YouSaid · the spoken record

Ben Westhoff

lines on the record: 92
first: 2019-10-09
most recent: 2019-10-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I think it's going to be about the murder of my little brother from the big brother, big sister program. His name was Jarel Cleveland. And in 2016, he was murdered. He lived in Ferguson, and the murder is still unsolved. So I want to find out what happened that led to his demise.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do I love book tour? I'm very grateful to be on book tour. The food is difficult. It's kind of a grind, but I am certainly happy to be here on this podcast.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, this is part of that, but just journaling, you know, and when people think about writing, they think, oh, I have to write a profound short story. But I always say, no, just write like everything that's happening to you. Non-fiction to me from the average writer from the beginning, from the entry-level writer is almost always a thousand times more interesting than something, some fiction they're writing.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's plenty of stories out there. There's things to write about are all around you, and you need to discipline yourself, get your health right. You know, like I said, I tried it very careful about what I eat. I'm very big on exercise, long distance running, yoga, getting my body right, getting enough sleep every night. And it's not glamorous, but I feel like it benefits my work a lot.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think just follow what you really want to do. And so what you're really interested in, so I came up in alternative weeklies and for how underpaid we were, we got, that was made up for by the fact that we could write about whatever we wanted. And so we were encouraged to follow our interest, whereas at a daily paper, you might have had a certain beat that you always wrote about every day. And there's stuff that just intrinsically you know more about that inspires you more. And so again, you want to get to a point where it doesn't feel like work, like you would be doing this anyway. Now, when I first dreamed of being a writer, I thought about I needed all these life experiences like I needed to go running with the bulls and I needed to maybe be an alcoholic. I just needed to really live. But my feeling on that has shifted a lot. And now I think just the opposite.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think that they do. I think that just there are so many more things to do in life. TV doesn't have to be so much of it.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The weirdest fact about my childhood. Well, probably just that my parents had us living this kind of weird hippie lifestyle where we never had chocolate, we never had anything that might be considered delicious food for children. And we all revolt and I got so upset about this. I began shoplifting at a very young age from the local college, their little store where they had candy bars. And so I'd like to save my parents drove me to crime.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was writing about Rave Dus and one person out of 60,000 would die at a Rave. And I thought, oh, that's bad. But then I was hearing that fentanyl, more people were starting to die. So I was like, this is a much, much bigger problem.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it had a lot to do with Locke. The way I got into the story was writing about these rave drugs that were being adulterated. And then I found out about China, how these labs were making all these new drugs. And it wasn't until I was well into the reporting that I even heard the word fentanyl. And then it sort of just took over the book.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a good question. I mean, it seems to me a specifically American thing in a lot of ways because in Europe they have more beautiful, long-lasting architecture, while in the US a lot of dive bars are just someone, some shack somewhere.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's just a camaraderie. You know, if you go to sort of a corporate bar, you're not going to really feel comfortable chatting up people as much. And dive bars, it tends to be regulars from the neighborhood. And it's like a second family for a lot of people.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I wouldn't say, although the higher the street number, the more likely you're going to find a good dive bar with decent priced drinks. But I would say Queens. Queens has a lot of dive bars that truly are what you would imagine a dive bar to be. you know Christmas lights, wood paneling, sort of formica type bars and things like bar fights if that's your scene can be found plenty in Queens.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I was doing writing for the village voice, and they had these different books about dive bars in different cities, and I signed up to do the one for New York.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, it's hard to generalize, but part of what I talk about in Dirty South was the reason that Southern music, my”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm a fan of the entourage because for a lot of rappers who get famous, the people who supported them, there's kind of this implicit agreement that if any of us break big, we're going to bring the other ones and all rappers who have entourages say that they're basically giving jobs to people who would otherwise be engaged in nefarious behavior in the streets.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know, I haven't seen a lot of that, but I don't know why it shouldn't be the case, though. I mean, you have blues musicians who undeniably often get better when they age. When it comes to rap stars, it tends to be like all the money, as with any celebrities, once you get a lot of yes men around you, it's hard to keep your creative edge.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that there's some great rap coming out of Nigeria. There's kind of Afrobeat, Afropopop stuff coming from lots of parts of Africa. And I like some different French rappers too.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think these days it's anything with a string section and maybe anything with a horn section. I always think about band class at school and the kids who have to lug their instruments back and forth to school. And so, you know, the viola, the upright bass, you know, even something like the saxophone, who's going to want to do this every day? I don't know. That's one way I think about it.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there's a lot more to it too. You know, there's a lot of live music on hip-hop albums, for example, and it certainly is a complex art form. But I think the simplicity, though, is part of its appeal because anyone can be a rapper, for example. Rapping is just such a thing anyone can pick up and try. And so there's not a high barrier of entry. So people with really interesting things to say can just start doing it and get their music out there.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There were, yeah. I think people probably KRS won a lot of these big boosters in New York saw it, but really the executives were the ones who dropped the ball. Like NWA couldn't get a record deal, for example. And everyone still thought, you know, this was already the late 80s and people still thought this thing was going to peter out any minute.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is completely possible. The cassettes, it changed everything about the sequencing compared with CDs. You know, you had to have the number one song be good, and then you had to have the number one song on the other side of the cassette be good.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're absolutely right. And I think the skits inflated all those albums. There was a time in hip hop where you had to have not just one skit, but lots and lots of skits. They were very rarely funny. And I think that in general, just shorter is always better when it comes to CDs of any genre. I mean, how often do you say the CD was too short? Maybe once in a while. How often do you say a CD is too long? Very often.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that a lot of people have a problem with the misogyny of hip-hop, which is understandable, the violence. So I would point them to something like a tribe called Quest. You know, there's so much Afrocentric, positive, hip-hop out there, especially in the early 90s, the late 80s and De los Sol. I would point them in that direction.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's just again, unlike anything that existed at the time or since, it's a really deceptively deep album. It's about the death of his mother, the dissolution of a relationship. And the songs are just not only the lyrics, but the sound. There's a lot of auto-tune, a much derided technology, but it has this ethereal quality. It stayed with me ever since it came out. I still listen to it all the time.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he just, I don't know. I've interviewed a lot of musicians, a lot of celebrity musicians over the years. And they almost all have this sort of natural star shine about them. They can just talk to you about anything and you feel excited to be in their presence. But with Dr. Dre, he was just a wallflower.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He donated a lot of money to a new USC program along with Jimmy Ivan, who was the founder of Interscope. And so I talked to him under those auspices, and he was very excited and proud. He's a very shy guy. He hates doing interviews. But I got him to open up in sort of this context originally.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know his whole biography, like his real, real biography. There's not that much written about him. But if I had to put money on it, I.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“West Coast Rap comes very much from the culture also. And so in the mid to late 80s, there was the crack epidemic. There was the Crips in the Bloods. There was that, you know, they had their own sartorial styles. And all of this was sort of consciously infused into the music. NWA didn't plan on being an internationally known group. They wanted to appeal to people in Los Angeles and Compton and in their areas. So that's what they did.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are and they aren't. There's a lot of sort of Caribbean influence in both places, but I think it was more the culture of New York versus the culture of, say, Miami, where Southern raps started. And Miami has very influenced by these beach parties, for example. And so the two live crews, Luke Campbell, was a DJ at these beach parties, and he just wanted to make people dance. And so started doing everything he could to pull that off.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To me, it's the beats, and when you hear rap from the northeast, it moves very fast, it's very intellectual, it's meant for sort of showing off your vocabulary largely. But Southern rap is about being on the dance floor. It's about something when you hear it, you immediately can't help yourself from going out and dancing.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a weird thing. I think Big Boy loves Andre, and Andre is kind of like sometimes with big boy. Andre is just the quintessential sort of tortured creative artist. And he has more money than he needs. And he just doesn't care about making more.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, I mean, Big Boy would say they still do exist, but Outcast, I think their thing was they just didn't care what anyone else thought. They didn't care about the existing business model. They had a vision of what they wanted to do. They knew there was an audience for it. It was sort of, it wasn't East Coast, it wasn't West Coast. They wanted to do an Atlanta sound. They wanted something that was tough, but it was also not tough. It was fun and silly. They just did it.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that just plying your trade on the streets, if you will, you know, not trying to get a job and be employed by someone else to start your own business right in the area you live as, you know, Easy E was also a member of NWA. He has a cool voice, but he wasn't a superstar talent out of that hard hard.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They worked incredibly hard. I mean, it doesn't work to them. Like Dr. Dre just wanted to do nothing but make music all day long.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah. I mean, when it comes to NWA, the two main talents in NWA were Dr. Dre and Ice Cube. And so both of them not only weren't in gangs, but their early songs were specifically decrying the gang life. They were mocking gangs and telling people to stay away. They were really concerned with their craft, and that's all they did for fun. And so it's another, I think, misconception about hip-hop music.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the traditional way is through freestyle battling or just freestyling. So, you know, just rap about everything you see, always be rapping. But the sad thing is that a lot of people are just never going to get any better.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, riding a beat, rapping, if you will, is extremely hard. And anyone who's ever tried to do it will tell you, you have to have the right cadence, you have to have the right breath control. And it's a talent. There's also, you know, this might sound trivial, but picking the right music to wrap over. So hip-hop, of course, is a genre that's made up of other genres. And, you know, in the beginning, it was disco records that people use and then jazz. And then, you know, on and on rock records have been wrapped over even. But, you know, what song are you going to pick to use? And if someone has a good ear for a sound that goes with their style, that's something you can't teach.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's been really profound. I think that Barack Obama cited rappers and rap lyrics before. And I think it's just brought a voice to these sort of underserved communities that people tend to ignore. In St. Louis, for example, when someone is murdered from the north part of the city, it's barely even news. Hip-hop is something that all young people of all races listened to pretty much and it brings these messages to a big audience”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I would probably still cite Kendrick Lamar because he. And the sort of political muckety mucks, if you will, he can speak to everybody and he pulls it off, which is so hard to do.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that's a misconception, actually, about hip hop that it's transgressive. I mean, I think it's a fairly conservative art form at its core. There are rules of how you do it. There are even sort of unwritten rules about what you talk about. It's kind of like a mafia movies in a way that are conventions. And people tend to stick with them.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I think authenticity really does sort of still matter. It's built into the DNA of the music. And every time, you know, a rapper goes Hollywood, if you will, there's someone who's young and hungry who comes up, who's come out of poverty, who is not being groomed for stardom at all. And they speak in a language that really resonates with young fans. And it's just constantly happening.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Best Prince Alan. Well, I'm going to just be generic and say purple rain because everything about it is great from beginning to end”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Cohen brothers by a million miles. There's almost not a bad Cohen brothers movie. I say, you know, it's like pizza and sex, even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Seinfeld again. There's just like a platonic perfection about so many of those jokes that it probably will never go out of style.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I was a biggie fan like most music critics are for a long time, and there's really no arguing with his style. He's basically platonic perfection when it comes to delivering a rap song. But I really came around to Tupac. And though he's not as smooth as Biggie, he's not as perfect. But he ultimately was wrapping about something. He has a message. He's about liberating the people, about sort of, you know, understanding yourself and being who you are. And Biggie was mostly about parties in the club and stuff like that.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yeah, exactly. It's like, where are you from in New York? Well, the South Bronx. Well, what part of the South Bronx? Oh, this part. But if you're from New Jersey, it's just New Jersey. It's just one big place. So it doesn't have its own little regional identity.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, very underrated. I think New Jersey gets a bad rap in just about everything. But the first popular hip-hop song, Rappers Delight, came from New Jersey, the Sugar Hill Records, was basically like a hit factory in early hip-hop. All of these important people like Queen Latifah and Naughty by Nature. And even Jay-Z spent a bunch of time in his early days coming up in New Jersey.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But for one thing, the crime rate is very, very high, and it's also made to seem even higher because the county and the city are tabulated separately. So I think people see these statistics and they're like, I think the Ferguson unrest five years ago, I think it was a very important thing that happened, but I think it generated negative publicity for St. Louis.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Completely underrated St. Louis has so much going for it that people don't realize the architecture is gorgeous. It's kind of a crumbling, decaying city, but there's a beauty in that. The St. Louis Cardinals are an amazing small market franchise that always punches above their weight. It's kind of like a social activity just to go to the games. People go know nothing about baseball. They just go to have a beer and sort of chat with each other. There is a lot of parking. There is incredibly cheap housing.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Clint Eastwood as a director probably underrated. I like so many of his films, but as a public intellectual, I'm sure quite overrated.”
2019-10-09 · Conversations with Tyler · Ben Westhoff on Synthetic Drugs, Dive Bars, and the Evolution of Rap · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source