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Speaker 1: What up, y'all? This is your main man, Memphis Bleak right here.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to Rock Solid, a production of iHeart Radio and the Black Effect Network in partnership with my guys over at Drink Champs.
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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you already know what it is, y'all.
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Speaker 2: Yours truly am Greasy back with another exclusive episode of Rock Solid. This one right here, This that real journalism talk right here, that shit I was pretending to be. I'm about to study this guy right now. Why I'm interviewing him. I'm gonna steal something his shit and you're gonna see next episode and be like, yeah this raw Ma man Bleak, you know what I mean. I'm here. Nah, let's welcome my guy to the building. Raw Mark Man, one of the illests out here. Man with something, my guy.
00:00:53
Speaker 1: I'm good man. How you I can't complain?
00:00:55
Speaker 2: Man? Like yo, you one of the illness because not only do you do the journalism thing, but then you all saw a bar nigga down too.
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Speaker 1: Like a little bit like a little bit like fucking no fucking around it up, You're a bar nigga up too, man.
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Speaker 2: I respect what you've been doing everything, man, in both fields.
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Speaker 1: You know what I mean, thank you, love you come love, your grind you come up. Everything you've been doing, my g thank you man. But let's do it.
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Speaker 2: Let's do this before MTV, before Genius, before the interviews. Everything you've been doing before that hip hop you the raps you've been doing.
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Speaker 1: What made you fall in love with hip hop? It wasn't a choice. It was like it was all around. Like I felt like I was boring into it, right, Like I I remember, like you know, I'm an eighties baby, so it's right coming outside, actually seeing graffiti on the train, actually like going to block parties and park jams and seeing you know, the big boom box on the street and hearing the music and remembering the adults saying, oh, that ain't real music. This ain't gonna last. But I'm six years old going to school, you know, first grade, Lotti Dottie is out talk about it and Daddy and wrapping that in the school yard, Like you had to come to school and be able to get through the whole verse, and your man had to be able to keep the beat box going right like like you know, slip rip was my first goat before I knew where the goat was mine too, you know what I'm saying, fact storytelling, yea.
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Speaker 2: Watching the videos, it was just like you can life like art depict in life.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when people say when you full love it as soon as I stepped outside, as soon as my my mom's let me go out the house, because it was all around us, you know what I'm saying, right, And I knew from an early age I wanted to be involved in hip hop. And then you know, I get old enough twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and I'm copping the source and I'm reading it and I'm like, oh, we actually get to document and tell these stories or come home and watch video music Box and get to see your favorite wrapping.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Daniels man, the real first one in the middle of the trenches.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, documenting it man, Fab five, Freddie, Rolph McDaniel's like real pioneers. Like when I look at me as a somebody who documents the culture, I look at them, the Fab five Freddy's, the Ralph McDaniels, and then probably Angie Martinez and Sweat. My biggest niggas don't know.
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Speaker 2: Fab five Freddy is a real g I'd have been in some black block meetings.
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Speaker 1: With niggas like yo, were meeting up, they strapping up and he is like.
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Speaker 2: Doing he was tapped in. What's the like, did you always know you wanted to be a journalist.
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Speaker 1: Like nah, I didn't think it was a I think it was option anything, want no money in it, Like I always enjoy writing, And I think that's that's where the rapping part came from me. I'm twelve, thirteen years old, Penny going outside kicking my moms lunch room, kicking my moms open mics at the New Yorakan Poe Cafe, in clubs, I was probably too young to get into in front of fat beasts battling people, and that was the ship and all of that, But it's not from being the writer. And I always love to read and I love to write, but I never felt like I was like, I'm not gonna get the time, like the New York Times not gonna want me, Like I'm not gonna fit in at the New York Times. And I didn't think you could actually make a career writing and documenting hip hop like for the Source. It just hadn't occurred to me that that was a way to actually make money. If he's jamming and it kind of just happened. Like step by step, I started as a freelancer, you know, a dollar word writing album reviews. My first album review I ever wrote was for.
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Speaker 2: Jada Kiss his second album, That's Crazy Man sut Jada Jadalls in New York. Yeah. Man.
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Speaker 1: So so when I saw the check from that, you know, it was bigger than the check that I was getting from from doing little shows or whatever.
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Speaker 2: So it just like like, hold on, I'm over here down right now.
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Speaker 1: Who what next album you need me to talk about? Right? So, so, a little by little, I built up my freelance reputation and it led to a to a full time gig at Double XL. That's what I was in the game too.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you who gave you your real first job opportunity to cover hip hop professionally.
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Speaker 1: A brother by name of Tim Hotap, who I grew up with. We went in to high school together, and he started working for Complex when Complex was a magazine still and we went to school together, so he knew I could write, and he knew I just knew a ship turn about hip hop. So he was like, man, I need you to write this Jada Kiss album review? Yo, could you go up to Young because my biggest problem was like, how the fuck am I gonna get the Young That's a fact. He was like, nah, and the Scope gonna send you a car to call, gonna wait for you to take you back.
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Speaker 2: I say easy, and y'all gonna pay me word, Let's do it. So we went up the D Block studio. It was the second out to Kiss of Death. So Kiss is there. I remember Kiss. I remember Jen was there. You remember Gen from one on sixth in part.
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Speaker 1: Gin was nice.
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Speaker 2: Jin was nice and it was nice niggas tried to front on Gin and he a free stylus.
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Speaker 1: That's my guy. He was signed the Rough Riders at that time. So I remember going to the studio. Kiss was there. He plays the album and I'm hearing songs like why for the first time, like the first time I or why I'm getting chills.
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Speaker 2: I'm like this this is a crazy record.
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Speaker 1: So so yeah, did that, wrote up the album review, they published it in Complex and and and they sent me a check. After that, boy magazine called was like, Yo, can you do this ghost face review? And the source call was like yo, we heard you, was the Yo, can you write for us? So I was free. I was working in the mail room in the city crazy. I tell you a funnier story, working in a place called Delia's. It's a course center, a mail room. A lot of underground New York rap immortal technique used to work there. Poisoned pain used to work damn. Back in the day. A Mil used to be our supervisor. Yo, she was real life. Mill was the customer service supervisor. It was a spot in New York. Like everybody in New York work. She definitely let your niggas do whatever because a Mil was the she was always chill. So A Mill used to work there, and then all of a sudden that she wasn't working it no more. It was like that, why I'm no a mail We turned on MTV. She with y'all. Yo. For me, that was some of the biggest motivation, just because it's like, Yo, she was just here and now she's there, and it showed, oh, this this is possible, like we could get into this game. Like her voice was ill.
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Speaker 2: But yo, you're bringing up a mail break back some stories because it was supposed to be a group. If you remember, you know why Major Coins never got signed and it just was a mill because they couldn't dance and rap at the scene. You gotta figure out out. You gotta get some choreography. They had in the studio like, yo, were about to do this show. Let's see how y'all gonna do it. So they playing the music like yo, y'all gotta dance and ad live behind a male verse or can I get up?
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Speaker 1: It was over front.
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Speaker 2: They had to get them there. The choreography. That is the story of major Coins. That's that's why I just was a mill because she got it together.
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Speaker 1: But but you know, I tell that story on some man give her her props just being a dude from Brooklyn, like you know, like like I'm from flat But so we had special ed.
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Speaker 2: But it's not like I knew special Ed. I was a kid and whatever. But dog with a solid gold ball, nobody knew what I'm saying.
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Speaker 1: So that was that was the first one though that it was like really close, that it was right there and you know, just start kicking in the door a little bit and seeing that this thing is possible. Motivation. Yeah, man.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Then MTV News one of the places, you know, fans get to hear all the stories all that shit. You know what I mean, what made that era of music journalism so special for you?
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Speaker 1: For me, it was that's when I went from a writer because I was in the magazine you might just see my name, you see my boto line. And I got to MTV to write. So it's digital. So so now the frequency instead of me writing in the magazine that comes out once a month, when the MT behind me, they said, yo, we want you to write. You gotta write four articles a day. Oh I was writing. It was just I was like the end of I could write in and put it out right in and putting it out seven joints to day. I'm about two weeks there. And I mean, sway shout out.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: One of the coolest, coolest DJs ever in the world.
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Speaker 1: Man just wanted one of the realist dudes. And he was like, yo, I like you. He was just like, yo, you you're gonna have a shot to be on camera like and and I think I think you could be like a personality in this game. Is that something you want? And I'm like, yeah, I tried. He was like, I just you know, stay closed, pay attention. Can't tell you when I can't tell you how, but you're gonna get a shot, and so the MTV the thing that made a specialist one. I'm working right beside the guy that I looked up to and this thing with Sway, and he's talking about he gonna give me a shot, And it changed my career. It took me from a right there to a personality to more of a known journalist. So it kind of just shed more light on me and I got to learn production and and and how cameras work and all of that. So on TV was a special time.
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Speaker 2: Yo, Sway, the realists man, Sway Water, the beanie whatever he had he wore in the White House.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I never saw him with listen, man, we don't. We don't been on trips side of town. We done. I never seen Sway without the crown man at the White House. But that's what's dope about hip hop, right, It's like, Yo, we could and I remember that that I wanted to go. But again I'm I'm I'm a little homie. So not everybody everybody shout out ben Ney the Butcher body. Everybody can't. But but Sway still called me that. Yo. Listen man, we're going to the White House like the night before. Yo, if you got a question let me know, let me know, shoot me the question and I working. So he asked one of my questions to the president. So I felt like we was both there right, but he still made me a part of it without being a part of it. And what that showed me though, is like, Yo, we could show up anywhere as authentic selves being a hip hop That's right, you know what I'm saying. I know you see it with with like whole in these ballrooms, like walking as whole.
00:11:13
Speaker 2: That's one thing he preached, man, you walking as yourself. You don't change for the room. You changed the room.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: So that that's what Sway showed me.
00:11:20
Speaker 2: But you interviewed everybody man from J Kendrake, Nas Drake, everybody. Is it one interview to you that you just stands out above all?
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Speaker 1: Oh? Man? Probably my Kendrick interview twenty fifteen Kendrick to Pimp a Butterfly interview. Because we were just talking. I didn't even know that interview was good. Like when we walked out, people was like how they go. I was like, because it was just two dudes talk, I couldn't even gauge. I know I enjoyed the conversation. I ain't know how it's going to resonate and that that that's the interview that people still come up to me and they have like an emotional connection to it because we I mean, we were talking about music and to Pimper Butterfly, but we was talking about real shit like leaving the hood survivors guilt, right, like being able to tour the world and back home your peoples are still going through the same thing, and you want to take everything you learn about the world and give it to your people back home, but are they ready for the message and stuff. So it was a real deep conversation, in real life conversation, and that's the one that even though these years later, people still come up to me and was like, nah, like that was the one.
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Speaker 2: And now Kendrick or everybody man like between j Drake, Kendrake, all them niggas is dominating and they feel respectively great at what they do. Man, Like you know what I mean, Like that Drake and Kendrick shit does shift the hip hop for me.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's like the Godfather's scene when he's like, yo, man, it's like you need this every ten years. It clears the bad blood, Like you know, I think it's dope that because hip hop is competitive, right, and it's always been. I think it's dope that we see Drake being able to bounce back, be able to drop an album like Iceman, and it's like, oh, he ain't done, Like what happened happened, but.
00:13:05
Speaker 2: It's still hits to be mad exactly. So so you know, get back to the let's get back to the schedule.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: Program, right And look, I know, I know it was a lot more personal for them and they and they going through it, but but but I'm happy to see that they still get to him carry hip hop on. Drake still get to be Drake, Kendrick still get to be Kendrick. We saw something that entertained us. Like I said, I don't know how entertaining a wife it was going through it, but it is.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: Man, We've been in the middle of a war like that with nas, you know what I'm saying.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: And now and now you know, he came out on Yankee Stadium with a Darren Strawberry justice what I'm saying. So I don't think that'll happened, and I don't see that happening, But did you ever think that would happen in the in the midst of it, in the heat of it, did you ever think Jane Knives wouldever reconcile?
00:13:52
Speaker 2: Honestly, no, yeah, no, it was just as disrespectful as that. I believe so like, and I would have never I would have never thought, Ja'll be ad libbit for Knaves and knadser be ad libit for Jay and they'll be rhyming over each other beat and Yankee Stadium crazy. That's that's not even something you could draw up and be like, yeah, this is gonna happen one day. I picture it like Yankee Stadium was just so surreal for me in general, just because remember thirty years ago, reasonable doubt drop. Thirty three years ago, we was in a basement of Clark Kent House, rest in peace.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: And Jay ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook and gave it to me and said, as fast as you remember that papers, as fast as your life change, here we are as the results of life changing from that sheet of paper. It's like so standing there in Yankee Stadium, it hit me like last thirty years, everything we've been through, everything is just hit me like life flash, Like wow, that's important, man, because like hip hop is more than just all wins, right, Like like it is, it's the journey to me, Like I'm at the same way you. So you watching Yankee Stadium, but you remember Clark's Basement where it started. I'm watching this guy up there and watching y'all up there, and I'm a stretching by beat.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: Okay. I used to listen to we all did, like the Big L freestyle. I was listening live that night when it happened and going back to school the next day, Yoe, and and I'm like, I remember, I can't get with that, you know what I'm saying. I remember the original.
00:15:32
Speaker 2: With that in my life, shooting that video.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: On Marshie right, and so it's like, yo, from that to this. Even I asked Greul about this because even in one of the end of Louse, they was playing the Milk Won't Beat the beat that him a Big L rapped over, and I thought he was gonna come out and perform that. I said, Yankee Stadium, do these, but it was it was a dope nod to the jazz, is what I'm saying. So we could celebrate the wins, but you still got to celebrate where it started. You know what I'm saying all the time, you can never forget where it started.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: Never, man, because that's why I always feel like the journey make you enjoy the win even more like, because the journey it's worth it, man, at the end of the day's worth it all the nose, all the doors closed, all the U turns, all the We can't carry that album in this store all the when I'm riding on top of the Humma and myth Bleakers MTV. We can't show that do influencing kids. All of that matters to where we are today. Like I love it man, like it's just like you. Like it leads to my next question, like you spend years document and hip hop bro like making it Like what have artists taught you about the culture that fans rarely get to see?
00:16:48
Speaker 1: Hmm, that's a good question. That is more than just entertainment. And you know, look, I knew that because at the same time, though I document it and I'm known for documenting it, like I come from it. We come from the same. I'm from Flatbush, Brooklyn like me, and you know, VOP I grew up around the corner Germ around the corner too, grew up around the corner, like, so I'm from you know what I'm saying. I might have just went a different route than some of the people on my block, but but we're all doing it. So it's more than just entertainment. I think, especially now when this era of you know, social media, people feel like fans feel like they could say anything. A lot of people talk real crazy and feel like they could say anything. But these are people. Yes, these are entertainers, but these are people's real lives. And when I documented, you know, I strive to document the real Like where did this come from? What made you write that? What's the real story behind it? Yes, it's dope to us, but then nine nine, ten times, ten times came from pain. That's the fact. So let's not lose that fact. We ain't up here just singing and dance.
00:17:59
Speaker 2: So we got real story to tell, and we got to tell these stories the right way because you've seen I don't know, if you, Pete, all the work that we did at MTV. MTV took all their content offline, or all the articles that that I've written that Shah he ain't read, has written that that that all the interviews that Sway has done Jason Rodriguez like all, it don't exist online anymore.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: Way.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that and look, I got interviews with with Nipsey Hustle.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: That's crazy, one hundred dollars mixed.
00:18:29
Speaker 2: Well guess what man, rest in Piece, Nips, Nip ain't here to tell the story no more.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. I got interviews with Mac Miller, rest in Piece.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: And Piece mc miller. I got a song with mac Miller that we never got the job. I don't even have it. He told me about it. He told me about it. That was my dog for real, the god yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker 1: World, I'm so sick.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: I ain't get a copy. I'm gonna see if I'm I'm gonna reach out. I gonna se if I find if I could find it.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: But but you know, when you think about the ones who want here anymore, especially everybody, but the ones like nipp is not here to tell the story. But we documented the time in Nip's career, we documented the time in Macnella's career, and now it's offline. I get it. MCV is a business. For whatever reason, they took it offline. But when I'm documenting, I need these to live forever. I need the records to lift forever. These are records of history. This is not just entertainment. This is our life. This is our culture, man, So we got documented the right way. That's a fact. Man.
00:19:24
Speaker 2: Like, do you think hip hop does a good job at preserving its own history or we too quick to just move on to the next big thing.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: I think it's getting scary. I think we were really good at it. I think we had institutions, you know what I'm saying, Like, we had pillars and this be it people, be it, the Source, the Double Excels, the Angie Martinez is of the World, the Sways.
00:19:48
Speaker 2: All the legends. But but we we losing it now. I think it's just becoming now the topic of the day. I think there's a danger. I think there's a real danger in this moment if we don't take this ship seriously. Mm hmmm, how's the rest of the world gonna take us seriously? I think we shoot out our own a lot. It's almost like, but this is our culture. Been in the culture and how it's in media, right, but not And that's not in media has always been critical.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: And that's not to say we can't be critical, that we can each other. Yeah, man, but it's personal, bro, people and be like it's getting personal.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Like I feel like like a lot of journalism has changed now.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Like when I was.
00:20:30
Speaker 2: Coming up, you know, the number one target on the headline for US was Wendy Williams. Right, it knew Wendy. You get that Wendy Williams interview, You better go up there with your shield up, your face guard. You better be ready because she's coming out swinging Miss Jones starring buck Wow, fucking cosmic, cav fucking sometimes fleck sometimes enough them niggas even dropped that bomb, yo, so we heard, and you gotta be ready. And I just like a lot of people disagree with the academics, the Charleston White, the whack one hundreds.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: Me. I ain't gonna say I'm a fan and not a fan.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: I'm too busy, I don't tune in, but I know them as media personalities. I feel like that disruption is needed because everything can't be rosy, bro, we can't.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: Just be Somebody gotta come through them, like, man, y'all, nigga's bitch.
00:21:27
Speaker 2: Ask somebody gotta do it.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: And to me a lot, Wendy Williams is really a pioneer and that in that style, I think a lot of what we see today comes off of the Wendy Williams Tree of influence, right, and it's entertaining that one thing is listen. One thing. Absolutely, you have to ask the questions that the people want to know. Yes, you know what I'm saying, because because where we have to be loyal to the audience. So you gotta ask the questions that the people want to know. People have to be challenged, you cold criticized. For sure. I think there's an excessive tearing down going on, but the fact is it's also entertainment. And for me, you just need the balance. It can't be too much of one thing and not the other. To me, you need the balance this whole thing to work.
00:22:17
Speaker 2: I think the tearing down part truthfully comes from everybody say I'm one hunding, I keep it real, I'm the real list this. So now it's these guys job and media to be like, no, you not, you did this, we saw this, we have this information Mattervember back of the day. It's to be like call, oh, they're being the ear on the news. We getting in this live information breaking news coming in. They just said the senator did this.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: Now it was just and music.
00:22:49
Speaker 2: They can make it records like yeah, I'm the trap lord, and then here come whack one honey like this the PaperWorks.
00:22:57
Speaker 1: You told I got the big work for me. It got It got to be rooted in the truth, you know what I'm saying. The truth always gonna come to light. Fat you know what I'm saying. And you can't run a high for your truth. You could dip and dodge five years ten, it might be twenty years down the line. The thing that you did is always gonna come to light. So I have no problem with it as long as it's rooted in truth and and and and respect for the audience. You know what I'm saying.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, it's no different than Wendy Williams because she was gunning. I never forget my first interview with her as soon as I sat down.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: So myphis bleek.
00:23:31
Speaker 2: They say, you fucking the in terms at Rockefeller's Like what like what am I supposed to say here?
00:23:37
Speaker 1: Like who told you that? It's like it might have been true to it. It's like, yo, hold more, check my two way. She got my sh tap like like but that's what I'm saying. So, I mean, I enjoy it. I think it's was ever a time I'm outside of that Wendy Williams sound, was ever a time for you when when you was under the tie, never.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: Felt like you had Nah, I never was under that because you know why, I think so, Bro, I think I dodged it because before social media, you was able to hide.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: Your personal life.
00:24:11
Speaker 2: You know, people only when they read the sorts, read the Vibe, read the double XL.
00:24:16
Speaker 1: Saw bt MTV. Then they saw you like they didn't really and they came to the meet and greet. That was it. They didn't know. Once all of that stopped, you could go home and be a farmer. No one knew.
00:24:27
Speaker 2: They ain't know if I had goats at the crib herding cows, like you know what I mean. So today, I feel like with social media and the fan bases that we carry and the responsibility, people want to see you talk about it. They want to see they want to go to that page and be like, oh this dude, say he be in the chateau, Show me pictures of you in the chateau. Don't just tell me about it, show me. And a lot of I feel like, that's why a lot of these people get attacked because they're not living their truth. It's all imitating to get a check. So and now it's the media job to point out the immitection.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: That's just do you think it? Do you think there's a line that's too far?
00:25:08
Speaker 2: I think so when it gets interjected into the beefs like wins, because you know, now these kids is in gangs. So when you inserting into different sets in different gangs and provoking one against the other or even just antagonizing one side against the other, then I feel like it's a responsibility us as adults we have for the youth, did not.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: Lead them that way. So you know, I'm a genius as well, and I'm probably telling and we have a show called Verified Yellow Background where you break down lyrics and you know, I'm not gonna say who out of respect, but there was these two drill artists from Brooklyn who do not live that far from each other, Like if you know Brooklyn, you know the streets, you like, it's like a ten block radius, and you know in New York ten blocks is nothing, and you know they was going at it on record. Mm hmm. But we also knew how we loo can get and one of them wanted to come to Genius to break down one of the disc records and as much traffic as that will bring in, as much as people wanted to see that, I'm like, yo, I can't let you do that. As a fact, you could come and break down the girls single, the song for the Girls, We're not gonna have you because then for a couple of reasons. For one is whatever you say is gonna spur something on now, then the next one, I want to come up. It's gonna open that door, and I don't want to be exhibit A in the court right when shit go down. Like so, man, if we could die this back, I'd rather help dial it back and pushing forward. I'm glad we haven't it.
00:26:39
Speaker 2: I'm glad you here that I have this conversation with, because I feel like if you're gonna put the responsibility on the media not to interject, antagonize, or provoke, then the artist is blatantly to admitting crimes over beats.
00:26:57
Speaker 1: It's insane. So like, you can't be that at me that you said you shot Ray Ray right. You got reporting on Ray Ray right. But but it do feel man, I see I see some of these channels, and yes, but we also speaking cold right. First of all, a lot of the code is detective.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: These niggas that secret the coder is it was writing there, niggas that rode all over.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: We see what you're doing hundred percent facts and the responsibilities on the artists. But there's some of these channels. There's some of these that I know. They don't come from the culture. I know that, and when I talk about come from the culture. Also have to deal with the circumstances when somebody gets when you got to bury somebody, or deal with the circumstances of the get back, but deal with the circumstances of a brother or a son or a cousin doing life in jail. But sit from the comfort of your on YouTube at the remote location playing who done it? And ultimately it's on the artist. But there's a point of of of of of watching that that don't sit right with me. It feel like voyeurism. It feel like the people who go to the safari and you safe enough in your cart on the safari to watch the lines and watch everybody do what they do, but you don't got to deal with none of the circumstances and none of the danger of that shit, and that shit was me the wrong way. But they not out the window with sticks poking the animals.
00:28:22
Speaker 2: At the safari some of them too, you be seeing them brady ass kids, like don't be animal, you know, gummy.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: Bears at the shit. It's just look and maybe I'm wrong, right, and I'm happy to be wrong, But there's a part of that that don't sit right with me, Like, like again, I do feel a responsibility not to protect nobody or not to save nobody, but it's real circumstances that come with this shit. And me as somebody who is you know, about to be forty seven years old, Like I know better, so I got to do better. Hey man, yeah, hey, don't hey, don't break down that song break down the other one, the one you wrote a your girl break down that one. You can say that one. You actually should have kept that one in the studio. But because it's different too, it's not it's not Carus versus Shan anymore. Yo. But it was drama back then.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: They was running in the club taking niggas, Mike's kicking them off the stage, and Yo, I heard I don't know as a shorty you read in the magazine Share had a show care rests.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: One of them bum rushed the show.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: Threw him and his DJ off the stage, flipped them up, took the mic and continued the show.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: Now it's ka res one show that where I'm from, that's called smoke. I didn't hear that one about Shan, but he had that reputation.
00:29:42
Speaker 2: I remember, say you have a reputation. He did it with PM done. How bad mc shann don't come get at me, know your o g legend, I got no respect? Has shit fucked up? But I knew it was somebody said off the stage, took the mic and took over the ship.
00:30:02
Speaker 1: Today PM done when it came and shot the whole club up. Yeah, it's just it's it's a different time though, man. Like like back then you might just had to like knuckle down, that's it, Like you just had to shoot. It might not even be shoot the fair one like you might get jumped, you know what I'm saying. But that that not that we wasn't getting shot and killed back then. But it's just way different now.
00:30:24
Speaker 2: Bro. It's because these kids is in real crimes, bro, real crime you cannot, like I cannot get on this platform and literally identify somebody in Marcy committing a crime, did a crime, or I know about a crime, or I did something to them purposely, like yeah, yeah, Ray, you know when I seen you, we slapped you on Murder Avenue last week. What you think when he see this interview? He looking for me now, so you can't be shot when he clipped me.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: God voted.
00:30:58
Speaker 2: So that's the thing in music life streaks everything. I feel like we sit there in the tank by the bullshit and then be shocked when the ring happened.
00:31:11
Speaker 1: What you thought was the end of this movie. Yeah, now you're right, You're right. I just I just feel a way when it's not us. We shouldn't be perpetual in neither, but especially when it's not us out there perpetuating the ship. I feel the way I'm looking at you because I'm like, what's your investment in this ship? You know what I'm saying that you're taking a whole lot of people down with your commentary. Who did you ever lift up? You know what I'm saying. It's give and tape. You know what I'm saying. You gotta I feel like for shit.
00:31:40
Speaker 2: For every bad deed I ever did, it's forty good ones that could replace that one.
00:31:44
Speaker 1: So and you hope at the end that it means that got roll over that.
00:31:49
Speaker 2: It's like, do you think because you're an artist and a journalist, that's what keeps the balance between both for you a little bit?
00:31:57
Speaker 1: I remember when I was I was at Double Excel shout the day, twe Thomas, that's my gosh, my guy man. He was an editor in chief at the time, and I was working at Double XL. But I was also pointing out music on the blows like now right to no boys, and all I would do I not right, love everybody, low key on smash all of that, and what I would do when I would take rap of pictures, I just take on my glasses. Was like Superman. And for years nobody noticed. But I worked in the magazine, so not a lot of people know my face. So one day they called me into his office, he the editor in chief, and he turned his computer around.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: I thought I was in trouble. He said, he said, this is you and it was me on that right yo, chill And I said yeah. He was like, yo, this ship is dope. I ain't gonna front you get busy, thank you, thank you.
00:32:52
Speaker 1: But but he had told me, he said, that's it, he said, he said, that's why you're able to ask the right questions. That's why disrespected even if they don't know it. He was like, at least, he was like, you're not as big as the artist that you interview, but you know what it's like to go into that studio when an I did. That's right, something tangible. You know what it's like to put like your feeling or your life on the record. He said, that's why artists fuck with you. That's right. And I had never thought about it like that before. But he was like, you relate maybe better than the friend as somebody who's never been through it before.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Of course, man, it's like the guy who becomes the lawyer who once was the drug that he knows what it is, he gonna fight the hardest for you.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
00:33:30
Speaker 2: Anybody that changed their life for around, that been through the storm knows what it is, no matter what good or bad. Then if you know the ins and out, you're gonna respect the craft and respect the role.
00:33:43
Speaker 1: And that's why Genius was such a perfect fit when I moved over to Genius at that point in my career, because it was like lyrics like like like yo, somebody took a time time to write yo, let's not gloss over that line like yo, that's a double yo, that's a triple. No, that just don't mean one thing. Hold on, let's start right there. We're not just gonna breeze past that because because you know what it takes.
00:34:08
Speaker 2: That's what I was about to say, Like you got that over had juniors say, I got the what is that the Sprite's Living track?
00:34:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
00:34:15
Speaker 2: The cultural authority Pane fifty songs, Shape and hip Hop talk about that. That that was big for me because to do that campaign with Sprite again, it's just participating in it, right, like I remember coming up and again right we from that everywhere they was like, yo, hip hop's.
00:34:33
Speaker 1: Not gonna last. It's just a fast You couldn't get a brand sponsorship, but I remember not Sprite, but I really had full logo. But if you remember the Sprite back in the day, like Canning play had one, Heavy d had one, didn't pray, couldn't play was the they had the movies my favorite SPIKEE commercial coming up. I don't know even remember this one was it was Nas and Ez on the Stoop and they recreated the scene from Wild Style. I remember the Double Trouble, his little story that must be told about two and I was like, so, I'm like, oh, they get it. And now to be at this point in my career, like participating in a Sprike campaign with Genius with Angie Martinez on the panel to discuss like fifty like legendary hip hop songs and lifted up like like so so and it's hits like Juicy is on the list. I to talk about Juicy, you gotta talk about pop California love. That's a fact. But we also on the list is most definite quality black Star you know, one, two, three, most definitile lib quality. So it runs the gamut mos def is just fucking dope broke. Everybody know that. Brooklynn, Yeah, Queen Land for you, And I t why like like like that was so ill of a record because that did so much for women and hip hop. That wasn't a woman walking in like hey, hey, don't call me a bit. No, she came who you calling a bit?
00:35:58
Speaker 2: Right? Like?
00:35:59
Speaker 1: And you had and she had that look like you I punched them dead in his eyes like So, so these are records and I can't tell you where that landed on Billboard. I can't tell you if that's double platinum, triple.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: Platinum down you just treating platinum in our house. I know what it did, you know what I'm saying.
00:36:18
Speaker 1: So, so we had that type of conversation on the panel and with Sprite and and you know, with Genius, and I was just like glad to be a part of it. It's like a feather in my cap for my career. That's dope.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: And looking at hand where you see Genius continuing to grow both as a media company and the culture institution.
00:36:38
Speaker 1: There's something new coming for the company. You know. Look, I think it's about to We want to help all this navigate their careers and and and and their creative process. It's a lot being said about AI right now and how it's using the music, but you know, ultimately just go back to the Genius thing. It's it's not on us. It's not it's not Genius's place to define that right now. Again, the artists and the audience to find that. But but right now we're looking at building tools to help artists with their careers, not to help them create, but to heal with their career and enhance their careers. And and because it takes a lot to be an artist. It's not just the studio. It's not just writing, like and recording. It's it's you got to make sure your business is right. You got to make sure your team is on point. You got to make sure it's a lot that going independent now, right, like the rollout, Like.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: As a kid, that's so weird that I'm glad you say that because as a kid, when Rockefeller first started, it was just writing.
00:37:43
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Rockefeller ended that it.
00:37:47
Speaker 2: Was like, oh shit, I gotta go talk to him, talk to them, meet with her drawdis playing up. Before it was just go to the studio, call guru or Pat Villa, Brian Stanley, one of the engineers that was on deck record, Bobby Dash, come in there, take that record.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: And we just had a team. You got a squad. Like but when you when you right, you started the warehouse, oh ship and that now now you gotta be Google. You gotta be Bobby Dash. You gotta be Oh, you gotta be you know when I shot at warehouse.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: I called Jay and told them because I found out what it was the package to roll out of record to radio and in that promotion, paying the person of the promoted the rep, all of that all wrapped up in the nice bowl. It was a nice price tag. And I was like, this is how much you cost to put a record out and they like, yeah, that's today. Back in the day, it was double that. Wow, my nigga. I had the call hole like, yo, bro, you used to spend this to put like even on records that didn't work.
00:38:55
Speaker 1: It was like yeah. It was like, nigga, you better than me because I'd have never did that.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: I love you for betting on me like that, nigga, because I don't think I gotta bet on myself a hundred rags. I got the money. We're talking about make more. We're good, We're gonna vest this is something we did. Like music ain't guaranteed. Bro. You can sit there all you want and think in your mind this is it. And you mean to tell me were gonna bet a hundo on on the maybe, Nah, I need something more short than that fuck that they about to put me. When Marf the Stewart with because I need the inside trading numbers.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: But you came out, but you made it way. Look I don't know, I ain't in your pocket. I don't know what the number was. But but y'all, y'all, y'all made an impact.
00:39:43
Speaker 2: No, definitely, but just to even take that gamble, Like, that's why I feel like certain artists when they get that deal, they think they made it, and it's like, bro, the journey just begins now, and it's like, you got somebody to invest in your dream. Remember we picked this pin up. It's a dream of hours. Somebody willing to fun your dream. Put you in the studio, get you a crib, fly you to anywhere you want to go, get you any feature, and you go home and take that for granted and just turn lazy. It's insane to me. Ninety percent of artists who don't make it is not the label for you know that, right, because like, what do the label do after giving you the money? It's the work ethic. Man.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: Everybody can't go. Everybody can't like it ain't for everybody because because you even look and sometimes it's like how many whack rappers, like it's not just talent? How many talent ain't just it. There's some guys yo because I'm nice, because I don't ball you up like everything's just supposed to muscle beats talent when talent don't all the time, and we see it all the time, and we see whack rappers like but I'll put out a hundred mixtapes and one of these is gonna connect, right, So all you need is one. That's what it's like.
00:40:57
Speaker 2: It's like being a criminal in the cop. Thin criminal got to be right all the time. The cop only got to be right once.
00:41:03
Speaker 1: That's it.
00:41:04
Speaker 2: So, and I wanted to ask you we was talking about this off camera, how you feel about hip hop artists like myself going into journalism. G Are we fucking up the craft or we paying homage? I look at it like boxing now, I look at it like boxing.
00:41:21
Speaker 1: I look at it like.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: I fuck with Max Kellerman. Max Max is on his ship. He honest the ship word up.
00:41:32
Speaker 1: But there's only there's certain things that only Lennox Lewis could tell you say in Ringside, or Roy Jones could tell you when they're commentating. So from that perspective, you know what I'm saying. Rappers as journalists now as commentators, as storytellers. It's like boxing. It's like yo, man, yeah, man, Like I fuck with Max, but I want to hear from Lenox Lewis too, And so I think it's space. What it did, honestly, was it forced me to to adapt. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, does it take.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: Away opportunities because you think about it, ain't a whole lot of journalists with podcast deals anymore.
00:42:09
Speaker 1: It's all former rappers or former athletes, right that. That's just a fact, Like, you know, the people with the money to invest in y'all want to invest in your They're not necessarily coming to a me or to an Elliott Wilson at this point, or who shout to be that like like they were like it was when we were just the only game in town. So but you don't complain, you adjust. That's just the playing field just changed. Well, guess what, You're going to have to do a whole lot more to get me out of here. I mean, I just gotta work harder, I gotta work smarter, I gotta change my approach. I started my own podcast that I shoot, it's just me, you know what I'm saying. It's just not a podcast. It's just my thoughts and it's me in the room and not just go. And I film it myself and I edited myself. And while because while I might not be able to have the budget for the production myself, I was like, Yo, I could do premiere pro. I got that camera and I'm just gonna do this ship to depth so we get big. You look at somebody like Joe Budden, look at his set now and look at the set when he first started. He ain't ended up where he started at. And that's what I love that.
00:43:13
Speaker 2: I love you broke him up because that's one thing I hate about our culture that people like to look at the end result and want to mimic you. It's like, Joe been doing this ship for the last twenty years, started on my Space, doing alive with his family.
00:43:31
Speaker 1: It's insane.
00:43:31
Speaker 2: And now you look at where he at now, everybody thinks they they could do it. He deserved to be where he at because he worked for it and earned it.
00:43:39
Speaker 1: You can't do that, fam chill out. Even even Nori Man and I remember when nor recalled me before he started drinking. Shout the EFN shout out drink. Champ's whole staff my dog. I used to interview Nori at MTV and he used to He didn't he didn't even need a project out. Norwy just knew how to go viral. Nor knew nor He would say the right thing. And I don't even think he was trying. It was just Nod being Nord and his his interviews was always entertaining. And and then when he came back around said yo, I think'm gonna start a podcast. Where did you think? And he told me to drink Champs. I did. I said, yo, I thought that'd be a fucking great idea. Ship. I remember we said this. He's not gonna mind me saying this, but first couple of episodes he'd be like, yo, like Jezu is coming, Yo, Yo, can you send me questions? I would send him questions.
00:44:26
Speaker 2: So this one that would come in because he even put it on Twitter. Yo, I got yo, what y'all wanted to ask up right? Like yo, my may and you cheating man?
00:44:35
Speaker 1: And so I would absolutely one because Nori is my man and I want to see him win. I remember one time I interview Hold on Twitter spaces and Norri was the first one to call me after, like, bro, how did you do that? I can't interview like like you like, how do you navigate that? And I'm like, yo, that's just what I do. Like I could give you some of the science, but you're brilliant and what you I can't do what you do because at the same time he had Nas is a tough interview. I've interviewed Nas before. Nas is like, if Nas ain't super comfortable with you, he'll give you the interview. But he not like just he not just gonna give you information. I've been there for the sake of giving it.
00:45:14
Speaker 2: I've been there, like and it's been interviews doing this that I felt like some of them were fun and I feel like, yeah, I enjoyed that interview or this was dope.
00:45:23
Speaker 1: But it's been a couple of the way I've been like, damn, man, that the fuck. I don't want to do those no more. But but it's some times it's like unlocking the call so and there's no disrespect. That's just NAS's personality. But I remember watching Nas do a drink Champs interview with Nori and maybe the look of help. But he's comfortable with Noory because that's his man. It's one of the best NAS interviews I've ever seen. So I had told Nori the same way, maybe I could interview a whole one Twitter spaces. I can't interview now. I've tried to interview NAS and none of them has been as great as what you just what you did, So it's the lame for everybody, man, And I'm just with people who trying to if there's a lot of people coming in here who try.
00:46:01
Speaker 2: To bullshit with it any days about the money, say the dollar sign, that's like, that's one thing.
00:46:07
Speaker 1: When I got into the space, bro, I was.
00:46:09
Speaker 2: I told Nori one, I'm not going to be tearing down the very people I call my brothers in culture.
00:46:15
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tear down the one thing that pay me, hip hop. So I'm not here to destroy hip hop.
00:46:21
Speaker 2: I'm not here to spare the the smear campaigns again into my pears, Yo, dirt, who we slept with? Who is if I can't just be a fan of the art and the people I'm interviewing, I don't want to do this shit, bro, And he was like, now, trust me, people just want to hear you.
00:46:39
Speaker 1: And I'm glad.
00:46:42
Speaker 2: He convinced me to do this shit because I didn't want to do it because now I enjoy it.
00:46:46
Speaker 1: I love it.
00:46:46
Speaker 2: I get to hear your story, where you started from where before it's you acting my story.
00:46:52
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You know how dope I felt sitting here interviewing Clue.
00:46:56
Speaker 2: Enough.
00:46:56
Speaker 1: These is niggas who interview me when I was as shorty. So now it's like, nigga, tell me what you used to do growing Now it's real. And then plus your perspective again, Like I mean, we talked about my perspective of just knowing how to pen, how to how to put shit out. But you you, you, you got plaques on the wall, you like world towards that, and the relationships you got is different. So it's like, you know, like you and in the first couple of episodes like seeing You and Guru, so like you know the right things that you know how to lite. You weren't just blaze like you and Clue like you was in it. So it's just a different perspective. You You you have questions that I wouldn't even think to ask because it's the details.
00:47:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've been we've been in the trenches. But looking back over your career, what are you most proud of contributing to.
00:47:40
Speaker 1: This hip hop game. Man. Wow, I think the thing I'm most proud of is just one being able to feed my family and and and and and and raise my kids and and to show my kids that you could live your dream. Man. When I when I was, you know, twelve years old, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I want to be involved in hip hops sort of way. And I've been able to make a good living and raise a family. So just to show my kids, like yo, that thing that you love, you just gotta do it to death and it's gonna work out. But other than that, it's man just being able to contribute, like I'm I'm I'm. I'm grateful for everything that I've earned, paid my bills and got a crib and shit is cool put food on the table. But I'm also proud of of not what I've made, but what I give it back, like being able to shine light on certain artists, you know, and some of the biggest artists today, like like I remember when Kendrick first started, when Wiz first started, when Cole first started, when nit when when you can name them? And I remember there was certain artists I used to bring up the MTV and and the older people have been in the MTV, but like why you're bringing this and they turned out to be the next superstars. So it feels dope to to give just light to the coach, help people grow, you know, and especially those who aren't like a Fred the gods. When we put Fred one so nice to death punchline you to your dad putting him on the double X self Freshman cover. But me being the one to make the call, yo, yo Fred, like ready, you know what I'm saying. Or to be able to call them Mickey Fax and put him on the cover, or you know, I put the call into J Cole like Yo Cole and you know what I'm saying, like cover like that. So and just to see you know, all this grow would kind of you know, become who they meant to become. I'm not taking credit for it by no way. That that that's that's their talent. That's they hustled as god or to be like damn like like we was there and and whatever light you had you was willing to shine and use it like that should mean a lot.
00:49:53
Speaker 2: Means everything, man, trust me. So when people think about Rob Markman years from now? Man, what you want them to say? What do you want them to say about the man, the rapper, the artist, the journalist, just everything. What's the last words you want people to think about you?
00:50:09
Speaker 1: That he cared about us, That he cared about us the week that that he gave a ship, that it wasn't just a lit and he cared about this hip hop ship and he contributed in a positive way.
00:50:23
Speaker 2: Because because I agree, I never heard you in no bullshit spare campaigns.
00:50:27
Speaker 1: You be just telling it like it is, and I try not to be this. I also feel like I could tell the truth and not be just because my other thing is and I'm not the toughest guy, but I mean, you guysk anybody who grew up with me, I won't. I'm not running from nothing. That's a fact.
00:50:41
Speaker 2: Like we gotta be tough to I tell people, you don't have to be scared to get fucked up.
00:50:47
Speaker 1: I'm not scared.
00:50:48
Speaker 2: Okay, you can still get willing to fight and you don't have to be tough to fuck somebody up.
00:50:54
Speaker 1: Like it goes both ways. But so my thing, and what I learned about myself earlier is love it. You're never gonna say I ran that's right, and so whatever whatever I say, I gotta stand on it. Now. I could say, I could criticize, and I could say the truth. I don't got to be disrespectful about it. I won't. You're not gonna see me say anything on those cameras that I won't say to your face because now, hey, yo, Bob. I remember in two thousand and six when you was at MTV and you was on that high and some ced round table. It might have been some shit I forgot about, and you said, you know that the bleak album man, and you said this that what's up with that?
00:51:36
Speaker 2: You know?
00:51:36
Speaker 1: You don't want to say now. I don't want to say it now. I gotta be able to stand on it and say the exact same thing, you know. And I've had run ins with with with certain rappers. They ain't like a review or Yo, you wrote this and you wrote that, It's like yeah, and be there and be like that. I'm glad I never took this rap. I definitely, and it's never been it's never been all the casees, but people had to respect. People say yo, but you wrote this, and I was like, yeah, because that's what it is, and at the end of the day, they'd be like, yo, I don't agree with you, but yeah, you got it.
00:52:07
Speaker 2: In his opinion, if you could leave the next journal the next generation of journalists, with any piece of advice of moving the culture forward, of just believing in theyself, even if they just want to get started in the game, right, what would it be.
00:52:25
Speaker 1: For any journalists? First of all, it's saturated now. You got Elon on Twitter on X he done said he's selling you blue checks, and he said journalism is dead. You all are the journalists. Everybody's a journalist now. Elon said this. So what I'm saying is the game is wide open, right, and I think what you need to do is study the chess board, find the thing that you love, and then the niche, the niche where you fit in. Everybody's doing this, everybody's doing that. Where can you fit in and where can you build an audience? Study the chess board, find that niche, find that thing that you love, and respect your audience. You know what I'm saying. Appreciate you pulling up, keep doing your thing. Man.
00:53:06
Speaker 2: You know what it is when it comes down to this journalism game. You put respect on guys like this man who paving the way for the new generation.
00:53:13
Speaker 1: Man. You know what it is.
00:53:15
Speaker 2: If you want to hear real stories, real life deeps into the music, real life breakdowns on what lyricis is and what they're talking about. This is where to go if you want that bullshit continue to be where you at. Rob is the one man in the future.
00:53:30
Speaker 1: You know what it is? This rock solid, blizzety solid. Let's go. Yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows at and you can follow me on any social media platform under the name Memphis Bleak.
00:53:49
Speaker 1: You see anybody fraud in, flag them,
Speaker 1: What up, y'all? This is your main man, Memphis Bleak right here.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: Welcome to Rock Solid, a production of iHeart Radio and the Black Effect Network in partnership with my guys over at Drink Champs.
00:00:24
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you already know what it is, y'all.
00:00:26
Speaker 2: Yours truly am Greasy back with another exclusive episode of Rock Solid. This one right here, This that real journalism talk right here, that shit I was pretending to be. I'm about to study this guy right now. Why I'm interviewing him. I'm gonna steal something his shit and you're gonna see next episode and be like, yeah this raw Ma man Bleak, you know what I mean. I'm here. Nah, let's welcome my guy to the building. Raw Mark Man, one of the illests out here. Man with something, my guy.
00:00:53
Speaker 1: I'm good man. How you I can't complain?
00:00:55
Speaker 2: Man? Like yo, you one of the illness because not only do you do the journalism thing, but then you all saw a bar nigga down too.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: Like a little bit like a little bit like fucking no fucking around it up, You're a bar nigga up too, man.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: I respect what you've been doing everything, man, in both fields.
00:01:12
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, thank you, love you come love, your grind you come up. Everything you've been doing, my g thank you man. But let's do it.
00:01:18
Speaker 2: Let's do this before MTV, before Genius, before the interviews. Everything you've been doing before that hip hop you the raps you've been doing.
00:01:27
Speaker 1: What made you fall in love with hip hop? It wasn't a choice. It was like it was all around. Like I felt like I was boring into it, right, Like I I remember, like you know, I'm an eighties baby, so it's right coming outside, actually seeing graffiti on the train, actually like going to block parties and park jams and seeing you know, the big boom box on the street and hearing the music and remembering the adults saying, oh, that ain't real music. This ain't gonna last. But I'm six years old going to school, you know, first grade, Lotti Dottie is out talk about it and Daddy and wrapping that in the school yard, Like you had to come to school and be able to get through the whole verse, and your man had to be able to keep the beat box going right like like you know, slip rip was my first goat before I knew where the goat was mine too, you know what I'm saying, fact storytelling, yea.
00:02:16
Speaker 2: Watching the videos, it was just like you can life like art depict in life.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, so when people say when you full love it as soon as I stepped outside, as soon as my my mom's let me go out the house, because it was all around us, you know what I'm saying, right, And I knew from an early age I wanted to be involved in hip hop. And then you know, I get old enough twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and I'm copping the source and I'm reading it and I'm like, oh, we actually get to document and tell these stories or come home and watch video music Box and get to see your favorite wrapping.
00:02:51
Speaker 2: Daniels man, the real first one in the middle of the trenches.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, documenting it man, Fab five, Freddie, Rolph McDaniel's like real pioneers. Like when I look at me as a somebody who documents the culture, I look at them, the Fab five Freddy's, the Ralph McDaniels, and then probably Angie Martinez and Sweat. My biggest niggas don't know.
00:03:11
Speaker 2: Fab five Freddy is a real g I'd have been in some black block meetings.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: With niggas like yo, were meeting up, they strapping up and he is like.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: Doing he was tapped in. What's the like, did you always know you wanted to be a journalist.
00:03:30
Speaker 1: Like nah, I didn't think it was a I think it was option anything, want no money in it, Like I always enjoy writing, And I think that's that's where the rapping part came from me. I'm twelve, thirteen years old, Penny going outside kicking my moms lunch room, kicking my moms open mics at the New Yorakan Poe Cafe, in clubs, I was probably too young to get into in front of fat beasts battling people, and that was the ship and all of that, But it's not from being the writer. And I always love to read and I love to write, but I never felt like I was like, I'm not gonna get the time, like the New York Times not gonna want me, Like I'm not gonna fit in at the New York Times. And I didn't think you could actually make a career writing and documenting hip hop like for the Source. It just hadn't occurred to me that that was a way to actually make money. If he's jamming and it kind of just happened. Like step by step, I started as a freelancer, you know, a dollar word writing album reviews. My first album review I ever wrote was for.
00:04:26
Speaker 2: Jada Kiss his second album, That's Crazy Man sut Jada Jadalls in New York. Yeah. Man.
00:04:33
Speaker 1: So so when I saw the check from that, you know, it was bigger than the check that I was getting from from doing little shows or whatever.
00:04:42
Speaker 2: So it just like like, hold on, I'm over here down right now.
00:04:46
Speaker 1: Who what next album you need me to talk about? Right? So, so, a little by little, I built up my freelance reputation and it led to a to a full time gig at Double XL. That's what I was in the game too.
00:04:58
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask you who gave you your real first job opportunity to cover hip hop professionally.
00:05:03
Speaker 1: A brother by name of Tim Hotap, who I grew up with. We went in to high school together, and he started working for Complex when Complex was a magazine still and we went to school together, so he knew I could write, and he knew I just knew a ship turn about hip hop. So he was like, man, I need you to write this Jada Kiss album review? Yo, could you go up to Young because my biggest problem was like, how the fuck am I gonna get the Young That's a fact. He was like, nah, and the Scope gonna send you a car to call, gonna wait for you to take you back.
00:05:32
Speaker 2: I say easy, and y'all gonna pay me word, Let's do it. So we went up the D Block studio. It was the second out to Kiss of Death. So Kiss is there. I remember Kiss. I remember Jen was there. You remember Gen from one on sixth in part.
00:05:45
Speaker 1: Gin was nice.
00:05:46
Speaker 2: Jin was nice and it was nice niggas tried to front on Gin and he a free stylus.
00:05:51
Speaker 1: That's my guy. He was signed the Rough Riders at that time. So I remember going to the studio. Kiss was there. He plays the album and I'm hearing songs like why for the first time, like the first time I or why I'm getting chills.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: I'm like this this is a crazy record.
00:06:06
Speaker 1: So so yeah, did that, wrote up the album review, they published it in Complex and and and they sent me a check. After that, boy magazine called was like, Yo, can you do this ghost face review? And the source call was like yo, we heard you, was the Yo, can you write for us? So I was free. I was working in the mail room in the city crazy. I tell you a funnier story, working in a place called Delia's. It's a course center, a mail room. A lot of underground New York rap immortal technique used to work there. Poisoned pain used to work damn. Back in the day. A Mil used to be our supervisor. Yo, she was real life. Mill was the customer service supervisor. It was a spot in New York. Like everybody in New York work. She definitely let your niggas do whatever because a Mil was the she was always chill. So A Mill used to work there, and then all of a sudden that she wasn't working it no more. It was like that, why I'm no a mail We turned on MTV. She with y'all. Yo. For me, that was some of the biggest motivation, just because it's like, Yo, she was just here and now she's there, and it showed, oh, this this is possible, like we could get into this game. Like her voice was ill.
00:07:19
Speaker 2: But yo, you're bringing up a mail break back some stories because it was supposed to be a group. If you remember, you know why Major Coins never got signed and it just was a mill because they couldn't dance and rap at the scene. You gotta figure out out. You gotta get some choreography. They had in the studio like, yo, were about to do this show. Let's see how y'all gonna do it. So they playing the music like yo, y'all gotta dance and ad live behind a male verse or can I get up?
00:07:50
Speaker 1: It was over front.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: They had to get them there. The choreography. That is the story of major Coins. That's that's why I just was a mill because she got it together.
00:08:03
Speaker 1: But but you know, I tell that story on some man give her her props just being a dude from Brooklyn, like you know, like like I'm from flat But so we had special ed.
00:08:14
Speaker 2: But it's not like I knew special Ed. I was a kid and whatever. But dog with a solid gold ball, nobody knew what I'm saying.
00:08:24
Speaker 1: So that was that was the first one though that it was like really close, that it was right there and you know, just start kicking in the door a little bit and seeing that this thing is possible. Motivation. Yeah, man.
00:08:33
Speaker 2: Then MTV News one of the places, you know, fans get to hear all the stories all that shit. You know what I mean, what made that era of music journalism so special for you?
00:08:43
Speaker 1: For me, it was that's when I went from a writer because I was in the magazine you might just see my name, you see my boto line. And I got to MTV to write. So it's digital. So so now the frequency instead of me writing in the magazine that comes out once a month, when the MT behind me, they said, yo, we want you to write. You gotta write four articles a day. Oh I was writing. It was just I was like the end of I could write in and put it out right in and putting it out seven joints to day. I'm about two weeks there. And I mean, sway shout out.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: One of the coolest, coolest DJs ever in the world.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Man just wanted one of the realist dudes. And he was like, yo, I like you. He was just like, yo, you you're gonna have a shot to be on camera like and and I think I think you could be like a personality in this game. Is that something you want? And I'm like, yeah, I tried. He was like, I just you know, stay closed, pay attention. Can't tell you when I can't tell you how, but you're gonna get a shot, and so the MTV the thing that made a specialist one. I'm working right beside the guy that I looked up to and this thing with Sway, and he's talking about he gonna give me a shot, And it changed my career. It took me from a right there to a personality to more of a known journalist. So it kind of just shed more light on me and I got to learn production and and and how cameras work and all of that. So on TV was a special time.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: Yo, Sway, the realists man, Sway Water, the beanie whatever he had he wore in the White House.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never saw him with listen, man, we don't. We don't been on trips side of town. We done. I never seen Sway without the crown man at the White House. But that's what's dope about hip hop, right, It's like, Yo, we could and I remember that that I wanted to go. But again I'm I'm I'm a little homie. So not everybody everybody shout out ben Ney the Butcher body. Everybody can't. But but Sway still called me that. Yo. Listen man, we're going to the White House like the night before. Yo, if you got a question let me know, let me know, shoot me the question and I working. So he asked one of my questions to the president. So I felt like we was both there right, but he still made me a part of it without being a part of it. And what that showed me though, is like, Yo, we could show up anywhere as authentic selves being a hip hop That's right, you know what I'm saying. I know you see it with with like whole in these ballrooms, like walking as whole.
00:11:13
Speaker 2: That's one thing he preached, man, you walking as yourself. You don't change for the room. You changed the room.
00:11:18
Speaker 1: So that that's what Sway showed me.
00:11:20
Speaker 2: But you interviewed everybody man from J Kendrake, Nas Drake, everybody. Is it one interview to you that you just stands out above all?
00:11:30
Speaker 1: Oh? Man? Probably my Kendrick interview twenty fifteen Kendrick to Pimp a Butterfly interview. Because we were just talking. I didn't even know that interview was good. Like when we walked out, people was like how they go. I was like, because it was just two dudes talk, I couldn't even gauge. I know I enjoyed the conversation. I ain't know how it's going to resonate and that that that's the interview that people still come up to me and they have like an emotional connection to it because we I mean, we were talking about music and to Pimper Butterfly, but we was talking about real shit like leaving the hood survivors guilt, right, like being able to tour the world and back home your peoples are still going through the same thing, and you want to take everything you learn about the world and give it to your people back home, but are they ready for the message and stuff. So it was a real deep conversation, in real life conversation, and that's the one that even though these years later, people still come up to me and was like, nah, like that was the one.
00:12:26
Speaker 2: And now Kendrick or everybody man like between j Drake, Kendrake, all them niggas is dominating and they feel respectively great at what they do. Man, Like you know what I mean, Like that Drake and Kendrick shit does shift the hip hop for me.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: You know, it's like the Godfather's scene when he's like, yo, man, it's like you need this every ten years. It clears the bad blood, Like you know, I think it's dope that because hip hop is competitive, right, and it's always been. I think it's dope that we see Drake being able to bounce back, be able to drop an album like Iceman, and it's like, oh, he ain't done, Like what happened happened, but.
00:13:05
Speaker 2: It's still hits to be mad exactly. So so you know, get back to the let's get back to the schedule.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: Program, right And look, I know, I know it was a lot more personal for them and they and they going through it, but but but I'm happy to see that they still get to him carry hip hop on. Drake still get to be Drake, Kendrick still get to be Kendrick. We saw something that entertained us. Like I said, I don't know how entertaining a wife it was going through it, but it is.
00:13:30
Speaker 2: Man, We've been in the middle of a war like that with nas, you know what I'm saying.
00:13:34
Speaker 1: And now and now you know, he came out on Yankee Stadium with a Darren Strawberry justice what I'm saying. So I don't think that'll happened, and I don't see that happening, But did you ever think that would happen in the in the midst of it, in the heat of it, did you ever think Jane Knives wouldever reconcile?
00:13:52
Speaker 2: Honestly, no, yeah, no, it was just as disrespectful as that. I believe so like, and I would have never I would have never thought, Ja'll be ad libbit for Knaves and knadser be ad libit for Jay and they'll be rhyming over each other beat and Yankee Stadium crazy. That's that's not even something you could draw up and be like, yeah, this is gonna happen one day. I picture it like Yankee Stadium was just so surreal for me in general, just because remember thirty years ago, reasonable doubt drop. Thirty three years ago, we was in a basement of Clark Kent House, rest in peace.
00:14:31
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
00:14:32
Speaker 2: And Jay ripped a piece of paper out of a notebook and gave it to me and said, as fast as you remember that papers, as fast as your life change, here we are as the results of life changing from that sheet of paper. It's like so standing there in Yankee Stadium, it hit me like last thirty years, everything we've been through, everything is just hit me like life flash, Like wow, that's important, man, because like hip hop is more than just all wins, right, Like like it is, it's the journey to me, Like I'm at the same way you. So you watching Yankee Stadium, but you remember Clark's Basement where it started. I'm watching this guy up there and watching y'all up there, and I'm a stretching by beat.
00:15:16
Speaker 1: Okay. I used to listen to we all did, like the Big L freestyle. I was listening live that night when it happened and going back to school the next day, Yoe, and and I'm like, I remember, I can't get with that, you know what I'm saying. I remember the original.
00:15:32
Speaker 2: With that in my life, shooting that video.
00:15:35
Speaker 1: On Marshie right, and so it's like, yo, from that to this. Even I asked Greul about this because even in one of the end of Louse, they was playing the Milk Won't Beat the beat that him a Big L rapped over, and I thought he was gonna come out and perform that. I said, Yankee Stadium, do these, but it was it was a dope nod to the jazz, is what I'm saying. So we could celebrate the wins, but you still got to celebrate where it started. You know what I'm saying all the time, you can never forget where it started.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: Never, man, because that's why I always feel like the journey make you enjoy the win even more like, because the journey it's worth it, man, at the end of the day's worth it all the nose, all the doors closed, all the U turns, all the We can't carry that album in this store all the when I'm riding on top of the Humma and myth Bleakers MTV. We can't show that do influencing kids. All of that matters to where we are today. Like I love it man, like it's just like you. Like it leads to my next question, like you spend years document and hip hop bro like making it Like what have artists taught you about the culture that fans rarely get to see?
00:16:48
Speaker 1: Hmm, that's a good question. That is more than just entertainment. And you know, look, I knew that because at the same time, though I document it and I'm known for documenting it, like I come from it. We come from the same. I'm from Flatbush, Brooklyn like me, and you know, VOP I grew up around the corner Germ around the corner too, grew up around the corner, like, so I'm from you know what I'm saying. I might have just went a different route than some of the people on my block, but but we're all doing it. So it's more than just entertainment. I think, especially now when this era of you know, social media, people feel like fans feel like they could say anything. A lot of people talk real crazy and feel like they could say anything. But these are people. Yes, these are entertainers, but these are people's real lives. And when I documented, you know, I strive to document the real Like where did this come from? What made you write that? What's the real story behind it? Yes, it's dope to us, but then nine nine, ten times, ten times came from pain. That's the fact. So let's not lose that fact. We ain't up here just singing and dance.
00:17:59
Speaker 2: So we got real story to tell, and we got to tell these stories the right way because you've seen I don't know, if you, Pete, all the work that we did at MTV. MTV took all their content offline, or all the articles that that I've written that Shah he ain't read, has written that that that all the interviews that Sway has done Jason Rodriguez like all, it don't exist online anymore.
00:18:21
Speaker 1: Way.
00:18:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that and look, I got interviews with with Nipsey Hustle.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: That's crazy, one hundred dollars mixed.
00:18:29
Speaker 2: Well guess what man, rest in Piece, Nips, Nip ain't here to tell the story no more.
00:18:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's crazy. I got interviews with Mac Miller, rest in Piece.
00:18:36
Speaker 2: And Piece mc miller. I got a song with mac Miller that we never got the job. I don't even have it. He told me about it. He told me about it. That was my dog for real, the god yeah.
00:18:47
Speaker 1: World, I'm so sick.
00:18:48
Speaker 2: I ain't get a copy. I'm gonna see if I'm I'm gonna reach out. I gonna se if I find if I could find it.
00:18:55
Speaker 1: But but you know, when you think about the ones who want here anymore, especially everybody, but the ones like nipp is not here to tell the story. But we documented the time in Nip's career, we documented the time in Macnella's career, and now it's offline. I get it. MCV is a business. For whatever reason, they took it offline. But when I'm documenting, I need these to live forever. I need the records to lift forever. These are records of history. This is not just entertainment. This is our life. This is our culture, man, So we got documented the right way. That's a fact. Man.
00:19:24
Speaker 2: Like, do you think hip hop does a good job at preserving its own history or we too quick to just move on to the next big thing.
00:19:33
Speaker 1: I think it's getting scary. I think we were really good at it. I think we had institutions, you know what I'm saying, Like, we had pillars and this be it people, be it, the Source, the Double Excels, the Angie Martinez is of the World, the Sways.
00:19:48
Speaker 2: All the legends. But but we we losing it now. I think it's just becoming now the topic of the day. I think there's a danger. I think there's a real danger in this moment if we don't take this ship seriously. Mm hmmm, how's the rest of the world gonna take us seriously? I think we shoot out our own a lot. It's almost like, but this is our culture. Been in the culture and how it's in media, right, but not And that's not in media has always been critical.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: And that's not to say we can't be critical, that we can each other. Yeah, man, but it's personal, bro, people and be like it's getting personal.
00:20:24
Speaker 2: Like I feel like like a lot of journalism has changed now.
00:20:29
Speaker 1: Like when I was.
00:20:30
Speaker 2: Coming up, you know, the number one target on the headline for US was Wendy Williams. Right, it knew Wendy. You get that Wendy Williams interview, You better go up there with your shield up, your face guard. You better be ready because she's coming out swinging Miss Jones starring buck Wow, fucking cosmic, cav fucking sometimes fleck sometimes enough them niggas even dropped that bomb, yo, so we heard, and you gotta be ready. And I just like a lot of people disagree with the academics, the Charleston White, the whack one hundreds.
00:21:07
Speaker 1: Me. I ain't gonna say I'm a fan and not a fan.
00:21:10
Speaker 2: I'm too busy, I don't tune in, but I know them as media personalities. I feel like that disruption is needed because everything can't be rosy, bro, we can't.
00:21:23
Speaker 1: Just be Somebody gotta come through them, like, man, y'all, nigga's bitch.
00:21:27
Speaker 2: Ask somebody gotta do it.
00:21:32
Speaker 1: And to me a lot, Wendy Williams is really a pioneer and that in that style, I think a lot of what we see today comes off of the Wendy Williams Tree of influence, right, and it's entertaining that one thing is listen. One thing. Absolutely, you have to ask the questions that the people want to know. Yes, you know what I'm saying, because because where we have to be loyal to the audience. So you gotta ask the questions that the people want to know. People have to be challenged, you cold criticized. For sure. I think there's an excessive tearing down going on, but the fact is it's also entertainment. And for me, you just need the balance. It can't be too much of one thing and not the other. To me, you need the balance this whole thing to work.
00:22:17
Speaker 2: I think the tearing down part truthfully comes from everybody say I'm one hunding, I keep it real, I'm the real list this. So now it's these guys job and media to be like, no, you not, you did this, we saw this, we have this information Mattervember back of the day. It's to be like call, oh, they're being the ear on the news. We getting in this live information breaking news coming in. They just said the senator did this.
00:22:47
Speaker 1: Now it was just and music.
00:22:49
Speaker 2: They can make it records like yeah, I'm the trap lord, and then here come whack one honey like this the PaperWorks.
00:22:57
Speaker 1: You told I got the big work for me. It got It got to be rooted in the truth, you know what I'm saying. The truth always gonna come to light. Fat you know what I'm saying. And you can't run a high for your truth. You could dip and dodge five years ten, it might be twenty years down the line. The thing that you did is always gonna come to light. So I have no problem with it as long as it's rooted in truth and and and and respect for the audience. You know what I'm saying.
00:23:21
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, it's no different than Wendy Williams because she was gunning. I never forget my first interview with her as soon as I sat down.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: So myphis bleek.
00:23:31
Speaker 2: They say, you fucking the in terms at Rockefeller's Like what like what am I supposed to say here?
00:23:37
Speaker 1: Like who told you that? It's like it might have been true to it. It's like, yo, hold more, check my two way. She got my sh tap like like but that's what I'm saying. So, I mean, I enjoy it. I think it's was ever a time I'm outside of that Wendy Williams sound, was ever a time for you when when you was under the tie, never.
00:24:00
Speaker 2: Felt like you had Nah, I never was under that because you know why, I think so, Bro, I think I dodged it because before social media, you was able to hide.
00:24:10
Speaker 1: Your personal life.
00:24:11
Speaker 2: You know, people only when they read the sorts, read the Vibe, read the double XL.
00:24:16
Speaker 1: Saw bt MTV. Then they saw you like they didn't really and they came to the meet and greet. That was it. They didn't know. Once all of that stopped, you could go home and be a farmer. No one knew.
00:24:27
Speaker 2: They ain't know if I had goats at the crib herding cows, like you know what I mean. So today, I feel like with social media and the fan bases that we carry and the responsibility, people want to see you talk about it. They want to see they want to go to that page and be like, oh this dude, say he be in the chateau, Show me pictures of you in the chateau. Don't just tell me about it, show me. And a lot of I feel like, that's why a lot of these people get attacked because they're not living their truth. It's all imitating to get a check. So and now it's the media job to point out the immitection.
00:25:04
Speaker 1: That's just do you think it? Do you think there's a line that's too far?
00:25:08
Speaker 2: I think so when it gets interjected into the beefs like wins, because you know, now these kids is in gangs. So when you inserting into different sets in different gangs and provoking one against the other or even just antagonizing one side against the other, then I feel like it's a responsibility us as adults we have for the youth, did not.
00:25:30
Speaker 1: Lead them that way. So you know, I'm a genius as well, and I'm probably telling and we have a show called Verified Yellow Background where you break down lyrics and you know, I'm not gonna say who out of respect, but there was these two drill artists from Brooklyn who do not live that far from each other, Like if you know Brooklyn, you know the streets, you like, it's like a ten block radius, and you know in New York ten blocks is nothing, and you know they was going at it on record. Mm hmm. But we also knew how we loo can get and one of them wanted to come to Genius to break down one of the disc records and as much traffic as that will bring in, as much as people wanted to see that, I'm like, yo, I can't let you do that. As a fact, you could come and break down the girls single, the song for the Girls, We're not gonna have you because then for a couple of reasons. For one is whatever you say is gonna spur something on now, then the next one, I want to come up. It's gonna open that door, and I don't want to be exhibit A in the court right when shit go down. Like so, man, if we could die this back, I'd rather help dial it back and pushing forward. I'm glad we haven't it.
00:26:39
Speaker 2: I'm glad you here that I have this conversation with, because I feel like if you're gonna put the responsibility on the media not to interject, antagonize, or provoke, then the artist is blatantly to admitting crimes over beats.
00:26:57
Speaker 1: It's insane. So like, you can't be that at me that you said you shot Ray Ray right. You got reporting on Ray Ray right. But but it do feel man, I see I see some of these channels, and yes, but we also speaking cold right. First of all, a lot of the code is detective.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: These niggas that secret the coder is it was writing there, niggas that rode all over.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: We see what you're doing hundred percent facts and the responsibilities on the artists. But there's some of these channels. There's some of these that I know. They don't come from the culture. I know that, and when I talk about come from the culture. Also have to deal with the circumstances when somebody gets when you got to bury somebody, or deal with the circumstances of the get back, but deal with the circumstances of a brother or a son or a cousin doing life in jail. But sit from the comfort of your on YouTube at the remote location playing who done it? And ultimately it's on the artist. But there's a point of of of of of watching that that don't sit right with me. It feel like voyeurism. It feel like the people who go to the safari and you safe enough in your cart on the safari to watch the lines and watch everybody do what they do, but you don't got to deal with none of the circumstances and none of the danger of that shit, and that shit was me the wrong way. But they not out the window with sticks poking the animals.
00:28:22
Speaker 2: At the safari some of them too, you be seeing them brady ass kids, like don't be animal, you know, gummy.
00:28:27
Speaker 1: Bears at the shit. It's just look and maybe I'm wrong, right, and I'm happy to be wrong, But there's a part of that that don't sit right with me, Like, like again, I do feel a responsibility not to protect nobody or not to save nobody, but it's real circumstances that come with this shit. And me as somebody who is you know, about to be forty seven years old, Like I know better, so I got to do better. Hey man, yeah, hey, don't hey, don't break down that song break down the other one, the one you wrote a your girl break down that one. You can say that one. You actually should have kept that one in the studio. But because it's different too, it's not it's not Carus versus Shan anymore. Yo. But it was drama back then.
00:29:12
Speaker 2: They was running in the club taking niggas, Mike's kicking them off the stage, and Yo, I heard I don't know as a shorty you read in the magazine Share had a show care rests.
00:29:22
Speaker 1: One of them bum rushed the show.
00:29:24
Speaker 2: Threw him and his DJ off the stage, flipped them up, took the mic and continued the show.
00:29:31
Speaker 1: Now it's ka res one show that where I'm from, that's called smoke. I didn't hear that one about Shan, but he had that reputation.
00:29:42
Speaker 2: I remember, say you have a reputation. He did it with PM done. How bad mc shann don't come get at me, know your o g legend, I got no respect? Has shit fucked up? But I knew it was somebody said off the stage, took the mic and took over the ship.
00:30:02
Speaker 1: Today PM done when it came and shot the whole club up. Yeah, it's just it's it's a different time though, man. Like like back then you might just had to like knuckle down, that's it, Like you just had to shoot. It might not even be shoot the fair one like you might get jumped, you know what I'm saying. But that that not that we wasn't getting shot and killed back then. But it's just way different now.
00:30:24
Speaker 2: Bro. It's because these kids is in real crimes, bro, real crime you cannot, like I cannot get on this platform and literally identify somebody in Marcy committing a crime, did a crime, or I know about a crime, or I did something to them purposely, like yeah, yeah, Ray, you know when I seen you, we slapped you on Murder Avenue last week. What you think when he see this interview? He looking for me now, so you can't be shot when he clipped me.
00:30:55
Speaker 1: God voted.
00:30:58
Speaker 2: So that's the thing in music life streaks everything. I feel like we sit there in the tank by the bullshit and then be shocked when the ring happened.
00:31:11
Speaker 1: What you thought was the end of this movie. Yeah, now you're right, You're right. I just I just feel a way when it's not us. We shouldn't be perpetual in neither, but especially when it's not us out there perpetuating the ship. I feel the way I'm looking at you because I'm like, what's your investment in this ship? You know what I'm saying that you're taking a whole lot of people down with your commentary. Who did you ever lift up? You know what I'm saying. It's give and tape. You know what I'm saying. You gotta I feel like for shit.
00:31:40
Speaker 2: For every bad deed I ever did, it's forty good ones that could replace that one.
00:31:44
Speaker 1: So and you hope at the end that it means that got roll over that.
00:31:49
Speaker 2: It's like, do you think because you're an artist and a journalist, that's what keeps the balance between both for you a little bit?
00:31:57
Speaker 1: I remember when I was I was at Double Excel shout the day, twe Thomas, that's my gosh, my guy man. He was an editor in chief at the time, and I was working at Double XL. But I was also pointing out music on the blows like now right to no boys, and all I would do I not right, love everybody, low key on smash all of that, and what I would do when I would take rap of pictures, I just take on my glasses. Was like Superman. And for years nobody noticed. But I worked in the magazine, so not a lot of people know my face. So one day they called me into his office, he the editor in chief, and he turned his computer around.
00:32:34
Speaker 2: I thought I was in trouble. He said, he said, this is you and it was me on that right yo, chill And I said yeah. He was like, yo, this ship is dope. I ain't gonna front you get busy, thank you, thank you.
00:32:52
Speaker 1: But but he had told me, he said, that's it, he said, he said, that's why you're able to ask the right questions. That's why disrespected even if they don't know it. He was like, at least, he was like, you're not as big as the artist that you interview, but you know what it's like to go into that studio when an I did. That's right, something tangible. You know what it's like to put like your feeling or your life on the record. He said, that's why artists fuck with you. That's right. And I had never thought about it like that before. But he was like, you relate maybe better than the friend as somebody who's never been through it before.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: Of course, man, it's like the guy who becomes the lawyer who once was the drug that he knows what it is, he gonna fight the hardest for you.
00:33:29
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
00:33:30
Speaker 2: Anybody that changed their life for around, that been through the storm knows what it is, no matter what good or bad. Then if you know the ins and out, you're gonna respect the craft and respect the role.
00:33:43
Speaker 1: And that's why Genius was such a perfect fit when I moved over to Genius at that point in my career, because it was like lyrics like like like yo, somebody took a time time to write yo, let's not gloss over that line like yo, that's a double yo, that's a triple. No, that just don't mean one thing. Hold on, let's start right there. We're not just gonna breeze past that because because you know what it takes.
00:34:08
Speaker 2: That's what I was about to say, Like you got that over had juniors say, I got the what is that the Sprite's Living track?
00:34:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
00:34:15
Speaker 2: The cultural authority Pane fifty songs, Shape and hip Hop talk about that. That that was big for me because to do that campaign with Sprite again, it's just participating in it, right, like I remember coming up and again right we from that everywhere they was like, yo, hip hop's.
00:34:33
Speaker 1: Not gonna last. It's just a fast You couldn't get a brand sponsorship, but I remember not Sprite, but I really had full logo. But if you remember the Sprite back in the day, like Canning play had one, Heavy d had one, didn't pray, couldn't play was the they had the movies my favorite SPIKEE commercial coming up. I don't know even remember this one was it was Nas and Ez on the Stoop and they recreated the scene from Wild Style. I remember the Double Trouble, his little story that must be told about two and I was like, so, I'm like, oh, they get it. And now to be at this point in my career, like participating in a Sprike campaign with Genius with Angie Martinez on the panel to discuss like fifty like legendary hip hop songs and lifted up like like so so and it's hits like Juicy is on the list. I to talk about Juicy, you gotta talk about pop California love. That's a fact. But we also on the list is most definite quality black Star you know, one, two, three, most definitile lib quality. So it runs the gamut mos def is just fucking dope broke. Everybody know that. Brooklynn, Yeah, Queen Land for you, And I t why like like like that was so ill of a record because that did so much for women and hip hop. That wasn't a woman walking in like hey, hey, don't call me a bit. No, she came who you calling a bit?
00:35:58
Speaker 2: Right? Like?
00:35:59
Speaker 1: And you had and she had that look like you I punched them dead in his eyes like So, so these are records and I can't tell you where that landed on Billboard. I can't tell you if that's double platinum, triple.
00:36:13
Speaker 2: Platinum down you just treating platinum in our house. I know what it did, you know what I'm saying.
00:36:18
Speaker 1: So, so we had that type of conversation on the panel and with Sprite and and you know, with Genius, and I was just like glad to be a part of it. It's like a feather in my cap for my career. That's dope.
00:36:29
Speaker 2: And looking at hand where you see Genius continuing to grow both as a media company and the culture institution.
00:36:38
Speaker 1: There's something new coming for the company. You know. Look, I think it's about to We want to help all this navigate their careers and and and and their creative process. It's a lot being said about AI right now and how it's using the music, but you know, ultimately just go back to the Genius thing. It's it's not on us. It's not it's not Genius's place to define that right now. Again, the artists and the audience to find that. But but right now we're looking at building tools to help artists with their careers, not to help them create, but to heal with their career and enhance their careers. And and because it takes a lot to be an artist. It's not just the studio. It's not just writing, like and recording. It's it's you got to make sure your business is right. You got to make sure your team is on point. You got to make sure it's a lot that going independent now, right, like the rollout, Like.
00:37:36
Speaker 2: As a kid, that's so weird that I'm glad you say that because as a kid, when Rockefeller first started, it was just writing.
00:37:43
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Rockefeller ended that it.
00:37:47
Speaker 2: Was like, oh shit, I gotta go talk to him, talk to them, meet with her drawdis playing up. Before it was just go to the studio, call guru or Pat Villa, Brian Stanley, one of the engineers that was on deck record, Bobby Dash, come in there, take that record.
00:38:06
Speaker 1: And we just had a team. You got a squad. Like but when you when you right, you started the warehouse, oh ship and that now now you gotta be Google. You gotta be Bobby Dash. You gotta be Oh, you gotta be you know when I shot at warehouse.
00:38:23
Speaker 2: I called Jay and told them because I found out what it was the package to roll out of record to radio and in that promotion, paying the person of the promoted the rep, all of that all wrapped up in the nice bowl. It was a nice price tag. And I was like, this is how much you cost to put a record out and they like, yeah, that's today. Back in the day, it was double that. Wow, my nigga. I had the call hole like, yo, bro, you used to spend this to put like even on records that didn't work.
00:38:55
Speaker 1: It was like yeah. It was like, nigga, you better than me because I'd have never did that.
00:39:01
Speaker 2: I love you for betting on me like that, nigga, because I don't think I gotta bet on myself a hundred rags. I got the money. We're talking about make more. We're good, We're gonna vest this is something we did. Like music ain't guaranteed. Bro. You can sit there all you want and think in your mind this is it. And you mean to tell me were gonna bet a hundo on on the maybe, Nah, I need something more short than that fuck that they about to put me. When Marf the Stewart with because I need the inside trading numbers.
00:39:36
Speaker 1: But you came out, but you made it way. Look I don't know, I ain't in your pocket. I don't know what the number was. But but y'all, y'all, y'all made an impact.
00:39:43
Speaker 2: No, definitely, but just to even take that gamble, Like, that's why I feel like certain artists when they get that deal, they think they made it, and it's like, bro, the journey just begins now, and it's like, you got somebody to invest in your dream. Remember we picked this pin up. It's a dream of hours. Somebody willing to fun your dream. Put you in the studio, get you a crib, fly you to anywhere you want to go, get you any feature, and you go home and take that for granted and just turn lazy. It's insane to me. Ninety percent of artists who don't make it is not the label for you know that, right, because like, what do the label do after giving you the money? It's the work ethic. Man.
00:40:23
Speaker 1: Everybody can't go. Everybody can't like it ain't for everybody because because you even look and sometimes it's like how many whack rappers, like it's not just talent? How many talent ain't just it. There's some guys yo because I'm nice, because I don't ball you up like everything's just supposed to muscle beats talent when talent don't all the time, and we see it all the time, and we see whack rappers like but I'll put out a hundred mixtapes and one of these is gonna connect, right, So all you need is one. That's what it's like.
00:40:57
Speaker 2: It's like being a criminal in the cop. Thin criminal got to be right all the time. The cop only got to be right once.
00:41:03
Speaker 1: That's it.
00:41:04
Speaker 2: So, and I wanted to ask you we was talking about this off camera, how you feel about hip hop artists like myself going into journalism. G Are we fucking up the craft or we paying homage? I look at it like boxing now, I look at it like boxing.
00:41:21
Speaker 1: I look at it like.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: I fuck with Max Kellerman. Max Max is on his ship. He honest the ship word up.
00:41:32
Speaker 1: But there's only there's certain things that only Lennox Lewis could tell you say in Ringside, or Roy Jones could tell you when they're commentating. So from that perspective, you know what I'm saying. Rappers as journalists now as commentators, as storytellers. It's like boxing. It's like yo, man, yeah, man, Like I fuck with Max, but I want to hear from Lenox Lewis too, And so I think it's space. What it did, honestly, was it forced me to to adapt. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, does it take.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: Away opportunities because you think about it, ain't a whole lot of journalists with podcast deals anymore.
00:42:09
Speaker 1: It's all former rappers or former athletes, right that. That's just a fact, Like, you know, the people with the money to invest in y'all want to invest in your They're not necessarily coming to a me or to an Elliott Wilson at this point, or who shout to be that like like they were like it was when we were just the only game in town. So but you don't complain, you adjust. That's just the playing field just changed. Well, guess what, You're going to have to do a whole lot more to get me out of here. I mean, I just gotta work harder, I gotta work smarter, I gotta change my approach. I started my own podcast that I shoot, it's just me, you know what I'm saying. It's just not a podcast. It's just my thoughts and it's me in the room and not just go. And I film it myself and I edited myself. And while because while I might not be able to have the budget for the production myself, I was like, Yo, I could do premiere pro. I got that camera and I'm just gonna do this ship to depth so we get big. You look at somebody like Joe Budden, look at his set now and look at the set when he first started. He ain't ended up where he started at. And that's what I love that.
00:43:13
Speaker 2: I love you broke him up because that's one thing I hate about our culture that people like to look at the end result and want to mimic you. It's like, Joe been doing this ship for the last twenty years, started on my Space, doing alive with his family.
00:43:31
Speaker 1: It's insane.
00:43:31
Speaker 2: And now you look at where he at now, everybody thinks they they could do it. He deserved to be where he at because he worked for it and earned it.
00:43:39
Speaker 1: You can't do that, fam chill out. Even even Nori Man and I remember when nor recalled me before he started drinking. Shout the EFN shout out drink. Champ's whole staff my dog. I used to interview Nori at MTV and he used to He didn't he didn't even need a project out. Norwy just knew how to go viral. Nor knew nor He would say the right thing. And I don't even think he was trying. It was just Nod being Nord and his his interviews was always entertaining. And and then when he came back around said yo, I think'm gonna start a podcast. Where did you think? And he told me to drink Champs. I did. I said, yo, I thought that'd be a fucking great idea. Ship. I remember we said this. He's not gonna mind me saying this, but first couple of episodes he'd be like, yo, like Jezu is coming, Yo, Yo, can you send me questions? I would send him questions.
00:44:26
Speaker 2: So this one that would come in because he even put it on Twitter. Yo, I got yo, what y'all wanted to ask up right? Like yo, my may and you cheating man?
00:44:35
Speaker 1: And so I would absolutely one because Nori is my man and I want to see him win. I remember one time I interview Hold on Twitter spaces and Norri was the first one to call me after, like, bro, how did you do that? I can't interview like like you like, how do you navigate that? And I'm like, yo, that's just what I do. Like I could give you some of the science, but you're brilliant and what you I can't do what you do because at the same time he had Nas is a tough interview. I've interviewed Nas before. Nas is like, if Nas ain't super comfortable with you, he'll give you the interview. But he not like just he not just gonna give you information. I've been there for the sake of giving it.
00:45:14
Speaker 2: I've been there, like and it's been interviews doing this that I felt like some of them were fun and I feel like, yeah, I enjoyed that interview or this was dope.
00:45:23
Speaker 1: But it's been a couple of the way I've been like, damn, man, that the fuck. I don't want to do those no more. But but it's some times it's like unlocking the call so and there's no disrespect. That's just NAS's personality. But I remember watching Nas do a drink Champs interview with Nori and maybe the look of help. But he's comfortable with Noory because that's his man. It's one of the best NAS interviews I've ever seen. So I had told Nori the same way, maybe I could interview a whole one Twitter spaces. I can't interview now. I've tried to interview NAS and none of them has been as great as what you just what you did, So it's the lame for everybody, man, And I'm just with people who trying to if there's a lot of people coming in here who try.
00:46:01
Speaker 2: To bullshit with it any days about the money, say the dollar sign, that's like, that's one thing.
00:46:07
Speaker 1: When I got into the space, bro, I was.
00:46:09
Speaker 2: I told Nori one, I'm not going to be tearing down the very people I call my brothers in culture.
00:46:15
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna tear down the one thing that pay me, hip hop. So I'm not here to destroy hip hop.
00:46:21
Speaker 2: I'm not here to spare the the smear campaigns again into my pears, Yo, dirt, who we slept with? Who is if I can't just be a fan of the art and the people I'm interviewing, I don't want to do this shit, bro, And he was like, now, trust me, people just want to hear you.
00:46:39
Speaker 1: And I'm glad.
00:46:42
Speaker 2: He convinced me to do this shit because I didn't want to do it because now I enjoy it.
00:46:46
Speaker 1: I love it.
00:46:46
Speaker 2: I get to hear your story, where you started from where before it's you acting my story.
00:46:52
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You know how dope I felt sitting here interviewing Clue.
00:46:56
Speaker 2: Enough.
00:46:56
Speaker 1: These is niggas who interview me when I was as shorty. So now it's like, nigga, tell me what you used to do growing Now it's real. And then plus your perspective again, Like I mean, we talked about my perspective of just knowing how to pen, how to how to put shit out. But you you, you, you got plaques on the wall, you like world towards that, and the relationships you got is different. So it's like, you know, like you and in the first couple of episodes like seeing You and Guru, so like you know the right things that you know how to lite. You weren't just blaze like you and Clue like you was in it. So it's just a different perspective. You You you have questions that I wouldn't even think to ask because it's the details.
00:47:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've been we've been in the trenches. But looking back over your career, what are you most proud of contributing to.
00:47:40
Speaker 1: This hip hop game. Man. Wow, I think the thing I'm most proud of is just one being able to feed my family and and and and and and raise my kids and and to show my kids that you could live your dream. Man. When I when I was, you know, twelve years old, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I want to be involved in hip hops sort of way. And I've been able to make a good living and raise a family. So just to show my kids, like yo, that thing that you love, you just gotta do it to death and it's gonna work out. But other than that, it's man just being able to contribute, like I'm I'm I'm. I'm grateful for everything that I've earned, paid my bills and got a crib and shit is cool put food on the table. But I'm also proud of of not what I've made, but what I give it back, like being able to shine light on certain artists, you know, and some of the biggest artists today, like like I remember when Kendrick first started, when Wiz first started, when Cole first started, when nit when when you can name them? And I remember there was certain artists I used to bring up the MTV and and the older people have been in the MTV, but like why you're bringing this and they turned out to be the next superstars. So it feels dope to to give just light to the coach, help people grow, you know, and especially those who aren't like a Fred the gods. When we put Fred one so nice to death punchline you to your dad putting him on the double X self Freshman cover. But me being the one to make the call, yo, yo Fred, like ready, you know what I'm saying. Or to be able to call them Mickey Fax and put him on the cover, or you know, I put the call into J Cole like Yo Cole and you know what I'm saying, like cover like that. So and just to see you know, all this grow would kind of you know, become who they meant to become. I'm not taking credit for it by no way. That that that's that's their talent. That's they hustled as god or to be like damn like like we was there and and whatever light you had you was willing to shine and use it like that should mean a lot.
00:49:53
Speaker 2: Means everything, man, trust me. So when people think about Rob Markman years from now? Man, what you want them to say? What do you want them to say about the man, the rapper, the artist, the journalist, just everything. What's the last words you want people to think about you?
00:50:09
Speaker 1: That he cared about us, That he cared about us the week that that he gave a ship, that it wasn't just a lit and he cared about this hip hop ship and he contributed in a positive way.
00:50:23
Speaker 2: Because because I agree, I never heard you in no bullshit spare campaigns.
00:50:27
Speaker 1: You be just telling it like it is, and I try not to be this. I also feel like I could tell the truth and not be just because my other thing is and I'm not the toughest guy, but I mean, you guysk anybody who grew up with me, I won't. I'm not running from nothing. That's a fact.
00:50:41
Speaker 2: Like we gotta be tough to I tell people, you don't have to be scared to get fucked up.
00:50:47
Speaker 1: I'm not scared.
00:50:48
Speaker 2: Okay, you can still get willing to fight and you don't have to be tough to fuck somebody up.
00:50:54
Speaker 1: Like it goes both ways. But so my thing, and what I learned about myself earlier is love it. You're never gonna say I ran that's right, and so whatever whatever I say, I gotta stand on it. Now. I could say, I could criticize, and I could say the truth. I don't got to be disrespectful about it. I won't. You're not gonna see me say anything on those cameras that I won't say to your face because now, hey, yo, Bob. I remember in two thousand and six when you was at MTV and you was on that high and some ced round table. It might have been some shit I forgot about, and you said, you know that the bleak album man, and you said this that what's up with that?
00:51:36
Speaker 2: You know?
00:51:36
Speaker 1: You don't want to say now. I don't want to say it now. I gotta be able to stand on it and say the exact same thing, you know. And I've had run ins with with with certain rappers. They ain't like a review or Yo, you wrote this and you wrote that, It's like yeah, and be there and be like that. I'm glad I never took this rap. I definitely, and it's never been it's never been all the casees, but people had to respect. People say yo, but you wrote this, and I was like, yeah, because that's what it is, and at the end of the day, they'd be like, yo, I don't agree with you, but yeah, you got it.
00:52:07
Speaker 2: In his opinion, if you could leave the next journal the next generation of journalists, with any piece of advice of moving the culture forward, of just believing in theyself, even if they just want to get started in the game, right, what would it be.
00:52:25
Speaker 1: For any journalists? First of all, it's saturated now. You got Elon on Twitter on X he done said he's selling you blue checks, and he said journalism is dead. You all are the journalists. Everybody's a journalist now. Elon said this. So what I'm saying is the game is wide open, right, and I think what you need to do is study the chess board, find the thing that you love, and then the niche, the niche where you fit in. Everybody's doing this, everybody's doing that. Where can you fit in and where can you build an audience? Study the chess board, find that niche, find that thing that you love, and respect your audience. You know what I'm saying. Appreciate you pulling up, keep doing your thing. Man.
00:53:06
Speaker 2: You know what it is when it comes down to this journalism game. You put respect on guys like this man who paving the way for the new generation.
00:53:13
Speaker 1: Man. You know what it is.
00:53:15
Speaker 2: If you want to hear real stories, real life deeps into the music, real life breakdowns on what lyricis is and what they're talking about. This is where to go if you want that bullshit continue to be where you at. Rob is the one man in the future.
00:53:30
Speaker 1: You know what it is? This rock solid, blizzety solid. Let's go. Yeah.
00:53:37
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows at and you can follow me on any social media platform under the name Memphis Bleak.
00:53:49
Speaker 1: You see anybody fraud in, flag them,
