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If the into the Gangster Chronicles James McDonald, Rixie Reright Jr. And Alex Tomanso on the Digital Soapbox Network Material Witness on an aggregated battery. I was a hang gun and um they believe this might be in retaliation to her testimony. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. Welcome to another episode of The Gangster Chronicles. And I am Alex Alonso from Street TV a k a. Street Gangs dot Com. And I'm here with my co host James McDonald from Gangster Chronicles James McDonald, And uh, we gotta give a shout out to our third co host because the last time he called in James last week, he was a little bitter saying that we forgot all about him. So Reggie Wright Jr. He's only here in spirit, but he's not here in the presence because he's sitting down right now for a minute at Atwater Federal Camp, Federal Penitentiary. Well he's actually he's not an f CI, So he's in the penitentiary. Anytime you somewhere where you can't go home when you want to, you in jail. Yeah, I don't. I don't think you can call it camp a penitentiary though it is part of the penitentiary. It's just a camp. But the Campaign Penitentiary, I've been there. It's Campaign penitentiary. The f c I Penitentiary. So if you go to the whole, if you go to it's all the same thing, Alex, but they call him this time. It's just the name to the ship. What makes a difference, Yeah, I mean, but I mean it's a difference between y A and Juvenile Hall. You're still locked up. What's the difference. You're still fight, you still get stabbed. Everybody got a date to go home, so don't what's the difference. Jail is jail? Why why? Y is a little bit more serious than juvenile Hall. Now you have been to juvenile I've never been to jive. Juven A Hall prepped you to get where you're going. Yeah, you you're gonna fight in the gym and juvenile hard you got the one. I've never been to jail for everybody, it's alright. So this this is episode thirty one. I mean, I'm going backwards this episode thirty seven. And if you're new to the podcast, please go back and listen to some of our previous episodes. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, please give us a rating and review. And for the last couple of weeks, we haven't been able to address any of the questions but next week I'm gonna go to all your questions and I'm gonna bring them on the show, and I'm gonna ask James some of these questions. So don't forget to go to to the Apple podcast and give us a rating and review. Give us a one to five star rating if you love the show. You can give us a one if you hate the show, but ninety seven percent of the people that give us a rating give us a five, which is a good thing. And if you don't have Apple or iTunes, you can listen to us on Google Play, Spotify, and for those who have laptops and desktops, you can download radio dot com and listen to our show there. Or you can listen to the show the way my mom does. She used a serie. She just says, Siri, can you play my son's podcast, The Gangster Chronicles, And it will come on that way as well. And don't forget. We got video portions available of this show and all our previous show on the Digital Soapbox Network on YouTube, and those videos are produced by Smooth Cut Productions. So let's get right into it, man. I'll do some of the fact checking a little bit later, but we got a guest today that there's no doubt part of Los Angeles West Coast hip hop history. Just about every single name that is relevant in hip hop that is a producer or a rapper came through him pretty much. Um, this guy started early in the game when when this type of music was new. In fact, I think he started before they was even calling it hip hop, you know, before they was calling it rap pretty much. And um, the guy you keep hearing say pretty much is Alonzo Williams father. West Coast hip hop was happening with you. Well, let me ask you. You started in this man fresh out of high school, and it wasn't really called rapping hip hop back man. We you know, we were we were pop not we was locking and you know we was they had uh it was locking once to dance and you had groups like uh cats out of Watch Watch Profits doing the rap. But it wasn't hip hop. It was just you know, they had a rap group. And you had the guys that was locked up in the prison. Uh you talking about the Watch Profits. All these all these guys, they were rappers back in the seventies. M D was a member of that and he had an album in nineteen sixties six called Rapping Black in a White World. Technically that would be the first rap album ever. Technically he was rapping in the nineteen but it wasn't hip hop. It wasn't hip hop. Right, and I'm still around, he's almost about eight years. You know about those cats, We knew about those cats, but you know, we wasn't following those footsteps. We just was trying to figure out how to get you know, how to lock and how to how to do the thing that Don Campbell was doing at Centennio. You know, that's we did, you know, so you know hip hop was you know, it wasn't even a term yet, what was it? A term in l a right right, right right. They was definitely floating that term out and on the East Coast since the early seventies, Don Campbell legendary. Would you say a locker or a popper locker? Locker? Locker? He invented locking. He brought that at while crazy hopping and know your knees and jumping around to uh to soul train. That's we first I thought on soul Train. But a couple of the guys that um danced with him, one of them with Centennial and uh, he brought it to Compton and we tried, we tried our best to immulate that stuff. Man. So he was from Compton, I don't know. I can't say he was from Compton. I know his boy, Steve, one of his guys, Steve dad was Don Campbell on Soul Train. He was from Compton, and uh he was. He brought it to he brought it to us and we tried our best to get our you know, get our lock on. That's crazy. So did you do a little bit about yourself? I tried. It was the thing that lock, but lock. It wasn't getting you laid though, So I didn't really I left that alone real quick. Well. Ship locking got a lot of people introduced in movies and and right, the kind of stuff, right, you know, so locking was popular. Locking got you on Soul Train. Yeah, okay, yeah, you had to be good to get on Soul Tracker. I tried my best. I'm one of my friends. Uh was Freddie Maxie from Compton and she was on Soul Train. She was a Soul trained regular. She would give us locking lessons over there of a Ward and Long Beach Boulevard. Yeah, my boy, she was a regular. On soul Train, and we I never I never, I never got the Soul train as a locker performer. Nothing. Man. Oh yeah, that's so trained. Was the place to be in the seventies. Man ship, Yeah I got. I got used my my college vocabulary and my street vocabulary, which when I gotta use anyone you want, okay, alight, want to make sure we try to keep it. But y'all in the nice building, you know, you know, I don't make sure that y'all get throw the body here. I got some Samuel Jackson ship sometimes so I have to works mouth. So alright, that's good. I'm glad to hear that. I can feel free trying to do me James, the curse a little less sometimes, not only it's because sometimes, uh, we want our our content to reach a large audience, okay, and some people just be hating on the cursewords for some reason. You know what curs wars man. People love Samuel Jackson. They know he could custom. He was a custom motherfucker. But then if you do it, oh that's not that's what we do sometimes. So you grew up talking about where you grew up just outside of Countin. I was born in Compton off of Magnolia and want me too. But we left there and moved right there by Vanguard off in the in the l A County. But everything I did and with the Vanguard St Albert's Cintennio, so everything I did, pay phone bills, everything but the right. Yeah, that was I first tried to do the swamps over there. I never missed the swamps. But swamp was right around the corner from St. Alberts. Yeah, the swamps on that side, on the other side, and I Campanella was my park. Although I lived near Anthens, Campanella was my park because I walked past there every day. I played baseball the Campingella, huge baseball park. I played baseball the Campanella on the braves and stuff. And I'd walked from Saint Albert's hanging out the park and go to practice. So that part is right outside of Compton. I think they'd called it what a Rosewood at the time. Rosewood is tech Rosewood is actually Compton. I'm I'm I'm like an Anthen's almost. I don't even know what they called my neighborhood, man, It's just yeah. I think they went through a few name changes over the years. Part of the gentrification. Gonna name it this. I think that was called Domingus or Domingus not quite, not quite. I don't know about the Mingus and more. I won't say more rods West Dominas. Never heard West Domingas. No, I never heard that. I've seen a sign over there, but that's like we Compton in Atlantic. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know, man, the linement is the east side. West Domingas will be on the west side as the West Dominus. I know they turned that over there of Dominius. I don't know. I saw a sign one day and said Westernminia like that every part of company. So you lived in the sort of area that was changing names. The city with the county wasn't even we had we had Firestone back of the day. Okay, that's who were trolled by Firestone. Let me start getting patrolled by Carson then, because I started getting patrolled by h Alameda okay, and he just got crazy Centry. I'm sorry, Sentry, and it's always been wildfar that's concerned. So what inspired you man to really get Because when I was a kid um in the early eighties, you know, I was just eleven twelve, and I always heard your name, always heard your name and years old, and I always said, down, I wish I could meet this guy. Be like in a group of dudes that are rapping and singing, and your name would come up. And I never knew what you look like or who you were, just your name would always come up. Eight one, eighty two, eighty three, eighty four. He was a man for the party. Yeah, yeah, I used to go to even at the dark, and you know that's where all of us, everybody, everybody years to even after dark come out, even over the nineteen seventy nine second nineteen sent me nine. Well we was, we was going over there in the eighties and uh what what what it was is it was cool because you can go in there because they had a dress code. We most of us y'all used to let some of the cast, some of the homies and just flamed up. But if I didn't know you, you're gonna come in here with with shirt pants and you're gonna you're gonna look presentable. And it was cool because every time after after the club closed, we had something to do. All or we went and did were on radio. But that that used to crack Foot. I'm talking about every Blood and Compton are around that every year was there. Everybody we had part rules, we had we had a few crips come through the time of time. It was my brother. Here's some kids, some crazy ship. My brother was the only cat I ever known had dual game relationships. He was We lived in Blood Territory, but he went to Gardena and he ran with the shot shotgun payback, payback, paybacks. He remember the paybacks at Gardena. But he came home with my mom and ran with the cats on Crosson Avenue and Jarvis, Uh, you know, there was all this home. It was all we all grew up together. But you know they gave him a pass on both ends. Everybody kne where he lived at. Everybody now way he went to school at. So when I got the club up, he invited something to cast from Payback to come hang out the club and it was an issue, but he was able to squash it and it just worked here. Yeah, So that was Jarvis prou back then, I think that kind of got it was just Jarvis Man. Jarvis didn't go, didn't didn't go. Rue Man to almost the nineties, it was like maybe a little earlier, but maybe Jarvis was Jarvis. Yeah it was. Yeah, I think I think Jarvis was Paru back when we were when you don't remember Down Turner, Yeah, Don Turner in the eighties. Maybe in the eighties star claiming Pru okay um because he called himself trying to be the neighborhood gangster, and uh he wasn't. He wasn't the gangster per se. He just had the big mouth he was. He was a catty. He couldn't fight, but he talked a lot of ship. Well on on our side of town back then, they was Putting, Putting, you know what I'm saying. Right, Putting was the the big homie to all, right, from the West side, right, he was big to all. So all those other cats was coming up and and and talking, just running their mouth was getting tested back. We was a little cat. So it was. It was a big difference growing up watching the big homies get down opposed to these fake cats coming out and and and just doing stupid ship. Yeah, I was an old TC and Paru boys sent the nets. Nobody liked our old TC and me and Putting and a couple of other homies got into it. And uh we had it was a fight when my boys got into a fighter Centennial. The fight got broke up by security guards. But were coming through Enterprise Park about three days later and we lived. We had to go through Enterprise Park to go home, and uh, they caught us in the park. But my homie, who was well respected, I don't know if you're the name Kenny Clay. Kenny Clay was a cat from New York. But he ran with the Parru boys and he wouldn't let them jump us. And one of my boys would head up with another, not not putting, but another one of Pararu boys, and he did pretty well. He didn't beat him up, but he did better these poles two and that nigga should nigga took a dive, let it be done. But now he did. He had his business and next thing I know, they had a hit on our OTC And I never went back to the again strikes this uniforms gardna. Here I come. So he was around all this gang stuff going on. The first jumped off what you didn't never bang? Though? No, I never banged. How did the influence not take over you? I never really got into it. Um, I don't know why maybe um my dad was kicking my kicking my ass on. She kept me busy all the time. I was cutting lines and ship so a centtennio. I ran with the r OTC crew, some of them cats, and back then everybody it wasn't like you had to claim a set. And I was a skinny kid. So back in the day in the game banging, it wasn't about the number, it was about the quality of the cats. What I'm saying, it was about you had to be you had to have hands or whatever the case. Maybe as they said, you to be able to thup. Okay, and my neighborhood with the guys I read what. I didn't have the gang bang, but because I had a car that I was the homie and he looked out for me. So when they did dirt, they run my ass off, okay, but they still looked out for me. If I had a problem with another gang banger, they would intervene. But if it was just a regular civilian, I had to had on my own business. And that was kind of the colde back there. You know, gang bangers didn't really mess with civilians. If you did, you know, if you didn't, you just didn't cross somebody because I've been one time, me and uh me and Ralph Carter had an issue with a vanguard. Ralph Carter snatched back then we catch war hats to school. Were dressed. Okay, I had on a nice ass hat tilting and ship, but I had a big ass natural and he grabbed my hat, took it and he grabbed my hat. He snatched my hair, and dude, it was on. Okay. I didn't know who he was, you know, but he gave it back to me because my boy saw what happened. No man can take his hat, dude, so he gave it back to me. And after that was it was squashed. Okay, but that was that was a kind of relationships cast had back then. Oh no, I'm not him to give him hat back. It was some the crips. I never forgetting one of the guys had I wore another another coach to school. One day I was talking to a girl, came up. A guy came up behind me, put me in the headlock and choking the shot out of my ass. Okay for that leathern jacket, and I'm I'm butting it. I'm butting it back and man ain't my coat. It ain't my give a damn And my partner saw that, Hey man, you can't take the Niger coat. That didn't go man. Hatch coaching, biscuits, hat coaching business. Baby, if you gotta had coaching, especially Waits lines. Yeah, you think have a bad day. So the RTC. That's sort of like military pre military, right, Yeah, But what did you have the music inspiring you at that time? I mean I got the music bug at Camp Anola, not like fifteen fifteen years old, because back in the day they would do dances at Camp another Gonzalez Park, Lotus Park, and if you went to the dances, you know you see that, you see this vibe. Excuse me? And I remember um Rolling buying him from KGFJ was a camping on the park and they was rocking, and I just want to do what he did. And I didn't know you you didn't have to be a radio DJ to do that. I thought you had to be a radio DJ to play at the park. When I left Centennio went to Guardina, they had this little thing come around for twelfth grader, is what you want to do? And you guy to school. I was already working at the hospital on Avalon. I got tired of changing bed pans and stuff, so I want to try something different. I checked off radio and I got a little scholarship to go to a broadcast school just so I could come back and play a Campita of the Park. Never played Camping in the Park, but I would say Regina Chelly all the time. That was my first major. My first regular gig with Regina Chelly is all girls school right there on the cross street from Saint Alberts. So what you're doing like DJ and every other week man. And it was different because I said this in my book, um in w waiting now without Alonso a little quick plug. Um. When I first started DJ and Regina Chiley, the nuns was the only security guards they had. You know, there was there was gang activity, but it wasn't that rough, you know what I'm saying. They was more in Kathery put in the shine, their biscuits. They stations and come to their pants to come hang out, taste the girls. And after the set it might be a fight, some mighty might get jumped on, but for the most part they respected the nuns. And it wasn't until later on, after about a year or so it got a little after our bringing security guards because cass will get jumped in Sant Albert's. But it was never that bad. Cash got stalped out, you know what I'm saying. I was talking to my boy Yellow Ice about that uh ship about two weeks ago. We was laughing about that, how he would go to Saint Albert's and you know, they pick out cats to jump on, but they just bank them up a little bit, put hands on them and them know, hey, man, this is our hood. Blah blah blah about their business. That's a o G west side piro right there, you dog. Um. St Albert's for those who don't know, is right there there on Compton Boulevard, just off of Avalon, right there between Ronando Beach and Campton. Because it kind of yeah or yeah like a chicken and um. I heard there was always a lot of entertainment when I talked to some of the old cats from Campanella, always parties at Saint Albert. Did you ever go down to the West Side to some of these parties? A lot of parties in I went to the two dollar party, that the gym's, the house parties. I've been all kind of parties. How about the Saint Albert something, No, I don't know. I don't remember the name of it, but I've been to a lot of parties because that's directly walking distance from Campanella Park directly, Yeah, like three and four minute walk. And I remember talking to some of O g from Campanella. He said that before the Campanella's, the and and the Swamps really got into gang bang and they were all friends. The Swan boys and the Campanella boys are friends, and they would all hang out at functions at saying it just get guys want the guys with the Enterprise, guys with the Vanguard, and it was no issue because Swamp mostly went the Enterprise and everybody else with the Vanguard and or or either willer Brooks. Okay, those are the major junior high schools and cats with trip, but it wouldn't be no major trip. And then after a third point time it got territorial. And you know, you know we got from there, so you must have to really navigate all this gang stuff. Um as a musician and putting on events and functions. You know what, man, it was funny. I was telling somebody man. As one of the first DJ's out of Compton turntables and records got me into an into and out of a lot of ship there. Okay, I mean the DJ. Come. Nobody really mess with the DJ because if we leaving no party. Yeah, and then when you're doing that, everybody know who you are anyway already at this time, they know you ain't with the right They knew what they know. I never came bang, so they're cool. Man. I played for I played over in the front hood. I play uh. Gregory Cross was one of my one of my favorite promoters, Gregut He was from our front hood and he was promoting parties and he would he bugged me to do something. And now I loaded my truck. He gave me my money up front. No no questions was, no questions asked. And you know I did ship for everybody, so you know, it just was a different time. Man. The turns. I did a lot of essays sets true story. I'm doing the essay setting in uh Whittier backyard booging. They started fighting, to essay, gangs started fighting. These motherfucker's for real, call the time out, Hold on homes, hold on homes. Let the DJ gold Man. I'm not bullshit. And they gave my cousin a surance sticky. He hired a motherfucker. He can't help me do nothing, the essays both sides. Help me load my truck up. They gave me my money, help me get my cousin high asking the truck, and we pulled up. They got the fighting again. No bullshit. See that's the crazy stuff you had to deal with all that, that that kind of ship. Because at that time I was one a few as one of the only DJs around. I'm gonna say I was the first. I don't know no about everybody's business, but I know I was. I was working my ass off from I was doing lou Alls and Russian ship and pigs in the goddamn ground, the whole nine yards, and I'm doing the Gang of Kiss and Ship all over the city. When the dram started coming around you, I just see drading until about eighty two eighty three. Now when when when you met Dre and a lot of people got this misconception of Dre being his thug out as cat and I was mentioning that to your early one thing I hated when they did straight out of confidence. Drey was beating up some shuer security. And if anybody know Dre and you know, is that the type of cat that that wasn't his get down, that wasn't need to get down. Uh, Drey was always real aid back dude. He never really got in that kind of stuff. Um, we had issues. Understand me, I'm eight years older than Dre, I'm five year older than Yellow and Cube by my twelve yethold in these cats, so there was an issue. I had to treat them cats like kids, you know, the grown folk problem. You'll go set your ass down because you don't know what you're doing. Okay, you're gonna do. You're gonna be a liability. The same reason why I couldn't be a game banger back in the day, because I wouldn't I was, I was a skinny kid. I'm gonna be a liability. And you think it's got the answer to my mama for letting me get beat up, so before I do all that. And because they respected my mama something terrible in the hood, they could go home, drop us off and go home, or be just around the corner in twenty minutes. Okay, that kind of thing. So it was almost the same thing that but with these cats when they were we did have problems they weren't involved in and our problems. You know, I had a cruel of guys that even after Dark Roscoe and Unknown DJ and some mother cats that you know, we was frontline. Okay. But before that though, usually I don't have to worry about the whole lout of that because Yellow I maintained the outside and all the homies. Okay, we had that relationship. Lazo ain't then going down. But we love what you're doing, man, blah blah blah. We ain't that. Nobody messed up just right here now, y'all gotta take care of your other stuff on the inside. And that's what we did a little bit. He wasn't security. He just was a homie that just me and him has always been cool. Me and his cousin was cool. And I've never been the club free and he just made you man, no wordy about nothing I got. I got discovered. You know, I like what you're doing, man, just to keep you know, just keep doing what you're doing. That's that's that's our relationship. I moved to Dodos. I hired him and uh Marvin and some other in the f O Y and Reggie's dad and them from Compton p D to do my security dodos. So you know, I had different levels of security. These Reggie's dad and them. They were like the guys that knew everybody that kept the ship down for the most part because they knew they was the police. I had the f O I to wash the doors because they was cheaper than Reggie than Reggie's dad and them, and then Keith and you know Ice and I'll rested the cast that I had on my team. They just walked the floor mation. Nobody starting ship in the club. Was that Marvin Zy Marvin with the diving in this two? Yeah, yeah, Marvin and big Uh what's a big big man named damn uh? The big Lieutenant. I forgot this sting. But yeah, there was about that was due that's above eighty five. I lived. I was kind of in transition between I was chesting do those out when old Man wanted to shut the eve down. I mean, the cops is have an issue that at the Eve. I figured I'm going around the corner. But Ship, you know, it was like that's Compton. What my people follow me to Compton although its right around the corner. Whole different mindset because you right there on Pyrou Heaven you and Pyrou Central. If you don't get a pass, we ain't coming, okay, And I think we get a pass that though. It was risky. But after I talked to Yellow Ice or some other man to get a couple of guards to keep keep the keep the fools down, We're having the rest. It was like that, and it was cool. You didn't get that many fights, but you had fights. You had fights. Yeah, I mean one of the one of the biggest things we ever had. We had no edition there, man, you know, and it worked out and everything was cool. It's about one forty five and that ship kind of blew up. Why do y'all stop? Do those? Why shut now record record? Who blew up? That's why I left Dodos. I was doing I was doing do Thos on Friday, skate land on Saturday. We always don't come to p D shut that down because there was so many cats. I know, Reggie Wright was there, Reggie Philip Bailey with my cousin and uh so he ran to swap meet with Reggie and a couple of other cats from from the p D here Retaylor, these all these cats. They hadn't even got all they stripes yet, and we just had a good relationship with him, so we I didn't had no problem about the city at all. It just that I blew up wrecking crew wise. We started getting gigs. We were doing Dodos on Friday, scared Land on Saturday, and then people started calling to do gigs out of town. Not making just as much money, if not more money, gigging and going out of town, and like what ship that I came back? Uncle James arm me trying to run do to try to run skate Land and that ship didn't last that long. Now, you guys kind of butt heads, right, we butt we butt ahead from day one the very beginning was it with Roger Clayton, specifically, me and Roger was really pot this man. We was buddies. We worked at the same place together in Compton. There was on Walnut. There was a record distributor on Walnut in Central called record Shack. We both worked there. And when he formed his idea to start his production company, I was at the DJ at Alpine Village and we worked together for a while, and then people started booking me at the DJ to do other shows at Alpine. He got pissed at me, and then after that I left. When to started even the dock, I offered him a partnership, and man, too many show mayor too many gangbagers. Well I do all the share man nothing makers. So I'm gonna do this with with without you. And you know, after about five or six months, the ship blew up. So basically your success inspired him. We had a we had a love hate rivalry. Man. You know, my thing was always consistency. You know, I don't like moving around. Fucking DJ equipment is heavy, Okay, to move to do a party in different places every Friday and Saturday night was like moving a small bedroom or one room apartment like four or five times and one night, because you gotta take it out the house, put in the truck load of ship, and then you might not make no money. And that my old man knew. The old man, the old own even after dark, they were drinking buddies. So I cut a deal. I ain't got to move no more, but I still kept doing Alpine Village and uh Queen Mary Convention Center my hotel, and bring everybody back to the Eve for the after party because the evening closed. The five six o'clock in the morning. Sometimes we had a smooth thing. We had a real smooth thing. So back in you got your wrecking crews blowing up. Yeah, Uncle James Armies blowing up, blowing up. And then you also had greg Ever. Gregory Ever was doing ultrawave. Um. Did you have a relationship with Gregory? Every mean, I didn't know Gregory back then. We got a real tight of the last past fifteen years because we laugh about those times now, because they was they was trying to compete with us. I want to compete with nobody. I had to even I wasn't. I had no part. I had no no, I had no competitions. Well, you had the streets. That's why I had. We had we had to. We had the the east side. What nobody coming to the east side, Okay, you had to be a certain cat to go to the east side. Anything on this side of Crenshaw. I had no competitions. You know, everybody was afraid to come over there. And you know, I've been there so long, you know, think about it. You know. The one person to try to was Roger Eskatel, and he had a couple of shows that was successful, but nobody had to tenure to. I had on the east side, and then I guess Gregory saw an opportunity for the west side because all his ultrawave stuff was on the west side of town. It was even in like Culver City, right, he had the he had the same spot that Roger opened up, the Vegelans Uditory. Uncle Jam's army. The rod in the sixties followed everywhere they went, so everywhere they went there was some ship. So greg me and Greggy laughed about that. He said what he did. He went in with a nonprofit and was able to get the Vegeans Uditorium through his nonprofit of mom or somebody had a nonprofit or whatever the case may be. That they didn't get that. Roger was piste off and he started doing the sports arena and ship like that, and that ship worked out for a while the sixties. That for him, it's always like some gangship is always involved, and no matter what's going on in this town, business with gangs, it ain't gona work. Even if you try to stay away from it, it's not see what happens. Let me tell you about this. Let me let me tell you the real reason why cats go for the gang ship because when gangs show up, they showed, they show up deep. You got you know, even too dark. When when the Nickerson showed up even to dark, they're making sixty cats with them. But if you got f Y, if you have f O Y just as deep, then they would be able to no not y former. Yeah, but see you got sixty cats from Nickerson Gardens. They may be bloods, but they not messing with Eugima Village. Okay. And they're bloods too, So you got you know, you got the numbers game now and see the promoter, I'm winning no matter what because I got village Yuhima Village, they got thirty five forty cats. I got another fifty sixty cats from from Nickerson Gardens. And everybody is is I'm making money for everybody, but everybody ain't getting along. Okay, you got everybody would Centennial. You don't know what happened to Centennial. And it's a personal ef. Nickinson Garden's got him out numbered. Okay, they can they can pock them, Okay, they can park them. And this is what happened when you when you were bringing gangs into any kind of venue, you got as a as a as a businessman, I'm winning short term, but long term I'm gonna loose. Now, James, you said it's possible, you think because it seems like any big thing you got going on in this town, whether you're on the west side of the east side, some gang is gonna be on your head. Everybody think that that just because that statehood, you owe them something, you know what I'm saying. Even in our hood, if you came and wanted to to to give out free turkeys, well you better give us a few of the turkeys just for doing it. And you know a lot of cats think like that, you know what I'm saying. But just just bringing in, say fancies, you got the show going on, and you want to bring me to do security. The home is gonna come just because I'm there, you know what I'm saying. Then then everybody knows, okay we're doing this. You got catch coming from everywhere being a part of that. I want to be around it, so you gott catch that. Don't like this cat, just like you were saying, now, you gotta worry about a big old thing going on nowadays. Ain't no talking, ain't no conversation. It's just pop pop pop, your show was over over, especially if they didn't like you and knew you were throwing the gig. Man, We're gonna come over and go over there and shoot it up. Turn it out. You ain't gonna make your money. We know that. Yeah, that's why we do. And you see, that's that's one of the reasons why we don't have a lot of stuff in the hood right now, because you have to understand there's a hit in hand behind all business that most people don't understand. That's the insurance companies. When you got when you have incidents, repeated incidents and lawsuits, your insurance is going through the roof. It costs more money to insure businesses in l a Compton and wats any place in the city. And they know it's a lot of gang activity, whether it be a liquor store, loundramatic, be anything. So if you if you go over only on the west side and enshore the same building for two thousand dollars a month a year and you're going on the east side and then is ten thousand, perfect example, even after dark. We went from five thousand a year twenty grand. We had a business. I ain't at the more that the insurance. The insurance went from fifteen with from five thousand to twenty thousand. And I ain't do I don't do it no more. So that's one of the reasons why you went over to skate Land. That's just happened this year. I wasn't even start forty years man, thirty nine years, and in six months I was. I had the keys and had the relationship thirty nine years. I didn't run it consistently thirty nine years with me and the old man. I'd go back every few years to do parties, whatever the case may, because we had that relationship. And then, uh, you know, we had a couple of issues, and then they found out we was doing met exotic and female exotic. And that changes everything because now you look as a strip club and see first we had a problem because they didn't know what was doing it. But then we started putting flowers on the internet. Oh these thinking just do a stripping the We're gonna put them with a stripper bill here twenty grand, so they charge you more. Hell yeah, well you got away with the wait for a good little why I ain't man, ain't man all right? Um? I interviewed, Uh, legendary l A radio DJ Greg Macy a couple of months ago and he said that, uh, he didn't really have a great relationship with Roger, but he linked up with you and he said that, Um kind of that's how the Mixed Masters was birthed at k Day, taking a couple of your DJs and putting them on the radio, right me and Greg. When Gregg first touchdown in l A, I was when the first cast he met. And uh, um, he wasn't about the dances. I just shut the eve down about to open up the dodos and I invited Hi much to do those one that he saw big it was. He said, man, what if I could get you some acts like who I'm making you climax? Uh so and so, and he brought me new Edition and like happened. That's how new Edition out here, you know. He Gregg was a programming director for kDa, and we had even we was making underground mixes. We had even done a legit record yet I don't think and uh, Greg but had by he being a programming the director, he had a lot of in pull radio or record companies. So he gave me dodos. He gave me to act for Dodos on Friday, take him out to the valley on Saturdays, and everybody was winning. You know, we did he did the consta. He did Uh I forgot to name the skate Land skate ring out in uh Valley, and then uh we started doing ship I would I have a group at Dodo's Friday, another group at skate Land right next door Saturday night. And then you think about constant commentar real consta and then he do the consta. So we had a thing, and then you know many By the time the eighties gotten got in full forth about eight six eighty seven, it stopped being worthwhile to do teamship in l A because games was sucking up everything we didn't. Hip hop kind of start going commercial a little bit too, and people were the big record companies were coming in at that time, maybe squeezing you out. We never really got squeezed out, per see, we got uh. They started to compete with us more because we first started doing this with nobody checking for hip hop. Hip hop it just was born right after hip after the disco it died, so people everybody thought hip hop was gonna take the same rotors as disco. Died flow deaf, you know, blah blah blah, but disco mean hip hop came around and ship that ship was it was baby in the people chore Baby, But that motherfucker lived and they lived on and got a healthy It's fucked. Hey. I was watching the Fat Boys on Soul Train in my dad, and my dad said, why are you into this music so much? He said, in about five or six years, just like you said about how disco died. He said, about five or six years, this rap music, this hip hop is gonna be dead. And my dad was usually right on stuff, but he was completely wrong on that. I'm sure you probably you just said that they told me because disco didn't last ten years. Maybe the school lasts like four years, four years, seventy nine, But no, no, uh, disco was hot in seventy five because in seventies six I named my first DJ name was disco Linzo. Okay. By seventy seven, I just go back to this Linzo okay. But they still have some disco hits. In seventy nine, they Stephen Michael Jackson's Off the Wall was inspired. Kind of right, you figured, let's say five years, didn't it was last dude, disco you want Disco died though, because white people can't dance. Well, they was loving John. They would loving but John, but John, but but but the average disco. You go to the disco, you know white people, white people dance that ship. It's like, yeah, that's it. Actually just make you laugh. Both of white guys can't dance right now after the disco? When did When did you get with Dre? Now? I got with drey Man about I said about eight I I brought Curtis Blow to Even after Dark And that's from drey show about eight two. He came to the customer and came at the customer to come in on DJ. He come out that he was he was supposed to been DJ, and I heard he was a DJ, one of my young homies. He gotta check out this kid named Dre and uh and his name is Tim. Some people take credit for that. It was it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't Tim to take credit for another Tim from the neighborhood that worked worked at Even after Dark, and um I heard about him and I got folk d J. I don't he know more DJs? And then Dre came to the club one night and then somehow another the brother ended up on my turn tables and he didn't ask me. I don't know who he talked to, but he ended up on the turn tables. And that's how this ship started. He was good, He was good. He had this little mix he did with Mr Postman and uh job rhythm tracks and like I said in his documentary, um niggas was dancing, but they was dancing confus you they don't know what the dance to the slow track or the fast track. And they were like, but that ship is dope, and I'm saying here, what then is he doing? And when he got through, we had we had to have a conversation. So this was in DUDOS. He just went dark. You have the dark, so he just goes up there some kind of way d d J. That's the birth of dre then right there and even after dark, right after that, he came Easy. He came with Easy, but Easy couldn't get in. I wasn't that easy eat. Easy was still thugged out. I would mean because even if I had a dress code like you like you like we had a dress code. They came one week I turned I turned them both away. But people would people. People don't realize Me and Drey lived on the same street. He meant his dad and his his uh, his dad and his uncles was my age. So we all hung out. So when Drake came back, Hey man, I'm Theodore's son. You know what you're doing. My uncle's Teddy and Deborah and you know blah blah blah. Okay, Cold, change your clothes, come on back. He did, and I gave him a pass. But he came back with Easy. Easy didn't change. Not so easy to go home and change clow just to pissy mom let d up to piss Easy off. So it's safe to say that Easy was the one that was actually really game banging. Easy was easy with most street. Okay, I never all the years I know him Easy, I never known him to claim a set. Now, I could be wrong. I never done. He was. He was, He had that attire, he had that look. Okay, I never know him to claim the set now. So I saw Easy not the second time I saw Easy he came to my house. It's true stories in my book. Easy not with w A, not with Alonzo. Easy I was biggest fuck like Drey. What happened your boy? Man, oh this girl hit him in the him the g I Joe Lunchbell. Wow. So that was my first real noticing him, Like, damn, dude, what you do to her? Oh? Man, I don't want to talk about it. We had a different relationship. I mean, this is the part that people don't understand about Alonzo. Why wouldn't you be a part of this because I know these dudes. They wasn't easy. They wasn't these Okay, they wasn't the dudes that people have they belcome understand. Also, they was younger, they was kids straight, was still in high school when he came to me. Cube was still going to Washington when he came to here, like fourteen. But when they started, when they started n w A and was was straight out of Compton, niggers with attitudes and they run this persona as they was like straight gangsters and and I mean you didn't see that. It's crazy, like you ain't even gangster? Like wait wait wait wait wait wait it worked, wait wait wait it worked. Understand this. Y'all want y'all want the real y'all with some bulls yet Okay, this is the chronicles yea, Yeah, y'all want the really with some bulls. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, no that do though. Understand this. You gotta fifteens, you gotta cube was seventeen when he left my house and going to Arras on the state. They wasn't gang panging, Okay, he was going to school to be an architect. Okay, Dre was with me multiple kids already, Yellow damn sure, wasn't no game banger. Okay, Easy was around. He was the only one that had the tough image. Okay. But Easy was so laid back, you know. Easy was not, you know, in your face kind of guy. I've never seen Easy piste off. Okay. So for them, and then they was around my house doing the demos, all the ships you saw and straight out of Compton. Easy doing the demos was done at the house I live in right now. I've been in my house for thirty some fo years, all that ship, the early ship, until I walked out the door and say, you got a Dre with at my house that supposed been in my house. Okay. So when they brought Easy demo in from the studio into my living room, my dining room for us to see it, niggas laughed. The only thig that didn't laugh was Linzo. The reason why Liso didn't laugh, because I understood the record business to know that when you got a record on the radio already at that time called picking Bookers and it's a hit by business market. Just think I got a shot too, Okay. Everybody else laughed, so they couldn't tell you that the trade out of competence like that. You saw like you saw a lot of ship in the trail of the compting that you know what, that didn't fly like that? Okay. So when I saw it, I'm like, damn, dude, I don't even want to talk. Had a shot. But again, boys in the Hood was a street song. It wasn't a game banging song. It wasn't you know it was. It wasn't even about him per se. Okay, it was. It was a street song. Boys in the Hood is always hard. If you talking that ship, they'll pull your card anything, I'll pull your card, They'll pull your card. Okay. So when you understand and you see the evolution of Easy eating, if you watched this evolution like I did, even after Easy blew up, Easy still would come by my house. Okay. He had the two big bodyguards and he had Yellow was doing Parno at my house in the back. Okay, Yellow first started doing Parno. He was doing it in my studio. So you had big Man, you had the tooth, someones and Easy. They would come to the pad and hang out some time and just chill and chip on the girls and you know. And once when I picked their head and see what's happening, I said, Easy, how you like how you like? How you like being a gangster? He said, he said, lies, Oh with a bottle, I'm gonna sell it. Okay. If you remember, Easy was never trying to be in the front. I'm not trying to just the brother by no means, I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to just show that. He wouldn't when you put Easy voice with Dre's beats, and then I was sudden. You you you find something, It's like it's like when you find a niche, you you go for it. It was magic, okay, And you know he went forward. He made it work for him. I can't get mad about that, man, I can't get me. You know, it wasn't I don't know how hard, how hard he was, Kelly Park, I didn't know him like that. Okay, but I knew he got down because some of the people he got down with I knew them too, Okay, but they had enough respect for me not to break it to my house. Yeah, okay. So once you understand what you see it from my perspective, See, I'm not just uh if you if you look at this ship from being a like a concert, I'm not just. I'm not in the front row. I'm a backstage and just motherfucker. Okay. I was there when the when they were bringing in the South since and they was putting the stage together. I'm not just a ticket buying cats. So the ticket buying cats have a perspective that the people from the back, from the backstage, got a whole different perspective. I started for they went to the dressing room, So why you didn't have a bigger part into a n w A. We know what here it is, doc n w A. I'm born in fifty seven. I'm sixty two fucking years old. Okay, at that time, I was thirty about thirty thirty years old, Okay, I from I'm a kid from the sixties. Man, I'm a I'm a kid from the civil rights uh uh movement. Okay, I'm I grew up on Curtis Mayfield and ship like that. So the word nigger, although it was used in my house, it was used in closed doors. I never thought that that name. If anything I hated on was the name. It wasn't so much the music. It was like, how y'all call yourself niggas with attitude? I Linzo Williams could not take nigga's attitude to Gerald Busby or Larking Arnold. These guys are one in double A CP Awards. How the funk am I gonna take them? Niggas with attitudes? Jerry Heller, you was cool with Jerry Heller. I knew Jerry Helen that Jerry Heller had that and he went and pitched them to the You gotta understand Jerry Heller pitched that ship with what a motherfucking pitch for it? Way away? Okay, when when when I took not introduced Easy either Jerry Heller because in the movie you see easy Jerry Heller carrying boxes bullshit. He don't carry nam box never. Okay, Record Crew got a deal with Jerry Heller was trying to be my manager. He was trying to be Record crews manager. Okay, I didn't need no manager because CBSC Sony had already offered us a hundred racks to come over to Sony on my own, just on the fact that I was I was a new rap group out of l a hey Man, we got a hundred racks. We gotta come over here. Wha cool. I called my lawyer up and said, man, do I need a manager? He said, now what you didn't manage it for? You want to give away twenty grand I said no, He said, well funk it. Then come over to my office, give me a check, and I will do negotiate your contract and you're gonna learn the music business firsthand. So what happened was one I learned the music business firsthand. It cost me ten thousand to do that, but I saved twenty because I had to give it to Jerry. You followed me. I had enough business since already from running to eve after dark to no basic terms of business percentages, blah blah blah, and I didn't get to my my my my grades of school wasn't that bad. So I knew some ship, Okay, I wasn't stupid. So when Jerry came around, when when uh, we got to deal with CBS. We were short some money and I went to Jerry to ask, you know, hey, man, could you possibly find this money for us? He said cool? And when he found the money, everybody wanted to be down with Jerry Heller, which was cool for me because just by this time record crew was blowing up. We gotta we gotta record deal, we got a new album, we got people calling for dates. It's just too big for me, okay. Plus I was having fun being in the group as opposed to just running the record labor, and I was independent. It wasn't no thing. But now we we're on a major. So after we did the deal with CBS, Jerry found think it was like five six grand for us. That was at the Union. When he found that money at the Union, Drey and Yeller thought he was, oh my god, he found money for us. They alright got broke. And when Drey and Yeller was talking so much about Jerry Heller around easy easy, I wanted to meet that Jerry Heller guy. And that's when Alonzo came in. Well, now what the problem was? I tell my book and untill the thousand times, when Drey cut the deal, when Dre and Easy cut the deal to get Dre out of jail. He wanted Dre to do some beach for him. Well, like I told him, Dre went to diet jail, not Linzo. The studio is mine. What you're doing beats, I don't care, but that nigets to push record. You got to give me my money, so easy olden studio time, okay for cutting Boys in the Hood and everything else he did over there, they cut the demos. Yeah. So now he wants to meet Jerry Heller. All right, okay, fine, but I need to get paid first. When I give you, give you the money that I owe you. No, Nick, you can't give him what you owe meeting and you still want a favorite, pay me my money and put some on top of that, and then we'll make it happen. So we're talking about So now he gave me another two fifty to make it happen with Jerry, and Jerry tell you that he uh, he paid him seven fifties just to meet him. Now, the nigga old me five hunted, and he gave me another tool hunted to hook it up with him and Jerry. Once I hooked him and Jerry up Jerry didn't want to work with Easy at all, even after he met him. He didn't want to sunk with him. He don't know him. Plus Easy with a different kind of cat. Easy ain't like Lines though, Egyptian Lover and Rudy from the Dream Team that was the cast he was working with at the time. Easy walking around with his money in his sock. Jerry coming to me on the man, who is this guy? Where he gets his money from? He don't know shit, He don't know ship. So he's coming to Lines because Lines brought the guy to him. Hey man, who is this guy? What's happened with him? What do you think about this group Nigga's attitude? How should I? How should I did with that? I said, hey man, very carefully, okay, very carefully. I'm a Jewish guy from the valley. How do I have managed group called Nickel's Attitude? And That's what I told him, very carefully, dude. So now they're doing their thing. They dropped the Deposse album in w and the Posse that was mccola. Okay, then um, I think they took it over to um to um. What's that priority? Okay? They redistributed that priority and then they did. Then they um my company. Me and my boys informed their own distribution company called West Coast Record Distributors. We had Braby and Prince bought my boy um Rudy from the dream team JJ FAB. We had that first j J Fab was on the flip side of another song. Thing was called another whole Boty Dust or something like that. It blew up at West Coast. Arabian was going to funk with draym over at uh at Ruthless so he could have deal. Ruthless could a deal with Rudy to buy the single so dra can make the album. And that's why and that's how Rufus got paid off the jj FAD album. That's why j J Fad was kind of pissed. It wasn't walking to death row. These dudes just cutting demos in your at your house what they demos in my house. But again when Jerry came in, uh, I just didn't. I didn't. I didn't feel it per se. It was cool, but at the time when the demo that you heard was cussing and ship easy. He came to me, I took him to Greg Matt, Greg, I can't play this man is cussing in it. I can't play this. So being Greg, it was Alonso had the club Dodos and skate Land. Alonso had a relationship with Greg mat with k D. I could go to k drop off a cassette and before I got on the ten for one one one ten freeway, it was on the radio. As long as it was it was clean, so easy. Knew I had all these relationships, so he wanted to He want to take advantage of So when Jerry Heller came around, I was just to connect man. It's like it's like anything else. I just connected him. I had no idea, nobody knew that was gonna work with Jerry. Didn't know what was gonna work. Jerry talked that ship in his book like or his documentaries. Oh and I meant easy with like meeting John Lennon. Bullshit, I didn't. I didn't like. I didn't like Jerry Heller and I knew personally that that he was full of ship and he was a scary motherfuck too. I ain't mad at the man deal, but he did. He changed the game. I could not have done that. I being twine years old, I could not be in a new game banging everybody from the content new laws. There ain't no fucking game banger. How come on doing now? But I put you on the on the outside of the game, not on the inside. But then the game banker. The only want that actually was or looked like a game banger was Easy until Jill Ren and all of them started coming with the Jerry curls and the jackets, the batche the guns and all his other ship. Right, so they those. If you're game banging, you know who's the game banger. You can't say Easy didn't look the part. And because he was shortened everybody and even worked even better for it. Okay, it because he because of his height, it makes it looks even better. You got your little cat five five five with all these six ft okay, and he running ship okay, So here I am not how the funk I'm gonna look old ass motherfucker six ft two pounds behind these young niggas. It wouldn't work for he stayed in the background and and head out and you've never seen him. He let Easy to do all the work, and but he got paid to One thing about one thing about this record busness, it's about relationships. I didn't had the relationships they should be bullshit, okay. And had it had a relationship in the priority, you know, if Lionzo had it took them in the beginning of this ship right here, Linzo had enough problems trying to get wrapped played period. Okay, Now I'm gonna take up some niggers group of Nickel's attitude to the majors and with a bunch of cousins and a bunch of other ship. Oh no, man, come on the they' gonna work for me. Now. It worked for him because in the beginning, in the beginning, in the beginning, Jerry always claimed, I worked for ruthless. I worked for Eric. He kept he kept big enough distance so if ship blew up, it wouldn't getting none on him. It was always Eric. It was always easy, okay. And once the ship, you know, once the ship jumped off, he just lit his ass sitting there, looked a lot tighter. Okay, by that time, does you dial? But by that time, you know, it was all it was all the all the cussing. They stopped running over ship and with bulldozers, and to see the Lord's tucker was out of the pitching. And you know, it was a whole different game. Now the ride jumped off. Everything changed. So now everybody loved because they didn't remember remember this in the when the ship jumped off, Niggas wasn't checking for him. In fact, Jerry Heller did become eventually become my manager. He had he was booking me, uh An Easy and nd up Way on the same show he was booking us, which was showed with Iced Tea and just Ice and we're the only nine gangsters on the Motherfucker and Shower. But E V E and n W A was opening up for us Wrecking Crew. I got battle Cat and Richie, Richard, Mona, Lisa doing Wrecking Crew songs dre and Yellow on the sideline looking at us, Dude, looking at them, dude, they fucking part on their song. And the cold part about that they were getting bowled in the beginning, I'm the fucking headline was getting bowled like a motherfucker. They wouldn't check it for that ship man at the part. This is the part of people don't understand. I've been initihip from from day one. I'm a true day one. When they come to this ship right here, when wreck and Crew blew up me and Dred and then blew up, left, broke up, turn off lights hadn't even hadn't even dropped yet. We broke up like no blew up. We dropped it around. Actually I did drop it, but it needn't getting no airplace after the first year because back in the day, from November till January, they did what they call a freeze on the playlist. They didn't playing a new records, come new come come January one, all new records come out, so they thought we were still on Phoebs. So when they heard turn off Lights, they loved that ship. I got the Black National anthem. I ain't got a group. I turned down probably about Honey Grand with the with the gigs, because I don't know how to deal with this ship. Okay, I go from having all these niggers at my house. I got d Barns rolls, I got a tone load coming through. I got Coolio coming through, I got Easy coming through, I got pool coming through, all these cats coming through my house on a regular basis. All of a sudden, ain't nobody there and I gotta hit record. So I'm like, Jerry, this me, that's what the reason why me and Jerry stayed cool because Jerry he kind of counsel with my ask, Look, man, you gotta get hit record. You're missing money, You're getting offered ten racks a night, sevent night. How long you're gonna play this? I'm playing prince role. I'm like, oh, I'm hurt. I'm crushed this And then all of a sudden, fifty fifty Si. I missed about six years ship. I miss quite a bit of money. So I hadn't find me a group, so I wouldn't got battle Cat, a nineteen year old battle Cat. I got another cat from Rich named Richie Rich, who UH work with with the l A Dream Team. And I got Mona Lisa who sang but us the first time. And we hit the road along with the Oozy Brothers. Okay, and we hit the road and we're on tour with Iced Tea, just Ice and n w A and n w A is an opening act. Ain't nobody feeling their asses? The ship didn't get live. The record crew came on. So record crew got all the girls at the dressing room at the hotel, and that ain't what dray they They wasn't used to that ship. So the whole tour was really fucked up. It's like going to the prom with your ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend in the same limo. It was fucked up, but we dealt with the ship and then they ship flipped up because we we didn't even talk on the whole fucking tour. Man. We didn't even talk. Me Yell and Drady didn't say shopped each other the whole tour and y'all was cool though we was cool before then, but we didn't hand then to see each other on tour. I hugged with my people, they hung with their people, and it was just that kind of awkwardness. Man. So this is the kind of ship peoplen't understand. We never had the chance. We never even talked about this ship to them. And twenty years ago, I mean to, I mean to this year. So you still talk to Dre right now today? No, I haven't talked to him lately. We have had a conversation me and Cube and communicate. Me and Cube never had an issue because Cube ship he left after the first fucking album and um when he went to Priority, Brian Turner called me up hey, because I just did a Cube twelve inch c I a he called me up to buy them. Motherfucker. He didn't want to, you know, before the internet, and I don't want to shoot out. Give me a number. I gave him a number, He gave me a check and we was cool. I think cool. Uh. I was the only one that had his his own mind and it would jump if if he ever had to um. He didn't look like it, but you could tell that that he was somewhat front line. I believe you know, he was cool. And again, man, you got to understand, they was never tested around me. Okay, they would never test. They were all kids. Okay, I was frontline, unknown DJ was frontline. You know I had I had another front line. These casts were still in you know, in little league. Far as I was concerned they that they was never around when we we had issues. Yellow came to a couple of problems we had. We would you know back to the day we went your ass for testing our posters down. We had an all little form of gang banging. You know you stressed up posting you flicking the ass with him. Okay. Record crew was known for putting them, putting them, putting the assle on the promoter's asked by our posters. But we didn't gang bang against gangbangers. We gang against promoters. Okay, and Drey we never we only I don't recall them ever being around that. I ain't saying he wouldn't do nothing. We never had to go there to find out. Put it that way. When I Skip was around you, was that during the CIA days with Sir Jinks. Yeah, yeah, they I when I got I got picked We got picked up with CBS. They actually to have another group. Technically I didn't, but I'm like she had been niggling hum the streets. Yeah, I gotta group holed on? How many five these motherfuckers? They had just took taking place at a rap contest that Katia gave over the world on wheels. And I knew Cuban in my song around the Pad a couple of times. And y'all want to get a record deal? Yeah yeah, yeah, So dre put together this song called She's the Skag in the studio, took it to Larking Arnold. He gave us a single deal. The ship lasted about you know, everybody was signed about the year. We both got dropped the next year. But then when we got dropped, we was all we was all the family by the end. So we went back to the studio. We did an EP and we changed the name from Stereo Crew to c I A. And then we dropped the house calls the EP. So who was on c just them too? It was Jens, Jens, Katie and ice Cube. Yeah, and then it actually put out an album. Now they just put out we just had a three songs EP because UM I was When I was talking with Greg mac he he said that uh, Sir Jenks was always paying a lot of good attention and he seemed like he was really trying to soak up all the games, the music game at that time. What people don't understand is um Jinks was a big part of the Long Beach connection. My boy Kelvin Anderson v I P. Long Beach bought um uh SP twelve Huntred and Jinks ran that thing because he saw Dre doing it. He took the same concept down the Long Beach with the v I P. So, Yeah, Jinks, Um he had skills. Yeah. I think he's kind of underrated, very much under It's a lot of underrated cats. When you've got somebody's biggest dray quick is the underrated cat out of Compton one of my favorite cats. He's but he's underrated, quick, quick, quick, He's underrated. But because everybody under the umbrella love Dre okay, so you know, and to come from that same Warren g same thing. All these cats come from that same um brolla. But you knows what it is. So what is it that makes Dre just so unique? Is it the way he samples old songs, the way he listens to these old vinyls and brings in the life with the modern hip hop flayer to it. Drey has. Drey has a great ear as a DJ, and he when he DJ with me, he had a great ear at the DJ and he learned to not just sample, recreate. So you got to understand also that a lot of the players that was on Ruthless came from my neighborhood. Standy guitar man, we actually cut this cast line. I was a kid l a Dre Western Peace. He was from the neighborhood. We all from that Cintennio um uh the avalon Offegundo neighborhood. And we had, you know, we had he had. He had the ability to get with players, but most cats didn't. Everything he couldn't do he has somebody that can do it. You know, Drey wasn't a um. Dre wasn't. They had a group called the Torture Chamber. You know, l Adre had a group called Torture Chamber. He worked with Ice Cube, but some other folks on. But he also l Adre was a musician, so he knew other musicians. So when it came time to put things together, he knew what he knew. The phone calls to make and we want to reproduce this Leon, this Leon Haywood song. Okay, let me hear there. It is Luke that ship. Now you got a song. Andre had to h He worked with Donovan uh the engineer. Plus he we was doing wrecking crew stuff. He learned how to cut stuff, uh get the ship fat to Bernie Grabman. So he had a headstart and everybody else. Plus he was in my studio endlessly, endlessly. He would be in my studio all that sometime wake up to get you. I mean, I'm trying to get this b straight. There's this original studio that you have still exists. Yeah, not that the room does not, not the equipment, but we could walk there and yesterday where all the magic had he was there yesterday. Yeah yeah. Let me ask you if if Easy would have never started rapping, which he was never intended to, which that shows in the movie, you think n w A would have been successful. I have the rep besides Easy, Cute okay, Cuban Wren were the best spiders to me, and ran as an underrated rapper. I thought Random used to spend some of the best bars. But the one thing about Easy, Easy with the character okay, easy with to put he put on them goddamn u straight jackets, and Easy would do all kind of crazy ship and the easy one on the Arsenio Hall Show and putting that goddamn roll with barefoot. Okay, he did that just for the hell of what you're thinking about, man, I mean, I just ask him fun. But I'll send your hall clown his feet. Look at the video. I'll send your hall clown his feaking Easy don't wear. He don't wear heartthrow shoes. So the nickn feed as flat as fun. They almost wear at the bottom. Okay, the like dreds, they don't wear. We're at tennis. She was too long. You lose your fucking arts and your feet gets flat as fucking okay. So when he put them feet up on the damn on the on the on the pedestal, there ar Cenio cloudy and he put them down. Oh man, she didn't have my feet, you know, you know, and all I said said was feature this funny thing. Easy immediately got self conscious because at the first time he pulls something off and he walked out there in the rope. Everybody thought it was cool. But then he got cloud on the feet, you know. Then he got cocky with talk talking about the drede the thing. Do you think that you and Roger will maybe ever collaborate on a project together? Die? Is that brand still around the one of my one of my partners? Uh? Is he's still He finally got the name copyright or either copywritten or he gotta he gotta protected somebody from a fashion Yet so back then they never copyrit the names ain't come on. I think it's just dead ship. Yeah, and you know, um, we you know, we didn't We didn't have no domains and nothing like that, so we you know, we wouldn't worry about the Internet, and Internet has been advantage yet, so you know, it just was you just did some ship. You know z cars and you know you just stole some you know, Uncle James Army was stolen from George Clinton's. Yet it's an album, said uncle James, Abby want you they stole that ship? Yeah, you know, it wasn't an album. It wasn't a group of nothing, so it wasn't a big trip. And then he took it a man with it, and you know, his his disdained for us, you know, drove him to want to be the biggest promoter. I just never wanted to be the biggest promoter. I just want to be a club owner, and that's what I was. I've owned six night clubs in the last patch forty years. Just retired from that game this year and ain't going back. So what are your your plans now? Um? Actually I want to ask you about this, Like the music is significantly changed with the Internet and with streaming, and you don't really go buy CDs and cassettes no more. I don't think we buy anything anymore. It's pretty much all free. It's all about touring, merchandizing and creating a persona that the people want to see. Uh, how do you look at how the music changed with the with the advent of the Internet and social media. We know what, man, everything changes, and like I tell people, a lot of these cats would not be superstars if people had to go to the record store and actually buy the ship. Okay, yeah, you know, if you had to go to the record store and buy a lot of this ship right now, it never would have got off the ground. But because SoundCloud and the other other various platforms have a way of if you type a little Wayne music, anything that's sound on a little Wayne come right behind it. So you've got guys getting streams and plays they normally wouldn't got. Would wouldn't wouldn't would have gotten if you had to go somebody had to play on the regular radio station. You know what I'm saying. Oh yeah, So so with the advent of the internet and social media, Okay, you're actually saying that people have to go buy their records, some of these people want to be started out. Man, it would be that would that be started if you had to go out and go to v I P. Hitting your car and go buy the feet that's the actual physical product, the cassette. Because you know, people don't make albums no more. And most of these casts got singles that blow up on the internet. But again, if you had to go spend your hard earned money on this ship, you probably wouldn't do it. That's pretty one. That's a radical change in the music company because what you're basically saying is that some weak mofos can blow ups have blown up ship. Let's keep it real, man. Yeah, if you don't want to be I don't call me ship. Y'all know, for your stuff, some weak motherfucker to blowed up. Let me ask you about this as a as a DJ and someone that will you probably, I'm assuming you had techniques turn. Every time I go to a party an event when there's a DJ, there's no more turntables. It's I don't even know what these things are. They're a little tiny, ye little I don't know if they're CD. I don't know what it is of little tiny spinners. And I always check out the DJ and laptops. Yeah, laptops, loptops and a little controller. Yeah, I mean, it's part of the evolution. It's changing. But I do miss seeing someone dropped that needle on the on the record and then you know, transition to the second record. Most of these gas laptops go out and go down. You gotta call them the DJ quick if you have good you can't. A lot of these niggas turn tables they would know what to do with and they probably try to eat off of them. You know, I never actually figured out, like what what is the DJ doing that with? With the laptop and this digital equipment? You know what? Man, as a DJ, you can do a lot. You have a lot more flexibility because you basically can edit the song or edit your edit your uh, your your performance right there live because you got the buttons and quick start buttons and hot the hot hot spot buttons, whatever the case may be. And that allows you to get those little bu the stet of steps and sometimes some of the other stuff, and you can loop a lot easier. I mean, that's you unless you be more creative. The creativity it's a different kind of creativity. It's it's a digital creativity. Whereas you got cats like Joe Cooley Egyptian Lover that you know, backs being record, welcome backwards the whole nine yards. They you ever see a real cat go down like battle Cat, battle Cat can get out on both of them turntables and um a platform, a digital platform, I mean you got these guys mixed with the elbows. You've got guys like Bob Cat, one of the cats. I've got this guy's name, damn it out of Compton Man, one of the baddest boys ever, one of the first casts out of Compton to win the the DJ Award Show. I didn't uh New York. Damn. I can't think of his name. Um anyway, he elbows, chins everything. So that was the platform that I grew up on. That's those are the guys I learned to respect digital platforms. That's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's just, you know, it's different. You know you mentioned makola earlier. I always wondered why mccola didn't become like an actual record company because they had all this talent here in l A. Which I guess they were just the presser's right, they just pressed vinyl. Mccola was a pressing plant. He used to be uh work there was it should be a pressing planted called Cadet Records or on slaws in the Normandy about that far from swapped meat. They had a big plant there. Mcdim McMillan was the uh he was deforming there when they shut that down. Was when seventy eights died, they shut that down. He turned it to a to a twelve inch company on Santa Monica and he was just pressing records because he knew how to press records right. His cat named Duffy Hooks, which is he's passed on the Also Duffy new distribution independent distribution. Independent distribution is different from major distribution. Back in the day, they had people all over the country that specialized in independent artists. It's like they had independent radio stations. So you had independent radio stations that would play independent artists. So the independent distributors in the independent labels had their own little underground that they can make records because nikel sell records. Because the big boys like the care Earth and the Kids their films, they wouldn't messing with independents. They only mess with the majors. So Duffy understood that platform Don. He convinced Don started doing distribution and it was it was like a cash and carry situation. And then hip hop came right behind that, okay, And when hip hop came took mclan to the next level. But Don was a thief. He didn't see pass. You know, some people only, some people only have short term vision. He'd rather eat the seed than let the seed turned into a fruit and eat the whole harvest. Let me. Actually, this could could have McCulla been turned into what Death Row became if they had a different business model of thinking about growing artists, managing artists and on that level. Yeah, but Don wasn't a got to run it though. You know, Don had some other partners coming at one time, and they were some record guys, but they were some different kind of cats. And he ever seen uh what you call that ship um good good fellows. He had some good fellows type cats coming there, and they ran his bill up and broke his ship down and put his ass into bankruptcy on me about four hundred thousand dollars at the potential. But he, you know, he tried to you know, can everybody start Once they realized he was stealing, everybody started leaving l A Dream team went to UH went to some went to Universal Record Crew went to UH Sony. We were the first one to leave. He had time Max Social Club, Egypt left, dred M left, and everybody started leaving. And then he called in some help with some more money, got himself into too much debt, and then they just liquidated the ship. By that time, me and my fellows l a dream team Egyptian Lover, Unknown DJ and myself we formed the own distribution company called West Coast Record Distributors, and we started doing our own thing and UH we we We were popping for about a year, maybe eighteen months, and uh grossed over a million dollars the first year, and Nigga's Egos took over and that ship defunct. Also, egos and money don't never mix. Damn Death Row is probably a great example of that example. You know. Yeah, that was I was telling uh Norman yesterday. That was one of the situations if somebody had to pull six chain and let nigger you want sit down, be cool. You win in okay, And if you don't know when you win, you're gonna keep playing the same game over and over again, and you gonna end up running yourself into a whole. That was one of my biggest regrets, not not like really pulling him to the side and getting that right. I got any but I didn't check this out. You're doing this. But Sugar had his own mind, and if sug shut down. He knew he missed something right he was he was just just a worker, horlid, and he mixed that with with his pleasure and everything else all that want. So she was really a tired cat because it was every day if he went to sleep. Just say, for instance, she got on the plane, that's where he slept. When you hear that the wh was here the ground, she was upstanding up, ready to get out of there to do what he had to do. So mixing business with pleasure because when he first started, my whole thing that should was you don't need to be taking pictures. You don't need to be over here doing this. And you know, I mean, we was getting everything like going to Ruthless Records, getting the Jerry didn't those contracts for Dre and Mr La. You don't have to go, you know what I'm saying. But he had to go because he had he knew how to talk to you. And when he went in there with Jerry close though, y'all do y'all thing. You know what I'm saying, she will came out of there with what he wants. But after he got what he wants, she was was totally different. So she had different mentality totally and and even on a relaxed time, just ting it should had to be this dude, you know what I'm saying, He couldn't stop moving and and and his downfall was was drugs and drinking. He didn't do none of that ship at the beginning. So when he introduced that ship to his daily routine, it's over. You know what I'm saying. Man with the homies, you know what I'm saying. None of the homies can do what you do. What you're doing. You know what I'm saying, you should they do exactly, And a lot of people get get that wrong misconception of it. You know, when I say Tupac was not a game banger, shouldn't have been looked at as a game banging. He's an artist with his money and him working, none of us gonna get paid. You gotta protect that cat. That's when you protect. So I see where you at. And and you know, but I think, man, i'd have had a contract with draining them or something contracts with them, but they was you know, they was expired. I mean, it's it's real hard to it's hard to explain it, especially retroactive. It's like somebody said, man, how could you sell that stamp that stand for worth ten million dollars? Let's stand with birthday? Nine said, when I bought the motherfucker was only worth today nine cent. I bought the motherfucker from from the boast office. I licked at something to put on the goddamn letter nine ain't worth ship. But you know somebody had dollar's worth thirty million dollars. Okay, you don't know that. Okay, I mean how many acts had come through My Dre hadn't developed this year. We hadn't had no big hits yet. When Drey left, the only the best thing, best thing Dre left me was turned off the lights turned off lights had even hits yet, and we broke up. They didn't want to do turn off lights. Record Crew was such a uh groundbreaking group. Man in n w A was right behind them. We did the When Record Crew first came out, we didn't perform with other acts. There was no other action perform with on the on the West coast. We didn't see no real acts and um no other actions until maybe a year after we started doing that thing. Then we started performing with cats like Rapping Duke l A dream team in Egyptian lover, but that was all local. We were go on tour. We was touring with the Barcades Mary Jane girls more than the time, so we didn't have the option of wearing jeans and sweatshirts and tennis shoes and ship. We had to look like the cats we were playing with. And then the ship shifted from the east because the first the East was Mellie mil and Curtis Blow and Mulicole Modico Modi was leather every day run uh uh. Curtis Blow always wore something fly okay, and Mellie Mill and uh previous five the niggas was wearing feathers. Okay, I ain't wearing no motherfucking feathers. Okay. Then Marcus looking like Indians. Fuck that that louds am ain't doing that ship. So we had our all little West Coast flavor. That's why we came up with the sequence and the Jerry curls. And because it was the eighties, nigger was a little outline and I ain't I ain't nigga, I ain't in the shame none of that ship. Okay. That was the motherfucking eight these okay, do print. We were sucking with Martha at the time. Okay, we uh bark. Then when when Nigga's barks, what diaper man ship? Okay, we fresh at the George Clinton. The niggers had had yarn and they harried ship. So we're in a different era, okay, and it's real hard. Gangsters wasn't even around in Okay, even the gang bankers I knew, was the cleanest things in the set. To be a gangster back in the day, nigger had to be he had to be stacy down iron iron. It was like being in the military. Okay, the gangsters was the cleanest niggers around. Tell me if I'm right wrong. Before when Crack came in and the gangster started to make some money to the impact what you was doing, hell yeah, it fucked everything up. Okay because now understand how crack not only fucked up my business, but it fucked up the hood because you got mama's back up. My mama was one of the most respected people in my hood. When I was about fifteen, I walked past the boys in the hood, Mr Fellas, they're smoking cigarette not weed. Cigarettes. I got. I lived on the hill, walked down the hill, saw the nigga smoking cigarettes, kicking with him, go home. I smell like cigarettes, smoke. My mama walked me and my cigarette smoking the ass backing up the hill and told all of them, nigga, I mean you didn't come to look. Damn, my boy can't become on my smelling like cigarettes. Blah blah blah blah. Yes, Smith Williams, Yes, Smith Williams, Yes, MTh Williams. We went home and every time when nigga saw me, if they were smoking cigarettes, nigga across the street. I want to hear mama's mouth in the eighties, in the eighties, them saying, niggas at your house, kicking them with your mama. Your mama is cooking crack for these same niggas. Your mama might be sucking dick for crack. How are you gonna keep respect for your mama's like you see, the ship changed, man. So if your mama, if you come home and your mama is geting in with the homies, your MoMA getting smashed by one of the homies, you got a different attitude about your mom. Okay, And all that ship is is a byproduct of the crack era. Dot you know. So you got then you got the grown men in the hood who you know is doing ship for crack. How young nigg gonna respect the old nigga if you know, if I know you're out there, you're sucker. Niggas dick for crack. Okay, these are the kind of ship they cracked, funked up. So you got your young kids, got to become responsible because the parents is on crack and you know all that, all that that that that devastation man would come from the eighties. And then cats had to piece up together because now we always had crack. We've always had dope and gangs in the black community. The gangs initially was fighting the white boys spook hunters ship like that out of Lyndwood, And it wasn't until the seventies and they started fighting each other. But when the crack came around, nigga's gotta be to kill each other. It's a whole different thing. You put money in that scenario, you got you got niggas like I think I'm getting ten thousand a week. You're gonna come taking you You're gonna die, Okay. So then you got shortly after that, you got here, you got some theme music like nothing nothing like nothing else. Okay, you got n W A and various other groups given Crack Dealer's theme music when when I was coming, when I was coming up, the Black Man, the Black Revolutionaries had the theme music, Okay, the Panthers had the theme music with flyod Stone and Curtis Mayfield. People getting ready to change is coming. Keep your head up like that. That's what I was raised on. So it's hard for me to go from you know, keep your head up to fucking you know, uh, whatever the case may be. It's a different mindset. That's just a change with time. But like you were saying, when the crack came, being in the hood was totally different. Catch you grew up with from day one, you know, you disrespecting them. You know, you go to first we all hang at one house. Now I got to crank niggas. Can't come through it anymore because I'm on something else. Then you got the homie, got the daddy out there, pops out there doing this thing. So the kids left at home, you know what I'm saying, So they we we could do whatever, well we want to do, you know what I'm saying. So it definitely tore us down it took the respect that that that we have for each other, because if you make it more to me, you might you thinking totally different from me. I'm gonna set you up so you don't have this. I'm jealous now you know what I'm saying. And now you're getting all the pretty chicks. Now you got this car. Oh no, this ain't gonna happen. Right My status is is stronger than his. I've been in the hood, loaner than this cat while you got this like that, that's what it rung to the neighborhood. So it just to everything. And then you hear about its being found at dumpsters and trunks of cars, and said, may come on, dude, I mean that this is the kind of ship that I'm like. Nd you know, you hear about your boy. That was a ship right here about your boy who so so if I'm just asking the trunk, they get three three in their head. No ship. They wasn't doing DJs like that. They wouldn't do a club owners like that, you know. So for me that was like, okay, I ain't funking with this right here. There was that club owner that got killed the Balling Hills a few years and that was a boy boy from from Dynasty. Yeah, and his name was Alone though too. Somebody just pulled up on it in front of his house. His stepson. Man, it's motherfucker's step son. That's what the cameras trying to step son steps step So that's that's that's what the rumor was. The stepson. Uh, because he was a cool dude pimp type, you know, blah blah blah. But you know the stepson wanted something the morning he could give it and you know when they could take to take T three right here. You probably cover this in your book, not without Alonso for those who want to get his books. But the Wrecking Crew tree of music has so many people coming out of it for at least ten years or more, um because I would say death Throw was part of that branch brand. Just break it down for all those people who may not know what what did the Wrecking Crew spawn musically record record Cruise spawn n W A ice cube ship fifty cent eminem Kendrick Lamar Uh the seed you're gonna lamar? You got Kendrick from Compton, You got DJ Quick from Compton. DJ Quick would tell you, man, I would I used to watch Lions even I mean a dudos and I was fourteen years old. Okay, uh Kendrick Damar, he worked with Dre Okay, so that Dre Kendrick DeMar watching Dre in Tupac on the swap meat doing uh doing with California love. You know that was the influence. So then you got uh jj fag you know that. That's another situation. Afroman with one of my boy I got. I found a video of Afro recently when he was when the a for a wig and one of my one of my showcases. So Afromn another brother who who at school back in the day, still doing great. He was doing this thing before we was even legal, and when he such a big publishing deal that naked straight. You know he's straight. He's still hustling himself. I told him talked about to stay independent. He stayed independent. He still get his money. He's still doing great. Okay, um DJ pool d DJ, I say quick, um. I got a whole bunch of men with in my book. There's a there's a chart and I missed a couple of guys. I got cutted. Think it went out to me. Okay, battle Cat, battle Cat came to me when he was seventeen years old. He replaced Dred when Drey left go on the wrecking crew. So anything battle Cat came came the Battlecat to put to put his hands on. It is a direct descendant, you know. It's it's a it's like any other down line of a family tree, you know. Between my group, my company, Crew Cut Records, my Club After Dark, and me personally. All these things have spawned from uh what I did, what I did, or what either what I did or what I owned. The Barnes from Pump It Up was at my house when they called her and told hey, come, you know you got the job. She had a group. My roommate uh at the time was Rose Hutchinson. They had a group called Body and Soul. They on Delicious Vinyl. On Delicious Vinyl. I remember when they were kind of popping during the um that that was one of the craziest ship And I saw what happened to them. Man, Uh, do you know the Delicious Vinyl story? No, but I know the road. I know the Body and Soul story. And I saw what happened to them because they came out they was trying to uh package them at the West Coast Salt and Pepper. They had the geometric haircut and the short dresses in the whole nine yards. Well, the girls Gold and Me were queen the Tifa up in New York. And then they changed their whole vide become back when the Kentee cloth and ship and they've already done the album and when they did their video and that uh more powers the caldin't take cloth stuff. You never heard from him again. That's let's me know, and let me know there back then the Directord companies ain't ship that. All they want to sell the sex. Okay, this is they're both were good looking girls, okay, and when they want to do something that was gonna be positive made with that you couldn't back in the days, you couldn't be fat. You couldn't have a chin if you ain't sexy. And and and now they they they groom you for it. But now you see fat women, you know, you know Lizzo, Liz Lizzo, she she did for big girls with Biggie, different big dudes when Biggie came out back in the day, you know Biggie, because everybody at that time was what it was big, It was big Marquis or the fat boys. Okay. He was one of the first cats from that era that was being taken serious. That was a big dude, okay. He you know, he was the Bostilono hats and and the suits and the Gucci ship and big, big, big, big g he he became the poster child for big dudes. And I remember that. I remember laughing about this because I remember seeing Nigga's coming to the club. I had a club, uh currently Fair in Inglewood and niggers come into just like Biggie Smalls. Okay. But Lizzo was doing the same thing for big girls, big girls. You know, big girls always they always had people that love big girls. But she's putting them out front. She's like the spokesperson. Now you know it's working for now. What's so incredible about the branch of wreck and Crew in the chart that you have in your in your book, James, is the value that they've created during this period, and it's got to be in the billions billions it's got. It's definitely over a billion billions, probably over to probably pushing three billions. And what came out all starting from the Wrecking Crew and that crazy I'm not eaggerating that billions. Culturally, you're worth billions culturally. I tried to spend that ship. Literally that my check boun but I tried to spend my cumft about you. Oh yeah, but yeah culturally for what you contributed to the West Coast scene, it's worth um, you know, maybe one day I'm a I'm a quantifyed this, like what you're thinking about. If trades were eight hundred fifty millions by itself, everybody was what was death row at the type worth James, If you're several hundred millions, there we go. That's one point. We hadn't even talked about a bunch of other people and all that. I don't know if Yellow knew got it like that, but just whatever Yellow Man in the porn industry. That's another branch of the crew, right, that's true. Well, it's definitely history. I mean you're still at the house where they was all there, and I mean that's just like having Motown pretty much. Man. That's like motown, man. You can go back and revisit where it all started, like like the tempt you know all of them, you see how they do it. All these guys was created or did something at your house in the basement in the garage. Just wish I was there and I was able to do what was crazy though, Man, my neighbor he did. He did the next door to us, to me all this time, he never knew nothing about this ship. He went to college for a while, he said, he soa Australia content. He said, Man, you guys are doing this at the house. Try the only person knew about what we did with my neighbor across the street. He always call the cops on us, because at that time, that's when Catherine just came out with the banking systems, and they had the big wolfers and ship, and they would always go out in front of the house and pop them, got them canssetts in there and turn the ship up. And she called the cops on us every fucking time. So there must have been a lot of traffics coming in and out with the neighbors. One like why it was like which I had one nosey ass neighbor, and she always would call the cops on us. He run in the studio. He got them I think he failed, dope. He got them boys over there. He got a jaguar in the cop one day, no ship the cop. I was sitting in my living room, one of my boys, one of my clown nests, buddies. Hey, man, police want to speak to you. Man. Fuck you, Lazo, the cops want to speak to you. Man. Quit funking with me. And I walked up east man, Lazo, the police want to speak to you. And I got nigger. The police ain't out there and show enough the cops. Hey, can I speak to you for a minute? And I knew the law already. The law is loans of the private studio. Ain't no problem? Heard you in the studio? Yeah, I sa, I'm a songwriter. I got a couple of hits. I gave him one of my albums. Oh, and I got guys come protend their songwriters too, Okay, no problems. I bought my house from Johnny Otis the Blue Singer. If you ever seen Um Cadillac Records. At the end of the movie when the homeboy died at the James crying right, he bought me a house. He loved me. Or the house is on the corner where I lived at James Lives in that neighborhood she lived. She looked the neighbor. She had one trim melted the house and I their own and the James was a friend of mine. So it's amazing. Man. People don't understand how intricate my ship is. Okay, and and I tell people this year, I tell you it's just historical tidbits. But Edie James was a personal friend of mine. But she also played the jeff Dy's actually had hell of the parties at her house back in the day. I would invite my daddy, should go, my dad, because like the motherfucker, I didn't go back then. But yeah, she has she had a nice pool kid, right, Yeah, but yeah, there was all the same neighborhood because at my house, Johnny Oldis old my house and he goes some blues history. You might see little esther um Johnny Oldess. Johnny Oldis was a Greek guy that passed for white or he passed for Creole, but he actually was a Greek and he had a label um. I forgot what it was called, but I still get notices for checks that artists that Johnny lived in the house and then the police killed you, love not too far from where you lived at that time. That was I live on I live on Hunt twenties. She lived, I think that was on ninety second. Wasn't far at all. It was a damn the same same police department that's for the hunting. They all right, Well leave us with some final thoughts before we wrap up this episode of The Gang to Chronicles. Oh man, you know what, um, I always got to promote by my projects, my nonprofit and Lyrical Revolution. Um. I work with a lot of cats, um, just getting out of jail, and they got skills. In fact, I was doing one of my sessions for I came out here and you know, one of my things always I've always been a cat, just like educating the folks. And I found a nonprofit called Lyrical Revolution Revolution Look Revolution dot org. I work with out of guys, constressed, fresh out of jail, who want to who got something to say for? You got something to say? I help you say it? Okay? I got my got my own podcast on YouTube. Uh n w A Stories with a Lionzo Williams. Uh, please subscribe and check it out? Um what else? Uh huh, I'm just YouTube n w A Story but Alonzo, that's the channel. The name of the channel, n w A Stories with a Lionzo on YouTube and my website on my Instagram is a real live n w A. If you want to email me same thing, n w THROW Real Alonso n w A at gmail. And uh, I'm just I'm doing my own documentary. I've been doing that for the last past two years and we're just starting to edit that right now. So that's also gonna be called in w A, not without Alonzo. So all right, well, I want to thank you for coming down and chopping it up with James and myself for another episode of The Gangster Chronicles. Really appreciate you coming through. And you can find James on Facebook at James McDonald the one with the red Harley as his icon, and you can also hit James McDonald up at B I G G J thirty six thirty six. He still has those shirts, so hit him up and get those death Row shirts at nine zero nine eight hundred zero four. And you can find me at Street TV or Street Gangs dot com. Just click on the contact link and send me your questions or comments. And I'm also on all social media platforms at Alex Alonso one zero one, and don't forget to check out Alonzo Williams at Lyrical Revolution dot org. He's also got a YouTube channel called n w A Stories with Alonso, and you can also find him on Instagram at Rio Alonso, n w A and We Are Out. This has been a digital Soapbus Network production.