Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / DJ Drama

Transcript

DJ Drama · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. DJ Dramas one of the most iconic mixtape DJs
0:23
Speaker 1: of all time. His legendary gangster grills tapes helped propel
0:28
Speaker 1: artists like Ti and Young Jez to stardom. His classic
0:32
Speaker 1: Dedication series reinvigorated Lil Wayne's career in the early and
0:36
Speaker 1: mid two thousands. At their height, mixtapes like DJ Dramas
0:41
Speaker 1: allowed artists the freedom to wrap over other people's beats
0:44
Speaker 1: and release new music to fans in between their major
0:47
Speaker 1: label projects. By two thousand and seven, the underground mixtape
0:52
Speaker 1: market was booming, but in January of that year, DJ
0:55
Speaker 1: Drama and his longtime business partner Don Cannon were arrested
0:59
Speaker 1: by federal agents and charged under Rico laws for bootlegging
1:03
Speaker 1: and racketeering. Their arrest resulted in the federal government confiscating
1:08
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of dollars from their business accounts, but
1:11
Speaker 1: the much publicized raid only boosted DJ Drama's profile. In
1:15
Speaker 1: the years since, Drama's built a successful record label, and
1:19
Speaker 1: it's continued to make mixtapes. Tyler the Creator even crafted
1:23
Speaker 1: his latest album, Call Me If You Get Lost with
1:25
Speaker 1: DJ Drama's classic ad libs all over it and won
1:29
Speaker 1: the Grammy for Best Rap Album in twenty twenty two.
1:33
Speaker 1: But at that same time, while DJ Drama was at
1:35
Speaker 1: the height of his professional success, personally, he was battling
1:39
Speaker 1: an addiction to opioids, an ongoing struggle he's only recently
1:43
Speaker 1: started to talk about publicly. On today's episode, Lea Rose,
1:47
Speaker 1: who some of you may know as the former music
1:50
Speaker 1: editor of Double XL magazine, talks to Drama about how
1:53
Speaker 1: he got sober after being what he calls a functioning
1:57
Speaker 1: junkie who spent six figures a year on opioids. He
2:01
Speaker 1: also tells the story of how Lil John recorded his
2:03
Speaker 1: iconic gangster Grills drops in Drama's laundry room, and explains
2:08
Speaker 1: why he decided to sign low Uzi Vert and Jack
2:10
Speaker 1: Harlow to his Atlantic Records imprint Generation. Now this is
2:18
Speaker 1: broken record, Alana notes, for the digital age, I'm justin Mitchman.
2:22
Speaker 1: Here's Lea Rose with the Ta Trauma.
2:26
Speaker 2: So back when I was at Double XCEL, I used
2:28
Speaker 2: to edit a section of the magazine called Show and Prove,
2:32
Speaker 2: where every month I would have to find five new
2:35
Speaker 2: artists from like all over the country. And I figured
2:39
Speaker 2: out that if I talked to mixtape DJs, they could
2:42
Speaker 2: kind of like plug me in with who was who
2:45
Speaker 2: and who was doing what where, and you are my
2:47
Speaker 2: guy in Atlanta.
2:48
Speaker 3: I remember I's frequently talking exactly.
2:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been about twenty years and your career has
2:55
Speaker 2: grown in so many different incredible ways. So for people
3:00
Speaker 2: listening who might not be familiar with the function of
3:03
Speaker 2: a mixtape in hip hop, can you describe what the
3:06
Speaker 2: purpose is just at like the base level, Like what
3:09
Speaker 2: is the purpose of a mixtape?
3:11
Speaker 4: So a mixtape, obviously, through the years has taken on
3:17
Speaker 4: various purposes and different meanings. Me specifically or my brand
3:24
Speaker 4: of gangster girls. Mixtapes came at a time mixtapes had
3:29
Speaker 4: become almost like street albums in a sense where they
3:34
Speaker 4: were based around, you know, one particular artist or one
3:39
Speaker 4: particular crew of artists, or a label of some sorts,
3:44
Speaker 4: and it enabled that artist to kind of do things
3:47
Speaker 4: that they may not have been able to do on
3:50
Speaker 4: their major label album in a sense where they could
3:55
Speaker 4: kind of have a free for all or you know,
3:58
Speaker 4: wrap on someone else's beat, you know, just kind of
4:01
Speaker 4: experiment and not worry about, you know, some of the
4:06
Speaker 4: caution tape that comes with putting out an actual album,
4:10
Speaker 4: so a mixtape and a lot of times and don't
4:13
Speaker 4: in the early years would almost be kind of like
4:17
Speaker 4: lead lead ups to someone's album, or it would be
4:21
Speaker 4: a project that would come in between albums, you know,
4:24
Speaker 4: to keep the anticipation high, and you know, then then
4:29
Speaker 4: there would be what my my participation in it as
4:33
Speaker 4: the DJ is kind of like properly putting the mixtape together,
4:38
Speaker 4: sequencing it, you know, adding bells and whistles, sound effects,
4:42
Speaker 4: you know, giving what are known as either sermons or rants,
4:46
Speaker 4: depending on who you ask, and like you know, bringing
4:49
Speaker 4: back records just to kind of like create these moments
4:53
Speaker 4: and this excitement of almost like almost like being like
4:57
Speaker 4: a coach or the you know, the guy in the
5:01
Speaker 4: box of corner who's hyping up the artists in a sense,
5:05
Speaker 4: and you know, hyping up the audience as well, and
5:07
Speaker 4: just like you know, add my two cents to the records.
5:11
Speaker 2: And so when it came to you adding your ad
5:15
Speaker 2: libs and your drops and everything, it really seems like
5:18
Speaker 2: it's such an art and it's very intentional. First of all,
5:22
Speaker 2: how did you develop your style? I was listening to
5:25
Speaker 2: old tapes you're screaming it's like hoarse voice. There's a
5:29
Speaker 2: little like you know echo effect. How did you develop
5:33
Speaker 2: your own individual style?
5:34
Speaker 4: Well, it kind of changed over the years, interestingly, and
5:37
Speaker 4: so you know in the earlier years obviously when you
5:41
Speaker 4: go listen, like I'm definitely more boisterous and louder than
5:46
Speaker 4: I may be in today's time. But the style came
5:50
Speaker 4: in like that's what mixtape DJs would do. And in
5:54
Speaker 4: my era, like you know, I came up listening to
5:58
Speaker 4: people like Clue or SNS or or who kid who
6:02
Speaker 4: you know, they're all DJs would pretty much say their
6:05
Speaker 4: names and like you know, have an echo of fact,
6:09
Speaker 4: but they also like it was in a time where
6:13
Speaker 4: mixtape DJs were doing more of like shout outs and
6:19
Speaker 4: maybe like promoting the stores where their tapes were sold,
6:22
Speaker 4: or you know, shouting out the a and rs that
6:25
Speaker 4: were getting them records and things like that, and I
6:28
Speaker 4: kind of I kind of came up with a style
6:30
Speaker 4: where for me, it was almost like adding personality to
6:34
Speaker 4: the records. I wanted to be more than just kind
6:37
Speaker 4: of like to stay in my name where you know,
6:39
Speaker 4: I was kind of like talking shit and you know,
6:42
Speaker 4: in a sense like adding my two sense almost in
6:46
Speaker 4: a way of like, you know, I don't rhyme.
6:49
Speaker 3: You know, my statements don't rhyme.
6:51
Speaker 4: But I try to be creative as possible with what
6:55
Speaker 4: I say and add to the record as much as
6:57
Speaker 4: much as I can. And you know, yeah, in the
7:01
Speaker 4: early years, it was like, you know, the type of
7:03
Speaker 4: music that I was lending my voice to was was
7:07
Speaker 4: very like command and you know, it was intense. And
7:12
Speaker 4: then over the years I started to you know, do
7:16
Speaker 4: work on various projects. You know, then I started to
7:19
Speaker 4: even play around with my tone in my in my
7:22
Speaker 4: pitch and like I would do it. I taped like
7:24
Speaker 4: Verdi terrororsts with currency where it was like, you know,
7:27
Speaker 4: it was it's smoker music.
7:29
Speaker 2: So you know, I would you can't come off like screaming.
7:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would have to kind of like come back
7:36
Speaker 4: in a mellow tone or or I would start to
7:39
Speaker 4: do like R and B mixtapes with people like Chris
7:42
Speaker 4: Brown or or Jeremiah, and then it was like again,
7:45
Speaker 4: I couldn't come on there yelling and screaming, so I would.
7:48
Speaker 4: I would then, you know, find a different tone and
7:51
Speaker 4: play around with it, and in the sense of it
7:53
Speaker 4: was it's art to me, like you know, it was
7:56
Speaker 4: like knowing where to come and what to say and
8:01
Speaker 4: how to lend myself to the records, so it.
8:04
Speaker 2: Wasn't yeah and when to pull back exactly when to talk.
8:08
Speaker 2: And it's really like you're punctuating things that people say
8:12
Speaker 2: in a way that sometimes it's subconscious. As a listener,
8:15
Speaker 2: you're listening and then you might be like, oh, and
8:18
Speaker 2: then that line will sync in and then you start
8:22
Speaker 2: to say that as like you start to know that
8:24
Speaker 2: as part of the song.
8:25
Speaker 4: Nah, and I love that, yeah exactly, so you know,
8:28
Speaker 4: and then one of the biggest compliments to me at
8:31
Speaker 4: times is when you know, their big versions of Project
8:34
Speaker 4: said didn't have me on there, and people be like, yeah,
8:38
Speaker 4: it just doesn't hit the same without drama on the air.
8:40
Speaker 2: It's really not as good. It's really really not. So
8:45
Speaker 2: it's so exciting your drops are so it's just so
8:48
Speaker 2: well done. And I just want to play you this.
8:51
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's see if you can hear this.
8:59
Speaker 1: Twin set up.
9:00
Speaker 3: Set up Wow. Yeah classic.
9:04
Speaker 2: So that's from Dedication to which now is just like
9:07
Speaker 2: widely regarded as the best mixtape of all time. Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 2: which is crazy.
9:12
Speaker 3: You got your shout out on that that's fire.
9:14
Speaker 4: But you know, you guys, you know, you and Double
9:17
Speaker 4: XL were very important and influential to like mixtapes and
9:22
Speaker 4: mixtape culture at that time. And like and I remember
9:26
Speaker 4: like the feeling of, you know, opening up a double
9:29
Speaker 4: expel and seeing one of my tapes in there, or
9:32
Speaker 4: being reviewed or you know what I'm saying, Like that
9:34
Speaker 4: was like the holy grail.
9:36
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
9:37
Speaker 4: That was you know, you guys want one of the
9:40
Speaker 4: few outlets where you know, we were getting our praise
9:43
Speaker 4: or you know, outside of the listener or the person
9:47
Speaker 4: who was familiar with the mixtape circuit or what we
9:51
Speaker 4: were doing, where a consumer who might not have been
9:54
Speaker 4: familiar could find out about you know, what I was doing.
9:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you were absolutely keeping the music exciting,
10:01
Speaker 2: you were keeping it going.
10:02
Speaker 3: Appreciate that.
10:03
Speaker 2: So when it came to making dedication to I heard
10:06
Speaker 2: you talk about how you would sometimes script out things
10:11
Speaker 2: for the artists to say, and in Wayne's case with
10:16
Speaker 2: that tape, you sort of like set it up like
10:19
Speaker 2: an interview.
10:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, so in those days when I was doing tape,
10:25
Speaker 4: you know, I would yeah, make a script like you know,
10:28
Speaker 4: outside of the music, you know, some of the things
10:31
Speaker 4: that were important to those tapes were somewhat of the
10:34
Speaker 4: interludes or you know, it was almost like behind the
10:37
Speaker 4: scenes of some of the things that you know, you
10:40
Speaker 4: wouldn't get from the artists on a project. So I
10:45
Speaker 4: when I was when I would do dedications, you know,
10:48
Speaker 4: I would almost like write a script out for Wayne
10:51
Speaker 4: to record some things outside of the music.
10:54
Speaker 3: I would literally like almost like ask him questions.
10:57
Speaker 4: So you know, around those times, there were there were
11:00
Speaker 4: things about him retiring or him signing to jay Z
11:04
Speaker 4: or like, you know, I remember asking him like, you know, what,
11:08
Speaker 4: what do you like to watch on television? And that
11:11
Speaker 4: was when he was like all I watched the sports, sports, sports,
11:14
Speaker 4: you know, and he had actually freestyled over this green
11:17
Speaker 4: lantern beat that had been used that was like became
11:21
Speaker 4: sports center, you know, where it was like the sound
11:24
Speaker 4: of basketball or a tennis ball or what have you,
11:29
Speaker 4: and I called it sports Center. And that kind of
11:32
Speaker 4: came from my interviewing background, I guess, an the sense
11:36
Speaker 4: of like when I would get my drops from the artists,
11:39
Speaker 4: I would I would set it up where I would,
11:41
Speaker 4: you know, engage him and this is what the fans
11:44
Speaker 4: want to know. So there would be kind of questions
11:46
Speaker 4: he would answer, and those those who would turn into
11:49
Speaker 4: the interludes or you know, the way I would go
11:53
Speaker 4: from transition from song to song.
11:55
Speaker 2: It's such a good idea because an artist, especially Wayne,
11:58
Speaker 2: he doesn't really do interviews right.
12:00
Speaker 4: And you know, like those tapes like Dedication one and
12:03
Speaker 4: Dedication to, like the interludes if him talking are like
12:08
Speaker 4: so key or so memorable. You know, there were just
12:10
Speaker 4: things on there that like came out of me writing
12:13
Speaker 4: these scripts and him responding to it.
12:17
Speaker 2: I have to ask you about Dedication seven. Is it
12:20
Speaker 2: coming out? It's been getting teased since I think twenty twenty.
12:24
Speaker 3: A good question, I hope.
12:26
Speaker 2: So are you waiting to hear too.
12:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm still waiting to hear, but I'm sure he'll
12:30
Speaker 4: start getting the itch. He always starts getting the itch,
12:32
Speaker 4: and then you know, I'll get a phone call and
12:35
Speaker 4: it'll be time to go.
12:37
Speaker 2: How did the original session where you recorded the drops
12:40
Speaker 2: with Little John? What do you remember about that session?
12:44
Speaker 2: And just talk a little bit about what Little John
12:48
Speaker 2: is likes. I think a lot of people sort of
12:51
Speaker 2: think of him as maybe a caricature because of the
12:54
Speaker 2: you know, because of the Chappelle skit and the what
12:57
Speaker 2: I mean talk about what little John is actually like
12:59
Speaker 2: in real life?
13:00
Speaker 4: All right, Well, first of all, the fact that you
13:02
Speaker 4: called the session is the most hilarious thing ever because
13:06
Speaker 4: it took place in my duplex in the fourth ward,
13:11
Speaker 4: where I where most people would keep their watcher and dryer,
13:15
Speaker 4: is where I kept my equipment. So it was the
13:19
Speaker 4: fact that it's called a session, like it was not
13:22
Speaker 4: in some fancy studio with some big ass mixing board,
13:27
Speaker 4: like there was two turntables and a four track in there.
13:31
Speaker 4: But you know, John has always been one of the
13:34
Speaker 4: most down to earth, humble, laid back and giving people
13:42
Speaker 4: that I've met within the music business. You know, I
13:45
Speaker 4: got to beat him at an early age for me,
13:50
Speaker 4: and I was kind of just transitioning from being a
13:53
Speaker 4: college DJ to really just getting into the business, and
13:58
Speaker 4: he was the king of krunk. It was a time
14:00
Speaker 4: before you know, the explosion of the Chappelle Show. But
14:04
Speaker 4: you know, John was definitely a very key figure within
14:09
Speaker 4: the Atlanta hip hop scene as well as you know,
14:13
Speaker 4: being becoming a national an international star. And this was
14:18
Speaker 4: at a time when when gangster grills, like as a
14:22
Speaker 4: mixtape was just becoming a series, and you know, having
14:27
Speaker 4: a host of your mixtape was a very important thing,
14:32
Speaker 4: at least from an up North perspective, like you know,
14:36
Speaker 4: and I was following a lot of the up Northeast
14:38
Speaker 4: coast trends of mixtapes, and you know, people were having
14:43
Speaker 4: people like Puffy and Nas and you know, just all
14:47
Speaker 4: these you know, huge artists hosting their mixtapes. And I
14:52
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, I need to I need to find
14:54
Speaker 4: a host for you know, against the girls, to make
14:58
Speaker 4: it seem like it was something.
15:01
Speaker 3: You know and legit. Yeah, like it make it seem legit.
15:04
Speaker 2: It's like a sign to science.
15:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely, signs are important.
15:08
Speaker 4: So I remember asking like three people around that time,
15:14
Speaker 4: and two of them pretty much told me no. And
15:17
Speaker 4: John was the one that told me yes, he would
15:20
Speaker 4: host the tape for me. And he came to my
15:22
Speaker 4: crib again like this raggedy ass duplex I had Fourth
15:27
Speaker 4: Ward of Atlanta, and he did the drops for me.
15:32
Speaker 4: I think I either wrote out a script or I
15:34
Speaker 4: would just tell him, yeah, can you say this?
15:36
Speaker 3: Can you say that?
15:37
Speaker 4: And in him doing those drops the way he said gangs,
15:42
Speaker 4: the Grizzils, Yiks, the Yiksanks, the Grazil you know, he
15:47
Speaker 4: did that on his own and he hosted.
15:50
Speaker 3: It was the third Gangst Girls I did.
15:53
Speaker 4: I had did two before, and at the time they
15:55
Speaker 4: were just they were still just like compilations, you know,
15:58
Speaker 4: they were just like the best the hottest songs in
16:01
Speaker 4: the South that I.
16:02
Speaker 3: Was putting together.
16:04
Speaker 4: And he was the first host of Gangster Girls, which
16:08
Speaker 4: turned out to be Gangst the Girl's four, So you know,
16:11
Speaker 4: that tape has him all over it. And then the
16:14
Speaker 4: next tape that I did, and I think Gangst the
16:16
Speaker 4: Girls five. It was time to put a tape out,
16:19
Speaker 4: but I couldn't find anyone the host in time. So
16:23
Speaker 4: instead of you know, having a host, I just used
16:26
Speaker 4: the little John's voice thing thanks to Grizils and ran
16:30
Speaker 4: it back abundance of times all over the music kind
16:35
Speaker 4: of like to brand it in a sense, and you know,
16:38
Speaker 4: the drop went on to be quite legendary. But yeah,
16:41
Speaker 4: John is you know for those who see him as
16:45
Speaker 4: a character, like you know, he knows when to turn
16:48
Speaker 4: it on and you know, somewhat similar to me.
16:51
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't go around screaming all day every day.
16:54
Speaker 4: I could do on a mixtape, but like, you know,
16:56
Speaker 4: he's he's one of the most creative, hardworking, you know
17:01
Speaker 4: guys in the business. You know that really you know,
17:05
Speaker 4: has guided himself doing an incredible care you know, from
17:10
Speaker 4: production to you know, artists to DJ to you know,
17:16
Speaker 4: just rockstar in a sense.
17:18
Speaker 2: Did you coach him to say it a certain way?
17:20
Speaker 3: No, he did that on his own.
17:22
Speaker 2: And when you heard that, like, did you know where
17:24
Speaker 2: You're like, ooh, that's good.
17:25
Speaker 4: I didn't know. He just said it. He said it
17:28
Speaker 4: like that Gangst the Grizzilds, you know, and it was crazy.
17:32
Speaker 4: Is that I never realized now looking back on it,
17:36
Speaker 4: there was a Hot Boy song prior to Gangst the
17:40
Speaker 4: Grills where Manny Fresh actually says Gangst the Grizzils. Really yeah,
17:47
Speaker 4: So I'm curious if that's where John got it from.
17:51
Speaker 4: I never knew, I really, I've recently just heard it,
17:55
Speaker 4: like in the last like two three months where many
17:59
Speaker 4: Fresh says Gangster Grizzils. This was a record from like
18:03
Speaker 4: ninety eight ninety nine, so it came before a Gangst
18:06
Speaker 4: the Grills, and you know, but even at that time,
18:10
Speaker 4: that's not even where I got the name for the tape.
18:12
Speaker 4: Like I just kind of came up with Gangst the
18:14
Speaker 4: girls in itself. So you know, great minds think alike.
18:17
Speaker 4: But I didn't know that him saying that would turn
18:20
Speaker 4: out to be so iconic or you know, turn into
18:24
Speaker 4: like what it is today. But I was always very
18:27
Speaker 4: keen on branding early on.
18:29
Speaker 2: How did you learn about branding because you're obviously so
18:33
Speaker 2: good at it, Where does that instinct come from?
18:36
Speaker 4: Well, I remember taking a marketing class in college. And
18:40
Speaker 4: you know, I was a radio TV Film major, but
18:45
Speaker 4: as a mass communications major, we had to take some
18:48
Speaker 4: business classes.
18:50
Speaker 3: It was mandatory, and marketing was one of them.
18:53
Speaker 4: And I remember just it was during the time when
18:56
Speaker 4: I was in college and I was very earnest on
19:00
Speaker 4: my mixtape hustle, and my marketing class just like every
19:05
Speaker 4: part of the fascinated me into what I was doing
19:08
Speaker 4: with my business or my mixtapes, and like I was
19:13
Speaker 4: applying everything that I was learning.
19:16
Speaker 3: To my craft.
19:18
Speaker 4: And you know, I just remember again just like just
19:21
Speaker 4: even early on, just studying DJs like Flats and Capri
19:27
Speaker 4: and Bizmarcky Rest in Peace, like you know, just just
19:31
Speaker 4: how how big of a brand funk Master Flex was
19:35
Speaker 4: and you know, watching him and even Clu as well,
19:39
Speaker 4: like you know, just just watching like you know, them
19:43
Speaker 4: beyond the mixtape, like you know, get endorsements and become
19:48
Speaker 4: figures on television and things like that. So, you know, one,
19:52
Speaker 4: becoming a mixtape DJ for me was was key because
19:56
Speaker 4: the mixtape DJ in hip hop for me was the
20:00
Speaker 4: largest life DJ.
20:02
Speaker 3: You know. Those were the DJs that were treated like artists.
20:05
Speaker 3: You know, those were the DJs that were the.
20:08
Speaker 4: One is that people knew outside of the city they
20:12
Speaker 4: were from, you know, And even when I was approaching
20:17
Speaker 4: Gangster Girls, for me, it was like my goal was
20:21
Speaker 4: to create a brand from the mixtape that people recognized
20:26
Speaker 4: even bigger than at.
20:28
Speaker 3: The time DJ Drama.
20:30
Speaker 4: You know, like most DJs at the time were trying
20:34
Speaker 4: to make a name for themselves or make sure their
20:38
Speaker 4: their name as a DJ was the most well known.
20:40
Speaker 4: And I approached it in a sense where I'm going
20:43
Speaker 4: to make this brand, this mixtape brand, Gangster the Grills
20:46
Speaker 4: the biggest brand where when people see it, they automatically
20:51
Speaker 4: want it, regardless of who's on it or you know
20:55
Speaker 4: what it is. If they see a new Gangster Grills
20:57
Speaker 4: that they're gonna copy it. And I was like, through that,
21:01
Speaker 4: then I can kind of double back and create the
21:05
Speaker 4: brand of DJ drama, you know, so in those days
21:08
Speaker 4: for me, Gangster Grills was a larger brand and DJ Drama,
21:13
Speaker 4: and then I started applying, Okay, now I'm gonna go
21:15
Speaker 4: and put my my face on on the Gangster Girls
21:18
Speaker 4: along with the artists and start, you know, branding myself
21:22
Speaker 4: and making myself known once Gangster Girls was already a
21:27
Speaker 4: known brand. Yeah, and then you know, just again like
21:31
Speaker 4: you know, branding through the years. I guess it's something
21:34
Speaker 4: that kind of has come somewhat natural.
21:37
Speaker 2: And its just like it must. It feels like an
21:40
Speaker 2: innate ability because you have you have a real solid
21:43
Speaker 2: instinct for it. You know, you've been able to maintain
21:46
Speaker 2: it for twenty years, twenty years in so many different areas.
21:51
Speaker 2: So yeah, it definitely feels like something that comes naturally
21:54
Speaker 2: to you.
21:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you. You know that's key and hipop. I
21:58
Speaker 4: mean when you think about it, I mean from from
22:01
Speaker 4: DJ Drama to Gangster Girls to Generation Now to Dedications.
22:08
Speaker 4: You know, there's just so many things that that I'm
22:11
Speaker 4: attached to that are you know, known within the culture.
22:15
Speaker 2: At the height of Gangster Grills, like would you say
22:17
Speaker 2: the height was like oh five o six ish.
22:21
Speaker 3: I think it's had different different heights. I think oh,
22:24
Speaker 3: FABO six.
22:25
Speaker 2: Was like the first peak.
22:26
Speaker 3: That was the first peak. Definitely.
22:28
Speaker 2: Do you have an idea roughly of how many copies
22:31
Speaker 2: you were selling per month and how much how much
22:34
Speaker 2: you were making per month on.
22:35
Speaker 4: The tapes I was probably selling, like you know, between
22:40
Speaker 4: each tape it was you know, just coming from my backyard,
22:44
Speaker 4: probably like maybe twenty thirty five thousand tapes you know,
22:51
Speaker 4: just from me. But then again, like that's not including
22:54
Speaker 4: the bootleggers, and yeah, it was bootleg people that were
22:57
Speaker 4: taking that were taking masters, so you know, there were
23:01
Speaker 4: there were hundreds of thousands of copies, like I'm sure
23:04
Speaker 4: in that time there were you know a millionion physical
23:09
Speaker 4: gangster girls if we're including the Jezy tapes and the
23:13
Speaker 4: Wayne tapes and you know, all the various tapes. And
23:16
Speaker 4: then like monetarily wise, I was, you know, bringing in
23:21
Speaker 4: fifty sixty seventy eighty thousand dollars a month, like you know,
23:26
Speaker 4: money that I had never seen or been familiar with.
23:32
Speaker 3: So it was it was all of the time.
23:35
Speaker 2: And then all that changed on the morning of January sixteenth,
23:41
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. Can you just tell us quickly.
23:44
Speaker 2: What happened that morning? What you remember from that day,
23:48
Speaker 2: I got raided.
23:50
Speaker 4: I came to the studio that day and I had
23:53
Speaker 4: gotten tipped off that they were coming to the studio,
24:00
Speaker 4: but I thought it was a mix up and a mistake,
24:03
Speaker 4: and I went outside to go move my car. I
24:05
Speaker 4: let my employees know, like I just got a weird
24:07
Speaker 4: all that, you know, the cops for coming over here.
24:10
Speaker 3: And I went to go move my car.
24:12
Speaker 4: When I went outside, you know, they pulled up with
24:16
Speaker 4: you know, tahoes with the lights and helicopter was above
24:20
Speaker 4: my head and they jumped out with M sixteen's and
24:24
Speaker 4: you know, told me to get on the ground and
24:27
Speaker 4: told me, Tyree Simmons, you're being arrested for bootlegging and
24:30
Speaker 4: racketeering under the Rico law. And you know, they tore
24:36
Speaker 4: the studio apart, and you know, they were looking for
24:39
Speaker 4: guns and drugs, and you know, all they found was mixtapes.
24:42
Speaker 4: And I remember being taken down the right street and
24:46
Speaker 4: you know, sitting in the hold Excel and somebody tapping
24:49
Speaker 4: me like, look, you're on TV. And that was what
24:54
Speaker 4: they know is like the day to game change within
24:57
Speaker 4: the mixtape world, because like you know, I was like
25:02
Speaker 4: top of the food chain. I was one of the
25:04
Speaker 4: biggest mixtape DJs in the world at the time, and
25:08
Speaker 4: you know it was like, man, if DJ drama can
25:11
Speaker 4: get locked up, like nobody's safe.
25:13
Speaker 2: What happened when you were in jail? How long did
25:15
Speaker 2: you have to say?
25:16
Speaker 3: I was only there for like twenty four hours. We
25:18
Speaker 3: got a one hundred.
25:19
Speaker 4: Thousand dollars bond, and you know, I had a lot
25:23
Speaker 4: of hip hop conversations. Honestly, I was you know with
25:27
Speaker 4: you know, the guys that were locked up or the inmates,
25:31
Speaker 4: like we just had rap talk. But I remember getting
25:34
Speaker 4: out and you know, it literally like changed my life overnight.
25:40
Speaker 4: I became this I became the representation of like what
25:45
Speaker 4: was wrong within the music business, and you know, it
25:49
Speaker 4: definitely made me more famous than I was. And you know,
25:53
Speaker 4: my record label was pretty excited. They were like, oh,
25:56
Speaker 4: we can't pay for this type of publicity. At the time,
25:59
Speaker 4: I was signed to an Atlantic record as an artist
26:01
Speaker 4: to put out an.
26:03
Speaker 2: Album, Official Gangster Grills.
26:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, Official Gangster Grills album. So you know they were like, oh,
26:08
Speaker 4: how fast can we get the album done?
26:10
Speaker 2: Like, you know, there were negative effects, right it wasn't
26:13
Speaker 2: all positive when you came out.
26:15
Speaker 4: Well, they froze my bank account, so they kept my money,
26:21
Speaker 4: they kept like sick figures of an account that I
26:25
Speaker 4: had had. But beyond that, there weren't that many negative
26:30
Speaker 4: effects to it. I mean, it pretty much made me, like,
26:35
Speaker 4: you know, it made more people want to interview me,
26:38
Speaker 4: put me on more magazine covers than I was, like,
26:42
Speaker 4: made me more recognizable to people outside of you know,
26:46
Speaker 4: the mixtape world, and I became, you know, larger than
26:51
Speaker 4: I was, you know, And at the time, like for
26:54
Speaker 4: another person or another situation, that could have been the
26:58
Speaker 4: end of the end of the story, but like you know,
27:00
Speaker 4: for me, I was like, this is just one chapter
27:03
Speaker 4: of my story, Like this is not what this is
27:06
Speaker 4: not going to define my whole career. Like, you know,
27:09
Speaker 4: it'll definitely be a talked about moment, but I got,
27:15
Speaker 4: you know, so.
27:15
Speaker 3: Much to accomplish.
27:16
Speaker 4: And yeah, that was what I would I would say
27:19
Speaker 4: at the time, not knowing how much of a career
27:22
Speaker 4: I was sent out to have. But you know, I
27:25
Speaker 4: definitely knew that I wasn't going to like lay down
27:29
Speaker 4: and let this be the end, you know what I'm saying,
27:31
Speaker 4: especially because of how much I loved the mixtapes like,
27:35
Speaker 4: and I felt I felt some guilt. That was that
27:37
Speaker 4: was the other only other bad part was the guilt.
27:39
Speaker 4: I felt like I didn't want to see this culture
27:42
Speaker 4: that I loved so much die on my back.
27:44
Speaker 3: You know that I came up loving and wanting to
27:47
Speaker 3: be a part.
27:47
Speaker 2: Of because it was sort of a situation at that
27:50
Speaker 2: time where album sales were down across the music industry,
27:55
Speaker 2: mixtape sales were up, and mixtape DJs were making a
27:59
Speaker 2: bunch of money and record labels were losing money.
28:03
Speaker 5: It was like the Waid Wad West, Yeah, because I
28:06
Speaker 5: mean technically, mixtapes weren't even supposed to be taking money,
28:09
Speaker 5: Like it was always the quote unquote for promotional use,
28:13
Speaker 5: only stigma attached to it.
28:16
Speaker 4: And then, you know, outside of what myself for, you know,
28:20
Speaker 4: other well known mixtape DJs were doing, there were also
28:26
Speaker 4: just not even DJs, but mixtape guys that were stealing
28:32
Speaker 4: MP three's and hacking Gmail and getting records that weren't
28:38
Speaker 4: sanctioned by the artists or the label and they were.
28:40
Speaker 3: Putting them out.
28:41
Speaker 4: So you know, it was it was becoming like overly saturated,
28:46
Speaker 4: and you know, it was it was becoming a problem.
28:49
Speaker 4: And then on top of that, the music business was
28:52
Speaker 4: in a decline. Album sales were in a decline, so
28:56
Speaker 4: you know, it was kind of like some were looking
28:59
Speaker 4: at it like, oh, this is the this is the
29:01
Speaker 4: music business way of sending a message. The mixtape DJs
29:05
Speaker 4: like yo, y'all going to stop this ship here money.
29:10
Speaker 2: But meanwhile, you were promoting the artists like Wayne and
29:13
Speaker 2: Jeezy would tour off your mixtapes.
29:16
Speaker 4: Definitely, I mean the artists were you know, they were
29:21
Speaker 4: able to go on and you know, tour and make
29:24
Speaker 4: money off of the music that was coming off of
29:28
Speaker 4: their mixtapes as well as you know, those mixtapes were
29:31
Speaker 4: used as promotional tools to lead up to people's albums,
29:35
Speaker 4: you know, they were they were part of the marketing
29:37
Speaker 4: plan of the labels, like, yeah, before we do an album,
29:41
Speaker 4: we got to go against the girls to create some
29:44
Speaker 4: hype and anticipation.
29:46
Speaker 2: Right, And the labels would pay for them at times.
29:49
Speaker 4: They would. They definitely would. Yeah, I was definitely getting
29:51
Speaker 4: paid by labels to do tapes.
29:53
Speaker 2: Did it scare you after the raid? Did it stop
29:56
Speaker 2: you from doing tapes?
29:57
Speaker 4: No?
29:58
Speaker 3: I didn't. It didn't scare or stop me.
30:00
Speaker 4: You know, I kind of stopped the regular number gangst
30:04
Speaker 4: the Girl series that I had been doing because I
30:08
Speaker 4: was more focused on individual artist tapes. But I went
30:11
Speaker 4: and did like Gangster Girls sixteen and seventeen after the raid,
30:16
Speaker 4: and I continued to do mixtapes as.
30:20
Speaker 3: Did other people.
30:21
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, it was mixtapes are part of
30:24
Speaker 4: the culture, like they'll never go anywhere, even though through
30:28
Speaker 4: the years they've changed of how they may be presented
30:33
Speaker 4: or looked or.
30:35
Speaker 3: What have you. Like, I continued on after that. It
30:38
Speaker 3: didn't stop me.
30:40
Speaker 1: We're gonna pause for a quick break and then be
30:42
Speaker 1: back with more from DJ Drama and Lea Rose. We're
30:50
Speaker 1: back with more from DJ Drama and Lea Rose.
30:56
Speaker 2: Recently, you did a talk as part of a mental
30:59
Speaker 2: health awareness month with Shanty Dass.
31:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you.
31:03
Speaker 2: Opened up about your struggle with opioid addiction. Did you
31:09
Speaker 2: decide to come public with that.
31:12
Speaker 4: My opioid journey started somewhere around like twenty fifteen or
31:21
Speaker 4: something around there, or to be honest, like a lot
31:26
Speaker 4: of it started because of my issues with sleep, Like
31:31
Speaker 4: I was, I had really bad sleeping patterns and stuff,
31:36
Speaker 4: and I started drinking a lot of lean in the
31:39
Speaker 4: early two thousands, and you know, by kicking that habit,
31:43
Speaker 4: I then started to I think I went from mean
31:47
Speaker 4: to dank, then to percocets, and you know, I started
31:51
Speaker 4: to realize it was a problem around like maybe like
31:54
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, because I had never I never really knew
32:00
Speaker 4: the effects of withdrawals, and I went through withdrawals from
32:07
Speaker 4: percocets and it was like a pain or a feeling
32:11
Speaker 4: I never felt ever before my life. I remember telling
32:14
Speaker 4: myself at the time, like I'll never go another day
32:16
Speaker 4: without a percoset. And that was really where my like
32:20
Speaker 4: my addiction or my habit like went into like a
32:24
Speaker 4: different space and it really became a serious issue and problem.
32:31
Speaker 4: And in twenty twenty, right when COVID hit, I went
32:36
Speaker 4: to rehab and that was my first That was my
32:40
Speaker 4: first time in rehab and in a facility trying to
32:44
Speaker 4: you know, deal with my opioid addiction. And I spent
32:48
Speaker 4: some time there during the beginning of COVID, and I
32:52
Speaker 4: came out and I stayed clean for some months, and
32:57
Speaker 4: then I relapsed probably around the end of twenty twenty.
33:02
Speaker 4: So I went through all of twenty twenty one back
33:06
Speaker 4: on Berks and then I was about to go on
33:09
Speaker 4: tour in twenty twenty two, and I just remember having this,
33:14
Speaker 4: you know. And and while I was in rehab the
33:19
Speaker 4: first time I met my therapist. I had tried therapy before,
33:23
Speaker 4: but I didn't really find a person that was very
33:26
Speaker 4: suitable for me. And when I went to rehab, I
33:29
Speaker 4: found a therapist that just was the perfect fit for me.
33:32
Speaker 2: In what way, like what did she provide for you?
33:36
Speaker 4: She provided when I told her when I sat down
33:39
Speaker 4: and I pretty much in our first session told her
33:42
Speaker 4: my life story or as much as I could in
33:46
Speaker 4: an instance. I just remember her responses to me or
33:51
Speaker 4: her assessment of me was so on point, off top,
33:56
Speaker 4: and it.
33:56
Speaker 3: Was just like, you know, it was almost mind boggling.
34:00
Speaker 4: The feeling that I got from the therapist prior to
34:04
Speaker 4: her was almost like a warm blanket, you know. And Amy,
34:09
Speaker 4: who was my current therapist who I met, was like,
34:11
Speaker 4: you know, she didn't take any she didn't take any shit,
34:14
Speaker 4: or she didn't let me get away with bullshit, or
34:17
Speaker 4: she helped me accountable.
34:19
Speaker 3: You know.
34:19
Speaker 4: It wasn't if I would tell her something that you know,
34:23
Speaker 4: I was doing or you know that was not good.
34:27
Speaker 3: She would be like that you're.
34:28
Speaker 4: Full of shit, or that's no, that's not good.
34:34
Speaker 3: You know.
34:35
Speaker 4: So once I left rehab, it was it's a place
34:39
Speaker 4: called out sign on.
34:40
Speaker 3: Because of the law, I wasn't able to have her
34:43
Speaker 3: as my therapist for a certain amount of time.
34:47
Speaker 4: But after that time passed, I reached back out to
34:50
Speaker 4: her and was like, you know, you said, after the
34:53
Speaker 4: two months or three months whatever, you know, I could
34:57
Speaker 4: see if you were available, and she was like, yeah,
35:01
Speaker 4: we can so.
35:02
Speaker 3: And she had tried to hook me up with another therapist.
35:06
Speaker 4: Too for me to go see what I left the facility,
35:10
Speaker 4: and even with him, it was it just wasn't the
35:12
Speaker 4: right fit, like she.
35:14
Speaker 3: Was just the one for me.
35:16
Speaker 4: I relapsed in twenty twenty. I was taking perchas all
35:20
Speaker 4: through twenty twenty one. I had a situation where I
35:26
Speaker 4: literally almost overdosed.
35:28
Speaker 2: Where were you when that happened.
35:30
Speaker 4: I was in Atlanta, I was at home, and I
35:33
Speaker 4: was taken to the hospital and I was put in
35:36
Speaker 4: a situation where they were going through ten sixteen, which
35:42
Speaker 4: means they were going to keep me for a certain
35:44
Speaker 4: amount of time because of when they gave me the narcan,
35:49
Speaker 4: which they give to people who are almost going to overdose.
35:53
Speaker 4: Like I kept nodding off, and like, you know, it's
35:57
Speaker 4: supposed to keep you awake. Luckily, there was a nurse
36:03
Speaker 4: or someone in the hallway who was in there talking about,
36:07
Speaker 4: oh yeah, you don't know DJ Drama was he did
36:09
Speaker 4: all a little Wayne's mixtapes in the two thousands whatever whatever,
36:14
Speaker 4: And they violated the hippo law and I was if
36:19
Speaker 4: if they would have kept me in there, I went
36:21
Speaker 4: to I had to go shoot this movie.
36:23
Speaker 3: You people.
36:23
Speaker 4: I had to go shoot you people, and I would
36:26
Speaker 4: have missed it. And because they violated the hippolags, I
36:30
Speaker 4: was able to get out early and leave the facility.
36:34
Speaker 4: And you know, even I remember going on that movie
36:38
Speaker 4: set and during breaks of filming having a conversation with
36:44
Speaker 4: Jonah just about his struggles with addiction and things of
36:49
Speaker 4: that nature.
36:50
Speaker 3: And yeah, Jonah Hill and we had a.
36:53
Speaker 4: Really like in depth, like you know, heart to heart
36:56
Speaker 4: talk and I told him, like man, like I literally
37:00
Speaker 4: just was in the hospital like because of my addiction,
37:04
Speaker 4: and you know, he really opened up to me and
37:07
Speaker 4: like gave me some.
37:08
Speaker 3: Good it's a good guy, that's good advice.
37:11
Speaker 4: And I knew at that moment that I really, you know,
37:13
Speaker 4: I just I wanted to get clean because I used
37:16
Speaker 4: to tell Amy all the time, like my biggest fear
37:18
Speaker 4: is ending up like Michael Jackson or Prince, you know,
37:21
Speaker 4: and just like opioid is such a dangerous drug because
37:26
Speaker 4: like you know, there's no there's no end in sight,
37:30
Speaker 4: you know, and if they could take the lots with
37:32
Speaker 4: Michael Jackson or Prince, like.
37:34
Speaker 3: Who the fuck am I? You know what I'm saying.
37:37
Speaker 4: And the fear was like that was always my fear,
37:40
Speaker 4: like death, you know what I'm saying. So I went
37:43
Speaker 4: on I was going back on tour again in twenty
37:47
Speaker 4: twenty two with Whiz and Logic, and I was scared
37:52
Speaker 4: because you know, I felt like I only had like
37:55
Speaker 4: three options.
37:56
Speaker 3: Three options were.
37:57
Speaker 4: I'm either going to go on tour and I'm gonna
38:00
Speaker 4: buy an abundance of perks and be taking too many,
38:05
Speaker 4: or I'm going to go on tour and I'm not
38:09
Speaker 4: going to have them and I'm going to be going
38:10
Speaker 4: through withdrawals. Or I'm going to go on tour without
38:13
Speaker 4: them and be trying to find them and buying them
38:16
Speaker 4: from somewhere where I shouldn't be and they're gonna have
38:19
Speaker 4: fentanyl in them and it's going to be a hazard.
38:21
Speaker 3: So I called.
38:22
Speaker 4: The the rehab place that I went to erform outside
38:28
Speaker 4: on and maybe like a week before tour, and I
38:32
Speaker 4: just like, look, I'm about to leave, I just need
38:34
Speaker 4: to try the detox for a couple of days before
38:37
Speaker 4: I go. And I went there and I got on
38:41
Speaker 4: the boxing, which I had gotten on the time before,
38:45
Speaker 4: but I didn't stay on it. And this time when
38:47
Speaker 4: I left to go on tour, I stayed on Boxin.
38:50
Speaker 2: And that's the detox drug.
38:52
Speaker 4: The boxing is a Yeah, it's a it's a drug
38:55
Speaker 4: that they give people to detox off of opioids. It
39:01
Speaker 4: blocks the receptors in your brain that most people get
39:05
Speaker 4: high from opioids off of.
39:07
Speaker 2: Does it blocks the craving to do it?
39:10
Speaker 3: Yeah? It does.
39:11
Speaker 4: It blocks the cravings as well, because by blocking the receptors,
39:15
Speaker 4: it doesn't allow you to have those cravings.
39:19
Speaker 2: In a sense, it seems like there's two cravings, Like
39:21
Speaker 2: there's a physical craving like your physically your body's physically addicted,
39:25
Speaker 2: but there's also a mental craving of just wanting that
39:28
Speaker 2: feeling of escape. Absolutely, does it block the mental craving
39:34
Speaker 2: as well?
39:36
Speaker 4: I would think so, but you know, some of that
39:40
Speaker 4: maybe it's just kind of like a mental thing in
39:43
Speaker 4: its own.
39:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
39:44
Speaker 4: You know, for me, it was more of me wanting
39:47
Speaker 4: to stop anyway, and the hardest part at that moment
39:52
Speaker 4: was more of the physical addiction and you know, not
39:58
Speaker 4: not wanting to go through the pain of the withdrawals
40:01
Speaker 4: and the things of that nature.
40:02
Speaker 3: But if there is the boxing or supplicate.
40:05
Speaker 4: Like, there is a part of it that definitely stops
40:08
Speaker 4: your the mental craving as well, you know. So, yeah,
40:12
Speaker 4: so when I got back from tour or when I
40:16
Speaker 4: ran into Shanti, I had at that moment and time
40:20
Speaker 4: had been like six months clean or seven months clean,
40:23
Speaker 4: probably the longest I had had been clean since I
40:27
Speaker 4: had started taking opioids. And you know, I knew that,
40:32
Speaker 4: you know, when we started talking, she was she.
40:34
Speaker 3: Asked me if I would be open to share my story.
40:36
Speaker 4: And I know that, you know, a person like myself
40:40
Speaker 4: in the position that I was in, especially when no one,
40:45
Speaker 4: no one was aware of my addictions or my issues
40:49
Speaker 4: and that and with that, you know me sure my
40:52
Speaker 4: story could help someone else out. So yeah, you know,
40:56
Speaker 4: she offered and gave me the platform to speak on it,
41:00
Speaker 4: and you know I was more than happy to do.
41:02
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, how prevalent are opioids in Atlanta? Just like
41:07
Speaker 2: in your circles, Like I mean about people drinking lean
41:10
Speaker 2: all the time, we see people holding styrofoam cups. But
41:13
Speaker 2: how prevalent actually is it? How big of a problem
41:15
Speaker 2: is it.
41:16
Speaker 4: It's very It's it's like common. I mean those were everywhere.
41:20
Speaker 4: I mean, that was even what happened when I got
41:22
Speaker 4: back on them. I mean, you know, I was able
41:25
Speaker 4: to stay clean in those early months because the world
41:30
Speaker 4: was shut down, and you know, I wasn't outside or
41:34
Speaker 4: I wasn't I wasn't in places where I could get them.
41:37
Speaker 4: But as soon as kind of like things started to
41:39
Speaker 4: open back up, or I was you know, out and
41:41
Speaker 4: about in Atlanta, and Atlanta was somewhere that was open
41:45
Speaker 4: a little more earlier than most places. You know, I
41:48
Speaker 4: ran into you know, people who were selling them or
41:51
Speaker 4: where I could I could get them just that easy again,
41:55
Speaker 4: and you know, or just even in regular circles of
42:00
Speaker 4: studio sessions and you know, you know people pop hills
42:05
Speaker 4: like it's it's it's a common thing, you know.
42:08
Speaker 2: So do people talk about addiction, like do you feel like,
42:11
Speaker 2: now that you've been through what you've been through and
42:13
Speaker 2: you have more education behind it, do you want to
42:16
Speaker 2: reach out to people and help somebody who you see
42:19
Speaker 2: might be dealing with addiction?
42:21
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean definitely, because I know how easy it is, like,
42:26
Speaker 4: you know, for it to become a problem, you know,
42:29
Speaker 4: and yeah, you know it's it's scary. It's the scariest
42:33
Speaker 4: part and the most dangerous part is that, like it
42:36
Speaker 4: was a five six thousand dollars a month habit I had. Wow,
42:40
Speaker 4: I was spending close to six figures a year on opioids,
42:45
Speaker 4: and like I was in a position where I could
42:51
Speaker 4: afford the type of habbit of doing that. The average
42:55
Speaker 4: person can't do that and the next step after opioids
43:01
Speaker 4: or not being able to afford consistent percosets heroin, you
43:05
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And you know that the rich
43:09
Speaker 4: person or if you watch shows like Dope Sick or
43:13
Speaker 4: the new Netflix series Painkiller, Like the more education I
43:17
Speaker 4: got about, you know, just the opioid crisis and understanding,
43:21
Speaker 4: like it's so easy to see how people can fall
43:25
Speaker 4: into these traps, you know what I mean, and not
43:27
Speaker 4: even not even be aware of it, you know, because
43:30
Speaker 4: when I started out, I started out taking a five
43:33
Speaker 4: miligram percocet, and it was this feeling of euphoria. And
43:38
Speaker 4: then once you take that for a period of time,
43:42
Speaker 4: it doesn't do anything. So then I have to take
43:45
Speaker 4: three of those, and the next thing, you know, I'm
43:47
Speaker 4: taking one hundred and twenty milligrams, you know, to feel that.
43:50
Speaker 2: That feeling and throughout the whole day, like you would just.
43:53
Speaker 4: I would it got to that point and that happened.
43:56
Speaker 4: I would wake up, I would take a thirty. Then
43:59
Speaker 4: in an afternoon, I would take a thirty, and then
44:01
Speaker 4: at night I would take three thirties and a fifteen
44:04
Speaker 4: or something to go to sleep.
44:06
Speaker 2: Did it affect your career in a negative way, it seems,
44:09
Speaker 2: because didn't you do Tyler's album during that time period?
44:12
Speaker 3: You know, I was able to really like hi, did
44:16
Speaker 3: I mean?
44:17
Speaker 4: You know, there was a time when I was calling
44:19
Speaker 4: myself like a functional junkie, like not the tour I
44:24
Speaker 4: did last year, but the tour I.
44:26
Speaker 3: Did in twenty nineteen.
44:30
Speaker 4: In twenty nineteen, you know, I was on percosets constantly,
44:36
Speaker 4: but I would do them during the time, like in
44:39
Speaker 4: between when I would have to work or I would,
44:41
Speaker 4: you know, I was working out every day and working
44:44
Speaker 4: and then you know, still taking perk, So I think
44:47
Speaker 4: I was I was able to hide it for the
44:49
Speaker 4: most part. Like it had more of a negative effect
44:53
Speaker 4: on my life more so than it did my career,
44:56
Speaker 4: you know, your personal life. Yeah, more of my personal
44:59
Speaker 4: life than so much my career. Yeah.
45:02
Speaker 2: I imagine it can make you sort of withdraw from
45:04
Speaker 2: people emotionally.
45:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely does that.
45:07
Speaker 4: And your vision and you know doesn't You don't always
45:12
Speaker 4: make the best logical decisions.
45:14
Speaker 3: On them, so you know, it's just it's just not good.
45:17
Speaker 3: They're just terrible.
45:19
Speaker 2: Now that you've had a little bit of distance from it,
45:22
Speaker 2: what do you do to stay resilient? What do you
45:24
Speaker 2: do to stay clean?
45:27
Speaker 4: I look forward to the twenty second of every month
45:30
Speaker 4: because it's another monthly anniversary of my sobriety. I hit
45:36
Speaker 4: a year on July twenty second, So now this is
45:41
Speaker 4: thank you Sonoun was just thirteen months. And you know,
45:45
Speaker 4: I get more fulfillment and enjoyment of the longevity of
45:51
Speaker 4: saying clean and sober that I do from wanting to
45:55
Speaker 4: take a purpose at and never wanting to go back
45:58
Speaker 4: to that, you know, it's not worth it.
46:00
Speaker 2: Do you continue to take some sort of medication.
46:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I take a shot.
46:05
Speaker 4: It's called a supplicate shot, which I take monthly, and
46:11
Speaker 4: that definitely is supposed to help with you know, cravings
46:15
Speaker 4: or even feeling the effects of an opioid.
46:19
Speaker 3: You know.
46:19
Speaker 4: I remember a time recently, or a couple of times recently,
46:23
Speaker 4: where they've been right in my face, you know, around
46:29
Speaker 4: and I had no desire to engage or indulge, and
46:35
Speaker 4: I was extremely proud of myself for that.
46:38
Speaker 1: We have to take another quick break and then we'll
46:40
Speaker 1: come back with more from Lea Rose and DJ Drama.
46:47
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of Leo Rose's conversation with
46:50
Speaker 1: DJ Drama.
46:52
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you a little bit about
46:54
Speaker 2: your background. What was your home life like, like early childhood? Like,
46:59
Speaker 2: what do you remember about the house you grew up in.
47:02
Speaker 2: Was it a house filled with music? Were your parents
47:05
Speaker 2: into music?
47:06
Speaker 3: Yeah?
47:07
Speaker 4: So I grew up between my mother and my father.
47:11
Speaker 4: They split up when I was around two, and I
47:15
Speaker 4: spent like equal amount of times between both households.
47:18
Speaker 3: But my dad was a huge duop fan and he
47:24
Speaker 3: had a large record collection.
47:27
Speaker 4: I remember my mom had a lot of records too,
47:31
Speaker 4: And they definitely both played a lot of music within
47:37
Speaker 4: the household. And my dad, my dad also listened to
47:40
Speaker 4: a lot of jazz. My mom listened to a lot
47:42
Speaker 4: of jazz, a lot of early eighties R and B,
47:46
Speaker 4: seventies R and B. And you know, I just remember,
47:50
Speaker 4: you know, being introduced to hip hoping at an early age,
47:55
Speaker 4: you know, having a keen love for it. But even
47:58
Speaker 4: over all, even just a came up for music, like
48:01
Speaker 4: you know, I grew up listening to Big Daddy Kane
48:06
Speaker 4: and Guns and Roses krus One a Metallica.
48:11
Speaker 2: Did you ever feel like, because being mixed race, your
48:14
Speaker 2: dad is black, your mom is white, did you ever
48:16
Speaker 2: have a period where you felt like you had to
48:19
Speaker 2: sort of pick a side.
48:21
Speaker 3: Yeah.
48:22
Speaker 4: I mean as a young child, you know, I definitely
48:26
Speaker 4: had some identity issues, you know, definitely being so fair
48:32
Speaker 4: skinned or light skinned, you know, and my father always
48:36
Speaker 4: instilled in me, like about my blackness, and you know,
48:39
Speaker 4: at a young age, it was kind of confusing because
48:42
Speaker 4: it was like he would tell me that I'm black.
48:45
Speaker 4: I'd be like, well, okay, but my mom is white,
48:48
Speaker 4: and you know, just I would always get questioned a
48:51
Speaker 4: lot like about what I was or you know, how
48:56
Speaker 4: to identify myself. So you know, it would go from
49:00
Speaker 4: me saying I'm black to me saying I'm mixed, or
49:03
Speaker 4: me having to explain to people or what have you,
49:06
Speaker 4: or you know, being fair skinned but having you know,
49:10
Speaker 4: certain features like big lips or curly hair, and you know,
49:14
Speaker 4: just like.
49:16
Speaker 3: Growing up in I guess the eighties and the nineties in.
49:20
Speaker 4: That time, Like they're definitely worth some times of confusion
49:25
Speaker 4: or or trying to you know, who I've identify with
49:30
Speaker 4: more or picking aside or things like that, or you know,
49:33
Speaker 4: friend groups and you know, just school and you know.
49:37
Speaker 3: Things like that.
49:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did your parents meet?
49:42
Speaker 4: They met because they both were very active in like
49:49
Speaker 4: conscious and liberal political movements, so they met kind of
49:56
Speaker 4: both working around civil rights in the mid to late seventies.
50:02
Speaker 2: Cool. Yeah, Philadelphia seems like a very politically active city.
50:05
Speaker 3: Definite. Yes.
50:07
Speaker 2: Okay. So in addition to every thing that you've built
50:09
Speaker 2: with the mixtapes, with you know, with your podcast, with
50:13
Speaker 2: the albums you've released, you also have now a label
50:17
Speaker 2: imprint called Generation Now, and you've signed two of the
50:23
Speaker 2: most now successful hip hop artists, Little Ooze, Vert Jack
50:28
Speaker 2: Harlowe and they're really living up to the name of
50:31
Speaker 2: the imprint. Yeah, just talk about how you found them
50:34
Speaker 2: or what it was about them that you knew that
50:37
Speaker 2: you wanted to sign them.
50:39
Speaker 4: A lot of it was their conviction upon meeting them,
50:43
Speaker 4: their own desire to be great, to be stars, to
50:49
Speaker 4: be you know, the best of the best. You know,
50:53
Speaker 4: they both kind of in a sense like went against
50:58
Speaker 4: the grain. You know, that's something that you know, I've
51:01
Speaker 4: always been keen of. Like even if you look at
51:04
Speaker 4: my story about you know, this kid funtil you moved
51:07
Speaker 4: to Atlanta and dominated you know, southern mixtape scene, like
51:14
Speaker 4: you know, a little Oozi wasn't the norm of what
51:19
Speaker 4: people were used to have artists of what Philadelphia artists
51:22
Speaker 4: sound like, right, Yeah, and you know that definitely attracted
51:27
Speaker 4: us to him.
51:29
Speaker 2: But how did you know he would have longevity? Like
51:31
Speaker 2: when you were starting to talk to him and hear
51:33
Speaker 2: his music, Like, how did you know that he's someone
51:35
Speaker 2: who's worth investing long term in?
51:39
Speaker 4: I mean, to be honest, I don't know if you
51:42
Speaker 4: ever really do you know. I mean, it's like it's
51:46
Speaker 4: it's the music business. I mean, it's all at gamble,
51:49
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, I definitely saw the talent in him.
51:52
Speaker 4: You know, I saw his Again, it's the conviction, like
51:56
Speaker 4: he knew he was a rock star, and you know,
51:58
Speaker 4: he was always very confident of like how dope his
52:01
Speaker 4: shit was, or you.
52:03
Speaker 3: Know Jack is. You know there's videos of Jack rapping
52:08
Speaker 3: at twelve than thirteen.
52:10
Speaker 4: Like I stand behind his ability to want to be
52:14
Speaker 4: great and to want to have longevity and you know,
52:19
Speaker 4: wanting to be a great performer and you know, which
52:22
Speaker 4: he wasn't always, but you know, I mean again, he
52:27
Speaker 4: was a sponge that you know, we watched like soak
52:31
Speaker 4: it up and we're able to lend our shoulders to
52:35
Speaker 4: artists and bring the knowledge and then you know the
52:40
Speaker 4: years of legacy that we have and you know, to
52:43
Speaker 4: help them for their careers.
52:46
Speaker 2: When you and Lake and Cannon are talking about signing
52:49
Speaker 2: Jack Harlow to the generation now, that becomes a huge
52:53
Speaker 2: co sign for Jack and that can change the trajectory
52:57
Speaker 2: of his career. Right, What was it about him that
53:00
Speaker 2: made you confident?
53:02
Speaker 3: I just was always impressed of how comfortable in his
53:05
Speaker 3: own skinn he was. And like its note of you know,
53:11
Speaker 3: of hip hop or you know we we we we
53:13
Speaker 3: had a fond.
53:17
Speaker 4: Interest in the same films and movies, and you know,
53:21
Speaker 4: watching him rap like you know, lyric lyrically, and like
53:25
Speaker 4: what he in the conversations I had with him of
53:29
Speaker 4: what he where he wanted to be, and you know,
53:32
Speaker 4: where he wanted to go as an artist, like he
53:34
Speaker 4: wanted to be one of the greats, and like, you know,
53:38
Speaker 4: that was enough for me. That was like, here's this
53:41
Speaker 4: kid from Louisville, Kentucky that looks like Napoleon dynamite that
53:45
Speaker 4: you know, like it's going to shock the world. So
53:48
Speaker 4: you know, again, I just think like I've always found
53:52
Speaker 4: a lot of success and and someone kind of like
53:55
Speaker 4: going against the grain. And I remember having conversations with
53:58
Speaker 4: the label and you know, some people being a little
54:01
Speaker 4: skeptical about us signing a white artist, and I was like, look,
54:05
Speaker 4: it's not it's not the year.
54:07
Speaker 3: Two thousand anymore. Like them is not the only one
54:10
Speaker 3: that can exist. Like you know, just sit back and
54:14
Speaker 3: watch what we do. You know, we did it again.
54:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys have had tremendous success. Congratulations on Thank
54:21
Speaker 2: you on all the success. What are you working on now? Like,
54:24
Speaker 2: what's next? I know you're working on probably a million things.
54:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm in the process of finishing up a book
54:31
Speaker 4: deal who memoir, potentially a memoir Stay tuned. Generation Now
54:37
Speaker 4: we have our management company, so we now have a
54:42
Speaker 4: little Tyler, Ruby Rose, Mariaha scientists on Generation Now Management.
54:48
Speaker 4: We're in the process of signing some new artists, one
54:50
Speaker 4: of them being this artist named kay Cash and another.
54:55
Speaker 3: One that will announce very soon.
54:57
Speaker 4: I'm finishing up this tour with Snoop and Wiz and
55:01
Speaker 4: going to go right into start working on a new
55:03
Speaker 4: album and then we all we're working on some film
55:07
Speaker 4: projects as well.
55:09
Speaker 2: How are you sleeping now, like a baby, I.
55:12
Speaker 3: Just sleep peacefully. You know, I'm at a space and
55:15
Speaker 3: where you know, life is amazing.
55:18
Speaker 4: I get up, I work out, and you know, my
55:21
Speaker 4: day is pretty fulfilled if it's a normal average day.
55:24
Speaker 3: I put my ass to bed about eleven eleven thirty.
55:27
Speaker 2: That's great. Thank you so much, Drama for doing this.
55:30
Speaker 2: I appreciate you so much and I'm so proud of you.
55:33
Speaker 2: So good to be connected again.
55:35
Speaker 3: No, for sure, it's great to talk to you all
55:37
Speaker 3: this time.
55:41
Speaker 1: Thanks to Djdrama for being so open about his addiction
55:44
Speaker 1: and recovery. We wish him continued success. And personally, I
55:47
Speaker 1: look forward to the return of the greatest mixtape series
55:50
Speaker 1: of all time with the dedication seven. Whenever that drops.
55:53
Speaker 1: You can hear all of our favorite official djdrama tracks
55:56
Speaker 1: on the playlist at broken record podcast dot com. You
56:00
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
56:02
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56:05
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Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced with help from Leah Rose,
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56:41
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