hip hop music

January 28, 2004

?uestlove's Thoughts on The Source, Recovered



Thanks to the miraculous efforts of okayplayer Kosyne, I have been able to retrieve most of my conversation with ?uestlove about The Source, inspired by my earlier post here. It's only missing the last of his three comments, which I had taken notes on and can reproduce pretty close to verbatim.. I will paste below:

?uestlove: i was there the day it died

did i already share the story about how i lost sleep over how many mics DYWM?!?! was gonna get?
so they let me come up to the office to see a fresh copy of the mag---and i was all happy and shit 4 mics!!!!! whoo hoooo.

this was the redman 94 cover. the "official" last source cover after the staff walked out.

what happened next was something out of a horror book. unbeknownst to the staff---while looking for my record review i forget who i think---it was jon--who saw the RSO story in that issue (jon and the staff accused mays of adding a 4 page story of the then unknown RSO group without their knowledge (cover story redman got a 3 page story and other artists got shorter stories)---

my publicist and i were outta there like a bat outta hell.

well.....i guess y'all know what happend next.

staff left (half of them started XXL---then.....)

weirdness is, jon and dave were on my plane today (i am in france at a music conference) and neither knew the other was on the flight.

first the fat boys break up now this...

Jay Smooth: HAHA! You were there? That's crazy!

?uestlove: oh god

next day my publicist who was so damn protective of me (back then in 94 they cared about "conflict of interest" stuff) swore me to 100 bibles that i would not tell a soul what i saw. kinda like "you saw/know too much ahmir, how many of the staff saw you ahmir?!?!?!?" i thought it would blow over.....but blamo! she told me the james benard would go into hysterics and blamo---quit!
i wonder what woulda happened if the original staff was here.


i think the original staff woulda gave tfa @@@@1/2.

i think original staff woulda gave fantastic vol 1and2 @@@@ or a @@@@1/2.

i think lootpack woulda AT LEAST made @@@1/2.

im just saddened cause i use to always use their standards for what i thought a dope record was. cause james and reggie and jon and selwyn and chris and even YN (elliot) had great love for detail. i would read the "amerikkka's most wanted" reviews and the "de la soul is dead" reviews and apply that to my work. they lived for great segues awesome interludes, crisp clean engineering and dirty ones too (wu got a @@@@1/2) first album)

thing is---

i am cool with some of the staff there (kim is one of em)---but.....

surely they see the conflict and fear this is causing.....

i mean---this feels like that episode of "twilight zone" where the family kisses the kid's ass for the fear that he will turn them into stone or worse.

this is what it feels like.

Jay Smooth: twilight zone analogy: PERFECT, and..

I know just what you mean, I have mutual friends with Kim and I've always had the impression she was cool, so I can't figure how they are getting her and everyone else there to drink the kool aid?

I mean Mays I can understand, he's been kneeling for so long it must seem like standing by now, but how do the others rationalize it?

[note: I am reproducing this last comment from notes I had taken]

?uestlove: i really think

there is some black sopranos shit going on.

you know what and who happened to paul pierce.

and let's not forget the ruff ryders situation backstage hard knock life in boston.

i've just got a hunch that in his heart of hearts, dave mays never wanted things to end up this way.



Posted by jsmooth995 at January 28, 2004 1:50 PM






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