker 1: video shoots. So I had met Donald Robinson and Donald
Speaker 1: came over to our house. I tried to get him
Speaker 1: to produce us, and he said, yeah, I get what
Speaker 1: you're doing, but your song suck. And I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I get it, but but the thing is,
Speaker 1: it's that when I called the number on Virtue Recording,
Speaker 1: I I kind of took the liberty of bolstering the
Speaker 1: narrative and telling Frank Virtue that I was I was
Speaker 1: working with Donald Robinson and that got Frank's attention and
Speaker 1: he said, come on up. So I went up to
Speaker 1: Frank and I played him this, uh this stuff. He
Speaker 1: listened to it. Now, Frank had been working has a
Speaker 1: partnership with the guy named Vince de Rosa who wanted
Speaker 1: a company called sound Makers in Jersey and uh for
Speaker 1: folks who might not know or maybe be interested. Sound
Speaker 1: Makers in the eighties pressed up all the records for
Speaker 1: Next Plateau, Sleeping Bag, Tommy Boy, um uh even Deaf Jam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the indie labels. So they were the disc makers
Speaker 1: of yeah oh yeah wait. We should also know that
Speaker 1: Donald Robinson didn't he write Dreaming for Vanessa Williams. Yeah, Donald,
Speaker 1: Donald did lots of Eugene Wilde. You know, you know
Speaker 1: what I gotta tell you, Well, that song, you know,
Speaker 1: that song was a was a was really just doing
Speaker 1: sexual healing vine. But it was still a great song,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh so yeah, well that's where I met
Speaker 1: Donald because I was a cater on Rich was doing
Speaker 1: the video. Yeah so, um so Frank Frank Virtue And
Speaker 1: for people to know he was a music industry old timer.
Speaker 1: He uh he played in the Philadelphia Orchestra as a teenager.
Speaker 1: He was a prodigy violinist and um he led he
Speaker 1: They drafted him to the Navy to lead a big
Speaker 1: band dance band in the Navy. He got out and
Speaker 1: he had a group called the Virtues and the Virtue
Speaker 1: of the Virtues and the Virtuosos. He had a couple
Speaker 1: of hit songs. He had Guitar Shuffle Boogie, uh, the Horse,
Speaker 1: the Return of the Horse. He toured with like Patti
Speaker 1: Page and somebody sent me something on Facebook the other day.
Speaker 1: He actually did shows with the Three Stooges. It's a
Speaker 1: three students. Yeah yeah, so um so so we Frank
Speaker 1: and Vince formed this record company called Slice Records, and
Speaker 1: uh Clinton Shirley was one of their kids. Fresh was
Speaker 1: their first artists. So we we did these records up
Speaker 1: at Frank's and um, it was a pretty pathetic affair
Speaker 1: in terms of a label. They pressing plan hired this
Speaker 1: guy in a pickup truck to drive Clinton and his
Speaker 1: hype guy around to the to the to the to
Speaker 1: the venues and everything, and nothing ever came of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: but Clinton later on changed his name to um, Mike Elliott.
Speaker 1: Yeah I knew that I was Yeah, Michael Elliott. But
Speaker 1: you know, but here's the thing. He actually co wrote
Speaker 1: the What's the the Sneaker? The movie? Um no, Mike
Speaker 1: ellyt did the Source Awards. Well yeah, hang on, I
Speaker 1: gotta look. Yeah, Mike Elliott is one of the original
Speaker 1: Uh guy, Yeah, Um, I didn't wait, I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I forgot. He also had his own video show. He
Speaker 1: had his own video show in Philadelphia. Um, it's killing
Speaker 1: me now. He went in the movies. Uh, Mike Elliott
Speaker 1: developed the Carmen movie Most Most thus Birthings sometimes in
Speaker 1: his in this very room that we're in. But yeah,
Speaker 1: Mike Elliott is a fully legend. Yeah, he did the
Speaker 1: script Brown Sugar, I believe, so I know that he
Speaker 1: got into filmmaking heavy. Yeah, he know. He did the
Speaker 1: some something like Mike, what's it's at the about the
Speaker 1: kid in the orphanage? Yeah, like Mike, like Mike, No,
Speaker 1: something like Mike. Brown Sugar was his first. But this
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Rich Murray and I were out in
Speaker 1: l A. And this lee years later and we're at
Speaker 1: we're at some some film company, some studio, and the
Speaker 1: guy we're sitting there and somehow we hear Mike Elliott's
Speaker 1: names like Mike Elliott, I know, Mike, Mike Elliott, and
Speaker 1: and he said, uh oh yeah, you know he's a
Speaker 1: hot property right now because he did, Um it's the movie.
Speaker 1: It's about a kid in an orphanage and something to
Speaker 1: do with a pair of sneakers like Michael Jordan like Mike. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he did like Mike with yeah, so um so so
Speaker 1: so so I So then then the thing is the
Speaker 1: tradeoff was Frank would let me use the studio to
Speaker 1: develop acts. I had to help him. Frank had a
Speaker 1: gospel business. And what it would be is that, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the bigger churches would record their gospel choirs.
Speaker 1: They press up the records and uh sell them to
Speaker 1: the congregation to raise money. And so that was a
Speaker 1: big business of Frank's. Frank actually, interestingly enough, had a
Speaker 1: a very um you know, back before Stigma Sound and
Speaker 1: these companies. Everybody went to Virtue to record. Kenny Kenny
Speaker 1: and and Leon did a lot of their early stuff
Speaker 1: up there, and um, Frank, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if some many listeners don't know about the mastering process,
Speaker 1: but after record is made and mixed, it has to
Speaker 1: be mastered. And what mastering is is that you you
Speaker 1: it's a process for making sure that the record, the
Speaker 1: record that you made in the studio is reproduced everywhere
Speaker 1: else with the intended um audio equalization. So the record
Speaker 1: has to get mastered for manufacturing UM. So it's a
Speaker 1: it's a whole other kind of mixing process. And uh,
Speaker 1: Frank had been doing it for years. He held patents
Speaker 1: on the mastering p he met. He mastered the first
Speaker 1: couple of Beatles singles for Swan and Decca Records. So
Speaker 1: I did this whole thing with Frank for a while
Speaker 1: and um, it just kinda you know, came came to nothing.
Speaker 1: And now like I'm working at Downey's as a cook
Speaker 1: and um living in West Philly, and I saw an
Speaker 1: ad in newspaper for record company looking for help, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, you know something. And I called this
Speaker 1: guy up and he tells me he has a company
Speaker 1: called Nicetown Records in West Philly and his name was
Speaker 1: Ted Wing and one of his records was Li've be
Speaker 1: graded for prision. Yes, so yeah so Ted, Ted was
Speaker 1: formerly a prison guard, right, and Ted helped actually helped
Speaker 1: Lawrence and Dana start start pop Art, so um so
Speaker 1: so so yeah, so you know cut the Rich and I,
Speaker 1: you know, um also, uh did a video for pop Art.
Speaker 1: We did the um rock sans rock Sands Revenge for Yeah.
Speaker 1: We shot it at our house as a matter of fact. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's called rock Sands Revenge. Yeah, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1: I we shot at our house and it had everybody
Speaker 1: was involved in the actual story about how she got
Speaker 1: a record deal and got signed was in it. The
Speaker 1: shooting went till three in the morning, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget coming downstairs in my in my living room. Uh,
Speaker 1: Marley mar and Mr Magic are in my living room
Speaker 1: on the couch under blankets, eating cereal and watching cartoons. Wait,
Speaker 1: can you take a slight side bar? And because whenever
Speaker 1: I get someone that tells a pop art story, usually
Speaker 1: it's you know, told like and then I met Lawrence. No,
Speaker 1: Dana was the dangerous one. Okay, well, this is what
Speaker 1: I want to know. Obviously, they had the makings to
Speaker 1: be a contender because they were Deaf Jam before Deaf Chair.
Speaker 1: They had salt and pepper, they had all of the
Speaker 1: tended for them. I had never try to get a
Speaker 1: deal with a major label, right, So how did they
Speaker 1: drop in the most diplomatic way you can say, or
Speaker 1: if you don't give a tell us the truth, how
Speaker 1: do they drop the ball on pop art? They had
Speaker 1: something they had, I'll tell you what they had. Man,
Speaker 1: they they they they they cracked the code right long
Speaker 1: before a lot of people. And here's what they realized
Speaker 1: hip hop music right Yeah, you know it was a
Speaker 1: It was the purview of the indie labels because for
Speaker 1: the first time since the whole disco era, you could
Speaker 1: now be an independent label. You could make a record,
Speaker 1: you could get it out there. And because you're using
Speaker 1: your facilitating lifestyle marketing initiatives and every stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: cost a lot of money, but yet you have a product,
Speaker 1: they can go out and sell big numbers. Right, And
Speaker 1: the it was kind of like, um uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the majors were seeing this, you know, and they were
Speaker 1: they were coveting this whole thing. And the majors basically,
Speaker 1: and I know no other way to say it, man,
Speaker 1: but they colonized the hip hop industry. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: to hip hop music, but the hip hop business they colonized.
Speaker 1: They colonized it. And so so Lawrence and Dana figured
Speaker 1: it out earlier on before a lot of people because
Speaker 1: these companies like Next Plateau and Sleeping Bag and everything
Speaker 1: all went by the wayside because they all chose to
Speaker 1: remain fiercely independent. And I get that, but when the
Speaker 1: popularity of a music becomes so big, you know, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to deliver the manufacturing and distribution.
Speaker 1: So they figured it out that you had to get
Speaker 1: with a major, and so that's when they did to
Speaker 1: do with Jove right, and I watched that and I
Speaker 1: always said to Joe, I said, that's that's where we
Speaker 1: need to be. That's that's what we need to do.
Speaker 1: So but they had such a hefty roster. They lost
Speaker 1: them all. They had Jazzy Jeff Fresh, Friend Prince, they
Speaker 1: had Salt and Pepper, they had biz Jon tay Uh,
Speaker 1: the kill top hustlers. They had them all and lost
Speaker 1: them all. Like were they just whatever businessmen? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think it's um, you know, the the for for what
Speaker 1: it's worth. Um there this business. You know, let's face it,
Speaker 1: there there is no no prerequisite to get in the
Speaker 1: record business. You don't you don't. You don't need a
Speaker 1: college degree, you don't need a resident you don't need nothing.
Speaker 1: And as a result of that, and because of the
Speaker 1: the perliforation of all these visuals showing showing wealth and
Speaker 1: showing you know, status and everything like that, it attracts
Speaker 1: a lot of people, a lot of people who who
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, this is a business I could walk
Speaker 1: in and become a millionaire overnight. Right. And they had
Speaker 1: they I always say they were great and and R guys,
Speaker 1: and they had the musical chops. But I think they
Speaker 1: just lacked a lot in the in on the side
Speaker 1: of a business. Yeah, and just wow, man, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I want to do good with Bulletproof. I never mentioned
Speaker 1: that they're still around. I'm like, because I still followed, Well,
Speaker 1: you know the youngster guys, Well they're oldsters now. One
Speaker 1: of them is still working with Gay. Yeah, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, how are you talking about the kid the kids? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like one of them in her staff. But I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this. I'll tell you this. Lawrence and Dana we're
Speaker 1: very they have very definitive ideas, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And that's what that's to me. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: they they again, they cracked the code. They figured it out,
Speaker 1: because I'll tell you when they did the deal with Jive,
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget that came in the studio with
Speaker 1: their with their jackets at r c A and the
Speaker 1: hats and everything, and I'm like, oh, I was kind
Speaker 1: of like at first, I was like, oh man, they
Speaker 1: they sold out. They went with Jibe and everything, you know,
Speaker 1: and then and then but then to hear him talk
Speaker 1: about it, it was like it was like the the
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, well that's if you're un listen,
Speaker 1: it's now if you're not with a major, you're gonna
Speaker 1: ok So we're the Bill Cosby record. Right. So, so
Speaker 1: Ted was a prison guard, a great effort, and um
Speaker 1: he was the director of the Prisoners Activities Fund. And
Speaker 1: so I think Bill Cosby, I think the story was
Speaker 1: to get his um PhD or is his thesis. I mean,
Speaker 1: for whatever you can say about the man, he you know,
Speaker 1: this is the guy who who was shooting I spy
Speaker 1: right in the sixties and then flying to do uh casinos,
Speaker 1: to do shows and getting his uh he constantly he
Speaker 1: continued his educational all throughout the whole thing by doing
Speaker 1: these projects. So he told the prison you can have
Speaker 1: whatever how you want to exploit this stay end up,
Speaker 1: you can have it as long as the money benefits
Speaker 1: the prisoners activities fun. So, um, so Ted ends up
Speaker 1: with this record and uh, you know it doesn't have
Speaker 1: any real artwork or anything. It's uh he had some
Speaker 1: rendering done. It was just yeah. So so uh hem
Speaker 1: I walked from forty eight in Hazel to fifty second
Speaker 1: in park Side looking for the address of this record company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's this daycare center, right. Ted's mother answers the door.
Speaker 1: She's like very uninviting. She makes me wait for Ted.
Speaker 1: I have to sit in this chair that's like a
Speaker 1: foot high for little kids. And I'm sitting there for
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and like thinking this might not be the
Speaker 1: dream job I was thinking it is. Ted shows up,
Speaker 1: takes me up to the third floor of this building
Speaker 1: in a room with like crumbling plaster. The windows are
Speaker 1: nailed shut, and there's a desk and a chair and
Speaker 1: a phone, and he shows me the billboard charts and
Speaker 1: how to call these retailers and get the record charted.
Speaker 1: And he paid me in a couple of hundred bucks
Speaker 1: a week. And so I was working the Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: record and at the time Bill Cosby from The Cosby
Speaker 1: Show had done a jazz compilation, right, so there were
Speaker 1: two Bill Cosby's records out and I definitely took advantage
Speaker 1: of the confusions. Yeah, I did. And I was calling
Speaker 1: retailers and and doing that and uh so, so we
Speaker 1: had a session. Ted signed a bunch of artists. I
Speaker 1: can't remember their names except for Bunny Siglar, but we
Speaker 1: did a Bunny Siger record that was pretty cool. Uh
Speaker 1: But we we had a session booked at studio for
Speaker 1: one night and I had only been the studio for
Speaker 1: once because I was involved in the w d S
Speaker 1: Black History Month rap compilation and with Eddie d and everything.
Speaker 1: And uh so we go to the session studio for
Speaker 1: and our engineers Joe Nickelo and I've never met Joe,
Speaker 1: you know, and we're in the session. We're starting now.
Speaker 1: Ted was a pretty boisterous guy, and that he was
Speaker 1: always bragging him out. Yeah, I got this deal going
Speaker 1: on with m c A and doing this and doing
Speaker 1: that and everything. And he's doing this in the studio
Speaker 1: and and I guess at one point I kind of
Speaker 1: rolled my eyes like out of you know, and Joe
Speaker 1: caught it. Right. So when Ted walks out of the studio,
Speaker 1: Joe's like, how did you end up working for this guy?
Speaker 1: And he said, well, you know, it's not my dream job,
Speaker 1: but you know, I want to start a record label.
Speaker 1: And Joe was like, yeah, well so do I. You know,
Speaker 1: so here's my number, you know, we should get up
Speaker 1: at some point. So that happened, right. So back at
Speaker 1: Nice Town Records in West Philly, Um, I was in
Speaker 1: Ted's office talking about something and I see these these records.
Speaker 1: It's see yellow labels and I pick it up and
Speaker 1: the song is called Gangster Boogie by school E D
Speaker 1: And it was on a record label called A Place
Speaker 1: to Be Records. Now, I had known about SCHOOLI for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I know that you know, you
Speaker 1: remember Bobby Dance and the wind Balls all. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so Fruit of Islam, security and all that good stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: I knew about his whole thing. Yeah, And so I
Speaker 1: said to Ted, I said, so, what, like, what's going
Speaker 1: on with these? He goes, oh, yeah, school He came
Speaker 1: to me and he wanted, you know, me to do
Speaker 1: this in that for him. I told him I wasn't interested.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what like this place like Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: Record and school he d comes in, You're not interested?
Speaker 1: So um I I filched Schoolie number out of Ted's
Speaker 1: roll at X and I call him up and I said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, my name is Chris Schwartz, and uh I
Speaker 1: think I can help you and um, you know, I
Speaker 1: know distribution and everything. I think you should start your
Speaker 1: own label and all this stuff. And he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds good man. You know, come over where do
Speaker 1: you live? And he lives like like a couple of
Speaker 1: blocks bub bubb The day care center. So we set
Speaker 1: up a time and I'll never forget this man. I
Speaker 1: go to his house, step up on the porch and
Speaker 1: knock on the door. He answers the door, and he's
Speaker 1: wearing a towel and he sees me on his porch.
Speaker 1: He sees me on his porch, and then he kind
Speaker 1: of looks around to see who's seeing me on his porch,
Speaker 1: you know, and he goes, yeah, man, I'm taking Showery
Speaker 1: shuts the door and I'm standing there like like, you
Speaker 1: know what what just happened? Right? So? Um I called
Speaker 1: him up later on, he goes, oh, you need to
Speaker 1: talk to my lawyer, Warren Hamilton's And before I could
Speaker 1: ask for Warren's number, he hangs up and I look
Speaker 1: up Warren. I met with Warren. Eventually we met all
Speaker 1: of us, three of us together, and I said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna we're gonna shoot some videos. Uh,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do this whole thing. I'm gonna get your record,
Speaker 1: you know, distributed. Uh, and I'm gonna sit up distribution
Speaker 1: and uh. And that's how I started working with him
Speaker 1: and um so at the this is at the beginning
Speaker 1: of PSKY yeah, so how did you he had recorded?
Speaker 1: He just recorded PSK and Gucci Time, but he had
Speaker 1: not done the album yet. And we recorded the album
Speaker 1: this is a crazy thing. We recorded in Center City
Speaker 1: at a little eight track studio that recorded the Philadelphia Orchestra,
Speaker 1: and there was no no, no real equipment, and so
Speaker 1: we had one of the old big plate reverbs, you know, like, um,
Speaker 1: you know I'm talking about uh, and it was just uh.
Speaker 1: We should also shout out, all right, spawn, what's Jeff's
Speaker 1: true last name? Because I keep on saying Jeff Cheese stage,
Speaker 1: Jeff Chestick, Jeff, Yes, Jeff, why are you ready? Are
Speaker 1: you ready? But you will hear Jeff Chestick trivia fact
Speaker 1: hit him and I went to junior high together. Really,
Speaker 1: I knew Jeff Chestick since uh, nineteen seventy two, seventy three, Jeff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When Jeff used to mix here, um, I forgot what
Speaker 1: project I was working on, but um, he told me
Speaker 1: the very first story of and he never gave the title. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was something you know. I was like, I want
Speaker 1: more reverb, more reverb. And when he did this, I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, this is just like in PSK. He's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mixed that. I know you're probably like what, You're like, what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: can I tell you Jeff chest there we we were
Speaker 1: in a V A D club together, right, and we
Speaker 1: we did these A B projects, right, And this is
Speaker 1: in uh seventh grade. He did this thing where, you know,
Speaker 1: because since you have audience, you have a video equipment,
Speaker 1: and he did this thing where it was an elevator
Speaker 1: going up in a store and opening up in the
Speaker 1: different departments and everything. It was really it was clever.
Speaker 1: You know, in the seventh grade, I thought the guy
Speaker 1: had real talent, you know, chops um so so um
Speaker 1: so basically we're now doing stuff and um I was
Speaker 1: going through it was a lot of school e up
Speaker 1: till then, have been doing primarily West Philly North Philly
Speaker 1: hip hop shows and everything. And I started sending out
Speaker 1: his record to like remember Metro record, well Martin keone right. Um.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, my, I'm getting phone calls like
Speaker 1: these clubs, white clubs right, loving school it d right,
Speaker 1: and I'm sending out the record to like all these records,
Speaker 1: all these one stops and independent distributors, um and like
Speaker 1: City Hall Records in um San Francisco, UM, UM West
Speaker 1: Coast Record Distributors, Schwartz Brothers done in Baltimore, Maryland, Encore
Speaker 1: Distributors up in up in Brooklyn. And the thing about
Speaker 1: in the independent record distribution business at the time is
Speaker 1: that it's very hard to get paid. And the reason
Speaker 1: they're very difficult and paying you is because if you're
Speaker 1: a new independent label and you have a record that
Speaker 1: goes out there and sells, that's all fining well, but
Speaker 1: what they don't want to do is pay you. And
Speaker 1: then when they get hit returns, they go to call
Speaker 1: up in your phone's disconnected, so you have to you
Speaker 1: have to have like and I used to go up.
Speaker 1: I remember driving up to Encore Distributors and in the
Speaker 1: car and the I'd have a car stacked with records
Speaker 1: in the back and in the trunk, and I'd sleep
Speaker 1: in the parking lot overnight, you know, wait for these
Speaker 1: guys to get get it, to get a check and
Speaker 1: to give them the records. So at one point I
Speaker 1: got I set it up to where I was sending
Speaker 1: out the singles and they were paying half co o
Speaker 1: D so the pressing plant and I had a whole
Speaker 1: thing set up. And then uh, these kids would call
Speaker 1: in different areas and because we had no radio airplay.
Speaker 1: So I started getting these kids to take the records
Speaker 1: to like barbershops, pool halls, retailers, because it was just
Speaker 1: like on a Saturday, where do you go to find
Speaker 1: new music? You go to the record store store. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so is the whole thing where you could release a
Speaker 1: twelve inch right on a Friday. You you give it
Speaker 1: to the clubs, you give it to the mixed show. Saturdays,
Speaker 1: you get two guys playing in the store, and Saturdays
Speaker 1: there again it's in the mix show and in the clubs.
Speaker 1: By Monday, you knew if you had something right. It
Speaker 1: was that fast. That was the excitement of putting out,
Speaker 1: putting out records. So they're calling you saying like yeah
Speaker 1: and so and so. Uh. We we ran into a
Speaker 1: little schism with the sound makers because I was at
Speaker 1: Downtown Records in up in New York City one day
Speaker 1: and I saw that they had our PSK Gucci Time
Speaker 1: record and it's our label. Everything's the same except it
Speaker 1: says distributed through Warlock Records, and I thought, wow, this
Speaker 1: is Warlock Records. That's that's that's you know. Roulette, Morris
Speaker 1: Levy and son Adam Leave So so I didn't call Warlock,
Speaker 1: but I'll never forget this man. I went to the
Speaker 1: counter and there's this guy who's like literally right out
Speaker 1: of Central Casting for for you know, big guy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, were you your big thick
Speaker 1: glasses and a cigar, you know, and he's sitting behind
Speaker 1: it kind of goes yeah, at least Warlock can get
Speaker 1: the records pressed up and delivered when we need them, right, So, um,
Speaker 1: you mean collector, like like you were your own distributed Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I did, Yeah, what I would back in those days though,
Speaker 1: didn't you need some muscle? Oh no, no, no, no, No.
Speaker 1: The thing is, in terms of collecting, we had a
Speaker 1: we had a company set up. It was school Eadie
Speaker 1: Records and no I would send them to you know, distributors,
Speaker 1: but we also operated kind of as our own one stop.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing. School E on his own head
Speaker 1: started out you know Chino at Funko Mark given them
Speaker 1: records and everything, and that became a little bit issue
Speaker 1: issue because when I hooked us up with Universal, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they they they fronted us the money to
Speaker 1: press records and then they go to solicit funk O
Speaker 1: Mart and and there. Yeah that that was cool. He
Speaker 1: was always doing shit like that. But and yeah, so
Speaker 1: so um so we uh you know, but a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of really crazy things happened, and and
Speaker 1: then it's it was amazing that that the record just
Speaker 1: suddenly took on this whole momentum, you know, and suddenly
Speaker 1: the orders started happening, you know, and it was and
Speaker 1: we you know, the album where like the demand was
Speaker 1: sort of demand, yeah, because because I every time I
Speaker 1: needed school E to write a check to press up records,
Speaker 1: if I needed, you know, six hundred and forty two dollars,
Speaker 1: he'd give me two hundred and forty two dollars. It
Speaker 1: was just it was just yeah, it was just saying
Speaker 1: everything constantly a day late and a dollar short, you know,
Speaker 1: day late and a dollar short. I booked him in
Speaker 1: a bunch of rock clubs, and you know, in the
Speaker 1: in the early days of hip hop, m hip hop
Speaker 1: promoters for the most part were guys that that didn't
Speaker 1: see doing one off hip hop shows. It's like career
Speaker 1: building box. It was more of a score for them.
Speaker 1: So artists get jacked all the time. And because of this,
Speaker 1: you know, Schooley always demanded his money up front before
Speaker 1: we went on stage. And I get that, right, but
Speaker 1: when you're doing a rock club, right, that's a an
Speaker 1: established venue that you know that deals with booking agents
Speaker 1: and everything like that, they don't they don't stiff bands
Speaker 1: because if they did, they'd be perissana and grata. He'd
Speaker 1: never be able to book. But you know, we would
Speaker 1: do these shows and uh, he'd won his money up front,
Speaker 1: and then the idea of these club managers and he'd
Speaker 1: have to count the money out of the receipts and everything.
Speaker 1: And then the next thing, you know, he gets on
Speaker 1: stage and what a hip hop artist shows in the
Speaker 1: eighties do They do their couple songs? Then they roll
Speaker 1: and you got these kids that drove from Delaware and
Speaker 1: they're they're like, yeah, so that was that was a
Speaker 1: whole mess. And you know but anyhow, so I called Joe.
Speaker 1: I had that business card from studio for and uh
Speaker 1: we uh we got together, decided let's start this record label.
Speaker 1: And I was managing school E and uh, my first
Speaker 1: office you know the you know the building, you know,
Speaker 1: the my first office was when you get down into
Speaker 1: that basement floor when you come through the door, the
Speaker 1: studio four built, right, they built because Larry, they built
Speaker 1: a b room for Larry to put his Larry Gold
Speaker 1: but it's in clavier and there, well, there was a vestibule.
Speaker 1: There was a vestibule between that that room and the hallway. Right.
Speaker 1: That was my office. It was like four ft wide
Speaker 1: and uh, my desk was made of plywood covered with
Speaker 1: red vinyl because it was the original reception desk for
Speaker 1: the studio. And I had a little lamp and Joe
Speaker 1: bought in like a pink Princess phone from home, and
Speaker 1: that was the phone. And and that's where that's where
Speaker 1: we that's where the actual business started. And then we
Speaker 1: moved into that of the other room, which is the
Speaker 1: bigger room. Wow. So but no, yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: moved down the hall later on took over that whole
Speaker 1: area down the hall. Yeah. You know what I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, man, I h It's funny because I got
Speaker 1: years later, you know, you you you get you go
Speaker 1: to these periods where you have gold, platinum records every
Speaker 1: year and it's just never ending. But I looked back
Speaker 1: on those days and I was like, I was always broke,
Speaker 1: but I just had so much fun. You know, the
Speaker 1: time of your life. Yeah, So when was rough House
Speaker 1: as we knew it officially officially born? We we we first, first,
Speaker 1: we we started. We had this really stupid, biguous name,
Speaker 1: Pyramid Productions. I don't know how that came about, but
Speaker 1: that lasted for like about a couple of months, and
Speaker 1: rough House, I had to say, was probably born. Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to say eighty six, maybe eighty six, I
Speaker 1: don't I yeah, I know it's in my book because
Speaker 1: I I had to put together a bunch of events
Speaker 1: to you know, to figure out when it happened. But
Speaker 1: I know where it happened. Um. We were in Arthur
Speaker 1: Man's office, our attorney who later went on to found Rykodis,
Speaker 1: the first CD label in the history of music, which
Speaker 1: was an amazing thing. Um and uh, there was a
Speaker 1: a cassette by some rock band called rough House r
Speaker 1: O U G H. And Joe said, you know, that'd
Speaker 1: be a great name for a record label, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, yeah, it's like, you know, and I had
Speaker 1: a pretty rough house growing up, you know, my childhood
Speaker 1: and everything. But we should change it to our uff
Speaker 1: to keep it, you know, yeah, keep it rough and um,
Speaker 1: and that was really the birth of the label. Our
Speaker 1: first artist was a was an artist named mac money
Speaker 1: um me and mcevans her um she she she was
Speaker 1: a Philly battle rapper who did an answer record to PSK.
Speaker 1: Really yeah it was actually it was really good and
Speaker 1: um so we we signed her. And uh about there
Speaker 1: was a group called the Dead Milkman's. You remember that
Speaker 1: Milkman rock group? Yeah, uh, well they're managers. They were
Speaker 1: distributed by a company on the West Coast called Enigma.
Speaker 1: Enigma was a was a company that did really obscure
Speaker 1: alternative like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Right, um here,
Speaker 1: let me tell you how obscure this music was. I
Speaker 1: was living on Gerard Avenue and uh I had bought
Speaker 1: a um a Jaguar uh x J six. Somebody broke
Speaker 1: into my car one night, and when we went out
Speaker 1: to Enigma, they gave us all these records to bring home, right,
Speaker 1: and so I had all these all these uh cassettes
Speaker 1: of all these different artists, these rock artists. Somebody broke
Speaker 1: into my car, went in the glove compartment and they
Speaker 1: took everything excepted anything that was released on Enigma. Who
Speaker 1: whoever the car thief was, he he basically took his time, deciding, deciding,
Speaker 1: deciding which, which, which records he wanted. Steve remember that
Speaker 1: happened to us? Yeah, someone broke into my car and
Speaker 1: left the roots albums. No they they I had, Uh,
Speaker 1: Johnny I've just seen Walk the Line. So I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, let me buy everything Johnny Cash. I went
Speaker 1: and brought the Johnny Cash box set all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and then I'd like brought Joni Mitchell's like working stuff,
Speaker 1: and they like left everything and I appair Converse sneakers
Speaker 1: and my door was open. I got there and I
Speaker 1: was like, wait, someone broke in my car. But I
Speaker 1: was like, why didn't they take anything? And Steve looked
Speaker 1: and he's like, this is why. Oh so you guys
Speaker 1: started eighty six. I remember you guys went through like
Speaker 1: a couple of logos. So that's how I know the
Speaker 1: progression of the label. UM. I first heard of you guys.
Speaker 1: UM I guess through. Uh was Larry your first album
Speaker 1: signing or uh? We had a group called Blackmail. UM.
Speaker 1: Larry Layer was one of the first. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he was absolutely the first UM, but it's funny
Speaker 1: because he was definitely before Tim Dog. I was waiting.
Speaker 1: I was just waiting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, is he all right?
Speaker 1: All right? What do you guesses? Okay, where's he yet? Where?
Speaker 1: Sim dog? I know one of the joints he finessed.
Speaker 1: So you don't think you don't think he's dead. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's dead at all. You think he's no,
Speaker 1: I think I think he's dead. Man. Now, I hope
Speaker 1: I get it, he said, I just hit my book.
Speaker 1: I said in memoriam. You know, I'm pretty sure. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure he passed away because he was sick. Ok yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: do you know the scandal? Yes? Oh yeah, Tim? Dog?
Speaker 1: Yeah dog? What's the short of Tim Dog? He was
Speaker 1: basically like meeting chicks online and like finessing amount of
Speaker 1: money and ship and then he and then he died
Speaker 1: quote unquote died putting that record out. Man, Like, were
Speaker 1: y'all what was the thought? Were you all worried about?
Speaker 1: You know? It was a it was it was a
Speaker 1: dicey proposition. But um, you know I said to Tim
Speaker 1: at one point, right, I said, you know this is
Speaker 1: you can't you can't go and tour on the West coast, dude.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, you're and and he got this
Speaker 1: whole thing exactly what goes. I'm just in gangs and
Speaker 1: everything and all that stuff. Um, but you know the
Speaker 1: crazy thing was is that that record, like I forgot
Speaker 1: where it charted. I think it went to maybe number
Speaker 1: seven or number five on on the on the Rap
Speaker 1: Singles chart. But it was the first ever music video
Speaker 1: that was sold as a commercial release. No we sold yeah,
Speaker 1: we sold over a hundred thousand vhs. Yeah, so uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know it's crazy too. The album
Speaker 1: Penicillin on Wax, this is like hip hop at this
Speaker 1: point started really becoming, you know, like an album oriented
Speaker 1: thing where, um, if you if you, if you had
Speaker 1: a hit hip hop single in the early eighties and
Speaker 1: you didn't album, it was a good guess that your
Speaker 1: album was going to do well because the single drove it.
Speaker 1: But then I think, you know, the fans really started
Speaker 1: to want more of a narrative, you know, um and
Speaker 1: Tim Yeah, and Tim could not break out of that narrative,
Speaker 1: you know, his narrative. He could not, he could not
Speaker 1: expand on it. But the production on the album, because
Speaker 1: some company did created something. It was like where you
Speaker 1: can mix and quad. It was really cool, and they
Speaker 1: let Joe hold onto this machine for for like a
Speaker 1: month or so, and he mixed the Tim Dog album
Speaker 1: on it, and I'll never forget listening to that headphones.
Speaker 1: I was like, God, this sounds so amazing just but
Speaker 1: the yeah, the record, UH didn't really. Yeah, I bought
Speaker 1: it um because at that time that was when like
Speaker 1: just rough house, like I would buy anything else it's
Speaker 1: on the label. So I was like, I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: And I came to appreciate that much later me a
Speaker 1: shout out to my man Jay's Own, who was like,
Speaker 1: we're like the only two people in the world that rap,
Speaker 1: and I'm, oh, yeah, it's I mean, if you look
Speaker 1: at it, it's like, I mean, it's comedy, but it's
Speaker 1: just it's just a man just hollering. And that ship
Speaker 1: is amazing. He has a song gets robbed. Also, how
Speaker 1: did how did you guys UM get connected with Cyprus?
Speaker 1: So I uh. While managing school starting the label, I
Speaker 1: also did I promoted shows as shows that the Chocodero
Speaker 1: and The Chestnut Cabaret. Yeah and uh. I also managed
Speaker 1: a group called Executive Slacks UM Executive Slacks for my
Speaker 1: best way to describe what they were, it was nine
Speaker 1: inch Nails years before Nine Inch Nails. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, the same label Network Records up in Canada
Speaker 1: used to license the Slacks off of us. Um it
Speaker 1: was a It was a drummer name Bobby Ray who
Speaker 1: played standing up playing those electronic drums, and a keyboard
Speaker 1: player and a singer name and to play guitar named
Speaker 1: Matt Morello. I'll tell you one record that you know.
Speaker 1: I just tell everybody if they're even vaguely curious about
Speaker 1: this group. It's called Fire and Ice and it's an
Speaker 1: awesome record and it's real techno rock. But way back,
Speaker 1: long before the stuff really came came of age, so
Speaker 1: um So, there was a A and R guy at
Speaker 1: Geffen Records in Los Angeles named Mio Vukovic. And Mio
Speaker 1: was a DJ prior to becoming an A and R guy.
Speaker 1: And there was another guy who was an A and
Speaker 1: OUR guy who was a He was a lawyer for
Speaker 1: Warner Bros. Records who became an A and R guy,
Speaker 1: and him and Mio kind of formed like a partnership.
Speaker 1: And uh MEO's two favorite artists in the world was
Speaker 1: school E D and Executive Slacks, and um So he
Speaker 1: called me up one day and we got to know
Speaker 1: each other. He flew out, We hung out, and him
Speaker 1: and Jeff had signed to hip hop artists to get in.
Speaker 1: One of them was a group called seven eight three
Speaker 1: and they were um produced by Lawrence Muggs Muggarud and
Speaker 1: the other group was a group called Silk Time's Leather
Speaker 1: by Jermaine dupri So. Um. Those projects were what they were,
Speaker 1: you know, they just they just didn't happen. But Joe
Speaker 1: mixed them and I helped mark in pro the singles.
Speaker 1: Now you gotta remember at this point, I also I
Speaker 1: also had a market. I was marketing records for other
Speaker 1: labels because all the labels that couldn't sign you know,
Speaker 1: we end up signing School to Jive Records, but every
Speaker 1: label wanted them. Every budd Electra Warner's Capital, they all
Speaker 1: wanted to sign SCHOOLI. So the so the guys they
Speaker 1: didn't didn't sign them, they signed their hip hop acts.
Speaker 1: They called me up and they say, can you help us? Right?
Speaker 1: So now I have like this little company doing this.
Speaker 1: Uh Roseman who I was man. I was engaged to
Speaker 1: Rose at the time, and she started doing retail promotion
Speaker 1: and Jackie Paul, the rap chart editor for his magazine.
Speaker 1: So we had a little company, right, So we worked
Speaker 1: Easy E, n W A, Tone, Looke, Young MC, whole
Speaker 1: host of other records. So we did this whole thing
Speaker 1: with UM with Geffen for seven eight three and Silk
Speaker 1: Time's Leather. Uh. We mark and promote the record and
Speaker 1: Joe mixed it and the records didn't happen. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, we started relationship with Jermaine and his father,
Speaker 1: Michael Malden. Michael Michael was the tour manager for the
Speaker 1: Fresh Fest and UM and did a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: with Russell and def Jam and everything. Um. So, so
Speaker 1: Joe was out in l a UM working mixing Melomanes
Speaker 1: Mentor and meloman Is sends brother from Cypress Hill and
Speaker 1: so meloman was telling Joe he should check out my
Speaker 1: brother's hip hop group, which was coincidentally produced by Mugs.
Speaker 1: So Joe brings this cassette home and we listened to
Speaker 1: it and we're digging it and everything. And it's funny
Speaker 1: because we we went up to Colombia that day and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget because Joe's brother Phil came with us
Speaker 1: and we had a meeting with schedule with Kevin Ben Woodley,
Speaker 1: who was our and our ken yeah up there. And
Speaker 1: when we got there, they said Kevin is no longer here,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, well, what's uh oh, but yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys you could talk to Kurt Woodley and Kurt
Speaker 1: replaced them, so one would leaves out the other wood
Speaker 1: leaves in no relation. And Kurt, Kurt was kind of
Speaker 1: cut from a different cloth and our wise, he was
Speaker 1: more more I I think, much more kind of in
Speaker 1: tune intuitive with everything that was going on. And Kurt
Speaker 1: wasn't feeling Larry Lair and he was unapologetic about it,
Speaker 1: you know. And we went round and round. And Kurt's
Speaker 1: whole thing was that he felt that the Will Smith
Speaker 1: Douggie Fresh storytelling style of hip hop. You know. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't even tell the whole cheapest story, but that's
Speaker 1: all right, we'll need to get in that. Um Chiba
Speaker 1: was actually our first record with with with Columbia when
Speaker 1: we did and um And so when we left, as
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, I give him a copy of the Cypress
Speaker 1: Hill tape. I said, well, you might dig this in, right,
Speaker 1: And he called me up that night and he said,
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, man, that's Cypress Hill, he goes, I
Speaker 1: played that for Donnie and that's like we got to
Speaker 1: do this. Yeah, yeah, Donnie Eroner and um and so
Speaker 1: uh cypers Hill. What happened to have been in the
Speaker 1: studio they were cutting five songs for their publishing deal
Speaker 1: of BMG, and so we offered a singles deal and
Speaker 1: they sent us the five songs and then it became
Speaker 1: an album deal and so that was such a groundbreaking.
Speaker 1: If you remember who Hans Soul was, I met my
Speaker 1: soul from, well, you were not the one imagination he
Speaker 1: had like this spiked or this. Well he's a gospel
Speaker 1: wrapper now, but back then, back then, he was part
Speaker 1: of that that like that school of like like Kwame
Speaker 1: and yeah, that whole. So we had met Hans so
Speaker 1: on the on the at the Motown Philly UM video
Speaker 1: and Hans lived about maybe twelve blocks away from me.
Speaker 1: But during the crack area twelve blocks is you know
Speaker 1: that we twelve blocks that might be twenty blocks and cracks.
Speaker 1: So it's like seven pm and he's like, yo, man,
Speaker 1: I just came back from New York. That's he's I came,
Speaker 1: I came back from New York. Yo, I'm gonna change
Speaker 1: your life. He said, y'all gotta get here. Me and
Speaker 1: Trek we were like his little interns, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: always rolling around. Hans is really responsible for Trek being
Speaker 1: the freestyle aster he is now because Hans used to
Speaker 1: do that a lot. So we're like, all right, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be nighttime running through West Philly. Somehow we got
Speaker 1: to Hans's block and he's like, he no build up.
Speaker 1: He just said, listen to this first song. He plays
Speaker 1: the Summertime by Jazz. He's done from Freshmans, and we
Speaker 1: couldn't guess. He's like, yess who this is? We still
Speaker 1: didn't know that was Will and Jeff, like by the
Speaker 1: second verse with rock him no, no, no, And then
Speaker 1: he puts pigs on and we were like what the hell?
Speaker 1: We just we oh man, they have the scanners and everything,
Speaker 1: and see you know the machine I was telling you
Speaker 1: about that he makes penson on wax with the quad.
Speaker 1: Use that for the police scanners. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: like crazy, No, Joe's no joke. Now that Albom sucked
Speaker 1: me up, man, and it came from nowhere. Well here's
Speaker 1: here's here's the other thing too. It's that it's that
Speaker 1: we ship like thirty thousand plus albums and you're you're
Speaker 1: seeing the um Bugs Bunny Dad, you know the thing
Speaker 1: where he jumps out on stage and there's crickets. That's
Speaker 1: what it was like. It was like like nothing, nothing right.
Speaker 1: And the weeks are going by, and it's like, what's
Speaker 1: going on here, you know, and people are calling DJ's right,
Speaker 1: we're loving this record, but nothing and then uh, the
Speaker 1: B side of the one um Killer Man ends up
Speaker 1: in Juice where Omar but he's Tupaca Shore's character is
Speaker 1: chasing Omar's elevator party. You could watch you you could
Speaker 1: sit there in the theater and you can suddenly see
Speaker 1: people like you know, and then it just exploded. Now
Speaker 1: it's stilling fifty thousand copies a week, and it's just
Speaker 1: like because I bought the Juice soundtrack thinking it was
Speaker 1: on that and it wasn't. But shoot him up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's just it was just it's it's it was like
Speaker 1: just a real innovative master. Speaking of studio for where
Speaker 1: is uh? Where is Kravitz today? Um studio for the
Speaker 1: West Coast? He has a studio for in the West
Speaker 1: It's I think it's in Venice Beach and drummer FUNKI
Speaker 1: drummer Kravitz. You know what, Uh, I'm going to give props,
Speaker 1: you know, Andy to meet and for where. You know
Speaker 1: what I knew at the time. I just saw that
Speaker 1: the guy was the most incredible getted musician, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: him and I, you know, we started out cool, and
Speaker 1: then there was a period where we didn't get along
Speaker 1: for a long time, you know, but then later on
Speaker 1: he ended up moving up to a house nearards. Our wives,
Speaker 1: you know, became friends, and um, you know, but he
Speaker 1: uh yeah, he started uh the Studio four West. Okay,
Speaker 1: the time that I've met you at the one of
Speaker 1: those Philly Hall of Fame thinking about Jiggers or whatever
Speaker 1: you you and Roseman was there and um really I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, I was there to see my dad get inducted,
Speaker 1: but really I was trying to make a bee line
Speaker 1: to YouTube to see if I could intern at Studio four.
Speaker 1: And this is right, this is right on the crest
Speaker 1: of criss Cross us like, yeah, about to dominate the world.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think you guys hired me on the
Speaker 1: on the on the on the strength of that Chris
Speaker 1: ross Cross was blown up so fast. Yeah, because my
Speaker 1: first day there, I was. I felt like I was
Speaker 1: part of the Michael Jackson Dangerous Tour. I was. I remember,
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I ever saw you. You
Speaker 1: were sitting there at the big conference table. And the
Speaker 1: thing is, it's it's tunny. They gave me a this
Speaker 1: Q and a thing from my book, and they you
Speaker 1: know that one of the questions was about you and everything.
Speaker 1: And they said, and I said, you had a knapsack on, right,
Speaker 1: and you didn't take it off? And I thought, like, so,
Speaker 1: so I'm walking around, said his kids got a knapsack on,
Speaker 1: Like it must be kind of uncomfortable sitting there wearing
Speaker 1: a knapsack, stuffing records and then everything. And then like
Speaker 1: I walked past a half hour ladies had the knapsack on,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, maybe he's afraid that somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: snatch it if he puts it down. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: I always carry my soundtrack with me every every superhero
Speaker 1: needs something. Yeah, that Chris Growth record. I'll tell you this, Um,
Speaker 1: if if things start blowing up, then it's Tommy and
Speaker 1: Donnie and Kevin. Kevin. Kevin's here, okay, so he's team Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if it's like a major. If it's link Q
Speaker 1: or Larry Lair, then it's like, oh that's what link Q.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good. But you know, if things start
Speaker 1: getting successful then and suddenly Sony like, yes, that was
Speaker 1: all us. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: it was. It was so funny. What's the politics? And well,
Speaker 1: oh my god, dude, I I did. I was on
Speaker 1: CNN Power Lunch thing right doing an interview, and then
Speaker 1: my my cell phone rings and it's a executive from
Speaker 1: Columbia Records who I just won't I don't want to
Speaker 1: embarrass him, so I'm not gonna mention his name. But
Speaker 1: he was saying, you know, Chris Um, you know, he goes,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you something. You know, Tommy really likes you.
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, what I like Tommy? Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know it, man, you know, Tommy likes his guys to
Speaker 1: be like, you know, laid back and go and so
Speaker 1: this and so here's the thing. This this guy is
Speaker 1: talking to me. He's coming through like on this frequency
Speaker 1: that I'd never heard from him before, you know. And
Speaker 1: then I kind of put it together that he's sitting
Speaker 1: there talking to me and Tommy sitting right there and
Speaker 1: then he starts telling me stuff like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know Tommy, like you know, he's really like
Speaker 1: you know, Tommy's a star, He's a star, and all
Speaker 1: this stuff and this whole thing. But when criss Cross happened, Um,
Speaker 1: there was a picture of Tommy, Donnie and me and
Speaker 1: Criss Cross staying in front of us and Rolling Stone magazine,
Speaker 1: like two weeks later there is the picture. But where
Speaker 1: did I go? Oh yeah, it was like that all
Speaker 1: the time. Oh yeah, yeah. When we get to another
Speaker 1: when we get to another part of this story, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you something that's really just and I can't believe
Speaker 1: I had fallen for it. But but you became a
Speaker 1: star on your own, right though, Chris, because we can
Speaker 1: see you on the start and everywhere. Yeah. But but
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't. I wasn't trying. You know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't trying. I but the criss Cross record, and I'll
Speaker 1: make I'll make an admission here that you know I
Speaker 1: talked about in the book. I I I didn't like
Speaker 1: the song that wasn't when we got the Crisscross, like
Speaker 1: the demos, they had a song a little Boys in
Speaker 1: the Hood, right, and what what it was about. It
Speaker 1: was about two kids twelve years old trying to make
Speaker 1: that decision. Okay, well my role models are like, you know,
Speaker 1: these the gangsters with the clothes and the cash and
Speaker 1: the cars and over that do I want to do that?
Speaker 1: Or do I want to do this? And I thought
Speaker 1: that was a really interesting thing for a hip hop record,
Speaker 1: you know, like that and coming from these little kids.
Speaker 1: So that's what I thought was gonna be right. Jump
Speaker 1: didn't happen until later on in the project, and it
Speaker 1: was it was I just kind of thought it was
Speaker 1: a noisy little song, you know, and it's a noisy,
Speaker 1: little like annoying, little like, you know thing, and uh so,
Speaker 1: so Michael Maldon, uh David Cohn at Columbia Records and
Speaker 1: our guy, he said, you guys should put a baseline
Speaker 1: on this song. So Joe goes and puts a baseline
Speaker 1: on it and mix it. And I was leaving rough
Speaker 1: house one night and this is when we had the
Speaker 1: one room office, the glass doors, and the facts came
Speaker 1: to remember, facts, facts come through and it was from
Speaker 1: Michael Maldon and said, Chris Jump is going to be
Speaker 1: a number one song. Smash. Michael, I should have kept
Speaker 1: that I should have kept it. So here's what happened,
Speaker 1: um we we um. Rosie Perez was the UM talent
Speaker 1: coordinator for uh Living Color and Richard shot. Richard Murray
Speaker 1: shot to Criss Cross video down Atlanta. It was the
Speaker 1: first time it ever, snow didn't landed in like thirty
Speaker 1: two years, right, And we shot the video for like
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand dollars, right, And they performed on in Living
Speaker 1: Color the next day. We're my wife and I. I
Speaker 1: lived on Sitting Line Avenue, and my wife and I
Speaker 1: were at the Overbrook Diner and uh, I was really
Speaker 1: hungover and my wife was giving me a bunch of
Speaker 1: ships and um, and I was just like all I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was just eight and you know, it
Speaker 1: was the weekend, and um, but I'm hearing this older,
Speaker 1: middle aged couple sitting Caddy quarter from us, and the
Speaker 1: guy was going on and on about Criss Cross. Right,
Speaker 1: this older white guy, he goes, these kids were so
Speaker 1: amazing and blah blah blah blah blah blah, and I thought, wow.
Speaker 1: I looked at me and I said, I think this
Speaker 1: record is gonna this record is gonna blow up. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was like a Beheamo, can I ask
Speaker 1: one question about jump besides the money? But uh, can
Speaker 1: you clarify something? So obviously my my guess is the
Speaker 1: backstory with jump Around? Oh yeah, I'll tell you all
Speaker 1: about it, right of course the end of the record,
Speaker 1: Uh Joe the biter Nickelo right right? Which? Okay, My
Speaker 1: my guess is that because both acts recorded for a
Speaker 1: rough House. Wait, let me let me get my theory out,
Speaker 1: you see if I'm right now, because Mugs producer jump
Speaker 1: Around was also a producer at at rough House, my guesses,
Speaker 1: and I always wanted to know this because I would
Speaker 1: do the same thing because the same midnight what's the
Speaker 1: what's the break of of uh plat tuning Midnight Manziel's
Speaker 1: Midnight theme or something? Yeah, alright, so the midnight theme drums?
Speaker 1: Uh that Cypress used on kill a Man? Right? Uh,
Speaker 1: that's all Mugs, right. My guess is that. Okay, let
Speaker 1: me use something. You know that some of Muggs's tools
Speaker 1: were utilized. Note, okay, say exactly what happened? Okay, So
Speaker 1: we I passed on a lot of great artists, you know,
Speaker 1: and I passed on House of Pain, arrested development. What
Speaker 1: was that? Who on Alicia Keys know that's painful kind
Speaker 1: too well now you know. But here here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's it if if you were there, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But any happen. Let me let me get
Speaker 1: back to this story. So so so um so we
Speaker 1: got a We got the demo from Mugs for a
Speaker 1: House of Pain. Okay, it was good, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: in our humble estimation at a time there yet. But
Speaker 1: you know, who can hear what in a demo in
Speaker 1: this day and age. Right, But here's the bottom line.
Speaker 1: There was not a song called Jump on that demo.
Speaker 1: It wasn't there. Okay, number one, number one, number two right.
Speaker 1: Amanda Cypress is one half of Cypress manager team. Mandy
Speaker 1: Shear calls me up and she says, here's how she so,
Speaker 1: you guys have a song coming up Jump and I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: criss Cross Jump. Well, House of Pain has a song
Speaker 1: called Jump, and you guys stole it and gave it
Speaker 1: to criss Cross, right, And I was like, that's the
Speaker 1: most insane thing I ever heard, because Jemaine dupri did everything,
Speaker 1: you know, so he she and I said, so where
Speaker 1: did we steal the song from? A man. He oh,
Speaker 1: is on the demo, right, And I said really, I said,
Speaker 1: hold on right, and I go, I've got the demo
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there on the film with her and
Speaker 1: I'm listing the songs. I said, so, uh, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what's here. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Which one of those songs is? Which one
Speaker 1: did we take? And she goes, oh, well, the song
Speaker 1: is called Jump. I said, well, there's no song called
Speaker 1: Jump on this demo. This is what Muggs gave us, right.
Speaker 1: But they couldn't let it, you know, ever last couldn't
Speaker 1: let it go, couldn't let yeah. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Muggs told me. He never Joe Jack the song. He
Speaker 1: never thought. And the thing is that I can tell
Speaker 1: you this right now. I mean Joe Nicolo, God bless him. Man,
Speaker 1: I've known this man. You know intimately, there's Joe. Joe
Speaker 1: is not. He doesn't have that thing right to take
Speaker 1: like he would. That would require much more time, effort,
Speaker 1: and energy and resources to do. Then then Joe wants
Speaker 1: to expend you know what I mean. He's not He's
Speaker 1: not that kind of like you know what was his
Speaker 1: reaction when he first heard it? Oh, he loved it.
Speaker 1: He goes, yeah, no, he said, oh yeah, He goes,
Speaker 1: you should see it in the video. He gets right
Speaker 1: up in the camera. Okay I always wanted Okay, there's
Speaker 1: something else I'm just reminded of. He explaining nah situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys had him first. Yeah, and then what happened?
Speaker 1: All right? Um so so at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: we're when we got the sony right to clumb. It
Speaker 1: was CBS at the time. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's deaf Jam and there's you guys, right, and you're it.
Speaker 1: We're not doing any other hip hop right. And the
Speaker 1: next week we go up for our first meetings with
Speaker 1: like people like Angela Thomas, product manager, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget Angela Thomas was eating a salad and Kevin Woodley
Speaker 1: walks us in and he goes, yeah, this is Chris
Speaker 1: Schwartz and Joe Nikolo. That's their hip hop label, rough House,
Speaker 1: and we just did a deal with And Angela is
Speaker 1: kind of like she's got her mouthful of food because
Speaker 1: she just found out that they did Russia Associated Labels,
Speaker 1: which is like thirty companies you know, and she goes
Speaker 1: and she's like looking and she's like, oh, another label,
Speaker 1: and you can just see that that look on her face.
Speaker 1: Uh so so deaf jam. Then something happened and they left,
Speaker 1: they got you know, they went to they went through
Speaker 1: a renegotiation and it just didn't work out, and they
Speaker 1: went over to uh m C A PolyGram whatever and
Speaker 1: we were it right and we were now doing really
Speaker 1: well and we had a lot of pipeline revenue coming
Speaker 1: to us. You know, the labels don't have to give
Speaker 1: it to you all at once. It's there, so so
Speaker 1: uh mc search uh wanted to sign Nas. Now a
Speaker 1: couple of months prior to this, um uh there's a
Speaker 1: guy that he uh he was a manager of a
Speaker 1: club called Revival. Um Yeah, Greg mcg yeah yeah. I
Speaker 1: lived at Revival. I was like I was there all
Speaker 1: the time. Greg was a manager and we used to
Speaker 1: hang out to the wee hours and you know, and
Speaker 1: he constantly played me this record um Live at the barbecue, right,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, you should find his kid
Speaker 1: Nas and signed him. But like I know that this label,
Speaker 1: Wild Pitch was owned by Stu Fine. I said, he's
Speaker 1: already signed. He's already signed to Wild Pitch, you know.
Speaker 1: So so I just that was it? Right? And so
Speaker 1: I get a phone call from Donnie Einer and he goes, look,
Speaker 1: he goes, I want to introduce you to Search. He's
Speaker 1: got this artist that uh that you should you know,
Speaker 1: look at name NAS. And I was like, oh, really awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Search comes down to Philadelphia with Faith Newman and Nas.
Speaker 1: We go to the Spaghetti Warehouse the After Midnight post
Speaker 1: in the post Afterber the original After Midnight and those
Speaker 1: guys right, oh my god. Alright, so um so we
Speaker 1: uh we we do this deal and uh it was
Speaker 1: two things were signed NAS and we also did the
Speaker 1: deal for the soundtrack to zebra Head and uh are
Speaker 1: the first thing we do if NAS was halftime Uh
Speaker 1: Richard Murray, Uh. Production protege James Brummel did the video
Speaker 1: for like three thousand dollars, you know. And then stuff
Speaker 1: started happening, you know, and uh, you know John Scheckter.
Speaker 1: Let me go back to an earlier part of the
Speaker 1: source from I was had to school E D Records, right,
Speaker 1: I was sending out thousands of records to retailers besides,
Speaker 1: you know, to do stuff. I mailed out the first
Speaker 1: issue of The Source in the school d Records package.
Speaker 1: So I knew John and Dave Um, Dave Mason, John Scheckter,
Speaker 1: and John Scheckter came down and his mission was to
Speaker 1: get a copy of the NAS songs, and I gave
Speaker 1: him like, I think five songs and then, uh, I
Speaker 1: think he was like the first artist to get X
Speaker 1: amount of microphones in the Source or whatever. So now
Speaker 1: now now there's a huge, huge thing happening with NAS. Right,
Speaker 1: everybody's excited, you know. And I get a phone call.
Speaker 1: Rose comes in and says, oh, Chris um Um, I
Speaker 1: was just told by somebody Columbia that that NAS was
Speaker 1: gonna be on Columbia proper. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: how's that he signed to us? He's contracted to us.
Speaker 1: It's our you know. And uh I we called up
Speaker 1: Donny and uh Joe and I go up there and
Speaker 1: Donnie shows us a it's a facts from Tommy and
Speaker 1: the subject matter is why is NAS signed to rough House? Right,
Speaker 1: So here's what happened. Search brought it to Columbia, and
Speaker 1: Colombia said, oh, we'll do it, but it has to
Speaker 1: be on rough House why because if it fails then
Speaker 1: we end up eating it from our pipeline revenues. Right,
Speaker 1: it's no risk for them to put it on us,
Speaker 1: you know, and it backfired on them. It backfir Yeah.
Speaker 1: So does it feel like being there redheaded step kids,
Speaker 1: like the redheaded step bitches? You know, was it not?
Speaker 1: I mean, were they not? Because as a label on
Speaker 1: their own, they weren't. They weren't doing check with hip hop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, but but but here's what it is.
Speaker 1: Here's what it is. Afterwards, all said and done. You know,
Speaker 1: Donnie shows me this facts, right, and it's from Tommy
Speaker 1: and it says he's saying, quote unquote you fucking asshole. Right,
Speaker 1: it's what it's it and exclamation points and underlined right,
Speaker 1: And Donnie was like, you know, Chris, I'm liking a
Speaker 1: thing here. Can you please help us out? And so
Speaker 1: we we we did a deal. We uh we let them, um,
Speaker 1: we let them buy us out. Should we have done it?
Speaker 1: You know, here's the thing it was looking back in retrospect,
Speaker 1: probably not. But at the same time, it was kind
Speaker 1: of hard to say no when this is a guy
Speaker 1: who's kind of like your partner at the thing and everything,
Speaker 1: and you know, we hed done a lot for us
Speaker 1: and everything, and it was just a thing. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: I remember later on Faith Newman, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: conceded to said, you know, Chris, I said, part of
Speaker 1: the pressure with this is that is that we have
Speaker 1: nothing for Columbia proper, you know. And what they I
Speaker 1: guess they didn't want to see was that if rough
Speaker 1: House suddenly ups and leaves one day the way def
Speaker 1: Jam did, and can imagine like half year revenue stream
Speaker 1: walking out the door, you know, because you know, for
Speaker 1: the for like really like a ten year period of time,
Speaker 1: we were their black music department. So so so. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. But you know, it's funny. I would
Speaker 1: see Nas like over I saw him on like over
Speaker 1: in Europe and everything, and he always said, he goes Man,
Speaker 1: he goes. I just wanted to just stay on rough
Speaker 1: House so bad, and you know, and um, yeah, so
Speaker 1: but he gave me a nice shout out in the
Speaker 1: Surviving the Times. My last day at rough House, Uh,
Speaker 1: two things happened. Uh. One freaking I don't even know
Speaker 1: if you're aware of this. My last day at rough
Speaker 1: House was Santy Gold's first day at rough House as
Speaker 1: working under the Vita gar and yeah, it was kind
Speaker 1: of like that dream Weaver moment like in Wayne's World.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was who is that? Um? I mean the
Speaker 1: creepy out Santy sorry time Santy was like she was
Speaker 1: Bay of the Century um. And de Vita asked me
Speaker 1: for a favor and said, hey, uh at you guys,
Speaker 1: is uh signing party in two weeks? Could you let
Speaker 1: one of our new acts open for you guys? I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, who is it? And she gives me
Speaker 1: blunted on reality which at that point, which at that
Speaker 1: point was like it was a quiet two months. Like
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Nappi Heads didn't even have the
Speaker 1: remix yet. This was early in the game. I knew
Speaker 1: when I saw the eight by ten because of the
Speaker 1: way that soap operas running my family's houses. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the JOm from As the World turn Yeah. I
Speaker 1: didn't even know about sister act two yetr as the
Speaker 1: Troubled Kid for As the World Turns. So I loved it.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, hell yeah, let her do it.
Speaker 1: So how did like? So the Fujis came to my
Speaker 1: attention two weeks like Thanksgiving of November nine. But I
Speaker 1: she told me that you guys had had them long before.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so how did you guys? Um we actually
Speaker 1: rose Man? Okay, yeah, I mean, I I just you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm real big on giving credit where credits due,
Speaker 1: you know. And um was Roseman officially A and R?
Speaker 1: Like what was her job at? Who? You know? Who's
Speaker 1: an inn our guy anymore? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: It's like label, you know. Monica Lynch said, the best
Speaker 1: music that came the biggest records that came to Tommy
Speaker 1: Boy came through their their guy in the Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: guy in the mail room, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so, um remember the TV commercial I guess it
Speaker 1: was in the late eighties early nineties. Uh, the guys
Speaker 1: in the cab and the cab driver in New York
Speaker 1: City has the dreads. You know they showed that commercial.
Speaker 1: That's Hassan hassanhead. Yes, uh uh he always oh yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's I guess that's a Zebrahead party is where
Speaker 1: he met rose and so he had night during the premiere.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't I don't know how she met him.
Speaker 1: That bust have been because he rented a bus and
Speaker 1: took us all to New York City. And that's that's
Speaker 1: the that's the ill fated night where I remember Clark
Speaker 1: Kent went back and forth on in vogues, hold on
Speaker 1: Nas freestyle, I have my one moment with Roman with
Speaker 1: Nasty Nas back. You know, that was my one moment
Speaker 1: when I thought it was going to be MC and
Speaker 1: I gave it up after that for real. Uh well,
Speaker 1: I just a minute. This is years later, so you know,
Speaker 1: I hope nobody recorded that ship. But so he met
Speaker 1: her that night, he must have crazy. So so what
Speaker 1: happened was she bug shit out of me for for
Speaker 1: a long time. Aime, she goes, you got to hear this.
Speaker 1: Listen to the scroup. Listen to Scroup. Listen to Scroup.
Speaker 1: So I'm in my car and uh I put this
Speaker 1: tape in and the first thing that caught me was
Speaker 1: it like, oh, it's not like hip hop. Like it's
Speaker 1: hip hop, but there's you know, he had a whole
Speaker 1: different thing about it. And and then and and so,
Speaker 1: well you were familiar with that because you also have
Speaker 1: the goats. Yeah yeah, So so I thought, I thought,
Speaker 1: all right, so this is something a little bit unique
Speaker 1: and different. I didn't know their Haitian and I'm embarrassed
Speaker 1: to say this, you know, I thought it was Jamaican,
Speaker 1: you know, so this is what's new. So we go
Speaker 1: to the uh we we Joe and I go up
Speaker 1: to their audition at David Sonnenberg's office on the Upper
Speaker 1: East Side and this town house and um, and there
Speaker 1: was like seven or eight people. And but here's what
Speaker 1: what basically the thing that right away was that why
Speaker 1: Cleff the beatbox and the acoustic guitar. And it was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a little different, this is like and that
Speaker 1: that's what did it for me. You know, you didn't
Speaker 1: hear a note from Lawrence Now I get I I
Speaker 1: talked about in the book. I don't even remember her
Speaker 1: from the audition. And here's the thing. When we went,
Speaker 1: there was like six or seven kids. And at the
Speaker 1: end of the audition why Cleff like it's now stripped
Speaker 1: all his clothes off, He's in his boxers, going nuts
Speaker 1: and everything. And I found out later on they had
Speaker 1: a dustioned for every major and independent. We were their
Speaker 1: last shot, they said we were at So when we
Speaker 1: went to do the contracts, it was there was only
Speaker 1: three people and I was like, well, wait what were
Speaker 1: all these other people that were there? Right? And so
Speaker 1: anyhow we did the album. Uh, most of my dialogue
Speaker 1: was with why Cleff and the manager David Sonenberg and
Speaker 1: when we got when I got the first batch of songs,
Speaker 1: it was really weird because like Prose was like the
Speaker 1: dominant rapper, and I thought, you know, Prize was good.
Speaker 1: But he he I'll tell you what You're ready or not.
Speaker 1: You have to admit he's what he does on that track.
Speaker 1: But I just wasn't feeling him carrying these songs. And
Speaker 1: I call up David and I said, David, you and
Speaker 1: this is this is this problem but and he goes, well,
Speaker 1: he goes, yeah, it is a real problem. He says,
Speaker 1: because why Cleff is or Proses? Why clips cousin? I'm
Speaker 1: like gos ship but I said, fuck it, you know,
Speaker 1: let a cigarette. He got Cleff on the phone and
Speaker 1: I said, yeo, man, I said, it's cool. But is
Speaker 1: there any way that you know, blah bla Blah's diplomat
Speaker 1: is possible? Because oh yeah, man, I got you right
Speaker 1: like a week later, different different thing. You know, Proz
Speaker 1: is more pushed to the back, you know. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that first album and the touring. And here here's the thing, man,
Speaker 1: And I always said this, there was like three groups,
Speaker 1: three hip hop groups from that day. The toured that
Speaker 1: was the Fuji's cypercill and the Roots constant touring Constant,
Speaker 1: those were the Mare Scott Thomas, you know Scott Thomas
Speaker 1: over in the UK booking agent. Yeah, he would tell me,
Speaker 1: he said, he goes, yeah, all through those he You
Speaker 1: would always say, those the artists, those are the ones
Speaker 1: you know, uh you had. But but how about this.
Speaker 1: Two years after the release of Blunted on Reality, we're
Speaker 1: still selling six eight copies a week sound scan, right,
Speaker 1: So that's showing that this record. And I gotta tell
Speaker 1: you that whole thing with with Sony and Columbia was
Speaker 1: hanging not by a thread, but by like a spider
Speaker 1: web thread, like it was. They did a show in
Speaker 1: London and I wasn't at the show, but Luke Verge,
Speaker 1: who later on became head of every like he became
Speaker 1: my guy for Europe for everything. He was our he
Speaker 1: was had a very national marketing for Columbia Records. He
Speaker 1: called he's he's off, He's from Marseille um and he
Speaker 1: called him he goes Chris. He was rowed a cat
Speaker 1: back with these guys last night. They're talking about dropping Fuji.
Speaker 1: You must do something, you know, and uh I, I
Speaker 1: called up Donny and uh I said, Donny, I said
Speaker 1: that they were gonna win Grammy's we just gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta stay with we gotta do this and stay with
Speaker 1: it and everything. And do you know what it is
Speaker 1: like the lack of faith, because the thing is, I
Speaker 1: would even like to think that, like, Okay, the money
Speaker 1: by this point, you know, you have some gratitude because
Speaker 1: the money is good. You know you guys are doing
Speaker 1: the numbers. Yeah. Yeah, it's like each time out the
Speaker 1: out the gate. No, I'll tell you this. At this point,
Speaker 1: at that point, I I had a lot of confidence
Speaker 1: in the relations. I'll tell you this when when the
Speaker 1: first the first five years at Colombia, right, I was
Speaker 1: I was the wimpy kid, you know, I was easily
Speaker 1: easily bullied and and you know, talk to to ship
Speaker 1: in another diplomatic way. How how approachable is Tommy And
Speaker 1: is he one of the guys or is you know
Speaker 1: what you'd be like, hey, yo, but told him kind
Speaker 1: kind of got I got. I got a little little
Speaker 1: story that that I'll get into um um alright. So
Speaker 1: so um Lauren this record, right, the Miseducation of Lauren Hill? Okay? Uh?
Speaker 1: Are we allowed to talk about that record in here?
Speaker 1: Nons inside the record? The record that the project is
Speaker 1: the vehicle for the story, right, but that she she
Speaker 1: was going to Japan to do a show for the
Speaker 1: Sony executives. We had just did this whole thing in
Speaker 1: in in the UK, and uh, and I was going.
Speaker 1: I was going with her to Japan. And this is
Speaker 1: shortly after my remember the phone call from the executives
Speaker 1: about you know, all right, right, so she's so we
Speaker 1: got this big thing happening. I bought my ticket, all
Speaker 1: ready to go, and I get a phone call and
Speaker 1: it's uh, Tommy's assistant, Oh, Chris, Um, Tommy needs you
Speaker 1: to come up to a meeting with him and uh
Speaker 1: Danny de Vito. And who's the woman who runs Jersey Films.
Speaker 1: Um you know I'm talking about, right, And and I said, oh, yeah, yeah, cool, right,
Speaker 1: so when's when's the meeting? She gives me a I said, impossible,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be over in Japan with um per with
Speaker 1: miss Hill, right, And she goes, oh, well, Tommy is
Speaker 1: UM really asking if you could, you know, make this
Speaker 1: It's really really important, you know, And and I'm like,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, wow, Like, how can I say no? Right?
Speaker 1: So I said, all right, I go in the clickman's
Speaker 1: office and I said, yeah, it looks like I'm not
Speaker 1: going to the thing in Japan with miss I'm doing
Speaker 1: the UM Tommy wants to have this really important meeting
Speaker 1: with Danny DeVito and all this stuff. And Kevin just
Speaker 1: laughs at me and he goes, he goes, yeah, what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. The plane is going to take off, they
Speaker 1: cancel They're getting canceled the meeting. I said, I said, nah,
Speaker 1: it can happen. It's not like that. And of course
Speaker 1: the plane takes off. The call, Oh, Danny had to
Speaker 1: do some re shoots, you know, and and so and so.
Speaker 1: How else could I look at this? Right? And to
Speaker 1: think that that he didn't want me meeting the Sony guys,
Speaker 1: the Sony UM you know over there. But you know
Speaker 1: that the reality is like, what what what would I do?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just you know, what what am I
Speaker 1: going to talk to these guys about? You know, I'm
Speaker 1: just there was part of the you know, with her
Speaker 1: on the show and everything. But but but you know,
Speaker 1: here's the reality. I could never prove this in a
Speaker 1: court of law, and it's only speculation on my part.
Speaker 1: But you know, but the only thing I could say
Speaker 1: if that meeting was just so fucking important, how come
Speaker 1: it never got rescheduled because I had called up? So
Speaker 1: when are we doing the meeting with Danny? And it
Speaker 1: just kind of like, you know, yeah, so what was
Speaker 1: your breaking point? Because you said that you probably was
Speaker 1: a pushover for the first like five years, but what
Speaker 1: was the moment when you were like, um, it was
Speaker 1: the I guess the breaking the breaking point where it's no,
Speaker 1: I didn't suddenly become nasty and mean, it was just
Speaker 1: sort of um when when you really like, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you this. There there's a guy, his name is Chris
Speaker 1: Blanckwell and he's the founder of He's one of my
Speaker 1: best friends and he's been my mentor for years. And
Speaker 1: when you really get a grasp of the type of
Speaker 1: money that those companies make, it's it's, uh, it's mind boggling. Uh.
Speaker 1: For instance, at a time, you know a major distribution power, right, well,
Speaker 1: there's manufacturing costs, right you deduct that you pay for
Speaker 1: your manufacturing. The company that's manufacturing the record. It's the
Speaker 1: same company but your but you're paying for the manu
Speaker 1: like in other words, they're paying you're you're paying them
Speaker 1: to manufacturing. You're not getting any break on that, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's and then let's face it, uh international, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can tell you this that uh there was an
Speaker 1: old there was an old time industry account named Bert
Speaker 1: Podell and well it's guys got the biggest he was
Speaker 1: an account. Biggest out of him out on the Bert
Speaker 1: Padell was that you know, when you go to do
Speaker 1: a co venture right as a label, they just don't
Speaker 1: get it to you. You know, remember Andre Horrel the
Speaker 1: fifty million dollar mc A thing, right, they don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just don't. When you renegotiate, you gotta you have
Speaker 1: to come to them with a whole plan, like a prospectus.
Speaker 1: You have to have projections, you have to have a
Speaker 1: pro forma, you gotta have all that stuff. You have
Speaker 1: to because if in order for them to cut loose
Speaker 1: with that money, they have to be able to justify
Speaker 1: it to whoever, the board of whatever whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But that's part of the process. Like in any business. Right.
Speaker 1: So so when I when we did our finally did
Speaker 1: the co venture, uh, I had to get Bert Podell
Speaker 1: to help us put that stuff together because he's got
Speaker 1: he's got all that stuff. But what I the reason
Speaker 1: I bring him up is that the majors is that
Speaker 1: were they one place that they really get you at
Speaker 1: that time when we have when we relying on the
Speaker 1: physical product, which was the lifeblood of the business was
Speaker 1: international internationally. You think about it, you everything is all computerized.
Speaker 1: So and somebody renegotiates a record deal or something, you
Speaker 1: okay for international, we're gonna get this particular royalty rate
Speaker 1: and they raised it by you know, a couple points. However,
Speaker 1: but somehow somebody forgets to put that in the royalty
Speaker 1: accounting program. Right. So then when you go back and
Speaker 1: you do a um we audit, you would believe the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars that you find
Speaker 1: and rough House if we were anything else worldwide, we
Speaker 1: were one of the biggest hip hop labels in the
Speaker 1: world because our artists were massive, you know, and and
Speaker 1: you know we were making so much money for them.
Speaker 1: And so that's at that point I just kind of
Speaker 1: felt like, you know, I knew you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that gave me a lot of confidence in and
Speaker 1: you know, dealing with them. So when did you when
Speaker 1: when did you officially leave Sony? Uh? In nine right
Speaker 1: after right after I was having I was having meetings
Speaker 1: with in l A with like uh, David Geffen, heads
Speaker 1: of like E and I and Warner Brothers. The day
Speaker 1: after the Grammys. Yeah, a forcat because with Rough Nation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the product from Dude. You should see the
Speaker 1: you should see the video they did with Liz Ldy.
Speaker 1: It's it's incredible. Rich shot it in this place in Delaware.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a white psych that goes is around
Speaker 1: the room and it's a camera that's on this like
Speaker 1: robotic thing. So the way it's it's one continuous shot.
Speaker 1: So you see this video and you see like hundreds
Speaker 1: of people in it, but there's no edit. It just
Speaker 1: keeps going. It just keeps going. And it's this whole
Speaker 1: system with the computer in the camera. That's a really
Speaker 1: awesome video. I can't find it though online. So where
Speaker 1: did you Where did Rough Nations? Was that Warner or Warner? Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to be the guy to bring black music
Speaker 1: back to Warners. That was my goal. Man. It wasn't
Speaker 1: even about money. I actually took less money to go
Speaker 1: with Warners because and to me, the last real things
Speaker 1: in regards to to black music of any significance was
Speaker 1: um iced tea and prints, right, and if you want
Speaker 1: to talk about cold chilling, I'm not sure, but you know,
Speaker 1: uh that that was it. And I felt like if
Speaker 1: I could come there and kind of inject that rough
Speaker 1: House DNA into the into the gig, you know that
Speaker 1: I could do something significant. So at the time when
Speaker 1: I started at rough House, you guys were just implementing
Speaker 1: a new system. Sound scan hadn't really started yet. So
Speaker 1: every day I'm hearing all your people calling saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I need five hundred pieces of reported in Billboard for this.
Speaker 1: And it was a little more subtle than that. But
Speaker 1: my point was then there was a point two months later,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, where all that stopped. I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: how come you guys aren't and people are being letting
Speaker 1: go because they're like, well, we have sound scan now,
Speaker 1: we don't need that anymore. How crazy when they chipped
Speaker 1: when they went when it went from from regular, when
Speaker 1: it went from the bullshit charts. The sound scan suddenly
Speaker 1: labels like us were the king of the help. Right.
Speaker 1: We we sat there, man, you're you're trying, you're you're
Speaker 1: working a record and you're legitimately selling records, and yet
Speaker 1: you're like trying to break an artist and you're in
Speaker 1: the hundred and ten spots and Billboard. But then you
Speaker 1: see some god awful thing like sitting at number fourteen
Speaker 1: that you know is not selling's there? And then when
Speaker 1: sound scan happened, suddenly hip hop was like the first twenty.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. So how do you feel now today? Uh,
Speaker 1: the way the streaming is and and s Facebook lags Instagram. Well,
Speaker 1: now you know, it's funny, not as much as I thought, like, say,
Speaker 1: a month ago. Uh you know, I have I somebody
Speaker 1: I started a Twitter account and Instagram count like years ago,
Speaker 1: but never paid attention. Then I just started looking like
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, and it's like I had
Speaker 1: over a thousand followers on each. I said, oh, that's
Speaker 1: a nice little start, you know, And so I just
Speaker 1: started figuring out how to do that. Guy never paid
Speaker 1: attention to that stuff. But in terms of the industry,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I think is first off, when
Speaker 1: the whole thing, you know, digital and streaming for the
Speaker 1: first time since the fifties, there's now level playing field.
Speaker 1: But if you look at global music revenues, eight of
Speaker 1: global music revenues are independent artists, and that that's a
Speaker 1: big thing. I mean, what would would that have been
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? Independent artists I'm not the artists not
Speaker 1: signed the record labels. Artists putting out music make up
Speaker 1: eighteen percent of global music revenues. And so this year
Speaker 1: is the I guess, I think it's the third year
Speaker 1: that uh, global music revenues have taken a northernly upturn,
Speaker 1: you know, because let's face it, ever since the death
Speaker 1: knew the stranglehold in the early two thousands, you know.
Speaker 1: But um so yeah, so it's it's growing, and it's growing,
Speaker 1: it's gonna keep growing. And I I'm starting to see, um,
Speaker 1: you know, labels now being a little bit more speculative,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of artists and everything like that.
Speaker 1: And so in walking I've never spoken to anyone that
Speaker 1: once had a label and then walked away from the
Speaker 1: distribution deal whatever. So what happens to like a group
Speaker 1: like Cypress Hill will be a legacy act. So that
Speaker 1: album will continue to sell over and over. But they bought,
Speaker 1: they brought us out, they bought the artists. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah because the Yeah, because it was not even so yeah,
Speaker 1: the Carnival that wasn't rough House was it was. Yes,
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I paid for that record personally
Speaker 1: when we started, Oh wow, I love that albument. That's like,
Speaker 1: well that was. Here's the thing, you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: like the Carnival. When when I when I when I
Speaker 1: went in the meeting, When when I went Now when
Speaker 1: I went to the first meeting, here's what happened. Why
Speaker 1: Cleff Why cleff um. Originally I'd gone to Haiti a
Speaker 1: couple of times with them, right, and we had this
Speaker 1: idea to do a Haitian traditional Haitian kind of pop record, right,
Speaker 1: but mix it with some like hip hop and everything.
Speaker 1: And it was this wasn't going to be like what
Speaker 1: we call a frontline release. This was going to be
Speaker 1: like an independent project. I was gonna be see if
Speaker 1: Chris Blackwell when you involved with it on palm and stuff.
Speaker 1: So we start doing this record and then next thing
Speaker 1: you know, it starts to kind of turn into something else.
Speaker 1: And now we think like, okay, now this is like
Speaker 1: a frontline rough house release, right, And but I had,
Speaker 1: you know, spent money at this point. And why Clef
Speaker 1: calls me up on a Tuesday night with Sonenberg to
Speaker 1: tell me that he booked like an ad piece orchestra
Speaker 1: for that. And it was like, I haven't even gotten
Speaker 1: like a budget approved or anything. And I had a
Speaker 1: meeting with Donnie on a Wednesday and I played him.
Speaker 1: I gave him the CD of like the five five
Speaker 1: or six songs, puts it in, listens to it, and
Speaker 1: does one of the worst things ever that could happen
Speaker 1: to you when you're trying to get somebody to like something.
Speaker 1: He handed it back to me. We're staying alive on there.
Speaker 1: Uh no, no, but no no. But he handed it
Speaker 1: back and he goes, I don't know, he goes sounds
Speaker 1: like something like vacation music or something, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: they're going, yeah, now we got to the orchestra going
Speaker 1: and ship like but Larry worked on that one too,
Speaker 1: right down, Yeah he did. He didn't that album. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's a brilliant record, man, it really is. It
Speaker 1: really is. But but here's the thing that that the
Speaker 1: miseducation was the really that was the struggle. That was,
Speaker 1: like they first off, they didn't want a solo record
Speaker 1: from her, yet they wanted another food record, and of
Speaker 1: course who could blame them, right, another Fuji's record is
Speaker 1: gonna sell billion, you know whatever. Um. But the the
Speaker 1: they say, they say, okay, so now she's gonna do
Speaker 1: a record, but we want we want Puffy, we want this,
Speaker 1: we want all these. And the problem was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I had a thing at my house, like a barbecue,
Speaker 1: and I invited her to come, not thinking that she
Speaker 1: would come, you know, and uh her mother called me
Speaker 1: up and says, oh, yeah, we're coming out, and I
Speaker 1: was like okay, so and we she came. We hung
Speaker 1: out for a little bit and I had my house
Speaker 1: at the time. I had this room, like this music room,
Speaker 1: and she started to tell me about this record and
Speaker 1: it was gonna be like, um, sixties and seventies soul,
Speaker 1: like hip hop in this whole book, real organic, you know,
Speaker 1: if analog and this whole thing, and it's like cool
Speaker 1: all this and when we I was in Bath, England
Speaker 1: with my wife and it was like three o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning and the phone rings and I knew who
Speaker 1: it was. I knew it was going to be Tommy
Speaker 1: and Donnie, and I had given them the five songs,
Speaker 1: five or six songs, and yeah, and they said, and
Speaker 1: Tommy's on speaking, Donny was on speaker phone. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Tommy and I listened to the record, and we think
Speaker 1: the songs are very, very very mediocre. Now now I
Speaker 1: hang up, and then whatever. I hang up, and I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there in the dark, right and my wife's asleep,
Speaker 1: and she's like, Chris, what's the matter? I said, they
Speaker 1: don't like record, you know. And I'm like, and you know,
Speaker 1: but you gotta this is but see for me, you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: I like I said, yeah, I talk all this bravado
Speaker 1: about my dealings with them and everything. But still these
Speaker 1: are two guys who were, for the all intensive purposes,
Speaker 1: pretty powerful guys in the music business, you know, who
Speaker 1: have years and years and an experience, you know. But
Speaker 1: the one thing that that I held onto was that
Speaker 1: they were wrong about the Cleft record, completely wrong about that.
Speaker 1: And the record was good. It was just like it
Speaker 1: just like, how how could they you know? I didn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the thing, though, I don't think it matters
Speaker 1: if it's good or bad. Could they no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, but it's the truth. Could they not
Speaker 1: see that it was going to be effective? Like? How
Speaker 1: could they not? Because she could have done any okay
Speaker 1: at that point, because they would have one because these guys, right,
Speaker 1: I always used to say that. I used to tell
Speaker 1: her her this all the time. Earlier on. I used
Speaker 1: to say, you could sing over five minutes of static
Speaker 1: kiss and don't be a hit record. But but they lived,
Speaker 1: They live in these monolithic glass and steel places where
Speaker 1: everything is about radio and Greatest Gainer and weekly this
Speaker 1: and all that, and everything is formatted and this and that,
Speaker 1: and it's like, but the thing is, like I saw
Speaker 1: both the carnival and miseducation these to me, this was
Speaker 1: like circa nineteen six w MMR FM radio, Like you know,
Speaker 1: this isn't about this is about a body of work,
Speaker 1: you know, And this the thing is, it's like, um,
Speaker 1: I felt that that I wasn't thinking not thinking singles.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking this, but you know, Michael Malden was.
Speaker 1: You know, we did a white label twelve inch for
Speaker 1: Lost Ones. We did it, rough House did it Columbia
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it, and we didn't even
Speaker 1: tell him about We just did it and we sent out.
Speaker 1: It was her idea and we sent that out and
Speaker 1: oh my god, the ship hit the fans. All right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the ship hit the I mean they, oh, well, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Michael Malden was angry, you know, because you know,
Speaker 1: let's face it, he was head a black music department
Speaker 1: and I just and I just went and did that ship, right,
Speaker 1: But he said, Donnie's gonna get ready to blow up
Speaker 1: your phone. But you know what, I never heard from Donnie.
Speaker 1: You don't know why, because no, no, I never heard
Speaker 1: from Donnie because it was so incredible the way it started.
Speaker 1: The whole thing. It was like that song lost Ones,
Speaker 1: what a perfect entreevous for a project like that. But
Speaker 1: they've literally had doubts that the album is going to
Speaker 1: work even though. So how do they feel about the
Speaker 1: score then, Oh no, no, well well no, no, not
Speaker 1: at all. But but I'll tell you this. They they
Speaker 1: wanted they wanted um, not only did they want that,
Speaker 1: that all that crazy you know, commercial production, they definitely
Speaker 1: wanted and eight nineties female R and B singer style photography.
Speaker 1: It's like so so think about this, think about think
Speaker 1: about what the cover is, and think about what they're
Speaker 1: thinking about. Yeah, it's have been another cover. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: Now it was like and no, they eventually they gave
Speaker 1: in because I know this that there was a there
Speaker 1: was a marketing meeting and Miguel Bagower and a bunch
Speaker 1: of people in the room all said that the anticipation
Speaker 1: and the early feedback and everything was that this record
Speaker 1: was not only gonna be critically acclaimed, it was going
Speaker 1: to be massive and everything. And then then, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was lost ones and to do
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, I just can't believe that they didn't
Speaker 1: know that they had an easy yeah, especially after killing
Speaker 1: well you know, he was killing me softly. Was never
Speaker 1: even uh, it was never supposed to be a single.
Speaker 1: The Fuji's didn't didn't even really want the song on
Speaker 1: the record, and um, and they didn't want to promote it,
Speaker 1: as you know they did. We did a video and
Speaker 1: and it just they hated it. So we be shot
Speaker 1: it with them in the movie theater throwing popcorn at
Speaker 1: each other like like a non video video. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that song, you couldn't stop it was that.
Speaker 1: I loved that wasn't on Love Joe, that wasn't thinking.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible that both can be right. I
Speaker 1: mean it's not I'm not one of the die hard.
Speaker 1: Technically that album actually changed my life in a technical sense,
Speaker 1: it affected my life. But I think I'm just shocked
Speaker 1: that they couldn't see that this was a no brainer. Well,
Speaker 1: they just they were you know what, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1: They didn't trust their record to have all of it
Speaker 1: to be pulled off by her and her alone, Okay,
Speaker 1: because at that point she had gotten rid of her management,
Speaker 1: she was disassociated, did with everything and everybody up there
Speaker 1: except me and that was it. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, you know, they they would have loved
Speaker 1: that that the A list, R and B nineties hit,
Speaker 1: Uh producers, you know, they didn't realize that she was
Speaker 1: the answer to the coming backlash that no one saw coming. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that I heard all sorts of stories.
Speaker 1: Uh somebody said that, you know that Puffy had this
Speaker 1: big meeting and pulled everybody into a room and held
Speaker 1: up the record and says this is where we need
Speaker 1: to be going and all this stuff and it just
Speaker 1: h it, really, you know, that's crazy. How did the
Speaker 1: lawsuits and stuff affect you, guys? If at all? I
Speaker 1: don't wanna, I don't want to say anything. You know,
Speaker 1: I know I knew Vada, right. But here's here's the simparioity,
Speaker 1: the fact that they claimed that they wrote lyrics and everything.
Speaker 1: How How because I know these songs and I know
Speaker 1: everything that she's talking about in the songs. You know,
Speaker 1: moving records on South Orange av right, Okay, I used
Speaker 1: to take records there, you know, to move in records
Speaker 1: on South Orange j ab. So why would why would
Speaker 1: those guys come up with that reference in that song?
Speaker 1: Why would they? How could they have wrote lost? Like?
Speaker 1: It's so crazy? But here's the biggest thing, right, and
Speaker 1: and here's what it is in the nutshell, if they,
Speaker 1: in fact were the ones who made this monumental contribution
Speaker 1: to this production, well why haven't they made a similar
Speaker 1: monumental contribution to somebody else's production since you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? And making another Yeah? That's uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess with all these due respect, James is not here too.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, James James. I know what James did.
Speaker 1: James James, he wrote the thing I'm like after a
Speaker 1: while it was just like Lauren did everything and then
Speaker 1: people was like wait minute, hold yeah, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: don't think one person does everything everything. Yeah, exactly, but
Speaker 1: it was a nice mark. It was needed at the time.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I know of some major, major
Speaker 1: market name producers who are out there who are given
Speaker 1: the ultimate credit for projects that they basically yeah, they
Speaker 1: would come in and listen to some mixes and say Okay,
Speaker 1: do this and do that and go home. And there's
Speaker 1: quite a few of them and they rely on a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Yeah, is all about Wow, the lessons
Speaker 1: we learned today, Chris, we thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. This year is the anniversary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, you'll know, we're just um, yes,
Speaker 1: we're What we're trying to do is to figure out
Speaker 1: the research. You get a definitive date and we're gonna
Speaker 1: probably use when we really just started with Colombia is
Speaker 1: the real anniversary, because that's when all the records that yeah,
Speaker 1: that would yeah, that would be uh yeah, thirty am.
Speaker 1: I forgot about how did you find DMX and why
Speaker 1: did you not? Uh we did we we well, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what the biggest problem was we never like
Speaker 1: it was a good song, but we didn't have the
Speaker 1: like I never really got to hang out with him
Speaker 1: or anything, you know. And we did this song Bord Loser,
Speaker 1: which at the time it was it was a good
Speaker 1: track for for when you look at the time when
Speaker 1: that came out that, yeah, that was good. But we
Speaker 1: only did a singles deal. And I think what happened
Speaker 1: was that by the time we started trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what the next move was, something had already elapsed.
Speaker 1: And I know that that Rough Riders had already And
Speaker 1: you know, I'll tell you this, I didn't get upset
Speaker 1: or anything because well, if I if I was so like,
Speaker 1: you know, like, if this was something that was important
Speaker 1: to me, I'd have been up on it. You know. Wow,
Speaker 1: who knew? Yeah, Well, I'll end all right, Chris. We
Speaker 1: thank you very much the bills, Sugar Steve and this
Speaker 1: quest Love Supreme, and we will see you on the
Speaker 1: next go round, all right, m hm. Of course. Love
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production of My Heart Radio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
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