Interview w/ Arrested Development's Speech
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EnglishVoice Age
Middle Aged (35-54)Transcript
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B J big turn that radio up. Nostalgia pro DJ S is mixing the best and new and O G hip hop on BC G. And now ladies and gentlemen, the one and only coming up to y'all live and direct with Bridge of the Gap. We gonna do your old school and I it's me and my man, it's so we gonna do with it. That suck. A punk with real hip hop is black. Ladies and gentlemen, friends of Bridge and the guy ready. Yo, once again, we have hip hop royalty in the building where I was speaking with my people's Mr Todd Thomas. They get a speech from arrested development. It's a pleasure to have you on the show, sir. How's life been for you lately? Man? I thought I was in trouble when I heard the name to Thomas. Oh, I must have done something wrong. No, no, bro. You, you're right, you're right. How good the power of the internet do you know how that is? Yeah, it's all good. Uh How's everything with you? Everything is good. I mean, you know, ups and downs with COVID. My family is healthy but there has been close friends of mine who have died. And so we're mourning their death. We're watching out for those that we love deeply for their health and then we're pushing forward, you know. So it's, it's been good though. I mean, we're excited about this new album. Everybody's talking about how much they love this record and that, that makes me feel really good and it wouldn't have happened without COVID-19. So there's, there's definitely positive, negative Yin Yin and Yang with this whole thing. Yeah, I agree, man. This is definitely a crazy year and just a crazy time in the world, man. Prayers for everybody that's been affected by this uh terrible pandemic and hopefully we'll find a solution to it soon. You know what I mean? Exactly. Round two, right? So uh you were originally a DJ in Milwaukee when you first began? Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah, definitely DJ Peach back in the day. OK. So what who inspires you to be a DJ grandmaster? Well, it's not true. A brother named Kitty B from Milwaukee who worked at my dad's nightclub and I used to see him spin every night and blew my mind just the way he could affect people's moves. And then I started, he taught me how to spin and that was an old school way of spinning where one song fades out and the next song fades in and then I learned that from him. And then I heard Graham Master Flash, I saw Gram mix the DS T on the Grammys with Herbie Hancock doing rockets. And I was like, yo, I gotta do that kind of djing and it was basically hip hop DJ. And, and that's what I did. I learned how to do it from getting tapes from New York. You know, listening to like mix tapes from New York, watching graffiti rock and watching, you know, listening to Grandmaster Flash Furious Five Adventures on the Wheels of Steel, like certain records that just, like, try, you know, I was trying to learn how they do that, you know, and I try to try to work it out on my own. Right. Right. Well, your story sounds a lot like mine in the beginning. Same influence. Right. Right. Right. So, uh, what made you be a, uh, what made you transition from being a DJ to a rapper? You know, I think I had so much to say, you know, I was doing articles, my mother owns a newspaper and I was doing articles for a newspaper when I was in high school and there was a lot of issues that were, you know, popping up and, and then we actually started doing them when I was a freshman in college and there was a lot of issues popping up and I was like, you know what, I, I have a lot more to say, you know, I dibbled, I dabbled with rap prior to this, but what I really, really for real was like, I wanna be a rapper. It was, I, I put a s in front of Peach cause I was DJ Peach. I put an s in front of that dropped the DJ part and just went with that speech and just started going for it, you know, and I think I was influenced a lot by public enemy, you know, just hearing Chuck D say the types of things he was saying that blew my mind, you know, day live jungle Brothers, you know. But yeah, so um take us back to the beginning during the uh three years and five months that you guys are trying to get a record deal. Give us uh a brief story on how arrested development came together and got a record deal. Yeah, we was, we were shopping around, we had produced a single ourselves really? It was four songs with the E P I guess and, and on my own label uh can records. We call, I called it and me and Helena were shopping that around. We, we pressed about 200 give him uh you know, basically any who's who that we could. He had a girlfriend who was part of a group that wasn't out yet called T L C and she was the C F T L C. Her name was Crystal. It wasn't chili at that time. And so he handed it to Crystal. We also handed it to a manager friend, great friend of ours named Ian Burke, both of which passed it on to Michael Malden, which is Jermaine Dupree, dad and Jermaine Dupree's dad said he wanted to manage us. He started managing us and we started shopping to actual labels. I was reaching out to from day lock. So trying to get a deal not through him but through Tommy Boy. And he was telling me even back then, you know, look, you know, I don't know if you want to do this with Tommy Boy, but you know, let me give you, let me see what I can do, you know. So it was like there's a lot of just trying our hardest to get that deal and trying to get some recognition and back then internet wasn't out. So you had to really get a record deal pretty much in order to really get any real recognition and, and worldwide attention. So, yeah, we finally got a record deal with Chris List and that was, you know, Michael Min cut a deal with Chris List and they were the only label that really wanted to sign us and I'm very grateful they did and they are too. So how, how was that uh relationship with Christmas? Were they good, good to you guys initially, they were, you know, hip hop at that time was still being forged. You know, it really wasn't as solid as it is today in, in the marketplace. So, I had to do a lot of those marketing meetings. I would sit at these, these um high rise, you know, conference room tables and talk about how this record can relate to black folks. How could it relate to white folks? How could it relate to older people, younger people, how, why would MTV play this? I mean, like going through all all of these types of scenarios to assure them that this record was gonna do something because they didn't know they didn't know nothing about hip hop and they didn't have too many people on their staff that knew a lot about hip hop. They were used to dealing with R and B, which was the music that were prior to hip hop really blowing up R and B, you know, rock and pop and all of that type of stuff. So it was interesting, you know, like those early days tried to number one convince the label that we were worthy and, and then of course, to make sure that hip hop was ready cause Atlanta wasn't popping at that time. So Atlanta now is the other hip hop. But back in those days, Atlanta hadn't released anything worldwide. That was huge. And so, um you know, east coast and west coast was the primary places, you know, you had ghetto boys and in uh Texas. But uh you know, the, the, the south as we, we think of it or a lot of us think of it and then I hadn't released anything. So, um that was worldwide, you know, huge. So it was, it was a lot of laying the ground work for hip hop, really insane difference with conscious hip hop laying a lot of ground work. Right. Right. Right. OK. Um, so who are all the members of the rest of development? Um Over the years there's been too many to name, but we started off with 20 members when we got a record deal. I had to um break it down to six members and those six members was me Baba O J and headlines. Um So now in the rest of development, I'm the only original group member and I have JJ Boogie one love and um Tasha who actually is just taking a little break during COVID. So, um and, and Faried Ali, so over the years has changed, but even the ones that's been with me now, they've been in the group for 15 years or more like one love, 20 years. Um It fata 15 years, you know. So it's been, it's been a lot of years. We've been rocking together even with the new members. Quote new. Ok. All right. So, uh I looked up your catalog, man, I saw like 16 albums. Is that right? Something like that? I mean, we've probably dropped at least 12 to 16 records. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm not exactly sure myself right now, but we do, we do a lot of, we do a lot of recordings, like, you know, we've had very interesting career. Like the first two records did extremely well. Well, the first record extremely well throughout the United States and the world second record did really well in Japan, for instance, but not in, not too well in the United States, it still went gold but it didn't do too well in the United States. And so, you know, then we broke up for a while and got back together five years later and started releasing stuff in Japan because I had had this huge solo career in Japan during that five year break. So we had a very interesting run as a group. So a lot of records really did well in different places, you know, especially Asia. Um But, you know, Israel, ironically, we had a hit record in Israel. We had a hit record in certain parts of Asia. We had a hit record in Japan and Asia, you know. So it's been really interesting. This record is doing well. Don't talk your demons is our new joint that's doing well right here in the States. This is exciting for me. OK. OK. Yeah. For that album, man. That's that project is amazing, bro. Thank you. I mean, that means everything. It really does. OK. OK. So, uh actually, uh three years and five months that did like, what, four times platinum. Yeah, four times in the States. And um we're not exactly sure overseas. We're thinking maybe another two million overseas, but definitely four million right here. All right. Um So to the new hip hop fan that uh doesn't know who arrested development was, but you had to choose like three of your albums up to this point and introduce yourself to this hip hop fan. Which one of your three albums would you choose for this fan to hear? I would choose craft and optics. Don't fight your demons in three years, five months, two days in the life of them. I think those three, it's like if you're starting off, I think that's, that's enough to get you hooked, you know, and then if you get hooked, we got a lot of joints after that. OK. OK. Now, I know you're a hip hop group but with all that music, have you ever like, experimented with any other genres of music, jazz, R and B or anything? Definitely, definitely. Like I, cause I love music all the way around. Like I love different genres. So we've gabbled hard into jazz, um A lot of reggae stuff. Um Of course funk and you know, R and B. All right. All right. So um let's talk about your song of people every day. Was that based on a true story, man? Yeah. So that song was based on when I was living in Milwaukee and this was in the early nineties, late eighties and consciousness hadn't really caught on in the States as much as it should have been. So, um I used to wear like, you know, the, the and I still do, but I used to do that back then too. And yeah, very, very true story that's been embellished, you know. So, so the true story part about it is dudes messing with me that the the embellish part is all of the fights and the police coming and all of that type of stuff. So it's is really to me, I look at it as a story about the difference between mindsets like, well, especially as black people. We're all on this journey. Some of us are conscious, we get what's going on and what has been going on against us for countries. And so we're living life according to that reality and then others of us are in different stages of trying to get there. So it's, it's really like a song based on two sort of fractions of the black community, you know, having an issue with each other. OK. OK. So you have this brand new album called Don't Fight Your Demons. Um Explain uh what was the impetus behind that title? Yeah, it was the title was more like based on addiction. You know, people get addicted to drugs, alcohol, whatever. And the truth is a lot of them fight their demons and they fight their demons and the demons keep returning back, they keep coming back back back. And so this, this album really is talking about the concept of invite those demons in and instead of fighting them, have a talk with them and find out why, I mean, what are they doing to serve you? Because there's, there's some reason you keep inviting them back into your life. And when you find out what their service is to you, you can realize how you can get a real positive version of that service instead of the demons. But you got to figure out what are you missing? A lot of people are struggling with trauma from their childhood trauma, even maybe from adulthood. And so they invite these demons into their life to try to cope. And so that's what the record is really digging into a pretty heavy, you know, reality. But I think so many, how many millions and millions and millions of people are dealing with it, right? I mean, it's a reality for us all. You know what I'm saying? My stuff included, you know what I mean? It's just, it, it's the young ***** yang in everybody, you know what I'm saying? We all got something to deal with, you know what I'm saying? So that, yeah, that, that, that's a pretty, uh that's a pretty accurate title there. Um As far as your opinion of today's hip hop, man, what do you, what do you think uh of a new school? Are you feeling what these young cats are doing that? A lot of what they're doing. I think that the overall scene needs to do three things. One is embrace the, the prior hip hop. And I'm not saying that selfishly. I just think it's wise we did it when we were younger. We embraced the hip hop that came before us. I embraced New York. I never stepped foot in New York at that point, but I embraced it because they created it. You know, I embraced the, the, the, the founders of hip hop, whether it be cool or you know I'm saying, Grab Ma Flash or Africa Band, I mean, whoever it was. So it's like, I feel like they need to do that. Second of all, we need to broaden the scope of what hip hop talks about. So right now it's all, generally, it talks about strip THS materialism, materialistic things, they do some, some gun player fighting somebody girl, you know, maybe drugs. We, we need to, we need to broaden that because that's not the entire black community. So you got some that may be on that tip. If that's what they're on, then maybe they need to talk about that. That's just what they're on, but that ain't everybody. And so our voices as a community as a people ain't being heard through hip hop. And that's, that's sad because to me, hip hop music is a conduit for us to get our views and our opinions and our passions out to the world. So we got to be able to broaden the topic and the subject matter of hip hop again. And, um, last, last I think, you know, DJ S need to play a bigger role in, in breaking new and diverse types of great music in hip hop. So I think DJ S like you're doing on your show bridging the gap. It's important because, you know, in my day when I was, I knew my responsibility, it was not just to play what people want to hear and it wasn't to play with the stuff that sounds as similar as the last stuff that, that, that, that jumped out. My, my responsibility was a new stuff to the table, you know, and not just new music by, by nature of when it was released, but new sounds new ideas, diversity create the culture form, the culture instead of just let the culture form up. And so, you know what I mean? Because you got all these, you got a lot of corporations that are really defining who's gonna hit the mainstream, like which ones are they gonna support? Which ones are they gonna have? Talk to the president elect? Which ones are they gonna have on their major commercials? Which ones are they gonna have? You know, that they're gonna talk about laughingly on their little entertainment shows late at night and all of this stuff. But we are the DJ S the ones that really love this music. We can create who's really jumped off and who's really popular, we could create that instead of allowing mainstream and, you know, big, big business to, to determine who we are gonna admire. Right. Right. Right. And, and that's been a poison for hip hop for me personally, I think as far as uh corporations running who's hot, you know what I'm saying? These labels are literally just making rappers jump off the damn bridge as far as their success level. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it literally, I mean, we just lost two rappers this week. Like if I'm not mistaken, two young dudes, I didn't know their music, but one was shot and killed to death and then um another one, oh man, I'm forgetting that there's so many now like rappers that are literally just dying at age 2021 23. You know what I'm saying? Like this has been happening for decades in hip hop. Like we gotta check this. Like my first record on the record development record is called back down. Now. Talk about this. Like that's one of the first lyrics I spent on that. It's like it's become mundane when we are just slave right in the streets, like in public, it doesn't even mean anything. You know what I'm saying? I mean, it does mean something but I think, you know what I'm trying to say, like, it's gotten to a point where it don't mean a lot to the, to anybody, you know, it's like, oh, yeah. Right. Right. It's like you get to the whole thing. Right. That, that's the word I was looking for desensitized when you hear about it so much. It's just, it's way too common place. Right. Right. Right. Well, listen up new school, you know, the man is teaching you. Right, man. I mean, you know, it's all well and good that these new school rappers is getting all this money and, and they, they, it right. You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. Right. But you know, on the other end of that, you know what I'm saying? Stay out of trouble, basically. You know what I'm saying? Stay alive, please. You know the fact that you're trying to be a tough guy, you know, it ain't worth your career and your life basically. So, anyways, man, uh last question for you, um We lost a lot of hip hop soldiers over the years, unfortunately. So who's passing hit you the hardest personally? And it's been a few, you know what I mean? Um But yeah, I'll be honest lately, like just in the last couple of months there's a rhymer out of London. Actually, it was one of the premier rhymers out of London named he, he, he died over COVID-19 and um 39 years old, I'm not mistaken, maybe 38 he was a good friend of mine, a really great dude. And that one hit me the hardest as of recent. But, you know, Jam Master Jay hit me extremely hard. Of course, biggy and Pac hit me extremely hard and then there's so many more and it's like, I'm right now I'm having a brain fart as to how many have hit me hard. You know what I'm saying? Let's see. Uh, it's like, it's just ridiculous. So, man. Yeah, five hit me kind of hard. I mean, I, I don't know, for some reason I took it. Right. Right. Rest, rest in peace to all our hip hop soldiers that we lost, man. Definitely, no doubt, no doubt, man. All right. Uh So give everybody uh uh a way to give, keep in touch with you. You got some websites or uh social networks that we can keep in touch with rest development on. Yeah. Hit us up. Uh, speech underscore underscore I G and all of the various social media brothers speech dot com is my website. Don't Fight Your Demons is available on the website. It's available everywhere, streaming services, Apple, you know, so on and so forth. Band camp. And um, yeah, people like we, we dropped a new single too, like a standalone single called a um, we just dropped that too that I heard that. That's fine. Thank you, man. I appreciate that. You know what I'm saying? Like, and that we dropped that we went ahead and wrote, rushed it because of the election and it it talks a little bit about voting and stuff like this. So I wanted to drop that and make sure it was relevant to the election. But, um, yeah. Ok. Yeah. 11 question, I forgot to ask you your personal favorite as far as uh this new project. What's your favorite song on there? Your favorite too? No, it changes all the time. So, like right now it's back down the first record on the uh on the album, but there's been times when it's been other joints like Moses or you know, the Forsaken, which is the last record on the record. So it continues to change over time and I listen to it so much, you know what I mean? That over time, I sort of feel other, other parts about it resonate with me and other times. So, but those are the songs that keep coming around. Awesome. All right, man. Well, uh thank you, speech for uh coming on the show, bridging the Gap and uh speaking with us and you're definitely welcome back on the show. Any time you got some new material coming out, you know what I mean? I really appreciate that, man. Definitely, I will, I'll be back. All right. All right. Peace up, bro. OK. Peace. All right. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to thank speech from arrested development for that dope interview and don't forget to check out. Don't fight your demons. Their brand new album. All right. Now, uh, this has been a production of Platinum Trunk recordings. LLC. All Rice Reserve 2020. And don't forget people you can check out bridging the gap on a post radio dot com. That's at five PM, Saturday and Sunday. All right. Where we play the best in new hip hop and the best in old school classics. OK. Now, pray and stay out the way people think twice before you take your life. Catch you on the air and catch you on the next episode of my podcast, Vision, The Gap, peace y'all.