Richie Rich: Bay Area’s Most Underrated Rap Legend

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Listen up. I got an announcement. I want to shout out the Webby Awards. We've been nominated for two Webby Awards this year for All the Smoke the Show and then also all the Smoke Socials, so we appreciate all the love. Stay tuned, man, We're just getting started.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: Hey, y'all.

00:00:18
Speaker 3: Is Laurna Rosa with the latest with Laurna Rosa on Black Effects and I cannot wait to see you guys at the fourth Annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, April twenty fifth at Palman Yard and it's hosted by me alongside DJ MV and charlottagnea God, Let you Go, You Got Drink Chance of Noriega and Djafing. We Gotta keep you a positive Sweety with my girl Christopher Nee Hayslin. We got Reality with the King with my Guide and my brother Carlos King, and y'all know he does reality commentary like nobody can now. We also have Don't Call Me White Girl, the podcast, I Love Mona and Club five twenty podcasts along with the Grits and Eggs podcast. So this line up stack Baby, Turn Up You're also going to want to check out the panels that we have lined up to feature and cab on stage, Kick A. Sumpter, and John Hope Bryant, just to name a few. Of course, it's way bigger than podcast. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black owned businesses, bust the food truck court to keep you fed while you visit us. Okay, listen, you don't want to miss this. Tap in and grab your ticket down at Black Effect dot Com. Slash Podcast yesterday.

00:01:28
Speaker 1: Welcome back all the smoke the area around. We've had a good day so far. Man, we get to finish it off with a real legend.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: Dup.

00:01:35
Speaker 1: This is long overdue. We've been trying to get this done for y'all for a minute.

00:01:38
Speaker 2: Man.

00:01:38
Speaker 1: Jack finally made it happen. A real Oakland legend, a real Bay Area legend.

00:01:43
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show. GT. You rich.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: My brought up my doll. You know what?

00:01:51
Speaker 4: How's that need feeling?

00:01:53
Speaker 2: Uh?

00:01:53
Speaker 5: You know what? It's back.

00:01:55
Speaker 2: It's yeah here, I can't do the get load, but it's back on your pivot though what it was over with?

00:02:04
Speaker 5: Over with?

00:02:05
Speaker 2: I told Russell, I said, man, see the cold thing about this like when I I got I got zippers.

00:02:10
Speaker 5: Now I got one over here.

00:02:11
Speaker 2: Me and my knees had a conversation thirty years ago. It was like, we ain't with the pick up games and all that shit red and blue lights dogs, we got you all that other ship stop it.

00:02:27
Speaker 4: So I didn't have no.

00:02:28
Speaker 2: Business doing that, you feel me? But that backyard is just a different vibe. Back Jewviie was back there. He had just finished cooking. You know what type of nigga he is. I'm juiced. I'm like, tap me head and coach that ain't no rush to call a nigga got out there, got over and juice And I told this, I think I did this on sway. The way the stage was set up. It's like this, so it's people on all sides. So Malachi's over here and he jumping. Then I start jumping right, And I'm be honest with you, felt like I was floating my nigga, Like yeah, like they didn't feel like I was floating. And when I looked back at the actual footage, nigga, I wasn't even getting up there. I'm like, but I felt like and I couldn't feel my knees like y y'all play ball. So you know, some days you might get up, you might get out the bed, and first thing you feel as your ankles. You're like shit. And then some days you'd be like, oh, today a good day. I don't feel nothing like I wasn't feeling shit. So I'm jumping and in my mind when I land, I'm gonna spin this way and start performing to the crowd. And when I turned that motherfucker just transformed like a lawn chair folded. Now I had already knew what it was because I folded this one before. And I'm on the ground and niggas come like to help you up. Nigga, look right, because when I did this one, Bro, when I looked at it, motherfuckers don't know. Like so with the patill a tendon, you know you got in tending to go down when it come up.

00:03:53
Speaker 5: If you cheer, the bottom on that knee.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: Caps flies up into your thigh and now you're looking at straight bomb. So when I looked at it, I was like, oh, I know what this is. And the niggas about get up, get up, I said, bro, look Russ was like, oh shit and kept bars.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: But but yeah, but you pulled a Kobe almost like you didn't let the injury affect you. You still came and shot your free throws.

00:04:16
Speaker 2: I mean, like I told you, like it's crazy, because that's what people always ask me, like, nigga, how did you keep going? Like me and Jack then talked about like, dude, I know brothers that then't caught that shit and hollered you feel me. I swear to God, I didn't feel no pain. I wasn't in no pain. It was like this shit was crazy when I didn't feel no pain until I was on the ground. I did the wrap freestyle some other shit. Maybe it was just a adrenaline you feel me. Then they picked me up, carried me out of there and got me in the house. I still didn't feel no pain. They trying to call an ambulance. They're like Richie on a bound. So I'm like, no, I'm trying to hang out.

00:04:52
Speaker 4: They like, for real, I.

00:04:57
Speaker 6: Was trying to hang outgas.

00:05:00
Speaker 2: I said, I'm trying to hang out, like because on God, Like, this was my first time back there, and it's different. It's a different feeling back there. I mean it's it's young kids back there's old people back there, and like I told you, like, if you're a competitor, you know, you around niggas that cook. You know, the nigga Juvi had just finished cooking, you know, and he wanted them niggas who rapped without vocals, you know what I mean, everybody don't do that. You'll go to the concerts and niggas be rapping over the tracks and all the shit. Not juvenile. So the nigga's cooking. So I get down there and I'm doing my shit. Once they go sit me down, it's like time to go. We don't call an ambulance. I'm like, no, I don't want to go. I ain't going.

00:05:37
Speaker 5: Out like that.

00:05:37
Speaker 2: They said, so what you want to do? I said, find me a chair and prop a nigga back up out there somewhere. And that's what they did. They found the chair, you feel me. They carried the nigga up out there. It was some nice young ladies. I guess they was like paramedics or something. They wrapped my shit up. You know. By this time, now the swelling is starting to pick up, but I'm still not really in no pain. So they sat me out there, rush brought the mic back to me. I think I did the five on the Verse and some other ship. I was still cooking, you feel me? And uh I was there with my son. I got a fifteen year old son, and he was I know, he was tripping. He couldn't even really stomach what was going on. So I sat there. Maybe I probably stayed about an hour after this shit happened, and then the truth kicked on. Yeah, that shit started like thriving. I was like, okay, I'm starting to feel it right now. I'm trying to act like I really want to stay, but I really want to go. So I'm like, they like, you're good. I said, I'm good, but uh, I probably I'm a shape. It was like, so you want to call an ambulance. I'm like, no, I'm gonna drive because it was this leg They like, you gonna drive. I'm like, yeah, the car's out there. I said, just get me to the car. So they got me to the car. I got the car, me and my son, and I'm driving and it's it's that motherfucker thribbing boy, it's hitting now. Now I'm in the car. All the people gone, I'm like, what in the all attention is on the I'm like, what the fuck just happened, bro, you came over here, right. So I called my daughter. You know my daughter, she living in New York, and she asked the phone. She said, what's up, Pop? I said, I just fucked my knee up. She said, what you're talking about? I said, I was in russ backyard and performing, jumping around and I think I tore my my potella.

00:07:19
Speaker 5: She's like, no way.

00:07:21
Speaker 2: I said, they find to mean me to fuck out. I said, they find toa mean me the fuck out right, And then that's when my son said, I got it on I recorded it. I said, let me see. So he showed it to me, and I'll be honest with you to this day, I probably watched that shit maybe five times. It's hard to look at right because I kind of I jumped and then I just kind of spent all the frame.

00:07:43
Speaker 5: My nigga called me from New York. He said, nigga, my nigga sent it to me.

00:07:46
Speaker 2: I'm driving. I got the music and I said, they didn't assassinated my nigga. He said, I thought you got shot. He said, because you just he said, you just spit out a friend. So my daughter said, send it to me. So I sent it to my daughter. Took her about ten minutes. She called me back. She was like, pop Yo, what type of nigga are you? She like, they can't make fun of that. She said, that's some Kobe type. She's like, yeah, she said, nigga, that's some flu Game six type shit. She said, you didn't feel the pain. I was like no, just I kind of just kept cooking. So I'm driving and I'm still like, I gotta get out in front of it. So I told my son send me that, and I just posted to shit before they start posting, you feel me. I got out in front of it, and I started getting calls from niggas. Niggas like, bro, that shit was hard. Like some niggas like was that fake? Like is that shit fake? Did that real happen? And I'm like, nah, this shit ain't fake. Like this, that shit is real. It's a zipper right there, and I got one over here. I got twins, like, and you see how skinny the straws is, dame. I came up riding motorcycles and ship.

00:09:02
Speaker 5: Bro.

00:09:02
Speaker 2: We wasn't doing no exercises. We was cutting pe. I was riding motorcycles, bikes.

00:09:07
Speaker 4: He said, look at the strokes.

00:09:11
Speaker 5: They know they don't do a whole lot of nothing.

00:09:12
Speaker 2: I've been riding my whole life. Really, why you follow my page?

00:09:16
Speaker 4: Now?

00:09:17
Speaker 2: It's whip game.

00:09:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:09:18
Speaker 2: I walked out the car to the crib, out the crib to the car, out the car to the board. It's like that. Yeah, But it was a trippy experience, Bro. I was just glad that it went the way it went because they would have cooked the nigga.

00:09:32
Speaker 4: They would have cooked you.

00:09:33
Speaker 2: They cook me because Juelie told me he was like, nigga, nigga, you a different kind of nigga to do that.

00:09:39
Speaker 4: That's when I saw you.

00:09:44
Speaker 2: Shot me.

00:09:46
Speaker 4: Bro.

00:09:47
Speaker 2: I didn't feel nothing, man, that's crazy.

00:09:49
Speaker 5: I didn't feel nothing.

00:09:50
Speaker 2: Bro, It's crazy when I when I blew this one, I didn't feel nothing for like the first uh probably forty five minutes.

00:09:57
Speaker 4: How long was it so certain? What did you actually do to it?

00:10:00
Speaker 2: Touring lower Pertello?

00:10:02
Speaker 4: So what's the surgery and what's there?

00:10:03
Speaker 2: So what they did is they took me. The next day, I went and had it looked at. They said, we're gonna get you in the surgery. Instantly, put me in surgery, stitched it up. It's just like the same one. They sew it back together. You feel me, so you lose some range of motion. They told me I needed to do the physical therapy for twelve weeks. So they last time I had a cast from here to here.

00:10:26
Speaker 4: That's the old school though.

00:10:27
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so Nigga I was living in my house downstairs. I couldn't get upstairs, so I bought a lazy boy cheer and Nigga I was just downstairs popped up in front of the TV for a long time. This time, they put me in one of them flexible jokey to move.

00:10:40
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:10:41
Speaker 2: And then what they did is they kept it straight and every week they gave me a couple of degrees and a couple of degrees. He was like, we don't want it to stay straight. We wanted to gradually move. I went I was going to physical therapy. I hit all my marks that one and brought me a peloton. I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna do some extra shit me a peloton. And man, it's like after it, when it first happened, you're like, damn it, sh ain't gonna never be over. Then before you know it, you've been in the motherfucker walking a little bit and then I got one of my old school tricks. I sprayed a little W D forty on that motherfucker.

00:11:19
Speaker 5: We're back.

00:11:19
Speaker 2: We back.

00:11:22
Speaker 5: Niggas don't know about that W forty.

00:11:27
Speaker 4: Multi purpose.

00:11:34
Speaker 5: Hey and ship man. The rest is history.

00:11:36
Speaker 2: But it was dope because I was actually I had always been, you know, still making music but releasing independently, and it just put the light back on a nigga. Nigga's like that nigga hard running back up, running into my catalog, and y.

00:11:51
Speaker 5: Bro is one of them niggas.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Oh, this is the nigga from five on it.

00:11:55
Speaker 5: Oh, this is the nigga from.

00:11:56
Speaker 2: I'd Rather Be Your Nigga? Yeah, all the ship So it just it was, you know, it was a bad it was a negative turned into a plus. Yeah, so I was glad it went the way it went.

00:12:06
Speaker 4: What are we sipping all right? Here?

00:12:08
Speaker 2: This is a rolling bean coffee man. I got my own coffee brand. I wish I had a bag. I thought I had a bag of it over here where I could show to people. So yeah, I've been I've been dabbling with this coffee ship man. Uh, it's crazy because I had the opportunity to uh, work with somebody who was in the coffee business. They family had been doing it forever. And I started like looking at the coffee, looking at the coffee and yeah, thank you.

00:12:35
Speaker 5: And uh, looking at the coffee and.

00:12:38
Speaker 2: Realizing, like, we used to deliver to these small coffee shops. Man, these these boutique coffee shops, but we was delivering wholesale green bean. This is already roasted. We was delivering green bean. And I was just tripping off how the ship was rolling, how people was buying it and reordering.

00:12:55
Speaker 5: And I never really tripped off coffee.

00:12:57
Speaker 2: My parents drank it, but I didn't really know it about coffee, and I never really was a coffee drinker. Like one thing led to another, and I start watching how often these people was reordering. I was like, it's some money in this shit, right, So on the wholesale side, it ain't a whole bunch of money. And you buy these hundred and fifty pound bags, you might make fifty to seventy five dollars off each bag. So if you run into a place, you giving them thirty bags and ain't a whole bunch of money in that. But when you roast it out of one hundred and fifty pound bag. You're gonna lose about twenty percent in the roast, so you end up with about one hundred and thirty pounds of coffee. So that'll get you one hundred and thirty of these bags. Sell these for about twenty five bucks. But the difference between this and the Starbucks or the Peetz or just your basic shit that you see in stores is it's levels to the coffee shit. Just like everything else, you feel me. You can buy cheap bean, you can buy expensive bean. It doesn't it varies from region and region, but the price is really based on how old the bean is. You could buy some last year's harvest, you're gonna get that a lot cheaper than if you buying fresh. But then you get the exotic shit they eat, the opius, you feel me, the watter milas. That shit is gonna be a little bit more pricey. So I just start studying and shit like anything else. You know, I was breeding them dogs for a minute. I learned how to breed the Frenchies. You know. That's what kind of due diam like. If I get on something, I get all the way off into it and then I just start blending it up getting roasted and start moving it. And it's it's trip because it reminds me of a game because it's the same shit. Scale it, bag and roll it. And this is legal dope right here. When people drink this daily, I know people drink ten twelve cups and this shit. Now the cold thing about this you can drink in black. It's like it's almost like like I told you before we start filming. Remember when they was doing all the colored diamonds. You know, I remember my jeweler. He put me up on stones like you see the ship we got in our ear Like he told me, he said, remember the pizzas had all the little chips and shit. He said, Man, that shit worth it's only one worth something one time when I sell it to you.

00:15:04
Speaker 5: He told me that.

00:15:04
Speaker 2: He said, if you want to buy diamonds, you buy individual stones. And that's when all the color shit was in. He said, if you want to get colored stones, buy cheap ones and then we'll color. You don't buy good shit and color. So that's similar with the coffee. If you're gonna sell it at a store where they gonna jam a bunch of milk and sugar and shit like that and it then it ain't. It don't have to be that good. But if you're gonna drink it like this black, the better to be, the better to cut, you feel me? And I just pride myself and being a high end type of dude, like anything I ever touched is, I'm gonna take it there. My daddy told me when I was young, he said, if you get the chance to buy top of the line, buy top of the line, he said, because if you ever want to sell it, they gonna be lining up to come buy it from me. So that's just how I play, you know. I go top of the line, paint top of the line. Rims are like pretty women, good weed, just a top top shelveman. I mean, if I could do it, I'm gonna play it heavy and I do the same ship with the bean and the shit been working congratulation.

00:16:04
Speaker 4: What's it called again?

00:16:05
Speaker 2: Where could they get it? It's called the Rolling Bean Man. You can find us at ww dot the Rollingbeancoffee dot com. And it's a family owned businesses. Now it's me and my daughter we're doing this, you know. And she's a super intelligent girl. She's living in Amsterdam and this is what we're doing, man, were moving to coffee, were keeping the business rolling, and uh we with all the.

00:16:27
Speaker 6: Smoke right really No, let's get to a skyline, tight and straight from the one of six. Come on, East Open Hills better, same neighborhood as Jay Kid. Come on, talk about the early double r early growing up on the East Side's Open Hills.

00:16:41
Speaker 5: Men, he's Oklan.

00:16:42
Speaker 2: I grew up on Malcolm. I'm coming from up top. I tell people that all the time. I had a best friend named Willie Wright who lived in the flats, and that's where I ventured down and start kind of getting into the street essence of the cars and all that. But I went to skyline. Jay went to skyline, Gary, I mean GP went to skyline with us.

00:17:02
Speaker 5: Life was good, you.

00:17:03
Speaker 2: Know, we was young. Oakland was full of good shit to get into, bad shit to get into. You feel me, I played a little bit all of it. Action was always a little more fun than the square shit. But I'm a hip square. I tell people that all the time. I'm a hip square. But I played heavy in the flats. You know what I'm talking about.

00:17:21
Speaker 4: Shit.

00:17:21
Speaker 2: Seventeen is when I caught my first whill for like real life. My best friend Will had got shot and died, and I had to make a decision you feel me like I was like, okay, it's real, like when you're out there playing it and it's cool. Everything is everything. Yeah, So he had when I was at my doorstep, and it was crazy because I stayed in it. It was a piece of me that was like let me, I need to quit. But then I kept hearing wheel like now, don't give up now, So I kept playing you feel Me. But I was always smart because my mama was a bad motherfucker. So if you could few Sybil the streets was easy, call you feel Me? Because my mama wasn't no joke like hands on, you feel Me. She didn't say shit twice if she had to say it twice. Physical contact, physical contact. That's just how she played you feel Me. Now. My daddy, he wasn't soft, but my mama was the rock around the grid. So then my pop passed away when I was seventeen, and I'll tell you some cold shit. My dad was the one who would buy me all the motorcycles, the coke carts. I had all the shit mom Goose's red lines, mini bikes, all the shit but my mom was telling him. So I got three siblings older than me, so I'm the baby. So my mom would always telling you, see what happened with the other three, We gonna ruin him to quit spoiling him. Quit spoiling him. But I was the type of kid I asked my mom for something. She said, no, I go ask my daddy. Said yeah, pure I'm gone. So when my dad passed away, called cancer off the job he used to work in the shipyards. My mom pulled up on me one day and she told me, yeah, motherfucker, it's you and me now. And I was like, what the shit is this? This was at the funeral and she just start laying into a nigga. But she gave me all the shit I needed to to play it the way I needed to play it. You feel me, And I'm glad because dude, I got homeboys who moved the same way I moved. It just didn't make it out. You know how this shit go. Now, everybody don't make it out. So I just once I realized that I could play on that microphone and people start liking it.

00:19:34
Speaker 5: The first thing I did was.

00:19:35
Speaker 2: The Faux one five record. That's what was like early eighty nine. I had the blue five point on golds of oos BBS's. I used to ride the BBS during the week used to lit jacket up in the driveway, take the BBS's off, put the golds on on the weekend. I was fucking with it like.

00:19:51
Speaker 4: That like that.

00:19:53
Speaker 2: That's how I was fucking doing it like that. And I bought the car. It was black with a black top, grin interior. I painted a candy blue. Took it to Miko's Candy Blue to BBS as we put blue sheep skins on it. Put four tens in that thing. Kyle Drivers with the Zeus, with the evs, all the shit, and that was the start of rich like on the Floss shit side shows. Well, then I ended up catching the little case that was in ninety one. Slowed me down for a minute. Came back from that and the loonies was cooking. They invited me to get on the five on It remix. Got on the five on It Remix. I got to the studio. Forty was in there.

00:20:40
Speaker 5: This nigga.

00:20:41
Speaker 2: Forty had a garbage can and it was full of this hurricane drink that he mixed. He had brought a I was the last one to the studio. When I got there, they wait on me to put my verse down. Forty got this big ass garbage can and he the mixed all his drink, so we drinking sipping. I get in there and I'm under pressure because I'm writing the verse. Got her up and cooked because they already even cooked.

00:21:01
Speaker 5: Shit shocked.

00:21:02
Speaker 2: G there all these niggas just cooking. I'm like, damn, I put the verse down. It really wasn't a verse that I liked, to be honest with you, because I felt like they was rushing me. Verse turned out to be like the w mm right, I'll tell you another thing then, Poc I was under contract with the dude who had me on the four one five record, so he was a d boy from the town. He was spending all the money. When I caught the case. Me and him had a falling out, so he had it to where I couldn't really record because I was under some paperwork with him. I was like, fuck, I ain't gonna wrap them up. Pok was like, I want you on my record. I was like, well, I'm d the contract, so Forty wanted me on the record too. Dusted and disgusted. I don't know if you remembers disgusted.

00:21:43
Speaker 4: What kind of question is that?

00:21:47
Speaker 2: So look, Forty asked me to get on a record. I told Forty, I said, dude, I'm still in the contract. I said, the nigga ain't gonna let you put the record out. Forty said, all right, well, we ain't gonna have you wrap just say some little shit. So I said, so what you want me to say? So then to say, what's the definition of a lick? And I said, taking the nigga shit? That's all I said on that record, and it slid. Boy didn't catch it. So I tell Pac the same thing. I'm like, I'm under contract. You ain't gonna be able to put the shit out, he said, nigga gonna have to sue me. I want you on my ship.

00:22:18
Speaker 4: Bo.

00:22:18
Speaker 2: That's when we did Heavy in the Game. So it was like the Loonies record Heavy in the Game came both of them. Versus. Park was a nigga too, who liked to cook. He get in there right fast. If you didn't have your ship ready, get this is ninety three. Gotta be ninety three right around there.

00:22:39
Speaker 4: I was in junior high manh.

00:22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then I think then Pak dropped that record. Then he got into that little ship where he went to jail, and that record was cooking so heavy in the game was doing this thing and the record label start talking shit. Tina Davis from from Valoe. Tina was with forty in the hotel room and I was playing some of my music on the radio. I had a little tape I was playing and she was like this you.

00:23:04
Speaker 5: I was like yeah.

00:23:06
Speaker 2: She said, I'm gonna get you a record deal and I didn't know. She said, can I keep the tape. I said, yeah, I'll let you keep the tape and she made good. Took a nigga to Death Jam. I had a little bit more between Relativity and a few other companies. Then I went to Death Jam. So it was trippy, like when I look at the industry now and all the bullshit that's going on, Like I had a lot of shots at being like one of the top niggas, but I always had some bullshit happen. So I'm over here in the street doing this. This happened. I've been I'm on Death Jam for a year and then Russell and Leor. I used to fuck with the niggas them niggas showed me the real industry from the backside, and I'll tell your story. I put out the first record on death Jam seez a veteran, Right, I didn't make no money. When I tell you no money, I didn't make no money. So I was like, type of sh it is this because I'm coming from the street like pushing, I gotta have some paper. But when I met them niggas, I was wearing a presidential feel me because I was still hustling.

00:24:07
Speaker 5: So I had my first budget.

00:24:09
Speaker 2: I think they gave me like two hundred and twenty thousand to do the album. I siphoned forty out of that. Right, my homeboy had a studio. I told deaf Jam I was going to record at this studio. I took forty to record at the studio. I went and bought that. I bought a used bans S five hundred silver, took it to La, put the TVs in the thing, the Lorenzers, all all that recorded manshit for free. Yeah. Like I told you, I'm the nigga who gonna open up a business inside of business. That's just how it was. So I went from that. Then Russell and Leor when they explained to me. I was like, where the money at? Like, well, I ain't making no money. So they was like, well, this is how a record deal works. You're going to get a certain percentage, which is this, which gives you about a dollar per record. So if you sell a million records, you make a million dollar. But out of that million dollars, we got to recoup the two video budgets, all the cars that took you back and forth, like airport, the flights, all that fat forum shit we was giving. You know, all that is all that come out of that one dollar, right. So I was like, uh, well, fuck this shit. I don't want to do this shit. This ain't no money in this I'm gonna take it back to the block because fuck I'm getting on airplanes. It was times I was waking up, you know, on airplanes, Jack, I didn't know where I was waking up at. I get to gotta get the newspaper to see where the fuck I'm at, and I'm moving around. I mean, I mean, uh, we used to go to what you call them because we used to play the West Coast. We used to go to uh fuck, what is that city? Man? Where the niggas never had all the money for the show. No, no, this is no, this is no. This is man, It's gonna come to me. It's gonna come to me. The coffee fucking with me, It's gonna come to me. But what I'm saying is I'm hitting all these spots on these promo tours and doing these shows, and I'm down in these and it was like that thought, oh it was on some it was on some Russell Red shit. Hey, hey, it was on some Russell Red shit. You feel me. And I'm hitting all these spots and it's dangerous. I'm a street nigga, so I can see it. Niggas in there with pistols and all the shit. And I ain't making no money.

00:26:16
Speaker 4: Right.

00:26:16
Speaker 5: So we get back to New York. I tell Leon Russell.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: I said, you know what, I don't think I want to do this shit if it ain't no money in. Leo told me, he said, let me tell you something about the music. Shit rich. He said, this ship is all pale. He was like, I can make your grandmama got this bitch in the country. All I need is six months. He said, Ain't none of this shit real? He said. The reason we're telling you this because you a solid motherfucker. He said, So, if you want to fuck around with it, it's good. But we just gonna let you know that ain't none of this shit real. So the season Veteran album dropped, Let's Ride was the first single. That's back when the music Box was out, when you used to could watch the videos you call in through the Come on, nigga, I'm sitting inside my mama jack the music box. Come on, they say number one debuting this week on the box, Let's Ride.

00:27:06
Speaker 4: I'm on.

00:27:07
Speaker 2: I'm like, nigga, I'm number one. I call Leor. I said, Leo, I'm number one on the box. He said, I know, Richie, we bought the spot. Give me a minute, I'll call you back.

00:27:17
Speaker 4: That's how I go through.

00:27:19
Speaker 5: And when he said that, I just I didn't like it.

00:27:21
Speaker 4: No more.

00:27:22
Speaker 2: I didn't because I really thought that people fuck with me because of what I did.

00:27:27
Speaker 4: But you come from the authentic grind.

00:27:29
Speaker 5: Right, so I thought it was real. Right.

00:27:31
Speaker 2: I remember going up to Canny l. You know, when you listen to the radio, you hear a niggas say this la cool j man, And whenever I'm in town.

00:27:37
Speaker 5: You know, I used to think that nigga.

00:27:39
Speaker 2: Was up there.

00:27:39
Speaker 4: Na, that's a drop.

00:27:40
Speaker 5: So I go to the radio station. They show you this shit. They like, let's do some drops. Huw we go. Man's in there like, rich, can you do some drops for me?

00:27:46
Speaker 2: I'm like, what's drops? He said, just come over here and say X y Z. So I get on there, I say some shit. I make a couple of mistakes. I said, let me do it again. He said, don't worry about it. We edit to chop the ship.

00:27:55
Speaker 5: I fucked up.

00:27:55
Speaker 2: I taped it back together, played my voice back perfectly. I said, oh wow.

00:28:00
Speaker 5: So it's a piece of paper sitting on the thing. I said, what is that?

00:28:02
Speaker 2: He said, well, that's today's playlist. So I grab it and it's got the times and all the songs that's gonna come on. So I'm like, damn, So them niggas ain't really up here when I be hearing that shit. So it just was hell a fake. It was a lot of fake shit going on, right, were fucking me up? It was fucking me up. So I take this piece of paper. When I leave the station. I'm in the car, so I call this little chick right, and it's like four thirty and I got the list. I told her.

00:28:33
Speaker 5: I said, damn, I said, you listen to the radio. She said yeah.

00:28:36
Speaker 2: I said, it'd be crazy if they play X y Z right now. And then that shit came. She said, it's on right now, it's on. It's on that you just said.

00:28:45
Speaker 5: I was in no way.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: I said, let me turn it off. We roll and I'm talking smoking. I'm like, I'm you know, I'm I'm chirpping down. Next song about to come on. I said it'd be a fool if they play who whoo whooh that would come on. She said, you're bating a thousand this shit they're playing it. I'm like, yeah, I got this list, and dude, from that point on, I just kind of lost the flair for the music. Shot I did because yeah, yeah, I mean, and I get it, you know, but I really thought that the people, Yeah yeah, I thought DJ's played what the fuck they wanted to play? So that kind of that I lost my flair for the music. That's why I went back to the street, back to the street, went back independent. I just was like, don't make no sense, you feel me. Plus, I wasn't really getting no money. I wasn't really getting no money. So my second album was supposed to come out on death Jam, Leo and Russell call me and they said, man, I gotta talk to you. They called me in the office. They said, man, we're doing a deal with Edgar Brodman and Sea Rooms. They about to buy the company, and we don't know who's gonna be running it. You could stay if you want, If not, you can go. We don't want to leave you here and get stuck. Your project gets shelved. So I'm trying to process what they telling you. This is my sophomore album supposed to come out right, the second album, which ended up being The Game. I released it independently rustling and said, this is what we're gonna do. We already recorded the album. We get seventy five thousand and the album and you can have it if you choose to go. If you choose to stay, you could stay. But we don't know who's gonna be running the label. So I talked it over with my man Domino woman too Mane. He was like, Nigga, we can get your deal somewhere else. Take the money, took the seventy five, took the record, blasted back to California. One thing led to another, took some of that Seali five on some rims, some other bullshit, had a hot sixty ball left be Legit called me. He said, nigga, don't spend all the money on dumb shit. I said what he said, nigga, buy you our house, and he turned me on to his realtor and I put that sixty, put another twenty five with it that I had off the street, and I put that down on my first crib, you Feel Me. And then from there I just released music independently, got back to getting seven bucks a record You Feel Me, but only selling twenty thousand of them. But twenty thousand and seven bucks, that's up, buck fody, you feel Me.

00:31:02
Speaker 5: So I just stayed playing independently.

00:31:04
Speaker 2: And it was a lot of people who was like, man, you could be bigger than that. You could be bigger than that. And this is at the time when I had met Pop. He was a young nigga. He wanted to do shit with me. When we was four on five. He was still like coming into the Bringer's got a baby shit. And I remember telling me, I was like, bro, we doing gangster shit. The fou on five shit was like gangster shit. I said, you on that black power shit. Don't worry aboudy. He's wearing there for tdpieces and all the shit. Then I watched this nigga like just catch motion. And then he ended up going to jail, and I remember he was writing me from Dana Moore in prison. His record was out. The song that I was on that was Me against the World album was Cooking number one. Yeah, so he hit me and he's writing me these letters and he like, Interscope won't come give me. He said, I'm stuck up in here. He said, I thing about signing with death Ro and I'm like, bro, I don't think you need to sign with deaf Row. I said, your shit out of here cooking? You feel me, I said, snooping and balling, but you I don't think you need to sign with that. Bro. You gotta wait for this response. He write me back.

00:32:03
Speaker 5: You know, so this is a few weeks.

00:32:05
Speaker 2: I get the next letter, he said, But the nigga should talk about coming to get me out of men the jail before. I was like, I feel that right boom he get out and from there he just take off. So what I'm getting at is I watched him. I watched my nigga, Shakir Stewart, Chris Lidy, DMX came to the label with IRV. IRV was pushing DMX talking about this is the next tupac leor is making me listen to these records? Like, listen to these records? Tell me, is this nigga the next Tupac? I don't have a clue, Richie. I mean, you know, we're just a car. We just drive.

00:32:35
Speaker 5: You gotta drive us, you gotta tell us what to do.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: So I'm listening to the DMX, I'm like, it's cool, but I don't I don't see it being the next pot. But it was dope, but it was New York music, so I didn't really fully understand it.

00:32:46
Speaker 5: But I'm saying that to say this.

00:32:48
Speaker 2: I watched niggas just to the top and it was a piece of me, Like, Okay, I fucked up. I should have stayed at the label. I should have stayed at the label, right and now, in hindsight, X gone, Lighty gone, Shakir gone, Pop gone. And I don't have a big bag. I don't have the big accolades, but I got the little bags, hear me. And I'm still on that again. I'm still around, so I'll be trying to talk to people, to tell people. Sometimes man, the game will just it'll take you out the long way, and sometimes the ship that you want may not be for you. So you can't get upset when it don't go your way. You feel me, there was a point in my life where I was I was pushing myself through life and I was getting into all kinds of bullshit. The game is finishing the race, hear me, And shit, man, I'm happy to be here, you know.

00:33:50
Speaker 1: I want to take you back a little bit when four one five was just getting off the ground and obviously the inspiration you gave so many people as you're doing it, thought process in it.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: I was in the street. We wasn't even thinking, just going grinding, going to the studio. I hated the studio. I wasn't one of the niggas who stayed in the studio all the time. I was out on the street getting it. But what I was living, I was putting on the tape. Nigga was just moving fast, just living but happy to be able to so with the fou on five. Shit, I didn't even know how good we was. We had a stereo shop that used to put music in my car. My boy. We used to call them digital d And when I knew niggas was on it was I'd come down there. I had a seventy two cutlors of green, one the round back one not the square back, and Darren put two twelves and two fifteen's in my shit, and I had nocision power amps. I remember that motherfucker had knocked, and I remember niggas like, now you got the wrong year, just the wrong one, but it's clean.

00:34:48
Speaker 5: I had knocking that motherfucker.

00:34:49
Speaker 2: And I would come from the studio, either in the five point zero or the cutlass, playing the tapes, and I come to the beach shop and niggas be down there and shooting dice. It was like a hangout, you know, niggas down there and be Legit.

00:34:59
Speaker 5: Had a car in there.

00:35:00
Speaker 2: One time I stole some chron pieces off Beetles Cutlers. Know it was his, yeah, the same year as me and I needed that one little trunk trim and my beef boy had went to the store to get some nigga took that shit off and found out that I had stole off my nigga beat my car. You aig laugh and we.

00:35:19
Speaker 5: Laugh about that shit.

00:35:20
Speaker 2: He said, there, you stole that trim piece off the trunk of my car. But the way I knew that we was doing something. We was doing something is niggas would lure me to the dice game out of my car and then when I get back to my shit, the tape would be gone. Niggas was still in the tapes. I was like, okay, we own the something. That summer Short was Short was always the goal. He was the nigga you feel me, And that summer was eighty nine, eighty nine, ninety and we had it on lock. Every car that passed by was either playing Side Show four one five and groopy ass Bitch so they had a car wash. We used to fuck around that. Uh. The Hardy Boys up on ninety eight and Matt So, Bob, Hardy, Joe, Ray Key Key, all these niggas from Sabrannie Park, niggas up there playing loud music, knocking the phone and find shit. Short pull up. Short got the new album Short Dogs in the house, right, he come in. They take four one five out, put it in. He started knocking some of shit. It's Bamon the nigga Joe Ray said, and shit cool. We put that side show back on. Short went back to the studio, added the ghetto, Short but funky, and two other joints, and he went. Before he left, he came shook mine. He said, y'all got to town right now. But that nigga went and cooked up. Hey, that nigga came back and put that. He added the ghetto and that other shit and came back. Me and Short always been cool. We used to work the Oakland Coliseum together. He still seal sodas. Yeah, get your cokes here. We was the two little It was niggas up there. So I knew Short before we was making music. But Short was always the nigga. When I was at Skyline, shortened Freddy was dropping tapes. So Dog had always been the nigga.

00:37:11
Speaker 5: You feel me.

00:37:13
Speaker 2: I just remember that summer. That's how I knew we had to arrived like Short went back and recooked, and he gave us our grands, like you niggas got to town right now. And that's just one thing about Oakland. It was big as this bowl right here. It ain't no room to be fake because the bowl was so small. Everybody know everybody, So we didn't really have no thought process. We was just fucking around.

00:37:34
Speaker 1: What's the grind like though, as far as once you're making your music and getting it out there.

00:37:38
Speaker 2: Out the trunk. So what we was doing, we had a distributor, City Hall.

00:37:43
Speaker 5: I waltered him.

00:37:44
Speaker 2: Niggas used to make the tapes, press them, and like I told you, I had an executive producer. So I wasn't doing it per se, but I was watching how I was playing, and niggas used to move them out the trunk. And then we had Tea's Waouzi. We had leopolds and they would do consignments. You'd come up there there by fifty see fifty cascents from you. Once thirty five of them gone, they'll order some more. And our shit hadn't spread. But what spread our music is all the niggas going to school, niggas going to moral house, niggas leaving going to college UCLA, niggas taking the tapes, taking the tapes and then taking the tapes.

00:38:20
Speaker 5: And that's what happened.

00:38:20
Speaker 2: That's how niggas got on to us, and we had our own little promotion. Back then, it was bus stoping benches, but the niggas who lit us up the niggas who was going to college moving the tapes around.

00:38:31
Speaker 1: Your influence, you know, encouraged Snoop to start two and three. When you hear that and think about that, what comes to mind.

00:38:40
Speaker 2: I remember when Snoop first said that and Snooping them used to come to Oakland and perform and be the biggest shit you feel me, I had no clue, no clue because easy Eenim was n WA. I would think that they was influenced by that. I met Warren g before I met Snoop, did a with me and Pop called a lot of kick it.

00:39:02
Speaker 5: Warren pulled up to the studio.

00:39:03
Speaker 2: He was in like an eighty four Codler's cool ass nigga cup of gin. Hey yup, had him a cup of G and he parked in front of the studio. What's up becuz you know, he hopped out. We recorded the song and he told me he was like nigga. We grew up on that four one five shit. So to hear Warren said. I didn't really know who Warren was at the time, you know. And then I met Nate and Snoop. Snoopingn was out here on a tour bus one day, him and Dadz and them. They was performing somewhere out here and I got onto the bus. That's when I first met Snoop then and the nigga. Snoop had a four one five CD on the bus and he was like, Nigga, we grew up on this shit, he said. Nigga, he said, you did snitches and bitches. We did GE's and hustlers. He said, because so four one five was me. Another rapper named d Loke and DJ Durrell was doing the beats. Snoop said, Nigga, who was I in the wasatch? Nigga, I was d loc.

00:39:58
Speaker 5: Nig grew up on yo shit. Nigga crazy, I said, it ain't no way.

00:40:02
Speaker 2: And once again I'm like, how didn't I get Yeah, he said he was d lo like Nigga. Who was I in the wash? Nigga was d lo, he said.

00:40:12
Speaker 5: Nigga.

00:40:12
Speaker 2: We was on the block wrapping y'all ship word for words, slanging cavey, he said. And then one day we was like, nigga fuck four one five, Nigga we two one three And he said they took it from there. And once again I'm sitting here like the biggest nigga got influence from me got all them bread and here I am still trying to figure this ship out.

00:40:35
Speaker 5: But yeah, that's how that that's how that popped.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: That's the hell of a feeling to hear that you because my thing is n w A is in y'all backyard?

00:40:42
Speaker 5: How'd y'all inspired by us?

00:40:44
Speaker 4: Right?

00:40:44
Speaker 5: You know?

00:40:45
Speaker 4: But that's that's that's the stamp is the respect from your peers. Respect.

00:40:49
Speaker 1: We feel like obviously the accolades in the NBA didn't get to where they should have been. It could have been, but the respect from our peers is kind of how you judge how you moved.

00:40:59
Speaker 2: And you was beating nigga up the chickens, beating niggas chicken U specing to check it up your hustling kind of came to ahead in the nineties when you had to sit down for a little bit, how did you pick yourself back up.

00:41:12
Speaker 4: And and and move different from that?

00:41:17
Speaker 2: You know, when you when you when you when you used to being free. For me, uh, it's just a different thing when they tell you when you can eat the nigga when you I only did a year.

00:41:32
Speaker 5: I did a year.

00:41:32
Speaker 2: It was my first real offense and feel me so I did a year, and I remember the first day I was in there. I we got in there early in the morning. We got up for breakfast. This is some funny ship, got it. I told you all, I'm from up to Hill, so I had it good. I never really had to struggle for ship. So they gave us the breakfast. It was. I remember it was a little ice cream scoop of eggs, little ice cream scoop of potatoes, and just enough juice to put on your taste buds to know that that was juice, like some shy shit they'll give a kid. So I'm in this motherfucker and I'm looking at these niggas and they put that ship down. The niggas was like dogs on that ship, right, and they would give you a little salt and pepper pack. And I'm mixed dressing my ship up, and niggas is looking at me like what's wrong with this nigga. I'm mixing the eggs and all the ship up, and I'm watching how fast these niggas is eating, and I'm like, oh yeah, this is these niggas different, right. So by the time I got my ship ready to eat, they came around and picked up the spoons in the forest. I said, Oh, that's why them niggas was eating so fast. They only let you keep the metal silverware for so long. So I was like, oh, I'm thinking these niggas is eating because they hungry. No, nigga, you get to hold the forks and spoons for just a short amount of time.

00:42:49
Speaker 5: So I picked up real quick.

00:42:51
Speaker 2: But when I I was in there, bro and I just realized, I said, Okay, either I'm gonna have to quit hustling. I'm gonna have to get a whole lot slicker one of the too, and I chose the latter slicker. Yeah, I'm gonna get a lot slicker because I just I just was. I'm just used to having paper. My daddy gone, now pops past home. You feel me. I'm still not listening really to moms. I'm taking id and jobs and shit, but they ain't doing it, you feel me. So I just kept playing. I just start playing a lot smarter.

00:43:21
Speaker 6: Be your own nigga, meaning buy your own dough, because that frontshit is pumped it.

00:43:25
Speaker 4: So I'm not never Let me.

00:43:26
Speaker 2: Tell you somebody, I never had a nigga work. I ain't never had a nigga work for me. Ever, every dollar I made in the street, I made that transaction. That's why I say that be your own nigga, meaning by your own dough because that frontshit is punct shit. I have never lied on the mic, but one time put this on my life. I mentioned having a Bentley in one of my verses and I didn't have one, and then I got the money, I went and bought that two thousand.

00:43:50
Speaker 6: Speaking to existence.

00:43:52
Speaker 5: That was hey.

00:43:53
Speaker 2: But I be honest with you, like, it's crazy when I listened back to because like you said, when I listen back to some of them, oh shit, I'd be like, nigga, you was on some shit. But for me, all my lyrics they just come from as soon as the music come on. That shit just come from somewhere, bro. Like I don't never really have to try to write nothing. Sometimes I'll have writer's block. I sit there and if it ain't just coming, I'll lay off. But most of my songs just come. And I always wrote real rap, but I never knew what it was doing to niggas, because if I did, I never would have quit. See I short, never stopped forty never stopped. That's why the niggas is where they're at now. See I was stutter stopped. I was street, yeah, but I never knew what the music really meant to people. The only reason I came back this time because I didn't plan on being rapping at this age. Even it used to be one of them things like oh nigga, that nigga still rapping. But what happened is it was a need for real shit again. Niggas like you. Niggas like you wanted something that you could relate too. And people kept asking me, rich, you ain't making music no more? When ain't dropping no new shit? And I got tired of people asking, like damn. I was like, maybe niggas, And then niggas start telling me, niggas, do Jesus that to go to him bro, that song got me through, like this song helped me get through shit, and I was like damn. So I really started. I started feeding people something that they wanted and needed. And then I take it back and I realized it was kind of selfish. So music got new and it starts sounding different. And I remember talking to one of my young niggas and I told him, I said that new shit garbage, right, and he told me. He said, you think just because you took the raw off the block, niggas was gonna quit smoking m I said, damn. He said, nigga, you wanted to be right, nigga put some of that roll back on the block.

00:45:46
Speaker 5: He said, it's your fault. That is like that. Nigga.

00:45:49
Speaker 2: You you the nigga we was following you. You got the shit that we really living. But nigga, you give it to a nigga, then stop, Then give it to a nigga then stop. He said, did you think they was gonna quit because you took the raw off the block?

00:46:02
Speaker 4: All? I was like, damn, somebody else gonna come in.

00:46:05
Speaker 5: Come on?

00:46:05
Speaker 4: What game would you give to the younger?

00:46:07
Speaker 2: Did you rich have something to fall back on and do the other shit?

00:46:11
Speaker 5: All?

00:46:11
Speaker 2: My uncle's name was long shoreman's I wish I would have picked that up when I was young. It's okay to work and have some guaranteed something, don't don't. The street is hills and valleys up and down. The game is like that. It's damn near.

00:46:27
Speaker 5: Like I tell niggas all.

00:46:28
Speaker 2: The time, it's it's it's like this, bro, you going may you be chasing your motherfucking tail. You hear me, you be chasing your motherfucking taal. I would tell a young nigga, like, have you some for show money, and then if you still want to do that other shit, do that too, because the worst thing you can do is be an old nigga still trying to figure it out, you feel me. But my parents they never talked to us about like real estate and property and shit. Like all my mom ever told me was nigga, don't never borrow against your house. But they never said like investors do it because you know, back then they were scared to They was just getting a piece of the pie, so they didn't have that game. I would tell the nigga, find something solid and do that, and you're gonna have It's twenty four hours in the day. You work a six to two, you get off of two, man, you can play ball from from three to seven.

00:47:22
Speaker 6: There's a lot of youngsters coming home where I'm from, that's really still in the streets.

00:47:27
Speaker 4: But they seeing like the.

00:47:28
Speaker 6: Guys older than them, they going to they got these they're going to do these jobs. Like they'll go to a different state and work for like a month and come home with them big old bag. Yeah, now they're teaching that to them. So now they're not just in the streets. They want to get that money coming back with their legal shit.

00:47:43
Speaker 5: Crazy.

00:47:44
Speaker 2: It look a little better the squares who did the legal jobs, who didn't fuck around in the street. Them niggas is retiring now. Them niggas got a one credit, They got cribs. They can buy whatever the fuck they want. See, cash was king back when I was young. That's the ship where you used to see. We wanted that fast money. But that fast money don't play at the dealership. You ain't got no credit. We won't give a fuck how much money you got. That fast money. Don't play when you're trying to buy a house. She ain't got no credit. We won't give a fuck how much money you got. You need some credit, you need some seasoned money in the bank to buy this house.

00:48:15
Speaker 5: Then just put the money in the bank and then come you feel me.

00:48:18
Speaker 2: But we didn't know all of that.

00:48:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, we need to see that money in that accountable forty five days.

00:48:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, it got to be in there for So It's what I like to tell young people is man ain't nothing wrong with playing it right. And at this point the streets is over with. The technology is too severe, the cameras is on, the cameras is on. It's too severe. It ain't even worth it.

00:48:48
Speaker 5: It ain't worth it. And I'd also tell.

00:48:49
Speaker 2: Them whatever you do in life to get ahead, if it's found they don't do nothing but attack that shit onto the back of your loan. Bro, you go take from I come take from you because me and my kids can't eat. And I start from here and I get to here, and when I get down there, they've attack this much right back on the back of that. It ain't no winning. But what you do, that shit gonna come back. It's gonna it's gonna follow you. Bro, you might as well learn to play a fair and give life a chance to fuck with you, because life will fuck with you.

00:49:23
Speaker 5: I give it a chance.

00:49:24
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

00:49:25
Speaker 1: You saw Pac in a lot of different stages, from the beginning, unfortunately until the end. What was that journey like and getting a chance to really be friends with him and working with him and producing great music, but more than that, just being a brother.

00:49:38
Speaker 2: To Pac was a good kid. Bro. When I met him, I met him over a sack of weed. He wanted to buy some weed. It was a chick. I knew.

00:49:46
Speaker 5: She called me.

00:49:47
Speaker 2: She said, I got to do down here from New York. He want to buy some weed. You got some weed? I said, you know, I got some weed. Went to Berkeley served ing. We met over a bag of weed, and that relationship turned into more bags of weed, more a week, and just a friendship. It wasn't even based on music.

00:50:03
Speaker 5: You know.

00:50:04
Speaker 2: I was from here, he was new here, and I was trying to give him the ropes. I've always mentored younger niggas because you can't tell old niggas nothing. You feel me, you can't. It's always more competition. I do better with young niggas than women. Women will listen, young niggas will listen. You can learn.

00:50:23
Speaker 5: So he was like that gave him some game. He's just a good dude, bro, but came.

00:50:29
Speaker 2: From like nothing like humble beginning, so he didn't really give a fuck about shit. I remember he had an apartment right up here off on MacArthur and Adrian Gregory his manager at the time. Once Pok's records started doing good, he bought him a jeep, brought him a brand new jeep. Cherokee Park lived in an apartment that that's the street. This is the alley, and then this is the parking in the back of the apartment. And this is the apartment. And this is the guy. Damn wall and the fence. This nigga called me over. I got a truck. I got a truck. I pull up on him coming to the back. He got a brand new jeep chair. He the black with the gold member. They used to have the little gold wheels on him like a ninety one. He said, let's go get some blunts. I said, all right. I said, you want me to pull a car out of here? Because he was like, I don't know how to drive. I said, you want me to pull a car out? He said now, and the god got it. Man, be back here, my nigga, We back here. He backs out, comes this way, cuts here and at the wall. It's like a concrete wall in a wooden fence. He gets right. I said, dude, you're getting close to the wall. Damn the mirror. Come in, my mirror, Come in. I said, dude, you're on the wall. He dragged that motherfucker from here down the wall out there, laughing the whole way.

00:51:46
Speaker 5: He didn't give a fuck. Got out.

00:51:48
Speaker 2: We got to the store.

00:51:49
Speaker 5: I opened the door, I said, come look at this. He said, I don't give a fuck.

00:51:51
Speaker 2: Get in. He just didn't give a fuck about shit. You feel me, he was just that out of it.

00:51:56
Speaker 5: He didn't care. Bro that nigga didn't care.

00:51:58
Speaker 2: And it got to a point stack where I felt like like he started blowing up so fast so or I couldn't keep up with him. Once he went to La, he started doing the movies, and shit, I'm still up here in the town. I got one foot in the music, one foot in the street. I can't afford to go to LA for a week. I got knocks to serve them, niggas to start copping from somebody else. My music ain't really moving like that. I'm still kind of independent in local. I used to call him and I'd be like, what's up. He said, you in La? I said no, come when you get there, like click, you hang up the phone. And I just watched this nigga start moving. He started doing the movies. I was on the set with him with the Poetic Justice shit. This shit was the funniest shit. I'm looking at Janet Jackson and I'm like, this nigga is in a movie with Janet Jackson, right, and she just acting Helico. We buy his trailer and shit. So he inside the trailer. So I'm outside smoking some weed. I opened the trailer door. He in there getting you know, he getting his wardrobe together, so he come out.

00:52:58
Speaker 5: Were hitting the weed.

00:52:59
Speaker 2: Then the nigg could take this cigarette from out off his ear and put it in his mouth and he hit the cigarette. I'm like, nigga can smoke a cigarettes. He's like, and he blowing. I'm like, what you mean I smoke a cigarette? Nigga, you smoke? He said, I don't smoke. Nigga Lucky smoked, and he's smoking a cigarette and healing it. Yeah, and he and character and like, I don't even know this nigga that I'm talking to. And I'm like, nigga, you saying I'm stupid right now. And it's not Park I'm talking to. I'm talking to a whole different nigga. And I can't process this because I'm still like, I'm way into town. This nigga is out there fucking with Mickey Rourke like he he laying into this shit. And I didn't know his acting background from the schools he had went to, Like I just made him over some weed shit, like we fucking around. So I'm just watching this nigga move and just growing. And then after I got that letter back from him that I told you, he said, children's coming to get him.

00:53:56
Speaker 5: He ended up flying home.

00:53:58
Speaker 2: I remember the nigga call. He said, Nigga, there's some trippy shit going on. I said. He said, Nigga, I'm at Madonna's house. And I'm like what he said, Yeah, I'm at Madonna's house and I'm like this nigga just he doing it, moving like and I'm watching him just go, go go. And at that time when he did the shit where they had the rape case on him, he had the little shit where he had shot the police. I told a nigga, I said, bro, you need to just fall back for a minute. So it's almost like like today, you'd be like, nigga, you need to get off the internet. Yeah, he activate your page right quickly for a minute. But he couldn't stop. But I couldn't. I couldn't keep my arms around him because he was working and I wasn't working like that. I remember he had a spot off of a Wheelshair. He had the thug Mansion sign on the wall and his mama was in there. Me and I. Peenne was always super cool, and I came in there one time. This is when I was about to drop. I think he was about to drop the all eyes on me. I was about to drop. Which one of them records was it? Anyway? I had my CD, my little twofold cover. He said, okay, show me your shit. I'm showing them shit. He said, let me show you my shit. Opened this shit and he opened it up. That cover field down had all the clean ass pictures. He sit in the back of the chair and I'm like, damn, this shit hard and he said listen to this and that nigga put on that mother for play. That motherfucker said, I won't deny you hum a straight rider. I was like, ooh shit, that ship was going right.

00:55:35
Speaker 5: He's like that.

00:55:36
Speaker 2: I was like, this shit going. He said, nigga, I need Joe album. I need Joe album.

00:55:40
Speaker 5: I said, all right.

00:55:41
Speaker 2: He said, I want all the niggas from the bail now, and bring some niggas with you. I said, who you want? He said, just bring all your niggas. So I made them calls forty all the niggas that you heard on all eyes on me. I called him, like this nigga pop on show on this record. So we went down there to the studio and just start cooking, and I'm watching this nigga work, dude, and it's like he went from the nigga that I was saying you just this black power type nigga to these other records.

00:56:08
Speaker 4: Was different.

00:56:09
Speaker 2: They was different, And I'm like, this nigga fucking with it, and I ain't gonna lie to you. There was a piece of me. It wasn't a jealous thing. It was like, once again, I'm not taking myself serious enough to get out here and fuck around with the fuck around because this nigga is on he doing movies, he doing all the shit. And it got to a point to where he got so far away from me that I felt like if I could have been closer to him, I could have saved him from a lot of the bullshit he was going through. I don't have a bad thing to say about Shug. Every time I met the nigga was a one used to take us up to what's the name of the restaurant that used to have a big ass lobsters in La Tamanti's nigga took us to Mant's. We balled it out. But what I was seeing was Sugar was spoon feeding even the bread. You feel me, but it was it was they was rolling. I mean, death Row was rolling.

00:57:13
Speaker 4: You know.

00:57:13
Speaker 2: This nigga should was super huge every time he pulled up, always respectful. But I be honest with you, me being a nigga from the street and and and knowing the ins and outs of how shit went. That shit that happened in Vegas, to me, they was moving wrong. Ain't no way you do a nigga like that in that casino. And then y'all be riding down the street with the windows down like that. That was foul ball to me, right, But in my mind, I'm like, Sugar is the is the nigga?

00:57:44
Speaker 5: You feel me?

00:57:45
Speaker 2: And then later on after Pok died and all that other shit start happening with Sug with the barber nigga, and then I started realizing.

00:57:53
Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, if I could have.

00:57:55
Speaker 2: Been closer to this nigga, I think I probably could have. But shit happens the way it's supposed to happen. But you always feel like damn, because I'm one thing about me is I can see the angles because I'm fucked with it. You feel me, ain't no way you do. I don't give a fuck who the nigga is. You'll beat up in the casino. You can never underestimate nobody because you can't see him coming. And Lando turned out to be a bad motherfucker. You know what I mean, turn out to be a bad motherfucker. Your niggas supposed to be bulletproofed up. Your niggas supposed to be tended out. Your niggas ain't suposed to be you and him on the strip with the windows down, chasing bitches after you did a nigga like that, In my opinion, the wrong nigga exactly. And that's just in my opinion being a nigga. Shit I come from so but shit happens the way it happens. I enjoyed every minute of fucking with the nigga.

00:58:51
Speaker 5: He was always genuine. One of his biggest problems.

00:58:53
Speaker 2: Was he would take anybody and you could we be out in the lobby and the nigga be out there and you see him. The next time, he'd be like, Oh, this is my brother.

00:59:02
Speaker 5: Nigga.

00:59:03
Speaker 2: You just met this nigga. We met him last time when we was in the lobby over there, fucker with Stack and Matt. You don't know this, but that's the kind of heart the nigga had. He was just absorbing niggas and he had the outlaw niggas with him, and them niggas loved him, and he just had this magical shit about him to where he brought everybody up to I mean, you heard them records. Them niggas was making, the niggas was cooking, but the nigga just like torpedoed out. And when I start hearing some of them records, I remember talking to dads one time. I was like, this nigga seemed like he so this is my thing and I'm gonna put this out there. My mama taught me at a young age. She said, your tongue is a sword. Watch what you let come out of your mouth, because whatever you say will happen. And I remember being a young nigga talking shit blah blah blah, and shit was happening. So if you listen to my whole catalog, I don't never rap about dying. I rap about money, pitches, cars and balling it all happened, and it all happened. The minute he started talking about dying, he was dead. Biggie made the song ready to Die, he was dead. I've been trying to tell these young niggas, do not be speaking that death in your raps, because it's gonna come see you. It's gonna come see you. It turned into this thing where you was the toughest nigga talking about all this murder shit. We come up in there with Spice one talk to all that shit. Man, Spice wasn't killing nobody. Jenn and Juice, I mean, not the Jenn and Juice, but that one eighty seven proof like it was. It was parody, but it was still gangster.

01:00:33
Speaker 5: You feel me.

01:00:34
Speaker 2: But then these young niggas start talking about it and really living it. That would ever come out your mouth that shit to come get you, bro, So speak good shit, talk about.

01:00:44
Speaker 5: Money, talk about winning.

01:00:47
Speaker 2: You feel me, because soon as my dog start talking about dying, my nigga was gone.

01:00:53
Speaker 5: Biggie the same way, I'm ready to.

01:00:54
Speaker 2: Die and it was gone.

01:00:56
Speaker 1: Is it an urban legend that you turned down the track with Biggie out of respect for Park, No.

01:01:00
Speaker 5: It's not.

01:01:00
Speaker 2: That's the truth. So let me tell you how that happened. So I was on death Jam, I told you so. I'm in New York met Puff a few times. This time he had the restaurant Justin's was popping and all the shit, and my manager, Domo wim two Ma was was in, you know, with Tina Davis. They knew a lot of different people. They got a call said that Puffy wanted me to get on this Biggie record, right and I think Biggie was still alive at the.

01:01:30
Speaker 4: Time, and Park was gone.

01:01:33
Speaker 2: Your Park was gone, and Leor and In was juiced, and I was like, that ain't gonna fly. Remember that ain't gonna fly because when Pac died, I had did do Gee's Get to Go to Heaven and Leor was telling me, oh, you got to make this record about Park. You gotta get a Phoenie to get on here and or you gotta do something someway. I was like, man, I'm not doing none of that. I'm not monopolizing there and off my and Leo was like I feel that. I feel that. I know that's your man, but I mean, you know, that's an opportunity. And I was like, I'm not gonna be able to do that. So what I did is I went to the studio and dedicated the song to him. He asked me to get on that record, and I wouldn't let him get on it because I told him if people hear you on there, they gonna think you took me here because he used to make them kind of songs. And I was like, I want people to know that I can write like this, like because I can write in a lot of different spectrums.

01:02:23
Speaker 5: So I never let him get on that record.

01:02:26
Speaker 2: Def Jam was telling me to do this Biggie record and it was gonna be a big thing. And I'll be honest with you. I met Biggie a few times. I saw them two ounces of weed, him and Little Seas at at Lady Ester's on East fourteen. They pulled up in the car. I'm coming out from eating I sing seeds standing up. I'm like that looked like the nigga Little Seeds.

01:02:48
Speaker 5: There's one.

01:02:49
Speaker 2: Pap was still alive, big sitting in the back of the car.

01:02:53
Speaker 5: He like, what's up? He said, you got who got the weed? I said, I got the weed. He said, oh, you got some ounces?

01:02:58
Speaker 2: I say yeah, So I got the zips on me right, And at the time the Zips was three fifty, but these niggas from out of town, so they was four hundred, right, So I told him four hundred, all.

01:03:07
Speaker 5: Two of them, bam.

01:03:08
Speaker 2: And I always liked Big. I always liked his music. Me and Poc used to get in the spats because he'd get in the car with me sometime. If I'm playing anything from them or from that, he be like, Nigga, turn that shit off, and he was dead serious about it. There was for a long time. I didn't believe that them niggas had nothing to do with that. I thought that was a Haitian jack play. I knew how easy Pac was around a lot of niggas. I was like, that could have came from a lot of places, and just now with all this other shit that come out, he might have been onto something. But I couldn't do that record and definitely was hollering me about it. But I didn't give a fuck. I'm a loyal nigga, bro. And as adamant as he was about not liking them niggas at that point, I just ain't that nigga, bro.

01:03:54
Speaker 5: I don't need it like that.

01:03:55
Speaker 2: And my shit had already like I told you, Nigga, I don't already had it go up down like it wasn't like Nigga, I was like, nah, I ain't gonna be able to do it. Leor was like, I can't believe you got a shot at being on a record with Biggie and you don't want to do it.

01:04:10
Speaker 5: I'm telling to believe it.

01:04:12
Speaker 2: I turned the record down.

01:04:14
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Short and forty and their longevity and the movement they had out here, but you were someone that took your sound and the Bear sound as a whole national right, international right.

01:04:28
Speaker 4: What did that mean to you?

01:04:31
Speaker 2: A lot of it is a blur man, to be honest with you, because like I said, I don't, I don't. I can't see myself. That's always been one of my things, like I don't keep score on what I do.

01:04:43
Speaker 5: I just kind of fuck with it.

01:04:45
Speaker 2: But when I sit back and look at my career, it's not as big as Shorts, it's not as big as forties. But I've had some impactful records. I've been on some impactful records, and I like that about my thing, you know what I mean. I've turned some shit down, but I've been on some good shit, and to be honest with you, if I could change it right now, if I could do some shit a little different and being the maid like you know, a greater, a bigger bag and possibly being catapulted like up higher, I probably would still play it the way I play it because I'm a nigga.

01:05:19
Speaker 5: That being lows on Saturday. You feel me.

01:05:22
Speaker 2: I don't have no security team like I like moving freely. You feel me just like I said, y'all move, I like moving freely. I'm the people's champ.

01:05:31
Speaker 1: And it was never about your talent. Not to cut you off, but it was never about the talent was there?

01:05:35
Speaker 5: Right?

01:05:36
Speaker 2: My thing is when I didn't know this back then, I'm saying now in hindsight, I wouldn't trade more money to be pushed into a box. Yeah. I like the freedom that I have and I like the fact that I'm on. I'd rather be a and igga. I got five on it. I got verses that where niggas be like nigga at versus hard or like Stack just said earlier when I was playing some nigga, you got your own lane.

01:05:59
Speaker 5: Nobody sound like you. I'll take that over.

01:06:02
Speaker 2: The bag and being I'm just a free kind of nigga, Like I like to move around. You feel mean, you might see me anywhere. I don't want to have it to where I gotta be with the security that'll pick my son up from school. And I got security nigga. We went to Snoop House back in the early nineties. This nigga had security living in the house. They had bulletproof vans. Like, I don't it that ain't my play. I ain't saying that ain't cool. That just ain't my play, you know. And shit happened for a reason, like I said. And one thing about me, it's the fact that I still got shit I want that I can't have to keep my blood pumping going.

01:06:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the shit that wake.

01:06:41
Speaker 2: Me up in the morning.

01:06:41
Speaker 1: You feel quick hitters. First thing the kind of mind let us know in your opinion. Top five Bit Area Rappers.

01:06:48
Speaker 2: Ever, I hate these lists because I gotta walk to lows.

01:06:51
Speaker 4: Like I told you what.

01:06:55
Speaker 2: Top five Ever, I'm gonna have to put Short up there, shortest to me, Short at the king of this ship. And see when when it comes to these lists, it could vary. It could be sales, it could be impact. But I'm just gonna put it out there, niggas, and it's your five, so it's my five. Okay, short damn, that's crazy, very short forty Dre. I fucked with Drey Drey didn't get his grams until he died, and he he was always nice with it.

01:07:21
Speaker 5: So I say, short forty Dre.

01:07:27
Speaker 2: Mhmm. See I'm an MC. I don't leave Hammer out. But the ship that impacted me as street wrap, you know, but Hammer was one of them niggas. I'd have to say, short forty dre Uh, Keith the Sneak, I fuck.

01:07:41
Speaker 5: With Keith Heavy.

01:07:44
Speaker 2: And who else was just nitrous from around here? Who was just dope? Am I only list? Yeah, because I was about to say it's a good named Richie Richie talking, Yeah, for sure. But it's a lot of niggas that's good from around here that don't get their grounds. Bro, It's a lot of niggas that's good from around Drew Down, I mean, had a shorter career but had some impactful records. Man, that Pimp of the Year, you just it ain't you can't do nothing with that when that come on. You feel me.

01:08:14
Speaker 4: One artist you never got to work with, but you wish.

01:08:16
Speaker 2: You could or what you did jadenkiss, I don't want to lock up. And we almost got it done. We almost got it done. I don't talk to him about doing some records both raspy, but both from two different spectrums. You feel me and also Scarface. Scarface told me he was gonna get on the record with me. I was on the phone with Brad the other day. You talk about man, I ain't that good?

01:08:38
Speaker 6: No more?

01:08:41
Speaker 2: Nigga told me he ain't that good. Need to knock it off.

01:08:44
Speaker 4: He called me, what you want me to do?

01:08:46
Speaker 5: I said, what you what you mean?

01:08:47
Speaker 2: I sn would be talking about what you want me.

01:08:48
Speaker 4: To do with it?

01:08:49
Speaker 2: What you mean? What I want you to do with it?

01:08:51
Speaker 4: What you did your whole life?

01:08:53
Speaker 2: I did that and I don't know how to rap no more. I did the Grown Room album with the Mechanics and I got a record on there called Smoke. I made it for me and fake. He told me he was gonna get on the record. My nigga, Rico is from Oakland. Rico funck with face now, I said, Rico Face told me to call you. He said, here, gonna get on the record. He said he ain't gonna do it, I said, Rico.

01:09:12
Speaker 5: I talked to him.

01:09:12
Speaker 2: He said, Nigga, I'm holding niggas money that we didn't have for years. He not gonna do it. Face been shaking me every time. Then he told me. I played him the record that's on the Growlong. He told me, this is what we're gonna do. Richie, call me Richmond, this is what we're gonna do.

01:09:28
Speaker 4: Richmond.

01:09:29
Speaker 2: Let me have this beat and then send me another beat. And I get on that. I was like, no way he did, and that nigga, I'll be honest with you. I go face. Then Jada Jada Hord but that nigga scar face, cold nigga, cold nigga, childhood crush, childhood crush. Tony Bragston who I thought I was gonna have Tony, but then when I seen Stun I had her, I was like, damn, I didn't even know you fuck with niggas like that. I thought she was real gospel.

01:09:59
Speaker 5: Hey, yeah, I thought Tony used to be here.

01:10:05
Speaker 4: Guilty pleasure?

01:10:06
Speaker 2: Guilty pleasure? What does that mean?

01:10:08
Speaker 1: Describe that there's something quietly that people wouldn't expect you.

01:10:12
Speaker 4: To like or do.

01:10:16
Speaker 2: Oh, let's see guilty pleasure that people wouldn't.

01:10:19
Speaker 4: Expect me guilty pleasures eating this tonehills.

01:10:23
Speaker 6: If you believe that ship, niggas, you eat fucking bullets for the breakfast.

01:10:30
Speaker 1: Bullets for breakfast, like the wats like like to listen to threesomes.

01:10:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, all day you go.

01:10:40
Speaker 2: He said, guilty, you gave me the ship.

01:10:45
Speaker 5: Let's put it out.

01:10:46
Speaker 6: There if you if you can see one guess on our show, who would it be? But you have to help us get your answer on this show.

01:10:52
Speaker 2: If I could see one guess on y'all show, who would it be? Because y'all, y'all be putting it on niggas athlete or your any kind of probably uh mm hmm. That's a good one. Come can we come back to that one. On the last one, you had short on here.

01:11:15
Speaker 4: You need to.

01:11:16
Speaker 1: Get them by hisself short and.

01:11:19
Speaker 6: That's what if you have yeah shortened somebody else the number yeah short.

01:11:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

01:11:29
Speaker 4: I can make that happen. I got beat on speed.

01:11:32
Speaker 2: And he wanted the coldest niggas to ever touch on micro and forth from around you too.

01:11:35
Speaker 5: You can't leave in my dad.

01:11:37
Speaker 2: I've been trying to get an album with b I'm like nigga let's get a record. He is another one of the coldest underrated me and his career is kind of the same we played with. He didn't play the street back and forth, but he just kind of be just cool.

01:11:50
Speaker 5: You know.

01:11:51
Speaker 2: He did some good things. He made some good I told you the nigga made me buy a house. So yeah, get belong here.

01:11:59
Speaker 4: Rich Man. We you shut you along over double R.

01:12:01
Speaker 2: Come on, shut cold coffee, funck with me, the Rolling Bean w W dot d, Rollingbean Coffee dot com.

01:12:08
Speaker 1: And you do know that that's a wrap you can catch that's allow to slow YouTube and the draft Pees network.

01:12:16
Speaker 6: Mm hmm.

01:12:20
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, mmmm

01:12:31
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.