Up next in 10
Easy A.D. of The Cold Crush Brothers On How This Iconic Group Impacted The Culture | LIVING LEGENDZ
Jun 1, 2022
#Ad To celebrate the Cheez-It x Pandora Aged by Audio product drop, we're also launching the first episode of #LivingLegendz, a new series bringing never before heard stories from the originators of hip-hop culture. These are the pioneers who have catapulted the genre to what it is today. Our first guest is Easy AD of one of the most iconic groups in hip-hop history: the Cold Crush Brothers.
Go to CheezItHQ.com to see if you can snag a box of Cheez-It x Pandora Aged by Audio and taste the flavor of hip-hop.
#CheezItPartner #Pandora #EasyAD #ColdCrushBrothers #SwaysUniverse
https://shop.cheezit.com
Subscribe Here! http://bit.ly/SubscribeSU
Watch the Best of Sway In The Morning! http://bit.ly/BestOfSITM
Check out More From Sway’s Universe
http://swaysuniverse.com
http://twitter.com/swaysuniverse
http://instagram.com/swaysuniverse
http://facebook.com/swaysuniverse
About SWAY’s UNIVERSE
Exclusive interviews from Sway Calloway and the Sway In The Morning/ SwaysUniverse.com team with some of today's biggest celebrities, like Kevin Hart, Kanye West, Eminem, Usher, Jessica Alba, Steve Aoki, Torey Lanez, Julia Stiles and so much more.
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:05
all right listen listen welcome welcome
0:07
to living legends i'm your host sway i'm
0:09
really excited about this this is our
0:11
first episode we're putting the
0:13
spotlight on some of the architects of
0:15
this culture we know and love called
0:17
hip-hop i'm joined by my right hand my
0:20
sniper the one and only rich nice
0:22
everybody give it up for rich nice hey
0:24
you got a little clap right there rich
0:26
all right
0:27
so today i'm honored i'm honored i can't
0:29
tell you how honored i am when i first
0:31
came and when i first started listening
0:33
to the music uh in northern california
0:35
out of oakland i used to listen on an am
0:38
transistor radio and there was a station
0:40
called k-pool in san francisco and
0:42
marcus clemens kk these are some of the
0:45
names of these legendary djs that would
0:47
play music and they would play music
0:49
from new york city and one of the first
0:51
songs i ever heard was super rhymes
0:54
another song that i heard was by
0:56
sequence i'm gonna funk you right on up
0:59
i'm gonna funk you right on up but one
1:02
of the first songs that really popped my
1:04
eyes open was a song called the weeknd
1:07
it was by a group called the cold crush
1:09
brothers man when you say that you got
1:12
to say it with power cold crush brothers
1:14
if you don't know who they are these
1:16
guys right here the cold crush brother
1:18
are very influential in the dna of what
1:21
we see in hip-hop today so when you
1:23
think of run dmc when you think of
1:25
leaders of the new school when you think
1:26
of outcasts when you think of toby and
1:28
wigway when you think of t-pain when you
1:31
think of ty dollar sign when you think
1:33
of drake
1:34
all of these artists have the cold crush
1:37
brothers dna
1:38
in their journey in their music in their
1:41
creativity whether they know it or not
1:44
and i have one of the original members
1:46
of the cold crust brothers with us right
1:48
now give it up for the legendary the
1:51
magnificent the first vegan of hip-hop
1:54
easy a.d
1:59
man what an introduction oh man i could
2:01
have kept going but i know we only got
2:03
so much time man you know uh when i
2:05
think of this is a true story though i i
2:08
really grew up listening to you all um i
2:10
remember when i first saw star wars that
2:12
was really the first
2:14
movie that i saw that kind of introduced
2:16
me to what it looks like and what it
2:17
feels like in the streets of new york
2:20
and and then soon after that i saw wild
2:22
style and once i saw wild style
2:24
i was hooked and since then i
2:27
i haven't let hip hop go it is who i am
2:31
and one of those famous scenes of on the
2:33
cold crust brothers and fantastic you
2:36
know on the schoolyard
2:38
going out going back to back in this
2:40
battle is kind of you know i took the
2:43
energy from that and that transferred in
2:45
everything i did in life
2:47
i looked at that the same way if you on
2:49
the basketball court you imagine
2:51
yourself being magic johnson or michael
2:53
jordan i imagine myself being easy ad
2:58
really wow that's that's a that's
3:00
monumental yeah man i appreciate your
3:03
reaction right there
3:06
but let's talk about your beginnings man
3:08
like when i
3:09
that's how i got hooked right you know
3:12
through the radio and hearing this music
3:14
and wanting to be a part of this world
3:16
how did you get hooked
3:18
well um i had i had the pleasure of um
3:21
growing up in the bronx i mean uh just
3:23
want to share the bronx is an incredible
3:25
uh place um
3:27
i think there first of all i think it's
3:28
some water special water that flows
3:30
through the bronx because if you look at
3:32
the bronx dna there's a lot of
3:34
interesting and eclectic people who have
3:36
come through the bronx or grew up in the
3:38
bronx
3:39
so
3:41
the way i got connected to the culture
3:42
hip-hop it was just like more like a
3:44
organic dna
3:46
there was a vibration of music that was
3:48
happening in the bronx at the time
3:51
there were i didn't know the names of
3:53
the people who were doing it at the time
3:54
but i knew that it was it was a music
3:56
that was connecting to my soul and my
3:59
dna it's like being born to be part of
4:01
something so my connection was
4:05
through the vibration of the music right
4:07
because our parents listened to certain
4:09
types of music but the music that i was
4:10
hearing from this other entity which now
4:14
we call hip-hop
4:16
um it drew me there
4:17
and um then the different elements that
4:20
you know the different components of the
4:22
hip-hop and i didn't want to be a b-boy
4:25
because i didn't you know i was just too
4:27
i felt that i was really too cool to get
4:29
down on the ground and dance absolutely
4:32
i felt that but i knew that i i knew
4:34
that you know i had a good oral thing i
4:36
could i could write rhymes and you know
4:37
so that's that's what i picked up
4:39
um and so i just started writing basic
4:41
rhymes um really i would say they would
4:44
say corny grimes presently but those
4:47
rhymes seemed like that was the greatest
4:48
things they ever created that's right um
4:49
and
4:50
music was a big thing in our schools uh
4:52
we had uh we had we had glee club um i
4:56
played trumpet i play bongos congos
4:59
um and so that was just another part of
5:02
of of my soul that was being put
5:04
together like a puzzle so that's how i
5:06
got involved that's how you got involved
5:08
in it man you remember remember any of
5:10
those first rhymes absolutely let me
5:12
hear it well i mean i wrote my first
5:13
rhyme when i was like nine years old
5:15
and so the different components that i
5:18
added to it was because i like
5:20
mathematics
5:22
um and i'm like school so i mean i wrote
5:25
it it goes like this it goes five plus
5:27
four minus seven equals two i don't
5:30
smoke any cheese or a carry bamboo i
5:32
don't drink no wine or sniff no cocaine
5:34
because all they do it messes up your
5:36
brain i just deal with life and society
5:39
my name is a.d harrisburg they call me
5:41
easy the e is for easy which i am at
5:43
times the a is for authority i have in
5:46
my rhymes and s is for school because
5:48
that's what i like and why it's for the
5:50
years i've been doing it right so a.d
5:52
y'all so what it be when i enter my
5:53
house i use my key come on man bars
5:56
bars at nine you wrote that at nine wow
5:59
yeah i want to talk about early time
6:01
because this is the early time when
6:03
you're rhyming and and and early days of
6:05
high school because i know in in high
6:08
school you know you're an athlete
6:10
and and part of that confidence is part
6:12
of the confidence you put into your mc
6:14
style and your mc skills
6:16
and um there's a there's a picture that
6:19
i believe that uh is captured of you and
6:21
some of your friends
6:23
um in high school
6:25
and some of these pictures were snapped
6:27
by a co
6:29
a co student of yours named joey
6:32
and at the time he was a school
6:33
photographer so tell us about that time
6:36
all right so
6:37
um
6:38
well my first school the first school i
6:40
wanted to go to was clinton
6:42
right because clinton was known for the
6:44
basketball history um i love
6:46
basketball um i played basketball since
6:49
i was eight years old
6:50
and i want to go to clinton because my
6:51
sister dated uh this gentleman his name
6:54
was anton perkins he played in clinton
6:57
so my i want to go to clinton because i
6:59
want they had rich basketball history i
7:02
wanted to play there
7:03
so
7:04
um
7:05
my first day of school i went to i went
7:07
to um i went to clinton
7:09
and i was able to walk in and walk out
7:12
i was like this is not for me
7:14
right there was no
7:16
like no regulations no rules like you
7:18
could just go into school and come out i
7:20
was like i went back home i said mom
7:22
i don't want to go there let's find
7:24
another school for me and it was a lot
7:26
of people right i like people but it was
7:29
a lot of people like four or five
7:30
thousand students at clinton
7:32
so my sister had just they had just
7:34
opened this new school called south
7:36
bronx it was it um and it was like maybe
7:38
250 students at the time
7:40
so um
7:42
i went there with my mom and they was
7:44
like well we can't come here but then we
7:46
said oh my sister goes here so they had
7:48
a program where if you had a sibling at
7:50
the school you would automatically go
7:51
there
7:52
so that's how i got into south bronx
7:54
high school
7:55
and um
7:58
i tried out for the basketball team um
8:00
it sounded nice i was i was pretty i
8:02
would say i was pretty i was pretty good
8:05
i mean i was a i was a point guard uh
8:08
very very knowledgeable about the game i
8:10
love basketball and i thought i thought
8:13
basketball like i didn't just play
8:14
basketball i thought basketball right so
8:17
i was a 10 and 10. 10 points 10 assists
8:20
i ran the show i directed everything
8:22
like you know go over here go over there
8:24
we had an incredible team it was a point
8:26
guard point guard absolutely so you know
8:28
the point guard has that thing right ego
8:31
meaning like ego to win um satisfy all
8:34
the other players um and because i had
8:37
so much extensive knowledge about
8:38
basketball and we had a coach that
8:40
didn't i really ran the show
8:43
doing practice set up
8:45
um
8:45
the press call you know 131 rebels swing
8:48
right swing left
8:50
um
8:51
and um in our first year in competition
8:54
um because they set up the b division
8:56
because we had a small school and they
8:57
had the a division for the largest
8:59
schools
8:59
we wanted we want to we wanted our
9:01
division yes we did so that was history
9:04
so that's one another history that we
9:05
did okay and on our team we had
9:07
incredible players um and um
9:10
i just love basketball like
9:12
in school they always say the girls are
9:14
faster than the guys that's correct
9:16
yeah because i remember like the young
9:18
lady saying well are you gonna come to
9:20
my house
9:21
i said come to your house and miss
9:22
school that's not going to happen
9:24
i come to the house i'm in school i
9:25
can't play basketball
9:27
so i was always a thinker like i never
9:29
was a react i didn't read i wasn't not
9:31
reactionary what i did i was always a
9:33
thinker so i love basketball so much and
9:36
music remember like so it's i'm i'm
9:38
working hand in hand just hand in hand
9:39
exactly i'm like there and you know
9:42
cold crust we just we're moving in the
9:44
realm and people are like start feeling
9:47
our flow and our style and you know and
9:50
you know so that's where i was when you
9:51
talk about basketball the correlation
9:53
between basketball and music so today
9:55
we'll see lebron james who's very
9:58
invested in the culture and hip-hop
9:59
you'll see people like iman sharper or
10:01
dame dollar you know who actually put
10:03
out music even shaquille o'neal you know
10:06
became huge right absolutely and so but
10:08
this didn't start then
10:10
this is this this didn't start now this
10:12
started then and so what time period are
10:15
we talking about i said uh 7980 okay at
10:18
that time um
10:20
and
10:22
i mean
10:24
basketball and music is just love i mean
10:26
what more could you want to do in life
10:28
play basketball and do music i mean
10:32
everywhere you go
10:33
you're like a celebrity you you go come
10:35
in the gym right guys look at you say yo
10:37
that looks like easy a d
10:39
like you play ball like you'll see
10:42
but that was high school right that's
10:45
correct so what was junior high like
10:47
well because well you remember you
10:49
weren't a member of cold crush no not
10:50
yet not yet no no no i remember you know
10:52
i was willing with ocelon brothers
10:54
let's talk about the salon bro
10:56
okay a salon brother so ocelon brothers
10:58
was myself um donald d
11:01
who ended up
11:02
being part of the rhyme center kid out
11:04
in l.a with ice-t
11:07
so me and donald grew up in this in the
11:08
boys club on whole avenue
11:10
uh boys and girls club in whole
11:11
available in the bronx um so we were
11:13
friends since we were maybe eight years
11:14
old
11:16
um the boys club kind of like honed my
11:19
my the way i look at life um the things
11:21
my values um the way that i see adults
11:24
how i function so the boyshop gave me
11:26
like stability meaning that um i learned
11:29
to swim at the boys club i played
11:31
basketball at the boys club i got my
11:32
first job at the boys club
11:34
um so i spent a lot of my life after
11:37
went to school elementary school
11:40
went to the aft school program then went
11:42
to the boys club um so um so that's
11:45
where um we met um dj rasheed
11:48
and dj stephanie
11:50
um and so
11:51
they said we forming a group and me and
11:53
donald's like we mcs
11:55
say well you're down so and then we got
11:57
this other guy named frank nitty well he
12:00
i don't frank i don't recall frank even
12:02
remember roman but he was part of the mc
12:04
crew
12:05
and but me and donald we did house
12:06
parties and stuff like that uh donald
12:08
lived in lambert at the time and i lived
12:11
on vice avenue um uh 1471
12:16
vice avenue uh-huh
12:18
what did y'all think was going to happen
12:20
when y'all formed this group like was
12:21
the plan to just do house parties or did
12:24
you think you would make a career out of
12:25
it we didn't we i don't think we ever
12:27
like we didn't know that word number one
12:29
career we didn't know the word career we
12:31
just knew that you would be popular in
12:33
your community number one the girls will
12:35
like you a lot okay um and um
12:39
it was just a vibration that you get
12:40
like you would get on you can tell your
12:42
story when you're emceeing like get up
12:43
there like you could boast and and feel
12:45
the flow so when you come in a place
12:47
everybody's like oh my god someone's
12:48
always here
12:49
but
12:50
we felt that we could be the best
12:52
right because
12:54
rasheed was like i'm going to become
12:56
better than flash grandmaster flash who
12:59
is my favorite dj of all times okay um
13:02
over herck uh well herc was a different
13:04
type of dj right so right so herc was
13:07
more of a dj that played the songs right
13:09
he played music okay and they played
13:11
them all out
13:12
flash
13:13
was just like he was like what they he
13:15
was like so electric meaning i'm a
13:18
little to me i'm a little kid
13:20
i'm watching this
13:21
this this this person
13:24
orchestrate
13:25
like instruments
13:27
music going back and forth i mean i just
13:29
i was just in awe of his skill so i
13:32
didn't i didn't i was an emcee but my
13:35
first love was a dj uh-huh
13:38
it felt like everybody at that time
13:41
didn't do just one thing that's true you
13:43
know what i mean it was discovery i
13:45
think i think at that time a lot of you
13:47
know you wanted to rap because you
13:49
enjoyed it you wanted to dj because it
13:51
fascinated you you would dance because
13:53
you could meet a girl you know but it
13:55
was the trifecta you did them all you
13:57
might even wrote on a wall because you
13:59
just was with some people who wrote on
14:00
walls and so it was so undefined
14:03
you wanted to figure out what you really
14:05
liked and what you enjoyed the most so
14:07
what you playing a lot of basketball
14:09
and then eventually going from the
14:11
asalam brothers
14:12
how did you transfer from the asalam
14:14
brothers to coal crush all right so
14:17
um
14:18
we were scheduled to play it was april
14:22
october 5th
14:24
um i don't i think 1987 88 whatever 187
14:28
88 we were scheduled to play at this um
14:32
at the sparkle
14:34
and the sparkle burned down was that a
14:36
club yeah it was a club right on jerome
14:37
avenue 78 78 78 it burned down yeah yeah
14:40
so we were skipped ocelon brothers was
14:42
scheduled to play at the sparkle
14:43
and it burned down
14:45
then
14:46
in december
14:48
so we just kept that was like a big
14:49
space to play at spark was like a real
14:51
real big place to play it and so then in
14:53
december
14:54
new year's i mean christmas eve we
14:56
booked the dixie club
14:58
and uh so for us to play but then the
15:02
man the guy who owned the dixie club
15:03
called rasheed and said oh
15:06
we're gonna have to move your date
15:08
uh because another more established
15:09
group wanted that date and we're going
15:11
to give it to them and that was
15:12
grandmaster flash interference now back
15:14
story about the dixie club that's where
15:16
in the movie wild style you see
15:18
fantastic five and cold crush battle
15:21
inside the dixie club that's in the
15:22
bronx that's literally down the street
15:24
from where i used to live and so you
15:26
could literally would walk up and go to
15:28
the dixie and
15:29
it on film it looked amazing but in real
15:31
life it really wasn't that it wasn't
15:34
so so so your favorite dj was the reason
15:36
you couldn't perform it gave us an
15:38
opportunity to see see them up close and
15:40
personal uh-huh so we got chairs and we
15:42
sat at the at the ropes so one of the
15:45
things a lot of people hear in rhymes
15:47
and records you know don't go beyond the
15:50
rope
15:51
so the rope was there to separate the
15:54
the
15:55
artists from the people uh-huh and if
15:57
you didn't have any clout
15:59
or any reputation you did not go under
16:01
that rope because if you went into that
16:03
rope they would they would they would
16:05
you you get hurt
16:06
okay
16:07
so that's a serious deal so we sat at
16:10
the rope
16:11
all night so remember i'm i'm not even
16:13
13 yet
16:14
i don't remember my age but i'll figure
16:16
it out
16:18
sitting in here watching flash
16:20
it wasn't about the mcs at the time for
16:22
me it was about flash and what he did on
16:24
the turntable was like then he pulled
16:26
out this thing
16:27
and they call it the beatbox
16:30
and he was like
16:32
i was like oh my god and rasheed was
16:34
angry
16:35
he's like i'm going to be better than
16:37
him so he just went in practice and he
16:39
kept practicing so me and donald we
16:41
started doing like you know we did
16:42
lambert center we started doing
16:44
community centers like that so we was
16:46
building a reputation
16:47
for our skills and then rasheed
16:50
stephanie got pregnant and roshi said
16:52
i'm moving back to jamaica
16:54
and that was it
16:56
so you was without a group at that point
16:57
that is correct
16:58
okay i'm i'm i'm i'm here okay so so
17:02
what was going through your mind i was
17:04
hurt uh-huh it's like losing somebody
17:06
you love
17:07
so i lost i i lost my
17:10
my my dj our dj
17:13
our dj female and the male dj so
17:15
stephanie was a dj as well that's early
17:18
on before
17:19
ladies were djing she was djing
17:22
and
17:23
and so we had nothing to do and
17:26
me and donald
17:27
went to try out
17:30
for
17:30
africa islam
17:33
a group uh-huh and the funk machine
17:36
so we went there we rhymed hard came
17:38
hard
17:39
and um they didn't choose me okay they
17:41
chose donald uh-huh
17:43
and i saw this guy named gordy b he was
17:45
like yo they we chose donald i was like
17:47
goodness gracious like what's going on
17:49
like
17:50
i'm i'm like i'm like lonely i'm lonely
17:52
to do
17:53
to do hip-hop
17:54
and so um
17:56
then i ran into
17:58
tony
18:02
tony tone so you got to break down who
18:04
tony tone is oh man
18:06
and um and how that meeting happened
18:09
that first encounter with tony tong
18:11
happened so
18:12
tony tone is the founder
18:15
of the cole chris brothers he's the one
18:17
who came up with the name
18:19
he's like what you call an owner
18:21
if you in basketball terms
18:23
so
18:24
tony chong was also part of the brothers
18:26
disco um dj baron breakout and the funky
18:30
original and the funky the funky four
18:32
okay that had raheem kk rockwell
18:35
okay raheem who eventually went to grand
18:37
master flash in a furious five that is
18:39
correct years later okay so tony tone
18:42
used to
18:43
um hooked um the sound system up called
18:46
the sasquatch so in the early days of
18:48
hip-hop everyone had their own sound
18:50
system so the sasquatch
18:53
was
18:54
the cleanest most pure sound that you
18:57
ever want to hear
19:00
it was so
19:01
dope like
19:02
it was just it was like the sasquatch
19:04
like it was big sound was big the mcs
19:07
you could hear them breathe on the
19:08
microphone it was so clear they had the
19:10
shure microphones incredible so tony
19:12
tone was he put that system together
19:15
and tony tone saw how
19:18
groups
19:19
would bicker over little things so he
19:22
decided that he wanted to create his own
19:23
group and get away from that and he
19:25
created the co-chris brothers and when i
19:26
met tony tony was like a super super
19:28
senior like i guess he was in high
19:29
school for like
19:31
like 35 years
19:32
[Laughter]
19:33
so he's to come tony used to be he used
19:36
to be in the cafeteria with his head
19:38
down
19:41
with a briefcase
19:44
and so
19:46
for a couple of weeks we saw him and no
19:47
one said anything to him
19:49
and then i said this guy his name was
19:50
charles i sent them over there charles
19:52
looked like the guy from the mad book
19:54
with the missing tooth yeah so when you
19:55
see charles you can't do anything you
19:57
like going smile at him you're going to
19:58
show him love
20:00
um so we sent charles over there to
20:01
bring tony to the table with all the
20:03
book where the team was so he brought
20:04
him over there and tony vibe
20:07
and tony was like yo i totally said i'm
20:08
starting my own group called coke and
20:10
i'm naming it the cold chris brothers i
20:12
said so my mc he said you're down just
20:14
like that's it you didn't have to
20:16
audition or nothing he never heard you
20:18
rap never at that time who were the
20:20
other members of the group or were you
20:21
the first it was it was no other members
20:23
of the group it was just me i was the
20:24
first one he put down he said but
20:26
i have this latino brother that i've
20:28
been watching
20:29
his name is charlie chase he's with this
20:32
group called tom and jerry now back in
20:34
the early days of hip-hop
20:37
the disco djs played music and they get
20:39
they used to give the hip-hop dj like 20
20:41
minutes for the whole evening just to
20:43
play music
20:44
so charlie chase was that guy tony tone
20:46
was so masterful with his thinking that
20:49
he said
20:50
i'm not interested in being a head dj
20:53
i want to put this guy in the forefront
20:55
because i understand his talent
20:57
and that's what he did he brought in
20:58
charlie chase
21:00
and um then you know
21:03
the group changed we had different
21:04
members from different times but we
21:06
formulated the co-crest that they know
21:08
of today like the know of today right
21:10
yes who were the original members though
21:12
okay so we're going to go to original
21:14
membership kind of saw how you did you
21:16
kind of
21:18
hop skipped and jumped over there
21:20
i didn't know what happened obviously my
21:21
skill my skills are not hidden
21:23
[Music]
21:24
so the original members is um
21:27
uh dj tony tone
21:29
we called he was the original dj tony
21:31
tone at the time
21:32
dj charlie's chase uh-huh it was uh easy
21:36
ad
21:37
mr t mr t mr t-bone
21:41
and then there was whipple whipping down
21:43
a rock the whip okay all right see okay
21:46
that'll rock okay see these are names
21:49
when i was a kid with that transistor
21:51
radio that i was hearing right and now
21:55
i'm sitting next to you
21:57
safe to say that the culture aged really
21:59
well would you say that i would say
22:01
absolutely i agree with you one hundred
22:03
percent yeah so that was i was the
22:05
original members and then
22:07
whipping women down the rock decided to
22:08
go and move to
22:10
move to another group that they felt
22:11
that he would be more
22:13
more established than us at the time and
22:15
t-bone just disappeared
22:17
what do you mean he disappeared he just
22:18
disappeared like he just didn't finish
22:20
we didn't see him anymore rich so lucky
22:22
because rich was in the bronx when all
22:24
of this as a kid this was happening what
22:26
were you doing like were you aware of
22:27
these people i was and it's interesting
22:30
because
22:31
i come from my own little group in the
22:33
neighborhood and
22:34
you know
22:36
as as you come up in the neighborhood
22:37
young
22:38
you just want to be on the flyer with
22:40
the guys yeah we just want to even if
22:43
you could just get in the party you just
22:44
want to get in and let me get on the mic
22:46
for a second you know and if someone's
22:49
saying come here surely take the mic
22:51
that made your yeah he was like yo i was
22:53
on the mic well yo
22:55
tony trump let me on the mic no he
22:57
didn't yeah i'm telling you charlie
22:58
chase was cutting what yeah easy he was
23:00
there you know dr rock was there or
23:02
whoever was there he was excited about
23:04
it so as a kid
23:06
that was our motivation yeah and to be
23:08
like them and absolutely and then and
23:10
then when you go back to school and the
23:12
girls hear the story
23:14
you already know what it is because you
23:16
know you that's your that's your
23:18
motivation outside of you being good in
23:20
basketball your motivation is how am i
23:21
get the girl's attention so they see you
23:23
can rap people talking about you corrupt
23:25
oh i heard you was rapping out of the
23:26
night block yeah stay around for me then
23:28
you pull up to the side you say a little
23:30
rhyme you know whatever it is you're
23:32
like oh he's cute he can rap and now the
23:33
word goes around the school that you can
23:35
rap
23:37
so he said he said something a key point
23:39
that we kind of we we need to talk about
23:42
flyers so flyers was what we how we
23:45
promoted our shows
23:47
and if your name appeared on the fly
23:49
that means that you were somebody
23:50
special
23:51
to get your name on the fly was a big
23:53
deal yeah it didn't matter whether you
23:54
was djing mcn or doing nothing your name
23:58
was on that flyer you had clout like you
24:00
so what they used to do is get people to
24:02
give out flies and they say i'll put
24:04
your name on the flyer
24:06
and that's how you would get on the
24:08
flyer and that would make you really a
24:09
celebrity that's correct right you'll
24:11
become a local celebrity would you like
24:13
in the flyer of back then to the
24:15
instagram post of today yes absolutely
24:19
yeah it was we had some very like unique
24:22
flyer makers um
24:24
we had buddy esquire
24:26
and again limit your his connection you
24:28
talked about the connection how you
24:30
connected and how you got connected to
24:31
the culture and us as well tony tone
24:34
brought buddy esquire into the into the
24:36
culture to do flyers
24:38
wow
24:39
um
24:40
i'm okay so now i'm
24:42
okay now i'm in my toy store right now
24:44
right at that time
24:48
see the
24:49
the way that the culture migrated to the
24:51
west for us
24:52
right
24:54
you did have people who were doing
24:56
things early on in the late 70s in the
24:59
80s in la but i was in the bay
25:02
all right and so you would hear about
25:03
the la dream team egyptian lover
25:06
l.a posse you know
25:08
a lot of people were doing incredible
25:10
things out there at that time
25:13
i wanted to know i couldn't tell what
25:16
was more important to be an emcee
25:20
to be a b-boy to dance or to be a dj
25:24
what held the most
25:26
significance at that well if you go if
25:28
you go through errors right everything
25:30
has had its importance depending on the
25:32
like error so the dj is the was at one
25:35
time the most important thing okay
25:37
because the dj vibration
25:39
applied was all about the dj then
25:42
it became about
25:44
actually the the mc
25:46
yeah maybe b-boy came before that right
25:48
so the b-boys became because it was the
25:50
music then the b-boys and b-girls right
25:53
get on the floor and make the crowd go
25:55
crazy doing flips netflix doing spend
25:57
legs and all right so then the mc
26:00
and when the mc came into play it
26:02
changed the whole vibration of the
26:03
particular party and what was important
26:06
the mcs there is no mc that can say they
26:09
started a group
26:11
but djs started groups
26:14
so it was the dj then it was maybe the b
26:16
boy
26:17
then the mc
26:19
so
26:20
is there a standout emcee of that time
26:23
that helped catapult the importance of
26:25
the mc to the front
26:27
well there's different levels right so
26:29
um
26:29
of mcn so
26:31
um one of the first mc's documented in
26:33
the culture hip-hop in history is
26:35
cochlear rock okay what type of emcee
26:38
was he so you'd have to look down the
26:39
history to see what he did what he
26:40
delivered and how he presented himself
26:43
and then it started evolving where the
26:46
mc became more significant so the first
26:48
mc would say hey so-and-so is in the
26:50
house and then
26:53
sometimes when you're in the park
26:55
the park jams they call
26:57
we said your mother's at the gate
26:59
so-and-so mother is at the gate and it's
27:02
the most embarrassing thing your
27:04
mother's at the gate
27:05
um so so so the mc would announce the
27:08
next announce the parties announce who's
27:10
in the house
27:11
and things like that and then it became
27:13
where you start rhyming so
27:16
and that took it to a whole nother level
27:17
and then you had um so there was emcees
27:19
like
27:21
uh
27:24
mel
27:25
nelly mel okay mel um we had uh um
27:29
scorpio who was known as mr ness at the
27:31
time
27:32
and we had cowboy now cowboy to me
27:36
was more a very smooth he had like a
27:39
sultry voice like he was a real man he
27:42
was like he was like he was like a sex
27:43
symbol as far as like his voice and the
27:46
way he presented himself and then we had
27:48
creole k creole was like
27:49
charismatic
27:51
he would go back and forth on the stage
27:54
and kikrio could rock an echo chamber
27:57
he's like
27:58
kid creole crow solid goat like it was
28:01
like a technique and a skill like people
28:04
look at it as something small but back
28:06
then echo chamber and the flow was like
28:08
incredible and they had that so that was
28:11
the group like those three guys
28:13
and i mean four guys was it man they
28:15
they set the standard at the time
28:17
and they used to play everywhere also
28:19
they had um
28:21
they had a gypsy emcee i would call them
28:23
a gypsy because the gypsy goes from
28:24
group to group okay they had um busy b
28:26
chief rocker yeah he was a gypsy so he
28:28
would be at
28:32
that group he was that group and then
28:33
you had um
28:35
you had um master rob kevin kevin
28:37
like master rob had that voice that deep
28:40
voice and like it was just incredible
28:42
and kevin kevin was like one of the most
28:44
incredible showmen at the time where
28:46
kevin kevin was like one of the first
28:48
mcs to do things that a lot of people
28:50
were doing like in the late in the 80s
28:52
where kev would wear american flag
28:54
around his neck okay he would wear like
28:56
the the the the racing motorcycle
28:58
motorcycle helmet uh-huh so kev was like
29:01
a
29:02
inspiration like he he he was he he was
29:04
he he set some stuff in fire kev was a
29:07
sex symbol
29:08
absolutely yeah was he like the first
29:10
i wouldn't say the first one definitely
29:13
i mean it was fashionable
29:14
with that motorcycle hat uh-huh you
29:16
pulled up in the jam with that
29:17
motorcycle helmet on it was just like
29:20
the stop it was stopped because it was
29:21
like the the um the german one that like
29:24
schultz would wear that you know the
29:25
half one was crazy but you brought up
29:27
something that was very important i took
29:29
about the echo chamber and so the echo
29:31
chamber from how i remember hurt was
29:33
kind of the first one to bring out the
29:35
echo chamber but it was just
29:37
cool hurt yes it was kind of like rock
29:38
the house house kind of vibe and then
29:41
creole
29:42
was like from my understanding from my
29:44
team even hand tapes nobody rocked the
29:46
echo chamber better than creole
29:48
but cold crush did something
29:50
where you guys backed each other up and
29:52
made your vocal echo chamber without the
29:55
echo chamber that's correct and and so
29:57
explain to us a little bit about that
29:59
style so
30:00
um
30:01
it's like we so we would go like yes yes
30:04
yo yes sure yes yo yes your fresh
30:09
so it was a it was like a rhythm like it
30:12
was like a drum like boom boom boom boom
30:14
it's like a heartbeat
30:16
and that was just like it was like we
30:18
were just backing each other up giving
30:19
more power and
30:21
inspiration to that particular word
30:23
and if you hear auntie up
30:26
that's us right there right auntie up
30:28
that's
30:29
that is the coco's brothers right there
30:31
that flow is us when i heard that i was
30:34
like oh that's
30:35
that's us the mlp antioxidant yeah
30:37
oh yeah that's that that's cold crush
30:40
bruh yes sir
30:42
what what how many groups would that
30:44
you've heard that you've heard yourself
30:46
send like um mlp
30:49
i would say a lot a lot of them right so
30:52
i look i look at i look at hip-hop as
30:53
like culture and dna right yeah and
30:56
there's trees there's seeds right that
30:58
that's in the ground and then the tree
30:59
grows and they get branches so that's
31:01
part of the family so at no time
31:04
um i want to ever be disrespectful to
31:06
anyone who laid down their foundation
31:08
yeah so you look at you look at the
31:11
things the ones jurassic five jurassic
31:13
five for sure um um ron dean brenda see
31:16
him uh which is uh leaders of the new
31:18
school
31:19
um mlp
31:21
and
31:22
and who else and even you look at like
31:24
trap coco tribe called quest but if you
31:26
look at even individuals like you know
31:28
when you look at a
31:29
like a j uh and where he got his his
31:33
history from his is his man um jazzo
31:36
who was an incredible cockroach uh fan
31:39
and us being in brooklyn doing the first
31:41
red hook day in 1981 okay and if those
31:44
of you who don't know what red hook is
31:46
if you didn't live in red hook you
31:48
didn't go to the red voter
31:50
one way in one way one way that's right
31:52
so
31:53
red hook brooklyn was an incredible
31:54
place and
31:55
so
31:56
those groups and some other people that
31:58
i can't i'm thinking right now but i'll
32:00
be passed
32:01
yeah that's okay
32:02
mob yeah there you go so you're helping
32:04
me out that's what i'm good about this
32:05
is what i could you could even like
32:07
shake shake shake um shake shake it like
32:09
that sounds like punk rock crap yeah
32:11
sounds just like punk rock rap so i mean
32:14
we're honored right we look at that as
32:16
like
32:17
that's an incredible thing right you
32:19
injected something into the world
32:22
and now people are taking parts of it
32:23
and making it you know better
32:26
when you when you look at the outcast
32:28
because that that song became a huge hit
32:30
i believe that album went diamond right
32:33
and and they got to
32:34
rightfully so this is not a knock on
32:36
them i'm happy for them those my
32:38
brothers we helped break their music in
32:40
northern california at a time when no
32:42
one was playing southern player listed
32:43
cadillac music we were playing their
32:45
music because they were from the south
32:48
so at that time you couldn't really get
32:50
play on the east coast because you
32:51
weren't from the east and so we you know
32:54
we really received them open arms they
32:56
had a lot of success
32:58
you guys weren't able to reap the
33:00
benefits
33:02
financially of the success that others
33:04
have that have your dna
33:06
in their in their career and their music
33:08
and their in they're creative would you
33:10
trade
33:11
that you know your history for the fame
33:14
and success absolutely for the finance
33:16
absolutely not i would never
33:18
economics and money is just
33:20
um
33:20
[Music]
33:22
not that big of a deal for me okay i
33:23
think history
33:25
is one of the most important things to
33:27
me um it will always be important to me
33:30
and um i would always go with the
33:32
history i mean other members of my group
33:34
would not feel the same way
33:37
but i think that like history is what is
33:39
so significant on many different levels
33:42
um
33:43
and
33:44
it it's ever giving
33:46
it never goes away like history is it's
33:49
like it's there i love history i think
33:51
like the things that we've done in
33:53
in in our culture and when you're doing
33:56
it you don't you don't really
33:58
like know you're doing it yeah right
34:00
you're just doing it you're just flowing
34:01
i just like what we did as far as our
34:04
flow our style we change
34:08
the way you could be at mc yes and an
34:10
nfc group
34:12
right so you look at the cole chris
34:13
brothers right you have two dj's for mc
34:17
and you have four super intelligent
34:19
brothers right
34:20
that
34:21
all have a specialty
34:23
and when you put that together it's like
34:25
it's like it's like it's like neutrons
34:26
and electrons and atoms you bring it
34:28
together and it's an explosion
34:30
um beyond like anything you can anything
34:33
that you can conceive so we look at it
34:35
that way so one of the things that we
34:36
did and what we did as far as our group
34:39
is concerned we didn't want to be
34:40
popcorn yeah we didn't want to be corny
34:43
so we would take a song like um harry
34:45
chaffin
34:46
cast in the cradle and the silver spoon
34:48
little boy blowing the man on the moon
34:51
you know and we would take that melody
34:54
and write orion a routine to it now
34:58
in our lifetime we have we had of course
35:00
one of the most prolific emcees on the
35:02
planet
35:03
i mean i mean he he was born to m.c
35:06
grand master character that's what he is
35:08
family right sitting in the room and we
35:11
just like we all giving out whatever our
35:13
pieces and stuff like that and he
35:14
masterfully put it together
35:16
and we came out with other mc's can't
35:18
deal with us and we use rocket in the
35:19
pocket
35:20
that like blew people's mind like it
35:22
blew your mind they blew it it was like
35:24
like it was like they have they was
35:26
having a mental orgasm when they heard
35:27
them like
35:28
what's that so that changed
35:30
how you how you could be an emcee you
35:32
couldn't just take something off
35:34
television
35:35
and write a rhyme to it like no
35:37
disrespect uh no i'm not gonna i i take
35:40
that back
35:41
to give you a a better understanding
35:43
like the four seventies okay they were
35:46
the foursome c's like they did like
35:48
[Music]
35:50
some d's now we just thought that was
35:53
really corny
35:55
it was just it was like it was like it
35:57
was too simple right it was too simple
35:59
um
36:01
and that was it so we would create
36:02
something like
36:03
giganto
36:05
the cold crush
36:08
the cold crush
36:10
the
36:13
[Music]
36:25
we was like power like it was like you
36:27
building a power to explode and every
36:29
time we we
36:31
we would rehearse we were sitting in the
36:33
room
36:34
it was like being in like a think tank
36:38
well i can only imagine that but you
36:40
have to be proud of like impact is
36:42
important you you may not get the
36:44
royalties but
36:46
you made the impact how proud of you of
36:49
you know like we're in 2022 for it and
36:53
we're having a conversation about the
36:55
cold crush brothers and all these
36:57
different artists that have been
36:58
impacted by what you guys brought to the
37:00
game how important is that to you i mean
37:02
it's number one is is super honorable
37:05
right um
37:07
and it humbles you understanding that
37:09
your
37:10
your your plight in your in the world is
37:12
not over i mean like you have so much
37:14
more to give
37:15
that was one
37:16
section of your life you gave that
37:18
information
37:19
you gave information that changed the
37:22
vibration of the entire world not just
37:25
your borough not your city
37:27
but the entire world and it's just good
37:30
it's good to know that i mean what else
37:32
could you ask for i mean
37:33
people live every day and they don't
37:34
contribute anything to to to the world
37:37
and we lived we're living and still
37:39
living and we still contributing things
37:41
in the world and that's just one section
37:44
which is a major section and i'm just
37:46
honored i'm honored and we're on it i'm
37:48
sure to to be part of that you know it's
37:50
funny because you guys have always been
37:53
ahead of your time and i'm gonna tell
37:54
this story and i know you might not want
37:56
me to tell this story but i i growing up
37:59
i lived in the neighborhood in the south
38:01
bronx and you guys were
38:04
you know as far as we were concerned
38:07
mega stars
38:09
and you hadn't recorded a record as of
38:11
yet
38:12
and
38:13
but you guys still had business you had
38:16
your own parties that you did um you
38:18
even had posters
38:20
and there was a girl that you used to
38:22
date that lived on my block that had a
38:24
poster of you and this girl would walk
38:27
around with this poster and brag and go
38:29
you know who my man is and she will pull
38:32
out the poster and open it up and i'll
38:33
go easy id you yeah and she's like yeah
38:36
and then she would roll up the poster
38:38
and then take it back upstairs in the
38:39
house and i'm like
38:41
how does this guy have a poster it was
38:43
poster pimping you yo it was crazy
38:46
i'm like how does he have a poster and
38:48
it was like they had posters so it's
38:51
like what even made you would you think
38:53
to even print posters at this stage i
38:56
would tell you like one of the things
38:57
that
38:59
all right
39:00
i love history
39:01
so
39:02
i wanted to make sure number one we had
39:04
a photographer
39:05
that would come to all of our shows and
39:07
take pictures because i wanted to make
39:08
sure i had pictures of my history this
39:10
is me right selfish
39:12
now
39:14
elvis moreno who is the original tape
39:16
master so you they may call it mixtape
39:18
now but he's the original tape master
39:20
he sold
39:21
our tape so we didn't talk about the
39:23
tapes yet oh we got to get to that right
39:25
but we had this guy named larry well i
39:27
knew we knew larry and larry easton said
39:29
i'm going to take a picture
39:31
and i'm going to blow it up into posters
39:34
because we wanted every time we had a
39:36
show we wanted to give out 50
39:38
photographs and 50 posters so
39:41
our audience knew
39:43
they knew they couldn't recognize us
39:44
visually because some people couldn't
39:46
come to our shows they could only hear
39:47
it on tape right so visual is important
39:50
to me so we used to give out posters
39:54
and and pictures
39:56
and so because i was
39:58
considered a very handsome young man i
40:01
still are man
40:05
he was the sex symbol of the group okay
40:07
let's just let me just call a spade a
40:08
spade you was the sex symbol of the
40:10
group but you you even wanted to hear as
40:13
long as mine he had long braids the
40:15
girls wanted they were screaming
40:18
it was it was like it was fantastic it
40:20
was crazy you said it was
40:23
it was crazy i mean yeah i mean i didn't
40:25
want to i didn't want to go there i mean
40:26
i had to because i mean we wanted to i'm
40:29
at the party we trying to open for y'all
40:30
i'm watching the girls i'm like we're
40:32
going to open for them
40:33
for them like yeah i mean it was it was
40:35
incredible so i mean you would drink
40:38
i mean honestly i mean honestly i would
40:39
tell you this man it was
40:41
it was incredible like the energy that
40:43
you get like to be able to have that
40:45
power
40:46
right at such a young age
40:48
right
40:49
and you just kiss you can kiss i mean i
40:51
i remember we played somewhere
40:54
and and this girl ran up and said i
40:55
kissed her she just fell out
40:57
she passed down
40:59
like passed out now this is before
41:01
records really passed out
41:07
photographer no the photographer wasn't
41:08
there
41:09
but the interesting thing that everybody
41:11
can back the story because if she fell
41:13
out
41:14
she felt like
41:15
hit the floor and then
41:17
so the crowd started moving
41:19
because her man was there
41:22
and as he approached the stage our
41:24
security team said dude don't take
41:25
another step
41:27
you don't want to do that
41:28
so what they did is at the end of the
41:30
show
41:31
they took me into the room like i'm the
41:33
president of the united states
41:34
two got two guys outside they took
41:37
everybody upstairs and got him in the
41:38
limousine and everything then they came
41:40
and got me and threw me in the car and
41:42
then we drove off the thing i mean that
41:44
was so incredible i was like what like
41:46
is this what it's all about and then one
41:48
time we played it on
41:50
in
41:51
in in a roller skating rink in brooklyn
41:54
we walked in
41:57
i was
41:58
i just felt that i had to be very
41:59
professional right
42:01
i was just it was important for me
42:04
to
42:05
not talk to the audience before we
42:08
perform so i still always go in straight
42:10
to the dresser to the dressing room so
42:12
we come in
42:13
we have maybe four or five security
42:15
people with us and they're not really
42:17
they call them security they was family
42:19
that protected us
42:20
and we didn't know we don't we didn't
42:22
use the word security it was family so
42:24
we walk in
42:25
and then the girls turn around they go
42:27
oh it's him so they just run
42:29
they they come
42:30
and they start pulling my hair
42:33
and grabbing my
42:35
my jacket you know pulling my my private
42:38
parts and i'm just standing there and
42:39
everything hurts
42:41
and i'm like can you let my ear go you
42:44
don't have to do this like
42:46
i didn't know that it could be pain as
42:47
well yeah and so i mean i use that to my
42:50
advantage
42:51
um you know as a young man you super ego
42:54
having that power because that's a lot
42:55
of power and sometimes it can be abusive
42:57
but i mean i was you know me and kevin
42:59
kevin actually looked like brothers
43:01
right so so when they saw kev they saw
43:04
me as like yo just kev your brother
43:05
kevin look at me say yeah that's my
43:06
brother that's my brother so i mean that
43:08
was a big deal that was a big big deal
43:10
back then i mean like the girls just
43:11
young at this time i was young i wasn't
43:13
even 18 yet
43:16
it's interesting but but quickly let's
43:18
talk about some of these cold crush
43:20
tapes oh yeah and tape master because
43:22
you know i joke about this but
43:25
in new york city
43:27
at that time
43:29
if you didn't have a fight over a cold
43:31
crushed tape you really wasn't into
43:32
hip-hop
43:33
because you had a fight over this tape
43:35
because somebody would even take your
43:36
tape pop your tape sneak thief your tape
43:40
or or or something with your coat crush
43:42
tape and it would always be a problem
43:44
like it would be like it was my tape
43:46
back where's my cup oh i dubbed it and
43:48
my sister popped it by accident
43:51
fight popped off every time and and the
43:53
only place you can get the tapes if he
43:55
wasn't at the gym was from tape master
43:57
we had a spot over on tree mark up on
43:59
the on the side of the hill and it
44:01
wasn't really a nice neighborhood to go
44:03
get the flea market and a little it was
44:05
it was tough over there you know and so
44:06
you would go until your friends come
44:08
with you and y'all will all go
44:10
you're only buying one tape
44:12
but all of y'all going together might be
44:13
six people to go buy one tape
44:17
so
44:19
again history is important to me
44:22
elvis moreno who's the original tape
44:23
master was my friend in fourth grade how
44:25
i met him
44:27
he walked to the classroom and he's like
44:29
he was chunky so so the students started
44:31
like teasing him so i was like leave him
44:33
alone stop
44:35
that was just it
44:36
and we were french from that point on
44:39
but the interesting thing about the
44:40
tapes is
44:43
the tapes went from
44:45
the bronx to brooklyn queen staten
44:47
island and then
44:48
out out of out of barrel then it went
44:51
out of the country because people were
44:52
sending their tapes uh tapes to their
44:55
family that was in the army germany
44:56
japan so we had like tapes all over the
45:00
world this is before records this was
45:02
before the internet that's that's
45:04
correct okay right right yeah and people
45:06
was like oh my god so
45:08
our um brand was big
45:11
all over the planet
45:13
just because of the tape master
45:16
and those tapes were like twenty dollars
45:18
in nineteen eighty eighty one they were
45:20
twenty dollars that's that's a lot of
45:22
money the money in eighty eighty one
45:24
that's what i said it's six people but i
45:26
wanna go back to the tapes because
45:28
i like to kind of make the correlation
45:31
so folks will understand when we talk
45:33
about how the culture aged really well
45:35
and it adjusts
45:37
right you adjust with the times it's
45:39
almost like evolution evolves so what we
45:42
know now as the internet
45:44
really
45:45
that's what the tape was for us that's
45:47
how the information got worldwide and
45:50
people could listen to the same thing
45:52
simultaneously in japan and france that
45:55
they're here in new york and cali so
45:57
that was important did you expect
45:59
well how much of the 20
46:01
fee did y'all get no nothing
46:03
so it wasn't about again
46:06
it wasn't about money okay right so
46:09
because he was off he was my friend
46:11
right
46:12
i used to be in this house all the time
46:14
so you know i had a different
46:16
relationship with him than the other
46:18
members
46:19
um
46:20
it wasn't about the money it was it was
46:21
just like you was part of the family
46:23
that was your thing you did your thing
46:25
but but how many tasks might he say not
46:27
a lot because i've been with him i've
46:29
been with him
46:30
where we go to like 42nd street and he
46:33
and he have 20 tapes and they all they
46:35
already purchased we walk in sit down
46:38
people just come in
46:40
and no we wasn't it wasn't we didn't
46:42
look at economics that way it wasn't
46:43
about money
46:45
it wasn't that's crazy to me that's
46:47
what's
46:48
about the teams though
46:50
we had him plug in directly to the
46:52
system
46:53
that's why it takes was so clear so one
46:55
of the things that was
46:56
different between our tapes and other
46:58
people tapes that they taped has static
46:59
on it you hear a lot of
47:02
okay because people would take the radio
47:04
and go to the jam and put the radio in
47:06
front of the speaker and press record
47:08
right and that's how they got the tape
47:09
so you would hear that no distortion
47:12
our taste was clear you can make 20
47:15
copies of it it's clear
47:17
and that was that was important to me
47:19
like
47:20
i don't know why but it was important to
47:22
me at the time
47:23
and
47:24
there was a car called oj right an old
47:27
cab company oj you put oj on home for
47:30
just 40 for the entire day they take you
47:32
everywhere
47:34
so
47:34
when you get into oj whoever was hot
47:38
they had your tape in there
47:39
now the only tape the only tapes that i
47:41
have ever i don't which you may not the
47:44
only tips i ever heard in in o.j carr
47:46
was
47:47
flash and the furious or the furious and
47:50
cold crush
47:51
i've never
47:53
heard not i'm not saying that it didn't
47:55
happen but i never heard any of the
47:57
groups tapes in oj now he's he explained
48:00
to you you could be playing ball full
48:03
court you know you play outside the
48:04
summer your radio is down here you got a
48:06
cockroach tape in there you go down take
48:08
a shot you come back your tape is gone
48:10
nobody knows where it is
48:12
it's gone
48:14
it was like gold
48:16
it was no it take the tapes the tape
48:18
thing was like you would see friendships
48:20
break up over tapes you'll see people
48:22
get jumped over a tape
48:25
like literally fist fights over a tape
48:27
and you're like yo where's my tape at
48:29
and as soon as you start
48:30
like it's a fight
48:32
you like what happened it's like because
48:34
because that tape first of all even to
48:36
have that tape meant you was cool
48:38
because everybody couldn't get it tape
48:39
because once again it was twenty dollars
48:41
a take
48:42
so who's spending day twenty dollars
48:44
back in 1981 on a tape tape right you
48:47
could buy some sneakers not a recorder
48:49
yeah you get broke for like 18 bucks
48:51
that's right he said pro cash
48:54
pro cash i ain't mad at that did y'all
48:56
read how did y'all record like nowadays
48:59
with you know i've done tapes me and my
49:01
partner king tech and we would just
49:02
aggregate music from different people
49:04
and mix it and that sort of thing
49:06
how did y'all record your tapes well
49:08
y'all with him
49:09
he actually he came to all of our shows
49:11
okay so he would plug into the system he
49:14
would buy the tape so when the show
49:15
start he'd press record and play
49:17
recorded the whole show and then like
49:20
didn't make duplicates of it
49:22
so he was with us
49:23
every time
49:25
um and i mean it's like i'm sitting here
49:27
and you're like i'm sharing this
49:28
information it's incredible like i don't
49:31
take time to think about this yeah it's
49:33
it's like you're bringing a home of the
49:34
world
49:35
uh out of me
49:37
uh that it's an incredible man it's like
49:40
we did all that yeah i did all of that
49:42
man and then
49:43
now let's see how since we talked about
49:45
the tapes because as you talking i'm
49:46
thinking about
49:48
when i first heard
49:49
the famous battle
49:51
battle
49:52
it was on the tank you're talking about
49:54
the battle the battle you ain't talking
49:56
about the battle of harlem world okay
49:58
july 3rd 1980 oh man my birthday it's
50:02
the third of july it is oh okay well
50:05
stop playing wow that's incredible yeah
50:08
you want some listen the battle was
50:10
it was the battle for hip-hop supremacy
50:14
there were groups making records so they
50:15
was they they moved on they were doing a
50:17
lot of touring
50:20
the
50:21
texture of being an emcee changed okay
50:24
so we had we had a flow
50:26
the fantastic five have a flow
50:29
and they actually thought they were
50:30
better than us
50:32
right so
50:33
let me give you a little idea of who we
50:34
are
50:35
we never wanted to be better than any
50:37
other group we always wanted to be
50:38
better than ourselves so we never
50:40
battled a group
50:42
really we've always battled ourselves
50:45
so fantastic five felt they were better
50:48
than us
50:49
we knew
50:50
who we were ray chandler who
50:52
uh managed grand master plastic for his
50:54
five he
50:56
put that together so it was when it
50:58
takes all
51:00
one thousand dollars that was in 1981 so
51:02
that would be equivalent to maybe make
51:04
twenty thousand dollars now
51:06
it was a big deal we rehearsed
51:09
a lot like how for how long before the
51:12
battle um maybe like three four months
51:14
wow how many days a week uh maybe five
51:16
six days a week did anybody ever miss a
51:18
rehearsal absolutely
51:22
absolutely
51:24
i taste wait
51:25
i'm a man
51:27
i love i love to rehearse because i
51:28
think that when you practice and you
51:30
rehearse
51:31
you perfect your crap yeah right and
51:33
also i call it muscle memory it's easy
51:35
to remember stuff when you rehearse it
51:38
we had rehearsal i mean i was at
51:40
rehearsal a lot of times by myself
51:42
because
51:43
i'm
51:44
when i make a commitment to something
51:45
i'm near 150
51:47
i mean we eventually got it all together
51:49
but i was there a lot of times by myself
51:50
but but when we did rehearse it was like
51:54
incredible
51:55
it was it was undescribable it was like
51:57
having your best dinner
51:59
every time
52:00
that's what i would describe rehearsal
52:02
that way
52:03
i'm sorry
52:05
yeah because i'm thinking they're
52:07
rehearsing four men four months before
52:09
this battle
52:11
now
52:12
you know
52:13
to have to think about this which you
52:16
know is going to be the most the biggest
52:18
milestone in your career today for four
52:21
months
52:22
like how did you how did you deal with
52:24
the anxiety we didn't have any anxiety i
52:26
would say this
52:28
we knew what we was capable of okay
52:31
they didn't
52:32
okay right we knew
52:34
our style our flow the way that we put
52:37
things together
52:39
was like no other we knew
52:41
like how what we were gonna do
52:44
we knew like we're gonna put this room
52:46
routine here it was just for us it was
52:48
getting charlie chase
52:50
accoladed to the right you know how to
52:52
throw in the right uh song and this and
52:54
that
52:55
so that's what he was and then one time
52:56
we were rehearsing and
52:58
kevin rob and them came outside the
53:00
window
53:02
oh really
53:03
kind of like a boxer coming to the gym
53:05
exactly trying to harass you talking
53:06
about yo we're gonna take y'all we're
53:07
gonna rock y'all y'all ain't all this
53:09
you ain't gonna laugh you know and we
53:10
just was like yo get out of here man you
53:12
know you know that kaz and kaz and jdl
53:15
was like you know engaging i'm not i
53:17
don't i'm not an arguer but did it come
53:19
to fist like no we never we we had too
53:21
much respect for each other okay to to
53:23
want to fight that what it was about
53:25
your lyrical and your performance skills
53:28
it wasn't about who could fight we that
53:30
was that's what it was not about it's
53:32
about your lyrical skills how you
53:33
perform let the crowd be the judge now
53:36
speaking of the crowd
53:38
let's talk about the location of the
53:40
battle because you guys are from the
53:41
bronx and and the battle was not in the
53:43
bronx so let's talk about the location
53:45
how did the location get chosen well
53:46
because holland world um entertainment
53:48
complex is 116th street and linux avenue
53:51
um
53:53
and
53:54
ray chandler who was a great promoter
53:56
they had access to different places and
53:58
they felt that that would be the place
53:59
to house
54:00
this battle because
54:02
it because we were
54:04
our brand was growing really big
54:08
and
54:09
i guess he figured that that would be
54:11
the place that can hold it
54:12
also
54:14
um
54:15
it was like a a great place to have it
54:17
because the number two and three train
54:18
runs on 16th street so whether you're in
54:20
the bronx whether in brooklyn
54:22
you can get there safely
54:25
and it was amazing how every time we had
54:27
a show at home world
54:29
it was it was ten thousand people there
54:30
nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine
54:32
was from brooklyn
54:34
now did you guys ever feel
54:36
that maybe it was unfair because
54:38
some of the members of fantastic five
54:40
had lineage of harlem
54:42
because you guys traveled to everywhere
54:44
you never really battled in the bronx
54:46
you battled in harlem you battled the
54:47
foursome season new jersey oh no we did
54:49
bro um well let me just clarify that
54:52
okay there was no battle with the force
54:54
of deeds that was a promotional party
54:55
put on the flyer so we can draw people
54:58
there we got on we was playing with
55:01
we had four shows that night
55:03
um damn four and one night yes yes
55:06
four and one night wow and uh so we got
55:09
there first because that was the most
55:11
you know
55:13
you know we got there we performed we
55:14
left
55:16
then later on we heard the tape and they
55:18
said it was a battle they said it was a
55:19
battle what's no battle because if we
55:20
battled them
55:22
um they probably wouldn't be um
55:25
well they they they will they would be
55:26
singing like they do well i understand i
55:27
just know i mean a real battle we had an
55:29
opportunity to show our skills and it
55:31
wasn't the real battle it was just a
55:32
promoter armstrong set that up
55:35
oh right armstrong i understand just for
55:37
his historical purposes armstrong would
55:40
probably be the beginning of what you
55:42
call the shady promoter this
55:49
maybe he might be shady to you but he
55:51
was never well i mean he come here with
55:52
shouting with y'all because you know but
55:54
i'm just from what the history stories
55:56
of people say you know
55:57
you know they've done gigs and it didn't
56:00
pan out the way they thought it was
56:01
going to pan out no disrespect to mr
56:03
armstrong you know just you know so
56:05
holland world was
56:06
uh uh on 116th street right across from
56:09
the sabah center
56:10
mark's number seven yep
56:12
credible location
56:14
it could hold maybe five six thousand
56:16
people you had three floors
56:18
incredible stage
56:21
it was the perfect place to be there and
56:23
on the flyer it was us
56:26
battling the fantastic five with grant
56:28
was a theater there was a dj what's up
56:30
grand wizard theater and then they had
56:32
flash was the main dj for that
56:34
particular evening
56:36
and um
56:38
we put we we put together we went and
56:40
we've got suits they were tan and white
56:43
uh gangster suits i had two guns too
56:45
right machine
56:47
we call them lyrical machine guns we put
56:48
together a show called gangster
56:50
chronicles
56:51
and um you don't hear it on the tape but
56:53
at the beginning of the show we had we
56:55
had smoke we came we had a dummy come
56:58
out we had fantastic five written on it
57:00
and we shot him up and and threw him on
57:02
and stopped him on the stage
57:04
right didn't hear that that's right
57:06
really right that's correct shot him up
57:08
stomped him out and threw him and then
57:10
we went into our show
57:13
yo that's hilarious so
57:16
who else was there in the crowd like
57:18
what what other
57:19
artists oh we don't i don't honestly i
57:21
would say way i have no idea because we
57:24
were
57:25
focused
57:26
on doing that thing
57:29
so it was like being in a tunnel right
57:31
you don't know you can't see outside the
57:32
tunnel it's like here you go in
57:35
boom and you rock it so that's what we
57:36
did we went on first that time
57:38
and we never went on first ever again
57:42
so the story goes that
57:45
it was um the crowd would select the
57:47
winner right and in that space
57:51
the crowd gave fantastic five the edge
57:54
which brings us back to the tape
57:57
the importance of the tape
57:59
right that's correct yeah so the tape
58:02
was evidence of that evening
58:04
and when it began to circulate
58:07
the broader crowd
58:09
the greater crowd chose cole crush
58:12
that's correct
58:13
it
58:14
it was incredible right so that night
58:16
when we when the crowd i like the way
58:18
you say it chose fantastic
58:22
it was so painful yeah like i've never
58:24
felt that pain
58:26
ever again in my life it was it was like
58:28
somebody ripped every organ outside of
58:30
my body
58:32
i was like
58:33
is that
58:34
it's possible when home laid down
58:37
i was it was so hurtful
58:40
so
58:42
they were like
58:43
they was basking in their in the in
58:45
their victory was they rubbing it in
58:47
your face well yeah yeah yeah there's
58:49
like oh look at them now look at them
58:51
now i don't want to say i'm like like
58:53
impossible but
58:55
so the our next show was at the savoy
58:58
manor it was on july 17th
59:01
um so that was july
59:03
we already was booked for our next show
59:06
it was uh it was grandma's class in the
59:07
first five it was a cold christmas
59:09
brother was um
59:11
curtis blow
59:12
ants and jimmy spicer i think
59:14
spicy right so that's yeah with iran we
59:18
were moving in we were moving to that
59:19
next the next level
59:21
um
59:22
and at that time this the tape was like
59:24
festering and people was like um
59:27
they didn't they didn't win
59:29
so the people spoke it's like
59:31
the people said
59:32
said
59:34
and that was the end
59:35
unfortunately that was the end of them
59:37
meaning like they could not
59:39
they they could not pack a show
59:42
or anything by themselves really
59:44
their brand went down like really low at
59:47
that particular time and our brand
59:49
soared like out of this world like we
59:51
was doing shows by ourself
59:55
packing like five six seven hundred
59:56
people in a gym and this is all in the
59:59
tri-state area we we right exactly
1:00:02
all the five barrels okay and then
1:00:05
we started going out we went out to
1:00:06
springfield we went out to um
1:00:09
uh amityville
1:00:11
we went so we started
1:00:13
and that's where
1:00:14
people like bismarck saw us out in long
1:00:16
island and for the first time and stuff
1:00:18
like that we shirley long allen went out
1:00:20
there
1:00:21
and
1:00:23
our brand just got bigger and so we
1:00:25
we got to a point where
1:00:27
when new edition came out with candy
1:00:29
girl when they promoted when they
1:00:30
brought them to new york city that was
1:00:32
huge
1:00:32
they opened up for us
1:00:35
new edition opened up for you guys yes
1:00:38
yeah
1:00:38
and we say that because they want to
1:00:40
teach them or show them how you know uh
1:00:43
established group and how the
1:00:44
performance so yeah we play with them a
1:00:46
lot of locations around around the city
1:00:49
i can see that though because you guys
1:00:52
stayed show your stage performance from
1:00:54
what i would see right was um
1:00:58
i don't know if theatrical is the right
1:00:59
word but it wasn't just a it wasn't just
1:01:01
rappers
1:01:03
standing in one spot you know holding
1:01:04
their crotch you know and new addition
1:01:07
has always been about the routines and
1:01:09
stuff i always uh
1:01:10
cor i always have associated it with
1:01:13
like the early r b bands like the
1:01:15
temptations and the jacksons and all
1:01:17
that
1:01:18
but michael bivens
1:01:20
to me was like the jam master j
1:01:24
of new edition that's correct right
1:01:25
absolutely okay and so he was always in
1:01:28
tune with what was going on in the
1:01:29
streets and he would incorporate that
1:01:32
did you see any of your dna in their
1:01:34
performances well i mean you know i i i
1:01:36
would say this new edition is
1:01:39
one of the most
1:01:40
incredible performing groups
1:01:44
ever
1:01:46
their precision
1:01:48
the way they
1:01:49
the way they work together
1:01:52
it's incredible like they they put time
1:01:55
in their craft that most people don't
1:01:58
even care about
1:02:00
so i would i would say i would i would
1:02:02
like to say some of our dnas in there um
1:02:05
but i
1:02:06
couldn't say that like you know but i
1:02:08
never looked at them that closely to see
1:02:10
if that was the case but i'm complicated
1:02:13
so so what year so we're now in 81.82
1:02:16
right
1:02:18
um
1:02:20
i remember flash dance came out what was
1:02:23
that like
1:02:24
that's 83. we're getting toward wild
1:02:27
style wild style okay
1:02:29
so wild style
1:02:31
uh
1:02:33
i mean it's just a credible piece of
1:02:35
history as it is because
1:02:37
a lot of these movies like style wars
1:02:39
and wild style and then eventually beat
1:02:41
street
1:02:42
breaking you know they were like
1:02:44
billboards for the culture
1:02:46
you know what i mean these were like
1:02:47
flash these are like marquee signs for
1:02:50
everybody to see you know introduced it
1:02:52
to the world which helped
1:02:54
artists like yourselves right so how did
1:02:56
y'all first get approached about wild
1:02:58
style well i mean charlie hearn uh
1:03:00
wanted to create a movie him and um a
1:03:02
gentleman by the name of
1:03:04
fab fly freddy okay
1:03:06
um
1:03:07
and to like introduce like
1:03:10
what hip-hop
1:03:11
was
1:03:12
to the world
1:03:13
and so they came and they wanted to get
1:03:14
the people who were doing
1:03:16
hip-hop to be involved in
1:03:19
in the film
1:03:20
so um
1:03:22
that's how he got involved he approached
1:03:24
us he
1:03:26
we got our contracts
1:03:27
um
1:03:28
and uh we still get we still get
1:03:30
royalties from that movie to today
1:03:32
they're very very very minimal but
1:03:34
that's not that's not the reason it's
1:03:36
just it's symbolic right you do some
1:03:38
work and you're still getting some so
1:03:40
it's really wonderful but the movie wow
1:03:42
style
1:03:43
um depicted
1:03:45
the actual people who were doing hip-hop
1:03:47
at that time so if you see the people
1:03:49
who and the people who were hot who was
1:03:52
really in it at the time so earlier you
1:03:54
had said that we were in the schoolyard
1:03:56
but we were actually in a park when we
1:03:59
did the battle with other fantastic oh
1:04:01
okay so it was a a park where you know
1:04:04
they like you know they have basketball
1:04:05
courts and stuff like that okay and um
1:04:08
so we did that battle which was later
1:04:11
used in a sprite commercial um right you
1:04:14
know with tim duncan and kobe and all
1:04:15
that and that was kind of cool they did
1:04:17
kind of do that yeah yeah yeah so um
1:04:21
charlie ahern and fat fry they want to
1:04:23
create you know bring that culture to
1:04:25
the world and they did that by getting
1:04:27
the people who are doing that they
1:04:27
brought all the elements not just the
1:04:30
mcs they brought the b boys they brought
1:04:32
the graffiti the djs and the mc so
1:04:35
that's one movie where you get
1:04:37
it may not be super entertaining for
1:04:39
most people
1:04:40
but if you want to understand the
1:04:42
culture of hip-hop you can look at that
1:04:43
movie
1:04:44
and the interesting thing about that
1:04:46
movie my brother at the end his name is
1:04:49
you might know him as d
1:04:51
x-t
1:04:52
so he's scratching
1:04:54
at the end of wow style like people
1:04:57
like i'm i love history
1:04:59
he's scratching so people may think it
1:05:01
might be another dj but that's dxt
1:05:04
scratching it as dxt at the end of wild
1:05:06
style transforming on the turntable
1:05:09
which is incredible so this is 1983 and
1:05:12
at the end of the film he's cutting good
1:05:14
times and he's chopping it
1:05:17
so advanced
1:05:19
that if you go and look at it now
1:05:21
those same cuts are what guys are doing
1:05:24
now yeah and it was so crazy because
1:05:28
people were saying
1:05:30
who the who is that dj
1:05:33
and
1:05:34
the camera guy was trying to keep going
1:05:35
his face he said get off my face stay on
1:05:37
my hands and he told the camera guy to
1:05:40
stay on his hands because he wanted
1:05:41
people to see what he was doing not his
1:05:43
face it was not about what he looked
1:05:44
like he said get keep on my hands and if
1:05:46
you look you could see him
1:05:50
and it's just the way he's it's just
1:05:51
phenomenal so i'm into vibration man
1:05:53
that that that like elevated like
1:05:56
another world i mean shooting wild style
1:05:59
you know fantastic and us we really
1:06:01
wasn't vibing with each other
1:06:03
um and also like the soundtrack that
1:06:05
they use was like this music is too slow
1:06:07
yeah
1:06:08
like what it would but when it was
1:06:10
original soundtrack for the movie so you
1:06:11
know we didn't understand like you know
1:06:13
like what
1:06:15
you couldn't use other people music well
1:06:16
you could use other people's music you
1:06:17
wouldn't be sued at that time but we
1:06:19
didn't know that um so
1:06:21
the wildstar movie just put it propelled
1:06:24
hip-hop it opened the world up to see
1:06:26
what hip-hop was about right and it took
1:06:28
us to
1:06:29
tour japan
1:06:30
i went to japan for i think 17 days so
1:06:33
we brought the entire culture of hip-hop
1:06:36
to japan
1:06:39
and till this day
1:06:41
it's it's it's immersed in their culture
1:06:44
absolutely absolutely
1:06:46
i gotta ask you this because at the i
1:06:48
want to say towards the end of wild
1:06:50
style and i'm just going off of memory
1:06:52
but first let me ask you this how many
1:06:55
takes did it take for y'all to shoot
1:06:56
that battle scene
1:06:57
uh
1:06:59
i think it was maybe one
1:07:00
yeah i did it one take i think so maybe
1:07:02
maybe one of the dj's might have messed
1:07:04
up their line you know okay
1:07:05
i think it took maybe one or two
1:07:08
yeah that was really easy okay
1:07:11
uh i want to say and correct me if i'm
1:07:13
wrong uh rommel z
1:07:17
ron mouzy ramelsey and k rod
1:07:20
right was it k rock i don't remember
1:07:22
that person's name yeah red k robb they
1:07:25
were in
1:07:27
ramels he had to ill his voice
1:07:30
he was like who knows that yeah yeah he
1:07:32
was like who knows
1:07:34
i'm rolling and running and i'm here and
1:07:36
i'm like
1:07:37
i didn't like that i mean i just said i
1:07:38
didn't like it i was like who the hell
1:07:41
on is
1:07:42
it didn't it was it was different right
1:07:44
it was like a guy who wasn't rhyming on
1:07:46
time he was saying things like like he
1:07:49
was in another planet you know the same
1:07:51
but it was different that's all it was
1:07:53
like we
1:07:54
one of the things about i say the cokers
1:07:56
brothers we like different okay like if
1:08:00
it's if it's the same and it's boring
1:08:02
mm-hmm like everybody saying well um on
1:08:05
the microphone yo what's up and i'm
1:08:07
feeling like this and then i'm doing
1:08:09
he's like no no we oh you know we're
1:08:11
going to bring a little melody in here
1:08:12
slice it up
1:08:13
green mean go or let me stop
1:08:15
right
1:08:16
right well i like the difference so
1:08:18
let's talk about punk rock rap because
1:08:20
because that was different and that's
1:08:21
kind of coming in the same lineage right
1:08:24
after wild style and what what what
1:08:27
promoted or prompted that
1:08:31
rock so almighty kg
1:08:34
we call him the tomb creator
1:08:37
we were we had just finished a show in
1:08:39
yonkers and we was on the hill just
1:08:41
vibing outside it was warm
1:08:43
and kg kept saying yo we should do a
1:08:45
record goal punk rap
1:08:47
rap rap rap or punk rap it's like kg
1:08:50
that sounds dope but i was
1:08:54
fighting for fresh while flying bull
1:08:56
at that time
1:08:57
and remember i'm the lonely voice in the
1:08:59
room
1:09:00
and it seemed like i was the lonely
1:09:01
voice on many different things
1:09:04
um and it was like no so we decided to
1:09:06
do punk rock rap now the reason why we
1:09:07
did punk rock rap because it connected
1:09:10
the downtown
1:09:11
scene the punk rock with hip-hop which
1:09:14
at that time we felt
1:09:16
both coaches was
1:09:18
rebellious
1:09:19
so that's what it was and we just wanted
1:09:21
like we like you know introduce that to
1:09:24
to the hip-hop world the punk rock rap
1:09:26
song
1:09:27
um just for historical purposes was
1:09:30
licensed by epic records and it was all
1:09:32
through the uk and was very popular in
1:09:34
europe did you guys ever go over to to
1:09:37
perform any of the stuff in europe with
1:09:39
the popularity absolutely not
1:09:41
why not because
1:09:43
um a lot of in a i mean i'm saying i'm
1:09:47
going to sit right for this one okay in
1:09:50
a group you have members who
1:09:53
made some
1:09:54
difficult to wrong choices
1:09:57
and they were prob not able to leave
1:10:00
the country
1:10:01
legally
1:10:02
right okay i like how you put that you
1:10:04
you then you looked at me to finish it i
1:10:06
saw what you did
1:10:08
you wanted me to finish it okay so y'all
1:10:10
couldn't leave you couldn't leave you
1:10:12
couldn't leave the country so like
1:10:13
together together yeah did that hurt
1:10:15
y'all it's a great i think it hurt us
1:10:18
as a group from um
1:10:20
economics
1:10:22
why but not from a historical um
1:10:24
standpoint meaning because
1:10:26
we're like
1:10:28
a myth
1:10:29
to a lot of people
1:10:31
all over the world like when
1:10:34
if you don't know the cold course these
1:10:36
people say you don't know hip-hop
1:10:38
a lot of groups are out there they won a
1:10:40
lot of awards a lot of accolades but
1:10:43
even in their in their in their
1:10:46
in their
1:10:47
in their evolution
1:10:48
they say people say to them
1:10:52
you don't know you don't know hip-hop
1:10:53
you know the co-cross brothers
1:10:55
so even when
1:10:56
when um when hover dropped i'm
1:10:59
overcharging
1:11:01
for what they did to the co-courses
1:11:03
everybody went in the fencing a fancy
1:11:04
like oh my god what do you
1:11:06
mention your name on the record did you
1:11:07
get paid i said dude and i said this to
1:11:09
them i said do people get paid when
1:11:11
people mention the email records
1:11:13
yeah that's a good ass point huh
1:11:16
shoot i'll be rich right exactly
1:11:18
i'm just jealous of stunt joke
1:11:21
so that was interesting in that and like
1:11:23
the one who they considered like at the
1:11:26
top of the pinnacle at the time decided
1:11:28
to add you and and
1:11:31
what what did they do
1:11:32
right they took pieces of us and they
1:11:34
never
1:11:35
came back to um
1:11:37
to to give us any economic
1:11:40
um like
1:11:42
money yeah right economics in that
1:11:44
respect i'm gonna just be clear i want
1:11:46
to make sure i say this properly
1:11:48
um
1:11:49
hip-hop is one of the genre of music
1:11:50
that
1:11:52
the younger generation and the older
1:11:53
generation
1:11:54
don't um don't mesh yeah right so in
1:11:57
rock and roll you have guys who laid the
1:12:00
foundation for the rock and roll
1:12:02
and the guys who do rock come back and
1:12:04
make sure that these the older gentlemen
1:12:07
or older artists get also involved
1:12:10
economically you know paid from
1:12:12
from what they're doing and hip-hop
1:12:14
doesn't hip-hop artists don't do that
1:12:16
because we have a culturally disconnect
1:12:19
between the elders which a lot of elders
1:12:22
are very bitter let's just be realistic
1:12:23
i mean
1:12:24
i'm sure you you ran into them yeah
1:12:26
right
1:12:27
i have nothing to be bitter about
1:12:29
personally
1:12:30
i look at the younger artists in hip-hop
1:12:32
as
1:12:33
um like
1:12:34
family right it's like you have a baby
1:12:38
you give them the information and then
1:12:40
they go out there and live their life
1:12:41
you can't control them you can't control
1:12:43
what they do you don't have to like what
1:12:44
they do but you should understand what
1:12:46
they do mm-hmm so
1:12:48
that's when they don't owe you nothing
1:12:50
they don't owe you anything right not at
1:12:52
all they don't owe me anything uh-huh
1:12:54
that at all
1:12:55
uh so
1:12:56
let's let's let's let's let's move up so
1:13:00
what what happened to cole crush when
1:13:01
did cole crush
1:13:03
this band
1:13:04
well you know
1:13:06
i don't ever think that we disband i
1:13:08
would say yes before we go to this band
1:13:10
i want to get to one more record before
1:13:12
we go to this band before we go to the
1:13:14
that evolution because this song is a
1:13:16
very important song before we get there
1:13:18
um fresh wild fly and bowl now this song
1:13:24
it's first of all this song is on three
1:13:26
different labels yes this song is on
1:13:29
a tough city
1:13:31
profile and smoking records
1:13:34
and this is three different years
1:13:36
so please
1:13:37
talk to me talk to us about that well
1:13:40
um
1:13:42
let's talk about the record business
1:13:44
okay okay so
1:13:46
there's a very unfortunate like scenario
1:13:49
in our lives as being brown people on
1:13:51
this planet where you don't have access
1:13:53
to lawyers
1:13:55
and things like that
1:13:57
right
1:13:58
so that happened to us
1:14:00
um so aaron fuchs who um
1:14:03
was sent to us
1:14:05
by afrika bambaataa
1:14:07
uh
1:14:09
and you know and we signed with him
1:14:11
he um he put out fresh wild flying bowl
1:14:15
it was on profile
1:14:17
it came out um it sold 16 000 units in
1:14:20
one week
1:14:21
that was a big deal
1:14:23
so
1:14:24
corey i think is that corey robert
1:14:26
cory and and aaron couldn't get it
1:14:28
together
1:14:30
so
1:14:32
he moved to he moved to take it off off
1:14:35
that label to put it on another label
1:14:37
wow and then it went from that label to
1:14:39
the other label
1:14:40
um so fresh wild flambeau was one of the
1:14:42
most the records that kind of
1:14:43
represented who we really was okay i
1:14:45
mean our style
1:14:47
um our our characters
1:14:49
and who we were
1:14:51
that beat
1:14:53
was left in a drum machine
1:14:57
before we put it out wow and then
1:15:01
russ
1:15:02
russell simmons used that beat on cold
1:15:04
rock co-rockstar the same beam
1:15:09
what are you using for cold rock stuff
1:15:11
okay
1:15:12
they're just talking it's like just the
1:15:13
cold rock stuff yeah it's it's fresh
1:15:15
white flying boat the same be
1:15:17
interesting it's an interesting thing
1:15:18
that i want to share with y'all about
1:15:20
russell simmons
1:15:21
is that
1:15:23
he approached posters
1:15:25
on many different occasions and one of
1:15:26
the things he approaches on he wanted to
1:15:28
sign us but he wanted us to change our
1:15:30
names to the cold crush crew with kkk
1:15:34
and we was like you're we you're a
1:15:36
little bit insane with that sir so we're
1:15:38
not going to do that okay the cold crush
1:15:40
crew
1:15:41
with kkk right coal instead of the c
1:15:44
k
1:15:45
k kkk yeah cold crush crew like ku klux
1:15:48
klan yeah yeah okay okay so we've used
1:15:50
that okay um
1:15:53
and um
1:15:55
when we talk about we want to go back to
1:15:57
the blueprint yeah so
1:15:59
run
1:16:01
run dmc
1:16:02
were told
1:16:04
to study
1:16:06
our music i'll take our show
1:16:09
because russell told them you have to be
1:16:11
better than them
1:16:13
wow so when you see running them and
1:16:15
they and they bravado the only thing
1:16:17
that we didn't get in our in our quest
1:16:21
is we didn't have the right production
1:16:23
behind us and we didn't have the machine
1:16:25
because if we had the right production
1:16:26
machine
1:16:28
then
1:16:29
our trajectory would have been different
1:16:31
economically
1:16:33
and i'm very happy that it didn't happen
1:16:35
i mean other members won't agree with me
1:16:36
but i'm happy why not i mean why are you
1:16:38
happy because
1:16:40
i i don't think like i don't live my
1:16:43
life based on money okay right money is
1:16:46
something that we need for survival but
1:16:48
it's not it's not always about money i
1:16:50
think that
1:16:51
you lose your self your soul
1:16:54
and your aspirations when you start
1:16:56
chasing money
1:16:57
and i think that
1:16:59
and i think and i feel
1:17:01
that
1:17:02
we're embedded in the culture
1:17:04
because we didn't get those things like
1:17:06
we are cemented in the culture it
1:17:08
doesn't matter who you are doesn't
1:17:10
matter what you do it doesn't matter
1:17:12
what age you are
1:17:14
you hear the name coker's brothers and
1:17:16
you act like you don't know what
1:17:17
something's wrong with you it doesn't
1:17:19
matter be like yo you know
1:17:20
you know you don't know like people get
1:17:22
offended
1:17:25
not me
1:17:26
if you don't know cold crush they're
1:17:27
like oh you know you you know hip-hop
1:17:29
head
1:17:30
you know coach like you know that was
1:17:32
the standard that was the barometer
1:17:34
right right
1:17:35
la oh
1:17:36
la i love i'm saying i love l.a uh-huh
1:17:39
we came to l.a i think 82-83
1:17:41
played in this play club called the
1:17:43
radio
1:17:45
at the radio he ran into his brother his
1:17:46
name was ice team uh-huh
1:17:48
ice-t was like yo i'm gonna be a rap
1:17:50
with y'all would be a rapper boom boom
1:17:52
boom you know i'm a pimp he said let me
1:17:54
show you my car and all that stuff so
1:17:55
you take us outside for his car so one
1:17:57
member in my group said you don't want
1:17:58
to be in a group you want to be a solo
1:18:01
artist
1:18:03
so that's why i see the solos
1:18:07
but what did he so i'm curious about
1:18:09
your la experience like laura said
1:18:12
with egyptian lover all these guys were
1:18:15
all battle cat the la dream team l.a
1:18:17
posse all these people we had uh we had
1:18:20
we were wrong with the booyah tribe the
1:18:22
booyah tribe so we rolled to l.a the
1:18:24
booyah was with us everywhere we went it
1:18:26
was like family we didn't understand how
1:18:29
how
1:18:30
super respected they were
1:18:32
in the community right it was just it
1:18:34
was a lovely thing like those brothers
1:18:36
were like family they were just it was
1:18:39
with us we didn't we didn't feel none of
1:18:42
those things that other people felt like
1:18:44
cold crush we got love because we gave
1:18:47
love we never felt that we were better
1:18:48
than our audience
1:18:50
we were part of the audience if it was
1:18:52
five people there we're gonna give you
1:18:54
the best show you ever seen it's two
1:18:56
people the best show you ever seen so we
1:18:58
always felt we was part of that part of
1:19:01
the audience we play at the lingerie
1:19:04
at that place we played at some other
1:19:06
places that i don't remember the name of
1:19:07
it but la was cool we was out there for
1:19:09
14 days
1:19:11
um we got some tapes and some things
1:19:12
from different people
1:19:14
what did y'all think of l.a because it
1:19:16
was cool but culturally there was a lot
1:19:18
of differences i'm going to tell you
1:19:19
this is my my take on it i didn't i mean
1:19:22
first of all you had a drive to go
1:19:23
everywhere that's number one okay
1:19:25
um
1:19:26
and i didn't
1:19:28
i wasn't really in tune in that respect
1:19:30
of the difference in the culture okay
1:19:32
there was just a place where it was warm
1:19:33
okay then we was coming to interest the
1:19:35
culture of hip-hop to a place it was
1:19:37
warm and the people were open and they
1:19:39
were inviting like there was no stand
1:19:41
office nobody acting all hard and tough
1:19:43
it was like love
1:19:45
you know
1:19:46
authentic
1:19:48
so we i like la i mean i like la of
1:19:50
course and then they had some they have
1:19:52
some very unique type of uh ladies in
1:19:54
l.a too
1:19:55
and so you know i like that too you know
1:19:57
when you say unique a.d what do you mean
1:19:59
i'm saying they they was built a little
1:20:01
different like you know they look like
1:20:02
they was they weren't eating the same
1:20:03
things the ladies were eating in new
1:20:05
york
1:20:05
[Laughter]
1:20:07
or pizza
1:20:09
i mean the vibration was incredible
1:20:12
i'm telling you i love women
1:20:14
like i have seven sisters
1:20:16
and i love women for many different
1:20:17
reasons like people like oh it's always
1:20:19
it's not always a sexual thing for me
1:20:21
it's a vibration
1:20:22
it's about information i'd rather i'm
1:20:25
like i'm rolling with seven girls ricky
1:20:26
to tell you i got seven ladies with me
1:20:28
rolling
1:20:30
and everybody is hot
1:20:33
because the vibration they bring they
1:20:35
open doors they make people bow down
1:20:38
like they recognize you in another way
1:20:40
like i roll with the legs like dude
1:20:42
we were thinking about i'm gonna i'm
1:20:44
moving a little differently i was
1:20:45
thinking about battling like i had
1:20:47
talked to kevin robin them i was like
1:20:49
like i was like let's do verses
1:20:52
cold craze versus fantastic
1:20:54
let's do verses dude
1:20:56
you know and they didn't vibe with that
1:20:57
but the idea i had to do versus i was
1:21:00
going to have like wakanda you know
1:21:01
wakanda women
1:21:03
walkers out
1:21:05
to the stage and cold crushed like cold
1:21:07
cold crush they were walking around and
1:21:09
like
1:21:09
with the ball head
1:21:11
that would have been it the show would
1:21:12
have been over and um because i think
1:21:15
that you know i've come from a woman and
1:21:17
i understand like the vibration of a
1:21:19
woman so i love women in many different
1:21:21
capacities so i'm always going to be a
1:21:23
ladies man
1:21:24
because that's just how it works for me
1:21:27
i like it easy a.d i'm still a little
1:21:30
swimming in la because and i love your
1:21:33
perspective
1:21:34
you know because um being from
1:21:36
california
1:21:37
i just remember how it was for
1:21:39
californians when it came to relating to
1:21:42
east coast or new york
1:21:44
uh artists or even in the business but
1:21:47
when we came it was another it wasn't
1:21:49
that right it wasn't that divide the
1:21:51
whole east coast west coast thing was
1:21:53
non-existent right exactly so when that
1:21:55
arised what did you think i thought it
1:21:57
was i i i
1:21:59
i i thought and i felt that it was very
1:22:01
sad
1:22:02
that
1:22:04
our culture and our people are being
1:22:05
divided based on where you live
1:22:10
we're all the same honestly we're all
1:22:11
the same we look in our dna
1:22:14
most of our families from the south
1:22:16
some of our family went to the west went
1:22:18
to chicago went to new york so we are
1:22:21
all family so when that happened it was
1:22:23
just like
1:22:24
i couldn't relate to it like in my mind
1:22:27
on why wouldn't you like a brother or
1:22:29
sister from another coast because they
1:22:32
live in another country it just didn't
1:22:33
make any sense to me it's silly when you
1:22:35
say it right yeah it doesn't make any
1:22:36
sense family it's mute it's music right
1:22:38
you're doing music you got your flow we
1:22:40
got all flow i mean and
1:22:42
do your thing like we went out
1:22:44
when we was in in in l.a it was about
1:22:47
like the bands
1:22:49
the bands you know we went to bands we
1:22:50
met some of the prince uh band members
1:22:52
and
1:22:53
we met a lot of girls
1:22:57
did you meet prince oh i met prince when
1:22:59
i met president 1986 at 87 when i was in
1:23:02
paris he was on a love sexy tour
1:23:05
um it was kind of cool it was cool was
1:23:06
he was he hit the cold crush i know i
1:23:09
mean princess friends you know princess
1:23:10
like i mean i i could say i was like
1:23:12
prince at the time you know i'm like yo
1:23:13
i was expecting like yeah what's up you
1:23:14
don't get to beat you know
1:23:18
no big deal but you know um
1:23:21
it wasn't it was it was like more of an
1:23:23
honor it was an honor like when you meet
1:23:24
people that that that that
1:23:27
inspire you in a different way it's like
1:23:30
an honor to meet them like
1:23:32
for me it was an honor to meet um the
1:23:36
owner of black enterprise
1:23:37
pearl graves
1:23:39
right senior so when i met him
1:23:41
um
1:23:42
it was an honor because like he's he was
1:23:45
he's i think he's like six four big
1:23:47
strong
1:23:48
he represented strength
1:23:51
for me
1:23:52
um as a brown man on a plane it just it
1:23:55
just stuck with me and one thing he said
1:23:58
to me is like uh
1:24:00
he said own he said own own land or own
1:24:03
property he said that's that's a good
1:24:05
that's a good thing to do so i would
1:24:06
remember that
1:24:07
the only on property yeah
1:24:09
uh i'm i'm i'm still like i'm still i'm
1:24:12
still in la but i'm gonna go
1:24:16
the radio was one club that we we played
1:24:18
in
1:24:19
and we met a lot of people who later
1:24:21
became like prominent actors we just
1:24:24
knew that
1:24:24
la was number love
1:24:27
family
1:24:29
everyone's stuck together like that's
1:24:30
what we that's what i got from l.a
1:24:33
you know i got i got like a family vibe
1:24:35
you know people look out for each other
1:24:37
that's what was my vibe from l.a
1:24:39
okay um run dmc i felt was definitely
1:24:42
from your lineage
1:24:44
when i saw the beastie boys
1:24:48
i thought they were like a carbon copy
1:24:50
of run dmc that's correct okay yes
1:24:53
who were a copy of cold crush brothers
1:24:58
okay so
1:24:59
and these are white guys now
1:25:01
coming into this culture that we in a
1:25:03
way we hadn't seen that's correct what
1:25:05
were your thoughts did you feel like it
1:25:07
was appropriation or was okay well you
1:25:09
know i would say is um what were it's uh
1:25:12
culture i would say culture abandons
1:25:15
at the particular time okay right so
1:25:18
we had envisioned we see we saw this
1:25:20
play out from the new addition to the
1:25:22
new kids on the block so they were just
1:25:24
doing that same
1:25:26
dynamics in hip-hop
1:25:28
and you know so yeah i didn't you know i
1:25:31
i didn't vibe i didn't vibe against
1:25:33
someone with them i was just i was
1:25:35
experiencing it
1:25:36
yeah okay that's fair enough that's fair
1:25:38
enough so
1:25:42
you know you got all these different
1:25:43
stars in one group you know and then
1:25:45
y'all
1:25:46
then the names start right you know
1:25:47
building up and
1:25:49
i'm making money i don't know how much i
1:25:51
was making per show at what point what
1:25:52
was the highest y'all made per show back
1:25:54
then a hundred dollars each okay what
1:25:58
so we got the 80s yeah but damn rich he
1:26:01
was doing four shows a night that's why
1:26:03
they did so many shows so you come home
1:26:05
with four hundred dollars that's correct
1:26:06
well well well you want to understand
1:26:08
that economics how we broke it out so we
1:26:10
paid
1:26:11
uh for pictures right i had a fight with
1:26:14
my members
1:26:15
to pay for photographs because i was
1:26:17
saying let's give our 50 pictures so we
1:26:19
gave a dollar for each pitcher to get
1:26:21
them made
1:26:22
um and we got the posters for free
1:26:25
so you have to take that out so that's
1:26:27
50 yeah so i mean yeah we came up with
1:26:28
it it was it was it was really good it
1:26:30
was
1:26:32
it was never about the money yeah that's
1:26:34
interesting to me it was never about the
1:26:36
money like
1:26:38
400 was like a lot
1:26:41
400 but it was like the
1:26:43
the energy in which you received from
1:26:45
the audience and the vibration was like
1:26:47
a whole nother like when i performed
1:26:51
i could not go to sleep for two days
1:26:53
yeah adrenaline huh yeah because i
1:26:55
didn't get high so that was my hot my
1:26:57
high
1:26:58
was on stage i got high
1:27:01
on stage like i got turned on on stage i
1:27:04
remember i can remember times when i'm
1:27:06
on stage i'm inside my body but i'm
1:27:08
outside my body watching me perform yeah
1:27:11
like if you never experienced that
1:27:12
before then you can't relate to that but
1:27:15
that that's where i was like i loved
1:27:17
performing that was the ultimate orgasm
1:27:20
for me
1:27:21
was performing absolutely
1:27:23
wow so also remember rent at that time
1:27:26
was 300 dollars
1:27:28
so if your house rent is 300 and you
1:27:30
come home with 400 in one weekend one
1:27:32
night
1:27:34
you're doing okay all right right yeah
1:27:36
um
1:27:38
was it the money that because i mean you
1:27:40
say the money wasn't important for me
1:27:42
for you right but what role did that
1:27:44
play in the group eventually going their
1:27:46
separate ways well if you look at the
1:27:48
dynamics of groups right they
1:27:50
they would find who they consider would
1:27:53
be the best option i would say not the
1:27:55
best person
1:27:56
not the best
1:27:57
but the best option that's what the
1:27:58
industry would do that's correct so you
1:28:00
look at the four mcs
1:28:03
and you say okay who would be the best
1:28:05
option who has the things that i know
1:28:08
that i can control
1:28:10
right whether it's drugs whether it's
1:28:11
money
1:28:12
and also you have to have the talent
1:28:14
as well
1:28:16
so
1:28:17
because we weren't making i guess enough
1:28:19
money at a time
1:28:21
everybody changes where you may have me
1:28:22
have kids
1:28:24
more responsibility
1:28:26
so
1:28:26
you have to start thinking more
1:28:28
independent versus group
1:28:31
and so that's where the groups um
1:28:33
started like you know moving uh breaking
1:28:35
apart
1:28:36
where um kg
1:28:38
did thing with um
1:28:40
b-boy records and then uh aaron sign kaz
1:28:44
uh with uh with tough city
1:28:47
and uh
1:28:48
and so they no longer look i don't think
1:28:50
they no longer look that we never
1:28:52
well again we didn't look at each other
1:28:55
as valuable
1:28:58
right i i i could say i've never entered
1:29:00
that world not valuable i value
1:29:02
everyone
1:29:04
and i always thought that there was
1:29:05
always ways that we could you know do
1:29:07
that and jdl also did a record by
1:29:09
himself
1:29:10
right
1:29:11
and we had opportunities to sign with
1:29:13
warner brothers signed with cbs
1:29:16
um
1:29:17
but
1:29:18
tony
1:29:19
was like the lead of the group so
1:29:21
sometimes those
1:29:23
decisions was made in a vacuum just by
1:29:25
him
1:29:26
and uh so
1:29:29
money became major because then drugs
1:29:31
became like people became addicted to
1:29:32
drugs right so now they need the money
1:29:34
to take drugs
1:29:35
and
1:29:37
i just i didn't understand why you would
1:29:38
want to give up something that was so
1:29:40
valuable
1:29:41
for something that was
1:29:43
meaningless yeah like i don't understand
1:29:45
like how like today if they say all
1:29:47
right
1:29:48
hey you're gonna do this i was like cool
1:29:50
let's do it i'm i'm a hundred percent
1:29:52
and what do you you have to lose weight
1:29:54
you have to do this you have to do that
1:29:56
you and we do that let's make it happen
1:29:58
we can do it so today you would be
1:30:00
willing to get get back together with
1:30:02
the cold crush members well we we're
1:30:05
never apart okay right we just have
1:30:07
individual projects that we do so we're
1:30:08
still as we're still
1:30:11
together but we haven't had an
1:30:12
opportunity
1:30:14
to um be together and
1:30:17
get enough economics to keep it together
1:30:20
man hey d this has been a magnificent
1:30:22
conversation for me you know i don't
1:30:24
know about rich you know he he seemed to
1:30:26
have he you guys grew up together you
1:30:28
know rich was right there for me thank
1:30:29
you now but i think for anybody that's
1:30:31
uh witnessing this conversation
1:30:34
you are such an integral important
1:30:36
pillar of what it is we do in this
1:30:38
culture and i want to personally thank
1:30:41
you for being an inspiration to me
1:30:43
sitting down every time i've seen you
1:30:45
over the years since i came to new york
1:30:46
you know that you know i would be like
1:30:48
wow this is easy rich will tell you
1:30:51
he'll tell you like i can't believe
1:30:53
that i'm you know colleagues with this
1:30:56
man
1:30:57
you know and so the other thing i
1:30:59
appreciate about you is you you your way
1:31:02
of thinking i think um has been very
1:31:05
progressive since day one and what you
1:31:07
stand on is the kind of balance the yang
1:31:10
that's needed in this game even today
1:31:13
you know you were vegan before it was
1:31:15
popular how long you been a vegan well
1:31:18
for a couple of decades now yeah i think
1:31:20
i started my quest in uh 85 86 when i
1:31:24
used to just drink wood root yeah wood
1:31:27
root tonic
1:31:29
and um when i i think i was 12 or 13 and
1:31:31
i stopped eating like
1:31:32
chicken
1:31:33
out and pig feet because i woke up one
1:31:35
morning i tell my mother i'm not going
1:31:36
to eat that anymore she was like okay
1:31:38
cool
1:31:39
so it was a progression you know then i
1:31:40
you know i ate shrimp and then i still i
1:31:43
gave up shrimp and you know moving so i
1:31:45
i'm a pescetarian because
1:31:47
i'm winning out of veganism i've been in
1:31:49
and out right so i eat wild salmon yeah
1:31:52
right so that's about it
1:31:54
so like when you
1:31:56
that's the missing element maybe in the
1:31:58
culture you know is our health it's
1:32:01
becoming prominent now because we're
1:32:03
losing so many of us at such a tender
1:32:06
young age and a lot of it has to do with
1:32:08
that work that that
1:32:09
that wear and tear of them early years
1:32:12
of being an artist we've all been
1:32:13
artists we've all toured we've all
1:32:15
partied you know and now it's paying
1:32:18
dividends
1:32:19
in the end so um i think
1:32:22
your path is a path that has to be
1:32:24
recognized and introduced as well as the
1:32:27
creative that we contribute to this
1:32:29
culture
1:32:30
i was really happy when i heard you
1:32:32
talking about the initiative the hill
1:32:34
project movement that you do
1:32:37
right uh can you talk about that a
1:32:38
little bit absolutely
1:32:40
so hip hop hills is a program
1:32:43
that's geared to grades three four five
1:32:45
and six it's a calorie literacy program
1:32:48
but we do it in a very unique way it's
1:32:51
like edutainment it's like a concert
1:32:55
but we educate young people on healthy
1:32:57
making healthy choices
1:32:59
learning how to read menu boards what
1:33:01
are calories
1:33:03
and what are what are gold foods slow
1:33:05
foods and wool foods and i've been
1:33:06
actually doing that since 2007
1:33:09
um and i think that
1:33:11
i'm an adult male 1 i do adult things
1:33:14
but inside of me every day i'm 10 years
1:33:17
old yeah i have to act like a dope
1:33:18
because people with me think i'm a
1:33:20
little crazy like yeah girl man no but
1:33:22
i'm telling you
1:33:23
i have to be i'm an adult on the outside
1:33:25
but i'm not on the other side i am 10
1:33:27
years old every single day and so when
1:33:31
i'm seeing myself and when i see myself
1:33:33
talking
1:33:34
it doesn't feel like that's me
1:33:36
wow that's interesting because you're
1:33:39
you sounding too adult yeah yeah but a
1:33:41
person is for the kid
1:33:44
so but but the hills program
1:33:46
we have done over maybe
1:33:48
maybe three thousand three hundred
1:33:51
thousand students
1:33:52
in my in my career and that you know i
1:33:55
think
1:33:56
um the initiative is important to give
1:33:59
young people
1:34:00
uh a a starting point in their life
1:34:03
because if you're not introduced to
1:34:04
something then you never know right
1:34:06
and i just want to make sure when i'm
1:34:08
going into the schools and i'm standing
1:34:10
in front of 500 students
1:34:12
i look the part
1:34:14
i live it
1:34:15
and i am i am what i am yes you know i
1:34:18
don't want to go in there like
1:34:20
no you i don't want to be their
1:34:21
grandfather i want they i want them to
1:34:23
question
1:34:24
how old are you
1:34:25
when i tell them my age they go no
1:34:27
you're not and they they will argue with
1:34:29
me and tell me i'm not that age and
1:34:31
that's really feels really good yeah you
1:34:33
know it feels good i'm very honored
1:34:35
number one to be here with you and rich
1:34:38
you know thank you and um
1:34:40
you know thank you because like you know
1:34:42
in my life in my quest
1:34:43
and um i would say perfection
1:34:46
um in my mind because there is no
1:34:48
perfection i'm a virgo whatever that
1:34:50
means to most people
1:34:52
and um we think a lot of us think before
1:34:55
we talk like i think a lot i think about
1:34:57
everything i thought about what i wanted
1:34:59
to say when i was here that's why i
1:35:00
would prefer questions but i'm glad i
1:35:02
didn't get them
1:35:03
and but
1:35:04
just being around people who you that
1:35:06
that really care about our culture just
1:35:08
beyond the individual
1:35:10
is very special to me and so
1:35:13
i'm glad to be here and uh you know
1:35:15
hopefully this is not my last time hope
1:35:16
we can come again and talk about some
1:35:17
more stuff absolutely i'll bring some
1:35:19
you know bring some
1:35:21
things i i mean hip-hop is like
1:35:22
something like i don't understand
1:35:25
how do you love hip-hop yeah and i'm
1:35:28
just talking about rap
1:35:29
i'm talking about hip-hop right when you
1:35:31
hear hip-hop that [ __ ] turns me on
1:35:34
that's like a like that's like a
1:35:36
beautiful woman talking you say
1:35:38
hip-hop
1:35:40
come here like that's what i feel like
1:35:42
when i when i'm when i'm in immersed in
1:35:44
the culture hip-hop
1:35:46
it's amazing feeling i've never like
1:35:48
i don't know like that's why i work with
1:35:50
young people and i do hip-hop health
1:35:52
education because it helps me balance my
1:35:56
life because i need that i need that
1:35:59
thing
1:36:01
that's that's in my dna
1:36:03
and you know dna is an incredible thing
1:36:05
incredible thing
1:36:07
easy id yes i appreciate you brother
1:36:11
i appreciate you i bet you never thought
1:36:14
you would impact the earth like this huh
1:36:16
not not at all yeah no no i didn't i
1:36:18
didn't think i used to get on my knees
1:36:20
and pray
1:36:21
when i was like maybe nine and ten
1:36:23
saying that i want to
1:36:25
impact the world like because i think um
1:36:27
martin luther king got killed and
1:36:29
malcolm x got killed and i used to get
1:36:31
on my knees and pray when i was a little
1:36:32
little kid
1:36:33
and say i wanna i wanna i wanna impact
1:36:36
people i didn't use the word impact i
1:36:37
said i want to do the things that they
1:36:39
did to help people
1:36:41
right and so i mean
1:36:44
you did i have love i mean i have love i
1:36:46
love this like word that comes and goes
1:36:48
but the experience doesn't yeah
1:36:50
easy ad man come on thank you thank you
1:36:53
living legends living legends first
1:36:55
episode living legends
#Arts & Entertainment