Latest / Eating While Broke / SYLK-E FYNE - Tuna Mac n Cheese
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
- 0:04Speaker 1: I'm your host, Coleen Witt, and today we have a
- 0:07Speaker 1: West Coast legend in the building. Writer recording artists creator
- 0:11Speaker 1: Silky Fine is in the building. Most of us know
- 0:15Speaker 1: her from her single Romeo and Juliet. But you also
- 0:19Speaker 1: did a track on Easy Eas record. It was called
- 0:22Speaker 1: what was it called straight Straight off the Streets of Compton.
- 0:27Speaker 2: And the single was called old School Shit, Old School Shit.
- 0:32Speaker 1: So this is cool because it's very It's not very
- 0:35Speaker 1: often we get a legend, but it's kind of cool.
- 0:38Speaker 1: I'm from the East Coast, here from the West Coast
- 0:39Speaker 1: to have a legend from the West Coast, and I'm
- 0:42Speaker 1: sure we're gonna hear a lot of juicy stories involving
- 0:44Speaker 1: hopefully pocking Easy E. But in the interim for right now,
- 0:49Speaker 1: can you tell me what you ate while you were broke?
- 0:53Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you right now. I was eating tuna.
- 0:56Speaker 4: Matt tuna mac.
- 1:21Speaker 1: It's funny because this is a dish that I actually make.
- 1:25Speaker 1: But go ahead and tell us what the ingredients are.
- 1:27Speaker 3: Okay, So the ingredients is simple. It's simply a box
- 1:31Speaker 3: of Kraft. It has to be Kraft. You can get
- 1:33Speaker 3: it for about ninety nine cents on sale dollar twenty
- 1:36Speaker 3: five Kraft macaroni and cheese. Your standard can of tunas.
- 1:40Speaker 3: I like to use two cans of tuna. Drink very
- 1:43Speaker 3: well so that you can get your protein, half a
- 1:48Speaker 3: cup of milk butter, and then throw some has to
- 1:52Speaker 3: be the real cheese, not the imitation cheese. But put
- 1:55Speaker 3: a couple of sliced cheeses and you'll be set.
- 1:58Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a dish. I've done it before.
- 2:01Speaker 1: I've never was smart enough to add the Craft single
- 2:04Speaker 1: cheeses in it, but now I'm going to add that.
- 2:07Speaker 1: And then just for our listeners, this dish is literally
- 2:10Speaker 1: a couple bucks. I'm pretty sure it feeds two people.
- 2:13Speaker 1: Full right, I would say, you know, if you're a
- 2:15Speaker 1: good heavy eater, this dish will make you. But definitely
- 2:18Speaker 1: in today's market, this is like a three dollars dish.
- 2:21Speaker 4: So let's go ahead and have you cooked for me.
- 2:24Speaker 3: No problem, I'm honored to be here and wow broke. Yeah,
- 2:28Speaker 3: so I'm gonna get started.
- 2:30Speaker 1: We did preheat the water, so you may have to
- 2:31Speaker 1: bring it back up to a boil.
- 2:33Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're gonna cause I've been watching. I was like,
- 2:37Speaker 3: how can you cook? Somebody go burn itself up such
- 2:40Speaker 3: a mess. But anyway, we're gonna start with the craft
- 2:44Speaker 3: macaroni and cheese, which your water has to boil. Do
- 2:49Speaker 3: not over boil the noodles because you may as well
- 2:53Speaker 3: make a pot of top raamen or something.
- 2:55Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you may have to bring it up
- 2:58Speaker 4: a little bit. Is always I was boiling.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Okay, listen, guys, just so you know, I have a
- 3:03Speaker 1: track record of destroying everyone's dish on the show. I
- 3:06Speaker 1: can't help it. I'm like the passenger that's telling you
- 3:08Speaker 1: how to drive. I need to stay alone.
- 3:10Speaker 2: I'm really a fan of eating while broke.
- 3:13Speaker 3: So I've watched some of the guests and I'm like,
- 3:15Speaker 3: you never cooked the thing in your life?
- 3:18Speaker 4: You know who I think never cooked? Believe it or not.
- 3:20Speaker 4: I think it's Mario.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Sorry Mario, right, even though he was the one that
- 3:25Speaker 1: caught it was burning. But can you take me back
- 3:28Speaker 1: to what was going on in the time of Tuna Mac.
- 3:32Speaker 3: Well, see, I came from a middle class family, so
- 3:36Speaker 3: I really didn't experience broke until I became an adult
- 3:41Speaker 3: and I wanted to chase my dream and I became
- 3:45Speaker 3: an artist. So tuna mac for me really happened at
- 3:50Speaker 3: about the age of nineteen twenty because my mom she
- 3:54Speaker 3: would cook the real deal, homemade of tuna casseroles. She
- 3:59Speaker 3: would make rich beans and rice and hotstails. And you know,
- 4:05Speaker 3: no be a creole, but you know our family. It's
- 4:10Speaker 3: from Baton Rouge. But I'm a California girl born and raised. However,
- 4:15Speaker 3: I don't have the typical personality of a typical La girl.
- 4:20Speaker 4: But when did you start falling in love with hip hop?
- 4:23Speaker 3: Well, growing up on the West Coast, you have choices,
- 4:28Speaker 3: and in my teenage youthful years, it was like, either.
- 4:33Speaker 2: You gonna be a gang member?
- 4:36Speaker 3: Are you gonna be a entertainer, because I've always had
- 4:39Speaker 3: the gift to freestyle.
- 4:41Speaker 2: That was my gift.
- 4:43Speaker 3: And then going back to elementary school, I was labeled
- 4:46Speaker 3: gifted because I would write terrific poems and journalism.
- 4:52Speaker 2: I can read, and I would win spelling bees.
- 4:56Speaker 3: So Century Park Elementary shots out ice killed. We all
- 5:00Speaker 3: went to elementary school together. So I was just like
- 5:04Speaker 3: middle class raised on the West side of Los Angeles,
- 5:08Speaker 3: and I didn't experience this until I thought I was
- 5:13Speaker 3: grown on my own.
- 5:15Speaker 4: What did your parents do well?
- 5:17Speaker 3: My mom she was a nurse, which she remained the
- 5:21Speaker 3: nurse at General Hospital for like until they really closed
- 5:25Speaker 3: the building down. She was like a top nurse RIN.
- 5:30Speaker 3: So she dealt with healthcare for since I was a
- 5:33Speaker 3: little girl. She started out driving school buses and then
- 5:37Speaker 3: she became an RIN.
- 5:38Speaker 4: So what about your father really.
- 5:40Speaker 2: Into the healthcare?
- 5:41Speaker 3: My dad, he was a pharmacist at General Hospital.
- 5:45Speaker 4: Well, so both parents are doing really good.
- 5:47Speaker 3: So my dad he retired from General Hospital, but unfortunately
- 5:51Speaker 3: he passed away in two thousand. Oh my goodness, two
- 5:57Speaker 3: thousand and twenty nineteen. So I lost my dad. But
- 6:03Speaker 3: then my stepdad, which was my mom's husband because she
- 6:07Speaker 3: had separated from my dad.
- 6:09Speaker 4: You know, oh okay, they weren't together business.
- 6:11Speaker 3: But then my stepdad stepped in and he's awesome. He
- 6:15Speaker 3: is a he owns his own construction company. So his
- 6:19Speaker 3: company is called Lakeview Enterprise black Old. He has been
- 6:24Speaker 3: in the business for over fifty seven years.
- 6:27Speaker 2: He gets awards, he's top rating.
- 6:29Speaker 3: So we were like going on camping trips and fishing trips. Yeah,
- 6:34Speaker 3: we had a boat parked in our yard and we
- 6:36Speaker 3: had a Mercedes.
- 6:37Speaker 2: Some of my friends growing.
- 6:39Speaker 3: Up, was like, oh, they used to call me peaches
- 6:42Speaker 3: before I had.
- 6:43Speaker 1: Gotten Now you started pursuing rap music before the age
- 6:47Speaker 1: of nineteen or is nineteen and you said, okay, that's it.
- 6:50Speaker 2: No, actually I started at fourteen.
- 6:53Speaker 3: I went to Henry Clay Junior High School in Gardena, California.
- 6:57Speaker 3: You gotta be careful with electric stoves because see, when
- 7:00Speaker 3: I was broke, I had guess though and hope that
- 7:03Speaker 3: I paid the gas bill, but you know it to'll.
- 7:06Speaker 2: Overcook your stuff.
- 7:07Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, you have to be careful with the
- 7:09Speaker 3: electric stalls. But I'm gonna give it about another two minutes.
- 7:14Speaker 3: I'm like mush, So anyway, yeah, definitely. I went to
- 7:18Speaker 3: Henry Clay Junior High School.
- 7:20Speaker 2: M yeah, a couple of women.
- 7:22Speaker 3: So I actually, you know in the yearbook they have
- 7:25Speaker 3: a theme called best Dressed, Cutest Couple. Well, I was
- 7:30Speaker 3: a creator since I was born, so I started the
- 7:34Speaker 3: thing called the best Rapper.
- 7:36Speaker 4: Oh wow, and what year is this?
- 7:39Speaker 2: This was nineteen ninety seven.
- 7:41Speaker 4: Okay, my.
- 7:44Speaker 2: I'm sorry ninety seven? Are you serious? All? Yeah, nineteen
- 7:47Speaker 2: eighty seven.
- 7:47Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 7:48Speaker 4: I was gonna say what year did hip hop's come out?
- 7:50Speaker 2: Because I know we're this when my record.
- 7:52Speaker 4: Came home, and uh, we're coming up on the fifty
- 7:54Speaker 4: year anniversary of hip hop, So do you refresh my
- 7:57Speaker 4: memory on what year hip hop's started? One year? Was
- 8:01Speaker 4: that nineteen eight? I want to say nineteen eighty nineteen eighty.
- 8:04Speaker 3: My age when I got familiar with hip hop, it
- 8:07Speaker 3: was definitely nineteen eighty, yeah, but then it might even
- 8:10Speaker 3: went back to seventy nine because it might have been
- 8:13Speaker 3: in Africa, been Bottles and the people before Curtis Blow.
- 8:17Speaker 2: But I don't know.
- 8:18Speaker 1: It may be seventy five, because if you do the math,
- 8:20Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty twenty three.
- 8:24Speaker 4: It would be fifty yeah, right, it would be in
- 8:25Speaker 4: the seventies.
- 8:26Speaker 3: And then they did have Shirl with the Pearl ringding
- 8:29Speaker 3: Dom ding Ding Dom. That might have been seventy seventy
- 8:33Speaker 3: eight or seventy nine.
- 8:34Speaker 4: So you strike out on your own.
- 8:36Speaker 1: Your mom is she in support of this pursuance of music?
- 8:41Speaker 2: Not really? Not really?
- 8:44Speaker 4: So what was?
- 8:44Speaker 2: What was?
- 8:45Speaker 4: What did you originally want you to do?
- 8:46Speaker 3: She wanted me to be a lawyer, she wanted me
- 8:49Speaker 3: to continue to be in school, but she also knows
- 8:54Speaker 3: that my passion is writing. My passion is communicating. So
- 9:00Speaker 3: then I always had a nick a knack for that.
- 9:02Speaker 3: And like I said, ninth grade, boom, I won the
- 9:05Speaker 3: best rapper of the year.
- 9:06Speaker 2: Can't go had on?
- 9:08Speaker 1: And what did she say about all this? Was she
- 9:09Speaker 1: embracing in which she embraced.
- 9:11Speaker 3: It and she was a little shock because she didn't
- 9:13Speaker 3: have that type of background.
- 9:16Speaker 2: Yeah, so never.
- 9:17Speaker 3: Did she even like get involved with music. She'd listened
- 9:20Speaker 3: to it, but my mom wasn't really a fan of music.
- 9:24Speaker 3: He's like a movie person, a lifetime based on the truth.
- 9:27Speaker 4: So you're going rogue? Is there? Is there? Do you
- 9:29Speaker 4: have siblings?
- 9:30Speaker 3: Yes, I'm from my mom, I have one brother, a
- 9:35Speaker 3: little brother, and a little sister. I'm thirteen years older
- 9:40Speaker 3: than my little sister. And then I'm twenty one years
- 9:44Speaker 3: older than my little brother because my mother couldn't stop nothing.
- 9:48Speaker 3: But and then from my dad, I have a big sister.
- 9:52Speaker 3: She's two years older than me. So I have one
- 9:55Speaker 3: sister with the same dad, and then I have a
- 9:57Speaker 3: brother and sister with the same mom.
- 10:00Speaker 4: Nice.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Now, so take me take me back to nineteen year
- 10:05Speaker 1: old you. You're pursuing music. What's going on? You didn't
- 10:08Speaker 1: you don't have a record deal.
- 10:09Speaker 3: Yet No, I don't have a record deal. So I
- 10:12Speaker 3: got in the Best of the West Rap contest to
- 10:15Speaker 3: Iced Tea was the judge.
- 10:17Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty five.
- 10:18Speaker 3: I was fresh in high school, so I was going
- 10:21Speaker 3: out and getting in talent shows, and you know, I
- 10:25Speaker 3: got with a small independent label that was called Neighborhood Records,
- 10:30Speaker 3: and nothing ever happened. I did perform with C. C.
- 10:35Speaker 3: Penn Easton when I was like eighteen years old at
- 10:38Speaker 3: the Hollywood House of Blues, So I mean, you know,
- 10:41Speaker 3: I was like striving to do this thing called rap.
- 10:45Speaker 2: That little label shouts out to Neighborhood Records. It really
- 10:48Speaker 2: didn't well.
- 10:49Speaker 4: So what happened when you were on the record, Did
- 10:52Speaker 4: you get to release an album or no.
- 10:54Speaker 3: I started with that little independent company they were trying.
- 10:58Speaker 3: So then you know, I would get in the student
- 11:00Speaker 3: with different producers, and I was working with this one producer.
- 11:04Speaker 3: Shout out to my guy, the real Richie rich out
- 11:08Speaker 3: here on the West Coast. So once you guys, drain
- 11:12Speaker 3: your noodles. I'm gonna give you a little instruction. It's
- 11:14Speaker 3: pretty simple poor man's meal, So you let your noodles drain.
- 11:19Speaker 3: So once I was working with Richie Rich up in
- 11:22Speaker 3: this studio in Hollywood, and I'm like, Richie Rich, like,
- 11:26Speaker 3: I'm thankful that you're getting me in the studio, but
- 11:29Speaker 3: you just don't you you can't do anything.
- 11:32Speaker 4: So what do you mean you can't do anything?
- 11:34Speaker 2: You can't get me where I need to go.
- 11:36Speaker 3: Like we're just like in these beautiful studios, but you're
- 11:40Speaker 3: not connected.
- 11:42Speaker 4: Okay, but you're talented, okay.
- 11:44Speaker 2: So he did know a couple of.
- 11:46Speaker 3: People, and he was in the good areas, but he
- 11:50Speaker 3: just wasn't persistent. So one day we're at the studio.
- 11:54Speaker 3: I'm the type that right on the spot, I laid
- 11:56Speaker 3: my lyrics in one hour, we have a whole song,
- 12:00Speaker 3: lives everything. So he's in there mixing and I'm like
- 12:04Speaker 3: looking at his phone. For some reason, I grabbed his phone.
- 12:07Speaker 3: So I'm like, huh, Easy Now, I always told my
- 12:13Speaker 3: grandmother I'm gonna get with Ruthless Records. That's the label
- 12:16Speaker 3: for me. Like I'm gonna get with them. And I'm like, Grandma,
- 12:20Speaker 3: I promise you.
- 12:21Speaker 1: She lived closer to Compton and where you guys all
- 12:24Speaker 1: the same age group.
- 12:25Speaker 3: No Easy was much older. But I mean everybody only
- 12:29Speaker 3: thought he was like a teenager.
- 12:31Speaker 4: Yeah, he looked so young.
- 12:32Speaker 2: He looked so.
- 12:33Speaker 3: Young, but he was like, yeah, like they're probably sixty.
- 12:36Speaker 3: He would have been sixty, so.
- 12:37Speaker 1: He would have been like thirty back then, right, Yeah,
- 12:39Speaker 1: He's like yeah back then. He was like, yeah, so
- 12:42Speaker 1: you see this number in his phone?
- 12:44Speaker 4: What do you do?
- 12:44Speaker 3: So instantly I see the phone number and I'm like,
- 12:47Speaker 3: easy E. I'm like, I take the number down.
- 12:50Speaker 2: Awesome, I get home smart, I blow the number up.
- 12:53Speaker 3: It actually was his assistant shouts out to miss Sharlie
- 12:57Speaker 3: Henry because she saved all all the messages, and I'm like,
- 13:02Speaker 3: you know, I done left fifteen messages and I guess
- 13:04Speaker 3: I'm whack because I never.
- 13:06Speaker 2: Heard from EASYE.
- 13:08Speaker 3: So come to find out it was his assistant, Sharie
- 13:12Speaker 3: Henry's phone number, and she said she was like, oh god,
- 13:16Speaker 3: this girl's so dope.
- 13:17Speaker 2: She's dope.
- 13:18Speaker 3: But she saved the voicemails. And then there was one
- 13:22Speaker 3: message the day that we buried my grandmother because I'm like,
- 13:27Speaker 3: I always told my grandma was gonna make it, and
- 13:30Speaker 3: oh my god, and I just really want to make
- 13:32Speaker 3: it for grandma because she lived on one hundred and
- 13:34Speaker 3: twenty ath in Sam Pedro that was the closest to
- 13:37Speaker 3: Compton that if the family lived too so.
- 13:39Speaker 2: As to say, don't worry Grandma, I'm a meat.
- 13:41Speaker 3: Easy So anyway, I left several messages so I wake
- 13:45Speaker 3: up for my grandmother funeral. I got that number before
- 13:48Speaker 3: I left. Instead of me doing the lyrical miracle trying
- 13:51Speaker 3: to show my skills, I went off, fuck you nigga,
- 13:55Speaker 3: you ain't shit. I'm a gangst the bitch and you
- 13:57Speaker 3: the type of nigga I ain't fucking with. We were
- 13:59Speaker 3: our I just don't. That was the message that got
- 14:03Speaker 3: me a record deal with Easy E. So Charlie was like,
- 14:07Speaker 3: y'all you gotta hear this. Yeah, she's dope.
- 14:10Speaker 1: So you you you did a disrap on his voicemail
- 14:13Speaker 1: and that's what caught his attention.
- 14:15Speaker 4: Shout out to you.
- 14:16Speaker 2: Because I was trying to do all this miracle work.
- 14:19Speaker 4: You were trying to be nice and you were like,
- 14:21Speaker 4: we gonna really go.
- 14:22Speaker 3: To that beautiful service for my grandmother. I get home
- 14:25Speaker 3: from the funeral, I checked my voicemails. I'll never forget yo.
- 14:29Speaker 3: This is Eric. Yeah you know Rhythm D. I'm a
- 14:33Speaker 3: said rhythm to come get you text Rhythm D.
- 14:37Speaker 2: Your address, and I'm.
- 14:38Speaker 3: Like, oh, grandma, I know you went to heaven. I said,
- 14:42Speaker 3: thank you Guardian and your grandma. I'm gonna make it
- 14:45Speaker 3: and we're still gonna live right here.
- 14:46Speaker 4: How old are you at this time?
- 14:47Speaker 2: At this time, I was seventeen, you were only seventeen.
- 14:51Speaker 2: I was seventeen.
- 14:52Speaker 1: Wow, okay, I'm forty eight now, okay, okay, so you
- 14:55Speaker 1: are seventeen.
- 14:56Speaker 4: Easy returns your car. You're in nice.
- 14:58Speaker 2: I finished.
- 14:59Speaker 3: It was like summer, I'm going to junior college.
- 15:03Speaker 4: Now you tell your mama, she says, she like child like.
- 15:06Speaker 3: Girl who is easy, because you know we were West
- 15:09Speaker 3: l A.
- 15:10Speaker 2: You better not be going to competent.
- 15:12Speaker 3: I'm like, mama, he live in Norwalk. They're about to
- 15:14Speaker 3: come get me. So I was at home. We lived
- 15:16Speaker 3: off one hundred and tenth in Western So I was
- 15:19Speaker 3: at home and I was so excited. So once you
- 15:21Speaker 3: drain your noodles, guys, you're gonna put them back cause
- 15:25Speaker 3: you know craft you don't need to rinse them. You're
- 15:27Speaker 3: gonna rinse off some flavor. So you put your noodles
- 15:31Speaker 3: right back in there. Guys, you add your butter, your
- 15:36Speaker 3: milk before you do the tune okay.
- 15:39Speaker 1: So after easy E picks you up or he sends
- 15:42Speaker 1: for the rhymese and what's the first interaction with easy
- 15:45Speaker 1: what's that?
- 15:46Speaker 2: Like?
- 15:46Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. So I walked in and I'm nervous.
- 15:49Speaker 3: But then I've never been the shy type. So he's
- 15:52Speaker 3: sitting there and I'm just like, oh my god, it's
- 15:55Speaker 3: really easy E. And then what I like, okay? So
- 15:58Speaker 3: then boom when I see him, I'm just like he like, yeah,
- 16:01Speaker 3: what's up. I'm like shit, He said, yeah, you want
- 16:03Speaker 3: to be with Ruthless? I said hell yeah. I said yo, yeah,
- 16:07Speaker 3: why do you think I've been? I said, you're calling
- 16:10Speaker 3: me back? He was like, yeah, so you you kicking
- 16:12Speaker 3: that gangster ship? I said I sure am. So he
- 16:15Speaker 3: was like, let me hear you rap. So I just
- 16:17Speaker 3: I'm like off the top of the head, so I'm
- 16:19Speaker 3: more melodic. I never wanted to be the dopest and
- 16:22Speaker 3: the best, so I just kicked the freestyle. He was
- 16:25Speaker 3: like when you signing, and I was like, we're that bread.
- 16:29Speaker 1: Did he say anything? Did he talk smack about your
- 16:31Speaker 1: disc tand no?
- 16:32Speaker 3: He said he liked it. He was like, that took
- 16:34Speaker 3: some guts, that took balls. So I didn't know that
- 16:38Speaker 3: he was forming.
- 16:39Speaker 2: A four girl group.
- 16:40Speaker 3: Okay, had your buddy, let it MIXU.
- 16:43Speaker 1: By the way, I put the right amount of butter,
- 16:46Speaker 1: so you can use all that.
- 16:47Speaker 4: Butter if you. I'm a butter person, me too, I
- 16:50Speaker 4: can girl.
- 16:51Speaker 2: And then when I was poor off using more.
- 16:54Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 16:55Speaker 1: I actually didn't know the difference between butter and fake
- 16:58Speaker 1: butter until Eating Wall broke. I think now Evans on
- 17:00Speaker 1: the show was the one that taught.
- 17:02Speaker 3: Me it.
- 17:04Speaker 2: Is nothing like the butter.
- 17:06Speaker 3: So you add your butter and your your little bit
- 17:08Speaker 3: of milk, you know what I mean. You add that
- 17:11Speaker 3: all in there, and of course you put that sliced cheese.
- 17:14Speaker 4: Do I give it t you right now?
- 17:15Speaker 3: Okay, you add the sliced cheese while your noodles are hot.
- 17:18Speaker 2: Okay. So I was just related again.
- 17:22Speaker 1: So he tells you, okay, you're gonna sign. What happens next?
- 17:25Speaker 3: So then he explained to me that he was hand
- 17:28Speaker 3: picking a four girl female group. He wanted us to
- 17:31Speaker 3: be like the female in Wa. So I went out.
- 17:35Speaker 3: I auditioned. He said, hey, you got the part. He
- 17:38Speaker 3: had another female shots out to t Ski. She ended
- 17:41Speaker 3: up moving up to Atlanta. So t Ski was an
- 17:44Speaker 3: original member, which she knew him before, and then another Homegirl.
- 17:50Speaker 3: We were all like raised in La, so we kind
- 17:52Speaker 3: of knew each other. Big Chan, which later went on
- 17:56Speaker 3: to be in the Doggies Angels, she was in our group.
- 17:59Speaker 3: And then the Homegirl Diamond that corrupt always referenced down
- 18:03Speaker 3: with a Nigga demnil, but before I was rhyming, the
- 18:07Speaker 3: Homegirl Diamond ended up getting in our group. So we
- 18:11Speaker 3: were like a female in wa.
- 18:14Speaker 1: Now are you guys, you guys start the recording process.
- 18:17Speaker 1: What's your pockets looking like during this journey?
- 18:20Speaker 3: Oh, it's looking great, like everyone is like easy. The
- 18:23Speaker 3: moment he signed us, he broke bread.
- 18:25Speaker 4: How much bread did he break?
- 18:26Speaker 2: You?
- 18:27Speaker 3: Like?
- 18:27Speaker 2: Then?
- 18:28Speaker 3: What was that nineteen ninety three, cause it took a little,
- 18:31Speaker 3: you know, year two the Marinate. I want to say,
- 18:34Speaker 3: right before like ninety four we signed, but before we signed,
- 18:38Speaker 3: we would get per dims, so like we would get
- 18:41Speaker 3: one hundred dollars a day just to go record the album,
- 18:46Speaker 3: and then we'd get our eating expenses. And then when
- 18:49Speaker 3: we signed, I want to say each Okay, it was
- 18:52Speaker 3: four girls in the group you talking about. By now
- 18:55Speaker 3: I'm nineteen twenty years old.
- 18:58Speaker 2: So each girl got thousand dollars.
- 19:01Speaker 4: And back then that was a lot of money.
- 19:03Speaker 2: Right because it was four of us, So I.
- 19:05Speaker 4: Think each twenty k each.
- 19:06Speaker 1: But that's still back then, that's a lot of money.
- 19:09Speaker 1: I mean, especially to a nineteen year old. So but
- 19:11Speaker 1: now if we bring you back to this, this you
- 19:13Speaker 1: said at nineteen, this is when you were cooking it.
- 19:15Speaker 1: So tell me what's going on. How did you end
- 19:17Speaker 1: up on Tuna Mac?
- 19:18Speaker 3: I ended up on Tuna Mac because I mean the
- 19:22Speaker 3: music game is good. But so basically, maybe I was
- 19:27Speaker 3: twenty one when I made the tuna mac, okay, because
- 19:30Speaker 3: I mean I had a good teenage year. I didn't
- 19:33Speaker 3: start eating tuna mac. I had to be about twenty
- 19:35Speaker 3: one because Easy was.
- 19:36Speaker 4: Dead, Okay.
- 19:38Speaker 2: I started going a little bit. Thought I was grown.
- 19:41Speaker 3: I didn't want to go back home like my mom,
- 19:43Speaker 3: like I told you that, yeah, yusic stuff. So I
- 19:46Speaker 3: was really being on my own. And what happened is
- 19:49Speaker 3: like we had a great deal, Easy E. We were traveling,
- 19:53Speaker 3: we recorded with Bone Thugs in.
- 19:55Speaker 4: Harmony, and you're not living with your mom at this point.
- 19:58Speaker 4: Where are you living? Are you on your Yeah? Are
- 20:00Speaker 4: you roommating with the four girls.
- 20:02Speaker 3: No, we were I had my own little single, okay,
- 20:07Speaker 3: you know.
- 20:07Speaker 2: I lived in a little single in Hollywood.
- 20:10Speaker 4: And oh you didn't end up staying in Compton, No.
- 20:12Speaker 2: Because my grandma passed away.
- 20:14Speaker 3: I never lived in Compton in my life, and she
- 20:17Speaker 3: lived actually in South Central, but it was the closest
- 20:20Speaker 3: place to Compton that I can know.
- 20:23Speaker 4: But you said you moved to Hollywood.
- 20:24Speaker 3: Yeah, I moved to Hobhood. I was raised on the
- 20:28Speaker 3: west side of Alwall.
- 20:29Speaker 1: Did you choose Hollywood because you were blowing up and
- 20:31Speaker 1: you wanted to feel Hollywood?
- 20:33Speaker 3: Because, like I said, it was a choice be a
- 20:35Speaker 3: gang banger or be an entertainer, So most people lived
- 20:38Speaker 3: near Hollywood. I lived in a rinky denk roach infested
- 20:42Speaker 3: single apartment, okay, you know.
- 20:44Speaker 2: And this was like.
- 20:45Speaker 3: At the age of nineteen and so then when I
- 20:49Speaker 3: met Eaze, I still lived in my rinky deank apartment.
- 20:53Speaker 2: You know.
- 20:53Speaker 3: So by the time this I met him in nineteen
- 20:56Speaker 3: ninety two, that was like a transition to him no
- 21:00Speaker 3: longer being with Nwa, which was a very trying time
- 21:05Speaker 3: for Eric. It was easy, was like really, but did
- 21:09Speaker 3: you know it was a lot of emotional things back then,
- 21:11Speaker 3: so being that we were just producing this album and
- 21:16Speaker 3: he appeared on a lot of our records and everything. However,
- 21:20Speaker 3: the album never came out because he passed away.
- 21:23Speaker 4: So what did they end up doing with the record?
- 21:25Speaker 4: They just ended up holding a hostage.
- 21:27Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a big story behind Ruthless Records. That's
- 21:31Speaker 3: why the success of such a hard work company.
- 21:35Speaker 2: You like it.
- 21:35Speaker 3: You don't even hear about Ruthless Records. Yeah, I feel
- 21:38Speaker 3: like fifty of years of hip hop? Where's easy East Star?
- 21:42Speaker 3: Where's his tribute?
- 21:43Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 21:44Speaker 3: Put the West Coast on the map. Not only did
- 21:46Speaker 3: he just put Compton on the map, but here's our
- 21:49Speaker 3: dish whila.
- 22:06Speaker 1: Okay, guys, we are back okay. And I can't even
- 22:10Speaker 1: tell you how excited I am to be with you.
- 22:13Speaker 1: I think the more you tell your story, I'm more hypes.
- 22:15Speaker 1: But you did service up this tuna, Mac And I've
- 22:19Speaker 1: had this before, but I've never had it done like this,
- 22:21Speaker 1: And you are inspiring me just based on looks and
- 22:24Speaker 1: smell right that this is the correct way.
- 22:26Speaker 4: I think it's the single cheese that make it more cheese.
- 22:28Speaker 4: But let's try it for our listening again. And you
- 22:32Speaker 4: had it salt and pepper too, right.
- 22:33Speaker 2: Yeah, just a little bit. I'm gonna start eating this.
- 22:36Speaker 4: Ag ain't gonnat this.
- 22:38Speaker 2: There, it's awesome. I can't. I can't just toot my
- 22:43Speaker 2: own horn. Trying to figure out if.
- 22:48Speaker 4: Or the Cheddar slices that are bringing out the flavors
- 22:50Speaker 4: so well.
- 22:51Speaker 3: I'm thinking it's the slices because I put I'm not
- 22:54Speaker 3: a salty person because it'll ruin a meal.
- 22:57Speaker 1: But yo, this is the only way to eat Raft
- 23:03Speaker 1: mac and cheese for the rest of your life, y'all.
- 23:06Speaker 2: I'm telling you.
- 23:06Speaker 1: And the secret ingredient for this dish is definitely the
- 23:09Speaker 1: Craft cheese and that's nothing, but.
- 23:12Speaker 3: Yeah, it adds valume because you get your pack of
- 23:15Speaker 3: cheese on sale and it goes a long way when
- 23:18Speaker 3: you were single living in a single.
- 23:21Speaker 1: And people have used Belvida cheese on the show, and
- 23:24Speaker 1: I just have to say, Belvita cheese has so much
- 23:27Speaker 1: salt in it. If you're not used to eating bad
- 23:30Speaker 1: quality food, switch to Kraft Mac slices.
- 23:34Speaker 2: Yeah that was brilliant.
- 23:36Speaker 1: Okay, now back to the story. Okay, now we know
- 23:40Speaker 1: we and always say this on the show. The broker
- 23:42Speaker 1: the dish, the better, the story. This has proven my
- 23:45Speaker 1: theory again. So we're now that we you know, you've
- 23:49Speaker 1: been signed, walk us closer to easy eas passing what's
- 23:53Speaker 1: going on during that time?
- 23:54Speaker 3: Okay, so life instantly changed once we received that money.
- 23:58Speaker 3: I took that twenty thousand our went and bought me
- 24:00Speaker 3: a new Ford Festiva, no card, no paid my rent
- 24:04Speaker 3: up for a year. We're matt, we're jamming, we're recording
- 24:08Speaker 3: Bone Thugs and Harmony come out here. So females, we
- 24:12Speaker 3: were a little caddy. We would argue we couldn't get
- 24:14Speaker 3: along and just the girl thing. So Bone Thug came.
- 24:19Speaker 3: They were starving. They was from Cleveland, so they were ready.
- 24:22Speaker 3: So we got pushed back because Bone Thugs definitely came
- 24:26Speaker 3: out here and got busy.
- 24:28Speaker 1: And at the time, girl rappers, you know, it had
- 24:31Speaker 1: to been still kind of new so versus like male
- 24:34Speaker 1: rappers were I'm assuming we're more acceptable.
- 24:37Speaker 3: Yeah, and like we were literally like a first four
- 24:40Speaker 3: girl group.
- 24:41Speaker 4: And you guys were doing gangster rappers.
- 24:42Speaker 3: Yeah, because we did have Salt and Pepper Spinderella. You know,
- 24:46Speaker 3: we admired quein Latifa live.
- 24:49Speaker 4: But you guys are doing gangster You're doing a little
- 24:51Speaker 4: different we.
- 24:51Speaker 3: Were doing straight hardcore, like we had a song called
- 24:54Speaker 3: coming Out the Woodworks and like we had shoot them
- 24:57Speaker 3: on a Sunday, like we had at like faul Deep.
- 25:02Speaker 4: Is there a way to look up this record?
- 25:03Speaker 2: Yes, they're on YouTube.
- 25:04Speaker 1: They're on YouTube, and can people download it on like Spotify.
- 25:07Speaker 2: Or any day.
- 25:08Speaker 3: We really didn't do a release because it was so
- 25:10Speaker 3: old when we received it. It was like on Ada's
- 25:14Speaker 3: and Big real tracks. H oh goodness. It was yeah
- 25:18Speaker 3: back in the early nineties.
- 25:20Speaker 4: So where are you at when you get the call
- 25:22Speaker 4: about Easy?
- 25:23Speaker 3: Who where was I at when Easy?
- 25:26Speaker 4: Or when you found what was going on when you
- 25:28Speaker 4: found out?
- 25:29Speaker 1: Like did you hear rumors first or did you hear
- 25:31Speaker 1: directly from Okay?
- 25:32Speaker 3: So the thing is boom? So we're we're working on
- 25:36Speaker 3: our album Bones is out here. We were doing records
- 25:39Speaker 3: with Bone Thugs. We're opening up Easy got us in Oakland.
- 25:43Speaker 3: We're doing all the San Francisco, Oakland, all these West
- 25:46Speaker 3: Coast shows. But we're traveling, so Easy went to New York.
- 25:52Speaker 3: I was the only group member that ended up pregnant
- 25:55Speaker 3: with my only child. I have one son, twenty nine
- 25:58Speaker 3: years old. How old were you I was twenty two
- 26:01Speaker 3: when I got pregnant.
- 26:02Speaker 4: Oh wow, oh wow, So were you scared to tell him?
- 26:05Speaker 3: And actually he's my son's godfather and he was really
- 26:10Speaker 3: supportive because he had a gang of kids. But my
- 26:13Speaker 3: group members, on the other hand, they were like, you're
- 26:16Speaker 3: gonna mess up our career. Why are you doing this?
- 26:19Speaker 3: You're pregnant, and I'm like, me and my baby daddy.
- 26:23Speaker 3: We rolled like Bonnie and Clyde, and I'm keeping my
- 26:25Speaker 3: baby like the first and only time that I got pregnant.
- 26:29Speaker 3: So I'm very glad that I kept my child. Yeah,
- 26:33Speaker 3: so easy embraced it. I got so many great memories.
- 26:37Speaker 3: He embraced it. He was like, that's my godson because.
- 26:41Speaker 2: It was a big old deal.
- 26:42Speaker 3: The girls wasn't talking to me, and he was still alive. Yeah,
- 26:46Speaker 3: he was still alive.
- 26:47Speaker 2: Oh.
- 26:48Speaker 3: I got so many great moments of how he just
- 26:51Speaker 3: embraced me and my child had my baby daddy that
- 26:54Speaker 3: I didn't end up staying with. But so Eric was
- 26:58Speaker 3: in New York and we were like, you know, he'd
- 27:01Speaker 3: answer every call.
- 27:02Speaker 2: We always talked to he. He loved our group.
- 27:05Speaker 3: Our group was his female in wa so there was
- 27:08Speaker 3: no question or doubt that we weren't on He's in
- 27:13Speaker 3: New York. When we spoke to Eric, he was real excited,
- 27:17Speaker 3: like he ran into Cube.
- 27:19Speaker 2: So we were in hopes that like, oh, my god, Ren.
- 27:22Speaker 3: Is still here, yell us here. If he gets with Cube,
- 27:25Speaker 3: you know, Drake gonna come back.
- 27:27Speaker 4: And Cube was a beast back then. So we're like,
- 27:30Speaker 4: so was really popping at that time?
- 27:33Speaker 2: Yeah, cause Cube had already dropped his up.
- 27:37Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so we're talking ninety four now, maybe
- 27:41Speaker 3: it was ninety five because my son was already born,
- 27:46Speaker 3: so right, yeah, it was after the birth of my son.
- 27:48Speaker 3: My son was born in November, so I was basically
- 27:52Speaker 3: pregnant like the whole nine months when Bone Thugs came.
- 27:56Speaker 3: I wasn't one of the group members that was with
- 27:58Speaker 3: Bone Thugs and Harvey. I was very pregnant with my
- 28:01Speaker 3: baby father. That had nothing to do with the industry.
- 28:04Speaker 3: He was not an industry cat. So we get the call,
- 28:09Speaker 3: He's like, yeah, I feel good. I do have a
- 28:11Speaker 3: little cold, but I'll be back in two days. Like
- 28:14Speaker 3: he's like, I ran in the ice Cube. When we
- 28:17Speaker 3: get him on y'all record GBMS pumped up, We're like.
- 28:20Speaker 1: Oh, but at the time he said he had a cold. Yeah,
- 28:22Speaker 1: so it's something he started to realize something.
- 28:24Speaker 3: He's always had bronchias, Like we would go to Jerry's Deli.
- 28:28Speaker 3: Eric Easye would never eat dairy foods. He would never
- 28:33Speaker 3: do milkshakes. He would never So we always knew, but
- 28:38Speaker 3: it wasn't to where.
- 28:39Speaker 2: But he was like, oh.
- 28:41Speaker 3: Within the second day of him being in New York,
- 28:43Speaker 3: he like, oh, it's the weather change, cause you know.
- 28:46Speaker 2: I just wore my car, but it's snowing.
- 28:49Speaker 3: And so we were thinking, like, Okay, he just caught
- 28:52Speaker 3: a cold because of the change of weather. So then
- 28:56Speaker 3: when he get back home and I'm like, what was
- 28:59Speaker 3: I doing? And I was probably because I moved out
- 29:02Speaker 3: once I had my son, I had my money, I
- 29:05Speaker 3: was with Ruthless. Back then, the city of Rialto was
- 29:08Speaker 3: really nice. It wasn't a lot of people. So I
- 29:11Speaker 3: moved out to Rialto and I remember I'm with my
- 29:15Speaker 3: son and I'm like, I'm about to cook dinner. And
- 29:18Speaker 3: one of the girls in the group was like, easy
- 29:21Speaker 3: is in the hospital. Matter of fact, let me go back,
- 29:24Speaker 3: let me keep it solid, let me tell the truth,
- 29:27Speaker 3: because when you're cut up in stories just so much.
- 29:29Speaker 3: So we had a friend, Hershanna, that worked at the hospital.
- 29:34Speaker 3: That's how we initially found out. She worked at Cedar
- 29:38Speaker 3: Sinai and she was like, oh my god, y'all, guess
- 29:42Speaker 3: who in here?
- 29:42Speaker 2: Easy?
- 29:43Speaker 3: But he under a alias, So we found out. We
- 29:47Speaker 3: started calling Big Ron, all the security, the Samoe and Twins.
- 29:51Speaker 3: We're calling these guys, like, what's up, what's up with there?
- 29:54Speaker 3: They like, Oh, he'll be okay, he'll be okay. We
- 29:56Speaker 3: rushed to the hospital because then the new start announcing,
- 30:01Speaker 3: like we rushed up to the hospital.
- 30:02Speaker 2: They were already saying like, he has full blown.
- 30:05Speaker 3: AIDS and I'm like, never heard of it, never heard
- 30:09Speaker 3: of it, don't know what that is.
- 30:11Speaker 4: So oh at the time, nobody really knew what it was.
- 30:14Speaker 3: Nobody knew what it was because we didn't know it
- 30:17Speaker 3: was AIDS when we got there. It was pneumonia okay,
- 30:20Speaker 3: you know, so it ended up being full blown AIDS.
- 30:24Speaker 2: That we were like, how did that happen?
- 30:26Speaker 3: Yeah, Like we never saw anybody deteriorate. So all the
- 30:30Speaker 3: artists was there, menaja twy it was one eighty seven.
- 30:34Speaker 2: Above the law. It was bone.
- 30:36Speaker 3: Thug gbm hwa. I mean, like all the artists, so
- 30:41Speaker 3: We're at the hospital. They're letting, like, group by group
- 30:44Speaker 3: go in and we walk in the room.
- 30:46Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, I don't even want to I.
- 30:48Speaker 3: Walked out because Eric was as black as this. Wow,
- 30:54Speaker 3: he was so dark and it looked like he was
- 30:56Speaker 3: like how you just be dead for three days?
- 30:59Speaker 2: But he was in a komba. He was just out
- 31:02Speaker 2: of it.
- 31:02Speaker 1: And I'm like, wow, slimmer or did he look from
- 31:05Speaker 1: the exterior outside of his skin color he.
- 31:07Speaker 3: Didn't look then, or he looked blacker than he's like,
- 31:10Speaker 3: he was not that color.
- 31:12Speaker 2: He looked terrible.
- 31:13Speaker 4: But they said for sure he had full blown as well.
- 31:16Speaker 3: They were like, yeah, it was pneumonia, Da da da da.
- 31:19Speaker 3: The first day it wasn't. Then I think, okay, So
- 31:22Speaker 3: we visited him and I'm like.
- 31:24Speaker 2: Why is he so dark? Why is he in a coma?
- 31:27Speaker 3: Like isn't this a transsexually transmitted disease?
- 31:31Speaker 2: Like what's going on?
- 31:33Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, this is not pneumonia. Like I
- 31:37Speaker 3: have a cousin living with HIV and he was. He
- 31:42Speaker 3: was detected as having HIV at nineteen and he's like
- 31:45Speaker 3: fifty three.
- 31:47Speaker 4: Okay, Magic Johnson.
- 31:49Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many references before blown, so instantly
- 31:54Speaker 3: it was like we went to visit Eric. He didn't
- 31:57Speaker 3: look good and we never saw him again.
- 32:00Speaker 1: But now, somewhere along this story and correct me if
- 32:04Speaker 1: I'm wrong. Before Easy's passing, do you end up working
- 32:08Speaker 1: with Tupac?
- 32:09Speaker 4: Can you? Can you talk about that?
- 32:11Speaker 2: Yeah, well what happened.
- 32:12Speaker 3: I met Tupac way before I even had a record
- 32:16Speaker 3: deal with Easy, because, like I said, rap was my
- 32:19Speaker 3: passion and I knew that I could freestyle, and it
- 32:22Speaker 3: was like, I gotta, I gotta do this. But it
- 32:25Speaker 3: was funny because when I met Pac, he didn't know
- 32:28Speaker 3: that I knew.
- 32:28Speaker 2: How to rap.
- 32:30Speaker 4: Tell me about that encounter.
- 32:31Speaker 3: We went to a club downtown used to be oh Ship,
- 32:35Speaker 3: the Jamaican Club. They called it the Jamaican Club, so
- 32:39Speaker 3: it would it would crack downtown. So I never really
- 32:42Speaker 3: liked the rappers or I never had a bewild.
- 32:47Speaker 2: But I never was like that.
- 32:49Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I really wasn't into like
- 32:51Speaker 3: I won't be a man that rapped because I rapped.
- 32:54Speaker 1: So I'm like, but you said that like you you had, maybe.
- 32:58Speaker 3: We could touch it a basis because I'm really really
- 33:02Speaker 3: honest with this, So I meet Tupac and his boy Mouseman.
- 33:09Speaker 3: So I met him at the club and everything, and
- 33:12Speaker 3: you know, we was just partying in the club and
- 33:15Speaker 3: vibing and just dancing, smoking weed. So Mouseman and his
- 33:21Speaker 3: brother mokaream. They used to call them Mouseman and the Wicked,
- 33:27Speaker 3: but it was Mopream And this was before like, was
- 33:30Speaker 3: it Brenda's Got a Baby?
- 33:32Speaker 2: Yeah, it was during that time.
- 33:34Speaker 3: It was during before he shot the video for Brenda's
- 33:37Speaker 3: Got a Baby. So I ended up like a Mouseman.
- 33:40Speaker 3: His name is Dana and.
- 33:42Speaker 4: He I think his name was Dana.
- 33:44Speaker 3: Yeah, Dana, but we called a Mouseman. Really talented, and
- 33:50Speaker 3: so he knew I rapped, but I was always like,
- 33:53Speaker 3: I don't want pop to know because I was like,
- 33:55Speaker 3: I gotta get a little tighter.
- 33:56Speaker 2: I gotta okay, okay.
- 33:58Speaker 4: So I can't respect that because you didn't want him.
- 33:59Speaker 3: To Yeah, yeah, because I was like, I gotta get tighter.
- 34:03Speaker 3: So we kept that under the radar. But I had
- 34:06Speaker 3: a crush on Mouseman, and I'm like, yeah, you like
- 34:09Speaker 3: Tupac hyke dude, so I'll like you. I'm not trying
- 34:13Speaker 3: to get with Pac. I want to work with Pac,
- 34:15Speaker 3: like with Eazye I was pregnant. He was really like
- 34:18Speaker 3: I say, Eric is my god brother because I met
- 34:22Speaker 3: him through God the day I buried my grandmother. It
- 34:24Speaker 3: was just all just real, real, spiritual for me. So
- 34:28Speaker 3: I met Mouseman, and me and mouse Man would talk
- 34:31Speaker 3: on the phone, me and my homegirl Diamond. So once
- 34:35Speaker 3: I met Mouseman, I always knew how to cook good.
- 34:38Speaker 3: So matter of fact, wait, I don't want to get cold,
- 34:42Speaker 3: but I knew how to cook good. So they would
- 34:44Speaker 3: always stay at the Mandrion and all these places because
- 34:48Speaker 3: Pac had just dropped Brenda's got a baby, and he
- 34:51Speaker 3: was working with a tron and like we was just
- 34:54Speaker 3: regular like homegirls. And then I lived in La so
- 34:58Speaker 3: I knew where to get all the good weed, you know. Then,
- 35:02Speaker 3: So this is really when my nineteen year old days
- 35:05Speaker 3: these is like fresh out of high school, eighteen nineteen rolling.
- 35:10Speaker 3: But by the time I was nineteen, I met Easye.
- 35:13Speaker 3: So the personal friendships I wasn't.
- 35:16Speaker 2: I was focused on.
- 35:17Speaker 3: Being an artist with a record deal. But when I
- 35:20Speaker 3: met Mouseman, and I'm like, I remember he wrote me
- 35:23Speaker 3: my first little rap that I ever let any guy write,
- 35:27Speaker 3: because I wasn't. But I'm like, man, I know I'm
- 35:29Speaker 3: gonna get next to Tupac. What is y'all style? Because
- 35:31Speaker 3: he was from Philly, I believe, But he was from
- 35:34Speaker 3: the East.
- 35:34Speaker 4: Coast, Oh, I thought, for I thought Tupac was from
- 35:37Speaker 4: No Mouse Mousemaid.
- 35:40Speaker 3: He was from the East Coast, no doubt. And that's
- 35:43Speaker 3: where he met I believe, Baltimore.
- 35:46Speaker 4: But did you end up working with Tupac later on
- 35:48Speaker 4: down the line?
- 35:49Speaker 3: So I met him then he never really knew I rapped.
- 35:53Speaker 3: I would take them weed because I lived in La
- 35:55Speaker 3: So I was just like the homegirl girl and me
- 35:58Speaker 3: and Diamond would go and I would cook at home
- 36:00Speaker 3: and just bring them enchiladas in tuna castle ROAs the
- 36:04Speaker 3: right way and you know.
- 36:05Speaker 2: So you would just like to cook.
- 36:06Speaker 1: Yeah, So then speed me up to where you guys
- 36:09Speaker 1: actually end up getting to work together.
- 36:11Speaker 3: Well, first of all, Eric really wanted to sign Tupac too.
- 36:15Speaker 3: He was like, I'm gonna get Poc. But then Pac
- 36:17Speaker 3: went to death Row. So I wouldn't say that it
- 36:20Speaker 3: was beef, but I mean we was with Ruthless Records.
- 36:22Speaker 3: Even though I knew snoop and corrupting everybody. I wasn't
- 36:26Speaker 3: gonna hang with death Row because I'm.
- 36:27Speaker 4: With Ruthless course, so it was just.
- 36:30Speaker 3: Like okay, so he never you know, made that connection
- 36:34Speaker 3: with POC. So then after Pop died, after Easy died,
- 36:41Speaker 3: another good our good friend Shari. She's like a mentor,
- 36:45Speaker 3: Shari Henry, which worked with Pac a lot, and Pac
- 36:49Speaker 3: knew about us, he knew about GBM, everybody knew about
- 36:53Speaker 3: Gangst the Bitch mentality first Girl Gangst the group on
- 36:57Speaker 3: the West Coast. So Shari was also like a manager,
- 37:01Speaker 3: and you know, she worked with a lot of different artists,
- 37:03Speaker 3: so she's like yo. You know, Pak was asking like
- 37:08Speaker 3: what's up with Silk. I'm like, oh, yeah, they're in GBL.
- 37:10Speaker 3: So he was like, have her come down to the studio.
- 37:14Speaker 3: So me and my group went to the studio and
- 37:17Speaker 3: we met Pop and we did a song which was
- 37:21Speaker 3: released last Motherfucker's Breathing, But when Tupac died, we got
- 37:28Speaker 3: taken off the record, so I have yeah, the original
- 37:33Speaker 3: is on YouTube, so all my references are facts.
- 37:37Speaker 1: No, No, I'm be like, look get up baby, but
- 37:42Speaker 1: like yeah, it's like I have so many emotional moments
- 37:45Speaker 1: with this industry because I went through eating and then
- 37:49Speaker 1: I'm broke. I'm gonna bring this closer to you, and
- 37:51Speaker 1: then I'm eating and then I'm hungry again.
- 37:53Speaker 4: That's what I'm Then I was eating.
- 37:56Speaker 3: And then I was hungry again. So my story is
- 37:58Speaker 3: more like up down, weighing, you know, learning my spirituality,
- 38:04Speaker 3: knowing that I am a woman of God. And I
- 38:06Speaker 3: did intimidate a lot of people. Because when you're out
- 38:09Speaker 3: to rip somebody off or you're out to use somebody,
- 38:12Speaker 3: you know, God fearing people are gonna stand the storm.
- 38:16Speaker 3: We are gonna survive. So I think we're so motivating
- 38:20Speaker 3: and inspirational For me today at forty eight years old,
- 38:24Speaker 3: I still chair tears up the microphone. I still will
- 38:28Speaker 3: rap at the spur of a moment, heartbeat, and my
- 38:32Speaker 3: vocals are still strong.
- 38:33Speaker 2: So I heard you.
- 38:34Speaker 4: I don't know if you saw me.
- 38:35Speaker 1: But first of all, there's a huge jay Z painting
- 38:39Speaker 1: in my lobby.
- 38:39Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know. I brag about it all the time.
- 38:42Speaker 4: I'm trying to speak jay Z into existence.
- 38:44Speaker 2: Right, come on to the show, Jay.
- 38:46Speaker 1: But when you wrapped I lit up like a little
- 38:49Speaker 1: kid on Christmas. I was like, oh snap, so and
- 38:52Speaker 1: I was like three lines yeah.
- 38:54Speaker 2: So then went up.
- 38:56Speaker 3: We did still you know, still Breathing, which is called
- 39:00Speaker 3: Last Motherfucker's Breathing season. The season and the means be
- 39:04Speaker 3: my reason I be the last Motherfucker's breathing. So the
- 39:08Speaker 3: session went like this.
- 39:09Speaker 2: We walked in.
- 39:10Speaker 3: He was like, get on the mic. Whoever ain't got
- 39:13Speaker 3: their part, We're going like this. That's one thing I
- 39:16Speaker 3: learned from POC. Be persistent, do not overstudy, overthink your lyrics, or.
- 39:21Speaker 2: You won't be on this record.
- 39:23Speaker 3: It was like, so it was Kadafi, it was all
- 39:26Speaker 3: of the Outlaws and my four girls, So you put
- 39:29Speaker 3: nine rappers on the record with Tupac. It was like,
- 39:32Speaker 3: so soon as he did his part, I ran in there,
- 39:35Speaker 3: I ran to the mic. My group members were still writing.
- 39:40Speaker 3: They came at the end of the song. They started
- 39:42Speaker 3: bumping some people off. And then when the final initial
- 39:46Speaker 3: record came out, like half the Outlaws and half of well,
- 39:51Speaker 3: Kadafi I believe had got murdered too. So it was
- 39:54Speaker 3: like half of them came off the record and half
- 39:57Speaker 3: of us came off the record.
- 39:58Speaker 4: Did you end up staying on the.
- 39:59Speaker 3: Newe None of the GBM members were on that, but
- 40:03Speaker 3: we have the original, yes, well, which means so much
- 40:07Speaker 3: more to me.
- 40:08Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 40:09Speaker 3: So then boom we lose eze Bam. I'm like, I
- 40:12Speaker 3: don't want to rap no more. I'm like, uh so
- 40:15Speaker 3: then Tupac he used to he was like silk you dope.
- 40:18Speaker 2: He worked with Storm and he worked with me.
- 40:21Speaker 3: So after Eazy E died or deal folded, Ruthless Records
- 40:26Speaker 3: didn't do right by Eric at all. I don't know
- 40:30Speaker 3: what happened to Ruthless Records, but it shouldn't have folded.
- 40:35Speaker 3: You had the first girl gangster group coming out, which
- 40:37Speaker 3: we were known. One of the members shout out to
- 40:41Speaker 3: Ice Girl, Diamond Diamond. Ice Girl used to go with
- 40:43Speaker 3: Tretch like. We used to really hang out and we were.
- 40:46Speaker 4: Did you see the NWA movie?
- 40:48Speaker 2: Yes? I did I movie. Yes.
- 40:52Speaker 1: Do you think that when you watch that movie you
- 40:55Speaker 1: get a little backstorand why Ruthless crumbles?
- 40:59Speaker 3: No, I don't get anything out of why Ruthless crumbled
- 41:03Speaker 3: because Ruthless was booming. See I was with Ruthless Records,
- 41:07Speaker 3: and I can recall when Eric and Jerry Heller didn't
- 41:10Speaker 3: see either eye. Eric would not come to the office.
- 41:13Speaker 3: If Jerry Heller was in the office, we would meet
- 41:17Speaker 3: him at Jerry's Delhi. We would meet him at the galleria,
- 41:20Speaker 3: the mall right there, like he would not come in
- 41:23Speaker 3: the office, So I can recall that being weird. It
- 41:28Speaker 3: was like we'd go there to get our checks. Mike
- 41:31Speaker 3: Klein would be there, all these different people, Gary Ballan,
- 41:34Speaker 3: you know, and it was like family. We were like
- 41:38Speaker 3: a real Ruthless family. But when Easy and Jerry fell out,
- 41:42Speaker 3: that's when things were different. But it was still ruthless.
- 41:47Speaker 3: It was like he was excited. He had HWA, he
- 41:51Speaker 3: had will i Am, which was in the act band Clan,
- 41:55Speaker 3: So will i Am was with Ruthless.
- 41:57Speaker 2: That was my label mate.
- 41:59Speaker 4: Wow.
- 42:00Speaker 3: We had great. We had a roster that was just untouchable.
- 42:04Speaker 1: So now I'm just for time. I'm gonna skip you
- 42:07Speaker 1: up to twoenty and twenty three. Yeah, we're in the
- 42:11Speaker 1: arena of We got the Nicki Minajas, we have the
- 42:14Speaker 1: Cardi B's, yeah, obviously before them, the Little Kid Brown,
- 42:19Speaker 1: all these guys.
- 42:21Speaker 4: What's your opinion on today's rap music with the women?
- 42:24Speaker 2: I love like today?
- 42:26Speaker 3: When I watched Lola Brooks new little video Gotta Get
- 42:29Speaker 3: You Home, she remade the Foxy Brown and I was
- 42:33Speaker 3: looking at her like, this is what I brought on
- 42:36Speaker 3: my solo project when I did my solo stuff, because
- 42:39Speaker 3: I'm on the host of records. Like, but I think,
- 42:43Speaker 3: like the females are winning. I love them. I love Nikki,
- 42:47Speaker 3: I love Cardi, I love Lola Brooks, I love Megan A. Stallion,
- 42:51Speaker 3: I love Doja cat Like.
- 42:53Speaker 4: I'm to be honest.
- 42:54Speaker 1: The only person I'm not really feeling it, and it
- 42:56Speaker 1: could be just because I haven't given her a time
- 42:58Speaker 1: of day is Sexy Red.
- 43:01Speaker 2: I'm not feeling that message.
- 43:03Speaker 3: I'm not feeling that raunchiness something because like when we
- 43:07Speaker 3: were going to be a gangster girl group, it was
- 43:10Speaker 3: clearly early nineties, it was in It was really creative
- 43:15Speaker 3: at that time. But to me, there's too much promoting
- 43:20Speaker 3: these little girls to be strippers when they grow up.
- 43:23Speaker 3: You know, our music had substance, our music had a message.
- 43:28Speaker 3: In the nineties, you were going to get a message
- 43:30Speaker 3: out of something, and today music is like a lot
- 43:34Speaker 3: of the female artists is not being great role models
- 43:38Speaker 3: for our little girls who love to look up to rappers.
- 43:42Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree.
- 43:43Speaker 1: I think Nicki and Cardi I give them a past
- 43:46Speaker 1: because a lot of their actual albums are really good
- 43:48Speaker 1: and inspiring and they both fall.
- 43:51Speaker 3: I don't put Cardy or Nikki in that category because
- 43:55Speaker 3: they were always class. They were like a branch off
- 43:57Speaker 3: of Little Kim, Foxy Bro. You know, it was always class.
- 44:01Speaker 1: But I do wish that the women rappers would move
- 44:03Speaker 1: away from selling sex because I feel like now we
- 44:06Speaker 1: as women, we're almost we're now it's becoming. It's sad
- 44:12Speaker 1: to say, but men are now the prize and women
- 44:15Speaker 1: because we keep degrading ourselves to just sex, now we
- 44:19Speaker 1: are no longer the prize.
- 44:20Speaker 2: No more so. It's so risky.
- 44:22Speaker 3: That's why a lot of time I just say, I
- 44:25Speaker 3: can't speak on the world, but on the West Coast,
- 44:28Speaker 3: it's so hard for people to push women out here
- 44:32Speaker 3: unless you're from somewhere else and you just moved and
- 44:35Speaker 3: came to California.
- 44:36Speaker 2: I don't know if it's an.
- 44:37Speaker 3: Ego thing, what's going on with these men, because we
- 44:41Speaker 3: been our own Oprah Winfrey's, we been the sloop dogs,
- 44:45Speaker 3: we've been the you know, so many talented things, and
- 44:48Speaker 3: it's like they just don't want to give you that
- 44:50Speaker 3: extra push. And it can be happening in a lot
- 44:53Speaker 3: of different states as well, because when you get into
- 44:56Speaker 3: the egos of a man, and then like, I don't
- 45:01Speaker 3: have BBLS. I'm not knocking nobody. But when you're natural
- 45:04Speaker 3: and you're real, and you're confident and you didn't have
- 45:07Speaker 3: to go get your stomach cut off because it didn't
- 45:10Speaker 3: make you talented or it didn't give you the gift
- 45:12Speaker 3: to So if they know that you're a strong person
- 45:15Speaker 3: and you're not weak and you're not gonna do drugs
- 45:18Speaker 3: because they want you to be weak minded, or you're
- 45:21Speaker 3: not gonna sleep with them. And so we missed out
- 45:24Speaker 3: on that era because they start flooding it with the
- 45:27Speaker 3: be a hoe, take his money, shake it. And I'm
- 45:30Speaker 3: not knocking the strippers shots out.
- 45:32Speaker 2: I'm not.
- 45:32Speaker 4: I'm not knocking the strippers.
- 45:34Speaker 1: But when I see someone like and I really hate
- 45:36Speaker 1: to use her as an example, but I'm going to
- 45:38Speaker 1: based on very little that I know about her. So
- 45:40Speaker 1: this is coming from more of an ignorant perspective. But
- 45:44Speaker 1: when I see like a sexy Red, I start to think, Okay,
- 45:46Speaker 1: is this now just the industry, the people behind whoever's
- 45:51Speaker 1: running the record labels just packaging black girls to look
- 45:54Speaker 1: completely like just strippers, like that's all we're worth or
- 45:57Speaker 1: you know, and I'm disappointed because I feel like, you know,
- 46:02Speaker 1: right now, there's rumors, you know, we are coming up
- 46:03Speaker 1: on the fiftieth anniversary, but there are rumors that rap
- 46:06Speaker 1: sales are declining. Yeah, and I'm starting to think that
- 46:08Speaker 1: the reason why rap sales are client are reclining is because,
- 46:12Speaker 1: and I want to hear your opinion, is because the
- 46:14Speaker 1: music industry said, okay, rap women are doing good, let's
- 46:18Speaker 1: make little rap prototypes that sell this particular image. And
- 46:22Speaker 1: it's you know, And so now I'm like, and is
- 46:25Speaker 1: that why you think the rap sales are starting to decline,
- 46:28Speaker 1: because like the authenticity des dropping.
- 46:31Speaker 3: And then that's what it is. It's like, don't sell
- 46:34Speaker 3: your soul, Like, don't let a label say here go uh,
- 46:40Speaker 3: here go half a meal and we're gonna do this this,
- 46:43Speaker 3: And you talk about all that because everybody is a
- 46:47Speaker 3: role model, whether you're in the hood, being at the
- 46:51Speaker 3: bus stop, going to work every day, Like we all
- 46:54Speaker 3: are role models to some children out there, and we're
- 46:57Speaker 3: losing it. And then, especially because I live here in
- 47:00Speaker 3: Los Angeles, it's like I don't watch the news anymore.
- 47:03Speaker 3: It's just just upsetting it because they only glamorize the
- 47:08Speaker 3: shootings are then they don't glamorize enough of the shootings
- 47:12Speaker 3: because if you have like citizens app or you watch
- 47:15Speaker 3: a million hits out here on the YouTube and on Instagram,
- 47:20Speaker 3: there's like five shootings a day. We don't know about
- 47:23Speaker 3: it because they don't come to our community unless hits
- 47:26Speaker 3: somebody that just you know, hurt each other. We need
- 47:30Speaker 3: to be more aware of what's going on in our communities.
- 47:34Speaker 3: And then music is a big influence. And I'm not like,
- 47:39Speaker 3: I don't care what you talk about, what you rap about,
- 47:42Speaker 3: but just know that it's overrated right now. We used
- 47:46Speaker 3: to have rated or talk about the police, but this
- 47:48Speaker 3: is set.
- 47:49Speaker 4: Yeah. I think one of the things you touched on
- 47:52Speaker 4: was like selling your soul.
- 47:53Speaker 1: I feel like almost all the interviews that I've done
- 47:56Speaker 1: with recording artists their first album specific really kind.
- 48:01Speaker 4: Of was like, Yo, that isn't me.
- 48:03Speaker 1: I remember Neil telling me that's not me my first record,
- 48:06Speaker 1: I gotta walk and Neil Neil had the courage to
- 48:09Speaker 1: just be like I ain't doing it and riskying blackballed
- 48:12Speaker 1: for a couple of years, I was, but God, but God,
- 48:14Speaker 1: you know, had his back because he still came out shining.
- 48:17Speaker 4: But that was a risk, risky move on him.
- 48:19Speaker 1: But when you see some of these new rappers, I'm like, Okay,
- 48:22Speaker 1: this label just put this out. This label's packaging this
- 48:25Speaker 1: girl like this and it.
- 48:27Speaker 3: It's so what happened with me after Easy I was
- 48:31Speaker 3: eating he died? I was hungry, broke again being Tupac.
- 48:37Speaker 3: So I connected Tupac and Busy Bone because Easy E
- 48:41Speaker 3: had died. So I get in touch with pop again
- 48:45Speaker 3: and I'm like, yo, because you gotta do a song
- 48:48Speaker 3: with Busy Bone. He's like, oh yeah, that's the thug niggas.
- 48:52Speaker 3: We was gonna hook up and do that, but you
- 48:53Speaker 3: gotta be on the record. So I'm like, okay, you
- 48:56Speaker 3: hear that. I said, Bee, Tupac gonna come. He gotta
- 48:59Speaker 3: go do a Vasia She runway model show. He's flying out.
- 49:04Speaker 3: He said, he gonna come before you go to the airport,
- 49:07Speaker 3: so you get ready. So it wasn't the Bone thugs
- 49:26Speaker 3: in harmony. It was Tupac, Busy Bone. Me and Tupac
- 49:30Speaker 3: walked in dressed in all white, looking like whoo macavella.
- 49:34Speaker 2: So he came in. He laid his part.
- 49:38Speaker 3: I'll probably be punished for whoor living blind to the
- 49:41Speaker 3: fact that Thugs is convicts in God's prison and am
- 49:44Speaker 3: strip praying so Foca please forgive me. So I was
- 49:47Speaker 3: on the original Thug Love, which that one was released
- 49:53Speaker 3: and it's out on all the platforms.
- 49:55Speaker 1: Now, is there something that most people don't know about? Like,
- 50:01Speaker 1: is there a fun fact that I can I can
- 50:03Speaker 1: get from this?
- 50:04Speaker 3: Yeah, two fun facts for the new generation and for
- 50:08Speaker 3: those that don't go to Google and look up wikipedias
- 50:12Speaker 3: and stuff. A lot of people don't know my name
- 50:16Speaker 3: is Lamar, Like I've never met a lady named Lamar,
- 50:19Speaker 3: So I think that's kind of unique. And then a
- 50:22Speaker 3: lot of people because I don't just say hey, I'm Lamar,
- 50:25Speaker 3: but I get those writer credits and I'm like, yes,
- 50:28Speaker 3: I miss Lamar. But a lot of people don't know
- 50:31Speaker 3: that Omari, Well, his name is Omari, but you guys
- 50:35Speaker 3: call him omar on Like a lot of people don't
- 50:38Speaker 3: know that's my nephew omphew. Now everybody call me on tea.
- 50:43Speaker 3: I am the West Coast favorite auntie. But bio logically,
- 50:48Speaker 3: like a lot of people don't know.
- 50:50Speaker 1: Have you ever has omarion and you ever talked about collaborating?
- 50:55Speaker 3: We were like this close to collaborating. I want to
- 50:58Speaker 3: say about five years ago, because you know I made
- 51:01Speaker 3: it before my nephew.
- 51:02Speaker 4: Yeah, of course.
- 51:03Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, my sister I was iront
- 51:07Speaker 3: at thirteen. She had him when she was fifteen. So
- 51:10Speaker 3: like when I made it, I could recall I have
- 51:13Speaker 3: some touch and stuff too, because when I made it,
- 51:16Speaker 3: I could recall getting my sister on payroll because she
- 51:19Speaker 3: was doing the hairstyling.
- 51:21Speaker 2: She was working the video straps. She can do braids.
- 51:25Speaker 3: My sister was a bad She did my little hair
- 51:28Speaker 3: pieces like she can weave, she can braid. So you
- 51:32Speaker 3: know me, I'm little sis. My sister has four kids.
- 51:35Speaker 2: Da da da da da.
- 51:36Speaker 3: I'm like, yo, I'm gonna get you on payroll.
- 51:39Speaker 2: You need to be a stylust. So I did that
- 51:41Speaker 2: for my sister.
- 51:42Speaker 3: And then this was with my first solo record deal
- 51:46Speaker 3: where I wrote the hit record Romeo and Juliet. So
- 51:50Speaker 3: it was my first album under RCA Records, which was
- 51:53Speaker 3: entitled Raw Silk. And then the funny thing about this
- 51:57Speaker 3: album is that I never signed a contract.
- 52:02Speaker 4: So what does that mean.
- 52:03Speaker 2: I never signed a contract all of it.
- 52:07Speaker 3: So what happened is I got with Michael CONCEPTIONI on,
- 52:10Speaker 3: Hey Mike, so, yeah, you know, I'm young. I didn't
- 52:13Speaker 3: want to rap anymore. I'm like, fuck that Easy is dead.
- 52:16Speaker 3: Tupac is dead. They believed in me. They didn't try
- 52:20Speaker 3: to sexual harass me. It was like my brother said,
- 52:23Speaker 3: by God. So I was really discouraged. So I went
- 52:27Speaker 3: in as a writer for this Grand Jury Entertainment, which
- 52:31Speaker 3: was a well known man in a wheelchair, Michael conception On.
- 52:35Speaker 3: So I'm like, I don't want to be an artist,
- 52:38Speaker 3: but I'm a hell of a writer. So they gave
- 52:41Speaker 3: me the track and some girl Ain't Misbehave was rapping
- 52:45Speaker 3: on it. But RCA wasn't buying the record. They were like,
- 52:48Speaker 3: oh god, it's really corny. So the hook was already there,
- 52:52Speaker 3: shouts out to McKinley, av that was black chill. So
- 52:56Speaker 3: I get the track and it's like it's like Romeo
- 52:58Speaker 3: with Juliet hot sex. So I'm like, oh, this is all.
- 53:03Speaker 3: So I wrote the record. I'm telling him I don't
- 53:07Speaker 3: want to be with grand Jerry. I know you're like
- 53:10Speaker 3: big uncle Mike. So I wrote the record. They let
- 53:15Speaker 3: I did the dummy vocals since the first time I
- 53:18Speaker 3: saw you, so they gave it to the artists, ain't misbehave.
- 53:22Speaker 3: So she went in to do the lyrics and it
- 53:24Speaker 3: just didn't.
- 53:26Speaker 1: So they end up releasing it under your Man. But
- 53:29Speaker 1: how what did the money look like after that?
- 53:31Speaker 3: Okay, so boom they I just wanted to be a writer. Yeah,
- 53:35Speaker 3: they sent the girl in the studio to do it.
- 53:38Speaker 3: She couldn't match.
- 53:38Speaker 4: She couldn't do it, so they.
- 53:40Speaker 3: Used my dummy vocals and they sent it to RCA.
- 53:43Speaker 3: RCA's like, oh my god, her voice is so authentic.
- 53:46Speaker 3: We want to meet her. They flew me to New York.
- 53:48Speaker 3: I went in the RCA office New York. They were like, yeah,
- 53:52Speaker 3: we can see it now. We want to do your
- 53:54Speaker 3: silky fine album, and you know, blah blah this and that.
- 53:58Speaker 2: So I'm kind of excited and I'm like okay.
- 54:01Speaker 3: So we get back to Cali. Mind you, I never
- 54:04Speaker 3: get a contract. Why because the production company signed a
- 54:09Speaker 3: deal with RCA. Okay, so me as an artist, I
- 54:13Speaker 3: never signed any contract. However, the you know, they do
- 54:19Speaker 3: the meeting with RCA, we come back to California. They
- 54:22Speaker 3: give me a check for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
- 54:27Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety seven.
- 54:28Speaker 4: And you didn't ask any questions.
- 54:30Speaker 2: No.
- 54:30Speaker 3: I was like, they was like, this is your you know,
- 54:33Speaker 3: bonus money. This is what we give you up front.
- 54:36Speaker 3: Da da da da da, And I'm still questioning it,
- 54:38Speaker 3: like you know, I never signed any paperwork, So okay,
- 54:41Speaker 3: cool a day. So I did this album Ross Silk,
- 54:44Speaker 3: Romeo and Juliet turned out to be a number one record.
- 54:49Speaker 3: I was working with mattland Smith, which I worked with
- 54:52Speaker 3: her from She was a publisher administrator. So I was
- 54:56Speaker 3: working with Mattlinz Smith, which was the wife of Donovan Smith,
- 55:00Speaker 3: which was the engineer of Easy. So I received all
- 55:04Speaker 3: my royalties and all my money off the straight off
- 55:07Speaker 3: the Street of Compton album.
- 55:09Speaker 2: But when I get over here with.
- 55:10Speaker 3: Grand Jury, mister conception ends up working with Madeline and
- 55:15Speaker 3: then I don't get no fucking publishing.
- 55:19Speaker 4: So you didn't get publishing on that.
- 55:20Speaker 2: I didn't get on the hit record publishing.
- 55:23Speaker 4: I don't know eye contact an entertainment attorney.
- 55:26Speaker 2: I didn't get no fucking pusish.
- 55:28Speaker 1: And this is how craft Tuna, mac and Cheese it
- 55:31Speaker 1: comes about.
- 55:32Speaker 3: Yo.
- 55:33Speaker 4: We're gonna have to know a finished episode, man, so.
- 55:37Speaker 2: So real quick.
- 55:38Speaker 3: So I got that one hundred and fifty thousand up front. Yeah,
- 55:41Speaker 3: I went and bought me at Mercedes. I paid my
- 55:43Speaker 3: rent up for a year. I'm like, this is the beginning.
- 55:45Speaker 3: I'm Stanley asking about the paperwork, like, how does it go. Oh,
- 55:49Speaker 3: we're going to get the contract to you. Well, six
- 55:52Speaker 3: months go by, no contract, My record hits number six.
- 55:56Speaker 4: And the people that you're talking to white. I'm just curious.
- 55:59Speaker 3: Michael can is supposed to be one of the guys
- 56:02Speaker 3: who was the founder of the Crips along with Tookie Williams.
- 56:06Speaker 3: He did We're All in the Same Gang, which was
- 56:09Speaker 3: a nonprofit album, a compilation where none of the artists
- 56:12Speaker 3: got paid, you know, so that sort of thing. So
- 56:15Speaker 3: I clearly wanted to get paid for being a writer. Yeah,
- 56:18Speaker 3: and get all my publishing. So then nineteen ninety nine,
- 56:23Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, after the record sales and it's number one,
- 56:27Speaker 3: and at the time, Rome was my label mate. Every
- 56:32Speaker 3: time I see you face it makes me I love
- 56:34Speaker 3: that record, Like Rome was an excellent artist. So you
- 56:38Speaker 3: have Silki, fine, you have Rome top charting billboards, but
- 56:42Speaker 3: you're not getting publishing.
- 56:43Speaker 2: No publishing.
- 56:45Speaker 4: Is there the end of the story where you can
- 56:47Speaker 4: get the publishing.
- 56:48Speaker 3: So then so then like we're dealing with nineteen ninety
- 56:52Speaker 3: ninety eight. So I'm like, okay, my record, I went
- 56:56Speaker 3: to New York because I got the Writer of the
- 56:59Speaker 3: Year award. So now we're in nineteen ninety nine year
- 57:03Speaker 3: and I got the writer It's hanging up in my
- 57:06Speaker 3: room till this day, my easy e plaques all my work.
- 57:09Speaker 3: So I get the Writer of the Year award to
- 57:12Speaker 3: Lamar Sukie Fine Johnson. So I'm like, all of a sudden,
- 57:16Speaker 3: that guy had got another artist named Lamar, which was
- 57:19Speaker 3: a boy. So I'm like, okay, did he like give
- 57:22Speaker 3: the publishing to that Lamar? It wouldn't add up. So
- 57:25Speaker 3: he was like a very h People were afraid of.
- 57:29Speaker 4: Him, so he said he was a founder of the crips. Yeah,
- 57:32Speaker 4: people are afraid of him too.
- 57:33Speaker 3: But he was in a wheelchair. So I'm like, I'm
- 57:35Speaker 3: not afraid of him. But he had connections.
- 57:40Speaker 4: Yeah, I get what you say.
- 57:41Speaker 2: So boom.
- 57:42Speaker 3: So I'm like, all of a sudden, the production company folds.
- 57:45Speaker 3: We don't even there's no more Grand Jury Entertainment. He
- 57:49Speaker 3: goes to mi Con Music, he switches the company name.
- 57:52Speaker 3: I'm going off on ass cap like, I've been a
- 57:54Speaker 3: writer with you guys for so many years. How do
- 57:57Speaker 3: I have an asscap Writer of the Year. I'm registered
- 58:01Speaker 3: Lorraine Lyrics under publishing. I'm telling you this is my voice.
- 58:05Speaker 3: This is written by Lamar Johnson. Oh well, yeah, they
- 58:10Speaker 3: never gave me a penny.
- 58:12Speaker 1: So for all y'all entertainment attorneys reach out, there's gotta be.
- 58:20Speaker 3: A Well that's why I say, you women don't know
- 58:23Speaker 3: what it is to be up and down and hungry
- 58:26Speaker 3: and broke and eating and broke and eating and broke
- 58:29Speaker 3: and eating. So my worth I am a millionaire. Just
- 58:34Speaker 3: to let you know my net worth. You know, they
- 58:37Speaker 3: keep up with my network. So twenty years go by,
- 58:41Speaker 3: I'm begging. They're lucky that I didn't become a drug addict.
- 58:45Speaker 3: They're lucky that I didn't go crazy like the humiliation,
- 58:48Speaker 3: but I am so strong. No lady could have their
- 58:51Speaker 3: picture all over the billboards and the bus stop number
- 58:54Speaker 3: one on the billboard, and about two years later you
- 58:58Speaker 3: back at the bus stop.
- 59:00Speaker 4: Oh and that's twenty years later.
- 59:02Speaker 3: Twenty years later. I mean, yeah, thank goodness. I always
- 59:06Speaker 3: went to school, so I do. I didn't go far,
- 59:09Speaker 3: but I was almost to my bachelor's but I learned
- 59:12Speaker 3: that when you study they start doing things online. You
- 59:15Speaker 3: could just research get your own information. So I did
- 59:19Speaker 3: receive my AA and journalism, and if I go take
- 59:22Speaker 3: a couple of courses, I'll have my BA and broadcast.
- 59:25Speaker 4: I never got the money, but.
- 59:26Speaker 3: I didn't so I didn't get the physical money. So
- 59:29Speaker 3: after twenty years, I'm like, now somebody gonna do something.
- 59:33Speaker 3: So I wrote ASCAP a letter. I said, you know
- 59:35Speaker 3: what an email I'm about to sue you guys. I've
- 59:38Speaker 3: been a member of you guys. I have approved writer
- 59:41Speaker 3: of the Year. You gave us man my credit because
- 59:44Speaker 3: he claimed it ASCAP Publishing under Mike's rap, and then
- 59:49Speaker 3: he went to BMI and claimed MI con music.
- 59:52Speaker 4: So what did ascaps say to your email?
- 59:54Speaker 3: So they got in touch with that company. They said, okay,
- 59:58Speaker 3: we need a con track. Where's her signature?
- 1:00:02Speaker 2: After twenty fucking years and the record then sold.
- 1:00:05Speaker 4: All of this is really good h and they didn't
- 1:00:07Speaker 4: have a contract, so.
- 1:00:09Speaker 3: They were like, oh, it's in storage, we're gonna you know,
- 1:00:12Speaker 3: like it was so far back. You never transferred your data.
- 1:00:14Speaker 4: To files like so then what happened?
- 1:00:16Speaker 2: So they never presented. They said, you have ninety days.
- 1:00:19Speaker 3: If you do not come up with Lamar Johnson's signature,
- 1:00:23Speaker 3: then we're gonna put everything back to her.
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: Oh everything, Cause I was gonna say if it was me,
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: I started drafting up my own fake contract two.
- 1:00:33Speaker 3: Thousand and No, they couldn't prove any signature.
- 1:00:37Speaker 4: I'm just saying I would have tried.
- 1:00:39Speaker 2: You tell me.
- 1:00:39Speaker 3: About heartbreak twenty years. I had to go back to work.
- 1:00:43Speaker 1: So did they so, but they said it will go
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: go to you if they can't find approved.
- 1:00:47Speaker 3: Finally, in two thoy nineteen, they gave me back all
- 1:00:53Speaker 3: my publishing.
- 1:00:55Speaker 2: So I mean I could pull it up on my
- 1:00:57Speaker 2: phone with me.
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Now, that is the best story I've ever heard.
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: I wanted to fight. I wanted to go to his
- 1:01:04Speaker 3: door five and just I wanted to.
- 1:01:07Speaker 2: Blow his head off.
- 1:01:08Speaker 4: Did you end up getting it in?
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: Well, I'm still dealing with Sony Music because some type
- 1:01:13Speaker 3: of way they had licenseeing and I didn't get paid
- 1:01:17Speaker 3: out of that. So Sony Music, yeah, they know who
- 1:01:20Speaker 3: I am. But how do you how do you like?
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: Yeah?
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: So have you considered just and this is my last
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: question because we're over on time.
- 1:01:28Speaker 2: I got a lot to say, but my MACARONI.
- 1:01:34Speaker 4: Yo, I finished that whole magazine.
- 1:01:35Speaker 2: It's good.
- 1:01:36Speaker 4: It's soda, ain't good. My last question is ghostwriting.
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: Are you have you considered ghost writing for some of
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: the greats, the ghosts, because I mean you're very talented,
- 1:01:46Speaker 1: or have you ghosts written?
- 1:01:48Speaker 3: I used to write for Easy on his last album.
- 1:01:51Speaker 3: I wrote a couple of songs on that album, so
- 1:01:54Speaker 3: I would love I try to get the girls younger
- 1:01:57Speaker 3: than me, Like if you use my flavor, you blow up.
- 1:02:03Speaker 3: So then, like I don't know, I start saying there's
- 1:02:07Speaker 3: no age limit, there's no time limit on greatness. So
- 1:02:11Speaker 3: if Aretha Franklin want to come out after fifty years
- 1:02:14Speaker 3: and do her a new song, she's gonna do it.
- 1:02:16Speaker 3: If Patti LaBelle, she's gonna do it. So I'm like
- 1:02:19Speaker 3: the Aretha Franklin a rap. So what I did was
- 1:02:21Speaker 3: a Taylor Swift. Once they start giving me all my publishing,
- 1:02:25Speaker 3: I re released Romeo and Juliet, and I want to
- 1:02:28Speaker 3: thank all the youth, the younger people, the audience. Because
- 1:02:33Speaker 3: I re released the same record. I didn't shoot a
- 1:02:36Speaker 3: new video. That's why I'm like, who's coming? Nobody came
- 1:02:39Speaker 3: for me? So evidently, Sony, you owe me some money
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: for all these licenses with this record.
- 1:02:45Speaker 2: So I'm getting down to that.
- 1:02:46Speaker 3: But like I said, I have a rich spirit, so
- 1:02:50Speaker 3: money could never make or break me because I am
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: what I said, a creator. So it's like my spirit
- 1:02:56Speaker 3: is so rich it always guided me to those physicians.
- 1:03:00Speaker 3: And so I re released Romeo and Juliet. I'm at
- 1:03:04Speaker 3: what five hundred eighty six thousand streams in eight months
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: with no promotion independent, I get about nine hundred a
- 1:03:13Speaker 3: month every month from Apple Spotify, you know, just extra income,
- 1:03:18Speaker 3: which is more money than I ever made off of
- 1:03:21Speaker 3: a number one record. Having did he shake my hand
- 1:03:25Speaker 3: at Madison Square Gardens and telling me nice to meet
- 1:03:29Speaker 3: the lady who took my number one spot on the billboards.
- 1:03:33Speaker 3: We're talking nineteen ninety nine Madison Square Gardens, Mariah Carey,
- 1:03:38Speaker 3: like I've performed with them, the crazy perfect example.
- 1:03:40Speaker 4: He just dropped a new record.
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: So I'm listening to lot to hearing where you're going
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: next for all y'all listeners. Soakie, can you tell all
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: our listeners how to keep up with you, how to
- 1:03:51Speaker 1: follow you and support you. It's so to say it today,
- 1:03:54Speaker 1: it's so easy.
- 1:03:55Speaker 3: You guys, just stay tuned to what's real, what's popping,
- 1:03:59Speaker 3: and what's rare.
- 1:04:00Speaker 2: You can really google.
- 1:04:01Speaker 3: Me f y k E, f y he and E.
- 1:04:08Speaker 3: Don't spell it with an eye. They do it on purpose.
- 1:04:10Speaker 3: It just irks me. Silk E fine, not the conceded.
- 1:04:13Speaker 4: And what's what's your Instagram tag?
- 1:04:15Speaker 3: Silk E fine? It's only one way to spell it.
- 1:04:19Speaker 3: I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook, I'm on.
- 1:04:22Speaker 2: Twitter, and that's whis no eyes.
- 1:04:24Speaker 3: That's wise no eyes because I am not conceved.
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: And then can you just for the fun of it,
- 1:04:30Speaker 1: I mean, I have to try this just because I
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: love hip hop?
- 1:04:34Speaker 2: Right?
- 1:04:34Speaker 4: Can you close out.
- 1:04:35Speaker 1: With like a twenty second okay, because rap close out
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: a twenty second rap for eating whalle broke in this
- 1:04:42Speaker 1: whole situation.
- 1:04:43Speaker 3: Hey, hey, hey, live with my girl Coleen, and I
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: was eating while broke. Don't trip West Coast. Don't break
- 1:04:51Speaker 3: your throat. I gotta hit him with a high note. Yeah,
- 1:04:54Speaker 3: because you know it's murdered. They roh huh. I'm trying
- 1:04:57Speaker 3: to figure out what happened to my boys. Poking easy.
- 1:05:00Speaker 3: You know I'm still making noise. I don't care what
- 1:05:03Speaker 3: they say, I am creativity. I'm'a do it born and
- 1:05:07Speaker 3: raised in LA and i'm'a keep eating. And I might
- 1:05:10Speaker 3: stay bro but my spirit is rich.
- 1:05:12Speaker 2: Baby.
- 1:05:12Speaker 3: I'm the utmost, but I'm really rich and I'm not materialistic.
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: I kick it with Tuna Mac. Get it a.
- 1:05:21Speaker 4: Peace out, y'all. Thanks for listening. Tuning in for more
- 1:05:43Speaker 4: Eating while Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, Visit
- 1:05:46Speaker 4: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
- 1:05:50Speaker 4: your favorite shows.