Dumb Blonde - Tech N9ne: Pain and Punchlines

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Throwback Thursday (Originally aired: 4/21/25)This week, Bunnie sits down with hip-hop icon Tech N9ne to go deep into his life and legacy. From growing up in a religious household in the Wayne Minor projects to becoming one of the most successful independent artists of all time, Tech opens up about his roots. He shares stories about his mother’s epilepsy and schizophrenia, surviving an abusive stepfather, finding sobriety, and why he’s still smiling behind the mic decades into his career.They talk about everything from his signature rapid-fire flow to building a loyal fan base without ever going mainstream. Travis O’Guin, Tech’s longtime business partner and co-founder of Strange Music, joins the convo to share how they built their empire. Together, they reflect on making music that helps people, the kind of artists they believe in, and what’s coming next, including Tech’s upcoming album and audio series 5816 Forest, which chronicles his early life through 17 episodes.Watch Full Episodes & More: YouTubeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Kelly Rolls-White Bunny X-O Is this thing on? What's up? You sexy motherfuckers, welcome to another episode of Dumb-Blon. Today, this man has built an empire, pushed the boundaries

of independent rap, and outworked nearly everybody in the game. Mr. Tech Norn is in the house. Happy to be here, Mama. Dude, I'm so stoked you're here. I had a bucket list

And it was Dolly Parton, Joyce Myers, and Tech Nine. Whoa. I've done Dolly. I haven't done Joyce yet. And then I've finally got you here. So I'm just like so strong. I know. You're a busy man.

Oh, yeah. Got to keep it that way. You know what I mean? Time waits for no man. Ever. Yeah. My dad always says Rolling Stones gather no moss. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So I've always lived my life by that. But I finally, and you know, now that I've gotten a little bit older, have learned how to kind of like slow it down a little bit. Yeah, we were just talking about vacationing, you know what I'm saying? Taking some time for yourself. Yeah, I'm going to go to Monaco and see the Harry Bush ladies that you were telling me about. They might not be alive, girl.

They were pretty old. Tech was telling me he just went to Monaco and I was like, or he told me he went to like Ibiz or something. I was like, did they have any nude beaches? And he's like, no, but we did go to one in Monaco. Yeah, we went to one in Monaco. It's always really old people that are free. Yeah. You know, it's not like on the movies.

You see, it's all young people. Listen, the geysers have no shame, all right, right, right, right. And I think once you hit that age, you're allowed to just let it, you let your freak flag fly. And the dudes are never ends. We always see the dudes from the back, you know. Oh, man. Just ass on the knees. It's like a place like right on the nude beach where you can sit down and eat and drink, you know what I mean?

And people are like walking by. You're like, what? Who the fuck is eating on a nude beach? beach. Us. You know what? I can't even talk because I used to go to swingers clubs in Vegas and eat the fucking buffet there.

Well, let me take you some about strip clubs, you know, strip club food. Yeah. I used to eat strip club food. You know, they have chefs in there making those sticks. Yeah, so I used to, I grew up in Vegas. So I used to work in the strip clubs in Vegas. And some of them would have five-star restaurants where we would have to wear like gowns to go sit with our guests in there.

Right. Food was fucking fire, dude. It's an establishment. They've got to have the right food. I just feel like a nude beach, you know, with just all the bush flying around would be a little weird. That's exactly what you'll see. Bush.

Bush. You see no young folks, no people in shape. I'm talking about this is my experience, what I've seen over the years. Because I'm usually with people that say, hey, man, let's go to the new beach. I'm like, you don't want to see the new beach. Please, take on, let's go to the new beach.

Okay, let's go. You know what I'm going to twist my arm. You don't want to do it. It's not what they think, the ones I've seen. Yeah, yeah. I've seen one, what's over the, what's, what's, what's that place over there, Travis, where St. Thomas and it starts with an M. St. Martin.

There you go. I've seen one in St. Martin. Oh, we're going. We were actually going to go there for my birthday. See, we got to go. The nude beach is calling me. So they have one in St. Martin? Yeah, we call it.

I'm black. They call it St. Martin. Oh, okay. Oh, I don't know. Is it Martine or Martin? I don't know. It's spelled like Martine. Oh, okay.

I see, I might be pronouncing it wrong. We were in St. Martin, you know. I'm not with the bougie shit. So I don't know. I've never been there. So it could be St. Martin. That's all good. A lot of people probably say Martin.

We call it because St. Martin, sorry. So did you go to the nude beach there? I'm so curious. We were at the place eating that's off the beach. Okay. You're always eating at these nude beaches. I'm seeing a pattern here. funny on Scorpio but it has nothing to do with that.

It's usually people with me. I know it sounds like an excuse. It's just me just zeroing in on the nude beaches. People with me that I take on tour with me, you know, they're like, hey, they got a nude beach. I'm not just touching down like, where are the nude beach? Listen, I am. I'm that person. So it's okay.

No shame. But if you want to see it, you know what you go see it, it's not what you think. Yeah. All right. For what I've seen, maybe somewhere in Dubai is different. I don't know. Maybe. You know, maybe in Africa is different.

I don't know. Have you been to Dubai yet? Nope, not to tell you. I haven't either, but I heard the women out there are just to die for, like just beautiful, gorgeous. Yeah. I found mine in Puerto Rico. There you go. Yeah, Puerto Rico.

I love how much you love your girl. Yeah, man. Every chance you get, you get to give her. 10 years, 10 years. We got married in our 10th year. Oh, my gosh. I love that. So you guys just recently got married?

Yeah, July 20th. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, we're newlyweds, man. I love that. But I think a lot of people, you know, the song said, why do fools fall in love? You know, people just, only fools rush in and this, that, and another. Yeah.

I think what I learned from being married before when I was 22, and I had those two babies at 22, what we were talking about earlier. Yep, and we're going to get into all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, we got married, of course, because we loved each other, but, you know, it was for our baby. You know, she's like, I want to have a baby, you know, I don't want to have a baby out of a wet lock type of thing,

you know what I'm saying, you got married. But what I learned from then to now is I think that people don't take time with each other, you know, to date each other. And then, you know, it takes time to move in. Some people just jump right in. And you don't find out about each other, you know what I'm saying, in a short period of time like you should. No, you did it right.

You did it right. Different chemical levels and stuff, you know what, saying that happened. Masks come off. Not just with women either. I'm just talking about with well as well. You know what I mean? You don't know what motherfuckers are crazy. You don't know nothing.

You don't know what happens when she's PMSing. You don't know none of this shit. You know what I'm saying? If you don't put time and learn how to deal with it and not fight negative with negative, you know what I mean? I didn't know that when I was younger. Yeah. You have to learn your person.

Jay and I actually got married 30 days after meeting each other. And the first three years of our relationship, I don't know how we made it. Like I talk about it on the podcast all the time. Like it was so toxic because it was two people who, two fucking strangers who from two different backgrounds, I'm a Vegas girl. He's a Nashville boy trying to figure out life together. And, you know, if I could go back and do it again, I would wait to get married and just kind of, you know, learn each other because people don't do that anymore. Like it literally people, everything is like we're in the microwave era. Yeah.

So it's like everybody wants everything now. you know right right right i heard somebody snoring and i saw the dog oh the dog yeah he's right here in my mind i was looking around like who the hell is sleep right now he's the co-host i didn't want to lose contact with you but you know i'm like in my mind i'm like who the hell is snoring he's literally the co-host i said i know that ain't travis no it might be he um he's he's literally over there alone that's your voice full your friends fun their parties yeah he's literally grown up in this chair So he'll sit here the whole podcast, but you'll hear him snore. And every once in a while, you'll see me shake him.

It's all good. Snore doesn't come through. He can snore. It's his house. So the snore doesn't come through. And he's comfortable with your voice. And, you know, he's comfortable. That's my baby.

So tech, I have done for the past two days, nothing but research you. And you, he's like, okay. He got nervous. It's a lot. No, it's, you know what? Did you find the drugs and the liquor? I found all of it. And the women all over the world.

Did you find all of it? I'm telling you. I'm telling you, though, I think you have such a testimony. And it really makes me understand you more. It makes me understand the music more. And I just want to take all of my listeners on that journey with you. Yes, man. Because it's really a beautiful ride that you've been on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you have worked your ass off to be where you're at. Totally. I mean, I think it's just so cool the shit that you've gone through and that you've risen from. When you know you have something special inside, it don't matter how many obstacles are in your way. Yeah. Because you push them out of the way.

Yes. And people that try to create the obstacles because they don't understand, you'll look back and they'll all be shaking your hand. I didn't mean to make that rhyme. No. It's just you're a poet and didn't know it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's so real. So let's bring it back to your growing up in Kansas City.

You grew up on the Missouri side, correct? Yes, it did. born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. Take me on that journey with you and your family and kind of like your upbringing and your background. Yeah, my family, Christians, hardcore Christians. You know, we live with my grandmother, my mother, her brothers and sisters, lived in a house

in the projects, 904 Michigan and Wayne Minor projects. You know what I mean? And I couldn't really listen to rap music in that house. It was all gospel, but I found rap next door at the Reese's house next door, my uncle Ike and all of them. I was crazy about hip hop early on. So at a young age, you just knew that that was like instilled in your soul. I was born in Wayne Minor from birth till 10 years old, we moved away. So from birth to 10, I was there in Wayne Minor.

and I found so much music outside of my house. But what really stuck with me was the hip hop that was coming from next door. Do you think that was because you weren't allowed to listen to secular music growing up? I never thought about it like that. I just thought it was something that really made my hips hop.

You know what I'm saying? Hip hop is about dancing. When you think about a hip hopping, you're dancing. And I was a dancer before I was writing rhymes. So I always wanted to do Michael Jackson. And this is way after Wayne Minor, though, but I wanted to, you know, do whatever dances I saw outside, you know, from the older people around me. When did you get into dance?

Was that at a young age or was that after 10? I remember fourth grade, my mom buying me break dance clothing, you know, loose breakdance clothing with white gloves and everything and shoes. and me being in the talent show, pop locking to a song called Scorpio by Grand Master Fletge on the Furious Five. Scorpio, because I was a Scorpio. I guess I was aware.

I really liked the song Scorpio, Mom, I want to dance to Scorpio. I can't even picture that right now being in fourth grade saying, I want to dance a Sugar Hill gang, Scorpio. I love it, though. I was doing Like a Virgin at 5, so it's okay. Oh, like a virgin, yeah.

Yeah, I got in trouble. Listen, Madonna was huge in the 80s, okay? Yeah, and Wayne Minor, I was trying to kiss at five. So I read about that. And if you could take me on this journey, so you grew up in this really religious household. Your grandma was very religious, and, you know, you had that spiritual influence on you

or religious influence. Yes. But you had cousins that took you to a drive-in theater. No, that was my uncle Ike. Okay, Uncle Ike. Uncle I. Yeah, oh, you're talking about it? Let's talk about Uncle Ike.

Uncle Ike is my savior, I swear. You know what I mean? He's still here today. Oh, awesome. I love that. He took me to the drive-in show with him and his friends on a weekend. And I was so young, I was five. I was so young that they put me on the ground under their feet with like a rug or a towel over me or something on the floorboard.

and they had their feet on my back to get me in. They got me in. I remember they let me up. They say, Dantes, that's my middle name, Dantes. You know what I'm saying? They call me Dany for short. Like, Donnie, people are going to laugh. I think they don't know my name is Dony, you know.

But they say, Don't piss yourself now. When you see what comes on the screen, I'm like, what are you talking about? And it was a triple X movie. and I remember it being Tarzan and Jane. And Jane just kept getting fucked by these gorillas. But you're five. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I mean, Uncle Ike, what the hell's going on?

He was young, too. Oh, okay, I get it. So he didn't realize. I was like 62 now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was young too, you know what I mean? So, you know, I remember. To see that at five.

It was traumatizing. Right. Because I remember it starting off in everything. I didn't know what was going. on. I'm talking about they're showing it going in and out and everything. I remember it. At the fucking drive-in movies? Yeah, it's triple X. I had Cinderella at mine. At Triple X. You know what I'm saying? It's like after a certain time at night, they would show maybe it was Fairyland Drive-in. I don't know. I forgot which one we went to because I was so young.

Yeah. What a different time of life, right? They showed triple X films after a certain time, right? You don't know? Oh, I had a drive-in. Yes. Even Travis. Oh, damn. Well, we're going to look into that. Yeah.

I was there. No, I believe you. I'm talking about like at the drive-in, the big screen, they snuck me in. I know what I mean? I know. And I 100% believe you. I just feel bad because at five, that's got to be a lot to take in. They were creating a sexual monster.

Right. Yeah. Exactly. That's right. You know what I'm saying? Pared with the Humphrey. road guard pictures on TV, you know what I'm saying? Here's looking at you kid and kissing and all that kind of thing.

You know, I was trying that at five. Right. You know, um. Well, you're acting out what you were learning, you know? You didn't know. Nobody told you like, hey, this is wrong or, hey, you're not supposed to feel these things or, you know. They influence from what I see, you know. Absolutely.

And, uh, that I didn't piss on myself, like they said, you know. Sweet boy. But, uh, I remember, I remember Tarzan being upset. that Jane kept on wanting to go out into the jungle and get fucked by the gorillas. What a memory. What a memory. Do you feel like you took that with you through life, though? How would I remember this?

Like to apply that? No, I would never want to be fucking in a jungle. I don't know. He's like, no, no, no. But I mean, like, the possessiveness is what I mean. Like, you know how, like, you said Tarzan was possessive. Never, never have, they said Scorpio's or. are jealous.

It's never been me. Really? I've never been jealous. You know, in my time before I hung my player jerseys up, like tapestry, you know. I used to share women with my fellow friends. Yes. You know, like, she was with me first, but if, you know, because sometimes people on tour, they love the circus.

Oh, I know. Yes, I've been on tour with all the boys. And all the people in it. Mm-hmm. even the bus driver. Really? The bus driver was getting action? No, I ain't telling on no bus driver.

I'm saying, I was like, damn, we gotta hook Elmo up. Even the bus driver. Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. From what I witnessed, you know. Gotcha, gotcha. Nobody is left, you know, unsatisfied, unless they don't want to.

Right, of course, of course, all consensual. That's the only thing about podcast. You know, it turns into interrogation sometimes. No, no, no, no, never, never, never. No, no, no, not from you. Yeah. I'm long-winded. Oh, no.

You're totally fine. I love it. But I was saying, to finish what I was saying, I would share back then. You know what I mean? I was never a jealous, Scorpio, you know, when I'm dating a woman or whatever. But it taught me later when I found my maturity mid-40s. It took a while. Yeah.

I always say I met a morph. I met a morph. and that morph that I made in my life was maturity. And that's when I started feeling like I didn't want to share that energy with everybody anymore. It was a tour that I went on with J.L. and Joey and all these artists that we had on the label that they saw me breaking up with all my women all over the world. You know what I mean? Like I found somebody.

I want to try something different. I've never seen these women again. They were coming for just one thing, and it wasn't for technology. show. Right. You know? Yeah. And it happened later on in my life, like I say at 45, you know, respecting myself and feeling like I didn't want to share that with everybody anymore. Like, this dick ain't, this dick ain't for free, you know, like Kendrick said, you know. And not that you can pay for it and get it. I'm just saying. I mean, if they could, it's all right. No, no, no, no. No, he said, no, no, no. So let's circle back. So let's circle back.

to your childhood. Your dad was absent in your life, but he was LAPD. Yeah, Carlton Cook, rest of soul, LAPD. What was your relationship like with him? I've seen him every 10 years throughout my life. You know, because, you know, my mom was 16 when she had me, and I guess my dad had several women in town, you know, and she was one of them. And I remember seeing him. And I remember seeing him. him when I was like six. I wrote on his, I remember riding on his motorcycle with him in the projects. Then he moved to L.A. I didn't see him for some years. I seen him again when he when I was 14. He would have parties at his mom's house in the hood when he came home. They would celebrate cook coming back home. And I would see him having. I would see him having a

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

I remember, you know, sneaking in the kitchen and drinking some of the liquor and stuff like the bad kids, dude. You know, and I saw women crying, leaving crying. you know what I mean? But after that, I didn't see him for another long time. I think I became Tech 9 within those, that 10-year period. I remember him saying something to me like on the phone.

He's like, hey, man, another 10 years is coming up. We've got to see each other, you know. That had to be hurtful as a child, though, to like, you know, I don't know how you handled trauma or pain as a child, but, you know, most people would be like, you know, kind of resentful that their dad wasn't a part of their life. It wasn't my life. No.

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

Right. You know, he never taught me how to drive or, you know, how to do things the men, but my uncles did. You know what I'm saying? They taught, try to teach me a lot of things. that they could, you know. But I never felt the way about my dad at all. I don't know why.

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

And we're going to get there. We're still focusing on baby tech right now. Yeah, baby tech. Well, I saw a lot of things, you know what I mean? But I only saw my father in certain periods of my life, you know. So let's zero in on your mom a little bit here because I know your mom's a huge influence in your music and in your life. And, you know, growing up in a household with her wasn't easy because she did have epilepsy.

And also was she diagnosed schizophrenic? That was later on before she died. Yes. Okay. I was later on, she had her first seizure when she was 18, waiting for my father to come pick her up for prom. He stood her up. And she had her first seizure. That's what my aunties told me.

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

That was during my third grade period. Okay. third and fourth grade i think i love how you i wasn't laughing i just love how you just can remember everybody like first and last day like it's like oh i lived it yeah and i had to hear them fighting in the next room and you know um my dad moved away and we moved away from way and we moved away from wayne minor when i was 10 in the 50s 59th school parkway and um that's when she met abul hasan and rasul Califa. It was a couple of boyfriends in between there, a guy named

Nugi. I remember he had he was really, he always had on really good Cologne, he had a George Washington Afro, you know, big back here, you know, I remember Nugent. They're probably like, how does he remember these things? Yeah. Because I would be in the car with him when we're going places, you know, Nugee, she dated Nugie for a while

and then I guess she met Hassan around that time. She wasn't dating Nugie anymore. And she married him when I was 12. She married Abul Hassan, Rasul Khalifa. So my Christian mother, my devout Christian mother, had so much love for a man that she married a Muslim. Wow.

And, you know, Muslims and Christians been having quarrel since day one, you know, when in actuality both worship the same God, one God, you know? Yeah, Allah. Yeah. It's just, Allah is just a. Arabic word for God, just a different language. Yes.

You know, but the Christians at the time thought Allah was a man, you know. We won't get into that. Yeah. You get to talk about God being a man and universe. I don't want to piss anybody off. No, you're fine. I mean, we talk about everything on this podcast. But so that he wasn't the abusive relationship that she was in.

No, he was not. Charles Wade was. Charles Wade when I was in third grade, yeah, man. He was. So you had to witness that, you know, amongst having your dad, you know, in and out of your life. Yes. You know, dealing with the sexual stuff.

And then having... Charles Wade was a gangster. He had gangster white walls on his Cadillac. He had gold tooth. I was real close with his son, Chuckie. I talked to him every once in a while still. I think he lives in Texas. I love that you keep in contact with him.

He was in jail. He was a barber as well. I mean, he was a barber. His father, Charles Wade, he's still alive. He found me because I found Chuckie on tour, you know,

people's like, your brother, I was in jail with your brother, Chuckie. I'm like, ah, Charles Wade,

Jr. Yes, yes, yes, me and Chuckie were always cool, though, because we were kids, you know. But his dad was turned up,

you know. And, um, I'm veering off because because I was talking to Chuckie later on my life, his dad got my number and called me and asked me for a pickup truck. I hung up. It's just crazy to me that you can traumatize a child like that and hurt a woman like that

and then circle back years later and be like, hey, can you get me something? Yeah, he got his karma after beating my mama at her job. He went up to her gas, uh, KPNL gas service where she worked downtown Kansas City and got her outside and beat her up to was she busted her head and all kind of things and put her in the hospital, you know. Oh my gosh. Shortly after that, he robbed a bank and got 25 years. So good. He did get his karma.

And he got caught because they said he was on the scene of the crime, he drank a sun kiss and dropped it. You know, they got his DNA. And left his DNA. Yeah, yeah. What an idiot. Talk about karma, though, coming around. I heard. Yeah.

I'm sure he's probably like, that ain't true. So, you know, you and your mom finally get away from him and mom marries a Muslim. Take me on this journey because how was that adjusting to having a new dad 24-7? It wasn't about having a new dad all of a sudden because, you know, I never really had one. Right, right, right. That was constant. It was about coming from a Christian. background and home to a Muslim home with no more bacon, no more sausage, no more Christmas,

no more and nothing. Oh, so they don't celebrate Christmas. I didn't know that either. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, we wouldn't do it none of it. I would have to go to my Christian family to have Christmas and all that. That was hard for a 12-year-old, you know? Yeah. And Hassan was nice to me, but I missed it as a youngster like we all do.

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

He was trying to show me and toughen me up, you know, show me a different way being independent as a human being, you know? Right. And 13 came, 14 came. I'm fucking up in school. I'm skipping school. When do gangs come into play with you? Say that again?

When do, like, the gangs come into play with you? Well, when she married Hassan, We moved on 58th and Forrest. That turned into a blood neighborhood. Right. You know, in the 80s. Yes. And these were all of my friends.

These are all the people I went to school with. These are people that I'm still connected to in my later years. Yes. My friends, my brothers had nothing to do with gangs back then. It had everything to do with pop-locking, you know, battling on the street. And then in 85, it stopped and it turned the 37th Street Fruetown Brim from L.A., him and his brothers moved in our neighborhood. Got you.

You know what I'm saying? So that's where that happened. But in those years, 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, I'm in school, fucking up, fucking up, got in trouble dating white girls at school. going to skipping parties at the white girl's house. I was dating at the time, you know. Tech, a womanizer? No way. When did the womanizing start?

At five, I was trying to kiss. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, like, when did it really start? Like, at five, I think we all play house and do stuff like that. The first, okay, I'll get, let me see. I can speak freely on your- Of course, yes. And we can always cut anything that you don't want.

You ain't got to cut nothing. Okay. You know, I'm spontaneous. I don't care what it is. I love it, yeah. First time I came, I was 12, you know, on 59th and Swole Parkway. Yeah. With a girl named Marlene, you know, she was my age, of course, you know.

And it was the craziest feeling ever. And I knew it was supposed to happen because I saw it on the driving movie. With Tarzan. You know, I saw, you know, that it's supposed to happen. And I remember she's saying, what is that? I was like, I don't know, but it's supposed to happen. You know, I remember saying that to her, you know? Did anybody ever sit down and have, like, the Birds and the Beats talk with you?

No. No. You know what I'm saying? It was my uncle Aiki was the closest thing. Right. Because he would tell me, Danté, this one I'm fucking with now, you know. I'm sticking it to her. I'm like, really?

You know what I'm like, I don't know what that means yet. At 12, I knew what the hell of all. Right, right, right. So can you, okay, let's pause right there. So seventh grade, something happens in seventh grade with the teacher. Can we go on that journey? Because that's about 12 years old too, right? 13.

Well, I was going on 13. As I said, I was fucking up, 13, 14, 14. She, oh, I won't say no names. Yeah. She was young. She was 21. And whenever, it all started when I showed her a picture of my father. as a cop, you know what I'm saying?

I had a picture of him in his LAPD outfit. And after that, after class, whenever everybody's leaving out, I'll be in there. And she used to say, Aaron is so cute. Because my first name is Aaron, of course. Aaron Dante Jakes, Donnie. Aaron is so cute. And she was beautiful, you know.

Yeah. And I was like, oh, thank you. But she used to do it every day. Aaron is so cute. I'm like, okay. You know, then I got to skisks skipping lunch to go visit her while she's by herself, you know, and I'm just going to leave it at that, you know, to be safe.

Right. But I was in love until she got married. But you guys ended up, and we can always cut this to if you want to, but you guys ended up getting caught, right? We got caught by a student walking by. She said she told my sixth hour teacher, no, it wasn't my sixth hour teacher. was six-hour upstairs Miss Glenn's room was like court room class. So whenever something happened in the school,

they would have to come to court in her class in front of her big student body, you know? Right. So they called me up to court class one day, not knowing what they want to talk to me about. I've never been to court class, you know. And Ms. Glenn, she was a black lady. She didn't want no fuck shit, you know what I'm saying? So she said, Erin, there's a student in here. The student was sitting right there that says they walked by Ms. So-and-so's room and saw both you kissing.

And the whole crowd, the whole student body said, ooh, you know. I said, huh? Why would I be kissing a grown-up? You know, I'm smart. You know what I'm saying? She's like, I saw you, Aaron. I saw you. I said, you didn't see me.

I was in lunch. No, you were in there kissing. I said, it's her story against mine. You know what I mean? And they called us to the office and called the teacher to the office too. Yeah. And I was sweating. I bet.

And they said her name. This is alarming. And she's like, I would never with a student. You know, I remember her, you know, like pleading. her case and being real serious, you know. And nothing happened. We didn't get in trouble because I didn't tell. But you guys were having, were you guys having sex?

Yes. In the classroom? No. Okay. After school, that's another story, you know what I'm saying? On school campuses, though? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, okay, okay.

Call home, see if you can help me after school? Can I help my teacher after school and she'll bring me home, da-da-da-da-da-da, go to her house. It's so hard for me to wrap my brain around that Because I know coming from a man's point of view It's like oh you got to bag the teacher the older chick Like I said I was in love right But if we switched places And it was a man doing that to a little girl

It's over You know like it's hard for me to Kind of wrap my head around that And I don't not be mad at her for what happened to you Yeah yeah You know I appreciated it Right

she got married in my eighth grade year and after that we didn't talk anymore you know what I'm saying after you know what I'm saying because we did our thing before we got busted you know what I mean right so we didn't talk anymore after being in the principal's office you know what I'm saying out of like well because you guys were being watched I'm sure like heavily so I remember the last day of school uh you all know I shop online way too much and every website once a login, a password, a code sent to your email by checkout. I'm already irritated, but then I see that little purple button from Shopify shop pay and suddenly life gets easier. No digging from my wallet, no trying to remember passwords, no extra drama, just tap once and

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Then full-price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mintmobile for details. In eighth grade, walking by her room, her classroom. And I walked by, I can see her in my peripheral. She had been married already and everything. Changed her name. When I passed the room, I heard a voice say, hey, I'm going to ask.

She's like, you're not going to give me a hug. I'm not going to see you again. You're going to the high school. Yeah. When gave her a hug, never seen her again. She never tried to reach out to you or anything after that. No. You know, I ran away like years after that, you know what I mean?

From home and on a quest to become Technina, you know what I'm saying? Yes. Let's dive into your love for horror. That's a dark show. story. I didn't realize how dark it was. You know what? So now it's dark to me. No. It's fucking dark as fuck. But you know what? I think it is this is why I say you have such a beautiful testimony because like you really are what you rap about. And it's like a lot of people can't say that they are. I'm like my life. You know what I found that out early on Quincy Jones. He told me.

Yeah. Rap what you know and people will forever feel you and what I know better than anything is myself, you know. Yes. And I wrote about myself and my stories and what people have in common and they don't really know is emotion. Right. So I tapped into emotion. That's why I got fans, you know. All my stories are true. Yes, absolutely they are. You know what I'm saying? Except when you get to black in the sun and it turns into imagination, you know what I'm saying? Nipples and noodles and all that kind of shit with trapped in the cycle's body. It has a bit of imagination in there, you know, I mean, but it comes from a place. Yes.

I don't blame my teacher for anything that's happened to me in my life because I didn't look at it as molesting because I was in love. Right. You know what I'm saying? But true, it is. And her, she groomed you. Yeah. You know, and I mean, I'm sorry about a 21-year-old looking at a 13, 14-year-old like that is predatory. There's no, but I already came at 12, though, with Marlene.

Right. Right. No, and I get that. And I love that you. I was ready. You know what I'm saying? But I love that you didn't internalize it as being molested, you know. But responsibly, I have to say, you know, like if that was a man doing that to a little girl, we would all fucking lose our minds, you know. I heard stories later on that I wasn't the only one. See what I'm saying? It's predatory. It's very predatory. I heard some of my homie say, you know, so-and-so hit two. I'm like, huh? What? She was just getting it in. Yeah. That's what I heard. I don't know. The fact that they even. still let her work at the school is just wild. But I said she was 21. Yeah.

Well, but what I'm saying is like after you guys got caught and then still letting her work there, that would never fly this time. Because it was written off like that student was just talking some shit. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And they didn't see that. Yeah. They seen me give her a hug or something. Yeah, for sure.

You know what I mean? I don't recall what we said, but whatever we said, it was like, okay. Yeah. You know. Well, let's switch gears to a lighter subject. And let's talk. No, it's cool. We can go dark as much as you want to.

We're going to go through phases. So let's talk about your love for horror. You got introduced to it by your mom. My Christian mama. That blew my mind whenever I read that fact. She was so cool. I miss her so much, man. She was so cool.

Marty Sue Yates, before she became Marty Sue Yates, Caliphah, you know. Let me see. I was born in 71. She took me to go see Carrie in 76. Yes. You know, Halloween. Halloween premiered in Kansas City in 78. I was there.

She took me. Yes. My Christian mama took me to, you know, Kansas City has 100 houses around late September, October, Halloween. We have Main Street, Morg, we have Dr. Deadly's, we used to have Dr. Deadley's hunted hospital, the edge of hell, we still got the edge of hell, the beast, all these hunted houses for, you know, attractions for people who like the darkness, you know. She took me to all that when I was young.

That's amazing to me because I grew up strict Pentecostal and we were not allowed to listen to secular music, anything that had to do with Halloween, it could never partake in it. But like, so that was really cool of her to let you be able to experience some sort of like. I remember her dating my uncle Ike's friend, Daniel Whitney, and him being the one taking us to this hunted house, Main Street Morg. And I remember us walking in. I was young, young, man. You know what I'm saying? I keep on going back to five.

A lot of shit happened when I was five, dude. You know what I'm saying? Really early on. I remember walking in the Main Street morgue. And when you come in, you turn right and you go up some stairs, they had a lot of. they had a black light. I didn't know what a black light was and I looked at their faces

and their eyes were glowing and their face looked crazy and it kind of scared me but I appreciated it because I was already going to the movies and stuff like that. You know what I mean? On the scary tip,

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

Do you think that's why you wore face paint later on in life? Yeah. Because it was like embracing a fear. Yeah. That's exactly what it was. Yeah. I became everything that Marty Sue Yeats-Kalifa showed me

her having epilepsy. You know, when she married Hassan, when she started having seizures, he put her in a psychiatric ward and my Christian family hated him for it because we've dealt with it since she was 18 and she never had to go to a psychiatric ward. So he thought that was the best thing for her

because after you have a grandma seizure, the after effects is you talking out of your mind. You know what I'm saying? So I used to have to come visit her there at Western Missouri, when Manora had one off 63rd, research psychiatric center, all of them in Kansas City. I went to go visit my mom. Wow.

And when they see me wearing hospital scrubs on, stage, you know what I mean? All that, the clown, the hospital scrubs, the darkness, all that, the lyrically Michael Myers and all that kind of shit is from Marty Suu Jets Khalifa. It created Tech Nine. Thank you, Mama. You know what I'm saying? Because it saved my life. Everything I built from her and her pain, I internalized that shit and turned it into Tech Nine. You know what I mean? And when people come to my house now and they see, my clown shrine with all the Michael Myers stuff and all the, you know, I have Reagan, like a life-size Reagan from the actresses right there and says, sorry we're dead on her hand. She's holding

a sign that says, sorry we're dead. I have this in my house and people like, what's up with all this devil shit? I said, it ain't devil shit. My mom taught me early on when I was younger that these toys, these dark toys that you see, don't think of them any other kind of way than you think of your, or G.I. Joe toys or your Star Wars toys. Or when you see Barbie and Ken, it's plastic and you can't give it any energy at all. And people believe that you can that you'll have dark energy in your house. And when you look at my shrine, that's Mardi Suu Yeats Khalifa right there. And it reminds me, her birthday is October 26th.

She's in that kind of fall kind of feel. So when the fall comes, in Halloween, it's just, a reminder of my mom. I became the clown, painted my face early on in 1994. I painted my face for the first time. You know what I mean? I got my face painted, that is.

And now when you see the clown with the red nose on a stage, the mask I use now, you know, is just what that clown, what that paint and that clown in my head has transformed into and it gets worse and worse over the years, you know what I mean? I mean, not within me, though. I just know what that darkness feels like of my mom being in a psychiatric ward and having the seizures and seeing her busts in her head wide open from falling out on the floor

and hitting her head on the bathroom, I mean the bathtub, you know what I mean? I've seen the puddles of blood, her laying in them getting beat up. All that stuff. I know what that darkness is. Yeah. So I make the clown look like something. something hideous like that, you know what I mean? You turned your trauma into triumph.

Yes, I did. It's pretty much what you did. I did the same thing, but in a different way, not with the clowns and stuff like that. But it's like you alchemized your pain. And that's so beautiful that you, you know, were able to have that consciousness to do that instead of letting it consume you. Or drive me crazy. Right.

You know what I mean? Did you ever fear that you would end up in a place like your mom? if you let it consume you? I never felt like I would end up in a psychiatric ward because I've always been super cerebral. Right. You know what I'm saying? Like a thinker, you know.

And always, I was so, I've always been so logical thoughts and stuff like that that I always feared having an aneurysm or something, you know. Yes. Because it never stops. Right. Sometimes I have to do mantras that go to sleep to make it stop, you know. Right. But I never thought I would end up in a psychiatric ward.

I wanted to be a psychiatrist. To figure people out. Yeah, I wanted to understand a lot of things. You know, I studied serial killers early on in school. You know, I bought books, you know, Manson and Ted Bundy and, you know, saying the 44 caliber killer, you know what I'm saying? It's all these things I studied because my mom said I was her angels sitting down to help people, you know. So I wanted to find out about my opposition, which would be evil, because I am angel.

You know what I'm saying? What I got right there, you know? And I never thought I would lose my mind. And I never lost my mind. I don't think I lost my mind. Not intentionally. Maybe on a party night. Maybe some things I do in life.

You're like, what's going on in this brain? But I ain't never lost my mind. Right. Right. Gotcha. So can we talk about, I read somewhere that you have an obsession with the number nine and the birth of tech nine. Did that come from that? When I got my name in 88 from the gangster named Black Walt, I didn't have a name when I wrote my first three-verse rhyme.

You know what I'm saying? The new breed. My first rhyme, I was just going with my middle name. D-O-N-T-E-Z. I didn't have nothing, you know, so he was in a group called Black Mafia. He had Mac 10, not. Mac 10 Ice Cube. This is Kansas City.

I love Mac 10. Backyard. That's my brother too. This was a Mac 10 early on in Kansas City, you know, before Mac 10 came out, you know. Right. The OG. Yeah.

We started calling Shorty Mac, you know what I'm saying? Later on in life, you know what I'm saying? Gotcha. But when they heard me do Newbreed, my three-verse rhyme, my first three-verse rhyme, they were like, man, we got to find you a name, bro. Black Mafia, man. We already got one gun. Let me look in the guns in Elmo books and try to find you another one, you know.

And they looked at Uzi, you know, saying that. It's like, nah, now you got a little Uzivert, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But because you spit like an Uzi though, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you're trying to find something, you know, 12 gauge. I'm like, no, and then 12 gauge is a loaded gun, and I'm done by nothing. So shake that donkey button and then big old legs.

I ain't too hard to beg, you know what I'm saying? You know, people got that too, you know what I'm saying? We went, AK-47, no, no, no, no. We went through the whole book and there was no, nothing in there. We didn't find anything, but it was a picture of a tech nine on the back. He's like, tech nine. He said, because the way you spit, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that. You know, I'm like, okay, he said, that's going to be your name until we find something else.

But the way we spelled it, T-E-C-H was short for technique. And after I started studying numerology, I found out that nine was the number of completion, nine months, completes the pregnancy. They said, cats have nine lives after nine. There's nothing else like it. It's double in trouble or whatever. Yes. You know what I'm saying? I became the complete technique of rhyme,

Tech 9, technique number 9, you know what I'm saying? Everything to be able to, I'm rooted in rap, but be able to adjust to any musical situation. You know what I mean? And your fan base shows that. Yes. Your fan, but you have metal fans, you have juggalo fans. You have hip hop heads.

I got gangsters, I got all of it. You've got it all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It covers every. That's how I wanted it to be. I wanted to make Tech 9. the MC that can do anything. Yeah.

When you first started rapping, was it always so fast, or did you have to develop that style? Because your brain has got to fire at a different frequency. That's from years of practice doing it, but when I first started, my,

one of my first rhymes. So that's why they said, it was like, so that's what I say? So that's why they said, I was like, it was like going like, But that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you know what I'm saying?

And I attribute that to listening to Slick Rick. People like, Slick Rick didn't rap like that, but, you know, he'd be like around as part of town with diamonds in your girl in front. I'm trying to enter in this rap time because you have and stuff. But about that, but about it. It's like he would do a little Jamaican, like toasting. Like, don't worry about a thing because Rick is bringing home the goods. I'm like, that's dope. Yeah.

So I turn that. Don't worry about a thing. don't worry about a thing. It's like Jamaican. Don't wear a better thing. Don't wear a thing. It turned into chopping. You know what I'm saying?

And when I say that to people, they're like, wow, you know what I'm saying? It was just like, don't worry about a thing. Don't worry about a thing. Don't worry about a thing. It was like that's how I started rhyming,

you know. It's almost like gibberish kind of. Well, like a form of it. Well, no. Okay. Not when you're speaking of Tech Nine because I pride myself on clarity while speeding. Right, right, right.

But it's like the double time is like how they do it in gibberish, correct? Or no? I don't really know. I think they call it bebop. Okay. Okay, yeah. That's why Quincy Jones signed me in 97. He said, your style remind me a bebop.

But I think that's what you mean by gibberish. Well, there's a language, right? Is it pig Latin or gibberish that I'm thinking of where they double up the words? Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Pig Latin. Oh, okay. Usually gibberish means you can't hear it. Oh, gotcha.

Okay. I thought, well, I thought it was called gibberish, but maybe it's like another word for Pig Latin is gibberish though. But so Pig Latin where they like double up the words is what I'm saying. Either way, it's fascinating how you fucking do it because it's like I don't know how somebody's brain can just fire on all cylinders like that. Me either because that signal from your brain to your tongue takes work. It's hard.

No, it's insane. It's hard. When I'm writing, you know, I have to put it on a dictophone recorder to see if it works. To see if the words work off of each other, you know what I mean? When I'm writing that style, because that ain't the only style I do, but that's one of the ones that people know me from a song that I did in 98 called Questions on the gang related soundtrack. Right. And everybody, why, do I want to stick them with another hit up out of a bit? They want to know who that guy is.

So since then, since 98, everybody that wants to, mostly everybody that wants a song from Tech Nine wants to chopping. I'm so tired of racing motherfuckers. No. I'm so I can race the best of them, you know what I'm saying? I've done songs with Eminem and Kendrick and everybody, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. But you're, I just say, I feel like you're out of a point where you don't even need to prove yourself to anybody anymore.

I don't. I don't, I don't. Like you are a Tech Nine. People, the younger generation, want to race me because they grew up listening to me. They won a song with Tech 9. Yeah.

So, you know, when I did a song with NF, much love to NF, you know, his fans, when we did trust, I'm dancing all over that bitch too. You know what's in that track, you know. You know, Tech name, nah, next gang, everybody knowing I'm a death brain guy, that lingua, back thing, yeah,

leaving the Rebel, the record, you know, I'm talking some shit. This is what, I give it. That's an incredible wicked wrestle. I'm really going, you know. As you should. And his fans, they was like, NF really stood up with Tech Nine, you know what I'm saying?

That's something, that's a thing. He can hold his own with Tech Nine, you know what I'm saying? So I think a lot of guys coming up really want to race me at a time where I've raced my whole career. Yeah. I'm tired of racing motherfuckers. Yeah. I can do it.

You know what I'm saying? Token, no, I can't give it away. You know what I'm saying? Token, well, I'm saying,

token sent me one and we're racing. Yeah? So you're going to let him race you even though you're tired of it? Or is it just because? Yeah, I still race,

motherfuckers. Yeah. But I mean, you're tired of course I'm tired, but I still go when I, if it's, if it's worth me going. You're just TG trying to go.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, me and Jelly got songs. We didn't have, I didn't have to race. Yeah. You know, We can just do music.

They're very melodic. Yeah, I can sing. Creature was amazing. Yeah, man, it's like platinum and shit. FU too was amazing. Yeah, EFU, yeah. Which you guys did that in a hospital. Right.

The video was in a hospital. Right, yeah, yeah, easier for you, you know what I'm saying? You know, we can do, you know, do you know somebody in pain? I know somebody's, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Do you prefer that over having to rap fast? I love writing songs.

that people can say now when it comes to the technicians they can say all my shit okay I don't see how because it's hard for me like a song like so dope when a sip aside a sick and seductive synestine a see something so synest and see something like a centipie it's like I try to make it to where nobody can do it the mufflers can do it right but I like to do I like to do music where I don't have to race everybody you know Ronnie Ratkey for instance you know good old Ronaldo Ronnie Raggy, I love him to death, man. I do a song, I do the song, the big song we got, you know.

Yeah. Called Ronald. And. Which you did phenomenal in that. Yeah. But I sent him something before that when I'm just doing my singing. Uh, dunna minas on a minute. When it's on, da, da da da da da da da da da.

I'm singing, you know. And he was like, this is dope, man. It's so dope. the first four bars I was singing. So dope, but then some weeks went by. He's like, hey, man, can I talk to you for a minute? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you're singing at the top of yours,

and then when yours is over, I come in singing. Like, to me, it's too much singing, you know? And I said, okay, so I'll go in the studio the next day, and I'll just rap. But da bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat bat da. He said, yeah, let's try that. You know what I'm saying? But before, like, after I hung up, like 10 minutes later,

he said, he texted me. He said, how about you just scrap that and just come in shredding? I'm like, ugh. Well, because Ronnie is still, and this is no disrespect to you, Ronnie. He's one of our friends also. But he still has something to prove when it comes to rapping. Yeah, but he doesn't have the longevity that you do. I'm going to tell you.

That's how I found that motherfucker because I was looking for metal choppers. And I watched the world burn. I was like, fuck yeah. Yeah. He got it already. He knows how to fucking do it. You know what I'm saying? So when he said that, I called X-rated, one of our artists,

I said, man, he wanted me to change my first four bars. He said, there's too much singing. He's like, man, they're like, nah, I don't think it's that. I just think it's too much singing. Right. So he changed it. You know, he had me change it and just come in, trapping. You know what is up in your mind?

You're thinking the devil is making the crime of the people are evil and never no demon, the opposite of a divine? No, yes, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. He was right. But he wanted me to race. Right. Because that's what he knows from Tech Nine, from Worldwide Choppers.

Right. We put out worldwide choppers some years, late, some years ago. And that motherfucker went platinum. Yes. With like 12 people on it. You know what I'm saying? It was bluster rhymes on it. It was twister.

It was yellow wolf. It was. Oh, I remember. Uso's JL. People from Istanbul on it. You know what I'm saying? It's like, Jaze, you know, so many people on it. If you could do another worldwide chop?

with other people on it, what artists would you bring on it? Okay, here's the story. Mimi, can you hit the heat, please? I never said this around Travis, but I got to tell. Travis is in the corner, watch. So, I did another worldwide choppers too. Okay. My idea was to get M&M on it.

He did it. Wow. When he sent the verse in, you know, Chris Calicoe got it before M&M. I didn't want to listen to Chris Calicole verse because I didn't want to be influenced by it. So I never listened to it. I did my verse without listening to nobody. I always started off and I send my stuff to people so it can be a greater song. A lot of artists won't do that because they don't want to be outdone.

I feel like like Eminem say, my spot is forever reserved. I don't give a fuck. If you do better than me, motherfucker, it makes for a better song. That's what I think. So when we got the Eminem verse, I already had people putting fillers out to get Daddy Yankee on it. I was scared to ask Wayne about Nikki Minaj, but I wanted her on it. That would be fine.

And I had no, I had people on it that never been heard before. Like Gabby Gab from Atlanta, Georgia, a female rapper with Nikki. You know what I'm so I was going to put females on it. You know what I'm saying? Who else? Oh, I was going for Kulega over in Germany. Travnim said, man, with Eminem, you can't put all those no-name motherfuckers on there, you know what I'm saying? Which I do understand.

I do, too. I do, too. I do, too. But if we did, though, I think it would turn out just like Worldwide Choppers, platinum. Speed them with Eminem ain't even platinum. Right. I ain't even gold, I don't think. Right.

You know what I'm saying? Because people love it, but they said this is not Worldwide Choppers. And I had to lie and say, come up with some shit like, we're the dopest rappers worldwide, motherfuckers. Right. You don't know what I'm saying? It's like, okay, we get it. Now they fuck with it.

I don't know what the numbers are on it, Travis, but you know what I'm saying? It ain't worldwide choppers. Yeah, so you guys never dropped the one with Eminem? Yes, we did. Oh, you did drop it? I've never heard that one. We got some numbers on it.

Wow. Like, let me see. What did I see last? On YouTube, the views was like 28 million or something. I'm like, I don't fucking know. I mean, that's nothing to scoff at. Or $48 million. It was one of them.

Just on the, just on the audio, you know. So it only ended up just being just you and Eminem on the track or a couple other people. It was me, Eminem, and my brother, Chris Calicoecoe. Okay, gotcha. So like I said, I never listen to Chris Calico's verse until after I finished my verse and I had my engineer Ben. We call him Benjaneer. Yeah. Let me hear Calico's verse in the studio.

I was like, holy fuck. Yes. I love Chris and his wife. I think my label wanted it to just. be me and Eminem and I get that. You know what I'm saying? But Chris with my brother, you know what I'm like, okay, if you fucking do something dope, and Eminem even said his verse was fucking dope, you know what I'm saying?

So when you listen to Speedem now, and we dedicated it to Richie Haven's rest of soul, you know, his estate said yes, to use freedom. We called it Speedem, you know, and I don't even know why we was talking about that. No, I love that. So we were talking about how you actually became Tech Nine, where you got your name from. The choppers. We were talking about the choppers. And then how your flow.

And how everybody wants me to fucking chop and I'm tired. That's what we're talking about. I'm tired of fucking racing. I love you, Tech. He said, I'm now I'm fucking tired. I'm tired of fucking racing. But I will take on it.

Do you guys hear this man loud and clear? He stopped. They're not going to stop. No? No. J.I.D just sent me one a few months ago. J.D. just sent me one a few months ago that I still ain't done yet because I got so busy,

but I'm still going to do it for him. J.D. sent me one. He's racing me. Yeah. I'm on like fucking shit. Well, it's not going to stop because you're the greatest. And it's like, and do you, and this is, you know, could be a long-witted question, but it's not going to stop until you pretty much retire.

And do you think you're ever going to retire from music? Do I think I'm ever going to retire from music? I still, was that a fart or still snoring? It's him. It's him. It's snoring. Zach! I would not be over here lighting it up.

I'm just saying it's your house. I'm like, damn, what did you eat before you came here, buddy? Listen, I have been with my husband 10 years and he's only heard me fluff one time.

I would never be over here just ripping it up. I heard that farting in the workplace is considered sexual harassment. Are you kidding me? Stop it. But it never made any sense to me because I'm like, how is that sexuality? Like, is that like an invitation where you want to fuck me?

My ass? Somebody's like asking a question with a fluff. It's like murder. Why would that be sexual harassment at work at the getting coffee? Because people like, because we are, we're literally in an era where everybody gets a trophy. So people will make up shit to be mad about it. Yeah, I don't know if it's really indeed, you know. We'll have to give that a good and see if it is.

At the workplace and I suppose a far. Yeah. Tell that to you. Chachi, stop fluffing him. He has the silent but deadly ones. This guy right here. Trust me. You won't hear it.

You'll smell it. Yeah, but yeah, they still want to erase me. The younger generation. are still contacting me want to race. Yeah, for sure. But like I said, they're going to want to race you until you retire. So do you think you would ever retire from music? That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm so sporadic. You're okay, baby. Don't worry. I still get excited when I hear dope beats and melodies. Yeah. I still get excited.

Yeah. Because I love music. I used to be a dancer, pop lock or break dancer, all that. when I was younger, you know what I'm saying? I still... Can you still do it? Can you still? Yeah, I can still do it.

You know what I'm saying? On one of those tours, on that E-40 tour we went on, I was doing this breakdancing song I did called Don't Nobody Want None, you know? And I was break dancing every night and I hate myself for it because my knees were dead after that tour. He didn't have knees like... I didn't have no knee pads or nothing just going rogue on the fucking stage, you know? So, but to answer your question,

I don't know because I still get excited when I hear good songs. Like that one I just saw Zellie Do with his other guys. Like, hallelujah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That fucking swing. Mm-hmm. Oh. They should do a remix and put 10 on it.

That's, I heard that shit. And I heard them do it live at the Super Bowl. That would be fire. At the show with him and Shibuzzi. Yeah. I heard them do it. That's the one I heard lately. I'm going to put it in his ear.

Oh. I'll put it in his ear. That would be fired to have all three of you guys on a track. Now, you got to do my song first that I sent him already. Okay. Listen, I barely even get to see my damn husband, so I don't know what's going on, but I'll talk to him about that too. You got to do sacrifice first, and then we'll talk about a hallelujah. Gotcha.

I got your back tech, I promise. Yeah, and I'm not racing on sacrifice either. Yeah, good. So instead of retiring, do you think that you would ever step into like maybe a mentor position of like, kind of like what Jay-Z is? I always said that maybe when we get to the point to want to sell strange music or something, I will do stuff to help my artists, you know what I'm saying? And do verses here and there, I don't fucking know. But I can't, I don't see that because I'm getting better with my pen.

Right. You know. Because you're getting wiser too. Yeah, man. I'm just trying to keep from saying shit that will piss people off is the hardest these days. Right. I mean, everybody's... You know, like when it comes to religion and politics and sexuality and all that kind of stuff. Sexuality, that's not my business. You know what I'm saying? It's like I don't judge people on their sexuality. You know what I'm saying? I never have

and I never will. And I don't know why people are so, you know, fixated on people in their sexuality. But, you know, I get when people say you're doing it on a show where kids are watching and you kissing a man or whatever. And now people are upset. I get that. But at the same time, I ain't really worried about nobody's sexuality, but as far as religious beliefs and politics and shit, I try to be careful. Right. Because all this shit is gang shit to me. Well, speaking about politics, I mean, Donald Trump pretty much adopted your Red Kingdom anthem. Oh, you know that.

Listen, I pay attention to it all, baby. How did that feel for you? And we can cut this part off to. No, you don't have to cut it off? Okay. No, you can ask me anything. Yeah, I just, you know, I just always want to be respectful. But, you know, I was wondering.

I have my kids calling me like, Daddy, you got to say something. You got to people going to think that's you. I said people can think what the fuck they want. Right. When you write music and you put it out to the public, their perception of what it means is going to be different. However they perceive that song is how they're going to use it. Right.

And when they put it out, you know when you put it out you know that's what that's what happens you know and uh my kids didn't like that you know so they wanted me to tell people i don't fuck with this i'm like no no no no no you can't get into politics because you'll be damned if you do damned if you all i know and you know all i know is that it's crazy how on that song how the number spiked oh because it's literally it became pop like you're already such a huge presence but it became like pop culture yeah you know once you hit that pop culture you know once you hit that pop culture.

What was that? What was it? Was it an indictment trial or? I forget. Impeachment. Oh, was that what it was for? Okay, I thought it was for his campaign. Yeah.

Yeah, they did. They called it riot music and I made it for the chiefs. Right. You know what I'm saying? I say number 58 is D.T. The Great and we've flown it. Derek Tomic, rest in peace. You know what I'm saying?

But the hook, Red Kingdom. I had no idea. The Republicans were going to hijack my song and turn it into their shit. Listen, the Republicans hijack everything. I had a fucking, what was it, that went viral, a sound that went viral that said, I woke up this morning and I feel like trash. But it's French for, I feel like garbage, that's French for trash. All the Republicans grabbed that after somebody said something about somebody being trash

in Puerto Rico or something. Oh, shit. It went viral. So it's like, that's what happened to your song. And that's why the streams were. so crazy is because that shit was on TikTok. And I'm telling you, it was everywhere. I was like, go tech.

I was so excited for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're the kind of, I'm the kind of artist that I do the music and I go when I look back. And then next thing you know, I got all these fucking platinum and gold plaques coming in. That was a flex. I mean, as you should. But I just do the work and then shit pops up.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And let's dial back real quick and let's get into when you got your first record deal in 97. When you- No, it was in 93? Was it 93? Sorry, I'm not looking at my notes. No, I thought good, baby.

No, 93, I got my first record deal with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis at prospective A&M. Yes, 93 to 95, correct? Yes, 93 to 95. They let us off in 95. Started working with Don Juan around that time. I was working with Icy Rock that, you know, that got me the deal with Jimmy, Jimmy, Terry Lewis in 93. Icy Rock was a producer of mine.

He did It's Alive. He did T9X. He did a lot of songs for me in the past, you know. And after that relationship was kind of damaged, Don Juan came in and Diamond, rest of so. They wanted to see if I could do hood music. I said, I'm from the hood. Because, you know, with Icy Rock, we're doing nut house shit.

You know, so we're doing the scrubs and, you know, my mom, you know, we're doing dark shit, you know? And he's like, you're doing that crazy shit or whatever, right. I see rock. Can you do some hood shit? They gave me the beat to Mitch Bade. I said, I'll be back tomorrow. Have you ever met a nigga who was pies from?

It's a lot of slinky niggas where I come from. There's another missile catcher just like him. His name is Mitchell Bade. Mitchell Bade, you know what I'm saying? The motherfucker is like, what the fuck? I'm on there like, what up, Mitch? Is it every, every day thing for you to act just like? a bitch, how does it feel

I'm having a nigga with them. I forgot how it goes, but I'm like busing on it. Right. That shit went to the fucking top in Kansas City. It was on the radio and everything. Back then, it was hard

to get radio play, wasn't it? Yes, it was. Yeah. It was like a cult that you had to get into. That was undeniable, though. They had to play Mitch Bade, you know. And it was a struggle to get songs on the radio in KC

for us, for sure. Yeah. Until Mitch Bade, cloudy eyed stroll and Mitch Bade. Mitch Bade was the B-side of my single Claudia-Ey-E-E-E-E-Streau. It was like really calm song. Right.

Mitch B-Bade was the B-side. Yeah. Cloudy-Ey-Streau was on the radio. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But Mitch Bade took over. Then right behind Mitch Bade, I got with my group,

my blood home boys, and we started a group, 57th Street Rogue Dog Villains, and we did a song called, Let's Get Fucked Up, boom, radio, everything we touched. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And this was after your record deal from 93 to 95 or was this during?

No, this is after. Okay. This is after, this is after 95 when we got released. Gotcha. You know what I'm saying? So with Don Juan, that's when we, in 97, that's when we got the deal with Quincy Jones, Quest and Warner, yes. Right.

One thing I respected about reading your situation with the record label from 93 to 95 was that you said that they, they like put somebody in a car with you, and the dude was telling you that you had to change. Oh, yes. And you're like, no, I'm not fucking changing who. I am. And, like, you really, like, stood your ground and was like, no, I know who I am, and I'm not changing for anybody. I know this is a name, too. His name was Life Allah. He was from the East Coast. Yes. In 93, um, he, I guess, I know, protect your neck just came out

with M-T-U-T-N-U-T-N, you know, and he's like, you got to do this, son. You got to do this. You got to do, you know what I'm saying? M-E-T-H-O-D, man, whatever the fuck. Right. You know what I was like, no, that's them. I got to do it. I got to do it. I was like, I was like, I got to do me. And that was the tension. You know what I'm saying? Same thing with in 97 with Quincy Jones. He wanted me to do whatever I wanted to do. But his people who worked at his label wanted me to do like popcorn shit. You know what I'm saying? They wanted me to do this song for the Shaq movies called Steele. He was like Robo cop or some shit on him. And I had a song like, he's strange. And I like it. He's strange. Just the way he.

is Tekanina, Tekanina. What's up? Why you're so damn psycho? Couldn't tell you, baby, you know. It was like cookie cutter shit. Right. But I could do it. Produced by Quincy Jones, his son, QD3, Quincy Jones III.

But at the time I had, T'an, da, dun, da, down. Tech Nine, I had Planet Rock, the Down South remix, you know. I said, I want to start with this one. He's like, no, no, this regional, nope. You know, and I'm like, I told Quincy and he started firing motherfuckers. So they hated us up there because he favored us, you know.

Right. And I met Travis the next year, the next summer in 98. 98. So before you met Travis and we're going to pull Travis in whenever we get to there, you did something with Death Row and Shug Night. That was a 98. That was the year I met Travis. Okay, gotcha.

But it was 98 when I was out in L.A. before I went home to KC. You know what I'm saying? Gotcha, gotcha. Tell me about meeting Tupac and like, I actually have hung out with Shug numerous times. Yes, me too. And we can cut this out.

I don't know. No, we don't. That's my brother. No, no, no. Well, I'm talking about for me too, though, because Shook gets such a bad rap. Yes, he does. He's a nice guy.

Thank you. I have never told the story on the podcast before, but I used to do cocktails at the palms, and Shug would come in every night. He'd be so fucked up. And he would be the nicest. dude. I didn't kick it with him on several birthdays and everything. He was so nice. Like he never was disrespectful to me. He was like my homie, dude. And he would tip me all the time. Really good dude.

It's just that you encounter people in the industry, not saying they deserve anything, I'm just saying you encounter fuck shit in the industry. Yeah. And sometimes people handle fuck shit differently. Right. You know what I mean? I don't know. I don't know his whole life. Right. What he done to people. But I know when I'm around it. him. And we around all the homies with him and everything. It's all love, all respect. We partied together. He came to my shows. Whenever I was in Vegas and San Diego, he would come to my shows. You know what I mean? Just showing love, man. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What about me when you met Tupac? Because you said you've met him on probably like what four instances. Well, I met him

in 93. Okay. No, 92 at Jack the Rapper. It's a musical conference, a music conference. that they used to have in Atlanta at the Atlanta Hilton. You know what I'm saying? And I met him in the lobby. He was checking out this stripper, this dancer. I had a big old ass. She used to be at the BRE conventions that I went years before. I'd see her all the time.

She was a Caucasian girl with a big old ass, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, we love those. Pock was standing behind her, you know what I'm saying? I was like, I could just visualize it. Okay. Pock was standing behind her. It's like, I'm black on. I'm black on.

You know what I guess? I'm after the riots. You know what I'm like? I'm black owned. Yeah. And I went up to him and I was like, hey, you're Tupac. You can do whatever you want with that. He's like, nigga, I'm black on.

Like, what does that mean? You know what I'm like? And I was like, oh, during the riots, whatever building had black owned nobody would fuck with. So he said he must got black on written across him because the bitches wouldn't fucking with him. You know what I said? No.

So I met him that year. Yeah. 92. Then in 93, I got my record deal with Jimmy, Jamie, Jamie and Terry Lewis, Life Allah and all I met them.

I met them the first day there, you know what I'm saying? It was a guy named Jordy, you know what I'm saying, who drove us around and Life Allah was the guy who was trying to turn us into whatever they wanted us to be. They took us to this club after we checked into the La Dufei, you know,

in Hollywood, you know, and they took us to this club and Tupac was there. I went over there and hollied at him. Hollered at Mo Prim, his brother was with him, you know. I saw him that whole summer. We was fucking the same bitches and everything. You know what I'm saying? Just on a rotation.

Yeah, man. You know what I'm saying? It's like, the bitch would be at my house, she'd be crying because Pog said something to her, you know what I'm saying? I remember like it was yesterday. Yeah. You know what I was like such a cool era. You know, because I was in Vegas at that time, too.

And I was actually in Vegas when Pock was murdered. Yep. And it was, I remember it was like one of the saddest days. Like, it was just such a, it was like an end of an era. The connection was QD3, the producer. He did music for Tupac. Gotcha. And me and Ice Cube and Dubsie.

You know, a lot of people, you know what I'm saying, Yuck Mouth, you know, the Loonies, you know. I got shot nine times. Yeah. I love Yuck Mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was the connection, you know what I'm saying? Because, you know, I would see Pock, but we never talked about doing music,

but he talked, QD3 would talk to him about Tech 9, you know what I'm saying? And he had told me that Pop wanted to work, you know what I'm saying? And when he got killed, QD3 already had a song in mind, you know, because we were already, he was already working on one. He said, I got one, working on it. Then he died. Then like two weeks after he died, QD3 called me, he said, hey man, I got his verse on it.

You still want to do the song? I say, fuck yeah, I do. Yeah. It was called Thugs Get Lonely 2s. It was a version that had Prince sampled. If I was your girlfriend, you know. It had that sample, and Prince wouldn't have in no samples. Yeah.

And that's when Prince was still alive, too. So for him to even okay that is historical. Maybe he would have did it for Park. I don't know, but it never came out. It leaked somehow. We didn't leak it, though. I was just so happy it leaked because people think I was lying, you know. Right.

That's a piece of history. I kicked it with a nigga for years, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Seeing them in L.A., seeing them in Atlanta, you know. So that same year that you're going through all that with death row, Travis enters the picture in 98. Yeah, 98. Mm-hmm.

I came back home. from L.A. I brought that song, Planet Rock, that I wanted to fucking put out instead of Teganina, Teganina, why you're your damn psycho, you know? I wanted to put the Down South mix out, so Quincy let us go.

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

Right. he leaves out right when we're about to get to him. And if you need to use the restroom too, we can break too. If you want to use the restroom. I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. I'm long winded. I can stretch it. No, you're good.

You know, as I can stretch it. But we brought Planet Rock 2K back to Kansas City and it blew the fuck up. It was a fashion show that was being held downtown Kansas City. It was a clothing company called Paradise Originals. My boy Heath. and all his buddies. Travis was funding it. I went down there to the fashion show,

and I did my song, you want me to jam, I'm fin of brainwage, pain from the same days, make you sick like bad mayonnaise. Tech 9, got the remedy, rhyme, infinity, criminally, and it'll be some shit I'll crack you open like the youngest Mel Kennedy.

You know what I'm saying? Like I'm really doing Tech 9, you know? Yeah. But it's the beep. Yeah. Yeah. Boom, Kha, boom. Tech night.

Pan, ta, tan, tan, da. You know, it was like that shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, they said, I get hyphy when he does that. Every time he does that, I'm like, yeah. I get so excited. Right, right, right, right, right. Told you.

I'm animated. No, I love it. Listen, I've been to your concerts before and nobody puts on a show like you. Yeah. Like, it's insane. Charles, you can go ahead and sit on the couch too, baby. But, you know, right before we were here, we had breakfast and the guy taking our order, like, you want coffee?

I'm like, no. I can't have coffee. I can't ingest any caffeine. I'm naturally caffeine. If I have caffeine, I'd be up for three days and I need to sleep with my job. Fuck that shit. Never could I have any caffeine can't drink no goddamn Mountain Dew,

no Dr. Pib, Mr. Pib or Dr. I'm sensitive to caffeine too. There's no way. Or was it Mr. Pib? Yeah, Mr. Pibb. Dr. Pepper. Yeah. That's disrespectful, dude.

I was catching what you were putting down, though. So I did that fashion show for Paradise Originals. Travis was funding them, you know what I'm saying? Heath and the boys. The next day, George Forte hit me and he said, our boss want to meet you. The boss. Yeah.

I said, your boss? He's like, yeah, the guy, you know, makes Paradise work. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, oh, okay, let's go. Took me to his house in the Blue Springs and we had our first meeting. Travis, Mr. Travis O'Gwen, has joined us on the couch. I'm really excited to get you both together. because I think it's very, yeah, I think this is very rare that I've ever gotten to see you two in an interview together, at least recently.

I don't think it's ever happened, to be honest with you. I mean, we always do individual interviews. I don't do very many. Yeah. So this might be a first. I feel honored. So Travis, I'm happy that you're here. And like we were just saying, I'm so honored that you guys are doing this together.

Because I have so many questions, especially with you guys being like the biggest. independent label pretty much in the world. Yes, yes. You guys really built something from the ground up. What was, you were already involved in music before you found tech because you were funding the fashion show. Well, so I was actually involved in a clothing company, Paradise Originals, how we met. I wasn't really into the music business at all.

As a matter of fact, I had no experience, no background at all. Wow. And so, but I, I, I, when I, when I, went to high school. I grew up in a, uh, in a very diverse neighborhood, but more importantly, it was, uh, my school was about 80% black. So I grew up around hip hop my entire life. I mean, from grade school, middle school, and then into high school. So I was always into hip hop. So whenever we wanted to do this fashion show, tech had a buzz because of those songs that he talked about at being on the radio. And I'm like, okay, yeah, let's do this. Let's let's, let's find him. Let's get him in there

and see if he'll do it. And he did, which was awesome. And, uh, but afterwards, like, I, I knew of them and I knew of several of his songs. And I always heard about how, uh, he was about to be the next biggest rapper and, and everything else. And then after we did the fashion show, I really wanted to talk to him to understand what that journey was because it wasn't, a lot of the things that I heard were going to happen weren't happening. So I just wanted to understand why. Like, okay, you know, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, And he came and he was really, really, really open with me. And he told me every detail. He told me about the managers that he had, which there was a lot of them, by the way.

I think he had like five managers or something. I'm like, damn. And so, and then, you know, all the people that were involved. And at first I was like, okay, you know, he told me about the deal that he had with Quest and how that was through Warner Brothers. And he had a publishing deal through Windswept. And it seemed pretty complicated. and at first I thought I could go in and say, you know, maybe I can give some advice.

I was really good at business. I had a really successful furniture business at the time, successful with the clothing, successful with real estate. I was doing my thing. And I thought maybe I could offer some advice. And after I met with him, I realized advice isn't what he needed. He needed some money and he needed somebody that would go in there and kind of clean up a few things because it got a little, it got a little, to be a little bit too much.

It was gridlock amongst the label and then the local label, Midwest Side Records, and then Quest and then Warner Brothers. And at that time, I'm like, dude, that's crazy, man, good luck. Cool story. Good luck and wish you the best. But I didn't think that I could offer any words. It was going to change anything. But we stayed in touch.

And then there was a time when he reached out to me and I got an opportunity to go down to, it was Icy Rock's house. And he played me a song because we were together at a restaurant when they were writing a song, this restaurant, what was it called hops? Yeah. And so, and I was intrigued by it. And then after it got done, I got an opportunity to go down there and listen to it. And that song was called This Ring. Yes. and I was blown away by it.

He was nice enough to let me have a copy of it. And I must have played that song a thousand times in my house. Dawn was like over. She was like, what are you doing? Shout out, Don, we look.

And not only that, but it's like, wait a minute, he's trying to balance being tech nine and being married. Are you trying to say something? Like, why do you keep playing this damn song? And it was,

I couldn't leave it alone. And then that's when we ended up, meeting again and I'm like hey man tell me what you want to do I heard what everybody everybody else has in mind for you but fuck all of that like what do you want to do and that's when he told me that he had a publishing company called EGN arts and I'm like okay and then I try to put it together yeah yeah and then I was like he goes that's strange backwards and I'm like oh okay and I said why is that and he goes well because if I ever have an opportunity to do my own label I want to call it strange music. And I'm like, oh, and then he told me about his love for Jim Morrison and the doors

and all of this stuff. And so I took a leap and said, okay, well, listen, man, I don't know the music business, but I'm a quick learn. And I have the means that, you know, the financial means to help out. And I think I have, you know, a good business acumen. And I know how to move forward relatively quickly. So I said, if you want to truly do that, I'm in, man, 50-50, and we'll go and we'll figure this thing out. Yeah. And, oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. Like what, what a wild venture for you guys to both be like, you know what, let's start a record label? Or was it let's start a record label? Or was it just going to be like, hey, let me just help you out as an independent artist first. It was record label. So it literally was record label from the gate. Right. Yeah, because I think, you know, he was, he was, he was,

kind of like tired of of being stuck and nothing actually come into fruition like so it's it's like you know nothing ever really uh materialized and and you get tired of that stuff and you're living on like minimal per diems and you can't go out there and really oh i get it we lived it right make make a living so it's like um you know and and i i had to learn man i mean we took and we put together uh and we had to gather a bunch of songs and a lot of the earlier producer of those songs wouldn't give us the files because they wanted to be paid a second time. That was a really volatile thing and I'll save all the back on that. The music industry is so sneaky.

What's that? The music industry can be so snaky. It's filled with a bunch of people that I don't care for 90 plus percent of the people that's in the music business. you know and I that's no fuck that it hasn't changed I still don't like me talk your shit Travis yeah I mean I don't because because there's so there's so many of them that are just they're full of shit they're they're not they're not you know are they're filled musicians who find a way to wiggle into a position in the business and then they don't

know what the fuck they're doing I call them car salesmen's because they all have that that icky like car salesman personality. Right, right, right. All those comments, oh, yeah, that's going to be bananas. Oh, because bananas got to be in L.A. You know what I was L.A. Everything was bananas in L.A. And everybody was a dick in New York.

Like, everybody was, yeah, it was crazy. So I have a couple questions that I want to ask you guys, if you guys don't mind. Because I really am just so blown away by what you guys have built. But at a time when labels were everything you, when labels wore everything, you guys went the independent route. Did you guys ever doubt yourselves, like whenever you were first starting out? Well, you know, you got to be kind of a crazy, slightly crazy to lose 140K on your first tour and then go back, right? Wow. When this thing started in the first couple of years, we were, I was a little over $2 million of my own money in. And initially I had in my mind that, you know, I might end up

spending a couple hundred grand to get this thing to go the right way, not two million. You know what I mean? And but but things, things were challenging. Things were expensive. And it was hard to figure it all out. And we kept having to throw money at it. And it was harder because I was a black kid with spiked red hair, with a painted face, Bishop's robe on stage, up under it, blood clothing.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, it was just like a cluster fuck. I would feel like that would set you apart from everybody else, though. It did. It did, but it's a long-the-road. If you're not doing what everybody else is doing, you know. Right.

Think about this back then in like 99, 2000, 2001. There were no independent hip-hop tours, period. Right. The only hip-hop tours there were is like, you've seen Run DMC coming with the Beastie Boys. Or have you seen, you know, there was a few of those big tours. Yeah, stuff like that. Yeah.

Stuff like that. hip-hop touring at all. Yeah. So then take, add in black dude with, with wearing like spiked red hair. His name is Tech 9, the name of a gun. First strike. Right. And then he's got face paint on and in a preacher's robe.

And he's got two strippers taking the preacher's robe off. Yes, yes, yes. So like, like, so it was not an easy sell to white America, white club owner America. Right. I'd literally get on the phone with these guys because I started by putting together our own tours by ourselves. We didn't have an agent. Nobody was messing. Well, they were not going to touch us with a 10-foot pole.

Then the club owners didn't want that in their club. They were so fearful of it. So we would make deals. I had to talk to tech. Like, man, this is crazy. But, you know, our very first paid show was 500 bucks. Right, right, right. At an Italian restaurant that turned into a nightclub, a,

during the weekends. Simply Sicilian and Blue Springs, Missouri. Shout out to them for giving you an opportunity. Right. Absolutely. You had to tell them to give the money back if we have any problems. Yeah.

We had to literally convince all these different people by saying, hey, look, let us come there, let us do this show. We'll do a door deal. And if anything goes wrong, you keep all the money. So would people not let you buy on to tours?

Was that not a thing back then? They wouldn't let, we didn't really want to go with the idea of buying on because there were no tours back then. Right. Yeah, I mean, this is honestly, there were no tours to buy on to for someone like him or us or whatever.

So we had to go out there and do it ourselves or we weren't going to see anybody. We weren't going to tour. And that's where we lost, you know, money on the first tour. But I always looked at it like, look, if we can get in these places and we can plant a seed, then great. Yeah, we're going to spend money. You spend money when you do that. And then we'll come back the next time and we'll water it, right? And we still may not make money, but at the end of the day, at least we're gaining momentum, gaining fans.

And then once we come back again, now maybe we can pick a little fruit, you know, whatever the case might be. So it was a journey to get to that point. But it worked out. You know, we played a show in San Diego at the Blue Agave. Seven people. Seven people. Seven people. The next time we came, it was like much better, 300 and something.

The next time we came and every time since then, we've sold it out. Every single show in San Diego. So, you know, it worked. But nobody knew it. And I didn't, I knew that I wasn't going to fail because I just, I can't accept failure. Like, it's a mental block for me. But, uh, and Dawn, Dawn, my wonderful wife, she never doubted me, but did I get some of these looks? Like, I got a few of them, look, but she never doubted it. And she knew that I couldn't stop. And, uh, and, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, she, she helped, she worked there, her and Glenda and, you know, sending out CDs and vinyl to radio stations.

and stuff out of our basement. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, but yeah, it was interesting in the beginning. Yeah. Do you guys feel like the juggalo community is what accepted you first? Did what? Do you feel like the juggalo community accepted you guys first? No, no, no.

They came in in 2003. Okay. Now, I started in Kansas City. Right. You know what I'm saying? And I think with Mitch Bade being the first thing, all the gangsters were first. Right.

You know what I'm saying? And then the college kids came. And those college kids will run the numbers up. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But we did Sprite Liquid Mix Tour in O2 with Jay-Z, N-E-R-D, NAPE Roots, you know what I'm saying?

Hoopi-Stank. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. That would be a great, a great tour to, like, circle back. So we was our. buzzing on that tour, you know, motherfuckers Jay Zina was coming out to see my set on the second stage, you know. Right. You know, they heard about this ring, you know. Everybody's like, you got to see this ring. You remember Kanye was there. I never saw him, but Chris Calicoe saw him.

He was with Talib Kuali. He was on that tour too. So the next year, 03 is when I met the juggalo's, when I finally found out everything about psychopathic. Because I'd heard about insane clown posse years before when they got signed to Disney or something. And I was like, baby, more clowns, more clowns. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I painted my face, you know. Yeah.

And 03 is when the juggaloes came and added a lot to our fan base. Right. You know what I mean? And the metalheads came, you know, and it just kept growing. And that first tour, that first tour that we did with them, actually the only tour with them, I guess, other than the gathering. But it was insane clown posse. It was bone thugs in harmony.

It was Cotton Mountain. It was Cotton Mountain. It was. Cockmount Kings. Iconic. And so it's like, you know, that we, we thought, oh, wow, what a wild menagerie of craziness and loved it. And I'll tell you what, their fan base was so intriguing to me because they were so devoted. Yes. And looking at, I had an opportunity to talk to and work with Hank Williams Jr. and go to his butt-necked barbecue in Paris, Tennessee and all this other shit. I missed that one. I missed that one. Was everybody naked? No, no. The only one naked was probably Hank, and that's because he had to climb out of the damn lake

that he drove his four-willer in because he was out of his mind. Hilarious stuff goes on around. They shoot cannons and shit in the backyard. Oh, I could only imagine. It's a trip. But watching with the juggalo fan base, what Hank Williams Jr. had to do when country music shunned him because they didn't want to deal with this nepotism

because of, you know, and then looking at that and then looking at what kid rock, this white rapper that moved to New York and was in the apartment downstairs from Queen Latifah, but looking at the fan base that Kid Rock was able to build. And those were the things that were so intriguing to me because look at these fan bases. They built them and all the odds were against them too. And that's when, you know, that's when I think that we really started to focus on how can we look at and understand and take the best things out of all these different people's followings.

What can we get out of that? What can we learn from them? And we learned a lot from each one of them, including psychopathic. And their merch and this game was mind boggling. It was so wild to see that, man. They did something that not a lot of people have ever done. Well, they've built a cult following, you know. And that's where your real core, like, fan bases is in that cult-like following.

And it was a very distinct niche that they had. and those people. That's why they're still able to do it. Oh, it's wild. I literally, I didn't know what a juggalo was. But the crazy thing is, is I listened to Insane Clown Posse when I was younger, but didn't know the juggalo statement.

I didn't know what a juggalo was until I went to the gathering. I saw so many buttholes. Right, right. And people have, I mean, but they are the nicest humans ever. Like, they're so great. They're wild. That was one of the biggest parties I've ever seen.

The biggest, wildest parties I've ever been to. Wild. Yeah. No, it's insane. So when did you guys know, like you guys were able to look at each other and be like, this is going to work when it came to the record label? So when like Caribulu came out? We hit a few bumps along the way.

The very first deal that we did in 2001 was with a company called J-Corps and a guy named Jay Ferris, who for the record is a complete piece of shit still is to this day. And I'd love to bump into Jay sometime. I'd take the charge. I love how you guys used first in. last name. Yeah, yeah, Jay fucking Ferris. Fuck you, Jay. You're a piece of shit.

He's like, and I stand on it. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. We did a deal with them and we did everything that we were supposed to do. And then he literally sent us to Los Angeles to shoot a video. And he would only pay for a part of it. So we had to come, Annie up some money. And the only reason we got to shoot the video is because we did a first week number that far exceeded what they thought they were going to do. Keep in mind, we're an independent label. back then there wasn't independent distribution. There wasn't any Fontanas or are those types of small indie label.

You still had to get distribution. The only way you could get it at that time was by doing a deal because we didn't have any sales history to really warrant us being able to get that type of deal. So we did this deal because he had a distribution deal through Interscope. And it was a 50-50 JV and we outperformed everything that they expected. And then we're supposed to shoot a video. So we fly, we get out to L.A. and we're in the hotel room and we're supposed to do something the next day and it doesn't happen. And then another day goes by, still nothing because we found out

the label or Jay Ferris and J.Core Records wasn't advancing the money for the video, the deposit. And so we're like, what's going on? A third day pops off. And finally I get on the phone and I'm talking to the people over there because you can't ever get to Jay. and they say, well, he's had a change of heart and thinks that you guys need to do more touring before we shoot a video like this. What? I left us in L.A. I'm on sunset. I had to go in the hotel and tell him this. And I'm beyond furious in ways that I can't explain. I would not want Travis O'Gwen mad at me.

So they had rented us a Lincoln Navigator for local use around there. I went ahead and hopped in the navigator with a couple of the guys. that were out there with me. We arranged travel to get him back home. And I literally drove from L.A. all the way to Kansas City and their navigator, their rental navigator. Then I picked up a few of my very, very large friends and drove all the way to New York City where Jay Ferris was to get out of that deal. And on the way there, I'm talking to my attorneys, drawing up paperwork. You know, he owed us money at that time and we got there and they still wanted to talk. I was done talking.

There was nothing else to talk about. And we went in the offices. They had a scare there because they basically didn't pay a street team company and the street team guys came in there and like beat up a bunch of their monitors with some baseball bats and scared the shit out of them. And so they had armed security. And so when we showed us, there's arm guards, all this other dumb shit.

And we unarmed them and placed them in a nice comfortable room and went over and got the paperwork with Jay and got him to sign off on it. And no one was harmed. No, you know, everything went fine. Yes. Real gangster shit. Well, we got the album back. Yeah.

We got the album back. And we called it Ancelic reparations. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, And doing that, then, you know, the guy that took us over there, a guy named Dave Weiner, because Violet Brown was a very big part of the early days. And she had introduced us to Dave Weiner, who was at Priority Record.

And then they, you know, they sold. And then Dave went over to J-Corps. And there were a couple other people like Brian Shafton and some others that were part of that huge success that priority had during all those years with Master P, with NW. UA with everything. And so he ended up quitting that job in protest of the way we were being handled and went back and got with his old mentor, a guy named Mark Sarami, who was the one of the two owners of priority records. And then that's where we ended up. We followed Dave over there and did a deal. And those two deals are the speed bumps and the education that we needed

and the sales that we needed in order to get the attention of Fontana and Universal to get our own deal. So then we were able to cut out the middleman and really focus on how to do it the way that we thought it needed to be done. And MSC wasn't really much better. Mark Cerami ended up being a fuck, a fuck. He's an asshole, too. A fuck person.

He's a fuck boy. I was just supposed to say a fuck boy. Yeah. I really don't mind. We actually recently, just a few years ago, we ended up getting all of the albums we put out through him back as well. But, you know, and he uses this crutch. He had a stroke.

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

Yeah, absolutely. And, but we got all of our shit back from, from Mark Sarammy as well. Fuck him too for the record. And 2006 was when we got with Fontana and we did. And then we got to do our deal. We did ever ready. No middleman between us. And look, the results are what the results are.

Right. If we work hard and we perform and we get something, we actually get paid. Yeah. Our wires come in religiously every single month. Yeah. It's so good. And we went there and we've been there ever since. We're still there.

Yeah. I mean, it's changed names. It was Fontana. Then it was Ingros and now it's Virgin music. But at the end of the day, we ended up finding a way to succeed becoming in the top one or two or three, normally top one label that they had. and we've maintained that for a really long time. And been able to do other cool shit like it goes up,

our distribution arm, which is where jelly came through. You know what I mean? So it's like, he signed on a Valentine's Day in 2020. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so weird that it was Valentine's Day. Yeah. But yeah, man, I mean, it's 2006 is when we realized that now that nobody could screw up the money and nobody was in between us and that, then it was all up from there. And that's really when we start having real success. Tech, what was it about Travis that made you trust this process? Because that's a long time, 1999 to 2006,

before you guys are even seeing any recourse, you know? Like, what was it about the struggle that made you trust him? When he said that I opened up and told him everything, he's always been forthcoming with everything, you know what I'm saying? Like he's always been open, not secretive when it comes to any type of money or any kind of thing that would come in, you know. It's like he's always been open, an open book. It's like me, you know what I mean?

And you can feel that, you know what I'm saying? Especially being in business for 25 years. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's pretty much self-explanatory. Absolutely, yeah. No, I'll always be fond of Travis. He was there when I got my first roll at.

Or was it was it me or was I buying Jay his first Rolex? You were buying Jay the Rolex through the guy here, buying it from a company that I work with all the time out there. You know what? Carleen creations. Yeah, that's actually where it came from. Yeah. That's work up.

Yeah. That's actually where that watch came from. That might be where this one came from. I have no idea. But it's just I love, my love for Travis always is going to run deep. So just really one other quick question. Well, actually, too. But what's your take on this main show?

versus independent debate because, you know, especially the country, rap world right now, they're insane with, you know, wanting it, everybody needs to stay independent or, you know, should you go mainstream? How do you guys feel about that? I think it can work either way. Yeah.

For people, it depends on what you want. Right. Yeah. I think that we were independent way before it was cool, way before it was sexy. We were independent pretty much out of necessity. I think that, you know, the lines are blurred between what was independent and, you know, there's so many different

projects that, like, even we worked early with TDE. We signed J. Rock. We had Kendra Marr was over there, you know, School Boy Q, Absal, Black Hippie. I love School Boy, Q. Right. And so, but when you look at that, though, like, when that deal upstreamed, Interscope didn't want to be mentioned. They wanted it all to be about TDE and Top Dog Entertainment.

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

very expensive situation. You go sign a major label deal, you sign a 15, 16, 17, 17, 18 point deal. And now you're recouping at the rate of that deal. And so, you know, everybody doesn't understand that for every $100 the major label spends and then they recoup, you're only getting $18 of a credit out of that hundred bucks. And, you're just, you're just getting $18 of a credit out of that hundred bucks. And so now you're in a pretty deep hole. And how wild is it not to make money and you got the number one record in the country? And you're not getting paid, though, from the record label. Right.

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

Distribution is constantly shifting and changing and how it's done. So it's a wild time, but you just have to be smart and dissect the deals that are in front of you and really try to figure out what your path is. If you don't care as much about radio or you want to go through the process of hiring and doing radios and working with the independent yourself, you could of course do that too. And then your reward is much, much greater. If it does connect and it does go, you're going to end up in a really great place. Right.

You know, but, but I mean, it's. I feel like radio is so outdated to like how you have to get plays and all that stuff. Like I watching my husband go through it, which I'll probably get shit for talking about this. I just feel like they're the way they go about things, so outdated and isn't everything more on streaming now as opposed to radio? Everything is indeed more on streaming than it is radio. But radio, terrestrial radio, is still a big factor on getting people to a mass popularity. It is unfortunately or fortunately, however you look at it, still kind of like the, it's a huge

part of it. But now you don't only, when we started, it was about the music. Now it's also about the social media. It's about the TikTok. It's about Instagram. It's about, and not only that, but now, wait a minute, not only do I have to do those things, but, okay, my TikTok needs to be for my personal moments or something. You know, you got to campaign the shit, right?

So it's about this. And then my Instagram is going to be about the music making process. And then my Facebook's going to, you have to come up with strategies and plans, and you navigate this space all the time. But, like, it's way bigger than the music now. and that kind of sucks. Right. They want the personality behind the music.

Yeah. And but streaming, streaming is the biggest fuckery that we're all dealing with. How is a guy, Daniel Eck, how is he worth $3.6 billion, or no,

4.6 billion recently on the backs of all the artists? And how did they make a $1.5 billion profit, yet they're paying less than one third of one penny per stream of the actual artist that put in the work. And the way it happened was the three majors made an alignment with Spotify. They have ownership stake.

And it was the new way for them to get control of the business again. Because independents like us were kicking their ass. We were the subject of a lot of different board meetings where guys would go in and like literally like I had this guy, Richie, who used to call me. He's like, man, like what's up? He's like, dude, we had to hear about you guys. for 30 minutes straight, people yelling at us over how in the fuck are they doing this, and we can't even do this.

50 cents that he used to tell his artist about us. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's like, you know, but streaming is really, really twisted. And the creative accounting that goes on with streaming, and you got guys that are making songs in AI, 100,000 songs collecting millions of dollars, it's fucked up.

and I'm waiting for people to get as sick and tired as we are, you know, you got to get people to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. Right. And to make a change. But there's no way an artist can fight back for that. We have a lot of really kick-ass ideas. Like back when we did the whole fuck the industry thing,

that whole campaign, we have it, but there are much larger risk at play now because, you know, when you're not making any money and, and, you know, you're willing to say and do a lot of shit, to rattle cages.

You know, and now we have to be very methodical because we have artists that are signed to the label. If we did something radical, like pull all their shit off of a platform to create our own platform, we could run into obstacles. It would be uncomfortable for others. So it's not just his and mine at stake now. It's a whole collective of people and content and catalog that we have to be mindful of. So we're hoping to do it in a better way.

still, still, you know, going crazy on people and doing things differently is I'm down for that. And I have no problem saying, you know, well, actually I've said it a few times. Yeah. Yeah, I don't have anybody to fuck the industry and fuck anybody else that wants to not treat artists fairly. Yeah. That shit pisses me off to the core. And I don't know how you can allow people to put all their work in and pay them, fractions of pennies.

That shit is irritating beyond work. No, it's not fair at all. Touching base real quick on the artist that you guys have signed. You guys have Chris Calico, Ritz, Maydays, and Stevie Stone artists like that. What do you guys look for in an artist before bringing them in?

And what would somebody have to do to be signed by you guys? If somebody's listening to this right now and is like, I want to go to strange music. Well, I like artists. that understand music. And I don't have to babysit. Right. You know what I mean?

I like artists that I can see hanging with me, artist-wise. You know what I mean? That are able to do hits if you got to chop. You know what I'm saying? It's not a requirement. But, you know what I mean? We started something, strange music, and chopping was part of it.

you know what I mean but we have other songs like you said caribou who go crazy and everybody but me you know she's got a whole bunch of songs that you know we look for artists that can do that like you you found sky daddy right I love her yeah yeah sky is doing incredible things she's through the distribution and and I think also another thing that we look for because you mentioned artists like Chris Cali And Alico and others, I think people that can create music that means something that is meaningful to the human experience.

Right. That's what I want to hear something like. As a message. How, yeah, how can what, what? And sometimes, you know, the content is heavy, but that heavier the content, the more help it provides to people going through the same thing who feel like they're alone. Yeah. And so like if you took all of these thousands of emails that we get talking about how the music saves someone's life. And listen, let's assume, let's assume for this purpose that only, that's only really true one time.

That's okay. It's still worth it. If you could actually say something that you help do, help you work with an artist, they created this wonderful song and this help this person take the gun out of their mouth, that's huge. And that's what therapeutic music should do. And that's the one thing that drew me so much to your husband was all of them. that because knowing that that people have that reaction to what he is saying on these tracks is massive to me yes and walking down you know I was telling him the story last night where me and jellie used to walk down Broadway when I came and visited and a few people knew who he was

and that was a cool interaction but then inside it I won't go with him anywhere it turns into a meeting great inside the restaurants though when people would come up crying to him and way back then I'm like, like, there it is. This is why I have to help him grow this thing. There's no, I, at that point. You were there for Save Me. You are what helped save me get the notoriety that it got. Because he wasn't sure about it.

I think I heard something. He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure how his fans would take him singing. Right. It was a very first time, you know, we talked about, we talked about the five-year plan. You've heard the five-year plan. And then we talked about getting, to the root of what it is he really wanted to do, which it took me a while to get him to open up to

me and tell me about his mom and his dad and the music they played and his wanting to write songs and how he wanted to be a part of music row and then how he wanted to get more into the singing. And we finally, you know, he does this song and then he sends it to me and he's like, can we just get this up real quick? He was afraid of that song. You know that, right? I mean, I know he talk to you. He told me about his conversations with you too, and you thought the song was beautiful. I told him it would be as big a song he ever did. Right, right, right. And as did I. I said, look, this is going to be, this is what we've been talking about. It doesn't, you know, he told me that it's the first song you ever did without a rap verse. And I'm like, okay. Now I can't get him to rap.

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

I haven't had for a long time, neither is he. Right. But the reality is when you know that your music has such. an impact on people. That's hard. You can't, if you help create the soundtrack to a lot of people's lives, and then what do you do? You just say, oh, never mind.

And you fuck, fuck off. What? So, so that's, that's it. You know, and I deal with the things like with McKinsey and all these other, the mental health of our country is, it's challenged pretty heavily. So heavily. And if we can create stuff that helps people and human beings and help them stay alive, we better do this.

we better continue or else. Like, I feel responsible. Like, it's like, it ain't even a job for money. It's like a responsibility is where I'm at with that. And to follow what strange music means, the S and the logo is taken from the rod of esclepius. You know, you usually see it at the hospital. You see the snakes going around the rod symbolizing medicine. Yes.

And the bat being nocturnal. We are the medicine that navigate through the dark. darkness. So we've fit that tight like a motherfucker. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Your song fragile is like saved me for me. Oh yeah. I was going through a really bad abusive relationship when that song dropped and it literally like saved me so many times. So I mean, you guys are definitely making therapeutic music. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. Jalvis, thank you for sitting in. I appreciate you being here so much. Yes. Thank you. Tech. We're going to move on, but I'm going to let you guys go because I feel like I've kept you for so long,

but we're going to move on just a little bit. I want to touch base on one story that I heard before, though, because you're, you're, you were touring at a pace of doing 250 shows a year at one time. That's insane. Yes, it is. Like, how does somebody function to be able to do that many shows? Conditioned ourselves throughout the years to be able to know what to do with your voice for one, you know, by cutting out the party after the, show, getting rest, you know what I mean? You had to go through the shit early on to know how you don't be hoarse during the show. You know what I'm saying?

And on that I seep tour, man, I lost my voice in Kentucky, man. It was it was frightful. And ever since then, I really start pacing myself, you know what I mean? You learn your lesson. So we've always been conditioned to do it. We've done it so much that at the end of some tours, I've popped my gastricemia muscle on both sides. From jumping? Yes, yeah.

All that, all that Michael Jackson sliding and shit from pop-blocking, you know what I'm saying? The shit I do on stage. No, it's high energy. You know what I'm saying? The minute you start to you end. I was fucking off and not stretching and not working out back then when I was popping shit. Since I've been working out in my personal trainer, I ain't popped a motherfucking thing. Let's go.

First tried and get sick, not one time. Let's go. One fucking muscle. Let's go. That probably contributes to your sobriety, too. Yeah. Touring that much, do you ever just get afraid that when you're at home, you're just going to get lost in your thoughts?

Or is it that you just get antsy whenever you have time off? No, because I never got like that because usually when I'm home is when I start working on records. You know, we tour, get home, work on music. Tour, get home, work on music. You know what I mean? And it was like. It was like that for a long time.

You know what I'm saying? And I never felt like I had to, you know, even though I have to do mantras to go to sleep, you know what I mean? I found that and it works for me, you know. But no, we pretty much have a, I have a regimen, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's a schedule. I'm conditioned to do it. Mm-hmm.

Let's talk about your sobriety. Can you take me on that journey? Because it says you almost died from alcohol poisoning one time. That's not true, but something like that. Okay. So my life, since my early teens, I've been drinking like a rock star because I've pretty much been a rock star. Yeah. I mean, you are a rock star tech.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You deserve that title. I've been knowing that, you know what I'm saying? Since my teens, you know what I'm saying? That's how I felt. That's how I built this to be. You know what I'm saying? A hip-hop rock star, you know what I say?

So imagine every day I wake up, I have breakfast out somewhere or brunch or something. I start the day with maybe three mimosas, whether it be orange juice mamosa or a pineapple's mimosa. Lunch, you know, you spend a day in studio, you know what I'm saying, lunch, take lunch. Somewhere at a bar, I have maybe three cosmopolitans. Top shelf. You know, dinner, you have your red wine. If you go to, if you go to Capitol Grill, you're going to have four Stoli-Dolies. If you don't know what Stoli-Doli is, it's like they marinate pineapple and vodka,

and they pour it, you know, and it's fucking beautiful. That's one day. And then I come home, we might have a party. we drink in caribou KCT Hennessy Sprite and Lemon this is daily because I'm a social drinker

and I love to party so I'm doing this for years maybe I'm talking about this is like fuck the drugs that I was doing you know what I'm saying I stopped that in the 06 or was it 07 it was 06 or 07 1 1 of 107 one of me years you know what I'm saying stopped Um, ecstasy, shrooms, acid, GHB, um, uh, what's it called, uh, the red pills, uh, no, no, no, no,

no, no, Aquile was like, like a way, I'll remember in a minute, but I would do that shit all in one night. When was your first time taking drugs, like hard drugs? My first time with X, you know, was 98 when I came home. When I first met Travis, he didn't know I was on the shit, though. Right. I met a dancer at this club. She gave me my first.

No, nope, she wasn't the first one. Nope, nope, I take that back. He wasn't the first one. It was the girlfriend I had before that. Was it 98? This is so hard to find. That's okay. But it was the Grant Rice era for sure.

You know what I'm saying? So your first drug you ever tried was ecstasy? Yes. Wow. Yes. Most people like smoke weed or... I don't call weed drug, though. Right.

Well, most of the smoke weed or do blow. But it is, but it is classified as a drug. But to me, it's natural. Yeah. Just like most of them, sorry and shit. But I'm talking about drugs. Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Molly and the ecstasy. Yes. I found that first. Yeah. I think, I think the dancer was the first one to give it my first one at a movie theater. She said, you're going to take this pill. It's going to take 30 minutes. You're going to feel.

like you have to shit, don't shit. You know what I'm saying? And fuck up the whole thing. Don't shit. I'm like, I'm not going to sit at the movies. So you're not allowed to shit on ecstasy? No,

you ain't supposed to. Oh. Or mushrooms. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm supposed to fill it and keep that shit in. You know what I was telling? I never knew. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, you get that shit. I was shitting all the time. You learn something new every day. She did fart over there. You know what I'm saying? But anyway. Um, 98. I took my first pill.

And I was doing that shit all the way from 98 to 2006 or 7. Wow. Yeah. And what was it that made you want to get sober? Shit was happening. You know, you remember you came up to the house and they said somebody was outside eating pussy and six o'clock in the morning, outside on the bench. And all the people in the apartment complex could see it. You know what I'm saying?

Police came, all kinds of shit. Was that you? It was at my house. Oh, okay. You know what I'm saying? He's like, I'll never say if it was me or not. I have people over, you know what I'm saying? Shit was going on.

Right. Upstairs, downstairs, outside. You know, because when you're on that shit, you know, you stand up to four and five and six in the morning. Right. And, you know, they're not. Jog grinding. You know, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Adderall. That was the red pill. Aderall, okay. I'll put that on top of the axe. It feels so good. Oh, my goodness. Ooh. I should have been.

Whoa. I should have been Chris Farley, my nigger. I was putting shit on top of shit, Holmes. You know what I'm saying? So, around 2006, ever ready time, it starts slowing down. You know what I'm saying? Travis said, man, we had a meeting. Travis said, man, everybody's saying you're going to die just like Jim Morrison.

Aw. You know what I'm saying? I can't be involved. He said, I can't keep doing business with somebody that's going to kill themselves, man. I'm sorry. You know what I'm saying? I was like, oh, no, I ain't going to kill myself. You know what I'm saying?

I got to kill myself now. So, you know, I thought about that. I'm like, I see it every day. People seeing me fucked up. They're like, we're going to lose them just like we lost Jim Morrison, you know what I'm saying? It's that and the stuff. Because that's who I attributed that idea to do strange music to, you know what I'm saying? I went to Perlachais and Paris and thanked them at the, you know, cemetery.

You know, thank you for the inspiration, brother. You know, I worked with the rest of the members after that, you know. Yeah. But when Travis said, you know, man, it's getting bad, dude, you know what I'm like, I'm just kicking it. I don't do this shit all the time. I did do it all the time. You know, because we're in the strip, we run in a strip club, satin dolls, we down there. I'm getting every bitch in the, you know, I'm like a house dad, you know, I can go in there where bitches are.

And I'm sorry, I talk like that bitches, but, you know, the women are. I say it all the time, too. Trust me, I get it. Like a bag of 60. rolls, you know what I'm saying? Like, rolls, ecstasy, you know what I'm saying? That's what you're calling back there, rolls, you know, you roll in.

People, you know, but anyway, I'm putting them in bitch's mouths, like, you know, tech, you gave me my first pill. I see them now, I'm like, damn, I fucked up. You know what I'm saying? Like, I started a lot of people. I was, I used to put it on my tongue. I'd be high and, like, pick it off my tongue, baby,

you know what I'm saying? I was fucked up. You know what I'm saying? But I was partying, you know? And because I was going so hard, and you know me and my partner had that meeting I'm like we got

motherfuckers eating pussy outside you know I said okay I went home one night and my kid this is when it starts slowing down my kid rainbow at the time

she was probably like three two I don't fucking know I saw that she saw me about like she saw me about like she saw me being high. I used to sneak in and lay on the couch. You know what I'm saying? Like I've been there all night. You know what I mean? Sweating like a motherfucker. My wife at the time was like

when I sleep in the bed, she's like, why are you sweating so bad? I was like, it's hot in this motherfucker. He's like, Silling fan on in his wintertime. You know, what the fuck are you doing? You know? I was dying over there, dude. You know what I ain't know. So. Is this the time that you took 15 Xanax? No, I didn't take no 15. You didn't take 15? 15 pills in one. night. I'm talking about X pills. Right. Or you're not Xanax. No, not XenX. I didn't find out about Xanax to the last day.

I rolled. I got it mixed up. The 15s, this is when you took 15 ecstasy pills. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was out in L.A. That's something different. Okay, gotcha. We take three at a time. You know what I'm saying? That's something different. I was on one. You're wild. Oh. I shouldn't even be alive

right now. That's why I'm so animated. Because I ain't supposed to be here. You know what I'm saying? As much as I drank and I was fucking around. I understand with drugs, you know what I mean? I'm talking about we would take ecstasy and the GHB together and just fall asleep on the stage in the club. When we get there, it's packed.

Everybody let me in. I'm tech nine. Cops waking us up, tech, man. You got to wake up, man. I'm on the stage with the business with me and my brother, Dynamack at the time. You know, we sleep on the stage fucking with GHB and ecstasy and drinking robotussing like it was cool,

you know, just doing stupid shit. Just trying to explode my heart. I don't know. I wouldn't try to. I'm just like, fuck it, let's just go. Let's just go. I thought I had it in control, you know what I'm saying? Then we had that meeting.

I'm like, you know, I got to calm down. You know what I'm saying? And then in Rainbow, I was like, okay, that's my little girl, Rainbow, you know. And I'm like, nope, can't do it no more. So 2007 came. I've been clean off all drugs since then, you know what I'm saying? But with the drinking four years ago, my doctor told me I was having a, you you know, a physical, Dr. Strange Love DeAngeloz said,

you know, your blood pressures through the roof and your cholesterol is, you need to cut that drinking out or your heart's going to explode like your dad, you know. And I was like, oh, I'm going to die. Okay, I quit. And my wife's like, I'll quit with you, please. Just, please stop, you know.

So Valentine's Jesus passed. That was our fourth year. I'm sober off liquor. Congratulations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard, man. I've been sober off liquor since 2018, sober off cocaine and pills since 2017. Yeah, man.

Sobriety is a journey. Yeah, it is, man. It's a journey. Even the mocktails I take slow, you know, because it's still sugar. You know, when I first stopped, I was on mocktail heaven. I was like, I'm still getting fat. It's sugar, motherfucker. You know what I'm saying?

So, you know, I have one every once in a while, you know. Do you feel better now? And are you sober off drugs? or do you still smoke weed? You're so broke of everything? I don't smoke weed, but I can. You know what I'm saying? I want to keep my lungs.

So, you know, every once in a while, I might hit it with my wife or something. You know what I'm saying? I don't smoke with nobody no more. That's how I got, that's how I got COVID. Oh, yeah. Blunts. Oh, that's the worst.

I tell my wife, don't, I don't give a fuck who it is. Don't smoke with nobody. Don't bring that fucking sickness in our house, man. No. That's how it's happening. The motherfuckers just licking it. You know what I'm saying? Just seal it and shit.

Just to get it. No, nigga. No. No. Sorry. No, no, no. So I haven't taken a blunt or if it's not pre-rolled in a dispensary, I'm not fucking with it. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So I very rarely smoke for a while. I was taking a shot of distillate juice. And like I got a person that can make like a lemonade distilet or strawberry distillate. You know what I'm saying? I put it in a shot glass and it's like, what is that? It's liquidified THC, you know what I'm saying? They put it in juice.

It's called distillate, you know? You're a savage, dude. You are a salve. What you mean? Dude, liquid THC, I'd go to the fucking hospital. No, but it's only, it's, the drink is, the, the shot is only, uh, 20 milligrams or something like that. I can't go. Still.

I can't, I eat some freaking weed butter and called 911. Yeah, yeah. I'm saying, that's cool. But beyond 20, nah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? 10, 15, 20, that's it. You know what I'm saying?

Keeps your regular. But the shot, the shot glows is like 20, you know, milligrams or whatever. And it's like a body massage. I don't do it no more. I was doing it for a while. I don't do it no more because I don't got time. Right. You know what I'm saying?

Do you feel better now that you're sober? Oh, yes. And like on this health journey? Oh, yes. I feel better. I'm just nine pounds over my target weight, which was 185 when I wanted to get in my suit for my wedding, you know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Which congratulations. I feel fat as fuck right now. Just nine pounds ahead of 185, you know. You got to allow yourself grace though. And, you know, I've been working on this fucking album. You know what I mean? 58, 16 Forrest for a long time. And, you know, I got a lot of deadlines and shit.

I'm still writing verses for motherfuckers. And sometimes I miss my workout. I haven't seen my, I haven't seen my training. trainer in almost a month. You know what I'm saying? So I got to get back with them. Because, you know, because I'm in there from 11 to 12 and I get to the fucking studio at 12, 30 or 1, and when I get some food, you know what I'm saying?

And, you know, round 3 and 4, I got to get home. You know what I'm saying? It don't make no fucking sense. Right. I need to be at the studio at 10 o'clock to get the time. So I've been missing my workouts to try to get everything done. You know what I'm saying? And I feel fat as fuck.

But have grace with yourself, though. What did you say? I said just have grace with yourself. Of course. I get myself grace. Yeah. You know, I get up in the morning every day and I flex my, damn. I can still see my abs, but it's still like, you know, I love dessert.

Dude, I used to hate blueberry muffins my whole life. I love them motherfuckers now. I'm like, keep them away from me. Please don't bring in the house. Don't bring that fucking crumble cookie in here, please. But you're in your healing dad era too. Yeah. Like, you've been a dad.

for a long time, but now you have your little foster cake. Oh my God, dude. I'm sure she indulges with you too. Yes, she does. I'm just saying buttercake, wherever we go eat, they got buttercake, we gotta have it. Now, now we used to get one each. Now we split it.

Good. You know, you're like, fuck. Or just have one cheat day a week. That's what I do. Yeah, that's cool. You have one cheat day a week and then you just get it out of your system. And now we're on the gluten-free tates cookies, you know what I'm saying? Every once in a while. You know what I'm saying? And I just love blueberry.

I just had blueberry pancakes the other day. I said, look at me. She makes them, you know, gluten-free and all that kind of shit. I'm like, look at me. I'm eating blueberry pancakes. But they're gluten-free. She said, yeah. So you're doing good.

But blueberries, though. And it ain't got nothing to do with no blood gang shit or nothing. I just never liked it. You know what I said? But I love the motherfucker fucking now. And I said, it's good for your brain, you know what? It's crazy how your palate changes as you get older because I was never a fruit girl. I always loved vegetables.

I love fruit now. Something fucked up is happening. to me right now as we speak i haven't had shrimp or lobster since my marriage i had it we eloped in puerto rico where her family's from and on july 14th and then we had our second wedding for our family and everybody on july 20th in kansas city you know what i'm saying that was a flex too we had two weddings and shit. Yeah, I love it. But I haven't had shrimp or lobster. The shit just starts feeling weird in my mouth. No ditty. It just started feeling weird, weird, weird. The texture. Oh, okay. I was in saying, are you having an allergic reaction to it? No, the texture.

I just, it just, you outgrow things. It feels like now when I bite shrimp, it feels like I'm biting cartilage or something. I don't fucking know, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, your taste buds have changed. Maybe because you're sober, though. too. I mean, that's been four years. I was just, I was just eating that shit last year. Yeah.

Like a motherfucker. I'm talking about like shrimp bowls and shit. Yeah. With sausage in it and potatoes and shrimp and, you know, crab legs. I haven't even had no crab legs yet. I don't know if I'm weird on that. You got to eat some crab legs.

Because crab legs are bomb. I know. I've been eating them all my life. A shrimp I'm a little iffy with too. Something's fucking with me, you know, they call shrimp the roach of the sea or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

So maybe that by the cockroach of the sea. But. I was just in New Orleans and wouldn't eat no goddamn shrimp. I didn't even have no crawfish. I love crawfish et tufei. I love it. You know what I mean? Your taste mess is changing.

I'm eating chicken with skin on it now. I can't fucking do it. I'm taking the skin off now. I've been eating chicken all my life. There ain't no racist shit or nothing. Everybody eats chicken. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

I've been eating chicken all my life, dude. You know what I'm saying? All my life. Chicken, chicken all my life. You know what I'm eating this shit and I feel like that I'm eating human flesh. Oh, no. I don't fucking, steak was almost out like last year because I've been watching these documentaries saying they put you glue in it and when you cut it, I'm like, oh my God.

Oh, no. So me and me are having a time. No ditty. But it's your body. I'm sorry, no ditty. Your body is probably. just trying to go through some sort of transformation. Something's happening to me.

And I'm still trying to eat the, I ate a chicken sandwich at the airport. It was good as fuck. You know what I was like? Okay, chicken's not all the way out yet. You know what I'm saying? This don't have no skin on it. Right, right. Yeah.

Let your body purge is just part of growing. And it could be spiritual too. Have you ever tried to Google like the spiritual meaning of why your body is refusing these meats? No, I just think that I ain't supposed to be eating that shit. I don't think none of us are. I'm sorry.

Yeah. No, I agree. It is just, it is what it is. I don't know what I'm going to turn into in the next years. I can't wait. But I can feel it coming. I'm like, why do I feel like I'm a savage eating meat these day?

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Well, I can't wait to see the transition. My lady asked me the other day before I came here. She was like, so I'm going to, when you get back,

I want to have groceries and stuff, you know, some fresh groceries. What do you want? I was like, sell it stuff. I go through phases like that too, though. Sal it's stuff.

You know what I'm saying? I go through phases like, that too. And sometimes it's just your body just needs a break from that show. I don't know what's going on, man. It's like, I don't know if I'll ever eat shrimp or lobster. I used to fuck lobster up. I'm rich. I love that tech is so upset about the shrimp. Yeah, it's fucked up. Because the shrimp they had at the restaurant we were too in New Orleans shit looked good as about my dog. So fire. And then I took my son. My son came with me for the first time he came to the Super Bowl with me.

My brothers was down there. My uncle, we all had brunch the morning of the Super Bowl down on Bourbon Street. It was fucking wonderful. And I saw that they had crawfish et tufei omelette. I'm like, oh, I got to try it. But I said, damn, I can't eat any shrimp. And my brother said, I'll get it and you can taste it. I ain't even fucking taste it.

He didn't have the urge. No. I don't know what the fuck is going on with the texture shit. You're just going through days right now. It makes me feel like I'm eating something I ain't supposed to eat. But my wife's like, we got to fucking eat. You got to get your protein in. So you have to figure out a weight of maybe like eating like beans and chickies.

Yeah, she's been making a lot of beans with, you know, what should we call it? With the meat, they put it on the Mexican breakfast. What does it call? Tirezo. There you go. Treso. You got the chorizo and the beans, you know what I'm saying? Treso, a sausage.

I know. I know. So it's grinded up. It's cool. I love her beans. You know what I'm saying? I love the beans. And I'm just, I'm just, it's just weird. I don't fucking know what's going on. Tonight, and I'm going to send it to Travis and see if we can like connect the dots for you. Because I really feel like it might be spiritual for you too. I promise you. Like I know it sounds crazy, but like sometimes there's certain things that your body rejects when you're going through like a. And she still makes turkey tacos. I fucking love them. You know what I'm saying? I'm fucking crazy. She can make a turkey burger. You can't even fucking tell, dude.

I'll fucking this shit up. I love your love for your wife. Yeah, man. Tech, I have kept you for two and a half hours. Oh, I told you I'm long-winded. No, you're good. I'm going to ask you one last question and I'm going to let you go. So imagine this.

You walk off stage from your last show ever. The lights are off. The fans are gone. You're standing alone in the vine. you. What's the one thing you regret not doing? The one thing I regret not doing. Like just in anything, life, career, anything. I thought you're talking about the show because I got it. That too, or if you want to talk about the show? I always talk to Chris Calicoe and I always said, when I accidentally tell a joke on stage and everybody laughs, it feels so good. I was like,

maybe I should write some jokes. I said, I can't fucking do that. You know what I said? I can't be tech down and write the joke and I can do it. I can do what the fuck I want to, but I never fucking done it. You know what I'm saying? I think you could be a comedian. And it's like when I come out on stage, what I love so much is that when I walk out, everybody's scream, everybody

's smiling at me. It's the best fucking feeling. That's why when you see me rapping like Midwest Choppers and shit, I'm smiling behind the mic. Like, because everybody's fucking smiling at me and it's just a beautiful feeling. But When I say something funny, and the whole, you hear the crowd, like, that shit is crazy.

Now I know Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart and all these people, all these great people, Bill Burr, you know, I see. George Carlin, crazy, you know what I'm saying? But it's like Richard Pryor, all of them. I see what they're talking about to make people laugh. Smiling is great, but to laugh. As Jelly, if he ever said something on stage, Did everybody laugh?

It's a feeling. He wants to be a comedian right now. That's all he hangs out with his comedians. See what I mean? But I think it's because you guys have made people cry your entire careers with how deep your music is. What was me in music? We specialize in, yes. That now you're getting a different response and it's kind of like a high for you because it's something new.

So if that was my last show, I'm walking out, I'm like, damn, it's over. I never fucking wrote a joke. I love that. I really love that. But would you ever pursue a career in comedy? Nah, no, no, no, because I write music so well, you know, I'm not that funny, but you are funny. I'm the kind of motherfucker that gets on the elevator and, you know, when you get it, when you put yourself in a box with strangers, it's weird, that's why everybody looks at the

numbers, you know, as they're going down, they just watch that or going their phone, because it's weird being in a box with strangers. Right. Especially with this stranger, strange music, you know what I'm saying, in the cabot. So when I get on the elevator, I'm the kind of mother way to get on to say, okay, if I'm on a floor like five, and I was like, I was going to tell a joke, but by the time I'm done with this long-ass joke, we'll be down at floor one. Everybody will still laugh, you know, in the elevator, it breaks the monotony. Right.

I do it all the time. Right. You know what I'm saying? Because I used to study like Roddy Dangerfield, like, take my wife and everybody would laugh. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. The OGs of the comedy world. Yeah, it's like one-liners, you know what I'm saying?

I think you could do it. I think if you put your mind to it, you could actually. I'm sure. I can do anything. Your delivery is so funny. Mentally, I can do whatever the fuck. I'll break down barriers. I've done it in my whole career. Yeah, absolutely.

But I never fucking took the time to write some jokes in between my songs like I always said I was going to do. Do it. Now you got to do it. Now you got to do it. Now they're going to expect it. And then you'll have fans like, I didn't fucking come and pay for a goddamn comedy show tech. It was funny, but fuck that. Rap, motherfucker.

No, I don't think so. I think as long as you're rapping in between the jokes. because everybody's going to have the best of both worlds, you know? I don't know. When are we going to get a new album from you? June 13th, my album, 5816, Forest, where we moved when my mom married Abul-A-San-Ras-O-Khali for the Muslim. It's an audio series with 17 episodes about my life on 58-6.

16th, from age 12 to 17 when I ran away from home in the pursuit of becoming Technina. I love how you always go back to the nostalgia and

the memories. And it's in chronological order, how we moved in and all the shit that happened at school and... Yeah. And it's music? That's doing all of this? Yeah, it's music. All music, but it's an audio series. That's what I call it. Because music is audio, you know what I'm saying? It's an audio series of events that happened from 12 to 17.

Yeah. And I'm running away. You know what I'm saying? And it's in chronological order from 12. My mother, years old, my mama fell in love with a Muslim. 58 block week. She took them or some shit, you know what I'm saying? It's brand new music.

I don't fucking know it all right now. But it's starting at the beginning. You know, the first song is called The Birth. Then the second song is called, Friday to Sunday, you know what I'm saying, triality. We're on 58, 16, 4th, I found the king, the clown, and the G. You know what I'm saying? How all three of my personalities began, you know what I'm saying?

So it's all the way to the age 17. And then after the strange music tag, we have a song called J6's after the tag. Wayne, never put a song after the tag, you know what I'm saying? And it's called J6s, and it's two years after I ran away. You know what I'm saying? Oh, I can't wait for it. And how my Jordan Sixes were my good luck charm whenever I wore them. I wore them down here. You know what I mean? I don't have them on now, but I had them on yesterday.

Have you ever thought about doing a documentary or like having? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're still writing it. Yeah. We're still writing the Technine story, man. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Right now, you know what I'm saying? You have so much lore, though. Like, I feel like you could have, like, a series of documentaries. It can be a movie. Literally. Yeah. It could be a fucking crazy-ass movie. It's one of them three-hour movies, though. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like some Black Panther shit. You know what I mean? No, absolutely. But yeah, man, I got a lot to talk about.

And 5816 for us is very informative. Because I've told these stories in interviews before, you know what I'm saying? Like we're talking, but you never heard them in rhyme form. A lot of these stories. Like I have down in the middle, it's a song called Excited, where I talk about 14 years old. This black girl I was dating named Chanel Winfrey broke my heart because I went to her 14th birthday party. It was on the next block and, you know, I went over there with my boy Snubby and, you know,

we're dancing. And when the lights went off, you know, in the hood, I had to go across the street to ask my stepfather and my mom, can I go back to the party? It won't be for too much longer. I know the lights are on. And he's like, yeah, you can go. When I came back, I was looking for, everybody was slow dancing. It was a red light.

I couldn't really see. And I opened a room and my boy snubby was on top of her kissing. She broke my heart. You know what I'm saying? And then I have the song right after that. It's called The Nice One, how the white girls in the school, I was hanging with my thug homies from the hood. But whenever, whenever a new Caucasian girl would come into school,

they would hear and find me at my life. Locker's like, you're Aaron, right? I'm like, yeah, we hear you're the nice one. I'm like, okay, you know what I'm saying? Out of all the thugniggas I hang with you. You were the nice one. So the nice one is right after, you know what I'm saying? It shows the duality of, you know what I'm saying?

My taste has never been, okay, I'm, you know, I'll just date this girl because he's black. I date this girl because you're white. I this girl because you're Puerto Rico. I date this girl because he's Asian. I never had a type. Right. I was just love, you know what I'm saying? Whatever love, whatever love, whatever.

that felt like, it didn't matter what it looked like. You still lead with love and everything that you do. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So 58, 16 for us, it was a journey. It's an audio series, 17 episodes. Fucking crazy. June 13th, baby. Yeah.

I can't wait. So the last song, Sacrifice is the only one it ain't done. That's the jelly roll hook. Son of a bitch. I'm going to go home and spank him. You know what? He's actually downtown. That's the last song we haven't finished.

You know what I'm saying? You guys can probably find him downtown. he's doing a whole bunch of interviews today. I don't know exactly. I'll call him and see what he's up. Everything else is done. That's the one that don't have a hook. I will get on his ass for you. I promise.

He said he was going to do it. You know what I'm saying? If he says he's going to do it, he'll do it. If I would have had it when he was on, when he came to visit me on the falling and reverse tour, he got on my bus. He said, what's you working on? I was like, I'm working on his album called 5864. He said, you got anything for me?

I said, nope, but I will find it. Yeah. So I found sacrifice. You know, so I got that. across my chest, you know what I'm saying? Years ago, you know, everything I had to do to sacrifice the time I spent. It was perfect because it's on some woos me shit, but, you know, the shit I had to do, I couldn't, you know, go be with everybody else because I had to sacrifice. And while I was being on punishment and shit like that, I worked on my craft, you know what I mean? I became

tech nine, you know, and it saved my life, you know? Yeah. So that's the last song, you know, sacrifice. And it's beautiful. The album is crazy. I can't wait to hear it. I'm so excited. Yeah, we used one producer on this one. I've never worked with. His name is Jay Peasy. He brought that fucking ghetto funk that I ain't had in a long time. You know what I'm saying? Like,

like that I had like back in the Rogue Dog villain days and Let's Get Fucked Up and Mitch Bay days, it's those kind of beats, you know? And I was fucking scared at first. I told Black Walk because he's the one and told me, man, your fans want to hear all you, nobody else rapping on it, just people.

If you want to put some people on the hook, that's cool. Wayne did a hook, you know what I'm saying? And the hope is called Yoda. and then... Little Wayne? Yeah. Then Jelly got sent one, you know what I'm saying?

Got a couple of people that's doing hooks, but I'm all the verses, and it's never been done while we've been doing this, you know what I'm saying? So when Black Walt first brought me the idea, I was like, I've been hearing fans say they're tired of me doing, you know, collaborations all this time, you know what I'm saying?

They just want to hear all me on the song. I think that's boring as fuck. And he's like, no. And I told Travis, that's what Black Walt said. And he said, Travis said, he's right, Tech. You know, when he wants to hear you rap, you know what I'm doing your thing, you know. I love that Black Walt is still around. Black Walt is still around.

I love that. Yeah, he just, he just got out of jail some years ago, you know what I'm saying? He was, you know, he's clocking much dollars on the first or 15th. Sorry, but, you know what I'm saying? But I got into it, the album and doing all the verses and, you know, a lot of the hooks, too, you know. And I was like, holy fucking shit is so, it relieved me. Yeah. What's therapeutic for you?

I found, I found, I found solace in talking about my stepfather and me running away when he was trying to make me a real man. I didn't understand it when I was 17, but when I got out in the world, I understand he was trying to make me better. And I said, I love him and thank you. And I played him. My brother, Hakeem, played him in the son. And he said he was so happy.

Donnie, I said, thank you. You know what I'm saying? Because I probably fuck with him. I never came back. Did your stepfather, is your stepfather still alive? Yeah. Oh, good. We played him a song.

Yeah. You know, it's called the punishment. He used to have me on punishment all the time because I lived in a blood neighborhood and he knew when I was around my homies, shit was happening. Yeah. You know? So he's like, I fuck up in school. I'm in punishment for the whole summer.

Well, tech. Summer's on punishment. I can't wait to hear this album. And I think that it's going to, I think it's going to, I think it's it's actually innovative what you guys are doing. Because I don't think anybody's ever really done this. No, I ain't ever heard nobody else called their upcoming album, audio series

with 17 episodes. Yeah, no, it's huge. You guys are just creating your own wave again. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here, Ty. Thank you for having me. It was so natural and so comfortable. I appreciate you being here. Travis, I appreciate you being here, and I just,

I can't wait to see, you know, your growth and your journey just continue like it has been for all these There's three decades, right? Yes. Like you have just been moving and shaken. Yes. And you don't plan on stopping.

And I love that. No doubt. Thank you, Mom. Come back and see me. Yay. I shall. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Dunblonde. I'll see you guys next week.

Bye.