Nas, Grandmaster Caz, Steve Stoute & Ben Horowitz on Paying Hip-Hop’s Pioneers Their Due

Ben Horowitz (0:00)

I think in life, it's impossible to do anything great if you start with what's possible. You have to start with what's right. Hip Hop's not that big. Like, the guys who made the art form are not that many. And so why can't we honor them?

Steve Stoute (0:16)

Acknowledging and celebrating, and then bringing this group of people together, is something that the industry should have done a long time ago.

Grandmaster Caz (0:22)

When people see me and they see my passion, this still got it. He's still doing it because I have to. Hip Hop don't have social security. You have to work.

Nas (0:31)

The whole thing about Hip Hop is about to grow, to be better. And I think we are living our lyrics with Paid in Full.

Steve Stoute (0:39)

I want everybody to know around the world what Grandmaster Caz looks like, and to celebrate him and applaud this man for what he's done, and celebrate Roxanne, and celebrate Melly and the DOC, and everybody else who's had these achievements.

Grandmaster Caz (0:52)

The thing is the honor. The thing is putting you in the light that you deserve to be in.

Steve Stoute (0:57)

If you're watching this, then love Hip Hop.

Erik Torenberg (0:59)

Hip Hop changed music, fashion, language and culture. But many of the people who built it never received the recognition or financial rewards that matched their impact. In this episode, Ben Horowitz and I sit down with Nas, Grandmaster Caz and Steve Stoute to tell the story behind the Paid in Full Foundation and its mission to honor Hip Hop's pioneers. We discuss why the foundation pairs financial support with recognition, what happens when generations of Hip Hop artists come together, and why giving these artists their flowers is about more than an award. And Caz shares what that recognition has meant firsthand, from his place in Hip Hop history to how Paid in Full helped change his life.

So this is the first time this group has gotten together to publicly talk about the Paid in Full Foundation. Caz, welcome to the podcast.

Ben Horowitz (1:51)

Thank you.

Erik Torenberg (1:52)

So Ben, why don't you introduce the foundation, and maybe let's get into the origin story, as far back as you want to go, as to how this came to be.

Ben Horowitz (1:59)

Yeah. So Paid in Full is an organization meant to honor the legacy of the people who created one of the most important musical art forms of all time, Hip Hop, and make sure that they're Paid in Full financially, spiritually, and culturally, and the idea kind of started with me, Steve and Nas. So it always bothered me that I bought Paid in Full, the album, for $10, and I got, in my career, and people in tech know this, I probably got at least $5 million worth of value out of the record, but there was no way to pay it back, and it needed to be paid back. So I had the idea originally, and I called Steve. Steve and I have been friends for many, many years, and I said, Steve, I have this idea. What do you think? He said, well, it's not only a good idea, but it's a very timely idea because people are talking about this right now, but they're not doing anything. So if you listen to the podcast, people are saying, oh, these rappers, these old guys, they don't have any money, they're dusty, they're this, they're that, and all these kinds of things. These are very, very important guys, but nobody's doing anything. So I thought, well, let's do something. Then the next call I made was to Nas.

Nas had a great insight because a lot of the concept, our dear friend, all of our friend, Quincy Jones had a thing called The Jazz Foundation where he would get money to the old jazz guys.

And I told it to Nas and Nas said, that's not going to work that way in hip hop because in hip hop, you can't just give somebody money. It has to be more than that. It has to be a recognition of what they did and who they are. And so that's when we got the idea of, well, let's have a big award show, have this idea of the Grandmaster Award for the true greats of hip hop, and then invite everybody to honor these guys. And we started it off with two all-time greats, Scarface and Rakim.

Steve Stoute (4:12)

Well, I'll just add to that, if you don't mind. Before we even got to the first show, it was also timely because Scarface was going through a medical condition.