Over a week ago, we released part 1 of our exclusive sit-down interview with West Coast veteran Kid Frost, where he discussed his early years in the rap game up through the release of his hit, “La Raza.” You can read that interview HERE!
Now Frost takes us to his life after “La Raza”, and he gave AllHipHop.com an exclusive look into his health and family – details that he’s never spoken about before. Read below for the conclusion of this special two part series.
AllHipHop.com: What happened after “La Raza”?
Kid Frost: I got on top of the roller coaster and then the ride took a dip – but the ride has to go around and start again. I took the elements of what people wanted to hear and my Chicano background – the Cholo image – and brought them together. “La Raza” put the key in the ignition but what you hear on Eastside Story is what the f*ck is going on in the streets. At the time that I was working on Eastside Story, Edward James Olmos was finishing up his movie, “American Me.” When he finished it, he was screening it to get the music done. They called me up, and I went to Paramount studios and I watched the film. It was dry with no music in it.
Edward asked me what I thought of the movie, and it was just us in the theater with the editors. I told him that I had a song for the movie. At first he wanted me to use that song from The Animals, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. They ended up putting the actual song from The Animals in the movie because he loved it so much. I played him a couple of my joints to hear, but I hadn’t played “Ain’t No Sunshine” yet. I already knew that he was going to love it when I played it for him.
AllHipHop.com: So you made “Ain’t No Sunshine” before you even saw the movie?
Kid Frost: Yeah. I finished that song about three months before he called me in. It was supposed to come out on Eastside Story, but we had to wait to get the sample clearance from Bill Withers. I wanted him to sing on it, but he told me, “Son, I enjoyed the song but I’m not going to be able to sing on it. I will give you permission to use the sample, though.” I went a got Chris Teddy who would always sing oldies sets at Monty’s Steakhouse. It was like a “Mob Boss” restaurant [laughter].
AllHipHop.com: That song was a perfect fit for the movie.
Kid Frost: It got the title track when they rolled the credits. My label got to do the entire soundtrack. I brought that to Virgin Records.
AllHipHop.com: Did Virgin Records compensate or reward you for bringing that soundtrack to them?
Kid Frost: Not really. For being “virgins” they sure do a lot of f*cking, you know what I mean?
AllHipHop.com: You basically went underground after that, right?
Kid Frost: Yeah, I submerged myself. I didn’t want to play all of those political games. I had already aligned myself with the people that I wanted to work with in music. All I ever wanted to do was make music – not get involved with the bullsh*t of politics. I wanted to let the young Raza know that we can do something. We don’t have to be stuck. I plugged with Baby Bash, who wasn’t even going by that name back then. He was Baby Beesh. I hooked up with JT from N2Deep and Don Cisco, and we formed “Latino Gauntlet.” We put out some good underground albums, and we knocked out shows all over.
AllHipHop.com: While all of this was going on, you were raising a future Hip-Hop Super Producer.
Kid Frost: Yeah. I became a single parent, and I raised young Scoop by myself. At 10 or 11 years old, he started adamantly going on his first little programs that he would use on his computer to produce music. Back then, a computer cost about $3,000, so I bought him a top of the line one. Scoop was a good kid from the get go. I really didn’t have a lot of problems with him, aside from some little mischievous sh*t. His love and passion for music came from watching me do it.
AllHipHop.com: So you saw that gift in him at an early age.
Kid Frost: I did. When he was a baby in the crib, I didn’t buy baby toys. I went to Radio Shack and bought a small keyboard, and I threw it in his crib. He would just pound on the keys. Like I said earlier, we come from a long line of musicians in our family, so I put the instruments in front of him right away.
AllHipHop.com: When did you start sensing that he could really be good at this?
Kid Frost: When he was 15 years old, and he did that “Mamacita” track for Baby Bash. He had just finished Little League, but he knew back then that he was going to produce music. It was in his head already. He was also a straight-A student at school. School bored the sh*t out of him. He was taking every class that he could so he could graduate early.
AllHipHop.com: Did you have a hand in teaching him how to produce?
Kid Frost: A lot of that is ear hustling. He watched me hustle for years, and when he got old enough, he used what he learned from watching. Your kids know what the f*ck you are doing. They watch. Scoop’s swag is really up right now. His skills are incredible. He’s working with everybody right now.
AllHipHop.com: I was amazed to find out that Scoop Deville was your son. It’s good to see the baton passed from father to son.
Kid Frost: I don’t want to say “pass the baton,” because it’s like Sanford & Son – Fred still worked! Lamont, his son, would go out there and hustle, but Fred had the key [laughter].
AllHipHop.com: You’ve had some health and personal issues in your life.
Kid Frost: I went in to a diabetic coma from an ingrown hair follicle underneath my testicle. I died three times in Huntington Memorial Hospital. I stayed there almost three months. I woke up once while they were yelling “Clear” using the defibrillator on my chest. I literally died and they brought me back. I was in a diabetic coma for five days.
Six days after I got out of the hospital, I recorded an album called Welcome To Frost Angeles. That album is just me and my son Scoop. Nobody else is on it. It fell through the cracks in a lot of ways, but if you listen to the album, I talk about myself being resurrected. I also started going out to Japan and working. I recorded another album out there. Then when I returned to the States, I went out to several South Western and Western states.
I hooked up with this white f*cked up stripper b*tch and had my son, Rhythm. This chick got arrested for having five pounds of Methamphetamine. She served time in prison and then got out, but instead of finishing her time at the halfway house, she went to my house. I knocked her up which resulted in my son, Rhythm.
I moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and I got a call that our baby cracked his skull. Somehow, my son got thrown to a wood floor. She said that she was staying with her grandmother, but it turned out she was with another dude. I left Vegas and I came back to Los Angeles and hired Victor Cohen as my attorney. He was also Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s attorney. I spent about 25 racks to go and fight for custody. My son was already a ward of the state. For the next month, I’m driving back and forth from Los Angeles to Vegas to make sure that my other son, Scoop, is straight. He was around 18 years old already, and he remained in Vegas at our house and studio.
I went through the necessary tests to confirm that the baby is indeed mine and sure enough, he is mine. I won custody, and I took my boy back to Vegas with me. It’s me, Scoop, and Rhythm now together. I took child development classes because he was just a baby. This was all five years ago. I started praying, and God put a woman in my path that’s cool and compatible for me. We first met 18 years ago, and it turns out that she owns a premier, preschool academy. My son goes to this academy now, and he’s learning incredibly. He’s come full-circle with his injury. It could have gone both ways. He couldn’t even lift up his head when I first got him back.
AllHipHop.com: How are you doing now though? Last year, you were hospitalized again for a mild stroke.
Kid Frost: The first letters of diabetes are pronounced as “die,” so I know that one day I will succumb to this. It’s an illness that plagues Latinos. That’s our ailment. We weren’t meant to eat as much meat and protein that we do. Our ancestral diet consisted of more vegetables. Mexicans started having these large Sunday barbeque feasts because we would trade our vegetables and fruits with white farmers that owned cattle. We would eat meat on Sundays but during the rest of the week, we would eat a lot of vegetables. As we settled in to American society, we started eating more things that break down into sugar in our bodies. It’s a recipe for disaster, because as Indians, we weren’t meant to eat a lot of the things we do now.
Last year, I had a sensory stroke. My left side shut down – from my toes to my head. I was with my baby – I have another 8-month-old son now. I was pushing him in his stroller at Wal-Mart, and I started feeling a little ill. My lady was coming from the makeup department, and I told her to hold on because I went to the restroom to throw water on my face. There just happened to be a hospital right up the street. They immediately identified my stroke, and soon enough, I had an IV machine attached to me.
I’m doing a lot better now. My lady makes me walk the course of The Rose Bowl. I started playing golf again, which is one of my real big passions. Before I go whip George Lopez, I’m getting my swing back.
AllHipHop.com: I hear you have a company now that’s just received funding to make movies and other big projects.
Kid Frost: I got with some people that I had been working with in my past. We built a facility to where we can start putting out these movies and soundtracks for Latino artists and actors. The first movie that we are working on right now is called “Truce.” It stars Danny Trejo. We’re also going to try to put together the first Latino low-rider Hip-Hop movie soundtrack. We just finished 11 new tracks for Danny’s other new film that’s coming out called Bad A**. He plays a Vietnam vet that comes back from the war and kicks a** again. I’ve got my “All Oldies 2” album that I’m finishing up right now.
On top of all that, I started a clothing line called “Ropa.” The first series of shirts that we are making are called “Dia De Los Muertos.” I took 2Pac and added his poem from “In The Event of my Demise.” I’ve also got a shirt of Eazy-E and Nate Dogg. The “Muertos” series is coming along.
AllHipHop.com: How did you come up with the “Muertos” shirt concept?
Kid Frost: Smoking weed and good p***y – just like how all good ideas come up. If you know of another way, please tell me [laughter].
AllHipHop.com: [laughter] It’s good to see that you’re still active in music.
Kid Frost: Some people are like, “He’s too old to be in this game.” As long as LL Cool J is still rapping, then I’m going to keep spittin’ these flows. As long as people like Chuck D are making noise, and I see them out there with their old man bellies, I’m going to keep rapping, too [laughter].
AllHipHop.com: It’s crazy to see Hip-Hop grown up. I’ve seen you all in your primes. You always know that you’re going to grow old one day, but it’s funny when it actually happens.
Kid Frost: I’m going to be 50! But this is all that I know, man. What else am I going to do? Do you think Pac-Tel is going to hire me? I’ve got kids to feed still. It’s all about family to me, though. It doesn’t mean anything if your kids can’t benefit from what you’re doing. All of the risks and moves that I’ve made have come from wanting to take care of my family.