Hip-Hop创始人如何靠荣誉驱动建立互助基金会

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 [music] 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 [music] grow to be better. And I think we are living our lyrics with paid for.

I want everybody to know around the world what Grandmaster Cass looks like and [music] to celebrate him and applaud this man for what he's done and celebrate Roxan and celebrate Melly and the DOC 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 and Full Foundation. Guys, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Yeah.

So, Ben, why don't you introduce the the the foundation and maybe let's get into the origin story as as as far back as you want to go as to how how this came to be.

Yeah. So, Peyton is an organization meant to honor uh the legacy of the of the people who created uh one of the most important musical art forms of all time, hiphop, and uh make sure that they're paid in full financially, uh spiritually, and culturally. And uh the idea kind of started um with me, Stephen Nas. So, I had it always bothered me that, you know, that I bought uh 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.

Uh, but there was no way to pay it back. Um, and it needed to be paid back. And so, I had the idea originally, and I called Steve. um uh you know Steve and I have been friends for many many years and I said Steve I have this idea uh what do you think and he said uh well it's not only a good idea but it's a very timely idea because people are talking about this right now and 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, the that, you know, and all these kinds of things." And these are very, very important guys. Uh, 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 cuz a lot of the concept uh 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 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. You it has to be more than that. it has to be a recognition uh of what they did and who they are. And so that's uh 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 uh kind of and then invite everybody to honor these guys.

And we started it off with um two all-time greats uh Scarface and Rock Kim.

Before [clears throat] we even got to the 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 uh 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 um obviously there was a there's a lot of care and concern on that anyway but more specific was the money and the doctor who was performing it the surgery and I called him and I've known Scar my face 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 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 he was in disbelief. In fact, early on, people were in such disbelief they didn't believe that it was real."

Yeah. [laughter]

We had a hard time we had a hard We had a hard time No, we had a hard time We had a hard time actually helping people [laughter] cuz 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 cuz they thought it was a scam.

Yeah. [laughter]

They just they didn't want to mess with it. So, um, and and and 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 and give them the honor and dignity they deserve that they had not received properly. Then that would be the way um that it would be accepted and celebrated.

And it wasn't until we did the first one and it was you know we you like any other startup you duct tape and right you whatever we got to do to get this thing going but we had Scarface and Rock Kim and then obviously you know the support of the the board and and having Nas on the board and that all all helped and then it was started to go through the community you there is something that's happening and that's when it it worked but literally It was disbelief from the initial phone calls and 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 [ __ ] uh 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 it was funny like nothing like this ever existed. Um, 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 um it was it was daring for us to even to do something like this.

Yeah. Well, it it's one of those things where um I think somebody got to step up at some point and and that's the thing about history in general is people act like things are inev 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 Cass uh in New York um uh kind of right around the first year and I remember because you we had a great conversation but then kind of going back and reanding how important Cass was like Steve let Let me ask you this.

In a different circumstance, in a different kind of timing, how big would a Cass been? You know, Cass, I talked about you after I met you, I speak about you. I the fact that you are so charismatic

still right now

right now

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 if I mean 12 years later I mean just forget it by the way if if you would have actually just got the credit you deserve from the beginning in beginning, we wouldn't even have to fast forward it 12 years. But I'm just saying that you [clears throat] are when you walk into a room, it shifts. You have that level of presence and talent and star power.

So, um I think it's