0:00 Next thing I know, you know, so then I I'm scrolling, you know, and then it says Snoop Dogg is now following you. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Dope." 20 minutes later, he reposted the video on his on his feed. Oh, snap. And all it said was, "Dope." Right. Next thing I know, we're at 6 million views. Holy ████ Welcome back to very special episode of Careful Boys. Today we have with us the funkiest rapper alive. He's been in the music game since the '9s and he's been uploading his own independent material for like two decades on YouTube. This guy's had 16 albums and then on the 16th one he decides he is going to be doing his final album and that's the one that blows up way bigger than anything I've
0:50 worn. We got lyrics born with us today. Thank you. What made you not want to give up? 16 is crazy. What made me want uh I'm a stubborn Japanese man. We have one of those. I think that is it. You know, plus you at a certain point I'm like, am I going to quit flogging myself here or do I continue to go? I don't know. I just The short answer is I I feel like I'm living in my purpose, you know? The long answer is I think I have a high tolerance for painful, you know, like most Japanese people. That's where you thrive, huh? Yeah. 16 albums. But then like outside of the 16 albums, you have a ton of
1:40 other singles and EPs and mixtapz, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah I have uh uh I I don't I kind of lost count after a while but yeah at least a few EPs three or four EPs and eight or nine or 10 mixtapz or you know I don't I don't know how many like features like on other so I don't know it's a lot it's couple two 300 songs probably Jesus Christ. Yeah, but I mean I've been doing it since I was a teenager, man. So, it's like, you know, it's I've been doing it longer than I haven't been, you know, that. And how does it feel for everything to like like I guess pop off now? I love it. I love it. I I really ████ love it. And and I think I I'm
2:31 just happy that um I stuck it out long enough to be able to participate in like everything that we've created you, you know? So like 10 years ago or when I started, we I wouldn't even be doing things like that. These, you know, these kind of pods didn't even exist. Pods didn't exist. You know what I mean? So, like just for us to be able to sit around a table and have millions of people see it, that that was a phenomenon that just didn't exist, you know? So, like I was so dependent upon the machine for so many years. It's just like the labels and all that stuff. And I I as we can see, I mean, this is it's like the best I've ever done, you know, in in a long long time. And it's without
3:21 the machine. Yeah. You know, does that make sense? So, it's the people's choice. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great feeling, man. It really is. Dang. So, I heard that like you decided that this was going to be your last album before it even popped off. I did. What What made the conscious decision of like not it? Yeah. So, you said conscious decision like that you were like what made you decide that this was your last album after doing 15 of them that you didn't make that decision? Yeah. I I I got my my pain threshold just started. I just hit it. Yeah. No, I think the the the short story is the the is that um you know I have a cooking show called Dinner and Place and there's really big news around that but we basically got picked up. It's great. Nice. And uh so you have two things that
4:12 picked up. Yeah. Double pom pom. Music and food uh entertainment. Yeah. You know, and it's crazy. I think I I loved it so much. I love music so I still love it so much and it was so baked into my identity, you know, and I think once I told the universe I'm prepared to walk away, it was like then ████ really started to happen, you know? It's I'm ready to be poor. Yeah, I'm ready to just be poor. Yeah. And I And after that it was like I'm ready to be poor. Do you feel like that's a sign though? Like where it's like maybe you shouldn't stop at 16? We'll see, man. Dope. As long as it's a we'll see. I don't know. I mean, it it's I don't have any plans for a new album
5:04 right now. I mean, I still just as a matter of habit, you know, I still write songs and so forth, but I don't have any plans for a new album. I mean, I'm really focused on I have that show and now I'm developing another one and I can I we can talk about it off camera and all that kind of stuff, but I think for now and I'm still doing I'm still touring. Yeah, I'm still touring and I'm still doing features here and there, but um as far as like making lyrics born albums, I don't really have any other plans for the moment. So, was it music from your recent album that took off? Yeah, I see. Yeah. So, what what happened was we shot a video at basically a park a few blocks from my house and we were just like, let's just do one verse, see how it goes. Whatever. Snoop
5:54 reposted it. Wow. Wow. Snoop. So, the full song wasn't even done. Was the full song was done? How did it reach him? I have no idea. Yeah, cuz it reached him when it wasn't even like blown up yet. Like, it was like 1,000 views or something. Power of the people somehow, bro. Yeah, it was crazy. So, I mean, I will forever be grateful to the dog, you know? It was so It was so wild. Like, one day I woke up and I got a DM from Snoop who I don't know. I don't know him and it was just a bunch of thumbs up, explosion, microphone, smoke emoji, something like that. Dope, he loves funk. Yeah. And I was like, "Okay, dope." You know, at the time I maybe had
6:44 like 20,000 followers on Instagram and and I was like, "Okay, cool." Next thing I know, you know, so then I I'm scrolling, you know, and then it says Snoop Dogg is now following you. I'm like, "Okay, cool. Dope." 20 minutes later, my ████ is just going like this. He reposted the video on his on his feed. Oh snap. And all it said was dope. Right. Next thing I know, we're at 6 million views. Holy ████ And then and I'm like, "Okay, this ████ is working. Let's do some more." So, we just kept shooting videos. We just ride the wave. Which song was the very first one that he actually Take it too far. Okay. Take it too far. And so um and then every
7:37 song and video after that has not done less than 2 million. Wow. Yeah. You know, and that's that's it, man. That's the story. So, including what we have outright and it it kept getting better, you know. So, here we are 6 months later. I'm at like 165,000 on Instagram, you know, and I it it was because of Snoop. It was 100% because of Snoop. And I that's just the type of dude he is. He has his own artists. He didn't need to do that, you know? He's got a label. He's got his own artist. He's got his own songs. He's got his own music and videos and all that kind of stuff. But I'm not the only person that he's done that for, you know? He's like, it's I
8:27 call it the Snoop effect. It's like, you know, when Oprah used to hold up a book like this and all of a sudden that author is on the New York Times bestseller, right? I mean, same thing for him. Yeah. If he co-signs you, bro, it's off to the races, man. You know, and I'm just thankful that I was prepared, you know, and that I was ready, you know? Yeah. But damn, that that prep was a lot of work, man. And I feel like when like a lot of people don't realize that even for uh dinner in place like even holding that for the longest time like you go back there's like dinner in place when it's just you and your phone. Yeah. Just like cooking it up. Yeah. I just I had a my iPhone in one hand and a spatula in the other. I'm just going like this and the quality at that time was so bad. Yeah. I couldn't even Instagram would not even let me upload it as a regular post. I could
9:17 only go to stories, you know, and then here we are now. We're getting ready to shoot down here season five in a in a kitchen studio. And I'll tell you guys all about it later. But yeah, what do they say? They say uh success is opportunity meets preparation or something like that, right? Cuz it's like I think everyone's like, "Oh, I would have been successful too if Snoop ████ reposted my s███." But if you don't have like the decades worth of chops that you've been building this whole time. Yeah, it's shortlived. Yeah, right. Well, I think we're all also at the sort of experience level where where you you can sense an opportunity when you see it, you know what I mean? And so, it's kind of like, okay, I'm g I'm being given this gift right now, you know, and I should I should receive it and accept it, you know? And that's what
10:07 we did, man. And and I haven't looked back. And it's been it's been crazy, man. It's been really wild. Why? Like the hoes are going crazy in her DM. That's right. That's what we want to hear. Really? He's like, I'm not poor anymore. I got hoes. The hoes. That's what we call him here. He meant shows. He meant you have a lot of shows. Lined up. Lined up. People are just got shows. But you did you did make I feel like you made a lot of shows throughout the years. What makes you want to do programming? cuz you had LBTV way way back and then you had and then you had mobile homies with during co Yeah. So like what makes you want to just make programming? Um, I I I love being in a state of perpetual creativity, you know,
11:01 and I think the pandemic, you know, as painful as it was, and I lost a lot of friends, and I'm sure we all did, you know, and it was tragic on on on so many levels, man. You lost them like deathwise or like politically? Oh, ████ Yeah. Well, kind of both. Yeah. Yeah, one and the same. Yeah, kind of both, man. And um but for once in my life, I was not on the road 200 dates out of the year. I was not in the studio, you know. I was I really got a chance to be with be at home, be with my family, catch up with myself, you know, and kind of explore all these other ideas that I just had never been able to kind of sit still and be present for, you know what I mean? And so, um, that's
11:51 where Mobile Homies came from. That's where, uh, that's where Dinner and Place came from. And I it it I it really brought me a lot of enjoyment, man. You know, and again, it it just gave me another opportunity to be creative in a way that I I didn't even know existed for me, you know. Yeah. Cuz I feel like a lot of people weren't doing it the same time when you did LBTV. People weren't doing that on their own. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the other thing. I've always loved the internet, you know, and I've always seen it. Again, for a guy who routinely in my career, especially in the first 10 to 20 years. Yeah. So many closed doors, you know, like I can't even tell you how many times I've been told, "You're too hard to market. H we don't know what to do with you. Ha." You
12:43 know, the internet was just a blessing. You know, when I first heard you, I was like, they should probably sign you with Sugarfree or like put you with DJ Quick or like uh Oh, yeah. Or Snoop feels like would be like all in the same kind of realm. Yeah. G Funk. Yeah. Did you Did any of West Coast style? Did Did you have any of those conversations like during the past two decades? No. No. They were you weren't like never met with any of those? Well, this album was, if you've listened to previous albums, they were funky, but this this album was funkier in a different kind of way, you know. So, I I got to shout out uh Tee the Beatsmith for doing and trackmics for Te did about 80% of the album and track did about another 20%, you know, but it was different. Like, in my
13:33 opinion, I thought in my little bubble, you know, I thought I was just making a funk record, you know. Yeah. But what was interesting was when it came out, because the audience that gravitated towards the album was so much younger, their only reference was Gunkk. So they never heard funk, right? So in my in my mind, they're like, "What's this new s███?" Yeah. Right. Wow. That's right. So, in my mind, I was making the kind of funk that I heard in elementary school in the 80s, like the zap stuff and the OG stuff that we grew up on. Yeah. Right. Right. You know, but if you are 35 and younger, you're like, "Oh, this sounds like Snoop. Oh, this sounds like DJ Quick. Oh," which is also derived
14:26 from that era. You know what I mean? So, it took me a minute to get used to that, but it made sense like once it once it was all like I was able to put it in context, you know. But that's true cuz if you didn't grow up in the West Coast, um, old school music already is like West Coast rap. Like that's already old school for the new generation right now. When they listen to like Tupac or whatever, that to them is oldies. Oh yeah. I mean, but then when we were Yeah. But when we were growing up, we knew that the that music was being sampled by the OG because like they mix both. Like when you go to a party out here, someone's kineta or whatever, right? Like they're playing Zap and Roger and they're playing like rap. So you know like oh it came from that song or cuz you heard the sources. Yeah. We heard and B boying and whatever. People
15:16 would jam out to the older they listen to the originals cuz it's not our generation but we knew where it came from and we Yeah. But then Stsonic is using the sample. Exactly. So, you know, you get both worlds. Yeah. It's dope. It's all So, so like the analogy is almost like Zap to us is Snoop quit sugarfree to them. Yeah. Do you understand what I'm saying? So, right. I mean, would you agree with that? Yeah. No, I think that's what it is. They wouldn't even know what Zap or Bartes or Shalomar. They would even know. Yeah. They don't even know who those radar at all. ████ shall right. Like this is me in in kindergarten, first grade, you know, drinking a Capri Sun.
16:06 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just vibing out, you know, eating, you know, saporo. Well, Saporroich noodles, you know, that's me at that time, you know. That was that and that was what we were listening to making this record. That's what we were listening to. Are the guys that like like Teik uh those are the dudes that you've been working with for a long time? I've worked with Teague for probably Yeah, I worked with Teague on my first solo album, but not as a producer. He was a he was a um as as a musician. He played on on later that day. He's actually Chief XL's cousin from Black Alicia. So, no way. No way. Yeah. younger cousin from Blacklicious. And he's and he understood, you know, he's kind of in that sweet spot age where he understands old music. Yeah. And new music. And he's
16:59 also produced for like Cube and E40 and Yeah. He's tight. And um Red Man and like so he kind of he understand he real like I can throw references at him that I don't expect him to to know and he he just knows cuz he plays multiple instruments too. crazy talent. He's a genius. He did the brass in in the track, too. He played the brass and then I had the horn guys in my band come and play it live. That's sick. The way the flow fits in the pockets between the brass. Yeah. So good, man. Thank you, man. Man, I want I want funk to come back and be like a a next level of it. Like, and I see this kind of happening with you. And if there's an appetite for it from the younger generation, then it's I think there might be that movement cuz then I I kind of miss like how West Coast had their era and then
17:51 their sound. Yeah. And we had a distinct sound. Yeah. Yeah. And that's I think that's what people what I've been noticing have been saying in the comments. It's like, "Oh, this takes me back to, you know, Nate Dog or you know, something like that." I recently saw this comment and I never felt this way until I saw the comment and it says, "Yo, Kendrick is corny for West Coast." And I was like, "What?" You know what? If you think about the whole library of West Coast music, Kendrick is kind of corny. That's a crazy statement, right? If you if you compare everything though, like like 2000s, 90s, like from um Straight Out of Compton, Tupac, all that stuff like Oh, yeah. Maybe four specifically West Coast. Yes. But I was just like, damn, I never
18:41 thought about him like that. I'm like versus like the global hip-hop culture. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. For the record, I have to say I do not feel that way. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree with LP. That was a crazy statement. I do not. But I didn't feel that until I read the comment and I was like the comment didn't even explain anything. Yeah. The comment just says Cy. you're like, "Oh, okay." Yeah, that's true. Cuz no one was doing Tupac level stuff during his era. Like that's a different era with a different kind of vibe to it. I do I do hope like you said in that last statement though uh that that the funk era like really comes and gunk in general like just I hope that comes back hard. Me too. cuz also the stuff that we just kind of fell in love with and especially just being in like dance culture stuff like that's the only reason why I got into people like Zach
19:31 and Roger and stuff because like you had to dance to it at like every event, you know, every session. What was interesting was like I I've heard a couple people like say to me, "Oh man, I love this. This is pop lock music." Pop lock. Hey, we'll take it. We'll take it. Come on. I'm like, "Okay, kind of we'll take we'll take it, man." But I I think overall my my favorite comment and I I tell people this is my favorite comment. So cuz you got to understand like from for the 140,000 new 140,000 plus well I guess there's also all the all the Tik Tok folks also who are just now hearing this record and and and me and my work and all that. I'm a new artist as far as they're concerned,
20:22 you know. And I think the the funniest comment I saw was, "It just goes to show you it's never too late. I was dead." I I think I put my phone down for the rest of the day, you know, because I've been doing this after decades in the game, man. It took me a lot of time to process that comment. You know what I mean? They think you just started. That's what happens when your career is pre-in. So funny. You know what I mean? Like the record could only go back so far. But just like you said, man, at after I kind of like took a moment, my beach ball was spinning for a while. You know, I was like, you know what? I'll ████ take it, you know? I don't care. A fans as long as as long They think you retired and now you're
21:13 going to pursue your dreams. And you just started. You just started and you got a lucky break. Yeah. So guys, anytime uh you go to lyricsports page, make sure you say welcome to the music game. New artist. Hi, new artist. Say say keep it up, guys.
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