00:00Mike G, Baby Bam, DJ Sammy B, the Jungle Brothers!
00:30This guy right here.
00:59It's been a long journey, for me it started when I was age 9, and I used to play the rhyme
01:22game with my mother in the backseat on the way to my grandmother's house in Albany Projects.
01:33Brooklyn.
01:35That's when I first realized words rhyme.
01:39She was teaching me about poetry and teaching me about art.
01:44Two years later, when I turned 11, I got put on punishment.
01:50And I was in my room for the whole summer, and my father gave me all his music equipment, set
01:58it up in the room, and I started making pause tapes with his jazz records, and taping stuff
02:07off the radio.
02:08And then I had a little Radio Shack mic, and I'd plug it in and talk over the records.
02:15And then when I got off punishment, I'd take the radio outside and say, this is my record.
02:21Simple as that.
02:23And one day, I got to my grandmother's building, and there were speakers hanging out the window,
02:32and I heard Jimmy Spicer's Super Rhymes.
02:36And it's an 11-minute hip-hop record that me and my cousins used to memorize and then compete
02:42with each other to see who could remember the most of the lyrics.
02:47And I thought to myself, at that point, I'm going to make a record because I know how to
02:53make words rhyme.
02:55I was already writing poetry, but I started putting it to music.
02:59And then, when I turned 14, my father got me two turntables, and I started making mixtapes.
03:08And in my house, recording on them, and I was telling all my friends in high school,
03:15after this Christmas, I'm going to have a record on the radio.
03:20Didn't know what I was, I didn't know you needed to record in the studio.
03:25I just thought of my two turntables, and my double cassette radio, and my Radio Shack mic,
03:31I was going to put out a record.
03:34Not knowing that in the same high school, this young man that I was going to eventually be
03:42in a talent show was Red Alert's nephew.
03:47So, when you talk about manifestation, I was going to high school from Brooklyn,
03:53all the way into Manhattan, to Murray-Burcham High School.
03:58The first day I got into school, when I opened the door, my cousin, Kareem, was the security guard
04:05right in the front.
04:06And my father had been telling me my whole life that I had a cousin that looked like me.
04:11So, I met him.
04:14Then, my best friend for Morgany Projects was walking in the same building.
04:19Well, a year later, they had a talent show, and I went to four guys to ask to be in this talent show.
04:26And each one sent me to the next, and the last person they sent me to was Mike G.
04:32The other three guys dropped out, and it was just me and Mike.
04:39And we entered that talent show.
04:41And then, one day, he invited me up to his grandmother's house at home.
04:46And I see this man walk by.
04:49And it's the brother that I've been taking off the radio.
04:53Cool DJ Red Alert.
04:55This is my main man right here.
04:59We were just kicking it.
05:00It didn't matter to me.
05:01I wasn't looking for an opportunity, because I thought, I'm going to make a record.
05:07We started practicing at my house.
05:10We started making tapes.
05:13Read, heard, heard those tapes and got wind of it.
05:17We got in the contest.
05:19We got written up in the newspaper.
05:21We got a chance to go to the Apollo Theater and see Run DMC.
05:26And we went downstairs and met Jam Master Jay for Rest in Power.
05:36And then, eventually, we got in the studio in Corny Island.
05:40And this was the same studio that you had artists like MC Search from Third Base.
05:48And there's another man here tonight that I want to give a shout out to, Andre DeBoer,
05:53who mixed the first Straight Out the Jungle album.
05:56I haven't seen him since I was 17 years old.
05:59So, it's all a manifestation thing, because I just put it out there.
06:09And then, I was accepted to the Bronx High School of Science, but I felt I was too far to go.
06:14So, I went to burn virtual instead.
06:16And that's when I met Mike, and one thing led to another.
06:19And I wind up making a record.
06:21We made a couple of records.
06:28And we keep having a good time.
06:32He said a lot, right?
06:35One thing I know is, I am hip-hop.
06:39We all are hip-hop in here.
06:43I'm gonna just run you, I'm gonna give you a quick discography,
06:45because I got the history all lined up against the wall.
06:49Obviously, I got my uncle, the bum,
06:51who used to take me to all the, well, he didn't take me to all the jams,
06:54but I was fortunate to get in the Bronx River when I was that tall.
07:00Watching Donald D rock, watching Grandmaster Cash rock, Cold Crush Brothers.
07:06I mean, that was the greatest time.
07:07I didn't even think there was life after that.
07:10To be able to come out in the world and continue hip-hop,
07:14y'all, I'm still dreaming, you know what I'm saying?
07:19Well, here's a quick discography.
07:20My man, my man, Jervin Green right there.
07:23We went to junior high school together.
07:26He was the hypest, hypest MF I knew anywhere.
07:32Had rhymes, all of that stuff, right?
07:34My other, my other brother right there, my brother Q,
07:37this is, this is the life-changing.
07:39I was in the graffiti hard.
07:43Tracks, tunnels, anything, buses, whatever you got, I'm tagging, I'm bombing.
07:48My turning point in life was, me, Q, my brother in the car,
07:53we're in the train station, jumping down in the tracks,
07:56bombing the trains that come by.
07:59A clean train comes by, we jump in the track,
08:02bombing, bombing, bombing.
08:04We said, yo, it's time to go, it's time to go.
08:05You can't see that A-train coming around.
08:08Almost got me.
08:10Jumped back in the third rail, watched the A-train go by.
08:13We had just started recording.
08:15I got out that, I got out that track, I said,
08:17damn, I'm going to the studio tomorrow and I ain't never coming.
08:23But I still love hip-hop and I will be born the cleanest one I see whenever I'm ready.
08:27No doubt, no doubt.
08:32But there's not much to say, I'm just thankful.
08:36You know, I tell everybody who's in our age group, if you're like, yeah, 45, maybe a little bit older,
08:41we grew up in the best time period.
08:45Our time period can stand the world.
08:50It's never going to be like this again.
08:53So it's our job not to just, you know, we got to encourage.
08:57I know a lot of us be like, I hate that new hip-hop, I hate this and that.
09:00But there's a lot of good hip-hop out there.
09:02Remember, there was a time when you wasn't hearing no hip-hop on the radio.
09:05There's a lot of good hip-hop that you don't hear on the radio, but they still out there.
09:08Right? Hip-hop is about teaching our brothers, keeping our brothers together,
09:13keeping them off the streets, and making sure they got a better day.
09:16I had a lot of people come up to me and say, yo, you saved my life.
09:19Yo, guess what? Y'all saved our life too, you know what I'm saying?
09:22If y'all ain't cool for us, we'll be back.
09:24I'll probably be stealing that damn A train, you know what I'm saying?
09:27And my brother right here, real talk.
09:29Red's my uncle, but this is the dude that really showed me how to slap the records back and forth.
09:34Sammy B was the first one to actually have the nerve to walk with me from block party to block party,
09:40jump on the turntables so I could spit a rhyme or two.
09:44Peace, Aki!
09:46Aki, peace!
09:47To the Universal Zulu Nation and all those that love hip-hop.
09:51Yo, thank you. My name's Mike G.
09:53My brother, Baby Bam, Billy, Jungle Brothers.
09:55What up, y'all?
09:59Thank you, baby.
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