In Conversation with Yukmouth from The Luniz (Field Bulletin USA Travel Club)

Q: Can you talk about your youth in the 6–5 Ville in East Oakland?

A: Shit, I was born in Oakland. East Oakland. Uh, born and raised in the Ville. 65th Village. There’s two projects, 69th Village and 65th Village. You know what I mean. Right by the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland. Yeah, just grew up there. You know what I mean. Hard times. You know what I mean. Section eight, on welfare. You know what I mean. Moms was an alcoholic. You know what I mean. Pops was in and out of jail. You know and shit, there was a lot hustling going down in the 80s, the early 80s. You know what I mean. Because the mid 80s and early 90s, so when you’re unfortunate…you tend to go through the streets, try to survive. Yeah, just surviving out there man. You know just surviving with the wolves. You know what I mean. Period. Watching people get stabbed, shot. You know what I mean. Beat up, all types of shit. You know what I mean. To actually becoming a part of some of the shit. So you know just being able to grow up and survive, you know what I mean, with these killers. That was was a challenge by itself. But I made it [chuckles].

Q: What are your earliest memories of hip-hop in Oakland?

A: I remember, uh, when Beat Street came out, as far as the breaking and shit man. That really impacted Oakland hard. Uh, everybody was breaking. You know what I mean, really, everybody was pop-locking and shit and then we got, you know Run-DMC, LL Cool J came. Now this is when everybody got the old school, you know what I mean…with the candy paint. They got the huge ass motherfucking speakers in the back. Twenty inch speakers, the eighteen inch speakers. They got the Zapco, you know what I mean, that’s the system. You know what I mean, basically your EQ board. You know what I mean, basically. And people was banging the shit out of LL Cool J, you know what I mean, Run-DMC, you know KRS-One. Even though he was talking some righteous stuff, his beats was crazy. It go crazy in the car. KRS-One was getting a lot of play.

Then, of course, our hometown hero, Too Short. You know what I mean, definitely getting a lot of play. His shit was banging in all the whips. You know what I mean. All the fucking old schools was banging Too Short, out the old schools. Then, you know, Hammer. Hammer and Too Short. You know what I mean. That was the two dudes in my city, you know what I mean, that was really putting on…when hip-hop first got popping, you know.

Q: In that period, do you have memories of Too Short in the 6–5 Ville?

A: Uh, I never seen Too Short in my neighborhood. The rapper that I did see in my neighborhood, is a rapper that’s from my neighborhood, Seagram. You know, rest in peace. He was signed to Rap-A-Lot. So I would see him. I basically watched his whole come up. You know what I mean, period. You know, Seagram was more the dude that was from the neighborhood and we’d see him in the neighborhood. I never saw Too Short hanging in the Ville. You know, only Seagram, yeah. Oh, and you see Hammer. Hammer was connected to the Ville. You’d see Hammer, but you wouldn’t see Too Short.

Q: How was Hammer connected to the Ville?

A: Hammer was damn near raised in the Ville. Hammer is from the Ville. He’s from the 9, I think, 69th. I think he was living there when he was a batboy for the, uh, Oakland A’s. You know what I mean. I think he was living in the Ville. He was working at the Coliseum for the A’s, as a water boy slash batboy, you know. He was damn near living in the Ville. I think the 9. So, yeah, Hammer from the Ville.

Q: What about Pooh-Man?

A: Oh yeah! Also, Pooh-Man. Me and Pooh-Man was raised together. Pooh-Man is my big homey. You know what I mean. He was like my big sister age. But, he definitely was the big homey. You know what I mean, Pooh-Man knew me since I was like four years old. Literally. You know what I mean, to being grown. So I grew up with Pooh-Man. Period. That was damn near one of my big, best homeys. Best, big homeys. You know what I mean. He was cool as fuck. Pooh-Man and uh, he used to hang with this dude named Candy Man. Pooh-Man and Candy Man. You know what I mean. They was the homeys.

Q: What was the difference between pre-crack East Oakland and when crack hit. What impact did crack have on the community?

A: Uh, pre-crack, it was hair-on [heroin]. You know what I mean, before crack, it was hair-on. You know, like in the late 70s, you know what I mean, mid 70s, it was hair-on and shit like that. Then crack came. You know, I think it was hair-on and coke. It was coke in the 70s and shit. So it wasn’t crazy like that in the Ville. It was still unification, you know, you still had the Black Panthers out there. You had, you know, just a lot of black unification out there. We weren’t like, you know…it still, you know, you in the projects, whatever, you still struggling, but it wasn’t as violent. You know what I mean.

You know, then the 80s hit, the mid 80s hit and crack hit hard. And that’s when the streets got real violent. You know, cause selling crack, we had to protect our territory. You know what I mean. So that turned to gunplay, gunplay turned into murder, you know and so on and so on. When crack came, that’s when the murders came. That’s when you see all the arrests. You see the alphabet boys [FBI] coming, kicking down doors and shit. Uh, yeah, it got turned up when the crack came. Period. Uh, crack, then you see the people who had money. Some of the OGs, who first was selling crack, turned into crackheads. You know what I mean. And fall off. You know what I mean. So crack hit hard.

You see the Black Panthers like split up, crack shut that down. It shut down a lot of neighborhoods in Oakland. Facts. You know what I mean, a lot of strong people. You know what I mean. It shut shit down. You know what I mean. Literally, it was completely night and day from the 70s to the 80s. It was a complete 360. Crack tore that motherfucker down. Then you got to remember, Oakland was the first place that crack was laid on. You know what I mean. Period. We was the first place, there’s this block called Plymouth Rock, you know what I mean, in East Oakland. That was the first place to ever sell crack. So with that being said, they was trying to get the Black Panthers and all the muslims, just the black unification off the streets. Period. Too powerful. Doing that they put crack in our neighborhoods and tore our shit up.

Q: Is it true that the 6–9 Ville was one of the only areas in Oakland that the Black Panthers didn’t tax?

A: My OG, Felix Mitchell came to a conclusion with them dudes. You know what I mean. It was beef at first, you know what I mean. But my OG, wasn’t having it. So I think him and Huey P. sat down and came to an agreement. You know what I mean. I don’t know exactly what the agreement was, but I know that we didn’t have to get taxed. Like the people that was allowed to sell crack in they neighborhoods, they had to pay the Black Panthers. You know, the Black Panthers had the free lunch program, they had homeless shelters…they had a lot of shit going down for the neighborhood. You know. They made people give back. If you selling crack in the neighborhood, you had to pay them taxes. So that’s what that was about.

But I mean the Ville was too powerful back then. The Ville was like…you got two neighborhoods in one, two projects in one. That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of motherfuckers. Like it’s bigger than any neighborhood, you know, in Oakland. Cause it’s two projects, it ain’t just one. So you got two projects of motherfuckers, you know what I mean, against one block. You know, good luck…against them two projects. So we was just hella powerful. Period. Hella powerful. So powerful that, you know, the Black Panthers had to come and sit down with the boss. Period. You know.

Q: How’d you linkup with Numbskull?

A: Man, me and Numb linked up in junior high. Uh, Westlake Junior High. He had a, uh, group called Brothaz Wit Potential, BWP. It was him, Kevin Choice, Keon, uh, Moe Green, me and a couple other brothers. Uh, basically uh, long story short, you know we get older and start going to high school and shit. Once we start going to high school, we split up, everybody went to different high schools. Me and Numb we stuck together. We damn near, we was best friends regardless. We was always hanging out with each other. So me and Numb remained friends. We was in the streets together. And uh, I remember going to jail for a year and basically just coming up with the whole idea for the Luniz. You know what I mean. The Luni Tunz, his name, call him Numbskull, my name Yukmouth, came up with the condom man…the logo, cartoon. Drew the logo. Uh, came up with the song…the first song that I wrote in Los Ceros was ‘Ice Cream Man.’ Get out of jail. Tell Numb the idea, cause he was the dopest rapper that I knew at the time. He changed his name to Numbskull [from Skinny One] and uh, shit, you know we turned a drug deal into a record deal. You know, we was in the streets and there was a drought…we turned a drug deal into a record deal. And I end up getting signed to C-Note Records. You know what I mean. At the time, it [C-Note Records] had Dru Down, on their record label. And shit, you know, we got signed with ‘Ice Cream Man’…that was the song that got us signed and we ended up putting that on Dru Down album. And shit, the rest is history.

Q: Who ran C-Note Records?

A: Yeah, it was C&H, Chris Hicks, he ran C-Note Records. So basically, we had a deal with C-Note Records. We was trying to go through Too Short, cause we knew Chris Hicks was rocking with Too Short. They called him [Chris Hicks], Baby Jesus…Too Short called Chris Hicks Baby Jesus. So we initially wanted to be with Too Short, but Chris Hicks had his own label at the time…he was like, you know, Too Short’s a homey, but I got my own record label. I’ll put you out on my shit. You know what I mean.

Q: Can you speak on the rap battles that happened while you were in jail at Los Ceros.

A: Seventeen years old in Los Ceros camp. I got a year. And uh, basically, that shit was a fucking rap gladiator school. There was a lot of rappers at the time. Uh, D-Moe from the Get Low Posse was there…that hang with uh, JT the Bigga Figga, one of his artists was there. Uh, you know, you heard legends about Askari X, he was kicking up noise in there. This is before motherfuckers was popular, but you hearing about these legendary juvenile rappers. You know what I mean. Then they come out of juvenile and pop. You know, I knew I could rap, but that me really start rapping, like really lock it down. You know, every fucking lunch or break or whatever, we having rap battles. Literally. Everybody. Freestyles. Beating on the goddamn… It was gladiator school. After I came out of camp, I was a way more better rapper than I was before I went to camp. It definitely made me a better rapper. Made me take this shit serious. So I don’t think if I didn’t go to jail, to that camp, I wouldn’t even be a rapper. Period. I wasn’t even tripping on that shit. But once I got in there, I seen how dope everybody was…like Askari X and C-Bo and shit. You know, I was like sign me up. Definitely shout out to Los Ceros camp and all the prisoners, all the dudes that was in there, cause we built each other up. We made each other dope, you know.

Q: So you linked up with Chris Hicks, was that your official debut on Dru Down’s Fools From The Streets? Had you been on a record before that?

A: Oh, first time, Dru Down, Fools From The Streets, ‘Ice Cream Man’, song that got me signed. Did the video. That’s my first time being on an actual album. So when me and Numb was in junior high school, uh with Brothaz Wit Potential, we been in the studio. Since little kids, you know, recording our shit, since like teenagers, fourteen, fifteen. You know what I mean. So we’d been in the lab. But as far as getting on somebody album, nah, Dru Down was the first album we ever been on.

When me and Numb was in junior high school, that never came out. We was just shopping it around. This was the day of the ABC, Another Bad Creation, Kriss Kross and shit, this when they popping. So this is like what, I think, ‘89. You know what I mean. ‘88, ‘89. So we was still hella little. People was thinking we was too little to be signed. Cause it wasn’t heard of like that, wasn’t no Bow Wow out yet. It was just Kris Kross, you know what I mean and fucking ABC and New Edition. You know what I mean. Everybody took it like you had to be a fucking singer, to be a little kid to come in the game. They weren’t really taking little kid rappers serious. You know, we had to wait until we got a little older. But at that time, the guy who put Pooh-Man out, uh, rest in peace, Big Bruce. He was dating my big sister, and he had our demo tape. And this, at the time, he put Pooh-Man out ‘Fuckin’ With Dank.’ You know what I mean. I definitely gave him my tape and he was like yeah, ya’ll too little right now, ya’ll gotta grow up and have a little bit more mature rap. So, yeah, people done heard this shit, but we just never got signed. You know, we had action, but we was just too young.

Q: During that period, did you sell tapes in the Ville?

A: Nah, hell nah. I wasn’t pursuing rap like that. When I got out of camp, I started pursuing rap. You know what I mean. And that’s when, still, I wasn’t even recording. I‘m still beating on my chest, beating on tables and shit and just saying raps and just freestyling in circles. But the ‘Ice Cream Man’ was so popular, just from jail, me singing it in jail and me singing it in the Ville, in the streets…that, uh, Seagram wanted to buy the song before it ever was recorded. So before we ever met C&H, Seagram, you know from my neighborhood was trying to buy ‘Ice Cream Man.’ Just by hearing people in the neighborhood sing the rap. He never even heard me say it, but people in the neighborhood knew it word for word, and sang it to him. He had called me up and tried to buy it for a thousand dollars. And I denied him, cause I knew that song would get us signed. I’m like, I feel something about this song, I ain’t about to sell it. And sure enough, like a month or two later, we ended up bumping into C&H and getting signed. You know what I mean. Yeah, but that song was a hit, before we even recorded that shit. Just in the neighborhood and just at camp, it was a hit already.

Q: In terms of the Luniz condom man. Did you draw that?

A: Yeah, I drew the condom man. I’m a cartoonist. So I drew the condom man as our logo. It was basically, you know how you say sex, drugs and rock-and-roll…sex, drugs and hip-hop. You know, that’s what the condom is…sex, drugs and hip-hop. And that’s what we talk about in our shit, you know, sex, drugs and hip-hop. Period. That’s what the condom represents. Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll, but sex, drugs and hip-hop. You got the condom, you got to 40 in one hand, represents the drugs…you got the gun in one hand [chuckles]. Yeah, represents, sex, violence and hip-hop.

Q: What were your earliest memories of Timex Social Club and Club Nouveau? Was that stuff played on the streets of Oakland? Did you take the ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad’ record to Tone Capone for the ‘I Got 5 On It’ beat?

A: My earliest time listening to Club Nouveau, shit, I’d say like the early 80s. I’d say like ‘84, ‘85, when they first came out. And uh, my sister banged the shit out of it. You know what I mean. She was playing the shit out that music. Period. That’s how I remember it. My sister’s favorite song was ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad’…everybody was playing ‘Rumors’ in Oakland, but nobody was playing ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad.’ But my sister…when I heard that motherfucker, I was like this is the one. I was sprung on that beat since a little kid. So when it’s time for us to do our own song, we had ‘5 On It’, we had the lyrics written, but we just didn’t record the shit yet. So when it was time to do a remake, I was the first nigga, like we gotta do ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad.’ They use everything else. They use ‘Rumors.’ They use this that and the third, they ain’t used ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad.’

Went and go bought the album. Me and Numb bought the album at the record store and took it to Tone Capone. Period. We bought the record, the whole record, it wasn’t a single, ‘Why You Treat Me So Bad.’ It never was a single, so we had to buy the whole album. And we bought the album and we told Tone that we needed him to remake it. So I had the hook written, and I was saying the hook, like rapping it and Tone was like nah we need a singer. And Tone just so happened to know Mike Marshall who was part of Timex Social Club. He was like yeah I’m gonna have Mike Marshall come down and sing it. And shit, the rest is history.

Q: What studio did you record that in? Was Mike Marshall there when you recorded it?

A: Nah, the first version was just us. It was just me, Tone and Numb. You know what I mean, with C&H. The first version. And then he had brought Mike Marshall in to sing. You know what I mean. We recorded the first version, the long extended version, the reprise that you get at the end of the album. We rapped it back to back, the first verse is hella long. The reprise was the first one ever done. So we did all that at Tone Capone’s house studio. He had a, uh, studio at his crib. And he had got Mike Marshall over there afterwards. So we never met Mike Marshall until the actual video shoot, I think. So when we do the video for ‘I Got 5 On It,’ that’s when we meet Mike Marshall in person. But we’d never seen him, we just heard the hook and we were like wow this shit is amazing. And then, when we did the remix, Mike Marshall was in the studio. You know what I mean. But, yeah, we didn’t even see him.

Q: What is your memory of the ‘Ice Cream Man’ video? Who’s truck was that?

A: C&H, our executive producer at the time. C&H was a heavy car collector and he’d win trophies and shit. Like he was decking cars out, the illest candy paints, the illest rims on the shit. Systems. Interiors, all types of shit. So he was winning trophies with his cars. He had a line on all the fly cars and shit. So he had, uh, rented the ice cream truck and just threw some triple gold daytons on em. He had a hookup at the rim shop. They threw the tires on the motherfucking ice cream truck man and we shot the video and made history. You know what I mean cause after that…here comes Friday. And Friday had Big Worm in there, which is a knock off of C&H and Dru Down. You know, but he’s fat, Big Worm is fat with a perm. C&H, they was skinny with perms and shit. We had a white ice cream truck with triple gold daytons, they had a purple one so. You know what I mean. Shit, we did our thing. Ice Cube took the shit and put it on his shit. We definitely made waves when we shot that video. And shout out to C&H, he thought of that shit.

Q: What’s your earliest memory of sideshows?

A: Oh man, shit, there was sideshows every day in junior high school. Shit. I remember sideshows since the seventh grade. Literally. So that’s like ‘85. Oh and fuck that, before the seventh grade. In the Ville. There was sideshows every day in the Ville, since I was little man. Since I was little, niggas was swinging donuts…like the Ville, we got certain cars we ride, there was this Grand National that everybody in the Ville ride Grand Nationals. Them motherfuckers is high performance. So them motherfuckers swinging Grand Nationals all day! All motherfucking day. All through the ‘80s, from the early ‘80s to the late ‘80s, motherfuckers swinging donuts all day in my motherfucking projects. So, yeah, I been seeing sideshows. That shit daily in my neighborhood. And then Oakland, period. When you hit the strip on a weekend, you know, all the d-boys [dope boys] got they cars out…with the high performance, 5.0s…you know, all the shit, they bring it out. And everybody take turns in that goddamn intersection. So yeah, I been seeing that. That’s like a part of life in Oakland, period, a way of life. I seen that shit since I was a child [chuckles]. Up to now, Oakland, period. High performance cars. Old school cars. You know what I mean. Hyping em up, you know what I mean, getting the engines hyped up. You know what I mean. Putting the big boy engines in that motherfucker, the nitros…all the shit. Just to make they shit ride hard. I mean that’s been an Oakland tradition since I’d say the late ‘70s. You know late ‘70s, that’s been a tradition. High performance cars, fast cars.

Q: Were the Luniz early releases carried at T’s Wauzi’s in the Eastmont Mall?

A: T’s Wauzi [pronounced T Wa-uzi], they had one on 73rd, I mean one in the mall, Eastmont Mall and they had one up the street from my projects, on Hegenburger and Bancroft, I want to say Bancroft. Yeah, Hegenburger and Bancroft. Yeah, they had one there too. And I think they had one in North Oakland. So T’s Wauzi was basically like the number one, mom-and-pop store in the Bay Area at that time. You know, so, we definitely was in there. As soon as we dropped, we was doing autograph signings in that motherfucker, all the T’s Wauzi’s, everything. I was buying all my cassette tapes, all the Run-DMCs, all the Too Shorts, all the Hammers, all the shit before I ever start rapping at T’s Wauzi. That was our number one, mom-and-pop, independent record store outlet. They had everybody. They had all the artists coming there. LL came to town, he was in T’s Wauzi. Uh, shit, everybody, all the big boys, they had to stop by T’s Wauzi. So shout out to T’s Wauzi, legendary, legendary hip-hop store in Oakland.

Q: Can you speak on your friendship with Mac Dre and in your opinion was Mac Dre the start of the Hyphy movement?

A: Mac Dre started the Thizz movement. He started the real pill, you know popping thizz, dancing and going crazy. It’s called the get stupid, thizz movement. The, uh, Hyphy movement was basically started by Keak da Sneak. Keak da Sneak had ‘Super Duper Hyphy’ in like 1999, something like that. So that was before Mac Dre. Mac Dre was locked up, I think he had just got out, like in the early 2000s. He was locked up for the Romper Room stuff, I think he did five years. So he got out, I think like 2000, so he had just got out, when I linked up with him. You know what I mean. And when he got out, he just wanted to tap in with all the people that he felt, you know, that was moving in the Bay. So he felt like the Luniz was moving, you know what I mean, me and Numb. He felt the Mob Figaz was tearing shit up, Jacka, Husalah and them. So he got them. He felt Keak da Sneak, 3X Krazy and them was tearing shit up. So he got them. He felt, uh, who else was down with us? Yeah, he just tapped in with everybody. And we all just got down with the Thizz movement. We all was just mobbing together. So it became a huge movement cause you got all these cities, San Francisco, Richmond, Oakland, Vallejo, Sacramento, East Palo Alto, you got all these niggas mobbin’ as one unit. You know, it became a huge movement. It became the Thizz movement. You know what I mean. So that’s how the Thizz movement started with Dre just tapping in with the top niggas, the top dogs from around the Bay. And you know, putting his imprint on it. You know what I mean and the shit went crazy.

But as far as Dre, that was one of my close friends. Very close friends. You know what I mean. Cool ass dude. The shit that he was doing back then, people are doing now. He was waiting for his time. He was a visionary. He was a funny ass cat…not funny like funny acting, I’m talking about like sense of humor, charisma. You know, hella cool. Just cool as fuck, but real and solid too. He’d fuck you up in a heartbeat, don’t get on his bad side. Dre was the coolest motherfucker man. And he didn’t have no hate.

So big salute to Mac Dre, the whole Thizz movement. You know what I mean, cause that was one of the first times that the whole Bay was together. You know what I mean, literally. One of the first times, we all was together. It was huge fucking movement. Shout out to Mac Dre, Kilo Curt, all them niggas over there.

Q: From a clothes standpoint, stylistically, can you speak on Mac Dre’s sartorial contributions?

A: When we was doing the Hyphy, Thizz shit, Dre would wear the super big ass Grandma shades goggles. You know, he’d wear the three hats stacked up. You know what I mean. An A’s hat, a Raiders hat on top of each other with a fucking beanie on top of it. Then he’d just go like full theatric with it, he’d wear like a polo, shit, he’d do like the tennis shit. You know what I mean. He’d have like a tennis racket with a tennis ball. He’d wear a fucking 6'ers throwback. He’d comb his hair out. He got the afro like Dr. J. He got the basketball with him. So he’d get all the fucking accessories too. He’d not just buy the outfit, he’d get the accessories and be looking clean. Dre was a clean ass dude. Period. You seen on his album covers. Every album cover [chuckles], you know what I mean, that’s how he is in real life. When he do it, he gonna do it to the fullest. Yeah, Dre was a fly ass dresser.

Q: Is it true that you came up with the nickname Thizzle Washington?

A: Yeah, it’s documented. It’s documented. I call him that on United Ghettos of America Volume 1. On the DVD. We was recording ‘Welcome to the Bay’ in the studio and I said you look like Denzel Washington and he said yeah Thizzle Washington. That’s me. Thizzle. No I called him Thizzle, I said Thizzle Washington. He was like yeah Thizzle Washington, man, yeah Thizzle. The next thing you know his album is called Thizzle Washington. Period. And that’s when all the code names start. When Dre called himself a code name, you know, all the other code names came. You know what I mean, the Fabby Davis Juniors, all the little Thizz names came after that.

But yeah, I came up with that, on the spot. You see it on the DVD.

Q: Can you speak on the ‘I Got 5 On It’ remix, where you had Richie Rich, E-40, Shock G, Spice 1 and Dru Down all featured on the same track?

A: Well, uh, it was basically a collective idea. I think I brought it to the table. You know what I mean. Because I think we was gonna have one person, which was probably gonna be E-40, but uh, you know I’ve been a fan of just New York fucking rap period. So I was on with Craig Mack and Biggie, you know what I mean, when Biggie was just an ad in the stores. So when they did the ‘Flava In Ya Ear’ remix and they had all the top New York rappers and they had the video in black and white, the LL, Busta Rhymes everybody. I was like, let’s do it like that. You know what I mean. Instead of having everybody from California, let’s do the top dudes from the Bay. And, uh, shit we ran with it. You know what I mean. We got the dudes that we respected. You know from Digital Underground to Spice 1 to Richie Rich, on up to 40. You know, at the time, we wasn’t fucking with Too Short, he was beefing and shit. But if we weren’t beefing, we’d have Too Short on that motherfucker too. So that’s how we wanted to do it. You know what I mean. Sort of like ‘Flava In Ya Ear,’ Puff Daddy and them did that.

Q: What about your fabled battle with Rappin’ Ron in Too Short’s studio. Did you have a record deal at that point? How did that all transpire?

A: Basically, after we got our deal, that night C&H told us to come by the studio cause they had a session up there. Dru Down’s first album Fools In The Street, was I’d say 80 percent done by uh, Dangerous Music. It was recorded in Too Short’s studio. So Ant Banks did like 80 percent of the beats. So we was in there on a Dru Down session with Ant Banks. So when we get there, you know, Too Short there with Bad-N-Fluenz, Rappin’ Ron, Ant Diddley Dog and my cousin Eclipse, who I didn’t know was my cousin at the time. You know, and we the new acts, we the new acts in the building. So Too Short was like, yeah man, you know, you got your group, I got my group let’s have a rap battle. And whoever win, buy the whole studio pizzas. Shit I’m looking at Numb like…we know this nigga. Cause Ron went to our junior high school too, when we was Brothaz Wit Potential. And shit when niggas was rapping at lunchtime, he was getting served.

So I was like, in my mind, looking at Numb like I got this man, watch this. We was burning that nigga back then, but ain’t know he got better. He ain’t know I got better neither. So I’m like, if he rap like how he rapped back in fucking junior high, I got this shit. So we get to rapping [chuckles] and I’m like oh shit, he done got better. You know, he became a freestyle expert. He could rap about anything around him and types of shit.

So I ended up getting Eclipse out of there, I got Ant Diddley out of there, now it’s just me and Rappin’ Ron going at it. He had some shit like, ‘Thin ass cornrows and reefer / You lost Yukmouth, matter of fact go order dem pizzas’ and then everybody just fucking died. Ah he won, he won. So since it was a freestyle and he was talking about what actually was going down, instead of a motherfucker actually saying writtens, they felt like he won. You know what I mean. It is what it is. I’ll take that as an L.

But I was unsigned at the time, and I was being careful with the songs I was saying. I could’ve said ‘Ice Cream Man’ and shut the whole shit down. But there was too many people in there, that was big artists, that could’ve took the shit and ran with it before I even got to it. So I ain’t even said ‘Ice Cream Man,’ I was holding back. You know, cause I was unsigned, I didn’t want nobody to steal my music at the same time. So all the super, duper dope shit I was keeping to myself. This other shit, I just bust. You know, so I was being careful at the same time, but I still survived to the end. So at the end of the day, who really won [chuckles]. But rest in peace to Rappin’ Ron and shout out to Ant Diddley Dog, and rest in peace to my cousin Eclipse.

Q: Who is Baby Jesus?

A: Baby Jesus is C&H. That’s what Too Short used to call C&H, when he was in the Dangerous Crew. You can hear him on an album like Baby Jesus, he was talking to C&H. You know what I mean. That’s what they was calling C&H, cause he had the long ass hair. They was calling him Baby Jesus. He light skinned, got the long face [chuckles].

Q: Was C&H from the Ville?

A: Nah, C&H and Dru Down, they from the 50s, so that’s like ten blocks from my neighborhood. But they grew up with my homeys. You know what I mean. Same crew, but different areas. You know what I mean. But we was close. Yeah, but they grew up with my boys. Definitely. Definitely. You know C&H was a boy back in the day, he was a man. He was out there.

Q: In that era, what other Oakland rappers were played in the Ville?

A: Richie Rich album, with the ‘Sideshow’ on it. That definitely was the fucking anthem. Richie Rich, 415. You know what I mean. Pooh-Man. Uh, who else was being played at that time…C-Bo, E-40, The Click, uh…Mac Mall, not Mac Mall, nor Tupac…in the ‘80s. Who else from The Town was being played hella hard? Uh, God damn, but they definitely was playing Mac Dre’s shit ‘Too Hard for the Fuckin’ Radio’…they was playing Mac Dre’s shit like a motherfucker. Yeah, ‘Too Hard for the Radio’ was played on the radio. Uh huh, definitely. So Mac Dre, 415, uh, 4-Tay, uh, there was a group called 11/5…niggas was banging APG, Action Packed Gangstas. Niggas was banging APG like a motherfucker. They hit hard, Action Packed Gangstas. Niggas was playing them. Niggas was playing Coughnut from Frisco. Coughnut was playing like a motherfucker. Uh, RBL Posse ‘Don’t Give Me No Bammer Weed’…all that shit was playing at that time. All that shit.

Q: What about early Bay Area venues. Did Luniz play at Henry J. Kaiser or the Oakland Coliseum?

A: My first hip-hop show that I ever went to was an Ice-T concert at the Coliseum. So this was like right when Breakin’ came out, Ice-T was performing and shit, so that was my first hip-hop concert. Uh, Henry J. Kaiser, my first big venue I performed at Hip-Hop on the Green. Uh, Coliseum, uh, we performed there when we was on tour with Biggie. Yeah, shit, Hip-Hop on the Green, Festival at the Lake. Shit, it was a lot of events out there. Too many to name. Just Hip-Hop on the Green, Festival at the Lake was legendary. Period. And a lot of the Hip-Hop on the Green was at the Henry J. Kaiser Center. Period.

But as far as Oakland, that goddamn lake man. Period. Lake Merritt. Festival at the motherfucking Lake. That was the one. That brought out everybody. You know.

And Souls of Mischief man. When we was coming up, we was playing Souls of Mischief man. Period. Literally. Like in high school, we’d take the bus from Oakland Tech to Skyline, looking for these niggas. Cause they was rapping, but they was still in high school. So we’d catch the bus trying to battle these niggas, religiously, and would never find these niggas. We heard they went to Skyline, we was cutting school to find these niggas. We went from cutting school and trying to find them...to me being roommates with A-Plus. You know what I mean, me and him had an apartment together. You know, right when the Luniz album came out. The Operation Stackola album, I moved in with A-Plus. So yeah, we was tight. You know, us and the Souls. Shout out to Souls of Mischief too.

Q: What other rappers came out of Oakland Tech?

A: Uh, Mistah FAB came from Oakland Tech. Uh, Marshawn Lynch came from Oakland Tech. Uh, Gary Payton came from Skyline. Souls of Mischief came from Skyline. Uh, Del the Funky Homosapien came from Skyline. Uh, I think, shit, Rappin’ Ron came from Castlemont. Uh, Dru Down came from Fremont. A lot of people came from Tech.

Q: What area of Oakland is Keak da Sneak from?

A: Keak da Sneak from the 100s. So he either went to Castlemont or…yeah, he had to go to Castlemont if he was from the 100s. So he had to be over there with Rappin’ Ron and them.

Q: How did your family come to the Bay? What’s your family’s story?

A: Well shit, I don’t know how my Grandma came here [chuckles]. But, uh, basically, as far as my mom and my dad, they was always Oakland natives and shit. They got together in high school, they actually went to Castlemont, Rappin’ Ron’s high school. They had me, my big sister and then they split up, went they separate ways. That’s when I started living in the projects and so on and so on.

[Lars Sven Eklund: There is a little more?]