Matthew Cox

You know, Ice Cube later on came out with some albums, DJ Quick.

Well, these guys had tremendous commercial success, but they never had essentially commercial airplay.

You never heard N.W.A.

's Fuck the Police on American Top 40 radio.

Right.

You know, Ice Cube, No Vaseline, or Summer Vacation were not hits on the Billboard Top Ten.

Okay.

And so in the music industry, you had a genre that for the first time allowed for large sales, commercial success, without any music airplay.

So that allows for an opportunity for you to start producing albums.

And surfacing money through that particular industry.

You know, when we were in prison, we saw how many guys there, you know, a lot of the younger guys all thought they were hip hop artists.

They're going to be rappers.

As soon as they get out, they're going to make their fortune when their album drops.

Well, those guys are all over the place in Los Angeles.

And so there was a long... Prior to 1993, that's where things changed because you had the commercial success of Dr. Dre's The Chronic, which actually crossed over.

Prior to that, there was no West Coast gangster rap artist that broke Swoop.

And so what my friend and his associates would do, and this was the usual guy that helped bankroll and run Deathwell Records for a while, and they would just identify young artists, sign them up.

You know, they'd go to some guy, hey, T-Bone,

Heard you're a rapper.

We'll pay you to lay the tracks.