Scarface Performs Hits with Jay-Z & Tupac, Talks Drake, Kendrick Lamar & Biggie | CLUB SHAY SHAY

I think Pac may have been the first artist to beat up an engineer. I could be wrong. But I remember sitting in the studio writing it and recording it, man.

That's when Pac told the engineer, man, all my life Yeah, all my life, been grinding all my life Sacrifice, hustle paid the price Want a slice, got the rolling dice That's why all my life I've been grinding all my life

Hello, welcome to another edition of Club Shea Shea on the road And boy, do I have something special for you today I am your host Shannon Sharp I'm also the proprietor of Club Shayshay. Stopping by today, he's an icon, a pioneer from the South. He's been in the music industry of over 35 years.

One of the most influential rappers in history. One of the top lyricists of all time. A member of one of the most successful rap groups ever, the Ghetto Boys, a beloved Houstonian, platinum selling hiphop artist, a celebrated record producer, gifted storyteller, respected label executive. He was president of Def Jam South, breaking in artists like Ludacris.

He's on everybody's top five rapper list. Your favorite rappers' favorite rapper. Some refer to him as the King of the South. Good friend of mine, terrible golfer. Here he is ladies and gentlemen. Scarface. Face, what he do? What's up? What's up, Shane? Now wait, let's do it for real.

What's up, Sean?

I'm good, Face.

What he do? Man, thank Cooley High, man. Bro, we've been trying to get this thing together. I appreciate you taking time to let us come in and do what we do. For sure. What's going to be unique about this today, we're going to throw out a song and Face is going to tell us the meaning behind the song, where it was, what he was thinking when he actually wrote the lyrics to this song.

So the first song we're going to start out with is Mary Jane. And how the music came about. How that came about. Yeah. So, I wrote it originally to the Commodore's song called Say Yeah. Okay. Commodore's song called Say Yeah. You'll feel that now that you know that. Like the way the words are spaced out. So I wrote it like that. I ended up

recording it in LA and Mike Dean came up with a piano line that went like this. It was like... And then Tone hit the drum and it was kind of like...

Right?

I remember clearly, because I had took a... This is bad, but I took an ecstasy. And it's just one of them, being in the studio in a vocal booth by yourself, and it was cold. And the only thing that came to my mind was, and I don't really remember feeling like this. And it went. That's how it went.

I wanted to make it sound like I was talking about a woman, right? So I'm at my mother-in-law's house, my wife is laying in the bed sleeping, I'm like, damn, I've got this love forming in my life for this dame, and indeed not the form of life, and that's a shame how man can fall in love with leaves and not a brains not afraid to let you up and leave and do your things share the happiness with all my folks and got us high for the days that we was hey wait

share her happiness with all my folks and got us high for the days that we were lost and broke, shit, I said shit in this song. Got us by. On the radio it got by. Got us by. Only right when stopping to get the props. Because she came to block up only find the crops. I need to hear you sing. So the same chick that sung Mr. Thug is Rugged Bone? Rob Mark? Yes. Sung the hook on this. Really? Really. And she went...

And Tom was saying, say, Mary, I love... That came from the Rick James part of it. Yes. There you go. Mary, I love. Now, I pick up my guitar and I put a B and it's going.

And then.

And then going.

And then the hook came back in and it was like. Hang on. And then the hook came back in, it was like.

Mary, love, in the. Second verse was like, when the world starts to stress you out, what you do? Put a can of stick off in your mouth or grab a brew. Sold in stores, but the fact remains this. They were made and the government's been taxing that. Getting paid. That's why I was all illegal in the first place.

That's why I was all illegal because the government couldn't tax it and get paid from it. But if it's taxable, it's cool to smoke then, kill or not? Ain't it alcohol that's killing folk? True or not? Other people try to make you bad, but I know you not. When my situation is looking sad,

I know I've got a true friend. In my time of need, cause you all I need. Girl, you natural, you come from the seeds, not out of greed. It makes me happy when I'm. Girl, you natural. You come from the seeds, not out of greed. It makes me happy when I'm feeling pain. And once again, it makes me happy just to hear your name. Do

your thing. Mary Jane. Just sit there and you just smoke down. Yeah. Well, you didn't need to smoke out, you was already high. Yeah, but that song make you smoke out. I was X'd out when I wrote it. And that's why you hear the first words going, got this love forming in my life.

And then it got down going, for this day, and indeed the form of life, that's a shame. It was some shit going on in that song that was kind of you had to be high face when you're writing a song do you have an idea of the course the no clue no clue you just writing the words I'm just writing the music okay um two songs and then no words will kind of come like you kind of start off with a piece of an idea

and then you write a verse to it and then whoever you're working with on the song will start working on it more and putting it more together. So you write your first verse and you lay it and then you work on the music a little bit and you go home and you write the second verse.

And then you put the first verse with the second verse and then you write the third verse and you lay it all and then you listen to it listen to it listen to it and then you go back and rerecord it and sometimes I don't even have to rerecord it because it's that perfect. Wow. I believe in being absolutely perfect. So you don't, you know a lot of times when you on a set or you're doing a movie you're doing a commercial, oh that was, but let's do one more time just to make sure. Once you lay it and you feel good about it, you done.

That's it. I don't need a safety. Don't need one. Guess who's back? So that was a record. I was trying to get a record from Jay-Z.

Okay. And Kanye was playing beats and Jay-Z was sitting in the corner in a chair and Kanye was playing beats and Jay was sitting there and he was like, and he'd be like, ooh. He'd be looking at you like, yeah, nigga, I'm about to give you the business right quick. So that's all it takes for him to do ooh a couple times, and he go in the vocals, and he lays vocals. Like he never wrote nothing down. He didn't write it down.

So he just hearing the beat, and he just hear it, and he goes into the booth, and he lays it down, and then I'm sitting at the board, he leaves me stuck at the board writing every time, dabs me up and he leaves the room, right? I come in, I'm writing, I'm thinking about what I'm going to say.

So I'm writing it. And I said,

from the womb to the tomb, with a hot pot adjoining the spoon, trying to touch me 40,000 and move. Listen. From the womb to the tomb, with a hot pot adjoining the spoon, trying to touch me 40,000 and move to the next dope spot.

Yeah. From the womb to the next dose but yeah.

Bring him to the tomb with a hot pot of joy and a spoon. Try to make me 40,000 and move. Motel star-studded rock stars and goons. Playing close one and running my room. But guess who's bizarre? It's your boy Face Bomb. I started with an eight ball. Gotta get this cake, dog. Give niggas

the break now you know how the game go you think I slain for to go against the grain no I'm I hit grind mode wrapped up in the paper chase I want to buy a home candy paint the 88 I ain't got no wholesale cuz then I want to run it here take these five stones and bring a nigga back 100 I gotta see my feet dude you do shit a bean do the fire get too hot in the kitchen I hit them streets fool money is an issue and that's on the

Fashizle my nizzle your block warm I come by with that pistol and make a show I get to work mine work hard at time Because if a motherfucker got a block bubbling, right? And you want that? The only way that you can get that block from this is nobody and shoot it up and then the cops will be sitting out there okay all right I come by with that pistol and make the show I get to work mine one quarter time we go to war and you ain't making a die you won't go to war nigga

let me go down here work my shit too you know we're gonna war you ain't making a die cuz I ain't got shit to lose. A nigga out here paying his dues. My baby walking, gotta get in some shoes. It's a new game brewing. Let me get you the rules.

Get out of line and I'm going to get you the blues. Get out of line and I'm going to get you the blues. It's a new game brewing. Let me get you the blues, get out of line, I'ma get you the blues. Woo! ["On My Block"]

Yes, I'm back.

On My Block. So I was in the studio. These are Def Jam albums, by the way. Those are Def Jam songs. And those songs were so ... That was probably the easiest time I've ever had to record an album because I didn't have to make the music to it.

But a couple of guys came by the studio. Nasheen, well, Nasheen Merritt came to the studio and he was playing beats. And they had this record that was by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. And it went like this. ♪♪♪ Like this. It was like, be real black for me.

Be real black for me. Remember that?

Rob Markman Yes.

Rob Markman There's something about dope-ass music. So I'm hearing the vibe and I'm thinking about like the best way like what how does this music make me how does this beat make me feel how does the piano riff make me feel like I want to say something about my neighborhood man like they been like the same old thing on my block like let's reminisce on what's happening on the block every day been like the same old thing on my block you either work or you juggle cocaine on my block you had to hustle that's how he

was raised on my block and you stayed on your hop until you made you a knot on my block hang out with the thang back then. And even if you left out, you came back in to my block. From Holloway, Belford to Scott. Reed rolled the flocks. We know the spots, just go weed or rocks. Just go weed or rocks. We know how to get that shit from, man. We know where to get it. Man. Let's go eat a rocks, the drink or the blue dots on your block, you probably bred a fat pad of Tupac,

a big pun, a B.I., your homeboy from knee high, and if it was storming outside, that nigga be by. That's me, dog, on my block, I ain't had to play no big shot. Them niggas knew me back when I was stealing beer from Shamrock and my nickname was creepy and if Black June could see me he'd be trippin and I bet he still probably tease me on my block

Black June was the homie man yeah he got he got killed young by a um by a police officer he was in the high- speed chase and they shot through the car and shot him in the back of the neck. 17 years old. And he never got a chance to see that life, man. Because he died way back in the 80s, man.

And if Black June could see me, he'd be tripping. And I bet he'd still probably tease me. Man, so my block, where everything is everything for Sheezy, on my block we probably done it all, homie, believe me. On my block, we made the impossible look easy for Sheezy. I never leave the block, the homies need me.

Never leave the block, I never leave the block. I never leave the block, I never leave the block. The homies need me. Imagine if you took the game, you took the instructions out the game right it ain't gonna operate you know I remember talking about the cars it's like on my block we race some pilots bone stock on my block, I ain't have to play the big shot.

On my block, we racing polos on. On my block, we Q-ing all the time, playing dominoes. Keep the switches, sweets down till my mama goes back in the house. Hey, listen, do you remember when you used to have we Q all the time playing dominoes. Keep the sweets down till my mama goes back in the house. Hey, listen, do you remember when you used to have

to hide your dope from your

boy? You don't know nothing

about it. We don't hide no dope now. So, you have to hide that **** from your mama when they come outside, right? Yeah. You like on my block, we Q in all the time playing dominoes. I'm going to keep that sweet down until my mama goes back

inside and then we can fight. Yeah, passing around a few times and get high. Let me sit back man. The neighborhood. I got footage of this on my Instagram page. That's sitting

in the backyard of my homeboy

house and we drink beer,

we barbecue, we tell tales,

you know, smoke a few squares,

pull it down for a minute, I remember, I remember when we was kids, right? We like, man, let's go smoke some dope, and that meant that we was gonna go out and smoke a few squares and shit, right? Now when somebody say, let's go smoke some dope, you don't know what the fuck they talking about, I used to smoke a few squares and **** right now when somebody say, let's go smoke

some dope. You don't know what

the **** they talking about. So, I'll be like, you know what, man? Go ahead. I don't get how but you know, back there, cigarettes, anything smoking, you had to hide from

your parents. It wasn't just weed. You know, funny thing. I never had to do that. Really, that really you could smoke around your mom well you were lucky I mean I don't know how lucky I was but I grew up in there but it started with my grandmother okay all right so I lived in the house of my grandmother and my uncles and all my uncle smoked and shit right right and they started smoking at a young age when I had a cigarette I was smoking in the house I couldn't have

been no more than 19 and I know people going to think I'm full of shit, but I swear to God, I'm 19, 11, 12 years old, I'm smoking. Matter of fact, I'm at school with a smoking pass. Back in junior high school, you could smoke cigarettes at school if you had a pass. Right, you had to get cleared by your parents. Yeah, you had to get cleared from your parents.

I'm telling my age right now. I'm 54, but yeah, I was smoking for real. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Not proud of it, but shit. You did what you did. I did what I did, man. This song, because I really want to know the backdrop. I never seen a man cry until I seen a man die. The backdrop of that. So the backdrop of that man is I got high. Man you been writing

some fire ish when you high. Yeah. I was stoned and I promised that if I ever came down off that high I wouldn't never get high again like that. But I was drinking beer and taking painkillers okay and I had smoked the joint I don't want nobody to try this shit at home. What kind of combo were you on? Drinking beer, smoking, taking pain pills? So I had broke my arm. Either that or I got shot. Something happened. Damn face on face. Yeah.

And I needed, I didn't want to hurt no more. Nate Dogg had the coldest song on that one. I don't want to hurt no more. Don't want to hurt no. Yeah, I didn't want to hurt no more. Right.

So I took a painkiller. I was drinking Miller lights. Anyway, I smoked the square Shit in here will Did did it did the words? I mean how long did it take you to come up to lay those verses for that? Did it just start the pen just started writing it like an auto pen? So I Was in the studio and I

made a beat and it started with a bass line and the bass line went like... I did that on the keyboard.

And then I played the... Right?

So that's what I way that I set it up. And then Mike Dean comes in with the... Let me hear it. He had the... Mike Dean also played this guitar part that went kind of like this.

So I had to take this home, right? Yeah.

And I'm high as hell. And the first thing I came up with was, he was his father with his hands out. He debilitated slightly, glad to be the man's child. The world has differed since he's seen it last. In seven years, he's out of jail and he's happy that it's free at last. All he had was his mother's letters. Now he's mobile and he's got to make a change and make it all the better. But

he's black so he's got one strike against him. And he's young. Plus he came up in the system. But he's smart and he's finally making 18. Right, I'm coming up with these words man, the words are flowing right? But the more I wrote, the more dead I felt. Yeah, I was I was down. I had that kind of high, that I had that blackout high. Yeah, you know so that's the, that was the writing process on this song, man. I didn't want to be high no more, you know what I mean? I remember that verse where I said, I hear you breathing, but your heart no longer sounds strong, but you're kind of scared of dying, so you hold on.

And you keep on blacking out and your pulse is slow so I'm trying to fight the reapers just relax and let it go that's how high I was Wow I was high when I was writing that record yeah I was I really went in there and got some shit because there's no way you can fight it though you still try and you can try it till you fight it. because there's no way you can fight it though. You still try and you can try it till you fight

it but you still die. Your spirit leaves your body and your mind clears. You get more to start to set that you out of you like that's real. That's that's how I felt man. Wow.

But when I got to the studio and I wasn't high no more. I was coming with the lane. And it was like, I was like. He greets his father with his hands out, rehabilitated slightly, but glad to be the man's child. The world is different since he's seen it last.

Out of jail been seven years, and he's happy that he's free at last. All he had was his mother's letters. Now he's broke, and he's broken and he's gotta make a change and make it for the better. But he's black so he's got one strike against him. And he's young. Plus he came up in the system. But you never know how those words are going to come out upon delivery because I'm, I stand firm

on letting the beat guide. Okay. I use my voice as an instrument. You'll never hear a song from me where the beat is doing one thing and my voice is doing another. It's not going to be a mono tune. Like you know how some rappers get on the microphone

and they rap the same way every time because they're not letting that beat lead. They're rapping off of their own instinct and not letting that beat guide. You got to let that beat guide. In order to let that beat guide, it's a vibe.

It's a vibe, man. Some records you hear me rapping this way and the next you'll hear like, who's that nigga? Like I remember one time we was doing that, sitting at the stoplight, looking at hoes, peeping out this bitch and her black Jebos, windows rolled up tight, top was closed, blowing swishes sweet smoke out my nose. E-40 called me.

He be like, man, you let Warren get on the track? I'm like, nah nigga, that's me. Yeah, so I'm changing my voice. I'm changing the dynamic, the pitch. I'm changing the flow. The come lines are different.

You know, the patterns, the rap patterns are different. Sunday morning, I'm off at church, singing throughout the week, hustling every day. I'm getting it as we speak. I listen to preacher preach, mama singing the song, ain't he clapping her hands, no,

choir singing the song, ain't he clapping her hands, my mama singing along, I'm uncomfortable, I wanna leave, can't let my mama see, I ain't listening to the message. But it's, it's different deliveries on different songs, different songs call for different deliveries,

different beats, man. Has it ever been a situation where you write it while you're high, and then when you come down off that, you're like, okay, I hope I can get right back into that headspace. Oh, once you get in this, once you find out,

once you get back to what you were writing and the pattern that you was writing it in, you in there. But I ain't wrote nothing high in a long time. Of course, I ain't been writing, but I ain't did nothing. I ain't, man, Shannon, you trying to act like I'm just a dope fiend.

Like I gotta be high.

Nah, I'm messing with you, but nah, I would, I, I, it's just, you know, I don't smoke. It's just you know, I don't smoke weed all the time. Okay. You know, but when I do, I'm not just going to be burning our brain cells,

right? So, it's got to be something being created. Do that's what I was about to ask when you smoke, are you spoken to get a a a frame of mind that

you can write? No. Oh, you just

spoke. You just spoken to smoke. No, I'm not just smoking. I'm smoking. I'm smoking the spark. ideas, right? But I'm just not riding around smoking all day long just to be smoking. So, if you

see me smoking some weed, I'm in a vibe, right? And I haven't smoked weed in a long time. Is that what it would take you to get back in I mean what was it smokes of weed? No, what would it take you to get back to the pin that we know face to have? They gotta pay Like this shit is free now. I'm not it's not paying man. Okay, you know what I mean?

Like this is where the money is like short now out on a tour, we're calling it The Function. You know, this is where the money is. Even though Tide is still recording, E-40's still recording, everybody's still recording, I just don't see the value, and I'm spoiled. I'm spoiled, I remember when you could sell a record,

you could sell records for five, six, seven, eight, nine, $10. Correct. Now, zero cent is half a cent on a cent for a stream. So I don't see the value in wasting my time. I can't get my time back. I got a catalog that'll carry me.

Yeah, you're good. You feel me? I got a pretty decent catalog. And I'm always thinking of some other funky ways to revamp me. You know what I mean? Yeah? This just didn't come overnight. I've been doing my band shit for 20 years. Matter of fact, Ant sent me something yesterday,

sent us something. How long ago was that? 25 years ago? It was 25, almost. 20 years ago, okay? Of us working with our band shit. All right, and I went on the road with a band and I wasn't even getting paid, but I knew that eventually the game would catch up to what I'm thinking. Yeah, where I'm at in my mindset,

because we can stand on stage and grab our shit and lip sync to our shit, or we can bring it back to the essence of where it came from. You know, like I, we built this music, man. Right.

We built this music. Tupac's last song he recorded was With You, 1994, Smile. I can't say that. Hold on you remember that before you passed I might have not been 94 what year would that did smile come out it came out it came out in 90s it came out 97 but we recorded it when you got that September hey man you know what it might could very well be the last song that he recorded.

Absolutely. That could very well be the last song because I remember leaving LA, going to Chicago, and hearing that he was shot. But me knowing Pac, like I know Pac, you know he gonna get up

and he gonna be talking shit again. Right.

All right?

You could very well be right, man, because we recorded that in September or June. And he got shot in that September. He got shot. Okay, we recorded that song in June or July of 96. He got shot and killed in 96.

September. Okay, so that can very well be that last record, 96 he got shot and killed in 96 September Okay, so that can very well be that last record, but I like me Noah Park and how he worked I doubt it possible though. Mm-hmm Because he probably laid down 15 20 songs a day because what that that was a if I'm not mistaken I think it was the if I'm not Yeah. I think he was fighting both or somebody

and wasn't Holyfield though because he remember because he fought Holyfield back to back. Ninety-six. He fought him. He lost and then he turned around and fought him again in 97 when

he bit his ear. Yeah but no. Pac was still around though. No, I don't think so. I mean, see, Yeah, he fought him twice. He fought him in 96 and 97.

He fought him in December, right? He fought him on my birthday, November 9th. So yeah, November 9th, 1996. The second fight was July 28th, 1997.

Mm-hmm.

When did Tupac get killed? September.

Yeah, September 13th, 1996.

So I think it was a Bruno it might have been Who did uh, who was Holyfield fight that was up there with a fight going on out there. It was Mike Tyson and Bruno Cuz I was at the Bruno fight in April Bruce L. Okay, one of them big on yeah, yeah but Man Paco the hell of a dude man he was um here's before his time yeah way before his time

more money mean more litigating more play-hating got a sale at the pin for me waiting Wow so we smile when you writing that, what's going on, what are you thinking? So, Park, we recorded that like way before he passed. Like a couple of, record that in June, or July. June, July of 96. Right. And or July. June, July of 96.

Right. And he ends up passing in September of 96. Right, so we wrote the song, you know, before he passed. And like Pac would always have this thing with me where he would be so pissed off that I would be sitting at the board, still writing,

and everybody do what they should. You know, and he would always say, hey man, you got to find a way to get across to the bitches without offending them. And the niggas going to want what the bitches want. And then whatever the last word is of your verse, that's the name of the song.

And I was like, okay.

But nonetheless, I still sat down in front of that board and I came up with those words, man. But it was done to a whole totally different beat. Shout out to Tom Capone and Mike Dean because I think that the job that we did on this song, on this version of that particular song, was awesome, man. Tone always wanted those, what are they, pizzicatos? What are they called?

Pizzicatos?

He always loved to... Johnny P was still alive.

The one who was like, do you hear that? Johnny P was still alive. The one that was like, do you want to ride in the backseat of my Caddy and chop a little bit, do what I want. Tone had a vibe in his head. Tell me, do you still care about me right so he just broke that came into for me I talk upon won't you just smile for me and then Johnny P was in the studio and he sung that shit.

And some kind of way we got a chance to use that record on my album. But I remember sitting in the studio writing it and recording it, man. That's when Pac told the engineer, man, you ain't got too many more of my bands. Right. He's finna die. That's when the, I think Pac-Man been the first one, the first artist to beat up an engineer. I could be wrong. But I know he used to beat his engineers up.

I wrote it down like, then once I opened up my story, put the blades in your blunt. That's how you can reflect. That's how you can reflect. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So you try to reflect on what I'm saying, man.

You sit back and, like, damn. Now, as I opened up my story, put the blades in your blunt so you can picture thoughts slowly upon phrases I run and I can walk you through the days that are done. I often wish that I could save everyone, but I'm a dreamer. Have you ever seen a who was strong in the game, overlooking his tomorrows and they finally came. I look back on childhood memories.

I'm still feeling the pain, turning circles in my ninth grade to dealing cocaine. Too many hassles in my local life, surviving the strain and a man without a focused life can drive him insane. I'm stuck inside a ghetto fantasy, hoping to change But when I focus on reality, I'm broken in chains I had a dream of living wealthy, and making it big

But over football, chose to cook raw, take it and dig And after all my mama's, thank God for blessing the child Cause all my mama got to do now is collect it and smile. ♪ Smile for me ♪

♪ Won't you just smile for me ♪ ♪ Smile for me ♪

♪ Won't you just smile for me

Ooh

That's Cold Blooded. Who's kids writing music like this, man? I would love for us to be able to get our music back. Know what I'm saying? I would love for us to be able to make our music like we made our music. Even though from Maze to R. Kelly, from R. Kelly to Chris Brown, we didn't lose too much

into that. We didn't lose a lot. That music's still great, man. It's kind of like from Rakim to Kane to Public Enemy to Cuban NWA to Ghetto Boys to Snoop to... And then you start Tribe Called Quest, you got to think about all of the great music. LL Cool J, Run DMC, those masterpieces of hip hop, you know, KRS-One, you know, the masterpieces, the Jay-Z's, the Nas, did I say Nas already?

Rob Markman Yeah, no, you know, yeah. 2 Chainz Okay, well, I should have said it twice So, I mean those masterpiece classics that will always be remembered forever You know what? I mean? Yes, like LL Cool J, bro He don't get the credit that he deserves. No, he single-handedly put this shit on the map, bro He did and then you have to look at...

He got women to listen, start listening to the rap. Cause he was thinking the deal. Hey man, the man, the man broke some shit down, man, on the record, man, that was mind blowing to me. Who can take the game of rap and rule it alone?

Just playing many styles on the microphone, like the man was cold, man. And he single-handedly gave us a platform to stand today with that Rock the Bell shit. Man, I went out and I did a concert for rock the bills on a couple of occasions Yeah, and this last one I went to it in New Jersey. I walked out on the stage and like shit Look at all these people hip-hop lives man for show and and thanks to that guy that is

You know, it's recovering. You know what I mean? Like he had some great shit on there. He had Rakim, Kane, Plies, Pussy, Me, Roxanne Shante was on that shit. That's my twin. But I love what he doing with it, man.

I think that everybody should take time out and pause and thank LL Cool J for what he did and what he's doing for this culture, man. Like for real. Faith, thanks for the performance, bro. Man, we ain't even started performing yet. Let's go out with a bang.

Fire it up. I don't even care what it is. What we going out with? I don't care. Mind playing tricks on you. You got Friday Night Lights, Damn It Feel Good to be a Gangsta.

What you want to go out with?

No, let's do something else.

What you got? Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do It can't be life, can't be love, can't be us, It's gotta be more. So I'm leaving to go to bass line from Def Jam and um...

I think my brother called me. I think Warren Lee called me and told me that one of the homies babies that had died man that was devastated because I got a two-year-old I had a two-year-old back then but that baby got a hold of something that he wasn't supposed to get a hold of that uh and that shit kind of blew me the fuck away that's why the verse came out so cold, because it was so true. I walked into the studio to do this with Jig. I got a phone call from one of my nigs. They say my homeboy, Rick, he just lost one of his kids. When I heard that, I just broke into tears. And he in the second hand, you don't really know how that is.

But when it hit that close to home, you feel the pain at the crib. So I called my, said my wife at the bad news, got my blessing, my blessings, cause Brad's too, that's, that's one of them ones, man, you,

shit. Brad two years old when that happened, man. Loving your kids like he was ours. And I'm hurting for you, dog. But ain't nobody painting like yours. But I just know it happens.

Heaven's opened its doors. And if you went on the black side, you went on the bright side. You get viewed like this. God's got open arms, homie. He in the midst who loves all, who loves all and hates not one. He was like, what was that?

Cause he in the midst, he in the midst of good company who loves all and hates not one. And one day you gonna be with your son. I could have talked about my hard times in these songs, but heaven knows I would have been wrong. Would have been right.

Wouldn't have been us. it wouldn't have been life, it wouldn't have been love, it wouldn't have been right. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, scary life. ♪♪♪ A lot of niggas be bragging about their bands and shit, but I know for a fact can't nobody with them. You still up? I can stand on the stage and stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

Do that. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Tell you man, I got to tell you, I'm not going to lie.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not you, man, I know I got to, all I got to do is just dream it. I just got to dream it. Live, live, live, live. Live, live on Club Shea Shea.

We're going to get down into a deeper interview in a few minutes, but I just wanted my partner Sharp to see that musical side. Go on, give him the business, Fekka. Hold up, hold up.

Louder, louder, louder. Oh yeah. They can say, Once I'm living life of a millionaire Spending all, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold I'm a cold, old man living in the green Nobody wants ya

When you get down and out Nobody wants ya When you get down and out Nobody wants ya When you get down and out

Nobody wants ya When you get down and out So, I hear a lot of people talking about their bands and **** man but after being together so long, we kind of know what we're thinking. So, it's y'all on the wavelength. we're going to be together So

Oh ♪ Down and out, down and out, down and out, down and out ♪

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Normally everybody having they suit someone again on your show man. They'd be looking all fly, right? But this I'd be looking when I go on stage So if you see me on stage and you probably see me in there you be like damn you gonna stay with them new balance I'm good, man. Don't do it I'm good at this. We ain't had no toys growing up either, all we did was talk about each other.

But yeah, this is how it goes down. Every time we get on the phone, we got a Jones. We got you man. How you been bro? I've been great man, few hours and taking time out of your day went through a sound check

Can't wait to people see the couple of songs that you perform for us and tell us what was going through your mind at a Time of a former, but this is my cognac. This is shaved by LaPortier. It's a premium VSOP You understand it, you know by cognac. Yeah, you know VSOP stands for right? No, very special old pal. That means... You know what I heard? And you tell me if there's any truth to this. So the Hennessy guy and Hines, were they locked up in prison together? I don't know about that. So I want people to look into this. So Hennessy, the maker of Hennessy, or somebody... That's the family. And Hines, they were locked up. Hines Ketchup? No, Hines. H-I-N-E-S, that's like a cognac. Okay, how? It's like the upper echelons of cognac, man.

So I heard this story, man, I wanna get some validity to it and just see. But yeah, Cognac Makers, man. Is this that kind of cognac? This is a premium VSOP. We've won 13 awards since its inception in 2021. The Simple Ward is a blind taste test. It's the only one that the fans get to decide. Everything else is judges that have been sipping cognac

and a spirits business. But what they do in the Simple Ward is that they put all the cognacs on the table. And then people come by and taste them and they say, well I like cup eight. Okay, so I always thought that V-S-O-P

meant for very serious old people. No, very special old pal. And then you got XO, which is extra old. And then you got XXO, which is extra, extra old. So. Shut me down. Yes.

Boy, you learn something new every day.

And this was a grape. People don't realize this, but this come from a grape. I was with a Uni Blanc grape and a petite champagne. Nuzzle it, this man went straight to it. I know what the f*** to do with a cognac. Why you talking to me like this man? I know what to do.

God damn.

That ain't necessary. How Sterling doing, man?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

But he good.

He good.

Yeah, this ain't no grape here, Junior. One block grape and a petite champagne. And in order for it to be a cognac, Hey, man. it has to start, originate in cognac for two years. The first two years has to start there.

Hey, man, it's mean right here. For sure. I got you covered. We got you covered. Oh, no. Oh, it ain't got no bite. None.

Oh. You gotta be careful. Yeah let me move this back over there.

Boy you be on stage

slurring. For real. I'm not finna drink no more of that. Ain't nobody got no water? We get some. Man why you trying to get me drunk for my show? No, no, no, no, no. But I just wanted you to taste it. But. It's amazing. It is.

It's crazy. Yeah. But we got you covered. We got you covered. Yeah, man. Send me a, I'll tell you where I can buy some, man.

Yeah, I'm gonna send you some, but I'm gonna tell you have you on the show. It's always great to have people that you admire from a distance. You know, getting to know you over the last couple of years, you and my brother play a lot of golf together. I sent word, I told him what you told me to tell him.

I was on the phone with you and I told you. No. You told me to tell him you could get him. No, no I didn't. No, why you saying that, man? Don't do that, dog. Don't say that, man. Well, I told him. You shouldn't have. And he sent word back to me. He sent something, he sent a picture back.

He did.

He said, show face this. Yeah, no, hey, Sterling, I'm gonna leave you alone, man. Don't you be out there, my brother's be out there with him. And the man is a scratch golfer, man. Unbelievable.

He play all the time, though.

But he play from the back, though. Yeah, he play from the tip. I play all the time, too. But I ain't finna go back there, man. I ain't got nothing still strong, man.

I ain't, I'm not strong.

That's the only way you be strong, man. Let's get into it, Face. Talk to me. From Houston, Texas. What was it like growing up in Houston, Texas for a young Scarface?

So, growing up in Houston as a young Brad. Yeah, that's a real, that's a good one, Brad. You don't say Brad, as a young Brad Jordan. My mother had me so young. I'm an old man baby for real.

I spent a lot of time at my grandmother's house. Okay. My grandmother had nine children and I always tell people that I feel like I'm my grandmother's 10th child. Right.

Because she also.

You spent so much time over there.

I spent so much time with her. My mom would, I always wanted to go to my grandma's house. You know, I go over, my mom and my aunt lived together for a long time.

Right. And I didn't want to be over there because it was boring. you know I go over my my mom and my aunt live together for a long time right and

I didn't want to be over there cuz it was boring right but going over there and my grandma's man my uncle's smoked and jammed and you know they had the bands going and my grandfather was crazy as hell my grandmother was sweet as pie you know just all you know the neighborhood raised me man you know what My grandmother was sweet as pie. The neighborhood raised me, man. You know what I mean? I'm like one of those kids

that the neighborhood raised for real. But that wasn't what it was like. It was a sense of community. And somebody down the street could correct you. If you were wrong, they would say, Brad, I'm gonna tell your mom, I'm gonna tell your brother.

I don't give a fuck.

For real.

Like people can vouch for me, like I was a nut growing up. What? I would cuss, yeah. My uncle would call me when I was, so I was in the kindergarten, my uncle Rodney was in the sixth grade,

so that's the only time we ever went to school together. Right. And he would call me from out of the house to come and curse his friends out for him. And you liked doing that too? Oh, it was second nature to me. You done been around grown folks, so what about your heredity?

I don't know, man. I think this is genetics. You know how people play football? Yeah, you're good at it. Musicians, yeah. My grandfather is a professional.

Cursor. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, yeah.

What did you find as memories of growing up as a child. I think that I'm sitting in the room I don't really really shit man There was some tough times no some great great Sitting There were some tough times? No, some great times. Sitting, jamming with my uncles in the room, smoking cigarettes and shit.

How old were you smoking cigarettes? Four or five. In they room, when they put the cigarette in the ashtray? You grabbed it.

I grabbed it.

I grabbed it. I grabbed it. I grabbed it. I grabbed it. I grabbed it.

I grabbed it. I grabbed it.

I grabbed it.

Those are those are those memories man, that it make you think about the entire situation. You know, you're in the room with your uncle, Eric and Eddie. Right. My grandmother beating on the door,

telling us to turn it down. in the room cussing up the storm, you know. We just making music, bro, I remember that shit. But it's so emotional going back to growing up. I don't know if it touch other people like that, but it's with me because I feel like I didn't get a chance to be a kid. I feel like I was always grown.

Like, you know, I didn't realize that I was homeless until like now.

Really?

Yeah.

When I left my grandmother's house, how old were you? Left my mom, my grandmother, I was probably 12, 13. Went to go live with Warren, his mom, and Nell, and my sister Tanya, we all, but she was always gone,

so it was kind of like we raised ourselves. Right. You know what I mean? I got like 15, 16 years old. My mother rented an apartment in her name for me to go live in.

Like...

You live in an apartment by yourself? Let's just call my mom, though. LAUGHS Let's just call my mom, dawg. Let's just do that. Because I don't want nobody to think I'm full of shit.

Pause.

Hey. I didn't know y'all were here. I big thought that.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

Hey, you chill.

That's your... Hey, Warren Lee. I need a plug for my phone.

All right.

Where the fuck is it on?

Hey, mama.

Yeah.

So I'm here on Club Shayshay with Shannon Sharp.

Uh-huh.

How old was I when you rented that apartment for me?

Well, I think you was either 15 or 16.

Hmm.

That's my mama.

Yep, and you stayed by yourself and did very well.

And have I been back home yet?

No, but I wish you would come just check on your old mama.

Yeah, I'm 54 years old, bro, I ain't going back home. Mama, I love you to death. I just wanted to clear that up, man. And I know for a fact that I was smoking cigarettes Did you know mom did you know he was listen listen to my mama? This is my mama

All I can tell you is that you was you had luck on your hand you charm Young man People loved you and they didn't even know why they loved you. That was it. Charmed.

Yeah.

He kind of had that impact on people. I don't know why me and him friends either.

I know, but he does.

All I can tell you is everybody loves him. Everybody. Yeah. I even had people to walk up to me and say, you have such a fine, respectful young man. I'm had people to walk up to me and say, you have such a fine, uh, respectful young man. I'm thinking, really?

Too funny. Even when you go by houses and things, people would just say, Oh, that's your son. He's just so manner. Well, he just got the best manners. Whatever you told this, these people, you know, I tell them anything, mama. I love you best manners. So Lord, what have you told these people?

You know I'd tell them anything, mama. I love you to death, I'll call you later, okay?

Okay, baby, I love you too. Thanks, mama.

All right, baby.

Told you, I can't make this shit up. Did you play sports? I did, I was a running back. Okay, you were Saquon, you Derrick Henry, you Josh Jacobs, you, I mean, who, who, who? I was Sweetness. You was Walter Payton. I was Sweetness and Earl Campbell mixed in one.

Because if you was standing there, oh you gonna run, you gonna run up, put that mother f***ing helmet in your windpipe and keep going. Keep going. I played with Allen.

Allen Aldridge was a former teammate of mine. Yeah, yes he is. We won a championship together. I was in there and I got there at nine. He came in 94. Rest in peace, he passed away a year or two ago. I went to school with Ellen.

Yeah.

Love that kid. You wrote in your autobiography, my daddy was dead, my mama didn't want me, I didn't really get along with my stepdad, already had nine kids of her own. That's the truth. So there really wasn't a place for me at her house either. We got very similar stories, cause my grandmother had nine kids of her own.

She raised her nine and took my mom's three. Damn. Cold, dope. Your grandmother had nine kids and then you have brothers and sisters.

Yeah.

But my grandmother didn't have to raise my brother. Well, she raised my sister. Right. But she took on everybody else's children in the neighborhood. You know what I mean? Like everybody else, that was they mama too.

Right.

You know?

So, yeah, my grandmother was a cold piece of work, man. She never learned to drive. No, my grandmother didn't learn to drive either. That's crazy. She'd quickly go get on the passenger side. She'd go get on the passenger side. So you go get on the passenger side and tell your driver. Yeah, you had a drive.

Slow down, you ain't got no license. What the hell? And then my mother would always tell her mother, how many steering wheels on this car? Yeah, my mama was cold-blooded. So I'm looking at, so we're 21 years apart

in all of those stages. So I'm 21 years, so we're 21 years apart in all of those stages. So I'm 21 years younger than my mother, my mother's 21 years younger than my grandmother. Wow.

Yeah.

So I can see my life 21 years from now. Wow. And 21 years from that. Right.

You know what I mean?

Right. And that shit always makes me think about the end, Shannon, that shit makes me think about the end, Shannon. That shit makes me think about the end. I can't focus on living.

Are you afraid of dying?

I'm not, but I'm just saying, I ain't got no time. I run out of time. I run out of time. Like that clock, man, it's ticking man. And I don't want to waste my time, bro. I can't waste my time.

That's my biggest fear, because I can't get it back.

No.

Time is the most valuable currency. Because once it's gone, it's gone. It can never be recaptured. Get your wife back, get your money back, get your house back, get your all that shit back. Get your friends back.

Can't get time back.

I seen him get his money back.

Yes.

But I ain't never seen nobody get his time back. And all I can think of, shit, I'm 54. Shit, I'm 54. I got a bad ticker, I got a bad ticker, son's kidney,

and I'm like, wow. Would you, face, you still, think about the 54 great years. Yes, you had open heart. I saw the scar. Yes, you have your son's kidney.

I saw the scar. But 54 years, think about how many- Pause.

Go ahead.

There you go.

No, because I don't want to, because they're going to be like, yeah, they was in there in the room with Puff and them. Like, back up.

No, we weren't, Hank.

We weren't.

But think about the 54 great years. Yeah, but I ain't trying to cut the **** off now, Shannon. Come on. You afraid?

I'm not scared.

I know that that's the inevitable, man. Yeah. But I don't want to run out of time right now.

No, you not.

Why you thinking about that? Because I think I can't do that. You thinking about dying. You ain't thinking about living. And that's my problem. I can't get past it. I played with that shit so much growing up until I'm like, shit, I cheated it when I was a year,

when I was five, when I was seven, when I was nine, when I was, what year was that? We went in that store, man, and people came in there and robbed that goddang store.

That's probably 16, 17.

15, 16, 17.

Probably 15, 16, 17, we was just, 17. Probably 15, 16, 17. We was just leaving the Fresh Fest concert, man. And I seen, I seen, who, it was some Hispanic cats? They survived, they were out of gas station. Yeah, they came in there, man. I seen, I said, bruh, I said, dude got a, dude got a big ass gun on him.

Let's go.

Let's go. Ain't that what I said? Got out of there man, next morning, that shit on the news. They shot it up. Killed that man. Ducking death.

Wow.

Ducking death. So man, you know, from being shot, you know, being in places I shouldn't have been, being in places I was in, shit just happened. And I'm looking at how, death is just saying, okay, you, come here.

You, come on. I'm sitting there like, damn, damn. Okay, now you. It's touching people around you, but it I mean super close When I was when I was in surgery they My brother

My manager was in there I was eating and it was like He was like he realized it was taking long and it was supposed to take and then when the doctor finally came out when the Surgeon finally came out which is a friend of mine, he came out and he told him, man, I know y'all probably hear this all the time,

but I don't know how he's still here. You know, I don't know, bro. It's a blessing, but I don't want God to be mad at me and just keep me here and everybody be dead, like all y'all be dead and I'd be in this by myself. Or I just go fast, like. I don't, I.

Have you been able to appreciate the language? No, no, I have not. I have not. I have not been able to, and that sounds ungrateful as fuck. I just grew up too fast, bro.

And I feel like everything that I was working for, I was working to get to. You know what I mean? I feel like I accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish. At a young age, my grandmother would always say,

when she would talk to her friends at the church or on the phone or whatever, that you can never underestimate what a child is saying. Because I remember telling my grandmother and my grandfather that I was going to be a big rock and roll star.

And I was going to buy my grandfather a big ass boat so we can go fishing. And I was going to give my grandma a new house. I said this out of my mouth, all right? This is what I said out of my mouth. And my grandmother, after all of this stuff

started happening, she was saying, you can never underestimate what comes out of a child's mouth, man, because that's what happened. And it happened so fast. By the time from, well, but I started when I was 14, right Okay, I started, you know trying to rap at 14

You know trying to DJ I start off as a DJ at 14 years old. That's what I wanted We're you good at it focused on it. I was alright. I was good enough to make it what you mean? Yeah, I do money. Well, you DJ at middle school parties. I did. I mean, you old cap, they ain't wanna pay no money, they'd probably pay you.

They didn't have to pay me no money,

I already had a little money.

What you doing something shady? What's shady? You know what shady is? No clue. You shady, right? I think you have to you gotta do what the times called for right you see what I'm saying mm-hmm but yeah I do what the times called for and if it you know if

Carl came for throwing newspapers shit I threw the newspaper hey does anybody have some toilet paper napkin anything, anything? You blow my nose. We got the right here.

Okay, cool.

One second. The coldest thing about this shit is when, I'll pause this right quick, cause this shit gonna sound terrible.

Mute this shit.

Snuffle up his ass, nigga. Oh, big nose.

Good thing you ain't have no hair back. Oh big nose.

Good thing you ain't have no hair.

I can't say that.

Are you still got money?

I ain't got no money.

I don't want no money.

Look at this nigga looking at me.

I don't got no money.

I don't want no money.

I don't want no money.

I don't want no money. I don't want no money. Look how this nigga looking at me.

I don't got no money.

I don't want no money.

I don't want no money. Okay.

Hell no.

You know how when you got money? Mm-hmm. Everybody else want your money. I want no money. Your dad passed away. How old were you when your dad passed?

My biological? Yes. Maybe seven or eight. My biological? Yes. Maybe seven or eight. Do you remember? I don't know him.

I didn't never know him. But I know how he died, because I have the newspaper articles on how my biological father died. He died in a woman's house because her husband, her boyfriend, shot him through the door. It was arguing by the woman, there you go. Arguing by the woman, and when he came to the door,

the man shot him through the door and killed him. And yeah, that's why when chicks be like, I'm mad,

I be like, shit, I'm good, go ahead.

But yeah, my dad now, my dad, he just passed. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he taught me. He taught me the game, man. He taught me the real live game. The real live hustle game. My dad was the weed man.

Mm-hmm.

And he would have stalks of weed drying in the closet. And I would go in there and I would take a little, remember the brown, you don't know nothing about this, but they had the brown bags. Yeah, little nickel bags. Yeah, it wasn't a nickel, it was a nick.

Okay, my bad. They came with that later. It wasn't no nick when you was growing up what I was growing up, it was a Nickelback. No, it was a Nick. It's still a Nickelback.

No, Shannon, I'm not gonna ride with this, it's a Nick.

Okay, go ahead.

So I put it, you make you a Nick.

Yeah.

And then you make you a big darn.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

So we had this parsley seed, we had parsley in the, there you go, my cousin right there. We had parsley in the kitchen, right? So I didn't want my daddy to know I was stealing his weed, so I'd pop off some of that bud that was dried off real good,

and I'd get enough, and I'd just step on it a little bit with some parsley seeds. Now how in the hell did I know to do that? I don't know, but I did it. You've been shady for a minute.

I've been shady for a minute, man. But I can honestly say my stepdad, man, taught me responsibility, man. He taught me how to be a man, bro. And you know what? Standing there, he stood in the gap, bro.

My cousin, Vertus, always say, man, you gotta love him, man, he stood in the gap, man, because he didn't have to do that.

Right.

You know what I mean? He didn't have to do that, man. It's not easy being a step-parent. That man didn't call me step. He called you son. Did you always have a great relationship with him? No, I didn't have a great relationship with my stepdad until I understood, you know, until I grew up.

You know what I mean? I'm like, damn, Bruin ain't trying to move me out the way. He trying to give me some game. And I think from the time when I was, when I started going back to visit, you know, I started getting little jewels and stuff from, and I never will forget, I was coming back from out of town

and I had some stuff with me that came from my job. And I gave it to my daddy to hold it, to hold it for me. And then I gave him the money. And I came back and got all my supplies that I went to work with and my money too. And it was years and years and years and years

and years and years down the line. And I brought it up to him and he said, yeah, and my mama said, what? He still had it? No, he never told my mama say, what? He still had it? No, he never told my mama about it.

Wow.

You know what I mean? And that just let me know that even more so, how solid and how he stood on business, man. Sometimes we don't appreciate stuff. No, I appreciate him now because he taught me how to be responsible, man.

And I would always say that when I would f*** up. I'd say, man, I don't even want to talk to my daddy about it. Because he's always drilling my head about being responsible, man, being responsible. This is you. And I got a lot, a lot, a lot of respect for that man.

Rest in peace to Willie Terry, cause he was a hell of a dude, bro. I read that you used to write down all the sayings. I lived with my grandmother and I can recite all the sayings her and my grandfather would say. Why did you do that?

I don't know, man. You know what, you don't realize how smart a person was until you don't have them around. Or you take that phrase, you don't get old being no fool, for granted growing up. But when you think about it, hell, my grandmother was 93, 94 years old

when she got out of here, so I know she wasn't no damn fool, and she had plenty since, man. And it's not like the education, because a lot of these people,

they quit school in second, third grade.

Yeah, I'm one of them people that quit. Don't laugh at me. Hold on, time out, time out, time out. We gotta go back. You just said that Skyline, right?

Willow Ridge. Willow Ridge.

They having a class reunion, 35 year.

Yeah.

How you get to go? I was there. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You quit before they got there. No, I was there. No, just because you started in that class, you gotta finish it.

Oh no, I was way gone.

Yeah, but you don't get to go to the reunion.

Well, tell them that, man, because they calling me. I've been to every last reunion. I've been to all. How you get to go to the reunion, Fase? You didn't call them.

Am I missing something? I had an impact on my class, man. Face, what grade did you go to? Ninth and a half. You don't go that far, why you couldn't finish the other two and a half? For what? And I don't wanna say that, I don't want nobody

to hear me say that, but for what?

Because.

I can count, I can read, I can multiply. Yeah, you cheat like a mother. No, no, no, no, see, actually you're supposed to put a drop in there and it opens up the body. Let me see.

No, you gotta put a drop in there.

Open up the body.

I'm not, I got a concert tonight, bro. I do. Yeah, they let me, well. So you went to the five year, the 10 year, the 15, the 20, 25, 30? Yeah, I go to two class reunions.

How? Because I was in both classes. I kind of did what the I wanted to do in all that. That's a parent, for real. Consider you going to class reunion then you ain't graduated. I had a math teacher, y'all,

that would sit my desk out in the hall every time I came to her class. She knew that I was coming, and she'd have a desk in the hall for me. Because you want some bull jive. No, it wasn't no bull jive, I forgot.

You don't curse, so I ain't gonna curse no more. I mean, because when I finish with my work, I'm gone. I couldn't sit still, man. You know? Yeah. My mom would always say, what's going on in here?

What is going on in here? No, mama. She'd say, well, I don't want you driving no more, because you're not focused. She would always say that she don't want me Driving she wants somebody else to drive for me because I have too much going on in my head and Margo riding the hill always be laughing at me, you know, cuz I know I'd be on the phone talking

I'll be looking at the back Yeah, yeah. As a child, did you feel different? Did you think you were different? Because you had all these thoughts in your head, did you talk to any of your friends like, man, I be thinking this?

And they, you know, I went to, you know, they put me in an institution for this. You know that, right? That's in my book, right? Yeah. Yeah, they put me in the, um, I spent some time in one of those things, man, because of, um.

They put you in the 5150 hole.

That's a psych hole.

Yeah, I was on the hold. And I was in there. And I spent a lot of, I'd say that long ass time.

Do you remember how old you were?

I mean, cause you, I mean. I was pre-ad, so I had to be 11, 12 years old. So I wasn't quite an adolescent yet. Were you doing things, I mean, what were you doing that they thought that this would be, this would benefit you? What was I doing?

Yeah. They said that I was manic depressive and with suicidal tendencies. They thought that I was gonna kill myself. And I never said I was gonna kill myself. I did cut my wrist a couple of times.

I did overdose a couple of times, but I realize now that being older, that if you really wanted to just die, you would just die.

Were you looking for attention?

So maybe I was seeking some attention from some attention that wasn't there, that has never been there, you know what I mean? And I'm gonna say it a thousand times, but I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't controlled. I didn't have parents that'll stop me from doing it.

You didn't have guardrails, you didn't have boundaries. I didn't have no guardrails, I didn't have no boundaries. You know, my uncles were already grown. And you doing what they do. And I'm doing what they doing. I'm smoking cigarettes, I'm smoking weed,

I got Indian charges. You know what? I smoked crack for the first time in 1983 when the shit was cool. That's at the height of the epidemic. In the 80s, in the beginning.

No, no, that was the cool part in the 80s. Because you had functioning, functioning. Fiends. You can't say addicts, man. That's not proper. They weren't fiends, they can't say addicts, man. That's not fiends. Proper.

They weren't fiends, they just were users.

Right.

But you do realize, like, the 80s, that ushered in the crappiest. No, no, it ushered it in, but back in the early 80s, it was cool. Trust me. And now in the 80s,

now when I got a hold to the shit and started, it wasn't cool no more. That's when the shit started not getting cool. But the whole time. So that was before they started stealing TVs and VCRs. Yeah, that's when they started pawning shit. That's when my game switched.

Right.

So I never got hooked on dope. But my uncle would come in from the construction, on another thing too, like it was all black construction concrete workers and flag men on the side of the road when we were growing up. And then it changed. And we'll get back to that. But my uncle would come in, man, he'd have an eight-ball, man, I learned how to cook.

He'd put that shit in the beaker, and he'd hit it with the torch, and put water in there, and burn it until it turned into a long little thing.

And he'd,

and it'd fall out. And I hit it one time. There it is. But I wasn't but 11, 12 years old. When you say you never got a chance to be a kid, you never got a chance to be a kid.

I never got a chance to be a kid. You also, how were you when you said, living is hard, dying is the easy part? I was this many years old. It was now. It was an adult. Like,

dying is the easy part. And that's why I said again, man, I was probably trying to get some attention from some, seeking attention from people that pay no attention to nothing You're you're actually your biological father. You're pilot. I don't know my Bible. You know, you know at all at all, but I knew I do know the The side of my biologicals family and I met my cousin in Chicago when we were

adults. Wow. Uh-huh and he said my daddy name and I said yeah this knows something because don't nobody know his name you know I mean and then we've been super duper tight and I got a couple other cousins that I met over that span too. But I didn't know my dad, my biological at all. How do you learn to deal with those demons? Because you said there are things going in your head,

you know, cut yourself and you tried some other things. Have you learned? Because I think, and we're gonna get to this, I think that's a lot of where your creativity. Man, are you a psychiatrist or something, bro? Did you go to school for this shit? I took a couple of classes.

Yeah, okay, go ahead. You trying to dig this shit out? Well, how did you feel when you were seven and you're? But I'm just saying because, I mean, listening at your raps and seeing a man die, seeing a man cry, and the way you rap, and the creativity, I don't know if you know this guy,

there's a poet, William Cullen Bryant, and he wrote a lot about death. Phantopsis is his famous poem. I'm gonna go into this, but I regret writing about death. You know, writing so much, or the state of being, you know, dead. Why?

I regret writing about that shit, because now, it's so close, man. Have you always thought about dying? Or once you got to your 40s or 50s? I have, no, I've always thought about dying? Or you want to keep going until you're 40s or 50s? I have, no, I've always thought about dying. Like I've always wanted to see how it felt to just die.

And then like come back and tell a mother fucker,

like bro.

You don't want to do that. This ain't what you want.

No, you don't want to go in there.

Yeah.

But no, in the cool, man, I always felt like, like, um... Did you share these thoughts? I did.

You did?

In a lot of my songs. No, I'm saying I had nobody to talk to.

Oh, okay.

You know what I mean? So I talked through my pen. I didn't have nobody to talk to. And I feel like, I feel like, if I told somebody how I felt, or told somebody, you know, what I was thinking, they'd probably think I was crazy.

Yeah, we gonna say that. Yeah, so. It's like a mad face, a brag, get a check. Yeah, and now, at this age, I don't care what they think. You know, I've already been through it. Right.

I'm coming out of the storm. So your friends didn't know? Or did they? I didn't have any friends. Damn. I don't think I had... I had people I hung out with sometimes, but I didn't really have no friends. I didn't really, you know, that's crazy though. You know how you got a whole lot of friends you grew up with and they was your friends and y'all was friends but I ain't really got no whole lot of friends like that. I think it was probably because I lived in a in

two different two different households you know when I was with my grandmother, my uncles was my friends and they friends was my friends, you know. So you've always had an old soul because that's all you've ever been around. You've never been around anybody your age. My oldest friend that I've known in my life, my oldest friend that I met probably when I was one or two or three years old, died the other day from a massive heart attack. And I'm thinking to myself, like, wow, here we go.

Calling everybody except Brad.

Yeah, and...

Why me?

You said you dropped out of school in the ninth grade. Ninth and a half. Ninth and a half, so you was almost a sophomore.

Almost.

When you told your, did you tell your mom that you was dropping, you tell your grandma? What did they say? Or you just didn't go to school one day? I didn't live with them, bro. I was gone.

So they didn't know if you was going to school or not anyway. Who cared? I was already gone. My mama got me an apartment, man. She just said it. Yeah, she said it. She got me an apartment. 15, 16, and you did quite well.

Yeah.

If you had to live with your mom, you live with your grandma,

do you believe you'd have quit school?

Yeah. Maybe. No, you know what? I would've quit school, you know why? Why? Because no pass, no play came into it.

Well damn, Face! Yeah, and I was smart as you could imagine, but it was just boring to me. You know, and when they implemented the no pass, no play, like I was a football player, man. I wanted to play football,

and when they said no more football, I didn't even want to go to school no more. So what am I going to school for? Because I'm really just going to school.

Yeah, man.

To play football. I can answer track, read and write, but I want to play. I want to play. Mm-hmm. Is it true you beat up the principal? I did. Why you beat the principal? That man old.

He wasn't old back then. He was old, he had to be in his 30s. That wasn't old. You was 14, 15. I wasn't that old. Well damn, how old were you when you beat the...

I was in like the sixth or seventh grade. Damn. I had a fight with somebody in the commons locker area. And his brother came by to the fight. So I gave him the business, I gave his brother the business,

and then one of the principals came by, was trying to pull me, but they wasn't pulling him, so I gave them the business, and then the other principal, Miss Kyle, she came by, I gave her the business. Yeah, you had to go to school.

You wasn't gonna be able to go back to that school. You might have went to school somewhere else, in go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to go to school. I had to in alternative school.

And I didn't do that.

I didn't do it. Why were you acting out? I don't think it was acting out. I just didn't want to be fucked with. You know what I mean? Like I'm cool as hell, man, until you push that button. But you effing with people.

No, I'm not. I'm not, I'm cool as hell, man. Just don't fuck with me. Don't push him out, cause he'll come. You know what I mean? I've been keeping him nice in here.

So he's passed for these years, these years. And they brought something out of you that day. Oh my God, you don't wanna see him. I don't wanna see him no more. I don't want to see him. Remember when we was sitting there, I said, man, I ain't got no whole lot of people I ride around.

I don't ride around with nobody. I ride around with Pistol. Cause I know what I'm gonna do. I know what I'm gonna do. Don't make me make that decision. Can we leave the Pistol Hall when I come to Houston?

No. Oh Lord. Can we can we leave the pistol home when I come to Houston? No Okay, I'm just gonna meet you there yeah, I'm just gonna meet you drive Yeah, I'm gonna meet you at the spot. Yeah, you can meet me. Are you not coming to use? I am coming you don't call when I come to get you Almost moved to Houston. That'd have been a disaster Came close. It came down to Vegas and Houston

The team be wanting to move to Houston so bad. They wanna go?

Yes.

Shit.

Man, you could be neighbors, possibly.

No.

Hell no. Your lonely department, because when you're on your own, you can do a lot of stuff. So you got an apartment and you start selling. No.

You were selling before then? Way before then. I worked at a movie theater.

Selling what?

Drug.

No, man, I ain't never sold no drugs, man. I had a job. So when you stealing your stepfather's weed, you were just smoking it, you and the boys were smoking it, or you just smoking it? I was stealing weed and putting parsley seeds with the weed. But what were you doing with it?

You wasn't just, people don't just steal just to steal. That's the part I'm trying to get to. Well, I would roll up $2 squares. And if anybody wanted to buy a square. So you were selling drugs? I wasn't selling drugs, that's weed.

Okay, you were selling weed. But I was like seven, eight years old.

Oh Lord.

I wasn't just Nino Brown, nah. But Nino Brown didn't start off as Nino Brown. But this was my personal. Right. You know, I'm just not gonna give it away. If you want it, that's two dollars square.

And if I had a Nick on me, and my Nicks never was real nicks though. So, no, they were never real nicks, man. Cause I'd roll me a couple of squares out the nick, and I'd sell it so it'd be a couple of squares short. A nick, how many squares could you get out of a nick

back in the day? About three?

Three.

About three or four. About three or four? So y'all know they wasn't cutting but two out of one. But the thing is, you probably, that homegrown, so they was bumped to begin with.

That homegrown?

Nah, you ever had some homegrown?

Golly!

That is the most terrible week ever, man. You don't go out there and cut some grass and let it dry. Nah, man, nah, nah. I mean, let me just give you an eye high. Like your eyes would be high. You don't really be high though. But I never, I had a job, and I worked at the movie theater.

But before the movie theater, I had another job. I had a hustle. So I was hustling. Did you let your homies in the movie theater for free? Or you let them cut, hey, give me a dollar, I'll let you in. No, I just let them in. Matter of fact, I didn't really have no homies, man,

that would come by there like that.

Right.

You know what I mean? And this was, and I was too young to be working anyway. Right.

I was like.

It wasn't too long back then

because they put your ass to be. Right. Excuse me. And these were white people. Right. I worked in Bel Air at a movie theater. Right. You had to work like eight hours a day sometimes. And me being 16 years old, you know, they wondering why I ain't in school. so I told them that I was 18 years old, right? So I can keep that job. But I filled out an application at this hypermark called Ocean.

They had just built the biggest, it's big like Walmart, like Sam's or something, big, big, big. And I worked as a stock boy at night, overnight. And I worked a few days, man, and I had a check, man, that check was 400 and something dollars. That was a lot of money back then. That was a lot of money for a couple of days of work, right? Yeah. So I got my check and I never went back to work.

Well, damn, did you want another check? I invested in my business. In your other business. Yeah. Investment, huh? I invested, yeah.

And then when I started making,

I started making a lot of money. in my business.

Investment, huh? I invested, yeah. And then when I started making music, I had a lot to talk about. I had a lot to talk about. Right.

Because I knew several businesses. You had a, you had a, as they say, you had life experience. You lived life more by the time you was 16, 17 than most people live. For sure, no question about it.

Yeah, for sure. Remember we was eight years old and we used to wear these medallions that we got from the game room down the street. And they would ask us, you know, the guy would swear us in. We'd take an oath.

You know, I solemnly swear to protect the weak and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So, guy walks into this place called Utotem. We was kids, man. And we were hiding in there and they robbed that place and they shot that clerk, man. Now we'll forget that.

You were there?

Yeah. Me and a couple of men, another couple of buddies of mine, we were there. I was, this lady had got, um... shot in our apartment complex.

And it's the first time that I'd ever seen, like, blood like that. And it was thick, like... I can't even describe how thick it was. But it was so thick, man. And that lady was dead, her husband killed her. And that lady was dead.

And that blood was thick, bro. It was so thick. Yeah, as a kid, man, I was traumatized, man, by just different stuff I've seen over the years. You know, the first starting of my career, you know, every concert we had, somebody would get killed.

You know, two girls, and I don't know if that was San Diego or somewhere we was at. San Diego?

Yep.

So we was in San Diego and we finished the concert and got ready to leave. There was two girls laying out on the side of a Volkswagen Bug, dead. Like, all the shows, man, somebody got shot. Somebody got this, somebody got that.

Every neighborhood that we lived in, somebody was, man, I mean, we used to have parties in the house parties, man, and we would go in that house party, even go to the Great Stakes Gate. We were going there to fight, man. And I always had a pistol on me.

I always had a pistol. Your uncle stole from you and your grand, I think it was in your book where you said your uncle stole from you and your grandfather shot at you.

Yeah.

Your uncle stole money, what did he steal from you? Some material that I have to use to go to work with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You construction worker, yeah.

Yeah, how you gonna do your job if I don't have my stuff to do my job with? So we had a fight. How'd you know he stole it? Because didn't nobody else know where it was. So you fought your uncle?

Yeah.

You get it back?

No. You beat your uncle? Yeah. You get it back? No.

You beat your uncle up?

I did.

Did you apologize to him? I do. You didn't at the time, but you do now?

Yeah.

Why your grandfather shoot at you? Cause he, you gotta keep him in there, man. You got to keep him in there, because you let him out, bro. Yeah. That shit is bad, bad.

Right. So, he shot at me, and I heard him. He's so right, bro.

Yeah.

Yup. It's all right, bro. Yeah. Yeah.

The tools that you needed to go to work with, did you ever use any of those tools?

I did.

Did you get hooked?

I didn't get hooked. I didn't get addicted, I didn't get addicted. But I used it before, yeah. You have to make sure that the frame that you build, you gotta make sure it's okay. You don't want the ceiling to fall in

when you start walking on the roof, do you? You tried to rob a bank. So who tries to rob, so what was your thought process in that? What, you robbing a bank? I ain't never tried to rob no bank.

You weren't successful? No, I don't wanna rob no bank. That's where the money at.

Me?

Yeah. Rob a bank?

Nah, bro, my name Brad, and I rap. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. When did you say, you know what, enough of all this other stuff that I got going on, I'm going to the rap game?

Mm-mm.

You didn't make it, it didn't happen like that? No. So how did you start rapping? How'd I start rapping?

Yeah.

It was a cool ass pastime in junior high school and high school. Okay.

Right?

Rapping. You was only there for a year and a half in high school, so it wasn't that cool. It was cool. Okay. Because everybody went from one school to the next, and we all knew each other, so it kind of felt like I did graduate, you know?

Kind of felt like I was still in school with everybody. Okay. To this day. Yeah. school with everybody okay to this day yeah we still together um I feel like when I when I first started drawing a passion and rapping for for for rapping you know I was listening to everybody and then when I heard KRS-One, I think that's when I really wanted to start to be a rapper.

When I heard Ice-T, I really wanted to be a rapper. When I heard Ice Cube, I really wanted to be a rapper. Now listening to LL Cool J and Big Daddy Kane let me know that I couldn't be a rapper you know because they were just so immaculately skilled not that none of the other artists that I mentioned aren't but it was just when I heard that I was like you know what I want to do this yeah all right but so I ended up making a couple of records with a guy in Houston and I made a song called Scarface and it came out it was the first one that we that that that's

the first one that we probably heard yet but um a buddy of mine Chris Barry rest in peace they call him three two had we were we were together and we made a he made a record I don't remember the name of it but it was more of a radio friendly record and the record label wanted to go with that because it was more user-friendly right and on the other side of town there was another kid that wanted to put

me that like what I was saying and wanted to put me you know in a group. Now mind you about three or four months before that I had rode the bus over to to the car lot to play some songs for him and one of the cats was like that's not what we're looking for and then like a few weeks a few months later you know Steve Farnier playing a record for Lil' J at the Rhinestone Wrangler parking lot.

And shit, dude was at my house. And I was like, man, how you find me?

Just like that?

Yeah.

You mentioned KRS-One, known as the lyricists. Big Daddy Kane, lyricists. Rock Hemp, lyricists. People put you in that, and you are a storyteller. And that, people that, you know what I noticed? And I'm a storyteller because I've hung around,

I hung around a lot of old people, and old people told stories. You know, go get your hair cut at the barbershop, and they're playing checkers, and they're telling old men, telling stories. You're a storyteller. Is that how you thought your rap career did?

So what were you hoping to be as a rapper? What was it going to be?

I didn't know.

I knew that Ice-T told a cold-ass story, you know, six in the morning, police at my door, fresh chins in the street, let's go to the bathroom. So you know, it's clicking now. Ice Cube, once upon a time in the projects, yo. So we can't just say that my storytelling is all that,

but you know, what about Will Smith's storytelling? You know, like Will Smith had some cold-ass stories, man. Have you ever in your life experienced a day when nothing at all seems to go your way? Like, Dane Dane. Yes. Hell of a storytellers, man. I grew up in the era of hip-hop where where it was a force to be reckoned with man It has some nice and you love to hear the story again and again

How it all got started way back when like that those are immaculate come lines, man Those are beautiful openings right to a book, but you have to have You have to have that in order to be a cold-blooded lyricist, storyteller, and they had that, and it just came through me too. Do we have that now?

In some cases, yeah. You got some cool, some nice-ass storytellers in rap right now. If I were to ask you, give me your top five lyricists of all time. All times?

All time, top five. I don't have a top five like that. Some greats, I'll give you some names of some greats. Kane is a great, Rakim is a great, Chris is a great rock him was a great. Mm-hmm Chris is a great Carrot one. Yeah

That's a that's a yellow. Yeah, you didn't I did not know you did else a great. Mm-hmm great lyricists Nas is a great. Yeah Jay-z is a great. I Mean, I don't have a top five. Like my top five are going to the top thousands. I think that Pac, I think that Cube,

I think that Shan and, who am I missing? Like I can't because I'll miss everybody. Q-Tip is great. You know, T.I. is a great. Wayne is a great.

You were named Lyricist of the Year in 2001. You beat Hov, beat Em, Prodigy, to leave Cooley. Who? You beat Hov, Em, Prodigy. You surprised? Damn, I mean, damn! No, I'm just messing. When they mention the KRS-Ones, when they mention the BDK, Big Daddy Kane, when they mention Rock Hemp.

That's in a selected few conversations, man, that my name pops up. I'm not mad or I don't feel nothing. I think that everybody's entitled to their opinion, though. You feel me?

Right.

It's people that people think, just like the best rappers in the world, and I don't even see them. You know what I mean? Oh man, he's back, nah. Nah, nah.

Nah.

Chris Rock said you one of the top three all time.

Nah.

Nah, top three all times is. If somebody had to say, okay, for your life, we're gonna add 10 extra years to your life, give me your top four rappers all time.

Four?

Four. Give me your top four. We're gonna add 10 years to your life because we know you ain't trying to go see the... I just say, f T and I. Real, man. You ain't try to go like that. I don't care, man.

I don't have a top four, man. Like I would say my top four influences, D,

can I say that?

Yeah, go ahead. Okay, well I'm gonna say Chuck. Chuck D. I'm gonna say Big Daddy Kane. I'm gonna say Chuck. Chuck D. I'm gonna say Big Daddy Kane. Yeah. I'm gonna say Ice Cube.

Shootie, man. I gotta say cool J because It was just It was just music that dude put out That really inspired me to want to be This man, yeah, I saw those guys you the concerts, I saw LL, the Fat Boys.

I was there, that's what I was talking about.

Run DMC, Houdini.

Yep, I was there. The Fresh Fest. I saw all them in concert, I think it was like 1986. Yeah, that's the year, that's the year. That's the year that, that's the concert we were coming from when Dude robbed that store

and killed a clerk. Yeah, wow. That's the concert we were coming from. It was called the Fresh Fest.

Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah.

Man.

Yeah.

Do you, like, do you really, I mean, because for me, I don't think these artists, a lot of times artists today and people that follow rap and hip hop today, I don't think they give that generation the credit that they deserve.

Because now I feel like if they didn't see it and it didn't happen on the internet yesterday, it ain't happen. Does that frustrate you? I think it's, you know, as shameful as it is, man, I can understand that because look at what they doing

with black history.

Yeah.

Okay? You see what I'm saying like it is black history is becoming extinct you know the more the more and more we try to talk about it and bring it to the forefront the more the more the more they try to hide it okay so I understand and I would yeah if I was trying to brainwash people man, I Would do it exactly like that. I would first take their history away and then I would poison their music This is exact that's exactly what I would do because

You it's it's really like I remember back in gap, man, it was all fire and one or two, you know, that slipped through the crack. But now it's one or two fires and everything slipped through the crack. It's my opinion though, shit. And you know, I'm different, I'm cut different, I'm a little older and I know what it's supposed to sound like, I know the elements of hip-hop. I was blessed

enough to come up in an era where... Came up in the golden era. The golden era, yeah, and I can actually go and thank my... the ones that came before me, I can thank them and thank my, the ones that came before me, I can thank them for the ground that they laid for me to stand on, man. Like I see Kane, you know, and I see El, all the time, man, and I thank them.

Even Red Alert and Kid Capri, I thank them for letting me you know, be a part of this. But I had the opportunity to sit down with DJ Kaz, Casanova Fly, I'm the C-A-S-N, the O-D-A-N, the S-F-L-Y, he stole the man whole rap. That was big bang hang, he wasn't Casanova Fly.

But I heard the story

Along with so it's kumod cast a noble fly and

Fab five Freddy having a talk man about hip-hop man, and I have never felt so unworthy

To be in a room in my life, bro

Like I don't feel

Worthy to be in there with that. Because when they talk about it from the beginning, like it gives what Shan said, you love to hear the story again and again of how it all got started way back when, it give it a whole new meaning when you sit and you listen to them talk about hip hop

from the conception. Yeah. All right. The 50 years at the beginning. Yeah man, it was unbelievable man. And I was a fly on the wall in that room listening to those voices tell that story man.

And I was like wow, I'm not worthy. Storytelling. How did that become a part of, cause that's who you are. You a storyteller. You know, I think it was in my English class.

It must have been early. Yeah, it was early. Okay.

You trying to be funny?

I'm trying to be funny.

I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna get your ass back on it. All the time, you be popping on the. Yeah, I be popping on Shannon ass hard, man. You see, I ain't firing you up on camera, but I'm not gonna do it. Okay. I appreciate you Okay, I teach you that you got but I already know you got something to borrow. I got some shit man Hey, so my English teacher when I was probably in the third grade

Used to always tell me about writing man Writing your story had to have a it had to have a beginning

it had to have a beginning,

it had to have a body, a climax, and then an ending. So I always tried to write my records like that. You know, to drag you into the story, man, to give you the, to grab you and put you in that moment

and go, oh shit, I'm in.

You know, and then take you to the climax of it and then end it.

Yeah.

So that's, so it's just some old English, was it English, man, or was it a reading class or a writing class, I don't know.

Right.

But whatever class it was, it gave me that. Yeah, because there is excuse me Every story has to have a start it has to have a middle it has that in yeah And that's what he said a beginning a body a climax and an ending So I took some from school right you are you were featured on Biggie possible set did you make it Did you ever I met biggie?gie, I did. I met him in Louisville, Kentucky.

Okay. I met him there. Yeah, cool dude, man. I never spent a lot of time with Biggie. Right. But I did have the honor of being on one of the records from the Biggie duets. Right. So I'm duets. Right. So I'm on that.

Yeah.

Um, Pop. I spent a lot of time with Tupac. Because we were discussing that Smile might have been the last studio thing he recorded. I can't say that. Because he was always in the studio. I probably left the studio and he did 35 more records that night. records that night maybe no he was a workaholic man but probably though you

we'd heard about it true what was he like I was wild he had a zero to hundred. I have never seen him on zero though. Always seen him on a hundred. I've always seen him on a hundred. Yeah, I ain't never seen him down. He was always on fire.

I remember one time, true story, where's Warren? So, Pocket came to my room, and I hate when Warren bring people to my room. So, my brother brought Tupac to my room. We staying in the La Montrose in LA. And Warren, I hate this man, but he knocked on my door,

I opened the door, and it's Tupac and Warren. Warren left, Tupac come in the room, man, and this is the first time we started smoking the weed from California. Uh-oh. So I was really, really, really, really, really, really high.

Yeah. And I had a suite and it had two beds, right? So I'm high, I'm watching TV, man, and Pac come in there with all that loud ass shit, man. And I grabbed a remote control and I just handed it to him. He was like, yeah,, we're gonna do this.

He sat there on the bed for a minute, man, flipping through the channels. He walked to the patio door, looked out, and he seen Suge in a red Mercedes Benz. And he left. I don't think that Pac was that cool with Suge back then.

Right.

Cause he didn't leave. And I don't know they could have been the best of friends, but I know that he was gone. Right. Because he did leave. And I don't know they could have been the best of friends, but I know that he was gone. Right. And we ended up getting out and going out somewhere, and I didn't see Pac no more. But me and Pac been on tours together.

You know, we've been in Atlanta together. That's my partner, man. I would talk to Tupac on the phone before he was Me Against the World, not Me Against the World but what's the other album? All Eyes on Me. I talked to Tupac before he was All Eyes on Me.

Alright?

Me and Pac been down since Tupacalypse, now Pac. You know what I mean? That's the Pac I know. I know the, this is for my I've seen Pac been down since Tupacalypse, now Pac. You know what I mean, that's the Pac I know. I know the, this is from my, Pac.

Wow.

Yeah, I know that Pac. How is his writing style different than yours? I don't know. You never see him write anything? No, but I can tell you that I was his favorite rapper. And he was mine.

So I leave that, I leave that where it's at. So maybe we did have similar writing style but we never wrote together. As a matter of fact, he would always be mad at me because it took me so long to write records. You know, he pissed at me, man.

Every time he comes in the studio, yeah man, let's get up, we gonna go here, we gonna go, no, I'm not going there.

Right.

I'm not going anywhere in the park to begin with because he doesn't have a driver's license.

Ha ha ha.

Now, well back then he may have got one, you know, later, but he didn't have no driver's license. But he drive with no license? Yeah, for sure, yeah. And he couldn't drive, man. And people was, he tried to get me to roll that Hummer one time, and somebody had a picture of that Hummer on the internet, man.

And I was like, damn, that shot me back. But he couldn't drive, man. And he was wild, and he'd be drinking, and he'd be smoking weed and shit. Nah, man, I'm not gonna ride with him. He ain't got no license, he drinking, smoking weed, he's not a very good driver.

Nah, that's a recipe for disaster, man. And to prevent shit is always better than trying to cure it. So, no Pac, no sir. You told a story about Jay-Z and how you were in the studio and he's like, yeah, I like this one. He gets up, goes into the booth. Ain't write nothing down. Oh.

Oh no.

And all right, Dab you up and gone and peace out. Let me like, damn, I'm sitting in front of the board,

stuck listening to the beat.

He already rapped. But he was sitting in that little corner maybe. I know you probably seen on the Timbaland, but he dusts his shoulders off, he hit a beat and he rocking and sitting. All of a sudden he gonna take the vocal.

Yeah.

Explain, tell the story of how you said Jay-Z helped you when you were at your worst. We've heard stories about him, what he did for Lil Wayne. We heard what he did, you know, Wayne had some tax trouble, Jay-Z, hey, clear. He let DMX leave, was in debt, let him leave.

I think 21 Savage helped him get an immigration lawyer. So we've heard these great stories, no matter what people try to say, bad about him, negative about him, but we hear more positive, great stories. Tell your story. So you remember when I caught the COVID

and kidney failure and all that? Yeah. Yeah, Jay-Z chunked me a lifeline. And you know when I had the kidney and the COVID and the kidney, yeah. DJ Khaled chunked me a lifeline.

Yeah. So can't nobody tell me shit about Jay-Z and DJ Khaled. Wow. Because they chunked me a lifeline. And, you know, I gotta, I'm thankful. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Because I wasn't working. Right.

But yeah.

So shout out to Hov and DJ Khaled. You know, I always talk to to when I talked to Jay-Z call him the keeper of the culture man cuz he do that big brother shit yeah you know you think you think the whole would do another album for what cuz people say like for him to do something. For what? He's got a it like it's got a movie. You're like it's got to be something that like that calls out to him It right now ain't nothing called it

Let me tell you something man So Let me say this so I so I won't be misunderstood He don't have no reason to rap no more. You know, we rap because we was hungry, man. You know what I mean?

Right. Like, we spoke our heart and told our side of the story because we was starving, man. You know? We ain't starving no more.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Like, that man't starving no more.

You know what I mean? Yeah, I do, absolutely. Like that man not starving no more. Nah, not in the least. That man got kids. You see how he prepping them girls, man?

You see that? It's crazy ain't it, man? It's unbelievable, man. And I've been knowing that baby since she was a baby baby. And to see her up there with our mama. I'm like, oh

I'll call him man. I said boy Wayne did we tell you that ain't Wayne? I mean, uh, that's Warren Warren Warren. We can't help it He can't help it. Okay, he cannot he cannot help that shit man ever since we was kids, bro He was always on the phone He always on the phone always He on the phone sleep

He on the phone FaceTime driving and not saying nothing We got we got to do better like he just owned up look his He is on the phone. And he ain't talking about shit, because his mouth ain't even moving. Nah, he just listening.

He just stopped. He might be listening to a beat. He not listening to no beat, that nigga can't rap. God damn.

Help me understand this. To no beat, that nigga can't rap. God damn.

Oh, help me understand this. I know you heard it, cause he came on Nightcap. Jim Jones and his influence and Nas. You cool with Jim? I love Jim Jones. But he out of his mind, ain't he?

I don't know why you, I'm not gonna say shit about nothing you okay with beefs you ever have a rap beef with anybody no I ain't got no I don't want no beef when you when you when you and you never I don't know if our beef good buddy yeah beef no need what you want to do like like all that talking then what you want to do like all that talk what you wanna do? Like, fuck all that talking, nigga, what you wanna do? Like, fuck all that talk, what you wanna do?

They wanna talk, we all mean. Nah, I don't want any of that fucking talking, what you wanna do? Well, keep my fucking name out your mouth, punk.

Period.

Don't say shit about me. Like, that's how I feel about it. That's how you feel about it? Yeah. I ain't got no beef about you. I'm done now, I'm gonna be beefing for now. Yeah, you done. What the, you want beef? Oh, you want beef now that I ain't rapping no more? You, now you want a beef.

No, I don't want no smoke from nobody in all honesty, man. Because I can't control what nobody else do.

Right.

You know what I'm saying? I can't control what nobody else do. I ain't got nothing to do with it, but I don't have no control over what somebody else do. And back when we was, took that shit so serious and so personal, man. They take it personal, man. And I don't never want to be involved

in that kind of stuff, man. You have a great relationship with Cube because you've been on a lot of the soundtracks. A mentor. He's a mentor. He's a mentor.

We made a song. Yeah, I'll leave that. But yeah, he's a mentor. You worked with Master P? You worked with some heavyweights, face. I did. So I was listening to a song, I'm gonna some heavyweights, face. I did. So I was listening to a song,

I'm gonna go back to the Cube shit. So I'm listening to a record of me and Cube, we sitting in the studio listening together, right? And I'm listening, and he's listening, and I'm like, and he's like, he's like, is that you or me?

I said, I don't know. Because that's how similar our styles and delivery is. That's how much influence that, and impact that he has had on my career. Right.

You know what I mean?

Because it's certain shit that we don't know the difference between. Like I have songs with Cube that we don't know the difference.

Wow.

Who's who? You know, you can tell in the rap part, but you can't tell in certain areas where you saying shit. Like who is that, that's you? No, that's me. No, that's me. No, that's me. Where are your ghostwriting?

Cause some people like it's okay, then some people like, I mean, cause nobody, nobody. I think now, who cares?

Really?

Yeah. Okay. But back then, MC Lyfe said it the best. He said, whoever wrote your rhymes might as well hold your microphone. Damn. But now I don't give a f**k. I'm not in no more. I don't care. Write. Do you.

How have you get out of that? Like everything has changed man. They had the no snitch policy in effect. Everything has changed man. Everybody telling everybody business. Truth. Yeah. So now things have changed bro. So the right to ride policy, whatever. Drake moved to Houston, you ain't tell him not to come. Drake don't live in Houston. He got a place in Houston.

He live in the country. So? I wanna live in the country too. Okay, go move to the country. You'll have more fun out there, but you'll have a lot of, well, nah, hell nah. You'll have more fun out there, but you'll have a lot of well No, he'll know I know what you try to look. I'm just show me around you show me what I need to live face

I'll show you where you need to live. Okay, but after that, that's it. No, I'm not going no way with you Thank you. We gonna get it. Drake said UK rappers are better than American rappers. I don't know a whole lot of UK rappers. You know what, I don't know any UK rappers, but I don't have nothing against the UK,

but just like me saying Kobe was better than Jordan.

Yeah.

You know, you had a blueprint to study. Right. You know what I mean? Jordan created the blueprint for you to study, so for Kobe to be better than him, that's a possibility. Right.

If you study the blueprint enough, you become the blueprint. Right. So if UK rappers are better than the rappers from the United States, they had enough to study.

True.

Okay? And they had enough time to study it.

All right?

So no comment. I mean, that's my comment. If you were to get, let's say, you know what, somebody get faced to come out, who would you like to get on the beat with? Nobody.

Can't nobody get you to come out of retirement? I'm done. I got on Cube's, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Ego.

Yeah.

But that's it, that's, that's best you gonna do? Yeah, Ice Cube, I'd come out for Ice Cube.

Okay.

I did come out for Cube.

Right.

Houston, you got Beyonce, you got Meg, you got Travis Scott, you got Lizzo, you got, bro, you got Bun B. Y'all, what's in Houston? What are we missing about Houston? Hell, the cat out the bag now, everybody moving now.

Hee hee hee hee.

Got room for one more? Hell no, man. Cause you bring company.

So yeah,

we got some dope ass artists, man. You missing a lot out of Houston, man. You're missing a lot. Slim's a native, Kiki's a native, Paul, Paul, yeah, Lil Kiki, yeah Kiki, yeah, Sauce, Clay, Kylie Young, like you got some heat coming out of Houston man they can really go, K Reno is one of the

guys that came up a little before I did and I think he's the epitome of what Houston rap should have been. Right. You know or could have been because he's a lyrical giant in it you know. Matter of fact he's on my album I can't remember the song but he's on the emeritus album with the song of me slimming in the K Reno but he's a he's a killer in in Houston hip-hop man it's a few more but we got some smoke out there man you do you do you do no?

Do you think people start beef now just to get attention? Cuz I see a lot of people going in somebody. I'm like, I don't know they were beefing. What did this happen? Well, you're asking about rapping man, I don't know too much about it no more, you know, I always thought that if you had a bitch... Oh, ho, buddy. All right.

Oh, ho.

I'm gonna fucking whip the closer.

I'm gonna get one.

I got the Eddie button.

Oh, you got the Eddie button?

Oh, you got the Eddie button?

Oh, you got the Eddie button?

Oh, you got the Eddie button? did something to you back then. Okay. Yeah for sure. Okay. And when you saw each other you fought. Mm-hmm. All right. Perfect example is like Ice Cube and WA when Cube left the group and they both were at the New Music Seminar in New York. They fought. All right. Yeah. So when you got a beef man they fight. You fight. You diss somebody on a record. When you see him, you gotta be prepared to do whatever you gotta do.

Yeah. But now, nowadays. They just talking. They just talking, yeah. It's just rapping. Kanye, you worked with Kanye.

I did.

What's Kanye like in the studio? When I was working with Kanye, man, Kanye's a bad man. He bad, bruh. Oh, he got, Kanye cold. Kanye cold, cold, cold. I think sometimes we forget about that phase because we see some of the antics that he's got going on now

but you go back and look at Khalid drop out in the 808.

Bruh, bruh.

When Kanye would come to the studio, see, Kanye was a producer, man, before he started rapping. Correct. Okay and he always that's him on the Dean on the Guess Who's Bizarre. That's that's that's Kanye. Wow. But Kanye when he back when he was making beats man like he played beats for days and days and days, and he'd just sit there and play them.

And you'd be like, man, wow, I got so many beats from Kanye from the Fix album and working on other stuff, but I got a lot of music with Kanye that never, that I never put out. Right right but Kanye was the producer man and we had that we had a Tight ass producer rapper relationship man, and that was my friend too man as I partner right, you know and

That fork. That fork in the road. You know, we all started together. I always feel like me and Jay and Ye and DMX and Irv and we were all in the office together. We was all in the office together. And we was leaving, we was riding, we was riding, and then they went here. And I was like, you know what, I'm finna go home. I went home, man. And I don't feel bad about going home, bro.

I don't feel bad about going home. Because I don't ever wanna be in the position where I can't enjoy me. I just want to enjoy me, bro. You know, enjoy my life, enjoy the fruits of my labor, you know, which ain't a whole lot of shit, but it's mine.

And I ain't got to have no 75 traveling with me when I go somewhere, you know what I mean? I don't have to hide and shit, man. I don't want to hide. I don't want to run from nobody. I just want a way better and going on about my business.

So I don't want to be too famous, never. Right.

Sampling.

Where are you on sampling? You let somebody sample some of your stuff?

And if they do, do you have to hear it?

I don't care. I don't care about nothing that got anything to do with this no more.

Damn.

Very, very bitter about it. Why you so bitter about it? I just...

You feel you were wrong?

Taking advantage of? I mean the music industry within itself is wrong.

Okay.

All right? If you look at, I would like to compare contracts. I'd like to compare a Beastie Boys contract to a Ghetto Boys contract or you know what I mean? I'd like to see, uh... So I'd like to see, so I'd like to see other genre artists. Artists, yeah, I would like to see a Maze contract as opposed to a Van Halen contract.

You feel me? Like I know it's a big, big difference between the pay scales in those contracts. But yeah, it's not, nah, bro. So I don't care what they do with it. What do you know now you wish you had known then?

I don't wanna change nothing about it. You know, I'm right where I wanna be.

Really?

Yeah, I don't need no whole lot. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to be. Really? Yeah, I don't need no whole lot. You know what I mean? I don't need a lot. I mean, you paying when I come to Houston. You paying when I come to Houston. You're paying.

You're going to reach in your back pocket, pull out your, I don't know, maybe you carry a money clip or something, whatever, and you're going to put that down. On what? You know, I like, you know, I like. On you?

Yeah!

No, bro. Hold up, how I'm gonna come to Houston and you think I'm gonna pay? Bro, I'm in Vegas and I ain't even had lunch yet and it's six o'clock, I haven't even had breakfast. I'm trying to figure out how that get to be my fault.

I'm doing Club Shea Shea. We, you know, tight budget right now.

No but shit.

No but shit.

Streaming, no. Absolutely not. Should social, Should rappers take their music off stream to get it back to where people gotta pay real money to get it?

Yep.

I would.

I remember when it was 99 cent to listen to it. Yeah, what's up?

You know what I mean?

Yeah. So here's the thing. It costed us so much money to make those albums. It cost so much to pay a producer but now you know what I think producers may make a beat for $200 now. I'm not lying but I know back in the gap you know a Dr. Dre beat was 250 grand you know Timbaland beat was 150, 200 thousand

dollars as the Neptunes and all of them that shit was high yeah so it would be shameful to get a beat from these top-notch producers and then have to put your shit on a stream and wait for it to stream right you know four thousand streams a million streams is $4,000.

What?

Yeah. One million streams is $4,000.

Wow.

So you gotta get, so Reddick, in order to get some money, you gotta do like a billion streams. If you want some money, yeah. So like, Drake and Kendrick, they doing billions. They doing billions of streams. So they getting money.

Yeah, Beyonce, Taylor Swift. Streams, you know. But it's too much red tape, man, in between that. Because you don't never know. It's kind of like the record selling, too. You don't know how many records are really sold.

Right.

You know what I mean? What they tell you. Let's just go by what they tell you. You know, but the streaming, I still, I'm still not hip to how this works. Right. And that's why I'm not putting out any new music, I'm not releasing any new music, because it would just be all done in vain. Because those people have come up with something so slick to cut us all the way out the money. The mom and pop saved hip hop.

The mom and pop saved our lives. Because if we couldn't do anything else, we can sell 100,000 records and make a million dollars. God forbid you sold a million records and made 10 million dollars. But you used to go back in the day,

you looked forward to going to the shop and getting the vinyl. You did, and you read the credits.

Yes!

And you could roll a square on the record.

You say, yes, yes, yeah.

You know, you pop the cassette in. I introed my album, The Fix. I got this brand new face tape I'm about to pop in the deck for you. Turn up the radio, you know what I mean? Yeah, like we had jams, man, and they sold.

Not just listening to shit, man. And I'm gonna listen to this, and I'm gonna pay him half a penny, but after this, I wanna hear something else, and pay them half a penny. No, you had to buy that body of work. Yeah.

Like you can't, like a real artist, man, you can't judge their body of work by one song. Okay. I would prefer way more if someone would just listen to an album from front to back. That's why all my shit jammed from front to back

because I had a chance to listen to my album from front to back. Right. Because I had a chance to listen to my album from front to back right and it jammed You read Def Jam so I'll use running Def Jam South when you south when you discover ludicrous I Can't say I discovered ludicrous He fell in your lap a whole lot of shit feeling

Ludicrous was already doing numbers. Mm-hmm. You know, he was already he was he was on the radio Yeah, and he already 30,000 records sold already on that What's Your Fantasy. Yeah. So he was like a hands-off artist to me. Yeah. And he just fell in the lap. Def Jam picked it up and pushed it a little further but you got to think about all of the other artists that slipped through the cracks. You had an opportunity, what you tried to get T.I., tried to get Ross? Yeah, David Banner,

started naming them. I tried to bring them over there, but back then the music that was coming from down south was so iffy to them. Like the music from down south was so iffy to them. They wasn't on it like they on it right now. At first, you didn't hear that coming from the east coast of California. Now, that's all you hear. Even if you're not from down south,

your music still sound like you're from down south. That's crazy. But it is what it is. What have you learned about Money Face? It's money like religion, man. It's only as good as the person who has it or who believes in it. You know what I mean?

Because you can be a very, very rich person and create a facade for everybody else, like you're the best person in the world, but when you're elected and the lights get put on you, then they realize what kind of piece of shit you really are. Or you can be just a regular person with no money

and be the greatest person in the world. So it's only as good as the person who believes in it or has it. It's like religion. I think Fat Joe said on his podcast, Joe and Jada, that rappers live paycheck to paycheck.

You believe that? It's possible. It's possible. It's possible. Cause you gotta think about it, you get paid, well, I don't know how to get paid now. I don't know how to get paid now.

But you got paid twice a year.

That's it? Mm-hmm. So you had to make that money last? Yeah.

Oh, you had to do a lot of shows, right? Yeah, you got paid in September in March. Mm-hmm. Oh The game is the game is all the way around crooked right, You know and you sold all of those records and you get paid twice a year and then they got something they call reserves. They put some records in reserves in case they come back and like damn then you never see that again. then it's like, wow, they got a cold system going on.

But it is what it is. You know, that's the way they designed it. And I'm looking at all of the older artists that's like older than me, I'm looking at George Clinton get all his shit back. You know, they got it to where...

So your thing's gonna revert back to you after what, 25 years? 35.

35.

So you ain't got but like 10 to go.

10.

Yeah, you ain't got much longer. You think I'm gonna be here that long? Yeah, you be here.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, come to Houston, man, you can't do... Copyrights. I'm not kicking it with you, bro. Face. No, sir. Same age, I mean, we just talk age. You say same age. We close in age, I said.

You didn't say the same. Close. Bro, you almost 60. Well, damn, why you giving out my info? Bro. Ain't nobody ask you that.

But you, I got the cards.

No.

No.

No.

No. I'm like, what? Why you get? Hey, but you know what though? You just talked, we talked about snitching early. You remember you mentioned snitching? You mentioned snitching early. Hey, but you know what though? When you walked in the building, I say, man,

that man walk like don't nothing hurt. What'd he do? I got artificial hips.

Goal, hit, spike?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, and then you don't feel nothing that plane. No, but when I get up man, I'll be everything hurt Man, you get your hips replaced man. I mean I've been there. I mean hurt sitting down hurt walking hurt sleeping hurt Standing hurt everything hurt man. I might need to get a new hip. They put you got two hips got both of them They put two hips in yeah What they look like? Perfect. I mean cuz you you gotta realize your hips are-

No, I'm just, no, I'm just- No, you're arthritic. Your hips are arthritic, they're called probably arthritic. And so they go in there- So you got like some hips that came out of horns, or they made you some hips?

They're a ball, cause So a hip is a ball? Yes, ball socket, yes.

Face.

Did you see the, did you actually see the actual hip? Yes, I could've kept it, I was like, nah, I'm good. You don't ever wanna remember that shit no more, huh?

Nah, that was a bad for years.

Yeah, I got up out the chair, man, and the chair was like, damn, face. Yeah, man? Man, this shit hurt, man. I play golf every day. And I'm hurting right now. Look like you play football every day. Hey, shut up, I'm gonna bank your ass, man.

You better leave me alone. Okay, my bad, my bad, my bad, my bad. You gotta leave me alone. But, we, let, can we just tell the truth. We talking to Faze off camera Face got kids six seven who cares. Hey, this sound like a We sound like a it's not like he's not like an old ass nigga that coached

Lily T ball Everybody get over there everybody get over there and pick them balls up. Daniel, get your glove off the ground, son. What's wrong with you? But I read where you said you were terrible, you a bad father, you weren't. Yeah, no, I'm f***ing terrible.

Have you gotten better?

Chris, have I gotten better, Chris? Damn.

Damn.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

He all right, Chris, man, he all right. I missed the question. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn. Damn.

Damn.

Damn.

Damn.

Damn. Damn say yeah. Chris wouldn't lie.

Shit.

Chris lying now.

I, um. Wouldn't happen because you were so young, because your oldest, I mean you had your oldest at like 17.

Yeah.

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't really, um. I didn't really look at fatherhood as like being a father. I just figured you'd throw money at it and cover it up. But watching my children with their children, it made me a better father. I was like, oh shit, so this is what it is.

Yeah.

You know. You're a better grandfather than you are a father.

Than you were a father.

I can say that for sure.

Yeah.

My grandson come by the house the other day man. That chump, that chump walking and,

he he he he he.

You know.

My other grand boy, and every time he see me he go, hey. That's what I say to him, I be like, hey. He be like, when he see me on the face, I'm like, hey. What'd they call you, Grandpa Face?

G. G.

Yeah.

But Chris. I call him Pop Pop. Yeah, they call him Pop Pop. He started that shit. That's all right, I'll get him Papa. Yeah, they call him Papa. He started that shit. That's all right, I'll get him back. That's what my grand called me.

My grandson called me Papa. I want to be Papa. Man, that's too bad.

What you thought?

But you are.

You're fucking 60, bro. Bro, okay.

You are 60.

That's close enough. I'm 36 months older than you? Man, that man ain't counting the shit I done been like. That's why I should have stayed in school, huh man? I can't remember shit, man. I can't remember nothing, man. I can't remember nothing, man. Are you cool with the parents, with their moms?

I think so, yeah.

Because you ran into a problem, you were... You know what, at this point, it ain't even about being cool with the moms no more. It's about being cool with the kids. But you had a situation where you was giving cash to one of the moms and not through the court. Yeah, I mean, everybody's gonna go through that shit. Yeah.

Everybody's gonna go through that shit, man. And I think that that is probably the most unfair thing that you could do to a man. As a matter of fact, that creates a strain in parenting. You know what I mean? You'd be like, man, I wanna spend time with my daddy,

and be like, you was a, you was a token, you was a chick. You wasn't, you wasn't, you wasn't that. This ain't that.

You know? You was a pawn for a bigger scheme. He wasn't that. This ain't that.

He was a pawn for a bigger scheme.

And it's sad that that kid has to suffer like that

because the lady wanna drag the other parent through some shit and it's all on us. Did you have to go through this shit too? I have. Yeah, so everything fall on the dude. But we were young. I think the thing is, Faith, when you young,

you don't really, it's not like, if you have kids in your late 20s, early 30s, but when you having kids as a teenager in your early 20s, early 30s. But when you having kids as a teenager in your early 20s, y'all don't know how to be no parent. And you're not doing what's in the best interest for the kid. I get mad at you, I'm trying to punish you,

but I'm actually hurting the kid. And it wasn't until you started to realize, like, look, come on now. It's about them, it ain't about us. And then once you realize that you like, okay, okay, okay Yeah, well in my case big bro And in a whole lot of cases

And I can speak for a lot of men out there like in that situation that had a lot of money It's it's guys that don't want to parent them kids, some kids because the mother used that kid as a payday. You're like, here, I'm just gonna pay you off. I don't want nothing to do with either one of y'all. And that's some bad shit too.

See it is, absolutely. But it is what it is. If mama would have been, you know, straight up in the beginning, then that wouldn't have been the result in the end. And don't do bad shit to everybody else because, you know, the shit didn't work out with you.

You know, don't be bitter at him because it didn't work out. You know, just take it. Yeah, sometimes you just have to bite your lip and do, you know, hey, I understand you don't like me, but hey, I'm still gonna come get the kid. They going to the Super Bowl, they gonna be with me

during the summer, they gonna do all that stuff. All that shit. All that.

I get it. Yeah.

Yeah, and it works like that in some cases. You have to. Chris just left, but Chris is your son and he gave you a second chance at life. He gave you a kidney. I gave him the first chance. When you found out, because obviously you got to go to match. It's not a match.

That's not. That's not true?

No.

If me and you, yeah. We'd have to see if we'd match. But he come out my nut bag. Right. So I know that's my kid. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So.

So how do you ask a son? I did not. Really? He asked me. You broke down crying, didn't you? No, not then.

I probably could now, though. Because he saved my fucking life. Yeah.

You know what I mean?

I said, nah, I need a Ferrari.

That's what you would have said? Right, motherfucker, that's why I ain't call you. That's the main reason why I ain't call your ass, because I knew what you was gonna say. Chris, hey Chris, you should've held out, Chris. You could've gotten.

And then, just this past, I think it was what, October? You had the heart. August.

August.

Yeah, yeah. Were you having shortness of breath? What was going on? So I had a aortic hernia back in 2014 and when they scoped me they noticed that I had an aneurysm on my aorta, a small one. And it was like, you know, we ain't gotta do nothing now, but we gotta watch it. And I was like, okay, cool.

And I was like, well, y'all might as well go on and fix it. If you can, you know, he said, no, we gotta cut you up. And I was like, no, thanks. Yeah, no, time went on. We were watching, we was watching it, we was watching it, we was watching it. Caught the COVID, kidneys failed, you know, running the heart, you know,

they didn't know what the COVID was. I was probably one of the first people in America to have this shit.

Wow.

Yeah, and they'd seen what it did to your heart, seen what it did to your lungs and all this, I noticed that the little thing was getting bigger. The aneurysm was getting bigger. Fast forward to a kidney transplant, it's there. It's time to go ahead and get it done. But I pushed it off, pushed it off, pushed it off, pushed it off, pushed it off for years.

And it kept getting bigger and bigger. It just wouldn't go, it's not gonna go away. That problem is one of those ones that just don't go away. So my cardiologist, he worked me up and introduced me to my surgeon. His name was Dr. Andrea Corti. Probably the most sought after, best heart surgeon in the world. He did babies.

You know, he did their surgeries. So he's really, really incredible. Long story short, man, he was like, man, he wanted to put me on a transplant list to get a heart transplant.

Wow.

Yeah.

He said, man, why don't you do a CT scan so I can just see what I'm up against.

Right.

You know. So that Friday, well, whatever day that was, we did the CT scan, he saw it or whatever, and then I say, well, I'm going to be ready when I come off this tour.

And I can't remember what month that was, I think it may have been February or something. He insinuated to, you know, he said something to the extent of, like, I may not have that much time. But I didn't want to have this shit done in the first place. So I was willing to run the risk of dropping dead on stage if I had to. Right.

This is real shit. This is real shit. When I came back off the tour I had an appointment. And he said we're going to schedule it. This was in April or June. We were scheduling for August.

Right.

All right.

So time kept coming near, kept getting near, kept just coming, just cycling. Man, I go to the doctor, and they want to do another CT scan. And I opted out of it Friday, that Friday. I said, I'll come back Monday and

do it cuz I got to be in here Tuesday to do the surgery anyway. So I went in that Monday morning got the CT scan done and they were looking at it and everybody was nervous and worried right and I told him take this shit out of my hand I'm not staying here I'm having surgery in the morning. I'm gonna go. And one of those doctors came in and told me he He was like, hey man, you coming in in the morning to have surgery? I said, yeah. He said, good, don't forget. Right?

I left. I'm having lunch with a good friend of mine and her bodyguard, and they called my phone. And she said, it was the surgeon coordinator, that said, the doc said you need to be back in the hospital now. You need to be back in the hospital right now. I said, well, I got a T-time.

Tell the doctor, tell the surgeon to call me and tell me that himself. So two seconds later, my phone rings. And I said, damn Doc, it busted. He said, I don't know if it happened a week ago or 10 minutes ago, but you need to get back now.

So I went and I got me a pint of ice cream and some butter pecan, no vanilla, from homemade vanilla. And I went to French's. Cause I knew that was it. So you said, I'm gonna have me some vanilla ice cream. What French's they?

And some fried chicken.

Fried chicken.

Yeah. I went to the hospital, man. And I remember my mama saying that it's just a win-win for him. If he live, he win. If he live, he win.

If he die, he win.

Shit, I got up a couple of days. I didn't even know, I didn't even know it was, I thought it was like the same day. It was like two days later. Like a day of some change later.

Damn.

Yeah, like I was out of there. And when I woke up, they had a tube in my mouth and I could breathe, but I couldn't breathe.

Right.

So, Miss Felicia was like, put it back down, put it back down. Like, I was trying to take that tube out of my mouth, but they had me strapped down and I couldn't breathe. Right. So they put me back out again.

And then they put you in a coma, had you? They put me back out. But the lady was trying to get me to do shit and I was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. And then all of a sudden I just went. Because I remember calling you and you like, man, I just said, I said, man, stop, boy.

Yeah, I had it.

And I woke up, man, from that shit, when I, everything. And you the only one I left FaceTime, because man, I said, man, you ain't had no damn over heart surgery. He said, man, answer the phone. He said, answer the phone, answer the phone. Look, nigga. I know you ain't no FaceTime. I mean, heart open.

Nah.

Yeah, you got it.

But the first thing I said when I woke up, I seen my mama. Tough. And she said, yeah baby, you tough. But that was the first words to my mama, that I'm tough mama.

Wow.

Yeah. Now you work out, you watch what you eat? Yeah.

No.

You don't watch what you eat?

Get up and walk away from me, yeah. No, I'm just playing.

You're a bad ass. Yes.

You said if you knew you were gonna live so long, you took better care of yourself. Hey man, my mama used to say that, man. Now I understand why. Yeah, if I knew I was gonna live this long, I'd take better care of myself.

You still eat oxtails, though. You still eat fried chicken. You still eat pork chop. No I don't. You eat fried catfish? No sir. You don't eat nothing fried? Once in a while. I don't really eat bad, and I don't eat a lot either. So what's a typical meal?

Okay, you get up and eat breakfast. You a breakfast person? I am. Okay, you what, grits, eggs? No, I eat two scrambled, not scrambled, over easy eggs. Okay. I eat two scrambled, not scrambled, over easy eggs.

Okay. And I eat chicken sausages with it.

Okay.

And then for lunch, I may eat a salad. And then for dinner, it could be anything. You don't eat salad? I mean, not just a salad. Yeah, I can't eat a salad. So you have chicken on it? You like salmon?

I love salmon. That's my favorite. That's my go-to. But no, I don't really go ham on food no more, because I've been fat before. And I'm taking testosterone shots, and I'm getting fat again, so... Are you not working out? Not yet. What you waiting on? fat before and I'm taking testosterone shots and I'm getting fat again so. Are you not working out?

Not yet.

What you waiting on?

Man I gotta get, I just had open heart surgery. Less than a year ago. I don't wanna be lifting no weights with this motherfucker bust back open. I'm sitting on the football field with my little league football team

and I'm, excuse me, trying to teach this kid how to do a goddamn pushup and I get down there and I feel this shit pulling apart again, I'm like, damn. Yeah. Well, you took the shot before you started working out.

You supposed to work out then take the shot. No.

No. No.

Nah. How did you guys, the Ghetto Boys, how did that come about? Were you all friends? Did y'all know each other? No, I didn't know him.

But damn.

Didn't know him.

Most people that start a group, they know each other. Went to high school together, went to middle school, lived in the same neighborhood. How the hell y'all form a group and not know each other from the jump? So the Scarface song, Jay Heard It, and then Coming to the Crib wanted me to be a ghetto boy so I get into the van, this is the infamous van, and Willie and Red and Bushwick and I think Jukebox was there. And Bushwick was a dancer at the time. He wasn't even no rapper yet.

And it was me, Willie D and Jukebox that was rapping. That's why when you listen to Trigger Happy N***a, I can't say it was that. There was a couple of songs that Jukeboxer did when he was a part of the Ghetto Boys that knew me and Bushwick, I mean me and Willie, Bill wasn't in the group, he was just a dancer at that time.

Let me remember this correctly. But some kind of way, Jukebox had left the group. And I don't remember if it was Willie's idea or Jay's idea, whose idea it was to have this little rapper talking cash shit and rapping, you know, a little guy. And so from that point on B-Doll worked with

him in the mirror, you know, helping him, you know, with his words, with his raps. And Willie and I wrote records for Bill, right, while he recited them. But I didn't know Bill and I didn't know Willie, I didn't know none of them, you know. Right. And Red left the group before My Mind Playing Tricks on me came out, before that We Can't Be Stopped out.

Right. And shoot, that's kinda how it went. I didn't know nobody and they didn't know me, but I would make a record with them and I would just be, I'd be gone. I'd make a song and I would leave. But then Jay put us at the ranch

and then we had to stay there. So we'd make a song and then start another song and then start another song. You know, and we did that for a week or two. We made that first Ghetto Boys album in a week or so, two weeks.

If there was a buyout about the ghetto boys, who's gonna pay the Scarface? What age? Were you in the ghetto boys? What age? They gotta say, like, the time I was in it?

Yeah.

I don't know, I'd have to use one of my kids. Like Cube did. Cube used his kid to betray him. But can your kid rap? Chris, can you rap?

Yeah, I can.

Brad can rap. Bryce can rap. Okay. Somebody can rap. If not, I'm gonna find an actor, somebody good. Probably the dude that played Bobby Brown or something. Jay Prince said the feds tried to get you to flip on him.

Do you remember that time?

They always try to get somebody to flip on Jay. Yeah. But you stayed 10 toes. It's the Jay Prince said him, Suge, Irv, Goddard was trying to create a distribution label. And that's when all the shit started.

Really? I feel like that when they was talking about Flipping the flipping the script and taking the power away. Mm-hmm. You know, I think if you put not your own You 100% independent and you putting up Triple platinum albums independently didn't and you taking taking everybody out came nobody eat off of it But but y'all right hell somebody's gonna start paying attention because you put somebody's money, right?

You know and this ain't nothing but a bit man America ain't nothing but money in law That's it. You got money in the law, right? That's the only thing that separates money in law

The album cover we can't be stopped. Is that the greatest cover I The only thing that separates, money and law.

The album cover, We Can't Be Stopped, is that the greatest cover?

I hated it.

Why? If you look at my face on that album cover, I absolutely hated that cover.

What the?

I just feel like it was, you know, I always say that too.

Like,

I think, I honestly think that that was Chief that pulled that patch down off BLI. Did his girlfriend really shoot him in the eye? That's why. Y'all made that up. No, a girl shot Bill in the eye for real.

What'd you shoot him with, 22?

22.

Yeah.

Shot him in the eye.

So he wasn't making that up, saying my eye. I wasn't there. But I know that he shot him in the eye. She shot him in the eye. That was a hard cover though. It is a hard cover, but you know,

the man was, Bill wasn't even woke. He's sitting up in that motherfucker's bed, he was like. How y'all do the man like that, man? That wasn't, see what I'm saying? That wasn't me.

Hey, Chief had it with the phone in his hand.

Yeah!

He had to prop his ass back up.

Look.

What's up, Bill? Politics, you ran for councilman.

You going to run?

Council. Yeah. I ran for city council.

You going to do it again?

Will you do it again?

I am.

I was going to do it this time, but there's a snake in the grass. Yeah. You do I am I was gonna do it this time, but this snake in the grass. Yeah, you don't say no names But he's a snake He was telling me that he was gonna do this In this scene, I was gonna do that Nessie. And yeah, man, we're gonna do this together man. We're gonna be together man

and then push turn into a shove and homeboy was like He did something else So now I'm gonna do it though again. You can do it again. Yeah, but it won't be on those terms though, right? It'd be on my own Have you always been in the politics I have I've always been into politics.

Tricks, pile of tricks. Pile of tricks, okay. That's what's happening now. Right. I think that if people really gave a damn about the condition of black people,

then they would do more than talk.

Right.

You know, they would do more than spoon feed us. If you really really really really really gave any... A damn. About the condition of our community then you would do what needs to be done for that community. And it's not putting programs in place, or it's not government assistance, or it's not this or that,

or taking our education away from us so we'll never know who the we are. It's not that, all right? And I don't know why a certain group of people feel like they have to continuously punch down, that's a word, punch down on black people.

I know for a fact that black people are so great, so great, I'm talking about birthright great. Yeah. Birthright great. Until... birthright great. Yeah. Birthright great. Until people would do anything to dim that light.

Do anything to dim that light or make you forget who you are. And then impose and interject the you that they want you to be. And that would be the you that they want you to be. And that would be the you that you become, if you really think about it. I know you're a sports fan and you guys got KD.

Y'all gonna win the championship this year? I like KD. I like KD too. I asked you if you were gonna win the championship. I said I like KD. Damn.

We have a, y'all got a good ass team.

We got a great one.

KD, Armin Thompson, y'all, Shangun, y'all, Rees-I-Van-Ply. Shangun, spell it. Nevermind, cause look, when I was a little boy, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, and my grandma be like, so, so, so, so, spell it. So when I heard Shang-Goon, I said spell it.

I think it's S-E-N-G-U-N. However you spell it. Boy, so one time, Brad was like four or five, and Bryce was like two, right? And Bryce walked up to Brad,

and he slapped the shit

out of Brad and I heard and I looked back and Bryce said, oh Brad, I'm sorry Brad, I'm so sorry Brad, I'm sorry Brad, that was an accident. And I say, accident? Spell accident. He said, B-R-Y-C-E, accident.

It was an accident, he didn't mean to do it. Bryce spelled accident. That was really good.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Yeah, so y'all gonna win the championship this year. What about the Texans?

I didn't say that.

The Texans.

Y'all gonna win the championship?

I love CJ Stroud. I love our head coach. I love CJ Stroud. I love our head coach. I love... I like Miko. I like D'Amico. D'Amico Rhymes is a mean... he's a cold-ass liar. I don't have nothing bad to say about the Texans, the Rockets, or the Astros. I think we got three different sport franchises that are excellent. Right. See when I move there we can go to the games and stuff.

I'm not going nowhere with you. I wouldn't, and it's not me, and I'm not the genie, that's why they don't have me in that seat, but I don't move Jalen Green and a few first round draft picks. KD?

At this age. They trying to win now. Like tomorrow. Okay, yesterday. Man, I don't think there's nobody in the league that's gonna be better than KD right now.

Yeah, so. But he's 38.

36.

Oh, he 36?

Yeah.

Warren, how you tell a man he's 38? Oh, he 36? Oh, shit, I would've took KD any day. I thought he was old as hell. Nah. I thought, you remember when the Rockets picked up Scottie Pippens?

Yeah. And Scottie Pippens was like 42?

Yeah.

Like, damn.

He on his last leg.

Yeah.

Yeah. He got some mean-ass games. So now that KD's 36, he's out and made it. And yeah, we'll probably get to the dance. But we gotta go see goddamn Steph, man. And Steph can shoot from outside in the parking lot. Y'all gotta go see the Thunder too. Oh, them young cats with no names.

Yeah.

You talking about the no-name game? Ain't got no names over there. They don't have no big name. Do they got a big name over there? Shea, the MVP. He a big name now, but was he a big game, big name? I mean, he just been averaging 30 the last three years. I'm just saying, he wasn't, you ain't LeBron James and Shea.

You're not, you're not saying, oh, that's Kobe. Like, you know. Yeah, but, yeah, but I mean, all time transcendent great players. There ain't but a thousand of them. But what I'm saying about these kids is they, that's a team full of no name, they're not star names. They great, they're not stars.

That works for them. And that work, man, and they kick ass, man. They kick, I'm so proud of the Thunder, man. Like, them was little kids, man, them kids can't be, how old's the oldest, man, like, them was little kids, man, them kids can't beat, how old, what's the oldest, 25? I think the average age is like 26.

God damn! And you did that?

They did that.

Wow, I'm very, that's, and coaching. Let me get off the players now and get on the coaching. Cause they probably had that team a couple of years ago too. It got better. That coaching, man. Mm-hmm. It got better that coaching man that coaching bruh can't beat that coaching man So now I'm proud of the thunder so we got to get through

Stuff and then we got to get through the no-name game. Yeah, and then we'll we'll get to the dance Face mistake. Thanks for stopping. I don't squeeze my hand hard bro. I swear to goodness Much love you see you try to give I wasn't trying to squeeze that motherfucker. His head feel like two big ass Ketchums missed, right? I'm trying to shake the man's head.

Scarface ladies and gentlemen.

All my life, been grinding all my life. Sacrifice, hustle paid the price. Want a slice, got the roll of dice.

That's why, all my life, I been grinding all my life. Sacrifice, hustle pay the price Wanna slice, got the roll of dice That's why, all my life, I been grinding all my life All my life, been grinding all my life Sacrifice, hustle pay the price Wanna slice, got the roll of dice Wanna slice, got the roll of dice

That's why, all my life, I been grinding all my life