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What’s the greatest rap album of all time? Confucius and Fresh weigh options before revealing this year’s SXSBreaks lineup. Also, Fresh’s Unpopular Opinion makes a compelling point about how extensive familiarity with a city’s culture diminishes interest in its scene.
The full transcript of this episode of The Breaks is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Deezie Brown We here to talk over the airwaves. No matter where you’re from or where you stay. 98.9 you in the place to be. Wake up, wake up, wake up this is the Breaks. You could be anywhere in but you ain’t. So let’s proceed with the wave. 98.9 You in the place to be wake up wake up wake this is the Breaks.
Confucious Jones The Grammys were now, you know, a couple weeks ago.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucious Jones And, you know, Killer Mike won best rap album.
Fresh Knight It was a sweep.
Confucious Jones Atlanta. We did it. We’re not from Atlanta. And it got me to thinking about best rap albums over the years. And then I also got me thinking, what is the greatest rap album of all time? This is obviously subjective. I’ve known you for years. I’ve never actually heard you hone in specifically on one album.
Fresh Knight One album.
But we’ve talked about a lot of albums, but I can think of one that you just undeniably like, yeah, this is this is-.
The greatest rap. That’s hard man. Like to pick just one.
Confucious Jones I thought about it before I brought it to you. My mind keeps falling on at ATLiens, man. And we’ve talked about this, ATLiens isn’t Outkast’s best album right? But for me, it’s the greatest rap album because. And this is my bias showing. To me, it proved that southern hip hop was a force to be reckoned with. The argument can be made that soul food by Goodie Mob or UGK’s ridin dirty. Hell, even Ghetto boys we can’t be stopped. Submitted that, but because outcast won Best New Group at the Source Awards, in what ’95? And their first album left a lot to be desired. Let’s be honest, they’ll even tell you that like they they were young and kind of rapping what they felt they had to at the time, ATLiens, really established. Like, yo, the South can really rap. There’s a lot of rap, rap, rap happening on ATLiens, and that’s the album we’ve also talked about before, where anytime somebody tries to downplay how lyrically talented big Boy is, Big Boy was getting Andrea and a lot of those songs.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucious Jones So if I had to circle the drain on one album, it would be ATLiens. Now, you asked me getting five minutes might be something different, but.
Fresh Knight Man, man, man, my goat rap album. I don’t even. You know what’s crazy is.
Confucious Jones Come home with me.
Fresh Knight That is not my goat rap album. Come home with me.
Confucious Jones You know you love the New York, don’t you?
Fresh Knight It ain’t come home with me. Oh, I will say SDE before I say come home with me.
Confucious Jones So when my little brother, my little brother pick me up to go to my mom’s house for the super bowl, he was playing that in the car and this, I’m like, what gave you the impression I want to hear SDE? Not mad about it but
Fresh Knight And Come Home With Me wasn’t a bad album. It was his first and only platinum album, by Cam’ron.
Confucious Jones It’s only platinum? Yeah, I don’t know. Come on me with platinum.
Fresh Knight I think that’s what I’m saying. Come Home With me went platinum.
Confucious Jones Thought you said SDE.
Fresh Knight No no no no, You Come Home With Me isn’t a bad album is his only platinum album.
Confucious Jones Got you, got you good.
Fresh Knight But that’s not my goat rap album. I really don’t know, man.
Confucious Jones Like there’s a lot.
Fresh Knight The goat rap album.
Confucious Jones Jimmy up here on the KUT side was saying Fear of Black Planet is his.
Fresh Knight That’s not a bad album to pick.
Confucious Jones Great album.
Fresh Knight It’s a great album. It’s not a bad.
Confucious Jones Russell Simmons says, you know, whatever, man.
Fresh Knight Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Let’s not go down that rabbit hole.
Confucious Jones Nevermind. Oh, no. Wait a minute. Take that back. Don’t even hear me say that. It was like you’re going to say that that’s the best def jam out of all time.
Fresh Knight The best def jam album of all time. Better than some of. Are you?
Confucious Jones Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. What, what? Public enemy meant. Yeah. No. Yeah. I see why you said that. Because you have. Yeah. Beastman. Of course. Legendary. But for your Black planet comes in and it’s just.
Fresh Knight And that kind of shifted things.
Confucious Jones Yeah. Exactly.
Fresh Knight My goat rap album.
Confucious Jones Almost went straight out of Compton, almost ready to die.
Fresh Knight I think I got one. I think I got one. Doggystyle.
Confucious Jones Okay. Before you go into depth about this. Do you feel like doggystyle was like basically The Chronic part two?
Fresh Knight In that aspect, you know, to an extent. Yeah. To an extent, I feel like it.
Confucious Jones It’s not a bad thing either.
Fresh Knight It’s not. I feel like doggystyle is the natural continuation of what was being done on The Chronic. Yeah, especially when it comes to Snoop and what Snoop how he kind of was the star of the crime.
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight I think that’s just what came next in. That was the sound. That was the sound that Dre in him was working with. But Doggystyle, I think when it’s brought up, is consistently brought up, is like the rap album, like one of the best rap albums, if not the rap album and.
Confucious Jones Can’t hate Snoop. How can you hate Snoop? I mean, I’m not a fan of him now, after what he said about Donald Trump, but.
Fresh Knight I mean, I don’t have words for Snoop now, but doggystyle, while it wasn’t his introduction? It was his introduction, like we had heard him on the deep cover, and then we had heard him on The Chronic, but now we were like, all right, let’s see what this dude this young do can do. Standing by himself. Yes, Dre is producing and he has all the different behind you, but it’s nobody else rapping around him for most for most of these songs. Except when do you get like, the work Ain’t No Fun? Yeah, like it was a hell of a debut. Like that was a hell of a debut. And like I.
Confucious Jones Said, the best thing that, defined was documented. He said, boy, Dre delivered Snoop Dogg with a bullet number one with a bullet.
Fresh Knight And that, it kind of was.
Confucious Jones Especially that’s inside. Cut you off. If you think about how many artists like, reach a level of Doctor Dre success at that point, try to bring somebody else had that don’t reach it. Yeah. Like it’s I think everybody ever done that.
Fresh Knight And that was the thing that was another aspect of it is Dre, who I’m going to get into a hip hop fact about him later. Dre coming from NWA, it didn’t that being his own thing and that hitting hard and then him coming with The Chronic and kind of introducing us all to Death Row, it was like our opening to put out these young kids. New Snoop was like, what, 19?
Confucious Jones Yeah, like like yeah.
Fresh Knight Like 19 on Doggystyle. I’m like, we’re going to introduce this young kid from Long Beach.
Confucious Jones And like you said, he was the star of The Chronic. And so the expectations were, can you do this on your own?
Fresh Knight And then like he show and prove it like.
Confucious Jones That to water like a 19.
Fresh Knight Yeah 19.
Confucious Jones We talked about this. Have young ladies got like I said outcast 18. He was probably like what 20 because it’s not the playlist. But they were like 18. And the two back was his early 20s when he was doing everyone. Biggie.
Fresh Knight I think doggy style for a lot of was like, yeah, you have Boyz in the hood that came out, you had NWA and Q it was was going solo, were like doggy style, kind of like really solidify. And so the culture of the West Coast to everybody. When you heard Doggystyle, you just got it. The album sounded like LA, but it didn’t sound so LA to where nobody else in the country or the world couldn’t relate to what was being said. The lingo may be a little different. They may dress different than us, but like, are they really doing the same thing that we doing?
Confucious Jones Yeah, those two albums singlehandedly shifted the culture because New York, of course, was not even debatable. The dominant place for hip hop. Yeah. And in the Cronica doggy style come out, there’s no.
Fresh Knight And it kind of planted the flag in the saying to say, yo, we here and we not the West Coast is here and we not going anywhere.
Confucious Jones And I would even argue that the East Coast didn’t know. No, I can’t say that DMX game I’m gonna say didn’t maintain his dominance until you reach that train. But no, I the DMX.
Fresh Knight I give it to dogs there. It’s consistently praise is like the rap album. I heard a lot of people on platforms from New York say like, no, no, style is like the rap album. If you thought West Coast rappers really couldn’t rap when you heard N.W.A. Then that I was put to bed. Once you heard Doggystyle, well, Snoop was rapping.
Confucious Jones I don’t even think the argument was that West Coast people couldn’t wrap. It was could were they a one trick pony is like, okay, y’all have NWA, what else? You got.
Fresh Knight It?
Confucious Jones And then yeah, the Chronicle.
Fresh Knight Kind of solidified that like oh, oh they got some over there.
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight And then everybody else proceeded from death row, proceeded to roll out. And then you just realized like, oh, oh yeah.
Confucious Jones They just West Coast thing.
Fresh Knight They got it. You laid like, oh this not stop it until it stopped.
Confucious Jones So it’s doggy style is yours.
Fresh Knight Yeah a doggy style is my.
Confucious Jones Like I told you. You ask me, you can find me on my ass, on my change.
Fresh Knight Now, I was going to make an argument for Run-D.M.C. King of Rock.
Confucious Jones Hard.
Fresh Knight Album, but I got Doggystyle over that. I can argue run DMC, King of Rock.
Confucious Jones I almost said, I know this person. Super problematic now, but My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a really good album, man. It holds up. It’s a you know, I you know, I know Kanye is not he’s not doing he’s not doing well these days.
Fresh Knight It holds up.
Confucious Jones A good album, man.
Fresh Knight It holds up. It’s still a lot of the stuff that he said on the album is still very relatable in these days.
Confucious Jones It’s going well.
Fresh Knight Like, yeah, I mean, there’s not.
Confucious Jones I can’t think of one song I skipped even that has skips.
Fresh Knight It holds up really, really well. I mean, it’s, it has it has stood.
Confucious Jones The test of time.
Fresh Knight Time. And I think it will continue to do so. Massive. Geez. Now he might be a little deranged.
Confucious Jones A little over here.
Fresh Knight He is. But the man is a genius.
Confucious Jones But not yet. Yeah. My. Yeah. So. Okay, my final answer is. You, Richard. That dry and yours is doggy style. Yeah. Interestingly enough, the, record set by Doggy Style for the highest selling debut album was beaten by George Got Dry. I mean, so.
Fresh Knight I mean, I’m not mad, I get great. 50 came with a month.
Confucious Jones Oh, Mark. I heard that album in so many people’s cars, I it took me forever to buy it. I said, I’ll need to buy it. I keep hearing everywhere I go.
Fresh Knight I had a bootleg, but like you said, I heard so many other people playing it before. Like I got my burnt copy.
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight Like it didn’t really matter if you didn’t hear it because you knew the songs and Wang. It was being played every hour on our own television and on radio.
Confucious Jones And everybody, their mom knows how being in the club was.
Fresh Knight So that. And that came. And man, still.
Confucious Jones A huge song.
Fresh Knight Yeah, man. Despite what people on the.
Confucious Jones Internet or whatever. Yeah, it’s almost that time of year when the weather gets a little bit more bearable. We’re not scared of the power going out because too cold is not so hot. The the power goes out. Yeah. Texas is a wild place.
Fresh Knight It’s a wild place, man.
Confucious Jones It’s that time of year. Spring. Spring time.
Fresh Knight My least favorite time of the year. You know.
Confucious Jones Like spring.
Fresh Knight Allergies, I hate.
Confucious Jones Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hate the spring. No, no I cannot they no I cannot.
Fresh Knight They’re allergies and bugs. No I just bring.
Confucious Jones But most importantly, it is almost south by southwest. God, if he’d heard just thinking about don’t try man feat.
Fresh Knight I mean, anybody.
Confucious Jones I’m gonna say this. And don’t take offense when I say this. I have no sympathy for how you feel about South by Southwest, because my South by Southwest schedule is very strenuous.
Fresh Knight Yeah, it is. It’s way more strenuous. And then with mine here. So I if I don’t envy you.
Confucious Jones It could be some early mornings, another year of early mornings, hopefully. Breakfast tacos.
Fresh Knight I’ve been doing the early mornings thing for, like, the last, what, 3 or 4 years now?
Confucious Jones The first one with six. Eight, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Fresh Knight That was two, two years ago. Six, eight.
Confucious Jones Two years ago. Yeah. Oh my God. 60868 was rough boy. Oh, that was rough.
Fresh Knight I know I used to, I did my, I need a tour of the, PBS’s Austin new studio, and they. Yeah, they were like, yeah, we hate to say.
Confucious Jones It right away.
Fresh Knight They hated being over there.
Confucious Jones They got stuck in that elevator. Boy, that was rough. I mean, last year we did Shield Shelter School, so.
Fresh Knight We’ll be at will be Katy will be back at Schulz. I’m sure it’s gotten in.
Confucious Jones K Jake’s will announce that on his own. But we’re here to announce that yes, that rumors are true. South by South breaks will be back again this year.
Fresh Knight We are coming back for year five. I don’t know, 2020 being canceled really throws me out. We did.
Confucious Jones 2020.
Fresh Knight And we did. We did it 2021, 2021.
Confucious Jones You’re right. It was it.
Fresh Knight The virtual.
Confucious Jones Virtual one. Yeah yeah you’re right. Yeah yeah. It’s coming back going down. Revival coffee. And also this year is gonna be earlier. Love you guys. Love you guys so much. Those late show with killing us man.
Fresh Knight Being out till 2 a.m. is not what I want to do.
Confucious Jones Especially made as I just talked about. I have to be at Schultz the next morning.
Fresh Knight Well, yeah, but I think by like 5 or 6 a.m..
Confucious Jones Yeah. No we’re not no, we’re not doing that. But we’re getting into that.
Fresh Knight So this year will be earlier will be starting at 7 p.m. at Revival Coffee on seventh Street. Man we have a stacked lineup, a stacked lineup, man.
Confucious Jones Always stack. But this year I’m especially excited for whose lineup.
Fresh Knight The lineup is Nash, Malik Baptiste, the Tita, Black Chow, Mike Milano, Jaki. To be a magna Carta.
Confucious Jones Each of these artists, we feel, have represented the city in a great way. And what better way to have them represent South by Southwest then to be a part of our showcase? Right? Right. That’s what’s always been, you know, Magnet Court Award winning Malik Banshee’s. I’d say one top notch producer.
Fresh Knight Award winning.
Confucious Jones Tito Ice come to me about him. He’s had he correct me since I’m the governor at this point. You know.
Fresh Knight Texas rattlesnake.
Confucious Jones Facts NAS performed summer jam. Yes, open up the show in kilted. That’s what the guys are gonna do. Black and white. I mean, that’s a.
Fresh Knight Conversation you had to have would have made if.
Confucious Jones You don’t have any idea. And I’m deejaying for I would turn this song on. Just look at what we’re doing here. Get the performance. That part. Who else is on it? Mike Milano. Milano who I are. You was having a great year.
Fresh Knight You can have you can get a taste of his performance. Like I said of his studio one eight performance over Cut Dawg right now.
Confucious Jones Who else?
Fresh Knight Shakira.
Confucious Jones Be lucky to be two. Having a great year. Black Child, Black Child, having a great year. And shout out to both Black Child and Key to be because they really represent for the women super, super well and city. We’ve always argued that women probably would be the the breaking point example of this going to the next level for.
Fresh Knight Sure.
Confucious Jones But it’s a lot of things different, you know, just so you got different events going on in the city. Gay Jax We got events going on. So it’s going to be a busy South by but side by side breaks. Revival coffee.
Fresh Knight Wednesday, March 13th.
Confucious Jones DJ neck will be deejaying. She’s a DJ from Houston that I work with in different gigs. And you know, she’s interesting. So and that’s interesting in a good way and in a really good way. So yeah, it’s gonna be a great show, man.
Fresh Knight It’s going die. And you know who is going down.
Confucious Jones Oh, God. I’ll say this to anybody who’s ever been side by side breaks and has encountered me. I’m sorry. I’m going to say it right now. I’m sorry. You know.
Fresh Knight You apologized, but for the.
Confucious Jones Antics I’m afterwards. I’m sorry for.
Fresh Knight The high jinx.
Confucious Jones It it’s nothing bad. It’s just. It’s a kind of celebration, man.
Fresh Knight I will promise not to rant this year.
Confucious Jones I have no faith that won’t happen because I’m going to go do it to doing. You know that. I do it every time.
Fresh Knight I promise not to do do my Jadakiss impression.
Confucious Jones Whatever it was, you know, get fresh Black out of.
Fresh Knight Granite last year. I don’t think people caught on what was going on, but it’s cool. I got video, the.
Confucious Jones Spirits were in the air.
Fresh Knight They were. They definitely were in the air.
Confucious Jones Excuse me. There is. They always up, but what’s going on? It’s not. I’m not gonna apologize. I was having a great time.
Fresh Knight Nev. Never.
Confucious Jones Last year was. Oh my God, it was so much going on. But the year before that, when we were at, oh six, three, four, fresh was going through it. He was stressing, oh my.
Fresh Knight God, last year was the year I said I wasn’t going to stress, no, stress was stress free. Things went off really well, man. You know what I mean? We had a great line up. We weren’t supposed to go to YouTube, but we went to go to oh, God, Sheraton backyard was very accommodating. So it was. Great. So this year I’m just looking for more of what we already have done. Once again, Wednesday, March 13th, 7 p.m. at Revival Coffee, 1405 East seventh Street. Be there man, it’s going to be a great time. I’m looking forward to seeing all of these folks do their thing.
Confucious Jones Also, let me throw this in there. This is also the time of year where a lot of you artists who have kind of been dismissive of the breaks, try to jump into DMs or emails trying to get on bass outbreaks.
Fresh Knight Try O’Day in there. Yeah, no. They dare. I just say please stop it. I just have an answer, though.
Confucious Jones Then please, please stop doing that. Like I said, the artist that we’re adding to the showcase are people that we have. Connected with in the past year. Have submitted music is enrolled.
Fresh Knight Consistently who have submitted music consistently.
Confucious Jones Exactly. So I’m not. Please don’t wait until February to be like, oh, why can I not be a part of this? You should’ve thought about that back in August of last year or July or something.
Fresh Knight Don’t jump in there. January. February? You’ve never submitted anything? I can’t tell y’all. I mean, I keep telling y’all we really based this off of who we play because our listeners know these artists. Because we consistently play them.
Confucious Jones I mean, think of it like this. You keep mentioning Mike Melillo Studio one eight performance. Imagine, you know, seeing that and be like, oh, this dude is dope. You know, I get to see him live. I’m sorry, Joe Blow, if you just you never submit anything. Nobody knows who you are. It’s kind of doesn’t make sense for us to add you to one of our shows, Summer jam to like, we try to add people on there that we’ve had in rotation or that we’ve interviewed so that the listener, because it’s one of those like the step is we bring these people up here, interview them, play their music, that’s when we’re introducing them. And then the next step is we take them left, y’all, so y’all can see them and enjoy them as well as we have. So you stop doing this whole like, why can I be a part of it? Because you didn’t smell anything.
Fresh Knight So. And those that have submitted I know y’all only well, I submitted. Y’all played me before. But once again, consistently is the key word there consistently. If you’ve done it once, why not continue to do it? If you know the song is good and we play it, but that’s neither here nor there once again. Wednesday, March 13th at Revival Coffee, 1405 East seventh Street, 7 p.m.. Beat em in style by South Breaks. This is year. I’m going to say six. I think it’s six. I don’t I don’t know, I think it’s 618, 19.
Confucious Jones I think you’re I think you ready for. I think it was.
Fresh Knight 523.
Confucious Jones Because we didn’t do it the first year we got here.
Fresh Knight Obviously that was 2017.
Confucious Jones So 2018 and then we’ve skipped a year.
Fresh Knight I was 2020.
Confucious Jones So you have I think I don’t.
Fresh Knight Know man ass I don’t know what we do here. But yeah man we back we back stacked lineup man. You get to see the people who are the torchbearers of the culture out here in the city. Stick around for more of this quick break.
Confucious Jones Hip hop. Facts. Time. Yeah. Facts about the culture. I’ll go first. Michaela.
Fresh Knight Something in my.
Confucious Jones Yeah. She, was a former artist on death row. Had a very, very horrible lifetime movie. Has children by shooting night and factory. Interestingly enough, apparently she is responsible for the opening line in Gin and Juice. Snoop Dogg said he was at her house one day because she was cooking for him, and she recommended saying like, hey, you should probably start the song off, someone’s drum in the LBC. He’s like, oh good idea. And he ran with it. Some guy’s been very vocal about the assistance he had on that Dogg style album from, you know, DLC to Warren G. So, yeah, you know, I was talking to her about the song and you like it started off like I said.
Fresh Knight Let’s sound catchy. Let’s get out.
Confucious Jones Here. So, you know.
Fresh Knight All right, we’re going to switch gears a bit. Neo soul. Neo soul, the great subgenre of R&B. Mini debate about who actually started it or I won’t say started, but kind of kicked it off. I think most people think the soul Aquarians are like, responsible for, like creating the subgenre itself. But from what I have researched, you know, it is artists by the name of Michel. Please forgive me because I’m about to butcher your last name in the in the in the in the Geo cello in the day, shall I? Look, I told y’all going to butcher man. She is crowned as the first artist to kind of kick off the sound that ended up becoming what we all know as neo soul.
Confucious Jones I would go that route because I think about now, because I do came out before you got me. But it was 97.
Fresh Knight And I think Michelle was a little before Erykah.
Confucious Jones And then some people say D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar kicked it off too. That was 95.
Fresh Knight It’s a great debate from what I researched and found.
Confucious Jones I just know that Jazzy Jeff is a huge part of that. Do your research. Do your Googles jazzy, Jazzy Jeff. Questlove had a lot to do with me. Also behind the scenes Super Bowl halftime show. Great show. Usher killed it, which I expect him to do. He brought out Lil Jon. Lil Jon, this is not hip hop. It was an offer so so def.
Fresh Knight Yes he was.
Confucious Jones I’m going to quiz you on this. You’re not going to know if that’s the point, but just try to guess what is Lil John’s first big hit that he produced?
Fresh Knight His first big hit that he produced?
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight The marble.
Confucious Jones And with the foliage. You. Yes. That is his first big smile.
Fresh Knight I was about to say I like them girls. I was about to say that, but I had to think about it.
Confucious Jones It was my boo. Yes. The song. But you should know that, got you on my mind. Yeah. He.
Fresh Knight Oh. Running man dance craze. Yeah, yeah, 1996.
Confucious Jones That song was a huge hit for So So Def and he produced.
Fresh Knight It, that Atlanta base. Yeah.
Confucious Jones Been and, I think, if you say, you know, John produced that song, it’s kind of helped kick start his producing career cause he was a DJ. He was a DJ in an office also there. So he also told us that the fact there was the musical director for the halftime show, for usher, I can see that. That’s what’s up. Deejays make good musical directors. We know how to put songs together.
Fresh Knight Why do you get mad at me? I don’t, I should.
Confucious Jones Say in general, like if you can, if you can deejay a whole set, you could figure out what song flow well together. I started to realize that somebody said that when she did, the beginning of Nice and Slow, the stage was at 7:00, the clock, and it was at 7:00.
Fresh Knight Oh, I did realize.
Confucious Jones That I didn’t get that either.
Fresh Knight I did catch that. I wouldn’t pay.
Confucious Jones Attention if you know what we’re referring to. You were way too young.
Fresh Knight Also, I didn’t know you could bet on what songs usher was going to perform, and I should have better known because I wouldn’t know what what songs he would perform.
Confucious Jones Bet where?
Fresh Knight One of them gambling apps.
Confucious Jones Oh, my God.
Fresh Knight I should have got on that. And betmakers he did. He did everything I said he would do except for two songs.
Confucious Jones I was way off. My mom was adamant he was gonna do Love and Disclosure like this. I want him to be here. Go do it. And sure enough, he did it. I did a very he did a very Black playlist for that.
Fresh Knight I said I wouldn’t be shocked if I heard a live love in his club, because you don’t need Beyonce and you don’t need to.
Confucious Jones Watch Beyonce’s on.
Fresh Knight Remix. Yeah, but don’t need her to do it.
Confucious Jones He didn’t do, DJ got to fall.
Fresh Knight He didn’t do that. And I was adamant that he would do it. I thought he’s going to do it, but he did. OMG, you know, if G, I don’t know.
Confucious Jones I had to put on some weight.
Fresh Knight I thought he was going to do. I don’t think he did. You make me want to.
Confucious Jones No you.
Fresh Knight Did, I thought he I can’t.
Confucious Jones Imagine my.
Fresh Knight Way. I thought he would. He did that and I thought he would have started out there with that being his first hit.
Confucious Jones Shout out to him for having so much faith in his catalog. He’s like, I don’t have to do the biggest, biggest hits because My Way was not the biggest hit in that. It was that album and he came out to us. I always come back to my way, oh, I see we go with this.
Fresh Knight Nice and slowly shocked me was his first number one. He had.
Confucious Jones Called up.
Fresh Knight Yeah, I called it I knew, I knew that was coming.
Confucious Jones Bad girl. He did shout out to her. She wasn’t really playing at guitar, but I mean, at most y’all didn’t know that I still love her.
Fresh Knight What? I don’t do live music. They don’t do live instruments.
Confucious Jones Every last.
Fresh Knight Performance.
Confucious Jones It was when she came, I said, that’s you. Definitely. I played that guitar.
Fresh Knight We looked up to none.
Confucious Jones They say, because you definitely play guitar.
Fresh Knight It’s a legend. It’s an electric guitar. I ain’t playing up to nothing.
Confucious Jones That’s what I do. I watch movies, people. I say, don’t play there. You look because behind that dick it just be Jane Eyre. But now you can at least easy to my boo. Which yes, I complained.
Fresh Knight It’s a big song for him in top five go Spotify. Top five songs. Top five most dream songs.
Confucious Jones Like that song that people have said. Just be able to come out.
Fresh Knight He was there though.
Confucious Jones I said. I said, just not. He don’t do his own songs. Just I said, just people even dance no more. So what, you think he gonna do up there just to be like a trucker? So he he ain’t coming out there doing that no more.
Fresh Knight Little he bit longer. Sons of anarchy. All right, man, let’s.
Confucious Jones Move on with that. I’ve done two so far.
Fresh Knight All right, you done two. Here’s my second one. So the song by Nipsey Hussle that was on Crenshaw out Don’t Take Days Off, is originally by a guy named Quincy White. So Quincy says that the song was originally he is. He already had the hook and he already had his verse that’s on the song. He took it to Nick and it was like, yo, man, I want this for my debut album, Victory Lap and Do Quincy was like me. Cool, because he also had to be convinced to give the song to Nipsey because they were all his homies was like, well, that’s still exposure, man. When he’s come out on his debut album, that’s going to be big for you. And so. Nipsey hit him up and was like, well, it’s not going to be on victory lap, but I am going to put it on this mixtape that I’m working on called Crenshaw, which ends up being on Christian, ends up being a fan favorite song off of that album. I enjoyed that song off the album.
Confucious Jones Well, to be fair, Crenshaw was supposed to be Victory Lap, but he worked on Victory Lap for like seven, eight years. Yeah, he kept changing it.
Fresh Knight He put out a whole EP called Extra Laps.
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight Same song. They did make victory lap before victory lap gave him.
Confucious Jones A victory for a while, but I think he said he stopped doing that because 50 cent told him don’t don’t count releases as albums because when you signed to label, they’ll use it against you. So he’s making.
Fresh Knight A lot of sense these days since you see some battles some artists are having about some mixtapes they released. Yeah. Wow. On that label.
Confucious Jones Exactly. My final fact involves the weekend all the way from Canada weekend. One of the biggest artist in the world. Most people don’t know. He was discovered not by Drake, but by. I forgot the guy’s name. But anyway, the weekend debuted on Drake’s, long gone blog site Octobers very own that blogs that spot Akon. That’s why if you listen to Take Care, we can speech so heavily on his birthday is today. And so I thought that’d be interesting fact. I’d like people to know that because he’s so big now, you forget where he started it.
Fresh Knight Yeah, that’s what’s up, man. This was. This was a shout out to Abel also.
Confucious Jones Get into it. I said who’s birthday is today’s. Well, actually Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna all was born in 1958.
Fresh Knight What a year.
Confucious Jones My mother was born. Yes, I know.
Fresh Knight My mother was one of the year after.
Confucious Jones 59 when they won 54. You know, reason I don’t have it on. Well, they happened to you. You were born with Godzilla. Came out.
Fresh Knight Wow.
Confucious Jones Okay. And then what happened that year?
Fresh Knight All right, my final fact, with the the birthdays, that would just shout it out. Doctor Dre is celebrating his 59th birthday tomorrow, the 18th. To celebrate that, let’s give a fact about Doctor Dre. Doctor Dre, I know a lot of people will know him for being a part of N.W.A. But before his N.W.A days, he started with the world class Wrecking Crew. He was a DJ for the world class Wrecking Crew out there in Los Angeles, and that’s where he got the name Doctor Dre. He was in The Little Doctor, Alfie. If you’ve ever seen the video for, Compton City G’s, there is a picture of the Eazy-E in BG knock out new man making fun and poking fun.
Confucious Jones Oh yeah, that.
Fresh Knight With the lipstick in the stethoscope in a glittery shirt like Michael Jackson’s rock, would you? Yeah.
Confucious Jones Hey, man, they mentioned that Fred Compton, he had. They hated being in those outfits, though.
Fresh Knight It’s the 80 year old ladies.
Confucious Jones Like Charlie Murphy said it best on Dave Chappelle, the dude that would get the most women dressed like women. So me like with you, that’s just the way it was in the 80s.
Fresh Knight Like 80s was a wild time.
Confucious Jones To now get women something.
Fresh Knight Yeah.
Confucious Jones Unpopular opinion time with fresh himself.
Fresh Knight Glasses Malone. He’s won a lot of talking. Don’t know why don’t why? He’s on all these podcasts doing a lot of talking.
Confucious Jones Everybody has podcast.
Fresh Knight If you don’t know who Glasses Malone is, he. Is it for you? What? He is a rapper from Watts.
Confucious Jones They play stories.
Fresh Knight Assange plays Atari. Same place places a J. J-Roc. They were famously, J-Roc. Nipsey Hussle and Glass Malone were famously on a cover of double XL back. I think in like 2010. I think maybe only in 2010, somewhere around there. But glasses had an interesting theory about LA and New York’s rap scenes. So my unpopular opinion is the reason why LA and New York specifically kind of struggle these days is because we are way too familiar with their cultures. And I’m going to explain. So glasses, the clip that I saw, at least he was asking the guys he was on a podcast was to name famous rappers from LA in New York and then name famous street figures, and then they famous like gang bangers from each place or money ghettos. The guys that got money out in the streets or whatever it enables. Name. I mean, he was like, he was like. And he was like I was having an argument about with a guy about so-and-so out here in L.A. he knew more about them than I did. He would like. I think that’s the. The issue with LA in New York, why nobody really cares about who’s coming out. I agree with this part right here. What is anybody saying from either of those places that we haven’t already heard? Specifically New York, because I can’t say that about LA, because LA in the last 15 years has given us change. The game is still active, has given a schoolboy app. So TDE basically like so I can’t necessarily say that that’s the issue with LA. Oh got it passed away. Draco the ruler didn’t listen to his music, but I’m told that he was the next one up. I am told, I’m told I don’t I don’t know, I don’t know. You got J worthy now doing his thing. You have G Perico doing his thing at LA. Yeah, yeah. And LA artist kind of really late June.
Confucious Jones Why are you focusing.
Fresh Knight Yeah I’m specifically speaking of LA, not the state of LA. La rappers kind of really lean into what LA is known for, and that is the streets in the gang banging and all of that. They lean into it heavily and people like it, especially other people in LA. But New York on the other hand. What is it that a New York rapper can give us that we have not heard?
Confucious Jones Southern beats?
Fresh Knight I won’t even say that you said southern beats. There was a time in New York where there were producers. They were either getting production from southern producers or New York producers were trying to make the production sound really southern. I was beat. It was a time when I was busy trying to make everything sound really southern, or go grab a southern artist to put on a song that he was producing with a New York rap. He’s looking at Jadakiss and OJ to juice me.
Confucious Jones It was still a wild collaboration.
Fresh Knight But there was a point in time, so it now is like, what have, what can you give us that we haven’t heard? And I know people are gonna be like, well, a drill, drill a song. Well, we heard drill because it’s a Chicago thing. Yeah. The y’all took it and co-opted it, and now it’s kind of like, now y’all beating us over the head with drew, and it’s like, what does any new artist from New York come out now? And it’s giving us anything that we have not heard. We’ve heard the drill. We’ve heard the drill beats. We’ve heard y’all. As Danny Brown put it, yo know, every song Redman like Batman. We hear y’all sounding like you are trying to imitate Pop Smoke. And at this point, now, however many years into it, it’s gotten stale and it’s gotten dry. So where does New York go? We are all too familiar with the lingo, with the culture, with the history, and it just isn’t. I don’t want to say appealing anymore, but it doesn’t catch the ear anymore. It’s just not doing it. Unless you are like me and you like the underground stuff and you like Rocky Marciano and all of that. That’s cool. But even then, that is just boom bap. And we’ve heard boom bap. So what are y’all really giving us that we have not heard? Now, on the flip side of that. You take a Memphis and you can’t name these big impresarios from Memphis from the streets and they culture. You can be named juicy J and you can named DJ Paul. But outside of that, you can’t really give us the street personas that you can with a New York and be like, oh, we know, we know about Nicky Barnes, we know about Guy fish, we know about Frank Lucas, we know about Alpo and Rich Porter and so on and so forth. In, like, L.A., we know about Tookie, we know about Raymond Washington. We know about all of these other people who were ripping and running through the streets of L.A. but with a Memphis or Saint Louis or one of the hottest scenes out now. Detroit. We all know that. We don’t really know much about Detroit and I think that is help Detroit. Now, I know y’all are going to say, oh, well, what about Big Meech? For the longest time, a lot of y’all thought Big Meech was from Atlanta until he came out and say it and we’ll say it, that he’s originally from Detroit. And the I’ll start attaching him to Detroit. Now, I know other people who knew about Meech knew he was from Detroit. That’s neither here nor there. Most people, when they heard about him, they heard about him. Do a rapper from Atlanta. So you assumed he was from Atlanta because he was operating out of him. And his brother were operating out of Atlanta. But Detroit, you just don’t really know much about it. And we are learning about the white boy Rex. And what’s the guy’s name? Maserati. I think the name was Maserati Ric two. But now you’re learning about that. But before it was even in anyone rapping about that. No. Like when he came out and then wasn’t rapping about that. Neither was Royce. Royce wasn’t big enough. These big street impresarios. Big Sean definitely wasn’t. They may have given us a tale about them and their attachment to it or their vicinity to the streets, but we weren’t getting that from them on that level. I know you saw me. I probably might say trick jig, but was really listen to trickery like that. Let’s just be honest, man. We was listen to trick. People listen to trick because of his proximity to Eminem. Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. But like, Detroit is just intriguing because we don’t know much about it. And I think that has helped sell Detroit to the masses. Like you want to hear what I swear video is talking about because you don’t know nothing about Detroit. So what is this he’s referencing? What is Babyface Ray talking about? What is peezy talking about? What is Killer baby talking about? I don’t know none about that because we never heard anything about Detroit saying, would a Memphis you hear Moneybagg, you hear a Black youngster, you hear yo guy that you hear him talk about the streets and you just are not familiar with the streets of Memphis. So is appealing, saying with Duff, rap is appealing because you just don’t really know about those things the same way that you know about New York. We probably make a few. We probably sit here right now and give you New York Street history for never stepping foot up there, but it’s because it’s been recycled so much. Every rapper has talked about Alpo and Reese Porter, and as far as, we know there’s a whole movie about it. We paid it for like the other day. I sat and I watched the great movie, great movie, and is really. Just about LA culture. It’s a coming of age story about these kids growing up within L.A., and it’s things that we had already seen and know about in L.A. and about this guy might come in from North Carolina really being oblivious to all of this, because in the 80s, that’s not what North Carolina was really doing. But that’s just no longer appealing when it’s been regurgitated and served up on a dish so many times over and over again, and every rapper is talking about the same thing over and over. It’s just more appealing when you hear somebody from somewhere that you don’t really know anything about. I think that’s why Florida kind of flourishes a lot, and I think that was the appeal and is still the appeal with Atlanta is because we still I think we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg about culture in Atlanta and Texas. Most people don’t know a lot about Texas. It’s mad people from up north who come down here and think we still ride horses for some odd reason. Then they get down here and they see the cars and they see how we operate. And I have all of these questions. And if they want to listen to the music all. And then the only thing they know about Texas is group and they barely know anything about that. So I think that’s why other scenes are having the success and have the eyes and attention on it, because the coaches haven’t been regurgitate it for decades, or in New York’s culture, has been regurgitate it for the last 50 years. We’re hip hop. It is a part of their culture. They created it, they started it. And we’ve heard it over and over and over and over again for five decades now, and it’s just not as appealing anymore. Nobody’s doing anything that we haven’t seen, and that’s my unpopular opinion.
Confucious Jones I mean, yeah, and unfortunately that unfortunately I agree with you. But LA’s problem also is that that shadow doctored raises.
Fresh Knight To be is.
Confucious Jones Too big.
Fresh Knight If you came out and was like, I’m the only rap, I’m the first LA rapper like to go platinum without Doctor Dre being behind me. And then I had to think about when he said that I was like, what again? Kendrick, Kendrick and the Snoop Dogg Pound and like, yeah, what are you doing with platinum?
Confucious Jones Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just, you know, what you talked about earlier in the show with an album like doggy of the chronic, you can go back in, you know, Straight Outta Compton. That sets the tone and these huge game changing albums. It’s hard to get away from that. Especially when, like you said, that culture is so dominant, especially in L.A. like what, Atlanta or even Texas, what Texas had. Honestly, we felt we had a hard time getting away from the screw culture.
Fresh Knight We do.
Confucious Jones We still battle against it. There’s nothing wrong with that. You know, screw culture’s everything. I listen screw music the day, but you have to imagine how hard it was for Travis Scott to try to break through. And people that think, oh, he’s supposed to be.
Fresh Knight It was really hard for him to break through.
Confucious Jones But Atlanta, you have these different characters, and then Outcast in Dungeon Family helped establish like you can be because like I said, outcasts. They were pimps on one avenue with genius ATLiens.
Fresh Knight And I think Outkast kind of helped establish Atlanta and say, hey. Everything doesn’t have to be base.
Confucious Jones Yeah.
Fresh Knight That was their say on them in Florida. Like I think they established it. It does not have to be there. You can go. You can do this. You can play with the synthesizers and then do different settings on the drum machine. Our music does not have to be just that.
Confucious Jones So basically what helped? Every other place was that they did have great news about that. Some like love L.A., love West Coast. But boy, that Doctor Dre who thought to get away from them. So I get it. But yeah. Good unpopular opinion.
Fresh Knight All right, all right, all right. I thought I was gonna be a little argument there, but. All right, I’ll take that. Oh, I follow, that’s all me. Hahaha. And now. And now it’s time that we get entertained and informed. Here is Confucius reads the news.
Confucious Jones Get on news time. oh. This is not part of the news. But if anybody’s going to see Madame Webb, good luck.
Fresh Knight What do we mean, you’re going to be empty?
Confucious Jones Well, I it might be posted on Twitter. Pictured somebody who is here to see Madam Webb. I’m excited. Want to do more? Look at this. Oh, just to give you a heads up. Yeah. Adam Scott is playing Ben Parker, Peter Parker’s uncle.
Fresh Knight Spoiler alert.
Confucious Jones So whatever. Have fun with that. But shout out to to go to Johnson if you want to. Breckenridge.
Fresh Knight Hey shout out to her man. Big Breckenridge.
Confucious Jones You know saying like apparently her father’s Don Johnson mother, Melanie Griffith. They were filming a movie here which was born to little but good old news time keeping it local. A car crashed. It’s Saint David’s emergency room.
Fresh Knight I saw it is Davis North.
Confucious Jones Yeah, one person passed away. Five were injured. It wasn’t intentional. It came out to be. I don’t fully know. Looking at the news, what happened? What caused that person to drive?
Fresh Knight I was trying to figure out.
Confucious Jones This theory that maybe they were having, you know, some type of medical issue, and they were trying to get there and then, you know, drove through it. But like, unfortunate, somebody lost their life. That’s one of those things where, let’s say you’re sick at work and you say, man, I gotta go to emergency room. You go there and something like that happened. You tell your boss, bro, you won’t believe what happened. I gotta come back. I was gonna run over to the hospital. So. Look, you know Austin. Granted, like I said, it wasn’t an intentional act. But also starting to get real Grand Theft Auto here man. These parts like it’s it’s a lot going on in here. We’re no longer.
Fresh Knight A quiet college.
Confucious Jones Town. We’re like between Metropolis and Gotham at this point I don’t know which direction we’re going, but.
Fresh Knight I mean Metropolis was pretty dangerous.
Confucious Jones Where’s the Gotham?
Fresh Knight I in Gotham, I don’t think we’re getting the Gotham level. That’s clean.
Confucious Jones Gotham is pretty bad. So I understand why criminals of Gotham don’t figure out stuff doing crime at night. Clearly you don’t, Batman. Don’t come at it in the daytime. Said in dark night. I see why having a meeting in the daytime. So. But, yeah, you know, sorry for the loss of life. Apparently, my mother, because I wasn’t smart enough, knows the mother of the person who, was in the car.
Fresh Knight Oh, man. Condolences.
Confucious Jones So, yeah, that’s why I’ll go into more national news in New York. Democrat Tom Suozzi. I can say their last name, defeated Mazi Philip. Which was taking over Representative Jorge Santos seat. No, the polls were saying that it was. They assumed that the Republican candidate was going to win in a losing pretty badly, because once again, polls are back at this point. Donald Trump came out saying that, just watch this very foolish woman, Mazi Phillip, running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and try to, quote unquote, straddle the fence when she would have easily won if she understood anything about modern politics in America. I’m not doing. Oh, oh oh, wait. There’s more. He then said MAGA, which is most of the Republican Party, stay at home, and it always will unless it is treated with the respect that it deserves. I stayed out of the race. I want to be loved. Give us a real candidate in the district for November. Susie, the guy who won. I know him well. Can be easily beaten. Here’s where my respect for Donald Trump comes in. I’m an Eagles fan, right? You can’t tell me every year when I can win the Super Bowl.
Fresh Knight Understandable.
Confucious Jones My delusion is extremely high. Donald Trump probably beats me.
Fresh Knight I think he beats everybody. I think he beat cowboy fans.
Confucious Jones Trump. Doesn’t realize, In trouble, cowboy? I wouldn’t I would be surprised. I’m pretty sure him and Joe’s talk a lot. I guess he has a hard time realizing that you’ve lost a lot, like, since you lost a presidential election. A lot of the people who under your party have lost a lot. That’s why I see my mother. We’re talking about this. She believes that Joe Biden is in trouble for reelection. It’s very possible. MAGA is a very strong movement. I told her, and you can take this to the bank. You can quote this. Revisit this in November. I think President Biden’s going to beat him pretty handily. I don’t believe that Trump has grew his ghoulish coalition. I know there are some people that aren’t huge fans of President Biden, understandably, because what’s going on Middle East? But to be honest with you, I don’t think a lot of people are going to vote anyway. Yeah, the body is going to be pretty handy because every poll that comes out saying like, oh, body’s losing are let me give you a better example. Every pole that has has happened in the last few years that is supposed to be close. There are always landslides. Biden and I forgot what primary was. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. 186% of he was supposed. That was supposed to be way closer than that. Like I man, I’m telling you, that’s if Trump even makes it to November because he. That boy got more charges that Gucci Mane back in the 2006. So, you know, and also your Jon Stewart came back to the Daily Show. He did the whole report about how old President Biden and Donald Trump, all which are reasonable concerns. The funniest part to me was they said the previous record for the oldest people, run for president was set by Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So this point, they’re just.
Fresh Knight Record breakers.
Confucious Jones Breaking no record. It’s like you said, the older you get, you don’t get rewards like you can drink and drive. Like I said, that it is like it does it. So it’s understandable. That could be a concern. But I think Biden would get by. Also come out and said he’s only running again because Trump is running so good. I guess he feels like he looks guy walking to the airport now. I know they could defeat him, but hey bro, you got it. You got it, bro.
Fresh Knight Oh, man.
Confucious Jones Go down in Georgia. The top prosecutor, very Willis is trying to get around allegations. What actually facts that she, had a relationship with native. Way to the top prosecutor selected by her in the Georgia election subversion case, according to CNN. When pressed about the relationship and whether he paid for Willis travel when they vacation together, Wade claimed Willis reimbursed him for a flight in cash. Credit card statements submitted in Wade’s divorce proceedings show he paid for two flights for them in recent years to San Francisco. Miami Trump’s team is trying to say that there’s a conflict of interest because you know what? Two people working on the case date of each other, that’s a reasonable concern. This is I know this to be a wild episode. And what do what I asked, he would say this in this moment. But Trump can’t talk like you do. Realize you, lost the case for sexual assault, right? Like you can’t you can’t talk about, you know, doing improper things in any, any type of way. But, you know, stupid sopranos is still a thing, so. And make it work. We’ll see how this plays out. Wade. Basically, they’re trying to say that he had an affair with Willis, and he was saying, like, now I was already out of a relationship. So. It’s probably a good idea to put your ex on a case.
Fresh Knight It’s probably not, you know?
Confucious Jones I mean, you know, maybe you want to spend a block. You know how that goes. Killer Mike had to go. He was on The View on Monday and was asked about his support of Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia. There’s been some people, I think, including us, have him kind of give him side eye. Like, why deal with Brian Kemp, who’s he’s a Republican governor in Georgia. He is. Well, he was on Trump’s side to have lost that state. Trump went off on him. So on The View. Kill Mike said, quote, not a supporter camp. That’s a misinformation. You can not like me, but don’t lie on me. He continued, he’s the governor of my state. I have to be involved with him. I can’t divorce myself. But let me say this if you criticize someone, don’t lie. Don’t say I didn’t support Abrams because I did. Don’t say I don’t support Democrats because I’ve helped get three Democratic mayors elected, two state representatives elected. But if someone is in the King seat, I’m not going to not have dinner with the king on behalf of my people. I have to do that understanding.
Fresh Knight And I had a conversation with somebody about that a couple weeks back. And basically they basically said the same thing. They’re like, I mean, you got to kind of politic with the other side if you want to really try to get things done and change done.
Confucious Jones He’s not wrong. I agree with what you just said as well. My only question is, do you continue doing that if you feel like your voices are being hurt people? And I think Mike has made this point about Martin King, you know, having a conversation with LBJ. But those conversations led to the Civil Rights Act that started with JFK and then transition. LBJ is having conversations with Brian Kemp helping anything. That’s where talk was, I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know if kill my game has the time to really because while the King, as he was doing civil rights in the South, he was shoot up to DC to talk to LBJ. That’s a lot can kill him. I actually do that because on to even win a Grammy. Personally, I’d get Brian Kemp to veto because I see you. You’re not gonna change nothing. Republicans are two knee deep in their own ideology. I think to change anything.
Fresh Knight Too stuck in their ways.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
