Layzie Bone on Eazy-E's Final Days, The Dark Side of the Music Industry & More

0:00No Jumper, coolest podcast in the world. I'm very, very honored to bring you guys an interview today with absolute legend in hip hop, Layzie Bone. How you feeling, man? Oh, man, I'm blessed, man. I can't complain about nothing. Hell yeah, man. You guys were a big part of my childhood for sure. That's what's up. We all grew up together, man. We definitely all grew up together. Does that get a little weirder like year after year when, you know, I'm 42 and I'm telling you that you guys were like huge to me when I was literally in like, you know, third grade or some shit, you know, like that's got to feel kind of wild at a moment.

0:36I mean, I can't believe it been the years, but 30 plus years, man, it been a while, you know, I'm 51 now. So, you know what I'm saying? Like my whole life I've been at this thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. I'm just starting to get there where like, you know, I'll have a kid come up to me and he's like 20 and he'll be like, man, I've been watching you since I was like eight. And I'm just like, what the fuck? You know, it's weird to become part of people's childhood. They grow up. I mean, we got them from two to two to ninety nine. You know what I mean? So our fans, man, it's been a few generations now.

1:13Yeah. No, it's crazy. And now, I mean, does it trip you out when you see people who are rocking, like, the merchandise who almost certainly you're assuming that they're not actually listening to the music? It's just for whatever reason, Urban Outfitters decided that they were carrying a Bone Thug shirt this month. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the crazy part. You know what I mean? You see a 12-year-old rocking your stuff, you know what I mean? Yeah. Knowing they wasn't born. Yeah. Knowing they probably don't know the music. But yeah, man, it get kind of weird. Make you feel a little old sometimes. I'm forever young, though.

1:50Is there something wrong with wearing the T-shirt without being familiar with the music? Because I feel like the world we come from, there was something deeply wrong with that. You were a poser. It's like the worst thing that you could be. But as time goes by, it feels like that has just been thrown to the side. I mean, no. I mean, really, like, I remember, you know, we used to have to shop at thrift shops sometimes. You know what I mean? I had a Kiss t-shirt back in the days where they had the faces painted on and all that. So, you know, long support is support. Yeah. You know what I mean? You were ahead of your time.

2:22It's probably like a$500 t-shirt these days on like a vintage website. Yeah, you just look at it and be like, damn, I did that. Nah, facts. So can you kind of take us back to what your come up was like in Cleveland at that time? Did it just feel impossible for you guys, like starting out rapping, did it feel like it was impossible, the idea of you guys getting signed to a label? Or was there somebody who was kind of like putting you on to that path of how you could potentially do this? I mean, it really seemed like it was so far-fetched, man. Like, you know, because coming up in Cleveland, because Cleveland is originally an R &B town, you know what I'm saying?

3:05You got Levert and OJs and all them. So, you know what I mean? Like Rude Boys, Men At Large. Like they were doing their thing. And all our hip hop was underground. I still remember when we just had hip hop on the radio on Saturdays for an hour. You know what I mean? And you'd be waiting around for it? Yeah, club style. 108 club style, man. We'd be waiting around with tapes paused ready for that LL to come on so you could record it. You know what I mean? But yeah, man, Cleveland was Cleveland, the rough city. Yeah. No, I mean, like we went through all all the areas of like we had West Coast, East Coast and the South.

3:49So we kind of was a melting pot of all that. Right. I mean, so we had to get old boys. But before that, it was run DMC and LL and Rock Kim and Eric B and them. And, you know, all that. Like I went through every fad, Kid and Play. You know what I mean? They used to call me and Craig Kid and Play all the time because we had the high top fades and all that shit, man. So, yeah, Cleveland was a rough city to make it in. Like it wasn't no hip hop like that. We was the ones entering talent shows and really putting it down. You know, K Chill and Brothers for the Struggle and different groups like that throughout the city, but it was just a handful of us.

4:35And you hadn't seen anybody really, like, make the transition to getting signed to a label or seeing any kind of success? Nope. The most success I saw was Brothers for the Struggle, K-Chill, and, you know, they had conquered Cleveland. You know what I mean? So that was the thing, like talent shows, and we put out our local tape, Faces of Death, and after we did that it was like man now what else could we do right we got we got to get out of here to to fulfill our dream had you guys seen faces of death at that time the uh the vhs tape that was i feel like so many people from our childhoods remember seeing this at some point it was a bunch of like murders and deaths but in retrospect it was fake yeah but it seemed pretty terrifying to me as a young kid it was terrifying to me too you know what i'm saying Like, yeah, it was that was some scary shit.

5:30Crazy Bone put that on the table. Faces of death. And, you know, but yeah, man, that's what that was the humble beginnings. We had to get the hell out of Cleveland to just to be to to be seen. right yeah definitely and would you say that you guys were like influenced by la and the west coast in particular is that was that a cleveland thing or was that you guys just sort of borrowing elements of it because i remember as a young kid maybe it's just me but i like it took me a while to figure out that you guys were not la rappers because like stylistically when i'm looking at it i'm thinking as like a really young dumb kid i'm thinking that you guys seemed kind of like la coded but like i don't know looking back on that was that a particular and then once you guys signed to easy and everything that kind of like made it make sense that this felt like a natural fit yeah that made everybody thought because of easy e we was from the west coast but like i said we went through every fad man like the dancing the um the african bambada the medallions and all that type shit um and man we was just by the time nwa came out 88 86 87 whenever that was we was junior high school you know i mean so that's what we gravitated to because that's what we was doing when dope man hit the streets that's what you know that's how we was getting money you know what i'm saying like that's how we was able to afford jordans and and and and jogging suits and and LL Cool J jackets and things like that, troops and all that.

7:09But, yeah, that's what it was. Like, Cleveland, nine times out of ten my generation, you a hustler coming from Cleveland. That was the culture at the time? The culture, yeah. That was the crack epidemic. That was the height of it. You didn't really have gangs at that time in Cleveland? We didn't have gangs. You know what I mean? We had streets that I'm on We on 99. If you have 93rds, we fell out sometimes, but it wasn't Blood Crip or Vice Lord or nothing like that. It was just like, get this money. And that's what we was doing because that's what it was. Colors came out, Nino Brown, all that. So that's what we was mocking.

7:53So when our decision came down to which coast we wanted to go to, we wanted to be with Eazy-E. Because that's where we dressed the khakis. So after L.L. and them late 80s, then when N.W.A. took over and you was able to cuss on the record and it was normal, that's what we wanted to do. Damn, so you remember a time before you had ever heard anybody cuss on a record, huh? Yeah, I mean, they used to make us clean our shit up. You know what I mean? They'd be like, man, we're going to let y 'all in the talent show, Bon, but y 'all can't cuss. I'm like, all right, well, we'll clean it up and try to clean it up.

8:37Okay, just to stay on Cleveland for a second, like I'm from right outside Boston, and Boston has always stood out to me as like damn, probably like one of the biggest cities in America that really has had so little of an impact hip-hop-wise. Like it just somehow, it's right there, right next to New York and Philly and shit, but just like zillion legendary rappers out of New York and Philly and then somehow Boston just always lagged behind like crazy. And I never, you know, there's a bunch of different factors, but, like, do you feel like there's a reason why Cleveland never became, like, a consistent source of, like, new rappers?

9:17Well, I think we just didn't have the resources, man. It wasn't there, you know what I mean? Like, it's Ohio, Boston, that's more government. That's more, you know, Supreme Court and all that, you know, heavy on the police, heavy on the prejudice and things like that. So when hip hop was making its way, it was like that. It was it was it was rebuked. They didn't want that. You know what I'm saying? So it took a while. It took us to come to California to bring it back. Right. We was the very first major video that happened in Cleveland. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like you guys are just like way too talented.

9:58It's just even at a time like that when it was kind of difficult for word to travel, it was just like you guys just like stood out and were so unique for that time that there's no way that the labels weren't going to figure out what was going on. Yeah, they didn't start taking trips down to Cleveland until after we came out. You know what I mean? So we definitely put the city on the map. Right. And made people take a look. definitely so do you remember like the early days when like labels first made contact with you or was it easy himself it was like the first label connected person that met up with you guys and had a conversation yeah well when we came out here like we left we left cleveland with easy in mind he was feuding with the dog pound and we was like he was the underdog so who would we rather to be with the boss the uh you know the ceo and that's because that's what i i admire you know i liked uh lil j from rap a lot i was looking at russell simmons you know i mean like i was looking at those guys so us being from the streets in the streets at that time it was just a natural fit to go find easy e hey you kind of figured out that easy was like the real gangster of that whole time period because that's what you hear a lot i mean that was the word on the streets he was the man you know what i'm saying so yeah when shit we was like i mean but ice cube was the favorite rapper though you know what i'm saying but then and then snoop is just so swaggy tall and shit with the fro you know it was like they all had different value they were bringing to the table you know right right but yeah but it was it was the west coast for us all day so what was that What first meeting was EZ like?

11:46I mean, well, first we talked to him on the phone. You know what I mean? Like we called his office a thousand times in a day, trying to get some attention from them. And then we finally had to hustle back to Cleveland because he was doing the show. And at that show, we was able to get on because we was doing our thing already in Cleveland. We was known. You know, we was doing our shit big time in Cleveland with the faces of death and all that. So when we finally met Eazy-E backstage, he was like, hey, man, y 'all the ones was on the phone I was talking to on the phone and all that. And it was like the setting that night.

12:29Eazy-E had about a thousand rappers in there, everybody trying to get on. You know what I mean? And we just when we took off, we shut it all the way down. So what, you guys really stood out amongst the thousand rappers that were trying to get on in that environment? Oh, yeah. It was me and Busy got backstage. And I saw Yellow in the hallway. And when I saw Yellow, I just start rapping. And then he peeked his head out the door with all that other confusion going on with people trying to show them what they was doing. And then when he stuck his head out, he was like, hey, man, y 'all them niggas, right?

13:09We like, yeah. and then he was like, well, when you wanna come back? I mean, when you wanna come to California? We like, right now. He like, I gotta finish up this tour, and when I get back off tour, I'ma send for y 'all. And that was about a month, two months, so we still didn't think we was in there. Cause you didn't know if he was just being nice or what, right? We didn't know if he was bullshitting us or what, but you know, eventually he called, and we was one-way bus tickets back to California. It was a trip there, one-way bus tickets, trip home, one-way bus tickets, and trip back, one-way bus tickets.

13:49It's like everything back then was impossible compared to how easy things are today in terms of being able to buy a flight online on your phone in two seconds or you want to get in touch with a famous rapper, you could DM them, post an Instagram reel or like tag them or you know like all these things that like are just make everything so much more frictionless but like at that time you just had to stalk them down and get in their face you know you had you had to take that trip yeah we was what 18 19 years old on a 3 000 mile mission you know what i'm saying and not knowing where we was gonna end up at so and you were homeless in la for a little while before you we was homeless like we i mean we didn't have a place to that was ours that we could stay but rest in peace my homeboy don you know he let us camp out in his little in his garage slash shelter whatever that was so we was able to get out of the streets but it was in the little shack that we we stayed in right that's crazy so then by the time uh you you easy gets you out to la and then you just get just get in the studio and get to recording Yeah, well, we got out here.

15:04We left November 23rd, 1993. We was homeless for about two months. Then we went back. And then when Easy East sent for us, we went straight in the studio. He was doing the end of the world video the day we pulled up with him shaky and cocaine. They were shooting the video. So all our little knapsacks and shit was lined up against the wall waiting for him to put us in the hotel. We went to the studio the next day. A week later, we had an EP done, you know. And in June, so in about a three, four month period, we had recorded Creeping On to Come Up and Have for East 1999. Right. So getting there in January, in June, our album was out in platinum.

16:00Right. And was there like an overall sense of like how classic or like unique or important this music was at the time? Like did you get it or did it only start to make sense down the road after? I don't think it dawned on us. Easy E knew. He was like, man, y 'all are different because we wanted to battle rap. We wanted to rap against whoever he was beefing with. We wanted to have at it, but he would always make us sing. He'd be like, man, do that harmony shit y 'all be doing. You know what I mean? So he sang that, and at the time, we was still Bone Enterprise. We had a song called Thugs in Harmony.

16:40Right. You know, and he was like, well, that's y 'all name right there tried to get us to drop the bone and be Thugs in Harmony, but Bone was our last name. That's how we had, you know, that was the family name was Bone, so it ended up being Bone Thugs-In-Harmony, but Eazy-E made that Thugs-In-Harmony stick. Right. No, 100%. Did you get to see the wild side of Eazy? Like, were you shocked by his lifestyle at all? Not at all, man. I mean, I was shocked because it wasn't all that. You know what I mean? it was like we was in the studio man he kept us away from everybody we had we was with the black hole of watts you know what i'm saying and a couple other you know uh cocaine a butter loss sometimes you know i'm saying but at the same time he he put us straight to work and what i saw from easy he was a family man you know i mean like we we'd go places with him and he'd be playing with kids and you know what I mean and I had my son out here with me so that's what I saw I saw him he wasn't like it wasn't like he was a jokester man he played pranks on people and shit like that yeah and I guess you got to see the a bit older a little bit more sophisticated version of him whereas like a lot of the craziest like NWA lore is that early segment of his career you guys kind of linked up a little bit later.

18:16We didn't see the pool parties that everybody was bragging about. Really? Okay. We didn't see all that. But the women was after him though so we saw that too. Do you think that when the story of L.A. rap gets told that Eazy gets his just due? Or do you think sometimes he gets marginalized a little bit when they tell that story? I mean, he definitely get marginalized because of the way he died. Right. You know what I mean? Because it was the HIV and things like that, so they look over him. But truthfully, I don't really say, I mean, you got Ice-T and King-T and, you know, rappers like that that was out here banging like Eazy-E was.

19:04But to me, he responsible for the success of West Coast hip hop, L.A. L.A. hip hop, brother. Yeah. No, for sure. Yeah. AIDS being such a mysterious force at that time, it kind of there was an extent to which it just didn't get memorialized in the way that maybe it should have. In the same way that like when Tupac dies, he goes down in a blaze of glory. You know, it's like people are used to the story of somebody getting shot and losing their life, whereas like the AIDS thing was just a little bit muddy at the time. But that to me was kind of like my first hip hop death. I think I was in like fifth grade and it just was like this reality check of like, damn, these dudes that you're obsessed with are, you know, this is a delicate situation.

19:57This could go down. Yeah, well, my first hip-hop death that I remember real vividly was DJ Skylar Rock. Oh, really? Yeah, BDP. When he got killed, that was big in the hood. Like, man, he got killed. You can't be out there at this party if you ain't strapped, you know what I mean? It was wild like that. But, yeah, AIDS was taboo. and everybody was scared that, you know, if you touch somebody, they thought you would get it, you know what I'm saying? So we didn't have the education that we had now. But E died so fast, though, man. That's why we – it's still puzzling to this day. You know, one month we was in New York.

20:43We was in New York at the tunnel, and Easy E and Ice Cube had hooked up, you know, And they was talking about reconciling, getting back together and all this type of stuff. And when we got back from New York, which was like after Christmas, around New Year's, the change of the year, he went to the hospital for the coughing and all that. And we thought he was going to get better. But that was one month he was still in the hospital. Second month he was diagnosed full-blown AIDS. and then the third month he was gone so it was like that that transition happened so fast it it spooked everybody we thought our we thought it was over with right damn that must have been a crazy time yeah and we you know as soon as you get on the person who took you out of the hell you living in yeah just gone and so did that like how would you describe the impact that that had on you you guys career-wise at that time, as well as, you know, emotionally, losing this guy who was like a mentor to you?

21:49I mean, he was our mentor. Like, he took us everywhere he was going, you know what I mean? He had braiding his hair like us and all that. So we was left. I went back to Cleveland for a little while, you know what I mean, because I thought it was over with. and you know by him teaching us the game like we kind of felt like we know we was just out here by ourselves and it wasn't no we didn't have no guidance like bone thugs and harmony story is probably when we do tell our story the stuff that you see that we had to go through because we didn't had that protection you know it was it was it was real street life living we was we was collecting money that we never had went from uh food stamps to a three hundred thousand dollar eighty five thousand dollar check you know I mean now you in the hood and you got this money and I was like and we toting pistols and we doing all kind of stuff to just what we thought that street life was you know we didn't have nobody to help us guide us in no type of way so you had all that money and you're just hanging out in the hood because you just feel like you don't even know what life would be like if you were to go post up in the nice part of town or did you feel like that was just where you wanted to be because it's where you felt comfortable i mean that's where we wanted to be like me myself personally i bought a house immediately you know what i mean so and it was in a nicer, you know, University Heights, Ohio is where I bought my first house.

23:30But you're still in the hood, though, you know what I mean? Like, you ain't got nobody giving you information like, yo, man, you know, leave the hood. Don't go out there with all your jewelry. Don't, you know, you're a target now. Right. So we didn't know that, so we was in the thick of it. Was it crazy because you guys sided with EZ so much that there's all these other labels or music moguls or whatever who would probably want to sign you guys, but you guys kind of chose your side, and you would feel almost disloyal if you were going and f***ing with somebody that EZ got along with during his life.

24:11Was that ever an issue? Yeah, I mean, we loyal to EZ to this day. I rock with Lil' EZ. E like that's my little brother you know I mean but yeah it was it was crazy man that's how we got you know when E died everybody came everybody wanted bone they didn't just you know they couldn't get us because we was we was loyal but Flesh wasn't signed to uh Eazy E because he was going through his thing with the laws and stuff like that so um uh leor coin and dmc from run dmc they pops up at my house trying to sign bone but i parlayed that into a def jam deal for flesh you know i mean so you had a little j from rap a lot courting flesh you know i'm saying like trying to get bone thugs in harmony you know it was just like it was it was an opportunity that because some things could have happened with suge you know i mean but we was just like no we rock with e you know i mean and we stayed at ruthless until what that thing like 2002 and you know until the wheels fell off which is like a full six years after you passed right yeah um and so How would you describe Ruthless at that time?

25:34Because it was his widow who was running things, right? Right. It was her. And then not only, it wasn't just her, though. It was, it went through the courts. I remember Ron Sweeney. I remember Michael Klein. I remember them fighting over the company. So our money was on pause for a long time. You know what I mean? Like, we was able to do shows, and we was getting paid handsomely. but as far as getting our royalties and things like that and having some type of foundation, they were scrapping over that company for a long time. Definitely. And so what had to actually happen before you decided that Ruthless just wasn't going to work out?

26:21Did they go bankrupt or some shit? No, I highly doubt that she could ever go bankrupt. He was platinum, NWA was platinum. What's my homegirl's name? J.J. Fad was platinum. A Bud of Law was platinum. He didn't have money problems. But would you say it was mismanaged over there? Yeah. I mean, I just think it was a lot of mismanagement, you know. You know, God bless the dead, but Jerry Heller with Eazy-E was going through with him. You know, he was opening his eyes to how business, you know, because he came from the streets. And all of a sudden, he got all this platinum shit going on. So it took him a while.

27:11It was us that he was protecting. He wanted our deals to be better than a dog pound, his words. Better than, you know what I mean, better than where he started from. and that's what it was, man. It was a lot of mismanagement, and it was a lot of just, you know, what the game is, man. A lot of thievery, a lot of lying, a lot of wool over the eyes. People don't want to teach you the business so they can fuck you out of the business. But do you look back at that time period where you guys were sticking with Ruthless, but maybe Ruthless is not giving you all the opportunities and all the firepower that you need, do you look back at that with a little bit of resentment?

27:56Just because those really were the prime years of your career where y 'all needed to be on go in order to really capitalize off the opportunity. I mean, I point no fingers at nobody. You know what I'm saying? Because for one, we kept it moving. You know what I mean? I immediately went and got a Mo Thug production deal. You know what I'm saying? So we had Mo Thug. We kept putting out albums. I went and got solo deals and things like that. So if we was waiting on them for a bone situation of any magnitude, we were still busting plays on the side, going on tour, touring with Keith Sweat and Mary J.

28:43Blige and all that. That was us putting our best foot forward to keep our dreams alive. So, you know, it could have been a lot better. We could have got a lot more support. But, you know, the man was gone. The visionary was gone. Yeah, like I feel like that's something that we've all kind of accepted at this point that like with no Jay-Z, there is no Rockefeller, right? Without 50 Cent, what the f*** is it doing? Without that figurehead, there just isn't really any hope for this label to be able to sign artists. Because any artist who's signing Ruthless, they're signing Ruthless because they believe in Eazy-E.

29:26If you sign a 1017, it's because you believe in Gucci Mane and what he represents and the promotion that he's going to be able to give you and shit like that. I don't think we'll ever see. Some of the oldest labels, the real deal, like label labels were able to kind of like persevere and become giants. But as far as like regular hip hop labels, I don't think we've ever seen any of them like outlive the founder. No, they haven't. Yeah. We ain't never seen that before. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, once the vision is gone, man, you got to have vision out here, man. And if the person who dressing and had the image and the sound and the image, once that was gone, you know, we was just fortunate enough to have E put us around a team with DJ Unique and Rhythm D and all these other producers that he put us with that we became family with.

30:26So our foundation was set. He set us up the right way. But, you know, as far as new artists, every new artist that came through there had issues. yeah i mean it's kind of crazy like just the the whole idea of like being able to like outlive your physical body like i was at this like kids um sort of like picnic festival type thing with my daughter and uh there was like a booth set up that was like for snoop dogs like kid brand right and like a guy comes out in a dog costume and he like performs a song but it's like a snoop dog like verse just playing like doing like a kid song and he dances around and he like pretends to rap along to the song or whatever and i'm just watching it and i'm kind of thinking like this is sort of genius because like realistically snoop dog is an old man but he through the the rap name that he chose and shit like he has this like brand that could be something beyond just him you know and like if he if he builds it up and it's a very competitive marketplace but if that became a thing that's how snoop dogg could live on to like future generations even once he's gone which is kind of a it's a crazy idea because i feel like bone thugs as a brand could almost do that too well you know speaking of snoop dogg like i watched snoop dogg you know what i mean like i watched his move from from uh from the dreads to everything like to me he was the master of reinventing himself you know i mean so being cool with snoop i just always just watched him and you know you borrow from the best you know what i'm saying so yeah bone thugs and harmony can easily transition into cartoons and and things like that the one thing that was good about us we never over flooded the market you know i mean we always had this mystique this mysterious of because we wasn't all the way in the industry like that.

32:36So we was always in the cut but sold just as many records as the heavy hitters. We didn't get the TV time and all the other tools that everybody else had to keep their fame going. Our shit was just straight skills. Skills, style, and just having something that nobody couldn't. They tried to mimic but couldn't. It's probably part of why it still has so much like cultural resonance is because it never felt truly blown out, you know? Right. Yes. I think it's still a lot for Bone to do. You know what I mean? Like our biopic and all the things that's still yet to come. Right. You know what I mean? So it wasn't all crammed into a 10-year period.

33:24we've been able to stretch it out and it's still just tons of new avenues yeah no for real because like i remember like back in the day when you guys were kind of like signing additional members and stuff it did kind of seem like that for a minute like damn it's like bone thug is going to be like the power rangers where like at at some point there's like another bone thug who just like enters the group and then like that's how they continue to have like a like a like a team regardless even it's not the original team i don't know right i mean well you know we the five is the five right yeah bottom line you know that's what they want to see at the end of the day the five is the five but the world accepted more thugs yeah i told them bro with the bro with the bone more thugs gonna follow me and it was gonna be some more talent because we always had the talent with us.

34:17There was so much talent surrounding us in Cleveland it felt like my duty to put those guys on. You know those singers those rappers those managers we was working with things like that so it took our thing took on this own world I felt like outside of the industry. Like we say we wasn't industry we was in the streets. Right definitely. Like was there something about y 'all that kind of drew you to some of the like darker images and iconography because i feel like that's something that always kind of made y 'all stand out like image wise too is that there was this sort of dark haunting vibe about it i mean we wanted to uh i mean just the bone period the skull imagery period always gave us that miss that mystical type of what is these guys really beyond, you know, and we grew up to, like I said, every fad.

35:17We, the horror rap, the horror rap from when Ghetto Boys was doing it. But did you, so you went through that fad, but by the time we got to know Bone Thugs, y 'all had not, you kind of moved past that? Yeah, I mean, we played with the Ouija board, you know what I mean? It was, we bought it from Toys R Us, you know what I'm saying? So it wasn't like we always been spiritual. We grew up Christianity, Baptist, Jehovah Witness, and all that type of stuff. But if we wrote a song about it, if we lived through it, we wrote songs about it. So everything we experienced, we put on record. Definitely. Do you, like, okay, what year would you say was the most insane in terms of you guys being at your peak, most famous, most difficult to leave the hotel?

36:13What was the year that was the most just out of control? Man, after Crossroads, bottom line. Yeah, wow. Because we had first of the month first, and then when Remix to Crossroads came, it was like you couldn't go to the grocery store like that. That transcended rap. Yeah, that put us on a whole other level. So 96 to 99, it was hard to move around. And that's like right after you lose easy and then you kind of like go back to Cleveland and stuff too. How did that feel to have such a horrible thing happen and then to have such positive things come so soon after? I mean, that's what the whole – how could I say it?