it's been a minute it's really nice to see you bro you too man look at those beautiful bricks behind you look at the foundation of music that's stacked up behind you look at those cassettes i'm so jealous are you kidding i've been online trying to find cassettes you know
how hard it is even to find well yes you do because you have a collection it's really challenging to find cassettes now and it's something that like about six or six to nine months ago i just was like i don't know i really want that sound that feeling how long have you
been collecting well i just started again it took me about three years to get what i got right now because some tapes are just harder harder to find than others you're a collector you're preserving these things absolutely because when i was a kid um i didn't have money to buy every tape i
ever wanted you know what i'm saying so usually what we had to do was go to this place called record time and i would take the tape that came out a couple of weeks ago traded in for the new tape you know whatever else was was out me and my friends would
take we would we would take turns buying the tape and be like it's your turn to buy this tape and i get to dub it and then it'll be my turn to buy the next tape you would dub some it'd be like the air would be like and you'd hear the air more than the
tape you have to turn it all the way up and then all you hear is the base from it yeah that's what's up what's the one that springs to mind when you were at that point in your life when you didn't have two pennies to rub together and you got that tape what was the one that you were like
this is the one i've been waiting for this is the most exciting thing i've pressed play on ever i mean i can't even gauge that i i i can't even gauge that because backing up to what i remember like my earliest memories of of hip-hop would be for sure iced tea reckless and
then i saw the movie breaking my uncle ronnie actually um brought the tape over the breaking tape and i didn't even i don't even think i knew at the time i was like 10 or 11 and i don't even think i knew at the time that there was even a movie called breaking so he put me up on a lot of and that was
one of the first rap songs i remember hearing and then i went and watched the movie and then i just i was all in this is my friend ll over here somebody some of you know him as ella cool j i know yeah what did he say on the poster they said to marshall salute you can do anything
you put your mind to that's wow that's ll cool j quoting one of my lyrics wow that's crazy that's crazy over here yeah yeah greatest group of all time man i absolutely i absolutely agree and you know i was thinking about i was listening in the gym yesterday
to to um tougher than leather and the way their voices meshed i don't i you'll never hear that again i wait i'll give you another one beastie boys these voices was like the right though the white run dmc their voices all of their voices meshed together so well like i don't but run dmc bro
the way they would interchange and just go like say one line like i've never heard a group like that and then j master j would come in and somehow even with the energy of dmc and run the dj comes in and his scratches are as powerful and as exciting as they are on the mic
no one's ever scratched with that level of intensity and it's just crazy i'll never forget where i was when i saw the king of rock video i was at my aunt edna's house and i was i sleep in the living room sometimes with the tv on i remember i was about to go to sleep
and i don't even know what channel i was watching and that came on when they were walking up to the rock and roll hall of fame like what what what oh that's run dmc i had never seen a video i knew who runningmc was but i had never seen the actual video from them
i was probably i don't know 11 or 12 maybe yeah yeah come on man who who the was cooler than run dmc nobody who was cooler nobody the golden era of hip-hop was the best errands for me because it was so new you'd never heard it before i saw and heard a lot of people say that
it wasn't gonna be anything you know what i'm saying like it wasn't gonna last or whatever you know here we are what 40 50 years later yeah yeah it's crazy and it's the biggest music if i'm not mistaken it's the biggest genre arabian rock kim for me that moment when i ain't no joke came out
that moment for me was like oh because it sounded so rough it sounded like the mix was so disgusting yeah man around that time when rakim first came out i remember i was at my uh grandma nan's house and i used to we all we really had here in detroit was the wizard and the wizard
was on wjlb and uh the wizard every night from like midnight to whatever time would play hip-hop and it'd all be that i never heard kumo d go see the doctor like all kinds of so what i would do is record the radio and then wake up the next day for school
and listen to what i had and the only bad thing about that was you'd hear one verse from somebody and then another verse would come in from a totally different song which you know so a lot of times it'd be like i know this first verse by heart but i don't know the rest of the song by
heart because you know that's all i got rock him though the god mc the god mc one of the greatest things about rock him to me was he would use words that you've you've heard you've heard this word rhyme before but it would it'd almost be like like i don't just use an
example i know he didn't say this but like if it was you know girl and world and then all of a sudden rock him you'd expect him to rhyme that and he's rhyming plural and rural you know what i'm saying so it was like different like he's like okay these words haven't
really been rhymed yet and he was the first like i take seven mcs put them in a line and add seven more brothers who think they can rhyme well it'll take seven more before i go for mine and that's 21 21mm back at the same time easy does it do it easy that's what i'm doing no fessing no messing around
yo the inside rhyme schemes all that man yeah i feel like microphone fiend though i feel like when i heard microphone no microphone feed and lyrics of fury when i heard lyrics of you yeah there's a line i want to find on lyrics or fury is only one capable breaks the
unbreakable melody's unmakeable pattern unescapable horn if you want the style i possess i blessed the child the earth the gods embalmed the rest by the way i think rakim probably is still great i haven't heard anything he's working on lately but i guarantee you when he ain't lost
that because it just that that kind of don't go away that it just doesn't do you notice the list when they come out sporadically and it's great it's great for fans to dive into that debate because it's it's energy and it's debate and it's good and you're always on the list
do you read the list when it gets goes viral and it's like all right top 20 rappers of all time and the whole thing sort of becomes it sucks the air out of the room do you do do you sort of log on and check that stuff out when it's happening like i don't i don't know if i it's fair
to say i don't really get into those lists like i don't really like it doesn't really matter to me um i know for for a fact how i feel i rap to be the best rapper but i'm not the only rapper who raps to be the best rapper wayne cole kendrick you know what i'm
saying like joining lucas they they rap to be the best rapper and i feel like that's you know when you push yourself like that that's what i feel like inspires greatness yeah but but the list man sometimes you almost have to go by era well let's talk about nas for a
second because half time's on the list and that's that's obviously for fans that's on that's on matic five mike classic yeah that that's a real fans cut as well like when the debut album came out halftime had been out it was actually already in existence people knew about it but he included it
on the final track listing which is something because that chat listing is what 10 songs in 36 minutes it's so so reduced and so essential why did you choose half time and as someone who kind of i guess grew up being a fan and asked before you were a contemporary of nasa's
what is it about him that that you loved as a fan before you got to know him as the artist there's too many moments that he had for me to even be able to to count him one of the reasons that i picked half time though was because there's some rhyme schemes on there that
most rappers to this day probably can't do and that's one of the things that has made nas so great over his career like like when he uh cause when i'm blasting her that's my word i'll be slaying him fast doing this that in the third but chill past the entree and let's lay i back
up at john jay and hit a matinee he was rhyming entire sentence and i'm like what the f is this you know what i'm saying like yo illmatic i can't even i mean you know everybody knows that that is a classic essential album yeah i don't know where you i don't know
where you place that in hip-hop but it's got to be at the top i think that i've been inspired by so many rappers it taught me different flow patterns different schemes you could do and then when you start finding your own that you feel like haven't been done yet
that's that's that's when it becomes fun by the way pete davidson did a good job man you you got it he flipped that yeah man yeah i remember they they they sent me the lyrics to it and i was reading them on paper and i was like oh i don't know if this is going to be
that good and then the weight when he said it like i was like holy like he said it so good that he sold every single thing and you can't you can't first of all everybody's raps look terrible on paper right because you don't necessarily know unless you're a rapper yourself you don't necessarily know
where even if you are you don't know where they're gonna hit the beat at what pocket they're gonna choose yeah and he was in an ill pocket like he he was like he was kind of going like and he'd go a little faster and then he kind of slowed down like so you could catch what he just
said and he had your intensity as well i love that you were looking at through your fingers just like the rest of us were because it's like that song is is it's become this iconic moment for you but it's it's like millions and millions and millions and
millions and millions and millions of people love their song and so when you're going to bring it into a comedy environment it's such a powerful story you're like oh no just pete no what are you doing but he kept your intensity that's the thing yeah he he his delivery was for sure
really on point because it was uh it was not what i expected when i saw it i was like man this is this is actually really good the whole thing was great they put something to you that wall behind you right that's an exercise of manifestation like every one of those cassettes that
you wanted to own that you knew you already loved but you didn't have the money to own them that just continued to feed your ambition and your desire to to make your voice heard right to add value to be a part of it to be a part of it and then you go through that list and you've met a lot
of people on that wall now that we're in fan mode and it's just you and me talking as fans of music do you have moments where just privately just blows your mind like i know how proud you are of that alicor j poster it just blows your mind that you've met
so many people on that wall of tapes behind you that you were just a fan of you know yeah i mean ll like i met him at a foot locker what yeah when i was doing my my shopping for the first for the album cover for the first album cover the slim shady lp yeah and he was just standing in there
by himself right and he walks up to uh this woman that uh worked for dre at the time and they knew each other so they were like hey what up and i'm i'm standing i don't even know what to do you know what i'm saying like i'm like how do i not like how do i not play myself in front of
one of my favorite rappers of all time how do i i got to figure this out and he quoted one of my lyrics to i forgot what song it was oh he said how can i be how how can i be white i don't even exist wow and i was like what the f so dre had played him that but i just
like it blew my mind like that was the actually i think trench is actually the first rapper that i ever met like famous rapper in person and he's one of your absolute favorites right like he's like i know he's in the top three for you oh he's up there whatever he's
definitely he yeah he has to be up there like he he he taught me so many things like different flow patterns he he was so unorthodox with the flow and always had the punch lines i heard the tape and flick i always say i heard your taper flip the neck side looking for the death side
you couldn't be all right if i erased your left side like he had the punch lines man so so i'm in vegas i'm in vegas at this time and hadn't like nothing was popping with me and dre yet we actually went out there because the slim shady ep we had some uh a dude who wanted to buy 3 000 of
them so we were like what them let's go out to vegas we end up in this flea market there's people selling clothes like that and there's a naughty by nature booth and tretch is standing there trench standing there selling his own i'm like what the so i walked up to him i was nobody
you know what i'm saying and asked him if i could get a picture told him what a fan i was i bet you he probably don't even remember that but i think i was in a yellow jumpsuit where i looked like a banana that dre always that dre always makes fun of but i it was a clothing company that was
just starting out and they knew i was just starting out and they gave me an outfit they gave me a sweatsuit man i got to watch those endorsements seven days you gotta you're doing a valuable lesson that day you gotta watch those endorsements they'll get you
yeah man but uh nah he was just so cool like he was just so cool to me and it just i always remember that like man i wonder i can't even remember what i said to him because i was just super nervous and and just took the picture but i don't know if i got a chance to tell him what
a fan i was or am still you know what i'm saying like so i don't remember what i said to him but probably with some dumb finish it with one more let's do one more how about apache i don't know if you remember the song with uh lockheed shabazz that's another underrated mc
lockheed shabazz yeah so one two three one mother two three he yeah apache was like tell me is this some type of tournament i'll cut your head off and use it as a crispy tree ornament come and give me your test whoever claims to be the best leaves with a 40 below footprint on the
chest lock him shabazz uh apache and then trench comes in at the end and kills it man flavor unit were the truth man they had so much talent in their ranks at that moment of time they ran the game latifa had just assembled this vulture on this avengers of rappers it was crazy yeah man latifah
was one of the first like to me beast a beast on the mic yeah that would probably describe it back then it was it was not that many females that wrapped salt and pepper was great roxanne shantae mc light roxanne chante we have that here i probably have pretty
much every tape you can think of oh here's real roxanne roxanne shantae here's another one now third base yes please like to me this is one of the most classic albums in the history of hip-hop i saw an interview with mcsearch recently somebody asked him about
if if if he thinks he influenced me and he was like nah no you know i like whatever like that's and that is bull because he did influence me very heavy this is full circle and because you won't remember this the first time we met you were on a uk promo tour for my name is just the song
at the time no album you came in and we had a conversation and i didn't really know anything about you at the time but i knew that i loved the song so all i had to go on was like your influences there wasn't enough of a story that was being laid out for me
and we talked about third base and it was the only band that you really lit up when i talked about like oh what about third base and i was really nervous to bring it up because of the skin tone and like oh no he's gonna be like great you're making another comparison to a white rab group
yeah cheers thanks dude do your research yeah but you lit up and you are and you were super good about them then you're like i love third base that's crazy that we're finishing this conversation with that crazy yeah man they uh they you know mc search like i said like like i saw that
interview and i was like oh come on sir you gotta know you inspired me you know what i'm saying because like search and peek nice man i wish that they would have stayed together i wish they they would have made more albums i wish there wasn't the tension between the two
of them and it wasn't like that but i'm not the one to make my call so do you have that problem man yours is a solo solo mission hey have a safe holiday man it's been really nice to finish this is my last interview of the year so it's been really amazing to finish it on a high note like this and
just be able to nerd out and uh yeah whatever comes next man i'm excited for it i hope i passed across then but in the meantime man i really appreciate you bro as always great to connect with you again it's been too long absolutely bro thanks man take care you