SPEAKER_01 1:45

Welcome back to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Welcome to another episode. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with the legendary J Love, an influential figure in the Boom Bap hip hop scene. Born Jean-Jacques Cadet. Cadet. Cadet. I knew I was going to mess that up. I don't know why I wanted to say cadet. I don't know, man. Cadet in East Harlem. J Love is celebrated for his originality and lyrical experimentation, which have defined his nearly three decade-long career. His music stays true to the 90s hip-hop ethics while incorporating modern elements, drawing inspiration from iconic artists like Big Daddy Kane and Rakim. Known for his clever lyrics, creative concepts, and witty hooks over lush, sample-heavy beats, he embodies the quintessential boom bap sound. With 11 records under his belt, J Live continues to innovate, applying the timeless aesthetics of 90s hip hop in fresh waves. His early singles, Longevity and Can I Get It, dominated college radio charts in the mid-90s. After graduating from New York State University at Albany, he taught middle school language arts in Brooklyn before committing to music full time. Known for his dynamic live performances, J Lob uniquely combines MCing with DJing and beat juggling, creating a must-see experience for hip hop fans. His shows blend timeless classics with his latest singles, showcasing his evolution as an artist. Stay tuned as we dive deeper into the world of J Lob, exploring his journey, influences, and the artistry that continues to captivate audiences worldwide. How are you doing today, my brother? Good, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Awesome, awesome, awesome. It's great to have you here. Um man, you know what I'm upset about?

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Well what happened? What'd I do?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

We didn't get up for the Super Bowl. True. True. We were supposed to get up for the Super Bowl just because I don't remember. I'm actually happy we didn't do it. It was unremarkable. So it's not a missed thing.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

No shade.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

And I don't I don't hate on that. Our father, he's a Giants fan, so we grew up having watched Giants games. I ain't got nothing wrong with that. But um speaking of which, um, just so everybody knows we do we do we have spoken to J Live before it's the first time been on our podcast. And we're so happy to have you here today. We appreciate you taking time out with us. Yeah, yeah, man. Thanks for having me with us. And I grew up listening to this man's music and stuff like that. So it's nice being able to sit down and actually have you on our um platform. But before we dive into today's topic, we always like to um make sure that our listeners have a better understanding of who you are and what you came from. Of course, we did um your biography and just told people about everything that you did and et cetera. But what was your childhood like?

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Oh man, that's a good question. It's so long ago. Nah, no, I grew up um grew up in Spanish Harlem. Uh I like to call it the border. Yeah. Uh, because I was on uh 96 and second, and it was it was interesting because uptown they treat me like I was from downtown. Downtown, they treat me like I was from uptown. You know what I'm saying? Because like I always joke, if you go to 96 and Park, if you look uptown, even though the show's not in New York, it looks like good times. If you look downtown, it looks like different strokes. Literally like right on the border. You know what I'm saying? Went to a um private Presbyterian elementary school. Uh and then a I don't know, it's hard to use the word alternative, but uh, how can I say this? An innovative junior high school in high school called Central Park East. Okay, okay. Um where they uh they did a lot of things differently. Uh it was right on 106 in Park, you know, the show 106 in Park. Yeah. That's an office building across the street from the school, which is the playground of the school is like the graffiti hall of fame on 106 in Park. So like you can see a lot of the you know, the tat crew and uh a lot of the original bombers, the amazing pieces basically in the background of my playground and like outside my classroom, you know what I'm saying? So I like to say that junior high, I was pretty much immersed in the hip hop because before that, you know, I spent a lot of my summers and my uh Christmases in South Bend, Indiana. Uh-huh. Okay. You know, so I was like, that's why I'm a big Notre Dame fan. Yeah. A couple other songs. That makes sense. My grandparents lived so close, you could hear the touchdowns in the PA announcer on them Saturdays. Like, you know, I went to a couple of games. I used to see the Bears play uh exhibition games at uh Yeah, preach, yeah, because that's what you play. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so spending a lot of summers in South Bend, I didn't really get immersed. I wasn't until like, you know, the you know, I was born in 76, but in the 80s it wasn't really all about the fat laces and all of that, because I was I was out in Indiana. You know what I'm saying? So by the time I went to junior high, and then I no longer had to, you know what I'm saying, get shipped out during the summer or what have you, um, you know, then I was pretty much in it from there. So I say I like to say, yeah, about 86, 87, 88, like got into hip hop.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Any uh siblings?

SPEAKER_04 6:38

No, no, only child.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, that's what's I think that's interesting. I just wanted people to hear this. Last key kid, you know, Gen X. Um, and and I know you were talking about being shipped out, going to being in South Bend uh with your grandparents, etc., and you know, picking it up on hip hop later on. People always like to ask this is a big this isn't this makes this question make sense. Like, what particular experiences or environments shaped you once you were now down in the belly of the beast experiencing hip hop?

SPEAKER_04 7:12

Um man, I would say between you know, walking home from Nobody Beats the Whiz with cassettes, you know, everything from Antonette to you know, Public Enemy, EPMD, um, slickrick, uh, you know, on Rob Bass, you know, just walking home with my little walkman and those cassettes, um, to watching video music box with Ralph McDaniels, um, and then obviously, you know, Pump It Up, and then Young TV Raps, and then Rap City, and listening to KISS FM 98.7, that Friday night.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, my dad always talks about KISS98. All right, good.

SPEAKER_04 7:57

Friday night it was Chuck Chill Out. Um, and one of the first 12 inches I ever bought was Chuck Chill Out and Cool Chip Rhythm is the master with time to rhyme on the back. Wow. And then um Saturday's Red Alert, you know, so the whole native tongue massive. And then on BLS, you had uh Marley Mar in Control. There you go. There you go. And then uh, you know, like Big and Juicy talks about Word Up magazine. Yeah. So it was Word Up, it was also Rapmasters. I was big on Rapmasters back then. Used to, you know, that's where I would get my posters from, you know? So I used to have mad posters, you know, from everybody from KRS to Kane to Rock Him to Kwame to you name it, you know, Redhead Kingpin, and then I'd have like a space because I was just starting to write rhymes. So I was like, you know, one of these days type thing. Be up there. You know what I'm saying? So I'll say all of that combined, and then you know, writing my first rhymes. And uh, you know, I live right across the street from my neighborhood basketball court. So I used to go play pretty much after school every day, you know. So, like I said, you know, a lot of a lot of the uptown kids saw me as like kind of from downtown or or you know, corny hot, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:02

So, you know, it was it was it was what it was. They all grew up together, and I'm coming, you know, Johnny come lately on the court.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

True, true.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

But um, you know, turns out we know we had that that common bond with hip-hop, and I was like making, you know, pause mix demos in my house. Okay, you know what I'm saying? Explain the pause mix for this. All right, so pause mixing is where if you have a double deck cassette player, you gotta imagine, you gotta explain this to people. I saw something, man. If I if I could sidebar for a second, yeah, yeah, you got it. You know, I saw something where they had them little, like, you know, person with 10 fingers, and they was like, I take one finger down if, and it was pretty, pretty much everything that means that you have lived through multiple decades and mediums of communication, you know what I'm saying? So they was like, had a dial-up phone, had a cord phone, had a VCR, you know what I'm saying? Uh so so to explain this to the youth, once upon a time, way back in the Stone Age, you know, before MP3s, before CDs, there was cassettes, right? After eight tracks, after vinyl.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Yo. So I'm like, I'm saying shout out to the old old heads.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

I'm just a young old head. Yeah. So you would have cassettes, and you'd have blank cassettes, and the blank, the difference between a cassette and a blank cassette is obviously the cassette had had stuff on it, the blank cassette did not, but you could also record onto the blank cassette. And what enabled you to record onto the blank cassette was the fact that at the very top they have these two little divots. And the two divots, I'm just I'm getting real deep into it. So I'm trying to give people an idea of just how resourceful you had to get, right? So those two divots somehow, uh, if they were if they were if there was holes in the top, you could not record. So a blank cassette was basically a cassette with nothing on it and no holes in the top. But if you couldn't afford a blank cassette, you could take a cassette that you didn't like and take some tape or take some tissue and put it in those holes and it turned it into a blank cassette and record over it. You know what I'm saying? But anyway, you had double deck cassettes, uh cassette players for that reason. And if you were playing something, you could record. But if you had the rhythm and the means, if you pause on the downbeat and then unpause on the downbeat, you can go back and play the same four bars over and over again and just unpause on the downbeat, pause on the downbeat, and essentially record a loop.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

You know, so I used to listen to the radio, record the radio, uh-huh, go back and take that little first four-bar intro before the before the person started rapping, if there was if it was clean enough, yeah. And make my little four-bar loop. And I had my Walkman, like I said, and my Walkman, I had one of those little uh they used to sell these little stereo triangle uh speakers that was real small. Like if you didn't want to listen to headphones, you could take these little portable speakers with you and about this, about a fist size and play them. So I'd have a and then I had a boom box with one of those little, basically like look like a hole, look like about as big as a USB-C port, but it's actually a microphone, so it could like you could hit record and it would pick up whatever's in the area.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yeah, like a field recording. Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:08

So now that means if I play my little looped uh pause mix beat out of my Walkman with those little speakers, and it's loud enough to get picked up in that mic, and I rap to that beat, the beat and me rapping is gonna get picked up on that mic. That's resourceful. Right, and on top of that, my mom had this uh this Gold Star, you know, kind of like, you know how the really, really fancy stereo systems, it was you had to buy like the Panasonic dual cassette deck, but then you'd also buy a Panasonic tuner which played the radio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you'd also buy Panasonic static Panasonic EMFM radio and put that on top of it, and then you put a buy a Panasonic uh turntable and put that on top of there, and you'd be real fancy. Then you'd have the speakers, the little speakers were high enough to go back. But then if you know, if you didn't have it all that, they used to sell like you know, these little off-brand joints by like Gold Star or Iowa, right? And it would be Lord Jesus. I'm saving it back. So they did little I had a little gold star joint that my mom had that had the cassettes, and then it had the radio, and then it had a little turntable, but it looked like it was stacked, but it was all just one big box, right? So on that box, there was a um, and of course they had like two little speakers that came with it, but on that box, there'd be a little dial that would go from left to right, from radio to phono to tape. Okay. So now I had my little triangle speaker and my little gold star speaker playing whatever was coming out of that, and what was coming out of that was me on the turntable scratching, you know, even though it was like about this big bell drive, right? So check it out. Scratching on the turntable, but because the dial went from radio to tape to phono, if it was phono, I'm sorry, radio to phono to tape, if it was phono in the middle, then you'd hear the crazy scratch.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

But if I push it on the tape, I can pull it back. So that was my fader. So every that's how I learned how to scratch. No, no, seriously. So now I got me and a couple of my friends from the basketball court, you know, huddled around the little boom box with the built-in microphone. Yeah. You got the pause mix tape playing out of the little triangle speaker, you got the scratches playing in between the verses on the on the on the bell drive to the table speaker, and we make these little demos. You know what I'm saying? Yo, like the bootleggers, the bootleggets four-track studio, which you can hear the traffic out the window in the background, and every case didn't have like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

It's just fun, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. So, question Do you got any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_04 14:55

I think one of my friends might have, you know what I'm saying, uh uh old uh relic of it, but I haven't heard none of that stuff since then. You know what I'm saying? So that's I have the I have all of the the ROM books from back then, but I don't have any of the tapes like that. Wow. Yeah, but that was uh, you know, and that's from this is talking about like 11, 12 years old, you know what I'm saying?

unknown 15:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

I will say this. I understand that the youth nowadays they mad intelligent, really smart, right? Just like every I mean you get better and better, right? But I will say this digital technology allows a room for error that with analog, you had to figure out some other things.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

Yeah, it's very rudimentary, very rudimentary.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

But that is crazy how you even thought in your mind to break that down to give yourself.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

The wild thing is I thought I invented pause mixing until you realize everybody's doing it. Everybody's doing it. But it's the fact that nobody taught us to do it. Yeah, we just figured it out like, oh, okay, this will work. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 15:51

And you know what's so interesting about that, and I'm glad that you mentioned you shared that story. It's the barrier to entry. Yeah, to create the effort. Yeah, yeah. Think about like nowadays, you just gotta have a tablet, you have a phone, they can have a beat, they can have a song, they can just record everything right there. Crystal clear.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

Yeah, but I would say, and you know, that is all very true. I think um the level, the playing field is level nowadays in terms of what you know what what technology allows us to do. At the same time, there's things I can do now that I couldn't do 10 years ago because the technology hadn't caught up, but I had the ideas, right? But I think, you know, back then the ingenuity brings you from maybe negative 10 to zero, right? And now I think the ingenuity brings you from zero to infinity. Yeah. Because, you know, when you have that um when you have that debate or that discourse about DJing, and people talk about the technology making DJs lazy, and that is true because you can hit the sync button if you don't want to develop the hand skills and the coordination to to make sure things are on beat manually. And you have, you know, there's scratch buttons, there's there's all kinds of, you know, there's different ways of there's ways that'll make it really easy to do the basic stuff.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

But those same ways that make it really easy to do the basic stuff make it really interesting for the people that are already that already have those basic skills to take it and push the envelope in ways like you know, like there's there's scratches that that people use the cue points with. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 17:30

And it's like it's dope.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

It'd be blasphemous if you thought about it, but then you realize, no, he's doing a scratch that you could not do without the cue point button. And it's like, we've never heard anything like this before. So congratulations to the body. Thank you, cue point buttons. Yeah, yeah, like we need that. You know what I mean? Like, so I think, you know, like all things, technology. I mean, even if you look at, you know, sadly, the various war fronts that we have now, technology, levels of playing field, and the way that people are doing things with like just basic cheap drones that are like they're making them so destructive now to where they're they're they have you know billion trillion dollar defense budgets having to uh account for and adapt to these people. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's the crap. Yeah, so like you know, I think innovation is it can be disruptive, but it can also push push things forward.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yep. And and I agree with you on the on the DJing part. I will say this, and this is crazy. Um, I remember Rott Wilder saying this years ago, it's got to be early 2000s because they were asking him about his production for Meth Method Man and Red Man, and he was telling them, he was like, Well, it doesn't matter what technology I have. He said it's all about the skill to use. So he's like, I can give you any great technology. If you don't got skill, you still aren't gonna use it properly. And that's basically what you're saying. You still need the skill. So you can level the playing field, you still need skill, and that's why I tell folks, you gotta practice. We were teasing about this today because something Tim Hardway's saying. It's like they asked him, How did you get so good at your crossover? And except he said, practice. Right, practice, practice. Yeah, he said people just don't want to practice, and that's there's never an error issue with that. Meaning it doesn't matter what era you're in, you can always have the ability to practice again.

SPEAKER_04 19:09

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. That's how you know. I feel like even what you're talking about before, you know, you can have all of the podcast equipment in the world, the best cameras, the best microphones, the best lights. If you don't have, like you were mentioning, the soft skills to ask the right questions, you're not gonna get what you need in terms of content, you know what I'm saying? So then conversely, you can have the cheapest handheld whatever, you know what I'm saying? The little microphone and the same soft skills that will have content that that is just groundbreaking. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Very true. But um building into your current career path, and this is what's interesting, just for people to know, I mean, you educate. And what's cool about that is especially when we think about hip hop, and always like to say, I'm happy that we're finally that hip-hop's getting a chance to grow up. Because it's it's allowing and putting us in places, hip-hop culture, in places where it hasn't been before or wasn't technically like allowed because they're always thinking of, oh y'all, the children, you're the young folks, it's not time for you yet. Um, what inspired you to pursue your current career path and how has hip-hop been a part of that?

SPEAKER_04 20:18

It's in terms of well, I I gotta clarify. You say my current career path is. Yeah, you ready? Yeah, you're right. You're right. It's always hip-hop.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

I mean outside of hip-hop.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and and it's it's something that I usually have to clarify. Yeah. Because I taught from 1998 to 2001. And then my second album came out in 2002. I've been pretty much full-time music ever since. But I take every opportunity to you know do workshops or speak in front of people, whoever's whoever will listen. You know what I'm saying? But it's like there's a lot of people because it's so underground, because my music is so below the radar, people assume that I've just been, you know, in the board of ed this whole time. Oh no. And I'm like, no, that's that's to me, that's like one, that's like, you know, I don't want any stolen valor for that. Because I have you know colleagues and and family that were teaching, that started teaching when I was teaching and are still teaching. Yeah, yeah, they're still pushing. They put 30 years into the board of ed. You know what I'm saying? I put 30 years into making music, touring, um, speaking when when the opportunity benefits you know permits, and then also trying to teach through music. Because I feel like um a lot of my best lessons are in my songs. True. I mean, like I think on in my my exploits on the road, some of the greatest compliments have been when I meet educators that say they use my music in their classroom. That's for me, that's that's the greatest honor for me. Yeah, um, but see, so yeah, I mean to answer your question, um I think the parallels between being an MC and being a teacher are such that it sort of comes naturally. You know what I mean? Like um, I could see myself going back to the board of ed and and definitely leaning on the experiences I've had on the road, just in terms of making sure that I'm engaging with the class, yeah, making sure that uh that I keep them, that I keep them connected to the material. Um but uh yeah, it's it's you know, you're you're when you're not just a rapper, when you incorporate, you know, the entirety of the culture in terms of hip hop, you know, you're dealing with not just from an elemental aspect of like, you know, breakdancing, graffiti, fashion, yeah, you know, music, which is DJing, production, and MCing. But uh, you know, that that MCing part, that MCing piece, you, you know, what does it stand for? Master of ceremony. Master of ceremony. So that for me, that always means whatever the ceremony is, wherever the ceremony is, however the ceremony is. So you'll have like sometimes artists that'll put themselves in uh a venue or or or an event that's different from what they're used to, and they'll try to fit a square peg in a round hole. Yeah. And it's like, okay, you're trying to make them scream and jump and shout, but this place is sort of like a speakeasy with seating and everybody's in, you know, low lighting and them feeling. That's not that's you know, if you're gonna, you're gonna need to adapt to this environment as opposed to try to have the environment adapt to you, you know what I'm saying? And especially with with crowd control, you know, I think a lot of uh less experienced artists sometimes will go into it. Like I have to make them make noise, I have to command them as I am from the master of the ceremony, then they have to, you know, obey the master and do what I say. And it's like force. Or you can give them something to cheer about. You know what I'm saying? So, like applying those those same principles to a classroom, you know, where it's like, okay, you're trying to obviously you have to have a standard of discipline and a floor of discipline in order to get anything done.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

But at the same time, nothing maintains discipline like actually engaging.

SPEAKER_03 24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:03

And nothing engages more than relating. You know what I'm saying? So to me, that's that's the kind of lesson I take from the stage to the classroom. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Awesome. If you were still teaching, how would you and and you're basically talking about this, but how would you educate students using modern day technology?

SPEAKER_04 24:26

Uh you basically I I'm a real big fan of etymology.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 24:35

Um, because I feel like, you know, as an English major, as a as a former language arts teacher, when you really want to get down to the, you know, the communication when it's when it comes to signifier and signified, you're really just getting from point A to point B, from getting an idea out of your mouth and into someone's ear, um, you look at where it came from. You know what I mean? So like getting down to the bare bones or like the first principles, as some might call it. You know what I mean? Uh showing you how the sausage is made. I like saying yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like, and then so so to say that you have, you know, all of these these trepidations and fears about AI, and saying, okay, well, AI is gonna make it impossible to grade a kid because you don't know if he did it or somebody else did it, or you don't know if if they're just if they're actually learning the content or if they're just copying and pasting something from the web and using that. And it's like, okay, or you could use it to your advantage and say, okay, how do you get the most out of AI? You get the most out of AI with a certain level of understanding.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 25:36

You know what I'm saying? And when you break it down, it's not just artificial intelligence, but it's a language, it's a large language model, okay?

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

So you're feeding it all of this information, and now, you know, to get what you want out of it, you have to, it's almost like a genie in a lamp.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 25:50

That's a good way to put it. Like if you ask a genie, if you say, you know, make me a sandwich, and then the genie turns you into a sandwich. You know what I mean? Yeah, witchmaster style. Yeah, yeah. I know how to ask. So so by that same token, when you're using AI, now there's a whole trade and skill of you know, prompting. And how do you, how do you how do you develop the kind of prompts to get what you want?

SPEAKER_02 26:12

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 26:13

It's like, yeah, okay, maybe you're not gonna hire somebody to draw, you know, J Live in the in the likeness of the fighting Irish logo, except, you know, have it, you know, a truck, uh, a driver's cap instead of the the Shamrock or whatever stuff, like look at me like a leprechaun or whatever. But okay, you might not hire somebody to do that, but you might need to hire somebody to develop the prompts that'll get that out of the AI.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Great point. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 26:41

Instead of having you sit in front of whatever app it is for three hours at a time, this person can come up and do that in 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 26:49

So you teach the children that, okay, technology continues to innovate and disrupt, and as things advance, you know, I mean, when they were teaching us long division, they said you're never gonna, you're not gonna be able to go around the world with a calculator in your pocket. And now here's lying multiple lying. Yeah, you're right. So, but but you know, you have to, it's it's not just having a calculator, you need to know how to use it. Okay, what am I trying to cross-multiply for? What what statistic am I trying to assess? How am I how am I taking all of this data and breaking it down so that I can effectively, you know, develop my strategy and tactics when it comes to sales and my business, right? I don't have the calculator, but if I don't know what I'm looking to do, if I don't know what percentage matters, you know what I'm saying? Like even in you know, recreationally, and in your love of sports and fandom now, you know, we have access to all of these analysts that have these advanced statistics that are that are you know, it's not just points, rebounds, and assists it's true shooting percentage, you know, which is per 36 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Per 36 minutes or per 100 possessions, yeah. I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Yeah, and I mean that and that's that's you know, when you get down to so I guess to answer your question, if I was teaching math, yeah, I would look into that and say, okay, how are they getting per 36 and per 100 possessions? Why is that important? Yeah, if I was teaching language arts, I'd say, okay, why do we call it this? You know, where does that word come from? You know, why, you know, exactly?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

So that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, you know, so yeah, that it makes sense because even with the whole concept of AI, you can have them just break down what is artificial intelligence, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

And then and then, you know, when you have a grasp of these things, even just an elementary grasp of these things, you know, everything becomes a rabbit hole. And then whichever rabbit hole an engaged student wants to go down, they're gonna need certain level of skills to be able to navigate that rabbit hole. So that's what you want to give them, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

I agree so much with that. It makes so much sense because uh instead of looking at it as a threat, use it to further engage the student. And then, like you said, still training them to be able to take over the jobs of tomorrow. Because what some people don't realize, like all these jobs of tomorrow aren't gonna be coding. Some of it is gonna because like you said nowadays we can actually speak to machines.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Yeah, the machines are gonna be the ones coding. Yes. That's what I that's what I try to tell me. Yeah, but again, that's gonna be the etymology of it. True. You know what I mean? That's that's gonna be like, all right, you know, who does your janitor call when they can't fix something? You know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? I'm gonna call you call somebody. You know what I'm saying? So there's always gonna be a need for that that basic foundation. You know what I mean? You can't get too lazy. But at the end of the day, you know, like I said, you know, you have things that bring us to zero, and then you have things that bring us to infinity.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So yeah, true. True. True. Well, back back to music, and um this makes so much sense, of course, talking about music. So, evolution of hip hop since 1970s. Um different eras, different sub-genres. I remember what was that thing called? We had horror core. That was one of that was a type of that was real. Nerdcore, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:06

Shout out to uh Mega Ran.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

Yep, these are real. Um, so obviously, it's not a um it's not something that it can be put into one box. It it has various different ways that it can be expressed, hip hop. But could you name some of the key figures in the music industry that have contributed to the growth of hip-hop, in your opinion?

SPEAKER_04 30:27

Yeah, the industry? Key figures.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Um this is one of those questions just for the audience, so that they can hear, in your opinion, what you think are key figures. Because obviously they have their own.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Well, not even right there. You know, we'll put it maybe even we'll uh we'll even we'll smooth it out from maybe for your career that were important to you.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

But see, all right, you say industry, which for me is a line of demarcation because you're not talking about artists now, you're talking about executives, executives because they matter, they do matter, they absolutely matter, they're very important. But in terms of like my career, yeah, I've been off the grid for so long.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Explain that, explain that to all this. I want to understand.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Okay, so we're talking about independent and we're talking about mainstream. Yeah, you know, I'll say there's a line of demarcation there. Yeah, and how I came up, um, I was one of a handful of New York artists that really leaned into the whole independent scene. We kind of developed an independent scene in New York because you know, the the the cliche you think of is all right, I have to I have to find an AR, get them to listen to my demo, get them to sign me to a labeled uh a major label deal, and then I'm off to the races, right? Yep, that's it. And then you even had the cliche of, you know, if I throw my demo into the limousine when the window is. That's it, that's it. And that was, you know, the approach a lot of people take, and the approach a lot of people still take to this day in different ways. Of course. But um, you know, I guess I have to give a little bit of background in order to answer this question properly. So I started, like, you know, I told you the the origin story, you know, the pause mix demos, and you know, that evolved into, you know, cafeteria battles, tapping on the lunch table with friends and whatnot. And then that evolved into, you know, my school, like I said, I'm it's all ties together. My school was uh trying to do things differently. So instead of uh A A to F, we had uh kind of a satisfactory, unsatisfactory, but also distinguished. Oh okay. Um instead of test-based advancement, we had a portfolio system with electives and core um core subjects. So we'd have to present projects to a committee.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

Wow. Um, and we had community service and an instant. So for junior high, there was community service, and for high school, there was an internship program. So in junior high, community service, I was kind of like a teacher's assistant in the the primary school. And then in high school, they were like, Okay, well, what do you want to be? And the woman that led the program, I was like, I think I want to be a lawyer. And then I was next thing you know, I'm taking heat and hot water complaints at the city council president's office, you know, as like in the Ombudsman's unit. So fast forward, I'm like, I think I want to maybe maybe be an entertainment lawyer because I'm starting to get into music. And she happened to play tennis with a guy that used to work at Def Jam that had his own little um independent company. Okay. I ended up with an internship with him, and that became Rorschach, who put out my first single by the time I was a sophomore. Oh, before that, I had an internship, and this was beyond school. I had an internship with uh Bill Stephanie at Stepson Records when they were putting out like Miss Jones and all of that.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:52

Um, so and I went to this thing called the Rap Writer Seminar, where it was uh was um Reverend Mariah Britton and Riverside Church, who would have a bunch of high school students get together and just talk about different ideas and their creative process and writing, and they would bring in different artists to uh speak, and they would bring in different industry heads. So I think Sylvia Rone came in and spoke to us about her, you know, like different different some some people that I can't whose names I can't remember, but people came down and just talked to us about ARing, about publicity, about um distribution, things of that nature to give us, you know, some some background on what's what's expected. Uh trends of culture came by, Hakeem from Channel Live came by and spoke to us, you know, since so like so that's that's how it came up, you know. So when you ask me in terms of the industry today, because oh, so my my original point was um rather than throwing a cassette into a limo, you know, me and George were like, okay, maybe, you know, if we sell a few thousand records, that'll get the attention of the majors and we can get uh get a deal like that. And you know, we ended up selling tens of thousands of records. That's what I was about to say.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

That y'all, that's not the norm. That's not the norm.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

You know, because I ended up, you know, I got unsigned hype in the source when that mattered. And then I got you know a lot of play on college radio. And then my manager at the time was um one of the one of the best college radio promoters. Okay. And you know, the how you know how this billboard magazine which charts commercial radio and things of that nature?

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:26

There was a trade magazine called Gavin that would chart college and independent radio.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 35:31

And we were charting on that. It was almost kind of like, you know, if you were looking at minor league stats, so to speak. But then we're charting right next to major label, major, major label artists, you know what I mean? Yeah. But it's just college radio because we didn't we didn't have the payola to bribe DJs. That's what I was about to say. I like how you straight up. You know what I'm saying? Look at, make sure you pay it to them in. It is what it is. Yeah, you had to bribe DJs back in the day. So that that was the whole idea of going independent. Okay. Is that okay, if you're not backed by, you know, the corporate structure where there's millions of dollars to go into developing and marketing an artist to wag the dog, so to speak. And certainly, and then and I say wag the dog only in the sense that when you know how the sausage is made, before you know how the sausage is made, you might think, okay, this artist came up and you know, picked themselves up by their bootstraps and achieved mass appeal. Yeah. And it's not quite like that. When an artist picks themselves up by their bootstraps, they get the attention of the corporate major labels, and then the corporate major labels, if if they play their cards right, can give you access to mass appeal.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

Push you through the door, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:42

And but it takes hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

No question. Okay. So um, is there a difference between that, of course, that process, and what people would consider a plan?

SPEAKER_04 36:54

A plan?

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:56

When they talk about an industry plan, that that's but again, I would have to ask myself who's talking. Because if I'm it's it's almost like saying I'm trying to be fair about this. But if someone's talking to me about an industry plan, to me the whole industry is planned, the industry is based on the right. So, so like, you know, for example, there might be an artist that markets themselves as independent, but there's money behind it coming from somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 37:37

And I mean, like, that's just the nature of the thing. If you look at the the history of the music industry, a lot of it, a lot of the marketing money in the music industry is rooted in laundering money for other illegal industries. That's true.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

I love the honesty. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

Um I I can be it's it's not snitching if you weren't involved.

SPEAKER_01 37:55

That's true.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

I'm just saying what I never had that, you know, situation called it advantage, disadvantage, whatever. That was never me. Yeah. So I'm just saying, like, you know, and I think that also drives the direction of the content.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:10

Because if you came up in the drug game and you have all of this discretionary drug money that you need to clean up and you put it into the music, it gives you the kind of exposure that allows you to pivot into legitimate corporate America. A couple times on um I went to New York, I was speaking at my brother. Actually, the brother that got me my first job teaching in Brownsville, he was teaching and uh still teaching in Brooklyn at a different school, and he brought me there to speak to his classes.

SPEAKER_03 38:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:39

And they just threw me in as like, okay, you're gonna do second period, third period, fourth period. There's, you know, the teacher will be there, but it's on you. I was like, Do it. No resource, whatever. And it was just funny because the first class, I spent so much time monologuing on my background that the damn period was over. So it was like, okay, I remember, okay, I gotta structure it. Yeah, because there's no lesson plan. Let me just I the second one, it was like, okay, let me start with the questions. Yeah. And then it was, it was just, I'm just saying, so I can you have to read me in sometimes. That's all right. That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

No, because I I wanted to hear that part, especially like um we're talking about with the idea of an industry plan, just that so people can understand, especially like our audience. We have a lot of people, they still, I mean, they want to be artists, they want to go out and do music, not realizing that there is a system.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

Liken it to politics. Because when you put out a record, you have to campaign. You're promoting the record. Campaigns take money. You know, I mean, there's obviously grassroots, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

But then, you know, in in polit in political discourse, there's what people call astroturf, where people try to appear grassroots, but they're really funded by billionaires.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

You know, the I love the yes, and on one side.

SPEAKER_04 39:51

Like right now, everybody's railing against Elon Musk, but you know, nobody said anything about George Soros because he's more in the background.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Yeah, you know what I'm saying? He's not he's not on the side that's in power.

SPEAKER_04 40:01

Well, not even that, but when he was in power just last year, he's not out front.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

No. You know what I'm saying? No. He learned.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Well, yeah, you know, he was out front during Obama.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yes, and he got burned.

SPEAKER_04 40:14

Right. So, so I'm just saying, like, you know, they call it Astro Turf for a reason because it's trying to appear to be grassroots. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

But it's funded from a right.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

And then I think the thing about hip-hop, you know, for better or worse, it's one of the few genres that tracks stats like sports.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

True.

SPEAKER_04 40:36

Like, I'm not really heavy into country music like that. But I don't think country music singers sing about how many records they sell. Or how many, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 40:46

They may be with the influence of hip-hop into country, they'll they'll they've have started to use certain types of lyrical. But that's a hip hop thing. But it's hip hop still has not records holds.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

And I think it speaks more to culturally, you know, this this this war, for lack of a better word, between art and industry that always takes place in um in in you know, black genres where it's not enough. The meritocracy isn't based on talent alone. The meritocracy is based on success, which is measured monetarily.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah, acceptance by the larger society.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

Yes, yes, and it's like, okay, but if you think about what's hip hop grounded in, DJs are playing breaks that are you know an alternative to the norm at the time, which was disco.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

I know, this is crazy, yes.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

So, like hip-hop is is born out of a counterculture going against the grain. You know what I'm saying? Like, okay, you don't want to give us a music program, we're gonna take this sampler and figure it out. Yep. You don't want to give us a music program, we're gonna turn the turntable into an instrument. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

You don't want to give us a place to throw a party, we're gonna take over this light post and power this DJ equipment and have the party in the park.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 42:14

You don't wanna acknowledge us as a legitimate genre of music, okay, fine. We're gonna just gonna incorporate, we're gonna dominate the zeitgeist to the point where there is no RB without hip-hop.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

There is no now, like, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Well, we're just talking about there's no pick a genre, any genre. There's no some country music artists don't exist without hip hop. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I remember when Lent Biscuit started turning into a hip-hop rock band. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

Right. So I mean, like, this is a culture and a music and an art that has always been, you know, against the grain, upstream, counter the status quo. So to measure it according to mass appeal and pop success, obviously that's gonna make it more lucrative for you.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Yeah, it's true.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

But for the people down here on the ground that are just listening, if you really think that they play that song eight times a day because it's that good and not because there's something going on, I don't know what to say. You know?

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Point point point in cases. And I guess um one of the things I want to say, and I this is how I always viewed it. It seems like because you know you've always had elements in the culture, even early on, because of the um where the culture started, there was there's always things that are aspirational, right? Because of poverty. But do you feel like maybe those themes that um really derive from those you know, from the aspirations that people may have had in their lives, you think they kind of led to the path of that validation or those things with tying it to the record sales and things of that nature?

SPEAKER_04 43:53

Yeah, I mean, I think people want to come up out of their environment if their environment does not have, you know, if they're if your environment is such that you you want to survive it and escape it.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I try to laugh, yeah, you're right. You're right. Then you're gonna do what you have to do. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Like, like, like, you know, the biggie line, either you sling crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot, right? Dang. Or like, and to me, it's just interesting how you know you have this content industrial complex that has all of these, you know, these these grindpreneurs, so to speak, that are talk that uh that'll basically sell you how to sell.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 44:37

Like, or teach you, you know, the the the financial literacy that you know costs you financial stability just you know as a barrier to entry. You know what I'm saying? Like and it's just everybody's selling you something. You know what I mean? And that's that's fine, that is what it is. But in order for you to really break out and I'm rambling because I'm I'm making like four different points at once, so you have to excuse me. I guess my greater point is just that um you get the gamification of the music when you're trying to go pro, so to speak. You know what I'm saying? That's just that's just like that. I like how you put it.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

I like how that's put. That makes so much sense. I think our our audience will understand that too. Um, because that's how a lot of them think about it. They want to go pro.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

You're trying to get to the point where you can get that check.

SPEAKER_04 45:33

Yeah. And and and that's like, and it's it's it's for me, it's a paradox or for lack, you know, a trick bag because when you look at the groundbreaking artists. They might very well have those kind of aspirations and come out of that kind of struggle. But what gets them over, what gets them to cut through to access corporate America is gonna be what makes them uniquely them. True. So when someone breaks out based on being uniquely them, and then thousands of copycats want to be uniquely that person instead of uniquely themselves, you know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, it just creates an industry. And that's that's the thing about art versus industry. What do you need to be artists? Original, originality, uniqueness, right? What do you need for a successful industry? You need an assembly line, you need uniformity.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

That's what you're saying. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 46:28

So those those radio stations that I mentioned that I came up to him, you get 31 flavors of hip hop. You get that put, you know, I've been saying this for decades. You know, you get Kwame, you get Public Enemy, you get Salt and Pepper, you get NWA, you get Ghetto Boys in the same hour.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:46

You know what I'm saying? Now you need four different digital radio stations to play those things.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

You need four different podcasts, four different Spotify playlists to get to that. You know what I'm saying? Or you have to curate it yourself. Or you have to go to the kind of DJ that knows the common thread between those things.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

To bring it together. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 47:04

And I'm not just talking about old school, but I'm talking about the the the those artists of today. Someone that's gonna tie in Afro beats with Afro beats, you know what I'm saying? With Highline, with with all these different, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you're gonna be able to do that, it takes a certain level of knowledge that only comes from a certain level of dedication. You know what I'm saying? So, like, if you if you you know, I was thinking about it today, like the 50th cents of the world, you know what I mean? Like, you have a level of dedication, not just to the to the art, but to the industry, to the point where he's writing, you know, the 50th law to Robert Green. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 47:44

That's true, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Like that level of savvy, uh-huh, you know, some of the greatest artists in the world will never have that level of savvy, but they still have something to offer and contribute. You know what I'm saying? So it's it's just, you know, that's that's what makes up the landscape. It is what it is. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not even putting a value, um, I'm not putting any value base on it. I'm just saying that that's the landscape. That's the reality. You have commercial, you have independent, you have underground, you have, you know, what do they talk about? Like, all right, so we know Spotify dominates the market share of who listens to streaming music and where, right? But then you have tens of thousands of artists that don't have a hundred streams, regardless of how many things that they put on. You know what I mean? Yeah, like even me, I'm very much grassroots, independent, underground, low budget. Yeah, and I'm still in like the 90th percentile of of what's streamed. Just because if you're if you're close to a hundred thousand, you know, monthly listeners, that's more than a large majority of what's actually on the platform. It's true. And it's still, you know, to monetize that, you still have to do a whole bunch of other things to really make it worth it. You know what I mean? So it's just that's just the nature of the beast as it is right now, you know, and you still have that same payola going on in just different formats, different ways.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Yeah, because yeah, it's that's true.

SPEAKER_04 49:08

Because yeah, you might not necessarily paying the DJs, but you're paying the stream, you're paying the streamers, paying the playlists, you're paying for it's it's you know, like I remember uh when I was on a label that was going that was distributed through an indie called Caroline Distribution, and they had one person dedicated to um just you know placement in the retail. Because if you go to the average record store at the time, you know, you have all these records. How do you, if you don't know what you're looking for, there might be a light box with a pair of headphones that you could put on. There might be four or five CDs and you could press this button and play that C or make you want to buy it. But okay, there's four pairs of headphones and there's 2,000 records in the store.

unknown 49:51

Shh.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

How do you diside?

SPEAKER_04 49:54

There's a hundred records that came out this week. Which four are gonna get that light box? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So, that the how many records are you gonna put in that store? A hundred or two? Are you gonna pay that for that hundred up front, or are those two gonna be placed there on consignment and you hope that they sell? You know what I'm saying? All of these things translate to the iTunes store when it when you were buying MP3s. What's gonna be on that banner that that goes that pops from side to side? Okay, well, now we're not buying MP3s, we're streaming. Whose album is gonna be on that banner that lets you know, oh, it's your this artist's your favorite. They really didn't change. Yeah. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

All right, all right, I know I gotta wrap up. Yo, we will have to continue. No, that's that is a lot of questions. But um, before we wrap up, can you um just let our audience know where they can find your music, where they can find you, um, anything that you may have that's coming up or that we should be aware of?

SPEAKER_04 50:49

Yeah, so my homepage is realjlive.com, R-E-A-L-J-L-I-V-E.com, no, no dash, no hyphen. Um, my name is Jen L-I V E, no A Y or anything like that. Um, you can find me on most social platforms, you know, be it Twitter, X, uh, YouTube, what have you, TikTok, as just Real J Live. Um, and I'm working on new music. I have coming out. This is actually, you said, going on almost 30 years. This is actually my 30th year from the my first single was called Longevity.

SPEAKER_02 51:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:22

And yeah, that was 1995. Yes, 2025. So it's 30 years of J Live. I'm celebrating it like 50 years of hip hop.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Congrats.

SPEAKER_04 51:30

Thank you. I have a few records coming out uh throughout the course of the year, but I'll let those things uh if you if you just go to realjlive.com, sign up for the email blast, you'll get up on all of that. Just follow me everywhere on the all the little buttons on it.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

So perfect, perfect. Well, I know we have to wrap up for the Hilltop Glove podcast. Before I do, just want to say make sure you tell somebody next to him that you love them, that you appreciate them, and let you know we're coming live from Lynx Recording Studios here in uh Charleston, South Carolina. The area, I like to say, technically. Yeah, yeah. Um, but uh before I do leave, I'm DJing what? Skip. Mike our special and our steam guests. Excellent. We appreciate you all until next time. Peace.