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[people shouting]
[man] Get 'em up.
Everybody get your palms up.
Simon says get your shit up right now.
LA where you at?
- [crowd cheering] - [man shouting indistinctly]
♪ Bounce with this shit ♪
♪ Bouce with this shit ♪
♪ Bounce with this shit
♪ Bounce with this shit ♪
[DJ Breeze] Sometimes, when you're caught up
and in the moment,
you don't realize how special something is
until you've had some time to reflect on it.
We were just young and to be quite honest,
we didn't even know what we were doing.
We just wanted to represent where we were from.
What I do know is that we were in the right place,
at the right time, in the right city.
How do I even start to tell a story like that?
I suppose the beginning is a good place.
[hip hop music]
LA, it's always been a tale of two cities.
You know, you got your Hollywood.
You got your glamor, your glitz,
your beautiful weather, the beaches.
Yeah, that's what we're known for.
But, you know, there's another side to LA
that doesn't get talked about a lot, you know, it's...
We know it, 'cause we're from here.
[DJ Breeze] There's so much that happens
within streets that you don't know,
within the alleys that you don't know.
And it's those types of things that
make LA unique.
They make it one of the most unique cities in the world.
And when it comes to its hip hop and its--or its music,
it's no different.
You know, we're primarily known for one thing
but there's so much more, as far as hip hop here.
All right, y'all, we're gonna take a break
from the old school right about now, Apollo Theater.
And let's swing on out to California
to the Now School to see what's goin' on out there
with, uh, Debbie Allen and Zeus.
Yo what's up out there, y'all?
It's time for Def Jef.
Come on, come on.
Woo woo woo woo woo!
♪ Yo man, gimme that microphone and sit down ♪
♪ 'Cause a brother like me is known to get down ♪
♪ So get up on the rhyme and you'll find ♪
♪ It's designed to give sight to the blind ♪
♪ And enlighten the mind
The first time I ever really knew
there was something more out in LA besides NWA and Cube
and you know, kinda like the gangster scene,
was actually watching Rap Mania.
Um, it was kind of crazy 'cause I got a chance to see
Divine Styler and the Scheme Team
and then Def Jef and the Soul Brothers.
And back then, you know, I'm wearin' Hammer pants,
you know, I'm--you know, polka dots
and it was just that era
and they were so different than that.
[upbeat music]
In my mind I had this plan of just creating
this fucking freestyle Voltron
that was just a--was a-- was a juggernaut
of just tribal movement.
And we just...we pretty much laid the foundation
for freestyle dance in Los Angeles.
You know, remember we was walking around,
and you know, we had flat tops and the African medallions
and all that.
It was makin'-- everybody was like,
"You know, I'm proud of this shit."
You know what I mean?
So watchin', uh, watchin' Divine Styler,
watchin' Soul Brothers,
you know, seein' them,
I knew I wanted to be like them.
They had a huge influence on me
just from the very first time I watched them,
you know what I mean?
I wanted to be about that part of LA
I wanted to be about that scene.
That's what I was tryin' to get in to.
♪ Give me the mic ♪
♪ I'm about to let go
♪ The beats stays [indistinct] ♪
- Woo! - ♪ You wanna have it
♪ He wanna have it
♪ He wanna take it and tag it and grab it ♪
♪ And put it in his bag
♪ And put it away in his pocket ♪
♪ Tiki tiki, rock it, block it
♪ Me, me, I got so much
♪ Sounds like a girl
♪ When I took the microphone it's like beautiful ♪
In New York, our idea
of West Coast music was very limited.
It was very limited to images of videos
and St. Ides commercials and movies.
You know, Boyz n the Hood and South Central
and stuff like that, like that's really all we got.
What was West Coast to me was blue and red,
and khakis in hot weather.
You know, hoodies in hot weather
with dudes really representing hardcore gang culture.
That was our first look at like, LA type culture.
Like NWA, like Compton's Most Wanted,
like stuff like that, DJ Quik.
We didn't know anything more about it.
Unless you had a relative or somebody
who lived in California,
and you went there for the summer
or they came to New York
for the summer or something,
you didn't really know what style was what style.
But I think the perfect example is you have Ice Cube
and you have Del the Funky Homosapien
and they're fucking cousins.
[record scratch]
You know, they're cousins, man, like what?
That's the biggest contrast
in West Coast hip hop and they're family.
That's LA, I mean, that's California.
That's West Coast hip hop to me.
Yeah, no, you know LA is known for,
you know, the home of gangster rap
and NWA and that thing,
but, um, we also had groups like Pharcyde.
♪ They keep on passin' me by ♪
And then I saw like Erule, The N.O.T.S.,
and these were all like West Coast acts
that I was like, "Wow."
I was like, "We actually have something here
other than gangsta music."
♪ Listen up, check it, E-Rule's about to wreck it ♪
♪ No anaphora in my aura
♪ Verse I got the works when I freak it ♪
♪ Disarm unique wits warms I seek it ♪
♪ Diaphoretic in the energetic ♪
♪ More than motion draws up kinetic ♪
Yeah, it was definitely a higher message.
It was, um...
It was, uh, like I said, we came up on hop hip,
you know what I'm sayin'.
It wasn't no G Funk Era and shit when we was comin' up.
That's later on.
I'm not knockin' that either.
I wanted to do it my way.
Our favorite music was funk.
"More Bounce for the Ounce" is my favorite song of all times
but we made a conscious decision to stay away
from those kind of samples, the whole thing.
We were like, "We're gonna use our hip hop side,"
like you know, we love breaks, stuff like that, anyways.
♪ I knock 'em, knock 'em out the park ♪
♪ When other rappers are hittin' bunts ♪
♪ I'm a togger not a fogger
♪ Step on runts and don't do stunts ♪
♪ I got soul power, never took a cold shower ♪
♪ Never had a girlfriend the color of cookin' flour ♪
[Aceyalone] There's the artistic way
LA hip hop went
and it's the kinda gangster way.
Artistic way lead to the underground
and then the other side went, you know, gangster.
I think, only now, is it just startin' to meet back up with.
There's always been an underdog in hip hop.
Hip hop's been an underdog.
Rappers, whether it was the rapper
or whether it was a DJ there's always been an element
that's been under-represented, right?
And that's all...
That's what it was, basically.
It was like this is some other thing
that needs to be represented.
♪ Be advised they'll come
♪ What
[crowd cheering]
♪ Would you like to be a part ♪
♪ Of my fantasy, fantasy, insanity, vanity family ♪
♪ Got the block police corresponding with thieves ♪
[rapping indistinctly]
♪ What we have
♪ The boundaries exist so we can be free ♪
♪ And we never can enter the boundaries ♪
When I went to go visit Aceyalone
and we was about to bust raps,
it was in the jungles.
You know what I'm sayin' though?
Like, right on theTraining Day , uh,
what, you know, right on theTraining Day movie set,
not during the movie, you know, like...
Who are micin' out like these dudes,
you know, like LA is--is gang-related to a large extent
and not, you know, it wasn't...
These dudes are urban dudes, you know.
I used to be listenin' to they little first tape,
you know what I'm sayin', that wasn't even out sold.
Somehow, we came across it.
I used to be like...
Especially like Myka 9.
Myka 9 and Aceyalone, all of them was hella dope,
but them songs they had,
I used to be like, "Ah, this fool gassin'."
You know what I'm sayin'?
Like damn, "These fools from LA?"
That was like my first little piece of peepin' like,
okay, out in LA, they really doin' it.
♪ Everybody that you were out pimpin' it ♪
♪ Party, to form, coming through ♪
♪ Universe of elements
♪ Created in biochemical intelligence ♪
♪ Intimate elegance should be in with elements ♪
♪ Electrical ambiance makin' it [indistinct] ♪
♪ Planet earth as it is
[Myka 9] Influences of the Fellowship,
there was a jazz influence, so far as genres go.
There was hip hop and early renaissance hip hop,
which was the golden era of hip hop.
There was some--some of the dance hall influences.
There was a lot of battle and militant influences.
I built from rap, LA gangsta, where we come from, uh,
jazz, blues, rock, all these other different forms of,
you know, so, I--I--we threw it all in.
In LA, we ushered the whole underground scene in
because before that, nobody was sayin',
"The underground rappers this, the underground rappers that."
No, it was either they call us alternative
or they called it indie, you know?
So it wasn't even like a terminology
of this is underground music.
And guess what, nobody was proud of that
till our shit came into play.
We made it cool to not have a deal
and still be a dope rapper in the city of LA.
♪ I used to sell mixtapes
♪ But now I'm an emcee
♪ I got the rhymes and beats ♪
♪ I used to rock them tapes, them tapes, them tapes ♪
♪ Back up at World O' Wheels with the rap contest ♪
♪ I used to try and get mine
♪ 'Cause I thought I was fresh ♪
♪ I liked LL and Shan with my Roxanne rhyme ♪
♪ It might sound wack but it was dope at the time ♪
So, in LA,
when this underground, you know, golden era really started,
you started hearing about these little LA spots
that started sprouting up.
Um, some of those places I was even too young to go.
Like Radiotron, Orbit and United Nations.
Everybody's dream at the time,
if you were any little bit into hip hop
when it was just starting out...
If you were here on the West Coast in LA
or even California for that matter,
it was, you know, the mecca was Radiotron.
For us, it was-- that was hip hop.
You know, and it still is hip hop to me,
you know, because wherever there was poppers and lockers,
there's Bboys and where there's Bboys there's DJs,
and where there's DJs there's emcees.
So, for me it was all collectively as a movement
and something that I was really intrigued
and I really was enjoying seeing all these people
that were there before me.
Water the Bush was like just the pinnacle and peak
of underground Los Angeles hip hop
in the late '80s to the early '90s.
It was a place to go.
Everyone was there.
Ice Cube was there.
Uh, De La Soul was there.
Flav and them was there.
Everybody who was in the industry was there.
And it was like, it wasn't-- it was the industry
but the energy was so much different.
[Chameleon] Water the Bush was dope.
That's when Scheme Team just reigned everything.
We was in there, mentally goin',
"I don't like that song, turn it."
And the DJ would turn the song.
And I was like, "Okay, cool, just cool."
And we would rock the song.
And we would just chill.
We was controlling the shit right there, mystically,
already was up in that piece.
Soul Brothers in there too.
[hip hop music]
So many people performed there.
It was so big.
It was like hip hop.
It was what really...
I had so many battles in Water the Bush.
I done--I served many a brother at Water the Bush.
I've seen many people get served in Water the Bush.
Battlin' but not breakdance battlin', you know.
They're not poppin' or none of that shit.
It's like the style.
It was good shit, good shit.
I don't--I don't--I don't know where it comes from.
I just know we like doin' that shit.
So the scene started to develop
of like, DJs, emcees, dancers,
and we would get together.
We would go to the Good Life,
we'd go to Project Blowed.
Uh, we would go to Unity.
Project Blowed was a spin-off of the Good Life Cafe
of cats that grew up and they wanted to cuss.
They wanted to be themselves.
They wanted to have their own space
to express themselves how they wanted to.
This was a workshop but it was also to hone your chops.
♪ I got paragraphs of mans and corrected hippers ♪
♪ Diagram a man
♪ He was like emcees nowadays ♪
♪ Talkin' the wrong shit
♪ Still got a gang of fame
♪ Well, here I am ♪
♪ Up and jumping the boogie
♪ To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat ♪
LA's hip hop foundation was born at that point.
It was establishing itself,
and when it was established, the Project Blowed crew,
you know, the Freestyle Fellowships,
Medusa, they laid down and laid the flag.
They planted the flag for Los Angeles.
So, you had all these, you know, LA spots
playing underground hip hop but there was nothin' like Unity.
Unity was the crème de la crème.
It was a monthly, bi-monthly event
that took place in random venues in LA
It was founded by Bigga B and Orlando.
And if you were an underground hip hop artist,
that was your goal, was to get on that stage.
If you made enough noise at the Good Life
and Project Blowed and you honed your skills
and people spoke on you enough,
then Bigga B or Orlando might get you on the stage at Unity.
Unity is what you tried to get up into.
[Defari] If you was comin' through LA
claimin' to be a hip hop artist,
if you didn't stop through Unity,
then you really wasn't doin' it.
And so I get a phone call like,
"Yo, Mark, what's up man?
My name is Bigga B and I-- me and my boy, Orlando,
has got this idea.
We wanna do this thing, um, called Unity,
uh, with my homegirl, Carmelita.
You know, Carmelita Sanchez."
I'm like, "Yeah, I know Carmelita, yeah I know her."
My partners and I had an office
and the rooftop of that building on La Cienega and Venice
was where that first Unity happened.
So we brought speakers up there and
that was where Unity's first official Unity function was.
- [hip hop music] - ♪ Those are da rules ♪
♪ Those are da rules
♪ Yeah, yeah
♪ Those are da rules
After a while labels started recognizing like,
yo, if they had a new artist
that was comin' to the West Coast,
they had to do club Unity.
So, we started gettin' calls from different labels,
you know what I'm sayin'?
From East Coast, from Esco, RCA,
whoever had hot artists they wanted to get out here,
they would start callin' us
and start bookin' their artists at our club.
And at that time, artists had label support.
So, they would fly 'em out here and put 'em in hotel rooms
and all we had to do was just find a venue,
set it up and promote it.
[Chali 2na] They would bring an established artist out
and the opening act would be somebody
that's bubblin' in the underground,
which I thought was amazing.
I'm like, "That's what's up, man.
That's how you gotta do it."
If you were on that bill,
that means you somehow made it and got respect.
It's a big thing.
It's on some Apollo shit.
One of the more significant things that Unity did,
was it was able to bridge
East Coast independent underground acts
with West Coast underground.
Let me--let me talk about the classic--the classic stuff.
I mean, you had--we had Redman.
We had Wu Tang.
We had, uh, Nas.
We had--we had Nas. We had Jeru the Damaja.
Unity was off the chain.
Bigga B, my man, Orlando.
I used to be in the crib with them,
you know what I mean?
Before like, before the--just hangin' out in the crib and all.
Bigga B was real good dude.
I remember the show we did at, pfft, the Hacienda.
Crazy, was--it was ridiculous.
[Soren Baker] It was so many people
and it was like a great vibe and a great energy
and then to have Jeru the Damaja come in as the headliner,
I also got to go on stage
and would like take pictures of Jeru and DJ Premier,
DJ Dead Night Forum.
And that was amazing to see too
because, you know, at this time, obviously,
there was East Coast, West Coast perception nonsense
that was goin' on.
And--and here we are in the heart of Los Angeles,
downtown Los Angeles and you have Western Hemisphere
openin' for Jeru the Damaja,
and Jeru's about as New York as you can get.
And that--that was just huge for LA underground at the time.
I mean, Unity was the stage of the golden era.
We were a part of that.
You know, they gave us a couple of chances,
you know what I'm sayin'?
To open for like the Alkaholiks,
open up for like Common.
♪ Da da da da da da da ♪
♪ Da da da da da da da da da
♪ Bop, bop ♪
♪ The C to the O the M the O to the N ♪
♪ The C the O to the M the M, the C to the O the M ♪
♪ The C to the O the M the O the N the C the O ♪
♪ The M the O, what
♪ I'm the C, the O, the M, the M, the O, the N ♪
♪ The C, the O and
♪ Common
♪ Oh Lord, it's
- ♪ Common - ♪ Oh
So by the time it hits 1998,
um, a lot of those earlier LA spots had kind of died out.
You know, Water the Bush, United Nations, you know,
kind of spots I was goin' to as a younger, um,
they just--they weren't there.
You have this underground scene now about to flourish
and there's really nowhere to really go and congregate
for this community weekly.
As far as a club, like a real club
for the LA underground just wasn't there anymore.
And it felt like there was this void in LA hip hop
and that it needed to be filled.
I got a job at this store called Fat Beats.
And, basically, my man C-Los
and this other cat named Breeze,
I overheard them talking about something called Elements.
And I'm like, "What the hell they talkin' bout?
They talkin' 'bout the elements of--of hip hop?
What are they talkin' about?"
And every time they'd say, "Yeah, man.
At Elements, man, da da da, at Elements..."
Like, what are they talkin' about?
[hip hop music]
♪ Now first of all comin' in to the Elements motherfucker ♪
♪ We ain't havin' it
♪ Comin' in with disrespect without your jacket ♪
♪ Unity's a lot for some people to understand ♪
♪ Hold up don't get too loud
♪ Because I'm about to go down to his Vans ♪
♪ But I'm not gonna disrespect your posterior ♪
♪ I'm not only here to diss your appearance ♪
♪ Matter of fact
♪ I'm gonna diss your lyrical skills ♪
♪ 'Cause you need to go home and deal ♪
♪ Matter of fact you need you need to polish ♪
♪ To go be with the elements
♪ Your style is gettin' demolished ♪
♪ Now my style it'd be enormous ♪
♪ Your style it'd be a freak
♪ My style would be a great big bush ♪
♪ Yours would be a tiny tree, that's what I say ♪
♪ A minimal scene
♪ A pitiful beat
♪ I can say that you'll never get to me ♪
♪ Hold on don't cheer yet ♪
♪ 'Cause I'm not done yet
♪ Here's the main thread
♪ I say no brand off
[rapping indistinctly]
♪ I'll be the one that stands right here like 10 feet tall ♪
♪ And you'll be a small midget, midget digit or digit ♪
♪ Oh where's your girl tonight
♪ I'd love to get her digits
♪ And where's your girlfriend at ♪
♪ I know she true me clue
♪ And this is some of the reasons ♪
♪ They like me better than you
[audience cheers]
♪ Takin' the sound
♪ Breakin' the sound
- [continues indistinctly] - [audience cheering]
The idea for Elements came about
when I was inspired, in my mind,
by Al's excellence as--as a turntablist.
We weren't really hangin' out at the time, in '98.
Uh, my son was two months premature,
so he was born on my birthday.
So, I had a son on my birthday back in '98.
And my dad really wanted
to make sure we had a baby shower.
So he invited Damon out.
We're hanging out at the baby shower and that night,
I had to DJ at a house party.
And I'm sitting there and listening to him spin
and I'm hearing him blend the music effortlessly,
you know, going from song to song.
And it just sounded like totally different experience
than what I'd been--what I was hearing at the clubs
that I was going out to at the time, as a college student.
♪ Break it down like this
[record scratching]
♪ Believe it or not
♪ This is a remix
♪ Believe it or not
So I'm spinnin', I'm hangin' with him.
He's hearin' me rock and he's like,
"Yo, this house party thing is cool and all that
but you need to be in a club."
And I was like, "This guy, this little cousin of mine
is better than all these DJs
that I'm actually paying money to go see."
The club was called Gamba.
And when I walk in, I'm like, "Man."
It smelled like piss, it's dark.
It just, it wasn't upscale.
There was no way I could do somethin'
that's more, quote unquote jiggy up in here.
So, knowin' that, knowin' I had to do
like a underground kind of club,
I had to hit up Breeze.
Like Breeze had to be involved.
Bonds and I had already,
you know, developed a close friendship
um, because I was constantly in the studio making beats
and he would just come over and scratch on 'em.
So the foundation of Elements was my cousin, Damon.
He funded it.
He paid the promoters.
He ran the front door.
He brought in the staff and all that.
Breeze, he was like that main ear-to-the-street dude.
And then C-Los.
When Bonds asked me to join Elements
and there was so much heat comin' out,
I was working at Fat Beats.
It was a perfect opportunity for me to play at Elements.
I think that recognizing Al's talent
um, and in trying to just support him,
to me, was how, I think, the club came about.
From my helping him to Breeze and C-Los
and all the other individuals,
I think it was all about, to me, trying to get Al's vision
of--of getting the worlds and-- and merging the music together.
[hip hop music]
♪ Yo, y-yo, yo, y-yo, yo
♪ Let the lesson begin
♪ I'm 'bout to blast you in front of your friends ♪
♪ Then allow payment
♪ I'm 'bout to show you how to grab the mic ♪
♪ And come tight with the mic
♪ The vice precise inside
♪ On a Sunday night
♪ You came out the fight and got sliced ♪
♪ Because you wasn't that nice
♪ Get the fuck out
♪ You can get your ass fucked up ♪
♪ Fuck with me and got fucked up ♪
♪ Manned up to a bitch
♪ No longer pay you attention
♪ Zip it, fool it, pop it, hold it ♪
♪ Your freestyle stolen
♪ Bowlin' strike ♪
♪ With this mic I'm too tight
♪ You're outta sight
♪ You know freestyles that are frail and I'm like ♪
♪ Where's C4 at?
♪ This is your new whore, cat ♪
♪ I'm givin' you him for black on black ♪
♪ You can have him ♪
♪ Pull it out with your magnum ♪
♪ You can have a Mona Lisa on one on the streets ♪
♪ Give me five bucks
♪ You can put your wives up his ass ♪
♪ 'Cause his lyrical style can't handle the math ♪
♪ Or the science
♪ Beat 'em in the head
♪ With a household appliance for defiance ♪
♪ Bitch maid stompin' his ass with a switchblade ♪
♪ Damon where the money at
♪ Get this nigga paid
♪ I need to do my jokes baby ♪
♪ Fuck with that nigga allowin' the West Coast ♪
♪ To get hurt baby
First couple months was kind of rough.
Um, you know, there was like this pressure, of like,
I brought in C-Los, I brought Breeze in,
or, you know, Damon's like funding it
and you know, club was kinda dead
you know, during the first month.
Damon was losing a lot of money at the time.
He was helping fund it and he was this close
to pulling out of the project.
There were--there were times
when the money didn't quite add up correctly
and I had to take out a loan from one of my homies,
who happened to be there at the spot.
And I begged him, "Don't do it.
Please give it more time, you'll see.
You're--you'll start to see the results of the hard work."
It was a--a struggle.
We had--we went from the first nights of maybe seven people
to the next week, uh, maybe 15 to 20.
We knew we had to pull something together.
We had to come up with some gimmick
or trick or whatever.
You know, so we had the 100-dollar emcee battles
every single week.
And that started to help
but we knew we needed like one more thing.
At that time there was a group called Dilated Peoples
that was getting a buzz around LA
They had the Third Degree12-inch out
and I knew that if I could get them there,
that it was gonna help us out.
I know I've known Breeze since like we were little kids
in a strange way 'cause we went to like, like...
Breeze went to elementary school
in the same grade as my brother.
You know, I was always at his house,
you know, and we--we went to elementary school together
and junior high together.
He was always around in some kind of strange way.
That's Fabreezio, you know what I mean? Like...
So, when I saw what he was doin'
and he saw what we were doin',
you know, I called him up and said, "Hey,
I need a favor, brother.
I need a favor."
♪ This our style of hip hop ♪
♪ My man here Breeze said please ♪
♪ Come down and wreck this shop ♪
♪ I said, yo we getting paid
♪ But this is Elements ♪
♪ So even without cash, I rock it for the hell of it ♪
♪ My man, Babu, he's on the ones and twos ♪
♪ And our style represent Dilated Crew ♪
After that, people started coming.
People started hearing about it,
you started hearing this little buzz in the streets
about, like, "You know, have you guys been to Element, yet?
Oh, you need to go to Elements,
you need to check out Elements."
When things are hot,
especially at the beginning boiling point,
it's kind of like a word you hear, like,
"Yo, you goin' to Elements?
What's Elements? Da da da."
I remember it was like off the chain, like packed.
Everybody was rocking.
Uh, you walk in, it's super dark, it's jam packed,
and really the only places you could really recognize people
because it was bright enough, was in the bar area
or if you hang out on the patio.
[background chattering]
LA underground at its finest right here, baby.
First night I went to Elements,
there was this big circle and this little[indistinct]
in this little space.
And then it was just the same mecca
and people you would see at the Unity,
people you would see at Project Blowed.
Can't forget Project Blowed.
People you would see at the Good Life.
And it was just, you know, good energy.
Next you know, the club is packed
and there's still a line and I can't let people in.
And that's--that's when I knew we were doin' it.
I think once people got there,
it wasn't like, "Oh, who's comin'--who's comin' next week?"
It was more like, "Yo, who's gonna take out who?"
You know, like the battles for sure
and then the music was dope.
And just the whole vibe, you know,
gettin' to smoke in the back.
Um...
Just hip hop shit, you know.
[John Cody] We brought Elements to Elements.
They had nothin'.
I mean, we had to bring the speakers.
And when I say speakers, I mean the bass, to the club.
I think the speaker was even taller than me.
And I don't know how but he fit it in this ugly-ass Corolla.
We used to load that shit into the car
with like four crates, his turntables,
about 8,000 cables and shit.
So, I'm fuckin' leanin' to the side like this and shit.
And this nigga's drivin' like just straight neck.
We can't even see each other
'cause the speaker's like right here,
you know what I'm sayin'?
Every Sunday.
I wanna give, uh, give props to all the dancers
- that came out tonight. - [audience applauding]
Representin', know what I'm sayin'?
And, um, while I was spinnin', I really couldn't see
who the fuck was dancing to this and all that shit
but, uh, we had other people lookin' out.
And, you know, Bam, was like, "My man in the orange shirt
right here, he was the best dancer tonight."
So there you go.
Come on. Come here. Come here.
- Much love, dog. - [audience applauding]
Your shit is tight.
So, we stood out, you know, from other underground spots.
You could drink, you could smoke,
see women and be grown.
That wasn't happenin' at no other spot at the time.
When you went to Blowed,
you had to damn near be faded before you got there.
You know what I'm sayin'?
Or we gonna go over to the liquor store,
we gonna hang out outside, get faded there and go.
That was the different thing about Elements.
It was a little more at adult level.
Get drinks inside.
That's kinda how when I say, "We had the closeness."
You can get your own drinks, go get your drinks,
but that's what I loved about Elements.
You get your drinks there,
we had the back patio and pretty much could smoke,
you know what I'm sayin'?
So it was 420 friendly.
You think we could be grown here,
like this is a bar, you feel what I'm sayin?
Like, there's women,
there's women here, you feel what I'm sayin'?
Who don't rap, you feel what I'm sayin'?
Like, that's a big deal.
Going back from the--from the time that Elements started,
you know, it's-- I like that mindset
where cats are just like, "Yo, we doin' things our way."
That's what it's about.
At the end of the day like, "We learned from y'all.
And we love y'all for what y'all done
and what--the doors that you've opened
but we got--we've got somethin' to prove to you also."
You had crazy battles.
Before there was a URL and Smack and all this,
you had Elements.
On some emcee shit, if motherfuckers wanna battle me
as an emcee and not for props, I'm here.
- [audience cheering] - I'm here.
But--but--but wait a second.
I'm not about to take five minutes
out of my set to battle
and I'm not about to enter some battle for props
to give a motherfucker the chance to say,
"Oh yeah, I served Eyedea or I rapped at Eyedea."
- [audience cheering] - So that's the real shit.
That's where I'm comin' from.
It attracted the best in graffiti artists
and Bboys and people that would just be down there
just to be around the top notch emcees, especially,
but also top notch DJs or whatever
as far as battling and whatever.
But then every now and then you get some circles
that will get to formin'.
Somebody will do like some weird flip kick
and some other motherfucker didn't like it.
They like, "Oh nigga, you wanna flip kick on my crew?"
He'd do some wild flip crick handstand,
all of a sudden we got a all-out dance battle.
For the battle circle, it was--it was war.
And you prepared yourself for that.
If you--if you cared about the culture,
the competitive culture, then you were...
We felt that you should train for it.
You would get this feeling like something could crack off
but not in the like someone's gonna come shoot up the place
but you could tell they were like,
"Ooh, there's some little thickness in the air,"
and that edge gave it a little bit of spice to the night.
♪ How the fuck this nigga gonna grab the mic ♪
♪ He's a hermaphrodite ♪
♪ A subject to your satellite
♪ Fuckin' with detectives is like fuckin' ♪
♪ With a pig with a bike
♪ You're stankin' there
♪ You're standin' on the ground ♪
♪ And then like you should be in a video ♪
♪ With Cisco puttin' it down
♪ But it's all gone
♪ Your shit ain't strong ♪
♪ Steppin' to Kontaijus ♪
♪ You get the fuckin' gong
Yeah, all these hungry emcees started to come through.
You had like folks that were from the 909s, so you had C4.
You had Poseidon.
You had Nickel Slick.
On the Pasadena side of things,
you had Dirty Unit, which was Kontaijus, Pronoun,
Ice, Left and then in LA there were several folks,
you know what I mean? You had Dotted Line.
You had Loud.
But on top of that,
you had this dude named Otherwize
who was killin' 'em.
[DJ Revolution] Otherwize is, um...
he's--he's kind of one of a kind emcee.
♪ Jacking off
♪ He out on the mic
♪ Think that you'd be backin' off ♪
♪ You see that smile on his face ♪
♪ Watch me smack it off
'Cause he--he was already fierce at the Project Blowed
but I think, once the Elements hit,
he really came into his own
and just became un-fuck-with-able.
♪ What you wanna say
♪ You're a mime
♪ You can't even rhyme
♪ Put your hat back on
♪ This isn't a commercial for Calvin Klein ♪
[audience cheering]
He was somebody definitely took me to my limits.
You know, every time me and him battled
was like a championship battle.
We scarred, you know, when I'm leavin', I'm scarred up,
he's scarred up, you know, we doin' our thing, you know.
He might say, you know, otherwise
but that's what they call him.
[laughs]
Otherwize was that top dude, in LA.
It didn't go too good for everybody.[laughs]
They had to--it took a couple times for cats
before someone finally got at Otherwize.
That dude was a beast.
Probably one of the illest,
if not the illest battle emcee of all time.
- [hip hop music] - Bust it.
♪ I'm 'bout to make this night short circuit ♪
♪ Your speed is wack as fuck
♪ This shit fit you perfect
♪ I got so many ways to diss you that I'm playful with you ♪
♪ I let it raise these issues they had to staple stitch you ♪
♪ And everybody in this fuckin' place permit you ♪
♪ We be tryin' to fill my face with stitches ♪
♪ To erase in this
♪ Nobody's hearin' you
♪ You're a wack liar
♪ Damn, all your white jokes just backfired ♪
[Otherwize] I never battled a white person before,
so I battled him with the shit that I learned.
So, I approached him with that and...and I won.
And I blew all my money at the fuckin' bar
and got my Rolex stole from me later that night,
so like what you wanna know about my hard times?
[Eminem] I didn't know that the battle
that was takin' place before for the Rap Olympics--
[interviewer] Mm-hm.
[Eminem] ...was whoever wins that
gets 500 dollars and a Rolex.
And then he comes from around the screen
and just gets in my face.
I don't remember one line he said
but he was screamin' in my face.[shouts]
And I'm like, "Oh shit," like I don't...
And everybody's like, "Yo, he's killin' him, he's kill--"
But I had already choked.
So it didn't really matter what the guy did,
you know what I'm sayin'?
[interviewer] Yeah, I get it. I get it.
[Eminem] And, uh, I lost, so I was like, "Fuck."
The--the expectations are so high because you win.
Like, you 'posed to use that to better yourself
and do something else and invest that money
into something to push your brand.
[interviewer 2] Right.
[Otherwize] But I was buyin'--
- [interviewer 2] Caught up. - [Otherwize] ...buyin' weed
and liquor and, you know, drinking the money.
I did get a meetin' with Dre.
I went to the studio with Dre and recorded.
You know. Uh, they suggested that I be more sim--simple,
more, uh, gangster,
you know, and I said, "I can't do it."
They came to the Elements and got me.
This dude named, uh, Mailman,
came to the Elements, got me, said, "I heard about you.
I'm gonna bring you to the studio.
You're gonna meet Dre."
Went to the studio, met Dre, recorded.
Well, you know, what we need you to say, uh,
"Hell yeah, motherfucker," right here,
and I'm like, "I don't say,
'Hell yeah, motherfucker,' right there.
That's not in my fuckin' rap pad."
I had this ego of like I'ma do it my way,
not understanding that this dude makes stars,
you know what I mean?
It just depends on the song.
If Dre's like, "Yo, I think you should rap like this
on this song," what are you gonna say?
I mean, this guy, he still has records playing
on the radio today, like today.
Like, I can't say that about a lot of people
in the '90s or in the early 2000s.
"We need you more, uh," you know,
and I'm like, "Dude, I live-- I live in the jungles, man.
I can't be no--I can't be what you want me to be.
I gotta be what I'm doin'."
He was like, "Okay, well, when you're ready to play, you know,
then come fuck with us."
That's still--I wasn't willin' to compromise my style.
[interviewer 2] You're still okay with that?
[sighs] Yes.
Did you hear that heavy sigh?
Being able to hang under that kind of pressure
and excel at it, just annihilate everybody else in the room,
and impress everybody and then on the outside
when it came to like makin' records
and doin' whatever else was goin' on in the business,
some things never came together.
And I just-- I never understood it.
I didn't go to Elements every week
but every time I did go,
I felt like Otherwize won the money that night.
♪ Yo
♪ Now I'm tryin' to test my verbatim ♪
♪ But my bird ate 'em ♪
♪ I just start on this level then I'll elevate 'em ♪
♪ Wack cats in the side but yo, I'll dominate 'em ♪
♪ You a perpetrator
♪ I'm another traitor eliminate 'em ♪
[rapping indistinctly]
♪ Only till my crossover is with J-Roc's ♪
♪ And then I'll wax I wanna fade her to the other side ♪
♪ I'm a criminal ride
♪ You had that camouflage hat all in the crowd ♪
♪ Tryin' to hide
♪ I was like, yo, Loud there you are ♪
♪ My skills won't be denied
♪ You said I'm wack
♪ You lied
♪ I know you smiling, it was funny ♪
♪ We had a good time
♪ I hold it down every time for the 909 ♪
♪ Steal your spotlight C4 start to shine ♪
♪ Soften her back and I was biting your rhyme ♪
♪ You win and get the 100 bucks ♪
♪ Not this time
So it was just a different competitive vibe.
It was like, I mean, you have basketball season
but then you have the playoffs.
Elements was the playoffs.
We had other open mic spots we would go to
but Elements was raw.
Our weekly battles,
they started to gain more ground.
And they started to actually become the talk of LA.
People who weren't even into hip hop
used to come to these battles just so they can see them.
So, as they started to grow, Bonds had this great idea
about having guest celebrity judges come in and judge them.
But on this one particular night,
we had, um, Phife Dawg from a Tribe Called Quest
and we were--we were so excited to have him there,
I mean, this is Phife, from a Tribe Called Quest, you know,
one of our biggest idols,
but we had no idea what was gonna happen that night
or what we were in store for.
So, this particular time, you know, he invited Phife.
And, you know, Tribe Called Quest, dude.
I don't wanna go to details of that, that's everybody.
That's Tribe Called Quest, dude.
Phife, I'm givin' you dap
when I came in, you the dude.
So, now he's like celebrity judge.
And so, Phife was sitting next to me,
we talkin' or whatever, and he's like,
"That nigga wack."
And I was like, "Word?" He was like, "Yeah."
I was like, "Nah, it's not like...
Nah, he be up here, like,
you know what I'm sayin', servin'.
Like, no, that's--that's a homie, like...
And he was like, "No, that nigga wack."
You know, this, that, and the other.
And I was like, "All right, well,
you should battle him then, how 'bout that?"
So Phife stands up and say, "No Dotted,
he got more...you know, cheers than you and all that."
And I'm like, "Yeah, Phife, but you gotta listen to the lyrics,
man and...and see what I'm sayin', dude."
And I'm like, "You see me servin' this dude up
and the crowd keeps, 'Another round, Dotted, another round.'"
So, Phife and Dotted Line,
they started to kind of like exchange words.
And, you know, the crowd's kind of goin' crazy.
They're seein' 'em kind of argue back and forth
and, you know, almost like hecklers,
people were like, "Battle."
You know, and I'm like, "Fuck."
I said, "Phife, man, come on."
And then he said, "Dotted, I'm tellin' you, I told you."
And I said, "Phife, hold on homie.
You would get it too.
On stage in front of everybody."
I said, "Phife, you know what?
I just served him, now I'ma serve you too."
Called him out in a packed room.
This is Phife Dawg from Tribe Called Quest.
I said, "What you want me to do, Phife?
Want me to go first?"
'cause now I'm so hyped, I'll take--
"Nah, you ain't never gotta te--I'll go first."
I say, "You trippin'."
I'm tryin' to give him the courtesy
because he's still Phife.
He's my underground legend.
But I told him after,
"If you don't take--if you don't take my handout,
I'm gonna destroy you.
I'm gonna take you out real bad, dude,
and I'm not gonna look back.
I'm not gonna stop on you."
He was like, "Who you think you are?"
Okay, and I never forget, then I said,
"You don't know where the hell you at.
This is underground.
We hardcore.
We get down.
I don't need no limos.
Acapella instrumental.
You came here with what?"
I ain't gonna--I ain't gonna diss who he came with.
You came with what? Look at you, you can't--
I just start goin' in from there.
I just start goin' in.
It was memorable for me,
'cause I was like, "Oh shit!"
Like not only did I see Phife tonight, like randomly,
like didn't expect that to happen,
but I saw someone like you know, kinda get up there
and...hand him his ass kind of on the mic.
And I was just like, yo what...
I didn't know what to think, man.
I was so young. I was like--pssh!
Like mind blown so many times but...
That was hip hop in its most purest form.
A spontaneous battle between a living legend
and a guy who showed up there on the bus.
That was a--a crazy moment in hip hop to see,
you know, firsthand.
I was like a what, 17-year-old or something.
Like it was bugged out.
I'll never forget, we were...
We might've been in--in Bonds's car.
We were actually packin' up the car
and, um, putting our stuff in the back,
my DJ bag in the back, Phife was in the back.
Somebody drop--drove by in a car and yelled, let's see,
I think he yelled, "Sorry, Phife.
We love you, this is LA."
Like, and that--that really stuck with me, like,
like for years to come.
I think it even probably impacted Phife in a way,
like, you know, like, you know,
people that they're proud of this city.
They're proud of the culture, the talent, and, you know.
It has to be respected.
So, it wasn't like they dissed Phife
or Phife dissed the city,
it was just like this is what it is, you know?
And it's like--it's kinda like
when you come to somebody's house,
you take your shoes off, you know.
- [audience cheering] - ♪ All right, okay
♪ All right, okay, okay
♪ All right, okay
♪ I feel you, okay
♪ All right, okay, all right, okay, okay ♪
♪ All right, okay
♪ I'm feelin' you, yo
♪ To all my people in LA
♪ And you know who you are
- ♪ You say - ♪ Don't stop the body rock
♪ To all the people out in Cali ♪
♪ And you know who you are
♪ You say
[crowd] ♪ Don't stop the body rock
♪ We want 03, 23, and the 818
♪ You say
[crowd] ♪ Don't stop the body rock
So the club started gettin' really popular,
you know, around '99.
It was like, man, something about the music
that me and C-Los were playin' at the time
and hittin' 'em with four turntables,
the dancers were incredible there,
all these independent artists that came out
you know, from Dilated Peoples to Lou Pack,
I mean, we just hit at the right moment.
We hit at a perfect time.
You could see Pharcyde over there
and Freestyle Fellowship and, you know, Jurassic
and--and Medusa, Sin, Coco, you know,
everybody in the same joint.
Yo, I would literally come there just to kick it.
What was my man that worked at the bar,
the light-skinned m--
the light-skinned homie that had the hair?
- What was his name? - [interviewer 2] Damon.
Damon.
Big up to D--
Yo, Damon, you my man because if it wasn't for--
Yo, you made my--you made my weekends in LA, G.
To be, you know, a 20-year-old dude with a name,
poppin', and just...I don't even--I don't even think
as artists, I don't even think they have spots like that
for artists right now where you can come get pa--
You know how comedians can pop up somewhere
and get a little money to do a little quick set?
Yo, I would just pop up at Elements on some chill
and just try to get a drink or some shit
and dude would be like, "Yo, you wanna get busy tonight?"
♪ Gonna do this every Monday
[rapping indistinctly]
♪ Beats is weak, go to sound check and remaster these ♪
♪ I didn't [indistinct]
♪ To the others get back to me
♪ Planet Asia, ain't a damn thing changed ♪
♪ And when it comes to microphones ♪
♪ I leave 'em in this rap game
♪ 'Cause I'm trained dig ♪
♪ 'Cause aggravate shots and blank spots ♪
♪ For overflow to sorts
♪ 'Cause I just wanna do 'em
If you into LA hip hop
and you in the--in the history of LA hip hop, like,
on a level of just thorough-- thorough events
where you would go there and you would either get better,
like, you know, some venues,
or you would have to really be at your best,
Elements stacks up right there.
If we was goin' to LA, we was talkin' with Bonds,
and we was talkin' with Bigga B and Orlando,
You know, like that was-- that was the--that was the skit.
Whatever you wanna call it.
I call it, you know, hip hop.
[chuckles] High level, technical hip hop.
I don't know, like whatever, lyrical rap, back pack rap,
you know, whatever you wanna call it,
they--they were the ones bringing it.
So, I would get a phone call from a record label
and they was tellin' me like,
"Yo, we're bringing an artist out from New York.
What can you do?"
I was like, "Well out in LA, I could put 'em on
Friday Night Flavas on the radio.
They could do Saturday at the Wake Up Show.
On Sunday, they could perform at Elements.
And maybe do Fat Beats on Sunday, as well."
♪ On the edge
♪ On the rhyme
♪ I brought the crew with
♪ Whatcha need survive
♪ Zap your brain
♪ It's time to take your pick
♪ [indistinct] the track, I'll come in ♪
♪ My life is good
♪ We're Fat Beats and we made it so ♪
♪ So, worst comes to worst, my equals come first ♪
Fat Beats was the spot in LA to go to.
If you wanted to know the latest hip hop,
what the latest show was,
or anything that had to do with our culture,
Fat Beats was where you had to be, period.
Record stores were a big, vital piece to
the...the emergence of the indie labels, too.
It left a door open for you know, acts like myself
to be able to go do an in-store meet and greet
with the people, man.
And that was very, very vital.
♪ Everywhere you from there's fat, fat, fat beats ♪
What's up y'all? This is Ed Lover at Fat Beats,
LA's number one record store.
I got my man, Bonds, here and the whole Fat Beats crew.
Now, Fat Beats is the LA version
of Fat Beats in New York, right?
Right, yeah.
Right, where all the vinyl is that all the DJs
in the world could ever want.
We had this crazy synergy that was happening
for this independent scene.
So, on the record label side,
you had Stones Throw, Good Vibe, Rawkus.
For radio shows, you had all these things
from Friday Night Flavas, Soul Assassins,
Wake Up Show, Divine Forces.
Then, it was Nardone's show, he was on FM.
So, we had outlets to break our records.
You know, and back then, it was still about
your record gotta be big here, first.
You gotta be big locally, first.
You know?
Where nowadays, that-- that's definitely changed.
So I was lucky to be able to do that and do radio.
I see, you know, ju--the whole-- the whole scene.
There were different stations.
The Beat, there was Power, there was...
It wasn't so much of a-- of a compet--
not in LA, it wasn't a competition.
You know, DJs weren't hatin' on each other.
"Oh, you know, you're on this station," you know.
[man] Friday Night Flavas, Power 106, Fantastic Four.
- [man 2] Ha! - [man] Up in here. Word.
[Cut Chemist] First of all, we were all friends
because, obviously, you know, the Beat Junkies
and Nu-Mark and I, you know, we all hung out anyway
because we kept seeing each other
at the same places and being in the DJ community.
I mean, we live next to these people.
I'm gonna see these people out, you know what I mean.
So, I wanna support them.
And if they're making music that I can't support,
I need to tell 'em why I can't support it.
When artists can come up and be like, "Hey man, I re--
I saw you DJing or whatever, let me know what you think."
And if it was rad, I wanted to play it on the show.
Like, I wanted to fuckin' play this shit first.
And now, thinking back, I mean, that's how we...
That's how it happened for us
'cause Friday Night Flavas and then whoever's on the Beat,
at the time, all goin' at the same time.
There'd been times when we'd be on the radio, you know,
listen to 'em both at the same time.
If I had a Pharcyde record and a Master Ace record
and a Who [indistinct] record or anybody else
gave me a record, I was like,
"Yeah, I'll take it down to the radio station."
People that do remember the Menu Mix
or the mix I used to do,
like those are the things that they remember about the show.
Is me playing Quasimodo,
me playing, you know, Universal Magnetic.
Me playing, you know, Combo the MC.
Just playing these independent hip hop ar--Slum Village,
you know, like on LA FM radio.
Like those are the things that they remember.
And the truth is a lot of these guys
and uh, you know, a lot of these labels were just good people.
They were good people that put all their money
into putting this music out.
And, uh, you would be a dick not to support it.
♪ By the emcee's persistence tryin' to bust like this ♪
♪ I'm so slick I drop the mic
♪ And jump back and kiss my wrist ♪
♪ Our mix was a natural ♪
♪ I chase words and catch 'em
♪ The A in Alkaholiks stands for all about the action ♪
I remember, uh, Bigga B showin' up to Elements
and I was like, "Oh man, you know, Bigga's here."
And then, but him telling us that, "Oh man,
this reminds me of a mini Unity."
That was it for me.
I could retire now.
[stammers] The king of LA just co-signed us.
And there was automatic respect between us and Bigga
because he laid down the whole foundation
for us, at Elements, and everything that came after us.
But when he passed away...
you know, there was a big void left in hip hop and in LA
And it was--it was felt, it was really felt strong.
A lot of these people just really don't know
that when I--when I got that news I was just really--I--
I went through a two-year depression where I was...
I--I didn't wanna do nothin' and I was homeless.
And in Hollywood, nobody ever knew
I was homeless for like six months.
Nothin', I had nothin'.
You know, I was just really that distraught to hear the news
of him passing.
Um...
Yeah, it just really, really hurt, you know, um...
Yeah, just really, really, it really messed me up.
After several months went by,
everybody started to look towards us.
Everybody was like, "Well, it's on you guys now."
And we're all like, "What are you talking about it's on us?"
So we felt this responsibility,
you know, once Bigga passed it was like,
you know, our club can only hold so many people.
It was--was a pretty small spot, you know?
Um, and there was again, kind of like a void.
Now the mission became tryin' to get a venue,
which was kind of tough.
A lot of times you would DJ at a spot
and the owner would be like, "I don't want you to play this."
And you're like, "Why?"
And he was like,
"'Cause I--we don't want that kind of crowd."
And you're like, "What kind of crowd?"
You're like, "Black people?
Latinos?
[stammers] What do you mean?"
"Yeah, we just want--don't want that kind of music."
Shit was crazy.
That whole, like, perception that just because I'm black
or you know, brown people, that we were gang affiliated,
that we were violent.
They always said the same thing,
"Well, what are you gonna play?"
I mean I couldn't front.
I'm not gonna say, "We're not gonna play hip hop."
You know, "Yes, we're gonna be playin' hip hop."
"Oh, no, no, no. I can't have that."
"Why can't you have that?"
"Oh, I don't have the proper insurance."
Who owns the clubs? You know?
Not to say that they're racist
but what has happened is they're also part of this history.
And so the perceptions, their paradigm
of understanding black and brown people
is the same stuff that people get from television,
from, uh, from certain type of hip hop that's being promoted
by these corporations, right.
I really think race had a lot to do with it.
It was pretty obvious.
And it was all, like,
based on this mainstream perception of hip hop,
which was being really pushed at the time,
you know, in the media.
Gangster rap has become incredibly popular
and profitable
by selling lyrics about black on black violence
to a young mainstream audience
that wouldn't dream of going anywhere near a ghetto.
Now that some of its stars stand accused
of doing what they've been rapping about,
life seems to be imitating art, so to speak.
So, I end up finding the El Rey Theater, right,
and the one clause that El Rey had
was I had to write a fucking paper and convenience them
about who my acts were and that my acts
were basically good enough to perform at their venue.
So, we get the Beat Junkies, DJ Revolution,
DJ Mark Love, Lou Pack,
and at that time Planet Asia and Rasco were a group
together called Cali Agents.
But the headliner was Defari,
who was really gaining steam with Focused Daily.
So, it was like, so I basically looked up
his background, history, listened to his songs
or whatever and wrote a paper to them letting them know
that this is the artist that we're bringing.
Them rock and roll cats, man,
they didn't have to do that shit but I had to.
I had to write a fucking paper 'cause I'm young and black
and they had this perception
that like someone was gonna fuckin' die
just 'cause I wanna throw some hip hop.
They were expecting, you know, glorification of violence,
uh, misogyny in their lyrics, things like that.
It talked about Defari bein' a schoolteacher.
It was just like we literally had to brag
about our artists not being gangster rappers, basically.
I think Al ran into an issue with them
when we added Xzibit on to the show,
'cause at the time Xzibit had a, uh, a song with Snoop
that was real popular.
It was "Bitch Please."
[DJ Bonds] So, when I put Xzibit on the bill,
they're like, they called me up like,
"We gonna cancel your shit."
I was like, "Fuck."
That--that was out of my hands at the time,
so I think Al negotiated with them
to finish that off.
So I had to drive down there,
you know, I couldn't talk to them over the phone.
I had to talk to them face-to-face,
basically beg them to keep the show, you know?
So, it worked.
You know, Defari comes in, he kills it.
Xzibit does his thing and we made it happen.
♪ Oh, handle your business ♪
♪ Handle your business
♪ Handle your business ♪
♪ Handle your business
♪ Handle your business ♪
♪ Handle your business
♪ Handle your business ♪
♪ Yo, handle your business
♪ Before your business handles you ♪
♪ Mister X to the Z and Defari Herut ♪
Truthfully, Elements was something that...it was--
it had the Unity feel but it was different.
After Unity and--and the whole move with Bigga,
then yeah, Elements comes along
uh, with Bonds and the gang and...
they provide a whole 'nother platform,
seemingly, on a-- in a bigger stage.
Because the El Rey show,
I remember we had sold that out around the block.
So, the venue at the end of the night,
they were like, "Yo, this is your crowd?
Like they drink, there's no violence, like come back."
You know what I mean?
So basically, we wanted to transform the El Rey
into what we used to do at Elements,
you know, and make it that vibe, right.
So, every week me and C-Los would bring four turntables
every single week
and the thought was, "Man, if I have all these DJs
on the line up, if I had eight turntables,
shit's gonna be crazy."
That's what I love about Bonds, you know.
He was just like, "Yo, we work at Fat Beats.
Like let's just gather up the homies
and, you know, I know we can pull something together."
And we did.
♪ Get your hands in the air
♪ Feel it, feel it
♪ Feel this shit
[record scratching]
♪ Come on
[record scratching]
That was a memorable time, man.
Just, you know, all these turntables set up
and then have all like the legendary DJs
like Revolution, Mark Luv, Nu-Mark, Babu, Rapmatic,
just a big jam session, you know what I'm sayin'?
It was DJ heaven at that point.
And, you know, to be honest with you,
it was a way to push us.
It was a way for us to see what each other got
in their arsenal and be like, "Oh damn!
He's gettin' it over there."
[record scratching]
The thing that stands out the most about that night is,
Shock, I think bein' on the mic or maybe DJing
and all of a sudden like "Revolution in the house."
And Rev, you know Rev, like he'll just,
he'll step up like it's just
without even thinkin' about it.
Just no headphones, and this is in the vinyl days
and just start rippin' it.
[record scratching]
I remember it was like a real free format.
Like, like, I remember just goin' up and like DJing.
It wo--it would hold people's attention,
you know, 'cause it was still so brand new.
So, eight turntables at a show, unheard of,
but Bonds did it.
I'm not mad at that.
I salute him for that.
Oh and by the way,
there's a lineup of incredible emcees and maybe a battle
and you know maybe a fuckin' Bboy competition.
[hip hop music]
The West Coast scene
was where they really got a chance to shine
besides just being on commercial,
you know, a commercial specialty radio show,
like Wake Up Show or us at the Fantastic Four,
was performing at places like Elements
and Live at the BBQ., you know what I'm sayin'?
Like the--the--the Hey Roos, Defaris,
the Dilated Peoples, Planet Asias, all those dudes,
even the J5s back then,
they we--they were all gettin' their shine
you know, at the El Rey, you know, at Elements.
LA has got this scene now,
that's you know, hey, this is you know,
we holdin' down hip hop now.
[Cut Chemist] And we were all underground LA groups,
which at that time there weren't that many
that you could say all kind of
came from this, you know, kind of the same scene.
For me, it felt like, you know, we was--had hip hop
on our shoulders and stuff, you know what I'm sayin'?
But it just wasn't us,
it was all these people that was like,
"Yo, we gonna hold down this Element.
This is, you know, this is us.
We're gonna do it. This is our lane and stuff,
you know, and this is what we doin' and whatnot."
It was just this synergy between us at Fat Beats,
radio and now, us actually providing a platform,
physically, at Elements.
It was just a perfect mix of everything happenin'
at the same time.
- [crowd shouting] - Wait, hold up, hold up.
If you want a CA shirt let me hear it.
CA!
[crowd] All day.
All right.
West Coast DJs was always intimidating.
Some of the dopest DJs on the planet,
you know what I'm sayin'?
Shock revealed himself to me
because, I guess, as a fan of the group,
he would always just kind of be in the cut around,
Shock is in the cut.
Badass DJ, you know what I'm saying?
When I really started branchin' out to DJin'
more outside the group, Shock would come and show up
and be one of my biggest supporters
at the parties I was doin' in LA,
you know, givin' me my props and shit.
And I'm like, "Yo, he's a badass DJ."
[laughs]
To me, all of them, based on their--their style together,
they're like producers on the turntables.
I watched J-Roc take it to a whole 'nother level
when he's mixing funk, soul, bossa nova
and all of that like, you know,
it's just, um, hip hop at its finest.
So, this LA hip hop community
that kind of started to form,
it mirrored what LA was.
It was diverse.
Like, even for me, my first DJ partner ever was Filipino.
And it was kind of hard for Filipinos
to break into the scene but...
Breaking into the LA scene you had--had--I--
This is where it's even like...
To be in the LA hip hop scene,
you had to work 10 times harder.
[record scratching]
This early '90s hip hop... talkin' 'bout Filipinos.
They were the first Filipinos to really get in.
And I'm gonna tell you, they caught a lot of shit
from people in the club,
because at that time the club was pretty much
all African American.
You know, that's where like, you know,
comin' from the Asian scene goin' in to the hip hop scene,
where it's majority African American and Latinos,
they're gonna look at you like, "You're not from here.
Who's this Asian guy?
Who are these--?"
You know, like, "See what you got."
But they loved the culture.
They loved the culture.
And I remember when I first met 'em,
and Bill had met him, Bigga B had met him.
He's like, "Yo, they really wanted to get on,
and--and we gave them a shot."
- [record scratching] - One, two, three, four.
[records scratching]
[audience cheering]
♪ Word up
♪ Word
♪ Word, word up ♪
I miss those days with a passion, man,
because, um, it was-- it was...
moments like that
that kept me on my Ps and Qs, man.
And I really feel that the--the Junkies
and the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, man,
I look at those guys with the utmost respect um, and love.
When I first started like DJing and stuff,
the--the one dude that really got me hooked was Qbert.
When I was just like, "Wow,
the way that he scratches, just...
he's talking to me, like what the hell is he doin'?"
You know what I mean?
I was just like, "Yeah, that that's what I wanna do.
That's what I wanna--that's what I wanna be like."
[DJ D-Styles] DJs Qbert, Apollo, Mix Master Mike,
I men, they kind of introduced their style
of battling and scratching.
Everything got faster and instead of funk,
everything became really crazy techno.
[hip hop music]
[audience cheering]
It was like, "Listen to this, motherfucker."
You might wanna put a camera over here
because the audience, at that point, couldn't understand
when Apollo and that Filipino wave came,
they didn't understand that.
[man] We got DJ Apollo on the ones and twos.
Doin' his shit properly.
[DJ Kiilu Grand] But real DJs did.
Jazzy Jeff was like, "Yo, they're onto something."
The audience may have been like,
"What the fuck are they doing?
What's this juggling shit?"
[funky music]
[man] Here it comes.
That's the one thing about our hip hop culture,
it don't matter about race, it just matter about skill.
You got skill, we good.
[record scratching]
Before Defari's show,
we at Fat Beats had our two-year anniversary
with Show Biz and AG, Big L and the Arsonists.
So, we were working at Fat Beats,
you know, during this time
and, you know, I used to play Big L all the time
at Elements, during the emcee battles.
That was like one of my main records to play
for the emcees to kind of, you know, kind of to spit on.
They were like, "Yo, we're gonna need some SUVs
because we got Big L comin' out here."
And I was so geeked.
I was like, "Oh shit!
Big L is comin' out here.
Yo, I can't wait."
Flamboyant Entertainment, you know what I mean?
Unfortunately, two weeks prior to this show...
He got murdered and it was just, [sighs]
"We lost another one?"
[DJ Breeze] The significance of Big L's death though
is that since the show was a flop,
the owner of Fat Beats was pretty disappointed
so he gets ahold of a VHS tape
of the showcase we just did at El Rey with Defari
and the first question out of his mouth is,
"Who did this show?"
And C-Los is like, "They work right in your store."
And the next thing you know,
we're producing the Fat Beats three-year anniversary
already in December of 1999.
♪ I said to put your hands together ♪
♪ Come on
♪ The J5 is in the house
♪ Because we guarantee to keep it live ♪
♪ We're gonna keep the keep the party goin' ♪
♪ We came to [indistinct]
The crazy thing about that, what you guys got,
is I literally went to San Francisco,
bought the guzheng and drove back with Chali 2na.
He figured out the notes before we got to LA
and when we got to LA, uh, he was practicing it,
so I had already heard it
before he actually did it on stage.
So, I was playin' it in the car, learning it in the car.
I was just proud when he pulled it off on stage.
I was like, "Ah he did it, ooh, it sound tight,"
you know what I mean?
- [playing notes] - [crowd cheering]
[hip hop music]
[man] Yeah, come on y'all. Come on.
What, what.
That's the craziest thing about that footage is like,
that's me playing it for the first time.
That's me playing... that part for the first time
so, and to watch the crowd react like that was like,
man, that really is, truly the meaning of the word fresh.
And then, from there, it just put in his mind.
He was like, "Okay, what else, what other instruments
can we find?"
- [upbeat hip hop music] - [crowd cheering]
You know when I came out into the Fat Beats Anniversary
I was familiar with very little about LA hip hop.
I had heard the names Jurassic Five.
Heard the names Dilated Peoples.
Um, at that point, I had a song with Planet Asia.
You know, I knew Myka 9, but other than that
no, I wasn't familiar with the LA scene at all.
♪ Yo yo yo
[rapping indistinctly]
♪ You rippin' bonds
♪ Escape to a better verse and let it do work ♪
♪ Lay yourself down a Cuban and straight over the... ♪
There's my first time performing in LA ever.
J-Roc on the ones and twos for you.
- [man] How it got started, huh? - Yeah. [laughs]
♪ They get these emcees that sounds like chorus ♪
♪ Always takin' shots when their talent is gunk ♪
♪ Get the picture
[record scratching]
[Talib Kweli] And that was the first time in my life
that I ever performed in front of a crowd of people
that I didn't know who they were
but they knew the words to my record.
It was a defining moment in my career.
Talib killed it tonight.
[man] Word, yeah, he was kinda hot, man.
He was hot tonight.
I'm like, "What, really?"
Damn, maybe I should play his 12 inch."
No, I'm just kidding.
He was kinda hot tonight though, for real.
It shocked me.
I was like, I didn't think peoples was up on it like that.
That shit is incredible, it's history.
The, uh, it's mo-- momentous history.
A lot of DJs, dope emcees.
Yo one, two, this is Rakaa Iriscience,
Dilated Peoples platform.
That was just a great time in hip hop.
Anyone who was everyone in the DJ community,
the LA DJ community,
was definitely in the house that night.
I mean, Elements was a big part of that.
You know, it's a big part of, like, the LA community.
Everybody representin', this new renaissance
that's been takin' place.
It ain't about no coast, you know what I'm sayin'?
It's all a family thing.
You see, we did this all together,
you know what I'm sayin'?
This went down.
East Coast, West Coast artists, all that shit is,
you know what I'm sayin'?
It's all family, it's all about hip hop.
[DJ Bonds] That Fat Beats Anniversary show,
that really put us on the map.
So, after the show,
Joe, the owner of Fat Beats, was extremely happy.
Went up to Bonds and said, "We have to do more shows."
He was like, "Yo, after this, I got a deal for you.
You know, I want you to continue on doing events for me.
I'll take care of all the funding for it
and we'll just split the profits 50-50."
And we ran like 10 more concerts after that.
Not only were we doin' our weekly club,
but we started doing big shows
with Slum Village, High Row.
Album release parties for J5, Quasimodo,
and we kept rollin' after that.
I'll say this, y'all took hip hop,
wha--the West Coast movement, a step further.
And I say that because of the shows that you put on.
Sometimes you would look at the--the lineup
and be like, "They're rockin' together?"
you know what I'm sayin'?
But then when you're there,
you're like, "Oh shit," like you just lose your mind.
You just wild out.
If you were an underground hip hop artist,
your team was not on point if you didn't run through us.
You want the show, we got you.
You want the in-store, we got you.
You want radio spots, we got you.
We basically were running LA at the time.
You've had--y'all have had some heavy hitters, man.
Y'all don't even realize like,
you got legends that have performed for y'all
and y'all--y'all changed the game out here,
like, y'all really did.
What's up, this is Talib Kweli,
Black Star Reflection Eternal.
Train of thought comin' soon.
You at the Spitkicker tour live at the, you know,
everybody down at the Spitkicker tour,
you know, we just got on stage.
It was fun, you know what I'm sayin'?
Comin' to House of Blues tomorrow,
if you watchin' this tape tonight.
We're starting to, you know, really pick up steam here,
as far as shows and becoming the team to go to.
And then Bonds gets a call
from Golden Voice and Cara Lewis.
Now, at the time, Cara Lewis was ma--uh,
was the agent that was representing
a lot of hip hop acts at the time.
And she happened to be representing
the Spitkicker tour,
which was a tour consisted of Talib Kweli, Biz Markie,
Common, and De La Soul.
So, Paul Tollett had reached out to me from Golden Voice
about the idea of doin' this festival
and adding on to it,
which, at that time, had never been done before.
So, I was like, "Yeah, fuck it. Let's do it."
♪ Scene two
♪ My fam's throwing a jam
♪ Fareed is on the stand, big things is in the plans ♪
♪ The brother Big Mu makes space for me to move ♪
♪ "Ayo, this my man Mos, baby, let me introduce" ♪
♪ I turned around, say word, the same pretty bird ♪
♪ That I had priorly observed tryin' to play me for the herb ♪
♪ Shocked as hell she couldn't get it together ♪
♪ Yo, I just played along and pretended I never met her ♪
- ♪ How you feelin'? - [crowd] ♪ Oh I'm fine
- ♪ My name is Mos - [crowd] ♪ I'm Sharice
♪ I heard so much good about you ♪
♪ It's nice to finally meet
♪ We moved to the booth reserved for crew especially ♪
♪ The honey love ended up sittin' directly next to me ♪
♪ I'm type polite but now I'm lookin' at her skeptically ♪
♪ 'Cause baby girl got all the right weaponry ♪
♪ Designer fabric, shoes, and accessories ♪
♪ Chinky eyes, sweet voice, she fuckin' with me mentally ♪
So, we add Mos Def,
the Beat Junkies, Dilated Peoples.
[record scratching]
♪ It ain't over
♪ Well it ain't over
♪ It ain't over ♪
♪ Go bow bow ♪
♪ Go go
♪ I work the angles sharp and precise ♪
♪ Dilated Peoples so you better build twice ♪
♪ Act like you know, not now but right now ♪
♪ What up, Cali?
♪ Dilated Peoples, peace ♪
[crowd cheering]
[DJ Breeze] Jeru, Medusa,
Souls of Mischief, the X-Ecutioners.
[record scratching]
The next thing you know,
we're basically producing LA's first ever
all underground hip hop festival.
Never been done before.
But in America, that I know of, that was like
a first hip hop festival.
Mos Def, Jeru the Damaja,
all of tho--all of these people under one roof.
The show was held in Tustin, like on the south end of Tustin,
in this field in the middle of nowhere.
Yo, where the fuck are they havin' us go?
You know what I mean?
Like, hold up man.
Is this a set-up or what?
Is it really gonna be a show?
Golden Voice had this like,
I don't know, some kind of festival
the day before.
Like it was like country music
or, you know, KROQ kind of shit.
And they had the stage, had the sound,
they had everything, right.
So, all we had to do was just provide the acts,
basically, right.
So, the only catch was we had no lights on the stage.
If you actually look at the footage,
there's no lights on the stage.
So, we had to get on all these acts
before the sun went down.
And that was our biggest challenge.
I get this call from Aceyalone.
He's like, "Man, how you gonna have this fuckin' show
and not have me on it?"
So, I felt like shit.
I made room enough
for Aceyalone and Abstract Rude to perform.
And what that did is it pushed everything back.
♪ I'm the rude boy, I'm the real McCoy ♪
♪ I'm chocolate all over like an Almond Joy ♪
♪ I'm the rude boy, I'm the real McCoy ♪
♪ Chocolate all over like an Almond Joy ♪
♪ I'm the rude boy, I'm the real McCoy ♪
♪ Chocolate all over like an Almond Joy ♪
♪ And I'm the rude boy, I'm the real McCoy ♪
♪ You wanna make noise let go ♪
♪ Look, Bboys make some noise
♪ Bgirls make some noise ♪
♪ Yeah, it's workin'
- ♪ It's workin' - ♪ Work it out y'all
We started adding more artists to this show.
Uh, and this show became so massive.
I remember we had an issue with my slot, my time slot,
that somehow or some way the time slots got moved around
so I wasn't gonna be able to go on.
And Biz gave me his spot.
- ♪ Hey, yo - [hip hop music]
♪ Can't stop
♪ You wanna front row, jump up and get bucked ♪
♪ If you're feeling lucky duck then press your luck ♪
♪ I snatch fake gangster emcees and make 'em faggot flambe ♪
♪ Your nine spray, what, what? ♪
[crowd shouting]
And so luckily, Jeru and Biz Markie,
they were already friends, they knew each other
and they agreed to kind of swap
or for--actually for Jeru to perform
during Biz Markie's set.
[Jeu] 'Cause that's my man.
He gave me his spot.
So, Biz didn't get a chance to do his whole set.
He came in.
He did like one or two songs
but the crowd loved him.
♪ Oh baby, you, say what ♪
[crowd] ♪ Got what I need ♪
♪ I can't hear you
[crowd] ♪ You say he's just a friend
♪ Say what
[crowd] ♪ You say he just a friend
♪ Come on, come on
♪ Baby, you
[crowd] ♪ You got what I need
♪ Can't hear you, can't hear you ♪
[crowd] ♪ You say he's just a friend
[Biz Markie] ♪ And you say he just a friend ♪
[crowd cheering]
I'll never forget that moment, you know, we're on stage
It's the last act.
It's De La Soul 'cause they were the headliner of the tour
and they're on their last song
and the sun is starting to go down.
And I'll never forget that feeling, man.
I'm on stage with Bonds and Damon
and we're just watching now
'cause, I mean, the night's done.
There's not more we can do
and we all just kind of looked at each other like,
"Man, we pulled it off.
We actually pulled it off."
♪ Can you say De La, De La, De La? ♪
[crowd] ♪ De La, De La, De La ♪
♪ Say De La, De La, De La
[crowd] ♪ De La, De La, De La
♪ Everybody say De La, De La, De La ♪
♪ De La, De La, De La ♪
♪ Say hey money, money, hey
♪ Hey money, money, hey
The show became so large
uh, that there was a write-up in the, um, LA Weekly
uh, where they called it, "A hip hop fan's wet dream."
Uh, and literally so we were like, "Okay, this is it.
This is--it's gonna be successful, et cetera."
No.
We--we lost on that one.
We lost about 30,000.
Uh, we really didn't hit the mark, financially.
Um, everyone took a hit.
All the parties involved took a hit.
Uh, Elements, Fat Beats, and Golden Voice.
Sort of frustrating being that the show was so large.
And, um, the owner of Fat Beats was like,
"Yo, we can never have this shit ever happen again,
so here's what we're gonna do.
Either you're only gonna promote for me
and promote for Fat Beats
and not work with your cousin no more,
and not use the name Elements
or we're gonna have to go our separate ways."
I didn't really deal with that.
Uh, that was mostly a Al issue.
I know that he made a offer to Al about something.
I think people were frustrated at the time,
and kind of directed frustration maybe inappropriately.
It was kind of like, "Damn,
you know, I put all of this effort
and energy into building something with my cousin
and he's gonna ask me not to work with him."
You know what I mean?
I just thought that, you know, um...
that he deserves, um,
and still deserves support behind what he sees.
You know, my--my cousin's not underground hip hop.
He just believes in me, you know what I mean?
And so, him getting his car repossessed
because of what happened, like, shit was just fucked up.
[interviewer] Would you say your loyalty
and your--your commitment to Al hurt you financially?
[sighs] Uh..
I mean, you know, I wouldn't say--
I'd say that it wasn't the commitment.
[stammering]
[laughs]
Interesting question.
Um...
So, I told the owner, "No, you know, I can't do it."
And the very next day, C-Los fired me from Fat Beats.
Now imagine, your boy fires you
and like the very next day you gotta DJ with him at the club.
Shit was mad awkward but, um...
you know, we boys, that's my man.
That's my--that's my brother right there.
[record scratching]
BBQ happens.
By the time October rolls around,
we booked the Reflection Eternal Train of Thought
album release party.
[rapping indistinctly]
That's when I really started to question,
you know, is this something that I wanna do?
You know, I got into this originally for music,
it wa--to showcase my music.
It wasn't necessarily to become a fulltime promoter.
And I told Bonds, straight up, you know,
"This is gonna be my last show with you guys."
One day, I just got a call like, "I'm gonna be out.
I'm gonna step away for a while."
And, um, I was kinda like,
"Man, this is the time I actually need you, like,
Fat Beats is not involved.
It's just, you know, me and my cousin
trying to figure this shit out,"
and I--I needed him around, you know?
Now that I look back when it came down
to, you know, dealing with some of the hard times,
I probably should have stuck around
but I knew in my heart, you know, that I was done.
I was burned out.
It wasn't something I was really...
could put forth any more energy
and I wanted to focus back on music again.
So after a few years of promoting all the time
and just weekly just, you know, got me burnt out
from this shit.
When I got the call from Mystic,
it was like, "Hell yeah, I'ma DJ for Mystic,"
'cause it kind of brought me back to that love
of just doin' music which is the whole reason
why we got in this shit in the first place.
[record scratching]
♪ They don't know--they don't know the trouble that ♪
♪ Yo
Al leaving on tour was great for him
'cause I think he really needed to do it,
uh, but I think it was one of the hardest things
for the club to deal with.
Um, without you,
you know, you were the workhorse with promotion,
constantly going to radio stations
and getting us acts and, um, without that, just...
[scoffs] you know.
[DJ Bonds] And once you're on tour,
it's kind of hard to manage the club.
Like I was tryin' to do that on my cell phone,
like, you know, kind of tellin' Damon what to do
or getting advice from C-Los on how the club was doin'
but it was just fuckin' hard.
I--I started tryin' to rely on other people
to do the promoting,
you know, more so than me doing it myself.
[interviewer] Was that the beginning of the end?
I believe so.
I don't know why it came to an end.
I don't know how it came to an end.
I don't really even know if you can just point--pinpoint it
on one thing either.
[DJ Bonds] I think Elements ended
because the fact that money-wise,
we were just strugglin'.
The reason why it's hard to do hip hop clubs,
is 'cause most of the people that are cool
that are in the hip hop scene,
the--they don't pay to get into clubs.
So, for the promoter, it's hard
because you're dealing with all these headaches
and there's no money or there's no--
there's no compensation for it.
So, you're basically stressing for the movement
because it's such a good vibe to go there
and to keep this going but after a while,
it takes a toll on you if you're not making money.
You're having to leave your family to go promote it
or to go run it or to go maintain.
The people who would come through,
they weren't just there for the battles anymore,
just for the love of like the circle,
and they were only coming when I could pull
some kind of favor card of like a big act showin' up
at the weekly.
I'm not talkin' about these big concerts,
I'm just talkin' about the weekly.
People weren't showin' up anymore.
That's, you know, I just remember attendance
lower and lower every week,
to the point that it didn't make sense to keep doin' it.
That kind of really put a sour taste
in my mouth about LA.
Like at the end of all this,
I was like, "Fuck LA underground."
And that's what hurt the most,
is that, you know, this is-- this is my friend
and we built this beautiful empire, you know, together
and...and it basically, like,
ripped our friendship apart at the time
and I didn't actually speak to Bonds for a few years.
- [hip hop music] - [man] Where the Bboys at?
What the hell y'all doin'?
I see a circle.
Where you at?
Yes, yeah, Elements's back, Elements.
[man] One, two, three!
[music continues]
[man 2] Will you check out the technique from the...
[record scratching]
[DJ Breeze] LA's still holdin' it down, you know?
You s--you see it go from Rob One to...to Dusk to Expo.
You gotta have that one person
you gotta pass the torch to.
If you don't have a torch being passed to someone,
your legacy is over, it's over.
I passed the torch to Bonds
and to be honest with you,
it's a lot of cats, like the Beat Junkies, everybody,
they're lookin' for who to pass the torch to next.
Being 16 and being young and being impressionable
that's exactly who we were listening to, KDAY.
And what we did is we turned around and repurposed
and repackaged and regifted that same energy
that we felt so raw within our hearts,
our desire to do it and we did it on Power 106.
You know when I do my party now,
it--it's something that I always strive for, like,
even if it's not the most full, packed night
where everybody made money, it can be a vibe.
Like it can be half-full but if that vibe is there,
and hopefully I'm in the black at least a little bit,
then I'm good.
I ju--as long as I'm keeping true to that vibe
that I've experienced throughout my club-going career
and life but that I first experienced at Elements.
It was y'all that was puttin'
all this together, man, at Elements.
Y'all was doin' all the crazy hip hop shows,
starting riots on Wilshire.
[laughs]
- ♪ I go - ♪ What?
- ♪ I go - ♪ Come on
This shit really changed a lot of people's life.
I know this LA hip hop scene, it--it saved my life
and I don't mean to, you know, sound cliché or whatever
but it--it really did, you know what I mean?
If it wasn't for all of these spots, I...
ain't no telling where I'd be.
Dead or in jail, you know what I mean?
So, the LA hip hop, you know,
I salute all the--all the places that held hip hop,
you know, that people they risked their day-to-day,
they risked their money,
they risked their time,
just to make sure that this shit continued to go on,
you know, that-- and that was important.
'Cause look at all the juggernauts
that came from all of this stuff.
So, you know, we just had some fun,
tryin' to give LA somethin'.
You know what I'm sayin'?
It's DJ Bonds from Elements Entertainment.
These moments, you know, throwin' all these shows
and goin' through all these trials and tribulations
and all the shit that I went through,
it built my character as a man, you know what I mean?
Like, not fuckin' over my cousin.
His last name is Bonds, my last name is Bonds.
It's about loyalty. It's not about the money,
like fuck the money, know what I mean?
Like knowing that I need to provide for my son
and whatever I had to do,
whatever hurt I had to go through
to make sure I put money, you know what I'm sayin'?
And food and stuff like that and provide it for him, um...
like, I learned all that through throwin' these shows.
My lessons through the LA underground,
is what built me as a man.
[interviewer] Okay, you got the magic wand.
You're gonna do a redo.
Mm-hm.
[interviewer] What would you redo?
[hip hop music]
I--first thing I would redo is I would renegotiate us
a better deal with [indistinct]
um, oops, I shouldn't have said his name.
[man] It's all good.
Okay. [imitates rewinding tape]
If I got a redo...
There's some regrets there.
Like what if I had did this,
what if I did that, you know.
What if I put more money into Live at the BBQ,
maybe we wouldn't have lost money,
or you know what if I stopped it from a weekly
to a once a month or...
There's always different things that are in my head but...
It wasn't perfect, no, by far it was not.
Would I do it again?
Hell yeah!
Would I change anything?
Hell no!
You know, we're still sitting here 20 years later
making a movie about it.
So, no, I wouldn't--I wouldn't change a damn thing about it.
Shoot man, if it wasn't for Live at the BBQ,
I wouldn't have met my wife.
She was actually a guest to one of the artists
and it all started from there.
[John Cody] So, you know, just being a young man,
it was crazy but we never complained.
We loved every minute of it.
Um...
Every minute of it, man,
I wouldn't--I wouldn't change it for the world.
At the end of the day,
what we did was dope.
What we did was...
something that you could never take away from me
and that's beautiful.
[funky music]
♪ City of the angels ♪
♪ Spread your wings for me
♪ I've been other places, ah
♪ Looking for my dreams
♪ Eastern city move too fast
♪ Southern ones too slow
♪ I can't go back to my past
♪ And I need some place to grow ♪
[hip hop music]
♪ And now
♪ Ladies and gentlemen
Phife was like the ultimate trooper.
And so, I'm gonna continue to say that.
He was like the--the dude that you would want
to look to the right and you see him,
you know what I'm sayin'?
Like, Phife was the dude that was like,
you know he gonna stick his chest out and get busy.
I feel like he was like, an angel all along.
I really feel like he was brought here,
he did his job and God called him home.
He was really like a mentor to us, man,
Like we wouldn't be Self Scientific.
I wouldn't be doin' what I'm doin'
if it wasn't for Bigga.
Again, Bigga B, as a promoter, you'd hear his name
and it was like larger than life.
I mean his name is Bigga B, you know what I mean?
So like, you'd hear the name already you'd be like,
"Who is Bigga B?" and his name
would ring synonymous with--with Unity, you know.
[music continues]
And I remember seeing this scrawny little kid
and Rob One's like, "Yo, this is my prodigy"
and I'm like, "Okay, who is this prodigy guy?"
And I remem--and he's like, "He's DJ Dusk."
He was a vital piece to everything that I do now, man,
like it's because of him.
Like, he gave me the confidence, you know,
to--to be the emcee that I am today.
And I wouldn't be where I'm at today
had it not been for some of the advice
that he gave me.
Bigga, rest in peace.
Biggie, rest in peace.
Palm, rest in peace.
Jam Master Jay, Pac, like...
Mac Tray, Bigga B, like all y'all, man.
Like, y'all are missed, for real.