The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Charles Suitt On Master P's Comments On Patti LaBelle, Publishing Nia Long's Book, Lost Boyz + More

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

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Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Yep, Charlemagne Tha God, just hilarious. Envy had to step out, man. His daughter is graduating, but we got a brother in the building. You know, you may not know his face. You might know his name, but it's good that you get to know him because, you know, a lot of things that you see that are front and center,

there's people behind the scenes making a lot of those things happen. And Charles Soot is one of those people behind the scenes making a lot of those things happen. And Charles Suit is one of those people behind the scenes making a lot of those things happen. Yes, sir. How you doing, my brother? I mean, I'm blessed, man. I'm happy to be here. I don't even know how to introduce you. Do I say publisher? Do I say business manager? Like, what do I say? You say Jamaican? Product of the hip hop environment. I started in the early 90s. God bless Andre Harrell. I saw a video, Ralph McDaniels, and they were interviewing Andre Harrell,

and he said that MCA gave him a million dollars to start a record company. And I'm sitting at home. I'm a teenager. I said, they gave a nigga a million dollars? In the 90s. So, no, that was the 80s. And then fast forward, I would start managing the Lost Boys. And I had the opportunity of meeting Andre,

jumping turnstiles to get to Uptown Records. The most amazing experience because it was so for real. It was heavy D. Mary J. Blige, everybody's walking around on this one floor, and it was really black excellence, right? And we weren't up, but I was in the building like we were up, like in the marketing. And they were like, who?

What group? What? You know, and Lost Boys weren't the shiny object. You know, Andre had so for real that was bringing all the models in and Heavy and Mary and Jodeci. Mary and Jodecici so we were the the grimy uh queens group but we had to to make andre um see that you know if you put some money into us you know we'll we'll be effective um i can remember one time uh making 700 cassettes of renee

and about three weeks trying to get to him and i I just couldn't get to him. And his intern, Bobby Springsteen, called me and said, hey, Andre's coming up. You know, what you want to do? And Sugar Dice opened up his office, and I just sprinkled the cassettes in his bathroom everywhere. And about two hours later, he called me and said, I get your point. Come on in.

And we talked about the record. I'm going to clean this shit up. So going from that and then helping start Universal Records with Monty Lipman and Doug Morris and Gene Riggins and Jocelyn Cooper, the great, rest in peace to Garnett, Reed. We were the fastest growing record company ever. Our record was the first plaque ever at Universal. And that's the Lost Boys album.

Now Platinum went gold. And now you look at it from Drake to Nicki to Wayne. Damn, the first record at Universal to go platinum? Very first, very first record ever. If you ask Monty Lipman, who heads Universal now, he'll tell you the very first one. And then right after that, it was Crucial Conflict. And then Cash Money, the great Erykah Badu came through

with Kedar Massenburg. So we were just rolling. You know, Mark Pitts, shout out to him. We created something that's never been done and probably will never, ever be done again. I didn't realize Universal was so young. Oh, yeah. We weren't even in the current building.

We were, like, in the same building that William Morris was, and Doug Morris was kind of walking around. Like, you could get to Doug Morris then. He was just walking around, and you could get to Doug Morris then. He was just walking around and Jocelyn and Gene and everybody. So, and now look at it now. You know, I spent eight years there. But also it taught me that you can do all of that work, right,

and leave then you own nothing, right? So after my eighth year, I was told that they weren't renewing my contract and i'm sitting at home and i had spent a whole year um recording with a little girl named jojo little white girl oh snap right you call me get out my hair right so leave get out was a record that she didn't want to sing vincent herbert who's my brother didn't really like the record and i said guys we got a whole album of a little white girl singing really urban records. And Shorty can blow. Yeah, and she can blow. And I still love her to this day.

So I found the record, recorded it with her. And I'm sitting at home with no job. And it's playing on the radio nonstop. So at that point, I said, something has to change. I'm never going to work for anybody again and my good friend troy carter said charles you got to start calling your resources and people that you know yeah troy troy carter and um so i call my one of my friends zuri and i said hey you know what is your mom doing i have some money saved up and i know that she's always kind of been a royalty based person zuri is the

son of miss patty he's my he's my best friend and my business partner and um we kind of got together and talked about it and then i'm nervous i had known patty for several years been in the house but like to have patty walk in your office right is a different thing the security comes and she's got the mink coat and the diamonds and she takes off her mink and sits down and says, Charles, you know, what would you like to discuss? And I'm just like, you know, my mind is blown. This is Patty LaBelle. So Zuri and I had done a lot of preparation. We had gone to Macy's and we knew that Martha Stewart was one of her best friends. And we took pictures of everything Patty, Martha had and said, Miss LaBelle, we would like to do this with you.

And she said, well, Charles, how are you going to do all of that? And I said, you're Patty LaBelle. If you let us represent you. There's nobody that won't pick up the phone. And she said, Charles, let's do it. And I credit her not only in, by the way, it's her company, 100%. I credit her for not only taking the dive, but I credit her for looking at Zuri and I as the young kings that we are and that we can pull this off. Patti LaBelle can get the biggest managers in the world, the biggest,

and she saw something in us, and she never stops telling us that she appreciates how hard we fight and how hard we work. I love that. So truly grateful for her. I want to go back to one thing. How did you connect with the Lost Boys to be their manager? Why did they say, you know what, this young dude from the hood, I want him to be our manager?

So keeping it real, I'm not from the hood. I'm from Roosevelt, Long Island, which is no cakewalk um anyway but i went to college with cheeks okay and at that time it was terrence kelly and um we played on the basketball team together and terrence flunked off the basketball team right but he used to come to every game and he would come with like a hundred cats right and i would never forget one time i went up up to dunk the basketball at the end of a game. And this guy from CCNY kind of swept me under. And Cheeks came out of the stands with like 50, 100 guys. And I'm like, Cheeks, no!

Right? But fast forward, I would move to Atlanta. And I see him coming down the hill. And I'm like, Terrence, what are you doing here? Like, what are you doing in Atlanta? He said, well said well I rap and Eric Sermon is interested in signing me and Charles I love the way you handled yourself in college I love the way you dress I love the way every every way about the way you went about your business and I'm looking for a manager so he opens up his briefcase and says here's a book and it's Donald Passman's everything you want to know about

the music business or something like that. So initially I said no, but then that night I read the book, and I literally read it in one night. I read it maybe in that week two or three times, right? And I called him. I said, Cheeks, I want to do it. And then I called my brother and my partner Todd Ellerbee, Big Tiz, and I said, you know, let's go on this journey together.

And unbeknownst to me they had a demo deal already with Uptown Cheeks didn't even know that like he was just kind of running around with Butt Naked Tim Dogg and Puff and Biggie and those guys never knew he had a demo deal um he did the first if you ever watch New York Undercover the very first episode our record comes on instantly when the very first episode, our record comes on instantly, when the very first episode. So because of that, there was a demo. I didn't know that that book led me to make every mistake I ever made in, you know, it's like,

the book is literally made for a white, young executive. You follow this, you'll be successful, right? I made every mistake from coming up to uptown complaining about the demo deal Andre hit the button the Muslims came this is right when sugar can run up in there so he had the Nation of Islam get this guy out of here like literally right I want to at some point make a book about the gray area right like what we experience is as african-americans in the music what to do, what the pitfalls are.

With that said, before I realized that we had a demo deal, I literally took them to every, I had never ever seen two people, in the beginning it was Cheeks and Talit, right? The two of them together. Talit and Freaky Todd? Freaky Todd. The two of them together was like going to church. You watch them, they literally listened to R&B.

Like 12 Play was like the soundtrack of our life at that time, right? R. Kelly. And you watched the chemistry between Freaky Ty and Mr. Cheeks. God bless his dad, too. Yeah, it was mind-blowing. And what was so dope is everybody knew their role at that time. You know, Freaky Ty was, he rapped, but his job was to enunciate and make

you feel what cheek said like you're gonna feel it and the reason why is because you know freaky tie was authentic he was authentic one three four and guy brew he was south side's finest right so we went i'll never forget our first meeting was with the a and r that did not so nas was 16 coming out of her office at the time, and we were going in. And she was like, hey, do you know Nas? And we were like, nah, Chiefs knew him from Queens. And she handed us the album.

And then we went to every A&R person in the building. We met Jermaine Dupri that day, because Jermaine had heard about us. So Jermaine brought us to his hotel. We met the Brat that day, all in one day. And it got back to Andre. And Andre said, lawyer up because you're signed to Uptown Records and you should not be. And I'm like, how do you know? Oh, we know everything. Get your butt up here. And we did. And Andre did the right thing, took the guy shopping. And at that point it was, you know, work on the album, Easy Mo B. I always wonder why they didn't sign the Bad Boy.

I always felt like Lost Boys was such a Bad Boy group. Well, to be honest with you, when Puff and Andre separated, he had to make a choice, right? And his choice was Toto, Biggie, Craig Mack, right? Andre wasn't letting you take everything. Oh, because all of them was under? Well, kind of, sort of. Tim Dogg, who's the A&R,

was a protege of Puff's. Puff was a protege of Andre. I was a protege of... A lot of people think I learned everything from Puff. I didn't. Tim Dogg, Patterson kind of taught me everything from soup to nuts. And there was a limit to what Andre was going to let him take. And I'll be honest, in the very beginning,

I don't believe Andre knew what the Lost Boys were until we put out Lifestyles and the Rich and Shameless and the Dance. Classic. You know. So that's how I became their manager, and we went on to 10 years of success. And then, you know, as relationships go, you kind of part ways,

and his aunt wound up managing him after Freaky Tide died. And after about a year of that, he said, Sue, come to Miami. I want to talk to you. You kind of part ways, and his aunt wound up managing him after Freaky Tide died. And after about a year of that, he said, Suit, come to Miami. I want to talk to you. And we sat down, and he said, Suit, can you please come back? And I said, there's no way I wouldn't.

You're my brother. And it was never a bad breakup. You put me in the game. And I said, Cheeks, if I come back, we got to go back to Mr. Sex and Bink Dog and all those, Easy Mo B. And we did, and Lights, Camera, Action came about. Wow. That was a big record. That's a joint right there.

Did you die at the end of the Rene video? Because I don't know if y'all realize, go back and watch the Rene video. This is the guy who Mr. Cheeks kills. I don't know if he kills him, but in the lobby. Yeah, true story, true story. When I said, it's the game, it's the game, kid, that came from a demo that Cheeks did.

And it was called The Game, The Money, The Bitches, and The Cars. And I remember, though, so it just came to me, right? That was Biggie's. People don't realize, Big, Lost Boys, Junior Mafia, Jay-Z, and Dame were on the road every weekend together. Lost Boys was Big's favorite group. So everything that happened is like we were there. After the Soul Train thing, we were in the van going to a radio at Charlotte,

and he was telling us what happened. And then C's did this, and C's did that. Every time I see C, C's be like, yo, Big was like, yo, when you say it's the game, it's the game. So I killed him. That's i killed him that's our story that's our story he will say he killed me he continued he threw me down on the ground i pulled out on my coat he pulled out click click and it said to be continued so in my version of it i killed him in his version oh i killed him you know so yeah so we never had a chance

to um to do the part two wow okay but now you're up here for books you laid a lot of books

out too so you're a publisher of 13A Books 13A how did you you started in music I obviously loved it very heavily

and then you became a publisher how did you like transition into books so again you know in life you don't get anywhere by yourself you might have publisher how did you trans like transition into books so again you know in life um you don't get anywhere by yourself you might have that eye and you might but there's

always people so there's a woman in karen hunter who i don't know if you guys are familiar with she has her own brilliant uh woman who um asked me to manage her um after i also managed salt and pepper and she was uh ghostwriting Pepper's book. So we had a meeting. Wendy Williams' book, too. Yep, she did Wendy Williams' book. So she asked me to manage her. And after about six months of managing, I realized, like,

there was no pathway to really make money managing a writer. So I said, you know, in my business, which is music, with the success she's had, at that time she had written, like, seven New York Times bestsellers, We Get Our Own. And she said, Charles, well, they will never give an African-American their own imprint and definitely not a female. So I said, well, give me a same thing like Patty.

Well, give me a name or a number. And the name she gave me was Carolyn Reedy. She said, I don't like publishers at all, but if I had to be at one publisher, it would be Simon & Schusten, Carolyn Reedy. So I called Carolyn, who passed away. Rest in peace to Carolyn Reedy. And she was on vacation.

Two weeks later, she called me. I pick up. She says, Charles, this is Carolyn Reedy. And I was like, who? She said, you called me. She's the chairman of Simon & Schuster. And I had like two seconds to get it together. And I said, Ms. Reedy, oh my God, thank you so much.

Karen Hunter has made you so much money over the years. We'd like to come in and talk about publishing our own books because we understand what our people want to read. And she said, Charles, you're right. Karen has made us tons of money. Come on in. Karen and I went in. I stood up in front of a bunch of white folks.

And Charlamagne understands this because he has his own imprint at the same place. And I said, you know, you guys think that black people don't read. We do. We read a lot. You guys don't know how to make books appetizing. And glasses flew off. And it's a whole room full of white folks. And Carolyn said, well, how would you do it and i

gave him a couple of suggestions and they were like man that's just it sounds so doable so she said how do we make a deal happen i said well my lawyer david koukakis who now runs um universal music publishing is right outside that door and she called her lawyer and we got a deal done so after about eight after after we came downstairs, Karen said, Charles, I want to do this together. I know you did this for me, but I'd like you to be my partner. And we did it again, that number eight, we did it for eight years. And after about eight years, it was kind of time for me to kind of

wave in the Karen Hunter flag, because although we were equal partners, we called it Karen Hunter Publishing. And I was ready, kind of, I was kind of ready to do it my own way, bring in my own content. And, you know, we made a decision that it was time, you know, for me to kind of, and I went out and I worked with another publisher for about a year and I thought that publisher was crazy. And I circled back and they were more than happy to say come on back let's do it what's your vision what do you want to do so 13a stands for

the 13th amendment that says um slavery is illegal so it's kind of a haiku you know we went from it being illegal to read to owning our imprint and not everybody on Charlemagne owns this right not everybody that says they own their imprint I own mine you know I you go you go into Simon and Schuster and you look at the office I spent a lot of money my office looks different than anybody's right like I own 100% of the name

the likeness I do not get a salary from Simon and Schuster I'm up there three times a week because I believe in what I'm doing you know my bread and butter comes from the Patti LaBelle group. But books are a passion. I feel like it's a way to get information. And you don't necessarily have to read a page anymore.

You can go on Audible and you can listen to a book. There's no way. I remember having Kanye up at Simon & Schuster. And I know he loves Steve Jobs. And the first thing I did was handed him a book this thick. And I said, Kanye, this is for you. I know you're a huge fan. He said, no disrespect, but I'm never going to read that.

He said, I love Steve Jobs. He's like Jesus to me. He said, but look how thick that book is. And I understood what he meant. I get it, but damn. So the Obama book. I'm a huge Obama fan, but his book was so, so I listened to it.

Every chance I got in the shower, in the car, every chance I got, and I could not stop listening to it. I did both. You know what I did? We had to interview him that Monday, and I think I started reading it on the previous Tuesday, so I put the Audible on one and a half. Bless you.

And I read the book as I was listening to it. Oh, man, that's dope. I never thought about that. That's dope. I'm so, man, when I look at you, Charlemagne, and I'll never forget. So he's been the same person. I met him at Wendy Williams,

but I really like officially met him in a grocery store in Jersey. And I just, I just went up to him. I said, Hey, you're, and he, and he wasn't here. He was still with Wendy and his personality was the same then as it is now. You know, people have no idea how much time you give back, how much you do for people. They just think, Oh, he's, you know, successful and on the radio. He gives so much time and and positive energy i was working on a book charlemagne came to my office to do an interview like it was nothing you know

and you again from the city of baltimore i'm just uh blown away and i think that the reason why it works is because um people look at you as themselves right they could have brought in uh some huge person. They brought in a person that was relatable, and it was really smart. And I listen to you guys every morning. Thank you. You're super relatable.

You talk about what you're going through, and you're funny. Thank you. I appreciate that. Stop blushing. I want to talk about some of the books you've published so far, man, with 13A. Deion Sanders' book, which is a New York Times bestseller.

Powerful. Stephen A. was the first one. You got Stephen A. over there? Stephen A. was the first one. Stephen A. set it off. And he's a complex person. And he's not apologetic for who he is. And I think he's really misunderstood. Like him going and doing interviews at Fox News.

He's doing that for a purpose because they have a bigger audience. And, yeah, there's certain guidelines when you're at Fox News that you kind of got to go by. But, you know, he doesn't kowtow. You know, he says how he feels. And I think he's misunderstood as it relates to what he's saying to saying about Biden. He he's not saying that he wants Trump to win. Right. And I believe, Stephen, if you're listening, I'm not speaking for you, but all my authors I have a close relationship with. Right. What he's saying is, could the Democratic Party have chosen someone else? Great.

He did four years, right? But he is clearly older, right? And is there somebody else out there that could, and he's an independent, but could wave the Democrat flag? And the Democrats were unable to do it. I'm not voting for Trump. There's nothing in my body that would allow me to vote for him at all. And I remember the Trump that was sending us to Atlantic City on his helicopter and all of that, right? Trump will do anything to win. He doesn't care if he's with, he's not,

he's not even a Republican. He's a Democrat, right? So I don't want to talk politics. I'm sorry. I didn't come up here for that. But Stephen A is super, super complex. I was happy to publish his book because he came from humble beginnings. He was fired and then rehired. And then he came from a family that was kind of broken up with his father, kind of out doing his own thing, raised by his sister Carmen and his other sisters and his mom. So it's a great American story. All of these stories from Pinky to Dion, these aren't just black stories. These are American stories. And my job is to tell a story.

I'm no different than Kenya Barris or Spike Lee or any of these filmmakers. My goal is to tell our stories. You know, Italians have been telling their stories for 60 years. We've been watching and idolizing the Italians. When are we going? Ours is the greatest story ever. Ours is the greatest story never really told. The only stories that we're telling are slavery.

And no, there's, oh my God, there's stories hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. One of my favorite movies is Book of Clarence. You know, like that is probably, probably the most accurate story ever told about biblical times. And we laugh about it. So 13A, our goal is to tell our stories and make them enjoyable. I have a book with Allen Iverson coming next year. Wallow's coming in September.

When I tell you Wallow's story and yeah who he is like it's real like how hard he works right i wish i could tell you who did um his forward but like he called me from the person's house in the house yo suit you know he still gets excited with all his success and all his all the money and everything suit i'm here and then the next day he he it was a handwritten forward he sent itda. And then the next day, it was a handwritten forward. He sent it to me. And then the next day he had his assistant transcribe it, right? And the book is just so real.

Like, if you're from the hood, you're going to love it because he's telling his story of growing up with a family who indulged in crime. And he did it because it was what everybody did. But he's also talking about his transformation and the fact that he carried a gun right but he knew in his mind he wasn't he didn't have the capacity to shoot anybody or kill anybody so um it's that story and then him waiting it was almost like you know when you see a boxer and the bell's about to ring and they're just like this he was like that just waiting to get out and he couldn't wait. And he's doing great things.

I'm happy to publish that book because there's so many messages in it, so many things that he went through that he's trying to get you to not go through it. And as you know, he tells you, you know, love our women, flower your girls, and all that stuff. So, Wilder was real. I have a book with Nia Long coming. I can't.

That book, oh, my God. It reads like boys in the hood. I mean, she is just, she's genius. She's smart. None of it is calculated. She's just, like, when you read that and you feel like you're reading a movie, like from four years old to current, right? And she's standing up for women she's

standing up for um racial inequality in in hollywood she's standing up for her family and what happened with the boston celtics yeah um just all of that stuff and i'm i'm honored to uh that she chose me you know everybody wanted that book and i looked at her and i said sister you are one of our queens and i got you i'm not gonna let nothing happen to you um and she she felt that she walked out she didn't let me know that you know and then that was like a thursday and she called me on and i want to say thank you to bj and mike kaiser literally after she left my meeting she went to have lunch with them and i called bj had called me, Murder Inc. BJ. You FaceTimed me from that table, by the way.

Yeah, no, no. Did that. So it's funny. I pride myself. I learned so much from the great Andre Harrell. But I pride myself in learning from everybody. And Doug Morris always taught me return phone calls. So BJ had called me the day before.

So after the near long meeting, I looked at my call log and I called BJ back. And I said, B, I apologize. What's going on? Sue, where you at? I'm at Noble with Nori and Kaiser and Nia Long. I said, Nia Long, she just left my office. Nia, get over here. Yo, you just left.

They were drunk. You just left. And she was like, oh, my God, god yes and she got on the phone she said charles take my number and we spoke all weekend and she told her agent i'm going with him and we got it done publishing nori i can't wait book yeah nori's book is coming i can't wait i love how you like you're really like careful and passionate about their stories. You don't just see these people as money or just because of who they are.

Yeah, like, oh no, this is going to make money. You seem so into their story and being able to tell it from their standpoint. And if Charles wasn't there, those stories wouldn't be told. People don't understand that in these publishing companies, these people are icons to us, but they're not looking at Norrie.

They're not looking at Wallo. They're not paying attention to our culture. And it's strategic. So after the success, I was able to sign Norrie after the success of Stephen A. I just went in the meeting, hey, there's somebody else I need to sign right now. Who is it? Nori. Of course nobody in that room knew.

Okay, well you, sign him, let's go. So that's strategically, same thing with Wallo. It's always after the success of something, I go in, I'm working with Cam'ron now. Cam'ron's story is crazy. And it's not just hip hop, and it's not just men. I mean, Pinky know is from baltimore but she had a story she's an entrepreneur really she came from a family that was doing some things

in in baltimore um and she created this this empire so i want to tell our stories um i'm happy to be that kind of do it and a part of it is i was adopted at age three right right? So I don't know who my birth parents are. And my story is a good story. It wasn't the woe is me and foster homes and abuse and all that. It was literally when I was three years old, two parents came along who wanted to have a son in their life. And I was blessed. And I feel like my life has been blessed and ordained by God. So my mom used to tell me they never hid that I was adopted, and they said there's two ways you can go.

You can go this way and use this as a crutch with being adopted, or you can go on and do great things. And, you know, I pride myself on trying to do the right thing and do great things. So, you know, my mission is to tell our stories. From Patti LaBelle, I published Janice Jackson. I published Kris Jenner, which Kris Jenner was, I mean, to get that book was, no one saw that coming, to tell her story.

And, you know, we'd go years later and, you know, I'd say, you know, when I tell people that I published, you know, wow, Christian is white, how did you get that book? And Chris would say, Charles, I'm a Kardashian, what would they expect? But, I mean, she welcomed me in her house, like, instantly. This is before she really blew. She said, Charles, can you fly? And I was like, really?

And Kim was running around, and Bruce Jenner at the time was running around, um she was the first one to tell me that look you know I believe OJ did it and initially I looked at her like you know why would she tell me this she said I can say that because he was my brother he's like I spent every vacation with OJ he was he was like family to me but I know the relationship that nicole and henry so that's her belief i guess we'll never know yeah um but so yeah and you know it's interesting right because you know me and charles are both at simon and schuster with third he's got 13 a i got black privilege we don't step on each other at all like if somebody said like if they say yo no are you doing a book and somebody

says yeah but 13 a doing it i don't even yeah i'm not trying to outbid him on anything at all and we talk i know what he got coming he's taught he and i don't say a word he got some great books coming oh my god not just his he got some that i'm going by that i'm gonna we talk about it and that's the beauty like it's yeah it's competitive i'm not gonna say it's not competitive but it's not not competitive against one another. Right. Like I've, I've told him all the books I've gotten.

I tell him what I'm going after and he'll say, okay, that's a good, he tells the people that I'm going to have to do it with suit. He doesn't say, nah, do it with me. Yo Nori,

do that with suit. That's he, you know, so it's, it's a beautiful thing. And it's, it's, you know,

it's, it's a blessing with all these beefs going on around and rap. Like y'all could really work together instead of doing all of that negativity. Yeah. At first it's fun and it's a blessing with all these beefs going on around and rap. Like, y'all could really work together instead of doing all that negativity. Yeah, at first it's fun and it's cute. You know, I was involved in the LL Cannabis beat. You know, I signed Cannabis, which Charlamagne said that it wasn't a real big beef. But it was at the time because LL was the goat at the time, right? And Cannabis was that young line.

I got Cannabis in the top ten diss records. I said that to was that young line and i got cannabis in the top 10 disc records i would say i said that to somebody yesterday because i saw elliot wilson put out the top 10 disc records of all time and i was like i feel like second round knockout should be up there oh man that record oh i'm gonna let the world know the truth you don't want me to shine you study oh my god he played it for me he was in Europe. And I advised him not to do it when it all happened. I said, yo, this, you know. And by the way, I saw L like last week at the F1 in Miami. I'm on the side of the stage.

He looked at me a few times and smiled. We never had any beef, right? That was a beef that could have been crazy. I mean, Cannabis ran with Haitian Jack, Ricky Lee, Scooter, all of those folks, right? And L had Bimmy and South Jip. You know, he had his crew. And it never really went there. It was two people that the beef was dumb.

And L will admit, he has admitted that it was kind of his fault. You know, it didn't have to go down the way it went down. Cannabis looked up to L. And the rhyme he wrote initially was after sitting with L for like hours and talking about the tattoo on his arm and saying, like, I don't have any tattoos. Like, L. And L says, Shorty, if you want to get, you represent that.

You can get it. So his whole rap was giving honor to l and l kind of came in the studio and heard it and just he went crazy you know so and on top of that after i found out about it um eric sermon called me and told me about it called cannabis told him they spoke again and l said yo if you change your rhyme I'll change mine cannabis came to the studio changed his rhyme grown man asked me you know and Elle put the record out anyway and at that point there's nothing I could do about it I mean we went to even after even after cannabis had been freestyling the

record the record still wasn't out We still went to visit L In LA Went on the set Of the sitcom Everything We were trying to really Bring this together And it just had gotten

To a point Where they shot the video Without him And Cannabis was like Yo suit man You know I gotta do this And he And he went and did it

And I was just I was blown away LL got him back though I don't think he got him back. He won the war. No. No. I'm not gonna see everybody says that. Ripper strikes back. No. That can't mess with. That couldn't. Look.

LL won the war clearly. Right. He had all of the power and muscle of Def Jam who had been doing this longer than us. Right. He did not win the battle. That's my opinion. His record was better, but he won the war. He had more money, more everything, and L is a legend.

But what did you think when you heard Cannabis tell LL, you don't got the skills to eat a nigga's ass like me? See, that was before. Who said that? That was before. He said that. That was before all of this stuff that's going around now. Why do you look so disgusted, Jeff? We knew what he meant.

He just meant rapping. He meant rapping that he was better than him. So you knew what that meant then. And also the Patty products, right? Patty got the pancake mix and everything out now. Yep. And I saw Master P recently. He said in an interview that Patty LaBelle only owns 10% her patty's pies right you you've worked with her yeah how much how much

truth is in that so so i want to say this um respectfully right master p is out of his mind right so he has this thing called the master class And in order to teach a master class, you should have done your research, right? So he claimed that Patty's Pies are up front because Walmart owns the pie. Walmart does not own anything. They own 0% of the pie. What it is is that the bakery itself, if you walk into any Walmart, the bakery is the first thing you see. We at the back of the bakery right and it's strategic for Walmart to do that because when a customer comes through they're looking

for the pie right and their goal is like while they're looking for the pie they might pick up some cookies and who knows before they get to the pie he also stated that he did his research and he got stuff from Forbes 50 over 50. You don't make the Forbes 50 over 50 owning 10% of a company. She wouldn't even been on the list. Forbes did their own research. Businessweek did their own research. She owns 100%. What we did do as a owner, you strategically make different partnerships. So what she did do is five of her items are exclusive to Walmart on a handshake because they have 4,800 stores in their high volume there's no

contract on a handshake they are Walmart buys the pie from us period no if ands or but I think Master P mentioned the person who bought the pie and yes there are buyers just like there's A&Rs at every record company, that called us and said, hey, Ms. LaBelle, I Googled you, and when I Google you, mac and cheese comes up and sweet potato pie comes up. Do you have a sweet potato pie? And we were ready. And this is a lesson to all the young folks.

You got to be ready. We were ready. We had our business set up and we said yes and we approached the factory um and the factory we have factories going almost 24 hours a day making that pot she employs hundreds and hundreds of people and we don't just have the pot we have cobblers we have mac and cheese we have collard greens we have pasta dishes and oh by the way we're not only just in walmart we're in kroger we're in uh target we're in ajo we're we're all we're in rouse we're all over the country we are a nationwide brand so it was extremely reckless of master p to say that i understand his point he's suing walmart now because he feels like his

product isn't uh being promoted or up front. What do you think about that? There's a point. He has a point, right? But what the consumer needs to understand is that Walmart is a real estate company. All they're selling is is real estate they're selling space in their store right and when you have companies like craft and uh you you name a pepsi and coke and tropic all these big companies they're buying that space so when a black company comes along nine times out of ten they don't have the money to but we don't we don't have the money to buy that space we don't have coca-cola money right so they take a chance on young, up-and-coming companies like they took a chance on us.

We hit. They took a chance on us. We hit. And by the way, and shout out to James Chanel Wright, my brother, who blew up the pie. It was selling before that, right? So when they called us, they had a sweet potato pie. It was selling four, five, six pies per store per week, right?

When we went in, we immediately went up to 10 pies per. So that's a success. If the video never would have happened, but that video obviously made it infamous, and I'm super grateful for James and what he did. And it was organic. He loved, people don't understand, he loved Patti LaBelle. And as a matter of fact, thanks for reminding me,

the pie really popped off. Now Charlemagne's going to probably try to get in my pockets. But the pie really took off because I bought the pie up. I called him. I said, can I bring this pie up? Just let you taste it. So I gave him about four or five pies, and he posted it. When he posted it, he posted it charlamagne posted it because look he's looking like

so when he posted it james saw that post and went to walmart came back and it's because he loved patty he had been to almost every show when she came into town and that was his ode to her yeah you know and on top of that immediately not when it went viral immediately she was in overseas somewhere her security guard hit him on facebook and said hey i saw the video like here's my number and they started talking i want you to before it blew i want you to come to my house for thanksgiving because she was just so blown away she is at a place now that she is so humble, right? We just got back from Atlanta and we did two in-store shinings at Kroger's. Just pulled up.

She said, Charles, I want to go to some Kroger's. And hundreds of people found out she was into word spread and she just signed boxes. That's who she is. I love that woman, man. So the audacity man so the audacity of master p and what hurt me so bad is that when he did it there was a guy in the classroom that said he bought the pie because it's my sister it's a black woman and he was like you mean she don't own the pie and then all the comments that were coming in hey i'm never buying that pie again patty don't even own it that is a lie people she

owns 100 if you want to know call walmart and they'll tell you that they buy the pie from us and then they sell it they buy it from us at a wholesale price and then sell it at a retail price and where did he even get that from where do you get that i don't know i mean his i get what he was trying to say like patty's pies are up front well they're up front because the bakery's up front and the only reason why it's doing well is because it's up front. Well, no, we're in the back of the bakery. You got to go through the whole bakery to find our pies, our cobblers. We have puddings.

And now I proclaim today Patti LaBelle is the queen of breakfast. So this right here is our pancake mix. And, you know, the whole thing with Pearl Milling and Aunt Jemima is when it was created in the 1800s, it was created to really celebrate black people. Yeah. Right. It wasn't created in a bad way. What happened is they never updated. Right. Who a black woman is. A black woman now is an icon. Right. She's a grandmother. She's an aunt. She's a she's a sister. And I feel like this is what a black woman represents.

And oh, by the way, this stuff is good. I mean, this stuff is so good. And it's organic. Patty's had best-selling cookbooks for 30 years. She's cooked on Oprah. She was the most visited guest on Oprah ever. She got voted best mac and cheese. This is not no, like, yo, let me go out.

This is real it's organic it's organic the part everybody wants to come to patty's house and eat because she loves to cook almost as much as she loves almost as much as she loves to sing and entertain yes charlamagne has been there yes so um everybody please go out and support um you know we've gone to essence and patty's fed 40,000 people, right? And people overwhelm me and say, oh, my God, this is good. Why would I buy Pearl Milling or anybody else is making it? When Patty LaBelle, my sister, makes the same product, right?

And, oh, by the way, she gives back so much. During the pandemic, we gave pallets and pallets of pies to all the health workers. We have photos of just delivering the pies patty is you know she's of that age and she put on her mask and went with us and delivered to the hospitals in philadelphia every thanks given to the food banks out of her own pocket right so there's not only yes it's a successful company and you should want it to be successful the same way jay-z is successful with um ace of spade and and all his products patty labelle should be held at a certain place because she started a company at 60 years old she employs hundreds and hundreds of people and oh by the way she gives back and we make great products and we're everywhere if you if you're buying pancake

mix this is the one i promise you i promise you this is the best pancake If you're buying pancake mix, this is the one, I promise you, I promise you, this is the best pancake mix you're ever gonna taste. It tastes like cake. You're gonna be like, oh my goodness, we have syrups and just everything. So support Patti LaBelle. We're trying to do what I'm doing in book publishing, bring our culture into stores.

I am blessed to be able to text and talk to Doug McMillan, who's the CEO of Walmart. Even when they make a mistake, they did something that was crazy for Juneteenth. And I text him like, dude, what are you doing? And he said, Charles, believe it or not, it was a black employee who suggested it. Yeah, take that down. Don't do that. Straight sold him out. So, yeah, I did.

You know what I'm saying? He sold the guy. He sold him out. Yeah, it was one of yours. But to be able to to yeah to be able to to get in touch with the ceo of walmart and target and have these conversations and oh by the way we started a company called z pack where we're bringing in um other developing and some one of the companies that we bought into retail is is brooklyn chop house and Shop. And Cardi too, right? Cardi's Whip Cream? Cardi's Whip Shots were already in, but we've helped her promote.

We've called Walmart and helped her get into more stores. Angela Yee's Coffee, we work with her at Target. But specifically, it's a beautiful story. I've known Don Poo for 30 years, and shout out to Don Poole um Cummings um we worked with him got um Brooklyn Dumpling Shop into Walmart and now um Stu Leonard's and ShopRite's he then circled back and gave back to us uh the dumpling shop is going public uh we have shares in the dumpling shop also we have equity in the parent company um of the dumpling shop and we have equity in the parent company of the dumpling shop and he didn't necessarily have to do that and he did with no question he said Charles we appreciate

what you did for your partner we're going public we're doing this so we want to give you these shares and this equity so Patty is working with Kevin O'Leary who's a partner in it as well you're going to see a lot of stuff with them promoting together. But again, it's hip-hop, and it's the beauty of hip-hop. I've known Don Poole since Biggie and Foxy Brown, so for us to be working together in this way, his other partner Dave Thomas, shout out to him. So we're all working together, and it's a beautiful thing.

Go out. I'm telling you, this pancake mix right now, it's in Kger nationwide rouse tons of other stores you're not going to regret it um it's an amazing product and i'm so proud of it and go get beyond this book so happy to be on wallow's coming in september go get pinky i can't wait to get wallow book i'm really excited wallows is exciting and shout out to wallow shout out to gilly as well shout out to nori i think Wallo's available for pre-order now, right? It's pre-order.

Yeah, go to his page and you can pre-order it. Thank you guys for having me. I'm not famous, but I'm up here. And thank you for having me up here. And it's an honor and a pleasure. And Envy, I don't take it for granted. I used to see his son Logan all the time in high school. And I know Envy since he was 16 years old.

Wow. He used to come up to my office with his, yo, I need a song, you know all the time in high school. I know Envy since he was 16 years old. Wow. He used to come up to my office with his, yo, I need a song, you know, for his mixtape. So again. Did you think he was black? I question whether he was black. I thought, I didn't know what he was. He was 16, I'm like, I know he black.

I was like, whoa. I was like, whoa, what is this guy? Another Spanish DJ? But nah, Charles Soup, man, you should be celebrated. And like I said earlier, people need to see the folks behind the scenes that are making the people in front of the camera look good, man. Because a lot of these things don't happen without you. Thank you so much.

That's right. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. It's Charles Suit. It's The Breakfast Club.