Bonus EP1: Outtakes and Deep Cuts

[00:00:00.310] - P Ed
Happy New Year. I'm Parker Edison, host of the Parker Edison Project podcast. Back for season two. Chock full of good stuff. Myka Nine shares a story about writing a song for Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign like Man in the White House.
[00:00:15.970] - Myka 9
The answer is clear there isn't a death, but it's possible. Jesse can do it. His delivery is smoother than fluid. We was on that.
[00:00:26.270] - Speaker 1
You are now tuned to the Parker Edison Project.
[00:00:51.930] - homage
The Parker Edison Project. This dude is a genius and he is such a nice man and so talented. Stop by and you might learn something.
[00:01:03.990] - P Ed
Good morning. Welcome to the Parker Edison Project. We look at tenants of culture who really makes America great. We've almost finished this season. All the way through. We've gathered hours of great material, literally hours. We have to edit it down. So for this episode, I'll be showing you some of those clips will let you listen to some of those clips and letting you know the reasons why they didn't make it. Let's get into it. Episode two. Right? Drummer Kevin Greene. We're talking about the improv in Southeast. He mentions Dr. Tayoti Howard. I asked around a few weeks later, tastemaker Carlton Overstreet connected me with him. His interview was amazing, but we couldn't use all of it. This was something that didn't make it. If I stopped by your place. One, do you play music? And two, what's something I might hear?
[00:01:58.950] - Dr Tayari Howard
Well, I have a full stream. I have an actual Internet radio station built into one of my computers here in my office. So I'm streaming approximately 25,000 songs from the old Smooth Jazz 98.1 library, as well as the fact that I do a lot of mainstream jazz. Felony smug, Pharaoh Sanders, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane. So you probably would hear a collection beautifully blended in of a very multicultural type of smooth jazz and R&B.
[00:02:40.590] - P Ed
That's all the hits right there. By the way, my father would love that playlist right off the bat.
[00:02:46.990] - Dr Tayari Howard
Yes, I have quite a collection. Matter of fact, I still have a tape of my mother from 1955 on air. She was doing an audition for WBBQ Augusta, Georgia. And as a result of that tape, she got the job transferring from WLOU Louisville, Kentucky. And the significance to that is, I don't know if you saw the movie get on up. The James Brown story?
[00:03:16.990] - P Ed
Absolutely.
[00:03:17.740] - Dr Tayari Howard
WBBQ was the first station James Brown bought when he made it big, and my mother had already transitioned from WBBQ Augusta, Georgia, a year before her death, she made it to New York successfully, where she landed a position as the first African American female backup drummer to the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
[00:03:39.810] - P Ed
Brother, this is in your DNA.
[00:03:42.690] - Dr Tayari Howard
Yes.
[00:03:45.090] - P Ed
Interesting. Right. Another example comes from episode seven's interview with Dr. Roy Whitaker. We were discussing the similarities between rap and religion. I asked him what scholars thought of Tupac. We put that in the show, but I also asked him about Jay Z. Jay is one of my favorite rappers, so I had to we didn't want to lose focus, so we didn't get that into the episode, but I thought it was an awesome moment. Check out what the scholars weigh in on JayZ. Where does Jay sit with the scholars in his catalog?
[00:04:14.850] - Dr Roy Whitaker
I'm just going to put it out like this because I know you love Jay, and that is that well amongst many. I mean, he's the reigning King, okay? And I'm not going to discount that at all. We spend about a week of looking at JayZ in my own class. Look, the pros and cons Jay Z. And by cons, I primarily mean whether or not he's political enough. That's one of the major issues. And you can look at him being successful rap artist. He's true to himself, the longevity in the game. You look at his Reasonable Doubt Black album, Kingdom Come. I mean, these are classics in themselves to be the quintessential hustler that you and I sort of talked about, which I appreciate, because there's no limits except the ones that we place on ourselves. But he comes to my mind in particular at this particular moment. The reason why I raise them up right now is because you look at his blueprint albums and the reason why I raised that because we sometimes can look at it this way. It's not just simply he has a blueprint albums, but we look at the blueprint as him providing a blueprint for how he did it and how we can do it.
[00:05:21.240] - P Ed
We try to keep episodes current. Sometimes we cut it close with deadlines in order to add things that were happening from real life. They were good and bad things. When we were wrapping up episode seven on Rap and Religion Shock G of Digital Underground passed. That put me in a weird space because DMX had just passed away in the same week, and we already had an homage to X in that episode. Im incredibly moved by both artists, so much so that their passing is actually probably something I'll be discussing in therapy. I grew up listening to Digital Underground as far back as the 7th grade. It's one of the first cassettes that I purchased. In my early 20s I got a job at KZZUfm in Spokane. Spokane, Washington, is only about maybe 6% black. So when a major tour came into town and they needed somebody to get drops from the artist. I was black. I was the new guy, and they just sent me. On one of the stops I saw Busta Rhymes, and I knew it was my job. I had to go over there, get a drop from him. So I ran over. I was like, hey Busta! Hey Busta! Can I get this radio drop from you? And I joke with you not. I'm telling you a stone cold truth right now. Bus looks at me and goes... "You know, son, can't you see? I'm trying to talk to my man..". I'm joking with you, not. He's talking to Shock G from Digital Underground. Everybody's around there. Rah Digga, the Dogg Pound, Naughty by Nature, Arrested Development. They're all seeing him scream on me. And I'm in my twenties. I'm a huge fan of his stuff. He walks away and a few minutes later, Shock G comes over and goes, "It's cool homeboy. Come over. You can hang out in our dressing room..". Shock G brings me over to Digital Underground's dressing room, and I'm hanging out there. Luniz are there. Money-b. And everyone's giving me drops. But Shock G takes the time to do the first drop with me. And I'm nervous because he's one of my idols and I just got screamed on. I'm embarrassed and Shock G as a man is taking his time, one black man to another to repair my ego while he's on tour. And him doing it makes everybody else in the room follow suit. NumSkull, the Luniz. That moment. I really don't have words for it. I'm sharing it right now because that's how close I felt to this artist and his contribution. And that's a real life contribution that was made to me. And so even if it costs me getting dinged, I got to pay my respect to this dude. Hold up, man. Let me run this song. That dude gave me too much in my life. I just got to take just a few seconds. Just a few seconds. For that man's genius I'm talking about genius. Stick around. We'll be right back.
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[00:09:02.690] - P Ed
One of the big goals that I have for this show from the very beginning was to add to the documented legacy of rap to find little tidbits that hadn't been heard in other interviews. We were beyond blessed to get that from Myka Nine. He's a staple of Project Blowd, a member of Freestyle Fellowship. And honestly, one of your favorite rappers favorite rappers. He had so much good stuff that I wasn't able to keep it all in the segment. Can you just tell me one more time about the Jesse Jackson piece? You did a song for...
[00:09:28.840] - Myka 9
it was called Go, Jessie Go. It was me and this guy named Mantron, and I'm trying to remember who did the beat. It might have been. Mantron, did the beat and he rapped on it and I performed it 16,17. We performed it a couple of times. Thats the way we rap back then. With action. You kind of yelling a little bit. You're trying to pump up and give energy. 'Black man in the White House. The answer is clear. There isn't a doubt that this possible. Jesse can do it. His delivery is smoother than fluid. We was on that when he was running for President. And I got to perform it at the shrine and open up fo r one of his getdowns or whatever. One of his rallies.
[00:10:17.970] - P Ed
How far apart do you think that is from the time that you were working with NWA?
[00:10:22.530] - Myka 9
That was around the same time. That was like 85 for me. 86, 84 somewhere in the range is because I think that they used one song on one version one NWA & the Posse. They used another song on the other one. I don't know what the deal was about it and DrDre was kind of knowing me, we always kept missing each other. Like, I'll go to the studio with RBX. They'll be like, Calabasas, let's get it going. But then I end up in jail. They come out. But it'd be an honor to work with Dre or any of those cats. You know until this day. Cause Dre is talented and EazyE was lowkey a friend of mine. I remember Easy. He used Hang Out at the Hot Dog Stand with Don Jaguar, Dwayne Earl also known as Cool D. But Don Jaguar, he was on a couple of Ice Cube songs and put out his own records as Earl the poet. Gotta shout him out. Hes a pillar in the community. Earl's Grill on Crenshaw, but it started with a hot dog stand. We would always kick it at that hot dog stand and rap and write. Whatever. its position right adjacent to the Crenshaw swapmeet over here for, like Crenshaw and King. Right? Eazy would come through and we sit and play dominoes. Playing me the different artists he's working on. And I play him the stuff I'm working on. So that's how that all came together. That record came together. Me writing for Rappenstein, them taking one of the songs and putting it on the album because he heard about it and liked it and all that. It was compiling their formula. At that time. There was a little talent pool going on between CrenshawSwapmeet and the Rhodium Swap meet and all the mixtapes we we're putting out.
[00:11:55.000] - P Ed
That dude is deep. He's giving us that GOATtalk. Meet me back here in two weeks for another bonus episode with more behind the scenes info. I'm going to close this episode out with a song from my guy, Chris KillCrey Reyes. You might recognize his name as a writer and head editor for this show, but he is also an artist in his own right.
[00:12:15.430] - Chris 'KillCrey' Reyes
I think what I do the most on the show is I feel like I'm a sounding board for you. You usually have a direction of where the show is going to go. You'll usually have an idea of what you want the pieces to be. And then I think you use me to solidify your ideas. I think that's a good way to put it. I like doing that job. I think there's always been like, people that help other artists do stuff like that. And I rarely get to do that because I make my own art. So when I get to do that I think it's really dope.
[00:12:49.230] - P Ed
You're worth every Penny of it, because that is very much. Man, I'll have an idea and I'll bring it to you. And that's when I'll find out if it's valid or just a plain old good idea. I definitely use the measuring stick. Man, do you have a favorite interview from season one?
[00:13:04.630] - Chris 'KillCrey' Reyes
Hearing your brother on the show was a big deal to me. I don't know. For me, just like my friendship with you, it was almost like a full circle. I remember hearing about your brother when I first met you as we started to get to know each other. I knew he was like, a major piece of your life. And then actually, you coming up with idea, like, I mean, you had that idea, like, way early on. Like, you're like, yeah, one day I'm going to have my brother on. And I remember you saying that way early on. So to see that come to life and it actually happened and then hear it, I feel like that's like a real touching moment. And then maybe, like, a close second would be Masta Ace. The fact that you and I are just such big fans now, I don't know if there was another interview that we've done so far, maybe the Myka9. But with Masta Ace we both were Fanning out kind of as we were editing. Like everything he said was Yo. He said that to us.
[00:13:59.630] - P Ed
That was so cool. He's currently promoting a remix version of his album, simple. This is an interlude I played incessantly this past summer. It's called "it's just".. Check it out here and stay safe out there.
[00:15:43.130] - Chris 'KillCrey' Reyes
SONG PLAYS
[00:15:43.130] - DJ Eddie
Hey, this is DJ Eddie on the radio PCFM. This is a new song we meant to play earlier in the season. We couldn't make it happen, but we're squeezing it in right now. Here's another track from the 'Simple' remix album. This is 'Claustrophobic' featuring KillCrey, Hollow Visions and Parker Edison. And it's only on the PE Project.
[00:16:20.910] - Chris 'KillCrey' Reyes
SONG PLAYS
[00:19:56.670] - Speaker 1
thanks for stopping in. The Parker Edison Project is produced and hosted by yours truly, Parker Edison and the good people at Platform Collection. Be sure to subscribe and catch the next episode on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. If you have any comments or questions, visit TheParkerEdisonproject.com or hit us on Instagram at the PE Project. My guy, Kurt Kohnen is audio production manager. Lisa J. Morrisette is operations manager and John Decker is associate general manager for Content. This programming is made possible in part by the KPBS Explore Content Fund. I love saying that because it reminds me of Sesame Street. Y'all stay safe out there.