The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Kim Osario & Malik Buie On The History Of Mixtapes, The DJ's Influence On Hip Hop + More

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning, everybody. It's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got some special guests in the building. We have Kim Osorio. The legendary.

The legendary Kim Osorio. Welcome, Kim. Good morning. And also Malik Buhi. Welcome. Thank you. How you feeling? Now, they have a new documentary, Tale of the Tape.

I'm about to say we. Tale of the Tape, how the mixtape revolutionized hip hop, which I'm an executive producer on as well. Welcome. Thank you. Did I mess up the whole thing? That's all right. You good.

Thanks for having us. Why do they still call them mixtapes? Do they still call them mixtapes? That's the question. Even to this day, there's no mixing. They're not on tapes. It's mixed shows now. Now it's mixed shows.

Yeah, that's true. Well, they were mixing back then, but it talks about, I guess, how the mixtape game and how the mixtape started. So it starts from the beginning, from Brucey B, DJing parties and how people started and how it became so popular. So before we get into that, let's tell people who you are. Let's start with you, Kim. Okay. Kim, you had a legendary career. For people that don't know, tell them where it started and everything like that. It all started in the Bronx

when I fell in love with hip hop. A lot of people know me from The Source magazine. So I was the former editor-in-chief of The Source magazine, but today I work primarily in television, producing passion projects such as this one, but also a lot of projects that you're familiar with. People know me today from the Impact New York, loving hip hop, growing up hip hop. You know, your favorite reality shows. That's right. And Malik? Oh, man, I'm a director, producer, owner, operator of Red Summer TV. I've been in the game a long time telling stories. Used to work at every platform produced for rap city 106 etc but now

i do everything through my company um and was happy to have kim come aboard for this project now before we get to the to the mix it what do you think about the landscaping of tv now you mentioned rap city you mentioned music shows 106 and paul we don't have that anymore now i think it's all going the way of the streamer to be honest you know you look at a kid like casanet like he is what today's music casanat yeah casanat you know he is what the rap cities or the 106s are like he gets all the big guests they come there they they all come to him and i think that's you know that's just uh you know what technology did and and academics breaking the music yes over the last few weeks you know know, that's a new aspect of it. And with you, Kim, you know, of course, you were running the Source magazine

and magazines were so big back then. I remember you would wait for the new magazine to come out to see who was on the cover and the articles, but you don't have that. No. It doesn't exist anymore. Like you said, the landscape has changed, right? It's almost like direct-to-consumer.

People are talking to, and as storytellers, right, I think we have all kind of come up in this game, watching, consuming, telling our favorite stories. Nowadays, you see how easily the narrative can change, right? Just because people can get online and go and say whatever they want to say. Right. I was just having a conversation about a story that I thought was fake out there.

So it has definitely changed. I think we have to be better protectors of our stories and our culture. That's one of the reasons why we decided to do this documentary. Well, nobody cares about the truth when the lie is more entertaining either. Right. So it's like these people that are creating these narratives,

y'all talking about storytellers, they're out here telling these fictional tales that the Internet loves. So how can you compete if you're out here wanting to tell the truth? I know it seems like it's all for clicks, but I'm a firm believer that you got to stand strong in what it is that you do. And eventually, you know, you will get the notoriety that you're looking for. I agree. Now let's break down the tale of the tape.

What made you guys want to do the tale of the tape? Kim, I didn't think you were a DJ. First of all, don't play with me. You know I used to have turntables, right? Did you? Yes. I sold them. I needed to sell them at one Christmas back in the 90s that I didn't have any money to buy gifts. I sold my

turntables and I still regret it. Why you want to do that? You really think I can't DJ? Watch for the box, right? No, like I love DJing. I'm a huge fan. You didn't even know that? I know. First of all, I was the first person that ever put you in the

source magazine. That is factual. They brought a very young DJ envy to me and said, this is the next guy. And I was like, oh, look at this beige person. He must be my brother. And I said, let me put. And we followed your career at The Source back then, right? Supported.

But, you know, I think that during that time, right, DJing was such. It was such an important part of the culture. I'm not saying it isn't now. It's just that it doesn't get as much shine. Correct. i feel like it's our responsibility to do that so i'm a huge fan of dj like i'm i've always been like i'm the type of person that sends playlists to people like if you're like really close to me you know that about me you know what i'm saying cnv you you straight away over the years you ain't want to call nobody so i don't send you my playlist but i'm that i build playlists and i think that like that's almost like the new mixtape

when we think about it but i just love music i love dj culture and so it was a project that i wanted to get down with do you think djs haven't uh adapted to these new distribution platforms meaning like when you saw over the pandemic, when D-Nice was on Instagram Live, people cared about DJing. That was great. So it's like now these DJs, they want to do radio.

They want to do clubs. That's about it. Like why aren't they on more Instagram Lives? Why aren't the DJs screaming their mix shows? Well, some of these people that got DJ in front of their name, let's keep it a hundred. They really, they not in it for the love of DJing, right? The way that we watch the real DJs get on live during the pandemic and go crazy.

They're in it because, and it's not just DJs, right? But they're in it because of the fame. There's a lot of clout. There's a lot of clout. There's a lot of clout chasers out there. So you have that where, you know, unfortunately, people are using it as a way to get in and get famous. They want a brand attached. They want a brand attached to what they're doing. And if that's not it, they don't want to do it.

That's not how it was originally when mixtapes were being conceived, when guys like, you know, the Brucie B's and Kid Caprice, they was doing it for the love of the music, strictly. You guys started this project years ago. Many years ago, yes. You could tell from J. Cole doesn't have dreads in there. Neither does Kendrick. I don't think you got any facial hair.

I definitely don't have beard. I don't have any brain. All the products that they use now weren't out back then. Shut up, man. You got Joe got the rewind pin now. You know, that wasn't around when y'all probably started this. So, you know, why did it take so long to actually get it out? Like Kim said, this was a passion project.

Good question. Right? Self-funded. You know, it started because of, you know, me being a storyteller. Everywhere I went, you know, interviewing and documenting, whether it was artists, whether it was DJs, the connective tissue was always the mixtape. That's how everybody either got their start in some way, shape, form, or fashion. And I was like, we have to tell this story. So a lot of some of those interviews were on the back end of certain productions. You know what I mean? And yeah,

so we're very happy that we were able like fully craft into the story that it is. Now, watching this, you know, you realize that Brucey B was kind of the creator of the mixtape. He doesn't get a lot of the accolades and shine as he should. So I was talking to Brucey B. If you don't know who Brucey B was, he was a DJ. I don't know if he's from Harlem or the Bronx. Because I always, Harlem and Bronx is the same to me. I'm a Queens fan. You know what? I always have a problem with's from Harlem or the Bronx. Because Harlem and Bronx is the same to me. I'm a Queens. You know what? I always have

a problem with people from Queens. But we do claim Harlem. Thank you very much, us Bronx people. We also will claim the Locks from the Ankers. That's all part of our... You claim Mary, too? Collectively, we're uptown. Okay? You claim Mary, too? Yeah. So Mary, the Locks, Diddy? Bronx,

we're claiming all of that. It started with us, remember? And then we let y'all in Queens do what y'all did. Hey, listen, y'all took it to a whole nother level. I will give you that. I will give you that. But I think he is from Harlem, right? Harlem. Yeah.

So talk about Brucey B and how it was created. I mean, first of all, shout out to Brucey B. He was, you know, really, really inviting. I just got his number through a friend, and gave him a call and said, look, I want to do your interview cool what time and where um you know his story is so dope because you know he was that guy for from the rooftop right that legendary club which i guess like you know what the tunnel was for us something like that um but it was a painstaking process to like actually record his mixes um and then spend the whole week duplicating them one by one by one, right?

And then selling them that next week. The only other way to make, you know, ways he was making extra money was like Hustla Dude saying, yo, can you shout my name out? He's charging extra for that, you know. And it's just dope as we follow it in a linear process till we get to like you know you including you guys are DVDs and shrink wrap and whatnot so it's you know it's dope to see now I noticed Ron G wasn't on the project that's correct what happened

with Ron G Ron has some scheduling issues I'll say that but you know we couldn't not talk about you know Ron G is an integral part of mixtape culture. You know, I went to the National Treasure of Morgan State. He used to come down and battle with him in S&S. We had parties. That's actually where I met you the first time. You coming through Morgan, going to Hampton one weekend. And we did some business with your mixtapes because I had a mixtape spot back then.

And I was going to ask with all those, you know, what was one thing that you realized that you didn't know? Like for myself, I didn't know that Swiss Beats actually got his start by listening to these DJs do intro. And he wanted to create intros like that. And that's how he actually got into production. I didn't know that. What was one of the things that you guys learned off of watching or making this that you were like, wow, I didn't know that? I go first. I think what I learned most interesting was why Kid Capri exited doing mixtapes. I didn't know it had got so high for him.

I just thought it was a natural transition progression for him to do, you know, deaf comedy jam and kind of go, you know, more of the business slash corporate route. But, you know, that wasn't necessarily the case because if he was stuck around doing what he did. It ended up like drama? I think so. Absolutely. Right.

And I think for me, besides the fact, of course, that I learned that you was a lot more controversial. You was a lot more spicy in the original interview. You know what I'm saying? Like you've toned it down a little bit. And I think that's what you had to do in mixtape culture, right? Like you had to get out there. It was very competitive.

But I learned a lot about drama situation and how that changed the course of mixtapes and kind of steered into the mixtape. I think as the younger community knows it today, they don't really understand like how we viewed mixtapes back then. How you went to the, you know, street fordham road third avenue to get the tape if it came out on friday just to hear all of the new cuts or hear the new blends they don't have that same perspective and i think the game changed around that time when you know the feds rated all right double a yeah yeah what about i haven't seen it just what about wayne and 50s y'all speak to them because there was a period where like, you know, DJs, the artists were probably

more important to mixtape culture than the DJs. You knew we wasn't getting no 50 in this damn documentary. We said it was self-funded. We said it was self-funded. You know what? Yeah.

And I think part of the reason to have Envy come in and work with us on this documentary was just to have a credible DJ be able to help us shape our narrative in telling this story and make sure there weren't things that we missed. Because a lot of that inside stuff,

you don't know really what's going on. And then you come in with your cameras and you're trying to interview people and they're not really telling you the full story. So Envy was our checks and balances. So Envy, why didn't 50 do the doc? Because I think what this doc was mostly based on the DJs, the actual DJs.

But there was a period where the artists did shift things. And we talk about that a lot in there, right? Like the G unit, like how they changed the game, Dipset, right? And that's where,

and that's why, you know, we did get Kendrick. Kendrick is in there. Kendrick's in there. Kendrick's in there. J. Cole's in there. J. Cole talks about,

J. Cole on there talks about how he thought he would never do a mixtape. He thought it was whack. And then when he came up here in New York and seen all the DJs doing it, he was like, I have to do it. And that was the creation of his mixtape. That's what blew him up. Yeah. Like that's what set the foundation for him. That's what he talks about.

So now let me ask you, when it comes to DJs, who do you guys consider the Mount Rushmore of DJs? Mixtape DJs, I should say. Oh, wow. Take me out because I would probably want to. You wouldn't take me out. I'm part of the project. That's four, right?

That's four. You gotta give four. You give your four, Kim. Why I gotta give my four? Brucie B, Kid Capri, Ron G, and DJ Clue. What? That's just what I listen to.

Okay, so... You leave drama off. But drama comes later in my mind. Like, that's much later. And you're from the south so that's different i'm from new york for me it would be clue drama ron g and probably kid capri yeah really yeah i think i definitely kid capri clue drama i'm gonna go sns wow sns you left doo-wop off and you said that that was your favorite mix I'm going to go S&S. Wow. S&S.

You left Doo-Wop off, and you said that that was your favorite mixtape. 95 Live is my favorite mixtape. Wasn't that Ranji and Doo-Wop? 95 Live? It was just Doo-Wop? Just Doo-Wop. Yeah, I see. It's bad because a lot of people forget Brucey B, right?

They forget what Brucey B did for mixtape. He started it. So just because of that, Brucey B has to be on there, right? Then for me, Clue is my mixtape savior. He's my God, right? He's not my dad. I said he's my mixtape savior. Come on, man.

Give him his credit. He said he's your DJ daddy. Give your man his credit, man. He's not my dad. Why don't you give Pops his credit? He's not my dad, but he's definitely up there. You can't take away what Drama did. Like, you know, I joke with Drama all the time.

We always talk about who's better, Drama or Clue. But Drama was one of the people that changed the game when it came to mixtapes. Like, Clue changed the game how he did it. But drama was getting full artist mixtapes, which wasn't done before. And what he was able to do was, you know, some of these artist mixtapes are better than the actual album. You know, if you think about what he did with Jeezy, what he did with Wayne, what he did with Gotti, what he did with G-Unit, what he did with Pharrell, what he did with all those,

T.I., T.I. especially, is like, you can't take that away from drama. And then it's like, that's kind of four, but you can't forget Kid or Ron. You know what I mean?

So it's very difficult. Right, right. Why y'all try to have drama calling my phone like he wasn't on my top four? Y'all was like, you can't take everybody went against me. I was like, okay. But you know what?

That was after, I think, my impressionable years of when I was consuming mixtapes. Right. So like I could see why in my mind, I look at really like the forefathers more so of the culture at that time when mixtapes were prevalent. And when we talk about artists careers, you know, we could talk about what artists, and I don't think, like you said, the artists really forgot about mixtapes, but we broke down a lot of the artists

that got their start from mixtapes, right? Can y'all break that down a little bit, some of those artists? I mean, of course, there's G-Unit, and of course, there's, you know, Dipset, but Joe, Joe Button talks about how he got his star he talks on integral you and and clue word to his career he always says he did it first he always says he was that but that's just Joe right he said no I did it first

G unit and dips had copied me but I think those mood music and tapes you know set the bar for what a lot of the other guys did from the Coles, Kendricks, and especially Big Sean. When was the first Moon Music? What year was that? I don't remember. I feel like it's 2000 and what. How early was that? The 50 of them was like late 90s, early 2000s.

But Joe used to do the mixtapes with Fab, Paul Kane. It was the Desert Storm mixtapes that they used to do, which I think was before the G-Unit. But that was the Desert Storm mixtape where they used to do which I think was before the G-Unit but that was the Desert Storm mixtape where they all did together an on top mixtape beforehand

but that was definitely before because 5th album came out in 02 in 02 that means he had been smoking the mixtape for like 99

99, 2000 absolutely yeah it was back then now will there be a part 2 of the documentary and then where does it go from part 1

there'll definitely be a part two of the documentary? And then where does it go from part one? There'll definitely be a part two. You want to let them know? Am I blowing it up about what the plans are? What we want to do with Tale of the Tape is kind of build off of different, I don't want to call them elements in hip-hop, but we've talked about our next project. I don't want to say it because I feel like somebody's going to jump on it.

Should we just say it? Don't do it then. Wait, wait. Somebody will take it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not about who does it first. First, it's about who does it better. We want to do DVDs next. We want to do the DVD era next, right?

Because that's a big part of the culture and how things were shifting, you know, when people... Remember when we used to get the DVDs and actually, like, watch them? So that's the plan. But it's really to take it into, into like these different pockets and study those pockets in the culture because no one's really doing that anymore yeah i just i'm just glad that people get a chance to

see where it actually started from and when djs really matter and i think the dvds is great i mean you'd have to do french montana where he got his start. Of course, Smack. You know, Smack was my first fight. Oh, so you can't come on as executive producer? No, we cool now. He beat me up too. What do you think, Charlamagne? What do you think? Smack beat me up too.

Really? Salute to Smack, man. We went to school with each other. You said shout out to Charlamagne Dirty. Salute to Smack. Wow.

Smack was my first fight in elementary school. But these are the things that that we have to document in front of my pops too that was that's crazy you got beat up in front of your clue this is crazy clue help you yo this is crazy oh my god way way back yeah really that was me and him went to elementary school and what'd I do? I think I threw dirt in his face and I ran.

He was like, the next day, I'm gonna beat your ass at school. Three o'clock, huh? Now this was lunchtime. Lunchtime. He ain't waiting full day.

I called my dad. I was like, I said, yo, dad, I'm about to fight Troy. He was like, all right, I'll be there.

I walked out and I seen my dad there. I was like, Smack, because he ain't gonna hit me in front of my dad. Wow. I wonder if that's how you got the name

for the DVD series do you think so I wonder yo this DVD we gotta get jump on this one we gotta start with that story

shout out to my brother Troy we good now we been good after that I think it's gonna be interesting to see too how DJs got their music like those

exclusives that they used to put on their mixtapes. I always like hearing those stories. I like hearing how artists used to get really pissed off and used to be hunting the DJs down because of that. Who Kid talks about that? He talks about Clue and Envy, how they used to steal. Who Kid got kidnapped?

Did he talk? No, he didn't talk about that. Yeah, he got kidnapped. Yeah, Pun. Pun kidnapped him. Yeah, that's crazy. I remember that story. They said they were going to book him for a party.

And Who Kid drove up to, I think it was the Bronx or Harlem. And they told him to come to the car so we can give you your deposit. So his man stayed in the car. Who Kid jumped out and they threw him in the back. And they beat him up. Beat him up for playing an exclusive. So that was one of them. We used to get the exclusive a couple different ways.

So the Biggie exclusive that I got was Big of them. Wow. But we used to get the exclusive a couple different ways. So the Biggie exclusive that I got was Biggie put his car in valet. And the valet guy took the tape out and sold it to me. So that's how we got that one.

Yeah. That's what they said. What song was it? Pray For My Downfall. Wow. It was unmixed, unmatched. All the Irv Gotti exclusives,

it was Irv Gotti's intern. They never paid the interns back then. You're just blowing them up here, huh? It's old now. They never paid the interns. So when Irv Gotti exclusives, it was Irv Gotti's intern. They never paid the interns back then. You're just blowing them up here, huh? That's old now. They never paid the interns. So when Irv used to go to the studio, what he used to do

is he used to play the dats back in the day loud in the office so everybody would hear it. And the intern took that one. And then the engineers in the studio. So all these artists would be disrespectful to the engineers and curse at them and yell at them.

So you give them a couple hundred. Back then it was a couple hundred dollars. Right. Two hundred dollars and they'd go and they'd just leak in the records. And they would leak the records. That's how we got a majority of our records. Wow. That's an exclusive right there. That's how we get them back in the day. How could the mixtapes legally be sold if they weren't original songs?

They're just songs from artists put together. That was all illegal. Wasn't it? So even those stores you used to go up in when they... Promotional use only. That's what they always used to say, promotional use only. Yep. Really? Yeah.

Wow. It was all illegal. And then they would get bootlegged by the bootleggers. By the bootleggers. So everything was kind of like... They were called wholesalers. Yeah. Wholesalers.

Wholesalers. And that was the difference, I would say, because when I met Envy, when he came down, again, his products were shrink-wrapped, bar-coated. Like, somebody was keeping inventory. I was impressed. I was like, you know, and you're good friends with my boy, Shah. What's Shah? Shah in the Philippines.

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he would be like, you can't bootleg my boy's stuff. And so we would just, you know, have to take the hit on that. Yeah, so, yeah, we figured out a way to do it. But the labels would never complain because for the labels, it was promotion for their artists. It was promotion, yeah. So they wanted their artists on the top six songs because it was promotion.

They wanted their freestyles. They wanted that. So they would give, you know, mixtapes. And then we were getting so many Rockefeller records, Jay-Z and Dame Dash approached us and said, let's do these Rockefeller mixtapes. And that's how the Rockefeller mixtapes came with Lenny S. And it just became big.

Clue didn't want to do it. So I was next. Yep. Yep. I look forward to it. So how can people see this? If they want to watch the full documentary, the full DVD documentary or hip hop mixtape documentary,

how can they watch it? Well, they can go to, it's on Amazon Prime. It's on Verizon. It's on amazon prime it's on uh verizon it's on spectrum you can go to tailordetapefilm.com um and and get all the info all the links and go to red summer tv on youtube on ig for behind the scenes now how difficult is for people behind the scenes if they want to do their own documentaries to get you know on these platforms how difficult is that this is very difficult i mean you see it took us a long time to put it out and we just really wanted to get that done, get our first one in the can and then start working on the next ones.

But even as you guys know, in television, the networks, the streaming platforms, like it's taking some projects three to four years to get on the air. Right. When I just did the impact, that was like one of the quickest turnarounds ever. We shot, we shot it in September, October, November,

and it was out by January. That was one of the quickest turnarounds I've ever done on a show. Right. Usually it's 12 to 18 months. Right. Just from the start to when it actually comes out. So it's hard. Documentaries are a labor of love.

A lot of people, I want to do a documentary. You realize you're going to be spending your own money. That's right, and time. And time. It's not a lucrative thing. You've got to really love what you're doing and love the story that you're telling in order to stay committed to it.

Are these platforms still looking for the i should get the beef the the love and hip-hop type of things the fighting are they still looking for that or are they are they getting to a point where they're like nah let's just i think it's changing it is i i do think it's changing i feel like just even in my pitch meetings that i'm in like I can tell by like what people are looking for. We're producing a lot differently. Right. We have to find new ways to do that. So I feel like true crime is very hot. Crime stories, even in our culture. Right. Everybody's got the story to tell. You know, it's funny. It's something one of the things we said when we were talking about the Boosie B situation was like how the hustlers really put him in that position right to start selling his tapes and they're behind a lot of stuff in hip-hop right because the the money of course that's where it was coming from so those stories have become i think or we've put them front and center right

and i think it's like going crazy on youtube now i can see every old street gangster story on youtube everybody you've got like remember such and such from back in the day you just put that in a google now. I can see every old street gangster story on YouTube. You can. Everybody. You find like, remember such and such from back in the day? You just put that in a Google search and you have like seven different storytellers telling the story of this person who is now in jail for, you know, life.

I think the networks are kind of like, hmm, what's this about? You know, looking at that. Alright, well well definitely check out Tale of the Tape how the mixtape revolutionized hip hop and you want to shout out

all the EPs and everybody involved because they all listen all the time so make sure they give that love go ahead Malik I mean there's

Kim of course thank you so much my brother DJ Envy yes sir would like to really thank our PR guy Sidney

who's been amazing. And Nakia Hicks, who came on early. And Jocelyn Rose. Jocelyn Rose Lyons, who's an amazing, amazing director. She did the movie Stand. Yes, Jocelyn. And she's one of our producers, EPs on this project. Thank you.

All right. Well, it's The Breakfast Club. It's Malik and Kim Osorio. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake that ass up. Early in the morning's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.