Memphis Bleek, who was an integral part of Roc-A-Fella Records’ era of dominance over the Rap game, believes there is one crew that has almost managed to match their run.
During his recent appearance on Fresh Kicks, fellow Roc alum Just Blaze sparked a conversation about the impact artists from some of New York City (and Hip Hop’s) most renowned housing projects, namely Queensbridge and Memph’s own Marcy Projects.
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“I didn’t know we was gonna have this impact,” the Brooklyn MC offered. “All I wanted was [for] people to like the music, that was it. You write something, you was hoping to get somebody to like it. We didn’t know, we just did it. We just was having fun, doing what we did.”
The exchange soon shifted to the fact that, in the midst of The Roc’s historic moment in Hip-Hop, no one in their crew even realized they were making history.
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Bleek added: “Some people still try to recreate that Roc wave. You got a couple people that came close. The closest team that I thought was gonna do it was the A$AP crew. I can’t front that, they all was shaking.”
Check out the full convo starting at the 11:37 mark below.
“I used to get in trouble for trying to hang with Jay because they was the big-time dope boys,” he began at the 12:25 mark. “Jay never used to be home, so one day, my mom was at work and I had to go to his house to wait for my mom to come home.”
He continued: “You know, we in the house and I’m with his nephews and stuff, and his door open. It’s like you open the door, you looked in — Hollywood — you closed the door, you back in Newark, like something ain’t right […] I’m talking about ’91, ’90.
“White carpet, white floor-model TV, everything white in the room. AC blowing, felt like a mall, like when you walking by Macy’s or something […] That’s what his room felt like. And it was like, yo, from that day [it] was like, ‘What the hell is he doing that none of us out here is doing,’ ’cause we all out here using fans; why he got a[n] AC?”
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He concluded: “Jay was always rolling, man, he’d give me $100 […] and be like, ‘Yo, Bleek, go to the store and get me a Pepsi and keep the change.’ This when Pepsi was a dollar — not two dollars; a dollar — so I got $99, like I’m up.”
