I said something to the effect of, “Well, we can hurry up and go if Pac would give up his blanket, let’s go.”
And he turned and said, “Keep my fucking name out your mouth.”
I was like, “Fuck you, I’ll say what the fuck I want.”
And he was like, “Yeah, aiight, how about I fuck you up?”
I’m like, “How about you do it?”
And now they’re separating us. Meanwhile, we’re just cold.
Now word’s going around set that Pac almost beat up Khalil. No. Khalil is a grown-ass man.
I came to him, and I was like, “Yo, B, we can go right over here.”
And he was like, “Man, shut the fuck up, it was my bad.”
He’s a high-character dude. Immediately said, “That was my bad, I shouldn’t have even came at you like that,” whatever.
Then there was the Raheem death scene. It’s the last shot of the day. It’s the middle of the fucking night, man. We’re beat up. Now Ernest is marking his shot and Pac is like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” There was a level of intensity that needed to be there that wasn’t there. I do believe Pac had a certain amount of reservation spiritually about doing this. It’s in the script, but fuck, man, like, why is he doing this? How is he doing this? What caused him to do it? I could see he was still trying to connect the dots.
So on the next take when they yelled action and we started wrestling, I picked him up and, like, body-slammed him into the garbage cans.
“Cut!” Because that’s not what was supposed to happen.
Soon as they yelled “Cut,” Pac jumped up. “You motherfucker. Aiight, cool.”
I got a big smile on my face. I’m like, “Yeah.”
“I can’t wait to buss you now.”
The whole level is at a ten. You can hear a pin drop on the set. We had to get it right because there was only a certain amount of hoodies that we had that we could use the blood pack with.
But we hugged after that scene. We knew it was fire.
Everybody was not ready for Tupac’s energy. Everybody could not handle that energy. For a lot of people, it was way too much. He loved and appreciated being around people who could function in that bubble.
I love that about Tupac. He always kept it 100. He told you straight up. Like, “Don’t act stupid. We will fight. Wass up, bro, we fucking tonight? Yo, you want to smoke?” And he would rhyme at the drop of a hat. He would have us rolling. He was fun to be around.
I feel like Pac was bipolar or something. In his own private moments, he would be very quiet and introspective, but he definitely felt like when he walked in the room people needed to know he was there. If he stepped in a space, he had to fill it with energy. But then you’re depleted, and then you have to recharge again.
KENDRICK WELLS Pac invited me out to New York while he was shooting Juice. I got to hang out at his trailer and see all of his costars, and I saw the transition. I saw him become Bishop. He said in a Details magazine interview that once he did Bishop, part of Bishop was always with him. And it might not be that he created it from the movie. I think there was a part of him inside that created the character. Pac was never a villain or a mean person. His whole thing was: You walk toward me, you’re risking your life. But he was never saying, “I’m out to get you.” In the case of Notorious B.I.G.—sort of. He came at him lyrically. But he’s always been more about how boss ballers do. He was never aggressive going forward. He’s always just aggressive on defense.
MARK ANTHONY NEAL The thing that really stuck out more so than the music, even twenty-five years later, was his acting ability, particularly his role as Bishop in Juice. That was the moment I recognized that this is somebody that we should pay more attention to. It was an undistilled depiction of Black existentialism. The genius of pulling it off. What we see in this kind of a deep underlying rage, and even self-hatred. For someone that age to be able to play that off as an actor, to tap into this energy at such a young age, is unbelievable.
CHUCK WALKER He tried to take the city of Cusco, this now-huge tourist center, a beautiful city. He didn’t. He came to the hills with thirty thousand indigenous fighters and probably didn’t come down because he knew he’d have to slaughter a lot of Indian people whom the Spanish put on the front lines. The Spanish sent in troops from Lima, most of whom were probably Afro-Peruvian. The Spanish commanders would be Spaniards, and the fighters, a lot of them, dragged out of bars, lower-class folks, which is often Afro-Peruvian blood.
STELLA NAIR Túpac Amaru II was doing really wonderfully. The tides shifted when the Spanish got Pumacahua, a Royalist commander who later became a revolutionary himself, to lead the forces against him. And it’s because Pumacahua realized Túpac Amaru was not going to want to kill other indigenous people. Pumacahua put all the indigenous people on the front lines. That really undid Túpac Amaru.
V
LESLIE GERARD I was the second person hired at Interscope in 1989. I came with Tom Whalley. I was with Tom at Capitol Records originally. Once he got the offer from Interscope from Ted Field, once he got settled, he brought me over with him. Our first release was Gerardo.I There were literally maybe ten people working at Interscope in the early days. John McClain, an A & R from A&M [Records], came simultaneously with Tom and I. Jimmy Iovine came in like six to eight months after we started.
My role at Capitol was strictly as Tom Whalley’s assistant. Then once we got to Interscope, we were so small that everybody wore a lot of different hats. Not only did I help Tom as an assistant, I was also his project coordinator. I was a music supervisor for Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. Tom’s first signing was Primus. Then Tupac. Then 4 Non Blondes. Those three artists were found in the Bay Area.
MOE Z MD A friend of mine from Long Beach named Radio got signed to Interscope. Then all of a sudden, it was like, No Doubt, Rico Suave, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Marilyn Manson getting signed and coming up.
LESLIE GERARD Tupac had a manager named Atron Gregory at the time. Atron wanted to do a label deal, so he came to Tom Whalley with three artists. I can’t remember the third but one of them was Tupac and one of them was Money B. When we were listening to the music and stuff, Tupac was in Digital Underground at the time, so we knew who he was. But we didn’t hear any music from Tupac except for the stuff that he did with Digital Underground. When Tom signed Tupac, he didn’t want all three of them. He actually just wanted Money B, but Money B signed with Hollywood Records. We wanted to be in business with Atron, so we said, “Well, let’s talk about Tupac.”
Tom and I went out to meet Tupac and Atron at the Daily Grill by the Burbank airport. Had a meeting with him, told them we’d sign him on the spot, and we did. He was definitely more reserved. He was certainly articulate and knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to go and be. He talked a lot about his time at the performing arts school in Baltimore. Then he mentioned his mom a little bit. At that time, he wasn’t in touch with his mother, but he talked about her and her background. We didn’t have a lot of time with him—probably two hours—but he was charming and on point.
KEVIN HOSMANN There was this friend of mine, Guy Manganiello, who was working on Capitol Records, and he went over to Priority Records. When the FBI sent the letter to Priority Records about “Fuck tha Police,”II they sent it to him. He was just a promotions guy, but it was addressed to him. He says, “Hey, I got this band over here. It’s really heating up. Would you like to do some freelance?” So I go over there, and it’s N.W.A’s Straight Outta Compton. I went over there to talk to Eazy-E; it seemed as if Eazy-E was the one who is the main guy—he and his manager, Jerry Heller. Those two guys were the guys you talk to. All of these guys were like, “Whatever you want me to do, I don’t care.” They weren’t jaded at the time. They’re all first-timers. So they didn’t know they could be assholes yet. It was the way that I could get in there, because I was the cheap guy. They gave it to the kid because no one else wanted it again. Rap wouldn’t get sold on the radio. It was considered Black music. I
t’s a white industry.
So I’m working on Straight Outta Compton. I’d never done a photo shoot before. Roland Young,III he taught something called conceptual art, conceptual design. I want to tell a story here. I don’t want to just take your photograph and put it on a cover. My two ideas: one is that your music is so powerful, and this is gangsta. It’s hard shit. You want to look street. This is how we’re going to do it.
Do a little bit of homework: Please look at the first Eazy-E record and the jumpsuit that he’s in. And then look at Eazy-Duz-It, the one where he just got out of the car and it’s dark. I did that cover to retaliate against the nonsense of that jumpsuit. They weren’t New York. They were not New York in any way. They were West Coast rap, and they wanted to look hard.
KARL KANI I was born in Costa Rica, and my family moved to the United States when I was three years old. My dad used to get his clothes made by a tailor, so that kind of gave me the idea of how to make my own clothing. After my family split apart, we moved to East New York. That’s when fashion became real to me. I wanted to go outside and play with the kids, and they were more worried about what kind of clothing I had on. They actually made fun of my clothes that my mother bought for me. I realized in the inner city, in the hood, fashion is a big statement. I thought about my dad’s tailor, and I decided I wanted to make an outfit. All the kids wanted to know where I got it from, and I didn’t want them to know about my tailor. I told them, “If you want one, I’ll make you one.” Really, that is how streetwear started. I started making clothing for myself and my friends liked it, so I started making clothing for them, too.
In the late eighties and nineties, the vibe all over New York was like the movie Paid in Full. Everybody was selling drugs back then. It was almost like it was legal. Everybody had money. Money was flowing in inner cities. You had teenage millionaires driving Rolls-Royces in Harlem. I used to have all these drug dealer guys giving me money so I could make outfits for them.
The most important day, I was sitting in the park bragging to these girls about how I made this outfit for that guy. His name was Joe. They were like, “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
They said, “Tell him to come over here.” He comes over.
One goes, “Who made that outfit for you?”
He’s like, “Karl did, why?”
She asks if she can see his jacket. She starts looking at it, and she says, “If Karl made it, how come his name ain’t on it then?”
She was being a smart-ass but she was 100 percent right. I was making clothing but I wasn’t thinking about branding. I wasn’t thinking about putting my name on anything. So after she said that, I went home and I started thinking like, Damn, what should I call my clothing brand? Because before Karl Kani, there were none. Let’s make that very clear. We started before FUBU, Phat Farm, Enyce. None of them were even around.
I was thinking about all the brands we were wearing back then: Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Giorgio Armani, Donna Karan. Those are the brand names we’re putting on our backs. I wanted to be like them. I wanted to name the brand after me. My dad had changed our last name to an American name at the time—Williams. “Karl Williams Jeans” just didn’t have a good ring to it. “Can I?” was a question I used to ask myself. Can I do this? Can I be successful? I knew if I called myself that, then every day I’d have to answer that question: “Yes, I can.” That’s how the Karl Kani brand was established.
One of the guys that I was hustling with, his name was AZ. He’s a friend of mine. He got caught, and he’s supposed to go to jail. But instead of going to jail, he ended up moving to California—to Orange County with his brother. I hadn’t spoken to him for about two years. Back then it was no cell phones and beepers. You had to catch someone at their home. So one day I was at home, he called and said I should come to California and do custom-made clothing out there. I said, “There’s nothing but sand out there.”
Then he sends me this Eazy-E cassette tape in the mail. I started bumping it. I was like, Wow, this is crazy. I didn’t know California got hip-hop artists out there. So I told him, “Find out where all the Black people are. Where do they hang out? Where is the culture?” So he rolled around and he heard about Crenshaw Boulevard. Every Sunday on Crenshaw, all the gangbangers used to come up in their low-rider cars and put on a car show. So we figured this is where we need to be: right in the middle of South Central. But we didn’t know it was a ghetto. When you’re in a bad neighborhood in LA, you don’t know it because there are still palm trees. In Brooklyn, you see broken glass and torn-up buildings. Out here, it always feels like paradise. We opened our store on Crenshaw June 23, 1989, right in the middle of the hood. We thought, Game on.
KEVIN HOSMANN The Straight Outta Compton cover was done at the corner of Alameda and First in the parking lot of a Comet Cafe. I barely knew what was Los Angeles at the time. No one knew what the fuck they were doing. We were just doing it.
The other idea was that my wife at the time went to FIDM [Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising]. And there was this shoeshine place that was in a garage that she passed every day. “I want to do a shoeshine shot and I want you all to be up there. And you’re, like, waiting around because it’s now your turn. The world has changed. It is your turn. You’ve been waiting too long.” I had a two-year-old daughter, blonde girl. I was going to put her in overalls, dirty up her face, and she was going to be this dirty white girl eating watermelon—role reversal with these Black kids who are just about to get their shoeshine because they were now in power. She was so petrified of these guys that she couldn’t stay in that shot. So I had to get in that shot and shine Eazy-E’s shoes. When I was explaining the concept to them, they all looked at each other like, You’re the craziest fuck we have ever met in our life. You’re going to get us in trouble. “No, no, no, we’re going to sell some records because the image has to identify you as a power player and give the West Coast rap a look.”
If you look at the first N.W.A record [N.W.A. and the Posse], they’re actually on a loading dock and they have so many people around them. It’s, like, well, who are the ones that are actually doing anything? How many people are in the group? So it’s, like, no focus on who these people are. So we did the shoeshine shot and we made it black and white. And I think the only reason that didn’t become the Straight Outta Compton cover is because it was like, You put a fucking gun on the cover? I can’t fit that into those places. They’re not gonna sell this. Because it was already offensive—the music was already offensive. If you look at the original cover and stuff like that, it doesn’t have the original PMRCIV logo yet. That was designed later. It wasn’t even a badge. It was like, fuck them for having us have to put anything on the cover. And then what happens is you become the guy who did Straight Outta Compton. “We want you to do our cover.”
That’s why Tupac and Tom Whalley introduced themselves to me. He says, “Hey, do you have time to do a project? It’s one of the guys from Digital Underground.” I was trying to find a video and when I looked at a video, he was way in the back row. He was, again, like those N.W.A guys on that loading dock. When Ice Cube left N.W.A, I was doing his covers, and I was also doing N.W.A’s 100 Miles and Runnin’. At that time, they wanted to kill each other. Eazy-E had several houses in Compton, and I’d go over to one and they’d say, “Oh, you’re working on Cube’s stuff, too.” And I go, “Yeah, actually I got some of his artwork in my car.” They wanted me to bring in Cube’s stuff so they could take a look at it. They were so envious of his leaving.
Tupac came into town, and I don’t know why we were at Burbank Airport, but across the street from the airport itself was a restaurant called the Daily Grill. It was Tupac; a very attractive girlfriend; Tom Whalley; and Tom’s assistant, Leslie Gerard. It was around noon and it was really just a place to meet because I don’t think Interscope really had a place yet. That was my understanding. I’ve never seen that many rings on one human in my life. He was so blinged out. He just t
ook the absolute direction from Tom Whalley from day one. It was one of those conversations where you knew he was something or people were promoting him. Whenever you have a band, at the very beginning, they’re called sir, and everyone just kisses their ass. And as soon as their album tanks, then nobody returns their call. At that time, he was a golden boy. He was treated with kid gloves and Tom Whalley really gave him a lot of leash.
He never really seemed to captivate me—like, you’re a brilliant guy, you’re talented, I can see that you’re going somewhere. He was just a good-looking kid. Obviously, he’s one of the voices of all of rap and I just think the world of him now, but then they were shitting out rap artists by the dozen because of it starting to break. [Priority Records founder] Bryan Turner, who was a cheapskate, spent $0 on promotion for the Ice Cube album, and that record went number one the first week and sold a million within ten days. No promotion whatsoever. So they were just printing money.
We’re at the Daily Grill. I go to the bathroom and I’m at the urinal and I hear, “That’s where I’ve seen you!” I look and it’s Tupac behind me. I go, “What?” “That’s where I’ve seen you before: You’re on that cover, aren’t you? N.W.A.” No one ever picked up on that. I thought it was the funniest thing that Tupac recognized me.
LESLIE GERARD We were all just a bunch of kids back then. We were just trying to make it happen, putting stuff out that we really liked. I don’t think there was any really big game plan. When we met Atron, Tupac was just another artist that we were signing; nobody knew what he would represent later. We didn’t even know what we had. I just looked at him and I said, Wow, he’s beautiful. Just a gorgeous, gorgeous man. And then we just figured it out after that. A lot of people didn’t know that he was an Interscope artist; they assume he was on Death Row. He was the only rap artist that we were directly working with. “Well, he’s the artist. Let’s see what he turns in, and we’ll figure it out.” That’s kind of the way Tom worked. Not everybody worked like that, but Tom let the artist be the artist. He would just help them along the way to make them the best they could be.
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