Latest / Earn Your Leisure / The Man Behind Hip-Hop TV: Ralph McDaniels on Nas, Suge Knight & Music Video History

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The Man Behind Hip-Hop TV: Ralph McDaniels on Nas, Suge Knight & Music Video History · Earn Your Leisure

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• 1:52
  Speaker 3: All right, guys, Yeah, welcome back. We are back Special edition.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: We got a legend.
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: This is an absolute legend.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: And koach music. Hip hop change my life for sure,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: a lot of people, a lot of people. Ralph McDaniels,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: if you're old enough to remember Video Music Box, that
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: was one of the the first major platform that was
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: showing hip hop visuals. Yes, right before that, it was
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: like you had to hear it on the radio right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Right, and it was a couple of local shows or that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: But not like with hip hop, like we put hip
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: hop up front Yeah.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: The first time you saw your favorite artists, maybe the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: first time you actually heard them, because if they wasn't
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: on the radio, and some records didn't make radio, it
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was breaking records too.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: So this is the first introduction to real music.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw it. It was young people, you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and hip hop has always been young people, And it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: was young people, you know doing it in parks, you know,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: with plugging into light poles in the Bronx and in
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Brooklyn and Queens and all these different areas, and I
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: was like, there's something going on here, what is it?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: You know, because I'm a little bit older than hip hop,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: so you know, I'm from the era where you know,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gaye and all that that kind of stuff. But
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: I knew that this was something that was important and
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: they was going somewhere.
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: So yeah, first and foremore, thank you for joining us.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: Appreciate it.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: And yeah, so it's crazy, like when you look at
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: the I don't want to understate the importance of visuals
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: when it comes to hip hop, because I mean it's
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: hard to even calculate how much money is actually generated
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: from actual visual component of it. But I mean YouTube, right,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: if you look at something like YouTube, which is YouTube
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: is a subsidiary of Google, but if it was his
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: own standalone company would be one of the most richest
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: companies in the world. And a lot of that is
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: driven through music, right, and you see Instagram and all
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: these different platforms where a visual component. It's just changed
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: the way that we digest music. So you know, to
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: have the foresight of really champion that and really thinking
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: like this was a good idea, because I would I
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: would assume like when people probably thought like what is this?
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: Like, I mean, like it's one thing. Are you hearing music?
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's cool, but I don't want to see a
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: video of somebody rapping like in three minutes, Like.
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: What is that?
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: So what was your How did you get the foresight
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: to understand this is going to be big? And when
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: did it start as far as like you first getting
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: in the business starting Video music Box, Like what year
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: was that?
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: How did that come about?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: So we started Video Music Box in eighty three, But
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I was working at some TV stations like eighty one
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: eighty two right out of college, right, and I was
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out how can we do something with
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: music and TV to make it important? And it was
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: a small PBS station in New York call at WNYC TV,
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: great call lettus and you know, you could barely find
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: a channel. You have to have the right hanger. It
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: was cloudy outside. You might not get it right. And
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: I proposed an idea to play music videos, not necessarily
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: hip hop, just music videos in general general. And so
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: at the time, it was like Michael Jackson, you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Rick James, Lionel Ritchie, that kind of thing, right, And
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: so that was the beginning of the idea being introduced,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and it became a thing that we used to use
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: the videos during our fundraisers, you know, like PBS has
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: these fundraiser call now and you know you could get this,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: We'll send you ten DVDs of you know, motown and
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So they would play the videos
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: in between, and the calls were crazy. I just still
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: don't understand why, you know, But that's not how I
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: wanted to use the music videos. I wanted to create
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: like a video radio show. That's what my concept was.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: But that's how it was introduced. And then it took
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: off and they said can you do this every day
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: after school? And I said yeah, And I never produced
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: the show. I was an engineer, and I just thought
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: about what I listened to in the radio and said,
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: this is what we're gonna do.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: That's it's taken me back, right, so eighty three.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: And I liked that you said after school because it
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was the thing, like we had to get home by
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: three thirty. We knew that you was going to start
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: at three thirty. And if we missed the intro, we
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: talk about the intro a little bit, we's gonna miss
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the brand new video. Usually the brand new debut video
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: is going to start the show, and so it was
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: important to get there. So at the time, I mean,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: people probably don't notice, but like, we didn't see you
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: for a while, right, it was just the voice.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: So I was even talking.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, that's crazy because I'm remembering as
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a kid, just hearing the voice. How were you putting
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: things together and piecing them to have an hour show?
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Because obviously people don't do this. It's not the easiest
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: thing to do, right, putting an hour of content together.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: How were you formatting in programming?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: I did it like a mixtape, you know, and the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: word mixtape didn't exist at that time, but that's what
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: it really was. But it was visual, and I would
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: talk you know, every fifteen minutes or so. I didn't
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: necessarily talk to everything. After a while, people got tired
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: of me talking to all the parties. I was going
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: to meet us at the you know, at the tunnel,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: meet us at Displace, all these other stuff. But yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: so I just knew that it was treated like a mixtape,
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: like if I was home listening to this, but actually
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: now it's on your TV, which to me, I knew
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: that was powerful. The fact that it was on your
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: TV and you could see these things. I knew that
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: people never saw these visuals, you know, like of especially
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: when it came to hip hop, the early hip hop
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: like run DMC and Eric B and Rock Kim and
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: Fat Boys and all of that, and Houdini and all
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that stuff. This is the first time you've really seen it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Up to that point, it was less right on magazine,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: you know, word up and these posters on your wall,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: which Biggie talks about in his lyrics, right now you're
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: seeing them. Then I was like, I have to interview
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: them because I can get a little bit more insight.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And Russell Simmons was the guy who managed everybody who
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: we grew up together. And I'm born in Brooklyn and
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: moved to Queens, grew up in Queens Village, and I
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: see Russell all the time. So I was like, you're
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: russ you got a party going on, and he's like, yeah, man,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: come through, you know. And then that's how we got
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: the interviews.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: So like Video Music Box when it's starts, do you
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: own the IP of that? Is that your show? Or
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: is that Yes?
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I owned the Video Music.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: Box and it was on what channel was it on?
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: It was on Channel thirty one, which, like I said,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: was like a third tier PBS station, Like in New York,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Channel thirteen is the main wn et, the main really
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: for all the PBS, it's the main station, and then
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: there's a couple other stations. And there was CHANND thirty one.
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: So was that important for you to have that ownership
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: or like, yes, you thought that through before you before.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: You Yeah, my dad owned this a candy store. And
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: so I realized that owning is everything, and that's where
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: I got that in my head from. And I wanted
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to own everything, which is not you don't need to
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: own everything, which is a mistake, you know, some people
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: just don't don't need to own everything.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: You don't tell that, right, But you know I went this,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I understand.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: That's why I understand Dames. So but you know, you
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: don't need to own in reality, you don't need to
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: own everything.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: To lesson alone.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: So but when you went in there, okay, so you
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: pitched the idea, you say, okay, I have this, this
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: is an idea, and then they're putting it on their platform.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: So they just kind of giving you the green light
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: or they're like putting some parameters on.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: What has to be done. They had no idea what
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: I was doing. They're just like, all right, just just
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: let the black boy got time. Yeah, right, they they
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: they were not paying attention to anything. We made tons
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: of mistakes, but they were not They didn't really care,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: but they felt like it brought some diversity to the programming.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: That was them.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: When you hit your stride, Like, when does it start
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: to become big?
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I would say about eighty five. Now there's more hip
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: hop in the scene. You know, by eighty five, eighty six,
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: and you know the golden era for Summer's eighty seven
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: and so in that time.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: We had a golden era.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I'm not a eighty seven president. But for
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: some it's eighty seven, and so that time more labels
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: are putting money into hip hop. You know, it's like, Okay,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: you got Caine, you got Slick Rick, you got Public
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Enemy coming soon, you got all this MCL like, you
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: got all this stuff happening, you know. And so now
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you're starting to get music videos because in the beginning,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: there weren't music videos. You just put a record out,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: you put a vinyl out, and the hip hop artists
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: didn't get a video. Now I'm going to the label, yo,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: y'all need to do a video for this, because this
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: record is hot. Most of these corporate cats are not
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: in the clubs. They not going to the Bronx, They're
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: not going to the park. They don't know that this
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: is the biggest thing in these areas. You know, wherever
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: it's at, you know, if it's in if it's in
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: New York, if it's in Detroit, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, DC.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: You know, you go to these places. This hip hop
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: thing is taking over. And but if you never went there,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: you never saw it. So we would kind of encourage
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: you'll come to the party. Man, Just come to the party,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: and you're a smart guy. You're gonna get it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: You're seeing the records break before they know it, right,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But that also leaves an opportunity for you to say,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: there's another business I create because you're the guy that's
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: playing the videos. They don't even know that they need
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the videos, so you start directing the video. I start
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: directing the video, so paper then I remember, yeah, but
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what's the what's the first major one that you're like,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: all right, this is the one that's gonna go, And
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: now I'm gonna be known as a director as well.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I think for us the Cold Chilling Records stuff that
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: we did now, Cold Chilling Records was one of the
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: first independent black owned labels like Death Champ Well, Death
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Champ and I would say that the big three was
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Uptown Records with Andre Herrel, Russell Simmons, def Jam and
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Cold Chilling. Tyron Williams. He had the Juice Crew on
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Cold Chilling. Juice Crew is also on the radio, so
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: they got a lot of action.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: Can we get all them?
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: It's Master Ace, Yeah, Big Daddy kinge yep Ki Bizmarcky's
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: in there, Shante and Shan Craigge.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: Craig g Yeah on Cougie Rap would you all the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: symphony record? So we did the Symphony video and that
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: was a big deal, you know, like you know that
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: was you know, you saw all of them, you know,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: in a creative way. We had a company with our
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: companies called Classic Concept. So we wanted to create this
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: concept that was a classic, you know, like what's going
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to make this a classic? You know, And and that
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: was me and my partner Liana Martin and and we
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: wanted to do Sometimes we based it on movies. Sometimes
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: we based it on you know, something that really happened
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: in real life in New York, you know, and we
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: made it into a video.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: And then you also directed Nas. It ain't hard to tell.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: It ain't hard to tell young Nas Chip to smile,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: you know. That was it. That's who he was, you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: kid from from from Queensbridge, you know. And that was
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: a new wave of in ninety two, ninety three, ninety
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: four really of the next wave of who these kids
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: were going to be, who these what hip hop looked like?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And and I saw it, you know, he would come
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: to I would tell Nazi, you know, I used to
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: watch you before you I met you. You know, they
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: would come to Queensbridge, Will be like forty d you know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, it's gonna be a problem, and
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Naza be like, yeah, my dudes, is my guys. I
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: was like you wasn't really but you was in it though.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: You was right there with them like cheering it on.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: And when you did that video, did you know how
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: like did you know like, nah, this is going to
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: be it? Cause it's like that video really was. I mean,
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: he had like Live at the Barbecue. They came out first,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: but like when that video hit, that's when it really
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: was like official official because even like, you know, I
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: can still remember he had the you know, used to
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: have those army hats with the brim, scully with the brim,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: and he had the red one, the green one had
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: the cell phone. That's when the like the cell phones
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: was like the South of the water bottle with the flip.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: He had that, and it was just like the eye
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: moment of it all. And I just recently found out,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: you know, as a Michael Jackson sample, and they said,
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that's sure or not, but they
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: said that Mike only let him use it if he
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: wouldn't curse, So there's no curses in that song.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: I think I read that too.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so that's just kind of a darge.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Professor produced that record, okay, and that's he's he of
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: course was the main guy in Main Source, which is
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Live at the Barbecue and back to the Grill again. Yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: and so when that when we worked on that project,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: it was just Nas calling me from his crib in
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Queensbridge in the projects saying, I don't know, I just
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: want to be hot. Just do what you do on
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: video music box. That's that's all I know. That's that's
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: as much as not he knew how to wrap. But
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: his you know, he didn't have a plan. You know.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: The record label was like, we just want to show him,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: you know, show his face. He's a good looking guy,
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: you know. And and I was like, no, we're not
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: trying to see all that. He's talking about some hardcore stuff.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: We want to get into all of that. But but yeah,
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: that's that was the concept.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: But did you know, like, because it's like coaching Lebron
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: in high school, right, did you know this is going
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: to be one of the greatest rappers of all time?
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: Like did you see that? Like, oh no, this this
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: is this kid's different.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Well, by the time I had Illmatic, and when I
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: did the video, I listened to the whole album. So
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: I was like, he's different, you know. And I'm a
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: guy that grew up listening to Gil Scott Heron, you know,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: and I looked at him in that way and that
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: he had the poetry, he cared about the community. He
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: was touching souls with what he was saying. But from
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: a street corner perspective, you know. At the same time,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: this is why I love that eraor this is my
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: golden era for me is nas Wu Tang Biggie. You know.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: It is because I would leave my house in Brooklyn
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: and everything that Nas is saying on the record, I
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: see that every day on the corner. So it's reality.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: You know. It wasn't like the eighties where it was
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: kind of a story. You know, Slick, we could tell
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: your amazing story, but you wasn't. You didn't really see it,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: you know. And you know, but with Nas and them,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: they were outside on the camouflage with the timberlands and
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: had the the red joint.
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: That's great, that's ninety three ninety four in Queens. But
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: then Stanton Allens sounds bubbling too, and they're reaching out
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: to you. So, like, what is that like.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: When this golden era when you're the go to guy
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: for a city? Right, because everybody now realizes they've been
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: watching Video Music Box, they understand the importance of it.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: West Coast has a little thing.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Bubbling, New York needs a visual and you're the go
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to guy for it.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought that that was a great time to
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: be for what I wanted to do and what the
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: company wanted to do, because this is what we wanted.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: We wanted to be, you know, that the go to company.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: And so we had relationships with nas and Wu Tang
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: and others that most directors didn't have, and most production
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: companies didn't have, and and the other production companies wanted
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to have that relationship. But I'm in the club at
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: three o'clock in the morning in the Bronx in places
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: that you'll don go. So you know, if you'll want to,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: you gotta go to it. You know, if you want
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: to be successful at this, you gotta you know, rest
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: in peace, Clark Kent. You know, Clark Kent told me
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: one day. I was like, yo, man, I got these
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: young dudes on my block. I mean, I was talking
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to Clark Kenton and I'm telling him, I got these
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: young guys on my block, and they don't get it. Man.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: They just you know, they think they're tough and all
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of this. You know, you know, they live in nice houses. Man,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: this is not bad, this is this is okay. And
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: I don't understand them. He says, you got to go
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: to them, and then they'll they'll see you in their
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: situation and then they'll be like, oh, he's with us.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: And so I said, okay. And so that's when I
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: started going to especially you know, trap music time and
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: going to those events, and then they would see me
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: and be like, oh, uncle's here. You know. So they
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: had a different respect, and you have to it's like
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: talking to people or talking at them. Talking at them,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: it's not gonna work. Talking to them, it's gonna work.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: So you so video music block, you know, becomes to
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: go to and it's not just music videos like you
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: actually in the tunnel clubs, like it's like document and
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: culture on a variety of different levels. And then you
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: also create different characters, right that are a part of
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: the the tree, like a Marvel universe of characters that
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: so you you you create a whole ecosystem.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: Right, but.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Like anything, once, like corporate starts to really pay attention
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: to this, right, So at what point do you realize
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: the swift? Because MTV Yo, MTV raps, when did they
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: come out.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: In the eighty eight, eight eighty eight.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so they were already around yeah by nineties, yeah,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: but they started putting more.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Well, people didn't have cable technology didn't catch up yet.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: So MTV is doing YO, but the kids in the
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: hood don't have it. And I didn't realize after everybody
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: would have it when it came out and people were like,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: how's it affecting you, I'm like, I don't know. I
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: don't see it because I didn't realize that, yeah, got
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the cable part. You know, the technology hadn't been wired in,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: so those kids to see it by ninety two, ninety three,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: now they got it. So I'm seeing a big difference
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: because they're talking about YO. I just was watching Yo
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: MTV and I saw this and I'm like, oh shit,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: they got it. They got it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: How are you feeling at that time?
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Because I was the kid that lived in the Bronx
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and then moved to the suburbs, so we had to
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: die when we were there, and then we got cable.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: But when they started, I think FAB was only on
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: like Saturday nights. Yeah, and then Ed and Dre was
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: during like on the Saturday mornings and maybe four thirty.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: It came on after you like they were three. You
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: were three thirty to four thirty, and then they were
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: like four thirty something like that. But as you're watching it,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I've never actually seen y'all in the same space like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: you and and Dre, Like was there like some compartitive money.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: They had money. I I have nothing. I was on
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: my own dime bro and they or the people hired
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: me to do shows. So when you saw me in
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: clubs in the Bronx on Brooklyn, that was a promoter going, Yo, Ralph,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: come to the you know, we're going to hire you
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to host the show. Can you shoot the show there
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: as well? And I would go there and they would
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: pay me, you know whatever, it was five hundred dollars,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: one thousand dollars, and we would do this and the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: whole place would be jam packed and can we do
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it again next week. I didn't realize that it was
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: us that was helping get that room packed. And then
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: after a while I was like, we can do this ourselves.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Why are we just doing this for five hundred dollars?
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Like And we started doing ourselves and that's when we
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: started making money, you know, just as promoters.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: It was ever a time when you're in one of
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: these parties and you're like, because neo parties at that time,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: they could go left in any second. Absolutely was it
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: like a party you was at and it was like
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a right, we might have cut the cameras off, like
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I got out of here.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no. I remember one night we were in.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: It was a club. It wasn't even a club. It
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: was like a a place where people give you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: like gallas and things like that. But it was kind
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of like not nice anymore. And and it was Flash djaying.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: It was Flash. It was New Year's Eve. It was
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Flash's birthday is New Year's Day and Flash was there
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and I came in and it was people with places packed.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, we made some money tonight. And I'm
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: walking around and then I'm talking to the promoter and then
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: I hear gunshots, I mean like machine gun gun shots,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: like not just one two three like like that, And
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what's that. It's New Year's Eve? Come on
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: y'all still out here New Year's Eve? Like what's going on?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: This is the hood and so and biz Marquis was
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: there and biz Marquis so everybody's running. So biz Markey,
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I see him running my way and I'm like, oh,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: I'm business here and he's like, yo, they wild And
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: I'm like, and bis got all this jewelry ons. I'm like, yeah,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: away from me, man, I want like they coming for
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the jewelry, I guess. And and you know, eventually we
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: got it. But my friend got shot that night. You know,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: he got through it. My friend, Troy Haywood, he got
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: through it. But you know, and he was like, get
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: the money, go to the bar around, take all the money.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: Well I was like, okay, you know his aunt had
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: the money. I'm like, I'll take that from me, miss
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: give me you.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: And somebody that saw hip hop at the beginning stages,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: when did you start to see When did you start
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: to notice the difference as far as money that was
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: coming in on a court, Like you start to see like, oh,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: this is starting to make millions and millions and multi
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars. Like what was that question? Was always there?
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Like like sprite in eighty five. Sprite was there.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Which is a Coca Cola company, I guess, and they
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: were doing fresh vests and it was Sprite and swatchwatch
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: was there, and these were just unique situations that I
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: guess Russell and other guys, this other guy, Charles Stetler,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: they they put together that they could get some money
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: from these corporations that wanted to get with these young kids. Soda,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: of course is easy. You know, Watches I didn't know,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: but that was pretty creative to have that. Oh and
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: I know why because they had Key Hearing, the artist
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Keith Hearing's uh watches and it kind of related to
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: young people as graffiti, right, So but yeah, I started
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: to see it then. I really started to see it
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: in the nineties. You know, when you get bad Boy
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: and Rockefeller and def Jam. You know, Deaf Jam is
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: really the godfather of creating this whole system of corporate
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and the right people and the cool crowd and you know,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: and everything and it all works. And you know, we
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: put out method Man, and we put out you know,
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: like why didn't Methan Man come out with on Loud Records,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: which Wu Tang was on What's Deaf Jam had a
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: clear idea of we want to do this different than
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: maybe what you guys did with Wu Tang, And they
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: did a good job. And then they put red Man
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: and met the Man, right, you know. And I remember
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Lee York Cohen telling me that this is going to
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: be the greatest campaign ever. And I was like, I
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: don't know why, but because they both had Man at
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: the end of the name, Like why but they still
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: perform now. And he embedded that in people's head and
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: and and the thing about Deaf Jam was We're not
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: just going to put out a good hip hop record.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: We're gonna put out edgy records, the records that really
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: kind of pushed the push the edge, you know, like
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: you know, there's plenty of artists, you know. And I
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: remember when le York Coan told me we were going
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: to make Jay Z the biggest artist ever. Like he
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: said that to me, and I was like, and this
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: is you know, Biggie's still around, so Jay's not really
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: quite there yet. He's good, clearly he's a great artist,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: but I'm like the greatest artist ever. And you know
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: said that he said that to me about j Z. Yeah,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: what year was that, maybe ninety six? It's a reasonable
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: doubt Mary for that, you know, Jay and them and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Rockefeller put reasonable doubt. It wasn't on death Cham at first,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: it was on another lab priority priority.
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: Right priorities work wasn't right, so I factive right.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Priority was cool, but that's not really what they you know,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Jay needed to be death Cham.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: So like ninety six was that puffing them when they
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: when they that's when it really started to get crazy though, right, Yeah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: like nineties.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: There was there was something happened in street Teams.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Street Oh death ro too though they played the part. Yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: because that's when Tupac and all like, there was a
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: lot of records being sold, like Tupac selling eight million records,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: the amount of money.
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: That should night.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So maybe it's maybe it starts on Power Snoop up
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: until that point because he's the first guy that does
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: huge million records ninety two up until that era.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: Because before it was just like you just you just
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: you wrap you nice, you nice, you nice nice. Then
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: there was a gigster eraror you had to be like that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: But then there was the money because.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: You never kept that even in that era, you never
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: cared about how many records you sold.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: But I'm saying there was then there was the money, right.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: I'm trying.
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: I'm trying to figure out when the money era started.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: I think I think I.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Think probably would start with you could Snoop Snoop because
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Hollywood is coming in now when you're coming from La,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: it's Hollywood driven. Everything is the money that the people
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: that are putting up the money. It's all based around.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: They do movies, they do all that kind of thing.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: They know how to market. They just may not have
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: the right product. Now you come in with Snoop and Dre.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: They know what they're doing and Okay, let's put it
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: out there and we're gonna put the money behind it,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and it hit across the you know, Sugar, I did
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: videos for the h what is the name of his
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: not dog Pown. They did a compilation of all of
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: the artists that were on death Row and the Lady
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: of Raid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we we did some
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: videos for that.
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: How smart was Shug like?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Do you think? Like? To me, I didn't have any
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: any problems with him. I thought that he was a
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: guy I played football in high school, so he looked
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: like a guy to play football with, and so his
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: size didn't intimidate me. But I knew that he he
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: wanted to win, which was so did I. So I
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: didn't I got it.
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: Because I never really thought about the reason.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: I actually I never really thought about it, just in
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: this moment of we always give Puff the credit of
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: making hip hop billions, like, but now I'm thinking, I'm like,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: maybe it was Shug or maybe it with both of
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: them at the same time, because Sugar always kept the
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: reputation as a very smart businessman and the West Coast
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: was always gangster like, just gangster rap, and even that's
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: how that's how Snoop originally came out as a gangster
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: right as a gang member. But then somehow it turned
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: very quickly that death Row ship was always against the card,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: but they turned into very high levels. Maybe Tupac with
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: the combination of his star power because he was a
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: movie star already, so maybe when he got to death
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: Row it just kind of blew it up and they
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: But that's interesting because it's like, maybe he needs to
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: get a little bit more credit for actually making hip
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: hop multi billion dollar industry.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Or it's the same guys that you, like, you said
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Leo said this about Jay right right, I'm show on
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the other side, Jimmy Iveen saying we're gonna do this
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: with Snoop, right, And so these guys are just pulling
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: their pulling strings.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: And you also have a guy like like like sug
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: is gonna keep everybody. He's a young, young, young kid,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: and he's gonna, look, we're gonna be serious about this.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: We're gonna get this album done, y'all gonna go to
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: due press, y'all gonna take photo like he was organizing them.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: He was the coach, you know, like, look, cut it out.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: If somebody acting up, we'll beat your ass. So okay,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: let me not, let me get my shit together. And
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: people artists might not have realized that this was to
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: the benefit at the time, but when they got to check,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: they realized how much shit gave them.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: As you're seeing this money coming in, especially in this
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: hip hop space, and you've watched it from the beginning, right,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: you predated the videos start, the budgets start going up.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right now, As in that time, there is
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: no Hype Williams yet, right, Billy Hunt, Billy will Ruff,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: all these guys they don't exist yet, right, director asked
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Benny Boom. But you did, yeah, are you looking at
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the video budget saying I need to do more directing
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: because they're actually spending millions of dollars? Like I remember
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the million dollar videos right, like this is happening in
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this era.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: How are you viewing this from a director standpoint?
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: We just thought that the bigger the artists that we
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: worked with, the bigger the budget would be. So as
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: long as we could keep on striving to work with
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: other like if we worked with I don't know, let's
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: say Usher at the time, then we needed to work
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: with R Kelly, you know, or to get to at
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: the time. So I don't know, I don't want people
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: that I don't don't want anybody to get did it twist.
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: A different times?
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: They you can't erase the history. It's like pop, you
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: can't e raise the.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: History, right, So so yeah, so we just thought that
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: it was whoever we worked with was bigger, was we
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: would get more money. And that was not always the case.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: It just mattered on what was negotiated.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you that you know doctor Lamars, Yes,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: so he has a he I saw him speaking. He
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: talked about hip hop fifty and his thing was like
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: his thing was like what has hip hop done. That
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: was he you know, he's kind of critical on a
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: lot of different stuff, and he was like, well, him
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: hasn't done anything. And they're like, what do you mean thing.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: He's like, well, we don't have no schools, we have
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: no hospitals, we don't have no institutions. So he looks
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: from his standpoint, it was like, from fifty years of
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: hip hop, we've only gotten negative influences, death and destruction.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: That's obviously like an extreme argument, but it's something that
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: to at least I want to ask you about. Because
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: you're a hip hop from the beginning to now, you've
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: seen fifty years of hip hop. So when you see
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: somebody like that, who's highly regarded in our community as
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: an intellectual, because.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: Looking at the he's looking at what he sees in
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: front of the screen. He's not looking at who's behind
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: the scenes. He's not looking at all the people that
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: are empowered, that are cutting those checks and putting them
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: into the community and making it work. Besides the entertainment
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: part of it, how it changes a community. It changes Harlem.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: You know, you get you know when Harlem, you know
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: when they put in you know, new restaurants and all
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: these different things in Brooklyn. You know, I see it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I lived in Brooklyn. You know, it's hip
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: hop that drove people to Brooklyn. They didn't come there
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: because Brooklyn was a you know, a cool place. It
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: was biggie saying. You know, right right now, when you
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: walk down Fultland Street in Brooklyn on a Saturday afternoon,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: middle class white folks with their kids, with their kids,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: and the dude with the hoodie, the biggies where he
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: come from, like what are you doing here? And so
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: but that's why they came because we made it cool.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And you know, and and and you know, and and
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: I understand. You know, well sometimes I don't understan where
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: doctor Mauss comes from. But in his case, you still
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: have to get people on board to not just not
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: just hip hop people. You know, we still have to
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: go and sell ourselves every day. You know. I'm pretty
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: sure you guys get in situations whereas clearly we know
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: what you do. I know everybody in the community knows,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: but you still have to kind of sell you well,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: what's the difference between this and Joe Rogan? You know, like,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: you know, and you know, you know what I'm saying.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: You're like, what are you talking about, bro? Have you
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: not seen the movement? Have you not come to the events?
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Have you not seen the influence and the way we
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: inspire and people go off and do it and they
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, we're not tracking everybody, but we see it.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot of answer and everything that you
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: can't really measure, like and some regards, you can say
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: that hip hop really is the reason why Barack Obama
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: got elected because I'm first to say that, Yeah, yeah,
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: for sure, because his cultural influence made it acceptable for
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: white people to look at somebody black and give him
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: an opportunity, where previously that way. And that's because they
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: got so used to Tupac, Biggie Snoop and all of that,
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: And it's just permeated hip hop, permeonated society and kind
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: of softened the situation.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: There are sixty year olds me that grew up on
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: hip hop and they're the head of corporations and you
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: play a run DMC record and they lose their mind
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: and their wife looks at them like, who is this man?
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: You know, his white man who's sixty years old. We
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: didn't expect that to happen. And their kids are like,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: I didn't know. Dad knew about hip hop because he
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: grew up and when he was in high school where
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: he's I mean he's in college or in high school,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: that was the music that he grew up listening to.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: And he still loves that and that makes him happy
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: at sixty years old still and he he he'll go,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: He'll buy the kids tickets. We all going to see
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: run DMC about that.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: And I also think that it's kind of unfair.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: We put hip hop in an unfair bucket, right because
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: it's like it's still a genre of music. We're not
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: asking what institution has classical music built or what institution
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: has the.
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: Blues built music?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we have we're over index because part
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: of it is because we rely too much on hip hop, right,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: Like we don't just look at hip hop. It's like
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: this is just good entertainment. It's becomes so much of
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: our life that it's become entertainment or religion, a culture,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: everything for us. Right, So it's like we put so
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: much pressure on it, and then that's not really fair
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: because at the end of the day, it shouldn't It
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: shouldn't really have that much pressure. It should just be
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: a part of what we look at, not the whole
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: entire every single thing in our life.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's where that the distinguishment between between hip
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: hop and rap music, right.
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: Right, because hip hop has a culture itself.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, we definitely over indexent because it's something
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that we created and it's for everything.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and we've watched it.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: Right, So if it was fifty years like I'm an
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: eighty two baby eighty eighty four, we literally group up
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: with this music and like I can say, I mean,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's the I mean, it's been the biggest influence. Right
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: when karas One was coming out with bigger than productions,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: like talking about being a teacher, being a teachers, like,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: all right, you could be a teacher. Then Jay spitting,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wait, he's saying things that we can unpack.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Like this is even for me.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: It was like I got to be creative on how
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I teach because he's saying things that I can use
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the kids and now they can relate to it through
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the music. So it's the biggest influence. I mean, by far,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I used hip hop in the libraries. Now I work
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: with the Queen's Library. You know, they were like, first
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: of all the amount of kids that were going to
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: libraries had come down.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Why we can use this, we don't have to go
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: in the library. How do we get them in the library? Ralph,
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I remember sitting in front of a bunch of live
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: you know, people that run the library in Queens, and
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: I said we could do some events and they're coming.
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: Then we just got to trick them to getting into
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: behind them, getting taking books out and getting library card.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: And they were like, well, how do we do that? Easy?
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: Bringing the DJ. We got a graffiti writer doing some graffiti.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Kids want to draw, Let's try this and we started
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: doing that and that was six years ago, and the
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: numbers increase in all of our sixty five branch. We
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: have sixty five libraries in Queens. Now, Ralph, I need
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: a program we need to get you know, we need
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: them for six and eleven year olds. Okay, I use
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: the same things that they use, the same taxes that
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: they use, arts and crafts and all that kind of stuff.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: But I hip hop it out. So now we're we're
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: gonna customize sneakers. Oh you think that work? Kids love sneakers.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Sneaker culture is huge, and now they can make their
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: own and for those that are out there. You take
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: my idea, use it, you know, use it, and it's easier.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: So like a lot of times I speak to people
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: with different library and museum curators in other parts of
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: the country, Well, you're in New York, so that's a
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: different but you might have to finance and put a
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: little bit of your money up. In the beginning, we
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: didn't have a budget for this. I felt like, like,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: why do we not have a budget? Like this is crazy? Like, well,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just not in the budget when we
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: first started. You know, maybe next year we can put
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: it in a budget and then you have to sell that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: But whatever the case is, sport the numbers up. Then
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: you have book a Hole. Jay Z Book a Hove
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: come out changed the whole culture of what libraries look like.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And now they can go to their CEO, president or
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: whatever and go this is a perfect example of what
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: we can do here in Indiana, or we can do
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: in Ohio, or we can do in Nebraska. And so
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: jay Z's not going to get the credit for that.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: You know, me, I talk about it all the time.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: It was a big deal, and I talk about I
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: feel like I was the first and influenced that to happen,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: you know, because I remember when Rock Nason called me
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: and said, this is what we're thinking about doing, and
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: I was like, it's going to work. It's going to
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: be perfect. And that's how it happened.
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: Speaking of that from a documentary standpoint, right, So, okay,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: you have thirty years of footage and everything, forty years
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: of footage. When do you start thinking about doing a
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: documentary and how do you actually even go about making that,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: you know, tangible with that much millions of hours of footage?
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: What's the tedious process to actually make that come to life?
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I'd been kicking the idea around a book or a
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: documentary or a movie, and I've where do you want
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: to do a movie? First? Let's just do a movie, people,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Let's just get right to it, you know. Let's get
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: somebody to play Ralph and you know, and toughy and
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: crazy Sam and radys on Kevy, right, you know. So,
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: and then we would write in March of twenty twenty
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: and this thing, the pandemic hit, right, and so I
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: was kicking it with a friend of mine. I wanted him.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Then we started talking about documentary Sasha Jenkins. Sasha Jenkins
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: did the Wu Tang documentary. He did a bunch of
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: documentaries on hip hop and so I said, yo, Sasha, Man, look,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you know I want you to direct my documentary. We
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: didn't have a place for it yet. We went to
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: a couple of places and you know, they were like, okay,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: it sounds like it's interesting. Sasha was like, your your
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: footage is to sell. You know, you got everything. You know,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: it's not like we're looking for something or we going
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: and searching for it. You got all the footage, everything
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: you talk about. You you got the visuals for it.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: I said, right. So eventually we went to Showtime, or
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: actually what happened is Shasha and Nas went to Showtime.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Sasha told me I meet with Showtime, but I didn't
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: know it was with Nas. So he says, he calls
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: me today. I says, yeah, me and Na's just left
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: to Showtime. I'm like, not, why is not is there?
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: And He's like, oh, yes, we're gonna do it with
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: mass appeal. So I said all right, and he said,
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: and you're the only one. The only documentary they want
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: to do is your documentary. The guy who does documentaries
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: there is very familiar with you. He grew up in
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: New Jersey and he watched you and he said, you
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: guys know Ralph McDaniels, and this is not possible talking
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: to the naas. And that's how that's how the documentary
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: came about. But more importantly is that we had all
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: of this footage and we brought that to the table
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: and said, you know, like, we could do ten documentaries
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: if you want to. In fact, we've been doing it.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: You just didn't know that. Sasha is my man and
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I'm Sasha, use this, use this, use this, And Sasha
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, oh this is incredible. Nobody has this.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So like, well, we sold with the easiest documentary, like
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: you have that for that was specifically for Kanye, but
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: you have that, I mean pretty much for every artist.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Are people have to seeing the documentary. You haven't checked
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: it out, please go check it out after seeing the
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: feedback from the documentary.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: Are labels are artists looking to you to say, hey.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Can we get some of that footage because they're not
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: putting a piece together for this artist or that artist.
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the labels are still trying to figure it out
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: because they're corporate, right, and they want to be in
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: charge of everything. And I'm like you got to go
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: to what the people want, you know, think about what
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the people want. This is it. Don't think about it
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: from your perspective because it's going to be corny. I'm
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: not saying that you guys are not excellent making money
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: and doing what you do, but people want to know
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: the little integral tidbits about DMX or fifty or whoever
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: it is, and you want to see that. And you
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: guys are just going to come from a music perspective
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: on this record. They did this, and which is fine,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: which is important. People want to know that. But I
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: think that people want to know, you know, the intimate
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: parts of artists, you know, and sometimes it's not good.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: And not saying that we want to just just lay
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: out it. Everybody's personal business. I don't agree in that either,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: but whatever the artist is comfortable with, let's put that way.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: How do you feel about like it feel like hip
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: hop now? It's everybody's looking at like from a different
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: standpoint now, right, all of these different cases that have
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: come about, right, but a lot of that stems from
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: like stuff that happened twenty years ago, right, So how
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: do you feel about like the full circle moment now?
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: Especially like when it comes to like sexual assault and
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: stuff like that.
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: When we saw.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Videos that was kind of like borderline on that, but
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: nobody really thought about it like that at that moment, right,
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: So what's your.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Thoughts, especially the rock and roll video?
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well yeah, so what's your thoughts on a state
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: of where that where that currently stands right now?
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: It's a different time. You know. There are things that
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I played on video music Box back in the days.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I would never be able to play them now. And
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: we edit them. We have to edit those video like
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: if we throw a throwback and we look at how
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: possibly we did we played this on TV.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I know one, you know, and and I don't, you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: it happened.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: You know, I have no excuse. These things happened. And
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: and that's the culture that we we are in and
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: and we evolve and we learn and we do whatever
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: we do to to to make it right. And and
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: that's what, you know, that's what twenty twenty four.
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: Is it a music industry problem or him?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: It's just it's just people problem. You know, some some
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: men standing around. Yeah, let's do this, you know, music,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: you know, if it you know, look, I remember there
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: was a time in the early two thousands, when strip
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: clubs was where you went to break records, and it'd
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: be like thousands of people going to the strip club.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: And you know, the record release party was at a
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: strip club, you know. And and I wasn't really into
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: strip clubs like that, but I was aware of it,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: you know that it was happening. And I'm married, man,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: my wife's like, you ain't going to no damn strip club?
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: Where you going? And so but I knew it was happening,
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: and that was a culture. That's where we get Cardi B.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Cardi B comes directly out of that. She's talking, she's
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: telling you about the strip club culture. She was right,
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: but she she starts on on on this blog or
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: on Instagram or not maybe whatever it was, Facebook or
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: whatever it was, and she's just talking last night, this happened,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: and and she's breaking down all of this stuff that
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: I'm I don't know, I have no idea, but I
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: know that this girl is very interesting. I don't even
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: know she's a rapper. In fact, she's not a rapper yet.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: She's just so I'm like, I don't know something about her.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: She's going to beat somebody. I don't know where this
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: is going, but it's going somewhere. Ten years fifteen years later,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: she's one of the biggest in the game love and
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: hip hop.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: It's interesting, it's this evolution, right because when I think
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: of all the videos that you directed.
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: Early on the paper, then.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: We produced how to tell even the boutine, the rawness
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: of those videos, and then we have an error where
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: we're going into million dollar videos, highly produced videos, right,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: And so you go from Video Music Box, you go
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: to MTV on TV raps and you get BT rap City,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: all these one on six in part trls in there somewhere,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: and then now it's streaming and it's YouTube, and it's
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: going back to the rawness of the video. How are
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: you viewing this from your standpoint? It's like, are we
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: going back to the origin or people just like to
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: have that role authentic.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: I think they just like to not know it, not
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: be predictable, like Ki Singe, right, I'm like, okay, I'm
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: watching I don't watch him all the time, but everything
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: that he seems to get reaction when it's something that
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: happened that he didn't know what was going to happen.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: You know, he's just good at planning it out. You know,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: but I think that people like that, you know, they're
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: in this world, in this universe and it just happened,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: and oh my good what you call him? Kevin Hardy
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: is on there. Oh this guy is on there. You know,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to be surprised if Denzel pops up
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: on you know, on you know, and Denzel will get it,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: you know, because Denzel gets it. He gets it. He
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: comes from that place, he knows it, he knows what
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: it is. You don't have to do it, but if
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: he feels like it, he probably said let's do it.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: But I think everything works insightfuls because even you know,
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: the million dollar budget video. But then DMX comes out,
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: let's take it back to the streets, right, and then
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: that ushered in era of just raw grittiness and it
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: goes back. So it goes up, it goes down, It
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: goes up and goes down.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: As far as quality, I think that's the competition because
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: you know, rough riders, we got all the bikes. Nobody
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: don't have that.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: That was still a great but that was a well
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: produced video.
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, let's take it to but I'm saying it's in
• 48:06
  Speaker 5: this tunnel.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the content of it was but it's not like
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: protecting that right, which is just like, yo, somebody shot
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: this on a camcorder and they gave it to you.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: This is like they put even like his next video,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: how's it going down? Like these are good, Like if
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: you look at them now, they're still well produced. The
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: cinematography is good, the lighting is good.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: DMX is is you know Unicorn? So yeah, he was.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I remember with video music Box and Crazy Sam went
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: to Yonkers and he was there to tape some other
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: artists and he says, yo, man, this other guy comes
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: up and says, why are you messing with them? You're
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: whack you and you know this before he blew up, right,
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: And so Sam is like, you know, we hear this
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: all the time, you know, and he's this is yo man,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna be right back, man, I'm gonna do something
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: for y'all. And he does a little freestyle, you know,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: and and Sam said the guy actually was pretty good.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: He was crazy. He's crazy, and crazy Sam is crazy.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: But DMX, you know, no filter, just come on, let's
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: do it. He's an actor, he was in movies like
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: he's a real you know, like it's the real deal.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: Talented, Yeah, super talented.
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, so when do you start to get into actually literature, right,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: because now you actually have the children, Yeah, you have
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: the book.
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: How does that come about?
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: The book was from me working in the library. I
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: saw a lot of books, but I didn't see enough
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: for hip hop or for our people or for the
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: hip hop community. And sometimes people say, oh, it's black,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: and like, no, it's just people that into hip hop.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: Like we talk a certain way and you'll know it
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: when you hear it, and you just start talking with them.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: You know, you could walk in the corporate room when
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: you look for that guy, that girl, that's okay, that's
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: my people's right there. I need them right there. I
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: gotta connect with them after we leave, you know. And
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: so we wanted to create something that was based upon
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: my story, but also as a way to teach kids
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: in books, which once again they don't have to do that.
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: They could use this. So how do we make that interesting?
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: We pack it with a lot of information, and we
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: packed it with my story, the story of parents who
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: grew up and wanted to show their kid where they
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: came from, where hip hop started at in the Bronx
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: and take them to Times Square. We used to be
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: dancing on cardboard here and people would give them money
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and all of these things. That is part of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: hip hop experience back in the days. And so that's
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: what the book is about. But in the same time,
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: we do in reading comprehension and math and stunt science,
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: you know, stem in general, just just to kind of
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: make the book last a little bit longer.
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: So let me ask you this as far as just
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: from a hip hop question, there's two artists who I
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: feel will never get the proper respect that they deserve
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: from hip hop purist, Kanye West and Drake. To me,
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: I feel like hip hop purist whill never champion them,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: but their resumes speaks for itself.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: How do you feel about that.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: I'm a fan of both of them, gods so, and
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: I may not be the hip hop purist you're talking about.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: It's a guy that's I'm sitting on a stoop right now.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: You know, there's some times on he still drinks Old
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: English and he tells you every album cut. He knows
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: his stuff, right. I know that guy, and girls and
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: women as well, And it's because they they believe that
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: hip hop is is an era, a certain era that
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: they grew up on problems and that's it. And some
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: you know, may go a little further around, you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: into today, but most of them are of a certain
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: age and they just you know, if it doesn't have
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: if the lyrics are not in these type of catens,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: or the beats are not these type of beats, it's
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: not hip.
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: I just look at both of them, like, nobody's double
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: what they've done. Nobody in the history of people. Like
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: when I look at Drake, to be number one for
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: fifteen years, every single year can.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Say so Son is soft.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: It's like for car Ye to be the number one producer,
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: then to be the number one rapper, to have five
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: classic albums from New York Son.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is what they're gonna say, right, think
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: about this error, Like, if that's the argument not from
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: New York, doesn't it feel I mean watching it from
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: every era, we don't dominate the music, and it's been
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: that way for a while now.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: In fact, we don't who is the artist. I mean,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: you could say.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: A Buggy, or you might say a Cardio. You throw
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Nicki in there, but we don't. We don't have the
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: person or the people, even a group of people that
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: New York can say, like, that's us.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Women, women, theminate women, Nicki, Nick's even Nigga's enough for these.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: But she's still number one.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: I'm not I said, Nikki and Cardi and you could
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: thrown a buggy in there.
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: But Spice was hot. She had a run.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: I like Spice, I think the riot the dude that
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: does the beast, you know, that's DJ enough son he
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: I'm like, this guy is amazing. I love the music,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: you know, and and I really kind of tuned in.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: I'm like, who, Like I didn't even realize it was drill,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: you know, and I was like, who's doing the music?
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: Like what is this? This is just sounds like familiar
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: and and so I think that that helps the music.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: The music was first, the DJ was first.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I felt like this was the time and we all
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: know this time when each burrow had a number of
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: people coming from it, and now I feel it now
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: it's like it's a different city and that's I mean,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: that's good. That speaks to the growth of the music itself.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: But New York and itself, like I couldn't tell you
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: who outside of.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Abel Ye in the Bronx that was by design. Okay,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: remember when cash money became pop popular right late nineties.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: That's how long cash money been around. Cash money was
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: using music that they did on their own. I mean
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: some of it were samples, but we didn't know. It
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't like, you know, keep rising to the top and
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: you know, samples that we knew. It wasn't don't look
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: any fair. It wasn't that, it was something else. The
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: music business realized cash money could make records for a
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: lot less than they have to give Jay Z on
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: his third album or it's fourth problem. Why are we
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: spending this much money to give to Jay or give
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: to DMX or to Wu Tang. Let's give it to
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: cash money. They know how to make records for less
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: and less samples. We don't gotta worry about getting sued.
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: None of that legal stuff is gonna happen. And that
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: was when the shift happened right there. And once they
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: became popular and they started selling records, then all of
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: the record labels said, oh, we gotta find us a
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: cash money and so that's when it changed.
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: And I think it's the culture too. Culture drives music.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: So what I mean by that is like West Coast
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: had a culture, the gang culture permeonated and then that
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: sound that they created went worldwide globally and now and
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: then people started making music the kind of mirror that. Right,
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: New York had a culture five percent all that, and
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: people started making music to permeonate where rock Kim was
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: talking about what Nasa Wutang was talking about. Right then
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: it was the hustler culture with Jay and Big. Now
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: it's gang culture, but like different like Chicago gang culture
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: drill that's permonated. So even if they're from New York,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: they don't sound like they're from New York. They emulate
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: in Chicago or it's just down South culture in general.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: So now everybody the gold tieth is coming back and
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: how they dressing and how they talk, and the slang
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: that they're using sound like they're from Louisiana, Alabama, even
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: if they're from New York, they're using Atlanta slang. So
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: that culture there are New York artists, but it doesn't
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: seem like that New York vintage feel because like dim
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: Set was authentic to New York, their culture permeenated it,
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: like but that was dipset, like G Unit that was
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: fifty was queens right like even is the last of it?
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why that's I think you're making the point.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, who's what's the authentic New York. We don't
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: really have.
• 56:48
  Speaker 5: A Nicki, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B. Those are authentic
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: New York.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Nikki too Nicky Definitely, Nikki's a lyricists I.
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: Don't count anymore, but still, but she's still I know.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: But I'm saying like they they're from a demographic that's
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: like the Hall of Fame. That's the whole of thing.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: Already we already know solid first ballot that's Hall of Fame.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: But that the music has to stay young.
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: There's no New York.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, you got artists that's traditional New York, but
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: they haven't like somebody like Davies. He's a New York.
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: He's a New Yorker the way he dressed, the way
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: he talks, but he's not He's not a mainstream popular artist.
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Pop Smoke was the last one that he was a
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: hybrid because he was a new generation, but he was
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: real New York. He was on the round flow is
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: his vibe was very much New York, the New New
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: York champion gang culture and all of that, but it
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: was still it didn't seem like when Asam Rocking Them
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: came out, I thought that they was from Houston. When
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: I first saw I thought they was from Houston because
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: they had nothing. I wasn't familiar with anything that they
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: were talking about as far as like, that's not.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: The Harlem swag.
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: Though when you after a while, Yeah, when it first
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: came out, it was like Evenana was like, no disrespect
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: to Yeah, that was years ago.
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: He was.
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: It was like, yo, when he said that that's not Hall,
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Like he didn't mean like they're not from Harlem, but
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: he's like, that's not hard.
• 58:15
  Speaker 4: The new General.
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: That's not the Hall that he knew, but it was
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: the new It was a new Yeah, said.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: There was a whole thing of style with that. That
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: generation which changed influenced a lot of kids. Now. You
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: know then that's why they look at Asap the way
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: the Asap rocket.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: He's like in that Tyler, Tyler cred I think I'm
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: more impact.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: And Tyler the creator is nothing is amazing.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: And at first I saw him first on you Yeah
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: you put the video with the cockroach on his face
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: and I was like, what is this?
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, and but I saw him live
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: first and I felt like I didn't feel l A
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: where he's from. I felt like this is a new
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: he could be in New York doing this and you know,
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: and he had all of the the movement, you know,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: and I was like, I didn't have any idea that
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: he was from from from LA.
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: But that's why Kendrick is such a big artist because
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: he linked into l A culture. Oh, double down, triple down,
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: quadruple down on it. When times gets hard, he always goes.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: Back to l A.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: Right, So it's like they grabbed him.
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: Huh, they grabbed him too, who grabbed them?
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: They made what I.
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: Said, like he that's somebody who he put that anthem
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: out and it was LA.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: Because he was el A. He's there outside of them.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: It was their favorite son, right like you think when
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: they passed him the crown on stage and Snoops on
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: stage and Games on stage and Jay all these guys
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: have made sure since early on that he's going to
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: be the next Rock, right, like he's very important, He's
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: opening up.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: For j Rock, right because Jay Rock looked like he
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: was from Brooklyn. Game is very important, right, game too, right,
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: the game looked like he was from New York, right,
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: So that opens up the door even though they don't
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: have the sales like Kendrick and you know others. But
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: Jay Rock is a very important part of to me
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: from outside of.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Lay to the success. Yeah, he gonna make it. Tell
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I'm with you. I didn't even know he was from there.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Like on the new album he's saying like he's the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: biggest out of the city since Kenny, and I'm like, oh, okay,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: but you look at it when they did that show,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: when Kendrick did that show. If you look at the
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: largest ovation outside of when Kentrick does.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: Not like us, it's.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: Tyler really, So what's next for you? I mean, you know,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: you got the book, did the documentary. You've chronicled fifty
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: years of hip hop literally, like you as an elder
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: statesman and somebody that's you know, established your legacy. What
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: are you looking forward to in the next ten years.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: I think it's important that because I work in business
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: right now that deals with government funding and that type
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: of thing and grants and stuff like that, we have
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: to be aware who we have an office right now
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: and it's changed.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: So now we're in preservation mode. I do a lot
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: of stuff that you know, my whole thing is with
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: my nonprofit is Video Music Boss Collection is preserving this culture,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: digitizing it, making it available. And then you know, doing
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: stories and.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 5: Curating contracts from school districts.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: So you might get the government contracts from for schools.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: You might get government contracts for museums. You know, So
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: you do something at MoMA, you could get a three
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: million dollar contract to do something at the moment, and
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: or you could get ten thousand or five thousand dollars
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: to do something at Yonker's Library, you know. And is
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: that money going to be coming according to the way
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: it's been projected. It may be coming, but it may
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: not be coming into hip hop, or it might not
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: be coming into our community, maybe going somewhere else. Now,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: so we have to make sure that we protect our
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: history and make sure that And some people go, oh man,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: come on, Ralph, we do only hear about that, know what.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: It's important that we do that because if we don't
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: do that, then we don't have a story.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 5: So how do we do that?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: We have to we have to have our own spaces
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: for that, and we as the community have to protect it.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: We have to do it ourselves. You know, I grew
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: up in Crown Heights, and when I lived in Brooklyn
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: and Crown Heights is like half Hasidic Jewish, half African American,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: well in the Caribbean, and and everybody takes care of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: they own, you know, you know, if it's the Caribbean community,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: like you know, like we have a shop or a
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: super cat and and and uh and somebody performed in
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: that and you go and they make sure that they
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: got they protected, they protected their thing. The African American
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: community does does it as well, and the Hasidic community
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: does it as well. My neighbors were Hassidic Jews. You know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: I see them every day. Family first, Ralph, Okay, you know,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: I hear it all the time. And we have to
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: be like that. Family first, you know, like we are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: very competitive, that's what we do. Hip hop is a
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: very competitive thing sports, you know, it's very competitive. We
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: the grades at that. But we have to think about
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: taking care of our culture and making sure that it's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: protected and that by doing that then also brings wealth
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: to that community in those particular areas. You know, anything
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: that's happened to us is because we didn't do that.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: Do you think that hip hop will be under sulting run.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: The thing they said in Project twenty twenty five, with that,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: you know people's artistic abilities is going to be would
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: be the first.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: It'd be the first that they gonna try and shut down. Look,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: we've been doing this for a minute. We've been running
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: things for a long time. You got Blackish, you got
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: all these shows on TV. We've been running and everybody
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: knows about. It's not just black people were buying this. Clearly,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: this is entertainment. Everybody's buying it. It's not like we
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: forced it down your throat. We said, you know, you
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it, but somebody sitting in the back of lind
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: these black people, that's enough for y'all. Y'all had a
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: nice little run. So now, okay, look, expect that to happen,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: and just be ready and just be you know prepared,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: you know, don't just sit back and lay down and go, Okay,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: we're not getting that funding no more. We got to
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: go through something else and just leave it, which is
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: what we can to do. We just leave it and
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: then somebody comes and buys it for cheap and makes
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: it something.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: I think you're sitting in a unique standpoint right If
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: this is the era of content.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, you have it. You have something that can't.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Be duplicated, which is content of people who will no
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: longer hear right, And you have it in the early
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: stages and lay stages and even current stages.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 4: You talked about the process of digitizing. What when it?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a lengthy process, I'm sure, But what's
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: the view what's the vision really for after it's digitized?
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: Now? Are we trying to say, like, hey, we're gonna
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: put this on.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: This we want to we want to have it at Harvard?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: You know, NAS has a fellowship there, other institutions, HBCUs.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I went to school in Long Island, put it there,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: you know that was I went to school for TV
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: and film. Put it in those types of schools, you
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: know where journalists, the next journalist, the next earn your
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: leisure guys are coming up, and they should be able
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: to see all of this and learn information from what
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: y'all do you know? And and and it's and it's valuable,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Like we do it because we do it and we
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: really enjoy it. Some of us make a lot of
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: money out of it, but it's valuable information. It's valuable.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about one thing and before we
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: before we go, and it's a painful foundation because it's important,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: it's important to watch, it's important see, But more importantly
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  Speaker 1: is what you guys are doing.
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  Speaker 4: I know you're on the board. For those who are
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: not familiar.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you can explain to them, but just watching you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: give back to a generation that we grew up watching,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: especially hip hop artists. I know this year's recipients were
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Rock Saint Chante, Grand Master Cast.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy and scar Faced this year, last year,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: last year facing rock Camp.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: So giving back to artists who paved the way for
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: the future generations. Talk about the paid full foundation and
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: in your role in it.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: I think that that's that that part is like that
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: that paved the way. Like we're trying to figure out,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: is who's the right artists you know, because some people
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: I was the first. It was not necessarily based upon
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: who was the first. It was the influence kind of
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: in a way. But the idea is from Ben Harwitz,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: who you know his companies and you know his business
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: is amazing and he just as a guy who loves
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: hip hop. He went to n y U in the nineties.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: He grew up in the Golden era, and and was
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: listening to all this music while he was, you know,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: doing whatever he was doing, became very successful at it.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: And you know, you go to his house and he's
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: just like he's just playing. You know, he's definitely playing
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: some knaves and you know, and some some scar face
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: ghetto boys or whoever. Fifty and and he was like,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: I want to do something that can benefit these artists,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: no strings attached. And sometimes with us or would anybody
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: somebody comes and I'm gonna give you five hundred thousand dollars,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: Like what I gotta do? Like what if somebody come
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: and give you twenty dollars? You like, what I gotta do?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: You know, you think it's a catch to it, And
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: there's no catch to it at all. And and some
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: people I've they've they've asked to you know, they want
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: to do it with to give the money to, and
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: they just didn't. They were scared to take the money.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: The recipients, Yeah, the recipients. And I was like, it's
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: me talking to you. I wouldn't do that to you,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: bro like and for whatever reason, and I had to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: explain to to, you know, to the foundation, this is
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: not something normal, like people don't just come and give
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: you money, you know, like that, that's not how it works.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: So be patient, like, wait a second, give me, give
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: me another week. I go, I'll go to their house
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: and talk to But yeah, so two years in a row.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: NAS of course is part of it, very important part
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: of it. And Steve Stout and and QD three, Quincy
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: Jones Son and Fab five, Freddie and others that are
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: important and part of it, part of it. And they
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: were just you know, these were just the people that
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: were there for the initial conversation. I met Ben Hardwood, Stu,
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Steve Stout, and Steve was working on a book. I mean,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: Ben was working on a book and he wanted to
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: quote me in the book and and I just didn't
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: understand it, like why me? But he had studied my
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: whole thing, and he's you're a purist, You're a hip
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: hop purist. And I was like all right. And so
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: we sat down in Queen's in the library and you know,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: and I gave him some words and he used it
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: in this book and we've been friends ever since.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: So each year, how many people can receive the reward.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: Is it's it's it could vary, you know, it's last
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: year was two. It was supposed to be three actually
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: last year and so that didn't happen. This year was three,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: so maybe let's say three right now. Three per And
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: it's not like, you know, like Kaz was easy. Kaz
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: was like he wrote a song, he had his book,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: he gave it to his man, Big Bad Hank, and
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Hank went and made one of the biggest hip hop
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: records ever, excuse me, Raper is Delight, using Kaz's words,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: and never got the credit for it. Kaz never got
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: the credit for it. Never nobody ever came back and said,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: you know, here's some money for that. And so that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: was like a clear like damn, like, how many times
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: do we hear rappers delight? We still hear it now
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: in corporate Kallas, you know. And so Kaz was a
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: clear understanding of it. Rox Sante Chante, who I worked
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: with in the beginning, did her first video, one of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: my first videos that I did, was just a girl
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: that could rap. She was one of those hip hop hers.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: She's that girl because she's still that girl. She's sitting
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: there and you know, she works with serious radio now,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: but she'll give you the breakdown like not any hip
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: hop son, you know, you know, she's that girl. And
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: and Coolmo D is a revolutionary. He's he's Malcolm x Martin,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Luther King, you know, Mega Evers, all wrapped up in
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: won and with a James Brown beating underneath it, you know,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: jet right, And you know, and so he meant a
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: lot to Harlem, the image of him, and you know,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: the traditions of the guys you know, the Dougie Fresh's
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: and others that you know, DJ Hollywood and all these
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: people that were doing their thing Harlem, you know. And
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: and he was the right choice, you know. And and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: and I remember when this year when it happened, you know,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: because he knew me. I did videos for him, you know,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: he didn't really know everybody. And and and he's not
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: a guy that you see all the time, so he
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: don't even come outside like that. You know, he might
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: do some shows, but you don't really see Kumo D.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: And he was like that. And I could see like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: a little puzzlement on stick with like what's about to happen,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: like you know, and I'm like, it's cool, not gonna happen.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: It's gonna be fine. We're gonna get it. We're gonna
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: leave him. We're gonna get back on the plane, gonna
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: go back to our normal life, and that's gonna be it.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: And and you know, but some of the you know,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: more successful guys in that world, Silicon Valley world, come
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: to the event and they buy tickets and they want
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: to hang out with They probably wanna hang out with
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: Ben Harwich, but they listened to hip hop that night.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: That's dope.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: Bro.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: So how can they get the book out? How can
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 5: they follow everything? You got going.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: On video music box dot com for the book. Video
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: music Box Collection dot org is my nonprofit. Please support that.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: We do a lot of work. It's a lot of work,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: archive and digitizing, you know, all of the stuff that
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: we do to just get the details of what the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: story of hip hop is about. And it's not the
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: story of hip hop. It's more from my perspective, from
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: what we covered, and we didn't cover everything. Clearly, we
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: were in New York most of the time, but it
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: is in other areas of the country some of the story.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Thank you guys.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 5: Rock and runs to see you next week.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: Peace please, An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 6: are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 6: of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christine Noman, the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 6: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 6: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 6: and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 6: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 6: you will never return. But if you register using our
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 6: CBP home app and leave now, you could be allowed
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 6: to return legally. Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 6: America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,