Drink Champs - Episode 357 w/ Chuck D

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

N.O.R.E. & DJ EFN are the Drink Champs. In this episode the Champs chop it up with the legend himself, Chuck D! From the iconic group Public Enemy, Chuck D shares his journey. Chuck shares stories of Public Enemy, creating classic albums, and PE’s impact on Hip-Hop and beyond. Lots of great stories that you don’t want to miss!! We are also joined by James-Bomb of S1W! Make some noise for Chuck D!!! 💐💐💐🏆🏆🏆 *Subscribe to Patreon NOW for exclusive content, discount codes, M&G’s + more:  🏆* https://www.patreon.com/drinkchamps *Listen and subscribe at https://www.drinkchamps.com  Follow Drink Champs: https://www.instagram.com/drinkchamps https://www.twitter.com/drinkchamps https://www.facebook.com/drinkchamps https://www.youtube.com/drinkchamps  DJ EFN https://www.crazyhood.com https://www.instagram.com/whoscrazy https://www.twitter.com/djefn https://www.facebook.com/crazyhoodproductions  N.O.R.E. https://www.instagram.com/therealnoreaga https://www.twitter.com/noreaga *Check out our Culture Cards NFT project by joining The Culture Cards Discord: 👇*See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What a good B-Hopper. It's your boy N-O-R-E. What up, it's DJ E-F-N. And this is Mil Crazy War Happy Hour. Make some noise! Well, the brother that we are about to talk to today is beyond an icon. He's beyond a legend. Me and EFN, I think this is probably we both agree,

because I don't think me and you kind of listen to the same type of music, right? But this case, we are both super fans. Both raised. This guy raised me. He's my stepfather. He don't know it. But he has, when it comes to this music business

when it comes to uh making music it's i'm just listening to the music again today and i'm just sitting there and i'm just like this is timeless music like you can put out this, the music that they were making then, now, and it still be relevant. When I say this is beyond a legend, when I say this is beyond an icon, when I say this is a person who fights for hip hop, who has hip hop on his shoulder and lives it, lives, breathes, this guy is a person that we have to give their flowers. We have to show the ultimate respect because he is exactly what we all strive to want to be like. In case you people don't know who we talking about, we talking about the one, only, motherfucker, Chuck D.

I feel you. Wow. James Bond is right here. James Bond, my brother. James Bond, my D. I feel you. Wow. Wow. James Baum is right here. James Baum, my brother. James Baum is smart. Come on. And first of all, I'd like to say apologies.

Circling each other for seven to eight years is unacceptable. Yes, yes. Unacceptable. We just happened to circle. And then pandemic, you know, three years out of our lives. Yes, yes. I'd like to thank you, Effin, for giving me a drop on our rap station.

I've been doing the rap station thing for like 14 years. It's on Pacifica Networks. It's its own app. It's a thing. You dropped the drop for me. I play it all the time. Yes.

Thank you. I appreciate you. You, my man. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thank you for just being you. Yes, yes, yes. Transcending and all that. I remember I was doing this show.

I mean, I was doing actually a project. You know the filmmaker Michael Moore? Yes, Michael Moore, yes. So he was doing this project, and this is like 98. And he's doing all these types of things. That's the best year of my life right there, 1998, yes. Well, yeah, I'm bringing that full circle. So he's in the city, right?

In New York. And he's like, Chuck, come on up with me. What we're going to do is we're going to just go into these corporations. He's shooting a film. We're going into corporations and places that got sweatshops, but, you know, like Nike and all these other spots. So, he goes into Nike Town, right? And he gets

like two buses of kids from Harlem to storm Nike town and say, yo, y'all are wrong. You know, I mean, and this might be the anti-Nike ad, right? And y'all are wrong.

And he got like two bus loads of kids from Harlem to storm Nike town on their sweatshops, right? Wow. But the bus on the way when it parks up, Super Thug comes out.

Great story! Great story! And it was my first time hearing it that week. Right, right. And these kids like to tear this bus up because I'm on the bus with them and we're pulling up

and it's, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And they tore this bus up. I said, Nike's in trouble, yo. Oh, man. Yo, so let's get to the beginning, right? How far you want to go? Noah's Ark?

No, no, no. We said two wasn't going to work? Because, you know, Public Enemy, right? Like, this was like a group that defied the odds, right? You know what I mean? Everyone was kind of, at this time, everyone was, you know, 5% almost. And you guys took a stance of having conscious, like, you know, conscious rap. Like, you know what I mean?

We're older. Rap that mattered I mean? We're older. We're rap that mattered, right? We're older. You know, we came from a different time. And right now, when I'm listening to the music, right, when I listen to new music, no one is teaching. No one is, it's actually murder music. No, there's plenty out there.

You know, it's just that this stuff is not going to float to the top without the concern of how much could get sold or whatever could get sold for a business proposition. And that's that's what it is. It's always been this is the entertainment business. It's like they do accounting by numbers, man. More is better. You know, better is not always, you know, bigger. In my case, it's like you could be better with the quality instead of the quantity. But that necessarily isn't business. But there's a lot of cats out there.

I just did something with a young brother named Consequence. Just did a video. He caught me. He's an independent cat. He caught me at JFK and said, listen, I could get this video in. Because today, people listen with their eyes. They're all screen ages. Right, right.

Screen ages. Did you just say screen ages? Yeah, they're all screen ages. Right. You know? Right, right. The screen ages. Yeah, screen ages. Did you just say screen ages? Yeah, they're screen ages. Okay. And I didn't make it up. You know, I got my antennas up,

so when somebody say, yo, Chuck, they screen ages, I'm like, ding, ding. I'm going to register it. But they listen with their eyes. Right. So necessarily,

everybody kind of, you know, if they got something, they got to put a visual to it. Right. As a consequence, stop me at JFK. Him and his man got out, boom, boom, boom.

It's a video clip and it's going up viral wherever. So they out there making efforts. I think the biggest difference, Nori and Effin, and James would probably agree with me, is that we've seen the business take groups and individualize them. Okay. Because it's easy to like, it's easier to renegotiate, or in our cases in hip hop,

renegotiate, or renegotiate a contract with one person as opposed to a group. Right. And that's probably the biggest difference because what we've seen

since the 90s is individuals instead of groups. So when you first say group, it was a group effort. Right. From the Bomb Squad to the SWWs with Griff, Jay Bomb, you know, to Flava and myself.

You know, me and Flav, man, I mean, people are like, oh, you guys, man, are so different. Yeah, you're damn right we different. Damn, Skippy, we different. You know what I'm saying? It's like we come from a neighborhood, Roosevelt, Long Island, where everybody knew each other. Small town on the outskirts of New York. All our peoples is from different areas of New York. My mother and father from Harlem,

151st Street, right? So, you know, people moved out there. You're always going back and forth. We went to all the boroughs. Maybe not Staten Island back then. Not to turn it into Charlotte. I'm talking post-force MDs, right? But we went to check out everything,

and so when it came to do something in hip-hop, it was taking all the collective efforts of people that did real things in our neighborhood and just like put it to wax, man, put it to rhymes, because in our neighborhood, cats did real things, man. But then we go back being a little older, too, because it wasn't miraculous for a cat in 68

and 69 to have common sense when sense was common. You know what I'm saying? And they realized that they had to do something against that. And so we decided to do what would happen in our neighborhood and put it to wax because hip-hop was a beautiful thing, man. Hip-hop was such a beautiful thing, man. In the

70s, before it was wax, I wish I could have sliced it and what Starsky, Flash, Melly Mel, DJ Hollywood, you know what I'm saying? What they were doing, Curtis Blow, what they were doing, it was like you looked up to them like they were aliens,

man. And I said, wow, man, and that's what bit me, man. So when we was a group, it was a total group effort. Public Enemy is a culmination of a lot of brilliant parts. They're all beautiful cats, man.

And like a big, big family in a barbecue. People are like, oh, man, you guys might have differences. You're damn skippy, like family and neighborhood. It's like the original Wu-Tang. If you think about it, as big as that, you guys with the Bomb Squad and then the S1W, like,

such a collective of people. Wu-Tang was like, we'll give everybody a mic. Republic Enemy, I had a mic. They had a mic. That might have turned out differently. Republic Enemy, everybody had a mic. And then let me tell you, in all due respect to the Wu, because they are just amazing.

You know, it is just amazing to this day. I mean, if I could be... If I could be another rapper... You would be in the Wu-Tang Clan? I would be Method Man. Ooh, okay, I can see that. I mean, even Method Man could read... Yo, man, he could read the newspaper, man,

and I would play it. All right, all right. Yeah. So did you nickname Busta Rhymes? Did you give Busta Rhymes his name? Well, Leaders of the New School was a bar in Don't Believe the Hype. And we felt that, you know, Busta was a five percenter, just like a lot of young cats were at the time. You know, it was the seeking the knowledge itself. Right. You know, especially back then, it's like, okay, I don't know why. It was dope to be smart

back then. Well, well. Now it's dope to be stupid. You didn't know your mathematics, you got your ass in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nah, I mean. I know my mathematics to this day. Everything is coming at you, right? So we said, you know, just understand, you know, there's a certain lifestyle, social martial arts

of being able to see what's coming. And that's why it was always a quest for knowledge itself. So at that particular juncture, you know, young people say, you know, it ain't going to be given out there, so I'm going to seek, I'm going to gravitate to the five percent and still have a piece of myself, you know, without it being a regiment, you know,

regimented situation. So, you know, he would go back and forth from Long Island to Brooklyn, still claim Brooklyn because, you know, without it being a regiment, you know, regimented situation. So, you know, he would go back and forth from Long Island to Brooklyn, still claim Brooklyn because, you know. It was fly to be from Brooklyn. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, back then it's like people were like claiming. And everybody had Jamaican belts on. Well, pretty much.

Especially him. Especially him. And he had a bus up coming at you. And he's from Jamaica. So, I mean, like many people because New York is a melting pot. When you study New York, it's a melting pot.

Everybody's from all over, man. When you study migration, that's the movement of our people, so. What you doing with my water, sir? I don't understand what's going on over here. So, don't be shy

and afraid, man. As y'all get, you know, your thing, I'm going to still be here. But anyway, yeah. So, his name was like Wachello Ski. Oh, that was a horrible name was like Wachello Ski.

Oh, that was a horrible name, Busta. Well, it might have worked. But what we used to do, we used to be like, listen, man, I'm a big sports head, man. And go Knicks because I'm catching the game. A big shout out to my man CP the franchise for Knicks Fan TV. But anyway, I'm a big sports fan. So one thing about sports, you can't just come off the top of your head and say what's what. It's fact is fact, and you got to go off the facts.

So I was like, listen, man, we need something to represent the way you spit, the way you guys rhyme, man. But we got to rename y'all because, man, out there, man, there's a million rappers. Now it's a trillion. Now it's a trillion. It was a million back then? It was a million back then, bro. Oh, damn. Yo, man, that's why you can't come. Because it wasn't streaming.

Well, yo, man, you can't come to a New Yorker and say, yo, man, this is that. Because the cat's been like, I've been seeing rhyming for 50 years, yo. Right, right. So anyway, long story short, I'm like, yo, man, this cat plays football for Nebraska. His name was Buster Rhymes. I knew at that particular time, man, I said, damn, if I could pick a new name. And I was kind of a little established. Wait, wait, time out. What did you just say? His name was Buster Rimes. I knew at that particular time, man, I said, damn, if I could pick a new name. And I was kind of a little established.

Wait, wait, time out. What did you just say? His name was Buster Rimes. There was a guy, a football player. There's a Buster Rimes that exists? And he played later on for the Minnesota Vikings.

He has to hate Buster in real life. He has to hate Buster. I think Buster met him later on. No. Anyway, I said, listen, dude. And back then, I was like.

By the way, you're blowing my mind right now. I'm like, I got chills. Well, it's documented. So I said, listen, Chiliski's not going to work. You Buster Rhymes. And that's what your name is. Of course, you get the side eye at the time. It's like, nah, I'm not feeling this Buster Rhymes.

Son, you Buster Rhymes. Y'all are leaders of the new school, and Hank named Brian Higgins, you know, big up to Higgins and Higgy Higgins' brother. Yo, he named him Charlie Brown. And Dinko D already had a fly. And they're teenagers at the time, right? They're teenagers.

Matter of fact, they was around, they was always downstairs at the 510 recording studios. And when we first came up with the track Rebel Without a Pause, they were just hanging around. So every time we played, I remember them climbing and running up the sides of the walls. And I'm like, sit your motherfucking asses down. And every time we go back to it, they go crazy. That energy's in their music, too.

They transform and their bodies were bending and shit and running up the ceiling. They go crazy and doing, like, they, like, they, they, they. Holy shit. And that energy's in their music, too. Yo, they, they, they, like, transforming. Their bodies was bending and shit and running up the ceiling. And I'm like, we got something here. You know what I'm saying? Wow. Let's make some noise for that. That was crazy, yo. Holy shit.

And, yo, he always comes to me, and I'm like, Buster, listen, man. You your own man. Yo, you my father. You, yo, you. No, you are. Stop it. Stop it stop it no you our job was our job is like listen public enemy we servicemen we service this is our military man we don't take the claim and any credit individually man it's what we do we love the art form we just like you know and i'm not in oh this is a 50th year hip-hop i'm not in oh i'm 62 i ain't in or you know, and I'm not in awe. This is a 50th year hip hop. I'm not in awe. I'm 62.

I ain't in awe of, you know, in my 63rd year. I ain't in awe of something 50 years old. So I'm just like, I remember when it was on a tricycle.

Hip hop 50, you got the shirt on, right? Yeah, I know. So I love your shirt. You know, I'm, you know, I'm not in awe of it.

I seen it when I'm on a tricycle. Just don't want to see people drive it into a ditch. That's all. So, so like I'm saying, you know, we're servicemen and we give thanks. That's all. So I'm saying, you know, we're servicemen.

And we give things, as Griff would say. So that's the thing is train, mentor. But the same thing in sports, right? Right. You know, young cat that got talent, you want to manifest that into a skill. Right. And then you want that skill to work for them so they do their thing. Because, you know, there's 50 years of hip-hop, but every five years there's a generation. So there's 10 generations in hip-hop.

That's crazy. 10 generations. I mean, look, from, you know, recording-wise, right, well, you got the first generation, 73 to 78. Then what? You got 79 to 84. That's the first five years of recording. That's where I'm from. You got 79 to 84. That's the first five years of recording. That's where I'm from. You got 84 to 89.

You got 89 to 94. Then you got 95 to 2000. You can kind of see those changes in the music. And the styles, too. So every generation got their thing. So they got their ways.

And if you could find common denominators to teach them how to do them better. Right. Or not even better, because art is subjective, man. Right, right. A lot of people aren't studied in the arts. So a lot of times they put it in a competition mode without saying, well, damn, you got licensed to ill as an art. Right. So it's not teaching the art of war. It's teaching the war of art.

Right. Right. We just had the Isley Brothers on, right? And they spoke about Fight the Power. Yes. They're making that record. And it made me also think, it was like, Fight the Power is saying to fight, you know, against the establishments, the regimes. In 1975 when they made that record. This is what I'm trying to say.

How is that record still relevant to this day, right now? You can still, their version of Fight the Power, your version of Fight the Power. It's obviously not for good reasons. It's not for good reasons. You still have to fight the power.

Yeah, we still have to fight the power. Why the fuck we still got to fight the power? One of the things is, Nina Simone once said that our artists should speak in the time in which they live. Damn, that's deep. And fight the power is one of those things.

At the time, you have all these companies, and they're in our neighborhood, but they're not giving back. They're not doing anything for the neighborhood. Most of the time, and this is crazy, we're the athletes, you go to our schools some of the top schools, especially here in Florida I grew up here in Pahokee, Florida and some of the top athletes but these companies that they go to

they ain't building nothing, they ain't giving back a community center or a rec center to keep them off the streets and that was one of the things that, you know, we understood at that time. You got to speak into the times in which you live. And I think when Nina Simone said that, that was a pivotal time, you know, because these generations, they get lost. And right now they keep it, how are you going to be a boy at 35? You're a man.

And they dumbing down rap, really. That's what I'm saying. I sent you guys a DM on Twitter, Elon Musk's Twitter, but it showed a great example of a young cat. I don't know where he was at, but his name was Ali. And young cats was in the streets and they had beef. But of course, something has lifted into the style of everybody capturing everything. So it's like you got bystanders now trying to document, but it's become this other

thing. And he stepped in the middle of it as a slightly older head, maybe he was 10, maybe 15 years older than him. And I mean, I'm not going to reiterate everything in the video if I could, but I'm just like saying that that example of stand-up is what happened all the time because it's standing up with love. And whatever you do and approach anything, you know, you got to approach with love, man. That's why sometimes in the business, you knowcy jones mr quincy jones he says you know like you know it's straight up you know the art is art art is love and introducing conversation with with especially you know young men in the streets and all that he's got to do it with love

but as soon as business is happening you know once money comes in god walks out the room. It perverts the love. Corrupts it. Anyway, I got to represent a lot of times, you know, this is the crown. Iconic. Of course. Of course I got to take it because I got to show my generation. My generation took these off.

You know what I'm saying? But I would say that I leave mine on. I didn't know that was generational. Here's another thing. Here's another thing. Everybody... I didn't know.

You just schooled me. No, no, no. It's very cool to stay in your lane. Cousins like coming to me. I say, yo, man, that ain't my lane. I got love for it, but it ain't in my lane. As long as it's your lane. The problem is people trying to jump in other lanes that aren't comfortable for them. Bro, listen, I ain't my lane. I got love for it, but it ain't in my lane. As long as it's your lane. The problem is people trying to jump in other lanes

that aren't comfortable for them. Bro, listen, I ain't trying to peel to nothing. I ain't trying to sell anything. I'm actually, you know, my team's always like, dude, you need to sell. I'm like, I'm in it for the art, you know what I'm saying? It's the opposite of maybe, in big respect out to Jay and everybody, I'm not a businessman.

That's real. I'm not a businessman. I've never heard nobody say that before. I am an a businessman. That's real. I'm not a businessman. I've never heard nobody say that before. I am an artiste. I'm an artiste since 1960. You know, art is short for artificial. It's not real. It's a facsimile of the life that we see and lead.

But that's my choosing, you know. I think when it comes down to... Fucking me up every sentence. But I think when it comes down to business, it's like you only could do so much yourself as an individual. But how much this team around you, you work and you strive to go forward, to evolve and all that for them to be able to come up and grow. And I've been very fortunate. And we've always had bumps in the road because you never see me out there. Yo, buy this, buy that, buy that.

There's nothing against that. But we've been, as black folk and even others involved with us, you know, like employable amongst ourselves for like, what, 35 years, 36 years? 36. So you don't think for yourself. Because a lot of times people are like, oh, man, you're getting this, you're getting this. No, man, I got to think for the totem pole of people who are coming up. How do they make a living? How do they get their first house?

You know what I'm saying? That's the theme of what this should all be about. It's no knock on anybody that doesn't have that thing because we're all individuals. We're human beings. There is a human glitch. But I'm not the one to figure it out. I'm just not in the business of making black folk look bad. And I'm saying,

I'm not in that business. And there's businesses out there that thrive on it. Ever since what? Shackles? Slavery? Boats? I mean, let's be clear, right? You guys had major success.

And with success comes, you know, all the other parts of the world. Like, how come I've never heard Chuck D involved in no, like, conspiracy scandal? But obviously, it was around. We've been 116 countries. 116. I'm sorry. I'll make some noise for that. I'm sorry.

By the way, let me just be clear. By the way, let's just be clear. I didn't even know there was 116 countries. I didn't even know that existed. It's 14, 22 now. That's how... I thought I had success until just now. That just hurt me.

Success. I didn't even know it was 200 countries. Success is relative, bro. You were very successful. Hold on, hold on. You've been to 116 countries. Yeah, but... I'm going to just throw it out there.

I understand. I'm going to just throw it out there. But look, there's people out there like Master Ace. No, there's a lot of... I mean, Ace out there is always living somewhere else in the world. God bless Master Ace. But you are Chuck D. You got over some chokes.

A lot. But the thing about it, you're invited to go to these places. And our whole school of where we came from is that you're invited to go to the places, leave an impression, make a path for others to come in, and romp shit out. Because, I mean, listen, the positive thing, the this, the that, whatever, the number one goal, as we're taught by our master teacher, Doug E. Fresh. That's right. Right? Fucking Doug E. Fresh as well.

Doug E. Fresh, man. Leave that fucking stage fucking destroyed. Yes. Leave, destroy that stage with rap and music and hip hop. We'd be like, no, we didn't make appealing music. Matter of fact, we made music at the same time. I same time like we're trying to make you not like our music so when you see us you'd be like what the fuck is this you know i mean it's sort of like that crazy ass heavy metal attitude like the groupies outside yeah everybody's everybody and it's part of the world, man. It's part of the landscape.

It's part of the sound. You're in the entertainment business, man. You know, the whole thing I've been telling people all my life, oh man, I didn't think you were so engaging. I said, dude, I've been in the entertainment business. I'm not a preacher. I don't have no churches, man. I don't write

or I haven't written dissertations, but I'm saying that I am in the entertainment business. Hip-hop, rap, music is my thing. That is my religion. I'll go around and stomp out a bar. Well, definitely back in the day, I'd be like, listen, I would have to ask you like Alonzo Mourning. When I hit that stage, it's like,

you're going to come and tear this shit up. Did he just say Alonzo Mourning? Yeah, yeah. You're a sports guy. I was a big, I was a big. Charlesourner? Yeah, yeah. You a sports guy, right? I was a big, I was a big, yeah, Barkley, Oakley.

I would see Alonzo Mourner with that vein in the side of his head coming to the court. I was like, mmm, and go take that stage and chew it up.

But you know, you got to get taught that. Right. And when you first start, and big up to my man Paul and say, he's a, in Passaic,

he saw our first show. Yeah, he saw our first was in Passaic. He saw our first show. Yeah, Champ Sports. Yeah, he saw our first show in Passaic, New Jersey. Number one. Really?

In 1987. With Beastie Boys, right? We opened up for the Beastie Boys. April 1st. I was 10 years old. You was 10 years old, right? I was 10 years old, yes. Wow.

The Capitol Theater in Passaic. That's dope. Number one, you start out, right? And I couldn't, you know, number one, you trying to like, yo, like like I'm trying to not fuck up.

You know what I'm saying? And then the Beastie Boys, that second show we did with them, we in an arena. We in an arena like, you know, like the same spot I be seeing cats play basketball. Like we play Providence, the second show. Arena. And I'm like, whoa, like, the audience looked like a pizza. Like a calico rug, right? How do you?

How do you just make pizza sound bad? But, you know, you don't see nothing. And then all of a sudden, right, you know, I was getting through that tour nervous. I was nervous my whole first year And you know We finally I can't see Chuck D nervous Oh man I'm nervous as hell

You told him about 1987 In the Latin Quarters With Melly Mell Wow We'll get to that story later But listen So I'm so nervous And one day I'm seeing Mike D

He was like totally drunk right And he did his verses And he like He just fell out But he was still on the floor laughing And I was seeing Mike D. He was like totally drunk, right? And he did his verses and he just fell out. But he was still on the floor laughing. And I was like, you could do that? Anything goes. Once I saw Mike D did that, I loosened up because I'm like,

damn, anything goes on a stage if you could kind of like still stay with it. And it was three of them. And that loosened me up like crazy. So yeah, man, it's like, I'm a firm believer you're an owner to what you think, but a slave to what you say. You know what I'm saying?

So, a lot of times people are like, oh, man, watch out for Vlad. Watch out for Drink Champs, man. Yo, man, sound bites and clicks. I'm like, you're an owner to what you think. You're a slave to what you say. Don't blame us. Yeah, don't blame me. I'm like, you are owner to what you think. That's right. You slay to what you say. Don't blame us. Yeah?

No, I ain't blaming you. Shit. Oh, yeah. By the way, by the way, I didn't say that. The fuck out of here. Yo, listen.

Listen. You the sum of what you think. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Listen, man. The easiest thing. A lot of people blame alcohol and it's not alcohol.

Alcohol just enhances who you are. It rolls it out. I'll get to that in a second. Like I said, the easiest thing for people to deal with is saying, fuck, I don't know.

Even if they press. Here we in the game, and let me tell you, public enemy, if you say all that, we was the first to take on an interview with a vengeance. Myself, Griff, James. There was no music press at all for black artists in the 80s. You know, Prince and Michael Jackson wasn't fucking with no interviews. Right, right.

And then after Run-D.M.C. got accused of starting riots in 1986. Before NWA? No, yeah. They got accused of starting riots because there was a big conflict. Crips in the Bloods, 1986, Long Beach, California. They had some, and the press didn't even know what to call it, so it must have been Run DMC. So we, you know, I just kind of just... Because back then, the Crips and Bloods, holy shit.

Yeah, because, you know, like, they had factions in the beginning of the Crips and Bloods, and I'm not going to be an expert on this, but, you know, in the beginning, they were neighborhood guardians. Right, yeah. But then, just like in New York, all of a sudden, the 1980s, which is R&B,

Reagan and Bush, right? They come in, and all of a sudden in the neighborhood, including our neighborhood in Long Island, there's an influx of guns. There's an influx of drugs out of nowhere, right? And this is on the tail end of the 70s, and y'all saw the movie

American Gangster and stuff like that, and the whole Nicky Barnes and Lucas Starby and all that, but also that was tied into other situations. You could go into the CIA and all that. But also that was tied into other situations. You could go into the CIA and all that stuff. Iran-Contra and all that, yeah. I'm pretty sure. I mean, you got the name Noriega.

Yeah, it's fucked up. Yeah, Snowfall right now depicts all of that. But there is no accident. So in the 80s when this came up, all of a sudden in Los Angeles, what used to be the neighborhood guardians, you know, hey, don't come to this turf, this crypt's blood. Then all of a sudden in los angeles what used to be the neighborhood guardians you know hey look don't come to this turf this crypts blood then all of a sudden you fueling the next generation

the young heads that's that's like okay i mean yo i'm getting this money and oh he ain't got no money so now money is the divine line god walks out the room so they turn into a different army with guns we're like boom boom so it's it's like, where this thing come from? In 86, they got everybody, everybody listening to rap music, K-Days, the radio station out there, they got everybody in the spot and it just happened to be

the meeting place where cats convened and something broke out and they blamed it on rap music. 1986. That's what I was saying. And I told Bill Adler, I said, you know what, man?

Shut up, Bill Adler. I'm ready to do this public enemy thing because I'm going to be the motherfucker that they ain't never going to see before. And I told Bill Adler, I said, you know what, man? Shut up, Bill Adler. I'm ready to do this public enemy thing because I'm going to be the motherfucker that they ain't never going to see before. And I was trained to, like, do interviews and give interviews and shit like that, being a sports fan. So that one thing led to another, and the birth of public enemy, we would be getting large expanses of interviews, man, all over the world. Because I said, yo, what we have is something y'all don't know about and we know everything about you.

That's the same thing in martial arts that these guys do. It's like... He looks like he do martial arts. He looks like you're going to kick somebody's ass. They're teachers. I'm going to be honest. You're going to start smiling at some point.

He, Griff, Roger, James, I mean, they've been there since minute one. They used to do the security of our gigs with myself, Hank, Keith Shockley, you know. And, you know, we used to do the gigs. Flavor, myself, Keith was on the radio station doing mixes and stuff like that. So we all just brought the community together. Terminator X, of course. You know, so we brought it all together to be this one thing.

And I'm just finishing up the Public Enemy thing. It's like, I said no for two years. Doing Public Enemy? I didn't want to do records. We wanted to be what Def Jam was building, and we wanted to be like the Motown of hip-hop. Because, I mean, myself, Bill, Stephanie, Hank,

we wanted to, like, you see what came out of it, like busting them myself, Bill, Stephanie, Hank, we wanted to like trade. You see like what came out of it, like busting them. It was like, you know, and we have more to come out. So I was a key development person. I was like the Smokey Robinson, man. I would work with the artists, arrange them. We would name it, do the art, stuff like that. We would all put, you know, cats in a gig. We would treat them right when they come to Long Island. It was like, man, we'll bring you out. We'll treat you like when they come to Long Island. It was like, man, we'll bring you out, we'll treat you like superstars,

and we'll send you back home safe. Boom, one of our biggest groups that we always had a ball was promoting Stetsasonic. Stetsasonic? Yeah, man, my man Daddy-O. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and MeatEater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here, and I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug

man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Daddy-O. Think of the Daddy-O.

He's like the guru, Professor Daddy-O. He's ready to come and drink, Shannon. He had like 3,000 haircuts. Yeah, yeah. Always some different haircuts. Always a different haircut. Sorry to take it there, but I'm saying that when you go around the world, the number one

thing, the number one thing to wherever you're at is know the law. Because when you know the law, then you can operate on figuring out its flaws when you have no justice to fight the law. You can't fight the law not knowing the law.

Right. And then expect some clap back on that. That was the Black Panthers. Black Panthers was college students, neighborhood activists that knew the law and used the law. Right. And still— That's how the Crips got invented was through that. Yeah, I mean, listen, man, a community is always full of thinkers and doers. Right. And still... That's how the Crips got invented, was through that. Yeah, I mean, listen, man.

A community is always full of thinkers and doers. Right. You know, you need thinkers. Right. But they could come up to a certain point. Right. You need doers. But they just can't just be doing shit. Doing anything. Yeah, so you need a combination. And that's what we was, a combination. Thinkers, doers, movers,

shakers, but also let's not get it twisted. We're in the entertainment business and hip-hop. We're just trying to give young people something to do. We're just trying to be active. We're trying to be motivating and give young people something to do by enlightening them and not looking down on them. Although there's

a lot of things you can look down on, but you got to look across it and say, listen, man, how do you think this is going to work long-term? Is it a good look? You got to ask them questions. You got to look across that and say, listen, man, how do you think this is going to work long term? Is it a good look? You got to ask them questions. You got to engage on that. But that's a lot of work, man. That's a lot of work.

But hold up. Going back to you saying that you wanted to be the Motown, you wanted to produce and develop, was that chance one of the first chances when Cube, that opportunity came for you guys to produce America's Most Wanted? And let's just be clear. Like, how did that all come about? Can I, can I, can I, can I?

Because that was a marriage of two great worlds. Because, let me just say something. And I watched Maff Hoffa and them talk about this. They have a fantastic show. Yeah, Maff Hoffa. So what happened was on there, they said that Smith & Wesson, that one time Smith & Wesson got down with Tupac at that time

where Tupac was hated on the East Coast. So at that time, Smith & Wesson got down with Tupac at that time where Tupac was hated on the East Coast. So at that time, I'm going to be honest, as a fan, I was not into this music industry at all. I was thrown off a little bit too because how easily Ice Cube was accepted in the East Coast because I didn't feel,

this is me as a person. This is not Nori. This is Poppy in a person. This is not Nori. This is Poppy and Left Rack City. I felt that... I felt... I felt the West Coast would not do that

to any other artist other than Public Enemy. Like, we wouldn't be accepted in the West Coast. But when Ice Cube came here, it was like all arms, in my opinion. This is my humble... No industry... But it felt like NWA and in my opinion. This is my humble...

No industry. No industry. We're talking again. We got to remember, we didn't have Instagram back then. We didn't know that. We didn't know that y'all had a relationship. So, the media wasn't the same. People discovered America's Most Wanted and in that moment discovered

that he left N.W.A. That's how I, as a kid, open it up and I see Bomb Squad, and I'm like, wow. And here's the crazy thing about that. I'm sorry for making this question so long. It's your show. No, no, no, no. Here's the crazy thing about that. Here's the crazy thing about that.

I was so much an NWA fan at that time, I didn't want to accept anything that was going against NWA. Nah, but I was such a fan of both. To see that marriage, this is like the best thing that could ever happen. You see our childhood is being fucked up right now. We toured the whole country together, man. The whole country together.

And I think the night, this is what? I love Chuck. He's loving it. He's loving this. Cube came to the show we did at the Palladium and what was it,

88, 89? Listen, only reason I'm a fact checker because all I did all my life as being a sports fan is watch this hip hop shit. And I was a fan of everything. Everything. Right.

From before records, I was a fan. I didn't want to do it. I just want to be a fan. I wanted to do flyers. That's why I gave you an art book. I did the best flyers. I wanted to compete and bust everybody in the world in flyers. Go to the gig,

dance up a storm, go home knowing I got my hip hop in. It was a rebel type of thing with me. Wait up, Chuck D dances? Shit, man. What are you,

in the 70s with the dance era, bro? I can't see Chuck D dance. But listen, listen, bro. And I'm not going to go off tangent. I was in high school in 76 and 77, bro.

Okay. I graduated in 78. You ain't have a Gumby. Niagara. Fuck no. Fuck no. You had to go. I mean, I was in college in 1978, bro.

You know what I'm saying? Although I tried to be rebellious and wear kicks, sometimes they'd be like, nah, we ain't fucking having kicks up in here. You had to make adjustments. Right. You know, I wasn't wearing Playboys, but you know,

platforms or whatever. You didn't want to be a wallflower, man. What the fuck are you standing on the wall? It's dance music, man. This shit is popping. DJs is rocking and stuff. And so you would stand on the wall and girls is in the spot.

Where you going to get on the wall? And if you ain't one of those big afro, do the hustle, pretty boys, you better fucking have some fucking game. You better get off that wall and make it happen. Party is trying. Throw your hands at the end. I had no game and I couldn't dance.

All that shit. That was me. Find one, grind one, get behind one, let's go. You know what I'm saying? So the DJs and the MCs are like trying to get the party moving. If you ain't moving, security problem. Right. And when you have the party not popping, especially if it's lopsided on population, you got penitentiary six, man.

It's a security problem. See, today, they spend a lot of money on security, right? They spend a lot of money on security. Back then, your shit had to be, yo, your shit had to be so poppin' that the most thug, the super thug out of the super thug be like, you know what? I ain't trying to fuck this party up.

And nobody else better than to fuck this party up. And nobody else better not fuck this party up. I'm a trucker. I'm a trucker. That's just what... DJ with security making sure everybody kept moving, right? And then your crap, Flash in them wasn't lying. If you was a whack DJ, not only will you might get shot at, motherfuckers taking your shit.

What you gonna do? Oh, police, stop this. DJs better be lucky you born in this generation, because you be damned. I'm trying to tell you now, you didn't want that problem, man. You didn't want that problem also taking black people's money, man. There was a, you know, Hank told me a story once, man, that he went to this spot in Brooklyn, man, and the act was so whack, man,

they robbed everybody after leaving. The cats in Brooklyn robbed everybody upon leaving the and cats in brooklyn robbed everybody upon leaving the venue close to the act we need to blow this hip-hop group up oh my god so yeah so yeah my point is i'll have to before you took me to the dance world like danny terrio go back to ice cube thank you thank you because let me just reiterate what my point is. You want to take me to another tangent? No, no, no. My point is, it was something that had never been done before. Like, the East Coast.

It wasn't easy. Number one, you fund the four boroughs at that particular time. Four boroughs. And Queens is barely hanging on. Damn. Listen, bro, I'm barely hanging on. Damn. Listen, bro. I'm born in Queens. Okay.

Are you back? Say what? Say what? Don't talk about the win. Flushing 1960, all right? Okay, okay. Four years before Shea Stadium was built. The more Chinese people invaded Flushing.

Yeah, exactly. And also, I lived in, I tell this to Molly and them all the time, Nas and Cormega. My family, we lived in Queensbridge the first three years. Goddamn, make some noise for Chuck D. Yeah, yeah. Queensbridge.

Big up to Cormega. Yes, yes. Big up to Cormega. We got to get Mega on here. He's having some issues with his label right now. We would like him to express it. He's a beautiful cat, man. He's a express it. He's a beautiful cat, man. He's a great guy.

He's a beautiful cat, man. Ice Cube. Ice Cube, guys. Come on. A big happy birthday, Large Professor, and also DJ Premier. God damn it. God damn it.

Large Professor and DJ Premier. Let's go. All right, Ethan. Back to Ice Cube. Yeah, but Ice Cube. So how does this call happen? He just calls you out the blue? Well, number one, we come out with Yo Bummers the show in 1987.

We a crew. We ain't from the city. And we in car culture. I mean, you're going to get yours as the first single released, I guess. And I give my love to my 98 Oldsmobile. Really, I ain't had a 98 Oldsmobile because the 98. The 88. Yeah, the 98 posse,

those were the kind of like thugs in Long Island. But they all drove 98s, Oldsmobile 98s. The crazy thing about them is everybody used to come out to Roosevelt, which they called the Harlem of Long Island, right? Right. And they had the Roosevelt roller rink. And cash used to come from Queens and Brooklyn.

And the 98 posse was from Hempstead, Roosevelt, New York. Wine dance? No, that's further out. Okay, fine. Now, that spot is another level. Okay. Right?

But the 98 posse, man, they were so unique that they would put their cars together. They were all mechanics. They would rob you. They would just, you don't want to get on the wrong side of them. Matter of fact, our gigs had standoffs between the 98 posse and the S1Ws, who was in security.

And then finally they came together saying that anybody that come to our gigs, you better not fuck up because... It was almost a war with them one night in Hempstead, New York At Korean Ballroom Yeah, well anyway They ended up being together Like you didn't want to mess up one of our events Because you know You come out there, mess up our event

There ain't nothing happening out there We ain't got things like Queens and Brooklyn You mess up an event out there, it's a problem So they even got together the Super Thugs And also the S1Ws So you came out there, it's a problem. So they even got together the Super Thugs and also the S1Ws. So you came out there, it was an unbelievable experience. Long story short, 98 Posse,

they would put their cars together, they would cut off the highways so you couldn't get up out of there. Oh, wow. So they were pretty much a theme. there. And they, you know, so they were pretty much the theme. So Bum Rush the Show

was our first album and it operated around something similar to, you know, Los Angeles. You ain't catching a bus out there. You ain't got no car, man, especially you in Carson or Torrance or them outskirt places. You ain't getting nowhere.

So they understood. There was similarities, you know, and us and Ice-T, who's out there. Matter of fact, he was a friend, big up to my bro-bro, Ice-T. Because every year, Ice-T makes history. You know why? Because he's the eldest,

and he gets in those rare air. So Ice-T, when he turns the age, like 64, 65, I think 65, he's like, man, no rapper ever been there. And then 10 years later, he was like, oh, so-and-so turned 60.

Ice-T did that shit 10, 15 years ago. What the fuck? He's still pioneering. Yeah, exactly. And doing heavy metal rap and rapping. I'm like, what the fuck, man? And doing...

And he's such a great person. Yeah, he is a great person. And doing TV 25 years in all. Ice-T has never told me no. I'm not asking him shit for shit. He will always try to. He's going to tell me no. He's the kiss the ring godfather, for real.

So NWA, when they came out with their first record, they did what Wu-Tang did 11 years later. They had a whole bunch of cats out there rhyming, little crews, and they grouped them all together. out there, Rhyme and Lil' Cruz, and they grouped them all together. If you look at N.W.A. and the Posse, they wear clocks on the back of the dock. I have the Fila and the Fila Fresh Crew.

I didn't put that together! Yeah. They wearing clocks. I didn't! Oh my God, I was nowadays the old... At the end of 87, we started doing shows and they started saying, oh, I was nowadays the old. At the end of 87, we started doing shows, and they started saying, oh, NWA,

because they had Dope Man and stuff like that, Q. Eazy had already come out. Eazy already came out. DOC was from Texas, but he was part of a crew out in Texas. And McCullough Records was an independent record label. Actually, it was a record label from a pressing plant they had in L.A. Just kind of took all the rappers at that particular time

and in that time in 87, grouped them together and that was N.W.A. It was an attitude but it meant a lot of crews. Arabian Prince was down with them. Arabian Prince, all the founders. Lonzo and all those cats, man. They had this scene out there and this was put in together.

And then we toured a couple of times and that's when I first started, you know, knowing Dre, knowing Cube, who basically looked up to me and said, well, I got my style off of you. And I was like, well, I got this style off of Schoolie D.

And I talked to Schoolie D, big up to Schoolie D, my bro, bro, bro. Philly, Philly, Schoolie D, right? Yeah, yeah, Schoolie D. Philly legend. Yeah, yeah, man. And I taught the Schoolie D. Big up to Schoolie D, my bro, bro, bro. Philly, Philly, Schoolie D, right? Yeah, yeah, Schoolie D. Philly legend. Yeah, yeah, man. So I told, I got that style

off of Schoolie, man, in 86. And Schoolie's like, I got that shit off of Mel. Wow. Schoolie Mel, wow. You know what I'm saying?

That's dope to see. So we a fraternity. Right. And although, you know, like even after us in the 90s and the 2000s, people don't think that there's lineage. There's lineage. Yeah. So although, you know, like even after us in the 90s and the 2000s, people don't think that there's lineage. There's lineage. So Cube, you know, at

that particular time was like, you know, bro, bro, they coming up, NWA, and then we come on with Takes a Nation in Millions. And this is funny. We play in Vegas, and NWA's on the show. And, you know, I get the test pressing from Glenn Friedman,

who actually is the photographer who did the Nation's cover, he promised to show Ice-T. Matter of fact, the first time I met Ice-T in L.A., he looked just like Ron Payne's cover. Except for Darlene wasn't in that cover. So it was him, Eboo, and Africa Islam pulled up in that Porsche. It was like, yo, I'm going to give you the rules when you come out to L.A. And there's stuff like that.

But Glenn Friedman was the photographer. And so he was in Las Vegas when we played. And he had the Takes a Nation album. And I'm getting a test pressing. And I'm looking at it. And I'm getting a test pressing, and I'm looking at it, and I'm like, what the fuck? Because we're in the art direction down to the T.

Glenn's a little anal, because he'd be like, the drop shadow ain't right. And Glenn be trying to get a royalty off the artwork. I'm like... By giving you a little... Glenn would take a photo,

and he tried to go to Def Jam and say, I want a royalty off of my photo. And they was like, nah, that, wait. Glenn would take a photo, and he tried to go to Def Jam and say, I want a royalty off of my photo. They was like, nah, that's unprecedented. I don't know what you're talking about. But he tried. He tried. He tried, right?

You know, like they say, if you don't ask for something, you don't know if you're ever going to get it. So I remember Easy and Dre also being in the wings, and I handed it to them, and they were looking at this shit like, what the fuck? Did you say Easy and Dre also being in the wings. And I handed it to them and they were looking at this shit like, what the fuck? Did you say Easy and Dr. Dre?

Yeah, Easy and Dre. We in the same corridor. Matter of fact, matter of fact, Mike Tyson was in that same corridor because L.L. was getting down. And also Jahlil from Houdini.

Wow. And here's the funny thing, right? You know, Jahlil, man, big up to Jahlil from Houdini. And. Here's a funny thing, right? You know, Jahlil, man. Big up to Jahlil from Houdini. And also, X, those are my master teachers, too. So, Mike, this is Mike Tyson, 1988. Okay. Jahlil!

Jahlil! Right? And Jahlil is like... He don't want to correct him. Right. He tells everybody else, my name is Jahlil. He wasn't telling much shit. John Will!

Yo, John Will! And John Lill was like... You can't correct Mike. We was in the studio 54, four nights in a row, and Mike Tyson hung out with us. God damn it. So, man, so, yeah, so that same corridor,

I'm passing that easy and Dre. And then, of course, Cube's, you know, bro-bro coming up on that. They've developed it. And the next thing, boom, next year, straight out of Compton, which was more like, you know, like that East Coast fast speed muscle.

And Dre was the one man, two man operation in there where he could do all the shit that Hank, myself, Eric Vietnam Sadler, Keith, you know, we all in a room, you know, doing some shit. There's one dude

that do this shit with an engineer. And straight out of Compton. So NWA comes up, does their thing. Then again, like I said, groups, you know, you got issues, you got schedules, you got conflicts. And Q wanted to do a solo record and said that, you know, Eazy and Dre told him to wait maybe a year or two. And back in them days, man, a year or two.

Yeah, 10 years. Yeah, man. That's Rip Van Winkle, man. You know what I'm saying? So Q decided to do it with us. And this is a key statement right here. In 1989, NWA played the Apollo. I was there that night.

Okay. Sold out? Yo, man, New York roasted them. They was like... Okay, Tamak, I want to make sure roasted means the same thing. No, no, no. Any way you want to put roasted, don't say it ain't going to end well. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, my God. Roasted them. And I told them downstairs, I said, listen, you guys are from 3,000 miles away. Los Angeles miles. They got Jerry Girls. Yeah, Los Los Angeles will be Neptune, man, not New Jersey. Neptune out of space. You got to go through this in New York. Trust me, I'm from Long Island, man. I went through this shit.

Next year, if you show perseverance, a New Yorker want to be shown that you get up. So I don't want to act like I, what's that word mean? Perseverance? Perseverance. What does that mean? Keep going. I ain't got a bunch of big words like that. I draw pictures now.

Commitment. Consistency. I do all that now, man. So anyway, you know, like I said, next year, you got to show that you can come back and do something. Somebody, because this is New York. This is Apollo. They booed themselves. Man, they've been passing

coffins out of here for the last 70 years, man. They booed themselves, right? New York, we hate New York. Yeah, you're going in there, man. So we're going to hate you too. This is a fact. Yeah, man.

There's Hearst waiting on the back of Apollo every show, man. So, sure enough, Ice Cubes comes back the next year after we do the America's Most Wanted because he had conflict. Oh, this is after then? Well, we did America's Most Wanted.

And before America's, you did the joint with Big Daddy Kane, Burn Hollywood Burn. Well, how it happened, we was in Green Street recording, and me and Kane had been circling around just like me and the Drink Champs. Green Street, that's the studio? It's the studio. I worked in Green Street recording, and me and Kane had been circling around, just like me and the Drink Champs. You know what I mean? Green Street, that's the studio? It's the studio.

I worked in Green Street once. Me and Kane were circling around. Yeah, I'm going to do this record with you. I'm going to do this record with you. Yeah, we circling. We circling. And finally, a rendezvous where we're at the same place at the same time.

So Kane came down to do this record, Burn Hollywood Burn. And that's my sentiment and my feelings to this moment, like Burn Hollywood Burn. I ain't never going to have conversations in a Hollywood boardroom. I'm going to work with a team, and they're going to have those conversations. I'm about the art, right?

So we got this thing, Burn Hollywood Burn. And Cube was there on the couch because I first sent them to like, well, I don't want to get in the middle of your conflict. That's a group thing. Yo, yo, can y'all produce my album, The Brown Squad? I'm like, I want to get in the middle of your conflict. That's a group thing. Yo, yo, can y'all produce my album in the Bronx? I'm like, I'm not getting in the middle of that. Hook up with Sam Sever.

And he talked to Sam Sever, and I think I sent him to somebody else. I was trying to get producers for Cube. Cube was like, man, fuck that. I want y'all to do my shit. I was like, ah. I don't want to get in the middle of that. No, I ain't want to. We can't.

I can't get in the middle of it. So there was hesitation. A lot of hesitation. See, no one knows this stuff. Right, right. They got issues. I thought you guys jumped like it just happened. No, no, no.

It felt like it. No, no. It's all about what? Alliances. Yo, we're out. We're neutral party, man. You know what I'm saying? Boom, boom, boom.

You'll figure it out. We got your blessings in the back, whatever. We're a sovereign nation, right? So sure enough, one thing led to another. Hank thought it was a challenge once he was kind of told, like, you know, like, eh, it might be all right. And then Hank was like, yo, let's go for it. Let's do this. And already, we already had the knockout fear of a black planet.

And then Hank and Eric and them was finishing up the BBD album. But did y'all change the sound to make it more? No, because Cube came in with what he wanted. Wow. Sir Jinx was with him. Sir Jinx, yep. And they worked with Arab Vietnam Sadler. And we just showed them.

Like, the first thing I did with Cube when I went to L.A. and we finally agreed, I said, fuck all this, that and we finally agreed, I said, fuck all this, that, bells, whistles, pyro, and all this. Stop by that CVS shop.

Pick up a 99 cent notebook. I said, that's where it all starts, bro. Simple things. I'm not teaching Cube anything. It's like, listen, don't try to do shit like Listen Don't try to

Do shit overnight Don't try to Change overnight And do what we do You can morph there On your own Try not to say The same thing twice

You're not making An extended single You're making an album Make some records That people like But make a couple records That some shit hate And Cube took it

To the hill He's like I don't think You love to hate You know what I'm saying It's like You I'm going to, you love to hate. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know,

just don't always try to please. Because hip hop is also, you know, if you have a boardroom or a record company, they always trying to get motherfuckers to just be on their knees and like,

love me, love me. And hip hop has got to also be like, no, I don't give a fuck if you don't like none of this. Right,

go the opposite direction. Yeah, my job, my job. But see, to me, it's been like, almost to a point of like, no, I don't give a fuck if you don't like none of this. Right, go the opposite direction. Yeah, my job, my job, but see, to me, it's been, like, almost to a point of, like, disservice. Like, I'll be like, I hope you hate this shit so I can beat your ass with this shit.

I mean, there was nothing appealing about Public Enemy music. Nothing. Nothing. Even the name was kind of Vincent Public Enemy. We want you. That's insane. You don't think about it. It was just a total contrarian thing. It's like, we want you to not like this shit. But when we leave this spot,

because we said love and hate is the same emotion. Right. You know what I'm saying? Once you're flatlining and you're in the middle of the road and you're kind of pleasing, you're kind of not pleasing, I don't want to offend nobody, and you're in the middle, you're unnoticed, especially

back then. If you're playing with a bunch of acts, if your shit ain't popping, you're going to be sent back home. And being sent back home is the worst thing. I remember a couple groups got sent back home and they were kicking rocks in the summertime, man. New York is not the place to be

if the group is out there on the road and on a tour. So one thing led to another. Long story short about Cube. Did America's Most Wanted. I had to leave out at the end of the productions and head off on tour. But in 12 weeks, the Bomb Squad did Be of a Black Planet, Belle Viv De Vaux. Wow.

And then America's Most Wanted. I didn't know Bomb Squad did Belle Viv Devoe. Wow. And then America's Most Wanted. I didn't know Bombstar was Belle Viv Devoe. And then Cube was soaring into the stratosphere after that. And then what's Cube? And the production was Genius on America's Most Wanted. No, but once Cube and Genius got it in that particular style, man, he came out with that Kill That Well EP.

And my favorite record of Cube was Jack of the Beats. Jack of the Beats. Was there any slack from the East Coast for just accepting a West Coast artist at that time? There was a little interpretation,

but at the same time... I got to ask what that word mean. I'm sorry. There was a little hesitation. People were side-eyeing. They were side-eyeing. They were side-eyeing.

But you know that's Vignoles, so you got advantage. No, no, no, no. This is the truth. This is the truth. See, you know Espanol. That's not a big deal.

He doesn't like it though. Yeah, yeah. But still, still it's advantage. See, let's get a side comment for a second. Bring me back though. Bring me back. But in this country, the arrogance of like when they look at people who are multilingual, they look at them lesser than when most people in this country know fucking one, barely one language. They don't even speak the king's language.

So when they're like, oh, yeah, I got this worker working for me, but they don't know no English. The fuck? They know four languages, man. They have an advantage over you and you have a disadvantage when I was growing up I always thought black was an advantage you know why I said shit I know everything about everybody but they don't know shit about me

you know I got them I'm going to go wherever I want to go it's like almost being on the court but knowing that you could go on both sides with both hands it's like they can't stop me to the hoop. And that's why we try to say, yeah, this knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, you're not going to get

in that microwave, but you could get it to the point where it works to your advantage. Now, everything, people are like, oh, man, I know who black people are, because all I got, I got nothing but rap songs. And so therefore, yeah, but you're getting one side, and you think you know us.

Well, you don't know my mom's struggle. You don't know my aunt's middle name and stuff like that. So let's grow together and stop acting like you know everything about us before you sell and market to us. Oh, we got them figured out. Because what's going to happen is that they're going to say, well, you know, we ain't got you, OG, you're on the way out. We got your grandkids anyway because we have programmed them to go where we want them to go and believe what we want them to believe. That's why you always have

to have the legacy of at least OGs. They can't be measured by money. Money is a construct, man, just like race is a construct. But we have to understand the truth and the matter is that the darker people of the earth in these present times, and talking the last 200, 300 years, we have been disadvantaged and ostracized for a lot of different reasons. I know ostracizing.

And we got to come up out of that. Right. Probably a no word. In order, there's a question to say accept us as a part of the human race. There's no, no such thing as alien from another planet, but it's a come up and we deserve the right to come up and be respected. But, you know, you could throw some, some, some, some, what do you call it? Lie in the wash. You know what I'm saying?

L-Y-E in the wash. And it could corrupt a lot of different things. So it's always, you know, what's constant elevation, man. That's all it's about. So anyway, where was the part I said

I didn't want to get lost? Cube. Yeah, well, Cube, yeah, so it's a simple fact that matter. Cube went into the stratosphere after that. He came to New York

and when Cube played Apollo in 1990... After the buoy. Man. He came back. Man. Imagine. What? Man. Yes. He came back. Man. Imagine. What?

Man. Yes. He had an attitude. I'm surprised Apollo was still standing, man. Because he burned the camp. Did he do Jacket for Beats? Burned. What?

When he played this? I forgot what his set was. Jacket for Beats came in 91. I'm going to tell you how I knew New York was probably the hardest place to play ever. I got a call from Big Boy from OutKast one time. And Big Boy said, can you come with me to the tunnel?

And I said, why? He was like, I just want a New Yorker to stand next to me. And they were 10 million at the time. I don't even think I was gold. So I didn't even like, I didn't know the need.

And all it was I just stood there with a big boy And we just stood on stage But New York would not Throw a bottle or not Because I was actually present I didn't know that was a cheat code Right

Yeah I was just saying I mean regionally it matters To be in that area Big up the big boy But just think about it Atlanta and people from out of town knew that. They knew that.

Listen, you know, New York, we just, well, the crazy shit is, I remember Jay telling me this story. And this was recently when we sat down. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one

visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, It's really, really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts.

The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and Meat Eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it

real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

And Jay said, Jay said, he said, I always think about the out-of-towners who out-of-towners think that it's New York that hates on them. He's like, no, we hate on each other. What? He said Biggie got thrown the same bottle

that I got thrown. Whoa. And it's like, but the out-of-towners don't know that. You know what I mean? And this is a long-term conversation that we have

on Drink Chance. A lot of people thought that New York was arrogant. Uh-uh. And what they didn't realize was it was just the attitude that we had.

Well, I told you because we have the debate that, like, for us in Miami and I think other regions, felt industry-wise, I always say it's not the people

in New York. The industry that was centralized in New York was being very, it was very New York-centric and I'm talking about hip-hop-wise.

Right. They weren't letting people in and that's what people were getting kind of angry with the South. That's why, you know, the J Prince's and the Death Row's and everybody started to come up to combat that.

And even that outcast statement. Yeah, Luke being one of the first independents. Even that outcast statement when they won the award, the South had something to say. It felt like they were saying, New York ain't ain't only it

well they better they better I mean listen Public Enemy was the first to actually in the Brain the Noise tour in 1988

it was the first group that not only we had to break the mold to break the mold was like everything up to then was groups coming out of New York

in the summertime you had the what the Fresh Fest in the 84 the 85 I mean the Fresh Fest the filling arena You had the what? The Fresh Fests in 84 and 85. I mean the Fresh Fests. The Filling Arena. The Def Jam Tour in 1987. And before that you had Raisin Hell

in 1986. Run DMC. LL Cool J. Beastie Boys. You know, boom. So everything was summertime, summertime, summertime. In 88 they had two tours at the same time in the summertime. You had the Dope Jam Tour. Eric B., Rakim, Big Up to Eric B., Rakim, Kumo D., Big Up to Moe, Ice-T.

I mean, that was like, bam, everybody. And then on the other tour was us, Run DMC, Jazzy Jeff, Fresh Prince. That's Will Smith for y'all. Some of y'all. That was some old niggas in here too. EPMD. EPMD.

And also JJ Phat, right? And there's two tours. So at the end of that year, man, we had so much like momentum. I would say, listen, man, we could do a tour in the wintertime. And they say, yeah,

but groups is trying to gear up and all that. I said, you know, we could do a tour in the wintertime and go to each and every, but groups is trying to gear up and whatever. I said, you know, we could do a tour in the wintertime and go to each and every market that got brewing groups in their market. Two Shorts from the Bay, Hammers

from the Bay, Mix-a-Lots from Seattle. You know, Luke is from down here. The craziest thing ever is seeing Luke put the dancers on the S1W stands. Oh my God. Wait, wait, talk about what? Luke had the dancers. He had... First of all... Because Luke been twerking since back then. First of all,

he was Luke Skywalker. That's Luke Skywalker. First of all, big up to my bro-bro Luther Campbell. Not him twerking. You know what I'm trying to say. Luther Campbell. Let me tell you. Luther Campbell was the first... I always say that... He had the chicks twerking on the security. Before we get to that story. Bring me back to that

story. Luther Campbell twerking on the security. Luther Campbell is the first celebrity house I ever stayed in my life. Down here in Miami. This was your groupie days? This was in 1990. It was, you know, that was more like,

no, no, no, that was more like Luke's commander groupie days. All right, so anyway. I'm into this. So listen, all right. So Luke. I'm into this. So listen. All right. So Luke, I was doing this DVD with him, right?

Luke's DVD? I've seen some of Luke's DVDs. Yeah. Now, before y'all twist it another way. No, because Luke can hear the Luke's party. He was caught up in a political scale on America's Most Wanted. So we was part of America's Most Wanted, our sister ship. Wait a minute. No, I didn't know America's Most Wanted. So we was part of America's Most Wanted or Cicership. Wait a minute.

No, I didn't know America's Most Wanted. Yeah, because on the show? The law had, you know, the law down here in Dade County

had Luke up against the wall for Cicership. Yep. Yeah, but I didn't know he was criminal. So yeah, man. Yeah, he did this on Bad Rips, eh?

Like, take your ass to jail. Yeah, it was just simple. Oh, no, no, no. In the South? That was you going to jail. Yeah, it was just soon. Oh, no. In the South? That was you going to jail. Luke moved so much music and cultural weight in the South.

People just like to say, oh, man, Luke is booty, and that's it. No. No, he did a lot. Luke commanded the record industry because nobody wanted the South. Nobody wanted the South. It was like that bumpy ass, keep that over there. Luke was the first celebrity house i ever stayed in because i did the thing that night and i was like i'll go to

the hotel no luke said stay at my house you know and the white woman comes out with tea and shit like that i was like what the fuck you know i'm looking around it's like it was like, damn, they're like British, right? Golf course, you know what I'm saying? He had a butler issue. Butler, golf course. I was like, what the fuck, right? But, you know, I mean, Luke was the first people we met down here, down the street, right? At James. James L. Knight Center.

James L. Knight Center, yeah. Right? And he was upset about like, man, listen, I'm doing all this stuff down here. New York don't notice us at all. And me and Daddy O would be people like, come on in because the Def Jam thing didn't leave you passes. And then the thing about Luke, I said, he's also the first private jet we ever been on. God damn, make some noise for Luke. Listen, listen, listen.

Listen, listen to what I tell you. He ran pirate radio stations out of suitcases on top of roofs down here in Miami. Yeah, yeah, that was the thing. Let me tell you. You knew this? The pirate stations, yeah. Suitcases? I don't know about the suitcases.

Luke promoted us in a stadium full of 50,000 with the old Miami stadium with the hurricanes and all the things. The old Miami stadium. 50,000 heads up in there, right? We got to play a show the same night at the Omni in Atlanta. Luke says, listen, man, you can fly my private jet up there. I go up to the jet.

I'm like, what the fuck, right? And it got the same logo that's on the record company, on the record label. With the legs? Yeah, I had to touch the plane like this. I touched it and rubbed the plane. I was like, what? And we flew to Atlanta and headlined

that same night at the Omni. They used to call it the Omni back in the day. And we did two gigs in one day. And courtesy of Luke's private brown Luke Skywalker plane. Now, the only thing that stopped Luke was, once again, they saw him coming. Because he had a whole area

that nobody wanted. Come on, rap, hip-hop in the South? Who the fuck wants Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, you know, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. Nobody want them bumpkin ass. And Luke would put out

a tape and rule. And then the companies wanted in. Later on, that was the blueprint for who? Master P. But it didn't come to New York. Master P, right. Yeah, later on, it was a blueprint for Master P.

Oh, yes, that's true. That is true, yeah. But Luke was, and Luke got caught up with, they came after him like, take the logo away, you know? Like, you know, I think, what's his name?

George Lucas and them was like, you can't use- Right, he had to take away the Skywalker. I was like, oh, fuck. And, you know, I think, what's his name? George Lucas and them was like, you can't use. Right, he had to take away the Skywalker. I was like, oh, fuck. And, you know, that type of shit happened. And then the law and then the government and all that other shit. And then that was an opportunity for Master P to come up in there. And still, even Master P capitalized on all those territories nobody wanted.

But by that time, around Norris 98, the companies was like, I like Norris 98. That's the name of my new album. If I ever make one. In the 98. In the 98. Yo, man. Companies tried to make what?

Master P, an offer. Because they realized there's some gold in them. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia,

Alabama, Florida Hills. And they tried to make him a deal. And Master P was doing so well. Remember you said like 500 ads in the source? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? He had his own record stores on the West.

They tried to make a deal with him. And he was like, yo, man, what the fuck? You know, you got to come. And they said, you know what? We're going to finance your competitor then. And that's when he started to cash money. They financed his competitor. Shit getting real.

And then surrounded it. This is the same old, you know. And no disrespect to Cash Money, but that was the game that the majors would play to destroy black businesses. You know what's crazy? I'm going to be honest with you. I went to New Orleans around that time

where Master P was the shit. And I wanted to do a record with a dude, I think his name was Skull Dougherty. He eventually wound up being on Penalty Records. And I remember me being in New Orleans and me identifying with the only other Puerto Rican person that was there. It was a girl, she had fronts on,

and she was Puerto Rican. And I said, wait a minute, I've never seen fronts at that time. Like New York, excuse me, we had fronts. We didn't have what they have. Whatever it was. I was like, what is that in your mouth?

Pause. And I remember this day so perfect. I'll say I'm out there. I'm out here to meet what I want to meet with there I'm out here to meet What What I want to meet with no limit I want to

And I remember her Saying to me We on that cash money right now And I was like What And I kid you not It wasn't on the radio It was nothing

It was Like how you just said They funded A totally different ship It was a thing It was a thing like this how you just said They funded A totally different ship It was a thing It was a thing like this Yes You know we went from

Uh To uh You know It was like wow It's juvenile now I remember it being pushed And it was juvie It was definitely juvie

It was almost like One of those like Don't support this Support this On this label And you know I mean That's you know I mean that's you know I mean like I said

money toss God walks out of the room but what it does and like it's the old game it's the old game it's like you can put black faces you could

pimp black faces and you can put a black business out of business and but I think But I think also that there's ways to go about certain things.

I think numbers is the soul of a robot. And the human beings have a pulse that we need to understand that our mistakes are our mistakes, but bigger is not always better. And sometimes you can make better and keep it like this and be able to drive that small vehicle a long distance.

Sometimes the big vehicles run out of gas. Be the better version of yourself in a more compact situation. And I think that's the beautiful thing about art because it could be anything. You could license the ill. That's why the dude that did Dilbert, his name's Scott Adams. I don't mean to be doing a reverse plug here, but he got caught in a scandal

where he started coming off out the mouth and like stay away from black people and all that. Oh yeah, I see this guy. He had to license the ill as an artist.

Oh, right, the artist. If you just had Dilbert do all that, people would have gave a fuck. The minute you put your face on the camera and start talking to the mic, you out of your lane.

And you know what? You ain't nobody compared to your product. Your character is the one you should have spoke to. That's your license to ill. The minute you put your face on the camera,

and everybody feels that. Not everybody's equipped. When the lights and the camera action comes on, y'all see it. Sometimes you be like, they got to get loosened up because they be like,

yo, man, they want to fuck up. Where's the training in this? Somebody throw you three questions. Can you actually catch three questions and throw four back? It's a game there, you know what I'm saying? And it's an engagement there too. So it's not trained.

So a lot of cats feel nervous, man. It's like, oh man. But the key is, it's all right to say you don't know. And it's all right to be an owner of what you think. Because you know you could be a slave to what you say. So be like, I don't fucking know. Got to move on with that. But a lot of these training courses could also do better with having artists have, like, 20-year careers, 30-year,

40-year careers. Those cats from Motown, man. I mean, you just had the Isley Brothers on. That's right. Seriously. Ronald Isley sitting here

is like, how do you start? Like, it's incredible. And George Clinton. And both of them. Oh, yeah. Oh, and George. Big up to the Uncle George.

And that was a wonderful interview. Uncle George is like, I'm just amazing. And he smoked all the weed, too. I kept giving him weed. I thought he was going to say chill. He did not say chill.

Listen. He said the juju. Don't follow that path of Uncle. Yo, man, Uncle's done everything. He's built differently. He's built differently. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, right.

Uncle's done things that we don't even know about. No, he said it. He's built it for me. He's built it for me. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah, right. Unk has done things that we don't even know about. No, he said it. He said it. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams

and bestselling author and meat eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I said, did you say this? Plus on Apple Podcasts. Yeah, yeah. I took pictures. Well, they keep changing them. Yeah, it changes every month. We had DMX. So every couple of months, well, like... But yeah, he just came in. They gave him a spray can. He just started doing it. Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we got it documented? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We documented it.

Yeah, everybody's a screen agent, so that'll work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been wanting to ask you this question. And I've been in rooms where I can ask you this... Have you been lit up? Where I can ask you this question... I'm glowing from smiling. Where I can ask you this question, but this is... Let me ask you this question. Where I can ask you this question, but this is one of my favorite.

Let me ask you a question. People come up here stumbling and they be fucked up and nervous? Yes, they do. Yes, but this is one of my favorite songs of all times. But I've been in a situation where I could ask you this question, but I've never asked you.

I want to know, did you really get a letter from the government? Of course. Here's the story it's documented night in limber born in 1960 yes grand i'm a grandparent's crib you know south ozone park 1967 june that's where my family's from south ozone park what's going on exactly okay you know they they moved there from Harlem in 1955. Okay. You know, it's documented.

It's houses. You know, it's come to Queens from Harlem, white flight. Mm-hmm. You know, you got to study black migration. Black migration is like, ooh, we can move there, but white people going to move out, you know, back then. Right, right, right. So, 1967. Boom, June.

I'm out of school. You know, I'm going to, you know, I'm in first, second grade, something like that, right? My grandparents also foster parents of the year. So there's always boys around, right? 12, 13 deep, you know, it was amazing. Like, damn, they feeding eight people at the same time, a big vat or whatever. So one of the boys, you a big vat or whatever. So one of the boys, you call them our uncles or whatever, he just got out of high school,

went to John Bowne, right? Yeah. What are you doing, Chuck? This is my whole childhood. Let me just say something real quick. By the way, I never went to high school, but when I was in, I was in DFY, I was in Spofford, and my never went to high school, but when I was in... I was in...

DFY, I was in Spofford, and my mother came to see me, and I had just got accepted into John Bowne High School. So if I didn't get locked up, I would have been in John Bowne High School. So you're fucking up my whole childhood right now. Can I continue, John?

It was there before you was born. Yes, I know, I know. I just hate to enlighten you on that one. Rockaway bullet was there before we were born. You built it for the story. Anyway, sure enough, he just got out of high school. Wow. Dude walk up the walkway.

Fucking military dude. Dun-dun-dun, John, dun-dun-dun. Yeah. Uncle goes to the door. He's fresh out of high school. They hand him a letter. Dude's like, I mean, the regalia, man, like U.S. Marine, man. Pat gives him

that, walks right towards his car. They were going down to other houses, too. Uncle picks up the letter, right? Because you know, seven years old, you like,

what do you need? Fuck off. Move, move, move, move. I'm like jumping up. Remember, I ain't four. I ain't two. I'm seven, right? Going on eight.

You know what I'm saying? I got a little sense about me. I'm a Nick fan, right? Hard being a Nick fan. Yeah. Yeah. Sure enough, he takes the letter. His face drops.

And he's like, drops that fucking letter on the table. And goes just to the fucking backyard. Me, you know, I'm picking it up. And I can read a little bit. Seven. You know, so, so, so, so, so. You know, of course, I couldn't read the big words, but you have been drafted United States Marines en route, you know, through Camp Lejeune,

North Carolina, en route to Southeast Asia, Vietnam. Vietnam, wow. Drafted. End of your summer, dude, you got to be a camp of June in a week. And this is before Ali made these statements? Or this is after? This is in that period. In that same period. In that same period. I mean, by 667, man, Dr. Martin

Luther King makes a speech that kind of kicks everybody in the stomach like, oh no, he's beyond having a dream. He's like saying, you know, mother, fuck the Vietnam War. But they was like tucking that to the back. We can't have the dreamer say this. Even the government and the president was like, I thought MLK was my man.

So that was going on. There was no TikTok. Yeah, no TikTok. Not only that was going on, you had Muhammad Ali, June 4th, 1967. That was going on with Muhammad Ali June 4th 1967 that was going on with mom mom and I need two weeks and brown yeah all of them was in that's the black call this year I believe that was table in that was 68 oh I got it June June 4th 1967 1967 I stand corrected Bobby Bobby Mitchell you had Jim Brown Lou Alcindor at the time was later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

You had Bill Rush Kareem Abdul-Jabbar I said Will Chamberlain My bad It was Kareem Yeah because At the same time You know

The only ones that had A voice and a microphone This was athletes Back in the day It's like they'd give An athlete the mic And then pull it back But Ali wasn't having that

He wasn't Hershey Walker He was like fuck that I'm taking him I'm rhyming I'm praising Ali All due to Respect and praises to Allah. Who's Allah? You know, it's like, you know, every time, you know, every time they want to mess

with black folks, they just, I'm going to just fuck up your name. Like, Farrakhan. I was like, who the fuck is Farrakhan? What are you doing? Like, oh yeah, you know, like, they're they found it. They found it. What the fuck? Who the fuck is Allah? What the fuck? It's yeah, you know, like, they're an ally. And they found it. They found an ally. What the fuck?

Who the fuck is ally? What the fuck? It's like, you know, you have more, you see, but you got to be like Akeem Elijah, man. You have grace before I smack you. But anyway, yeah, he got that letter. He dropped it. I read that. I was like, yeah, no, he's fucked up.

He's not going. He ain't going to have a party this summer. And back then, you know no, he's fucked up. He's not going. He ain't going to have a party this summer. And back then, you know, Motown's popping. Like, you know, four times shake me, wake me until it's over. You know what I'm saying? Seven rooms of gloom. You know, Motown, let's get it popping.

You know what I'm saying? Nope, he's going to Vietnam. And the Marine Corps out there. Yep, and that's where that story came from. And the fact is that he and a couple other uncles came back. They got trapped. A couple came back, you know, and they used to come back with these purple hearts. And me and my brother used to put them on the G.I. Joes because they didn't give a fuck about the goddamn purple heart.

This is why a lot of cats was fucked up, man. A lot of cats was fucked up. up in 1969, 70, 71, man. 70 to 73. Because we got to go back and forth to cousins and relatives in the city all the fucking time, man. And going back to the Bronx, man, it was tough, man. Because cats is like, they back from Vietnam. Cats is shooting up in their arms, man.

And the thing that steered me away from drugs, man, was like, I could look at them and cats are shooting in their arms I don't fuck I mean the whole you know they destroyed the Bronx too and they destroyed the Bronx and said yeah black in Puerto Rico y'all lived here

fuck that you know we ain't never gonna service it and fuck it y'all gonna die there it looked like a war zone yeah it was a war zone and this is why we literally called it the burnt down Bronx at that time. Yeah, yeah. And this is where we're back into, you know, where we did the documentary. I had to mention that and dig up the Laurie Buller,

my magic partner on it, and Kevin, Kevin A. in the house, you know, and Dominique. Listen, the BBC PBS series, Fight the Power, dig up the Isley Brothers for sparking that whole thought. How hip-hop changed the world. The important word is the world. But out of that seed, out of the Bronx, it was disenfranchised,

left for dead. Out of that seed of, you know, it rose like a rose out of the ashes like a phoenix. Like people that had to do something. And big up to the Grandmaster Cats, man. Big up to the Grandmaster Flats, Bambada, Cool Herc, you know, all the cats in the

beginning, man, that just made something out of nothing, man. And I won't call it nothing, but it was left for dead. And we have to, also, the key thing is this. We can never ignore the context of time. Time has its context.

A lot of things, we're in the fast forward, go on and check it out on YouTube, check it through the screen. The reasons why books stand up, because books appear on your own time. Like, I don't understand this shit. Well, take your time and fucking slow it down until you comprehend it. It's the right context, right. Whenever you read through a phone, a digital, man, it could appear and disappear.

How many cats do you know always got got by three-car money? Now you see it, now you don't. Underneath the clam and the crab. Cats is like, oh, oh, oh. That's what social media is. Right. I got you.

What you thought you saw, you probably didn't see, man. Or you think, got you. What you thought you saw, you probably didn't see. Oh, say, you thought you saw it, right? Maybe you did. Maybe I'll give you something else instead. Like, oh, yeah, and they got you shaking to the lights. Oh, my God, you know, like that.

Digital appears and disappears at somebody else's behest. Now, we're in a time where people are attached to their gadgets, and I make no slander. I give no slander on scholars, on scholarship.

You know why? If we want to read, right? What's the deal? We read what we like to read. We're not fucking around with shit we don't want. What we don't want to read, scholars read every fucking thing.

They mostly read the fucking bad and the ugly, and they read the good, and they process it. That's why you can't have a debate with a scholar because a scholar read the pro-con in the middle side to come up with a... Understand the perspective. Right, so the only thing you can do is like, yo, motherfucker, I can't fuck with you. You know what I'm saying? Say that.

Because even in sports, it's based on a fact. It's not really based on opinion. When we start talking about the arts, we kind of get into the world of taste. What makes you like this taste and that taste versus whatever? This is the best champagne in the world. Well, there you go.

Okay. And if somebody threw you some cheap shit that hurt you in the fucking morning- I cannot do that. Right. So there you go. Okay. And if somebody threw you some cheap shit that hurt you in the fucking morning. I cannot do that. Right. So there you go. I don't have mimosas.

So taste is an important thing when it comes down to the art. But also, we should have a broad vision of where art is before we grade what art should be. You know what I'm saying?

But it's a custom taste, you know? And scholarship, when people have a debate about a lot of different things, man, I think we should hold scholars in high regard, man. Because like I said, they're spending most of their time reading that bullshit. That they don't want to read. That they don't want to read. And the thing about the speed of inaccurate bullshit out there

is beyond what the human mind could fucking catch. Because, I mean, this shit, the speed of what shit comes through your phones and the new, and understand this, in culture, in hip-hop,

every generation is five years. That's right. He said that. But, Mr. Chuck, we would like to praise you and give you your flowers to your face. Oh, man, I don't want flowers, man. No, we give it to you. Right give you your flowers to your face. Oh, man.

I don't want flowers, man. Yes, no, we give it to you. Right now. We give you flowers to your face. If anything, I want you to know. I want you to know. Flowers. Listen, I want you to know.

These are flowers. Okay, flowers. I like that. Flowers, yeah. I got a bunch of shit. Snoop Dogg said it's like a Grammy. Wow. Snoop Dogg said it's like a Grammy.

Is my daughter going to jack this from you? Yes, she is. Yes, she is. She's robbing me all the way up. Because we want you to really understand. Oh, man, this is special. We want you to understand how important you are to the culture, to us, to the world. You are a teacher. You are our scholar. How about that? Wow, man. Fuck us, yeah. To the world. You are a teacher.

You are our scholar. How about that? Wow, man. Fuck those other scholars. This is nice. Wow. Fuck them. Yeah, man.

And you said it earlier. You said you ain't going to church or whatever. No, I ain't saying I ain't going to church. If you were to open up a church, if you were to open up a church, I bet me and EFM would be the first two people to sign up. Oh, hell yeah. Well, actually, hold up,

hold up, because we need to talk about the hip-hop union. Yes, of course. Because that is the first thing we need to sign up to. You're not kicking me out already. No, no, no, no, no, no.

We getting drunk around here. No, no, no. We getting drunk. Let's make sure. You ain't got a drink. Yeah. Make sure she's good. Make sure she's good.

Make sure she has a drink. There's bathroom breaks and stuff like that. You can just do whatever the fuck you want. If you see me get up on... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let me go's good. She have a drink. There's bathroom breaks. You can do whatever the fuck you want. If you see me get up. Whoa, whoa,

whoa. Let me go back to the fight the power thing. And y'all had, listen, the first influence, the reason we fight the power, we were commissioned to do that song. Really?

For Spike Lee. Yeah. Cause a lot of times, you know, like, yo, what's crazy? What's crazy?

Last year with the Elvis movie, man, I got, yo man, it was like Elvis trolls everywhere, man. So catchers coming at me like, yo, what's crazy? What's crazy? Last year with the Elvis movie, man, I got, you know, man, it was like Elvis trolls everywhere, man. So catchers coming at me like, yo, Chuck, man, looking at me sidewise like,

why the fuck you do that to Elvis? Elvis was a hero of the most. Screen agent, right? Screen agent, that's it. So you saw a movie. So you saw a movie, got all sensitized and shit. Now you coming at me.

I said, number one. Because the line was Elvis. What was the line? Elvis was a hero of the most. But. Now you coming at me. I said, number one. Because the line was Elvis. What was the line? Elvis. Elvis was the hero of the most. But he never meant shit to me. Now listen. I'm commissioned.

That's not a bitch. Listen, listen. I'm commissioned to do a song for Do The Right Thing. Right. What's the key area in Do The Right Thing that's jumped shit off? My man Giancarlo Esposito Radio Raheem right No there's a theme before that Giancarlo Esposito says

Yo Sal how come there ain't no black people On the wall The whole fucking movie's about that You got a business in a black Changing black neighborhood And you ain't got no black people on the wall. And Sal was like, yo, man, the fuck, it ain't going to change. That's the whole fucking theme.

I got to write a song for the theme of the fucking movie. That third verse basically is saying, I'm scraping them fucking heroes off the goddamn wall. Cats be coming at me like, oh, I didn't know that that fight the powers in the movie what the fuck don't debate with me about what the hell no one thing i know is my shit are you gonna know me better than me yeah so you might know verses and shit like that i forgot because i'm not good on memory right one thing i'm on memory on, this is another thing about me.

I think if I had a good memory, like for bars and shit like that, like fucking cane and iced tea could say shit from 50 years ago. I think my head's too full with shit. I never had writer's block. I can't remember shit. It took me like eight years

to remember one fucking verse. But if I did have a fucking memory, I'd be the greatest motherfucker of all time. But you know, I'm up in the hundreds, so I'm alright. But I don't have a good memory. But as far as facts and picture memory of the events, it's just crystal fucking clear. So the Elvis

haters was coming at you. Yo, yo, they were coming at me like, yo, I saw the movie man, and I'm all fucking butthurt. I'm like, the fuck, man? Okay, so what happens in this movie? I don't understand. No, they were coming at me like, yo, I saw the movie, man, and I'm all fucking butthurt. I'm like, the fuck, man? Okay, so what happens in this movie? I don't understand. No, they're just saying it made them like Elvis, the movie. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Okay. And me, I'm a music historian. Okay. Yes, Elvis had attributes. I've seen you give props to Elvis in times. Badass white boy, right? Right. Whatever.

But at the same time, I'm talking about, I was 60s and the 70s. We were drunk on Elvis. All you got to do is look for black people. Look up black people in commercials in the 60s and the 70s. And how many, it's like society happened and we wasn't a part of that motherfucker at all. We were always part of the news. It's like so-and-so got arrested and thrown in the squad car, right? Always a part of the fucking first 10 minutes of the news.

We in that motherfucker. Then you'll see black people at the end of the news. Not even in the weather. You right? I was a part of the fucking first 10 minutes of the news. We in that motherfucker. Then you'll see black people at the end of the news, not even in the weather. You know what I'm saying? No commercials. Maybe on the ball field and shit like that.

They wasn't giving them the mic. They were afraid of Ali. You know what I'm saying? Dave Parker, people like, Reggie Jackson. I remember Reggie Jackson. First comes to New York,

he's like, he's a problem because he talks too fucking much. Well, you keep asking him questions. And she was like, and she was like, he's a problem because he talks too fucking much. Well, you keep asking him questions. And she was like, you know, effing normal.

Can I tell you how much as a growing black young man, I was insulted by society. I was fucking insulted. But you know what I said? It was my advantage. You keep thinking i'm a dumb motherfucker man really seriously and that's why when hip-hop came about and i heard people like starsky i heard i heard my melly mel man i thought yo man he dropped from god man i said i never

heard nobody the message no melly mel before records, man. Oh, wow. Yo, Melly Mel and Flash, the Furious two, three MCs, and Raheem. Yo, man, I was like, I mean, he's the first MC. And this is the Melly Mel moment, right? Because there's a bunch of Mel stories up in here, but I'm going to truncate. And truncate means condense, compress. I didn't know that, but for some reason I moved that into a super. Yo, Melly Mel, man.

You know, I used to like how rap was before records. Keep the party moving. I like to be broadcasted. So Marv Albert was very much a hero because the way I used to hear how he broadcast, not just the Marv Albert. Yo, man So Marv Albert was very much a hero because the way I used to hear how he broadcast, not just the Marv Albert.

Yo, man, Marv Albert. The nigga that be biting bitches. I mean, he would throw style in there. That's what I heard. He throw style in there, his vernacular, you know, and just a flow. You got a flow, you got a flow

because you got a flow when you announce basketball games, man. Yep. And I was like, I wanted to become a sportscaster and then hip-hop came

and I said, damn, that's sort of like the same shit. So I used to go down to the parks and just kind of like be on the sideline

just talking shit, right? And passes like, all right, boom. And then hip-hop came, I'm like, wow. So I would go to events, man, and everybody just thought they could rhyme in 79 and 78 for some reason.

They couldn't. It was trash. Yeah, because you're trying to get your dance on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And the worst thing is somebody on the turntables that can't fucking DJ and somebody on the mic that can't fucking...

Can't MC. Can't MC. And MC would mean that you had to rhyme, maybe you had to move the crowd, make an announcement at the door or some shit. But move that shit. Move your car or whatever. You have to emcee.

You have to keep that party going like that. You have to have that swag. So a couple places I would go, man, especially at the colleges, man, I'd be like, you know what, man? I'm going to get on the mic to sit these motherfucking wackos. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. Hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else.

Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser-known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and best-selling author and meat-eater founder Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here and I'll say it seems like the ice age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan

Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun sometimes the answer is yes but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no across the country cops called this taser the revolution but not everyone was convinced it was that simple cops believed everything that taser told them fromava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really,

really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Motherfuckers down so they don't stop fucking my dance shit up. And that's when Hank saw me at one of the colleges and said, yo, man, we need an MC.

I'm like, I just want to go to the parties and do the flyers, man. I don't want to fuck it up. And then that became a whole nother thing, man. So that's what got me jumped off. But the first MC that I ever heard on a mic in live and live in color that really fucking blew me away.

Kumo D. No, Melly Mel. Melly Mel. Melly Mel. Yo, man, Melly Mel, when he became a recording artist, I called Melly Mel Wilt Chamberlain because between Melly Mel and the second dude, and you can say it's Kaz or Modi or whatever, Melly Mel was like, Wilt Chamberlain, man, 50 points a game,

100-point game. It's like, he up here in the second, in the third, the fourth, and fifth is down there. He had the longest, the widest gap

or the best and the next best to me, my personal opinion, ever. And then he had a dude on the turntables that was just fucking, Melly Mel and Flash?

Are you fucking kidding me? Recently, recently, Melly Mel just went viral because he said that he believes that Eminem wouldn't be that great because he... I don't want to misquote. Because he's white?

And he said Kendrick doesn't resonate with people or something like that. Ten generations in hip-hop and rap. Every generation got his thing. And Melly Mel's generation, I think there was no gap. The gap was so far between him and the next cat. Moe D would admit that and shit.

Say, what the fuck? I was the second, and fucking Mel is on the mountain. But Eminem and Black Thought, big up to Black Thought and the Roots, and also Eminem, cyborgs, man. They cyborgs and confused.

But let me tell you this. We can't also get caught up because you got future generations and then you got people who ain't going to even get on the register who are so dope. Like Sky Zoo is so dope. Sky Zoo, yeah.

I'm going to get that record with Monty Love. You got Devon Usain out right now. Sky Zoo is so dope, but it's just like so many, there's a trillion MCs out there, so cats is going into their style. But here's where we could get a little USA arrogant. And let me tell you,

and they confuse arrogance, what you was talking about earlier, the confusion of arrogance and confidence and swag and audacity and moxie and all that shit. For a long period of time, wherever you are in the world, when a New Yorker walks in the room, do you feel it? They said we were cocky. They said we were cocky. We just had confidence.

Whenever you go on the planet Earth, when a New Yorker walk in a room and you ain't from New York you be like oh he come with that New York shit but we don't mean it that's what's fucked up about it we don't actually mean it no we don't mean it

we don't it's just uncertain confidence I love what you I love that I love you like I don't mean it but I mean it

but let me give you some relevancy because USA is make the same arrogant move to the rest of the world you're right

they can smell if you come from the USA. And in fact, number one, if you call themselves Americans, like nobody else can. Like if there's no other country. Yeah, there's no other country in the Americas. Central America, Caribbean America, South America. You saw Bolivia is not American, too. Now that don't count because we really the fucking Americans. That's the same motherfucking.

And expecting everybody to speak English. They're like, yeah, that don't count because we really the fucking Americans. That's the same motherfucking narrative. And expecting everybody to speak English. Everybody's speaking English. They're like, yeah, they don't speak English. You're like, no, you're in another country.

Meanwhile, the British are saying, oh, y'all getting the fucking shit wrong. I'll tell you the funny, I'm sorry to cut you off, but listen. This is your show,

don't you? No, no, no, I'll tell you the funniest shit. Excuse me. Whenever I see somebody who's like racist a little bit, I always say to them, you know, we should go to Europe together.

Because in Europe, we're all Americans. They hate us equally. Like the only time I've ever been, and this is real shit. The only time I ever like felt like America was accepted, I'm going to be honest with you.

This is when Obama was in office. When Obama was in office, it was like, felt like America was accepted, I'm going to be honest with you. This is when Obama was in office. When Obama was in office, it was like, America, you guys are pretty cool. But then when Trump got back in office, I was like... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, when Trump was in office,

that was the end of whatever was left of the black card that we used to get going around the world. We traveled the world. Listen, man, our first tour, we traveling, let me tell you, travels, I got 50 books in me, only put out 10.

I got 40 to go. I got to figure this one out. Because I got stories. Listen, we playing in Germany, West Germany at the time. Not Dusseldorf. No, that's West Germany. We're playing in West Germany. West Germany at the time. Not Dusseldorf. No, that's West Germany. We played in West Germany.

But we traveled on the bus and got to play Berlin. I love Berlin. Now, listen. You love postmodern Berlin. This is back in the day. What year is this? This is before the war? This is before the war comes down. Before the war comes down.

Now, in order to get from the line at the end of West Germany, you got to take this one motherfucking road to West Berlin, which is in the middle of East Germany, but it's split into two areas. So the minute you get to the fucking line, that's it, 4 o'clock in the morning,

they waking your ass up with dogs and flashlights. Who knows? And machine guns. And machine guns in your fucking face. And what do you do? You know, I was like, we concert music black people. They're like, get your ass every single one of your asses off

the bus in the middle of three o'clock in the morning in Skivvies, man, and we're going to look in your eyes and see if you're lining up with a passport to take this one-ass road to West Berlin and don't stray to get off this motherfucking road. Wow. You go to West Berlin

and you see a wall barbed wire dividing the city in half. I performed in West Berlin one time next to a Nazi club. I went outside to smoke one time next to a Nazi club. I went outside to smoke a cigarette by an idiot that I was. You ever feel somebody looking at you and you know

they looking at you? And I turned and I was smoking a cigarette and every one of these guys had a... Fostica. And what year was that? 99. Okay, so that was 10 years after the war. So it was fully integrated, but the thing about it, everybody

from the East Berlin side, the former steel curtain, the Soviet, well, as they call it, communist, socialist side, you know, were like, okay, listen, we're supposed to be one Germany now, but I ain't got no fucking leg up. You know, y'all

from West Germany got money in the bank. We got like a driver taxi cab for 500 years to be able to get an apartment. So you had a lot of that shit going on with it. So you damn right, Nazis was like,

you know what, we not going to be loud about this shit, but we need to bring Germany back. Make Germany great again. Right. Damn, they been making Germany great.

Oh, good. So back then, it's like, we got fans on the other side of the Berlin Wall that want to come to the gig. Oh, wow. But at the wall, the motherf it's like, we got fans on the other side of the Berlin Wall. They want to come to the gig. Oh, wow. But at the wall, the motherfuckers are like, you fucking get a bad case of the deads.

You know what I'm saying? All that fight the power shit fucking stops right here. And this is what I'm saying. Wherever you go, you can't be like, oh, yeah, I'm American. It's like, what part of America? You a USA-er. So we got to kind of tone down. And once upon a like, oh yeah, I'm American. It's like, what part of America? You a USA-er. So we got to kind of tone down. And once upon a time, we did have a black card.

Because we had a black card because people recognized our struggle. Oh yeah, Martin Luther King, they killed Malcolm X. Y'all motherfuckers are rebels, you're invited in here. Then later on, when President Obama, and I call him President, I don't call him Barack like people think they know him by name. What the fuck?

You know? President Obama came in. I knew that, shit, man. All right, he's President. Half of that black card is going to disappear because now he's the President of the United States.

He ain't going to be the President of black people. He's the President of the United States. What does that do for you, Chuck? You get a chance to buy some time. Four years, we get a chance to buy some time. Four years, we get a chance to buy the time to go to

where we got to go in the world, do to connect with our people. The diaspora is very important. The diaspora is black, brown people around the world. You know, it really is the human race, but we got to say black folks around the world

where it's like, okay, population, population is what, 13 to 15 percent? I don't ever know what a 2 percent means. Black people in the United States of America, right? What does that mean? You outnumbered. So you got to connect with the guys. You can't have no differences. Sometimes you might just say, you know what, I got to get an idea from this cat that's in Swaziland, and I got to connect with this cat.

We got gadgets. We got computers that are able to send better computers than they had when they sent something to the moon. And I ain't going to get into that conspiracy theory either. We don't know if they did. Whatever.

I'm not even going to get into that because I'll be having conversations with people that think they've been there. I'm like, you were born in 1981? What the fuck? They said Kubrick was the director. They said that he did the Atlanta. The green screen.

That was the first version of green screen. Hey, the motto of me, I believe, you know, my motto, I believe everything and nothing and fuck it all. You believe everything? Everything and nothing and fuck it all.

Love this motto. As it rolls, I got to like evaluate it, sit with it a while, sit it to the side. Like, you know, I'll get back to that later, man. I'm not going to tell you whether I believe or not believe. I got to like evaluate it, sit with it a while, sit it to the side like, you know, I'll get back to that later, man. I'm not going to tell you whether I believe or not believe.

I got to do some evaluation before your ass try to tell me what it is. So, I mean, the point that I'm saying is that, you know, in this way to go around the world, I just think that we could be more

aware. I mean, this place is in the world, seriously, think that we could be more aware. I mean, this place is in the world, seriously, where we're playing Taiwan, where they say Taiwan. You didn't see that shit that they said in the war when you hit the airport? No. Anything bought in this country, penalty is death.

Yeah, they don't fuck around a lot. They kept my ass in the airport. I had a sword that we used on the stage. Oh, yeah. They had a road car in the road and left me. Like, where's James? Them little dudes had me in the corner and said, you cannot bring this in our country. Did they have a smile on their face?

None of them had a smile. They had machine guns. Little dudes. Little dudes, definitely. I went to Singapore, and when I landed... You can't spit. You can't spit. No, no, no.

When I landed in Singapore, they put me to the back. I thought I had a kilo of cocaine. You know what they put me over for? What? Cigarettes. It's illegal to buy cigarettes if it's not from Singapore. I think that's where they lashed... There was an American kid, I think, in the 90s

that they gave lashes to for doing graffiti. Well, let me tell you this. You spit, you go to jail. Let me tell you this. Know the law. Know everything about the law that you go. And know exactly. Just know, understand that, man, there's 220 countries

on this planet, or 222, that James just recently said. I thought it was 2014. A place that's split into different factions and shit. Know it. I was playing in Jakarta with Prophets of Rage. Big up to Prophets of Rage. Yo, man, they was like, listen, play your songs, do not

speak to the audience. We're going to tell you once. They didn't say it again, right? I'm sorry, I'm a Mac if you... Play your songs. Play the song, but don't speak to the. They didn't say it again, right? I'm sorry. I'm a Mac. Play your songs. Play the song, but don't speak to the audience. Don't say shit to the audience. Right.

Now, here's another thing. So how do you do this? You just... You play your songs. You can't say, throw your hands in the air? That's talking to the audience? No, no. Stop the song.

By the way, I think that you... No, none of that. You can't be like, yo, homegirl in the purple. You look good. That's like... You're toeing the line. I mean, we played in Beijing back in the...

Listen, we played in places where they were seriously... I thought Beijing was just for your shit. What, Beijing? I got lost without effing it. After you said that, I was looking for him By the way He's been trying to correct you all day His name is DJ EFN

You're just his hero You're just a Mike Tyson thing He's just looking He's like I'm not correcting Chuck But on my drop He said It's DJ FN

No he said EFN No I promise you I promise you He loves you He loves you. He loves you. Listen. Is he crying in the bathroom? No.

I don't know. I'll be... Let's go come up with some funny edit. I'll be fucked up trying to... Oh, yeah, by the way. EFN. It's like, what the fuck? Y'all did it on two different days?

It's like... I promise you. What the fuck? Oh, man. I the way, EFN. It's like, what the fuck? Y'all did it on two different days? It's like, what? I promise you. What the fuck? Oh, man, I'm so sorry, man. No, it's all good. Another problem goes to crazy. Y'all had crazy legs on, right? Yes, crazy legs.

And pickups, the crazy legs. One of my heels. Look, man, he said I don't pick up his phone, right? Every year he would ask me to come to Rocksteady. We was on tour. Every fucking year. And I was like, bro, I'm sorry.

And it would be around July, which would go into my birthday. And it was like, damn, man. Every year. And every year was on. I didn't even show up to Ice Cube's Big Three. Because every year

he would have it July and August. And that's why I said, finally when the locomotive slowed down, I was like, now I'm able to see places on my own time, man. It's like, but yeah, big, big, you know, apologies. And yeah, I mean, I don't pick up a phone. I mean, I'll be looking at a phone. I'm like, I'm never answering this motherfucker ever. You know?

So you got to text me and i could give you a whatever back but you know it's it's it's just what it is man we circle man it's like you know how it is now you know what's crazy i was hearing you say that what i just thought was i'm now revisiting places that i've been to for performance like i've been to hawaii so many times honolulu but i went there for business. Oh, DJ D.F.! Yeah! So, so, so, so,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So,

So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, So, that first half of this show. But it was crazy because I, you know, I revisit places now that I've only been to

for work, right? So like, there's so many places like Hawaii, there's so many... And you find it's different when somebody pays you to go to a place.

Yeah, because, you know, you know what's crazy? They pay you to come in. So now somebody says, can you come in and actually pay the fucking flight?

It's a totally different thing because I remember me actually hating Paris. Like, I'm sorry for people that live in Paris. I'm sorry. Y'all didn't wear deodorant at first.

Your owner at first. Listen, your owner, to what you think. So at first, I used to go to Paris and I used to be like, I don't want to be here. No Eiffel Tower.

Nothing attracted me, right? I met my wife. God bless her. My wife said, motherfucker, you getting out this hotel room and we're going to motherfucking go. We're going to eat the bread. We eat the bread. I fucking rode a bicycle. I felt fucking retarded.

But I was just like, oh, okay, this is culture. This is what we're supposed to do. I didn't know that. Being from New York, we want to keep our Timberlands on. We want to keep our Timberlands on in the ocean. We don't break. And it was the first time

was my wife just was actually showing me that, listen, culture, this is what you kind of do. But I took all of this for granted. But you're from New York. Yes. How much culture is in New York that have you visited? Nothing.

I've never been to the Statue of Liberty. See, see. A lot of New Yorkers, when you tell them, like, listen, there's so much in New York. Right. You really kind of ain't got to go nowhere else, but you've got to go to New York. You know? Listen kind of ain't got to go nowhere else, but you got to go to New York. You know?

None of, listen, you've been to my studio. I've had, 32nd and Madison, I had a studio across the street from,

down the block from Empire State Building. I've never had the urge to walk into Empire State Building. That was, That was my whole life, right? That was my whole life. Meanwhile,

people in another country are dying. You know what's crazy? This is what, this is what's crazy. When you go to Europe, right? I feel my whole life. Meanwhile, people in another country are dying. You know what's crazy? This is what's crazy. When you go to Europe, right, and you speak to someone from Europe, right, they always say, because the states, by the way, I hate,

stop calling us the states, fucking assholes, right? It is the states. But that's more accurate than us saying American. But here's it. If you ever speak to someone from Europe, they say, so you say,

they say, yeah, because you know in the States, it'd be like that. And I'd be looking at them, I'd be like, okay, so which state have you been to? And then, no disrespect to Seattle,

but then they'll say something like, oh, I've visited Seattle. And they went to Seattle for two days and they based the whole America off of a visit from Seattle. And I'd be so happy to crush their dreams. And to say, you've never been to America, sir. You've been to Tacoma.

But your culture didn't start. The first thing you said, Dusseldorf, but to play Germany, you play eight different places because you've also employed eight different people. Frankfurt, Berlin, Dusseldorf. But the average person is going to go to one city on the train. I'm going to Hamburg, Frankfurt, Berlin, Düsseldorf. But the average person is going to go to one city on the trail.

I'm going to go to Hamburg and come the fuck back. But you can't judge Germany over Hamburg. But that's why artists have the window to teach the world to those.

No, it's the same hamburger. To those, you know? It's Hamburg. Hamburg, yes. And Frankfurt. And I've been to Frankfurt. And Frankfurt, yes. And I didn't eat a hamburger

on Frankfurt up there. You know? I just didn't. Well, that's the license that artists have. It's like, you know, give us your time and we'll give you the world.

Right. But, you know, sometimes when it comes out, I want to give you a black side of the world, but everything about us is fucked up. It's like, yo, come on, really?

It's like, we ain't got some, we can't even say the word beautiful. That was the thing about us is fucked up. It's like, yo, come on, really? We can't even say the word beautiful? That was the thing about Kendrick Lamar. He used a beautiful in his vernacular. Kanye has done things that make you say, wow, that shit's beautiful. Same shit you said. People ask me about Kanye. I said this for

years. I said, well, he started his own religion and the dude is like Salvador Dali. Oh, shit. That's a good... But if you don't know Salvador Dali, it's like once again. Right, right. I mean, I've said bars and lyrics. I said, you ain't going to catch up to this shit until you become cultured. It's like, but I'm not trying to educate you at 14. That's somebody who's 20 that you love has got to do that job.

Me, I'm like, you know, I'm like, like me, we're sexagenarians, man. That's our official title. You know, you're in your 60s, man. So you should talk about things that's in that area. We call ourselves Earthesons. Yeah, Earthesons. Earthesons.

It's a beautiful thing, man. The world is beautiful, man. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Nature, nature will destroy so much shit. That's the fucking ugly aspect of it, too.

Right. You can spend your time on the Weather Channel always talking about the next disaster, but you're giving me a sunny day some goddamn time. Everybody just can't do that. So it's a beautiful... Hip-hop is such a beautiful art form. So back to that earlier.

The Hip-Hop Alliance. Please, yes. Which is hip-hop's first union. Because I heard that you guys also mentioned that. We tried to start it ourselves. We were talking about it early on, but I'm sure you've been doing it. The godfather of Big Up, Curtis Blow, who seriously has the longest timeline of anybody in recorded hip hop history.

He signed the first major record contract in 1979. Matter of fact, I think even in 79, they went to look and scouted, they tried to sign Eddie Chiba

or some of the other stalwarts, and they end up saying that Curtis Blow is the perfect person. And by no surprise, and ain't no accident, you had what?

Christmas rapper out in 1979. He was going blow as Curtis Blow. Yeah, Curtis Blow, and then you had The Breaks. And then by no surprise, when we casted first doing records, they were the best that did it because nobody else was doing it at that level. It's no surprise that Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five recorded, you know, first for Brasilia in October.

Then they did Enjoy with Bobby Robbins' label. Super rapping. Because them dudes are super rapping. Super rapping. Melly Mel, Kid Creole, and also Free Kid Creole. Please. But that's why we have the Hip Hop Alliance.

Kid Creole. You got Raheem, Mr. Ness, a.k.a. Scorpio, and Keith Cowboy who invented the term hip hop as far as a recording. That's what Grandmaster Cash said on here.

Told us the story, yeah. Hip hop. Yeah, I mean, and each one of them MCs were blazing. And you put them together and make five MCs sound like one

with Grandmaster Flash. What? It's like, by no mistake, they was like, you gotta do records. So, big all up to Sugar Hill Gang because they the first.

And really, it's debatable because King Tim III was playing with Fatback Band with, you know, King Tim III, which was, I mean, Fatback Band was my favorite, one of my favorite groups. So when they came out, I heard them on

WKTU in July of 1979. I was like, damn, he rapping. And that's something, whoa. But when Sugar Hill came out, the thing that puts Sugar Hill over the edge, they rapped on Good Times. And my God, there's never,

ever, ever, ever been a track monumental to hip-hop and rap music like Good Times. 1979, man, the summer of 1979, hip-hop was so crazy with Good Times because it was like what? It was from Chic. You talking about Good Times' show? No, the song. Good Times' record. Okay, right. By Chic, the group from Chic. You talking about Good Times Show? No, the song. Good Times on record. Okay, right, okay.

By Chic, the group. Okay. And they were like, what? They got coined Disco because they made the greatest record that happened to play in Disco. Okay. You know, like, what? Freak out!

Before that, everybody danced. So they was like, right? So they got kind of like coined as a disco band, but they was just a badass motherfucking band. And so when they came out with Good Times at 79, I remember being at a party, you know, and they said, this new record by Eddie Chiba broke it, right?

He came out to Long Island. He said, Eddie, you got this new record by Sheik, you know, and everybody's expecting like the music be up tempo like that. They played Good Times and that shit started like... And we were like, what the fuck is this country slow shit, right? Right. He played it two more times that night.

It's like, okay, she just slowed the tempo down to some country funk, whatever. But man, in two weeks, DJ's got a hold of that motherfucker. And down to the... Good and, and, and, and, and, good times. Boom, boom. And that, yo, man, I'm telling you, you can't even describe how hip-hop was in June, July, and August of 1979. There is no explanation for it. There is no, and there's one tape that's going around. I call it the greatest hip-hop night ever. It was October 1979. It's out explanation for it. There is no... And there's one tape that's going around.

I call it the greatest hip-hop night ever. It was October 1979. It's out there on YouTube. I've played it on my radio show a bunch of times. Big up to everybody at Rap Station. Yo, man, it's Starsky on the turntables, DJ Hollywood, it's Eddie Chiba,

it is DJ Divine from Infinity Machine, it's Grandmaster Flash, Curtis Blow, and Melly Mel. And they are like, yo, man. You couldn't take your eyes or your ears off of them. But it was inconceivable that somebody would make a rap record. Because even me, I was like, rap record? How the fuck are you going to put rap on a record? It's a three-hour thing, man.

It's an event. I was like, it's impossible. I was like, impossible. And I ain't no kid. I'm 19 years old. I'm like, it's impossible to make a rap. How the fuck? And then when King Tim III came out, he was like,

hmm, okay. And then when Sugar Hill did it, it was like, yo, that's it. And the thing about it, bro, that shit was 16 minutes long. Yeah. The ironic thing is why you always got to put time in the context. The 16 minutes was not how long it was.

It's how short they got it. That's a short. Right, right. Because it was emulating what was happening. How the fuck they got it down to 16 minutes. I'm going to tell you, I've said this a few times. I was at college getting on the mic to sit, whack MCs

down. They played Good Times. I'm rocking the fuck out of Good Times, right? All of a sudden, I hear words behind me. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

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It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams, and bestselling author and meat eater founder, Stephen Ranella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here, and I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here

didn't have a real affinity for caves. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. DJ's Larry T. Words behind me. So what do you think I did? I did the fucking Milli Vanilli.

I kept moving my mouth and I was rocking for fucking 20 minutes. Remember, I was rocking good times for four. So sure enough, man, people were like,

damn, he's changing his voice. Even the chicken tastes like wood. All that shit, right? At the end, Cats is coming up to me like, yo, he's a bad motherfucker.

He's just riding on and on because back then, he's like, he went on and on, you know, to the break of dawn. Like hot butter on the what? The popcorn, right?

I'm like nonstop running. Right. I turned around after people like left. I looked at them and I said, what the fuck? What's that?

He showed me. Red label. Rap is the light. Sugar Hill Gang. I was like, what? Wow. My brains were Rapper's Delight, Sugar Hill Gang. I was like, what? Wow. My brains were blown.

The next day, WBLS. This is Frankie Crocker. And I got a new record by my friend Sylvia Robinson. This is called Rapper's Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang. You heard it. Yo, the city was on fire. Wow. City was on fire.

By the next Thursday when I did the thing, Cass was like you nice chuck but come on man that's how long i've been riding i've been riding with shit they sneak a record behind me got words on it oh so fuck oh man but let me tell you man i can't even i can't even like i can't weigh the magnitude of hip-hop before records, man, and that record, Good Times. Good Times was just... I can't imagine it.

It was fucking... It changed everything. To this day, thinking about it, that's why I'm saying the context of time is everything because you can't go back in the time. The same thing about when Melly Mel might say, I could get any rapper. Well, the thing about it, you got to hold the context of time and time is real yes like if you say well melly mel let's say if

he wants to take on well it's where exactly i mean that's another story i could say that's it right but but i respect it all you got to do is, Melly Mel, if he was 19 in 1979 and you wasn't born yet, then you couldn't compete. That's why when they say boxers, you put Tyson against Ali. But where do we start? Do we say when Ali is 70-something and Tyson is 30? Or do we do when Ali was 20 and Tyson wasn't born yet? He was a zygote and shit. I mean, so what do we compare it?

Oh, you you trying to move time to make the you cannot compare errors you cannot move time we don't have much changes in that time the construct we could dream of some shit like you know like well so and so in this prime versus so and so in that prime well how do you gonna know what the prime is and so it's art it's it's fun to do these things. It's fun to make lists and shit like that. Everybody, oh man,

rolling stone. Let me ask you a list. Do you think Flavor Flav is Boosie's pops? We always come up with questions of what we think Flavor Flav is.

He said, ask him a time. I felt it, but then when I see them together, I was like, maybe this is not as funny as I think. Because they kind of really do, and I love Boosie. I love you, Boosie, wherever you at. I love Flavor Flavor.

But my good brother Norrie, when you study the diaspora, you know that many of us got twins and triplets everywhere. Matter of fact, when we first played Ghana, they wouldn't let Flavor leave. He had that many kids out there? No, no. We don't believe, we won't believe that you're not from here. Yeah, like they thought he was from here. Yeah, you're not leaving, right?

We had to show eight people, I'm not from there, I'm somewhere else, so. They think he from Ghana too, Sonny. You from, yeah? No, he from Haiti. Oh, you from Haiti? He from Haiti, but they don't accept him in Haiti either. They don't want him in Haiti

either. Big up to Haiti. They kick him out of Haiti. But guys, the Hip Hop Alliance, man, we need the Hip Hop Alliance. The whole world's still mad at Haiti. It's a big up to Haiti. Anyway, the Hip Hop Alliance, the chairman Karras won. Up in the brass is

MC Lyte. Curtis Blow founded it. Asked could I be down, but it's notass is MC Light, Curtis Blow founded it, Ask Could I Be Down, but it's not especially Ed, but it's not about who's at the top, it's like the more, the better, and you have to have people who are concerned about the infrastructure of artists

who've been in the business a long time, never understood you know, like, okay, I recorded 15 years ago, 20 years ago. Like, what does that mean? They got their kids growing up that have no idea what their dad even did. Or better yet, like, how do we, it's a legacy to be passed down. How do we go after it? Who do we go to?

My dad did bars, but what does that mean? There's something for everybody. Trust me, if you don't go get it, somebody's going to go get it. Oh, yeah, but he only did a guest collab on a feature like 1995. You don't think somebody's on a tail end of that? So the young, you know, I wouldn't even say young because that's subjective too, man. What is young, man, but our people are in the business without understanding of what this whole

business is, which means that you have to have people that come along that even align by your family or some organization that lets you know what is, you know, and that's what I think the Hip Hop Alliance can do. Number one, really, is what I think the Hip Hop Alliance can do.

Number one, really, is in partnership with SAG-AFTRA. Right. I used to say it all the time. I feel like SAG was a perfect model. That's the biggest part because Curtis Blow, you know. Because SAG is that for actors, right? Yeah. SAG provides that same type of. Not just actors.

Anybody in the film industry. Because me and EFN, I don't know. Are you all SAG members? No, no, no. I'm a SAG member. I'm a SAG provides that same type of... Not just actors. Anybody in the film industry. Because me and EFN, I don't know... Are y'all SAG members? No, no, no. I'm a SAG member. Recent SAG member, yeah. Me and EFN have always been pushing this hip-hop union because I feel like anybody...

I know how hard it is to be famous. It's the worst job in the world, right? Because you can never take off your mask. Like, I don't give a fuck how many times I could do. Like, you could check in to McDonald's. You could check in

to construction. Once you take your vest off, you're off. I'm done. I'm never off. You're never off. None of us is never off. Don't think about doing

no crime shit nowhere, ever. Nothing. Before cameras. Don't think about like, yo, man, I could fucking do the dirty, dirty or whatever.

It's like, yeah, okay, all right. You got the ID everybody's trying to fucking get. Right. Don't think about like Yo man I can fucking do The dirty dirty or whatever It's like yeah okay Alright You got the ID Everybody's trying to fucking get Right So I say this to say I always felt like It should have been

A hip hop union for us And especially people And I get it Like sometimes they say Well what if the person Didn't make it What if the person Didn't go platinum

What if the person Didn't go gold? It's even more we should take care of them because they had to endure the looks of being shown and saying, oh, okay, this guy was a rapper and he didn't make it. Even worse,

the one-hit wonders. The guys that have one hit. All the participants. I mean, I feel like we should what I'm saying. What about the B-boys, the B-girls, the graffiti artists? I feel like we should take care of them. I feel like. It needs to be the whole community of hip-hop.

I feel like, I feel like, I feel like this is me personally. If you are participating in something that makes you famous and it doesn't actually work for you, I feel like we should. It's in us to take care of that. It's in us to say, this is inhumane right here. Because it's so hard to be famous, man. It's so terrible. So you can't go to CVS? I don't want to go to CVS, but I want to get in Carbone early.

So, yeah, so what's up, Molly? You looking young as shit. You fucking, this motherfucker here. Molly, what's up, Molly? You looking young as shit. You fucking, this motherfucking here. Molly Wayne is doing it. Molly Wayne. But I feel like the hip hop union, by the way,

we want to support it. You got to dance with fame. That's all right. We got to support it. We got to support whatever it is. But it shouldn't be just for people seeking fame because there's a lot of people behind the scenes that are not seeking fame

that also deserve to be taken care of. That's what the Hip Hop Alliance has done very clearly. It's not based on, yeah, the faces that draw it in, but you need infrastructure people. Right. This show is built out of also infrastructure people that make it click and make it work. Right.

The masses out there, sometimes we confuse, like when it comes down to us, they just say the masses, They just move the M over. Right. They consider our masses them asses. Masters, you say? The masses. Okay, my bad.

They just move the M over to them asses. I got confused. See, I got bars that pass people like Taxi Cab is 86. Let me also ask you, you sued Universal. I've sued and been sued, man. Matter of fact, there's so many damn... I mean, in that world,

the average person has no fucking idea how many times that you're sued. It's a gunfight. No, but Universal, okay. Which lawsuit was this? Because I believe

that you sued on behalf of hip-hop? Yeah, I've been part of the class action suit. Class action. So, okay. In my contract, let me relate it to me, right?

You've re-read every page. Never. That's what I'm saying. I ain't read shit. Let me tell you this. Chuck. When the average person says, well, how come you rappers

didn't read the contract? I said, you did the same when you, like, I accept on fucking social media. Or you bought a car or whatever. I accept, I accept. I don't even read. I just accept it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I'm just like, we get lawyers if we feel that this person we can trust, but yo, man, it's such a thick business and then you got a contract

that's like this. And somebody told me, he said, the reason that contracts are like this is because every single page is a fucking lawsuit. Right. Fuck. You done shot away three children. I never, when I look. So you have penalty records. Yeah, penalty records, yes.

So when I went back and I looked at it, nothing digital says anything digital about my country. They didn't have any digital rights. There was no digital. But the first line says what? I don't remember. I just wanted the money. We all do. It says in perpetuity in the universe. Yes. Territory. Territory. The world and

the universe. Yeah, the universe. How the fuck? Which is wild. You're not signed into the universe. If we somehow get the fucking Neptune and shit. Yeah, the universe. How the fuck? Which is wild. You're assigned to the universe. If we somehow get the fucking Neptune and shit, you know what I'm saying? They taking your records that you put out in Mars. Big up to Jay-Z because Jay-Z is like our Jupiter. And the reason I say Jupiter is like,

you know, if you study the solar system, Jupiter absorbs all the asteroids, all the collisions that would destroy Earth. They don't go because he's big enough to absorb and protect the solar system with his magnitude, which allows us to fucking do anything. God damn it.

God damn it. Big up to Jay-Z. Big up to Jay-Z. I'm going to hear people go, hey, no, no, no. I was like, shit, man shit man he's gonna absorb all that shit and I was like there ain't no asteroid hitting me fame is a fake

construct you know fame is a four letter word I teach to tell people I said listen I got a second story office in the world of the entertainment business where I always can go to the penthouse whenever I want to but I choose to stay on the second floor because you can walk up the staircase before you catch the speed elevator.

Now, talk to me before you go on up there. Sometimes the cats are out, take the speed elevator up and then they'll see me. I say, I'm going to go back to the second floor, but the speed elevator doesn't go to the second floor. It goes straight down to the basement, maybe even a crash landing. See me before you go up

because it tells you how to handle the world of fucking fame, which is a four-letter word that is synonymous with fade because because it's a false construct, fame has a tendency to fade. It's a false construct. It's not really real.

And that means it's another four-letter F word. F-A-K-E. Fame might fade and it's faked. And if you don't believe that, you're fucked. See me on the second floor. Because I get up to

the penthouse whenever I want. I don't stay there. I'll be like, whoop, whoop, whoop, you know, bam, bam, bam, I'll go right back down to the second floor. That's where I'm comfortable at. But cats see me on the way up, and their rise and their levels to wherever they got to be, I applaud that.

I just say, enjoy it, man. I mean, come on, man. I mean, enjoy the process of dancing with fame because you're better than fame. Fame is a construct. You do real art. You're a real thing. So it's something that you do. And I think,

hey, listen, man. 62 years for going my 63rd year, it's good to be fucking me. Goddamn, make some noise for that. Now, let's just... I don't want to be bigger. I want to be better always, but I don't want to be bigger. I just want to just be me

and be able to continue to help. And when I see my man and other people, my fam and the group and all that, and they have things and they're able to do things, and people that work with me, like C-Doc, who runs my record label, you know, Flatline, the rap station,

we just came out with the Bring the Noise app, which is cultural media. It's not social media, it's culture media. So it's the first app, and it ain't easy to make apps. We gonna get off of Twitter? No, no, everybody can stay on Twitter, they can stay on YouTube, they can stay wherever, youtube wherever twitch whatever and here's a funny thing it's like you know back in the day you know i would have somebody say well watch it chucky you don't know them people like that i'm

like by the fact i don't like everybody trusts these things like they know these people like elon musk or zuckerberg give a fuck so with me i'm like i'm not telling people to come along this is just going to be there. And it's about fam. It's about film, art, music. And if you want to put your thing there, we'll coexist. Small little piece of real estate. Won't try to be social media, which sometimes,

you know, like Scarface. Pick up the Brad Jordan, Scarface. We call him Scarface. We keep calling him Brad. Yeah, he says, man, you know, Chuck, man, you know, shit is a sandbox, man. You can't have the strip pole in the sandbox. You told me that, I said, yeah. It's a great idea, though.

Yeah. Okay, we'll keep that one to yourself. That takes us to a whole other thing. You know, the pole is a good thing, but the sandbox is where kids play. Oh, I forgot that part. Oh, you forgot that. I forgot that part, yeah.

I live in Miami. It's a tough day. I'm staying everywhere. Staying everywhere. Today, man, it's like, to me, it's like everybody got this 10 generations, man. There ain't no reason why a 15-year-old should try to appeal to a 20-year-old. Right. Right.

No reason. No, not really I mean if a 40 year old appeal to a 20 year old just be yourself they come cool if they don't come but in social media

catches up in a you're feeling an insecurity void that's on you they're competing against each other there's no fucking way right

just be who you are grow gracefully embrace aging as opposed right I mean death is a real thing you never been on black twitter nah I'm in with Be who you are, grow gracefully, embrace aging as opposed... Right. I mean, death is a real thing, man. You never been on black Twitter?

No, I remember when black Twitter came along and I was like... And no offense, because if they all come at me on black Twitter, I ain't reading it anyway. I'm just saying that...

I love black Twitter. They tell me, shut the fuck up. Well, I don't... But listen, listen. We got to watch these other platforms because sometimes these other platforms, it's like other people up. Well, I don't, but listen, listen. We got to watch these other platforms because sometimes

these other platforms, it's like other people own the platform and I'm like, that's like motherfuckers throwing cotton at each other on a motherfucking plantation.

Like, you know, I'm on that person's plantation and now I'm on that person's plantation throwing cotton. I build my own platform and I'm just like, it's whatever. We'll stick to the culture,

but, you know, I mean, plantation wars is social media, man. Nah, we don like, it's whatever. We'll stick to the culture, but you know, I mean, plantation wars is social media, man. Nah, we don't need it. Oh yeah, matter of fact, I'll answer your question. And like I said, we family now. We've been family. White media. Yeah, white media. Okay, shit, we didn't know we were going there. Not me.

I mean. When I did the PBS series, big up the PBS and the BBC combination, obviously I have a long readout of obligations, so it wasn't like I was ducking and we were circling.

Oh, don't worry. No, you don't have to explain it at all. No, no, I'm saying, but listen. By the way, we are honored for your presence. Listen. Whenever Chuck wants to come and be here.

There is white involvement everywhere in the United States. Yeah, I was a little mad at you. I seen you doing the white media. I was like, what is he doing? Come home, Chuck. Come home, Chuck. Chuck is home. I was very pleased when I came and I saw the neighborhood.

I said, well, at least this shit is in the neighborhood that I recall. As a matter of fact, down in Miami, right? I can remember where we at, right? Yeah. Down in Miami, I remember they even built Miami Arena in the hood and said, we can't have this shit here no more. And they fucking tore down Miami Arena. Yeah, that's where one of the Sorcerer's Wars happened in Miami. I was like, why would they do that? They said, you know what? We can't have our fucking arena there. And I said, that's where one of the Sorcerer's Awards happened in the old Miami Arena. I was like, why would they do that?

They said, you know what, we can't have our fucking arena there. And I said, that's the first place that, well, not the first places we played,

but the first arena arena that we played down here where the Heat first played. Yep, yep. So they tore it down. Yeah, they tore it down. How the fuck you going to tear down

the arena? How highly, niggas. That's how they are. That's who they are. So tell us. How highly? So tell us. I just threw highly on you. I'm sorry. So tell us, DJ Ian. Kyle Hialeah, niggas. That's how they are. That's who they are. What did you say? Hialeah? So tell us. I just threw Hialeah on you.

I'm sorry. So tell us, DJ EFN. Tell us, DJ EFN. What happened with that? They just, I don't know. That's, to me, it's. We don't know. No, we don't know.

Does anybody know? Do you know? That's an MOV. That's a Miami Orange Bowl. It was an Overtown. No, no. He's talking about the Overtown. That was an Overtown. An Overt. He's talking about the old arena, the Heat Arena.

That was an Orange Bowl. That was an Overtown. An Overtown. Can you pass me the shopping? Because they built up some stuff. We talking about the Miami Arena where the Heat first played. Yeah. I took the Ronnie Cycley.

I want one. The Ronnie Cycley Miami Arena. I think it just became a money thing to build a new one, so they had to tear down the old one. That's what I think. Something there. I've lived in Miami for 15 years. Our local government is pretty shit. 15 years, yeah.

I thought that New York was the foulest, corruptest place in the world. I was wrong. Our local government is pretty shit. Miami, you can pay to get on probation out here. This is real. This is real. All probation. We know this. We know this. We know this. We know this back in the day because Luke had so much power here.

They hated every move that Luke would make. And Luke was also hip hop. He was everything, man. He's a pioneer in everything. And I said, damn. But Luke, you know, still made changes. He helped sports teams out. He's still here. And he's the person to go to and get advice on I said, damn. But Luke, you know, still made changes. He helps sports teams out. He's still here.

And he's the person to go to and get advice on how to do your thing. Right, yep. So, yeah. But before we get up out of here, I need... I wouldn't keep it sealed. Nah, man.

We're opening up. We got a couple of days. Yeah, look, look. I got this shit coming out. I'm not gonna lie. And I'm not here to sell shit or beat people's ass with the pass and shit like that. But this is my pride and joy. But I got not going to lie. And I'm not here to sell shit or beat people's ass with the pass and shit like that.

But this is my pride and joy. But I got to talk about that because that's what I gave y'all. It's my first art book. It's art. Yeah, it's my fine arts book. So I ain't got to read? No, you ain't got to read.

All right. It's working. Look at the pictures. Drawing it. I got markers. Shit. I'm fucking with you. I'm fucking with you. I'm fucking with you.

I'm going to read a little bit. A little bit. And this is, I'll just pass around. I got to take this back. Okay, hell yeah. This shit heavy as a motherfucker. Yeah, man. I could throw that shit and it hurt somebody.

Yeah, yeah. But that's my, those are my naffy grovels. Oh, wow. And what I was able to do for all my years in hotel rooms, especially with Prophets of Rage, is that you got hotel time.

Wow, this is dope. That's right. Sit down. Hotel time, man. Down time. It's like, when my dad passed in 2016, I thought that,

you know, I'm getting back in my heart full time. But my down time was the best therapy in the world. And then I did ayahuasca, right? Oh, you did? Ayahuasca?

Oh, you do drugs? After all this time, you're going to do drugs? I've always wanted to do ayahuasca. Listen, listen. Your daughter's like, God. You did a ritual. You did a ritual ayahuasca. Can I educate y'all?

DMT is a drug. Yeah. All right? Ayahuasca is not. Also, listen, listen. I'm educated from the best sensei a person could ever have, and that's the great B-Real of Cypress Hill, all right? So...

He's my sensei, too. But, yeah, DMT is a drug. So when my dad passed, you know, I'm not hearing all that, oh, he's in a better place and all that, you know, whatever. I said, you know what? I feel that I need to know where their spirit, you know, is at. And sure enough, my Pilates coach, big up to KL, she's part of a community of people who did.

You got a different Pilates clothes. Huh? You got a different Pilates clothes. Your Pilates clothes introduced you to the drop. It was going around, right? And the conversation. The conversation was going around. And at the same time,

Timmy, who's the bass player in Rage Against the Machine, he done everything. And Timmy was telling me about you know his trip but doing DMT and he said you know like cats do mushrooms it's like you see

you know an elephant and you shake your head you don't see the fucking elephant he said when he did DMT one time you see the elephant

shake your head and that motherfucker yell him the fucking elephant you know what I'm saying do it right there I'm like and Timmy's coming from the greatest

rock bass player on the planet. But he tells a fucking story. His stories is just like, you lean in so far, it's like,

motherfucker, you are nuts. But you're like, wow. So he told me this and I was like, whatever. And then when my

Pilates coach said she's a part of a community, remember, ayahuasca is the sacrament. It's the spiritual sacrament of the church. Yeah. So I was like, so anyway, I was like, man, you know, I'm going to do it. She's going to cut the shaman I know is going to cut my house.

My daughter is funny. She's like, daddy, smoke weed first. So I'm like, you know what? I need to know where my dad's at. You know what I'm saying? Because I feel he's at,

but you know what? Ain't nobody giving me no answers that I need to know right now. I mean, you talk to a man 55 years, and all of a sudden, boom, the silence is like, yeah, you know? And my dad, like I said, my dad and my mom is like,

people tell me about heroes out there. I say, well, everybody's a step down from them two. It's like, shit. You know when cats would say, yo, Chuck, your pops, man, you know when cats is 100, yo, your pops is 1,000. I'm like, he damn right. He's like, that dude is amazing.

So anyway, I wanted to know where his spirit was. So sure enough, the shaman who always go back and forth to Peru. Remember, it's like illegal. Yeah, Peru. We fly him in from Peru just to roll blunts. There you go. There you go. He already knows the travel. So she came to the crib

and I felt when it was administered this chocolate, it's illegal in the country and all, but at the same time you know, you're going through enzymes, you're going through all kinds of training and the padding of the chest. I was as funny as a motherfucker. You know, the room started to bend and all that, but I felt for a split second

I had this communication. I was good. I was like, fine. I didn't have to do it twice. I felt for a split second I had this communication. I was good. I was like, fine. I had to do it twice. I felt for a split second I was communicating with your father. Yeah, man, for real. I mean, like, and it was like kind of like three quarters through.

So are we making noise? So a year later, a year later, I'm sorry. A year later, I was like, you know, I did it. I already got my answer. But a community came. It's like, well, you want to come to the community to my house, you know, and actually, you know, revisit it with a community and see.

I was like, I don't know. I was like, I got my answer. You know, I ain't got to do ayahuasca again. But then I said, okay, cool. I'm going to try something. Well, I went to the community. I mean, to a house. About 10, 15 people were there.

Same shaman. And I was sitting there. I was like, okay, okay. All right, we got a group of people. So I asked her. I said, give me a ream of paper and a bunch of markers. So I sat in one spot in her living room. And then, of course, our Oscar was administered and the sacrament and all that.

And sure enough, yo, I went through 85 illustrations, right? In four hours. But the crazy thing was, right? I was drawing shit out of every rap, you know, computed memory shit. And I was drawing with a style that, you know, when you draw a paint or whatever, a lot of people do the exterior, and then they go in. This shit was the energy on and form the exterior. So I was going like this and not even

looking down at it, right? So the thing is, when I stopped doing it, then the room started to bend and shit like that, right? When I started again, the room was clear as I'm speaking to y'all right now. So I'm doing just 85 illustrations, right? to y'all right now. So I'm learning just 85 illustrations right? Came up out of that shit.

So after you know you descend I'm like cool but my hands are doing this. Now remember I told you earlier I believe everything and nothing the fuck at all. Some things ain't meant for us to process and understand why and what.

I got my answer the first time. And the second time I said, well, it doesn't mean like, okay, I need to get ideas to fucking go and do ayahuasca so I could go into that zone and get ideas. I don't need that. What I was told is that because I'm an artist, and this is an important thing for artists, and this is why we're in a war of art instead of an art of war, we already have the ability to go and ascend and descend inside ourselves on an elevator of

creativity. We're pregnant with ideas. Everybody has art in them. Not everybody can get art out of them. So it's a rare opportunity when you have people create, and I'm going to create a furnace. Ever since that time, I've done 30,000 illustrations. Yeah, I got downtime.

What the fuck else am I going to do? Boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm very fast because I worked at courtyards. Not courtyards. Courtroom speed. And courtroom speed is back in the day where you have an illustrator go in and fucking, I got to do this shit and get to the news station. Well, now, you know, cats can do this shit and fucking email it

or zip it to somebody. But back then, cats used to have to boom, go in the courtroom, sketch out the courtroom, get to the fucking courier, get that shit to the TV station, get that shit in there at 620 and shit like that. So you had to be a fast illustrator.

So that's what these books have come out of. And these are early works where I, you know, and I didn't mean to cut you off before. I just wanted to get to the gist of the matter.

I've always been asked, oh, man, how could I get this? Because social media really allow art to come out. Back in the day, if somebody was an artist, he'd be like, yo, man, come to my gallery.

Yeah, yeah. I see it. So I ain't going to an art show. But social media is like, out back in the day if somebody was an artist he'd be like like yo man come to my gallery yeah yeah so i ain't going to the art show the social media is like boom i'm gonna put some shit up man wow and then that shit led to like well how could i get this shit do you print i know no just download this shit i don't fucking do it and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger and then people like why don't you do books come on on, do books and and that's how that led to that. I mean, so everything in this business I never sought out to do. From the Def Jam shit

to the Prophets of Rage to art books, they always been a demand that dragged me in. The shit I like to do is unattractive shit. You know? The shit that people end up wanting me to do is the shit that like, oh man, we'll make that shit something. It would have been crazy You know The shit that people End up wanting me to do Is the shit that That like Oh man We'll make that shit something

It would have been crazy If he would have put Ayahuasca on his list You know On the writer On the writer No cause you know A writer

That's the most My most famous My most favorite part Of this show Is when I ask You know the artists What do they want to drink What do they want to have

And like Like on the list If you would have put Ayahuasca on it that's a next level drink chance and we would have done you got to bring the shaman yeah that's a drink chance for the ages right but remember you know in in every ritual you guys have a ritual where it takes to it takes you to the place the end result is is, like, you're having a good time, you open up, you know. I had never been a person, and, you know, where we come from,

we're like, listen, man, I mean, anybody can do anything. The crack epidemic was a problem because, I mean, there's a lot of problems with addiction on drugs that are forced in the neighborhood, because, like, back in the day, boom. Remember, we doing parties and shit like that, man.

I mean, come on, man. We up there rocking clubs, man. I mean, it's five in the morning and you think it's like a music and cats ain't blinking and shit. They're like, yo, keep going. He's like, yo, we think it's like, yo, man, we roasting this fucking place, right? The cat's like, yo, man, the cat ain't blinking. Yo, that shit again.

That shit again. So, it was the politics of the game that's fucking people up. It's like, yeah, now, damn, yo, I don't give a fuck if you smoke or whatever in a cornfield. Now you're going to bust my window, fuck

my shit up, and steal my shit to keep your shit going. That's the political problem I have with that. Or better yet, you're going to come into our gig, you're going to wear fucking dookie shit to get robbed and break up the fucking party. We used to tell people, no gold. You can't win no gold

in this party. A kid fucking just like, yo, I worked at fucking Walmart fucking all year to get this gold chain and come in there with my pretty girl. I'm like, dude, don't do that. Do this shit right here. Take this shit and leave your shit in the car. Every once in a while, you get some asshole, man.

Sure enough. Yeah, right? And then you all talk around. You look at six cats and you want to take them on? This party is ending man we can't have that so public enemy did practical shit take the no

don't wear the gold because you can't protect the gold it's like you one cat man this cat's looking at you like like a steak on a platter like I see I need my man to wear my chain, okay.

I don't know if they're wrapping me up because I'm talking to this guy. They're wrapping us all up. Listen, y'all, man, we love you. We love you. We love you. We love you, too. All right.

We love you. Hey, hold on. Let's look, I don't think I've ever done this in an interview, but I got to give you a hug. Man, face to face, man. Thank you so much, man. I really appreciate it. You have no idea how much you mean to the community, and we're going to always support you.

And I definitely want my autograph. Oh, yeah, I need mine, too. Let's not forget that. Drink Champs is a Drink Champs LLC production in association with Interval Presents. Hosts and executive producers NORE and DJ EFN. From Interval Presents, executive producers Alan Coy and Jake Kleinberg. Listen to Drink Champs on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mine is at Who's Crazy on IG, at DJ EFN on Twitter. And most importantly, stay up to date with the latest releases, news, and merch by going to drinkchamps.com.

I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, so join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes.

We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.