One Song - 2Pac ft. Dr. Dre's "California Love"

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

How did “California Love” crystallize Tupac Shakur at his peak? LUXXURY and Diallo dive into the West Coast anthem, untangle its stacked list of collaborators, and examine how Pac’s charisma and contradictions collide to create a lasting cultural moment. Songs Discussed: “California Love” - 2Pac feat. Dr. Dre (0:00) “Same Song” - Digital Underground feat. 2Pac (9:38) “Keep Ya Head Up” - 2Pac (10:39) “Dear Mama” - 2Pac (10:46) “Changes” - 2Pac (10:53) “What’z Ya Phone #” - 2Pac (13:12) “777-9311” - The Time (13:24) “Pain” - 2Pac feat. Stretch (13:47) “Ambitionz Az a Ridah” - 2Pac (14:41) “Hail Mary” - 2Pac (14:50) “Thug Luv” - Bone Thugs-N-Harmony feat. 2Pac (15:06) “Paper Planes” - M.I.A. (15:28) “Ill Street Blues” - Kool G Rap & DJ Polo (23:53) “Woman To Woman” - Joe Cocker (24:44) “With A Little Help From My Friends” - Joe Cocker (25:09) “Knick Knack Patty Wack” - EPMD (26:29) “West Coast Poplock” - Ronnie Hudson (38:25) “So Ruff, so Tuff” - Zapp (39:18) “Magic’s Rap” - Magic Fraga (41:23) “ROCKIN” - Shoreline Mafia (52:54) “Funky Little Beat” - Connie (53:51) “Love” - Lambrini Girls (54:35) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shake, shaking, baby. Shake, shaking, baby. Shake, shaking, mama. Shake it, cowie. Imagine zooms through a talk box. Like, imagine, like, I don't have the report. Like, you can do all kinds of harmonize. Oh, hell yeah.

Luxury, I'm hype for today's show. We're talking about a rapper who's not only one of the greatest of all time, but arguably one of the most complicated. It's honestly, what I loved about him so much was that he could be an activist and a playboy and a self-proclaimed thug, yet to even apply these labels feels wrong and reductive. That's right, Ziyala, his shifting personas combined with his untimely death, have made him one of the most endlessly debated figures in hip-hop, not to mention one of the best-selling artists ever. He's sold more than 75 million records worldwide. And today,

we're talking about a song that cemented his status as a global icon. That's right, luxury. When this track comes on, it never finds a dance floor empty. We're talking one song. and that song is California Love by Tupac featuring Dr. Dre. I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter and musicologist, luxury, aka the guy who whispers, Interpolition. And this is one song. The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres

and tell you why they deserve one more listen. You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify while you're there. Please like and subscribe. So Diallo, today we are talking about two. and California Love. When was the first time you heard this song? I think the first time I heard it might have been,

might have been when I got the 12-inch single. Yeah. Probably as a promo. I was already DJing at this point. So anytime new vinyl came, you're like, ooh, you know, this might get the crowd going. And this one was sort of a hit from the very first time I put it on. It also has that thing that I love that, you know,

is very DJ-friendly. Like the California love, like the California love, like the California love part of that is a perfect count in. The intro is on deep. Yeah. There's some songs that have weird intro. So as a DJ, you got to figure out, well, where am I going to bring this one in? This is one where you can literally hit stop on the other turntable and hit start on this one. And it just comes in with that perfect forecount. Dre with the DJ choices, man. You know, like it really happens across the Cadlock. He has all these choices about what sounds good with the bass and the frequencies,

but also choices like that. I have a little bit of an issue with Dre because he did the, Yo, Dre, kick in the bass! And that one is a little bit off, so it doesn't come in right. But other than that, yeah, Dre, you're cool. You just want to make sure. you're still paying attention. That's right. That's right. Lusory, when did this song first come on your radar? California love video. I remember vividly being in a hotel room with my parents. And the video came on and it's a very, it's like such a memorable video. It felt expensive. It felt like a movie. What a 90s video. It cost more than most movies to do.

Totally. And it was production value and it was like Mad Max theme. So that was the vibe of like the moment. Jada Pinkett was supposed to direct it. I heard it was her concept. And yet she pulled out of the project. And then Hype Williams is one of the first really big Hype Williams videos. For those of you listening and not watching, Chris Tucker, the actor, it's such an expensive video. Chris Tucker comes out and he says, he says, and now I'd like to introduce to you the Man of the Hour. And then he yells something. What did he say? He said, mustard?

Mustard! I thought all these years that he said, myself. Like, I thought he introduced myself, the Man of the Hour. Myself! We thought that was hilarious. And then this other character comes and pushes past him, I can hear now that he's saying, Master, because that's the name of the character

who he's introducing. But if you ever have to introduce some yourself... Just say myself. Just scream myself. Was this sort of your first real exposure to Tupac? I mean, yes and no. The funny thing is that I actually went to middle school with a girl who went on to TAM

to Mount TAM High School, where Tupac went. Yeah. And she was famous throughout our little friend group after later on we'd hear through the grapevine that she was like dating him. Wow. And so these little bits and pieces of like basically 1989 information

and grapevine information, I'm pretty sure she really did date him. I'm not saying skeptically, but it was more of a legendary thing. And it was just like many phone tags removed from the actual story source, but our friend dated Tupac. It was super cool.

So I was aware of him at a young age because he was already famous for the digital underground connection and everything was going on there. I mean Tupac famous for dating the ladies. I will say that the one time, there was one time in life, and I'm so grateful for this night.

There was one time in life, Tupac and I were in the same space. We were in the same room. Okay, well, that beats my story. Well, so I was spending the summer of 96 in Los Angeles, stayed with, my sister was working for an actor, famous actor,

and I was staying at that actor's house while he was out of the country shooting a movie. So I had this insane house in the hills and like a little internship. But the fact is, I was out here. here and I had plenty of free time, but I was under 21. And I had like the worst fake ID on the planet.

And there was one night that I went by myself, because I used to go out by myself sometimes. I went out to the sunset strip and I went up to the Sky Bar at the Mondriano Hotel. And anybody who's ever been there, I don't think they're there anymore, but they had these gigantic, I think this predates those mattresses, but they have these gigantic flower pots that were right by the rope where they let you in. Okay. And I'm standing in this long, long line. And then one of the girls who, like, I knew in Los Angeles at the time, she was like,

hey, come around the flower pot. So I snuck around the flower pot. To get past the velvet rope? Like a pure sneak. Snuck around the flower pot. These things are huge. I snuck around the flower pot. And suddenly I'm in the sky bar.

And, like, everybody's, like, such an adult because you got to realize, like, I think I was, like, 19 or 20. Like, everybody looks like a full-on adult. I couldn't believe that I was there. And I had only been there for a little bit before something like a pulse went through the room. Like everybody's like, ah, my trip, blah. And Tupac walked into the sky bar with Shug Knight and the comedian Eddie Griffin, who I guess was like performing across the street at the comedy store that night.

And for the time they came in, it all just got really tense. And I don't know if it was because people were worried about, you know, violence or if they were worried that Tupac was going to take their girl. But like, when I say... The frequency shifted, though. Yes, everything, you could just feel it. And because, like, all of a sudden, even in this crowded bar, like, you felt like, oh, my gosh, that's Tupac, you know. Wow.

And Eddie Griffin, who, by the way, was, like, a huge comedian at the time. We've talked about this on the show. Like, you talked with the prince, your prince interaction. Didn't you have a prince interaction? Oh, yeah, that was, yeah. Like, you set, there's a charisma. There's, like, a vibe for these superstars sometimes. You sense their presence.

You got this just, like, our breath exited our body, and it all went to them. It's like a weird feat. But it was the one time I was in the same space this, And I was already a Tupac fan. So I couldn't believe. I was like, holy, that's him. That's him.

Like, when you talk about Star Quality, and just the ability to just walk into a room and just control it, like, pure charisma. Because the second he left, you felt like this great exhale happened. You were tense the whole time. Your butt was slenched the whole time. But I can see other people, like, loosen up again.

Either because they weren't going to get beat up or, like, I said, their girl wasn't going to leave him. I'm just watching all these videos, and I'm like tense and stressed out because he's a handsome man and he's going to, might steal my wife. I don't know. He's very sure about what he's talking about. Anything could happen. Just to get everyone who's listening on the same page,

Tupacar Amaru Shakur was born in New York City. His mother, Afini Shakur, was a Black Panther. He grew up in New York City, then Baltimore, and moved to the Bay Area in high school, which, again, which is where my loose connection to him comes into play. And by the way, can we point out now, it's so weird that the East Coast West Coast feud is between Tupac and Puffy, but he's born in New York.

He's from East Harlem, technically. You know what I mean? I always thought that was really interesting part of his story. I mean, we know now to this day that like the beginnings of that was a little bit created for marketing purposes. And in fact, Tupac and Biggie seemed to be friends. Yeah, they were absolutely friends. As Marlon Lanz and others have said, like these guys were absolute friends. Pock tended to try to reach out to those other rappers and artists from various regions.

They seem to genuinely admire each other. Absolutely. And the footage of them, they seem very, it seems very real. Tupac reached out to Bone Thugs. He reached out to Goody Mob. Like, anytime somebody, like, released music that he was really into, it didn't matter where they were from. he would always be like, yo, I want to, like, let's get together

and make some music together. So, you know, Madonna. It's another thing beyond the scope of this podcast, but worth mentioning that things that got in the way, you know, we're definitely coming from outside forces. Yeah, external forces, for sure. Listen, this man was multi-talented. He took acting classes.

He took poetry, jazz, ballet. He was in theater productions at his school. There's like a theater teacher who talks about one of the best fellows he's ever seen was when he gave a reading at age 17. Wow. Yeah. And his rap career begins in earnest in Oakland

when he goes to a poetry, class run by a woman named Layla Steinberg, who later becomes his mentor and first manager. Yeah, that's really interesting. It was actually Layla who helped Tupac get his first deal with Atron Gregory, the manager of Digital Underground. Let's hear a bit of his recording debut in 1991 with Digital Underground on this song called Same Song. By the way, the best part of that is that same song. By the way, the best part of that is that Humpdy Hump calls him two. Short for two.

Between Tupac, he was like, yeah, two, that's gonna be your name. They haven't figured out Pock yet, yeah. Why, two? Could have gone either way. By the way, I have been rocking my brains, like all around the world, the same old song. That feels like an older song, but I have not been able, it's not on who sampled.

Really? Are you, is that? No, absolutely. Is that an older song that you're aware of like a 70 song or a 60 song? Yeah, I would think that's an older song. One Song Nation, if you know the answer, find us in the comments. You always do. So in 1991, Tupac released his debut solo single,

Brenda's Got a Baby, which looks at the harsh realities of being a team mom. It's pretty heavy stuff for a debut. Earlier, I mentioned that there are many sides of Tupac, many faces. You know, there's the socially conscious Tupac, you know, who's like the voice of the voiceless, so to speak. You hear this, Tupac on songs like Keep Your Head Up. Here, Mama.

And even as the crack feed, Mama. You always was a black queen. And the posthumist release changes. Instead of war on poverty, they got a war on drugs, so the police can bother me. It's hard not to feel like there's an obvious influence from his mom being a Black Panther

and everything that she went through and everything that he saw and heard, just growing up with that group of people in his house and their whole lives were devoted to the cause. Absolutely. His father was a Black Panther, too, Billy Garland, who it doesn't sound like he was really involved in Pock's life after, I guess, 1976.

six. But, you know, I think all that, you know, that kind of environment is what really helped shaped his world. Yeah, and it's, it's there at an early age. There's this incredible interview when he's out Mount Tam high school, age 17, and he talks about the influence that his mom had on him. Let's watch a quick clip. My mother taught me three things. Respect, knowledge, search for knowledge. It's an eternal, eternal journey. That's like my head cut the line. 360 degrees for knowledge, always. And she taught me to not be quiet, to, if there's something in my mind, speaking. Like, at work, I can't hold the job. I just quit my job today, actually, because I wanted to come and do this. And it wouldn't let me. So you just quit. He quit Roundtable pizzas in Strawberry

Village right there. My school bus went past that every day when I was a teenager. I knew exactly. He worked at the Roundtable Pizza. He's from, okay, first of all, he's from, he's from, Marin City. My school bus went to the Marin City stop and like there was a there was an incredible flea market. It was like exciting for teenage me to go to the flea market at Marin City. So everything about Tupac's like this part of his life at least as like really when I watch the footage and I know where he is. Yeah. And I know that this girl that I knew from middle school might have been dating him during that interview. Who knows? It's so interesting to kind of have that connection. As peripheral as it is, it kind of makes it even more powerful. You could have been Tupac. I could have been too. What I'm trying

to say, like John Lennon with the whole Jesus thing, I'm very much... You have a greater influence on the youth than Tupac. I get it. Pretty much how I feel right now. Well, look, although he never abandoned this activist lens, it was actually the charismatic Playboy Pock that got him his first Billboard and Hot 100 hit with I Get Around. You hear this Pock on so many hits. Like, how do you want it? All about you. Let's hear a little bit of a deeper cut.

Here's what's your phone number. That song with my tattoo When we hit it from my hide out, act right. Boy, player, when I ride out, that's right. Which is phone up. That song, obviously, sampling the time. I hear it, yeah. I hear it, yeah.

I hear it, yeah. So there's another layer of Tupac who I want to talk about. And that's the death-obsessed gangster Pock. I first noticed this darker side of him on his track, Payne, which is one of my favorite songs of all-time pain from the above-the-rim soundtrack. He also starred in the movie. They'll never take me alive.

I'm getting high with my... You know what's interesting, listening back to Payne now? He's rapping as his character from that movie, which is a drug dealer named Birdie. But his time would go on, Pock would sort of take on that air, if you will. He starts inhabiting these roles. Yeah, it's almost like a method actor who, you know, goes so deep undercover, they forget that they're a cop. No, Dear Mama, which is one of the great documentaries that I think, you know, eliminated a lot of his upbringing. Part of its thesis is that it's inhabiting some of these characters in these roles that he starts to, like, blur the long.

lines between being on screen and being off screen. Yeah, and I feel like this song in particular pain, at least for me as a casual listener at the time, it signaled a transition that can be heard on later songs like Ambitions as a rider. Hail Mary. And let's hear a bit of a song that he recorded with Bone Thugs. This is a little bit of a deep cut, but it was recorded around very close to the time of his death.

This is Thug Love. You know what's It's convicts and guards prison Hands on the strap You know what's interesting? Just from a purely aesthetic point of view Gunfire works in songs. It really works well in songs.

It makes you put your fingers up and mimic it. I can help me go pop-pahs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You mentioned the word faces before, the many faces of Tupac, and it had me flashing on, you know, the kind of comedy and tragedy masks. And the thing is, it's an existential question.

Where does one end and where does one begin? We're always kind of as humans putting on masks in different scenarios. So if he's putting on a mask, so to speak, more so of a quote-unquote gangster effort, he plays gangsters. But he's still Tupac, the same Tupac in that 17, the video we saw when he's 17. Where does one end? Where does the other begin? But that question is true for everybody.

Like, actual gangsters and thugs are also sensitive people with, you know, who want love at the end of the day. Well, it's funny that you should bring that up because. Because in Tupac's, you know, he famously had Thug Life, tatted on his torso. But according to Pock, that stood for, Thug Life stood for the hate you give little infants, fucks everybody. You know, now this is probably a backerone, as we like to call it. But, you know, that Pock who's very, like, you know, aware of, like, social injustice, it's not like that Pock went away. No.

But it was also, like, in a weird way, oh, I have to give people in this, because this is like at the height of gangster rap when this, when this, when, he's coming out with a lot of this music. It's almost like he had to do something else to get people to listen. Yeah, exactly. And then once they were in the door, hey, I'm going to share all this other stuff. I was just thinking the same thing.

Maybe he finds a new, like a new choice. You know, like there's one way to do it, which may or may not, in his mind, feel like it's been working. Yeah. Because he's disappointed he talks about when he's, his shock when, who was it, Duke Caucus didn't get elected, which is so charming. He's like, I really thought Duke caucus was going to win.

Pop was really watching that Iowa caucus results. But he really, he really is like paying attention to this stuff. And it shocks him when the world continues. used to disappoint him. So maybe there comes a point where he's like, you know, it's not working, doing it this way. Maybe, maybe the, it's the classic Malcolm X versus, you know, Martin Luther King kind of dichotomy. It's like, you know, the King isn't working, maybe. Maybe try the Malcolm X. It's a little bit of the public enemy. Like Chuck D always said, I need a flavor, flame there so that it would seem fun and seem like a party. And then while you're

there, I was going to do some rapping. But I love what you also said about Pop being a person who wore a mask. You could almost say he didn't wear a literal mask, but he did wear the bandana backwards. And that sort of let you know which Pop. Right, right. Gave him some power. But Pac was, he was totally worried. He was an actor, you know, and by the way, a very good actor. He was excellent in Juice.

He was excellent in poetic justice. So many movies, I actually think if we have any cinefiles listening, go back and watch, it's hard to believe this movie got made, but go back and watch Gridlock. I think Gridlock is very underrated. Tupac and Tim Roth together on screen. They have so much chemistry, directed by Vondi Curtis Hall. If you get a second, watch Gridlock. Any Cynophobos out there?

You know what? Don't watch the movie. You're going to be afraid of it. By definition. I like TV. Movies suck. I'm afraid of them. So fast forward to 1995.

You know, Tupac gets embroiled with this, you know, feud with bad boy records. It's an insane time for Tupac in some of the best and worst ways. He's in prison for most of 95. But while he's incarcerated, he had his first album to debut at number one with Me Against the World. Then, towards the end of 95, Shug Knight paid Tupac's $1.4 million dollars in,

bail in exchange for a three-album deal with death row records. I remember when death row was at the corner of Wilshire and Sam Vicente here in Los Angeles. That office had blood red carpets. No joke. I think we have a picture of it for those of you watching. I heard nothing but horror stories about this office. Are you saying the carpets were blood red to mask the actual blood? Like what do you say? Like why is that bad? I think it might have been towards a gang affiliation, but it might have had a dual purpose. Got it. All right. Now I get it. You could actually slaughter. No, I mean, there was like a favorite story about like a musician. I think he played violin on like some death row album.

He had been paid so he showed up at the office. And there was like somebody having sex in the lobby. Like insane, not really appropriate things happening. That's inappropriate. At the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente. But here's what I do know. It was probably not the healthiest environment for a newly freed Tupac fresh from, you know, prison and also beefing with a bad boy.

It was probably not the best environment for him to come out of prison. and enter into, seems like it might have been fuel for the fire. Quite possibly. And I'm going to choose my words carefully on this topic, and I agree with you, D'all. But listen, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we're going to try and trace the origins of that iconic California Love hook. It's not as simple as you think when we get back.

Welcome back to One Song. We're about to get into the stems of California Love, which actually started off as a purely Dr. Drey's song. All right, so apparently when Tupac got out of prison, he went to a barbecue at Drey's house. Dre showed him the completed beat. And by the way, at the time, there would have been, I've heard, up to three verses that Dre had completed, thinking it was going to be his own song. He strips away two of them.

And then Tupac went in the booth, laid down his verse in 20 minutes, and the rest is history. Okay, well, let's get into the stems. Yeah, I've recreated the basic beat here. Dre has talked about in a number of interviews over the years in the NWA era. He would have been chopping using, I think, a Yamaha, S.Y. 77. At a certain point, he moves to the MPC 60 and the SP-1200. In this moment, I'm not sure whether he used one of those or if he had already moved to the MPC 3,000,

which definitely became his MPC of choice, like literally in this moment, like in 1994 when it comes out into 95. So in some form, he chopped up a kick and a snare. And what to my ears sounds like a hi-hat and a shaker coming from another source. This is what they sound like individually. You can hear it in the chop. that there's some percussion behind it.

The snare sounds pretty clean, but I think there might be like a hi-hat in there too. Again, these are just as chops, indicators that they came from samples. These aren't, to my ears, drum machine sounds. They may also be layered with an 808, another tool of choice for Dre in this era. Not sure. Not sure.

These are best guesses. This is luxury's best guess. And then there's a hi-hat, which as I mentioned, you can really hear the artifacts of the sample source, of some vinyl source. and it's got a little bit of swing in it. So again, as a lifetime of chopping, I can tell you, you hear a breakbeat or you hear a beat you want to use.

You can take the whole thing holistically, an entire loop if it's just like a kick snare beat. Like, you know, we've talked many times about classic breaks like funky drummer, et cetera, impeach the president. Or you can go in and do Marley Marl style, just chop out the individual pieces that you want to reuse. So in this case, I do believe we're getting these from different sources.

But last but at least, I'm also hearing what sounds like a drum machine crash. This sounds like a 606 to me. Here is my best effort to recreate the bee. Let me know how close you think I've got. Okay. I suck. I fucking nailed that.

I freaking nailed that. Can you crush that? You know, right after I'm playing a beat, my mouth stops working. So the sentence was mangled. Dude, you're trying to do in real time what an absolute genius grade made and you did a freaking amazing job. The Tyro Walk of this show sometimes. It's very amusing to me.

I'm like, how am I going? Like, this is insane. But that is my best effort to recreate the beat from California Love. I hope I got at least 70% of the way there. Dude, you got 75%. Oh, my God. I got a C. Not a C minus.

I appreciate that. Okay. I'm sorry, you got an 83. Fair enough. Check this out. Let's play a little bit of the beat. California Love has this iconic riff. It's sort of like the defining quality of the song.

It's a single bar loop that goes up the entire song. Yes. It's a piano. I always said that, like, back when I used to DJ full-time, like, I wanted to compile, like, a playlist or a compilation of, like, the hardest pianos used in hip-hop of all time. There are a couple of songs where, like, the piano is just, it's hard. Yeah. It's freaking. It's hard.

It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It's a example of that. Like, I just, it hits so hard that piano. A bag of the end, don't know. I'm thinking up a black to pull some bacon because some dad is stinking.

So it's all my shoes, winking t-shirt is shrinking. And this song has a hard piano in it too. Hard piano in it. Correct me if I'm wrong. Does this song, California Love, does it sample the song in question would be Joe Cocker's Woman to Woman? In true Drey form, this is the era where he's not sampling anymore. Yeah, he's interpolating, right?

For the most part. That's because you pay less money to clear it, right? You don't need to clear both the publishing and the master. You're only paying the publishing side of things, which means you're giving up publishing as we will be a little foreshadowing as we get to the splits a little bit later. No small thing for this song with a lot of repercussions. but here's the song that was interpolated. This is indeed Joe Cocker's

Woman to Woman. And importantly, this is technically Joe Cocker with the Chris Stanton band from 1972. I'll get back to that in just a second. Let's listen first to the source. I mean, what kind of music would you say Joe Cocker is for the record? I mean, that's funky. That's fun music. Crazy. And he's also like he's a white British, but he's a blues singer. But he's a blues singer, right?

I mean, he's the one who did the Beatles, right? He did the... Yeah, a little help from my friends. Which was in John Belushi then, like, did his parody of, yeah. One of the funniest John Belushi clips of all time. But I feel like Joe Cogger's got one of those great, bluesy, alcohol-drenched voices. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Just sounds really cool. That's woman to woman. That's woman to woman. And so the Chris Stanton band part's important because it's actually played by Chris Stanton as a piano player. Kind of an unsung hero, arguably, of this whole song. For sure. Because he's written and performing that hook. He's before the part that got used.

It's like what we say about Sting and, you know, the non-sample. He's played the piano in the original, which was then recreated by a mysterious force. We don't really know who played the piano. Could have been Dre. Could have been one of his... One of their in-house death row musicians. That's absolutely right. But he's a session player who played with The Who and Brian Ferry.

And he's been touring with the Eric Clapton band for the last 20 years. So like a renowned background player, basically, who's known in the industry to all the cats. But like... A journeyman. Not a name necessarily that you would know. And by the way, that one. wasn't the first hip-hop tune to, like, reuse that tune. No. No, I feel you're going to talk about Nicknack Paddywack?

Exactly. Let's play a little bit of E-P-M-D, Nick-Nac Paddywack. This is from 1989. Maybe this is where Dre had heard it used before. Maybe not. The capital of D, the O, the C, the A, the P, the M, the D. And me. The E to the D to the O to the U to the B to the L to the E. It's time, P. There's a lot of spelling in there. I'm so glad you bring this up, because E-P-M-D is so important. to the development of like sampling in hip hop.

And I feel like they don't always get their props for it. Eric Sermon is an absolute genius. Pyrrismith. But EPMD was the first to a lot of really deep cut samples that got sampled about five or six later by other artists. And it blew up bigger for them. All right. So I'm going to recreate that sample to the best of my ability

with my tiny little keyboard, 25 keys in my little lap over here. So I'm feeling a little constrained. Okay, first of all, let me just say. These are parallel fourths playing three chromatic notes in a row. So you're hearing simultaneously is, and also, and together there. But the question is, to my ears, they sound like a fourth apart, where the G, which is what the key of the song is, is below a D. But it could very well be in the reverse, which would sound like this. Which one sounds more right to you?

versus I'm kind of hearing the G on top, which would be that's what I'm hearing too. So we're going to go with that one song nation unless you strongly disagree, in which case we would love to hear about it in the comments.

I like your face when you play that. Do you like my tongue doing that? What's going on with the bass in the song? Because to me, to my ears, to my DJ ears at the time, I was aware of death row. using like live, you know, live musicians in the mix. Is this a son or is it a live musician?

So this is one of these episodes where we have to have a little bit of a caveat about names. Because first of all, two things. One, in the credits, there aren't any names to be, as performers outside of Dre, Tupac, and Roger Trotman, who we will be doing a little moment about a little bit later. But as far as who's actually performing the sounds that you hear in the mix, we know that they are interpolated and not sampled, but I'm not sure who is re-performing them on every instrument. I will in one moment

for one of the sounds, I have a theory. I will say that in the credits for this song, on discogs you'll see a couple of names. One is Sean Barney-Rubble Thomas. What an amazing nickname. Such an amazing nickname.

He's a collaborator on a handful of Drey Tunes. I do think, though, that that is just for the remix. It's one of those things or in the credits for the record. It just lists everybody and doesn't correlate a name

to an instrument on a song. I'm pretty sure, though, he's not in this one. Okay. So we're not sure who played the baseline, but we do know that it sounds like this. And this was a fun surprise for me. I thought that this was mapping exactly

to the rhythm that we know from the iconic piano line, but it's slightly different. So I'll recreate the part right here. That first note is so important, and that's the one that surprised me. I thought it was going to recreate the chromatic. It doesn't have the G flat in it, and that gives

it that sort of tension. Yeah, I was going to say. That leads into the resolution of the G. It actually makes it a little bit harder, which would make it more hip-hop-friendly. So that was one of my favorite surprises when I went into the stems. One of my favorite parts of the song is what's going on with the horns. Who's playing the horns? I don't know who's playing the horns.

And up until I saw an interview with a foreshadowed, soon-to-be unsung hero of this episode, J. Flex. Okay. I thought that they were synthesized horns. Oh, really? I thought they were real horns. You know what? This has been a fun episode for me because the, like, the rabbit hole, the deep dive into like trying to figure out how this got made in by who led me to all these deep cut interviews.

So there's like at minute 58 of an interview with J. Flex, he mentions almost in passing, quote, then they brought the horns in. So I was like, okay, I guess they had live horns on this song. So there are live horns. According to J. Flex at minute 52 of this interview. I got to say it, that doesn't surprise me because to my, again, to my untrained ears, I thought I heard actual horns. I thought you were going to tell me, no, these are the census.

Here's the thing, too, in 1995, when I'm about to play you is a 2020. 2025, 2026, VST, basically, the synthesized version of horns that you can play, which comes from sampling live horn players. It's in the computer. The technology has evolved to the point that they sound like real horns. In 1995, remember when we did the Boys to Men episode or listening to the horns, they sound like that. They sound a little bit dinky. Well, when Jimmy Jan was talking about horns sometimes. In the 90s, synthesizer horns still sounded like a little fake sound. Swing out sister. It sounds like swing out sister.

So that makes sense to me that this would be live horns. I have recreated them to the best of my ability, and here they are. And I keep hearing now that held first note, that long or first note, that gives it, that is such an important part of the motif that runs through, again, the entire song. Yes. It's just one four bar loop. Now, that said, the horns do come and go for punctuation marks essentially throughout it. But you're still getting that, duh, that longer first note, I'm now hearing the more deeply we dive,

into the song, how crucial that is to giving it. Oh, sure. A big part of its power, I think. Absolutely. And what I'm realizing now from the use of live horns, even though we can't find out exactly the names of the players, but the use of live horns, this music video that was probably $2 million or something like that,

like when you put money into the art, sometimes it makes it better. Sometimes it makes it more memorable. And I think that one of the problems that we have in society today is that we can shortchange the arts essentially, you know, and spend the bare minimum on everything, and that's still going to be just as good, and that doesn't seem to be the case. If he had used synthesizer horns in 1995, and they just shot a video in an alley,

you know, it wouldn't have the same impact that it has today. Absolutely agree. And to your point, when we get to the songwriting splits by the end of this, you'll see that no expense was spared in the making of this song, interestingly, because we're not done with the interpolations. We've got a couple more to come. And ultimately, it costs a pretty penny. So there's one more important part of the music track, which is there's a single stave, which is kind of ghostly sounding. You may or may not have even noticed it because it's a little subliminal, but here it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's very important. That's actually what makes it sound West Coasty, for whatever reason. Yeah, I think you're right. There's something kind of ghostly about it.

Yeah. It sounds like that kind of Mogee sound that he's using on the other songs. Yeah. What is that? So I'm not exactly sure what instrument that is. or what synthesizer, but I do know that there's someone who claims to have played it. Okay. Again, the fun of this episode, all the rabbit holes It's the fog of war. Fog of war led me to Chris the Glove Taylor,

who on a live from the basement interview, says, quote, it's a part that I created. One part, one little cord, can I get my eighth of a percent for that? So he's uncredited as a writer, and it doesn't sound like he was necessarily paid. We don't know, though. He might have been like in-house getting a salary

or something like that. But we do know that Chris the Glove Taylor says that that's his contribution. Okay. That single chord that wasn't part of the sample that he added to the song, which we agree is pretty iconic. Yeah, yeah. We like that part. We definitely like that part. And just for a little more shine on unsung hero, Chris the Glove Taylor, he was in the 1984 movie Breaking, DJing for Ice Tea.

He wrote the song Reckless for that movie. Now one, two, three, four, get up everybody. Get on the floor. Cut, Turbo. All right, so let's get into the lyrics. Let's start with the chorus. California No side of party

In the city Of Fellas Is that Roger Troutman Talking in between a little bit? Yeah, it's so cute. It's so cute, right? Yeah. The cutest thing ever.

We play this game often on the show. Is it vocoder, talkbots? Obviously, I think this is too early for AutoTune. Yeah, where are we getting this robot voice from you're saying? Sure. Well, we're going to talk about Roger in just a second, but first, let me answer your question. a talk box is what we're hearing.

And the difference between a talk box and a vocoder, because they're very similar. But the easy way to think about it is that, so the talk box, you see the tube. The tube directs the note from the singer's mouth to a connected instrument. In this case, with Roger Trowman, Rumsap. He tended to connect it to a mini-mogue.

And for this song, though, he's using the Yamaha DX-100. But what that means is that he's making the instrument sound like the human voice, which is the opposite of a vocoder, which makes the human voice sound like an instrument or more like a robot. Where one ends and the other begins is challenging. Go back to our daft punk episodes, our two-parter,

because there are moments in, I think that there's a mix of vocoder and TalkBox and Get Lucky, but they're very similar. But we know because Roger Troutman is the king of the Top-Buy. He is sort of the pioneer of the TalkBub. He is one of the pioneers. Let's just say that Peter Frampton did it first in 1976.

And in his case, he's using the same device of, He's got a tube, but it's connected to the guitar. Got it. So you can connect it to any instrument. That's very fun. Let's watch a little bit of Roger Troutman using his famous talk box. Please roll that. First thought it was like,

more bounce much more bound. As fascinating as that is, I'm almost more fascinated by his all-gold outfit. That was insane. For those of you not already watching us on YouTube, Watch us on YouTube because that outfit is incredible. And I just don't even know if they make that anymore. And let's give a little shine to Roger Troutman and to Zap because not just unsung hero of the song.

By the way, he's one of the listed features on the song. Don't forget. It's featuring, it's Tupac featuring Dre and Roger Troutman. OG. OG. So Zapp is the name of his entity that he was in with his brothers. Four Trotman brothers from Dayton, Ohio. They are foundational to funk.

So much. So foundational to West Coast. We have to do a ZAP episode at some point because Zapp is just, it's incredible. Absolutely. Incredible music. Incredible catalog. That song that we just heard,

he was just doing a rendition of more bounce to the ounce, which is produced by Bootsy Collins. George Clinton actually signed them, and their first record came out produced by Bootsie. So there's a connection right there to the godfather, the P-Funk mothership right there. Yeah. Which is another West Coast connection, obviously.

So there's a lot in the mix here of like references and sources. Because Drey was a huge fan of Roger Troutman and really wanted to get him on a track. And this is what they figured out how to do. So many great songs out of Zapp. I'm talking about I want to be your man, computer love. And so rough, so tough. What is the relationship between So Rough, So Tough, with the song we're talking about today, California Love? It's so interesting.

How many different ways Roger Troutman and Zapp are part of this song. So interestingly, the actual chorus to the song, which is California knows how to party, is an interpolation of a song called West Coast Poplock by Ronnie Hudson and the Street People. Why am I saying this? After you ask me about Zapp, we'll find out in just a second. But first, let's listen to West Coast Pop Lock from 1982. I can't pop lock. You can't poplock.

I can imitate poplocking, but I cannot poplock. To the listeners, if that song sounds familiar, West Coast Poplock, it's because the musical bed of it is supposed to sound like so rough, so tough. Let's listen to that. So right now, keep in your head, there's a lot of information going on here. That's clearly the source of the interpolation, potentially one of the sources, of the song California loves chorus, but we're also at the same time pointing out that the music for that song from 1982

is a replay of this song by Zap from 1981, So Rough, So Tough. Those guitars are important. It's the Walking Bay. It's the groove. It's the guitar part. These are all staples of funk. By the way, it's... Johnny Hudson didn't sample it. Like, he does an interpolation. It's slightly different what he does on his song. Yeah, and it's absolutely, it's one of those things where it's like, it's super close.

Oh, trust me. And it's, I think, part of the reason why when we get to the credits, we'll see some familiar names. Sure. Yeah. But I was just saying it's like the difference between bounce rock skate and good times by Sheik. These songs sound extremely similar. And not for no reason. There was an intent to recreate it, basically. Exactly. And I love the idea of how West Coast Poplock came about

because this idea for the song actually came from Ronnie's manager. He suggested Ronnie write a song inspired by the Poplock dance craze that was going on on the West Coast, and specifically in the communities of Compton and Watts. So Ronnie, I love this story. Ronnie literally went down to do research. He lived, for those paying attention, he lived at the corner of Washington and LaBreya.

but he went south of the 10. He went down to Compton and Ruads. He befriended some locals. He thinks there was some gang affiliation there. But they basically took him on a wild night, a partying to show that like, hey, you know, we can have fun. And, you know, he saw the Rolls Royces, you know,

that had like people inside doing pop lock and getting out into the street. And that experience is what shaped the song as a genuine celebration of the life that they were living. And, you know, to hear Ronnie tell it, you know, he was still able to always go back down there and hang out there because they're like, oh, you did West Coast pop-la. Hey, that was actually, you know, putting a positive light on our community.

So there's another wrinkle to the story. A wrinkle to Ronnie story? Listen, a rabbit hole within a rabbit hole for this episode. I went down to Discog's Rabbit Hole because a gentleman who goes by Magic Fraga, that's his discogged username, claims that he wrote a song called Magic's Rap in 1981 and that it sounds like this. Okay. Listen. The what?

What is this song? I have never heard this song in my life. No one has. Listen, let's take a step back. We don't usually trust Wiki editors and Discog editors. Like, Magic Fragha sounds like... This is for fun.

This is absolutely a bonus round just for fun. I'm pretty sure that this is, first of all, it's a record that I don't think ever came out on wide release. Listen, this is a whole Discog saga, which is wonderful. Okay, so can I just say I think that in the...

the late 70s, early 80s, there were so many people pressing vinyl records that it's really hard to ever know. You can make it on your own, just go to a recording studio and then pay someone to press the vinyl. We did a minimal amount of research and we found this picture for M. Fragga, which actually, it leads to more questions than it answers. Like, who is Sergeant Pepper? Why does he look like he's in that bad Bee Gees Beatle movie? And he was rapping in 1981. But here's also the, the, one more thing I'd add to this is we talked a little bit about this on the Little John episode, which is that sometimes there are these, you know, chants and for the lack of a better word, we don't call them lyrics, but there are these chants that sort of percolate up from the streets.

They percolate up from the streets or from schools, yeah. Imfraga heard it and put it in his song, and maybe Ronnie Hudson also heard it and put into a song, and neither one necessarily, you know, sat down a sheet of paper and wrote this out. I 100% agree. We don't, it's like a street joke. We will never know who first said chicken or the egg or a million versions. of that kind of thing. They're just kind of in the ether.

So this is someone captures it. That's right. Not even based on just this picture. Something tells me that this chant, this style was probably on the streets first. In fact, DJ Quigg said that he was performing a Madison Square Garden. He started doing that West Coast poplock chant.

And Dre was there. Dre was like, oh, yo, you got to use that. That's use that. Right, right. Speaking of Dre, let's hear Dre's verse on California Love. On a mission for them greens, lean, mean money, making machines, serving fiends. in the game for 10 years making rap tunes

ever since honey's wearing sassoon my favorite part of that whole verse is what he says I've been in the game for 10 years making rap tunes ever since honey's was wearing sats tunes which we know what that is those are jeans those are like tight jeans from 1979 but satsoons here's what's crazy about that line to me hip hop was young enough where the idea

that you had been in it for 10 years was insane it was like what you've been in rap for 10 years and now we're like Like at a time, like rappers are in their 50s and 60s, so it doesn't seem so weird. But at the time, to be in the rap game for 10 years, it was unheard of, especially if you're operating at the level that Dr. Dre was operating at. So earlier we alluded to, there's another unsung hero, another YouTube rabbit hole where there is a gentleman called J. Flex. So in an interview on the art of dialogue, Jay Flex has said

that he wrote that line. He wrote all three of the verses that, in fact, were originally in this tune. Yeah, and he wrote originally a Dre song. He was originally a Dre song. So he wrote and recorded those three verses and then Dre went in and wrapped over them basically mapped to what was on the guide vocal essentially. A lot of hip hop producers at this time when it comes time for them to step down. Exactly right. Very common for vocalists to do a similar thing.

So great interview I would recommend on The Art of Dialogue with this gentleman, J. Flex, Jay's ghostwriter on a bunch of tunes. One of my favorite anecdotes, though, that he talks about for this song is he mentions how when Roger Troutman came in, he was wearing a yellow suit. And he would... As he wore on video, So, okay, got it.

And he talks about how Roger Troutman. I mentioned the talk box works. It's got this tube. So occasionally, in between takes, he would take the tube out and swing it around the studio and they would all need to duck underneath this talk box tube.

Is that because of the spittle or the tube itself? The tube itself is like maybe 10, 15 feet long. So he would just spin it around for kicks just to like freak people out and then they'd off the duck underneath Roger Trotman's... That's a punk behavior right there.

That's a punk behavior. That's a punk behavior. Well, speaking of Roger Traman, he does come back with one more iconic part. He doesn't just sing the chorus. He has the post chorus. Yeah. Let's listen to it. Shake, shake it, baby.

Shake it, baby. Shake, shaking, mama. Shake a cowley. You better shake. I mean, it's so good. It's so good. gotta believe that he goes into the studio and he records like all those different layers, you know, it sounds like he's got one primary and then he's got kind of like at least one

higher false. I think he's doing a couple of takes, but also it should be said that the way the machine works, the way a talk box works is that what you're performing, in other words, with your 10 fingers, is what you're hearing. Imagine zooms through a talk box. Like imagine like, I don't have the report. Like you can do all kinds of harmonize. Oh, hell yeah.

Now we're talking Tupac, one of the greatest subsidies of all time. And I kind of want to just let the lyrics speak for themselves. Let's hear a little bit Tupac Shakur. Only in Cali, will we riot, not rally to live and die. In LA, we wear chucks, not bally. That's right. Just in lobes and khaki suits and ride is what we do. Flossing but have caution we collide with other proof.

His voice has such raw power. Yes. Until you hear it isolated like that, you don't realize like how emotionally, like he just gets you amped. You wake right up. You listen everywhere. It's preacher like. It's totally like a preacher. It's totally like a preacher.

and I can just remember at the time hearing it, I was not a fighting kid, but it made you feel like if anybody steps to me right now, it's going to be on them. It's going to be on them. It's interesting. Contrast, too, to sort of the more laid back. I mean, it's not Snoop, right?

It's sort of the opposite of Snoop, right? We have this California love. We have this Dre connection, but then he's come and bringing a different energy. I like the fact that you can hear him, like, breathe in. Like, you know, like his, even his breath feels aggressive. You know what I mean? Right.

Very visceral. When he spits it out, it's like, give me that bomb beat from Dre. Like, it's like, boom, boom, bah. Yeah. It's crazy how much just the human voice can be used differently. You're right. It's so not Snoop or slick Rick. It's aggressive, not even in like the Chuck D style.

I think you nailed it. It's preacher-like, and it just gets the people going. It's so authoritative. He's such a leader. He was such a leader. That's all of everything we've been listening to and watching in like the earlier interviews, even. Even even at 17, he's a leader. There's a leadership quality that he has.

which is in his language, but then it's also in his voice. I hadn't really thought about it, but literally he starts off, Hail Mary, follow me. So, yeah, I think you're right. There's so much potential there, unfortunately, dead by 25. Which is funny, because I hear that voice and I still hear somebody who's older than me. Yeah, right. But he's 25 years old.

Yeah. At this age, like, thinking of 25-year-olds, it's like, it's hard to imagine, like, I don't remember feeling that confident at that age personally. No. No, when I go back and watch, like, interviews. with him and stuff, like he has a way of just sitting in a chair that's compelling. Like, you're just like, oh, God, this man has so much confidence. Okay, so now that we've heard all that luxury, tell us how the splits break down on California

Love. Buckle up, my friend, because there's a lot of people that got paid on this song. And interesting, who didn't get paid. That's good. We like people to get paid. Let's do it. So starting with the interpolation of the Joe Cocker song, Women to Woman, Joe Cocker and Chris Stanton from that song are also cut into California love to the tune of

20% each. Okay. So right there, 20 each. 40% of the song going to Cocker and Stainton for the hook for the dunna dun dun dun dun

makes a lot of sense. I think that's worthwhile. West Coast Poplock also gets a fair share 25% which is shared between Ronnie Hudson and his co-writer Michael Hook.

So they get 25% for the chorus. Okay, so we're 65% we only got 35 left. They got 35 left and there's a number of names and not all of them get cut into the math

of this 100% pie because the other 35% goes to the Trotman brothers, Roger and his brother Larry. So Pock gets nothing off of this. Pock and Dre are listed as songwriters in the public credits with zero next to their names, which is really interesting because it means that by the time they were done clearing all their interpolations, there wasn't anything left for themselves. What's nuts about that, this is, I believe, Pock's best commercial performing single. Now, he would have been paid probably on the master's side for royalties, depending on the nature of his record contract or his deal with Dre. There's some money

that they are making from this song. And of course, any sort of live performance, et cetera. But the publishing is all taken up with all of these interpolations. It's so interesting. Luxury, what do you think the legacy of California love is? It is such an iconic song for our state, for the golden state, for the place where we live. You know, it's a lot of hometown pride, a lot of home state pride. And I love that it's encapsulated in the song, and especially given who the players are on the song with the people who made the song and the song's legacy with all the layers as we've been discussing with the interpolations and the use of other things. I agree. And it's so funny. In my mind, it enters the pantheon of great songs about places. You know, you would never,

you know, from California soul, California love, some of the songs by the doors. Like this song definitely reeks California. You wouldn't put together a definitive playlist about the West Coast and leave this song off. But I mean there's so much, in terms of legacy, There's so much I want to say about Tupac, but for this song in particular, it's the one that launched him into full-blown superstardom. You know, it's what prevents him from just being the guy who did Dear Mama.

There are a lot of people with hits in the 90s who have never risen to the level of Tupac Shakur. And I think that because this one never finds a dance floor empty, it actually helps preserve Tupac in the mass consciousness. You know what I mean? Like if all his songs were like, super serious and earnest, well, then it would be easier to forget him. I feel like it's maybe the most widely known across the population,

like the general population, not the heads necessarily or the fans. I agree. I think that if Marvin Gay only had, like, his slow songs and not like a got to give it up, you know, it'd be easier to forget that he had been there. And I think that this song, because it gets people to this day to get up and dance, is in some ways more of a celebration of his musical legacy than if it had not been there. There. Tragically, just nine months after the release of this song, Tupac was gone. But what's wild is how massive his career became after his death.

Seven posthumous albums, a Grammy. More than a dozen documentaries, the Coachella hologram. Who knows how many books and articles there are about this guy? Like I said, we need a whole podcast off on the side to talk about Tupac. I don't know of any other artists whose legacy stretches quite as far as Tupac's. And thanks to artists like Kendrick Lamar, I think future generations will know him too. we have future generations carrying that torch. I don't think Tupac or California love is going anywhere anytime soon.

Okay, luxury, it's time for one more song. This is the segment where we share a deep cut or a hidden gem with you, The One Song Nation, and with each other. Tiala, what's your song today? My song this week, I'm going to keep it West Coast. There's a song on the radio right now called Rockin by Shoreline Mafia, and it's so freaking cool. It sounds like old school West Coast or what I heard all the radio.

I like that somebody's like going back to the, this sound. So let's hear a little bit of Shirline Mafia's rocking. Love that song. So old school, it samples Funky Little Beat by Connie. That's awesome. I mean, like, wonderful way to throw back the vibes. Oh, yeah. When you're playing that on like a Sunday afternoon and the sun is like, you know, still out here in L.A. vibes. It's got that cute 80s electro kind of feeling. Absolutely. And I like the use of the sample. Like the sample comes back like every four bars or so. I love it when people do that because it makes it sort of like a small in-song chorus.

It's like a subgenre of Electra. Just as we're talking about, it's like, I love Electro. I like the hardbeats. I love the, you know, everything from the craftwork and planet rock. But then there's a sort of cute subgenre where you have these like female vocalists. I have so many songs I'm thinking of now. Shannon, let the music play. My favorite.

Absolutely. Shannon listens to the show. Shout out to you. Let's hear just a little bit of Connie, funky little beat just so that people can hear the original. They've all got the same sort of craftwork beat. But then you can do so much on top of them. Am I right? This is cute.

This is cute electro. It's a funky little beat. It's a funky little beat. Luxury, what should hear one more song? So I've been enjoying this new phase of life where as a KCRW DJ. I'm actually doing a rock show

after being like a disco and funk DJ and practitioner for a decade plus. Like, they gave me a post-punk show. So I'm having fun finding some new or more recent music to kind of throw in the mix along with my, you know, post-punk classics

from Wire and Gang of 4. This is a band called Lambrieney Girls out of Brighton, the UK. The record is called Who Let the Dog. out, the song is called Love. Tars are back, baby.

I love it. What I like about that is that she's singing aggressively. Yeah. And I think the aggression is way better on on a song that it is in real life. It's kind of preaching a little bit. It's kind of like Tupac in it a little bit. I was going to say, like, there's a little bit of like

this is what Brighton anger. Yeah. So she's showing Brighton love. Yeah. And the guitars have a little bit of a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, z vibes. This is Labrini. It's Labrini. It's called Lambreney Girls.

Lambrini girls. Yeah, that song is called Love. It was one of the few I could play without explicit lyrics in it. I will say another song from this record, which I can't say is Blankology 101. That's like the key track. Okay. Go check that one out. I'm not going to say the C word. Lambrini, but you's... Lambridi, but this song was called Love. That song was called Love. Perfect. The other one is called Blankology 101. Well, I love it. I love to do. I'm definitely going to go out and buy that one today.

As always, if you have an idea for one more song, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok. You can find me on Instagram at Diallo, Dioa, Diole, and on TikTok at Diallo Rital. And you can find me on Instagram at L-U-X-X-U-N-R-Y and on TikTok at LuxuryX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok at at One Song podcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of One Song on YouTube and Spotify and on Apple. Just search for One Song podcast. We'd love it if you like and subscribe. Also, be sure to check out the One Song Spotify playlist for all of the songs we discussed in our

episodes. You can find the link in our episode description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of the One Song Nation. Show us some love, give us five stars, leave a review, and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show thriving. Luxury helped me in this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 to midnight on KCRW, KCRW DJ, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, writer, director, and sometimes DJ and sometimes KCRW listener Diallo Riddell. And this is one song. We will see you next time.

This episode is produced by Melissa Duanyas. Our video editor is Casey Simonson, mixing by Michael Hardman, and engineering by Eric Hicks. This show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, Eric Wiles, and Leslie Guam.