Wake that ass up in the morning, The Breakfast Club Morning, Everybody's DJ, Envy Jess hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. He got some special guest in the building. We have Kim Osorryo, the legendary, the legendary Kim Osorio.
Welcome, Kim, good morning.
And also Malik bo He Welcome. How you feeling? Now? They have a new documentary, Tale of the Tape. I'm about to say we Tale of the Tape, How the Mixtape revolutionized hip hop, which I'm an executive producer on as well. Welcome, Thank you?
Did I mess up the whole time?
You good?
Thanks for having us.
Why do they still call him mixtapes?
Do they still call him mix taps?
Even to this day, there's no mixing. They not on tapes.
It's mixed shows now now it's mix shows.
Yeah, that's true. They were mixing back then. But it talks about the I guess how the mixtape game and how the mixtape started. So it starts from the beginning from Bruce E b Uh DJ and parties and how people started and how it became so popular. So before we get into that, let's let's tell people who you are. Let's talk with you, Kim. Kim, you had a legendary career for people that don't know, tell them where it started and everything like that.
It all started in the Bronx hip hop Now. Yeah, you know a lot of people know me from the Source magazine. So I was the former editor in chief of the Source magazine. But today I work primarily in television right, producing passion projects such as this one, but also a lot of projects that you're familiar with. People know me today from the impact New York love and hip hop, growing up hip hop. You know your favorite reality shows, that's right.
Emlie oh Man.
I'm a director of producer, owner, operator of Red Summer TV. Been in the game a long time telling stories. Used to work at every platform, produced for Rap City, one O six, et cetera. But now I do everything through my company and who was happy to have Kim come aboard for this project.
Now, before we get to the mixed it, what do you think about the landscaping of TV? Now? You mentioned rap City, you mentioned music shows one O six in park. We don't have that anymore.
Nah, I think it's all going away of the streamer. To be honest, you know, you look at a kid like conson it like he is what today's music cos you know, he is what the rhap cities or the one o sixes are like. He gets all the big guests, they come there, they all come to him, and I think that's you know, that's just uh, you know what technology.
Did and and academics breaking the music, yes, over the last few weeks, and you know that's that's that's a new new aspect of it.
And with you, Kim, you know, of course you were running the Source magazine, and magazines were so big back then. I remember you would wait for the new magazine to come out to see who's on the cover and the articles. But you don't have that, No, doesn't exist anymore.
Like you said, the landscape has changed, right, it's almost like direct to consumer. People are talking to and as storytellers, right, I think we've all kind of come up in this game, watching consuming telling our favorite stories. Nowadays, you see how easily the narrative can change, right, just because people can get online and go and say whatever they want to say. I was just having a conversation about it about a story that I thought was fake out there.
So it has definitely changed.
I think we have to be better protectors of our stories and our culture. That's one of the reasons why we decided to do this documentary.
Well, nobody cares about the truth, and the lie is more entertaining either, Right. So it's like these people that are creating these thaty they'll talk about storytellers. They're aut here telling these fictional tales that the internet loves. So how can you compete if you out here wanting to tell the truth.
I know it seems like it's all for clicks, but you know, I'm a firm believer that you gott to stand strong and what it is that you do, and eventually, you know, you get the notoriity that you're looking for.
I agree. Now, let's break down the Tale of the Tape? What made you guys want to do the Tale of the Tape came? I didn't think you were a DJ.
First of all, don't play with me. I used to have turntables, right, did you, Yes? I sold them.
I needed to sell them at one Christmas back in the nineties that that I didn't have any money to buy gifts.
I sold my turn table and I still regret it. Why do you want to do that.
You think I can't dj. No, Like, I love DJing. I'm a huge You don't.
Even know what that.
First of all, I was the first person that ever put you in the Source.
Man.
They brought a very young DJ Envy to me and said this is the next guy.
And I was like, oh, look at.
This page person, let us be my brother, and I said, let me put and we followed your career at the Source back then. Right, support it, But you know, I think that during that time, right, DJing was such it was such an important part of the culture.
I'm not saying it isn't now.
It's just that it doesn't get as much shine, right, So I feel like it's our responsibility to do that. So I'm a huge fan of DJing, like I've always been, Like, I'm the type of person that sends playlists to people, Like if you're like really close to me, you know that about me, you know what I'm saying, and CNV.
You straight away.
Over the years, you ain't want to call nobody, so I don't send you my playlist. But I'm that to I build playlists, and I think that like that's almost like the new mixtape when we think about it.
But I just love music.
I love DJ culture, and so it was a project that I wanted to get down with.
Do you think.
DJ's having adapted to these new distribution platforms, meaning like when you saw over the Pandemic, when d Nice was on Instagram Live, people cared about DJing.
That was great.
So it's like now these DJs they want to do radio, they want to do clubs. That's about it. Like why aren't they Why aren't they on more Instagram Live? Why they aren't the DJ screaming there make shures?
Well, some of these people that got DJ in front of their name, let's keep it a hundred. They really and they're not in it for the love of DJing, right the way that we watched the real DJs get on live during the pandemic and go crazy.
They're in it because.
And it's not just DJ's right, but they're in it because of the fame.
There's a lot of cloud there's a lot of cloud.
Chases out there, so you have that where you know, unfortunately people are are using it as a way to get in.
And you want to brand attach wouldn't brand attached to it to what they're doing? And if that's not it, they don't want to do it. That's not how it was originally when mixtapes were being conceived, when guys like you know, the Brucey B's and Kick, they was doing it for the love of the music strictly.
Now, you guys started this project years ago, many years ago. Yeah, you could tell from j Cole that doesn't have a dreads. Neither does Kendrick.
I don't think you got any facial definitely, I don't have.
The products were all the products that they used now weren't out back then. Joe got the rewind and now you know that wasn't around when y'all probably started.
So, so you know, why did it take so long to actually get it out?
Like him said, this was a this is a passion project right self funded. You know, it started because of you know, me being a storyteller. Everywhere I went, you know, interviewing and documenting, whether it was artists, whether it was DJ's The connective tissue was always the mixtape. You know, That's how everybody either got their start in some way, shape, form or fashion. And I was like, we have to tell his story. So a lot of some of those interviews were on the back end. Of certain certain certain productions, you know what I mean. And yeah, so you know, we're very happy that, you know, we were able to like fully craft into the story that.
It is now watching this, uh, you know, you realize that Brucey B was kind of the creator of the mixtape. He doesn't get a lot of the the accolades and shine as he should. So how it was talking to Brucey B. If you don't know who Brucey B was, he was a d J. I don't know if he's from Harlem and the Bronx because I always Harlem and Bronx is the same to me.
I'm Queens, you know what with people from Queens, because but we do claim Harlem, thank you very much. As Bronx people. We also will claim the locks from the Ankers. That's all part of like collectively we're uptown. Okay, Yeah, so married the locks, Diddy Bronx were claiming all of that. It started with us, remember, and then we let y'all.
And Queen's do what y'all did. Hey, listen, y'all took it to a whole nother level.
I will give you that. I will give you that, but I think he is from Harlem.
Right.
Yeah, So so talk about Brucey B and how it how it was created.
I mean, first of all, shout out to Brucey B. He was, you know, really really inviting. I just got his number through a friend and gave McCall and said, look, I want to I want to do your interview. Cool, what time and where? You know, his story is so dope because you know, he was that guy for from the rooftop, right, that legendary club which I guess like you know what the tunnel was for us something like that. But it was a painstaking process to like actually record his mixes and then spend the whole week duplicating one by one by one, right, and then selling them that next week. The only other way to make you know, the ways he was making extra money was like hustler dude saying, Yo, can you shout my name out? He's charging extra for that, you know, And it's just dope as we follow it in a linear process, so we get to like, you know, you including you guys are DVDs and shrink rap and whatnot, So it it's you know, it's.
Dope to see now I noticed Roan G wasn't on the project.
That's correct. What happened in Roan g Ron had some schedule issues. I'll say that, but you know, we could not talk about you know, Raan g is an integral part of mixtape culture. You know, I went to the National Treasure of Morgan State. He used to come down and battle with him in S and S we have parties. That's actually where I met you the first time, you coming through Morgan, going to Hampton one weekend and we did some business with your mixtapes at a mixtape.
Spot back then, and I was gonna ask with all those you know, what was one thing that you realized that you didn't know? Like for myself, I didn't know that Swiss Beats actually got his start by listening to these DJs do intro and he wanted to create intros like that, and that's how he actually got into production. I didn't know that. What was one of the things that you guys learned of for why of making this that you were like, wow, I didn't.
Know that I go first. I think what I learned most interesting was why k Capri exited doing mixtapes. I didn't know had got so high for him. I just thought it was a natural transition progression for him to do, you know, deaf comedy jam and kind of go you know, more of the business slash corporate route. But you know that wasn't that wasn't necessarily the case because if he was stuck around doing what he did, it ended up like drama. You I think, so absolutely right.
And I think for me, besides the facts of course that I learned that you was a lot more controversial spicy. It was a lot more spicy in the original interview. You know what I'm saying, Like you've toned it down a little bit, and that's I think that's what you had to do a mixtape culture, right, Like you had to get out there.
It was very competitive.
But I learned a lot about drama situation and how that changed the course of mixtapes and kind of steered into the mixtape. I think as the younger community knows it today, they don't really understand like how we viewed mixtapes back then. How you went to the you know, one hundred twenty fifth Street, Fordham Road, third Avenue to get the tape if it came out on Friday, just to hear all of the new cuts or hear the new blends. They don't have that same perspective. And I think the game changed around that time when you know the FEDS rated Yeah.
What about I haven't seen it? Just so what about Weigne in fifty? Did y'all speak to them? Because there was a period where, like you know, DJ's, the artists were probably more important to mixtape coaching than the DJ.
We wasn't getting no fifty in this stamn documentary.
We said it was self funded. We said it was self.
Fundered, you know what?
Yeah? And I think part of the reason to have and be come in and work with us on this documentaries was just to have a credible DJ be able to help us shape our narrative and telling the story and make sure there weren't things that we missed.
Because a lot of that inside stuff you don't know really.
What's going on, and then you come in with your cameras and you're trying to interview people and they're not really telling you the full story.
So Envy was our check and Boots so mvy. Why didn't fifty do the doc?
Because I think with this doctor was mostly based on the DJs, the actual DJ, but there was a period what the artists did shift things.
And we talk about that a lot in there, right, like the G Unit, like how they changed the game dipset right, and that's where and that's why you know we did get Kendrick.
Kendrick is in there, talks about the Jay cole on there, talks about how he thought he would never do a mixtape. He thought it was whack, and then when he came up here in New York and seeing all the DJ's doing, he was like, I have to do it. And that was the creation of his mixtape. That's what blew him up.
Yeah, Like that's what set the foundation and.
That's what he talks about. So he talks about that. So now let me ask you when it when it comes to DJs, who do you guys consider the mount rushmore of DJs mixtape? DJs I should say, oh wow, take me out because I probably want to take me out part of the project.
That's for.
You.
Give why I got to give my four Brucey, b K, Capri, Ron G and DJ Clue what That's just what I listened to, Okay, So leave drama.
Drama is comes later in my mind, Like that's much later.
And you're from the South, so that's different. I'm from New York.
For me, it would be Clue, Drama, ron G and.
Probably relate.
Yeah, I think I definitely kick Capri Clue Drama.
H that's a wow.
You left op off and you said that that was your favorite mixtape?
Is my favorite?
Isn't that ran? Yeah? I see it's bad because a lot of people forget Brucey B. Right, they forget what Bruce B did for mixtape he started, So just because of that, Brucey B has to be on there right then. For me, Clue is my mixtape savior. He's my god. Right, He's not my dad. I said my credit man's not his credit. He's not my dad. But he's definitely up there. You can't take away what Drama did. Like, you know, I joke with Drama all the time and we always talk about whos better, Drama or Clue. But Drama was one of the people that changed the game and when it came to mixtape, like Clue changed the game how he did it. But Drama was getting four artist mixtapes, which wasn't done before. And what he was able to do was, you know, some of these artist mixtapes are better than their actual album. You know, if you think about what he did with g Z, what he did with Wayne, what he did with Gotti, what he did with g Unit, what he did with for Real, what do you do all those TI? TI especially, is like you can't take that away from Drama And then it's like that's kind of for but you can't forget Kid or Ron, you know what I mean. So it's very difficult, right.
Right, Why y'all try to have Drama calling my phone? Like he wasn't on my top four yeall was like, you can't take everybody went against me. I was like, okay, but you know what that was after I think my impressionable years of when I was consuming mixtapes, right, So, like I could see why in my mind, I look at really like the forefathers more so of the culture at that time when mixtapes were prevalent.
And when we talk about artist careers, you know, we could talk about what artists and I think, like you said, the artists really forgot about mixtapes. But we broke down a lot of the artists that got their start form mixtapes, right, Can y'all break that down a little bit?
Some of those artists, I mean of course there's uh G Unit, and of course there's uh uh you know, Dipset. But Joe, Joe butten talks about how he got his start. He talks about Integral You and Clue World to his career. He always says he did it first. He always says he was that. But that's just Joe right, He said, no, I did it first. G Unit and Dipset copied me. But I think those move music and tapes, you know, set the bar for what a lot of the other guys did from the Cooles, Kendricks and especially Big Sean's.
When was the first move music?
Yeah, it was that.
I don't feel like as two thousand and what how early was that.
Fifty of them was like late ninety But Joe used to do the mixtapes with the Fab Poko. It was the Desert Storm mixers that they used to do, which I think was before the G Unit. But that was the Desert Store mixtape what they all did together on top of mixtapes beforehand.
But that was defin fifth album came out two you know, to that mean he had been smoking the mixtapes.
Absolutely, Yeah, it was it was back then. Now it will will there be a part two of the documentary and then where does it go from part one?
There'll definitely be a part part two.
Am I blowing it up about what the plans are, what we want to do with Tailor.
The tape is.
Kind of build off of different I don't want to call them elements and hip hop. But we've talked about our next project. I don't want to say it. I feel like somebody's gonna jump on it.
So we just say, wait.
About who does it first?
First?
It's about who does it better. We wanted to DVD's next.
We want to do the DVD era next, right, because that's a big part of the culture and how things were shifting, you know when people remember when you used to get the d v ds and actually like watch them, and so that's the plan. But it's really to take it into like these different pockets and study those pockets in the culture because no one's really doing that anymore.
Yeah, I just I'm just glad that people get a chance to see where it actually started from and when DJ is really matter. And I think the DVDs is great. I mean, you have to do French Montana where he got his start. Of course, Smack you Smack was my first fight.
Oh so you can't come on as executive.
Now we're cool. Now beat me up to what you think? SMA beat me up to each other?
You said, shout out to.
Smack was my first fight.
But these are the things that that we have to document.
In front of my pops. That was.
This is crazy, Yeah, it's crazy.
Oh my gosh, Smack came man way way back.
Yeah.
Really that was me and him went to elementary school and I do what I do. I think I threw dirt in his face and I ran. He was like the next day, I'm gonna beat your ass. And now this is lunchtime.
Lunchtime.
I told my dad. I was like, I said, your dad, I'm about to fight Troy. He was like, I'll be there. I walked out and I seen my dad was like, smack because he ain't gonna hit me in front of my dad.
Wow.
One, that's how you got the name for the mix of the DVD. Here.
You gotta get to jump on this one.
We're gonna start with that story, brother Troy, be good after that, nig It's gonna be interesting to see too, how DJ's got their music like those exclusives that they used to put on their mixtapes.
Like, I always like hearing those stories. I like hearing how artists used to get really pissed off and used to be hunting the DJs down because of that.
Who talks about that? He talks about clue and envy, How they.
Used to steal Who kid got kidnapped? Did he talk?
No, he didn't talk about it.
He got he got punk kidnapped him. The story they said they were going to book them for a party and who kid drove up to I think it was the Bronx or Harlem and they told him to come, you know, come to the car so we can give you a deposit. So his man stayed in the car, who kid jumped out and they threw him in the back and they beat him up, beat him up for playing an exclusive. So that was one of them. Well, we used to get the exclusives a couple of different ways. So the Biggie exclusive that I got was Biggie put his car in valet and the valet guy took the tape out and sold to me. So that's how we got that wheeling Yeah, pray for my downfall. Wow, it was unmixed, unmastered, the all of IRV gott the exclusives. It was IRV got his intern They never paid the interns back. That's old now. They never paid the interns. So when he used to go to the studio, what he used to do is used to play the dats back in the day loud in the office, so everybody would hear it and in turn took that one and then uh, the engineers and the studio, so all these artist would be disrespectful to the engineers and curse at him, to yell at him. So you give him a couple hundred back then it was a couple hundred dollars, two hundred dollars, and they just leaking the record and they would leak the records. That's how we got a majority of our records.
Wow, that's an exclusive right there.
That's get How could the mixtapes legally be sold if they weren't original songs.
Art for the game.
It was all illegal, was so even though stores you used to go up in when the promotional use, so that's what it always used to say, promotional use only.
Ye really yeah, wow, it was all illegal, And then they would get bootlegged by the bootlegs, and so everything was kind of like.
Call wholesales wholesal wholesalers. And that was the difference, I would say, because when I met Envy, when he came down, he had again his products were shrink wrapped, bar coded, like somebody was keeping inventory. I was impressed. I was like, you know, and you're good friends with my boys shot and so in the Philippines, okay, yeah, yeah, and so he would be like, he'd like, you can't bootleg my boys stuff, and so we would just you know, have to take the hit on that.
Yeah. So yeah, we figured out a way to do it. But the labels would never complain because for the labels, it was promotion for their artists emotion. So they wanted their artists on the top six songs because it was promotion. They wanted their freestyles. They wanted that, so they would give, you know, mixtapes. And then we were getting so many Rockefeller records. Jay Z and Dan Dash a protest to say let's do these Rockefeller mixtapes, and that's how the Rockefeller mixtapes came with Lenis and just became big cluded want to do it.
So I was next, yep, yep.
I look forward to. So how can people see this if they want to watch the full documentary, the full DVD document or hip hop mixtape documentary, how can they watch it?
Or they can go to uh it's on Amazon prompt, it's on Verizon, it's on Spectrum. You can go to tailordotapefilm dot com and get all the info, all the links, and go to Red Summer TV on YouTube on ig for behind the scenes.
Now, how difficult is for people behind the scenes if they want to do their own documentaries to get you know, on these platforms. How difficult is that?
It's very difficult.
I mean, you see, it took us a long time to put it out, and we just really wanted to get that done, get our first one in the can, and then start working on the next ones. But even as you guys know, in television, the networks, the streaming platforms, like it's taking some projects three to four years to get on the air. Right when I just did the Impact, that was like one of the quickest turnarounds ever. We shot it in September, October, November and it was out by January. That was one of the quickest turnarounds I've ever done on a show, right, Usually it's twelve to eighteen months right just from the start to when it actually comes out.
So it's hard.
Like you, documentaries are a labor of love. A lot of people I want to do a documentary, like you realize you're going to be spending your own money.
Time and time. It's not a lucrative thing.
You've got to really love what you're doing and love the story that you're telling in order to stay committed to it.
So, are our platform still looking for the I A should get the beef, the love and hip hop type of things, the fighting? Are they still looking for that or are they Are they getting to a point where they're like, now, let's.
Just I think it's changing.
It is.
I do think it's changing.
I feel like just even in my pitch meetings that I'm in, like I can tell by like what people are looking for. We're producing a lot differently, right, we have to find new ways to do that. So I feel like true crime is very hot. Crime stories even in our culture, right, everybody's got the story to tell, you know, it's funny.
It's one of the things we.
Said when we were talking about the boocy B situation was like, how the hustlers really put him in that position right to start selling his tapes, and they're behind a lot of stuff in hip hop right because the money.
Of course, that's.
Where it was coming from. So those stories have become I think, or we've put them front and center, right, and I think it's it's like going crazy on YouTube. Now I can see every old street gangster story on your right and everybody such and such from back in the day. You just put that in a Google search and it's you have like seven different storytellers telling the story of this person who is.
Now in jail for you know, life.
So that's I think the networks are kind of like, what's this about, you know, looking at that all right.
Well, definitely check out Tale of the Tape Revolutionized hip Hop And you want to shout out at all the EPs and everybody involved because they all listen all the time, so make sure they give that love.
Go ahead, Malik, I mean there's Kim of course, thank you so much, my brother DJ Envy, Yes, sir, I would like to really thank our pr guy Sydney has been amazing, and Nikiah Hicks who came on early, and Jocelyn Rose and Joscelyn Rose Lines, who's an amazing, amazing director. She did the movie Stand and she's one of our producers EPs on this project. Thank you.
All right, Well, it's the Breakfast Club. Is Malik and Kimmel Sorrio. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning, wake that answer up in the morning. Breakfast Club.