April 11, 2026
QLS Mini: Questlove Flips The Script On 3 Questions He Asked Flea
After interviewing Flea in the studio, Questlove asked the Red Hot Chili Peppers co-founder about the 1980s Los Angeles Punk scene. In response for this mini episode taped moments after, Questlove reflects on the Philly Hip-Hop ecosystem of the 1990s—the power of a KRS-One lyric and the raw talent of his fellow Philly peers and Roots collaborators.
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00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
00:00:16
Speaker 2: What's going on? This is cousin Jake, producer of the Questlove Show. I'm sitting here with the man himself, Questlove, Amir. We just finished a conversation with Flee and you asked three questions that I thought were really interesting and I want to put them right back on to you. When you think of your show going years and the formative years of the Roots, what are two or three concerts when y'all were cutting your teeth and you're looking at peers and looking at the bands, the groups, the crews that you're modeling yourselves after or taking this or that from what comes to mind? What concerts?
00:00:53
Speaker 3: Okay?
00:00:54
Speaker 4: So we finished, We were mixing that skeat on December thirty first, nineteen ninety three, and for.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: New Year's it was.
00:01:06
Speaker 4: Soul's a Mischief Day Las Soul in a Tribe call Quest. This was the last concert that Tarika and I went together. Really ass fans, even though we had a record deal, Like we grew up in the period where you know, we got to the venue early so we could be in the front row. And it was ninety one, so everyone was just having jump go Itis.
00:01:34
Speaker 2: Go Go Go ninety three, right.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Right ninety three.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: But I'm just being like that that early period of you know, karras One comes home, say.
00:01:42
Speaker 3: Chop Chop chop.
00:01:44
Speaker 4: But it was weird because this time it was almost like, man, one day, that's going to be us. So I was really just taken in the environment of like it's New Year's I'm seeing like my three favorite rap groups in a It was just a time. So for me, the energy of it, I mean, the show was good, but it was just such an innocent magic moment for us. I will say the second show, seeing Fishbone at the Trocadero in nineteen ninety one, when the realities of my surroundings came out, Like to me, this was peak Fishbone doing a lot of material like we knew all knew that album left and right, and we knew In Your Face and the first album and Truth and Soul. So I actually felt that they were just right on the cusp, right on the verge of greatness. And what's kind of cool is after the show, shout out to our dear friend and posy Talbert, who took a lot of the roots for very early first photos. He told those guys about like, yeah, you know, there's this club called Billy Bob's at a University of Penn That's where the Roots she used to play and whatnot, like come you know, like we actually hung with Fishbone at Billy Bob's, had chicken cheese steaks, and I got to nerd out on those guys like they were like really really really cool. So that was like a great experience.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Are there photos of that when you mentioned.
00:03:22
Speaker 4: I'm certain maybe IMPOSI had. I've not seen the complete collection of his of his work. I parades in there, probably the most surprised I've ever been at a show, so the further I became quest level whatever. It's just hard to be a fan because I'm the guy that still runs to the soundboard and be like, yo, keep like turn up the high at like one k a little bit, just give a little bit of highs like.
00:03:51
Speaker 3: And they're looking at them like what the fuck like, and I'm like, those.
00:03:54
Speaker 2: Are famously curmudgeony people to the sound.
00:03:56
Speaker 4: Oh dude, so so protective of big gear whatever. But I tell them, I'm like, dude, I went to the back of it. They can't hear the drums, like you know, you can hear up here, but they can't. They're trying to protect the system, you know. But I got to tell you, man, one of the biggest shocks of my life.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: And it's only because.
00:04:15
Speaker 4: All right, so we're at Glastonbury last year doing this festival and War is playing. Now the thing is like, dude, with legacy groups and whatever, I'll go there just to like, all right, let me see them one last time before because you never know and whatever. And you know, there's either like phone it in from home thing or vegacy aspect to it, you know, and you can only as a guy that's collected all the footage from the seventies or whatnot.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: I never once.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: Thought like, man, because I always wanted to know what was it like to see a show in the seventies, Like was it as good as this live album tells me that it was? Or is it good as footage that I found on YouTube or whatever? And I gotta tell you, man, War is probably one of the best legacy acts I've ever seen. I come from the school of I won't say mirroring or mimicking, but when I cover any artists that I work with, I'm trying to put them in the place where they were at their peak musically. So the times I jammed with Prince, I will tune the drums to sound just like his drums sounded on and Prince notices like, oh, you detuned the snare drum to sound just like and I'll play exactly the licks that he played or whatever the era that you want, right, I can shape shift into any era that serves that song. And I kind of thought me training the roots and whatever like two degree association of you know, some of the musicians around the sort of capture onto it. And plus it's und to mimic the j Dilla sound or whatever, so people do it now with modern stuff. But I kind of just lost hope on the seventies thing. And I got to tell you, man, those guys they sounded like war, real war, and half the guys were like new musicians or whatever. So I was just really impressed. It's good to hear that they weren't overplaying or anything. So, uh, I will say, if you get a chance to see War play, do it.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: Did they play Galaxy or did they do like.
00:06:30
Speaker 3: They opened with Galaxy?
00:06:32
Speaker 4: So okay, So the deal was, you know, Kirk came in the room and was like, yo, what's coming on?
00:06:38
Speaker 3: You want to see it?
00:06:38
Speaker 4: It was raining like hell and I had on crocs and it's mud and I'm like, nah, I'm good. And I heard the bass playing from my dressing room. I was like cool and I let it go and then they played I Forget Oh. They played Baby Brother. Now we cover baby as a warm up song of the tonight show. So I turned the volume down off my computer, I had music warn and I just opened the door a little bit. And when I opened the door, Smokey Robinson was right next to us, so he sees me, like, hey me, how you doing. So now I got to go out and hug smoking. Once I was outside and I heard the music, I was like, yo, this sounds good.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: All right, let me check.
00:07:24
Speaker 4: And I just ran this set, you know, side of the stage to see for two seconds and I wound up standing there. And so by the time they got the low Rider, they gave me the six like you do it, and I was like, wow, really I remind your trust, Like I don't think you guys know me from a can of.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Paint, but you sat in on low writ.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: I sat in on Lowrider and had my phone set up. I was like, take me doing this and I nailed it.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: And so yeah, man, you asked Flee a really good question. I know this is maybe more of a Tarik question in watching hip hop shows, and again maybe even to the warpoint does have to be hip hop. Was there ever somebody in your formative years that you watched do things on the highest level that challenged you in terms of focusing on your craft? You asked him that question about punk in a front person, but put.
00:08:15
Speaker 4: It to you, I had ten years of you know, my dad's iron fist of tyranny. So you know a lot of my reputation I know now like it serves me well where people are like, oh man, he plays so disciplined, and he plays so like when you're saving for like a Shwin ten speed and your dad turns around and signals ten dollars to you and you're only making fifty dollars at night, like fuck now, I gotta do three shows to save up money to buy my ten speed. So my dad was so and he was one of those leaders who even when he was wrong, he was right. So of course, you know, I'm I'm trying to catch up to you know, all the drummers like I'm in jazz class with John Roberts, Little John Robert, like all these monsters who are playing with Miles Davis.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: Who were like they are established.
00:09:15
Speaker 4: I felt this need in eighty seven, like, oh, I have to learn how to gospel role and all those things that drummers are doing now. And when I brought that, you know, the way that my dad would just penalize me, like, no, twenty twenty, we're up to twenty now, oh really forty.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: The breakfast club, you know, detention detentions.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Yes, he you know.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: So just the fear of my dad's right hand signaling you owe me money kept me very much in the pocket. And so I'll say that that was the first half of it. To be honest with you, probably the best thing that ever happened in my life is me inheriting.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: It's at least gotta be.
00:10:04
Speaker 4: I'll say, seventy five hours of just Prince rehearsals and I haven't even gotten through all of them yet, and you know, it served me well then, but just to hear how he runs rehearsals.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: Now, the thing is he was also tired.
00:10:21
Speaker 4: I got tapes of him be rating Lisa for reading a comic book or.
00:10:28
Speaker 3: Bobby slowing the beat down or whatever.
00:10:31
Speaker 4: So just to hear him as a bandleader taught me a lot about musicianship and ways to interpret songs and all those things, especially with the time, like the time they would always start off doing it like the record, and he would always pushing more like no, you need more chords there, and the whole like it has to be better than the record. So I'll say that really listening to a lot of prince rehearsals and my dad's just tyranny era of being under his leadership is kind of what built me now. But also the you know, the whole underestimation card of people like scoffing like what y'all about to do.
00:11:20
Speaker 3: And you know, and then having to prove them wrong.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: So on the hip hop side, just because again with Flee, you asked him about a really specific careerd of punk culture, which was interesting to see his reaction on the hip hop side when you and.
00:11:30
Speaker 3: Trico go those shows. But was there ever a.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Moment, because I mean, you know, you work with one of the greatest MC's of all time back in those teenage years or in your twenties whatever, where you saw a hip hop show even after that, where you were like.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's the thing.
00:11:47
Speaker 4: I probably see more carous One shows pre record deal as far hip as hip hop was concerned, than any other show. Philly, of course, has like five different colleges. I wouldn't go to the clubs to see them, but where it would be that like he Carris One's playing at Cheney or at Lincoln or you know wherever is on the main line.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: So I've seen like three.
00:12:15
Speaker 4: Or four blue print edutainment era Carris One shows. There are a lot of tricks that I borrowed from him that to this day work like Gangbusters.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: On top of that, Kris One wrote a book in nineteen ninety.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: Five, I believe out of print.
00:12:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this book we just happened to be.
00:12:40
Speaker 4: We were coming down from the Bay Area to LA and we made a rest stop and you go to the gas station, you know, the bus is fueling up, and you go to the truck stop and there's all types of you know, paulp. Novels and all those things like throwaway books and Harlequin romance books. And then I saw the bottom like Carris Ones, and I forgot.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: What the name of the book was with the mind or so I know.
00:13:06
Speaker 4: Yeah and so, but it was really a guide to the business of hip hop and we brought it, but we kind of got it to playfully mock carris One because.
00:13:21
Speaker 3: His voice was very easy to emulate.
00:13:24
Speaker 4: So to read the entire book in the voice of car ars One, and I mean they're telling you. He's telling you everything, like always have thirty eight x ten photos on your person, so that way you could negotiate your way into a restaurant, say if you would like to go to a red lobster and da da da. You showed you know, your managers was, hey, I have an artist here with me. So we at first it was jokes, and then he talked about three things about the stage. He says, when you go on stage, make sure that you suit up your armor by wearing four to five. He's like, make sure you have a T shirt on. He's very specific, have a T shirt on, like have a cutoff T shirt, and then a cotton shirt, a different cotton shirt on top of that, and then a button up shirt and a hoodie and a coat and if you could do it a vest he say. Then the reason is He's like it's a psychological trick that you can play, which is basically, you come on stage with all those things and song by song take a layer off and the side of that tells the audience, Oh, they're taking their job seriously and they're they're rolling up their sleeves. So by the fifth you're just down to your T shirt and that tells the audience like, oh, he's really working hard.
00:14:54
Speaker 3: So we laughed at that.
00:14:56
Speaker 4: He's like a rhythmic run whenever your first song is like, let it play, and then you rest left right like he's giving instructions on what to do. And we would laugh and laugh and mock and laugh and laugh and mock and laugh and mock, and.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Then like we do it on stage.
00:15:15
Speaker 4: But then the audience has responded to it, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: It was like, oh, damn, this does work.
00:15:24
Speaker 4: And his biggest trick was and you know, I really did it during the D'Angelo tour. He's like, always like, whatever your your your most prominent verses is always had the dj uh put the music down to a whisper and then talk to your audience and break down. And he said it in a way if you ever seen my philosophy video. The first verse he does a cappella let us begin where he does that of spoken word, and we started doing that trick and that shit worked, so so you know, it started off as jokes, just like saying it in the authoritative voice of kars one, and suddenly that became our.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: Bible thirty five years later. That's why Treek's wearing fur coats and robes on stage and slowly.
00:16:14
Speaker 4: Yes, to this day, it's that that book still stays with us.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: I did interview kras When one time, and he was at a red lobster and that blew my mind. So it's funny that you choose that restaurant for anyone that wants a great Karras One story the Quest Love Supreme episode with Chris Rock with what is the punchline? My rhymes will oh, my rhymes will destroy you? Yes, exactly, it required listening. Last question you asked Flee what peer never reached the level that they deserved?
00:16:44
Speaker 3: Right?
00:16:44
Speaker 2: And you know this doesn't have to be Philly, it could be anywhere and again your formative years. But and this question is asked with love to whatever the artist is, But do you feel that way about anybody that you truly admired or were absolutely amazed by their stage show that never translated to album or to the type of career they deserved.
00:17:06
Speaker 4: Okay, so when I was asking for you that question, I was thinking about Fishbone, and you know, especially after doing the slide doc, I asked Flee about what happened a minute after they got off stage at SNL to do under the Bridge something. I didn't know the backstory, but I clearly saw a unit fighting against the success that they were about to experience. And there's nothing more fearsome than sort of rabbit holing into worrying about what other people think. I'll say, probably on the hip hop side of things, like the first time I ever heard Bean's rhyme. Beanie Siegel came to my house house with Malik b And I mean, I've told the story and the lore of what eventually became Black Lily, but kind of the jam sessions at my house that let the things fall apart was literally like a screenwriter couldn't ask for a more perfect scenario in which Blow in the ninth grade is singing this crezy like you know, we love loud now but like to watch a ninth grader do all that weird shit, like what kind of crack is this guy smoking? Like he's making bird noises and shit. And then you got a ten year old Jasmine Sullivan who clearly should not be in that house. Music with the pizza Yeah, music as the pizza guy, and like literally it's like I'm exaggerating this whole moment. And to me, the tipping point was like when Malick to start bringing his boys over. I didn't know his boys were Freeway and Beanie and all those cats and whatnot.
00:18:57
Speaker 3: And man, Beanie did the.
00:19:00
Speaker 4: Verse that he did on Adrenaline, but that verse like Beanie had no mind to structure, like, oh, let me just do twenty four and he had if you listen to Adrenaline on things fall apart, like everything in rhymes with and them easily went on for ten minutes in a row, like it gave Tarik pause.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: It was like we didn't know he was that good.
00:19:23
Speaker 4: Like he just kept rhyming, and to me, I was like, there's literally just he's literally painted every scenario that you can rhyme within them, every scenario Like he talked about gun battles and drug scenarios and his lifestyle and going to games and the celebrities meeting women and all that stuff.
00:19:48
Speaker 3: But after eight minutes, it just became a.
00:19:50
Speaker 4: There's more, there's more, there's more by the end, like a high tiled the.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: Rich, like, Yo, we gotta get that dude on the record.
00:19:58
Speaker 3: Like and yes we did have.
00:20:02
Speaker 4: We had first DIBs on both, even Beanie, but we weren't in the business mind state to push him further. So I'm glad it worked out the way it did. But for me, man, I just wonder in an alternate world, like man like Beanie was the wasn't still is the god, you know what I mean? And I just wish the world knew.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: That level of that side of him.
00:20:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wish things didn't play out the way that they played out, and that he just allowed that transformation to happen.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: Leaning to that side of his artistry
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Questlov shows a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show is a production of iHeartRadio.
00:00:16
Speaker 2: What's going on? This is cousin Jake, producer of the Questlove Show. I'm sitting here with the man himself, Questlove, Amir. We just finished a conversation with Flee and you asked three questions that I thought were really interesting and I want to put them right back on to you. When you think of your show going years and the formative years of the Roots, what are two or three concerts when y'all were cutting your teeth and you're looking at peers and looking at the bands, the groups, the crews that you're modeling yourselves after or taking this or that from what comes to mind? What concerts?
00:00:53
Speaker 3: Okay?
00:00:54
Speaker 4: So we finished, We were mixing that skeat on December thirty first, nineteen ninety three, and for.
00:01:02
Speaker 3: New Year's it was.
00:01:06
Speaker 4: Soul's a Mischief Day Las Soul in a Tribe call Quest. This was the last concert that Tarika and I went together. Really ass fans, even though we had a record deal, Like we grew up in the period where you know, we got to the venue early so we could be in the front row. And it was ninety one, so everyone was just having jump go Itis.
00:01:34
Speaker 2: Go Go Go ninety three, right.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Right ninety three.
00:01:38
Speaker 4: But I'm just being like that that early period of you know, karras One comes home, say.
00:01:42
Speaker 3: Chop Chop chop.
00:01:44
Speaker 4: But it was weird because this time it was almost like, man, one day, that's going to be us. So I was really just taken in the environment of like it's New Year's I'm seeing like my three favorite rap groups in a It was just a time. So for me, the energy of it, I mean, the show was good, but it was just such an innocent magic moment for us. I will say the second show, seeing Fishbone at the Trocadero in nineteen ninety one, when the realities of my surroundings came out, Like to me, this was peak Fishbone doing a lot of material like we knew all knew that album left and right, and we knew In Your Face and the first album and Truth and Soul. So I actually felt that they were just right on the cusp, right on the verge of greatness. And what's kind of cool is after the show, shout out to our dear friend and posy Talbert, who took a lot of the roots for very early first photos. He told those guys about like, yeah, you know, there's this club called Billy Bob's at a University of Penn That's where the Roots she used to play and whatnot, like come you know, like we actually hung with Fishbone at Billy Bob's, had chicken cheese steaks, and I got to nerd out on those guys like they were like really really really cool. So that was like a great experience.
00:03:20
Speaker 2: Are there photos of that when you mentioned.
00:03:22
Speaker 4: I'm certain maybe IMPOSI had. I've not seen the complete collection of his of his work. I parades in there, probably the most surprised I've ever been at a show, so the further I became quest level whatever. It's just hard to be a fan because I'm the guy that still runs to the soundboard and be like, yo, keep like turn up the high at like one k a little bit, just give a little bit of highs like.
00:03:51
Speaker 3: And they're looking at them like what the fuck like, and I'm like, those.
00:03:54
Speaker 2: Are famously curmudgeony people to the sound.
00:03:56
Speaker 4: Oh dude, so so protective of big gear whatever. But I tell them, I'm like, dude, I went to the back of it. They can't hear the drums, like you know, you can hear up here, but they can't. They're trying to protect the system, you know. But I got to tell you, man, one of the biggest shocks of my life.
00:04:12
Speaker 3: And it's only because.
00:04:15
Speaker 4: All right, so we're at Glastonbury last year doing this festival and War is playing. Now the thing is like, dude, with legacy groups and whatever, I'll go there just to like, all right, let me see them one last time before because you never know and whatever. And you know, there's either like phone it in from home thing or vegacy aspect to it, you know, and you can only as a guy that's collected all the footage from the seventies or whatnot.
00:04:48
Speaker 3: I never once.
00:04:49
Speaker 4: Thought like, man, because I always wanted to know what was it like to see a show in the seventies, Like was it as good as this live album tells me that it was? Or is it good as footage that I found on YouTube or whatever? And I gotta tell you, man, War is probably one of the best legacy acts I've ever seen. I come from the school of I won't say mirroring or mimicking, but when I cover any artists that I work with, I'm trying to put them in the place where they were at their peak musically. So the times I jammed with Prince, I will tune the drums to sound just like his drums sounded on and Prince notices like, oh, you detuned the snare drum to sound just like and I'll play exactly the licks that he played or whatever the era that you want, right, I can shape shift into any era that serves that song. And I kind of thought me training the roots and whatever like two degree association of you know, some of the musicians around the sort of capture onto it. And plus it's und to mimic the j Dilla sound or whatever, so people do it now with modern stuff. But I kind of just lost hope on the seventies thing. And I got to tell you, man, those guys they sounded like war, real war, and half the guys were like new musicians or whatever. So I was just really impressed. It's good to hear that they weren't overplaying or anything. So, uh, I will say, if you get a chance to see War play, do it.
00:06:28
Speaker 2: Did they play Galaxy or did they do like.
00:06:30
Speaker 3: They opened with Galaxy?
00:06:32
Speaker 4: So okay, So the deal was, you know, Kirk came in the room and was like, yo, what's coming on?
00:06:38
Speaker 3: You want to see it?
00:06:38
Speaker 4: It was raining like hell and I had on crocs and it's mud and I'm like, nah, I'm good. And I heard the bass playing from my dressing room. I was like cool and I let it go and then they played I Forget Oh. They played Baby Brother. Now we cover baby as a warm up song of the tonight show. So I turned the volume down off my computer, I had music warn and I just opened the door a little bit. And when I opened the door, Smokey Robinson was right next to us, so he sees me, like, hey me, how you doing. So now I got to go out and hug smoking. Once I was outside and I heard the music, I was like, yo, this sounds good.
00:07:23
Speaker 3: All right, let me check.
00:07:24
Speaker 4: And I just ran this set, you know, side of the stage to see for two seconds and I wound up standing there. And so by the time they got the low Rider, they gave me the six like you do it, and I was like, wow, really I remind your trust, Like I don't think you guys know me from a can of.
00:07:40
Speaker 2: Paint, but you sat in on low writ.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: I sat in on Lowrider and had my phone set up. I was like, take me doing this and I nailed it.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: And so yeah, man, you asked Flee a really good question. I know this is maybe more of a Tarik question in watching hip hop shows, and again maybe even to the warpoint does have to be hip hop. Was there ever somebody in your formative years that you watched do things on the highest level that challenged you in terms of focusing on your craft? You asked him that question about punk in a front person, but put.
00:08:15
Speaker 4: It to you, I had ten years of you know, my dad's iron fist of tyranny. So you know a lot of my reputation I know now like it serves me well where people are like, oh man, he plays so disciplined, and he plays so like when you're saving for like a Shwin ten speed and your dad turns around and signals ten dollars to you and you're only making fifty dollars at night, like fuck now, I gotta do three shows to save up money to buy my ten speed. So my dad was so and he was one of those leaders who even when he was wrong, he was right. So of course, you know, I'm I'm trying to catch up to you know, all the drummers like I'm in jazz class with John Roberts, Little John Robert, like all these monsters who are playing with Miles Davis.
00:09:12
Speaker 3: Who were like they are established.
00:09:15
Speaker 4: I felt this need in eighty seven, like, oh, I have to learn how to gospel role and all those things that drummers are doing now. And when I brought that, you know, the way that my dad would just penalize me, like, no, twenty twenty, we're up to twenty now, oh really forty.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: The breakfast club, you know, detention detentions.
00:09:37
Speaker 3: Yes, he you know.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: So just the fear of my dad's right hand signaling you owe me money kept me very much in the pocket. And so I'll say that that was the first half of it. To be honest with you, probably the best thing that ever happened in my life is me inheriting.
00:10:00
Speaker 3: It's at least gotta be.
00:10:04
Speaker 4: I'll say, seventy five hours of just Prince rehearsals and I haven't even gotten through all of them yet, and you know, it served me well then, but just to hear how he runs rehearsals.
00:10:18
Speaker 3: Now, the thing is he was also tired.
00:10:21
Speaker 4: I got tapes of him be rating Lisa for reading a comic book or.
00:10:28
Speaker 3: Bobby slowing the beat down or whatever.
00:10:31
Speaker 4: So just to hear him as a bandleader taught me a lot about musicianship and ways to interpret songs and all those things, especially with the time, like the time they would always start off doing it like the record, and he would always pushing more like no, you need more chords there, and the whole like it has to be better than the record. So I'll say that really listening to a lot of prince rehearsals and my dad's just tyranny era of being under his leadership is kind of what built me now. But also the you know, the whole underestimation card of people like scoffing like what y'all about to do.
00:11:20
Speaker 3: And you know, and then having to prove them wrong.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: So on the hip hop side, just because again with Flee, you asked him about a really specific careerd of punk culture, which was interesting to see his reaction on the hip hop side when you and.
00:11:30
Speaker 3: Trico go those shows. But was there ever a.
00:11:33
Speaker 2: Moment, because I mean, you know, you work with one of the greatest MC's of all time back in those teenage years or in your twenties whatever, where you saw a hip hop show even after that, where you were like.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: Okay, So here's the thing.
00:11:47
Speaker 4: I probably see more carous One shows pre record deal as far hip as hip hop was concerned, than any other show. Philly, of course, has like five different colleges. I wouldn't go to the clubs to see them, but where it would be that like he Carris One's playing at Cheney or at Lincoln or you know wherever is on the main line.
00:12:13
Speaker 3: So I've seen like three.
00:12:15
Speaker 4: Or four blue print edutainment era Carris One shows. There are a lot of tricks that I borrowed from him that to this day work like Gangbusters.
00:12:28
Speaker 3: On top of that, Kris One wrote a book in nineteen ninety.
00:12:34
Speaker 2: Five, I believe out of print.
00:12:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this book we just happened to be.
00:12:40
Speaker 4: We were coming down from the Bay Area to LA and we made a rest stop and you go to the gas station, you know, the bus is fueling up, and you go to the truck stop and there's all types of you know, paulp. Novels and all those things like throwaway books and Harlequin romance books. And then I saw the bottom like Carris Ones, and I forgot.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: What the name of the book was with the mind or so I know.
00:13:06
Speaker 4: Yeah and so, but it was really a guide to the business of hip hop and we brought it, but we kind of got it to playfully mock carris One because.
00:13:21
Speaker 3: His voice was very easy to emulate.
00:13:24
Speaker 4: So to read the entire book in the voice of car ars One, and I mean they're telling you. He's telling you everything, like always have thirty eight x ten photos on your person, so that way you could negotiate your way into a restaurant, say if you would like to go to a red lobster and da da da. You showed you know, your managers was, hey, I have an artist here with me. So we at first it was jokes, and then he talked about three things about the stage. He says, when you go on stage, make sure that you suit up your armor by wearing four to five. He's like, make sure you have a T shirt on. He's very specific, have a T shirt on, like have a cutoff T shirt, and then a cotton shirt, a different cotton shirt on top of that, and then a button up shirt and a hoodie and a coat and if you could do it a vest he say. Then the reason is He's like it's a psychological trick that you can play, which is basically, you come on stage with all those things and song by song take a layer off and the side of that tells the audience, Oh, they're taking their job seriously and they're they're rolling up their sleeves. So by the fifth you're just down to your T shirt and that tells the audience like, oh, he's really working hard.
00:14:54
Speaker 3: So we laughed at that.
00:14:56
Speaker 4: He's like a rhythmic run whenever your first song is like, let it play, and then you rest left right like he's giving instructions on what to do. And we would laugh and laugh and mock and laugh and laugh and mock and laugh and mock, and.
00:15:13
Speaker 3: Then like we do it on stage.
00:15:15
Speaker 4: But then the audience has responded to it, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.
00:15:21
Speaker 3: It was like, oh, damn, this does work.
00:15:24
Speaker 4: And his biggest trick was and you know, I really did it during the D'Angelo tour. He's like, always like, whatever your your your most prominent verses is always had the dj uh put the music down to a whisper and then talk to your audience and break down. And he said it in a way if you ever seen my philosophy video. The first verse he does a cappella let us begin where he does that of spoken word, and we started doing that trick and that shit worked, so so you know, it started off as jokes, just like saying it in the authoritative voice of kars one, and suddenly that became our.
00:16:09
Speaker 2: Bible thirty five years later. That's why Treek's wearing fur coats and robes on stage and slowly.
00:16:14
Speaker 4: Yes, to this day, it's that that book still stays with us.
00:16:18
Speaker 2: I did interview kras When one time, and he was at a red lobster and that blew my mind. So it's funny that you choose that restaurant for anyone that wants a great Karras One story the Quest Love Supreme episode with Chris Rock with what is the punchline? My rhymes will oh, my rhymes will destroy you? Yes, exactly, it required listening. Last question you asked Flee what peer never reached the level that they deserved?
00:16:44
Speaker 3: Right?
00:16:44
Speaker 2: And you know this doesn't have to be Philly, it could be anywhere and again your formative years. But and this question is asked with love to whatever the artist is, But do you feel that way about anybody that you truly admired or were absolutely amazed by their stage show that never translated to album or to the type of career they deserved.
00:17:06
Speaker 4: Okay, so when I was asking for you that question, I was thinking about Fishbone, and you know, especially after doing the slide doc, I asked Flee about what happened a minute after they got off stage at SNL to do under the Bridge something. I didn't know the backstory, but I clearly saw a unit fighting against the success that they were about to experience. And there's nothing more fearsome than sort of rabbit holing into worrying about what other people think. I'll say, probably on the hip hop side of things, like the first time I ever heard Bean's rhyme. Beanie Siegel came to my house house with Malik b And I mean, I've told the story and the lore of what eventually became Black Lily, but kind of the jam sessions at my house that let the things fall apart was literally like a screenwriter couldn't ask for a more perfect scenario in which Blow in the ninth grade is singing this crezy like you know, we love loud now but like to watch a ninth grader do all that weird shit, like what kind of crack is this guy smoking? Like he's making bird noises and shit. And then you got a ten year old Jasmine Sullivan who clearly should not be in that house. Music with the pizza Yeah, music as the pizza guy, and like literally it's like I'm exaggerating this whole moment. And to me, the tipping point was like when Malick to start bringing his boys over. I didn't know his boys were Freeway and Beanie and all those cats and whatnot.
00:18:57
Speaker 3: And man, Beanie did the.
00:19:00
Speaker 4: Verse that he did on Adrenaline, but that verse like Beanie had no mind to structure, like, oh, let me just do twenty four and he had if you listen to Adrenaline on things fall apart, like everything in rhymes with and them easily went on for ten minutes in a row, like it gave Tarik pause.
00:19:21
Speaker 3: It was like we didn't know he was that good.
00:19:23
Speaker 4: Like he just kept rhyming, and to me, I was like, there's literally just he's literally painted every scenario that you can rhyme within them, every scenario Like he talked about gun battles and drug scenarios and his lifestyle and going to games and the celebrities meeting women and all that stuff.
00:19:48
Speaker 3: But after eight minutes, it just became a.
00:19:50
Speaker 4: There's more, there's more, there's more by the end, like a high tiled the.
00:19:56
Speaker 1: Rich, like, Yo, we gotta get that dude on the record.
00:19:58
Speaker 3: Like and yes we did have.
00:20:02
Speaker 4: We had first DIBs on both, even Beanie, but we weren't in the business mind state to push him further. So I'm glad it worked out the way it did. But for me, man, I just wonder in an alternate world, like man like Beanie was the wasn't still is the god, you know what I mean? And I just wish the world knew.
00:20:33
Speaker 2: That level of that side of him.
00:20:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wish things didn't play out the way that they played out, and that he just allowed that transformation to happen.
00:20:45
Speaker 2: Leaning to that side of his artistry
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Questlov shows a production of iHeartRadio.
