Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Busta Rhymes Reveals Untold Stories About J Dilla, ODB & The Music Videos That Changed Hip-Hop

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INTERVIEW: Busta Rhymes Reveals Untold Stories About J Dilla, ODB & The Music Videos That Changed Hip-Hop · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hold up.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Every day I wake up. Wake your ass up. The
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club.
• 0:05
  Speaker 3: Y'all finished or y'all done?
• 0:07
  Speaker 4: Yep, it's the world's most dangerous morning show, The Breakfast Club.
• 0:09
  Speaker 4: DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God. Envy is on vacation,
• 0:12
  Speaker 4: but Lauren LaRosa is in, and we got a special guest, man,
• 0:15
  Speaker 4: an icon. He's got a new project coming out, Diligence 2.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: It's actually out today.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right now.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: Busta Bust, Busta Rhymes is here.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Charlamagne.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: How are you, my brother?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Good morning. I had to greet him today and say
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: his new AKA is... Mr. Disrespectful Bag Evolution.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Period.
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: You ain't lying.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Face evolution.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: That's not true, man. God is the greatest, by the way.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We're not going to say he's good.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: He's the greatest, that's right.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: He's the greatest. But we're going to call it, we're
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: going to call a spade a spade, beloved. You can
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: downplay his shit all you want.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Nah.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: You know what, though? Keep it that way.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Motherfuckers is always going... They gonna hear that new AKA
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: and the request for let me hold something is going
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: to increase significantly. Nah, it's good to be here. I'm
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: super duper excited and proud and happy in this moment
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: with this new album and I'm getting right to it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It's something I can't even describe in words because We
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: did a listening session last night.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: And I had the blessed opportunity to be able to
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: fly in Dilla's family.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Oh, wow.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: So Ma Dukes and Ella Jay, Dilla's brother, and Dilla's daughter.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: He has two daughters, but one couldn't make it. And
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Ella Jay's wife. And they come to the stage at
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: the front. And I got a role in the front
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: because there's a moment in the way the show was curated,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: where the most iconic producers of the culture pulled up
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: to speak on Dilla's way of technical, his technical process
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: in how he creatively contributes. Who was there? Primo, Pete Rock,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: 88 Keys, 9th Wonder, Lars Professor, Havoc, Mobb Deep. And
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: they all sitting in the front row like, Fucking Avengers.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: And I'm on the stage and they right in the
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: front row, so I'm looking at this the whole night.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Because we played the album before we got to their
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: segment to talk. But when Dilla's mom and son and
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: granddaughter was introduced to come to the stage, I never
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: saw them together at the same time and the same place.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: And I never met Dilla's daughter. And I only met
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Ella Jade the night before the listening session because he
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: pulled up. He flew in the day before. I got
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: back from the Kaya Fest in Jamaica with the Marley family.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And I go straight to the studio because, believe it
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: or not, on Sunday, I found out that a fucking
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: sample was denied.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What?
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: It's a Sunday. The album comes out today.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Today's Tuesday.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: I find out Sunday, sample denied. Monday, Sunday night, we
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: got to find a whole new beat. make sure they
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: ain't got no sample for us to have to clear,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: mix the shit, send it to mastering, then swap it
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: out for the one that was still uploaded to the
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: streaming platforms. So big up to Kareem Riggins who saved
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: us with that moment. He's very close to Dilla. But
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: back to that last night, when the Yancey dynasty was
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: introduced to the stage, When I tell you, like, I
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: cried uncontrollable tears of joy. Because, like, me and Dilla
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: and his family, we've been involved with each other for
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: 30 years. Only one I've ever met besides Dilla was
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Ma Dukes. So to see them for the first time,
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: knowing that they've been a part of this journey for
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: 30 years, this year, though. So... Like, I'm celebrating literally
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: five album anniversaries right now. So the first Leaders of
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: the New School album came out in 91. And then
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the Low End Theory album with Tribe came out, which
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: is the second Tribe album. That came out in 91.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So Scenario and Oh My God turns 35 this year.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Then my first solo album, The Coming, is 30 years.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And then the Genesis album is 25 years. And then
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: the Big Bang is 20 years. And that shit came out.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: June 13th, the day that the Knicks won the fucking
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: chip for the first time in 53 years. The same day.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: With New York shit and touching on it. So Dilla
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: is on three of those five albums. This year is
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: the 20-year anniversary of Dilla's transition. The fucking Grammys is
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: airing on Dilla's birthday. This is a divine alignment like
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: no other. There's some shit that's greater than man manifesting
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: right now. So it's like, to be in this moment,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It's surreal because it's just like, shit, yo. It's been
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: my man, my brother, my friend, 30 years. He's been
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: gone for 20. I continued to work with him since
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: his transition. I don't leave him on for no project.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: And the first diligence we put out in 07 just
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: as a mixtape and gave it away for free just
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to tribute his life. So this is 19 years later
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: that diligence 2 was coming. And I'm on my first
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: motherfucking interview since then.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Why the 25th? Because most albums drop on Friday nowadays.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Why did you choose to do the 25th?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I wanted to drop this album when the Tuesdays was
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the traditional release date. And I also felt like this
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: moment was more important than allowing it. I wanted it
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to be an isolated, standalone moment. I don't want to
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: deal with the cluster of everything that releases on Fridays
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and Thursday nights. So I felt like this project deserved
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: that attention, that standalone moment, and it just felt like
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: the right thing to do.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Mathematics is God. What's the power of born God?
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Y equals knowledge born, almighty. That's right. Come on, God body.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Talk that shit. Now, it's again, like, and big shout
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: out to Ma Dukes. Big shout out to Ella Jay.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Big shout out to Dilla's beautiful daughter, the princess. They
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: are still in New York. And we gonna get up
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: and probably do something nice this evening, like a dinner
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: or something, and just vibe and talk old Dilla stories
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and celebrate last night. But I ain't gonna front, man.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Everybody just know, like, when you hear this music, it's
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: something that.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's not possible to do this unless... He was being
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: literally blessed with what I was gifted with.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: 300 beats, right?
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Almost 300. Almost 300 beats. You cannot create a moment
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: like this unless he was gifted with what I was
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: gifted with.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Have you ever stopped to think why he gave you
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: that much production?
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I started to feel like I needed to kind of
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: like come to the realization of that recently. I didn't
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: think about it before that. I just think, you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: He fuck with bus rhymes. He like how I spit
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: on his shit. Here, here, here, here, here. But after
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: a while, I started to feel like maybe he knew
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: something and saw something in the way that he seen
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: how I appreciated his music, how I loved his production,
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: how I loved his work, how I loved him as
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a friend, a human being. I got to big up
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Common real quick because Common... During the time when I
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: was making the Big Bang album on Aftermath, I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: living in L.A. for the three years of making that album.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And Dilla was living in L.A. too. But why I'm
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: bigging up Common is because Common got him the crib
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that he needed to be at and live in to
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: be closer to the specialist to treat his lupus illness.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? And Common moved into the
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: crib and lived with him. and brought my dukes there.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: So when I was getting the bulk of the beats
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: towards his decline, it was at this beautiful home. So
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I would come to the crib, because he would make
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: me come to the crib. It wasn't no emailing me
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: no beats. It wasn't no, I'm going to send you
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: some shit. Come to the crib. So I come to
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: the crib, and the shit that was so mind-blowing to
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: me was his mom's kind of evolved into his engineer.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: So like, you would come in the crib, and the
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: living room was as soon as you walked in the door.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: But then there was the dining room. They left the
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: dining room empty and made it his studio. And then
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: after the dining room, you go to the bedrooms and
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the bathroom in the back of the crib, right? So
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: you come in the crib, and Ma Dukes would be
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: on the couch and she watching TV. Once you get
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: in there, you greet them. kiss moms, hug Ma Dukes,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: she's watching TV. You get past the living room and
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you looking at Dilla from the living room. So he
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: got the beat machine set up, he got the MPC,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: He got the SB-12, two beat machines. The closet, the
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: coat closet, from the ceiling to the fucking floor, alphabetical order,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: every single vinyl in existence that he would use to
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: sample and chop shit to make his beats. So his
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: mom's Like, if he needed a certain record, he'd tell
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: his mom to go get this record, and she would
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: go in there and flip through the alphabetical order, pull
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: the shit, bring it to him, and then he'll tell
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: his mom what machine he was going to work on,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: or he wanted to work on. And she would get
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: behind that shit and put the wires and the plug-ins
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and all of that shit, or switch it to the
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: other machine, and then she would go back to the
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: couch and watch whatever soap opera she was watching, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Dilla would get to cooking in the headphones. Mm-hmm. This
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: motherfucker going to try to pass me a spliff in
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: front of my Dukes one time. I ain't smoked no
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: weed in front of no parent before.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: What did she say?
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: She couldn't say nothing because I hid behind the wall.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: When she got to see me.
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: She still is, though.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: A little one-pull splitter back to Dilla. Yeah. And it's
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: so funny because it ain't until this album, somebody brought
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: it up and we was talking and I asked my Dukes,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: did you see me smoke? She said, What you think?
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: But it's like, it's that level of family that my
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: relationship with Dilla has evolved into with his family. And
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I'm super grateful for that. And none of this shit
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: was happening without the blessing of the family. And the
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: moment last night when they came to the stage and
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: blessed this whole release and blessed the completion and the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: process was tedious with the estate. You got to make
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: sure you handle the business. We didn't want to do
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: what we did with the first Diligence album. We want
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: to make sure that IP get monetized properly and the
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: whole family is treated with the respect and Dilla's legacy
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: is treated with the respect of the business being handled
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: the proper way.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: I know Common, man. He didn't get that beat pack.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Common was like, man, I had brother in the house.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: He got him. He got shit too. He got shit
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: I don't got. Yeah. Because Dilla catered to him. the
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: people he loved, and what your sound was, and what
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: he felt you was going to deliver on it. So
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sure Common got shit that I never got. It
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: was given, it was created for him, you know what
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? And what was given to me was created
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: for me. And then this shit that we all have
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: that we shared, because there was Dilla music that just
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: floated in the Dilla ecosystem amongst certain motherfuckers that we
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: got the same joints. And on this album, there's certain
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: beats that I rhymed on that came out from others,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: but I'm that type of motherfucker where I've always loved
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: certain records that other artists made and wished they was mine.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: That's honest.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: I wished them shits was mine.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: What's an example?
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: God Lives Through on Tribe Called Question at Midnight Marauders
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: album was one of them shits that when I heard it,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I cried. When I heard fucking Represent from Naso Matic,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I cried. When I heard Rebel Without a Pause, I cried. Like,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: these is records I cried for two reasons. I cried
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: because I was like, I wish that was my shit.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Then I cried because I couldn't believe how it sounded.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: And then I was saying to myself, would I ever
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: be able to fucking tap into what made them feel
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: the shit they felt to create that? You know what
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? Because you never know you're going to be
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: able to capture that. You never know if you're going
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: to be able to tap into whatever that frequency is
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that made them feel that genius to create that brilliant shit.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: So it's like, for me, I'm like, fuck, man. God,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: please help me find that. Whatever that shit was that
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: they threw they fishnet in the universe and captured, I
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: want that motherfucking.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: I feel like you've done that quite a few times.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about in those moments when I'm hearing them shits.
• 14:07
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I definitely feel like I've captured that a couple of times,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: and I'm super grateful, and thank you for that, C.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: But I'm just saying, in those moments, I just was like, shit, man.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: If I never, ever get to this moment, this will
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: be the most painful shit that I gotta live with.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? Even if motherfuckers like shit
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: that they feel was those moments, to them, you know
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: when you made that and captured that shit within yourself.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And I ain't gonna lie, I feel like I did
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: that shit a couple times on Diligence, too. You know
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? In less than an hour, I got
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: this unbelievable video. My first video with Hype Williams probably
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: in fucking.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: The D'Angelo one.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: That's the D'Angelo.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: The D'Angelo joint. Rest in peace, D. Rest in peace,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Dilla D'Angelo.
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: I literally was just, and we was just having a
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: conversation here last week, and I literally said, I'm like, yo,
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: there will, I feel like we won't get back to,
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: there will never be another era of music videos like Busta, Missy,
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: and Ludacris. Like, y'all three was so up there and
• 15:14
  Speaker 6: out of here to me, like very futuristic. and you
• 15:16
  Speaker 6: just said that you about to drop one, and you
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: and Hype ain't worked together in a long time.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Long time. I think the last time I did a
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: vid with Hype was 2012. Jeez. It's when Google, 14
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: years ago. What was that streaming platform with Google that
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: had just launched? They tried to launch a streaming platform
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: to compete with the Spotify's and the Apple's. I forget.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It's called Google something, and At the time.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Was it Google TV?
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: No, it's not Google TV. I forget the name, man.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Google Play?
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Google Play.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: Google Play. This is actually the last big business deal
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: that was done with me and Chris Lighty. I'll rest
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Chris Lighty. And Chris passed in 2012. So this happened
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: right before he passed and It was interesting because I
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: think I was putting out this project called Year of
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: the Dragon. I never sold it, though. It was never
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: for sale. So we licensed it to Google Play because
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: they needed content to promote the platform. So they licensed
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: my album. I was the only hip-hop album in the
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: five groups. It was like me, Dave, Matthew's band, and
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: different genres of music. But my shit was the only
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: hip-hop joint. and they licensed it for non-ones, and then
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: the rights reverted back to me. I might put that
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: shit up for sale one day.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Please do.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: What I'm saying is, at that time, me and Chris
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Brown did a record called Why Stop Now After Look
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: At Me Now. And me and Hype, that was our
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: last big budget video from the 90s. And we haven't
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: worked together until this D'Angelo song.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: The industry's obsession with budgets kill some of hip-hop's imagination
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: when it came to videos? Because people felt like because
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: they had limitations with resources, you know, I don't know.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Maybe they felt like they couldn't make the type of
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: creative videos y'all were making.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: See, I ain't going to front. I definitely feel like
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: it had some sort of effect. Because even for me,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: for a second, I was like, shit, we can't spend
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: this money no more like this. You know what I'm saying?
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Sophia had us used to these million-dollar budgets because she
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: saw the vision that we had and she believed in
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: us so... Like Sylvia Rhone, man, when I tell you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: she was like the lifeline of me and Missy becoming
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the Avengers that we became and shit, I have to
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: super duper big up Sylvia every time I get the
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: opportunity to. And she made it a lot easier for
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: us to fucking dream and imagine. When that shit stopped
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: and the change happened, Yeah, it fucked us up for
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: a second. Because, you know, we knew that we couldn't
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: go as far as going where we was going with
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the creative. Like, I was fucking using digital domain, which
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: was the special effects crew that did the Titanic movie
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: for the Janet joint. You know what I'm saying? Them
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: niggas just came off of 10 Oscars at that time
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: for Titanic. So that bag to have that special effect
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: was so out of control that once that lifeline got cut,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Definitely had to find another way to be super creative
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: because you know you can't let the legacy not feel
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: like it's not continuing to evolve in the same direction
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: that it should.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Technology didn't make it easier?
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Technology made it easier, but That's a really recent thing. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: So it was way more expensive to do the technology then?
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because when the budgets got cut, there still wasn't
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: no AI shit.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? There still wasn't no AI shit.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: So it was like, what's the way to get the
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: dope special effects shit off that me and Missy was doing?
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Even though there wasn't no AI, you still had to
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: find these incredible effects companies and effects production and crews.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: And then you also had to find those hungry new
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: motherfuckers that just wanted to have Busta and Missy name
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: on their resume. So they wanted to sacrifice to be
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: a part of the legacy. And you stumbled on a
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: few of those and it was a blessing because they
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: was bringing some unbelievable shit to the table that literally
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: would have still cost a monster bag to do. but
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: that bag just wasn't smart to spend even if you
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: still had it.
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: You got a music video. You and Janet Jackson's music
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: video is in the Guinness Book of World Records for
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: the most expensive hip-hop video ever made. I don't even
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: think people can fathom a $ 2. 4 million budget for one video.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: That's insane.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: And also, I don't know if an art... I mean,
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: I say all artists, but it would be hard for
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: me to think that an artist would even understand how
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: to allocate that budget in a way that made like
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: business sense. You spend money on a lot of things
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: nowadays with these artists. It's like a starter pack, like
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: the chains and all that stuff. But you talking about
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: finding AI companies and doing research and finding new video direct,
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: like that was a lot of knowledge that you had
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: to have.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But we was also blessed with
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: the incredible experts in those spaces. When you got a
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Hype Williams, it's like a cheat code. You know what
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? Yeah. When you got a Sylvia Roan, who
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: believe in your dream the way she did, and she
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: was in a position of power to make the decision
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to push the launch button on the missile for you
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: to fucking really explode and blow the way you're supposed to.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Sylvia Roan was there for us. And then, you know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: we also came from a time where motherfuckers, it was
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: cool to be smart motherfuckers. You know what I'm saying?
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: It was cool to have knowledge of self. It was
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: cool to be Zulu Nation. It was cool to be
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: you know, 5%. It was cool. Like, and it was
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: almost an accountability that came with that. It's like, if
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: you didn't represent the culture, if you claim you had
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: knowledge of self, you got your ass whooped. Yeah. And
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: it was, it was real accountability to represent a conscious
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: effort to, to strive for perfection or deal with some
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: sort of righteousness. You know what I'm saying? That shit
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: kind of forced you to also be about your research
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: due diligence, right? Pun intended, diligence two out now. It
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: was really important that you was going about shit in
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: the way that the community that you came from at
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: that time raised you to move and shake. And that's
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: the type of shit that we on. That's why he
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: over here talking about mathematics to me. He know I
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: got knowledge of self. I know he got knowledge of self.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, how many guests can you do that shit
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: with when they pull up? You know what I'm saying?
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Motherfuckers was going platinum with Fight the Power. You know
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? That shit don't happen no more. So
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: it's like, at that time, it was an amazing time
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: to actually be raised. That village that it took to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: raise a child was very impressionable, man.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: A lot of that literature was a part of hip-hop
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: culture as well. You had to read from Niggas to Gods.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: You had to read the autobiography of Malcolm X. You
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: had to read A Message to the Black Man.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: By Elijah Muhammad. How to Eat to Live.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: How to Eat to Live. Those were part of the
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: culture as well.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was very much... It was so much a
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: part of the culture. that it was cool to actually,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: it was almost not cool if you didn't know that shit.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: You actually looked like, you was the 85%. The Mr.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Vigar believe in a poison animal eater, the slave to
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the mental death of power is led in the wrong direction,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: hard to be led in the right. And you didn't
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: want to be categorized as that. So it's like, motherfuckers
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: really was on some, I want to sponge up information,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: even if he wasn't a part of the nation. even
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: if you wasn't a part of the Zulu nation, you
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: still wanted to sponge up some shit because it was
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: just really cool to be a smart motherfucker and have
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: some intellect and be able to speak from an informed
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: place in just general conversation. So like what Sia's saying,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: these books and this knowledge was shared and very much
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: present in the music. That's right. Because it was the
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: shit to be able to say that. Niggas wore that
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: shit with a badge of honor, like, yeah. I know
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: some shit.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Chuck D said, Farrakhan's a prophet. I think you ought
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: to listen to him. As many times as my dad
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: used to try to get me to sit down and
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: watch Minister Farrakhan speeches, when Chuck D said that, I'm like, oh,
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: I got to pay attention. That's what my pops be
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: trying to get me to listen to. And then when
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Biggie said, deep like the mind of Farrakhan, oh, my God.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Crazy, yo. Oh, my God. It's crazy. And it was
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: a beautiful and a necessary time. And it really do
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: need to get back to all of that. You know
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? More so now than that time, because
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: this shit bug the fuck out right now. This shit
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: look crazy right.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Now, yo.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: What? Yo, niggas is trying to figure out the exit
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: plan for real. Like, what the fuck we doing? Like,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: what we doing? This shit is bug, yo. So it's like,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you know, get back to the research and start doing
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: what y'all need to do to understand how to become
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: your best self. Especially in these times, yo.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: I want to go back to the visuals, right?
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Because you always understood that the visual could make the
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: record feel bigger.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Where did that instinct come from?
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: That instinct came from being a movie buff. I love
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: movies like a motherfucker.
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: What?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: All my shit was the movies that I wished that
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I was acting in. So, coming to America, put your hands.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Lethal Weapon was dangerous. Fucking Knight Rider was fire it up.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: fucking um um Janet was Terminator 2 with the liquid
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: robot you know what I'm saying so it was like
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I just loved movies and I always felt like if
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: I was in these movies what would these shits look
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: like so having the budgets having the support system and
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: having the imagination and the creative freeness like I never
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: was one of them type that was too cool to
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: try some shit that might have moments where in my performance,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: what I'm displaying might make me look uncool. I ain't
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: got no problem doing the animated fucking facial expression. I
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: ain't got no problem with shit like that. A lot
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: of motherfuckers who got an integrity that they feel they
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: need to defend on a credibility level when it comes
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: to street shit, sometimes it's too cool to make themselves
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: get captured with an expression on their face that might
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: make them look uncool because it might compromise their credibility.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I noticed that the funniest motherfuckers in all of the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: gangster movies was the most craziest ones. Yes. Scarface, hey,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: come here, pelican, pelican, pelican. Joe Pesci.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Joe Pesci.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: These motherfuckers was funny, but they was loose screws, for real.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: So for me, I just felt like I'm having fun, man.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I'm enjoying this gift that I was blessed with. I
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: identify with my gift. I'm honing in on a motherfucker,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to exploit the shit out of it.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: That's the way I show the most of my appreciation
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: for the gift he blessed me with. So yeah, I
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: could fuck around and act like y'all too cool to
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: do this motherfucking facial expression. But I'm going to smile
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: and skin big teeth on you motherfuckers.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: It also felt like you knew that at some point
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: bars weren't enough.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: You can be the nicest in the room, but you
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: got to do things to stand out.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I definitely feel like bars was a priority all the time.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I don't ever want that to get misconstrued with me.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: And I almost feel like sometimes my performance might have
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: overwhelmed people from really paying attention to my bars. And
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: the challenge in that for me was always having to
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: feel like I got to make motherfuckers rethink who they
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: favorite is. So I run towards the shit that a
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: lot of motherfuckers run from. Collabing with motherfucking artists was
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: my way of respectfully competing. So whoever you thought was
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: your favorite MC, even if they ain't asking me or
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: thinking about me to be on their record, I'm soliciting
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: myself because out of sight, out of mind. But a
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: lot of that mentality came from circumstance. I was the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: youngest in the group of leaders of the new school
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: and the first to get kicked out. And the second, well,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the only one to get kicked out twice, right? But
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: the youngest and the first to have a child in
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: the group. So when I used to show up to
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: some of these shows that we might have had bookings
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: for after we got kicked out to see if I
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: could still get a bag and a promoter would be like, yo,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: that nigga's is in breach. I ain't just booked two-thirds
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: of y'all where the rest of them niggas at.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: I didn't know you got kicked out. Why didn't you
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: know that?
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I got kicked out before the first album and I
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: got kicked out in 93 and the second time that
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: I got kicked out, that shit is on YouTube because
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: we was doing an interview about a Brooklyn Promenade and
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: Fab Five Freddy was hosted and we had to sign
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the release agreements before the cameras started rolling. So they
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: filmed the breakup. On camera. What?
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: Was the second time the one, because one of them
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: was about, like, a car, right? Or, like, you had
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: a car, but you didn't want to, like, pick people up,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: something like that?
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: That was the first time. Okay. Rental car situation. You know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: at that time, the laws was different, so I didn't
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: even have a license. Them times, you couldn't get locked up.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: You wasn't getting locked up for not having a license.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: They'd give you a bunch of tickets until your license
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: gets suspended even before you had one.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Damn.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: So that was them times. You rack up $ 7, 000 in
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: tickets and shit, you ain't going to jail, you throw
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: them shits out the window. Fuck out of here. I'm
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: still driving. I'm getting from A to B. And, you know,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the Jones Beach Greek Fest used to be popping in
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: Long Island at the time. I'm back and forth from Brooklyn. So...
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: It was a particular Jones Beach weekend. And I don't
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: think I went and picked up the crew. But it
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: was that... It was an accumulation of things. Because really,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: when scenario... Like, before the group popped, That was one thing.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: But then when Dante Ross saw us, who signed us
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: in 89, he was at Tommy Boy and he was leaving.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So he gets to Elektra, and they go up there
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: to do the meeting after he seen us at a
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: club called Payday in the Lower East Side. Rip shit down.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: He get to Elektra, and the meeting happens. And I
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: ain't in the meeting. So Dante's like, what the fuck?
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: Where's the other... MC at, where Bustin' Rhymes at. And
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: they was like, I don't know what they said because
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I wasn't there. But while the meeting was happening, I
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: get the phone call from C. Brown. And he's like, yo,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you want to be back in the group? At this point,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: I had already started a solo album. So I'm working
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: with this producer named Backspin who did Wow for the
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Night for Rampage and me. Rampage introduced me to him.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: So I did a song called Feminine Fat and Show
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Me a Hero. So when they called me to be
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: back in the group, they had one song off of
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Backspin beat From the same beat tape that I did
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: them two joints on, we all had the beat tape,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: because I gave it to them, because I'm in the
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: group at this point. They did a song without me,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: with Dinko and Brown, and then I did two without them.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: But to be back in the group, I said, I
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: need to bring these two joints. I'm not leaving nothing
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: on the cutting room floor. So they was like, all right,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: we respect it. Good, we sign, we do the deal, cool.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Scenario coming 91. That shit changed the whole trajectory of
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Busta Rhymes' life. It changed it for all of us,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: but it super changed it for me.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: So that moment created Busta Rhymes the solo superstar?
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Factamundo. Single-handedly, Q-Tip made me go last. And during those times,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: going last was the fucking rewarding, the most rewarding shit.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Because you're the finisher. You're the grand finale. You know
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? And I was going last on everything
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: at that time. Flavor in your ear remix, bunch of
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: niggas with heavy D, Scenario, whatever it was, I was
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: the finisher. So when that record came, it's kind of like,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: not only was I being requested to do features, but
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: I was able to solicit myself easily, especially when I
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: had my first child. And I would call studios just
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: to find out who was working in them shits. And
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: whoever was in them studios, I would just pop up.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I knew the fucking receptionists from every studio. I knew
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: the studio managers. I knew the engineers. So I'd just
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: pop up based on who was in what studio and
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: be like, yo, what's good, y'all? I'd go get me
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: like five bags of chocolate tie, 20 bags, slowest rolling cigar,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: white owl, all my shit, and come in the door
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: with the shit just lit. Everybody wants to smoke with
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: you and they happy to see you. Dungeon dragon, bus rounds,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: pull up there.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Pass the weed. You can't kick me out now that
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: you got my weed. I'm scribbling in the corner while
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: you smoking my shit. I get to grunting and doing
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: all of that dragon shit in the corner. Niggas want
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to hear what I wrote. Let me go in the booth.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Once I threw the rah-rah on that motherfucker, you can't
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: unhear the record without that. And Scenario was the... Confirmation
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: of that. I would do that shit four or five
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: times a week, give all the copies of the joints
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to Chris Lighty, and he would just send off invoices.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I ain't got to split that shit with nobody. I
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: ain't see that kind of money in my life. I
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: did that shit for three years. All this was collabing,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: but Bosh Rhymes pioneered the feature. So the rap of
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: rapping on everybody's shit, was done as a result of circumstance.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: I couldn't provide for my child no other way. Couldn't
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: get the show money that was left on the table
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: from leaders, because everybody wasn't coming, and I ain't have
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: no solo album out yet. So the way I had
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: to feed my baby was rapping on everybody's shit. And
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: that was the way I did it. But that shit
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: in the process was creating this monstrosity buzz for me.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: Higher learning, movie opportunities, all that shit started coming.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And then three years later, Woo Ha comes, and the
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: solo album. And then Platinum Records, and once that shit started,
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: there wasn't no looking back after that.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: So when Leaders broke up, how much of that was ego,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: and how much of it was just simply four young
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: men who didn't have the communication skills, I guess, to
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: manage success?
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: Because y'all was young.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: We was super young. You know what I'm saying? Leaders,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: we signed when I was 17. First Leaders album came
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: out when I was 21, right? We definitely egoed out.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Motherfuckers is acting like they the nicest in the crew
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm the leader of the crew. And so a
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: lot of that shit was happening internally. And then when
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: the results came from the feedback of songs, when motherfuckers
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: was feeling like they might've got they shit off, but
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: the favoritism was leaning in another direction, That wasn't easy
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: to digest because nobody wanted to be the weak link
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: or looked at as if they were the weak link.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Even if your shit wasn't weak. You're perceiving it that
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: way because of the feedback. So all of that shit
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: kind of started to build internally as a frustration because
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: everybody wanted to be the shit on each moment. Being
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: young and definitely the ego gets in the way of
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the communication. Nobody don't want to sit around and talk
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: about how We got to protect this shit to the
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: point where we don't let nobody opinion affect this shit.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: The opinions is because of what we created. And this
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: is what matters over anybody's opinion. We could never get
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: to that place, especially at that age and at that time.
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: So unfortunately it led to the demise of the group,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: but Fortunately, for me, it forced me to be a
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: man even before I was actually ready to. And when
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: I had to, because I had my son. So as
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: much as I want to not be in the group,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: because I ain't really liked, I ain't never really had
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: the vision of being a solo artist. That was never
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: my intention. You know what I'm saying?
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: That's so crazy because your career just screams like individualism.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: Like just big. Like, yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: But if you notice, as long as I've been solo,
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: I've always had flip mode or conglomerate. I kept a crew.
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Because I love being a team player. You know what
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? I love having a crew. I love to
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: have people around to bounce ideas off of motherfuckers that
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: inspire me to keep my blade sharp. I love that. Like,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: to me, it's lonely... to be successful alone. I don't
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: understand that. I ain't gonna front. I just feel like,
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: I just don't enjoy the ride by myself. I don't
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: want to be the motherfucker that got the whip. They
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: got to drive and pick up everybody and drop everybody off.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Let's meet at the location. Everybody get a whip, nigga.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Let's go. Let's meet me here. It's a lot less
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: responsibility for me. A lot less work. A lot less
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: lonely celebration. So let's win together. Teamwork make the dream work.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: We all know the slogan, but I literally love and
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: enjoy that team and that crew and that family shit.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: But it makes sense because every time it's like your moment,
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: you use it to talk or pour into somebody or
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: shed light on somebody like you did when the MTV
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: VMAs you won the visionary award it was like the
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: rock and roll you were like the first person to
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: win it but at that time you talked about Ananda
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: Lewis and you talked about like just other it wasn't
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: just about you like you always do that in these
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: moments thank you.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I think it's important because for one I'm super fortunate
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: and blessed enough to be actually raised in a beautiful
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: home I'm not a project child y'all I'm not one
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: of them. And I'm not saying that because that's wrong. No,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: that doesn't make you lesser or nothing. I just can't
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: downgrade my family's sacrifice to be cool on a credibility level. Yeah,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: I'm from East Flatbush, Brooklyn. And they moved me to
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Long Island when I was 12 because I was fucking
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: finding mischief that they wanted to get me away from.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: My family bust their shit for me to have the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: best and not need. I love the bullshit. So I...
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: ran to the bullshit and was exciting to do the bullshit.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: But I didn't need to do it. You know what
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? I was born into a beautiful Jamaican household.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: My father was a licensed electrical contractor. My mother did
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: word processing for a law firm. I came home from
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: the hospital to a two-family house that they owned in Brooklyn.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? So I can't lie and
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: act like I was suffering. That was never the case.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: Roaches in the cereal box. You know what I'm saying?
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I slept in one bed with seven people. One twin bed. Now,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: I ain't going to lie. I definitely had roaches and
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: little mice and shit running around the motherfucker. You cut
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: the lights off, them niggas are scattering like fucking all
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: types of shit. But I'm saying I still was in
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: a house that was owned by my family. You know
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? So when I say all of that,
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: I say that to say I give this love because
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: that's how I was raised in the house. When you
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: see mommy and daddy in the day, when you get
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: up out that bed, hi mommy, love you. Kiss on
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: the cheek. We hugged. Same shit with pops. Kiss dad
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: on the cheek, hug. You know what I'm saying? Don't
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: play with the respect, though. You can't answer them inappropriately
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: if they call your name. It's yes mom, no mom.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yes dad, no dad. Okay, dad, you need me to
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: do something, dad? Everything had to be addressed and acknowledged
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: with mom and dad. So respect was a very serious
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: thing in the crib, and being a giver of love
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: was super serious in the crib. And I carry those traits.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not playing with my respect and I'm not playing
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: with the love. I love to give the love and
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: share it. And I want a motherfucker to know that
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, I don't got
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: to know you to love what you do or love
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: what you represent. And if I see that, I'm going
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: to pour into that and encourage that. Keep doing that, yo.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? Because we don't get enough
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: of that shit. This the fucking illest era in the,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: entire existence of life to me.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: You can't even give somebody respect. They'll be like, oh,
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: you glazing.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like,
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: you look at this trolling shit and this clout chasing shit.
• 41:02
  Speaker 5: Oh, we know you not for it.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: It's like, I'm really, I'm not a tough guy. I
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: don't want to be a tough guy. I'm not a gangster.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be none of that. I'm not
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: advocating none of that, especially for my children. But when
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: it comes to being a serious man, though, we're going
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: to make sure we pour into that. Because they trying
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: to act like something's wrong with being a serious man.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: And my father was an old-fashioned West Indian man's man. Like,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: he's one of them serious men guys. Wasn't raising his voice, yelling.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: When that bass got low in his talk, you knew
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: shit got real in the crib. When he gave you
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: a look, you knew shit got real in the crib.
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: So that shit, I feel like, is lacking in a
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: significant way. And you got to just make sure that
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: we try to implement the things that we know that
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: worked at a time that never broke. So we don't
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: need to ever deviate. Certain things that ain't broke and
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: never broke don't deviate. And they consciously and purposely put
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: shit in the way time has evolved to deviate us
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: from those incredible things that builds the character to be
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: what it needs to be. To break our spirit and
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: compromise those characteristic traits that will allow us to empower
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: each other which is also another reason why I like
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: to pour love and give love and spread love because
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I want motherfuckers to really understand. We lack that shit.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: We're lacking a lot of that shit. We're so quick
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: to pop shit. We're so quick to disrespect. We're actually
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: super quick to disrespect and downplay giving love. See what
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? Motherfuckers will say you're glazing on you.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: Are you able to receive it?
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Me?
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or do you use it as a.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: Do you give other people love because you genuinely feel
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: that way, but it's also a deflection? Like, does it
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: make you uncomfortable when you receive it? Like, people pouring
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: to you?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: No, I love that shit. Okay, okay. I'm going to
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: give her love because I want that shit reciprocated and
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: given back.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: Like, I enjoy being in that space. I don't like
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: being in the conflict space. There ain't nothing cool about
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: that if it's not healthy conflict. You know what I'm saying? So...
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: I'm going to continue to do the thing that feeds
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: my soul, and that's giving people good energy, man.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: I love the way you even brought that up, Lauren.
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: I love the way you pour into whoever you love
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: and whoever you.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Feel is legendary.
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: Because, oh my God, I forgot what Mariah Carey was
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: being honored for.
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: Your speech made me cry. I'm like, damn, I don't
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: even need to be crying.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: Like, this is crazy.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: It's like, but the way you love, like, genuine, and
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: you lift her up. She almost cried.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: It was just, what was it?
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: It was the BET Awards, right? She got the Ultimate
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: Icon Award.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: Was it that?
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: It was either that or there was something that happened
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: next year.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think it was BET.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. It was a.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: The way you did that.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: It was something outside of BET last year, I believe.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: But... It wasn't BET.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: It was something.
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: A live tribute that you did?
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I remember.
• 44:39
  Speaker 6: I don't know, but it was a big- The Ultimate
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: Icon Award.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: Ultimate Icon Award.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's what it was.
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: The way he poured into that woman. So that's it
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: on that. I just wanted to recognize you for that.
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: But please walk me through the creative process of Put
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See. That is, I
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: remember that song came out, I was five years old.
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: My father- He was taking me, I think I was
• 45:04
  Speaker 6: first grade. Man, my father used to take me to
• 45:06
  Speaker 6: school every day, and he would pull up music blasting.
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: They ain't teaching this principle anywhere, ain't nobody like it,
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: but it was always buster, always. My father put me
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: on to a very young age, and that is my
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: favorite song to this day. Every fucking comedy show I do,
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: I come out to that.
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: She always say you're her favorite rapper.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: What?
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Wow, thank you.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: My videos are her favorite too.
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Queen.
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: Eminem and Lil Wayne is next, but you're number one.
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: You were the first male rapper I ever, ever learned
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: words from. to all your songs, Dangerous, Scenario. My father
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: had me listening to all that shit because he wanted
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: a boy.
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: So he just was like, don't play with me, Charlotte.
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: Because I don't know what the fuck is.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Coming, yo.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: But what was that? When you first heard that beat,
• 45:57
  Speaker 6: did you already have the shit?
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: No.
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: How did you make that song?
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: It's very interesting that you ask that. I just recently
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: told that story, let's say last week. probably for the
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: first time in a long time. There's three different parts
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: to how that song came together. The first part of
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: that is during the Reaganomics era, crack hustling was obviously booming.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: And out of town, When the motherfuckers went out of
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: town to hustle, a lot of them ran a lot
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: of Caribbean motherfuckers. Jamaican dudes and the Guyanese dudes that
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I was around at the time, it was so funny
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: because they would speak in a regular West Indian or
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Caribbean accent, but they would just add the word yo
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: to the end and think they was blending in with
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: American slang.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: So if I'm going to be like, hey, yo, rude boy,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: my good on the street, I'm going to get that sandwich, yo. Yo.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: And thought that you was selling American shit. So that
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: was one part. Then they had this dude that was
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Trinidadian that was on the corner of the block that
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Spliff and Scratcher tour lived on that I would visit
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: because I had cousins on this block. And- Now we
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: on already. So like we would go and do fucking
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: in Living Color, not Living Color, Wayne's Brothers episode or
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Steve Harvey episode. This is after Leaders. This is now
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: Spliff Me and Scratch a Tour. We would leave town,
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: go do that, come back. And the Trinidadian dude on
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: the corner of the block, he sit on a milk crate.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: He got money, but he downplayed his money. It looked
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: like he broke. but he hustled a little weed and shit,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: and he got bread. But when he see us, when
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: we come back from out of town, and we just,
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: you know, episode will probably show on the TV or
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: some shit, we get on the block, and that nigga
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: see us, hey, yo, Busta, yo, Spliff Style, yo, we
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: need some money, yo. A hundred dollars US, yo. A
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars US. We need that, yo. Help me out, yo. So,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: we go from Out of town, to the block, and
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: it's the same yo shit after the accident. I had
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: a role manager at the time that was staying with
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: a brother named Shemello, rest in peace Shemello, and Buddha.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: He had a crib in Queens. When we was trying
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: to get on as leaders of the new school, Shemello
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: was the LMC at the time from Long Island, and
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: we all kind of would link up because Public Enemy's
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: studio and headquarters was in Hempstead, Long Island. In this
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: same building, downstairs, there was another studio that was owned
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: by a gentleman named Paul Shabazz. We would work downstairs
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: with Paul Shabazz when P.E. wasn't upstairs. Shemello would work
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: with Paul Shabazz in Paul Shabazz' studio. And Shemello and
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Shemello's DJ, Pit, they had the whips. So, like, whenever
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: they went to do shows, we would go with them.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: Years passed. We ain't doing a studio in Hempstead no more.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: I'm in the city. I'm on. Shemelo in the move.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: They got the crib in Queens. My road manager, former
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: road manager at the time, he go to the crib
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: and he hears the beat. Shemelo and Buddha makes the beat.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: He hears the beat. He's losing his shit. He's like,
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I got to bring this to bus now. At the time,
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: I'm working at this studio called Soundtracks. Me and Mobb
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Deep literally was working next door to each other for
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: the first three Busta Rhymes solo albums, the Come and
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Win Disaster Strikes Extinction level event. And Mobb Deep was
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: doing the infamous Murder Music, and I forget what the
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: third album was.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Hell on Earth was the second one, Murder Music was
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: the third one.
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: Both of us was literally making these albums next door
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: to each other. The only thing that separated they studio
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: from my studio was this one bathroom that we all
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: had to share. Former role manager comes to the stool,
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: brings the joint, he plays it. Right before he gets
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: to the stool, I think I was at Daddy's house
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: in Puff's studio, and I'm sitting in the stool and
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to Puff, and Puff says to me, my nigga,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: you need to stop doing all that row-row shit. Bitches
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: don't want to row-row with you on all of your records.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Like a puff. Right. So he's saying this to me,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm looking at him, I'm like, mother, shut up, nigga.
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: This shit working for me. Fuck out of here. But
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: he's serious. Like, he's dead serious, and he's telling me this, like,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: use your regular voice. You got a dope, regular speaking voice.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Use that. This shit is an instrument, bro. You ain't
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: sharing that side of Busta Rhymes, just that sound. So
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: I get to my session, and my former role manager
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: meets me there. Plays the beat. And the way the
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: shit was quiet, it wasn't like the shit that would
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: warrant me screaming on the beat. I said, I'm going
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: to try this puff shit on this record and just
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: hit them with the quiet talk. But the whole shit
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: was me mimicking the Caribbean niggas. I was putting the
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: yo at the end of the fucking name. Shit they
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: was saying to sound American. So hit you with no
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: delay and say what you saying, yo. Silly with the nah,
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: millie with the dilly, yo. I'm mimicking niggas being funny.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: And I told my former role manager to do Diddy
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: sounding ad-libs in the background of the verses. Because I
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: wanted to make fun of him too. Like nigga, you
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: trying to make fun of me doing my rah-rah shit
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: all the time, nigga. I'm going to make fun of you.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: and that's how that record came together.
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: Wow. I love it.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: I loved it. I love East Flatbush, right?
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: My man, little Sean Penn, he writes, so you read
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: his scripts, and man, it just feels like you can
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: just see what's going on in East Flatbush, and it
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: feels like there's no other place in the world.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Sean, big up, big up, big up Sean Penn. Sean,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: he was very much deeply entrenched in He's Flatbush during
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: the Reaganomics era. He was around a lot of heavy shit,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: and he lived a lot of heavy shit. So his
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: description in whatever he would share, I would imagine, because
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: I haven't had the opportunity to see what you're talking about.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: He got a script called Poison.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Now, we are very clear on what he's talking about
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: with Poison Clan. Yeah. He lived that. That's not just
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: a story that, you know, somebody writes about or talks
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: about some shit. He lived that. And he was also
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: one of the first ones that came to the neighborhood
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: as an emcee that actually... He's one of the first
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: that I actually saw successful rap and what successful rap
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: or money looked like.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: He's one of the first that I saw that from. So,
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: you know, he had a red Acura Legend coupe, and
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: then he had the Lexus coupe. And he was, you know,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: he was rocking diamonds from Manny. This is before fucking
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Jacob and all of them. And I saw that for
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: the first time. And, you know, he was one of
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: the first that I saw it with in person. Of course,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: we saw the LLs and the Slick Ricks and all
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: of that before him, but I ain't seen them in person.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: All right, all right.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: You know, he was on the block, able to pull
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: up and just hang out with the goons at the
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: time as that. And I witnessed that firsthand. So nobody
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: can't discredit Sean Penn when it comes to his pen
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: or when it comes to what he lived.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: Now, as far as like versus, right, there's no rapper
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: I feel that could even fucking touch you ever, ever.
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: Can't even shine your boots, nigga.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 55:07
  Speaker 6: But it's only right that you go against your sister, Missy.
• 55:11
  Speaker 6: Like you and Missy would have to do a versus.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I tried that. We actually tried that. Yeah. I think,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: you know, for me, when it's a versus, it's a
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: battle to me.
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: Mm-hmm.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:25
  Speaker 5: Where'd y'all try that, on the tour?
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: I can't pop my schnone. We actually tried to do
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: a versus. There was conversation that started. It was significant money.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: It was an incredible opportunity. And it just, I don't
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: know exactly what the reason was why it didn't happen.
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: But even with that, like, we was going to do
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: it where it was like.
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: Got to be visual, too.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: The visuals.
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: Yes, that's the whole point.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: The outfits.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: The performances. But... It didn't happen. I don't know why
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: it didn't happen. But me personally, Missy is not someone
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: that I would prefer to do a versus with.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: Because I can't talk shit to her.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying?
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: There's no shit talk with my twin. That's my female twin. Yes,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: it is. My sister, my heart, I love her beyond description.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: So it's like there's never a slight possibility of popping
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: shit to Missy. the way I would want to in
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: a verse with a motherfucker.
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: There's only one other person, but they're not even alive.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: God bless their dead. You and ODB would have been crazy.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Oh, wow.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Bumped around versus ODB versus. Damn. That would have been crazy.
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: Damn.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Super stupid.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: That would have been crazy.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Super stupid. And I'm talking the old DB before he
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: went to jail.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: That verse would have been insane crazy. Yeah. And I
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: ain't even going to lie, yo. There's a story with
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: me and ODB that I like to share with motherfuckers,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: and I got to share it. I love A-Song so much.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you how genius this man was. They
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: had this venue called Hot Rod, and this was back
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: in the 80s, late 80s, super early 90s, and they
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: did an event there for the 5% Nation of the
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: Gods and Earths. And Kane was headlining. I believe Poor
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Righteous Teachers is there. Grand Nubian. Prince Rakim before he
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: became the RZA. And the Genius before he came to JZA.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: And inside this spot, it's like old school cars from
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: the 60s with tables so you feel like you in
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: some shit like Mel's Diner in New York. And it
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: was on West Side Highway. Long story short, after the concert,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: after the performances, rather, the guards had to build before
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: they could leave. So we outside. RZA and GZA and
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Old Dirty, they kind of was the ones that was
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: the PhDs. They was the ones that, they now is 120,
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: so it's like they was the super, smart and powerful
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: gods in the cypher. And they controlled the cypher. But
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: there was a moment where somebody said that they knew
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: a certain level of lessons and you gotta show and
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: prove that you know that. And it didn't play out
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: well for this particular individual. And old Dirty started going crazy,
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: but not going crazy on a beef level. He was
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: going crazy on a science, high science level. The way
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: he was swiftly quoting the degrees and then dealing with
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: the show and proves of these degrees and making sure
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: that people understood in the cipher how serious you got
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: to deal with representing this. culture a certain way. You
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: got to experience the genius and the brilliance in O'Dirty,
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: even though he still had that same wild out charisma.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: So fast forward, when Woo Blue... And RZA set up
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: shit for all the artists to go to separate labels.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: O'Dirty come to Elektra. So I'm on Elektra. And I'm
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: still trying to figure out how to approach this solo
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: artist shit. Signed the deal. Excuse me. I signed the
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: deal in 93.
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: 94?
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: 93.
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: I put out my first solo album in 96. O'Dirty
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: album came out in 95.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: So he dropped his shit before me. We going to
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: New Orleans to this convention called a BRE. I don't
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: know if y'all remember that. But they had this convention
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: in New Orleans called a BRE convention. And this is where, like,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: it was like, how can I be down? Fucking Jack
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: the Rapper. You know, New Music Seminar. It was like that.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: But this BRE convention is in New Orleans and we
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: get there and The hotel lobby is stupid, like just
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: packed crazy because every label, every artist, every entourage is
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: staying in the same place. And a lot of the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: showcases that was happening in this convention was happening at
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: the hotel. So while we waiting for the, before we
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: even leave New York, Elektra put me and O'Dirty in
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: the same limo. O'Dirty plays the return to the 36 chambers.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: O'Dirty is, he's still healing from getting shot. So, he
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: plays the album on the way to Kennedy Airport. And
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to this motherfucker. And I'm like, I'm looking
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: at this nigga like, like, Like, he made me a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: little nervous. Like, his shit sounded so incredible. I was
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: looking at this nigga like a little uncomfortable. Like, what
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: the fuck am I going to do to follow this
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: wild shit that he doing on this album? And I'm
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: really fucked up because what he did was, it just
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: sounded so incredible to me. So he got a bulletproof
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: vest on. We go to the metal detector and I'm
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: behind him. So he's in front of me. He get
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: through the metal detector. He go through it with the
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: vest on. Security at the airport, they call about, whatever
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: police they call, about 15 of these motherfuckers show up.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: So they surround Dirty. You just see Dirty. You just
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: see it. It's like he just wowing. What?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: What?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: Like he just blocking on everybody. Them time, it ain't
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: even cool to have security. So we moving around, no security,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: no nothing. He got a bottle of Wild Irish Rose
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: in a brown bag with the vest on, fresh from
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: getting shot, still healing from that, and get through with
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: all of it. Obviously different times. The Wild Irish Rose
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: get on the plane, the bulletproof vest get on the plane,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: he don't take it off. We ain't first-class budget niggas yet,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: so we in the back of the plane. O'Dirty get
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: behind this old man. This man look like he about
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: 78 years old. He white. He sitting in his chair,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: minding his business. O'Dirty know every old-school classic from R &
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: B to soul. He get to singing in this nigga's ear.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: He going crazy in this nigga's ear. Plane packed. Man
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: can't move. He calling to get somebody to call attendance
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: to stop. ODB from singing in his ear. ODB would
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: take a break. When they come pull up on him,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: he get to singing in his motherfucker ear again. We laughing,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: bugging the fuck out. We get to New Orleans. We
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: get off the plane. We waiting for our hotel room keys.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: This shit taking mad long because the lines. We started
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: a cypher in the lobby. This shit is literally on
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: the net with me and O'Dirty and Rampage. We spitting
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: in the lobby. We get the room keys. We go upstairs.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: Everybody get fresh. ODB show is first. We come downstairs.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: We get in the showcase. ODB perform on a stage,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: and the whole stage is lined with mirrors. So he
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: walk on the stage to Isaac Hayes' Walk On. This
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: shit is incredible. This music's sounding super like the most
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: incredible theme music for him to walk out to. He
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: get on stage. I guess he ain't like the way...
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: The reaction was, mind you, niggas is super lit, but
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: it wasn't enough for him. This motherfucker said, what the
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: fuck going on in here? I'm not satisfied. We're going
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: to do this shit again. Nigga, leave the stage. Start
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: the intro over. Do the same walk back on the stage.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: Go straight into Brooklyn Zoo. This shit is a tornado.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: When I tell you the first song, he don't do
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: none of the shit before that. First song is Brooklyn Zoo.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: He fucked the place up, but he couldn't even get
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: to like the eighth bar. He get to like fourth
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: or the sixth bar. He turned around, he saw himself
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: in that mirror. That nigga ain't perform no more. That
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: nigga went to his reflection.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 7: Yo, a song went to his reflection.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: And started fucking playing with his reflection. And he had
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: a hype man named Buddha Monk. And Buddha had to
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: do the whole song for Old Dirty. When the hook
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: come at the end, shame on you when you get
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: through the whole Dirty. That's the only part of the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: song he did besides the little four to five bars
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: he did up top. That whole shit he was playing
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: with his reflection.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: That's crazy. What was that?
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: This was in New Orleans on Canal Street. I forget
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: the name of the hotel in New Orleans. but it
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: was during the BRE convention, and this was in 95.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: I had woo-ha verses, because I actually freestyled it. I
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: spit it in the cypher. But the record ain't come
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: out yet. So O'Dirty was screaming with Brooklyn Zoo. And
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: that moment, that ODB is the ODB that I would
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: have loved to do a verses with.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and y'all had the WooHot remix together.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed. And it's so crazy, even with that video,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: because when we did that video, the director of the
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: video who shot it, because we shot that shit in
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, he passed away before the shit came out.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: He shot the shit, he edited the shit, he sent
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: it off, and then died from some freak accident, I think.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: What they call that shit when you do the parachute shit?
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: Skydiving. Skydiving or something like that. Not bungee jumping because
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: he had a parachute. Oh, yeah, skydiving.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so whatever he was doing with that, freak accident,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: some shit happened, it ain't landing the right way or whatever,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: and he passed away. But ODB, man, is a thing
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: that I don't think people really got a chance to understand.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: How super smart he was. Like he was super smart.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: That whole shit that he was giving y'all and giving
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: us with the wild shit, that was him too. Because
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: there was nothing about him that he faked. But the
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: brilliance of his mind, I don't think people really got
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: a chance to understand that side of him. And that's
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: the old D.B., A-Son Unique. Like, when a motherfucker say,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: I'm a one-man army, A-Son. I never been tooken out.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: I keep MCs looking out. I drop science like girls
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: be dropping babies. Enough to make a nigga go crazy. Like,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: that nigga said, A-Son. Like, his name is A-Son. A-Son.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: A-Son.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: I keep planets in orbit. Like, that shit is... That
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: ain't no regular shit to say. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: This is who, he gave bits and pieces of that.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: But again, I was fortunate enough to experience an overwhelming
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: amount of his brilliance as my friend and brother and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: A alike. And I will say again, see here the
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: center of the bullseye. If he was here, as that Aeson,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: old dirty, big baby Jesus, Osiris.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: Best verses ever.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: Best verses in existence.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Easy.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: Hands down. Can't even front.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 6: How you talk about him, that's how I feel about you.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: You my fucking guy.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 7: Thank you, Queen.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: I love you so much.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: I love you too, Queen. Yes, thank you. And you're
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: beautiful as hell.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: And you've been generous with your times. I'm going to
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: ask a couple more questions. With the Dilla, right?
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 4: At what point does possessing somebody's unreleased art stop feeling
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: like just having music and it feels like you got
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: custody of somebody's legacy?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say. I think to
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: answer the question that you asked earlier, And I said
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: that it's something that I thought about later, like why
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: he gave me all of that music. I felt like
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: he knew something that maybe I didn't see at the time.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? I knew he loved what
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: I did, but he never called me by my name.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: He never once said Buster to me. He always called
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: me Godfather. I always like, I think in his mind,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: I'm reminding him of the closest thing to James Brown.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Because like my ad lib just, ha, ha. So it's like,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: I took that from James Brown. But I just, because
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I love the way that shit, When he does that,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: I love the feel that it gives his music. It
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: adds a feel to the music. So I think in
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: his mind, I was the James Brown of some rap
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: shit to him. And the soulfulness in the pocket, I
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: understood his swing because I played drums. I got my
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: first drum set when I was seven. My father bought
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: me a six-piece Remo drum set, and Dilla played drums.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: But I didn't know that until recently. But the way...
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: I understand rhythm and timing with swing feel in music
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: comes from being a drummer. And I think Dilla just
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: connected with me in that way without it being a conversation.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: So he would just feed me this music because in
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: his mind, I guess he kind of felt like, you're
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: going to do this shit justice, so I think you
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: should be the custodian of this work.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: And also, if he's not here, because I know he
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: went through a lot in his career, like on the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 5: business side too, you know, how you are with his family,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 5: helping him make sure everything is monetized, right? Like, I
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 5: think there had to be some sort of level of like,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: as a person, he just saw how good you were
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: and could trust that you would do what was right,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: even if he couldn't or wasn't in the room to
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: be able to do it.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: Like, that's like a big.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: From your mouth to God's ears, because we never had
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: no conversation that wasn't a part of no plan. It
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't like some preordained thing. Maybe it was without it
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: being a conversation. But I will say, I don't know
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: how to be any other way in life in general.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: Sometimes to a default. But life definitely got to a
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: place where life's enough for me to realize that loyalty
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: is a blessing and not a burden. So we stopped
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: doing it to a default. But when it's through. It's
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: always the right thing to do for you as an
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: individual to make sure that you're doing the right thing
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: when it comes to others, especially when they contribute significantly
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: to your well-being. And Dilla's music has done that. I've
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: had nothing but success with his contribution to my art
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: and what it has helped me do with how I've
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: evolved and grown as an artist, the way I think
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: when I approach his music. Sometimes I do shit that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: only his music will make me think to do. And
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: it has been rewarding. You know what I'm saying? Not
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: just on a monetary level, but to a fulfillment level.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: So it's like, I can proudly say I'm never going
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: to play with the integrity or the respect of his
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: legacy and his family. I ain't never going to play
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: with that. And as long as I'm alive to do it,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: you're going to always get... Buster Dilla music. Until I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: bow out gracefully, that's always going to happen.
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: You say he gave you things musically that you couldn't
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: even explain to him.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: Did you ever learn just to explain them, period, over time?
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: I explain it through the music by sharing the feeling
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: of the words that I can't find to explain it.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: You get what I'm saying? So how I'm going to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: rhyme on his beat is me trying to explain it
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: through the feeling. If I can't find the words, you
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? If I do find the words
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: and I'm talking about a particular thing on his record,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: on a record that I did that he produced that
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: probably I would have never said or spoken on on
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: anybody else's production, I'm finding the words that way, right?
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: So it's like, I think that's probably the closest that
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: I'll be able to come to being able to share what,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: His music makes me feel enough to articulate it in
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: some kind of way. Whether it's through the words that
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: I find in the moment on his production, or it's
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: the feeling even when I don't find the words. And
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: that's definitely, all music does that, but this Dilla shit,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: it's so different for me. It's so different. I still
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: can't figure out how to pinpoint What separates, or what
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: is the distinguishable difference between what he does for me
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: and what other producers music does for me? It's really,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: really interesting. So crazy. And I think the way he is,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: the regard that he's held in culturally, I think that
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: shit has happened to a lot of us. It ain't
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: just me, you know what I'm saying? Like, we're talking,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: bro transitioned 20 years ago, and it's like, the way
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: he celebrated is globally intense. Like, that February month is
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: Dilla Day and Dilla Month every year. His mom literally
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: goes on a tour celebrating Dilla Day and Dilla Month
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: across all four corners of this fucking planet, y'all.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't understand how she's doing this at her age.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: The traveling, the fucking, you know, the airport shit.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: That shit is draining, yo.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: Waiting on them lines, you security checkpoints, them flight delays
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: you can't control. You sitting in that motherfucker for hours.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: It's like we all know what that experience is. So
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: it's like to see his mom's move around to campaign
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: his legacy the way she does. I mean, obviously we
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: can't speak to a mother's love. Yeah. And you can't
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: speak to a mother's love, especially when the child go
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: before the parent. But when you got a brilliant mind
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: like Dilla, it almost gives you a whole nother purpose
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: that you identify with when you know what you got
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: to do to keep that torch lit to represent the
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: legacy of his genius. And he's your son? And he's
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: not here? That shit is some other shit. So it's like, Big, big,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: big salute to Ma Dukes. Big salute to Ila J.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: And big salute to his daughters because they have done
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: a brilliant job. You know what I'm saying? I always
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: said that about me. Whenever that day comes, no time soon,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: by the grace of the Most High, I got too
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: much smoke left to give these motherfuckers.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: But I'm saying I want to make sure that my
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: shit with my kids is going to move and shake
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: the way Dilla family does. did it for him, the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: way Pac Family did it for Pac, you know what
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: I'm saying? The way Big Family did it for Big,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying? That shit is super important
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: because I got so much work on these hard drives.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: I'm a studio junkie. I'm going to that motherfucker every day, literally.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: And when I'm traveling, my studio is with me, with
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: my engineer on the road. I need to be able
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: to capture the dream. And I feel like if I
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: ain't got the shit around me and I don't capture it,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: it's like I said before, when you throw your fucking,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: you're fishing that in the universe, it's like the deadliest
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: catch series and shit. Motherfuckers get on them ships, they
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: get out there in that water, a fucking storm come,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: niggas come back home, four fucking crew members is dead,
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: they ain't catch one lobster. Sometimes it be like that.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: You go in the studio, you spending that $ 150.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: $ 200, $ 2. 75 an hour in that bitch. You sitting there
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: 12 hours, you don't come out that motherfucker with nothing.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: But I love the peace. The studio don't argue with you.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: The studio ain't lying to you. It ain't trying to
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: manipulate you. It ain't no fuckery there. Sometimes you just
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: go in the studio and just go to sleep. The
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: most peaceful sleep you get. And then you can sit
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: in there and fuck around and four hours later you
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: done came up with a half an album worth of shit.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: It's hit and miss. But the magic of being in
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: a space where you could create so much amazingness from nothing.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: The most subtle and the most inconceivable shit could lead
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: to the most biggest inspirational moment. to just create shit
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: that fuck the world up forever. And that's the studio.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: This is my last question. One of my favorite rap
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: songs ever is Why We Die. BMX, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: produced by Swizz. What was the inspiration for that It.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: Actually wasn't produced by Swiss. That wasn't Swiss?
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: Who was that?
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: It was a rough rider. I forget his name. Could
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: we please Google that? I don't want to do that
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: to him on the radio. I thought that was Swiss's word. Yeah,
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: it wasn't Swiss. It was a rough rider producer, but
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: it wasn't Swiss. Damn, I forget bro's name.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: Hold on.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: I got to show him.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 5: P-Killer.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: P-Killer.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 5: For tracks.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: Big up P-Killer. He was a Rough Rider producer. So,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: you know, at that time, that was the winning sound,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: and they was all on that shit together somewhat. But P-Killer,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: big up P-Killer. He produced that record, and I love,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: first of all, super big up to Hov, super big
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 2: up to DMX. Rest in peace to the dogs, my brother.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: When I got the opportunity to record that song, it
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: was definitely a bucket list moment for me. That's the
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: first time that I seen somebody spit without writing nothing.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: Hov.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: Hov.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: First time I saw that was at that moment. DMX
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: recorded his version in Atlanta. Big up to Eric Nix, too.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: Violator family. He had to chase DMX around for like
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: four days, fucking... through the four wheeler bikes with him
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: and shit. All type of shit to get that verse
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: from Dog. Dog loved to fuck with you. Dog lived,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: he lived. You know what I'm saying? He's going to
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: enjoy himself. He's gonna drive without a license. He's gonna
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: fucking get on the four wheelers. He don't give a fuck.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: He's gonna live. And Eric Nicks had to go and
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: do all of that shit with him to get Dog
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: to finally come to the studio to do it.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: Godly verse too. Oh my God.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 3: I see Ghost clearly, even though most don't hear me.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: He went crazy.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: Wild on it.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: He went crazy.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: Black. And he wasn't even satisfied with the rhyme. When
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: he heard it finished, when it came out, he was like,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: why y'all niggas put that shit out? I wanted to
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: do my verse over.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: Fuck.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: What's wrong with y'all niggas? Like, what?
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, he didn't know Jay was on it.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: I don't know if he knew Jay was on it
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: or not, but he wanted to re-spit his verse. I
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: think Nyx told him Jay was getting on it, but
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think he heard Jay's verse. But he still
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: wanted to spit it over. So he didn't get that chance,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: and he definitely said what he said, but that verse,
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: like how you say it is, godly? I could not
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: hear what the fuck he wanted to say over it.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: That's how sick that verse was to me too.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: I was ugly, so I robbed. No one loved me.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: She was hard like he was going.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: Black. He blacked on it. Black the fuck out. And
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: that moment led me to making so many other moments musically.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: I got records with Dog that the world ain't hear yet. Wow.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: I definitely do. Obviously for me though, before I even
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: think of doing anything with it, I want to make
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: sure that You know, give it to the estate. Swiss.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: You know, in case they want to do something with it,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: they got to have first dibs. I got a verse
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: that Prodigy actually came and did for me in person.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: Rest in peace, Bandana P. Mobb Deep. He spit on
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: something for me before he transitioned. And when I found
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: out the last Mobb album was happening, which was incredible
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: to me, I sent it to have it.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: I love that.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: Word. I don't know if you heard this, but He
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: did this for me before he transitioned here. And whatever
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: you want to do with it, do it. You know
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying? That's just how I try to make
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: shit work. Because I know they're going to know what
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: the best way is to use that.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: I'm going to always make sure that if I get
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: the opportunity to use it, I'm going to make it
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: beautiful as I can. But ain't nobody making P sound good.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: as ill as Havoc is gonna make P sound. You
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? Ain't nobody, nobody don't know how
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: to do that better than Hav. So it's like, you know,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: and same, same, same, when it come to Dog with
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: Swizz to me, you know what I'm saying? Nobody can't
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: make Dog sound better than Swizz to me. And maybe
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: I'm just biased, but that's just what it is.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: How did you know that you wanted Doze on that
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: type of introspective record though?
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: You wanted JNX on Why We Die.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't know that I wanted, I didn't even really
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: know if that record was going to happen at that time.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: Because they both were super scorching out here. And when
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: we did the record, I knew Dawg would have leaned
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: to it. Because Dawg was already on that type of time.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: But I knew Hov, he's like water. Hov, he spills
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: and takes shape to anything that, when it comes to
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: subject matter and topics, he could go anywhere you want him.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: Anywhere you would think you would want him to go,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: he can go there. So I took a rolling of
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: the dice with asking him to do it. And when
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: he did it, I was just grateful because I was
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 2: interested to hear what his perspective was going to be.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: I kind of expected with dog perspective. I knew it
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: was going to be pain with dog. I knew it
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: was going to be pain with dog, but I was
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: interested to hear Hov's perspective, and when I heard it,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: it just was fucking amazing to me, too.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: They say the good die young. You know who I'm from?
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I only got one. How do you know the
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: bars better than me? You remember the bars better than
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 2: me or my shit? You hitting them perfectly, and obviously
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: it's a testament to how much you really fuck with
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: that record.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: Oh, and I love that record.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, my brother.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: We kept you long enough.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: We did.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: And the music video is out now. It should be
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: out now.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Everybody. That's right. Yes.
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: This woman, Busta Rhymes, J Dilla, my brother, rest in peace, King. D'Angelo,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: my brother, rest in peace, King. And I ain't even
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: going to lie. I got to add this fact. This
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: fun fucking fact. 48 hours before this. 48 hours before...
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: Last week, Wednesday. Friday, we turned in the music. Sunday,
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: I found out one sample got denied clearance. We fixed that,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: and then the album came out at midnight on Monday.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: Last Wednesday, get a call from Jimmy Jam that him
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: and Terry Lewis wanted to add some keys to the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Me and D'Angelo record.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: And it's so crazy to know that I never would
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: fathom in my wildest fucking dreams that the caliber of
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: creative that Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis is. I wouldn't
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: even think to ask them to do something. Because some
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: certain shit just be seeming unreachable. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: But to have them offer to contribute to this body
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: of work is also a testament to me of how
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: special this magic that me and Dilla was able to
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: put together is resonating with others, yo. So I got
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: fucking Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis on this woman by
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: the Dragon and D'Angelo and J Dilla. Jimmy Jam and
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: Terry Lewis contributed production to And the fucking video is
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: out now, directed by Hype Williams. Chatbot.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 3: Watching it right now. That's right.
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: Busta Rhymes Diligence 2 is out today, man.
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: Always a pleasure, man. Likewise, brother.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: I love you. Peace to the icon.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: Peace.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you, almighty.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: It's Busta Rhymes. It's The Breakfast Club.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, sir. Hold up. Every day I wake up.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: Wake your ass up.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: Y'all finished or y'all done?