Pablo Torre Finds Out - How Muhammad Ali’s Grammy-Nominated Comedy Album Changed Everything

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Float like a butterfly, sting like... a standup comic? Sixty years ago, long before the current golden age of smack talk, a 21-year-old Cassius Clay was nominated for a Grammy, for what should be considered the first diss album — a poetic, heavyweight takedown of Sonny Liston in the lead-up to their epic 1964 title bout. Andscape's Justin Tinsley tracks how this forgotten record led to the name Muhammad Ali, to national conversations around Black Muslims, to Ali protesting the Vietnam War, even to the birth of hip-hop... and the prevention of tooth decay.Further reading:The Grammy-nominated Cassius Clay (Andscape) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Hey, aren't you, Maham Ali? Yes, indeed. That's who I am. Right after this ad. You're listening to Draf King's Network. That was terrible.

Keep this part in. It just did it late. Keep this part in. Try it. Try again. All right, here we go. That was slightly better. Slightly better.

I could talk. What's up, man? about your clapping ability for a very long time. Well, don't. But it reminds me of what we're here to talk about today. Which is that this is allegedly, Cortez, the golden age of talking shit. Yes.

It is the golden age of talking shit. You know what I think of when I think of that? I have a guess. It involves the real housewives of Salt Lake City. Of course it does. Because on the reunion late... Can't believe you're starting with this. Actually, I can.

Of course I can believe that. You said trash talk. I'm bringing you the goat trash talker right now. Her name's Monica Garcia. She was a fan of the show. She got people thrown in jail on the show. Now she started a burner account on the show. And now the reunion, a burner account about the show, rather.

Now at the reunion, she's throwing haymakers like this. She is a genius trash soccer. Go ahead. Why are you talking? Why are you talking? Stop. Shut up. Yes.

Really? You're so classy, Monica. I'm not, this doesn't even involve you, just like most of the season. Yo, that's going hard. When you said that she had someone. a thrown in jail? Was that literally jail? Yeah, Jen Shaw, she got arrested.

Because of Monica Garcia. It's an amazing show. This is for another episode. Do I even want to... Exactly. I don't actually want to really follow up on how it is that that person actually got sentenced or apprehended by the police.

Defrauding the elderly. Very good. Very good. That is, unfortunately, a great example. That was pretty good. Thank you. And it's actually symptomatic of the larger way in which all of sports is now that?

What do you think of when you think of trash out? What's been in the news for you? I was watching the AFC title game. Zay Flowers, right? Gets flagged for taunting, standing over that Chiefs Defender. Joe Burrow jumps in on Twitter, says, you know, let the guys taunt. Yes, big real housewives of Salt Lake City energy from Joe Burrow. I agree with him.

From the sideline. In this case, a benchwarming b***er during this postseason. But also, like, Luca, right? Because, like, fans are obviously in on this. And so Luca got that guy kicked out of Dallas. Because apparently the fan had said to Luca yelled at him, Luca, you tired. Get on the treadmill. Honestly, not that offensive. Like, whatever.

And what's funny is that Luca then days later scores 50. That's like a guy not terribly tired. But, I mean, that's a blowout. Yes. A real blowout in the context of what we're talking about to me is like what Stephen A did to Jason Whitlock because that was just absolutely incredible. Can we play some of that, please?

He is the worst human being. Any of you will ever. meat. You get within a mile of his presence. Wrap your arms around yourself to protect your soul. He is king. He is a devil. The worst. That's all I have to say. Y'all have a nice day. I'm going to go about my business. I will not speak about this piece of shit again. Peace and love. I forgot that it ends with peace and love. That's the best, bro.

As an orator, he is the greatest. So Stephen A on Whitlock. I want to add a couple of things for the audience to know. I want to let them in behind the scenes of what we do here in our newsroom. Yeah. We have never spiked an episode until the time that Dan visited New York, and he sat where you sat, are sitting now. And we attempted to do an episode about,

Kane himself, the devil. The lost tapes. I mean, those are buried now. And I won't get into right now why we spiked it. Just know that we tried and there was some shit in there. And I decided, journalistically, like, we're not ready to report this in public yet. Yeah, because the bar on this is what Stephen A. did. And we haven't even gotten to the real bar.

The real bar, to me, is a line that on paper doesn't sound as. as impactful as calling someone a biblical traitor, but in delivery. I mean, it was this. I couldn't write, huh? While you were on Blaze TV, spewing that bullshit to people. Did you tell them that?

Did you tell them how you stood outside, outside of first take begging me to talk to you? Did you tell them that once the same article in Deadspin came out, weeks later you wrote a lengthy apology to me in an email begging me to forgive you pointing out how you were betrayed by this particular writer so you know how I must feel that you betrayed me

did you tell the folks that you bitch did you tell them your fat piece of shit did you tell them that you were a great writer your mistake was you started talking and worse wanting to be seen while you were talking

which is why your quality and your value plummeted because when we see you and we listen to you we know how worthless you are Stephen A says the B word in a way that I have not heard delivered from him because it just felt like it came from From the soul. The most real deep place inside of that. To me, what I love about that and what I see when I watch that is almost like a bouncing vibrancy to him.

And the first part of that clip, when he's running through the things and he's like, did you tell him that? Did you remember? And he gets real close to the mic. And the second part of the clip is even more in a different performance of slowing it down. Yes. Pacewise, there's nobody that could do both. The one pushback I will give, Cortez, which, brings us around to today's episode,

is that you called them the greatest. And it's an understandable claim. It's just not true. I don't know how I could be wrong on that, so go ahead. So what I wanted to do today is educate people about genuinely the greatest trash talker of all time. We talk about how Stephen A in that way is a poet. I want to bring actual poetry to the proceedings here. I want to tell people the story of the literal greatest of all time

as he came to be known, as he appointed himself, and how it is that he actually earned that title, to the point where he got nominated for a Grammy. And that's after the break. So, Justin Tensley, I'm always excited when you text me with a story. This time, I was both deeply excited and also a little embarrassed. Why is that? Because I did not know.

about something that I have now become obsessed with, that you turn me onto. And I am a person whose show is ostensibly about the ways in which sports sort of like overflow out into the wider world of America and its history. Yeah, yeah. And this is like, it's just one of the best stories I've now learned about, thanks to you. We're talking about Muhammad Ali.

For the majority of this conversation, you'll probably hear us refer to him as his birth name, Cassius Clay. at 21 years old, this dude earned a Grammy nomination. Probably the most consequential Grammy nomination of all time for a comedy album. A comedy album, Pablo. It's absurd. It's Grammy season.

The Grammys are happening this weekend. And the award ceremony we're about to dive into here at the top. They happened exactly 60 years ago. So this is 1964. And so the nominees also in the category, of Best Comedy album were who? Bill Cosby. And he would do a thing that you call chain stoking,

which is you breathe and then you stop. And he used to bug us, really, because you're... Yeah, and just Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner happened to be there, too, other comedy Hollywood legends. First, I'd like you to meet the German representative from Nazi, Narzi... from the Narzy Film Company. Uh, Herr Adolf Hartler.

Uh, good afternoon, Herr Hartler. I'm Hartler, how are you? The Smothers brothers were there. The Smothers brothers. Sob, soap, soap, so, soap, so, so, what are you doing? Trying to say about eight bars. And this guy, Alan Sherman, who, I didn't know by name, but no, certainly by song. And the fifth nominee, Cassius Clay, whose album title, perhaps the most appropriate album title in the history of album titles.

And the most subtle. And the most subtle for I Am the Greatest. Just Clay. The legend of Cassius Clay, the most beautiful fighter in the world today. He talks a great deal and brags and deedy of a muscular punch. That's incredible is speedy. What's crazy about this thing is that it goes on to explain all of these actual enormous stories and historical events

that I did know about. But now because I see it through the lens of I am the greatest, make just a lot more sense to me. When you look at the dates and when you look at the events associated with these dates, you're going to start to see like, wait, this led to the beher. the birth of Muhammad Ali. This led to conversations that we would have around black Muslims, aka the nation of Islam.

This would lead to him protesting the Vietnam War. This would lead to something like the birth of hip-hop years later. And even more specifically, I don't think it's a stretch at all to say that this was arguably the first recorded disc track. And it wasn't even a disc track. It was a disc album. Over 10 tracks, right?

And that's how it started. It's 10 tracks of musical trash talk. And so 21-year-old Cassius Clay, his subject, his target in full clarity, is who in 1963? Sunny Liston. And when I say his name right now, I get goosebumps saying it. Sunny Liston and I have never walked the earth at the same time. And I'm still scared of this dude. This is the most menacing guy, not just in boxing, but probably in popular culture at this point.

And that's who a 21-year-old Cassius Clay was openly taunting. Friends, Romans, countrymen. Let me your ears. I come to Barry Liston, not to praise him. I'm going to fight Sonny Liston. That is, if he doesn't chicken out, I will win that fight because I'm president of the boxing world. And this fist is my veto. I am the greatest.

Mr. Liston is an old man. He's 30 years. old. He has no business been in the same ring with me. I'd like to help that poor old man. I want to give him lessons, boxing lessons, talking lessons. I'll teach him anything. But since he's going to fight me, what he needs Moses falling lessons. So I want to establish that the mythology you're about to say here is not actually mythology. No, no. This is real. The facts on Sunny Liston in 1963 when Muhammad Ali was then Cassius Clay, 21 years old. And by the way, Cassius Clay at this point,

had never been heavyweight champion of the world. No, no, he hasn't. He was an upcoming boxer. And the man who had that title, which also meant you were the biggest and baddest athlete. Yes. Human being on earth belonged to Sunny Liston. That was the belt that he owned.

And Sunny Liston was more than just like a good heavyweight. He was what? He was an all-time great heavyweight. Like, this dude was a problem in the run. ring. But it was also a problem outside of the ring, which only added to the mystique around him. If I can, I want to read a quote from Henry Conrad. This is in Thomas Hauser's 1992 biography, Muhammad Ali, his life and times. This is an exact quote. Sunny Liston was a mean f***. This was a guy who got arrested a hundred times. He went to prison for armed robbery. He got out, went back

again for beating up a cop, wound up being managed by organized crime. When When Sonny gave you the evil lie, I don't care who you were. You shrunk to two feet tall. And oh yeah, one more thing. He could fight like hell. Like this stuff about like the mob ties, real, okay? These are real ties that he had. Sonny, listen, just maybe more simpler way to say it.

This was the guy that a young Mike Tyson idolized and looked up to and also feared. Listen, what the real deal. You know, like some guys out here, they're getting the paper. listening was knocking the cops out, breaking the judge, knocking. So when he comes to a town, listening comes to Philadelphia, so to speak. The cops made a call. They come to the train station, the bus station, wherever he at, you can't come here, you get on the bus and leave.

They won't let him. St. Louis, you can't come. The cops at the train station, get on the bus and leave. They won't let them come in the States. Formidable, mean, son of a bitch. And he happened to be a fighter. Dude, like, Chuck Weppner. I had 147 fights.

Four World Champions, I fought. I've four nine guys in the top ten. The real life inspiration for Rocky Balboa has said, nobody ever. Never hit me like that guy. Every time he hit you, he broke something. I went to 10 rounds with him. He broke my nose, my left cheekbone, and gave me 72 stitches.

And for good measure, by the way, George Foreman, one of the great heavyweights of all time. He trained with Sunny Liston, and what Foreman said was, Oh, Sunny Liston, no doubt the scariest human being I met in the ring. But I want to point out here that Sunny Liston, that Sunny Liston became a household name because in 1962 now, he had knocked out Floyd Patterson.

And Boyd Patterson, again for the kids out there, this is an all-time great. This was the defending heavyweight champion of the world. Sunny Liston knocked his ass out in two minutes and six seconds into the first round. Yes. He becomes champion. The next year, 1963,

Sunny Liston knocks out Floyd Patterson again in two minutes and ten seconds, again in the first round, to defend his belt. He had just knocked Floyd Patterson out again for a second time. And he said this quote, A prize fight is like a cowboy movie. There has to be a good guy and a bad guy.

People pay their money to see me lose. Only in my cowboy movie, the bad guy always wins. He's a villain, right? He's a villain, dude. Like, there is no hyperbole with this guy. No, he's, I mean, if you told me that Sunny Liston was dangling people out of windows. Yes. I'd be like, yeah, that tracks.

Yeah, and that's just the appetizer. Right. And so this is. is all to say that that is the man. But at 21st 1st, 21 Cache's Clay is like baiting. He's actively calling him out. And he, because Cassius Clay, of course, you'd be unsurprised to learn, I suppose, was an ambitious young man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I would have put it.

And Sonny Liston's response about what he wanted to do to Cache's Clay was, yeah, not all that subtle either. If he had killed him. And if he ran, I'll catch him and kill him. It's also worth pointing out that Cassius Clay at this point, you know, this was not like him winning over everybody with his boxing acumen. March, 1963, Cassius Clay had just fought Doug Jones in front of Madison Square Garden. He had sold out the Garden, which was great. But the garden didn't exactly love the fact that Clay eeked out this decision over Doug Jones.

Cassius Clay is mimicking some of the people who are booing the decision while Doug Jones very nonchalantly says anything debris is coming into the ring now and then June 1969 three couple months later Cassius Clay goes to Wembley Stadium in London and it's a big fight and he knocks out Henry Cooper but in the process Henry Cooper also knocks him down he falls backwards into the ropes

so here is Cassius Clay now kind of limping. He's limping into the summer of 1963. He is known as a huge talker already, as this self-promoter who is certainly like wildly talented in that respect, but nobody saw him as on the level of Sunny Liston. So in August 63, he has a press conference at the Americana Hotel. This is an event. This is a production. He's not just like, hey, meet me at the ballroom at the Americana and I want to talk to you all about something. He's announcing this comedy album and it's through Columbia Records. Which is an enormous

music publishing house. They signed him to a recording contract, which about the time, it was around $25,000. Now, account for inflation in 2024, that's about a quarter million. Right. That's a lot. That's real money.

That's real money. We know he can talk. We know he's sure about himself. But what do you have to say on an album? Right. What is this going to sound like? And now, ladies and gentlemen, from Louisville, Kentucky

wearing black tie Mr. Cassius, Marcelus Clay. And here's another crazy thing about this comedy album. It's recorded in front of a live audience. Right. So he's not just cracking jokes

and he's the only one in the studio. He's cracking jokes and he's getting that immediate gratification from the audience. No, this is itself like an athletic event. Yes. 200 people. It's at the Columbia Records Studios in Manhattan.

and you'll hear pretty immediately, these motherfuckers were loving it. Yes. Just Clay, Cassius Clay, the most beautiful fighter in the world today. He talks a great deal and brags and deed of a muscular punch that's incredibly speedy. The fistic world was dull and weary.

With a champ like Liston, things had to be dreary. Then someone with color, someone with dash brought fight fans are running with cash. Dude, like, so at this point in Ali's career, I think he's fought maybe around like 20, 21 professional fights. Undefeated. Undefeated. And in 13 of those, he predicted the exact round that the fight would in.

Yes. He had this thing where he was calling his shot. Yes. And it was actually working, which was prophetic and a real, like, subplot to everything he would ever say. When you listen to I.M. the greatest. You understand that everything about this album, Pablo, everything was intentional. From the fact that, like, each song wasn't a song or a track, it was called a round. Here I predict Mr. Liston's dismemberment. I'll hit him so hard, he'll wonder where October and November went.

The track list on this. Yes. Is hilarious. Round one, I am the greatest. Round two, I am the double. I am the double. greatest. And so when you listen to this, the other thing that becomes clear too, which I didn't know until I spent my week, like having this on repeat, is that Cassius Clay is also kind of in on this joke. Oh yeah. So him as a performer, him is both a guy with an ego, obviously, obviously. He's picking himself to win and knock people out all the time. But when he declares himself the greatest, there is this wink to it, like a bit of self-awareness coming through that all of this is also absurd.

Liston's fall will mark the arrival of spring. Yes, that's going to be a new champion. A champion you can tell your kids to be like. I'm a perfect idol for the kids. I'm good-looking, clean living, culture, and I am modest. Just like him, again, actively trolling Zendey Liston. Yeah, but I want to talk about track three, excuse me, I want to talk about round three.

It's called, do you have to ask? And when you listen to it, there's like this call-and-response method. It reminds you of a Greek chorus. But when you listen to it, it's kind of like the predecessor for what would become hip-hop music. Caches of Old Drop Caesar, 20 centuries ago. Go, go, go, go! And this cashers were cool listening, as you already know. No, no, no.

Yes, yes, yes. For at the end of the bout, you are going to hear the ref shout. The winner and new champion. Mr. Liston won't see that the victor is me for stars all he'll be seen. There's an article from Esquire magazine in 63 written by Tom Wolfe, one of the great writers of all time. And he's there for the rehearsals. And he's watching Ali, Cassius Clay, micromanage. Yes.

And it's so funny to imagine that scene while also looking again at this. track list. Oh my God. Because from here it begins to resemble the track list does like the Andre 3,000 flute album. Yes. Where it's like the night in Hawaii when I turn into a panther. You know, like that track? Because round four is titled what? I have written a drama, he said playfully. Yes, the sentence. That's the title of the song. I'm not quoting him. That's the title of the song. Round five, will the real sunny listen please fall down? Round six. Round six. Funny you should ask. No, literally, that's the title.

That's the title. Funny you should ask. Round 7, 2138. Yep. And round 8, appropriately title, the knockout. And there was this question heading in, right? Like, okay, we have this athlete, he's awesome at sports, cool. We're going to have him do music stuff.

Yep. Is it going to feel, as Tom Wolfe put it, like this is forcing piano lessons on somebody? Cash's Clay, quote, was desperately interested in whether or not his line were genuinely funny. He tried them out on every newcomer who came into the room. That is the quote that Tom Wolfe put into his piece in Esquire. That's what he observed. And again, you listen to this album, that was the rehearsal, and it all adds up.

He took it seriously. And there's this really great quote that he ends round seven, 2138. And he's playing 175-year-old man at this point. So just be clear, 2138, the year. Yes. Cash's Clay is now 175 years old. That's the perspective of the song. Keep a matter, we're just in 2024 right now.

You know, we still got a long way until 2138 comes around. But in it, and I think this is one of the more powerful things that, especially in terms of foresight that he ever said. And he ends the track like this. And I quote, to this nation, I've made this bequest. So spread the word north and south. Some folks leave their brains to science. But when I go, I'm leaving my mind. mouth, it's the greatest.

So for you, the best track on I Am the Greatest, musically speaking, is what? I have to go round five. Will the real sunny list and please fall down? And when we talk about hip-hop and disc records, I want to read some lyrics out for y'all. And I'm not even going to try to read it in Cassius Clay's tone because there's only one hymn.

But when you listen to this, understand the intention behind every line and what it was he was trying to do. And it starts like this. Clay comes out to meet Liston, and Liston starts to retreat. But if he goes back an inch further, he'll end up in a ringside seat. Clay swings with his left, Clay swings with his right. Look at young Caches carry the fight. Liston keeps backing, but there's not enough room.

It's a matter of time, and Clay lost the boom. Now Clay lands right. What a beautiful swing. The punch raises Listern clear out of the rain. Listern's still rising and the refs were as a frown for he can't start counting till sunny comes down. It's the disappearance view. The crowd is getting frantic.

But our radar stations have picked him up. He's somewhere over the Atlantic. When they came to the fight that they witnessed the launching of a human satellite. Yes, the crowd did not dream when they put down their money that they would see a total eclipse of the Sunni. of a sunny. So this is our way, by the way, of setting the stage for one of the, just the greatest sporting events that have ever happened.

So this is the actual Ali listed fight. We're in February, 1964 now. It's 60 years ago this month as well. And the reality for people who maybe were swayed as persuadable voters here by Cash's Clay, the reality was that Las Vegas had Sunny Liston as a 7 to 1 favorite. It was actually, according to the reporting at the time, I went through newspapers, it was almost impossible to find a bookie who would even take the bet. And that's respect to listening.

Yes, exactly. It was because everyone was like, he's obviously going to destroy this dude. If we're going to take these bets, we're just going to lose money, even at 7 to 1. Right. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Miami Beach, Florida, Miami Beach Convention Hall. And I was reading David Remnick's book on Ali, which is great. Remnick reported that the New York Times, before this fight had mapped out the route from the Miami Beach Convention Hall

to the hospital because they expected that a now 22-year-old Cassius Clay would wind up there. And so even his lawyers, Cassius Clay's lawyer, was like he said apparently that he mostly hoped his client would emerge, quote, alive and unhurt. But guess what? That bell ring. Cassius Clay on the move, as we see, looking to get Sonny to run. carrying his left hand dangerously low. So when you watch this fight, that album is in the back of your mind, but the thing you see immediately from the opening bell is like, yo, Clay is like droves faster than Liston.

Like, how is Liston going to catch this guy in the ring? Yes, slippery is a word that the announcers use on the telecast. And Sunny Listing is just missing him by like two feet. He's dancing around. He's got that, you know, that person. prototypical Ali Flair. The shuffle. The shuffle. He's dodging and like tagging listing and like listing can't catch him.

No. And everybody watching, who again had clearly either bet on Cassius Clay to lose or were assuming him to be hurt in some way. They're realizing, oh my God, this kid might not be full of shit. This kid might be the greatest. Like he really might be everything he said he was. And so remember that Cassius Clay. had predicted, it was an eight-round

catalog he had given. And so he was like a knockout in the eighth round. But what's crazy about this fight, what's even wilder about all of this, is that by the end of the sixth round, Cassius Clay has cut Sunny Liston's face open. He is bleeding. The cameras are zooming in

as he is tended to by his corner man. Now they're working, as we note, with our camera shots in there, below the left eye. They've already worked below the right. There you see them. Joe Polino trying to keep that cut closed. Do you feel as though sunny being busted up a little bit, puffed up a little bit around the face?

Will this make a difference? I want to play the ABC broadcast for you here. This is the ABC radio broadcast. It's Howard CoSell, the late great Howard CoSell. And this is what he says. All I can say is what Rocky Marciano has just said. This is hard to figure out as we come up to round seven. Play looked like you had about had it coming into the board.

I get goosebumps. Yo, dude, I literally just got goosebumps hearing that. He made Sunny Liston quit. He made, Sunny Liston didn't leave the corner. No, so this is before the seventh round. Before the seventh round. So reality is actually even better than the prediction that Cassius Clay had made of knocking him out in the eighth. Yeah.

And immediately after it's clear that the fight is over, Cassius Clay is now, of course, mobbed. microphones are jammed in his face. And when you listen to him in this moment, it is like he had walked out of the Columbia record studio directly in front of this microphone because he says this. I am the greatest. Come there. I am the greatest. I'm the king.

I'm the king of the world. They come to the truth. Tell the truth, Cassius. Get that. I have upset the world. Give me justice. You're the king of a race. If you ever believe it would happen this way.

I told him if he want to go to heaven. I get him in seven. I am the king. I am the king. I am the king. What made him so easy for you, because I'm too fast. He was scared.

I was too fast. He was scared. But you know a crazy thing that happened with Cassius Clay immediately following this fight? You got to go back to the actual album. Now, you couldn't find that album in stores the day after that fight. So the album has sold up to that point 30,000 records. That was respectable.

But after this fight, it propelled that album to the 500,000 copies sold threshold. So it's a gold record. Yeah, which is gold. You had respectable publications like the Milwaukee Journal. They called the greatest the comedy album of the year. My favorite detail is everyone's trying to monetize this. Yeah. And immediate aftermath.

Because, of course, this is capitalism. Right. is that they're like, we need to get this dude back on the radio. Right. And so what do they do? So, uh, we're going to push his cover of standby me onto radio stations. Benny King, one of the most popular songs of the day and all time for the record. So we're going to push this out there.

And when you listen to it, it's like, wait, like, he's not Benny King, but he ain't bad either. No, he is singing in this. Yo, imagine it. having your ass kicked by this dude. More sales than the Beatles, the fucking Beatles had. In 64 now. More sales than Barbara Streisand had. And all of that was going gangbusters for Columbia Records.

Yep. Until something else that happened, which was also the day after Cassius Clay beat Sunny Liston. This is the nuts part about it. Cassius Clay was no longer known as Cassius Clay. Why don't you like to be called Clay? anymore. No, Clay was not my name. Once we could follow them, believe, hear, understand the teachings of the honorable Elijah Muhammad, and come into knowledge of ourselves, then we want to be called after names of our people, which are names that fit us, black people.

And Clay was a white man's name. It was a slave name. And I'm no longer, Clay, I'm no longer slave. So now, Muhammad Ali. So when you take into account that he changed, his name and now he's directly aligned with the nation of Islam, people have been, you know, assuming this for months. Malcolm X had been at a lot of his fights. Malcolm X was a very close friend to his. It's unfortunate, but it's also easy to understand why the sales tanked after that, because Columbia Records panic because it was like, yo, we cannot put a guy named Muhammad Ali front and center. His entire livelihood was basically threatened at this point. Right. Remember what he was singing about what he was performing poetry about.

He was the perfect role model for kids and yet all of this room full of white people laughing. He was this leader of this room, right? Of these people who were exactly who a PR person for Columbia Records might imagine would now be terrified of if he was, in fact, a member of the nation of Islam. And so all of that roaring laughter, that crowd that loved it, was applauding it, was laughing too hard sometimes. Yeah. All that shit just stops.

It stopped on a dime. And when you look at the course of Ali's life, let's just say the next two, three years, so much changed. By February 1965, Malcolm X had been assassinated. Malcolm X, who was one of his closest friends. And years later, Muhammad Ali would go on to write that turning his back on Malcolm X was the single biggest regret of his life. And he was like, I wish he was still here so I could tell him how right he was about so many things.

So his good friend Sam Cook, who was on the original version of this album, was murdered in December 1964. And oh, yeah, a couple of years later, this guy basically gets the prime years of his career stripped away from him because he's, I'm not going to Vietnam. Frasher, me, and other so-called Negroes go 10,000 miles away from him. from home here in America to drop bombs and bullets on other innocent brown people who's never botherless. And I will say directly, no, I will not go. Here's the thing about Vietnam that I think a lot of people really don't understand in terms

of just Ali's boxing career. Pablo, we watch a lot of sports. We've been watching a lot of sports all our lives. And we know in boxing, if you take the ages 25, to 28. Though, that is the meat of your prime. Ali never had 25 to 28. The years, 1967 to 1970, are blank for him because he couldn't fight. This is all before he turns 30, by the way. Right.

And so when we think of the Muhammad Ali that we know today, who is, by the way, now pretty unimpeachably, exactly what everyone was laughing at him for saying, which is the greatest. Yeah. We think about his fights against Foreman and Joe Frazier and all of these guys. And all of that stuff happens flowing out of this sort of domino effect. Yeah. Flowing out of that comedy album. Yeah.

And the thing that jumped out of me is I was reading through these books this past week. Yeah. Was that this entire time, right? Like this whole story is about fearlessness. And Muhammad Ali had held a secret about how he really felt the night he felt. the night he faced Sunny Liston. The night before he became brave enough to become Muhammad Ali.

He faces the baddest man in the world. And what he says is this. Quote, that's the only time I was ever scared in the ring. Sunny Liston, first time, first round, said he was going to kill me. Sunny Liston was, before I fought him, considered one of the greatest fighters in history.

Sunny Liston had a punch and knocked out Florida Patterson just got one round price. One fist is as big as a big as a boberman. Everybody was scared of them. Were you scared to listen? Scared to death. And so when you see it

through something he would confess, as he said, years and years later, that actually, that 21-year-old who walked into the ring in Miami that night, that kid was fucking terrified. It changes actually also the way the album sounds when you listen to it again.

Absolutely. And it's one of the more relatable concepts about the album because we've all been that young kid of like probably bullshaded their way into a room that we probably didn't deserve to be in. Yeah, around the horn for us. Yeah, yeah, around the horn for us. Like, oh, shit.

He's a 21-year-old basically building his confidence up on the fly, which is a very dangerous move because if it doesn't work out, that's how you're remembered in history. Right. He goes all in on himself. Yeah. And he's doing it in a way that, again, I got to cite David. Remnick here because Remnick interviews Floyd Patterson years and years later about Ali in this book.

And this is what Floyd Patterson tells him. And it kind of, when I read this, it kind of just explained everything to me about why Cassius Clay was doing all of this in the way that he did that young. Floyd Patterson said this, quote, I never liked all his bragging. It took me a long time to understand who Clay was talking to. Clay was talking to Clay. All of Clay's bragging was a way to convince himself that he could do what he said he'd do. And when you see that in that way, man? Yeah, man. Like, he's actually trying to motivate himself, to convince himself.

He's the person who needed to be convinced that he was the greatest this entire time. That's some deep shit when you really look at it. Because you're basically playing your own experiences, your own emotions out on the world stage. It's different, you know, sitting on the couch with your friends, be like, oh yeah, I'm going to be the greatest at whatever profession I choose. Yeah, I'm going to make the league one day. Yeah, I'm going to make the league. No, you're doing it in front of the world.

The cameras are here, the reporters are here. Your life, your safety, your physical health is on the line. Exactly. And to know that, like you just said, he pushed all the chips to the center of the table on him. He bet that this is the literal interpretation of betting on yourself and winning beyond your wildest imagination. But it's important to point this out. 64 is the year that changed Ali's life. He became the greatest.

He beat Sunny Liston, but he did take an L that year. He didn't win the Grammy for Best Comedy Album after all this. Sorry, if you got this far in the podcast, you're thinking he won. Surprise, surprise, he lost to Alan Sherman. Alan Sherman beat that ass. Yeah, Alan Sherman, Sunny Liston. Dude put on a propeller on his head for the record. And this is who he lost to.

I demand a fucking recout. I demand a fucking recout. Are you serious? Alan Sherman put a propeller on his head and he is singing, Hello mutter, hello fada. Kashi's Clay just beat the scariest man in the world. He didn't even come out the corner.

But the good news for Muhammad Ali is that he would get another shot at the Grammys. And this is where it's just like the story doesn't end, right? So Muhammad Ali, it's 1976 now. Yeah, okay? And he gets a second Grammy nomination because he's returned to the recording studio to take on what was arguably maybe the only opponent

scarier than Sunny Liston, Justin Tinsley. Tooth decay. Calm down. Allie, what's you doing here? I have a new battle coming up. Win, we're two. This is a different kind of battle. And I have to train just as hard.

Eat the right kind of food and good healthy exercise won't hurt either. This one's against Mr. Tooth DeK and the terrible, terrible things that brings that nasty Mr. Tooth DeK around. So I should say that this extremely real album, Justin. Yes, it's real. The Adventures of Ali and his gang versus Mr. Tooth Decay got nominated for a Grammy for Best Children's Music album. Which honestly, Pablo, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Like, this dude was literally known for his mouth, and he's promoting good oral hygiene to kids.

Like, it makes total sense. And so he comes full circle again. He gets to be the role model. This is now, again, 76. Yeah. Right? And now we think of Ali, right? You called him at the beginning of the show.

Like, one of the most popular men ever. Yeah. And so now you understand what he went through to come back around to claiming that title to be a guy who parents would be like, Listen to Muhammad Ali, brush your fucking teeth. Yeah. It was in the cast on this. Dude, he's got Howard Kosell.

He's got Frank Sinatra. Like, this is a who's who. These are A-listers. My friends, have you seen two funny-looking characters running amok around here? Hey, aren't you, Muhammad Ali? Yes, indeed. That's who I am. Wow.

The greatest. And the fastest. Wait a day and he's going to tell him. Hey. Hey, wait a minute. May I come too? When you texted me, if you had told me, this is all going to end with dentistry. Yep, tooth decay, bro.

I would have not believed you. Pablo, hear me out. Muhammad Ali, tooth decay, sprinkle in sunny, listed in the middle. We got an episode, baby. That's right. A little nation of Islam, some mafia. We check all the boxes here. It's just one of my favorite stories.

of all time, Justin. Pablo, you know I love talking about stories like this to you. We always do an incredible deep dive, and this is just the latest. Yeah, my wife asks me, why are you listening to an album about tooth decay on repeat? Because, honey. Because, honey, Justin Tinsley is trying to help me tell the story

of the greatest mouth in sports history. Thank you, dude. Thank you. This has been Pablo Torre finds out. A Metal Arc Media production. and I'll talk to you next time.