Episode 57
Rebirth of a Legend: DJ Too Tuff's Return to the Hip Hop Stage
The conversation unfolds with Adam and DJ Too Tuff delving into the rich tapestry of Too Tuff's life, a life that intertwines deeply with the evolution of hip-hop culture, particularly in Philadelphia. Too Tuff reflects on his formative years growing up in North Philly, an area colloquially referred to as the 'Danger Zone.' He recounts how his initial exposure to music came through family influences, with his mother taking him to record stores where he first purchased hip-hop records. As the dialogue progresses, Too Tuff shares anecdotes of his early encounters with other DJs and the vibrant local scene, spotlighting the camaraderie and mentorship he received from figures like Yo Yo. The narrative paints a vivid picture of the grassroots hip-hop community and the innovative spirit that characterized the era.
As the discussion transitions, Too Tuff elaborates on his journey from being a novice DJ to becoming a crucial member of the iconic Tough Crew. Through a series of battles and relentless practice, he honed his craft, underscoring the competitive nature of the DJing scene in the mid-80s. He speaks candidly about the challenges of breaking into the industry, including the dynamics of DJ battles and the constant quest for recognition in a burgeoning musical landscape. The conversation touches on the impact of commercial success as well, as Too Tuff reflects on how his music reached audiences far beyond Philadelphia, resulting in tours and collaborations with notable hip-hop artists. This exploration of his career trajectory reveals not only the highs of recognition and success but also the lows, including struggles with personal issues and the music industry's darker facets.
Towards the conclusion, the dialogue shifts to the present, where Too Tuff discusses his ongoing projects and aspirations. He reveals the importance of mentorship and community in his life, as he aims to inspire the next generation of artists. The conversation resonates with themes of resilience and transformation, illustrating how the trials of the past have shaped his present and informed his future endeavors in music. Ultimately, this episode serves as a testament to the enduring legacy of hip-hop and the personal journeys of its pioneers, encapsulated through the lens of DJ Too Tuff's experiences and insights.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Right, let's see where we get to.
Speaker A:So welcome back everyone to Once a dj.
Speaker A:We're here this week with Philly legend, Hip hop legend, very influential 80s hip hop DJ with just the craziest of stories.
Speaker A:Based on the research I've got, this seems to be one of those where it's kind of like, when's the film coming out?
Speaker A:Sort of thing, you know.
Speaker A:DJ Tutu, how are you doing today?
Speaker B:Very good, man.
Speaker B:My pleasure to be on Once A dj.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:So as, as I sort of mentioned earlier, we, we just kind of need to get into your story really, because that, yeah, there's a lot there.
Speaker A:So I mean, firstly, where, where did music sort of come in for you?
Speaker A:You grew up in Philly.
Speaker A:Was it on the north side?
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely the north side.
Speaker B:We call it the Danger Zone.
Speaker B:I was just, I just started doing an exercise called 100 Moments.
Speaker B:And it, and it instructs you to write down 100 moments from your life.
Speaker B:So I started, I'm on like 10.
Speaker B:Most of them are crime related at this point, but I'll get to the good ones as well.
Speaker B:But my journey of music started when my mom took me to this little record store downtown in Philly called Funko Mart.
Speaker B:And she went in there to buy incense and tarot cards and stuff like that.
Speaker B:But they also had, they also have records and turntables and speakers and stuff.
Speaker B:So the first record that I bought was by the Sequence, the female group that was on Sugar Hill Gang.
Speaker B:Because I saw the Cornucopia sitting over there on a record shelf and I, and I picked one up, my mom bought it for me.
Speaker B:12 inch singles were 299 at that time.
Speaker B:And that was, that was the first record that I bought that was hip hop.
Speaker B:Prior to that, I did have a cassette tape where I used to listen to Rapping Duke and Jimmy Spicer, Super Rhyme.
Speaker B:And I listened to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, take the train, you know, super rapping number two.
Speaker B:So those were some of my, you know, Friends by Houdini.
Speaker B:Those were some of the earliest, you know, hip hop songs that I heard.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So was there kind of much of a scene for it or was it just you through the sort of journeys with your mum?
Speaker B:Yeah, that just happened.
Speaker B:I mean, I mean I had, like I said, I had a cassette tape with a few songs on there.
Speaker B:My mom had records, so I used to listen to her records, her and my dad's records, the Commodores, Stevie Nicks, John Denver, you know, so, so I had a, I had My hands on vinyl.
Speaker B:And I had a friend that lived a couple blocks past where I wasn't supposed to go that far.
Speaker B:And my mom was like, don't go up that far.
Speaker B:You're gonna get killed up there.
Speaker B:So I ended up going up there, and for the first time, I looked in his basement and I saw that they was down there scratching.
Speaker B:They had crates of records and big speakers, and they was down there scratching.
Speaker B:This was on Marshall and Thompson in North Philly.
Speaker B:And I got introduced to him.
Speaker B:His name is Yo Yo.
Speaker B:Anthony Ray became my best friend.
Speaker B:Taught me how to scratch.
Speaker B: a mixer was, taught me what a: Speaker B:You know, if they were jumpy about putting a quarter or a penny on top of it.
Speaker B:Or we even had a better trick where we took a piece of a Q tip, the cotton from a Q tip, and we put it underneath the stylus in the middle of it, you know, so it would stabilize the needle from moving back and forth.
Speaker B:Just a little tiny piece of cotton.
Speaker B:It doesn't do so well for your records because it digs into the records and it makes the sound deteriorate.
Speaker B:But if you just want to go out there and scratch and you don't want the record to jump, a little piece of cotton above the stylus is good in that little hole.
Speaker A:Never heard that before.
Speaker B:Yeah, so he had these.
Speaker B:He had this collection of cassette tapes, and on the cassette tapes he had Jazzy Jeff, Cash Money, DJ Lightning Rich, Spin Bad, DJ Cosmic Kev, DJ Bones, a lot of different DJs from early, early Philly times.
Speaker B:And they used to do shows at a place called the Wim Ballroom in West Philly.
Speaker B:And it was mostly all scratching.
Speaker B:What, you know, MC would be talking over, but it was.
Speaker B:It was mostly cutting edge time or.
Speaker B:Or cutting dance to the drummer's beat.
Speaker A:Is that the.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The electro.
Speaker A:It's time, right?
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's what I grew up on, you know, learning how to scratch off of.
Speaker B:Off of mimicking cassette tapes that we would, you know, rewind and rewind and rewind hearing certain scratches that they did and mimic.
Speaker B:Mimic those scratches.
Speaker B:A little piece of all of those different guys.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So out of that list, Lightning Rich is the wonder.
Speaker A:I've kind of heard the name a few times, but don't really know anything about because you kind of think of like Cash Money, Spin Bad Jeff, Cosmic Kev I might have heard of.
Speaker A:But yeah, Lightning Rich is the one where the name feels familiar, but I don't really Know anything about him?
Speaker B:The Lightning Rich was an early Philly pioneer DJ who transformed really early in the game.
Speaker B:He was from North Philly, so we knew him better.
Speaker B:He was mostly slept on.
Speaker B:He had a song that came out called Santa's Groove with an emcee named Big John, and they were from Philly, and you had to kind of be deep in the underground and North Philly Kensington area to see them perform.
Speaker B:I wasn't really deep into that area, but when I met yo yo, who passed me, know, this incredible gift of, you know, how to scratch and all the history behind it, and he had the tapes to go with it.
Speaker B:It was like a tutorial, because at this time, there was no Internet.
Speaker B:There was no YouTube.
Speaker B: The year was, like,: Speaker B: , I had, you know, two: Speaker B: my house and bought my first: Speaker B:And we used to take the equipment out to different basketball courts or wherever we could have a long enough extension cord to plug it in.
Speaker B:And we used to do, you know, scratch battles in different parts of the neighborhood.
Speaker B:So I grew up, like, carrying speakers and, you know, pushing carts with turntables and stuff on it.
Speaker B:It was the fun.
Speaker B:It was fun.
Speaker B:Growing up 86, was it ever kind.
Speaker A:Of nervy taking all your equipment out because you were in kind of the tough side of Philly, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, we were in a tougher side of Philly, but we always, you know, with the music stuff, it wasn't like nobody was gonna.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:We never even worried about that.
Speaker B:We were just so excited to.
Speaker B:To be going to do a battle.
Speaker B:Sometimes we had cars and we would go and set up outside.
Speaker B:We didn't always have the big gigantic speakers like that to make it be real loud.
Speaker B:So we were just really doing it for us, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:We just wanted to do it outside and somewhere where we could plug into the electricity.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, like, so you.
Speaker B:How.
Speaker A:How did you say you met Yo Yo?
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Because it sounds like having that sort of meeting and interaction, that's the education in such a formative thing.
Speaker A:Like, you're so kind of blessed to have had that, I guess.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Incredible gift that he passed me.
Speaker B:The last and still lasts an entire lifetime.
Speaker B:Yo yo was murdered on.
Speaker B:On that same step where I met him.
Speaker B: He got shot in: Speaker B:So we say rest in peace to my man Yo Yo.
Speaker B:But he was a neighborhood.
Speaker B:He was a neighborhood kid.
Speaker B:He was the lifeguard at a.
Speaker B:At a local swimming pool that we all used to go to and six and master.
Speaker B:And he was a local DJ too.
Speaker B:So it was most likely his car that we were putting the equipment in to drive down to whatever place that we were going to go, put it up.
Speaker B:Because, remember, I didn't know anything about any of that stuff.
Speaker B:So I'm just following his lead.
Speaker B:His cousin was named Mechanism.
Speaker B:And the.
Speaker B:The rapper Mechanism ended up being on my.
Speaker B:On a Tough Cruise Back to Rec Shop album on a song called Come on and Go off and.
Speaker B:And I met Mac first and then I met the Yoyo and Mechanism became my mc.
Speaker B:Before I was the DJ for Tough Crew, I had MC Mechanism.
Speaker B:And we put out a bunch of different stuff.
Speaker B:One thing that's pretty unique that I did with Mechanism and another rapper from Philly called Prime Minister Dope who appeared on the album was pretty much the star of the album album called two Brown.
Speaker B:And we used to go to the drug corners, which there's a lot of drug corners in this area of Kensington where I grew up at.
Speaker B:I lived a little bit south of so much drug activity, but a couple blocks away and definitely maybe 10 or 15 blocks away was the epicenter of the heroin, crack, coke, powder cocaine and all of that.
Speaker B:So we used to go up there and.
Speaker B:And take a list of people's names who was out there selling drugs.
Speaker B:The big man, Jose, Little Juan with the machine gun, Papa holding the bundles, you know, Paquito, the hitman from.
Speaker B:From Puerto Rico.
Speaker B:And we used to go home and make a beat and create a song.
Speaker B:At that time I had a MPC 60.
Speaker B:We used to go home.
Speaker B:I already had a bunch of beats made.
Speaker B:So we would write a.
Speaker B:They would write the song about, you know, this drug corner and we would take them back 10 tapes.
Speaker B:And we did that for about 20 or 30 different drug corners.
Speaker B:There was another rapper out there that I got into a heated exchange in a street battle, a mixtape battle, so to speak.
Speaker B:And his name was Kiski, a Puerto Rican rapper.
Speaker B:He was one of the first rappers that.
Speaker B:That ever rhymed in Spanish.
Speaker B: Probably this year is like: Speaker B:He's from Philly again.
Speaker B:Kiski is no longer with us.
Speaker B:So I say rest in peace, Kisky.
Speaker B:But there was a heated exchange of street tapes and stuff like that between, between me and Kiski.
Speaker B:And it was a.
Speaker B:It was great to be part of like an unknown and unheralded battle that was going on.
Speaker B:And this, you know, a pretty big neighborhood.
Speaker B:It was pretty, you know, because that at that time Everybody had a 1.8 with all.
Speaker B:With the all.
Speaker B:The whole back seat was speakers.
Speaker B:So did it.
Speaker A:Did it spill out off tape into the streets or anything?
Speaker A:Because I know that's been sort of a conversation recently around some of the.
Speaker A:Some of the sort of more high profile beefs that you've had in more recent times is about whether they stay on record or not.
Speaker B:Well, nothing with.
Speaker B:Nothing with Kisky spilled out into the street.
Speaker B:But we did see them because at that point in time, Tough crew, you know, my part of town was.
Speaker B:Was already out and I had gotten really good between 86 and 89 when tough, you know, when my part of town came out.
Speaker B:The first time that I met the boy named Kisky, he was.
Speaker B:He was DJing the party that Tuffu was performing at.
Speaker B:And we were performing only a few blocks from my house and we arrived there two or three hours late and the crowd had already got into a fight and left and stuff like this.
Speaker B:So it was a.
Speaker B:It was a conflict from the start with that.
Speaker B:Maybe it was bad energy that initiated it or whatever.
Speaker B:But the real reason that that went on is because when tough crew broke up, I was looking for a way to compensate, you know, my music career and at the same time fill my pockets up.
Speaker B:It was the mixtape era, so.
Speaker B:So we started making mixtapes.
Speaker B:We had already been making mixtapes and I worked at tower Records.
Speaker B:So tower records used to supply me with maybe unbeknownst to them, a lot of tapes to run around the neighborhood and sell that I got at tower.
Speaker B:So along with public enemy, Eric, Being rock, Kim Grant, Brand new being and all of those, you know, we had the two tough tapes that would have like.
Speaker B:Like we were talking about cutting, it's time.
Speaker B:Cutting, cutting, you know, planet patrol stuff like that, electro era stuff.
Speaker A:So let's just rewind a little bit then.
Speaker A:First of all, what year was Parkside killers?
Speaker A:Schooly day.
Speaker B:That was a little bit.
Speaker B:That was when I first became a deejay.
Speaker B:Very early on.
Speaker B:I remember being in my dad's bed, you know, know, third floor at my dad's house.
Speaker B:84, 85.
Speaker B:86.
Speaker B:Yeah, that probably came out in 85.
Speaker A:So did that kind of have an impact locally then?
Speaker A:About.
Speaker A:Oh, wow, this.
Speaker A:This is getting so much traction.
Speaker A:This is something we could really do something with.
Speaker B:Well, those guys were all like superheroes to me when I first bought their records and I had a Schooly d record or I had a Jazzy Jeff and a Fresh Prince record or had an MC Breeze record, or I had three times dope record before I actually got to do shows and meet all of those dudes and be in some type of green room situation with them.
Speaker B:Well, they were like wrestling heroes to me, you know, once I got to meet them.
Speaker B:Although maybe on the outside I'm cool, calm and composed, but on the inside, I'm pretty excited about me meeting all these, you know, legendary rappers.
Speaker B:And back then nobody used the word legendary.
Speaker B:Today, they overused the word legendary.
Speaker B:You know, that's when they want to give you respect.
Speaker B:They call you legendary if you're over a certain age.
Speaker B:But, you know, it's good to.
Speaker B:It's good to get the love from the people after such a long time.
Speaker B:So I accept all accolades and all in all forms and phrases.
Speaker A:Another question then is when you were doing the battles?
Speaker A:Because I know we're jumping around here a bit, but with my part of town in particular, the cutting on that is just so funky.
Speaker A:Was that kind of a standard sort of level in the battles, or were you kind of just way ahead of people in what you were doing?
Speaker B:Well, I figured out that I didn't want to play football because it seemed like too much physical, physical exercise for me.
Speaker B:I didn't want to be out there doing deep knee bends.
Speaker B:And I took more of a liking to practicing and dealing with records.
Speaker B:And I had.
Speaker B:I had a great friend, as we discussed it, that took me step by step along the way across the street from my house was.
Speaker B:It was a little playground called Hart park.
Speaker B:And they used to have break dance battles in that.
Speaker B:In.
Speaker B:In that park.
Speaker B:And I used to look through the gate like that and say, damn, maybe one day I could, you know, I could do something like I'm watching them do right now.
Speaker B:And a couple people that I saw that was in there turned out to be members of Tough Crew.
Speaker B:And they already had a group put together called Tough T U F the Unforgettables.
Speaker B:And I seen it on the back of their jacket, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:So I got equipment and stuff like that.
Speaker B:Now I'm trying to figure out how am I going to work my way into becoming a DJ for this group.
Speaker B:It seems like it's right in front of my face.
Speaker B:Maybe if I had enough courage or maybe if I practice enough, or maybe if I practice enough and have enough courage, I could one day approach him.
Speaker B:And then one day yo yo was in there DJing for them.
Speaker B:So he, you know, he Told me they were over there and.
Speaker B:And the relationship started that way between.
Speaker B:Between me and them.
Speaker B:One thing that helped is that Ice Dog's girlfriend used to live right across the street from my house.
Speaker B:So we used to see him, you know, we could.
Speaker B:We could get the beat on him.
Speaker B:He was.
Speaker B:That was a breakdance crew called Street City Rockers.
Speaker B:All those dudes that used to be in there was from, like a breakdance crew, but a few of them were rappers.
Speaker B:And one of the rappers was Easy ezc, and the other rapper was Ice Dog.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And, you know, they would.
Speaker B:They would become two of the first members of Tough Crew.
Speaker B:Even though EZC is no longer with Tough Crew, there was a lot of different members of Tough Crew early on before finally formed into the final version that, you know, that you see on the Internet.
Speaker A:Yeah, and.
Speaker A:And when you kind of approached them, they already had a dj, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, they had a DJ named Shiver, and they already had a record out that said Shiver Shit.
Speaker B:Sh, sh.
Speaker B:Shiver.
Speaker B:So every time I used to be on stage, they're calling out another DJ's name.
Speaker B:I was feeling some type of way.
Speaker B:I said, when I get my chance to shine, I'm gonna burn it down.
Speaker A:So how do you go about then being like, right, these guys have got a DJ already, but I think I can smoke him.
Speaker A:I think I should be their dj.
Speaker A:How do.
Speaker A:How do you kind of go, right, I'm just gonna do this and like, sort of work your way in there and take over?
Speaker B:Well, there was.
Speaker B:I had a battle my way into that position because there was a couple other DJs in the neighborhood who also had the same idea.
Speaker B:And there was an event set up at a.
Speaker B:At a church recreation center called Newman hall, where I battled a couple other DJs and I.
Speaker B:I had a.
Speaker B:A Coca Cola shirt on.
Speaker B:I remember, you know, when Coca Cola was this.
Speaker B:And I became DJ for Tough Crew by battling two other people.
Speaker B:Or let's say I became one of the two DJs for tough crew.
Speaker B:Now.
Speaker B:Now I had a second mission.
Speaker B:I got to get rid of him.
Speaker B:I gotta outshine him so much that he gets chopped.
Speaker A:So was there.
Speaker A:Was that a long process or did you kind of get rid of all of that?
Speaker B:Happened pretty much overnight.
Speaker B: d from high school in June of: Speaker A:So is this before or after the first albums come out?
Speaker B:The first Album was actually called Fan Jam.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I had two songs on there that we produced for the Crown Rulers.
Speaker B:One was called Kick the Ball and the other one was called B Boy Document.
Speaker A:So how.
Speaker A:How.
Speaker A:I don't think I've ever known kind of a split album in that way before.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:My manager, Tony Mitchell to the Godfather Mitch, got things all hemmed up a Tek, in effect, West Oak Lane.
Speaker B:He used to bring groups to Philly and put, Put, put shows together.
Speaker B:So I met people from him putting shows together in Philly.
Speaker B:And also him being the owner of so Deaf Records and also him being the manager of Tough Crew.
Speaker B:I met Milk and Giz, MC Light, Positive K, Big Daddy Kane, Biz, Marky.
Speaker B:A whole bunch of different people he brought there.
Speaker B:But one so significant group that he brought was named Ultra Magnetic MCs.
Speaker B:When they came to Philly, they ended up staying in Philly for maybe a month and a half.
Speaker B:And they taught us a lot about how to make beats on the SP12 because we didn't have a SP12 at that time.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:The changeover between Fan Jam with Crown Rulers was the.
Speaker B:Was the Ultra Magnetic Injection.
Speaker B:And that.
Speaker B:Now that.
Speaker B:Now that we're armed with the information, said cool Keith Mo love, T.R.
Speaker B:love.
Speaker B:You know, they blessed us with another.
Speaker B:Another unexpected, incredible gift.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now we had the knowledge on how to work SP12 and we ended up making Danger Zone, which had my, you know, my part of town, Open Field Attack, it's Mad north side, Smooth Momentum.
Speaker B:Do say it's housing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So at what point were you doing the touring that you mentioned before with everyone?
Speaker A:Was that before or after the second album?
Speaker B:After the second album.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Got it immediately after the second album because that seems to take on a life of its own.
Speaker B:We.
Speaker B:We signed to Warlock Records because of the success of Kick the Ball and B Boy Document.
Speaker B:Although that album was a tough crew album, the two songs on there that made the most noise wasn't Tough Crew songs.
Speaker B:Nonetheless, we still profited off of that by getting a solo deal.
Speaker B:And Crown Rulers got a deal as well with Adam Levy from Warlock Records in New York almost immediately after that.
Speaker B:It was only released in nine states, according to the, you know, distribution arms.
Speaker B:But it ended up being overseas in the Netherlands and all kind of different places.
Speaker B:There was even a group from.
Speaker B:From the Netherlands called Royal Jelly King B, who made a song, two songs that sound exactly like Tough Crew.
Speaker B:One is called Must Be the Music.
Speaker B:Another one is called Back by Dope the Man.
Speaker B:And they actually sampled Tough Crew and Backed by Dope to man.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So we're kind of going here and there now.
Speaker A:There's just something I want to ask you before we get on to King B, because that's a really significant point for me in my education.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:So just.
Speaker A:Just to check.
Speaker A: how to make beats with an SP: Speaker A:What was the benefit in the difference to using the MPC 60 for the beats?
Speaker A:What kind of wisdom did they give you?
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe my timelines because I'm jumping around so much.
Speaker B:I didn't get the MPC 60 until after tough Crew broke up.
Speaker B:Prior to that we used the Casio RZ1 a rolling 707 Roland 909.
Speaker B:And then we.
Speaker B:Then we stumbled upon an 808.
Speaker B:So we got the.
Speaker B:To play with the original bass machine.
Speaker B:808.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then Ultra came.
Speaker B: with the SP: Speaker B:So you had to like blend it using the.
Speaker B:The sort of pitch control.
Speaker B:But on the 808 it's called Tempo.
Speaker B:But to blend it with the record.
Speaker B:It was a constant punching.
Speaker B:But it was cool.
Speaker B:It was cool to do it that way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:One of my friends got an 808 recently and he just showed me that how kind of out the box.
Speaker A:The sounds are actually quite weak, aren't they, if you don't sort of engineer them?
Speaker A:Well, yeah, I was really surprised by that because I've had like sample packs of 808.
Speaker A:I'm like, it just sounds really kind of really weak.
Speaker A:But when you get the actual machine it's not that much different.
Speaker B:No, it depends on maybe your engineer in the final process.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So yeah, just coming on to King B then.
Speaker A:I was quite late getting into hip hop and I.
Speaker A:My knowledge isn't probably what I would like it to be compared to my peers, but my sort of first tastes of it through hearing hearing sort of old school rap on like dance music DJs tapes in.
Speaker A:In the UK and then say early to mid 90s when there's certain things where they would speed up hip hop and put in their mixes and stuff.
Speaker A:And there was one mix by a guy called Stu Allen who's no longer with us and he put back by dope demand in his.
Speaker A:Which was actually sort of a hard house mix and I was like, learning all the lyrics and stuff because to me, it was just so funky.
Speaker B:Oh, wow, that's dope.
Speaker A:So then when I heard you, I was like, hang on a second.
Speaker A:This is basically like King B have basically sort of ident.
Speaker A:Cloned this song.
Speaker A:Like, everything about the.
Speaker A:Like, the flows and the cadences and stuff like that.
Speaker A:It's just my part of town, isn't it?
Speaker B:Yeah, it is.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker B:I was fortunate enough to perform in Amsterdam.
Speaker B:We performed in Eindhoven as well.
Speaker B:But King B came to the Amsterdam show.
Speaker B:We brought him.
Speaker B:Brought him back to the green room, and we had.
Speaker B:We had a great moment there with a couple other people from the.
Speaker B:From the Netherlands, just because it was amazing for them to see us finally, you know, get together.
Speaker B:And we've often thought about King B for so many years.
Speaker B:And just last year, you know, it came to.
Speaker B:Came into reality that I was in the same room with King B.
Speaker B:Great gentleman.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because we had a great photo op right there with a.
Speaker B:With a live audience, too.
Speaker A:I guess at that time, it kind of.
Speaker A:It's close to that sort of hip house stuff that was going on, but it's still not hip house.
Speaker A:It's just really funky rap.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So when you guys heard about Back By Dope Demand and you heard it and then realized how close it was to my part of town, did you feel flattered by it or annoyed by it?
Speaker A:What was the sentiment?
Speaker B:People were coming up to us saying, yo, y'all got a new song out.
Speaker B:And we was like, no, just, you know, the Danger Zone album.
Speaker B:And it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, Y'all got a new song out.
Speaker B:It's on the radio right now.
Speaker B:So it was already playing on the radio over here.
Speaker B:And at first it was.
Speaker B:It was a little.
Speaker B:It was a little weird for us because we didn't, you know, we didn't know where it came from or who it was.
Speaker B:But after some time, I started planning on my own mixtapes and adopted it like.
Speaker B:Like it was part of the, you know, the Danger Zone system because they had the same sound and feel.
Speaker B:So I put it on a lot of my mixtapes that we were out there selling in the streets early on.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, amazing.
Speaker A:Something else I thought about in terms of Ultra Magnetic Legacy was the other artist I'm quite familiar in that world is Tim Dog.
Speaker A:Did you kind of have any.
Speaker A:Did you guys sort of cross paths?
Speaker B:I was Tim Dogg's DJ for like a month and a half during the breakup of Tough Crew.
Speaker B:Ultra Magnetic was Going to sign a, you know, some kind of management deal with a gentleman from Philly who later turned out to be, you know, not who he said he was or whatever.
Speaker B:But I did get to.
Speaker B:To meet Tim Dog and, And you know, from the transition of Tough Crew, you know, ending to.
Speaker B:To the solo career, two tough solo career beginning.
Speaker B:I had to kind of get used to DJing for other people.
Speaker B:So it was a good place to start with Tim Dog as the first other person, you know, other than Tough Crew and mechanism that I DJed for.
Speaker A:I mean, talking about people not being who they supposed to be.
Speaker A:Did you ever see the Dateline thing about him?
Speaker B:Yeah, I did.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:I know the history of it.
Speaker B:We just keep.
Speaker B:We just keep Tim Dawg and Ever presence, you know, everlasting remembrance because of his Fuck Compton song and the energy that he brought to, you know, to the Ultra Magnetics as a.
Speaker B:Out of nowhere, you know.
Speaker B:Out of nowhere.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I mean his.
Speaker A:He's very sort of colorful, wasn't he?
Speaker A:But like, some of his beats are incredible.
Speaker A:Again, it's that really, that really funky stuff that's coming out of the sort of Ultra Mag camp.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker B:Yeah, but Chorus Line is the main one that he's on.
Speaker B:They got him, his name out there with, you know, but he had a lot of stuff, you know, stepped to me.
Speaker B:There was a lot of.
Speaker B:A lot of dope johns that said that, you know, for Tim Dog that skyrocketed him pretty, pretty quickly.
Speaker B:And then just like that, poof, Tim Dog was gone.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So at what point, because I was something else I noticed in, in my research was that you guys signed to the William Morris Agency at some point.
Speaker A:And this is like Charlie Chaplin's old agency.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Yes, the sort of legacy involved in that.
Speaker A:How did that happen?
Speaker B:William Morris was the booking agents that picked us up after, you know, my part of town made a bunch of noise.
Speaker B:We ended up going on tour on the Luke Skywalker Move Something tour and we were also added to the LL Cool J Nitro tour.
Speaker B:So we, we went on both of those tours and William Morris used to send a talent scout out to, you know, appraised the group's performance to, you know, see what the price was going to be for maybe the next shows or what they could command at a later date for.
Speaker B:For other events.
Speaker B: Just recently, in: Speaker B:And I'm Hellman Netherlands at Urban Matters.
Speaker B: t me Back to urban matters in: Speaker B: t me back to urban matters in: Speaker B:Instead of just a dj, I started rhyming because during the tour with Cool Keith, Cool Keith brought me out from behind the turntables in again Amsterdam, which was a special night.
Speaker B:Ultra, ultra 2.
Speaker B:Tough performance there.
Speaker B:It was a special night where I got to rhyme in front of a packed house of people.
Speaker B:And they really gave me a awesome, you know, reception.
Speaker B:Much more than I thought I would get being a rhyme or they was going nuts.
Speaker B:But I also was given 15 minutes to DJ before Ultra.
Speaker B:On every one of those 13 shows while we were in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, the UK, Belgium, I had an amazing time.
Speaker B:It was like a.
Speaker B: that I saw them, you know, in: Speaker B:I ended up becoming their DJ.
Speaker B:I don't know if that 35 number is right, but some, some odd decades later.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, Said G.
Speaker B:Told me, be ready.
Speaker B:And then about, about four weeks later, he was like, you've been added to the tour.
Speaker B:I was like, man, incredible experience.
Speaker B:I got to, to go out there and show off my scratch skills.
Speaker B:And then I got to also DJ for Ultra and there was a lot of people in the crowd out there with Ultra Vinyl and there was a lot of people in the crowd with Tough Crew Vinyl.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So it was, it was great.
Speaker B:Surprisingly, you know, I was surprised to be Equal Build there and I was surprised to.
Speaker B:It was the first time I had ever done 13 shows in 18 days, especially in Europe.
Speaker B:You know, I had been, I had been to Europe twice before that and then it was just the whole motherload.
Speaker B:It was great.
Speaker B:Salute to Ultra Magnetic.
Speaker B:Said gtr.
Speaker B:Love my boy rapper Fire.
Speaker B:I had, I had a great dude.
Speaker B:He lives in Bristol.
Speaker B:His name is Rapid Fire.
Speaker B:His real name is Brent Suleiman.
Speaker B:He put the merch together.
Speaker B:He worked the merch table.
Speaker B:So for the first like seven shows until we sold out of merch, he didn't get to see the shows because he was working the merch table.
Speaker B:So maybe we'll figure out a different way.
Speaker B:I just wanted to salute everybody that was on the team with us.
Speaker A:Yeah, his name does ring a bell, but I'm not sure why they call him Rapid Fire.
Speaker B:I can't forget about Mark Davis as well from Black Pegasus Records.
Speaker B:He was, he was the road manager.
Speaker B:He was told to Keep track of Cool Keith.
Speaker B:That's a rough job right there.
Speaker B:That's a rough job.
Speaker B:I don't want it.
Speaker A:Have you got any really fond memories from the touring in the 80s then?
Speaker A:Because they're like big high profile tours, right?
Speaker B:The Move Something tour.
Speaker B:In the middle of our tour with Luke Skywalker, they started shooting in the middle of the crowd.
Speaker B:There was some gunshots went off.
Speaker B:And this was at Roberto Clemente Baseball Stadium.
Speaker B:So the stage was set where the outfield would be and all of the spectators were just in the field.
Speaker B:And they evacuated it.
Speaker B:They took us back to the hotel and shortly after that we were in a hotel and we heard epmd.
Speaker B:I shot the sheriff because we could see the, we could see the stadium out the, out the balcony of our hotel.
Speaker B:And the show continued and it went on.
Speaker B:We made the news that night in Miami.
Speaker B:That night, Tough Crew was on the news.
Speaker B:Shootout at local rap show.
Speaker A:Crazy.
Speaker A:So, so what happened and caused you guys to break up?
Speaker B:Well, we, we didn't feel like, you know, the contracts that, that Tony Mitchell had on Tough Crew were a year early compared to the contracts that Warlock gave him.
Speaker B:SO members, you know, management contracts ran out as well as, you know, the so Def contracts, which means, you know, Tough Crew was signed to so Def Records.
Speaker B:So Def Records had a distribution deal with Warlock.
Speaker B:Tough Crew never had a distribution deal with Warlock.
Speaker B:We had to deal with so Def.
Speaker B:So as a trickle down theory works, one person gets paid, another person gets paid.
Speaker B:At some point, yeah, it may break down and you may not, you may not receive what you, you know, you might not even have evidence that you're supposed to receive anything.
Speaker B:So you don't really know what's going on behind the scenes because you're an up and coming artist.
Speaker B:You, you're not the record company, you know, owner, manager, you know, investor.
Speaker B:So many, many groups in Philly learned the hard way like that.
Speaker B:Jewel T and Dollar Bill, you know, steady being Cool C.
Speaker B:Is this because.
Speaker A:Of Tony Mitchell specifically or was there.
Speaker B:No, this was just a ongoing business practice in the music industry pretty much.
Speaker B:I can only tell you the versions from Philly because I never got burned by anybody from any other city.
Speaker B:But I could say that it was going on and it was pretty much running rampant.
Speaker B:It even extended into the live show performances.
Speaker B:We've all seen it.
Speaker B:A promoter books a group, books an act, people don't show up.
Speaker B:You know, something happens where he doesn't have the money to pay him and then there's a situation that occurs, you know, Things happen.
Speaker B:I learned over the years that those opportunities were before opportunities that I was bitching about.
Speaker B:I didn't get paid or I didn't get paid enough.
Speaker B:Those were the very opportunities that was molding the future and allow me to meet some of the people that I met and would never meet again and meet some of the people that I met and they would come and come and pick me up and take me on a world tour 30 years later.
Speaker B:So you never know.
Speaker B:I'm just happy that I was able to have good interactions throughout the whole hip hop journey.
Speaker B:And it's been an incredible journey.
Speaker B:Anytime I got into any kind of situations, maybe with drug addiction, jail, incarceration, getting shot, getting stabbed, becoming homeless, there was always somebody from the hip hop community who recognized me, a fan, a record label executive or something, a dude from the record store.
Speaker B:And always got bits and pieces, bits and pieces of love from the universe, from complete strangers who may have recognized me in a not so, not so great situation that I might have been in, you know, and they still, God still sent them over to check, check out and make sure I was all right.
Speaker A:Yeah, so just kind of thinking of that then and, and the sort of world around drugs and things.
Speaker A:When you guys were sort of on that ascension, were you in that world at all at that time?
Speaker A:Like in the streets?
Speaker B: got to the lean years around: Speaker A:Can I ask what you went to jail for?
Speaker B:I went to jail probably for drug possession or maybe bench warrants that I didn't.
Speaker B:That I never went, went to court for.
Speaker B:I caught a bunch of different cases.
Speaker B:But I met this dude named Dino and he was a.
Speaker B:He was a big time drug dealer down Kensington in North Philly.
Speaker B:So after my, after my short run, as you know, Too Tough, I made a couple albums and did some solo stuff which, which came out not that long ago, called the Lost Archives.
Speaker B:I had these tapes, and I still have the tapes to this day with a bunch of different 80 or 90 different songs on there.
Speaker B:But I met this, this drug dealer dude named Dino and I became second in charge of running around throughout the streets, flying on airplanes, flying back with, with, you know, undisclosed material on me in those airplanes, going to different cities.
Speaker B: And that ended in: Speaker B:That was probably around my low point.
Speaker B:You know, I touched on homelessness there, worked as a grill cook, worked at Pizza Hut, didn't have any equipment, you know.
Speaker B:2006 arrives.
Speaker B:2007, I meet a person that I went to high school with named Tim McCluskey.
Speaker B:He creates me and my MySpace page and.
Speaker B:And we catch the attention of DJ Z Trip, who says that he's a huge fan of two Tough and models it, modeled his scratch style after Too Tough.
Speaker B:Z Trips brings me out to Studio B in, in Brooklyn and also brought me out to Central park with Kid Capri Rakim, another rapper named Rhyme Fest.
Speaker B:And that was the beginning of sort of the comeback.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker B: In: Speaker B:And I knocked on a police officer's window and he asked me my name and birth date and I gave it to him.
Speaker B:And he locked me up for aggregate.
Speaker B:He locked me up for a body warrant that I had for an aggravated assault that had occurred six months prior to that.
Speaker B:I went to jail.
Speaker B:I had two cancer operations on my neck.
Speaker B:They diagnosed me with thyroid cancer.
Speaker B:I had two cancer operations.
Speaker B:I came home, got to put on a suit, suit and tie.
Speaker B:I thought I was going to jail for four to eight years.
Speaker B:But when I went to court that day after being released, I was there for ten and a half months.
Speaker B:I came home for three days and I went back to court and they threw the, threw the charges out, dismissed the case, and, and, and it was back to the, you know, for me, it was back to normal behavior, which was, which was, you know, back to my addiction.
Speaker B: hout the whole situation from: Speaker B:Smoking cigarettes, stuff like that was an inherent part of trying to fit in.
Speaker B:I felt like if I didn't snort coke, if I didn't smoke turbos, if I didn't smoke weed, if I didn't smoke cigarettes, they might not, they might not like me as much as if I did do those things, you know, so it was a lot of peer pressure early on before I discovered, you know, before I discovered myself, which, which hasn't been that long that I've had, you know, some, some sort of awakening to see what means something and what doesn't.
Speaker B:I got a 20, 28 year old daughter and a 10 year old son.
Speaker B:So it's good to be able to look back on the legacy and see that even though I may have been tarnishing my own life as much as possible, the legacy of Tough Crew and the two Tough, you know, scenario wasn't so tarnished because it kind of stood the test of time.
Speaker B:And it was one of the things that I was able to hold on to when it seemed like everything else was falling apart.
Speaker A:So with that sort of time in the streets, was it, was it the sort of relationship with drugs that kind of took you there and kind of substance abuse that, that took you into that world?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B: of powder cocaine that summer: Speaker B:So it was, it was me from going from being a prep scholar, you know, a prep school academic scholar, to going right to the corners and selling bags of powder cocaine on the block, which escalated to selling crack, selling heroin, selling pills, selling all kind of stuff.
Speaker B:That, that whole, that whole Badlands Kensington neighborhood is just, it was just, you know, all drugs and it wasn't that far away.
Speaker B:So the lore, the lure to get quick money or the lure to catch a bit of the excitement that you were going to see where, you know, Puerto Rican boys driving around with, with 1.8 with the music so loud you can't even, you know, they pull up next to your car, your car is vibrating.
Speaker B:There was a whole electricity to that, to that thing.
Speaker B:You know, a lot of people are dying down there now though, it's not so electric down there because the heroin situation turned to fentanyl, fentanyl turned to drink.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of people out there walking around in a, in a serious state of physical and, and mental illness.
Speaker B:But, you know, that's the neighborhood that I grew up with.
Speaker B:Such was the path that I was given.
Speaker A:You know, when you were kind of in that world, was there ever times where you'd be in a situation, say, doing something you shouldn't be doing, to put it so broadly, where someone would recognize you from Tough crew and be like, oh, you're too tough, right?
Speaker B:Many, many, many, many, many times.
Speaker B:Many times if I was doing something that I wasn't supposed to be doing, then I didn't want to be seen doing that by anybody.
Speaker B:So if I was recognized, I wouldn't run and hide, of course.
Speaker B:But it was unexpected for me because I didn't, I wasn't expecting to be noticed in that situation.
Speaker B:Oftentimes on the L in Philly I would be sitting on the L train going downtown to get records, and I would see somebody over there looking at me.
Speaker B:I can tell that they're looking at me.
Speaker B:I just feel them looking.
Speaker B:And I used to be getting ready to fight.
Speaker B:You know, I'm like, this keeps looking at me.
Speaker B:But then when we get off the train, they would say something like, too tough.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, after the door is closed, and then you see them screaming too tough as the train goes by.
Speaker B:So I learned to adjust, you know, my awareness to.
Speaker B:From being hyper, you know, hyper vigilant, to kind of being aware that people may know who you are.
Speaker B:And then many, many years later being able to make the transition into doing the next right thing, no matter who's looking.
Speaker B:Oh, that's different.
Speaker B:That's different.
Speaker B:Do the next right thing, no matter who's looking.
Speaker B:That means, what kind of person are you when you're by yourself?
Speaker B:You know, if you find a wallet, you're going to keep it.
Speaker B:You're going to.
Speaker B:You know, if somebody breaks down and got a flat tire right next to you, going to keep driving.
Speaker B:Hey, you know, different situations call for different actions today.
Speaker B:I know that by helping people, by helping other people, I'm more able to help myself.
Speaker B:And that only came as a direct result of.
Speaker B:Of my mission as a addiction.
Speaker B:Powerless over certain things in my life.
Speaker B:Like what?
Speaker B:Well, I'm powerless over my ability to change someone else.
Speaker B:I can change them, but I'm not powerless over my ability to change me and the way that I think.
Speaker B:Also, I'm not powerless to help somebody else.
Speaker B:I found out that helping people helps me.
Speaker B:Yeah, this is a different way of life.
Speaker B:It opened up more doors in hip hop for me than the other way.
Speaker A:That's interesting because, I mean, it.
Speaker A:It must be strange because sometimes when you've taken something that you shouldn't necessarily have taken in the eyes of the law, it can make you very paranoid afterwards, you know, so it must be strange when you're sitting there.
Speaker A:And that's just, you know, if I was sitting on a bus somewhere and someone kept looking at me, I'd feel a certain way.
Speaker A:And that's without having taken anything that you're not supposed to take.
Speaker A:But if you have, you know, that paranoia just amplifies.
Speaker A:And that must be mad when you're kind of a face, a local celebrity, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is.
Speaker B:It definitely is.
Speaker B:At sometimes it was humiliating, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:But we can remember that those were times when maybe we were being reminded of who we really Are, you know, when somebody recognizes you and you're in some type of different state of mind, drunk or high, and somebody comes up and shows you love for, you know, they know your songs, they're singing the words, they're singing the lyrics to your old song.
Speaker B:It can be a touch back to reality when you go home after all of that ends and it's just you with yourself and there ain't no more high, there ain't no more drunk.
Speaker B:Those are the moments that you use to bounce back from the bottom, you know, and start to start to climb back up.
Speaker B:So it was always galvanizing for me for somebody to, regardless of what I may have been doing to myself, for them to recognize me, that gave me a certain sense of self esteem for something that I accomplished that they still remember me for.
Speaker B:Maybe I can use it as a springboard.
Speaker A:What was it like getting the diagnosis, the cancer diagnosis while you were in jail?
Speaker A:I mean, that.
Speaker A:That's got to be.
Speaker A:I mean, I apologize if that's a really ridiculous question, but it's.
Speaker A:That's got to just be.
Speaker A:Make you think a lot about what the world is and purpose and things like that.
Speaker B:Well, I was sitting in a jail cell and the Duke, one of the dudes that, you know, his cell was right down a little bit, he came in with the newspaper and he was like, yo, tough, you're in the newspaper today.
Speaker B:And he showed me a newspaper that said two tough battling cancer as the headlines in the entertainment section.
Speaker B:And, and it kind of hit home, you know, for that one.
Speaker B:But there was so many other things going on.
Speaker B:It almost represented a special position for me to be able to go in and out of jail.
Speaker B:I didn't mind going to the.
Speaker B:I mean, I didn't have no choice but to go, but I didn't mind being taken in and out of the jail.
Speaker B:It kind of broke up the monotony of being there.
Speaker B:Ten and a half months might sound crazy.
Speaker B:If somebody would ask you, you know, you.
Speaker B:You can have everything that you want, you're going to get everything that you want in life, but first you're going to go to jail and you're going to have two cancer surgeries and you're going to come home and then you're going to be homeless, then you're going to struggle with drug addiction.
Speaker B:Would you agree to, you know, accept the offer that they're saying, we'll give you everything that you dreamed about.
Speaker B:Now, I might not be financially set where I have everything that I dream about, but as far as being in situations and having performed and experienced different hip hop eras as well as different as well as hip hop in different countries.
Speaker B:It's been the greatest blessing that I've ever received in my life to have it occur over and over and over for so long.
Speaker B:Something that I just used to dream about being a DJ and I'll become somewhat of a trailblazer, you know, it still brings me a massive amount of joy to, to make mixtapes, do my albums for Chuck D, battle myself here with a mp.
Speaker B:You know, I got an MPC X now, so now I could battle myself.
Speaker B:You know, that's why I call my album Me vs Me because it's really me battling myself for the majority of the days.
Speaker B:The only time I don't battle myself is when I'm asleep.
Speaker A:It's, it's interesting though.
Speaker A:Do you think, and I'm going to really struggle to word this because we're getting kind of philosophical.
Speaker A:So you said if you could have everything that you want, but you've got to have been through these experiences.
Speaker A:Do you think these experiences give you or contribute to having the perspective that makes you appreciate those things as being the things that you want?
Speaker B:Yes, I think it builds character.
Speaker B:I think that a massive amount of pain will bring about a massive amount of change.
Speaker B:Maybe not all at once because the pain can come all at once, but the change may not come all at once.
Speaker B:So you got to be willing to take small steps.
Speaker B:Before I could release a solo album on Chuck D's label, I had to make it through, make it through a bunch of other stuff, but I also had to create the actual beats.
Speaker B:I never made an album before on my own.
Speaker B:I made it with Tough Crew and I scratched over top of beats the LA Kid created and I made beats that I scratched over top of the LA Kid engineered and, and we had, you know, a production team who basically did the mix downs and stuff like that.
Speaker B:I didn't write the rhymes.
Speaker B:So now, you know, being a self contained artist now with a desire to, to be able to do solo shows as well as shows with tough crew as well as DJ for other, you know, legendary hip hop groups, those things were only.
Speaker B:I can only dream about those things again.
Speaker B:And all of those things came true.
Speaker B:But they all took a pretty extensive amount of time as well to come true.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So what was, what was the first step to the sort of rebirth in terms of the dj and was it.
Speaker A:The project was a trip?
Speaker B:It was around that time Z Trip sent me after, after having met him and Talked to him, you know, MySpace and we did the social media thing and then met him the two times in New York, watch him perform.
Speaker B:He mailed me in Federal Express, a Tascam 688 MIDI production studio which, which operates by cassette tapes.
Speaker B:You store all of the beats that you're making and all the vocals gets recorded on a cassette tape which is split into eight tracks.
Speaker B:And those are the same tapes that I still have.
Speaker B:Those are the tapes that appear on the COVID of my Lost Archives album.
Speaker B:And I've held those tapes through the whole.
Speaker B:Homeless in jail with cancer, shot, stabbed and all of that.
Speaker B:Those tapes are still here in my room with me today.
Speaker B:And there's a.
Speaker B:There's a plethora of songs on there that I haven't, that I haven't released yet.
Speaker B:But it's just been a.
Speaker B:It's been a great journey.
Speaker B:So my first step into rebirth, you know, from, from coming from a Rough life.
Speaker B:It was mostly because of decisions that I made about myself that made it a rough life.
Speaker B: to those songs that I did in: Speaker B:And we transferred everything from the tapes.
Speaker B:We remixed them, we took the hiss out of the, you know, in the doll.
Speaker B:We took the hiss out and we were able to get a deal where Peanut Butter Wolf wrote the opening credits to that album.
Speaker B:You know, it was called Tough Crew DJ Two Toughs Lost Archives.
Speaker B: released on Traffic and just: Speaker B:Released on vinyl through, through Rough Nation.
Speaker B:So that one, that one was really special album.
Speaker B:That was the first album that I released as a, you know, so called solo artist.
Speaker B:But really that album was to stir up drama within Tough Crew to try to plant the seeds for reunion.
Speaker B:I wanted to get their attention because a lot of the members of Tough Crew were rhyming on that album, you know, so nobody really got anything off of that album except me.
Speaker B:So I know that they would come out of the woodwork wondering where their cut is and, and that was a good way to get the crew back together.
Speaker B:It worked.
Speaker A:So, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker A:So, you know, looking at some of the sort of things you've been through around the hustling and, and some of those sorts of incidents, there's been a lot of things that have gone on there with a lot of different people.
Speaker A:You've had kind of a crazy time and yet you still managed to keep hold of all those Tapes and not lose them.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's pretty sort of phenomenal.
Speaker A:Pretty amazing considering all you've been through.
Speaker A:I guess it just shows sort of how much you care about that music.
Speaker B:Even.
Speaker B:Even when I didn't have equipment, people would hand me stuff.
Speaker B: Like, I got an extra: Speaker B:I'm at the club.
Speaker B:You know, I know you just came home.
Speaker B:There was.
Speaker B:There were always gifts from the universe that ended up being little.
Speaker B:Little pieces like, you know, Transformers, where you need the arm, the wrist, the hand, you know, the shoulder.
Speaker B:So it was always the universe blessing me with different gifts that there was like a big arrow pointing back to, like, you know, this way, hip hop is your path.
Speaker B:Continue along the journey.
Speaker B:I'm going to.
Speaker B:I'm going to arm you with the needed items.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So how did that sort of reforming with Tough Crew work?
Speaker A:Was it you that kind of did.
Speaker A:Did they all sort of come out of the woodwork and you kind of whipped everyone together and then it went from there?
Speaker B:Yeah, I tried to become a spearhead.
Speaker B:I tried to be the motivating force behind picking the Skull and Crossbones logo up out of the trash can where everybody walked away and left it, giving him some love, polishing it up, releasing some stuff underneath the Skull and Bones moniker.
Speaker B:The same Tough Crew flag.
Speaker B:And that's what I did.
Speaker B:And as I said, people started to notice.
Speaker B:They never forgot about Tough Crew.
Speaker B:Their question always was, what happened to y'all?
Speaker B:You know, because it was another.
Speaker B:Another quick disappearance.
Speaker B:Like Tim Dog.
Speaker B:Very my pleasure to have been able to drop a new album with the same, you know, three.
Speaker B:Three gentlemen from Tough Crew, LA Kid, Ice Dog and Tone Love.
Speaker B: We dropped one in: Speaker B:Called back by Dope the Man.
Speaker B:It's out there right now on vinyl and all platforms through Rough Nation.
Speaker B:Salute to Chris Schwartz and Eric Victor from Creep Recording Studio.
Speaker B:We got to go back in after 33 years and do it all over again.
Speaker B:Same.
Speaker B:Same for dudes.
Speaker B:It was similar to when I got to finally go overseas with.
Speaker B:With Ice LA and Sone, you know, because I wanted to do it with.
Speaker B:With the original members sort of as like a.
Speaker B:A payback for.
Speaker B:For opening doors for me that lasted for so very long.
Speaker A:And I guess the nice thing is now that it's.
Speaker A:It's because you're someone that's obviously sort of loved and held close by so many people.
Speaker A:It's just in this day and age, it's so much easier to connect with Those people and find the people that do want to go, yeah, we want to put your record out and stuff.
Speaker A:It's, it's sort of amazing that, that we're in a world where that exists now and you've not got to just, it's not got to be the people within a 20 mile radius of you.
Speaker A:Because it sounded like something in my notes.
Speaker A:It sounded pretty mad.
Speaker A:Sort of the story of Tony Mitchell really.
Speaker A:Is that something you can talk about a bit more?
Speaker B:Mitch came out of the clear blue sky.
Speaker B:I've never seen him before in my life.
Speaker B:And he showed up at that little park that I was telling you about, Hart park, and he said that he was putting together a rap group and he had Tone Love and LA Kid with him and maybe they kind of already had, you know, came there to meet Ice Dog and he was there as the leader of this, of this, you know, street break dance crew.
Speaker B:And he came in a limousine and I remember him specifically giving, giving everybody some money.
Speaker B:You know, it came like a big shot and, and once I, once I got the chance to interact maybe over the next three months, probably by the end of the summer, I had become the DJ for itself crew.
Speaker B:If we got in trouble, Mitch would bail us out of jail every day.
Speaker B: tch's house in West Philly on: Speaker B:It was like, you know, we did a lot of music there, don't get me wrong.
Speaker B:But it was also practice on how to roll joints, practice on how to, how to get drunk better without crashing the car, practice on which drug corners had the best powder and stuff like that.
Speaker B:On the way home, Mitch would tell us, I'm gonna give you the car to go take to go drop, drop two tough off at home, come right back, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Telling, telling LA.
Speaker B:And we wouldn't come back until 7 in the morning, it'd be daylight out there and he was dropping me off.
Speaker B:So there was a lot of good times.
Speaker B:Mitch was like a father figure to us.
Speaker B:Regardless of what happened in, in the music part where who got paid and who didn't get paid or who was lying or who wasn't lying.
Speaker B:I've modeled my business plan, you know, the way that I approach music business after how Mitch did.
Speaker B:I don't burn nobody, of course, and I try not to get in situations where it looks like I've burned somebody.
Speaker B:So I found that honesty is the best policy.
Speaker B:But I also know that the music industry is a treacherous business so sometimes we need to, you know, use the power move as a.
Speaker B:As an option as well.
Speaker B:So Mitch taught me a lot.
Speaker B:I was able to see him again just a couple years ago.
Speaker B:I got his phone number.
Speaker B:I speak to him on the phone.
Speaker B:You know, I've forgiven him and I've thanked him and told him that I'm forever grateful to him for allowing me to be the DJ for Tough Crew and taking a crazy, extraordinary ride.
Speaker B:I think I met him and took a picture with him at the High and Mighty reunion at Kung Fu Necktie in Philly.
Speaker B:Or maybe it was Sean Price show.
Speaker B:I think it was Sean Price, one of those two.
Speaker A:Did you.
Speaker A:Were you close to Sean Price?
Speaker A:Did you know him well?
Speaker B:I only met him that one time I met him.
Speaker B:I was the house DJ for Sean Price in Philly, and he passed away about a month later.
Speaker B:So I did get to take pictures with Sean Price and had a good time laughing and joking with him because.
Speaker A:He'S someone that people speak very highly about.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Keith is another one that I had a.
Speaker B:The chance to just be with him for 18 days, check in and out of hotels, do sound checks, be in the green room.
Speaker B:Being around those dudes is forever.
Speaker B:Energy, energy.
Speaker B:Charge up for me.
Speaker B:And I often called him, you know, just out of the clear blue.
Speaker B:I'd be like, yo, you took me on the most amazing journey of my life last year.
Speaker B:Now I'm trying to figure out how to.
Speaker B:How to outdo that.
Speaker B:One thing that takes a lot of pressure off of me is when I.
Speaker B:When I get this bright idea about I'm doing all of this.
Speaker B:There's no possible way that I could have done any of that.
Speaker B:All I did was take small steps in the direction of my dreams, and then things start to happen that involve other people.
Speaker B:So I don't give myself so much credit other than being consistent and having a passion for.
Speaker B:For the music and creating it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, you know, I think to have been through what you've been through, still be creating and being kind of as active as ever, just.
Speaker A:It's testament to the passion.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:You know, and the talent, obviously.
Speaker A:Something else I wanted to ask you about was roller rinks and their sort of importance to hip hop culture.
Speaker A:What was that experience growing up and that?
Speaker A:Why were they such a big sort of source of influence and performance in hip hop?
Speaker B:Well, I was.
Speaker B:I was never really a skater, but I did DJ at a lot of those skating rings.
Speaker B:That was a friendly atmosphere where there can also be kids there.
Speaker B:So it was giving You a chance to get your music heard not only by adults who were 18 or 21, who could drink at a bar, but by a smaller, you know, a lower age bracket.
Speaker B:And that's always good for longevity.
Speaker B:When you can get kids to like your songs, you know, it's going to stay alive longer because they're going to be alive longer.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But one thing that the.
Speaker B:That the roller skating ring gave for me and for Tough Crew is we happen to make a roller skating classic.
Speaker B:You know, my part of town is like up there with bounce, rock, skate and all of that.
Speaker B:It seems like it has to be over 114 beats per minute.
Speaker B:It has to be up tempo to be, you know, to be one of them doing it in the dark, Something like that.
Speaker B:You know, all of those skating ring johns and I, I did a mixtape a while ago.
Speaker B:You know, the best skating, best skating songs, songs to skate to.
Speaker B:Yo yo was a really good skater.
Speaker B:So sometimes I would go there to the skating ring with him, but I would just have to play the sideline, play Space Invaders or Asteroids or something.
Speaker B:I wasn't, you know, I wasn't the greatest skater.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because could you just see in sort of pop culture representation of 80s hip hop, you see quite a lot of stuff that occurs in roller rinks.
Speaker A:I think that was where quite a lot of the early west coast stuff happened as well.
Speaker B:I believe the Skating rings in Philly was one of the.
Speaker B:One of the first places where you could see like a surprise performance, maybe somebody rapping at the skating ring.
Speaker B:I remember going to the Skating ring less than 10 years ago and seeing Tila Rock there.
Speaker B:Tila Rock was rhyming live at the Skating ring in Philly.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Crazy.
Speaker B:I saw Tila Rock down down at Atlantic City, the Legends of Hip Hop show as well.
Speaker B:That's what I told him as soon as I seen him.
Speaker B:I said, hell.
Speaker A:Amazing.
Speaker B:That was one of the early records that we scratched.
Speaker B:T.
Speaker B:LaRoc is yours.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That was like learning.
Speaker B:Learning how to scratch with that record.
Speaker A:Are There any particular DJs over the years that have really impressed you?
Speaker A:So standouts, I think DJs who have.
Speaker B:Impressed me throughout the years.
Speaker B:Terminator X was always a favorite of mine because I wanted to layer my scratches.
Speaker B:Like I heard Bomb Squad and Public Enemy layer those scratches on Yo Bum Rush, the Show and Nation of Millions.
Speaker B:I also found out that Terminator X didn't do all of the scratches, so I understood that part as well.
Speaker B:Shout out to Johnny Juice and DJ Lord.
Speaker B:Because whatever combination of Scratches occurred on the Public Enemy albums.
Speaker B:They heavily influenced my Scratch style as well when it got to layering cuts on songs.
Speaker B:Because scratching As a battle DJ is different than scratching on somebody's, you know, 10 song album release.
Speaker B:Yeah, DJ Scratch.
Speaker B:Another one who laces up the cuts on, on epmds.
Speaker B:You know, you've got to be the eight bar killer.
Speaker B:If, if you want to make a name as a DJ on people's songs, you got to be an eight bar killer.
Speaker B:My part of town gave me the ultimate experience.
Speaker B:You know, I got to be an 8 bar killer four times on there.
Speaker B:Two 8 bar breaks and a 16 bar john at the end.
Speaker B:It was more than enough for me to snap.
Speaker B:And I didn't really even know what I was going to cut the night before until I found that Curtis Blow record.
Speaker B:You don't want a lot of what just.
Speaker B:I said, oh shit, that's it.
Speaker B:That's the answer.
Speaker B:It came and I played with it for a little while at home and then I went there the next day to the studio with tough group.
Speaker B:I think we were in Morningstar where we recorded a recording studio called Morningstar.
Speaker B:And they had professional engineers and a booth and all that big, big studio.
Speaker B:But I remember standing on top of a milk crate because I had my turntable set up on a baby grand piano and it was so high that I had to stand on something to be at the right level.
Speaker B:And I did that my part of town in one take.
Speaker B:That was one take through.
Speaker B:Punch in for the first verse, punch in for the second verse, Rocket to the M.
Speaker B:So that was incredible for me.
Speaker B:I surprised myself with that one.
Speaker B:Everything seemed to come together in one mighty swoop right there.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's almost like, like I really.
Speaker A:Because I learned guitar years before I learned to scratch and I don't like listening to myself scratch.
Speaker A:I try and do too much and I just.
Speaker A:I'll do that thing where you try and do too much technique rather than sitting in the pocket of the song.
Speaker A:And I think it, it is.
Speaker A:You've.
Speaker A:You've just really kind of really nicely sort of highlighted the difference between being sort of a solo scratcher versus scratching on records for a group and stuff.
Speaker B:So I'm working on an album right now for Spit Slam.
Speaker B:I got a working title and I got about.
Speaker B:I got about 80 beats that I made.
Speaker B:I've whittled it down with my partner Brent to about 16.
Speaker B:I'm gonna try to get it down to 12 now when I'm giving you all these double digit numbers.
Speaker B:I really only laid scratches on zero, but I do take it two at a time.
Speaker B:I do it like a 12 inch single.
Speaker B:As I, as was suggested to me.
Speaker B:Take the first two songs, make the first two songs.
Speaker B:So I'll go.
Speaker B:And one issue that I've noticed last album, the album before, and this one too, is getting caught up in endless preparation.
Speaker B:I'm scouring YouTube for any kind of Kensington newscast that talks about car crashes or murders.
Speaker B:So I could take a little clip out of it and fly it in on the second verse.
Speaker B:You know, I spend a lot of time in endless preparation.
Speaker B:And I got the turntable.
Speaker B:I haven't, I haven't done any scratches yet for this new album that I hope to release maybe two months, but.
Speaker B:But it's well on the way, so we have the choices.
Speaker B:But I made the beats myself, doing the scratches myself.
Speaker B:There has to be somewhat of a theme.
Speaker B:If you listen to my album Me vs Me, which is executive produced by Chuck D, that's kind of what I want to do.
Speaker B:A sort of one like that, maybe with a little bit more, a little shorter.
Speaker B:So the songs aren't so short, aren't so long.
Speaker B:You know, some of Those were almost four minutes.
Speaker B:Behold the detonator.
Speaker B:Some of the songs were three minutes and 30 seconds.
Speaker B:One thing that I learned is that the songs have to be shortened to the point because the attention span is not, not so much the same today where they're going to stick around to listen to a third verse from Rakim, a third verse from Big Daddy Kane.
Speaker B:And you know, there was always a third verse, but there's not really time with the, with the crowded logistics of how it is in hip hop, especially trying to get it played on the radio.
Speaker B:It's definitely never going to get to the third verse.
Speaker B:Another thing that I learned is I don't have to scratch on every part of the song.
Speaker B:I only need to come in and then let it breathe.
Speaker B:So I learned how to let it breathe because I'm.
Speaker B:I'm on fire through the whole thing.
Speaker B:You know, hey, let's.
Speaker B:Let's take a minute.
Speaker B:Let's let it breathe.
Speaker B:Because I was listening to Alan Watts, and Alan Watts in one of the, you know, seminars that he held, was talking about when you stop, when it comes back in, it makes it that much more dramatic.
Speaker B:So you have to use the silence the same way that there wouldn't be an earth if there wasn't blank space of the universe.
Speaker B:You know, without the blank space, there couldn't be a thing.
Speaker B:So it's a different perspective to look at it from.
Speaker B:And I kind of applied it to music.
Speaker B:I went and did some.
Speaker B:Looked at a few other videos about intervals and, you know, take a breather.
Speaker A:Well, was.
Speaker A:Wasn't it.
Speaker A:Was it John Coltrane that talked about in Chaz.
Speaker A:It's about what you don't play as much as what you do.
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:And I think for, for me personally, for a heavy amount of scratch DJs, it would be a really good thing to sort of take notice of.
Speaker A:And I'm not saying that as a good scratch dj.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:I'm saying it as someone who's listened to quite a lot of scratching.
Speaker A:It's this, right.
Speaker A:I've got to just get every technique in there.
Speaker A:Every technique?
Speaker A:Every technique.
Speaker A:Whereas you hear the phrase in.
Speaker B:We found out that the spaces in between the scratches matter because they build up dramatic, you know, a dramatic pause for the scratch to occur.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a definite.
Speaker B:That's definitely a different thought process than being an eight bar killer.
Speaker B:Eight bar killer means I go massacre for eight bars and leave and come back on another eight bars.
Speaker B:But now, now it's become a series of calculated arrangements where I got a.
Speaker B:A sound clip flying in and I know that I'm going to put the scratches underneath of it.
Speaker B:Sort of like show them how.
Speaker B:Show them how, you know, so we sampled to show them how.
Speaker B:But I did the.
Speaker B:So it requires a little bit more thought process on how you're going to organize the tracks and the arrangement being that this will be my third solo album.
Speaker B:I'm trying to.
Speaker B:Hopefully I've gotten better.
Speaker B:I know that I haven't gotten quicker, but I know that I've gotten better.
Speaker A:I think it's.
Speaker A:It's feel though, isn't it?
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And we can get sort of drawn into technique.
Speaker A:Whereas field's the ultimate important thing and I think resolve as well.
Speaker A:So I was thinking about this the other day when I was getting annoyed with hearing myself.
Speaker A:Scratch is kind of forgetting to resolve the end of your phrase.
Speaker A:It's like having your book ends.
Speaker A:So you start by sort of scratching the sound and then if you don't let the sound sort of play out at the end of a phrase, it just kind of takes away any sort of, I guess, pronunciation.
Speaker B:Yeah, you need to give it his proper impact.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Sometimes comedians or even me, when I'm up there scratching, you say the punchline and you might be too anxious to get into the next joke before you can accept the applause of the crowd.
Speaker B:Let it let it fade.
Speaker B:And now your next, the next thing that you say, they're kind of like hanging on the edge of their seat for it.
Speaker B:Instead of me running through like somewhat of this interview that I do, I get an idea about a story.
Speaker B:I'm running through all types of scenarios.
Speaker B:You're like, wait, wait, I didn't ask you anything about any of that stuff.
Speaker B:And now we're on Jupiter somewhere in a car, high speed car chase.
Speaker B:I understand that's the after effects of addiction.
Speaker A:No, like what you're saying about comedians and punchlines and stuff.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's a really good analogy for it, I think.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Because it's the same.
Speaker A:Because I used to, when I was like hanging out with people that were scratching that were really good and technical and fast and tight and stuff, I'd just be thinking about phrasing of a rapper like a Rakim or say like Cool Keith, you know, because with Keith you think about change my picture, smack my up.
Speaker A:Yeah, just one little example where that went as a line how that was used by the Prodigy and this sort of secondly lease of life it got.
Speaker A:And you just think about the change of pitch up, Smack my.
Speaker A:The gap in there and stuff.
Speaker A:It just, it's got that punchline.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And, and yeah, I think about Rakim even like ludicrous like you think about how like, you know, most MCs don't just go, you know, they let things.
Speaker B:Breathe, take a breath along the way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, nowadays most of the trap, trap and drill rap stuff, which, which since I'm still a DJ and if I do do parties, like, you know, clubs or something like that, then I still need to know what the, what the banging the songs are for me to play.
Speaker B:I'm not going to come to a club and play Big Daddy Kane Cool G rap.
Speaker B:Of course, unless it's an old school party and then, and then I'm cool.
Speaker B:But every party is not an old school party.
Speaker B:And the beats for a minute of the new songs are like 80, 78, 82.
Speaker B:So I started making beats like that and that was what made it a little bit easier for me to try to become a rapper.
Speaker B:Not to mention getting thrust out onto stage after I, after I begged for the opportunity and then it finally happened, I was like, oh, you know, I mean, I think, I think I adjusted well.
Speaker B:And for me, the after effects of it, for me to big it up and promote it out, you know how I became a rapper and all of that, I gotta, I got a kid that is from the same area that I'm from, Kensington, named OT the Real.
Speaker B:And I was fortunate enough to have him hire me after the Ultra tour to go on tour as his dj.
Speaker B:I went with Benny the Butcher and Pretty Ricky Hyde, Westside Gun.
Speaker B:And I was out there with a whole bunch of different people touring as OTs DJ.
Speaker B:And it was, it was a great time.
Speaker B:So any, any kind of rap success that happens for me in the future, I'm giving it all to OT right now.
Speaker B:No, he's been a great dude, man.
Speaker B:Give me, give me a supercharge up.
Speaker B:I do all my mixes and mastering and final edits and stuff with his boy Thorough two one five.
Speaker B:I always mention them on every interview.
Speaker B:They've been instrumental in allowing two tough, you know, the 50 plus year old to knock a few decades off of my age and my demographic and move down into a situation with, you know, Benny and Westside Gun, Conway the Machine, and a lot of the gangster rappers from New York and Buffalo, Albany, stuff like that.
Speaker A:They're all a little bit older, aren't they?
Speaker B:Anyway, yeah, they're all like 35, so.
Speaker B:So it took me down 15, 20 years.
Speaker A:Oh, so yeah, so they're still, I thought, because I'm early 40s, I know I don't look it, but yeah, I thought they were a bit more like my age.
Speaker A:I didn't realize they were still.
Speaker A:Still sort of mid-30s.
Speaker B:Yeah, 36, 35.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No offense to anyone, obviously those, those.
Speaker B:Extra 15 years are valuable.
Speaker A:I had someone at the gym the other day say, no.
Speaker A:Yeah, someone was like, how old are you now?
Speaker A:And they said 24.
Speaker A:And oh God, I wish I was 24 again.
Speaker A:So what's next?
Speaker A:What have you got coming up?
Speaker A:I know you.
Speaker A:When we were talking earlier, we were saying, you want to get some more bookings around Europe?
Speaker A:Is it in the summertime?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Last year at this time I wasn't even in.
Speaker B:We were, we were currently on tour on this date last year we were currently on tour with Ultra, so.
Speaker B:So maybe for me I might be pressing a little bit because it seems late in the year, even though it's only March.
Speaker B:By this time last year I was, I'd already started the first tour in thinking of how to outdo last year becomes a little bit pressurized situation.
Speaker B:One thing that I want to do is I got an album that I committed to Chuck D for a new album.
Speaker B:Another scratch one.
Speaker B:I'll probably include two songs on there with me rhyming on it, break myself into the Rap game Easy with, with two songs with me rapping.
Speaker B:And the rest of them are going to be, you know, Terror Dome.
Speaker B:Scratch Scratch attempts, you know, some kind of craziness, I started writing my top 100 moments in my life as per an exercise that I saw online where I was directed to go by a gentleman who writes for USA Today and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Speaker B:His name is Damon C.
Speaker B:Williams and he's a book.
Speaker B:You know, he writes books, novelist, journalist.
Speaker B:So I had this crazy ass idea that I want to write a book.
Speaker B:So I called him one day and he was like, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker B:I would love to co write the book with you.
Speaker B:So I started to write down the top 100 moments of my life.
Speaker B:After some hesitation again over preparation, perfectionism, you know, fear of it not being good enough instead of taking the steps.
Speaker B:I'm stuck up here, I don't even want to try it because I could never, you know, so we gotta, we gotta come to a decision in our own mind to take action.
Speaker B:And sometimes the smallest action can get the ball rolling.
Speaker B:More small action.
Speaker B:More small action.
Speaker B:More small action.
Speaker B:And suddenly, you know, you're not overweight anymore.
Speaker B:More small action, More small action.
Speaker B:Suddenly you haven't smoked crack in five and a half years.
Speaker B:More small action, More small action.
Speaker B:We know how to use the MPC X with our eyes closed now, you know, so now, now it's going back to something that gives me a little bit of a fear factor.
Speaker B:Trying to live up to the Two Tough from Tough Crew.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:All of those scratches.
Speaker B:Shit.
Speaker B:Even living up to the last album that I did seems like a daunting task because a lot, you know, I wouldn't want to have to go back and redo those songs, songs that I already did.
Speaker B:So I know that it's a process and it's, it's a creative process and if I can, I'm supposed to enjoy it.
Speaker B:It's not supposed to be, you know, slinging a whip on yourself.
Speaker B:So I've learned how to, how to just take a breath.
Speaker B:You know, again we talk about the breath.
Speaker B:Same thing with taking a breath.
Speaker B:I started working out because I hurt my back.
Speaker B:I went on tour with with Cool G Rap to Helm in Netherlands and a couple days before I left I had a little tweak in my back and it turned out to be herniated disc.
Speaker B:And now the after effects of arthritis and all of that.
Speaker B:So I've been working out, doing stretches and push ups.
Speaker B:So I've had a rejuvenation just as far as changing my diet, tripling my water intake, eating lots of turmeric and cranberries and oatmeal and stuff like that.
Speaker B:Stick.
Speaker B:Stay away from the white foods like bread, pasta, rice, stuff like that.
Speaker B:Because I'm kind of overweight, you know, it's getting a little up in age for me.
Speaker B:I found out that when I eat the right foods, it helps me mentally as well.
Speaker B:Which also, you know, extends to my creative part.
Speaker B:But, but I am a.
Speaker B:The way that I dig into crates now is on YouTube.
Speaker B:So I dig into crates every day.
Speaker B:I might find just a little piece of something, one couple words and I go download the whole thing.
Speaker B:Because they, they got the.
Speaker B:You can steal anything off YouTube with the YouTube downloader.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I get everything.
Speaker B:Newscast and everything.
Speaker A:I remember at one point just, just feeling like, oh yeah, you shouldn't sample off MP3s and whatever.
Speaker A:But it's like it's whatever works for you, isn't it?
Speaker A:And, and I think with what you're saying about sort of got getting news reports and things, that the variety in what you can get on YouTube is just insane.
Speaker B:I came from such a low quality era where everything was on cassettes and if it was a bootleg cassette, it was even more muffled.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So now for me, the digital age is great.
Speaker B:For me, maybe a little bit too much highs here and there with certain stuff, but for the most part it's.
Speaker B:It's a definite improvement off of.
Speaker B:Off of the Muddy.
Speaker B:You know, the Muddy Waters that we were surfing in with the 8 bit and 16 bit audio.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's been so good to chat to you and it's so nice to hear that you've kind of.
Speaker A:In spite of all the sort of challenges over the years, like things are going so well now and you just seem in such a good place.
Speaker A:Right, man, I'm going to let you get going, but.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's been good.
Speaker B:Have a good day, man.
Speaker B:It was great talking to you.
Speaker A:Likewise.
Speaker A:And thanks for having the energy.
Speaker A:You've kind of lifted me up, so.
Speaker A:Yeah, really appreciate that.
Speaker B:We posted when it's going to premiere.
Speaker A:Yeah, it'll be about two weeks.
Speaker B:Oh, excellent.
Speaker B:All right, I'll be in touch, man.
Speaker B:If you need me, I'm around.
Speaker A:Ready.
Speaker A:Take care.
Speaker B:Peace and love, brother.
