E-40

A real tycoon is in the building. Questlove sits down with Vallejo’s own E-40, the Yay Area legend who was selling records out of his trunk back when getting a major-label deal felt impossible. He built his own label, financed his projects independently, and gave Hip-Hop an entire dictionary of slang and similes. Now, with Turning My Money Over—a historic 40-song quadruple album—Earl Stevens isn’t slowing down. E-40 talks about growing up on Magazine Street in Vallejo’s Hillside neighborhood, the New York and Bay Area rappers who shaped his voice, and the year at Grambling State that taught him how to make it on his own. He explains how The Click navigated distribution through consignment sheets, mom-and-pop stores, and even rim shops—and how VHS duplication helped change the game for independent artists. 40 Water recalls his dealings with Tupac, advocates for members of the Hieroglyphics crew, and shares how being doubted by a room full of DJs decades ago only pushed him to go harder. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:35Speaker 00

  The Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Hey, what's up? It's Questlove and this week we're continuing our conversation series with artists who've charted their own path and redefined music along the way. And we've teamed up with Levi's on their Behind Every Original campaign to highlight the creatives who didn't have a blueprint for what came next, so they had to make their own. Levi's has been the uniform of originals for over 150 years. The people who don't just accept the status quo, but reshape it through how they live, create and show up. And that spirit feels especially relevant to today's conversation. Weird enough, Levi's is kind of what connected Tariq and I together.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Because the first moment we met, he marveled at my jacket. He, he'd never met someone whose parents allowed their kid to ruin their good clothes. Like, you know, you got school clothes and your play clothes. And the fact that I had like paint on the back of my jacket, like, you know, Jackson Pollock and wore a peace sign and whatever, like I was, I was a hippie. And he's like, yo, your, your mom let you do this to your jacket? And then he borrowed that jacket for like four months. So kind of having this jacket on is probably a weird connection that I have to like,

• 2:05Speaker 00

  two friends in high school not knowing they're about to embark in a, you know, almost a 40-plus year mission. So, yeah, man, shout out to Levi's for that. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have a real tycoon in the building. He's coming straight out of V-Town where there's a street even a day named after him. He is the Y area's own. He was pushing units out the trunk with his clique back when getting access to the majors was nearly impossible. He was sick with it from day one, stacked a Skrilla, built his own label. Simply put, this legend is the architect.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  And he came with the blueprint and the slang which made with more than 30-plus albums under his belt. E40 just released his most ambitious project yet. It's called Turning My Money Over and it's a 40-song quadruple album. And once you listen, you know right away that he has not lost a step, ladies and gentlemen. And he's joining us live right now in California while I am here in New York City. Brother E, this is a long time coming. I appreciate you granting me this audience. How you doing?

• 3:29Speaker 03

  I'm doing good. I appreciate you, buddy. That was a great intro.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Look, man, it's, it's nothing but respect. Always been a fan of yours, man. Always been a fan.

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Thank you, vice versa, folks. Vice versa, trust me.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  I want to know what your first musical memory was, but really what I want to know is what did Vallejo sound like coming out the car windows? Like, what was the soundtrack of your block as a kid before, you know, the Crest developed you?

• 4:01Speaker 03

  I lived in the Crest when I was very young. I moved out when I was eight. I went to Country Club, Crest Childcare Center. I went to Loma Vista, then I went to Elsa Weideman and I played baseball, Little League. The field was named after my granddad. It's called Thurman's Field and that's in College Park. Then my mom and dad divorced and then I ended up being on a whole nother side of town. I had no idea about and it was called the Hillside. That's how much of a soil baby I was. I didn't even know it was a whole nother side of town called the Hillside. You know what I mean? So I go to the Hillside and, you know, it was a whole different atmosphere. What I mean by that, it was the urban community. It was the trenches, but it had like goats and chickens in the backyard. You know, that's why we call ourselves the Hillbillies. We call ourselves Beverly Hillbillies, you know what I'm saying?

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Cause it's really called Beverly Hills and some of the streets are named after in the real Beverly Hills in, in LA. You know what I'm saying? But it's nothing like that, yeah. That's why I say my life was nothing like Bel Air. High speeds, shootout and things, but I loved it there. You feel me?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  But anyway, yeah, so the music coming out the cars, out the windows and everything. I mean, it was just Vallejo was Vallejo. It was a small city, you know, at that time, probably 11 exits. I don't know how many you got now, because they're constantly building and it's getting bigger and more population, you know what I'm saying? So, but it was very small, yeah.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  You know, some, I always wanted to ask you this. I think I mentioned this to you when we were touring with LL, but you know, I had just directed the Sly and the Family Stone documentary.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  Oh, you directed that?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was me.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Dope.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  There's a stunning moment that I couldn't include in the doc. And, you know, we pretty much had to gather worldwide footage of every aspect of Sly's life, you know? And there's a moment where this cat from Europe decides to just ambush and kind of literally walk through the Bay Area looking for Sly Stone. And one of the most amazing five-minute sequences I've ever seen is he's just walking the streets of Vallejo and then suddenly he pans to the left and says, hey, there's some teenagers over there.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Cause he's, he's even amazed that like some people might or might not remember Sly Stone. And so it's almost like him on National Geographic, but he's in the hood and he has like an accent that of like, you know, lifestyles of Rich and Famous. He's like, oh, there's some high schools over there. Let me ask them what they know about Sly Stone. And yo, he rolls up on the click. You guys back in, I believe, this might've been 1989, like.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Right, sounds like it.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  1990 maybe, like base, there was cars driving by and I think I heard like a Tony, Tony, Tony song. So it's almost telling me it might've been 1990. But he literally, you guys just talked to him for like five minutes. And you more or less talk about, you know, what you're from. Cause he's like, oh, you guys are into music? Do you remember anything about this moment of just some?

• 7:19Speaker 03

  It sounds very, very familiar and it's a trip because Vallejo is an interesting spot. You know, you got Sly, you know, Sly and Family Stone. You got, you got the confunction that came out of there. I think Andre Hawkins recorded, oh, Happy Days in downtown Vallejo. You know, you got some of the first, the first rappers that coming out of Vallejo was the Lover Twins. They from, they from the Bridge side over there off of Springs Road. You know, Kyrie, Kyrie from Young Black Brothers. He had, that was his first group that he put out and he would, they was the first ones with an actual record, you know? So, you know, you had J King, which is the guy who put out, you know, Club Nouveau

• 8:00Speaker 03

  and Time X Social Club and Choice, what they call New Choice. You know what I mean? He stayed from Millersville, you know, but he moved to Sacramento. So sometime he claimed Sac, sometime, but he claimed Vallejo too, because we all know he from the V, his whole family. But it's all love and respect and he was before us and I salute them all, man. And, you know, here come me, you know, me and the clique, you know, here come Mac Dre. Here come, you know, just so many other rappers after us, you know, In Too Deep and Baby Bash and, oh man, Celly Sail. Oh man, we can go, Mac Mall. Oh man, so many people in the V, so many, so much talent in that small little city. I can go on and on forever.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Did, did you have history with any of those acts like pre-record deal at all? Like high school or?

• 8:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So In Too Deep, it's a trip. Of course, me and Celly Sail, we played ball together. Our parents knew each other and still know each other. And we from the Hillside. I'm from Magazine Street. He from Magazine Street in Hollywood. You know what I mean? Right there in the same neighborhood, yeah. We grew up together. Celly Sail became a gold selling artist, got the big record. It's Going Down Tonight, you know what I'm saying? And, and then, you know, of course, you know, Be Legit, The Click, all of us, we all family. We from Magazine Street. Baby Bash, he produced the first song I did on, with Spice One. I just did some talking. I was glad to be on that album because Spice was already signed to Jive.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  And then In Too Deep, Jim DeTraylio, you understand me and Tim, they, they both embraced me, got me on there. They was, they were signed to Profile Records and I'm still independent at that time. And they were signed to Profile Records, man. I had the opportunity to have breakfast with them with Run DMC. Yeah, with Run DMC. They came, yeah, because they was all on Profile Records and we ate off of Highway 29. Yeah, but anyway, moving forward, so, you know, they gave me my first record. They went, they, my first gold record was by In Too Deep because I was on a song called V-Town.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Okay, okay. Look, your voice is an instrument.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  All on its own, like the intonation, the pitch, the bounce of it all, the way you stretch your words out. So when you first, when you first got on the mic, did you sound like E40? Or did you have to find him and invent this persona? Like, who were you listening to that shaped how you talk on a record?

• 10:30Speaker 03

  You might have to pack a lunch for this.

• 10:32Speaker 00

  Hit me.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  First, it was, New York was heavily, they was a big influence on us.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Influential, yeah.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Influential, yeah. First and foremost, you know, the first rap song I heard was Sugar Hill Gang. And I fell in love with, you know, some of the artists earlier, like Just Ice, Grandma's Flash and the Furious Five, Melly Mel, mostly, Curtis Blow. Also, you know, Kango from U T F O was a big influence. His voice was amazing to me. There you go, you see, now you hear a little bit of E40 in there.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Aw, cuz it was.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Yo.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Yep, yep. Ice T, yep, Run DMC, and you know, locally, you know, Too Short. Too Short definitely was a big influence. Some of his tapes before even, you know, made it big, he had tapes circulating, Magic Mike and Calvin T out of Richmond, California. You know, my cousin them used to come down from Richmond, blapping that and they blew 5.0, you feel me? And my folks, you know what I'm saying?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  You know, shout out to Derrick Brown, shout out to Pops, you know what I'm saying? My cousin Pops and all them up out of Richmond, man, they come through blapping that thing, you know what I'm saying? With us on Magazine Street. So we just, you know, of course, LL Cool J, man, KRS-One, I did a lot. I learned my ad-libs from KRS-One. KRS-One used to do a lot of ad-libs. So are you a, yeah, talking in third person?

• 11:55Speaker 00

  See, I thought with your interview style, when you answer yourself and like when you do your interview thing, I thought like, that's definitely a slick Rick, like overdubbing it.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  It can be some of that too, cuz I listen to all them, you know? But mostly KRS-One.

• 12:10Speaker 00

  Alright.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  I was, I was blapping Big Daddy Kane for show too, and many, many, you know, shoot, you know who was my ex-Clan?

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, oh, Brother J?

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, Brother J, yuck. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Brother J, what you say?

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Oh, come on, man, some of the great music, man, you know, Public Enemy, bro, we could go on. Man, you know, Tati T, Tati T out of L.A.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Bat around, yeah.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  The Bat Around, you feel me? Mix Master Spade, Bobby Jimmy and the Crickets.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  That's Russ Parr.

• 12:43Speaker 03

  Guess who else I used to blap?

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Who?

• 12:45Speaker 03

  You ready for this one?

• 12:46Speaker 00

  Hit me.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  The Symphony, The Symphony.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Oh, Big Daddy Kane.

• 12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think Master A. Yeah, Cool G Rap. They had, I used to rock with them boys too, you feel me?

• 12:56Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  I liked that too. So, man, I, you know, it's a trip cuz I'm older than a lot of them cats, man, you feel me? I kick back, I'm like, damn, I've been in this game for a long time. Eighty-eight was when I first released MVP, Most Valuable Players with The Click.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  It shouldn't be a surprise though, because like, you know, I mean, the Bay Area was always different. Like, the Bay Area and DC have absorbed way more music than any other territory that I've seen in the United States. Like, it's almost like you guys are like this encompassing sponge of disinformation. So I tend to notice that in the Bay Area, regionalism really isn't a thing like, you know, it would be elsewhere where they're just guarded with their territory. So I absolutely see that happening.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  It's like, everybody, the Bay was making so beautiful is we got like, people, we got like the hieroglyphics and Dale the Funky help us Homosapien and, and, you know, and Souls of Mischief. And we got, you know, then you got, you got your Spice Ones of the Worlds and the E40s and the Loonies. And you got, you know, Digital Underground, and it's just so many different, like, you know, it's just a mixture of everything. I can go on and on and on, but I'm just saying, growing up, that's how it was, you know? So we just one big gumbo pot.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  True. Alright, so you and Be Legit went to Grambling when you guys were really getting serious about your participation in hip-hop. But I always wanted to know, and I guess another person that can answer this is also Master P, but in reverse, but what did you learn or what did the South teach you that the Bay Area couldn't?

• 14:44Speaker 03

  The South was, when we, when we came from Grambling, we was the first one saying, bruh. Cuz all they used to do is this 1987, 88. We went eighty, fall of eighty-six, eighty-seven. So when we got back, you know, I was, cuz of all the New Orleans cats and all the Baton Rouge, when we getting on the elevator, when I'm in Drew Hard, Be Legit is in Pinchback. One thing is we was up and down the stairs, so we always on the elevator. So one thing they used to always say, hold that Vader, bruh, hold that Vader, bruh. You feel me? That was, that's one, it was bruh, it was bruh. We've been, we've, we've been saying it forever, forever, ever, you know what I'm saying? You know, I got a lot of stuff like cutting up, that's from Louisiana. My grandparents, they came down from Louisiana, from Bernice, Louisiana, and Homer, Louisiana, and they had 11 kids.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  And that's one thing they used to say, when they say, y'all cut up last night, when we got in fights and stuff like that when we was young. Y'all gotta stop cutting up like that, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's how I used to go. So a lot of stuff used to come from the South and, you know, just are, just having that South in my blood. I feel like that's why I be feeling like Lil Boosie and all them, Birdman and Master Pino, cuz I feel like we all for some reason, and juvenile and we all for some reason, we feel like we descent, like we cousins or something, cuz I feel them, even though I'm in Vallejo, but I'm, I got Southern ways, like, you know, we come from there. My daddy from Mississippi, you feel what I'm saying? So it's like, it's crazy. So I learned a lot in Grambling, man, it taught me how to be independent. What I mean by that is like, how to, you know, be a man. We had to make, we used, we used to have to stretch $20, man, we'd make it last for 20 days, you know what I'm saying?

• 16:14Speaker 03

  You know, eggs and bread and some milk or butter, you know what I'm saying? Some ground, some ground turkey, everything was cheap way back then. And you put that in your little refrigerator in the dorm, and I had a little skillet, you know what I'm saying? I make all kind of little tycoon meals, you understand me?

• 16:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  You know, so I self-taught myself, man, how to do a lot of things, being independent at Grambling.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  Incidentally, what was your major going to be at Grambling?

• 16:38Speaker 03

  So I went for commercial art and cartoon art. We used to hang out with the band all the time, even though I played band from 4th grade to 12th grade when I was living in Vallejo, you feel me? So when I went, Be Legit, I think he went for electronics, you know what I'm saying? I went because of Be Legit, you know? We went one year, and that one year felt like four years of experience because we learned so much in a small little amount of time. And we got right back and pursued our career, cuz we was doing music before that. We just never was like really, we were serious about it, but we didn't have an opportunity. So soon as we got, while we was at Grambling, me, Be Legit, my partner Wollamondale Dominion III Junior, Ed Williams out of Oakland, and a few of my cats from Marin City, they had a boombox, you know what I'm saying?

• 17:23Speaker 03

  Big Tiny, Big Fun, we called him Big Fun. His partner Jay had a boombox, and so we, we recorded original concept instrumental, he took it and looped it.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Get a little stupid in it.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Me, oh, me.

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Oh, knowledge me, oh, Lord, yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  Dun, da, da, that one right there. Yeah, so we turned that into the, it was, I think it was Wollamondale Dominion III's ideal to come with a song all about the school. Everything that went down on campus at Grambling State University. So we called it the Grambling State University School Amada. And it circulated, back then, people was dubbing tapes. So it circulated all throughout the campus, and it got famous, everybody knew the song. It was like, Grambling, University, Grambling, University, Grambling, University, Grambling, University. And my voice was hella, just tiny, like, you know what I'm saying? It wasn't this developed, but it's, you could tell it was me, right? And so then, it was a talent show.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  We entered the talent show, bruh, and won the whole thing, bruh. We walk out, we famous. We was already like hella popular on campus cuz we used, you know, I used to be the flyers. I didn't always have this baller belly, I was, you know, I'm 18, 17, 18. I'm 18 years old and I'm, you know what I'm saying? I'm, I'm clean, I stay fresh, you know what I mean? So anyway, make a long story short, we tuners, we got back on Bay Area soil. We found the studio, my brother Disha found Studio Tone Studio. I went and found Pilot Studio who did all, him and James early, found their studio on Sonoma Boulevard, right there. Where Mr. MC Hammer used to, so we would see MC Hammer sometime when we were, when we coming out, when we going into the studio, Hammer coming out.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  And he, you know, and he was legendary right there. Hammer was doing this thing, we just so happy to just see him, and he always embraced us, you know, he the big OG, you know what I'm saying? We all, Hammer one of the realest, you know what I'm saying? So it was just a beautiful thing, man. So we went in there and recorded, we was called MVP, so we recorded four songs and knocked that out the way. And then we, we changed our name cuz we felt like, we really, you know, we got hella game, bruh. We got, it just wasn't us, we was trying to like get radio play and try to take the shortcut instead of really being us organically. So I say, check this out, man, we gonna be The Click, we finna spin nothing but straight soil, just soil activities, how our life really is, the whole whoop-wop, you feel me?

• 19:45Speaker 03

  And that's when we became The Click, first EP was Less Side, so we had four songs on there. Yeah, we had those, and then we had, then I came with Mr. Flamboyant, you know what I'm saying? That was the EP, you know, in 1990, we came with Down and Dirty. That's what took it over the top right there, you know, we was already making, Mr. Flamboyant was really doing this thing. Both of them, Less Side, but when we came with Down and Dirty, that album was amazing, The Click.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  What I wanna know is, now, when Too Short was on the show, he explained how his mixtapes got him in the game. But. From your point of view, can you walk me through? Cause the one thing I always hear about Bay Area is, you know, you guys sell it out the trunk.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 00

  So what is the process on the business side of things? Of how you sell it out the trunk? Like you made the tapes, you made the product.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Now, how do you get it in the record stores?

• 20:44Speaker 03

  Right, so that was the problem. Distribution didn't come to us easy, so we had to make our own distribution outlets. So the way we did it was we would press up a certain amount of CDs or cassettes or vinyl. Our first EP, MVP, that was all vinyl. We didn't even have no cassettes for that. I think we got the cassettes hella late.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Later, yeah.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we would sell those, we would put them on what they call consignment. So we, my Uncle St. Charles, he was a musical genius. Uh, he had records in the seventies, like seventy-two and seventy-four. So he kinda already knew, he's like a jack of all trades, uh, uh, one of those uncles you look up to that's very highly, uh, smart and know a lot. And so he taught us how to do consignment sheets and you go to the store and you, you know, you drop off. Maybe, maybe let's say just, let's go vinyl, let's just say vinyl. We go to our trunk, pull out a box, they want ten vinyl or something, you know what I'm saying? We got twenty left, so we, here go Eminem, just say Eminem liquor for, for, just for instance, as an example.

• 21:45Speaker 03

  We get him, you know, ten vinyl or discount liquor right there on the corner of, uh, Magazine Street and, uh, Sonoma. And so we would drop them off, they assign a consignment sheet, drop it off. So that mean, okay, we gonna get this to you for this amount. When we come, you call us and let us know when you out. They'll call us, let us know when they out and we'll come drop off another ten, twenty, whatever they want. This time we want twenty, okay, we give them twenty. And that's how it was going, that was how it was circulating in certain stores, all of my, a lot of the mom and pop stores, uh, a lot of places that actually, um, not your traditional places to, to carry, uh, music. Like Bill's and Wheels, uh, you know, where everybody go to get their rims and tires at, their Zenas and Vos, their appliance and Vos, their Trues and Vos, whatever they going to get.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  It was a one-stop shop for, you know, for slippers, for shoes, you know what I mean? So then, you feel what I'm saying?

• 22:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 03

  So going to places like that and then hooking up with, um, music people, which was a one-stop, Jason Blame and his, his dad, uh, Elliot Blame. And, uh, they would, uh, we would, um, hook up with them, so they was our distributor, they was a small one-stop. We hooked up with them and then we hooked up with City Hall Records later. City Hall Records didn't take us at first, they thought, and you know, I tell them this all the time, we probably made them more money than anybody when we was with them because they didn't wanna take us, they said, they literally told my Uncle St. Charles this, seriously.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:06Speaker 03

  This is something I'll really tell people, but I ain't got, I got love, I got love for Walter Zelman. I'm just saying. He, he told St. Charles on the phone, he don't know we was on the three-way, we was on the three-way, this is way back, we on the three-way, he just,

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  You know, hey, man, you know, uh, you know, I, I hate to, I gotta tell you, man, um, you know, the, you know, the one guy with the, with the voice, you know, he, you know, he raps too fast, man. And then, you know, he talking about me, right?

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know.

• 23:34Speaker 03

  And then he said, and then he said, he said, and the other guy, you know, with the deep voice, he sounds like he's reading. And I'm like, where he get this from? It's somebody that's working there, something that's on some, that's on some goaltending hatin', cause you know, cause come on, man. Man, check this out, so all that did, I'm telling you, haters don't ever, y'all should not even, never say nothing. If you want me to stop being raw, you shouldn't say nothing, cause when somebody hate on me, I become a whole nother monster in a great way.

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Dude.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  I'll kill you with my success. I'm telling you right now.

• 24:05Speaker 00

  I have so many Rasheed Wallace questions, but go ahead, continue.

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Okay, I'm gonna finish this. So what I'm saying is, what I wanna tell you is this, crazy. So look, hey, listen what I'm saying, so basically what that did, that motivated us, oh, he was like, our feelings crushing everything. I'm like, man, we got one foot in the soil and then we got one foot in the vocal booth. I'm like, you know what I mean?

• 24:26Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  So I'm like, okay, we gonna show them. So that's when we, that same, then we came with Downey, uh, we came with Left Side. When we came with Left Side, he called Uncle Charles, maybe about, maybe four months, five months after and just, hey, uh, St. Charles, yeah, uh, you know those guys, uh, you know, uh, the, the, the clique? Whatever, right? And he was like, yeah. He said, can I get five thousand CDs like that? And after that, and St. Charles, we did a COD, you know what I mean? Picked up a check that day, something nice, something chunky, not that day, but you know, we, we already had them on deck, so.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  I got you.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  You know, yeah, so anyway, we did that, after that, we just started making hella bread with them, hella bread, we became cool and everything. I always felt like that motivated me to become who I am. Uh, being in a meeting with the, with the, with the mu, what was it called? The Pro Music, uh, DJ, the Pro's, the Pro's DJ, uh, organization, they was like a DJ, Pros, back in the days.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  The DJ, yeah, yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 03

  We played our music for them, one, the, uh, MVP, I think it was this MVP Most Valuable Player's, uh, EP. A dude by the name of Casper, he was playing as our manager, good dude. And so he was like, hey, man, what y'all think? After we played it, nobody in the room said nothing. This is way back in eighty-eight, no, eighty-seven, eighty, eighty-eight. No one said nothing, they was just looking at it like, ah, these dudes. I have not yet seen that one Pro Music DJ club, nobody from, that was members. And it was about a hundred in the room, ain't nobody ever came up to me and say, I was in that room, cause they embarrassed. Cause they didn't know that I was gonna be the guy that I am, they didn't know this. You feel me?

• 26:03Speaker 03

  But they crushed me, I had anxiety and everything, they had me stressed out, I'm like, a lot of people stress me out, but I don't hold it against them, I just keep it pushing, man, and that's how I became who I am.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  How do you talk yourself out of sabotaging? If, if, if you feel like it's a setback, like how do you psych yourself up to, to push through?

• 26:21Speaker 03

  That's what fuels me, that's what people don't understand. If you, it fuels me and make me better. Yeah, I'm, I discipline myself, I'm, I'm, I'm from the ghetto, I'm really from it. You know, not trying to act like it's something great, it's just, I was in the, we was raised in the ghetto by force, not choice.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  It ain't like I was in the suburbs, not like, I wanna go to the ghetto and live there, like nah, bro, it's like, I was there by force.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  In the clique, you know, it's, it's your family, it's, it's, you know, D-Shot, Sugar T, Beeliget. Of the clique, who was the hardest critic in the room? In terms of like, whose verse gets sent back the most? Who, who's the coach that whips everyone in the shape?

• 27:04Speaker 03

  Me, but I'ma be honest, I didn't really have to. I, me and my sister, cause she, she was raised by three brothers.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  And so she tries to be the boss of me and all of us, and I'm like, you can't be the boss of me or, or, or none of us. So we would clash, cause she thinking I'm goaltending her ideas and I'm like, nah, I'm letting you have your freedom, but I'm, I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing. So we would clash like that, but we still great, made great music and still, you know, that's my sis, so it is what it is. We gonna continue to work together and, you know, get through it. But far as being a overseer, everything, D-Shot, he was the boss of him, Beeliget the boss of him, and we just made great music together.

• 27:40Speaker 00

  Like what is working with family protect you from? At least, you know, cause when you start popping and, you know, I'm, I'm taking a reference from, from Crush Groove. Like soon as you start popping, I know people are coming out the woodworks like, yo, let's, let's do some business together, whatever. But also on the other side of that coin, working with family can also be risky. You know, cause now you're in business together, so what, what's the pros and what's the cons of it all?

• 28:09Speaker 03

  The pro, the pros is that you, you know, if you're doing business with family, which you would love to, what everyone really would love to do if everything went smooth, you know what I mean? And I'm talking about, man, I'm being honest with you, I'm not trying to be a me monster, but I am responsible for putting probably more relatives on than anybody in the history of hip-hop. And I'm not just talking about my siblings and my cousin, I'm talking about cuzzins.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? It's a long list, you gotta pack a lunch for this one, so I don't even go through all that, you feel me? But everyone that knows knows. I really put on for my family.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  I never seen nobody in hip-hop put on for their family like they put my family on, I put them on like a light switch.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  So for the beginning phase before Jive came along, I, I would assume that like Studio Tone and Mike Mosley did a line share of the, the production and the music and all that stuff, right? What is their beginnings, what's their origin? Like who taught them how to make beats?

• 29:07Speaker 03

  Shoot, Studio Tone come from it. Mike, uh, self-taught himself, man, he always had interest in it, but me and Mike from, we from the trenches. And we used to, uh, you know, move around in a, in, you know, in the traffic together and we just, we both had interest in rap. And we was like, hey, man, so we ended up, man, started getting equipment and working together and everything, we just became raw. You know, and he started playing, programming them drums and stuff, went and got one of them, Elise drum sets was called, Elise, I think.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, the drum machines, yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Ooh, when he got that, it was over, but Studio Tone, since a kid, he was just born knowing how to play keys and guitar and he just, one of the most talented people I ever met besides my Uncle St. Charles and my dad. You know what I mean? My brother D-Shot was always this research king. You know, he would, he found, uh, a spot right down the street from our clothing store on Salano Avenue, it was called New Fat Clothing. So recently I posted a picture with me and my son Droopy in front of my nineteen-seventy Cutlass across the street from Church's Chicken in Millersville. Right there was in front of our clothing store, I got, I bought us a clothing store, you understand me? And we had Rayon shirts, so a lot of people saying, yeah, they got Rayon shirts in there, we did, we had Rayon shirts.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Rayon.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  Spray paint, spray painted shirts, we had Carl Kanai, we had Major Damage, we had FUBU, we had all that good stuff from back then, you know? And so D-Shot was like, hey, man, Studio Tone, cause Studio Tone was over there by the Empress Theater, uh, his location. So he's like, hey, Studio Tone, we got a spot for you, right down the street, right next door to Rich Arts Barber Shop. Right there, right on the same, right in the same shopping center is our store. So I go make my little money from the little store, from our store, take my little profit, go put fifty, a hundred dollars down for pre-production, it was ten dollars an hour. I, I pay Studio Tone pre-production, so I booked that, all, all I needed was four hours, cause I, while I'm down at New Fat Clothing, I'm, you know, not only behind the register or whatever, I'm writing lyrics. So one time.

• 31:04Speaker 00

  So that's where you crafted them? Okay.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, so sometime, yeah, so at that time, and I had so much, I'm a, I'm a soil dude, so I got a lot to say, so you know, sometime I go down to Studio Tone, just book four hours just to make the beats, let's just make beats from scratch. Then I take them beats and then write to them, then come back and record them over there. But anyway, he was a research king because I wanna give my brother D-Shot a lot, a lot of love on this one. One thing people don't realize is he found this lady by the name of Mary Ann Collins. And it changed the game for many independent artists, because Mary Ann specialized in. Getting your see, getting your videos, because we shot videos back then. Getting them on the VHS. Getting hell of them duplicated and distributing them to all the major resources.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  That any, any, any mom and pop video shows, say for instance Houston. Say for instance, uh, uh, let's say for instance, um.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Oh, nationwide.

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Nationwide, bruh, even video jukebox. She was our, and we pay her, we had to pay her. We, she, she give us this invoice and we gotta pay for all, you know, for the duplicate, she get them done. We give her the master, she get them done. And then we give, we pay her for her services and everybody in the base start using her from Master P to, I'm talking about all of us. But my brother D shot found their plug without no internet and nothing, man. I say it's a bad boy.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Damn, man, you just reminded me of video jukebox, man. I, I miss video jukebox, man. That was an era.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  Me too. I miss it too, bro.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  What would you describe as the sound of mob music?

• 32:31Speaker 03

  So, let me just tell you this, man.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 32:33Speaker 03

  Mob music, at the end of the day, in real life sincerely. Too Short, E40 and the Click, Studio Tone, Ambanks, Mike Mosley, Sam Bostick. Uh, you know, I, I could put, and I'm talking about from the beginning of this thing. Seriously, the, the, the term was coined by me. We brought Sebo and AWOL Records into our organization where he developed that sound too. Shout out to Sebo and my cousin Freddie T. Smith. You know, AWOL Records, he started AWOL Records. And then some of the producers, like the DJ Durs and stuff, they started doing it. Their sound was not that, it was not that, no disrespect, but it wasn't that. Ours was mob music, heavy basslines. I created the term mob music.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Everybody know it, that's why I do it the best. Me and Too Short, I give it to Too Short too, because you know, he's the funk. He's the godfather, I'm the ambassador. You know what I mean? And that's why we roll like this. We get along, you can't break me and his bond, nobody can.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  I mean, I've been coming to the Bay Area for like the last three decades. But I think maybe in the last 10 or 15 years is when I finally got the message. That Vallejo and Oakland are two different places. Like there's some people that think like Jersey and New York, even though we're just a bridge away.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  You know, are, are the same and they're not. Or, you know, people get mad when I think Australia and New Zealand are the same. It is, but like, how were relations between Oakland and Vallejo? As far as like hip hop culture is concerned?

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Hip hop culture was a little different than street culture. Like, uh, the town love us, because we, you know, pretty much, you know.

• 34:18Speaker 00

  So for you, is it street culture first, before it's hip hop culture?

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, because it took a minute for us to break through, because we a small city. So it took a lot for all the major cities are the, you know, the more urban cities to accept us. We paid our dues to, to earn this, the, you know, the credibility that we have now. And we were some of the pioneers, the Click and, uh, people like Mac Dre, all of us. We, we, we, we really had to pay our dues for them to recognize us, you know, the town was really.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Was it hard at first?

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Heavy. Hell, yeah, they wasn't, we had, we from the streets, me, Be Legit, D shot, all, we from the streets. So we knew a lot of cats out there, you know what I'm saying? So in the town in Oakland. And, you know, we, we, we play our music for them and my mom, she used to get our CDs and she used to, uh, like go to my cousin Rose's house on Two Four. And they, they'd go to, uh, Apartment C back in them days and on the way home, mom's, you know, she showing, she, she say, I got rid of a few of y'all. I gave some of y'all CDs to some of the, some of the cats and, you know, when, when they pull up at, you know, uh, uh, I forgot the name of the burger spot, I think Quarter Burger or something like that. So she'll go there and she was just giving, you know, giving our CDs to anybody that was real, like of the culture. And she helps spread the word as well.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  And then us out there, you know, you know, hitting, going to all the, all the events and everything and just moving around and people just adapted to our style. And once we, when, when we went to TY Uzis, when that side hit TY Uzis and they seen that album cover with the Zeniths and Vogues. And will not, and whatnot, man, they was on it, they loved it, everybody started buying it, you know. We was the ones out of Vallejo, the first that Oakland embraced. The Click was who Oakland embraced and Oakland is the nucleus, the hub. I just want to say that, they are.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  I respect it.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  Hey, it's Nile Rodgers, host of Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series. I'm driving across the country, meeting some of today's most fascinating artists. We're exploring the stories before the moment that changed everything. This week, I'm joined by Miguel.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  That last year, finishing that record was the hardest experience of my life. To find your creativity and to believe in yourself, because somewhere in the midst of it.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  I stopped believing that my voice mattered and that I could find it again. That's a challenge. I was not feeling very confident creatively. Only, um, again defiant in my belief that

• 36:57Speaker 05

  what this is about is express something honest, say something honest.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Let's get to it. All right, you've talked in the past about reading the dictionary to expand your vocabulary. So when you invent a word or a term, do you write it down first or does it just come out in conversation and you catch it and memorize it? And, you know, is there an obscure word that you like desperately tried to flip into a lyric that just wouldn't fit in your classic cadence?

• 37:53Speaker 00

  Like, what did you, what did you want to make a thing that you couldn't find a lane for?

• 37:58Speaker 03

  Sometime I'll be wanting, I, I've, I've really, really tightened up my verbal paintbrush. Because sometime, you know, it can mess the flow up, but at the same time, that's some of the flows that trying to get too many words in, in one place. That's the beauty of E40, because I've had been able to do it. But now I'm really flawless with it, like you can't, you can't stop, because I've mastered it so many years. But, you know, I, I used to rap really, really, really, really fast to the point where I had to slow down my spit. So the squares can understand me, because they wasn't understanding, but all the soil dudes did.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  I was the squares.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  And I was really saying some stuff. I wasn't just, people don't understand that.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  I know this.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  That's the problem, that's the problem with the bloggers. If they don't understand something, no matter if, it ain't even gotta have nothing to do with me. It could be another artist, if they don't understand it, but everybody else do. If those bloggers don't understand, oh, he's wack, he's just like, you, bro, just say you just don't understand or you ain't with it. Or you just, you can't get with it, or I'm, I'm cool on him, or whatever, just don't, but don't just say it's wack. Because you, and when I say squares, I'm not talking about rappers. People think I'm talking about rappers when I'm saying squares and they're, I'm not talking about rap, I'm talking about the people that's dictating. You know, the narrative, like saying, you should listen to this, you should listen to that. The gatekeepers, that's what I'm trying to say, it ain't got nothing to do with rappers or, you know what I mean? Or, you know, it's like, I just don't, I don't understand, it's like, people don't want you to be creative anymore.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  You know, be crea, it's a lot of creative artists in the, in the game these days and I, and I like it. I like a lot of the, a lot of them are creative, but a lot of them are not. People like to play it safe, they like those who play it safe.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  I think, yeah, people are afraid of change, but, you know, those that move the needle have to ruffle feathers, you know? But now it's like, you know, you're, you're, you're a dignitary, you're in king level. It just took a while for us to, to adjust it. Wait, so for you though, when was the moment you realized how influential you were? Like for me, I think the first time I heard the term, uh, oh, when I heard broccoli for weed.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Um, when we first started going out to the Bay Area, like 93, 94. You know, then it went global, you know, it was viral. So did, did that feel like a, a validation? Like, were, were you shocked, like, what do you know about that? Or like?

• 40:13Speaker 03

  So what it is, Quest, people don't understand. Let me tell you something, bro. Before I did my P and D, personal distribution deal with Jive Records in 94. Before I did that, you know, I was in certain states, I was in Texas, I was in Atlanta, I was in, uh, you know what I'm saying? Nebraska, I'm in all throughout the West Coast, I'm all through the Midwest, Indianapolis, Indiana. Like our music was really that underground like that, but it was, it was circulating, right? That's how we was making, that's why we was able to get all them, you know what I'm saying? All those POs and making all the money, their money, you know what I'm saying? And so then when I signed with Jive, very wise, the president of Jive sat me down and say, he took, he showed me the sound scan, the Nielsen sound scan.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  He say, you see these, see the city right here, see the city right here, see this city right here? All these gonna be filled up, because you're gonna have major distribution now, right? So, bruh, he was not lying. When I made my debut record in a major way, it was everywhere. People, you don't just go platinum, just, people think, oh, well, nobody outside of California listens to, no, you dummy, you're dumb. I probably got some old sound scans and recent. Like, one of my most popular areas is New York. If you go to Instagram, some Houston and New York, you know, it show you the regions where people rocking with you at. Los Angeles and this, I'm like, wow, this crazy, but I've been through this.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I'm, I ain't, I ain't local, I'm global. Like, people don't realize this, so all those spaces on the East Coast, Midwest, the South, all was filled out with just nothing but record sales, bro. You feel what I'm saying? So I've been doing this shit since Moby Dick was a goldfish, it's just, you know, a lot, it's a lot of lanes in the game, so, you know. I'll talk your ear off, you know, you gotta stop me.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  That Jake is the promo clip.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  Okay, I gotta ask, I've had this platform for a good decade and I will pretty much say that I probably have been ninety-eight percent no gotcha journalism or anything sensationalist, but just a fan of me wants to know this one question.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  Okay, so the infamous Biggie article where he's raiding and whatnot. And the thing is, like, surely you saw a paradigm shift come ninety-six, ninety-seven, when suddenly, you know, stubborn east coasters are finally getting acclimated to places that are outside of New York as far as adaptation, you know? We were folding our arms at Bone Thugs in Harmony, we was looking at, we was looking at Snoop a little crazy, you know, for some people. But for you, like, did you ever get to talk to Big about him being put on the spot and like raiding rappers off the top of his head?

• 43:06Speaker 00

  Without knowing their history or the story, like, did y'all ever meet at all and talk about that?

• 43:11Speaker 03

  You know, after the situation, yeah, Stan me, uh, I had seen him in, um, Vegas, so we, if y'all see a picture of me and Biggie, that was in Las Vegas nineteen ninety-five, the Mike Tyson fight. Him and Puffy was in the lobby, we was in the lobby of MGM and, uh, you know, we just like, you know, we just left it alone and just, hey, let's take a picture, we all took the picture, you know, he was happy, I was like, cause he already had said, you know, hey, man, I rock with you. You know, he pretty much let me know, he was just talking out the side of his neck when he did the mark that, uh, you know.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  I can tell he just put him on the spot.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  I think he was just drunk and just whatever, and he might not have really felt me, but he did say, he said, I fuck with sprinkle me Duke. When we had that little young Stan me.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  He meant that.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  I know, I believe it, cause sprinkle me east coast, west coast, Midwest, uh, everybody loved, you know, the south, they all love sprinkle.

• 44:03Speaker 00

  The video was on all the time, so we couldn't avoid it, like, once your videos came on regularly, like, we all knew it.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  Man, I go to New York now, bro, man, I walk the streets of New York, I just came from a promo run, a press, you know, I was doing my press stuff, man. Everywhere I go, man, and it's been like that from the beginning of my career, faulty, faulty, bubba bubba, you know, just, man, I'm talking about everywhere, like, New York rock with me, they do.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  We do.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  I, I know that for a fact, not trying to like, hope they do, I just know they do, and I, I remember when I came with, uh, in two thousand six, I came with, uh, my, my Get a Report Card album, and I performed in a small little, it was like, it was like the tunnel. Well, it was just like the tunnel, they called it the tunnel before, but it was like a duplicate of the, the famous, uh, club called the tunnel.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Remember the tunnel?

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  So this was like, this was all, man, they was going crazy off my album, bro, we did the record release party, they was going crazy.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Trust me, when, tell me when the go came out, we first heard it when, um, we were shooting Dave Chappelle's block party.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  And we were all backstage and literally Kanye, Common, Dave was blasting it, like, when we did that movie and he was trying to explain to us, like, yo, this whole movement with hy- like, hyphy is gonna be the thing, hyphy is gonna be, can I ask you something? In your heart, do you feel, like, when, tell me when the go came out, even, like, me seeing the reaction here and that, like, my DJ sets, that would be like my, my tenth record, like, literally, that's how hard it went. Did the hyphy movement do what it was supposed to do because part of me just, like, I got excited, cause as a drummer,

• 45:50Speaker 00

  it's new rhythms and it's faster, could it have gone farther as far as being nationwide and worldwide? Like, I feel like it could have been a worldwide hyphy movement.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Most definitely, I mean, it's youngsters that was, uh, you know, three years old at that time, and they still feel like they, they missed out. They wanted to keep going, right now to this day, cause it was such a great time, you know, and, uh, it was.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  But did it officially stop or is there still movement?

• 46:19Speaker 03

  So it was saying, it was things like, man, look, so the Bay Area consists of, you know, mob music, all kind of different music, but so, a lot of the cats that was doing mob music or you want to say gangster music, they felt like, you know, hey, man, I'm not doing that, but, you know, I'm not doing that, so I'm a hate on it, or it was some, some people that had hopped into it.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  It was resistance?

• 46:41Speaker 03

  Kind of like, yeah, by some cats that's, you know, stubborn, like, I'm, I'm noticed out of everybody, out of, out of all them cats, me and Short, and we the ones who went in, dived in and was like, hey, man, we've always adjusted to our environment, why don't we just hop in it too? You know what I'm saying? We joining in too, cause this is our environment, I mean, no matter what kind of music was going down throughout our career, no matter if it was G funk or whatever, we gonna adapt to it, if you turn, you gotta turn with the times, or the times gonna turn on you. And, but the way you do it is still be you at the same time, like, they know my voice, they know my high rap. All you gotta do, at that time, Up Temples was the ones, even though some slow hyphy songs too, but Up Temples was the ones.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  People like Rick Rock created a certain sound that was just like, was undeniable, and I was part of that, and you know, we just came with the blaps and, you know, if you, if you a great artist, you gonna be able to do anything, so, anyway, it was some artists that came in and may not represented it as well as they should, what I mean by that, some of them was just really just like, it was terrible, you know what I'm saying? But, but then you had the ones that poked out, that just had blaps, like, you know what I mean? But some of that stuff was terrible. You probably don't know some of the artists, we don't probably know them, but they, it's just kind of like, started getting a little bit too oversaturated. I want to make this clear for the record, I did not create hyphy, hyphy, the streets of Oakland, California created hyphy.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  Got you.

• 48:05Speaker 03

  Oakland did it.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  Um, then, as rappers, you had Mac Dre and Keek the Sneak, right? They were headed there, and I just joined in, like, every other, like, every rapper. When I grew drears, I, I didn't want to grow drears, I was just, I'm just sarcastic, I'm like, I ain't got nothing, but I'm, I just did it just for the energy, I say, man, I'ma really grow, I mean, I grew them things, and people, you can Google it. You know, it ain't, it ain't AI and none of that, I really grew, I did do it, and, uh, you know, and, um, I just, I just adapted to the times and just like everybody adapted to something that I helped create called mob music, you know what I'm saying?

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:39Speaker 03

  So it's just like, you just, you just maneuver, you know, hi, and when the south, I was in two different lanes, I was in the south lane with the snap your finger movement, I was on the biggest song in the south. Snap your finger, that's the thing that three million.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? And then I had you in that booty, you know, with T-Pain and Candy, you know what I'm saying? That thing, almost three million right now, that didn't have nothing to do with hyphy, you know what I'm saying? That was big, that's all more than tell me when to go, it's just so happened that that Get a Report Card album had slaps on it. I'm talking about muscle cars, your area, and you know what I'm saying, uh, you, uh, what else, what else, uh, do your head like this.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Can I ask you something? Cause Little John told me this and I couldn't believe it.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, go ahead, yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  Do you regret passing on Blow the Whistle?

• 49:28Speaker 03

  You know what, it should be really eat me up, but it's happened to such a, uh, uh, um, such a legendary artist by the name of Too Short, and he's a good friend of mine. I'd probably be kicking myself in my face, like, I, I'd probably punch myself in the face if, uh, if it wasn't him, you know what I mean?

• 49:49Speaker 00

  It was, it was a good moment for him, and y'all had your moment, so I, I get it.

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Right, cause that's my partner, you know what I'm saying? It's like, I sincerely didn't know what to do with that, I might have been burnt out on slaps. Cause I had slaps, like, you know, major hits, and so, and I just didn't know what to do, but Too Short is such a genius, and he, you know, he grew up playing drums and stuff, you know, marching band, the whole thing, when he was in junior high, you know what I'm saying, in school, so, he made a lot, people don't know, he made a lot of his beats, he made a lot of that, you know what I'm saying? The Dofine beat and all them earlier slaps he did, the Freaky Tail, he was the ones playing the bass lines, that's what people don't understand. You know what I mean? So he knows music, he's a professional, bro, and, and that man put it together like the weatherman and made it a smash, and it's winning right now to this day, and I love it.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  And I, otherwise, I'd be like, damn, I really messed up, and I did mess up, but at the same time, I didn't mess up to the point where I messed up, messed up, it went to a great person. And this is how the universe work, and this is how God do it.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  So, you bringing your son into the game now, which is a beautiful thing, he, he grew up watching you and now he's, you know, the hottest in the game right now, did Droopy teach you anything that you didn't know?

• 51:02Speaker 03

  It's like, when he was in his mama's stomach, it was like, he was just in there, just like, paying attention. Like, cause he just came out knowing how to do mob music and stuff like that, and just up-tempo blaps, and he, he, he just, he just an amazing, it's, it's in the blood, you know what I'm saying? And, uh, you know, Droopy was, see, the cold part about it, he was the first, uh, kid rapper. I know I'm always saying we was the first this, we was the first that slang and everything and whatever else, the independent route and all that. Mind you, I want to say this too, and I'm gonna go back to Droopy.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  Go ahead.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  As a CEO and an independent artist, that I funded my own projects. I never had an executive producer. I never had somebody, a silent partner. Many artists that y'all love have silent partners or people that funded they stuff. I did this from scratch, from the grassroots. So I just want to let y'all know, please salute me. If you don't salute me on anything, salute me for that.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  We're absolutely, we're aware of this. We are saluting.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  Right? So I'm just letting the fans out there, they don't know. A lot of the audience don't know. So, so my son Droopy, he actually, um, he was the first on, on, when he was two and a half, three years old. He was three years old on Federal album, and I had a song called Questions, because every time I used to take him to kind of care in Vallejo, um, he would ask me, Quay, be in the backseat. You know, I'm a street cat, I'm thumper it up, the whole whoop whoop. He in the backseat, I'm looking like this, seeing what's going on. And he asking me hella questions, and I'm paying attention to him. I'm a good dad, I'm a good dad, because I've been listening to everything you say. I'm not ignoring him. I'm like, well, son, is this there in the third, and this is how it's gonna be, and whoop whoop. So we ended up making a song called Questions on my Federal album in nineteen ninety-two, right? So we did that, and that made a lot of impact.

• 52:46Speaker 03

  And then I put him on my album in a major way. He was five years old at the time, but I told him to say, say six-year-old veteran, like, so he put that in there, and he was really gassing on the song called It's All Bad. Now, mind you, I wrote the lyrics for him, but just for him to be five years old to deliver it like that was amazing. I say, this boy got something. So later on, he started hanging out with D. Wiz in the studio, and as he got older, his mom put him into piano and whatnot. Put him into piano, took piano lessons, and started getting into it, and he became a rapper slash producer, and a amazing, amazing, uh, talented young man.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Okay, so you gotta let me know, how do you craft and organize four albums in one? First of all, it's forty songs, so how do you even know? Why challenge yourself to this? I mean, I know you're E40, so I assume that you're releasing forty songs for that, but what was the mind state behind this mission? I have a hard time dealing with one record. You're dealing with four.

• 53:51Speaker 03

  Right. I do what everybody else don't, man. Like I say, music is therapeutic and healing. Um, I never went with the, with the grain. Always went against the grain. You know, I think that's, uh, that's the reason why I'm so successful, and I do it well. I, I never sounded like nobody. I don't, I'm just a different dude, you know what I mean? So I wanted to do something different. I've already did, uh, double albums in the nineties. I did multiple albums in, in, in, um, and yeah, I did.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  Revenue retrieving and, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  The Revenue Retrieving Series, I did Revenue Retrieving Day Shift, Night Shift, Graveyard Shift, Overtime Shift. These are all separate albums. You understand me? I was dropping them, two of them at a time. So in between, after I did the overtime shift and graveyard shift, I did mob music and function music with Two Short. That was the two CDs we dropped the same day, right? As a group album, me and him. Then I can't, no, no, I did, uh, The Block was Sure, Welcome to the Soil, one, two, and three, right? Then I came with mob music, function music. We dropped those on the same day. Then I came back and did, uh, Welcome to the Soil, The Block, The Block was Sure, Welcome to the Soil, four, five, and six. You feel me?

• 55:09Speaker 03

  Then I just started, then I started doing the other ones, like, uh, The D-Boy Diary and all them, and you know what I'm saying? I just didn't stop. And so I was like, you know what? I ain't did nothing in a while. And before that, in the nineties, I had did the Southwest Riders Double CD, me and Be Legit. Um, we did the, uh, I did my, my, uh, The Element of Surprise. First and foremost, everybody say Apply Pressure. I've been saying Apply Pressure. That was way back in nineteen ninety-six, ninety-seven, when I did The Element of Surprise Double CD, right? I was on the only triple CD that I know of, that was Eight Ball. I was on that album, Eight Ball, uh, Lost. It was called Lost. I was on that album with him. I was on Crazy Bone Double Album back in the nineties.

• 55:51Speaker 03

  I was on that album, me, him, and Gangsta Boo. It was, the song was called It's the End of the World. You understand me? I was on the biggest, one of the biggest double albums of all time, and that's All Eyes on Me. That's diamond. So, man, I just, when I got in that mode of the four albums, at first it was gonna be two. And actually, I pivoted from Rule of Thumb, two and three, because I had did Rule of Thumb one and twenty twenty-three. And I was like, let me do, uh, Rule of Thumb, two and three, make it a double CD, and I was gonna put twelve songs on each one. And I was like, you know what? I want to pivot. I was looking at a picture of me when I was eighteen through my little phone and whatnot, and I'm like, you know what? This look like this can be an album cover. I was like, something just dawned on me, like, you know what I mean? I was like, I'm gonna make this an album cover, so.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  Where's that from?

• 56:35Speaker 03

  It's from me at a club, and, uh, I think I was at, I think I was at Grand State University.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 56:41Speaker 03

  I had to be. I was at Grand. I think I was in Monroe, Louisiana, or something like that.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  Because one of my partners told me, he said, man, you was in Monroe, Louisiana, when we took that picture. We was all together. We all had Adidas sweatsuits and all, you know, it was back in the eighties, you know what I'm saying?

• 56:54Speaker 00

  No, it's fresh. It's fresh.

• 56:55Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? Yeah, thank you, man. And so I was like, okay, look, I got so many slaps, bro. Hella, hella, hella slaps. Let me just put the, I'm gonna take some of the, some of the ones. I don't want to put all the heat on one CD. I want to spread all the slaps out. And, and these are recent slaps. I got so many songs. I pulled some from maybe, maybe twelve months ago, but all of them was, people was just, I started just getting in the groove. So right now, I'm about to hit them in, at the top of the year. I'm letting y'all know right now. I'm dropping four albums every three months. Not at one time. I'm dropping ten songs in late March, early April, probably April, mid-April, right?

• 57:39Speaker 03

  I'm dropping ten songs, and then three months after that, I'm dropping ten songs. Three months after that, I'm dropping three songs, and then ten months, I mean, I mean, every three months. Every three months, I'm dropping ten songs. The name of the first CD is gonna be called Verbal Paintbrush.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  That's, that's gonna be the one that's gonna come out around April.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  So Verbal Paintbrush, be ready for ten slaps. I just feel like ten slaps is gonna, it's no skips. It's like, it's just a perfect amount of songs. Because we living in days where people don't have a lot of patience, you know what I'm saying? They, you know, they, they just don't have patience like that, you know? They ready to move on to the next. So it's like, I'm gonna keep feeding them like I was doing, you know, a few years back. I just, I took a two and a half, three-year break, and that's not like me, so I wanted to give my fans a whole bunch, and I want to let them know that their favorite artist's still real gassy, man. I'm still real gassy. I will outgash their favorite, your favorite rapper. I will, and they know it too. Clearly.

• 58:38Speaker 00

  With all that you have in the vault, are you sitting on any unreleased verses from Mac Dre or Pac even, or Be Legit, or like, just, just bangers that you are purposely holding on to until a time to drop it?

• 58:57Speaker 03

  I got maybe one or two Tupac verses in an archive. I don't have any Mac Dre um, verses. I wish I did, because we were on the way to do music together, and you know, his camp would tell you that. The real ones in the camp, they'd tell you that. And he, that was no secret. I didn't, no one expected him to go like that, especially in his prime, like he was, you know, on his way up the ladder, just doing his thing, you know? And, um, but, uh, no, I, I, of course, I got hella Be Legit verses, because me, that's all me and Be Legit do is record together. You know, he's on pretty much uh, ninety-nine percent of every album I ever did, you know what I mean? I don't think I've ever done an album without him, you know what I mean?

• 59:38Speaker 00

  I think Dustin didn't discuss it, was Pac's first collaboration with you. Like, what was that experience like? Was it?

• 59:45Speaker 03

  It really wasn't. It really, far as, far as him, it, it really was, it was, because we did, we did something that didn't come out before that. But, you know, that's the one of the unreleased ones, right?

• 59:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  And he came down to Solano Avenue, right at that same studio. That was two doors down from New, right next door to Rich Arts.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  Three doors down from my clothing store. He pulled up there and came to Studio Tone. People don't know, I had Tupac in Millersville. It's called Millersville. That's that studio on Solano Avenue with that picture of me and Droopy with, with the white cutlass. I had Tupac there. We had Pepsi and Bum B there. But these are separate days and, and times, right? Uh, we had, um, what's our boy's name? MC Eight and ODB. Old Dirty Bastard, because Studio Tone did the remix to, um,

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  He did.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  To, yeah, to shimmy, you feel me? Right? And, and I was on the song with, with ODB, and then they flew me to New York to go do the video and the whole whoop whoop, right? So then, uh, who else we had down there? Um, I'm just saying how legendary, just that studio is like our little, small, little city that had them people out there. People didn't know that we had these legendary, you know, and sixty people there.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Right, right, right. Sebo used to, Sebo, when he first came out, he, my cousin brought him down. This is the true story. He say, man, he said, because this is the owner of AWOL Records. He had Marvelous and all, and he had Sebo and Mississippi and all these underground rappers from Sacramento, right? And so he was like, but before he had him, he was like, he said, man, how y'all doing this, man? Because he seen us winning, like, we winning. We out there with, you know, all kind of cutlasses, you know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, doing our job, right? And like, we out there tycooning, right? And he's like, man, how y'all doing this, man? He say, man, he say, man, show me. I say, this what you do. Go get you some artists. And circle back with me and then I want you to go holler at Saint Ch- Uncle Saint Charles. Cause that's his relative too, right?

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  He really did it. So he came but he he called me saying, man, I got a artist. I been having it. I I knew I knew I needed one. It's his name Sebo. It was Sebo. So his Sebo was like my cellie sale, right?

• 1:01:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  And then, right? Then he went and got, he had a a young lady, a very known rapper, uh, Northern California and beyond by the name of Marvelous. She's a great rapper.

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  That was his Sugar T. You know what I'm saying? You know, then he had Mississippi. There's a dude named Mississippi. He was from Mississippi. That's why they call him Mississippi. I think that's why, but his name is Mississippi. We had my cousin Levitty. So he went and pattering his whole record label after us.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  And it was nothing wrong with we is we is blood cousins. You feel me?

• 1:02:18Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:19Speaker 03

  He brought Sebo down one day. We all waiting for him. We out in front of Studio Tones. Rich Ross right there and whatnot. And um, Sebo get out the car with all like all Carhartt, all blue. With like a curl, like curly hair.

• 1:02:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  You know what I'm saying? Loped out of like a cri- a real crip like the like a loped out. We was uh, we we fell in love when he was, the day he walked in there, right? So he was like, we kicking and we drinking Big Rossi. We, you know, Studio Tone had his session in the studio on this side. They, we divided the walls and then Mike Mosley and uh, Carl Gandy had their their session over here. And so he, the first people he worked with was was um, was Mike Mosley and Carl. And they came, he went in there, got on their vo- on the microphone and gassed that thing. We over here working with Studio Tone. We walk over there. We're like, oh, it's going crazy. So ever since then, he was introduced to mob music. Ever since then, he was locked in. That's that's why he called himself the Mob Father and

• 1:03:14Speaker 03

  you know what I'm saying? It's just like we was, we one big family. Sebo done been in some some rendezvous. Some serious street shit with us in the back in the days, rolling through the trenches of Vallejo and all kind of stuff. Like he really folks. You know what I mean? So shout out to legendary Sebo Tupac. That was one of Tupac's favorite artists. Seriously, in real life. Cause when we did, um, We Ain't Hard to Find, we were all at uh, La Metro's Hotel. And uh, off of Sunset.

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Sebo with us, Mike Mosley, Richie Rich, uh, all the clique, the whole clique. Uh, Sugar wasn't with us. These was all dudes and we all.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:03:51Speaker 03

  Pac pull up, him and Suge. We all in there, we eating barbecue and all that stuff. You know, just chilling, slapping bones and playing music. Yeah, he's, Pac was like, y'all ready? Say, let's go. We all get in the cars. He say, Sebo, you ride with me. You know what I'm saying? It's real life. This we really see. Cause he had a drop top Mercedes.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  And we was on our way to Can-Am. So we all mobbed over there deep, hella deep. And that's what we made uh, history. You know, you had Sebo in there with Mike Mosley, cause I mean, not Mike Mosley, with um, with with Rick Rock on that one. Rick Rock produced that. Rick Rock was with us too. So Rick Rock did trading war stories in one room of Can-Am, cause they had different rooms.

• 1:04:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  You got me, Richie Rich, Be Legit and D-Shot and Mike Mosley doing We Ain't Hard to Find with Tupac. These all songs that went on the album. So you got all.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

  So he's just recording at the speed of sound? Was he just?

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Tupac's was too quick, man. His pen, he too quick. And I'm like, bro, you you write too quick. But everything was always accurate. He never had to go back and do shit over. It was just locked in. So when he came in there with us, he was like, y'all done yet? I ain't rushing. I'm just, I'm just saying, I'm just checking on everything. He going from studio to studio, checking on everybody, cause he already finished his shit.

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  Uh, okay.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  And that's how he used to write. But then we did Dustin and Disgusted. We did Dustin and Disgusted and all that before that whole session right there, that whole thing. We did, we did that in like ninety-four, ninety-five.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  Cause that was on uh, Intermajor Way album and that came out in ninety-five. So and then after that, for Hall of Game, we did my million dollar spot. Right? Me and just me and Pac.

• 1:05:23Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  And then, then that's when we did We Ain't Hard to Find. That was that last album. Then the last time I seen him, he was at my, I hope I don't go back to slanging yayo.

• 1:05:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:33Speaker 03

  I hope I don't go back to slanging yayo. Video shoot. Yeah.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  Ramsey Lewis. Earth, Wind and Fire and Ramsey Lewis, right?

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And so he was there. We we kicked it real heavy, man. I didn't know that was gonna be my last time seeing my guy, man. Nineteen ninety-six.

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  Damn. Well, thank you for sharing that, brother.

• 1:05:53Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  You would always shout out Carlos Rossi. I always wanted to know, did they ever holler at you like?

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  At least give you some gratitude or?

• 1:06:03Speaker 03

  Nah, never, never.

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  You put, you put them on more than any, you know what I mean?

• 1:06:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, they, and they right in my backyard too. I tried to holler at them. I just didn't have the connections to do it. They right there. They um, raised in, you know, right there in Modesto, California. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  But I just was a fan of it. You know, I was just a fan of it, cause my mom, you know, when she come home, working two jobs and whatnot, you know, working at Napa State House Piddle. She was the supervisor there. Then she'll work at Mr. Jimmy's store right around the corner from Magazine Street off Laurel Street. That's the store where you understand me? It was the the neighborhood store, how everybody got their neighborhood stores. You go get everything from there. Bread, you know, sandwich spread, uh, you know, whatever. Hot dogs, liquor, whatever. So anyway, she'd come home on the weekends. And you know, she also, she she uh, come on, she used to play the song called Living for the Weekend and you know, her and my dad divorced.

• 1:06:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I, exactly. And I was the oldest, so I'm I'm staying, I'm sitting up, just, you know, she's get to crying, you know, it was, we was living in it's living in poverty, bro. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't as easy. Everybody just see the glamour. They don't see what I went through. You know what I mean? I was, I was the oldest, I was the oldest of four. I was eight. D-Shot six, Sugar T, four, and Young Mosy two. You know, so I had to be like the man of the family. My dad, I love him. You know, it's just, they was just divorced, man. And uh, you know, that's just something that happens, you know, and uh, but we made it through when uh, you know, she'd sit up there and play that music and drink her Rossi.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  So you know me, I'm younger, I get older, I'm seeing her do this. And I got, as I got older.

• 1:07:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  I snuck into it one day.

• 1:07:44Speaker 00

  Don't we all?

• 1:07:45Speaker 03

  I was like.

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  Don't we all?

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  I was like, I said, this is good. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  So I just started, you know, as I got older, I started being a wine, a wine. I liked the forty ounces, but I started becoming more into wine. And I ended up making my own wine.

• 1:07:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say, would you consider an easier business to do or was it harder breaking in with with liquor than with music?

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  Well, music is the platform for me. You know, music is what makes everything around, all your surrounding.

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  You know, occupations and whatever you do, your side hustles. Music is the main thing, the trunk of the, the rest is branches. The trunk is music, keeping your, keeping your name ring and protecting your brand. That's really, that's that's the most important and and that made it easier for me to hop into the wine and spirits game. And also being that everyone knows that I love wine and spirits. You know what I mean?

• 1:08:41Speaker 00

  True. I got two more questions to ask.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:08:44Speaker 00

  Just for, you know, like a lot of my audiences, you know, they listen around the world and whatnot. From you, which Bay Area artists, you know, from the nineties or the early aughts, whatever? Who do you feel that never got their proper flowers that should have, that we should go look up right now and and support?

• 1:09:08Speaker 03

  Damn, that's a tough one.

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  There has to be one that like, should have made it, that didn't, that really didn't get the the.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  Wow. It's a tough one. Uh, do, I I, I like Casual. Casual from, you know, Hieroglyphics, those. I like, I I feel like Casual is is always been dope.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  Woo, that's how it is, man. That was my shot.

• 1:09:31Speaker 03

  I could, I could go down the line. I can go down, I can go down the line. I could say a lot, you know, but.

• 1:09:37Speaker 00

  Shout out to Casual. I'll give him that.

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, shout out to Casual. Mac Dre could have. He didn't get his.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  He could have, yeah, true.

• 1:09:43Speaker 03

  I think he was gonna, you know, be worldwide. He was, he wasn't as big as people make him now, but he was, he was on his way up the ladder. You know what I mean? There's people out there right now that think that, I'm not throwing shade, that he's, he was always bigger than me and they don't. It's like, I've had three different eras of, you know, four or five different eras of music that I've been, I was popular in in the nineties.

• 1:10:06Speaker 00

  I got you.

• 1:10:06Speaker 03

  Like by far, you know, but anyway, I feel he would have did it. I feel like Casual, um, who else, man? Um, I feel like if Richie Rich didn't stop, cause he took breaks and he know it. He beats himself up the head, at the head, you know, like.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  I took breaks, water, you know, I say, man, if you didn't, you could have been bigger. You know that, you know, and uh, many more, man, many more.

• 1:10:28Speaker 00

  I mean, cause the thing is, is that. When cats, you know, I'm a few years younger than you, but like when cats get up a certain age, they like slow down or domestic duty calls, but what drives you? You'll forever be like a contemporary artist to me. I don't see you as a legacy artist or, you remember that guy back in the day? Like you refuse, is it just your refusal? Will there ever be a moment where you're like, okay, now my work is done?

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  First and foremost, thank you, man. I'm glad I'm still relevant and relevant and not a dumbass way by trolling and doing whatever, you know what I mean? I'm just, I'm relevant, putting in work, right? I feel like me doing this for so many years, like I say, I just love music. I could be a billionaire and I would still put out music. Nobody has to buy it. I just feel like it's part of my therapy. Ain't nothing wrong with me and that. It's just, it's, music is therapeutic and healing. If you want to get in a good mood, man, and when I want to get in a good mood, and I'm gonna be honest with you, besides going up beyond, you know what I'm saying, and songs, songs like that, church music's like, music like that and whatnot, and you know what I'm saying? I like, listen to people like Curtis Mayfield, the makings of you and

• 1:11:39Speaker 00

  Have some soul to it.

• 1:11:40Speaker 03

  The OJs. It's like, it's therapeutic. It's like, it'll put you in a home, it'll wake you up, like, man, it's the struggle I was going through. Look how good I'm doing now. You know, it's a lot of people that love to trade places with me. It's people that don't have all their body parts, people that's really very sick and I'm still here. And you know what I mean? Like, you gotta just be grateful. So, music is therapeutic and healing. So, I feel like, I don't want to stop. When I said I'll retire when I expire, I really mean that. I don't know.

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 1:12:09Speaker 03

  I could be a hunnit. And I feel like I'm so gamed up that if I'm in my right mind and I got my life, health and strength with the power, I know I can still continue to be relevant and still be able to rap and still outgas some of your favorite, you know, rappers. I really, I really do. Cause I'm, I've always been ahead of my time and I'm always gonna keep my eye on the ball. You ain't gonna see me striking out.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  From your mouth to God's ears, man. I appreciate you and thank you for just who you are. And this is a beautiful thing to see. Cause you know, oftentimes, a lot of us didn't make it after our twenties and thirties.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:12:49Speaker 00

  Even the forties and fifties, like, you know, we gotta watch our health and all that stuff. So, just to see you out here thriving and

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Remember they told us forty, you gotta stop, you supposed to stop at forty, you know? Remember that? That was eight, that was almost nineteen years ago when I was forty.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 1:13:04Speaker 03

  I turned fifty-nine, God willing, in November, which is a month and some change from now. You know what I mean? God willing, you know?

• 1:13:12Speaker 00

  Hats off to you, sir.

• 1:13:13Speaker 03

  But just to do that, nineteen years later and still be, you understand me, doing it? I just want to be a good example to the rest of the, you know, don't, y'all need to take youngsters, take this serious, man. You can help feed your family. You can, you know what I'm saying? I'm talking about you can provide for your partners now, man. If you make the right moves, this is a real occupation. Use your talent, man. You got, it's easier than ever for y'all, cause you know, streaming is, you know what I mean? Y'all, y'all can do it, bro. Videos don't cost two, three hundred thousand like they used to. They, they might cost two, three hundred dollars.

• 1:13:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, on your phone. Yes.

• 1:13:45Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. So, y'all got it. It's there for y'all, man. It's there for the taking. Just work hard, man. And don't, don't care if you getting endorsed by anybody else. Go out there and make your own. Do your own like we did. Go out there and then they gonna recognize you if you put all, your all into it.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  I will take that and I thank you for that. Wait a minute, one last thing, one last thing, one last thing.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 1:14:07Speaker 00

  Then I'll let you go.

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:14:09Speaker 00

  You pioneered so much slang that I don't feel the world knows that you invented. However, is there a slang term that you fully expected to sweep the nation that the streets completely slept on? Like, is there, is there a term that you really love that they can catch on?

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  I don't know, man. I don't really, slang is my thing, but I don't really like, I'm gonna make this up.

• 1:14:40Speaker 00

  We're obsessed with this, man.

• 1:14:41Speaker 03

  I don't want the world to catch on. I don't do it for the whole world. I just do it cause it's just me. It's just, I'm not, it's natural like an Afro. It's just really what I do. And I'm, I'm raised in the Bay where we slick talkers and collar poppers. Like, I'm around it. I've been in. It's nothing but ism around us and that's all we know. And I'm just good at what I do, you know? And I'm from the streets, so I'm, I'm obligated to, you know, I mean, preach, you know? I'm a rapper. So, and slang can be spreaded all over the globe. And I was just tripping off, you know, Plug, like Plug, everybody talking about the Plug, like he, we've been, I was the first one saying Plug. I was the first one, you know, screaming so many words. I can say, I was talking about, I was talking about, what's the other one I was talking about the other day? I was talking about,

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  you know how you saying units? You started off saying something about units?

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  Units used to be, units, the street word for units, you know, was bricks.

• 1:15:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:15:34Speaker 03

  You know what I'm talking about?

• 1:15:35Speaker 00

  True.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  Like, first one you screaming units and choppers, you know, there wasn't no rapper screaming out of that. None. Not one. Not one.

• 1:15:41Speaker 00

  I acknowledge this.

• 1:15:42Speaker 03

  No one was talking about triple beans and droughts. And I could talk about all the street stuff and I could talk about all the unique stuff, just regular stuff, you know what I'm saying? So, I don't try to keep, you know, players don't keep score, man. I just, I just spread it, you know what I'm saying? I just, I just say what I say and I preach for the soil.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  Amen. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. And hey, there you have it, y'all. This is another classic Questlove Show. All right. Ask and ye shall receive. You guys have requested and requested this one and we're proud to have given it to you. So much, so, so much history, so much folklore, so much idioms, so much more new slang I'd never heard of before, that I'm sure all of us are mind blown. But this was a beautiful thing, connecting with E40 like that. Oh,

• 1:16:38Speaker 00

  man. That's one for the record book. Questlove Show is hosted by me, Amir Questlove Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G., Brian Calhoun, and me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown. Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton. Logos, graphics and animation by Nick Alois. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks

• 1:17:16Speaker 00

  to Kathy Braun. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review and share the Questlove Show wherever you stream your podcasts. And make sure you follow us on socials. That's at Q L S. Check out hundreds and hundreds of Q L S episodes, including the Questlove Supreme Shows and our podcast archives. Questlove Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Behind every chart topping hit, you know by heart, there's an original. Writing it someplace where nobody was listening. Behind the culture that marks a generation, there's

• 1:18:01Speaker 00

  an original. Already moving, already shaking things up. Behind every night that changed the room, somebody had to walk in first. Not knowing it would land, but doing it anyway. Originals are out there. Living stories worth telling. What's yours? Behind every original, Livin' LeVas. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.