# Paid in Full: Honoring Hip-Hop Pioneers

**Podcast:** a16z Podcast
**Published:** 2026-09-20

## Transcript

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 nigga 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.
We're paid in full.
I want everybody to know around the world what Grandmaster Kaz looks like and to celebrate him and applaud this man for what he's done and celebrate Roxanne and celebrate Melly and the DOC and everybody else who's had these achievements.
The thing is that...
honor.
The thing is putting you in the light that you deserve to be in.
If you're watching this and love hip-hop.
Hip-hop changed music, fashion, language, and culture.
But many of the people who built it never received the recognition or financial rewards that matched their impact.
In this episode, Ben Horowitz and I sit down with Nas, Grandmaster Kaz, and Steve Stout to tell the story behind the Paid in Full Foundation and its mission to honor hip-hop's pioneers.
we discuss why the foundation pairs financial support with recognition, what happens when generations of hip-hop artists come together, and why giving these artists their flowers is about more than an award.
And Kaz shares what that recognition has meant firsthand, from his place in hip-hop history to how Paid in Full helped change his life.
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.
Thank you.
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.
The idea kind of started with me, Steve, and Nas.
So it always bothered me that I bought, paid in full, the album, for $10.
And I got, you know, in my career, and 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.
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 if you listen to the podcast, people are saying, oh, these rappers, these old guys, they don't have any money.
They're dusty.
They're this, they're that, 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 I told it to Nas and Nas said, 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 awards show, have this idea of the Grand Master Award for the true greats of hip-hop.
and then invite everybody to honor these guys.
And we started it off with two all-time greats, Scarface and Rakim.
Well, I'll just add to that, if you don't mind.
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 south of France, and I called him, and he needed to get his kidney.
He had to get his kidney from his son, a kidney transplant.
And it wasn't the right doctors.
Obviously, there's 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 the phone call come 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.
We had a hard time actually helping people.
Because they didn't believe it.
Yeah, I have some stories on that of, 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.
Yeah.
They just didn't want to mess with it.
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 give 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, the support of the board and having Nas on the board.
That'll help.
And then it was 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 fucked they've been for so long.
Like, why would anybody come look and try to help us now?
Yeah, and how fucked the rap community has been, like, to not show love, to be so divided.
To act like 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, 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 to 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.
Somebody's got to do something.
And 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, I met Kaz in New York kind of right around the first year.
And I remember...
We had a great conversation, but then kind of going back and re-understanding how important Kaz was, like, Steve, let me ask you this.
In a different circumstance, in a different kind of timing, how big would have Kaz been?
Kaz, I talked about you after I met you.
I speak about you.
The fact that you are so charismatic still right now.
Right now?
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 at 12 years.
But I'm just saying that 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 Kaz.
Everybody had that.
It's the original sin of hip hop.
Not enough people knew, though, at the same time.
Not enough people knew, but the right people knew, the industry knew.
Yes.
And the music industry knew that.
100% of people knew.
The music industry knew.
I mean, Kaz wrote.
the rhyme that became Rap is Delight.
I mean, those were his rhymes.
With his name.
With his name in the rhymes.
The first hit.
And it was stolen.
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 fuck about it.
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, it's like, it's like everybody, it's like, yes.
And then everyone's arguing why their yes is more yes.
Right.
Yo, Kaz, yes.
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, smile, bright.
Glowing.
You know, I think about Kaz and Shantae when I just think about, you know, that.
Like, just glowing.
When Roxanne got the award and she said, you know, her child ever said, 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.
Yeah.
Paid in full.
And I was like, 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 Kaz 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 Shantae 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 like an activist and beating them.
She was like 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, it's still...
It's 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, QD3.
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 didn't, wasn't.
It 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 what his, you know, 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 just with my spirit.
And the fact that...
So many people these guys had alluded to earlier had brought this up earlier or brought up the subject.
Yo, we should give the old school dudes, you know, a million dollars.
You know, I mean, I think Swiss Beast made it public.
Shout out to Swiss.
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.
Uh-huh.
He 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 pointing that out to me like last month, that I forgot I even said that.
So we've 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 will stop speaking about disagreeing.
Me and Ben will analyze the album to death.
Ben got with you and sent me a video of your conversation 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, Kaz, like, I talk to you about history.
Every time I approach you, I'm stalking you about what happened this year and that year and the other.
So it's not just the pay-the-full thing is 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 Cass.
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.
It feels like a class reunion.
Yes.
And last year, when Dr.
Dre heard about Peyton Full and decided to come, I was in shock that he asked me, could I introduce him to Kumo D?
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 Kumo D before.
So Dre did this to me too in Vegas.
He said, could I introduce him to Slick Rick?
He never met him before.
Oh, my God.
It's just a wild, 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 Kumo D?
But...
At the same time that it took this celebration in order to bring these legends together in the same room.
Agreed.
To create that moment.
Yeah.
I think the industry itself like 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.
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, Kaz, 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 Stout.
You hear about Steve Stout, big business, man.
He done made this person rich.
It's a special moment that is growing every year.
It's growing every year.
And to Kaz's point, this idea of separating artists, I'm not sure why that happened.
I'm not sure if it was 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 they just, 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 postal on their wall.
Definitely.
The first CD they bought or the first CD, 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 hip-hop honors.
Hip-hop honors.
And it's cool.
It's putting a light on it on these artists, but it's not putting anything in their pockets.
Yeah.
It's not investing in the artists.
It's not making them feel like they've gotten acknowledged for everything that they contributed.
That was a point.
It was two things.
It was starting paid in full, but also been investing in United Masters.
The idea was like, how do you contribute so much culturally, but yet?
the financial take is so meaningless.
How do you pour so much in and get so little out?
No respect, I'll tell you.
You know, and everybody became comfortable with that idea.
They just accepted it as, oh, that's just the way it is.
That's just the way it is.
Like, meanwhile, you're changing the way people are dressing.
You're changing dialect.
You're changing so much in the world.
Your bank account or acknowledgement for what you've contributed is not even part.
It doesn't add up.
It's not that's not inspiring.
And it doesn't incentivize creativity.
It doesn't incentivize anything.
It incentivizes people to feel like they've been robbed and stoned from.
Right.
Right.
And not to cut you off.
And in the lyrics of hip hop, we speak about the total opposite.
We speak about breaking down barriers.
We speak about.
changing the system.
We speak about love.
We speak about being entrepreneurs and taking this thing into our hands and keeping it real.
But then...
The action of keeping it real wasn't happening outside the studio.
You play a record, this dude sounds like he's the realest ever.
Then you see him, he won't speak to you.
You see him, he's posted up and he's not talking to you.
You see him, you could be like, yo, I need some help.
He's looking at you, he's laughing at you.
You know what I'm saying?
It's a competitiveness to the max.
And it doesn't round up being like what the lyrics said.
You hear the lyrics of rap since the beginning, since Kaz.
was talking what he was talking and inspiring and putting his DNA into this thing and bigger groups would come from Kaz and bigger soloists and the rap game would be shifted with what Kaz put down and the lyrics represent one thing, but how are we going to be real when we say with hip-hop we're real and then the actions are not happening?
It's just going to be on record?
It can't just be on record.
The whole thing about hip-hop is about to grow to be better.
And I think we are living our lyrics.
We're paid in full.
And it takes the courage of Ben and his wife, Felicia, and their foundation to put the money up to match the contribution to be able to fund something like this.
I mean, you would think that, or you would hope, that it would come from an organization that benefited financially from it.
One would guess.
One would guess.
If you just say, who do you think will help these guys?
You'd be like, oh.
Definitely, the record company.
Someone sold this person, that person.
No, it takes somebody.
It is hard for me to sell them a ticket.
It's a crazy rap fan.
That's crazy.
A crazy rap fan.
And Felicia.
Who is an entrepreneur who has deep soul and belief in respect for creativity.
made this one of his missions to help solve this and make sure the right guys get properly awarded and the respect they deserve.
And I think this year, I think this year, I think this year is going to be a pivotal year for the organization.
This is our fourth year.
And we have a great, great, great, great lineup.
It's very well produced.
You don't walk in first year, Lucky you wasn't there.
You know, we were feeling our way through.
It was a little long.
It was a little this, that, and a third.
But we learned.
Like anything else, we learned, refined, got tighter, got smarter.
And I think we got it now in year four where it's going to be our biggest year.
And hopefully this thing, I believe that as well as produced as this show will be, that it's something that we could take.
At the same time, I feel like I want everybody to know around the world what Grandmaster Kaz looks like and to celebrate him and applaud this man for what he's done and celebrate Roxanne and celebrate, you know, Melly and the DOC and everybody else who's, you know, had these achievements, these achievements that they've done and contributed so much to their culture that they get a chance to see their heroes on the platform that they respect.
I think when you do something big and important, not only in hip hop, but in anything, people are going to emulate.
People are going to want to follow.
If they see a formula that works, Ben, you're a testament to this.
See a formula that works, you want in and you're going to want to try to, you know, do something.
And a lot of people lost, I don't know, face or whatever, because all of these, nobody did it yet.
And Steve and I have conversations about this kind of thing all the time, but 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.
And if you start with what's right, then you have a chance.
It may not be possible, but at least you have a chance to do something great.
And so, you know, that's always how I came at it.
I was like, look.
We ought to be able to figure this out.
It's not...
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?
Like, it just didn't make any sense to me.
And then, by the way, I mean, you guys were very kind, saying, you know, I wasn't a beneficiary.
I'm a big beneficiary of Kaz and Nas and Rakim in that they were...
You all were the inspiration.
to my career and one what got me through like a very very difficult times in business so hard that I wrote like a best-selling book about how hard it was and in the book you know I had the rap lyrics which in Silicon Valley I actually got a lot of criticism for it because like what are you doing with hip-hop you know is that some kind of gimmick and so forth and I was like no this is credit where credit is due the ideas that I had in business came from those lyrics and that's why the chapters, that's why the idea started with the lyric, because that's where the idea started.
And it was just credit where credit was due.
And so it was my, you know, my chance to, in my mind, just do what was right and pay it back.
And, you know, look, I'm an entrepreneur.
I know how to build things.
So, you know, building a foundation didn't seem that hard.
Yeah, no, I haven't.
If I got...
or like people talked about it bad, I don't listen.
I can't even hear it.
No, he doesn't hear it.
And what you do, you bring people, you invite people who would probably be like, have no interest in this topic.
Yeah.
And you bring them there.
And you know what they do?
I've seen it convert.
Yeah.
They go there and they're like.
I'll go for Ben.
I mean, whatever.
I'll go for Ben.
That's a lot of the tickets.
It's Ben.
Then they go there and they're like, oh, shit.
I didn't even know this, that.
I didn't know that.
And it connects a lot of dots.
And there's obviously a lot of empathy.
How do you not feel empathy for somebody who's invented something and didn't get what they deserve?
But we don't...
The theme of the night isn't that.
The theme of the night isn't...
Get what you deserve.
That's the underlying foundational truth.
And on top of that, we celebrate the fact that you are getting now what you deserve.
You are getting the acknowledgement you and the light put on you in the right way by a bunch of people who respect you and that you were chosen to do it.
I mean, come on, man.
Last year, I met my man Graham Puba for so long.
To see Puba up there, that made me feel so proud to have a...
You know, like, why would you skip that?
It's easy to skip it.
It's just like, oh, no, not that.
And you got Grand Poobah.
At one point, the greatest rap.
Oh, by the way, did it over three different.
It's funny about rap.
I don't know if you errors.
It's not like decades, but errors could be four years.
It could be a four year where it just changed.
And if you don't even, if you're not part of it, you don't even realize how fast it changes.
Right?
So.
Masters of Ceremony.
Brand Nubian.
Poobah.
Solo career.
Yeah, solo career.
Yeah.
Three eras.
Three eras.
He went through three eras.
Crazy.
And got through that and got to the other side.
Very few artists had done that.
And those changes during that period of time were drastic.
Like, it was like.
You were out there.
A lot of our favorite artists couldn't jump that fence.
And they got stuck on the other side.
And then you all of a sudden, you're considered old school or you're considered washed or considered not dope anymore, whatever the thing was.
And Grand Poop, I did that.
No one's going to sit and turn around and watch this man go on stage and get his props.
No one else is going to do that.
And no one else is going to put the time in to have the people that understand that nuance.
It's easy to write a check.
You know when people write checks of things and they check that box?
Right.
It's love.
The check is being written and there's so much time going into making sure we get it right.
Yeah.
Because of the love.
And in the room there's love.
Even if you didn't think you'd be walking in a room like that, you think it's gonna be like some type of typical awards show or something like that.
It's genuine love.
It's no egos.
Nobody's putting their chest out in front of nobody.
It doesn't matter if it's...
billionaires are over there and over here at that table and that table.
Everybody's here on a real thing of learning what's happening on the stage.
You're being educated.
And then we're talking about our man Quincy Jones, who I spent a lot of time with Ben before he passed, and then QD3 being there.
And we're getting to...
to see a Quincy Jones award happen through this because Quincy, had he been here, he would have been a part of this.
Right?
And we get this.
Last year, George Clinton went...
He brought the mothership.
He did a mothership thing for us, and it was just mind-blowing to see him reciting Rakim's lyrics to follow the leader.
This is George Clinton.
He is the outer space guy.
He is the guy who shifted music, and then him reciting at 83 years old Rakim's lyrics on stage.
This is like, this is a room of love on another level.
Well, to the Quincy Jones Award, Quincy Jones.
Obvious legend, the legend of legends, the triple OG, the foundation of it all.
No disrespect, but the Grammys botched his celebration.
The idea for the Quincy Jones Award was literally because of how bad the Grammys did it.
It wasn't like we thought we had to check that box.
We couldn't believe they got that wrong.
They didn't pay tribute to this man properly to the point that his son was like, QD3 was like, let's do this.
And now it's part of what we do in the foundation on an annual basis.
That's love.
Can we say who the new recipient of the Chrissy Jones Award is?
We got to let Steve say it because he worked so hard on it.
No, no.
It's such a funny story.
We're not going to get into the details of that story.
But who?
Nile Rodgers, man.
Yes.
Nile Rodgers.
Yes.
This is great.
Nile Rodgers, who came up with a guitar lick that's been used.
That's been used.
By the way, I mean.
Hip-hop, dance.
That's just hip-hop connection.
That's his hip-hop connection.
Look at Sheik.
Look at all the other.
Oh, God.
Sister Sledge.
Look, I mean, go down the myriad of his songs he's produced.
All the way up to Get Lucky.
Yeah.
For Daft Punk.
I mean, the Daft Punk, he's that guy.
You know what I'm saying?
So, boom.
So we got Nile Rodgers this year getting the Quincy Jones Award.
So what we're doing is obviously we're making sure within our purview.
whether it's old school hip hop or Quincy Jones, who should have gotten celebrated a little bit more properly with his Grammys, that we're making a contribution to make sure we get it right.
We're holding ourselves accountable to get it right.
This is obviously a big thing to do because you got families, estates, other artists looking at this, a side eye like, Are these, are these, is this real?
Is this going away anytime soon?
Is this another facade?
What are they selling on the back of this?
They must be selling t-shirts off the trunk.
Right?
Yo, I called Cool Rock Ski from the Fat Boys and like, yo, man.
We want you in this.
And I think for a second, he didn't think it was real.
Yeah, I heard.
I ain't going to lie to you.
He was there last year.
Yeah.
And you wouldn't think it was real.
He walked off the stage not thinking it was real.
Right, right, right.
Where did G-Rap sit?
You caught G-Rap.
G-Rap was very, very appreciative.
G-Rap, I called him.
He was very appreciative.
I mean, one of the greatest emcees of all time, man.
One of my biggest inspirations.
And when people come, again, it's love, man.
It's real love.
You know, it's your time.
It's your show.
We're here for you.
And I think it's surprising for them to feel like it's nothing like, like you said, we're not selling shirts out in the back.
We're not, this is not for us.
It gives us joy that we're doing this, but it's beautiful to see these people show up.
and be appreciated and shown about it.
So, Nas, you just talked about the ego thing.
Of course it is.
I mean, first of all, at the end, you start going crazy on the mic, right?
I mean, you and Moti last year.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Y'all go crazy on the mic.
So that's still there.
Let's be clear.
It's a celebration, but that part, the park jam part is not going anywhere.
But, like, because there's so much ego in rap, at least in this moment, in this room, it comes down to the point where Ice Cube came two years ago.
And he says, I wouldn't even put out an album until I listened to what Scarface had to say.
I knew, you remember when he said this?
Yeah, hell yeah.
He's like, I knew before I dropped anything, I'd have to make sure what this guy was saying.
And Scarface came after.
Cube.
Scarface came out the Cube.
But when Scarface came...
Whoa.
And to watch Scarface and Rakim acknowledge each other's writing skills.
Oh, dude.
That's like...
If you love hip-hop...
If you love hip-hop, if you're watching this and love hip-hop, you got to know to have Rakim and Scarface have a conversation about writing and respect.
that they have for each other in a real, pure way is...
You're talking about two of the greatest writers in anything.
I don't give a fuck what it is.
Yes, anything.
In anything.
Having a real discussion about...
And every hip-hop guy in the world before Ascent would acknowledge what you said.
Nobody would even...
Some of the greatest writers of all...
In hip-hop, Scarface and Rakim.
Like...
Not even a question.
Nothing to discuss.
Nothing to discuss.
And they're discussing it for the first time at Paid in Full.
That's how special this room is.
Okay, let me give the plug.
Paidinfullfoundation.org.
You can come and be a part of it.
And Felicia and I match every donation two and a half to one, which means that all your money goes to the artist.
There are no paid employees at the foundation.
Everything is volunteer.
And so, you know, if you want to be part of it, if you want to contribute, paidandfullfoundation.org.
And that's my plug.
And I want to ask Kaz.
That was pretty good.
That's like a radio.
Thank you.
Kaz, we've been talking about it, but like being a recipient, what did it...
What has it meant to you from an honor standpoint, from a financial standpoint?
Like, how did it affect you?
You know, tell us from that side.
Yeah, I definitely was going to address that at some point because it's not specifics, you know what I mean?
Like, yo, this and that.
This one gets that.
This one gets that.
It's like you get a grant, you know what I mean, so to speak.
And it's over a five-year period.
And it's helped change my life.
You know what I mean?
I was on a path to, you know, for self-improvement and trying to get things.
You know, LL Cool J called me a few years back and was like, yo, it's time.
I want you on the radio.
You know what I mean?
But when Peyton Fool called me, you know what I mean?
It was like, yo, now this is going to change your life.
I bought a house.
You know what I mean?
I moved out to projects.
You know what I'm saying?
And I've lived in the Bronx all my life.
I only did a three-year stint in Cali for a while, but I lived in the Bronx all my life, and I thought I would always, I would end up here.
And the last thoughts in my head for the last, like, 10, 15 years, I don't want to die in the projects.
I don't want to end here.
I don't want it to end here.
And it didn't.
And it's not.
You know what I mean?
I got a nice house in Pennsylvania.
You know what I'm saying?
Me and my wife.
My life has improved drastically.
I got a comfort, you know, I got like a cushion that I never had.
You know what I mean?
Everything was day to day.
Everything was run out, grind, hustle.
And when people see me and they see my passion, they see my, you know what I mean, this nigga still got it.
He's still doing it because I have to.
I didn't have no, you know what I mean?
Hip-hop don't have Social Security.
You know what I mean?
Hip-hop don't have no health benefits or none of that.
You have to work.
You got to stay out there.
For me anyway, I got to keep working.
So when you see me on the radio, you see me doing park jams, you see me doing hip-hop sightseeing tours, and all that was to maintain, to keep me up and at it.
And I think my attitude, that went along with it, and the way that I deal with people.
Kept me in people's consciousness, you know what I mean?
Which I'm so fucking grateful for, you know what I mean?
And like I said, I can't speak for everybody, but I'm sure what it's done for me, it's done for everybody.
You know what I mean?
I know one thing I want to say, and I don't want to say which person, but we used to talk about some people didn't know if it was a scam or whatever.
You know, a couple people thought it was like, yo, I don't need this.
Like, I'm good.
You know what I mean?
You know, like a hand, like I don't need nobody to give me.
Nah, it's not about that.
It's not all about that.
That ain't about that.
That's a part of it.
I mean, the thing is the honor.
The thing is putting you in the light that you deserve to be in.
And I got to salute LL Cool J for that, too.
You know what I mean?
He put us, me, he put Shot Rock on the radio when he didn't have to.
He didn't have to.
And he created a whole lane.
He's like, now that's y'all.
Go.
Monday through Friday, y'all on the air.
You know what I mean?
So that kind of recognition, it resonates.
And when people see important people giving you your props, they feel obligated.
Like, yo, I got to say what this does is what, how you just ended it, is it brings recognition.
And that's the gift that keeps giving.
Because it's done out of love.
And it kind of inspires more people to think that, you know, we can do things like this too.
We can, we got to remember, let's take care of each other.
I'll say this.
I was getting reached out to by a few hip-hop artists for a while.
Probably the later end of the 90s on, and I would do things for different artists.
and won't say it.
I won't even mention the names.
Even up to someone who passed away recently, a musical hip-hop producer or whatever.
Like, I was there.
And, you know, I wonder how many more of us were doing that.
But it's on the low.
This is on the high.
Right.
This is on the high on an even bigger level.
And that you can show it.
You can show the world.
We're taking care.
of our own.
We're taking care of the thing that took care of us.
In Ben's book, he has pieces of lyrics.
In one of his books, he has pieces of lyrics that inspired him.
These things are important because if we forget, if we sweep it all under the rug, if you don't know that Puba took Hillfinger to another level, if you don't know...
Sprite.
Say this.
The fashion industry, period.
By the way, that's exactly why I wrote The Tanning of America.
It was specifically so that all of the things that hip-hop created got to know.
In your book, when you talk about at the concert, at the Run-DFC concert, when everybody holds up their Adidas, what that did for Adidas.
What it did for Adidas.
Adidas was kind of dead at the time.
Hold on.
Dead.
Oh, yeah.
2% market share in America.
2%.
2% market share in America.
And three-quarters of that 2% was coming from the Northeast region.
And all they knew is that why everybody up there buying this one specific skew and why are they throwing away the shoelaces?
Hip-hop, baby.
But Poobah, obey your thirst is his line.
First things first, obey your thirst.
That's his line.
That's their tagline.
Like, no one would ever pay attention to these things.
These guys are pioneers above and beyond hip-hop.
They created the culture around the music that lives on to this day.
The fashion, the language, the brands that have only exist as a result of their contribution.
I love Tommy Hilfiger.
Tommy Hilfiger's a great guy.
He's done a lot with artists.
He should be part of, you know, contributing to Paid in Full.
If it wasn't for hip-hop, for sure, he was dead in the water.
They were selling ties.
He says that.
They were actually selling ties.
He was trying to be Ralph Lauren.
And they were like, you're not Ralph Lauren, dog.
And on his way, and listen, on his way home, because he lived in Greenwich, when you leave the city, you can obviously, you can get to Greenwich by the traditional way, taking the highway, or you can cut through Harlem and get up to Westchester.
So he's cutting through Harlem, and he's seen everybody wearing their pants low and their Calvin Klein, top of the Calvin Klein brief show.
And literally, that's where he got the idea to make underwear.
and use that, where would Calvin, the top, yeah, put Tommy there, the top of the underwear, whatever this shit is called.
Yeah, the elastic band.
The elastic band.
And he put Tommy Hilfiger there and made the waistband bigger, thicker, so that you could really see it.
And that's how the whole thing got going, seriously.
That's literally, and he talks about it, and he'd seen it driving through Harlem.
That's crazy.
And that's when the brand took off and went from, you know, selling ties that wasn't working to now selling streetwear, the hottest fashion trend in the world, streetwear that Louis Vuitton sells, designed by Skateboard P.
You know what I'm saying?
God bless and Virgil.
And these are the things that these guys have been a part of contributing that they never got.
their fair share of.
And by the way, what we're doing is we're just trying to get momentum.
We're not trying to solve the world's problem here.
We need others to either come and donate to the organization for sure or start other organizations that also have the same motive to help celebrate, give back to the guys who have helped contribute to your business.
contribute to inspire you.
With love and respect.
Yes.
With love and respect.
Yes, sir.
And actually, I want to tell a story because the love and respect part goes beyond even the awards.
So Scarface had a heart condition.
And, you know, look, he comes from a place where people don't even...
really go to the doctor, let alone go in for open heart surgery, which is what he needed.
And he was on the phone with my wife, Felicia, and she knew he was scared.
And she flew out to Houston to see him, you know, before he went to the doctor, and he didn't want to go in.
And he's like, no, I don't want to go to the doctor.
I'm not going to the doctor.
And she said, nah.
And he calls her the bully.
She's about five feet tall ways, maybe a buck or five.
And she says, no, I'm taking you to the doctor right now.
And right as they got into the doctor, his aorta burst.
And they got him in just in time and saved his life.
And that doesn't happen without her caring so much about him.
And a lot of what the foundation is about, because she runs it, she's the president, is how much...
She cares about these artists and how much, you know, she's committed to taking care of them regardless, regardless.
Like, forget the award, forget what the actual contract is and all that kind of thing.
She's going to do that work.
And that creates the whole culture of the thing, which is why that feeling at the award is so different.
Agreed.
I have to say that and I have to, you know.
Definitely kudos to Felicia.
Nothing more serious than that.
She makes it, you know, like it's love involved here.
Yeah.
And like beyond the award, beyond the check, you know what I mean?
It's not over.
You'll get a call.
How are you doing?
How's your wife?
You know what I mean?
Oh, she's sick?
Give me her address.
She sends the next day flowers come.
You know what I mean?
The next day, like, some glasses, some Dior glasses come.
That's how Felicia is, and it's not about what's going on.
She'll randomly call you just to check on you and see if everything's good.
And that's the difference between this and anything I've ever experienced in an award, grant, foundation, or anything like that.
You know, the love, the genuine love.
I don't know.
I just can't speak enough about the event that's coming up, the next Hip Hop Grandmaster Awards.
It's going to be monumental.
And if you haven't been abreast of what's going on with Paid in Full, definitely check in, OK, this year.
And then look back at what we've done in the past four years, all right?
And then get on board.
Don't play with it.
Stay with it.
Yes, sir.
Now, Steve, I'm curious if you could talk about when was the moment you knew that you and Ben were going to be?
Friends for Life.
Steve invited me to a dinner years ago.
That's the craziest.
And...
Oh, yeah.
It was an interesting room of people, right?
He put together a great room, great restaurant.
It was Mr.
Chow's downtown.
Mr.
Chow's, half-five for Eddie.
So this room was dope, right?
And he put this together.
And I heard about Ben through him.
And I met Ben right there.
You know, just our love for music and love for food was a thing that kind of connected me and Ben at that point.
And we've just been cool since then.
Yeah, we're, some of my best times listening to Rakim with Nas.
By the way, Nas hears things in Rakim's songs that nobody else hears.
It's, like, unbelievable.
And then listening to Prince.
We listened to Prince together.
Yeah, yeah.
And then doing it.
We'll break it down.
Yeah, and going to visit Triple OG, Quincy Jones together.
Yeah.
Just, you know, music fans who just, Nas is like as great an artist as he is, he's that great a music fan.
By the way, I was at Quincy's house when he had just moved into the house.
Yeah.
Or redecorated the house, rather.
And it was me and Chris Tucker.
And he goes and he shows, he was showing us the rehearsal tape, the casting tapes for Color Purple.
Color Purple.
Right.
He's showing us.
Yeah.
And there was Whoopi Goldberg.
Yeah.
And she's talking.
She's just talking to camera like this, whatever, whatever.
And then she starts reading the script and then within a second starts crying.
I was like, it was the first time I seen acting.
And I was like, oh, fuck.
I mean, I knew for a fact this is fucking a skill that is beyond.
She was like regular normal talking.
And he said, all right.
And Steven Spielberg's holding the camera.
This is that.
And boom, she just starts crying.
So anyhow.
Yeah, she was great in that role.
Yeah.
So she just starts crying.
So anyhow, Chris Tucker, we were all blown away by just like that fact that she did that.
And we started talking about a bunch of different shit.
And I talk about bringing up Nas.
And Nas' dad, Oludar.
Yo, this guy gets up.
And Quincy Jones, at that age, was still moving very quickly.
Like he was just like a very quick guy.
Quickly went and went to a bunch of vinyls and came back with pictures.
And he showed me a picture of him with Nas' dad.
in San Tropez in the 60s.
That's amazing.
I was like, holy shit.
Like, I knew Nas' dad was, like, obviously a jazz legend, but I didn't know at what level it was that these guys were running around.
He tells me, he would tell me stories of people he'd been around, but I didn't listen.
I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, pop.
Yeah, my pop told me about M2Me.
The song Juicy came out.
He's like, yeah, that's my man.
I'm like, come on, you probably met him in passing.
You know what I'm saying?
I ain't thinking nothing about it.
What year was that, 83, 84 or something?
I got into the rap game, and I met him to me, and he's like, yo, your dad is my man.
And I said, you know, I didn't believe him when he told me that.
Not that he's a liar or anything, but I didn't know it was like, y'all were like that.
He was like, that's my guy, man.
I was like, yo, you don't understand.
Juicy Fruit was the biggest song in the world.
So how could I believe that at the time?
I'm a kid.
I don't know.
I think he's just trying to make me feel good or something like that.
But he knows, he knew a lot of people when he was younger, man.
And Quincy was, Quincy knew everybody.
That's going to be him.
Everybody.
No, no, no, that's definitely going to be him.
Everybody knows.
Everybody knows.
Your kids.
Yeah, we know.
The fact that Olu, now you got to understand, like in anything else, you know, the DNA thing, right?
Your dad's a famous football player, right?
The son, this.
I didn't know.
I mean, obviously I know Nas is a brilliant artist.
I had no idea the connection was that his dad.
Was that level of brilliant?
I thought his dad I didn't know I didn't know it was that level of brilliant that Quincy Jones within a second Go find a picture of them together and I'm like these guys were in Sandra Pay in the 60s doing anything The whole thing was like a profound to me that whole evening of going from the color purple to to Oludara and then reflecting on the fact that Nas comes from this great lineages of lineage of talent Yeah, they come from Mississippi, my pops.
He comes from Natchez, Mississippi, and his dad was in a band, and it's just music in the family.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
So one more time, paidinfull.org.
Paidinfullfoundation.org.
All your money goes directly to the artist.
Two and a half times.
Put up that bread.
Two and a half, as we mentioned, two and a half times to one, and it is everybody who's ever been to it will tell you.
It's the greatest charitable event in the world.
Like there's nothing like it.
It's you will, I guarantee nobody's ever gone and not had a great time.
And a time that will be a memory for the rest of your life.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, right.
So yeah.
All right.
Thank you guys.
That was great.
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