The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Chuck D & Kurtis Blow Talk Hip-Hop Ethics, The Problem With Battles, Radio Armageddon + More

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Chuck D & Kurtis Blow Talk Hip-Hop Ethics, The Problem With Battles, Radio Armageddon. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports We met them at their homes met them at the recording studios Stories matter and it brings a face to it makes it real. It really does it makes it real Listen to new episodes of the war on drugs podcast season 2 on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast

Wake that ass up in the morning the breakfast club season two on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ, Envy, JustHilarious, Charlamagne the guy, we are the Breakfast Club. We got some special icons and legends in the building. Come on now. We got the legendary Chuck D, of course, from Public Enemy.

Welcome, brother. Hello, it's good seeing y'all. Now this is a great surprise. Yeah, man,. Hello, it's good seeing y'all. Now this is a great surprise. Yeah man, I had to roll up here with the Godfather. That's right, we have the Godfather, Curtis Blow. Welcome brother, how you feeling? I'm feeling mighty fine, thank you for having me.

Great to see both of you brothers. What does Curtis Blow mean to you Chuck, but also the culture of hip hop? He's number one. He is the pioneer, because he is the first solo artist to record with a major record label of rap music and hip hop and at the same time was the first to be on a major record label.

So he left that indelible mark. 1979 and 1980, just at, you know, and that was the jump. And you're talking about a city that has had a million MCs and rappers and DJs. That's why it's important to be here at Power today. Just to say everybody else has been in this city that would have been born and have passed on since.

You know, this is the city that made it. Just like I had to represent, just for a quick second. The Knicks and the Knicks and Six. Let's go back to my man CP the Fanchise over there. So, but basically my talk today on the radio station, I cannot have the brand associated with all the things I say. So I say the Godfather's right here.

And yeah, I came up here to talk about a recording that was released on Def Jam called Radio Armageddon. But I'm over at Def Jam, sort of like the consigliere, like the Tom and the Godfather, you know, like what Tungy Belongan has done. And anytime they run into a situation, I remind the major labels and Def Jam and everybody else, you got accountability and responsibility.

And 1979, this man recorded with Mercury Records. I had to be, you know, and I benefited off of that because I did a solo record with Mercury in 1996. So thank you, Kurt. You're welcome, man. I just want to shout out all the legends who have pioneered this thing before myself. Name them, Kurt.

Inspired me. Name them, Kurt. People like B.J. Jones and Kool Herc, Apraga Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Melly Mel, you know, DJ Hollywood, Lovebug Starsky, Eddie Chiba, The Furious Five, The Funky Four, The Fantastical Five, The Treacherous Three,

The Fearless Four, so many groups, man. I love you all. Man, thank you, thank you, thank you for inspiring me and we will move forward to the future and inspire the future generations to come. Absolutely. I wanna ask you, Mr. Blow, like, what do you think, I'm gonna ask both of y'all,

what do you think the culture lost when hip hop went corporate and what do you think it gained? You wanna answer that? Well, number one, you know, it grows big on the top heavy side, but all the bottom and the middle started getting gutted out. Don't y'all get a little envious

when you see every single NBA player? Well, 90% of them, they carry themselves on interviews. We learned in the beginning, when Curtis Blow did an interview, he spoke for us on TV, whether it's Don, he's the first to get interviewed by Don Cornelis, he's the first to get interviewed by Dick Clark, so we coming from the rap circles

doing our DJs and MCing and all that, and here's this man being interviewed, he's speaking for all of us. Now he could go up there on some Goon Squad issue, right? But what would that do? Would that have elevated the art form into an area where we started discussing what we gained and what we lost? Every time you look at an NBA player,

85, well 95% of them, an NFL player or a Major League Baseball player, even if they're doing English or Espanol, and a lot of it's Espanol, they have to sell the game. They have to sell the game to the fans. And the thing that we've lost, back to your question to God,

is that it's been piss poor in public relations and human resources. Every big business makes sure that they're tied in tight with their public relations and their human resource department. If not, I mean, this radio station probably doesn't. You know, a letter from an old lady probably still works in this building.

A white lady. But it's hard to have that now because of the social media, because you got human emotion and an ability to be able to go directly to the consumer. Screen ages have never been taught in etiquette. Screen ages, wow. You don't have citizens today, you have netizens. They're not citizens anymore, they're netizens.

They're screen agents, they're engaged by everything in and out of the screen, their life goes through a screen. But what has taught them how to engage on their devices? That's true. What has taught them how to engage on their gadgets? At the end of the day, there's only two phone companies, it's Android and Apple. At the end of the day, they're the keep little elves

looking at everybody. It's like, yeah, you know, say and do whatever you want. Still gonna roll down our river. So when we start to understand, you know, what's behind what, you know, we can all, okay, this is the way everybody lives. Okay, how do we manage that? Same thing with life.

And you know, Curtis Blow is instrumental with Scott Exe. He'll tell you, he speaks for himself because he taught all us the first hip hop union. So the whole thing is all the information that we say that we have in these gadgets and devices, oh, we could get it quick and all that, we are not equipped on how to navigate that information. Oh, yo, we need a union.

I've heard, I mean, people we've heard talk about we need a union. Oh yeah. people we've heard talk about we need a union. Oh, yeah. When it's easy to go boop, boop, boop, hip hop union, hip hop alliance. So we have these things, we really don't know how to use them. Why don't you think, why do you think it's so difficult?

Cause I think about it all the time. I think about the sacrifices that you brothers made in this music industry, right? That a lot of these younger generation have no ideas, but they eat off of, right? And they're eating a lot of money. generation have no ideas, but they eat off of them, right? And they're eating a lot of money. You got people that play ball all the time, they wear the kicks, also they wear jerseys.

They might not know what the song was. It's a jersey, dog. But the NBA has. Wearing a Bill Russell jersey, it's like yo, I'm wearing number six. But NBA has a, they have a union where they pay back and they make sure their athletes are good. Do you think that came from the players

or you think that came from the administrative body that was protecting diminishing returns? I think the players forced it. I think the players forced it. No, in 1979, the NBA was almost called the NIGGER Basketball Association. White folks were starting not to come in their seats. David Stern came along in 1980,

said we gotta make some changes. 1984, when this man made the song, what's the name of that song, Kirk? Basketball. 1984, 40 years ago, last year. And we actually did a remix of the song for the anniversary, and it's called Basketball 2.0. I remember it, yeah. Where I'm shouting out the new players of today,

like LeBron James and Steph Curry and John and Jalen Brunson and Cat and all the whole team of today. And it's incredible. 1984, David Stern also took the jewelry off the players' necks and earrings out. Cause he felt that there was an overlapping of black culture, especially northeastern black culture. He didn't include the west.

West wasn't at that point yet. I gotta take these duke, you remember when ballplayers used to have dukey gold chains, especially Dowd Dawkins, earrings and all that. David Stern says, we gotta stop, that you're scaring the white folk. So that corporation, which will probably lead into being fantastic or bigger than ever,

has managed itself, it's governed itself to the good and the bad and the indifferent. But you're gonna, let the Knicks win tonight. You're gonna have 15,000 gooning out over there on Seventh Avenue because, and people gonna be what, 12, 13 years old. They don't know nothing unless it's taught to them. So yeah, 1999, Alan Houston and all that.

What does that mean to a 14 year old? Nothing. Yeah, but you know what? If they really wanna ball out or be considered knowledgeable about ball, either they're gonna learn or they're gonna be fighting. That's real. So hip hop is, you know, like,

it's gotta come from a responsible administrative body, hasn't been there. Y'all name five managements in hip hop right now. And I didn't come here to bash hip hop because every generation has its thing. Even Kurt's Christmas rapper said, don't you give me all that job about things I wrote before, things you wrote before I was alive,

because this ain't 1823 or even 1970. So every generation has its favorites and has its way. But if you go and say, I'm doing rap music and hip hop, and especially you're doing it in New York, then what's the thing in New York that's teaching you? So the union is also a thing that is more than just a union, because when I came up with the Radio Armageddon, which is basically like the MC DJ aspect

of Public Enemy works with that. And it's a way of introducing people like from Daddy-O to Miranda Wright. So it's a quirky project. It's like the weirdness in my head. I don't make records or sell records. I make records that almost like we're not too far from MoMA, right?

It's gotta be an art and a craft somewhere before everything, look, Bob Dylan, how long has Bob Dylan been? And Kurt recorded with Bob Dylan. So we gotta be knowledgeable about this fact. Bob Dylan has been with Bob Dylan. So we gotta be knowledgeable about this fact. Bob Dylan has been with Columbia Records. I'm gonna be 65, God willing. Bob Dylan has been there for 63 years.

And you know when Bob Dylan releases a record, do you think he's paying bills in there? No, he's like, oh Bob just turned into masters, so we just gotta. So I think one of the accountabilities and responsibilities in rap music and hip hop on the recording end is how do you curate and caretake the masters of the things that help build it,

as far as from the rap in. There's only three majors. There's Sony, that used to be down the street in Black Rock where I signed to, where it was CBS. There's Universal, right? Which owns Def Jam and Mercury and all those masters. And there's what? There's Warner, Time Warner, Warner Brothers, I should say.

Three, what can they do? Curate, caretake, because if you don't, then what? Then it's there for the undertaker. And our culture, our music, our people have been undertaken. So some of the things I address, and when I do music, the ism that has grown larger than ever and when everybody's a screen ager, is ageism.

Ageism's deep. Everybody is young as they think they are. I mean, y'all not as young as you. I don't think I am. I know, I'm sorry, that's what I'm saying. I'm sorry. So the whole key in life is to maybe give thanks, but also brag about the currency of the years that you get

in Revolutions Around the Sun. Absolutely. Marketing works all the way around. Flip the naive kid, sell him anything because they don't know enough, try to sell it to him again. That has diminishing returns on a society. It has diminishing returns in the world

because we even see it reflected in government. That's how you was able to get the executive producer of Celebrity Apprentice elected. Yeah, exactly. I wanna say, I love the song New Generation. And you say on that song, I've been your age, you haven't been mine yet. But I wonder, even though we've been these kids' age, we didn't grow up in their generation,

didn't have access to the things that they have now. So how much can we truly relate, even though we have been their age we just haven't been their agent this time frame gotta work on it I mean I don't know what it's like to pull it you know egg out chickens ass either I mean to me milk means go to the store get a carton so right that generation before me you know looked at me like you, you don't know what that is? So we have to do our best on logic and practical sense.

I mean, common sense is rationale, deductive reasoning. And I forgot the other one right now because I have age brain lapse, but we have to work on these things at all times and we can't probably rely on systems and school systems. Before we had an area of culture that snuck it in, covert. Hip hop was a covert operation, remember, because at the time they totally gave up on school systems.

They talk about, oh man, Columbine, but we had a 10 to 15 year period once guns and drugs came in our community where high school shootings in major urban cities, especially in the United States, they became like a little bit of an epidemic before it became a national epidemic across the board. It's very easy, it's all years to culture, you know.

No, but there's some lapses that planted the board. It's very easy. It's all years to culture, you know. No, but there's some lapses that, you know, planted the seed. So anyway, to bring it full circle, the Hip Hop Alliance that I'm involved with, Kurt reached out some years ago. Yeah, but you can speak for yourself. Well, you know, the Hip Hop Alliance is just that. The Alliance is an organization that is a labor force organization. There needs to be a system to monitor, to actually communicate and educate to the youth, to our community, you know, without on a mission fighting for fair wages and fair royalties and strong health and retirement benefits for all of our people. And we specialize in IPs and publishing and trademarks.

And you can go to hiphopalliance.org and check us out. It's free to join, to support us. We are out there fighting for you to make sure this journey that you are on and your career is successful. I want to ask with Def Jam, of course this project is under Def Jam. Were you always signed to Def Jam or was it a re-sign?

Have you been with Def Jam that long? So break that down for us. I was the first rapper they had a bit, they didn't have a bit more, no such thing. I turned Rick Rubin down for two years. Why? I didn't wanna do records. My thing was radio.

We felt, my guys, one of the first, and Kirk will tell you, I mean, we broke so many records in Long Island, WBAU. We did records right, we did hip hop right. We were scientists, we were ESPN of hip hop and rap music. We just ain't from the city. So we had the outside in, we promoted gigs, concerts, we did it all.

So we used to compensate for the lack of rap records by making incredible tapes and promo tapes. And Rick was starting Def Jam with, you know, Curtis Bro's friend Russell. And for two years. Not your friend. Oh, yeah, Russell's my friend. I mean, but he started out with Kurt.

Matter of fact, more trivia, Kurt and Russell used to throw gigs in the 70s. And then Kurt's, Russell's first artist. Yes, yes, we had a club in Hollis, Queens. Hollis, Queens. Called the Night Fever Disco, back in 1977, 78. And I was a DJ, playing every weekend, the Night Fever Disco back in 1977, 78. And I was a DJ playing every weekend. And I used to stay at Russell's house over in Hollis,

2 5th Street. And when I was there, I met his younger brother, and he used to beat him up all the time. I used to protect, why? My big brother used to beat me up all the time. I used to protect, my big brother used to beat me up all the time. So I was like, yo, leave him alone, he's a good kid. You know, I took him under my wing and made him the son of Curtis Blow,

and that was DJ Run. Of course. I told him how to DJ and he became incredible on the mic. He was my DJ when I released Christmas rap in 1979. And nasty too. We had eight million stories about that whole situation. Run was incredible, I loved the family. Danny, Joey, Russell, his dad rest in peace,

his mom rest in peace. And that was Night Fever Disco. I mean, I remember we brought Flash out to the Night Fever Disco, the first time Flash ever played in Queens. And that was incredible just to be that liaison to the Bronx and represent early, early hip hop in Queens

with that whole crew, the Hollis crew. I love you guys. I wanna ask you Mr. Blow, was there ever a time in the 80s where you knew hip hop was about to explode but you didn't feel ready for what came next? Oh yeah, I was definitely a visionary. I hate to talk and brag about that, but it was incredible.

And just the feeling, I remember Chuck D saying, that whole energy, that spirit. Before records? Woo, between 1975 and 1979 was the most incredible spirit. It had spread throughout the whole five boroughs from Harlem to Bronx to Queens to Brooklyn. And it was just an energy that everyone knew that this was something special, very special, and we capitalized on it, you know?

And thank God. Yeah, you couldn't even describe it. It's hard to describe already that era before records, because before that it was inconceivable to put rap on records. You know, it's a three hour thing. It like got dancing, it got all, now how you put rap on records?

Yeah, you get on the mic, but I mean, how long the record got beat? Three hours, you know, like, but then in 79, King Tim III, Sugarhill Gang, which took two records, not just people who say, oh, it's good times. No, it's two records that made Sugarhill Gang, Love Deluxe, and then yeah, Curtis Blow with Christmas Rap which just took it into the stratosphere.

And I can say back to your new gins thing, it's like youth is an excuse that I don't let young people do. Because it's easy, you can't, I mean I'm triple OG. You gotta, you can't, I mean, I'm triple OG. There's no way I'm gonna convince a person, a teenager, that communication gotta come from the next step up that they wanna get to. So all I do is just, I weigh them against themselves.

Somebody think, oh, I'm too young for that, they be 16? I'm like, okay, your 12 year old brother is gonna actually get all your props and everything that, well, I earned that. So everybody in their life wants to use tenure. You know, the drug game changed all that, flipped that up, because they say, oh, you're overnight boom boom,

and we saw what happened to that and when that was introduced. A lot of things came during the era of R&B. That's Reagan and Bush. And when that came in, we're still recovering off of that scar tissue. But hip hop is a beautiful thing, man. It's got layers and layers.

And like I said, we started from a radio environment. I mean, I've been running Rap Station for 16 years. I built two apps. One is the Bring the Noise app, which is, it works like TikTok 35 and over. Apps are difficult to make, especially when you have e-commerce. I've only built two.

And I know, and I'm not the guy that just sits in the other room. I'm kinda like checking in with my developer and all. And we did the Ravstation app, which has 12 radio stations all dedicated to things around the world that are happening. I've broken, we've broken at least 500,000 songs over 16 years.

Wow. So did you approach radio Armageddon like a broadcaster, a prophet or a rebel? All three, man. All three. All three, Salome. Dipped in acid with Wu-Tang axes in the back,

and in hammer shoes and all that, you know what I'm saying? It's like, in my head, I mean, my first record's Public Enemy Number One, which is a tone which is blow your head by the JBs. You know, a very familiar break beat, but nobody could figure it out. I'm from skater culture, and not the skater culture today. Roller skating culture.

Roller rinks dominated, so we moved to music. And we didn't have to move to music. Music moved us. I mean, seriously, it make you wanna move. I mean, Roosevelt roller rink, man, I'm the dude that's skating backwards. I mean, I did a concert in Cleveland one year, just me going up in the spot in the Roller Rink,

and I skated backwards doing all my songs while they was skating towards me. I was that little card in the wallet that says Bad MF. I was one of those people. You from the hot skates, the Roosevelt Rink, what else was out there back then? Babylon, further out. Babylon.

You had, in Brooklyn you had, damn, I just have that. There was the rink, there was, what's the one in Brooklyn? Oh my God. Empire. Empire, you see it shot up all the time, Empire. And then in other cities, I believe, and this depends on the music too,

I believe that skating rinks can be a possibility for enjoyment of future music and future cardio. Because one thing being the screen-ager, you said in Terry, you said this screen all day long, and you'll, and trust me, I mean, a song that's on the album, I want to attack ageism in the sedentary life and all that is Black Don't Die. Because you hear the talk we take for granted,

you from South Carolina, so you know a lot of talk of, you know, yeah, yeah, Black Don't Crack, yeah, but they could die. But we die, they could die, yeah. Yeah, for real. And one of the five fingers of death, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, with stress and stroke, you know,

and some heart disease. It's like boom! So with all this, we do a great job of the exterior and covering up, but it's a grind, especially when you have the things out here, and you've got plenty of people on these shows that you bring up here that will tell people what's out there and what to avoid and all that.

Yeah, we try to make sure people know about it. Because the worst thing that I always hear is- Don't you wish you could talk 24 hours a day to them? Yes. When DJs that come up here that, I don't go to the doctor, or rappers you hear, I don't go to the doctor, then you see them get sick. And you're like, damn, that could have been prevented.

So we try to talk about those things about eating healthy and all that, things that I didn't. I mean, I grew up in Queens, White Castle was two blocks away, that's where I ate most of the junk. Most of the time, you know what I mean? So we definitely try to preach to those people. I'm glad you brought that record up because I listen to records like Black Dome Dead

and it makes me wonder, did making Radio Armageddon feel like a spiritual purge or a final warning? No, none of that. I say that for public enemy record This is taking a radio and throwing it down the flight of the stairs and seeing it still work It's not meant for people to like remember I make public enemy records man. Not for nobody to like I didn't I told r Rubin, though, he's the greatest producer. Rick Rubin's the greatest, one of the greatest producers of all time.

Whoever told him no? You? I was wanted. There's certain qualities back in the day that Kurt also knows, too. If you didn't have a voice that rocked the mic, I mean, sounded good, you wasn't getting the mic. I don't care how many verses you got bars,

you got it all. If you sounded like you was 15 years old, you had to take up something else. You had to dance, maybe DJs and stuff like that. You had to command the crowd like Hollywood, Curtis Blow, you know, Starsky, they command, well, Melly Mel. When they grabbed the mic, people just sat down

because I can't sound like that. Studios balanced that stuff out and this and all that. But yeah, so that's, you know, and your question was again, our- That's spiritual prayer, our final warning to people. Yeah, yeah, my point was, it's like, I never ever ever made a song for somebody warning to people. Yeah, my point was, it's like, I never ever ever made a song

for somebody else to like. That's like asking yourself, asking somebody else how do I look. After you went to the mirror, brush yourself up and asking somebody else how do you look. But being screen-ages, people listen with their eyes today. Little bit too much with their eyes.

You could tell them they might listen, but do they hear it? So there's a lot of covert now happening when you could be told the truth, but if you don't see it, you know, now it's the flip verse with that. It's like, believe none of what you see and half of what you hear. Because people ain't listening. So believe at least half of what you see and half of what you hear. Because people ain't listening.

So believe at least half of what you hear and dissect that. But as far as seeing, especially with AI, and I've been dancing and boxing with AI for like the last five years. I'm trying to tell you, it don't go backwards. It ain't gonna get dumber. And yes, there is an issue there in real life and regular life and in culture and music and art

and all that, you're not gonna stop it, but you can dance with it and you can manipulate it. You can flip it, but you better know how to dance and you better know what it is because. I think you can dance with it if you already have some knowledge yourself, if you already have some information with your own. Or better yet, you have an understanding of things before you.

Right. And you have to practice. Like I said, I ain't never pulled an egg out of a chicken, but at least I know and I seen it. I ain't did it. You know what I'm saying? So this is something with AI, technology, gadgets, computers, you know, unfortunately that bumps up into areas like computers, you know, unfortunately that bumps up in the areas like artillery and you know, all kinds of doom machines and weirdos that just think all of a sudden, you know, they got the mic and the camera for me.

Everybody got the mic and the camera. Everybody got the mic and the camera at the same damn time. So, triple OGs and OGs sometimes with some wisdom sometimes choose to be silent because everybody on the mic. Sit my ass down and listen. And I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word.

I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word.

I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word.

I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. I'm a man of my word. and wise people. This came from the shoulders of giants we stood on. This man made a sacrifice that I had to take advantage of, but then it's all about, okay, you gotta break it back. And when you break it back, then that makes that side stronger.

And the isms, the ageism that's taking place was intentionally poured over black life in the modern world. And I think a lot of it started during, like I said, R&B, Reagan and Bush, because I am a product of the 60s and the 70s. And in the 70s, with all the BS that was going on

in the United States at that time. Look, in 1974 you had an impeached president. This country was rocky as hell. Black folks was figuring it out. We knew like, okay, this is what we have, we're gonna make this work. We might have not been, you know, we might have been broke, but we wasn't broken.

That was the key. Black folks, right? Black folks were together no matter what they threw at us. The only thing they could throw at us in the 80s was a plethora of guns, drugs, and then also a lot of things they poured in there to cause division between the young and old. You go to other societies,

and even that start to crack down, because you go to Amazon, and they screen ages too, in the Amazon. So, but elders are revered. And also, elders, they don't get that term of, oh, yo, they just bitter because they ain't getting it. Number one, old school, listen, they didn't measure themselves with money.

That's where the term came from, it was like, I don't want your money. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm saying in the best New York vernacular, where you go, yo, man, take, I don't want your money. Because their levels, their statuses was different. Their statuses was like here, it was like deep within. This is the core that no matter what machinery

they came up with, they couldn't penetrate the core here. You go to places like Philly, it's like damn man, wonder when they're gonna get some urban renewal, but Philly was called a city of brotherly love. So within all the drama, people like yo, we like here, the Bronx, Bronx was left to ashes, left for dead. What comes up out of that? Hip hop.

Hip hop, yep. The Bronx is burning. Yep. So I mean, the 80s came with a whole bunch of, you know, so now it's about like, what has hip hop got in this toolbox? How many tools can you put in the hip hop toolbox to be able to wedge out some future path?

And you know, it ain't about going back. It's all about going forward. Who the hell wanna go back? Is hip hop still the best weapon for revolution? No. Everybody got a gadget. From your grandmother to the child being born. Something better come through that.

We don't know what that is. Remember I said hip hop was covert, was. That was done before Fight the Power, bro. Fight the Power became, listen, Fight the Power became what it was because of Spike Lee. So I mean, who does that play, you know, plays a song in a movie 500 times? Nobody did that.

Spike made that record happen. What was your relationship with Spike for him to do that? Or he just wanted to, he felt it? At that time in the 80s, man, and like I said, this comes from the seed of Curtis Blow. It was a renaissance period of filmmakers, artists, you know, hip hop, that were all being independently creative and using those tools out of the ashes

that was bestowed upon us. Look at the kid. People talk about Fight the Power, cause it's the headline buzzword, you know, decades later. Oh yeah, yeah, cool, you know, we buy that. They failed to realize, or they wasn't taught, I had to always tell people, there was a first Fight the Power

by the Isley Brothers in 1975 that me and Kurt was influenced by. And- What's it called then, I don't know. Yeah, Fight the Power by the Isley Brothers. I thought it was, oh, I didn't know that. 1975, and remember I told you that the country is rocky, you know, and Osley came up with the title,

All That B.S. Going Down. First record I ever heard on pop radio, with a black radio with a curse word in it. Wow. Really? Yeah, I was like, whoa, eee, it be on WWRL, Super 16, and then I'm gonna play some fight the power people like on the whole tape, Gary Bird.

This city right here, here's another thing about OGs. This city right here, when you have like a tenured lens of any place you go to, whether it's where you're from or whatever, Queens, you still see the old buildings that was there. I still see the old buildings, although they've been replaced by new buildings.

That's third eye vision, man. You're able to see the past, present, and the future that they're building. New heads come along in their generation and probably only can see what they see. That's why it's deeper than your ear can hear or your eye can see. I go around, walk down this street,

I'm saying, oh, that place used to be there. Boom, boom, boom. The whole key is to keep your recognition, or what they call your cognitive. Cognitive dissonance, right? Thank you, sir. Yeah. Keep that, because that will help you.

Kurt says, like I said, I'm not in the business of wellness, you have people like like Griff who taught wellness for years. Look at Flav, Flav has gone through his ninth life. You know what I'm saying? I went down to Penn Station the other day and ran into the, what's that, the Canes, I didn't even know what the Canes chicken was. Oh, Ray the Cane.

Man, I ran to Penn Station. You go all over the place. So the whole key is about getting to the 100 yard line. Not dying at the 50 yard line in football. You know what I'm saying? Getting to the other side of the scrimmage. And that's what Kurt was talking about. And so hip hop could be useful and beneficial

in adding some of these things. It's not gonna be a total revolution running through it because it's been ran through. Anytime they mention hip hop, it's always from the catastrophic end to make its news. Today they called, what do you call it, Brown. They called him a rapper, because he got in trouble in the UK.

Chris Brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rapper, they used to call Bobby Brown a rapper. Yeah. It's very easy to, but okay, if you know what it is, then try to figure out how you can run your play. I'm a sports head, so my thing is like this, like even like if we roll out as a group,

I say, well, this is the starting lineup, you know, the rest of the crew gotta figure other things out to do. That's how the sports world, next man up, boom, boom, boom. It's hard sometimes with people in the music business because that sports thing will teach your ass. I mean, oh yeah, by the way, you're not gonna make this team,

you cut when you gonna come back and shoot the coaches. They're like, dog, work on your thing, man. You train your own son to come back next year. Same thing in hip hop, work on your thing, man. Train you or something along, come back next year. Same thing in hip hop, work on your thing. And then I look at, here's another thing, it's not talking about anybody, but the rap battles and beefs, you don't want to get into an area where you rhyming in circles, man. Rhyming in circles means like the dog chasing his tail.

It's rhymes that go nowhere. You know, it's cool. It's cool to get into like lyrical acrobatics and all that. But at the end, you gotta process something into something. And if the best processes is somebody just like seriously disrespecting you, how does that not leave a stain over decades? When the last time you said, I came from a hip hop song and this joint was

refreshing. I mean, P Rock C L Smooth, you throw a P Rock C L Smooth record on like, yo man, this is like nutrition. Throw it. Rakim has never done a failing song ever. I've never heard Rakim do a song and say, but where's the support in it? Karris One has never, ever, ever, ever, ever lost. But you know, it's very easy to excuse it because this is what's happening now and all that.

Cool, but... I feel like that with a lot of people, though. I feel like that with Kendrick, I feel like that with Rapsody. Like, this week I was watching Joey Badass and Ab Soul and Big Sean do a cypher. And I thought that was, I got, to use the right word, I was like, that was refreshing. That was dope.

People like LaRussell. Promoters, look, back in the day, and Kurtis tell you, promoters will tell you exactly how it rolls. They'll give you a top, let's say you got six rappers, six groups, what do promoter say, Kurt? The one that's closing out is the one. The one that closes out the building. Not just because people came to see,

because look, there's a difference between spectacle and spectacular. I tell people this all the time. There's big difference. You know, and the rock guys, I remember I was in a rock group four years. There's a night and day between this round. I don't care how much money a rapper make. you know, and the rock guys, I was in rock group four years, there's a night and day between this, I don't care how much money a rapper make,

it ain't about the money, it's about how much you can really put impact on that building and then on a fan's head. That's why I like seeing Kendrick the other night at MetLife, like literally I'm sitting there watching, because he's just a MC. You gotta smash, you gotta smash a rash. You gotta smash a crowd. You gotta smash a crowd.

If you can be an MC and at the end of the day, F all the slang, that all the goon rhythm, you're like this Bravo. Bravo like a loop, like Pavarotti. Yo man, and that's what the rock boys strive for. Me, I'm rap, music, and hip hop. I learned from this man, I'm trying to beat they ass.

The stage is the places where you really, you know, you gotta take somebody's crowd and stuff like, the battles on wax and all that stuff is cute, man, but you can go in the studio, you can record, in front of a person, a human being, You can record and think it in front of a person, a human being, man or mono, let's go. And it could be like, you could be doing the ugliest shit over there,

excuse my language, or somebody else doing something totally different. How are you gonna win that human being? And that's what our genre started out as. It didn't start out with a lot of things in the toolbox. But at the same time, they had to what? Leave the audience in awe. That's how you spell audience, A-W-E-D-E-N-S.

And somehow that was also lost. Because what's the proving ground? And boxing the proving ground was what? Person in the ring, person in the ring. Right? The excuses is out the door. Hip hop is a little different. Promoters gonna say the one that's gonna close

out the building is the one. Is the one. The one that's gonna open up is gonna, hopefully you could get people coming through there and stay in their seats. Get to that level. Yeah, you got somebody in the middle that can't hold it, they off the tour.

They outta there. Forget how many records they sold. If they can't be better than they record, out of there. But audiences in, it's changed over the years because they're happy. I remember when I used to take my oldest kids to like Coliseum and places like that, and they had eight acts on the bill,

and I asked them when they all come back in the car, I ain't going in there with them. And like, did you like it? No, no, you know what I'm saying? I could, but you know, like we not mixing like that. This is another thing. Chuck, you would like a Kendrick show. I would. I've been to Kendrick.

He's an emcee. He's an emcee. And to see him perform in front of, in that arena, in that football stadium, just rapping, no gimmicks, no nothing. This is the first man that came out as one man, and I thought being one man could never beat a group. And he came out as one man, because back in the day it was like what?

Cruz, there's no Cruz, yeah. And then this man begat the next solo MC who was a superstar as LL Cool J. Right. Rap's first superstar. Yeah, rap's first superstar. Absolutely. You make Prince and Michael Jackson turn their head.

Curtis made all the funk bands and all people recognize that, yo, this thing is real. I mean, look, why am I talking for the man? He played with Bob Marley. He played with The Class and all that. He dug tomatoes from rock groups. I wanted to ask Mr. Blow,

because you spoke about the Ronald Isley fight to power, and my daddy used to always tell me James Brown was the first rapper, right? So I think about a song like, Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud. That was revolutionary for his time. Stuff like that influenced you? 1968, oh yes, yes, yes.

And that's straight out of the civil rights movement. That inspired all of us in many ways, multiple number of ways, not only the lyrics, right? But the beat, that beat was what we call boom bap today. So it changed the whole sound. It was a revolution to the Motown sound, but the pa, pa, pa, boom, to the Motown sound, but the pap pap pap boom pap boom pap pap, the snare every one, two, three, and four, right?

But now we have that boom, pap boom, spap, tup tup tup, boom, pap. And when James Brown did it, we lost our minds. Everybody started breakdancing, trying to be James Brown on the dance floor with the splits and the twists and the turns and the flips and everything. And that's where breakdancing got inspired.

But the whole thing was, it was the civil rights movement. So after 1968 into the 70s, we have the flower childs and the peace and love movement and they get about your troubles, they get about your cares. We're gonna dance the night away and dancing became a national craze, right? So then here comes a DJ Kurtis Blow, alright. I'm hearing all this stuff and and so I got an opportunity to make a couple of records. Christmas rap in 1979, right? So when I

did that song I was signed to a major label over in Chicago. So I went to Chicago, Chicago, the first flight out of Harlem, I went to Chicago. And I was there, I was hanging out with the record company and I did a show, a couple of shows, and Jesse Jackson came to one of my shows and he sat me down backstage. He said, Ben, I want to talk to you. I want you to, when I'm gonna say to you, I want you to go back and tell the rest of your whole crew and everybody. Now this thing called rap,

you guys are the new icons of our people, the new heroes of the civil rights movement. Wow. And you need to keep it clean if you ever want to see it be successful on the pop market and be accepted by everyone. So I was like, oh wow, okay, I hear you, I hear you. And it was Jesse Jackson. So I'm like, oh whoa.

I went back to the Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and our first interview we did, national interview on radio scope. And before the interview I said, man, I talked to Jesse Jackson and he told me, man, we are the new heroes of the black community and we need to keep it clean

if we ever wanna see it go far and be successful. So right then we had the code of ethics that we established. Like we would not curse, we would not diss each other, and we would keep it clean, right? And that was my sacrifice. That was the sacrifice I made. I made 240 rap songs and never used profanity. Wow.

And that was my sacrifice to open the door so everyone else could come in and do what they do, AKA Public Media. Because of that conversation with Jesse Jackson. And you gotta take the mentorship humbly too, because I'm here doing a concert, I'm holding the mic, Kurt says, you hold the mic. So you got it, right?

So you gotta like win, win. Like when the master teacher, teacher you're always a student and the teacher's always learning. So I, you know, and I told Kurt, I said, you know, one time I was behind Ice Cube leaving and Ice Cube backed up into me and my mic chipped my tooth. So that's why I hold it like that.

And Kurt said, I'll give you a pass. I wanted to ask about, hold real quick. I want to go back to what he said though, what we're fast. You're talking about the rap battles and how that made hip hop how it was, right? You talk about, we could talk about Kumo D and LL, we could go further back.

Because they dealt with vocabulary and vernacular. What do you think about the rap battles of today and how it affects hip hop? Like the Kendrick and Drake and like those big battles that we've seen, is it helpful, is it worse, does it hurt, does it help? The topics ain't vast. My thing is like, if you wanna get at somebody, vast your topics and also vast your vocabulary.

But then again, I'm from New York. And somebody like, a lot of times, like for example, I didn't battle, I was a battle person, but because I had a voice. So what somebody got to use like three verses for, all I got to do is say four sentences, they won't hear me. So I didn't have to like, it's more like,

like in Shaq and basketball. I ain't gotta shoot a threat. You know, so I got to do the dunk you. But that's rap talk, you know what I'm saying? I just think that- Kendrick was very vast though. But you got, but look, you got guys out there like that got 20 albums that under the radar, that should never be under the radar,

especially from New York, like Skyzoo. Skyzoo got 27 albums. Actually my cousin. That's his cousin. Oh really? Real cousin, yeah. Oh wow. New York, like Sky Zoo. Sky Zoo got 27 albums. That's his cousin. That's his cousin. Oh really? Real cousin, yeah. Wow. But see, there you go.

It's like, okay, so he's out of the discussion because he doesn't have a rep, bring him to radio stations and stuff like that. He's been there before, a long time ago, right? Yeah, but he got 27 albums though. You're right. So can he actually hang with the person that's the anointed one?

Probably. Come on man, we're talking about City. This City's had a million rappers, MCs since 1974. Every time you're on the radio, I bet you there's a 70 year old dude out there like, pshh. You know what I'm saying? People are 55 years old, like, that kid's garbage.

And then, you know, and then he probably, I mean, people, moms got verses now. They got bars, as they say. You know what I'm saying? So, it's a beautiful art form, and listen, it's not to itself, it's a culmination of all the art, because it started from records. So whether it's rock, it's soul, R&B,

not the Reagan and Bush one, you know, reggae, it started from records, so that's where that mixology comes in. That's why I tried, you know, I do a radio arm again. You can't listen to that thing for like 10 seconds in a row and think you got a steady thing happening, nah. It's meant to be fragmented and fragment your brain. It's a fun piece of art for me

and I will continue to make more radio Armageddon-like records as not a solo album, it's a solo project, but once again, when you put it out there in the world, you gotta put Chuck D's name on it to make it do whatever or stream or get eyeballs, I don't care nothing about that. You know what I'm saying? In case of emergency, you know, Tunezy says, Chuck, break glass, you know what I'm saying?

And like I said, the comparison is other art forms. Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan don't really, you know what I mean? Whether you show up to Bob Dylan's thing or buy his music, it don't matter, Bob Dylan is Bob Dylan. And the day that Bob Dylan transitions on, it's gonna stop the world for two days. And music and culture, we could do the same

in hip hop and rap music. Look at you guys, how long you guys been doing radio? 16? I've been doing it 27 years, but we've been doing Breakfast Club almost 15 years. Yeah, I've been doing it about the same, about 27 years. Something like that is revered. Where is it revered other than the occupation?

Where is it embedded into the foundation of New York radio? Sixth Avenue right there, you might have not known the name, but we do. They named it, you know, Sixth Avenue, that part over close to here, Cousin Bruce Lee Way. Did you know that? Right, right, right, right. Cousin Bruce Lee, Bruce Morrow is one of the legends in New York radio, got you know that? Right, right, right, right. Cousin Bruce Lee, Bruce Morrow is one of the legends

in New York radio, got so many records played in his city, black, white, and whatever, you know, on W-A-B-C, 77 radio and AM Dial in New York. And then went to WCBS, super legends that are revered in the Northeast forever, you guys are the same. So the whole thing is, and also I don't get into the flower talk. You can plant flowers and they have plastic flowers. What it is is certain reverence for necessary foundations

that move our craft forward. These are the things we need. Administrators, managements. You could build a Lamborghini or have one, right? What good is a Lamborghini on a mud road or a swamp? People are building great vehicles in the culture and rap music and hip hop, the road's a swamp. What Kurt has done with Hip Hop Alliance,

we could have some solid ground. Okay, you're an artist, you don't get a lot of fanfare or whatever, you've done five or 10 albums, you should be part of a union. The union comes up and the thing about the union, it's not like the thing, like we just started a union. No, it's actually tied in legitimate. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here.

Diddy's former protege, television personality, platinum-selling artist, Danity King alum, Aubrey O O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Aubrey O'Day is sitting next to us here. You are, as we sit here, right up the street from where the trial is taking place. Some people saw that you were going to be in New York, and they immediately started jumping to conclusions. So can you clear that up? First of all, are you here to testify in the Diddy Trial? Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise

based on her firsthand knowledge from her days on making the band as she emerged as the breakout star. The truth of the situation would be opposite of the glitz and glamor. It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real. I went through things there.

Listen to Amy and TJ presents Aubrey O'Day covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Chase Shetty and I'm thrilled to announce my first ever on purpose live tour presented by Chase Sapphire Reserve. That's right I'm coming live to a city near you. Come and see me. Join me and surprise guests for meaningful and insightful conversations to spark learning, experience growth and build real connections. I'll also guide you through live meditations, share groundbreaking insights and create powerful moments of inspiration designed to deepen connections, spark growth and foster learning.

Chase Sapphire Reserve is the gateway to the most captivating travel destinations and offers exclusive rewards and experiences so you can explore the world your way. Discover more with Chase Sapphire Reserve. Giving yourself that agency to not just be one thing, right? I don't have to be the perception that is crafted or the version of me that everyone is kind of projecting onto me. Like I am having my human experience and it is faceted. It's so faceted and it's fascinating. May is Mental Health Awareness Month

and Deeply Well is a sanctuary for your healing. I'm Debbie Brown, healer, wellbeing expert, teacher and fellow seeker. And each week we explore what it means to become whole through soul expanding conversations and practices. Why focus on tiny joys? Well, because they remind us of what it means to be human. They anchor us in the present moment

and they create ripples of gratitude that nourish our spirit. Tiny joys are acts of self-love. To hear this and more ways to prioritize your piece, listen to Deeply Well from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

I'm Andrea Gunning, host of the podcast, Betrayal. Police Lieutenant Joel Kern used his badge to fool everyone. Most of all, his wife, Caroline. He texted, I've ruined our lives. You're going to want to divorce me. Caroline's husband was living another life behind the scenes. He betrayed his oath to his family and to his community. She said you left bruises, pulled her hair, that type of thing.

No. How far would Joel go to cover up what he'd done? You're unable to keep track of all your lies. Quite frankly, I question how many other women may bring forward allegations in the future. This season of Betrayal investigates one officer's decades of deception, lies that left those closest to him questioning everything they thought they knew.

Listen to Betrayal starting on May 22nd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The systems that work in the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood. You don't ever hear a person from Hollywood talking about, Oh yeah, um, there ain't no union. No, they films, people, they might be a bit part, they don't play around. They don't play around in Hollywood. That's the thing that got me also too before I actually have Kurt explain Hip Hop Alliance, because I know we're running out of time.

No, we're not. Keep talking. Go. And in Hollywood, you hear about a lot of things, how rap rules the world and all that. However, when somebody goes to another area, they might wild out in rap. They not wildin' out in the other areas. That's true. Oh, they feel, oh yeah, be on the set six o'clock in the morning.

Your ass ain't on the set, just get them out of here. You know why that is though. Yeah, because they- People think white ice is cold, they don't act up in front of them white people. That's true, but I'm saying in all other realms, they treat it seriously if it's white or not. I mean, there's organizations out there that are black,

you know, they don't play that, you know what I'm saying? But you know, they're like, oh okay, I don't wanna be part of that. But people say, I wanna be in the movies and all that. I wanna be in this thing over here. I wanna be in the NBA and all that. You could be the best player, but if you're, psh, you ain't right in the NBA, psh.

You ain't even making G League. Yeah, go overseas, go to China, and that ain't gonna be easier in a minute either. So I think in every area, it's not about you, it's what you can continue to have the road underneath you. Solid. Tell a little about the SAG-AFTRA and how it started then. Before we do that, Mr. Bill.

Because you said something a little while ago that I can't not let it go. There's something. A lot of things. But you said Jesse Jackson told you that you and the other brothers and sisters in hip hop were the next leaders. Another South Carolina.

Yes, that's right, Greenville. The new leaders, right? You took that responsibility serious. Yes. Well Malcolm X said, no community has athletes and celebrities as leaders except for black people. And he didn't like that.

So I really wanna know what both of y'all think about that. Oh my gosh, actually wanna shout out his family right now. Yes, you're right, exactly. His birthday is coming up on May 21st. Oh yeah, man, yeah. No, no, no. May 19th. 19th, May 19th. May 19th, right?

He's going to be 100 years old, everyone. So there's a big function. We had the menace's birthday on May 11th, so that's how close their birthdays are, I think, in 93. I gotta shout out to Ileana, Iliasa, and Atalia, the family, they're doing a big function coming up on the 18th and 19th up in Harlem where he was killed at the Audubon.

And they're doing a big function over there, celebrating his past and his history and legacy. But yeah. What did you think when he said, because like you said, Malcolm said, no community has athletes and celebrities as leaders. He didn't like that. But Jesse was telling y'all, no, y'all are the new leaders

and you took that responsibility seriously. Well, this was a whole thing about the civil rights movement from Martin Luther King and to Mr. Russell and John Lewis, right? Not John Russell. You made the King Holiday song back in 84 too. Right, right, right. And so that whole mindset

was to reach out to the youth and it's like we are fishers of men. This is what Martin Luther King told and John Russell, I mean, John Lewis told Jesse and he extended that whole mindset of, let me reach out to the youth and tell them you guys are the new civil rights movement and this is where hip hop came from. And this is our power. This is our legacy. This is our beginning. The truth of the beginning is an extension of the civil

rights movement. So, you know, I love Malcolm. Actually, I grew up right next door in Harlem, 260 Convent Avenue, the building with 10 floors. I lived on the ninth floor. And when I was like 14, 15, guess who moves right next door? Atalia Shabazz. Wow. And I had a big crush on her. She was beautiful, incredible.

I used to see her walking down the hill, you know, Amsterdam and then Convent. We lived on Convent, it was a little hill. So I used to see her walking down the block with her bags and everything. And I used to run and go get the bags and have her carry them for her. Or I would see her come to the building,

I'll open the door, press for the elevator and ride upstairs. Yo, your wife's sitting right there, my brother. What's up? She knows what he's doing. I told her, she knows, she up? She knows the whole story. I told her a million times. It's royalty, right?

Royalty. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she was incredible. So I mean, you know, that whole mindset of just being an activist, being the voice of the people comes from the Civil Rights Movement, comes from Malcolm X, comes from Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson.

And when you have knowledgeable people, you always could agree to disagree. You don't have to get in a, you don't have to have the goon moment. You gotta look at it, Charlemagne, like a toolbox. If Malcolm's a flathead, then Dr. King's a Phillips head. Both of them are screwdrivers that open up to a closed situation and tighten it.

So the toolbox is what you wanna have. Back in the day, before screens, being well-read is meaning that, okay, you ain't gonna read everything, but one thing you start to learn how to read people, you be able to get stories head to head, face to face, and you do your reading, but then again, knowledge is power, but it ain't.

Because if you can't use it, and you can't share it, and that great song that the group Third World did, that Heavy D covered, now that we found love, but. What are we gonna do about it? We talk love, but what are you gonna do with it? So, back in the day, you know, wordsmiths, people always, you always had like the hip cats, whether they talked in rhymes, whether it was just cool.

I mean, back in Roosevelt, Long Island, man, home of Dr. J, I grew up down the street from Eddie and Charlie Murphy, man. I mean, we just had a whole different thing in the 70s, but you had guys, this serious big fro, ride a stingray backwards, right, with a record player in their arm, with a record player in their arm, with a rake in their hair,

and they, you couldn't buy, it wasn't about you couldn't buy their money, they were just cool and they were stuck in their thing. Get their brew, get their weed, that's all they did. But everybody gravitated to it, because what they did, they reigned with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.

Even in the 80s when the five descendants had more muscle, their whole striving was to be civilized. Even with all the drama that was bestowed upon them. That's why I don't also make a mockery of prisons because that's the beginning of the mass pushing in of prisons. So I don't look at crime or the created criminal as a thing to take lightly.

People serve real, real time for offenses that were like, yo man, manipulate it their way. And then you also got people that's just gonna do the dirty because they do the dirty. But everybody just wasn't, they wasn't dirty manipulate it their way. They also got people that's just gonna do the dirty because they do the dirty. But everybody just wasn't, they wasn't dirty criminal minded like that. But they was forced in their situation to be criminal minded. Whatever it was, I'm not making excuses for it.

I just never went that way because it wasn't something to glamify knowing the seed that it came from. So when somebody said gangster, I'm like, they play gangsters, the real gangsters are government. And they get a check. Yeah, really, really. And governments, plural,

that's why on the first Public Enemy album, it said the government's responsible, plural. Not singular. Every single one of them. Right now, the games that they're playing and where people's heads and minds are court cases or maybe somebody goes around. I won't even get into the beginning

because it'll be sound bites for years. But y'all know what's out there. You know what you see. And once again, what'd I say? Difference between spectacle and spectacular. You know what? Spectacle gets you in the building. Spectacular keeps you coming back for more.

That's real. So I probably get him, anytime that me and Flay would say we could play anywhere in the world. We could be out on tour six months. We could play stadiums and arenas, but then again, what kind of life is that? We, you know, we sexagenarians, man. The whole key is being where you gotta be

and then doing that when you wanna do, not that you have to go around and do that. So this year we're playing and opening with Guns N' Roses, but I ain't gonna do that for like three months. I'm gonna do it up to my birthday, bring my ass back home, man. It's like, people are like, oh man, you been building too, man?

Like, oh you coming out this way? Nah, I ain't coming out. Well, you know, I do agree that, you know, hip hop artists, you definitely are the leaders, especially then, and I started paying attention to Minister Farrakhan because of you, Chuck, because my dad would always try to get me to watch Minister Farrakhan's speeches.

You know, you sit in front of the TV, but you're not really paying attention. But what I heard you say on bringing noise, Farrakhan's a prophet, and I think you oughta listen to him? It's like, oh. Or don't believe the hype, you know? But that was my job at that particular time to say, in the midst of R&B, Reagan and Bush,

I'm telling you, that was a reign of terror, the 12 years. That was a dozen years. And not to say that, I mean, I'm telling you, that was a reign of terror, the 12 years. That was a dozen years. And not to say that, I mean, we had the 1996 Communications Act where it consolidated and got rid of all the black radio stations. So that meant that you could not, as a company or music and records,

could not individually or regionally negotiate with a region to get your music across. It single-handedly wiped out radio stations and it wiped out black independent record companies. You had the right kind of guy go down in swamp level under the radar to be able to get some organic growth in music. And if that's the only thing that's actually getting around, of course, and this is what I mean

by the positive negative thing. Plus minus, let's say, right? Basketball talk. To go up a hill, man, takes what? Energy, inertia, you gotta break gravity. That's what making a, that's what Kendrick Lamar, like okay, I'm gonna try to at least go here. I know I gotta, you know, go up here in a certain way,

but yeah, to get to that mountaintop, you gotta break a lot of gravity. But also, to come down, easy. You can just free fall. And that's what I thought that a lot of times, it's like, yeah, you taking the free fall away. I mean, anybody could come up with that tactic to rhyme about that and to get that ooh,

and then it depends on how mature your audience is. If you got a whole bunch of 18-year-olds, they're gonna look at it differently than a whole bunch of 36-year-olds. Seriously, I always used to take a group of young kids, I said, next time, man, tell me the amount of time your parents smile. And that shows you how they ain't playing

as many games as you playing. You know what I'm saying? Just count their smiles. And the older they rank up, the less and less of them. We have music and culture, man. You know, the music and culture, man, used to keep you smiling just being a fan.

And I think that could come in. It's like, and years ago I got into it with Hot 97. Not into it, because people don't wanna get into it with me because I left it alone, but go to a concert and you got the guys say, yeah, these are the ends to actually start the revolution. And I'm like, all right, half this place full of white people over here where they play football. And they're hearing the N word, right?

And not to say that we didn't use it. It's just like, yo, that's what they used to call pool room language on the streets, on the corners, but now corporate America's gonna use it and not be accountable for what happens afterwards. So I had to be able to say, yo man, y'all a radio station, man. Y'all need to be more accountable in this city

where MCs, the million MCs wouldn't condone that, especially coming out of a white company. So they introduced y'all like that? Yo, man, I let them know. That's great. Sure enough. But you know what? They're checking it. Oh, why we gonna get any feedback from any kids?

Kids ain't gonna get no feedback. You gotta come in there and say, President. Oh, we just won't play your records no more. Yeah? So you have to be able to say, you know, Harry Belafonte told me, he said, Paul Robeson told me this. He said, every generation has to fend for itself.

But you can go in there, borrow, and also lend. And when you lend, man, don't try to be hanging with them, like you part of them, they can see you coming a mile away. And lastly on that, it's just like, the thing that cracked me up with all the stuff that's going on, you got people in their 40s and 50s, right, that don't think that they old.

I said, no matter how young you look or whatever, man, it's like somebody 18, 20, 21, you hanging with them, they can see you, they see the age coming at you. So they, you know, I've been your age, you ain't never been mine. You can always say that's your currency. That's your currency is the years that you're able to get and be lucky at that.

And the trouble in fact is that, before you used to say, oh yeah, oh dude, you got less years ahead than you got behind you. That's true, that's mathematics. But I don't wanna see that happen with you at 41 and 39 and 32, and you got all these elements going on. It's like, that's something that we all have to look at

for the following generation. So I really commend you all for being able to issue out some governance in that, you know? Because, I mean, you don't have to do it. But at the end of the day, everybody turns around and say, damn, I could have, damn, I could have did that. We all do that. And trust me, we are the old guys

that they trying to push up, okay? Oh yeah. They don't, some people have reference for it. Some people are like, oh my God, they've been around too long. Well, you know what alleviates that? Find out their names. Let everybody know their personal names.

And leave a horse head in your bed. Oh, Jesus Christ. Listen, man. Listen. Let me tell you this. Whenever I say something, right? Whenever I say something, Chuck D's name is signed with it. Like, there's a whole bunch of Boston Celtics fans

butthurt, cause I told them it was karma and I'm talking about Jason Tatum's injury and I was like no, I was talking about their style of play, coward ball shooting trades. But they have a oh that's some sucker move Chuck they say on X or Twitter, whatever the hell. Like they blame me. I said listen, I own what I said, I meant what I said,

but one thing you know that up there, Chuck D or might be an avatar up there, I sign everything I say. Everybody that does everything in this business, if not sign their name next to their word. That's back in the day, Kurt said, listen, number one thing, whether it was somebody on some goonish or somebody just on straight up,

they say your word gotta be your bond. That's right. That's a New York thing. That's a New York thing. I don't know if it's an Albany thing. I don't know if it's an Erie thing. You know what I'm saying? New York, which is the coolest place,

you know, 5% back, you say, yo, Mecca, New York, all that shit a sin of the universe and all that. Okay, but if it is then okay, what's the accountability factor? That it's got it's got a role like Kings and Queens They say word is born and your bond is life and you shall die before your word shall fail. Oh I heard that before Now the Alliance in the as you talk talking about, Hip Hop Alliance.

The Hip Hop Alliance is, well, first let me shout out KRS-One, who is our chairman. He's been on the road for seven months, y'all, out in Europe. And- I just seen him body somebody in Europe, too. I guess the sound man was messing with the sound. Oh yeah.

Chris turned off the music and did like a seven minute freestyle just going at him. Destroy, it was, the crowd was going crazy. Right. But that was, that was. There's nothing like him. Listen man, I've been watching this dude man, 40 years man.

He's the only dude I've ever seen. Only MC. You know, and also my buddy buddy buddy, brother, brother is Kumo D. Who really kind of like opened the door to the scientific execution of vernacular vocabulary. Smart man. Chris Karras, one of the only dude I've ever seen that will walk in the room and change the molecular

composition of the room of MCs. Cause he'll go in the room, no matter what age, and say, yo, who an MC in here? And everybody's like, nah, I just work for UPS. I don't know. Yo, I used to do it, but yeah. You know, straight up and down. He'll go in the room and be like, who's an MC in here?

And cats will be like, yo, that's the thing that he do. You know? Me, I'm a songwriter. And I'm a songwriter and I'm a historian, I'm a voice person. I like to consider myself an administrator, a builder, a creator, and somebody who could bring the ball up and then divvy out the rock.

That's what I like to do. And so we also, I know my lane, I know my roles. And my role when Kurt asked me to be one of those people in the hip hop alliance, yeah, being a magnet. If people gonna ask me, I'm gonna talk about what I'm doing, but can I actually put a little bit in there? You know, back in the day, the Cooley Hotties say, can you, you know, put a little bit in there

for the ones that ain't here. Right, right. And that was always the ethic of, or at least the goal ethic of hip hop, to put a little bit in to say that unionizing is a necessity and also the structure that was built is not just talk, it's real. And to get those numbers, it might not have a flashy time.

We thank you for the time that you was able, you could have said, yo, I don't know, that's real and get those numbers. It might not have a flashy time. We thank you for the time that you was able. You could have said, yo, I don't know, we just wanna talk to you Chuck about Radio Armageddon. Right? And we're so beyond that. But like I said, my brother over there at Def Jam and the work that Toon G as a brother,

being able to carry the mantle piece. We know that it's a shell and they got Justin Bieber and people work that Toon G as a brother, being able to carry the mantelpiece, we know that it's a shell and they got Justin Bieber and people like that over there, but Def Jam, I was there at the beginning, well not at the beginning, this man was there at the beginning. You seen the movie Crush Groove, all that is Def Jam. But my guys, the Public Enemy guys,

Hank Shockley, Flav, Terminator, all the way down, I would like to think after LL, we put electric fixtures in the building, you know what I'm saying? Of also with Grace by the Beastie Boys, who never get enough talk either for what they're able to do. So being able to take that light,

what I've been able to be in this industry is a prism. And if you know anything about a prism, the light goes to the prism, and then it bounces all different areas. And that's my responsibility and my goal. Like a diamond. How do you support the Alliance? Well, this is Chuck D, everyone.

He is our president. I just want to say, you know, I got a call from the founder, one of our founders, actually Chuck D is the founder along with myself and Scott X. So I got a call from Scott X who is one of the presidents of the NAACP and he said, man, we need a union. So I immediately called Chuck. And we started this thing back in 2007,

but we got railroaded. We got sidetracked. And so we started it again about 2019 or something. 2000, well, 2022, actually, we formed the organization. And I wanna shout out Chub Rock who is our vice president as well. There's a lot of people doing real work. Me, I'm more like a recruiter out there.

I do a lot of things, but this is the thing when Chuck try to bring light to the situation and I'm involved whenever they wanna call me when an emergency break glass. Got you, yep, yep. try to bring light to the situation, and I'm involved whenever they wanna call me when an emergency, break glass. You know what I'm saying? Got you, yep, yep. So we have a whole team here.

It's Cynthia Horner, you guys know her, from the... Right On magazine back in the day. Right On, and Beverly Page, and there's Tara Martin. There's so many people that we have on board helping out with this organization, a labor force organization, and we specialize in IPs and trademarks and publishing,

trying to fight for the fair wages and fair royalties. Very, very important. And healthcare, you guys were talking about the Black Don't Die track, right? And healthcare is the number one issue out there for all artists across the world right now. They have millions of dollars that they're making for record companies and don't have healthcare.

Physical and mental. You know? And it's critical, it's very important that we establish that, that we can find you healthcare to help you out in your time of need. So that's the Hip Hop Alliance, hiphopalliance.org. Hiphopalliance.org. Anything that you need from dealing with your manager,

dealing with your agent, your record company, publishing, streaming, trademarks, you know, all of that stuff, we have the experts working for you. And so just get with us, it's free to join right now. And yeah, contact us. And where do they go, what's the website? Hiphopalliance.org. Hiphopalliance.org. It's free to join right now. And yeah. Contact us. What's the website? Hiphopalliance.org.

Hiphopalliance.org. I do have one more question for Chug D. Well number one, one of my main 10 year by year goals is never to be Donkey of the Day. That'll never happen. That'll never happen. They never say never.

No, no, no, no, no. My goal is to never be Donkey of the Day. That'll never happen. That'll never happen. They never say never. No, no, no, no. My goal is to never be Donkey of the Day, ass with no pass, addicted to the screens or screaming for the laughs. You know what I'm saying? Not try to be that. I've learned so much from both of y'all today, man. I just want to ask, are we in an information war or a culture war?

And which one is radio Armageddon fighting? You're in the disinformation age and that started at the turn of the century and it's had several different technological and cultural and also societal bumps in the road. Nobody really can explain. Nobody can explain what the pandemic was. They still, people, there's some people out there

don't even remember it. That's true. Yeah. Since some people out there say they might be bad, oh, I'm this, I'm that. Yeah, I remember your ass stayed in the crib during April, 2020. No, but nobody was on the block.

Yeah, yeah, right. So you're in a disinformation blizzard of data coming at the human mind that might not be, and has probably never been able to handle it. Now new people will be born, and maybe they'll decipher and handle information that's coming like a blizzard, but for people from the last century,

last centurions, probably not. So the information and data and all that, it's a nonstop blizzard and how to navigate that. I think people have to be taught how to be netizens because they're not citizens anymore. Citizens is like, hey, Charlamagne, shake your hand, look you in the eye, my words bond and all that. People that think that it's something, hey, Charlamagne, shake your hand, look you in the eye, mama, we're responding, all that. You got people that think that it's something right now,

you always gotta look at seven year windows. So the answer to your question is that there's been some things that's been unexplained. Usually when I tell people something's for Gazy, I said, oh man, that's Butler P.A., man, let me stop. But it's, there's things that we're not gonna be able to come up with answers for that we gotta go inside ourselves, build a shell, and build a tunnel into those with like-mindedness.

Because you're not gonna be able to have your like-mindedness get to somebody that's paying you no mind. Mind over matter is a terrible thing sometimes, you know? When they say you don't matter and they don't mind paying you no mind. Dang. And what are those books? These books, I'm an artist.

I'm an illustrator. Yes, sir. It's the beginning of my, and I can get all my, I've created 12 books. I have one for you, Kurt, I'll send the whole thing. But I have 12 art books. And I started out as an illustrator. And politically and cartoon wise,

I'm actually two artists at the same time. That's a whole nother story. But my company is called Enemy Books. It's a Kashuk is a book company that publishes my book label. And Johnny Temple is a great guy because he's put out books by Glenn Friedman and Black Flag and all that stuff.

But he's right there in Brooklyn. And I have art shows around the world. Look to have some stuff down in MoMA one year. Cause I like, a lot of people talk pop stuff like Basquiat, but no Basquiat. But they'll wear some Basquiat because it's a hip, cool thing to do, but it has to be made to be hip and curated

to a point where we're like, oh yeah, I think that's cool. I was, you know, we were coming up when Basquiat was there doing this thing. More so you, because you was in the city, me, I was at Delphi, and I wanted to just like, I could take that kid, you know, that's that competitive. I was more, I'm more competitive as an illustrator, and I do kind of like, I don't caricatures.

It's like I don't care if they exact or accurate, I could do that, paint, sculpt, but it's all about style in art. And everybody has art in them. It doesn't mean that you're trying to compete against your iPhone and filters. So I think that also gotta be developed. Also high schools could do a better job

at trying to curate their drama classes. Because everybody wanna be in the movies, right? What happened to, you know, the football or the basketball team get supported, but the arts programs don't. But at the end of the day, everybody's buying art or led to consume art. And you can't have companies and corporations control art.

And they don't let companies and corporations control sports because in high school and the college level, although now you have the NIL and stuff like that, but there's always a balance and there's a flow there. And the arts, we've seen it truncated. So the arts, health, union, music, I'm a culturalist, a raptivist and a culturalist. I am good at the things I'm good at

and most of the things I am not good at. So when one thing that saves you most of the time that doesn't make you a donkey of the day, the person asks me a question, is the thing that always is cool? I don't know. That's right. Or, or like, I got no words.

Or, when you ain't got nothing to say. Say nothing. Well, I'll say this, that Chuck D is a great artist. I have seen his work. I mean, we have this group chat that we have for the Hip Hop Alliance, about 10, 15 people on the group chat and we're discussing business or traumatic situations that happen

or who we can help next. Chuck, when there's a death in our community, Chuck will do a art piece right quick and post it before we get off the chat. And I'm like, this man is incredible. Well, I don't think it's incredible. I trained myself, and I won't talk long about it, I trained myself back in the day

to be a courtroom artist. And we're starting to see, like with my man's case, now you're seeing only courtroom drawings. Back in the day, the courtroom illustrator would have to do the illustration and then jet down to the TV station to get it for the six o'clock news. But then now with phones and gadgets

and you can actually send it to the text and all that's different. But as you see in the New York case, no cameras are allowed. So they still like in last century on that tip. But what's coming out of there is illustrations. So I train myself especially like, this is what you do with tour downtime.

I created things. Then again, you have your own style. Yeah, style is just like what I'm seeing. If you have your own style, nobody can bite you. I mean, they gotta bite you, but you not competing against anybody. So yeah, I could do something like draw this whole room off of memory to the accurate,

but I ain't spending a long time doing that. I mean Chuck ain't listening on them calls though, but when y'all talking, he just on them, he just on them illustrations. Oh, he can multitask. Oh yeah. Just to have him here. Look, so I multitask, I gotta draw this whole room

and not even look at that or y'all. That's crazy. Because it's like I could, but then it ain't about me on that tip. I just got my book. I'll send you all my whole catalog. You can see it in the back. I bought your book. That's all right, let me give you mine.

I got books, I'll send it, guys. Chuck D, ladies and gentlemen, Curtis Blow. We appreciate y'all so much for joining us, man. Not just for joining us, man. Just thank you for existing and thank you for. We appreciate y'all so much for joining us, man. Not just for joining us, man. Just thank you for existing and thank you for all the fights y'all fought for hip hop, for black people. We really appreciate y'all.

Absolutely. Thank y'all. I appreciate y'all are giants. And I really appreciate once again for being able to offer your throne to the Godfather. Oh man, no, no, no. My gratefulness is extended to you guys. This is the first time I've ever met you in person,

Charlamagne, I think. I think so too, yeah. Yeah, I've heard about you. You are a big time cat. God is good. I'm doing okay. Thank you, brother. And Envy, you know, we go way back.

And my man, it's good to see you always. You know, I shoutin' out the five boroughs. I gotta shout out my Knicks. You know, I just... Stay off of Seventh Avenue, baby. I just talked to him. That's right. The lead increase in the fourth quarter,

and it's us, stay out of Seventh Avenue. I talked to Bernard King the other day. And he is a good cat, man. He is a very, you know, he was like MVP for the NBA a couple of years, and you know, it's just amazing to still be in touch with people like Patrick Ewing and John Starks and... Alan Houston, Starbury, I see over there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alan Houston, big, big shout out to him and my boy Unc and the New York Knicks. I hope we get this game six tonight, everyone. We got it. When you name check people in basketball, that had to be something when you run into those players and they're like, man, you name check me,

like Dominique Wilkins and people like that. Oh man, yes, yes, yes. It's always great to be a part of that whole scene, you know, so shout out to Jalen Brunson and Kat and OG, my man. OG. Bridges, man, what a great team, what a great team. I like to leave a one note just to say that

we wanna be able to sometimes to use social media for all the power that it has been in its creation. It's always better to shine somebody's day up by congratulating instead of it being used for hating. There you go. That's true. There you go. Absolutely. I mean, the compliment, when you receive a compliment, if you can open your day when you open up, whatever, when you receive a compliment, if you can open your day when you open up, whatever,

you receive a compliment, just give a compliment on just GP. Right. And yo, man, I love that, that's cool. I could dig it, boom, like that. It goes a long way because we're gonna have to figure out a certain life cycle with these gadgets and devices because they're here to stay, even when they get implanted into your gums.

Oh, that's coming. Northern Lincoln's right there, absolutely. And shouting out the five boroughs, y'all. We can't forget that, man. I love you all, Queens. My heart is in Queens, Long Island, Brooklyn. I love you. Harlem, I was born and raised in Harlem.

Connecticut and Jersey. And the Boogie Down, you know, we can't forget the Boogie Down Bronx gave us hip hop, this whole movement. Yes, indeed. And the future is yours. I just want to tell all the young people listening, the future of this planet is in your hands, you know?

And don't forget about Staten Island. Of course. Come on. You talk,'t forget about Staten Island. Of course. Come on. You talk every bar, everybody forget about Staten Island. I was gonna say Richmond County. Okay, you was like, ah, right, right, right. Wootang, right, right. Girders blow, Chuck D.

Man, I love you guys. And thank you, thank you. Thank you for the movement, thank you for the support. And Hip Hop Church, y'all, coming June 5th, up in Harlem, 160 West 146th Street. Y'all see the, you saw the Godfather Harlem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know that building that he lives in?

Right next door is the Hip Hop Church. Okay. All right, so big shout out to all my people up in Harlem, as well as the Boogie Down. I love you all. Let's continue this movement. Hip hop is the number one stream music around the globe right now.

We are the voice of the people, and let's take it further. Let's leave them with these words of Martin Luther King that any time is the right time to do the right thing. That's right. It's the Breakfast Club. I love you all. Good morning.

Wake that ass up. Early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes here. Diddy's former protege, television personality, Danity King alum Aubrey O'Day joins us to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. It wasn't all bad, but I don't know that any of the good was real.

I went through things there. Listen to Amy and TJ Presents, Aubrey O'Day, covering the Diddy Trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful? The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2020, a group of young women found themselves in an AI-fuelled nightmare. Someone was posting photos. It was just me naked. Well, not me, but me with someone else's body parts. This is Levittown, a new podcast from iHeart Podcasts, Bloomberg, and Kaleidoscope about the rise of deepfake pornography and the battle to stop it.

Listen to Levittown on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Find it on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast

season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.