Pop Culture Revolution

The Queen’s English is no longer relevant with today’s generation as a result of cultural shift. It has been way gone, resurfacing in what has evolved over time to this present, twisted generation. The new millennia generation and a technology that’s doing stuff; stuff nobody could have imagined would be happening as everything about culture changed.

But however, the Queen’s English is still valid to the so-called old guard intellectuals, and nobody cares – the “kids” changed all that, and it seems to be good, going with the flow.

In the late sixties, when all that swinging began to wane, when people no longer wanted the kind of tune that was “flying,” flying wasn’t used back then, and they had called for something different which made soul and R & B producers go with the flow as they wanted to groove all night long, and feeling it’s right and becoming the trend, recording studios changed their “gear” and format on how to produce a music the people would like. In soul, the Black Moses, Isaac Hayes brought in the street jargon putting “Groove On” and “Right On” into perspective in an era everybody just wanted to groove on and do their own thing:

If the music makes you move
And you dig the groove
Groove on, groove on
If you feel like making love
All night and you think
It’s right
Right on, right on

So, too, was R&B, reggae, ska, jazz and a little bit of funk which had a blend of the horns, serving the purpose when everybody wanted to have a good time, party and dance all night long.

But the problem, as the seventies breezed in, some of the music producers wanted to make money just pretty much so, resulting to commercializing every song being written to conform to recording companies’ standards and overheads. Folks in the hippie era really wanted to dance and there were long plays (LP), the kind of cuts not regularly seen but a tiny fraction which made some impacts on how recording companies helped bring up an era that would gradually change with time.

Early seventies songs made a whole lot of sense from its lyrics which depicted an era that started the cultural revolution through it’s defiance to the establishment and by its poetic lyrics everybody danced to. Starting with Berry Gordy Jr. who founded Motown and assembled all sorts of casts – songwriters, singers, producers, composers, and of course, arrangers – music changed as the new decade began. Every major act in Motown went through the same path with the exception of one group, the only white band that played gigs at Detroit pubs as Sun Liners, signing to Motown as Rare Earth with the rights to its own label. Back then, the lyrics were all in somewhat Standard English and made sense; unlike the evolution after that era which created funk entombed into disco, which swept across the continent, creating impacts wherever it breezed in.

And Rare Earth’s recordings as the only all white group led by drummer and vocalist Pete Hoorelbeke, was a fast-paced debut album “Get Ready,” which every recording artist at Motown had agreed to cut, indicating the beginning of a new era in the language of music. The mode of Rare Earth was something really different from the rest of the Motown class – Marvin Gaye, Jackson 5, The Miracles, The Supremes, Commodores, Edward Holland, Brenda Halloway, Martha Reeves, The Marvelettes, David Ruffin, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, Jr. Walker & The All Stars, Mary Wells, Stevie Wonder, Syreeta White, Thelma Houston, Eddie Kendricks, The Pointer Sisters, Billy Preston, The Spinners, The Undisputed Truth, Toe Fat and several others – Rare Earth had a pattern that attracted its own audience when everybody was dancing to that Long Play, “Get Ready.”

Rare Earth vibes would change a lot during this era; even when heavy metal invented by the British group, Deep Purple, began to crossover for the American audience coupled with their European and Australian counterparts that rocked American arenas in an amazing form.

Angus Young and his brother’s-led AC/DC, Rick Springfield and Little River Band from the Aussie corner; while John Lord, Ian Pace, Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore who continually bragged of wiping the floor anywhere, anytime with his guitar of a metallic Deep Purple, Queen, Led Zeppelin; the Irish group Thin Lizzy, rocked the American shores in mixes of heavy metal “contests” with its American counterparts – Aerosmith, Boston, Bad Company and a cast of the devil followers as it was then known.

This whole thing spread across the African continent, too, a rhythm in which the local folks also wanted to dance until dawn. Many popped up –Bonga (Angola), Super Eagles (Gambia), Alhaji Bai Konte (Gambia), E.T. Mensah (Ghana), Rail Band (Mali), Dark City Sisters (South Africa), Assagai (South Africa), Orchestra Baobab (Senegal), Francis Bebey (Cameroon), Thu Zahina (Congo), Prince Nico Mbarga (Nigeria), Fela Kuti (Nigeria), Sunny Ade (Nigeria), Hugh Masekela (South Africa), Miriam Makeba (South Africa), Osibisa (Ghana), Independence Matata (Kenya) and several others – in adaptation.

What had happened here, on the African coast, was that, just like everybody wanted to dance and have fun all night long, a revolution had to be in place by adapting a pattern from a collective of the West, combining it with African traditional beats and the coinage of all kinds of music genres – afro beat, kora, ikwokirikwo, juju, afro rock, highlife, ogene and imports from the Cuban music craze which swept the continent and adapting the ideals of cultural heritage.

And so the various music genres became an adaptation to commerce, ways to make and spend money by throwing parties, marriage ceremonies, and the artists signing with record labels as its folkloric core. This same kind of core was what had begun in the studio at Detroit of a series of labels that popped up at Motown – Tamla, VIP, Gordy, Soul, Natural Resources, MoWest, Manticore, Rare Earth, etc. – and Rare Earth had its own record label when Tom Baird joined the crew in production which led to the album “One World” and “Willie Remembers.” Both albums did pretty well. But prolific producer, composer and arranger, Norman Whitfield had to reverse the Rare Earth trend switching back to the Motown record label in the production of a classic Motown album, “Ma,” which made Motown a game anyone could join; but to win, you had to prove you weren’t just anyone; and the Norman Whitfield-Barrett Strong duo proved it as Motown Records and its subsidiaries began to explode.

“Tobacco Road” became an anthem and what Rare Earth had released three years earlier showed how lifestyle was sweeping all across America:

I was born in a bunk
My mama died, my daddy got drunk
He left me here to die alone
In a lane called Tobacco Road

And the Temptations’ “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” another simply read lyric as lines of poetry depicting the hippies seventies’ lifestyle in urban America:

It was the third of September
That day I’ll always remember, yes I will
‘cause that was the day that my daddy died
Never had a chance to see him, no
Never heard nothing
But bad things about him
Mama, I’m depending on you
to tell me the truth,
Mama just hung her head and said:

“Papa was a rolling stone
wherever he laid his hat was his home
and when he died
all he left us was alone…”

Alcoholism and abandonment like “Tobacco Road” and “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” even as throw downs on the men abandoning their responsibilities during and after a catastrophic Vietnam, most of these folks had come back confused due to the effects of the war.

But as it happened, the confusion would pass and another era would be ushered in, even as it would bear the same resemblance of the late sixties into the early seventies when some “badass cats” popped up at Philadelphia. These were just “cool cats,” the magnificent duo of songwriters-composers-producers, Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff which brought out some cool stuff from The Sound Of Philadelphia (TSOP). The Philly Sound brought a hell of music – superb producers Gene McFadden and John Whitehead; singers Thom Bell, Linda Creed, Norman Harris, Dexter Wansel, Billy Paul, Lou Rawls, The Stylistics, Sharon Paige, Teddy Pendergrass – some cool stuff that changed every concept in music of that era. And on the Eastside of a post-civil war Nigeria, rock bands emerged, too: Funkees, Apostles, One World (Ani Hofner’s Otu Uwa), Strangers (Bob Miga), Aktion 13, Wrinkars Experience, Founders 15, Heads Funk, Doves, Wings (Spud Nathan), Sokie Ohale, Jerry Boyfriend, Black Children, and numerous others keeping the vibes alive and going with the flow adapting to change, and we danced all night long.

Today, emerged is all sorts of street jargons that relates to a new generation changing every aspect of language which did evolve to a whole lot of stuff, chiefly, on how we communicate. “Dope,” “tight,” “fly,” “all right,” “jamming,” “cool,” "chilling," "dawg," “bomb,” “crazy,” “feel,” and things like that are no longer street jargons but a way of effective communication in today’s world. Just like “cool” once meant something specific back in the day in jazzy tunes, appealing and profoundly generated specifically for unique standards of jazz music, is no longer the same. “Cool” now could be I’m fine, I’m doing well or it could be better as the case may be in whatever way this new generation wants it. It is now definitely their call.

The game had changed and the improvised public drunkenness in lyrics paved way for something “mellow” which in its class would lead into something acceptable as a way of being just “cool.” People wanted love and some kind of melodic tune when the class at Philly Sound and elsewhere in urban America started changing the vibes to lyrics that conforms to the day – love, hate and broken hearts. All across America, the love songs and broken hearts came strong. Pendergrass, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, O’Jays, Jimmy Bo Horne, KC & The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer, Hot Chocolate, Betty Wright, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, and even the classic rock tone of Kim Carnes had America falling in love again; with touches and touches of love tunes. You can hear it and feel it from “Sexy Thing,” “When Somebody Loves You Back,” “Do Your Thing,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Without You,” and a cast of love tunes from the numerous record labels all across America. For instance, the following line was about love, love and broken heart and America was up singing, dancing and having a good time:

Don't leave me this way
I can't survive, can't stay alive
Without your love, oh baby
Don't leave me this way, no
I can't exist, I'll surely miss your tender kiss
Don't leave me this way
(A broken man with empty hands
Oh baby please, don't leave me this way)
Aaah baby, my heart is full of love and desire for you
Now come on down and do what you gotta do
(Now come on girl and do what you gotta do)
You started this fire down in my soul
Now can't you see it's burning out of control
Come on (now) satisfy the need in me
Only your good lovin' can set me free...hey
Don't, don't you leave me this way, no
Don't you understand I'm at your command

And in between the love songs that overwhelmed the dance floors, there was another cast of musical genre which popped up and changed the way we danced. It was called funk, and the funk had varieties which rocked planet Earth. Although, there was the blending of soul, R&B and jazz which created funk in the mid seventies, evolving from tunes of the Minister of New, New Super Heavy Funk, the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown; George Clinton came up with what would be known as “Pure Funk” with cats like Bootsy Collins, Phil UpChurch and the rest, which got America dancing. And America never stopped dancing. Lionel Richie in his solo act chipped in blending Caribbean, Cuban and some African juice when he asked America to keep dancing all night long:

Well my friends, the time has come
To raise the roof and have some fun
Throw away the work to be done
Let the music play on…play on…
Everybody sing, everybody dance
Lose yourself in wild romance
We’re going to party, karamu, fiesta, forever
Come and sing along
All night long (all night)…
People dancing all in the street
See the rhythm all in their feet
Life is good, wild and sweet
Let the music play on…play on
Feel it in your heart and feel it in your soul
Let the music take control…



Before this dancing, love-hate relationship was about to be going down in urban America, West Bronx, New York native, DJ Kool Herc had begun to find the break infinitely, thus the origin of rap music by cueing up two turntables, playing the other when the break ends on one, and the language definitely changed becoming an opening act that would change standard English the way we knew it. Then we saw "Rapper's Delight" and names like Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike, Master Gee and the first hip hop single to become a top 40 hit. Henceforth, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Cav, Kurtis Blow, Sequence and a cast of rappers would follow.

The language changed.

Expectedly, it had been presumed rap music would look like its opposite, an unmeaning, unintelligible rock lyrics, rap proved its worth in a generation that changed the ways and means of music. Like this Jay-Z’s “Renegade" album which includes an appearance by Eminem:

Now who is the king of these rude
Ludicrous, lucrative lyrics
Who could inherit the title
Put the youth in hysterics
Using his music to steer it
Sharing his views and his merits
But there is a huge interference
They are saying you shouldn’t hear it
Maybe it’s hatred I spew
Maybe it’s food for the spirit
Maybe it’s beautiful music I made
For you to just cherish
But I’m debated, disputed, hated
And viewed in America
As a motherfuckin’ drug addict
Like you didn’t experiment?

What’s next? With this kind of music that tends to be changing the way we spend our time with this new generation of ‘you feel me’ where are we heading to? And now that rappers are continuing to make meaningless songs, and some writing and singing about the death of rap, is it now over and will we be going back to old school?: the kind of stuff Gamble, Huff, Strong, Whitfield, Dick Griffey, Leon Silvers, Smokey Robinson, Creed Taylor all made? We’ll see and time will definitely tell.

"You feel me?"

Seventies Commodores and Jam Sessions

The Ambrose Ehirim Files



For some reasons I cannot explain, something popped up in my mind reminiscing the seventies jam sessions when imported US and UK grooves influenced local musical ensembles of the day.

Every now and then, I dust off my packed vinyl LPs, long obsolete for the way technology considerably changed, especially in electronics. What it means is that I have packed every musical gadget in my household—the tower-like speakers, amplifiers, cassette tapes, VCR—for the fact it occupies unnecessary space and now that very tiny gadgets, as small as a cable TV remote control can supply any form of music loud enough to blow out your ear drums.

Dusting off these LPs, I picked up Commodores “Machine Gun” released as a single in 1974. The first time I heard this track already an album was in 1975 while holidaying at my brother’s house in Lagos. I had not paid much attention to this group until sometime in 1976 while attending a ballroom dance with my childhood buddy Andy Iheanacho and other friends in the complex of an all girls secondary school on the hills of Uruala. We had trekked more than five miles holding our three layers, the Bootsy Collins kind of boots in our hands with our tight-fitting-wide bottom pants folded up from another secondary school up the hill for this much anticipated dance in a complex that has nothing but girls.

While we walked and climbed the hill leading to the school on the left, we discussed extensively the music of the day. Hughes Corporation, Crown Heights Affair, K.C. & the Sunshine Band, George McCrae, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Muscle Shoals Horns, Jimmy Castor Bunch, Dramatics, O’Jays, Billy Paul, Bill Withers, Isaac Hayes, and many other R & B flavored influences, with a groove obverted discothèque approach.

And we arrived!

At the same time while we enjoyed the imports and “boogie nights”—“Young Girls Are My Weakness,” “I Feel Sanctified,” “Machine Gun,” “Soul Limbo,” “Rock The Boat,” “Ring My Bell,” “Let’s Get It On,” “Joy,” “For The Love Of Money,” “Payback,” “Do It Good,” “Hustle To The Music,” “Smiling Faces,” Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” and all that great hits, Anwar Richards and his Kenyan-born colleagues catapulted Matata to London doing gigs at the pubs and night clubs. Mac Tontoh and his brother, Teddy Osei, in the days of egwu onwa, moonlight plays, formed Osibisa and turned every household in London into a crowded house with those “Kokorokoo,” “Sweet America,” “Basa Basa,” “Fire,” “Che Che Kule” and “Woyaya” smash hits. South African legendary trumpeter, Hugh Masekela did sessions with Fela and Osibisa, and recorded "The Boys' Doing It" while in exile, on the run from a bastardized Apartheid regime. Meanwhile, the Funkees were funky, too. Jake Solo and Harry Mosco Agada shooting it straight like the Bad Company took Funkees to another level. London pubs were jammed because Funkees hanged around doing their own thing.

It was something else, how “we” teenagers of the day rocked every disco hall to these "funked-up" attitudes from the East (all over) to the West (Lagos in particular). As teens, we were attracted to the socio-political concepts of Karl Marx even though politics in that era was a “taboo,” something that can get one into trouble, thus the presence of the military juntas who ruled by the barrel of the gun.

Back in the day, grooving the way we did, one must belong to the era’s socially accepted group (SAG) in order to hang. Each SAG had its own thing going on, though; there were the highlife buffs and ikwokirikwo-ajasco dancers whose passion for Congo and East African soukous/rumba music had taken them to a whole new height. They had their own gigs which played only highlife, soukous and the kind of ikwokirikwo music Ikenga Super Stars of Africa invented.

My kind of fraternity back in the day was absolutely engaged with US and UK imports which influenced local ensembles like the Apostles, Wings, One World, Doves, Wrinkers Experience, Black Children, Strangers and Founders 15 in the East; and also the “Chief Priest” Fela, Segun Bucknor, BLO (Berkeley Ike Jones, Laolu Akins and Mike Odumosu), St. Gregory College spoiled brats Ofege, Tirogo, Joni Haastrup and Monomono in the West (Lagos in particular). “Yeah,” Lagos was jamming and everybody felt like bursting loose, the Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers way. Friday Jumbo had called it quit with Fela’s Africa ‘70 Band joining the flamboyant Joni Haastrup and Kenneth Okulolo to form the group Monomono. A whole lot of these stuffs have been digitally re-waxed and reproduced on CD. The pure funk of Ofo & The Black Company’s “Allah Wakbarr” recently compiled alongside William Onyeabor, Joni Haastrup and Monomono, Afro Funk, Strangers’ “Survival,” Matata’s “Wanna Do My Thing” including The Funkees “Love Rock” makes one “wanna holla” whenever I hear these masterpieces.

It’s all good vibes, especially when one remembers the legendary vocalist, Spud Nathan, whose life was cut short by the nasty sting of bad roads on Njaba Bridge deliberately neglected by Ukpabi Asika’s administration. But hey, at least, Nathan got this far with hits that changed the pop world in the East and beyond. I’m still spinning his good old vibes; those powerful lyrics that made the girls had an instant crush on us the hippies. Now, I don’t mean the kind of sixties hippies that swept through the United States and Europe on a counterculture revolution. We were just “hippies.” We obeyed our parents—had our routine confessions and attended mass on Sundays as prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church--did the right thing and kept intact the cultural heritage of our forebears, not the kind of Woodstock hippies that rebelled against the establishment.

By the way, why is Tirogo “Everybody Loves Funky Lagos” popping up? I heard of this funked-up group when Jacob Akinyemi Johnson (JAJ) was on primetime at Radio Nigeria 2, AM/FM Stereo; so to speak, the way these party animals bragged about it and made something out of it; which made Lagos the New York City of Africa. “Yeah,” Lagos was really jamming, back in the day!

Enter “Machine Gun.” Many of my peers thought Machine Gun was a name of a musical group not knowing it was a cut from the Commodores debut titled “Machine Gun,” which melted every teen of that era. “Machine Gun” was the opening act for the Commodores’ long journey that would span nearly a decade before Lionel Richie’s solo projects. The album is still selling and the Commodores, believe it or not, are taking every royalty to the bank, unlike the case of our wretched musicians who are not only in penury through bad business decisions but denied royalty by pirates and bootleggers who copied every bit of their song with impunity.

The Commodores met as freshmen at the Tuskegee Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama where they began singing and playing instruments to entertain the girls. It was just a pastime until local businessman Benny Ashburn discovered such magnificent talents with potentials to blow up. And, of course, they did. After opening gigs for the Jackson Five in 1971, Berry Gordy who ran Motown efficiently signed these lads from Tuskegee and the rest would be history. Everything the Commodores touched turned gold and hits upon hits carried them through over the years.

The band’s early years at Tuskegee had Lionel Richie on saxophone; Thomas McClary on Guitar; Milan Williams on keyboards; Walter “Clyde” Orange on drums; William King on trumpet and Ronald LaPread on bass. They produced hits and club numbers without winning a Grammy until the exit of Richie when British born J.D. Nicholas of Heatwave was invited to replace Richie’s powerful chords. “Night Shift,” a tribute to Marvin Gaye was then produced and Commodores finally won a Grammy Award.

We use to sing that song verbatim at party jams waving our handkerchiefs and raising our hands and it echoed something like this:

Marvin, he was a friend of mine
And he could sing a song
His heart in every line
Marvin sang of the joy and pain
He opened up our minds
And I still can hear him say
Aw talk to me so you can see
What’s going on
Say you will sing your songs
Forever, evermore

Gonna be some sweet sounds
Coming down on the night shift
I bet you’re singing proud
Oh I bet you’ll pull a crowd
Gonna be a long night
On the night shift
Oh you found another home
I know you are not alone
On the night shift…

That was how it wrapped up through the eighties with the magic tough of Nicholas which made its Grammy nomination inevitable. Oh, by the way, I got to go now. The month has just ended and you know what’s up.

Life At Deswab & Samaka Studios

In 2000, when my cousin, Daniel was visiting from London, we had gone to Ralphs Market to buy some groceries and I bumped into Omari George who had told me a studio is in the making and I should come on down and get it going. I had rented an old store and converted it to a recording studio on Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles. The whole idea was to groom some inner city kids as hip hop artists, disc jockeys, dancers and other forms of entertainment in Hollywood. And that's how Seth "School Boy" Hall was hired to produce for Samaka and Deswab Studios. This interview was conducted after The Crews debut in 2005. Part of this interview has been edited for length and clarity.


How did you get into all this production stuff?

Man, you know I have been trying to do music long time ago before hip hop became the real deal. When I was a kid, hip hop ain’t big so we listened and played R&B all the time in our house. And growing up in the hood, it got to be tough. You have to be strong to get your shit right. I use to visit studios around LA and Compton a lot and I’ll be buying time to put my stuff on tape. I do my stuff, make some change and head to the studio to make my beats because it is the real shit.

What is the real “shit”?

Rap music…hip hop, that’s what I am saying.

When you talk about hip hop and rap music, I’m not sure if that is appropriate considering the time; unless we are talking about going with the flow with fast-changing musical genres. Rap music was not officially born until 1979 when Sugar Hill Gang came up with “Rapper’s Delight,” and now the rest is history. How did you come up with the idea of producing rap music and what is generally known now as hip hop?

Well, Los Angeles has a great performance culture and the music really got to change as the flow goes…you see what I’m saying and you feel me? Moreover, Sugar Hill Gang which been around since the late 70s ain’t nothing new and that’s old school, bro, you feel me? I like Sugar Hill Gang though but rap ain’t come from East Coast. You and I know the best rappers are the ones that lived on the Westside, bro, and who rapped more than 2Pac…. This East-Coast-West-Coast gangbanging shit is all about the recording companies and how they compete and make their own money. ID came up with Deswab Studios, you came up Samaka Music and The Crew popped up, and an album was released. And we been underground all the time putting our little stuff together. And you and ID been doing a whole lotta stuff for us in the studio helping us put all the shit together. We want you guys to continue. Give us the opportunity and we not gonna fail. You see what I am saying?

I consider Tupac Shakur one of the new generation of rappers after Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash and the list goes on and on when rap became the trend. Why are you bent on Tupac and not mentioning rap’s origin?

Tupac was a great teacher. A great guy. He was well educated and this teacher side of him heated all the stuff up and that stuff were all in constant conflict. You’d expect that someone would come from the ghetto, raised in the hood and know no damn thing and eventually assume gentility, keeping listeners on edge including the opposite, the politicians. They listened to him but with his nature he died violently. He had character. He had guts and he gang banged. He had talent. You see what I am saying?

Let’s talk about The Crew. Where are you folks going with it? I mean not much has been done and I am beginning to get worried about the fights, the women, alcohol and all that weed smoking stuff. It bothers me and how do you plan to keep these things in check?

A lot comes with life in the studio, bro. It is a challenge and it is like this initiation stuff we all have to go through like a ritual. It is a competition. The girls got to do their stuff and do their thing. You feel me? The guys like Leo, J J, Ali Baba, Charles, Joe Morgan all got to do their thing. Even Joe who makes beats, mixing and shit like that got to do his thing. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. Gangsta rap started from Compton and the following is big, bro!

But the West Coast rap as a following is not the ideal of how it all began. Easy E, NWA and that entire gangsta rap makes it unsafe for the kids in the hood which ends up learning the bad way. Do you think the kind of rap you are advocating is good for society?

It all depends on what you mean, bro. For a while, you know West Coast rap was the bomb and it tipped the continent that way. When NWA say ‘fuck you,’ they want you to understand how they feel and what they are saying is you have to learn how to understand them; and when they say ‘fuck you’ they mean no harm but to learn their way. You feel me? Like we say in the studio ‘what’s up my nigga’? we mean no harm, bro. All we are showing is love. You know what I’m saying?

“What’s up, my nigga” depicts street jargon and shouldn’t influence a breakthrough both in the underground and mainstream rap in today’s highly competitive music business. Don’t you think so?

Nah! I don’t think so King Ambrose. 2Pac, Ice Cube, NWA, Yoyo, Ice T all had gangster roots. They have ghetto roots. They were all on the streets from one time to another and look at what they did. Ice Cube and 2Pac they are gangster rappers and successful filmmakers and actors. See what they did. One from the hood in Compton and the other from the jungle…Survival, man! You know what I am saying? It gows with the territory and that’s why we The Crew keep pushing it.

Pushing what?

The underground way. One day we are going to blow up. You know what I am saying.

Last week while we hanged out at the Viper Room in Hollywood, you guys sneaked out to inhale some stuff. I thought you stopped.

When you’re 15 and you start smoking weed every single day and don’t let up for years…I began to struggle with severe depersonalization, where nothing seems real. You know what I am saying? You don’t think you are actually alive. You basically meltdown the DNA of your personalities. It took me years to figure out why I would still want to exist, let alone function in front of others. That recovery will always be part of The Crew story.

Did you check into a rehab?

Well, never, really. The day you disassemble your psyche on weed is the first day of the rest of your life. Weed is good for the soul. It is a religious agent. It’s not for abusing, it’s for learning. To this day I’m still trying to piece together my mind. Mine is not a cautionary tale. It’s something I will do again. It’s like destroying oneself to find out what’s at the bottom. You know what I’m saying?

Was it more than just weed?

Yeah, you try everything, and almost systemically. Luckily I was never addicted to anything that totally destroyed me, because that, in itself, is completely boring and has nothing to do with good art. You’re merely trying to push yourself around, see what’s already going on in you that are obscured now. A sober mindset can be one of the biggest enemies in your life. I’m scared of sober people. I think they actually a dangerous entity.

How did your father end up living in Watts?

There’s a move called Scarface that explains the story of what happened in Watts. All of Freeway Ricky drug money came through there, but before that it was a hippie jungle and my dad…I was so young, I don’t know what he was doing, but there is one amazing story where he accidentally brought an international diamond thief posing as Al B Sure into the country. My dad was living with Cynthia at the time and she fell in love with the thief. That said, I’m probably not even supposed to say what the other families around me were doing. I was baby-sat by these people.