 All right, welcome back to the 85 Self Show Backwoods Lounge. We live here at the One Music Fest with none other than one of hip hop's greatest. The Jadakiss. One of the coldest niggas to ever do it. My boy, Tagstone, said, you can raise a child off Jadakiss lyrics alone. None other than Jadakiss. And I got my dirty boy partner here with me today. My brother in radio. Come on, man. What's up, then? This kid spent 50 years of hip hop, bro. Yeah, it's lit. Why? There's a whole lot of hip hop shit going on right now. How y'all doing today, man? Amazing, man. Backwoods backstage, one music fest. How you feeling? Feeling great. Whether it's great, you know, my people looking beautiful. What more can you ask for? What more can you ask for? We here live at the One Music Fest. Now, kids, you know for putting something in the air, man, and it's only right that you come over here and talk some shit at the Backwoods lounge. No doubt. How long you been fucking with the Backwoods, G? A few years now, you know, started like everybody else. I started with Phillies, then Duggies, and then I transformed over to the Backwoods. Rest in peace to Biggie the first time ever smoked the Backwoods with Biggie. We had never even seen or heard of Backwoods, and I think you may see Gutter roll up some Backwoods and we smoked with them, so we knew about them. Well, I say like the last five, last 10, seven to 10 years, I've been going strong with Backwoods. Everybody, like, graduates the Backwoods and smokers. You know, you got to graduate the Backwoods. That's when you know you're a real smoker. You got to get professional in rolling Backwoods first. I was about to say, what was that like learning? Rolling it ain't the easiest thing in the world. You got to really be a roller. Be skilled, because the edge is off, you know what I'm saying? You got to win it, and pay for talent. Right, you know what I'm saying? You know? That's the whole point. I've been working real closely with the people over there, Backwoods. I got some coming out exclusively for the streets. They call it easy roll. I mean, I might just sell a pack of Corners. All the Corners that get cut off, I might just put all of them together and make one flat leaf. You know, I'm just kicking some ideas around right now. That's fine. The kids, I wanted to ask you this. Hip hop just had its 50th birthday, man. Yes, 50 years of hip hop. They were honoring some of the legends up there, but a lot of names got left off. Did you see anybody up there, or did you see anybody who got left off that you felt might have should have got honored on the 50th anniversary? Because everybody got their OGs and their babies. I've seen a lot of people get left off. Yeah. I think people got sidetracked with the whole 50 year, you know, the whole thing and let some greats that shouldn't have slipped through the cracks. They didn't get the acknowledgement that they're supposed to get. I think that's always gonna happen though. Yeah. Especially in our John Ruff, our people, we, you know, we don't tend to big up people to they no longer here or to something happens, you know what I mean? For the most part. You know, other genres of music, they would have made sure they covered everybody. Yeah. Who's somebody that you would have wanted to honor? Like, if you had, like, I just want to get this person, they flowers now. So many I could name, but, you know, dudes like Red Man, Scarface. If I could go on, I could stay in for hours and name dudes that I feel are underappreciated. Yeah. But, you know, hip hop is a individual sport. Music is like something that whoever you like, that's your personal, you listen to it in your personal space and you feel a way about them that nobody can feel about it. So that's the beauty, beautiful thing of music, you know what I mean? You get in a zone or in a mood, you could throw on whoever the fuck you want to listen to and enjoy it for yourself. But you got to be a part of so many great moments and hip hop for the last shit, however. Big years of hip hop. Shit most of it. You've been there for a lot of it, man, a lot of great moments. So what are some of those moments that stand out to you as personal favorites, man? Of course, you know, signing with Bad Boy, being able to meet big, going on tour with DMX, just learning the game, just being a fly on the wall in certain studio sessions, being able to be on the Life After Death double CD that didn't have that many features. So, you know, being young in the game and being honored to be on there was a big accomplishment that we felt. Being on Hove's album back in the early album during the Reservoir Dogs song. Exactly. Like, that's what I'm saying, these are moments that are gigantic. Yeah, those are like priceless. And being part of one of the most... It's pre-social media. Yeah, and they... So those are things that you just have to keep up here because there was no phones, no Johnny Nuneses. Yeah. You know what I mean? And then you got to be a part of one of the most legendary groups in hip hop. Come on, now. My brothers, you know that. Alla Wax for life. I was gonna say, you know, hip hop has transitioned so much over the last 50 years. What's something, you know how big you say like, we never thought I'd take it this far. What's something that you didn't see coming, that you were like shocked that happened? Maybe a trend or something switching up in the game where you like, dang, I didn't expect this from hip hop. It could be good or bad. I mean, just how they implement hip hop in everything that they try to sell or that they're trying to... The marketing of it. That they're trying to market or promote. It started from, that's just a bunch of noise and a bunch of thugs and a bunch of hoopla. They need that same noise and hoopla to move the world. Yeah. You know what I mean? No matter if it's cell phones, automobiles, sneakers, fast food, they call us for everything. Yeah man, Jadakiss, nigga, the walls would never lift up. And the floor would never do a 360, my nigga. Who else is gonna have enough code that they gotta use the scale that they weigh the wells? And even entrepreneurship, like, you into KISS Cafe. You got that going on, like a lot of, you see a lot of artists now going to black businesses and making sure they invest and they money differently. Like the cars and clothes is cool. I see a lot more artists graduating to entrepreneurship and buying real estate. Tell me about that and your question, what you got going on? You know, rap is a stepping stone. Of course, when you're young, you're gonna blow some money and have some fun and do some reckless things. But as you, if you able to have a career and, you know, and be in it for a minute, you wanna start graduating and doing some things, owning some stuff. You know, we got, I think five. We got six juice bars. Stiles and his wife got the pharmacy for life. You know, the supplements is doing well. Then I got the KISS Cafe coffee with my son and my dad. You know, the hip hop industry could teach you a lot if you just keep your head up, eyes and ears open about ownership. You go through so much stuff with clearances and things like that with the label that you should get to a point in your life where you wanna own everything. Yeah. That your name is owner, that you invest in. You wanna try to be the sole owner, own a big percentage of it or own the whole thing. Come on, I love me. Like you said, hip hop is like y'all, a lot of artists first introduction to entrepreneurship and real business, yeah. So it teaches you a lot. I like to the trends that I'm seeing of like artists going, taking more control of their health and being more owner, like you said, the juice bar. Cause you know, hip hop at one point, it was all about drugs, how much lean you could drink. Excess, yeah. And now to see artists like. Everybody talking about getting to the back, but if you ain't healthy, it's gonna leave the back for somebody else to get to. What was that moment, or when was that moment that you realized that? Or like, in your life? For one, I got five kids. Three of them is very young. Two nine year olds and one eight year old daughter. So you just want to be able to go to the parking, not pull a hamstring going on the slide with them anyway, but just traveling and you know, being up late, not getting to sleep, you need, we were able to bump into the juice bar and learn about taking care of your body. We all have mothers and fathers, grandmothers, aunties that got high blood pressure or some of them type of ailments. We just trying to lower that as much as we could in our communities. You know what I mean? If we could get one person at a time that it's hard to just switch how you live or how you eat, but if you could just be mindful of it, then you'll start doing things a little differently. Baby steps. Let me, you talking about health, right? Now I'm a bald nigga. I've been bald, right? But you were bald for so long and then you showed up with braids, halal and intact. So you was just bald and you wanted to be bald? I'm hollered. That's a big question. I'm thinking you're bald because you was going bald. That was a big question. Yeah, you weren't even bald no more. It was braids. And Y.O., that was like a, that was like the thing that, you know, X was like the king, the icon of the town and bald heads was Onyx, bald heads was right. And I always told Stiles and Lucho down the line when y'all shit's going, I'm growing my head back. They used to be like, nah, he wouldn't have, cause they are afros, high tops. Now I'm like, yo, it's gonna be a time, y'all shit's gonna go, I'ma let my head grow back. Fellas, what if that's the key to preserving your hairline? You just gotta be bald in your younger twenties and save your shit. Reverse. For later. Just reverse. If you don't push your hairline back. Now what you talked about being a dad, I wonder like what has been a father that showed you or taught you differently about yourself? Like just from being a man in general. Jaded Kiss is my stage name, it's my job. It's a time when you gotta turn that shit off. When you around your mother, your family, dudes you grew up with, you know, things of that nature, you go back to just being Jason. You know what I mean? Kisses for when the lights in that, when the cameras go on and they hook up the mics, that's when I go to Kiss for other than that. I'm just J, I'm just regular Jason, you know? Kiss, whatever. And when you keep that balance, you be all right. Kids are the honest, my most honest people in the world. They gonna tell you they hate your sneakers, they hate that song. You know what I mean? It's with no balance, so I try to use my kids, my younger ones and my older ones. I don't listen to them solely, but I take their advice and see what's going on in their world. Yeah. Man, you've said so much cold shit on records, so many of the coldest bars and all of this shit. Do you ever put pressure on yourself to be like, nah, I ain't say enough shit on this one? I ain't say that. Yeah, I mean it gets a time when you feel like, see I love music so much, I can just hear something and make me wanna go to the store. And I think as long as I feel like that, I always wanna create. But yeah, sometimes I get on my like, you gotta go harder, man, going in. I throw a hole. I have something that I think is crazy, like nah, you gotta be crazier than that. Man, you be saying some crazy shit. Only put the coke in the tires if they mission. Mission. Feds sending niggas way up by Lake Michigan. Come on, man, come on, man. That shit crazy, come on, though. My fucks will get carried out. I go way back. Knock yourself out. She used to model for a year and a half. Legendary. Why she stop? See you ain't saying enough, kid. Why she stop? Cause if she take her pins out there and a half fall down to a cab, I don't know if it was spending too much money on hair products and she was breaking even. Something happened, she had to stop. She had to stop, though. Come on, man. Yeah, man, cause you know her man, he was the chef up north. And he would've got left, but that's, you know. Bro, it's like you listen to this shit and it's like you got so many real life hood problems in there, bro. Even when you said the niggas had the Sprint cell phone and they was jerking it. Every nigga can relate to this shit, bro. That's what you trying to do. You gotta try to say the shit that touch home. Right. Everybody can't afford a Ferrari or everybody might not know about buying art or things of that. Yeah. But if you say everybody been behind on the bill or everybody knows some real life shit or everybody had to make a grilled cheese or some shit like that, it's gonna hit, it's gonna hit. Man, I appreciate you. Even with the rich people. I appreciate you dropping that type of shit in there and showing the growth and showing the progression. Like in the music, you still say gangsta shit but you still have, you still make sense and you still give niggas like that direction to level up. Like take my little man to the Gucci store and just show him the loafers. Show him the loafers, man. Don't even, even if he don't want the loafers. Show him, man. Show him. Show him. Introduce him to some shit. It's a new scene before. He didn't think about it. Come back down there and grab him next time. I just wanted to let you know that that type of shit don't go unnoticed and even the cash from the deepest, dirtiest parts of the South, man, we appreciate you always fucking with the South and jumping on them records and shouting us out and showing us love, man. Cause there's a lot of niggas from a lot of different places that didn't fuck with what we had going on. It's for a Southern hip hop, but man you have features from rappers all over the game from all over the South. So from the South, just wanted to make sure you know that you love and you respect it out. Kiss, love. Jena, big love. For hip hop. 85 South show, Backwood's Lounge, nothing other. Jena kiss, Jena ex, we in here. Come on, man.