I think in life it's impossible to do anything great if you start with what's possible. You have to start with what's right. Hip-hop's not that big. Like the guys who made the art form are not that many. And so why can't we honor them?
Acknowledging and celebrating and then bringing this group of people together is something that the industry should have done a long time ago. When people see me and they see my passion, this [__] still got it. He's still doing it because I have to. Hip-hop don't have social security. You have to work.
The whole thing about hip-hop is about to grow to be better. And I think we are living our lyrics with Paid in Full.
I want everybody to know around the world what Grandmaster Caz looks like and to celebrate him and applaud this man for what he's done and celebrate Roxanne and celebrate Melly and the D.O.C. and everybody else who's had these achievements. The thing is the honor. The thing is putting you in the light that you deserve to be in. If you're watching this and love hip-hop.
So, this is the first time this group has gotten together to publicly talk about the Paid in Full Foundation. Guys, welcome to the podcast.
So, Ben, why don't you introduce the foundation and maybe let's get into the origin story as far back as you want to go as to how this came to be.
Yeah. So, Paid in Full is an organization meant to honor the legacy of the people who created one of the most important musical art forms of all time, hip-hop, and make sure that they're paid in full financially, spiritually, and culturally. And the idea kind of started with me, Steve, and Nas. So, I had it always bothered me that, you know, that I bought Paid in Full, the album, for $10 and I got, you know, in my career, and those of you, you know, people in tech know this, I probably got at least $5 million worth of value out of that record. But there was no way to pay it back. And it needed to be paid back. And so, I had the idea originally, and I called Steve. You know, Steve and I have been friends for many, many years and I said, 'Steve, I have this idea, what do you think?' And he said, 'Well, it's not only a good idea but it's a very timely idea because people are talking about this right now, but they're not doing anything.' So, like if you listen to the podcast, people are saying, 'Oh, these rappers, you know, these old guys, they don't have any money. They're dusty. They're this, they're that, you know, and all these kinds of things.' And these are very, very important guys. But nobody's doing anything. And so, I thought, well, let's do something. And then the next call I made was to Nas. And Nas had a great insight because a lot of the concept... our dear friend, all of our friend Quincy Jones had a thing called the Jazz Foundation where he would get money to the old jazz guys. And you know, I told it to Nas and Nas said, 'You know, that's not going to work that way in hip-hop because in hip-hop you can't just give somebody money. It has to be more than that. It has to be a recognition of what they did and who they are.' And so that's when we got the idea of, well, let's have a big award show, have this idea of the Grandmaster Award for the true greats of hip-hop, and kind of, and then invite everybody to honor these guys. And we started it off with two all-time greats, Scarface and Rakim.
Before we even got to the first show, it was also timely because Scarface was going through a medical condition.
Yes. And I remember I was in the south of France and I called him and he needed to get his kidney, to get his kidney from his son, a kidney transplant, and it wasn't the right doctors and it wasn't, you know, obviously there was a lot of care and concern on that anyway, but more specific was the money and the doctor who was performing the surgery. And I called him and I've known Scarface for years. But like when I called him literally from the south of France in June and he got that phone call from me about what we were going to do, he was in shock. I mean, just imagine just a phone call coming randomly from a guy you hadn't spoken to in two years and I'm calling you about your medical condition and I'm telling you that we got you financially. We're going to help you. And I remember calling Ben after that and saying, 'Look, I spoke to Scarface, man, and he was in disbelief. In fact, early on, people were in such disbelief they didn't believe that it was real.'
We had a hard time actually helping people because they didn't believe it.
Yeah. I have some stories on that. I don't even know if I can mention the names, but we had people who literally didn't get the award because they thought it was a scam.
They just didn't want to mess with it. So, and that's actually what reinforced the belief that if you celebrated the artist and it didn't feel like you were giving them something like reparations, but you were actually celebrating them and giving them the honor and dignity they deserve that they had not received properly, then that would be the way that it would be accepted and celebrated. And it wasn't until we did the first one and it was, you know, like any other startup, you duct tape and whatever we got to do to get this thing going, but we had Scarface and Rakim and then obviously, you know, the support of the board and having Nas on the board and that all helped. And then it started to go through the community. There is something that's happening and that's when it worked. But literally, it was disbelief from the initial phone calls and just initial reach out, like why would anybody do this? That's how [__] they've been for so long. Like why would anybody come look and try to help us now?
Yeah. And how [__] the rap community has been like to not show love, you know, to be so divided, to act like, you know, it's every man for itself. You know, rap is competitive, but at some point we got to bring it around to what it's supposed to be. And it was funny, like nothing like this ever existed. It's sort of like when you were talking to me, I was like, why hasn't this happened? Like, yeah, we're, I'm in the right circle of people to be talking about the right thing. And it was almost like it was daring for us to even do something like this.
Yeah. Well, it's one of those things where I think somebody got to step up at some point and that's the thing about history in general is people act like things are inevitable, but they're not. Like somebody's got to do something and that, you know, that's been the thing that's, you know, once it's done it's very obvious but until somebody steps up it doesn't happen. And actually it was a, you know, I met Caz in New York kind of right around the first year and I remember because we had a great conversation but then kind of going back and reading how important Caz was. Like, Steve, let me ask you this. In a different circumstance, in a different kind of timing, how big would Caz have been? You know, Caz, I talked about you after I met you, I speak about you. The fact that you are so charismatic...
That you hold no bitterness in your heart and you present yourself as a star. I mean, it's clear. If you would have been, I mean, 12 years later, I mean, just forget it by the way, if you would have actually just got the credit you deserve from the beginning, we wouldn't even have to fast forward it 12 years. But I'm just saying that you are, when you walk into a room, it shifts. You have that level of presence and talent and star power. So, I think it's definitely ageless, the time period, but it was shocking to me that again, everybody had known what had happened to Caz. Everybody.
Not enough people knew though.
At the same time, not enough people knew, but the right people knew. The industry knew.
In the music industry knew that.
Yeah. I mean, the music industry knew.
I mean, Caz wrote the rhyme that became Rapper's Delight. I mean, those were his rhymes...
With his name in the rhymes. The first hit. Yeah.
And it was stolen. Yeah. The first hip-hop hit was stolen from him and he didn't get what he deserved and everybody knew it but no one ever did anything about it. Never said anything about it. Didn't give a [__] about it. It just...
When we were having our board calls and we were thinking about who we were going to honor, I mean, one of the privileges of having this group of people looking at the cases and deciding who we're going to give the award to. You say certain people's names and it's unanimous. It's like everybody, it's like yes, and then...
Everyone's arguing why their yes is more yes, right?
It's like, yo, Caz. But you don't understand why I said yes because everybody's so delighted that we nailed the person and then you meet the person and it is so beautiful when they walk in the room, right? And I like, we've been blessed to have honored people who not only deserve it, but when they got the phone call, they didn't come in with 'about time' or, you know, any of that kind of energy. They came in smiling, bright, glowing. You know, I think about Caz and Shanté when I just think about, you know, that like just glowing. When Roxanne got the award and she said, you know, her child never said, you know, 'Mom, you see all these rappers, these female rappers getting all these awards. Don't you ever feel bitter about that or you don't feel anything about that?' She's like, 'No, I didn't want that award. I wanted the right award.'
Paid in Full. And I was like, 'Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome that we were able to do that.' And to be able to give these artists that recognition right now and then having the artists be a part of voting for the future.
Recipients, right? So Caz is now a recipient and he's part of the committee who's voting for future recipients. And that's the gift that keeps giving about this foundation.
And Shanté is one of the reasons I'm here, you know. She's from my neighborhood, same neighborhood. And when she released Roxanne's Revenge back in 1984, 1985, she was a kid, older than me, but a kid. And when I saw that she could be on the radio rapping and going after men, it was like she was an activist, a woman's activist, you know, because that was unheard of in hip-hop. And when I saw her be that bold and to challenge a whole established rap group and change the course of this whole thing for me, that was incredibly inspiring, you know. So to have her be a part of this, you know, to me is still crazy, you know. I love it.
For me, when I was kind of brought in, you know what I mean? I had no idea what was going on. I just know somebody that I know from a while back reached out to me I hadn't heard from in years and that was Quincy Q3. And I'm like, 'Q, what's up? Yo, this and that, such and such.' He's like this and that. He was pretty vague, but he was like, 'I want you to come downtown and you know what I mean? This and that.' And that's when I met Ben and everybody. And I really wasn't fully, you know what I mean? But I was being vetted to some degree, you know what I mean? We want this guy. Let's see where his head is at. Let's see where his attitude, because I've seen or heard about, you know, other people who deserve but don't, you know what I mean? I just came with my spirit and the fact that so many people these guys had alluded to earlier had brought this up earlier or who brought up the subject. Yo, we should give the old school dudes, you know, a million dollars. You know, I mean, I think Swizz Beatz made it public. Shout out to Swizz.
Not to interrupt you, but I just did. Sorry, but I had to say it. When you were saying that, you reminded me of something. I spoke about this in a magazine I think in the 90s. They asked what would I do or maybe the year 2000. They asked a bunch of hip-hop artists and I described this to a T. So I just saw somebody pointed that out to me like last month that I forgot I even said that. So we all been wanting this type of thing. Sorry to cut you off again because I just got excited at that memory. And I would debate hip-hop with Ben. I would debate hip-hop with Steve forever. Me and Steve would stop speaking about disagreeing. Me and Ben would analyze the album to death. Ben got with you and sent me a video of your conversation and about Sugar Hill Gang and everything. I couldn't believe that you cared so much.
Being from the Bay about the origin story of some of the greatest hip-hop history ever. But I shouldn't have been surprised. But it was just like the care that we have for the culture is the same. Like Caz, like I talk to you about history. Every time I approach you, I'm stalking you about what happened this year and that year. No doubt in the other. So that it's not just the Paid in Full thing, it's like a way that we convinced ourselves that we can be together and we can get together and not just talk about it from afar. We can actually talk to Caz. We could actually be in a room with Rakim and it's not just this thing that's so spread out. It's bringing us together.
Yeah. It feels like a class reunion.
Yes. And last year when Dr. Dre heard about Paid in Full and decided to come, I was in shock that he asked me could I introduce him to Kool Moe Dee. He never met him before. And I was like, this is, first of all, I would never even think of that. You know, not that Dr. Dre never met Kool Moe Dee before.
So Dre did this to me too in Vegas. He said, 'Could I introduce him to Slick Rick?' He never met him before.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
It's wild that it took this foundation to bring these type of people together.
And the bond is that strong. The bond is so strong that 25, 30 years removed, Dr. Dre with all of his glory and success is like, 'Man, could you please introduce me to Slick Rick and Kool Moe Dee?' But at the same time that it took this celebration in order to bring these legends together in the same room.
Yeah. I think the industry itself separates us, you know, by success, status, you know what I mean? Who's hot, who's signed, who this and that, you know what I mean? So I haven't, if I see Nas, it's like by happenstance or something all these years, you know what I mean? Mutual respect, you know what I mean? But I don't see him all the time. If he reaches out or something as he's did in the past and done a project and say, 'Yo, Caz, I want you to be a part,' I'm on it automatically. I ain't got to see him or none of that. Just say it and I'm there. You know what I mean? Now I see him every year. I can call him on the phone. Steve Stoute, you hear about Steve Stoute, big business, man. He done made this person rich. He done...
It's a special moment that is growing every year.
Yeah, it's growing every year. And to Caz's point, this idea of separating artists, I'm not sure why that happened. I'm not sure if it was the industry doing the industry's doings on purpose or was it just the fact that rap was broken into like old school, new school, this, that and the third. So it was just no connection. But the truth of the matter is that the real artists have respect for the person that they had their poster on their wall, the first CD they bought or the first tape that they bought. And that respect that inspired either me as a businessman or Nas as an artist or Ben as a businessman, whatever it is, that'll never ever go away. Like sports heroes, it never goes away.
And so the foundation acknowledging and celebrating and then bringing this group of people together is something that the industry should have done a long time ago. And like there's been attempts like the VH1 thing.
Yeah. The VH1 Hip-Hop Honors.
And it's cool.
It's putting a light on these artists. But it's not putting anything in their pockets.
