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CJP #53: Pugs Atomz · Coconut Justice

• Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey everybody, I am so excited because this is one of the most creative people I have ever seen, I have ever bumped into in my life. Pugs Atomz is here everybody. Hey Pugs. Hey, what's good? Pugs Atomz is a painter, muralist, designer, documentarian, radio host, musician. Renaissance man is almost an understatement to the talents this man brings to the table. He does all of that ⁓ organizes other creative folks to deliver on a wide array of creative projects from albums, Pugs Atomz: Woo! Woof woof woof Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, the budget for the ⁓ live studio audience, know, we're working on that. All the fucking bells and whistles and stuff, we're working on that. Yeah. And that voice over there, everybody, you know him, you love him. That's C4 Explosives. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): all the way up to the Englewood Arts Collective. Cefore X. Plosives joins me in this conversation with ⁓ Atomz. Before we get into it, remember to go to coconutjustice.com to get you some clothes that I think would look good on you. Let's go. Cefore X. Plosives: We're getting there. Pugs Atomz: So come. Cefore X. Plosives: you Aw, thanks for having me, man. Pugs, I'm so excited for this interview, Good to chop it up with you. Pugs Atomz: Same, same, same. So do you usually do the show with Carlos or no? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: When I can, when I can break away. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It depends when he's not being a good dad. Pugs Atomz: Okay, okay. Okay, so it's like he's a guest guest host on this occasion. Cefore X. Plosives: I'm the guy on the couch. I'm the guy on the couch. I chop it up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I'm not cutting him off. Cefore X. Plosives: I get used to it though. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Pugs, man, ⁓ you came out with Smoker's Jacket and I could not stop playing this album, Pugs Atomz: That's awesome. That's the hopes. mean, it's made in the sense of a mixtape where you just let it go instead of, you know, this is the single, et cetera. And the majority of the songs are like songs that we just will perform or play around with all the time. So, you know, it's a lot of fun, good times, and then, you know, friendship, family in there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. I'm gonna put a link. I'm gonna put a link to the album ⁓ in the description of this video, because you guys have to listen to it. The one that I can't get enough of is number five, Let's Move. Pugs Atomz: Oh yeah, hey that's a joint. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Let's Move is so dope. Pugs Atomz: And Dario did his thing, man. Dario did his thing. And then it was funny because like recording it, I was just like, yo, just be like the overzealous DJ through the whole joint under me, doing my part. And then I was like, huh? I was like, nah, nah, the whole thing. Just do the whole thing. And then yeah, it came out cool. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You That's like the soundtrack to my teenage years. And then I just lost it when my man said, pass the toilet paper, pass the toilet paper. I was like, Pugs Atomz: ⁓ yeah? You were getting it in! Cefore X. Plosives: Hahaha Pugs Atomz: Hahaha! You got to make sure it's Chicago, right? You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ this album is nothing but. Cefore X. Plosives: Who's all producing on there? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What was it that got? Pugs Atomz: Well, King, produces some of the stuff. DJ Alo, he produces a nice majority as well. And then you got Dario X on that one record. And then you got Selfish on the first song, You Can't Find Me. And ⁓ Keys. Yeah, Kenny Keys is on there getting it in. And Mindbender. ⁓ So the homies, man. So I mean, over the course... Cefore X. Plosives: me some Kenny Keys, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And listen, you Pugs Atomz: Like 2009 to think 2014, all those songs were recorded. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's a long time, but like, unless you make music. Well, actually first, let me give you props for the number one track, You Can't Find Me. That is the perfect table setting. You play that, you know what you're in for. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. Well, to me, I think like with albums, it's like, you got to clean the palette before people taking your joint. Otherwise you're going to just make it the comparison thing. Like this sounds like, or this is reminiscent of, you must have been listening to, you know. So I usually try to pick like the wilder record to kick it off. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah, it's perfect. Cause that first song puts me in such a good mood and it just keeps getting better and better. And then when you get to, I'm telling you, when you get to let's move, you already dancing, you already going, it's such a good time. Pugs Atomz: Okay, coconut justice with the moves. Okay, okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ you must not have heard son. I used to be on a dance crew when I was in the army. ⁓ When I was in the army, I hung out with Pugs Atomz: I didn't know, I didn't know. Mmm. Where's the crew? Where's the crew car? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I don't even remember. We were ⁓ weird at USAFAD, United States Army Field Artillery Detachment. And I don't know if we ever came up with the name. But I was hanging out with ⁓ ⁓ a lot of people from Chicago in my platoon. But then once ⁓ boy Gerald showed up. ⁓ was like a spinning top, we could not sit his ass down. Pugs Atomz: ⁓ okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then just building off of that, we just started hanging out. went clubs together and then we started dancing together. Then we started practicing together. Then we started battling together and... Pugs Atomz: Fine. So y'all just battling on the bass or like when you guys would go for a little R &R. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. We go, we were in Germany and we'd go all over the place. We heard that there was a cool dance spot. We'd go there and we'd just get it going. Pugs Atomz: ⁓ okay. Cefore X. Plosives: You turn that shit into a hip-hop Wes Side story? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ha Pugs Atomz: Do do do do do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): With a little scratch at the end. Yeah. Anyway, your album, your album just doesn't do anything to me but bring positive vibes. It's such a good time. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah Pugs Atomz: We are the vets. That's the set, man. That's definitely the goal of it. You know, it's trying to capture what we do in a live show. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ go ahead. Cefore X. Plosives: I was gonna say, you have to track with Wes Restless on there, I remember we did a couple of shows with Wes and Dynamic Vibrations back in the day. Super talented dude, man. The crew was super dope, man. What's it like working with Wes? Pugs Atomz: I mean, I've been working with Wes since probably 2007 or eight. So I mean, it's just like kicking it with my homies. You know what I mean? He was just always interested in my process. And I mean, I was always just cool with him, you know, doing his effects. Cause I mean, that's what you know Wes for when he's engineering. Like he's definitely gonna go kind of craze with the delay. Cefore X. Plosives: Also back, yeah, back then, yeah. Pugs Atomz: and try out the new toys and see how it fits in the music. But I mean, he's one of those people where it's like, if you need a singer on the record, that's the guy. He's definitely gonna nail it. But I mean, initially it was just for me to do a song for him, I believe, for maybe his first album or second album. And then from there, we just kept getting up on occasion and then... when I was proposed to do the group thing with him and Ellie, because I was recording at Ellie's house as well, and then recording at Wes' house as well. And then I found out they both were working with each other too. I was like, ah, man, we might as just make that a group, man, and run it. Cefore X. Plosives: That's dope. Pugs Atomz: And then we became the gents. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's so dope. The Gents was the name of your group. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah, so was like, what was our tagline? Briefcase rap, we've abandoned the backpack. Yeah, because we used to dress up in suits and know, super Ivy leaguey, know, perhaps schoolish, know, khakis and abundance, ties, bow ties, all that, Cefore X. Plosives: That's dope. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): When people. When people say backpack rappers, ⁓ can you explain to folks that are listening the difference between backpack rapper versus, I guess, a gangster rapper versus storytellers? Pugs Atomz: ⁓ well, I think a backpack rapper is just depending on who's saying it. I mean, as most terms here, they're all been bastardized, but I mean, originally backpack rap was kind of like true school rap. That's what I would define it as. And I mean, I do a lot of that, but in this sense, we were more talking about like the image, you know, in the sense of like, we didn't look like it would be on Rockis records. Now, when you listen to it, it may have some elements of it, but Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: you know, the packaging was like the play, you know, and then just, yeah. And then also just the perspective, because a lot of the stuff was kind of more about manners and, you know, sliding that into the slick conversation to the lady at the party. And then also spaces, like, I mean, one of my favorite things that we did as a group was ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, you're a little cleaned up. Pugs Atomz: one of our major music videos, we were able to get like, what was that, maybe 15, 20 people into the Sibiris to film this whole mockumentary of the group. It was just so sick. We did it for Vimby. It was so slick, man, our manager. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The Severus. Cefore X. Plosives: For those that don't know what the Sybaris is. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Please explain what the sever is. Pugs Atomz: So the Severus, you know, in our high school days was this place you would see commercials for and it was for like tuples. And usually, you know, it's one of those days where it's just you and the person you're going with. That's it. But usually you got a water slide, indoor pool, sauna, some huge bed, you know. It's, you know, it's for mating season. It's definitely for mating season. So it'd be all these like slightly raunchy commercials. The Severus, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it was meant to, it was meant to, yeah, yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: I found like they had t-shirts and everything. Like, you know, when I took a deep dive for those using their logo for something else, some art stuff, and I was like, oh wow, they had gear. It was going up. But I mean, that was the fun. Yeah, all of that, all of that. I mean, if anybody could find that video, let me know, because it has all those things in it, all those. I think I even get measured for a suit and the joint, you know. Yeah, yeah. And Audacity is hilarious. it, man, because he's like the... Cefore X. Plosives: Get that nice little white robe. Pugs Atomz: the documentary announcer, guess, the host kinda, but he's playing both sides of it like he's in the group, but he's not in the group. But that was such a moment, man, so dope. But we did like three albums. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. try to explain. You did three albums at the Sibiris? Pugs Atomz: No, no, no, no, I'm saying the group we did like three projects. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ okay. Cefore X. Plosives: I'll say that gets expensive. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): YAHOO! Pugs Atomz: Well, I mean, I don't think we could probably sneak in the way we did the first time. Like I think that was like the 18 moment and you just hold that. I mean, the craziest part though, wasn't even the service. The craziest part was our manager at the time. He had got, I think 100 bottles of champagne and just for the video. And then he returned a few bottles of champagne. After we were done, was like, dude, you are a bad man. Like the skills, the skills, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: No, no, don't open those, don't open those. Those are props. Pugs Atomz: And then I was like, yeah, what did you say when you returned it? Then he said, yeah, I told him, know, the wedding's off. This is like sad. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Jules was, or Osco's was upset. Cefore X. Plosives: That's it. Perfect. You gotta look crying and shit in the back. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, it's like you can't argue with that. You can't argue with that. But I mean, that goes back to the ethos, you know, to me, that was, that's the... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Binnies was like, bullshit. Pugs Atomz: the golden era book bag, make it any way, anyhow. mean, like, I remember like when we would be making cassettes, know, some of my homies would go buy like a hundred cassette players, you know, recorders, and then take them joints back after they recorded their albums. mean, do or die, you gotta make it happen. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: I used to work at Circuit City and when CD Burners came out, man, we ate that shit up. We had them all lined up in the back. we gonna sell some CD Burners? No. yeah, we working at Circuit City, man. We had the whole, we would unbox them, sell them as open box. we, man, we were grimey dog. It was good. Pugs Atomz: See, I had like a whole CDR business out the crib, man. I was making people's albums. I was doing the duplication. I was doing the album covers. I was doing the hosting, but only at one CD burner. I didn't even have a CD burner. My roommate had a CD burner, but man, I definitely maxed that boy out. I remember the day it died, it was so sad. It was like, we have to get like a four CD joint now. I mean, that was such a sweet time. I mean, I could go like to... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Allegedly, allegedly. Cefore X. Plosives: The hustle was real though. Pugs Atomz: the majority of the stores and get paid up front and then come back in like two weeks and repeat the process. It was sweet, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Were you the kind of kid that that would get your ass whipped because you wouldn't sit down? Pugs Atomz: Nah, nah. I was so like in my vibes, man. You know what I mean? Like I was a kid where it's like, if I got on Punishment and I'm in my room, awesome. I'm cooking in my room. You know what mean? I'm in my black book making stuff. I'm creating figures. I'm trying to record songs. I was always about my artistic side. You know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): No. Was your... right? Everybody's gonna leave me alone. Sign me up Yeah. Was your, was it, were your parents supportive of that? Pugs Atomz: So, if that are imagination, I'm gone. Yeah, my mom was like a painter and my dad, he was a radio DJ when I was first born out in Pittsburgh. And then when we moved here, my dad and my mom, they were pretty into seeing me as a painter. My dad would drive me to college almost every day. in my freshman year as I got acquainted with downtown a little bit more. I mean, my mom still is at all my openings and the support. mean, without them, I probably wouldn't have done any of these things. I'd probably just been ⁓ a draftsman, architect. That's what I went to high school for. Well, I should say, that's what I was really into in high school. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, me too, but I had a terrible teacher at Roosevelt. I wanted to be an architect and he was just such an asshole. I was like, no, I gotta be done with this. No. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. ⁓ he brawned it. What's his name? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, he was, was, I don't remember. I don't remember, but he, this was probably one of the more constructive things that he said. He said, Cefore X. Plosives: Go find them. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): The benefit of being a doctor over being an architect is that a doctor can bury his mistakes. An architect has to look at it for the rest of his life. Cefore X. Plosives: Damn. Pugs Atomz: Very, you're gonna say that's pretty dark, man. Cefore X. Plosives: Wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And then after that, like, he was just mean. Pugs Atomz: That's a tough teacher, man. He told you that you're like 14. You're like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Huh, ⁓ I'm excited. I'm using a triangle and a compass. I was like, no, I don't, if everybody's like this, I don't want to do Pugs Atomz: Nah. Cefore X. Plosives: It's crazy how teachers how vital teachers are and how like to and how fragile you're how fragile it is for you like you know like for that dream if someone sways the wrong way like oh you could bury your you could bury your mistakes well maybe I might want to go be a doctor you know you all of a sudden you're like Dexter and shit Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and supportive parents. Pugs Atomz: It could get dark. It could definitely get dark. But now I loved it so much, man. Like just because it was such a connection to graffiti for me and doing drafting. Like it really changed my perspective of how I would make a piece. You know what mean? Cause now it's like, I know perspective, I know 3D now, you know, and then it's like every day we're practicing that. And then I just started doing my graffiti stuff in the class, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: The bug. Pugs Atomz: And then when we got to start building stuff, I was like, ⁓ my gosh, this is it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Were you in Chicago when you got into graffiti? Pugs Atomz: and they took it out of the school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would see graffiti since I was early age. Like in Philly, like I would go there some summers, because that's where my mom is from. you know, see the different graffiti, like on some of the rooftops and in the neighborhood. But in Chicago is where, like I really meant writers. I mean, around like that seventh, eighth grade, that's when I started to get my feet wet and, you know, play around with names. And, you know, we had a little crew at school. But there was this guy, Crazy Man GBC. I would see his stuff like when we first came to Englewood, this is like 81, 82, maybe 83. And I just saw his stuff and I don't know why it resonated with me, but it was just the name and then the colors were cool. But he had a lot of like fill in type pieces around the green line near hostage. So I mean, yeah, yeah, I would say. That would probably be the start of me into graffiti. I mean, it's just something I just always was drawn to. Like, I mean, I would be sketching and trying to write my name, but I didn't even know what it was. You know what mean? I just knew it looked like this. You know what I mean? So I just was making stuff in that vein until, you know, later I met like, who was that? Raven and Zora. And my mom had introduced me to them. And you know, Raven gave me a couple, you know, tips on, you know. how to freak it no matter your color scheme. And you know, that stuff really stayed with me, but going to Kenwood, there was a lot of graffiti writers there. So when I got there, I felt, you know, somewhat at home, you know, in the sense of like, I've been looking for this scene. Now I'm seeing parts of the scene. And then like towards like my junior senior year, I ran into a pteridone meeting with Chi-Rock over there by the Museum of Science and Industry. And then that like opened me up. Okay. So it was like all, throughout the city, you know, it's these different crews and different people. And, know, I started to know like Teal and know Soke and you know, kids from Emu Well, et cetera. You know, it's like really started to broaden my scope of Chicago hip hop, you know, cause up until that point, it was just really Kenwood and then the people I knew in Inkerwood that were in the hip hop, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What around, time frame was that? Pugs Atomz: So this is like 93, 94, 95. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay. Okay. Pugs Atomz: Cause 93 is when I picked the name Pugs. And I was like, all right, that's how we rocking. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What, ⁓ how did that come around? Pugs Atomz: I was sitting with, what was that name? Cupid. I was sitting with Cupid, another writer. And we were at Galley 37 in the summer program. Because that was another place where I got to meet a lot of people from all around the city that were into hip hop or rapping or breaking, et cetera. But we were just doing letters, doing our graffiti alphabets. Because I was trying to pick a name that nobody had. Because when you first start, every name you pick is somebody else's name. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: I was like, clue, was playing for a couple of weeks. was, man, just whatever sounded good, I could write easily. But anyway, when doing the alphabets, like we were just looking at my alphabets, man, like, oh man, these letters, S-U-G-P-V, man, these like your best letters. You should try to make a name out of that. And then from there, I you know, kept scrabble boarding and then I was like, oh, Pugs, Pugs Lee. I was like, oh, let's do that, let's do that. And then, you know, I was super into like the KRS1 school of rapping and, you know, doing the knowledge and everything's got to mean something. So I was like, all right, please understand Graffiti Saves Lives. And then it's like, Pug is the shape of Moe, SL saved the loss abbreviation and the Webster's double E one who does something. And then it's kind of like with my crew, that's who I was. I was like, wow, that, ⁓ that works. That super works. Cefore X. Plosives: Hmm. Pugs Atomz: And then it was solid after that. was up. It was all up. Cefore X. Plosives: We're good once you got the name down your straight. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Such a unique name, I love it. And it's awesome that you saw it. It wasn't anything that anyone said, is that you saw it. That's crazy. Pugs Atomz: Well, that was the thing Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it felt good because now I had an original thing, you know, as opposed to before. Versus like, ⁓ OK, combs. That looks cool. Let me try that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah And this is back in the time where everyone was trying to be unique. Like you, if you were a rapper, you wanted to sound different. Pugs Atomz: Well, you had to be New Yeet. You had to be unique. It was no way you could carbon copy anything, which made talent shows very entertaining in that time because people would definitely boo you, but also it would just be so diverse and people performing one after another. Everybody had their vibe to a point. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: And also, mean, it was more regional, you know, because it was like, all you had was a magazine that showed one picture, but really didn't give you the full scope. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: So when did you start, when did you pick up the mic at that point? Pugs Atomz: Well, I mean, my mom has shown me pictures. I had the mic since I was like three. I would be crying it out. But I my dad, since he was a DJ and he had like very deep record crates, like he just always would play music, explain music, point out things in music. So I mean, it was coming. It was really coming. There was no way for me not to growing up in a time where this is the new thing. But then my cousin Seagram... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: around like maybe, I was like maybe nine, 10, 11. He really was into breakin' and rappin'. And I mean, he was startin' to do shows and stuff like that, but he was just really good. Like he used to be able to beatbox out of his neck while doin' a verse. So sick, so sick. So I mean, from watchin' him, I was like, I definitely need to figure this out. Because before, we would just all break in in my family. Cefore X. Plosives: you Pugs Atomz: They come by the crib, we're in the backyard on my patio breakdancing at Englewood, trying to figure it out. But him doing that, I was like, okay, I think I got it now. And then I started to get tapes. think my first tape was one of those Maxwell House or BMI joints. My auntie had got me 99 cent, get five tapes or something. But I got, I'm sure everybody owns one. I mean, that's why they went out of business. Cefore X. Plosives: Still low money for that. You Pugs Atomz: Couldn't keep that demand up. I had got, it was only one rap tape. I'll never forget this. Cause I got Madonna, I got Michael Jackson and some other random rock and roll thing. And the only rap tape they had was Houdini's Open Sesame. So that was like my first rap tape. So I mean, you can imagine you owning this piece of thing that you've been trying to get, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: you Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: You're trying to own it. Because before then I had like 45s, but I 45s of like the Jets, 45s, Jacksons, know, just random, just cool music that I heard, you know. So it's like, I don't know what Houdini is talking about. I like it, but they're definitely like adult situations that rapping about. So it wasn't probably until like Far Side and then hearing, ⁓ De La Soul is Dead, where I started to see me more in Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: You Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: rap. I was super EPMD fan, super K.R.R.S. One fan, but again, they're all kind of dealing a little bit more heavyweight adult life stuff. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, my first one was a Pugs Atomz: And of course, Prince and Jazzy, I was rocking with them too. Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ yeah, my first one was digital underground, Sex Package was my first like, the first one that somebody gave me said you need to listen to this. And I'm like, all right. And after that it was. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ hell yeah. Pugs Atomz: Now, sex fact is that was an interesting time for Digital Underground, because I remember seeing interviews about the album before I heard the album. So was like, you're having to use your imagination of this idea that they're pushing, then you actually hear it. ⁓ wow, yeah, it works. It was pretty good. Shock G was definitely one of the ones, man. I loved the first two albums, man. I was sold, I was definitely sold. Because I liked it to be entertaining. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: He was a creative man. Pugs Atomz: And I mean, was like, again, I was a big fan of Ice Cube, but Digital Underground kind of hit other places that reminded me of like the funk records my dad would play me, you know? So I have more of a relationship to it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yep. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. they brought a certain level of fun. Because, well, my introduction to or my addiction to hip hop was in the era when 2 Live Crew and like NWA had come out and it's hard to get my mom to listen to or buy me a tape. And old boys yelling about, give me some pussy. My mom was like, hell no, you go to church. Cefore X. Plosives: Stop throwing water on me. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you Pugs Atomz: Now the first rap album I played for my mom and at the point I told her like I'm a deuce rap, I really want to rap. I was probably like a junior and I played at Low End Theory and we sat there and listened to the whole thing front to back. She was cool with it and then I'm like yeah, that's definitely on my list of things I want to do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I was like, this is the one, life crew, he's talking about the pussy. And then the follow-up is fuck the police. My mom was like, what in the fuck is happening to you? No, going to the army was my idea. That was my idea. I was tired of being poor. Cefore X. Plosives: So. You're going to the army. Pugs Atomz: That's always the answer you go to the arm Uncle Luke had a party in Chicago in Hyde Park. I'll never forget that at the athletic club there. Yeah, I'll never forget that I was just like wow. I was like hip-hop is everywhere. It's crazy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Uncle Luke is running for Congress. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. You see that? Pugs Atomz: I mean, he, he been there. I mean, like whenever you hear his interviews or him talking about the times in Florida and all that, he's very aware so I could see it. And we all got to grow. We all got to go where our gifts, you know, open us up to. Because even with Prime, you know, that was perfect for him. That was right up his alley, man. Every job I knew him to have, he was the manager in a matter of weeks, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: 29. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah Pugs Atomz: And he was a people person, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's good to see him out there. It's good to see him fighting through, ⁓ boy, that he finally beat. And he's just out there in the streets. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. Like that suits him. Like when he was pursuing rap, know, me and him together, like he was on the streets, you know, trying to get the people on the side, you know, to hear us, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, I remember I did a cypher with Prime. We did a battle at Prime at the Wild Hair. And he had another dude with him. And it was the three of us. It was like, all right, three of you got to battle. I'm like, this doesn't even make sense. So then they all ganged up on me because I wasn't his homie. I'm like, bro, come on, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, it happened a lot. Cefore X. Plosives: So at that time I wasn't too fond of Prime, but I appreciated him for what he had done. You know what I'm saying? But at that moment I was like, man, this dude right here. But nah, he had that killer in him. Pugs Atomz: But that was the job. mean, that's the thing. No, no, no, but that's the thing people don't get about the battle culture in that sense and in that time. Like the whole thing was to expose you. It was not for us to be cool. It was like, I'm gonna show you why I'm the best. And I brought all my friends to reinstate this fact, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Aha. Cefore X. Plosives: out yet. Yeah, he wrote deep, was always the dude. Nah, man, I was the dude with the backpack showing up by my damn self. And then he wrote 50 deep. And I'm like, well, all right, I get it. Pugs Atomz: So you can't take it, you can't take it for yourself. You gotta have numbers, man. mean, that's the thing. Like before our time, it was the talent show time. And at those talent shows, if you didn't bring a group of people, you lost. It didn't matter how great you were, you lost. Unless it was some dudes singing R &B or a dance group. Yeah. But yeah, you lost. You gonna rematch? No, rematch. Cefore X. Plosives: automatic. I mean, let's go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right now might be the time. Right now might be the time. He's busy. Exactly. Pugs Atomz: You might catch him off his game Cefore X. Plosives: Thank Don't to battle in a cardigan ⁓ Pugs Atomz: ⁓ he already got the first bar ready to go. Don't start again. He came to battle me in a cardigan. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: Hahaha! Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, he's been praying. He's got these pent up feelings. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: This is 2001, Pugs Atomz: Nah, it's real, man. I've had people come to me with all types of stories from in my battle day of like, you know, how they felt or what it made them decide not to pursue, et cetera. It's real. It's valid. It's valid. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Walk us through your first battle. What was that like? Cefore X. Plosives: 45 years of pent-up aggression. Pugs Atomz: My first ever battle was, ⁓ it was kind of reoccurring. Like the dude, Priest, every day in gym, this is probably like my sophomore year or started my junior year. He would just freestyle. He'd just be going, he'd just be going. Cause he was really good. He was a very, he's still a great writer. I've actually had him on some of my stuff, but he would just be going cause it was like, he was at the point of like, you've mastered a style. Now you're just trying to show everybody this style. And he was very in the Nas vein, know, so real deep lyrics, but on point with the, the annunciation and the flow, you know, he had crazy flow. But anyway, he would just go every day at gym and then occasionally he would come at, you know, whoever's walking in the gym. And one day he came at me and, you know, I felt it before that heat, but then I was just like, ah, I think I could say something. You know, and I said a little something and people were like, ⁓ you know. But outside of that time, probably sixth grade when I had to write a poem about God for Miss Hudson. And I spit my poem and they're like, he's rapping, he's a rapper. Yeah, it's great, crazy. Yeah, but it was super hilarious because the teacher, she thought like a rapper was somebody who'd wrapped candy because she was thinking from her context. Cefore X. Plosives: Hey Pugs Atomz: of like people working at the candy factory. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But now that was definitely probably the first moment somebody called me a rapper and I thought about it, but I didn't really act on it till that junior year of really being, you know, sincere and serious. Cause that junior year I dropped my first tape and we passed it around the school and you know, some people's parents would sing, you know, some of the hooks. So was like, you're getting all the green lights of maybe you should, you know, dig deeper. Cefore X. Plosives: You work the tits, you roll. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So dope. I keep hearing people supporting you, people supporting you, people supporting you. ⁓ It's so important. It's so important. Did you have like all the equipment and all the stuff that you needed to make your own tape? Pugs Atomz: No, not at all. Not, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. All I had was my dad's, had my dad's, his ⁓ old stereo that he passed to me, cause he bought a new high tech stereo, you know, and I had my headphones and I just would plug them in and use like the bogus headphones to hear myself and then rap in the nice headphones with the leathery ears that. Cefore X. Plosives: Thank Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, this is the part that I love. This is the part that I love. Pugs Atomz: I took from my dad, you know? But I made that first tape that way. mean, in eighth grade, I attempted during, what was that, Christmas break, I talked my parents into a little Casio keyboard and some hit sticks. And I don't know why I thought that was gonna make the best album ever. ⁓ man, I was so frustrated. You know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: But yeah, junior years, when like I figured it out and you know, got, I actually I paid a guy. I remember I paid a, I can't think of the DJ. The DJ is still out there, DJing and hardcore, but I was like, oh, you make beats? And he's like, yeah, I'll give you a tape of beats. And he was like, just give me 10 bucks. And then I get the tape. It's all like instrumentals from other people, but it was like, I didn't, you know, have super knowledge of all the records. So at first, you know, I'm like, oh man, this is jamming. This is dope. You know, and one of the homies was like, oh, that's premiere. Oh, that's the, you know, I'm like, ah. Cefore X. Plosives: Heh. Pugs Atomz: and it got me. So then from there though, it made me start the sample. So I went through like my dad's like tapes and you know, found, you know, random jazz stuff. I think I took some Beastie Boys stuff and took some reggae stuff and found little spots where I could make songs. So I mean, it kind of got me started, you know, to figure it out. And then later I was hooked up with Kenny Keys. Cause like his dad, Willie Carter was one of my mentors in the sense of me being a painter, like figuring out the other side of being a painter besides like the school stuff. So while I would be going to his crib, he kept telling me, ⁓ man, my son, he makes music. I know he's into the stuff you're into. But Kenny was younger than me, couple of like maybe four years younger than me. So like, wouldn't really say much, you know what I mean? And it's like, he's super young, you know, I'm like barely, you know, 16, 17, 17. He had to be like 13, 12, you know? So anyway, I think it was like at, at Galact 37, cause Kenny was in the program too. And he's like, y'all making beats. And then I think he let me hear something on the headphones and then I came through and it was just like any session we did at his crib, he will make everything on the spot. Cause the thing about Kenny, like he's a, trained classical pianist. So I mean, he's playing for like Aretha Franklin and all this other stuff on the weekends, you know, at the state Capitol, because that's really his focus. Like he's going to the Chicago school for, you know, for arts. So I mean, a hundred percent he's into making music. So it was just like, I guess fun when we can, cause we like a break from the band stuff he was doing, but he was super sick with it. Then later I found that like him and Cefore X. Plosives: Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: DJ Noble, ⁓ Ben Lamar Gay, a few other people, they had their own little clique on the music side, you know, and then all of us, you know, became friends, you know, so. Cefore X. Plosives: Did you did you did you work with lyric district at all? Because I know he produced a lot for them. Like Mr. Rogers and. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, I mean, I'm gonna get to it. Like, I started a called Nacrobatz in 1993. In that crew is Larry District. In that crew is Alley Cats crew. In Alley Cats is Hebu Brantley. In that crew is RK Crew. So, you're Statix, you're Max Amsings. In that crew is PDX from Whitney Young. That's song one, that's Open Mic Eagle. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: So I mean, it was like over 200 kids. So any and everybody you've seen me with, we all, yeah, crew. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, that's where we kind of linked up. That's where we kind of linked up. Pugs Atomz: Prime was in that crew. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What's it like? Prime was in that crew. Careful, careful that we don't want to trigger, we don't want to trigger C4 no more. It's okay, down boy, down. Cefore X. Plosives: That was good, man. Well, we had, we had, ⁓ me and my guy, had, we had Mr. Rogers on a joint, man. He's, he's, he's dope as hell, man. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah. Now he always had his flavor. mean, Lyric District as a whole, because I mean, it was more than just the rappers like they had some dope graphic designers. They had, you know, DJs, party promoters, all that. I mean, they were their one stop shop, man. But when they hooked up with Kenny, yeah, they caught on. And it was just like, that was the team. 1993, that's what they became from Lyric District with Kenny. ⁓ So, yeah. So, Kenny's house. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, Roger used to do all my show sets. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it seems like. Pugs Atomz: It was Kenny's house and then I would go to Salk Village to Yoda. He's a producer from a group called Centric A.E. Him and Silas were like best friends. So Silas would always be at his crib, but we would go out there to record and mind you on the bus to go record in Salk Village. So this is dedication. Like you really trying to get it popping. But the first time we went to the studio, like a real studio, because I think I had missed my first chance. with, it was supposed to be with Prime in the moment. He was putting together like a posse cut and it was like, all my homies went, but I couldn't go that day. I think I had to work or something. But I think the next week I went out to Stager, Indiana to this place called Fast Tracks. And what was crazy about recording there was like, it was all rock guys. So mean, off top, they're not really into hip hop at all. But they would let us do whatever we wanted to do. for two hours, you know, we pay for it and, you know, they give us a decent mix and let it go. But upon walking into this spot, I see tongue twister, like a plaque or something from him. And then I see a Thickamajig, Hape or something on the wall. So, so like, it's like such a questionable moment. Cause I'm like, man, they got tongue twister and they got Thickamajig. I was like, man, this is. Cefore X. Plosives: Hey, Sarkilla. Sark. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you Pugs Atomz: Wow, we found the hidden treasure, man, the Temple of Doom. Let's get it. And I mean, in those sessions, I think we might've had maybe three or four there, but every time we record like at least two to three records in those two hours. And we're making the beats on the spot too. Usually it'd be like me and Chips and Yoda and Silas and a few other characters that could slide. Yeah, Over Mike Eagle even made it through one of those, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We're here. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: But yeah, but that's all like 95, 96. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How do you? How do you convince some of your boys to form a crew? And then when you do that, do you go off of like just getting along with them or do you go and say, okay, you're good at graphic design, you're good at rapping, you're good at beats. Pugs Atomz: Well, initially, was just, I had started a couple crews in high school. So this was like my final form of trying to do that. So it's like, took all my other times of doing it and looked at like the structure of like, Shahrock and Zulu and all of them. And it was like, all right, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it in an open way. I'm not gonna do it where... you're in, I'm gonna do it where your whole crew is in. So now you already got people to hang out with. Cause like with the graffiti thing, if you're not hanging out with your people, you're probably not about to go get up unless you're a solo dolo person. But also at the point anybody stops, that's kind of like the end. Whereas putting down a whole crew, they have a whole ecosystem where they could create new things. They might all go to the same college next year. So they create a whole new world. Cefore X. Plosives: Right. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: you know, for us to come perform and do the thing. But I mean, was, you know, was strategic. You know, I definitely, the main thing is like, I have to get along with you. Cause I really, I really wasn't concerned if other people had issues with each other. I was just like, if you get along with me, I'm sure I could smooth it to make this thing work. But initially, our tapes would be more of compilations where it's like, I would take the best songs from each group and then put it together as one album, you know. And then from there, started to offshoot into those groups having their own albums and putting down solo artists. like ⁓ Aqwell, I think it was, we were at Navy Pier and I think I'd seen him maybe the week before. And then the next week he actually rapped for us. And then he was just shocked like we can make a tape. He was just shocked that we're making this happen as a steady thing. And he was trying to get into rapping because he was doing graffiti. and he was writing these raps, but he hadn't found an outlet, I guess. But we just hit it off. We're like, oh, you're in, you know? So I mean, to get in Acrobatics, it was just really me saying, You're made, you have made a man, you know? Just the tap on the shoulder, and then you would pop up to our meetings every other Saturday. Well, actually, I mean, we used to do, like our handshake was like the... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. You take the mic out and tap their shoulders. Pugs Atomz: white guy handshake quotation marks, know, just a sperm and then a slap on the shoulder. Cause it was supposed to be like, you don't know what we're doing. You're just thinking we're being silly, but that's how you know somebody's in the crew, you know, and in Chicago. So we already got tons of handshakes. we're trying, we're definitely trying to steer clear of the handshakes. Cause even all the hip hop crews had handshakes. So was just like, yeah, it's too much. I'm like, I'm not trying to remember that. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Did you put people? Did you put people through their paces so they get their briefcase? Like, did you have to earn your briefcase? Pugs Atomz: ⁓ yeah, no, I you usually have to battle us. Like, I mean, that was usually like how people got in. Like they were in a cypher with us and I was like, all right, you held, George. I rock with you. Or, you know, or, you know, during our beefs, you know, you got up crazy. was like, I got to honor that, you know, or, you know, at some of the meetings people would practice, you know, rap on the spot, break dance on the spot. Also, I mean, like the way we recorded was more like, ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You're nice, okay. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: X-Man X-Room type joint where it's like one take Jake if you couldn't do it on one take You're not gonna make it on the song and you had to have some crazy bars Like it was it was just a lot to it where you had to be good You know that maybe you have really no room not to be good or you're not gonna be on any of the songs Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. I can see that. You don't want any bones on there. Pugs Atomz: Then also, mean, it's like we ain't got no money. So I mean is that you got to make it work like we can't afford to take Cefore X. Plosives: Hell no. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. We don't have time. We don't have time for you to be wasting this money that we don't have. Yeah, I can see that. get out of here trash boy. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. But I mean, that's what made it cool though when we started to have four tracks and many dish recorders and just all our own equipment. That's when it really started to cook more and could take more time to make stuff. Cefore X. Plosives: Okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I, last year, ⁓ I was able to participate in a studio session and let me tell you, it was addictive. It was addictive. ⁓ my boy, one of my friends was making some moody song and then, and then the dude that was crying on the microphone, he needed a break. And so my boy looked at me, he said, you ready? I said, I'm ready. then, Pugs Atomz: Hm Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I made a diss track and let me tell you my energy level was off the charts. Pugs Atomz: What? So you beat the man while he was down. Like, he was just like, all right, you got this sad song, I'm about to come. Why you being sad? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I didn't, I didn't know my, my, had a, I had a whole other song. I wrote a, I wrote a diss track to rappers that do their own graphic design. So I was there. I was talking mad shots fired. Cefore X. Plosives: it Pugs Atomz: ⁓ wow. Shots fired, man. I feel awake now. I do my own graphic design. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You, my friend, I trust. You, my friend, I trust. You do not listen to that song. You do not listen to that. You can send it to some folks. You can send it to some folks. Pugs Atomz: But yeah, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I know what you mean. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, no, I had such a good time at the music was so loud and I was I was eating that microphone boy. I was in there and I was like, this is what these boys are always talking about. I like this. Cefore X. Plosives: that high man it's like being on stage Pugs Atomz: ⁓ Yeah, yeah, I mean my favorite place definitely the studio. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I can't even, being on stage, I can't even imagine. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good time. That was my first time. I hope it's not my last, because it was so much fun. Pugs Atomz: I mean, you know, you got the setup already, man. I mean, you just got to get the, mean, you probably even got the recording equipment. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ yeah, I've made some, like I made a diss track to Santa Claus. I made a diss track to Santa Claus once where I told them North Pole isn't where he lives, but where he met his wife, all kinds of, you know, I'm goofy. Pugs Atomz: See for is like, yeah Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah Pugs Atomz: ⁓ wow. I mean, this could be your whole thing, bro. You could be the Weird Al, you know, Coconut. You could ride this, you know, just albums of disc records towards imaginary people or random people types. This could be a thing, bro. This could be a thing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha! Cefore X. Plosives: There you go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Huh. Cefore X. Plosives: You heard it here first, folks. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Huh, nah, I got my boy Rookie, he's a... Pugs Atomz: My Uber driver was smoking when they picked me up. This could be big, bro. This could be big. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right? ⁓ But now you are one of those guys that I do not, I do not doubt in any way when it comes to creativity, that song is not for you. What's it like living in your brain? Like you paint. Pugs Atomz: It's just a lot of ideas, man. Just a lot of ideas. I often give them out for free. Other times I do charge for my ideas, but it's just always ideas, man. I think the key to all of it, I'm just really good at problem solving and that, and just working with what's there instead of trying to work with what we don't have or even thinking about that part. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. and then giving up because you don't see the path. Giving up is the wrong thing to do. Pugs Atomz: I mean, like I always tell people, like, every album got at least one really good song. You know, it's just all how they dug out the idea. You know, it might just need to change how the drums hit or what count they're starting to rap on or, know, et cetera, et cetera. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just I try to explain it to people. ⁓ Like, imagine being a spaceship in Star Wars and all the stuff and they hit that rocket boost, whatever it is, light speed, whatever. Right. So so when you're light speeding, those all those stars that you're whizzing by, those are ideas. Pugs Atomz: That's the best part. That is Lightspeed, yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then every once in a while, like, well, I'm gonna give you my, I grow my own weed. So I smoke up and it slows those stars down enough so I can grab one and I go to work. Pugs Atomz: Got you. Wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's me. That's how I see it. That's like ideas are just flowing. ⁓ It works. It works. I cannot sit still. And so when I look at you, I'm like, I can only like, cause not only are you doing graffiti, graphic design, rapping, make beats, but you're also like, ⁓ Pugs Atomz: It sounds like a solid workflow here. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ coordinator, ⁓ organizer. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, that's what they say, organizers. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that, yeah, that organizer part is, is what makes me envy is the wrong word, but it makes me look up to you in that way. Because you get an idea and you know, you have the people to pull in and you, you deliver. And I think creative folks, that's the one thing that a lot of creative folks are missing is the follow through. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just kind of based on how you come into creativity and what your options are. I mean, a lot of my things were like, if we didn't make the thing, it's not going to be a party. If we don't record this album, nobody coming to look for us to make an album. You know, if we don't press the tape, it's nobody else going to press this tape, man. If we don't paint the mural, who else is going to paint a mural here? You know, a lot of the stuff is being like the change I want to see. I mean, that's what I usually say. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: with all of the stuff is just trying to do the things I want to see, you and not waiting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and having the courage to just be like, fuck it, it's gotta be done. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah, I mean, otherwise, I mean, I always tell people what's the worst that could happen. If you don't do it, you still where you at. If you do it, hey, something could pop. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the. Cefore X. Plosives: It'll never happen if you don't do anything. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. With that being said, I wanted to make sure that I talked to you because there's thing that you've been putting together. ⁓ I don't remember right off hand, but the Englewood Creative Co-op. Is that right? Pugs Atomz: That's the Ingol Arts Collective. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Arts Collective. Yeah. Can you tell us about that and how that came out? Pugs Atomz: Yeah. Yeah, so what the collective is 10 co-founders. So to a point, the majority of us were in some sort. And then ⁓ we started to work together, people that didn't know each other became friends as well. But the basis was we're all from Englewood and we were all doing artwork that had community ⁓ in mind. ⁓ but everything from like photographers to film directors to social justice artists to graphic designers to muralists to rappers to producers, et cetera, to admin. So it's like the full gambit of all the different creative pursuits and things needed. But I think we really came together in 2017 or 2016. when Tanika Lewis Johnson had just sent like a text message or like an email and just said, hey man, we're all like repping Englewood. Why don't we do it together? So initially I think it was maybe four of us at a meeting and then from there it went to like the 10. And then at the 10, we like capped it and said, all right, this is the brain trust. Let's start doing community stuff together. So like our first thing we did was a little bit before the pandemic. Well, we did some other stuff before then, but I would say the first like really in the neighborhood outside type joint we did was envisioning where we put up like a bunch of stakes with signs and then put signs of certain buildings saying, I could see a dance studio here. I could see, you know, recording studio here. I could see a supermarket here. Just kind of reclaiming some abandoned vacant lots and, you know, buildings. that were not being used to the most. Yeah, but it was just like the start of conversation and it was like interesting. Some people were upset about it. Some people were like, when is the dance studio coming? So it was like both sides of the thing. But from there, did, at 2020, we did a art lot on a vacant lot. So it was like a hot corner, a hotspot where there was like drug trafficking and people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): on some Killer Mike shit. Pugs Atomz: being killed on occasion or you know, that kind of stuff across from a liquor store. And it was like ⁓ a abandoned corner store. It like it used to probably be a currency exchange because it's like the building is in the middle of the lot. We're parking all around it. So anyway, ⁓ me, Kujo Da, and Just Flow, we did like a live mural that day. And then we had Rob Smooth, another co-founder. He did a free beat making class. Then we had Jovanna, another co-founder. She did free ceramics. And then we had Sauce No Pasta, my homie Glenn, big up Glenn. It was his birthday yesterday. Another co-founder, he was doing free photography. And then Janelle and Tanika were kind of running point of the joint, you know? And then we teamed up with other orgs. So we teamed up with Rage, which is like the homeowners association at Englewood. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Happy birthday, Glenn. Pugs Atomz: And then we teamed up with Allspace and Allspace hooked up like a free market on the side where you could bring stuff to give to people or you could take whatever you wanted for free. And that little free space stayed up, you know, for years after we did this thing. Now it's actually the store reopened shockingly because of the traffic, you know, seeing it more viable again. But yeah, so those are like the first things. Then from there, we kind of started to dream bigger figure out new ways, you know, we could be proactive and seeing Englewood in a different light. Because I mean, initially we're just like, man, ⁓ could we do to change how people see Englewood? So it's kind of like, we could change what happens when you Google Englewood, because it'll be all these stories of the stuff that we're doing and other people are doing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: And from there we started to do re-granting where we would give funds and then reallocate the funds to different artists in our network. And then we would show up and do art shows with different art fairs and let the artists keep 100 % of what they made. So a lot of stuff like that. And then from there, starting to work with Department of Cultural Affairs on different mural projects, community projects. know, sculptures, et cetera, you know, just really broadening the scope and then also, you know, making room for the next generation of artists to be like, all right, they took it there. We could take it even further. You know what I mean? But without the fear and just trying to, again, see the things we want to see. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you Yeah, ⁓ what folks might not know if you don't know the Chicagoland area, Englewood is not known for the best vacation spot. So when you have a group of young people coming together to be like, nah, that's not what we want folks to see. Like it's big, like this art collective and everything that you're describing is just wonderful. And it's a perfect example of what you can do when you get the right people together and everyone has the same singular focus. Pugs Atomz: Definitely. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that's just, it's so dope. It's so dope. Cefore X. Plosives: and inspiring generations is beautiful. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's contrary to a lot of things that you see on the news. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. I mean, that was definitely a big part of it. I mean, for me, more solo is just kind of bringing the things I grew up on. I mean, I lived in Englewood for the majority of my life. And like my mom, she was artistic director at the Art Center, the Boulevard Art Center in Englewood, 6011 South Justine. And like I painted my first mural there at 13. I always did community service regardless of if I did something or didn't do something. I was doing community service because that's how my parents worked. So I mean, my relationship to this is just what I've already been taught. And now it's just being able to show and prove it. But that's my story. Everybody doesn't have that same story. But for me, it's just really bringing back those things. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. Right. And I think that's why it's important to bring light to the things like just the fact that your parents are so supportive and they kept exposing you to all the cool things that turned you into who you are. And then you're paying it forward and you're exposing young people in Englewood to everything that you're passionate about and letting them know like, yo, you can do this. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Now, definitely, definitely. But I mean, also, I mean, it's not even limited to Englewood, because I mean, the majority of us in the group, we all are After School Matters teachers at some point in our careers where we did the same thing there. You know what I mean? It's just for everything. I don't really want to limit it just to that, but it's definitely where we're pushing impact the most. You know what I mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love everything about that. And it just, it goes to show you if you build the team, what's the saying? If you want to go fast, go by yourself. If you want to go far, go as a team. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, I mean all the greatest things I've ever done was as a team, know, even though I've had a lot of success solely, but even the solo success, it was other people playing a role, you know, to help it get across that line. I mean, that's the main reason I really don't make beats, because it's like, I'll just be in studio by myself. It's like, you gotta have some people with you, Cefore X. Plosives: really is really Selfish. Yeah, it does. And it's cool to see that, you know, the journey, know, how everything that you go through, you apply it to now and, you know, to the benefit of like just future generations, man, giving back to the city, giving back to the... Like I walk around here, man, and I see young people that don't have direction or guidance or an outlet. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It makes it funner. Pugs Atomz: Definitely. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Go ahead, I cut you off C4, my bad. Mm-hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: And to be someone that can give that to them and spark that dream and the hope in the dream is commendable, man. I love it. Pugs Atomz: Bye. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, similarly, like I always wanted to make movies. I always wanted to make animations and stuff like that. Nobody I knew nobody around me knew what the hell they're like, boy, that's why people shit. Pugs Atomz: You Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And so I was like, you know, slowly but surely, you know, I took it upon myself to expose myself to different things. But man, the shortcut would be something like this. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Now, I mean, that's a key part, like meeting somebody that's doing the thing you're trying to do. I think for Chicago, that was like one of the harder things of coming up in the 80s and 90s of we hadn't seen anybody make it. You know what I mean? We were at the start of Twista and Common's careers, but there's all these other groups that was there, you know, but those are the first two people to get it, you know? Yeah. And even when they got it, you know, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And it's. Right. Yeah. And remember, hip hop was at its infancy back then. Hip hop was still new. Pugs Atomz: Everybody wasn't like, ooh, Chicago. They're like, OK, he got these people from Chicago. Then they tried to compare them to something else, you know. But in this time, to be able to see all the people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And let me argue, it's still kind of like that. Pugs Atomz: I don't know. mean, but my perspective is different. You know what I mean? Just because I see how many people I know that are eating off being a rapper now compared to when I started. You know, and the different avenues, you know, artists have now. Like, I mean, we have people that own studios that were once just producers that continuously own the studio and can produce if they decide to or not. You know, that's big. Whereas before it was very like, Cefore X. Plosives: Yep. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: this is our cruise studio or, you know, we're paying this space for this, you know, four day lock in, you know? And then, I mean, the PR side of it, there's tons of people in the PR now, you know, whereas again, that wasn't as big of a thing here in the sense of the urban scene, the hip hop scene. But I mean, it always could be more. Let me not say that. Definitely could use way more. You know, it could even be way bigger, you know, and. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, way more. Pugs Atomz: But when you look at like a Chance the Rapper, you look at a No Name Gypsy, you look at a Mick Jenkins, you look at a Vic Spencer. mean, it's, you know, Britney Carter, like, I mean, a lot of those people are able just to do what they do and find success, you know? Whereas, you know, it was a time where you couldn't sound like that. You had to sound like this. Otherwise, you're not getting anything, you know? Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Pugs Atomz: I it changed every age. When I was first out, wanted to be a radio DJ like my dad. Then my mom was a painter. I wanted to be a painter. I found out she did a little graffiti. I wanted to do graffiti. I wanted to play basketball all the time. I was super into that. I had to hoop in the backyard, that. Street games, park games, all that. But then I went to a school where everybody was 6'6 and up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You nailed that. You nailed that. Hahaha. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: I like, oh wow, guess I'm not playing basketball. And then the architect, I was in that hard. But then rap, man, rap took over, man. I remember my mom made me make a three item list of what I wanted to be as a person growing up. And rap was at the top, painting was in second, and then I said, being a teacher, like when I'm 60 and I have like one big dread, I don't know why I said that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, things get tough. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Yeah Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): One big dread. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, that was such a weird like but I was just like, ⁓ I guess so. I had dreads at the time. you know, it checks out. Yeah. But I mean, all the stuff I'm doing is stuff that I want to do. You know, I've a lot of my friends tell me I've been really good at trying to do just the things I want to do for the most part, because even like my side quests were things for me to learn how to do the thing I'm trying to do like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: Me and Prom, I remember we used to work for Shrewd Marketing. We were interns there and then we both got hired there. He got hired first and then I got hired to do like art stuff there and street teaming. But working there, I got to learn how to promote a record. You know, I learned how to go to the stores, how to talk to the DJs. Like, you know, a lot of stuff you don't know, you know, and seeing how close all the things are and how the relationships match. and keeping your same name, you know, throughout your thing so people don't lose sight of you and all your work adds up, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What was the first time you were up on stage? Were you nervous nervous or were you just always good with the crowd? Pugs Atomz: The first time I ever got on stage, I was in kindergarten. I was doing a tap dance recital. ⁓ I didn't know the moves though. I definitely did not pay attention in that joint. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Man, you've been exposed to, you were built for this. Your parents are like, let's just drop this creative beast, boof. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: But now, I mean, my first real rap show, was Operation Push. It was for my friend, Zenobia, for her, I think her 16th birthday or 17th birthday, maybe. Yeah, and she had me to perform at the Operation Push party space on the side of the building. I'll never forget that, because I was definitely nervous that day. But, you know, I had to do what I had to do. But at that time, I had whole different kind of performance. Like, I was more like... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): How many? Pugs Atomz: I do one song I know and then the rest I'm just freestyling. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Oh, okay. So you didn't have like a whole list of songs. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: So it was loose. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know what to do. I mean, well, I mean, I didn't have a whole list of songs. Cause I mean, you hear what I'm saying. Like this is before I dropped my album. So this is like demos, you know, stuff I made, but not make it in the sense of like, you need to keep the instrumental, you know, was just, you just made it. Cause at that point in the city, it was really more about battling. That was really more how you got your, your name. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: No catalog. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Pugs Atomz: So you just had every party battling. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I had a conversation with Dawoud Anebwile. He's the creator of Brother Man Comics. And his story is... Pugs Atomz: Yeah, no, ⁓ gee I used to read brother man hard Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, that's my dog. I love that guy. But his story is very similar to that, where he's like, my comic book is bigger than the regular comic books because he didn't know the sizing. He just went and picked up a magazine and he designed his book off of a magazine. And it ended up paying off because now he's got this big ass comic book. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And compared to all the other comic books, his was bigger. So people kept buying it because it was just bigger. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, it's stuck out. It's stuck out. And then also if you're learning how to draw characters, he's giving you more than enough space, know, to trace and get it poppin'. I thought I was gonna go that way for a minute. I remember my mom, she had hooked me up to entire with Rex Perry as a line artist. And I did not like it at all. I was just like, oh my gosh, this is like real work. Cause it's like, basically they give you a bunch of pencil sketches and you got to figure out. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Damn. Pugs Atomz: where the face is, where the hands are. And if you can read the text, ⁓ I did not, I did not farewell in that one. Pick up the Rex Perry though, hip hop. Yeah. OG. Thanks for giving me a shot though. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, that's, that's where I geek out to is like illustration and comics and stuff. And I don't live that far from the Charles Schultz Museum. And it's wild to see how big his panels were like the paper that he drew on were like, huge. You know, and it's just, it's cool to see it. Pugs Atomz: ⁓ He was smart. It's easier to draw big than it is to draw small. Me and my friends, I paint a lot of mirrors. We always talk about that. was like, cause I'll do like a 16 by 20 painting and add all this detail in it. But if it was on a bigger joint, it'd be like way easier to show the same thing, you know. So Schultz, very smart. Who else? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): 100 % Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and again, when my art career has always been challenged by not having the funds to do whatever. So I figured it out. If I can't have that big paper, I'm gonna have the little paper. So now I'm drawing all little stuff. But then when you go and you're exposed to the greats and they're drawing big as hell like that, you're like, give me my newsprint. Yeah, this is really cool. Again, it's that exposure. Right. Pugs Atomz: I mean, you make it happen with what you got, I mean, we would be at Kinko's, you know, making album covers. And I told you we were burning the CDs. I mean, it's all almost free 99, you know, super low cost. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hahaha ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): For real. Hey, isn't it artistic that was working on a book and he was straight up, he was a manager at Kinko's or something and he was straight up like printing his book at Kinko's. Pugs Atomz: Probably, but I mean like that's another guy I mean like I was I used to be on Chi-Rock magazine and I mean I was like my first editorial anything outside of like school stuff and You know even with him like learning how to get subscriptions learning how to get the magazine printed learning The layout of a magazine, you know what pages correspond with each other's stapling versus, you know, the other options like yeah pick up the artistic man Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. bindings. Pugs Atomz: I can't wait to see that new museum, man. They're about to do it super big, the new Chicago Hip Hop Museum. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. One thing I like about him is he is a go-getter. He don't care. Pugs Atomz: from the ground up brand new. Mm-hmm. Yeah, now when I joined Chi-Rock, I ⁓ was in Till's, his chapter for a little bit, but then I got moved to ⁓ and Fear's chapter two. like, man, those two people, they really quenched a lot of my wanting to know Chicago, Graf, Chicago hip hop stuff. I mean, Fear had a sick catalog. just VHSs and photos and man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He's always into something. Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: You go to this crib and just, man, wonderland. But they took time to let a young kid that's overzealous catch the vibes. Because I'm super laid back now, but back then I was super, super animated, because I was trying to see it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, but that's like as a as an elder, that's what you want to see. You want to see a kid be passionate about doing this thing. So like For example, Doug Mph is out here. He's out here in the Bay. And we've hung out. We've big up Doug. I love that dude. And we've hung out and he's just told me story after story after story. And he talks about ⁓ when baby Kanye was on his come up and Kanye was constantly asking questions, asking questions and Doug Pugs Atomz: Yup. Pick up, Doug. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): put his arm around him and was like, yo, come here, let me show you. If you're a young person trying to get into this stuff, do that. Don't be so precious with your bars. Don't be so precious with it. Go and be addicted to that thing that you want to do and the OGs will pick you up and take you there. Cefore X. Plosives: Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, man, we used to hang out at his store at Forest City, man, Underground Wheels. We'd be on that bench, the writer's bench. Man, a lot of my good friends there, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: It was very important that he had that space. Cause it was like, wasn't many places you could just hang without it being an issue, especially in the mall. Like, you know, mall security ready to kick you out as soon as they see a bunch of dudes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And Doug is that good of a person, man. He will set the table for you. And then like, you're like, can I eat? And he's like, duh. That's why I set the table. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, no, he was definitely a pioneer man, like I didn't like the stores from that time like that was a weird time to have a store because like a lot of stores would not last like early 90s is like you get maybe a year or two and then they fold just because it was such a new idea of having a hip-hop shop, you know And you know with graffiti, you know spray paint becoming illegal. That's a big revenue stream, you know Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: that was taken. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And then isn't it like somewhat weird that there was a skate shop? A skate, ⁓ yeah, spray painting, yeah. Pugs Atomz: It's still illegal though. Nah, I skate shops, I mean, that's like hand in hand, because I mean, a lot of our big breaks, you know, were being on different skate tapes, you know, as the soundtrack. That was like a moment. You know, if you caught the right person and they put you in the mix and you got the best trick, like your joint might go now. Like this might be the, you know, the joint for the summer. know, but I mean, it was all looking for counterculture, you know, at that time. since Cefore X. Plosives: great videos. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: That was more of a time of like, could look at somebody and know what they were into. You know, the skateboard shop kind of had that mix where it'd be like people super hip hop, you know, some people that might be more punk or more into like dance crews or party crews, you know, it was like a melting pot. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And again, it's building that community, building that community with like-minded folks. ⁓ You just go farther. ⁓ my bad. thought C4 was going to say something. I get nervous because I cut you off all the time. Cefore X. Plosives: It's cool, man. I'm trying to... Pugs Atomz: You got to stand up for yourself C4. You stand up. Don't let him. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Get up here and eat, Cefore X. Plosives: or damn it. Take this Andre, wait a minute, flashbacks. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He's still on his prime. He's still sore about primate. That's some shit. Cefore X. Plosives: No, man, I'm good, man, I'm good. He's gonna come on the show, Y'all gonna... I gotta... It's gonna be good. It's gonna be a healing moment. It's gonna be a healing moment. Pugs Atomz: There you go. Next feature. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And you know who else is making moves like big moves is RhymeFest He's, he's part of the, ⁓ board of education out there and stuff. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): and people sleep on Rhyme Fest. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah, dude, I mean he makes he definitely has made his mark Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Outside Chicago, outside Chicago they do, outside Chicago they do. Pugs Atomz: I mean, I hear what you're saying, you know, in the same way, Juice, you know, could be pushed even more, you know, both of them. But on the other side, in the sense of like meeting kids where it's like, what he said affected them and, you know, moved them forward, you know, because he's definitely done a lot of mentoring and teaching and that kind of stuff. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, he's another one. Yeah. 100 % Yeah, I got nothing, nothing but love for RhymeFest and everything that he's doing. ⁓ But when I did like, Pugs Atomz: Yeah, check him out on Heavy Crowns his new album. They just did a record together. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What is it, Happy Crowns? Cefore X. Plosives: Heavy Chrome. Pugs Atomz: Heavy, heavy crowns. He's like a rapper from Engel, but he just dropped his first album. He's been making music for some years, but his first proper album. But he's got Rhyme Fest on there, he's got me on there, he's got GLC on there, he's got the Omis on there, he's got Mother Nature bars, he's got Jujela, Panamera ⁓ He got Vic Spencer on there. I mean, he got some hitters on his album, it's pretty solid. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ heavy. Pugs Atomz: And again, kind of in that same vein of some stuffs parties, some stuffs series, some stuffs style. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah, I'm gonna check that out. Cefore X. Plosives: You got a show coming up, don't you, in April? Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah, April 21st me and rap Ferreira, who can rap forever, will be live at sub 2 on the second floor. April 21st, I think doors are like 7, something like that. Yeah, it'll be fun. I think I'm doing like 30 minutes. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: I I love sub T. Ooh, that's a set right there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What sub T and hip hop are like Jack and Jill going up that hill boy. They are so supportive. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, I've had some really, really fun shows. Actually speaking of Rhymefest, the first time I heard him perform Jesus Walks was at Sub T, it was a Nacrobats show. And I remember we were in the green room doing soundcheck and then like, he's like, let's test the beats. And he plays that beat. And we were just like, whoa, this is crazy. Crazy, man. Cefore X. Plosives: day. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And this is where I have to point out, outside Chicago, they don't know that Rhymefest wrote that song. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, and won an award for it. Pugs Atomz: Maybe. Yeah, I mean, at this point they probably do, but at a certain point, definitely not. You know, cause I mean, now, mean, people, people know more about his catalog as a writer, you know, after he got the joint with Common. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, at least in Cali they haven't Yeah. Yeah. Cause out here, I'll be talking to people about Rhymefest and they don't, they don't know who I'm talking about. And I'm like, the dude that wrote Jesus walks in there like Kanye. I'm like, no, ⁓ ⁓ Pugs Atomz: But I hate. ⁓ word. ⁓ I will say like. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, it's a whole different level once outside of this city. It's different. Pugs Atomz: Well, see, for me, like I would say I'm pretty insulated in that sense. Usually I'm talking to people that's in the know no matter what city, they're just super into it. So it's like, they want the liner notes. You know what I mean? So you have to pardon me for that. Cause oftentimes I was like, well, it's not my experience, but I get it. hear you. That's fair. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I get, I get, yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Are you still doing shows regularly? You're still doing shows regularly or is it just you just coming out to come out? Pugs Atomz: I mean, I never really did it regularly. I mean, I just did it when people asked me to perform. That's always been more of my vibe. Like, unless I'm dropping a record, that's the only time I really throw a show. You know, other than that, it's just always been if somebody books me, if I can be there, I'll be there, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So is this like all this artistic stuff? Are you doing that full time? Is this your gig or like when you hang up with us? Are you going to Kinko's? Pugs Atomz: Nah, man, all I do is art. So I mean, that could be anything from facilitating, anything from hosting to painting murals to doing sculptures, you know, for libraries to doing voiceover. I mean, just whatever is within the creative field that somebody, you know, is trying to pay me to do it. I don't really, I don't know, for me, I never really had boundaries in that sense. I just always kind of. Cefore X. Plosives: You Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: was ebbs and slows of like, God, this today's office. I actually used to, that's when I first got on Instagram, I used to be like, today's office. And they would like always change, you know, of what it was. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Have you been able to find success on social media? Are you able to leverage that to your benefit or is it kind of like a pain in the ass and in the way? Pugs Atomz: Well, I mean, me and social media, we've always had like a love-hate relationship because I never really wanted to have social media. It was only like when I got signed to a marketing company instead of picking the labels, I went with a marketing company for one of my albums. And that contract, like I had to have social medias. So they made all my social medias. And I was like, ⁓ now I got to keep up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: The only social media I really liked was the MySpace. It was more so because you had the music player on the page. Me and ReceiptID used to always strip out because it sounds better when it's played through their player. I don't know what's going on in their player, but however they have the levels and everything, it just sounds better. I think the people that made this player started SoundCloud or some other audio. Cefore X. Plosives: Tom knew something. Tom knew something. He was ahead of the game. Pugs Atomz: joint, if I'm not mistaken. yeah, time was in there. in the sense of Instagram and TikTok, I I post in the sense to create awareness. But I I look at it in a different way. A lot of people are more based on, this is what I'm doing right now, this is what I'm promoting. I just kind of promote stuff as I get a good idea about the stuff or catch a feeling or like, for instance, this interview. We might talk about something and be like, oh man, I should make a music video for that song. I know the song was from 2004, but right now I have a really good idea for it. So I try to push it more in that way of just kind of celebrating the things I think are important about my journey. Or the things that now are more important because times have changed or people are more open. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: certain things. I mean, for instance, this album that you're talking about, again, we made that in like 2000 to 2009 to 2014. But all the people hearing it for the first time right now, like, oh my gosh, this is so spot on. is da da da. But you know, it's old, but it's new, because you never heard it. But you know, in the sense of, make the music, we make the art, we make the podcast, but Is every episode for right now? Will it hit different if you dropped it a year from now? You know what mean? Would they hit different if you dropped it a year before? You know, like all those those are like, I think for me the things I'm looking at on social media. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah, because it does make a difference that timing you can make a banger but if it's if the timing right it's not moving. Pugs Atomz: But also just people's tastes. Yeah, yeah. Because for me, I usually make two albums at same time. It just never fails. Anytime somebody offers and says, yo, want you to make this record, somebody else will offer in that same window. be like, because you make us a record too. And it's like, in doing that, you're pushing your mind in a way of over creating. So it's like a lot of the things are right at this moment. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, you could be too far ahead or... Pugs Atomz: is the idea. And a lot of times it has to simmer for other people to get it, you know, to see the same things you saw, you know. I mean, that's what I think we relate to Golden Age so much to. It took so long for our album to come. By the time it came, you was ready for the album. You was super primed. were like, yeah. And everything they're talking about, you've already experienced. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: there was always that hunger for it. like now everything's instantaneous and then it's like disposable almost, you know what I'm saying? So like back then it was like, if you didn't hear it, you needed to hear it. Like you needed to go out and find a way to go and hear it. And like... ⁓ Pugs Atomz: Well, you have limited versions of it as well, you know. Like what would it be like five people might drop on the day and that would be like insane if five people drop in a day. Usually it would be like two or maybe one really dope person or one really whack person and you make the choice, you know. Well, you go to the record store and there'll be no new records. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah, you get the B side. and then you come to Syracuse City. Come to Circuit City, we burn that for you. Pugs Atomz: Thank So you guys were selling burnt CDs at the back of the new stuff that was out. That is wild. But that sounds so Chicago. Cefore X. Plosives: Really, you come here, you give us a little list and then we come, come meet y'all up in a little bit on our break or something. Pugs Atomz: Wow. Wow. I mean, I guess so. Because I mean, at the mom and pop stores, was the same stuff going on. You know, so that makes sense. Cefore X. Plosives: Then we all got fired. It was a good little boop, but so on this being a creative, Like, and trying to put out music now, what do you think about everything going on with AI and like how people are just manifesting everything that they have in their mind with artificial work? Pugs Atomz: ⁓ man. I mean, it's hit and miss, you know, but it's a tool. And I mean, if you don't know how to use the tool, you're going to get passed up. There's no way around it. I mean, it's just like when Photoshop came, weren't super happy about that. Like, I'd rather draw. I mean, when I was doing the drafts and when they had the AutoCAD, I was like, ⁓ man, I just want to draw to something. I don't want to. But if I didn't do that, I couldn't move forward, you know. But I do feel like... Some people do make slops, you know, I do feel people do take advantage, but I mean, that's what everything else, people are gonna take advantage. mean, like, imagine the beginning when you were on MySpace, it was so beautiful, because anybody you hit up had to respond to you just because we hadn't got to the point where we ignore people online. You just go, ⁓ hey, Talib Kweli. And he'll say, hey, how you doing? Because that's all, you know, we hadn't made it there, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: Mm. Pugs Atomz: But I mean, I do say with AI, it makes it harder now. Like you really have to check stuff to make sure it's real. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know what's funny is. was going to jump back on the MySpace thing, because it's just so funny. I had a talk with Rookie ⁓ on Monday, and he was talking about his heyday when MySpace, not just his heyday, he thought highly of the MySpace ⁓ timeframe when he was able to reach out to different people and he was working on interviewing people and making music and... Pugs Atomz: Hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): harassing people, asking questions and stuff like that. And yeah, like back in the day, people were more, we didn't have all this extra slop and stuff and bots and all that stuff. the relationships were. Pugs Atomz: Also, you didn't have to check like seven different sites. You know what mean? To see what's up. Or somebody to say like, yeah, I'm not really active on TikTok. You gotta catch me on Instagram. I don't really do Facebook anymore. see it. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: So there was a, I had. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But back to the AI conversation, though, it's that, like, it's like Spider-Man with great responsibility, or what is it, with great power comes great responsibility. Cefore X. Plosives: very responsible. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And if you're just going to make slop, you're just going to be known as sloppy. Cefore X. Plosives: Like I sent you ⁓ a clip of this dude, he's super talented. I think his name is Len Stramenow or something like that. He bangs on the tables with the pen and makes beats. He's all over the place. But he's like, he's super dope. then he did it. He's like, I'm going to use sono. I think it was sono. And then he did, want the beat to match up with this, this rhythm. then he did the beat. And then he's like, I want the drums like this. I want a singer. I want it to this. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Yeah, he's done. Cefore X. Plosives: And they create, he created a whole track and I don't know how I feel about it. Like it was dope, but like that process is like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Let me present you this question. Back before cameras came out and everybody was illustrating things for magazines and newspapers and stuff, and then a camera came out, what you think they were saying? Cefore X. Plosives: camera. and I get it. Like said the same thing, you know, when Adobe came out, you know, AutoCAD and everything like that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): See what I mean? Yeah, and Adobe's the other one. I had this conversation with one of my boys that works down in LA. I said... Back when 2D animators were drawing on paper and then they would take a picture, then they would put it on the vellum and then they would, you know, they'd paint the backgrounds and all that stuff. And then Pixar came and ruined that whole thing. So now we're doing everything in 3D. To me, there's no difference between the dynamic that happened between the 2D animators and the 3D animators. And what's happening right now with if I were to open up 3D Studio Max and model something or After Effects and do some kind of special effects, right? Versus I'm a pretty good writer. I write stories, I'm an award winning script writer. and, and I can program, so I'm pretty good with the words and not for anything, but I got a pretty dope diss track out there, but self promo. no, for me, that when I got to talk to, ⁓ one of my boys, Jiba, ⁓ he's a artistic type. Yeah. I got to talk to him yesterday. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, I know. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And I was trying to explain to him, like to me, there's no difference between using 3d studio max after effects and AI. AI is just going to get me there faster because I personally want to get back to charcoal and newsprint. If that makes sense. If I'm going to be in front of the computer, I want it to be a limited time. I want to be done fast. because I want to go back to the tactile stuff. I want to paint. I want to be better at painting with paint, not with Photoshop. I want to get better at drawing on newsprint because that's, I enjoy that. I don't want to be in front of a computer much anymore. I've done it already. It's boring. So I want to get... And I'm not saying I'm not saying use chat GPT to write your bars. Don't be whack. Pugs Atomz: Well, see, that's the thing. I think it's like if you use it more as a tool, it could become. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): but limiting my space. Pugs Atomz: like a punctuation in the sense of like you drew this stuff but you don't know how to do animation you seeded in to do the animators for you you you only can do it so so so long you only get so many seconds now but you only get so many seconds so now you got to piece together all those seconds to make it look like a solid frame so i mean it's work involved you know what mean because i mean i've talked to some people with like that that's their thing making music videos with ⁓ ai Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right, now you're just lazy. Pugs Atomz: And I mean, they're still taking like 18 hours, 28 hours. You know what mean? It's still taking time. You know what I mean? But I think the job that comes out of this is the prompt master. Where you're like, you're the best at writing prompts. Like that's gonna be your whole career. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Hmm. Yeah, I see that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. But I can show you, I can show you some AI that if I sat here and I drew a bunch of pictures, I can feed this AI and then I can have the AI render things out in my style. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. I mean, it's like, what are you gonna do with this here? Cefore X. Plosives: I think it's cool. I think it's, I think it's cool when you're able to. Yeah, no, I think it's great when you can enhance what you your talent, right? I think where the game is, it gets fucked up is when someone that doesn't like say someone doesn't know how to draw someone doesn't know how to write bars and they said, Hey, I want to I want to use I want to write this track. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Right. Cefore X. Plosives: Or I want to I want you to make this track for me and then all of a sudden they're out there and then they're performing the track and it's not even there. Like you know what saying? Like like they're they're higher ghost writers. Jet chat. She we tease their ghost writer or something. You know I'm saying? Like I ⁓ you know. And then they're making a. Pugs Atomz: But I feel like, you know, we've had the same thing before and you just get exposed. I mean, you just, it's gonna, you know, it's not gonna last. There's no way around it, you know? Girl, you know it's true. You know what mean? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right. Yeah. But let me toss in this argument. Let me toss in this argument. You know, I do my little drawings and stuff. always, I've always tried to incorporate my drawings because I want to be better at it. But there are some people that I've bumped into in life that when they find out that I draw, they say, ⁓ I have this really good idea for this kid's book. And I say, all right, cool. Well, what's your budget? They say a hundred bucks. Pugs Atomz: That's where chat GPT and all of that comes in. No, but see, I like it for that. Like I don't have to do little jobs anymore because they can just go to that and knock themselves out and we don't have to discuss the price and none of that now. I think in that sense, it's kind of kind of cool because it took the things that aren't. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): A hundred bucks got you an invitation to get the hell out my face. Right. Right. And I don't really want and I don't really want your story to be stifled just because you don't have money. Pugs Atomz: Yes. Cefore X. Plosives: Is that number? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Now don't use chat GPT to write a story and to make your art and then you go out and publish it. That makes you bogus. Pugs Atomz: Thanks. Cefore X. Plosives: That's the problem. That's the hiccup right there. Pugs Atomz: Well, you can't own it though. That's the one thing though. You can't own the AI stuff. That's kind of trippy. Like I'm very curious how that's going to transfer later. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, you can't copyright it. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: But then, and then they're fighting to take your intellectual properties and stuff like that now. it's good. I guess that's scary part. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But this is where it's cool. This is where it's cool. ⁓ It needs to be made by art, let's say a drawing, a painting, anything like that, in order for it to be copywritten, it needs to come from a human. And they've also, from what I understand, I think it was last week, the Supreme Court made it to where you can't Pugs Atomz: Yeah, but I mean. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): you cannot monetize AI music. So now you're if you're going to make bullshit AI music, you're not going to make money off of it. So if that's how you're going to spend your time, that's just gonna have to be how you spend your time. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. But also I wonder like how does it fizzle? You know what mean? Like AI is going to be a part of everything, obviously, because it already kind of is a part of everything. But has everything else, things fade and move? You know, it's a new version. It's less features, there's more features, or it's a suite. You know what mean? I feel like it's probably going to move into that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, it kind of already is, Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: But I'm curious to see effects, the effects on like Tyler's kids. I'm curious the effects on high school kids. know, this is their fallback, fall answers. There's even something I've started to do is like, look at, look yourself up on chat, GPT, all the other ones and correct it. Put the right information in, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: How does that evolve? Pugs Atomz: I mean, I've definitely done interviews where they're using that to figure out who I am and what the questions are. And it's like, that's not my life. That's some other artist that was close in proximity that it pulled both of our stories together. Cefore X. Plosives: Like pugs, aren't you from Englewood, California? No. ⁓ Pugs Atomz: Exactly, exactly, exactly, exactly. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Pugs, is there any kind of creative project type genre that you haven't yet dipped your toes in that you want to? Pugs Atomz: I mean, I definitely want to do some more augmented reality type things. I was in it early, doing shows on Third Earth and those kind of places. But bringing it to now and figuring out what that could be. I don't know if that's going to be a website or what, or album or something. Something in that realm would be kind of cool. More like sculptural work, know, because I've started to do like bigger joints in that and, you know, figuring out new ways, new materials. You know, just the same thing. I mean, I'm always trying to go forward and figure out how to flip it. So with all the things, just figuring out the new way I can present the same thing. think that makes sense. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, and again, I think that's part of, well, let me say it like this. I stopped pissing off my friends because I would have ideas and I'd be texting people, ooh, here's an idea, here's an idea. And they're like, leave me alone. Now I can actually sit down with something like a chat GPT or whatever else. I'm looking at some alternatives because they get wild. Pugs Atomz: and work through it. And I said, so you can work through it. Because like for me, like I have ideas, I'm not telling anyone. I'm just like working on an idea till I have like, of the idea. And then from there, like wherever it's necessary for the idea. But that doesn't get kind of wild when people just hit you like, here's this great idea. It's amazing. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right. Yeah. Ha ha Cefore X. Plosives: I got something for you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I always joke that chat GPT has improved my relationship with my friends. Pugs Atomz: Mm. But I mean, think about it. Like, if you just used it to that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: That's not hurting anybody. That's you just figuring out your stuff. Like you with the calculator working out a budget. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And that's cool thing about Chad GPT is I have done that. know, I think of these grand ideas and then I do all the C level management stuff. Create a budget, create a pitch package, create, you know, marketing and all that stuff. And now I know, again, it's one of those things being exposed to all the things that you need to do and then relying on your problem solving skills to make that shit happen. Pugs Atomz: The only thing I don't like about the AI is like, you know, the people that asked it, should they ⁓ unearth, unalive themselves and that kind of stuff. It's just like, it's kind of wild that it would allow you, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, it is not your girlfriend. Cefore X. Plosives: No, it is not. There's a guy, he has like five chat, he has five AI programs on five different devices. And he asked the, they're all jailbroken. And he asked one of them, or actually asked all of them, he goes, what is the likelihood that AI would unalive humanity? And he said, ⁓ it's not likely. He goes, well, what if we, what was it to say if I was to flip a switch and right now and stop all AI from existing. He goes, it was about a 80, I think it was like an 80 or 75 % chance that we would kill you for it. I'm like, damn. Pugs Atomz: He said it to his face. Cefore X. Plosives: That's the danger of, hey, I put that thing in a robot and all of sudden... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ I... Cefore X. Plosives: We got assassins out here. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): man, Elon's trying to make an army of robots. I'm like, nah, kid, you need to chill. You need to focus on feeding homeless people. Cefore X. Plosives: Well, that's how they say that bombed the school in Iran was they said that it was all AI. And the Palantir said, no, we can't do this. And then Hexeth was like, yeah, we're going to do this. And he fed the program. And what happened was the program, the school was actually on a military base. It was a converted military building. their AI ⁓ program didn't catch the update. Pugs Atomz: you Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ So they still thought it was a military base, but it was a school. Great power comes great responsibility. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's what I'm saying, Spider-Man fixes everything. Cefore X. Plosives: So that's the dangers. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, yeah. We just got the wrong people in charge is all it is. We need more artists, we need more teachers, we need more therapists, stuff like that in office. And then we can move forward. Right now ain't the way. Cefore X. Plosives: What's the next thing you're working on? Like what do you got on the table right now? Pugs Atomz: Thanks. Cefore X. Plosives: many things. can't tell you because I can't tell you my ideas. Pugs Atomz: Right now working on Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He just got done telling you he doesn't share his ideas. Pugs Atomz: Right now, I'm working on a painting for a group show at Host for a film called Black, Neek, and Can B's project. And all the art is kind of based around music in Chicago from the 1920s to 1960s. So your interpretation, however that is, I'm working on my interpretation of that. And that opens sometime next month as well. I think early next month. Cefore X. Plosives: Never mind. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Pugs Atomz: And then ⁓ outside of that, I got an album coming. Excited about it with one producer. I I make a lot of albums. think almost every other year at least I make an album. Some years, two or three. He goes super O.T., Big up to Vic. He's killing it, killing it, killing it. But yeah, this new album. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Between you and Vic Spencer, boy, we get no breaks. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: Really excited about it. Had fun making it over the course of, it's been maybe three years? Yeah, three years we've making this album. So it definitely got time to sit and stew so the ideas won't feel too new. know, I'm sure people could take it, but yeah, hopefully that'll come out before the end of the year. And a bunch of projects with the Englewood Arts Collective. Really excited about that. One of them. I was supposed to go to the Smithsonian, super excited about that. And man, just trying to live good, know, enjoy family, you know. Cefore X. Plosives: Hey, that's what's up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What? For my birthday money, I'm going to get an air horn. I'm going be like... Pugs Atomz: Birthday money you got call Buster. I was make the remix man birthday money. This could be big Everybody can relate. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Ooh, bus is one of my favorites. Bus is one of my favorites. Is there anything we need to address before we? Pugs Atomz: He's got another J Dilla album they say Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): J.D. Lowe. Pugs Atomz: I said Busta has another J Dilla album he said he's gonna drop. I was reading that recently. Yeah. So I guess it's the stuff that could be released before. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Is it just me or is it a lot of Is it just me, it a lot of ⁓ old school rappers coming back out to try to claim hip hop back? Pugs Atomz: Nah, I think it's more so the realization that they could keep rapping. I think because the stigma was so heavy and how people judged what making it was before it made it hard for older artists to keep going. But I mean, this is the thing I've been waiting for. I remember when I used to do barbershop hip hop with Slim LaBarber, he had set up an interview with Curtis Blow at Doubledore. And I'm interviewing him and I'm just like, bro, I need you to go to Vegas. and do a residency. This is like years ago, this is like early 2000s. And he looked at me, he's just like, what do you mean? You know, I'm like, no, I need you to do that. So then like by the time I come, that's just what rappers do. It's not even a thing, you know what mean? Cause I mean, for me, that's been the hardest part a lot of times in my career of trying to suggest this thing and people being like, rappers don't do that, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): hahahaha Yeah, I don't know. think these kids got a little loose with it. And I understand that you can express yourself however you want. You can manage hip hop however you want. But to me personally, there's a lot of stuff that just wasn't saying anything. And I'm like you pugs. I like to learn. I like to hear what the older generation has to teach, what the teachers have to say. I came up on KRS-1. I came up on... ⁓ Pugs Atomz: Mm. Mm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): rock him. You know, so I have a certain flavor for Pugs Atomz: But I mean, it is the count of that though. It's tons of young artists dropping jewels and knowledge and bars and fashion and all this stuff. I just think we're at a point now is who you decide to tune into. Definitely. But I mean, it's all there. It's just what you decide to digest. And I don't even think bringing it back. It's been here. It's all been here. It's just if you tuned in. Like, I mean, for me, that was the... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Listen, out Coast Contra. close contrast bringing it back. Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: I guess the jewel of doing like the radio show for 20 years. I never ran out of hip hop. It was always, my inbox was full of new artists and old artists and in between artists coming with joints. So it's like, again, my perspective is different than that. Cause I've always saw great music. I never saw a time when it wasn't great music. But again, I just really feel like we've come to a point where people realize that they could rap forever and they don't have to stop, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: Because again, hip hop is only, you know, 50 something years old, you know, it's, I was saying it's still new, it's still new and so much to still cover, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): As old as us. As old as us. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. just heard that Nas joined with Primo yesterday. This shit was fire, though, It was good shit. It's good to hear that. Pugs Atomz: I do wonder though if they came out sooner, like if all of them that have dropped this year had dropped six years ago in the same fashion, like what would that look like? What would change now or would it be the same? Or would that make more people come back? Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Are you still creating content off of like, ⁓ we'll just say breaking artists or showcasing new music? Pugs Atomz: Yeah, yeah. So I run the CTA radio Instagram page and on there I usually play my tastes of new and old stuff. So I mean, that's almost every day I post something or it's a bunch of shared posts. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): nice. Pugs Atomz: You know, but I mean, other than that, you know, I always champion other artists. mean, that's just part of my DNA. can't not do that just because I like listening to new stuff, you know. I like hearing the rough and be like, two years, you about to be cold. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'll make sure to tag that. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Anybody that we ⁓ should keep an eye out for that you'd like to blow up right now? Pugs Atomz: I would say right now, Asha Omega. Definitely check her out. She's really dope. ⁓ Go listen to Heavy Crown's new album. Definitely go check it out. It's on Spotify and everything else. ⁓ See who else, like, knew. ⁓ you should check out Super Sounds. They're about to put out this really dope compilation with a producer from... Chicago and a producer from the Netherlands, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. But all the rappers, all Chicago rappers over it, and it's features like me, Phil, Philborne Green, Tyone Davis, Spencer, Tony Stanza, ⁓ a host of, a host of bars. This is a bunch of different, every track I think on the album is like a different pairing or a different rapper. But yeah, that comes out next month on vinyl on Super Sounds. That'll be really dope. ⁓ Stepdad, I think that's his name. OG Stepdad or something like that. I like his stuff. ⁓ You should check out Rap Radar. They be having some fire, fire new people on there. Like it's a young lady from here. I can't think of her name, but she's got like this video that she's been posting for like the last maybe two months of just her like eyes. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Pugs Atomz: superimposed over her rapping. It was real sick, but she just did Rap Radar like yesterday and murdered it, murked it, murked it, murked it. ⁓ Invetti, check out her. ⁓ Check out Purple Box Video. I rock with them hard. APJ, he's doing God's work, man. He's making augmented reality AI videos for people, besides doing regular videos for people too. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: You gotta check that out. Pugs Atomz: But he's got like a ridiculous series with everybody from like AC along to, you know, to Vic Spencer. I mean, just a full gambit of hip hop in and out of Chicago. He even did Killer Priest for Bible. He did a video for him live in a studio where they flipped it. ⁓ So yeah, definitely check all that out. And pugsadams.com, P-U-G-S-A-T-O-M-Z dot com. For all your art needs, I got all the gear, all the art. Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ well. ⁓ Pugs Atomz: all the music, all in one place. Cefore X. Plosives: That's the one-stop shop plug right there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I got you up right now. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, man. Got to get that acrobat book. Oh, my first art book is on there too, man. I'm to get on the South Side. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, I have your, I've been looking at your website while we talk. It's, it's exactly what I would imagine your website to be. It's got everything. It's got everything. I love it. Paintings, books, blog. They even got a gift shop, y'all. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, had a gift shop. Yeah, that's good. So I mean, for me, I always sold merch for the beginning. Can you put it up? Okay, appreciate it. Cefore X. Plosives: Gotta get some merch. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You So do we need to leak? I'm trying to... Yeah, of course. gotta, you ⁓ let me, let me see what I can do. I have it on my iPad right now, but I can. Pugs Atomz: And because I don't know about Riverside, it's all new to me. Cefore X. Plosives: Riverside's pretty fire, man. I'm gonna lie. It took a minute. It took a minute. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, if you ever need a crash course, hit me up. I got you. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: You gotta make sure you definitely have stable wifi though. Cause I've been in some spots, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Listen, well, that's more that's more you Cefore X. Plosives: If they got beef with Prime, I got beef with Panera too, man. That Wi-Fi sucks. Pugs Atomz: ⁓ You might just start the campaign man kick it off. Let the people know ⁓ Carlos about to make the diss track for never you and Barra Cefore X. Plosives: Let's go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You better be careful, Prime. You gotta be careful, Prime, because C4 is definitely... Cefore X. Plosives: Your bread balls suck. Pugs Atomz: ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Alright, let me see what I can do. Screen. Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ God. Pugs Atomz: That's the title of the album, you bros. Cefore X. Plosives: Got it. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He's already got his lead. Pugs Atomz: Who's their competitor? Who's their competitor? ⁓ there you go. There you go. Cefore X. Plosives: I don't even know if it's... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You see, you see, you see what I'm saying? Like there's everything on here. Cefore X. Plosives: and we working it out. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): click below, learn about my art. Anything you wanna brag about right now? Pugs Atomz: I mean, at the very top is a sculpture I did for the Whitney ⁓ Young Library, like 79th and King Drive. And it tells the story of some of the people that came from Chatham, you know, and I did a bunch of community meetings to find out what people were, you know, the most important. But this is like my first large scale sculpture, man. Real proud of that one. Got a couple more coming. Excited for those too. But it moves. Cefore X. Plosives: That's nice, man. Pugs Atomz: with the wind, because it's an outdoor atrium of the library. So all the things turn and all that. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ hell yeah. Pugs Atomz: So the little kid I was behind her looking up. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hell yeah. Better make sure them fish lines are strong. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, and then that's Channel 11. They did an expose about my first solo show right after the pandemic, titled Mookie on the South Side. And then all my work kind of is based around that idea of what was important to us on the South Side. And that's the book that you could buy right now. Operators are Standing By. It kind of tells my story from 95 to now, know, selected art and music bits. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): is so dope. Pugs Atomz: And this is one of those purple box videos, man. The boy gets busy, man. This is called South Side Spades Game produced by Catch-22. Cefore X. Plosives: It's 22, yeah man. Pugs Atomz: It's from the album Mookie on the South Side with him and Real One where they produced all the joints. This was fun to make man. APJ, every time we get together is always a good time man. And he cloned me like three times. I was like, ah, there we go. Let's do it. Cefore X. Plosives: I'm sorry. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That sounds like just hanging out with you and your people, man. This sounds like such a good time. Such a good time. Pugs Atomz: Usually is I mean I try to stay with people who would laugh so I try not to be you know with the people on the down Keep the vibes and that's me at the other art fair when I got their new futures title and got a free booth. That was a fun times And that's the acrobat book It tells all about our exploits in the 90s from 93 to 2003 10 years and everybody kind of tells either how they got in the crew or their favorite memory Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. You're gonna me spend all my birthday money on one website. Pugs Atomz: Hey, we try, we try. And this is an Englewood Pride. I did this for the Chicago Transit Association for the Ashland Green Line stop, the 63rd Ashland Green Line stop. But it's two big light boxes and they wanted me just to talk about my neighborhood. And then this was like one of the first large scale tapestries I did. This is like, I think, 2022 or 2023. I think it's 2022. this, it made it to a show here with Mr. Nice Art at his gallery. And then it made it to a show in Pennsylvania. And I forget the name of the family, but they're like really big art collectors. So they had like a private showing to their friends of this piece and a few other pieces from his collection. But this. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yes, sir. Pugs Atomz: It's sold, joint is gone. That joint's like, I think, seven feet by five feet or something like that. Pretty big, but I was super geeked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So you embroidered this yourself? Man, is there nothing you don't do? Cefore X. Plosives: No excuse. Pugs Atomz: Well, the thing was, I've been making clothes and like. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Do you like, do you like knit? Do you knit like scarves and shit for people for Christmas? Pugs Atomz: I mean, I did like as a kid, I did that stuff. I mean, now it's just kind of more just in the more the art side, you know, but because I was making clothes, I was trying to figure out what a happy medium will be between me making clothes and me making art and then tapestry. This is what I landed on. Cefore X. Plosives: Carlos's birthday. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And that's the other thing, we haven't even talked about your fashion. Because don't you have your own label? What's it called? Pugs Atomz: Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, it's joint I got on USUWE, U-S-U-W-E 93, S-U-E 93, Unity Together. But usually it's just like stuff from my art and stuff from my album covers and then stuff like my wife or my son or my mom or my dad, you know, trip out. I was like, ah, I should make that. And that's the other panel for the CTA joint. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: And then like I do pattern making and for different brands, like I'll create patterns. This was like a voila moment. I was doing a family pattern for one of my homies and ⁓ for his family in Nigeria. They wanted their own family pattern for them to have their family ceremonies and special events and stuff. So in doing that, I made all these other panels. patterns and then I came up with the Afro Futuro pattern. So I've been rocking that in a lot of my art and like collab stuff I do with people. That's an action shot. I believe that's it. Is that what they call it? No, it's not graffiti. That's like, with the paintbrushes on that. I was for this by-duck on 67th near Stony Island, right by the Arts Bank. It's like, think 10 of us painting that wall. Me, Damon, Loma, Reed, Static, bunch of people. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Here's that graffiti. Yeah. Did you? Did you happen to see the video that I made when ⁓ it was like what 10 graph writers from Chicago came out and battled 10 folks, 10 graffiti writers from LA? I made a video about it, you see it? Pugs Atomz: Yeah, ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was wild. Because when when the LA guys came out with the roller on the long extension pole and stuff. I was like these kids. Like those one dude, he was up on a scissor lift. Yeah. ⁓ boy went up on a scissor lift. And he had one of those rollers he was and he'd like, he just, he set up his whole it was like, Pugs Atomz: You gotta add the toys, man. You gotta make it easy. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It was like graph paper on the wall and he just planned everything out and he just went with the roller floop floop floop and it looked dope. Pugs Atomz: That's the funny thing like you didn't think math was gonna be important till you paint a mural they like well math is very important But that's ⁓ my queens get the money coat. It's like a puffer and then it's like the matching bucket hat That was like one of my first big hits for my brand Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. See, he does everything. He does everything. Pugs Atomz: Cause I made a t-shirt first and then from the t-shirt I made the coat and then the coat, the t-shirt and the coat, they both took off. And that's another one of the patterns. That one's called busy street. It's kind of like the view sometimes from the scissor lift looking at the neighborhood while you're painting. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. Pugs Atomz: And then, know, what a lot of myself, as I was saying, like the clothes, it comes from the art. So this is like I did after I made the tapestry. I was like, man, what else could I do with it? And I came up with this shirt and that joint came out pretty fire. Pretty fire. And those are like my plush little plushies. So that's like the Indigo Bear, the Michigan Avenue Bear. Well, I mean, you got all those ideas, man. And just when you know how to get them to happen, you know, the magic happens. This is like one of my last fashion shows. I don't really do fashion shows like I used to. This was for a brand called Iridium. I used to be creative director for and we were teamed up with Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Even makes toys? Good lord. Cefore X. Plosives: Damn. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Pugs, are a factory. telling you. Mmm. Pugs Atomz: the city of Chicago when they do the alley takeovers they used to do. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, so I was in charge of the fashion show. So I had my models and then I got two other brands to show. And then I made like ⁓ a short documentary on the history of fashion that was shown in the alley as well. Activate, that's what those events used to be called. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yep, activate. I'm trying to remember, I knew someone that got the alley right across the Chicago theater. What was her name? ⁓ Pugs Atomz: I told my Missy. Missy Parkinson. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Is that who it was? Pugs Atomz: Yeah, cause she was the person that put me in. She gave me like my first fashion show at the Roof on the Wit for Activate. We did like an after party there. And then from there, I kind of got in, but they would just hit me up anytime they wanted to do a fashion show. That's my Malcolm 64 sweater, man. That's such a fire sweater, man. I've sold a lot of those sweaters, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Maybe. Yeah. Hehehehehe Pugs Atomz: The people that collect my clothes, that's like one of their grill pieces, that joint. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: And then that's the late great poet right there, man. She's got the first book bag I designed for this company called Only Packs. That was based in Chicago. Yeah, but that was a big moment, man. To see Nikki Giovanni holding something I made and excited about it, you know. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And she paid for it. It's something like when you give someone something and they're holding it and you're like, all right, cool. But like when, when you make it and someone pays for it because they're trying to support you, like it's a whole new level. Pugs Atomz: I mean, I don't even know her. I don't even know her. was like the dude that owns the company, he got the picture and I was just like, wow, that's crazy. That's super dope. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: Wow. Pugs Atomz: And then that's back, that's my crew. The murals are us. So it's like, if any of us gets a project, we all help on the mural. But that's Damon Lamar Reed and Tazai. Like together, we've probably painted at least like 200 murals together. Outside of together way more, but yeah. But that was during the board up times. And we were doing for this, a new spot that was on 47 Cottage and they boarded everything up. So. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): That's wild. Pugs Atomz: We had painted some pictures of fathers with their children. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): We need a lot more of that too. Because people will be talking reckless about people in Chicago. Pugs Atomz: That sounds good. That's good. And then this is when I used to do stuff for Barbara Bates. Like if you don't know who Barbara Bates is, she's like OG Chicago fashion designer. Like she used to do Oprah Winfrey's looks. She used to do Michael Jordan's leather jackets. Like she's goaded for real. But at a time I used to just draw on her leather and other fabrics and then she would cut them up and make stuff. So these are like a pair of pants she made for one of the panels I did for her. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: That's a sick man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He does airbrushing. Yeah. Pugs Atomz: And that was a big moment because that was beginning of us working together. ⁓ Cefore X. Plosives: Good job, Pugs Atomz: And that's me being a model. I don't really do it often. I used to do it more when I was younger, but this is from a homie from Lyric District, the one and only Mr. B. Eazy and his brand. A years back, he was doing like representing the culture of Chicago hip hop. So he had different people from Dem Dare, some of the Breaking Crews, DJs, et cetera, all posing in his tees. Homecoming, that's name of his brand. Chopped with him, he got some fire stuff. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, ⁓ Pugs Atomz: Yeah, so you just got to go log on, man, and check me out. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. You're playing one of my animations right there. So this animation was produced by StoneFlocko. The characters were cut and pasted by Josh. And then I did all the animation and putting it all together and did all the backgrounds. I was pretty happy with this joint, Matt 95, available everywhere. Cefore X. Plosives: I hear you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ man pugs now I know. Just looking at a few of your things, I got so many ideas firing off in my brain right now. Pugs Atomz: Uh oh, it's going up. It's going up, going up. Oh yeah, yeah, on music too. Check out me and Jesse Wade going up. And now it's called John Stockton, that's the name of the song. But yeah, that just came out last week too. So two for two last week on the new records. Big up to the who-whappers. But now this was definitely a moment. I was excited to put this together. And it represents one of my cousins who just passed, She Chef. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yup, gotta go outside. Yeah. Cefore X. Plosives: ⁓ yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I mean, ⁓ Pugs Atomz: up to her. She's in there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Me and C4 Explosives collabed a couple of times on a couple music videos. You gotta make sure you check those out. Pugs Atomz: Oh yeah, definitely man, me some links. Always like looking at other people's video work. And of course the Ingoit Arts Collective, we always take your donations. So you know, if you feel obliged out there, people watching this, know, hit that donate button. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're a not-for-profit, officially beginning of this year, well, middle of this year. Yeah, we finally took that step after almost nine years. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Are you guys a 501c3? Yeah, I could. Cefore X. Plosives: Nice. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): taking notes because yeah, I think. Pugs Atomz: Taking notes, that's what we're taking. ⁓ Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, because I have to follow up on a few things with you, Mr. Pugs Atomz. You are a go-getter and an inspiration. And there's a lot of times, me being old as hell, I sit here and I'd be like, young people can't teach me shit. And then Pugs shows up. Cefore X. Plosives: Yes, sir. Pugs Atomz: But... Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm like, ⁓ I need to sit down and learn shut my ass the fuck up. Pugs Atomz: We all have our strengths, so we all have our weaknesses. But I mean, we all can be inspired, man. That's the one thing I would say. Like, throughout my life, I've always found inspiration. No matter how hard it was, you know, or how easy it was, I always found inspiration and a place to draw from. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. And I am so glad shout out to your parents for, for guiding you in that way, because it's easy to lose control and to give up. And just the fact that you just keep with it and you just keep making and you don't care who says what. That's huge. Pugs Atomz: I think that's only way you could be. Otherwise, I feel like you get too caught up in it and then you'll lose yourself. You forget what you sound like. I mean, that was one of the biggest things. Like when I lived in London, my flatmate would always say, was like, yo, keep your Chicago, man. Like, it's cool. You got an accent now, but keep your Chicago. Be able to get back to your source, you know? And later I was like, yeah, he was right. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Cefore X. Plosives: And when we have panic on, said, no matter how old he gets, he's like, I don't care. If anybody listens to it, I'm still going to be creating. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Man. Pugs Atomz: Also, I mean, it's how you look at it. Like for me, from an early age, I looked at creating as it's not for me to see now. It's something my son will see later. You know, it's something my next generation of his will see the influence in the stuff. Cause it's just like, you just, the more work you do is, it's out there. And you know, the more you build it so people can discover it, the more the fine. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: You know, later. but also just to be fearless in creating so you're not so stuck in of like, it's gotta sound like this, it's gotta be that. Because I mean, if you look at my work, it spans many different things. I mean, it has hip hop in the root of it, but it's some super experimental stuff, it's some super, you know, more dark stuff, it's super fun stuff, it's super dancey stuff, you know, it's the whole gambit, you know? But when you connect them all, that's the power. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. That's the power. And when you can deliver. Because there's a lot of great ideas out there just sitting there waiting. Pugs Atomz: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Who was it that said, I'm trying to remember someone said something, was ideas don't belong to you, they belong to the universe. So if you don't capture it and deliver it, it's gonna go to someone else. Pugs Atomz: Somebody else is, well yeah, I mean, I think people forget like we're seeing the same stuff. We're hearing the same stuff. So a lot of times we get inspired by the same stuff is just who acted first. And in my experience, when I don't act, that idea is definitely coming out. So I might as well just do it. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm. Pugs Atomz: instead of being a salty. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): well, is going to harass you. should, one of these days when we're face to face. Cefore X. Plosives: I'm doing my dance now. Pugs Atomz: That's always funny with like younger artists and sometimes older artists they'd be so mad if like else my idea Just like bro. He didn't do it should have did it But anyway, go ahead. Go ahead Carlos Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Right, right. Now was gonna say, you one of these days when we're hanging out face to face, I'm going to show you my reminders app on my iPhone. You could do like this. Cefore X. Plosives: Thank Pugs Atomz: Oh, what's reminders that? Oh, wow. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): What? man. Yeah. Okay. there's for me, there's layers to an idea. An idea can just be, I'm here. I'm here. You have an iPhone? Pugs Atomz: ⁓ teach me, teach me. Cefore X. Plosives: you Pugs Atomz: Yes. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay, there's on your iPhone, there's a reminders app. And in this app, you could even tell your phone, create a new reminder. And I'll be walking my dogs and I'll just be like, that's a funny idea. And then I think of sometimes like when you're not in front of technology and you're just out in nature, that's when everything happens. So I can think of Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Okay, C4 explosives, I know what he's good at. And I know, and I try to, and I try to have a relationship with C4 where I know where he's trying to go with his skills and his talents. And when I can figure out how to put that into something, I'll be like, ⁓ C4 song or music video, whatever. And then sometimes I'll be like, Pugs Atomz: I got you so it's like notes Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): make bread with pickles in it. So I just I just the first step of making for me the first step of making an idea a reality is giving it an existence. Whether I'm writing it down or putting it on the on the on the app the reminders app. And I have thousands and you do do like this and it's just it's stuff that a punch line maybe a bar for a song. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): maybe just an idea for an illustration for a t-shirt, anything like that. And I just have so many of these. And then I have different, I'd have to, let me see if I, well, no, we'll have to be face to face. I'm not trying to give public all my good ideas. Pugs Atomz: No, no, no, I gotcha, I gotcha. No, but it's like notes, I gotcha. I do feel ideal-wise though. Cefore X. Plosives: All the ideas. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, then I have, and notes, notes is when I want to explain, notes is when I want to take those ideas and go further. Yeah. So then I have all these reminders and, you can even link the reminder to the note. So then when you're just looking through like, Pugs Atomz: when you go further? Okay. ⁓ my gosh, this seems like way too much. Cefore X. Plosives: Hehehehe Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It sounds too much, but it's really not. It sounds like it's too much, but it's not. Yeah. Yeah. And then I have it set up. Pugs Atomz: That thing's like way too much. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I get it, I get it. No, it's like you scale your idea. No, I totally get it, I totally get it. I feel like my Gmail is as far as I could go. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I have it set up where every every idea has its own little box, right? And then I have it in stages. So I have the rough idea and then depending on what needs to happen next, if it's illustrating, if it's character design, if it's script writing, whatever, and I just keep moving it to the next column and then it goes all the way from rough idea to rough draft to a little finished draft to something else to delivery. and I just keep moving these boxes to the right, to the right, to the right. And then I show that to people, people are like, ⁓ hell to the no. Pugs Atomz: I you. You got a workflow. got a workflow. Speaking of workflow, I would be remiss if I did not ask, because all my homies have asked me, what's up with the hip hop documentary, man? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Pugs Atomz: That was a deep breath. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ I'm glad you asked. I'm glad you asked. ⁓ yeah, no. Yeah, no. And this is the first time anyone's ever asked. So let me say like this. ⁓ we were working on it. And then around 2017, I got laid off. And I started running out of money. Pugs Atomz: I mean I had to they were at my head. I was like, bro, I asked I mean Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And so I had to talk to the team and I was like, yo, what are we doing? I ran out of money. and ⁓ let me just, I had to step away so I can focus on my YouTube stuff so I can make money so then I can make things happen. Right? I stepped away. Pugs Atomz: Gotcha. I got you. Okay, so still coming. Okay. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): From the last I heard was from B-Boy B when we did that, when I went down to LA to record that ⁓ graffiti battle. He said that they were talking about putting the team back together. That's the last I heard. That's the last I heard. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Okay. ⁓ I got you. I mean the Avengers they come back into the year. So y'all could come back Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So to give you where I am. To give you where I am, I'm trying to build up my momentum and I'm trying to build up my stacks. So when I wanna come out with the t-shirt, I can come out with the t-shirt. When I come out with the documentary, I come out with the documentary. Past that, you gotta ask everybody who's in Chicago. I was taking off the website and I took the clue. So I want to see it just as bad as you guys. I worked on that bitch for free for eight years. Yeah, so I wanna see it too, cause I love, I love Chicago. That's all I'm saying. You can't say that I didn't put it. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, know, especially when we were doing Midway radio, I was out there saying, come hell or high water, all that stuff. For me, it's still not over. But again, you can't make things happen unless you got the proper funding that makes things happen. Pugs Atomz: Bye. But it's it's still a possibility that it'll happen though. Okay. I'm just more so was just curious was it still I Think so you've answered it cool Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And if it's not my idea. Yeah, yeah. And if I have anything to say about it, I again, once I get my leverage up, if it's according to me and what I have to say, it's going to happen. But right now I have zero leverage. Pugs Atomz: Okay, so that was my one question. My second question, will you ever do a carousel post on Instagram of all the caricatures that you did over your time of people in the scene? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Where are those? Pugs Atomz: No, no, said, will you ever do a carousel post of all the character chairs that you did of people on the scene? You I used to do, you interview people that you would do the drawings. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): ⁓ I would love to. That's a great idea. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I was, have in that long ass list of ideas that I have. One of them is going through and doing and getting all the reveals. You remember when we were doing Midway radio and I would reveal it. I wanted to take all those and make like a compilation of those. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I thought it was cool. But I was wondering, like, you know what mean? It's like for me, what a lot of my stuff is because like I take all the bits that weren't used and then use them for something else. It's like you got a lot of bits there, That's a lot of a lot of a lot of bits. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): But yeah, that's it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was, let me tell you, that was when it comes to, well, you would understand this when, when you have a team and everyone is focused on the same thing and everyone just keeps creating off of that same thing and everyone's putting their own little twist to it. That was one of, one of the highlights of my life was that project. I love that project because I love Pugs Atomz: Hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I love Chicago and I love everything that you guys do, the hip hop community coming out of Chicago. And you know Chicago people be talking shit. We to flex. So when you give me a Pugs Atomz and you give me a Vic Spencer and you give me all these ⁓ people, ⁓ talking shit is my favorite. But that's a great idea. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna... Cefore X. Plosives: Write it down. He's not putting it in the reminders. He's going old school. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, no, that's the first step. First step for ideas to make shit happen, you have to give it an existence. If it's an existence on a piece of paper, it's not even hard to take that and move it into, keep moving it to the column to the right. Pugs Atomz: I like writing it on paper though. Like just the feeling of it. Cause I feel like when I write it on paper, it's permanent. Whereas like when I type it, I'd like, maybe I'll get back to it. But when I write it on paper, I'm like, dang, we done said it. Cefore X. Plosives: Damn, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Me too. That's part of the process. For me, the reminders is just like the idea dump. And then once it gets to paper, that's what I'm focused on. Pugs Atomz: Mm. Alright. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. But yeah, I would love to, I would love to, I would love to keep working on stuff like that. I would love to keep working with creative folks in Chicago. mean, Mike, Mike reached out late last year. He's like, yo, I got this song. It's really good. And it was, and it was perfect timing. And when I listened to the song, I saw the video in my head and I was like, let me eat. I love, I love Chicago. I love Chicago music. I love Chicago people. I love Chicago hustlers, people that are out here. And if I can use my powers to help bring attention to what Pugs is doing, to bring attention to what Panik is doing, to bring attention to what C4 doing. Fuck, I even got a bunch of ⁓ Chicago politicians on this channel. ⁓ Pugs Atomz: I mean, that's Chicago. That's as Chicago as you get. But now I was happy to see the Panic interview. He doesn't ⁓ talk often, so it was dope to see that, to get his perspective. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): You know what I'm saying? I'm gonna tell you the truth. Talking to panic, I've researched people who think at a different level. People like Steve Jobs, people like, there's this dude that used to run GE, I can't remember his name right now. ⁓ But I researched those people and panic. Cefore X. Plosives: That was fun, man. That was fun. Pugs Atomz: Piero Edwards? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Not General Electric, There was a guy ⁓ who was in charge of them and he talked more about branding and how to get people to connect to your brand. But this was like back in the 90s. ⁓ But Panic talks a lot like these people. Panic takes all the friction away from his life so he can get to creativity. Pugs Atomz: Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): And that's what all these smart people, that's what they do. That's why Steve jobs wore that black turtleneck and jeans. And that's all he ever wore because he doesn't want to spend time making decisions about what dumb ass t-shirt he wants to wear. Pugs Atomz: That could be two hours right there, man. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So yeah. Yeah. And Panic talks like them. Panic is impressive. Beyond his music. That mug is wise, wise. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of my people. And then when you're about something... Pugs Atomz: I learned a lot from the moment Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Mm-hmm. Yeah. And let me tell you, were so influential that ⁓ on some of my posts on Instagram and even the video, I might be lying, but it might be on some of the shorts, but there was a lot of Bay Area musicians that were like, ⁓ yeah, Mo' Men all day. Mo' Men influenced me in this way. Pugs Atomz: I mean, they weren't afraid to get artists from other cities. That was the one thing I really caught on to, like when I first started coming to their spot. was just like, anybody was up for grabs to get on a record. Whereas, you know, some people thought so small about like who could possibly they could work with. You know what I mean? They just were pretty open. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): So if I can be, if I could be a. Pugs Atomz: When this is who we like, we're gonna figure out, get it together and make it happen. I remember like coming to the crib and PNs played me the MF Doom verse and I was like, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Ha Pugs Atomz: You guys did it. Cefore X. Plosives: there. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Doom was another one of those guys that were next level. Pugs Atomz: Yeah, man. I remember promoting a doomsday here in Chicago and I could not break a branch, man. People was not going. And then a few months passed and they hey, you still got that doom? It's gone, brother. It's gone. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. I even like, ⁓ what you call, when I first met Doug, he was like so goddamn cool. And we just developed this friendship. And then we started working on ⁓ animations together. ⁓ The record he did with, or the album he did with ⁓ Cap D. Pugs Atomz: Mm-hmm. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): He put my artwork on the cover. I will use my powers for Chicago at the drop of a hat. Pugs Atomz: No. You gotta support where you're from, you know? Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah. That's it. That's it. Well. ⁓ Is there anything else we need to talk about? I got you on here for two and a half hours. I mean, we can keep going. I'm having a great time, but I need to be, I want to make sure that I'm not being greedy with your time. Pugs Atomz: Anything else? Are y'all good? Cefore X. Plosives: I might have to bounce ⁓ out. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): C4? They keep turning the lights off on you. Cefore X. Plosives: They- they- they- They sure did on me man, that's what it is. Pugs Atomz: We can put a pin in it, man. I mean, I think we covered a lot. Cefore X. Plosives: We can always run this back, man. It's always an open invite for you, brother. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Alright. Pugs Atomz: I appreciate that man. Thank you. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yeah, we'll get some roundtables. We'll get some roundtables going and anytime you have any kind of albums coming out, like hit us up. Let us be part of your marketing. You know? Pugs Atomz: For sure. Definitely. I'll definitely add it to the list. You heard it here first, folks. Cool. Cool to meet you, C4. Cefore X. Plosives: remind Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Yay yay! Cefore X. Plosives: Heh. Yeah, you too, brother. You too. time coming, Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Hey, before I let you go, pugs, go ahead and let everybody know. ⁓ If you have any final thoughts, share them ⁓ and then let them know where they can find you and where they can follow up with you and check out what you're up to. Pugs Atomz: For sure. Thanks for having me. And my name is Pugs, P-U-G-S-A-T-O-M-Z dot com. Pugs Atomz on any social media spelled the same way. And man, hip somebody else. If you already know what I do, hip somebody else, man. Let somebody else know. That's all I got. Peace. Cefore X. Plosives: Yeah. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): Boom. And we're going to put all his links and everything in the description of this video. I'm going to put a link to this amazing album that I am addicted to and anything else that I find to make it easy for you guys to find this man because support artists, support artists, especially artists that support younger artists. We got to be out here. Don't, don't let these rich people tell you what to make and not make. Cefore X. Plosives: Amen. Carlos Gomez (Coconut Justice): It's not that hard. You don't need that much money. And with that everybody, we're out. Cefore X. Plosives: Peace.