#1381 - Donnell Rawlings

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Why is that?

Donnell Rawlings (0:03)

I don't know, it just feels, when you say turn my shit up, the engineers and the producers feel like, oh shit, this nigga just turned this shit up, he's about to go in. It gives you the impression that you're about to spit the hottest 16 of your life.

Joe Rogan (0:18)

16, what does 16 mean?

Donnell Rawlings (0:19)

16 bars in a song. You don't know this?

Joe Rogan (0:22)

No.

Donnell Rawlings (0:24)

So nobody's ever come up to you and say, nobody's ever come up to you and say, let me get your 16, spit a hot 16 Nobody's ever said that to you.

Joe Rogan (0:34)

Never in my life have I heard that expression.

Donnell Rawlings (0:38)

You need to change the places you hang out.

SPEAKER_3 (0:40)

For real, man.

Donnell Rawlings (0:42)

I mean, I don't know. I'm not trying, I'm just saying, because I'm pretty sure there are places. All the people, all the black people you know, all the rappers, and nobody's ever asked you to spit? No, I've never spit.

Have you ever practiced?

Joe Rogan (0:56)

Never.

Donnell Rawlings (0:57)

Come on, Joe, don't lie, bruh.

SPEAKER_3 (0:59)

I'm not lying.

Joe Rogan (1:00)

You don't have any time.

Donnell Rawlings (1:03)

Is that time for black people or time for rap?

SPEAKER_3 (1:06)

I'm just trying to figure out which...

Joe Rogan (1:07)

Time for me to rap. I like listening, but I've done zero rapping myself.

SPEAKER_3 (1:11)

So you like, you like, you like...

Donnell Rawlings (1:14)

I don't know, people got little slick ways of saying stuff, man.

Joe Rogan (1:16)

No, I don't have any time to be rapping. I limit my, what I try to do.

Donnell Rawlings (1:22)

Okay, you don't have time for rap.

Joe Rogan (1:24)

I don't have time to do it. I like listening.

Donnell Rawlings (1:26)

Okay, this is the point I'm making about spitting. If you listen to it, there's probably a song that you like.

And there's never been a time in your life, you've been in the mirror out of the shower, that it felt good to you, and you tried to... Spitting is the same as repeating everything that the person said.

Joe Rogan (1:41)

Right.

Donnell Rawlings (1:41)

So not one song that you like, you've never tried to sing a verse or a hook from that song.

Joe Rogan (1:48)

I've definitely done that, but no one's ever asked me to spit.

Donnell Rawlings (1:52)

So, if I ask you, what's your favorite rap song?

Could you spit it? Would you be able to spit it?

Joe Rogan (1:59)

I would have to think about it. My favorite? What would my favorite be? I like old school shit. Like, I like a lot of like Cool G rap.

I like old shit.

Donnell Rawlings (2:09)

Yeah, so you take... Oh, you going back almost to Sugar Hill days.

You remember Sugar Hill?

Joe Rogan (2:14)

Hip hop, hibbit to the hibbit to the pump.

Donnell Rawlings (2:18)

You're spittin.

SPEAKER_3 (2:19)

Oh, I'm spittin. But don't spit for nobody in public. Because you look too excited about it. You like, you hip hop to the hibbit to the hibbit to the hip hop.

Donnell Rawlings (2:28)

But if you remember that song, you remember when that song first came out, and I know I'm dating myself, you literally could get pussy if you knew every word to rapper's delight.

Joe Rogan (2:37)

I remember I was in junior high school, and people were playing it in the lunchroom.

Donnell Rawlings (2:42)

On a record player, not record players, but tape cassettes.

Joe Rogan (2:44)

Yeah, cassette. I remember thinking, wow, this is like a new kind of music.

Donnell Rawlings (2:48)

It's a new kind of music. The way you had to learn it, it wasn't like now you could skip through the timeline to a song or whatever. It was a cassette.

So it would play, then you had to rewind it back to that same spot and keep doing it. You had to keep doing it until you learned all the words.

Joe Rogan (3:03)

But cassette players were fairly recent back then. So that was like when Sugar Hill came out, was around the time cassette players were out, where you could walk around and play the music. You didn't need a record player.

Donnell Rawlings (3:13)

You didn't have a record player. And what people would do with those boombox, you would record your favorite music from the radio, from your boombox. So you would have a nice little tape.

You have a nice tape and you think it's like, oh, this shit is clear. Then you hear somebody say, Tisha, get the fuck off the stove! Because it was recording right in actual time.