Paradise Gray Part 2

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up QLs listeners, This is Sugar Steve. Thank you for tuning in to part two of our interview with Paradise Gray. Dice is a leading hip hop historian, a member of the Ex Klan, and a true raconteur of the culture. Before this, though, listen to part one, where Paradise Gray discusses his Bronx upbringing his earliest hip hop memories, and making his inroads to help making the Latin Quarter a legendary nineteen eighties landmark for rap. Take It Away, Team Supreme and Paradise Gray. All right, So the question I want to ask you is what does this sound represent? You ready? Yes? Goes? That's it by Sex and Sonic. What does it represent? That's the Latin Quarter, That was the Latin Quarter. Anthem that. But explain to our listeners what happens when this comes o see what does that mean? For? See that? And it used to start to you know, it used to start go Brooklyn, Go Brooklyn, and it was a signal for fifty cent and the Brooklyn Crew that go wild starts snatching chains and going wild in the club, which leads to my next question, and I've We've had every luminary of the Latin quarters from Special Led to like literally everyone's come on the show and I asked them the same thing, knowing the likelihood of why did they play it? No, knowing the likelihood of something about to break out, a punch, a snatch, chains, chaos. Why would you risk your life for the love of hip hop? Why would you risk your life for them? Go there? Yes, because if you didn't go there, you was a punk dude it to. First of all, the Latin quarrier was all about location, location, location. It was right in the middle of Times Square, bro Like, right in the middle of forty eighth Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue. Okay, this building is where the ball drops. Right then you got a big empty space where they fill up during New Year's Right then there was another building that had the Coca Cola bottle on it. The Latin coler was in that building. It was right in the middle of Times Square, the busiest place in New York City bar none. Right, But what was about Times Square? Time Square was all about sex, drugs, and violence. The American dream as American as apple and cherry pie. If people don't understand nothing else. They understand sex, drugs, and violence. Let me tell you what I did in Latin Quarters. Okay, you have in one hour, you have more traffic passed by our club than anywhere in the world. Right, So I took advantage of that. I used to advertise ladies free before eleven, right, and then I would make the lady's line go slow as hell. I would open the ladies line at ten to eleven, so every male driving by Times square a line of women going all the way around the block trying to get in free. And then I cheated again. I will walk that line, and all the most beautiful women and all the women who had the least clothes on, I would bring them to the front of the line. That's how it started. I love this guy. So next week, every chick in that line looked like Vanity six and everybody, I'm like, yo, I don't know where you're going tonight, but I'm going there. Who was your closest competition during this period between when's the beginning racket eighty five? Really, they want to hear some crazy stuff. The real run of Latin Quarters that I had was eighty six to eighty eight two years. It was two and a half years. In two and a half years, that much impact incubated the golden era of hip hop. It seemed like it was fifteen years thought it was seven to eight. No, there was the Africa Islam and other people would do shows at Latin Quarters, but it was not a hip hop club. The Latin Quarters were the first and only legitimate hip hop dance club. Our competition that opened a few months after US was Union Square. They had Red Alert before I did well. Red work with me a little bit, but he worked at Union Square. He helped make that pop. But the difference was it was fourteenth Street, which is close to Brooklyn. Curious, I'm curious what is the going rate to hire Red Alert to be your Friday night DJ and how long is he spending for Red Alert used to come directly off of the air at Kiss on Friday night and go directly to the Latin Quarter and he would DJ for maybe he would get to the club around twelve midnight, like about fifteen after twelve, and he would DJ as much as he won. I had like four five house DJs that also dj there, so whenever Red took a break, you know, the party kept going. But I don't know if I want to divulge. Red paid this time. It was this way, it was, it was uh, it was the top of the game for the time. Okay, can you make a real living? Can you make a four figure living for a high three? He ain't taking okay now, but he already had a job at Kiss Radio, you know what I mean. He was the top djai on the radio. We now live in the era where a Diplo or Skrills makes two point five million, tell me about it, or you know, in the case of Pretty Lights makes we he'll make that every week. Well, yeah, Pretty Lights only spends ten times a year. He must meet his price. He ain't coming so thus he meant to remember. We were struggling to exist back in these days. Remember hip hop. We was being dish left and right, you know by Elder Winford, Marsallis and James and two May and Larry Blackman from Cameo. They were talking mad shit about hip hop. They were haters. Yeah, but James and Toomey wound up being one of my best friends because my elder edwin Bird's song brought us together and I had a few conversations with James, and he understood what we were trying to do, and he started advising us and supporting us. But the biggest supporter that saved hip hop was none other than elder Harry Belafonte. Rest in pe Smster beach talk about it, educate real quick. Harry Belafonte produced Beach Street when all the other elders were shitting on us. Radio stations had taglines like no rap and they would play our instrumentals and not play our vocals. They were totally dissing us. We're not real musicians. We just steal their shit. You know, we don't We don't sing. You know, what we do is that dibbit when y'all gonna sing? You know. Then we were so disrespected. What are your top five live performance moments at the Latin Quarter? Wow, that's hard. Top five, no particular rock, Sanne Chante, biz Markie and Big Daddy came. Okay, and then later Big Daddy came on his own a name my book, No half stepping. Because Big Daddy came was the epitome of the Latin Quarter. What was it about him? He had everything? He had, the jewelry, he had, the haircut, He had the look, the dance, the voice, the lyrical dexterity, and he had Marley Maul's beats, unfunckiable. Big Daddy came with nothing to mess with. You could not follow him at Latin Quarters. Did you know was he feared or respected? In other words, if you're like watching the show, I'm assuming you're watching from the booth or whatever, don't I don't even know what the put it. This way, car Ris won this everybody. He dis the Juice Crew, but he did not this Big Daddy came and Big Daddy Kane wrote some of Sean Tay's This record against kr Ris one interesting. But it was a Latin Quarter family. You know, they had become family at the LQ. We didn't go against each other at the LQ. It was like the only thing that we don't have now that we had back then is each other. If twenty artists got on stage and performed that night, at the end of the day when the club is closing, or twenty of those artists that perform was still in the damn club. Nowadays you put five artists after they performed, I mean they leave and take their people that came to see them with them. Not at LQ. We stayed from the time that club open to the time it closed. Sometimes we closed eight nine in the morning. You know what I'm saying. And you know it's still be deep in the club. Whenever we close the door, we will lock the door at five. Ain't nobody else getting in. But if you already in there, man, the owner already bounced to let's keep the party going. It's not now I'm you know. In the nineties and especially in the arts, like, I don't know of any club night existence without the fire marshal coming in to shut it down. You know, the inspector coming to see you. Guys never had those problems whatsoever. No, they didn't know that even they didn't know you guys existed, or oh they knew we existed. You run in the middle of a time square. You couldn't help but notice us, you know. Uh, well, we had plenty of police on our payroll. We had six undercover cops as security, and a whole bunch more. And we had Mike Goldberg. It was such a brilliant business man. I loved that dude. And he gave a nineteen year old the keys to the club. Bro. Can you imagine you were nineteen at the time. I was nineteen years old when I saw running the Latin. Did you have any experience whatsoever in terms of negotiating or any of those things. Yeah, I used to I used to be a street DJ. I was a hustler. I'm from Highbridge. You know what I'm saying. I was a pool shark, but Latin But I was hanging out way before Latin Quarter. I was learning from South Abatilla at the disco Fever. I'm watching him, you know what I'm saying. I'm talking to Jungbug and Courtges blowing all of them. Learning from Russell Simmons. You know, I'm working with Russell Simmons, Rush Productions and Depth dam and since nineteen eighty three. You know, I'm in the studio with run dmc, Curtis, blow Ll cool J. I'm watching all of these things get created, and I'm learning every step of the way. I had Pete DJ Jones who owned a bar one block from my crib. I'm learning from him. When I'm seven eight years old, I'm twelve years old. I'm DJing in the bar. So what's can you tell me what the general modus operandi or just the general operation of what it takes to keep that operation going on your nights, in terms of what you're doing from Saturday to Thursday night. Like flyers calls managers money, I never dealt with managers. I never dealt with promoters. I never dealt with booking agents. All of the artists hang out with me before Latin Quarters. I was like the hip hop concierge of New York. You know what I'm saying. On a Friday Saturday night, I'm hanging with Curtis Blow, Orange Juice, Jones, Run, DMC, the Fat Boys, Houdani. All these people are calling me, yo, dice, where the party at. I'd be like, hold on, let me see, Oh, tonight is popping at the funhouse. I'll go to the club early, let them know who I got coming later and when they could you go to other bars and lure them. Yep. So there was no like calling Carol Lewis or nah nah. We didn't do none of that. We dealt directly with the artists. They didn't have to pay no manager, they didn't have to pay no booking agent. And like you're already hanging out at the club right you drinking? You got a girl, you want to go to the hotel, you roll up a yo dice, but you put me on. I'd be like all right, And it was just like yeah, I go to Mike Goldberger and say your Mike just dice on the rock. It's like cool. I was like, let's let's give him eight hundred. He'd be like, Okay, no hotel, no limo, He's right here, right now here, go ahead. So we didn't really even have to book artists. They already was in the club, you know, and then you you couldn't touch us. You show up Friday, on Saturday, Mike Tyson's hanging out, Bobby Brown's in there hanging out. Cosmic kids out in there hanging out. Yeah, you know, Chris Rock's in there hanging out, you know, and every major and independent artist in New York is there. There was no place else to be. Yeah. I think on this show Paradise, you should know that. I think where were we at twenty guests? At least twenty guests on this podcast alone. If told Latin quarter stories, and most of those people that you've already named, mm hmm, I got one that you haven't spoken to. Who was who was the coach, check girl, heaven she might get start. We were like what you lived in the Latin She literally lived in the Latin Quarter, and she she was homeless, and she used to sneak in the club, but I just didn't let her in anyway. And here's something that most people didn't know at the time. She was homeless. She was in an art program in the village for homeless youth. And her teacher and mentor was Keith Haring. What and to this day what Heather's art. Yes, it's better than Keith having dude. Her her entire apartment is just like a bunch of sculptures, a photographer I didn't even know her, and a painter, and her paintings you could tell they have keep having influence, but they just so more alive and compelling. Her apartments. Standing there at a museum, y'all done. But ye, murals and sculptures and all those things. And you had no idea fast forward that what she was going to evolve into in the I had a little bit of a clue she was going to coach. I wanted to ask you about X clam Man and like, how y'all formed at Latin courts? Really brother J and professor, you guys are regular dressing cats, and then you're here. I would never know regular dressing dude, flip through that book. I'm looking you guys went through a street where that morphed into shad a cover. Yes that's me. Then I know this. Then morton to me, but yeah, I do, I do want to know. Yeah, now you're in your sma, which is which is awesome. Yeah, but how did the band formed? I was working at the Latin Quarter and Lamomba Professor x Overseer aka Lamomba Carson. He called Heidi Smith from Rush Productions earlier in the day and he asked her if he could get some of their groups to perform at a fundraiser for anti drug concert in Brooklyn, and she was like, no, we don't do that kind of thing, you know. He's like really, She was like, yeah, you need to find artists who are more young and independent, you know, because our artists do concert series and we don't do charity like that. So she said, I'll tell you what. Go to Latin Quarters and and see paradise. He knows all the new artists and he'll probably be able to help you put a show together. She called me put him on the guest list, and he showed up one day and I let him in free, and he wound up becoming my partner because he talked to me. He saw the energy that we had at the club, and I helped him do event in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and I brought half the artists from the Latin Quarter to the park, including Statsasonic, Ultra Magnetic Boogie Down production. It was crazy. We had like forty fifty thousand people show up in the park, no violence, and we tore it down and raised a whole bunch of money for the anti crack organization that we was working with. And from that moment, he was like paradise. If we could bring this youthful energy to my father's movement, we could change everything. And I was like, yeah, whatever, We're gonna make money, I hope, so I'm like cool. So he took me to the Slave Theater and on Fulton Street in bed Star and Al Sharpton, Reverend Al Sharpton used to own that theater and do rallies there. So today I went to meet his father Sonny Carson. They were doing a rally there and I walked through the door and I thought I had stepped into a time machine or a Saturday Night Live skip because all the elders was in there. They had big silver afros and they was wearing Dashiki's and here I am. I got hazel contact lendsers, Jemmy curl diamond rings. I got a fur coat on, a Louis Baton tam, a Louis Baton sweater, you know what I mean. I had some brown shark skin soup pants, you know. So I go in there and I'm looking at them like they was in costumes. I'm all costumed out myself right. The mom what takes me over to introduce me to his father. He says, a brother, Sonny, this is my homeboy, Paradise I was telling you about. Sonny stares at me without saying nothing, looks me in my eyes, and he looks follows down head to toe, and then he looks at me and says, what kind of name is Paradise for a nigga? I said, well, actually, it's not a name. It's an invocation of my goals. I'm trying to achieve Paradise in my life. So every time someone says that name, it reminds me of my goals. He's smiled, did a deep lad. He said, Oh, you're a smart nigga too. Huh. I'll tell you what. You see that door that you walked in. If I was you, I'd walk out that door fast as I came in here, because if you stick around here, we're gonna mess up everything you think, you know. I was like really, He was like yeah. I was like, I think I'll stick around for a minute. And he smiled at me and gave me the deep belly laugh. Sonny Carson had moved Fossa's voice. You know what I'm saying. When Sonny speak, you know the police and anybody else do that. Sonny Carson was no joke. Baby, my elder I literally didn't know that that was his his son Now makes sense, Yeah, Sonny Carson, Lamumba Carson. Was he right about what your life and how you should have walked out? It had changed? Hell? Yeah? And the beautiful thing about it is him or the elders never mentioned my hazel contacts. They never mentioned my gold and diamonds and the flamboyant way I dressed. They just responded to my intelligence and my promotion and marketing skills, and they just taught me who I was, so I got rid of the costume on my own. I didn't need it anymore. How did brother Jay? He was just one of my favorite MC's man and he had just that voice. Yeah, working on the first album, man, Like, how how did that come about? Sugar Chef used to be one of the violators. Oh okay. He used to hang with Chris Lighty and them dudes were Read Alert and he was one of the guys that would carry Red crates and records from the radio station to the Latin Quarter. One day, you know, he was on the subway, the two train going to Brooklyn. I was on the same train. We got off the train at the same stop. We looked at each other. I was like, yeah, where you live? He said, I live right around the corner. I said, yeah, I live right here. So he stopped going there in quartered with Red Alerts riding with me, and we became really good friends. And he kept telling me about his homeboy brother Jay, who was really good as a rapper and all this, and that I really wasn't working with artists on that level anymore, developing them, but him and Sugar Sad was like seventeen years old, and I kind of let them hang with me. Wait he was seventeen with that voice, brother Jay motherfuckers sounded like my dad wrote to the East black Wood was when he was seventeen years old and spit it when he was eighteen. How about that? Wow? So when people make excuses and say, oh, dudes are young, and I no, but that's like with x Claan. To me, I just looked at him like, oh, okay, forty old pay y'all just looked like y'all looked like my cool ass uncles. Professor X was probably your cool last uncle, you know what I mean? He was folder than I didn't think I was older than one of y'all. Damn brother to the definitely brother Jane sugar Shaft from my Little Brothers. Since you mentioned it now, one of our most infamous Latin quarter guests, sir mc search you still searching for that guy where you go right right? All right? But wait wait, but no, no, no, But this also involves Pete as well, because it just hit me when I brought the EP, the Cactus EP three strikes five thousand, was there were some shots fired at the X Clan organization and then of course I forget the song the song where you guys start with pop goes the weasel? What was the unspoken, indirect, non passive aggressive shots fired between those clans? And I guess also if you want to add it between love and hey. But also today when I was listening to sex and Violence, there was some satisfied there too, like so wait, what happened between when I first met Prime Minister Pete Nice. He was seventeen years old and he was going to Boys and Girls High School and he was managed by a gentleman named Robert Lamumba Carson Professor X before X clan really and he was in a group called sin Quinn and right. And then once Professor X met me, now he had access to care as one big daddy came just Nice. He neglected the groups he already was managing, right, which Pete Nice was one of them. So MC search was hanging at the Latin Quarter with me and Pete Nice came to the Latin Quarter with Professor X. So Pete got frustrated because they didn't get any run or no focus. So Pete went to the moment and said, hey, deaf jam is interested in signing me if you're not gonna do nothing with me? Could you release me? And Professor X laughed him out the door and released him Death Jam's gonna sign you Ah, and Russell pulled the Beastie Boys two point zero. He took two independent artists that they were interested in and created Third Base. And Search was a cool dude, but he exaggerated a lot, and he was very popular at Latin Quarter okay, but he was not popular at Latin Quarter for rapping. He got popular at Latin no Oh as a joke. I used to host the shows, me and Read Alert and Bismarck. It would snap on each other, the warm the crowd up. And there was this real fat six foot three dudes in the crowd that called him heavy right. This dude was like butter and ice on the dance floor. He was so big, but he was so smooth, and so I would always pull him up on the stage to warm the crowd up. And while he would dance, run Alert would play some joints and I'd be like, go fat boy, go fat Boy, and the whole crowd be screaming, go fat Boy, go fat Boy, and MC Search game running can I go? I was like, oh God, here we go because mc search thought he could dance, but he had two left feet. He was cool with us. We liked him. He was our dude. He was a great guy, but he could not dance. He would dance, don't know. He would try and we would okay, with two left feet, I'm trying. I'm trying to be Switzerland here. I mean, I'm working on and I got love for Peter Corn was where brothers was dancing in that club. Dude, you're not their level period ever. So he would run on stage and Red would play dudey James and I would go gold, white boy, Gold white Boy go in. The crowd would go crazy, and they loved him. Novel to see the white guy with rhythm. He took advantage of that, right I see, greatly. But then as he became third base, he seemed like he was trying to be a brother and he was going too far with it as far as we was concerned. Like when the camera zoomed up to the back of his head and he turned around like it's the other man, it was like, what what did you talking about? Dude? Like what are you doing? You know? So he was an ultimate culture vulture, but he was accepted because he hung out with us and we accepted him hanging with us, you know, then he did the group would wound up being our good friend m F. Doom and the logo was a coon face and we didn't like that. KMD. Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying. So it was it was a lot of cultural problem that we was having problems with. Amir mentioned the Hip Hop Museum in his roll call. I just wanted to touch on that a little bit for our listeners who may not know what's going on. Wait, I'll get there eventually, right, he still want to get to the part where Kenny Parker just did it. Right, I'll get there. Wait, you also didn't name the other four performers at the Latin Quarter. I was I'm starting not hoping to get the story of Melle Mail and the push ups or the sit ups. Melly Mail was the debo of the Latin Quarter. He was the filter. That's what I called him. If you got on stage and you was whag. Mellie Mail was Sandman, really self appointed Sandman. Him and Busy B were the most arrogant dudes ever. They were coming the club throwing elbows at dudes. Get out the way, get out the way. The champions here, the champions here. Ain't none of y'all getting no money tonight, and y'all ain't getting no puts he tonight. The champs is here, and you be on stage rocking. All of a sudden, you hit the crowd going crazy. You're like, oh, I'm doing it tonight. And then you take a look to the sign and Mellie mel standing there with his shirt off, Muscle Simmons in his full glory. Then he started doing push ups real quick while you're trying to do a show. You like, So he's working out on the side of the stage, you know, on the stage. He's on the stage with you now doing what are you? Are you allowed to name some of the artists that he disrespected, who remembers them? So? Were there some artists that performed him again? They disappeared? He sure him all right, you know, he jumped on his feet, snatched the mic and say red alert, put on some real hip hop. I'm tired of this bullshit. And then he would rock the house and never cause a fight. Nobody ever wanted to fight him after they I'm just so mused. It was only a couple of dudes that had the balls or the size to deal with Melly Mel Justice and King's son. They can handle him physically, but ain't nobody wanted to try that. Plus he's the goat this Grandma's and Melly mal a child is born. Damn you ain't got no wins there until one day Belly Mel jumped on the stage with that bragg of dose. I got five hundred dollars. Anybody in here wanted come get it right now? Oh y'all. He's looking at run DMC and LL and all of them like and then you heard the crowd go crazy, and you look and krs one was standing there like this, Okay, now, it already was some friction between the last generation and the new generation. The first shots across the bow that was successful was none other than LL cool J. LL was not having it Coolmo d iced tea whoever. He was not intimidated. And if you went at LL, he coming back at you. The first shots across the old school bow was by LL cool J. So he got it right here. It was right here, and it was bubbling, and then kr us one dropped the nail in the coffin. What happened that night like, can you describe, well, was it a song? Was n how the battle? I handed car us One the mic and krus One did a freestyle. First, he did this everybody in the club that he had beef with. He did about four people before going that Mail Rock, sand Sean tay Uh. He went at mc shan. Of course, coogi rap even you know, I am a professional. This is not a demo, Chris do a bunch of shots to grow. Oh no, I didn't even catch that. I am a professor. This is not it's a demo. It's a demos. It's the demos. I'm just catching that, see what I'm saying. So Chris was already set up to be that next dude because he had just smashed sh which was difficult to do because Sham was as popular as LL back in the day. Sha was not no easy noth to crack, you know what I'm saying. Sham was highly respected. And so Carrius One did a freestyle. He went at Mail and then he said, hey, yo, who won this battle and dropped the mic and the crowd went crazy and Melly mal he was so angry. The crowd was like going for Carris One, and he didn't even rhyme yet he start jumping up and down. It's not fair. I didn't get to go yet. I didn't get to go. I said, come on, y'all, this is melly Mao. You gotta least let the man spit. Mellie mal dug in that brilliant brain of his and came out with one of the dopest rhymes I ever heard. He was talking about spaceships and battling aliens and molecules and scientific facts, and he killed it. But the crowd was like no manoo, and some people cheered him. But Carris won won to day, and from that day on things started changing. You know, Big Daddy Cane got really ridiculous in there, rock him came out of nowhere on them. Check out my melody. You know, Eric beat for President Red Alert, banging that like over and over. It was a new day. Well, okay, so what are the other three that you can name? Uh? Other three that got dissed by Meloy man. No, no no, no, no. The other three like life changing performances that happened at the Big Daddy came, man. Big Daddy came when he first came out with school and scrap. He changed the game. Bro. It was just I mean heavy dn of boys whoa when they rock miss the big stuff at Latin Quarters forget about it. Really yeah, man, that's so Sonic performed with my man Bobby Simmons with the live drum. That was crazy. I mean, it was just so many amazing, amazing performances, especially you know EPMD Bro. Oh my god. They used to tear the Latin Quarters down, and then out of nowhere came the native tongues. The tribe called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, Daylon Soul. So that could fly Onny Love it was born there. Okay, I'm only asking that because it seems to me that the Latin Quarter seems more hard of me no ob, dapper dan variety. And then suddenly here comes like no backpackers. Yeah, like I would figure like they were the nerves and duebs of so they were walcome with yeah, because they were already people who hung out at the Latin Quarters. Ninety percent of the artist that broke in Latin Quarters was always in the crowd. Kid and play was in the crowd at Latin Quarters. Their name was the Fresh Force Kid, Cool Out and Playboy, and they had a song called off a rock I'm a deis see. I was gonna say, please don't say I'm the They sampled rocked me and then a song off of rock Me a'madas and they had another song called She's a Skeezer that song which is what I did this posts told me about that, okay, with the same beat for three days later. Yeah. But then they saw the I O U and the JAC dances. They changed their head sounds, they changed the way that they dress, and somehow the dance that was being done at the Latin Quarters became the Kiddhn't play kickstep. So all those dances were born there. We're talking about like the Steve Martin, the Mark Top Oh my god, dude used to kill when he performed. You know who else killed at lag Quarters, Schoolly d Yes. And remember this was New jack City, New York, Okay. You know this was around the time of Larry Davis and the Central Park five and Useph Hawkins murder. So there was a tension in the young black people at the time also, and we were angry at a lot. You know, parth I was going on. Nelson Mandela was still in jail. You know what I'm saying, so there was a consciousness that took over the club because it's Zulu Nation and the beginnings of the Black Watch movement and the five Percent Nation was heavy in the club. So we was all about the fifth element, knowledge, wisdom and understanding at the same time we was creating this music. So that is official. I was wondering when you look up hip hop sometimes, Okay, the fifth element is knowledge, wisdom and understanding. All right, I feel like it came much later, can you all right? Since the the sound system was ungodly? Yes? What did you guys think when y'all first heard Rebel without a pause? Because I heard it two in the morning on a radio with the volume down, and of course, like you know, I'm talking about clock radio. I can't imagine what it is to hear this teakettle noise of Public Enemy. That song saved Public Enemies career because Public Enemy got booed off the stage at Latin Quarters and their first show, Grand Master and Mellie Mail. He was on the side doing push ups. No, he couldn't get to the stage, but he was in the crowd heckling him the whole time. That shit ain't hip hop. They on stage with oozies and shit, were trying to stop the violence. What is this, Russell Simmons, you need to sign grand Master flies in the previous five putting all this bullshit on stage, I had to I had to literally pull Melly Mal off the dance floor and explain to him what the s one w's were and why they had the plastic oozies. But then they came later with Rebel without a pause, and guess what it was a hip hop dance classic. You put that record on the IOU and the jay Z dances break their necks in the club off it. And that inspired Chuck to step up the tempo and he realized, as you get up there and dance at the LQ right right right, I get it. I see it now, I see it now, I see it now. So the next question I want to know is why did it end so early? Monday? Location? Location? Location? It was sitting on that property that was way too valuable for them to keep just letting us little niggats. Have ain't black club there since exactly they built the hotel, which one isnaissance we used to stay there. Wow? Okay, yep, the Union Square club had closed, so all the crazy ass Brooklyn niggas ain't have nowhere to hang out no more. So they came uptown to the Latin Quarters and they turned the Latin Quarters into the Okay carraal all right, so it was the myth of Brooklyn real, I e Like, we just want to party and here come Brooklyn wounding out again. Hell yeah, that sh it was true because it wasn't just ghost Steps to that set them off. That was the second song. There was another song that was more of a trigger than that, which was Brooklyn's than the House by d C Dclyn. So any Brooklyn song is just going to trigger. It's fifty cent and the Supreme Team and the Hollis Crew and the whole powder keg of different. So they were all paid. They get in yeah yoke and still change and no, well at first, I mean it took a while because fifty would come to me, he respected me, and I would let them in free, give him drink to get treat him like they were stars too. He explaining who fifty was. And now we're not talking about Curtis Jackson. No, he was a little gangster ass Doug from Brooklyn, who was one of the original knuckleheads that you just he had no respect for nobody, not even himself, and he would come to the club with two guns and a bulletpoof vest on. I would let him keep all let him in. I would look put it this way, okay, right, if you let him in, he could control the other ones that's lesser than him. So instead of going wild, now they had something to lose. Now they had status, and now they wouldn't just run up on somebody and rob them. They would come to me first and be like, yo, dice, is that your man? I'd be like, yeah, damn man told me, can't be coming up in here like that man organized crime and that would be ok what would they walking target look like? Ll WOJ tell me the story jam Master J. I heard that story about dragging on the floor, but he held onto the chain I heard. Now he didn't drag the floor. His chain is solid. They don't have no clasp. Jam Aster J had the best chain in hip hop. But wasn't like royalty, like untouchable or is it like we got to test your Jay had the Holly's Crew with him, Hurricane in about twenty twenty five other ones. So it was the first time it was an even match, Dude fifty tried to snatch Jay's chain. It don't pop. Jay went with the chain and J is no slouch right right. I went out and pulled J out of the melee and he literally fought me. And when I looked in his face, he said, Yo, dice, my people was out there. I let him go. He went right back out there. You know who am I out to tell him? You know what I mean? But uh, yeah, jam Master J. Let me say something about him. He was the most humble and wonderful human being ever. You know, you go to the club. J would be at a club, no security, no homeboys. He'd be out on tour. You find jam Master J with a forty in the hood in the projects, four o'clock in the morning, smoking and drinking and telling stories and jokes with dudes he don't even know. And he had the total hood pass because he was Jammaster J. He was that dope. Yeah, he taught me how to act once I became popular. Can we talk about the Hip Hop Museum? Yes? See? Yeah, Now I'm told that you were collecting artifacts and whatnot since seventy nine, seventy eight. Okay, so yeah, how did you know, I was a kid. How did you know instantly? I shouldn't know instant. My brother Michael Michael Green coach Green. He was a baseball and football coach at de Wick Clinton High School in the Bronx, and my brother was four years older than me, and he did everything to influence me. I didn't respect or understand my brother when I was young because he wasn't a fighter. I had to fight every day. But as I got older, everything I do and everything I know really came from my brother. A photographer, a writer, an artist, and illustrator. But most importantly, he collected stamps and coins. I wasn't into that. I get out of here with that. Then he started collecting baseball cards, football cards, and comic books. That's when I lost my mind, you know, because I was an avid reader and comic book collectors and comic book readers. It's like oil and water. We really didn't met. So I start collecting my own comics. And then here comes hip hop flyers, grand Master Flash who DJ hurt the Herk Lords? You know, grand was it Theodore? It was like walking Marvel heroes in my hood who were doing those flyers? Buddy Esquire a whole bunch of good Phase two, but he Esquire and Phase two were the two most popular ones. But there was a whole host of people making flyers back then, and they were beautiful. When the hip hop universe was like the Marvel and DC universe to me, you know, so they would have cartoon characters. I got a fly with Iron Man on it, one with Spider Man on it, one with Muhammed Aldi on it, you know, fly girls and nice calls. It was amazing to me. So I kept them and me and my homeboy kids Zeep, we started trading with each other and it just became a thing in my hood that we would collect hip hop flyers. And later on it became everything with hip hop on it, Yo, MTV rap cards, you know what I'm saying, magazines, Yo, rap masters, the Sowres, Double Excel, if it had anything about hip hop. I was hip hop's biggest fan. I wanted So were you just naturally a pop culture junkie that just you know part like I'm collecting stuff now, I don't know why I'm collecting it. I'm not saying to myself like, Okay, one day I'm gonna have a museum. But like now, I mean I'm going hard on. I went hard on on Hrk's auction. Now we're seeing the auction stuff. Yeah, so I'm like, I'm doing it. I guess I figure, like, Okay, maybe when I'm sixty or seventies, I'll have these artifacts to pass on to a museum or that sort of thing in your mind. Are you saying, like, one day I'm going to open up the hip hop museum and I'm having these artifacts there. No, I didn't even consider that. I just knew what I liked and I loved, and I just catered to myself. I loved myself, so I tried to surround myself with beautiful things and things that make me feel good. I was a little ashy, skin nappy headed, dark skinned kid in the South Bronx with holes in the bottom of my shoe, and hip hop gave me my self esteem. How do you preserve everything through the years, with all the floods and robberies and everything that everybody goes through with moving one hundred times. I never had a flood, I never got robbed. My dad still live in the same apartment that we lived in since nineteen eighty. Wow, there's the answer. There right there. Yeah, yeah, okay, we had stability. So let me know what closet space. Okay, now I'm really asked the question that I always asks. You know, one answers. Yeah, You're given one minute to grab three artifacts and the rest you'll never see again. What three things are you grabbing? My original crown that I created, the first crown of x Crime. My wooden stick that I carved with a lion's face in the middle of a morph between the lion and the man. That staff is called the iron in lion Zion. Yes, yes, you carved too. Yeah. Yeah, that's why they called me the architect, baby architect, you know, yeah, did you have dreams to be an actual architect? In term I went to Brooklyn Tech to be an architect, and I dropped out in the tenth grade because I couldn't go through high school with holes in my ship like I did junior high. My parents are from the South. My dad, I told him what I wanted and he said, hey. He walked me to the front door and said, everything you want right outside this door. Everything you need, I got it in here. Go get what you want. So I said, okay, I'm gonna go get it. I went, and I dropped out of high school, and within two years I was making more money than my mother and my father combined legally. Where are your parents from? North Carolina? What city? I was born in a little town called Washington, North Carolina. Washington. Yeah, I grew up in I lived all over over Fatteville of red s Range, Robinson County. Grew up in Greensboro, living Raleigh. But nah, man, that's that's so dope. I'm home from. So. I was born in nineteen sixty four in North Carolina Freedom Summer, and my mother decided when I was four years old that she didn't want me and my brother and sister to grow up picking cotton and tobacco. So she followed her sister, Helen my aunt, to Harlem, and she stayed in Harlem with my aunt and sent me and my brother and sister to live in the Bronxdale Projects with my aunt's daughter, her niece, Susie Davis, and my little cousin who lived with us in Disco King Mario's building. His name is Aaron Davis. He wound up becoming a welterweight champion of the world. Aaron Superman Davis and he knocked Mark Brelan out to take the belt. No, you're a sports expert. Well, I love hip hop and sports. I think hip hop was a sport us too. It is you know, surviving it is key. Well you didn't name the third thing, the third artifact that you were saying. Yeah, that first Flyer was the first time hip hop's mentioned on It's pretty cool. Yeah, but there's more important things. Yeah, okay, well record record things that I own or I mean like treasures. I mean, dude, I have so much in my collection. I'm not Bismarck status with my collection, but the hip hop part of my collection bigger than business hip hop collection. See, he's the one that got me in. When I saw business stuff, I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. Spend my money. You got to spend your money on something. So that's the thing. Artifact historical, artifact wise, what do you have? Jeff just shared with me that he has the records from Grandmaster Grandmaster Flash used in Wild Style Sope. I still have a bunch of my original creates that I DJ with since the seventies in the Bronx. I still have my original vinyl, all my breakbeats. Okay. You know I have the big red, black and green flag that X Clan used to perform with and that we used to march in the streets of Brooklyn with Sonny Carson with. You know, I have a cutout of the Nile's pharrowhead from I Am Oh, yeah, I am record. Yeah, okay, yeah, I have the cutout of master P. You know, I've got the master P doll that go right. You know, I got so much artifacts, bro, I do want to know when do you feel as though the museum will have its grand opening fourth quarter for first quarter twenty twenty five in the location right where it is, right in the Boogie down Bronx one hundred and forty ninth Street and Bronx Point Baby, right on the Harlem River. Well, brother, this this has been long overdue. Yeah, thank you, thank you for sharing. We didn't have more time, and you know, I didn't really get to tell you a new stories. But it's all good. No, this is this is beautiful and we thank you for coming on the show. So we have a fontiicolo on paper bill Sugar Steve and like, yeah, this is quest Love is a great paradise. Gray, Yeah, support hip hop culture, collect your artifacts, don't dispose of things that you don't know will be you know, well man's trash, that next man's treasure. Oh yeah. Telling the history, yes, and share stories and build in the history. Because while it's good that we celebrated their fiftieth anniversary of hip hop make history. Now it's our time to plot the next fifty years of hip hop. There you go, and to support young artists with the real support that we need to give them. And we need to stop being the old man sitting on the porch telling them to get off our laan. Hip Hop was created by children and children will always rule hip hop. So if you owe and you feel like, oh I can't understand what they're saying, well maybe they're not talking to your ass. Oh and there it is, ladies. All right, we'll see all next cover. This is Sugar Steve. Thank you for listening to Quest Love Supreme. This podcast is hosted by a mere Quest of Thompson, Liah Saint Clair Fonte Coleman, Sugar Steve Mandel, and Unpaid Bill Sherman. The executive producers are a mere Quest of Thompson, Sean g and Brian Calhoun. Produced by Brittey, Benjamin, Jake Payne, and Liah Saint Clair. Edited by Alex Conrod. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown and Mike Johns. Audio engineering by Graham Gibson at Iheart's La studio. Bost Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.