He gave us social commentary and that shit was slapped. So I was like, “How is he saying all this rad shit without cursing?”Īnd Chuck D, he gave us social commentary. He had a big vast vocabulary and never cursed. So I could carry my little green notebook that my mom bought me, I could carry it around the projects because of KRS-One. Like if you had a book, they’d be like, “Look at this n-gga with a book!” He made it cool for us to have books and be smart. He also made “I’m Bad,” singing “I Need Love.” He gave us emotional intelligence.Īnd then KRS-One, he was a teacher.
LL, he opened up the doors for us to be vulnerable.
And what made them great is they was a hundred percent authentic to who they were. I thought back to, you know, what made them so great. … Some of those records are some of the best records I’ve made, but then I was reaching, I got too ambitious and I was doing some things that I shouldn’t have been doing. Like, you know, one of my heroes is like repeating this thing back.” So I knew I was on the right track.Īnd then we dropped the second album. I actually remember at a Soul Train party, I run into LL - you know LL says “bananas” a lot - he said, “Yo, ‘Can I Live,’ that’s just bananas.” … I was like, “Wow. We thought we made the greatest thing of all time. So we made an album, Reasonable Doubt, and we came out and we sold about no copies. He was one of the most honorable people I’ve ever met and we’ve created something that will probably never be duplicated. And I appreciate you and I thank you for that. Shout out to Dame, I know we don’t see eye to eye, but I can never erase your accomplishments. He was like, “We’re going to create our own company.” That’s hip-hop. For one second, I didn’t change my course. And you know what they say, right? “That shit is trash.” But the audacity of hip-hop, we didn’t believe them. And then I went and recorded a demo with - shoutout to Clark Kent Brooklyn DJ, legendary Clark Kent - and I recorded a demo and I went to every single record company. I look back at some of those raps and it was like… it was trash. Well, one of the greatest, I don’t want no problems, one of the greatest, one of the greatest.” And I’d go to Ty Ty and say, “Yo, I’m the greatest.” And Ty Ty would be like, “Yeah, you are the greatest.” And I would sit at the table and write all these raps and then I would go out in the street and I would try these raps out, have battles in the street and… I would go to Ty Ty and be like, “Yo, I’m the best, I’m telling you. … She has a really nice hat on tonight and I want everyone to acknowledge that, right? Now back to rock & roll. My sister, Annie, right there, she told me to say that she wrote my first rap, but I actually wrote her first rap. Shout out to Gloria Carter in the house, she bought me a green notebook.
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