Mogul

DJ Screw’s rise ends in tragedy. But the sound he created just keeps spreading, from stereos to streaming, screwing up the world on its way up.

After making $27,000 selling mixtapes in just one night, DJ Screw decides to open his own store. But the top of the game is a lonely place to be, and things get darker behind the register.

Hundreds of people rapped on DJ Screw’s mixtapes, but there’s one name that everyone remembers: Big Floyd. But you know him better as George Floyd. On this week’s episode of Mogul, rapper Cal Wayne tells us his story.

We go inside the making of DJ Screw’s greatest mixtape: The June 27th tape. It’s the story of a magical night inside the wood room when everything came together just right. The beats, the drugs, and a historic lineup of some of the Screwed Up Clicks most iconic members.

DJ Screw takes Houston. But before he does, he'll need to invent an entire genre, assemble a crew, and acquire a blue Chevy Impala.

The DJ Screw origin story. His musical odyssey begins in small-town Smithville where he’s inspired by New York hip hop, boomboxes, and an extremely corny movie about breakdancers. A move to Houston expands Screw’s horizons, and he begins the metamorphosis from amateur DJ to auteur.

Mogul is slowing things down, and telling the story of DJ Screw. The reclusive auteur is best known for inventing Chopped & Screwed, a slowed-down, psychedelic strain of hip-hop that changed the sound of music forever. But that’s all most people know about him. Starting June 23rd, we’ll uncover the story behind one of music’s greatest enigmas.

Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael are journalists at NPR, but they could be rap history professors. And they have a thesis: emo rap is not a new phenomenon. They say it’s always been a part of the culture. In fact, they think that a lot of the all-time greats, like Jay Z and Biggie and Scarface, were writing emo raps long before the genre went mainstream. On this episode, we go back to the roots ...

In the late 90s, there was plenty of awesome tv to watch after school; but for Eric Eddings one program ruled them all: Rap City Tha Basement on BET. Every day, Rap City picked Eric up off of his couch and dropped him right into the world of hip hop, where he could rub elbows with huge names--we’re talking about Ludacris, Cam’Ron, Nas, and more. On this episode of The Mogul Mixtapes we’re bringing ...

JPEGMAFIA is an experimental rapper with a knack for creating genre-bending beats out of the internet’s weirdest sounds. He’s sampled everything from Nicki Minaj’s rants on Queen Radio to the sound effects of Mortal Kombat; and on this episode of the Mogul Mixtapes he’s taking us back through it all--from the sample that sparked his interest in production, all the way up to his newest track.

Kelly Rowland was just a teenager when she and the rest of Destiny’s Child came to New York to audition for a record deal. Over 20 years later, she’s been all over the world, met her idols (including the legendary Whitney Houston), lived out so many of her musical dreams—but the stuff she heard in those early years still makes her weak in the knees. In this episode, Kelly talks us through the music...

Before Tupac topped the charts, he was just a roadie in baggy jeans. Pioneering fashion designer April Walker takes us back to the 90s, when she caught Tupac on the come-up—and made him two gigantic, hand-crafted, velour-lined denim suits.

On September 29th 1998 the stars aligned, Jay-Z, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def & Talib Kweli (Black Star), and Brand Nubian all released classic albums. On that day Hip Hop heads around the country lined up to get their copies. Sports Journalist Bomani Jones was one them. On this episode of the Mogul Mixtapes, Bomani tells Jinx about how this day marked the beginning of an era in Hip Hop, ...

Timbaland has sampled almost everything. Baby laughing? Check. Crickets chirping? Check. Thunder, um, thundering? Check. On this episode of The Mogul Mixtapes, Jinx is joined by Jeff and Eric Rosenthal from ItsTheReal and the trio disappear down a rabbit hole of crazy Timbaland beats, insane samples, and the story behind hip hop’s ultimate meme.

Sweet potato pie, the really big box of crayons with the sharpener on the back, why André 3000 is the Basquiat of rap, and how to DJ like you’re playing a game of spades—we talk about all this (and a lot more) with renowned producer and songwriter The Dream.

T.I. is known as the King of the South—but once upon a time, he was just a little kid who wanted to hear dirty words. In this episode, he tells us how he tricked his grandma into buying him the raunchiest, most controversial hip hop album of the 80s. Plus more stories about growing up in Atlanta, falling in love with hip hop, and writing his very first verse.

On this episode of The Mogul Mixtapes we’re kicking it with Earlonne Woods, the host of the podcast Ear Hustle. In 1988, Earlonne was sentenced to life in prison. But something else happened to him that year--he heard the iconic N.W.A. track “Fuck Tha Police,” and it was love at first listen. Join us as we break down Ice Cube’s classic verse and consider the impact that song has to this day.

On this episode of The Mogul Mixtapes we talk to Atlanta hip hop legend Ludacris, who turns out to be VERY prepared for life in quarantine. Luda shares the ultimate rapper's guide to sheltering in place, including the merits of owning your own fleet of ATVs, having a lake, and why it’s important to keep chickens. And he also takes us back in time to the making of his all-time favorite verse.

After all these years, DJ Screw's influence on music remains forceful. Our host Brandon 'Jinx' Jenkins linked up with one of our favorite people, poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib, to continue the conversation about Screw on his show Object of Sound by Sonos Radio. With the help of Screwed Up Clique member Lil Keke they unpacked the lasting legacy of chopped & screwed, with plenty of classi...

In our new interview series The Mogul Mixtapes, we’re talking to some of our all-time favorite people about their most treasured hip hop memories—the craziest parties, the nastiest beefs, and the most brilliant verses ever. 

Stuck on your couch? So are all your favorite rappers, DJs and music journalists. In The Mogul Mixtapes, we talk to them about their most-loved moments in hip hop—the craziest parties, the nastiest beefs, and the most brilliant verses of all time. Each episode comes with a curated playlist of essential tracks, songs that’ll make you feel like you hopped in the DeLorean and travelled back in time. F...

Our story starts with Luke Campbell of the 2 Live Crew getting thrown in jail. Luke wound up in handcuffs because, according to a Florida judge, his music was obscene. To understand how this happened, we have to go back in time to 1980s Miami, to a sweatbox teen disco that birthed a new kind of hip hop: Miami bass.

The 2 Live Crew is starting from the bottom: crashing at Luke’s girlfriend’s mom’s house. Nobody will sign them, so Luke starts Luke Skyywalker Records, the first hip hop label in the south. And Luke dreams up hip-hop’s most shocking stage show.

The 2 Live Crew drop their classic hit “Me So Horny,” which takes the Miami bass sound out of the Pac Jam and spreads it across the nation. But not everyone wants the 2 Live Crew's music on the airwaves. A group of conservatives and a notorious Miami sheriff conspire to take the Crew's records off the shelves and off the air. When the Crew hits back, it lands them in jail.

The fight rages on. Luke and the Crew fan the flames in the court of public opinion, and when they go head-to-head with their biggest critics, things get heated. In this episode we bring you 90s daytime TV and rapping prosecutors, and the nastiest album in the history of the world is put on trial.

After pissing off the authorities, the 2 Live Crew start to piss off each other. In this episode, things fall apart, and we contend with the complex legacy of one of hip hop’s pioneers.

Miami bass may have been thriving, but lyrical hip hop was still struggling to find a foothold in Miami. And with little chance at getting airtime on popular stations, Miami DJs have to find a way to get their music heard—and the best way to do that was to set up an illegal pirate radio station. In this episode: a pimped-out tour bus, a barrel full guns, and a lunchbox full of cocaine.

On September 10th 2001, Miami lost a local legend: DJ Uncle Al. In this episode, we hang at home with DJ Walshy Fire of Major Lazer, and he breaks down why Al was so special. It’s a tale of perseverance, positivity, pirate radio, and songs about Santa Claus.

This is Behind the Beats. In this series we’ll go behind the scenes to discover how Mogul got its distinct sound. In this first episode we’ll hear from the woman behind the show’s sound design, So Wylie. Her inspirations, her process, her beats.

In this episode of Behind the Beats we go behind the scenes and find out how Nana Kwabena wrote the music for the second season of Mogul. It’s a wide ranging conversation that touches on Nana’s creative process, his thoughts on the Miami bass movement, and the history of African talking drums.

In Season 2, Mogul explores the birth of southern hip hop. It all started in Miami with The 2 Live Crew, a group that took rap music and made it faster, harder, and nastier than anything anyone had heard before. The new season returns September 18th.

This episode of Mogul is a tribute to the life and career of Reggie Ossé, who hosted the first season of Mogul. A couple of months after completing the show Reggie was diagnosed with colon cancer and he passed away in December of 2017. We’re going to tell you Reggie’s story — His early days growing up a hip-hop head in Brooklyn, his time as a lawyer representing legendary artists like Jay-Z and Dam...

Moguls, here it is: The last episode of Season 1. And it’s a classic! Back in August, we recorded a live show at the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan. That night, Reggie chopped it up on stage with Dante Ross, Dave Lighty, Mike Lighty, Déja Lighty, and Tiffany Lighty. They talked about Chris' legacy as someone who made sure everyone got fed, and dropped more than a few big names along the way. There ...

On this episode of Behind the Beats, Reggie chats with two Gimlet audio engineers who crafted the sound of Mogul. Haley Shaw and Matthew Boll break down how they built such a vivid world in Mogul by combining sound effects and music with hours of interviews.

Welcome to Behind the Beats. In this series, we’ll go behind the scenes to discover how Mogul got its distinct sound. In this first episode, we’ll hear from the three artists who wrote much of the show’s original music: Prince Paul, Don Newkirk and Nana Kwabena.

This Cameo is from Russell Simmons and Sophia Chang. As one of Def Jam’s co-founders, Russell had a huge impact on Chris’ career, while Sophia was one of Chris’ closest confidants. In this Cameo, they each discuss how they processed the news of Chris’ death, and how the pain of his loss is still present today.

August 30th, 2012. A day that shook hip hop. Chris Lighty was discovered dead in his Bronx home. The official cause of death: a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. In this episode, we talk to people close to Chris to and try understand what exactly happened that day.

This Cameo is from Uncle Murda. The gritty Brooklyn rapper rose to prominence after dropping a series of mixtapes with titles like Murder Capitol, Respect The Shooter, and Summer Time Shootouts. Just like Fat Joe, 50 Cent, and other artists Chris Lighty worked with, Murda wasn’t putting on an act: He was a genuine street guy. In this Cameo, we hear about how Murda first pitched himself to Chris as ...

In this episode: cold hard cash. Chris Lighty makes a pile of it, and changes the game forever, when he does the biggest deal of his career—getting 50 Cent a piece of Vitamin Water. But soon, instead of swimming in dough...Chris is drowning.

This Cameo is from N.O.R.E. The Queens native climbed the charts in the 1990s as a rapper, best known for his work in the duo Capone-N-Noreaga. Now, N.O.R.E. is a podcast host, so we went to his studio to talk (and, as it turned out, to drink a lot of alcohol). In this Cameo, N.O.R.E. tells us what the Violator offices were like back in the day, and why Chris’ management style was the stuff of lege...

This Cameo is from the author and journalist, Joan Morgan. In this exclusive conversation, she shares a few glimpses into what his friendship meant to her — from their shared roots in the Bronx, to the lengths Chris would go to just to chat and catch up.

Lighty is at the top of his game. He’s got the fancy Manhattan office, the high-end designer clothes, and a roster of famous clients calling him 24/7. It all looks perfect. But in this episode, we discover something awful going on behind the scenes.

Fat Joe is one hell of a storyteller. And in this special episode, he drops two great ones. First, the story of how Fat Joe the drug dealer became Fat Joe the rapper. Then, a story he almost never tells— because, as he says, “That's the realest story. I don't tell those stories, because then you'd think I lied. But it's a fact.” 

This Cameo is from Warren G, who was one of Chris’ first big clients. Warren G shares a story about how Chris went above and beyond the role of manager, to find Warren G’s missing sister in the drug-ridden streets of 1990s Times Square.

Welcome to Mogul Cameo. This is a place where we’ll share some of the best stories, jokes, and observations we recorded during the making of Mogul, but were unable to fit into the show. First up is Maseo, who is best known for being one third of the iconic hip hop group, De La Soul. In this Cameo, Maseo describes talks about how Chris changed as he climbed the ranks of the music industry, from his ...

Chris Lighty meets Warren G. It’s a story of East Coast beats, West Coast grooves, steak dinners and wild parties. Plus, a stand-off with one of hip-hop’s most infamous figures.

Chris is headed for the big time. Meeting Russell Simmons, landing a job at Def Jam, getting into Queen Latifah’s birthday party—the future looks bright. But before he can get there, he’ll have to prove himself by squeezing eight dudes into a Chevy Corsica that smells like White Castle and farts.

Let’s start at the end—at a funeral. All the brightest stars in the hip-hop universe are gathered to mourn the death of Chris Lighty. He was their friend, their brother, their late-night confidant, the man who discovered them, or saved their careers, or made them millionaires. He was a hip-hop legend. But to understand how we got here, we have to go back to the beginning—back to a time before hip-h...

Chris Lighty was a giant in hip-hop. He managed Foxy Brown, Fat Joe, Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, 50 Cent—anyone who was anyone worked with Lighty. But in 2012 he was found dead at his home in the Bronx, a death that left the music world reeling. In this podcast miniseries from Gimlet Media and Loud Speakers Network, we tell the story of Chris Lighty, from the first breakbeat to the last...