Welcome back to Want A dj, the show where we look back at what brings us together and what sets us apart.

It's great to get back DJ Design, who had on last time, but we barely really scratched the surface of a lot of what you did.

We talked a lot about things that were around you in your early years, but we didn't really get into you as a beat maker.

Oh, yeah.

I think where we left off, we just talked a little bit about Gather Round, your first album that came out on Stone's Throw, but we'd not really talked about Foreign Legion.

Yeah, that's true.

Kind of like very vaguely touched upon this.

If you could talk.

Talk a bit about that.

Okay, well, once again, what's up, Adam?

Good to see you.

So, yeah, let me try to summarize it, because I do tend to go on, but so a friend of mine, Zach and I, we went to junior high school together, and Zach and I, like, quickly became best buds, you know, really close friends.

We were kind of loners in the school.

In fact, we were both into hip hop music.

Right.

So that's, you know, that era.

And so I was probably, what are you, 13 years old around then?

So the only place to break dance and listen to this music was in the special education Porta Porta Porter room.

Porta Potter cabin.

Yeah, yeah.

So already, you know, this is sort of setting up for, like, being, like, outcast to the normal peer group.

Right.

Because you're.

You're among everybody who's got special needs and people are like, you know, at that age, like, what are you hanging out in there for?

And it's like, well, that's where you get to listen to hip hop music break dance on their hardwood floor, or it may have been linoleum because it was a Porta Porter room or whatever you call that.

Yeah.

And we would spend our days on lunch in there, and it was so fun and, you know, you're hearing stuff.

And now this is like kind of like the inception of, like, you know, commercialized hip hop.

Right.

Of the first order.

Right.

And so we were both fascinated by that.

We became really good friends.

And by the time we got into high school, we're already listening to everything.

Most hardcore of the time.

And Public Enemy was.

If people don't realize this, but at that time, Public Enemy really was a revolution in hip hop music.

It was very aggressive, it was very political, and it was very discordant right there.

Like, the music made no sense sonically, but that was what was so exciting about it.

And at that time, Zach and I wanted to finally join and create a rap group together.

So we both saved our money and we both like, save our money was $15 an hour to go to the local studio, which was basically a metal, you know, metal head guitarist guy who had his own homemade studio, really done well in his garage, right?

And I took, you know, some of the records that I thought would work and sampled them on his.

I think it's called a kawaii keyboard, you know, and it had a sampler, but it didn't have a loop function.

So you had to press the button over and over and sometimes there's that gap, right?

And so he could play piano a little.

The, the, the.

The engineer.

And so every now and then he'd be playing the loop.

Let's imagine like a two bar loop playing over and over that he's doing.

Because he wouldn't, he's.

At that time, people wouldn't even let you touch their stuff, you know what I mean?

It's just a keyboard, you know, he wouldn't let us do it.

And so every now and then he would play the loop.

So imagine a two bar loop playing with all the music, you know, all that at once, right?

The whole loop of music.

And he would play it like, like, I'm gonna have to sing it, you know, so it's going like.

Then he'd go and like the whole loop, you know what I mean, with all the sounds.

The drums are like going up semi tones, you know what I mean?

I'm like, don't do that.

Just loop it.

Just loop it, man.

And he could not help himself because you have to do this for like three minutes, you know, like, or back in those days, it was like 4 minutes and 20 seconds.

It was like the standard for Track, right?

Or 420.

And yeah, he would, he would do this silly little thing.

He just could not help himself.

And we're like, we're paying you for this, you know, like, you're cutting into our time, you know what I mean?

Every hour is $15.

We're splitting that anyways, so let me move on.

And so we made a couple of tracks and they were terrible, you know, I'm not gonna say we just out of the jump, you know, made like a classic now.

It taught me a lot.

And we both got the bug in us and we kept like making music together as you know, we saved money and headed to studios, right?

And eventually we got something where we thought, whoa, this sounds really good.

And that Happened to be our first Foreign Legion song.

And it was the first, I would say, like beat that I made that I was like, oh, this is really cool.

And it actually works, you know.

And that, I believe was on the Kidnapper Van album.

And it was called Full Time B Boy.

And Full Time B Boy was just, just Zach and I at the time.

And then Zach knew a guy who lived in Oakland who wanted to rap and who wanted somebody to produce from.

But he liked east coast music.

And at the time in the like, sort of like the early.

Well, no, let's say like 96.

Right.

Right around that night.

So late night that's called late 90s.

But he really wanted east coast hip hop beats.

And so Zach's like, you gotta meet my friend Keith.

And so we started playing around together and immediately we all like, we got along so well.

And Zach is just like a real cut up.

He's real funny and stretch and he was so funny also, right?

And he's this like really big, you know, 6 foot 5, 300 pound guy.

And he's not intimidating at all.

You know, at first you're like, whoa, this guy's like huge, like threatening, you know, but he's, he's hella cool, right?

And what I mean by that is like he was somebody who you would think would be like a rapper, you know, shoving his way around.

And he was actually the opposite, you know, like a total teddy bear kind of guy, right?

And so we're like, we should all do this together.

You know, the three of us, two MCs, one DJ, whatever producer.

And he worked, he did a song with us and we all loved it.

We thought, oh my God, this is like really working.

That ended up being the kidnapper van 12 inch that we released on ABB records.

And ABB, if people don't know, I believe, like Jurassic 5.

No, no, no, not Jurassic 5.

Dilated peoples came from there.

Little brother came from there.

And people like, what's his name?

Dafari, I believe came from there, but a host of others, you know, I don't want to get into all that, but my point is it was a legitimate west coast, east coast vibe hip hop label at that time.

And we were really proud to have gotten signed to that because, you know, at the time it's like you're worried that you're just not capable and good enough to be on that level.

You know, people like that.

And I mean, we got signed actually before Dilated, I believe.

Oh, wow.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, That's a pretty good cosign, isn't it?

If you know you're getting a label like that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

We, we felt, we felt that we were on top of the world and we at that time just felt like nothing could stop us, you know.

And it kind of worked out too because when we put that single out, it did really well and it became like, you know, this is before viral anything, but at the time it was viral in the hip hop community worldwide because of the content, right?

I'm a full time B boy, right, Making noise like the chorus, you know, and to say it in the chorus, you know, full time B boy making noise blew up.

It was really a big record for us and it got us the opportunity to not only travel to, for instance, like Australia twice.

We did, we did multiple European tours, you know, all over Europe, all over the uk.

We never really got to go to like more Latin countries, meaning we didn't really get to go to South America, we didn't get to go to Spain and we didn't get to go to Italy.

And at the time, I kind of blame that not on us musically, but at that time this was like the late 90s.

Those countries, not all European countries, but those countries were a little behind on underground hip hop.

They were still in their, you know, let's go to Ibiza and listen to house music and you know, they're into techno and they're into all these like thumping, you know, hardcore rave music.

You know, I'm not a, I'm not a huge collector of that stuff.

I know a little of it, but I know that's what they're into more.

So there wasn't really much room for people like us to go travel out there.

So most of the places we went that were like.

And you know, this probably too out there, it's like hip hop heads are in Germany, you know, hip hop heads are in, in Scandinavia.

Hip hop heads are in places like Poland and you know, and then in places like not really London, but if you go to Brighton and Bristol and if you go to Manchester, if you go to Leeds, like all the gritty, the gritty places, no underground hip hop.

And that was so cool, man.

And in fact it, it sort of turned me on to, you know, like getting sort of more deeper into underground music, you know, like, sort I started learning more about European hip hop and British hip hop and stuff like that, but which we were just, you know, making it up as it went along, you know, and we were such jokers that we didn't really take it as seriously as we should have, if that makes sense.

Like, we really loved it, but we were just like, let's come up with stupid concepts and hopefully that works.

And we'd listen to the song and if we didn't like it, obviously, or if it didn't sound real enough for us, we didn't do it.

But we just.

We had too much of a light, sort of a sense of humor about everything and didn't, like, for instance, we didn't take interviews seriously.

You know, we would just joke, pack jokes most of the time.

Make, you know, make fun of each other.

Never, never take anything serious.

And I. I believe that was a, you know, problem with our group, that we didn't understand how.

How to work with other people.

And especially in sort of like a setting like this, like an interview, we just felt like, well, we're on top of the world.

You're not at this moment, and we're just being clowns, you know, like.

Like imagine.

Imagine, like, you know, punk.

Punk, you know, imagine the Sex Pistols doing an interview, right?

And it's like, how are you going to settle them down?

It's like.

Like, I showed you my kitten this morning.

Like, it's like you can't stop the cat from, you know, running around and try and teach it to run.

Read a book.

You know what I mean?

It's like a child has got all this, like, frenetic energy, and that's how we were.

Did you not have a manager then?

And did you think you.

Do you think in hindsight you would have benefited?

We.

We had managers.

Yeah, we had managers.

Do you think you would have benefited from different managers?

Possibly.

I mean, I never.

I never put those.

That together, but yeah, I could.

I could see that.

We did have pretty good management at the time.

And I even had, like, my manager was cheating.

Chuck D's manager.

My manager was.

Was Z Trip's manager.

Right?

So that.

That's a big.

That's a, you know, a serious manager, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if she couldn't control me, right, Like, I don't know.

I suppose that was just a hug.

If you guys were like, living your.

Living as your authentic selves, though, then yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I mean, I just.

We.

We kind of took everything as, like, what we're doing is.

It's our.

It's our own art.

And if.

If it's.

If it's gotten to us, you know, where we were, like, you know, being able to tour all over the place and get interviews in Japan and Stuff like that, we felt like, well, we're doing everything right, you know, but in hindsight, I. I know we're just screwing around too much.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

So how long did you guys stay on top and did that start getting you opportunities for like outside production?

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

So in the Bay Area, I was like one of the few traditional style hip hop producers.

I mean, traditional by.

At the, you know, using samples to make beats.

They're making synth beats already because they're doing like that.

Yeah, well, before Hyphae, really it was like that late Dr. Dre.

Everybody wanted to do sort of like this.

Not a sample based Dr. Dre, but like that synthw where he plays the.

That sample.

Right.

Everybody's making beats like that in the, in the Bay Area at the time that weren't directly involved in an east coast based hip hop music.

And so I was one of the few producers out there that was making purely hip hop music.

And even the people who could have been and appreciated that stuff, most of them were doing a variation of DJ Shadow kind of music.

And you must understand, at least in hindsight now, that DJ Shadow made beats, but he made sort of like Cinemascapes or you know, beats that were more like songs, you know, they didn't need a rapper and I was doing beats, you know what I mean?

And most people who made beats in San Francisco, remember San Francisco, very artistic, very hippie, very open.

You know, they were a little open too much to doing like it's a cross between house and It's a cross between hip hop, but also a lot of DJ Shadow drum programming.

Right?

Yeah.

And so if you wanted somebody who is like a real hip hop producer, I was one of the, one of the very few.

So what sort of opportunities were you getting?

And like, did you make beats for specific people?

Because I'm just thinking about your album as well.

So when you did Gather round was that just.

Were you like, I've got all these beats, we'll choose from them and make an album that would.

Exactly.

So at the time I, like I said before, I think like Peanut Butter Wolf and I were such close friends, you know, all day, every day, hanging out, hanging out after, you know, like in the daytime, all the way till if we're going to a club together, if he's not hanging out with his girlfriend at the time, his lip.

He had a living girlfriend, and I had.

I lived with my girlfriend, too.

But we were like.

I mean, it was like two peas in a pod, right?

And so when he was doing the record label, so.

And so I was there for everything, right?

And so he's like, dude, let's put your record out.

Let's put some beats out, you know?

And I was like, okay, let's do it now.

We didn't do For Legion because we were on ABB at the time, right?

And he.

He liked me more personally than he did.

He didn't really get along with Zach and my group, right.

It was just over.

I think it was some sort of weird thing, you know, a little jealousy over both of them.

You know, one of them didn't like each other.

One guy because he gets a lot of girls, right?

Another guy didn't like the other guy because he's, you know, more of a hip hop legend or something before Legend, but you know what I mean, like, was getting more gigs and stuff, so there was a lot of weirdness and they didn't like each other.

And so Foreign Legion never had even a close opportunity to be on Stone's vote.

But, you know, I was like, besties, as they say now, like, with.

With Chris.

So he was like, let's put out an instrumental record with you.

And we did that.

And that was.

That was still when Chris lived in San Francisco.

And eventually when he moved to la, it was like there was a transition period while my record was out.

And that's when Chris took my beats and was like, hey, maybe we should do, like, raffers over these beads, you know?

And that's.

That's how sparked the law, you know, with Quasimodo.

That's how that came to be.

And energy with Wild Child and no Games.

Weird med metaphor.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, here's the thing, in my opinion, and I. I have a lot of people who also think this, that is a great ep.

Yeah.

I don't know if you know that.

That is.

That record not only has, like, a variety of different sounds, right?

It's got the no Games, which is a smoothed out, like, Pete Rock vibe beat, right?

It's got a early Quasimodo with this wild rapping that he's doing at the time, where he's going back and forth with himself or whatever.

And then you have this really bizarre song energy with Wild Child.

And there's three different.

Completely different sounds, but yet they're all interwoven as, like, classic, like, you know, east coast hip hop.

But it.

I believe all those things are really exactly my identity of musically, of what I do, who I am, and how my beats come together.

It's, you know, like Spark the Law.

Energy is multiple sounds, like, you know, four different samples from four different records.

Christian Rock Record, a record, you know, 70s, you know, stacks record type record.

And then no Games is, you know, a piano from a very famous saxophonist with a bass line that I play.

Right.

A simple bass line that I play.

All those were like, you know, from a decade of learning how to make beats, you know, And I think that shows.

And I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to rap over them, you know, the loot, basically, the loot pack.

And on top of that, it's like.

It just has this, like.

It's like.

I don't know if people haven't heard it, go and find that ep, which is just DJ design.

I think they call it Spark the Law now.

That's the ep.

But that record, it has everything, like, at least what I love about hip hop.

And so many people have told me, they're like, this record is classic.

I play this all the time.

I keep it in my records, you know, when I DJ out.

So I get a lot of compliments for that one and I'm proud of that.

Well, I think with it as well.

Just another thing to add on to it that those are really good beats for scratching over as well.

So you've got that little.

That.

See, that's another thing that's.

Gather round, gather around, people.

To this day, DJs, like, all of them, like, you know, Cubert, you know what I mean?

The biggest DJs in the world, Qbert, has a very famous routine that had went viral multiple times of him scratching while out of fader over one of my.

Gather round.

Now, that was.

That's one thing that's really interesting, right?

Another time a guy came up to me in a club and was like, oh, my God, DJ Design, I can't believe I met you.

And then he starts going into why and how he knows of me.

And then he goes, I was at a Beastie Boy show when mixmaster Mike was DJing.

They started playing your record and it was this song called hey Man.

They started playing your record and Mixmaster Matic was going back to back with it and the three MCs, you, you know, the Beastie Boys were rapping over it.

And then when he got done with that record.

He takes it and throws it out into the crowd and says, this is the record I just played, and throws the records out into the crowd.

And the guy who.

I don't remember who he is, just a random person that came up to me was saying, that was how I found out about you.

I caught that record.

And he goes.

And I just could not believe, like, I'm finally meeting you and I've got this record and I'm a huge fan of yours.

You know what I mean?

He learned it from that.

That experience.

Now that's Q, Bert, and that's Mixmaster Mike.

Then if anybody has seen the infamous Redman Cribs video where he goes and shows his crib.

Now everybody has a luxury crib, if you ever watch Cribs.

But his was like a two bedroom apartment in New Jersey that was just like a total destruction, a mess, you know.

But he goes and shows off all his gear at one point, and then he goes, oh, and these are my records.

And.

And they zoom in.

And what was the, like, second record he zooms in on?

Gather round.

Amazing.

And.

And I have to say, I could go on and on with stories like this.

And that's how.

How impactful that record has been to so many people.

The thing that sticks in my head about it is when I was reading about it a long time ago, that there was some.

Something.

Was it something like the shoes are on the front because it represents.

Because it's significant to do with some sort of story about you faking your death because a journalist criticized your shoes or something like that?

Yeah, no, that.

That kind of.

That kind of ties in.

But it.

That was.

I don't know if you know Dan Greenpeace from.

Yeah, yeah, he was on here a while ago.

Yeah, yeah.

In one of.

So at that.

In that era, right.

My girlfriend.

This was like.

Think about this.

And my girlfriend bought me a pair of Gucci sneakers in 98.

You know, I mean, I. I was wearing these weird black sneakers that had like, straps over the top of them, but it was all leather.

That sort of a weird shiny leather of black leather, right?

And they had like the Gucci logo and stuff.

And back in those days, locally, people used to call me DJ Designer.

They used to call me.

God.

There was this.

This other.

There was this famous, like, clothing designer at that time, like Isaac Mizrahi.

Okay.

There was this guy named Isaac Mizrahi, was a.

He was a designer, and people used to call me Mizrahi because that guy was famous as a designer at the time.

Like, you know, whatever.

You know, I go with it because it's funny, but I remember I told you earlier I never dressed hip hop.

I always dressed different.

A little more like, you know, Oasis or something.

You know, I. I just hated this.

Like, I hated wearing jerseys.

I would never do that.

I not wearing, you know, dunks or, you know, you name it.

I'm not wearing that kind of shit.

I'm wearing what I like.

Which comes more from thrift shopping background, you know what I mean?

I love thrift shopping for like,'60s clothes and stuff like that.

Well, my point being is, like, so I was always like this real sort of fashionable guy.

I used to get into magazines as like the best dressed.

You know what I mean?

Like.

Or, you know, there was a magazine called the Fader or no, Accelerator.

Accelerator in the Bay Area.

It was like a hip hop techno magazine.

And they.

They put me on for, like, one of the best dressed guys in San Francisco, you know?

And of course, I never take the interview seriously.

So when they ask me things like, like, what.

What is something you can't live without?

I'm like, socks, you know?

Like, I don't.

You know what I mean?

I'm not, like, speaking of design, I.

In fact, I still don't really care, you know, I mean, I like clothes, but I don't like to speak about it.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, I don't care like that.

Like, I'm not.

That's like, throughout my.

Like, trust me, I know everything about clothes, you know, I know everything.

I've studied this shit forever, right?

I like, I like, you know, I enjoy reading and learning about designers, right?

But this is all pre.

You know, pre, like Louis Vuitton, you know what I mean?

When Virgil became the head of Louis Vuitton, this is all.

Before that.

I was, like, always into that stuff.

Way, way before this was a. I mean, way before Pharrell was dressing different, you know what I mean?

Like, I was doing this way back then, and that's one of the reasons why I stood out.

But it's also one of the reasons that people kind of didn't trust me, you know, they felt like, oh, is this guy even into hip hop or.

He's not real, you know, I don't want to beat from him because he's not.

He doesn't look like a hip hop guy.

He's probably got whack shit.

And you know what I mean?

So I always kind of struggle with that.

But it was.

It's a good history and the good time of thinking now reflecting on, like, it from this, you know, this day and age.

Like, people were.

I would say, like, I was ahead of the time and people were way just like stuck in, like this contemporary hip hop vibe.

And now everybody dresses in designer.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

And this was in the 90s, you know, like way before all that.

What have I kind of misinterpreted then, in terms of the faking your death?

Oh, I'm sorry.

So what happened was when I first came up with that idea of DJ design, the Spark Dll ep, you're kind of conflating something.

And I'll explain that.

The Spark Dalal EP was supposed to be called.

Supposed to be called DJ Design is Dead.

And on the COVID I asked Jeff because Jeff, the designer of Stone's Throw at the time, was my closest friend besides Wolf.

Right.

We're real, you know, kind of gravitated towards Jeff later.

But, you know, at that time, he was doing a lot of illustration and stuff, and I was like, dude, draw me a cover where it's like, you know, some pigeons are sitting on top of a light pole, you know, with the.

With the phone lines and have some shoes hanging over it and then have some pigeons, and that will be my cover.

Well, he never did that.

He did, like spider spots.

I don't know if you've been.

Nine spots.

Yeah, Sparkle.

Now, when we went with that.

But the.

On the back of the COVID it was a eulogy for me.

I've got it.

I've never noticed that.

So it was going to be called DJ Design is Dead.

And it was going to have, you know, these shoes hanging over the light pole.

And that kind of would like, sort of make sense if you looked at it.

Right?

And we never went with that.

We want that.

We went with the spots.

So there's that and then the, you know, the, you know, being upset so therefore I fake my death.

It wasn't that at all.

It was more like just the album cover we were trying to make called.

And, you know, it's De La Soul is Dead and not that, but the other thing was it also tied into.

Gather Round with the shoes, Right?

So you got shoes hanging off.

Right, Gather round.

You got shoes hanging off of the telephone pole.

It's an EP from that album with the shoes.

And then the thing with my shoes is when.

When DJ Greenpeace made fun of me in that magazine, it was just like a.

You know, it wasn't Like, I wasn't mad at or anything.

It was just funny, you know what I mean?

We laughed at it.

Greenpeace is really fun.

I don't know if you've met him, but he's.

Yeah, I've had him.

He's a show.

Oh, okay.

Him and Yoda are really nice, you know, But I was.

I always knew Greenpeace a lot more just through, you know, the pop.

I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So something we've not talked about, which may be the next part of it, because we've got.

We've not kind of talked about your label, but something.

Oh, yeah.

Something else you mentioned was that you moved to Seattle at one point in the 90s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What took you there?

I could break that down real quick.

The sort of suburb.

And so at the time, Seattle was a really good choice because it was so inexpensive and yet it's a city, you know.

And when he moved there, he moved with my ex girlfriend.

They were just.

They were just buds.

But he moved there with her.

Right?

And so they got a place together.

And then eventually he.

Zach got his.

A girlfriend and had her live there and stuff.

And he invited me to stay.

And this was right in 94.

And so the first time I went, I went.

I took Jeff.

Jeff and I.

Well, actually, Jeff took me.

Jeff drove me out there.

Right.

Jeff Jenk.

And so we both go out there.

Instantly, we're like, this is crazy.

Like, no, there's Kurt Cobain walking down the street.

Oh, there's Drew Barrymore.

Oh, there's like this band and that band just all walking around, you know, the grunge.

The like nowadays, like the grunge movement, the whole grunge movements, just walking down the street right off of my stoop.

You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, back then, it wasn't incredible to me.

It was just like, oh, wow, that's.

That's fucking.

You know, Kurt Cobain, you know, there's Drew Barrymore or whatever, right?

And it didn't seem like that big of a deal, but it was in hindsight, like, wow, that's crazy.

All these stars are just like kicking it.

And they didn't.

Even though they're.

And this is a different time too, because nowadays, I mean, the whole world's so different.

You know, there's a lot of everything sort of like consumer driven Placed on money.

And they were just.

They were just like, wearing their old clothes still.

They had probably millions in the bank.

And they just were like, bummy, you know what I mean?

I mean, the grunge movement, you know.

So when I moved out there, I brought my keyboard and I met up with a couple friends that I never met, and one of them still my, like, closest friend to this day.

And this guy's name is Brian.

Brian is.

He was kind of.

He was in the hip hop, like, things like the Far side.

But he came from, like, you know, the Fish Grateful Dead era or that sort of.

What's it called, like, touring with Fish and stuff like that.

And he was like.

I think he was on, like, tour of Fish.

And he ended up in Seattle or something like that.

Right?

Well, we became really close friends and we decided, let's do.

And of course, like, I'm the one who's like, let's do this.

And he disagreed, right?

But it was like.

And.

But what I mean by that is because he wouldn't have come up with this idea because he doesn't listen to showbiz and ag, right?

So I was like, let's put on a show with showbiz and ag, you know, and so we're like, yeah, let's do it.

And so we, you know, got some funds together and did that.

And it was crazy, dude.

Like, one of the craziest things that ever happened.

So we flew out AG Party Arty and Wally World.

So that all happened.

I also flew out Peanut Butter Wolf.

I flew out 50 grand from homeless derelicts and fanatic who did be unassisted with Rascoe.

And so that was.

That was the whole show, you know what I mean?

Pretty much.

And a rumor came out that it got canceled because showbiz was locked up at the time in jail for, you know, murder even.

He.

I don't think he murdered anybody, trust me.

But in fact, he didn't conclusive.

He didn't murder anybody.

But he was in jail at the time for that, so they couldn't have him come out.

And, you know, they're throwing all kinds of rappers in jail.

Like, Snoop was in jail or Snoop got thrown in jail for murder.

Anyway, so what I was going to say about that is, so, yeah, I did.

I did a show out there.

And then that kind of sealed my friendship with AG and Party Arty.

We became really close later on, especially when I started my label, because they were the first people I reached out to to say, let's do a record together.

And I have a really crazy concept now.

And so I was like, let's have ag and party arty.

But you're rapping over these beats from like Dilla and now all the time, you know, to be honest, like AG didn't even know who Dilla was.

Yeah, no idea, right?

This was just that era.

People not.

Not everybody knew, you know what I mean?

And Party already definitely didn't know.

They're used to, you know, their ditc, you know, they're used to like, like confirmed at that time, confirmed Legends of the Bronx and that, you know, I mean, if you work with Lord Finesse, right, Like, you know, you don't really need to go venture out, you know what I mean?

And at the time, and people need to understand this, that people maybe used email here and there, but we weren't locked into any social media.

You know, Even things like MySpace were something that you had, but you didn't understand, like what the full opportunities of it were, you know what I mean?

Like, some people did and made stuff, you know, like made, you know, millions of followers off of something that as hip hop people, we don't know what the hell's going on.

You know, we just work with hip hop either way.

So he thought, hey, that's a good idea, let's do it, right?

And so I flew him and Party Arti out to San Francisco for like over a month.

Like a whole month.

They're just staying with me in this.

So at the time I had a record label that the label was on the.

Imagine this labels on the first floor and there's a studio in that.

In that there's an office space and then there's a studio space.

Then upstairs, you go upstairs and there's two units.

One is a two, two bedroom and the other's cookie cutter.

Another two, two bedroom, right?

Just the same.

So we had all this space, tons of parking in the back in San Francisco.

And we had this huge like compound, right?

And we had the record label that was going on there.

So when we would have people work with us, we just fly them out and they just stay in the, in one of the apartments.

Like their own apartment from the time, you know, like private.

We take care of everything and just hang out, make music and then take them to dinner, take them to lunch, you know.

And we put out a AG's get dirty radio that way.

And that was a blast.

It was really fun.

And we had people like, you know, some of the big producers were Jake 1, we had Tommy T. From Norway, who's apparently like a legend out in Norway as a producer, hip hop person in general.

And then we had Madlib and J Dilla.

Then we had my own production.

We also had Showbiz.

The did one, you know, kind of to give a little taste of some ditc.

But I really, as much as I love showbiz and you know, I would have them any day of the week, I didn't want them on it as much only because I was trying to do a completely different project.

Having one song was fine.

I'm not complaining that, you know now.

But my point is I want to do a whole different project.

But showbiz was.

Sorry, AG was like, we gotta have showbiz.

And what am I gonna say?

No, you know, no, like.

So anyways, that came out to be a great album and a really different album that he, you know, he never did anything like that before.

Working with those kind of producers.

That kind of sound that not.

It wasn't a typical boom bap, you know, it's like at the time you had Dilla was in that weird electronic sound, right?

So we had a really electronic sound and Madlib was like really deep into his like SP 303 machine.

Now I could.

I could say some things that are.

That are going to.

I don't know if they'll blow people away, but it'll be interesting.

So when Madlib sent the beat that was ended up being used, it was a loop with no drums, right?

I mean, it had a, like, it was.

It had drum beat underneath from the original sample.

But it was so weak that I was like, nah, man, we can't do this.

And they're like, yeah, I want it.

They're like, I want to do it, but it's just not hitting for me.

So what I did on PO Tools is I added a kick and a snare in the beat.

But it.

It sounds just.

It sounds just like the drums that he used.

But what I would do is.

So if you take a drum, right, and you think of the snare, right?

You think of the snare, it attacks and then the air, you know, reaver kind of comes off of it.

I just put the tiniest clip of snare there to make it hit a tap, right?

So instead of going this saw, it was like click.

And then with the, with the attack.

Same with the kick, right?

The kick was like very weak.

And I just added a kick over it and it.

To be honest, like, it sounds so good now.

Like.

But if you were to heard what was, what it was like prior, it was kind of dreadful.

And then the other thing was the ag.

Sorry, the dilla beat.

Now the dilla beat was just one loot, right?

And so at the time I was like, yo, you know, it's a dill.

I go, he wants to really use this beat beat, but it doesn't really change.

He's like, all right.

He goes, well, do whatever you need to do, right?

But he didn't give me much more than that.

So I was like, okay.

So in the hook, if you listen to the hook, I flew out Aloe Black.

Aloe Black came and did the hook.

When he did the hook, I thought it sounded a little.

It still needed something because it was a very, you know, monotonous two bar loop in.

In his electronic era, you know, not.

Not like some of the soulful stuff he did in like 96, 97, right.

And so I just added more synth to it.

I added synth chords to play like a couple different chords to kind of give it like a like sort of up and down sweeping feel to it.

And then I did all the scratching too on it.

So I did all the cuts.

I threw in effects and stuff like that.

I would like cut in effects that were from different records, you know, 70s records and stuff like that.

And gave it like this really unique sort of stop and go emotion.

So AG's rapping over it and he's doing this song that he's using all these different famous classic rap lines and then he's making a whole rap out of it.

And so it was cool, but it still needed more.

So I did a lot of dropouts, I did a lot of scratching.

I did like drum fills and you know, stuff like that into it.

So if you listen to those, both of those back, like Get Dirty Radio was the record and you know, the song with Mad Lib and the song with Dilla, those were both basically co produced by me.

Yeah, yeah, you.

You were doing quite a lot.

You've got quite a lot of credits for doing cuts for other people as well, haven't you?

Yeah.

Even though again, you know, I told you.

I mean, I like DJing, I like scratching, but it's not like that's not my main focus.

So I don't practice, you know, or anything.

But yeah, I ended up scratching on a bunch of different records, but they're really underground, you know, like I would scratch over like a bunch of fanatics records.

So I'm just mindful with this.

There's so many things.

Yeah, yeah.

So you posted.

I was flicking through some stuff, getting the COVID art the other day for the first episode, and I noticed you put up the.

The check for the Beastie Boys remix.

Oh, yeah.

You talk a bit about that, how that came about, how it felt.

Yeah.

So at the time, you know, I was telling you that Foreign Legion was Prozac, Mark Stretch and myself.

Well, one of the guys in who managed or was a R for Grand Royal Records became a fan of Foreign Legion.

And one of those the reasons was during the.

I can't remember, it was the 10th or 15th year of fat Beats anniversary show.

So last minute.

Now, this is going to sound awful, but Big L was supposed to play and he got shot and killed.

So Big Al could no longer perform.

Obviously he passed away.

So they had a slot.

So they reached out to us.

And so Foreign Legion filled Big L's slot at the Fatbeat anniversary show.

Isn't that crazy?

That is just.

Is nuts, right?

So we filled his spot and when we did that, there was a lot of movers and shakers in the crowd, a ton of them.

And Zach, well, we were down there in la, we were staying with one of Zach's friends.

And Zach's friend was a scuba diver.

And he had like this bag that carries the scuba diving tanks, the.

The air tanks.

And it looks like it was made of mesh of met of some sort, right?

Zach's like, that thing is big enough to fit me into it.

Why don't mar.

What?

Why doesn't Mark Stretch put it on his back and I'll be sitting in the back of it.

And when Keith comes out to dj, he starts the show.

I'll play a record, do a little cuts or whatever, you know, get everybody hyped up.

And then Stretch will come out walking with his body towards the crowd and he'll start doing his verse.

But then when it's my time, or Zach was like, when it's my time to do the verse, he'll turn around and then he'll.

I'll surprise everybody that I'm in the backpack.

And he did just that.

Did just that.

And literally stole the whole show.

Like it was.

People went crazy.

This guy's in a backpack of another guy.

Big guy, little guy, right?

And he could fit into the backpack and he's rapping in a backpack.

It was just crazy, right?

And so many people saw that, that immediately when we got off a stage and got into the crowd, that's How I got my manager.

You know, someone's like, you got to meet this woman.

You know, her name is.

I won't mention it right now, but she's like, I would love to, like, you know, talk to you guys more.

And like.

Cool.

This is crazy, right?

We were just like, imagine it.

It was like we just forgot.

Felt like stars, you know, like we were.

We stole the show, got the biggest cheer.

You know, anybody who came after us, people are still like, yapping about the show.

You know what I mean?

And then.

And then we met this guy, Kenny.

His name is.

His nickname's the Tick.

I don't know why, but it's like the Tick.

I hope it's like, tick, Tick, Tick.

And not the Bug, but he was known as the Tick, right?

And he was the A and R for Grand Royal for, you know, the Beastie Boys record label.

And so he wanted to sign our whole group.

But what ended up happening was Grand Royal was in.

In a period of folding, but at the same time, they wanted to put out our.

Our.

One of our singles for Foreign Legion.

And then apparently the Beastie Boys really liked my production.

And then they had me do a remix for this song called Negotiation Limerick File.

And so we flew out to the Grand Royal Studios.

They.

One of them gave me, like, this, you know, what is called Paul's Boutique.

You know how the covers, like, eight gate.

This giant gatefold.

They gave me an uncut gate fold, right?

An uncut gatefold with their.

You know, you have the.

The white.

The white space area on it, you know, around where they have to cut off the trim, you know.

Yeah.

And so it was perfect for just putting in a frame.

And my dumbass gave it to my friend Brian as, like, a gift.

And.

And because of that, it's gone and no longer exists.

He doesn't have it.

I don't have it.

I mean, imagine that.

I mean, imagine just like, the value.

The value, but then the, like, the sort of personal value of that, you know, it's gone.

But either way.

So I. I did a remix for Negotiation Limit File.

They paid me like 5 grand, which, you know, that's like 10 grand in this era, right?

So that's not.

Not a bad chunk of change, you know.

But they.

What happened was they only ended up putting it out on digital.

So the.

The official EP that or single that came out had.

What's his name again?

Dan Nakamura.

Oh, Dan the Automator.

Dan the Automator.

Dan the Automator.

They had Dan the Automator and some other People, I can't.

I can't remember.

Sorry.

But Danny Automator was one of the remixers and somebody else, and they took my song and they decided to put it on as.

Apparently Bill Gates was starting this website called mp3.com, right.

And so it was going to be like a.

A teaser to join mp3.com and they were tying it into the war.

What was the war with, like, Kosovo.

Anyway, so they.

They wanted to do like this like, relief fund for them.

And so they were like, anybody who bought who buys this so song on mp3.com for a dollar, we will match it by a dollar.

And apparently, like, if they made millions doing that, you know, I may have gotten platinum.

I don't.

I don't know off of that.

You know, it was a big deal at the time.

And that was during what record.

What was that record called for them?

Would that have been hello Nasty?

Yeah, I think it was hello Nasty.

And so, yeah, the one there in the Sardine Camp.

Yeah.

And so that is the only place it really ended up.

Now here's the thing.

This is like a weird story and that's why I don't really want to say the names, but so my manager at the time was with.

Literally with me in the office at Grand Royal when I asked Kenny or the Tick if I could release just like a white label of like 50 copies to give to friends and, you know, maybe sell a few to some.

Some people.

And stuff.

And he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that kind of like, yes, man thing.

Yeah, cool.

Yeah, no worries.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I was like, cool, you know, that's awesome, right?

And so I like had the guy who put out Kidnapper Van make some copies of that, and he made like 50 copies.

Now here's the thing.

This is all before you talk to everybody on text.

And you know, this is like, there's not many texts being done.

There's phone calls, but really rarely, right?

2002.

I don't know.

And I'll put it the way that, that, that I found out about it.

So I received a call from my manager and she was like, I'm in LA right now.

And Fat Beats in LA reached out to Mike D and noticed that you are selling white labels of your.

Of your negotiation file song.

And they are so pissed at you.

Dude, what are you doing?

You're like, why would you do that?

I go, dude, you were there at the label when he said, I could do this.

Don't you remember?

And then to back up for a second, my manager hooked me up with a lawyer.

Like, this is before this happened, right?

And said, this is going to be your lawyer now.

If you want, you are going to need a lawyer.

Here's your lawyer.

Some probably high LA lawyer, music lawyer.

They called me on my home phone together.

My lawyer, who's supposed to represent me, but it was also my manager's best friend.

And my manager calling me and blaming me for everything and saying, like, you're never gonna work in this business again.

You're never gonna be in, you know, you're never gonna get anything.

You're never gonna work again.

You're never gonna get any jobs.

And I'm like, wait a minute, my lawyer, Isn't she supposed to be representing me?

They're just like, no, you and all this stuff, right?

I'm like, I don't get it.

You.

You know what I mean?

And what am I supposed to do?

Like, how am I supposed to argue this one?

There's nothing on paper.

You.

She was there with me.

Kenny said it was cool, and it was, like, over.

So I lost my manager and I lost my lawyer, who wasn't even representing me, who was, like, talking to me on the phone, blaming me for everything, and not even defending me when my lawyer's getting mad at me.

Because Mike D was pissed off that we did some copies of this white label.

Now, the guy who is my manager, not manager, sorry, the record label guy who did this, who put this record out, shouldn't have taken it to Fatbeats, because that was not the agreement.

The agreement was we were just going to have some copies for us, and he went out and tried to sell some to Fatbeats.

And that's when I don't know who was there, but somebody went to the back and made a phone call.

And that, I mean, that is just some up, man.

Like, if you think about it, like, you know, in this industry, we're supposed to be like, no snitching.

And you know what I'm saying?

Like, think about it for real.

Like, think about it.

And that guy runs into the back room and goes and makes a phone call to Mike D. Like, come on, man.

And what really is it doing?

It's like a few copies either way.

Again, I think it's wrong that my.

My label guy went and tried to, like, sell copies, but the.

The way it was overblown.

Like, you're never gonna.

Like, I literally gotta.

You're never Gonna work in this town again.

Yeah.

And maybe that.

Maybe some of that happened to me.

Do you know what I mean?

Maybe that some of that actually worked out.

Well, I was gonna say, because like I say, we've.

We've got.

Just can't get into everything.

There's so much.

But there's things I absolutely don't want to not get into.

Here's the thing.

Like you are right.

I, like, I've had my foot in so many things.

Yeah.

I've been everywhere and there's a stamp somewhere of me in like so many different things.

I just have been lucky to be placed in that position, you know.

Yeah.

And something that.

Something I do really want to make sure we get onto is the here and now.

Oh, yes.

So just on the back of that, because in my research I kind of saw that you did have about a 10 year hiatus at a point.

Oh, yeah.

I don't know if that's accurate, but.

No, no, that's about right.

Was that because of this incident?

No, no.

You were talking about the.

Right around there.

Yeah.

That hiatus was.

Oh my God, it was so bad.

So what happened was my.

My record label ended up folding, Right.

And this is like the weirdest, like, turn of events that happened to me.

So I ended up running out of money for the label.

I no longer could live and work in that compound that had the label, had the two units.

I owned a really nice car.

I had like a beautiful turbo Porsche.

I had to sell that.

The girlfriend at the time left me.

Now this is not.

Has nothing to do with drinking or drugs.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't drink or do drugs in any way close to like needing, you know, an intervention.

I still don't, you know, like, and I also lost.

And imagine this at the same time.

I lost my cat.

My.

My friend took my cat to his house to.

When I had to move out of that building, he took my cat up to his house to, you know, bring the cat to his house so I can move up there and live with him for a while.

And he's like, I opened the car door and the cat jumped out and he was gone for good.

So I lost my cat, I lost my girlfriend, I lost my car, which was a beautiful Porsche and I lost my house, I lost the label, and I just had like literally nothing.

And it all stemmed from running out of money.

And then the.

It was like downloading any sort of contributing factor.

Oh, hugely.

Because People weren't buying our music.

We had tons of vinyl from Get Dirty Radio and Carte Blanche and CDs that were just, like, being tossed in the dumpster, you know, because they just were not selling, you know.

And at that time, Mega Upload and Limewire and all these things were just, like, on fire, you know?

And so it was very hard to make any money.

You know, I would tell my.

I would tell my label manager and the interns, do whatever you can.

Like, figure it out.

Maybe you could, like, call labels all across the US Try to sell some records, try to, like, make a goal for yourself.

And I'd be like, try to make a thousand dollars today.

You know, none of that happened, man.

It was way too hard to sell, like, five records to a record store at that time.

So, yeah, things were.

Things were really bad.

So it's just sort of like this mix, you know, of the housing crisis happened.

Everybody was going broke.

And limewire, Wire and Megaupload and YouTube, everything was just free, you know.

Hard time to start a label.

Yeah.

So what did you do in that time then?

You mean within that 10 years?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had to, like, rebuild everything, so I put a bunch of stuff in storage.

But then I would run out of money and I had to sell.

And I'm not saying I run out of money because, you know, I needed it for drugs.

You know, I ran out of money because I needed to pay Ren, you know, I'm like, oh, man, I.

You know, and I. I didn't.

I didn't have a. I didn't go to college.

I just basically just take a hip hop person with, you know, who makes beats and throw them out into the wild, you know?

Like, my whole life has been just luck, you know, like, just running on luck the whole time.

And when I no longer had the luck and I no longer had anything, and I was no longer 25, you know, I was 38, 39.

You don't have the same.

People don't have that same desire for you as much as they did before.

You know what I mean?

Like, before, maybe I was just, like, cute enough, you know what I mean?

I was interesting enough, and I had a lot of future, let's say, you know, because he's this young guy who's got a lot of energy and he's doing a bunch of stuff.

Well, do that to.

I mean, give that to somebody who's like 3,000, 940 who just lost everything, and it's really hard to come back.

And it took a long Time.

And I mean, and even to this day, that's where I am now.

You know, I mean, I make music online and I post it online, but I don't really do the Spotify much.

You know, I've released something here and there and it's very hard for me to even put stuff out.

Now I have a label who's wants to put my music out and I sent him my songs and my record and we put out a couple digital singles and we're gonna put out a vinyl record.

But I can't seem to finish a record right now.

And I don't know why that is.

I, I, I don't know if it's like self doubt, you know, of like, oh, I probably won't even sell a hundred records.

And if I put it online, I only have like less than a thousand people who follow me on Spotify.

I'm like, what is the, what is the point of this?

You know what I mean?

And what the point is for me is I enjoy every day doing what I do, but when it comes to earning a living off of it, I'm, you know, your guess, your guess is as good as mine of how to really do it, you know, I wish I knew.

You know, I work with people.

You know, I work with people.

Like lately.

Well, last year, like this guy Fashion reached out to me and wanted to do a song together.

Who?

Fashion?

You know, he worked with Nas.

You know, he's like not a, he's not a pipsqueak, he's like a legit, you know, artist.

And he calls me up and was like, let's do a song together.

Because I really like this beat that you posted on an Instagram.

Right.

And so we did that.

It's great song.

You could find it.

It's called you are like you are star no less than the trees and the stars.

That's what it's called.

But yeah, so all this stuff, you know, where I'm at today is because I had no idea, you know, I'm just flying, you know, by the seat of my pants.

And again, like, I enjoy every minute of making beats more than how figuring out how to make money, film it, and how to make a living from it.

Yeah.

Can we, can we talk a little bit about your.

I think you mentioned it.

I can't remember if it was before we started recording or just at the, the start of the last session.

You talked about how.

You're not a fan of buying expensive records and digging in that way you prefer to kind of find the find the bargains, really, and do something with them.

Can you talk to that?

Yeah.

So in general, I don't really like to do a lot of research when it comes to digging for records.

I really like going in blind, you know what I mean?

I like to just see what, what is out there and use my intuition on finding music.

Now I see stuff online.

No, I don't see stuff on Spotify.

I don't dig on YouTube, I don't dig on Spotify.

And when I say Spotify, that's in general.

Like what is it?

Streaming, whatever.

Streaming services.

I tend to get my most excitement from going to a thrift shop and seeing if there's anything there.

And, and then I learn about like, if I find a record that I really think looks good, I bring it home.

You know, cost, like the, the cost of it was only like $2, let's say, right?

I bring it home and either I'm totally surprised and excited or I've been disappointed.

But fine, I'm not, I'm not.

I don't have a problem with that.

But I've discovered so many records that way.

And it's just that there's a certain thrill I get from feeling like I'm doing something all by myself, you know, like I'm not, you know, picking up on trends.

I'm not, you know, going out and buying a bunch of fancy Japanese records because that's what everybody's into right now.

I enjoy sort of like that blue collar, you know, vibe of digging and just seeing what you could come up with with the limited amount that you have in your pocket now.

I brought up to some people one time on one of my YouTube live videos, I said, it's like this, right?

You have people like the Alchemist, amazing producer.

I would never say anything bad about his production.

He's insanely gifted and insanely talented.

Now with that, if, now that you understand that is that he definitely produces with elite tier records, right?

He goes out, he could go to Japan, he could go to Korea and find the greatest, rarest record you could find.

That's awesome.

I wish I could do that, but I don't and I don't have the funds to just, you know, fly to Brazil or whatever, right?

Like, because it doesn't have a drum break on it or.

You know what I mean?

Like, no one's talking about this record because it's not some super soul for record.

It's.

But what you, what, what you're looking for is you're looking for certain sounds that come from it, right?

Electric piano.

You're looking for early synths, you know, before, before, like the 80s, right, when synths were like giant bedroom size synths, right, with arpeggiators.

You're looking for a very interesting baseline.

You're looking for just like a, like a snare or drum fill that starts a song.

And you're taking from that and you're carving it up like a butcher, you know what I mean?

Like butchering, you know, steak or something and finding just a little soft snare.

Like that's my passion, right, is I'm looking for pieces that are discarded.

Now there's a thing that.

So I read a lot of books, right, And I read like this book with Warren Buffett, right?

And when he was saying, like when he got started in stocks, he would buy stocks that no one was looking at, right?

And he would call them cigar butts.

He goes, you.

You're walking down the street, there's a cigar butt that's still lit, but there's really nothing left.

But you could still take that cigar and you could take a puff or two still out of it.

And if you think about that there's a puff or two, that means like you're experiencing the same thing as the fancy guy with the top hat, right?

You still could take a puff.

Now I'm looking at records that way.

Like there's a record and it still has a puff.

It's still got a little like, you know, one kick or one snare, or it's got a little loop or it's got a little synth that you could use as like a.

On the turnaround, you know, you could make a, like a little sweet sweeping noise, right?

I get excited.

Like, that is my passion.

You know what I mean?

It's like those things.

Or for instance, like another artist that I really looked up to was a guy named Joseph Albers.

And he used to do a series called Homage to the Square.

And it's a series of squares within a square.

And they're like pure yellow paint, pure turquoise paint and orange paint in the center, right, of just three or four squares.

And he would.

I read this, and he was saying he loves to buy, let's say, an azure blue, you know, tube of paint from, let's say, somewhere in Nigeria.

And it gets shipped to him.

This is like, he was shipping these paints to him in the 50s.

And he goes.

And I don't do what most painters do and mix those paints together to create a color.

I'm using the pure color that it came with.

And I'm painting like a square.

And then I put another square of a yellow that I got in Scotland that is like, you know, a daisy yellow or something.

Right.

And he was like.

And I love the way that they vibrate and they contrast each other.

And that is what excites me.

That's how I feel about these records.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Does that make sense to you?

Yeah.

Like, I've been working on a.

Been working on a new mix with someone.

So, like, we're doing half of it each.

I'm going through, like.

Because I'm.

I'm kind of like you with Diggin, I think for me.

And just to caveat, an alchemist.

I have got a record that was inexpensive that alchemist did use for a beat on Freddie Gibbs.

So he's not exclusively the ridiculous ones.

Oh, no, I'm not saying that.

I was trying to make a broader point.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, I'd love to go and see the records that he's using.

Like, it's a different world of shopping.

If I could, like, put a point on that.

I was saying, like, the way that this guy, Joseph Albers could take these paints and get excited just with those paints, right.

And put them together.

That's how I feel with beats.

Right.

Nobody gives a shit about.

And mixing it with this weird Christian rock record.

And then I put these things together.

Pure, not affecting them.

And then they become magic for me.

Yeah, that's what it's all about, see, with.

With me, like.

Yeah.

With sort of making this mix and just like going through all these old rock.

Rock records for the breaks and stuff.

And it's just so exciting when you're like, you know, it's something that's not been done to death.

You found.

Yeah, dude.

Go to Ted Nugent Records for drum fills.

Like today, you know, people use like these big, exciting.

Like, not just a.

They're using a.

Right.

Those drum fills like that.

Go to Ted's Nugent Records.

Like, I don't sample much from that kind of hard Rock.

But those.

Those drum fills are just crazy.

So I would look into that.

Some of the artwork on them is amazing as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah, they're fine.

Really crazy.

Yeah.

So I think now would be a good point to do.

There's a.

There's a couple of, like, I say there's loads of stuff, but there's a couple of things in particular.

When we were talking beforehand, it was really interesting that you mentioned that you do ubereats driving.

Because it's just not something that would come into my head that a DJ and a producer would be doing.

So it'd be cool to talk about your, I guess, kind of like how you support yourself now, because as well as that, we can talk about your Patreon and.

Yeah, and the newsletters and stuff, because I think it's important to let people know what you do doing, how you're bringing people together.

I could explain really quick about that.

So, you know, my.

My making music and making money from this is not consistent at all, right?

I wish it was.

It's just not.

But.

And I get lucky.

So I do a combination of things, you know, like, people would call it, like.

I don't even know what they call it, gig work, but it's not.

It's like the gig economy.

So, yeah, I'm living in the gig economy just like everybody else.

I wasn't lucky where I could buy a house, you know, I just, you know, I just was a music guy, you know, I never really did much with that.

Right.

I just, like, got lucky until I wasn't lucky, like I told you earlier.

But so.

So today I tend to, like, make money doing a few things.

Right.

Lately, I've been selling some beads, right?

I sell beats to different rappers.

This.

Lately, this guy named Huskingpin reached out to me.

Oh, yeah, we're.

We're talking right now.

I don't know what will come of that, but, you know, this is the kind of, like, level that comes to me sometimes, you know, to work.

And then another guy, really nice guy, total altruistic.

This guy named August Fanon reached out for me to me and was like, hey, man, I really like your beads.

Let me send a pack of yours to Mokami.

And I was like, dude, that would be great.

So, you know, I sent him a pack and he sent it to Mokami.

I don't know what's going to come of that.

He goes, if something comes of it, cool.

If it doesn't, we tried, you know, and I'll keep sending him more but this is like the level of people who come to me and say, dude, I think you're the shit.

Let's try and like, do something right.

Yeah.

And then there's a bunch of other people who reach out to me, me, that haven't even gotten their foot in the door.

And generally I say to them, I would love to hear your stuff first.

Now, I do need to dial that back because I really need to make money.

So I want to sell beats, right?

But I just, it's really hard for me to sell beats when I hear rappers that I don't feel have reached a level that my beat the work with, right?

Like, I don't want, like, you know, let's, let's like make it hip hop.

I don't want like some clown ass rapper over a beat like mine.

You know, let's be honest, I want a good rapper.

Right now you could be a new young and up and coming.

But I hear, I, I could hear talent.

So I could hear talent.

I could hear the way people rap and tell you whether or not it's good, especially good for what I'm doing, right?

And so I listen to a lot of people, they always say, hey, I want to work with you.

Hey, I need that beat, or whatever.

And I barely ever work with anybody unless I'm excited to work with them.

I usually say no, even if I need money.

Yeah.

So that's, that's the problem with being an artist, right?

But it's your personal brand as well.

You don't want it to be like, oh, he's someone that's got no quality control over the overall output.

Yeah, it's tough.

It's tough, right?

So there's that.

And I also make money selling records that I have.

I have thousands and thousands of records and I'm always collecting more.

Now here's the funny thing.

I always think to myself, it's like, dude, I'm going to be getting rid of all of my good records and replacing them with easy listening, Thrift Shop Records and Christian Rock Records.

And one day I'm going to turn around and.

And it's all going to be just shitty Thrift Shop records and all the good records, you know, all the classic hip hop, all the, you know, every record that's from Slum Village, from J. Dilla, from Mad Lib, because those sell really fast.

And.

Yeah, and for a lot, they're all going to be gone.

All my classic, you know, Marley Mar records are all going to be sold off.

And I'm going to.

And to be honest with you, like, I don't care so much about that, right?

I'm not.

I don't have kids, so it's not like I'm leaving this legacy of records to somebody, right?

And the records that I have that.

That mean something to me will maybe have, like a signature on it, you know, and that's about it.

Like, I don't.

I don't have.

What's that.

What is it called when you have, like, this weird loyalty to, like, sentimental value?

I don't.

I don't have that with physical things.

I have it with, like, humans, and I have it with, like, my cat, right?

But I don't have it with things like that.

I.

So I could use it.

But I don't have, like, this sentimental of.

Of commercial or consumer items much, you know?

And I could use the money to pay fucking rent.

Right?

Yeah.

I sold a white label of, you know, J. Dilla's remix record, the one that was.

It Came in Blue.

Is that the one that House Shoes put out?

Yes.

Not only that, I. I had the white label of that with House Shoes autograph on it.

Wow.

Yeah, And I had, like a. I had a Mad Lib remix.

He remixed that Peanut Butter Wolf song with Planet Asia.

Does it run the line?

No, that's.

That was Rascal.

I sold that one, the white label to that too, I think, anyways.

But Mad Lib remixed it and it had this really great.

What are they called?

Xylophone or vibraphone?

That the same one that Pete Rock used for that really famous beat of his.

That's one of the.

Is that one of the Pete instrumental ones?

Yes, yes, yes.

So, you know.

Yeah, well, Mad Lib did a version with that where Planet Asia raps over it.

And this is Fire.

But I had the white label to that and I. I sold it to Greenpeace, too.

So I sell a lot of stuff that were like, incredible records, dude.

You know what I have?

I have a J. Dilla that.

A CD that he gave me that he saw.

He.

He didn't sign it.

He.

Because he gave it to me personally.

He's like, here's my number, home phone number, and here's my cell phone number.

And so it's got his.

His writing of his numbers.

And then in it is like, one of the more famous sort of beat tapes of his.

You know, I have that.

I Have this Mad Lib Beat cassette tape of stuff that he's never released.

You know, 90 minutes of, you know, with Metaphor and Wild Child and all kinds of different rappers.

Some of.

Some are remixes of just songs that he remixed, you know, for himself personally, like personal tape.

Anyways, I got a lot of, a lot of crazy stuff now.

I kept those, I haven't sold those at all.

So I guess those must be the most sentimental things to me.

But hit me up now.

Well, no, I think fingers crossed you get to keep hold of them because you know, it would be nice if you can.

Yeah, no, I get it.

But again, I, I don't care too much about sentimental stuff.

Yes.

And so you, you do things on Patreon as well, don't you?

So I have a Patreon forward slash DJ design that I, I put out my original beads.

I do like videos.

I do a lot of beat making videos where I try to explain people my thought process and how and why I do things.

To be honest, it's hard.

It's hard to get out there and get your.

The word out, you know.

It's hard to grow it.

Maybe if I'm more consistent and do it every Sunday or something, I don't know.

But I know that what I'm doing is good.

I mean, I listen to a lot of people who do this and they have a way better video quality than me.

So I get, I get that.

But I think like what I do, I mean, I'm not going to too my own horn, but I make really good beads and I can make them live in front of people, you know what I mean?

It takes time, but it's right in front of people.

And I try to explain to people like this is the way it used to be.

I don't know.

I watch people now.

I do, I do watch videos of people making beats.

Now I'm not talking about specifically, I'm not talking about John Wayne because he's, he's in a class of his own.

He's does a lot of synth work and stuff and he's incredible and he makes fun awesome videos.

But he has people working for him to shoot the videos and edit the videos and he's great.

That's his main hustle now is I don't think he's a beat maker as such now is he's just doing the.

Tutorials and he's awesome at it.

My point is to do live Beat making with just searching through records and not already being somewhat prepared.

This is work.

And this is the work I kind of want to show people.

Because this is like if you really are doing it, not if you're like pretend doing it and you have everything lined up for you, you know what I mean?

I'm digging through records on making beats and people get to see that window and get to understand it.

It's boring, you know, And.

But if you're really an intense hip hop producer and you like that, looking at stuff from the 90s and how people did it and still do it, like I still do it that way, then they should definitely follow in and watch Malin videos.

Yeah, and can you talk about the newsletter then as well?

Because I think that's such a cool project.

Dude, the newsletter is.

It's so underrated.

And it's.

I mean, it is such a cool thing because for one, you get so many samples, right?

Not only from just record.

So what I do is I. I sample a bunch of sounds from various records that I usually find at thrift shops or I get it from my own collection, but most of those are from thrift shop too.

But what I do is I take snippets that I think that's something I would sample or I would use some somewhere in a song.

And then I do a lot of those.

And so I give you like all these, like one bar, two bar, three or sometimes three bar, four bar loops, sometimes eight bar loops.

Sometimes there's a 16 bar loop of samples that I find that I think I would use on this record, right?

And then I give them, if I find a drum snare, a drum kick, hat different, different hi hats drum loops.

And then sometimes I'll take drum loops that I go, you know what?

This drum loop needs some work, right?

Like it needs to be edited this way.

It needs to be.

It needs to sound like a beat.

It needs not to be so jazzy, right?

And then I'll add like a sub kick under it and make a loop.

And then I'll put that in the, in the pack also.

So it's like a beat that I edited and created that you can now use, right?

I do all that.

I'll give like little, you know, hits to all these sounds and stuff.

And I'll make my own little effects from records.

Like I'll tape, for instance, like a Tomita record and I'll find like a certain, like weird arpeggio that he used.

And I'll make it into like a fade, you know, Attack with a fade out.

So it sounds like a weird effect that you could use.

Like at the end of four bars of one of your beats.

That's the thing.

I need to know what that's called.

Like, you know when a song plays for like four to eight bars and then a little boo comes in before the turnaround.

What is that called?

God knows.

I don't know that thing.

Like, I get.

I make a lot of those for myself because I need to use them, right?

And I realized once I started doing that, I could just go dig through those archives as my sounds and I could place them on new beats that I made.

And they sound really good, but so I do that.

And then you get that mailed to as real mail, like in a literal envelope with stamps on it, right?

And then you open it up and there's a newsletter that I talk about the samples that I found.

And I kind of give a rough stuff story about, you know, sometimes where I found it or why I like it, what kind of sounds are on it, what you could look forward to if you buy that record, if you find that record somewhere and explain sometimes how to sample this, how I would use it and just kind of like loosely speak about it, right?

About the whole process of beat making.

And I do have about.

It's not a lot.

It's like 30 people worldwide.

Like, everywhere from like Tasmania to Turkey, Istanbul to like Mexico to Brazil, all over Europe, you name it, you know, England.

And it's a small group, right?

And I want to make it a bigger group.

But I'm also doing this monthly, right?

I stopped monthly in October.

Now I'm doing them periodically because it just hasn't grown enough.

Now, if I would have gone to like 200, let's say, as opposed to 30, then the pressure of doing it monthly would be more, well, you know, deserved or whatever.

Like, I would be more inclined to do it, but since it's only like 20 to 30, let's say it's hard to have that pressure on me because it's the same amount of work, right?

Yeah, yeah.

And so I'm like, I just got to do it periodically.

But if they're interested, they could reach out to me on Instagram @DJ design.

But I have October.

Sorry, I have March through October of this year monthly.

And there's so many samples to choose from.

And they're all on Patreon too.

And I think it's like, I love the way that you write about them and it just gives you this feeling of connection over Music, which we.

Which we lack now.

It's almost like cuz, you know, so.

Much digging is done, really download stuff and move on.

Right?

So I just think it's really nice to have.

Have that physical, tangible thing and that connection.

I do, I do too.

There are.

There's a couple people that they like, literally, like I have there.

They'll say, I have everyone.

And you know, they just go through them when they're like, it's stacked up in their.

In their studio, you know, because they could go through them, the letters, open them up, find the little SD card in it, plug it into their NPC live, and then search through the music.

Right.

Another thing is another guy out in Germany, he's like, I read your letter.

My girlfriend and I read your letter every.

Every month that you send it.

And we just enjoy learning about the songs that you found.

And they just like enjoy that process and feel good that they're getting to read something that's like real and in their hand, you know, like a real letters sent almost like personally to you, you know?

Yeah.

So different.

You know, it's like slow, you know, slow cooking, right?

Like that got really famous like for if you're a chef, like instead of fast food, they came up with this thing, slow cooking because it takes time to make good food.

This is kind of how I feel about making beads, right?

And that sort of process of sending them these SD cards, they read the letter, they get all these samples that they have to figure it out themselves, but what to do with it, you know what I mean?

But it gives them like a head start in how and what thought process it is to think about samples, you know?

Yeah, that's amazing.

Keith, DJ Design.

Yes, sir.

Yes, we're at the hour and a half mark.

I know you've got to go and do some driving.

I gotta pick up my niece.

Yeah.

Thanks very much again for all your time.

Anytime, man.

You know, there's plenty of things we didn't get into, but I think we, we covered a lot of it.

So.

Yeah.

Really appreciate your time once more.

So.

Yeah, I. I appreciate it, man.

Adam, it was always, you know, a pleasure.

This is the second, you know, interview that we did, but it was really nice to speak to you and I hope to speak to you in the future.

Likewise, for sure.

All right, man.

Peace.

Come on.

Oh, that was nice.