Queen Latifah: I Learned How To Rap in the Bathroom | Class of '88

what was your introduction to hip-hop so in high school um my sophomore year at high school you know hanging out in the bathrooms and I transferred to that school so I was like let me just see what's up and you know I would wind up hanging out in the bathrooms and girls would just start rying in the bathroom and really dudes would be coming in the bathroom too cuz it was the place to be so I would just start hitting the Beats on the bathroom stalls this girl Tangi B Landy D they would just start freestyling and they were killing it so I just keep the beat going while they would just start rocking you know eventually I start beatboxing you know with them in the bathrooms and and then it came to a point where they had to battle these girls from another school and there were three of those girls who were on the mic and only two of us you know and so I had to write my first rhyme so my brother had turntables I literally went in his room threw on the instrumental of I need a Beat by LL Cool J and I started writing I was like okay hey what are we going to write you know so I wrote this battle rap and we wound up battling these girls and we killed them you know in the same talent show oddly enough in Easter orange where little known rapper named Double T treachery tret exactly TR who would be trch from Naughty by Nature eventually trch was in the same talent show and TR was killing this I was like who was this kid y he just bodying his mic so it was all these weird places where you just like come across people but it all started from beatboxing and once I started writing Rhymes I had to keep going cuz these battles seem to keep going and then it was weird because the high school that I went to I met my boy Ramsay Ramsay introduced me to Apache shakim LTI was like yo we need to hide this DJ your mother my mother taught at the high school she was like yo y your mother needs to hire this DJ for the class parties the DJ happened to be a guy named DJ Mark the 45k who lived up the street from our high school who was from New York and was like a producer SL DJ was sh Rock from funky 4 plus one More's record boy you know what I mean he like new people from New York you know what I mean and so she started hiring them for the parties and this is where I met the whole Flavor Unit crew what would become the Flavor Unit you know so that's crazy I was like if it wasn't for my mom's I'm like this is this is crazy my mother really is responsible for my career so you you started with uh ladies fresh yeah so what what are your memories of that oh man I just remember Landy and Tangi being so dope like Landy she going straight for the dope and Tangi was like she was so smooth with it but she's still ripping you you know so I remember like them being great rappers and mostly battle oriented battle oriented but also just kind of like they had their own style you know everybody had to have a little bit of battle in them back then because it was just the element you know you're around a crowd of people so you have to say if if even if you're not battling you have to have something catchy something that's going to grab the audience so I feel like that was my training ground it was showing me how to get an audience's attention how to keep it how to say something that would like get them on your side or you know once you saw that looking eyes you had to figure out how to keep it you know or if they were all against you you had to find one person in that crowd that locked eyes with you and just focus on them you know I think that's the thing that was different about our era is it started live yeah right and this generation starts with records M right so we started on the ground in the bathroom on the Corner face to face yeah right there was a entertainment quality more than a record making thing right that so we started having to like defend ourselves lyrically right yeah I mean these kids get in a studio yeah they start studio equipment like to even have first of all you had to know somebody with equipment unless you came from money you a microphone you had to get to a microphone you know you had to get to some music so we had to kind of practice this stuff live maybe we literally cut our cassette tapes to try to make a loop you know we have all of that stuff so we had to make a a connection live with people and figure that part out first and so I think um even getting studio time was we didn't have pro tools have 80 tracks to do you know and we didn't have like autotune maybe a four track recorder oh like eight tracks wa hold up you say you got 16 I mean like and then there were boards a SSL board like wait you saying you want a KN yeah like to be on a NE board was to like a Holy Grail to have 48 tracks absolutely unheard of unheard of I don't know those budgets you know what I mean like so we we sharpened our swords with people face to face you know or in little talent shows locally um that people would promote whether they would promoters and not this is kind of where you you learned it you know or for entertain to entertain like you had to be interesting you know your clothes had to be exciting you know you you had to like keep people's attention how did you cultivate your uh style and your uh ability to entertain one and then lyrically like who who were you following and how were you develop it right so it was interesting I had I got a big family so all of the courage to even get out there was something that you learned in the family Dan get on there and sing that song and come on Dan get out there do that commercial we like you know so they just push you out there at the family gathering you know so luckily uh I was kind of shy but I learned how to jump you know either way you know what I mean we're going to swim so jump off that diving board okay you know what I mean so that kind of stuff um I think was I was fortunate enough to break through some of those barriers in my own family um also my freshman year of high school I took a public speaking class oh wow yeah and I totally bombed at it no I was no good I it was the worst you know it's like oh you need some sleep and you need to memorize this okay cuz you're going to do really bad but I think I learned how to fail a lot is what my point is and I learned also how to get out there fail get and try again listen to class of 88 wherever you get your podcast

Channel: Will Smith

Views: 81,062

Keywords: comedy, entertainment

Id: BVw1jqYo5j4

Length: 7min 6sec (426 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 15 2024