ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: Pusha T. Back in the cribbo.

PUSHA T: Believe that.

MUHAMMAD: You know, when we get — it’s only been like — no. Two — no. You’re the third person who’s come back. So —

PUSHA T: Really?

MUHAMMAD: — that’s when you —

FRANNIE KELLEY: Wait. Who’s the second?

MUHAMMAD: Well —

KELLEY: There’s Cole and who else?

MUHAMMAD: I mean Earl really didn’t come back but —

KELLEY: Oh, that’s true. That’s true.

MUHAMMAD: — it was kind of like we went to him. But —

KELLEY: He kind of came back.

MUHAMMAD: But I feel like we’re growing up when we —

KELLEY: Get repeat offenders?

MUHAMMAD: — are able to see the artist again. It’s like, “Ah, man. This is real. This really happening.”

PUSHA T: Believe that. It definitely is. I mean, last time I was here, it was like — I tell everybody about the interview. It was dope. Super dope.

MUHAMMAD: Cool. Thanks for coming back, man. What you been up to?

PUSHA T: Ah, man, you know. First and foremost, I’ve been working on music, Darkest Before Dawn, which is dropping December 18th. Man.

MUHAMMAD: How long it take you to record this album?

PUSHA T: I would say, on-and-off, two years.

KELLEY: Oh, wow.

PUSHA T: On-and-off, two years. I mean, people don’t understand, for me, like, I don’t get a lot of the radio and things like that. So after I drop an album like My Name Is My Name, and I have, like, records with Chris Brown, singles, and, you know, stuff that doesn’t get that type of acclaim, I literally have to tour, constantly. So my pattern, my recording pattern, is broken up through that whole touring cycle.

MUHAMMAD: Right. How many days within a year you’re on the road?

PUSHA T: Within a year? 200.

KELLEY: Wow.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. I wanted people to get that perspective, cause —

PUSHA T: 200, I think.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: I think that’s fair.

MUHAMMAD: That’s a lot of time.

PUSHA T: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: And that doesn’t leave a lot of time to record.

PUSHA T: Right. Right. For sure.

MUHAMMAD: So people don’t understand that — I mean —

PUSHA T: I take days off.

KELLEY: You should.

PUSHA T: Like, I do — you know, I gotta like — certain things I just have to deal with.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: So —

MUHAMMAD: Like, what do you do? Go to movies? What do you do on your day off?

PUSHA T: Oh, man. I have like — it’s home time.

KELLEY: CJ time?

PUSHA T: Yeah. Home. My dog. You know, girlfriend. I got two stores, two streetwear stores, at home. Have to tend to those. Play Cloths. Have to tend to that business. But all these things are in Virginia. So — and then, my mom.

MUHAMMAD: Right on.

PUSHA T: Just, must.

MUHAMMAD: Right on.

PUSHA T: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. So you find time within 200 days of — that’s a lot of grinding time. I don’t know if people can really understand the commitment it takes to spend that amount of time away from home and going from different cities and sharing yourself with people.

PUSHA T: And how tedious the travel of it is. Like, it’s airports every day. It doesn’t sound like it’s — it doesn’t sound like a hard thing.

KELLEY: People think it’s exciting.

PUSHA T: Yeah. But it is, man. You’ll never understand how much you dislike, you know, TSA. You’ll never understand that until you have to do it every day.

KELLEY: Did you get that thing, the pre-TSA or whatever?

PUSHA T: Yeah. TSA Pre-Check.

KELLEY: Pre-Check.

PUSHA T: TSA Pre-Check.

KELLEY: I need to get that.

PUSHA T: I — but it hasn’t been — I haven’t been getting it as of late. I don’t know what it is.

KELLEY: I know. It’s not consistent. It’s weird.

PUSHA T: Yeah. So I’ve been talking about that and trying to make sure that I’m like — I get that handled or whatever the case may be but —

KELLEY: Do you have a routine to keep yourself together when you’re traveling? Like, if you had to wake up super early or if you have to fly a airline you don’t like?

PUSHA T: I wake up super early all the time. Every day.

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: I just start my day really early. Everything happens in the morning time. Writing. Just everything. I can’t — I don’t know how to work late.

MUHAMMAD: Is it the calmest before dawn?

PUSHA T: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you know, it’s just — man, this is just what — I don’t have a ritual, but I don’t do some of the things I used to do, in regards to just obnoxiously out all night drinking. Sort of off that.

MUHAMMAD: So within that you found the time to put a well-made album together.

PUSHA T: Yes.

MUHAMMAD: I only had a moment with it, so I feel — I can’t really speak from from a deeper level. It was just like a quick one-through listen, but it was definitely dope.

PUSHA T: Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Hardcore, dark but — I mean it’s just you, really.

PUSHA T: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: But well-made. And the spirit of hip-hop, you connect things. You mention Dilla. You always let people know, like, you from the roots.

PUSHA T: Right, right.

KELLEY: Souls Of Mischief.

MUHAMMAD: But just from the street level of it, it’s so pure, man. It’s really good.

PUSHA T: Yeah. You know, I made this album thinking — I had a — I got to a point to — it was time to put together the album. I had been recording. So you know, you get to the point where you’re like, trying to put this song next to that song and so on and so forth. And the politics of, like, just singles and all of that was getting — that comes into play and that gets to become a topic of discussion.

MUHAMMAD: Can you sidebar for a moment —

PUSHA T: OK.

MUHAMMAD: — and give us a little peak into your world? Like what that is like, in terms of — is it you and record company heads like —

PUSHA T: Yeah. It’s me and record company heads. And it’s about — see, it starts with me. It starts with me just making my records. Right? And then I’m excited. I’m happy. I’m good. And then it comes a time where you have to present this music that you love to the label. And you have to — I’ve learned that you need label excitement to get what you want.

MUHAMMAD: I like the way you put that. Yeah.

PUSHA T: Like, you want the label to be excited. You want to engage them. You want everybody to feel like they can play a part, and they want to play a part. So with that being the case, you get into talks of singles and radio department and, you know, different departments and things like that.

And that’s when people’s agendas start to get in the way. Because you may hear a record — you may have a record that explains the body of your work the best way that you want to put it, the message you trying to get across. Might not be the most commercial record. The radio department may want a commercial record, which makes their job easier, to chart, to get the accolade of a Top 5, 10, whatever, 15 record. And you can — that record could come out, and you could have a fire album, but that impression left on the public may not be one that you want to roll out your album with.

So I got to the point where I had made all these records. I take a while to record. I need all the time. And I was like, “Man, I don’t like divvying up my album like that.” So Darkest Before Dawn was ten of the darker side of the records that I felt like, “Man, these records are what I want my fans to hear. These records are how my fans like to hear me. These are the records that — this is what I like to make. Before we go anywhere else, I got enough of it. Let me package this up, and present it to my people.”

KELLEY: So like without having the radio conversations, without —

PUSHA T: Without having it. Without having it. I didn’t want — there wasn’t — and now the funny part about the radio conversation is the producers on the album. Because you working with Puff on one end; you working with Timbaland. You working with Boi-1da. You working with Q-Tip. You working with Mano. I got Jill Scott featured on the album. Kehlani.

MUHAMMAD: So you’re really painting with what is known to be radio-driven resources.

PUSHA T: Right. Right.

MUHAMMAD: So it should be easy for those who feel they need you to take care of their end of helping you present the package. You feel that you’ve given then an answer and a story with a nice line-up of radio-friendly —

PUSHA T: Right. It’s what you call a reverse troll, I believe. Cause what I did was — they see — I worked with all these people. And they look at it, and at face-value just on paper it feels like, “Damn. It’s bout to — what is this?” You know, whatever commercial success you want to name.

But, truthfully, I went into those sessions and I asked them for all of the darkest records that they ever made that I liked. I didn’t want — and we made a lot of records, but I don’t even know how to begin to work with you until you give me a variation of myself. I need a variation, a greater variation of something — these guys are like, in my eyes, super producers. So it’s like, “Man, you gotta — you a super producer; you have to like really — you know what I do. Do me better.”

MUHAMMAD: So basically, that conversation pretty much went your way.

PUSHA T: Right.

MUHAMMAD: In terms of the end of the day — in terms of — so it was a friendly understanding between you and the label.

PUSHA T: Right.

MUHAMMAD: Who — of all those producers, who made — who surprised you the most, in terms of what they delivered, and just the chemistry in the recording process?

PUSHA T: Puff.

MUHAMMAD: In what way?

PUSHA T: Puff surprised me the most. Truthfully, I been in the game since ’97. Getting on, losing deals, all this stuff. You would always hear these rumors of, “Puff don’t produce for real. He ain’t the producer for real.” My records wouldn’t have happened without Puff in the studio with me. The way I want to hear my records weren’t going to be what they were without him in the studio with me. I ain’t had nobody push me like him.

KELLEY: Which track did he make?

PUSHA T: “Crutches, Crosses, Caskets.”

MUHAMMAD: Ooh.

PUSHA T: The intro.

MUHAMMAD: So —

PUSHA T: Hold on. There’s another one. “Keep Dealing,” with Beanie Sigel.

KELLEY: Oh, OK.

PUSHA T: Listen. Those three right there, that ain’t even the wheelhouse in which we would even think that he’s — you know what I’m saying? —

MUHAMMAD: Mm-hmm.

PUSHA T: — he going to. He’s not easily impressed. He’s not. Not easily impressed.

MUHAMMAD: Is that intimidating? Or maybe —

PUSHA T: Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is. Because I pride myself on verses, and then you got a guy like him. He comes in and he says, “If I know what you about to say, then that’s the wrong bar, bro.” You know?

MUHAMMAD: That’s heavy.

PUSHA T: And it’s like, “What ain’t you heard? You probably — you might should know what I’m about to say. Almost.” And — but it gave me insight into why Big rhymed the way he did. Like, we would — I would sit back, coming up listening to those bars, those songs that Big did, and wonder why he could talk about a robbery, T’yanna — his daughter — and, you know, a sex scene with some girl at All-Star Weekend in a four-bar thing. And I was like, “Man, is that why” — like, the questions — I would have questions like, “Damn. I wonder why Big, why he just veer off?”

MUHAMMAD: Right.

PUSHA T: And I was like, “Damn. Is that why?” Because I mean, if he’s coaching the same way, that was the thing. He was like, “I don’t want to be able to see it coming. Please.” That was the thing. “I don’t want to see it coming. I don’t. I just don’t.” And that’s how we made bars. It was frustrating at times. The, “I don’t like back and forth with Puff about rap s***?” That bar. That’s straight frustration. Like just — I’m in there and I’m like, “Man. I know what I want to say.”

MUHAMMAD: Well, it’s — no one can ever say that in your lyrics there’s some falsehoods, it’s falsehood in the storyline. Like, everything, it comes across so authentic. Obviously, it is. But back to other truths, though. What I get from this record is — you still go back to that preacher sort of spirit within you. And I think we talked about this once before with you. And it seems very inescapable, but considering what has sort of been the backdrop of a lot of our lives. And when I say “our” I mean young black men.

PUSHA T: Yes.

MUHAMMAD: The things that hit the headlines often these days are not new to us, but it is definitely forefront and repeated heavily. So it seems like what you’re talking about in this record is relevant, but it’s needed, and you talking — you talking to a certain group of people how they need to be talked to. Is that intentional?

PUSHA T: Yeah. Cause — see, I think — man. On this album, and me making — the spirit in which some of these records right here were made, it was — man, I had a hell of a last — since My Name Is My Name, it was like a really good time. Like I had a really successful 2013, ’14, ’15. Touring, just doing my thing. Super — I mean, can’t complain about nothing.

And my road manager got killed. And it ruined everything. Now, I tell people — I don’t know if this is a word. But I tell people that that re-sensitized me. Because I’m used to people dying, actually. I’m used to people dying. I’m used to my peers dying. I’m used to loss. But that one particular one bothered me.

MUHAMMAD: Can you tell people and explain why that bothered you?

PUSHA T: Because DayDay wasn’t that kid. He wasn’t the kid who I can accept that from. It’s sort of like — he’s a church kid, number one. That’s how I know him. I know him from — during tour, he was a roadie, and I made him my tour manager. And he would get me band members from his church, and from his — just from what he was about.

And it was crazy because — I mean, he was just a good guy. And I find myself like getting mad at him when like the church people couldn’t come play drums for me. And I’m like, “What? What are you talking about?” Cause they had things to do.

But that was his real thing. That was his world. That what’s he was about. He brought that energy on my tour. And you don’t get that from young black kids in the music industry who have, now — who’ve — coming up from a roadie to a road manager, you know, he could have easily been the guy who, “Go get the girls.” That wasn’t it. He just brought a different energy.

And that ruined my whole thing. Whatever was good. Ruined it. Totally. So I had like — I was going through, you know, just issues of, like — anger. Just anger. It’s that — it’s that stuff you deal with when you hear about the kid getting killed. The 6-year-old. The 9-year-old. No apparent reason type of situation. I’d been on the road with him. We dealt with each other in a way that like — he was my road manager because he thought bright.

You know, we on the road, man. We in some of the — I make a certain type of music. That brings out a certain type of element. You mix that with drugs and alcohol, that evening can turn into something different. And I watched my road manager be like — somebody being belligerent, he’d say, “You know what, boss? You got it. I’m out of here. We don’t want no problems.” So for him to end up on the wrong end of that situation, I been a little bit out of my mind.

MUHAMMAD: So it was life-changing? Can you say?

PUSHA T: I can’t say. I mean, I can’t say life-changing. I can just say that, like, patience ain’t really there. My — I don’t know, man. I can’t say — I’m not going to say life-changing. I’m just going to say that it’s an awakening, that the level of ignorance — it sort of woke me up to, you know, I guess some of the ignorance that’s like — they’re just different levels of it, to me. You know what I’m saying?

Man, I grew up well. We got into things. We did. We did things. All of us. But we — to me, it was a bit more — I mean, I just feel like we had principles about things. And everybody that I know — and I don’t care if they alive, dead, jail for the next 30 years — still, there were principles.

MUHAMMAD: They lived by that.

PUSHA T: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: I don’t — for him, for example — and I don’t want to keep it on him — but the situation that happened with him let me know that, like, those principles are long gone with people. And I don’t know how I feel about that.

KELLEY: Do you make a song like “Sunshine” before that happens?

PUSHA T: No. I made that after that happened. And I made that — I made “Sunshine” in the spirit of — I don’t like how young blacks address the issues of society, police brutality; it’s a bit too passive for me. I’m not used to passive, young black males, when they’re being wronged. I’m not used to that. And that was just — now that could be — cause at this point — I ain’t really taking too much from nobody at this point.

So that was just — I don’t know how like — the people who speak, who even speak from a conscious type of standpoint in hip-hop to me, it’s too passive for me. Like, I am from Virginia Beach. I am from Greekfest Riots. I am from — we ain’t had it since. I am — we haven’t had that energy since. What year is that?

MUHAMMAD: I don’t know. ’80 —

PUSHA T: — nine.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: You know? Everything. So like, I don’t — Public Enemy was my — if I wanted to hear — I listen to G Rap, and I could listen to that.

MUHAMMAD: Right.

PUSHA T: And the guys who I looked up to, who liked and was looking like G Rap, and living like G Rap, was listening to that. So it was just — they just had a different — even in all the wrong in that, it still was like a level of — I don’t know.

MUHAMMAD: Do you — well, it comes across in the record, your sentiment. And I think you — it’s so true to, I think, the way that you have been in all of your music. But I don’t know; for this record, there was something — there was something peaceful about the strength in the mastery. The tone that’s like of a master. You mastered your craft, but the tone that you place it, it’s like — going back to martial arts, some of the oldest masters — I’m talking the 60, 70 years old — they can just touch you lightly and drop you, you know? And it’s not — it’s gentle but strong and firm. And I felt that that — you were kind of like — it’s not necessarily throwing jabs. It’s just like — you just like — you were laying it out there like, “I’m not going to –”

PUSHA T: Play.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. “I’m not beating around the bush about it.”

PUSHA T: I’m not gon’ play. I’m not going to nickname it. And I notice that if you don’t say it — see, to me, this is the third layer of something that’s been talked about. Everything that’s going on in music right now, man, I been said this, man. Like, I said this for a long time and ain’t nobody going to acknowledge that. You know what I’m saying? Nobody’s going to acknowledge it. So now I just have to just stand on it.

And I feel like at the same time it ain’t even about jabs. It’s about the reality.

MUHAMMAD: Right.

PUSHA T: It’s about the reality, and I wish — I want kids, and I want people, to know the reality of this game. I feel like people always want to be in this game. I got nephews and nieces who want to be in this. I got friends who want to be in it. But they don’t want to be in it, if you ask me. They just — they think they do.

And so if you sort of tear down some of the facades that helps me live a bit more peacefully amongst the people that are tugging at my coattail like, “Yo I’m trying to do this.” Man, it ain’t all that.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: It’s not.

KELLEY: Can you be specific about which game you’re talking about?

PUSHA T: What do you mean — I’m talking about the music game.

KELLEY: OK.

PUSHA T: Yeah. I’m talking about the music game. Totally. I feel like that’s where some of the — a lot of my focus was on. I mean, even in “Untouchable,” for example, when I’m talking to my friend — my friend Mu literally just came home from the feds. Amazing — was amazing rapper and songwriter before he went in. Lived in Richmond. Worked out of the Trey Songz camp for years. We known each other for years. Stayed that far away from each other, but always knew each other.

Came home. He did tell me like, “Yo. You ain’t making them records that’s like them bounce joints, man. What you doing? You missing out on all this club money.” And it’s like, that’s a way of looking at it. But — and I know he’s coming from an incarcerated place. His best friend is pop R&B dude, tours. They do they thing.

But it’s just — it’s different. And that’s all I was trying to tell him in the song. Was like, “Man, it’s different.” And it’s different ways to like — it’s different ways to conquer this game, and man, I’m of the culture. Like, I’m of this culture. Like, I feel like I am hip-hop culture. Win, lose or draw. I feel like, man, I’ve been in this mix. I have been deeply entrenched in the mix of hip-hop culture.

MUHAMMAD: Do you feel that you get overlooked or do you feel comfortable where you are? Like you not really — you don’t need it.

PUSHA T: Yeah. I don’t need — I don’t mind. I don’t mind it. People tell me, “You overlooked.” Every day I read, “Man, you underrated. You –” and I don’t think so. I feel like, if you’re a listener and you’re into what this is, and you can relate to this subject matter and you can relate to time periods, eras, whatever, if you’re into the things I’m into, you gon’ get it. You going to love it.

KELLEY: OK. So how come you’re not on the radio then? And what does that tell us about the game of the industry?

PUSHA T: I’m not on the radio because I feel like the radio is — I feel like music — I don’t make the music of — I guess I don’t make the music of what’s popular right now.

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: Yeah. So e. You know, it’s like boutique shopping. It’s like sneaker culture. It’s a little niche. But they’re a loud bunch. They’re a loud bunch. Not everybody goes and gets the Jordan when it drops. Not everybody can get it. Everybody know when it drop though. And they know it because that culture is so loud. So what I lack in radio and I guess that visibility, there’s a cool-kid underground factor that is loud, and I feel like everybody wants to be a part of that. Everybody wants to be a part or know what’s going on down here.

MUHAMMAD: Always.

PUSHA T: Always.

KELLEY: We talking about your hipster appeal?

PUSHA T: Yeah. I feel like hipster — yeah. I feel like it’s a hipster appeal. But, man, I feel like the Clipse were the first Internet darlings. For real. I really do. I feel like — man, I was calling them “Clipseters.” I wasn’t even calling them hipsters. We were calling them Clipseters. That four-year hiatus — what do you call that thing? Four-year hiatus. We Got It For Cheap mixtape series. To Hell Hath No Fury. Yeah. That’s what kept us alive. I mean, the Internet — and I wasn’t hip. I didn’t know. Like, I don’t know what a computer — I mean, I knew what a computer was, but I didn’t know like —

MUHAMMAD: The level of connection.

PUSHA T: The level of what was happening. So —

KELLEY: That was also cause of your shows though.

PUSHA T: Yeah.

KELLEY: Like, I remember that.

PUSHA T: Knitting Factory. Yeah.

KELLEY: Yup. That’s the one.

PUSHA T: Yeah, yeah.

KELLEY: That s— was Top 3? Easy. Easy. That was legendary.

PUSHA T: Yeah. Knitting Factory was something else. I mean, I made so many revelations in that — listen. I knew that things that were different. I knew — that’s when I got the revelation that like, “Wait a minute. Something is happening. You know, and it ain’t about the radio. It ain’t about that no more.”

I was like, “Man. I’m taking for granted like I’m getting Bape at my front door everyday. I’m dressing in this stuff every single day.” Not knowing that like there’s a world of kids who know, scramble, scratch, try to find — I don’t even know that, man. I don’t know that. I had no clue of this. Like, whatsoever. Until I did that show. And kids just like, “Man, he got on the Bape. One of one. General” — what? What are you talking about?

KELLEY: Yeah. I had a friend who wore this Billionaire Boy’s Club hoodie, the zip-up all the way, for like years after that.

PUSHA T: Yeah. I don’t know any — I didn’t know any of that. But I found it out that day. I found it out that day.

KELLEY: Yeah. You said something on — I think it was on “Sunshine” that I looked up after about the black Statue Of Liberty?

PUSHA T: Yeah.

KELLEY: I didn’t know about that, that it was a rumor that the original model for the Statue Of Liberty was a black woman. And that they think it actually was, that the guy who, the sculptor —

PUSHA T: And they sent it back.

KELLEY: Well, yeah. That part seems like the National Park Service doesn’t want to come down on either side of that issue. But for sure for sure, the sculptor had made it — it was going to go up in Egypt, and so it was an Egyptian — it was a black Egyptian woman, and that that maybe they were like, “You need to tone it down.” But I had no idea.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: Yeah. Man, you know, I have a good friend who’s — we used to rap together and stuff. She’s a teacher, history teacher. And the conversation — you know, man, all these raps come from conversations — it went into just how the school system and curriculum is skewing and doing away with history. Yo. They’re like —

MUHAMMAD: I didn’t know that.

PUSHA T: It’s skewed in such a way.

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: And it’s just — it’s weird, man.

KELLEY: Right. So like with the Statue Of Liberty, there’s this whole series of things going on. So the guy whose idea it was was a very serious abolitionist and may have come up with the idea the night that Lincoln was assassinated and like it all comes together six years later or whatever. But that also it really, really was about slavery and the end of slavery. It wasn’t about immigration, not even until the ’30s. Like, “Give me your huddled masses.” That’s not about —

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, stuff we know.

KELLEY: OK.

MUHAMMAD: Sorry. Nah, I’m not — I didn’t mean it that — hope it didn’t come off in any sort of slappy, negative way. What I meant by that is just that you learn about aspects of your history, and you celebrate it. And it becomes something that only you know, you know? And it’s because it’s a truth that others are not ready for. And so then it becomes hidden. And that’s just through the history of mankind, right?

And so we know — so when I say that’s something we know. That’s like one of those things that you know. If you black, you know. You learn about that. And it’s frustrating, because you’re like, “But y’all sitting here promoting all this other stuff.” And it’s just like, “OK. We going to take that one like we take all the other stuff.” Which I think it goes kind of back maybe to the feeling that you’re saying from your record, like you don’t know passive. And so you don’t have — you say you don’t have patience.

And I don’t know what will be the trigger to really rip the lid off of all the oppressive trickery that’s been happening. In our country. I can’t speak of other nations, but specifically in America, which only does no good. It doesn’t do any good for us.

PUSHA T: And, like, I was mentioning my schoolteacher friend because — I don’t know — I guess cause I’m older now. Man. I didn’t — these are things that I didn’t think about. I didn’t think about any of it, like, take everything at face value. And now I’m like watching, you know —

Damn, I wish I could just give you an example. Like, she’d be like, “Yo, do you know?” I mean, just the way that even slavery is talked about. It’s not even — man, it’s getting tucked. It’s getting tucked in these books. And I have to — I’ll bring this back to you. I’ll bring this back to you just so you can see and understand what I’m talking about.

But this was like — on one end, just in regards to “Sunshine” and thinking about it, you feel a way at the act. Then on the other end, me personally, man, it makes me feel a little dumb. Like just, “Damn, man. Hell you been doing all these years? What you been thinking about?” And “Sunshine” is a strong record. I love the record. I love it. But I wanted to make a record that I couldn’t really write that well, in regards to just black-on-black crime. Same way.

Like, I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel more strongly about. I don’t know. Cause, truthfully, I expect people to be racist, or there are bad cops. There’re good cops. Never would I say that there — there are some. But I don’t know if that pains me more than just the black killings, me hearing about what’s going on in Chicago.

MUHAMMAD: Right.

PUSHA T: Like, I don’t — matter of fact, it doesn’t pain me more. That pains me more, I believe. It does. That’s just the first record that could come out. That was the easier one to write. I couldn’t get this one. Couldn’t. I will get it though.

MUHAMMAD: I was about to say, “There’s time.”

PUSHA T: I will. Yeah.

KELLEY: That’s funny. I wrote down — these’re some of my questions. It’s like, “What’s the worst thing happening?” And then, “What’s easy?” Like, what’s easy for you to do right now?

PUSHA T: Musically, you mean?

KELLEY: However you feel you’d like to take that.

PUSHA T: What’s easy for me to do is — I think it’s easy for me just to adapt and accept what’s going on out here in the — just be open to the creativity of what people are doing these days, musically. I got a real issue with how — it’s funny, man. My fans are like — yo, they like, “You killing it. You bringing that real back.” And so on and so forth.

And if that’s what it is, that’s what it is. I mean, if that’s how they view it. But you know, a lot of my favorites and the greats didn’t last, in my opinion, because they didn’t accept the new energy that’s going on out here. And I’m not saying you accept it — I’ve never done with a record with Auto-Tune or — I don’t know how to do that. But I’m not saying that you have to do it, and you have to jump out the window and try all these things. But I don’t think that they accepted it.

Forefathers, I mean — yeah. All the greats. All my greats.

KELLEY: Like who?

PUSHA T: They didn’t. I don’t believe that like — I don’t believe that KRS and Rakim — I can’t say that they accepted the changing of the times. I can’t say that they did. How old — I mean, how long was their prime?

MUHAMMAD: Short.

PUSHA T: It was super short. Like, how is that?

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: How is that? Why is that? That has to be because — that’s how I, not quantify it, but that’s how I —

KELLEY: Like, judge.

MUHAMMAD: Measure it.

PUSHA T: That’s how I measure it. Yeah. How is that? There’s absolutely no way — I mean, talking about these are people, I’m reciting this now. I’m reciting — I’m referencing, reciting, going back to all of what they’ve done. But their span was so short, and I don’t get it. And I feel like as time has went on, we’ve seen people being more accepting of what’s going on. And you just see how the life span of their career and just what they mean to the culture.

MUHAMMAD: Well, the culture I think has — the hip-hop culture has spread out through the world. And so, you know, people who are closest to the origin of things try to — they’re so close to it that it’s hard to look at anything that’s different than the origin and the root of it and be easy and go with it. I’ll use the example of Christmas and getting a Christmas tree.

KELLEY: Ali hates Christmas.

MUHAMMAD: No, it’s just —

KELLEY: Ali won’t let me give him Christmas presents.

MUHAMMAD: And I ask people, I’m like, “OK. Do you know why you chop down a tree?” Most people don’t know. And it’s like, when you go into it, what the origin of what you believe or what you thought is not exactly that. And so the people who are closest to that, they know that. And so like me for example, I know the origin of it, so when people come to me and my family and home space and want to do that I’m not that open to it.

PUSHA T: Right.

MUHAMMAD: But — so the point is, I think, with regards to hip-hop spreading out, it’s no longer — I’ll use the word “owned,” and that’s probably not the proper word — but it’s no longer owned by — it’s out there in the world. And so the person over in Palestine is going to embrace hip-hop in their way, how they received it, but then they are adding their own spirit to it. The person in the Philippines is going to do the same thing. The person in Nigeria is going to do the same thing. So it may be different. Even if it comes from Newport News or if it comes from Miami or in Cleveland, it’s a little bit different.

And so when you got these different people coming from these different places feeling it, but then adding their interpretation and their feel on it, some of those people who are close to the original they — I don’t know if it’s the right thing by kind of like having more of a discerning sort of a viewpoint, but it definitely creates obstacles of growth. And that’s in any aspect of life. If you allow yourself to be closed, especially to a younger generation, then that’s death. That’s instant death.

PUSHA T: But that’s what it feels like to me. That’s what I feel like, and when you — when I ask you like, “Man, how was long was their run?” And you tell me, “Super short?” For who I would — I don’t know of a greater time period and guys who were that great. I feel like that’s exactly what happened. They were — they closed it — they — instant death, man. Like, yo, they closed it to a younger — and what’s so weird, when I think about it — when you think about rap on the East Coast, Northeast Coast, ran from what? ’90 — I mean, from ’80 — from the start.

MUHAMMAD: ’73 was it? Yeah, OK.

PUSHA T: OK. From the start to —

KELLEY: ’96.

MUHAMMAD: ’96. Yeah.

PUSHA T: ’96. Right. Perfect. Right? OK. So now what I’m saying is why couldn’t my greats be great — listen — even amongst their own coast, peer, region. They couldn’t even be great among — and now you look at us, and we gotta be great when the music isn’t even — the shift is down there now. Down South. Everything that’s —

MUHAMMAD: Can I play angel’s advocate for a moment?

PUSHA T: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s see this one. Cause that was a great — damn. ’73 to ’96. Dammit. What do you mean?

MUHAMMAD: OK. I’ma play angel’s advocate for a moment to say during, I want to say maybe from the peak of — the beginning of ’94, cause I got to go back a couple steps behind ’96.

PUSHA T: OK.

MUHAMMAD: It became apparently clear to the puppeteers how profitable hip-hop could be. And so the control of the creators of the content had other hands, powerful hands, to shift the paradigm towards something that was way different than the root of it. So when you got the masters, who, still some of them can’t even be touched to this day, you know, looking at it — and that’s why I use the word: they discern; they look at it — and they go, “This s*** is funky. This is not — how can we embrace that, because we recognize the other hands that’s meddling, that’s pushing a different agenda.”

And so now you step it down — up to ’95, ’96, ’97. Those puppeteers have put together a perfect plan that now the newer are coming in, and they stacking and they building on and they profiting. Like, everything is beautiful. But it separates you from the root of it so much that now it’s taken on a life of its own. It’s still tied in to the root and the family tree of hip-hop, but it’s almost like a hybrid.

And so that hybrid has a life and obviously it needs to be respected, because that’s life. That’s mankind. Like, yo, we’re going to be wiped away. We’re gonna be dust. Our buildings are gonna be covered, and there’s going to be another layer of society to build on top of that. So what does that say? But to kind of play angel’s advocate off of what you said, you look at that and you go — at the puppeteers — and go, “That’s the demise of what’s true.” But —

PUSHA T: Mm.

KELLEY: Yeah, but —

MUHAMMAD: But — go ahead.

KELLEY: So mad. But we’ve talked to so many people who heard everything coming out of New York then, like Bun in Texas and like 8Ball in Memphis, and they loved exactly what you loved. They heard exactly what you heard, despite it being more difficult to get, and then they made their own thing. And New York still didn’t want to f*** with it. New York still looked down on it.

MUHAMMAD: Well, that’s a mistake. And so as much as I want to play angel’s advocate —

KELLEY: But that might have more —

MUHAMMAD: — you know, I was trying to offer a different side of to the possibilities of why it’s not just only in being closed. But I think anytime you’re closed to what’s new and what’s coming, again I say it’s instant death. You can’t disconnect yourself from the younger generation. You may look at it and go, “I don’t know about that.” But the moment that you, as I think you said, you don’t relate and you don’t embrace what’s next then —

PUSHA T: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: — that’s —

PUSHA T: And I’m not saying you gotta try. I’m not saying you gotta do it. I’m just saying you should know. Cause I feel like when you don’t know, that comes off onto you. You can’t hide that.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: You can’t hide being washed. Like, that’s a terrible thing.

MUHAMMAD: Man, you younger guys are so brutal, man.

PUSHA T: What do you mean?

MUHAMMAD: Nah, I’m just joking.

PUSHA T: We the same age.

MUHAMMAD: I know. You a little bit younger than me. But it’s — you right. You right. You right. You know? I don’t — but what’s beautiful though is when you have guys like yourself who — you study, so you’re able to use what comes before you to a greater benefit. And if you don’t get embraced, you don’t get embraced. You gotta do what you gotta do. But there are those who don’t embrace or even acknowledge certain aspects of the origin. And that can be frustrating. But me personally, I keep an open mind. I keep an open bridge cause it’s all human communication.

PUSHA T: It was — on working on this album, it was dope to get in with Tip actually. And him have conversations with me about — first of all, his archive of music is just dumb. I mean, we talking about recreating things. We talking about just — that’s just number one. But being able to have that conversation, talk about energies that aren’t being tampered with in music that were once — just on a production tip.

And then still being able to have conversations in regards to Rich Homie Quan or just things that — he was just trying to find out what I like. And I can tell him why and he’s like, “Yo.” And he gets it. You can’t have that conversation with many people, man. A lot of people, like, they don’t — they’re not open. They’re not open to it. And they’ll down-talk it; they’ll belittle it, and I mean, you gotta — even if you’re not with it, you have to know.

I like the fact that he knows about it so much that we can make records even competing with it. You know what I’m saying? Do, “OK. That’s what’s going on? Let’s do this.” It was just — that was just a good thing for us.

MUHAMMAD: So then are you saying that you’re completely open to every of the newer stuff that’s out there?

PUSHA T: I like it a lot. I love what’s going on in rap, actually. I —

KELLEY: Did you mention Young Dolph in “Got Em Covered?”

PUSHA T: Yes. I love Young Dolph.

KELLEY: I do too.

PUSHA T: But that also comes from — I am still outside.

MUHAMMAD: Mm-hmm.

PUSHA T: It’s the same — it is the exact same thing as when I was in Virginia, loving life. New York totally invaded my state. I could listen to nothing but Wu-Tang to whatever, whatever, whatever. Rakim, Mobb Deep, whatever. And I finally get to go to the Bay. Things that I would turn — I would click, would cut my whole TV off. And finally get there, go to the club, and realize like, “Oh, this is a real thing.” You can love anything that you are in the mix of.

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: You can. Like, when you see it, and when you see it authentically and you see people, how people are in their element, you can appreciate it. And I feel like, man, I’m still outside. I love all of that stuff. And I love it for just what it is, though. Like, don’t — it’s not about, you know — you never gon’ hear me say — call on people for a mean 16 of what I need, of what I’m trying to hear.

Man, listen, I went and got — for “Keep Dealing,” I went and got Sigel. And — wildest story in the world — I didn’t know Sigel was hurt. Did you know that?

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

KELLEY: Yeah.

PUSHA T: OK. No, but did you know he was — I knew he got hurt. I thought he was through that. I had no clue.

I had been — I had a record, and I had been like trying to find somebody to get on it. And I was like, “Man, I’ma get Sigel on the record.” I called him; it’s mid-day. And I been calling. I’m like, “Man, why I gotta keep calling you trying to find a record?” I’m like, “What? You just waking up or something?” And he’s like, “Nah, Push. I’m good. What up?” And I’m like, “Look. I got this record. I’ma send it to you.” Boom, boom.

Sent him the record. He hits me back enthusiastic, still talking like he was. And I was like, “Ahhh.” Your lung, you know — then he was like, “But I needed this because I needed to hear this.”

The literature was so right on it I couldn’t take him off. I wouldn’t dare. He wrote it — he did everything I needed. Everything. And I couldn’t get it from anywhere else, to be honest. And you know I could’ve put anybody.

MUHAMMAD: No doubt.

PUSHA T: But, man, when you need that, when you just need that level of pen and when you need that level of gospel, you can only go certain places for it. And it don’t — it didn’t bother me a bit that to me Sigel doesn’t sound like the Sigel we — but I can live with that, cause I know the verb is right. The verb is so right.

KELLEY: Well, is there anything you want to make sure we understand about the album or that we get across?

PUSHA T: I don’t know, man. I think I made an amazing, fan-oriented album.

KELLEY: I mean, let’s be honest. A lot of people are going to think this is a fourth-quarter — like, you owed something. And it’s a delaying before we get to King Push. But it doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t sound like that.

PUSHA T: Nah. I don’t — I don’t know. I mean, I don’t even know how that works. Nah.

In all honesty, King Push is, I feel like — I have records on King Push that, to me, need — it’s a different thing. I wouldn’t — I couldn’t just push or throw something out there with, I feel like, the people that are on it — I got features on it. I think I always work with good producers, but artistically there are people on that record that are — people haven’t heard in some time. And it was nothing — you just couldn’t mix the two in my opinion.

I don’t owe anybody anything. I never owe anybody anything. I’m not one of those releases. And my album’ll be better than all of those releases. Facts!

MUHAMMAD: Just want to ask you about the line, about the G.O.O.D. Music — what did you say?

KELLEY: He’s the president.

MUHAMMAD: He the president? Can you enlighten us on it?

PUSHA T: Oh, no. One day I got a phone call from Kanye asking me what do I think about being the president of G.O.O.D. Music. And I was like, “Sure. What we trying to achieve here?” And he was just like, “Man, I feel like as far as the artists go, the artists on G.O.O.D. Music respect you. I feel like you got a good rapport with all of them.” He was like, “You’re pretty spot on in regards to acts and things that we may have wanted to sign, we didn’t get to sign.”

Or just things bubbling up, whether we talking about Keef, Chief Keef and the “Don’t Like” remix, or plenty of things on the net that we just — I’m always like, “Yo, man, you checking this out?” Future. People weren’t really rocking — people shot me for having Future on My Name Is My Name. I put that out in 2012. “Pain.” And now Future is — I mean, Future to me was hot then. But he was like, “Man, you pretty spot on about these things, and you care. I know you care. What could we do?”

And, you know, in regards to Ye — I’m a team player when it come to G.O.O.D. Music. I feel like it’s a pretty easy task, cause carrying on with tradition, high quality music, high quality art — I think we could bring a little bit more business to the situation, just in regards to the fans. My mood board says that there should be a G.O.O.D. Music festival. Why not? Like we haven’t — I don’t think — and I think all of the G.O.O.D. Music artists and affiliates are doing so many different things that we never get to Voltron up. So that would be a thing of mine.

KELLEY: Where would you do it?

PUSHA T: I don’t want to say. I just don’t want to say just because I don’t want to — cause it’s in the —

KELLEY: But you know?

PUSHA T: Yeah. I mean, no, this is like —

KELLEY: OK.

PUSHA T: I’m trying —

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, you don’t have to reveal that.

PUSHA T: And keeping with fan engagement. I feel like, man, we really started something when we were on that G.O.O.D Friday type kick.

KELLEY: I was just about to say it. That was the best.

PUSHA T: But that’s the — it’s a hard thing. People want that. But that probably was the hardest time of my life in G.O.O.D. Music. I mean, just everybody had to be focused.

KELLEY: Just keeping up with it and having the artwork and like everything?

PUSHA T: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

KELLEY: OK.

PUSHA T: Keeping up with it. I think the putting out of the music and the art, those are things that really made the whole thing a thing.

KELLEY: Got me through a breakup.

PUSHA T: Yeah. And everybody just has to be on the same page. It can’t happen like that. And we can’t — I don’t feel like we should do it half-ass.

MUHAMMAD: Mm-hmm. No doubt.

PUSHA T: That’s not cool. Like, you got —

MUHAMMAD: Greatness.

PUSHA T: Ye in here. You got Cole coming through.

MUHAMMAD: You got greatness.

PUSHA T: You know, Cudi.

MUHAMMAD: You got greatness.

PUSHA T: We all are just working. Mos. Raekwon might’ve stopped — like, it was just a thing, man. And it was — everybody was just on.

KELLEY: That Pete Rock joint.

PUSHA T: Pete Rock. I mean, this was Dark Twisted time, correct?

KELLEY: Yeah. 2010.

PUSHA T: Yeah. Dark Twisted time. A lot had to do with the creation of that album, you know, and just the powers that be that were around. And I don’t think that you can just get that. You can’t just recreate that high volume or quality.

KELLEY: You can’t just make everybody go to Hawaii again.

PUSHA T: You can’t just do that. And I would love it.

KELLEY: Yeah. We all would.

PUSHA T: That’s the thing. Listen. Let me tell you something. If that happens, I’m about to look like a genius. Like, if that could happen? Cause that’s part of probably why the presidency — cause I got to huddle and lasso everybody up. Like, it’s a lot of legwork, footwork, that’s going to come up along with this.

KELLEY: You’re like, “We’re going to Switzerland. Get on the plane.”

MUHAMMAD: We believe in you.

PUSHA T: Yo, I’m going for it, man. Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Dope.

KELLEY: Yeah. Thank you so much for talking to us about everything.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

PUSHA T: Nah. All good. Thank you.

KELLEY: Greatest respects. And we just want more music all time.

PUSHA T: You got it. You got it.

MUHAMMAD: We do?

PUSHA T: Yes.

MUHAMMAD: But I’m not gon’ push you.

KELLEY: I will.

MUHAMMAD: Cause I respect a person’s, an artist’s process, you know. And I hear it all the time like, “When are you? When are you? When are you?” I’m like, “Yeah, I know.” So — but thank you so much.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: What up, Logic?

LOGIC: What’s good? This is crazy. I’m so excited.

MUHAMMAD: Me too.

FRANNIE KELLEY: Thank you for coming.

LOGIC: Of course.

MUHAMMAD: How’d you feel walking in the building?

LOGIC: I felt very like I’ve been here a million times. Cause this is the place where —

KELLEY: Cause you have?

LOGIC: Yeah. Where I’ve recorded. And we mixed the first album — we mixed Under Pressure here. And we mixed the new album, The Incredible True Story here.

And I saw you, and I was like, “Yo, I know this guy.” And I was on the phone and I was like — I didn’t think it was you at first. Cause I was like, “Nah,” but I was like, “Yeah,” but I was like, “Nah.” And then Bobby, my engineer, who we know, was like, “Yo, you know Ali has his podcast …” and I was like, “Oh my god! That was him. That’s crazy.” And I was on the phone talking about some extra — I always be on the phone.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, I saw Bobby and Alex. And it was just like, “Would you pass a little message?” I try not to do that but —

LOGIC: No, I’m glad. Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. I saw you, but you were on the phone so I was like, “Man, I just wanted to go up to him, but I was like — it looked like you were in a serious conversation.

LOGIC: I was in a very serious conversation. It’s always a very — when it’s album time, it’s always like something’s happening at the label, and you gotta make sure something gets done right. Like little things. Everything. I’m a perfectionist, and I’m very analytical about every little detail. So if something’s wrong or there isn’t a quotation on a iTunes thing or this or that, I go crazy, man.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, see the detail? The detail was in the body language. So I was like, “Yeah, I’ma just keep moving. I’ll hopefully run into the gentleman another time.” But that was —

LOGIC: But we’re here.

MUHAMMAD: — the only time. Yes.

LOGIC: I’m glad we’re here.

KELLEY: When was that?

LOGIC: That was like a couple weeks ago.

KELLEY: Oh, OK.

LOGIC: Like a month ago maybe.

MUHAMMAD: It was about a month ago.

KELLEY: Alright. Got it.

MUHAMMAD: For the people — OK. Let me just set it up. We’re at Blakeslee Studios. So it’s where I record. And this is where we do Microphone Check now. Yay. And so I have a production room, and then there’s a vocal booth and there’s another production room behind me.

LOGIC: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: I was recording vocals, and it was just like the sub was just so ridiculous, so I asked my production partner in the next room. I was like, “Yo I’m cutting vocals. Can you kill it for a minute?” And he was like, “Yeah, sure. No problem.” And then like 15 minutes later it was just worse. So I’m sending him a text like, “Dude. I’m still cutting.” And he was like, “I’m quiet, man.” And I’m like, “Where the hell is that coming from?” And it was coming from the C room where you were mixing.

LOGIC: So all the way on the other side?

MUHAMMAD: Yo. Your music was catching life on my tracks. But it was sounding —

LOGIC: I’m sorry about that.

MUHAMMAD: No. Don’t apologize. It sounded really good.

LOGIC: Thank you.

KELLEY: You’ve probably done that to people before.

MUHAMMAD: Probably.

LOGIC: For sure.

MUHAMMAD: You gotta know how to take it when you’re recording. But anyway we’re happy that you’re here. And I want to shout out our producer, David, cause he’s the one that put me up on you.

LOGIC: Shout out to David. I appreciate that.

KELLEY: David Luke. He’s the man.

MUHAMMAD: David Luke. Yeah. He — when your last record came out, which was not your first —

LOGIC: No. Well, I mean, technically it was the first album, right? But in this day and age — I mean, I had done a whole bunch of mixtapes and to me, those are like albums. You put together a body of work and release it. But it’s just a different time. But, yes.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah so he put me up on you, and I was like, “Alright. Logic. Cool.” Checked it out, and I was like, “Oh. Thank you, David.” Music was dope.

LOGIC: Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: And you’re very talented. So, kind of want to go back to the beginning a little bit. And I want to go back to the beginning referencing a song off the new album, which is called “Paradise.” And in the song, you mention this one moment in the song “Paradise,” and it was about being pulled over by the police with your mom or something like that, right?

LOGIC: Actually, it was — yes. But it wasn’t — we were in the house.

MUHAMMAD: You were in the house.

LOGIC: So that’s what I was talking about. My mother being dragged away. I was about five years old.

MUHAMMAD: So that must’ve been a lasting memory for you, to put it —

LOGIC: 100%. Cause they like — she didn’t have any shoes on. And then I remember these kind of cobblestone stairs that we had, cause we lived in this apartment, you know, through the government. They helped assist everything. And I just remember her being in handcuffs and then dragged down and then, like, her ankles were very bloody. It’s crazy. And I was about four or five years old.

MUHAMMAD: Do you remember how you felt?

LOGIC: Definitely confused and probably scared. I mean, you can imagine — like when you watch anything, when you watch Boyz N The Hood and it’s the baby crying, and you’re like, the baby has no idea what’s really going on. You just kind of sense that something’s not right, and that this person who is raising you or a part of your life is not around you for this second, you know what I mean? So that’s kind of all I remember from it.

MUHAMMAD: Did you ever speak with your mom about that incident?

LOGIC: No, actually I never did, which is crazy. Damn.

MUHAMMAD: I’m asking because your environment was — you grew up in — what was the neighborhood?

LOGIC: Well, I grew up in West Deer Park. That’s where I really spent a majority of my years. Well, from five to 15. And I think those are some of the biggest years.

And the funny thing is, where I’m from, it’s a very beautiful place. And there’s s— everywhere. There’s good places everywhere. There’s bad places everywhere. But a bad place for me was my home, my actual house. Which is really funny cause I think the way you look, you know, the fact that I’m a black and white man, but look white, and raised by black family members, and — you know, it’s like really weird. Cause there’s a culture in me. There’s ancestry in me on both sides, you know, the slave and the master. It’s f—— weird. It’s crazy.

I don’t know. It was very — growing up in my household, it was a lot of things that I went through and experienced that I think a lot of other people did as well, at least some level, and that’s why I think people can kind of relate. But it’s not like b——-. Like, “Oh, I went through this.” It was like, “Nah. This made me stronger. Better. Faster. Harder.” I’m sorry.

KELLEY: Yeah. Cause Ali was asking me — so I’m kind of from D.C. My dad was in the Navy, but I went to high school in D.C. So he was like, “Do you know where Logic is from?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’ve seen that neighborhood, and it looks beautiful. But there isn’t anything there.”

LOGIC: Mind you, also, they re-did it. But back when I lived there — cause for me it was Section 8 housing. It’s so weird, man, cause there’s a lot of really amazing places there. I mean, at one point, it was one of the richest counties in the United States.

KELLEY: Is it Montgomery County?

LOGIC: Yeah. Montgomery County. But that’s what takes it back to the household. Like, it’s the household, man. We were on Section 8. We were on welfare. We had food stamps. We had this. We had that. My dad was in and out doing the things that he was doing.

And the funny thing is — especially with this album, one thing that I told myself is — cause on the first album, it was very — it was like an almost autobiography of all the s— that I went through. And it was such negative stuff. And I love that album, man, and it was true introduction. But that’s why I’m so excited for this album, The Incredible True Story, because it’s kind of the victory lap. It’s kind of like, “Here’s where my life is now. I’m going to give you a little bit of retrospect and take you back a little bit. But things are good, and that’s where I’m headed.”

But, to speak on the past for the plenty of people out there who’ve never heard of me right now listening —

MUHAMMAD: Well, that’s why I wanted to just go back a little bit just so that there’s an understanding as to where you are right now.

LOGIC: Complete 100%.

MUHAMMAD: And I think it’s important because I think that there are people who are raised in a certain impoverished and stressed environment, be it economically or even emotionally, and they assimilate to that environment, and they don’t break the cycle. And so you seem have been inspired to break that cycle, and it comes across in the music. So I wanted to know what was it that inspired you. What was that moment that —

LOGIC: People ask that. I don’t think there was a specific moment. I think it was something that was always in me that I just knew, and I think a big part of it was god. I think it’s like god and common sense. Cause when you see all your sisters getting knocked up and beat and coming home raped by men. And your mother getting f—– up by men, and right in front of you and screaming and crying and horrible things. And your brother selling drugs and carrying guns and all this s—.

You see what happens, and it’s like, OK, this person’s doing this, this person’s doing this, this person’s doing this. I’m like, “Yo. I can’t do this.” And yeah, sure, I’ve shot guns. I’ve held guns. I’ve sold drugs. I’ve done the dumbest s— for a very short, very short, period of time in my life where I was like, “Oh no. This ain’t happening.”

I’ve never killed anybody. Thank god. I’m not the dude that’s like, “Yeah. I got bodies.” That’s the most ignorant s— ever. I am so blessed that I’ve never taken a life. I’ve done f—– up s—, but I can look in the mirror. I’ve faced my demons, and I’m very blessed to be here.

But that cycle, I think it’s just god and common sense. And at the end of the day, I was like, “You know what? Instead of ignorantly trying to get out my frustration through acts of vandalism or violence because I’m so unsure of who I am as a growing young man —” What most people do, they just tend to act out or this or that or get in arguments. I was like, “Man, I’m just going to put it into my music.”

And then even that was difficult. Cause I could say whatever I want to say. I could say — I could curse or I could this — and my mother, she was very over-religious. But at the same time, she wouldn’t — Kanye, what’d he say? I’m not sure if it was “New Slaves,” but it was off Yeezus. Yeah. I think it was “New Slaves.” He was like, “Yeah, we preachin’, but we practice.” And I was like, “Wow. That’s real s—.” Don’t preach it unless you’re about it. Don’t try to take the splinter out of somebody’s eye you got a log in yours. So I would like — my mother was the type of person who would be like, “This is god’s house, you goddamn m———-.” Like, really. That was who she was.

I think that’s another reason why I’m so open-minded, and I really love and respect all colors, creeds, faiths, religions, even though I might have my own personal connection, or whatever that is, with myself. I think it came from that household. I think it was all the negative s— that I saw, witnessed, went through, that turned me into the positive person that you see today.

And I’m sorry. I know I’m talking a lot. I’m just so excited. A lot of people, they’re always like, “How are you so positive? How are you so positive?” And to be quite honest, it’s in my darkest of times that I am my most positive, because —

MUHAMMAD: How so?

LOGIC: It’s all about like speaking it — think about it, man. There was a time where all I wanted to do was be accepted by hip-hop. And everywhere I turned it’s all, “This white m———–. Oh, this, this, or that.” People who don’t even like — they’re not even listening or caring to understand my story, and it’s f—– up.

And so it’s like, when I felt like I wasn’t getting my just deserve or this or respect, now I’m in the room with two incredible people who care not only about this culture but about music as a whole, and with this legend, yourself, you know. And I don’t know how you look at yourself, but you’re a m———— legend, man. You inspired my whole first album and a lot of these records. So to be able to sit here with you is amazing, and I feel now I am getting my just deserve.

But in my darkest of hours, when nobody’s there to pat me on the back, to say keep going, to say, “You can do it. You’re incredible. You’re talented. You’re this. You’re that,” I was the one that — I’d go on Twitter, and I’d go into my music and say, “You can be the best person you can be. You can do anything you want to do.” And it’s like, I’m telling the fans what I’m trying to tell myself because nobody was telling me at the time.

MUHAMMAD: That’s amazing. It’s interesting cause you say that it’s common sense, and you would think that it would be common sense for people to look at their environment, to look at their life to see and evaluate what’s working and put that in a — “That’s working for me. Let’s keep doing that.” And then the, “Oh, that’s not working for me. Let’s not keep doing that.” That seems like common sense, but you know we tend sometimes to succumb to whatever, and we repeat these steps. But you’re making a choice.

LOGIC: There’s a language. And I’m sorry to interrupt. It’s very simple. When I first came to L.A. in 2012 — so I moved from Maryland, and I didn’t know anybody out here. My homie Lenny supported me. Like when I didn’t have a place to go, you know, he put food in my stomach and clothes on my back. And I remember I was supposed to get a job — and this is back when I lived in the basement. And if you go to Under Pressure, my first album, you look at that cover; it’s me in the basement. And that’s the exact basement that I was in.

And I was like supposed to get a job and all this s—, but the music I was making was so good and he was kind of lenient, in a good way. And I was like, “Man, just give me a year. If you could do that, if you could work and take care of me for a year.” And damn near just before that year was up, almost to the date, I signed to Def Jam and I told him, I said, “Quit your job of twelve years as a land surveyor and come out to L.A., and we’re gonna do it.” And we did it.

And I say all this to say that when I got to L.A., I was on Twitter, and I was at — you know Pequito Mas?

MUHAMMAD: Mhmm.

LOGIC: Yeah, I was at Pequito Mas, right, f—— up some quesadillas.

MUHAMMAD: For people that don’t know, Pequito Mas is a — it’s like the Chipotle of its day, before there was Chipotle.

LOGIC: I like it. I don’t know. It’s pretty good.

MUHAMMAD: It’s a little small kind of taco, burrito —

LOGIC: Yeah. It’s super ill.

KELLEY: It means “a little bit more?”

LOGIC: Oh yeah. Pequito mas.

KELLEY: That’s cute.

LOGIC: Pequito mas. Hola. Cómo estás. Me llamo Roberto.

Anyway, so I’m sitting down one day, right, and I just got finished kind of on a rant. Cause I was where I just said I was. “You can do anything you want in life. You can achieve anything. You can be the person that you want to be. Peace, love, and positivity.” That’s my f—— jam right there. That’s my whole thing. “Peace, love, and positivity. Follow your dreams.”

And then I look at the replies like, “Ah, I hope people are going to enjoy this.” And I see like, “Shut up, you f—— f—–.” You know? Or, “You’re a b—-.” Or this or all these different things. And I’m like, “Ah, damn.” It just hits my soul. I never understood — how could you hate me? How could you hate me? Like, I came from nothing. I promote nothing but positivity. How could you hate that?

I don’t understand, and I was talking to Lenny about it, my best friend Big Lenbo — he’s actually on this album. And I was like, “How could somebody hate me? How could somebody be that evil to take something that’s positive and say these negative things?” I just couldn’t understand it. And it f—— — like a lightbulb, it went off, and it changed my life: I don’t understand why haters hate because I’m not a f—— hater. And this is real s—.

And then this goes to success. I can’t tell you how many people have come and gone from my circle, good people, that it just didn’t work out, because they didn’t speak the language. So determination, persistence, realism, and wanting success more than your next breath. It’s that simple. And you can achieve anything you want.

I actually have an autograph from 2010 — me practicing my autograph with a million Logic autographs on it — and I signed the date. And that was before I had a fan in the world, before I had anything. And it was because I said, “I’m gonna.” And 2010, I said, without any of that s—, that same year, “I’m going to be a Freshman XXL 2013.” And I did it. I said, “I’m gonna not just get a f—— record deal, but I’m gonna get the record deal I want in fine print that says I can make whatever the hell I want and release it whenever I want and do it.” And I did it. I said, “I’m gonna be an actor one day, and I’m gonna direct and write movies. And I’m gonna do these things.” And I’m gonna do it.

And other people go, “Well, I would, but.” “I would, but I don’t have the money.” “I would, but my mom is sick and I have to take care of her.” Or, “I would this,” or “I would that.” And it’s like, “Yo, those are unfortunate situations, but you already f—– up as soon as you said ‘but.'” And there’s people who even could listen now and go, “Oh, no. No. That’s not true. There’s a lot to it.” And it’s like, “Well. No.” It’s all about you. The law of attraction. The power of your words.

MUHAMMAD: You answered my next question really with that.

LOGIC: My bad.

MUHAMMAD: Nah. I love what you’re saying. It comes through in your music, but I don’t know if — to spell it out the way you just did — and I think you really have to — well, if you don’t have that component to understand and take things in, then you will never in this — just pretty much the example you gave. But I think if you just take a moment to really let your words settle in, it’s pretty clear that you feel this way. But the question I was going to ask is do you remember the moment when you rejected the belief of impossibility?

LOGIC: Oh, wow. It’s weird. It’s almost like — people ask me, cause I just got married last week —

MUHAMMAD: Congratulations.

LOGIC: Thank you, brother. And they ask, “When did you know she was the one?” I think that’s kind of b——. I don’t think there’s any moment. I think it’s a collection of moments, you know? It’s like when she — when we hung out and it wasn’t about money or this or that, social climbing and Instagram. I was like, “Oh wow, she’s just a regular, awesome, very beautiful woman.” And when I went on tour, and she could handle two tours, a promo run, and the release of an album, and she could handle — it’s all these things that, like, “Oh wow, this is the one for me.”

So, yeah. I don’t know when it — I don’t know exactly when it was.

KELLEY: I have a way to ask it, maybe.

LOGIC: Yeah. Please.

KELLEY: How did you educate yourself?

LOGIC: Oh. Through Yoda. Yoda has a saying; he says — I love it. He says, “The difference between the Padawan and the master is the master has failed more times than the Padawan has even tried.” So I think I knew through trial and error, not only of me but my predecessors and the people that I love. Like I f—— love Kanye West, but he’s — even like with Taylor Swift, that’ll be always be a part of history. And we can all look back now and laugh, and they’re friends now and that’s really amazing.

But I look at things like that, or even far before him of other people and maybe bad business decisions or whatever the case may be of other people. And I look at the negative things that happened to them or, “Oh, that’s where they kind of went downhill.” And not even their music per se but just who they are and their business and things like that.

So I think for me when I realized anything was possible, it was more so, “OK. Anything really is possible as long as I don’t f— it up.” As long as I don’t do some crazy s—. I have to be able to look in the mirror and go, “OK. I’m a pretty normal guy. So just don’t get into any crazy s—.” No skeletons in the closet. And that’s why I like to put everything out there.

But I think probably the day — the day I released my album I had an awesome cry. You know? It was such an amazing cry. I think that was a big thing. I was like, “Man. Look where I came from. Look where I am. My album is out for the world. This is crazy.” Yeah. So that was probably one of the biggest times where I realized, “Wow. You could really do anything.”

KELLEY: I was gonna ask you about the Kendrick comparisons and —

LOGIC: Please.

KELLEY: Is there anything in that you thought maybe where there was a moment of truth in it? Where you were like, “Oh, well, I guess in some ways differentiate from whatever?”

LOGIC: No. I don’t think so at all. I think that’s just like — c’mon, man. When I listen to Tribe, Slum Village, this, all these incredible — you hear — I’m not going to change who I am for nobody else. If you listen to my album, you listen to the outro, you listen to Under Pressure, you listen to so many — cause I haven’t listened to Under Pressure in a while — but if you listen, first of all the outro, me singing on an album. I’m singing on the intro. That doesn’t sound like Kendrick. It doesn’t sound like Cole. I mean, you can say it sound like Drake, but it’s a different kind of singing. You know what I mean? Whatever.

I don’t give a s—. I don’t give a s—. I don’t care. None of that matters to me. It’s like, “Yeah. OK. When” — cause I have so much respect for Kendrick. I have yet to shake his hand. We know all the same f—— people. It’s insane. But think about it. I work with Tae Beast. I worked with Terrace Martin. I work with all these people who worked on Kendrick’s s—. So obviously there’s going to be some type of — what’s the word?

KELLEY: Commonality.

LOGIC: Yeah. Exactly. Commonality in it. And then — but it’s like, “Are the lyrics the same?” F— no. This is my story, my flows, my raps. This is me. But it’s the same thing with —

KELLEY: You guys are just fast.

LOGIC: Yeah. But it’s also a recency effect. Before him, it was Cole. “Oh you sound like Cole.” And before him, when I got melodic, it’s like, “Oh you sound like Drake.” Or this or that. And it’s like, “That’s fine. Say whatever you want.” I used to battle that. It used to be a thing for me like, “Oh, man. I’m getting compared to —” but nah. No no no. The fact that I can tour the world, sell out shows, and people are coming to see me is all that matters. My message is there. That’s all that matters.

And don’t get me wrong. On The Incredible True Story, the sonics are more me than ever. But it’s like, OK, we can talk about who I sound like, but why don’t we talk about the fact that I was extremely inspired by Midnight Marauders from Tribe, and literally the program, I did that. And I did it as an homage, and I hope you enjoyed it.

MUHAMMAD: I mean, shouts out to Thalia.

KELLEY: I know, right.

LOGIC: Yeah. Thalia. Real talk.

MUHAMMAD: No. Deeply felt. And what’s —

LOGIC: But why is it OK because it was 20 years ago? You see what I’m saying?

MUHAMMAD: I was going to say — well —

KELLEY: Well, yeah. I mean, my question would be then — so it seems to me that somebody wrote about this, and then it was sort of picked up. And I wonder about the difference between the critical reception for your work and the fan reception for your work. It seems to me there’s a very big divide between people who write about music and people who f— with music.

LOGIC: Yeah. For sure. 100%. I think — but I think at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Even this conversation, we’re giving it more life than it really is.

KELLEY: I know.

LOGIC: No. But it’s a good topic. It’s an incredible topic. But let’s talk about how much Ye inspires me. Let’s talk about how Ye did 808s and there’s straight covers on that, you know what I mean? Where you could take something completely from somebody else and add a snare and a kick drum, but because Ye is “a legend,” it’s different, or it’s this or it’s that. It’s like, no. He was inspired to take from someone else, and he made it his own.

KELLEY: Well, do you think the reason there’s this vitriol is because people think because you look white that you’re going to get more commercial success?

LOGIC: I have no f—— doubt in my mind that that’s true. Without a doubt. Look at the consumer. You know what I’m saying? Look at the consumer. The general consumer — have you been to f—— Wu Tang shows and hip-hop shows? It’s crazy. It’s a whole bunch of white kids, but so what? Those are — and that’s not the whole thing cause — and this is a whole ‘nother debate we can go into about — and I don’t even really like to talk about race, but I will. But I don’t really like to talk about race that much cause I just see people, man. And being black and white, being two things —

But, yes. But going back into that, I have no f—— doubt in my mind that — I think at the end of the day, the music, I would like to say, is damn good, and I work my ass off, and that’s why I’m where I am. Because there’s a lot of white rappers who don’t give a s— about this culture and just want to exploit it. And that’s something I would never do. And that’s something I’m not doing. But, yes.

It’s like, a young black child looking at Michael Jordan like, “Wow. He looks like me. I can be that. I can do that.” Maybe that was Kobe. Maybe that was Lebron. Maybe that was whoever. And they did it. So imagine a genre of music where it’s typically supposed to be like only the brothers can do this, and this and this. And there might be a white person out there — even though I am black and white, and I love who I am — but there’s some white kid who could go, “Oh, I wish I could rap, but because I’m white I can’t do it.” That’s the most f—– up s—. It’s like, no. If you love the culture — like, look at Mac Miller. Yo. Mac Miller loves hip-hop, bro. And he knows his s—. So to say that he can’t do it because he’s from the suburbs is b——-.

So I think, yes, the fact that I do look a certain way — it’s weird. It’s like reverse racism. Because in hip-hop, I got treated as the minority, looked down upon, and I had to fight every single day, when I am a part of, not only this culture, but this ethnicity. But yeah, I mean, when it comes to marketability — look at arguably the biggest artist ever in rap is Eminem, right? That’s a argument. Is he white? Does it have to do with that? Does it have to do with his skill?

All this s— I put out of my mind. There are the things that I battled with especially on my first album. This is why I’m so happy with the second album. Cause it’s like, “Say what you want about me. Say this. Say that. Who gives a f—. I don’t care. I’m making music. God is good. I’m married. I have a puppy. I’m so happy.” That’s how I think, and it frees me.

MUHAMMAD: Well, just to speak on influences and how it inspires, I heard your music, and I heard several influences. Tribe, and so many others.

LOGIC: Mos Def.

MUHAMMAD: And I think that that’s great. And when you have an artist who — and I can say this after doing this for 26 years, whatever. That when there’s an artist who takes a portion of whatever it is, of your art, like take a seed, a very small thing, and grow something completely different and beautiful, that’s amazing. And when you can pick fruit off of that tree that that other person put in the ground and created their own hybrid and added to it, and you can take a bite of the fruit and close your eyes and as it goes down your throat and into your system, you can feel the chemicals moving through and you feel great and wonderful. And it doesn’t poison you. Then that —

LOGIC: I have literally —

MUHAMMAD: It doesn’t get any better than that.

LOGIC: I have a song about that called “The Tree Of Life” that I wrote. And it’s not out, and it’s featuring Slug and Killer Mike, and I’m so sorry to interrupt but it’s perfect. I had to tell you this. And it’s not out yet. I think I’m going to release it probably like the week the album comes out. And it’s about how I was inspired.

My first festival that I ever did was Soundset. Actually, I believe it was this year. You know, it’s the Atmosphere — they put it all together. And for the previous year, I was on Facebook, and I saw a post that Slug had written about a lot of the “fans” — excuse me — were upset that 2 Chainz was on the bill. And he was saying how, you know, we’re all from the same family. We’re all from the same family.

And that inspired me to write this thing called “The Tree Of Life” where, OK, 2 Chainz is a branch in hip-hop, in the tree of hip-hop. And then Nas is a branch, and Logic is a branch, and Drake and Kendrick and all these different people. For someone on the — I don’t know — J. Cole branch — so the leaves, or the fans, of that branch — to hate the branch and the leaves on 2 Chainz and try to say that that’s not real just to me is b——-.

Cause at the end of the day, if 2 Chainz is rapping about Atlanta and where he’s from and the things that he sees, how is that not real? How is that not a part of this culture when we’re all from the same roots?

MUHAMMAD: It’s definitely real. Just to add to the analogy a bit more, you can bite from the fruit and it’s beautiful, and you can be nourished off of that, that person that was inspired. They planted; they grew something else. Fruit doesn’t kill you. You can also — same thing, flipside of it — take a piece of another fruit, a bite of it, and it poisons you. It kills you.

So not to necessarily — at least my take on it is I don’t dispel any of the viewpoints of why some people may not be able to get with the other artist. But I definitely look at it and go, well, if you, for an example, were inspired by so many different other artists, as I was by Miles Davis and so many other different people, right —

LOGIC: Coltrane.

MUHAMMAD: — and you are able to make something that’s palatable and it actually helps, that’s wonderful. But if it doesn’t help, then my common sense says I can’t mess with it.

KELLEY: To me, this is really what hip-hop looks like. In my experience, behind the scenes, at shows —

MUHAMMAD: Except there’s no ladies on there though.

LOGIC: I know. She’s pointing to my album cover right now, which I’m very proud of.

KELLEY: You’re right. There’s no ladies on there.

LOGIC: I thought about putting —

KELLEY: I’m a bad feminist.

LOGIC: Nah, it’s all good. I thought about putting Thalia on there, and creating an image for her. But I will say there is a lady.

MUHAMMAD: Where is she?

LOGIC: My lady. My wife —

MUHAMMAD: Where is she?

LOGIC: — is in the top right corner with my dog. Do you see that?

MUHAMMAD: Ah, there — I take it back.

KELLEY: Yeah, I can’t see it.

LOGIC: Yeah. So she is there.

MUHAMMAD: She’s there.

LOGIC: She’s there.

KELLEY: Oh, I see her!

MUHAMMAD: The album cover is beautiful.

LOGIC: Thank you. Sam Spratt did it. He also did my first album cover.

MUHAMMAD: Thank you for allowing us to get our — actually, to like put my fingers on it. It’s tangible. It’s real. It isn’t like a jpeg or something.

LOGIC: I know. This is my first copy.

MUHAMMAD: I felt the excitement as you were passing it to me. I’m like — just listening to the record The Incredible Story — and I use the word mission because that’s usually when people would venture off into space or exploration.

LOGIC: Yeah. 100%.

MUHAMMAD: It’s a mission. But I felt your excitement when you passed that to me, and that’s a good energy, man.

LOGIC: I’m glad.

MUHAMMAD: It’s a lot of things that one could be excited about, but I think the reason why I felt it is because you say a lot in this album, in just the structure of going off to this place, this planet called Paradise — is that right? And that’s daring, and that’s something in our makeup: we are pioneers and we venture out in also the matter of our own — survival of our existence.

LOGIC: It’s incredible that you say this so — just for everybody out there listening, the best — the short synopsis is The Incredible True Story And Transformation Of The Man Who Saved The World is a script that I wrote in one sitting and it takes place in 2115. And in the year 2065, the last human footprint was left on Earth before ascending to a space station called Babel, where there’s only 5 million human beings left.

Now, this album takes place — so for the last 50 years, from 2065 to 2125, we’ve sent 30 ships out. We’ve sent probes out to look for a habitable planet, and then we finally found one that we believe is habitable, called Paradise. So it is a mission between Thomas and Kai. Thomas is the space pilot. Kai is a man of infantry. They’re on their way from the Babel space station to Paradise to see if in fact human life can survive and this will be our new home. And on their way, they are discussing all topics, from sex, love, hip-hop, the future, where we’re going, what we’re doing.

And so for me, at the end of the day, there’s kind of two main — the main thing about this, about Paradise and this and all that, is I wanted to create a planet, my own planet, for me, for people who enjoy this. You know what I mean? For people who just love music and understand that this is the artist I am and this is what I’m about and this is what I represent, here’s my message: peace, love, positivity. Follow your dreams. These are my raps. This is my style. This is how I do it.

And that’s why I love this more than anything because, even going back to inspirations, I wear them on my sleeve. Of course, I’ve been inspired by Kendrick, Cole, Drake. I’ve been inspired by Coltrane, Miles Davis. I’ve been inspired by Hans Zimmer. I’ve been inspired by so many people. And I’ve been inspired kind of most of all even by Kanye who uses his inspirations and says, “F— you. I don’t care what you say. Does it sound good? Did I write this? OK. Shut the f— up.” That’s how I feel.

So to be able to just kind of put all this b——- out of my head about everything, life and this and all that, and create this place where anyone is welcome that is of sound mind and a good heart. You can do this. And so I thought like I’m going to create an album that was inspired by anime and sci-fi and all the s— that is “not cool” or this or that, but to me, I’ve — all the hip-hop heads I know love art and other types of inspiration. So I wanted to create this place.

And then it goes also to show about, you know, we destroyed Earth in a sense. That shows where we’re going. That shows a lot about ourselves, human nature. And it’s like, what is your paradise? Is your paradise heaven? Money? Success? Family? As I travel literally on this mission in my career from even on the second album to the third to the fourth to this to that, I plan to grow even more and more abstract with my lyrics because I want you, the listener — like, I have my main thing of what I mean, but I want you — what does it mean to you? That’s what art is.

When I look at figures or statues or whatever and I see something, or a painting, like, cool. I don’t know why the hell Leonardo Da Vinci painted this or made this. Or the Sistine Chapel with Michelangelo. But how does it make me feel? That’s what I want my art to do for the listener.

Swag.

MUHAMMAD: Well, I don’t want to lead the listener, cause I have my pleasure to really digest it. Thank you, by the way. And not just for allowing us to hear it before the release, but no, just thank you for your art and what you do.

LOGIC: That means a lot coming from you.

MUHAMMAD: No.

LOGIC: It means a lot. I really appreciate it.

MUHAMMAD: Well —

LOGIC: S—‘s crazy.

MUHAMMAD: Well, just to even like you explaining the thought behind the record, and I’ve talked to a couple, maybe a handful, of artists who don’t really think when they go into the booth, which could be cool. And I guess you get from life what you put into it.

LOGIC: I agree.

MUHAMMAD: But when it comes to music, something I’m passionate about, and knowing the reach and the power and how it transforms, it saves lives. Music does.

LOGIC: Oh, yeah.

MUHAMMAD: It allows someone to escape from a good environment, maybe a not-so-good environment. It’s so many things that music is, and so I’m passionate about it. And to know that one is mindful of what the canvas, which is audio, what we put down, is important to me, because it’s going to lead somewhere, whether you physically hear it or see it or not. And I’d like for my music to leave behind good.

So just, I thank you for that because it makes me feel good knowing that the younger generations are carrying that and having that much thought into what you’re doing. It means a lot, especially because I think the message is two — what I got from it is two things. Going to paradise, paradise could be staring right in front of you.

LOGIC: Yeah. It was for me.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. And so — I’m trying to find a way to say this without sounding like an old person.

LOGIC: Nah, nah. Say it.

MUHAMMAD: Well, because you may not — life may not — you gotta live it to learn from it, you know.

LOGIC: 100%.

MUHAMMAD: And that could be a whole lot of things. Some could be regrettable or some could be like, “I wouldn’t be here, had I not done this or gotten this or saw this or whatever.” And so there’s that aspect of it, but then it’s what you learn and what can you pass on. So for you, I take the whole — I want to ask: Do you want to save the world?

LOGIC: I think the world is beyond saving at this point.

MUHAMMAD: Alright.

LOGIC: I just want to — I don’t know. On the song “Fade Away” on this album, it’s about accepting death. And I was very scared of planes for a while to the point where I was legitimately thinking about buying a tour bus, and I had never had a fear of flying. It just hit me one day, and it lasted about a year. And then one day I woke up, and I realized, “I’m so blessed to get on this plane that’s going to take me to go to Paris or to Australia or Tokyo or Hawaii or anything like that. I’m so blessed to be able to do this.” And I think I wasn’t really scared of necessarily the plane but not being in control. So I wrote this song.

And it’s like, no matter who you are — this is a personal belief. You say whatever the f— you want. This is a personal belief. I believe that no matter who you are — religious figure, this, that, whatever — you will be forgotten in time. As long as we go — if a asteroid hits or it’s another frozen era and this, that, da da da — you will be forgotten, so do what you can for this world and this civilization. But at the end of the day, before you leave, do something for yourself.

Accept that you’re going to die one day. Don’t just brush it off — not think about it — and do what you can to make this world a better place, your world. And your world could be your family or your best friend or yourself. But really do something for you before you go.

I don’t even know why I’m saying this, man, but paradise, you said it could staring you in the face. I don’t read blogs anymore, and I been saying this recently. Like, I used to, and it used to f— me up because people could say really horrible things or, “You should do this, ” or, “You should rap like this,” or, “Don’t rap like this,” or, “Do this,” or, “What are you doing?” Or da da da da da. All this other things. And it’s like, man, that s— is so unimportant.

If I can sit here with a legend like you and someone who cares about culture and music and society like yourself, and we can have a conversation about my second album that’s about to be in stores everywhere and all this, I’m doing something right. I’m doing something right. And, you know, so-and-so on a blog or the internet or this or that who’s sitting probably on their f—— mom’s couch who’s like 14 on Xbox, he doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong in my paradise.

And my paradise, honestly, it’s success, and it’s happiness, and it’s being surrounded by beautiful, incredible people like yourselves. And it means the world — you don’t understand. I just want to tell you guys. I want to tell everybody listening. This is a dream come true. I’m so happy to be here. I don’t take this s— for granted. I don’t take you guys for granted. And thank you, because this is all that matters. Real m———— recognize real. And I appreciate you guys having me. I just needed to say that.

MUHAMMAD: You’re welcome.

KELLEY: That’s really sweet. Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Thank you.

LOGIC: Swag.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. Thank you.

LOGIC: Chill.

KELLEY: I think a lot of it goes back to some of what we were talking — to the tree of life and the family of hip-hop and why people get so upset about subject matter or style or ways of moving that really piss them off. It’s because I think people do actually take hip-hop very seriously, and there are people trying to take themselves seriously. And then when they see other people just like throwing it away —

LOGIC: Oh, yeah.

KELLEY: — it hurts them. They express it terribly and stupidly. But I think there is something in that people feel so strongly about rap music and the culture and they want to protect it. And sometimes that conversation just breaks down cause it’s even a little bit subconscious. Because most of the time people don’t hate you, they hate themselves.

LOGIC: That’s real. But see I’ve never had a problem with anybody. People might have problems with me, but I’ve literally — everybody that I’ve shaken their hand and looked in the face and had a conversation with f—- with me. And they f— with me because I’m a good person, and the only type of person who wouldn’t f— with me is an evil person. And that’s just real.

And when it comes — I do not know everything. But I know so much about this culture, about this — like, Big Daddy Kane’s in my phone. Like, we be talking. This is real.

MUHAMMAD: Can you just describe for those who have never had the pleasure of being in the presence of him —

LOGIC: Well, you know it’s funny, cause I haven’t —

KELLEY: Dark Gable is the best Twitter name of all time. All time.

LOGIC: I haven’t met him yet.

MUHAMMAD: You haven’t met — oh!

LOGIC: I’ve been talking to him for like two years. We’re supposed to do a song together. All this s—.

MUHAMMAD: OK. But you’ve talked to him.

LOGIC: Yes.

MUHAMMAD: You talked to him. He’s the same person whether you seen him in person or not.

LOGIC: Yeah. He’s a boss, yo. First of all, his presence, everything about him — yo, this is the s— that I’m talking about. OK. Big Daddy Kane did a list. He did some interview. And he wrote this list about his favorite MCs of all time that inspire him, and I was on that list. He also put himself on that list, which I thought was funny. But I couldn’t believe it. I’m like, “Yo! Are you f—— serious?”

Like, yo, I had dinner with the RZA, bro. That’s the reason I even discovered y’all and discovered all — the RZA. Like, the whole reason I’m even rapping right now, I had dinner with this man, and he respected me. And he shook my hand, and he looked me in the face, you know what I mean? It was like, “I f— with you.” He wanted to have dinner with me. It wasn’t like — I’m like, “Wow.”

KELLEY: Where did you guys go?

LOGIC: We went — I forgot. Some hotel in like Beverly Hills. It was some fun bougie s—. It was tight.

KELLEY: Cool.

LOGIC: But anyway, it was incredible. That’s what I love about — all this other s— doesn’t matter. It’s only the power you give it.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

LOGIC: Like —

MUHAMMAD: You’re a human being so you’re going to naturally be affected by certain things.

LOGIC: Oh, 100%.

MUHAMMAD: If it’s something that’s irritating your skin, you’re going to scratch it.

LOGIC: But if you’re OK with it — you have to be OK with yourself. And just like you said, most people don’t hate you; they hate themselves. Or there’s a problem that they have with themselves. I wake up every day, and I have legends texting me, calling me, telling me, “Keep doing what you’re doing; you’re doing a great job.” So if I got legends telling me this and then I got — you can have anybody with a f—— Twitter account who thinks they write for Rolling Stone nowadays like telling you — that’s real s— — telling you why you’re not doing something good.

And here’s another thing. I’ve experienced it. I’ve had people tell me, like haters who’re like, “Man” — like half-haters — like, “Man, that s—‘s whatever. You should write like this.” And it’s like, yo, if I write like this and try to please that person, then they’re going to be like, “See? You switching it up. Now you’re not being yourself.”

KELLEY: Totally.

LOGIC: So there’s no winning. There’s no winning. You just have to be happy with who you are. All this s— doesn’t matter. I love how I sound, who I sound like. Especially on this album, man, because you go through — yo, I can’t tell you how many times I rapped exactly like Q-Tip or RZA or Kanye or this or this. I literally have thousands of songs in the last 11 years as a young MC where I’ve emulated everybody and their baby mama’s sister’s cousin’s style so that I could understand it. So that I could get it and know.

And now that’s why — the way that I flow now, it is very, extremely unique. Nobody got flow like me. And that’s not saying I’m better at this or that. No. Literally, nobody raps the way that I rap. Every four bars I’m changing my style. I’m doing this; I’m doing that. And it’s a culmination. It’s a respect. It’s an ancestry of hip-hop and music as a whole in me.

KELLEY: That’s my favorite thing about what you do: is that you switch it up so much within a song.

LOGIC: Well, thanks, girl. Appreciate that.

KELLEY: Also, Maryland.

LOGIC: Yeah. Swag.

MUHAMMAD: You said Maryland.

LOGIC: “Maryland. Murr-land.”

MUHAMMAD: You know what I do want to ask you? OK. So you told us how you really feel about bloggers and those people who don’t really —

LOGIC: I don’t mind blogs. I just don’t read the comments. Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: No, no.

LOGIC: It doesn’t matter.

MUHAMMAD: But can you talk about your crew real quick, just your people, your team?

LOGIC: Oh, yeah.

KELLEY: Go through the album.

LOGIC: Yeah. So everybody — yeah. I’m going to go on here, so for those of you who, during the week, that might either have this album —

KELLEY: We’ll put the picture on our website.

LOGIC: — in your hand or the picture, so on the far left with the crazy hair is Dylan. That’s actually Rafael Saadiq’s nephew.

MUHAMMAD: Smashing Hearts. Shout out.

LOGIC: Smashing Hearts. To him, the baby-face-looking m———–, the big dude, that’s Big Lenbo. To him —

KELLEY: Can we talk about how much he sounds like Fat Joe?

LOGIC: Well, people say Fat Joe. Other people say Action. Other people say Pun.

MUHAMMAD: I hear Pun and Joell Ortiz, actually.

KELLEY: I just hear all Fat Joe.

LOGIC: He always says it’s the fat throat. That’s what he says. It’s the fat throat.

KELLEY: Alright.

LOGIC: I kind of agree with him there. Yeah. There’s DJ Rhetoric. There’s Kevin Randolph who’s an incredible producer and voice actor on this album. Above Kevin Randolph is the dude who looks like a ghost, is Bobby Campbell, my engineer. And then there’s a very handsome guy in the middle of this cover. And then to the right of that is Steve Blum, the voice actor. Above Steve Blum is 6ix, my in-house producer. And then between 6ix’s arm and my head is Sam Spratt.

KELLEY: Oh, s—.

LOGIC: The person who actually drew the artwork.

KELLEY: Oh, yeah. Oh, weird. That’s kind of creepy.

LOGIC: I had him hide — yup. And then to the right of Steve is Chris Thornton from The Frontrunnaz with his wife Dria. She’s all over the album. To the right of him is my tour manager Momberg. And then up above Chris is Steve Wireman who’s just an incredible rock star, amazing musician. All these people and so many more that aren’t on here are what compile me, are what make me.

I know I am damn good. I am so f—— good at what I do, because I wake up every day and do nothing but this. Every day. I know how good I am, and I know how much I still have left to accomplish. But I want everybody out there to know I am nothing without the people that have sacrificed time from their lives to help me get here, and s— doesn’t mean anything without them.

Because people see Logic but they don’t see the people like Chris, my manager, who worked from the ground up to get Visionary Music Group have some legs, to then sign with Def Jam. Or the people who’ve shot my music videos or this or this. We’ll be here talking about them all day if I was. But I just want you to know, like, I am a fraction of the Logic brand. These are the people that actually made the thing that is the most important, which is the message get out there.

Because, at the end of the day, that’s what the fans say. I know my music is damn good, and I know people enjoy it, and I know people love it. But you know the funny part? That s— doesn’t mean anything compared to the message and what it means to the people who absorb it and consume it. And so thank you to everybody. Thank you to everybody in the other room.

Thank you to Harrison, you m———–. Thank you to Big John, you black m———–. I love you! You are black and beautiful. I always tell him that all the time. Who else is in the room? Is Baja in there? Shout out to my driver right now, Baja. I mean, I don’t have a driver. That makes me sound extra. No. I didn’t mean it like that.

KELLEY: The man who drove the Sprinter.

LOGIC: The man who drove the Sprinter today.

MUHAMMAD: The man — but that’s just speaks to who you are, cause he’s just here. You probably going to spend maybe six hours of your life with him.

KELLEY: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: And he’s gonna go on and you may never see him again so the fact —

LOGIC: You know it’s funny —

MUHAMMAD: What?

LOGIC: I thought I would never see him again. He remembered me, and I remembered him too. One of my first times in L.A. he drove me. And then he told me today, he was like, “Man —” he said that he went back that day, and was saying, “Oh, I met the coolest guy.” Blah, blah, blah. He was saying he never does that. And it meant a lot to me.

KELLEY: Wow.

LOGIC: I care about how people perceive me, man.

MUHAMMAD: Well, it just speaks to your character because you brought him up. You didn’t have to mention it. He’s not your permanent — he’s your not your crew.

KELLEY: He also didn’t sit in the car.

LOGIC: Yeah. I didn’t want to have him sit in the car. I was like, “F— all that, right? You should come hang out.”

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope.

LOGIC: But anyway, I’m just a f—— guy. I’m just a dude. That’s another thing. Just cause I rap — and I know it’s almost time, but like, just cause I rap, that don’t mean s—. I treat you with respect like I would treat the president or the person who takes my trash out, you know what I’m saying? Like who collects it. The garbage man. Like, man, none of this s— matters.

And that’s why I do other things and people’ll be like, “Oh, you in a relationship? Why you in a relationship? You know you gon’ cheat.” Or, “You know this or that.” And it’s like, “No, I never cheated on a woman in my life. Are you f—— kidding me?” You know how long I was — I wouldn’t even use the term celibate — but how long I wouldn’t have sex with women while I was single and rapping and on the road? Cause first of all, you don’t know what the f— you’re going to catch. You don’t know if she gon’ try to flip the script, and also, me, I need a personal relationship to be involved with a woman intimately. I need to know her.

And I ain’t definitely going to f— no chick who’s calling me Logic. Get the f— out of here. I am Bobby. My name is Sir Robert Bryson Hall II. I’m a regular m———–.

MUHAMMAD: You’re not regular when you got “Sir.”

KELLEY: I know right?

MUHAMMAD: And “the second.” You got a prefix and suffix in your name. I’m like, “I thought I had a long name.” So I read your name, I was like, “Yo. This official.”

LOGIC: Swag. 1738.

MUHAMMAD: Oh my gosh. I’m so happy you came here.

KELLEY: Yeah.

LOGIC: I’m happy. Can I come back? Are y’all just f—— with me?

MUHAMMAD: No.

KELLEY: No.

MUHAMMAD: Cause I have other questions to songs specifically, but I want people to really just build with it.

LOGIC: Please make this part one.

MUHAMMAD: You know what? The creator has a plan and you roll with it. So many times I wanted to knock on your door and be like, “Man, we should do a joint together.” But I respected the space of whatever the will of the creator is and was like, “If this supposed to be, it’s supposed to be.” I knew you would be in this couch for NPR, Microphone Check.

LOGIC: Cool.

MUHAMMAD: I knew Microphone Check was definitely part of our destiny, but I don’t know what the future holds beyond that. But I certainly like — this is — you’re welcome to come back. You can kick it with us anytime.

LOGIC: Thank you. I’m about whatever. If you want to make records, if you want to hang out, if you want to watch movies, you want to have lunch, you want to this, you want to be friends, I’m about whatever. I’m a very open person. Like, as long as you’re a cool person, I f— with you. That’s it. If you’re not a good person, cool. But listen. I’m excited that I’m going on — so I’m going on this fan tour to go visit fans —

MUHAMMAD: Which is dope! You came up with this idea? How’d you come up with the idea?

LOGIC: Yeah. I mean, we just thought about what’s a great way to give back. So literally I got this tour bus, we wrapped it up, and I’m going to cities all across America to knock on kid’s doors at their houses, set up, and play them my album before it comes out.

KELLEY: Do they have any idea that you’re gonna do it?

LOGIC: Well, we had to —

KELLEY: Is it going to be like Ed McMahon knock on your door?

LOGIC: I wish. But it was like, legally to make sure it was set up, it was all —

KELLEY: I thought so.

LOGIC: Cause it ain’t just kids. You know, it’s grown folk that work and this and that. So I wanted to make sure that it was cool. So they found out a couple days before that we’re going to be coming. So that is good. But they’re still going to be surprised. It’s still going to be amazing, and I’m excited.

And then I gotta do some signings, and the album comes out. After that, when I come back here, I gotta spend some time with my f—— wife, yo. I gotta spend some time with my wife.

KELLEY: Go on a honeymoon.

LOGIC: Cause I just got married. But I want to sit down. I want to — you got my number, right?

MUHAMMAD: Yup.

LOGIC: Cause you know I texted you back and you just left me hanging. What the f—?

KELLEY: He’s terrible at texting.

MUHAMMAD: No! It was in the middle of a conversation. It wasn’t like I didn’t just — ignored you.

LOGIC: No. He didn’t ignore me.

MUHAMMAD: No. It wasn’t that. I was just like, “Alright. Let me hit you back.” And I was excited to talk to you, and it was in the middle — my life is chaotic.

LOGIC: I’m f—— with you. Of course. I know.

MUHAMMAD: It’s chaotic, and it was in the middle of a conversation. It was like, “I’ll be right back. I want to give you time.” Cause I actually wanted to sit with you. I didn’t want to text. I wanted to build.

LOGIC: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: And it’s been chaotic.

LOGIC: Yeah. I know. I’m just kidding.

MUHAMMAD: Even still to this moment.

LOGIC: It’s all good.

MUHAMMAD: Like you want to get to your baby after this, and I’m waiting for this moment to just — this’ll be my calm moment for the next maybe eight hours. Of the rest of the week. And then —

LOGIC: Wow. Enjoy it.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, I am, because it’s not going to be calm again until November 24th. God willing. I come home. Yeah. It’s crazy.

LOGIC: Well, I will be good. So I just want you to know even though there’s a bunch of stuff going on, I’m saying this on the record and on some real homie s—, I want to finish this. Please make this part one. I want to come back and I want to talk about — now, cause we kind of — we talked about the struggle. We talked about where I came from, which was from something, and all this.

So I want to come back now and talk about, like, the victory lap. I want to talk about these songs. I want to talk about all this exciting awesome s—. So listeners out there who have never heard of me before thank you for tuning in; I appreciate this, you know what I’m saying? 1738.

MUHAMMAD: You know what we should actually?

LOGIC: Yeah?

MUHAMMAD: Release date. November 13th.

KELLEY: Oh s—. You going to compete?

LOGIC: Oh, when we should do it?

MUHAMMAD: No, no, no, no. Tribe Called Quest 25th anniversary —

LOGIC: Oh, yeah.

KELLEY: The reissue.

MUHAMMAD: — Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm —

LOGIC: That’s right.

MUHAMMAD: — will release the same day.

LOGIC: I know.

KELLEY: You and Jada and Jeezy and —

MUHAMMAD: So we can — really?

KELLEY: Yeah.

LOGIC: Jeezy. Ty Dolla $ign.

MUHAMMAD: There’s a lot happening on that —

KELLEY: Oh yeah, the Ty.

LOGIC: One Direction, Justin Bieber.

MUHAMMAD: So we can come back and share notes on it.

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope. Thank you so much.

LOGIC: Thank you.

KELLEY: Thank you.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

FRANNIE KELLEY: This is Microphone Check, hip-hop from NPR Music. This is a dream come true. I want Ali Shaheed Muhammad to say a few words here.

ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: You do? Oh, that thing we talked about before backstage thing?

KELLEY: Yeah. That thing.

MUHAMMAD: Oh, what up. I’m Ali Shaheed Muhammad. Hello. In other words, I’m starting this off?

KELLEY: You asked to go first.

MUHAMMAD: I know. Sometimes you think you’re communicating something and it’s just not. But welcome, Organized Noize.

SLEEPY BROWN: Yup.

RICO WADE: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Yo, I’m so geeked right now. Nah, I really am. Because when I first heard your sounds, it was just like, “What is this?” And from a hip-hop perspective, there’s only been a couple people who’ve done that. Nah. There’s more than a couple, but maybe on one hand: Dr. Dre, Marley Marl.

WADE: Yup.

RAY MURRAY: You guys.

WADE: You guys. Now that you’ve admitted your position.

MUHAMMAD: Oh. Yeah. That influence.

WADE: Killed that.

MUHAMMAD: But alright. Let me just take it — before we go — I want to start here. The Bronx, New York is the birthplace or, as the founding father DJ Kool Herc calls it, the Bethlehem of Hip-Hop. The backdrop to the sound of New York, which inspired many stories of the genre, can be best described by these lyrics: “Broken glass everywhere. People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care. I can’t take the smell. Can’t take the noise.”

BROWN: “Can’t take the noise.”

MUHAMMAD: “Got no money to move out. I guess I got no choice.” Y’all know this, right? “Rats in the front row, roaches in the back?” —

BROWN: “Roaches in the back.”

MUHAMMAD: — “junkies in the alley with a baseball bat. I tried to get away but I couldn’t get far.”

AUDIENCE: (mumbling) “Cause a tow truck man repossessed my car.”

MUHAMMAD: Words from “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash And The Furious Five. It’s the backdrop — the backdrop is poverty, ignorance, unjust treatment, and limited opportunities to climb out of an oppressed lifestyle. So before we go onto your classics, I wanted you to discuss the backdrop of East Point, College Park, Decatur, and the SWATS to someone like me from Brooklyn, New York, so that we can understand why you guys, 20 years later, are legendary. Your sound has a massive imprint on the history of hip-hop.

WADE: I believe that — and that was great. “The Message.” That was great. So now I’m thinking about “Crumblin’ Erb.” I’m thinking about, “N—– killing n—– cause they just don’t understand. Just crumblin’ erb.” You know what I mean? And that was — and I can’t paint a picture like it was as bad as Compton was, but it was starting to want to do the same thing for no reason. Gang-banging was starting to happen. It’s here now. But these n—– is smarter, so they ain’t doing it.

But when we were younger, we were wearing Dickies. We were — we just wanted to be a part of something. We loved hip-hop. We loved the West Coast culture. But, being in Atlanta, you could go to clubs and people would be be like, “Is New York in the house?” And we all would go, “Yeah!” “Is the West Coast in the house?” “Yeah!” I’m like, “Damn.” Cause the way — and they would say, “Is Atlanta in the house?” And I wondered if anybody else would say, “Yeah.” I swear this is just the truth.

I’m like — I might be saying — but this is how — cause, music, I felt like we loved it and believed in it because it was real. So it couldn’t be real if we were talking about somewhere that we was not, that we didn’t know nothing about. So we wanted to show respect in order to get those people to like us, and so musically that’s why we dug in. But as far as the culture — that’s what we contributed to hip-hop. We contributed certain things. Because “The Message,” like, we not being preachy.

I remember someone said early on, “Oh, man, Goodie Mob that’s gospel rap.” Damn. I kicked him in his ass. I was like — I understood. I totally understood because we want to say something. We want to try to help. It’s people out here that don’t listen. I don’t want to really talk to them in they face. These n—– don’t listen. So you try to do other ways to reach them. So that’s where I feel like — that’s what we try to do with our music, and that’s where —

And it’s so funny when we did “Player’s Ball” video — East Point, College Park, Decatur — it was like — Puffy, he was directing it or whatever. And he had to go back to New York because — he had to go back for whatever reason. But he was very honest. He called and said, “We ain’t got enough s—. You need to go shoot some more stuff. You seen what I was doing yesterday and I know you can handle it. Go get some more stuff. And what I’m thinking that we got this shot; we got that shot. But we need some more stuff to show them who y’all are.” “Cool. Let’s go take a piece of the East Point side, the College Park side, the Decatur side. Cause these people, none of them they seen this s— before.”

And to me, that comes from hip-hop. That comes from our peers and the people we studied. Like you said, Marley Marl. People might not understand when you say Marley Marl or when we all praise Dr. Dre. Dr. Dre incorporates hip-hop trunk sounds with samples and playing music and he was sonically — even if he didn’t make it, he was correct. He pushed music forward. One of the first hip-hop producers that made music that sold almost three billion records. And it’s no wonder why he has — he’s a billionaire with the Beats stuff. Cause he deserves it. And that means one day one of us will get it.

BROWN: At one point it was all three of us. What you talking about?

KELLEY: I think that one thing that people talk about when they talk about your sound — they use this word “soul” a lot. And that’s what? It’s like porn; you know it when you see it. But can you really say what it really is? Where does it come from? Let’s not rely on it as a euphemism. Let’s be real about what soul is.

BROWN: Soul is just a feeling. What we tried to do in Outkast, we just wanted to make sure that — we didn’t want to sound too West Coast or too New York. So the best way for us was just to do what we do. The South has this sound that is really touching, and it hits your heart. So I think that’s what soul music is. It’s us. It’s the South. It’s what we do. It’s how we live. It’s how we breathe. It’s what we eat. Soul food. You feel me?

For us, for me, growing up in the backstage with funk, with my dad and stuff, I understood it. I remember when I was there, like 10 years old, when I first saw Sugarhill Gang backstage. I f—— freaked out. So for me, I wanted to make sure that we carried that sound, that Atlanta sound, and brought it to a new — and, you know, me and Ray used to sit back and listen to — like, I was a big fan of The Bomb Squad, the producers. I wanted to be like them. Hank Shocklee would make this insane stuff, and so, for me, that’s who I looked up to. And, as far as — because we were kind of doing that at first, but then L.A. said, “Look. We ain’t paying for the damn samples. Y’all going to learn how to play this s—.”

WADE: Actually, he said, “We have 85,000 left in the budget, but we gon’ have to spend 82,000 on samples.” Are you s——- me?

BROWN: So for us, we had to really dig deep and learn our roots. So soul music, man, truthfully, is us. Period. It’s Atlanta.

WADE: And to give it to you in even more layman’s term, like, a Wurlitzer, that keyboard or whatever, so soulful. E3 organ, so soulful.

KELLEY: Like it’s a flavor.

WADE: Clavinet.

BROWN: Rhodes.

WADE: A Rhodes. A great voice, without all the riffing. Just the soul — like Etta James. Soulful.

BROWN: It’s church.

WADE: Yeah, church. Church but you might be a sinner. That’s soul.

BROWN: That’s soul.

WADE: Red silk shirts and Jordache jeans. That’s soul.

BROWN: Stan Smith’s.

KELLEY: Do you hear soul today?

BROWN: I do. I mean, it’s a different wave, but it’s definitely still soul music.

KELLEY: Where?

WADE: CeeLo.

BROWN: Yup. CeeLo.

WADE: Sam Smith.

BROWN: Sam Smith.

WADE: S—. Nick Jonas, “Jealous.”

BROWN: Yeah. “Jealous.”

WADE: That’s a soulful tune.

MURRAY: That’s an automatic.

BROWN: So it’s definitely out there. Bruno Mars. F—— soul as f—.

WADE: Yup.

KELLEY: How can you tell when somebody’s faking it?

WADE: They’re — cause they can’t really do it again. They can have — they’re catchy. But it’s always like — you be looking. You be like, “Is that the truth?” Or by performance, by performance, I could see them perform and be like, “Uh-uh. They ain’t got it.” They put that together. But I can appreciate the effort to try to do something great. For real. I can appreciate someone. It reminds me of what we always like to do.

Like Pharrell and Kanye West are people that helps me believe that people still want our music. Whenever I hear somebody talking about, “Man, they still want our stuff.” You know what I mean?

BROWN: True.

BROWN: That’s not being cocky, but that’s just the truth.

MUHAMMAD: Truth.

BROWN: If you’re say sorry you’re going to hear it all day.

WADE: Pharrell says it too, every time I see him.

BROWN: Every time.

WADE: He like, “Where y’all at? Even at the party.”

KELLEY: You want to answer that question though? Where you are at and what is coming down the road?

WADE: We are — we most definitely are blessed. Last year was the 20-year anniversary of Outkast. They did this incredible tour that like travelled the globe. I got to fly out to a lot of the shows. So that was kind of reassuring that people still like us. So at the point, it felt like it was OK to go ahead and put together the documentary. So we put together this movie, The Art of Organized Noize, where we’re kind of explaining — we” we’re not, Big Boi, Andre, CeeLo, Gipp, L.A. Reid, Pebbles, Puffy.

BROWN: Big.

WADE: He here. We gon’ keep saying that.

BROWN: Keep saying that.

WADE: But we got unreleased music. We got songs from Goodie to Andre 3000 to Wiz Khalifa to Talib Kweli to 8Ball to Snoop Dogg. Stuff that they didn’t pay us the rest of the money or we didn’t finish the hook. Shh. Shh. Shh. And we got these instrumentals.

We kind of want to reinvent ourselves. Like on Kraftwerks. We want to put out kind of faceless records or we put instrumental music or whatever. And we want to do it the way the kids release now, like from Father to OG Maco, you know, this independent thing where we don’t really know who these guys are, but these guys are huge. And they are the new underground Atlanta sound. Now I understand they’re giving away a lot of music. We don’t like that. But we gon’ try to figure out a way to give away some things. Get some things back. He’s giving you email addresses, yelling. But he giving the s— away.

BROWN: Also on the album, I’m doing some singing songs on the album too, so it’s going to be a mixture of instrumentals plus some new stuff from me.

WADE: Any you boys from singing group know me, Sleepy. A lot of people say it’s Sleepy though. It’s all our group.

MURRAY: More importantly, it’s going to be like where we are, where we come from, and where we be going. Just give you a vision of how to think — just how to think. To go forward for the new millennium and all this. Cause right now we’re kind of in the place where we accept a lot of mediocrity as great s—. And when you take your time to do something, it should last through time. That’s about what we’re about. That right there.

MUHAMMAD: What inspired you to keep making music after so many decades and so many transitions of sound in music at this point?

BROWN: Just the love of music and still wanting to be in it and still wanting to be a part of it, you know. We — just because we got older doesn’t mean we’re giving up or we’re tired of doing music or we don’t believe in it. S—. We believe like a m———–. We still doing it. Rico in the house every night working till about five in the morning. Ray is in Stankonia. And Sleepy is sleep.

Nah, we all working on beats and stuff, man. We still just want to be a part of it. We feel like we still got motor, man. We’re still moving.

WADE: And we’re fortune to be in a position to where we did make some records early in our career that we still get paid off of, so I’m not saying we have to rush to do anything. But when a Kendrick Lamar calls us up, “Come by the studio,” two or three different times. J. Cole. Like all these young — we kind of gotta get off our ass and get together. Cause they saying we want your stuff and we want you to do it, and that honor is enough. But we also know — c’mon. I know what you’re asking me for and what you want might be two different things.

Because I love hip-hop, but I don’t want to, like, do this song for Future and Andre 3000. And soon as we did, they both like, “Oh, that’s that classic Organized Noize.” I said, “That’s not gon’ be it, man. We gon’ flip the beat. We got this little part.” “Nah, man. Leave it like that.”

MUHAMMAD: Are you talking about “Benz Friends?”

WADE: Yeah. That song. But it’s like, we had — oh, we got a mix of that too where we turnt up. But they wont let us go, cause they want it to sound like old Organized Noize. And I’m like, “Damn.” Ah, man. I was like, “Man” — I had to tell Future and Andre 3000 no. You know what I’m saying? I’m like, “Do it. Hurry up. Cut the check.”

KELLEY: That’s a thing that I don’t know is always clear to people is your guys’ role in artist development, and especially — correct me if I’m wrong — your relationship with Big Boi. I mean, how did that — what did you see in its earliest stages and how did you mold that into what we know it as now?

WADE: I want to say that Big Boi is — from the very first Outkast album, he brought food to the table. He had ideas. He’s a leader as well. And that’s why with his album, the stuff that we do with him closely, it’s not really about him needing us there. It’s him knowing that we kind of need something to be doing. And we’re too talented to not being doing it. So he’s like, “If I’m in a position, I want my dudes rocking with me.”

MURRAY: Yup.

KELLEY: Lucious Leftfoot was slept on.

WADE: We not gon’ misrepresent those opportunities. So we be on each other like back then. Like, “Yeah, that’s dope, but let’s make it better.” I make my part better. He make his part better. And by doing that, we not going to lose together. We don’t lose anyway, but together we won’t allow each other to. And I’m being very honest. Creativity sparks creativity.

I can have a good vibe. Then Big just puts four bars on it. Ooh. Now I got another vibe. I put some stuff on it; he go back. It’s like — but we not — you gotta have some kind of circle that you share with. Can’t share with everybody cause n—– will run off with it. Excuse me. People’ll run off with it. Not just n—–, people. They do. They do.

Yeah, so this music we feel like — family is what family does. Shout out. Big Rube. This my dude. Like, these m———— — and he’s been on a journey now. And he’s still — he’s not finished yet. But to know I got that as an asset. Like, “Oh, let’s do a record with him. We can use that, because he’s a franchise that’s moving in a direction that we want to go to. We want to get into some of that EDM/international, but yet Atlanta. He’s our vehicle.

L.A. Reid always told us, “You gotta have vehicles. You can’t go where your music can’t go, but they can.” You know what I’m saying? Sometimes as a producer you’re behind so many different sounds; people love somebody that’s consistent with who they are. We jump from En Vogue to Goodie Mob. You can’t — c’mon. It’s very creative, but as far as a fan base, En Vogue fans might not necessarily want to hear the Ludacris song. But our fans would love both hit records.

MURRAY: Great s—.

WADE: Great stuff.

MURRAY: So that’s the whole point of it, is making great music. And it takes great ingredients and time to make great s—.

KELLEY: Do you guys ever sit back and listen to your own work like Father was just saying he does and critiquing it and trying to get better?

MURRAY: Most of the time it’s — yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you never settle for what you did. What you did is always a picture of what you can do. That’s how we like to look at it. We can learn from whatever we’ve done.

WADE: Some of the pieces are remarkable. Like, what about — you can play, anytime you want to, 808, drums, bass line, Wurlitzer, vocals, horns. You could try to re-do it, and it’s just not — it don’t work. But some songs are so inspiring. Like I can go back and listen to — I called Big and I was like — I might be like — he have certain songs that I might be like, “Oh, this is super dope. We just might need to go in and fix this part of the beat. Because the music is not important; what you’re saying is so important. Let’s make sure that comes across.”

And to me that’s what, I think, being in tune with it is about. Cause sometimes I can hear a track and not even hear what the person is saying, but the track is really driving me enough to continue listening to it or whatever. So it goes both ways. And when you find a way to meet in the middle, then I think you consistently drive people crazy.

MURRAY: And as a producer, that’s what you want to do. That’s what we try to do. Is never try to re-create whatever we’ve done, but make something new for whoever we’re working with. Like if you were a singer, we try to find your natural voice —

KELLEY: I can’t sing.

MURRAY: — or brand. You feel me?

KELLEY: No.

MURRAY: I’m not saying that you can or can’t. When you listen to old records back in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, those guys or girls weren’t necessarily the best vocalists in the world. You had Whitney Houston of course, but then you also had Carly Simon. Not saying that she’s bad but she’s in no comparison to Whitney Houston. I’m just being honest. This girl sings in the church. This girl is just a good singer. There’s two different kinds of vibes. So it’s about how — if we were or not. And that’s all — that comes from you. That comes from you. You exude that. So if you don’t have that, you’re going to have to learn how to bring it out.

KELLEY: How do you hone your ear, then?

MURRAY: Repeat the question.

WADE: How you hone your ear — how do you know what you like? How do you like what you like even more?

BROWN: It’s just a feeling. If you hear something and then go, “Oh, s—. What is that?” Then that’s it.

KELLEY: But not everybody has good taste. Not everybody knows. Not everybody registers.

BROWN: It’s a feeling.

MURRAY: Yeah it’s a feeling. That’s a feeling.

BROWN: You know when you got a hit record.

WADE: Well, some people can practice it by — when hit records in hindsight, you find out what records after they already blow up. If you just listen to hits, you can then figure out why you like those records. This is pretty thorough, good songwriting. I like the change. I like the arrangement. Then you might not get fooled by some of the fake records that you used to like.

MUHAMMAD: Well, have you had record company executives or A&Rs tell you like, “That’s really not it.” But you know in your heart that that’s it, and you just fight the fight with them.

WADE: I wish they would tell me when they —. They can’t tell me! We just have to figure it out. Like, “This thing.” They ain’t gon’ say it. They scared to. Once you have some success you know how it is, they sit and look in your face and tell you they don’t believe in it. Tell me. So I know that you don’t get it. So we can do the other things we need to do in order to get the record to the certain point.

But that’s just one thing, once again, that’s what Antonio Reid did. He’ll say, “I don’t get it.” And we’d be supportive. “You gon’ get ‘Ms. Jackson’ next, but you gon’ have to do ‘Bombs Over Baghdad.’ ‘Elevators.'” I don’t know, Reid kind of slow. Put it on the radio. “Man, y’all can call it.”

KELLEY: I’m having the best time. Ray, I know you gotta leave pretty soon so I want to make sure you get in what you want to get in. Or maybe — yeah. Could you tell us a song that you worked on that you fixed? That was like not working and not working and then you figured out the answer.

MURRAY: Oh, OK. Sure. Let’s do the first song that we had to do under guidelines, which of course would be TLC’s Christmas song. They told us — we wanted to do — what song was it? “Just hear those sleigh bells ring-a-ling, ring ting tingling too.”

BROWN: Yeah, yeah. “Sleigh Ride.”

MURRAY: So we wanted to do that over, and I think that we started something but then we didn’t really agree on that.

BROWN: Yeah, Pebbles was like, “I don’t like this. You gotta do something.”

WADE: L.A.

BROWN: Nah, it was Pebbles. She sat right there and told us, “Yo. This is not fly. You need to do something now.”

WADE: “I need your bass lines.”

BROWN: “Yeah, I need your — you need to do something.”

WADE: “I don’t hear no bass line.”

MURRAY: And then we fixed it. So now when you hear that Christmas record, don’t forget that it is “Sleigh Ride.” Cause you might not recognize it, and the sad part is we don’t really get publishing on it. We learned that one too.

WADE: For real. He was like, “Change the bit.” “Yeah, but that’s Bob What’s-his-name. The song been around since 1911.” We catch you on the next one. So guess what? The next year he gave us a TLC Christmas song that we wrote.

MURRAY: “All I Want For Christmas.”

WADE: “All I Want For Christmas.” And we put “Player’s Ball” on that album. Yup. He’ll do it.

BROWN: Every time.

MURRAY: And I think that surmises my answer. That surmises my answer.

Nah. I mean, beside that, it’s a lot of things that we done. We always have to fix whatever we feel isn’t right. But that would be one of the best examples of being put under pressure situation and having to correct it right then and there and not — you know, cause you come into something you might be prepared or whatever, but that doesn’t come across, so you gotta scrap it and do it again right then and there.

KELLEY: Think fast. Yeah.

MURRAY: I have another one. I have another one. This is a better one. Not that that’s not a great one.

WADE: I feel you bruh. Go ahead.

MURRAY: This is a better one. Amadou Diallo was killed in New York City. 41 shots. Police. And Talib Kweli and Mos Def said, “Yo. We want to do something about this. We want to make a song.” We in turn were working with Talib at the time, or we were messing with Rawkus Records at the time.

WADE: Rawkus Records.

MURRAY: And we went to do a song in New York for Amadou Diallo and the people.

WADE: How can you even pronounce that s—?

MURRAY: I remember because of what happened. I was there. I flew to New York everybody. I went to New York with the drum machine ready to drop the song. Everybody was there. It was going to be a very political event. Al Sharpton was there.

But I plugged up everything. South producer in the studio with everybody you could think of from New York who was hot at the time.

WADE: How’d you catch the bus up there? Train?

MURRAY: Everybody that was hot at the time.

KELLEY: Which studio?

MURRAY: I want to say Chung King, but I’m not sure.

KELLEY: OK.

MURRAY: But the drum machine, even back in the day, if you didn’t keep your disc right, your data is damaged. So I start this drum machine and nothing of what I’ve done at the house in preparation worked. So I got 50 New York MCs — “Yo God, what’s going on? Who’s this guy? Man, get him out of here. Yo. Let’s get …., man. Yo. Busta down the hall.”

So me and Najee are sitting in the studio — cause Najee was there. So we’re sitting there. He plays flute. He says, “Hey, man. Do anything.” So we did anything. And it just so happened that by the time these guys came back into the room there was a beat playing and somebody was able to rhyme to it. And we had two versions of this song, and I think it has 50 MCs. Everybody except Jay-Z and probably Method Man but everybody else that was in New York at the time.

WADE: Yeah. It was the Rawkus — like if you remember Rawkus Records from — they whole crew. All of them. What’s the — Pharoahe Monch.

KELLEY: All the Soundbombing —

WADE: Pharoahe Monch and like the — what’s them boys’ name? Three guys. The city — yeah. It was totally a Lyricist Lounge type of thing. It was all the them. But all of them great. They were just more hip-hop. That’s one thing about New York. You had the ones that was on top, more commercial, but Rawkus Records was winning with the independent scene.

MURRAY: Underground. Yes.

WADE: Yeah. So it was a more of — we tried to bring in a heavyweight producer name to come and help organize all these MCs.

MURRAY: All this noise.

WADE: And they had Mos Def and Talib Kweli. They had Mos Def, so he was really the one orchestrating. Mos Def was the one on it. “OK. Give him what we want. Give him what he want.” But the rest of those guys — what’s the — Poor Righteous Teachers. Like all these — it was all these guys.

MURRAY: EPMD.

WADE: Yeah. So quietly we was loving the fact that we was here leading these guys but my dude Ray, once again, I wasn’t worried. I was like —

MURRAY: I was worried.

WADE: — “This happens. Don’t worry about it. I’m going to roll a blunt.” Ray — by the time I get back, I’mma talk to these cats.

MURRAY: But at the end of the day, we didn’t let the circumstance win. We conquered it. We just — we attacked the fear of failure and feeling we missed the ball on these different styles and everything. We wanted to show up for them.

WADE: We had to do stuff for Rakim one time. We had to do a Sprite commercial for Rakim. And I swear, no matter what we got done, it would never be enough for what I wanted to do for Rakim.

MURRAY: Exactly.

WADE: We had Rakim in the studio with us, and I just didn’t know what to do. Sprite was paying for it. They wanted to get they song.

MURRAY: I want to say he wrote his rhyme in there.

WADE: He did.

MURRAY: That’s what killed me.

WADE: “We gotta come up with a better beat.” But we wanted a classic, man, and sometimes you can’t always get that. And those are the things you learn. But you keep fighting. Like we did Higher Learning for John Singleton. I love John Singleton to death. He called us to do Shaft, and he got people who flew us all out there, wanted us to be on the Higher Learning thing.

And we didn’t give him the record that we gave New Jersey Drive with “Benz Or Beamer.” Because what happened with that, we gave him what he asked for, but we knew we wanted to make something even more entertaining. But when the opportunity came up with New Jersey Drive, we went, “I don’t care what y’all want. We know what we want. We know what we want. We finna rep the A right now.” And those are the things that I think experience gives you in this music game, and it’s a blessing to get it.

Cause you don’t feel it unless it’s real competition, unless it’s real situations to where real records come out. Real decisions were made. And you gotta accept the fact that it really didn’t do as good as you wanted it to, but you got the power and the opportunity to do it again. So you try to make it a little bit better next time, and those are the things that a person would have to add to their repertoire, even if they have hit home runs or not.

“Phobia” is a hit.

MURRAY: It’s a classic.

WADE: It’s a classic. No, no, no. It’s a classic Rube. But I’m speaking in the sense of the political move of when Puffy took the Biggie song “Give Me One More Chance.” He remixed it and gave a whole ‘nother life to Biggie in between albums. “Benz Or Beamer” did that for us. We directed Hype Williams video. We introduced the Bankhead Bounce. We just made it a movement.

Yeah, “Phobia” was a bigger check. I don’t think we got paid for “Benz or Beemer”. “Phobia,” we got paid. Still be breaking bread. From “Fast or Furious”, that’s family. But I don’t think we knocked it out of the park like we did “Benz Or Beamer,” as far as entertainment. I love “Phobia.” I do. I actually produced “Phobia.” Ray produced “Benz Or Beamer.” I killed — Ray killed it.

MURRAY: We a team. It’s not ever that. It’s always all of us.

BROWN: There’s always competition. Don’t do that.

KELLEY: I mean it’s also professionalism, which is this bad rap that hip-hop gets. A) that rappers always late. It’s all musicians. They’re all always late.

MURRAY: Sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, baby.

KELLEY: Yeah. Let it happen. But also there’s this idea, like, that it’s magic. That you can’t explain it, that you can’t teach it, or that musicians are “other.” They’re not human in some way, so don’t even try, don’t even hold them accountable or whatever. But it’s work, and it’s a process. It’s a skill that you learn. And — I mean, you guys — the craziest part is that you learned so fast. How old were you Southernplayalistic?

BROWN: I was 22. Ric was 20. And Ray was always 5.

MURRAY: I was 12.

BROWN: Ray was just hitting 45.

MURRAY: I was 12 then, you know. That was back before Moses split the water

KELLEY: Well, Ali was 19. People —

MUHAMMAD: When? Oh, when — yeah. I was 18 when I signed a deal.

KELLEY: 18 when you signed. See this is unfathomable to me. I was, like, drunk, not going to class. I wonder though — I mean, why — what was — I kind of know the answer to the question, but what is the drive? Why did you learn? Why did you try so hard from such a young age? What was — the motivation is such a corny word. But why did this have to happen and why did it have to be good?

WADE: Well, for me to say real quickly so they can answer as well, I’m a competitor, man. I like to compete. And I just thought we had a little — I thought we had a shot. I thought our squad was pretty strong; we had a shot. You know what I mean? Ray was foolish the way he studied beats, the way he didn’t eat, the way he just sit there and eat beats, consistently. And didn’t care about — I’m like, “That’s great. I’m done. Next one. Oh, we got a beast in him.”

So that the kept the guys around to where now it’s, “OK. Cool. Y’all write.” But we don’t just want to be writing and rapping. So we have to inspire and motivate each other. So it’s almost like — he ain’t trying to piss them off and say, “You not dope.” But people got all the story — and Ric mad. “He just walk away and do this –”

BROWN: Ric, you was kind of hardcore. You were hardcore.

WADE: That’s because Big Boi came. Look. My first meeting with him he said, “I want to be the best.”

BROWN: You were. Absolutely.

WADE: So whenever they had tape, that was the tape. So it was almost like — and I — one thing about it: never wrote a rap. Never tried to write a rap. Cause I can’t. I can just sit and tell you what I think about yours. It wasn’t like, “I’m better than you.”

And the same thing goes for our music. So who our competition was — when he mentioned Marley Marl, DJ Premier, himself, these are people who was digging. So we’ll respect the New York ones. If you use something somebody already used, you ain’t gon’ get as much credit. So that was greatly important to us in trying to dig in the crates. It was times that we went to New York and we found this little spot, House Of Oldies, these Jewish guys who had this record collection with all these 45s. And he’d try to be very intimidating. Cause he would have 45s that had breakbeats on the beginning of them. He’s like, “Each one of these is like $20.” We done came up there with like strip club money, strictly for the records. We be throwing two or three stacks in there. We get in there, so the next thing we spending money he say, “Well, I had these records I was going to give Q-Tip, and I had these I was going to give” —

MUHAMMAD: We know that that’s how they got down. It’s no surprises.

WADE: Any ones we want. We started — this time we got it down. We got it cracking as far as not worrying about what New York was doing. So we was up through there. We was up through there. Now we thank them two brothers. House Of Oldies.

MURRAY: Bleecker Street.

WADE: Bleecker.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, we know about their methods. Their loyalty was to the dollar, which is great though, actually.

KELLEY: Will you guys — I know that this has been told before, but maybe you can give it more detail. Does everybody know in Atlanta that Big and Andre auditioned for Rico — and Ray, you were there too — to the “Scenario” instrumental? This guy knows.

MURRAY: He was with him.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: He brought them. He was the one that brought him.

MURRAY: Joe Blow.

BROWN: Joe, what’s up?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Joe Blow!

KELLEY: Tell that story. Why “Scenario?” I mean, other than happenstance.

WADE: Well, I can’t say why, but that was what made Big and Dre so dope at that time. It was more about, like I said, competition. We felt like we met some kids, 15, 16-years-old, that could rap for seven minutes straight back-and-forth and didn’t break.

MURRAY: And could compete with hip-hop elites from the East Coast.

WADE: Yeah. It was great. It was all the way there. But it was more — there was so much determination, so much fight-your-way-no-matter-what. It was like, “Look at these n—–. They really going. They going.” Without asking for it. That’s what you gon’ need for us to make the North respect us. We was gon’ need somebody who could really rap, not just — I hate to say it. The Southern part wasn’t as important at first. It was about being an MC first. They could MC as good as anybody from anywhere. Then, we add the South.

You gon’ rep the Southernplayalistic — we didn’t have those titles for the first two years when we was working together. We had songs like “On And On” and — we had “Benz Or Beamer.” We had stuff like those ideas, but it wasn’t being so Southern until the opportunity presented itself to actually put a record out. Then we could decide.

But before that, they were exercising. They were exercising. And just — and not that we thought it was gon’ be about having to battle somebody, but yeah. That’s what made CeeLo dope too. That’s why we instantly knew that he was like, “Ooh.” Cause he could just rap. These n—– got raps for days, in they mind. This was rapping. It’s not freestyling, cause they backing each other up. We got something. We got something. So in my heart, we gon’ go hard for them. That’s the best part about it.

We had already — there was a singing group before we had already decided that. Jodeci beat us to it.

BROWN: Well, nah. Pebbles actually told us —

WADE: Pebbles said —

BROWN: “Yeah, I don’t think that y’all could sing. You need to do beats. You need to do this.” And we were like, “OK. We’ll see you later.” We went and did it.

WADE: We did exactly what she said. And it worked. Cause Marqueze could be a singer. We wrote “Waterfalls.” And Sleepy —

BROWN: It worked out.

WADE: So it worked out for us. It was just awful to hear. Sometimes you need that reality. “Cause y’all ain’t gon’ be no singing group like that. Y’all are nice. It’s cool. But really? You can really have a career in the music business. You wrote that song? You should be a writer. You did that beat? You should make beats. And you should be the hype man.” “OK. OK. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I ain’t gon’ be like this guy.

BROWN: Rico Wade, ladies and gentlemen.

KELLEY: Speaking of which, how much are you guys ever on stage other than Sleepy?

MURRAY: Me and Rico?

BROWN: Never.

MURRAY: About this much.

WADE: Ray’s been DJing for Big Boi. And we are playing —

MURRAY: DJing with Big Boi, not for Big Boi. Big Boi has a DJ.

MURRAY: So he and I —

WADE: See. He politically correct there.

MURRAY: I don’t want to take credit for s— I don’t do.

WADE: We never have. We never have.

MURRAY: That’s right.

WADE: But we do plan to go on stage now. We really — with The Art Of Organized Noize thing. We gon’ put the movie in ten theaters or whatever, ten different cities or whatever. We plan to — either we’re going to do it in conjunction with going on the road with Big or we’re going to get some of the other members of the Dungeon Family from Backbone, Witchdoctor, Cool Breeze, and get some of the younger cats.

BROWN: Big Rube.

WADE: Big Rube. Get some of the younger cats like Scotty ATL, EarthGang. We’re going to try to get some of them to go out with us, so we can go and we can do our thing maybe daytime talking, doing Q&As with different schools, and, you know, do our motivational speaking and tell people all the ins and outs of f—— up money. I could tell you.

BROWN: I could definitely tell you.

MUHAMMAD: Do you have to go soon?

BROWN: Gentleman’s club.

MUHAMMAD: I know you do. Before — I know Ray has to leave, and I just wanted to ask before you leave to get your perspective on Dungeon Family. All the music that you guys have put out, it has such a social strength and awareness and a questioning and some sort of an accountability, at least that comes across. And everyone seems that, in the Dungeon Family the unit, just has that real social awareness. What was that existed in your ranks, your environment, that created that?

BROWN: You know what? I’ma tell this story right here. To me, it kind of started when we were finishing up on Outkast first album. And we did “D.E.E.P.” And Busta Rhymes — we was at Dark. And Busta Rhymes came in the room, just buck, and was like, “Yo. Have you heard this s—? This s— is f—— crazy yo!” We were like, “What is it?” Like, Pale White Horse. N—- read this!” Man, we read that s—. Freaked out. And that started a whole ‘nother movement for us, you feel me? That’s when “Cell Therapy” came in. That’s when the whole story of us trying to tell our people. Hey. You better get ready. S— about to go down. So, for me, it’s different people that came into our life that kind of took us that way.

WADE: That’s because the seed was planted, being from Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Luther King — we have certain — in our neighborhoods, we grew up with Shirley Franklin’s daughter. We grew up with Marvin Arrington’s son. Andrew Young’s son. And we know these people. I personally didn’t know them because I wasn’t rich enough. But they did grow up in the neighborhoods that we were growing up in, and they was a part of us. And they go to schools.

And it was like — it just felt like Atlanta was kind of royalty. No matter how it was, you felt like Atlanta was special. You know what I mean? We gotta say something. We gotta have some kind of consciousness or whatever. We wanted to be hip, but we just felt like — and not making it a ploy or something to play off of. But it was easy to stand up because we’ve grown a lot.

MURRAY: It’s Atlanta, man.

WADE: Yes. And racism wasn’t — it wasn’t a part of our generation. It was there cause it was already there from the one before it. So I feel like the kids that we grew up with didn’t know why they didn’t like us. We didn’t know why we didn’t like them. So with sports and stuff, and Atlanta being such an urban city and hip, I think seeing the support — like when Outkast came to perform out in Rome, Georgia, seeing it’s like — it’s not a factor. It knocked down a lot of walls. Being — cause we were comfortable with just being — leading the black right — just being this kind of way. But we also understood the cloud that comes from seeming so pro-black. Like does that mean you don’t like white people? Nah. We love white girls.

BROWN: Ladies and gentlemen, Rico Wade.

MURRAY: I can’t really say nothing.

WADE: Put that on YouTube. Right.

MURRAY: Hey. But to close it —

WADE: They owe us.

MURRAY: But to close it, Atlanta has so much — Atlanta is such a — well Andrew Young — Maynard Jackson said, “The city’s too busy to hate. Too busy to hate.” So coming up in an environment like Atlanta is very special, like Rico said. It is — what we said on the Outkast album at the time, it was the black man’s per se. Because you had the AU. You had affluent black people all over. You didn’t just have Good Times, the TV show, as your dialogue for whatever was going on. You had all this other s— happening.

You see a Porsche. You see Benz. You see a Ferrari. You might — you’re more than likely to see a black person in it. So that gives you a whole different mentality when you go out in the world, so we just try to — I guess we didn’t know any better. So we promoted what we believed in, and what we still stand for. And it is definitely ourselves and the proud people but also the ability to be able to communicate with others. So, at the end of the day, I gotta go.

BROWN: Yo, Big Rube. You want to come up here with us?

BIG RUBE: Yes, sir.

BROWN: Man, it’s great to see everybody out here, man. I’m so happy to see y’all. So happy to see y’all.

BROWN: Big Rube, y’all.

BIG RUBE: What up.

WADE: Killed it. Got him.

RUBE: Still the same.

KELLEY: I think this is a really good segue to one of my favorite Outkast songs ever, “13th Floor/Growing Old.” So multiple have told me this, and I mostly believe them, but you freestyle everything? You freestyle everything? Like everything ever?

RUBE: No. I don’t freestyle.

KELLEY: Future lied to me.

WADE: I’m glad you came up here.

RUBE: No, I always wrote my s— down. Cause my whole thing was always — people always ask how do we come to have sort of mentality. And one of my main things was can’t just be no group of just n—– saying a bunch of stupid s—. Whatever we do, no matter what style its on — gangsta, thug, pimp, playa, intelligent nerd, whatever, you’re saying something just because you got that — just, you know, yapping it up with the mouth. You ain’t talking about nothing cause it might get out there.

I mean, I freestyle three, four years when I first started rapping before I ever wrote something down, but when it came down to going in the booth, I made sure my s— was on point. It wasn’t — you’re never just going in there — I don’t believe in punching in. You gotta do my whole verse from top to the bottom. I don’t punch in.

But yeah, Future told me that he freestyles everything. But nah, I don’t freestyle. He probably said that cause I went in there on his — I just laid it in one. So he probably thought I freestyled. But — I ain’t have to do it over. But that just was luck. It just came out right the first time. Some people, as far as MCs, they feel like the first one is never the one, but that’s not true. If it sound like the one, that’s it. So I was like, “That’s it, so I’m out.”

MUHAMMAD: Where did the concept for that song come from?

RUBE: “13th Floor?”

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

RUBE: At the time, we had just been talking a bunch of deep stuff, just like Sleepy was saying and just getting in all kinds of different modes of thinking deep and thinking on another level of not just what’s at the face but what’s behind it. And we had started getting into discussions on stuff. Like we sitting around talking — and I’m always talking, especially when you’re nah mean.

We sitting there and it was like, the number 13 to me was like, “Why they keep trying to hide it.” Cause 365 days in a year, the 28th day is month, that’s 13 months, not 12. You know what I’m saying? It’s no 13 floor on the elevator. Why there no 13th floor on the elevator? Why Friday the 13th gotta be bad? Why y’all like 13? And then I said, “Well, Jesus and the 12 disciples. That’s 13.” Some people don’t like them. So that was my whole thing with that. I just try to go deeper with the number 13.

WADE: And guess what? It wasn’t for the song “Growing Old.” It was for “Elevators.” But Rube wrote a piece that was so great —

RUBE: Actually it was for “Babylon.”

WADE: “Babylon.” It was for “Babylon.”

RUBE: It was for “Babylon.” I got to the studio and Ric switched the beat up on me how he do. He was like, “You gon’ say it over this piano.” I said, “Nah, man. I want to be on top of the monks. The monks was snapping, with the bass.” He was like, “Nah. Nah. Trust me. Trust me.”

WADE: Because, at this time, Marqueze had already wrote “Waterfalls,” so we kind of wanted “Growing Old” to kind of be like a little attempt at saying something deep. Cause Andre had a hook on there. “Titties turn to tear drops” — like, we just — that’s one thing about it. When it comes to music, you gotta kind of be selfless. You might a vision and a plan to do something. But when it come down to getting it done, you put the best with the best, and that’s it. You take the rest of it out. That’s all you do.

RUBE: You make a lot plans but a lot of times it didn’t come exactly how we planned it. It was like, meant the beat as opposed to how we —

WADE: — we wanted it.

RUBE: Six months ago, yeah, we thinking like this. But then we like, “Well, you know, it didn’t come out like that, but this is even doper.” So to me, that’s meant to be. It’s meant to be better than how you wanted it to be.

MUHAMMAD: I hear that Stevie Wonder describes that as “leaving room for God on the tape.”

RUBE: Right. Right. He gotta get his publishing.

MUHAMMAD: What? Did I miss something?

WADE: No, I was just saying I felt what you was saying.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah?

WADE: But as far as the song, I feel like you might have an idea. Because of the fact that it’s become — it’s a business now. So when we’re working on a new album, it’s going to be ATLiens, we got a plan. We know we want to get Big Rube back on the album again cause what happened went right onto the reels. So we like, “We want you do a piece.”

But at that time, the deepest song we had was “Babylon.” And we knew had “Elevators” or whatever, so “13th Floor” was a part of that. But it was like “Babylon” was the song that was — I was trying to do something rock-and-roll or something deeper or whatever. So Rube might’ve wrote it or might’ve been asked to do it for that, but toward the end of the record when we had the record “Growing Old” — and it felt so special with the pianos. It was the ending and we added the samples.

Because early on the beat wasn’t even like that. It was more 808-driven. We made it more an outro beat once we realized we got enough bangers. We can let this one be a little soft. But we got some bangers already so now let’s space it out a little bit more. Let’s take Big Rube off of that, put him on the end of this. Let’s make it a little more —

And I give credit to Dr. Dre and what they used to do with the NWA albums, as far as putting together a certain commercial breaks that split up the songs to kind of make you stop and take it in for a moment, appreciate the record. That’s why I think that we always show a lot of love to Dre cause he really was, really is, a great organizer or orchestrator of music. And visuals. That was very important to Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik to kind of make the little breaks in between. They were like — hit me up. Give me the one. We might not explain it deeply but people knew, “Oh those supposed to be some junkies on the street.” Or, “That’s supposed to be this kind of vibe.”

And I felt like that was what you were saying earlier about how do you paint the picture of what you was going through at the time. And how do we know that this is the truth. It’s like, the people — street cred is everything, so if you’re saying the terminology and using the lingo that these people use — even though we can’t make songs about everything that we might talk about, we can throw it in the breaks and stuff. Then that feel like we on the same page or whatever.

Cause with Outkast originally came out, 8Ball & MJG was the biggest thing pumping in Atlanta. We would be in the Bay Area. We would be other places. Then, by the time we got home, Atlanta was proud. Once the video came out, they was proud to know that, “Y’all from here. Ah, this is cool.” But it wasn’t like how Future or how some of these artists, now they have to blow up in Atlanta first. We really and truly was not worried about just Atlanta. It wasn’t Atlanta — we were — we are Atlanta. Never worried about Atlanta. We was worried about New York and the West Coast. Musically, letting them know that we could get at them in New York, just believing that they good enough, that they can rap.

KELLEY: But what about Europe? Because Ali has talked about how Tribe blew up in Europe first, then come over here. Do you have any engagement with how people perceive your music overseas?

WADE: Because we didn’t go overseas a lot early on — we kind of made ourselves even more — we get paid overseas and I still think that’s because of the Internet. Not to say I do it, but they gon’ put it right in the account. Because they — matter of fact that’s our wishing well. That’s our little gold box. Whenever I need some money, I call overseas. And it work.

BROWN: I kind of think when Outkast went on tour and we head overseas, that’s when I saw how big the records really were. I didn’t see it till then when we did the tour. It was amazing. Like I was — everybody knew the records. Cause we’d never been on there. You know, it was a crazy crazy thing.

KELLEY: What’s that feeling? I asked Ali this too. Was it validating? Was it what you thought or did it seem like bigger commercial potential than you realized?

BROWN: All the above. Truthfully. We went over there and probably just — we did one show in Rolling Stones. There was so many people there. I could not believe how big it was, and they all were rocking with us. So going over there, it just really validated how all our hard work went over there and people loved it. They cherished it.

We did a show in Japan. We were backstage and didn’t hear nobody in the crowd; they were that quiet. As soon as that curtain dropped, went crazy. So for me it was a beautiful experience just to see all these different people loving it and appreciating the music that we worked so hard to do.

MUHAMMAD: Big Rube, your poetry is laden with jewel after jewel that calls on to self-evaluate, to question dogma, to question the status quo, to question government, and to inspire one to self-evolve, for me. And your voice is so warm and embracing, and I think the definitive sound of what a sage would sound like if it had to have a description in any dictionary — and I always look forward to hearing your voice on many of these records.

RUBE: Appreciate it.

MUHAMMAD: What do you think about the state of the young now, where they are as it relates to music and seemingly trying to find their way but it just —

RUBE: Well, I think music — the problem with music now is the same problem as always. Man, you always have wack n—–. You always have people that didn’t understand how to express themselves in a way where they really expressing themselves, and they basically are looking to — it’s just like the streets, you know what I’m saying? They want use it as a stepping stone or as a mode to get in or to get money. But it’s an art form. It’s not just something you sack up or cut up and serve. You don’t make it on no assembly line. It’s not that.

It’s not a machine. It’s just real art. It’s what — music is organic. It’s alive, and you got to treat it like that. So any real artist is going to know that and going to recognize that and always treat it like that, but anybody who just out there just to get paid or use it as a front or whatever it is, they not gon’ really get into, like you said, the soul of it. They gon’ be missing the soul of it. You just gon’ have a monster, a soulless machine that you just putting out there. And a monster gon’ always just wreak havoc and destroy, so that’s what they do.

But it’s not so much that it’s more now than they used to be. Percentage-wise, it’s probably about the same. But the thing is the world has gotten a lot smaller due to social media, due to the Internet. You know, there used to be a time, reel tapes back in the day, that’s $300. You could fit two songs on there. Ask cats that used to intern for us. You bring the album to the studio. You take up your whole car. The album is — your car is squatting down because the album is there.

Now you can put the album on a flash drive. Any asshole can go on YouTube and just beats and their videos. So it’s like, you might get on, but back in the day you had to go through A&R people. You had to go through — you had to go audition for music cats. You had to put on showcases. So you had to — like, you was gon’ have to go through some obstacles before your music got to the public, back in the day. So there was a little bit more discernment. And there was a little bit more of a filter before your music actually got to somebody.

But now you just — it’s like throwing a bucket of paint. It’s just gon’ get on everybody whether you’re good or not. Got it all over me whether I wanted it on me or not. So with social media and the Internet, it’s just made it easier to access garbage, you know what I’m saying, and easier for garbage to get out there. But the garbage been there. The garbage been going running, and they been not taking it out. But now it’s just — now you got no choice but to listen it cause it’s right outside your window no matter where you live.

MUHAMMAD: That’s fair, but I feel like at some point yesterday, even though that that may have been there, there was always something else to kind of squash that funk.

RUBE: Balance. It was a balance.

MUHAMMAD: It was a balance.

RUBE: To me, we still have that. But the problem is the light’s not getting — the people that’s being put out in front are not the cats that’s really making the real — there’s cats making real music. They just not being pushed. They not — like you said, people want — people want — “Nah, I ain’t going with that. That’s too complicated, man. I don’t want that. I want to hear the same word 500 times.” That’s the hook. “Why you saying all that, man? Turn the Auto-Tune on, man.” R&b is hard than rappers right now. Cats is soft. For real. Everywhere.

BROWN: Ladies and gentlemen, Big Rube.

KELLEY: I mean, I think there are still filters is the problem. The filters have less accountability. Now they get that quick money.

RUBE: Well, I feel like if you know you’re going to come up against opposition. If you know you got — in other words, if you know you got it coming — it’s like having a teacher in high school. If you know this teacher accept anything, then you throw anything in there. I had one; all you had to do was show your homework. They just say, “OK. A.” They didn’t check it. They didn’t — it could be the same damn homework you been showing the whole time. You just change the date. But then if you had a real teacher that you knew really was going to look and —

WADE: Check yo s—.

RUBE: — then you knew you had to come right. It’s the same way now. If you know that the public, or whoever, is going to accept garbage, you not going to try hard. But if you know there’s people that don’t automatically be like, nah you get on up out of here, then you gon’ have less people even trying to come at you like that.

KELLEY: Yeah, it’s our fault. It’s not their fault.

RUBE: Right. You’re buying it. You’re listening to it. You banging for it. So why wouldn’t they put it out?

BROWN: Yeah, but it’s jamming though. I like that simple s—. I’m not going to lie.

RUBE: Don’t get me wrong —

BROWN: I’m not going to lie. Y’all sit here and say y’all don’t like it, and y’all be sitting in the car.

RUBE: I’m not saying that — I’m not talking about simple and complex when I say that. I’m just saying just coming from a real place. You could tell — just like she says, how can you tell when it’s authentic and when it’s real? You just can. It ain’t no formula to it. There ain’t no way to learn that. That’s some s— that you just know. I could tell you — like, if it ain’t real, then nobody gon’ believe it. Simple as that. If your s— is wack, or not even wack but fake, you might have — musically it might be right. Might even be nothing wrong with it musically, but I’m just gon’ be like, “Ah, this n—- wack.”

But then you might come in and this cat might not even a better MC than him, but I might be like, “Yeah, I feel him.” You see what I’m saying? Because he’s telling the truth. He coming for real. He coming to hip-hop with the truth. It ain’t — it’s not — this ain’t no — it ain’t like acting. You know, acting come from a real place. You gotta access something. But if you can’t — if you out there and you just completely being an actor, and you not coming with nothing from a real place, then people gon’ be able to tell that. At least real n—– is.

KELLEY: Yeah, I mean, that’s the biggest message that I’ve always received from Dungeon Family at large is advice on how to be myself, which makes me able to tell the truth about other people, right? And in that — that’s always been the line I have on people who don’t understand hip-hop really. Like, “Oh, it’s dirty. Oh, it’s too loud.” Or whatever. It’s like, “Fine. Shoot yourself in the foot. You’re on your own now.”

I did also want to mention — I have a lot of family in Atlanta. My uncle, I was staying with him one time. I was in here. I was interviewing Mr. DJ actually. And I was like, “I gotta –”

BROWN: He’s right there.

KELLEY: Oh, hey. And I was like, “I gotta go over to Stankonia.” He was like, “Oh, yeah. Go eight blocks that way and down the whatever.” He’s a doctor. You know, he knew where Stankonia is. How, like, did he know that? Because he was so proud. He was so proud that that music was made so close to his house. And that’s another thing that just cannot be forgotten, that this music is there for you. You just listen.

But I’m like, I can’t even really talk. I’m so mindblown that you write things, and I’m so mad that I’ve been lied to over these years. Do you write every day? How many drafts do you go through? How did you stay in shape? Who do you read? What are —

RUBE: I just got a good memory, and I’m nosy. I like to know how stuff work. When I was a kid, I got in trouble for taking TVs apart and stuff to see how it work. I always want to how — what makes something run, what makes something tick. And to me, it’s the same thing whether it’s the universe, whether it’s politics, or whether — whatever it is. I ain’t no super genius or nothing. I’m just real analytical.

They’ll tell you, like, you’ll get tired of me. Like, “Man. He’s constantly just overanalyzing, overtalking everything. You don’t like nothing, man.” I don’t like that s—. So I used to get all that kind of flack, but we found a way to use that by the way.

But I look at it like it’s basically as simple as when you — I put it to you like this. I ain’t never been rich, but I’ve had a wealth that other people will never have. As far as I had people walk up to me on the street and say, “Yo. I got my degree listening to y’all stuff, man. I was gon’ quit school.” Or, “Man, I was about to go out and do something stupid, and I happened to be in the car and y’all s— was playing. And I just said, ‘F— that. I ain’t gon’ do that. That’s some dumb s—. It ain’t worth it.'” Cats tell me that we had a positive effect on their life. There’s no amount of dollars that you could ever get when somebody tell you you had a direct positive effect that helped change their life.

And that’s not me saying that. That’s a multitude of people over the past 20, 25 years have walked up to me saying that kind of stuff. And to me that’s — there ain’t no monetary value you can put on that. So I feel like as long as that’s happening, even if it’s just to a small percentage of people, if we actually changing lives or actually helping to affect change in people’s lives, then we doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

KELLEY: Are you competitive with anybody?

RUBE: Oh, yeah. I’m competitive with everybody. I mean, for one thing, Dungeon Family, we used to sit around and just freestyle rap against each other. Anything. Rapping. Wrestling. You know, whatever. It was always just — but that’s good competition though because — to help — it’s just like if you lifting weights. If me and Khujo — and Cee and them used to be out there. Ramon would be out there lifting weights. We’d see who could lift the most. It’s the same thing with lyrics or whatever. We don’t need records. Somebody might lay a verse. Then somebody else lay a verse. Then somebody done already laid they verse. Then it be something else, you know what I’m saying? So it’s good — competition starts right within your family.

KELLEY: What about outside the family though?

RUBE: Well, you know — I mean, most of my competition, you gotta time travel cause most of these n—– now. The cats can’t really f— with a n—-.

I just always just try — to me, it’s not about — I started out always wanting to be the dopest. That was my hope. I started 12-years-old. I just wanted to be the dopest at whatever I do, whether it was drawing, rapping, whatever it was. Cause already no point in doing it if you ain’t gon’ try to be the best. So it’s not really a personal competition. It’s just I want to be the best, so whoever the best is I want to crush him, whoever he is. So that was always my goal. Is to just — when I lay that s—, it ain’t nothing else that can f— with it, till I lay my next s—.

KELLEY: That’s what I think. I would like to get these people involved in this conversation —

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

KELLEY: — if that’s cool with you.

MUHAMMAD: Yes. Been waiting for that.

KELLEY: You guys, let’s do this. There’s a mic there and there. C’mon. Get involved. Ask some questions. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, really.

MUHAMMAD: Well, I just wanted to ask Big — cause I know you got some things to say about some things.

BROWN: Big chilling, man. He chilling.

MUHAMMAD: He chilling?

BROWN: Oh, OK.

BIG BOI: It all started a long time ago. Nah, I’m just playing. How y’all doing, man? I’m just — I feel good to be here with Ric, Ray, Pat, Big Rube, Shaheed Muhammad. This lady right here who keeps swinging her leg around. Frannie. Big Boi trying to invite you to Stankonia.

Just always when we first started, like Ric said, like Rube said, it was all about the competition and brotherhood and how we all participated together. It’s how Ric pushed you to the best, so you might be down there rapping your heart out and be like, “Ric, what you think?” He be like, “Ay, Ray. Go order pizza.” Devastating. So, you know, you just gotta keep coming, keep writing, keep writing —

I mean, Ric used to break hearts in the Dungeon. Somebody put something on the song, and somebody else put something on the song. It was — I think it was Goodie Mob, Outkast, Cool Breeze, everybody. You can’t put 11 n—– on the song, so they was getting bumped off. And it was always — it was honest, but what made it, with us, is that it encouraged all of us to be lyrically sharp and kind of challenge one another. And that’s — I give that to Ric and Ray and Pat and Rube for giving us the knowledge and pushing us to be the best. Still, I f— with them to this day, man.

BROWN: Backbone, you want to say something, playboy?

WADE: “I’m still bucking like five, deuce, four, tre.”

BACKBONE: Yo yo yo what’s happening?

WADE: “Shawtaaay! Still bucking like five, deuce, four, tre.”

BACKBONE: On some real stuff though, the day I graduated from high school — I met Rico Wade 30 days after I graduated from high school. My mama told me, “You either gon’ get a degree or you gon’ get out of my house.” Rico Wade allowed me for the next three years to walk to his house everyday and rhyme in that basement and become who we were. This was like — I lied to my mother. I started selling drugs and everything just to hold up that image of being a rapper.

My mama said, “You gon’ wrap your ass up, and go back to Alabama A&M University and get a degree.” I said, “Nah, when I bring you this plaque, I’ma show it’s real.” I didn’t get my Dungeon Family tattoos until I put a plaque on the wall, and that was the day I wrote “Get Rich To This” with Goodie Mob. So it’s love, gentlemen. It’s love forever, man. Thank y’all, forever. For life, brothers.

BROWN: It’s love. Mr. DJ, you want to say something, boy? Want to say something? Nah, you’re good?

MUHAMMAD: Well, I have a question for you, Mr. DJ. Yeah, I was going to say — we on the same page.

BROWN: Just say what you want to say, dog.

MUHAMMAD: No. Just in terms of just coming up with you, with your cousin —

MR DJ: Yes, sir.

MUHAMMAD: — how did it feel — I don’t know what the — can you explain your progression into the world? Cause “Art Of Storytellin’ Pt 1 & Pt 2” is iconic.

MR DJ: I appreciate it.

MUHAMMAD: Iconic hip-hop.

MR DJ: I appreciate it. First of all, Ric is my cousin, my brother. We’re really family, and he actually gave me the opportunity. I started out as a little DJ for the high school and everything. And he gave me the opportunity to be the DJ for Outkast, and that was kind of the start of everything. He was like the epitome of the leader.

But you asked me something else. You asked me about “Da Art Of Storytellin.'”

WADE: No, you were right.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah. I mean, just in terms of getting to that point from DJing into — now you’re stepping into a big seat there.

MR DJ: Yeah. Well, it started out as a DJ thing, and Ric encouraged me to get on the beat machine. And I actually grew up watching — we actually used to watch Rico, Ray, and Pat beat on the drum machine. It was like a ritual. You would see the ashes falling from the blunts on the beat machine, and it was just a whole art to it. I actually started just imitating what they were doing, and that turned into a career. And that was just kind of — yeah, yeah. That’s kind of how it all happened.

I’m kind of shy y’all. I just, I’m kind of shy.

WADE: This my little cousin like a brother. But really, since he was little, he was taking apart the stereo. I seen him take a stereo, take the volume button, take the top off it — and I’m glad they didn’t use it no more. He took the top of that — the components they used to have, the turntable, top, and all of it was stuck together as one. He was like, “Look at this, cuz,” and he scratched. And he scratched! And this was when he was younger.

Another time when I got a car, I’m 15-years-old, him and my partner got a drum machine. All he could do was go boom, boom, boom. And they’ll make me a little tape, so I could ride around and bump it. I’m not even doing music yet. Time goes along. It’s not me. It’s Sleepy and Ray. And I’m not around my cousin as much then. But when Big and Dre was working, they was like, “We need a DJ.” And to be honest, DJ Mars was going to be the DJ but might’ve went somewhere. He went to New York for the summer. Dang.

So I called him up. I said, “You know what? My cousin named DJ.” And allegedly, him and Big and Dre hit it off, cause they was the same age, close to the same age or whatever. They hit it off. And he — I didn’t make him a DJ. He wanted to be a DJ before he had turntables. He wanted it.

But the fact that I was a person that had the opportunity to give it to him — but really it wasn’t even like I was looking; it was like, “You my family and you were there and I needed that.” And these guys are like — this is like my new family, and I want to be overprotective of them. Because that means we be going on the road, and I can’t really go everywhere with them like that. So it was just good to know that family was out together.

And then once they went on the road together, I distinctly remember they came home, my cousin was like, “I made like $27,000/30,000 on the road.” I said, “Ah.” He got that little white BMW. He was like, “So when are we going back out?” I was like, “S—. We gotta work on this new album. It’ll be about year or so.” “What?.” I was like, “Hold on, DJ. Hold on.” He was like, “Man. What’s the?” I said, “Well, we going be making beats.” “I’m making beats too.”

So you could say I encouraged him, or you could say that he said, “I’m making beats too.” And he did a good job with it. But what I encouraged was that you don’t be set, you know what I’m saying? Work with Big and Dre — how me and Sleepy and Ray are, we all — we share in everything no matter who’s doing the most or who’s doing the least, so it just take out the negativity or whatever. And I feel like that’s what helped them when they was — that’s what helped Big and Dre get even bigger.

Because we went through our Interscope deal or whatever, it was times when we couldn’t be there. Outkast wouldn’t have got as big as they got if they didn’t step up and take control of their careers. We most definitely started them off, got them in the game, but once that Interscope deal around ’98, ’99, they started pulling me away. I started getting more stressed. I had money too so I said like, “F—.” I’ma write this the f— off. I’ma do it my way.

And that’s when Outkast came up with “Ms. Jackson,” “Bombs Over Baghdad.” And I remember L.A. Reid calling me and he was like, “I love this record ‘Ms. Jackson.’ I gotta put it out first. But Big and Dre want to put out this ‘Bombs Over Baghdad.’ Ric, man, can you talk to them.” I said, “‘Ms. Jackson’ is your record, right.” “Yeah, man, this is gon’ be it.” “Go and give them what they want.”

So I feel was “Bombs Over Baghdad” was a creative — it wasn’t just a song. Cause it was — it’s one of my favorites as far as pushing the levels, and Big and Dre did that beat. As far as outside of what we had already set up for them. Now Southernplaya, we set the tone for how they sound was. They started stepping outside with “Bombs.” And they pushed the levels a little further. We tried to keep up by throwing “So Fresh, So Clean” on there.

BROWN: We still here.

WADE: But that’s what was pushing the envelope. That’s how we got to where we kept going, and what happened with “The Way You Move” and “Hey Ya,” which was Big Boi’s solo album and a Dre solo album that they put together, the fact that both of them had two number one pop records. Andre was playing guitar and dancing on stage. And Big Boi. That’s been the story of the their career.

I love Three Stacks. I love him. But the fact that he could turn one million dollars like that. That about it. Wow. How you do that? But Big Boi, that boy got a lunchbox. He gon’ pick it up and put the hard hat on, and to me, music goes forward with people that’s always put back into music. Cause there was one time — and I know this on tape but I’ma say it — it felt Dre abandoned the music for a second. That’s why I was so happy when he came back.

Cause I was like, “You can’t stop rapping. N—-, we need raps. They don’t just need them. We need them.” I wouldn’t running behind y’all because I thought it would make money. I believed y’all the truth, and you say stuff that I can’t think of. That makes it even better, is what I’m thinking. But ahh he said it so right. To even now, when I talk about Three, just to know that.

Cause people ask me, “Y’all don’t ever do something?” And I always say, “Yup.” And they be like, “Are you sure?” I’ll be like, “Yeah, cause I can see it in the hearts and the spirits.” It’s just timing. It’s just time and everything. Cause cats still love it. The cats understand. And we love each other enough to know not to be pushing each other. The fact that we can get together and hang out — that’s more than everything. We get together sometimes and do ten songs in one day easily. But we’ll get up and everyday and just do something. Something, just different. Trying to bring something musical.

MUHAMMAD: I completely identify with what you’re saying.

WADE: Yes, yes, yes.

MUHAMMAD: We’re not doing just a little bit, so maybe some of what y’all got going on could rub off. I’m just going to leave it there. Just that little something part of the routine is all we need. Just a little something. I don’t need a date.

WADE: God has a plan.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, God has a plan.

WADE: God has a plan.

MUHAMMAD: Could we talk a little bit about Goodie Mob just a touch —

WADE: By the way, this is Goodie Mob’s 20th year anniversary this year. Big Gipp has a solo album that he already trying to promote a little bit, like a mixtape. Khujo went through another surgery. And that’s the real reason you guys haven’t really seen the Goodie Mob. Cause once he had his leg — what happened to his leg and whatever, the off balance of that, he had to have that fixed, so he had to be comfortable. But I’m hoping and praying — cause they were supposed to perform in the Outkast concert, and they didn’t because of Khujo.

And now that CeeLo’s been through the stuff he’s been through, we’ve been there for him a lot more now to where he know he ain’t supposed to say that s— like that. He made a mistake. He was raised by his mama, his grandmama, and his sisters. He has the utmost respect for women. He just got fly at the mouth. It happens. But we still here for him. We love him to death, and I know he ain’t on that. That’s soul. CeeLo, that’s soul.

BROWN: That’s all.

WADE: So I expect — and I’m praying we get a chance to do Goodie Mob reunion show for our Organized Noize fans. That’s what we’re trying to — but that’s really going to be based on Khujo. Khujo will be getting back out there and performing with us as the Goodie Mob.

MUHAMMAD: Can I ask you a question about maturity and growth from a business perspective? Has there ever been a point in time after all the success — and the way you answered the question as, “The A&Rs don’t come and tell me what to do,” so I understand your position and how you deal with people. Has there ever come a time in either of you guys where the ego has gotten in the way of business and how has that — can you look over the career and see it directly in its eyes, even if it was like 20 years ago? And how do you deal with that in the now?

BROWN: As far as ego, I think all kind of went through it. I think my problem was I couldn’t stay out of clubs. The Gentlemen’s club has taken all of my money. Plus back in the day, I was kind of doing my thing so. Looking back, I wish I could’ve did a lot of things different, but I love the experience that I went through cause it brought me to now to understand what we have and how beautiful it is.

And of course, when you get money, man, and you get cars. You got a big house. Of course, the ego gon’ jump up. That’s just natural. That don’t mean you gotta be an asshole to everybody, but, you know, you got your company. You know you’re the s—. I think my mistake was just couldn’t stop damn partying all the damn time. My homie decks in the crowd definitely can vouch for on that. I think, looking back, man, I appreciate everything and everything I went through, but if I could change anything, I would take my ass up out that club.

WADE: I just think that — well, it’s not too deep, but I just remember, in hindsight — cause Sleepy and Ray are like my older brothers anyway. And I just remember Sleepy telling me, he was like, “Everybody think you did everything, Rico. Everybody think you did. Is you out this m———– telling everybody you did everything?” I said, “No!”

BROWN: Hell no! You didn’t just do me like that. You ain’t just brought me out here my dude. Hell nah!

WADE: It made us better, because at that point, I had to be that much more of a selfless leader. I had to be like — then I started being like, “Yes. Me, Sleepy, and Ray” — I know I’m the front person, but they put me up front.

BROWN: Yeah, we did. We absolutely did.

WADE: So ego — it wasn’t that they had one, but it looked like I did. And I didn’t.

BROWN: Wait wait wait wait. You did though. It don’t look like you did, but you did have one. But that’s love though. We all went through this. We all went through it. You know, really when you got the cook, and you had the basketball court. Wake up in the morning looking in the mirror and rolling your blunts and s—. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, baby. Oh yeah.

WADE: Yeah. OK.

BROWN: Oh yeah. But —

WADE: I didn’t touch my cover sheet for a year.

BROWN: Yeah. A year.

WADE: Literally a year.

BROWN: But we brothers, so a brother’s always going to come back. They talk to each other and work s— out.

MUHAMMAD: That’s what’s up.

WADE: And to me, that’s the part that I was going to get to. Was the part that no matter what you go through if you really and truly support each other, you really are there, you’ll make it through. Cause I remember Sleepy came to me, “Man, I really was an ass to you and Ray sometimes.” I was like, “No, you wasn’t. I didn’t do what you wanted me to do.” Like, “I didn’t pay you enough attention. I was acting like it was about this. You were right.” But I took — I assumed money was enough.

But you didn’t sign up for — you wanted to be an artist from the time I met you. You wanted to put out records. When you try to say, “Huh. Take this money and these right here, but don’t worry about the career.” “Huh? Why stop? I’m going to do an album. I’m going to do a bunch of them. What’s he talking about?” And that’s what I felt like I took for granted sometimes. Cause it became bigger than us real quick. They wanted us to work with people we didn’t even know. They would fly people in. “I’m gon’ give you a million dollars to do this artist right here.” And you want to do it, but it’s like, you have stuff that already planned to do.

I still gotta do an album with Big Rube, on everything. And I’m not just saying that. It’s one of the last things I gotta do. And Backbone, when we did his album, he was one of the last ones that we did that we got a deal. Cause at that point it was like, whoever was down in that dungeon that sat around and helped somebody, whatever you did, we — and I got that from RZA. — shout RZA out. I f— with RZA too. Wu-Tang. I always noticed that he made a point to — every last one of them got an opportunity to do an album. Whenever somebody, whether it was Ghostface or whoever it was — and it was his sound. So he gave them money. They might not sell as much as everybody else, but at least he got the fair opportunity.

So we felt like we were supposed to do that. It was not on LaFace. It was not on Interscope. It was after we lost the Interscope deal, and I was a little depressed. (audience member yells something) Yeah, absolutely. But it was after we had just f—– up millions of dollars from somebody and who would want to get back in bed with us? The music, you know what I mean? The music. So I stayed in the house, and he kept coming over there. And we turnt up. We dropped songs. And they put it out.

So it’s always about music, even with Future right now. He’s not connecting all the dots with making the album and selling records the way we used to sell, but he still loves music. So he went and did that mix CD with “F— Up Some Commas” on it. Build like brothers. And he got that 56 Nights out. And now they calling me, and now he getting 100 racks a show again. And it’s like — and he’s a lot more open-minded to where like, “I didn’t do it right that time cause I was dumb. I want to sign in our neighborhood.” Like, “Who are them girls you working with? Where those people at? Tell me. I want you to round more.” Like, “Besides L.A. to have them come around.” I was like, “Who hit you in your goddamn head.” I said, “Goddamn I’m glad Ciara gone.” Yeah, I said it.

WADE: Yeah I said it.

BROWN: I will say one thing though. Back in that time, me and Ric kind of were bumping heads a whole lot. That held me up to do the Sleepy Themes album. That’s what kind of — it wasn’t the fact that I was married, cause I was just working on it, but about us not really connecting and talking. And we had a brief moment where we really wasn’t speaking. A lot of people don’t know that, but we really wasn’t. So my outlet was to do an album. So that’s how Sleepy Themes became to be. So how about —

WADE: Incredible project. It woke me up too. It did. Because that was right about the Interscope deal — and that’s when Jimmy — Jimmy was like — Jimmy Iovine — “Yo. What’s up with Sleepy’s s—?” I was like, “We can have that.” He said, “Well, fly him out here.” Then he came out and listened to it, and he didn’t get it. So it was almost like you still didn’t make him happy. He want you to get it, not that somebody else told you that it’s jamming. And that’s where I think the knowledge and the wisdom comes from learning how to connect those bridges between those major companies and the actual soul of the music.

And I feel like the Internet has helped us a lot. Because it’s a major jump from you to a million people. And that’s really what they expect. They really want you to make the transition to a million people immediately. But there’s nothing with going on your own, getting your little crowd, following. 1000 seaters, 5000. You don’t want to have to go from zero — you need a fan base, so you can be comfortable being you. Because as soon as you get there, they going to ask you to do a song with Miley Cyrus. And then you gon’ be calling your cousin and saying.

MUHAMMAD: You know some out there was trying to do just what you’re saying and like, “How do I get a fan base. I have a great collection.” It could be five songs, but it’s like, how do I get to have a fan base?

WADE: Well, with these kids like Father and OG Maco, what they’re doing, they’re not worrying about what everybody thinks. But these little small shows you do, if you get a reaction from somebody, you keep feeding them that. And you be happy with the crowd you get. Don’t go to Buckhead trying to make them come to the party. Don’t do that. Keep the people you got. Until the people in Buckhead come to the party. Who is you? “B—-, you guessed it.”

And that’s what Atlanta is to me. I think we’ve been blessed to be able to kind of — well, to have — to be well versed enough to be able to know about this side of town and different types of things, but also be thorough enough to know who not be around on this side town. Like, these n—– crazy. You gon’ get yourself hurt. Having a gauge on — that’s culture. And not to go Tribe Called Quest again, but Tribe Called Quest brought culture, man, during that time. They brought us culture. They brought — and it wasn’t just the African pendants. It was like — c’mon, man. The shells, the whole little vibe. It was like, it was bucking. And to me — yeah.

And it was connected to other groups of people, like. What was the — Jungle Brothers. De La. So I was like — y’all were connected to Native Tongues. So it’s almost like we wanted — we couldn’t make the Native Tongues, but we wanted — we wasn’t scared when other people came around who were like-minded. Cause quietly we were building a group.

MUHAMMAD: Y’all did it extremely well. And thank you. Thank you so much.

WADE: Thank you.

BROWN: Thank you.

MUHAMMAD: Thank you for the bass lines The bass lines were crazy. The chords were crazy. The marriage of — I would get a mixture of maybe Todd — how does you say his name? — Rundgren mixed with — thank you — Curtis Mayfield mixed with — you guys blended genres of music in such a way, and it was just so powerful. So thank you for making the beats banging, the drums snappy, and —

Oh, I have to say as a DJ. People often forget, I think, from other regions of America doing hip-hop, they forget about the element of hip-hop when DJing. And you guys always had scratches on your records, man. And that’s so important. There’s such a subtle texture, but it just speaks to the essence of the art form and the culture. Thank you so much for just the entire of the architecture of it.

WADE: Thank you.

BROWN: Thanks.

WADE: The way you started the night off with The Bronx. That’s the history. I’m so happy that it started that way because at the end of the day, Atlanta, the Dirty South, hip-hop, that’s where all the knowledge is. That’s ours. That’s the culture that grew into — like, you got the arts party — but that’s the respect. That’s where all of us — that’s the corporation. That’s the franchise.

It’s the fact that if you really study hip-hop, I can connect with other people from other places because of that respect. You follow those rules. You understand what that meant. You respect each phase of it, if it’s the dancing, if it’s the graffiti, if it’s the DJing, if it’s the MCing. Respecting those arts helps you better relate with people too. It help you respect people for whatever their move is. The instrument that it takes to do anything. So thank you, guys.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: Araabmuzik in the house.

ARAABMUZIK: Yes, sir.

MUHAMMAD: What up?

ARAABMUZIK: Hey, not much, man. Same circus, different clowns.

FRANNIE KELLEY: You like that.

MUHAMMAD: Never heard that one before.

ARAABMUZIK: You know, gotta be different, man.

MUHAMMAD: You calling us a clown, though? I’m just saying.

KELLEY: Uh-oh.

ARAABMUZIK: Not at all, man. It’s just, another way of saying —

MUHAMMAD: No, I’m just joking.

ARAABMUZIK: Same s—, different day.

KELLEY: What are you doing in town, in New York?

ARAABMUZIK: Right now I’m just hanging out, you know, getting stuff done. Just chilling, basically.

KELLEY: Where are you coming from?

ARAABMUZIK: I come from Rhode Island.

KELLEY: So you got to take some time off at home, too, you mean?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, basically. I’m just coming over here to just, you know, network with a couple people that’s actually in town for this week, and meet up with them and chopping it up and stuff like that. I leave again Friday. I go back to Germany for a festival and then come back for a couple days, then I’m shooting back out. Got a whole list of shows to do by the end of the month, so my schedule’s looking kind of hectic right now.

MUHAMMAD: How do you juggle your DJ schedule with your producer schedule? Do you set time aside for each or do you just get it all done?

ARAABMUZIK: When I perform and travel, that’s all set dates. So I basically just produce when I have all my free time. Like, I do everything really late night. That’s when all the, you know, creative process kicks in. That’s it. I just dropped the remix of the Trey Songz “Na-Na” the other day and that’s really doing good.

It’s getting a good response on the web and everything like that. It’s my first official remix that I actually put out, you know, with hip-hop. I still gave it that feel. I didn’t want to switch up the whole song. It’s definitely doing good. A lot of people are showing me love on that. And I just previously dropped the For Professional Use Only 2 on iTunes about two weeks ago and it’s doing good. It’s like, about Number 5 on the dance charts.

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope.

ARAABMUZIK: So I been working. Got a lot of stuff lined up for 2015. Yeah, man, so right now I’m pretty much just doing the shows and —

MUHAMMAD: Do you look forward to doing remixes or —

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I mean, all that stuff is cool. It’s basically like keeping your name up.

MUHAMMAD: Do the remixes challenge you more?

ARAABMUZIK: Sometimes. It depends on which — I mean, it all depends on what I want to remix. You know, if it’s not something crazy — like if the original song wasn’t too crazy like that, I can probably make it sound a lot better than the original. That’s what I pretty much do all the time. I always make it — when I put something out or remix something or put my touch to it, it’s always better than the original.

MUHAMMAD: What was the first song that you did that became the shifter in terms of, like, setting you up? Where it was like your name was your name?

ARAABMUZIK: I mean, probably a couple years ago, when I was working with Cam. Those were the big songs. “Salute,” that was a real big one right there cause that sound right there was a different sound. And that was the sound that pretty much got me into the EDM and stuff like that. I had been doing the EDM stuff for a long time. I hooked up with my agent back in like 2011, when he got me doing a lot of shows and showcasing my talent around the world. I had toured overseas for about a week off the Electronic Dream.

MUHAMMAD: In your making your music — let’s go back to the beginning. How did you begin? What were you listening to when you first started making music?

ARAABMUZIK: At the time I was just listening to a lot of instrumentals.

MUHAMMAD: Who are some of your favorite?

ARAABMUZIK: My influences? Man, you know, it was always my boy Swizz Beatz. He was a major influence growing up. He had his own distinguished sound. He was always using the keyboards and playing his own stuff. Nothing was sounding like anything he was doing. Same thing with Dre, you know, that West Coast gritty sound. Then it was Premier and J Dilla, 9th Wonder, Alchemist. Just listening to those types of beats. I’ll never really listen to the lyrics. I was never into the artists.

I started off playing drums, since I was like three, four years old — that was my gift right there, was the drums. And then later on I started playing keys. You know, just making my own beats pretty much. And I never knew what a MPC was until one of my peoples told me about it. He was like, “Yo, you need — get on one of these things right here,” whatever. And I had got one and from there it was pretty much hands-on, you know. It wasn’t really too much — it wasn’t difficult or anything like that. I mean, as far as the producing process, yeah, he taught me the little basic stuff, like how to save, load and stuff like that, but I took over from there. I’ve been just at it for a long, long time.

MUHAMMAD: Your sound, it’s changed, though, from the time you first started. So in going back to your agent, did your agent kind of show you the way in terms of direction?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, he told me how, you know, like what’s being played, what people — what the crowd actually reacts to. Because they don’t react to everything you play, so you gotta definitely cater to what they’re looking for.

KELLEY: What do they react to?

ARAABMUZIK: You know, just the big — I mean, it depends. Now, right now, the trap and the hard house has pretty much taken over. It’s always switching — it’s like phases in music all the time, or eras. Last year or two years ago it was dubstep. That’s when Skrillex and all these people were definitely killing ’em. Now it’s the trap and the house and whatever, you know what I mean?

KELLEY: And that’s wherever you go?

ARAABMUZIK: And that’s wherever I go, yeah. Me, I play a lot of everything. I don’t just stick to one genre of music. So I’ll play a lot of like, EDM, trap, the house, the dance. I’ll slow it down; I’ll play some hip-hop beats, original stuff. Unreleased stuff, just to keep the crowd — I just keep it going pretty much. My sets are like an hour-and-a-half. Before I used to only perform for like 20 minutes.

MUHAMMAD: Really?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, man.

MUHAMMAD: How’d you get away with that?

ARAABMUZIK: I don’t know.

KELLEY: Festivals, man.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: True. I forget about the festivals.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, cause you know, I was doing it right there, live. So at the time, I’m like, “Damn, I can’t perform for an hour!”

KELLEY: Your fingers get tired?

ARAABMUZIK: They used to before. That’s why I was always doubting myself. But you know when you keep doing something that you’re not used to doing like that. but then as you keep doing it and doing it and doing it, it’s just like, “Aight.” Before I used to time myself. Now I just go. They’ll tap me and give me like a little, “Two minutes.” Or, “You got five minutes left,” or whatever, and then I’ll just know and then I’ll just build it up and then kill ’em with an ending.

MUHAMMAD: Do you find — in terms of different cities, countries and stuff, who’s more hyper?

ARAABMUZIK: To me, they’re all the same.

MUHAMMAD: It’s the same?

ARAABMUZIK: It’s the same, man. Cause those type of festivals all have the same energy and the same crowd, the same type of thing going on. It’s never no type of —

MUHAMMAD: So Berlin, Chicago, it’s all —

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, man. When I did the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago; crazy. And then overseas, if I do the show in Germany, Berlin or wherever, it’s the same: same crowd. Australia — you know, the only thing is Tokyo. They don’t really — they don’t go ham out there. They just stand there and look at you, cause I guess that’s the way they show respect or whatever. But I still haven’t done a festival or anything like that out there. It’s all like club shows and stuff. The clubs, of course they go crazy but it’s not the same as doing a big festival shows, you know, when you’re in front of like 30, 40,000 people.

MUHAMMAD: Does that charge you a bit more?

ARAABMUZIK: Definitely, man, of course. You’re performing in front of that many people and they’re all going crazy. There’s not one — you know what I’m saying? Cause it’s like, there’s people that perform in front of that — like, hip-hop versus EDM: there’s people that perform in front of those many people in the hip-hop, but they’re all not going crazy. Half of ’em are — or not even. But versus doing an EDM show, every single person in that crowd is on something.

MUHAMMAD: Do you ever get on the microphone when you are–

ARAABMUZIK: Nah, man. Sometimes. Well, I just started getting on the mic.

MUHAMMAD: So what’s that like?

ARAABMUZIK: It’s different, you know what I mean. I don’t really — I’m not a really talkative person when it comes to like, you know, hosting stuff, stuff like that, so right now I gotta —

MUHAMMAD: There’s no Fatman Scoop kinda Araabmuzik?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I gotta get in my, on my hype man s— real quick.

KELLEY: Cause who was doing it before Duke was?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, he’ll be on stage and, you know, he’ll say certain things to just get ’em, the crowd, get the crowd, you know what I mean, hyped up. But now it’s just like everything I play — I don’t know, like I just gotta get on my mic game. But that is cool when you have the build-ups, you know what I’m saying, when you’re playing a track and it’s building up, that’s when you pretty much go, “Yay,” you know what I mean. You let ’em know that something’s gonna come and then when it drops, that’s when they go crazy, da-da-da.

MUHAMMAD: Man, I’ve never seen —

ARAABMUZIK: I’m working on it.

MUHAMMAD: I’ve never seen any of your performances. I can’t imagine you being the hype DJ. My vision of you has always been just the musician, you know, the person that’s making people move.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: And that’s just always my approach. I really dislike when promoter ask, “Are you gonna get on the microphone?” And I’m like, “Come on, man, I’m just not gonna talk. And if that’s what we having me here for, it’s gonna be disappointing.” But do you take any of that kind of like feeling you get from the stage and bring it back home to the studio? Or even after a show — like if you’re traveling, I’m sure you’re traveling with stuff you can record with. Do you bring that back to the process?

ARAABMUZIK: No.

MUHAMMAD: No? It’s just you and the music?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it’s just me, you know, showcasing — just performing and then when I’m in the studio, it’s just, you know.

MUHAMMAD: So when you’re making an album, do you decide, you know, what the theme is and then you go in sculpting the entire record based off of that or is it just kind of like you’re piecing ideas together?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it’s a little of both. It just depends on which direction you want to go in, you know what I mean. Each song, I want to have it be its own. I don’t want to have an album based around the same type of sound. I like to mix it up a lot cause, you know, I have a lot of styles — I can sound like whatever. I could drop something today and drop something else the next day and it would be something totally different. So, that’s the key thing is being versatile. Versatility, you know, and I can work with whoever.

MUHAMMAD: Do you think that some of the music today lacks versatility?

ARAABMUZIK: Of course, man. Everything sounds the same. Everything. Music is just not what it used to be anymore, man. It’s easy to throw a record out there and as long as you have a dance or a slogan or whatever to it, you’re popping now. Before, it was about the lyrics and the delivery and performing, all of that, you know what I’m saying. Now, as long as you have a following and whatever, that’s it. You got a deal now and all types of dumb s—. Like, come on, man.

KELLEY: Are you talking about hip-hop or are you talking about everything?

ARAABMUZIK: I mean, it’s in hip-hop. Yeah, EDM’s not really, it’s not for everyone. They pick and choose who they accept in the EDM world. It’s like private school, you know what I’m saying? It’s like you’ve gotta go through a lot of things in order to get accepted and hip-hop’s it’s whatever. It doesn’t even matter as long as you, you know.

KELLEY: A couple years ago you told Pitchfork that you graduated from hip-hop.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I definitely did.

KELLEY: What does that mean? Cause Ali —

ARAABMUZIK: You know, I’d done that already. Now I’m really killing’ ’em in the EDM world, doing all this stuff cause I came from hip-hop. And there’s really nothing going on in hip-hop. That’s why everyone is merging into the dance scene. Everything’s all — I mean, just look at all these festivals that Diddy and 2 Chainz and Waka‘s in.

They all want to be a part of these big festivals as — you know, like Coachella and then South by Southwest and all this other stuff that I been done years ago. So it’s just like now they want to get into it and now, you know what I’m saying, you’ve got DJs actually doing these festivals, too, so, you know. Shout out to Just Blaze. Him and Green Lantern, you know, I see him all the time when I’m doing shows, and I’m saying, well, I’ma bump into these people.

KELLEY: Is it about the money?

ARAABMUZIK: That, but I guess it’s for the love of the art. Even with me, I used to love just doing it just to do it, even if I’m not being paid to do it or whatever. I’ll still do it just because I love, you know what I’m saying, what I do. And a lot of people nowadays, it’s all just about the money, you know what I’m saying, because, you know, it’s whatever. I mean, it’s fast or whatever, but for people like that, been in the game that are legends and all that, they actually do it cause they love to do it. And of course the money’s good so that’s just, you know, a bonus or whatever.

KELLEY: Ali and I talk about this a lot, and about how the money on the executive level sort of rewards somebody who has a following and they really just want you to work that hit song for like two years and they’re probably not even gonna put your album out or whatever. And so I guess that’s what I mean by is it because of the money. Like if hip-hop, on the business side, were structured in a way that just worked, if it worked maybe more like a private school, would that make making hip-hop more appealing? Or is this focus on hip-hop as a separate thing stupid anyway?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

KELLEY: Yeah.

ARAABMUZIK: I mean, I don’t know. Things have changed a lot, with everything. I mean, I guess the way the business sides, the labels, how they handle artists and how things used to go back then versus now — I think only now, if you have one good song, you good. You could tour and do all types of s— with just one song. And then I guess get a deal for like an album or a mixtape or whatever, but it’s people that are touring, doing stuff off just mixtapes, don’t even have to drop an album. I’m saying it’s easy now. You know, everything’s all just digital and you just upload a song and people are feeling it. I guess.

KELLEY: But I guess that’s the difference. Before, you could have one song and then just hit the road, but you had to get somebody to lend you money to make that song first.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it’s all about the marketing. Yeah, there’s definitely a lot behind it, you know what I’m saying, because you have to pay people to play your songs and all, try — and you always have to have a video to something, so that could also be played on MTV or BET or whatever it is, stuff like that.

That’s what I’m definitely focusing on now, is just putting out a lot of visuals. Cause I’m a visual artist, you know, people gotta see what I’m doing. I can’t just put a song out and that’s it. So that’s the thing with me. Like that’s how I always was going in the studio. I’ll always bring the MPC, and they always figure out, like, “What is that? What is he about to do, da-da-da.” Cause they used to, you know, people coming in with CDs or emailing tracks to ’em. But with me, it was different. I’ll come in —

MUHAMMAD: You bring your MPC to a meeting?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, even to a meeting.

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope.

ARAABMUZIK: Hell yeah. I used to play and rock out in the meeting, right there and have everyone in the offices coming in and it was just crazy, you know what I’m saying.

KELLEY: It was like that video of you with Busta.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, exactly. He’s definitely a testament of that, you know what I’m saying, cause–

KELLEY: What did he say? “I was just emulsified?”

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah. I never heard that word either.

KELLEY: That’s not what that word means.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it was crazy. That right there, like, he had me waiting for a little while. I don’t know what he was doing. But I go in, you know, we talk for a little bit, whatever, and then that’s when I pull the machine out and he’s just like, “Damn, I haven’t seen one of them things in years, like a long time.” So we was just talking about stuff like that about how he used to — like producers used to come in with that, da-da-da-da-da, and then, yeah, so I had loaded up a track — cause that’s what I do — instead of just playing the track, I actually play the track live right there and just showcase it on the spot. And that’s what I did.

And not even 20 seconds into the track, he stops me, he puts me in a headlock, you know, and he’s like, “Damn, what was that!?” It was just something that — it was just like I did magic or something, like I was floating in the air or something. Never seen nothing like that. So that’s when he really was on his s— and was just like, “Yo, turn those cameras on.” Cause, you know, at first, it’s like, “Damn, turn the cameras off.” It was real like strict. It was real like, you know, and then once he got that green light, then that’s when Jerry Wonda came in, cause it was at his studio — it was at Platinum Studios. Yep, and then from there — that’s how that came about.

MUHAMMAD: That’s pretty amazing. That’s like Jimi Hendrix walking in with a guitar and — you’re not gonna, you know, may he rest in peace — but I can imagine if he walked in with his guitar and he’s just playing and you’re like, “What the hell was that?” You got something special. So you walking in — I don’t think I’ve ever really heard anybody walking in with their drum machine, and if you’re a master at your instrument, then —

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, that’s how it was. That’s how I kept myself exclusive. Like those, “Send stuff!” Nah, I ain’t sending nothing. I’m going there. Trust me. Like, trust me. And it took time but they were like, “Ah, fine.” And then that’s how I build all these relationships, you know what I’m saying?

Now all these dudes love me, like, “Damn, that’s that n—- right there. That — what he does on that machine.” So that’s how I was. “Listen, trust me, bro. You’re gonna see.” “Aight, aight,” you know. As soon as it’s over, they don’t know what to do; stand up, sit down, they throw they hat if they have a hat, they tell people, everyone just comes in, “Yo, stop what you’re doing. You see what this kid just did?” And then right there, you know, the vibe just changes. Yeah, that’s how I pretty much did it, you know what I mean, that’s how I won these artists. Yeah, man, that’s just how I was.

KELLEY: And that’s how you go direct to them instead of dealing with managers?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I do everything directly. I don’t go through no managers, no nothing. I speak to the artists themselves. They hit me up, text, whatever, call me, “Yo, I know you’ve got some s— in there.” “Yes, I do.” “Aight, well, where you at?” Da-da-da, you know what I mean. And we set it up and we go. I’ll go with myself or one of my peoples, but I do everything myself, man.

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope.

ARAABMUZIK: You know what I mean? I don’t need — yeah. So that’s cool to build that relationship to where, I mean, I’m actually talking to these artists personally versus going through all types of third parties and stuff like that.

MUHAMMAD: Are you going to do — I mean, I’m waiting to see like an entire album, you know what I mean?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it’s definitely — it’s working.

MUHAMMAD: Doing one songs, two songs, whatever, that’s cool, but for you to just be like, “Yo, OK,” you’re convinced, now I need the entire album.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, exactly. I’m doing that right now as we speak. I’m already getting stuff planned. I’m already getting verses from artists, you know. I already got tracks set aside, for the album and stuff like that.

MUHAMMAD: I mean, not definitely for your record, but I’m just saying —

ARAABMUZIK: Cause that’s what I need now, is like a whole album of actual artists on the tracks.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, it would be the ill takeover if you just started doing like a Bus album or whoever’s the next person. Like, “Yo I did the whole album.” Like how it used to be.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: You know, slowly start bringing the inspiration, the creativity.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, it’s time now. It’s definitely time for me to bring that out.

KELLEY: Why is it now?

ARAABMUZIK: I mean, cause I got everyone’s attention the way I should have it. I’ve just been doing a lot, you know what I’m saying. It’s just as you get older, you get that business side, and until now — like, I have a decent catalog. I have worked a lot of people, so it’s like a favor. Like, “Yo, I need you on this, I need you on that,” versus before, you know what I mean, I was really limited to certain people that I worked with.

It’s about timing and I think it’s definitely about that time now to, you know, bring that to the table. I’ve done a lot of festivals and big shows and everything, so now it’s time to bring that type — like you said — that to the studio. To where I can actually DJ my own songs now and I can have all these other big DJs playing my songs, you know, cause that’s important, too. When these big DJs actually playing your record, then that’s when you’re doing something right. Cause you don’t want to be that dude that’s only playing everyone’s records and they’re not giving you the equal type of love.

So I gotta debow my way in that. You know what I mean, even though everyone knows who I am. It’s just about that product. I need the product, and actually show them that I can — I’m serious about this and I’m actually about it. Cause a lot of people say they’re gonna do stuff and drop this and drop that but nothing comes out, release dates get pushed back, da-da-da. So now that I’ve put a couple projects out this past, yeah, for this summer, it’s all about putting stuff out for the winter, fall. You know, first quarter’s in what, January, February, so.

MUHAMMAD: I hear that Gwen Stefani is in a writing camp session right now trying to finish her record, man. I think you should be there.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: No, I’m dead ass serious. She needs, period point blank — I think you have such an energy, it’s just uplifting and good and dope and definitely different in terms of what you bring to it.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD: Just saying, make a call when you leave here.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I’ll set it. Yeah, whatever man.

MUHAMMAD: To get out there in L.A. Freshen her up. She needs some freshening up.

ARAABMUZIK: I’m willing to do whatever. Yeah, fresh air, man. Some new blood.

KELLEY: Is that the progression? Like hip-hop, EDM, pop?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

KELLEY: Cause that’s where the loot is?

ARAABMUZIK: That’s the order, yeah. Yep. Yeah, it’s just a hybrid of all of ’em, you know what I’m saying.

KELLEY: Pop is?

ARAABMUZIK: Yep, pop, yep. Yeah, that’s all you really hear on the radio. But right now it’s the South. That’s all you hear is 808s and the same sounds, you know what I’m saying. Young Chop, shout out to him, but he — everything sounds the same. Everything. Like, it’s just — it’s him and Mustard. That’s all you hear on the radio. It’s not music, man.

And because — you know what it is? A lot of artists is scared to be different, so they rather, you know, play the safe side and sound — do a track that sounds like everything else instead of actually … I guess. I’m not used to hearing Jay Z or these types of people on songs like that, man, or beats like that. That’s not what they want to hear. They want to hear —

MUHAMMAD: What do you listen to outside of hip-hop, EDM?

ARAABMUZIK: I don’t listen to nothing. I just listen myself. I mean, I listen to stuff, so it’s not like I listen on my own time, cause it’s always, you know. I’m always working, and trying to get my stuff right and my stuff together, so when it does come out, everyone will just be listening to me.

MUHAMMAD: So then, while we listening to you, talk about just a couple songs. Just the process, like what you were thinking about when you were making these songs: “White Collar” and “Face Off“. What’s the thought process?

ARAABMUZIK: My work process is really simple and fast. First of all, I’m not high or drunk or anything when I work. Everything that I have ever done was sober. Just to get that out there. Because people always think, “Yo, do you smoke? You get high?” Like, “How do you think of these things? You’ve gotta smoke crazy.” Well, I don’t. I don’t drink, but I’ll drink here and there. But when it comes to actually working and thinking of stuff, I just do it, you know what I’m saying. I don’t really — “White Collar” was a sample, and I chopped it up real quick and then laid the drums down and that was that.

KELLEY: I want to know about “You Know This” from Ghetto Heaven. That one sounds really different from some of your other stuff. It’s one of the more melodic ones, I guess.

ARAABMUZIK: Which one?

KELLEY: “You Know This.”

ARAABMUZIK: Oh, yeah, “You Know This.” OK, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, that’s, um —

KELLEY: Was that you purposely being —

ARAABMUZIK: Nah, that’s an old record that I’ve done years ago inspired by like a Swizz Beatz or something for, like, Ruff Ryders. And then he so happened to use it and put it on this.

KELLEY: “He so happened,” so he — did he have it? He has tapes from you?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, he been had it. Everything that he puts out, he been did a long time ago. A long time ago. All this stuff is not new, I’ll tell you that.

KELLEY: Is he working now?

ARAABMUZIK: I don’t know. I haven’t really — he’s been doing the movies and he’s been running around doing a lot of stuff, so he just, I guess, had to put in songs that he been had together and actually put them out and put in a little project and stuff. But like that song right there, that’s the beat I done the same time as — damn, that goes in the same time as “Get It In Ohio.”

KELLEY: For real?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, and “We All Up In Here.”

KELLEY: So that’s — what? You made that in like ’06 or ’07?

ARAABMUZIK: ’07, ’08.

KELLEY: ’07, ’08. OK. That’s a funny thing in trying to chronicle somebody’s artistic assent, or whatever, is that you’re not hearing it in chronological order.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

KELLEY: It’s — I just need to work harder, I guess.

ARAABMUZIK: Like right now I can still give beats away from that time and they won’t even know the difference, you know what I’m saying. And then if I play something now, you know — I mean, you can definitely hear the change, of course.

I have so much music, it doesn’t make sense. I gotta just stop letting, you know, putting stuff out because not all of that stuff’s gonna be heard or get used. So I gotta cater to the fans and kind of put a lot of projects out and stuff like that. Like I’ma be working on an EDM project now. Real soon, I’ma put a little EP together. A lot of original stuff so that way these people can see that, you know, I can really do this.

MUHAMMAD: It’s clear you can do this.

ARAABMUZIK: Of course!

MUHAMMAD: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

ARAABMUZIK: But I’m just saying, like an actual tape, EP, of just EDM tracks. No hip-hop, no nothing.

MUHAMMAD: I don’t think there’s any doubt in your skills whatsoever, but you know, you’ve got your own mountains you’ve gotta climb.

KELLEY: Yeah. When you were talking about EDM being a private school kind of, were you talking about yourself at all? Have you had any resistance?

ARAABMUZIK: No, but I’m just saying the way they are, like, they don’t accept anybody.

KELLEY: Yeah.

ARAABMUZIK: You know what I’m saying? They don’t accept anybody.

KELLEY: But you gotta test in.

ARAABMUZIK: At public school, they’ll take whoever. Anyone can go in there, it don’t matter. So that’s what I meant for saying that. That was my little analogy like —

KELLEY: No, I like it.

ARAABMUZIK: EDM is real like, you know.

MUHAMMAD: It’s a niche community.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah. They’re like a gated community. Definitely. You can’t just walk up in there and feel like you can do it. Like, “Yeah.” Nah. It’s definitely — yeah, so. I mean, if you’re that big of an artist, of course, you do whatever.

MUHAMMAD: Well, what are your interests outside of music? Like, making your money in music is one thing, but then, you know.

ARAABMUZIK: I don’t know. I didn’t really think that far yet.

MUHAMMAD: You gotta start projecting five, 10 years. Like, “What’s this life of mine gonna be?” Cause I mean, I don’t know how old you are. You look —

ARAABMUZIK: I’m 25, man.

MUHAMMAD: Aw, man, you such a — yeah.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I just turned 25.

KELLEY: He does that to everybody. Don’t worry.

ARAABMUZIK: Same birthday as Tupac.

KELLEY: Oh, wow.

MUHAMMAD: Well, the reason that is, is because no one — when I was 20, 25 — no one was saying, like, “Yo, there’s gonna come a point in time where you gonna want to do something other than music.” I’m like, “What are you talking about? My life is music.” It still is my life, but in terms of doing other things. So, you know, I try to plant seeds.

KELLEY: Alright, alright.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, investments and da-da-da, but I — right now, it’s not that time yet. I didn’t reach that time of my life where I’m like, “Yo, this is not working.” You know what I’m saying?

MUHAMMAD: It always works.

ARAABMUZIK: So I’ma just keep doing what I’m doing now since everything’s working, of course. And I’ll have a backup plan a little later.

MUHAMMAD: Let me play Leonardo DiCaprio, a little Inception — start working on it. And I say that not to in any way — the music is always going to work. Like, I can’t stop making music.

ARAABMUZIK: I feel like producers always last longer than the artists anyways.

MUHAMMAD: Well, yeah.

ARAABMUZIK: You know what I’m saying? They’re always gonna be there.

MUHAMMAD: The music is always there. It’s just like —

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, I create the music, so music is, you know.

KELLEY: But do you ever get lonely on the road so much and want to just work differently? Work in one place?

ARAABMUZIK: Nah. I mean, as long as the atmosphere is good where I’m at. You know what I’m saying, cause that kind of affects the music, too. Like my lighting has to — I work with dim lights. I just get the whole auras cool-like. I mean, I can work anywhere as long as I have my equipment, of course, and that’s it. I don’t really get lonely. I mean, I have good people around me and stuff like that and, you know, I’m active.

KELLEY: You travel with people?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, so it’s not like it’s just me, by myself, all the time. I work fast, man. I make everything I put out, everything that you — literally, I have ever put out, I have done those beats in like 20 minutes. I work fast, super-fast. I can make a good five, 10 beats within two hours, tops.

I remember I had done the whole Cam’ron Gangsta Grillz, all those tracks in a half hour. He sat me down and was like, “Yo, we gotta work,” cause I was, you know, at the time, all over the place — going here and doing this, not really being focused. And when I got to the studio, he was like, “Yo, man, listen. We gotta work, we gotta do this, gotta be da-da-da.” He gave me that talk, that father/son talk, like, “Yo, we gotta — this is,” you know. I was like, “Aight.” He sat me in a room, he locked me in the room, and I banged out nine, 10 tracks. I literally went to work and it’s like, come home from school —

MUHAMMAD: A 9 to 5.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah. It was like, come home from school and banging out all of your homework and projects and everything all in one shot just to show that you can do it. Yo, like, “I can procrastinate, but I get it done, at the end of the day.” I don’t slack. It’s nothing that — this is what I do.

So that’s what I did. I went to the studio, he was sitting down waiting. I was like, “Aight.” I played him all the tracks and he was like, “Damn. Aight. Now I gotta work. Now you got me. Aight, cool. Now you can go ahead and aight, cool. Go ahead.” You know what I’m saying, and that’s how it was. And that’s how — like same thing with my mom. Our goal was just for me to graduate.

After I graduate — cause school comes first. My music was first, but — you know. And then I got that done, and I finally was able to take my music full-time and travel and do everything, cause I accomplished what I was supposed to. There’s a lot of artists and producers that never finished school and graduated, or anything. I didn’t need college. I already had a career at 16, so it was all about just finishing high school.

MUHAMMAD: So how did your mom support your music?

ARAABMUZIK: She’s always been supporting, forever. So it was just about staying focused and doing what I gotta do first and then, you know, everything else comes after. But she was always there 100 percent, supporting, everything I done. And now look at me. You know, traveling the world. Literally, I traveled the whole entire — I’ve done laps around the world. It’s not one place I haven’t been to.

KELLEY: Does she come to see you play?

ARAABMUZIK: Nah, she hasn’t.

KELLEY: What?

ARAABMUZIK: I mean, nothing’s local. It’s just — you can’t have her travel.

MUHAMMAD: You gotta bring your mom with you at least once. At least take her somewhere! I don’t know!

ARAABMUZIK: Of course! Nah, nah, nah, nah, she came to a couple shows that were kind of local, but not a big, big, big festival yet.

MUHAMMAD: Take her to one of them.

KELLEY: Yeah, take her to Europe. Somewhere crazy.

ARAABMUZIK: She’s busy with work and, you know, she does a lot. She owns a business, so she does a lot, too. I’ll find some time where it’s convenient for her and if there’s a big show coming up and make it work.

KELLEY: Have you ever got any advice from Alchemist?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, man, of course. I got advice from a lot of people, a lot of gems, you know.

KELLEY: Drop ’em.

ARAABMUZIK: I collected a lot of gems and stored ’em away. But it just — you know, just work, just keep working. And whatever you feel like putting out, put it out. Don’t hold back stuff just because you feel that it’s not gonna do good or whatever it is. So if you feel like working with this artist, go for it. Pretty much.

Cause when you feel like there’s other people out-working you, it’s not really that, but it’s just certain things that they’re doing that is working for them. Cause a lot of people don’t need record deals or deals or whatever to do stuff. You can do everything yourself, you know what I’m saying, to be indie or whatever.

MUHAMMAD: That’s probably the best piece of advice that you could give anyone. Even for those who are starting, everybody wants to — you want to be able to say something to the next up-and-coming generation, but actually hearing you say that right now just kind of sparked something in me. That was really important.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah.

KELLEY: Make a good song be on the goddamn radio, please.

MUHAMMAD: Yo.

ARAABMUZIK: It’s coming, man. I got some stuff definitely dropping soon. Not me, but stuff like Slaughterhouse album — I got four tracks, man, on there.

MUHAMMAD: Talk about the stuff. You’re being so modest about —

ARAABMUZIK: I’m not! But I don’t want to be the only one talking about stuff and then the other people — you know what I’m saying? I don’t want to big no one up like I’m the only one. I just kind of just say little things here and there, but when it comes out, finally, and I got the best songs on the album —

MUHAMMAD: There you go.

ARAABMUZIK: I try to tell you guys, but whatever, I guess. Listen to all these other songs on the radio until the real s— comes out.

KELLEY: It’s been a weird summer. We all have this, like, anticipation. We know the fall’s gonna be crazy. We know everybody’s gonna be so busy and whatever, but I just feel like we’re just idle right now. We’re impatient.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, New York is not playing New York songs.

KELLEY: NO.

ARAABMUZIK: Like I said, you know.

MUHAMMAD: Well, I get not talking about things that’s coming out because people change their minds always, even after mastering.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, all the time.

MUHAMMAD: It’s like, “Oh, well this, OK, yeah.”

ARAABMUZIK: I talk about stuff that’s realistic, like a festival. Yeah, festivals: I’m going to Germany Friday, you know what I’m saying. I’m really going there Friday and I perform Saturday, Sunday, come back Monday, da-da-da. This project’s coming out da-da-da, but for me to talk about other people’s — I don’t know. Cause I don’t know when they’re gonna release the tracks and release the album. I don’t know no dates. I know it’s officially done, mastered and ready to go, but I just don’t — that’s all I can really say, you know what I’m saying, that I got a product on this project and on this and this, but as far as me working with new artists … yeah, you know.

KELLEY: We’ll keep your secrets.

ARAABMUZIK: Nah, it’s not even about that. It’s just I don’t know if it’s really gonna happen or not.

KELLEY: I know, I know. Yes.

ARAABMUZIK: Cause, you know, people agree that they’re gonna do stuff and they don’t do it.

KELLEY: Yeah.

MUHAMMAD Yeah, I don’t like —

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, that’s the Number 1 saying: “I got you. I got you.” It’s like, “No, you don’t. But aight.” You know what I’m saying. Or, “I’ma call you back.” Or, “I got you, I’ma call you back.” Those are the Number 1 things that you — I could email a thousand tracks to the whole industry, but you just don’t know who’s actually gonna use it and release it and whatever, whatever. A lot of people say that — I got work with a lot of people, but they don’t put it out.

MUHAMMAD: Different circus, same clowns.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah. No — same circus, different clowns.

MUHAMMAD: Same circus, different clowns. Yeah, there we go.

ARAABMUZIK: I got stuff with people, definitely, but I don’t know where it’s at. I don’t know why they ain’t never put nothing out. I don’t know. You know politics, you know how that goes, man. Like, I’ve been in the studio with a lot of people, but I guess the only thing I can get out of it is a picture, just to show people that listen, “I’m with him but as far as the song, I don’t know, bro.” I can’t tell you if he’s — or, I could put a little clip or something but that’s — yeah.

That’s where I’m at right now. I mean, I’m doing my shows, I’m killing ’em with that. I’m different; I’m in my own lane. It don’t matter man. I don’t really care if this guy gets on my track or not. At the end of the day, you know what I mean, he’s gonna eventually hit me up for something because I’m just an undeniable talent.

MUHAMMAD: For Professional Use Only Number 2.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, iTunes.

MUHAMMAD: Keep it moving.

ARAABMUZIK: You know, MVP of the MPC, man. Eventually, I’ll run into these artists, or they’ll hit me up, either/or. And then I can really be on my s—t, be like, “I tried to hit you up. You s—ted on me. Now you’re calling because so-and-so rapped on a beat or whatever. Aight.” But —

MUHAMMAD: Not even. You be like, “Yeah, come on in. Yeah, sit it down, let’s do it. You cut the check? Cool.”

KELLEY: Yeah, 500 — let’s go.

MUHAMMAD: Let’s go.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah. “It used to be a hundred or whatever, now, since you want to wait so long …”

KELLEY: Exactly.

ARAABMUZIK: You know.

MUHAMMAD: “Pull up that Chase application in your phone real quick, hit the — wire that right there. Oh, cool let’s go. We can work. Let’s go to work now.” Thank you for coming up, man.

KELLEY: Yeah, thanks a lot.

ARAABMUZIK: Nah, for sure, man, any time. Thanks for having me up here.

MUHAMMAD: I love seeing you out there, and you got another album, looking forward to more. It’s an energy that your music is bringing and there are a lot of — especially from the instrumental side of things. Because this, I mean, it’s — I won’t say it’s a movement, it’s been happening. And a lot of guys have been trying to push their music out independently, instrumentals, having, maybe not the greatest success.

So to see someone actually making a success from it and having this visibility, I think, is very inspiring. You’ve got so many guys out there, from the small professors to the honorers, to the — it’s just so many guys out there doing it. And to see you doing it on the level I think, is good to, you know, bring guys like you up here and talk about it.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, definitely. Cause a lot of people use that, but then, I’m like the first to really make it into an instrument.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah.

ARAABMUZIK: Pretty much, like what I do. Me being able to DJ for people off that and do stuff like that. I’ve done — I’m not sure if you’ve seen it, but I’ve done Jimmy Fallon with Alicia Keys and Kendrick Lamar.

MUHAMMAD: Nah, I didn’t see that.

ARAABMUZIK: I was part of that. Instead of having a live band drumming or whatever, she was like, “Yo, I want you to do the drums for us.” I’ve done David Letterman with ASAP, A-Trak, you know, and doing what I do. I’ve done stuff for BET, MTV, all types of stuff.

A lot of people actually appreciate that and they want to put me on that platform, you know what I’m saying. So now I can actually say it. Like I’ve even done commercials. I’m not sure if you’ve seen that commercial I did with Cam Newton. Crazy. The whole concept of that one was instead of having him working out to an iPod or whatever, he brought me in as his personal DJ. So as he’s in the field doing his workouts, I’m up there in the booth just, you know what I’m saying.

MUHAMMAD: That’s crazy.

KELLEY: So you got to meet Cam Newton?

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, of course.

KELLEY: That’s amazing.

ARAABMUZIK: You know, I flew out to North Carolina and did that. We shot it out there. It was for Under Armour.

MUHAMMAD: That’s dope.

ARAABMUZIK: I’ve done a commercial for Adidas, you know, I scored the Adidas commercial for Derek Rose. So I’ve done a lot of stuff. Doing the MPC stuff and then, now, it’s all gonna get bigger. Maybe I can score a movie or something.

MUHAMMAD: Absolutely.

ARAABMUZIK: Or play in a movie role or something like that. Sky’s the limit. So now of course I’ma get into other things. Hopefully I can definitely do stuff like that in that field, cause — yeah, that’s just a given for me. Like I said, man, timing is everything, so in time when people finally start realizing, like, “Aight, let’s give this guy a shot at this,” maybe I — you know what I mean. I definitely did have a couple movie script roles, but I’m not really into acting and stuff like that. But you know. I’ma get it right.

KELLEY: That’s a lot of backup plans.

ARAABMUZIK: I have a lot of time. You know, practice my social skills, cause I can’t be on no TV show or nothing like that. No way.

MUHAMMAD: I get it. I get it. See, so you gotta plant the seed.

ARAABMUZIK: Exactly. So I’ma start getting on the mic, you know, and saying a couple words at the shows. It’s only right.

MUHAMMAD: You don’t have to, but if you feel it.

ARAABMUZIK: It’s only right, though. I have to now.

MUHAMMAD: But if you feel it then you gotta go with it.

ARAABMUZIK: I have to, man.

MUHAMMAD: It’s times I really don’t, and I get so much heat for, like, not. “Yo, he didn’t say one word.” That’s not true. I always say thank you. Nah, serious, cause I’m like — it’s 25 years.

ARAABMUZIK: You can say anything. It don’t even matter. They just want to hear something from you. You can say, “Here we go!” And that’s it and they’re happy with that. And for the music I’m playing, there’s a lot of that to be said. “You guys ready?” It’s easy. Cause I’ve done shows with so many artists that I watch their set and they’re not really saying nothing; they’re just screaming into the mic and you don’t even hear what they’re saying half the time, cause it’s all distorted, whatever, whatever. But the crowd is, they just like to hear– you know, it’s all about interacting with them.

MUHAMMAD: Well, thank you for —

ARAABMUZIK: I will Saturday in Germany.

MUHAMMAD: Where in Germany are you going?

ARAABMUZIK: I have it right here. Hamburg?

MUHAMMAD: Hamburg.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, Hamburg, Germany. And then I go to the Netherlands.

MUHAMMAD: Yeah, the fans in Germany, they energetic. They love hip-hop.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, they love hip-hop. They play old school stuff out there still like it’s something brand new today.

MUHAMMAD: Well, it depends on what your version of old school is.

KELLEY: Oh, come on.

ARAABMUZIK: Like, old school, I’m telling you.

KELLEY: Oh my god.

MUHAMMAD: Nah, I’m dead serious. I was listening to — what was I listening to? I was listening to — oh, man, Queen Pen and some Lil’ Kim and some people was like, “Yo, that’s crazy old school.” I was like, “Oh, man, for real? I guess it is, you know, for you guys.” But, no, they’re very energetic out there and you’ll have fun.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, they take their music serious.

MUHAMMAD: Thank you for coming to Microphone Check, though.

ARAABMUZIK: Yes sir, man.

MUHAMMAD: We really appreciate you coming up.

ARAABMUZIK: OK, well, I will be back.

MUHAMMAD: Word.

KELLEY: Good.

ARAABMUZIK: And I’ll be back with a couple things to talk about.

MUHAMMAD: We’ll bring the cameras. We’ll bring our own cameras in.

ARAABMUZIK: Yeah, we’ll have the cameras in.

MUHAMMAD: You bring the MP, maybe.

ARAABMUZIK: And we’ll air something live.

MUHAMMAD: Bring the MP. Maybe I’ll bring a bass or something.

ARAABMUZIK: Probably bring some exclusive things.

MUHAMMAD: Then we can have our own little jam session.

KELLEY: Oh my god.

MUHAMMAD: Yo, word.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Microphone Check co-host Ali Shaheed Muhammad was moving on the only morning Jaime and Mike had time to sit down in New York City after they dropped their second album, Run the Jewels 2, so this interview was done by Frannie Kelley solo.

FRANNIE KELLEY: I wanted to start by kind of questioning some of the received wisdom about you guys, which is that the fact you have come together is elevating your game in some way. Do you feel that that’s true or do you think it’s really more of a coincidence?

EL-P: It’s not a coincidence. I disagree with a lot of things written about us, but that’s true. That’s true. I mean, if we didn’t feel that way, we wouldn’t be working together. I think that we found something that sparked both of us. That’s why we’ve churned out, essentially, together three albums in the last couple years. I’ve been around long enough to know that that type of creative spark is rare to hold on to. So yeah, no, I do think that that’s true. For me, I feel it’s true. And I think that we also push each other to, you know, to just be at our best. I really do think it’s true.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, it’s not like you’re saying they elevated from mediocre to good, you know what I mean? You’re saying these guys were good and got great. Essentially — you know I’m a sports fan, so I know you two guys aren’t — but it’s like Clyde Drexler —

KELLEY: I am. We talked about this.

EL-P: Drop the facade. We’re on to you.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, I know. It’s like when Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon hooked up in Houston. Like, Clyde Drexler had been dope his whole career but he’s playing in Portland, you know what I mean? And Hakeem kinda hit his boy like, “Yo. Come to Houston.” That became, like, dynasty levels, you know what I mean? So that’s what I look at it like.

When people say, “Y’all got better together,” I don’t take it as — that’s what friends in dope work relationships do. Things are supposed to make you better. So, if getting better — and I’ve already been pretty dope — is coming at this time, then I welcome it. And hopefully we’ll just continue to do that.

KELLEY: Charles Aaron wrote a review in Wondering Sound that I thought was pretty incredible, except for one part when he called both of your career paths “bittersweet.”

KILLER MIKE: It’s been bittersweet for me.

KELLEY: OK.

EL-P: I wouldn’t object to that.

KILLER MIKE: It’s been pretty bittersweet for me.

EL-P: I wouldn’t object to that. I mean, we both have fought for a long time to do what we do. And we’ve both come up to the cusp of having been — I think we’ve had steady careers. And we’ve also been on the cusp of blowing up and didn’t, really. Like, I’ve always been happy with my career. But you want to go further if you can. You want to be in front of more people. You want to have that moment. You want people to know your music more. But I’m certainly not bitter. But I can understand why he, sort of, sees it that way, maybe.

KILLER MIKE: I definitely was. Absolutely I was.

KELLEY: When?

KILLER MIKE: After Pledge II, I was my, probably, most bitter.

KELLEY: Uh huh.

KILLER MIKE: People who followed the Pledge — and just general public — that was a seminal album.

KELLEY: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: Like, I was in such a dark place on that record. That record was more so motivating me out of my own depression. And it affected people in a very real way. You know, when I say, “Fire your boss and be your own boss.” I can point to people now that have started businesses based on that record. My man who has — DJ Taber‘s barber shop out in Tacoma, one of the largest and best barber shops, is like, “Yo, that record made me quit what I was doing. Go to barber school. Become a business person.” You know, kids who’ve graduated medical school are like, “That is the record I listened to.”

So that — but for it not to translate in the way that I thought it would was hurtful. Pl3dge, because of the company I was with, SMC, at the time, it just — they didn’t do the job they could’ve or should’ve. Love the people over there. Brought some of them with me in this new endeavor. The shining light of hope at that time was when Rolling Stone put “Ric Flair” as Top 50 records that year. I didn’t know what I was gonna do next, but I knew I was angry enough not to quit.

KELLEY: Uh huh.

KILLER MIKE: Going into the record I was just like — when I recorded Pl3dge , I didn’t let anybody in the studio with me. It was just me and the engineer. I cut virtually everyone off. And made what I thought was for those –- like, Pl3dge was one of those classic records. The fact that it even got called a mixtape on some sites was hurtful. So I went through it.

But with R.A.P. Music — it changed the course of everything. Because even more than “Hey, I want money. I want to be recognized,” I don’t want to die and not be recognized as one of the best rappers to ever come out of the South. Cause I am. And not because just I am, I worked hard to be. And my examples are people who deserve the accreditation they’ve gotten — the Bun Bs, the Scarfaces — and that’s who I wanted to be. But I didn’t recognize what I was asking for. Bun B told me, “You gotta be careful what you wish for. We wanted to be underground kings, and that’s what we became.” You get what I’m saying? I wanted a career like Scarface and Bun and that comes with suffering, that comes with being ignored, that comes with having to prove and prove yourself over.

So I can say that the bitter before the sweet has been the best thing for me because what it did — I will never get complacent. You can’t tell me that I’m complacent, cause I’m not competing with your perception of me. I’m competing with whatever I did last. And I try to make sure whatever I did last was on such a tier that I didn’t think it was possible. So it is certainly been a bittersweet career for me and I’m very glad to be in the land of milk and honey now. Versus where I just came from.

EL-P: On the subject of that, before I lose this thought, cause I am legitimately stoned.

KILLER MIKE: I am not. This is usually the reverse. I am dead sober.

EL-P: It is. It is. I think that me and Mike — I never got to the bitter part, I did get to the afraid part.

KELLEY: Ah.

EL-P: I did get to a point when I started to wonder “Am I ever gonna — is it gonna be that I just have this ongoing career of making these critically-acclaimed records where I just sort of stay at a similar level?” If so, OK. But then you know the inevitable is that you then taper off. Getting to a point where you’re thinking to yourself — that fear in the back of your head comes, where it’s like, it’s not about money. It’s not about fame, like Mike said. But it’s about how much you love doing what you do.

And for me all I’ve ever done in my life is this. I made a choice not to do school for this. I made a choice, essentially, to become a useless human other than this. You know, like, this is all I got. So if I’m not getting somewhere, then that’s a problem. Because eventually everybody transitions out of it. Eventually everybody has to go away. Now I’ll never go away from music, but eventually it changes for you and you’re gonna — we’re not gonna be 50 years old necessarily doing Run The Jewels albums.

KELLEY: Well, I don’t know.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, I don’t know.

KELLEY: I saw Preemo last night; he’s like, “I’m 48. I’m not done.”

EL-P: Preemo’s a god. Preemo’s a god.

KELLEY: Alright.

KILLER MIKE: I have my friend Robert Hicks to thank. Robert and I — I grew up in a neighborhood full of boys, and that pushes you from a competitive level. I grew up with Cameron Dollar, 1995 NCAA Championship, UCLA. I grew up with Stanley Pritchett, Miami Dolphins tight end, one of the premier tight ends when he was in the league. Robert Hicks is my best friend since kindergarten. He got his opportunity to play for the Buffalo Bills 1997. His career ended, like four, five years later because of a knee injury.

I talked to him when I was really ready to quit. I was really ready to just forget it. I’ll open some businesses. I’m savvy enough to figure this out. I’m tired of hitting my head against the wall, of being away from my children. And Robert called me and told me, “You’re crazy.” He said, “We have had — think about everybody we grew up with: Cam, Stanley, me.” And I thought about everybody we grew up with in the neighborhood and everyone we went to school with. Cause I went to school with him 14 years, from kindergarten through graduation — or, 13. He said, “Michael, of all the people that had a change to live their dream, you’re the only one who’s still doing it. And until they put you out, don’t quit.”

And that was a big part of why Pl3dge got done, and R.A.P. Music was done with so much enthusiasm. Cause this was a friend who I saw actually got a chance to live his dream, too. Floated me the first money to press my first copy of the Slumlords up. And he just told me, like, as long as you’re able to do it, don’t. So I owe him a lot. I never thanked him publicly, but Bobby, your birthday’s coming up. Happy Birthday, and I love you and thank you very much. Because I don’t know — if I wouldn’t have that talk — him and Nsilo, one half of The Beat Bullies, who produced “Kryptonite.” If those two guys wouldn’t have talked to me during that time, I most certainly would not be sitting here today.

EL-P: We’re a group comprised of two dudes who met at crossroads, who had come out of crossroads deciding to go out and hunt and kill.

KILLER MIKE: Yup.

EL-P: Like we had both gone, individually, through some shit that was — where we found ourselves staring at different directions and it could’ve gone either way for either one of us. When we met, we had both individually decided we were going to go for ours. Like, no more playing around.

KILLER MIKE: Straight up.

EL-P: Because we had both seen things fall apart. I had basically been reduced to rubble. You know? I had.

KILLER MIKE: And this crazy dude from the South just heard him, like, this guy’s the most genius guy in the world. The world has to know this. I’m not gonna be happy ’til every black person on Earth knows who El-P is.

EL-P: And I’m gonna —

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, I’m gonna make him the Justin Timberlake of hardcore rap music. Every black person is gonna know my friend.

EL-P: And we’re gonna choose a select group of white people to know who you are. You don’t want the wrong ones paying attention.

KELLEY: There you go.

KILLER MIKE: Don’t want that. Don’t want ’em coming for me.

EL-P: But really though, we really did meet at this pivotal point individually for both us and we had each, on our own, I feel like, decided this next step we were renewed. We were coming into it like the next step is very big and important for us whatever it is. I was working on my album. He was working —

KELLEY: Right, cause Cancer 4 Cure was slept on but important.

EL-P: It was slept on but at the same time it actually — well, everything I do is slept on.

KELLEY: Alright.

EL-P: I mean, let’s be real. But it’s not completely slept on. I get a lot of love. And a lot of people critically, you know, really like it.

KILLER MIKE: True. True.

EL-P: And I do have an audience and I have been successful. And I’ve been able to tour and make money all these years and I’ve been able to — I’ve done well. I haven’t gone to the next level like, I think, Run The Jewels is starting to happen like that now. And also, it wasn’t slept on in the sense that for me that record was my first entry back. It started the change in my life.

KELLEY: Right.

EL-P: It put me back on a path. It was an important record for me and I think that you could hear it when you listen to it. And for a lot of people, it brought me back into the fray.

KELLEY: Yeah. Right.

EL-P: For a lot of people, I had been — I had drifted off. And I had. I mean, it was five years since I had done a record. My record label had collapsed. Real s—, I was broke. You know? I didn’t know what I was gonna do. And I got the opportunity — I knew I was gonna do a record. I got the opportunity to do it. So that record set me on a course and — with Mike’s record as well — and those two records coming out together at the same time, combined, really made this magical thing happen where me and Mike — if that hadn’t happened — that was a fluke.

KILLER MIKE: Another thing that we did not plan.

EL-P: We didn’t plan that. I didn’t even know my record was coming out. I thought my record was coming out like three months later. And I was like, “Hey, maybe we’ll tour together at some point. You know, when it makes sense.”

KILLER MIKE: Came out within a week of one another.

EL-P: They told me, “Your s— is coming in a week,” and he had just — the record that I had produced for him — he had just dropped to rave review. And then my record was dropping, and so we were like, “OK, we gotta tour together.” And the touring together was what made us turn into Run The Jewels.

KELLEY: Yeah. I was at a show at Irving Plaza on that tour when it was like homecoming for you, like super — I was with a whole bunch of old Def Jux interns and everything.

EL-P: Oh, wow.

KILLER MIKE: Dope. I remember that show.

KELLEY: Everybody together in the room was so happy that it was happening. Just, like, ear-to-ear grin. And that’s when, I think, we were like, “Oh, this is not — this is gonna keep going.”

EL-P: Yeah, and it was really touching. It’s been really touching to me, like, really really beyond what I could even express. I mean, because there’s a group of people who have wanted nothing more than for Mike and Jaime — who have followed us from the beginning — who have really wanted nothing more than to see us get some success.

KELLEY: Right.

EL-P: And to see us break through and to see other people start to know about us.

KELLEY: But to see you guys just be happy up there.

KILLER MIKE: Yes.

EL-P: Yeah, and that’s another thing. When you’re doing something that you’re legitimately enjoying — I mean, our music is not happy music. It’s not — it’s heavy often. It’s often heavy and it can be giddy and it can be infectious, contagious, whatever it is. But we’re not U.M.C.s when they first dropped. Where —

KILLER MIKE: “Blue cheeeeese!”

EL-P: Yeah, you know, and peace to them. They had their lane. But that’s not our lane. We’re heavier. But we are happy on stage together and in our lives and in our careers right now. And it’s invigorated us because we have such an intense schedule. I mean, man, we are touring 200, if not more, days out of the year and have been since 2012. And if we weren’t having a great time, then we would be in an insane asylum, I think.

KELLEY: Yeah. What do you disagree with that people write about you guys?

KILLER MIKE: What I disagree with?

EL-P: Someone said that I was short. Took great offense. I mean, 5’10” is average. I think that if you’re gonna say something at least be, you know, honest about it. Someone once called Killer Mike “rotund.” I found that offensive.

KILLER MIKE: I don’t mind. The only thing I’ve ever saw to disagree with recently is — in a very good writeup, a very dope write up, actually, about us they said, “These guys just happened to leak their record, wink wink.”

KELLEY: Oh.

KILLER MIKE: Like it was some —

EL-P: Right. Conspiracy theory. Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: Like it was a conspiracy.

EL-P: Like it was contrived.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah. We actually were arguing on the bus before the show. Like, “Are we gonna leak the record?” We argued for an hour over the benefits or pros — and the pros and cons.

EL-P: Don’t lie, Mike. We’re masters of deception and strategy.

KILLER MIKE: We were in Birmingham, Ala., like, “We need to leak the record!” “No! We need to wait!”

EL-P: Someone was like, “Oh, right. So you leak the record and then, all of sudden, articles drop about you.” It’s like, “Well, no. We knew the articles were dropping. We leaked it –-” We were so high when we leaked the record.

KILLER MIKE: It was so — god, we were on clouds when we leaked that record.

EL-P: And yeah. We definitely argued. We definitely argued.

KILLER MIKE: I would’ve definitely — my family’s from Alabama but I definitely would’ve picked another place besides Birmingham to be when the record leaked. I’m probably —

EL-P: Mike was like, “We have to do it 4:20 a.m.”

KELLEY: Of course.

EL-P: I was like —

KILLER MIKE: I was like, “Do it at 4:20. That’s when everyone’s looking.”

EL-P: It’s like,”Yo, I understand but, you know, it might not get that much attention at 4:20.”

KELLEY: Well, what are the pros and cons?

EL-P: Of what?

KELLEY: Leaking the record.

EL-P: There are no cons.

KILLER MIKE: No cons now. You know, the debate is over. It worked.

EL-P: For us. I mean, we were giving the record away anyway. We knew that the second that we heard rumblings that it had leaked that we were gonna drop it. Because we also knew that the leak wouldn’t be as well-presented as what we dropped. We were giving the artwork and production credits.

KILLER MIKE: Lyrics.

EL-P: Lyrics and the quality that — high-quality. So we just knew that once that happened we were gonna do it.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah.

EL-P: And we actually had planned the leak for Friday. We were gonna drop it Friday because we just — we felt that it was gonna leak, you know. Because the CDs had gotten to retailers and once that happens, it’s kind of — all bets are off. It’s gonna happen. So, we were lucky that it only happened about four days before we scheduled the release. But again, like I said, we were giving it away anyway.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah.

KELLEY: Right.

EL-P: The whole point of giving it away, to some degree, is being able to control that moment. And being able to say this is — we’re giving this to you. As opposed to waking up in the morning and coming down on Christmas day and the kids have opened all the gifts already. Like, “Same gifts, but damn I wanted to give it to you.” Like, you cheated me out of that feeling, kids. And for that I am not gonna raise you.

KELLEY: Kick you out. What is it like right that second that you leak it? Are you sitting there and then watching what people are saying about it?

KILLER MIKE: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You’re watching Twitter like a fat guy watches cake. Cause you’re just like, “Oh my god.” You obsess over whether people are gonna like it, because you know the amount of work you put into it. This record was a lot more tumultuous to get done because we were in travels. The pressure was on. The sophomore jinx pressure is on, whether people want to acknowledge it or not. And we were just determined to push ourselves, and we wanted to see if people got it. If the antennas were up and it was received that well. And after that first hour of tweets, I went to sleep happy. I’ma be honest. Because — and I trusted Twitter as a barometer for me, because I knew it was the actual people that have been on this two-year ride with us.

EL-P: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: I knew it was the same kids that had R.A.P. Music, the same kids that RTJ1, same kids that had Cancer 4 Cure. So the litmus test came from a group of people that were already invested in us, so I trusted their answers to be honest.

EL-P: And a whole much larger new group of people as well, who came across us through Run The Jewels, which was something that was amazing to see for us, for guys that’ve been established in our solo careers. And we encountered this whole other — there’s a new fan base now that’s added to what we had already that are people that legitimately didn’t know who we were until Run The Jewels.

But, yeah, of course, you’re watching it. Because — and I agree with Mike, man. Getting that reaction, getting the reaction that we got from people who we knew were actually gonna be coming to pay to come to our shows, and who are actually sitting in their bedroom listening to our music, getting that first, you know? Having that experience of being able to be like, “Here. I’m giving this to you. I’m bypassing the industry. I’m going to you. Here. And tell me what you think,” is a much more powerful experience than trying to get arbiters of taste to make a statement about the record before —

KELLEY: Five mics?

EL-P: Which is still — and that stuff’s important to us, too. But it’s an interesting experience to get the wave of reaction from the people who are legitimately gonna be in the front row of your show. You know, so, that’s cool.

KELLEY: Do you think it’s the same people that also had all the Pledge tapes and Funcrusher?

EL-P: I think that there are those people and I think there’s a whole new batch of people.

KELLEY: Right.

EL-P: I mean, I know there is because the shows have changed.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah.

EL-P: The venues are bigger. I know that there’s a new group of people that are coming.

KILLER MIKE: I remember us being on tour when we toured RTJ1. And it was El and I opening for ourself. I do 30 minutes, El do 30 minutes, then we come together as Run The Jewels do 30 minutes. I’d come out, do my 30. The whole crowd was receptive. I could tell the Pledge-heads cause they got more amped on Pledge. El would come out. Whole crowd’s receptive. You could tell the Funcrusher Plus kids cause they got more — and then there was just always this group of kids there, usually underage, cause they have x’s on their hands. I’m like, “What? Who are these kids?” They’d been kinda cool the whole show. They were bopping.

EL-P: They were like, “Oh, this is cool.”

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, exactly. That was the reaction. “Oh, yeah.” Like, “Yeah, OK. This is cool.” But the minute RTJ came on, they lost —

EL-P: Just burst into flames.

KILLER MIKE: Just lost their minds. And it literally was — that’s when I realized, “Oh, oh, oh, oh!”

EL-P: Like, you’re here for Run The Jewels.

KILLER MIKE: Oh my god!

EL-P: We’re actually opening for Run The Jewels.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly. And that’s when I got it. That’s when I understood that, oh, OK, this thing could grow and get bigger and be something more. And it has. It’s amazing to me man, like we don’t — we didn’t sit down and think, “Run The Jewels has to have a hashtag campaign. What’s gonna be our hashtag?” Kids popped up with: “First listen of Run The Jewels.” And the next 200 of the feed was cars exploding.

EL-P: Kids made that.

KILLER MIKE: Kids were like, “I listen to Run The Jewels once,” and you see a meme of them, like a witch flying on a broom.

EL-P: A face melting.

KILLER MIKE: It was like, oh my god, these kids are insane! And it became this cultural thing for them. And I think that Run The Jewels, culturally, is being as shaped by audience as it is artist.

EL-P: Definitely.

KILLER MIKE: And that’s — I was a Wu-Tang culture kid. I was one of the guys who was a fanatic. One of the only guys running around South, you know, until they put the story — like Wu-Tang. And people were like, “What are — what is — are you in a cult?” So to be on the other side of something that feels — on a microcosm of that, but feels like that — is a very rewarding thing as an artist. So I’m down with all that ratchet stuff y’all are doing, kids. All the memes. All the wildness. Just know I’m saving it. I plan to put together the biggest scrapbook ever.

EL-P: Yeah, man. For real. For real.

KELLEY: And really, like, underage kids, like high school kids.

EL-P: I mean, we don’t check their IDs but —

KILLER MIKE: I get five tweets a day that say, “I’m missing you guys show by two months because I’m only 17.”

KELLEY: Oh my god.

KILLER MIKE: I’ve even let one kid in, in Chicago. I did let a kid in. I was just like, “I can’t not let you in. Bring your camera, kid. You’re a photographer for the night.” Kid popped back up with a Run The Jewels tattoo on his arm.

KELLEY: Holy s—.

KILLER MIKE: It’s crazy.

KELLEY: That’s amazing. Is that part of — so what you’ve been trying to do with this album is you’re celebrating an era of hip-hop, rap music when you guys were similar age to these kids. Is that — a little bit older?

EL-P: Well, I mean, it’s not — I would say that that’s part of it.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah.

EL-P: I think that what we do comes, like, emanates, from the stuff that we were inspired by when we were getting into rap music and getting into groups. It is very much Jaime and Mike’s dream thing, you know. In the sense that, like, we’re pulling from all the ways that all that music made us feel, and we have a set of references that are different than what kids right now have. We have EPMD and we have De La Soul and we have UGK.

KILLER MIKE: Ball and G. Geto Boys.

EL-P: Exactly. And N.W.A. So we have those references. At the same time, we’re not — me and Mike are not interested in making a —

KILLER MIKE: This is not Nostalgia 101.

EL-P: This is not nostalgia, yeah. We don’t make nostalgic or throwback music, but we are from where we’re from. And so that comes through, I think. The giddiness and the things that we loved about rap groups, we sat down and talked about it when we originally did the first record. You know, we sat down and talked about our favorite rap groups and what it meant to us. And we knew and noticed that there wasn’t that much of that anymore. The industry had changed and it just — there weren’t too many groups really moving in unison. There had been crew records and things. You get some records and, it’s not that they’re bad, it’s just that you can tell these aren’t friends in a room making an album. This is a record of a bunch of different people rapping on a record. So we knew that we wanted to hearken back to the things that we loved about the music.

KELLEY: Yeah, it’s that feeling that I’m talking about —

KILLER MIKE & EL-P: Yeah. Exactly.

KELLEY: That you’re making. And so — I don’t know if it’s even possible to seriously answer this question, but how do you get that done? What are the mechanics of creating that feeling?

KILLER MIKE: First of all, you get in the room together.

KELLEY: Yeah.

EL-P: Yeah. Period.

KILLER MIKE: In the age of “email it to me, I’ll get it done and sent it back,” the first — you have to be committed to: we’re gonna do this in a room together. You have to be committed that the bigger goal is more important than individual goals.

EL-P: Mhm-hmm.

KILLER MIKE: And the bigger goal for us is to be an actual rap group and to affect the culture as a group, because it’s not — I don’t know if rap groups will ever be again, in the same way, because there’s more money to be made off individuals. Individuals are easier to control by teams. And it takes a certain level of maturity and lack of ego to do it. And I don’t know if you’ll be able — if you’re in your early 20s — I don’t know if you’re able to get past the ego of some of it all, you know what I mean?

EL-P: If you can, then maybe there’s greatness out there.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly.

EL-P: I mean, I was in a group. That was how I started in this business. And we had a blow-up moment as well, and it was right on the verge of blowing up that — and then, we fell apart. And it was like, that’s what happens a lot of times. Young kids get hit with — me and Mike starting a rap group in our mid-30s, we’re already kind of grown. We already know who we are. There’s not gonna be an ego thing with us, you know. And there’s not gonna be the — there’s no real surprises in the sense of, like, we know how to handle ourselves. We know what’s going on. So we’re able to capture that thing without it killing us, basically.

KELLEY: Right. Right.

EL-P: But I mean, really, he said it though. He’s right. It’s just as simple as getting in a room, and finding inspiration, waiting for lightning to strike, and following it. But it’s such a simple thing that I feel like not that many people do. I just feel like people just don’t — they’re so connected. Everyone is so connected. We’re all connected. Even when we’re in a room our brain is being sent through a screen somewhere else. And, you know, hey, great. I do it too. All the time.

But there’s a time and a place if you’re making art that that — and you’re making anything, music or you’re writing. There’s a time and a place where if you force it and sit down and actually make that your world, then you can have a result that you’re not gonna have if you’re just sort of constantly involved. And so me and Mike went out of our way, doing this record, to — and really the last record as well — to do that. To separate ourselves a little bit and hunker down for a couple weeks at a time.

KELLEY: Right. The other part of it is to describe the feelings that you’re creating with that process, which is this aggression and this — it’s funny, I wrote down the word “giddy.” Like, to me, that’s just how it works. But sometimes when I’m trying to talk about rap music with people who don’t know or don’t like it or whatever, the aggression is off-putting and they don’t get it. But to many people, it’s invigorating and necessary. Why does that feel absent, like, on the radio? It feels like you guys are providing something that’s missing.

KILLER MIKE: I think people need an outlet for aggression.

KELLEY: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: I was just saying as we were pulling up, I couldn’t raise a child in New York. I couldn’t imagine it. I don’t have anything against New York, just I, as a Southerner, I couldn’t imagine this much stimuli going on around me all the time. Like, I am a more aggressive person when I am here, just based on everything is kind of coming at you and you need an outlet.

Now, I hunt. I shoot. I fight. Me, personally, this is what I do on a weekly basis, you know what I mean? I’ll throw hands with a friend who boxes, or kung-fu with a friend who — like, I am into fighting. I am into, for lack of a better word, violence. Not against people or anything but, you know, I always have a knife on me. I always am prepared for close-quarter combat. Like, I am. Anybody who knows me knows this. I’ll come through the airport. They’re like, “You got a knife in your bag.” I was like, “My bad. I didn’t put it under.” But I am — you know, my father was a cop. And I was raised in a very alpha-male centered family. So for me aggression is something that, as the world progresses and as this country progresses, is something you’re gonna get to do less of, just in an outward way. So you need a vehicle for that. And I think that for me, music is that.

As a black boy, growing up, being aggressive is dangerous. And one of the only places it was safe for me to be aggressive growing up was in rap music. You know? And because of that, I needed that outlet. It gave it to me. So whether it’s my friend who is training for the NFL or me who was just knocking around needing to get some aggression out — cause I was in a house full of sisters, oh my god, and they’d kill me if I yelled at them — I needed an outlet. And I think Run The Jewels provides regular people with an opportunity to get that out. People leave, go to lunch break, listen to Run The Jewels, come back and don’t kill their boss.

EL-P: I also think that there’s a difference between — you’re listening to our record and you’re gonna grin. You’re in on the fun. This is not us threatening the listener.

KELLEY: Right, right, right.

EL-P: This is not us being a dour, like, threat. To some degree, what I like about us, and what I like about the vibe that happens with us on record, is that we’re like the buddy cop movies that I grew up on. We’re like Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, to some degree. Like, you wanted to see Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy beat someone’s ass because they were funny and it was — and they were arguing. So I grew up on that. I grew up on that energy and a lot of that was, in the ’80s, was there.

And I also always loved the group dynamic. Like, I grew up listening to EPMD and I was always wondering what — listening to their dynamic, and they had one. When you listen to it, it was always — P would be like, they broke down on the bridge and Eric had to get out and push. You know? Or like, one had a Corvette, one had a Samurai Suzuki. You were like, wait a second. How’d the one guy get the Corvette and the other guy’s stuck with the Samurai Suzuki?

But we’re not getting on record and just — like the classic Eddie Murphy stand-up routine where he says that everyone thinks that he just gets up and says, “Hey, suck my d—, mother—er. Hey, f—ing d— s— piss.” We’re not getting on records and just being like, “We’re gonna kill you!” We’re having fun, and we’re also completely comfortable in our ridiculousness.

KELLEY: Right.

KILLER MIKE: And we understand you do want to kill people. But you can’t do that.

EL-P: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: So let this be a way for you to kill people and then go back to work and don’t kill anyone.

EL-P: And then hug them.

KILLER MIKE: Yup.

KELLEY: I appreciate it. There’s an academic word for it that I can never keep in my head, but it’s who you are when you’re listening — if you are the receiver or the giver, basically. I find that, especially as a woman who listens to hip-hop, if you are the person who’s saying it, then you’re straight.

EL-P: Yeah, yeah. If you can feel like — and I think that that’s something with us that’s — the kids and the people who supported us, we feel like they’re defining the group.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly.

EL-P: Like they’re taking what we’re doing and — it’s been really touching, actually. Because a common sentiment that we’ve seen has been people basically saying that they feel empowered by what they’re hearing. And for us, obviously, we’re projecting power. It’s also with a humor and it’s also not — but I’ve had that theme pop up over and over again. People saying that we’re making them feel — that’s another one of the memes, you know? Listen to Run The Jewels once and then show a picture of David Banner turning into the Hulk.

KELLEY: Oh, yeah, that’s right.

EL-P: Like, that’s the type of the theme that’s been going, too.

KILLER MIKE: Or Goku. Yeah. Exactly.

EL-P: So I really love that. I really think that that’s cool, man.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah. And again the audience is definitely the third member of the group. I never would’ve thought to find memes of cars blowing up.

EL-P: It’s amazing.

KILLER MIKE: Like, as a way to describe what —

EL-P: And that’s the most tame of the —

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, that’s the most tame, but that’s genius. It’s amazing. Just, thank you guys. Man, the jewel runners are wow. They are wow.

EL-P: And making me laugh, consistently out loud.

KILLER MIKE: Every day.

EL-P: Like, there’s no quicker way to my heart. I was literally reading this — the night that we dropped it, I was just in tears. I had to go out to perform. But I literally was alone on the bus, sitting there, drinking, and, like, crying. Literally tears coming down my face. I almost forgot to get on stage. I just got there on time.

KILLER MIKE: My 17-year-old daughter has friends that like Run The Jewels. And that’s cool. To be a dad, to be cool to a 17-year-old is amazing.

KELLEY: Yeah, you just savor that.

EL-P: Ain’t gonna last, Dad.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, I’m not gonna lie. I know a few of my friends, that — I’m like, wow, cool points, you know what I’m saying? So it’s amazing. It’s mostly boys. But it’s crazy. I go to her school and you’ll just hear, “Killer Mike! Run The Jewels!”

KELLEY: I don’t know. I know a lot of female fans of you guys.

KILLER MIKE: Oh yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah.

KELLEY: Maybe it’s a little older thing, but, like I was talking about, we need aggression real real bad. And I was also talking about “Love Again” and how girls know all the words — just like girls know all the words to “Love In Ya Mouth.” It’s like that kind of thing.

KILLER MIKE: My wife heard the record. She did.

EL-P: Girls listen to raunchy, funny stuff too.

KELLEY: More than you guys do, I think, actually.

KILLER MIKE: When we did “Love Again” Shay was just like, “It reminds me of that Akinyele song.” And that was — that’s one of her favorite records. She probably doesn’t know another Akinyele record. But that’s her favorite Akinyele record. And then I’m from the South so I’m used to 2 Live Crew, the Splack Pack, the Dogs. You know what I mean? I’m used to –

EL-P: C’mon, man. Too $hort.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah. It amazes me —

EL-P: I mean, we grew up on this stuff.

KILLER MIKE: — the presumption of —

EL-P: Misogyny. Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: — misogyny is amazing. Because I grew up in an environment where women listened to Trina, who does sex talk better than pretty much anybody in the world, with the exception of Gangsta Boo, because Boo went in, you know. So my thing is I trust that women are intelligent. And I get offended — I have five sisters. Again, like, the odds were stacked in my favor.

EL-P: And they’re raw. And they’re raw.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah. Women are human. And I think that when we start saying equal and human, that’s across the board, you know? Women enjoy sex. Different women enjoy different sex. And I trust women to be empowered enough and smart enough to say, “Well, I like this for the reasons I like it and I don’t need you to try to validate me by giving me a silly out.” You know what I mean? I’m just happy that our audience gets it. Cause I don’t care if you don’t get it. I care that I have to debate with you about not getting it.

KELLEY: Yup.

KILLER MIKE: A guy hit me with a “I’m unfollowing you because I’ve been a fan a long time and that’s –” I was like, “First of all, you’re a guy. Second of all, I don’t care because I just had eight girls that say they love the record. Follow my timeline.”

EL-P: And, third of all, our intention is clear. We know our intention. Listen, real story: We made that record and it didn’t have Boo on it. And we went and got Boo because we knew what we needed for that record.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly.

EL-P: And we knew — when we made that record it wasn’t complete yet. We were listening to it as a complete record. And here’s a dirty secret: it actually made it onto the physical copy as the record without Boo.

KELLEY: No way.

EL-P: Because we had to submit — it was too — but we were like, “You know what? No. We need to finish this song. It’s not done.” And we went and we got Boo, and when she finally did what we asked her to do, it became the record.

KILLER MIKE: Woo!

EL-P: And we immediately replaced the record on the digital version because we knew that that was really what the record was.

KELLEY: Yeah.

EL-P: The record was not me and Mike. The record was me, Mike and Boo. We have good intentions. I know that we are not being misogynists because we are not, A., being completely serious and, B., we’re talking about f—ing here. I’m sorry. If you’re offended by my language, then I’m sorry, but you’re not gonna tell me that being raw or being filthy is misogyny. I know the difference.

KILLER MIKE: I just hate that America is becoming such a politically correct place that — I grew up one of those kids that sneaked and watched porn. I listened to Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. You know, my grandparents raised me so they had Redd Foxx records, Richard Pryor. I was –-

EL-P: You should’ve seen some of the s— that we were exposed to. I mean, c’mon. N.W.A.? Like, “The world’s biggest d—.” I was like, seven.

KILLER MIKE: Yes. Exactly. But I knew those records didn’t even come from N.W.A. Like when I heard the samples, I knew where they came from.

EL-P: Yeah. Dolemite.

KILLER MIKE: Because, again, my grandparents raised me. So I listened to Dolemite. I listened to Moms Mabley.

EL-P: Rudy Ray.

KILLER MIKE: I listened to Rudy Ray Moore. I listened to their stuff, so I had a cultural reference that understood people like perversion.

KELLEY: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: And I’m just tired of being at a time in this country where everyone seems to have reverted to this weird-ass secular Puritanism. Like, it’s stupid. It’s stupid for us —

EL-P: It’s also, in my opinion, not real.

KELLEY: Yeah.

EL-P: There’s a fabricated, stylistic morality that has haunted everybody’s public intellect recently. And it’s like, “Look, man. I’m a f—ing grown-up, man. You’re full of s—. I’m sorry.” That sort of hands-in-the-air-oh-my-god-let-me-wave-myself-with-a-fan — it’s like, “Look, man, honestly, I’m sorry. But tell Bukowski that he’s a misogynist.”

KELLEY: It’s about personal branding. And, I think, trying to get laid. Probably.

KILLER MIKE: That’s what it’s all about.

EL-P: Well, we do get laid. And we write about it.

KILLER MIKE: My wife immediately said, “Oh, that’s not me.” Cause the shtick was, I think, we were gonna — El was like, “Yo, just tell Shay it’s about her.” I’m like, “Shay’s not gonna believe that.”

EL-P: Don’t put me on blast, Michael.

KILLER MIKE: Shay said, “That’s not me.”

KELLEY: Oh, man. What’s that video gonna be like?

KILLER MIKE: Hopefully like a Luke Skywalker video.

EL-P: Yeah.

KILLER MIKE: Hopefully it’s gonna be just like a 2 Live Crew video.

EL-P: Yup.

KELLEY: How does — because of all the touring but also because it so renewing and exciting — how do your families feel about all this?

KILLER MIKE: Oh. My wife comes out. We don’t have any children together. I brought four children to the relationship. So we have four children, but luckily we have built-in babysitters. You know, we have grandparents and we have sisters and their moms. It’s very difficult for me to be away from the children. It really is. But, thankfully, because of cell phones and Skype and me just calling them and them calling me, we stay together. And when I’m home, my focus is on them. Like, it’s hard to get me on the line as quickly when I’m home because I care about making sure that they know they’re cared about.

And I’m also from a traditional family where fathers work really hard. So it’s kind of like in the fabric of my family the children are taught to understand: your dad’s gonna have to go out to work. Doesn’t mean your dad doesn’t love you. You guys are still gonna be — like I sponsored a trip to Six Flags last week. They sent a picture. They had a great time.

For my wife, it gets difficult. Because it’s her. You know, we run a business together. A lot of it falls on her. We have a shop, barber shop. We do rental properties and that stuff. For me, it’s hard to leave her with that. But I married a champion of a woman and Shana — people who follow me on social media always hear me tout about her. She’s just wonderful.

But it’s hard to be away from some of the older members of my family. My grandmother passed two years ago. God bless the dead. Her sisters are around. It’s difficult not seeing them as much. But I’m out here getting it. And my job is to, as a man –- traditionally, from my family’s standpoint — is to provide. And I’m gonna do that until I can’t anymore.

EL-P: Well, for me, it’s actually — it’s been a little tough. For the last couple years, I have really not really been, I don’t think, a particularly good son or brother or uncle. And I feel bad about that. I do. I struggle with that because, you know, it’s been going on for a couple years. And I have not been around. But my family loves me and they understand that I went through a sort of — I got crushed to Earth, to a degree, and I had to be renewed. When I came out of that period of uncertainty and I took stock of what was going on, I knew that I had to dedicate myself to working as hard as I possibly could for the next couple years. And that’s just some personal s—. Like, I just knew that I had to do that. My nieces are getting bigger and I don’t know them as well as I want to. But I’m lucky to — and my girlfriend is a touring musician as well. So I don’t see her for months at a time. She’s on tour right now. She’s in Europe right now.

KILLER MIKE: You gonna tell ’em the band?

EL-P: No. I’m gonna let her live.

KILLER MIKE: Shouts out to Em, though. Shouts out.

EL-P: So that can be tough. But, you know, it’s OK. This is what we asked for, and it’s a great gig if you can get it. It’s a touchy subject for me. I really feel like I gotta make more time for my family very soon.

KILLER MIKE: The only that suffices for me is that in spirit and bond I found a brother in Jaime. And there are times when it gets incredibly lonely on the road, for both of us. And a lot of times when you see us look at each other and hug each other on stage it’s cause I know I’m up here with someone who loves me. And loves me in a way that my blood brother, which I never had, would love me. And as hard as it is to be away from blood relatives a lot of times, the only comfort is that I know that on the bus with me, with Jaime, with Gabe — DJ Trackstar — with Despot, that I am — with Ian, our tour manager — I am on the road with a group of people who in a very spiritual way love me. Like, we are family. And that’s the only thing that has allowed me to stay sane and not curl up in a ball crying, you know, depressed. And that’s the only thing that invigorates us. Like, we’re gonna come off tour and we’re all gonna go to Costa Rica for Jaime’s birthday.

KELLEY: Nice.

KILLER MIKE: Cause we’re gonna work together. We’re gonna get angry. We’re gonna talk crazy to each other. We’re gonna give great shows. Then we’re gonna go to Costa Rica and laugh about it like brothers do. But it’s no way — I can’t not acknowledge the fact that the group of people that I tour with are essentially a spiritual family for me and they are the bedrock that allows me to still be sane when I do get home to my children and wife. Word up.

EL-P: I’m also gonna stab you. We’ll laugh about it.

KILLER MIKE: We’ll fight, close quarters. We’ll do it.

EL-P: It’ll be hilarious. It’s gonna be completely hilarious. You’re gonna love it.

KELLEY: Oh my god. All things being equal — I’m gonna assume that you would encourage somebody else if this is the career path, the artistic route, they wanna go, you’d be like, “Yeah. Go do this.”

KILLER MIKE: I told my stupid son that yesterday.

EL-P: I don’t know.

KILLER MIKE: I have 20-year-old son who I just — he’s a bright and brilliant and creative boy. He’s in college right now taking courses. And he’s in a technical college taking barber’s courses so he can come earn money the easy way, working in his pop’s shop, hoping to own one.

But he looks at me squarely in the eye — he’s a skater too — yesterday and he says, “Dad, I really want be a rapper.” And I just — I just put my head down. For real. Just right in front of the barber shop. I just put my head down in my hand. Exactly the same way my dad did. And I looked at him and I said, “Well, I’m gonna tell you what my dad told me.” And he looked at me and thought he was gonna get the most beautiful advice ever. And I said, “They call ’em starving artists for a reason. I hope you make it. I don’t have any help to give you. I have all the advice in the world. But when I was 20 years old, I came to my dad with a demo and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ You’re coming to me with a want. That’s not good enough.” And I told him, “If you want to be a rapper, go figure out how to do it.”

EL-P: And I did it at 15. I mean, at 15, I told my mother, “Your white son wants to — who just got kicked out of two high schools — has chosen a career in rap that he very much –-”

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, I dropped out of Morehouse.

EL-P: “I’m gonna be a rapper. You know those crazy people you see on the TV that you’re scared of?”

KILLER MIKE: “I’ma be one of them.”

EL-P: “I’m gonna be one of those. So, hey, is this cool? Let’s just do it.” I mean, yo, anybody — yo, I believe 100% in doing whatever the f— you want do.

KILLER MIKE: Absolutely.

EL-P: The only alternative –- look, if you can figure out an alternative, the only thing that everyone else is presenting to you is a life of grinding servitude to a ridiculous and permanent lower spiritual experience of working and slaving for someone else. And I hate to reduce it to that because sometimes jobs are great and sometimes you can do great things. But, for the most part, that’s your other choice, buddy. So, if you can figure something out, great, man.

KILLER MIKE: Yup. I hope Malik proves me wrong. I really do.

EL-P: He will. The way that you proved your parents wrong. The way I proved mine wrong.

KILLER MIKE: Oh, absolutely. Well, you hope he will. You don’t know he will. But you hope he will. Cause it’s hard. My kids haven’t had it hard.

EL-P: Of course it’s hard.

KILLER MIKE: My kids have been coddled and spoiled, you know what I mean? And he told me that: “I know I’ve been spoiled.” OK. Welcome to the desert, young man. I’ll see you when you cross.

EL-P: Just don’t ask me to write any hooks.

KILLER MIKE: He was also getting $100 from at the time. I was giving him $100.

EL-P: “Here you go, son. Buy a chain. If you’re gonna be a rapper, you’re gonna need to start spending some money on some stupid s—.”

KILLER MIKE: But I’m very proud of him. With that said, I’m very proud of the young man he’s becoming. And I hope it works out for him.

KELLEY: I mean, it must be a great feeling to have your kid want to do what you do.

KILLER MIKE: It’s definitely not.

EL-P: Hell no.

KILLER MIKE: Nah, I’m flattered though and I love him. I love him. I’m just —

EL-P: But Mike knows who he is and what a bastard and weirdo he is.

KILLER MIKE: I am. I am.

EL-P: And he knows how debaucherous and strange his rap career has been and he’s picturing his child becoming one of him.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly. Just cause it’s my child and I’m afraid for my child.

EL-P: Mike knows that he’s been a scumbag.

KILLER MIKE: My child does not have that in him at all. You know, you’re scared for your child — every parent is. You’re scared for your children.

EL-P: S—, I’m scared for your children.

KILLER MIKE: Uncle Jaime. With an uncle like Jaime, you should be.

EL-P: Nah, I’m gonna be the cool uncle, man. I’m gonna wait to see what you say and then I’m gonna contradict you behind your back.

KILLER MIKE: That’s right. That’s what great uncles do.

Let me give you some new rappers I like, who I like a very lot. I like Scotty ATL.

KELLEY: Me too.

KILLER MIKE: I like RaRa, who’s also from — both of them are Decatur guys. But they are giving me a renaissance of the Atlanta version of Southern music that I love. So if you get a chance to pick up High End Low Life by RaRa or Road To Spaghetti Junction and Spaghetti Junction by Scotty, pick that up. And I just toured with a group called Outfit, TX, out of Dallas. I’m a sucker for great Texas music and Outfit, TX has some amazingly dope Texas music. It reminds me of riding around listening to DSR — Fat Beezy, Tum Tum and Tuck. So those are the three guys I’m endorsing right now: I’m endorsing the group Outfit, TX, RaRa and Scotty ATL. And a special honorary shout out to SL Jones, who’s out of my crew, but you guys definitely should know about SL Jones.

EL-P: Word.

KELLEY: All of that. We interviewed the Outfit at SXSW.

KILLER MIKE: Woo! Woo!

KELLEY: They’re the best. The best.

EL-P: Oh, they’re great dudes, man. Great dudes.

KILLER MIKE: They literally are dope like a hardcore rap group, with choreography moves like Scoob and Scrap Lover. I love it. Jaime, I’ll let you take the next.

KELLEY: You want to do Tag The Jewels? How did that even happen?

EL-P: Tag The Jewels was put together by my manager — longtime friend and business partner, Amaechi Uzoigwe, who I’ve been working with for 20 years. He came up with the idea and he got — him and —

KILLER MIKE: His beautiful, wonderful girlfriend who we adore.

EL-P: Him and his girlfriend came up with the idea. And we’re obviously big fans of street art and of art in general, and I grew up in New York with trains covered in graffiti. I grew up learning about hip-hop culture through — in that away. Like, admiring the ethos and the ideas about style and art that the graffiti culture brought to it, and it was very important to me. So we kinda put the idea — they put the idea out there just to these different artists and galleries and the response was overwhelming. I mean, we didn’t have any money. There was no money involved or anything. We were just saying, “Hey. We’d love for you to — if you’re inspired — to interpret this.” And the reaction was just mind-blowing. I mean, we had pieces up in Saudi Arabia. We had pieces up in Malaysia. We had pieces up in, obviously —

KILLER MIKE: Australia.

EL-P: Australia, Nigeria, Poland.

KILLER MIKE: It was supposed to be 15 pieces. We’re at about 30 now, I think.

EL-P: People have taken it upon themselves to do them and they’re — I’m talking about it’s all over the world. And that’s mind-blowing to me. You can’t manufacture that type of support.

KILLER MIKE: Nope.

EL-P: This is not — we’re not two guys here with some million-dollar f—ing marketing budget, you know. This is like, people just responded to it. And they went all out. The quality of the pieces that are coming are just unbelievable.

KELLEY: That’s what I was gonna say.

EL-P: Like, really crazy.

KILLER MIKE: Jesus Christ.

EL-P: Like, really. There’s some top-level s— in there. And where it’s happening. There’s a piece in Russia. It’s like, fist and the gun up in Dubai. It’s insane to me.

KILLER MIKE: And it means something.

EL-P: Yeah, it means something.

KELLEY: What does it mean?

KILLER MIKE: The story isn’t over for what it fully means, but, as I’ve traveled the world, the only rappers that I’ve seen present on every continent everywhere have been Ice Cube, Tupac and Wu-Tang Clan. That’s significant to me. Because those people are culture-shifters and I always wondered what did it take to get there. That’s why I say it means something. I’m not totally sure everything it means yet, but it does put different people —

EL-P: We don’t know what it means because they’re telling us. Like, they’re growing it.

KILLER MIKE: Exactly. But what it means in the immediate is that different people from different cultures that are perceived as different are all vibrating on the same frequency at one time. I have seen at Jaime and my show more white and black friends come together — now I’m not saying we’re Martin Luther King, we brought everyone together. I’m just saying it’s a weird coincidence that the two guys that always show up in Nashville with signs — and we were like, “What do you guys do?” “Well, we work at a print shop together.” Their friendship has been built around working together and grunt work, listening to Run The Jewels, and thinking of the most outlandish way of representing that at concert.

So I don’t know what the end goal of what it means is, but what I do know is that the fist and chain with the pistol pointed at it with fingers, has become something of solidarity and almost like a club for people. What’s going to happen out of that? We don’t know and that’s the excitement. But I love the fact that people who don’t look alike, who aren’t familiar with one another culturally, are together on the same vibration at one point. That’s a significant thing.

EL-P: It is. It’s huge. Well said. Well said. It is. That’s exactly what it is. And the fist and the gun and Run The Jewels, going back, we’ve talked about it a little bit but it makes me think. It means something. We’re seeing it happen. I think it’s that me and Mike have managed to find a decent way to express something symbolically that kids need to be able to say simply, which is, “I’m taking this life.”

KILLER MIKE: Yup.

EL-P: “I’m taking it over.”

KILLER MIKE: Yup.

EL-P: And that’s really at the core. The aggression, that’s really what it is. And that’s why the fist and the gun has become this feeling, almost, that people can share in. And it’s a symbol. A symbol is a reduction of a lot of different concepts and it is the communication of that in a really natural and organic way. And I think that that’s what’s happening. I think that people are defining that energy and using that. That’s why we always say, like, we’re sort of not — we’re not gonna define the story for everybody, cause we’re still seeing it unfold.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah.

EL-P: For us it’s a shock to see all these people reacting this way and putting pieces up — the creation of art around that? I mean, it’s one thing to tweet at me. It’s another thing if you’re literally sharing your artistic vision and your soul and you’re integrating it with something, with us.

KILLER MIKE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

EL-P: It’s mind-blowing.

KILLER MIKE: Absolutely. And we’re so appreciative for the artists. And we’re so appreciative for the people. Because we were kids that grew up with hip-hop. Hip-hop is not — is only a few years older than us but you will learn that it’s MCing. It’s b-boying. It’s DJing. And it’s graffiti. And the fact that Run The Jewels has served as a catalyst to kind of — like my kids don’t know graffiti is associated with rap. But now they do. You know what I mean? Now they do. Now they understand that street art and rap go together. They were formed together. They belong together. It feels great to me. Just that the rap nerd kid that I am on the inside — and I’m very happy to be a part of whatever this thing is and becoming. I’m happy.

KELLEY: Well, we are very appreciative.

KILLER MIKE: Thank you.

KELLEY: And I know that Ali is very appreciative and very sad that he couldn’t be here.

EL-P: Shouts out, Ali. Legend.

KILLER MIKE: Yup. And a big part of the motivation. The group you had definitely was — like, we sat down, with this whole record, like, “Yo, we gotta do Midnight Marauders.

EL-P: Actually, I said Low End Theory.

KELLEY: Sophomore.

KILLER MIKE: Yeah, Low End Theory. But it has to be a progression. We can’t rest on our laurels.

KELLEY: Well, thank you again.

EL-P: Thank you.

KILLER MIKE: Alright. Love.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Hubert Sam went to elementary school with Chris Wallace and was his very first DJ. Donald Harrison, Jr., was a world-touring jazz musician when Hubert and Chris started going over to his house to talk about jazz and the industry. Matty C, whose job gave him access to all the latest hip-hop before anyone else, used to get hit up by Big for new tapes as he got off the subway. And dream hampton took Biggie with her to classes at NYU’s film school.

We called the event “If You Don’t Know, Now You Know: The Stories Of Notorious B.I.G.” The story-telling happened at BRIC House on Fulton Street, just blocks from where the young man who would become the Notorious B.I.G. went to school, bagged groceries, hustled and freestyled. You can download the conversation above or watch videos of the panel below.

Part 1

Part 2

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

What we didn’t anticipate happened after we said our thank yous, when Mannie stood up, walked over to the decks and unleashed a spontaneous set of bounce remixes of everything from Hall & Oates to Earth Wind and Fire. Watch until the end to hear those, or download that portion of the evening here.

Credits:

Producers: Frannie Kelley, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineers: Suraya Mohamed, Neil Tevault; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Olivia Merrion; Editor: Olivia Merrion; Special Thanks To: Bobby Carter, Cedric Shine, David Luke, Saidah Blount, Keith Woods, Jessica Goldstein; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.