STILL TOP BILLIN’: MILK DEE
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK | MILK DEE
INTERVIEW TERRELL “REALIFE” BLACK
Brooklyn’s Milk Dee, formally one half of hip hop duo Audio Two, is arguably most known for their hit single “Top Billin’”, which is the most sampled hip hop song of all time. The mc, producer and label owner has contributed in one way or another to countless hits, including 50 Cents “I Get Money”. We sit down with the legend to discuss his definition of success, still getting the itch to write new music, why he’s “Still Top Billin’” and more.
“I feel like in my time, there was good music, there was great music, and there was wack music. And I feel like it’s the same now, there’s some great stuff, there’s some good stuff, and there’s some wack stuff.” - Milk Dee
VALIDATED: For anyone not familiar with you, can you give us a little bit of background?
MILK DEE: All right, so I’m Milk Dee from a group called Audio Two. I’m best known for my song “Top Billin”, which has been sampled—well, the most sampled Hip-Hop song, it has been sampled over 300 times, including “I Get Money” by 50 Cent and artists R Kelly, Biggie, Puffy, Dr. Dre, so a lot. Actually, there’s a new French Montana record that’s getting ready to come out, he used it. I just got the clearance for that yesterday, so that should be out soon.
So that’s what I’m best known for, but I’m also a producer, I produced for MC Lyte, I’ve done some for Mary J. Blige, and Sinead O’Connor, a lot of people don’t know that I did the Eamon song, “I Don’t Want You Back”, which was huge, it was a big pop record.
VALIDATED: How long have you been producing?
MILK DEE: For 30 years, I started producing right in the beginning. My first record came out in 1984.
VALIDATED: What would you say your earliest memory of Hip Hop culture is?
MILK DEE: Actually, it’s funny that you asked me that, I just did a career day for one of my kids, and I had all of my stuff out, and that was one of the questions that I was asked. When I was in the 5th grade, I heard the Busy Bee and Kool Moe Dee battle, and that’s what made me fall in love with Hip Hop, that’s when I decided that that’s what I wanted to do. So, Busy Bee, Kool Moe Dee, also The Cold Crush Brothers was on that tape, Grandmaster Caz.
VALIDATED: So, how did you actually get your start as an artist?
MILK DEE: Well, it’s a long story, but basically what happened is, my father is an entrepreneur, and he had clubs back in the 70s and 80s. He’s the type of cat where he won’t take you serious unless you show him that you’re trying to do it. So, I was telling him, I’m going to be a rapper, he was like, “Yeah, all right,” he was checking me like that. And what happened is they had this rap contest, Cleanup New York Rap Contest, and a friend of mine, King of Chill, you all might know who he is, he’s a producer. He did a lot of MC Lyte’s stuff, “Cha, Cha, Cha”, “Stop, Look, Listen”, a lot of Lyte’s stuff.
Anyways, King of Chill, he took me to the studio to record the demo for the Cleanup New York song. I sent it in and of course, I thought I was going to win, or I knew I was going to win, like, “Yo, I’m going to go ahead and win this,” but I didn’t. And they had this radio show, it used to come on Medgar Evers College, and they used to play demos, and then people would call in and they would rate it number one or whatever.
So, I mailed that demo to the radio station and they started playing it, and before you know it, it was like number one, this is like a college radio station, 87.1, one of those joints. I told my pops, I was like, “Yo, they playing my song on the radio,” and he was like, “Yeah, yeah.” And then one week before they stopped playing it, I finally got him to check it out, and that’s when he realized that I was serious.
So, he had a friend who had an independent label, and he took us over there, and that was my first record, we did a Christmas record on that label, it was called the “Christmas Rhyme”, and that’s how I got started, that was 1984 when a Christmas Rhyme came out. And then after that, I learned a lot from that situation, and basically, we were doing everything ourselves, my father was funding, we were going to the DJs, we were sending out records, and that’s what made us decide to start a label of our own—it was like, we’re doing all the work anyway, we might as well start our own label. So, that was a really important situation for us, because it was the first experience and it convinced us to start a label.
VALIDATED: How did the “Make It Funky” and “Top Billin” records come about?
MILK DEE: So, in 1985, that was my second record, we had a song called “I Like Cherries”, and we came across Daddy-O from Stetsasonic, and Daddy-O was familiar with “I Like Cherries”. And we all talked, and we decided we wanted to do another record that was similar to “I Like Cherries”. So, we got together with Daddy-O. Daddy-O was my mentor, and he’s really the one that got me into producing, and taught me how to produce. After my first record, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to get what I wanted unless I did it myself. So, that’s when we started, and we did that record with Daddy-O.
Now the funny story about “Top Billin” is, so I used to, I still do it, I just make beats and create stuff every day. So, “Top Billin” was something that I came up with just like, I said, every day I just worked on stuff, actually I was working on a remix for one of Lyte’s song called “Take it Lyte”. And I put it down, I recorded it, and when I let Daddy-O hear it, he was like, “Yo, this is the one right here,” he was like, “This is it.” I’m like, “Word?” He’s like, “This is it.” So, my pops really wasn’t feeling it, so he was like, “No, “Make it Funky” is the joint,” but Daddy-O loved “Top Billin” so much, we put it on the B side. And the B side wins again, so that’s how that happened.
VALIDATED: I don’t think that song will ever get old, that’s a classic.
MILK DEE: Yeah.
VALIDATED: Another classic is “I Get The Papers”. I watch videos, I’m big on videos, what can you tell us, that you remember about that video shoot, because I noticed there’s a lot of people in that video?
MILK DEE: Oh yeah, it was a lot of people—Malcolm Jamal Warner was in it, from “The Cosby Show”. Corey Glover from “In Living Color”, the rock band Living Color was in it. Scoob and Scrap. Master Ace was in it, Lyte was in it. Who else was in there? Yeah, it was a lot of people in it. A group called Aftershock was in it, and all of my boys, everybody was in there, Big Foot, Big V…
VALIDATED: What’s a memorable moment from that shoot?
MILK DEE: The thing about that video, which we had a ball doing that video, because it was like we were just having fun, we didn’t have a script, we were just like, “Yo, what areas could we go to? We just going to do the song, have fun,” we invited a lot of people. So, it was just like a fun thing, it wasn’t like a storyline or anything like that, we had a lot of fun. I can’t think of any memorable moments. Oh, I think Stevie D was in it too, from the “Force MDs”. I was a huge fan, or I am a huge fan of “Living Color”, and Cory is a friend of mine, so I was happy to get him in there, and the same with Malcolm.
Actually, we call ourselves “The Black Frat”, it’s all about getting money. I think I might’ve said it in the song, right? “I’m so fat, I’m in the black frat.”
VALIDATED: I think the last album I remember you dropping was—what album was that… “I Don’t Care”?
MILK DEE: So, we had the first album, which was, “What More Can I Say?” And that had “Top Billin” and “I Don’t Care” on it. And then there was the second album which was called “I Don’t Care”, that had “I Get the Papers” on it, “Get Your Mother Off The Crack”.
VALIDATED: Have you dropped anything else?
MILK DEE: So I had an EP after that, on American Recordings, but it’s solo, “Get Off My Log”, you might know that one, that was on there, and I had a joint with Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys, called “Spam” on it, so I had that. Then I had a couple of singles over the years, but I’ve been mostly producing since then.
VALIDATED: Do you still get the itch to write new music?
MILK DEE: You know, I do. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, more for a creative thing, it’s like I have a lot of stuff that I want to say, and actually, I have a bunch of songs that I recorded, I want to say hundreds, but a lot of songs that I’ve recorded over the years that I’ve never released, and when I let people hear them, they always say, “Oh, you got to release that.” So, I might do either a NFT, or a lost tape album, something like that. But I have a lot of new stuff that I would like to do.
It’s hard, you know what I mean? You’ve got to have your mind into it, it’s a lot of resistance, and when you’re young, it rolls right off, but as you start getting older, and cats start making you feel like you’re too old to do it, it’s like an internal battle that you have. So, that’s what you battle. But sometimes, and really, I’m getting to the point where I really don’t care, it’s like I just got to be creative, and I have some stuff that I want to say, so I ‘ll just do it, and, you know, whatever.
VALIDATED: Are you open to features with people?
MILK DEE: Absolutely, absolutely. I like a lot of the young cats. So actually, I work with a lot of young artists, and I’ve learned a lot from them, and they’ve learned some stuff from me as well.
VALIDATED: Being that you didn’t really go mega platinum, do you feel that you’ve reached success in your Hip-Hop career?
MILK DEE: I feel like every artist has a path, and every path is different. I didn’t have the platinum records like that in Hip Hop, but I have multi-platinum records in pop and other stuff that I’ve done. So, I have that, but I think that my path is unique, and to have a song like “Top Billin”, one of Rolling Stone’s top 50 Hip-Hop records of all time. The most sampled, it’s been about 35, 36 years since that song came out, and it still gets played a lot, and they keep sampling it. There’s nobody else, no other rapper that can say they have a song like that. So, although my path wasn’t multi-platinum records like that, I still contributed and I left a mark, and I did something that nobody else has done, so I’m cool, I’m cool with that.
VALIDATED: To me, that’s success, and you’re an inspiration, because you’re still valid, you’re still doing what you do, and like you said, you’re platinum, doing other things.
MILK DEE: Yeah, it’s like everybody’s thing is different. And another thing, just speaking about that, if I could only tell you how many songs that sample my song are multi-platinum, and platinum, I even got the Jay-Z and the Kanye joint, the “Ottis”. So, I’ll tell you a funny story, back in the days, they used to send you cassettes of the people that wanted to sample the joint, and you would either approve it or you could not approve it if you didn’t want to. And I used to actually listen to the songs and decide whether I wanted to clear the sample based on whether I liked the song or not, right? Which was stupid, to be honest.
And I got this song, it was a real—what I thought was a real corny pop song from England, and they sent it to me, and I was like, “What is this shit? .” And my pops was like—just to give you another example of something that I learned from my pops, my pops was like, ”You told them no, they can’t use it, that’s corny.” And my pops was like, “Why not?” He said, “First of all, if you’re trying to protect your fans or whatever, your fans will never hear this song anyway, that’s number one.” And he was like, “You never know, this record could sell a bunch of copies, and you could make a lot of money.” He said, “Why don’t you just clear it?”
I said all right, cleared the song, the song came out, sold 6 million copies, right. And from that point on, I decided that I’ll just clear it, cut the deal and clear it, I don’t have to hear the song, it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not, just clear it. So, that was when I started that rule, I don’t even…Like they sent me the French Montana joint yesterday, and I listened to it, but I don’t decide, just clear it, you know?
VALIDATED: Right, and I get what you’re saying, because regardless of how the song comes out, that’s not going to put a damper on your classics.
MILK DEE: You’re right, it’s not. It’s like I had this conversation in the barbershop, back when we could still go to the barbershop, it’s been about a year now. And they was talking about Michael Jordan playing baseball, and coming back to the Washington Wizards, that that stained his legacy. And I was like, “Come on, that’s crazy!”, and they were talking about the same thing with Mike Tyson. I’m like, “Mike Tyson knocked out 39 people, he still knocked them out.” You might say he was wilding out, but that doesn’t take away from Michael Jordan, it doesn’t take away from Mike Tyson, in my opinion.
And I feel the same way about this, like, what does that have to do with me? Like, they use my song, they’re paying me for it, my song is my song, you know? You get to a point where it’s a business thing. And the fact that I’m blessed, think about it, could you imagine if I’d turned down… I’m blessed like this, and I’m turning down samples?
VALIDATED: You’ve been in this game 30 plus years, and there’s been a lot of changes, from your perspective, what would you say happened to mainstream Hip-Hop?
MILK DER: Okay, I get asked this question all the time, and this is honestly how I feel. I feel like in my time, there was good music, there was great music, and there was wack music. And I feel like it’s the same now, there’s some great stuff, there’s some good stuff, and there’s some wack stuff. Now, what I don’t want to be, and I think that we can all become a victim of this, because we get used to what we like, I don’t want to be like my mom’s, like when I let my mother hear “Top Billin”, she said, “Oh, that sounds like trash, why does it sound like that? It’s just a beat, there’s no music, and why is it…? It sounds dirty.”
And I don’t want to be like those cats that when Motown came out, they said, “Oh, Motown was garbage.” And then when Gambling Hough, and Philly International, when that came out, they didn’t like it, because they were used to what they were used to. So, what I try to do is, I try to open my mind, and try to absorb. Sometimes it’s hard, because I’m not 17 years old, 20 years old anymore. So, we can’t relate, but I don’t think that we should shut them out and criticize them, because that’s what they did to me, and I don’t think it’s right. If people love it, then you have to try and understand why.
Now, if we get into like specific technique and stuff like this, yes, from my time, in order for somebody to consider you a rapper, you had to rhyme on beat, you know what I mean? So, when I hear cats rhyming offbeat, it throws me off, it’s like, “Yo, you’re not rhyming on beat,” and then also, a lot of the things they say I can’t relate to. Like I said, I’m not 20 years old no more. I have young children, so a lot of time… One of my daughters is 14. So, it’s like, “Okay, you’re going to have to explain this to me,” and I try to understand. I don’t get it, but I don’t like to criticize them. I can’t knock the hustle. Everything changes, it’s nothing constant but change, and music is a reflection of the times, right? It has been, these kids are dealing with a whole new set of issues that we didn’t even have to deal with.
VALIDATED: But if you think about it, the majority isn’t doing anything positive, so we’re glorifying something that really is not going to recycle, because if we’re going to glorify the stuff that doesn’t make sense, or the mumbling or whatever, just for… see, it’s like the narrative changed, the perspective change, everybody just wants the money now, it’s not about the culture, the soul of the music, the consciousness of the lyrics. So, like I have kids too, my son is 16, I have a 11-year-old, they listen to that, but how do we change that? How do we make it make sense?
MILK DEE: All right, so first of all, they’ll accuse us of the same things, right? My mother would say the same thing about what I was doing. Back then we use to talk about smoking weed or whatever, my mother was like, “Yo, why would you make a song called “Get Your Mother Off The Crack?” And we were talking about stunts and getting money, it was just a different kind of negativity right. Now, it seems like it’s more blatant, and it seems like, you know, when they’re talking about the pills, that seems worse than talking about weed, but that’s because we smoked weed, and they take pills, and to me pills are worse.
But I don’t think that it’s something that we can change, it’s going to just change. The only way we can change it is to educate the kids, and take them to a new level. As long as they’re thinking, and it’s not just… I mean, come on, look at this world we’re living in, right? The president, the government, the vaccine, all of this craziness that’s going on, all of that has to change. Music is a reflection of the times. The education system, go talk to some of these kids, they don’t even have to listen to Hip-Hop, have a conversation with one of them, and see if they make any sense. Some of them, they’ll have a whole conversation with you, and I’ll be like, “Yo, you’re not making any sense.”
They’re not even on drugs, so it’s the educational system, it’s a lot of things that contribute to it. I think the bright side, and what I choose to look at, is the fact that they’re making the money though. At least they’re getting the money. We could be going through this music and the whole nine, and they’re not making the money. So, they’re going to lift their families, and I would bet that some of these cats that are ignorant, and saying dumb stuff, number one, they’re not going to always say dumb stuff, they’re going to grow up, and their kids will be smarter than them, right? That’s my goal. I want all my kids to be smarter than me. So, hopefully they’re getting the money, and it’ll put them in a situation where their kids could be smarter, and it’ll help their families in the long run.
VALIDATED: Yeah, that makes sense.
MILK DEE: Yeah, I feel like everything has to, yo, this is nuts, this stuff that’s going on is nuts. And the crazy thing is we don’t even really—I don’t think we really, really understand what the kids are going through. I teach a class in Brooklyn one day a week, and I talked to the kids a lot, and yo, they’re lost, a lot of this stuff that’s going on, they don’t even know how to process it, and they’re having issues and problems that, to me, I’m thinking like, how could you have a problem sitting at home, going to school, all you got to do is turn on the computer, and then do your work, and you’re good. And to me that seems like a vacation, like, oh, bet, you don’t have to go in. But for them, not being able to be social, or being locked up in their room, or whatever, they having different issues.
VALIDATED: Right, they’re just now able to go to the parks and do stuff, because they were locked down.
MILK DEE: Yep, just like us. How about this, how many times did your kid let you hear something, and you never heard of that, you never heard of it before—like Juice World or something. When Juice World passed, I was like, “Who’s Juice World?” My daughter’s like, she’s crying, and I’m like, “What?”
VALIDATED: I’ve been through it, I’ve been through it.
MILK DEE: They know. We don’t know, they know. I had a guest come to one of my classes, now I didn’t know who he was, right? He came, whatever, the kids… my students, they don’t even respect me, they know who I am and everything, but they don’t really understand. And so he came, he respected me, he knows who I was, but I didn’t really know who he was, and the kids were going crazy, and I’m like “Yo, who is this kid?” I called my daughter, and I’m like, “Yo, I got this kid at the class,” and she was like, “Oh, make sure you get a picture with him, you got to get his autograph from me.” I’m like, “who is this guy?” So, they know, but we don’t, they’re teenagers.
VALIDATED: Yeah, some of the lingo, I don’t even be knowing.
MILK DEE: Yeah. I remember when somebody explained to me what THOT meant, I was like “Oh.” It was already out. I think it was getting old, and I’m like, “Yo, what is this?” I’m like, “Oh, okay.” It’s just a different generation. I feel like if we criticize them, number one, we’re doing what was done to us, and really, we’re holding ourselves back kind of.
VALIDATED: Right, I definitely don’t criticize, I definitely do have a preference, there’s some stuff that I won’t tolerate my son listening to, it's just simple. It’s just like when we was little, NWA, my mom was like, “Nah, get that out of here.” But certain stuff, it’s like, “Nah,” and we have this thing where I’m going to let you check out some stuff, as well as you letting me check out some stuff, so you know who’s who. You need to know certain voices when you hear them, like Rakim, or Kool G Rap, you should know who that is from the gate.
MILK DEE: Well, isn’t that what our parents did, right? When they were putting us on to Teddy Pendergrass or whoever, that’s the same thing. I do think that that’s something that we’re missing in hip hop, the history. So, with the museum, I think that’s going to help a lot of these young cats… It’s just my opinion, but I’m personally offended that they don’t have more knowledge of Hip-Hop history; I believe they should. You don’t have to know everything, but you should know some things, I know my Hip-Hop history, I know about the cats before me, Grandmaster Caz, and Cold Crush Brothers, and Kool Moe D, and all of those cats. A lot of them, I don’t know all of them, but I think it’s a good thing to have some history.
VALIDATED: And even if they don’t want to do the history part, the respect, it should always be respect. But you know what that goes back to? There’s no more structure, there’s no labels developing artists anymore.
MILK DEE: It’s going to come back around; I think it’s going to come back around. But one thing that we don’t want to accept, but is true, is the reason why they like that, is because of us. It’s because of me, because I’m talking about, “I get the papers, so I don’t care”, and” I get money”. And all of the stuff that we said, like , you all still talk about money, I talked about that 30 years ago. We did that, and if you think about it, we went through phases, right? We had the gangster rap, like you said, NWA, then we had some other gangster rap from New York, we had conscious rap, it’s just going to go around the circle. We’ll have conscious rap again, we’re going to have beats again, we’re going to have real beats again, we’re going to have lyrics again.
VALIDATED: So, what do you think about any people from our era that cross over or try to transition into what they’re doing now?
MILK DEE: I don’t see anything wrong with it, unless it’s wack. If it sounds good, then it’s good. If it’s wack. Okay, I’m a true believer in if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. So, me, personally, I couldn’t see myself making a stereotypical trap record, something that they’re doing now. I could probably come up with something or do something along that line that I would feel comfortable with, But me, I never did anything that sounded like anything anyway, that’s just my thing, I try not to imitate or duplicate anything, I try to be original, right? Which is another thing that got lost in the sauce.
I remember when originality was key, now, imitation is what… Like I had this kid in the class… The whole class is about branding and stuff, and he said that he wouldn’t wear the shirt that they came up with unless somebody else hot wore it. And I said, “You’re telling me that you’re a follower?” And he said, “Yeah.” And I’m like… Like it blew my mind, because I was always taught to be a leader, and not to be…
I think that that’s what they do now, so it’s like, oh, this dude has a song saying this, and this is what it sounds like, I want a song exactly the same. We choose our battles, what I do is, my young cats, when I get them in the studio, I try to instill what I can in them. And one of the things I try to instill in them… Number one, you can’t come in here writing the rhyme on the spot. I don’t accept that. I’m not wasting my time playing a beat over and over while you write your rhyme and get high or whatever you’re doing. There’s no writing on the spot here, and there’s no reading off the paper.
Yo, I try to instill in them, if you don’t have it memorized, then that means you didn’t practice it enough, you don’t know it good enough. And they say, “Well, Jay-Z, he comes off…” this is how I get them. “Jay-Z, he comes off the top, and so and so.” I said, “Okay, first of all, you’re telling me that Jay-Z is old school. So, is he old school, or come from the top, right?” And I say to them, “Well, if Jay-Z is coming off the top, and he has those type of skills where he can come off the top and it sounds dope and it’s convincing, imagine how it would sound if he practiced it, it would sound better. And you’re not Jay-Z,” that’s how I hit them.
If he practiced it, it’d probably sound better, and you’re not Jay-Z. So, you want to be Jay-Z, and I’m sure there was a time when Jay was practicing his rhymes. So, you try to instill some things in them, and a lot of times they’ll come back to me and be like, “You know what? You’re right, you’re right, my bad.” I’m like, “So what? If you practice it, it’s going to get worse? Like you’re wasting my time, I don’t know what you’re used to, but my time is money. I’m not sitting here holding your hand while you write your rhyme.”
Everybody’s a producer now, if you have a computer, you can record, you could make beats, here’s the beat, you got a mic, you got a computer, come see me when you think its ready, and I’ll let you know if it’s ready or not.
VALIDATED: So, what are you currently working on?
MILK DEE: So, I’m in the lab, I’ve got a couple of artists I’m working with, one is an artist from Brooklyn, a female. Her name is Disco, let me see, I’m working on one of her joints right now.
So, I have her and a couple of singers. We have an artist named, Airy No Breaks, he’s a singer that we’re working on, and that’s it. Like I said, I have a class I teach, and I’m just trying to find my way. This pandemic kind of—it wore me out, and I’m trying to get back to normal and find my way. It really messed me up. I know a lot of people that passed, a lot of people that got sick. As you can see, 50-year-old rappers is an endangered species these days, so that scared me, so I’ve really been in the house, and I’ve been doing a lot of virtual, like I said, all of my kids are doing virtual. So, actually my daughter in kindergarten told me today, I did 167 days this year virtual school. I’ve been just at home with the kids, so I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, and I’m gaining weight and everything.
VALIDATED: So, out of the newer school artists, are there any that you’re feeling?
MILK DEE: It’s funny, because the artists that I’d say are new school, my kids will tell me they’re old school. Like, I like Kendrick a lot, to me he’s new school.
My daughter’s like, “Kendrick, he’s old school.” To be honest, a lot of them, it’s almost like disposable, like you can’t even distinguish the difference between them.
VALIDATED: Right, it’s like one song might be hot, they might have a hot song…
MILK DEE: Yeah, like I’ll be able to tell you some songs, but it’s like I don’t know, I don’t know these cats, a lot of them. And then I don’t understand, oh I like Da Baby, I like him, he got some joints that I like. Yeah, and he rhymes on beat, he could rhyme on beat and he got a good flow, but he’s new, he’s new school, but he has a lot of sensibilities of an old school artists, so I think that’s why I could relate to him.
VALIDATE: He got an old soul type of vibe.
MILK DEE: Yeah, he got flow, I like flow. It’s hard for me—like, cats that don’t rhyme on beat, that’s like a chalkboard to me. Like, if you’re rhyming, and it’s like you’re not even nowhere near—you’re no nowhere near the beat, are you listening to the music?!
VALIDATED: So, not to bring up your sister, but how’s MC Lyte doing and are you working with her on anything?
MILK DEE: Well, we’re not working on any music right now, but she’s good, she’s out in LA, she got a sitcom getting ready to start, it’s called “Partners in Rhyme”. So, she’s doing well, she’s doing a lot of stuff, she’s doing more personality stuff. She’s out there in Hollywood doing the Hollywood thing, she’s been doing a lot of acting as well, she was on “Queen of the South”.
VALIDATED: I know that you produce, I know that you MC, but what is it about Hip-Hop that’s kept you so in tune, I know you say you’re not necessarily feeling some of the new artists, but that’s just—I’m the same way, and like you said, to me, when it comes to hip hop, when it comes to rap, it’s certain elements that you have to have as an artist. And I think that’s where I get it mixed up, because they’re artists, they’re not MCs, so to speak. But I put the two together, because that’s the era I come from. But even with dealing with the shift in the industry, what’s kept you so focused and motivated to continue?
MILK DEE: I love music, and it’s not just Hip-Hop, I love music, I think music is the one thing in this world—music is like magic to me, right. You could play a song and conjure emotion, you could play a song and make somebody cry, you could play a song and get amped up, like my daughter, she runs track, and whenever we’re on our way to the track meets, I play her my songs, that get me amped, like “Throw Your Guns in The Air”. So, that’s something that you can do with music, you could conjure emotion, which to me, that’s magic.
So, I love music, like I could just listen to music all day, because it makes you feel something, and that’s why I do it, because it makes me feel stuff. And like I said, I like all kinds of music, I like rock music, I like jazz, I like anything that can make me feel something, and I think that’s part of the reason why there’s certain songs I can’t relate to now, is because it doesn’t make me feel anything, but some of them do. Like I said, there’s good songs, there’s great songs, and there’s wack songs. Now, all of them don’t, but some of them do. I think that might be part of it too, you’re always in search of that next piece that could make you feel something. So, that’s why I still do it.
At this point in my life, I’m more like, I got to the point where you start—I think as you get older, you start thinking differently, and I started thinking like, what’s the meaning of life? Why am I here? What’s my purpose? And I think that you also figure out what really makes you happy, and I’ve been pursuing those philosophies. The reason why I teach a class is because one of the things that makes me happy is to pass on what I’ve learned. And I feel like when you’re blessed, that you have to give back.
And so my class that I teach is right there in Bedstein where I grew up, and it fulfills me. Every time I go in there and I talk to the kids, if I could just teach them one thing so they don’t have to go through some of the things that I went through, it makes me feel good, and to me, that’s what it’s really about. People think that money gives you happiness, and, I don’t know, I think that it’s different for each person, for me, I get fulfilled by doing things. Money, that’s not it, like having things, that doesn’t make me happy. You want to be able to get the things that you want, but just having things, that doesn’t make me happy.
How many watches can you have? And I don’t like to define myself by what I have, which is also something that’s different now; people are comfortable defining themselves by what they have. I never wanted to do that, I wanted to define myself by who I am.
VALIDATED: So, what’s your social media contacts?
MILK DEE: First, let me say I’m the worst on social media, I’m absolutely terrible and horrible with it. The best way on social media is on Instagram at @mcmilkdee. That’s the one that I still go to occasionally.