Full Transcript for E-40

There was cars driving by, and I think I heard a Tony, Tony, Tony song. So it's almost telling me it might have been 1990. But he literally, you guys just talked to him for like five minutes. And you more or less talk about- you know, what you're from. Cause he's like, Oh, you guys are into music. Do you remember anything about this moment of just some. 00:06:44 Speaker 2: It sounds very, very familiar. And it's a trip because Vallejo is an interesting spot. You know, you got Sly, you know, Sly and the Family Stone. You got, you got the Confunction that came out of there. I think Andre Hawkins, uh, recorded, uh, Oh, Happy Days in Downtown Vallejo. Uh, you know, you got, um, some of the first, the first rappers that coming out of Vallejo was the Lover Twins. They from, um, day from the bridge side over there off of springs road uh you know kairi uh kairi from young black brothers he had that was his first uh uh group that he put out and he would they was the first ones with actual record you know um so you know you had jay king which is uh the guy who called out um you know club nouveau and social club yeah yeah and choice what they call new choice Yeah. You know what I mean? He stayed for Millersville, you know, but he moved to Sacramento. So sometime he claimed Sac, sometime, but he claimed Vallejo too, because we all know he from the V, his whole family. 00:07:40 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:07:40 Speaker 2: But it's all love and respect. And he was before us and I salute them all, man. And, you know, here come me, you know what I'm saying? Me and the Click, you know, here come Mac Dre, here come, you know, just so many other rappers after us, you know, N2Deep and Baby Bash and Oh, man, Telly Sale. Oh, man, we can go on Mack Mall. 00:08:00 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:08:01 Speaker 2: Oh, man, there's so many people in the V. So much talent in that small little city. I can go on and on forever. 00:08:06 Speaker 1: Did you have history with any of those acts, like, pre-record deal at all, like high school? Yeah, yeah. 00:08:14 Speaker 2: So, In Too Deep, it's a trip. Of course, me and Telly Sale. We played ball together. Our parents knew each other and still know each other. And, uh, we from the hillside. I'm from magazine street. He from magazine street in Hollywood. You know what I mean? Right there in the same neighborhood. 00:08:29 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:08:30 Speaker 2: We grew up together. Selly sale became a gold selling artist. 00:08:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:08:33 Speaker 2: Uh, got the big record is going down tonight. You know what I'm saying? And, uh, and then, um, you know, of course, you know, be legit to click all of us. We all family. You, we from magazine street, baby bash, uh, He produced the first song I did with Spice One. I just did some talking. I was glad to be on that album because Spice was already signed to Jive. 00:08:53 Speaker 1: Right. 00:08:53 Speaker 2: And then In Too Deep, Jim Trujillo, you understand me, and Tim, they both embraced me, got me on there. They were signed to Profile Records, and I'm still independent at that time, and they were signed to Profile Records. Man, I had an opportunity to have breakfast with them with Run DMC. Yeah, with Run DMC. Yeah, because they was all on Profile Records, and Right, okay. We ate it off of Highway 29. 00:09:16 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:09:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, but anyway, moving forward, so, you know, they gave me my first record. My first gold record was by N2D because I was on a song called V-Town. 00:09:25 Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Look, your voice is an instrument all on its own. Like, the intonation, the pitch, the bounce of it all, the way you stretch your words out. So, when you first got on the mic, did you sound like E-40 or did you... have to find him and invent this persona. Who were you listening to that shaped how you talk on a record? 00:09:55 Speaker 2: You might have to pack a lunch for this. Uh, first it was New York was heavily, there was a big influence on us. Influential. 00:10:03 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:10:04 Speaker 2: Um, first and foremost, you know, the first rap song I heard was sugar hill gang. And I fell in love with, you know, some of the artists as earlier, like just ice grandma's flash and the furious five, Melly male, um, mostly Curtis blow. Also, um, You know, Kengo from UTF-4 was a big influence. His voice was amazing to me. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: Kengo from UTF-4. 00:10:24 Speaker 2: There you go. Now you hear a little bit of E-40 in there. 00:10:27 Speaker 1: Oh. 00:10:27 Speaker 2: Right. 00:10:30 Speaker 1: Oh. Because he was. Oh, my God. Yo. Yep. Yep. Ice-T. Yep. 00:10:39 Speaker 2: Run DMC. And, you know, locally, you know, Too Short. Too Short definitely was a big influence. Some of his tapes before even. You know, made it big. He had tapes circulating. Magic Mike and Calvin T out of Richmond, California. 00:10:52 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:10:52 Speaker 2: You know, my cousin and them used to come down from Richmond, blapping that, and they blew 5.0. You feel me? And my folks, you know what I'm saying? 00:10:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:10:59 Speaker 2: You know, shout out to Derrick Brown. Shout out to Pops. You know what I'm saying? My cousin Pops and all of them up out of Richmond, man. They come through blapping that thing, you know what I'm saying, with us on Magazine Street. So we just, you know, of course, LL Cool J, man, KRS-One. 00:11:13 Speaker 1: I did a lot. 00:11:14 Speaker 2: I learned my ad-libs from KRS-One. KRS-One used to do a lot of ad libs. So you're talking to third person. 00:11:20 Speaker 1: See, I thought with your interview style, when you answer yourself, like when you do your interview thing, I thought, like, that's definitely a slick Rick. Like, overdubbing it. 00:11:31 Speaker 2: It can be some of that, too, because I listen to all of them. 00:11:33 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:11:34 Speaker 2: But mostly KRS-One. All right. I was blapping Big Daddy Kane for show, too. And many, many, you

know, shoot. You know who was my ex-clan? 00:11:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, Brother J? Yeah, Brother J. Brother J. Yuck. 00:11:47 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. 00:11:48 Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? 00:11:49 Speaker 2: Yeah. Brother Jay, what you say? Oh, come on, man. Some of the great music, man. You know, Public Enemy, bro. We could go on. Man, you know, Tidy T. Tidy T out of L.A. Bat around, yeah. Bat around, you feel me? Mixed Master Spade. Bobby Jimmy and the Crickets. That's Russ Parr. Guess who else I used to blab? 00:12:09 Speaker 1: Who? 00:12:10 Speaker 2: You ready for this one? Hit me. 00:12:11 Speaker 1: The Symphony. The Symphony. 00:12:12 Speaker 2: The symphony. 00:12:14 Speaker 1: Oh, Big Daddy Kane. Yeah. Cool G Rap. 00:12:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, Cool G Rap. 00:12:18 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:12:19 Speaker 2: I used to rock with them boys, too. You feel me? Okay. I like that, too. So, man, it's a trip because I'm older than a lot of them cats, man. You feel me? 00:12:27 Speaker 1: I kick back. I'm like, damn. 00:12:29 Speaker 2: I've been in this game for a long time. Since 88 was when I first released MVP, Most Valuable Players, with the click. 00:12:35 Speaker 1: It shouldn't be a surprise, though, because, like, you know, I mean, the Bay Area was always... Like the Bay Area and D.C. have absorbed way more music than any other territory that I've seen in the United States. Like it's almost like you guys are like this encompassing sponge of just information. So I tend to notice that in the Bay Area, regionalism really isn't a thing like, you know, it would be elsewhere where they're just guarded with their territory. So I absolutely see... that happening. 00:13:14 Speaker 2: It's like everybody, the debate was making so beautiful as we got like people, we got like the hieroglyphics and Dale, the funky helpers, homo sapien and, and, you know, and, uh, souls of mischief. And we got, you know, then you got, you got your spice ones of the world's in the eight forties and the loonies. And you got, you know, underground and it's just so many different, like, you know, you, it's just a mixture of everything. I can go on and on and on, but I'm just saying growing up, that's how it was, you know? So we just won big gumbo pot. 00:13:45 Speaker 1: True. All right. So you and Be Legit went to Grambling when you guys were really getting serious about your participation in hip hop. But I always wanted to know, and I guess another person that can answer this is also Master P, but in reverse. But what did you learn or what did the South teach you that the Bay Area couldn't? 00:14:09 Speaker 2: The South was, when we came from grandma, we was the first ones saying, bruh. Because all they used to do, it's 1987, 88. We went in the fall of 86, 87. So when we got back, you know, because of all the New Orleans cats and all the Baton Rouge, when we getting on the elevator, when I'm in Drew Hall, be legit, it's in Pinchback. One thing is we was up and down the stairs. So we always on the elevator. So one thing they used to always say, hold that Vader, bruh. Hold that Vader, bruh. You feel me? It was bruh. 00:14:41 Speaker 1: It was bruh. 00:14:41 Speaker 2: We've been saying that forever, ever. You know what I'm saying? I got a lot of stuff like cutting up. That's from Louisiana. My grandparents, they came down from Louisiana, from Bernice, Louisiana, and Homer, Louisiana, and they had 11 kids. And that's one thing they used to say. They say, y'all cut up last night when we got in fights and stuff like that when we was young. Y'all got to stop cutting up like that. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's how I used to go. So, a lot of stuff used to come from the South and, you know, just are, just having that South in my blood. I feel like that's why I be feeling like little boozy and all them Birdman and Mastapenium because I feel like we all, for some reason, and Juvenile and we all, for some reason, we feel like we cousins or something because I feel them. Even though I'm I'm in Vallejo, but I got Southern ways. Like, you know, we come from there. My daddy from Mississippi, you feel what I'm saying? So it's like, it's crazy. So I learned a lot in Grambling, man. It taught me how to be independent. What I mean by that is like how to, you know, be a man. We used to have to stretch $ 20, man. We'd make it last for 20 days, you know what I'm saying? You know, eggs and bread and some milk, butter, you know what I'm saying? Some ground turkey. Everything was cheap way back then. You put that in your little refrigerator in the dorm and I had a little skillet. You know what I'm saying? I make all kind of little tycoon meals, you understand me? 00:15:52 Speaker 1: Right. 00:15:53 Speaker 2: You know, so I self-taught myself, man, how to do a lot of things being independent and grambling. 00:15:58 Speaker 1: Incidentally, what was your major going to be at Grambling? 00:16:03 Speaker 2: So I went for commercial art and cartoon art. we used to hang out with the band all the time, even though I played band from fourth grade to 12th grade when I was living in Vallejo. You feel me? So when I went, Be Legit, I think he went for electronics. You know what I'm saying? I went because of Be Legit. You know, we went one year and that one year felt like four years of experience because we learned so much in a small amount of time. And we got right back and pursued our career because we was doing music before that. We just never was like really, we were serious about it, but we didn't have the opportunity. So as soon as we got back, While we was at Grambling, me, B-Legit, my partner, Waller Mandel, Dominium III Jr., Ed Williams out of Oakland, and a few of my cats from Marin City, they had a boom box, you know what I'm saying? Big, tiny, big fun. We called him Big Fun. His partner, Jay, had a boom box. And so we recorded original concept instrumental. 00:16:57 Speaker 1: He took it and looped it. Yeah, get a little

stupid. 00:16:59 Speaker 2: Remember to acknowledge me, oh, man. 00:17:01 Speaker 1: Acknowledge me, oh, Lord, yeah. That one right there. 00:17:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, so we turned that into the, I think it was Walla Mandel Dominium III's idea to come with a song all about the school. Everything that went down on campus at Grambling State University. So we called it the Grambling State University School Alma Mater. And it circulated, back then people was dubbing tapes. So it circulated all throughout the campus and it got famous. Everybody knew the song. It was like Grambling University, Grambling University. Grambling University. Grambling University. And my voice was hella just tiny. 00:17:40 Speaker 1: Right. You know what I'm saying? 00:17:42 Speaker 2: It wasn't this developed, but you could tell it was me, right? Uh-huh. And so then it was a talent show. We entered the talent show, bruh, and won the whole thing, bruh. We walk out, we famous. 00:17:53 Speaker 1: We famous. 00:17:53 Speaker 2: We was already like hella popular on campus because we used to, you know, I used to be the flyest. I didn't always have this baller belly. I was, you know, I'm 18, 17, 18. I'm 18 years old and I'm, you know what I'm saying? 00:18:03 Speaker 1: I'm clean. 00:18:04 Speaker 2: I stay fresh. You know what I mean? So anyway, to make a long story short, we, uh, Soon as we got back on Bay Area soil, we found the studio. My brother, Desha, found Studio Tone Studio. I went and found Pilot Studio, who did all of him and James early. Found a studio on Sonoma Boulevard right there where Mr. MC Hammer used to. So we would see MC Hammer sometime when we were coming out. When we going into the studio, Hammer coming out. And he, you know, and he was legendary right there. Hammer was doing his thing. We was just so happy to just see him. And he always embraced us. You know, he's a big OG. You know what I'm saying? We all, Hammer, one of the realest. You know what I'm saying? So it was just a beautiful thing, man. So we went in there and recorded. We was called MVP. So we recorded four songs and knocked it out the way. And then we changed our name because we felt like we really, you know, we got hella game, bro. 00:18:54 Speaker 1: And we got. 00:18:54 Speaker 2: It just wasn't us. We was trying to like get radio play and try to take the shortcut instead of really being us organically. So I say, check this out, man. We're going to be the click. We finna spit nothing but straight soil, just soil activities, how our life really is, the whole woo-wop. You feel me? And that's when we became the click. First EP was Less Side. So we had four songs on there. Yeah, we had those. And then we had, then I came with Mr. Flamboyant. 00:19:21 Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? 00:19:21 Speaker 2: That was the EP. You know, in 1990, we came with Down and Dirty. That's what took it over the top right there. You know, we was already making. Mr. Flamboyant was really doing his thing. Both

of them, left side. But when we came with Down and Dirty, that album was amazing. 00:19:35 Speaker 1: The click. What I want to know is now when Too Short was on the show, he explained how his mixtapes got him in the game. But from your point of view, can you walk me through? Because the one thing I always hear about Bay Area is, you know, you guys sell it out the trunk. Yeah. So what is the process on the business side of things of how you sell it out the trunk? Like you make the tapes, you make the product. Now, how do you get it in the record stores? Right. 00:20:10 Speaker 2: So that was the problem. Distribution didn't come to us easy. So we had to make our own distribution outlets. So the way we did it was we would press up a certain amount of CDs or cassettes or vinyl. Our first EP, MVP, that was all vinyl. We didn't even have no cassettes for that. I think we got the cassettes hella late. 00:20:29 Speaker 1: Later, yeah. 00:20:31 Speaker 2: Yeah, so we would put them on what they call consignment. So my Uncle St. Charles, he was a musical genius. He had records in the 70s, like 72 and 74. So he kind of already knew he's like a jack of all trades. One of those uncles you look up to this very highly smart and know a lot. And so he taught us how to do consignment sheets and you go to the store and you, you know, you drop off. Maybe maybe let's say just let's go vinyl. Let's just say vinyl. We go to our trunk, pull out a box. They want 10 vinyl or something. You know what I'm saying? We got 20 left. So we go Eminem. Just say Eminem liquor for just for instance, as an example. We get them, you know, 10 vinyl or discount liquor right there on the corner of Magazine Street and Sonoma. And so we would drop them off. They sign the consignment sheet, drop it off. So, I mean, OK, we're going to get this to you for this amount. When we come, you call us and let us know when you out. They'll call us, let us know when they out. And we'll come drop off another 10, 20, whatever they want. This time we want 20. Okay, we give them 20. And that's how I was going. That was how I was circulating in certain stores. A lot of the mom and pop stores, a lot of places that actually... not your traditional places to carry music. Like Bills and Wheels, you know, where everybody go to get their rims and tires at, their Zeniths and Vogues, their Appliance and Vogues, their Trues and Vogues, whatever they're going to get. Right. It was a one-stop shop for, you know, for slippers, for shoes. You know what I mean? So then, you feel what I'm saying? 00:22:01 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:22:01 Speaker 2: So going to places like that and then hooking up with music people, which was a one-stop, Jason Blaine and his dad, Elliot Blaine, and we would hook up with them. So they was our distributor. It was a small one-stop. We hooked up with them, and then we hooked up with City Hall Records later. City Hall Records didn't take us at first. They thought, and I tell them this all the time,

we probably made them more money than anybody when we was with them because they didn't want to take us. They said, they literally told my Uncle St. Charles this, seriously. This is something I don't really tell people, but I got love for Walter Zellman. I'm just saying it. He told St. Charles on the phone. He don't know we was on the three-way. We was on the three-way. This is way back. 00:22:44 Speaker 1: We on the three-way. Okay. 00:22:46 Speaker 2: You know, hey, man, you know, I hate to, I got to tell you, man, you know, the one guy with the voice, you know, he raps too fast, man. And then, you know, he talking about me, right? Yeah, I know. And then he said, and the other guy, you know, with the deep voice, he sounds like he's reading. 00:23:06 Speaker 1: And I'm like, where'd he get this from? It's somebody that's. 00:23:09 Speaker 2: Working there, something that's on some gold tending, hating. Because, you know, come on, man. 00:23:14 Speaker 1: Man, check this out. 00:23:15 Speaker 2: So all that did, I'm telling you, haters don't ever, y'all should not even never say nothing. If you want me to stop being raw, you shouldn't say nothing. Because when somebody hate on me, I become a whole nother monster in a great way. I'll kill you with my success. I'm telling you right now. 00:23:30 Speaker 1: I have so many Rasheed Wallace questions, but go ahead, continue. 00:23:34 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to finish this. So what I'm saying is what I want to tell you is this. 00:23:38 Speaker 1: Crazy. 00:23:39 Speaker 2: So look, hey, listen to what I'm saying. So basically, what that did, that motivated us. We was like, our feelings crushing everything. I'm like, man, we got one foot in the soil, and then we got one foot in the vocal booth. I'm like, you know what I mean? 00:23:51 Speaker 1: Damn. 00:23:52 Speaker 2: So I'm like, okay, we're going to show them. So that's when we, that same, then we came with down, we came with left side. When we came with left side, he called Uncle Charles, maybe about maybe four months, five months after and just, Hey, uh, St. Charles. 00:24:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, you know, those guys, uh, you know, uh, the, the, the click or whatever. Right. And he was like, yeah. 00:24:14 Speaker 2: He said, can I get 5,000 CDs like that? And after that and St. Charles, we did a COD, you know what I mean? Picked up a check that day. So something nice, something chunky, not that day, but you know, we, we already had them on deck. So I got you, you know? Yeah. So anyway, We did that. After that, we just started making hell of bread with them. 00:24:31 Speaker 1: Hell of bread. 00:24:32 Speaker 2: We became cool and everything. I always felt like that motivated me to become who I am. Being in a meeting with the, what was it called? The pro music DJ, the pros DJ organization. It was like a DJ pros back in the day. We played our music for them. The MVP, I think it was the MVP, Most Valuable Players EP, a dude by the name of Casper. He was playing as our manager. 00:24:59 Speaker 1: Good dude. 00:25:00 Speaker 2: And so he was like, hey, man, what y'all think? After we played it, nobody in the room said nothing. This is way back in 88, 87, 88. No one said nothing. 00:25:11 Speaker 1: They was just looking at it like, oh, these dudes. 00:25:13 Speaker 2: I have not yet seen not one pro music DJ club, nobody that was members. And there was about 100 in the room. Ain't nobody ever came up to me and say, I was in that room because they embarrassed because they didn't know that I was going to be the guy that I am. 00:25:26 Speaker 1: They didn't know this. Right. 00:25:28 Speaker 2: You feel me? But they crushed me. I had anxiety and everything. They had me stressed out. I'm like, a lot of people stress me out, but I don't hold it against them. I just keep it pushing, man, and that's how I became who I am. 00:25:37 Speaker 1: How do you talk yourself out of sabotaging if you feel like it's a setback? How do you psych yourself up to push through? 00:25:46 Speaker 2: That's what fuels me. 00:25:47 Speaker 1: That's what people don't understand. It fuels me. 00:25:50 Speaker 2: It makes me better. I discipline myself. I'm from the ghetto. I'm really from it. You know, not trying to act like it's something great. It's just, I was in the, he was raised in the ghetto by force, not choice. 00:26:02 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:26:03 Speaker 2: It ain't like I was in the suburb and I'm like, I want to go to the ghetto and live there. 00:26:06 Speaker 1: Like, nah, bro. It's like, I was there by force. In the clique, you know, it's your family. It's, you know, D-Shot, Sugar T, Be Legit. Of the clique, who was the hardest critic in the room in terms of like, Whose verse gets sent back the most? Who's the coach that whips everyone into shape? 00:26:29 Speaker 2: Me, but I'm going to be honest. I didn't really have to. Me and my sister, because she was raised by three brothers. 00:26:35 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:26:35 Speaker 2: And so she tries to be the boss of me and all of us. And they're like, you can't be the boss of me or none of us. So we would clash because she's thinking I'm goaltending her ideas. And I'm like, no, I'm letting you have your freedom, but I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm doing. So we would clash like that, but we still make great music and still, you know, that's my sis. So it is what it is. We're going to continue to work together and, you know, get through it. But as far as being the overseer of everything, D-Shot, he was the boss of him. B-Lil the boss of him. And we just made great music together. Like, what does working with family mean? 00:27:08 Speaker 1: Protect you from at least you know because when you start popping and you know i'm taking a reference from from crush groove like as soon as you start popping i know people are coming out the woodworks like yo let's let's do some business together whatever but also on the other side of that coin working with

family can also be risky you know because now you're in business together so what what's the pros and what's the cons of it all. 00:27:34 Speaker 2: The pros is that you're doing business with family, which you would love to do, what everyone really would love to do if everything went smooth. 00:27:43 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? 00:27:44 Speaker 2: And I'm talking about, man, I'm being honest with you. I'm not trying to be a meat monster, but I am responsible for putting probably more relatives on than anybody in the history of hip hop. And I'm not just talking about my siblings and my cousin. I'm talking about cousins. 00:27:57 Speaker 1: Okay. You know what I mean? 00:27:59 Speaker 2: It's a long list. You got to pack a lunch for this one. So I don't even go through all that. You feel me? 00:28:03 Speaker 1: But everyone that knows knows. So you put on for your family? I really put on for my family. Got you. 00:28:09 Speaker 2: I never seen nobody in hip hop put on for their family like they put my family on. I put them on like a light switch. 00:28:15 Speaker 1: So for the beginning phase before Jive came along, I would assume that like Studio Tone and Mike Mosley did a lion's share of the production and the music and all that stuff, right? Mm-hmm. What is their beginnings? What's their origin? Like, who taught them how to make beats? 00:28:32 Speaker 2: Shoot, studio tone come from it. Mike self-taught himself, man. He always had interest in it. But me and Mike, we from the trenches. And we used to, you know, move around in the traffic together. And we both had interest in rap. And we was like, hey, man. So we ended up, man, started getting equipment and working together and everything. We just became friends. You know, he started playing, programming them drums and stuff. Went and got one of them Elise drum sets. What's it called? 00:29:00 Speaker 1: Elise, I think. But he got that. Ooh, but he got that. It was over. 00:29:04 Speaker 2: But Studio Tone, since a kid, he was just born knowing how to play keys and guitar. And he just one of the most talented people I ever met besides my uncle St. Charles and my dad. You know what I mean? My brother D-Shot was always this research king. You know, he would he found a spot right down the street from our clothing store on Solano Avenue. It was called New Fat Clothing. So recently I posted a picture with me and my son Droopy in front of my 1970 Cutlass across the street from Church's Chicken in Millersville. Right there was in front of our clothing store. I bought us a clothing store yesterday. understand me? And we had Rayon shirts. So a lot of people saying, yeah, they got Rayon shirts in there. 00:29:44 Speaker 1: We did. 00:29:44 Speaker 2: We had Rayon shirts. 00:29:45 Speaker 1: Rayon. 00:29:47 Speaker 2: Spray painted shirts. We had Carl Canai. We had Major Damage. We had We had all that good stuff back then, you know? And so D-Shot was like, hey, man, Studio Tone, because Studio Tone was over there by the Empress Theater, his location. So he's like, hey, Studio Tone, we got a spot for you right down the street, right next door to Rich Arts Barbershop. Right there, right on the same, right in the same shopping center is our store. So I'll go make my little money from the little store. From our store, take my little profit, go put $ 50, $ 100 down for pre-production. It was $ 10 an hour. I pay Studio Tom pre-production. So I booked that. All I needed was four hours because while I'm down at New Fat Clothing, I'm not only behind the register or whatever, I'm writing lyrics. So that's where you crafted them? 00:30:30 Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. 00:30:31 Speaker 2: So, so sometime. 00:30:33 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:30:33 Speaker 2: So at that time, and I had so much, I'm a, I'm a soil dude. So I got a lot to say. So, you know, sometime I'll go down and do the tons, just book four hours just to make the beats. Let's just make beats from scratch. Then I take them beats and then write to them, then come back and record them over there. But anyway, he was a research King because I want to give my brother D shot a lot, a lot of love on this one. One thing people don't realize is he found this lady by the name of Marianne Collins and And it changed the game for many independent artists because Mary Ann specialized in getting your videos, because we shot videos back then, getting them on the VHS, getting a hell of them duplicated and distributing them to all the major resources that any mom and pop video shows, say, versus Houston. Say, for instance, let's say, for instance. Oh, nationwide. Nationwide, bro. Even video jukebox. She was and we pay her. We had to pay her. She give us this invoice and we got to pay for all, you know, for the duplicates. She get them done. We give her the master. She get them done. And then we give we pay her for her services. And everybody in the base start using her from Master P to I'm talking about all of us. But my brother, I found that plug without no Internet and that man, I say it's a bad boy. 00:31:46 Speaker 1: Damn, man. You just reminded me of Video Jukebox, man. I miss Video Jukebox, man. That was an era. Me too. 00:31:51 Speaker 2: I miss it too, bro. 00:31:52 Speaker 1: What would you describe as the sound of mob music? So let me just tell you this, man. Okay. 00:31:58 Speaker 2: Mob music at the end of the day in real life, sincerely. Too Short, E-40 and the Click, Studio Tone, Am Banks, Mike Mosley, Sam Bostick, you know, I'm talking about from the beginning of this thing. 00:32:15 Speaker 1: Seriously. 00:32:16 Speaker 2: The term was coined by me. We brought C-Bo and AWOL Records into our organization where he developed that sound too. Shout out to C-Bo and my cousin, Freddie T. Smith. You know, AWOL Records. He started AWOL Records. And then some of the producers, like the DJ Duros and stuff, they started doing it. Their sound was not that. It was not that. No disrespect, but it wasn't that.

Ours was mob music, heavy bass lines. I created the term mob music. Everybody know it. That's why I do it the best. Me and Too Short, I give it to Too Short too because, you know, he's the funk. He's the godfather. 00:32:50 Speaker 1: I'm the ambassador. 00:32:52 Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And that's why we roll like this. We get along. You can't break me and his bond. 00:32:56 Speaker 1: Nobody can. I mean, I've been coming to the Bay Area for like the last three decades, but I think maybe in the last 10 or 15 years is when I finally got the message that Vallejo... and Oakland are two different places. Like there's some people that think like Jersey and New York, even though we're just a bridge away, you know, are the same and they're not. Or, you know, people get mad when I think Australia and New Zealand are the same. It is. But like how were relations between Oakland and Vallejo as far as like hip hop culture is concerned? 00:33:36 Speaker 2: Hip-hop culture was a little different than street culture. The town loved us because we pretty much been in town. 00:33:43 Speaker 1: So for you, is it street culture first before it's hip-hop culture? 00:33:46 Speaker 2: Yeah, because it took a minute for us to break through because we're a small city, so it took a lot for all the major cities or the more urban cities to accept us. We paid our dues to earn the credibility that we have now, and we were some of the pioneers there. The Click and people like Mac Dre, all of us, we really had to pay our dues for them to recognize us. You know, the town was really on the click. 00:34:14 Speaker 1: Was it hard at first? Heavy. Hell yeah. 00:34:17 Speaker 2: We from the streets. Me, B-Legit, D-Shot, we from the streets. So we knew a lot of cats out there, you know what I'm saying? So in the town in Oakland. And, you know, we play our music for them. And my mom, she used to get our CDs and she used to, like, go to my cousin Rose's house on 2-4. And they'd go to apartment C back in them days. And on the way home, moms, you know, she said, I got rid of a few of y'all. I gave some of y'all CDs to some of the cast members, you know, that pull up at, you know, I forgot the name of the burger spot I think Quarter Burger or something like that so she would go there and she was just giving you know giving our CDs to anybody that was real like of the culture and she helps spread the word as well and then us out there you know you know hitting going to all the events and everything and just moving around and People just adapted to our style. When we went to T.Y. Uzi's, when that side hit T.Y. Uzi's and they seen that album cover with the Xenus and Vogue and whatnot, man, they was on it. They loved it. Everybody started buying it. We was the ones out of Vallejo, the first that Oakland embraced. The clique was who Oakland embraced. And Oakland is the nucleus, the hub. I just want to say that. 00:35:26 Speaker 1: They are. I respect it. let's get to it all right you've talked in the past about reading the dictionary to expand your vocabulary so when you invent a word or term do you write it down first or does it just come out in conversation and you catch it and memorize it and Is there an obscure word that you desperately tried to flip into a lyric that just wouldn't fit in your classic cadence? I've tried that several times. 00:36:14 Speaker 2: What did you want to make a thing that you couldn't find a name for? I've really, really tightened up my verbal paintbrush. Because sometimes, you know, it can mess the flow up, but at the same time, there's some of the flows that trying to get too many words in one place. That's the beauty of E-40 because I have been able to do it. But now I'm really flawless with it. Like, you can't stop because I've mastered it so many years, but You know, I used to rap really, really, really, really fast to the point where I had to slow down my spit so the squares can understand me because they wasn't understanding. But all the soils did. 00:36:48 Speaker 1: I was the squares. 00:36:50 Speaker 2: And I was really saying some stuff. I wasn't just people don't understand. 00:36:53 Speaker 1: I know this. That's the problem. That's the problem with the bloggers. 00:36:57 Speaker 2: If they don't understand something, no matter if it ain't got to have nothing to. 00:37:00 Speaker 1: Do with me. 00:37:00 Speaker 2: It could be another artist if they don't understand it. But everybody else do. If those bloggers don't understand, oh, he's wacky. It's like, bro, just say you just don't understand or you ain't with it or you just, you can't get with it or I'm cool on him or whatever. Just don't, but don't just say it's wack. And when I say squares, I'm not talking about rappers. People think I'm talking about rappers when I'm saying squares. I'm not talking about rap. I'm talking about the people that's dictating rap. you know, the narrative, like saying, you should listen to this, you should listen to that. The gatekeepers, that's what I'm trying to say. It ain't got nothing to do with rappers or, you know what I mean? Or, you know, it's like, I just don't, I don't understand. It's like, people don't want you to be creative anymore. 00:37:37 Speaker 1: You know, be creative. 00:37:38 Speaker 2: It's a lot of creative artists in the game these days. And I like it. I like a lot of the, a lot of them are creative, but a lot of them are not. People like to play it safe. They like those who play it safe. 00:37:48 Speaker 1: I think, yeah, people are afraid of change, but, you know, those that move the needle, have to ruffle feathers, you know, but now it's like, you know, you're, you're, you're a dignitary, you're in King level. It just took a while for us to, to adjust it. Wait. So for you though, when was the moment you realize how influential you were? Like for me, I think the first time I heard the term, uh, Oh, when I heard broccoli for weed, um, when we first started going out to

the Bay area, like 93, 94, You know, then it went global. You know, it was viral. So did that feel like a validation? Like, were you shocked? Like, what do you know about that? 00:38:34 Speaker 2: So what it is, Quest, people don't understand. Let me tell you something, bro. Before I did my P & D, pressing the distribution deal with Jive Records in 94, before I did that, you know, I was in certain states. I was in Texas. I was in Atlanta. I was in You know what I'm saying? Nebraska. I'm in all throughout the West Coast. I'm all through the Midwest, Indianapolis, Indiana. Like our music was really that underground like that. But it was it was circulating. 00:39:02 Speaker 1: Right. 00:39:02 Speaker 2: That's how we make. That's why we was able to get all them. You know what I'm saying? All those P.O. 's and making all the money, their money. You know what I'm saying? And so then when I signed with Jive, Barry Wise, the president of Jive, sat me down and say he took he showed me the sound scan, the Nielsen sound scan. He say, you see these see the city right here, see the city right here, see the city right here. all these going to be filled up because you're going to have major distribution now, right? So, bro, he was not lying. When I made my debut record in a major way, it was everywhere. People, you don't just go platinum. People think, oh, well, nobody outside of California listens to it. 00:39:40 Speaker 1: No, you dummy. 00:39:41 Speaker 2: You're dumb. I probably got some old sound scans and recent like one of my most popular areas is new york if you go to instagram some houston and new york you know it show you the regions with people rocking with you at los angeles and this i'm like wow that's crazy but i've been through this you know what i'm saying so it's like i'm i ain't local i'm global like people don't realize this so all those spaces on the east coast midwest the south all was filled out with just nothing but record sales bro you feel what i'm saying so i've been doing the shit since moby dick was a goldfish it's just You know, it's a lot of lames in the game. So, you know, I'll talk your ear off. You know, you got to stop me. 00:40:20 Speaker 1: That, Jake, is the promo clip. 00:40:25 Speaker 2: Okay, I got to ask. 00:40:27 Speaker 1: I've had this platform for a good decade. And I will pretty much say that I probably have been 98% no gotcha journalism or anything sensationalist. But just a fan of me wants to know this one question. Mm-hmm. Okay, so the infamous Biggie article where he's rating and whatnot. And the thing is, like, surely you saw a paradigm shift come 96, 97, when suddenly, you know... stubborn East coasters are finally getting acclimated to places that are outside of New York. As far as adaptation, you know, we were folding our arms at bone thugs in harmony. We was looking at, we was looking at Snoop a little crazy, you know, for some people, but for you, like, did you ever get to talk to big about him being put

on the spot and like rating rappers off the top of his head without knowing their history of the story? Like, did y'all ever meet at all? and talk about that? 00:41:32 Speaker 2: You know, after the situation, yeah, Stanley, uh, I had seen him in, um, Vegas. So we, if y'all see a picture of me and Biggie, that was in Las Vegas, 1995, the Mike Tyson fight. 00:41:45 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:41:45 Speaker 2: Him and Puffy was in the lobby. We was in the lobby of, uh, MGM. And, uh, you know, we just like, you know, we, we, we just left it alone and just to, Hey, let's take a picture. We all took the picture, you know, he was happy. I was like, cause he had already had said, you know, Hey man, I rock with you. I'm, You know, it pretty much let me know he was just talking out the side of his neck when he did that. 00:42:05 Speaker 1: I can tell he just put him on the spot. 00:42:06 Speaker 2: I think he was just drunk and just whatever. And he might not have really felt me, but he did say, he said, I fuck with Sprinkle Me Duke. He meant that. When we had that little youngster and me. 00:42:15 Speaker 1: He meant that. I know. 00:42:16 Speaker 2: I believe it because Sprinkle Me, East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, everybody loved, you know, the South, they all love Sprinkle Me. 00:42:24 Speaker 1: The video was on all the time, so we couldn't avoid it. Like, once your videos came on regularly, like, we all knew it. 00:42:31 Speaker 2: Man, I go to New York now, bro. I mean, I walk the streets of New York. I just came from a promo run. You know, I was doing my press stuff, man. Everywhere I go, man. And it's been like that from the beginning of my career. Fouty, Fouty. 00:42:41 Speaker 1: Ba, ba, ba. 00:42:42 Speaker 2: You know, just, man, I'm talking about everywhere. Like, New York rock with me. They do. 00:42:46 Speaker 1: We do. 00:42:47 Speaker 2: I know that for a fact. Not trying to, like, hope they do. I just know they do. And I remember when I came with, in 2006, I came with my Get a Report Card album. 00:42:58 Speaker 1: And I performed. Mm-hmm. 00:43:00 Speaker 2: And a small little, it was like the Tunnel. It was just like the Tunnel. They called it the Tunnel before, but it was like a duplicate of the famous club called the Tunnel. 00:43:09 Speaker 1: Okay, yeah. Remember the Tunnel? 00:43:11 Speaker 2: Yes. So this was like, this was all, man, they was going crazy off my album, bro. We did the record release party. 00:43:19 Speaker 1: They was going crazy. You feel me? Tell me when the go came out. We first heard it when we were shooting Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Yeah. And we were all backstage. And literally, Kanye, Common, Dave was blasting it. Like, when we did that movie. And he was trying to explain to us, like, yo, this whole movement. Like, Hy-Fee's going to be doing things. Can I ask you something? Yeah. In your heart. Do you feel, like, when Tell Me When To Go came out, even, like, me seeing the reaction here, and that, like, my DJ sets, that would be, like, my 10th record. Like, literally, that's how hard it went. Did the hyphy movement do what it was supposed to do? Because part of me just, like, I got excited, because as a drummer, there's new rhythms, and it's faster, right? Could it have gone farther as far as being nationwide and worldwide? Like, I feel like it could have been a worldwide hyphy movement. Most definitely. 00:44:23 Speaker 2: I mean, it's youngsters that was, you know, three years old at that time. And they still feel like they missed out. They wanted to keep going right now to this day. Because it was such a great time, you know, and it was. 00:44:36 Speaker 1: But did it officially stop or is there still movement? 00:44:40 Speaker 2: So it was things like, man, look, so the Bay Area consists of, you know, mob music, all kind of different music. But a lot of the cast that was doing mob music or you want to say gangster music, they felt like, you know, hey, man, I'm not doing that. But, you know, I'm not doing that. So I'm a hate on it. Or it was some people that hopped into it. 00:45:01 Speaker 1: It was resistance? 00:45:02 Speaker 2: Kind of like. Yeah, by cast as, you know, stubborn. Like, I'm the oldest out of everybody, out of all them cast. Me and Short, and we the ones who went in and dived in and was like, hey, man, we've always adjusted to our environment. Why don't we just hop in it, too? You know what I'm saying? We joining in, too, because this is our environment. I mean, no matter what kind of music was going down throughout our career, no matter if it was G-Funk or whatever, we're going to adapt to it. 00:45:28 Speaker 1: If you turn, you got to turn with the times or the times going to turn on you. 00:45:32 Speaker 2: And but the way you do it is still be you at the same time like they know my voice they know my how i rap all you got to do at that time up temples was the ones even though some slow hyphy songs too but up temples was the ones people like rick rock created a certain sound that was just like was undeniable and i was part of that and you know we just came with the blaps and you know if you if you're a great artist you're going to be able to do anything so Anyway, it was some artists that came in and may not represented it as well as they should. What I mean by that, some of them was just really just like it was terrible. You know what I'm saying? But then you had the ones that poked out that just had blaps like, you know what I mean? But some of that stuff was terrible. You probably don't know some of the artists. We don't probably know them, but it's just kind of like start getting a little bit too oversaturated. I want to make this clear for the record. 00:46:20 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:46:20 Speaker 2: I did not create Hy-Fee. Hy-Fee, the streets of Oakland, California created Hy-Fee. 00:46:25 Speaker 1: Gotcha. Oakland did it. Okay. 00:46:28 Speaker 2: Then as rappers, you had Mac Dre and Keek Da Sneak. 00:46:32 Speaker 1:

Right. 00:46:33 Speaker 2: They were headed there. And I just joined in like every other like every rapper. The way when I grew, I didn't want to grow dreads. I was just I'm just sarcastic. I'm like, I ain't got nothing. I just did it just for the end. I say, I'm a really grown man. I grew them things and people you can Google it. You know, it ain't it ain't a I and none of that. I really grew. I did do it. And yeah. You know, and I just adapted to the times and just like everybody adapted to something that I helped create called mob music. 00:46:58 Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Right. 00:46:59 Speaker 2: So it's just like you just maneuver, you know. When the South, I was in two different lanes. I was in the South lane with the snap your finger movement. I was on the biggest song in the South. Snap your finger. That's the dang the three million. 00:47:11 Speaker 1: Yeah. 00:47:11 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? And then I had you in that booty, you know, with T-Pain and Candy. You know what I'm saying? That thing. Almost three million right now. That didn't have nothing to do with hyphy. You know what I'm saying? 00:47:23 Speaker 1: That was big. 00:47:24 Speaker 2: That's all more than tell me when to go. It's just so happened that that ghetto report card album has slaps on it. 00:47:30 Speaker 1: I'm talking about. 00:47:31 Speaker 2: Muscle cars, your area. And you know what I'm saying? What else? What else? Do your head like this. 00:47:39 Speaker 1: Can I ask you something? Because little John told me this and I couldn't believe it. 00:47:42 Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. 00:47:43 Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you regret passing on Blow the Whistle? 00:47:49 Speaker 2: You know what? It should be really eat me up. But it's happened to such a such a legendary artist by the name of Too Short. 00:47:59 Speaker 1: He's a good friend of mine. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: I'll probably be kicking myself in my face like I'll probably punch myself in the face if if it wasn't him. You know what I mean? 00:48:10 Speaker 1: It was a good moment for him. And y'all had y'all moment. So I get it. Right. Cause that's my partner. 00:48:14 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? It's like, I sincerely didn't know what to do with that. I might've been burnt out on slaps. Cause I had slaps, like, you know, major hits. 00:48:22 Speaker 1: And so, and I. 00:48:23 Speaker 2: Just didn't know what to do, but Tushar is such a genius. And he, you know, he grew up playing drums and stuff, you know, marching band, the whole thing when he was in junior high, you know what I'm saying? 00:48:31 Speaker 1: In school. 00:48:32 Speaker 2: So, He made a lot. People don't know he made a lot of his beats. He made a lot of that, you know what I'm saying, the Dope Fiend beat and all them earlier slaps he did, the Freaky Tail. He was the one playing the bass lines. That's what people don't understand. You know what I mean? So he knows music. He's a professional, bro. And that man put it together like the weatherman and made it a smash. And it's winning right now to this day, and I love it. Otherwise, I'd be like, damn, I really messed up. And I did mess up, but at the same time, I didn't mess up to the point where I messed up, messed up. It went to a great person. And this is how the universe works. And this is how God do it. 00:49:07 Speaker 1: So you bringing your son into the game now, which is a beautiful thing. He grew up watching you and now he's, you know, the hottest in the game right now. Did Droopy teach you anything? that you didn't. 00:49:22 Speaker 2: Know it's like when he was in his mama's stomach it was like he was just in there just like taking no attention like because he just came out knowing how to do mob music and stuff like that and just up tempo blaps and He just an amazing, it's in the blood, you know what I'm saying? And, you know, Droopy was, see, the cool part about it, he was the first kid rapper. I know I'm always saying we was the first this, we was the first that, slang and everything and whatever else, the independent route and all that. Mind you, I want to say this too, and I'm going to go back to Droopy. 00:49:56 Speaker 1: Go ahead. 00:49:57 Speaker 2: As a CEO and an independent artist, I funded my own projects. I never had an executive producer. I never had somebody, a silent partner. Many artists that y'all love have silent partners or people that funded their stuff. I did this from scratch, from the grassroots. So I just want to let y'all know, please salute me. If you don't salute me on anything, salute me for that. 00:50:19 Speaker 1: We're absolutely, we're aware of this. We're saluting you. Right? So I'm just letting the fans out there. They don't know. 00:50:25 Speaker 2: A lot of audience don't know. So my son, Droopy, he actually, he was the first When he was two and a half, three years old, he was three years old on a federal album. And I had a song called Questions because every time I used to take him to kindergarten in Vallejo, he would ask me, Quay, you be in the backseat. You know, I'm a street cat. I'm thumper it up the whole woo-wop. He in the backseat. I'm looking like this, seeing what's going on. And he asked me a hell of questions, and I'm paying attention to him. I'm a good dad. I'm a good dad because I'm listening to everything he says. I'm not ignoring him. I'm like, well, son, it's this, that, and the third, and this is how it's going to be. So we ended up making a song called Questions on my federal album in 1992. So we did that, and that made a lot of impact. And then I put him on my album in a major way. He was five years old at the time, but I told him to say six-year-old veteran. So he put that in there, and he was really gassing on a song called It's all bad. Now, mind you, I wrote the lyrics for him, but just for him to be five years old to deliver it like that was amazing. I say, this boy got something. So later on, he started hanging out with D-Wiz in the

studio. And as he got older, his mom put him into piano and whatnot. Put him into piano, took piano lessons, and started getting into it. And he became a rapper slash producer and an amazing, talented young man. 00:51:43 Speaker 1: Okay, so you got to let me know, how do you... craft and organize four albums in one. First of all, it's 40 songs. So how do you even know why challenge yourself to this? I mean, I know you have E40, so I assume that you're releasing 40 songs for that. But what was the mind state behind this mission? I have a hard time dealing with one record. You're dealing with four. Right. 00:52:12 Speaker 2: I do what everybody else don't, man. Like I say, music is therapeutic and healing. I never went with the grains. Always went against the grain, you know. I think that's the reason why I'm so successful and I do it well. I never sounded like nobody. I'm just a different dude, you know what I mean? So I wanted to do something different. I've already did double albums in the 90s. I did multiple albums. 00:52:42 Speaker 1: On one day? Yeah, I did. Revenue retrieving and yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:52:46 Speaker 2: The Revenue Retrieving series, I did Revenue Retrieving Day Shift, Night Shift, Graveyard Shift, Overtime Shift. These are all separate albums. You understand me? I was dropping them, two of them at a time. So in between, after I did the Overtime Shift and Graveyard Shift, I did Mob Music and Function Music with Too Short. That was two CDs we dropped the same day, right? As a group album, me and him. Then I came, no, no, I did the Blackboard Show, Welcome to the Soil, one, two, and three, right? Then I came with Mob music, function music, we dropped those on the same day. 00:53:20 Speaker 1: Then I came back and did. 00:53:23 Speaker 2: Welcome to the Soil, the Blockbro, the Blockbro Show, Welcome to the Soil 4, 5, and 6. 00:53:28 Speaker 1: You feel me? 00:53:30 Speaker 2: Then I just started, then I started doing the other ones, like the D-Boy Diary and all them. And you know what I'm saying? I just didn't stop. And so I was like, you know what? I ain't did none in a while. And before that, in the 90s, I had did the Southwest Riders double CD, Me and Be Legit. Um, we did the, uh, I did my, my, uh, the element of surprise. First and foremost, everybody say apply pressure. I've been saying apply pressure. That was way back in 1996, 97. When I did the element of surprise, double CD. 00:53:57 Speaker 1: Right. 00:53:59 Speaker 2: I was on the only triple CD that I know of, but that was a ball. I was on that album, a ball, uh, loss. It was called loss. I was on that album with him. I was on crazy bone, double album back in the nineties. I was on that album, Me, Him, and Gangsta Boo. The song was called It's the End of the World. 00:54:16 Speaker 1: You understand me? 00:54:17 Speaker 2: I was on the biggest, one of the biggest double albums of all time, and that's All Eyes on Me. 00:54:23 Speaker 1: That's Diamond. 00:54:24 Speaker

2: So, man, I just, when I got in that mode of the four albums, at first it was going to be two. Actually, I pivoted from Rule of Thumb 2 and 3 because I did Rule of Thumb 1 in 2023. And I was like, let me do Rule of Thumb 2 and 3, make it a double CD, and I was going to put 12 songs on each one. And I was like, you know what, I want to pivot. I was looking at a picture of me when I was 18 through my little phone and whatnot, and I'm like, you know what, this look like this can be an album cover. I was like, something just dawned on me like, You know what I mean? 00:54:53 Speaker 1: Okay. I was like, I'm going to make this an album cover. Where's that from? 00:54:56 Speaker 2: It's from me at a club. And I think I was at, I think I was at Granville State University. 00:55:01 Speaker 1: Okay. I had to be. 00:55:02 Speaker 2: I was at Granville. I think I was in Monroe, Louisiana or something like that. 00:55:05 Speaker 1: Yes. 00:55:06 Speaker 2: Because one of my partners told me, he said, man, you was in Monroe, Louisiana when we took that picture. We was all together. We all had Adidas sweatsuits and all. You know, it was back in the 80s. You know what I'm saying? 00:55:15 Speaker 1: Now it's fresh. It's fresh. You know what I mean? Yeah. 00:55:17 Speaker 2: Thank you, man. And so I was like, okay, look, I got so many slaps, bro. hella, hella, hella slaps. Let me just put the... I'm going to take some of the ones. I don't want to put all the heat on one CD. I want to spread all the slaps out. And these are recent slaps. I got so many songs. I pulled some from maybe 12 months. 00:55:38 Speaker 1: Ago, but all of them was. 00:55:39 Speaker 2: People was just... I started just getting in the groove. So right now, I'm about to hit them at the top of the year. I'm letting y'all know right now. I'm dropping four albums every... every three months. Not at one time. I'm dropping 10 songs in late March, early April, probably April, mid-April, right? I'm dropping 10 songs. And then three months after that, I'm dropping 10 songs. Three months after that, I'm dropping three songs. Then 10 months, I mean, every three months. Every three months, I'm dropping 10 songs. The name of the first CD is going to be called Verbal Paintbrush. 00:56:16 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:56:17 Speaker 2: That's going to be the one that's going to come out around April. 00:56:20 Speaker 1: Okay. 00:56:21 Speaker 2: So verbal paintbrush, be ready for 10 slaps. I just feel like 10 slaps is no skips. It's just a perfect amount of songs because we're living in days where people don't have a lot of patience. You know what I'm saying? They just don't have patience like that. They're ready to move on to the next. So it's like I'm going to keep feeding them like I was doing a few years back. I took a two-and-a-half, three-year break, and it's not like me. So I wanted to give my fans a whole bunch of And I want to let them know that their favorite artist is still real gassy, man. I'm still real

gassy. I will outgash your favorite rapper. 00:56:57 Speaker 1: Clearly. They know it, too. Clearly. With all that you have in the vault, are you sitting on any unreleased verses from Mac Dre or Pac even, or Be Legit, or just bangers that you are purposely holding on to until... A time to drop it. 00:57:18 Speaker 2: I got maybe one or two Tupac verses in an archive. I don't have any Mac Dre verses. I wish I did because we were on the way to do music together. And, you know, his camp would tell you that. The real ones in the camp, they'd tell you that. That was no secret. No one expected him to go like that, especially in his prime. Like he was, you know, on his way up the ladder just doing his thing, you know. But no, of course I got hella Be Legit verses because that's all me and Be Legit do is record together. He's on pretty much 99% of every album I ever did. 00:57:55 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I don't think I've ever done an album without him. 00:57:58 Speaker 2: Right. 00:57:58 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? I think Dustin discussed it was Pac's first collaboration with you. What was that experience like? 00:58:05 Speaker 2: It really wasn't. As far as him, it really was. Because we did something that didn't come out before that. 00:58:13 Speaker 1: Okay. That's one of the unreleased ones, right? Right. 00:58:15 Speaker 2: And he came down to Solano Avenue right at that same studio. There was two doors down from right next door to Richard's. 00:58:22 Speaker 1: Right. 00:58:22 Speaker 2: Three doors down from my clothing store. He pulled up there and came to Studio Tom. People don't know. I had Tupac in Millersville. It's called Millersville. That's their studio on Solano Avenue with that picture of me and Droopy with the white cutlass. I had Tupac there. We have Pimp C and Bum B there. These are separate days and times, right? We had, what's our boy name? MC8 and ODB. 00:58:46 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:58:46 Speaker 2: Old Dirty Bastard, because Studio Tone did the remix. 00:58:49 Speaker 1: That's right. He did. Yeah, to Shimmy. Yeah. You feel me? Mm-hmm. 00:58:52 Speaker 2: Right? And I was on the song with ODB. And then they flew me to New York to go do the video and the whole woo-wop, right? 00:58:58 Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. 00:58:59 Speaker 2: So then who else we had down there? I'm just saying how legendary just that studio is. Like, our little small little city to have them people out there. People didn't know that we had these legendary, you know what I mean? 00:59:09 Speaker 1: Sessions. 00:59:10 Speaker 2: There yeah right right right sebo used to sebo when he first came out he my cousin brought him down this is the true story he said man he said because this is the owner of awol records he had marvelous and all and he had sebo and mississippi and all these underground rappers from sacramento right And so he was like, but before he had him, he was like, he said, man, how y'all doing this, man? Because he's seeing us winning. Like we winning. We out there with, you know, all kind of color assist. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, doing our job. 00:59:40 Speaker 1: Right. Like we out there tycooning. Right. 00:59:42 Speaker 2: And he's like, man, how y'all doing this? He said, man, he said, man, show me. I say, this is what you do. Go get you some artists and circle back with me. And then I want you to go holler at Uncle St. Charles because that's his relative, too. 00:59:54 Speaker 1: Right. 00:59:55 Speaker 2: He really did it. So he came back. He called me, said, man, I got an artist. I've been having it. I knew I needed one. 01:00:01 Speaker 1: It's his name, C-Bo. It was C-Bo. 01:00:04 Speaker 2: So his C-Bo was like my celly cell, right? 01:00:07 Speaker 1: Yeah. Okay. Right? 01:00:09 Speaker 2: Then he went and got it. He had a young lady, a very known rapper, Northern California and beyond by the name of Marvelous. She's a great rapper. 01:00:18 Speaker 1: Right. 01:00:18 Speaker 2: That was his sugar tea. You know what I'm saying? 01:00:21 Speaker 1: Then he had Mississippi. Mississippi. 01:00:23 Speaker 2: There's a dude named Mississippi. He was from Mississippi. That's why they call him Mississippi. I think that's why. But his name is Mississippi. We had my cousin Levity. So he went and patterned his whole record label after us. 01:00:35 Speaker 1: Right. 01:00:36 Speaker 2: And there was nothing wrong with it. We was blood cousins. You feel me? He brought Sebo down one day. We all waiting for him. We out in front of Studio Tones. Rich Ross right there. And Sebo get out the car with all Carhartt, all blue. with like a curl, like curly hair. 01:00:52 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:00:53 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? 01:00:54 Speaker 1: Loked out, like a real crip, like loked out. 01:01:00 Speaker 2: We fell in love the day he walked in there, right? Right. So he was like, we kicking it, we drinking Big Rossi. You know, Studio Tone had his session in the studio on this side. We divided the walls. And then Mike Mosley and Carl Gandy had their session over here. And so the first people he worked with was Mike Mosley and Carl. 01:01:20 Speaker 1: And they came. 01:01:21 Speaker 2: He went in there and got on the microphone and gassed that thing. We over here working with Studio Tone. We walk over there. 01:01:25 Speaker 1: We're like, oh, it's going crazy. 01:01:27 Speaker 2: So ever since then, he was introduced to mob music. 01:01:30 Speaker 1: Ever since then, he was locked in. 01:01:32 Speaker 2: That's why he called himself the mob father. You know what I'm saying? It's just like we one big family. C-Bo done been in some rendezvous, some serious street shit with us back in the days, rolling through the trenches of Vallejo and all kind of stuff. Like, he really folks. 01:01:47 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? 01:01:48 Speaker 2: So shout out to legendary C-Bo. Tupac, that was one of Tupac's favorite artists, seriously, in real life. Because when we did

We Ain't Hard to Find, we were all at La Montrose Hotel off of Sunset. 01:02:02 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:02:03 Speaker 2: C-Bo with us, Mike Mosley, Richie Rich, all the clique, the whole clique. Sugar wasn't with us. These was all dudes. And we all, Pac pull up, him and Suge. We all in there, we eating barbecue and all that stuff, you know, just chilling, slapping bones and playing music. 01:02:19 Speaker 1: And Pac was like, y'all ready? 01:02:20 Speaker 2: I said, let's go. We all get in the car. He said, Sebo, you ride with me. You know what I'm saying? 01:02:25 Speaker 1: It's real life. It's going to be really sick because he had a drop-top Mercedes. Okay. 01:02:29 Speaker 2: And we was on our way to Can-Am. So we all mobbed over there deep, hella deep. And that's when we made history. You know, you had Sebo in there with Mike Mosley. I mean, not Mike Mosley, with Rick Rock on that one. Rick Rock produced that. Rick Rock was with us too. So Rick Rock did Trade and War Stories in one room of Can-Am because they had different rooms. You got me, Richie Rich, B-Legit and D-Shot and Mike Mosley doing We Ain't Hard to Find with Tupac. These are all songs that went on the album. So you got all these. 01:03:01 Speaker 1: Different- So he's just recording at the speed of sound? Was he just- Yeah. 01:03:04 Speaker 2: Tupac was too quick, man. His pen, he too quick. And I'm like, bro, you write too quick. But everything was always accurate. He never had to go back and do shit over. It was just locked in. So when he came in there with us, he was like, y'all done yet? 01:03:16 Speaker 1: I ain't rushing. I'm just saying. I'm just checking on everything. 01:03:19 Speaker 2: He going from studio to studio checking on everybody because he already finished his shit. Okay. And that's how he used to write. But then we did Dustin and Disgusted. We did Dustin and Disgusted and all that before that whole session right there. That whole thing we did. We did that in like 94, 95 because that was on in a major way album. And that came out in 95. So and then after that for Hall of Game, we did my Million Dollar Spot. 01:03:42 Speaker 1: Right. Me and just me and pot. 01:03:44 Speaker 2: And then that's what we did. 01:03:46 Speaker 1: We ain't hard to find. 01:03:47 Speaker 2: That was the last album. Then the last time I seen him, he was at my I hope I don't go back to slinging Yale album. 01:03:53 Speaker 1: Yeah. I hope I don't go back to slanging. Yeah, yo. That video shoot. Yeah. 01:03:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, yo. 01:03:59 Speaker 1: The Earth, Wind & Fire. 01:04:01 Speaker 2: Earth, Wind & Fire and Ramsey Lewis, right? Yeah. 01:04:04 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:04:05 Speaker 2: And so he was there. We kicked it real heavy, man. I didn't know that was going to be my last time seeing my guy, man. 01:04:10 Speaker 1: 1996. Damn. Well, thank you for sharing that, brother. Yes, sir. You would always shout out Carlo Rossi. I always wanted to know, did they ever holler at you like, no

at least give you some gratitude or cause nah never never you put you put them more and more than any you know what I mean yeah well they they right in my backyard too I tried to holler at them I just didn't have the connections to do it they right there they um raised in you know right there in Modesto California you know what I'm saying but I just was a fan of it you know I was just a fan of it cause my mom you know when she come home working two jobs and whatnot you know working at Napa State Hospital She was the supervisor there. 01:04:50 Speaker 2: Then she'll work at Mr. Jimmy's store right around the corner from Magazine Street off Laurel Street. That's the store where, you understand me, the neighborhood store, how everybody got their neighborhood stores. You go get everything from there. Bread, you know, sandwich spread, you know, whatever. Hot dogs, liquor, whatever. So anyway, she'll come home on the weekends. And, you know, she'll come on. She used to play this song called Living for the Weekend. And, you know, her and my dad divorced. Yeah. 01:05:17 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. 01:05:18 Speaker 2: And I was the oldest. So I'm sitting up just, you know, get to crying. You know, we was living in poverty, bro. 01:05:27 Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? It wasn't as easy. 01:05:29 Speaker 2: Everybody just see the glamour. They don't see what I went through. You know what I mean? 01:05:33 Speaker 1: I was the oldest. I was the oldest of four. I was eight. D shot six. Sugar tea. 01:05:40 Speaker 2: Four and young Muzzy two, you know? So I had to be like the man of the family. My dad, I love him. You know, it was just, they was just divorced, man. And, uh, you know, that's just something that happens, you know? And, uh, but we made it through when, uh, you know, she would sit up there and play that music and drink her Rossi, uh, So, you know me, I'm younger. I get older. I'm seeing her do this. As I got older, I snuck into it one day. Don't we all? Don't we all? I was like, I. 01:06:08 Speaker 1: Said, it's good. 01:06:09 Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? 01:06:10 Speaker 1: Okay. 01:06:11 Speaker 2: So, I just started, you know, as I got older, I started being a wine. I liked the 40 ounces, but I started becoming more into wine. Then I ended up making my own wine. 01:06:18 Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, would you consider an easier business to do or was it harder breaking in with liquor than with music? 01:06:27 Speaker 2: Well, music is the platform for me. Music is what makes everything around, all your surrounding occupations and whatever you do, your side hustles. Music is the main thing, the trunk of the, the rest is branches. The trunk is music, keeping your name ringing, protecting your brand. That's really, that's the most important. And that made it easier for me to hop into the Wine and Spirits game And also being that everyone knows that I love wine and spirits. 01:07:01 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? True. I got two

more questions to ask. Okay. Just for, you know, like a lot of my audiences, you know, they listen around the world and whatnot. From you, which Bay Area artists, you know, from the 90s or the early aughts, whatever, Who do you feel that never got their proper flowers that should have, that we should go look up right now and support? Damn. That's a tough one. There has to be one that like should have made it that didn't, that really didn't get the, the. Wow. It's a tough one. 01:07:39 Speaker 2: Uh, I, I, I like casual, casual from, you know, hieroglyphic souls. I liked, I feel like casual is, It's always been dope. 01:07:50 Speaker 1: That's how it is, man. That was my shot. You know what I mean? 01:07:52 Speaker 2: I can go down the line. I can go down the line. I can say a lot, you know. 01:07:56 Speaker 1: All right. 01:07:57 Speaker 2: Shout out to Casual. 01:07:58 Speaker 1: I'll give him that. 01:07:59 Speaker 2: Yeah, shout out to Casual. Mac Drake could have. He didn't get his. 01:08:02 Speaker 1: He could have, yeah. True. 01:08:04 Speaker 2: I think he was going to be worldwide. He wasn't as big as people make him now, but he was on his way up the ladder. 01:08:12 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? 01:08:12 Speaker 2: There's people out there right now that think that, I'm not throwing shade that. 01:08:17 Speaker 1: He's, he was always bigger than me. 01:08:18 Speaker 2: And they don't, it's like, I've had three different areas of, you know, four or five different areas of music that I've been, I was popular in the nineties. 01:08:26 Speaker 1: I got like by far. 01:08:28 Speaker 2: You know, but anyway, I feel he would have did it. I feel like casual. 01:08:32 Speaker 1: Um, who else, man? 01:08:34 Speaker 2: Um, I feel like if Richie rich didn't stop, um, Because he took breaks and he know it. He beats himself up at the head, you know, like I took breaks, water, you know, I say, man, if you didn't, you could have been bigger. You know that, you know, and many more, man, many more. 01:08:48 Speaker 1: I mean, because the thing is, is that when cats, you know, I'm a few years younger than you, but like when cats get of a certain age, they like slow down or domestic do calls. But what drives you? You'll forever be like a contemporary artist to me. I don't see you as a legacy artist or even that guy back in the day. Like you refuse. Is it just your refusal? Will there ever be a moment where you're like, OK, now my work is done? 01:09:16 Speaker 2: First and foremost, thank you, man. I'm glad I'm still relevant and relevant in not a dumbass way by trolling and doing whatever. You know what I mean? I'm relevant putting in work, right? I feel like me doing this for so many years, like I said, I just love music. I could be a billionaire and I would still put out music. Nobody has to buy it. I just feel like it's part of my therapy. 01:09:39 Speaker 1: Ain't nothing wrong with me or nothing. 01:09:40 Speaker 2: It's just music is therapeutic and healing. If you want to get in a good mood, man, and when I want to get in a good mood, and I'm going to be honest with you, besides going up beyond the, you know what I'm saying, songs like that, church music like that and whatnot, and you know what I'm saying, I like listen to people like Curtis Mayfield, The Makings of You, and the OJs. It's therapeutic. It'll put you in a home. It'll wake you up like, man, this is the struggle I was going through. Look how good I'm doing now. You know, there's a lot of people that love to trade places with me. There's people that don't have all their body parts, people that's really very sick. 01:10:16 Speaker 1: And I'm still here. And you know what I mean? 01:10:18 Speaker 2: Like you got to just be grateful. So music is therapeutic and healing. So I feel like I don't want to stop. When I said I'll retire when I expire, I really mean that. 01:10:28 Speaker 1: I don't know. I could be a hundred. 01:10:30 Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm so gamed up that if I'm in my right mind and I got my life, health and strength, With the power of God, I know I can still continue to be relevant and still be able to rap and still outgast some of your favorite, you know, rappers. 01:10:45 Speaker 1: I really do. 01:10:46 Speaker 2: Because I've always been ahead of my time, and I'm always going to keep my eye on the ball. You ain't going to see me striking out. 01:10:52 Speaker 1: From your mouth to God's ears, man, I appreciate you and thank you for just who you are. And this is a beautiful thing to see. Because, you know, oftentimes a lot of us, Didn't make it after our 20s and 30s. Right. Even the 40s and 50s. Like, you know, we got to watch our health and all that stuff. So just to see you out here thriving. 01:11:16 Speaker 2: Remember they told us 40, you got to stop. You're supposed to stop at 40. 01:11:20 Speaker 1: You know, remember that? That was eight. 01:11:22 Speaker 2: That was almost 19 years ago when I was 40. 01:11:24 Speaker 1: Nope. 01:11:25 Speaker 2: I turned 59, God willing, in November, which is a month and change from now. 01:11:31 Speaker 1: You know what I mean? God willing, you know. Hats off to you, sir. But just to do that 19 years later. 01:11:36 Speaker 2: And still be, you understand me, doing it, I just want to be a good example to the rest of the, you know, don't, y'all need to take youngsters, take this serious, man, you can help feed your family, you can, you know what I'm saying, I'm talking about you can provide for your partners now, man, if you make the right moves, this is a real occupation, use your talent, man, you got, it's easier than ever for y'all, because, you know, streaming is, you know what I mean, y'all, y'all can do it, bruh, videos don't cost two, three hundred thousand like they used to, They might cost $ 200, $ 300. 01:12:03 Speaker 1: Yeah, on your phone. Yes. Right. Exactly. 01:12:07 Speaker 2: So y'all got it. It's there for y'all, man. It's there for the taking.

Just work hard, man. And don't care if you're getting endorsed by anybody else. Go out there and make your own. Do your own like we did. Go out there, and then they're going to recognize you if you put your all into it. 01:12:22 Speaker 1: I will take that, and I thank you for that. Wait a minute. One last thing. One last thing. One last thing. Yes, sir. Then I'll let you go. Okay. 01:12:29 Speaker 2: Okay. 01:12:30 Speaker 1: You pioneered so much slang that I don't feel the world knows that you invented. However, is there a slang term that you fully expected to sweep the nation that the streets completely slept on? Like, is there a term that you really love that didn't catch on? I don't know, man. 01:12:56 Speaker 2: I don't really, uh, slang is my thing, but I don't really like, I don't want the world to catch on. 01:13:02 Speaker 1: I don't do it for the whole world. 01:13:04 Speaker 2: I just do it. Cause it's just me. It's just, it's natural. 01:13:07 Speaker 1: Like an Afro. 01:13:07 Speaker 2: It's just really what I do. And I'm, I'm raised in the Bay where we, we slick talkers and collar poppers. Like I'm around it. I've been in, it's nothing but Islam around us. And that's all we know. And I, I'm just good at what I do, you know, and I'm from the streets. So I'm, I'm obligated to, you know what I mean? Preach, you know, I'm a rapper. So it's, And it's slang can be spreaded all over the globe. And I was just tripping off, you know, plug, like plug everybody talking about the plug. Like he, we've been, I was the first one saying plug. I was the first one, uh, you know, uh, screaming so many words. I can, I can say, uh, I was talking about... I was talking about... What's the other one I was talking about the other day? I was talking about... You know how you were saying units? You started it off saying something about units. 01:13:48 Speaker 1: Yes. 01:13:49 Speaker 2: Units used to be. 01:13:50 Speaker 1: Units. 01:13:50 Speaker 2: The street word for units, you know, was bricks. Right. You know what I'm talking about? 01:13:55 Speaker 1: True. 01:13:55 Speaker 2: Like, first one of you screaming units and choppers. You know, there wasn't no rapper screaming out of that. None. 01:14:00 Speaker 1: Not one. Not one. I acknowledge this. 01:14:02 Speaker 2: No one was talking about triple beans and droughts. And I could talk about all the street stuff, and I could talk about all the unique stuff, just regular stuff. You know what I'm saying? 01:14:09 Speaker 1: So. 01:14:10 Speaker 2: I don't try to keep... You know, players don't keep score, man. I just spread it. You know what I'm saying? I just say what I say and I preach for the soil. 01:14:17 Speaker 1: Amen. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you. And, hey, there you have it, y'all. This is another classic Questlove show. All right. Ask and ye shall receive. You guys have requested and requested this one and we're proud to have given it to you. Um... So much history, so much folklore, so much idioms, so much more new slang I'd never heard of before that I'm sure all of us are mind-blown. But this was a beautiful thing, connecting with E-40 like that. Oh, man. That's one for the record book. Questlove Show is hosted by me, Amir Questlove Thompson. The executive producers are Sean G., Brian Calhoun, and me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown. Edited by Alex Conroy. iHeart video support by Mark Canton. Logos, graphics, and animation by Nick Aloi. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Vrong. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, rate, review, and share The Questlove Show wherever you stream your podcasts. And make sure you follow us on socials. That's at QLS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLS episodes, including The Questlove Supreme Shows in our podcast archives. Questlove Show is a production of iHeartRadio.