JT The Bigga Figga and San Quinn discuss Bay Area Hip Hop

S = James G. Spady
J = JT The Bigga Figga
Q = San Quinn

J: [Turning to Quinn] When did we actually first meet each other?
Q: I was a young a cat down in Hamilton. We didn’t bump into each other at J-Mack’s,but you know I was rapping with Ive Low. And I did a little talent show and that’s when Ifirst met him in Ham. Hamilton Recreational Center.
S: And what was his style like when you first met him?
Q: He just was like - like him and Seff and them, they was older cats with streetreputations, too, from the neighborhood. They had street names, too, you feel me? Carsand stuff, you know. J was cool, though. He wasn’t like no bully type cat, you feel me?He was just open. And then when I started doing my Don’t Cross Me tape and it got doneand it circulated and shit, you know what I mean? Them guys didn’t really… I mean, they never really looked out for me…
S: What label were you on then?
Q: That was Buck Fifty Records. But it just was like starting, we really didn’t know. But
JT…
J: To tell you the truth, though, what the people don’t know is I was on Buck Fifty. I wason Buck Fifty.
Q: Oh, you was?! [Laughter]
A: He didn’t even know that!
Q: No, I didn’t.
J: I was on Buck Fifty in ‘91 and ‘92. See what happened was, “Dank or Dope” wassupposed to be… My first tape was supposed to come up under Steve’s Buck Fifty, theowner…
S: Who was Steve?
J: This dude named Steve.
S: Had he done any rap recordings before?
J: No, he just was a dude that was a techy. He was our technological genius of thecommunity. [Laughter]
Q: Exactly.
J: You know what I’m saying? He was the first with a cell phone and beeper, you know,CD player in the car and all these different hi-tech gadgets. He the first one to buy a hitech
studio in our community, really in Frisco, out of the street people, you know what I’msaying? So I got up under him. And I remember my mother used to always tell me, “Askquestions. Whatever you want to know, always ask questions.” So, that was my methodof learning. I didn’t have no notes and all that. If I knew what I know now, I’d be takennotes. But I was just asking questions. “How do you do this?” or “What’s this for?” You
know, I stayed… I was like a little pest down there because I didn’t know. “How doesthis work?” So when I get my own, I’ma be at the house doing my own thang. That guytaught me a lot of the engineering techniques. This other dude named Gigolo G. He’sthe OG DJ in the community. He been DJ’ing the parties from like… He was mobile,
yeah. And that was like ‘85, ‘86,’87, ‘88, you know what I’m saying? And then the drugskicked in, then everybody went to the drugs and left the DJ’ing and the music alone...
S: The drug scene was not very heavy in Fillmore until…

J: Actually, it was. It was. It was business, though. It was a wide market. But music anddoing these other things was a outlet for the people to get involved with. By ‘88 and ‘89,the drug scene was almost at its zenith. It was coming to that peak. 1990 was the peak.And then from ‘90 to right now, them ten years, it’s all downhill. People was still making alot of money, but the death and the destruction, you could see the results of it. You could...

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