Matty C on The Source, Discovering Biggie, and the Real Wu-Tang Story

Matty C shaped the sound of an era before most people knew his name. As the voice behind The Source's Unsigned Hype column, he championed The Notorious B.I.G., DMX, Mobb Deep, and Common while they were still demos, then carried that ear into a run as head of A&R at Loud Records. In this episode, Matty sits down with Jeffrey Sledge to trace the whole journey. He talks about getting sanctioned into hip hop as a breakdancing kid in DC, studying journalism at NYU, and the round-table years at The Source when the office doubled as home base for the culture. He breaks down how Biggie's demo made it to Puff, why the second Mobb Deep album finally connected, and the real chronology behind Wu-Tang's revolutionary non-exclusive deals. He also gets into the Purple Tape sessions with Tom Coyne at Sterling Sound, the Sonny Carson clearance call, signing Big Pun and Dead Prez, and why the move to Sony took the fun out of the work. Then there's the turn almost nobody saw coming. Matty explains how he went back to NYU for finance and reinvented himself as a kind of retirement plan for hip hop, and how surfing became his therapy for everything the business put him through. This is Mixed and Mastered with Matty C. In this episode: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:21 Starting in '89 and Growing Up on Hip Hop 00:05:43 NYU and Finding a Home at The Source 00:08:45 Unsigned Hype and Writing Up DMX 00:10:55 Discovering Mobb Deep and Common 00:18:06 The Biggie Story 00:24:12 The Ones That Got Away: Jay-Z and Eminem 00:26:43 From The Source to Loud Records 00:31:47 Steve Rifkind and the Real Wu-Tang Chronology 00:36:02 Working With Wu-Tang and Signing Big Pun 00:40:20 The Purple Tape and the Sonny Carson Story 00:44:13 Dead Prez, and When Loud Went Corporate 00:50:04 East Village Radio and the 456 Label 00:54:27 The Finance Pivot, Surfing, and Three Questions Mixed and Mastered is hosted by Jeffrey Sledge and produced and distributed by Merrick Studios. Catch all our episodes at https://wearemerrickstudios.com/mixed... and for early access, live recordings and more, join us on Merrick Studios+ at https://www.wearemerrickstudios.com/plus.