Inglorious Brothers
Musings and ruminations with Justin and Matt Harper on pop culture, music, movies and TV, gaming, comedy, politics, and whatever else might be swimming around in the zeitgeist.
Inglorious Brothers
Nas State of Mind S2E9
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On today’s show, we’re joined in-studio by special guest Sean Ahern for a deep dive into the seminal 90s hip-hop track “N.Y. State of Mind” by the one and only Nas, aka Nasty Nas, aka the King of Queensbridge, and one of the great rap lyricists of all time. We’ll discuss the track in depth and take a look at his career as well as some of his hip-hop contemporaries in the history of New York rap and the genre as a whole.
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“Halftime” on the Zebra Head Soundtrack
Nas’ track on Breaking Atoms by Main Source: “Live at the Barbecue”
The “Yeah!” sample - from Mountain’s “Long Red”
Ahmad Jamal Trio sample: I Love Music
Kool & the Gang “Live at P.J.s”
The “Flight Time” Sample from Donald Byrd
The Joe Chambers song Mind Rain
Eric B and Rakim “Mahogany”
Miss Info's podcast with Nas called “The Bridge
A look at Queensbridge
A short history of Queensbridge
good aerial view (go to 1:58 - 2:27)
All about the Berghof
Universe Size Comparison
Key and Peele: What It’s Like Being Married to Neal DeGrasse Tyson
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It's the pop culture show with Cult Classic Swagger. This is Inglorious Brothers. I'm Matt Harper, and together with my brother Justin, we dive into the deep end of the Zeitgeist each week to bring you cool talk and hot takes. No genre is too specific, no topic too broad, and no rabbit hole too deep as we open our minds and enjoy each other's company. Sound good? Then let's ride.
SPEAKER_01On today's show, we're thrilled to have an in-studio guest with us to discuss one of the all-time legends of hip-hop lyricism, the one and only Nas, aka Nasty Nas. We'll use a recent One Song Podcast episode focused on Nas's hip song, New York State of Mind, as a jumping-off point to consider this great artist, his work, his legacy, and his place amongst not only 90s hip-hop, but the genre in general. So grab your Kangle and hop in the whip with us. We're headed to Queensbridge. We're going to be talking about the totally classic Nas hit.
SPEAKER_02NY State of Mind. Is it NY's state of mind or New York State? It's well, but I've but I think it's referred to as New York State of Mind. As I learned in all of this prodigious amount of prep that I did, the Billy Joel song, from which its name is taken, uh, is actually the full word spelled out New York State of Mind. The Nas song is N period, Y period State of Mind. And then Jay Z and Alicia Keys did Empire State of Mind, which is like uh the next step in the lineage in the evolution of this particular name. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01I you know, I I think it's I think it's interesting that that it connects to Billy Joel and it connects to an era, you know, of New York that's very kind of unique in when you know New York was still isn't it like kind of the coming out of the the C is this in the CD 70s. And uh, you know, and this is is really a snapshot of uh you know 90s uh ghetto culture in outside of you know one of the hardest areas to live in New York at the time. And it's it's interesting that the the juxtaposition of those two new eras in time and what what the viewpoint of each of these artists are. So it's cool that it's it's it's that that's its heritage.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Um I I think it's I I like how a lot of uh hip-hop artists embraced these like white dudes from the 80s, um you know, in in some of their sampling and stuff like that. It makes me think of of um what's his name, Warren G, uh with the Michael McDonald uh Steely Dan track or whatever it was, um, you know, in regulate G Funk era, and how and it it it's like these guys were willing to re reference anything. So let me let's rewind a little bit. The the whole reason we're doing this topic um is because uh I listened to this podcast, I'm sure I've talked about it on the show before, called One Song, where um these two these two like DJ producer guys um take a single song from like they they take like the quintessential song from an artist and they like break it down. Uh luxurious is one of the bigger names. The luxury W X S U R Y and the Diallo Riddle. Um and uh yeah, so they take they they take like the quintal song, sense quintessential song from an artist and they like break it down. And the cool part about it is they get the stems, so they get the individual tracks of the song as they were recorded. And luxury is like the mastermind with the equipment. And he's got he's got his Akai MIDI keyboard with like the with like the sample pads, and he's got all of the samples from the song like cued up on the keyboard so he can he can simulate the song. So it's very well produced the podcast. I I really, really like it. Uh, shout out to my guy Clyde at the uh at the Twin Farm Tigers pool for turning me on to that podcast. Um and I listened to this one. It came on, this was like a month ago, that they they they brought this episode on. And as I'm listening to it, it's like every single one of the references that they make in this podcast, I'm like, ooh, I want to look into that. I want to look into that, I want to check out that. I gotta hear that song. What's up with that? So the spamples.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the spamples that are used.
SPEAKER_02And and just the references too, like the stuff that they talk about him referencing and stuff.
SPEAKER_03Like, I just there was just so much in there that just and the lyrics we talk in lyrics or the I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like when I listened to the to the whole podcast, like every bit of what they described from that song, I wanted to know more about. You know what I mean? I felt like it was it was it was so tantalizing in the way they they they they did it. So um, yeah, so I just kind of like sat down with the with the podcast and went through it. What how did you how did you approach it?
SPEAKER_03Well, the my first impression was okay, Nasilmatic. First thing I thought of was the Source magazine. Um, you know, there was always a copy um in my room. I shared a room with my older brother, and he was the one that you know procured those magazines. I'm sure he didn't pay for them. Um maybe two. I owned a fair few episodes of the Power Records, five-finger discount. Um, at any rate, so I thought of the source, and I thought of the five mics uh was the first thing I thought of. And the reason why I thought of it is because when this came out, we had it. And that was good on my brother. Um, every album that was really hitting back then, we had it as soon as it came out. We had the low-end theory, Tribe Called Quest. We might have had the People's Instinctive Travels um, etc. album before that as well. Uh, we certainly had Midnight Marauders when that first came out, and we had Nas Ilmatic, um, and it was five mics, and I was so excited for it. And the reason why I was excited for it was for the song It Ain't Hard to Tell. Um, and as far as I'm concerned, there's a couple of songs that are the best hip-hop songs ever. Um, I am the type of guy that, at least when it comes to hip-hop, if you ask me what is the best hip-hop song ever, what is the most important, like most substantial, substantially profound influence on all of hip-hop that really got that train going um in the direction where it became, you know, such a powerhouse um in the 90s, I would say uh It Takes Two. Um by um Yeah, remind me who It Takes Two is uh is uh is uh Rob Bass. Rob Bass and DJ. There we go. So It Takes Two by Rob Bass. So when It Ain't Hard to Tell came out, um I would we would have the albums, right? And we would also listen to WPGC 95.5 and 93.9 PGC. So if you if you grew up in a DC area, those were the two stations that you listened to uh for your hip-hop fix, right? And um they used to play It Ain't Hard to Tell and Unbeknownst to Me, which I discover like 20 years later, it's a special version of the song that was produced by Large Professor. And I've played it for Matt before many times. Anytime I have somebody's ear and we're talking about Nas or this album or that song in particular, I always say, you know, in my delusional I know everything about music and I know all the best songs. You have no idea um how good that song is until you've heard the large professor version of the song. I think it's called Large Professor Remix.
SPEAKER_01Um I was he was instrument, he was instrumental in in getting him like the right deal, too. Like Large Professor was like super involved in in the behind the scenes of all of this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they said that in the in the podcast that he was one of the uh you know driving forces behind and and champion, right, of of Nas. Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, but so so this probably sure I'm pretty sure that it was Large Professor's idea. So one of the one of the other things about this album that's that's very revolutionary is the fact that he has multiple producers doing the tracks on it. So you have DJ Premier and others doing doing the tracks, and because of that, it became really competitive between those producers for their tracks to hit harder. So it it gave this whole thing, and the reason that that happened was because of Professor.
SPEAKER_03Oh, there we go. And and this happened simultaneously while the album was being produced or happened in Nas Nas wanted your music.
SPEAKER_01It's like he flipped the template on its head. Nas wanted the professor to do the whole album, and he didn't want to. The template had been the producer was a part of it. The producer would produce the whole album. All the artists, all the art, yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01So this this was revolutionary because he had different he had different, you know, people producing different tracks. And so it because of that competitiveness, you know, of of of those types, you know, it made the record that much better. And it in and became a blueprint for how this would be done for the next 30 years.
SPEAKER_03So to finish the thought real quick, um, no, you're good, man. You're good. No, no, that's all um important stuff. And and I certainly respect uh, you know, the the dynamic there um with all the different producers and stuff. Very, very cool. Um, but so I'm expecting this amazing album. It's got five mics in the source. I've looked at the review before we have the album. Controversial take coming up, and I was disappointed. But again, we're you know, there's the illmatic wasn't there's the expectation of five mics, and I'll tell you why I was disappointed. First of all, none of the songs when I first heard them initially really gave me much of a feeling. So when I was 15 or 16 years old, to me, it was all about feelings and good feelings. Uh size beats, uh, some people used to call them. I liked scice beats, I still do, right? I like music that makes me feel good, that gives me energy, right? And gives me a feeling. I can attest to that. And I probably didn't give it enough of a chance. Um, but at any rate, the thing that got me feeling that way was just getting to the end of the album to It Ain't Hard to Tell. I was so excited to hear nah nah nah nah is it kicking and you know, dun dun dun, dun dun, dun dun, dun dun dun. You by the way, um, if you haven't heard that, you've got to listen to it. I it's just absolutely incredible. One of my favorite songs. The Large Professor one. The Large Professor one. And when I heard dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, I was like, wait a minute. So I like the Michael Jackson song. I'm expecting this large professor version. That was a cool detail. What am I listening to here about how Michael Jackson and that kind of threw me a scant, yeah, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01What then he would only let him use it if he kept it clean?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if he didn't curse. Yeah. But he didn't curse? That's what he said. Is that accurate? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01They would only let him use it if he kept it clean.
SPEAKER_02I would like to go through the song and see if there were any curses in there.
SPEAKER_03But uh in the meantime, he's got was it Jimmy and Johnny and the Jimmy, just spread out a little bit more for me. Stop.
SPEAKER_02All right. I I can't see, I can't see. Cataracts. Speaking of the five mics in the source, this is one of the rap many, many rabbit holes that I went down. Um they mentioned it in the show. Uh, so the person who wrote the review of the record in the source was an intern. It was an intern. They gave they gave the new Nas Record review to an intern. Hey, write this up for us, will you, real quick? Minya O, uh uh Asian American or Korean American woman, aka her her her her kind of stage name is Miss Info. Um, and she's the one that gave it the five mics. And she did this podcast with Nas called The Bridge. As soon as they mentioned it, I was like, oh, I'll be listening to that entire podcast. I've already listened to two episodes that I listened to them earlier tonight, and she straight up talks about how like she listened to the record, she listened to the record and uh was like blown away by it and was kind of like, I think I need to give this five mics, but I'm just the intern. Like, are these guys gonna be like, come on, intern, don't you you know, don't come popping off with five mics on your very first review or whatever? But she was like, but I just knew it was like five, and I took it to those guys and they were all like, oh, hell yeah, five mics, five mics right across the I like that explanation, but I just knew it was five.
SPEAKER_03You know, uh, but so you know, just to kind of uh eat my words or whatever, I did listen to I've listened to the song, New York State of Mind specifically, NY State of Mind, a couple times today, yesterday, um, etc. And it's a great song. It's incredible. It's it's got a uh great rhythm, um, it's very interesting, it's complicated, um, it's layered, it's it's got it all. The lyrics are great as well. So I've got nothing bad to say about it, you know, as a grown man, you know, 48-year-old grown man. As a 15-year-old, again, the thing that kind of turned me off from the album was that I was expecting a song, uh, my favorite song, it would have been, uh, mind you, on the album, to be there so I could listen to it. That's why you buy the album. And it was a different version that I'd never heard before that I just never got into bed with. I just never really could accept that song. Um, is it a bad song? Is it that good of a song? How about that? Is it ain't hard to tell on Ilmatic, the origin that made the album. Is it really that good of a song? Um, also, if you look at Nas, what is the next album?
SPEAKER_01Over the bootleg version.
SPEAKER_03Well, you want to call it the bootleg version. I call it the real version.
SPEAKER_01It was the bootleg version.
SPEAKER_03The large professor version is the bootleg version?
SPEAKER_01I'm pretty sure it was a bootleg. Well, it's it's the album. The album got rushed at the end because that's why it's so short. The album got rushed at the end because it was getting bootleg so fucking bad.
SPEAKER_03Wait, so the bootlegged version is the you're saying it was copied, so they couldn't put it on the album? I'm confused with this.
SPEAKER_01I don't I don't know if maybe they changed it because of it. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay, okay. Well, that's fine. That's fair. It's a good album, and it's amazing that it has all these producers. I will say that the producers are a lot of them in a fledgling part of their careers, right? And I think a lot of them went on to do better stuff. Um uh, if you look at DJ Premier, um, what's his masterpiece? What are some of his masterpieces? Um, Hard to Earn Gangstar. Um Mass Appeal.
SPEAKER_01That hold on, that album came out this in '94, same year as this album.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Well, well, Mass Appeal is another song like the ones that I mentioned, it takes two. And that to me is one of the best hip-hop songs ever. Um, when it came out, I was blown away by it. I've always loved that song. And I think that album is incredible with Guru. And uh not not to take anything away from Nas. I mean, this guy is incredible. He always was. I've always been a fan. It's just I get turned off when something is put in front of me that it's like, oh, this is the most exquisite, you know, thing that you'll ever, you know, listen to, etc.
SPEAKER_02You don't like being told that something isn't great, you want to figure it out on your own.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think sometimes things can be overrated. That's all. And and the overrating thing with music, with me, is you know, can can uh complicate my reaction to it and stuff. But at any rate, it was written. Okay. We didn't uh real quick, if you don't mind, the next album, okay, has some ch It's better. I think it is 100% better.
SPEAKER_02The guy that I was listening to on that podcast, uh, like this the the second episode, the guest, they had a guest, and he was like a he's like a young, like up like newer hip-hop guy. Um he's like a he's like a uh you know modern current artist or whatever, but he was completely in awe of being there with Nas or whatever, so completely respectful on this show. But he straight up said the same thing. He was like, I wasn't even the ill-matic guy. He's like, it was written was my was my record. And uh so interesting.
SPEAKER_01All right, so the way that I one of the things that I did when I saw that when we decided on this as a topic, I tried to go into the Wayback Machine and was like, How did I find Nas? And so like I I mapped it all out. It's all in I like mapped it all out in in my notes. But you know, the reality was very much like Sean, you know, Nas was one of those things that was like you were like you had you were supposed to like it. And I was like, you know, fuck that. I was I was into Wu-Tang really hard. I was, you know, when Big E came out, I was into Biggie. And you know, probably at this time I was really probably more into West Coast rap at this time because that was what was you know MTV popular. But when I got to when I got to college, I uh you know the fur well my first like the first time I heard something by Nas that like that that blew my absolute mind was he did he was on when Dr. Dre came out with his first album after the chronic, which was his like compilation album when he started aftermath records, he put out like a compilation CD with all these uh different artists, and it was like this whole bridge of East Coast and West Coast after all of the the like nonsensical you know shit that had happened you know with Biggie and Tupac. And it was called Dr. J Dr. J presents the aftermath, and uh the one of the last tracks on there is so well or one of the tracks on there is by Group Therapy, and Group Therapy was uh KRS1, RBX, Be Real, and Nas. All right. And and so I'm listening to this uh song, and his verse is the fourth verse on it, and he throws out his very first line, all right, and it was now when I bomb like Saddam, the world feels the Wrath of Khan, Desert Storm in this modern day Babylon, and I was just like, What the fuck, dude? That is such a fucking dope line. And you know, I ended up like starting to like, I gotta, you know, maybe I should, maybe I should listen to some Nas. And I got it was written, and that became like the you know, the record of my of like in it was like '99, where I really, really like got into it hardcore, but like the first one I picked up was it was written. And the first time I heard the message, I was like, damn, this shit is fire.
SPEAKER_03And if I ruled the world, and there was just so many tricky trick produced by uh produced by Trackmasters, by the way. The message um If I ruled the world, also produced by Trackmasters, which were uh Jean-Claude Oliver and Samuel Tone Barnes. Um, and I wrote down to piggyback on that real quick. Where did where do you find these guys? I have no idea, but I wrote down what I thought were the best songs in It Was Written versus the best songs in Ilmatic, and then I wanted to look at a ratio. Which album has a better ratio of good songs? You know, in my deluded mind of being able to judge what's a good song. Um at any rate, uh Justin, yeah, those songs uh were there, man. The message um is on my list. Take it in blood. Um affirmative action. I mean, it's got like a Mozart kind of kitsch to it where the hook is, I don't know if it's from like an actual what's that instrument, maybe a harpsichord or something. Um and it's got and it's got um the other thing that's amazing about affirmative action is that it has a Z. And to me, the two sharpest voices in hip-hop, arguably, are Nas and A Z. They were back then and they always have been, and they always will be. It's like when you've got your radio, old school radio in the 90s, and it only has like a treble and a bass, and you find a song and you turn up the treble all the way, and it's just sounds so sharp. I always like that, by the way. Turning up the treble. You know, everybody turns up the bass. I like to turn up the treble, but AZ and Nas, very similar uh styles, in my opinion. Um, and you know, both incredible uh rappers. But yeah, I liked it, it was written better. Um, the best song on that, in my opinion. Opinion is suspect. Suspect witness don't come outside because of the way the song starts and the way the beat drops in like the first 20 seconds. I'm instantly like amped. And it just moves. It just moves and it goes. And it's it's um you know, it's it's brilliant. How about that? But yeah, I mean you can't, yeah. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I was gonna say the thing that the thing that's hooked me now with him as my you know 40 plus year old self is he is one of the best uh storytellers uh that there is in in the rap game. Like, period full stop. He paints a picture, you feel it uh in every way, you can visualize it in every way. Like he has a way uh of uh producing details in his uh lyrics that make it uh feel so real. Like you you can literally see what he's talking about the way that he raps. And he is he is just the probably the most uh you know pervasive storyteller in rap because uh you know that's the way like he does that better than anybody. Like he can tell he is telling you stories in his songs, he is not like writing you know pop hits that follow this structure or that structure. It doesn't matter the structure. He wants he is telling you this story about this song, and he's got so many through the years that are friggin' amazing.
SPEAKER_03I think that um, in addition to being a storyteller, I don't see him as a storyteller completely, and that's not my first impression when it comes to Nas. I see him as somebody that's talking about the state of affairs, the way things are, right? So, yes, he's got songs where he tells stories, but when I think of storytellers in rap, I think of um the ghetto boys mind playing tricks on me. Like that's uh uh I think of uh Mob Deep Um Temperatures Rising. Give me the gun, I'll tie it to a brick and throw it in the river, make sure it sinks to the bottom. I mean, that song, wow, but yeah, no, he's a great storyteller. I just never really listened to um to he didn't grab me as much as those other songs for the most part in general, in terms of, oh, I'm listening to a story here, right? But what everybody's different the way they absorb music. And for me, it when it comes to hip-hop, I hear the rhythm first and the beat first, and then of course the rapper's um relationship to the beat, and uh that's the important stuff. And to me, that's what makes me like a song first, and then I'll kind of start listening um to the lyrics. But yeah, I'm sad, it's sad to say Matt asked me, he's like, What do you remember, you know, of Nas? And and uh he's such a great lyricist, and I said, He is. I said, I remember I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death, and that's not even his own line, and those little quips are always uh what would get me with with early hip-hop stuff like genius stuff like Biggie. Um, I bite my tongue for no one. Call me evil. Uh I if I said it, I meant it. I bite my tongue for no one, call me evil or unbelievable, right? My mind's my nine, my pen's my Mac 10, my target, all the MCs that started rapping, right? So, like to me, those are you know, that's what I absorb. But you want to hear a good story. I mean, you know, he's got some, but yeah, did can he beat the ghetto boys? My mind's playing tricks on me this year. Halloween fell on a weekend, me and ghetto boys were trick-or-treating. Why do we have a little gifts for bags? I shouldn't make a contest out of art, you're right. But it but it is five mics.
SPEAKER_02Did the ghetto boys get five? Intrinsic and intrinsic part of this particular art form is battling.
SPEAKER_03So okay, by the way, by the way, real quick, uh, the Chronic 2001, four and a half mics. Okay, just just food for thought. Four and a half mics. Again, it's it's it must have been the intern at that day.
SPEAKER_02A contest over art, you know, and then no, true, true.
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, you know, silly. If you see, it's it's hard for me to say because those are very different eras in rap. Is it is a you know, is they're both tremendous, you know, they're both tremendous albums, but you know how is it not five mics?
SPEAKER_03It's five mics all day long, man. You listen to the first three songs, the first time I heard it is five mics.
SPEAKER_02Right, but and and what but this also speaks to the fact that like there's just like one person that does the review and decides on the on the mics, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Like it's so it's one guy, like and it has been documented and recorded yeah, that benzino literally had business associates albums uh purpose purposely rated higher. So he's like the owner operator of the magazine or one of them, and he's going to the reviewers and saying, Oh, by the way, I'm gonna give you an album to review, right, and it's gonna get a good review. And it's also been documented famously that everybody's heard the story, and it is one of my favorite ones in hip-hop in general, is that uh he snubbed Eminem with the four mics, and they had some kind of a beef, and then Eminem apparently uh destroyed him uh lyrically. Yeah, lyrically dismantled him, and that led to the downfall and the eventual selling off of the magazine. And the source went down from there. Yeah, I mean pretty wild.
SPEAKER_01He he backed he backed double XL.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh. And then the uh I did read also, which is interesting, at one point, the Source magazine was the number one sold magazine publication on the newsstands. Period. More than Time magazine. If we're we're going back in time here, I'm an old guy, but Time magazine, Life magazine, I mean National Geographic. Um and The Source, by the way, only did one or two issues a year. I read that as well. So you could say, oh yeah, well, you know, it it came out a lot more than the um National Geographic, but it didn't. It apparently, at least what I read earlier today, was one or two issues a year. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01So I wish I knew some of the some of the other like albums that got five mics and whether or not it it deserved it. I mean, for its its place in hits hit in hip hop, I I definitely feel like you know, it you're right though, it's not his best work. I don't know. You're right.
SPEAKER_03Who juice the score got five mics, and deservedly so.
SPEAKER_02Um the parts of the podcast that I was into were all of the way that they broke down like how they created these beats. I found that stuff like completely fascinating. Um I adore that just the thought of Nas and DJ Premier, like they were I as I understood it, the company was like, all right, we gotta get these two guys together. Like Premier's on his way up, Nas is on his way up, these two minds need to get together. So they put them together in a room with a whole bunch of old records and stuff. And so these dudes are just like hanging out and vibing with each other, you know, drinking some beers. They probably like, you know, oh they were definitely smoking blunts, they were probably hanging out for like a week. You know what I'm saying? The record company like gets them a spot, they're hooked up, they got a sweet stereo system, all their equipment, you know, fridge full of food, and they're hanging out and they're just playing old records. So they pull out like Mountain Live, you know, like Mountain. Do you know anything about Mountain? Mountain's like a 60s like like rock band. It's got a pretty uh cars and stuff, pretty picture on the and so they they're listening to Mountain and they hear a drumbeat in there, and they're like, damn, that's kind of a cool drum beat. And to me, like this is the genius of the thing. It's like they can hear a drum beat on some like 1969 recording from Woodstock of some rock band, but they're like, listen to that beat. That needs to be in the most quintessential song about street life in New York City in 1985 or whatever. Like that to me is the genius, you know. And then they go through all these different records. I mean, they took a sample from Mountain, you know. Mount I'll tell you what the song that Mountain sings that people would know is Mississippi Queen. You know what I mean. That's Mountain. Um, that's a good song. They give you that detail about for Um The World Is Yours, uh, how um Pete Rock uh was the uh was the producer on that one, and Pete Rock is like, oh sweet, I'm gonna get to work with Nas. And he's got he's got one thing to play for him. He plays them the very first beat, and Nas is like, mm-hmm. And he's like, Whose world is this? You know, like like right off the bat. He's like, Oh, I know exactly what to sing over this, like right out of the gate. Incredible.
SPEAKER_03That's a great song, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02It's a good song. They talk about the Ama Jamal Trio sample for I Love Music. That's that the those like tinkling pianos. So they're like, there's there's there's Premier and Nas like kicked back, drinking a couple Heineken, they're like, All right, let's put on this record, Ama Jamal Trio. And they're just like vibing, smoking a blunt, and like hearing that piano, like, oh, that's gone in. Put that record in the used pile, put that over there.
SPEAKER_03Am I wrong or is it five notes? I feel like it's dun dun dun dun dun dun. So wait, that how many is that? Dunun dun, oh yeah, is it seven notes? Yeah, it's it's nice, it's very nice, and uh definitely I appreciate it more at 48 than I did when I was 15 or however old I was when that came out. Um but yeah, still his cadence in it is so good, too. Yeah, and he had something to say, and so smooth. Yeah, he came out, he came out with fire for sure. He had something to say, he had all the uh all the right energy and and motivation. Um New York rappers, I mean, who else is a good New York rapper of that time that's gritty? Big L uh is overlooked a lot, I think. Yeah, big L. He's got some pretty amazing stuff. Um, of course, uh Mob Deep, I mean, I think Mob Deep, um The Infamous is uh, you know, one of the most incredible albums ever. And I'm sorry that I'm diverting, but real quick, while I'm on the subject of Mob Deep, uh, and we're talking about producers and samples. Um, this book here um that my father gave me a while ago, uh Go Ahead in the Rain, um, by Hanif Abdurraqib. That's my best uh attempt at that. Um, this is a love letter to a group of sound and airs called Go Ahead in the Rain Notes to a Tribe Called Quest. I read the first hundred pages or so, I'm not good at finishing books, and it taught me more than I would ever imagine I would learn about producing hip-hop in the 90s, uh, producing hip-hop today, and kind of the art of grabbing uh the sample. What is um what does go ahead in the rain mean? I don't have an answer, a quick answer for you there. Um, but at any rate, um Q-tip produced this is something I learned by reading this book, which I was kind of blown away by, I had no idea. Do you know that he meant he produced and laid all the percussion on The Infamous by Mob Deep? Qtip. Qtip did? Yes. So if we're talking about, by the way, if we're talking about best producers of all time, because there's so many fun conversations out of just this material, but um, and and that are on the album, right? DJ Premier, Q Tip is there, Dr. Dre.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's there's some I'm sure I'm missing, but like to me, uh those are you know I mean if you're talking about if you're talking late 90s, 2000s, you gotta throw Timberland in there, you gotta throw um DJ Shadow, you gotta throw um Oh, DJ Shadow's incredible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. But I'm talking hip-hop uh producers, Timberland, yes, Timbaland. Timbaland? Is that how you say it? Timberland, yeah. Timberland. Timberland. By the way, what do you guys think um of Empire State of Mind with Alicia Keys and Kevin song? You love it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about you? You love it? Yeah, it's a good song.
SPEAKER_02Super songs friendly. And speaking of Timbaland and Missy and all them, there's a guy that comes into the bar where I work uh who is a producer. He produced a couple of tracks for Aaliyah, including like whatever like Aaliyah's big hit was. He produced that track. Um and I like hit it off with him the first time he came in and and like got his name out of it out of him somewhere, and I like made a note of it. And he came in again one time, and I'm like, I'm looking at the dude, because it was like it was a long time later, probably almost a year after the first time he came in. And uh I'm like looking at this dude, like, I know I know this dude, I know I know this dude. I know I know.
SPEAKER_03Wait, he was the he produced? Yeah, he was he's like a producer for Aaliyah? Yeah, he produced that's pretty he's he's got a Grammy amazing. He's got a Grammy. It's like am I hearing that right? Yeah, this guy got just stumbling into conversation with a guy that produced a lot of yeah, he's got a fucking Grammy Award.
SPEAKER_02That's amazing. Yeah, and uh, but I I had made a note of who he was, or like I it's uh somehow I and I was like I I somehow remember it. I'm like, oh wait a second. I'm like, this is that dude. I'm like, it's the producer guy, producer Aaliyah, and I'm like googling like producer Aaliyah's big song, da-da-da, and the name comes up, and as soon as I see the name, I'm like, oh yeah, his name is Chink Santana. But now he tried to he now he just tries to go by Santana, even though Santana's like this other artist, but yeah, Chink is weird. Um but uh anyways, the second time he comes in, I love this. I was like so glad I pulled this, right? Because uh they're hanging out, I welcome them, I'm getting it. It's like him and his boy. Like the first time he came in, he was like with a woman or whatever, um, who was also in the business. But the second time he came in, it was like him, he was the man, and the other guy was like the sidekick, like total sidekick vibes on the second dude. Um, but anyways, they come in, I'm getting him gone and everything. I'm like racking my brain to remember who this dude is, but I'm I'm keeping I'm keeping it nice and tight. You think he remembers who you are nice and tight for him? He did I think he did afterwards because uh uh at some point he was like he said something, he made some kind of allusion to something about like his work or something. And uh I was like, oh yeah, I know I was like, yeah, I remember who you are. And he's like, Oh, you do? And I was like, I was like, yeah, man, Chink Santana. And uh he's like, and like the smile just like he can't he can't help himself. The smile cracks on his face before he can realize that he needs to play.
SPEAKER_03What do the kids say these days? You're him. You know, I know who you are, you're him.
SPEAKER_02But he was liking it, and like from that moment forward, he was just like just having the best time. And it's just it's funny because even a guy who won a Grammy, like most of their life is spent in anonymity, unless you reach the upper upper stratosphere, like, ain't nobody out there recognizing Chink Santana. Yeah, if he goes to the club on Saturday night and is rolling through there, people are recognizing him. But when he's at Cooper's Hawk on Thursday afternoon at 4 30 with his boy, like you know, having lunch or whatever, like people are not recognizing them. Like, oh yeah, Chink Santana, yeah, of course, you know.
SPEAKER_03Like, oh my god, I can't believe you recognize me. Yeah, I'm also him.
SPEAKER_02I'm also him. Um, but it was uh yeah, kind of funny, anyways.
SPEAKER_03So this is to to finish the producing uh note or whatever. Um it talks this book talks about how hip hop music has declined. Uh in my opinion, and many other people's opinion, it has declined. And I'm saying in general, I'm not saying there's not great stuff. The post Malone stuff is great. There's a lot of great, you know, artists out there, ingenious people doing stuff, but just the amount of it that we had, like in the 90s, the and and just it kept coming. It was a it was a good time to be alive and listening to to music for sure. Um, he talks about how it's just become too expensive to do it. Um, and that's why you know the quality of music with these samples and these interesting loops and stuff that they're able to do.
SPEAKER_01I'm totally with you on that. Yeah, most of the new rap is overrated. I personally I think it's it's lazy and just another casualty of the digital era and you know the late stage capitalism that we're in. It's the you know, it's the Apple music, it's the Spotify, it's the let's not pay artists, and you know, they've sucked the the soul out of music.
SPEAKER_02Uh I'll react to that. Um The good shit is out there if you look for it to wit. That right there. Wait, can you see that? I cannot see that. There's just straight glare.
unknownJ.
SPEAKER_02Cole's new album, The Fall Off. J. Cole, that dude is the real deal. His beats are awesome. That dude is a storyteller. That guy gets great output from like all the collabs, all the people that all the feature people that come in. Like, that dude is killing it. He puts out his new album. It's a double album. What's the cover? What's the cover image? His his original beat making station at his house in North Carolina when he was like a teenager.
SPEAKER_01He's got like his his little drum machine there, and like but per capita, there is one J. Cole for every just 20 terrible, you know, wannabe, you know, rappers that aren't putting in any of the work that the people that came before them did. I mean, and again, I mean, you can, you know, Kendrick is you know, Kendrick is great, and J. Cole is great. And but those are two uh where, you know, in in the late nine, you know, mid to late nineties and early 2000s, there were, you know, uh 20 of those. You know, there was so much like it was there was so much that it was hard to even keep up with all of the the the groundbreaking work. I I I compiled a list of the song of of albums that came out the same year as Ilmatic um in my notes. And some of them were ridiculous. And this is just you know, these are just ten albums that out of a list that I was like, oh shit, I can't believe that album came out then. Um the biggest, in my opinion, was was Ready to Die. Ready to Die in this album came out at the same time. By the way, I did look it up four and a half mic song Ready to Die. So, okay, yeah, yeah. I'm starting to see your point.
SPEAKER_03So uh because I think we would all this album is dedicated to all the people that told me I wouldn't amount to nothing. Exactly. People that were above my apartment where I was just trying to hustle feed my daughter and told me I'd only get four and a half mics in the source. All right.
SPEAKER_01So you had an uh Outcast's debut album, Southern playlist of Cadillac music, was was that year. All right. Amazing. Um we had that common, who back then was Common Sense, his his I think it was his second album. Was it Resurrection? Resurrection came out that okay.
SPEAKER_03That's one of sorry, I gotta interrupt. That's one of my favorite albums of all time. Yeah, it's great. It's got a song called Watermelon on it that's incredible. Um, I used to love her. That's one of the best hip-hop songs of all time, right there. I mean, I would put it in top ten. I wouldn't say it's you know the same as It Takes Two, but remember, for me, that's number one.
SPEAKER_01So it's cool that they'd gave they covered Guns N' Resistal. Um Gangstar, Hard to Earn came out that year. Scarface is the Diary came out that year. Method Man's first solo album, To Cal, came out that year. Warren G, you mentioned earlier, Regulate, G Funk Era, came out in 1994. What a year. What year was it? 94. 94. Red Man's second album, Dare is a Dark Side, came out that year. He's got some good songs too. Yeah, I forgot about him. Yeah, yeah. Hold on. This one is huge. This is this may be the biggest album out of this grouping. Um Beastie Boys, Ill Communication came out this same year.
SPEAKER_03It's in my notes. It's in my notes. It didn't get five mics, it did not get five mics. I I wrote a list of snubs, the source snubs. And yeah, I mean, that that album's incredible.
SPEAKER_01And the tenth one that I had was the Fuji's debut album, Blended on Reality, came out. Now it's Blended on Reality is is nowhere near the score, but you know, it w it it it deserves to be recognized that that also came out this year. And also I I heard I I in something else that I was researching, Ilmatic was released two weeks after Kurt Cobain's death. Which they're saying now wasn't a suicide.
SPEAKER_03Did you hear that? I don't know. Conspiracy theory? Well, I heard it somewhere. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Um it's it's tough. Five mics. Five mics for this, but not for ready to die is is really hard for me to swallow because like ready to die is oh that's that's like That's one of my that's one of my big time albums. Man, all this walking's hurting my feet. Where money looks sweet. We're at. You got a you got a dot on your forehead too. You got a dot on your forehead. You got a dot on your forehead too. Oh shit. Shit.
SPEAKER_02Um Alright. I want to get in a couple of quick notes uh just to wrap up on the podcast itself. Um I don't know if you guys caught this, but at the end they always talk about in every one of these, in every one of these episodes, they talk about the splits, meaning the royalty splits. I thought that was very interesting, actually. Yeah, they do that on every single one of them. And they said that Nas got 50%, DJ Premier got 25%, and then Eric B and Rakim got 25 because they're the one they're the ones that provided the like uh the the I'm in a New York state of mind. Um and uh the reason why they gave him that, and I just thought this was a really interesting detail, is that it was like as a show of respect. It's almost like when you go to the godfather, you know, and you give him like an envelope full of money as like a show of respect to him. It's like, here's an envelope full of money. But what they were doing is is they were getting they were getting uh Eric B and Rakim to co-sign Nas as the heir apparent, you know, like he's the new guy on the block, like he's the he's the anointed one in the legacy of like, you know, Chuck D and Um, you know, all the the the New York guys, um, you know, and and Rakim is like considered was at that time, at that point in time, Rakim was like one of the on the on the brushmore of like New York City like lyricists, you know, he was like one of the guys. So so it's like here, yeah, yeah, oh of course we're giving you 25% of this song.
SPEAKER_01By the way, do you know do you know who passed on Nas? Who could have had Nas in the in in the stable and passed on him? I think I heard this who Russell Simmons. He could have signed it. He was he was shop shop to Def Jam first, and Def Jam passed on him, and he ended up at Columbia. Interesting.
SPEAKER_02The other detail that I loved is when um luxury was getting into the the uh the flatted second, that whole thing, and they were talking about the main piano hook, which is that thing you're the the uh dun dun dun dun dun. And then it's got the like the hotel. And it was so cool the way he's like, okay, here's here's what a here's like what a regular like major scale split sounds like. He's like, here's what a minor scale sounds like, but here's what it happens, what it sounds like when you flat the second, and then it's like it's yeah, it's just it it just has that that sort of vibe to it, and then they rattle off like a whole bunch of other songs um that uh that have that that kind of I think he calls it Phrygian. Phrygian, yeah. It was called the uh it was called the yeah, the frit the minor phrygian mode contains the flat second and a tritone. Um Jefferson Airplane White Rabbit. Did he that's a good reference guy like dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun um Montel Jordan?
SPEAKER_03This is how we do it, Sean's favorite song. Yeah. So alright, I'll cut in real quick, and this will be my probably my last contribution. Um thanks for having me, guys. Um but yeah, so I went on a uh hour-long at least um AI hole today, trying to figure out what uh I I can't stand that song. It's it's one of my least favorite songs of all time, um, if not my least favorite song of all time. And in the same way that the large professor professor version of It Ain't Hard to Tell ruined the um album version of it for me, you know, the version of the song. Um, there's a dancehall reggae song that it just hits so hard. Can I say can I say the F word? Yeah, well, it hits so fucking hard. Um that didn't come out right, but it is um it's got the exact same beat. So it this is how we do it comes on, and it's like, it's Friday night. I got my design designated driver, and I feel all right. And I'm just like, and it's got this beat that is taken from like this hardest dance hall reggae song that as soon as you hear it, it's just like hits you in the chest, and you're like, oh shit. And so I went an hour-long uh rabbit hole with AI, and I said, Look, there's and I don't uh mind you, I don't know anything about music uh as far as like the notes, reading music, stuff like that. I'm totally uneducated, okay? I I feel like I have an ear for it, I appreciate it, and all that stuff. So I'm trying to explain to AI how the same five percussion uh like beats are repeated over and over again, and it's like the base of the beat for this is how we do it. And it comes, in my opinion, at the time, at least. I thought it came. It turns out it comes from Slick Rick, right? Comes from Slick Rick, but at the time I thought it came from that reggae song. And I did look it up. The reggae song came out a year before uh This Is How We Do It. Okay. And the song, um, AI kept giving me just like I it's funny because it's like, no, the the drums are not anywhere near the same. This has the same rhythm, the same pacing, it's the same drums. And uh at any rate, just I finally got the song when I was just about to give up, and I said, Look, everything you're giving me is ridiculous. You know, you're giving me uh I'm talking about hardcore dancehall reggae, like hit you in the chess bass, you know, with a guy with like a deep, raspy voice, you know, giving it to you. And um, I said, I I think they played it on 95.5, like in the 90s. I think that's where I heard it. They would play it all the time. And all of a sudden AI goes, Oh, WPGC 95.5, and it gives me a list of like 50 songs. And it's like, yeah, that's a famous duo that did every Thursday night, this reggae show or whatever. And so I'm like, oh fuck. I gotta go through all these songs, but I wanted it that bad, and I got lucky. The third one I picked, boom, I found it. It's called Tor, and it's by Capleton, C-A-P-L-E-T-O-N. Put that in your boom box, make sure the tape don't pop. That shit is sick.
SPEAKER_01I'm in. I'll I'm I will listen to it. Tonight. Tonight.
SPEAKER_02Alright, I'll put a note to it. I'll put a link to it in the channel.
SPEAKER_03I was listening to that in the car on the way here. I'm gonna listen to it again on the way home. Jazz Mill didn't appreciate it very much, but what do you think?
SPEAKER_01Um girlfriend's never heard uh dance hall reggae. It's it's just it's it's so funny because you know, I I will say all the time that you know I think that New York hip hop has always had an edge over anything West Coast, in my opinion. Not that there's not great West Coast rap, but if you're asking me to to choose a coast, I got to choose the east. I live out there, I don't go there. So, you know, I I am you know very much you know, New York is is very important to me in hip-hop, but it's weird with Nas is that like I was resistant to Nas until I was a little bit older, and then I end up appre you know and ended up appreciating him so much. And and it's funny because there's there is there's an Aaliyah connection. It's funny that you brought up Aliyah, Matt, because there's an Aaliyah connection with Nas because she does a song with him on his on his third album. And like his third album came out when I was a senior in high school in '99 called I Am. And it was like much more like, you know, in your face and and you know, out there. He did a song with Puffy, did a song with um with Aliyah, he did a song with um I'm trying to think somebody else on that album. But anyway, I came to him like later, like I was aware of him and I had listened to it was written, but you know, Wu Tang always had my heart, you know, Biggie always had my heart. You know, those were the things that you know that I really loved coming out of New York. But then like later on when he started beefing with Jay-Z, and you know, there like I I definitely would would pay attention, you know what I mean? I would pay attention so much to what he was doing. And then he's had songs that have blown me away. Like he has a song on Stillmatic called Rewind, where he tells the story in reverse, and it's one of the coolest rap songs that I've ever heard. And like, you know, but that's the thing with that's the thing with like a great lyricist is that you know those rhymes can be timeless and it doesn't matter exactly when you get to them, but if you do get to them, it's it's just amazing. I mean, it's you know, the you know, it it's yeah, we didn't even mention you know, Talib Kwali and Common, you know, amazing lyricists. We you know you would communism. Communism.
SPEAKER_03Oh sorry, yeah. Communism. You told me you're talking about the song of reverse, which I have to listen to because I haven't heard it, but you gotta listen to communism from resurrection. Every almost every other word has common in it. Yeah. I'm at an angle of uh I compliment at an angle of 90 degrees my I don't know, I can't I can't remember it, but it's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01Sorry to interrupt there. That's what I'm saying. There's just so there's you know, per capita in that time. I mean, there's so many things that you can you can that you missed that you will go back and you'll be like, oh my god, I can't believe I missed this. And then, you know, and I'm not and I also to to to kind of bookend what we were saying earlier, I there is stuff that's coming out now that I think is really good. One of my favorite records from last year was the Wu-Tang Um the Black Samson LP that they came out with. It was good. Like so good. Like so, so good. Don't sleep on that new Cole album either. I'm telling you, that new J. Cole album. No, no, no, no, I don't sleep on J. Cole. I was on J. Cole before COVID. And you know, and Aesop, I like Aesop Rocky. I thought Aesop Rocky's, you know, first album, especially, was like very, very good.
SPEAKER_02He was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago, and he was so good on the as a musical guest. Yeah, I mean, it's and and and he did he did a a uh he he was in one of the sketches. He was in Snack Homies. Have we talked about Snack Homies on SNL?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked about Snack Homies. That's a Maryland podcast. That's a real Maryland podcast. Right, right. Yeah, that's crazy. Um but yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, and don't get me wrong, like like I have no I have no problem with Drake. I have no problem with um um who's the other one I was just thinking of. 21 Savage. There's a couple of them that I you know that I like, but then there's people like NBA Youngboy who's like I like that Benny Gabucha guy. The the he NBA Youngboy is like the biggest rapper with like the youth right now, and he's fucking terrible. Like that will garner us no no respect among you the youth, but that that dude is terrible, and you know it's it's you know, it's just not as good. It's not as good as you know Nasir bin Olu Dada Jones. All right, period. I will always respect Nas.
SPEAKER_02Um, I want to uh bring into the conversation one of the other rabbit holes I went down, which is you know, Nas is kind of synonymous with the place which where he came from, which is the Queensbridge. And Queensbridge, uh, you know, I get into architecture and I'm always looking for, you know, interesting architectural tidbits. Um I found a bunch of stuff on YouTube, um which I will link to in the show notes. I found a really cool video that looks like it's just like some dude's house put out this video where he just like did a history of like all the hip-hop dudes that came out of Queensbridge, like the whole like the the scene, like like the kind of kind of the the 80s where where's Queensbridge was at in the 80s when Nas was like a kid basically, and like all the stuff that it went through over the next like 20 years. Um really well done. Uh look feel has like a really kind of DIY feel to it, but it'll give you a like a really, really good look. And he shows clips from some other stuff. Like at one so Nas has got a younger brother. Um his name is uh what does he go by? I can't remember what he goes by, but yeah, Jungle, exactly. And like there's a famous video of Jungle, like when he was still kind of young, but after they had hit big and moved out of Queensbridge, like walking through Queensbridge with like some person with a camera and pointing stuff out. He's like, Yeah, that's the apartment we lived in. See that window right there? That was a window we would look out, and blah, blah, blah. And uh he jungle's actually on the podcast that that Nas does with the lady that gave him five stars and five mics in the source, um talking about and they and they talk about that that time when he did that video and stuff. It's just it's crazy. There's like all this like iconic stuff that's that's a part of these spaces. But um, I there I'll link to another video that's like a real kind of like short, um, kind of kind of reels style uh, I guess uh what did they call it on YouTube? YouTube Shorts. Um Reels, I think. Maybe Reels View or two. Oh my bad. Okay, but uh of like a quick history of like the whole project and with kind of a political edge to it. Um there's another video uh link I'll put in there of like a nice aerial shot of like what it looks like. Um this place had 96, it was built in 19 like 1935, I want to say. Uh it was the largest public housing development in North America. It was built in 1939, part of a New Deal experiment. I put a bunch of pictures in there too, if you want to look at the show notes. Um, 96 buildings, 3,172 units. It could house 7,000 people. It's a small, it's it's a town. It's a it's a it's literally a town in the middle of New York City, and it's like it's designed. They said it was designed to like let light in and and create like private spaces, but like basically what it what it looks like is a freaking prison.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm looking at the overhead, even with the trees, it out of one of the things.
SPEAKER_02Back in the day, I mean look at this. This just looks like a giant wall, you know. I'm saying like each one of these sections right here looks like a giant walled-in compound that's like yeah, keeping all the all the poor people in. But of course, like with all these projects, like they started off as like this like glorious, like ideal thing, and like a you know, they were all filled with white people, then you had like white flight, and then like they became like basically like glorified prisons for black people. I'm fascinated by it. The Cabrini, the whole Cabrini Green uh uh in Chicago, I find totally fascinating. So um check out those videos if you're into like sort of that kind of stuff, architectural stuff in the history. Uh apparently it's coming back around uh these days. Uh they had a 12 12 million dollar renovation to like the parks uh there back in 2024, and there's like more stuff in the works. So they're trying to revitalize it. I think because of because of all of the culturally significant things that emerged from this place, i.e. Nas, hip-hop, you know, mob deep, and like all of this stuff that came out of there that had its origin there, there's a more of an impetus to fight to like save it. And there's also some sort of like real estate type valuation reasons that it makes more sense for it to remain there. So uh I think it would be really cool if they put money into it and like made it like a really nice place for people to live. That would be badass. The trees are nice. Can you imagine that? Like, you know, like you you you have this like beautiful apartment that's like in the place where like Nasro Nas Road Illmatic. Like it's it's wild.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, I don't know. That I feel like that that also is like inviting the you know, it's like, wow, here look, we're re-reclaiming more shit back from black people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll just petrify it. Yeah, we we dumped, we, you know, we dumped them there when we were done with it, and now we'll take it back now that it's worth more again.
SPEAKER_02I feel like there's so many buildings there that like it's not like they could they they would turn them into luxury apartments, you know. Like it would just be cool to have them like to have that just like brought up to so that it's like new. You know, like a whole new generation of like young people and stuff like living in there was like cool and wasn't like dangerous and like crack riddled. Because like hopefully Nas Nas saw some shit in that place when he was growing up. Like like there was that place was like filled with like crackheads and drug dealing and like yeah, killers, like war zone type stuff.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, hopefully, you know, hopefully it's a new day in New York with with uh Mondani and things like that will happen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it would be that would be great. That would be great. Um anything else anybody wants to shoe our horn into the uh Nas conversation? I do have one or two other things I want to talk about.
SPEAKER_01Let me let me let me look through here and just and just ooh. One thing that I will recommend, all right, another thing that really, really like upped my love for Nas. Um so one rapper that I didn't mention in in the like you know that were the rappers that were like huge for me was uh was DMX. DMX was like, you know, I have such crazy respect for DMX. Um DMX and Nas uh did a movie together in the late 90s called Bell. That's right. That's right. And I love this movie. It's one of like it's one of those like um there was a few of them that all kind of came out in the same same time. There was that one, there was State Property, which was done by um the Def Jam guys that had uh it had Beanie Siegel and and was in it. And but there was you know a couple of these like rapper movies that came out, but Belly always really stuck with me. It was the only movie that Hype Williams ever made. All right, he did all those videos, all those amazing music videos, but he only ever made one movie, and that movie was Belly, and it was full of rappers and and and people that would go on to to be you know superstars in in black culture. But that movie is so even to this day, man, it like I can watch that, I can watch the shit out of that movie, and Nas is the star of that movie, and he does a wonderful job. Yeah, I gotta go back and watch that for sure. I would love to do an episode on Belly, like woohoo. On-air production meaning, I would love to to break that movie down. I wouldn't even mind doing doing like a twofer on that one in State Property.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, state property was good. I remember that. I don't remember the belly. I think I was probably too stoned. I remember it having blue, like a scene with like blue light.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, yeah. It's very I kind of remember they they play that song. However do you want it? However, it's all black.
SPEAKER_03Okay, that's uh soul to soul.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, soul to soul. Yeah, back to life. There you go. Back to reality, yes, dude. Um that's a but it's all it's all about, you know, it's all about drug dealing and trying to get get out of out of a bad situation and shit. And it's but it's just it's super good, dude, and he does a wonderful job in it. And it's things like that that just really you know make me respect the shit out of the guy because he's a super hard worker. He also did he also did an album later on in the 2000s um with Damian Marley called Distant Relatives. Amazing album. Those Marley guys, man. Dude, distant Distant Relatives.
SPEAKER_02Speaking of like good, good, good people working in the hip-hop space today, like junior gong. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01But I'm telling you, I'm telling you, those the go watch Belly, listen to Distant Relatives, Nas and Damian Marley. Such a good album. That's a great, great bike ride album, by the way. You it would be you would love it. All over it. So yeah, that's that's really it, man. That's a it's it's you know, it uh I went down a a a hip hop memory lane, you know, this week thinking about, you know, my relationship to this song and to this record and this artist. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I um I loved it myself. All right, let me um let me throw in a couple of quick mentions here for you. Um actually while we were taking a little break earlier, we got into a bit of a b bit of political uh conversation upstairs with Sean and I talking about the current administration. And um one of the things that it got me reminded about made me think of was uh I I watched a video which I'm gonna link to about um Hitler's Berghof, which was like his mountaintop retreat that he had. And I was looking, I I I I thought to myself as I'm watching some of this footage of like the the the interiors of the Berghof and how like everything is like so summed. Design them like, yeah, just like our president, Mr. Like, I gotta put gold, I gotta put gold all over everything, and everything's gotta be like I'm I'm so concerned with like the fabric swatches of the couches in the White House and stuff like that, because like everything is this like ostentatious like presentation of power or whatever, and it's uh reminded me of that. But really cool video about the berghoff, the whole complex.
SPEAKER_01If you're interested in the big hold on, but the big difference with the berghoff and with the White House is the Birgoff probably had real shit in it, and the the White House has shit from Lowe's painted with gold spray paint. So the Berghoff had real shit in it that would that had been stolen from the homes of Jewish people.
SPEAKER_02Um the other stuff I want to I want to put in there is uh I I'm I'm always fascinated by these by contemplating the size of the universe, basically. Like it's just endlessly fascinating to me, like how goddamn big the universe is, how far back terrifying to me how far back time goes and stuff like that. And I found the this video, um, it was this little project that the this little team of people put together where they wanted to create a video that sort of like gives you a really good representation of the scale of time of like universal time. And they created this, it's basically like an art object out in the desert that that helped them do that, and then and then you what you watch is like the video that you watch is them like building this thing in the desert, and then the video that they wanted to produce using this thing, where they've got like text and graphics superimposed upon these images that they shot using this thing that they set up in the desert. And you know, mission accomplished, like it really gives you a good idea of like the scale of universal time watching this video. Like it's like wow, it's just really, really, really well done. Um, so if you're in that kind of stuff, you should watch it. So then I was like, okay, I want to I want to dig up a video uh that I've seen many kind of different versions of, which is the classic, here's the earth, right? You know, and like it's like it's like it's like a a CGI like rendered thing. Like, here's the earth, here's Jupiter, and then like Earth slides out of the picture, and then like here's like the sun, and then like the sun slides out, and then like here's the such and such galaxy or you know, nebula or whatever planet, and like they keep sliding and sliding and sliding till you realize, holy shit, like Earth was like Earth was like 25 planets ago, and each one of these things is like 20 times bigger than the last one, like and then they give you like a kind of a pull-out shot where you can see that like Earth is just like way, like a little speck that's like way down there at the beginning of this line. So I'll throw that in there, and then of course that got me thinking, okay, if I'm gonna link to those two videos, I also have to link to the classic Key and Peel, what it's like being married to Neil deGrasse Tyson sketch. Have you ever seen the Key and Peel what it's like?
SPEAKER_01Sounds funny already.
SPEAKER_02No, it sounds very funny though. It's awesome. It's like it's like uh Jordan Peel is Neil deGrasse Tyson and Key Kigo Michael Key is his wife, and she's like, Neil, Neil, I told you we gotta be ready to go. We we need to leave here in five minutes. You understand what that means? Five minutes, and he's like, and all of a sudden, like that that like that dreamy music kicks in, and he's like, I think I know what five minutes means, but if you pull back and look at it in the scale of kind of like it just like becomes like a Neil deGrasse Tyson space time, it is so funny.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's so great. Have you ever like have you ever seen that that thing where they talk about you know um the difference between a million and a billion?
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, where it's like where it's like it's like a million is like eleven minutes and a billion is like thirty-two years or something like that.
SPEAKER_01Well, so one million seconds is approximately eleven and a half days. All right, right. And a billion seconds is thirty-one point seven years.
SPEAKER_02That's right, that's right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02A million seconds is eleven days, a billion seconds is thirty-one years. That is mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and like, you know, and and again, when we think of when we juxtapose that with you know, in dollar, you know, the dollars and and the hoarding of wealth, and it's just like it's into a trillion.
SPEAKER_03That's what all this reminded me of, because this this girl, um, my friend's girlfriend, I should say, was showing me an app on her phone, and then you were talking about the planet coming in, and then the bigger planet comes, and it's the amount of money that Jeff Bezos has as like a bar, and then there's little like snippets of land of area in this bar, and it's like the entire GDP of XY country, right? And like the entire amount of money that the National Endowments of the Art has received in grants in you know, since it was in its inception, right? It's like a little like a point, and it just it just keeps going. This guy's got and I'm like, my god, this thing keeps going. Like, is there something wrong with your phone? She goes, No, no, no, no. And I said, Well, it doesn't look like it's registering, you know, the swiping because she was swiping to show it just kept going. And she goes, No, no, no, Sean. This is uh there's more. Yeah, this is this is this isn't even, you know, one one third of it or whatever. And I sat there for like five minutes to to watch the swath of uh money. And you know what is cool though about society today and about this whole conversation is the fact that you can be somebody like Jeff Bezos, and you're good enough and smart enough to realize that the one thing that you should try to get more of is money. Yeah, exactly. The one thing the world needs, the one thing that you need more of is money. I mean, the immorality of it is just like my while your employees piss in bottles in 95 degree warehouses for $12 an hour. Because they don't, if they take the time to use the bathroom, they'll get fired for taking too long to pull an item.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I mean that guy's that's the that's the whole thing. Welcome to America. Everybody, you know, everybody wants to talk about going back to these 1950s values, and it's like, well, we used to tax corporations and rich people so goddamn bad that they had to reinvest in their people to to stave off the tax man. And now we've just destroyed that entire.
SPEAKER_02That's what we want to do, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, but again, I mean it's it's it's just the values that that you should have to take care of the people that got you that helped to get you there. I think that's the biggest problem with our society. You got somebody that builds a company from scratch, maybe it takes them 30 years and they become, you know, worth 500 million dollars. You got an employee that's been with you since day one, and you know, you you walk away, sell the business, and you're like, oh yeah, good luck with your fifty thousand dollars a year. I know you're still living paycheck to paycheck. Thanks so much for your loyalty and your service. I mean, give me a fucking break, you know? It's ridiculous. And it's it's happening over and over again. And the only um the only conversation is on Instagram uh when it comes to young people and other social media, and it it doesn't matter how you got the money, it's just that you got the money. So you got you know, you could be a grifter, you could be a con man, you can sell NFTs. You know, I'm gonna look up to you if you have money. You know, I don't care how you got the money, I don't care if you don't share the money. Yeah, it's just problems with uh with the morals fabric.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
SPEAKER_02Well, on that up note for next time. No, this is amazing. By the way, by the way, show the hip hop threads. Look at this.
SPEAKER_03Oh, this is just a uh a shirt with uh tigers on it that was my father's, and everybody um our age knows about what that is. This was your father's. So that was my father's as well, yeah. These were your father's. My father had more style than a mile. It just kept going and going and going. That's for sure. Yeah, may you recipe.
SPEAKER_01My my real question here as we we come to a close, are you willing to come back and do this again? And we could probably figure out, you know, with little effort how to get you in from home.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, sounds good.
SPEAKER_01Because I would I know that I would personally be I I've said to Matt, I would love to do a show uh where we talk about graffiti. Oh, yeah, sure. I would just absolutely love to hear you talk on you know, on and on about graffiti, because I just think that is extremely interesting. We should watch it. Hear some of your hear hear some of both of your adventures in in the graffiti world. I think that would be very, very cool. I would love to talk about cool disco Dan. I met him.
SPEAKER_03Did you? That's so cool. My brother was on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, and Guru was in front of uh Holiday Inn. And my brother just so happened to have a copy of his CD in the car. Parked the car, got out and said, Hey, can you sign this? Guru was like, Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_01That's so cool. Um, but yeah, uh uh we will we will I we will venture to figure out the easiest way that you could join us from home. That way you do not have to uh I can do Zoom yourself. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think we can get you in. We just gotta figure out your we just gotta figure out your mic situation. I have a uh a decent mic camera combination.
SPEAKER_03Um Logitech, I think it is. Yeah, he's got all that stuff that I bought like ten years ago when I thought I was gonna be a streamer. It's not like this thing, though. This is like a boom, comes out, you know. It's not one of those.
SPEAKER_01As long as it as long as it sounds sorta good, I we can make it work. It's supposed to sound pretty good for what it is, yeah. Well, we can we can run it, we can run a test very easily.
SPEAKER_02So you can be a recurring guest. Hell yes. Hell yes.
SPEAKER_03We could talk more hip-hop too. I mean, I've got stories. Did I tell you the story when I met Black Thought? Is Nissan Pavilion VIP section? I'm leaving to go back to the save it.
SPEAKER_01Okay, save it. We're we're oh, we're still on a car. We're we are up against on that note, I'm going to say thank you guys if you made it all the way to the end of this episode. Uh, we really appreciate it. Love if you are here, please drop a like, drop a comment, uh, drop a review, anything. Um, Sean, thank you so much for joining us. It has been an absolute pleasure, and we look forward to having you on again in the future. Um, for my brother Matt, I'm Justin. Thank you guys for joining us, and we will see you next week with more fun. Have a great one.
SPEAKER_02Inglorious Brothers is a Harporama production and a part of the Harparama family of podcasts. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Please like, subscribe, and follow, leave a five-star review, and most importantly, tell all your friends about us. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next time. And uh, oh yeah, Ariva Derchi.