The Questlove Show - Questlove Supreme: Sophia Chang

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

Sophia Chang tells her story of being an Asian woman working behind-the-scenes in hip-hop, and why she’s the “Baddest Bitch In The Room”. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 4th. 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 Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clivert Show on the I-Hard 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 IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, all. 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 understand. 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. Questlove Supreme is a production of Iheart Radio. Suprema. Suprema Roll Car. Suprema. Subrima, Suprima, Roca.

Suprema, Sucrema, Sucrema Roleca. Suprema, Sucrema, Sucrema. Suprema Roll Call. Quest Loving crew? Yeah. Next hour you stuck with. Yeah.

Sophia Chain. Yeah. Ain't nothing to. With. Oh, C. Suprema, Suprema, Roe car.

Suprema, Subrama, Roll Call. My name is Sugar. Yeah. Good afternoon. Yeah. From the baddest.

Yeah. Jew in this room. Roll car. Whatever. Suprema. Suprema. Suprema. Suprema.

Superma. Roe. Suprema, sub, Suprema, roll call. It's lair, yeah. And the baddest bitch. Yeah. You know why me and Sophia bad? Why?

Because we both speak French. Roll call. Suprema. I want to approve for that. Suprema, role call. Suprema, sub, sub, supremac. My name's boss Bill. Yeah.

If you're wondering who, who? Yeah. On my grind to be, yeah. The baddest Bill in the room. Roll call. Suprema. Subrima. Suck.

Suprema Roca Suprema So, Suprema Rollcar My name is Sophia Yeah And I'm the baddest bitch in the room Yeah And I think it's really important

Yeah That you understand it's Rope I'm not I'm not allowed to Curse because I was going to Curse

Supreme A Rollca You're doing a dissertation here I'm allowed me Suprema Roca Suprema Subima Roca Subima Roca Wait, is this a first for QLS?

Were you about to give a dissertation? I was about to curse. You can do that. You're allowed to. Come, I'm allowed to curse. Yes, yes. Oh, okay, good to know, because you, sound effects for you.

That was beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Questlove Supreme. I'm your emperor, Questlove. Emperor? Yeah. With me today is my Supreme team. We have Blue Belt expert Shogun Sugar Steve.

Yeah. And we got a. Our red belt twin-tonged sword, Sinci, Laia, over here. And, of course, the man who runs it all keeps us in line, Black Belt, Boss Bill. Where's my kilot tape at? All right, so for me, a lot of my favorite episodes that we do at Quest Love Supreme and that we conduct, my favorite ones are always the behind-the-scenes episodes

in which we kind of poke and prod and dissect the process from the perspective of the person who's usually behind the scenes. You know, the person that keeps the wheels turning behind the scenes, not necessarily in front of the camera or on the microphone. So I would say that Sophia Chang is definitely a legend in these circles for the past 30-plus years. She's been near and dear to the soundtracks of our lives, especially that of the Shaolin variety.

Her expertise and knowledge was key in the prime days of keeping the Wu-Tang caravan going, be it A&R, managing building labels, and management. uh sophia chang and her legendary Gucci fedora which is actually not here today it's there but i have the i have the headphones on okay i was about to say that that's your trademark she's basically seen it all now she's ready to share her story her exclusive audible memoir entitled the baddest bitch in the room navigates and takes you on a journey through one of the most creative periods of music timeline ladies and gentlemen please welcome our guests on quest love supreme sophia chang yes Yay, thank you.

Very glad to see you today. So happy to be here. Thank you. I'm kind of jealous. Like, you're killing it with the merch. Yeah. Like, I really spy books and I think that I just made like one t-shirt. Like, yeah, I've been kind of scheming on this jacket even though, you know, I'm not the badest bitch in the room.

Yeah, Audible made me this jacket. They may be another one, too, that I haven't even worn yet. Thank you, Audible. I got to talk to Audible. There you go. Let's talk to Audible. Can I get a jacket? See what is that on the back?

It says, what, mother lover? Hustler warrior Indeed. Mother love a hustler warrior I'll fucking right I'll see that Well I'll start at the top asking Why did you feel

At this point in your career Now is the time to share your story And what do you think we can learn from your journey So Amir I'm sure you were told this for years too For years people said to me You gotta write a book You got to write a book

You know because of our proximity to what we do You're actually an artist I was artist approximate. And I just couldn't wrap myself around how that was not an exercise in narcissism. And, you know, what am I going to do? Talk about, oh, I hung out here. I did this. And I was, that's not interesting to me.

But when I started working at Universal in 2014 and I took on a number of mentees, like you, Bill, straight out of college, 22, right? And they were all women. And I understood that my vast and varied experience, particularly as a working mother, as a working single mother, could be instructive. Then I was like, okay, if I can be a. of service to people, then I'll step into the spotlight. But before that, I simply wasn't interested. So you just wanted to strictly stay behind the scenes? I did.

I did. I was all, you know, don't look at the one behind the curtain. I skirted the red carpet. I never wanted to be in the interviews. I never wanted any of that. And now, you know, I'm going to be everywhere. But in terms of what people can glean from my memoir, I mean, what I say is that my memoir is for anybody who ever felt undervalued, underheard, underseen. Anybody who said yes in the face of so

many knows. Right. You know, anybody who kind of pushed up against whatever confines were placed on them and any boxes that were placed on them and anybody who dared to tell their story. And the lessons that I hope people can glean is that I think that what you will gather is that I'm pretty fearless. Now, granted, I have always had a middle-class safety net, so it gives you a privilege to be a little bit more fearless than others. But I got fired. I got hired. I quit many, many times over my, you know, my LinkedIn profile is like reading Warren Peace. It's, you know, it's just a matter of, I think it's really important to pursue your passion. And for first-gen Asian immigrants, that is really not something that we're taught.

do, right? To pursue your passion? Exactly. We are so, it is so narrowly prescribed. Right. Lawyer, doctor, scholar, engineer, right? And if you want to stray from this path, it's very, very difficult. And I understand it now as a mother, but also looking at my parents and thinking of the sacrifices that they made as immigrants, leaving everything they knew behind and coming to Canada, in my case, they don't really want to hear me say, I want to be a sculptor, right? Because in their mind, they're like, well, we didn't leave everything we know and we love, so that you could go do this profession that we see as kind of unsafe in a way, right? Are you the only child or do you have siblings?

I have an older brother. I have an older brother. Did he follow the family mode? He did. He did, but he's also extremely passionate about it. My brother is He'sauch Chang. He's a tenured English professor at Vassar. He's the 10 smartest people I know, and that's his passion. So French lit was my passion until I heard the message. And I went, right? Hold on a second. Yeah, I was curious about how French Lit became your passion. I was reading about that and I was like, is it Canada? Well, Vancouver.

Well, you live in Vancouver. Sure, right? Yeah. But that still doesn't mean it that becomes your passion to study in college and speak it fluently because you are fluent. Well, what I will say is that I'm fluent in speaking English with a French accent, which is far more interesting and much more fun. You know, I grew up in a family of academics. My father, God, rest of soul, was a mathematician.

You know, again, my brother became a professor. My mother was a librarian. So I grew up in a household where everybody was reading. You know, and my parents were reading the classics in English, which I think is extraordinary. And again, because it was just always assumed that I would follow suit, it didn't occur to me to think outside of that paradigm. So that was the suit that was within the suit. Right. So now do they understand, well, I know your father isn't with us anymore, but your mom, does she know that you're a pioneer?

because like you said, you said you wanted the first Asian woman in hip hop, that's a pioneer because they're a lot now. I wonder. Not a lot, but. I don't think my mother would describe her as a pioneer. And to be honest with you, I would you give your mom this jacket? Yes, but she wear it. No. For 32 years, up until right now when she can actually tell her friends that her daughter wrote a book, my mother couldn't tell you what I did.

There's no way. Like, she wouldn't understand what it means? Like, what does it mean to do A&R? My mother was born in North Korea in 1932. You know what I'm saying? Like she's not. She did the guys. Like what it was the moment when she met Wuth.

She did. And they were all really gracious. And yeah, she met a bunch of the artists that I managed. Yeah. Dude, like, I know people don't understand they kind of collectively eye roll. Whenever I mentioned that it took me two albums to tell my dad that I was in the roots. Yeah. But it's that fear of one of the first.

to disappoint your parents or not wanting to disappoint your parents and you know like my dad was busting his ass since I was five to put me in private school yes look to go his route yes and so for you to like sneak out of it to do some you want to do is hard so like when did you well first of all with Vancouver what was the environment like before I know that you'd come to Jesus moment was hearing the message by Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five but before And what was your life generally like in Vancouver? So it was very comfortable. You know, Vancouver is beautiful and it's green and lovely.

Again, middle class, went to public schools. But I was very much a yellow girl in a white world who wanted to be white. No question. I was born in 1965. And so when I'm 10, right, and I'm coming of age, so to speak, everything I see in the media, whether it's television, film, commercials, or magazines is whiteness. Every, every representation of beauty and power and sex appeal is white. And so I wanted to be white.

And to be frank, I kind of wonder, how does a person of color growing up in that not want to be white, right? And as I share this story, I have had so many people say to me, I felt the exact same way. And so I was, you know, I'm watching these shows and these movies. and I, yeah, it was, you know, I grew up getting called chink, Jap, gook, for sure. I got, you know, Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these, all of that stuff, because racism then was just simply not as codified. And so kids would be in your face. And the thing that I learned very early on, too, was you're learning this from somewhere.

Right. Right? And you're probably learning some of it from your parents. Maybe they're not teaching you that charming little song, but they are, somehow instilling in you or rather not instilling in you the, you know, the virtue that you shouldn't be a shitty person and judge people by, you know, and make prejudgments about, about somebody based on their skin. So you were just in an isolated community. You weren't, and you weren't amongst like your family and there was never, I'll get my cousins to fuck you up or none of that

shit. Yeah, no, it wasn't, it wasn't really like that. We weren't that isolated because my parents were part of a burgeoning Korean community, but we were all immigrants. Everybody's parents spoke with accents, right? We all ate food that looked and smelled and tasted different. All of our parents had, quote-unquote, funny names. So there were all of these things, all of these markers that clearly indicated that we were other. And the world never stopped telling us that we were other, whether it was making fun of my parents' names, again, saying, something about our food. Thank you white people for now acknowledging that kimchi is a superfood and that you think you invented bone broth. You think you invented bone broth. I don't think so. You know, all of these things that kind of diminished, right, who we were. And, you know, I've been thinking a lot lately about visibility and erasure. Right. And I think that any of us who live on the margins understand what it is like to be systematically and institutionally erased. And so in in kind of denying my parents' history, their heritage, their culture, and making fun of it, to me, you are diminishing and you are erasing them.

And I certainly I didn't have this language when I was a child. But I really felt that I was, that I would, you know, in making somebody feel other, you are necessarily making them feel lesser. I see. Was Sophia your birth theme? or was it adopted? That's a good question. No. So everybody in my extended family has a Korean name.

I was the first person in my family born outside of Korea. And my father chose to name me after a Polish mathematician. And that was a conscious decision on his part. Okay. Yeah. I see. So not many people know this about Vancouver. besides having one of the best, most adventurous ice cream paullers of all time.

Shout out to La Casa Jolato, over 500 flavors. They didn't pay for that plug. Sorry, but, you know. Good to know. All my ice cream is free. Send us some free ice cream. Not many people know that the national anthem of hip-hop was created in Vancouver, in Mushroom Studios.

The incredible bongo bands, Apache. was actually created in Mushroom Studios in Vancouver. Holy shit, I didn't know that. That's amazing. In Mushroom Studios, that's amazing. The more you know. So, yeah, so for me, it's not shocking at all that your passion for hip-hop culture. Because I'm sure that, you know, people, oh, Vancouver, how did you find that moment?

But, you know, the national anthem of hip-hop was born there. So tell us about that moment where you heard the message. And I, you know, for a lot of us that were around in real time, like the message was definitely one of the, besides rappers delight to me, the message was one of the first, what I call a war of the world's moment where you stare at the speaker and you're wondering, what the hell is this? Like, what was that experience like for you? And how did that transform you? I want to talk about that. And then I want to ask you about your experience. I'd be very curious to hear about your experience the first time you heard it too.

So for me, you know, all I'm seeing around. me is whiteness, and then I'm seeing yellowness because there are Asian immigrants. There are lots of Chinese in Vancouver. And then there are some brown folks, meaning South Asians, right? But I have no exposure to black votes and Latinx folks. And again, all the representations of people of color are coming through the media. And that at the time, and still largely is the case, is through the white male lens. Now, and I also wasn't, because I grew up in Vancouver, I'm listening to Top 40 Radio. I am listening to white music. I have no exposure. I have no exposure to this remarkably robust and rich tradition of gospel, R&B, jazz, none of that.

I'm not exposed to any of it. So when I hear the message, I'm in 12th grade, there's this kid, Ray, this Greek kid, he loved music, and he brings this 12-inch record to school. We're in the lunchroom. We're in this music room at lunchtime, and he puts on the record. Now, the thing that I always loved was dancing. And so, but I listened to disco, actually. Actually, to be fair. I always love dancing. And so immediately the beat hits me in the solar plexus, right? So I have a visceral response. And then I hear the lyrics. And I just think, I don't even know what I was thinking, but I remember I found it so compelling. And in retrospect, when I think about it, I think it's because it's the first time, and again, I certainly didn't have this language. It's this. 16, 17, that I heard people of color talk about themselves and represent their own world as opposed to white Hollywood saying this is what brown people, yellow people, black folks do, right? And also there was a sense of urgency and anger and pride that resonated with me really deeply.

Because again, being a yellow girl growing up in a white world who wants to be white, I didn't feel pride I felt shame and embarrassment, right? And so I hear the message and then I think, wow. And also I'm a French major. So I'm a literature major and I study poetry and I knew it was poetry. There was no part of me that was, I don't understand what people don't think it's poetry. I think it's poetry and I think it's literature. And then I see the run DMC video for King of Rock. So I've only heard the message and then I see King of Rock and I'm like, you know, arms, right, right. You know, feet apart. Exactly.

The B-Boy stance. And just this claiming of me and this is who I am and I will not let anybody else defy me, nor will I let anybody else tell you who I am. I'm fucking telling you who I am. That was revelatory. But I'd love to ask you, because the message is the first song that I heard, right? Certainly not the first hip-hop song that you heard. What struck you as being different about it? About the message?

All right, so up into that point, of course, like, I was eight when rappers alike came out. So that was just, what the hell is this? And the second time I had that moment was not many people write about the adventures of Grandmaster Flash and the Furies. The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel. basically the first record that demonstrates cutting. Okay. So I'm trying to decipher how this noise is made and can I do this on my dad's thing? Oh, Dad!

You know, whippings and all that shit. So. But with the message, Stop scratching my Isaac Key's records, boy. Right. I would say that sit in my dad's car and it came on the radio. Oh, okay. And even he had to take a pause.

but everything in that song hit me because I didn't know none of those street terms were I didn't know what a pimp was like my six-year-old cousin had to tell 11-year-old me like I was like she had to get a pip like last night of pips

she couldn't make it on her home she couldn't make it yeah but literally everything like you know through that girl in front of the train I'm like wait they're pushing people on the train platforms and the Midnight Train to Georgia platform but to me to me

the last minute of that song when they got arrested yo that scared the shit out of me and then that's that was that was a moment where I feel like the first father and son talk really happened where my dad told me like you know that could be you

that that might be your cousins that could be the boys on 49th Street. And just the whole, like, oh, man. You know, my first lecture about police came because of that song. I was like, wait, why are they getting arrested? Wow.

What's going on here? Like, you don't remember the ending? Like, what is that a gang? Get in the car, get in the car. I didn't do nothing else. Like, I wasn't old enough to understand when Stevie Wonder did that on Living for the City. But hearing that,

that definitely, I'll say the last minute of the message. was such just a paradigm shift in my life that's where I was taught fear the police and whatever you do like straight up and you know

all that stuff so yeah that affected me in ways that I can't even imagine definitely my father's son told I really hope they know how they impacted people I really hope they know how they impacted different people's lives I tell them all the time

whenever I see them how that is that's amazing thank you for sharing it really seems like from so many of the interviews that we've done here that the message is like the equivalent of the Beatles Ed Sullivan performance.

You know, the people who saw that or people who heard that, that's when their life changed. I don't even know what that means. Well, I mean, Ed Sullivan... In that way, I don't. Ed Sullivan, I mean, TV, I mean, the way viralness is now

with YouTube, like everyone watch the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on CBS. So if you had the platform of being on the Ed Sullivan show, your career was made. And the Beatles made their American debut on the Ed Sullivan show.

And everything changed after that. I don't think my parents was watching that. Did they have a television? Yeah. Were they born? Mm-hmm. You just want to be difficult, don't you like? No, I just don't think that that was forever.

Well, I mean, here's the thing. My relationship with the Beatles... No shade to you, Steve. I was just saying that they were other hotels. No, no, no, actually I'm kind of with you. My relationship with the Beatles actually... I knew all the black artists who covered the Beatles before I even got into the Beatles.

So it took a lot of them packing at the age of 15 and realized like, oh, Gladys Night and the Pips didn't do that song first. And Bill Wethers didn't do this song first. Wait, Stevie Wonder didn't do... We can't work out? And not for nothing. Our households were different in a way. I asked my mom, you wasn't at Woodstock?

She was like, girl, what the fuck? No. You know what I'm saying? No, I get it. But, I mean, the Beatles definitely impacted a lot of music lovers, not just their target demographic. But, you know, even if you were black, you were watching Ed Sullivan's show. 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 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, personal health, personal 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 podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day.

And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall

and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcast. So how, when did you make your move to America? Like, I was, I was 22 and I was literally writing out my graduating essay and I went straight to the airport. I skipped graduation. We were just talking, Bill and I were just talking about this. I was so anxious to get back to New York. So I have to give a little bit of context. So as a French major, first of all, living in Vancouver, I knew I wanted to break out of Vancouver.

And as a French major, but, of course, it's going to be Paris. And then I went to Paris. and I met the French. And I was like, oh, no, I'm not doing this. And then in my final year of college, I came to New York and I met Joey Ramon. I thought he was Johnny. I called him Johnny.

Joey, God rest his soul. And I had heard the message. I had visited New York and I knew, oh, okay, this is where I want to be. It's a French would say, I take a poison in L'Olo. You're making me look bad. I was like a fish to water.

So when I moved here, I stayed with a legendary rock critic named Legs McNeil and his girlfriend. and they introduced me, she got me a job working at Paul Simon, and then I kind of... In 86? 87. And then I... So post Graceland?

Exactly. You're so... God, you really are like this. How do you keep it on your head? I work with these guys. Yeah, so it was... He's coming off the worldwide Gracelan tour. Okay.

So do you have a regular job during this time? Because I'm trying to figure out. You said... So my regular job is I'm the assistant to his tour managers coming off of Gracelan. Before Paul Simon. I think I might have had a little job working at a studio. But also at that time, New York was not as expensive. When me and my friends talked, so this is in the late 80s, early 90s, right?

When me and my friends talk about it, where we lived in that time, none of us could afford to live there now. No fucking way. So I was living, well, I lived on the Upper West Side with Columbia students for a while. But then I lived downtown at 14th and 7th. And then I lived at the archives, which is this really beautiful white glove building, elevator dormant building in the West Village. Not a shot could I afford to live there now. Not a shot. I mean, when I was coming up in New York, nobody lived in Brooklyn.

Sure as fuck nobody lived in Queens. And now all of my friends live in Brooklyn in Queens because we can't afford Manhattan anymore. Like nobody can afford the city anymore. So I mean, I can't afford the apartment. I moved to Brooklyn in 2002. I can't afford that apartment. It's really tough. But there are also three of us living in a 360 square foot studio.

But we were like in our early 20s and who gives a shit? It was probably like $100. What was the environment like back then? I would imagine that mid-late 80s was more, that was post-dancetaria. So like the first era of downtown New York scene. So what was the scene into? So what was. So what was really amazing about the scene at the time was that it was really small.

And I'm not going to say insular because it wasn't insular. It was small and it was focused, but it was also very inclusive. And we were all at the same clubs. So you had DJs, MC, graph artists, B-boys all there. But you also had managers, A&R, publicists, agents, attorneys. I mean, you had every single sector of the industry. there because in 1987, hip hop is still a relatively nascent industry. Okay.

Right? And so, and again, it's localized and it's centralized. And you had DJs like Red Alert, you know, and we would go anywhere where Red was spinning. You had Clark spinning. We would go anywhere that Clark was spinning. What clubs would you go to? So there were, there were different clubs. There was a moving club called, there was payday.

And it was these three promoters. It was Chuck, Beaver. and Patrick Moxie. And they would move around, and they started to name, so they named the clubs after chocolate bars. So there was payday, there was 100 grand. Oh! Okay.

Right? So they were named after a bunch of chocolate bars, and they could roam. Now, this was at a time where you could do this. No way could you do this now. Not a shot, right? Like, I live down in the Lower East Side, and I'm pretty sure that one of the clubs that I went to back in the day was housed in one of the high schools. Like they rented out high school auditoriums.

They rented out abandoned like Chinese restaurants and stuff like that. And it was so amazing because, again, this is before the internet. There's no morality. And we would, they would hand out flyers and then we would just all call each other and leave messages on each other's answering machines. Google it. And we would, you know, we would just make sure that we were all there. And there was a feeling of community because we were all there for the music. this is where records were broken.

Clark Kent single-handedly broke, Color Me Bad's, I want to sex you up. Sex you up. I remember being there. I think it was actually Diddy's House when Puffy had a club over here on 54th Street. And, you know, none of us had heard the song. Literally none of us had heard the song.

He had a white label, and the opening strains come on. And you know, you're on the dance when you're dancing, and then you just stop because you don't know the record. And the record came on, and then the bee came in. We were like, oh shit. And years later, in 2014, at Universal, I was in an A&R doing A&R admin at Island. Sam, who was one of the members of Color Me Bad, said that they were in the club that night.

And that was the first time they heard their record played. Sam, was that George Michael, Vanilla Ice, Rick James or the other one? Kenny G. Kenny G. How did you know? Because I used to be a Color Me Band fan. I got their two albums, bro. Two albums.

Oh, Bill. I didn't even know they had two albums. Time and Chance was the second one. Time and chance. That one had some joy. Oh, my God. Because it hurt so bad. That was my join.

So it was a really, really close. It was a really, really close-knit community. And, you know, it was such a privilege to be. Yon ain't going to make me feel bad for liking. No, we're not. Wait, wait, time out. I'm sorry. One side note.

Do you know right right before Fat Cat on Fantastic Volume 1? They're doing time and chance. They're talking about time and chance. Time. Right. All right. So good. Go ahead.

James. But it was this beautiful. We are rabbit holy. Go ahead. Sorry. But it's this beautiful community and I was welcomed into the community and I was embraced and I'm really grateful for that. And that was a privilege because hip hop obviously was not of my making, you know.

It was not my world. And yet hip hop was like, come in, Sof. And, you know, the first people were crazy legs and DJ Scratch. Really? At the New Music Semit. Yeah, Legs has a story where he's like, I'll never forget the first time I saw you. I was looking across going, who is that little Asian woman that knows all the words to brand newbie and step to the rear?

Oh, shit. Right. Whoa, whoa. Deep cuts. So you were there, like, I'll say in early 90s and, oh, see, that's the era. The era that people mostly tell us about the show is like Latin quarter and all that stuff, but kind of that SOBs period. Yeah.

I don't hear a lot about, so I don't always wondered. LQ and all that predated me, for sure. I never went to Lancorder. I never went to dance atyria. Most of my friends, certainly my friends that grew up in New York did. But, you know, the other thing that's interesting about that era is that, so you have these small roaming clubs, right? But you also have mega clubs, and they're all gone. Palladium.

It's a dorm? Tunnel. Tunnel. Right? The tunnel. Lymlight. These places were. You dared go to the tunnel?

Yeah, I did. At a certain point, though, I stopped because I think Chris Lytty, God rest his soul. I think Lydie was like, don't come, self. He was like, don't come. Can I ask you a question? I don't know if this is uncomfortable, but I'm just, as I'm listening, because you are, to me, a pioneer in ways, because you were in the club, you knew all the lyrics and stuff like that. How did you navigate around the N-word and how did you realize that that was like a hot button

because you're from Vancouver and we weren't around to be like, well, this ain't and this is cool. Because even before hip-hop, I grew up knowing that even though I was called chink, Jap, and gook, I knew that the N-word, it's used against people the way that those words were used against me. So even if it's in the lyrics and my favorite artists are saying it, it never felt right to me, ever. Because I do know it's that weird thing where it has been made, it's different than

than most slurs. Because it has been made cool in a way. So that's why I was like, and others have issues dealing with that. Like, I don't get it. It's so cool to say. Yeah, I, yeah, I can't. So what was your first inside industry job as far as hip-hop is concerned? Where did you first?

It was the job doing A&R at Jive. So I met the captain, aka Sean Karasov, God rest his soul. He was doing A&R at Jive. He signed a Trubcold Quest. And he said, I'm moving to the West Coast because at the time the West Coast. because at the time the West Coast had a burgeoning hip-hop scene, right? He said,

selfie, I'm moving to I lay. I think you should interview for my job. So I interviewed for his job with Barry Waste, very, very, very smart president of Jive Records. And Barry gave me the job, although he did tell me, he said the second I walked in the door, he went, oh, she'll never get the job.

What is Barry like? I meet many people that work with him. What does he like as? Because really, I mean, Barry was, To me, he was almost Def Jam before Def Jam because he's the one that signed like Philly artists. He took the entire pop art label and made it his own and all that stuff before, you know, Russell and Rick got established.

What was he like? Barry, I believe Barry is a Cornell grad. Barry is also the son of High Weiss and High was also in the music business. And Barry is so smart. So smart. You know, you're in rooms with people, and as soon as they start talking, you go, oh, holy shit, you're so smart. He is also one of the funniest people I know. Like literally, if Barry was sitting here in 30 seconds, he could add me laughing.

He did incredible impersonations. He was amazing. As a boss, he could be pretty exacting. And, you know, Barry, so there were all these trades back in the day. There's Billboard, but then there's Gavin, there's R&R, there's FMQB. There are all these trades. And all of these trades, many of them have local record. sales reports, right? Barry would go through every single one, and if he saw that an artist sold

50 copies of a cassette in Kansas, he'd be like, call that person. So you're absolutely right. I mean, Barry signed short, I mean, not Barry, but, you know, Jive signed short. Yeah. They signed Spice One. You know, they had their tentacles out really far. And I think that was Barry's vision to understand really early on that hip-hop would expand far beyond New York. So he, I loved working for Barry. I learned so much. Who did you, what artists, Were you under... Did you sign anybody a jive during your terrain?

I signed Fushnikins, casual souls of mischief. I signed an amazing artist named Ms. Kilo from the West Coast, unfortunately. I left and that didn't ever happen. So those are the artists that I signed. Yes.

Oh, what a memory! Oh my God! Nerds! Yes, you're in a safe place. And then I worked with Tribe and Caras won and UGK and, you know, a bunch of other.

I mean, they had an amazing roster. Yeah, they did. How did you guys, all right, so speaking of UGK, you know, kind of the globalization, or no, not the globalization, where I guess hip-hop really going nationalization. Yeah, sure. How are you guys able to, because even before Def Jam, again, you guys were first and going to other Terries, not New York signing artists. First with Philly, with Jeff and Will and Steady B and School.

and schooly and then expanding out so what was it about UGK and Spice 1 and well too short and wasn't volume 10 also no no he was on RCA proper but

what was it about those artists especially with UGK I think for I didn't sign any of those I can't take credit for signing any of them but I think a lot of it was like I said I think a lot of it was seeing sales figures I think a lot of it was understanding that But it couldn't be that alone, right? So then we get an indication that there is a buzz around a certain artist.

And I would literally call a record store and say, so you have this artist name so-and-so, how is he selling? How is she selling? It was always a he, though. How is he selling? And then whoever was running the local record store would give me a sense of what was going on there. And if it sounded promising, I would then say, can you please put me in touch with his manager?

And then it would kind of go from there. But UGK, how did UGK come to us? I don't remember. But everybody had, it couldn't simply be data, which is different from now, because a lot of artists I think now can get signed purely off of data. It was data driven, but then it was also talent. And, you know, there was something so unique, God rest of soul, pimsy about pimp and about bun and about what they were presenting. Now, we had the ghetto boys from Texas as well, right? but UGK

I don't know I just remember the first time I heard them they felt really new and fresh but dirty and grime in a way that I really appreciated you know so it was probably a combination of the two well this is what I always ask A&Rs when they come on the show

can you name three acts that got away that you really that you had a chance to sign or that you had like the sort of buzz on before they got became a thing and they went elsewhere? Well, everybody's going to tell you Wu-Tang because we all had the demo, but there's no way I was going to be able to sign them.

DOS effects were at my house four days a week, and I didn't get to sign them. Yeah. House of Pain, I was friends with mugs from back in the Cypress Hill days. Wu-Tang, grave diggers, I wanted to sign, I wasn't able to sign. But the funny thing about the House of Pain story

is that again, I was friends with mugs and I had the demo. And now the thing that was really frustrating to Clive Calder, the owner of Jive Records, was that DOS effects and House of Pain went pop. Now, before summertime, none of Jive's hip-hop artists went pop, right? I think that, oh, my God, what's that little boy group? They did a song. Another bad creation. It was five little boys.

Oh, I'm bugging that I'm not remembering. Anyway, they had a song about Kiss, and that was the song. I feel like that was the first number one billboard song for, um, Oh, oh, I like, high five. High five. I like the work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The kissing game.

Yeah. So, uh, it really got under Clive's skin that I wanted to sign DOS effects and I wanted to sign House of Pain and they were, they were big pop hits. And so after House of Pay and after Jump Around came out, he said, you know, he's South African, and Sophia, come down to my office. Do you, do you still have the, the House of Pain demo? And I said, yeah. And so in his mind, when I.

played the demo, the, you know, the noise. I always say that Mugs was kind of the, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, that he's, he's, he was convinced that when I played him the demo, original demo, that that sound wasn't in the demo, but it was. And in fact, when I talk, that's, that's not it. It is. It's not. It is.

It is. All right. We will have arguments. All right. So the big debate is... Prince get off, right? Here's the deal. That's not Prince's voice.

Rosie Gaines. We've been having... That I didn't know. That I didn't know. What? Okay. So Mugs and them keep saying that it's Junior Walk and the All-Star. But I...

When distorted, no. And so what? We will never. But what are they saying that it is? They're saying that it's Junior Walk and the All-Stars. I forget the name of the song. But I'm still maintaining that it's Prince's get-off intro. So essentially, when I went back to it, so I played it for Clive and he was like, oh, damn it.

And when I went back to Mugs, I said, how close is this to the version, the demo version to the one that got on the radio? And he said, it's the version that got on the radio. There's virtually no distance between the demo. So you're saying that if they lost the Yelp scream? horn line that you guys would have signed it? Like that was going to scare away? No, no, what he said, what Clive was saying was when he went, House of Pain, when jump around became a big pop hit, he was so frustrated that he hadn't let me sign it.

And he said, Sophia, when you play me the demo, that sound was not in there. Do you see what I'm saying? Right, right. So he was like, do you still have a demo? That could have made a difference. That is funny. So wait, at this point, had you started the relationship with Will Will yet? No.

No. Oh, okay. That's why you said you had. Summer 93. Okay, okay. So, okay. Well, that is weird. Of all the label, like, Jive was just not a label that signed any member of the Wu, like, not even inspected deck. So.

My guess is they were too expensive. Oh. Really? My guess. Yeah. Good for you. So you guys were. Neither did Tommy boy.

Yeah, but they already messed up. Yeah, but they had a chance. Right. Right. So. That's the Prince of Arc King. I'm sorry, I'm just catching up on the series. So budget-wise, budget-wise,

Jive really didn't have a... We were a scrappy little independent and we had to be really competitive in other ways. That is so weird because I, at least with the look of it and the ads that you guys purchased and the artist that you represented, I was always, I never looked at you guys as a Tommy Boy underling or even a rough house boutique label.

Like I considered you guys. Absolutely. Super major. No, I think that we were, I think we were major, major players, but that had to do with the fact that everything else other than big advances compensated for that, right? So I'm, I was competing for hieroglyphics. That was a competitive deal. Well, I can't offer as much as a major label can, but what can I offer? We'll look at our roster, right? And what people need to know is that talent can be an amazing talent magnet. So when we can talk about the facts, so those boys are from the Bay. They're from the Oakland and we have spice one and we have two short and we have poo right and we so they so there is also thinking about who your label mates are going to be and that's how we were that's how we were able to be competitive but it wasn't by spending a ton of money I see wait I got to ask since you're associated with them what what effect do you think that that battle with Sefir had on their momentum uh sozo mischief did a infamous battle against Saffir on Bay Area Radio.

And all I know is that that's all we listen to. To me, it was the equivalent of if you watch Kill Bill when... Oh, my God, I was just going to say... That's so bizarre with Lucy Lou? Yes. Oh, wait, God, that is so... Wait, sorry. That just came into my head.

Well, no, no, no, I mean, both battles. Actually, I was thinking of when Uma Thurman just took out the crazy 88s. Okay. In the bar, just one by one. Oh, so they got taken out. That's what I, okay. I wouldn't say taken out, but I will say that Saffir just won, like, it's four of them, and they had casual.

So it was like really eight of them versus one of him. And he just took them all one by one. And we just never, I know that that had an effect on Tariq. Tariq was like, I have to be that good where I can take out ten MCs, like, that sort of thing. But, I mean, did that, do you think that effect? their momentum or their confidence at all or was it just like whatever uh if it did i didn't see any sign of that and also you know being around those guys you know kung fu we say sharpen your blade every day and at the time when i was around them and they're 16 17 18 19 years old right

they sharpen their blades all day every day i mean to be around them was to hear them freestyle than you would hear them talk. Right. So, yes, is there this epic battle and, you know, Sefir is dominant? Absolutely. But I don't think that made them kind of shrink and go, oh, my God, we're not good anymore.

To this day, I don't think that they have any doubt as to their skills. Real, okay. Oh, they're still going strong. Yeah. And I kind of wish Opio didn't cut his hair for the second record. Oh, Lord, say it again. Say it again, I'm here.

Dude, that was like, when he cut a lot of, his hair. I was just like, oh, man, they lost their angle. And me, because I was like, where's he at? I can't, which one is he now? I'm sorry. Which one is he? For real, I was like, ah, Ophio, come on, dude. Like, ah.

He did a beautiful hair. He did. Come on. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clever 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

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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 what 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 2, 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 podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo.

My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up-and-coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot.

He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

All right. So I'll admit when I first saw Protect Your Neck. That was a little too low budget for me. I saw it. Oh, really, the time code? No, I saw, you know, I've seen it on like a local, like we had our own local, AJ Shine from WK to you and Philly had his own like show The Avenue on Drexel University and he would show it and it was just like, ah, this is so cheap.

I mean, I got it though. But I kind of feel like people have reconfirmed. contextualized and sort of sort of the way that people talk about Prince's dirty mind. Like I was there for the beginning. Like that sort of thing. I was like, were you really? So for you, with the early Wu-Tang, like you were truly aboard and you knew that this was going to be a thing?

Yeah, and I also think that there's a little bit of civic pride going on there. Because simultaneously, if I remember correctly, the West Coast was on the come-up. Oh, look out. And so there was a sense of, like, New York. New York. We got this shit, right? Yeah, like, we, you know, it's from New York.

That's right. And then you have nine guys. And they're from Staten Island, and you're like, how could, does anybody care about Staten Island? And they did this thing. And I think that it wasn't, look, you could talk about Riz's Beats all day long. And I remember what it felt like to me was I think it impacted me on so many different levels. So at that point, I'm considering myself a proud New Yorker, even though I've been there for less here for less than a decade. But it was so New York, right?

Like I feel like Rizz's beats, and he describes them as grimy, were this really unflinching look at the dirty underbelly of the city. and then you have their rhymes, and he somehow harnesses nine guys on what we used to call a posse track, right? So now if we made that record, you would fly somebody to the beat and they'd send you their eight or their 16, right? But back in the day,

they were all in the studio. They're all sleeping on Riz's floor in Staten Island, right? And so you have this kind of, you have this osmosis happening. And it just felt huge. That's how it felt. It felt in terms of volume of how many MCs there were, but also the fact that I'd never heard beats like Rizzes before.

I was like, oh, shit, what is he doing? And I am far from the musicologist you are, and I could never deconstruct it the way that you can't. But the A&R in you wasn't thinking, like I would think that, yeah, A&Rs are thinking fight or flight. I got to find the next big thing to keep and justify my job in my position. So my first thought would be, oh, this is way too lo-fi.

Like, this is not going to make it. That's going to be on the radio. Right. Oh. Like, that, your inner A&R wasn't already tainted and taken over your conscious? Well, what tainted it was the deal that he asked for. So none of us could sign Wu-Tang Clan. Right.

Right. So it was already off the table. But it, in the same way that the message hit me viscerally, it hit me viscerally. And remember, I met them really soon thereafter. So it is one thing to hear the record. It is another thing to see that really grainy, lo-fi time-goat $5,000 video, where they're not even, I don't even think they're even all in that video. And then to meet them.

And I think because I had the privilege of being in proximity to them really, really early on before the first album came out, it was really, really clear to, Certainly in New York, all of us knew like, oh, this shit's going to blow. It's going to blow. Not necessarily because we thought Protecta Neck was a commercial song. None of us thought this is like summertime, right? But it just felt like this swell. You know, I say in my memoir, this really great Victor Hugo, quote,

We resisted at the invasion of armée, but we don't resist not to the invasion of these ideas, which has been kind of loosely translated as something like you can't fight an idea whose time has come. But literally translated is you can resist an invasion of armies. You cannot resist an invasion of ideas. But in my mind, they were both. They were this army who had these incredible ideas. And that was all resist vision. Look, he couldn't have done it without Wu-Tang.

But it was, you know, he was the abbot, and that was his creative genius. So was he the first member that you met? How did you start working with the organization? And what were... So, heard the Wu-Tang demo, loved it. I became a Wu-Vangelist. I played it for anybody that would listen. I was like, listen to this, listen to my shitty little yellow sports walkman.

I miss those. Google it. And then I couldn't sign them, but I was a huge fan. And then the Grave Digger's demo came across my desk. And the Grave Digger's demo came across my desk. And the grave diggers, he wasn't asking for the same non-exclusive. So that was something that I could definitely try to sign. And I arranged to meet him.

And I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the weather, what I wore, what I ate, where we ate. Like, I remember so much about it. And in that first interaction, of course, we talked about the grave diggers and the parameters of the deal and the creative vision, but we also talked about Wu Tang. But you know this as well as I do. when you get a new conversation with Rizza, it's never just about music. Right.

And, you know, I've been saying for a while that to me, Rizza is the Bruce Lee of music. And when I say that, I mean that Bruce Lee took a lot of different traditions. Bruce Lee grew up studying Wing Chun, right? And that is a very traditional kung fu form. But he studied many other forms, and then he made his own form called Jikundo. and I kind of feel like that's what Riza did, as have many producers, like kind of take all of these, and not disrespect any of them, honor them, all of these different musical and sonic traditions, and then to blend them and to make his own thing. Now, again, many producers have done that. Why I call him the Bruce Lee of hip-hop is because he is additionally a philosopher.

and I do not, I cannot think of other artists or producers that I think are true philosophers. And this stems from an intense intellectual, cultural, and spiritual curiosity. So Riz is the guy that has, like many artists, traveled the world a number of times over. But he is also the guy that doesn't go to whatever city in whatever country and whatever corner of the world and say, you know, just find me the nearest McDonald's so I can eat food that I'm comfortable with. He will eat that food, right? He will find out where is the place of prayer and where is the faith here. What is the language? What is the culture? And he will immerse himself in that. And I think it really comes out in everything that he does now that that's expanded far beyond music. So he was the first one that I met and I described it as being, you know, the first time I met Riza was like going through many different chambers.

And then after I met him, I met all the rest of them. And the last one that I met was dirty, God rest his soul. How was it navigating his life? There's two people on earth that I've met both of their tour managers. With the roots organization, my boy Silbert, when we were interviewing him. And my first question was, so what qualifications do you have? that you feel would be beneficial to us. And he said one thing.

He said, he says, I've been Public Enemy's tour manager for the last 20 years. Flavor Flav has never been late or missed a show. Wow. I was like, you're hired. Wow. You're hired. So what is the amount of Jedi mind tricks that you have to do to keep them organized?

So I could never say that they were never late working with me at all or that they didn't miss a show. But to talk about dirty first, I call them A-son, I call them A. You know, managing old dirty bastard can certainly seem oxymoronic. But I think that I did as good a job

as anybody could. Look, Aeson had an addictive personality. There's no doubt about it. He was addicted to sex. He was addicted to alcohol and he became addicted to drugs. But when I managed him, he didn't even smoke wheat. Like I remember him being like, Matt, get that shit out of here. I hate the smell of that.

So I knew him before he did drugs. But he did drink a lot. And he did love women. And so there was a lot of damage control, as you can imagine. but the thing that I want people to know about A-SOM is that he was so smart. He was. He was so smart and he had such a creative vision, but he was also intellectually very smart, and he was really, really good with people.

He was so winsome, and he could charm anybody when he wanted to. He was super protective of me, and he was dead loyal. And I keep quoting my friend Julius Ono, who's a Nigerian-Mirman. American director who made this movie earlier this summer called Luce, and it's about a transracial adoptee. And he said in a Q&A that I think that every person in this world should be granted access to the full spectrum of humanity. And I think that any of us who live on the margins are not granted access to the full spectrum of humanity. I think rappers in particular are not granted access to the full spectrum of humanity. So what I try to communicate in my memoir is who were

these artists to me. So I am far from a Wu-Tang expert. I could not tell you what sequence the albums came out in, what the names of all the solo, none of that, the samples, any of that. The only thing that I am an expert on, and I am an expert on this, is who they are as men, people, to me. And I think that I have a unique lens into the Wooniverse because of who I am, but also who they allowed me to be and how they let me come into their world. And I think that speaks volumes about them. I also manage, so I manage all three, three-letter members of Wuteng,

ODB, RZA, and GZA. I managed RZA, what I call his extracurricular activity. So I did not manage him as an MC and I did not manage him as a producer, but I managed him as a composer and then his beginnings, his transition into Hollywood. So for Kill Bill. know and stuff. Yes.

So his first gig composing was Ghost Dog. That was not me. That was Nemo, who was very close. I believe he's Jim Jarmer, which his nephew. And Nemo brought Rizza into to Jim. And then I kind of picked it up from there. So it was Kill Bill and it was Blade and I believe he did Soulplane. So we did that stuff together and he had already started writing and directing.

But you know, the thing that I say about Riza is he is truly living his childhood dream. So when I was a kid, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a fashion design. I never thought that I'd be doing this, and I love my life. But Riza as a child, growing up one of, I believe, 11 children of a single mother, growing up in the projects of Staten Island in Brooklyn, he watched Kung Fu movies. And he imagined and dreamt that he would one day direct. And now he's directing Kung Fu movies. And he is writing them.

And he is starring in them. And I actually don't know anybody else who had this vision. and he is truly a visionary from when he was a child. So managing Riza was a delight. Managing Jizzah was also incredible. I would say that Jizzah was my favorite client because, and you know Jizzah like I do, he's incredibly low-key and he's so gracious. And he is so magnanimous, and he doesn't want to be recognized, and he doesn't want to be famous.

He doesn't want to be any of those things. And he is so kind, and I really love managing him because he allowed me to transition him into lecturing. And not every client lets you do that, right? So somebody might say, I've thought about it, so, but I don't really want to do it, because there's this thing I do, and I'm so comfortable, and I've been doing it for decades, and I'm getting paid. And I know how to do this. Whereas lecturing is very, very different. You're basically standing naked. There are no pyrotechnics. You don't have a hype man. There's no DJ. There's no lights. There's no sound. And your, and your audience, they're not drunk. They're not high, right? They're just all sitting there,

and they're looking at you, and you're standing at a podium, and you are speaking. And literally, the first place he lectured was Harvard. That's the Korean in me. And literally the first words out of his mouth were, I'm so nervous. And that's Jizzow. What? Yeah.

And you know what the same thing. I thought it'd be A-O-P's. And you know what? I did the same thing with Joey Badass. And he said the exact same thing. What was the, I'm just curious. What was Jizz's first lecture? So he spoke about his love of science.

you know, he like Riz is deeply intellectually curious. He spoke about his love of science. He spoke about his inspiration and his creative process. Can you talk about real quick in the prolog? I had a moment. I had a moment. I had a moment where I was jealous of you in describing the relationship with Wu-Tang because of a situation that happened with Method Man and the guy Jamal.

And I was jealous because as a woman who's been in the industry for years, we all know what it's like, you know, you're telling beautiful stories. but at some points, being that woman in the room can be adversarial, it can be dismissive. Toxic masculinity. Disrespectful? No question. In that moment of no protection, right? Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know if you want to reiterate that story, but also, in a way, I also wanted you to tell the opposite of that story when it wasn't that protectionary of with Methamian. Right. I mean, so when I started doing A&R, I was insecure around it, right? I'm thinking I'm a Korean-Canadian French-lit major, and do I really deserve this job of being a gaykeeper and an arbiter of a culture, again, that is not mine, right? And so, but the way that hip-hop embraced me was really fortifying and gave me a lot more confidence,

but nothing more than when Wu-Tang claimed me. So it was very, very early on. I might have met meth once before. I go to the studio to see them, and he says, Sophie, you got to see, I just got my video in for Method Man. And so he takes me to the back lounge, whisks me past everybody, takes me to the back. lounge and he sits me down and he plugs in the tape and he stands on the wall, doesn't sit with me, stands against the wall to watch me because he wants to see my response to the video and sitting next to the television facing me. So this gentleman is not watching the screen. He's

looking at me as meth is, is this guy Jamal. So the video plays and I'm super excited. I'm like, oh my God, oh my God, because I'm already in love with meth. And so the video plays and as soon as the video ends, he looks at me and he says, where are you from? Now, anybody, any person of color will tell you that's a loaded question. If you ask a white person that, they're going to be like, oh, I'm from Columbus, right? Right. Or my, you know, my parents are whatever, but this is a loaded question. So I am a petite Asian woman in the inner, inner sanctum of Wu Tang's world.

And it is clear to him, and I could see the calculations, it is clear to him, I'm not sleeping with any of those boys. He also knows that I don't manage any of them at this point. I don't A&R any of them. So who is this? And how did she get in? And again, to this day, when I'm around Wutang, I am almost always the only woman in the room. And that's a very privileged place where I sit. So he keeps – and so I feign innocence and I say, well, what are you asking me?

Where are you from? Well, I don't really know what that means. Where are you from? And then I broke and I said, okay, well, if you're asking where I was born, I was born, and I was born in Vancouver. My parents are Korean. If you're asking where my parents were from there from, you know, Korea. If you're asking where I live,

but before I could even finish answering this in this very methodical way, meth just flew in between us. I don't know if you've ever met him in person. He is six-four. And he is notoriously the nicest with his hands of the clan. What? Yeah. No, no, no.

Oh, boy. No, he can, they can all throw the fuck down. But meth and ghost, forget about it. So he flies in between us, and he just expands. like the Hulk and he was like that's Sophie Chang and she's down with Wu Tang she's from Shaolin

motherfucker don't you ever who the fuck are you to ask her where she's from don't you ever disrespect her again and I was like oh my god now nobody had ever defended me like this before ever and I was so jealous it was just this extraordinary moment

but so the demonstration was amazing but to deconstructed in what I think I want people to understand is he knew exactly what the fuck that guy was saying. Do you know what I'm saying? He totally understood that it was, there was a racial subtext to it and there was a gender subtext to it, right? He didn't give a shit where I was from because essentially he wasn't asking a question.

He was saying, what the fuck are you? Who are you? Who are you doing here? What are you doing here? Because you don't belong here. I belong here. You don't belong here. And, you know, again, wanting to.

tell people about the humanity of Wu-Tang. Now, meth is known this guy for, I'm sure, a long-ass time. This might be the second or third time he's met me. And his feeling was like, Nabi, we're not fucking doing that because she's ours. And what I say about Wu-Tang is that, look, I had several friendships in hip-hop and enduring ones that I have to this day before Wu-Tang. I was embraced and I was welcomed. But Wu-Tang claimed me.

That's special. So it's a thing that you're talking about here, right? Like, so what I'm saying is that everybody knew that they were going to be huge. And there were hordes and hordes and hordes of people surrounding them. And for whatever reason, they just went like this. You're coming with us. We're keeping her right here. And I feel that way to this day that I will never, ever leave that breast pocket.

And can I get people... Let me, Bill, Sugar Steve, and other Bill and Fonte are claiming you. Oh, I appreciate that. That's beautiful. We'll protect you. Can I also just make a point to FYI? Because some people might be thinking, oh, she's the Asian woman in the clique, so she's the one that brought the awareness to all the culture.

No, no, no. Can you clear that out? Oh, yeah, no. And first of all, when I say that I was in love with, Matt, is the platonic love of my life. Yeah. Because, yeah. He's been bearing forever. Yeah.

And his wife, Tamika, is just this gorgeous, luminous creature that I adore. No, he's the platonic love of my love. No, no, no, no, no. In fact, no, no. They grew up watching Kung Fu movies. it was their escape, but they also, you know, the themes of brotherhood and loyalty and defiance and oppression really resonated with them. And so again, going back to it, I'm a white, I'm a yellow girl growing up in a white world, I want to be white. I come to New York.

I get, you know, I get into the hip-hop world, and I understand that there's another way to be and that is proud of who you are. And then Wu-Tang embraces me, and it is the first time that I truly see the beauty and the profundity and the power. of my culture because I see it through their eyes. That's amazing. Because they introduced me to John Wu and Chaiyan Fat. Wow. This is the love of my life. This is love of my life.

And kung fu movies. So before that... And before then, none of the folklore, you weren't Saturday afternoon watching... None of it. Because it was total cultural denial for me. Wow. Right? It was cultural denial and it was cultural rebellion.

And so I start watching kung fu movies with my girlfriend, Maria Ma, who's Taiwanese-American, we're like, let's... study kung fu so we go around and we're looking we're looking at all these different schools and then we hear there's a shallan monk teaching kung fu and that's that's like hearing that quest love is teaching giving drum lessons right or it's like fucking hear that tiger woods is going to teach you golf down the street we're like what so we hunt him down and we find him and that we go in there we talk to him he speaks mandarin she speaks mandarin he speaks Mandarin he speaks no english I don't speak Mandarin and I go home that night and I call my parents and I said I met the man I'm going to

marry today I knew empirically empirically and absolutely And then I left the music business. I stopped managing dirty, hard right, out of the music business. You said he's a Shaolin monk, and they said, they were like, hang on a second. My dad's like, hang on a second. He looks up. He's like, Shaolin monks can marry. I don't know what the fuck reference.

I don't know what reference. But Bombshik Chang, God rest his soul, was right there with his crazy daughter. And so I leave the music business. I have, I don't even think about it. I run, his name is Sri Yan Ming. I run Yan Ming's temple. He's a 34th generation Shaolin Monk. He has a vision.

that he wants to replicate the Shaolin Temple in America. I introduce him to Wu-Tang. So this I did. I introduce an actual Shaolin Malk to Wu-Tang. I also was the person who orchestrated and planned and produced the tour that brought Rizza to Shaolin Temple. And he was the first artist in 1,500 years to ever perform in front of Shaolin Temple. Also took him to Wutang Mountain,

where the Abbott of Wutang Clan met the abbot of Wutang Mountain. And so I created those historical moments. But had it not been for Wutang Clan, I wouldn't have the two extraordinary children that I do right now. I wouldn't have an almost a 25-year practice of Shaolin Kung Fu that I did before I came here, and that's why I was so hungry. So I am eternally grateful to Wutain because they brought me back to myself in the most essential and important and critical way. And so in going back to myself, again, in going through these chambers,

with them, they, you know, they brought me around to my own heritage. And you know what's extraordinary is that meth said this to me. He said, you know, in a funny way, we kind of introduced you back to Asian culture. And I was like, how, he's so astute. I have, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, meth is like my son. He's a, he's a, uh, Pisces. So he is super in tune with energy and he's deeply empathetic. And he knew that. In the same way that he knew when Jamal said, where are you from, He understood that this is a hostile state. This is not a question. It's a hostile statement.

Wow. Man. We need meth on the show. That's, that's, stop playing. Of course, yes, meth and man, we want you on the store. But I think, like, stop gushing. No, any boots. I say, Ritz is too.

If we get Method man booked on the show, she's going to come dress like. Have you met him in front of the Lennie Krav? No, did you. Have you met him in person? Meth? Yeah. Like once, I think, yeah. Risa, I've interviewed.

This is amazing. We got to have method on just to see Eliy dressed up like she did for the Lenny Kravitz episode. I wouldn't do that. He has a wife. And I'm just trying to bring Lenny back to the other side. Anyway. Wait, isn't Lenny married? No.

No. No. And she's a little older, she got a girlfriend little older than Zoe, you know. Anyway. And she ain't been this color in a long time. Hello? Sorry. I was joking.

Sorry. Anyway, Sophia. We can talk forever. We can talk forever. But. We have to wrap it up. I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your story. And opening the door for all my Asian girlfriends who are now managers.

Shout out to Jenny Azumi. All my Korean girlfriends. Yes. Shout out of Jenny Azumi and Don White. Like, yeah, I'm doing it. Thank you. Damn, I forgot my own manager. Wait, your manager's Asian?

I got nine managers. Yes. Do you have an Asian woman? Yes. What's her name? Don. She even taught me out of drive. Oh, my God.

We taught you out of drive. Yay. Yay. You didn't talk me out of drive. Go and talk me out of drive. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I was so excited for this conversation because I was like your mind and your historical knowledge, like that's kind of your left brain, you know, like that Wikipedia.

But then there's also this amazing, insane creative talent and all, and there just aren't that many people like that. So thank you. Well, I thank you. See, I took a compliment guy. Yeah. It hurt, though, didn't. It was hard. I know.

I'm in therapy now. He's breaking out of take... He's breaking out and... He's twitching. I start sweating. I wanted to run out the door right now. Like, all right, that's a ramp of Quest Love Supreme. No, well, thank you very much for coming on the show.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's another episode of Quest Love Supreme. Thank you very much. Thank you. And check out her audio book. That is bitch in the room. Amazing. Exclusively on Audible. Exclusively on Audible.

All right. On behalf of Sugar Steve, Laya and Boss Bill and Unpaid Bill and on take a load. Thank you very much. This is another episode of Questle of Supreme. We'll see you on the next go round. Thank you. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio,

visit the IHeartRadio 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 which I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

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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 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 Sliced 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.

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