Pride UNC HNR interview

Menes interviews Pride from UNC crew and HNR crew. A true OG in the culture and legend that should never be forgotten.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

And oh, it's because it's for this girl's birthday party, and man, it's gonna be lots of pussy. Man, you could probably hook it. When they say that, and it never happens. It never does. They could say the girl's birthday. It sounds like some bullshit. It sounded like some bullshit. And then and the dude got, I don't know what happened with the dude, and then I was like, yeah, whatever. And then I kinda later on, remember we visited the studio like a few times, I think I went once it went um. Oh, me and J-Rat. Yeah, but there was a time when um Breck had barely, I think it was Breck that painted something inside of the studio.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

That was uh me and me and Guilt.

unknown 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Me and Guilt. But but but they they he wasn't there. It was the time when it was me, you and Drift, and I think Rudy went and we had went because we were doing something or we were at Drifts and then we went there and then you guys were gonna record something, or he wanted me to I forgot, but Homeboy wasn't there, but I I remember. Um, but the I seen him one other time and then he was like just like whatever, and I was like, Yeah, whatever. I'm here because of drift. So I don't know, whatever. Weirdo.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

And then yeah, I it just seemed kinda iffy, even when he was like when when Jay told me that he was like, I don't know about that dude. I started peeping, and Teeny told me, she's like, Yeah, I don't don't trust him. Cause he he he he fucked over on some shit. No, so ever since then I was like, I mean he's a music dude, like he's one of them. I remember telling Drift like, hey man, like I don't know if you should be trusting this dude like that, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And what did he do anyway? Cause for him to go on tour with Drift, remember when they went to Columbia or something?

SPEAKER_01 1:37

I I think what is what did he do? I think he used this girl's shit because she's she's a lawyer. Yeah, so I think he used like her money or some joint account that they had or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

But I mean, but what does the guy do? Like he ain't a rapper.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

And he like a producer, I guess, or like a um almost like a manager or uh AR kind of deal.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

That's the that's the vibe I got from him. But what I'm saying is when they went on to suppose the tour, what did he do? He was the hype man, he was the puffy? He was uh he was the rapper. Him and him and Drift were the rappers. Damn. Cause I was like, that dude does not look like a rapper. Even Drift, I was like, Drift at the most is like backing you up. Yeah. He's not like, but I hey, it's all good. I mean, he took his, you know, he took his shot or something. Yeah, he did it.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

He traveled to Columbia and made songs and no fucking chilled. Yeah, that's something. That's something, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. That's something. Hell yeah. I didn't I didn't do that, I didn't get to do that. I would love to do that. I didn't get to do that. Some places are just yeah, it depends on it. Columbia though, I'll like I'd be scared.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah, out there you can't be like out there or in uh Brazil, you can't be like even with your cell phone, you gotta like make sure you don't gotta like you're broke as fuck.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yep, they say you gotta have like a fake cell phone, like a fake cell phone and wallet enough for them to steal and keep your real shit concealed somewhere else. That's crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. They tell you that straight up.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah. That's that's what I hear. That's what I'm like. I mean, if you do go, you gotta go with people that already know the biz, like roll with them.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Have people there, you know?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Yeah. That's the only way. Because a friend of mine, well, the friend that I told you that got sick recently, he makes techno music, and he was almost about to go out there, but he didn't, and he had heard stories like that. But uh he did get a chance to actually do he actually did a f what was it called? A festival uh in the UK. And yeah. Yeah, that sounds interesting. Yeah, those are and he was gonna be out there when um they actually had I I kinda almost want to say De la Souls or the time that he went. Because that festival did like a bunch of I if I man, I don't remember the name of the festival, but it's one where oh yeah, beware of this stuff like this. I watch uh I go on YouTube whenever I if you to know like things, even though they're not you know, it's not a hundred percent, but you know just to kinda because I mean you can even lose your eyesight. Yeah, yeah, they they that tripped me out too, man, because I was like, I don't want that shit. Yeah, check your eyes. My mom my mom just uh about a year or so ago, she just she got lasered her eyes because uh she was she had gotten glaucoma.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

And they lasered that shit off. But I had heard horror stories. Uh Slowpoke told me that his mom got uh blinded in one eye from that shit.

unknown 4:52

Shit.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah.

unknown 4:54

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

I don't want no laser near my eyes. Yeah, that's why, you know, they used to tell me, won't you go kill that? Nah, fuck that. I'm cool with the glasses. I like glasses. I'm good. Glasses work, glasses work. Like, it's all good. Like, probably.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Did you know that he's my he's kind of almost my neighbor? Slowpo?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, where yeah, he lives.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

He lives right here, straight ahead on 108th Street. Oh shit. So where the fire station is, where the Washington High School, uh-huh, he lives right there. Like a few houses from the from the fire station.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah. But it's a trip because now that he's been my neighbor for so many years now, I've never gone to his house. And when he used to live on Westmoreland, was it Pico and Westmoreland? I used to be over there every damn weekend. Let's go, fool, let's go, fool, let's do that, let's do that. When we used to do the mobile DJing, that was like from like 90. Damn, it must have been like 90 shit, 95, 96, to like 98. Yeah, it was a it was a short run, but we he had, you know, he that's why he's very known now because all those things that we were doing. He was like, and now we're gonna do this, and we're gonna DJ here, this wedding, and that this and then that. And there I am. I'm the one with the equipment, and then he's the one with the turntables and the and all the records. So we're like, you know. Even even just even just with that, I I got stories. We we got we almost got uh held up by some gangsters in East LA because some gangsters from East LA. This is when, remember back in the days when the gangs actually used to kick it out of house in the front porch and be like, people pass it, but where you from fool? Yeah, that it was across the street. Who knows what gang that was? Next thing you know, that gang actually infiltrated the party, and they were like, hey, fool, play this song, blah blah blah. Until the people from the house was like, hey, you know, get out. And then they didn't want to leave. So what happened was they just told us to stop. But then the the gangsters almost got crazy with us because they wanted us to keep playing. And the same thing happened over by what's that hood over by the 10th freeway and crenshaw. No, no, no, not it was Crenshaw. All I know is it's 18th Street hood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was some weird dead end call. That's around the time when they had them fools on lockdown where they were like curfew for them fools. It was like a hundred fools in the street, and they were trying to get into the party, and and I and some one of his friends had gotten married, and we were DJing for them. We all got dressed up, we're in like suits and tie, whatever. And then all that mess, and and the cops came and it was helicopters, and they were like, Yo, yeah, you gotta go home and all that mess. And then the party, we had to stop the music because they couldn't, they were attracted by the loud music.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

That's yeah, no nobody will ever understand, you know, the plight of like the DJ and shit. Going through all the shit of all the house parties. They used to go down back to the city. Oh man, the shootings at the house parties, all that shit. Yo, man, motherfuckers used to go nuts and then fucking.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

It was so many random ass parties. There was another time we actually got a gun pulled on us this one time in the neighborhood. I I don't know if they were Inglewoods over on let's see, what what street is that? Uh I want to say La Brea or La Cienega. What's that main street that runs alongside of the 405, the big one? I think that's La Cienega. It's that street, and where where the before you get to La Tierra, all the all the car dealerships, the Honda dealership and all that, it's uh up in there, going back this way, and it was in some house, and land in the house, but it was outdoors and it was like some somebody's birthday party, and then next thing you know, these dudes came in and trench coats and trench coats. Even at a even at a freaking kickback. You're did you ever meet my homeboy Louie? I think I did. Daddy he used to be a security guard, but then he he started working for the the staple center doing the camera work. Yeah, yeah. He's the one who always used to bring me all the sport stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Um he's the one he used to call my nephew Pee-wee. I don't know if Yeah. Anyways, but uh uh what was that? Uh sh I'm I'm forgetting what I was gonna tell you. He I'm trying to remember he had invited us to some party over in, I think I wanna say almost 60s hood, but not really 60s. There's it was in the 60s, but it was by Van Az somewhere, and there's like a park in the middle of a neighborhood. And we were at a at a little like I wanna say almost like a rave, not a rave, uh, you know, like a backyard wannabe rave birthday party type of deal. And a bunch of DJs were going up there, and my f and my friend was playing, and now it was me and Rudy, and then my homie Louie has showed up separately, and one other friend was with us. I forgot who. And we went in there because they wanted those, remember the balloons? So we went up there to go serve some balloons, and we're like making some money. And then next thing you know, some dudes are in there, and he's high off his ass. And he's wearing a trench coat, and then all of a sudden, he pulls out a shot, uh, sawed off shotgun. Oh shit. Clack clack, talk music. Oh shit. Some Spanish dude, and then we're like, everything stopped, and then we're like, oh shit, it's going down, get everything. And then the guy started like aiming it at people, so we were we started hiding. They had like a bunch of stuff, kind of like how my house used to be, all kinds of machines and shit. They had all kinds of junk, and we started hiding the machines. Finally, we left, and then we're running, we're running to the to the to the van. And the dude sees us, and he noticed that we were the ones who had the tank. And then he hits us up and he was like, We thought he was gonna low up on us and just take our shit. And then he goes, Hey, let me let me get you you got some, and then Rudy, you know how Rudy is, being all like funny and shit. And he goes, Hey, you want some? I'm gonna get fucked up, yeah, give you some, you get fucked up right now. And then he goes, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You got them all happy and shit. He was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's like, Let's just give him some shit so he can get the fuck on. Like, all right, cool, cool, cool. He's not tripping, he put the shit away. And he he had a strap or something, he had just gone like this, and then we just started like filling that shit. We gave him like four of them, like, oh here. And then he was a big old looking like a bouquet of flowers. He was walking shit. And he started doing that shit, and he started walking off and like, and I'm over here with the keys. You know how in movie car movies. Which one is the keys? Like, open the shit. Finally, I opened the side door and let's get in. I didn't even get in through the drivers. It was we all, it was, I don't know, three of us, four of us, I don't know. We all hop in and we fucking bounce. Like, let's get the fuck out of here. We laugh, man. It's all these weird little stories. It's insane. Yeah, man. And fuck, man. Yeah, I mean, even like just DJ, the DJing shit in general, but when I was telling you I got caught up with the with uh doing shit for them Florence dudes when all the gangs had a truce. There was a moment in time when they had the in 90 something, it was a gang.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

The truce in the induce.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

And out of all the fucking places I went, they were like, we're gonna have a party, just all the different hoods are gonna get together at this one house in watts. Go up Century, you go past Central, I think it's Central, Will Rogers Park, go straight still to the end of the park. And of the projects of Greek? No. Oh, I don't know. Then I'm well then we made a left, but like half a block. Right there. Sounds like Grape State. So there was a bunch of like they were there too. Bunch of chicks, which was good, but all gangster chicks. Dudes from everywhere. That fucking house was so packed. And they were like, yeah, just play whatever. Like, fuck it. You know, just they didn't ask for no oldies or shit like that, but you know, we took some like fun. Kind of more like for the chicks, right? They were like, ah, they want the bitches to dance, or just whatever, but you know, just play some good funk shit. Alright, cool, no problem. We played like the old classics of Planet Rock and all that, you know, they love all that shit. And then next thing you know, two chicks were getting into a fight, and then Cedar was there that day. We were like three car loads full, though. It was all my homies from the not all of them, but a few other core homies of UNC were with me. Brun was there, Chico, my homie Blaze, uh Cedar, Cedar's brother Adop was there, uh some other homies and shit, and then my homie Gizmo. All uh, I don't know, I don't think Ask was there. And then one of my homies comes running, like, hey, two bitches are getting into a fight. And then Bruin comes over, like, yeah, he used to be kind of funny back then. He was like very he's very serious now, but back then he was like, Oh fucking bitches get into a fight. Kind of like how Rudy is. He Bruin was kind of like that. And and then next thing you know, bop bop bop bop.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Oh shit, I heard, but I could barely hear it because they had me in a in the laundry room in some backhouse in the back of the property, and then the next thing you know, they're like, Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what some fool just got shot in the head. Like, what? Oh in the middle of the street, let's fucking go. And I was like, fuck it. And I gave Cedar my keys. Go fucking get my van. My van was in the front yard, in the front lawn, and I was like, back that shit up. I don't know how my van didn't get shot up, but they've I've everybody ran, and then like I that was the must have been the quickest that we've ever left the place. We were there for exactly 10 minutes. We loaded up turntables, speakers, tan crates of records, and everybody. We had people jumping on top of like it was so packed that other people were jumping, even other people that somehow we knew showed up somehow. I don't know how. Hey fool, let me just ride with you, like give me the fuck out and drop me up, like over there. Yeah, I was like, alright, fuck it. And then people were like, because I don't know if you remember how my my van used to be. I had a bed in the back, yeah, and that shit was packed, and I had on uh people uh laying on top of the speakers that were almost hitting the roof of the van. And we were I'm surprised at my fucking tires and bust, and we fucking split, and then from there we took off and we went to um to Bruin's house because he lived like not even like like like minutes away. And we went over there and everybody got off who was gonna split and shit like that. Oh! And then it turned out that my homie Gizmo was was uh uh he wasn't a tiger now, he was a skater, he used to kick it with us, he used to throw parties with us back then. Uh he lived over by uh by that McDonald's on Central and Manchester. No, Slauson. He lived the next on the next street from the train tracks. Yeah. He lived over there, or like two blocks from there. Anyways, but uh, but yeah, man, uh, and then he goes later after like we didn't see him for a while after we got back. He goes, a bunch of people, bunch of people that I like I guess like what happened to me, a homie of the homie was like, hey fool, let me roll with you. Like, I have they would be giving the okay, like, yeah, just hop in. And then they hop in and he had a station wagon, which is actually the same station wagon that I the reason why I'm fucked up for my back, the car accident that I was in, was in that fucking station wagon. And he fucking they jumped in and he he was telling me we saw him later on. Um we because uh usually when shit goes down or whatever, we'll say w after that we'll meet up at so-and-so's house. So the thing was like we were gonna meet at Bruin's house. So we were there for like two hours and no nobody was showing up. Only like one other car later, and then finally he shows up and then and then from there we're like, hey, let's go eat. So we went to go eat at Tams on on Manchester. What's what's that? Is it McKinley? There's a Tams right there. I don't know if it's still there.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

I don't think it's there anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Okay, it was a Tams right before you get to is it McKinley? I don't know, man. It's been a minute since I've been in that area. But there was a TAM, no, was it a Tams? Had to have been a Tams. Those that was the popular uh not Lucy's Lucy's was more in my area. That that had to have been Tams or no, not Quick and Split. So it was in Naomi, not Naomi, but Hooper or something like that. Yeah, something like that. It was one of them streets before you get to Central. Yeah, it was a lot, it was a light, it was before the light. Yeah, it was a little street. That was uh from what I remember, they said it was East Coast Hood. Yeah. Um we went there to go eat because back then it was 24 hours or something like that. They closed at midnight or some shit. I don't know. We all went and then we started talking. There's a picture of that night, but I don't have it. Somebody has it. And then my homie Gizmo goes, Fuck, dude, guess what happened? And we're like, What? It was like, you know why it took me so fucking long to get back? And he was like, Why? Well, fucking some of the people that jumped in with me, like they knew he knew, but then other people that jumped in there, didn't we we didn't even know like who we know who the fuck it was. They made the dude turned out that he they um the the other homies who were with him said look, let's give this ride to these other people real quick, let's get rid of them, and then we'll come back. Or drop us off too, and then you can leave. He was like, Fuck. Alright, so he he went somewhere off in the hood in Florence or wherever, I don't know where. And then next thing you know, like then he came back. He was like, You're not gonna believe what the fucking what? He was like, the fucking dude who shot the guy in the head, jumped in my car. He was with me the whole time. If they would have pulled us over, that would have been an ass for everybody. We were all the murderers. And that was back then when the fucking sheriffs were kicking ass. It was in the time, like they didn't give a fuck. And then we were like, oh shit. He was like, Yeah, the dude at the gun, he had been he had it in a paper bag, so he went up there to do some business and he put it in the paper bag, and he had it like it looked like he had a drink in his hand, and this whole time he had the fucking gun in his hand. Wow. It was I he was like, I I didn't notice it until he was getting out and the fucking bag ripped. Damn, and you could hear it click, click, click, you know, that little noise that it makes. He was like, it was no bottle, it was no bottle, and it was no can. That shit rattled like a fucking like a 38 or some crazy shit. Cause you could hear something go clack, clack, clack. Like it was just and he was like, fuck. And then I then he's he kind of like walked off and he he picked it up and then he walked off, and you could see him just going like putting his waistback and he walked off. I was like, oh shit. And we were all like, oh shit, like we were just all like being loud as fuck. Yeah, certified killer. Yeah, man, it was a trip, and then that that was the last time I was like, Yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna do no more. Nah, I was like, when my cousin was like, nah, man, with all the respect in the world, but you know, man, I'm not I'm not I I don't get caught up like that, man. That's not my that's not my biz right there, man. I did you the favors, I hooked him up for like three, four times, but oh that that's crazy, man. Damn, yeah, man. But it was a a lot of different weird adventures that we yeah, like shh as far as DJing wise. Yeah. We even DJ'd once, um, but it got busted really quick. The uh on Sentry, the aviation bridge, that used to be a yard back in the days. Now now it's the metro, the new metro. Yeah. That used to be a yard. That was actually the H and R yard. Oh so Shiver was the one who he had that spot locked. I have pictures of that. Mm hmm. We used they used to be the where the Carl's Jr. is now, next to it used to be a nude spot. Did you just would say nude and we would go in there and park all the way in the back and then hop in and hop in and just walk it up the ramp. And we went up there and did something. And I don't know, somebody's crazy idea, but we went up there to go DJ. And sure enough, like when they started noticing all the people parked in the parking lot and then that was it. Cause it was a freaking the path for the fucking plane. So the eventually it was some helicopter saw it. Everybody running and shit. Whoever had the sound system up there though, that was their ass. I don't know how they would have got that shit out of there.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Ain't no way.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Ain't no way.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

But yeah, man, all kinds of shit. Yeah, shit, man. What what what got you started in graffiti? What what was it for you that got you?

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Oh, I mean, for me, uh I guess it was when like Beat Street and Breaking came out. That was kind of the beginning. But and that was only because before that, um I mean I always liked to draw. Yeah. That was my thing. I like to draw. Like forever I like to draw. And then when I saw that, I was like, you know, Ramo and all that, and Beat Street, and and I was like, man, I'll dig that. And then and but right before that, like I had also started to notice um the you know, like what I was mentioning before, the uh the most known people in this area was like the uh that dude clever. And I was telling you about I think it was Mad. And then there was uh I think it was they were called the Deaf Crew or the Bomb Force Crew, something like that. They had a the most known piece in this area was the I called it the Donkey Kong piece. That was on I think it was Imperial and Western.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

And then I saw that as a kid in elementary school, like sixth grade, and I'm like, man, what year was that? That was like 83, 83, 84, somewhere around there, or maybe even sooner. It was early 80s. And then yeah, and then I just started like trying to copy that. And you know, and then eventually I got more into it when um I met certain people, like how I got my the person that who gave me my name, um, and also the person who got me into my first crew. So, you know, that's when they were like, Oh, look, check my book out. You know, the the guy who gave me my name, this was in '85. Yeah, it was the first year of of uh junior high, seventh grade. Clay. Uh Clay. Yeah, Henry Clay. Um around mid, I want to say mid-year, because you know how sometimes different students will pop in and out, yeah, you know, transferred. They get transferred and then all of a sudden then they're gone. And and and that's why like it's a trip how I even got my name, because an influence with graph. Um, the way I got my name was I was by that time I had already picked out a name, supposedly me, because of Matt. So I was I called myself Mad Kid, as kind of like in an homage to him, like kind of like saying, He's the most known dude here. And for you know, back then you were just, you know, impressionable with what you know you were seeing. So I was like, man, I want to be like that dude. So I picked out that name, and then but when I met that dude, uh, he wrote Creo, C-R-E-O, and he was from T DK crew. And but he didn't look like he was from this area. He he was a black dude, but he he looked like he was down with like the surfers. Yeah, dude looked like wearing OP shorts, he had a flat top, like the almost like the kitten play, yeah, and like a surfer shirt, like with the little surfer thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

He was like grew up in Venice, yeah, not with the short lines.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Exactly, exactly. He looked like he was from the west side somewhere or Manhattan Beach or something, yeah. And he was a real light-skinned dude, he looked like he was mixed too. And he goes, Oh, so you write? And I was like, uh I I still wasn't used to that. Like, you write. And I was like, What I write? What the fuck is that? You mean like yeah, you do like you, you you know, you you tag, and I was like, Oh, well, and I was still new, so I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I I was just drawing. And then he goes, What the what they call you? And I was like, Oh, mad kid. And he goes, Man, that sounds like it's too old school. I don't even back then, I guess the dude was up on it. And he goes, Nah man, you just change your name. That that that don't sound right. And I was like, Okay, well, whatever. Like, well, and throughout the time that he was there, he was like, No, I'm gonna help you get a name. Like, you know, we we we ain't having that. I was like, all right, cool. And then eventually, uh, one day he's like, Okay, I got it. We're gonna uh open a uh um uh a dictionary and and we're gonna pick you a name. Like, alright, cool. So he started picking our names, and I was like, nah, this, this, this, nah, nah, I'm not feeling it, it don't sound right. And then all of a sudden, just one day he was like, you know what, man? I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna close my eyes, and I'm just gonna go like that with my finger, and wherever it lands, that's gonna be your name. Yeah, all right, fuck it. Bah. He lifts his finger, landed on prior, believe it or not. That's how, and then from then on, it was like, okay, he showed me how to um even write it. He was like, you should write it like this. And it was exactly how they used to do it back in the days, you know, it was that th those little I don't know, it's kind of hard to describe, but but you yeah, like the just it looked like old, yeah, like, yeah, exactly. So and I s and somewhere I have saved where he actually he wrote it, he wrote it on uh because back then I used to I was always into music too, so I used to have this little like handheld uh tape recorder, but I would play music on it, and I still have it somewhere, it's all beat the fuck up, but um he actually wrote it with uh the first time actually I ever saw a uh uni pen, uh one of them little small uni pens, and he wrote my name on it and I still have it.

unknown 28:30

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I s somewhere in in in a drawer, but I still have it. Graph memorabilia and shit. Yeah, something like that. And um, but yeah, and then after that, and and like I said, it was kind of like meant to be because about a week or so, or almost like a m a a month, almost a month later, he bounced, he was gone. I don't see him anymore. Damn. But then you had contact with him since a trip because I ran uh I don't know if it was on Facebook or Instagram years back, I ran across a dude who on his profile or something, he you know, have some now well nowadays people just straight up put their crews and pictures and whatever. And I noticed that the dude was from TDK and I said uh and I asked him that uh if he knew a guy named Creo from TDK because I wanted to catch up with him and you know just you know, kind of let him know what went down and whatever happened with me and all that stuff. And um, but yeah, the guy was like, nah, that that's before my time, but you know, like he was all like, you know, I mean, uh, if I ever run into the dude, I'll tell him that. I kind of give him a little rundown, so maybe one day he'll let him know, like, hey, this dude, you helped him to get his name back. Maybe he'll remember. And then even and then my first crew um happened a few months after that, before the year was over, that same '85. Um I don't know if you know him, but he's very well known in this area, uh, Castro.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Oh, yeah. Castro Castro won.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

When he was a young crew, Castro won. He same thing happened with him. I had him in a class, but he was kind of he was one of them dudes that didn't like to go to class, so he hardly ever showed up. And then one day he shows up, and I'm there, you know, I'm the one that's, you know, there's nothing to do. We had a substitute teacher or something, and I'm just I'm already a little bit better with my letters, and I'm just, you know, and so like I'm doing a little something, a little character, whatever, you know, a little b boy with the chain and doing that b-boy stance and all that stuff. And he goes, Hey, same thing again, but by by now I kind of already knew. He was like, Hey, you right? And I was like, Yeah, he was like, What you write? And I was like, Oh, Pride won. And then he goes, We but where you from? Like, what, like what crew you from? I was like, nah, I'm not from no crew, like it's just me. Like, I'm a wonder, I guess, you know, like what they say now, winner. That phrase was even back then, you know. But I never understood one or I was I just thought it was like a slang winner, but one or as by yourself. I didn't get that till one sometime later, but whatever. And then he goes, Hey man, you want to be down with me? And I'm like, but well, like what we're like, where you from, or what? And then he goes, Yeah, you know, I got this crew CMA, criminal-minded artist, and you know, I'm I'm getting this thing going, blah blah blah. Because supposedly, this is what he says, that he's one also a founder of KWS. Um, him and some other dudes. Man, somehow, I guess I'm I'm not sure what school he uh he was coming from at the time, but he got transferred out here and and that's how I met him, and he had started a different crew, I guess. I guess different people from the main KWS were starting different crews, and that was I guess his. But yeah, and then but then as how it happened with the previous person, he bound he disappears after like a few months, gone, poof, never saw him again either. And so at that point, it was just me by myself, and I repped it wow. Well, I guess you could say in a way, I still rep it now because I never really got out. You know, I you could say I retired out, or just you know, yeah, I'm still there and I still talk to Castro. He's the only one that I still, you know, it took me a minute. I reconnected with him when uh at the graft roots shop, the one in Gardena. That one time, yeah. Yeah, that's the first time I had seen him in since junior high. Sh damn. Yeah, and the yeah, and the only other person I had ever not ran into, but I actually seen hit up the crew was uh at the Belmont Yard once. It was this dude named Rescue, and it was a trip because by then I had my number 911 and that's a whole nother story too, because as a lot of people know, there is another pride, and he's from another crew. Yeah. And yeah, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna say, but people will know. If you're from LA, you'll know. And I got a lot of I got a lot of flack for it from that crew. Yeah. And I said, you know what? I'm not gonna change my name because you know, the way I got it, and just uh I I started with it, and that's almost like a nick a kid nickname or something I grew up with. So I'm like, okay, I'm just and and when I pick the number, because a lot of people always wonder what the hell does that mean, it really doesn't mean anything. It's just more like in that moment in in in this area where we're at, right? It was like a fad or the you know the the thing to have a number next to yeah. If you weren't just a one, people just want to just be a one. People, you know, I uh a lot of the different homies, even like my homie Ciro, um, who's now the you know has the graph roots thing, um, which I'm also a part of. Uh he chose the number 57. Why I don't know. I thought it was because of the car, you know, Chevy 57 Chevy, but who knows what it is. Other people chose uh the year that they were born, you know, like uh uh 70 something or 80 something or whatever. And then there were other people who used to use like the police codes. Uh 594, I think I don't know, I forgot if that was for vandalism or uh some uh the homie cedar kind of almost did what I did, and he was like, hmm, you picked 911 because that's when actually 911 came out. The emergence, the original 911 came out, it was debuting when I said, you know what? I'm just gonna get that number. It's weird. I'm just gonna people will they'll know. Kind of like kind of like uh pistol. So pistol 45, but that goes because it's a 45 pistol. Yeah, even though I I I I I wish I would have thought of that first because of not even 40 45 because of the gun, but 45 because of the vinyl. But then at one point I was like, I'm gonna use 33, but then somebody had to reuse this. I was like, damn. But then I was like, I don't want it to look like a gang and whatever, because you know, numbers, yeah, a lot of streets. Yeah, I was like, yeah. So, you know, but that's kind of a thing, uh kind of a little story about the number. Um that's how it came to be, just because I got a lot of flack for it back in those days, and and and I was like, okay, I'm just gonna change it and whatever, you know. And since then I've never really had any issues uh because of it, even though, you know, every once in a while, you know, when I do go something, somebody will say, Oh, okay, you know. I even got interviewed by um we were this close, and it didn't happen, unfortunately. The the the the whatever GoFundMe or whatever for the history of graffiti the book with uh whisk in them Yeah Volume Two So the Volume One is the one that has all the you know the other the big dudes and but the second book was going to continue on with more of people in our area you know from from yeah from the midsection down south to the bay to the Yeah, and that one was gonna include you know the UNC crew it was gonna include other crews like uh some tag band crews like KMT or A2C or other, you know, also all the way down to like yeah to the South Bay like uh DIS, DTD, DE, um, you know D2, uh H and R they were huge they were huge I remember them. I mean I was cool with him. I I uh mean I don't know if he was the main head. That's they used to tell me he was the main head, uh, this dude named Case. Um and I was he it's a trip because we got along pretty cool to the point where he would shout us out and pieces that he would do, and we'd shout them out and other pieces, and that's kind of for me what my version of Graph would have been like, instead of the battling thing of it was cool too. My favorite one though for battling was the bus uh battling because that was a big thing. Big thing we didn't have trains, we had buses, and it's a trip because I've actually had conversations with other uh random writers who actually I met them because of um uh you know I have hobbies, I'm I you know collect caps and other collectibles and things like that, and I made friends like that. Some friends I like you got the constructor cons, yo. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Somewhere around as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Yeah, you can see I got vintage, I got my vintage uh that's where we had Megatron, yeah. Soundwave. You got all the motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, it's right here. Here's my here's my vintage starscreen. Take a quick look. Well, for those uh hearing, yeah, it's uh it's it's in the acrylic case too. It's not the best, but this is the one that I got in ninety ninety-five when I got this one. So that's the only reason because usually people like to get these when they're in better shape. Better pristine.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Yeah, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Anyways, but yeah, I've met, you know, people that used to be like, you know what, man, I envy you guys in LA because you guys had the bus thing going on, and you know, wherever they, you know, there was this one dude in Alabama, then I met this other dude in some other like rural area, and I mean our bus lines here are not like the best, and we don't have, you know, it's not like that, or or you know, it's the cops are more on the I'll kill you side instead of like here used to get the beat down but by the sheriffs, but it was rare because getting on the bus and doing your thing and leaving to the point where it got so bad that they started getting the uh the famous RTD police. Yeah, and everybody and then then you had the UCs, the undercover police for buses.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Yeah, man. B, OB, and uh swerve we got caught by the motherfuckers.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yeah, we we did you ever hear of the of the the writers benches? Or the writers bench?

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

We I was lucky enough to have attended the first and the second one, and on the I believe it was the second one, if I'm correct, is I that's when we got caught, but we didn't even get caught riding. We were trying to catch the bus. And there was some dudes that were riding, and they were riding on the bus as they were leaving, we were just standing there, and then but because we were actually at that place, we had markers on us. So because of that, and back then they weren't they were almost like undercovers, they they didn't wear the because eventually you did have the police, but they were wearing regular clothes, they look like detectives, and basically they were like, What do you write? and da-da-da. And they would tell you, Oh, write it on this sheet of paper, write your like I'm gonna really do what you say. And I'd write whatever bootleg name, and just you know, hopefully I was like, hopefully it's not burnt. Yeah, burnt name. Yeah, and I'm like, okay, and I brought would write this. Where you from? Nah, I ain't from nowhere, man. I just like to whatever. And then write it, and then oh, they pull out the Polaroid camera and take an instant picture of you holding the paper in front of your face. Oh shit. Yeah, like a like a mugshot. And um, but I was like, man, I don't even write that name. Hopefully, I was like, hopefully it'll come back to bite me in the ass, but I was like, get to get that picture, man. Yeah, they kept it, whatever, and um, but yeah, that was that you know, just little different things that you know um as far as like oh well going back to uh the whole how I got into it and all that. Once I got into the first crew, though, unfortunately, there was no one around from my own crew because they originally were not from my area in a way, they were from another part. I don't know if they were coming from the Lemur Park area or I don't I'm not sure. Um I think I went to Crenshaw and stuff like that, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Because I think that's where Kev is. I'm not 100% sure myself. I would I would have to ask Cash Show myself.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Yeah, if you talk to him, you know, he has mentioned it because uh they have uh a page on Facebook where they they've kicked down the street.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yeah, they break down all the CMA stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Um I was actually the second second Spanish dude in in that crew. The first one would have been uh React, Rest in Peace. Um and I'm not even sure how he knew Castro. Years later it turned and I didn't meet Re uh React. It turned out that I actually even knew React. Um turned out to be one of my neighbors cousins that used to live across the street from here. And one day I went to a party that they had invited me and my older sister, and we went, and then we it was over there at that house. I run into him and I'm like what like you you from this, you from that. Yeah. And so, but anyways, moving forward, um eventually in high school, then I started as you you know, the homie C Row. Um in in that same uh I think eighth grade and ninth grade is when I started hanging out more with him. He they had their own little clique. Um, it was C Row. Uh I don't know if you did get a chance to meet my homie Ed Eddie Edison. Um he used to work. No, I don't know if you if you did meet him. I thought you might have. Um uh he eventually became, I think, from he got into LOD for a minute. I don't know if he's still in it or not, but I hadn't talked to him in years. Um, it was him and then um the homie Chronic, the homie Drizzle. Drizzle was my neighbor, the one I told you lived around the corner. Yeah. And um, but yeah, I started hanging out with them. They had a crew called uh I think it was like a kickback homie crew, they were called KMA Kiss My Ass. It was whatever, you know, because that's what that was their attitude. Ah, kiss my ass, whatever. They they like to BS. They even had other homies that weren't even riders in it, whatever. Yeah. And um, and I hung out with them, and then eventually they they tried to get a little serious, and then uh that that's when they were like, Yeah, we're gonna start this other crew, and it's gonna be more. on the let's go out and do stuff so then they um started a crew called KRM Kings Running Mad and then so that's when I fully on I had CMA on the back burner because I was like well no one's no no one's around so I'll hit it up every once in a while but this is who I'm with so that's who I'm rolling with at that moment in time you know you had your your unit so and and and thanks to uh you know the homie zero because of him is how I started learning about more than just here this area he he started he was the one who actually introduced me to like mentioning the Belmont the Belmont then the Belmont Yard and I was like the Belmont Yard what's that and he was like let's go so here is this around the same it must have been 86 by this time it was 86 because the first year was how I got my name and how the first crew that I got into l later on that year towards the end of the year is when I first met them but then the following year um eighth grade is when I met we full on like started all hanging out and then was like yeah let's let's do it let's let's you know let's hit the you know let's get on the bus and that's when the bus thing was starting to happen you know people started getting up on the buses and taking off those little cardboard things that are on the roof of the on the the ceiling of the bus. Yeah doing full pieces of taking them off or just writing on it putting it back or whatever you know take it down so then they won't see you writing on the actual roof or ceiling or whatever and years later I would take the whole thing and just do a piece on it and then I'll put it back. I I tripped that on when I did yeah when I started seeing that later on that was kind of more towards right around the time when I stopped riding the bus because that's when I got the van. The mystery mobile the mystery mobile yeah once I got the van it was on man there's so many missions in that van from the DJing thing all the from the loading up like 20 30 dudes in there going mobbing dropping people off at different spots and then picking them back up and getting chased by gangs and but anyways once you know we would roll get on the bus and go all the way up Normandy to what was it uh Beverly and then shoot down Beverly then get off right before by uh I think it was Beverly High School or no Belmont High School Belmont and then just go down and that was in the early days when it wasn't even that kilt. It was this was around the time when UTI had that one piece uh I don't know who did it um but it was that uh computer style piece that was in the back of the yard next to the tunnel itself and it was like and it had um man I can't recall that far back but I just remember it was the first computer piece that I had seen I was blown away by it I was like damn like that sh that shit is hard like damn like when I started seeing like some heavy heavy like heavy hitter stuff you know and then um who else um I mean it's it when I started noticing Slick and all the other you know Hex and all that's right before you know um right before all the battles and all that that was still a little bit before that but but yeah um there were other dudes like uh I think Angst and some other dudes that don't you don't see much anymore um you know uh I kind of want to say like the early beginnings of LOD DOC um crews like that. When they were that I think that was like their hood. Also uh the first time running into gangs there that's when they originally tore down the the neighborhood that was on the top of the tunnel that was the the Rockwoods I think was the Rockwoods yeah and that hunters yeah that's when around the time when they um right before they filmed colors I think yeah that was right around that time what colors is what eighty something? Yeah eighty eighty it was right before that because the gang I remember we got we actually got chased out of there uh once or twice we got shot at um from the top of the tunnel and then uh that's when the the building itself wasn't killed that little building yeah it was still in good shape but um but yeah man I mean you know once once I got my you know my van I would just go up there I'd go up there with the homies from the same crew the KRMs then as time went on um here comes high school and then in high school that's when it kind of went more full on um the first year or so it was pretty hardcore we were going up there we started learning about the other different yards that were you know popping up here and there I mean they were already there but we were barely learning about them you know the the LA River um what they used to call it the panic zone um the soto yard we were going out towards the east side um here it's it's for me here in this area like you know where where we're at now there wasn't there were no yards really it was because we're in the middle of nothing but houses yeah and when I was telling you about the Donkey Kong piece that's only because that one there was a huge dead like dirt area and it was the side of some laundry mat and it was all fenced in and in those days for those walls that have been so clean that was the only open space that I had ever seen in our area. Other than that nobody was really thinking about billboards really back then. It was slowly creeping but you know it wasn't really like that. I mean here then eventually yeah then you started getting you know some people here and there starting to get billboards and stuff but but yeah you know and then um and then as far as like uh oh yeah and I forgot it was another crew that I got into when it started ramping up uh it was called R.A.K. There is an R.A.K. now but it's not the same one. It's a it's a different one. This was uh started by a friend of mine uh he used to write uh Bop and then he changed his name to Poe um and then um uh oh his first name he had a bunch of different names uh put it that way and he started that crew and it was still the same including another you know member here and there but then uh that kind of you know fizzed out when some of them got into trouble and the homie Ciro left uh the high school that we were going to uh which was uh Washington high school he bounced and then once he bounced he was like the main one who was like always uh letting us know like we're gonna do this we're gonna do that so once he left and everything kind of fizzed out and everybody was you know oh I got a girlfriend I don't got time or I gotta work or whatever so that happened um uh now I'm in high school uh what is it 11th grade that's when I start becoming um friends with uh Cedar Cedar wasn't Cedar Cedar was just a homie and and a few other you know people that we all just hung out it was a a bunch of skaters and it was like uh some riders from different crews that's when you the biggest crew at there at the time was KWS the same KWS that was connected to Castro yeah they were the biggest crew there they won the ones that you know everybody was like oh okay um and then you had other little crews peppered in here and there and but you know for a hot minute I was in KWS but then after a while I was like I don't know I I just I don't know I wasn't feeling it um it just seemed like they were running on a different lane than I wanted to be in and um but yeah then um 88 rolls around 88 80 to 89 and I'm I'm like kind of in limbo I really don't have any crews or anything like that um oh side note right in that limbo moment I I meet another dude that pops in out of nowhere like that Creole dude and also Castro is this dude who and the only reason why I'm remembering the but I'm bringing it up because uh my my nephew um Dilemma ran into this guy a few months ago and he knew that I had knew that I met him and I was cool with him back then but he he forgot there's something I'm gonna mention but he he only remembered that so when he saw him he said oh yeah my uncle blah blah blah but I I don't even think that he even remembered that far back he tells me that and I'm telling him well and I break down the story about that dude he used he what did he write um oh my god man it's it's been I remember that I remember what kind of what happened but I'm trying I'm drawing oh he wrote Booya uh I don't know if it was B-O-O-Y-A I think that's probably how he because I it I remember only because of the the the hip hop group yeah the Booya tribe and he was this black dude with dreads and but at the same time he didn't act like people who lived here he was more like a stoner and that to me was more like Venice same areas where Creo was from but not too close to the beach more like back towards the 405 like back in that area and and um so the thing with him is that I had loaned him um a peace book he was like yeah you know how back then loan me a book and I'll draw in it whatever and he did but then I had another book and he was like uh like sometime later hey let me let me borrow this book and I'll you know and I was like oh it's a brand new book I haven't even done it I'll I'll I'll you know let me get on the you know on the cover you know everybody wants to cover so I said alright cool whatever and then all of a sudden he never comes back he bounds with my book peace book gone yeah so then late I once my nephew told me that he had ran into us dude if I if you would have remembered what I told him I said he owes me a book but that that was a little side that I mean it happens you know you trust people with books and you know they disappear yeah so but anyways and then uh uh so I'm in limbo still there when I meet that dude this is a this is 88 to 89 and so at this point it's like man like I just kind of almost was like I don't even know if I want to do this anymore because I'm not I got some homies that I'm kicking it with but nobody's nobody writes the other writers I'm not feeling them it wasn't what I was about this was this was around the time now when the tag banging thing is up like you got um NBT you've got a2c those were like the two main ones that you were like donning to them on the bus or on the street.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

And OFA was this way too right like but they were Pico Unionary but they were this way those OFAs were like the A2Cs and MBTs up here.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

There was an OFA out here but that was where Prey was from that's where the homie Prey but see and and the and and actually that was another reason why I actually didn't want to run with K Dub S no more because I like I was telling you I I was just not feeling for some reason the vibe. They were almost to that point but and the only reason why I even met Prey was because of um my homie Scent my homie Scent eventually became Ciro's brother in law he used to go to Washington and Henry Clay so I knew Scent but um he was not hardcore in the writing back then and the thing how I met Prey was um uh he was like dude like you know my homie he he he he wants to be a DJ and uh he you know uh I think I don't know if Prey and someone else like they all like they put some money together to get some turntables or something. I don't know something like that happened and uh Prey was still living with his grandma at the time over in that neighborhood by like what is it uh El Segundo and Vermont and um which looks like Beverly Hills. Once you go into that neighborhood looks like Beverly Hills I'm like how the hell is that there? And you come out here and it looks like World War III or whatever right and so I go over there and then I become really cool friends with them and I'm feeling the vibe with them I'm like man they're into the music and they're doing this and that and and and so basically I'm there to kind of show them how to DJ so it's now now learning that they're the uh uh the Gardena OFAs so I meet Prey then my homie Sent and then I meet um what's that other dude's um Burner and another dude named Boner believe it or not a dude named Boner trippy name uh but yeah anyways uh and then that's how that's how I you know I meet them and all that but uh but the reason why I kinda uh what happened was I became like real cool with prey and then eventually he was like man you know I want to let me go to your house and maybe you know uh we can you know on your equipment because I he I used to the way I used to I already had my 1200s by then uh you know so it was like yeah yeah yeah like uh let me go to your house and you know show me there at your house like I want to check out your collect because I my record collection so one day he came but he made a mistake I told him meet me on my block he wound up meeting me on the corner of 108 and uh and Normandy and that was the corner where all the buses would pull up and all either all the riders would ride on the buses and leave or they would get on the bus there. Back then for some strange reason KWS and OFA had beef and and I don't know if it was because of the OFA's in downtown or the OFAs here in Gardena and he's there and you know this was the backpack era now so now you know the little flower shirt de lasso that that whole you know rocking the the college cap snapbacks and you know and so you know with the with the air not uh with the air maxes and that whole vibe you know stonewash jeans and stonewash jackets the little medallions you know yeah there was that era so um prey is standing there and he's you know he he's a tall dude yeah but back skin standing out yeah and and back then he was he was kind of on thick static like he was like not buff but he he looked like a big dude you know the way he would stand and so like he got hit up and then next thing you know you got like five six KWS's walking on and and and I'm over here like dude get out like walk away like keep walking and he was like what but he was down for his and they were like where you from and then they were like he was like he should have said something else but I guess he was down for his so all good you know props he goes a gardener blah blah and then they're like what you know F bad blah blah blah this K the vet blah blah blah blah and so they they're trying to jump him and I'm like no stop man that's my homie like nah man like you you with us or you not or like and then that was kind of more the breaking point where I'm like this is a homie that I I I'm I click with and and you know we we uh we just get along good and and you know the the whole music vibe because that's where my kind of where my other passion is in you know as you know DJ Pride yep that one is DJ Pride 1 there is no changing that one right there that is it because there is no other DJ Pride one and DJing and whatsoever. Exactly but uh but yeah and then um they chase us they start chasing us even me back then on my block uh the gang was they were kind of active back in those days even when I used to come here back in the day they were still active yeah and yeah yeah that's very active as fuck and yeah and and so like down the street right uh before you get to like a a house or two from the corner there were some apartments and they used to hang out there so I knew all of them back then it was all the homies were there so to me they were my homies it was like I didn't see them as a gang it was just my homies whatever and I knew them by name and I'm I'm walking up and I'm and they're seeing this happen and then they actually walk out and they're like and you know they they're like hey what's up man what was you good like what's what's going on and I'm like nah man these dudes are trying to beat our ass you know they don't like my homie but now they're trying to jump me and so at then at that point you see like five six cribs come out like like what up cub you know what's up where you from cub blah blah blah why you throwing on my block and they as soon as that happened they stood still they didn't even they didn't walk none up the street they kept it on no they kept it on Normandy they didn't want to walk other or like over here don't play no games they're like I'm good like nah nah nah nah nah nah like nah nah nah so then after they banged on them and then they just kept walking like keep on keep walking they went up they stood on the corner they just kept you know scoping in they were like man just get on they were basically telling me to just go home like nah just get on you know go go home and like let you know let us handle this like alright cool and then um but then after that I you know I drove them home whatever but but yeah anyways but yeah that so that was the breaking point for me for like not wanting to continue in that crew I just bounced out like I just stopped still in limbo what do I do I want to do something but I I had my own version of what I wanted a graph crew to be and I wanted it to kind of be like the old school at that point saying old school and it was you know barely barely like 10 years since it started from 70 something to 80 something it was barely 10 years and I'm like man I just want to like that whole thing where like friendly battle like getting up on the buses or you know uh doing collab pieces that I was already thinking about stuff like that like and and you know and and just my experiences with other the other writers that I got along with and stuff like that it was always good I was always uh humble with everybody that I met and now you know eventually it got to the point where now when people run into you they're like where you from you right it's like that attitude is like I don't even know it was all that tag banging mentality that just crept up and kind of in my opinion corrupted what um the original graph was because back then it'd be like oh you you you right and like a question yeah and you'd be like oh yeah like yeah like oh what you right like oh I'm right then yeah now it's like where you from yeah right yeah like yeah exactly and and back then it was like they were like curious oh you from that oh yeah my homie you know so and so is from that oh that's cool man yeah like we should link up kind of like like like when in the rap biz you know or whatever in the music bit like hey we should you know we should link up and maybe do a track or or you know hey I'll do your show do my show whatever you know and one of those kind of deals and um but yeah um but uh yeah and then you know and then one day I was like you know what and and and uh this now at this point it's already 89 and I'm like you know what I'm just gonna start my own crew man and this was now the era of all these crews that were coming out naming themselves after something like of course the OG crew is CBS right CBS the OG crew named after television station right the initials but now you have like uh you had uh like even like what MBC and then you had like the the television station crews UPN right that was the the thing but then you also had the thing of the college crews USC there was even a UCLA crew for I was like UCLA that's nuts yeah like that's four letters in your crew like they're gonna think that that's your name but you know and so like and so I was like man I'm gonna I'm gonna do that that was that that moment in time and I said I'm gonna do that so back then I was like um I don't know how I came across it but um it it was I was reading something on like Michael Jordan that was the Michael Jordan era so I was like you know just reading on stuff you know some sports book and then I started seeing what where the players were from like what college they went to and all the Stats, right? And it's at University of North Carolina. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. I was like, oh, okay. And then I kept noticing a trend because I I I then I started reading up on other like uh like some of the Lakers, like I think James Worthy was also from the same team as as Michael Jordan, or around the same or the older or younger, something like that. Other play, and I kept noticing that. I was like, damn. And then I looked it up and I was like, all right, UNC sounds pretty clean. And then and then I even saw the logo, their logo was the Tar Heel, the RAM, and I was like, man, that's even doper. I love the logo. They have that, and they have the actual foot. It looks like the big foot. Yeah. It's a foot. I was like, that's even dope too. Because I could do a stencil evidence. Shh, you're right. And that'll just be the instead of putting the the crew.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

Yeah, be a stencil of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

So I'm like, but what am I gonna call it? What am I gonna call? I don't know. And I couldn't think of it. I was stumped. That's why it took me from like it late 88 into 89 because I couldn't figure out a name and I wanted something that that would work for what I wanted. And then right in the middle of like 89, I would say early to mid-89. Uh uh again, another student, another person who comes in out of nowhere, same as everyone else, that had always created or or started something with me and it evolved. Um my homie um uh who became, of course, he's my homie, uh uh uh he's actually I I s I I always say that he's the co-creator, even though I I the initial idea came from me, UNC and all that as the crew. But when I met him, I met him in uh I think it was Wood Chop class. He eventually um uh is like oh dude, you're he's he saw me drawing the letters and everything, same thing. And one day we had a sub and he's like, dude, you graph? And that's the first time I heard you graph? Yeah, and I was like, Yeah, and he was like, Oh man, I I you know I graph, I write. And I'm like, oh cool. And I was like, Well, what you write? He was like, Dale, like the song. He was a black dude, real cool. I still talk to him to this day. He works with uh veterans, the veterans, the army veterans. He does uh, you know, w uh work with them. Um but yeah, uh homeless veterans too. So props, shout out to to Dale, the homie Dale. Um, and uh and then he was like, Man, I'll I'm I'll be down with you, man. Like it sounds like I gave him my idea for what I wanted to do. Piece, we do some pieces, you know, and we get like a little a little little crew of of of piecers, and then we get a little uh crew of just writers or or a mash of both, and and just keep it like so so tight, just a few members, and and he's like, Yeah, but I'm like, Well, we call it, and then one day he comes in, we're talking, and then he goes, I got it. And I was like, What? He was like, he was throwing names at me, but I was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Then he goes, I got it, I got it for sure. This is it right here. I was like, okay, what he goes, under no control, and I'm like, damn, that hit me. Like, I've in some type of way, I was like, Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, that's that works, that's where that's that works right there, and then and then from there it just kind of kind of snowballed, really. Um at that particular moment in time. I told you the year before I had already met, though, which now is my good friend, the homie Cedar. He wasn't a writer, but he he we would all hang out just as like normal homies, you know, we were classmates or whatever. We would have our own little group of skaters, some writers, some, you know, little like a gangbanger here and there, with just homies hanging out, right? Just hanging out, talking mess. And then he and then just different homies were like, hey man, I want to I want to be down with your crew. Like at this point, now I had a crew. I'm like, I got I finally gotta I started a crew, yeah. And I want to be in your crew, Cedar was like, I want to be in your crew, I was like, man, you know, you gotta be gonna get billed. We're trying to keep it tight, you know, like you know, and he was like, Who's in it? Oh, me and the homie. And out of all those people, the only one who actually made the cut was Cedar. So he eventually, you know, before the year was over, um, which at that point, um, you know, by the time 1990, which was the year that uh we graduated, um actually no, he he didn't graduate with me, he was a year younger. I think he was uh I was in the 11th and he was in the in the 10th. By the time I had 12th grade, the crew had started, and then before I left graduated, he was already in the crew. So me and Dale leave, but before we leave, this is what happens. I had another homie who was hanging out with us. Um his name's Abel. Um his brother, um Oh, yeah, a lot of a lot of stuff happens around that time. Uh his brother uh is a writer, and they were from a crew. I don't know if you maybe you they were from probably you from your side of town. Uh I don't know if they were from a crew called FC First Class. Yeah. There was the battle of the of the C's, I call it. Um bus m bus battles, because it was AC, FC, and there was some other something C crew. LC they were all battling, and they were from FC, I believe. But the thing was that the their leadership, or I don't know, something in it, they weren't really feeling. So my homie, by the by the time this was my last year of being in that, you know, in in in high school, uh, he starts telling his brother, hey man, I got a homie, uh, you just started a crew, and man, they're pretty cool, and they they you know, they get down and blah blah blah, and and uh he would see my sketches, and they were like, Man, and then I had even in that time I was battling people and just on paper, battling, doing pieces, sketches like on the spot. Let's get down right now, pa draw a character, draw, you know, and um, and so that impressed him, and then he eventually tells his brother, and then just from that one my homie's brother opens up, which were the the ones I was telling you that were by um by novels place, rest in peace. Um a whole floodgate opens up. Next thing I know, I've got like 30 dudes who want to be in the crew, and I get I meet his brother, and his brother wrote uh fake, P-H-A-K-E. And then I started meeting other dudes like the homie Snack and Renner and Earth and Erock and all these other dudes. Even at one point there was a dude named Revoke that was in my crew, but I don't know if it's I doubt it if it's the same Revoke. I I kind of want to say it's not, but it was a Revoke in my crew for a minute. Um, and then even at that, I'm gonna say something which a lot of people don't like, this dude, but the uh Toomer, the most hated, I guess he's very hated in LA. Uh he was from my crew at one point, and he was actually good friends with Cedar. Yeah, I remember Cedar. They used to go I was like, you got this regular dude hanging out with this crazy ass dude, but he wasn't he wasn't well back then he's not like the way he became, he was different to me. And then I even have another story about him. I met the original leader of TKO, not who not it was it was him, but he was more like you know, his his right-hand man. It was this dude named Puzzle, and I remember because I met we got hit up by them. Also, again, a weird pairing. Puzzle was this like chunky dude, almost kind of look like look like a nerd. I think he wore glasses, and like a regular dude, like he was working at department store, like he regular dress shirt, slacks, like regular dude, kind of almost like Cedar. And him and Toomber, and he hit us up, and he was beefing with some people from some crew called KTO, they had beef with, but we're like, nah, man, I don't even know what that is. I ain't even heard of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:49

They're over by um by the Rockwood neighborhood. A lot of the turned Rockwood.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Oh, okay, okay. And I was like, nah, man, I don't know who that is. Like, I don't I didn't even know what TKO was. And then, but I assumed because you know what it means, you know, total knockout, whatever. That's what it was originally. Yeah. Now it's total chaos. Which it also became a uh uh on another side note became uh back then the party crews party party scene, like house parties was a big thing that had a little chunk of that crew became uh party crew thing. I met all kinds of girls that were from that, like uh some girl named Pepsi, and they were writers, and then one of my ex-girlfriends, uh Hugs, and uh I forgot this other girl too. I forgot there was there was a bunch of girls that were from that and even apart from that, I met all kinds of writers even through that. I can go on and on. Writers that I met them as DJs because I was also in that scene. That's how I met Biser. Uh M A K F B, whatever. Yeah. I met him through there, and that and when I'm talking about the biser that had, if any anybody knows, Biser back in the days had that long hair. He looked like he was like Native American, dude that long hair. And that's when he was with his girl, um Um Bessie. Um, but yeah, uh, but yeah, man, I mean, all kinds of people that I met, you know, throughout. But yeah, anyways, man, and as time went on, like started bringing in people, and then uh, and then of course I meet uh he's now known as Poet. Back then he was known as Pre. I met him through Cedar. Cedar lived on his block, and then also through him is how I met my homie good friend Blaze. Um Blaze, the homie Peak, Rest in Peace. And uh, of course, uh uh Poet's brother uh uh Demon. And you know, and we were all we had a good click going there too for a minute, and then um eventually they kind of you know did their own thing, they kind of bounced out, except for the homie Blaze, um, but everyone else kind of bounced out, did their own thing. Um, and then um and then of course and then I meet uh we had a meeting. This is when like uh crews used to have like meetings. We used to throw a party and then have a meeting at the same time. So I I threw a party at my homie Blaze's house over on 90, no, what was it? Night like 91st Street and Budlong, somewhere up in that hood. Mm-hmm. And that's where I meet for the first time my homie Cisque, and through Cisque, another wave of people that wanted to be down with us, um, the AIAs. I don't know if you remember a crew called AIA, they were on Gage and Hoover, right on the corner, that was their hood. And through there, like it was uh uh must have been like maybe 12, 12 or 13 dudes that wanted to be down, and so that whole click clicked up with us. They were originally clicked up with I think uh OFA, but then they kind of like drifted off. Some drifted off that way, some drifted off with us, and and it just kind of you know just became a thing, like you know, and yeah, and then in the middle of all that, um, we did used to have uh uh actually my my mom used to visit my auntie a lot uh in in that particular era. Uh this was right around actually when I had already graduated. This was already like 9192-ish. Before, right somewhere around between 91-93. And this eventually, as you've met him, of course, my cousin, uh Bruin. Bruin was not Bruin, Bruin was a little kid, he he was still in elementary school, and we would go there, like I said, often to the point where he graduated into junior high and all that. And around that time, when he was in junior high, um, he says, Hey, I got some some friends like that, you know, they they t they write. And those dudes became also from this from my crew. Um, was the homie Crass. He was his neighbor, he lived like two houses over. And my homie Mar, who lived two blocks over. Oh, and then the homie uh Satan. He lived on the next block. Um, and it's like I said, things always happen for some reason. Like I met this person and then a lot of good came out of it. And then I met this other person, and a lot of good came out of it. And also, like what became the core group of of UNC was mainly because of when we would go to Bruin's house. And Bruin eventually, I have a picture, but I I think I might have it somewhere. Um, I have the original Polaroid picture somewhere. Polaroid picture. It's Bruin was not Bruin. This is still before, and me and Cedar, and we're um just in one of my garages, the one that's not there anymore. It used to be a garage.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

Well, you had the the letters on.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:04

Yeah. Yeah. So I remember uh Bruin would always hang out with us, and he was like so hyped because all of his homies were getting into UNC. They they liked the vibe and they liked that we were like, we were not banging, we were we were just uh the the what it should be, you know, the the art, you know, getting up, you know, just having fun, basically, is what it's about, really rebellion and all that mess. All of it. So um, and then eventually, you know, he was like, hey man, I want Bruin goes, I want, I wanna, I wanna write. I want to write. Give me a name. And I'm like, um, and at that point, I'm like, I was kind of hesitant at first because I was like, he's still he's in junior high, and your thumb like that shit. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm I'm already 20 something years old by this point. I'm like 23, 24. And I'm like, man, I don't wanna be that guy that corrupts someone, and maybe he has a good future, and I don't want to mess it up, even though you know I have good intentions, but most people say maybe it's not, whatever. But of course, uh he, you know, like I've mentioned before, my parents are his godparents, so and I'm I wasn't that type of dude, or I never really like was out there banging on people or shooting or robbing or nothing, so I never got caught up like that, you know, or even for writing. Only that one time I was telling you about the writer's bench, but it was like whatever. And so, you know, I said, and I you know, one day my auntie's like, hey, well, you know, my son says that he wants to be in your group, and then what what do you guys do? And I'm like, but my you know, my auntie, rest in peace. She um she was very open-minded, she was always, you know, super cool. I mean, you know, as you know, my you know, my other cousin, you know, uh Green Eyes, uh, he, you know, he was banging, and he would bring his homies over, and she was always even cool with them, you know. Oh, you can stay here if you got nowhere to stay. She was always really cool like that. So if she was cool like that with him and them, with me, because she, you know, she was always really she and my mom always got along really good. So, and she knew that I was not not like that. She was like, if he wants to be, I I, you know, I'm good with it. As long as, you know, just don't let him don't let him um you know look after him and don't, you know, don't put him in a bad situation or nothing like that. I was like, no, no, no, no. That's not what, you know, I'm about. I like to just paint and draw. To the point where behind their house was a was the alley. And their whole side, like of the alley, it was an alley within an alley, so it was like the alley, then the alley split like this, and their house was like on the corner, so we got the side of the house, the side of the alley, and then the back of the alley, which was kind of almost their back, the back side of their house. And I said, I'm gonna paint something here so you can see what we're doing. Because back then it was the little there was a lot of toys back then. Yeah, yeah, just a lot of toys. There was a lot of tags, a lot of gang stuff too, but it was a lot of like wobbly, weird-looking throw-ups, and like, yeah, or like stock tip tags, and uh yeah. I was like, Tia, I'm gonna show you, watch. And then we had a little meeting. I said, let's get some people together, boom, boom, boom. We got together, and that I do have pictures of. Um, I posted them before, and then also someone else who was coming up now. Uh, the homie Chico. He this is now his era 93-ish, 94-ish.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:54

So uh This was before or after um the movie the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:00

Um uh uh this is act with him is actually ooh, that's a good question. Because by by was I do blood in blood out. Yeah, oh yeah. See, that's another another side, yeah. Um that one um before I go off on a side, yeah, because that's also another little thing. Well, I mean, I guess we're already talking about it. So that particular thing, yeah, it was just a random thing. We went this was in the I guess early days, not not super early days of the of kind of when the LA River wasn't really buffed.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:36

It was still concrete wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

All the yeah, all the actual the the ramp, you know, the ramps on both sides, on the I guess uh ramps or hills, whatever you want to call them, the sides of the river, the inclines, uh were still original tags and uh from like back in the days. Like you'd see old gang tags, like I don't know if it was like Primera Flats or Quattro Flat, whatever the gang was on the east side, they had tags all around and and very little button, hardly no buff. And oh uh Cab was already up. He had Cab was already up, and he was the one that was out, he was more noticeable there, and um, and uh, but yeah, uh the the thing behind that, the the the blood in blood out thing is that and the only reason why I even mention it, and people always say, why you always mention it, or why are you like why is it a thing for you? Not because I did what I did, because I did the there is a regular UNC that's right there on the you know that comes out in the movie. But the story behind that is that we had actually done a piece Um where in the movie you see the the dialogue between the two uh characters, right? In the movie, right? The artist and the guy who became the cop, the gallo negro or whatever. So the mural where that's at, they actually went over well. Now I I thought they actually had buffed it, but they actually well they did buff it, but what they did was come to find out from actually following the actual artist who did the actual mural. I follow him on Instagram. Um he actually said that they did it on a big canvas that was the same size as that front pillar. So they dropped it and they somehow found a way to glue it, or it looked like like that was it. That's why they filmed it from far away. Because if you got so close, you would be able to tell that it was a canvas. Because when I saw the movie, I was like, damn, they went over it, and blah blah blah. Because when I went back the following weekend, that whole thing was buffed, and there was already some like throw-ups and stuff there, not not on the UNC, but on the actual where my I had another piece there. Um and but what comes out, and for some reason it was a trip in my mind. I was like, you know what? I'm a tag on the ground because it was it was so like virgin still, like, so I was like, I'm I'm gonna tag. We all started getting our tags on the actual ground, it's uh on the incline. We all and then I do the little the the UNC thing, whatever, right? And then when um um the reason why I bring it up uh uh over and over is because that day when uh when uh actually when we go back to take some more pictures where they're taking pictures, the actual mural is their mural is already up. And I'm like, shit, what happened to my and then so I but I had already taken pictures, but we wanted to go back and just get some uh you know, like because back then because back then, yeah, back then you had to do the whole get the the disposable camera and then do the standing. Position, roll it, and then click and then barely move, and then click and then move again, and and you know, like a typewriter almost click, click, click, section by section. Yeah, and then once you develop the roles, put them together and make one long strip. So I hadn't done that, so I will I wanted to do a closer uh of close-up of that, but I didn't. Anyways, when we're there, we're taking pictures of re some other pictures of the same one and just whatever other stuff. And then next thing you know, there's a there's some cars that start pulling in from the other side, which is that uh famous ramp where they film like the DLC funky enough, bunch of like rock videos. A lot of videos were filmed in that tunnel that leads into the downtown area.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a piece right there too myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:51

Oh yeah? Yeah, yeah, early 2000s and shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright. But I think now it's fenced in, right? It's all I think so. It's gated in because I remember going to an event on the on the other side of the street of the bridge. And I remember when we left, we drove by there, and I it you could see that it was all like fenced in or clothes or whatever. But yeah, anyway, so all these cars pull in, and then and then people start getting out, and we're like, whatever. We just thought, oh, you know, they're doing whatever. Um, and then some people get out, and then next thing you know, oh damn, a cop car comes in and an ambulance, and we're like, whoa, what's going on here? Maybe what are they doing? So we start pulling back up because we're on the basically on the east side of the of the LA River where the actual thing is, and so this one guy, you we see two guys that are kind of walking away from the from the group of people that are on the west side of of the tunnel and of the you know LA River, and they start walking towards like the middle, and then they look and they see us, and then one guy he stays there, and then the other guy, he's like this bald dude, and he's wearing this little like Mexican type of shirt, like you know, like a guayavera almost, and then whatever. I'm not sure what they call it. It's a different one than a it's close, but yeah, a little different. But um, he walks up and he walks up to us, and as he's getting closer, I'm like, Oh man, I I know this dude from somewhere. And if back then, before that movie, I just knew him from a TV show called Fame. So it turns out to be the actor in the movie. He walks up to us and says, Hey, you think you guys could like, you know, get on the other side, you know? Because we're gonna film something right here. And we're like, oh, oh, okay. No wonder like the cops are here. Like he was like, Nah, don't trip. Like, they're they're not worried about you. We're gonna film something right here. Like, oh, oh, okay, cool. And I looked at him, I said, Hey, aren't you the guy from the TV show fame? And he was like, Yeah, I was like, Oh, what's up, man? Like, I used to watch that show, like, man, nobody else knew what the hell I was talking about because they were all younger than me. So then after that, we all hop over and then we just wait, we're just standing there, like, oh, let's see what's gonna happen. Then by that point, even like this little gangster kid that was he was also messing around in there, he walks up to us, he was like, What's going on, homie? They're like, Oh, they're filming some something, and he was like, Oh, okay, and whatever. We're all just chilling there watching, and then next thing you know, we see what everyone sees in the movie. They're there, we're hiding, we're actually hiding under the the the bridge, the the pillar of the bridge. We're next to it, hiding like this, and we're all creeping and looking like that, because they were like, I mean, you don't gotta leave, but just get on the other side and like if you can get up, get out of the view of like the camera. Like, all right, cool. So we're just standing there and we're looking, and um, and yeah, and then next thing you know, you can hear them talking, and they're just talking to themselves, and then you see like a few cameras off, and then we see the helicopter, and then this helicopter comes out of nowhere after I guess they finish the acting, and they're just standing there.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:14

Yeah, I don't know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:16

They say something, and then they're just standing in there and they're waiting for the helicopter, and then some dude with uh like a walkie-talkie's like and then the helicopter comes, and then it goes in, and then it's it's like under the bridge, and then then I guess they do whatever, like you know, start acting, whatever, right? And then the helicopter backs up, and then it goes under the bridge and it comes out and it flies away down the freeway, and that's the thing that you see in the movie. So that's the only reason why I bring it up is because of that, and then it was a well-received movie, very good movie from a lot of people. A lot of people say now that going back to you, you said if about the if what happened with Chico was before or after that. I think it was after because I remember that the other homies from uh the East Side uh UNCs, the ones that the homie fake and all them, they were the ones who actually saw uh the movie in Huntingham Park. And they're all there not knowing that that in that gang movie at the end of the movie that's gonna come out. They stay to the end of the movie, they see our tags on the incline, and then they look and they you can see it straight as you've seen it. You see the UNC. It's no big deal, but it's just because it's in the movie, as of course, many other people. Oh, I and and uh not man. There's even a Tupac story. That that another filming, unfortunately, our piece doesn't come out. It's off to the side where we did it, was like way off to the side, so it doesn't come out. That's that's another there's a bunch of different people that we've met along the way, like super cool with some people. Like that day we were actually painting not side by side, but we were like on the opposite sides of the walls with uh well, this was at the um uh what did they used to call it? Uh Sanborn. Uh no, Sanborn is the one off a sunset and sandboard. That was they called that the L no LOD yard. That thing that that they used to call that the LOD yard, so that was more like LODs. That's what I had heard. And you had them, you had a lot of AM7s, um, COIs, uh, that were in that, and and a sprinkle of uh CBS here and there. That was like the crews that were there mainly. No, the that this one was on um uh man, I want to say Mateo Santa Fe Yard. It was the Santa Fe Yard.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:00

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:01

Santa Fe, yeah. Yeah, it was the Santa Fe yard. You remember when we used to throw those uh illegal uh down the street, the next block on the corner. That's where Hex did that scarecrow character. Uh uh. If you've ever seen that, yeah. We were there when he did that too. That's another one. I was there when he was doing the finishing touches on the scarecrow character, the wiz the Wizard of Oz character. He had done it was a huge piece. Um since uh you said I think Deuce is next for the me and him and Bruin did some things inside that building. We did uh like a collab, like um Deuce did a UNC, I did a G A dub. I still have the original sketch for that, and it was 94 when that happened, and then um Bruin Bruin did an HR because at that time Bruin was an HR for a hot minute. But anyways, now going back to when I did the piece and my uh auntie's uh in the alley, so once she sees that, she's like, Okay, cool, you know, alright, I'll let him be down, you know, Bruin be down with whatever, whatever. He wants a name, and basically the way I I approach a name is like at that moment in time, because back then I didn't know, but um not knowing that even that name would suit me pride because I'm very prideful, is this some whether positive or negative? Um, and so it fit me. I and it that's it's like it was meant to be all that, the name, everything. So when it came to Bruin, I was like, Well, what is it? It has to be something that fits you, your personality. What is it that that you because by that time I knew like pride and me, like the way I am and stuff. What what is it, what is it that is you? Like, what is you even for a hot minute? You know that there's a writer that writes tyke.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:03

T T Y K E or T I Yeah, for a hot minute, he Bruin was gonna be tyke. Because I was like, You're you're you're short, you're little. He was little back then, he was a little kid. So I was like, dude, you're tyke. But he was like, nah, I don't like that. I'm not gonna be a little kid forever. I'm like, yeah, I know I get it. All right, whatever. It doesn't go, all right, whatever. I because I just threw it out there to see what's up. Next thing you know, um, he's all like, Well, I said, Well, what do you like? What are your what is your passion? What is it that you like Bruin is super smart, as you know. You know what he is now, you know what he's doing, you know what he's about. He's serious, legit. Genius. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, what is it that you wanna, what is your thing? You know, what is it that you wanna? He was like, Well, I want to go to school, man. And uh he he for every this is and this is also on on I mean, I don't want to speak too much on on his personal life, but he always wanted to get his family out of the ghetto, get him out of the hood. He always wanted to do that and give them the best of things, which now he has, and unfortunately, it did not get to that point, unfortunately, but yeah, that's that's that's as much as I'll speak on that. But um, but yeah, anyway, so he says, I wanna, I wanna I wanna go to school. I wanna I wanna you know I wanna I just wanna do better for me and my family, and blah blah blah. And then he goes, I say, well then what school you wanna go to? He goes, I wanna go to UCLA. I said, Well, there you go. UCLA brew wins. And he and something in him just went, oh snap, that is dope. That's so dope because that goes with his goal. Yeah, he's still years away. We're talking about he's in junior high. Yeah, and he and that's where he's aimed at.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:53

And I remember he had the piece with the UCLA colors. I remember that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:57

I remember that, yeah. That was his thing. And he was like, Yeah, that's where I'm going. And that's what I that's that's that's it. So his name and his goal was like there, and and he focused on that, and then you know there were different people, there's gonna be different people that are gonna say, uh, oh, I you know, I taught him this, I taught him that, or whatever. But um, we between that by this point, me and and and Cedar and a few others would do sketches for him, do his name and blah blah blah, and then you know, but he got real good with it, you know, real, real good with it. And as far as Chico is concerned, um Chico is Bruin's cousin, and he um, you know, one day again meant to be. Uh now Chico is well respected, he's now a veteran in the game, he's super known way more than me. Yeah, you know, people could say, Who the hell is this guy? Only people are made my neighborhood are people that maybe I'm and I'm good with that. Yeah, my legacy is that I created a crew which brought a b a lot of good people together, and a lot of these good people became better because of it. Not negative, but became positive out of it. Yeah, some I kept my cousins straight to go to school, and all the other homies, you know, I kept them as long as the crew was still around, you know, because eventually, unfortunately, I did I had to dip because I did the music thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:30

I had to do the DJ thing, and that was my other passion. Unfortunately, that's when things kind of went a little off. But but in the long run, it was positive. A lot of people, I mean, half of the homies are all involved in I don't want to say exactly what, but they're involved in things that have to do with the city, things that have to do with you know, uh upper levels, and I have homies that are in the Bay Area that are also in those levels, and you know, even the homie, uh the the homie uh fake that was telling you about, he also became the same thing that Bruin is as well. And now he's producing um uh on the side note for him, he's producing uh uh uh like the new style of rap, like trap and stuff. He's doing that, but with the Spanish dudes, he's doing that, and a lot of people are just doing a lot of stuff like that. So a lot of positive stuff came out of that. You know, it wasn't like, oh, we went out to go bang on these people, and we went to this and that, and that and if I would say the uh UNC as a crew, if any, might have like we had problems with maybe two crews, maybe one. Uh in in today's times, it's like a thousand crews with one crew and a lot of beef and so you know, but uh but yeah, anyway, so just kind of kind of finish it off with with him with with uh because that's kind of more uh a few years after that is kind of when it starts to kind of it kind of goes on cruise control after that. The crew gets smaller, and then of course I do the music thing and then it kind of just branches off. They branch off eventually, of course, you know, Bruin and Chico.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:15

They're both G A dub.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:16

They get the G A Dub. Um, and I took them to the G A Dub. It was actually an original, it was a TNT meeting. I actually met um um uh Jin. And and I might I met some other dudes, but I don't remember, it was kind of a blur, but I remember Jin. Um uh he was wearing a white t-shirt, slick back hair, that's how I remember him. And it was at this big yard or a big parking lot. Like it was like a private, I don't know, it was a trip, but like it's somebody's property. Bunch of TNTs. That's all I remember. I took them there, dropped them off, and I said, Cool, I'll see you guys later. You know, they wanted a ride. But anyways, just going back to to Chico real quick, so he says, Hey man, I have a cousin who is, you know, he he's a writer, but he's hated on. And he the crew that he's from is hated on. He was from a crew called H no what was it? SNR.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:12

I remember SNR.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:13

SNR showing no respect or something like that. They were the these particular people were in Harbor City slash Wilmington area. Yeah, and they had beef with the NRs. No respect. They had beef with ECM and DIS. They were hated. And then uh one day, once Brewing is on, and he's brewing and he's in, he's still kind of trying to get his you know feet going there. And he's all like, I got a cousin, man. He wants to be down. Like I I'm telling him uh all that's going on here. He he you know, the vibe and all that, and sure enough, uh he uh, you know, he uh uh uh eventually we meet him because of course his aunt is my aunt, and you know, they show up and I meet him and he seemed real cool, and he he had that vibe like what we had. We we just got along. He wasn't on some hey, what's up, where you from, or we're gonna go do this. But nah, he was on some, hey man, you know, I just want to be down, you know, very positive or real, you know, chill dude. Very funny. Once you get to know him, he's real funny, cracks a lot of jokes, same as Bruin. Well, back then, now still funny. If you get him a little liquored up, yeah, Bruin. Yeah, he'll crack some jokes on him. You'll hear his voice get a little bit more like, you know, yeah, that's it. It's still there. Yeah, okay, okay. I haven't hung out with him in a minute, but yeah. And so he he and here's a uh a thing on on Chico that he meets us, he likes the vibe, he's like, Man, I want to be down, I don't want to be with them dudes no more because they got a lot of problems and I get crossed out and both. But he was going by some other name back then. I don't even remember. Then he says, I'ma drop that, I'm gonna drop that crew, I'm gonna drop my name, and that's it with that. On the opposite side of all that, the all the crews that hated him, we were all good with. ECM, because of my homie scent, they're related. The OFAs and the ECMs were good. So we were uh um Bruce's old neighborhood where his grandma lived. Atkins Park. That's where the ECMs were. Yeah. We would go up there and pray.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:34

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:37

Yeah, yeah. He would be, he would be, Bruce would be hanging out, would pray. Hey, take me to my grandma's, take me to my yeah, alright, cool. Right, hop skipping a jump on the other side of the bridge. We're there, boom. Uh he'd be like, uh he would ride shotgun, Bruce, like, oh nah, the blood's hit us up, I'll tell them what's up, you know. And then maybe once or twice he says something, whatever, like, oh, we cool, man. It's the homies, blah, blah, blah. Whatever, dropped them off, whatever, whatever. And then in that same neighborhood was the homies from from uh ECM. And then from there, we would actually go mom in on the f on the 110. Because there was some walls right there, like uh in that in that part of the freeway. But but, anyways, yeah, and then eventually Chico Um Um changes his name, and here's a funny one. And a lot of people know this, but he wrote, he would, he bombed it on the freeway for a hot minute. He changed his name to Kulo. Yes, exactly. He was like, I'm just gonna go balls out this bonkers-ass name, and and even back then you could tell that he was already trying to do that Chico style, like, you know, those big letters, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, somewhere, somewhere there's a picture. But he he's like, I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna show you guys. I don't wanna be down. And he was from the from the south side, the South Bay area, so he starts bombing that area. And I'm like, okay, I work in that area, so I'll see you around. We put him to the test, he does it, gets up, whatever. And and yeah, we're like, okay, cool. You need a little bit of refining, but it's all good. You got heart, you did it, you know. That's what he chose to do. We didn't tell him bomb the freeway, none. He did it on his own. That's what that was his style. Because everybody has their thing, you know. You the bomb, you go tag in, you peace, whatever, whatever your flavor. Cool. That's what he wanted to do. So, but eventually we're like, Yeah, I don't know. Like, I don't know if that name is just too way out there, they're gonna clown the hell out of you. But uh then he goes, Yeah, you know what? Yeah, I'm I'm gonna change it. And then eventually, uh, I I don't know, maybe you might want to ask Bruin one day when you, you know, interview him, but he's the one who um, you know, I guess he would know the actual why he chose Chico. Even though there is a Chico somewhere. I know that there's all there's always gonna be someone else. I think there's one in New York or something like that. But anyways, then he got his name. Then, like I said again, uh a collab of different people, myself and and um, you know, um uh Cedar and I believe I think even Poet at one time. We were doing little sketches for him, and and they started kind of get catching on to what the what we were doing, and then then they just developed it into their own style, and then the rest is history, I guess they say, you know, they they once uh Chico got a car, that was it. That's all she wrote. It was over yeah, because he would work late shifts, so then he would pick up Bruin. In the early days, I would pick them up, and then we would go on missions, and then when he got his car, that was it, man. They would go bombing all over the damn place, all over the east side, south side, everywhere. They became, yeah, they became a tag team that was a tag team. That's where that was their thing. They love running for the cops and bombing and all that. And that's and that's their, you know, pretty much. Uh Bruin will be able to tell you the rest from there on, but as far as getting there, that's more or less. How we got there. Yeah, and and there's a bunch of other people that I forgot to mention, like the homie Ask. Um, he was someone who I met through uh uh another homie named Procs, who was um not there's another Procs, I think PROKS. This was PROX. They were also like a little like a tag team duo from Hot Minute. They would get up a lot of buses, and when they did the 105 project, um, you know, they bombed that whole thing. They're all actually in a newspaper article for that. Um, but yeah, man, I can I can go on and on, but that's more or less how you know I got into it, how I, you know, went on. I, of course, went in the media. Music, as you know, yeah, you know that side of things. Yeah. And of course with the whole class.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:05

I was there with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:05

When we did the whole yeah, when yeah, uh when you know we did the whole you know, party crew thing into the rave thing into you know the hip hop thing and doing the DJing shows here, there, you know, the Salmon Dino show back in the days.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:22

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:23

In the in the early 2000s, man, that was a lot of trips out there. Yeah, we made a lot of trips. A lot of trips when, you know, promoting at big events and stuff. So that's kind of where where I headed off to.

SPEAKER_01 1:50:34

Yeah, now we're in like 2023 and now we got Young Dilemma.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:38

Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that's also another one. Um, of course, I know you're gonna talk to him, so he'll give you more on that. But um, in a way, uh, between me and him, we came up with that name only because you know he uh gets himself into dilemmas, and that's basically the reason why that name, you know. I brought it up, he brought it up, and kind of just came together at the same time. And he said, Yeah, that's that's it fits me. That's that's what that's and again it goes back to what fits you. So I mean you could pick any random name and do whatever, but if it doesn't stick, you won't feel it. It's not you, it won't, you know, it won't be you, you know. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:17

But um nephew got good bones and shit, man, good structures, he's learning.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:21

Yeah, he um he learned, he will tell you he grew up when he was a little kid, and you know from the video game days here at my house, yeah, how every he used to be like he was always here, he would come in and wanted to like battle other people and playing video games, video uh video game Thursdays. And eventually, yeah, but he he started noticing the books, and when everybody would pop out the books and paint and you know and do the little sketches and whatnot, and he started liking that. He was in the skating for a hot minute and he liked that, and he started then drawing the uh like the Spitfire characters and all the the skating characters and even evolved by looking at the at the books, and uh and yeah, and then and then eventually he, you know, he went he was in high school and he made some friends there. He started, you know, doing his little thing, and then um and and yeah, and then it just kind of went on from there. Um he's met other people like I don't know if you've heard of this guy named Virtual, yeah. The the weak pace guy. Yeah, um, he he used to live in this area where we're at now. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:24

He was bombing with um Ordo for a minute, also punk's crew.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:28

Yeah, and and so he was friends with him because of Virtual's brother, rest in peace. He he he uh got killed at I'm not sure if he got killed by the cops or uh he was he and he was actually even handicapped too. He was in a wheelchair. He was he was he was well he used to bang too, so yeah. Um yeah, uh I forgot he was from a crew called which is like a local kind of tag bangerish crew. Uh a DAC, dazed and confused. They were like a party crew slash uh tag bang slash neighborhood, you know, down with a gang. So that type of tip. But anyways, um, yeah, uh and he learned from the sketches and all that, and he he just persisted that he kept wanting to do that. Kind of what happened to Bruin. Bruin just he liked it, and same thing happened to me, same thing happened, you know. We all get caught. We all like it somehow, and we just want to keep doing it. Captivates us, yeah. And it and and and for a minute, for for a few years, he was a winner, did his thing, but he was, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:28

And I remember telling him, he's like, uh I want to be a part of this crew or that crew. I'm like, dude, your family is UNC. What are you talking about? Yeah. UNC, man. I'm like, that's that's where it's at right there, man. That's legendary. He's like, yeah, you're right. I'm like, man, your your Theos are pride and brewing. Come on, bro. Like, you know what I'm saying? You gotta do your thing, brother. He's like, you know, he's like, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:52

Yeah, I mean, I guess he, I don't know, he wanted to just kind of do his own thing. He wanted an instant crew, I guess is what he wanted. And he was like, he was trying to be down with with G A Dub. He's friends with some of them and stuff, but I don't know. I don't know the details why it didn't work out, but I mean he's he's pretty good. You've seen his writing skills are real skills, yeah. He is and his bombing right now is pretty nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:16

Oh man, it's all the chains.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:18

And uh he and he hasn't really flexed as far as piecing is concerned. This is that's kind of his thing. Like, well, my my beef with him right now is that he's real good. He can I would say he can match up to people like what's that dude's name? He used to kind of look up to him, um, verses.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:38

Uh yeah. KOG. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:40

He looked up to him in that style that that looked like those wild vines. It looked like almost like heavy metal later. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:47

I remember when he was doing those pieces.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:48

Yeah, he he can do that exact same thing. He almost letter for letter, but he doesn't flex like that. He he for some reason wants to and he's gotten props for it. He does a lot of 90 style stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:02

And that's what's that's what's popping right now, though. Like like like fools in New York are just bombing straight up, just clean straight letters. Fools are all over the city doing the same thing. He's like, he got it.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:14

Okay, yeah, because he he tries to do like what what we did. He tries to replicate what I did in that the at the you know the the LA River one, the UNC one. He tries to replicate that one. Then he does the he does my my old color scheme, which is that I call it the rainbow pattern, which is nothing but like a bunch of random colors that are just up with like these circles, these trippy circle design that I that I I mean it's nothing new, but that's just something that I did for me, you know. And um he tries to duplicate it, but it looks I mean it's his own version of it. And he's gotten props like the dudes from the uh He told me they're from some crew, but the guys from Made Fresh, the the shop, yeah, uh the graph shop in comedy.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:04

Yeah, the Delamo, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:05

Those dudes give him props because they're like he's they and when he did the um the horror the horror characters on the actual freeway. Oh yeah, he did the the the what's it ghost face and Michael Myers faces on the actual freeway for Halloween. Yep. And they gave him props for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:26

He did it's some good shit right there.

SPEAKER_00 1:56:28

He did it several times, and because I told him he's he's a lot into horror. So I said, hey man, you know, because he was like, What else should I do? I said, Sometimes you you know you can instead of just doing he he kind of doesn't like his name sometimes because it's spelled out so long. That's why you see it now cut short. Yeah. There's no E. It's only D and then Lemma. Yeah. And then he'll put a like a peri a period D period lemma. Yeah. And he's like, Yeah, so I said, Well then why don't you start doing characters? And then that could be like your like your symbol, kind of like uh not well, like you know, like the MSK seventh letter, they have that that that box with the arrows, yeah. That's their logo, and then I remember the homie um bisor used to do a bell bear, yeah, like a bear paw with the I ha I have one of his uh pieces in one of my books. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:24

Man, so let's let's send it off like this. Um what advice would you give to like a young cat coming up that wants to get into the graph scene? Like like like come coming from back then and seeing how it is now. What advice would you give a young motherfucker?

SPEAKER_00 1:57:41

Man, I would say uh from the stories that I'm hearing now, it's like very divided. It's 50-50. And because we live in LA, it's it's uh there's a lot of gang culture. Even if you're a writer, you're still gonna come off. The majority of them come off the way it is now. I would say 80% from what I'm hearing come off as maybe I shouldn't say that, but I'm not including the old school heads, I'm including like today's heads.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:14

Today's the new cats.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:15

Like new cats. From how the vibe I get is that they're more on that vibe, like, hey, where you from? Like, like you said, more coming at you like gangbanger-ish, tag bangerish. It takes me back to that moment in time when you I got hit up that way the first time was on the bus. Like, where you from? Blah blah blah. But we were five deep, and the the dude was like two or three deep, so we were still more, but still, I would say if you're you don't have a crew, nothing, and you just wanna test the waters, okay. Like I said earlier, get a name that fits you, get a name that's you, that that that you will rep it forever because that will become your nickname until you die. That's what they're gonna know you as, that's what they're gonna call you, and if you don't like it, being called that, don't pick it. Don't pick it because some random name, unless you you're trying to be this super hardcore originalist, you know, weird, like there are there are people out there that write just random letters or or a number and that's it. Yeah, I'm not gonna say no names or no, you know, examples, but but you know, if that means something to you, cool. Maybe it's a birthday or maybe it has to mean something. That's number one. Once you establish that and you're good with that and you're positive that that's it, test the waters, go out and and do it. Go out if you want to just do the regular basic, like to even let's say you're not uh way out there kind of dude where you're not out there like in broad daylight getting up on a bus or moming on a wall.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:03

Hot boy, what they call them nowadays. Oh, damn.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:07

And and and but I would do maybe okay, on uh test it, uh maybe a poll, or maybe, you know, or start with a streak, uh uni, and just get up on a sign or or something simple and small. Get see if that's for you to do it that way. Other people are not meant for that. Other people are they like to draw, they like to express themselves. Now you got uh what they call slap tags, um, wheat paste. At that point, it's the a matter of point of view, yeah, if if they consider that graph or not. Yeah, point of view and medium to society it is, but to the original, some people might be like, no, it's not. You're not picking up a can, so it don't mean nothing.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:54

You're just that's exactly it.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:55

It's easy. And so I would start off small, and if you feel that's for you, then do it. If you now you want to paint, then go out there, inform yourself, like uh maybe you know other people that do that, and maybe one day you'll meet the right people. This person knows this person knows that person that knows a good yard that's legal or or something legal where not legal exactly, but like a spot where it's about nobody's tripping. Nobody's tripping between buildings, whatever. And if you want to paint, go and paint and see throughout South Central, it's usually the alleys.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:34

As long as you're good with the hoods, you can paint on the alleys.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:36

Yeah, and and and in different areas, like in uh the South Bay, there's a lot of industrial areas, um, between abandoned buildings, not abandoned buildings, but like buildings that are closed on on the weekends, no traffic, it's all dead. Um, those are areas that Chico took us to uh just to go get up there and stuff like that. He he knows a ton of spots now that that area, but but yeah, one and if you feel like you can do that and you don't feel nervous or or or let's say you're nervous and eventually maybe you can get over it, and if you feel like that's for you, then you're gonna then you move up to a little bit more or even being in front of people because some people uh again only want to be around certain people, or you're maybe you're afraid to be by yourself and and and be in front of like other you feel you're not good enough, or maybe practice in your own house. Like if you got a backyard, practice, practice, practice until you feel you can do something quick enough or clean enough for you, whether you want to be a bomber, do throw-ups, or if you want a piece. Once you do that, um, then yeah, uh at that point, go out into the world, do your thing, have fun. As long as it's fun, that's my advice, as long as it's fun. That's what I told my nephew, that's what I told Bruin, that's what I told everybody else who was in my crew. As long as it's fun, do it. Once it's not fun and you feel like it's a job, or you you like let's say I um someone, let's say I would have said back then, all right, so we're gonna go here and then we're gonna go over there, and then from there we're gonna go over there, and then that's it, and then we're done, and we'll chill, whatever. If you feel like I'm bossing you around, then that's not for you. Then you stay a winner. Don't don't get into no crews, stay by yourself because you don't like being told what to do. You wanna be your own boss. That's okay too. Some people like to be in a crew, if and if that's your thing, then eventually find, go out and nowadays network. It's easier now because back then you actually had to go out there and be on the bus, uh, be at a yard, meet or meet somebody uh network, kind of even like the music thing. Network, talk to these people and see if you vibe with them, and then da da da, and then hang out with them. And I've seen other writers um in in um in in the area here, or even like uh I guess I'll just use this guy as an example. Uh this guy that writes delay, uh D-E-L-A-E or something like that. Now he's from MTA. He went on for a few years in no cruise. And actually, uh my nephew knows him. He when he was going out and doing it on his own, he would run into him. And they would go out and they'd do things, they would, you know, they would find for some reason the same spots. And then they'd run into each other and so on. And eventually he went off and did his own thing, he went off and did his own thing, and now he's in a crew. And so that's kind of what I mean. You can go on a few years and then get into so you it's more of especially in today's times where it's very dangerous, people are now carrying guns. Back in the days, it wasn't even about the guns, really. The guns were more like with the gangs, but or numbers, and and and and even back then it was more like someone having a stick or you just getting jumped by five people and them stealing your stuff. You have no cell phones, yeah. They'll steal your cans and the and maybe your camera and maybe your wallet, and that was it. But still, now it's like, whoa, they're gonna from what I'm hearing, they can pull out, you know, a gun of this or that, or you know, and you never know. So test the waters and that and and and and uh but yeah, if that's it if that's for you, then then do it. And and if you feel you can't, or maybe you just want to do it as a hobby and and and not really mess around like that, you can also do that too. Yeah, I know people that just do it on the weekends. They'll go off and you know, they're they're the quote unquote normal person. Yeah, you'll never know that they did anything. They can go into some yard where it's like super empty, no one's there at the time, do a thing, split, bounce, and you're done. And that's it.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:01

That's me these days. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:04

There you go. It's just whatever you feel, because and another point. Once you when you're young, you're gonna have that time, you're gonna have that energy to do it, to all that. Once you get older, like me, I just turned 50. I turned 51 this year, and you're up there as well. Like you told me. There you go. Things are gonna hurt. Yeah, this is us in the future telling you this is what's gonna happen. You're you're you're one day you won't be able to, because from getting down low uh to paint at the bottom of the wall or reaching high up or bending this way or bending that way, one day something's gonna give and your knees are gonna go like yours. Yep. That's gonna be yours. My back, yeah, like my back is gonna go out, and now you're gonna have problems from then on. You won't be able to do stuff like you used to. Maybe you might be one of the lucky ones, maybe not. Who knows? It's all uh uh random, and if that doesn't get you, all the other health stuff that we were talking about earlier, uh all of that stuff, that'll get you.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:09

Stay healthy, too much food, too much.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:11

Now we're sounding like grandpa, but yeah, too much food, too much drink, or whatever else will we get you overindulgence, yeah. Then you won't be able to do what you really want to do, which is that now. If you can evolve from all that into making money painting, like uh your homie um uh Alec. Uh yeah that dude, man, he's super dope. He gets super down, man, with all of what he does. Yeah, tank, brick, yeah, they're making good money. There's this other guy that I've seen on on Instagram a lot, uh Ezra.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:47

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:07:48

Ezra, I forgot what crew he's from. I think he's also from uh what's that crew that uh P45 has? I2 Dub. I think he's from I think he's from that crew, I'm not sure. But he dude gets down like super, super, like super talented. They get super paid to do these big gigantic murals. And if you can get to that point, man, that's even better in today's times. Because you know, so many talented people did stuff back in the days and just didn't really get paid, you know. Even though it was frowned upon, kind of frowned upon a little bit now. With some people, there's a purist, and then you still, you know, the ones that want to make money doing something, as you I think in the what was it, Style Wars uh DVD, where they talk about the ones who were doing the mural, they were doing they were putting them on canvases, uh the pieces. Um and they and uh the graph writers from New York didn't like that. They were like, you selling now, you a sellout. But it's way different now. But um, but yeah, anyways, that's that's that's more or less what I got to say on that. If anybody wants to l uh pay attention or or take a little bit of that advice, you know, it's all good. I appreciate it, and it it'll it'll be positive in your life. Oh yeah, man. Yeah, so that's pretty much it, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:06

Good looking out, brother Pride. For sure, for sure, man. DJ Pride 1 UNCH and R in the motherfucking house.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:12

And Graph Roots. And of course, you know, can't forget to have not.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:17

Have nots.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:18

That's another story in itself. Gym Collections team. Tim Collections.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:22

Even that, even Graph goes into that. The logo for that crew, the logo for the other crew. Uh a lot of things are are are like I said, things happen and it evolves into other things, and sometimes things are meant to be, and you know, they'll continue to be, even though you could stop for a minute, but something always comes around and we might have to do a part two.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:44

We're gonna have to do a part two. Yeah, there's the whole music side of things.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:49

Of course, of course. Yeah.