Posdnuos of De La Soul

00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Questlove. This is the Quest Love Show. It's not often that one gets a career that enables him to write his own ticket and fulfill a bunch of bucketless dreams, of which creating this very platform to nerd out on some of my favorite people in creativity. Our guest today is absolutely no exception. His creativity is so strong, so stringent, so powerful that it actually inspired my best friend and not in high school, to start our own group. Not many people can claim that, Look, man, I canna say? Is that Kelvin Passus Mercer has agreed to let me ask him eighty six questions? Number one, how you doing today?

00:01:30
Speaker 2: Sir? What's good? Man? I mean, thank you for the intro, because you know, Bro, I mean sometimes I when I'm blessed to hear you say things like that, I already view our relationship as brothers and friends, so you know, I sometimes have to look through you like okay, yeah, maybe this is how when I talk to Jeff, but when I go to the phone, like damn, that's Jessey Jeff.

00:01:51
Speaker 1: But I'm his friends, so I won't make it weird.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: At all. It's a blessing. But you know, wait a minute, is he talking about me because I'm his homeboy?

00:02:03
Speaker 1: But anyway, I got to start. Could you please tell me how you met true Roy the Dove day Jallaker from day La Saul.

00:02:13
Speaker 2: Well, when I moved to Long Island from the Bronx and started going to school, the first two people I met. The first person I met was a girl named Regina Peters, and the very second person I met in school who was so cool to me was a brother by the name of Michael Jollichor, which is Dave's brother. So that's how I got to know Dave. I was actually friends with his brother Mike, and I would see Dave from afar, you know, like, oh that's you know, that's that's Mike's brother Dave. So I mean, this is me and Mike in fourth grade. I didn't really get cool with Dave where I knew him as like Dave, maybe more towards like eighth grade.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: I'm about to say, when you're younger, when someone's like two or three years younger than you, that's a whole nother generation pretty much. So he was like a little kid to you and then selling like he just grew up. And then.

00:03:11
Speaker 2: Him and Mike were very close, even though like he's the older brother, he was very close. I mean older by what, I don't know, two years maybe, but they were very close. But like I said, it was just that Dave had his set of friends, and you know, like if I was coming around, it was because of Mike. It really wasn't because of Dave at all. So I would see Dave day would just see me basically because Mike had brought me around.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: So we should also know that Mike was also like a legendary tour manager. I first met Mike because he was tour managing a common Like was he you guys just tour manager when you first started.

00:03:48
Speaker 2: Or he was our road manager starting from about eighty nine when ll so, yeah, he started out as our road manager, yeah, and just worked his way into like doing it and touring tour managing for other artists.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Vincent Mason mas.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: Mace in school? I mean he moved from Brooklyn. I just saw him in the school or see around because he was just he's just stood out. You know a lot of times when someone new come to the school that it is standout immediately.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: And what school was this?

00:04:25
Speaker 2: Amityville Junior High. So this was junior high school. And you know, Mace was a fairly big guy, so I was like, you do it. I'm just assuming he was going to be in migrat and he was actually like a grade below. So yeah, I mean we but we didn't talk for the first time until we met through a mutual friend of ours who he was actually the first DJ that me and Dave was dealing with, named Charlie Rock, and that's how we met Mace to actually have conversations with him.

00:04:53
Speaker 1: So what was the difference between Long Island life versus life in the Bronx.

00:05:01
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, for me, the immediate difference was the difference between a project building and in houses and in green grass. But even when I was living in Nelson Avenue in the Bronx, I mean, it was a lot of community. You were kind of really close around each other. So luckily enough the kids we all commune together, and the parents was really nice to us. But I had got an understanding of what say open air living was when my mother would send me and my brothers to Waynesboro, Georgia every summer. We never spent the summer in the Bronx, so by the time they was moving us to Long Island, it was like a similar feel of like, oh houses space, you know you have a backyard, you got a front yard, So that was the major difference immediately, and then being able to just I guess my mother feel like it was safe for us to not being her eyes view. So when we was in the Bronx, we would play like downstairs and main area where every parent can see their kids. Like my mother was felt cool enough for me to ride my bike off of the block right. He was also something that was just afforded with him Long Island.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: Any recollection or memories of any of the folk lore that the Bronx speaks on in their early years, like any block parties or have you heard a yes, yes y'all from you know?

00:06:24
Speaker 2: Honestly, no, I didn't see that. I didn't see hip hop block parties. I mean the Jamaican brothers in our building, like they could turn around and have speakers out, or you can hear music playing loud like that, But I personally didn't see any like Bronx block party. Nah.

00:06:45
Speaker 1: So at any point in the day I sold timeline. Were you and Dave ever at any point just regular ass yes, yes, y'all. MC's like and I'm here to say, has that ever been like your second line in any rhyme you've ever said?

00:07:03
Speaker 2: Just like all of us getting bit by the hip hop bug. From the earlier days of it, it was just more being a listener. But by the time I really wanted to pick up a pen and do it, I was already bitten by Treacherous Three and how their cadences were. So No, I really wasn't like, yes, yes, y'all into the beat, not like sires of the phone, creative, a new tone. It's so much you put your trust in a sound and style. That's how I started rhyming.

00:07:34
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, see you're a cool with the disciphle. Yeah, how social word you guys before the concept of hey, let's start a group, social and like just being friends and hanging. You know, when I met Tarik, I'll pretty much say that we were a group maybe three months later, I mean, or at least my job was to hit the lunch table. Yeah, And that's how gained access with it. So like was music the immediate social adhesions that brought you guys together.

00:08:11
Speaker 2: Or before Dayla. It was more like we were just doing it. Like like I said, everyone was bitten by this bug and I was like breaking popping, and you know, it was almost at one point, me, Dave and a couple other friends. One of our friends, Anthony Bryant his pops was trying to put us together to possibly going to Apollo and he was gonna dance and pops. Yeah, it was stuff like that going on. We didn't really say we wanted to be a group or try some hip hop group thing until Dave, who was just into be boxing, he be boxed against a really well known be box called Paul Paul Carry. He was really dope at beat boxing and Dave just kind of back him and it was like right from there, like Dave was really nervous, but he did his thing, and then we all went outside and we was like, yo, that was so dope, and we was like, we should form a group. And that's when the first time we even pictured anything about let's be a group outside of us being a fan of just the music.

00:09:21
Speaker 1: Was Dale I sold the name of that group or did you go through other iterations before it was.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: Called easy Street. I wanted to get to be called Sop Sounds because I was already writing and just thinking of different different names because it was just something I would do. And so when we were just thinking of like a name for the group, and this is us outside of the high school, just thinking like what could we do, we was like, Yo, let's what kind of name. I was like, Yo, we should call ourselves Sop Sounds. And then I explained to them like yeah, you know, my mother always be like, yo, you better sop up that syrup and that plate. So I was like, yo, we are all these different sounds would sop together. And everyone was like, nah, merce that that doesn't sound not like Yo, let's call ourselves easy Street. I thought that was the wackest shit ever, but everyone loved it. Everyone's like, yeah, easy Street. And that was Dave being a B box, me being a DJ, my people's Anthony, my people's Rob, and my people's KD. His name was Kelvin two. They were the MC's. So that's how that was the first group. Me and Dave was in Easy Street. And even Dave be boxing and me cutting, we was even still putting together rhymes to give to them to say as they even wrote their own rhymes.

00:10:38
Speaker 1: Okay, can you tell me the story of how you met Paul Houston Prince Paul.

00:10:44
Speaker 2: Paul was the cousin of the first girl I told you I met the first person I met in high school, which was Regina Peters. Soon you just moved Paul from Afarm. Paul was just very cool, very intelligent guy who could just DJ is asshole. He was just a great DJ in the neighborhood. So just knew him from Afar. I think he was a He was probably in the same grade or maybe A no, the same grade as my brother Tyrone. So yeah, I mean just knew him from Afar. And so me and Regina being really good friends, I found out, oh that's her cousin, and even he he DJ like one of her birthday parties that we would be at. So we just knew Paul like as like, Yo, that's Paul, you know, that's he was really cool. But that was DJ Prince Paul from Afar. You know. I must say I probably didn't even meet him where we exchanged anything between each other until Mace got with Paul to work with him on something that a gentleman on my block. His name was mister Evertt Collins, and he was the tour drummer for Eisley Brothers as well as a music teacher. So once Mace was working with Paul on that, he was the one who then introduced me and Dave de Paul. And I think Dave actually knew Paul, but I didn't know him, like Paul knew my brother Tyrone, and he knew me as like, oh, that's Tyrone's little brother Kelvin, and I knew now.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: On the the thirty fifth anniversary of three FID and Rising, you guys included the original plug tuning and also the original freedom of speak what equipment? And that was done without Prince Paul, Like that was just you guys on your own. Yeah, how did you guys make that? Like what what equipment did you use?

00:12:38
Speaker 2: I think it was an RZ one Mace had. He had the drum, the RZ one drum machine. We also had this, uh oh man, what's the name of it. I know it was I want to say, We had like this tac I think that's the way you say it, a track recorder. And then we also had the little cassio with the sample where you could sample into it. I think me and you we spoke about this before. But the little cassio with the keyboards and had to like.

00:13:04
Speaker 1: The s K one yeah you go, oh no, no, no, the one with the four drum pads on it, the four drugs. That's a more advanced version. Okay. Was this eighty six or eighty seven you're speaking of? Yeah, eighty six okay.

00:13:19
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I think it was the pad one we had so yeah, because we were putting noises in that, because that's where I first even did the three is the magic number for the demo. I would just just keep hitting it and in mace we would loop the the beat from what was that? No, well, no, we took it from the hip hop history lesson three double Dan Steinsky.

00:13:46
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I got it, okay.

00:13:48
Speaker 2: Which was, like you said, the led Zeppelin drums. But yeah, I mean it was just those things we was working with for in the house. It was very limited equipment. We thought it was the most amazing equipment at that time. And you know, you know, we would just redub. We would do one take of something and dub over the next take, and yeah, it is that simple.

00:14:06
Speaker 1: What was it about Paul. That showed you guys that you guys spoke the same language, and you know what was the basic process and just pushing the train along to let's be a group, to let's make a demo, to let's try to get a record deal.

00:14:25
Speaker 2: Well, once Paul heard the demos, you know, it was great to have him hear it, because, mind you, at this point, this is DJ. This is now Prince Paul. It's not DJ Paul. This is Principle now with stet and you know, and they already got like a single out, you know, rockdale O'steto already went into their first album. So at that point, you figure all wanted to meet with me, Dave, along with Mace and so from that point I was just very in awe of it all. But I was still very skeptic when he was just talking about wanting to now add stuff and to whatever these things that we had started to create on our own. You know, these are just forty fives out of our own home that went from a pause tape to now what's working on in mace basement. Were very proud of it, and we was very happy to now that Paul wanted to be a part of it. I remember him having that conversation like, you know, I would love to try to add some stuff to it, and da da dah, and I in my heart I was like, I don't know if I'm with all that, but let's see where it goes. And when he added what he added, when he updated everything, it was absolutely mind blowing. And then even then it wasn't until like us like really just hanging around each other amongst this time he heard some of the other stuff he was doing, which were the skits. This us just having fun. It wasn't even skits does It was just when we were just lacking off supposed to be doing what we was doing and were just having fun being idiots. And Paul was just like, yo, you know, look what I do with my friends. And he put in THEO VH tape of him over dubbing him and his friend's voice over like cares. That is where I was like, Yo, this dude is like us, Like he's exactly like us.

00:16:06
Speaker 1: Wait, he would do that just to do it.

00:16:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were like literally put both clubs of the karate tapes like ooh, you stole my doodle, and it was time to fight. And he would do stuff like that.

00:16:17
Speaker 1: So he would have been amazing on Instagram and YouTube had that been indeed in twenty five years early. Okay, and you know, mind you, I know that I'm rehashing stuff that we've talked about personally, but we've never been on this platform to speak of it. All Right, this is the most mind blowing thing. Could you give me what the budget was to record the entire Three Feet High and Rising album?

00:16:44
Speaker 2: It was like thirteen thousand dollars. It's like eleven thirteen thousand dollars.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: Okay, Like I think maybe the distortion is static, like Bob Power's budget for mixing might have been like half that. So I was just mind blown that you guys were able to make an entire revolution in such a limited financial capacity. Did you think that was fairly typical backven or did you know, like a camo on an independent label? And because in our mind we're like, yeah, yeah, the Tommy Boy umbrella. So I'm thinking you guys are lighting up cigars one hundred dollar bills, and.

00:17:23
Speaker 2: I mean, in mind, you humbly, we had no idea, you know, right, Tommy Boy was one of those labels that just the logo alone, meant something to you the way the deaf Jam logo meant something to you, you know what I'm saying. So, and we were blessed to have all these different labels wrought to sign us. But we felt comfortable being with Tommy Boy because they were like in I'm on a premium label of hip hop, and Prince Paul, our big brother, was there. So, I mean, when we got the budget we had, we didn't know any better. We didn't know, I mean, you know, and and being very honest, we're like, we're kids from a you know, fairly middle class, working, middle class family. You know, we had good living, but we thought thirteen thousand dollars a lot of money, so, you know, and whatever we had to do, what we had to do. Paul was very aware of, I'm assuming of whatever budget he had with stets of Sonic, and he was very aware of, like when we were going to Calliope as creative and as beautiful, Paul made the environment. Paul was very much to the clock. He was like, you know, he would look like, all right, we need to wrap things up or so he was. He was very aware and very frugal of what we do to spend. But yeah, you know, I had no idea that thirteen thousand dollars is nothing, whereas of course, like these days, I mean you asking an MC to run for thirteen thousand dollars, that's probably like four lines.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: The thing is is that, especially with the first two records, you guys really make it sound like you lived in that environment. So I can't even fathom like everything has to be made and created in one specific space simply because like even the way that you guys make the skits sound, you guys make the skit sound very off the cuff, although when you listen to those skits, they're also like well craft and well produced, Like when it's the Roots, we will be at sound check and then Tubo wear something real ugly or whatever, and then we'll break out in the song and make fun of him for five minutes. But you know, it's like us making it off the cuff, and you guys make it feel like it's off the cuff. Although I know a lot of planning goes into those skits, and I just always wondered, like how much time it's been a calliope is calliope just for vocals? And then you guys have a sort of a home based center in which the tape or the mic is always running in case something funny happens, it goes or we knew.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: Like we had a plan for what we need to do. We had, you know, Paul will give homework assignments like so yo, okay, got this song that looks like y'all want to call ghetto things or merse and Dave, you need to make sure you got this ready for that. Honestly, that first album, a lot of that was just off the cuff with the skits. By the time we got to day La Soul, it was more like, Okay, we're going to plan you know, I got this funny idea for a site, you know, so I mean like a lot of things like say day La Soul orgy. It was just Paul already had to beat looped. We were just trying to figure out what we could do with it. I make a joke and be like we should moan and groan over it. He's like, that's a great idea. I was only joking. We all now have to go into the booth moaning, groan, Wait a minute hour. One of our dancers and Dave's cousins there y'all coming as the girls and do this your tip coming with us. Then out of nowhere we get Daylight Orgie. So a lot of that was just it was not planned for the three feet high joint by the time we got to Daylight. So it's dead. Yeah, like you said, like we knew we want to make this song called Kicked out the House, and that comes up with to be at Home. We come in, they comes with the chorus and then we're like, yo, we should get Bobby the drummer from stet to act like he's Colonel Abrams and everyone's laughing, and he does it like that's where you do it a little bit more of the magic of on the puff. You're still playing.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: To me, it's like you might lose the funny if you plan it. Okay, press play and then it's like, all right, well the joke's over now. But it just always felt like the tape is running now.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: It could be because, like I said, with day Laso is dead, Dave just happened to be bugging out on the piano. I'm sitting down like on a far couch and calliope and he's just on the piano, just doing stupid shit. And out of nowhere, Paul is just like he's signaling the engineer, like what the mike on, and then he's just kind of sitting next to him, and that becomes.

00:21:54
Speaker 1: Mike's always set up in the live studio.

00:21:56
Speaker 2: Like it just set up, so he just told him to turn the mic on and they didn't realize that what was happening. And next thing, I know, that becomes the skit that goes in front of the biddies.

00:22:06
Speaker 1: And okay, I got it. Okay, what was the very first song worked on for three f HI and rising aside from pluck tuning, like a lot of.

00:22:16
Speaker 2: That was just stuff at home, so blug tuning, Freedom Must Speak. All that was done at the same time at the crib, and then of course we came into Calliope to do it. I would say the next song once we like got an album deal, because yeah, the next album was, I mean the next single deal was Potholes and Jennifer. I don't know, I want to say for some reason, I want to say say no go, we just kind of start all falling out of it. If it was already ideas at that point we had, like I knew, I want to do something with the Hall of Notes record. I knew I wanted to do something with the Steely Dan record, you know, and then we just started putting these things together.

00:22:56
Speaker 1: Got it okay? So this album is also being made pre pro tools access. So when you guys are doing things like the Chopsticks bit on Jennifer, is this the era of having to splice tape or are you guys like the Bomb Squad in which you know by bar sixty four you gotta go down to twenty two bpms or is it like, what is the editing process?

00:23:24
Speaker 2: The editing for that particular song. It wasn't edit of us putting in the Chopsticks but versus biddies into BK Lounge. It was just all chaos, like things was lined up and you know by the time Dave finished his because it was like, Okay, I want to do this song. I told I. Remember I'm with Tip, we were shopping for records. I'm like, yo, I want to do like a roxhand rock sand like UTFO have to three beats. I won't do that for us. It became what I wanted to attach to, this idea of us making something about going into Burger King. So once we start putting it together. Everything was just laid together. So Dave's music, which was the Tanya Gardner No Frieze record, my music which is what is that It's your thing, It's your thing, and Mace's music, so like it was all lined up together. And so we just kind of like had to realize, all right, Dave, you ended it right there. We click in the it's your thing. It don't sound right. So we was like, okay, we got extended a little bit longer. Say something. He says, stupid bitches, and then all of a sudden.

00:24:32
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying it spinding burg all right, all right, I still thought he was saying spinding Broker speaking a Burger from the beginning, but stupa bitches.

00:24:41
Speaker 2: All a sudden, it works all right, cool, Like it was just like just chaos, sweet chaos, like nothing like it.

00:24:49
Speaker 1: Okay. So now that time has passed, the flow and Eddie's situation with the Turtles. Of course, you guys are part of the this Land Marenk situation in which a sample wasn't cleared. And I guess the kids of the Turtles were fans of you guys. Heard it, Mom and Dad, listen, they're playing your music and suddenly they get litigious. The lure of it, I was like to believe, like between you guys in bismarcky, like those were the darkest days in history and da da da da da. Was it just basically we cleared the sample and that was it? Or like I mean, at its worst, were you guys suit for trillions or like I never knew what happened at the end of that situation.

00:25:30
Speaker 2: It got settled. I was actually with our legal team meeting with their legal team, their legal team, the Lee lawyer. He was a big Day Off fan. He wanted to autograph and everything. Oh yeah, it wasn't anything I mean outside of realizing, okay, we're getting sued for something we thought we handed not even that we thought we knew we handed in the Tomic Boy. That in itself was very upsetting to us. But yeah, the actual dealing with it, it wasn't anything I would say crazy outside and realizing that the meet up with these people, come to an understanding of what it should be, which we wound up doing. Tommy Boy want up paying them some money. I didn't learn the fact that here it is the money that Tommy Boy was going to pay them to settle. This was going to come out of our shit. And then that was another thing that kind of like made us learn about Wow, like we're being punished with something we actually handed in, you know, watch falls on us. But the dude was cool about it. The lawyer, their lawyer, and it didn't seem like he was being mean or anything. He actually, in speaking to our lawyer, was like, if the guys wanted to actually work with the turtles, maybe that could be a solve, and we were just kind of like creatively like, nah, we want to do that, because if it was about that, maybe y'all should have just led that. I just think like, nah, like now, in hindsight, maybe that's what we should have did. We just felt like, nah, man, like y'all just came and try to sue us, and now you're getting this money, but now you're trying to work with us. Sense.

00:27:00
Speaker 1: The way that I was shot for Records back then was literally look at all the sample credits and then no to get that artist, and then anything that they've been on and anything they've been you know, so on and so forth. So like on their side of the fence, none of them saw this as like a good look. I mean, look for George Clinton, he admitted, Dude, if it weren't for y'all, the third Renaissance of Parliament Funkadelic would have never happened. So he was glad to play ball. But they didn't see it that way.

00:27:29
Speaker 2: And I'm being very honest and very understanding of them. I don't know what the members of Turtles want. I can only do what the lawyer was saying.

00:27:41
Speaker 1: So you guys never spoke to them personally, or never.

00:27:44
Speaker 2: Spoke to them personally at them, This is just what lawyer was saying. Maybe they weren't even involved. Even in hindsight looking at it, I'm sure like they weren't heavily involved in this is like it could have been the record company making sure that the lawyers did with they was supposed to do.

00:28:02
Speaker 1: Dude, Why why was I know, never ever released in the United States as a single. Because when the smoke clears, when people talk about three ft hind and rising, the first thing they mentioned, even before Haulling notes, but even before the sketches and all that stuff is oh my god, the rymen over Steely Dan. I fucking loved, Like, how come you guys never released that here, only in Europe.

00:28:28
Speaker 2: It was a Tommy Boy that was the label's decision. I don't know, Like I don't know if they felt like the album was run out of steam. I mean even by the time we did Buddy, you know, and we did this remix to Buddy that just ignited a whole other level of what it could be. But I loved that, I know. I mean, I'm being honest. I produced, I know, so I would have loved to be what it needed to be in the States, but we definitely saw when we would performing what it would be there, and I think Tommy Boy led with that understanding as well, and that's why they only did it there. But I agree, I would have loved to see that a release. But if I am to be very honest, after having say No go and didn't come with, I know, I think that even we was at a point where it was like, Yo, we're losing anyone who looks like this, you know, we need we need Buddy like we That's I think that's where it was even for us.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: Okay, has jj fad ever responded to Daycratic, No.

00:29:34
Speaker 2: Not at all. I mean, we did a lot of shows with them, and it was the nicest girls and funny enough. Even at the hip hop joint that you were involved in. You know, we spoke with them and yeah, man, we used to see them a lot back in the day, even just being around n w A and them. Nah, I mean they was really cool with us. We was really cool with them. I don never think they saw it as a disc and we we didn't. We did definitely even meet it as a disc.

00:30:00
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't see it as a disc, but I mean it's definitely referential.

00:30:04
Speaker 2: To Supersonic, definitely right.

00:30:08
Speaker 1: So Tommy Boy would often go heavy on the like quirky contest things like guess that sample for whatever? Did anyone ever win that ship? And what was the prize?

00:30:21
Speaker 2: I don't know that, I'm being honest. I don't think they It's almost like and I remember being in meetings and in that particular meeting in Tom and Tom's like, no one's gonna guess this pass, no one's gonna guess it. I don't think.

00:30:37
Speaker 1: I don't think they were off for like a thousand bucks, like I guess no.

00:30:41
Speaker 2: No.

00:30:44
Speaker 1: I went like for a good two hours, I went through my dad's entire record collection, like I'm gonna find this ship and I didn't.

00:30:51
Speaker 2: Like you know, and it's funny because, like you said in today's time or you even if you scroll back, I don't know, fifteen years like you got everyone who will be like, yo, it's this is that nah? Like back then, no one knew that?

00:31:03
Speaker 1: Okay, so can you please tell us? I mean, I know it's probably just to be silly, and I know it wasn't any logic behind it, but the overkill of Slick Rick's voice as sort of the connecting factor of day La Souls Dead with his entire like lotty dotty ending thing, like what was the genesis of the obsession? And was that sample just always on standby when you wanted to Was it like on the sk one, just like in case someone wanted to use it?

00:31:39
Speaker 2: It was pretty much I mean, like I'm being honest, pretty much. It was just like we knew, like after maybe the second time, it was just like, Yo, this should be out. This would be funny if it just be out the album and and you just Paul has that Sentius to laugh like, Yo, this is this is so stupid. This is be stupid. We gotta figure out another place to put it, and so where it would naturally feel right, we would do it. And so I remember when Dave did it at the end of Oh I Went, He was like, yo, merch, do it at the end of your ride. Do it at the end your run to the biddy to lashon, Like I feel like this is yo, man. We were just.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: So that that wasn't added in mastering or whatever like that was oh oh go.

00:32:24
Speaker 2: Right there in the studio.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: Although yeah, okay, just for those who don't know, what is the significance behind the title of you guys being plugs, Well.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: Plugs started only from a fans We had to single called plug tuning, and so with me being the one saying plug one, Dave saying plug two, it wasn't that wasn't anything by design. It was just like this we wanted to start the record off on something, and that was just even when Mace used to cut the record as a routine, because you gotta remember plug tuning, it was just a routine. We was also like the children of like you know, the cold Crush, the Dougie Fresh to slick Ricks. So we would up tuning routine in the house and like instead of being like one two one two. We'd be like plugged one, plug two, like to just routine plug tuning, got it. So I just happened to be the one saying plug one. Dave was the one saying plug two got it. By the time we made a record out of it performed it live. We performed it live for the first time at Stetso Sonic's release party, and from that that night, people was saying to me, yo, plug one, I saw you the other day and Dave was Plugged two. So the people who saw us named us those names.

00:33:44
Speaker 1: Was, by the way, who came up with the name Dale.

00:33:49
Speaker 2: I sold it was me and Dave because I wanted, you know, when we're just trying to think of names. I came to Dave was like, yo, I think we should call ourselves from the soul, and I gave him the whole reason behind it. I was like, I think everything we do is from our heart and soul, and I think it could be really dope, like from the soul, and Dave was like very understanding. I could see Knye in his face.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: He was like, nah, mersc is he the king of He's the king of no like he.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: Was like but when he listened to what I was saying. He was like, look, the meaning behind it is dope. He was like, but he was like, from the soul it doesn't sound catchy enough, like why don't you stay instead of from the say Deyla. And I was like, I'm with it. And it was that simple, and that's how it became instead of from the soul, day Lah Soul.

00:34:49
Speaker 1: Usually, the last songs worked on albums wind up being singles or like a pivotal song. What was the last song worked on for three f im Rising?

00:35:00
Speaker 2: The last song was living in a Full Time era because we were already And it's crazy that I can't even tell you what the last song before that, because the only reason why that became the last song is that we heard We were very confident in the album. We loved the album, We love what we had did with this, we love this the work we had produced with Paul. But when we heard the Adventures of Slick Rick, we were shook. We was like, Yo, how is our album going to beat this album? Like it not even beat it. We just thought like live up to this. So I was like, yo, I think we need something else. I just and we love the song Licked the Balls by by him on that album. We was like, yo, we need something else, and I remember this, kept telling Dave like yo, I think I got something. And then I went in and put together the samples for Living in the Full Time Era. This is a recorder got.

00:36:01
Speaker 1: That last right in light of you guys getting your masters back and re releasing all the records again. We can hear the adjustments having to be made on three feet high and rising for a lot of those songs, did you have to use the original reels to mix all over again from scratch? Or I'm only asking because I think on Oh Freedom of Speak, it sounded way clearer and like brighter. So for some of those songs you had to get the reels and remix them from scratch.

00:36:39
Speaker 2: We definitely got the reels and we did our best, because at first we did have a conversation with ourselves as saying like should we like mix them, mix them or should we preserve some level of it feeling like it did, so we had to talk with ourselves. But yeah, basically we definitely tried to clean it up a bit, but not.

00:37:08
Speaker 1: Like I think the sample should be louder, and I always wanted to fix my last verse in.

00:37:15
Speaker 2: He was like, Yo, we can't start doing that. We can't think with our twenty at that time, twenty twenty four or twenty twenty three. Mind, we preserve what was made in nineteen eighty nine.

00:37:30
Speaker 1: It was really okay. So I want to ask the we hate the song question? Now in retrospect, do you feel as though you guys, and I say this in heavy air quotes, overreacted in rejecting what was clearly working for you guys in the late eighties and early nineties, Like, look, thirty years for me, the industry since ninety four, you know, I wonder if the resistance to mainstream and look, I went through twice with music and movies, like the second it starts and you're like, ah, it's too much. I wonder if the resistance to mainstream success and the kind of intense confrontations that arose from it was justified considering that you're pretty much entertaining the same demographics to this day, are you not? Okay? So how jarring was it? Because I do remember a period up and right up until nineteen ninety four you guys spoke about it a lot on like de la Soula is dead and especially on Blue Mind State. I know that Cypress Hill probably felt it the worst with like suddenly like the mainstream hip hops, like ah man they ca it went pop down, all those things. But how jarring did it feel to have that massive level of seeing success like at the height of daylight madness? What did it feel like?

00:39:05
Speaker 2: The success itself was a blessing because I think you your group understands the level of making your bones traveling throughout the world. So just even in traveling you saw it. You saw people in these different countries who didn't have English as the first language, and you had these people who actually learn English and learning your music and being in love with your music. So we saw how many people it did touch. We weren't just stuck, I guess for a lack of better way of saying it stuck and just living in the States and only understanding what happened in the States. So we saw that as a blessing of what our music and how we could touch people, what our music can do. But still, I guess the success of Yo you could be on Yo, you could be on top of the pops. You Hey Yo, Bennie Hey, Bennie bedeena Hey, it wasn't because we knew Bennie and Benny would hang out with Russell, like, Yo, you know, maybe you should try out for this TV show that I'm trying to put together. Why don't you shoot your shot for this thing we got called Fresh Prince of Bellet. It was just too much. It was like, yo, we don't want to do all that. We want to make music. So I think us in our young minds was thinking like all that extra stuff was too much as long as the success was there with us doing our artistry, That's what it was. Even by the time we got to like you said, but low mind state and you know now it's normal business. But at that time, you know, like ahause, so niggas got hold up a sprit can and rhyme like it was just like, oh man, you selling out, you know what I'm saying, Like that's just what it was. Then you didn't understand this branding thing.

00:40:45
Speaker 1: See, I feel like I said yes to everything that you guys would have said no to. And even now I'm wondering, like did I make the right choice or did I not make the right choice? Like you know that to be seen.

00:41:01
Speaker 2: But I may say as well because I can be honest and looking back in hindsight, we bitch and moan about a few things because in the blessings you were receiving, yo, man, I mean were just burnt out. We were like everywhere we were doing things like this three Fi and Rising album has set us on this path where we couldn't land at an airport. You do interviews at the airport, but then you didn't get into the car, and then you're being interviewed by this big magazine that you're gonna be on the front cover of from the airport to the hotel, and then when you get out at the hotel, then you go into this banquet room and you have this press conference, then you got to go to soundcheck, but do an interview. It was all that we were just tired of that shit got very honest. That's just really that had a lot to do with it was like this, Okay, so this is what you got to be to do to be mainstream, Like you know, we just want to go into the studio and make records, toll whatever else come with that. I think that's really where we got burnt out from.

00:42:05
Speaker 1: Okay, where is Jeff And why wasn't Mac Daddy on the left or Brainwash follower included on the three feet reissues.

00:42:17
Speaker 2: I think it's just I think us alone a reservoir. We just needed to tag out a bit because of the fact that there's a lot of samples that weren't taken care of and that we took care of. And then it's kind of like, okay, and then we're up for another round. Okay, so let's look to another round of Okay, these songs that were these great songs that y'all put together on these twelve inches, let's get to it. And I mean we're going to get to it.

00:42:41
Speaker 1: So you guys are fully aware that we're like waiting for the rest of the three feet high Okay, Okay, just wanted to make sure you knew we were waiting for that, not just like they don't care.

00:42:50
Speaker 2: Okay. Jeff is a family guy. He just lives at home with his family.

00:42:54
Speaker 1: I mean, what it is Jeff, now, like he's got to be in his forties now.

00:42:58
Speaker 2: Right easily, I mean maybe still late thirties. I want to say.

00:43:03
Speaker 1: Maybe besides mac Daddy, were there any other songs with him? Rhyman on it?

00:43:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, was a part of this crew. Dave was going to do Wow and I can't remember the name, which is absolutely horrible. They put together a dope ass demo and Jeff had changed his name to Philly Black. He was in Philly one night drunk too much and blacked out, and then his name became Philly. Jeff is Philly Black on our Bionics album. We have a song called the Sauce and that's what Jeff so, Jeff is Philly Black on that album. But I think that, yeah, Jeff Romin's ass off on that album.

00:43:46
Speaker 1: I didn't know that was him, Okay, all right, I didn't know.

00:43:50
Speaker 2: It's this demo that Dave put together, and I'm gonna remember after an interview, which is horrible, like they put together this collective. It was Jeff Philly Black, it was Dave, and it was Divine who rhymes on pawn Star on a Biones album, someone else, and it was just a bunch of really really amazing music. But it never and then it was supposed to come out funny enough on Tommy Boy and it just I don't know what.

00:44:15
Speaker 1: Okay, you guys are the king of the side group stories. Literally every time I talk to you, you talk about well we had a group with this group and that group and that group. Like how many side groups were there in the native tongue speare.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: You're talking about the Fabulous Fleas which was me tip Juju Africa Kids on ZENI Fave which was Dave Uh, Sammy B and Mike G. I think someone else was in that with them. We had something that we was going to call the Hoods, which was just all of everyone in Native but it was going to call it the Hoods. Yeah, we were just I mean, we was just very very much taken out of the Parliament funker delic.

00:45:04
Speaker 1: Where the Violators ever supposed to be an actual group or you just they were just the crew.

00:45:09
Speaker 2: No, that was just the crew. There was just the crew. It wasn't really supposed to be not that I know, they weren't really supposed to be rhyming.

00:45:16
Speaker 1: I got it, okay, Well, I mean they were just always given equal billings. I just never knew. So obviously the sound of Daylight changed on the Day Lost Soul's Dead album and most notably the musical backdrop. So what was what was the difference between the access the access to records that you used on three ft hind and Rising, compared to the access to records that you got with day Lot soul was dead. Like in other words, how would the records acquired for three feet High and Rising? Whereas I'm certain now that you're touring the world and you get to shop, you.

00:45:53
Speaker 2: Know, every record used on three feet was just records that were from our parents' collection. So plug tuning, that was my fatherst record, Jennifer, that was my fatherst record, you know, like whatever I mean. Paul was probably the only one at that time already being in stead, but he was still using like his own record collection. But I think it was still records that he acquired on his own, or he may have gotten from his bigger brother, his older brother, and maybe some records he may have gotten being on the road any But the majority of records were just from our home, from myself, Dave and Mays.

00:46:33
Speaker 1: So for the first generation of like cret digging in a non bitbot of flashway, how heavy was the environment back in the dawn of the nineties, Like for our listeners that listening, you know, there was a probably the Bible of Breakbeats, which was a compilation called Ultimate Beats and Breaks, which every rapper worth their grain of salt. Between that classic era of like eighty five to ninety, we're pretty much using this. It was like Wikipedia or AI for break beats, but it was always the same, like sixty songs. And what made Daylight notable was that they colored outside the lines, and you know, it was a period of like discovery, like oh the parts of the record collection that you ignore in your parents' house, Like, oh, there's some stuff on there too. But for me, I feel like day La Soul Is Dead was the first what we call like the digging in the crates era. I'll say ninety nine percent of that record was the you know, like we didn't know about evil Vibrations sample or you know, or even it's Lou Donaldson's version of It's Your Thing or any of those things. But then there would be some moments where I was wondering, were you trying to even back then, I was wondering where you're trolling this, like using funky drummer on Uzable on the fade out like it worked for me, But then I always wonder like, were you guys being sarcastic or like by that point everyone played it to the ground and yet you used it on the fade out, So I always wondered was that by design? And also Afro connections at a high five. Nobody in their right mind would use mustache era James Brown for anything. And it's almost like you guys chose the worst James Brown song ever, which is for goodness sakes, take a look at those cakes, which no self respecting rapper whatever rhyme over, and yet y'all did it. Can you explain the lostic like in the way you're smiling, I feel like I just uncover some shits correctness, Like why did y'all put funky drummer on udles of os when it didn't need it? I love the way you used it, but it didn't need it, but yet you did it.

00:48:59
Speaker 2: Why? Well, just like how you said that was the mantra that Prince Paul made sure we you know, learned by which was it really worked? He said, yo, just try everything because if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Don't cancel out any idea. So at some point Dave has already nailed I mean, that was the first record that Dave led in production, was Oodles of Olds, and it was just absolutely amazing. But then he was like yo, I have these other ideas, like he tried to add on and it's not in there. One day I can let you hear it, like the beginning of Oodles of Olds. He started it all he doing like Frankie Beverly, going, I gotta make sure I'm wrong. We was like, why would you do that? And he said, yo, I gotta try it, and then he tried it, but we was like nah. And then I think, I want to say, Mace wanted to add in the funky drummers, so maybe it could be like if we dropped out the beat we already had and that could be in there and that mind you. I'm like, that's not gonna work. But then we tried it was like, all right, maybe you could use it at some point. But then, luckily enough, it wounded just being something used at the end, like because it was almost more for the because we almost wanted to throw on the like that, and so yeah, it wound up being something like we had fun, like yo, let's just let it ride at the end.

00:50:24
Speaker 1: But I mean, may I thought you were trying to make a grand statement, like every time I hear that song, the way that my brain was thinking was like, oh, Okay, I see what they're doing. They're like sweeping the old guys out, like all you old rappers that used funky drummer, We're flushing you down the toilet, you know, on the fade out. It just made no sense, but I was always obsessed with that shit, okay nah.

00:50:48
Speaker 2: And then even when Mace Mace Mace did he put together Apple Connections and like I just remember him playing that for us, and we was like.

00:50:55
Speaker 3: This is again amazing, Like we was like this is the hardest shit ever, and like it almost sounded some shit people think Dale I shouldn't be rhyming on it, and I was like, that's why we got a rome on this, and like Dave amediately was like.

00:51:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should do it like on some exploitation ship, like I don't know, some like yeah like afrol Connections, and I was like yo whatever like anything they would say like all right, cool, let's try it. And so yeah, man, that was just wow.

00:51:21
Speaker 1: So like Afro Connections was a if we were like Heart Street niggas, like this is what we were sounding.

00:51:29
Speaker 2: Like yeah, it almost like y'all, y'all like look.

00:51:32
Speaker 1: In your mind, you thought like n wa wou rhand that.

00:51:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it was kind of like definitely like it was almost like through this idea that Dave came up with, it allowed us to be hard, like, Okay, we can like exercise this is what we're doing, you know what I'm saying, Like it allowed you to like play this out. Yeah. Man, we had a lot of fun making up.

00:51:54
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm gonna start with yes or no? Will you ever tell air quote? That story in the air quote?

00:52:06
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:52:08
Speaker 1: What a top you know about the the Oodle's Afro story. Yeah, I'm telling for the first time ever.

00:52:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you talking about what I think you're talking about, who's doing that for me? Yeah? I mean should we grown now?

00:52:24
Speaker 1: And Kevin Mercer, can you please tell me about the story of Afro Connections at a high five? Oh my god, I can't believe you're about to tell the story.

00:52:36
Speaker 2: So the beginning of Afro Connections where we say like this is dedicated to all those horror core acts you know, the dudes is fill the fuck off, right. That was us being upset and mad at run DMCs of O's at the time when we was doing, you know, working on our album Oodles of O's. Actually he was something that Dave put together for Run DMC, because we were told by you know, we had the same management, and we was told about like yo, like Russ, you know, we want these guys, they need some music. And Dave was honored to try to put something together. And then from what we understood, d actually like what Dave had did. But I think Run wasn't with it, Like it was just kind of like, who is these little niggas trying to do something for Run DMC.

00:53:29
Speaker 1: D is going on d is going on the record saying how much of a fan.

00:53:33
Speaker 2: He was of you guys, Like, oh, I mean the trust me And I'm not even trying to say that Run wasn't but Run was just.

00:53:41
Speaker 1: Run back in the nineties. I got this by Run go Ahead.

00:53:47
Speaker 2: One would Run and the monument and and now, like I'll say, like our first show ever, as I said, when we did plug Tune in at the Stetso Sonic Party, DMC was in the front row, yes and all we was there to do that one song we got off. We was like so nervous. After getting off, we went in the bathroom to get our composure and we did a great job. DMC followed us into the bathrooms, like, Yo, get the fuck back on and do it again. That's so amazing. It's like he was just always such a cheerleader to us, and Jay wants to and like I said, anytime we met Ron, he was really dope to us as well. But we knew Run was run you know what I'm saying at that attitude, like no one is dope. It in me in and shit, we looked up to it. We wanted to be like running them in our mirrors as well. So anyway, I guess when Dave tried to give the beat to them, so that was the whole focus of us of oo was the way they did the udles of oza No. He saw it as like how DMC would have to echoed ozia no No da da da da da da da da da da da da da. He was trying to do it on some run DMC shit. They didn't take it because run distant, but like super distant. We wound up putting it on our which I was cool with. I was like, Yo, this shit is dope. Anyway, we can do it for our short but and being mad and cryptic, we did the whole ship connections.

00:55:07
Speaker 1: Got it okay, they got us.

00:55:09
Speaker 2: Back because I think they realized it and through Afros they can't. Yeah, because on one of the Afro albums, Jay and them they did it. They did like some skit where I think they use us saying something like something and then they and it's like some guns going off. Yeah. Yeah, we were just young. We loved Run DMC. We were just hurt that they You know, it's one thing to be like you just don't want to use it, right how Run just kind of dissed us about it, And I'm sure you run about it today and Run wouldn't even remember.

00:56:01
Speaker 1: I don't know how to ask this next question, but one of the recurring themes that I always have on this podcast is that pioneers really just get the glory of saying that they did it first, but it's always the person that comes second that gets the glory from it, and the pioneer never gets the credit. So, I mean, at one point to me, it just felt like a running joke. But when you hear songs like when you hear Dear Mama or Ghetto Red Hot or Mary Jay's Be Happy remix or how I Could Just Kill a Man or a Funky Child or float on what Up Pete or crucial conflicts, Hey in the middle of the barn or Warren G's this DJ or portraits Here we go. Shit, yo, I'll be distortion in a stag by the roots, the youngsters, you know, doing your little ego trip paper ripping verse or even aero codes for Ludacris. I joke, but I'm not joking. I think set a Drift Memory Bliss is the greatest daylight soul song that y'all never made, you know what it wasn't even until maybe two weeks into what they do that someone was like, oh, you guys just in the daylight video and I was like, no, oh god, we did. Like I'm dealing with the biggie part of it, but I didn't even get to the daylight part of it. You guys literally have done things first. It's almost like I listen to y'all to see what's going to be the next big hit. But at one point did it just become like yeah, of course, like to hear all of your ideas and musicality and samples get reused and they become like actual, big, gigantic hits for these artists that do it.

00:57:57
Speaker 2: I mean basically from Ludacris doing the Era Your Coach record. We never felt like, oh man, he's trying to repurpose our idea and he got to hear from it. We never would look at things like that. We never would look at Mary doing her record and using say the Dollar bill Yard record the way we use it with the backwards eight away going. We we were like homefe because it's no different than how we took different things and used it from people we loved and we respected, and we just felt like, yo, it's a homage to them. So nah man, we never really thought of things like that at all, you know.

00:58:36
Speaker 1: So one of the the unsung stars or heroes of well we already talked about it was Sean aka I'm and Joy on Biddy's not many. Every time someone's in my car and Biddies comes on, I had to tell them that, uh, Shashawana Marisol like Shashana is is is the girl from l else doing it and she had singles on and all and stuff like how did you guys back when her name was am and Joy, how did you coming across her?

00:59:10
Speaker 2: I mean, Sean was just around us. She was hanging around us at that point her and Sammy Bee was messing around. I mean, oh okay, So I mean she was just around. She would just be in the studio. So like.

00:59:26
Speaker 1: Her being an MC EMC or she just had a really good voice in delivery.

00:59:32
Speaker 2: Nah she was an MC. Okay, she was really.

00:59:35
Speaker 1: Cause that's also Hermoni's that's her voice where that at that's her right, Okay, okay.

00:59:41
Speaker 2: She had a great voice. She could ram my ass off. We were already hearing stuff she was doing because she would just being around the studio and letting us hear rhyme's and whatever. So Sean was just in the studio, like just in the studio in Calliope. So once I came up with the idea and being like yo, all right, Dave did his idea of Biddy's his he acted out where him and our friend Wade comes in deal with the people who work behind the counter. I want to have him on an exchange between the girl, but the girl run and I work. You know what I'm saying, I'll be the one working at Berkeley King And so I was like yo. Immediately, I was like yo, Lashawn would kill this. She has the right voice. She can write some shit to roast me. And then when I told her the idea, she was like, I'm in. And when I start hearing a rhymes, I start getting scared. I was like, oh shit, she's gonna kill me. I said, Yo, you all right with this? She's like, yeah, I'm cool with that.

01:00:36
Speaker 1: How does that work? I never interviewed a rapper MC as far as like, I never understood how group structure work. I've only known solo EMC's here's my sixteen. So how did that back and forth get constructed?

01:00:51
Speaker 2: That exchange? It had to really be kind of like it couldn't be just me saying, look, lashawan, I rhymed, here, this is space for you. I rhyme here, this is space for you. Listen to everything I said and answer back. It was more like, nah, let me do this first. You started off, you say something, and we talked.

01:01:11
Speaker 1: About it, and you respond to it right, right.

01:01:13
Speaker 2: So we talked about how it should go, and then so then she she had her parts and I was like, jo, that's dope, okay, so let me respond to it this way, and then she will now respond to what I say, like or even if she had something she thought was cool, she would change a bar there to make it fit better with how I ended, how I responded. So we was like on the spot.

01:01:34
Speaker 1: Doing a lot of Yeah, that's that's amazing, man. That was That was such a dope moment. How did Black Sheep get into the native tongue spirit?

01:01:43
Speaker 2: It was through Mike G whether it was and it was the same with Money and everyone else. There was never no audition, you know, to have someone in someone saying yo, or the court like okay, I'm gonna It was just really like, yo, I think this person could be dope. And it was never really no pushback. So I remember, I remember Mike G coming to the studio. He always called me Noose Yo, Noose Yo. It's these two dudes, man, we've been we've been messing with they called Black Sheep, and he explained who they are and and and I had already saw long before rolled them in red. He's like, yeah, you know, Yo, I'm telling you they're going to be really dope. We're thinking about they could be a really dope fit for natives, like they're they're different. But I was like cool, it was like got it, you know what I'm saying. And I think it was everyone else the same way.

01:02:38
Speaker 1: Wait, you just said something that just so wait a minute, on, Jenny, you're not talking about rope. Noos is self referential. You mean she said let's try it in the bathroom. But the news was way above the sick you were talking about you as impossible. Oh god, okay, I'm sorry, bro. I thought you was going to the real dark.

01:03:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's talking about I got news hanging. No.

01:03:12
Speaker 1: I thought you was some like I was saying, Yo, there's some dark sexual feticism ship going on with Nooses, And I was like, for real, I was like, yo, is he talking about asphyxiation?

01:03:23
Speaker 2: Oh?

01:03:23
Speaker 1: Pasta news not me. She was saying, Yo, let's try to the bathroom and hear some rope and let me.

01:03:32
Speaker 2: In the bathroom of a st No.

01:03:36
Speaker 1: Oh god, but I'm sorry, man, Okay, why haven't the JB's appeared on three feet or the soul is dead? Besides, like, oh wait a minute, they're on, buddy? What am I saying? Besides the fanatic of the baseball like, yeah, the Jungle Brothers just fade into the background.

01:04:01
Speaker 2: I mean it was just always about we. I mean, especially by the time we got to Balloon. It was really, really about yo, who is the right instrument vocally for a record? You know, like gotcha? They felt like, Yo, man, I feel like Surety should be on a record, so on the record, say no, like the entire record, like her voice, like if it's just an a like Yo, that's dope cool. So yeah, I mean like it was the same with Jungle if it was just nothing that we were working on that presented itself where yo, let's get them on this. We just didn't do it. The same with Trump, you know, like cause I don't really what tribe ain't on that record. Maybe they're on a remix. While I had when I had q to saying dig the sounds coming fuck plug one on the Break of Dawn remake, it just seemed like Black Sheep just worked out. They was just always around. But mind you the crazy thing, it's like Africa that was in the studio. They would be around every now and then and I'm playing for them, but it just wasn't the right record that.

01:05:09
Speaker 1: Does the producer of the song for who the sessions for is the person that initiates you should get on this, you should get on this or people have been like, yo, I want to be on this and.

01:05:26
Speaker 2: That kind of came a little bit later, but definitely was about us saying who should get on something or you know, even Tip like, yo, Merse, I want you to try something on this this scenario record. And I'm like, after I hadn't heard it already put together, and I'm like, wow, really like this shit is done. It's like it is what it is. And then he wanted me. He tried me on something else that he wanted me and Lord Finess on called bus how you buss? How you bus? How? I ain't trying to hear that? So I think it's called I ain't trying to hear that, and I was like, cool, let me let me try something to that. So it was just really that. But yeah, we would get to a point where like in each other sessions and hearing stuff like because when Tip did mister Mohammed Africa was really making him uncomfortable because He's like, Yo, this should be the this should be like the native record, this should be like we and this is this idea we had called the Hoods should this record? And Tip was like, nah, like I want this to be for Ali, I want this to be called mister Muhammad, gotcha?

01:06:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know, I see all right. So look how challenging was it to craft the final verse of Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa, because the way that you navigate such a heavy fiend song, which you know, is about a daughter defending herself against an abusive father, and you still have to maintain suspense. You have to bring empathy to the situation. And for me, that versus remarkable because this was done in a time in which rappers really weren't granting like women agency, like each line, the way each line was crafted, and the thing is one you're saying it in a rhythmic way in which the words have to fit.

01:07:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.

01:07:23
Speaker 1: To me, the most crucial line of that is your last three lines, which is, you know, Dylan pleaded versity. He said it to me to do all the things that her mind to couldn't do nothing but cling to, which is such a word salad. But that also that line gives you empathy for her in a way where it's just not like it could have easily been like yo, I know this girl around the way and then she shot him dead. You know, it could have been like fast pegged by Llo cool J. You know what I mean she shot him at the head. That's the breaks light. Next song, dude, I'm saying fast Pegged by Elo cool J was like a minute nineteen seconds pretty much could have been the same narrative, but it wound up just being more like an intense sketch. But to me, that's what I think about when I think about the beauty of hip hop storytelling. You have a very short period to paint this picture of the song to make it work. What was the genesis of that song?

01:08:24
Speaker 2: Well, it's like you said, the title was gained from us going into the city. Saw this homeless guy. He had a dirty Santa Claus outfit on him in the subway station. First words that came to my mind was merely pulled a pistol on Sanda. I don't know why, but it did, and he was walking next to me. I was like, yo, man, that'd be a dope title. Because at that point we were just into this writing even down titles and then matching the right lyrics or story to the title. So I immediately pulled out the little padda head in my pocket wrote title down. Paul several weeks later, gave us this tape Casette tape up this different beats he's working on for us. I heard the music I'll stay by. What was that funkadelic?

01:09:14
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:09:15
Speaker 2: I was like, Dave, this is merely pulled the pistol on Sanda. Just how weeping this this sounds? This is it? He was like, got you? Then I married it to someone I was very close to was being blested by our father and real time got everything and then start crafting everything from there. So I mean the story was literally happening to someone that was very close to me in real time. This is how I felt about how fucked up father and I was writing on this. So yeah, it was like and I you know, and as you eloquently explain in terms of how a writer is supposed to put the suspense and lay, I didn't have any idea about that outside of loving to read and whatever. I just thought like, Okay, this is how I got to write this story. And Dave loved what I was doing so much. He was like, Mrce, write the whole thing. He was like, because what you showed me that for your first verse. He was just being honest. He's like, I don't know how I would pick it up just for it to be just solid. You write the entire thing and assigned to me what you want me to say. Cool, And so that's what I did. I just kept going, kept going. But I knew I wanted it to end abruptly, like how a shot will abruptly in your life. But I had to fill in from the beginning to end. And like you said, it was a challenge to make sure that once I was staying in this rhyme style, this cadence, my thoughts of how I wanted it to go, I had to find the right words for the cadence.

01:10:56
Speaker 1: Dude, I have so many great ideas for shit, but I just because my word salad brain, I don't know how to sustinctly Treak's the original AI like he knows how to widdle words down to make it fit rhythmically, you know, And I just never know too.

01:11:10
Speaker 2: Like it's funny, I know, I want to say, y'all did it like y'all did the song over and I got I remember when it got to this one part where I I never fixed it because when I say like complete, it was probably like complete when with an accent, but I say it so weird complete with ad accent. It almost like it sounds like I'm saying complete with ad accent, and I'm really saying and an accent. But I had to do it in the style okay, you know, I know, like people was like, what the hell is he saying?

01:11:48
Speaker 1: What is the Renee King story?

01:11:50
Speaker 2: Renee King? She and I mean, bless her heart. I couldn't tell you exactly what she did in the music industry, but we knew her from like if we were at like a seminar, she would be there doing whatever. She would you know, a music seminar, she was there, or we would come to Philly at whatever show she was there. So we knew she was a part of the industry, right. But you know she, I mean this point blank, seemed like a really nice but little eccentric woman. Yeah, she was trying to holler word. So I was just trying to like, yeah, you know, I'm young, like eighteen nineteen, and she seemed like she was probably like in her thirties. I was like, nah, I think so sound sock.

01:12:45
Speaker 1: She was.

01:12:45
Speaker 2: She was definitely an older woman, you know what I can hear. So I was just like, nah, I don't necessarily want to do that. Some other things in Philly I'm looking at right right, well my, but she was it's really cool, really nice. But yeah, I mean I just thought like in her saying what she said on her thing to me, like if she's trying to get at me and it's for the music business, because it's kind of like I think she got to feel like, I think she's trying to holla and I'm gonna use this for ringing ring I'm gonna get you with this, And that's why I put it in front.

01:13:18
Speaker 1: And she was swine with you guys putting her phone number and loved it.

01:13:21
Speaker 2: She kept the same phone number everything. I remember, she did an interview and she loved it. She loved it.

01:13:39
Speaker 1: By ninety one, were you guys already over the the idea of day La soul, the idea of native tongues like whereas like you guys are apposed to be like sixteen kids hanging out in boho clothing and head wraps and incense and whatever. Were you tired of the idea of the boholdness of what we thought as your fan base thought native tongues.

01:14:02
Speaker 2: Was well, we as Dayla could have felt that a bit, because if you realize that's why we ditched everything from three feet That's what Dayla So Dead was all about, Like ditching this outer shell that everyone's paying attention to, so let alone with the outer shell of natives the same way. And Q Tip Ali and all them, they was especially five. They was all doing the same thing, like all right, okay, I had enough of looking like this on this cover, Like I'm putting on this baseball hat because this is what I really wear when I'm in sint obits or you know what I'm saying. So yeah, I mean, I'm sure like it was. It just kind of like became more of like, yo, we got these dope ass rhymes, we got these banging ass beats, and they're super creative. It was almost like that was more of a mantra like gotchak with us when it really comes to that, you know, being super creat and we can rhyme. We didn't want people to just focus on the imagery.

01:15:05
Speaker 1: Normally, you know when you guys rhyme, I still feel like I know what you're saying because I can pick up like every seventh word. But within focus, I understood absolutely everything you spoke of, even to the Funkadelic knee deep reference of you know, of me myself and I sort of being in the sunset and now this is where my life is. So can you explain just the whole idea of in Focus, Like, was there really a period where it just felt like the plane was landing and now the dream was over and now And I'm not saying that it's a cynical album, because the thing is is that I think maybe this year and listening to like the reissue, the woman I never said was like, oh, you know, as much as I talk about three feet and Da La Soul's like, really the album that gave birth to the roots was Blue Mind State, simply because of the musical directions that you guys took. But how jarring did that feeling like when I heard him focus? That that actually made me depressed, Which it's an upbeat song, well, not an upbeat song. It still sounds like a hip hop John, But that was the first time where I was like, oh, all might not be well in you know, Amityville Land or wherever I thought the idea of day La Soul being like, talk about just the creation of in Focus and the cynicism behind it.

01:16:36
Speaker 2: With my brain at this point, I don't recall who came up within focus, It sounds like something Dave would do. I came up with the music, okay, but yeah, I mean in focus as a theme. Definitely Dave, and definitely Dave was at that point because even we had the running joke even at that point, like the Way's Dave, He's somewhere in Haiti in a tree, Like Dave was already this ruined with the fame, the fame aspect of it and just what it took to keep it going, like you know.

01:17:16
Speaker 1: Let's this, is this why he cut his hair? Is this why he like.

01:17:19
Speaker 2: Just trying different things and and crazy enough? Before Dave passed several interviews we were doing leading up to the catalog, he really talked in depth about it, which was this very eye opening for me because I didn't know he was feeling like that for that album. Like Dave was just revealing that he was just really not in a great place with himself and understanding himself and where he was going and how he should be evolving as a father as all these things during Balloon Mind State, So Dave really was. It's almost like he made it sound like and in hindsight, looking back, I can get I get it. Like he was almost like an airplane mode, like he was just like, Okay, you know, I'm going to listen to the mantra of Paul that if this is what pas thinks is dope to try or pass want to do this thing called Patty Duke pasta yo merse you right rhyme because I don't think I can really nail it. But that was his way just saying he didn't really like it, and and that's why I'm not to skip out of your question. But then that's why when he checked back in for Stakes is High, he came back with a vengeance. So yeah, during that period and focus is definitely Dave like he's tired of this shit, like he's tired of this light being on him. If I want to do some dirt, niggas looking, if I want to chill, niggas looking I just want to rest with my daughter, niggas looking like That's that really I felt like that's what they felt.

01:18:44
Speaker 1: How did you guys discover shot Dara Shadara part and uh Tagaji Khan, the two Japanese MC's on Long Island wilding.

01:18:57
Speaker 2: Well, it started from Khan was down with already down with Red Alert, like so the prop Master stuff. We almost found out about Khan through Red Alert before we even went to Japan. And so by the time we lived in Japan and this meet con, he introduced us to his home boys SDP, and then we were actually on shows together and so we were just really cool. They really pretty much in all what we was doing and loved what we were doing, and we actually was felt the same about them, Like we was like, yo, these these three dudes is like to us, they they felt like the Japanese beastie boys, like they were just really creative, and we just saw a similar kinship musically, where like the barrier of not understanding them and them not understanding us probably every word, but we felt a connection to the music. So we was like when we came up with that skit Long Island Wildin and it only came from I had this The beat was just the beat, but I had this take of Mantronics performing at the Red Patron m and Tricky T who rhymed of course in Mantronics. He was just like, you know, yeah, you know what I'm and I'm out in Long Island right now, Locus Long Island be wilding like that's but that's where I'm staying at Long And I was like, Yo, it would be dope to put this in this beat, and then of course us just take it just elsewhere. It was like, and we don't even rhyme on Let's let SDP and con rhyme on this shit because they ain't from Long Island. They're from Japan, right right, Since we thought that would be like, wow, all right, let's do that, and then that's what we did.

01:20:36
Speaker 1: I see on I Am I Be? How many side characters did you guys get to loop? And did they have to loop the entire five minute duration of that song of whatever they were the I Am da da da I'd be four eleven I Am da da da? I bet did they do that in the entire.

01:20:55
Speaker 2: All those vocals mainly consisted of stuff I will walk around my dad and just get people to say it. So at that point, I was we were hanging out a lot at Delaware State. Our friend Wade, who's boss all who Dave is he's on the ad libs And David, Yeah, he went to Dell State, so we also hang out there, and so all the friends we made there, I had him like, Yo, I'm making a song call and my be and need to just say I am your name, I be whatever, and then I will get them. But then, of course Shorty, who was already at this point going to be on the entire album we wanted. We wanted Shorty. I was like, this as long as you can possibly say it. And then of course, like people like Buster and Q Tip and we recorded them right in battery and God blessed the dead. Crazy enough Bob of course helped us put all that together. And this is before the simple age of what we have now, like you make a voice note, you slip place. It wasn't just as simple. It was like really kind of already figuring out, Okay, Bob, I want this to go first. I want to hear this say this person, but I wanted to kind of start building up and he's like and so he technically is trying to figure out how to do that. And then also I could change I can be like because when Tip says I am cute to I'd be friction. I was like, Yo, that's amazing, let's put Tip this move. Whoever was in the way put Tip saying that. So it was tedious, like probably doing the rhymes to that was easier than putting all those vocals, and that took.

01:22:31
Speaker 1: I almost wondered if well, I was wondering, did you leave gaps in the rhyme just to have the ad libs coming now?

01:22:40
Speaker 2: No, we just figured out, like, you know what this feels good? I knew okay, like right where I in my rhyme. I wanted someone to say something. I figured, okay, I got one left over from Chris Lighty Baby, Chris you say this like, yeah, man, it was just trying to fill it up as much as possible.

01:22:56
Speaker 1: Got it.

01:22:57
Speaker 2: Uh?

01:22:58
Speaker 1: Did JVS ever respond to your verse? And I M I B no.

01:23:02
Speaker 2: I played it for them before the song, before the album came out. I went to them and played it. I sat. I remember, I was in a car with Long and them. I was like, yo, I'm putting a I played it for them. I played it for Q Tip, I played it for I played it for them. It wasn't like they heard it for the first time when it was you know, and it was me because our relationship wasn't a weird space. We were always refining fame and I kind of really took it to heart because I looked at them as my two brothers, you know, like I was hanging with those two dudes q Tip in Africa at one point more than I was hanging with, you know, Dave and Mace, so I own, and we weren't doing daylight stuff. I was at Africa's house, in his house, staying at his house, his mother's cooking for so I would be at Tips house and we were like together. So it seemed like we was falling apart from each other. And that was just me being in my feelings and wrote that where in hindsight it was just really should have been more of a talk with each other about what was going on with each other. But I went to them in hopes of showing them this in my way of just trying to fix our relationship where it seemed like we weren't all hanging with each other, got it, you know, and Tipp and spoke about it like he understood it then. But it just that once that it came out, it was just kind of like a bandit that's kept getting ripped and ripped and ripped. And I think like it caused some animosity maybe at some point, and whoever else.

01:24:44
Speaker 1: All right, Stakes's eye the intro who just happened to be battling another MC when they hear criminal Minded for the first time, I'd never ever believe that line as long as I like Most battling another see that had to be Moose.

01:25:05
Speaker 2: Oh I love that boy man. Most y'all seen Bay Wow. Yeah, I will say it forever and ever. He was the battery of all those sessions. Most once he came around. He was there every day and he was like the cheerleader, the battery, the inspiration.

01:25:26
Speaker 1: How did you guys meet him? Because I met him through I think I've met him for the first time that whatever the Daylight live at tramps. Yeah, how did you guys meet most Room Mace?

01:25:39
Speaker 2: Mace was DJing at some spot and most actually was the particular spot it was. Most was like doing some type of poetry hosting there, and I think from there it's how they linked. And Mace every now and then would be like, Yo, this kid, you know, he's dope, and I was like, you know, cool, you know, come by the studio one day, mind you, I'm already seeing this Dante Smith Guy Cosby's mysteries. I didn't know that, but yeah, I mean once Mace brought most through, told have most come through? He was like there every day.

01:26:17
Speaker 1: Okay, when you get to Stakes reissues, can you please include the original Dave intro where he's we're jumpling and and oh the very the intro song, the intro.

01:26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's the anniversary coming up in a few months and we're dealing with right now what we're going to put on it.

01:26:38
Speaker 1: Oh please, Like, I don't know why y'all edited that, but for me, just too long.

01:26:45
Speaker 2: It's just too long.

01:26:46
Speaker 1: That's no, it was. It was genius because you you're literally inside the head of Davids. He's trying to figure out the right cadence. But I don't know. I always thought that was that was brilliant. By that point, ninety six was upon us. We were getting the two. Critics started sort of labeled the perspective as somewhat elitist or they invented a new term called player hating or whatever. But when you compare it to what we're dealing with now looking back, do you find it surprising how hip hop has evolved or devolved? And is it shocking? What's your feelings on the whole Stakes as ye kind of.

01:27:31
Speaker 2: For the most part of me. I'm a positive dude, believe it or not, because I know a lot of times when I look at sometimes I'll say to this to myself. When I write, I can write things out of like a warning, lady light be careful, y'all, this is about to happen. But I do feel that even now, there's amazing music out It's just the problem is you just gotta find it. It's not easy to find. And I think with our minds, you know, someone to be like, you know what, I only know how to look on this particular site of post to go to that site, and that site is its own world. And so I think it's harder to find stuff. And so when you talk about at one point when mainstream music could have more positivity, you know, like the carrist One with the super great hit, but he's carrist One or Tribe got this beautiful, amazing record in their pott Yeah, I mean that's a little hard to come by these days. And you know, stakes is high. Originally for me was about life. So even Dave was like always really a little bit more about the industry, Like, yo, this industry is some bullshitting. I don't know where we stand in the industry, and I was like, you know, I was reading a lot of quite honestly, like you know, like a heap arigin wite books and different types of I don't know where life is at, Like life is a little crazy.

01:28:56
Speaker 1: So I think you about to go to Penn station with the crate.

01:28:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, at y'all, I was. I used to get my books. I used to get I was, you know, I was really deep. I was really deep, you know, honestly I was. I was a part of the new Wappian nation. My name was Fox Korder, I knew Doctor York. I would go down to the land. Yeah, if you look at Break of Dawn on Balloon Mind stay times, like even the video Breaker Down, I got the patches on on my shirt, so I was. I was heavily and.

01:29:25
Speaker 1: I missed that he the next Lifetime video with Erica too. Then I know it.

01:29:36
Speaker 2: So I mean like, yeah, I mean I was just really on some like yeah, life is life, and as they would stay these days, and we really need to look at what we're doing, and we meant it in a really good way. We didn't we know, we didn't want it to turn around and say anything mean And then get into some issue with someone, but we was willing to if it had to be, because we just really was saying it love. And as you said, when you look at where a lot of music is today, and funny enough, a lot of MC's back then who felt differently, they feel the same now and they'll come to us and be like yo, like kind of like you was right.

01:30:13
Speaker 1: Why did you guys waste that NonStop beat?

01:30:16
Speaker 2: Hey?

01:30:17
Speaker 1: That shit could have went far for y'all. And I get angry every time it comes up, and I'm always like, I know there's a corresponding song that goes with that thing, because it was just.

01:30:31
Speaker 2: A banging ass beat Dave made and he wanted to use it to talk over ain't crazy enough, no man, which is the beauty of it all. Like I didn't give him any I didn't really beat him in ahead about it. I didn't even be like yo, like, uh, yeah, I didn't. I didn't look at it like yo, we should rhyme on this. Nah. It was just like, oh, this is dope, and now you want to do this over and fade up and fade down. You know. Really it really was like that. I mean, there's a lot of songs like that. I mean, you know, it's so easy. It was like that. I didn't That's why Dave, that's why I became his soule thing. I didn't see it. That's something to rhyme over.

01:31:11
Speaker 1: Were you supposed to have a verse on it's so easy?

01:31:14
Speaker 2: No, because originally it's so easy. I made that for Naughty by Nature. That was for them. Oh shit, yeah there, because when we were finishing up stakes as high, that could have worked well, we were finishing up stakes as high. Audie Lacatus, who was working on Tommy Boy, was like, look, man, we're working you know, Naughty just got started on their album, but we've already identified a few songs that could be singles, and we want to get ahead of the game and get remixes going. I was like, Yo, that's so smart of y'all. That's wow. That's a great idea. And when they played for me, feel Me Flawed, Feel Me Flaw B So that was for that. Yeah. I put that together. But when in doing it, I was like, after hearing it, I matched trench vocals and to it, I was like, Nah, this ain't gonna work because their version was so already clean and crispy, and just like so dope. I just felt like as a remix it was a step below it and how the music felt, it almost felt like what I made could have been the original. And then you go at that time, you know what I'm saying, I felt like this ain't a good remix, and I got to maybe try to find something else, and then from there it would have just went in a pile of jump. I just from that point I liked what I did, and then I was like yo, yo, Me and Renee from Jeanne. We were hanging around each other a lot at that point because album, we just kind of would just be around each other all the time. I was like, you know what, maybe I'm gonna see if Rene want to use it for something for Jehane. Dave just happened to call me checking in and I was like, yeah, man, I just tried something for this, not anything. It ain't h it didn't work. He said, yo, let me hear it, and I let him hear it, and he just pretty much hit me, but like you big dum, he are you crazy? This is fucking amazing what you we should do this? And I was like, really, I didn't hear it. I didn't hear at all. I mean, mind you, even even at that point, I was already doing something with Most and his crew Madina green Ild even could have been like I could have gave it to them, and Dave was like fuck that. He's a matter of fact, merse, I don't even have a solo joint for this. That's my solo joint, all right. I couldn't hear myself on it. I didn't hear myself. When he was like, we should do it, I was like, really, I didn't even hear it.

01:33:50
Speaker 1: Okay, So Commons code sign was very crucial for his career development. What was about him that told you guys like, let's him raise him? Because him being on that made me go back to RESI like, make me go to Resurrection, Like, okay, let me if day all I take some serious, let me take but seriously, the line that racknophobia line on take it easy. I put him in time out for like three years. So no, dude, Common, help me buy my mom's first GRIBs. So you guys co signing that affects my life. So what was it about Common that you know.

01:34:27
Speaker 2: We had met? Okay? Obviously, as you said, you know from the first album. His first album saw him cool. We meet him even from that point. A few times we would run into him, Like I say, at that Howard University they would have like a rap conference, so we were running to comment there whatever. Mace was the one who kept saying, y'all, we need to put comment on this album. And we would be like, all right, you know, if we find something, but it wasn't really anything that was sparking me about it. Mace just kept saying, like, Yo, man Common should be on his album. I at some point got an early copy of Resurrection the album, and when I got to Communism, I was like, I called Mace's like, Yo, yeah, this nigga need to be on an album. And he had that kind of he had that tone like all right, nigga, what convinced you? I was like, Yo, I'm listening to this nigga's new album. Yeah, yeah, all right, he needs to be on an album. Dave at the same time, was trying to give Bizz. David was trying to do a bunch of shit for Biz. He was trying to like, Yo, I'm telling you, I think I got a bunch of shit that could be dope for Biz. And his business. Let me write the rhyme. So Dave had this one joint that was really dope, and then he had what was going to become the business. He was like, Yo, this is what this will be for Bizz, and he's like ow, Bizz kept fucking around and not coming to the studio. Like Dave was doing a lot of stuff in his own house. He had a bunch of a dads and we will record stuff. They built a vocal boove and so we would do a lot of stuff at his crib and Bigs would be like, yeah, David, I'll be there. I'll be there, and he would never come. So he was like, yo, man, fuck it this beat, let's do it. Let us do it, and we're gonna just fuck with biz and call it the business. So I was like, Yo, maybe this is this could be the joke we put comment on. This is some ron friendly shit, and that's exactly what we did.

01:36:26
Speaker 1: You know, I see, all right? Also four More should have been a single man.

01:36:31
Speaker 2: I agree, But what we were told is that it felt to adult. It felt too like Von Harper. Adult is from Tommy.

01:36:41
Speaker 1: Yes, So you're one of the rare artists that has an arsenal of Dilla tracks that you've rhymed over that were given to you specifically, and I think just because of the introest you can see of it, most people would assume, oh, stakes Aside must be everyone's favorite Dilla track. But that's not the case with me. What is your favorite? Deala track that you've rhymed over?

01:37:20
Speaker 2: Space is up there. Now it got to be a Daylight record or anyway.

01:37:24
Speaker 1: I just want to make me no, no, no, just for yes Daylight like that you've rhymed over, Like there's see verbal clap to me. Just like one time I almost got in a car accident. Literally I couldn't drive straight because I was just so jealous of that goddamn intro.

01:37:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's exactly I was about to say, verbal clap, verbal clap, yo. I mean, I just remember him letting us hear it. When I heard that record, I was like, this shit is absolutely insane. And it was right where we were at that point making that album, Like you know, we were just like, Yo, this gotta be more of like a beats and rhymes. We felt like that's what he needed to be, and that's what that particular song showed it. I mean, it just made you want to this right to it right, yeah, I mean even down to the fact of the version that he did. When we asked at this point Jay to send us, Okay, send us you know the tracks so we you know, so we can now track a track it.

01:38:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:38:30
Speaker 2: He it was something that he had already left on whatever system he had in Detroit. He didn't know where it was.

01:38:37
Speaker 1: That's y'all just rhyming over the B tape.

01:38:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, because in mind you, I went to La to get up with him. He remade it. So even to see him do that was crazy. He remade it to even see where the was actually like some beautiful lovely get talk about bling bling bling ling ling and he garage band of sound.

01:39:03
Speaker 1: And and I was like, so he did some like a guy vers shit where it was just yeah, because I see him that set up in his kitchen, yo.

01:39:11
Speaker 2: I mean like I was just flawed. I was just like, I was floored by how he reput this this ship together. He just remade it. And then but even in remaking it, it was just missing something that the original did had. I took it back from La back to the to New York. We put the rhymes to it. We synked everything up and we were distilled, like and it just wound up being like, nah, man the two track, it's better? Does this? Do it to the two track? And he was winning. He was like, nah, I.

01:39:45
Speaker 1: Hear you for peer pressure? Whose idea was it to slow the song down? Like even more than what it was to give you the impression that you're on weed?

01:40:01
Speaker 2: That was JD Jay didn't and he didn't even know the idea. It was already like.

01:40:06
Speaker 1: That, oh really yep, which is because so blatant though, because it just gets slower, like the first time I heard it. During that period, I will say that eighty percent of my listening was always like driving in my car. I just got my license in two thousand and four, so like I would just drive forever. And even I was like, yo, like is it me or is this shit slowing down? And he didn't know that that's what you were doing it for.

01:40:35
Speaker 2: Nope, he had already given me the beat. I thought the beat was dope, but then it worked with the idea that me mace and be real that came up with, like he wrote, we was at some radio function, you know, some show function that a radio station put on and Mace. I could see Mace out the side of his I saying something to be real because they had just rolled up and and he was like, Mercy want something. I was like, and they laugh and he was like, come on, the pressure man, the pressure right. And I immediately came up with the idea right there. I was like, Yo, that'd be a dope song. Y'all trying to make me smoke weed Jay sent us that beat. I was like, it's this record because on its own it was doing that slow and then kind of sped up things.

01:41:28
Speaker 1: Right right, No, Merse, do you remember when Prince kicked you out your own session? Yes?

01:41:36
Speaker 2: I remember, Oh boy, I remember that.

01:41:40
Speaker 1: And I don't remember and I don't mean Prince Paul either.

01:41:44
Speaker 2: Because I walked into it. You were already thick in it. I walked into her lady. Yeah, I'm saying, but the young lady who ran Mary Mary.

01:41:55
Speaker 1: Yes.

01:41:56
Speaker 2: When I walked in, she was apologizing, I'm so sorry, Pa. So I'm like sorry for what I just walked in. What happened? And she's like, it's your session. I said, oh something, you know, I'm just thinking, like, you know, maybe someone ran over and She's like, no, it's just because he's here, and then I you, I see you, and then you're saying the same thing, and you're like, because the Royalty, dude, this guy is see I'm like about it. Yeah, and then it becomes it's because Prince took over all the rooms and playing music for Warner Brothers. He's about to get his I'll guess work out a deal with them again and whatever.

01:42:30
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well I only saw the back of Clive Davis. No, it was actually for it, Sony. He he walked in with Clive Davis. Both times I saw them walk in and walked out, but it was always to their back to us, and they knew they were taking our room over and they didn't say anything.

01:42:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy. And so when he finally seized me at one point, he very apologetic, but I gave him the hardest squeezed hand Eric b squeezed. I was like, yo, like.

01:43:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think to give everyone context, there was half a second where you guys couldn't clear ode to Billy Joe's drum break from Lou Donaldson. You picked the day in which we had just mastered in sequenced Voodoo, like four years of work was done, but yet we had the room locked out, and you know, during the daytime, d would always let me use the room while he was like working out or whatever. So I know, in one room we were sequencing the record for Voodoo and in the other room trying to do the session, and we got kicked out. So I guess you were the first person to hear Voodoo not in the circle. I remember you were the very first person to hear it, sir, And I was nervous listening that record, like from start to finish at the end of it. All right, So inclosing, what three non hip hop albums do you listen to from front to back?

01:44:05
Speaker 2: Non hip hop?

01:44:07
Speaker 1: I mean three most perfect records that you put on there's no skips, Wow, key of Liar, okay, Stevie Wonder.

01:44:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, non hip hop.

01:44:20
Speaker 1: For the guy that invented the twenty four track single album, I figured, yeah, I.

01:44:26
Speaker 2: Mean, it's just it's crazy that it's all well, wow, Voodoo, oh cool, Wooo, Front the Back, al Greens, Let's stay together Front the Back, Okay. Remind me of my I mean amazing records, of course, But like when I was young, I thought my father was our Green because when I was young, he would sing it as his plan. So I was like he sounded like him and.

01:44:52
Speaker 1: He looks like must be Okay, what are the three hip hop records that you live for?

01:44:59
Speaker 2: Three hip hop records that I live for? Wow, Raising, hell By Run, DMC, Criminal Minded, and what else. It's definitely, I mean it's those two at the top and a nation of millions.

01:45:15
Speaker 1: Okay, what three hip hop songs have you committed to memory?

01:45:20
Speaker 2: Three hip hop songs I've committed to memory your three favorite I'm just trying to tell you that that's hard for me. How funny enough, I had this talk with with thought Freak about this, Like I was never a dude who could commit. It's really hard for me to do that music. I can tell you where the drops is, where the high hat is. It's hard for me to commit lyrics, really very hard, and like I have to force myself.

01:45:47
Speaker 1: You're the king of lyrics.

01:45:48
Speaker 2: It's very hard for me to commit lyrics to memory of other artists of songs. So like it gotta be something super easy. So like it's like Arabi for President. It's like top billing, right, like those songs, It's like I can remember it easy because like Coolie Rap, as much as I love him, I'll die if you put a gun to my head and tell me this.

01:46:14
Speaker 1: Right now, I get it. What are your three favorite Daylight records?

01:46:18
Speaker 2: Millie? Immediately Millie pulled the pistol on Santa I am I be trying people.

01:46:26
Speaker 1: To trying people to me, man. That's when I heard it. I was like, Yo, Daila has a lighter song. I was like, when they do this in concert, they have to. I was so jealous that you found that song, man, Like I just I listened to that ship like ten times.

01:46:49
Speaker 2: My younger brother he made that. He made that record with his Lucky Luck made that with his Holy Perp.

01:46:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:46:55
Speaker 2: Man, when I heard it, I was like, you know, I lived for records like that. It just like something I had to pour my heart out.

01:47:02
Speaker 1: Who sparked it first, You or Dave?

01:47:05
Speaker 2: We were doing it pretty much at the same time, but he got on first. He wanted to go first. And even when I heard his verse, it has made me like, oh my god, this is amazing. And my verse was a lot longer. Where I where I end on record, it's actually all probably like another fourteen bars. I didn't have to shorten it because I was like, yo, this is this is gonna have people crying. So I shortened it and then where I ended it, Yeah.

01:47:36
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the last nice thing that you've done for yourself?

01:47:42
Speaker 2: Last nice thing that I have done for myself? I don't know.

01:47:48
Speaker 1: Are you a car person? Do you collect artwork? Are you?

01:47:52
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know about cars, so I don't care about cars.

01:47:55
Speaker 1: Do you drive?

01:47:57
Speaker 2: Yeah? I can drive? I drive right?

01:48:01
Speaker 1: Do you have a self care routine? Like, especially now that we're of this age where.

01:48:05
Speaker 2: Just truly in tune to take care of myself things that I've already knew I've through the years, started to put them on into practice. You know, a lot of the young living that we did on tour, like the super staying up late, eating after a show, you know, and going right to bed, stuff like that Ben stopped for me, but just putting more of it into practice, you know, losing Dave even before even when this Dave was still here and had his health issues and basically have his self issues, and Yo, I was just realizing, like, yo, man, I just need to be here for my younger kids. And I just start putting just a lot of that into practice, Like I cut off processed foods. I you know, I just eat tons of fruits. I eat no type of candy, no breads unless it's like sour dough like. So I've just really been in the gym stuff like that. So I've just really been on my it's taking care of myself.

01:49:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, how hard was it picking up the pieces for you and Mace to sort of carry this vision through, especially in this phase of your life, making the Cabin to the Sky and seeing it through. Just talk about the process of how did you get through it?

01:49:21
Speaker 2: I mean, and I'm not really trying to sound like I don't know Ornie and uplifting, but Dave really was there through it, like I felt I've felt signs from him. I mean, I may have spoken to you about this life, even down to the album title when once I saw the title and I'm like, this should be the title, and it's it's speaking to me, and I'm trying to load it into my phone like all the newer Deyla untitled songs, and it would no longer go into my phone by the time I changed it to Cabin the Sky goes into my Like I just felt like Dave was there with me through it, and just how we've just normally done with Daylight albums, like just the sequencing, and it just felt right. We had some other great songs, but I was like, you know what, this song I got from soundtrack, it's amazing, but it's not fitting in with everything else. So got to put that to the side. Or this other song that had Dave on it that we have called Take one for the Team could be another great moment to have Dave on the album, but nah, this doesn't work with where it was going. So I just kind of let the compass of natural things lead me to where I need to go, and just my experience of just putting together records, and it came together, especially once I got the title, once I knew it was gonna be called Cabin in the Sky, everything just kind of just fell into place and it didn't feel hard. It really didn't. It felt light man, and it felt therapeutic, So it didn't really feel hard to do.

01:50:57
Speaker 1: All right. My last two questions, Bob, how can you just talk about like what his contributions were to the group and how what was it like working with him?

01:51:07
Speaker 2: Bob Power was one of the most amazing human beings I've ever met in this industry ever, So I mean like to have him being the one who has all this knowledge on sound and helping you to reach this goal or even see something that and hear something that you didn't even realize your music would sound like. I mean, what I loved about him from the very beginning is that he was a person that he didn't treat us like we weren't supposed to be there because like a lot of these early sessions, you had these engineers who were like, you know, they were rock dudes and punk rock guys, and you know they have these young black kids coming in here who got these deals now and trying to tell them what to do. Yeah, you know, and Bobby from Calliope, Dave was very open like wow, what is that? And how so what was your thinking on that? But then he could show you his thinking on something else. So that's why he just became one of those engineers where you wanted him around you for that reason alone.

01:52:18
Speaker 1: Is there a particular song or mix that he transformed for you that you yourself didn't see when it was in the rough stages? In my mind, do you want more of would have been was nowhere near Like once I heard him mix, I was like, holy shit, like this is a whole new.

01:52:33
Speaker 2: But breaka Dawn is definitely one of them, just how I thought it would sonically sound and what and how he made because he was like, you know, tracking it with us. Crazy enough. Bob is the one who pretty much named me plug wonder why Wonder why. It comes from him because when we was doing break of Dawn, I'm just saying, plug wonder, wonder why you're lonely tonight? So once he heard me say it, he just what all always just keep saying, plug wonder, wonder why you're loning tonight? And so I would come in plug wonder why What's up? And I was like and it would just become something we would laugh at and I was like, Yo, I'm gonna add that to my mini monikers like I am plugged wonder why because of Bob.

01:53:14
Speaker 1: Wow.

01:53:15
Speaker 2: This is an amazing, amazing and beautiful person as you know.

01:53:18
Speaker 1: All right, My last question, do you have three favorite Dave moments on day live recordings?

01:53:25
Speaker 2: Dave doing the Johnny's Dead was absolutely hurlarious in real time. Just I can still see him doing it. We're trying so bad not to laugh because we don't want the mic to pick it up because he wasn't in the booth. This is the mic in the room of Calliope and I and I'm and even threw a piece of paper and I hit him my mistakes. So that's when you said, you're sucking us up. Man, you're laughing like so that was just one of the most funniest things Dave doing that. Wow. What else is? It's holy shit, there's so many him doing the stupid well. He was on my answering machine and that's when I had to call him back and was like, Yo, you know this is gonna go on the album, right.

01:54:09
Speaker 1: Oh, Dave has a problem. Seriously.

01:54:15
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, when I came home and hurt that message, I laughed so hard. And when I called him, he already knew what I was calling him for. He's already laughing. I was like, Yo, you're an asshole. And I was like, and you know that's going on album? He said, get out of here. I was like, Yo, man, that shit got to go on an album.

01:54:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:54:31
Speaker 2: That was another one. Oh my god, what else? It just he was amazing at just off the cuff. Funny shit like just he was just so off the cuff with it. I feel like I'm missing one from bionics that he did something silly on I don't know, it's just too many.

01:54:49
Speaker 1: Wow. Look man, it is taken forever for this to happen.

01:54:54
Speaker 2: Oh no, I know, man, It's cool.

01:54:56
Speaker 1: And I really appreciate you taking the time out to let me finally get this interview out after all these years I've been begging you. I mean, I've said it before, man, like you guys literally are the inspiration for and the standard, the gold standard for which you know, Tarika and I judge just greatness man, And the fact that you're still constantly doing it and pushing through is commendable. And yeah, man, I can't wait to hear what you guys have next. Man, So thank you for doing this for me.

01:55:25
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. I love you, man, Thank you so much.

01:55:27
Speaker 1: Love you to bro, all right, thank you. Quest Love Shows hosted by me Amir quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Britney Benjamin and Jacob Pin. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Khnan. iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, Logos graphics and animation by Nick Paloe. Additional support by Lance Colman, Special thanks to Kathy Brown, and special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, make sure you follow us on socials that's at QLs. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Quest Love Supreme Shows in our podcast archives. Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.