Melle Mel on "The Message," Jay-Z, Biggie, Eminem, KRS-One, Willie D (Full Interview)

so on and so on I mean, yeah, I mean, about a month ago my name was trending on Twitter because people were blaming me for rapper Casanova's imprisonment because in my

interview

he talked about how he had stabbed someone in prison and there was a line about him stabbing someone in prison in his docs, now he had actually talked about it in a bunch of different

interview

s, not just mine and vlad wasn't even on the docs, but everyone started using the casanova line locked up because from his interview with vlad, but what he talked about was that years ago casanova was locked up because he was supposedly still involved in more criminal activity, but here it is all, it's like i said, you have to pick one. because these guys are out there now they have everything this agitated unnecessarily illegal when you're supposed to be an mc you're supposed to be making music but now the rule of the street is to stop snitching so why do you keep talking? about what you're doing, how do you think it's going to work for you?

If you make a record, you make a crime, then you make a record about the crime you committed, and then you make a video about the record about the crime. you did that and you didn't expect anyone to pay attention to that when that's the same thing you want everyone to pay attention to look at how many drugs I sell look at how many big guns I have look at how many I look at how many people I kill and then you expect everyone to stop snitching and then when everyone stops snitching, you snitch on yourself because you're not choosing the one you want, you want to tell me if you're a murderer, you want everyone to do it you know you're a murderer, a murderer and you have it in the song and you can't see this is a trap because all you have to do is listen to someone's song and go arrest them because or they said they killed someone. or threaten to kill someone, any of them are a crime, right?

Because you know, one of our most important regular guests is busy. He flat out told me in an interview that you can't be a gangster and a rapper at the same time and he tried. and ended up on death row for multiple murders, luckily he ended up beating him, but he said for a day and a half he played the jury his lyrics to a bunch of different songs, saying he was talking about shooting someone, here's his affiliation with a gang in this song here he talks about beating and stabbing someone here, etcetera, etcetera, for a day and a half.

This mixed race jury listened to a bunch of these songs while the prosecutor tries to paint him as a certain type of person. now busy he had a lot of money and ultimately I don't think he was involved in any of that so he beat the case but after that he said like he had one foot on the street and one foot involved and that just means it doesn't work , right?, no, it will never work and and and that's why I don't understand like I said, if you're supposed to be a rapper, you should know better, you can't promote, you can.

You don't promote that you are a murderer. You can't promote that. Now you can make a song. If you want to be smart, you can make a song that sells just as well, but without promoting the fact that you're involved in a crime. The activity sees that that's what's going wrong, even even the fact that you talk like that, someone could track it down and even if it's not you and it's the crew that you're still stuck with, there's a conspiracy charge. you can still get caught and this and this is what I don't understand when people talk about the criminal justice system and you want to change the criminal justice system you have to change the criminals these guys want to go to jail they want to go not only they're snatching guys off the street guys look I've never been to prison and there's a reason why it's because I never did anything uh uh messy enough to go to prison I want to stay free now all your little street like all that little street uh uh one cultural thing that everyone has is going to prison you're not going to be able to stay out of prison because you're going to keep making criminals and criminals ultimately they get caught the lucky ones get killed but I would choose death over prison any day.

No, no, no, I'm not cut out for that, I'm not going to ask that whole final question, the thing that you're best known for in hip-hop the ra right, how did that come about? How did that come about? Can you make a proper version of that? It actually came from Tony the Tiger. He wasn't ready for that. Okay, yeah, when he was saying that he was great and. I'd like to rock and that's hot and that's how it happened. I would never have imagined that in a million years there would be someone. Have you ever told the story before?

Yeah, yeah, okay, I must have missed it, the famous, the famous smelly man. the sound comes from tony the tiger tony the tiger frozen flake cereal okay yeah i got it right grandmaster melly mel man it's an honor to finally sit down for real i've been such i mean i've been a fan for over 30 years uh and I bought the 12 inch, you know, I bought the album, I bought the 12 inch for the white lines, I bought the 12 inch for uh, the

message

that I was, you know, I was introduced to hip-hop as a breakdancer through your music and you the soundtrack to my life during that time, which was a journey that I'm still on today and I just want to thank you personally for your role in hip-hop because I don't think my life would be as great as it is.

These days, if it wasn't for hip-hop, hip-hop gave a lot of people great lives, you know, and if they and them, they really understood it and respected it because, like I said, you always have to leave something behind for people, you know, it was necessary, you know, to transmit, you know what I mean, we and we did it, you know, we, and not as we would like to do it, but in the natural, you know, in the natural circumstances of things, we left something . for other people, you know, passing it on to someone else, but you know, I don't know, I don't know much, you know what I mean, it's like you know, uh, maybe, maybe, everyone you know, maybe Maybe some of these rich guys and billionaires might have to sit down and, you know, implement a code of ethics because now inmates are executing this honor literally, literally, and that's not who we are, you know, they did it, they defined us as you know, you have, you know, uh uh athletes. and the stars, yeah, let's go find that bag, what bag, what, what bag, that, that, that street, let them, let them have, let them have, let these kids know with something else, you know, that, that's it , that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that , that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that , that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that's on the way than just being, you know, just being from the street because I mean, I'm from the street, but that doesn't define me, I've never walked around here Timberlands or the big extra white t-shirt and all that and like I said and the main thing that you get From this whole interview, if you see a bunch of people doing one thing, you do something else, you'll last a lot longer that way, trust me, there you have it, you have it, but at the end of the day, man, you've contributed a lot to the art form, you have music that is timeless that is still being sampled, remade and referenced to this day and, you know, I think as an artist, you know like I as a content creator what I think I'm trying to create pieces of work that will last longer than my life and that will be passed on to future generations.

You know, I'm trying to chronicle hip-hop and hip-hop culture during this era so that future generations can go back and learn about it and what you've done is create art that 30 or 40 years later people are still playing. , it's still very important and it will continue to be so beyond your lifetime, whatever that is and I think that's the ultimate goal of artists and you've already achieved it several times so yeah, I'm definitely honored that you came to share your story and you know you've told it before, but I think this is going to be your most important interview in terms of what you've done.

I thank you, without a doubt, until next time.