Tech N9ne: Pain and Punchlines

Throwback Thursday (Originally aired: 4/21/25) This week, Bunnie sits down with hip-hop icon Tech N9ne to go deep into his life and legacy. From growing up in a religious household in the Wayne Minor projects to becoming one of the most successful independent artists of all time, Tech opens up about his roots. He shares stories about his mother’s epilepsy and schizophrenia, surviving an abusive stepfather, finding sobriety, and why he’s still smiling behind the mic decades into his career. They talk about everything from his signature rapid-fire flow to building a loyal fan base without ever going mainstream. Travis O’Guin, Tech’s longtime business partner and co-founder of Strange Music, joins the convo to share how they built their empire. Together, they reflect on making music that helps people, the kind of artists they believe in, and what’s coming next, including Tech’s upcoming album and audio series 5816 Forest, which chronicles his early life through 17 episodes. Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Dumbblondepod

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bunnie XO?

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• 2:07Bunnie XO?

  Is this thing on? What's up you sexy motherfuckers? Welcome to another episode of Dumb Blonde. Today, this man has built an empire, pushed the boundaries of independent rap and outworked nearly everybody in the game. Mr. Tech 9 is in the house.

• 2:23Speaker 03

  Happy to be here mama.

• 2:24Bunnie XO?

  Dude, I'm so stoked you're here. I had a bucket list and it was Dolly Parton, Joyce Myers and Tech 9.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 2:32Bunnie XO?

  I've done Dolly, haven't done Joyce yet. And then I've finally got you here. So I'm just like so stoked. I know. You're a busy man.

• 2:41Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, gotta, gotta keep it that way. You know what I mean? Time waits for no man.

• 2:46Bunnie XO?

  Ever. My dad always says, Rolling Stones gather no moss.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  Oh yeah.

• 2:51Bunnie XO?

  So I've always lived my life by that like, but I finally, and you know, now that I've gotten a little bit older, have learned how to kind of like slow it down a little bit, but.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were just talking about vacationing. You know what I'm saying? Taking some time for yourself.

• 3:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I'm gonna go to Monaco and see the hairy bush ladies that you were telling me about.

• 3:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, they might not be alive now, you know? They were pretty old.

• 3:12Bunnie XO?

  Tech was telling me he just went to Monaco and I was like, or he told me he went to like Ibiza or something. I was like, did they have any nude beaches? And he's like, no, but we did go to one in Monaco.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, we went to one in Monaco and it's always really old people on the, that are free.

• 3:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  You know, it's not like on the movies, you see it's all young people.

• 3:30Bunnie XO?

  Listen, the geezers have no shame, alright? And I think once you hit that age, you're allowed to just let it, you let your freak flag fly.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  And the dudes are never ends, we always see the dudes from the back, you know?

• 3:43Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Oh man.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  We don't just walk the nude beach. It's like a place like right on the nude beach where you can sit down and eat and drink, you know what I mean? And people are like walking by, you're like, what?

• 3:55Bunnie XO?

  Who the fuck is eating on a nude beach?

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Us.

• 3:58Bunnie XO?

  You know what? I can't, I can't even talk because I used to go to swingers clubs in Vegas and eat the fucking buffet there.

• 4:05Speaker 03

  Well, let me tell you something about strip clubs, you know, um, strip club food?

• 4:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  I used to eat. Club food, you know, they have chefs in there making those steaks.

• 4:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, so I used to, I grew up in Vegas, so I used to work in the strip clubs in Vegas and some of them would have five star restaurants. Where we would have to wear like gowns to go sit with our guests in there.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:24Bunnie XO?

  Food was fucking fire, dude.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  It's an establishment, you know, they gotta have the right food.

• 4:29Bunnie XO?

  I just feel like a nude beach, you know, with just all the the bush flying around would be a little weird.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  That's exactly what you'll see, bush, bush.

• 4:39Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  You see no young folks, no people in shape, no, I'm talking, this is, this is my experience, what I've seen over the years.

• 4:46Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  And, cause I'm usually with people that say, hey, man, let's go to the nude beach. I'm like, you don't want to see the nude beach. Please, Tech, come on, let's go to the nude beach. Okay, let's go.

• 4:54Bunnie XO?

  Tech's like, you know what, you don't gotta twist my arm.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  You don't want to do it. It's not what they think. The ones I've seen.

• 5:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  I've seen, I've seen one, uh, what's over the, what's, what's, what's that place over there Travis, uh, where St. Thomas and, uh, it starts with an M, uh.

• 5:12Bunnie XO?

  St. Martin?

• 5:13Speaker 03

  St. Martin, there you go. I've seen one in St. Martin.

• 5:16Bunnie XO?

  Oh, we're going. We were actually gonna go there for my birthday.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 5:19Bunnie XO?

  See, we gotta go. The nude beach is calling me. So they have one in St. Martin?

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, we, we call it, we, I'm black, they call it St. Martin.

• 5:26Bunnie XO?

  Okay, okay. Oh, I don't know. Is it Martin or Martin? I don't know.

• 5:30Speaker 03

  It's spelled like Martin.

• 5:30Bunnie XO?

  Okay, I see, I might be pronouncing it wrong.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  We were in St. Martin kicking it, you know?

• 5:34Bunnie XO?

  I'm not with the bougie shit, so I don't know. I've never been there, so it could be St. Martin too.

• 5:39Speaker 03

  That's all good. A lot of people call it St. Martin. We call it, cause St. Martin, sorry.

• 5:42Bunnie XO?

  So, did you go to the nude beach there? I, I'm, I'm curious.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  We were at the place eating that's off the beach.

• 5:51Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 5:53Bunnie XO?

  You're always eating at these nude beaches, Tech. I'm seeing a pattern here.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  That's funny. I'm Scorpio, but it has nothing to do with that.

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Usually people with me, I know it sounds like an excuse. You know, it's just me just zeroing in on the nude beaches. Nah, nah, nah. People with me that I take on tour with me, you know, they're like, hey, they got a nude beach. I'm not just touching down like, where are the nude beaches?

• 6:15Bunnie XO?

  Listen, I am. I'm that person. So it's okay. No shame.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  But if you wanna see it, you know what I'm saying? You go see it. It's not what you think.

• 6:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. All right. Well.

• 6:22Speaker 03

  From what I've seen, maybe somewhere in Dubai it's different. I don't know.

• 6:26Bunnie XO?

  Maybe. Yeah.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  You know, maybe in Africa it's different. I don't know.

• 6:30Bunnie XO?

  Have you been to Dubai yet?

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Nope, not yet.

• 6:32Bunnie XO?

  I haven't either, but I heard the women out there are just to die for, like just beautiful, gorgeous.

• 6:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. I found, I found mine in Puerto Rico.

• 6:39Bunnie XO?

  There you go. I love how much you love your girl.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 6:43Bunnie XO?

  Every chance you get, you get to give her.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Ten years, ten years.

• 6:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, that's how.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  We got married in our 10th year.

• 6:49Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh. I love that. So you guys just recently got married?

• 6:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, July 20th.

• 6:55Bunnie XO?

  Oh, congratulations.

• 6:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're newlyweds, man.

• 6:58Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  But I think a lot of people, you know, the song said, why do fools fall in love? You know, people just, uh, I don't, only fools rush in and this, that and the other.

• 7:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 7:08Speaker 03

  Um, I think what I learned from being married before,

• 7:13Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  when I was 22 and I had those two babies at 22, we were talking about earlier.

• 7:17Bunnie XO?

  Yep, and we're gonna get into all that.

• 7:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I've, you know, we got married, of course, because we loved each other, but, you know, um, it was for our baby, you know? She's like, I wanna have a baby, you know, I don't wanna have a baby out of a wet lock type of thing. You know what I'm saying? We got married. But what I learned from then to now is I think that people don't take time with each other.

• 7:39Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  You know, to date each other and then, you know, it takes time to move in. Some people just jump right in. And you don't find out about each other.

• 7:49Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 7:50Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? In a short period of time, like you should.

• 7:52Bunnie XO?

  No, you did it right. You did it right.

• 7:54Speaker 03

  Different chemical levels and stuff, you know what I'm saying? That happen.

• 7:58Bunnie XO?

  Masks come off.

• 7:58Speaker 03

  Not just with women either. I'm just talking about with men as well, you know what I mean? You don't know if motherfuckers are crazy. You don't know nothing. You don't know what happens when she's PMSing. You don't know none of this shit. You know what I'm saying? If you don't put time. And learn how to deal with it and not fight negative with negative. You know what I mean? I didn't know that when I was younger.

• 8:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, you have to learn your person. Jay and I actually got married thirty days after meeting each other. And the first three years of our relationship, I don't know how we made it. Like, I talk about it on the podcast all the time. Like, it was so toxic because it was two people who, two fucking strangers who, from two different backgrounds. I'm a Vegas girl, he's a Nashville boy, trying to figure out life together. And, you know, if I could go back and do it again, I would wait to get married and just kind of, you know, learn each other because people don't do that anymore. Like, it literally, people, everything is like, we're in the microwave era. So it's like, everybody wants everything now, you know?

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Right, right. I heard somebody snoring and I saw the dog.

• 8:57Bunnie XO?

  Oh, the dog, yeah. He's right here.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  In my mind, I was looking around like, who the hell is asleep right now?

• 9:03Bunnie XO?

  He's the co-host.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  I didn't want to lose contact with you, but, you know, but I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, who the hell is snoring?

• 9:11Bunnie XO?

  He's literally the co-host.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  I said, no, that ain't Travis.

• 9:13Bunnie XO?

  No, it might be. He, um, he's, he's literally.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  He's over there alone to throw your voice, fool your friends for their parties.

• 9:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, he's literally grown up in this chair, so he'll sit here the whole podcast. But you'll hear him snoring every once in a while, you'll see me shake him so that the snore doesn't come through.

• 9:30Speaker 03

  It's his house.

• 9:31Bunnie XO?

  So the snore doesn't come through.

• 9:32Speaker 03

  And he's comfortable with your voice, and, you know, he's comfortable.

• 9:36Bunnie XO?

  That's my baby. So, Tech, I have done, for the past two days, nothing but research you. And you, he's like, okay. He got nervous. No, it's, you know what?

• 9:48Speaker 03

  Did you find the drugs and the liquor and?

• 9:50Bunnie XO?

  I found all of it, but.

• 9:51Speaker 03

  And the women all over the world, did you find all of it?

• 9:53Bunnie XO?

  I'm telling you.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Stuff that I had to grow out of?

• 9:55Bunnie XO?

  I'm telling you, though, I think you have such a testimony. And it really makes me understand you more. It makes me understand the music more. And I just want to take all of my listeners on that journey with you.

• 10:08Speaker 03

  Yes, ma'am.

• 10:08Bunnie XO?

  Because it's really a beautiful ride that you've been on.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:12Bunnie XO?

  Like, you have worked your ass off to be where you're at.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 10:16Bunnie XO?

  I mean, I think it's just so cool, the shit that you've gone through and that you've risen from.

• 10:20Speaker 03

  When you know you have something special inside, it don't matter how many. Obstacles are in your way.

• 10:26Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 10:27Speaker 03

  Because you push them out of the way.

• 10:29Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  And people that try to create the obstacles because they don't understand. You'll look back and they'll all be shaking your hand.

• 10:38Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 10:39Speaker 03

  I didn't mean to make that rhyme, but.

• 10:40Bunnie XO?

  No, it's just you're a poet and didn't know it.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but um.

• 10:45Bunnie XO?

  No, it's so real. So let's bring it back to your growing up in Kansas City. You grew up on the Missouri side, correct?

• 10:52Speaker 03

  Yes, I did. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri.

• 10:54Bunnie XO?

  Take me on a journey with you and your family and like kind of like your upbringing and your background.

• 10:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, um, my family, Christians, hardcore Christians, you know, we live with my grandmother, my mother, her brothers and sisters, lived in a house in um, in the projects, 904 Michigan and uh, Wayne Minor projects, you know what I mean? And uh, I couldn't really listen to rap music in that house. It was all gospel. But I found rap next door at the Reese's house, next door, my uncle Ike and all them. I was, I was crazy about hip hop early on.

• 11:36Bunnie XO?

  So at a young age, you just knew that that was like instilled in your soul?

• 11:40Speaker 03

  I was, I was born in Wayne Minor. From birth till 10 years old, we moved away. So from birth to 10, I was there in Wayne Minor and I found so much music outside of my house. But what, what really stuck with me was the hip hop that was coming from next door.

• 12:01Bunnie XO?

  Do you, do you think that was because you weren't allowed to listen to secular music growing up?

• 12:06Speaker 03

  I never thought about it like that. I just thought it was something that really made my hips hop.

• 12:11Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Hip hop is about dancing. When you think about a hip hopping.

• 12:16Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  You're dancing. And I was a dancer before I was writing rhymes. So I always wanted to do Michael Jackson and this is way after Wayne Minor though, but.

• 12:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  I, I wanted to, you know, do whatever dances I saw outside, you know, from the older people around me.

• 12:34Bunnie XO?

  When did you get into dance? Was that at a young age or was that after 10?

• 12:38Speaker 03

  I remember.

• 12:41Speaker 03

  Fourth grade, my mom buying me breakdance clothing, you know, loose breakdance clothing with white gloves and everything and shoes. And me being in the talent show,

• 12:55Speaker 03

  pop locking to a song called Scorpio by Grandmaster Flash and Furious 5. Scorpio, because I was a Scorpio. You know, I guess I was aware. I really liked the song Scorpio, Mom, I want to dance to Scorpio. You know, I can't even picture that right now, being in fourth grade saying, I want to dance to Sugar Hill Gang Scorpio.

• 13:13Bunnie XO?

  I love it though. I was doing Like a Virgin at five, so it's okay.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  Oh, like a virgin?

• 13:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, I got in trouble.

• 13:20Bunnie XO?

  Listen, Madonna was huge in the eighties, okay?

• 13:23Speaker 03

  And Wayne Minar, I was trying to kiss at five.

• 13:26Bunnie XO?

  So I read about that, and if you could take me on this journey. So you grew up in this really religious household. Your grandma was very religious and, you know, you had that spiritual influence on you or religious influence?

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 13:39Bunnie XO?

  But you had cousins that took you to a drive-in theater?

• 13:43Speaker 03

  No, that was my Uncle Ike.

• 13:45Bunnie XO?

  Okay, Uncle Ike is...

• 13:46Speaker 03

  Uncle Ike.

• 13:46Bunnie XO?

  Uncle Ike.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, you're talking about it?

• 13:49Bunnie XO?

  Let's talk about Uncle Ike.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Uncle Ike, my savior, I swear, you know what I mean? He's still here today.

• 13:57Bunnie XO?

  Oh, awesome. I love that.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  He took me to the drive-in show with him and his friends on a, on a weekend. And I was so young, I was five. I was so young that they put me on the ground under their feet with like a rug or a towel over me or something on the floorboard, and they had their feet on my back to get me in. They got me in. I remember they let me up, they say, "Dantez," that's my middle name, Dantez, you know what I'm saying? They called me Donny for short, like, uh, Donny, people are gonna laugh, if they don't know my name is Donny, you know? But they say, "Donny, don't piss yourself now when you see what comes on the screen." I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And it was a, it was a triple X movie.

• 14:47Speaker 03

  And I remember it being Tarzan and Jane.

• 14:50Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  And Jane just kept getting fucked by these gorillas.

• 14:54Bunnie XO?

  But you're five.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 14:57Bunnie XO?

  I mean, Uncle Ike, what the hell's going on?

• 15:00Speaker 03

  He was young, too.

• 15:01Bunnie XO?

  Oh, okay, I get it, so he didn't realize.

• 15:03Speaker 03

  Like sixty-two now.

• 15:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  So he was, he was, he was young, too.

• 15:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  So, you know, I remember.

• 15:10Bunnie XO?

  See that at five.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  It was traumatizing.

• 15:12Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 15:12Speaker 03

  Cause I remember it starting off and everything. I didn't know what was going on. I'm talking about, they showing it going in and out and everything. I remember it like.

• 15:20Bunnie XO?

  At the fucking drive-in movies?

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's Triple X.

• 15:23Bunnie XO?

  I had Cinderella at mine.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  At Triple X. You know what I'm saying? It's like after, after, after a certain time at night, they would show, um, maybe it was Fairyland Drive-In? I don't know. I, I forgot which one we went to, cause I was so young.

• 15:35Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, what a different time of life, right?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  They showed Triple X films after a certain time, right? You don't know?

• 15:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:46Bunnie XO?

  Even Travis.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  Oh, damn. Well, we gonna look into that.

• 15:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 03

  I was there.

• 15:54Bunnie XO?

  No, I believe you. One hundred percent.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  At the drive-in, the big screen, they snuck me in, you know what I mean?

• 16:01Bunnie XO?

  I know, and, and I one hundred percent believe you. I just feel bad.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  I know.

• 16:04Bunnie XO?

  Because at five, that's gotta be a lot to take in.

• 16:07Speaker 03

  They were, they were creating a sexual monster.

• 16:09Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I didn't know it.

• 16:11Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Paired with the Humphrey Bogart pictures on TV, you know what I'm saying? Here's looking at you, kid, and kissing and all that kind of thing. You know, I was trying that at five.

• 16:21Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  You know, um.

• 16:24Bunnie XO?

  Well, you're acting out what you were learning, you know? You didn't know. Nobody told you like, hey, this is wrong, or hey, you're not supposed to feel these things, or.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  The influence from what I see, you know?

• 16:32Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  And, uh, that, I didn't piss on myself, like they said, you know?

• 16:38Bunnie XO?

  Sweet boy.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  But, uh, I remember, I remember Tarzan being upset that Jane kept on wanting to go out into the jungle and get fucked by the gorillas.

• 16:51Bunnie XO?

  What a memory. What a memory. Do you feel like you took that with you through life, though?

• 16:56Speaker 03

  How would I remember this?

• 16:57Bunnie XO?

  Like to apply that?

• 16:59Speaker 03

  No, I would never want to be fucking in a jungle. I don't know.

• 17:04Bunnie XO?

  He's like, no, no, no. But I mean, like, the possessiveness is what I mean. Like, you know how, like, um, you said Tarzan was possessive.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Never, never have. They said Scorpios are jealous. There's never been me.

• 17:16Bunnie XO?

  Really?

• 17:16Speaker 03

  I've never been jealous, you know, in my time before I hung my player jerseys up like tapestry, you know, uh, I used to share women with my fellow friends.

• 17:29Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  You know, they're like, she was with me first, but if, you know, because sometimes people on tour, they love the circus.

• 17:38Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I know. Yes. I've been on tour with all the boys.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  And all the people in it.

• 17:42Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:44Speaker 03

  Even the bus driver.

• 17:45Bunnie XO?

  Really? The bus driver was getting action?

• 17:48Speaker 03

  No, I ain't telling on no bus driver. I'm saying.

• 17:50Bunnie XO?

  I was like, damn, we gotta hook Elmo up.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  Even the bus driver.

• 17:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  From what I've witnessed, you know?

• 17:56Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha, gotcha.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  Nobody is left, you know?

• 18:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 03

  Unsatisfied unless they don't want to.

• 18:02Bunnie XO?

  Right, of course, of course. All consensual.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  That's the, that's the, that's the only thing about podcasts, you know, it turns into interrogation sometime.

• 18:11Bunnie XO?

  No, no, no, never, never, never.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  No, no, no, not, not from you. It's just, I'm, I'm, I'm long-winded.

• 18:16Bunnie XO?

  Oh, no. You're totally fine. I love it.

• 18:20Speaker 03

  I've said, I was saying, to finish what I was saying, I would share back then, you know what I mean? I was never a jealous Scorpio, you know, when I'm dating a woman or whatever, but, uh, it taught me later when I found my maturity mid 40s.

• 18:36Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  It took a while.

• 18:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Speaker 03

  I always say I met a morph. I met a morph. And that morph that I made in my life was maturity.

• 18:44Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  And, um, That's when I started feeling like I didn't want to share that energy with everybody.

• 18:54Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Anymore. It was a tour that I went on with J L and Joey and all these artists that we had on the label. That they saw me breaking up with all my women all over the world, you know what I mean? Like I found somebody, I want to try something different, you know?

• 19:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 03

  I never seen these women again. They were coming for just one thing and it wasn't for a Tech 9 show.

• 19:12Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  You know?

• 19:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 19:15Speaker 03

  And it happened later on in my life, like I said, at 45, you know? Respecting myself and feeling like I didn't want to share that with everybody anymore. Like this dick ain't, this dick ain't, this dick ain't for free, you know?

• 19:30Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Kendrick said, you know? And not that you can pay for it and get it, I'm just saying.

• 19:35Bunnie XO?

  I mean, if they could, it's alright.

• 19:37Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no.

• 19:38Bunnie XO?

  No, he said, no, no, no.

• 19:41Bunnie XO?

  So let's circle back to your childhood. Your dad was absent in your life, but he was L A P D.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, Carlton Cook, rest his soul, L A P D.

• 19:53Bunnie XO?

  What was your relationship like with him?

• 19:55Speaker 03

  I seen him every 10 years throughout my life. You know, because, you know, my mom was 16 when she had me. And I guess my dad had several women in town, you know, and she was one of them. And I remember seeing him when I was like six. I rode on his, I rode on his, I remember riding on his motorcycle with him in the projects. Then he moved to L A and I didn't see him for some years. I seen him again when I was 14. He would have parties at his mom's house in the hood when he came home. They would celebrate Cook coming back home and.

• 20:39Speaker 03

  I would see him having different ethnicities of women on the couch, waiting to meet him upstairs while he's fucking with somebody upstairs. One would come down and the other one would go up. I watched it all night. You know, this is when I was 14. Atomic Dog was out at the time.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  I remember, you know, sneaking in the kitchen and drinking some of the liquor and stuff like that. Bad kids, dude, you know.

• 21:09Speaker 03

  And I saw women crying, leaving crying. You know what I mean? But after that, I didn't see him for another long time. I think I became Tech 9 within those, that 10-year period. I remember him saying something to me like on the phone, he's like, hey, man, another 10 years is coming up. We gotta see each other, you know?

• 21:28Bunnie XO?

  That had to be hurtful as a child, though, to like, you know, I, I, I don't know how you handled trauma or pain as a child, but, um, you know, most people would be like, you know, kind of resentful that their dad wasn't a part of their life?

• 21:45Speaker 03

  It wasn't my life.

• 21:45Bunnie XO?

  No?

• 21:46Speaker 03

  It wasn't my life because I had my uncles, I had my aunties, I had my mom.

• 21:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  I never did, I never did feel away about my dad because I felt like later on I understood where my mom stood with him. It doesn't make it okay.

• 22:03Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  You know, he never taught me how to drive or, you know, how to do things the men, but my uncles did, you know what I'm saying? They taught, tried to teach me a lot of things that they could, you know?

• 22:15Speaker 03

  But I never felt away about my dad at all. I don't know why. I was always happy to see him.

• 22:23Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Carlton Cook, he's always, he was, he was, he was a, he was a gangster to me. He was always tough, you know? And I had brothers that were older than me, Pucci and Cortez, a little bit younger than me, and Sister Marvella and El Reese and all these kids out in Cali that I didn't meet until 93, you know, when I, when I got my first deal with Jimmy Jem and Terry Lewis. All this stuff is intertwined in my story, you know?

• 22:49Bunnie XO?

  Yes, absolutely. And we're gonna get there. We're still just focusing on baby tech right now.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, baby tech. Well, I saw a lot of things, you know what I mean? But I only saw my father. In certain periods of my life, you know.

• 23:03Bunnie XO?

  Um, so let's zero in on your mom a little bit here because I know your mom's a huge influence in your music and in your life and, um, you know, growing up in a household with her wasn't easy because she did have

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Epilepsy.

• 23:18Bunnie XO?

  Epilepsy and also was she diagnosed schizophrenic?

• 23:20Speaker 03

  That was later on before she died, yes.

• 23:22Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Later on in her life. But early on, she had her first seizure when she was 18.

• 23:27Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Waiting for my father to come pick her up for prom, he stood her up.

• 23:32Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 23:33Speaker 03

  And she had her first seizure. That's what my aunties told me.

• 23:36Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. So.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  I think I do need water.

• 23:39Bunnie XO?

  Go ahead, take a sip. So, growing up with a mom who, you know, was going through, you know, having epilepsy and then, you know, your father not being there all the time, your mom did get into another relationship that was somewhat abusive and you guys had to leave. Can you take me on that journey where you guys were moving around trying to get away from her ex at the time?

• 24:04Speaker 03

  That's Charles Wade.

• 24:06Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  That was during my third grade period.

• 24:09Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 24:10Speaker 03

  Third and fourth grade, I think.

• 24:12Bunnie XO?

  I love how you, I wasn't laughing, I just love how you just can remember everybody like first and last name, like it's like.

• 24:18Speaker 03

  Oh, I lived it.

• 24:19Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 03

  And I had to hear them fighting in the next room and, you know, um,

• 24:28Speaker 03

  my dad moved away and we moved away from Wayne Minor when I was 10.

• 24:33Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 24:34Speaker 03

  In the 50s, 59th and School Parkway. And, um, that's when she met Abdul Hassan Rasul Khalifa.

• 24:41Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 24:42Speaker 03

  There was a couple of boyfriends in between there, guy named Nugi.

• 24:45Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  I remembered he had a, he was really, he always had on really good cologne, he had a George Washington Afro, you know, big back here. I remember Nugi. They probably like, how does he remember these things?

• 24:56Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 24:56Speaker 03

  Because I would be in the car with them when we're going places, you know, Nugi, she dated Nugi for a while and then I guess she met Hassan around that time. She wasn't dating Nugi anymore. Um.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  And she married him when I was 12. She married Abu Hassan Rasul Khalifa. So my Christian mother, my devout Christian mother, had so much love for a man that she married a Muslim.

• 25:21Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 25:22Speaker 03

  And you know, Muslims and Christians been having quarrels since day one, you know, when in actuality, both worship the same God.

• 25:35Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, Allah.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's just Allah is just a Arabic word for God.

• 25:42Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  It's just a different language.

• 25:43Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  You know, but the Christians at the time thought Allah was a man, you know.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  We won't get into that.

• 25:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 03

  Talking about God being a man and

• 25:53Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  the universe, I don't want to piss anybody off.

• 25:56Bunnie XO?

  No, you're fine. I mean, we talk about everything on this podcast. But so that he wasn't the abusive relationship that she was in though.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  No, he was not. Charles Wade was.

• 26:05Bunnie XO?

  So

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Charles Wade, when I was in third grade, yeah, man, he was.

• 26:08Bunnie XO?

  So you had to witness that, you know, amongst having your dad, you know, in and out of your life.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 26:14Bunnie XO?

  You know, dealing with the sexual stuff and then having

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Charles Wade was a gangster. He had gangster white walls on his Cadillac.

• 26:20Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:21Speaker 03

  He had gold tooth. I was real close with um his son, Chucky.

• 26:26Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  I talk to him every once in a while still. He, I think he lives in Texas.

• 26:31Bunnie XO?

  I love that you keep in contact with him.

• 26:33Speaker 03

  He was in jail. He was a barber as well. I mean, he was a barber. Um, his father, Charles Wade, he's still alive. Um, he found me because I found Chucky on tour, you know. People's like, your brother, I was in jail with your brother Chucky. I'm like, ah, Charles Wade Jr. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Me and Chucky were always cool though, because we were kids, you know.

• 26:59Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  But his dad was turnt up, you know, and um. Um, I'm veering off because because I was talking to Chucky later on in my life. His dad got my number and called me and asked me for a pickup truck.

• 27:18Speaker 03

  I hung up.

• 27:19Bunnie XO?

  It's just crazy to me that you can traumatize a child like that and hurt a woman like that and then circle back years later and be like, hey, can you get me something?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, he got his karma after beating my mama at her job. He went up to a gas, uh, KPNL Gas Service where she worked downtown Kansas City and got her outside and beat her up to where she bu- he busted her head and all kinds of things and put her in the hospital, you know?

• 27:44Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  Shortly after that, he robbed a bank and got 25 years.

• 27:49Bunnie XO?

  So good. He did get his karma.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  And he got caught because they said he was on the, on the scene of the crime, he drank uh, a Sunkist and dropped it, you know, they got his DNA.

• 28:01Bunnie XO?

  And left his DNA. What an idiot.

• 28:05Bunnie XO?

  Talk about karma, though, coming around.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  I heard, you know, I'm sure he probably like, that ain't true.

• 28:13Bunnie XO?

  So, you know, you and your mom finally get away from him and mom marries a Muslim.

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 28:20Bunnie XO?

  Take me on this journey because how was that adjusting to having a new dad 24/7 and?

• 28:26Speaker 03

  It wasn't about having a new dad all of a sudden because, you know, I never really had one, you know?

• 28:32Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, right.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  That was, that was constant. It was about coming from a Christian background and home to a Muslim home with no more bacon, no more sausage, no more Christmas, no more nothing.

• 28:49Bunnie XO?

  Oh, so they don't celebrate Christmas? I didn't know that either.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. We wouldn't do none of that. I would have to go to my Christian family to have Christmas and all that. That was hard for a 12-year-old, you know?

• 29:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  And um,

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Hassan was nice to me, but I missed it as a youngster, like we all do.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Him trying to make me a stronger kid and not a mama's boy, who still had his mama ironing his clothes at 12, you know what I mean? Start making me do everything. You know, if I was washing the dishes after, you know, a get together or something we would have at our house. If there was one, he would check the dishes and if there was one speck on a bowl, he'll dump all the dishes back in there and make me do all of them again, you know, until late, you know. I thought that was mean. He was trying to show me and toughen me up, you know, show me a different way of being independent as a human being, you know.

• 29:51Speaker 03

  And 13 came, 14 came, I'm fucking up in school, I'm skipping school.

• 30:01Bunnie XO?

  When do gangs come into the, come into play with you?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  Say that again.

• 30:05Bunnie XO?

  When do like the gangs come into play with you?

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Well, when, when, when she married Hassan, we moved on 58th and Forest. That turned into a blood neighborhood.

• 30:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  You know, in the eighties.

• 30:17Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  And these were all of my friends. These are all the people I went to school with. These are people that I'm still connected to in my later years, you know. My friends, my brothers, had nothing to do with gangs back then. It had everything to do with pop locking.

• 30:35Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  You know, battling on the street. And then in 85, it stopped and it turned the 37th Street Fruit Town brim from LA, him and his brothers moved in our neighborhood.

• 30:51Bunnie XO?

  Got you.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? So that's where that happened. But in those years, 13, 14, 15, 16, I'm in school, fucking up. Got in trouble dating white girls at school. Going, going to skipping parties at the white girl's house I was dating at the time, you know.

• 31:14Bunnie XO?

  Tech a womanizer? No way. When did the womanizing start?

• 31:21Speaker 03

  At five, I was trying to kiss.

• 31:22Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, when did it really start? Like, yeah, at five, I think we all play house and do, do stuff like that.

• 31:28Speaker 03

  The first, okay, I'll, I'll get.

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Let me see. I can speak freely on here.

• 31:36Bunnie XO?

  Of course, yes. And we can always cut anything that you don't want.

• 31:39Speaker 03

  You ain't gotta cut nothing.

• 31:39Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  You know, I'm spontaneous. I don't care what it is.

• 31:43Bunnie XO?

  I love it, yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Um, first time I came, I was 12. You know, on 59th and Swoole Parkway.

• 31:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  With a girl named Marlene, you know, she was my age, of course, you know. And it was the craziest feeling ever. And I knew it was supposed to happen because I saw it on the drive-in movie.

• 32:04Bunnie XO?

  With Tarzan.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  That I saw, you know. You know, that it's supposed to happen. I remember she's saying, "What is that?" I was like, "I don't know, but it's supposed to happen," you know. I remember saying that to her, you know.

• 32:15Bunnie XO?

  Did anybody ever sit down and have like the birds and the bees talk with you?

• 32:18Speaker 03

  No.

• 32:18Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 32:19Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? It was my Uncle Iggy was the closest thing.

• 32:21Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Cause he would tell me, "Dante, this one I'm fucking with now," you know.

• 32:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  I'm sticking it to her. I'm like, "Really?" You know what I'm saying?

• 32:30Bunnie XO?

  You're like, "I don't know what that means yet."

• 32:32Speaker 03

  At 12, I knew what the hell that was.

• 32:34Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, right. So, can you, okay, let's pause right there. So, 7th grade. Something happens in 7th grade with the teacher. Can we go on that journey?

• 32:47Speaker 03

  She-

• 32:47Bunnie XO?

  Cause that's about 12 years old too, right? 13?

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Well, I was going on 13. As I said, I was fucking up, 13, 14.

• 32:54Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Um, she, I won't say no names.

• 32:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  She was young. She was 21.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  And, uh, whenever it all started when I showed her a picture of my father as a cop, you know what I'm saying? I had a picture of him in his LAPD outfit. And after that, after class, whenever everybody's leaving out, I'll be in there. And she used to say, "Aaron is so cute." Cause my first name is Aaron, of course. Aaron Dante Jakes. That's Donny.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  "Aaron is so cute." And she was, she was, she was beautiful, you know.

• 33:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  And I was like, "Oh, thank you." But she used to do it every day. "Aaron is so cute."

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Like, okay, you know, um, then I got to skipping lunch to go visit her while she's by herself, you know, and I'm just gonna leave it at that, you know, to be safe.

• 33:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  But I was in love.

• 33:52Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Till she got married.

• 33:54Bunnie XO?

  But you guys ended up, and we can always cut this too if you want to, but you guys ended up getting caught, right?

• 34:00Speaker 03

  We got caught by a student walking by. She said she told my sixth hour teacher, no, it wasn't my sixth hour teacher. It was sixth hour upstairs, Ms. Glenn's room was like courtroom class. So whenever something happened in the school, they would have to come to court in her class in front of her big student body, you know?

• 34:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  So they called me up to court class one day, not knowing what they want to talk to me about. I've never been to court class, you know, and Ms. Glenn, she's a black lady. She didn't want no fuck shit. You know what I'm saying? So she say, Erin, there's a student in here, the student was sitting right there, that says they walked by Ms. So-and-so's room and saw both of you kissing and the whole crowd, the whole student body said, ooh, you know? I said, huh? Why would I be kissing a grown up? You know, I was smart, you know what I'm saying?

• 35:06Speaker 03

  She's like, I saw you, Erin. I saw you. I said, you didn't see me. I was in lunch. No, you were in there kissing. I said, it's her story against mine. You know what I mean? And, and they called us to the office and called the teacher to the office too.

• 35:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  And I was sweating.

• 35:27Bunnie XO?

  I bet.

• 35:29Speaker 03

  And they saying, they say her name, this, this is alarming. And she's like, I would never with a student. You know, I remember her, you know, like pleading her case and being real serious, you know? And, uh, nothing happened.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  We didn't get in trouble because I didn't tell.

• 35:50Bunnie XO?

  But you guys were having, were you guys having sex?

• 35:53Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 35:54Bunnie XO?

  In the classroom?

• 35:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 35:55Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  After school, that's another story, you know what I'm saying?

• 35:58Bunnie XO?

  On school campuses though?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 36:00Bunnie XO?

  Okay, okay.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Call home, see if you can help me after school. Can I help my teacher after school and she'll bring me home, da, da, da, da, go to her house.

• 36:08Bunnie XO?

  It's so hard for me to wrap my brain around that because I know coming from a man's point of view, it's like, oh, you got to bag the teacher, the older chick.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Like I said, I was in love.

• 36:17Bunnie XO?

  Right, but if we switched places and it was a man doing that to a little girl.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  It's over.

• 36:25Bunnie XO?

  You know, like it's hard for me to kind of wrap my head around that.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  And I don't.

• 36:30Bunnie XO?

  Not be mad at her for what happened to you.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:33Bunnie XO?

  You know?

• 36:34Speaker 03

  I appreciated it.

• 36:36Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  She got married in my eighth grade year and after that, we didn't talk anymore. You know what I'm saying? After, you know what I'm saying? Because we did our thing before we got busted. You know what I mean?

• 36:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  So we didn't talk anymore after being in the principal's office, you know what I'm saying? Out of like.

• 36:51Bunnie XO?

  Well, because you guys were being watched, I'm sure, like heavily.

• 36:54Speaker 03

  So I remember the last day of school.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Attention all new and existing members of the W D N C. I'm Melanie Sanders and this is the We Do Not Care Club Podcast. We got to midlife and realized we just simply do not care much anymore. Now we got to help each other make sense of hot flashes, dry coochie, chin hair, trifling families, brain fog and bat wings. We are not alone and we will be heard. So come join the W D N C. Follow and listen to the We Do Not Care Club Podcast with Melanie Sanders wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  In eighth grade, walking by her room, her classroom. And I walked by, I could see her on my peripheral. She had been married already and everything, changed her name.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  When I passed the room, I heard a voice say, "Hey." I'm like, "She's like, "You're not gonna give me a hug? I'm not gonna see you again. You're going to the high school."

• 37:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  When I gave her a hug,

• 37:54Speaker 03

  never seen her again.

• 37:56Bunnie XO?

  She never tried to reach out to you or anything after that?

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:59Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  You know, I ran away like years after that, you know what I mean? From home and on a quest to become Technina, you know what I'm saying?

• 38:07Bunnie XO?

  Yes. Let's, let's dive into your love for horror.

• 38:10Speaker 03

  That's a dark story, yeah. I didn't realize how dark it was, you know, so now it's dark to me.

• 38:16Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  It's fucking dark as fuck.

• 38:17Bunnie XO?

  But you know what? I think it is, this is why I say you have such a beautiful testimony because like you really are what you rap about, rap about. And it's like, a lot of people can't say that they are.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  I write my life, you know what I'm saying?

• 38:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 03

  I found that out early on Quincy Jones, he told me.

• 38:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Rap what you know and people will forever feel you and what I know better than anything is myself, you know?

• 38:39Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 38:39Speaker 03

  And I wrote about myself and my stories and what people have in common and they don't really know is emotion.

• 38:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  So I tapped into emotion. That's why, that's how I got fans, you know? Um,

• 38:53Speaker 03

  all my stories are true.

• 38:55Bunnie XO?

  Yes, absolutely, they are.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Except when you get to Black in the Sun and it turns into imagination, you know what I'm saying? Nipples and noodles and all that kind of shit with trapped in the psycho's body. It has a bit of imagination in there, you know what I mean?

• 39:08Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  But it comes from a place.

• 39:10Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 39:10Speaker 03

  Um, I don't blame

• 39:14Speaker 03

  my teacher for anything that's happened to me in my life because

• 39:18Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  I didn't look like, I didn't look at it as molesting because I was in love.

• 39:23Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But in true, it is.

• 39:27Bunnie XO?

  And her, she groomed you.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:29Bunnie XO?

  You know, and I mean, I'm sorry, but a 21 year old looking at a 13, 14 year old like that is

• 39:35Speaker 03

  There's no, but I already came at 12 though with Marlene.

• 39:37Bunnie XO?

  Right, no, and I get that and I love that you

• 39:40Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But

• 39:41Bunnie XO?

  I love that you didn't internalize it as being molested, you know, but Responsibly, I have to say, you know, like if that was a man doing that to a little girl, we would all fucking lose our minds, you know?

• 39:53Speaker 03

  I heard stories later on that I wasn't the only one.

• 39:57Bunnie XO?

  See what I'm saying? It's predatory.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  I heard some of my homies say, you know, so and so hit two. I'm like, huh?

• 40:04Bunnie XO?

  What the, she was just getting it in.

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what I heard.

• 40:07Bunnie XO?

  The fact that they even still let her work at the school is just wild, but.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  Like I said, she was 21.

• 40:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, well, but what I'm saying is like after you guys got caught and them still letting her work there, that would never fly this, this time.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  Because it was, it was written off like that student was just talking some shit.

• 40:25Bunnie XO?

  Right, yeah, absolutely.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  And they didn't see that.

• 40:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  They seen me give her a hug or something.

• 40:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 40:31Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? I don't recall what we said, but.

• 40:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Whatever we said, it was like, okay.

• 40:37Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 40:38Speaker 03

  You know?

• 40:39Bunnie XO?

  Well, let's switch gears to a lighter subject and let's talk.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  No, it's cool. We can go dark as much as you want to.

• 40:45Bunnie XO?

  We're gonna, we're gonna go through phases. Um, so let's talk about your love for horror. You got introduced to it by your mom.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  My Christian mama.

• 40:53Bunnie XO?

  How, that blew my mind whenever I read that fact.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  She's, I miss her so much, man. She was so cool. Madi Sue Yates, before she became Madi Sue Yates Khalifa, you know?

• 41:10Speaker 03

  Let me see. I was born in 71. She took me to go see Carrie in 76.

• 41:15Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  You know, um, Halloween, Halloween premiered in Kansas City in 78. I was there. She took me.

• 41:25Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 41:26Speaker 03

  My Christian mama took me to, you know, Kansas City has 100 houses around Sept- late September, October, Halloween.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  We have Main Street Morgue, we have Dr. Deadley's, we used to have Dr. Deadley's Hunted Hospital, The Edge of Hell, we still got The Edge of Hell, um, The Beast, all these haunted houses for, you know, attractions for people who like the darkness, you know? She took me to all that when I was young.

• 41:56Bunnie XO?

  That's amazing to me because I grew up strict Pentecostal and we were not allowed to listen to secular music. Anything that had to do with Halloween, I could never partake in it. Like, so that was really cool of her to let you be able to experience some sort of like...

• 42:11Speaker 03

  I remember her dating my Uncle Ike's friend, Daniel Whitney, and him being the one taking us to this haunted house, Main Street Morgue. And I remember us walking in, I was young, young, man, you know what I'm saying? I keep on going back to five, a lot of shit happened when I was five, dude, you know what I'm saying? Really, early on. Um, I remember walking into Main Street Morgue and when you come in, you turn right and you go up some stairs, they had a black light, I didn't know what a black light was, I was young. And I looked at their faces and their eyes were glowing and their face looked crazy and it kind of scared me, but I appreciated it because I was already going to the movies and stuff like that, you know what I mean?

• 42:51Speaker 03

  On the scary tip, my mom showed me all the things that scared me as a kid, like clowns at the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus or the Ararat Shrine Circus. She took me to all that, I had a fear for clowns when I was younger.

• 43:09Bunnie XO?

  Do you think that's why you wore face paint?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:12Bunnie XO?

  Later on in life?

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:13Bunnie XO?

  Because it was like embracing a fear?

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly what it was.

• 43:16Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  I became everything that Mahdi Suyes Khalifa showed me. Her having epilepsy, you know, when she, when she married Hassan, when she started having seizures, he put her in a psychiatric ward and my Christian family hated him for it because we've dealt with it since she was 18 and she never had to go to a psychiatric ward. So, he thought that was the best thing for her because after you have a grandma seizure, the after effects is you talking out of your mind, you know what I'm saying? So... I used to have to come visit her there at Western Missouri when menorah had one off 63rd, um, uh, Research Psychiatric Center, all of them in Kansas City. I went to go visit my mom.

• 44:01Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  And when they see me wearing hospital scrubs on stage, you know, I mean, all that, the clown, the hospital scrubs, the darkness, all that.

• 44:12Bunnie XO?

  The nut house.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  The lyrically Michael Myers and all that kind of shit is from Mahdi Suyes Khalifa. It created Tech 9. Thank you, mama. You know what I'm saying? Cause it saved my life. Everything I built from her and her pain.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  I internalized that shit and turned it into Tech 9, you know what I mean? And when people come to my house now and they see my clown shrine with all the Michael Myers stuff and all the, you know, I have Reagan, like a life-size Reagan from, um, The Exorcist right there. It says, "Sorry, we dead" on her hands. She's holding a sign that says, "Sorry, we dead." I have this in my house and people are like, "What's up with all this devil shit?" I said, "It ain't devil shit." My mom taught me early on when I was younger that these toys, these dark toys that you see,

• 45:01Speaker 03

  don't think of them any other kind of way than you think of your G.I. Joe toys or your Star Wars toys.

• 45:10Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:11Speaker 03

  Or when you see Barbie and Ken, it's plastic and you can't give it any energy at all. And people believe that you can, that you'll have dark energy in your house. And when you look at my shrine, that's Mahdi Suyes Khalifa right there. And it reminds me, her birthday is October 26th. She's in that kind of fall, kind of feel. So when the fall comes, and Halloween is just a reminder of my mom.

• 45:35Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 45:36Speaker 03

  I became the clown, painted my face early on in 90, 94. I painted my face for the first time, you know what I mean? I got my face painted, that is. And, um, now when you see the clown with the red nose on a stage, you know, the mask I use now, you know, is just what that clown, what that paint and that clown in my head has transformed into. And it gets worse and worse over the years, you know what I mean? Not within me, though. I just.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Know what that darkness feels like of my mom being in a psychiatric ward. And having the seizures and seeing her busting her head wide open from falling out on the floor. Hitting her head on the bathroom. I mean, the bathtub, you know what I mean? I've seen the puddles of blood, her laying in them, getting beat up, all that stuff.

• 46:28Speaker 03

  I can, I, I know what that darkness is.

• 46:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  So I make the clown look like something hideous like that, you know what I mean?

• 46:36Bunnie XO?

  You turned your trauma into triumph.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Yes, I did.

• 46:38Bunnie XO?

  Is pretty much what you did.

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:40Bunnie XO?

  I did the same thing, but in a different way, not with the clowns and stuff like that. But it's like you, you alchemized your pain. And that's so beautiful that you, you know, were able to have that consciousness to do that. Instead of letting it consume you.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  Or drive me crazy.

• 46:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 47:00Bunnie XO?

  Did you ever fear that you would end up in a place like your mom? If you let the, if you let it consume you?

• 47:07Speaker 03

  I never felt like I would end up in a psychiatric ward because I've always been super cerebral.

• 47:13Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 47:14Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Like a thinker. You know, and always, I was so, I've always been so.

• 47:21Bunnie XO?

  Logical.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  Thoughts and stuff like that, that I always feared having an aneurysm or something, you know?

• 47:26Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Cause it never stops.

• 47:28Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Sometimes I have to do mantras to go to sleep to make it stop, you know?

• 47:32Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 47:33Speaker 03

  But um, I never thought I would end up in a psychiatric ward. I wanted to be a psychi- a psychiatrist.

• 47:40Bunnie XO?

  To figure people out.

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to understand a lot of things, you know? I studied serial killers early on in school, you know, I bought books. You know, Manson and Ted Bundy and, you know, saying the forty-four caliber killer, you know what I'm saying? It's, it's all these things I studied because my mom said I was her angel sitting down to help people, you know? So I wanted to find out about my opposition, which would be evil because I am angel. You know what I'm saying? What you, what I got right there, you know? And uh, I never thought I would lose my mind. And I never lost my mind. I don't think I lost my mind.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Travels would know if I lost my mind.

• 48:21Bunnie XO?

  Not intentionally, maybe on a party night.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  Maybe some things I do in life, you're like, what's going on in his brain? But I ain't never lost my mind.

• 48:27Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, gotcha. So can we talk about, I read somewhere that you have an obsession with the number nine and the birth of tech nine? Did that come from that?

• 48:38Speaker 03

  When I got my name in eighty-eight from the gangster named Black Walt, I didn't have a name when I wrote my first three verse rhyme, you know what I'm saying? The new breed, I was, my first rhyme, I was just going with my middle name, D O N T E Z Z. I didn't have nothing, you know, so. He was in a group called Black Mafia, he had Mac Ten, not Mac Ten Ice Cube, this is Kansas City.

• 49:01Bunnie XO?

  I was like, I love Mac Ten.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Not that Mac Ten, that's my brother too though. This was a Mac Ten early on in Kansas City, you know, before Mac Ten came out, you know?

• 49:12Bunnie XO?

  The OG.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, we started calling him Shorty Mac, you know what I'm saying, later on in life, you know what I'm saying? But, um, when I, when they heard me do new breed, my three verse rhyme, my first three verse rhyme, they were like, man, we gotta find you a name, bro. Black Mafia, man, we, we already got one gun, let me look in the guns and Elmo books and try to find you another one, you know? And they looked at Uzi, you know what I'm saying, that was like, nah, now you got Lil Uzi Vert, you know?

• 49:37Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Twelve gauge.

• 49:39Bunnie XO?

  But cause you spit like an Uzi though, huh?

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, they're trying to find something, you know, twelve gauge, I'm like, nah, and then twelve gauge is a loaded gun and I'm done by nuns. So shake that donkey button, them big old legs, I ain't too hard to beat, you know what I'm saying? People got that too, you know what I'm saying? We went AK forty-seven, nah, nah, nah, nah. Went through the whole book and there was no, nothing in there, we didn't find anything, but it was a picture of a tech nine on the back. He's like, tech nine? He said, because the way you spit, that, that, that, that, that, you know, I'm like, okay, he said, that's gonna be your name till we find something else. But the way we spelled it, T E C H was short for technique. And after I started studying numerology, I found out that nine was the number of completion, nine months completes a pregnancy. They said, Kaz, I have nine lives, after nine, there's nothing else like it, it's double and triple or whatever.

• 50:23Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 50:23Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Um, I became the complete technique of rhyme, tech nine, technique number nine, you know what I'm saying? Everything to be able to. I'm rooted in rap, but be able to adjust to any musical situation. You know what I mean?

• 50:40Bunnie XO?

  And what your fanbase shows that.

• 50:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:42Bunnie XO?

  Your fanbase, you have metal fans, you have Juggalo fans, you have hip hop heads.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got gangsters, I got all of it.

• 50:48Bunnie XO?

  You've got it all.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:50Bunnie XO?

  It covers every.

• 50:51Speaker 03

  That's how I, that's how I wanted it to be. I wanted to make Tech 9 the MC that can do anything.

• 50:58Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. When you first started rapping, was it always so fast? Or did you have to develop that style? Because your brain has got to fire at a different frequency.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  That's from years of practice doing it, but when I first started, my, um,

• 51:17Speaker 03

  one of my first rhymes. So that's why they said, I was like, so that's why they said, what did I say? So that's why they said, I was like, it was like going like,

• 51:28Speaker 03

  you know what I'm saying? And I attribute that to

• 51:34Speaker 03

  listening to Slick Rick. People like, Slick Rick didn't rap like that, but you know, he'd be like, around this part of town with diamonds in your girl in front. I'm trying to enter into rapping because you haven't, so. It's like, it's like he would do a little Jamaican like toasting, like, don't worry about a thing because Rick is bringing home the goods. I'm like, that's dope.

• 51:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 03

  So I turned that, don't worry about a thing, don't worry about a thing. I was like, that's like Jamaican. Don't worry about a thing, don't worry about a thing, don't worry about a thing.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  It turned into chopping, you know what I'm saying? And when I say that to people, they're like, wow, you know what I'm saying? It was just like, don't worry about a thing, don't worry about a thing.

• 52:12Speaker 03

  It was like, that's how I started rhyming, you know?

• 52:14Bunnie XO?

  It's almost like gibberish, kind of.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  Well.

• 52:18Bunnie XO?

  Like a form of it.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Well, no.

• 52:20Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  Not when you're speaking of Tech 9, because I pride myself on clarity while speeding.

• 52:27Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, right. But it's like the double time is like how they do it in gibberish, correct? Or no?

• 52:33Speaker 03

  Uh, I don't really know. I, I, I think they call it bebop.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Bebop, that's why Quincy Jones signed me in 97. He said, your style remind me of bebop. But, uh, I think that's what you mean by gibberish.

• 52:47Bunnie XO?

  Well, there's a language, right? What is it? Is it Pig Latin or gibberish that I'm thinking of where they double up the words? Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Pig Latin? Okay.

• 52:56Speaker 03

  Usually gibberish mean you can't hear it.

• 52:58Bunnie XO?

  Oh, gotcha. Okay. I thought, well, I thought it was called gibberish, but maybe it's like another word for pig Latin. It was gibberish though, but um, so pig Latin where they like double up the words is what I'm saying. Either way, it's fascinating how you fucking do it because it's like, I, I just, I don't know how somebody's brain can just fire on all cylinders like that.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  That signal from your brain to your tongue.

• 53:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  Takes work. It's hard.

• 53:23Bunnie XO?

  No, it's insane.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  It's hard. When, when, when I'm writing, you know, I have to put it on a dictaphone recorder to see if it works. To see if the words work off of each other. You know what I mean? When I'm writing that style, because I ain't the only style I do, but that's one of the ones that people know me from, from a song that I did in 98 called Questions on the Gang related soundtrack.

• 53:43Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  And everybody, why do I want to stick them with another hit up out of a bitch? They want to know who that guy is. So since then, since 98, everybody that wants to, mostly everybody that wants a song from Tech 9, wants the chopping. I'm so tired of racing motherfuckers.

• 53:58Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 53:59Speaker 03

  I'm so, I, I can race the best of them, you know what I'm saying? I've done songs with Eminem and Kendrick and everybody, you know what I'm saying?

• 54:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  You know, uh.

• 54:09Bunnie XO?

  But you're, I, I just say, I feel like you're at a point where you don't even need to prove yourself to anybody anymore.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  I don't, I don't, I don't.

• 54:14Bunnie XO?

  Like you are Tech 9.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  People, the younger generation, want to race me. Because they grew up listening to me. They want a song with Tech 9. Yeah. So, you know, when, when I did a song with NF, much love to NF, you know, his fans, when we did Trust, I'm dancing all over that bitch too. You know what I'm saying? That track, you know? You know, Techna, next gang up, everybody knowing I'm a death bringer, that linguist, back then, yeah, leaving the rebel record, you know, I'm talking some shit. This is what I give it such an incredible weekend. Rest of it, I'm really going, you know?

• 54:51Bunnie XO?

  As you should.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  And his, and his fans, they was like. And F really stood up with Tech 9, you know what I'm saying? That's like, that's something, that's a thing.

• 55:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 03

  He can hold his own with Tech 9, you know what I'm saying? So I think a lot of guys coming up really wanna race me. At a time where I've raced my whole career.

• 55:13Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  I'm tired of racing motherfuckers.

• 55:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  I can do it, you know what I'm saying? Token, no, I can't, I can't, I can't give it away, you know what I'm saying? Token, well, I'd say Token sent me one and we're racing.

• 55:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah? You're gonna, so you're gonna let him race you even though you're tired of it? Or is it just because?

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I still race motherfuckers.

• 55:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, but I mean, you're tired of it.

• 55:35Speaker 03

  Of course, I'm tired, but I still go when I, if it's, if it's, if it's worth me going.

• 55:40Bunnie XO?

  You're just TTG training to go.

• 55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, me and Jelly got songs, we didn't have, I didn't have to race.

• 55:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  You know, we could just do music.

• 55:46Bunnie XO?

  They're very melodic and...

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can sing, you know?

• 55:50Bunnie XO?

  Creature was amazing.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, man, it's like platinum and shit.

• 55:52Bunnie XO?

  FU2 was amazing. Which you guys did that in the, in a hospital.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:57Bunnie XO?

  The video was in a hospital.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  Right, yeah, yeah, easier for you, you know what I'm saying? You know, it's, we can do, you know, do you know somebody in pain? I know somebody's, you know what I'm saying? We got to sing and play, you know what I'm saying?

• 56:10Bunnie XO?

  Do you prefer that over having to rap fast?

• 56:13Speaker 03

  I love writing songs that people can say. Now, when it comes to the technicians, they can say all my shit. Okay, I don't see how, because it's hard for me. Like a song, like so dope, wanna sit beside a sick and seductive Tennessee, something so sinister, sick and something like a centipede. It's like, I try to make it to where nobody can do it, the motherfuckers can do it, dude.

• 56:31Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 56:32Speaker 03

  But I like to do, I like to do music where I don't have to race everybody, you know? Ronnie Ratkey, for instance, you know?

• 56:42Bunnie XO?

  Good old Ronaldo.

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Rodney Rackey, I love him to death, man. Oh, I do a song, I do the song, the big song we got, you know.

• 56:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  Called Ronald. And.

• 56:58Bunnie XO?

  Which you did phenomenal in that.

• 57:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:00Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 03

  But I sent him something before that when I'm just doing my singing.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  I'm singing, you know. And he was like, this is dope, man, it's so dope, you know, the first four bars I was singing. So dope, but then some weeks went by, he's like, hey, man, um, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you're singing at the top of yours, and then when yours is over, I come in singing. Like, to me, it's too much singing, you know? And I said, okay, so I'll go in the studio the next day and I'll just rap.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  You know? He said, yeah, let's try that, you know what I'm saying? But before, like, when, after I hung up, like, 10 minutes later, he said, he texts me, he said, how about you just scrap that? And just come in shredding, I'm like, ugh.

• 57:51Bunnie XO?

  Well, because Ronnie is still, and this is no disrespect to you, Ronnie, um, he's one of our friends also, but he still has something to prove when it comes to rapping.

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, but.

• 58:03Bunnie XO?

  He doesn't have the longevity that you do.

• 58:04Speaker 03

  I'm gonna tell you.

• 58:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  That's how I found that motherfucker, because I was looking for metal choppers and I watched the world burn, I was like, fuck, yeah.

• 58:12Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  He got it already, he knows how to fucking do it, you know what I'm saying? So, when he said that, I called X-rated, one of our artists, I said, man, he want me to change my first four bars, he said, it's too much singing. He's like, man, them motherfuckers, man, they just scared of you, man, you know? Nah, I don't think it's that, I just think it's too much singing.

• 58:29Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 58:30Speaker 03

  So, he changed it, you know, he had me change it and just come in trapping, you know what I'm saying? What is up in your mind, you think the devil is making the crime of the people are evil and never no demon is on the opposite of a divine? No, yes, you know what I'm saying?

• 58:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 03

  He was right, but he wanted me to race. Cause that's what he knows from Tech 9, from Worldwide Choppers.

• 58:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  We put out Worldwide Choppers some years, late, um, some years ago, and that motherfucker went platinum.

• 58:56Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  With like 12 people on it, you know what I'm saying? It was Busta Rhymes on it, it was Twista, it was Yellow Wolf, it was.

• 59:03Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I remember.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Uso, Jael, people from Istanbul on it, you know what I'm saying? It's like Jay-Z, you know, so many people on it.

• 59:11Bunnie XO?

  If you could do another Worldwide Choppers with other people on it, what artist would you bring on it?

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Okay, here's the story.

• 59:19Bunnie XO?

  Mimi, can you hit the?

• 59:20Speaker 03

  I ain't never said this around Travis, but I gotta tell.

• 59:24Bunnie XO?

  Travis is in the corner watching.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  So, I did another Worldwide Choppers 2.

• 59:29Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  My idea was to get Eminem on it. He did it.

• 59:36Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  When he sent the verse in, you know, Chris Calico got it before Eminem.

• 59:44Bunnie XO?

  We love Chris.

• 59:45Speaker 03

  I didn't want to listen to Chris Calico verse because I didn't want to be influenced by it. So I never listened to it. I did my verse without listening to nobody. I always started off and I send my stuff to people so it can be a greater song. A lot of artists won't do that because they didn't want to be outdone. I feel like Eminem say, "My spot is forever reserved. I don't give a fuck." We going, "If you do better than me, motherfucker, it makes for a better song." That's what I think, you know? So, um, when we got the Eminem verse, I already had people putting fillers out to get Daddy Yankee on it. I was scared to ask Wayne about Nicki Minaj, but I wanted her on it. And I had, I had no, I had people on it that never been heard before,

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  like Gabby Gab from Atlanta, Georgia, a female rapper with Nicki. You know, so I was gonna put females on it, you know what I'm saying? Um, who else did I, oh, I was going for Kulega over in Germany. Trav Nemb said, "Man, with Eminem, you can't put all those no-name motherfuckers on there." You know what I'm saying?

• 1:00:47Bunnie XO?

  Which I do understand, where from a business point of view, I do understand that.

• 1:00:52Speaker 03

  I do too.

• 1:00:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  But if we did though, I think it would turned out just like Worldwide Choppers Platinum. Speedo with Eminem ain't even platinum. Ain't even gold, I don't think.

• 1:01:02Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Because people love it.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  But they said, this is not Worldwide Choppers. And I had to lie and say, come up with some shit like, we're, we're the dopest rappers worldwide, motherfuckers.

• 1:01:17Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? We're the dopest choppers worldwide. You know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, we get it. Now, they, they fuck with it. I don't know what the numbers are on the choppers, but you know what I'm saying? It ain't Worldwide Choppers.

• 1:01:27Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. So you guys never dropped the one with Eminem?

• 1:01:29Speaker 03

  Yes, we did.

• 1:01:30Bunnie XO?

  Oh, you did drop it. I've never heard that one.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  We got some numbers on it.

• 1:01:32Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Like, let me see, what did I see last? On YouTube, the views was like 28 million or something like, I don't fucking know.

• 1:01:42Bunnie XO?

  I mean, that's nothing to scoff at.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  48 million. It was one of them. Just on the, just on the, just on the audio, you know?

• 1:01:47Bunnie XO?

  So it only ended up just being just you and Eminem on the track or a couple of other people?

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  It was me, Eminem, and my brother, Chris Calico.

• 1:01:54Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 1:01:54Speaker 03

  So, like I said, I never listened, listened to Chris Calico's verse until after I finished my verse and I had my engineer Ben, we call him Ben- engineer.

• 1:02:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  Let me hear Calico's verse in the studio. I was like, holy fuck. Yes.

• 1:02:09Bunnie XO?

  I love Chris and his wife.

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  I think my label wanted it to just be me and Eminem, and I get that.

• 1:02:12Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But Chris is my brother, you know what I'm saying? I'm like, okay, if you fucking do something dope, and Eminem even said his verse was fucking dope, you know what I'm saying? So when you listen to Speed 'Em now, and we dedicated it to Richie Havens, rest his soul, you know, his estate said yes to use freedom. We called it Speed 'Em, you know, and, uh, I don't even know why we was talking about that.

• 1:02:33Bunnie XO?

  No, I love that. So we were talking about how you actually became Tech Nine, where you got your name from.

• 1:02:38Speaker 03

  The Choppers. We were talking about the Choppers.

• 1:02:39Bunnie XO?

  And then how your flow.

• 1:02:41Speaker 03

  And how everybody wants me to fucking chop, and I'm tired. That's what we're talking about.

• 1:02:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 03

  I'm tired of fucking racing.

• 1:02:45Bunnie XO?

  I love you, Tech. He said, I'm, I'm fucking tired.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  I'm tired of fucking racing, but I will take on it.

• 1:02:53Bunnie XO?

  Do you guys hear this man loud and clear? He, stop racing.

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  They're not gonna stop.

• 1:02:56Bunnie XO?

  No?

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  No. JID just sent me one a few months ago. JID just sent me one a few months ago that I'm, I still ain't done yet because I got so busy, but I'm still gonna do it for him. JID sent me one. He's racing me.

• 1:03:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:12Speaker 03

  I'm like, fucking shit.

• 1:03:14Bunnie XO?

  Well, it's not gonna stop because you're the greatest. And it's like, and do you, and this is, you know, could be a long-winded question, but it's not gonna stop until you pretty much retire. And do you think you're ever going to retire from music?

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Do I think I'm ever gonna retire from music?

• 1:03:35Speaker 03

  I still, was that a fart or still?

• 1:03:37Bunnie XO?

  It's him, it's him, it's snoring.

• 1:03:41Bunnie XO?

  Tech, I would not be over here lighting it up.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, it's your house, I'm like.

• 1:03:47Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  Damn, what'd you eat before you came here, buddy?

• 1:03:50Bunnie XO?

  Listen, I have been with my husband 10 years and he's only heard me fluff one time. I would never be over here just ripping it up, alright?

• 1:03:57Speaker 03

  I heard that farting in the workplace is considered sexual harassment.

• 1:04:03Bunnie XO?

  Are you kidding me? Stop it.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  But it never made any sense to me because I'm like, how is that sexual harassment? Like, is that like an invitation where you want to fuck me? My ass?

• 1:04:12Bunnie XO?

  Somebody's like asking a question with a fluff.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  Fluff, like, why would that be sexual harassment? Like, at work, at the, getting company?

• 1:04:18Bunnie XO?

  Because people, because we are, we're literally in an era where everybody gets a trophy, so people will make up shit to be mad about.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know if it's really indeed, you know.

• 1:04:27Bunnie XO?

  We'll have to give that a go and see if it is.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  At the workplace, I'm not supposed to fart.

• 1:04:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  Tell that to your daughter.

• 1:04:33Bunnie XO?

  Chachi, stop fluffing over here. He has the silent but deadly ones. This guy right here. Trust me, you won't hear it, you'll smell it.

• 1:04:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, um, yeah, they still want to erase me. Uh, the younger generation are still contacting me, want to erase.

• 1:04:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, for sure, but like I said, are they, they're gonna want to erase you until you retire. So do you think you would ever retire from music? Or?

• 1:04:52Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying.

• 1:04:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  Sorry, I'm so sporadic.

• 1:04:54Bunnie XO?

  You're okay, baby, don't worry.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  I still get excited when I hear dope beats and melodies.

• 1:05:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  I still get excited.

• 1:05:06Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  Because I love music. I used to be a dancer, pop locker, breakdancer, all that when I was younger. You know what I'm saying? I still.

• 1:05:14Bunnie XO?

  Can you still do it?

• 1:05:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can still do it, you know what I'm saying? On one of those tours, on that E40 tour we went on, I was doing this breakdancing song I did called, uh, "Don't Nobody Want None," you know? And I was breakdancing every night and I hate myself for it because my knees were dead after that tour.

• 1:05:31Bunnie XO?

  You didn't have knees like Megan.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  I didn't have no knee pads or nothing, just going rogue on the fucking stage, you know? So, um, but to answer your question.

• 1:05:42Speaker 03

  I don't know, because I still get excited when I hear good songs like that one I just saw Jelly do with his other guys like hallelujah.

• 1:05:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  That fucking swing.

• 1:05:54Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:05:56Bunnie XO?

  Well, they should do a remix and put tech on it.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  That's, I heard that shit and I heard him, I heard him do it live at the Super Bowl.

• 1:06:05Bunnie XO?

  That would be fire.

• 1:06:05Speaker 03

  At the show with him and Shaboozie.

• 1:06:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  I heard him do, I said, that's the one I heard lately.

• 1:06:09Bunnie XO?

  I'm gonna put it in his ear.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 1:06:11Bunnie XO?

  I'll put it in his ear.

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  Fucking dope.

• 1:06:12Bunnie XO?

  That would be fire to have all three of you guys on a track.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  Now, you gotta do my song first that I sent him already.

• 1:06:16Bunnie XO?

  Okay. I'll, I'll get, listen, I barely even get to see my damn husband, so I don't know what's going on, but I'll talk to him about that too.

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  You gotta do Sacrifice first, then we'll talk about Hallelujah.

• 1:06:25Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha. I got your back, Tech, I promise.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and, and I'm not, I'm not racing on Sacrifice either.

• 1:06:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, good. So, instead of retiring, do you think that you would ever step into like maybe a mentor position of like, like, kinda like what, what Jay-Z?

• 1:06:40Speaker 03

  I always said, always said that maybe when we get to the point of wanna sell strange music or something, I'll do stuff to help my artists, you know what I'm saying, you know, and do verses here and there, I don't fucking know, but.

• 1:06:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  I can't, I don't, I don't see that because I'm getting better with my pen.

• 1:07:01Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:07:03Bunnie XO?

  Cause you're getting wiser too, and you just have so much life experience.

• 1:07:06Speaker 03

  Just trying to keep from saying shit that will piss people off is the hardest these days.

• 1:07:11Bunnie XO?

  Right. I mean, everybody's.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  You know, like when it comes to religion and politics and sexuality and all that kinda stuff, sexuality, that's not my business, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I don't judge people on their sexuality, you know what I'm saying? I never have, and I never will, and I don't know why people are so, you know, fixated on people and their sexuality, but, you know, I get when people say you're doing it on, on a show where kids are watching and you're kissing a man or whatever, and now people are upset, I get that, but at the same time, I ain't really worried about nobody's sexuality, but as far as religious beliefs and, um, politics and shit, I try to be careful.

• 1:07:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  Because all this shit is gang shit to me.

• 1:07:49Bunnie XO?

  Well, speaking about politics, I mean, Donald Trump pretty much adopted your red, red kingdom anthem.

• 1:07:57Speaker 03

  How do you know that?

• 1:07:59Bunnie XO?

  Listen, I pay attention to it all, baby. Um, how did that feel for you? And we can cut this part off too.

• 1:08:05Speaker 03

  No, you don't have to cut it off.

• 1:08:06Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:08:07Speaker 03

  No, you can ask me anything.

• 1:08:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I just, you know, I just always want to be respectful, but you know, I was wondering.

• 1:08:12Speaker 03

  My kids calling me like daddy, you gotta say something. You gotta, people gonna think that's you. I said, people can think what the fuck they want.

• 1:08:19Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  When you write music and you put it out to the public, their perception of what it means is gonna be different.

• 1:08:32Speaker 03

  However, they perceive that song is how they're gonna use it.

• 1:08:35Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  And when they put it out, you know, when you put it out, you know, that's what, that's what happens, you know? And my kids didn't like that. You know, so they wanted me to tell people, I don't fuck with these. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:08:49Bunnie XO?

  You can't get into politics because you'll be damned if you do, damned if you don't.

• 1:08:52Speaker 03

  All I know, and you know, all I know is that it's crazy how on that song, how the number spiked.

• 1:08:59Bunnie XO?

  Oh, because it's literally, it's, it became pop, like you're already such a huge presence, but it became like pop culture.

• 1:09:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Bunnie XO?

  You know, once you hit that pop culture.

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  What was that, what was that? Was it an indictment trial or?

• 1:09:12Bunnie XO?

  I forget.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Impeachment.

• 1:09:13Bunnie XO?

  Oh, was that what it was for? Okay, I thought it was for his campaign.

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, they did. They called it riot music and I made it for the chiefs. You know what I'm saying? I say number 58 is DT the great and we flaunt it, Derek Tomah, rest in peace. You know what I'm saying? But the hook, red kingdom, I had no idea the Republicans were gonna hijack my song and turn it into their shit.

• 1:09:41Bunnie XO?

  Listen, the Republicans hijack everything. I had a fucking, uh, I, um, what was it that went viral? A sound that went viral that said, I woke up this morning and I feel like trash. Um, but it's French for, I feel like garbage. That's French for trash. All the Republicans grabbed that after somebody said something about somebody being trash in Puerto Rico or something.

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  Oh, shit.

• 1:10:03Bunnie XO?

  It went viral. So it's like, that's what happened to your song. And that's why the streams weren't so crazy is because that shit was on TikTok.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:10:10Bunnie XO?

  And I'm telling you, it was everywhere. I was like, go tech. I was so excited for you.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, we, we're the kinda, I'm the kinda artist that.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  I do the music and I go and I don't look back and then next thing you know, I got all these fucking platinum and gold plaques coming in.

• 1:10:27Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  That was a flex.

• 1:10:29Bunnie XO?

  I mean, as you should.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  But, uh,

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  I just do the work and then shit pops up.

• 1:10:35Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? And, uh,

• 1:10:37Bunnie XO?

  Let's, let's dial back real quick and let's get into when you got your first record deal in ninety seven. When you,

• 1:10:43Speaker 03

  No, it was ninety three.

• 1:10:44Bunnie XO?

  Was it ninety three?

• 1:10:45Speaker 03

  It was my second.

• 1:10:46Bunnie XO?

  Sorry, I'm not looking at my notes.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  No, it's all good, baby. No, ninety three, I got my first record deal with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis at Perspective A and M.

• 1:10:52Bunnie XO?

  Yes, ninety three to ninety five, correct?

• 1:10:54Speaker 03

  Ninety three to ninety five. They let us off in ninety five. Started working with, uh, Don Juan around that time. I was working with Icy Rock that, you know, um, that got me the deal with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis in ninety three. Icy Rock was a producer of mine. He did It's Alive, he did T nine X. He did a lot of songs for me in the past, you know? And, um, after that relationship was kinda damaged, Don Juan came in and Diamond, rest his soul, they wanted to see if I could do hood music. I said, I'm from the hood, cause you know, with Icy Rock, we're doing nut house shit, you know? So we're doing the Scrubs and, you know, my mom, you know, we're doing dark shit, you know?

• 1:11:39Speaker 03

  And, uh, he's like, you doing that crazy shit over there with Icy Rock? Can you do, do some hood shit? They gave me the beat to Mitch Bay. I said, I'll be back tomorrow. Have you ever met a nigga who was pie sprung? It's a lot of slinky niggas where I come from. There's another missile catcher just like him. His name is Mitchell Bay. Mitchell Bay, you know what I'm saying? The motherfuckers like, what the fuck? I'm on there like, what up Mitch? Is it every, everything for you to act just like a bitch? How does it feel to have a nigga with the, I forgot how it goes, but it was, I'm like busting on it.

• 1:12:10Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:12:11Speaker 03

  That shit went to the fucking top in Kansas City. It was on the radio and everything.

• 1:12:17Bunnie XO?

  Back then, it was hard to get radio play, wasn't it? Because like,

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  Yes, it was.

• 1:12:20Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 03

  It was before then.

• 1:12:22Bunnie XO?

  It was kinda like a cult that you had to like get into.

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  That was undeniable though. They had to play Mitch Bay, you know? And, uh, it was, it was, it was a struggle to get songs on the radio in KC for us, for sure.

• 1:12:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:33Speaker 03

  Until Mitch, Mitch Bay. Cloudy Eyed Stroll and Mitch Bay. Mitch Bay was the B-side of my single Cloudy Eyed Stroll. It was like really calm song.

• 1:12:43Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  Mitch Bay was the B-side.

• 1:12:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Klaire Stroh was on the radio.

• 1:12:48Bunnie XO?

  Yep.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But Mitch Bay took over. Then, right behind Mitch Bay, I got with my group, my, my, my Blood Homeboys. And we started a group, Fifty Seventh Street Rogue Dog Villains. And we did a song called Let's Get Fucked Up. On radio, everything we touched.

• 1:13:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:05Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:13:06Bunnie XO?

  And this was after your record deal from ninety-three to ninety-five, or was this during?

• 1:13:10Speaker 03

  No, this is, this is after.

• 1:13:11Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  This is after, this is after ninety-five, when we got released.

• 1:13:14Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? So with Don Juan, that's when we, in ninety-seven, that's when we got the deal with Quincy Jones.

• 1:13:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:13:22Speaker 03

  Quest and Warner, yes.

• 1:13:23Bunnie XO?

  Right. One thing I, I respected about reading your, uh, situation with the record label from ninety-three to ninety-five was that you said some, that they, they like, put somebody in a car with you and the dude was telling you that you had to change.

• 1:13:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 1:13:37Bunnie XO?

  And you were like, no, I'm not fucking changing who I am. And like, you really like, stood your ground and was like, no, I know who I am and I'm not changing for anybody.

• 1:13:45Speaker 03

  I know his name too. His name was LaFala. He was from the East Coast.

• 1:13:48Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  In ninety-three, um, he, I guess, I know Protect Your Neck just came out with Wu-Tang, you know? And, uh, he was like, you gotta do this, son. You gotta do this, you gotta do, you know, saying, M E T H O D, man, whatever the fuck.

• 1:14:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:14:07Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? I was like, no, that's them. I gotta do me. And that was the tension. You know what I'm saying? Same thing with, in ninety-seven with Quincy Jones. He wanted me to do whatever I wanted to do, but his, people who worked at his label wanted me to do like popcorn shit. You know what I'm saying? They, they wanted me to do this song for the Shaq movies called Steel. He was like Robocop or some shit on there. And, um, I had a song like, he's strange and I like it. He's strange just the way he is. Take a Nina, take a Nina. What's up? Why you so damn psycho? Couldn't tell you, baby, you know? It was like cookie cutter shit.

• 1:14:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  But I could do it.

• 1:14:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:14:47Speaker 03

  Produced by Quincy Jones, his son, QD3, the third, Quincy Jones the third.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  But at the time, I had Dun, Dun, Dun, Dun. Tech N9t, I had Planet Rock, the Down South remix, you know? I said, I wanna start with this one. He's like, nah, this is regional, nope. You know, and I'm like, I told Quincy and he started firing motherfuckers. So they hated us up there because he favored us, you know?

• 1:15:15Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:15:17Speaker 03

  And uh, I met Travis the next year, the next summer in 98.

• 1:15:25Bunnie XO?

  98. So before you met Travis and we're gonna, we're gonna pull Travis in whenever we get to there.

• 1:15:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:15:31Bunnie XO?

  You did something with Death Row and Suge Knight, was that?

• 1:15:34Speaker 03

  That was in 98.

• 1:15:34Bunnie XO?

  That was in 98.

• 1:15:35Speaker 03

  That was, that was the year I met Travis.

• 1:15:36Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  But it was 98 when I was out in LA before I went home to KC, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:15:42Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about meeting Tupac and like, I, I actually have hung out with Suge numerous times.

• 1:15:49Speaker 03

  Yes, me too.

• 1:15:50Bunnie XO?

  And we can cut this out, I don't know.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  No, we don't. That's my brother. That's my brother. No, no, no.

• 1:15:54Bunnie XO?

  Well, I'm talking about for me too, though, but, cause Suge gets such a bad rap.

• 1:15:58Speaker 03

  Yes, he does. He's a nice guy.

• 1:15:59Bunnie XO?

  I, thank you. I have never told this story on the podcast before, but I used to do cocktails at the Palms and Suge would come in every night, he'd be so fucked up and he would be the nicest dude.

• 1:16:11Speaker 03

  I'd have kicked it with him on several birthdays and everything, man.

• 1:16:13Bunnie XO?

  He was so nice, like he never was disrespectful to me. He was like my homie, dude, and he would tip me all the time.

• 1:16:19Speaker 03

  Really good dude, really good dude. It's just that you encounter people in the industry, not saying they deserve anything, I'm just saying you encounter fuck shit in the industry.

• 1:16:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:29Speaker 03

  And uh, sometimes people handle fuck shit differently.

• 1:16:33Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:16:33Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 1:16:34Bunnie XO?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

  I don't know, I don't know his whole life.

• 1:16:37Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:16:37Speaker 03

  What he done to people, but I know when, when I'm around him.

• 1:16:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:41Speaker 03

  And we around all the homies with him and everything, it's all love, all respect. We partied together. He came to my shows.

• 1:16:46Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  Whenever I was in Vegas and San Diego, he would come to my shows, you know what I mean? Just showing love, man.

• 1:16:52Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  So.

• 1:16:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely. What about me when you met Tupac? Cause you said you've met him on probably like what, four instances?

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  Well, I met him in 93.

• 1:17:01Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:17:02Speaker 03

  No. 92 at Jack the Rapper. It's a musical conference, a music conference that they used to have in uh, Atlanta, at the Atlanta Hilton.

• 1:17:15Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And I met him in the lobby. He was checking out this uh, he was checking out this uh, stripper, this dancer.

• 1:17:30Speaker 03

  Had a big ol' ass. She used to be at the BRE conventions that I went, you know, years before, you know?

• 1:17:34Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  I'd see her all the time. She was Caucasian girl with a big ol' ass, you know?

• 1:17:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, we love those.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  Pac was standing behind her, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:17:43Bunnie XO?

  I was like, I could just visualize it.

• 1:17:45Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  Pac was standing behind her. It's like, I'm black owned. I'm black owned. You know, so I guess this is after the riots, you know, say like, I'm black owned.

• 1:17:56Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  And I went up to him and I was like, hey, Tupac, you can do whatever you want with that. He's like, nigga, I'm black owned. Like, what does that mean? You know what I'm saying? And I was like, oh, during the riots, whatever building had black owned and nobody would fuck with. So he said, he must've got black owned written across him because the bitches wasn't fucking with him, you know?

• 1:18:14Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  So I met him that year.

• 1:18:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18Speaker 03

  Ninety-two, then in ninety-three, I got my record deal with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Life Allah and all of them. I met them the first day there, you know what I'm saying? There was a guy named Jordy, you know, he drove us around and Life Allah was the guy who was trying to turn us into whatever they wanted us to be. They took us to this club after we checked into the Ladue, you know, in Hollywood, you know? And they took us to this club and Tupac was there. I went over there and hollered at him. Hollered at Mo Prin, his brother was with him, you know?

• 1:18:47Bunnie XO?

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• 1:19:27Bunnie XO?

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• 1:20:08Bunnie XO?

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• 1:20:58Speaker 03

  I saw him that whole summer. We was fucking the same bitches and everything. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:21:03Bunnie XO?

  Just on a rotation.

• 1:21:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. You know what I'm saying? It's like, bitch be at my house, she be crying because Pock said something to her, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I remember, like, it was yesterday.

• 1:21:15Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. That was like such a cool era, you know, because I was in Vegas at that time too. And I was actually in Vegas when Pock was murdered.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:23Bunnie XO?

  And it was, I remember it was like one of the saddest days. Like it was just such, it was like an end of an era.

• 1:21:29Speaker 03

  The connection. Was QD3, the producer. He did music for Tupac.

• 1:21:34Bunnie XO?

  Gotcha.

• 1:21:34Speaker 03

  And me, and Ice Cube, and Dub C. You know, a lot of people, you know what I'm saying? Yuck Mouth, you know, some of the Loonies, you know?

• 1:21:41Bunnie XO?

  I got shot nine times.

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Bunnie XO?

  I love Yuck Mouth.

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was the connection, you know what I'm saying? Cause you know, I would see Pac, but we never talked about doing music, but he talked, QD3 would talk to him about Tech N9ne, you know what I'm saying? And he had told me that Pac wanted to work, you know what I'm saying? And when he got killed, QD3 already had a song in mind, you know? Cause we were already, he was already working on one. He said, I got one, I'm working on it, then he died.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  Then like two weeks after he died, QD3 called me, he said, hey man, um, I got his verse on it, you still wanna do the song? I say, fuck yeah, I do.

• 1:22:24Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  It was called Thugs Get Lonely 2. It was a version that had Prince sampled, "If I Was Your Girlfriend," you know?

• 1:22:36Speaker 03

  It had that sample, and Prince wouldn't have in those samples.

• 1:22:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and that's when Prince was still alive too. So for him to even okay that is historical.

• 1:22:46Speaker 03

  Maybe he would've did it for Pac, I don't know, but it never came out. It leaked somehow, we didn't leak it though. I was just so happy it leaked, cause I mean, people think I was lying, you know?

• 1:22:55Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  Dude.

• 1:22:57Bunnie XO?

  That's a piece of history.

• 1:22:58Speaker 03

  I kicked it with a nigga for years, you know what I'm saying? Seeing him in LA, seeing him in Atlanta, you know?

• 1:23:03Bunnie XO?

  So that same year that you're going through all that with Death Row, Travis enters the picture in 98?

• 1:23:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, 98, I came back home from LA. I brought that song, Planet Rock, that I wanted to fucking put out instead of "Take a knee, no, take a knee, no, why you so damn psycho?" you know? I wanted to put the Down South mix out, so Quincy let us go.

• 1:23:28Speaker 03

  Went back to Kansas City, brought Planet Rock back with us, me and Don Juan. We put that shit out, we start playing on the radio, it fucking blew the fuck up, okay? So, like I thought it would.

• 1:23:42Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:23:43Speaker 03

  He leaves out right when we about to get to him, you know?

• 1:23:46Bunnie XO?

  And if you need to use the restroom too, we can break too, if you wanna use the restroom.

• 1:23:49Speaker 03

  No, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. I'm long-winded, I can stretch it.

• 1:23:53Bunnie XO?

  No, you're good.

• 1:23:54Speaker 03

  Even if you have some shit, you know, as I can stretch. But, uh...

• 1:23:58Speaker 03

  We brought Planet Rock 2K back to Kansas City and it blew the fuck up. It was a fashion show that was being held downtown Kansas City.

• 1:24:10Speaker 03

  It was a clothing company called Paradise Originals. My boy Heath and all his buddies.

• 1:24:17Speaker 03

  Travis was funding it.

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  I went down there to the fashion show and I did my song. You want me to jam? I'm finna, you know, brainwaves paying for them the same days. Make you sick like bad mayonnaise. Tech nine, got the remedy rhyme infinity criminal leaf. It'll be some shit. I'll crack you open like the youngest Mel Kennedy. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm really doing Tech nine, you know?

• 1:24:35Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  But it's the beat.

• 1:24:37Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Speaker 03

  You know, it was like that. It was like that shit.

• 1:24:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:47Speaker 03

  They said.

• 1:24:48Bunnie XO?

  I get hyphy when he does that. Every time he does that, I'm like, yeah. I get so excited.

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, right, right, right. I told you I'm animated.

• 1:24:55Bunnie XO?

  No, I love it. Listen, I've been to your concerts before and nobody puts on a show like you.

• 1:25:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:01Bunnie XO?

  Like, it's insane. Travis, you can go ahead and sit on the couch too, baby.

• 1:25:04Speaker 03

  But, you know.

• 1:25:04Bunnie XO?

  You're good.

• 1:25:06Speaker 03

  Right before we were here, we had breakfast and the guy taking our order like, you want coffee? I'm like, no. I can't have coffee. I can't ingest any caffeine. I'm naturally caffeine.

• 1:25:16Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  If I have caffeine, I'd be up for three days and I need to sleep with my job. Fuck that shit. Never could I have any caffeine. Can't drink no goddamn Mountain Dew, no Dr. Pibb, Mr. Pibb or Dr.

• 1:25:27Bunnie XO?

  I'm sensitive to caffeine too. There's no way.

• 1:25:29Speaker 03

  Or was it Mr. Pibb?

• 1:25:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, Mr. Pibb.

• 1:25:31Speaker 03

  Dr. Pepper.

• 1:25:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  That's disrespectful, dude.

• 1:25:37Bunnie XO?

  I was catching what you were putting down though.

• 1:25:39Speaker 03

  So I did that fashion show for Paradise Originals. Travis was funding them, you know what I'm saying? Heath and the boys. The next day, George Forte hit me. And he said, "Our boss wanna meet you."

• 1:25:57Bunnie XO?

  The boss.

• 1:25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. I said, "Your boss?" He's like, "Yeah." "The guy, you know, makes Paradise work." You know what I'm saying? I'm like, "Oh, okay. Let's go." Took me to his house in Blue Springs and we had our first meeting.

• 1:26:10Bunnie XO?

  Travis, Mr. Travis O'Gwynn, has joined us on the couch. I'm really excited to get you both together, because I think it's very... Yeah, I think this is very rare that I've ever gotten to see you two in an interview together, at least recently.

• 1:26:22Speaker 05

  I don't think it's ever happened, to be honest with you. Like, I mean, we always do individual interviews. I don't do very many, so this might be a first.

• 1:26:31Bunnie XO?

  I feel honored, like, for real. So Travis, I'm happy that you're here and, like, we were just saying, I'm so honored that you guys are doing this together, because I have so many questions, especially with you guys being like, the biggest independent label, pretty much in the world. You guys really built something from the ground up. What was... You were already involved in music before you found Tech? Because you were funding the fashion show?

• 1:27:00Speaker 05

  So I was actually involved in a clothing company, Paradise Originals, how we met. I wasn't really into the music business at all. As a matter of fact, I had no experience, no background at all. And so, but I... When I went to high school, I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood. But more importantly, it was... My school was about 80% black. So I grew up around hip-hop my entire life. I mean, from grade school, middle school, and then into high school. So I was always into hip-hop. So whenever we wanted to do this fashion show, Tech had a buzz because of those songs that he talked about being on the radio. And I'm like, "Okay, yeah, let's do this. Let's find him. Let's get him in there and see if he'll do it."

• 1:27:45Speaker 05

  And he did, which was awesome. And, but afterwards, like, I knew of him and I knew of several of his songs. And I always heard about how he was about to be the next biggest rapper and everything else. And then after we did the fashion show, I really wanted to talk to him to understand... What that journey was because it wasn't, a lot of the things that I heard were going to happen weren't happening. So I just wanted to understand why, like, okay, you know, what, what, what's your story? And, and he came and he, he was really, really, really open with me and he told me every detail. He told me about the managers that he had, which there was a lot of them, by the way. I think he had like five managers or something. I'm like, damn. And so, and then, you know, all the people that were involved.

• 1:28:30Speaker 05

  And at first I was like, okay, um, you know, he told me about the, the, the deal that he had with Quest and how that was through Warner Brothers and he had a publishing deal through Windswept. And, and it seemed pretty complicated. And at first I thought I could go in and say, you know, maybe I can give some advice. I was really good at business. I had a really successful furniture business at the time, successful with the clothing, successful with real estate. I was doing my thing and, and I thought maybe I could offer some advice. And after I met with him, I realized, um, advice isn't what he needed. He, he needed some money and he needed somebody that would go in there and kind of clean up a few things.

• 1:29:10Speaker 05

  Because it got, it got a little, um, it got a little, to be a little bit too much, it was gridlock.

• 1:29:17Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:29:17Speaker 05

  Amongst the label and then the local label, Midwest Side Records and then, uh, Quest and then Warner Brothers. And, uh, at that time I'm like, dude, that's crazy, man. Good luck. Cool story. Good luck and wish you the best and, and, um, but I didn't think that I could offer any words that was going to change anything. And, uh, but we stayed in touch and, and then, um, there was a time when he reached out to me and I got an opportunity to go down to, uh, it was Icy Rock's house. And he played me a song, uh, because we were together at a restaurant when they were writing a song. This, this restaurant, what was it called? Hops? Yeah. And so, um, and, and I, I was intrigued by it.

• 1:30:00Speaker 05

  And then after it got done, I got an opportunity to go down there and listen to it. And that song was called This Ring.

• 1:30:05Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:30:06Speaker 05

  And, uh, and I, I was blown away by it. Uh, they were, he was nice enough to let me have a copy of it. And I must have played that that song a thousand times in my house. Dawn was like over. She was like, what are you doing?

• 1:30:19Bunnie XO?

  Shout out Dawn, we love her.

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  And not only that, but it's like, like, wait a minute, he's trying to balance being tech nine and being married. Trying to say something like, like, why do you keep playing this damn song? And, and it was, I couldn't leave it alone. And then that's when we ended up meeting again. And I'm like, hey, man, tell me what you want to do. I heard what everybody, everybody else has in mind for you, but fuck all of that. Like, what do you want to do? And that's when he told me that he had a publishing company called EGN Arts. And I'm like, okay. And then I tried to put it together. Yeah. And then I was like, he goes, that's strange backwards. And I'm like, oh, okay. And I said, why is that? And he goes, well, because if I ever have an opportunity to do my own label,

• 1:31:05Speaker 05

  I want to call it strange music. And I'm like, oh, and then he told me about his love for Jim Morrison and the Doors and all of this stuff. And so I, I, I took a leap and said, okay, well, listen, man, I, I don't know the music business, but I'm a quick learner. And, and I have the means, the, you know, the, the financial means to, to help out. And I think I have, you know, a good business acumen and, and I know how to move forward relatively quickly. So I said, if you want to truly do that, I'm in, man, 50 50 and we'll go and we'll figure this thing out. And, oh, boy.

• 1:31:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. Like what, what a wild venture for you guys to both be like, you know what, let's start. Was it, let's start a record label? Or was it just going to be like, hey, let me just help you out as an independent artist first?

• 1:31:56Speaker 05

  It was let's start a record label.

• 1:31:57Bunnie XO?

  It literally was record label from the gate.

• 1:31:59Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah. Because I think, you know, he was, he was kind of like tired of, of being stuck and nothing actually coming to fruition. Like, so it's, it's like, you know, nothing ever really materialized and, and you get tired of that stuff and you're living on like minimal per diems and you can't go out there and really.

• 1:32:17Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I get it. We lived it.

• 1:32:19Speaker 05

  Right. Make, make a living. So it's like, um, you know, and, and I, I had to learn, man. I mean, we took and we put together. And I, we had to gather a bunch of songs and a lot of the earlier producer of those songs wouldn't give us the files because they wanted to be paid a second time. That was a really volatile thing and I'll save all the. Back on that.

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:43Bunnie XO?

  The music industry is so snakey.

• 1:32:45Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 1:32:46Bunnie XO?

  The music industry can be so snakey.

• 1:32:47Speaker 05

  It's, it's, it's filled with a bunch of people that I, I, I don't care for 90 plus percent of the people that's in the music business.

• 1:32:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:55Speaker 05

  Um, you know, and I, that's, no, fuck that. It hasn't changed. I still don't like music.

• 1:33:02Bunnie XO?

  Talk your shit Travis.

• 1:33:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I don't because, because there's so, um, there's so many of them that are just, they're, they're, they're full of shit. There are people that are not, uh, they're, they're not, you know, are there film musicians who find a way to wiggle into a position, uh, in the business and then they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

• 1:33:21Bunnie XO?

  I call them car salesmen's because they all have that, that icky like car salesman personality.

• 1:33:27Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 1:33:27Speaker 05

  All those comments, oh yeah, that's gonna be bananas. Fuck is bananas got to do with this?

• 1:33:32Speaker 03

  That's in LA, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:33:33Speaker 05

  That was LA, everything was, everything was bananas in LA and everybody was a dick in New York. Like everybody was, yeah, it was crazy.

• 1:33:41Bunnie XO?

  So I have a couple of questions that I want to ask you guys, if you guys don't mind, because I, I really am just so blown away by what you guys have built. But at a time when labels were everything you, when, when labels wore everything, you guys went the independent route. Did you guys ever doubt yourselves? Like whenever you were first starting out?

• 1:33:58Speaker 03

  Well, you know, you gotta be a kind of a crazy, slightly crazy to lose 140K on your first tour and then go back, right?

• 1:34:05Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:34:07Speaker 05

  Los, when, when this thing started in the first couple of years, uh, we were, I was a little over $2 million of my own money in. And initially I had in my mind that, you know, I might end up spending a couple hundred grand, uh, to get this thing to go the right way. Not 2 million, you know what I mean? And, but, but things, uh, things were challenging. Things were expensive. Uh, and it was hard to, to figure it all out and we kept having to throw money at it and, um,

• 1:34:36Speaker 03

  And it, it was harder because I was a black kid with spiked red hair, with a painted face, bishop's robe on stage.

• 1:34:47Speaker 03

  Up under it, blood clothing, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:34:49Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:50Speaker 03

  You know, it was just like a clusterfuck.

• 1:34:52Bunnie XO?

  I would feel like that would set you apart from everybody else, though.

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  It did, but it's a longer road.

• 1:34:58Bunnie XO?

  But not in a good way, right?

• 1:34:59Speaker 03

  If you're not doing what everybody else is doing, you know?

• 1:35:01Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:35:02Speaker 05

  Think about this, back then, in like ninety-nine, two thousand, two thousand and one, there were no independent hip-hop tours, period.

• 1:35:10Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:35:11Speaker 05

  The only hip-hop tours there were is like, you've seen Run DMC coming with the Beastie Boys, or if you've seen, you know, there was a few of those big tours. Yeah, stuff like that, but there was no independent hip-hop touring at all.

• 1:35:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21Speaker 05

  So then, take, add in, black dude with, with, wearing like spiked red hair, his name is Tech N9ne, the name of a gun.

• 1:35:32Speaker 03

  First strike.

• 1:35:33Speaker 05

  Right, and then, and then he's got face paint on, and, and a preacher's robe, and he's got two strippers taking the preacher's robe off of him.

• 1:35:41Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:35:42Speaker 05

  So like, like, so it was not an easy sell to white America, white club owner America. So I'd literally get on the phone with these guys, because I started by putting together our own tours by ourselves. We didn't have an agent, nobody was messing, they were not gonna touch us with a ten-foot pole. Then, the club owners didn't want that in their club. They, they, they were, they were so fearful of it. So we would make deals. I had to talk to Tech, like, man, this is crazy, but, you know, our very first paid show was five hundred bucks.

• 1:36:13Speaker 03

  Right, right, right.

• 1:36:14Speaker 05

  At a, at an Italian restaurant that turned into a nightclub during the weekends.

• 1:36:19Speaker 03

  Simply Sicilian.

• 1:36:19Speaker 05

  Simply Sicilian in Blue Springs, Missouri.

• 1:36:22Bunnie XO?

  Shout out to them for giving you an opportunity, though, right?

• 1:36:24Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 1:36:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're telling me to give the money back if we have any problems.

• 1:36:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, we had to literally convince all these different people by saying, hey, look, let us come there, let us do this show, we'll do a door deal, and if anything goes wrong, you keep all the money.

• 1:36:38Bunnie XO?

  So would people not let you buy on to tours? Was that not a thing back then?

• 1:36:42Speaker 05

  They wouldn't let, we, we didn't really wanna go with the idea of buying on, because there were no tours back then.

• 1:36:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:36:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, this is honestly, there were no tours to buy on to for someone like him, or us, or whatever. So we had to go out there and do it ourselves, or we weren't going to see anybody. We weren't gonna tour and and that's where we lost, you know, money on the first tour. But I always looked at it like, look, if we can get in these places and we can plant a seed, then great. Yeah, we're gonna spend money. You spend money when you do that. And then we'll come back the next time and we'll water it, right?

• 1:37:11Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:37:11Speaker 05

  And and we still may not make money, but at the end of the day, at least we're gaining momentum, gaining fans.

• 1:37:17Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:37:17Speaker 05

  And then, once we come back again, now maybe we can pick a little fruit, you know, whatever the case might be. So, it was a, it was a, it was a journey to get to that point and but but it worked out, you know? We played a show in San Diego at the Blue Agave.

• 1:37:31Speaker 03

  Seven people.

• 1:37:32Speaker 05

  Seven people. Seven people. The next time we came, it was, it was like, much better, three hundred and something. The next time we came and every time since then, we've sold it out. Every single show in San Diego. So, you know, it worked, but but nobody knew it. And and I didn't, I knew that I wasn't gonna fail because I just, I can't accept failure. Like, it's a mental block for me. But,

• 1:37:54Bunnie XO?

  So that's what I always admired about you.

• 1:37:56Speaker 05

  My, my wonderful wife, she never doubted me, but did I get some of these looks like?

• 1:38:03Speaker 05

  I got a few of them, but she never doubted it and she knew that I couldn't stop and and uh, and and thank God. And she, she, she helped, she worked there, her and Glenda and, you know, sending out CDs and vinyl to radio stations and stuff out of our basement.

• 1:38:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, uh, but yeah, it, it, it was interesting in the beginning.

• 1:38:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:22Bunnie XO?

  Do you guys feel like the Juggalo community is what accepted you first?

• 1:38:27Speaker 03

  That, did what?

• 1:38:28Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel like the Juggalo, Juggalo community accepted you guys first?

• 1:38:31Speaker 03

  No, no, no. It was in, it was in, they came in in two thousand and three.

• 1:38:35Bunnie XO?

  Okay.

• 1:38:36Speaker 03

  Now, I, I started in Kansas City.

• 1:38:38Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:38:39Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And, um, I think with Mitch Babe being the first thing, all the gangsters were first.

• 1:38:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:38:49Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And then the college kids came.

• 1:38:52Bunnie XO?

  And those college kids will run the numbers up.

• 1:38:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:55Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:56Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But, um, we did Sprite Liquid Mix Tour in O2 with Jay-Z,

• 1:39:03Speaker 03

  N E R D. Uh, Nappy Roots.

• 1:39:06Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:07Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Hoopastank.

• 1:39:08Bunnie XO?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:39:09Speaker 03

  You know what I mean?

• 1:39:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah. That would be a great, a great tour to like, circle back.

• 1:39:14Speaker 03

  So, we was already buzzing on that tour, you know, motherfuckers, Jay-Z now was coming out to see my set on the second stage, you know?

• 1:39:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:39:22Speaker 03

  You know, they heard about this ring, you know? Everybody's like, you should gotta see this ring.

• 1:39:26Speaker 05

  Kanye, you remember?

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  Kanye was there. I never saw him, but Chris Calico saw him. He was with Talib Kweli, he was on that tour too.

• 1:39:31Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:32Speaker 03

  So, um, the next year, oh three, is when I met the Juggalos. When I, when I finally found out everything about Psychopathic. Cause I'd heard about Insane Clown Posse years before when they got signed to Disney or something. You know, I was like, baby, more clowns, more clowns.

• 1:39:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:48Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? I painted my face, you know?

• 1:39:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:50Speaker 03

  And, um, oh three is when the Juggalos came and added a lot to our fanbase.

• 1:39:57Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:39:57Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? And the Metalheads came.

• 1:39:59Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:00Speaker 03

  You know, and it just kept growing.

• 1:40:02Speaker 05

  And that first tour, that first tour that we did with them, uh, I, actually the only tour with them, I guess, other than the gathering, but it was Insane Clown Posse, it was Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. It was Cotton King.

• 1:40:16Bunnie XO?

  Iconic.

• 1:40:16Speaker 05

  And so it's like, you know, that, we, we, we thought, oh wow, what a wild menagerie of craziness and loved it. And I'll tell you what, their fanbase was so intriguing to me because they were so devoted.

• 1:40:29Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:40:30Speaker 05

  And, and, and looking at that fanbase and looking at, I had an opportunity to, to talk to and work with Hank Williams Jr. Uh, and go to his butt naked barbecue in Paris, Tennessee and all this other shit.

• 1:40:42Speaker 03

  I remember that. I missed that one.

• 1:40:44Bunnie XO?

  Was everybody naked?

• 1:40:45Speaker 05

  Uh, uh, nah, nah. The only one naked was probably Hank and, and that's cause he had to climb out of the damn lake that he drove his four wheeler in because he was out of his mind. Hilarious stuff goes on around, they shoot cannons and shit in the backyard.

• 1:40:58Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I could only imagine.

• 1:40:59Speaker 05

  It's a trip. But, uh, but, but watching the, with the Juggalo fanbase, what Hank Williams Jr. had to do when, when country music shunned him because they didn't wanna deal with this nepotism because of, you know, and then looking at that and then looking at what Kid Rock, this white rapper that moved. Moved to New York and was in the apartment downstairs from Queen Latifah. But looking at the fanbase that Kid Rock was able to build. And those were the things that were so intriguing to me because look at these fanbases. They built them and all the odds were against them too. And that's when, you know, that's when I think that we really started to focus on how can we look at and understand and take the best things out of all these different

• 1:41:41Speaker 05

  people's followings. What can we get out of that? What can we learn from them? And we learned a lot from each one of them, including Psychopathic and their merchant guys game was mind boggling. It was so wild to see that, man. They did something that not not a lot of people have ever done.

• 1:41:59Bunnie XO?

  Well, they've built a cult following, you know, and that's where your real core like fanbase is, is in that cult like following. And it was a very distinct niche that they had and those people.

• 1:42:13Speaker 03

  That's why they're still able to do it.

• 1:42:15Bunnie XO?

  Oh, it's wild. I literally, I didn't know what a juggalo was. But the crazy thing is, is I listened to Insane Clown Posse when I was younger, but didn't know the juggalo statement. I didn't know what a juggalo was until I went to the gathering. I saw so many buttholes. And people have, I mean, but they are the nicest humans ever. Like, they're so great.

• 1:42:36Speaker 03

  That was one of the biggest parties I've ever seen, the biggest, wildest parties I've ever been to.

• 1:42:39Bunnie XO?

  Wild. Yeah, no, it's insane. So when did you guys know, like, you guys were able to like, look at each other and be like, this is gonna work when it came to the record label?

• 1:42:48Speaker 03

  06?

• 1:42:49Bunnie XO?

  So when like Caribou Lou, Caribou Lou came out?

• 1:42:52Speaker 03

  That's when 06.

• 1:42:54Speaker 05

  We hit a few bumps along the way. The very first deal that we did in 2001 was with a company called J Corp and a guy named Jay Ferris, who for the record is a complete piece of shit, still is to this day. And I'd love to bump into Jay sometime. I'd take the charge.

• 1:43:10Bunnie XO?

  I love how you guys use first and last names.

• 1:43:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, Jay fucking Ferris. Fuck you, Jay. You're a piece of shit.

• 1:43:17Bunnie XO?

  He's like, and I stand on it.

• 1:43:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. We did a deal with them and we did everything that we were supposed to do and then He literally sent us to Los Angeles to shoot a video. And he would only pay for part of it. So we had to come Annie up some money. And, and the only reason we got to shoot the videos because we did a first week number that far exceeded what they thought they were going to do. Keep in mind, we're an independent label. Back then, there wasn't independent distribution. There wasn't any Fontanas or, or those types of small indie label. You still had to get distribution. The only way you could get it. At that time was by doing a deal because we didn't have any sales history to really. Re, to warrant us being able to get that type of deal. So. We did this deal because he had a distribution deal through Interscope. And it was a 50 50 JV.

• 1:44:04Speaker 05

  And we outperformed everything that they expected. And then we're supposed to shoot a video. We fly, we get to, we get out to LA and we're in the hotel room and we're supposed to do something the first, the next day. And it doesn't happen. And then another day goes by, still nothing because we found out the label or Jay Ferris and J Core Records. Wasn't, wasn't advancing the money for the video, the deposit. And so we're like, what's going on? A third day pops off. And finally I get on the phone and I'm talking to the people over there because you can, you can't ever get to Jay. And they say, well, he's had a change of heart and thinks that you guys need to do more touring before we shoot a video like.

• 1:44:47Speaker 05

  I'm left us in LA. I'm on Sunset. I had to go in the hotel and tell him this. And I'm, I'm beyond furious and ways that I can't explain. And.

• 1:44:57Bunnie XO?

  I would not want Travis O'Guin mad at me.

• 1:45:00Speaker 05

  I, so I, they had rented us a Lincoln Navigator for local use around there. I went ahead and hopped in the Navigator with a couple of the guys that were out there with me. We arranged travel to get him back home. And I literally drove from LA all the way to Kansas City in their Navigator. Their rental Navigator. Then I picked up a few of my very, very large friends. And drove all the way to New York City where Jay Ferris was.

• 1:45:27Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:45:28Speaker 05

  To, to, to get out of that deal. And on the way there, I'm talking to my attorneys, drawing up paperwork. You know, he owed us money at that time and we got there and they still wanted to talk. I was done talking. There was nothing else to talk about and. We went in the offices. They, they had a scare there because they, they, they. Basically didn't pay a street team company and the street team guys came in there and like beat up a bunch of their monitors with some baseball bats and scared the shit out of them. And so they had armed security.

• 1:46:06Speaker 05

  And so when we showed up, there's armed guards, all this other dumb shit. And we unarmed them and placed them in a nice, comfortable room. And went over and got the paperwork with Jay and got him to sign off on it. And no one was harmed, you know, everything went fine.

• 1:46:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:46:25Bunnie XO?

  Real gangsta shit.

• 1:46:26Speaker 05

  Well, we got the album back.

• 1:46:28Speaker 03

  Gangsta shit that went down.

• 1:46:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, we got the album back and

• 1:46:32Speaker 03

  We called it Angelic Reparations.

• 1:46:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And, you know, in doing that, then, you know, the guy that took us over there, a guy named Dave Weiner, because Violet Brown was a very big part of the early days. And she had introduced us to Dave Weiner, who was at Priority Records. And then they, you know, they sold and then Dave went over to J Corps. And there were a couple of other people like Brian Shafton and some others that were a part of that huge success that Priority had during all those years with Master P, with NWA, with everything. And so he ended up quitting that job in protest of the way we were being handled. And went back and got with his old mentor, a guy named Mark Sarami,

• 1:47:18Speaker 05

  who was the one of the two owners of Priority Records. And then that's where we ended up, we followed Dave over there and did a deal. And those two deals are the speed bumps and the education that we needed and the sales that we needed in order to get the attention of Fontana and Universal to get our own deal. So then we were able to cut out the middleman and really focus on how how to do it the way that we thought it needed to be done.

• 1:47:49Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:47:49Speaker 05

  And MSC wasn't really much better. Mark Sarami ended up being a fuck, a fuck, he's an asshole too.

• 1:47:57Speaker 03

  A fuck person.

• 1:47:58Speaker 05

  He's a fuck boy.

• 1:48:00Bunnie XO?

  I was just gonna say a fuck boy.

• 1:48:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I really don't mind, like, we actually recently, just a few years ago, we ended up getting all of the albums we put out through him back as well. But, you know, and I

• 1:48:15Speaker 05

  He uses this crutch of he had a stroke, he ate a tray of weed brownies, got on a Learjet to go look at a fucking yacht, had a stroke in the air, had to learn how to eat, walk, talk and shit again or something. And he wasn't the same guy. But again, the guy that took us over there quit in protest again and moved to fucking Hawaii. And so it's like, you know, it was a weird combination, you know, take 2000 to 2006, that's how you can fuck around and spend 2 million bucks.

• 1:48:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:48:43Speaker 05

  And, uh, but we got all of our shit back from, from Mark Sarami as well. Fuck him too, for the record. And, um,

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  2006 was when we got with Fontana and

• 1:48:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, and then we got to do our deal.

• 1:48:54Speaker 03

  We did Ever Ready.

• 1:48:54Speaker 05

  No middleman between us. And look, the results are what the results are.

• 1:49:00Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:49:00Speaker 05

  If, if we work hard and we perform and we get something, we actually get paid.

• 1:49:04Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:04Speaker 05

  Our wires come in religiously every single month.

• 1:49:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08Speaker 05

  It's so good.

• 1:49:09Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:10Speaker 05

  And we, we went there and we've been there ever since. We're still there.

• 1:49:13Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:13Speaker 05

  I mean, it's changed names. It was Fontana, then it was In Grooves, and now it's Virgin Music.

• 1:49:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:49:18Speaker 05

  But at the end of the day, we ended up finding a way to succeed, becoming in the top one or two or three, normally top one label that they had. And we've maintained that for a really long time.

• 1:49:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:49:33Speaker 05

  And, uh, and been able to do other cool shit like It Goes Up, you know, our distribution arm, uh, which is where, where, where Jelly came through.

• 1:49:41Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:49:42Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 1:49:42Speaker 03

  So it's like, He signed on Valentine's Day in 2020.

• 1:49:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's so weird that it was Valentine's Day.

• 1:49:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Speaker 05

  But, um, but yeah, man, I mean, uh, uh, it's, uh, 2006 is when it, we, we realized that now that nobody could screw up the money and nobody was in between us and that, then it was, it was all up from there. And that's really when we started having real success.

• 1:50:03Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm. Tech, what was it about Travis that made you trust this process? Because that's a long time, 2000, 1999 to 2006, before you guys are even seeing any recourse, you know, like what was it about the struggle that made you trust him?

• 1:50:20Speaker 03

  When he said that he, that I opened up and told him everything, he's always been forthcoming with everything, you know what I'm saying? Like, he's always been open, not secretive when it comes to any type of money or any kind of thing that would come in, you know, it, it's like, he's always been open, an open book.

• 1:50:41Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:41Speaker 03

  Just like me, you know what I mean? And, uh, You can feel that. You know what I'm saying, especially been in business for 25 years.

• 1:50:50Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying, it's pretty much self-explanatory like.

• 1:50:53Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely, yeah. No, I'll always be fond of Travis. He was there when I got my first Rolex. Or was it, was it me or was I buying Jay his first Rolex?

• 1:51:02Speaker 05

  You were buying Jay the Rolex through a guy here, buying it from a company that I work with all the time out there. You know what, uh, yeah, Carlin Creations. Yeah, that's actually where it came from. Yeah.

• 1:51:13Speaker 03

  That's where I go.

• 1:51:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's actually where that watch came from.

• 1:51:16Bunnie XO?

  I think that might be where this one came from. I have no idea. But it's just, I love, my love for Travis always is gonna run deep. Um, so just really, one other quick question, well, actually two, but what's your take on this mainstream versus independent debate? Because, you know, especially the country rap world right now, they're insane with, you know, wanting it, everybody needs to stay independent or, you know, should you go mainstream? How do you guys feel about that?

• 1:51:42Speaker 03

  I think it can work either way.

• 1:51:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:44Speaker 03

  For people, depends on what you want.

• 1:51:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:51:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:51:47Speaker 05

  I, I, I think that, that we were independent way before it was cool, way before it was sexy. We were independent pretty much out of necessity. Um, I think that, you know, um, the lines are blurred between what was independent and, you know, there's so many different projects that, uh, like, even, we worked early with TDE. We signed J-Rock. We had Kendrick Lamar was over there, you know, Schoolboy Q, Absol, Black Hippie.

• 1:52:14Bunnie XO?

  I love Schoolboy Q.

• 1:52:15Speaker 05

  Right, and so, so, but when you look at that though, like, when that deal upstreamed, uh, Interscope didn't want to be mentioned. They wanted it all to be about TDE and Top Dog Entertainment.

• 1:52:25Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:52:25Speaker 05

  And they wanted it because independent was cooler to the fanbase and, and they felt like it was going to connect better if they were in the shadows. You know what I'm saying? So, but now I think it's so incredibly blurred, um, that I, I think that whatever it is the end goal is, if you want to go out there and you want to be huge at radio, you might have to make that sacrifice and sign up with the folks that are capable of doing that, but you also have to make sure that. That is the right fit and that they're going to do what they say they're going to do. And that you end up getting a result that you want because if you don't, that's a very expensive situation.

• 1:53:05Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:53:05Speaker 05

  You go sign a major label deal, you sign a 15, 16, 17, 18 point deal. And now you're recouping at the rate of that deal. And so, you know, everybody doesn't understand that for every hundred dollars the major label spends. And, and, and then they recoup, you're only getting eighteen dollars of a credit out of that hundred bucks. And so now you're in a pretty deep hole. And how wild is it not to make money and you got the number one record in the country? And you're not getting paid though, uh, from, from the record label.

• 1:53:40Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  It's because the deal structures are very favorable to those majors and that's, uh, but if, if, if it goes crazy and you have seven number one songs, then it begins to make a lot more sense and you have the ancillary, you have the touring income. You have, you know, all of the merchandise income and all these other ancillary incomes. Uh, so sometimes a major deal makes sense and works for, for folks. Uh, but, but the deals are constantly shifting and changing.

• 1:54:09Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 1:54:09Speaker 05

  Distribution is constantly shifting and changing and how it's done. So it's, it's, uh, it's, it's a wild time, but you just have to be smart and dissect the deals that are in front of you. And really try to figure out what your, what your path is. If, if you don't care as much about radio or you want to go through the process of hiring and doing radios and working with the independent yourself.

• 1:54:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Speaker 05

  You could of course do that too. And then your reward is much, much greater if it does connect and it does go. You're going to end up in a really great place.

• 1:54:38Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:54:38Speaker 05

  You know, but, but I mean, it's, um,

• 1:54:40Bunnie XO?

  I feel like radio is so outdated too, like how you have to get plays and all that stuff. Like I, watching my husband go through it, which I'll probably get shit for talking about this. I just feel like they're, the way they go about things is so outdated. And isn't everything more on streaming now as opposed to radio?

• 1:54:58Speaker 05

  Uh, uh, every, everything is indeed more on streaming than it is radio. But radio, terrestrial radio is still a big. Factor on getting people to a mass popularity. It is unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it, still kind of like the, it's a huge part of it. But now you don't only, when we started was about the music. Now it's also about the social media.

• 1:55:23Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:55:23Speaker 05

  It's about the TikTok. It's about Instagram. It's about, and not only that, but now, wait a minute, not only do I have to do those things, but okay, my TikTok needs to be for my personal moments or something. You know, you got to campaign the shit, right? So it's about this and then my Instagram is going to be about the music making process. And then my Facebook's gonna, you have to come up with strategies and plans and, and you navigate this space all the time. But like, um, it's way bigger than, than the music now, and that kind of sucks.

• 1:55:54Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:55:54Speaker 05

  And, and

• 1:55:55Bunnie XO?

  They want the personality behind the music.

• 1:55:57Speaker 05

  And, and, and, but streaming, uh, streaming is the, the biggest fuckery that we're all dealing with. How is a guy, Daniel Eck, how is he worth, uh, three point six billion, uh, no, four point six billion recently, uh, on the backs of all the artists? And how did, how did they make a one point five billion dollar profit? Yet they're paying a less than one third of one penny per stream of the actual artist that put in the work.

• 1:56:26Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:56:26Speaker 05

  And, and the way it happened was the, the remagers made an alignment with Spotify. They have ownership stake and it was the new way for them to get control of the business again. Cause independents like us were kicking their ass.

• 1:56:40Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:56:40Speaker 05

  We were the subject of a lot of different board meetings where guys would go in and like, literally like, I had this guy Richie who used to call me like, man, fuck. Like, what's up? He's like, dude, we had to hear about you guys for 30 minutes straight. People yelling at us over how the fuck are they doing this? And we can't even do this.

• 1:56:59Speaker 03

  Fifty cents that he used to tell his artist about us.

• 1:57:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:03Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 1:57:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, so it's like, you know, but, but, but, but streaming is, is, uh, really, really twisted. And, um, the creative accounting that goes on with streaming. And you got guys that are making songs in AI, a hundred thousand songs, collecting millions of dollars. It's fucked up and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm waiting for people to get as sick and tired as we are. You know, you, you gotta get people to be sick and tired of being sick and tired and, and to make a change.

• 1:57:30Bunnie XO?

  But there's no way an artist can fight back for that?

• 1:57:33Speaker 05

  We, we, we have a lot of really kick ass ideas, like back when we did the whole fuck the industry thing, that whole campaign. We have it, but there are much larger risks at play now because, you know, when you're, when you're not making any money and, and, and, you know, you're willing to say and do a lot of shit to rattle cages, uh, you know, and, and now we have to be very methodical because we have artists that are signed to the label. If we did something radical, like pulled all their shit off of a platform to create our own platform, we could run into obstacles that would be uncomfortable for others. So it's not just his and mine at stake now. It's a whole collective of people and content

• 1:58:14Speaker 05

  and catalog that we have to be mindful of. So we're hoping to do it in, in a better way. Still, still, you know, going crazy on people and doing things differently is, I'm down for that. And I have no problem saying, you know, well, actually I've said it a few times.

• 1:58:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:58:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't have any, fuck the industry and fuck anybody else that, that, that wants to not treat artists fairly. Uh, that, that shit pisses me off to the core and, um, I, I don't know how you, you, um, can allow people to put all their work in and pay them fractions of pennies. That shit, that shit is irritating beyond words.

• 1:58:53Bunnie XO?

  No, it's, it's, it's not fair at all. Touching base real quick on the, um, artists that you guys have signed. You guys have Chris Calico, Ritz, Mayday and Stevie Stone, artists like that. What do you guys look for in an artist before bringing them in? And what would somebody have to do to be signed by you guys? If somebody's listening to this right now and is like, I want to go to Strange Music.

• 1:59:16Speaker 03

  Well, I like artists that understand music and I don't have to babysit.

• 1:59:24Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 1:59:24Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? I like artists that I can see hanging with me, artist wise. You know what I mean? That are able to do hits.

• 1:59:37Speaker 03

  If you got a chop, you know what I'm saying? It's not a requirement, but you know what I mean? We started something, Strange Music, and chopping was part of it. You know what I mean? But we have other songs, like you said, Caribou Lou.

• 1:59:52Bunnie XO?

  Mm hmm, yes.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  Who Go Crazy, and Everybody But Me, you know? You've got a whole bunch of songs that, you know, we look for artists that can do that. Like, you, you found Sky Daddy, right?

• 2:00:07Bunnie XO?

  I love her.

• 2:00:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, Sky, Sky is doing incredible things. She's through the distribution and, and I, I, I think also another thing that we look for, because you've mentioned artists like Chris Calico and others. I, I think people that can create music that means something, that is meaningful to the human experience.

• 2:00:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:00:26Speaker 05

  That's, that's what I want to hear something like.

• 2:00:28Bunnie XO?

  As a message.

• 2:00:29Speaker 05

  How, yeah, how can, what, what? And, and sometimes, you know, the, the content is heavy, but that heavier the content, the more help it provides to people going through the same thing who feel like they're alone.

• 2:00:40Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:40Speaker 05

  And so, like, if you took all of these thousands of emails that we get talking about how the music saved someone's life, and, and, and listen, let's assume, let's assume for this purpose that only, that's only really true one time. That, that's okay, it's still worth it. If you could actually say something that you helped do, help some, help, you, you, you worked with an artist, they created this wonderful song, and this helped this person take the gun out of their mouth, that's huge. And that's what therapeutic music should do. And that's the, the one thing that drew me so much to your husband was all of that. Because knowing that, that, that people have that reaction

• 2:01:22Speaker 05

  to what he is saying on these tracks is massive to me.

• 2:01:26Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:01:27Speaker 05

  And walking down, you know, I was telling him the story last night where me and Jell used to walk down Broadway when I came and visited, and a few people knew who he was, and that was a cool interaction. But then inside.

• 2:01:38Bunnie XO?

  I won't go with him anywhere. It turns into a meet and greet.

• 2:01:41Speaker 05

  Inside, inside the restaurants, though, when people would come up crying to him, and way back then.

• 2:01:46Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:46Speaker 05

  I'm like, like, there it is. This, this is why I have to help him grow this thing. There's, I, I, at that point.

• 2:01:55Bunnie XO?

  You were there for Save Me. You're, you are what helped Save Me get. The notoriety that it got.

• 2:02:00Speaker 03

  Cause he wasn't sure about it. I'm sure, I think I heard something. He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure how his fans would take him singing.

• 2:02:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:02:06Speaker 05

  He, it was the very first time, you know, we talked about, we talked about the five year plan. You've heard the five year plan. And then we talked about getting to the root of what it is he really wanted to do, which it took me a while to get him to open up to me and tell me about his mom and his dad and the music they played and his, his wanting to write songs and how he wanted to be a part of Music Row. And then how he wanted to get more into the singing. And we finally, you know, he, he, he does this song. And then he, he sends it to me and he's like, can, can we, can we just get this up real quick? He was afraid of that song. You know that, right? I mean, I know he talked to you. He told me about his conversations with you too. And you thought the song was beautiful.

• 2:02:49Bunnie XO?

  I told him it would be as big a song he ever did.

• 2:02:51Speaker 05

  Right, right, right. And, and, and as did I.

• 2:02:53Speaker 03

  You were right.

• 2:02:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, as did I. I said, look, this is going to be, this is what we've been talking about. It doesn't, you know, he, he told me that it's the first song he ever did without a rap verse. And I'm like, okay.

• 2:03:05Bunnie XO?

  Now I can't get him to rap. Can you make him rap again, Ty, please? I miss rapper role, okay?

• 2:03:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, but, but, but that's the shit though. Like, like, like Save Me though is, that's a mess, that song. What, what, what are we at? 298 million video plays on a simple, simple video? That's because it connected. It touched. It means so much to so many people. And to, to, to be able to be a part of that. That's the only reason, honestly, Bunny, the only reason that I'm still doing this shit. I have no financial reasons to do this anymore.

• 2:03:37Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:03:38Speaker 05

  I haven't had for a long time. Neither has he.

• 2:03:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:03:40Speaker 05

  But the reality is when you know that your music has such an impact on people.

• 2:03:44Speaker 03

  On people.

• 2:03:45Speaker 05

  That, that's hard. You can't, if you help create the soundtrack to a lot of people's lives. And then what do you do? You just say, oh, nevermind. And you fuck off. What? So, so that's, that's it, you know? And I deal with the things like with Mackenzie and all these other. The, the, the mental health of our country is, is, is challenged pretty heavily.

• 2:04:05Bunnie XO?

  So heavily.

• 2:04:06Speaker 05

  And if we can create stuff that helps people and, and, and human beings and help them stay alive.

• 2:04:11Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  We better do this. We better continue or else like I feel responsible. Like it's like, it ain't even a job for money. It's like a responsibility is where I'm at with.

• 2:04:22Speaker 03

  And, and, and to follow what strange music means, the S in the logo is taken from the rod of Asclepius. You know, you usually see it at the hospital, you see the snakes going around the rod symbolizing medicine.

• 2:04:38Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 2:04:39Speaker 03

  And the bat being nocturnal.

• 2:04:40Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:41Speaker 03

  We are the medicine that navigate through the darkness.

• 2:04:44Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:44Speaker 03

  So we've fit that tight like a motherfucker. You know what I mean?

• 2:04:49Bunnie XO?

  Absolutely. Your song Fragile is like saved me for me.

• 2:04:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:04:52Bunnie XO?

  I've, I was going through a really bad abusive relationship when that song dropped and it literally like saved me so many times. So, I mean, you guys are definitely making therapeutic music and.

• 2:05:05Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 2:05:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah. No, it's amazing. Travis, thank you for sitting in. I appreciate you being here so much. Yes. Thank you. Tech, we're gonna move on, but I'm gonna let you guys go because I feel like I've kept you for so long, but we're gonna move on just a little bit. I want to touch base on one story that I heard before though, because you're, you're, you were touring at a pace of doing 250 shows a year.

• 2:05:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:05:25Bunnie XO?

  At one time. That's insane.

• 2:05:27Speaker 03

  Yes, it is.

• 2:05:28Bunnie XO?

  Like, how does somebody function to be able to do that many shows?

• 2:05:32Speaker 03

  Conditioned ourselves throughout the years to be able to know what to do with your voice for one.

• 2:05:39Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:05:40Speaker 03

  You know, by cutting out the party after the show, getting rest, you know what I mean?

• 2:05:47Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:05:47Speaker 03

  You had to go through the shit early on to know how you don't be hoarse during the shows.

• 2:05:55Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And on that ICP tour, man, I, I lost my voice in Kentucky, man. It was, it was, it was frightful. And, and ever since then, I really started pacing myself. You know what I mean?

• 2:06:06Bunnie XO?

  You learned your lesson.

• 2:06:07Speaker 03

  So we, we've always been conditioned.

• 2:06:11Speaker 03

  To do it, we've done, we've done it so much that at the end of some tours, I've popped my gastrocnemius muscle on both sides, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:06:20Bunnie XO?

  From jumping?

• 2:06:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, all that, all that Michael Jackson sliding shit from pop lock and you know what I'm saying? The shit I do on stage.

• 2:06:26Bunnie XO?

  No, it's high energy.

• 2:06:27Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:06:28Bunnie XO?

  The minute you start till you end.

• 2:06:30Speaker 03

  I was fucking off and not stretching and not working out back then when I was popping shit. Since I've been working out, my personal trainer, I ain't popped a motherfucking thing.

• 2:06:39Bunnie XO?

  Let's go.

• 2:06:40Speaker 03

  On the first tour, I didn't get sick, not one time.

• 2:06:42Bunnie XO?

  Let's go.

• 2:06:43Speaker 03

  One fucking muscle.

• 2:06:44Bunnie XO?

  Let's go. That probably contributes to your sobriety too.

• 2:06:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:47Bunnie XO?

  Um, touring that much, do you ever just get afraid that when you're at home, you're just gonna get lost in your thoughts? Or is it that you just get antsy whenever you have time off?

• 2:06:56Speaker 03

  Nah, because I've never got like that because usually when I'm home is when I start working on records. You know, we tour, get home, work on music, tour, get home, work on music. You know what I mean? And uh, it was, it was like, it was like that for a long time. You know what I'm saying? And uh, I never felt like I had to, you know, even though I have to do mantras to go to sleep, you know what I mean? I found that and it works for me, you know? But uh, nah, we, we, we pretty much have a, I, I have a, I have a regimen, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:07:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, it's a schedule.

• 2:07:30Speaker 03

  I'm, I'm, I'm conditioned to do it.

• 2:07:33Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:07:34Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 2:07:34Bunnie XO?

  Let's talk about your sobriety. Can you take me on that journey?

• 2:07:40Bunnie XO?

  Because it says you almost died from alcohol poisoning one time?

• 2:07:44Speaker 03

  That's not true, but something like that, you know what I'm saying? So my life, since my early teens, I've been drinking like a rock star. Because I've pretty much been a rock star.

• 2:07:57Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I mean, you are a rock star, Tech.

• 2:07:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:08:00Bunnie XO?

  You deserve that title.

• 2:08:01Speaker 03

  I've been knowing that, you know what I'm saying, since my teens. You know what I'm saying? So like, that's, that's how I felt, that's how I built this to be, you know what I'm saying? A hip hop rock star, you know what I'm saying? So, so imagine every day I wake up, I have breakfast out somewhere or brunch or something. I start the day with maybe three mimosas. Whether it be orange juice mimosa or a pineapple mimosa. Lunch, you know?

• 2:08:28Speaker 03

  You spend a day in studio, you know what I'm saying, lunch, take lunch, somewhere at a bar. I have maybe three cosmopolitans, top shelf. You know, dinner, you have your red wine. If you go to, if you go to, uh, Capital Grill, you're gonna have four stoli dolis. If you don't know what stoli dolis is, it's like, they marinate pineapple in vodka and they pour it, you know, and it's fucking beautiful. That's one day. And then I come home, we might have a party. We drinking Caribou Lou. K C T, Hennessy Sprite and lemon.

• 2:09:12Speaker 03

  This is daily.

• 2:09:14Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:09:15Speaker 03

  Because I'm a social drinker. And I love to party. So I'm doing this for years, maybe, I'm talking about, this is like,

• 2:09:26Speaker 03

  fuck the drugs that I was doing, you know what I'm saying, I stopped that in the oh six, or was it oh seven, it was oh six or oh seven, one of the years, you know, and stopped. Ecstasy, shrooms, acid, GHB.

• 2:09:43Speaker 03

  What's it called, uh, the red pills? No, no, no, not Quaaludes.

• 2:09:50Speaker 03

  I'll, I'll remember in a minute, but I would do that shit all in one night.

• 2:09:55Bunnie XO?

  When was your first time taking drugs, like hard drugs?

• 2:09:57Speaker 03

  My first time with ex, you know, was ninety eight, when I came home. When I, when I, when I first met Travis, he didn't know I was on this shit though.

• 2:10:06Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:10:07Speaker 03

  And I met a dancer at this club. She gave me my fir-, no, no, she wasn't the first one, nope, nope, I take that back, she wasn't the first one, it was a girlfriend I had before that. Was it ninety eight? This is so hard to find.

• 2:10:23Bunnie XO?

  It's okay.

• 2:10:24Speaker 03

  But, um, it was the Grant Rice era for sure, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:10:28Bunnie XO?

  So your first drug you ever tried was ecstasy?

• 2:10:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:10:32Bunnie XO?

  Wow.

• 2:10:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:10:33Bunnie XO?

  Most people like, most people like smoke weed.

• 2:10:35Speaker 03

  I don't call weed drug though.

• 2:10:37Bunnie XO?

  Right, well, most of the smoke weed or do blow.

• 2:10:39Speaker 03

  But it is, but it is classified as a drug, but to me, it's natural.

• 2:10:42Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:43Speaker 03

  Just like mushrooms, sorry and shit. But, uh, I'm talking about drugs.

• 2:10:47Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:47Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying, Molly and ecstasy.

• 2:10:49Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 2:10:50Speaker 03

  I found that first.

• 2:10:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think, I think the dancer was the first one to give it, my first one at a movie theater. She said, you're gonna take this pill, it's gonna take thirty minutes, you're gonna feel like you have to shit. Don't shit, you know what I'm saying, fuck up the whole thing, don't shit.

• 2:11:06Bunnie XO?

  So you're not allowed to shit on ecstasy?

• 2:11:08Speaker 03

  Nah, you ain't supposed to, you know what I'm saying, or mushrooms, you know what I'm saying, he's supposed to fill it and keep that shit in, you know what I'm saying, that's what I was.

• 2:11:13Bunnie XO?

  I never knew.

• 2:11:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you get that shit.

• 2:11:15Bunnie XO?

  I was shitting all the time.

• 2:11:19Bunnie XO?

  You learn something new every day.

• 2:11:21Speaker 03

  So she did fart over there, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:11:28Speaker 03

  But anyway, um, ninety-eight, I took my first pill and, uh, I was doing that shit all the way from ninety-eight to two thousand and six or seven, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:11:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:38Speaker 03

  And, um.

• 2:11:40Bunnie XO?

  What was it that made you want to get sober?

• 2:11:46Speaker 03

  Shit was happening, you know, you remember you came up to the house and they said somebody was outside eating pussy? And six o'clock in the morning, outside on the bench, and all the people in the apartment complex could see it, you know what I'm saying? Police came, all kind of shit.

• 2:12:00Bunnie XO?

  Was that you, eating pussy on the bench? Oh, okay.

• 2:12:02Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:12:03Bunnie XO?

  He's like, I'll never say if it was me or not.

• 2:12:05Speaker 03

  I had people over, you know what I'm saying, shit was going on, you know what I'm saying, upstairs, downstairs, outside. You know, cause when you on that shit, you know, you staying up till four and five and six in the morning.

• 2:12:16Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:12:16Speaker 03

  And, you know.

• 2:12:17Bunnie XO?

  Jaw grinding.

• 2:12:18Speaker 03

  You know, yeah, you know what I'm saying, so, um, Adderall, that was the red pill.

• 2:12:24Bunnie XO?

  Adderall, okay.

• 2:12:25Speaker 03

  I'll put that on top of the X, you know, it feels so good.

• 2:12:27Bunnie XO?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 2:12:28Speaker 03

  Ooh, I, I should have been.

• 2:12:30Bunnie XO?

  Whoa.

• 2:12:31Speaker 03

  I should have been Chris Farley, my nigga, I was, I was putting shit on top of shit, homes.

• 2:12:35Bunnie XO?

  Praise God.

• 2:12:36Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying, so, um, around two thousand and six, ever ready time, it starts slowing down, you know what I'm saying? Travis said, man, I don't, we had a meeting, Travis said, man. Everybody saying you're gonna die just like Jim Morrison.

• 2:12:50Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 2:12:51Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:12:52Bunnie XO?

  But that probably resonated with you.

• 2:12:53Speaker 03

  He said, "I can't keep doing business with somebody that's gonna kill themselves, man. I'm sorry."

• 2:12:58Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 2:12:59Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? I was like, "Oh, no, I ain't gonna kill myself." You know what I'm saying? I ain't gonna kill myself now. So, you know, I thought about that. I'm like, I see it every day. People seeing me fucked up, like, "We're gonna lose him just like we lost Jim Morrison," you know what I'm saying? This, that, and the shit. Because that's who I attributed that, um, idea to do strange music to, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:13:21Bunnie XO?

  Yes.

• 2:13:21Speaker 03

  I went to Pere Lachaise in Paris and thanked them at the, you know, cemetery, you know? "Thank you for the inspiration, brother," you know? I worked with the rest of the members after that, you know?

• 2:13:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:33Speaker 03

  But, uh, when Travis said, you know, "Man, it's getting bad, dude," you know what I'm saying? I'm like, "I'm just kicking it. I don't do this shit all the time." I did do it all the time. You know, because we in the strip, we, we running a strip club.

• 2:13:46Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:13:46Speaker 03

  Satin dolls, we down there, I'm getting every bitch in the, you know, I'm like a house dad, you know? I can go in there where the bitches are and, I'm sorry, I talk like they're bitches, but you know, the women are.

• 2:13:57Bunnie XO?

  I say it, I say it all the time, too. Trust me, I get it.

• 2:14:00Speaker 03

  Like, a bag of sixty rolls, you know what I'm saying? Like, rolls, ecstasy, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:14:05Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:06Speaker 03

  That's what you call them back then, rolls, you know, as you roll in and people, you know, but anyway. Um, I'm putting them in bitches' mouths, like, you know? "Tech, you gave me my first pill." I see them now, I'm like, "Damn, fucked up." You know what I'm saying? Like, I started a lot of people. I was, I used to put it on my tongue. I'd be high and like, "Take it off my tongue, baby," you know what I'm saying? I was fucked up.

• 2:14:26Bunnie XO?

  Hmm.

• 2:14:27Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But I was partying, you know? And because I was going so hard, and you know, and me and my partner had that meeting, I'm like, "We got motherfuckers eating pussy outside," you know what I'm saying?

• 2:14:42Speaker 03

  I said, "Okay." I went home one night,

• 2:14:47Speaker 03

  and, uh...

• 2:14:51Speaker 03

  My kid, this is when it starts slowing down. My kid, Rainbow at the time, she was probably like three, two, I don't fucking know.

• 2:15:01Speaker 03

  I saw that she saw me. Felt like she saw me being high. I used to sneak in and lay on the couch. You know what I'm saying? Like I've been there all night, you know what I mean? Sweating like a motherfucker. My wife at the time was like, when I sleep in the bed, she's like, "Why are you sweating so bad?" I was like, "It's hot in this motherfucker." She's like, "Syllin Fan on his winter time." You know what I'm saying? "What the fuck are you doing?"

• 2:15:22Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:15:23Speaker 03

  I was dying over there, dude, you know what I'm saying? I ain't know. So...

• 2:15:28Bunnie XO?

  Is this the time that you took fifteen Xanax?

• 2:15:31Speaker 03

  No, I didn't take no fifteen.

• 2:15:32Bunnie XO?

  You didn't take fifteen?

• 2:15:33Speaker 03

  Fifteen pills in one night. I'm talking about X pills.

• 2:15:36Bunnie XO?

  Right. Or you're not Xanax, uh, fifteen?

• 2:15:38Speaker 03

  No, not Xanax. I didn't find out about Xanax to the last day I rolled.

• 2:15:41Bunnie XO?

  I got it mixed up. Uh, the fifteen, this is when you took fifteen ecstasy pills?

• 2:15:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was out in LA. That's something different.

• 2:15:48Bunnie XO?

  Okay, gotcha, gotcha.

• 2:15:49Speaker 03

  We take three at a time, you know what I'm saying? That's something different. I was on one.

• 2:15:53Bunnie XO?

  You are wild.

• 2:15:54Speaker 03

  Oh. I shouldn't even be alive right now. That's why I'm so animated and high. Because I ain't supposed to be here.

• 2:16:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:01Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? As much as I drank and I was fucking around, you know what I'm saying? With drugs, you know what I mean? I'm talking about, we would take ecstasy and the GHB together and just fall asleep on the stage in the club. And we, we get there, it's packed. Everybody let me in, I'm Tech 9. Cops waking us up. "Tech, man, you gotta wake up, man." I'm on the stage with the business with me and my brother Dynamac at the time. You know, we sleep on the stage fucking with GHB and ecstasy and drinking Robitussin like it was cool. You know, just doing stupid shit. They were just trying to explode my heart. I don't know. I wasn't trying to, I'm just like, "Fuck it, let's just go, let's just go."

• 2:16:39Bunnie XO?

  We just didn't know.

• 2:16:39Speaker 03

  I thought I had it in control, you know what I'm saying? Then we had that meeting, I'm like, you know, I gotta, I gotta calm down. You know what I'm saying? And then Rainbow, I was like, "Okay." That's my little girl, Rainbow, you know? And I'm like, "Nope, can't do it no more." So 2007 came. I've been clean off all drugs since then, you know what I'm saying? But, uh, with the drinking... Four years ago, my doctor told me I was having a, you know, a physical. Doctor Strangelove D'Angelo said, uh, you know,

• 2:17:12Speaker 03

  your blood pressure's through the roof and your cholesterol is,

• 2:17:16Speaker 03

  you need to cut that drinking out or your heart's gonna explode like your dad, you know?

• 2:17:21Speaker 03

  And I was like, oh, I'm gonna die? Okay, I quit. And my, my wife's like, I'll quit with you, please. Just, please stop, you know? So Valentine's Day just passed. That was our fourth, fourth year, um, sober off of liquor.

• 2:17:35Bunnie XO?

  Congratulations.

• 2:17:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:38Bunnie XO?

  It's hard, man. I've been sober off liquor since 2018, sober off cocaine and pills since 2017.

• 2:17:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:17:45Bunnie XO?

  Sobriety is a journey.

• 2:17:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is, man, you know.

• 2:17:47Bunnie XO?

  It's a journey.

• 2:17:48Speaker 03

  Even the mocktails I take slow, you know, because it's still sugar. You know, when I first stopped, I was on mocktail heaven. I was like, I'm still getting fat. It's sugar, motherfucker, what the fuck? You know what I'm saying? So, you know, I have one every once in a while, you know, and.

• 2:18:01Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel better now? And are you sober off drugs or do you still smoke weed? You're sober off everything?

• 2:18:06Speaker 03

  I don't smoke weed, but I can, you know what I'm saying? I, I want to keep my lungs. So, you know, every once in a while I might hit it with my wife or something, you know what I'm saying? I don't smoke with nobody no more. That's how I got, um, that's how I got COVID.

• 2:18:20Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 2:18:21Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Blunts.

• 2:18:22Bunnie XO?

  Oh, that's the worst.

• 2:18:24Speaker 03

  I tell my wife, don't, I don't give a fuck who it is, don't smoke with nobody, don't bring that fucking sickness in our house, man.

• 2:18:30Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 2:18:30Speaker 03

  That's how it's happening. Motherfuckers just licking it, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:18:33Bunnie XO?

  Just sopping it up just to get.

• 2:18:36Speaker 03

  No, nigga.

• 2:18:37Bunnie XO?

  No.

• 2:18:37Speaker 03

  No, sorry.

• 2:18:38Bunnie XO?

  No, no, no.

• 2:18:39Speaker 03

  So I ain't taking, I haven't taken a blunt or if it's not pre-rolled in a dispensary, I'm not fucking with it.

• 2:18:45Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:46Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? So I very rarely smoke. For a while I was taking, um, a shot of distillate juice and like I got a person that can make like a lemonade distillate or strawberry distillate, you know what I'm saying? I'd put it in a shot glass and it's.

• 2:19:01Bunnie XO?

  What is that?

• 2:19:02Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's liquefied THC, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:19:06Bunnie XO?

  Oh, gotcha.

• 2:19:06Speaker 03

  Put it in juice. It's called distillate, you know?

• 2:19:07Bunnie XO?

  You're a savage, dude. You are a savv-

• 2:19:11Speaker 03

  What you mean?

• 2:19:11Bunnie XO?

  Dude, liquid THC, I'd go to the fucking hospital.

• 2:19:15Speaker 03

  No, but it's only, it's, the drink is, the, the, the shot is only. Uh, twenty milligrams or something like that. I can't go.

• 2:19:23Bunnie XO?

  Still.

• 2:19:23Speaker 03

  I can't.

• 2:19:24Bunnie XO?

  I ate some frickin weed butter and called nine one one.

• 2:19:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I'm saying, that's cool. Beyond twenty, nah.

• 2:19:31Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:31Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Ten.

• 2:19:32Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:32Speaker 03

  Fifteen, twenty, that's, that's it.

• 2:19:34Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:34Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:19:34Bunnie XO?

  Keeps you regular.

• 2:19:35Speaker 03

  But the shot, the shot glass is like twenty, you know, milligrams or whatever. And it's like a body massage. I don't do it no more.

• 2:19:44Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:19:44Speaker 03

  I was doing it for a while. I don't do it no more because I don't got time.

• 2:19:47Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:19:48Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And, um.

• 2:19:49Bunnie XO?

  Do you feel better now that you're sober?

• 2:19:51Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 2:19:52Bunnie XO?

  And like on this health journey?

• 2:19:53Speaker 03

  Oh, yes. I, I feel better. I'm just nine pounds over my, uh, target weight, which was one eighty-five when I wanted to get in my suit for my wedding, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:20:02Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:03Speaker 03

  You know?

• 2:20:04Bunnie XO?

  Which, congratulations.

• 2:20:05Speaker 03

  I feel fat as fuck right now. Just nine pounds ahead of one eighty-five, you know?

• 2:20:11Bunnie XO?

  You gotta allow yourself grace, though.

• 2:20:13Speaker 03

  And, you know, I've been working on this fucking album. You know what I mean? Fifty-eight, sixteen, Forest, for a long time. And, you know, I got a lot of deadlines and shit. I'm still writing verses for motherfuckers. And sometimes I, I miss my workout. I've been, I haven't seen my, I haven't seen my trainer in almost a month. You know what I'm saying? So I gotta get back with them. Because, you know, because I'm in there from eleven to twelve and I get to the fucking studio at twelve, thirty, or one. And when I get some food, you know what I'm saying? And, you know, round three and four, I gotta get home, you know what I'm saying? It don't make no fucking sense.

• 2:20:48Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:20:48Speaker 03

  I need to be in the studio at ten o'clock to get the time. So I've just been missing my workouts to try to get everything done, you know what I'm saying? And, um, I feel fat as fuck, but, um.

• 2:20:59Bunnie XO?

  Have grace with yourself, though.

• 2:21:00Speaker 03

  What'd you say?

• 2:21:00Bunnie XO?

  I said, just have grace with yourself.

• 2:21:02Speaker 03

  Of course. I give myself grace.

• 2:21:03Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 03

  You know, I get up in the morning every day and I flex my, damn, I can still see my abs, but it's still like, you know, I,

• 2:21:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, okay.

• 2:21:11Speaker 03

  I love dessert.

• 2:21:16Speaker 03

  Dude, I used to hate blueberry muffins my whole life. I love them motherfuckers now. I'm like, keep them away from me. Please don't bring it in the house. Don't bring that fucking crumble cookie in here, please.

• 2:21:26Bunnie XO?

  But you're in your healing dad era too, you know? Like you've been a dad for a long time, but now you have the-

• 2:21:32Speaker 03

  Banana foster cake?

• 2:21:33Bunnie XO?

  Two-year-old. I'm sure she indulges with you too.

• 2:21:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, she does. I'm just saying, butter cake, wherever we go eat, if they got butter cake, we gotta have it. Now, we used to get one each. Now we split it.

• 2:21:46Bunnie XO?

  Good.

• 2:21:46Speaker 03

  You know, you're like, fuck.

• 2:21:48Bunnie XO?

  Or just have one cheat day a week. That's what I do.

• 2:21:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 2:21:51Bunnie XO?

  You have one cheat day a week and then you just get it out of your system and, you know?

• 2:21:55Speaker 03

  Now we on the gluten-free, uh, Tate's cookies, you know what I'm saying? Every once in a while, you know what I'm saying? I just love blueberry. I just had blueberry pancakes the other day. I said, look at me. She makes them, you know, gluten-free and all that kind of shit. I'm like, look at me, I'm eating blueberry pancakes.

• 2:22:10Bunnie XO?

  But they're gluten-free.

• 2:22:11Speaker 03

  She said, yeah.

• 2:22:12Bunnie XO?

  So you're doing good.

• 2:22:13Speaker 03

  But blueberries though, and it ain't got nothing to do with no blood gang shit or nothing. I just never liked it. You know what I'm saying? But I love them motherfuckers now. And they say it's good for your brain, you know?

• 2:22:21Bunnie XO?

  It's crazy how your, your palate changes as you get older because I was never a fruit girl. I always loved vegetables. I love fruit now.

• 2:22:28Speaker 03

  Something fucked up is happening to me. Right now, as we speak, I haven't had shrimp or lobster since my marriage. I had it, we eloped in Puerto Rico where her family's from and on July 14th. And then we had our second wedding for our family and everybody on July 20th in Kansas City. You know what I'm saying? That was a flex too. We had two weddings and shit.

• 2:22:52Bunnie XO?

  I love it.

• 2:22:52Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? But, uh, I haven't had shrimp or lobster. The shit just starts feeling weird in my mouth. No, no diddy. It's like it starts feeling weird, weird, weird. The texture.

• 2:23:07Bunnie XO?

  Oh, okay. I was gonna say, are you having like an allergic reaction to it?

• 2:23:10Speaker 03

  No, the texture. I just-

• 2:23:11Bunnie XO?

  It just, you outgrow things.

• 2:23:12Speaker 03

  Like now when I bite shrimp, it feels like I'm- Biting cartilage or something, I don't fucking know, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:23:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, your taste buds have changed, maybe because you're sober though, too.

• 2:23:22Speaker 03

  I mean, that's been four years, I was just, I was just eating that shit last year.

• 2:23:25Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:26Speaker 03

  Like a motherfucker, I'm talking about like shrimp bowls and shit with sausage in it and potatoes and shrimp. You know, crab legs, I ain't even had no crab legs yet, I don't know if I'm weird on that.

• 2:23:37Bunnie XO?

  You gotta eat some crab legs, because crab legs are bomb.

• 2:23:40Speaker 03

  I know, I've been eating them all my life.

• 2:23:41Bunnie XO?

  Shrimp, I'm a little iffy with too.

• 2:23:43Speaker 03

  Something's fucking with me, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:23:45Bunnie XO?

  They call shrimp the roach of the sea, or something like that, yeah.

• 2:23:48Speaker 03

  Cockroach, cockroach of the sea.

• 2:23:50Bunnie XO?

  Cockroach of the sea, yeah.

• 2:23:52Speaker 03

  I was just in New Orleans and wouldn't eat no goddamn shrimp. I didn't even have no crawfish, I love crawfish at Tuftay, I love it, you know what I mean?

• 2:24:03Bunnie XO?

  Your taste buds are just changing.

• 2:24:04Speaker 03

  Shit is changing, I'm eating chicken with skin on it now, I can't fucking do it. I'm taking the skin off now, I've been eating chicken all my life, that ain't no, that ain't no racist shit or nothing, everybody eats chicken.

• 2:24:14Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:15Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying, I've been eating chicken all my life, dude, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:24:18Bunnie XO?

  You're just your-

• 2:24:19Speaker 03

  All my life, chicken, chicken all my life, sorry, you know what I'm saying? But, uh, now, I'm eating this shit and I feel like that I'm eating human flesh.

• 2:24:28Bunnie XO?

  Oh no.

• 2:24:29Speaker 03

  I don't fucking know, steak was almost out like last year because I've been watching these documentaries saying they're putting glue in it and when you cut it, you, I'm like, oh my god.

• 2:24:39Bunnie XO?

  Oh no.

• 2:24:40Speaker 03

  So me and meat are having a time, no ditty.

• 2:24:47Bunnie XO?

  But it's your-

• 2:24:48Speaker 03

  I mean, pause, I'm sorry, no ditty.

• 2:24:49Bunnie XO?

  Your body is probably just trying to go through some sort of transformation, and it's purging.

• 2:24:55Speaker 03

  And I'm still trying to eat the, I ate, I ate a chicken sandwich at the airport, it was good as fuck, you know what I'm saying, I'm like, okay, chicken's not all the way out yet, you know what I'm saying, this don't have no skin on it, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:25:07Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, let your body purge, it's just part of growing, and it could be spiritual too, have you ever tried to Google like the spiritual meaning of why your body is refusing these meats?

• 2:25:15Speaker 03

  No, I just think that I ain't supposed to be eating that shit, I don't think none of us are, I'm sorry.

• 2:25:19Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, I agree.

• 2:25:21Speaker 03

  It is what it is, I don't know what I'm gonna turn into in the next years, you know what I'm saying, but I can feel it coming, I'm like, why do I feel like I'm a savage eating meat these days?

• 2:25:30Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:31Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying?

• 2:25:32Bunnie XO?

  Well, I can't wait to see the transition.

• 2:25:34Speaker 03

  My lady asked me- The other day before I came here, she was like, so I'm gonna, when you get back, I'm, I wanna have groceries and stuff, you know, some fresh groceries. What do you want? And I was like, salad stuff.

• 2:25:46Bunnie XO?

  I go through phases like that too, though. I go through phases like that too, and sometimes it's just your body just needs a break from that shit.

• 2:25:53Speaker 03

  I don't know what's going on, man. It's like, I don't know if I'll ever eat shrimp or lobster. I used to fuck lobster up. I'm rich.

• 2:26:01Bunnie XO?

  I love that check is so upset about the shrimp.

• 2:26:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's fucked up.

• 2:26:05Bunnie XO?

  Oh.

• 2:26:05Speaker 03

  Because the shrimp they had at the restaurant we went to in New Orleans, it still looked good as a mouthful of it.

• 2:26:12Bunnie XO?

  So fire.

• 2:26:13Speaker 03

  And then I took my son, my son came with me for the first time. He came to the Super Bowl with me. My brothers was down there, my uncle, we all had brunch one morning, the morning of the Super Bowl. Down on Bourbon Street, it was fucking wonderful. And I saw that they had crawfish etouffee omelet. I'm like, oh, I gotta try it. But I said, damn, I can't even eat shrimp. And my brother said, I'll get it and you can taste it. I ain't even fucking taste it.

• 2:26:38Bunnie XO?

  You didn't have the urge.

• 2:26:40Speaker 03

  No, I don't know what the fuck is going on with the texture shit in my, on my tongue, but.

• 2:26:44Bunnie XO?

  You're just going through a phase right now.

• 2:26:45Speaker 03

  It makes me feel like I'm eating something I ain't supposed to eat. But my, my wife's like, we gotta fucking eat. You gotta eat something. I was like, I know, I'm still.

• 2:26:55Bunnie XO?

  You gotta get your protein in, so you have to figure out a way to, maybe like eating like beans and chickpeas.

• 2:26:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's been making a lot of beans with, you know, with, with, what's we call it, uh, uh, uh, uh, with the meat, with, they put it on the, uh, Mexican breakfast. What is it called? Uh?

• 2:27:11Bunnie XO?

  Um.

• 2:27:11Speaker 03

  Tarrizo, there you go, tarrizo. You got the tarrizo with the beans, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:27:14Bunnie XO?

  Tarrizo with sausage.

• 2:27:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, I know. So it's grinded up, it's, it's cool.

• 2:27:18Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:19Speaker 03

  I love her beans, you know what I'm saying? I love the beans. And, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm just. It's just weird.

• 2:27:28Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, I'm gonna Google some stuff for you tonight and I'm gonna send it to Travis and see if I, if we can like connect the dots for you. Cause I really feel like it might be spiritual for you too. I promise you, like, I know it sounds crazy, but like sometimes there's certain things that your body rejects when you're going through like a spiritual awakening.

• 2:27:46Speaker 03

  And she still makes turkey tacos. I fucking love them.

• 2:27:48Bunnie XO?

  I love turkey tacos.

• 2:27:49Speaker 03

  Fucking crazy. She can make a turkey burger. You can't even fucking tell, dude. You're gonna say, I'll fucking this shit up.

• 2:27:54Bunnie XO?

  I love your love for your wife.

• 2:27:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 2:27:57Bunnie XO?

  Tech, I have kept you for two and a half hours.

• 2:28:00Speaker 03

  Oh, I told you I'm long-winded.

• 2:28:01Bunnie XO?

  No, you're good. I'm gonna ask you one last question and I'm gonna let you go. But, so imagine this. You walk offstage from your last show ever. The lights are off, the fans are gone. You're standing alone in the venue. What's the one thing you regret not doing?

• 2:28:21Speaker 03

  The one thing I regret not doing?

• 2:28:24Bunnie XO?

  Like, just in anything, life, career, anything.

• 2:28:28Speaker 03

  I thought you were talking about the show, cause I got it.

• 2:28:31Bunnie XO?

  That too, or if you wanna talk about the show?

• 2:28:33Speaker 03

  I always talk to Chris Calico and I always said, when I accidentally tell a joke on stage and everybody laughs, it feels so good. I was like, maybe I should write some jokes. I said, I can't fucking do that. You know what I'm saying? I can't be Tech Knight or write the joke and I can do it, I can do it the fuck I want to, but I never fucking done it. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:28:53Bunnie XO?

  I think you could be a comedian.

• 2:28:54Speaker 03

  And, and it's like, when I come out on stage, what I love so much is that when they, when I walk out, everybody scream, everybody's smiling at me. It's the best fucking feeling. That's why when you see me rapping like Midwest Choppers and shit, I'm smiling behind the mic like, cause everybody's fucking smiling at me and it's just a beautiful feeling. But when I say something funny in the hole, you hear the crowd, ah. I'm like, that shit is crazy. Now I know Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart and all these, Cat Williams, all these great people, Bill Burr, you know. I see.

• 2:29:33Bunnie XO?

  It may, maybe it's

• 2:29:33Speaker 03

  George Carlin, crazy, you know what I'm saying? It's like, but it's like, uh, Richard Pryor, all of them. I see what they talking about to make people laugh. Smiling is great, but to laugh.

• 2:29:44Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:45Speaker 03

  Ask Jelly, if he ever said something on stage and everybody laughed, it's a feeling.

• 2:29:49Bunnie XO?

  He wants to be a comedian right now. That's all he hangs out with his comedians. But I think it's because you guys have made people cry your entire

• 2:29:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:29:56Bunnie XO?

  careers with how deep your music is.

• 2:29:58Speaker 03

  What was my music, we specialize in, yes.

• 2:30:00Bunnie XO?

  That now you're getting a different response and it's kind of like a high for you because it's something new.

• 2:30:05Speaker 03

  So if that was my last show and I'm walking out, I'm like, damn, it's over. I never fucking wrote a joke.

• 2:30:12Bunnie XO?

  I love that. I really love that. But, but would you ever pursue a career in comedy?

• 2:30:17Speaker 03

  Nah, nah, nah.

• 2:30:18Bunnie XO?

  Cause you're a funny motherfucker.

• 2:30:19Speaker 03

  I write music so well and I'm, you know, I'm not that funny, but I'm the kind of motherfucker that gets on the elevator and you know, when you get up, when you put yourself in a box with strangers. It's weird. That's why everybody looks at the numbers, you know, as they going down. They just watch that or go on their phone because it's weird being in a box with strangers.

• 2:30:39Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:30:39Speaker 03

  Especially with this stranger, strange music, you know what I'm saying? Cabo, so when I get on the elevator, I'm the kind of motherfucker to get on and say, okay, if I'm on a floor of like five and I was like, I would, I was gonna tell a joke, but by the time I'm done with this long ass joke, we'll be down at floor one. Everybody will still laugh, you know, and the elevator breaks the monotony.

• 2:30:59Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:30:59Speaker 03

  I do it all the time.

• 2:31:01Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:31:01Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Cause I used to study like, uh, Rodney Dangerfield's like, Take My Wife and everybody would laugh, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:31:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, yeah. The OGs of, of the comedy world.

• 2:31:11Speaker 03

  Like one liners, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:31:12Bunnie XO?

  I think you could do it. I think if you put your mind to it, you could actually.

• 2:31:15Speaker 03

  I'm sure I could do anything.

• 2:31:16Bunnie XO?

  Your delivery is so funny.

• 2:31:17Speaker 03

  Mentally, I can do whatever the fuck. I'll break down barriers. I've done it my whole career.

• 2:31:23Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 2:31:24Speaker 03

  But I never fucking took the time to write some jokes in between my songs like I always said I was gonna do.

• 2:31:31Bunnie XO?

  Do it. Now you gotta do it. Now you gotta do it. Now they're gonna expect it.

• 2:31:35Speaker 03

  Fans like, I didn't fucking come and pay for a goddamn comedy show to have. It was funny, but fuck that rap motherfucker.

• 2:31:41Bunnie XO?

  No, I don't think so. I think as long as you're rapping in between the jokes, everybody's gonna have the best of both worlds, you know?

• 2:31:48Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 2:31:49Bunnie XO?

  When are we gonna get a new album from you?

• 2:31:51Speaker 03

  June 13th.

• 2:31:55Speaker 03

  My album, Fifty Eight Sixteen Forest, where we moved when my mom married Abu Lassam Rasool Khalifa, the Muslim.

• 2:32:04Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:32:06Speaker 03

  It's an audio series with seventeen episodes about my life

• 2:32:14Speaker 03

  on Fifty Eight Sixteen Forest from age twelve to seventeen, when I ran away from home in the pursuit of becoming Technina.

• 2:32:26Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I love how you always go back to the nostalgia and the memories.

• 2:32:32Speaker 03

  And it's in chronological order, how we moved in and all the shit that happened at school and...

• 2:32:38Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, and it's music that's doing all of this?

• 2:32:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's music. All music, but it's an audio series, that's what I call it.

• 2:32:44Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:32:45Speaker 03

  Because music is audio, you know what I'm saying? It's an audio series

• 2:32:48Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:48Speaker 03

  of events that happened from twelve to seventeen.

• 2:32:51Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:51Speaker 03

  When I ran away, you know what I'm saying? And it's in chronological order from twelve, my mother, years old, my mama fell in love with a Muslim. Fifty eight block, she took them or some shit, you know what I'm saying? It's brand new music, I don't fucking know it all right now.

• 2:33:08Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:08Speaker 03

  But it's starting at the beginning, you know? The first song is called "The Birth."

• 2:33:12Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:33:13Speaker 03

  Then the second song is called "Friday to Sunday," you know what I'm saying? "Triality," where on Fifty Eight Sixteen Forest, I found the King, the Clown, and the G. You know what I'm saying? How all three of my personalities began, you know what I'm saying? So it's all the way

• 2:33:29Speaker 03

  to the age seventeen. And then after the strange music tag, we have a song called "J Sixes" after the tag. We ain't never put a song after the tag, you know what I'm saying? And it's called "J Sixes," and it's two years after I ran away, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:33:44Bunnie XO?

  Oh, I can't wait for that.

• 2:33:46Speaker 03

  And how my J, my Jordan Sixes were my good luck charm whenever I wore them. I wore them down here, you know what I mean? I don't have them on now, but I had them on yesterday.

• 2:33:55Bunnie XO?

  Have you ever thought about doing a documentary or like having...

• 2:33:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we still writing it.

• 2:33:59Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:00Speaker 03

  We still writing the Tech Nine story, man.

• 2:34:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:01Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Right now, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:34:03Bunnie XO?

  You have so much lore, though. Like, I feel like you could have like a series of documentaries.

• 2:34:08Speaker 03

  It can be a movie.

• 2:34:09Bunnie XO?

  Literally, yeah.

• 2:34:10Speaker 03

  It could be a fucking crazy-ass movie. It's one of them three-hour movies, though.

• 2:34:13Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:13Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Like some Black Panther shit. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:34:16Bunnie XO?

  No, absolutely.

• 2:34:17Speaker 03

  But...

• 2:34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. I got a lot to talk about and uh 58164 is very informative. Because I've told these stories in interviews before, you know what I'm saying, like we talking, but you never heard them in line form.

• 2:34:36Bunnie XO?

  In chronological order.

• 2:34:38Speaker 03

  Like I have Down in the Middle, it's a song called Excited where I talk about 14 years old. This black girl I was dating named Chanel Winfrey broke my heart because I went to her 14 year old, 14th birthday party, it was on the next block and you know, um, I went over there with my boy Snubby and you know, we're dancing and when it's, when the lights went off, you know, in the hood, I had to go across the street to ask my stepfather and my mom, can I go back to the party? It won't be for too much longer. I know the lights are on. And he's like, yeah, you can go. When I came back, I was looking for her, everybody was slow dancing, it was a red light and I couldn't really see and I opened her room and my boy Snubby was on top of her kissing. She broke my heart. You know what I'm saying? And then I have, then I have the song right after that.

• 2:35:24Speaker 03

  It's called The Nice One. How the white girls in the school, I was the, I was, I was hanging with my thug homies from the hood, but whenever, whenever like a new Caucasian girl would come into school, they would hear and find me at my locker. It's like, you're Erin, right? I'm like, yeah, we hear you're the nice one. I'm like, okay, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:35:51Bunnie XO?

  Aww.

• 2:35:52Speaker 03

  Out of all the thug niggas I hang with.

• 2:35:53Bunnie XO?

  You were the nice one.

• 2:35:54Speaker 03

  So the nice one is right after, you know what I'm saying? It shows the duality of, you know what I'm saying? My taste has never been, okay, I'm, oh, you know, I'll just date this girl because she's black. I'll date this girl because she's white. I'll date this girl because she's Puerto Rican. I'll date this girl because she's Asian. I never had a type.

• 2:36:11Bunnie XO?

  Right.

• 2:36:12Speaker 03

  I was just love, you know what I'm saying? Whatever love, whatever that felt like. Didn't matter what it looked like.

• 2:36:17Bunnie XO?

  You still lead with love in everything that you do.

• 2:36:20Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So 58164 is a journey. It's an audio series, 17 episodes, fucking crazy.

• 2:36:27Bunnie XO?

  June 13th, baby.

• 2:36:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:36:29Bunnie XO?

  I can't wait. Tech.

• 2:36:30Speaker 03

  The last song, Sacrifice, is the only one that ain't done, is the Jelly Roll hook.

• 2:36:35Bunnie XO?

  Son of a bitch, I'm gonna go home and spank him. You know what, he's actually downtown.

• 2:36:40Speaker 03

  That's the last song we haven't finished, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:36:42Bunnie XO?

  You guys can probably find him downtown, he's doing a whole bunch of interviews today. I don't know exactly, I'll call him and see what he's at.

• 2:36:48Speaker 03

  Everything else is done, that's the one that don't have a hook.

• 2:36:51Bunnie XO?

  I will get on his ass for you, I promise.

• 2:36:53Speaker 03

  He said he was gonna do it, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:36:55Bunnie XO?

  If he says he's gonna do it, he'll do it.

• 2:36:56Speaker 03

  If I would've had it when he was on, when he came to visit me on the Falling Reverse Tour, he got on my bus, he said, "What you working on?" I was like, "I'm working on this album called 5864ers." He said, "You got anything for me?" I said, "Nope, but I will find it."

• 2:37:10Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:10Speaker 03

  So, I found Sacrifice, you know, so I got that across my chest, you know what I'm saying? Years ago, you know, everything I had to do to sacrifice, the time I spent, it was perfect because it's on some "Was Me" shit, but you know, the shit I had to do, I couldn't, you know, go be with everybody else because I had to sacrifice. And while I was being on punishment and shit like that, I worked on my craft, you know what I mean? I became Tech 9, you know, and it saved my life, you know?

• 2:37:33Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:34Speaker 03

  So, that's the last song, you know what I'm saying, Sacrifice. And it's beautiful, the album is crazy.

• 2:37:38Bunnie XO?

  I can't wait to hear it, I'm so excited.

• 2:37:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, we used one producer on this one, producer I've never worked with, his name is J. Peasy. He brought that, that fucking ghetto funk that I ain't had in a long time, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like that I had like back in the Rogue Dog Villain days and Let's Get Fucked Up and Mitch Bay days, it's those kind of beats, you know? And I was fucking scared at first, I told Black Walt, because he's the one who told me, "Man, your fans want to hear all you, nobody else rapping on it, just people, if you want to put some people on the hook, that's cool, Wayne did a hook, you know what I'm saying? And it's dope, it's called Yoda, and then..."

• 2:38:14Bunnie XO?

  Little Wayne?

• 2:38:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, then Jelly got sent one, you know what I'm saying? Got a couple of people that's doing hooks, but I'm all the verses, and it's never been done while we've been doing this, you know what I'm saying? So, when Black Walt first brought me the idea, I was like, "I've been hearing fans say they tired of me doing, you know, collaborations all this time, you know what I'm saying? They just want to hear all me on the song, I think that's boring as fuck." And he's like, "Nah," and I told Travis, that's what Black Walt said, and he said, Travis said, "He's right, Tech," you know what I'm saying? "They want to hear you rapping, you know what I'm saying, and doing your thing," you know?

• 2:38:48Bunnie XO?

  I love that Black Walt is still around.

• 2:38:50Speaker 03

  Black Walt is still around.

• 2:38:51Bunnie XO?

  I love that.

• 2:38:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, he just, he just, he just got out of jail some years ago, you know what I'm saying? He was, you know, he's clocking much dollars on the 1st of 15th, sorry, but, um...

• 2:39:02Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying, but, um...

• 2:39:05Speaker 03

  I got into it, the album, and doing all the verses and, you know, a lot of the hooks too, you know, and I was like, holy fucking shit. It's so, it relieved me.

• 2:39:17Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:18Speaker 03

  I, I.

• 2:39:18Bunnie XO?

  Well, it's therapeutic for you.

• 2:39:20Speaker 03

  I found, I, I found, I found solace in talking about my stepfather and me running away when he was trying to make me a real man. I didn't understand it when I was 17, but when I got out in the world, I understand he was trying to make me better.

• 2:39:35Bunnie XO?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:39:36Speaker 03

  And I said, I love him and thank you. And I played him, my, my brother, Hakeem, played him the song. And he said he was so happy. And I said, thank you. You know what I'm saying? Because I probably fucked with him. I never came back.

• 2:39:49Bunnie XO?

  Did your stepfather, is your stepfather still alive?

• 2:39:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:39:51Bunnie XO?

  Oh, good.

• 2:39:52Speaker 03

  We played him the song.

• 2:39:53Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:53Speaker 03

  You know, it's called The Punishment. He used to have me on Punishment all the time because I lived in a blood neighborhood. And he knew when I was around my homies, shit was happening.

• 2:40:01Bunnie XO?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:02Speaker 03

  You know? So he's like, I fuck up in school, I'm in Punishment for the whole summer.

• 2:40:07Bunnie XO?

  Well, Tech.

• 2:40:07Speaker 03

  Summer's on Punishment.

• 2:40:08Bunnie XO?

  I can't wait to hear this album. And I think that it's gonna, I think it's actually innovative what you guys are doing.

• 2:40:13Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:40:13Bunnie XO?

  Because I don't think anybody's ever really done this, so.

• 2:40:16Speaker 03

  I, I ain't never heard nobody else call their upcoming album an audio series with 17 episodes.

• 2:40:21Bunnie XO?

  Yeah, no, it's huge. You guys are just creating your own wave again.

• 2:40:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:40:25Bunnie XO?

  So. Thank you so much for being here, Tech.

• 2:40:28Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me. It was so natural and so comfortable.

• 2:40:31Bunnie XO?

  I appreciate you being here, Travis. I appreciate you being here. And I just, I can't wait to see, you know, your growth and your journey just continue like it has been for all these years, three decades, right?

• 2:40:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:40:43Bunnie XO?

  Like you have just been moving and shaking.

• 2:40:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:40:45Bunnie XO?

  And you don't plan on stopping. And I love that. So.

• 2:40:48Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 2:40:49Bunnie XO?

  Come back and see me. Yay.

• 2:40:51Speaker 03

  I shall.

• 2:40:52Bunnie XO?

  Thank you guys for tuning into another episode of Dumb Blonde. I'll see you guys next week. Bye.

• 2:41:14Bunnie XO?

  The.