This year Hip Hop has celebrated the worlds longest birthday, and the ladies of "We Ate!" podcast are paying homage by giving insight on how Hip hop has affected their lives. Chic reveals her father's influence on her music taste, while Icy and Mia dive headlong into a passionate discourse on how the practice of sampling popularized in the 90s revolutionized music. We debate the makings of a 'bigger artist' with Taylor Swift and Beyonce as contenders.
We wrap up with a spirited discussion on the influence of record labels and PR in shaping the image of female artists and the changing industry dynamics that celebrate women in hip hop. We end on a lighter note with hip hop superlatives . Join us for an exciting exploration of a world where music, fashion, and culture collide.
Like, subscribe and be on the look out for a new episode every week!
Credit and special thanks goes to:
Produced by: Aziza Duniani @woman_Business
Music supervisor: Chic loren @chicloren_
Music by: Gavin Williams @thegavin1
This year Hip Hop has celebrated the worlds longest birthday, and the ladies of "We Ate!" podcast are paying homage by giving insight on how Hip hop has affected their lives. Chic reveals her father's influence on her music taste, while Icy and Mia dive headlong into a passionate discourse on how the practice of sampling popularized in the 90s revolutionized music. We debate the makings of a 'bigger artist' with Taylor Swift and Beyonce as contenders.
We wrap up with a spirited discussion on the influence of record labels and PR in shaping the image of female artists and the changing industry dynamics that celebrate women in hip hop. We end on a lighter note with hip hop superlatives . Join us for an exciting exploration of a world where music, fashion, and culture collide.
Like, subscribe and be on the look out for a new episode every week!
Credit and special thanks goes to:
Produced by: Aziza Duniani @woman_Business
Music supervisor: Chic loren @chicloren_
Music by: Gavin Williams @thegavin1
What's up y'all? This is Sheik Lahren, and welcome to We8. We're spilling a tea on all things fashion, film and television, giving you an exclusive peek into our perspective on style and design. Once again, I'm Sheik Lahren costume creative, music creative, style creative all of the things and also an advocate for self-care. Hey girl, I'm Mia Nanalee, costume designer and creative director, and I am Isi Chevelle. I am a costume designer, event producer and all-around professional dot connector. Hey now, hey y'all, I'm Aziza Duniani. I am assistant costume designer and multi-faceted creative. Also, I host and produce this podcast with all of my girls. Welcome to another episode of We8 Podcast. This week we are giving an ode to hip hop. This has been the longest birthday ever, like Isi likes to say. She's trying to figure out when hip hop what's her zoni at my house.
Speaker 2:All year round, all year round.
Speaker 1:Okay, and we are falling in line with the rest of the people and giving you our take on hip hop fashion style and then also starting off with just when we fell in love with hip hop, I think I'm going to pass it off to Mia first, because she wanted to tell her common story.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I mean, you wanted to tell yeah tell us when you fell in love with hip hop. Like I'm saying, I was in a certain age group, because I don't tell my age, but my home girl Bridget, who is known affectionately as DJ Princess Cut, mm-hmm. So we went to the same middle school. Shout out to Collet Park Matt Nell, ronald E Matt Nell. What is it? Ronald E Matt Nell Middle School in Collet Park.
Speaker 2:But anyway, she's a old-time girl, she's a old-time girl, she's a old-time girl.
Speaker 1:But yeah. So we were in a certain middle school and she said, girl, I heard this group. She had an older brother and she said, girl, you got to listen to this, listen to this. And it was Southern Play Listed. Yeah, Southern Play Listed. Southern Play Listed, Is it Catalan funky music, Boom Outcast? That was my first introduction to hip hop and I am so Atlanta, it has been with me all my life. I see what about you? When were you? I don't know that there was ever like a moment of that stands out. I mean, hip hop has always kind of been in my orbit. My brother is five years older to me, so basically whatever he was listening to I was subjected to.
Speaker 2:So I grew up being really into Biggie.
Speaker 1:Bad Boy, like the house of Bad Boy, like my brother's nickname in high school was Little Puffy because he would like throw parties and he was trying to get in the music industry. So Bad Boy and that whole crew was always heavily present in my house. I remember the day Biggie died because I remember the emotional breakdown. He wasn't grown but he was old enough to be like I'm a clown. You could you really cry him, but you know he ran off.
Speaker 1:We were hearing it on the radio and he ran off to go lock himself in the bathroom because I guess he now wants to see him crying. But I remember that quite vividly, so definitely I affectionately call it I grew up in the house of Bad Boy, but even before that I would have to say MC Hammer. Back when Hammer was like the mega pot, he was the Beyonce of those times, like the Beyonce he was because he was a performer.
Speaker 1:He was a performer and to this day, when I talked to some people, they're like, hands down, the best concert I've ever been to was a hammer concert and I'm like, dang, I never get to see him. I feel like I need to go to his church now.
Speaker 2:What kind of?
Speaker 1:show is it I'm thinking about?
Speaker 2:Mace, no, I feel like him too, for like two seconds.
Speaker 1:He might be. So, yeah, for sure, like the hammer days and even like I had a low key crush on heavy D for a minute when I was like seven. But you know, I would have to say those are some of my early memories of like hip hop. Okay, the fact check is yeah, mc Hammer definitely was ordained preacher in the 1990s, late 1900s and he was having like a Christian ministry program called Hammer and Friends.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I'm pretty sure that's sure you know what I'm saying and the pulpit. Hopefully he realized that's not his calling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't say that. I mean, I know you gotta have charisma to be a pastor, okay, so Look at Mace.
Speaker 1:Mace had a whole mega church. I ain't going to Mace church. People was going like I actually got a word Like people. I was like yeah, nah, I can't mess with it, I've never been there. I got invited. I did get invited there. I think I was at Lenox Mall one day. Oh, I was working a job. I was like doing this marketing gig for like HP and they was out there.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, I was over Some 10 years ago, definitely over 10 years ago.
Speaker 1:But yeah, they were like recruiting, trying to get you know. They was like so cool, they look like some street dudes, whatever you know they had the fly boys out, the hot boys. You know you should come check out our church. Mace is our pastor, so okay, where I never went. Yo, hip hop might be a dope conduit to religion Okay.
Speaker 2:The music's going to be great.
Speaker 1:I'm going to put a rapper in a pulpit. The music's going to be great. The music's going to be great.
Speaker 1:So for me when did I fall in love with hip hop? So, like, kind of similar to Icy, I always had it in my household and it was more so because my father was always a fan from the rip. Like when people say, oh, hip hop and gonna last is just a fan, like it's, it's nothing. He always believed in it from the 80s. So there was always hip hop in the house LL Cool J, you know just all the old school stuff. And then for me, when I really connected with it was in the 90s, definitely was a heavy D-fam. Rest in peace, because he just had this like cool nature. But his songs were fun and they were fly. But you know that all ties into that uptown era going into Diddy and or, excuse me, puffy at the time.
Speaker 2:Love Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:My boys stay with a name change every decade but I love me some Diddy he wild, he wild out here. But you know he he's the king of, he is a king of music for sure. He's transcended. But Biggie definitely was a hardcore fan of Biggie, love Little Kim and from there you know it just connect. I love how they connected R&B to hip hop and that was that was my thing, because I just love, like Mary and how she sang over hard hip hop beats and who else? I always remember like in my household, like around 95, 96, when my parents used to get dressed and go out like Tupac, all eyes on me was always playing like that was their get ready to go out album. Oh, that was going on.
Speaker 1:Like my mom because my mom just loved it because the beats were cool. You know she ain't like a lot of cussing, but the beats were nice and she would, you know they. Just she just loved that album. So, yeah, definitely, definitely hardcore. And then, yes, shout out to MC Hammer, because I did go to a MC Hammer concert, probably like 93, 94 with my mom and that was a great show. That man be dancing was dancing his ass off back in the day. Yeah, they're energy boy. Oh, yeah, definitely love me. Some biggie, biggie smosh. How did you I'm curious about this question because you know me as in Atlanta, you know, I see Philly, I'm California. How did that translate what you've grown up in like a wider community?
Speaker 2:All the places you don't know, or all the places.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how did hip hop and your love for hip hop translate to the outside world, if that where you was living wasn't really Right? So when my earliest my memories, you know, I was born in Alaska. My dad was in the military. I was born in Alaska, but my memories pretty much start in Utah and when I tell you all there was no black, there wasn't much black culture for anything.
Speaker 1:My mother had to buy hair products. When we would go down and visit my grandparents in Mississippi or when we would go to St Louis, you couldn't even buy black hair products. It was that bad. There was no black radio station. So, like I got my doses of George Michael on the, you know, pop 100s, top 40 or whatever have you on the radio, but there was no black radio station. So my father always do tapes. So that's why I, like you know, he bought Every thing. Every time some new music came out, new black music, he bought it. He bought it and he would just dub and make takes. He wasn't a. He wasn't a DJ, yeah, but he would. You know.
Speaker 2:Curate. He said we're gonna get this. It was.
Speaker 1:It was in the household because my parents were lovers of music my mom or of R&B, soul and jazz and gospel. My dad loved Multiple types of music, but he kept hip-hop in the house, okay, and so, yeah, he dubbed a lot of tapes. It was, it was just in, it was like our incubator. And then my parents were very social, so, like the people you know, other black people on the basis, they would come over to our house, we would have the parties, we would have the music. So it was just, it was always blackety black.
Speaker 1:Say it like we. They always kept that around, so that's how the music came to me. Okay, and then we live from there. We moved to South Carolina, columbia, south Carolina, and it's definitely of color, yeah. So who had no problems there? Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, my dad moved us down south. So I grew up my formative years was in a predominantly white environment in Savannah. So I was. I was literally a token. You can look at a lot of my pictures. It ain't hard to find me is the only black girl, the only piece of pepper and the bowl of salt. But, um, I Credit. That experience will make me very well-rounded when it comes to music because, like I Was learning about like Rock bands and all kind of different places and even the cross Collaboration across genres of like, how hip-hop Was merging with like rock, like you might have had them run DMC.
Speaker 1:Arrowsmith you know, collaboration and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So what I love about hip-hop isn't when you really like get into it and study it is to like see who influenced to or whose this song that they sampled as a sting song, like you know, wouldn't know that unless you knew Sting's music that you know I'll be missing you is, you know, a sample of that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think growing up in Environments that exposes you to a lot of different types of music makes you just a well-rounded, like Lover of music. So do you think Hip-hop ended up being a conduit for some of those, some of that music, like you know what I'm saying, some people, because hip-hop is so young and in essence and there's a lot of samples and there's like run DMC and the rock and you have all Of these different collaborative trap jazz, for instance, like has it. Do you think hip-hop in some way has been a conduit to Open people's minds to other genre genres or it was the other way around? I Could say, yeah, in a sense, right, like so if you, like I see said, if you weren't a sting fan or you didn't know about the music but you Maybe found out through watching the video or watching, like the award show right because did he perform?
Speaker 1:Did I want to say it was like MTV Awards With Sting and he came out. So like if you had no idea, you know I'm saying you would start to kind of tie those references and for me I was always a music lover in general, so I would go back and see where those songs came from, because In my father would also recognize certain things. And then you know, just in general, like in the 90s, that was when sampling was More prevalent than anything, that's when it became the most popular, not to say that they didn't do it in the 80s because they did, like tribe definitely sampled.
Speaker 1:Even the DJs and mixing the breaks in the parties and stuff like that Not so much on the songs, but definitely in the dance force.
Speaker 1:I'll hear a lot of funk influence, you know, like soulful influences, alchemist, the producer, rapper, you know they would tie and go back into those times in the 70s, 60s and 70s and pull things like that Mm-hmm. Okay yeah, I would say the other way around, like, however you just worded that, I would say that If you are a true hip-hop head or a lover of hip-hop, it exposes you to other genres of music. Because so we gave this thing Reference, which actually Puffy did not clear, that sample fun fact. So because he did not clear that sample sting is going to get paid for the rest of his life. For any time that song is played he gets a percentage of If it did clear.
Speaker 1:He would too, but now he gets a hundred percent right to control.
Speaker 2:It's his song and puppy didn't clear it he didn't get permission to use it.
Speaker 1:So on the back end, once they, you know, legitimize the deal, he gets all the residuals from it instead of it being More of a profit share with bad boy anyway. But I was just saying Um, the other way around. So like it will expose you to, like she could, was saying Funk, a lot of George Michael has been sampled. Back in a day deaf row did a lot of samplings of, like Soul artists, ice cube, all of them like what sample? Like Isley Brothers and different people like that. And it really, if you weren't of that Generation, if that's more like your parents generation, you would hear you know this biggie song and then know that it's a sample to a Isley brother. And then now you find yourself going down the rabbit hole like, well, who's the Isley bro?
Speaker 2:They got some kids here, you know.
Speaker 1:So I would say that if you're really into hip-hop, it kind of exposes you to the other genres versus the other way around. That just made me think about um, hey Suzu, hey Suzu, my man, he's in the corner. You can't see him. But one of his like favorite mixtapes is like the Jay-Z and the Beatles gray album, where basically somebody somebody put Jay-Z.
Speaker 1:That shit was on top of all Beatles samples. It was never cleared by anybody. Jay-z was cool with it. I think somebody else created the mixtape right and and um, but like sonically it's like magical, right, and this is just really like street magic. I would just call it, you know, because like Jay-Z ain't clear, the Beatles ain't clear, but it's a beautiful compilation and it's like it's a mixtape and people were buying it like crazy or whatever the case may be. And then if you are just a Jay-Z fan, like you know what I'm saying, that opens you up to a whole another world or Whole another giant room music.
Speaker 1:But I just thought I would bring that out. If you go on spot of I'm, there is a Kanye Samples page when you can literally look, listen to all, because I feel like Kanye is our master sampler of our time. Yeah, you can listen to All of the original songs that he has sampled and you like, oh shit, that's like I didn't realize that is the original bound. You know what? These little boy, this little young boy band that I've never heard of from the sixties. I don't know, but you know anyway. So y'all look at that up. I also want to say, like when you talked about master sampler, you got to give just blaze his.
Speaker 1:Do-to, because there was like Right there, like with the Jay-Z stuff, I'm definitely a big Jay fan. Shout out to outcasts because they transcend so many levels, they touched on so many different genres and you know a little, 36 mafia ain't gonna hurt you. I was pumping the other day. It was like a juicy. No, I Got to find that Do have to be very. My truth and like wanting to know the originals to. My husband and I have a game where we're on the road trip. We play who was the original song?
Speaker 1:Like we'll listen to a song and because he's a, he's a musician and I love music, so we'll play that game. But but you really have to be, you have to recognize.
Speaker 2:There's something that came before. This ain't the original beat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know that's an intellectual ass game to be playing. I love it. I guess I should say when I fell in love with hip-hop Because we've gone around I Came from a hippie household. You know what I'm saying. I also sidebar I'm the youngest in the room. So my, my dad was like KRS one. He watched all the like breakdancing movies and documentaries back in the day and that was like Not necessarily my first introduction, but I used to be like Even JZ I would be out because I was so young. I was like I don't get it, like I don't know these jerk references, I don't know the got money references, but, honestly, the backpack rap. So like Mm-hmm Tyler, quality drop quad quest, okay, most death Mm-hmm, that was like I can go. I can tell you every word of every song tracks.
Speaker 1:That's yeah, you, it's very me.
Speaker 2:I can see that I still listen to every album like that's my Bread and butter.
Speaker 1:But my dad was listening to like KRS one, like you said, to pop.
Speaker 2:We had Wu Tang albums like oh yeah, I tell you, hip hop is playing strong in my household.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's my shit yeah. That documentary was not documentary.
Speaker 2:The docu series yeah, that was really good.
Speaker 1:It was so well done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from.
Speaker 1:Mike's to men. It was like, oh, you're talking about the bio pic, this. So they had a docu, docu series or documentary From Mike's to men, something like that. That was really good. So check, check that out. When you get a chance I'll check that. Speaking of two pop y'all see they have found.
Speaker 2:They arrested someone they arrested five. Oh, I'm sorry, we're well, what are the what?
Speaker 1:are the you mean in this. Limitation statues and there are no statute of limitations in the state of Nevada, where they were.
Speaker 1:So like even if there are elsewhere, they're not any there. I'm, I was gonna look up the guys now I'm not gonna speak his name cuz I mean whatever, but he was basically like his cuz, his nephew or something like that was the dude who actually shot him, apparently Allegedly, and he had always like talked about it in documentaries that he was in the car he like dug down. But then I guess, when the he had talked about it so much that they built a case against him.
Speaker 2:They had and they were like it wasn't cloud chasing.
Speaker 1:He was the og like wrote the book, he wrote a book and he wrote a book and he was the og in the car apparently, and everybody else was younger. You know, I'm saying yo, hold this good, I need you to shoot in the book, whatever like that kind kind of thing. But the interesting thing is they said, should night gone, not gonna testify. But I hired him. Did they do this just because?
Speaker 2:they wanted to.
Speaker 1:Or somebody said Somebody's car they thought they two-pot pulled out of good.
Speaker 2:So it was some dumb shit. They say he was hired. It's dumb shit, but I do remember where I was when he passed too.
Speaker 1:I remember when Biggie was sick. I don't remember that. I was at a football game.
Speaker 2:I remember Biggie and I remember Aliyah.
Speaker 1:So I remember Aliyah because I was a huge Timberland fan. I was in love, I was going to marry this man, you was in love, I was in love. It's low-key. Crazy because part of the reason I ended up in college in Virginia has something to do with Timberland. We ain't going to talk about that because it's crazy. So I fell in love with Timberland 1996, whenever the rain video came out and he was in that jeep with Missy.
Speaker 2:And I don't know.
Speaker 1:There's something to unpack here so much, very much so. First of all, I don't have no type.
Speaker 2:It can range from old white man to heavy set black guy to whoever Anyway.
Speaker 1:so he was getting out of that jeep with Missy. I was like 12 years old. I was like who is this? And she was like me, me, me and Timothy. So I ran. I got my brother. I'm like who's Timothy? Who is Timothy? He was like oh, that's her producer, his name is Timberland or whatever. From there I was locked in. Okay, so fast forward. So locked in. Timothy Zachary Mosley, born March 10th 1971.
Speaker 2:I'm telling y'all it's not a game. It's not a game. It's not a game. I was in love with him.
Speaker 1:I would celebrate his birthday. Up until adulthood I finally stopped recognizing that day as his birthday. I was like girl, you got jail. I was, it's March 10th, it's Timberland's birthday, anyway. So I remember where I was when Leah died. Because of my obsession I mean I applied for remember that MTV show True fan or obsessed girl.
Speaker 2:You would meet the fan. I forgot the name of the show. Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1:I applied. So I remember Leah passed away in the middle of the night because those were the days my brother was in the music industry at this point and those were the days of the little Skytel, like the first form of text messaging. You can send them little messages on the Skytel flip up pager thing, the three way, or two way pager.
Speaker 1:So, oh, because that's like a text, that's a two way community. Okay, I just that just connected for me. So he got a text on his two way about like the crash just before MTV, anybody or whatever. And my first thing when I woke up that morning to go to school and he told me I was like Where's Timberland? Timberland on the plane, and it took hours to confirm that he wasn't on the plane Missy was on the plane.
Speaker 2:Fatima choreographer was on the plane.
Speaker 1:All of them weren't on the plane but I remember vividly where I was when she passed away, like I've even lost outside of where you were, like I'm still taking a bag. I think we need a whole segment about. I see his choices Like who?
Speaker 2:are these men? Why she like this? Because I can't figure it out.
Speaker 1:I can't track it, but it's cool. I mean, I've always gone for the producer type, Like when most girls was like oh, my God, dream one, I was like.
Speaker 2:but who is he?
Speaker 1:in the back, like I've always gone for. Like not the front runner guy that everyone was going for, I always was looking at the dude that nobody was checking for at the time. But then they go and spend a block and be like, oh, he kind of he kind of you, okay, I had a thing for frack rappers, so you know what I'm saying 8 Balls, 8 Balls, no, it's 8.
Speaker 2:The biggest boss 8.
Speaker 1:Balls. I used to love them. You like the 8 Balls one? I just love them. Oh, okay, I just love them. She said in general, in general, yeah, that's alright, that is a space age band. That's a classic right there. I'm about to play this shit Right, we used to know odds and I miss an era I miss when you know all the lyrics, because you can hear it clearly.
Speaker 2:I got to say talking about something though.
Speaker 1:It's not so low vibrational. That's it and a storytelling. It's storytelling If you are listening, because I know it's hard for me to even find somebody to listen to right now. But, like, if you are listening, who would you say can be, could play with the OHS, could play with the OGs? Kendrick Lamar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I can't get into them.
Speaker 2:Really why? You have always said that you don't believe them.
Speaker 1:What is it about Cold World? Is it Lox? Oh, I don't like the Lox, though he can cut those, but go ahead. Okay, it's giving Nas a little. So you know, nas is a lyricist.
Speaker 2:You know you give it to Nas, but it's always.
Speaker 1:I love music. It's too lyrical? No, it's the music.
Speaker 2:It may not be the production.
Speaker 1:The production throws things Nas Quark that I cannot get into the lyrically on point Musically.
Speaker 2:I just, can we just make better choices?
Speaker 1:Nas has not always had the best production. So, and I feel like JCole produces a lot of his own stuff and I want to I can't remember which album, but there were, like, certain albums that I liked with JCole's, but not all. But yeah, you're right Like.
Speaker 2:Cold World.
Speaker 1:What I like about his. It's not the, so I baited it different, because I feel like he has great instrumentals, like I remember the Kevin's, kevin's Heart or whatever. Remember when he had, you know, made the song about Kevin's Heart whole cheating thing and actually had Kevin Hart to be in the video you missed that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very much those storytelling.
Speaker 1:But what I like about his production I never thought about it until you said that is that it takes a back seat to the storytelling. It's not so. 808s boom, boom, boom. That is conflicting with the lyrics. Like I, it's like it is. I think you can do there's a space to do both it is, but I like that he is riding his lane of like I don't want you to be so caught up on like this thing, bump, I want you to really listen to what I'm saying. So that's going to be background, like the back. The music is the background to what I'm actually trying to talk about. The KOD album, though I felt like Sonically was more elevated than some of his other albums.
Speaker 1:I was like I love it. I love it, so I'm into really I'm into consistency.
Speaker 2:And. I think, but it's where you go to say it is.
Speaker 1:I can some, I'm not saying all J Cole, yeah, yeah. It's just that I see him going in that space of Nas.
Speaker 2:Preferably, yeah, I mean Nas had been out for.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Nas being as old as hip hop and having as old as he had been dropping the songs and creating and then doing this whole 50 year celebration cause. He's been a mega force behind it and he turned 50 this year.
Speaker 2:He turned 50. This year he's doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:But the I will say this like the last few albums that Nas has put out there, the production's been great. He's been working with hip boy.
Speaker 2:Even the one he did Life is Good was a good one too, which is that the one kind of he did work with NoID? No, I did not that one didn't do well. And I was really disappointed.
Speaker 1:I think I heard him speak on it on an interview and he said it was kind of rushed.
Speaker 2:All of those artists didn't get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tiana Taylor album flop, everybody's album flopped.
Speaker 2:But Nas weren't bad though. Yeah, it just didn't, it wasn't flopped.
Speaker 1:They didn't give it, it's just due.
Speaker 2:And that's a difference, and it also was lacking, like for?
Speaker 1:I think it was like not that many tracks that we were waiting for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like those were those disappointments Cause it's yay, but let's talk about it. Kaya is like he's a genius, but he's a genius for himself and he's also a narcissist. So like, if you're going to sit there and like manage these other artists, it's a beautiful thing to want to, because you see their vision, you know there, you see their potentiality or whatever. But then when it comes to execution, that's a whole other conversation, because you actually have to manage them. And if you are engulfed in what you got going on and it's like I want you to be like he did with Tiana Taylor. I want you to be in my, my music video. I want you to be on the song. What's the song? She did, fade Fade. She was in the Fade music video, she was hitting and then because it was so hot she had a whole album ready to go and that's what she said.
Speaker 1:But immediately after he was like oh, you was hot. So you know what I'm saying let's drop these, let's drop what you got, because this ended up being such a phenomenon, like she should have had time because that album I liked, them seven songs I liked.
Speaker 2:Tiana's album. I loved them seven songs. Tiana's got some good bodies of work and good body the body Cause I was on the ground trying to pay my money to get that Fade thing. But she was on the ground, she was on the booty box. You know she was doing the cry baby.
Speaker 1:What is it?
Speaker 2:Virtual, uh vertical, when you lay down she was on the beat in it yeah.
Speaker 1:I was sitting there doing it.
Speaker 2:So I'm with no Tiana Boo.
Speaker 1:Boo, just can't say anything. I wish my friend went in with here because I am a Kanye fan Like I can't even like, but then I mean you could be a Kanye fan and also say like yeah, but you didn't put it all in.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I would call it.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm not comfortable with it. Is there still anything we can do for you guys? Maybe a?
Speaker 2:little To start the story.
Speaker 1:we got some quero requests for you to send them a message. We will send you besides incredible因 to an album.
Speaker 2:We will thank you and now they will stop looking at you.
Speaker 1:They will not say something about remind Cause that guys always do not talk about指ing your arm. What if it's just about memory Share?
Speaker 2:your imagination.
Speaker 1:Oh, they love that they arehey are right there with a DSnet account of jeans and I don't know if we can blame him solely for Russian and album when you got people behind you like management. But I also think that's a. It's a, it's a thing that tracks when artists sign to artists, right yeah, like that's a trend.
Speaker 2:That's just a behind the board A cross before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he had like a good 12, 15 years of knowing who Kanye was at the point that you signed on with him. We didn't see the Taylor Swift Kanye.
Speaker 2:We didn't see all of that, so you made the decision, which I really liked about him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really liked that he stood up. I was like I like this Disrespectful as that is just as disrespectful as the Will Smith.
Speaker 2:No. Chris Rock, no, no, no. Let me tell why.
Speaker 1:Let me tell why Because there's a time and a place for everything and it's fine that you felt that way, that she wasn't deserving of that. You might be right in that that there were other bodies of work, but it is disrespectful and it makes you look like a fool to go charge the stage and get your thoughts off in that way. That is disrespectful to her, that's a narcissistic, that is and it wasn't even your album.
Speaker 1:Now you keeping for a whole, another person who's the wife of your best friend at the time, like it just looked out of line, I don't know, and you were doing in front of them folks.
Speaker 2:I don't know if he had a fucking about that episode.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it was a thing or whatever, but you know, but the end of the day. I mean, he's fucking kind of like he's good for, like, like he's not going to sit back and just like.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I'm not going to say anything, I'm going to be respectful, I agree, but you know just time and a place, but I agree.
Speaker 1:But we've had this conversation before. To give space for the duality of the thing, I could say you are a genius, you know what I'm saying. I'm down for the George Bush don't like black people.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. But there's, like you know, I like that comment, but then you know what I'm saying, but I really like it.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm cool with that, because if you're going to rock for it, rock for it, and also that's why I said.
Speaker 2:That's why I said when he's, when you were like.
Speaker 1:Oh, you was around and folk I don't give a fuck about re-enrounding folks Say what you got to say was on your chest to get it off. But also empathy for, like you said, the person. So like yeah, this was Taylor's moment. Like, empathetically you could have just gave her that there was nothing that was going to come from that. But the George Bush don't like black people. This is the leader of the free world.
Speaker 2:You know, remember, let's call him out, okay, because?
Speaker 1:he's flying over these people dying in the water.
Speaker 2:I still remember Mike Myers face when he said that it was one. Can I stop this to the left? I want to be a part of it.
Speaker 1:I think that Taylor so I always look at Kanye as someone who has a lot to say, just doesn't know how to say it. But the way he said the delivery. So I really I'm always thinking about what is he trying to say?
Speaker 2:You know, one of those kind of things like like going deep into and I felt tolerance for it.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of tolerance for him, I'm not even gonna lie, and I think what he was trying to say is hey, man, you got. I just heard on a fucking podcast the other day that they believe that Taylor Swift is also coming out with a documentary. Y'all know that.
Speaker 2:similar to what Beyonce is doing. Okay, she's like me, and there they're.
Speaker 1:She's like me for that demographic, her, if you, if you put her metrics, right up to. Beyonce's metrics she just had a tour that almost coincided with her tour.
Speaker 2:I think hers ended a little bit before Beyonce started and she hasn't gone international yet.
Speaker 1:Yes, she's white Beyonce, but I don't think we can say that because Taylor Swift has a demographic and Beyonce has no demographic. She touches everybody, so let me finish so the documentary. We were saying that Taylor Swift is a bigger artist than Beyonce and this is a document, this is a podcast with white men speaking.
Speaker 1:So then I start to think Well, what the fuck you know? Does that mean that black people that because we're, we're into Beyonce, because she's a black woman, I wish jaded? We don't know what Taylor Swift is doing and is Taylor Swift bigger than Beyonce? But the white people know what Beyonce is doing. If the black, if the black people and the white people know what Beyonce is doing and only the white people know what Taylor is doing, is she a bigger artist?
Speaker 1:No they're saying that she is like, like metrically she's a bigger artist and then her, her documentary is going to do way more numbers than Beyonce. So I would say that when you say bigger, you have to, you have to quantify what that means in terms of bigger, because are we talking album sales, right? Are we talking ticket sales, the concert? So it's not fair to just say bigger. You have to, like, quantify what you mean by? That there is a quantification behind it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was a quantification behind it.
Speaker 1:I would say that she has she's. If she's not surpassed Beyonce, she is toe to toe.
Speaker 2:And also they did.
Speaker 1:their Beyonce's concert was much way better, but of course it was. She's a sister. She knows how to perform. I can't imagine Taylor Swift with a performance, yeah, so I think.
Speaker 2:sorry, but I think it sounds yeah, because it is about hip hop.
Speaker 1:She's Beyonce. Okay, so this documentary that we just know we're gonna. We're gonna finish, we're gonna bring this Taylor Swift part, because I'm not a swifty.
Speaker 2:She didn't take over.
Speaker 1:She ain't take over. We gave her the same way she getting on this NFL press. We introduce her into the conversation. So what I will say in closing on that there are a lot of black people who rock with Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1:I personally liked their earlier albums and I know some of the songs. I am not a swifty at all, but but you got to be a pop country fan, right? So like there are a lot of black people who rock with Taylor Swift, I think, because for us in a room that's not our jam, we might not be in touch with what her actual contributions are to the industry. I mean, if you go Grammy for Grammy, album for album is for tour, it's really album for album. Like, if we're looking at the, you know we just got some make tricks on her desk. So Taylor Swift sold 75 million albums worldwide million worldwide, right. Beyonce sold 42 with her most popular album and then Beyonce sold 9.3 million for ticket sales and a total of 18 for 0.5 million combined ticket sales right, but Taylor Swift sold 9.5 million lifetime tickets. So like, really, beyonce, numerically Beyonce's on her tail, but plug in Kanye Taylor, i'mma let you live. Beyonce had to be so, yo.
Speaker 1:I respect you, kanye, I love you Be listening to we. A podcast on Instagram. I really love you and I'm all for it. Okay, we want you to be our documentary was really good.
Speaker 2:Okay, why is genius?
Speaker 1:It was really good and the fact that he had to wear with all that in his early days to document all of that.
Speaker 2:To have that footage is just brilliant, because that was his homeboy, right, yeah, or something like that.
Speaker 1:No, he knew my earliest memories of Kanye, I was in college and shout out to North Carolina yes, and we had. I think it was my sophomore year here. We had a free concert at Corbett Gym and it was Kanye, john Legend, floatree, few others, but it was. It was just so big like that. Kanye was at our gym and I went to that show for free, oh my.
Speaker 1:God For free and it was so great he had pictures. Oh God, I don't think I have any pictures. I don't. I wish that I did. That was during the college dropout. Yes, definitely Like that was when he came out and I love that album and he had his Louis Vuitton backpack. He had his jacket with his little polo flipped up collar. I remember it like it was yesterday and he there were like moments where he like forgot some of his words, but it mattered because it was all a veneer like it was free and it was first of all Shout out to the HBCU.
Speaker 1:See these plugs and these free as concert Okay, because. I definitely saw Drake, my freshman year for free.
Speaker 2:It opened my dream. I went to the.
Speaker 1:NEO show at Spillman. But that was when, girl, it's funny, I'll say that because I remember very, very early on this artist was just coming out. He came out with VCU's band and they're like and everyone now makes some noise for Tray songs and we all like the hell, is this, what's VCU? What's VCU you? Just gotta make it oh.
Speaker 1:Virginia and Commonwealth University Just gonna make it Okay, and it was like no warm reception because we didn't know who he was. But now, like fast forward, it was like who's this corny dude with their band, like still corny, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray, tray.
Speaker 2:Tray Tray.
Speaker 1:Tray, tray, tray, tray, tray Tray. Trans Assessment Equipment. Girl shadowed breath Okay, let's get back, let's roll it back in cause. We would've gotten on a whole trick or tray concept także. Yeah, we don't need it again. We don't talk about it, man. So I did want to talk briefly about our documentary Netflix documentary about women in hip hop. What's that official type? Of tag on ladies in hip hop, ladies first. I think Queen Latifah executive produced it. It is just a all-round dream Hampton it's four-part docuseries on Netflix.
Speaker 1:Very like digestible background TV, honestly, of like the history of hip-hop where it came from, starting with, you know, the Roxanne Chantes all the way down to your now Cardi B's, to our I-Spices, our Saweeties and Lado's and we're how far women have come in hip-hop because, honestly, if we're talking about 2023, hip-hop is woman. You know what I'm saying. Like hip-hop, hip-hop has been dominantly male since its inception and we've had droplets of these female artists who were like waymakers, like your Queen Latifah's, like your little Kim's, you know, like your Nicki Minaj. And after Nicki, honestly, after she kind of shut down the way for she kind of tried to gatekeep hip-hop for women, plug gates open and now you have all the fly music right now is women in hip-hop. But anyways, what did y'all think about the documentary? What was your takeaway If you liked it, if you didn't like it either way, I would say my.
Speaker 1:One of the most interesting things I learned from it was when Drew Dixon was sharing her story about how the you're all I need Method man song was just an interlude at first and she heard it. She was doing Ann Arford Def Jam. She heard it. She hit up Russell and was like this is the most beautiful thing I ever have listened to, is a love story, like a man professing his love in rap. That's unheard of. So she fought for it to be a full feature song and not just an interlude. So Russell told her to hit puffy. Puffy said, okay, cool If you believe in it, but you got to put my artist, mary J Blige, on it. So they went in, they redid it and it became and he was like, and I want it to be the Tammy Terrell Marvin Gaye hook of your all I need. So they went in and they created this body of work that has like lasted what 30 years and Drew Dixon.
Speaker 1:Drew Dixon never received any producer credit for it. It ended up winning the.
Speaker 1:Grammy. Wow, she never you know, I've never heard that story that that song was championed by her and that's why we have it today. So it just kind of showed the lack of equality in the music industry. When a lot of women who are on these labels kind of like spearheading you know the creativity and giving their opinion on what's hot and what's not, but you see them, men, being credited with like yo, that's crazy, like. So I thought it was very unfortunate that that she never got the props that she deserved for putting that song together. Shout out to her, shout out to the women behind the scenes, including some of the reporters and some of the media people who kind of also amplified the voice of hip hop and kind of shared the news, shared the information that hip hop had to offer to the world and brought it to the masses. They made it pop culture. I want to like the documentary. I want to, I think, when you do, when I try to look at these documentaries, I want a feeling and an emotion.
Speaker 2:She won Donia Luna.
Speaker 1:I want to Donia Luna. I want something to artistic, something to give me nonfiction. I don't like nonfiction. Fiction, fiction.
Speaker 2:She said last night, you know like I mean.
Speaker 1:So this was like forcing, this was, this was felt like you know, I just felt like dream Hampton could have gone a little bit deeper. And I feel like this story that we've heard about this women in hip hop we've heard it all before. We know that I mean at least I've had it. See, I've seen it in several documentaries, ready, you know, books, whatever about the rock stands and whatnot. Um, I think my takeaway is hip hop is problematic. Um, and what context? Well, I mean, as the resident feminist in the room, I would say you know, I study comparative women studies at Spelman College and all women's school, and I was there when Nelly came, when Nelly's on tip. Nelly was supposed to come to the college to do tip drill and tip drill had just come out, came out and Spelman said no, no, no.
Speaker 2:No, we got to stand for this.
Speaker 1:He was trying to raise money for a sister, we said we can't you know, because this is what we stand for women being respected and not objectified.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And tip drill was problematic. It was wild and but a lot of we got the fact that so many women got so much backlash because we stood up for ourselves like yo. We're sorry for your sister, but take that over the morse brown so when I'm representing my sister. Why not do something that will be like? You know what I'm saying. Let's do a song that can be respectful to my sister. It's like I'm gonna get girls to shake that ass so that I can make money for my sister.
Speaker 1:It's like it was like it's very, very very but then go to an all women's school to get money from them.
Speaker 1:You could just ask them for money for your sister without even performing like hey y'all, this is a woman's school, my sister needs some help, right, whatever I don't know. So I'm saying that to say I really wanted the documentary to touch. They did some. They did talk about the Me Too movement, but the objectifying of our bodies is a thing for me and I feel like I sit when a certain song came out and the first thing one of us said was I'm gonna say you she good was. I'm so sick of this whole shit.
Speaker 2:I remember like that host belt HGAU is.
Speaker 1:I remember that because I'm like why do we have to see so much? I'm not. The documentary basically says oh, let's celebrate women, whether and we could talk about anything, whether it says, or freedom, whatever. But what about the shit in between? Like, yes, we can talk about, says, but your album need to be about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know it's all you got, so it's just like it seems like there's just this group of women who are just talking about sex, which which makes everyone feel like this is how I need to do. This is what I need to do to get this man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this money or this money is always said. That's fair. I think maybe some of the one spark that note for me in my head was you saying like a whole album full of it. Right, let's take Megan, the style dope Mm, hmm, flash it, right, I think her bars is dope Like. She's one of my favorite like female artists right now sonically. But if we can hear a story articulated outside of the realm of like sexuality, right It'll be real dope.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. She's gone through shit in the public eye that we've seen you know, and taking that and articulating that through the music, I think that gives more versatility and more freedom to the woman to be have some duality, because you can talk about sex but you can also talk about I don't know your emotions you can also talk about.
Speaker 2:you know saying I don't know there's like a larger range.
Speaker 1:I don't want to have sex one day, tonight, yeah, I mean every day.
Speaker 1:I didn't like it, like it's just in the documentary says, okay, so set sales, boom. All right, here we are Set sales, but like, god damn like. But then you see the, the rhapsodies and you know those artists who are the whole album. She ain't getting no shine. No, because she's not dressed in a thong. Yeah, shake her ass. Yeah, even though she's out there, even up and I'm not saying nothing is wrong with that. Yeah, but like that's yours Overall, it's not you walking to a room.
Speaker 2:Why am?
Speaker 1:I automatically thinking about your vagina. Well, because that's their MO, those artists like they. We need the Cardi's and the Lado's and the whatever. No, because there are the rhapsodies. That's here.
Speaker 2:But we don't.
Speaker 1:Stream me pussy. Audience backpack in the back corner. You don't understand. Behind closed doors when you want to listen to in your house is a different genre. You don't hear a rap city on the radio. You know, I don't hear a lot. I mean Tierra what whack you? You know. You know who she is. Right, she's got her props, but at the same time, like what you're, the popular stuff is, pussy is yeah yeah, buddy. Who booty hole is brown and I can't.
Speaker 1:What I was saying was like but even back to win little Kim, right, because little Kim was the one who I am, if we're gonna, if we're gonna say, hip-hop wise, because you can go back to Millie Jackson, and she was talking her shit back in a day, but she was, you know, soul music.
Speaker 1:Little Kim was getting her lyrics from Biggie Small, so like he was giving her the things to say. And then we had Foxy Brown come out. So like when we're looking at and not to say that those are the first two rappers, female rappers, because they are not.
Speaker 1:You got your MC lights, who you've got your your Queen Latifahs and then so forth, but like yeah, roxanne Chantay, but in the 90s when they hit like it was this, it was the whole empowerment of Sex and all the things and like, and that's cool because I definitely was talking that shit when I was. Right, you know what I'm saying when I was supposed to be tired. I ain't know what the fuck I was saying. I knew what I was saying, but I ain't know what. They ain't never experienced the shit.
Speaker 1:It's like a cop out, yeah and whole time like Kim was putting us on the game. She was pretty early, but if you ain't really like wasn't old enough to really catch it, catch it. But I say all of that to say is like we just had to right. And then 15 years later here comes Nikki Minaj With her. All of her. You know sexual innuendos and things, but she didn't have a Nikki has.
Speaker 1:Nikki has songs, though, where she was talking like moment for life, like that was a popular record, but it wasn't just I'm Sex, I'm this, I'm that. Like she has a few records First of all itty-bitty, piggy. When she came out I remember that's one of my moments I was like she wasn't just talking about you know.
Speaker 2:But you know Pink, because the industry, they suck you in and say this is what's going to sell this is what we want to do to our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you, if, if you black and you don't have the sense of mind to not get caught up in what the music and the lyrics they're saying. Because even then, like as a young girl, if I'm all caught up into what Kim saying and I'm starting to live my life by it, then that's where you try.
Speaker 1:Yeah like dude, there has to be boundaries, and so now we got all we have right and I think be is a good, really good, rapper, a good lyricist, whatever, but I Guess this all we have now I think it was women talking about ain't no boss, like can we talk about Power, shit like money, shit and boss shit without being a pussy. Yeah, how can we get into that? Be has a amazing Delivery.
Speaker 2:I like her. I love our delivery sound of her voice.
Speaker 1:It makes me run really fast at the gym.
Speaker 1:I feel like there those cuts are on the album. They're not the like Megan can have a song talking about like her struggles of, like you know, whatever she's going through. Or Cardi might have a song talking about like you know, be careful with my heart. Or you know, I just want to be loved. Those aren't the things that we're like Highlighting out of their bodies of work, but it is this. Now again, everything is a business, so they're gonna go with what is selling. I also think that they are genuinely these girls. Now, if some of these people are, yeah, putting on a persona, and really you church and mouse, you know Whatever then you out here just creating this persona. If you really are that girl, if you really are sexually free, if you really are about that life you're talking about your Reality.
Speaker 1:I do think some, a lot of the girls, that they're what they are putting out there is representative of like who they are.
Speaker 1:I do think so, but you know, we, you do have to track it to the money, to the labels, to PR and our whatever, because Sex and they kind of got lazy with that being the only thing that sells like on a high level, not necessarily just the artist, right, because I get you like you're saying they're just pulling those hot, those Moments out and being like this the one, this the one, this the one, let's put her in the leotard, let's put a little titties out and then call it a day and not really like it is. But it puts you in a precarious situation because, yes, set sales, but you selling it, you're selling it a. By the way, I love Cardi B Mm-hmm, I think she's one of my like, if I can, just I think she could be one of my friends.
Speaker 2:I just like her personality.
Speaker 1:I just I like her and I also like me at the stallion. So when we're talking about, like the mech, the stallions, in terms of this documentary, the, the thing that hurt me the most was that Tory Lane situation and how we as women tend to take the male side as well, you know, and those struggles that she, she, had to endure when she did get shot and the backlash she got and the almost all that explaining she had to do, and there's still people saying, oh, what was she doing and did it, it, it?
Speaker 1:or whatever so it's almost like People can't, like we can, because we are creators and we also are think critically. But a lot of people cannot dissect this entertainment, this shaking of the ass and this I got shot in my foot. You know what I mean. They are pulling that shit together and saying and saying, okay, so maybe she was in the club shaking her ass and her ass it is. Somehow we got. Tory Lane was upset about it and, yeah, she should have got shot in the foot.
Speaker 1:No, you know, but that's, that's how the, that's how the story plays out and you go to, like these international countries, and I always use as an example, like how I've been. When I was in China, the first thing they were looking at is as black women, as with a group of black women, was our asses. You know what I mean. So you're these images that these people in these foreign countries are watching on the television. It's translating to other people in the country. It becomes a persona instead of the actual character of the person, instead of the actual duality. I or you know the whole hardiness of the person, and I mean, at the end of the day, when we take it back, it's always gonna come back down to, like I see, said the mainstream media, your record label.
Speaker 1:But I think it is up to your art, it is up to the artist, though, to advocate for themselves, to show their humanity, to show that they have other sides of themselves.
Speaker 1:You know, I think you hear you hear it a lot of people saying like I really wanted to put this song out, or maybe they just drop in and release it, like, as you know, something unreleased, so that people can see like hey, the label, they don't want this song. But I really felt like y'all should hear it. I think I definitely understand you guys sides and arguments. I believe that it is a mix of these girls really are these girls, they're that girl and in your friend group that's really about to go like Pop pop off, you know. So they're speaking from their reality, like when you look at a Cardi who came from a Exotic dancer stripper background. Like they're talking about their lives.
Speaker 1:They're the ones that we've given this deal to they, not about to sit there and be on some Lauren Hill stuff, cuz she Grow up that way.
Speaker 2:That's not a reality.
Speaker 1:I understand that we're Catapulting those personality types to the forefront, when it seems like, hey, there should be some evenness of like putting out someone like a tear or whack or rhapsody or whoever, and not just a Cardi, cardi, cardi.
Speaker 1:But I blame the consumers because we don't want that we not asking for that, we not advocating for it on a level that will move the needle, like there might be these people who have their fan bases. They're like you know, we want that or whatever. But to move the needle there has to be enough consumers who are saying that's what we now want to hear. We're done with that, we want to hear this. And Thirdly, you don't think you have to kind of force the issue. We wasn't listening Afro beats until they just threw it up into our you know, they say it wasn't for it wasn't disco.
Speaker 1:We wasn't listening to the disco. Era of Renaissance and drink until they just threw it out there oh and and. I know that you not notice the trajectory of her and the out in the in the documentary, like how she started as a Kid rapper?
Speaker 1:rapper little skinny little cute little girl or whatever. And then at some point which is what they didn't talk about is that she became more again hyper six. So that was. The third point I was gonna make was our as a culture. We are pushing the agenda of freer women and sexuality and you know, you ain't Don't label her a hoe because of this, isn't it? So, as a culture, there is a shift, and that's not even black people like. There's just a shift of women can be sexual creatures and it's okay and this is the new wave.
Speaker 1:I think for a lot of it was a coming of age. Yeah, when she was 14 and with JD and them, like she can't talk about pop and pee because that's highly inappropriate. But as she's coming of age, as she's now a woman, as she's now having sexual experiences, she decided that's the lane that she's going to, you know, drive in for her career, and she didn't have to. But that's her coming of age, where she's at at life, that's what she chose to highlight from, you know, this experience. So I just feel like is it's a multi-pronged.
Speaker 1:Situations but does she choose that or is it?
Speaker 2:people on her team.
Speaker 1:Nope, she did so. Actually I remember Lotta, because this was in a days and my brother was Involved with so, so deaf, and I remember looking at her and saying that's a precocious little girl. And I also kind of remember, like a lot of people Were kind of tiptoeing around the fact that this young girl, surrounded in a male industry, with all these older men Kind of grooming her, this could be, this could the opposite of it, don't look yeah.
Speaker 1:So I remember a lot of people like and I'm about being a studio session alone with little girl over there, mm-hmm, who'd be doing the most? But I think that she's even said like cuz her parents are her managers, so parents are her and they were like when she first started with the pop and P lyrics, like hold up and she was like, but no, this is where I'm at and this is what.
Speaker 2:I am.
Speaker 1:So she fought for that. It was no one who said like, and she probably fought for it subconsciously because that's what's hot right now.
Speaker 2:It was a cycle.
Speaker 1:That's what's gonna put her in the playing field but I think though too, there's, you know, there is an agenda pushed with these record labels In the music industry and you just have to, as an artist, be like 10 toes down on whatever your credit credit.
Speaker 2:And what's the next?
Speaker 1:moment. How come is she made sense? Yeah, where is she? Yeah, she coming Of hip-hop, where it was still more consciousness and hip-hop like so she was.
Speaker 1:She was a homie, she bit the vibe of like the most deaths and the fugees and all of like hip-hop was at that level. Now hip-hop Men and women right now is not on that wave like this newer generation or where we are as a society. We're at the time and nobody's like you said, nobody's come through and push the needle in that direction for Female artists. Like it's also up to the artist to come through and be like ten toes down. This is what it is. I'll be hard any. You gonna give me the money, I'm gonna you know what I'm saying and like advocate for themselves in that way and I just be like I'm just here for the earth, whatever I just put out this music, even though you're not gonna push me any further, like it's a thing, I mean it's given I'm a pretty face too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cuz that's a. Lauren Hill is actually a beautiful, but she is a beautiful moment and it may sense, yeah, but if somebody else out there singing ooh, la, la, la, it was yeah like a Bahamadi. Bahamadi, you know she was in that same space, but like she wasn't, as you know, popular or you know whatever, the market ability, like you got to be a baggage that I can market and Artist development and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:They're like hey, we got enough Cardi's, right now we really need a learn. So you might have walked in as a Cardi and they like not, I see, you got more depth to you than that. Yeah so let's take the weave out. You know, let's like.
Speaker 2:You know, let's let's put you in. You know, like some tiana Taylor, let's create the package.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to create something that people are gonna want to buy. So I mean, this is a good Onto the next of. We are we ate record labels, okay, and we got some artists coming in and we want to put them in categories right. So we're gonna do hip-hop super instead of ater hate, and I just want to know Hi, love, get you know maybe I need to think about it a little bit who is hip-hop cuties couple? So Rhea and Joey bad. Yeah, they fine, thank you.
Speaker 2:And they not even I love.
Speaker 1:But they cute together. I love it. I love him first of all.
Speaker 2:He's just like a certain. Shweck Joey got it. Let's just go on the record.
Speaker 1:Joey got it, and so Rhea. She's a like, beautiful girl, beautiful spirit, energy. We got to work with her for a promo shooting. She was just a breath of fresh air. Fly, thank you. But they, you know, okay. So then I mean directly after that best dressed, I want to say Cardi, and oh, oh, no, that I hate the fact they put their shit in a media like their business or whatever. But I love that we still see them together. That's best dress, though, or is that your cutest?
Speaker 2:That's my cutest cutie couple.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, cutie couple. Yeah, I would say those too, because, um, it's. First of all, let me go on record and say marriage is no, ho, my favorite Celebrity. Or if you, you know someone on the streets marriage is no ho the fact that this is a married couple in Hip-hop you don't see that often. And we see them Fight for they love and it might be for their love.
Speaker 2:We don't know how real, the things are.
Speaker 1:Yeah they nasty real life. They fight for they love, they show up, they're cute. Yeah, I did love their MTV, like how they complimented each other. I know it wasn't my favorite carpet, but that I'm always gonna go back to them clips. He had the clips in his hair. He fly, she fly Great he's.
Speaker 2:Anyway they try.
Speaker 1:By the like his every day Matthew Henson or. I want to say Matthew Henson, but I'll go back. I would say my cutest couple just because aesthetically I think they are cute. I'm not a fan of One of them. I'm a big fan of the other one. I would say a genie, I go and. Okay, I think they look, they match they, they look well together, they look good together.
Speaker 2:That's a good one for me. To the eyes they do or me, and not to say or they both do. You know, I love today. I love Women's. He's gonna have some enthusiasm.
Speaker 1:ABCDE. He's so monotonous it kills me.
Speaker 2:No, he's not like little we got more energy on his podcast on the mic, that's just, I like it.
Speaker 1:As someone who doesn't really listen to current day hip-hop, he's up there for me. I love a big shot in verse. Okay. Well, the next one is most likely to join the circus. I like that cuz it's real wide and we talking about hip-hop.
Speaker 2:I'm giving your boy I take some stacks. I think he already in one.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna burst soul circus. Barnum and Bailey one of them. He's, he's gonna be out there walking on the wall. Put the diamond in the head. I Oozy, okay, yeah, yeah, oozy, definitely, I agree 100% what I see. Oozy, if we have to go back to the 90s, busta Rhymes would have been in that circus Doja, cat Doja. Cat. She on a web somewhere in that circus. Don't do so like it. We get on the circus by every red carpet, diamonds studded, looking like Magneto. What's the other girl? Not Majestic?
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna you know who I'm talking about the purple one, the blue one, the blue one, the green one?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the transins and to the Mm-hmm. Okay, who's Sub-Pilatives biggest drama king or queen in hip hop? Kanye, y'all had to think about it. Nicki Minaj, nicki Minaj, I think. Yeah, I'm Joe Budden. Oh, I'm sorry, I just. He made that shit work, though he's definitely made that shit clap. He said you know what, let me stop complaining in the world, i'ma get a mic and talk on the podcast.
Speaker 2:He is making it, that's podcast king right there.
Speaker 1:I don't think that makes him a drama king. I feel like he's just like. I don't go with the status quo.
Speaker 2:And you're in product. No personality, though.
Speaker 1:He was very eccentric, grantee, he was on drugs at one point.
Speaker 2:So I think that might have had something to do with it.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I do think he used to be a little bit of a drama king. But I track with you on Kanye. Kanye is definitely dramatic. I feel like there's another male drama king in hip hop Ooh, there's a heart, ooh, why are you saying that, dame? Dash what's?
Speaker 2:the dude that's on a.
Speaker 1:Dame Dash, have me. I'm murdering dude. What's an Irv? Irv got it. Oh, I don't really like him at all.
Speaker 2:Moving on. Okay, moving on.
Speaker 1:Speaking of misogyny Right exactly Most likely to leave the rap game and become a humanitarian Mm.
Speaker 2:That's Jay-Z. Hell, he done, basically did it, did it already. Yeah, pharrell, yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought him too, pharrell yeah, he got like the water. Let me not quote him, but I'm pretty sure, don't he got like a water thing? No, he has the gut molecules, or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, skin, skin Okay. But Jay-Z has the sneakers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that hip hop? Is that rock? And?
Speaker 2:roll what does?
Speaker 1:he do. He's hip hop, he's a fresh person.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's alternative. We'll say alternative, but alternative folk.
Speaker 1:What was his record that he had that?
Speaker 2:was big, I can't, I like that record, I can't live. I was like yeah, okay, okay, it was definitely alternative hip hop.
Speaker 1:Okay, sisters, more on turn up Um oh, best Southern hip hop song over the last 50 years, like 50?. I mean this is all in hip hop. The South has something to say. I'm gonna say Goodie Ma Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Ooh, I love that song.
Speaker 1:I love that song Again in my end. Get my sister love and friend. Oh, oh, oh, oh that was Chris's pick up line. Give him a mile.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the words. That's how I met my husband.
Speaker 1:He came up to me up. I was sitting at a bar and he came up to me.
Speaker 2:I was like I just want to let you know.
Speaker 1:You got beautiful skin. Okay, it was only after the fact I said that was a Goodie, ma line, I'm a Negro, and then got me off of somebody else's lyrics. I think my favorite hip hop song is so many. Obviously I'm an outcast fan, but I'm gonna challenge myself and say Walka-Flocka's Hardin' to Pain is by far my favorite. When that done, Shaka, I did see it.
Speaker 2:I've learned so much about it. Second and third I'm gonna go for the third.
Speaker 1:When that song comes on, I just have this visceral reaction to run around and just be free. It's so like, oh my God, hardin' to Pain, hardin' to Pain, please, oh God. I just saw him perform at the other day and it was actually really good.
Speaker 2:It's such a great song. He did a good show.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting because that means you waited a lot of years, through hip hop, to get to this song Wait what to get to this song.
Speaker 2:To get to this song. To get to this song, I mean, I got many like elevators.
Speaker 1:It's one of my outcasts, it's just, oh my God.
Speaker 2:But that's though I'm serious, it's too hard of a question. It's too little so. Okay, top of the line when it be like okay, hip hop song go.
Speaker 1:And you're like, ooh, I just need to hear this song. So album, Okay. Okay, hold on, because I gotta this is gonna be only for a select few people, Like they're not gonna, oh, you're taking it back, Get it. So I'm gonna go back to the I'm Serious album for TI. Oh, girl, and you know he just had a number of records in it. So at this point in my life I was obsessed with TI. I was like, ooh, loving him. Baby, that dope boys.
Speaker 1:Okay, we showing our real true colors in here, and then I got there was this one, like I don't know what it was like. It reminded me of, like that good Southern playlist music. It's on his Korean Royal like what's your, what's your what's your favorite hip hop song? I've been hoping you wouldn't come over here.
Speaker 2:I don't have that, Timothy. Your man ain't putting that on, Come on now, don't do that.
Speaker 1:I can't say some Missy you know, Timothy from the South Hole, and I got one for you. Hold on, and as you say, what I don't have a favorite. It's like asking me to choose my favorite kid. I only got one, so that should be easy, but I mean I don't need to, but that one's the one that comes up, I would say when I think when I listen to rap these days I would say up, jumps the buggy. If we were going Timberland.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're sorry.
Speaker 1:That's probably my favorite, like Timberland, Missy, or the rain, the rain still. You know that's the same. That's forever a classic Mm-hmm these days when I listen to hip hop. So my hip hop spirit animal is two chains.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Okay, most people would not think that for me.
Speaker 1:But I love me some two chains. Like I feel like he kills, like most of his features he always has. He's like almost like a new millennium, ludicrous. Like what ludicrous was in the early 2000s of like the one liners and punchlines. I feel like that's two chains now, so that should revive anyway. I mean it tracks with your. Really, I don't know, not two chains, I'm just saying, like the thing that she likes about him is the thing that she's really good at. You know what?
Speaker 2:I'm saying oh, the one liners. We could hit you with a one liner, yo, I think.
Speaker 1:I've some badass one liners Like that isn't like good, yeah, but like funny. So when I'm scrolling through my title cause I have like a rap playlist and when I tell you it's all over the place. I'm gonna just call out some stuff I got. Stay, Fly by 3-6.
Speaker 2:How does Stay Fly?
Speaker 1:I do have that I got Flappers with Nicki Minaj and Juicy J. So when I listen to hip hop now is like, okay, I gotta go to the gym or do something. I need to be hyped up. I need Future for the gym.
Speaker 2:Future is my job, though, too.
Speaker 1:Y'all know I love Future. Yeah, not a fan. I have Pop that by Frank Shumatana and I have Make them Say Uh by Master P. Uh, uh oh.
Speaker 2:This is America. This is all over. This is America by.
Speaker 1:Childish Gambino. I see D it goes to the Master P concert.
Speaker 2:I did. It was amazing. It was so nostalgic. I know this. Oh, you used to do that two years ago.
Speaker 1:I got All Gold, everything by Trinidad James.
Speaker 2:This is definitely a workout playlist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I need that New York, like who is shit when I'm gonna look you know what I'm saying. Casanova got Smoke like yell at me, and then I be like boom.
Speaker 2:I'm out. That's why I'm like how did it paint? Yeah, he yelling at me.
Speaker 1:He yelling Future just making love to you yeah.
Speaker 2:I love.
Speaker 1:My favorite Future Workout song is um shit. Why don't I? Mine is um. What's about sticks? Yes, that's Stick.
Speaker 2:Talk that's my favorite Workout song. Now what is in?
Speaker 1:Stick. When Stick Talk, come on, that's his penis.
Speaker 2:I'm running out.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking he talking about a baradron.
Speaker 2:No it apparently is a gun.
Speaker 1:I'm jogging, but it's a gun.
Speaker 2:I'm running.
Speaker 1:I'm jogging. When Stick Talk comes out, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My husband well, tmi, but you know he played the drums. I don't think I know one Future song by name. I don't know I don't, yeah, it's not my name you don't. We play the song. I got the words, but I'm not by name Artists. Don't get me to try and lie about an artist's name or the song name, but play the song. I know the words. It's a. It's a skit. Oh God I have to tell that man, when you say a visual reaction, you ain't playing.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no.
Speaker 1:I love, I love Future. I feel nothing At all.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, look at that we have so many. We could go on for hours about this.
Speaker 1:We've actually taken this whole conversation in a whole other direction than what we thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 2:We might need a part too, but at the end of the day we can't break this shit up. We can, and at the end of the day, that's what it's about. What about?
Speaker 1:you this season. What you answered the question yeah, I did, I said beautiful it was in a different direction.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you were, I went left, I went left.
Speaker 1:Did you have one more to close this out? One more superlative.
Speaker 2:Oh, one more superlative I like that idea.
Speaker 1:Oh, I don't believe it. So it's all kinda tracks to the same Striking presence, underrated artists and hip hop who's?
Speaker 2:the most underrated one.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm gonna say Tala.
Speaker 1:Pallini, just because. But that's for me personally it's really personal, like cause, I love the podcast with him and Dave Chappelle, dave Chappelle, midnight Miracle. It is beautiful, beautiful. Phonically that shit sounds like a story. I love making, yeah, love making. But Tala Pallini, quality album reflection, eternal, beautiful struggle, word for word and every song and it might just it is a personal thing, I'm gonna say underrated childish Gambino, because I think a lot of people look at him as like the token black guy who makes music for token black people.
Speaker 2:Which is kinda true.
Speaker 1:He's very like alternative in his. I don't feel like he's that alternative. I think he's rap. But I never even checked for him outside of like his singles that he would put out until one day title kept playing and just played a whole album and I was like, oh, he can really rap and he's like really good, but I would have never clicked on this to listen to a Childish Gambino album. So I would say he's kinda underrated, like people don't be checking for him.
Speaker 1:But if you listen to it, it's kinda dope. He has great artistry and storytelling in his brain and I would say an alternative, not for the music necessarily, but for who he is as a person, like an alternative black person. I don't wanna I don't wanna make that a thing, but you know what I'm saying the ones who like anime and the ones who are like oh, the stars, and I can, yugioh, and also like hip hop, like the ones who are very well rounded in, like their scope of what you think is Cause he's Atlanta.
Speaker 2:He went to Stevenson High School. He is very much so Atlanta, but he doesn't present that way. No, he don't present that way.
Speaker 1:What's y'all got? One Underrated, I'm gonna say. You know, at my big age I'm really into the dope, contemporary hip hop, as someone would call it. I'm thinking like more J Electronica. Yes, that's a good one. I just feel like again musically it's just so. I want to hear more. I want to hear more, even every time I oh lord, it's just a reaction. Okay, that's fair, and he's a producer, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he has albums. As a matter of fact, his last album was so good to me.
Speaker 1:Was that the one you did with Jay? No, was it the one you did with Jay? I think it was, cause I remember a lot of people talking about how good it was. And I was like who is he? Eric, my new baby daddy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my new baby daddy yeah.
Speaker 1:Everybody say drop the album, say it, that's hilarious. So yeah, that is underrated If you think about who you fucking do is you're referencing who you are. Which for you, I don't know. I mean, I definitely agree with Mia on the whole J Elect situation for sure. It's just so many people I do. I want to say Rhapsody should be getting more love, that's a good one. She should definitely be getting more love in regards to women in hip hop alone, like she should definitely be getting more love.
Speaker 1:I feel, like I should be listening to her more based off of what I like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's a talent, quality.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you just need somebody to introduce you, to like, just to put it on, put the album on and you just know this. You're like girl, that's Rhapsody.
Speaker 1:You feel like okay, and then you'll now become, because a lot of times we don't seek out outside of the artist we already roughly know, this is a question for Sheikah, like, oh, matter of fact, there was an artist named Sheikah on the Netflix film Dr Minning that I wasn't too familiar with, so I'm gonna go back and listen C-H-I-K Anyway, but how do you go find new music Like for sure Cause you gotta if you're not into the radio, you gotta really seek that shit out? Yeah, I mean, back years ago it used to be through blogs Okay, player, okay player that great juice, that net, even the concrete loops, you know they always used to put out dope. You know new stuff. And then from there I would just go down a rather whole from this artist and then it might introduce me to another artist.
Speaker 1:Like I do be listening to a lot of people who I guess maybe they're main, maybe mainstream now, but I just remember listening to so many different people and then I guess too, because I do music, I'm connected to different people and I might be introduced to this artist here or there. But now, like you know, you have Spotify's and the playlist, like a playlist help, and then, like it connects you to somebody else a little bit more underground. I like that aspect, the internet period, like my sister as well. Like you know, she used to use me as a funnel through music when she was younger Hourglass, my sister, hourglass DJ and cultural icon in Atlanta. She now introduces me to different things new music and new sounds and people. So, yeah, shout out to the DJs making it making it clap in.
Speaker 1:Atlanta. There's been a couple times we've rolled up on some sets. I feel like now I pay more attention. Actually, now that I know your sister, you know what I'm saying. I pay a little bit more attention to the DJs now because I think they create sonically. They have a little bit more life to a song that you might not have paid interest to before. So I think that's a beautiful thing, it's the energy they can. The DJs are, you know, have a very heavy contribution to their pop.
Speaker 1:That's how the DJs say my life and culture for sure. All right. Well, I think this was a beautiful episode. It kind of took on its own life and I appreciate that because it's really giving you the authenticity of who we are. Thank you all so much for you know, listening in every episode is something new.
Speaker 1:We here to give you a little bit more of ourselves and be a little bit more expressive every time. That's our goal, and also to inspire the people as you inspire us. Make sure you follow us, like, subscribe at We8 Podcast on Instagram and We8 on all of your podcast networks. Yeah, we here for you all. We'll see you next week, thanks y'all, bye, bye you. Fertilized music plays wholly in clean, immerse tone, unicorate message tone, along with deep Englishedi tones with aary due洗. You, you, you, well, well, absolutely you.