Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Reuben Vincent & 9th Wonder On Preserving Classic Hip Hop, Vocabulary vs Virality, New Album + More

Transcript

INTERVIEW: Reuben Vincent & 9th Wonder On Preserving Classic Hip Hop, Vocabulary vs Virality, New Album + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Don't every day up waiting click up the Breakfast Club,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: finish for.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Y'all done morning.
• 0:07
  Speaker 3: Everybody is the j n V Jess hilarious, Charlamagne the
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: guy we all the Breakfast Club.
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: He got some special guest.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: In the belly.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Indeed got the brother ninth wonder he's back, and Ruben
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Vincent back?
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: What's up?
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: Guys? Are y'all feeling man?
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Every day all as well? Man?
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I love seeing this because I always feel like the young,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: younger lyricists need to get with the o G veteran producers,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: like somebody like Knife and create magic.
• 0:31
  Speaker 5: I don't think that there's and I could.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Be wrong, but I don't think that there's anybody that can,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: you know, do for a Ruben what a Knife could sound?
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: Wise what you think Ruby, I agree?
• 0:41
  Speaker 6: Just being real, I mean, I don't think it's been
• 0:43
  Speaker 6: done on this level, you know what I mean. I
• 0:45
  Speaker 6: feel like, you know, there's been few folks that might
• 0:47
  Speaker 6: have ded records, but it's either sending the beats off
• 0:50
  Speaker 6: and then they over there like we really sat in
• 0:52
  Speaker 6: the studio with each other, you know what I mean?
• 0:54
  Speaker 6: It was I moved in the studio for six months,
• 0:56
  Speaker 6: sleeping on the couch. So it was like, you know,
• 0:58
  Speaker 6: he going to his crib, but I'll wake up, go
• 1:00
  Speaker 6: to the gym. He pull up at twelve o'clock and
• 1:02
  Speaker 6: we just really the synergy was there, you know what
• 1:05
  Speaker 6: I mean.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So I think this is the first of his conference.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: Sure, what do you have the time?
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Because you're also a professor, Like, when do you have
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: the time? I've seen ninety so many times and it
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: really never has to do with music. It's always I'm
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: not at speaking or something like that.
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: Or basketball. Yeah, when do you have the time?
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: Bro?
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Man?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: That's the beauty about living in North Carolina, dog Like,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: there's no rat race to run, really, and so I
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, I teach twice a week. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: teach at Duke on Wednesdays and Wake Forest University on Thursdays,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and with outside of that, the rest of the week
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is either comprised of doing stuff with basketball or just
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: making music. And so that's how I deal with it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: But I think the biggest thing between me and him
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: is well, teaching has helped me do that too. Teaching
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: has helped me understand the next generation way more than
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: anybody else. Most people only deal with like seventeen eighteen
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: with eighteen nineteen twenty year olds.
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: That's like family members blah blah blah, and and.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Use those people to like put a blanket on how
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: every eighteen year old acts me. I've been looking at
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: eighteen year olds and twenty two year olds since what
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen years now, this is my nineteen year teacher. So
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: an eighteen year old in two thousand and six, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: an eighteen year old in twenty sixteen, and an eighteen
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: year old in twenty twenty five, them three different eighteen
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: year old of course, so I kind of look at
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: it that way. But the thing about me and him
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is a lot of people don't think that these two
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: generations can't communicate well facts, and that's kind of we
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: debunked that with this. I mean even when I first
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: met him. That's how it's been. But we kind of,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: you know, getting away to it as far as time. Yeah, man,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I just I'm just real focused, Charlota Magne know, I'm
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: just real focus on what I do, what I need
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: to do. I like serving the culture all the time.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And yeah, man, if I'm not helping the culture, then
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I'm taking away from it. I feel like with hip
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: hop though, you know, young men like Ruben are trying
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to do y'all already did, so they got to come
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to you for that sound.
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: You can't treat that.
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: Man.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I want to make an ill madic. I want to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: make something that sound like reasonable doubt. I want to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: make something that sound like the first Little Brother, Like
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you got to come to the people who did that.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Then.
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, man, I think it's each one teach one, you
• 3:15
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. And you know they talk about
• 3:17
  Speaker 6: you know, the they say it didn't exist, but the
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: Willie Lynch letter. But you know what I'm saying, it's
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: real common to what really happens, you know what I'm saying,
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: from breaking generations apart and you know, separating us.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But you know, I had my father.
• 3:30
  Speaker 6: We didn't live in the same house, but you know,
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: he always used to pick me up on weekends. So
• 3:34
  Speaker 6: I know how to take a person's counsel, you know
• 3:37
  Speaker 6: what I mean. And I also too, is like I'm
• 3:39
  Speaker 6: a sponge, you know what I mean. So it's like
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: I'm willing to learn, you know what I mean. Where
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: I feel like you know, people, some people my age,
• 3:45
  Speaker 6: they'll be turned off and try to like, you know, cool,
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: But I think for me, it's just like I want
• 3:50
  Speaker 6: to know. And then also too, they were our Age
• 3:52
  Speaker 6: when they were making the ill maadics. They were our
• 3:54
  Speaker 6: Age when they was making the reasonable.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Doubts, you know what I mean.
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: They make it seem like now me being twenty four
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: and me being like having debt to my lyrics or
• 4:01
  Speaker 6: wisdom is.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Like like whoa, you know what I mean? Like, oh
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: you you sound like an old nigga. But it's like.
• 4:09
  Speaker 6: Right, right, So it's like yo, like it's not uncommon,
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean, And it's only right that
• 4:15
  Speaker 6: you know, you go tapping with the pioneers who've been
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: there before because they the only ones they can.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Tell you, you know what I mean, You sitting and listen
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to somebody who ain't never done it don't make no
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: sense to me.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Is there a place for lyricists in this game to
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: be at the top of the game?
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: And the reason I say that is you mentioned you
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: mentioned Jay, you mentioned Nows. You know, you could talk pac,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: you can talk big. They were lyricists, but they were
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: top and people respected them as being the top. You
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: can look at outcasts and even TI like they were top.
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: But now it seems like that lyricists they put in
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: a box.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: You know, with our casts, man, we have to understand
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: what our casts. It took a couple of albums for
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: everybody to truly respect our casts.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It wasn't from the South, I mean Southern playerlistic, Okay, okay,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you know what, having a source of wars. Then at Aliens,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until they got to a Quemini and Stank
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Conya that everybody was like, okay.
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But even with Big and Jay, that's kind of where
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: hip hop was taking a turn.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Before that hip hop wasn't as commercial everywhere, like whatever.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: But when Big and J came, especially when Jay came
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: along them DMX and now we're looking at hip hop more.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: People that don't look like us as listening to hip
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: hop way more than ever, you know what I mean.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of what that was. But I think
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: it's and I'm gonna say this, man, I just love
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and I remember, I know we all do. Remember when
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: the culture was ours. We had our own validation points.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: If you were on Rap City, you're on TV raps,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: our Senior Hall Show, Soul Train, in the back of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the Jet magazine, the albums, the singles they showed your
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: house in ebony, if you were on those, the cover,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the sources, Essence magazine, if you were in the hair salons,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the barbershop, the music, if you went outside with your
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: homies after church and played whatever you was listening to
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: the car. If you were in all those places one time,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: that's validation enough.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: You made it, you know what I mean.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: And it's not trying to say because I'm here. This
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: is one of the few last rites of patches, passages
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: for people y'all look like us, you know what I mean,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and you got to come through here to be validated.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: We need more of that, you know what I'm saying.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Like so when we say mainstream top of the game,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: this is part of the top of the game right
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: here to me.
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: And I also feel like when you talk about lyricists,
• 6:48
  Speaker 6: I also feel like when you talk about lyricists, you
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: got to know how to make a song, you know
• 6:53
  Speaker 6: what I mean. And I think that's the biggest thing
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: with this album that people want to see from me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 6: Like we were just talking about it, where it was like,
• 6:59
  Speaker 6: what was the turning point for you? Where a lot
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: of people we did listening on Friday, and everybody was like, Yo,
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: you really like showed your songwriting, you know, on here
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: and like you have choruses and it's like now you
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: could tell you a lot of time, it was just
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: me in the studio, you know what I mean by myself.
• 7:11
  Speaker 6: So I feel like a lot of the lyricists at
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: this time is still proving they trying to rap on
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: their records and they're not giving.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Nothing that people can relate to or people can feel.
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: It's always I'm just trying to show you I can
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: do this crazy word play, Like now I want to
• 7:26
  Speaker 6: make records that you're gonna play Monday through Friday, when
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: you on the way to work, when you on the
• 7:30
  Speaker 6: way to school, you getting ready, you know what I mean,
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: or even for the before the party, you know what
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: I'm saying, or at the party.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: And I think this album that was the example, and
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: I feel like that's the only way lyricists can really
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: reach them heights is if they know how to make
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: a record.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: They gotta be taught, right.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you watch Nas and Nas and tell you,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's tragedy, but taught them how
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: to make a song, right, like, this is the components
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: to make a song. I love Big Biggest, probably my
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: favorite artist ever, him and Jay, But I don't know.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: If Puff wasn't there, I don't know if Big knew
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: how to make those type of songs and how.
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: To break down, that would have been that and it.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Would have been partying bull. But yeah, Puff taught him like, no,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: you need to make a song like this. You need
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: a hook, you need this, And I feel like that's
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: what's missing a lot of times in this game.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant needed to Phil Jackson, and that's my Phil Jackson.
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: Drede Snoop needed dre Facts.
• 8:14
  Speaker 7: So what is the creative process, like, you know what.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Making this project? Making this project? Well, welcome home, Welcome home.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I called Ruben in a special place. Ruben came to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: me and said, man, you seen the Lego movie. I said,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: I saw one. Farrad said yeah for real one. Yeah,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: he said, man, I ain't no. Pharrell was close to
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: tribe like that that he revered tribe called Quest. I'm like, yeah,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: he said, that's who I am. I come from that.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not like yeah, like I knew this whole time.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I'm just letting him realize, like you know, sometimes you
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: have to step out the way and let you figure
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: it out on your own. But then while we're recording it,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: we're recording with cod when we thought we was done,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Ruben started following for somebody, HM, okay, okay, all right,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: And so I'm coming in the studio. I'm coming to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: the studio. You always got to catch HI where they are.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: I'm coming in the studio. He on the phone.
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: He facetied me on the phone.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: You love Jones, yea.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Coca at work, And I'm like, you know, but I
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: have to catch him where he is. So now all
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: my beasts started to turn a certain way for him
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: to talk about what he wanted to talk about. That
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: he found somebody, and I thought that was amazing, which
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: something we talked about. There's nothing wrong with talking about
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: embracing black women on your projects.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, young men. Young men don't do that a lot.
• 9:35
  Speaker 6: And I think even the routine again, like right before,
• 9:39
  Speaker 6: like he said, he let me figure it out on
• 9:41
  Speaker 6: my own. When I got when I first got my
• 9:43
  Speaker 6: deal with Rock and I was moving around, I was
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: in LA and then you know, I started to see
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: how weird the industry can get and then you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: a lot of people is in my ear like you
• 9:52
  Speaker 6: need to make this type of record and this type
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: of record that don't necessarily fit who I am. So
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: when I watched the Lego movie, I was like, oh,
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: this is my tree. I come from the tree of tribe.
• 10:01
  Speaker 6: I come from the tree of Kanye West in his
• 10:03
  Speaker 6: early stages. I come from that tree. Okay, let me
• 10:06
  Speaker 6: navigate that and you know, study and really figure it out.
• 10:09
  Speaker 6: But then also to my mom and like living in Charlotte.
• 10:13
  Speaker 6: You know my mom, she's an African mother. You know,
• 10:15
  Speaker 6: she's from Liberia. So she was always supportive of me.
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: But the industry started to change, money started to slow
• 10:20
  Speaker 6: up at a little bit, and she's like, yo, you
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: either got to go back to school or get a job.
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: And I was like, I ain't doing none of that,
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean. So I called Knife, we
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: talked about it. He was like, YO, just come down
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: the Raleigh. Sleeping on sleeping on the couch. For six months,
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: my routine was I wake up, save my prayers, go
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: to the gym. By the time I get back from
• 10:36
  Speaker 6: the gym, I take a shower cause we have a
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: shower at the studio, which is a blessing. Like there's
• 10:41
  Speaker 6: a lot of artists can't say they have a mentor
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: who has a whole studio that you don't got to
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: pay for studio time.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So I'm gonna take all advantage, you know what I mean.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: You don't know if you don't have to pay for
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it yet.
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: Coming nah, But then after that, you know, like he'll
• 11:05
  Speaker 6: probably get to the studio around twelve o'clock and we'll
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: sit there, we'll discuss talk about, you know, what movies
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: remind us of home, what music videos that we are
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: favorite rap music videos.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Then were going through samples, you know what I mean.
• 11:17
  Speaker 6: So the way the studio is set up, Knife got
• 11:19
  Speaker 6: his beat room, and then we got the recording room,
• 11:22
  Speaker 6: and then we got the living area where I used
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: to sleep at.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: But ninth will come in around twelve o'clock.
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: We'll sit there, chop it up, maybe watch some basketball,
• 11:30
  Speaker 6: watch some videos. He finds some samples, he make the beat.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: I'm sitting there. He gonna air He's all right, I'm
• 11:35
  Speaker 6: gonna drop it to the big computer. I'm gonna run
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: to the other room, accept it on the big computer.
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: Record then he gonna be in there watching basketball. Thirty
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: minutes later, I come back around. I think I got something.
• 11:46
  Speaker 6: I got some Yeah, and then he'd come in there
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: hear it and then do what he does as a producer.
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: And then what made you want to work with him?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: No? Because I mean nine, because I'm sure it's a
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: million artists that come to you, especially in.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Name. I don't want to get with you.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I want to do something with you.
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: So I was on tour in Germany and had the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: day off and somebody on I was doing to ask
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: ninth on Twitter and somebody said to me, so, I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: ain't got no question.
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: It's this kid you need to listen to. I have
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: no dog in this fight.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know this kid. And usually I you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I know our goes. Some people want trying to get
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: their family Mamoizon.
• 12:27
  Speaker 5: Exactly. But he did not know the dude was from
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: Open Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I was thirteen at the thirteen and he sent me
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the Lincol and I listened to it. I was like, man,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and I think one of the rhymes he said, somethbout
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: coolgie wrap, and I'm like, hold on, bro, like this
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: You're thirteen years old. So then I shot him an inbox.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: It's on Twitter, and I said, yo is this? He's like, yeah,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: how you doing?
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Man?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And I was like, Hey, what's your parents like? And
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: so he put his mom on and I was like,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I'll be home in a couple of weeks. I got home,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: they showed up with him and his mom showed up
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: in my studio. I wrapped him up. He's about this
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: tall and I said, man, you want something to eat?
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: What you say?
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I just want some pop tarts, strawberry milk and some pizza.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Thirteen year old diet. Thirteen year old diet literally.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: But it kind of went from there and that. The
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: first song we did was a song called Extraterrestrial and
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I looked at my president Cab, my man Cash, I said,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I said, man, he ain't breathing.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: He's just rapping. He's not breathing. And he did. You
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: did nine songs that weekend, three days.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And made it, made it on a machine that I
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: had never touched before that.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was different.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: What what what got you in the tribe? Was it
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: that lego movie?
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: No beforehand?
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: So what put you on the tribe? And couji rap
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: in that era of music?
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Because that's to see you playing fight in a biopicure
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: thought about it.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: I would love to. I would love to.
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: So my father, you know again, both my parents are
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: from West Africa, Iberia, and when.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: He came to the States, he lived in New York
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: for a little.
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: Bit, and he moved to North Carolina and met my mom,
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: who my mom so to.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Give a little bit of background, like, Nique, you're talking,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I gotta ask you. Yeah, I'm too.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I got him.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I probably got to ask him.
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: But he went from my My dad experienced the Libry
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: and Civil War in the nineties, so he was a
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: refugee came to America still very young, while my mom
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: she got here when she was sixteen and lived in
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: the DMV before moving to Charlotte. But her dad fought
• 14:33
  Speaker 6: in the war, passed away in the war, all of that.
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: But when he came down a lot of he said,
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: in Africa, they used to listen to a lot of tupacin.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Biggie during the war.
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: And so when he had when they had me, granted
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: they had like separated when I was born. They my
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: dad always used to pick me up on the weekends
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: and he used to have a blue Cadillac and he
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: would drive me around playing all lives on Me, Ready
• 14:54
  Speaker 6: to die, Blueprint, get rich of I trying. So I
• 14:58
  Speaker 6: that was the way me and my dad bond when
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: I was four years old. So then by the time
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: I was able to write. I wrote my first rap
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: when I was five years old, and so I already
• 15:09
  Speaker 6: had a little bit of knowledge. And my dad gifted
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: me late Registration when I was six seven years old.
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: So when those little moments were like rabbit holes for me,
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: because then by the time I was like.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Ten eleven, YouTube was available.
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: So now I'm looking up Okay, late registration, Okay, blueprint Okay,
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: reasonable doubt Okay, then the recommended nas Illmatic. Then it's like, oh,
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: Coogi rap. Then it's like, oh Tribe call Quest Midnight Marauders.
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: I just started going down a rabbit hole and just
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: became like super like just like floored with everything, you
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. So by the time I met nine,
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: I was already like so knee deep into like what
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: I liked. And then also two around the same time
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: I was eleven twelve years old, Joey Badass started merging
• 15:53
  Speaker 6: on the scene, you know what I mean, And you
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: know what he was doing at the time, So you know,
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: I was just like it was Florida and I just
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: started to do my d dos.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: I want to ask you.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: What artists I'm glad you said, Joey, because what artists
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I guess for you from your generation reminded you.
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: Of that obviously, Joey Kendrick, Lamar Cole, Earl Sweatshirt in
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: the early, in the early times, still to the still
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: to this time, I was.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Big on them, like super early, you know what I mean.
• 16:21
  Speaker 6: The wallets, like all of them, like that that era,
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: the blog era was like where like I really dive
• 16:27
  Speaker 6: deep into like who they were.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Those are like the ones who raised me outside of
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: like the nineties.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance being lyrical and cultural in
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: a time when music rewards virality over vocabulary.
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: Well, I know I'm playing a different game. I know
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: I'm playing a long game. I know that I've seen
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: in the last three years people.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Get viral and get lit.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: And then go on the next day, you know, So
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: I know that there's no foundation of that where like
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: you know what I'm doing. I know that ten years
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: from now, I'm gonna be able to stand doing and
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: be able to like you know, live off of still
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: because you know I'm taking the route. You know I've
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: been patient this long. I've been patient since thirteen, you
• 17:08
  Speaker 6: know what I mean? So why would I stop being
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: patient now just to go do something that's not gonna
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: make me fulfilled at the end of the day.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: How do you how do artists? How should artists balance
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: being a lyrical in a time when it's all about
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: going viral or actually rapping? I think, first of all,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: artists shouldn't be afraid. A lot of artists are afraid
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to try. They rather do what they think will work
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: instead of running a marathon. But I also believe, and
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: it's come for me teaching. We cannot get lost on
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the fact that there is a generation of kids with
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: young adults. They want to hear that what you're talking about,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: they want to hear it. It's out there, like I
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: see them all the time. I see them on my classes.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And on top of that, it's crazy to say me
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and his mother are the same age. So now you're
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: dealing with Now you're dealing with the generation that's the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: offspring of Generation X.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: So now what do we like? You said, what are
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: we playing in our cars? Right?
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: We're playing all of these classic records and they're picking
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: it up when they're very young and taking it on,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So we can't assume there's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: a generation of kids that don't want to hear it.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It might not be as big as this generation of
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: kids that want to hear this over here, but it's there.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: When Tribe was tribe, you had tribes fan base, but
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: then you had ice Q's fan base. Not to say
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Q was on something way different, but Q was you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: had a larger fan base. Doesn't mean the Native Tongues
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: didn't have their own fan base. And you see what
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the Native Tongues fan base births rest in pcg Angelo right,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it birthed the entire Q tip has its own family
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: tree by itself, bro. And so that's what I'm saying, like,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you cannot deny that that it's kids out there that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: want to hear and want to hear soulful and feel
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: good music. Not necessarily preachy all the time, because I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: think we needed, we need to separate conscious and feel
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: good sometimes is not sometime we put conscious and a warm,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: feel good beat in the same box. But then you
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: have slum Village that talked about a threesome. You know
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, you can't do you know what
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. So we have to kind of get out
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: of that. Man, it's it's it's younger Dulston. When they
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: wanted some difference, who's the q tip family tree? I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: can't just you gotta teach now, I can't just let
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you say that. Who break down q tip family? Oh?
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Man?
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: So the q tip family tree. Q Tip was one
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of the first ones to not sample funk and soul
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: only right. Q tip was one of the ones like, oh,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: I'm a sample artist by name of Kyle Jader and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: my man sample artist by the name of Les McCann
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and Freddie Hubber because q tip grew up in the
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of jazz musicians, got the jazz exactly and so
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that euphoric feel. Like I always say, Benita apple Bomb
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: is like the tree of life for everything after it.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: So if Benita apple Bomb is not made, we're not
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: getting well first not first of all, with our tribe.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: We're not getting out casts back right, they said it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: They said it all the you know, all the time.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We're not getting outcasts, We're not getting the roots, We're
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: not getting Badu. We're not getting jail, We're not getting
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a little brother, We're not getting D'Angelo. We're not getting
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: this thing called neo. So we're not getting We're not
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: getting Kanye West. We're not getting anything that feels you
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: for it and feels good. We're not getting that because
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: chord changes wasn't in hip hop in eighty nine, eighty eight.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: We had we used to start about Public Enemy. It
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: was just.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, what not living base is.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: But Q Tip when he sampled those chord changes and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: all of that, that's what. That's what made everybody turn
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the corner. And we're still we owe a lot to
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that dude for making that turn and making the music
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: that he did. We're making the music that tribe did.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Why so why I agree with you? But damn, where
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: did Daylight come into play?
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: So Daylight?
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: So Daylight was of course Daylight was before that, and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Jungle Brothers before that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: You know that.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: You know Native Tongue's movie. Also, Queen Latifa was in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that box. You know what I mean, Try was more.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: It was a different thing from Daylight. Daylight was way
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: left the center, right, you know.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I think, And it's gonna sound crazy because the Daylight
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: was from Long Island and more screening. Tribe was more
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: street street because remember tribe is really dire from farmers
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: from Queen. Yeah, now you go up a little bit,
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: that's ll Qj's area, left a little bit, that's you know, fifty.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: So they were more street than Daylight.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I was, and you noticed it because when Daylight Daylight
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Tribe kind of dressed the same on their first on
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: three feet and people's distinctive they trust the same. By
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the time Tribe did Low End Theory is baseball jerseys
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and hats bro like, they totally just changed everything and
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: even the production of like I said, Q Tip, he says,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I made Low End Theory drums sound the way they
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: signed it because I heard n W a second album,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: so he he was listening to you know what I mean.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: But you got these thunderous drums, but then you got
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this weather report sample on top of it, you know
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying.
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: Like it was just it was just a different thing.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: But that feeling has extended itself for now thirty plus
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: years now, they're.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Always thinking about you know, you could be a tribe
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: called quest fan and a coolgie rap fan. Back right,
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: you'd be a Tribe fan and a Mob fan. It
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: seems like now they put you in the box where
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: you can't you know what I'm saying, because back then
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you could.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: I could.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: I listened to Tribe growing up, but then I listened
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: to Mob Deep, but then I listened to Coolie Rap,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: but then I listened to kne Now I feel like
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: it's it's lanes where they try to stick you with,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Like I can only listen to Ruben because I can't
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: if I listen to but I can't listen to.
• 22:40
  Speaker 6: That's that's not even how I was raised, right, So, like,
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: as much as I'm giving y'all all the influences of
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: like the outcasts, the tribes and nases and then giving
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: y'all the blog air, I still went to an HBCU
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: where I was lit when they played no Hands in
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: the club, you know what I mean.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And I was listening to Chief Keith and stuff like that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 6: So I feel like that's why I'm able, and that's
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: I'm glad he said I went to a t Yeah,
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: so I'm a I'm And that's why even I say
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: I'm so much Tribe is because yes, I loved everything
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: not just named. I love art, I love paying Africanism.
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: Everything on me is designed by African designer, you know
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: what I mean. This is my man's, my DJs, you
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: know brand. But after yeah yeah so and then but
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: at the same time, like you know, I'm not a
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: I'm not street in the streets at all, but I
• 23:41
  Speaker 6: had cousins in the streets, you know what I mean.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Like I grew up around all of it.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: So I embrace it all and you hear it in
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: my music the things I talk about. I'm not sitting
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: there like you know, conscious piece b and all of
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: that stuff. It's like, no, it's no, I ain't burning
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: no instance, you know what I mean. Like I watched
• 23:57
  Speaker 6: Friday just as much as I might watch the michaelm
• 23:59
  Speaker 6: X outo by, you know what I mean.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So you know it's crazy it coming from the Carolina
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and knife No, at least growing up, we didn't have
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a There was no Carolina sound. No, we weren't like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Atlanta or New York. We had hip hop that we
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: could gravitate towards. We listened to everything. The Killer Mike
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: said the same thing. We had to listen to everything,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: and North Carolina is second when it comes to number
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: HBCUs Alabama's first, North Carolina second. So you got to
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: think of all the music that's coming from all these places,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: that's being playing in the dorms. I remember on my
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: dorm room hall. I went to North Carolina Central and
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I stayed in the hall called Chile Hall. It was
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a dude from DC, Detroit, Baltimore. Then it was like
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: all in the same hall. So you walking down the
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: hall here in go go Baltimore House.
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: DC to go that go go shit down down the street.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you know what I'm saying.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. What I'm saying.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: So it's all of that, all of those things and
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you hearing everything at one time. And like you said, Yo,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you can tell a lot about people. Man, when you
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: open they c D booking Dog, you flipped that c
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: flat when you see that we had I had a
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: two short album, a Tribe album, that Tony Braxton first album, Souls,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a Mischief album, an ice Cube of the Predator like
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: all at the same time. I think now, like you said,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people are fans of
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the culture that just fans of a person. For us,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: if we were fans of hip hop. That means we
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: checking out everybody, but the filter was different. Were not
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: facing seven hundred thousand new songs a week on streaming either.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: We didn't face that. We didn't face that.
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: That's the sad thing because you can't hear everything.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: That's the difficultart because it's like, you know, life be
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: life like before it was like I remember listening to
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: let's say Norwy's album or Fooji's album. Yeah whatever, it
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: lasted the summer. It was like four albums that lasted
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: summer and you rock through. I Drew moved the school
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: in it. I drove back to school in it. Now,
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: it's like the way music goes like even with Clips album.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: Clips album is one of my favorite albums now, but
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I haven't heard Clips album in about a month now
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: because I'm listening to the news stuff, which is crazy
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: because there's so many new things that much.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, students, and one of my students told me, said,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Professor Knife, you gotta understand, like I got fifteen albums
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: in the Q I ain't listening to last week, and
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I'm like, godly, I think when one of our greatest
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: release dates was September twenty ninth, nineteen ninety eight.
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: That is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, Quemini outcasts. All the same day heard Knocked Life,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Knock Life Tribe, the Love movement, and most difficuality of
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Black Start. Like all this came brand new, being foundation.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: All came out on one day. So we're going to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the store, like I got about fifteen dollars? How much
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you got?
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: Dog?
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Got about fifteen? You get women, and I I'll get
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and so now we got to share it. You know
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: what I mean, You're forgetting one thing too. Looking at
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: that source magazine. You got to get a criminal because they.
• 27:01
  Speaker 5: Got five, they got five mics.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: You gotta get Jay because that's Jay and he had
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: just got four and a half.
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: That's right, got to get these two. Everybody else I
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: catch it's different.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: But then but then you heard the most entirely from
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: somebody else, was like, oh, I gotta go get that right.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: He was on street. We go get the bootleg, We
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: get all we got.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Right? Right?
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: Who was telling them?
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know? We are African, the Africans are.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: How does the classroom compared to the studio when it
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: comes to influence.
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: It's the same thing.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: For me, the classroom has taught me how to communicate,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: dog like it is really taught me how to communicate
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and communicate you can't. I can't talk to every artist
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the same way. They don't learn the same way. So
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: in the classroom, I'm standing in front of my my
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: hip hop class on Wednesday is a Duke Man in
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the spring as one hundred and forty kids. So I'm
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: sitting there looking at one hundred and forty kids, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I have to get through every kid, whether it be
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: the black kid, whether it be the white kid. You know,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: you can't assume every kid. It takes my class and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: want to do this, especially Man and Duke Man. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: got girls. My class is like neurosurgeon whatever. I'm going
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: to be a neurosurgeon. But I wanted to take your class,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean that knows nothing about the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: culture at all, and except the one person they listen to.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: And you teach hip hop history for people that don't
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: know right, right, I.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Teach three classes that Duke. I teach hip hop history.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I teach Black Cinema of the nineties, where we watched
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: all the black cinema of the nineties like Love, Jones, Juice,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: all that, and the hardest class for to get into
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: is my hip hop production class. We just straight make
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: beats and talk about the art of production for a semester,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: but it is taught me how to not only communicate
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: by how the next generation thinks when it comes to
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: consuming music. What do they think? Our qualifiers ain't the same.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Who we think are great rappers and why? And who
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: they think are great rappers and why is two different reasons,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and we try to force our reasons on them and
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it don't work, like you know what I mean. So
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that's truly helped me out a lot. When you work
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: with people like jay Z on Thread or Eric Abadu
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: on Honey, how do you stay true? So like that artist?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Is that artist iconic sound, but still staying true to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: you as a producer. You know what the turning point
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: for me, man was when I did Girl by Destiny Child.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: That was the one. What I did Girl in the
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Sheet the reason. And when I got in the studio
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: with B, B looked at me and was like, B
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: was there the night when I played Beats for J
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and three.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: Wow, she was there.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And when we got in the studio in two thousand
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: and four, I was like, what do you want for
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what do you want for me? Cause again
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: we talked about labels. I looked at us, the backpack
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: nigga that make stuff excuse me, make stuff on computer?
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm looking at looked at and I'm like,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: what do you want from me? Because they had Survivor
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: out and can you pay my bill? I'm like, what
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: do I fit into this? And she said, I want
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: you to do you, but I also want you to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: think about us as the emotions, the seventies group, the
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: R and B group, And I was like wow. So
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, how can I bring that up to you?
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: And so if she the reason and girl, I made
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: them though, I made them records thinking about s wv M.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: And so I do that with every artist, and I
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: did it with him. His album is a combination of
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: three or four albums in my head together.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: And I can't tell you that.
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: We'll tell you off air. We'll tell you off air
• 30:36
  Speaker 6: stealing the sauce, I can't tell you that.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: And what's the most difficult artist to work with? And
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: not and when I mean difficult, not as in wild
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: out and crazy, but just that that artist was two
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: for now, wanted it done it a particular way.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: You know what.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Somebody's asked me this question the other day. I've been lucky, man,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I've been very lucky to be in the studio with Jay.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Wasn't tough at all. Jay was the pressure. Cuse man,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: I have twenty five I have twenty five minutes to
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: make that beat. Same thing with Destiny's Child that was
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the number one girl group in the world at one point.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Mary J.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Blige, same deal, Eric Abaudu, same deal, Kendrick Anderson Pack.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: I've been lucky when you're making like great music and
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: soul music man, and you're working with professionals. But once
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I got to like Anderson Pack and Kendrick, now I'm
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: not the young one in the studio just waiting for
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the chance. Now I'm controlling the session. So it's it's been.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: It's I've been lucky, man. I've been very, very lucky
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: when it comes to work with artists. I want to
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: ask you, Rubn, like in twenty twenty five, what truth
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: does your music need to tell?
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: Right now?
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: That's about other issue.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: With a lot of this generation, with everything going on
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in the world, I feel like nobody's reflecting that with art.
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think the biggest truth is telling the
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: young black black experience to me, just trying to figure
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: it out, you know what I mean.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: I'm not sitting on an album like I'm gonna shoot.
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: You, or I'm lying like I got a million dollars
• 32:07
  Speaker 6: in the bank, you know what I mean, Like I'm
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: telling you exactly what it is. I'm telling you my
• 32:11
  Speaker 6: real human experience, my real story. And I think that's
• 32:14
  Speaker 6: why I make so excited for this album to come out,
• 32:17
  Speaker 6: because I think it's gonna shift music in that way
• 32:20
  Speaker 6: because I feel like we haven't and excuse me if
• 32:23
  Speaker 6: I'm wrong, we haven't had somebody from my age group
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: just talk about their.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Human experience, you know what I mean.
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: And everybody's trying to be a facade and you know,
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: hold up a mask and you know, try to be
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: something that they're really not, and everybody's really searching, you
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. And I feel like with this album,
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: you know, I talk about, you know, my my upbringing,
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: you know, with my heritage, you know, talking about being
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: from West Africa's hearing you know, my uncles talk about
• 32:48
  Speaker 6: the war. I talk about, you know, my desires and
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: aspirations me coming from an HBCU. I talk about, you know,
• 32:54
  Speaker 6: embracing the black women. I talk about my mother, you
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. I talk about my family heritage,
• 32:59
  Speaker 6: and I just talk about you know. I have a
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: song called I'm Good where it's like, you know, when
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: you people ask you how you doing, you just all
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: I'm good.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: But in the verses, I'm.
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: Like giving details like no, there's stuff wrong, but every
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: time you ask, I'm good.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: But I feel like that's needed, you know what I mean?
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: And I feel like that's that's what I want to do.
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: Just tell like true human experiences, be honest, you know
• 33:19
  Speaker 6: what I mean, Because I feel like honesty is gonna
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: take me further than being something I'm not. That's why
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: I went with my real name for my artist's.
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: Name, and it doesn't. And also too, we need everybody's story.
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: We need his like you know what I'm saying.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: We need your story like NBA young boys story that's
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: his human experience. In fact, we need that like we
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: need you know, I don't like when you know, when
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: people say, oh, we gotta have this and not this
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: and this and that. We need a balance man like
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I can't. I cannot stop a kid from telling that
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: story or whatever that story is, you know what I mean.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So we need it all. I need his I need
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: young boys, I need I need it, man, I need it.
• 33:57
  Speaker 5: We had it. What's the difference? You know what I'm saying?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: What does black genius look like hip hop today?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: For you?
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: Oh God?
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: And who's carrying the torture a black genius?
• 34:08
  Speaker 8: Shoot?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's one. I think it goes without saying that.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Kendrick is another one, absolutely right. There's a few out there, man,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to get out of the hip hop
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: boss man. I like black music, y'all.
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean. I really like black music.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: I was talking knowledge about we was having a conversation
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: about this album and that's album. This is it's all
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: about black music. I think we lost an incredible genius
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the other day, man, or last or Tuesday, last Tuesday, Yes, man,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: And you know, for me and what he's done, it's him,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Stevie and Prince Like. I don't think anybody could have
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: seen this man the last thirty years of music. Man,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: when it comes to black music's him at the top.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: But I mean that that's what it is, man. I
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: just I just like black.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: Music, man.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And it's a lot of black geniuses out there that
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: goes across genre, you know, not just hip hop.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I want to see more producers speaking of black you
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: know music. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: want to see more people inspired by what ROBERTA. Flack
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: and Donnie have the way with talking about. It's the feel.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: It's called the feeling, y'all. It's called the feeling. And
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: that's where we try to do on this album. It's
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: create a feeling. It's like a lot of a lot
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: of music lacks that particular euphoric. The thing about D'Angelo
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: man which a lot of us was raising the church,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: that feeling is not in music now, and it doesn't
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: mean it can't be there. That feeling has been there,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Sis James brown Man, It's been there as temptations, and
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: it showed up in so many different ways, whether it
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: be through Ruben, whether it be through a Scissor, whether
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it be through Solange, whether it be through Cleosul who
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: I love, whether you know what I'm saying, like, it's
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: that feeling is there, and I think hip hop and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the feeling has got separated over time, which it used
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: to be like this because in the nineties hip hop
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: has samples in them that was the feeling, no matter
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: what the subject matter was on the top in fact,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: so I think this just has to.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: You know, that's got that feel good, man, Nothing wrong
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: with that.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And then it's also how do you keep people's legacies alive?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Because I swear since the Angelo died, you can just
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: be out and you'll hear somebody humming of the angels.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Like I'm talking about humming. I'm not talking about this,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: you're hearing I've been around people and they just.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Yo.
• 36:34
  Speaker 6: Last night, I was at the Odell Show and as
• 36:36
  Speaker 6: soon as he got off, they played brown shots.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: Said the old deals and yeah, for sure another one.
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: But my thing is, where is that when these people
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: are here? Like, how do you keep that alive?
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Is it urban ac radio?
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 36:49
  Speaker 5: What is it? Yeah, twelve o'clock throwback mixed on you
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: know what I mean? I mean, you know that's a
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: that's a corporate conversation.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: We can hand out them, but.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Talk no, I mean I'm saying, man, like we got
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: to bring oh, DJ Envy, we have to bring DJ's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: were the spokesman for the hood man or for black
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: people on what was good and what was not. Everybody
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: ain't good, no right, just because you made it, it
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: ain't good. Everybody's no music is subjective a cool everybody's
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: DJ's was supposed to be the ones that told us
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: what was good and what was not.
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: We trusted the DJ.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It's been like that since the beginning of hip hop,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and so that's what we need, man, And we can't.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: We can't abandon. We can't get a certain age and
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: just say, man, I don't want to hear that old
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: stuff anymore. Other cultures don't do that, bro. No, they
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: don't take a special ed and throw them to the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: back burner. Whoever the country version of Special Led is,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: whoever the country version of Big Daddy Cane is, they
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: don't throw them to the back burner. We need to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: make sure our legends are great and revere, just like
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: they do in the Grand Old Opera in Nashville. On
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: any other genre, the Rolling Stone still rocking because people
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: are still going for us. It's out with the old
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and with the new. That's a gene. That's the thing
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: about Black people, because we're so creative. We just we
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: just onto the next so fast. We cannot abandon who
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: got us here and who contems to still do music.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: It's up to us. We cannot wait on anybody else
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: to do it but us BRO And they're starting.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: They're starting with the stations because growing up, no matter
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: what market.
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: You and it was always a classic rock station.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I was always going to have that.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: And we're starting to get that now we are with
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: you know, eighties and nineties or you know, hip hop
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: stations and things like that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: What the reality is all urban adult contemporary stations have
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: to do is just update the playlist like old school
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: now is what we came up on in the nineties
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and the early two thousands. But they still playing and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: they should. But they're playing earth Wind and Fire and
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah still.
• 38:57
  Speaker 7: That we do on Fridays.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: We do have past to us.
• 39:00
  Speaker 7: But because Naola Simona has put me on to you
• 39:02
  Speaker 7: like that, She's how I found you in O'Dell and
• 39:04
  Speaker 7: a lot of other artists that she has put me
• 39:07
  Speaker 7: on with. So DJs definitely, you know you got DJs
• 39:10
  Speaker 7: with good hears man. That's like, look, you put your
• 39:13
  Speaker 7: into the music and these are the things that you
• 39:15
  Speaker 7: feel are like kind of rare. She putting them out
• 39:18
  Speaker 7: there every Friday. Like I said, she put me on
• 39:21
  Speaker 7: you and a lot of other people that I listen
• 39:22
  Speaker 7: to you now, So it's important.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: It's important.
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: I even think, like like you just said, I think
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: you know, y'all do a great job of that just
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: having her on Friday doing the pasts, and I think
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: it needs to be more because even like Envy, I
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: just saw a video where you you were the first
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: person to play hit them up, you know what I mean,
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: And I feel like, don't get.
• 39:48
  Speaker 9: That nobody else against accepted it to heard And I
• 39:55
  Speaker 9: tell you I got it from shot money Excel I
• 39:57
  Speaker 9: used to put you, gave it to me, left to Studyo,
• 39:59
  Speaker 9: gave it to first.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Did you get to play on Dirty Harriot?
• 40:05
  Speaker 8: That definitely was dirty dirty, but not like real talk
• 40:09
  Speaker 8: Like I just feel like, you know, you like again,
• 40:12
  Speaker 8: she doesn't incredibly with past the ox, but I feel like,
• 40:15
  Speaker 8: you know, we need to honor the young DJs and
• 40:18
  Speaker 8: you know, allowed them to have that space because you
• 40:21
  Speaker 8: know they're going to be the ones putting us on
• 40:23
  Speaker 8: the music now, you know what I mean?
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: Just like you were a who kid, you know, clue,
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: like you know, it's it needs to continue again, each
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: one teach one.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's wild because now when you watch NF
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you know NFL games, you watch NBA games, when they
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: go to commercial, they playing like nothing but a g
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: thing and award tour. And I remember when Jalen Rose was,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the NBA a commentator.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Like I was.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I wonder if Jalen Rose got influence of what they're
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: playing when they go to commercial, because they played Who
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Got the Props?
• 40:52
  Speaker 5: One day and I was like, wait a minute, bro,
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: But it's that's we are.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I think Jimmy Fallon is a prime example of where
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: we are in the time continuing because to have the
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: be the Tonight Show hosts and your band be the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Roots tells you everything. And he always says black Thought's
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: my favorite rapper, Tyler Qualley is my second favorite rapper,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and these were fifty years old. So I mean, I
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: think we just need to do more of that.
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: Man. We just cannot abandon our classics like that.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. A couple of questions for you, Rubh.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: You said knife taught you a lot of discipline. What's
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the hardest lesson he gave you that you didn't want
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to hear ooh mmm.
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: Honestly, man, don't listen to people who ain't never did it,
• 41:34
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean. And granted, you know I
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: always took his counsel, gurus, counsel.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our label, president, cash council.
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: But I think you know, I had a unique situation
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: because I met them super early, so I didn't really
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: put other people's.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Like opinions and stuff over there.
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: Is like I will always go back to them and
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: be like, yo, such and such said under me what
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: you think you know what I mean, and they'll be like, man,
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: But there were certain times where people will try to
• 42:01
  Speaker 6: get in my ear, you know what I mean, and
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: be like, oh, don't do this, and don't do that
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: or move this way, and oh, you don't need to
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: be making them type of records, you know what I mean.
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: It's not gonna get you nowhere and stuff like that,
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: or just trying to tell me stuff. And they ain't
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: never did it, you know what I mean. You ain't
• 42:15
  Speaker 6: never been in that position. You ain't never did it
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: for you to be trying to. And I think you
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: know that came with age and like you know, growing up,
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: but you know when you're young, and you know, you
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: around your friends and you know they trying to you,
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: trying to feel accepted, you know what I mean, And
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: then you realize, like I'm sitting in this dorm room
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: with y'all, y'all trying to tell me when I'm about
• 42:33
  Speaker 6: to go on the weekend to LA and possibly.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: Be in the studio with Terrence Martin and all of them.
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: And y'all ain't never been.
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: In the studio these folks, you know what I mean.
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: So I just had to navigate that. But as I
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: got older, you know, it was off to the races
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: with that. And then also too, I think another thing
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: is discipline wise, is you know, just staying true to
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: who you are. And you know it's gonna take longer,
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: but if you continue to be yourself and just follow
• 43:00
  Speaker 6: the course. He said that since the day he's met me,
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: stay the course. You stayed the course is going to
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: pay off, you know what I mean. There's been times
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: where you know, I'm like, man, it's not working out,
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean, Maybe I just need to quit,
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: you know, give up. And you know a week later,
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: Swizz beats hits my phone and stuff like that. You know,
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: just stuff like that. So I think he's always told
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: me to stay the course, and it was hard because
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: you know, you're young and you want it, you see,
• 43:23
  Speaker 6: and then you see in.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Your peers like shoot up, you know what I mean.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: And I've seen that a lot, so I think, you know,
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: staying the course is one of another hard things.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Swizzbeats at your phone when you were sixteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Facts.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: And you know, people describe you Ruben as a bridge
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: between eras. Do you ever feel pressure to carry that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: responsibility or do you want to redefine it?
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: I want to redefine it.
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: I think I think I am a bridge because again,
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: like you know, I've taken counsel, and I'm not a
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: person who's stuck up and stubborn and have an ego
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: where I can't listen to any of y'all in the
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: room trying to give me some game. You know, I'm
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: always trying to soak up the game because I know,
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: so I got years to you know, fulfil still you know,
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: I know I'm still super young, and i'd rather listen
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: to somebody who's been around the block and know a
• 44:07
  Speaker 6: few things, then me go make some mistakes that probably
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: won't help me in the long run. But I think
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: I want to redefine it because you know, they have
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: a stigma on lyrical rappers. You know what I mean,
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: how we dress, how we move, and stuff like that.
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: And I think me being young, you know, knowing what's in,
• 44:26
  Speaker 6: but also still being true to myself. You know, it
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: shows in my style, It shows in how I dress,
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: It shows in how I appear. You know what I'm
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: saying when I come off, And I think, you know,
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: redefining it for twenty twenty five. I'm not trying to
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: do what folks did in the nineties, you know what
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: I mean. I'm trying to give y'all the same feeling
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: y'all felt when y'all heard at Aliens and an Equimini.
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: But I'm not trying to recreate that. I'm trying to
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: make a Ruben Vincent twenty twenty five.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean. Who is considered Marco plus?
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: You know, yes, Chris Patrick, cack Cash, Nico brim Soave, Mavi,
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: he was another one from Charlotte. It's those are a
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: few people that's my peers, that's up and coming right now,
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: that's in my class.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Knife. What lane do you think Reuben owns that none
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: of them can duplicate. I think it's the way he
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: talks about black women. I think that's that was a
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and no, it's not about recreating the nineties, but I
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: think that's something that has left you know what I mean,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: like just the banter and conversation. Honey, check it out.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: You got me made. I want to girl with extensions
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: in the hair life that like, it's the way he does.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: It, you know what I mean, trying to milk it spoiled.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly exactly, because we've we've had that conversation
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: a lot. Man, there's there's this narrative that's going around
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: that young black not all, not all young brothers. Some
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: some young brothers only want to be around women when
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: it's time to get intimate and that's it. They let
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you behave women facts, no conversation, no nothing, no none
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: of that, you know what I mean. In HBCU culture,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: we didn't grow up like that. We're trying to go chill,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and have conversation and blah
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah.
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: I got five sisters, you know, so I feel like
• 46:15
  Speaker 6: that that influences me.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Right, So for him it's the way he's to me.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I think he's a if ten Crack Commandments was a thing,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: you know for dope dealers that bigger put out. He's
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: given that his version in like three or four songs
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: on this album. This is what you need to do,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: this is what you need to say. But he's not
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: telling you. This is what I'm doing. So if I'm
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: doing it, hopefully it can influence not only a twenty
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: four year old, but it may be a fifteen year
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: old to picks up his.
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: Album, you know what I mean.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: So I think that the way he approaches it in
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: a fun, light hearted kount of way and just being
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: unapologetic about feeling for somebody in a positive light, what's
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: wrong with that?
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: Man like? And that's I think he does that better
• 46:58
  Speaker 5: than anybody right now.
• 46:59
  Speaker 6: Age, what's your favorite dry record the album or just record?
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: Oh my god, lyrics to go? Yeah, those are too
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: like the top ones honestly, Midnight even rods from top
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: to bottom. It's just crazy. But grat record mm hmm,
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: fast laing with Nas. That's that's my just because I'm
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: a big NAS fan.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: Yo.
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: I got guns, specifically smoke trees, you know what. I
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: mean like the way he came on there like and
• 47:26
  Speaker 6: it's just the beat. So those are two are like
• 47:28
  Speaker 6: my favorite records from them.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: Perform a.
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: M no, man, that's the first.
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: And I'm gonna come to you knife Okay, now what
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: you want to see?
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I was about to say, I'm like, you
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: think about some of them the white people perform, you
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: have this song.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: That's why?
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, So this is my this is my opinion listening.
• 47:59
  Speaker 5: Nas.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I think Nas it just depends on his song selection.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Could he do it?
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Yes and no? Yes, yes, song selection though it got
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: to be song.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Selections for me. A song selection. It's a song selection
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: with any artist, man, that's what it is. If it
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: was perfect the way Dre did it and had different
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: if Nas does it in a way, it's songs. But
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: we're also dealing we have to be realistic. We're dealing
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: with the Super Bowl, man, and it is a majority
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of people that watch it and majority of people that
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: can even go. Because I think this is what we're
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: getting lost on this too. I know we're at home
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: watching it, but you also got to think about the
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: people that's at the game. He paid that ticket to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: get in, so that's what it's going to be. I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: think it needs to be not only one halftime show.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I think it needs to be several shows around the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl period, maybe before the show, maybe after the show.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: But I think if he places it, he got a
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: place in the right way.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: It has to be places right shots to Adam Blackstone
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: because Adam Blackstone's music, the fantastic musical director that did
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the Dre show, that did the like, he knows what
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: he's doing, So if he got with Adam Blackstone, I
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: think he could also. I love now now that one
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of my top five favorite rabbits of all time. But
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: when I see people say things like if Dre and
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Snooke can do it, Like, do y'all realize how big
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: drians Snoop? Yeah, that's a different conversation talking about that's
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: a different that's a different that, it's a different kind.
• 49:26
  Speaker 4: I do feel like different guys can do one mic.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I know why I can. In the world is ru
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: in the world?
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: Bring out Lauren Hill?
• 49:33
  Speaker 5: This was what I mean?
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Selection what you what you think?
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's a future? I kill him?
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean? Are we doing.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: Now?
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Let me are y'all letting him. Do you owe me?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: No? No, no.
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: Super Bowl one mic.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Much?
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: You don't think how much people.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Hated you on me.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I know That's why I'm like, that's terrible.
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: Not for it.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: When it came out, y'all don't think they will be
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: the old white tho being that shot. And then you
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: bring out one.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: You got a couple more questions if you don't have
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: to answer this, if you don't want to made the
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: lord watch. Everybody wanted to know why Knife One didn't
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: participate in the Little Brother document That's a long story.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: I don't think we got that kind of time. But
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I will say this, man, you talking about the documentary. Yeah,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: that's a long story. But I will say this, and
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: you do have as much time.
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: As you you're not doing that.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: It was up there, we had that conversation that was
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: doing it.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this, And and sometimes people think I
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: say something for political reasons.
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: Y'all watched me for years. Both of y'all have watched
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: me for years.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I have never been a person to go online and
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: in public to try not to say that they did
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: that to me, but to deface and talk negative about
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: another man or woman. That's never been my thing, and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: that's their feeling. That's how they respect, and you have
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: to respect how they feel about everything or whatever. But
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: as far as their success, as far as that we
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: being a part of each other's history, I cannot change
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: that at all. We have our own little brother has
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: our own children, Kendrick Drake, Fact Cole Big Sean, Wilt, Ruben, Vincent.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: We got our own children, right. So again it's a
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: story behind it. But that's I believe in family business, Bro,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: That's how this is how I was raised, That's how
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: I am. And you know we're at the age now
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I'm fifty years old. Bro, y'all know how this goes. Man,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: those people every day, Bro, we're losing family members. Listen,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: God bless them brothers.
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Let them keep doing what they're doing. I think they
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: are on tour right now. They got shows, They're still
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: doing shows. Fonte is incredibly talented, although we may have
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: disagreements or whatever, incredibly talented exactly.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I've seen Poogo from being one artist, one rapper to
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: another rapper to the level that he is. We've made
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: magic and without me, they made magic. And I'm leaving
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: it at that, man, I believe it. Look, bro, I'm
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: serving something else now. Bro, this is how I am.
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: What would a little brother mean to you? A little
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: brother reunion?
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: I mean I've seen it. I've seen it. I've seen
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: it happen. How old was our seventeen? Yeah, when they
• 52:44
  Speaker 6: came to Durham, I was backstage, you know what I mean? Yeah,
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: And you know, I think it was dope because it
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: was something for North Carolina, you know what I mean.
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: They also raised me just as much as tribe did
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: Slum Village, Kanye, you know what I mean, like they
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: they were a part of that.
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: Again, like he said, I think you know the biggest
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: thing is, you know, one thing I can say about
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: Knife and this is not even just because he's sitting
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: right here. I would have said this if I would
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: have did this interview alone.
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: It's just how.
• 53:18
  Speaker 6: Spiritually and how you know he's handled you know, the
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: situation with Grace, and I think, you know, that's another
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: thing that I've learned from him. Even with people around me,
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: you know, you gotta move with Grace. And you know
• 53:30
  Speaker 6: I would love you know, I'm just me being a fan. Obviously,
• 53:34
  Speaker 6: I would have loved for you know what I mean.
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: But we're definitely in a different time now, you know
• 53:37
  Speaker 6: what I mean. And it's a new time, it's a
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: new regime, it's a new place, you know what I mean.
• 53:41
  Speaker 6: And it's just you gotta sometimes the history is supposed
• 53:45
  Speaker 6: to be where it is and people supposed to move on.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: And that's what it is.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: Without without know without no Fonte Cole made, would not
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: be a Drake fact Drake Drake completely one thousand percent.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: He says it a million times, studied him, revered him,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: imitating him. Everything we know about Drake rapping and singing
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: is Fonte Copin, Buddenden Fonte Copan. But as my man y.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: But that again, going back and listen, man like, that's
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: how it is with me. I got to keep moving, man.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't see the documentary at all. I never watched it.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I've heard about it from everybody. But I got to
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: keep them moving, man. I cannot stay in that space.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: We don't have the time on this earth to stay
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: in that space. I got work to do. This is
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: my work now. I got other work to do as
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: well as my label Jammler.
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: That's what it is.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: But again, saluting brothers, man, God, bless them brothers, man.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: That's how they feel to have had the right to
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: express it. I didn't go online and say anything about it.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: When it came out, I heard everything about it. Blah
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: blah blah.
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: Difference of opinion, and we move on. My last question.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: If hip hop is a conversation across generations, right, what
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: message are you you too, trying to send back to
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: the culture with welcome home? If Papa is a conversation
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: that the feeling is not lost, you can continue to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: give the feeling and there's not a division between the generation.
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: There's not a division.
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: Man.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: We have more in common than you think, especially if
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: you're on the same wavelengths. And I really, I really
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: really want.
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: The elders, not old old lands and elders are two
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: different things.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: Everybody, Yeah, every everybody. Ain't everybody in an elder and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: the o g man and sometimes sometimes old niggas want
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: to talk down to the young ones and try to
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: give him advice and young they ain't about to take
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: that from everybody, you know what I mean? Leave them alone,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Leave them alone, bro, Look the young The NBA Young
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Boy Concert is coming to Raleigh, North Carolina. Man Old
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Niggas stay home where you go out there and get
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: hurt and get hurt like you know, it's not for
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: that's not for us, Broun. We don't do a good
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: job of giving the young ones their space. The VIP
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: belongs to them now, the streets belong to them. Now
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: we are on the sidewalk. So I think what I
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: want to album to do is that you can have
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: a relationship.
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: This can work.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Whatever this is. We are twenty five years apart. This
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: can work and music can be made with this. That's
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing I want to get across, man.
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: And I think for me, whether you are a NBA
• 56:44
  Speaker 6: young boy, whether you are a Ruben Vincent, whether you
• 56:47
  Speaker 6: are a any other name that I can name right now,
• 56:52
  Speaker 6: show up as yourself, show up as yourself and perform
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: at a high level, regardless of who you are, you
• 56:58
  Speaker 6: know what I mean, regardless of the background, you can
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: but show up as yourself, and I think we'll welcome home.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: I showed up one hundred percent Ruben.
• 57:06
  Speaker 6: Everybody always say, you know Ruben and you have an
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: old soul and stuff like that, And this is stuff
• 57:10
  Speaker 6: I've been dealing with since I was a kid.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: I remember being made fun of, you know what I mean,
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: for like going to my bus stop and I'm like, yo,
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: have y'all heard Illmatic? And they're like, Bro, we on this,
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: Chief Keef. I don't know that you're talking about it.
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: And I embraced Chief Keith too. I still rock listen
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: to cheek Key to this day. But they you know,
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: I would get looked at a certain way if I came.
• 57:27
  Speaker 6: And I'm like, Yo, y'all gotta listen to ill Matic,
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: y'all gotta listen to reasonable doubt, y'all gotta listen to
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: not even just those, y'all gotta listen to to Pimple Butterfly.
• 57:35
  Speaker 6: And they like, I ain't nobody trying to hear that,
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: but show up as yourself, you know what I mean.
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: And it's like, Yo, I want to perform at a
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: high level in rap. I'm not sitting here. I ain't
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: rapping to just drive a Honda a Cord bro, you
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. Like, but I'm gonna do it
• 57:50
  Speaker 6: as myself. I ain't here to compromise none of that.
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: But I am gonna be one of the greatest of
• 57:55
  Speaker 6: my generation. I'm gonna say that that's just a favorite,
• 57:58
  Speaker 6: you know what I mean? And I'm a would be
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: in one hundred percent, Ruben Vincent. I'm always Rep Africa,
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: I'm always Rap Charlotte, and I'm always REP showing up
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: as yourself And that's exactly what this album is about.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: He get it?
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: You want to hear right now? Man, we're gonna play.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Were gonna paydrants?
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: Sidney? What's the joint? What's the joint with the what's that?
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: That's not the album?
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Sure saying gotta get it?
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: Got which one y'all want?
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: You pack it?
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Let's do both of them? Yeah, let's get Dreams sent
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: you fire, but gotta get it ass.
• 58:26
  Speaker 4: Ruben Vincent. Ninth Wonder We Appreciate You Brothers album comes
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: out this Friday. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning, Yeah,
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: every day.
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: Up Wake click yours up, The Breakfast Club.
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: Finish, y'all done