The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: Kwamé (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

In part one of two, legendary rapper and literal “Boy Genius” Kwamé Holland gets nostalgic with Team Supreme as they discuss the “golden era” of hip-hop. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

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So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I bowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players

flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12

and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Korsloaf Supreme is a production of IHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Please and gentlemen, this is part one of the two-part QLS classic with the man we all know and love Kwame. One of those bugged out illest stories in classic hip-hop. Every story Kwame tells me, he goes through it all.

It has to be heard to be believed. Without further ado, this is part one. Kwame's interview on QLS from October 3, 2018. Enjoy. To prima Rolfonte. Yeah. Like your text, I got you. Yeah.

My only question. Yeah. Where's Tasha? Rocahn. Supriva, Subra, Roca. My name is Sugar. Yeah.

I'm a sweet thang. Yeah. Like Hawaiian punch. Yeah. Kool-Aid or tang. Rolecah. Soap. Supraima, Role.

I'm unpaid bill. Yeah. And we've gone too far. Yeah. When Questlove eats dinner. Yeah. At an oatmeal bar. Roca.

Supriva. Supriva. Supriva. Superma. Superma. Subrama Roll Call. That was on topic. It just happened.

Submima Roll Call. Boss Bill's my name. Yeah. And the mic is mine. Yeah. Been a fan of Kwame Yeah. Since 89.

Roll Call. Suprema. Suprema Role Call. Supremma, Subrama, Subrama Role Call. I'm Laeem. Yeah.

And I'm F in Kwame. Yeah. Thank God for him. Yeah. Pocodots all day. Roll call. Supremia, sub, sub, sub, subprima, roll call. Supremma, sub, sub, sub, suprema roll call.

Yo, my name's Kwame, y'all see me while. Yeah. Quest put me on the spot with this freestyle. Roll call. Let's go. Supriva, sub, sub, sub, suprema roll call. Supremma, sub, sub, sub, subprima, role call. Supremma role call.

Supreme Court. Okay, so Bill just out at me. Yeah, I was eating oatmeal for it. That wasn't, you're making healthy choices, man. That's great. Yeah. That's fantastic. There's almond milk in now?

I saw you eat with a cream of wheat. I saw you eat an oatmeal and I ordered a grilled chicken salad. You see what I'm saying. Wait a minute. We're healthy here. You can eat a chicken salad now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can eat now.

Like, you know what I mean? I can eat like regular. He just put the clobo. That was a week's ago, but he told me your tooth. Still hurting. No, no, no, no, not now. Oh, yeah, weeks ago, on the earlier table, when I was absent, it was fucked up. But my Obamacare kicked in.

I'm good. We were having the all-important cream of weed versus steel-cut oatmeal question, wondering what exactly does steel cut refer to? I just don't like the marketing steel cut. Like, there's nothing tasty or appetizing about. It's not steel cut. They try to market steel cut like free range, you know what I'm saying? It's true.

going to pay an extra dollar and a 50 cents for some. Not for nothing. There's a frozen version of still cut oatmeal you can get in a Trader Joe. It's really good. You just microwave for two minutes. Wait, did you say it was that? It was at Trader Joe's. There you go.

You can't get it at AMP? No. You can't get it at PATH? You know how. Wait, M.P. Still exist. Oh, yeah. Yeah, some places.

I've seen it. Wow. Man. They call Aldeas in the East Coast, the A&P. Aldiz. Alde's. See, Alde is a wife. Al-Dis is the place.

LDI. I'm sorry. All the Seatians. You got associated. You know. Oh, yeah. Questlove, the only place where we could talk about

food and supermarkets before we even introduce our guests. Ladies and gentlemen, this is another episode of Questlove Supreme. Questlove, say what's up, Team Supreme. What's up? Solid. Okay, best love.

Today, we have a favorite, a personal favorite of mine. And mine. Please don't forget Bill. But Bill is bigger than everybody. Yeah, you know, and on the low for all of the... I hate you like.

No, but for all the props that I give to Dayla transforming my life, if you really inspect a lot of photos of me between 89 and 93, I will say that our guest had a big hand in... Life and fashion choices. Yeah, I proudly rock that. Actually, yeah, Tariq and I, at one point, when we were black to the future, we went to hats and the belfry to buy those hats

with the spinning. With the propeller on it because Kwameh rocked it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the legendary. Yo, yo, yo. Quameh. Yes. To close Los Angeles. It's the man we all know in love.

Thank you, yes. The man we all know in love. What's up, bro? I'm good, man. How are you? Thank you for having me. Man, thank you for doing this. You know, this is an honor for all of us.

Thank you. Yeah, so, where'd you grow up? Where'd you grow up? Is that my how are you doing? Yeah. Where'd you grow up? Let's go back to the beginning. Let's go back to the beginning.

Where are you from? I don't know where you're from. I am from East Elmhurst slash Corona, Queens, New York. So you started out as in New York. Yes. Okay. Okay. You were born?

Born in Queens. My whole family is in Queens. When I got my deal, I was in Queens and in high school. I've seen you in Philly a lot. Because it was a lot of girls in Philly. And they liked me. So I would be there a lot. No, seriously.

At one point, I was just like, maybe he's from Yaden or. No, you know what it is? my manager Dave who's here he's from Yaden and Tatt Money who's also from Yadden he wanted to say he's from West Philly but he's lived in Yaden more more than West Philly but anyway um Tatt money Tats money yeah Tapp money I forgot right you saw the video and I was like is that tap yeah so tat was I met Tatt steady B and cool C before I came out I was tagging along with kid and play and Herbie Love Bug and we they had a show in rich in Virginia with Steady.

And the show got snowed out. So we were stuck in this, we couldn't even get to the hotel. We were stuck in the venue overnight. And we all just got cool. And Tatt was real cool. And I was like, hey, man, you know, I got this. And I pulled out the poster board of the mockup of my first album cover. Yeah, you know, I'm about to be coming out.

Hopefully I can get to do shows with you guys and everything. And Stady and Cool C, they were all right. But Tatt was more personable. And then we just hung out and we wrapped all, just pretty much all night. And then when my original DJB flat wasn't able to rock with us anymore, our first person I called was TAT. So that became my Philly connection. And then I started hanging out in Phillywood, Tatt, got very cool with EST,

Chuck Nights, Woody Wood. And we all just was a little click. Leisure to Doom. Yep, Legion of Doom. They were all coming to my house. They would stay weeks at my house. I would stay weeks of their house. My mother would be like, okay, one of your friends going back to Philly?

We were like 16, 17, 18 years old. So that was, that's... You guys were like our native tongues. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when you came in co-signed Philly, me, that's the first time I felt like, okay, Philly can be cool. Yeah.

Because, again, I mean, you're not saying what you really want to say about cool and steady, but... No, they were just, they were post-drug dealer cool. Like, you know. No, no, you know what it is? It's nothing to say good or bad about them, but they just weren't the kind of... guys that I was.

You know what I'm saying? You know, we're not from, we didn't have the same wavelength. So it wasn't, I would never be, I would never hang out with them. Right. Where tat is cut from that same cloth. So, you know, I would definitely hang it with tat.

And, and. Totally seen it. You know, so that's how, that's pretty much out. So that explains why I saw you in Philly a lot. Yeah. Okay. I just thought you had property and. I should have had property.

You should have. You don't? Damn. Now I get it. Not Philly. So in Queens. What was your experiences of music? See, my neighborhood, you know, everybody likes to really big up their neighborhoods,

but for me, I think my neighborhood is a very special place in Queens, and anybody can look it up. So if you go, the history of East Helmhurst Corona, it's right next to LaGuardia Airport. So literally you can, like my grandmother's house, my house, I can walk to the airport. And within that neighborhood, I mean, pre-rap, you had,

had Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, Louis Armstrong. James Brown was in St. Albans, but he wasn't in that, I'm sorry, I want to say Dinah Washington. And a lot of influential blacks moved to this area of Queens. But then when you get into the hip-hop era, you had Kid and Play, Herbie Lovebug. Eric B. Cool G. Rap, myself, salt and pepper. We were all within a three to five block radius. So is that close to Jamaica? No. No, it's closer to the city. So we're like 15 minutes the most into New York City. So we're northern Queens. Jamaica is southern Queens.

So houses on the lawn? Like, is it a suburbia existence? It's, I would say the equivalent. of Winfield maybe. Winfield slash West Philly area. Nice part of Westwood. Yeah, but it's not overbrook farms. You know what I'm saying? It's not that.

But it's pretty cool. And then you have some, see, East Elmhurst is more of the homes with front yards and backyards. I lived in a row home, so most like the Philly homes. My grandmother would have a house with a front and a backyard.

But then you have Corona. And that's, is northern boulevard. You cross northern Boulevard. Corona's a little bit more grittier than East Elmhurst. So I lived in between both neighborhoods, you know, my whole childhood pretty much. And so

from there, my parents got a divorce. I was 14. A couple of years later, my father got remarried and moved to Englewood, New Jersey. So now I'm in Englewood, New Jersey. And in Inglewood, New Jersey, my best friend was Redhead Kingpin.

Oh, wow. And so I had all of those queens guys next to me. And then my best friend that I first, the first kid I meet when I moved to Inglewood is Redhead. And then you have Big Bub from today. And Redhead, he said, yo, this lady is going to give me a deal. And you should come too. All right, who?

We go to Sylvia Robinson's house. Oh, God. Oh, she was the first. She was the first Sylvia in his life. So Sylvia Robinson offered me a deal at 15. So, and it was so funny because at the same time, I'm saving up money. I'm, you know, I'm making demos. I'm trying to impress Herbie.

And he runs around with my demo. Sylvia here's the demo and the deals come in at the same time. But the difference between Atlantic Records, Sony, Columbia, then Sylvia. Silvia's was like a one-page note. And, uh, that's right? Exactly. So, you know, just to give a quick recap, those are like the different people. I feel like Mr. Rogers, those are the people in my neighborhood.

So we live for that. This is the rabbit hole of nerd right now. We're hanging on everywhere. So will you sign before Redhead or did he sign this deal first to version? So Redhead and a group called New Style, later known as Norty by Nature, they decided to sign. And they, she wanted to change Sugar Hill records to Bona Me. And I was like, I don't even know that doesn't even sounds hip-hop, you know. She owned Bonamy Records?

Yes. I remember that label. Yeah, so she was Bono Me and New Style came out on Bono Me. Red got out of it because he was underage and he lied about his age and he was 16 as well. And he got out of it. I never signed. Then we weren't good kids. I'll be honest with I'm not even going to lie to you.

We weren't good kids, but we were good kids, but we were. We didn't always do good things. So we got in trouble. All of us, like at the same time. We were running around in the street. You thuggery? Yes, we got in trouble. That's what I wanted to know.

It was like stupid. Like stupidity. It's something I would never even talk about in detail. But it was me, Red, and a couple of the guys, and we did something stupid. And at that point, my father was like, some of the guys actually got into real trouble. Some of us didn't get, thank God, didn't get into any major anything. But the thing was, you're moving out of Jersey. This is the wrong environment for you.

Mind you, this was a very nice neighborhood. It wasn't anything grimy in the stretch. It was just bored kids doing stupid stuff. That's Jersey. Yeah. So I moved back to Queens. So now I'm in Southside Jamaica Queens with my mother. And then in that neighborhood, you have a different type of element.

The block was cool. but then you had like you had, you know, real killer drug dealers and, you know, these type of people that were, that everybody. And he felt it was safer for you to be in Queens than it was to be in England? Well, here's the other side. He decided to move to have a farm in Virginia. He moved on to the farm. So when he moved on to the farm in Virginia, I was, there was no way. I was going to move on a farm.

I just got a record deal. There's no way I'm living on a farm. I'm like, well, you can rap from the farm. And you can come to New York when you have. I was like, there's no way I'm doing that. So I ended up back in Queens with my mother. And like I said, that close area where my mother was was cool. But the surrounding, like everybody that like 50 cent wraps about and all this kind of stuff,

those were people that came to my house that I knew. Like, they were actual, that part of queen. Okay. So it was a whole other environment living there. And so, okay, there's such a folklore about Queens. When, so you're saying that there's multiple sections of Queens like the Tripaw Quest Queens versus the Run DMC Queens versus the 50s same queens. So I lived in the tri-called. So my part of Queens was Q-Tip, sweet tea.

We all lived in the same little section. Tip was a little bit further out T was in between me and where Q-Tip was So that section is South Jamaica Right Where Rundi MC LL Koojee Jhaerul They're in Hollis They're on the south side of Jamaica

But they're not the further south part of Jamaica And if anybody needs to understand Queens Look at a map, look at Long Island At the end of Long Island is Brooklyn and Queens They're literally together It's one thing and but then you have northern queens so for example you have parts of queens

and northern queens say flushing queens if I take any of you guys the flushing queens knock you out and drop you in the street you would think you were in Hong Kong 100% Hong Kong if you ever been to Hong Kong you would literally it's the same thing

yeah the exact same thing I see it on the way to the airport sometimes yeah but go in in and when I was a kid it was white it was Italian and black so flash forward say 30 years it's all one section Korean one section Chinese and then a small section Japanese all the street signs are in Asian all the stores it's 1,000 percent so that's that's flushing queens but then you go further toward Brooklyn and you say you're in Richmond Hill Richmond Hill is

it was when I was a kid predominantly all Irish now it's all South American so it's Peruvian and stuff like so and when I was my neighborhood Corona it was all black now it's probably 30% black mostly South and Central American you know so it's That's what the beat nuts was from Queen yeah beat nuts are from Corona as well

so Queens is such a diverse area And then there's a part of Queens that most Queens people don't even know about call Malba. Malba is, if you know the White Stone Bridge, it's right under the White Stone Bridge. If I take you to Malba, you would think you were in Bel Air or Beverly Hill somewhere. 100%. It's off the water. If a neighbor sees you driving, the cops will be there in 1.4 seconds if you are of a darker shade. Oh, me?

me. I'm me specifically. Everybody. There's no dark-shaded people in that area. And that's by white, that's next to the White Stone Bridge. And then you have other real diverse areas like Bayside and, you know,

Lefrak is, Lefrak is one neighborhood from mine that goes into Mass Beth. And Mass Beth is another very diverse area. It's, it's crazy. If I take you on a Queens tour, it's like, yes. Because everybody thinks the Queens Bridge. Yeah, right, Queensbridge.

Yeah, and you know, Queensbridge is... That's what I thought. It's like, okay, where this is and that's it. And then we come to Manhattan, right? Yeah, Queensbridge is you can walk to Manhattan. From Queensbridge, you can walk over the bridge. It'll take you five minutes and you're on 56th Street and First Avenue. So, you know... So how did hip hop reach you at a young age?

Because I'm almost certain that other boroughs were like another world to you. or another city. No. Hip hop reached me in 1979. I can remember exactly what I was doing, where I was at. I was playing with Star Wars men on the floor with my best friend.

His name is Dakar. And me and Dakar are playing in Star Wars and rappers Delight came on the radio. And from that point, literally. From that point, beg my mother to buy the record. My, you know, I'm six years old. I see the recognition of, you know,

Sugar Hill, the label. So anytime I go to a record store, anything that said Sugar Hill was bought. And that's from six years old. Anything affiliated with Sugar Hill, which was Enjoy Records, was bought, period. I didn't have to hear it. I didn't know it. My favorite record to this day is Freedom, Furious Five, and Eighth Wonder. The second and the third record I've ever bought, still have the exact records.

So hip-hop, but I never understood. That hip hop was an actual, it's weird. It's, you know, it became a culture. It became what I was doing, what all the kids were doing. We were all breaking. We were all doing graffiti. We were all, you know, everybody wanted two turntables. You know, everybody wanted the whole elemental aspect of hip hop.

And then there was a guy on my grandmother's block. Rest in peace, his name was Messiah. And Messiah was partners with Red Alert. So I used to beatbox as a little kid. So I would go to Messiah's house and Messiah would put me on a phone with like Africa, Islam or people like that.

Look at this little kid, B-box. I had no clue what it was, but it was just all immersing. You know what I'm saying? And, you know, running around the neighborhoods looking for refrigerator boxes to break on. You know, tie it all, tying our jeans up with shoelaces and putting on Union Jack hats and getting our,

you know, the, what do you call those things, the press on, letters on our sweatshirts. Oh, wow. And spikes everywhere. So you were fashionable even way before you had a record budget to even start the year. Oh, no. I was all into the gear, everything, you know, getting your name belt. That was like, that was 100% life for us in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade. you know, that's what we did.

So can I ask what your parents did? Because you mentioned your dad went to a farm and I just really threw me for a second. Well, my father, my father, you know, my father recently passed, not even a month ago. So my father was a very incredible person. My father, he worked for the light company, Con Edison. But my father was like the weirdest hustler type dude ever.

and we didn't understand it as kids, just to give you a quick view of my pops, my pops used to push a 78 VW red and white van. It had no heat. Yeah, wait, I can see this. And no air conditioner. So in the middle of the winter, he would line the van with quilts and plastic

and put a kerosene heater in the middle. in the middle of the van Blow air about it. And it was like and would tell us y'all hold on to that so it don't tip over and he would be driving around

so and these are things that my father would do but there's a reason that I didn't know at the time so you know it's going to be a funny story that turns into a tragic story so it's one of those stories

so we would come home and it would be no phone service so my father would climb up the phone pole, do some jiggery, and be like, okay, look, if you pick up the phone, don't say nothing. If you hear people talking, just hang it up. Now, if you hear two rings, that's your grandmother, and then you pick up the phone. If you hear three rings, that's your aunt. I'm like, wow. Wow. Wow. So, but my, all is while, my pops had a job. You know, it wasn't like he was on

drugs or anything crazy. He had a job. My mother, I'll get into my mother in a second. So the reason why All these crazy things would happen. I remember one time we came home and the whole basement was ransacked, just wrecked. And we were like, so my mother thought, mind you, I used to sneak my friends into breakdance. We all had breakdance battles in my basement. So she thought that that's what I did. And apparently my father designed some pipe to plug into the wall so we would get free gas. Like we were getting free gas.

Oh, my God. Free gas. I love you, damn. So we were getting free gas for a whole year. He made some pipe. And the gas company found out broke into the house and ripped the whole thing out. So I got in trouble because my mother thought one of my friends did this. She thought that I was responsible for somebody breaking into the home.

So long story short, he was putting his money aside because his sister was dying of lupus. And he was paying for all of the. medical bills, but we didn't know that. You know, and his sister was like, you know, pretty much a surrogate mother. Her kids were like my brother and sister. So, you know, that was a weird thing. And it kind of like, that was like the strain that kind of broke my parents' marriage up because it was just like, look, man, I can't keep living like this.

And my pop's like, well, look, I'm trying to, you know. And so then on my mother's side, my mother, my grandparents on my mother's side came from a different type of situation where my grandparents on my father's side were more blue collar my my grandfather he was a newspaper publisher so he had a one of the first black newspapers in new york called the new york voice it was a new york voice in the amsterdam news and he was from he was from iowa he lived on a he grew up on an indian reservation actually native american reservation he he worked his way he was a porter then he became um a roadie for Benny Goodman. So he started rolling with Benny Goodman and he started, then he started

rocking with, I'm losing my, plays the vibes. Lionel Hampton, I'm sorry. So he started rocking with Lionel Hampton, which gave me my first drum set. So my first, my first instrument was from Lionel Hampton. But that's a whole. So that's a common quest love supreme thing. Everyone's grandfather always rolls with someone in jazz and it trickles down to the grandson. And he met my grandmother because my grandmother was a show singer. So they met on the road. And, you know, he was the type of dude that, you know, when he met her, she was real pretty. And also my grandmother was the first black Pepsi model. So he was the kind of guy that he bagged a bad chick. But then he didn't want her to do bad chick things anymore. So he brought her to Queens and gave her a bunch of babies.

And one of the babies was my mom. Wait, what's her name? What's her name? Corian Drew or Corian Davis. Okay. And, um... You're going to look at that right now in the interview? I'm sorry.

I can see that. I did want to see her. Yeah, let's all just blow out of phones and stuff. Everybody else was listening is. I'm like, okay. So, so, you know, at, you know, at that time, Pepsi... So besides that, did you have, um... I'm sorry.

Go ahead. No, you were saying... No, I can ramble, so you can ask. No, courage. No, so, so, so that, so, so, so, and oh, my, My grandfather was a detective and my grandmother was a social worker. So it was just two different types of family and they all support it in a different way. You know, so like my grandmother has, you know, both grandmothers have grand pianos in their house.

So, you know, I'm teaching myself how to play stuff. You know, my grandfather, very encouraging with music, like I said, takes me to Lionel Hampton's house. first time I've ever been to a house with a person had a butler. I was like, yo, the only person I thought would have a butler was like Bruce Wayne. And I get to this man's apartment, which looks just like the building looked just like George Jefferson's apartment. We get up there and the butler comes with a tray and I'm like, where are we at? And Mr. Hampton comes out and, you know, and he just talks to me about music and I'm talking

to him and I'm talking about Run DMC and he's looking at me like, what? How old are you at this point? nine. Shit. It had to have been like eight and nine. Talking about, you know, like, hey, man, who do you like? Grandmaster Fles and Furious Five, man. The message.

And he's like, what? Yeah, whatever, son. Yeah, you know, so he gives me the drums. And the only thing I play on the drums is planet rock. Yeah. The message, freedom, eighth wonder. And then because a lot of them had horns, I would go to school and learn how to play the trumpet.

So all I would play was just, I would just play the rap records. I knew that's all I would do it. I knew you were going to do that one. After I learned how to play freedom, I don't want to play the horn anymore. I just stop playing the trumpet. And even with the piano, I heard the different rap records or just different records in general,

and I loved just playing that. But I hated lessons. I just hated the lessons part, but, you know. So you didn't want to practice that much? I wanted to practice what I made up. I didn't want to do. do scales. I didn't want to do Fertileese. I don't want to do none of that. Fingering, all that. I hated that. And my teacher, Ms. Punter, she was the type, you know, you play and you use the wrong

finger. Pha! Fingers! That's all she would say. I would have to do, like, you know, like piano recitals. It was probably the most nervous I've ever been in my life. My legs was shake. I hated it. You mentioned Fertilease, I dubbed that the Alicia Keys' knock tune. Yeah, yeah, right? There y'all go. No shots by her. I love you, Swish. I'm only playing.

That was this one time when I seen the show it was just going to start off a little deep like all these, all these chords and the feds and it slows down. Stop it now. I'm trying to help. It was like, you know, 18 seconds in Sutton. And the audience goes wild.

We love you, Alicia. Oh, my little. You're welcome here. Come on, man. I love this shit out, Alicia. That's my home. A win is a win. A win is a win.

I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined.

And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target.

He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects.

From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make, to the players flying under the radar. This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12

and TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. So you're saying that a hip-hop, as an MC, when did you figure out this is this is my path my um i well first of all like you know just as a kid i would write and compose things but i knew i couldn't sing anything so you know rapping was like the best case scenario at that point and you know i loved melly mell i loved tila rock you know i loved and then and then somebody came to my house with a tape He said, you got to hear this guy.

He put the tape in, and it was lotty-dottie. Not the record. It was just lotty-dottie somewhere in a park. It's the routine. And then it went into Treater like a prostitute. And I was like, what did I just witness just now? And then I started getting, I started getting stuff that me and Rick are very cool, me and Doug are cool. I got stuff from Rick that he doesn't even remember.

I was like, yo, there's this one thing where I say the whole rhyme. to him and somebody's on a drum machine and he and it turns into like um indian cheat uh what's the what's the song uh davy crocky davy crocky so some of those rhymes see davy crocky so some of those old routines do you still have those tapes i definitely do i just got to find them but i definitely have them but i just got so immersed into rick and then on one end rick and then on the other end cool G rap. And because I knew G, it was just another thing. So, so then, you know, the sound emergence is like, okay, you know, I'm starting to write stories. And the funny thing is I'm writing these stories and they're just dirty, just nasty, dirty stories. And I would do these rap

battles and I would win with the stories and stuff. And it was, you know, they would call me baby Rick and this, that and the third. Or, you know, I would definitely like, I would interweave slick Rick and cool G rap. If that makes any kind of sense. I totally does. So, and then, you know, being around her being and Dana Dane came around, and Dana Dane to me was just as great as slick Rick. So I started shadowing Dana all the time.

And but I think the click was two things that happened. It was a place I wish still existed called USA United Skates of America in Queens. Every Sunday, somebody would perform. I'm talking about Eric B. and Rakim this Sunday, new edition next Sunday, L.O. KuhuJ. next Sunday. Every Sunday, light clock work. It was the greatest break dance place. If you ever watch Beach Street when they go to the Roxy in battle, just picture that with just in Queens. It was that. And that's why B Street resonates with me so much because it was something that was actually real for me.

And so we went to see Kooji Rap perform. He had only two records. It's a demo and... Talked like sex? I'm fly. Oh, don't fly. Oh, yeah. I'm Fly was the flip side. That's only two records he had. And he got up there and to see the girls that I knew in the neighborhood, can you curse on the? Yes, absolutely.

So girls in the neighborhood that wouldn't do nothing would be like, I want to fuck him now. Like hearing like the good girls that I just go to school with saying, wait, we see him every day. We used to call him Abdul. We see Abdul every day. every day and all of a sudden he came out I remember this in a Dapadan

Louis Vuitton suit I don't know what you know everybody had a Muslim Right no I just We always call him G rep I never knew what is His name is Nathaniel Okay but we back in the days he was Abdul Abdul okay um Sorry G

And and he came out in this He came out in this Louis Vuitton suit He had a Gucci link on with some medallion, a head full of jerry curls with a fade, gold teeth. But that was the thing. I can't believe we thought that was sexy.

G-Rap with the curl. And, you know, and he's rhyming on fly. Then he throws out these dollars. Oh, he made it rain. And then he threw out roses. And all these girls. That's a cane. That's how I came.

This is pre-cane. So we're like Y'all need to do that. What the fuck? And the girl, but it still didn't click. So then I asked my father, then a couple of, like in the summer, this was the winter, summertime. I'm sorry, this was later.

Second, the first thing that happened was I asked my father to take me to a slick Rick Dougie fresh concert at City College in Harlem. So my pops would take me anywhere. Anything music related, he was with it. He would take me, we get in that bus, and he was with it. He bought me turntables.

He was 1,000 percent. I'll get into him. That's so dope. But, you know, and I'm going to tell the story. I know you can relate to this one. So we get into the city college, and Doug comes on. He's doing his Dougie Fresh records.

He had a couple of records before the show. Then a magician comes out. Wait, what? A hip-hop magician. Wait, I wasn't made for that. So the magician. magician comes out and he to the beat he's like

throwing fire out his hands and all this crazy shit so I'm like all right that's cool and then the music stops and all you hear from the bag goes one two one two yo the chicks went stupid Rick saunter's out in this

fila suit and ballies his his cango and shades and he was just like yo what's up y'all and all the chicks was losing their brains I was like, that is it. I have been sanctified.

It's like Jesus touched me at that one more. I was like, fuck anything. I was going to school to be an illustrator. I was in art school. And I'm like, I'm not doing no art. I was a science major also. Fuck science. Damn.

I have been touched by the devil. There's no way. I'm not doing this for a living for the rest of my life. There's no way. Rick, she did. Lottie Dottie did the show. He bounced. Shix was losing their absolute minds.

I was like, oh, no, this got to be my life, man. I can't not do that. But the touch on my pops real quick, he, this is how my father was. I'm a heavy Prince fan. And so, you know, I'm like Prince, like I relate to the musicality of Prince, but I relate to the style of Morris Day. So I'm all, I remember. was 7779-3-11.

That's like one of my first records also that I ever bought. I bought, you know, I don't think my father let me buy Dirty Mine album because of him in this drawer. No, none of our fathers did. But, you know, like, and I remember bringing home 1999, it's like,

yo, why is there a dick on the cover? Like, what is going? You know, so, so I was doing a talent show, and I was going to be, it was a toss-up between getting my boys together and be coming in a time, or just doing it alone and being prints. So my mother had a purple raincoat. Put the purple coat on.

She had this blouse. Put the blouse on. Game bows. Put on my jeans. She had these purple suede boots. Put them boots on. I put this little thing around my hair. I had a little bush. And I'm downstairs practicing, let's go crazy.

And my father walks in the basement. What the fuck are you doing? I feel like Bill and Amir have stories like that. I'm like, I'm just a man had all that purple every

mom has purple so he was like what the fuck are you doing it's Prince man he said Prince what the fuck and I'm like you're Prince

so I show him Purple Rain he's like he said this bullshit come with me he took me to the he took me to the video store

you know there was no blockbuster he took me to the video store and he's like give me whatever you have on Jimmy Hendrix James Brown and Little Richard.

Wow. He was schooling. He made me sit down and watch every documentary on those stories. He said, now there goes prints. That's so dope. That's what you want to do. That's what you want to be. You got to know who these guys are. And so, you know, that was his thing. Wait, can we stop? For all of you that are listening to this

episode, this is why we do this episode. Parents, I want you to teach your children. Do exactly what he said. Musical punishments are great. I was, no,

they were forced to listen to John Coltrane. Yep. I wish I had musical punishments. Great. My parents knew you couldn't punish me with music. They said, go to listen to that? Then, okay, okay, yeah. Give me more of that.

No, dude. You know, listening to M2 man got me John Coltrane for a month. So I get it. Oh, wow. So, you know, it's like, even with Morris Day, he saw Morris Day, he's like, you like, what he has on?

I can take you to where exactly you can buy every one of those things. We went to Stacy Adams. I got, you know, and so my, so my, eighth grade prime. I pretty much had with Morris Day had because he took me to the actual place. So, so, you know, that's the type of, you know, Popsie was. I'm not saying my mother wasn't as encouraging, but my mom's was the type of person was like, stop doing that beat stuff with

your mouth. It's going to mess your mouth up. Your lips are going to be distorted. It's not going to look right. Tie your shoes. You're going to get flat feet. You're not going to be able to walk right. Stop moving your body like that. You're going to. You're going to get stuck that way. Your head is going to break. Don't spin on your head. It'll break it. We can't afford the hospital.

Can I ask, are you the only child? No. I had a little brother. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, okay. So the oldest kid. So, you know, so.

And that was cool because I, you know, I had a little brother and my little cousins. If I couldn't get like a record or whatever, I were like, look, my brother's three. Tell them you want. Funk you right on up. Tell them you want Super rhymes Super what You know

So my brother would go ask for super rhymes While I went and got These are the brakes Right right You know what I'm saying So so That was how you built a collection Oh yeah

And then you know Then we would do like We were to type We were like the double trouble Or something We'd come out We got a show for you And then we put on the brakes

And we would perform the breaks For you know For dinner and stuff like that So we were those kids And yeah You know So that, back to your question, because I went around it, that slick rig moment, that Koogee rap moment was like, all right, yeah, this is. Okay, so how far was it in the future until you were on stage for the first time doing your show?

Pre-deal? Like, did you do high school content? No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't. Well, you got your deal at 16, right? Yeah, so, so. I thought that was marketing. You were really 16 when you did?

I got my deal at 16. By the time, boy, genius came out. I was about to be 17. But I always did shows. Like, you know, I hate saying this in front of you, but, you know, I used to kill the drums, man. Seriously, I was like all my thing. So my thing, I used to be good enough to where my school would pimp me out.

You rhyme and drum at the same time? Sometimes I would. Dude, that would have been such a dope marketing angle for you. What are you saying Anderson Pock is the only person that has ever done that. Don Hill. No, what I'm saying is. That was a joke, y'all. When I was a kid, when I was a kid, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, and they got wind that I, did I play like that?

It would be just like showtime at Kwame's Apollo. They would just say, okay, today you're going to the fourth grade class and you're going to play the drums for them. And they would set up a drum and I'll just play Planet Rock. Boy, you seem to get out of the fourth period. Yeah, yeah. You know, so, you know, me performing, that was like, that's what I love to do. So, you know, when it time, when it was time to rhyme, like literally the teacher. would be like, look, we're going to roller skating today.

And there's going to be a DJ and a microphone. Kwame, don't rap. That would be the prerequisite. And this is, you know, six, seventh grade. So, you know, the first time I was really like serious, serious is that same place USA. There was a rap contest every month or something. And so the winner would get to go on tour

to all the other USA. It was probably four more, like one in Rhode Island, one in Boston. There was a Philly one. Yes, there was. We had them in Indiana too. And, you know, so it was like an East Coast thing. And I was like, oh my God, I'm going to talk. So just to give you a, the people in this contest was myself.

I won one. Master Ace won the one before that. Father MC won the one before that. I can't remember. Super Love Cascanova Rudd won the one before that. So it was all, it was four of us that would be. out doing these USA shows. You know, so say if it was the month that I was in my competition,

the special guest would be Superlover C., Father MC, or Master Ace. You know, but we all, you know, we all got cool pretty much from that experience. And then, you know, Sue got, they got their deal first, and then, you know, Ace got his thing with the Jews crew, you know, Father MC, he came after me. But no one got deal.

deals per se from it, but that was the performing experience. Like the biggest, the most coveted thing that I have is the trophy from that USA. It's in my case. I still have it. It's broken. It looks like a piece of garbage. But, you know, no one will know what it was, but you know,

they'd be like, why is this thing sitting there? You got all these plaques. Why is it sitting right? No, man, that's the, my first award. What would you perform at that time? Story rhymes. Okay. So it was your own material.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I had a beatbox. Yeah, I was going to say, did you have a foil to do music for you? Yeah, I had the beatbox. And then, you should have drum and rind at the same way? I used to use this doctor rhythm drummers. Oh, wow. I would make a beat.

And, you know, if the beatbox wouldn't come or I would have the doctor rhythm, whatever the beat was, and then he would beat on top of it. And then, you know, and then I would rhyme. But it was mainly like story, nasty, dirty story. rhymes that get people to go, oh, every other line. That a 16-year-old shouldn't be saying? Yeah, and then to the point where I remember my father and mother found one of the rhymes. And this is after they split up.

Well, they find the storybook. Yeah, so they find a round that fell out. And it was just like, pussy bitch, fuck, ho, you know, all this stuff. And, you know, being like, trying to be like slick rig, you know, always has like a song that is attached to it. You know, I fucked it so good. She was like, Dale, Dale. So, so. Or some old bird background reference or something like that.

No, but mine was the actual Deo. Oh, Deo. So my father was like, my mother and father sat me down. And this is, I can remember it so vividly because they were split up for a while. And this was the one time they were together. And they sat me down and said, would you say this? My mother was like, would you say this? to me? Like, no. Would you say it to your grandmother? No. And we're in my grandmother's house.

Get your grandmother right now and read this rhyme to your grandmother. What? What are they trying to? Oh. So my grandma's like, what's going on? She's like, sit down. Listen to your grandson. I get ready. The bitch was sitting on my lap and I began to rap. Whatever the rhyme was. And my grandmother was like, she just got up and walked away oh man let's hear her for

hip hop humiliation punishment yeah always oh man triple h that's weird I got it

for owning it he got it he got it right you know did you so to get a record deal

did you finally feel like vindicated like okay now this this is paid off

well before before I get that my rap name, that was the big issue. Oh, what would? My rap name was Sweet Daddy, Jazzy K, GQ. That was your whole name? The whole thing?

Whole name. Sweet Daddy, Jazzy K. GQ. Everyone's first name is a driver. Where was your first rap name Fonte before Little Brother Fonte? It was psychological. That's not even that bad. But no, but the real comedy came into way. It spelled it. You already know.

It was the 90s. But I'm sure it was awesome. P-S-Y-K-A-L-G-I-K-A-L with a question mark at the end. And it was in all cats. Was it a backwards question mark? Yeah. We kid, yeah. It was, yeah, it was horrible.

Yeah, I remember, man, it was like being in the studio one time and Dana, Dana was like, look, man, I don't know how to tell you this, but that's the stupidest name I've ever heard of him. And I looked up to Dana so much, so I was like heartbroken. I was like, for real, man. He's like, yo, I don't know anybody with that. the name Kwame. I don't know anybody with that name. Just use your name. And Saul, which was weird, it was in the next room going, yeah, that's a stupid-ass name. You know, so you're like, so Saul and Dana are killing me. And Saul is like, you know, we know what you're doing.

We know when we go away, you come in here and you steal the drum machines and you make this music and everything. You're like a little, little boy genius. Why don't you just call yourself, Kwame, the damn boy genius? something, not sweet daddy, jazzy K. I'm like, and that's how the whole thing started. Honestly, man, like really, like you were one of the first nerds. Yeah, the first nerds. Like when I bought the boy genius, I mean, that album came out.

I was like 10, I think. And seeing, you know, Kwame, but then reading the credits and seeing your name was Kwame Holland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was one of the early times I saw. I was like, man, I could just be Fonte. I could just rap under my name. You were the first cast that inspired me to do that. You were the first hip-hop nerd.

Yeah. So that's probably what it was. Okay, so there's an associate of yours that I've been dying to interview. And I really don't know that much about him. Okay. Can you speak of one of my hip-hop idols as a producer? All right. Herbie?

Herbie. Yeah, please. Herbie is the most elusive man on the planet. You do not know a country he did. Where is he now? It could be anywhere. Literally, he's the male Carmen San Diego. Like, I can text Herbie.

Where are you? I'm in Haiti. Where are you? I'm in France. But the last time he spoke to him, he was where? Miami. Okay. That's one of my dream.

My personal top five interview goals is definitely Herbie Lovell. Yeah, I want it. Yeah, I wanted Herbie too. Herbie, I'm telling you, Herbie is like to run into her. It's just, you'll run into Herbie in the weirdest places. Like, for example, you know, I keep in touch with, you know, my old crew with Salt and Pepper Kid and Play, Dana Dane, Sweet Tea. And so most of us still keep in touch in some way, shape, or form. So it'll be like, one, it was like sometime last year, I'm talking to play.

He's in L.A. I'm in New York, and we're talking on the phone. And we're like, man, we should find Herbie and throw him a dinner, an appreciation dinner. I was like, yeah, if you can find him. It's like, everybody has his number, but you just got to find him. And I swear to you, like 45 minutes later, Play calls me up, yo, I'm walking down the fucking block, and here goes Herbie, and he puts Herbie on the phone.

What? And then I talked to Herbie for a minute, play talked to him for a minute, and then nobody sees him again after that. Just some, it's, like, random. So I have not physically seen Herbie. The last time I physically saw him was when VH1 was doing these hip-hop honors,

and they were honoring salt and pepper and we were going down the step and repeat and Herbie wasn't invited but Herbie was in the press line with a camera crew and a microphone that said H-TV He was like, yo, you want to do an interview? I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Wait a minute, I was there.

He was there and he said, I own a TV station. So that sounds about right. I'm doing, I'm going to do, I'm doing interviews. I was like, are you coming inside? I ain't going in there. It's crazy. This is, let me, Herbie is, let me get you out to understand Herbie.

Herbie's the type of guy. He is the template for any ballout producer. He is the template. Like when I say the template, Puff, Germain, used to shadow Herbie all the time. You know, and Herbie's the only person. I've literally, like Herbie would pick me up. One time, like, we were just hanging out.

This is like in the mid-90s. We reconnected and we would just hang out every day for some stupid stuff. Let's go get White Castle. Let's do this. Let's do it. And every single day, a different brand-new car would pick me up. It would be a hummer.

It would be whatever was hot at the time. But I've never met a person with it. 40 cars. Like literally. You mean sarcastic. No, I'm being literal. I've been in a garage that a friend of ours owned and I was like 9-11s, Benz's, and I'm like, who?

He said, oh, this is where Herbie stores all his cars. But then go to L.A. and see the same amount of cars. Same amount of cars in L.A. You know, it was, then go to Miami and see the same. I was like, what are you doing? man. But he was not, but when I say that, it wasn't like he was the type of person that would super blow his money. He would just come up on, I don't know how he did it. And he made, you got to understand, salt and pepper has sold a lot of records. More than any female

rapper, and they never want to say this. But like, those albums sold five, six, seven million copies and Herbie wrote all the rhymes. And did the, did all the music. So you're getting 100% and you're getting that royalty. That's a lot of money. And then you have push. It pushes now a commercial song. So it's like, and he's the only producer that I know that was able to have say, because there was some acts that people just never heard of anymore or heard of, period. But he would have 10 separate acts with 10

separate deals commanding 10 budgets at the same time. It's like the original risen. Yeah. You know, and, and I think that the one thing that I, you know, I've always respected, and I, he puts the battery in my back as a producer.

You know, I've always respected him as a producer. A lot of people think he produced my stuff, and that's false. He never did. But, um, as a producer, I had to give him so much respect for doing that, but I never understood why it never left his camp.

It was a secret, right? I thought it was a secret. Why didn't you produce a record for Madonna? You know, why didn't you produce a record for, I remember he did a remix for REM one time, and we thought that was a big deal. But it never went past that, but did it really have to?

Because he had his own. and I never understood why if you were a captain of a ship why not make everybody be on a record together everybody was so about themselves including me that we never figured that switch out you know what I'm saying? Yon each other's videos like that's how you guys were down with each other

because on your debut my god Tariq lost. his mind when he first saw it's the man we all know and love because he was trying to describe, I didn't have MTV in my part of town, so basically

Tariq would record it for me. And then give me the tape on Monday. So he would describe it to me. And he was just like, yo, there's this video, Malcolm Jamar Warner's in it. Yeah. Kid and plays in it. And he's reenacting the entire video. Like, so Tariq, I had

already from And he starts with the Sesame Street thing. One of these kids is doing this own thing. He's like, he's like, he basically said it was like a cross between because like I was like, you know, the premise of Class Act, the movie. That was being too much. I was the nerd that new break beats. It was Duncan Pendery.

Yes. I got, I got, I got, I got, I have a great class act story. And he was Blade Brown. I want to hear it, please. I'm in Class Act. No. You know this. You would what get it was sleeping, right?

No, I got. It was the worst. best experience in my life. So I was supposed to be Dougie Doug's character. Oh. I got the role. I actually got the role. I flew to L.A. to start shooting.

And play goes, what are you doing here? I'm here to work. He's no, you're not. He, we wanted him. So, so they, they chose Dougie Doug, which was a good choice. He's a comedian.

I'm so not. So that was cool. Kid and Play chose Dougie Dougie. Yes. So they, they lobbied for him. And, and, So they said, had no idea that I even tried out.

So they said, well, we'll write a part for you. So they wrote a part called Squirrely Kid. Yeah. I had to wear my own clothes. I wore my propeller hat. And the premise was the bully guy. I'm tired of him bullying me. So I pull out of 38, a real 38.

You remember? And he's supposed to knock the 38 out my hand, pick me up, throw me out the winter. So he does that. So in rehearsal, the original, ah. Yeah, instead of him knocking the gun, he was supposed to knock the gun this way out. He does it to where the gun comes this way,

and it busts the whole side of my face up. Oh, that big dude. Like, the blood everywhere. Everything was crazy. So they had to shoot me from one side. And then this random stunt guy was the dude they threw out the window. But I was like, you know, it's a mistake. a mistake. They thought I was going to sue the movie

company. I was just so hyped to be in a movie. I was like, whatever. And then, you know, had a busted lip for like two weeks and then kept it pushing. And so, you know, but, you know, that was an example of how you could be in the same crew, but yet you're still doing your

thing. You know, because kindergarten play should allow me for me to be in the movie a little bit more. I could say that. I'm not, I'm not bitter about And we've talked about it. So it's nothing against them. They were on a path that they wanted to be on. But I can't understand like why wouldn't Salt and Pepper be to Sheena Arnold and, I mean, Tisha Campbell

and A.J. Sondon. That would have been dope. Wow. Why wouldn't that be Salt and Pepper? Well, wait, because Herbie did that. Oh. But I do know that story. That story was that movie was made for...

Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince? No, uh-uh. It was originally written for Groove Beat, chill but groove be chill wasn't big enough they didn't think that was going to be big enough to carry a movie so then it was submitted to Jeff and Prince and I don't know what that

politics was the fact okay so real quick we're talking about house party because you're only house party yeah you remember when Will and Jeff had their own Freddy song A Nightmare of Mine Street Yeah yeah well New Line Cinema had already designated Who's the most popular rap group out there

Yeah The Fat Boys. So basically Will and Jeff Are you ready for you ready? Will and Jeff have basically messed up the fat boys' nightmare theme because their shit was way bigger than theirs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So New Line Cinema tried to sue Will and Jeff. Yes, yep. And then this movie comes up because the Huddlin brothers really want Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince based on parents just don't understand. Yeah. And so a bunch of red tape, whatever,

You know, they're like, no, they're trying to sue us anyway for a nightmare. We don't want New Line Cinema. So then they went to get and play. Yeah. So what I'm talking about with Groo Be Chill is pre all of that. It's the inception writing a script. And with them in mind, I think it was like Groovy, Groovey Chill and Finescence and Quince or something like that.

That was like the inception of the script from what I was told. You know, I could be wrong. So, you know, so but just imagine it was a sort of. Pepper Kid and Play Movie or, you know, and another thing with House Party, that was my other movie failure, I guess, I was, I went to L.A. I went to live in L.A. to be in House Party. You know, Herbie gassed me up, you can make your second album. You can make music for the movie. And you below? Yeah. And then I get to the set. There's nothing for me to do. But yet, if you look at the movie, there's like 10 Kwame lookalikes.

the house part. Oh yeah because T and TTC dancing and all the stuff and I'm like bumping the table. So I couldn't have done that. Like really? Y'all couldn't say okay homie you can go I can I can dance and you know I could have dance well enough for the movie

so it was things like that even if y'all were family are you saying that there was this in-house competition with this is my do d'Ain like go get your don't use my platform to so they couldn't see the bigger picture I think the biggest picture was

Salt and Pepper and Salt and Pepper's platform allowed everybody else to be on a platform. For example, that NWA movie that everybody saw straight out of Compton, that tour that they were on,

that was me, NWA, E, E, Cid and Play, Salt and Pepper. You were there that night? I was on that tour. Yeah. So, but, but,

That took place because the power of salt and pepper, it was like, well, if you want salt and pepper on this tour, you got to take Kwame and kid and play. But it was cool, you know, and the cool thing was, that's how my record sales grew, because in the beginning of the tour, they had no idea who the hell I was. By the end of the tour, you know, things were popping.

And that tour, honestly, the tour was only two weeks, a week and a half. It wasn't even... It was supposed to be two weeks or got cut short. No, no, that was it. But two weeks to a kid that's doing something they've never done before on tour. And it was so dope because it was like, you know, the ordinances, you know, no cursing, no, you know, all these ordinances. So we would do things like, all right, easy, we're coming to our dress. We would all do things together.

If anybody knows about tour, sometimes the closing acts always have the louder music, always have the better everything. But they did not want to do it. had an equal sound, everybody at equal stage, free to roam. But the plan was, okay, look, this is how we're going to do. Kwame, you're going to go on, and then you're going to run off, and then Easy's going to come on. Easy's going to say all types of craziness. NWA's going to come in. We're going to say all types of craziness.

And on the last song, Kid and Play, run on stage. easy and them are going to jump in the crowd and run out straight out the arena and this is 30,000 20,000 seat arenas every night so that's to avoid that was we were playing trickery on the local police

we couldn't and it got to the point because of fuck the police it got to the point that we all no hotel within that city would accept us so we would have to go to outlying cities and change our names and it got even worse

imagine a 30,000 cedar no security because all the local cops boycotted. No, all cops boycotted so they're like, look, y'all want to say fuck us, fuck y'all, hope y'all die in there. So we would have to get on stage and be like,

look, it was like local security guards with like yellow shirts and shit and we would have to be like, look, they want us to kill ourselves tonight so what are y'all going to do we know there's gangs in here we know we know we know

there's all types of people in here but they want us to die you know P.E. was on some of the show so you know Chuck would get in and say what he had to say I was about to say to everybody speak their peace like NWA too they speak their peace before they start but but we it was so cool because the cleaner

acts did pick up for the for the quote unquote dirtier acts. You know, too short was on the show. So whoever dirty comes on has a clean guy got to come on right after that. So it was never. Just to make you forget, that's the men and black flashy band trick.

But it was never, it was never, it was never a thing where it was like, I sold this many records, so I'm going on last or anything. It was nothing like that because we understood it was us against them at this point. So we're on this, We're on this crazy tour. And, you know, probably the best two weeks of my life.

I can't imagine an NWA and Kitten Play Tour. Right. Like, I mean, I mean, it makes sense, but because hip hop got so divided. Yeah, that was before. By the early 90s. Yeah, yeah. Like, what about the fans who just came to see the good and fans who just came to see the. There was no such thing.

The fame. People would have to be like the Roots and Future performing now. You know what I mean? Right. But see, you got to, you got to think about it. Was there any nervousness over territory? So, like, if you were, I mean, you could be hitting in New York, you know. But if you played- It happened for NW like that.

By the time we reached, we did the spectrum in Philly. Yeah. It was cool. But once we went past Philly, kind of all bets was off a little bit for, well, at least too short. NWA was a different story. But too short, like, Dumbrake has never really reached the East Coast. All right. But anywhere pre-Filly from L.A. up to D.C., Virginia,

Too Short was the first rapper I've ever seen, get on stage, and never say a word. 30,000 people knew every line to every song. And at the end of the show, what's my favorite word? Bitch! And that was the end of the show. A win is a win. A win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying.

Yep. That's me, Clifford Taylor the fourth. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast, it's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to the Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest, the director. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make, to the players flying under the radar.

This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and Tate. TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Okay. Now, oh God. Now I got

someone that has been in front of 30,000 people during the classic hip-hop era. My version of touring is very blue-collar. Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, you've seen us, you know, granola cereal and oatmeal. Dave Matthews playing on the

Dave Matthews playing on the PA system in between acts. Give me just give me life on tour in 1989. What's going on? Let me know everything.

From women on down, it's like, I'll give you, like my stories, man, I'm telling you these things are crazy. Like, it'll be things like, you pull up to a city. The reason why we were doing arenas

because rap was so, rap was like I don't know if anybody's ever experienced a Mexican act that comes to like say Madison Square Garden or something like that they don't because it's so compartmentalized everybody just goes to one place to see it

right there were no clubs you know there was no club dates or anything it was just like all right there's these rappers how do we get everybody who likes rap in one place at one time do the basketball arena you know so it was like that so we would get to town and it would be things like just personal experience like I would pull in

and there will be a girl standing in front of the hotel where's Carmel like who's Carmel? You know Carmel that we were in the Polka Dodds got the streets out where's Carmel and ready to set that country pussy out

and it's literally literally it'll be like It'll be something weird. My boy would be like, he's in the back of that bus. And by the time she got to the back of the bus, she was butt naked. Like 100% butt naked big, 300 pounds. I want Carmell where he at right now. And you see it.

And it would be like, it would be weird things like that. Or I'll give you a Milwaukee story. So the smaller obscure towns are the more craziest. Yeah. Cali. New, Madison, Wisconsin. The craziest places on the... Calamazoo.

Hello, Bill Johnson. How are you? Let it be words me about my Kalamazoo Michigan references. Go ahead. So, like, in Milwaukee, imagine, like, you know, we weren't in the fly hotels. We didn't get boutique hotels or anything.

We were in holiday ends in best westerns or whatever. So the only people that could even match up with rappers at the time were drug dealers where you have like say you'll come to a say a Root Show you'll be have actors there you'll have athletes there at this time

we weren't necessarily cool to like Michael Jordan would never show a better rap show Malcolm Jamar Warner would yeah but he was our age so it doesn't count but Michael George somebody like a baseball player a basketball player an actor for the most part

the biggest person that would ever show up to anything would be Bobby Brown and Mike Tyson. So, you know, those guys would be the ones that would run with us. But anybody else, we were like, those nasty-ass rappers, they had the huddlems in it. Dorian Haywood. Yeah. Dorian Haywood. So, so, so we weren't ever any, in anything posh. So we would get to, like, say the holiday inn. And the only people that would be around us were the local drug dealers. So, you know, like, we knew them all. We were friends with them all. So those are, all of them. All of them. All of them, Jay Prince.

Everybody, you just run down the line. Whoever was hot at the time was popping. Everybody who was popping and they were young enough to like rap. You know Jay Prince? Very well. But see. I had silence. But that's when we go to Houston.

That's who took care of everybody. You know, that's not. See, I don't want to stay. This is the, before I get into the story, I don't understand the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. flashing lights over the name J Prince. Right. I don't personally understand it. Why don't you understand?

Because he was just, homie when we got to, he had the Rolex hookup. He had the club hook up. He had the girl hook up. He would show, you know, Scarface. He was the man in Houston.

Yeah, Scarface would come. He would be at every show. Before he was Scarface. Scarface and Bushwick Bill, we would know them because they had a laminate. They used to rock laminates from every single show. that ever happened in Houston ever.

They would always be in, you know, Dana used to live with Jay Prince. So, you know, I don't. Dana Dayne is? Yeah. So, you know, and Dana would call it, yo man, this dude got an elevator in his house. Like, for real.

So, so, you know, and all we knew was Jay Prince had rap a lot records and, you know, like, okay. So I don't, I personally don't understand. Everyone's fear of Jay Prince? Yeah, I don't. Well, that's good that you don't, because it might be a little real.

It might be so. And it's maybe I don't. That's been fed very well. Yeah, no, no, I'm saying as maybe my lack of, my, my ignorance in research, I can only go, I can always, you know, go back and see, okay, what do I. Maybe you was a dude that everybody loved. No, but it was just never a situation. You never had to check in with anybody when you got to a certain time.

You never, it was just everybody. So I'm saying the people that. So to add on to that, or ask on to that. when did you lose that feeling? Like when did hip hop suddenly become a foreign city to you? Like, shit, wait, what's going on here? I wanted to tell my Milwaukee story. Oh, no, no, no, no.

No, no. But that's second. So Milwaukee, so we're all in this holiday end, and there's nothing but the local hustlers in the hotel with us. So imagine you have one side of a hall and all the rooms are connected. So it's my room here. Tasha who sings only you here Tapp Money here

You know everybody and all of and how we usually do it Tour bus leaves at 6 in the morning If you missed the bus you left And so flavor flavor Somebody will always be on our bus Because they would always miss But we have these connecting rooms And so at some point

All of us could be in one room And the other four rooms could be empty So I'm in my room packing Tasha's in one of the rules She comes back to my room. She goes back to her room and she starts crying. What's happening? I bought this brand new Louis Vuitton bag and my shit is gone.

Like who could have gotten into your room? But basically somebody went into one room and started robbing room. So the hotel manager brings her license up. They found the bag and the license on the ground in the lobby. So they bring it back up. She puts the bag away. goes like a dumb ass goes into another room they come back into her room

steal the bag again oh shit so we're like all right you gotta find this bag she's hysterical her mother gave her this bag blah blah blah so

we start knocking on every door mind you there was a guy that would come knocking on the way man we're the party at man we're the party at so he was the scout you know nobody's paying attention so we're knocking on the doors and we open one door and I see the scout dude and I'm like yo man you was in my room

and so little me I'm popping shit he don't know that I got like 20 dudes in the hallway behind me so I bus open the door and her bag is hanging on the door on the side door so I said you got my shit you came in my room you violate them

doing all this New York shit he's like man you better back up I said if anybody comes to me and punch him in the face So one guy comes up, boop, knock him. And then all I hear, they had a sweet. All I hear is, there you go. I kid you not. Like seven dudes came out of this back bedroom with guns.

But this is the click. Speedos on. Wait, what? Speedos. Cowboy boots. Oh, God. And the cowboy. boy hat and sub-automatic machine guns.

Oh. Oh, male review or something? Yeah, I'm like, you got to be rob by chicken down. I was like, what? Yo. Milwaukee, baby. You ever see that gift where Homer Simpson just backs away? Yeah, yeah.

The Irish exit. Yo, I was like, whew. But it was things like that that would always, besides the girl, it was like so many weird girl stories, like girls were, it'll be like, pulling up and doing an in-store when there were a record stores to do in-stores at

and you do the in-store and it was like little kids being in little girls are being there and then like two hours later you get a knock on the door and this grown woman to show up to the room and this nice dress

and like yeah I found out you were here and I'm gonna and then you know you're like 17 you're ready to get in and then she goes you know you don't remember me I was the girl you met at the in The 12-year-old. She's like, wait, what? It was like a whole lot of it.

And it was like, yeah, I stole my mom's, she worked nice and she don't know. I took her dress, blah, blah, blah. Like, we got to get you home. Backstage. You know what. It was like, it was so crazy. It was, and it started to be known that these young girls were doing it or it would, and I don't know, it might happen still like this today,

but it'll be things where girls are being in the room. And you hear. husbands just knocking on every door crying where's my wife? I got to fight every night to prove my love. Yeah, exactly. Or it'll be things like and this was the crazy thing. Whole moms would bring their daughters and like because the mom wanted to meet

say LL, the daughter wanted to meet me so the mom would be like, I'm going to just leave her here in the room with you, I'm going to go meet LL. You know, it was stuff like that. or the mom wanted to meet Alby Shore, Bobby Brown or Keith Sweat. Train up a hole in the way it should do. And then the worst, then the craziest thing,

you know, because back then, music literally at this point before 90, I say pre-92, music was just, hot music was hot music and anybody went on tour with anybody. You would have the whole sheriff's department. They'd know somebody was in town, the whole sheriff's department would show up at the hotel

knock on every door and check ID. And there's been many, especially roadies, many roadies arrested for suspicion of statutory rape because they would have a girl in the room. The girl would be 14. The rodeo would be 20-something. They would check ID. The girl wouldn't have any ID.

So the girl would have to call the parents. The parents was superheated at the fact that this random guy from Bushwick or whatever is with the. their daughter, you know, it was crazy stuff like that. You know, nobody was smart in any sense of the world. It was just like... It's like Peabobobody Brown. Pre-Bobby Brown.

No, this is... Pre-Bobody. This is Bobby Brown. This is Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown was... This was during the same time. This was all at the same time. I feel like during that period, that's when it shut down.

Like, in the mid-90s, that's when it got shut. Between Bobby Brown and Luke, Luke, kind of shut it all that. I feel like the arrival of death row, Luke, really... Yeah. The ID thing. Yeah. So, so, but, but to your question about, um, yeah, I know, I know women, I know women.

Who wasn't? I mean, you know, it was, but, but see, the thing is it wasn't, we look at it as a certain way now. Mm-hmm. But I think back then, it was just, I want to liken it to Woodstock. You know how everybody whiled out in Woodstock? Yeah. And no one put, you know, like there was sex on the lawn and in the mud and all that.

But nobody said, oh, that was a whole doing it. You know, nobody did that. It was just like people doing sex and drugs. So in the 80s, I would say, I would think from MellyMell's time all the way up to say 91, 92, there was no definition of it. It was just kids gone wild. It was literally that. Because then after that, then the label started and freakniks start to come.

and then all this crazy stuff, then things started to have an ugly face to a lot of things that were going on. But I think to answer your question, when I think the end of, I would say an era, a golden era, I would say with death row,

with NWA, honestly, with the beginning of bad boy, with that, it started, to put things in boxes. And rappers, we definitely all wore our costumes at the time, but now there were designated costumes that you had to wear. If you were from the East Coast, you had to look like this

and you had to rap like this. If you were from the West Coast, you had to look and rap like this. And MTV came into full stream. Like every neighborhood started to have that case. now and your MTV Vaps is now really at its height and that was the imagery that was pushed across the world. So that's why a lot of people think rap starts with Tupac and Biggie because at that point is where it turned into a corporate hydra and and I don't think people understood what they were falling into because it was now

now there was money you know think about it I got a Sprite commercial yeah you understand what a top artist gets on tour right Quest so the top the top pay for somebody in 1989 1990 was maybe I remember Salt and Pepper was getting 22,000

a show you know and that was like oh shit 20 thousand but in 1989 that was major yeah no that sounds great no that's why I was listening MC Hammer was probably the top and he was at 23 to 25 that's crazy a good a good rapper

like if you're really popping and you had like maybe a gold out because like selling gold is now the equivalent of like two times platinum movie so if you had a gold to a platinum album you can probably get 12 to 15,000 was Carol Lewis your agent no or idol makers right well no no I see a Mark Mark um

Mark at ICM was my agent at the time. But there were several agencies that we would just bounce from. There was all these weird little agencies. But, you know, so the money wasn't, you know, the hottest. You know, I was pushing a Volkswagen. You know, that was like the hottest whip, you know. And, you know, the only person that had like a super ill car besides Herbie, Eric B for some reason pulled out of Rolls Royce one day.

And everybody was like, how to hell. You get a Rolls Royce. How the hell? It was an old one, but it was like, how did you get that? Oh, I think we do. You know. Right. To no one's surprise.

No, no, no. You would be surprised. No. And I think that, I think that the glow of hip-hop and being a rapper and being in hip-hop at the time was a full-body experience. So people just acted that way. then once 92-93 came along and you started following the mega trends, it just turned everything into a big money game.

People made a lot of money. Ladies and gentlemen, I hate to do this to you, but you're going to have to wait for part two with our interview with Kwame on Quest Love Supreme in which he gets into it about the Biggie situation and produce him for a lot of hip-hop noodle. So we'll see you on the next year round. Oh, Quest Love Supreme, only on Pandora.

Sorry. See you. Quest Love Supreme is a production of I-Heart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from I-Hart Radio, visit the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. A win is a win.

A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the Fourth. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it.

Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This week on the Sports. Sports Sliced podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar, this is the insight you won't hear anywhere else.

If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.