Mixed and Mastered
Mixed and Mastered is the podcast where the untold stories of the music industry come to life. Hosted by Jeffrey Sledge, a veteran music executive and former VP of A&R at Atlantic Records and Jive Records, each episode dives deep into the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of the people shaping the sound of today. From label executives and producers to artists, songwriters, and managers, Jeffrey brings you behind the scenes to meet the minds driving the industry forward. There’s a gap in the marketplace for these voices, and Mixed and Mastered is here to fill it—one conversation at a time. Because the best stories are told by those who lived them.
Mixed and Mastered
Dante Ross: Part 1
This week on Mixed and Mastered, Jeffrey Sledge sits down with legendary music executive, producer, and A&R Dante Ross for Part 1 of a deep dive into his extraordinary journey.
From growing up on New York’s gritty Lower East Side to immersing himself in punk rock, graffiti, and skateboarding, Dante shares how music became his first true escape. He talks about the artists who shaped his taste – from Chuck Berry to The Beatles to The Jackson 5 – and how the cultural collision of punk, new wave, and hip hop in downtown NYC pulled him into the scene.
Hear firsthand stories about sneaking into iconic clubs, witnessing The Specials and The Clash live, discovering the Bad Brains, and becoming part of the tight-knit crew that included the Beastie Boys. Dante also reveals how his eclectic upbringing and fearless hustle led him to work with Eric B. & Rakim, De La Soul, Queen Latifah, and ultimately become one of hip hop’s greatest A&Rs.
Stay tuned for part 2 of this incredible conversation with Dante Ross coming next week.
Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studio, and hosted by music industry veteran, Jeffrey Sledge. Tune in to the discussion on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you catch your podcasts. Follow us on Instagram @MixedandMasteredPod to join the conversation and support the show at https://mixedandmasteredpod.buzzsprout.com/
This week on Mixed and Mastered. I'm talking with Dante Ross, a true legend in the music industry. Born in San Francisco and raised on New York's Lower East Side, dante came up in the punk and hip-hop scenes before starting his career at Def Jam Records with Leo Cohen and Rick Rubin. At Tommy Boy Records, he worked with De La Soul and signed Queen Latifah. At Elektra Records, he built a roster that included Busta Rhymes, pete Rock and CL Smooth and Old Dirty Bastard. He's won Grammys for producing Everlast, whitey Ford Singin' the Blues and Santana's Supernatural. Dante continues to shape culture through his memoir, son of the City and film work. This is Mixture Mastered with Dante Ross.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Mixted Mastered, the podcast where the stories of the music industry come to life. I'm Jeffrey Sledge, bringing you real conversations with the people who have shaped the sound of music. We're pulling back the curtain on what it takes to make it in the music business. These are the stories you won't hear anywhere else, told by the people who live them. This is Mixed and Mastered. Mixed and Mastered podcast with a big get. This is a big get right here. Son of the city, dante Ross. What's going on, jeff? How you doing, man? I'm good man, good to see you, always amazing to see you, man. We got a lot of history yeah, we do, and a lot of love, man. Let's start at the beginning, all right, I teased you the other day via text. I said Timothy Chalamet is just a new version of you.
Speaker 2:He might be a little better looking, just a little bit.
Speaker 1:Nah, you was a good looking kid man. You was a good looking kid, you know. Yeah, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:You, know I used to look Italian, then I looked Jewish when I got older.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the hell happened, but yeah, so you grew up in New York City. Yes, I did. I mean born in. And I remember when we go to Gavin excuse me, the Gavin convention years ago in San Francisco, I remember you always would tell me I gotta go see my pops, I would go see my pops, so you go see your dad out that way. But you were born, you were raised in the city. Yeah, I moved to New.
Speaker 2:York when I was. I moved to New York when I was about three years old and I moved to Lower East Side, 8th Street, between B and C, and it was super, super rough. My mom was. She left my dad and she went back to school. So she was trying to get her. She was getting her degree in early childhood and we were. I mean, when we moved to New York we were so poor, like it was ridiculous, ridiculous. My mom worked part-time while she went to school. We were on public assistance. I remember clearly when I was about four, our house got broken into. What meager things we had got taken. Then we moved. We moved to 2nd Street, to an A&B, I think, when I was five. That's where I lived until I was about 14.
Speaker 1:You were a Lower East Side kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I moved to Brooklyn when I right before I turned 15, because my neighbor was just so fucking bad, you know. But I moved all over the Lower East Side. I lived, actually I moved. I forgot that I moved when I was 11 or 12. I moved to Avenue B between 13th and 14th. Then we moved to Brooklyn. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell people like it's such a you know I hate to sound like the old fogey, but it's such a trip in New York City now because areas like the Lower East Side or Soho or the Bowery they're like these really fly areas. And I tell people the Meatpacking District. You have no idea what, what that was before.
Speaker 2:That was just chaos you know, I bought an apartment in the meatpacking district in 1998 and or 97 and I lived there for five years. It was in the same building as lotus. Oh wow, five years, maybe a 96, maybe a 2000. I think I moved right before 2004 years. I bought it and they opened a nightclub and it was so fucking loud. It was a live-work loft so I didn't have any zoning rights so I sold it. But I actually made money because I sold it when the neighborhood changed and I moved back to the lower side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell people like back then you'd go to the meatpacking district and you could smell the meat. There was still meat on the street.
Speaker 2:It was greasy cobblestone and you know transvestite hookers and Dizzy Izzy bagels. That was it.
Speaker 1:I tell people because there would be blood literally in the street from the meat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, my studio was on Washington and Bethune so I would walk every day down 14th Street to Washington Street so it was like a five or six block walk. I used to go eat at Florent and the neighborhood was nuts it was. You know, it was like no man's land. People couldn't believe I lived there. People were like you really live here. I had a huge loft.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I could imagine. I could imagine. Tell me about your bug, the bug for music, and how that started.
Speaker 2:I always loved music since I was really young. I think it started with the Beatles, chuck Berry, elvis Presley I like, for some reason, a lot. I don't know why this is, but a lot of kids seem to like old 50s music, 60s music. I remember I liked Elvis Presley and my mom put me up on Chuck Berry. She was like this is the real king of rock and roll. It was Chuck Berry, yeah, because you know my mom was on. She was like on some like civil rights, like political activists. She wasn't fucking with Elvis too tough. So you know, I like Chuck Berry and I like the Beatles and I like soul music because my mom loves soul music and when I was growing up in the early 70s it was like the sweet soul moment, like you know, stylistics, the moments, the delphonics, all that stuff, yeah, all of that, that stuff was popping and my mom liked all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Um, as well as marvin gaye, bill withers, stevie wonder, you know also van morrison, bob dylan, she had like singer, songwriter and soul music kind of stuff she liked. So I listened to what she listened to, what my sister listened to. My sister was into. She liked a lot of salsa. She was a salsa dancer. So Fania records were around, like you know the Hector Laveau that's a little later but more like Willie Colon and you know Eddie Palmieri. So I grew up my sister playing those. So I inherited my taste from my sister and my mother and from what they were playing outside, because I was one of those kids who was always outside and they were playing. You know everything was getting played outside, like Stevie or like the Big Payback by James Brown Just Become Jimmy Castor. You know A lot of gambling hub stuff. Yeah, exactly, certainly Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes Bad Luck If you Don't Love Me by Now all the Philly stuff.
Speaker 2:So we grew up in a great era. It's like the music was top notch and I really liked them. I mostly liked black music, with some exceptions like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, a couple of things here and there. And I, when I went to junior high school I got turned on to rock music by some white kids I became friends with and they put me up on Led Zeppelin, who I thought was one person before I heard him. I was like that guy, led Zeppelin, they're like that's a group buddy. I didn't know. You know I was listening to Shaft or whatever. I wasn't you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then also the corny shit, like you know, the pop records, like Captain Enteniel, and you know, because we grew up on WABC radio, right, and they played everything.
Speaker 1:People don't know about that. You black radio station for quite a while in new york city we it was wabc with harry harrison, like that's what it was we listened to, and so we got all that that soft rock and that yacht rock that we would fed on that yeah yeah, that, and and they also played it side by side with stevie wonder and the brothers johnson whatever else was a hit record.
Speaker 2:So you heard like fly like an eagle and then you heard like Superstition or whatever it was. You know, whatever was the top 40 record. And, ironically, later in life I dated Cousin Brucie, who was on WABC's Daughter. Really, yeah, for a brief moment, but he was really. I think I liked him more than her. He was super cool, he was a great dude. That's a great story. You know. It's funny that Red Alert told me that he said I was talking one time. I was like, did you listen to WABC? He said WABC is the cheat code for hip hop. People don't realize that. He said because we got exposed to all these records. We heard Walk this Way on WABC and Fly Like an Eagle and all these records that ended up being funky and that we played in the park jams, like all the rock records. I was like, oh, that's crazy, he's like.
Speaker 2:That's why we played honky tonk woman, because the drums and I was like I got it, you know so. So I think it was a key component in all of our childhoods.
Speaker 1:It absolutely was it was open format before open format existed yeah, it was just like what you said whatever was a hit, it got played. You say it would be jack 5, and then it would be like you said it would be a sailing. What's his name? Crystal Cross.
Speaker 2:Crystal Cross yeah.
Speaker 1:Doobie Brothers, whatever it was. Whatever, it was funky, you know. And back to Elvis. You know what?
Speaker 2:I'd be remiss if I didn't say who my favorite group as a child was. It was the Jackson 5. You mentioned them. So I was a Michael Jackson fanatic. I loved the Jackson five. I watched the cartoon. Me and my friends, would you know, play the records and try and do the steps and the whole shit. And I was, you know, I was like they were always made me Tito or Randy. I never. I was never Mike, which which hurt my feelings. But but I didn't have the move. I didn't have the moves like that man. I had michael. I had a jackson five notebook. You know, grade school I had his post on the wall. Like michael, jackson was everything to us he was everything as kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, we literally grew up with him, you know, yeah, yeah yeah, he was like our age he was the greatest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how did how did you tap? Before we go into to the hip-hop side, kind of how did you tap into the punk rock side?
Speaker 2:well, because of where I grew up. Um, when I was about 13, 14, I was in junior high school and it was twofold. I was into skateboarding, I was a skateboarder, I was always an athlete. I was, you know, played ball. I always played all sports, but I discovered skateboarding and I got good at it and I really love skateboarding.
Speaker 2:And at some point maybe in 1979 or so, 78, 79, skateboarding started to go new wave. So I was looking at my heroes in Skateboard Magazine and these guys were listening to Devo and the Specials and all this cool music, the B-52s, and I went to junior high school with these kids. These girls wound up being in the band Luscious Jackson. I remember Luscious Jackson, I remember them and they were like punk rock when they were like 12, 13. Like, I can't make it up. And they were my friends.
Speaker 2:I knew one of the girls since grade school. I knew them. I thought they were cool and they were cool. They were really nice girls, they were like really nice people and one of them convinced me to go to see the Stimulators, I think in 1980 at Max's, kansas city. How we got in I can't even tell you, but I went and it was amazing and I also saw in 1979, I saw um, I saw Devo and the specials on Saturday night live. And I went to school when I saw Devo in I want to say seventh grade, and I was like it was like you know, my Saturday night live was where we got all our information when we were kids. That's what told us what was cool. You know what I mean. And I was like you know, and staying up to see Saturday Night Live when you were a kid was like for me, a treat. I was like the one night my mom, let me stay up late, yeah, you know, I could
Speaker 2:watch Saturday Night Live. We'd watch it. It was like a thing we did. And, um, I went to school and I was like everyone's like we're talking about saturday night live, of course on monday, and people like did you see that band? And I was like, yeah, that group, devo, they were fucking cool. And half my friends, most of my friends like what do you want drugs? That was terrible. And I was like no, it's great because it was different. So I don't know man, those things, all kind of those worlds all collided, skateboarding and seeing saturday night live, and my neighborhood being terrible, and I wanted to get out of my neighborhood. So I started skateboarding, like over to the west side all the time.
Speaker 2:Okay, I met a bunch of kids who were, who were kind of more in the punk rock and and new wave stuff my neighborhood, coincidentally, that's where all the like punk rock shit was happening. So I would skate over to st mark's, me and my friends and and I lived on Avenue B but we'd skate over to St Mark's and we'd hang out on St Mark's because it was cool and we'd see Joe Ramone walking by or whatever. It was Wow, and I just got swept up in it and I loved it. It was different and it was like for me, music has always been escapism, yes, escapism. It's like the two cheapest forms of escapism are turning on the radio and finding some music you love and laughing. So me and my friends, we snap on each other all day. We listen to music. It's free. We got no money. We play sports, we skateboard around. That costs no money. So this is what we did. We didn't have any money. So music was a big form of escapism in the house and outside of the house. So for me it was almost like my first drug and it was a way to get away from some of the realities that were right in front of me.
Speaker 2:I had a pretty dysfunctional household and upbringing and music was like a way to escape. So I'd turn on the radio and I'd hear Casey and the Sunshine Band, or, fast forward, I'd hear the Clash. Wnew was the new way of station. When we were kids I'd listen to that. Or LIR, if I could tune it in, and I just. You know, I was one of those kids too. You probably did this too. I had the old school tape recorder in front of the radio and I'd tape it when my song came on, and that would be my tape.
Speaker 1:Come on man, jesus Christ, absolutely did that Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean my mom's wasn't giving me money to go buy records.
Speaker 1:I didn't have money like that. You know what I'm saying. You just, you just ah trying to catch it.
Speaker 2:You know that's it. You try to catch it. You hope they announce it beforehand so you can bang. You know I would tape America Top 40 every Sunday. Casey Kasem.
Speaker 1:So I get my 40, the 40 songs.
Speaker 2:I get the tape and I have to flip it over. I'd miss a couple of songs. I get a bunch of those, but I get some ones I like. So that's what I did. I was really pretty music obsessive as a kid. And I don't know if you remember the Village Voice. Of course the paper, it's free paper. So a lot of my aesthetic, my highbrow taste, came from reading the Village Voice. So they would kind of tell you what was cool, what was hip, you know, and Greg Tate was a huge influence on me. Whatever he liked, I probably liked. You know, the Iron man, who I got to know later in life, and all the writers, Robert Christogau and all these guys who wrote about music. You know they turned me on to a lot of stuff. And then Rolling Stone, you know I read that I would steal it from the magazine store, shoplift it, and that helped kind of set some of my taste too. And also the back of the Village Voice, which people forget had all the listings of the clubs and who was playing.
Speaker 2:And very early on I found out how to get into clubs for free, how to get into shows for free. There was various ways. One way was to meet the band and I was a kid and they might let me in. The other was I literally do this. This is so crazy. Me and my friend John Potatoes, wherever he is right now, John, you're the man. We would go to the train station and we'd beg for change again on the train and say we lost our train pass, and we would get enough money to buy tickets for a show and maybe like a beer or a little bag of weed, and this is what we did and we did it all the time. Like all, west fortune was the key place, so I could make literally in a day like 30 40 dollars, which is like a million dollars a year money back then, man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know I spent a couple hours scamming and then we go buy a ticket, like I saw. I remember when the first shows I ever went to, I went to see a band called Sham 69 at Haraz. It was a $7 ticket. And we went and we were 14 and the doorman was like how old are you kids? And I was like how old are you kids? And I was like we got a ticket. You're like, you know me, I'm an asshole Even at 14. And he's like yeah, good, you're not 18. And I was like how old are you kids? And I was like 17. And he was like tell me the truth and I might let you guys in. And I was like 15. But I was 14. John was 15. And we had our skateboards and he was like you guys are cool, like come on. And he was a doorman. His name was Howie Montauk. He became a famous doorman. He had worked at Studio 54, but he was a doorman at Palladium and at Dance Interior.
Speaker 2:This guy remembered me my whole life, always let me in everywhere. And that was like the holy grail, the cheat code, one of the early shows I went to. I think it was 1980 as well. I saw the specials at the diplomat hotel or a hotel diplomat in Midtown, and it was a $10 ticket, the most expensive ticket I'd ever bought in my life, and I I went to that show and those shows helped change my life. When I saw the specials live, I'd never seen anything that cover of London Calling and I wasn't punk rock yet I was like a new wave kid. I had like a Tony Hawk haircut you know what I mean and like a striped shirt, which my then girlfriend, who's still my friend, never lets me forget. She was like you lived in that striped bowling shirt for like two years. It's like your only cool shirt. So I thought, and it wasn't that cool. Yeah, man, I started going to shows and I started meeting people in bands and I met doorman and dorm women and figured out how to sneak in the back and the age-old trick to show up at soundcheck, wait for the band and offer to help carry their equipment in and they'll put you on the guest list. So that worked with like punk rock bands more than bigger bands.
Speaker 2:And then I met you know we love this band the Bad Brains. They changed my life. I saw them in 1981, sorry, when they first moved to New York with my friend, john Potatoes, who was like the guy who hit me to everything, and shortly after that I cut my hair off. I had like the new wave haircut and I was like that's it and I buzzed my hair and I started following the Bad Brains around everywhere. I became friends with them. They had like there were, you know me, the Beasties, the Girls in Luscious, the guys who ended up being the Cro-Mags. We were amongst their earliest fans in New York. We were a little too young for punk rock, so we caught the hardcore thing in real time. You know, we were playing catch up with punk rock. They became our band and from my love of the Bad Brains and going to see them like hundreds of times as a kid I was just totally enveloped in punk rock and it was beyond punk rock. It was punk rock in a sense of self-empowerment there are no rules, do it yourself. And that was really inspiring to me. I had the pleasure of being around them when they were making the word cassette. Jerry Williams, who engineered and produced it with them, showed me what a compressor was, a limiter. I was like what is that? And he explained it to me really patiently and to the experience and the inner circle of the Bad Brains as a 15, 16-year-old kid that I knew there was something I had to do that related to music because it was the greatest part of my life.
Speaker 2:I didn't love high school. I was like you know in high school. When I entered high school I think I was six feet, the same height I am now, but I weighed 130 pounds, 135 pounds. I was a string bean and no girls liked me. So I was kind of like I don't want to say I was a weird kid, but I was like. I was like an antisocial kid. I was a skateboarder, I was into punk rock and I had a very active life outside of school. I didn't really care that much about school. I cared about going out five nights a week and my mom had my mom was in no place in her life to exercise parental control. I didn't have much parenting. You were running. You were running yeah, I was outside man.
Speaker 2:I was outside like the kids. I was outside my entire life. Yeah and um, that was. You know. That was to me a more valuable experience in high school I was.
Speaker 1:I was a smart kid. For what we do, that's actually yeah. You can't get more valuable than that for what we do. Did you know?
Speaker 2:like you couldn't get as close to the ground as possible and seeing it happening in in real time yeah, I mean that to me was like my, my education, right and, and I was, I was a smart kid. I went to academically advanced grade school and high school. I went to Brooklyn Tech and though I did not graduate from Brooklyn Tech, but I went to Brooklyn Tech and I was always like a smart kid. My mom's a teacher, so I was always. I mean until I was in like maybe eighth grade and started like discovering you know the three W's wine, women and weed. You know skateboarding, punk rock, graffiti. I was a straight a student. I never had less than an, a like. I was always excelled in school and then I discovered life um, on its own terms, and school kind of went out the window early for me so tell me about how, how, the, when the hip-hop side started to kick in.
Speaker 2:So so when we were kids I'm sure you remember this when Rappers Delight came out, it was a hit record. It was a hit record smash. They played in the school dance. Everyone's like yo this record. You're walking around singing it.
Speaker 2:It's a fucking smash you had to know every lyric People had written that you had to know the whole record, the whole record. I loved it. I whole record, the whole record. I loved it. I loved it.
Speaker 2:And in junior high school a lot of my friends were were black and puerto rican kids. I grew up with all puerto rican's pretty much so I mean I was like you know they called me sort of reeking growing up. Like you know, I couldn't wait to grow a mustache. I was like that guy, like maybe if I grow a mustache I'll look puerto rican, you know so. So you know those are a lot of my friends.
Speaker 2:And and I love Rappers of Light my boy who went to my school, jackie a Columbus Van Horn. He went to my school but he lived in Harlem. He took the train every day to school because he was in an academically accelerated program that I was in. He was like yo, I'm going to put you up on the real shit, though and he gave me a tape and it was a Grandmaster Flash tape and it was like 50 beats and had all a lot of breaks.
Speaker 2:It's a famous tape and had a lot of other songs on it, like I think apache jump to it was on it, or or just live songs, all these songs, and that that was the first thing and I took that tape and I did my tape to tape and I had it in a copy of the tape and, um, always liked. But then, life being what it was, you know, I got into punk rock and I said, but so in England they had like dub, all the punk rock. What people don't realize is that the early adapters to rap music outside of black people who weren't from Manhattan, lower Manhattan, were white, new wave punk rock people.
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Speaker 2:And now back to our show the first white people in america to love rap music. Right, we listen to rap alongside punk rock. We listen to all these groups we listen to.
Speaker 2:I remember jimmy spicer the bub uh, super rhymes, just loving that yeah, jimmy spicer, yeah, yeah, you know all those jimmy caster, jimmy spicer, my fault, yeah, yeah you know, and I'm loving all those records that are coming out right, super rhymes, and so we're into new wave and punk rock and and those records are also rocking and those are like our. That's like the other music we're listening to, right and as graffiti leaves the trains and comes into galleries you know, I'm a graffiti guy Feedy Guy, the Tom Tom Club, make, genius of Love 1981, blondie's Rapture, 1980. It's like a co-sign to all of us and we're digging this music. The message comes out All these records we loved all this shit. So we were listening to the Bad Brains and we're listening to, you know, rap records like Funky 4 Plus One More it's the join and all these records we loved all that. That was our shit.
Speaker 2:So we're, we're side by side, listening to an m punk rock, like we were the kind of kids we never wanted to necessarily follow. We always wanted to be ahead, like me and the group of guys I fell in with um, including the beasties, but a bunch of other kids too who live downtown. They all live in this building, west path, the west path crew. They were like my boys. We wrote graffiti, we skateboarded, but we got in a lot of trouble. Together, we just all a bunch of crazy kids.
Speaker 2:And we, um, as punk rock got corny and skinhead started showing up around 82, our energy shifted and hip-hop became more of our focus and I went to the second party they did at Negril, which became the Roxy Wheels of Steel party. Wow, ramal Z, who I knew, told me to go. I went, I saw him at the Fun Gallery. So you know, all of a sudden we kind of went from being these kind of punk rock kids I was a skateboarder to being kind of fresh and we mixed our styles up.
Speaker 2:So we'd have fat laces and like a class shirt on and, like you know, maybe wear a trench coat, but we had like a hat sideways. You know what I mean. So we're mixing and matching and it became kind of a style for lots of people. And I think what was really cool about the early initial hip hop world that I fell into was how accepting people were. So I felt like this is weird to say, but punk rock guys were less accepting than the people who were in the hip hop, the mostly black and Spanish cats who were living the hip hop world, and people greeted us with open arms in a way, and it was a real cultural exchange and I feel like it was inspirational, not appropriational. So if that makes sense, we were inspired and.
Speaker 2:I feel like also New Wave inspired or influenced some forms of hip hop, certainly Soul, sonic Force, you know, kraftwerk and things of that nature. So you know there was like this cultural exchange going on and me and my friends were smack dab in the middle of it. It was like the greatest blessing ever and for me, cause I grew up in Lower East Side, I know how to move, so I'm comfortable being, I'm comfortable anywhere. You know what I mean. Like I I'm never uncomfortable being the only white guy anyway, cause I was the only white guy on my blog for my whole life, so it didn't matter to me.
Speaker 2:I had great training for my future career growing up the way I did. So you know, I mean I just fell into it and I loved it. And you know we fast forward a little bit. The Beastie Boys made Cookie Puss, which is kind of a joke record. But, like you know, homage joke tongue in cheek and they link up with Rick and they end up in the middle of all this stuff and I hold on to their belt loop and just go for the ride Because you know I want to do something. You know I'm trying to figure it out and I got lucky enough that they let me hang on. So you know that was really it man.
Speaker 1:Now I read that you I didn't know this about you, I didn't know you were. You were Eric. We were at Cam's road roadie Road manager, that's yeah.
Speaker 2:I was 21 years old.
Speaker 1:I need to hear a little bit. I had no idea you did that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was crazy. I mean, you know, like I met Ant Live and Eric and Rakim at Rush I and live and eric and rock him at rush. I was working there in my early 20s I was 21, I think, or 22 um, I was just the craziest. So the bc's start to get famous. They take me on one of the tours. Well, yeah, one on one of the runs, but I was a waiter. I was waiting tables when they came off tour and I was making really good money. I was was like a baby model, waiter, troublemaker, always in the middle of some shit, but like I was a model for Tortilla Flats in the village and a place called Gulf Coast. They were like super trendy. Wow I was. I was making like four nights a week. I make like a thousand dollars, eight hundred dollars cash.
Speaker 1:Just like crazy money back then. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So I left my job at Tortilla Flats to make $210 on the books, which amounted to $160 a week at Rush Productions Wow. So I made a huge sacrifice. Sean the captain got me a job there. Wow is ringing and it's not near me.
Speaker 2:I'm not picking it up, so if you hear it, okay, oh, I'm so good, so good um so he hires me, I get my job at rush productions and I meet everyone in the world in hip-hop, because the hip-hop world is about this big, it's like this big. And rush productions and def jam are the nerve center of hip-hop in downtown manhattan and, as we know, in the early 80s probably always like fuckers love to come downtown. Do some Brooklyn, do some Harlem. From the Bronx you feel exotic, right?
Speaker 1:I'm going downtown.
Speaker 2:I'm going to the Ville, I'm going down. I'm going to the Ville, I'm going to West Forb. Yeah, you just want to feel it right.
Speaker 1:It's like it's different.
Speaker 2:It's not dangerous. There's beautiful women walking around.
Speaker 1:Models and shit.
Speaker 2:You can flex, you can wear your uptown shit downtown and no one had it. Your extra fly and you might pick up some fly shit. Bring it uptown.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Be like look at this, you know about this. Yeah, you don't know about this shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, so it was part of that too. So everyone's at Rush, Def Jam and I meet everyone. I meet Chuck D and I meet Red Alert and Chuck Chillout and Stetsasonic I meet everybody. But Eric B and Ant Live take a real liking to me. I don't know why they were fucking with me. They was fucking with me heavy. I guess I made them laugh. Plus, plus, I would always go to Latin Quarter. So I was always at the Quarter and you know that was like. So I'm in the middle of the two nerve centers of hip hop in New York there's Rush Productions, Def Jam and the Latin Quarter. So I'm running around and those guys took a shine to me. And Leroy was like you were going to go out the road with Eric B and Rakim. So I did, and that was who I was, yeah, which was cool, and I have friends who will rock him to this day.
Speaker 1:I can't say I know him, but I've met him a couple of times and he's a gentleman. He's a gentleman, he's a great dude, he's a gentleman, he's a gentleman.
Speaker 2:He's a great dude. He's the greatest dude ever Performed on my 51st birthday. Yeah, he's one of my every time he's in LA. We talk all the time. He's great, he's rockin'. He's rockin'. He has the aura like there's not much more. You could say he's got a nobility to himself. That's rockin'.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So you know I ran around that led you into your first gig. What were? You saying that led you into your first kind of official gig in music.
Speaker 2:Well, that was like yeah, so I was a messenger at Rush Productions, Then I became a road manager. Then I came off the road and it wasn't really a job for me. Lior stuck me in Norby Walters, which was a booking agent, you know.
Speaker 2:Norby Walters is our agent, kara Lewis. I worked for Kara Lewis. It was the worst job I ever had. She was not. I couldn't work with her. It wasn't for me.
Speaker 2:Daddy O was my friend from Rush being on tour, was my friend from Rush being on tour. He was my big homie mentor and he was like yo D, they're trying to hire an A&R person at Tommy Boy. I threw your name in the mix because they tried to give me the job, but I'm not trying to do that, so they're going to call you. So Monica Lynch reached out to me. I saw her out at something and we we were talking and she's like oh, you want to interview for this job. And I was like yeah, and I guess my references checked out. She asked people about me and they were like yeah, he's like he's, he's, he's outside, like. So I went for the interview and she played me De La Soul. It blew my mind Wow, I'd never. And she's I was like yo, it's like. I was like it's like ultra magnetic meets slick Rick. I remember she always tells me I said that and she was like I was like yo, it's so dusted. Like. I was like play that again, I was like enamored. I was enamored by it Cause it was like it felt, like exactly how I felt. I can't explain it other than that, you know, because right at that point that was like. You know, there's these like tipping points in in the culture. So there's a run DMC tipping point, and that's kind of when Eric B and Rakim hit the set, and then it becomes the LQ right, the drum machine, the boom, the drum machine, the boom. The drum machine records stop being the ones, it becomes the sample records and that's the Latin Quarter, union Square, latin Quarter. And then the tipping point from that is Latin Quarter's too violent. It moves downtown again to the candy bar parties, milky Way, payday and De La Soul and the Native Tongues emerge. So I think it starts with Ultra Magnetic. They bridge the gap from the Latin Quarter to the native tongue thing because they're incredibly creative and weird, for lack of a better word. Bugged out, yeah, bugged out. And you know there's a couple other bands like, a couple other groups like that. There was MCs maybe who were like Rampuva's in Masters of Ceremony, slick Rick, a little bit Slick Rick is wild because he goes from the drum machine era through Latin quarters and becomes a huge. He's a huge influence on Native tongues because he's a storyteller and he's left of center. They were popping, ultra Mag was popping and Karis One's obviously popping Kid. In Place that's Sonic, you know those things, and that vibe moves downtown and from this emerges the leaders of the Native Tongue Pack. You know which is Jungle Brothers Q-Tips on their record and De La's record comes out right around then.
Speaker 2:Oh, I forgot to say so. Monica calls me right before Christmas. I go to Tommy Boy. It's the follow-up meeting. It's snowy now and she says so. So I got to tell you you got the job, when do you start? I'm like when do I start? And she's like she's like top of the year, you know after the holiday. Okay so and she says and that group, you like De La Soul, they're the first group you're going to work with. And I'm like, wow, I'm like Jesus Christ. So I get the job. The payday parties are popping. I literally got the 12-inch and I sent it to Red Alert. He's like I call him up. Red was my man. I'd hang out with him. I was a great wingman. You know. Red used to call me James Dean. He was like James.
Speaker 2:Dean, where are we going? I would call Red. This is so crazy. The world was so small back then. My Saturday night, or Friday night Friday night I go to the quarter Saturday. I might call Red and be like. Or Red might call me and be like. I live on 108th Street. He lived on 116th. Adam Clayton Powell I'm on Broadway. He's like James Dean. What's going on tonight? I knew all the downtown parties we might roll out, you know. So I'm hobnobbing with Red Alert, the most important DJ, hip-hop DJ in the country.
Speaker 2:I'm 22, 23 years old, 23. He's my guy. I'm 22, 23 years old, 23. He's my guy and I had the pleasure this is one of. So I knew Red and I'll go to the quarters. And Red seen me at the quarters. He was like come upstairs, he didn't want me walking around downstairs. It's too crazy.
Speaker 1:It was a little intense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was wild. The thing that was great is I had nothing to steal. You could get my bootleg Fila hat yeah man. I had nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A swatch, so $33. You weren't coming up if you robbed me. So I had the pleasure of giving him Rebel Without a Pause. So I gave him the 12-inch because Hank and them also worked at Rush. Hank was Bill Adler's assistant. Yes, Hank and them also worked at Rush. Hank was Bill Adler's assistant. He knew I would go to quarters every week and he gave me two test records. I brought it to Red and I got there early and he played it in headphones and he was like yo, I'm fucking with this. I didn't know that meant he was going to fuck with it that night, but he played it that night and people went nuts. It was one of those records for like two seconds I don't know what time it is People were like man, it hit, people want bonkers. He played on the radio next night.
Speaker 1:Red alert was like a to be like as quick as it could be yeah, yeah, yeah, from the club to the radio, from the club to the radio. Yeah, if it worked in the club.
Speaker 2:It went to the radio.
Speaker 1:It went to the radio, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I sent him. I messengered the De La Soul record to him. Okay, messengered, messengered that day and he called me. He said I like this, I like this. He played it the next day, played it the next day on the radio, wow, so out the gate. Everyone's like. You know, it's like I got a hit record, right, but it's Monica's hit record. But you know it didn't hurt my rep, it didn't. Yeah, and I'm with them all the time we're running around. I took them to LA the first time they ever went. We do a show. We did a show. We played World on Wheels. We played the and West Adams.
Speaker 1:That's what NWA came out, of right, correct.
Speaker 2:They played Skateland and World on.
Speaker 1:Wheels. Those are the two places, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we played a show, a K-Day show, at World on Wheels. That's where I met Ice-T. I met. I knew Muggs already. I knew 783. They were on the bill. Okay, it's the first time I saw Crip walking. Wow, first time we saw rat violence in California. There was a big fight and then it went outside and they locked us in the club. Dudes were shooting outside. It was crazy. Me and Paz almost got arrested for jaywalking. We didn't know he couldn't jaywalk.
Speaker 2:He can't jaywalk in LA we didn't know that we had a blast. We stayed at the Holiday Inn right on walk in LA. Yeah, we didn't know that. And, um, I don't know, we, we, we had a blast. It was. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, uh, right on Highland. It was a bummy ass hotel for us. It felt great. And we saw the Beasties, we, they met the Beasties. Um, it was cool, it was super fun. Yeah, we, we, uh, we became really tight and uh, from going to the quarters where I met 45 King, I saw 45 King. I saw 45 King.
Speaker 2:I want to say at the Latin Quarter. When I'm working at Tommy Boy, I would literally go Latin Quarter to payday back and forth. Latin Quarter is dying down when payday is popping, it's coming up. We still went. I saw 45 King at the Latin Quarter one night and Saturday night was payday more, friday night is Latin quarters and the difference is Latin quarters.
Speaker 2:There's like three white people there, like two of them work there. Four white people. Search is there, me and Search, yeah, and me and Pete went there too. Me and Pete and I were super tight back then. But you know there's very few white people who don't work there there and downtown is, you know all kinds of people eclectic and beautiful girls and there's way more dudes and girls. At the LQ there was a lot of girls there, yeah, though I did have a girlfriend or two from Latin Quarter. I cannot lie. You know I'm an equal opportunity employer. You know, like I have an easy criteria. I like girls that like me. Yeah, exactly what kind of girl do you like? The ones that like me, the ones that like me exactly, I don't really care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know. You know 45 King. I met him there. He knew who I was, which was really weird. I don't know how he knew that. And two, he didn't look like he should be at the Latin Quarter. No, no, he looked too nice. Yeah, he was like a nerd.
Speaker 1:He was like a nerd he was a nerd Smiley guy.
Speaker 2:He had little fruits and berries in his hair. Yeah, exactly. He had the big studio monitor headphones around his neck, yeah. And he was like yo, dante Ross. I was like, yeah, he's like you want to hear some shit. I was like who? I was like he's like he's on 45 King. I was like you're the 45 King? I was like no way. I was like huh, and we went upstairs and he was like, oh, you want to hear some shit? I was like definitely. And he pulled out his Walkman and he used to have one of those label guns. He labeled everything. Yeah, yeah, his shit said property of the 45 King on his Walkman. Wow, so weird. And then he handed me his headphones, which were soggy.
Speaker 1:He had the soggy headphones because he'd been listening to them. The sweaty headphones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why DJ never used anyone else's headphones. Yeah, and I was like, oh, I always tell him. Yo, I remember when I first met, you hit me with the soggy and they smelled like like a little bit like activator, like sweat and shit. Yeah, sweat and activator.
Speaker 2:But he played me a bunch of shit heat and I was like, come see me on monday, so you know, come to the office. So um 45 king called me with fab five, freddie, and and they, um, they started playing me. I had a speakerphone. I was that shit was hot back in the day the speakerphone, yeah, I was like yo, I got a speakerphone a beaker.
Speaker 2:I'm ill right now. I'm. I'm in my. My office was the old mail room that still had bags of mail in the corner. I I didn't have a stereo. I had a boom box on my desk. That was what I listened to, and him and Fab Five played me a bunch of joints over the phone. They played me Wrath of my Madness over the phone. Wow, I lost my mind because I was one. You remember when, like dance hall and rap were like brother, sister.
Speaker 2:They were like cousins, like best friends, right, yes, and that was when all the ill dancehall records were dropped and One Blood and you had to play that in the club that got played. All the joints, all the early stuff, even before Shabu it was like all that shit was getting played though Agony and Pinchers and Bomb Bomb by Tiger, all those records. We were loving all that shit. You know Red played that stuff every week. He did. People were doing that. You know, masters of Ceremony had, like everyone, had their reggae hip-hop joint. That's right.
Speaker 1:Karras One. What's his name? Don Don, don Barron, don Barron.
Speaker 2:Don Barron yes, the Diddly diddly did Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I took that from him, absolutely.
Speaker 2:He took it from Icomel, so you know. But you know, so I liked all that shit and I heard Wrath of my Madness and I was like I was blown away. So I was like, come into office, bring all your groups. So I don't know why Fab Five was not at the meeting when they showed up. I've never One day someone will tell me why. But they came to check me and it was a bunch of the flavor unit guys and Latifah and they started playing me joints and they played Wrath of my Madness and I knew it was the shit. They played me that. And Princess of the Posse and Monica came in Her office is next to the conference room and she said, dante, can you come to my office? And she was like and we went over, she was like, opened her mouth. I was like we have to sign her and she was like, how did you know? And she was like, yes, like great minds think alike. So we knew we were going to offer a deal and she looked like a million bucks.
Speaker 1:She had a dashiki, she had the bob, she had the door knockers. Basketball shorts, floppy socks. She's a ball player, she was a ball player back then.
Speaker 2:Yes, right, yes, she was an all-county ball player. Yeah, like a legit ball player.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, she was nice yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:I was like, hey, we want to sign you. And she was like for real. And I was like, yeah, we're gonna sign you, like we want to sign you. And we went to. You know, tommy Boy was on 91st and 1st. I lived on 87th. No wait, 80, 79th is the street I lived on 80th and East End.
Speaker 2:I used to play at this place called Bowling Green Asphalt on the Green rather, which is on 88th and East End, and it's near the Tommy Boy office. So I played ball there outside all the time and I was like what do you guys want to do? They were like yo, we want to go smoke some weed. I was like, let's go down to the park. And we went to Asphalt on the Green and we smoked weed and played basketball and she was nice and I inadvertently knew Lati who was with them. He knew people. I knew Lati who was with them. He knew people. I knew my man. Tahim lived in Jersey. This is how small the world was. He was like a sideline member of the Flavor Unit and Lord Ali Baski was his friend. Lati was there. I want to say Apache. A bunch of them, God bless.
Speaker 1:Apache.
Speaker 2:Chill, rob G wasn't there, because I might have signed him if he was there.
Speaker 1:If I heard.
Speaker 2:The court is in session. I would have signed him, I think I'm sure, because I love that record. But there was a bunch of them there. Marky Fresh was a sideline member. They kicked him out kind of Rest in peace. He was disowned at some point but that was the crew and we ended up signing him. We made Richard Grable, who I still am friends with to this day. Richard, I hope your health is okay. I know you had a scare during the pandemic and you were having some health issues. Richard Grable was the lawyer. He had a relationship with Tom Boyd. We did the deal and we went and we mixed Wrath of my Madness Mark the 45 King. He wanted us to take his advance and get him a sampler instead of his advance.
Speaker 1:That sounds so much like something Mark would do, that's.
Speaker 2:Mark 100 zillion percent. I went to Sam Ash. I picked up an Akai S900, which Tommy Boy paid for on her PO, and I took the bus to East Orange where he met me at the bus. I took the bus from the Port Authority with the sampler and he met me at the bus and we took another bus to his house. I've been to his studio already.
Speaker 2:His studio was in the basement of his house. He had a diner like phone diner booth in there, a phone booth, a turnstile, his setup. He had a quarter-inch tape machine, a little board, and he set up the S900 and started figuring it out. Getting busy, getting busy, and he used it to redo some of the stuff on wrath and princess of the posse. He plays the bass line on princess of the posse by hand on the m, which a lot of dancehall records were using, and we took the tapes and we recut the entire record using s9 and everything else, his sequence I'm trying to remember what sequence he used, but but we recut it at Calliope.
Speaker 2:We mixed it and we fumbled the mix. I'm writhing my madness. We had to mix it twice and I don't think the mixes were any better than the demos. A lot of times we couldn't master off a cassette. We should have know, we should have figured it out. But. But I think they were better and I always being, you know, I was young and I was like the A&R guy had to do something on the record. I convinced Mark to use a little sample from from someone I won't mention Cause maybe someone will hear this and go back and try and sue them. It's never been cleared, but a little horn stabbing it, okay, breakdown in Princess of the Posse, and actually they were like oh, that's dope, that actually works dope. So they used it and those are the records. We pressed it Once again. We got it right during New Music Seminar. I walked around with them and Red Alert again played it the entire week of New Music Seminar. So it took off and we walked out of New Music Seminar with a hit record.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because after New Music Seminar everybody goes back to where they're from and they bring it with them, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, and every party that Red DJed at, which was pretty much every party, he played it, and he was playing the A and the B side. So I'll shut up, ask me questions. That's how it started.
Speaker 1:Good, I got a lot more questions. It's real funny. When I talked to you, faith was on here too, faith Newman and a couple other people. It's so interesting how we were all in this world and as I'm listening to you, you and I were like I don't know if parallel is the right term, but we were like Red Alert. When I worked at Wild Pitch, red Alert's office was in that building, so I had a relationship with Red, and then Mark would be up there because of Red, and then True, rob G was signed to Wild Pitch. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Was someone else from Flavor Unit signed to Wild Pitch? Say it again Was someone else from Flavor Unit on Wild Pitch LaTee or just LaTee LaTee? This cut's got flavor and that's how I knew 45K really Exactly. That was banger. Exactly I remember Shaquem was in the picture when I signed, when I signed him.
Speaker 1:Yet he was at Rob when Rob was on Wild Pitch crazy, and then one more thing, and then Apache was around and it was just kind of all this cross palinization, I guess, lack of a better term. We were like Patrick Moxley who managed Gangstar, he did Polonization, I guess, for lack of a better term. We were all kind of doing it and Patrick Moxley who managed Gangstar, he did the candy bar party, he did Payday, so it was all these kind of-.
Speaker 2:He replaced me at Rush when I left.
Speaker 1:See, it was all these kind of people just crossing paths for the love of the music, because none of us were making shit. It was for the love.
Speaker 2:When I worked at Tommy Boy I sold weed out of the office and I had a gun. And Monica seen the gun one day and was like, don't bring that to the office again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I had my little 380. Life was different. Yeah, you know, Red opened a lot of doors for a lot of us.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God, I love Red. Red opened a lot of doors for a lot of us.
Speaker 2:I always say we got gatekeepers. He was a door opener. He opened the gate.
Speaker 1:He's opening the gate for everybody. Absolutely Funny, quick story. I've never told this. I was living in Harlem and I heard this music one time because back then the vendors would be along 125th Street Right Playing music, selling clothes. There was a length of it, you remember.
Speaker 1:So I heard somebody, some vendor was playing this music and I was like I kind of like this, this is kind of cool. And I found out what it was and I went to red because he knew everything. I said man, I heard these guys call like mob style. I kind of like this thing. Mob style for those who don't know was real drug dealers, including az, AZ from Pay Full of them, Gangsta Lou. These guys are real. And I told Red I wanted to sign them and Red refused to set up a meeting with me. He was like you don't need to be around those guys. He's like you don't need to be in that, that's some other shit you don't need to be. And he would never introduce me to those guys. And I look backwards and I'm like I still really like the Marl style. But I was like he was right, they could have been NWA Dude. That's what I was saying. They didn't New York like because what they were rapping about was real. They were really doing this shit.
Speaker 2:Those guys were out there. You know it's funny too, because when I think about it, like dudes who made like soft rap records some of them dudes were straight gangsters, like Tito was a gangster, I mean, he was a legend Like he was. You know it's funny because I lived on 108th Street and I would go shopping almost every weekend on 125th. One of my hangout partners was D-Nice. He would drive down and we'd get in his whip and we'd go up to 125th. We was messing with these girls, my homegirl Lita and we would run around and go shop number 125th.
Speaker 1:And I would go there all the time. I remember Lita, skinny Lita, pretty slim Lita. I was my little shorty. Let's move forward because we got too many connections.
Speaker 2:I was just saying that because 125th was like another place. You walk down 125th and you felt the pulse, you heard the music, you've seen said G walking down the street. I've seen you know this guy, that guy, and I love, I loved it. You know it's funny, man, I never I felt as comfortable on 125th as I did on the Lower East Side. It was like the same shit to me yeah, yeah, yeah, so tell me about.
Speaker 1:So you have all the success of Tommy Boy with De La and Latifah and you're moving, and then you go to Electra next, correct? Yeah, All right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a big article came out on De La Soul I was mentioning it, I guess, in the New York Times and I knew this cat, Raul Roach. He's Max Roach's son, I knew him from. So also back then I hung out with Russell don't hold it against me, Andre. Rest in peace. Yes, Jimmy, Love on occasion. Nelson George yes, I hung out with Lior, but Lior and me had a love-hate relationship at that point.
Speaker 2:I hung out with these guys. We'd go to Nell's. They would hold court there upstairs. I had a seat at the table because they were picking my brain.
Speaker 2:I was a free A&R source and then I became an A&R guy. Bill Stephanie was the first person to tell me I should be an A&R person. Wow. Him. And Daddy-O around the same time. He wanted to hire me at Def Jam and they didn't hire me, Wow. So you know, I was outside and I was running around those guys. They couldn't go to the quarters, they could go to payday and I hung out with those guys, largely because I knew all the model girls. Honestly, yeah, they were like oh D knows all the baddies, who's the five girls you're with? So you know that had a lot to do with it and I had Entree in that world man, I was red hot and that's why I met Raul, Because Raul was kind of like a little, he was evolved. He's like an evolved dude, Like he's not a street guy, and he took a liking to me. What I found out later is he tried to hire Gary Harris at Electra, but Gary missed the meeting.
Speaker 1:Sounds like Gary. I love Gary. Yeah, it sounds like.
Speaker 2:Gary, yeah, exactly, and I got interviewed for the job. He set up the interview with me and Bob Krasnow yes, we started the meeting I'll never forget. So I had a three finger ring on. I thought I was fly, I thought I was hot, I was hot in the streets and he had on this beautiful diamond, big diamond ring, pinky ring. It was dope. And he was like, oh, I like that ring. And I took it off and he said can I see that? I took it off and then I said I like your ring. And he took it off and I put his ring on. It was big on my finger. I was like yo, I think we need, I think we should trade. He's like I don't think so, buddy. And then we swapped the rings back and that that thing right there though. That made him like me and me like him.
Speaker 2:And then we started talking about sports betting. I don't know why. Raul told me this and he said what he was like around the time of the ncaa tournament what do you got? I said I don't bet college basketball. As he said why. I said it's too unpredictable. I said I don't bet college basketball, I bet football and he was.
Speaker 2:He started laughing and then I had a follow-up with him. He liked me and he wanted to meet me again. He was, you know, and he was like. He was like, hey, I want to. He's like do you like any other music besides rap, music, black music? And he gave me his resume. He had signed Parliament. You know he worked with George Clinton. He was a G. Bob Krasnow was a G. He was like. He was also like he was. He had been a street dude. So he's from East Cleveland.
Speaker 2:He was a tough Jewish dude from East Cleveland, worked for James Brown, was his road manager, worked at King Records. He started his own label, blue Thumb Records in San Francisco with Tommy LaPuma. He had a ton of great records he put out, including the Crusaders. Wow, like a thief in the night he sold the catalog behind Tommy's back for all this money. They fell out and he sold it to Warner Brothers and he went to work at Warner Brothers. Him and Tommy had fallen out for like 20 years but they patched it back up because Tommy worked with me later on. So, bob, he asked me about stuff. He's like you know, I just signed this band, the pixies, and I said I love the pixies, that's the best alternative band in america and he was like how do you know that? So he's still a punk rock and the pixies are like for that kind of they're top of the food chain, that's the best thing out that.
Speaker 2:That and who's could do. And he's like, yeah, they're son of warner. But he's like, yeah, I know, and I was. And he's like, yeah, they're sounding Warner Brothers. I was like, yeah, I know. And I was like, yeah, that's like I love that band. He's like I was like that's really cool. You signed them.
Speaker 2:And he was like, yeah, and I was like what else are you excited about? We just made a conversation. He's like, well, I want to play you something. I signed this girl. And so he's like you know, that's part of the history of electro. I said, yeah, electro album, I know that. And he was like let me play something. And he played me Fast Cars by Tracy Chapman and it wasn my mind because it's such an emotional song and it hit me like in my heart. I was like, wow. And I was like, oh my God. I was like that's one of the best things I ever heard. And he goes, yeah, she's black. And I said what? He goes, yeah, she's a black woman, she's from Cleveland, where I'm from, actually, and we're signing her. And I was like how are you going to sell this? He's like I don't care, this is art and I'm putting this out. And so he gave me an advanced cassette. Wow, and all I did was so. I decided that day I want to work at Election Records.
Speaker 1:That was part one with Dante Ross. Stay tuned next week for the second half of our conversation. You can catch Mixed and Mastered on Apple Podcasts, spotify, iheart or wherever you get your podcasts. Hit that follow button, leave a review and tell a friend I'm your host, jeffrey Sledge. Mixed and Mastered is produced and distributed by Merrick Studios.
