33 Years Later, Suave’s Long-Lost Mixtape - Bonus - Plus

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Suave – 33 Years Later, Suave’s Long-Lost Mixtape

Podcast: Suave (Futuro Media)
Episode: 33 Years Later, Suave’s Long-Lost Mixtape (Bonus – Plus)
Date: June 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

This deeply personal bonus episode explores the rediscovery of a hip hop album recorded by David Luis “Suave” Gonzalez while incarcerated as a teenager in the late 1980s. The conversation with Suave covers the transformative role of music during his decades-long prison sentence, the origins and process of creating his clandestine mixtape, and the social conditions that shaped both his life and his art. The episode also debuts “Mr. Pulitzer,” a new track inspired by Suave’s story, and reflects on generational mentorship and legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Significance of April 7th (00:20–01:03)

• April 7th is a profound date for Suave:
  • Sentenced to life in prison on April 7, 1988.
  • On April 7, 2025, Suave’s memoir “From Prison to the Pulitzer” is released, and this very episode airs.
  • “How amazing is that?” – Suave (00:52)

2. The Lost & Found Prison Mixtape (01:03–03:02)

• Suave recounts recording an album in prison over 33 years ago with a “little eight track recorder, an illegal recorder, for that matter, that a reporter left behind by mistake.” (01:54)
• The tape was believed lost until Suave discovered it in his brother’s basement—still unopened.
• Instruments were homemade, and collaborators used improvised tools due to lack of resources.
• “We managed to create magic.” – Suave (02:15)

3. Learning to Rap Before Reading (03:02–04:54)

• Suave grew up in the South Bronx, the birthplace of hip hop, near legends like Fat Joe and KRS-One.
• Rap became a literacy tool for him before he could read or write. He memorized everything through music.
• “Even when I was illiterate, I could always memorize things, especially a song.” – Suave (04:02)

4. Solitary Confinement and Musical Innovation (05:08–06:54)

• Seven years in solitary impacted how Suave heard and created music:
  • Found “melodies” in the everyday noises: drips, leaks, banging metal.
  • Used those sounds as backing rhythms to write and perform for fellow inmates.
• “To the normal person, it's just water drops coming in. But to me, it was like melodies.” – Suave (05:48)

5. The Realities of Music Production in Prison (08:05–09:44)

• Music was produced on cassette tapes. Makeshift methods were used to record and “master” tracks.
• “We had to finesse the system a little bit…We invited a reporter…she left the recorder…we did one song at a time, piece by piece.” – Suave (08:08)
• Tracks were handmade, passed through families, and sold on the yard.

6. Rapping in Spanish: Identity and Survival (10:22–11:52)

• Language barrier led Suave to produce mostly Spanish-language tracks:
  • “I knew I couldn't beat the brothers that was rapping in there…but I knew I could feature with them because they always wanted a Spanish verse.” – Suave (11:01)
• Early fusion of Latino culture and hip hop, predating mainstream reggaeton.

7. The Content of the Tape: Art Imitates Life (12:11–15:56)

• Lyrics tackled drugs in families, living with crack in the Bronx, solitary experiences, and political issues:
  • “Soy Latino” was a political message about AIDS and government neglect in communities of color.
• Songs drew upon personal and collective struggle; humor and sarcasm layered over serious themes.

8. AIDS and Discrimination in 80s Prisons (15:56–17:51)

• HIV-positive inmates were segregated; queer prisoners were isolated, reflecting institutional discrimination.
• Suave distributed tapes within this context, describing a Latino fan base hungry for representation.

9. DIY Music: Instruments and “Studio” Life (18:36–21:31)

• The prison’s music program was inaccessible for new arrivals:
  • Suave learned to craft congas from mop buckets, trash cans, and leather jackets.
• Up to 12 people crammed into a cell to record tracks in one or two takes, with a lookout posted for guards.
  • “We either get it right the first time...or we out to the next one.” – Suave (20:25)
• “I ain't never seen the studio till I got out of prison.” – Suave (20:54)

10. Entrepreneurship and Survival (21:47–23:41)

• Mixtape sales and later, self-publishing books, became Suave’s financial lifelines.
  • “Before the books, it was the music. I used to sell mixtapes.” – Suave (22:13)
• Music served as both creative expression and economic survival; it also preserved a legacy for his family.

11. Mentorship, Legacy, and the Making of “Mr. Pulitzer” (24:40–30:18)

• Suave mentors Joey Deville, who creates “Mr. Pulitzer,” a song encapsulating Suave’s journey.
  • The lyrics draw entirely from the podcast and Suave’s life, yet were written without direct biographical telling—showing Joey’s empathetic connection.
  • “It’s my story from Joey’s perspective…he got everything from hearing the podcast and hearing me speak.” – Suave (25:44)
• Suave views mentorship and storytelling as a form of giving back and preventing incarceration for future generations.

12. The Power of Representation and Impact (29:15–30:18)

• Suave reflects on the transformative effect of the podcast and the pride in seeing his mentee graduate:
  • “If we could save one person from ending up in prison, we’d done our job.” – Suave (29:45)

13. The Playlist and Hip Hop Lineage (31:25–32:22)

• Suave shares artists and tracks that shaped him and the playlist for listeners to access music mentioned in the episode.
  • Artists: Joey Deville, Butch Vega, KRS-One, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, Nas.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On resilience & creativity under constraint:
  “We managed to create magic.” – Suave (02:15)

• On music as survival and legacy:
  “I didn’t want my voice to die in prison...I always believe that if you write, sing, record, somewhere down the line, somebody gonna stumble up on that literature, and they probably gonna rediscover.” – Suave (23:04)

• On music as a reflection of life:
  “I try to use my life as the backdrop for all them songs.” – Suave (13:51)

• On making music in dire circumstances:
  “We couldn’t just say that again. We either get it right the first time…the second time, or we out to the next one.” – Suave (20:25)

• On mentorship and the next generation:
  “To put Joey under the wing and see him graduate college. He only got two classes left…he’s working at the children’s hospital now…that to me is like, the job is done.” – Suave (30:18)

• Joey Deville, channeling Suave’s journey:
  “Barely a child and making decisions. 31 years I was locked in that prison. Nobody thought I was walking out, living. It was a pull of surprise I was given.” – Joey Deville, “Mr. Pulitzer” (27:41)

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Timestamps: Important Segments

• 00:20: The significance of April 7th
• 01:03: Rediscovering the lost mixtape
• 03:02: Learning to rap before literacy
• 05:41: Music as a lifeline in solitary
• 08:05: How music was produced and distributed in prison
• 10:54: Choosing to rap in Spanish
• 12:41: The stories and politics in Suave’s music
• 16:12: HIV/AIDS discrimination in prison
• 18:36: Crafting DIY instruments
• 21:47: Selling mixtapes for survival
• 24:40: The making of “Mr. Pulitzer”
• 29:15: The impact of Suave’s mentorship
• 31:25: Suave’s playlist and musical influences
• 32:07: Excerpts from Joey Deville’s track “Imagine”
• 33:11: Episode close-out and gratitude

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Final Thoughts

This bonus episode of Suave is both an oral history and a powerful meditation on art emerging from adversity. Through laughter, candid memories, and music, Suave and his collaborators map the intersections of hip hop, prison life, survival, and generational healing. The newly uncovered mixtape and the song “Mr. Pulitzer” concretize how storytelling and sound can echo across decades—preserving not just an individual legacy, but hope and possibility for the future.

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Transcript

[Interviewer]

Hey, futuristas. This is episode two of the Suave season two bonus episodes. And I'm super excited today because I have Suave all the way in Philly. What up, Suave?

[Suave]

What's going on, people? I'm happy to be here. Happy to be dropping this bonus episode because today is a very special day for me.

[Interviewer]

We're about to get right to that. So today's episode is about music. It's about hip hop. It's about, you know, the value of music in prison. But before we get to that, as Suave mentioned, we're recording this on April 7, 2025, and today's a really, really special day for Suave. So tell us about it.

[Suave]

I mean, April 7, 1988, was the date that I got sentenced to life in prison. I got found guilty April 6, but I was sentenced April 7. April 7, 2025, is the day that my book come out all over the place, from prison to the Pulitzer. And it's also the day that this podcast dropped. How amazing is that?

[Interviewer]

I mean, that's huge. It seems like that day has, like, a really big significance for you. Early on in season one, Swabit told me that when he was in prison, he recorded an album, but we had no way to get our hands on it. And so for years, it's been this little mystery between us, like, are we ever gonna get to hear this album the Suave recorded?

[Suave]

I told you, when I came home, I couldn't find the tape. I ain't know one person that had it. And then I go to my brother's house, and in the basement, he got a whole shrine. And I see my tape, brand new packets. I was like, yo, I need that. And he's like, yeah, I was holding it. I forgot I had it.

[Interviewer]

Best day ever.

[Suave]

Best day ever. Best day ever.

[Interviewer]

And so we have good news.

[Suave]

Y' all got it. It's in your hands. It's music that I recorded inside scr gratitude propaganda. And I noticed almost 33 years ago with a little eight track recorder, an illegal recorder, for that matter, that a reporter left behind by mistake. And I was like, hey, I think I could record an album out of this. And back then, we a had no cell phones, no Internet. It was straight up. You know how to play the instrument or you don't. So a lot of the instruments you hear are homemade instruments that people made with a little rickety dinkity keyboard. But we managed to create magic.

[Interviewer]

So this is a topic that comes up in season one and season two of the Podcast the fact that you were illiterate when you went to prison, you were failed by the public school system. But I didn't know until about a week ago that you learned how to rap before you learned how to read and write. What was it about hip hop? What was it about rapping? And did that help, you know, the process of learning how to read and write?

[Suave]

I mean, as you know, I grew up in the South Bronx. The birth of hip hop. 149th Street, Prospect Avenue. So I grew up right around the corner from Fat Joe, before he was Fat Joe.

[Interviewer]

That's crazy.

[Suave]

But I also grew up down the block from KRS1 and DJ Scott Larratt, which was like a. Oh, here down the block. So before the whole Boogie down production thing came about, they was just regular dudes. They used to do parties right across the street from where I lived at Union Avenue. People still taking rapping for a joke.

[Joey Deville]

A passing hope.

[Suave]

So Hip hop always been part of my life. And I could memorize a lot of things. Even when I was illiterate, I could always memorize things, you know, especially a song nobody didn't know. I didn't know how to read it right. My family did, but nobody else did. So I just used. I used to rap about normal things that I saw in the neighborhood. Cause that was the hip thing to do. If I heard it, I could rap it. So. So when I go to prison, you know, it was like 86. The only Latino artist that was out back then was this artist named Mellow Man Ace. Today you tell me something else. And then we have had I dope with the Rico Suave stuff. And I was like, man, I could do that. Cause, you know, I grew up in a Spanish household, so I was just putting words together. Everything I heard of my mother, I used to rap about my mother, my sisters. That's how that album came about.

[Interviewer]

So I want to talk a little bit about what it was like in prison before you made the album, right before you found that tape recorder. I always think about this moment where we were talking about what it was like to be in solitary confinement. You were in solitary for seven years. And I will never forget how you described your perception of sound or the lack of sound. Right? Like the loneliness of being in solitary. But I'm curious if being in solitary confinement impacted the way that you hear things or think about music.

[Suave]

I mean, being in solitary confinement for seven years definitely gave me a distinct sound. Cause I would listen, like for the roaches, the mouths, the water leaks, the toilet I trained my ear to hear a lot of things. I used to hear the leaks from the windows coming in. And to the normal person, it's just water drops coming in. But to me, it was like melodies. And I would try. It was like a Metrodome. So every time I hear the leak, I try to rap to it. And I would just write to the leak. And I used to do beats in my head, and that's how I wrote most of my songs. And I used to bang on the metal. I had like this one beat, and everybody be like, hit that song again. Cause people couldn't believe, like, dang, you know how to rap. And there's no radios in solitary confinement. There's no TVs. It's just you and other human beings. So if you could provide some entertaining, then you was like the guy in the everybody called Believe it or Not, I only knew KRS1 songs and some rock can. I ain't knew nobody else. And once in a while, I used to try to rap. I Need Love from LL Cool J.

[Interviewer]

You know what really impacted me about hearing you describe that is I think you and I have talked a lot about, like, the need and the desire for human connection and how brutal, like, to be honest, like how. How brutal it is to be in solitary and not be able to see another person touch another person, really communicate with someone else. So in a way, you were sort of creating community by making sound. That was music, that was art. That was the only access the other people around you had to music. As we know, there is a lot of music coming out of prison in 2025. You know, technology has advanced. People are recording whole albums over the phone, or they have a phone inside, or, you know, you might even have a whole sound system inside. But when you were in prison in the late 80s, the early 90s, technology was so different. First of all, no tablets, no mp3 players. So how did you guys listen to music if you listen to music? And how could you actually make music in prison in the early 90s?

[Suave]

I mean, in the early, early 90s in prison, we listened to music by cassette tape. Illegal cassette tapes and commissary used to sell you a Walkman, and they still do to this day. To make music, you had to finesse the system a little bit. So what I did, we invited a reporter to come in and do a report, and somehow she left the recorder by mistake. I got the idea by a friend of mine that had a guitar, and he used to be like, yo, rap to this rhythm. And then I Had another guy with a conga, they used to make beats and he used to be like, yo, rap to this. And I was like, oh man, I sounds good on tape. Let's do a whole album. So when I recorded my music, we recorded one song at a time, piece by piece. It was like cutting pace. You do one piece. Now rewind the tape to that little piece and then go right there, stop, record again. And once we had all 13 songs together, we so called mastered the tape by running it, recorded it completely into another tape. Back then it was this company called Disc Maker and they give you like 500 tapes for $300. And then I had my family sell the takes in the street.

[Interviewer]

So you are basically doing what a rapper is when they're recording. You're listening to your take and you're just punching in wherever you need to retake it. And then the process of actually mastering was really just taking this tape and copying it to a clean cassette. I guess we'll say, and if you.

[Suave]

Make a mistake, you got to record that part again and then tape it again.

[Interviewer]

Wow. So how long did it take you to. To make this project? You made a whole album?

[Suave]

30 days. 30 days. Because the way we made that album was we were all block workers. So we would pay the guard like, yo, we need to hang out in the cell altogether doing count time. So we got one hour a day.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Suave]

To record. So we all go in there, we record somebody's looking out with a piece of mirror out the door, making sure the guards don't come. And for a microphone, what we did, we took the end of a headphone, plug it into the mic and just start talking to it.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Suave]

That's how we recorded. We ain't had no microphone and that's what we came up with.

[Interviewer]

So tell me a little bit about this album. You mentioned being a big fan of El General. I know that about you very well. But a lot of this album is actually in Spanish. And so I'm curious why you decided to make music in Spanish. I think it's a good opportunity to talk about something that, that we've discussed a bit in the past, which is like race relations in prison and particularly, I think, a little different back in the 90s. But why was it that you chose to, quote, unquote, market yourself with Spanish music if you grew up listening to hip hop in English?

[Suave]

Because I really didn't know a lot of English words.

[Interviewer]

That's one of the interesting. I didn't know that about you, so.

[Suave]

I knew a lot of Spanish words because I grew up in a Spanish household. And plus we was in a jail where it was half blacks, half Spanish. I knew I couldn't beat the brothers that was rapping in there. I couldn't compete with them, but I knew I could feature with them because they always wanted a Spanish verse. So I was the guy that came for the Spanish verse. And like I said, this was like 33 years ago. So what you're hearing today we was doing back then, but we was doing it from the muscle. Not knowing that fast forward 33 years later, this music was going to be what it is today. I truly believe that if I was recording today at that time, I probably would have been one of the premier Latino hip hop artists coming out of prison.

[Interviewer]

So, Danny Yankee, you better be grateful.

[Suave]

I mean, listen, listen, we talking about 86, 87, before anybody thought about reggaeton or Latino hip hop.

[Interviewer]

Let's talk a little bit about that because I do think it's really interesting, like the sound that you had at that time and also, you know, the topics of the things that you were writing about. The first thing you said to me when you sent me the digitized version of the music was, hey, just a heads up, some of it is pretty explicit. Let's talk a little bit about the kind of things that, that you explored in your music, because I do think you had a pretty wide range.

[Suave]

I mean, my range was crazy because again, I drew inspiration from KRS1 and his whole album, Criminal Minded. So if you listen to that tape, there's a song in there, it's called Criminal Minded. We didn't have a mixer, so for that part, Suave is criminal minded. We had to just actually sing it. Right. So I was trying to duplicate Criminal Minded, but in Spanish, Crack Baby was about my sister being on crack and my nephew being born a crackhead, which was one of the songs that everybody in the jail, like, a lot of people don't know. That was about my mom. It may sound crazy, but that was about my mom. That was about a woman not waiting for her dude while he was locked up. It was my story and music before the Suave podcast came out, that was about me going in front of the judge, getting life. So I try to use my life as the backdrop for all them songs.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, that's one of the things that I noticed. There's always something a little deeper in the songs, right? Some of them, you might hear them and you might think, well, wait, what is this about? But as you start listening to the song, you realize that you're using, like, a bit of humor, a bit of sarcasm to really, like, deliver a much deeper message about a. What a lot of people I'm sure, could. Could relate to what landed you in prison, but also what life was like for you in the Bronx and then in the badlands of Philly at that time.

[Suave]

Yeah, it was a portrait of my life, what you hear in that song. And the sad part is, right, that every time I hear that album, I'm like, damn, this was good. Cause I hear something different. Soy Latino was my political message. Like, after government. That's like my favorite song because a lot of people talking about, what are you really talking about? I was talking about A's, because back then AIDS was the big thing. You know, I was talking about how the government don't really care about our people in the community. How politicians come in when it's voting time, ask for your vote, but then when you vote, they forget about you. I was talking about what's going on today, but I was talking about it back then.

[Interviewer]

We've never talked about this. So I'm actually really glad that you brought that up because you were incarcerated at a maximum security prison, one of the toughest maximum security prisons in the country in the 80s. So I wonder if. If you had any experience with. With witnessing the AIDS epidemic at the time.

[Suave]

I did. When I went to prison in the 80s, anybody that was HIV positive was separated from the general population. They had to sue the DOC to be integrated back into population. They used to keep them in their infirmity by themselves. And then if you was gay, transgender, anything else, they kept you separated in a separate block. And I always consider that discrimination. Like, man, that's discrimination, you know? And I talked about it in the songs, like, but in my way. In my way. Remember, there was 6,000 people in Gratisville and at least 2,500 of them were Latino. So I had a nice fan base that, hey, I want to get a copy of your tape. So I used to get the guards to bring me blank tapes and I used to make copies and sell them for 20, $30 inside the jail. And then you could walk around the yard when your own Walkman and listen to Suave all day long like a little superstar in the jail. But. But I try to get mess. Used to make people think like, damn, that was deep. Like, if you listen to that policy, you know, I mentioned about historic events that happened in Puerto Rico. That was my interpretation of NWA the police, but in Spanish. I had a nice Flow back then.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I'm seeing. It's so interesting and I think it's such a beautiful thing when it comes to that connection because as you said, like, you're a lot of. Your initial inspiration was sort of trying to recreate the message of hip hop and bringing it to the Latino culture, which at the time didn't have as much representation. I'm glad that we're having this conversation for a few reasons, but particularly because in the podcast we talk so much about the positive impact that art education had on you. All these art programs that when they started in prison, brought so much joy, so much meaning, so much passion, so much purpose to so many people. But I'm curious, what if the prison had a music program or how was it that people had access to the congas or to the guitars?

[Suave]

I mean, they had a music program, but it was for the elites, for the people who've been there 20, 25 years before I got there. I'm from. And I don't know if a lot of people probably, probably know this. When we used to go to the carnivals, they had guys playing in trash cans upside down. They used to make dents and they used to be their bells. So I learned how to make congas out of plastic trash cans and leather jackets.

[Interviewer]

In prison?

[Suave]

In prison. So all we really had to do was take a mop bucket, flip it upside down, tight, the leather around it real tight. And now you start getting sounds, all right. And to get that conga sound, you put as much cardboard as you can underneath and you have that sound.

[Interviewer]

Oh, that's fascinating.

[Suave]

Like I said, some of the instruments that you hear in the album are not real instruments, are instruments that we made ourselves.

[Interviewer]

Can you describe visually for the audience so they can imagine what a production studio looked like? At Greater for Prison?

[Suave]

It was an 8 by 12 cell that you could touch with both of your hands. One bed, a little table, a toilet and a desk. And there used to be like 10, 12 people in there trying to record one song. It's funny now, but it shows you that in times of hardship you could come through because some of these guys vocals was tight. We practiced this all day long. It was tight and we only had like one or two takes. We couldn't just say that again. We either get it right the first time, the second time, or we out to the next one. We come back to that.

[Interviewer]

You're in the small cell. You have one hour before the guards come. You have 12 people watching you and you're going to mess up the tape. If you don't get it right.

[Suave]

We. You had to get it right. That instrument had to be tested before we even put recall. Because we only had one tape. You had the 30 minute tapes and you had the 60 minute tapes. We don't have enough room for mess up. Take one and go. And we had a riggedy dinky keyboard. I opened it up and attached the system where we could hear the keys playing through the speaker that we had.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Suave]

Because we needed that sound. I ain't never seen the studio till I got out of prison.

[Interviewer]

But you know what I think is so cool about that? I think what I like about music in 2025 is that it's become really accessible. So like I've been in a tiny, tiny little studio with a bunch of people and makeshift mic situations and everybody's recording into it. And so I think it's really cool to. To have that visual of like how you made it happen and how 30 something years later, artists who maybe don't have access to studio money to buy studio time or don't have access to the best equipment are making music today that is successful in the same way that you were in a prison cell 35 years ago.

[Suave]

Right. You can't really duplicate that sound because it is a sound that comes straight outta Gratis for. And Gratis for is close. It's an album that came out the struggle. This is what make that tape so good today.

[Interviewer]

Suave. You're absolutely a hustler. And nowadays you know the correct term, an entrepreneur. And I do think that's one thing that has always been so consistent about you. Because another thing we don't talk a lot about on these seasons. But you were a published author in prison and you lived off of your books for a long time.

[Suave]

Five books.

[Interviewer]

But I didn't know that before you lived off of your books, you were living off selling these tapes inside the prison.

[Suave]

I started writing when the Irving Craig came out. Everybody was writing urban fictions and I was like, shit, I got tons of material. So I published like five books from inside the prison. And they all did well. That was how I lived. Because I didn't have nobody sending me money. My mother had passed away. So I said, you know what? I could live off this. But before the books, it was the music. I used to sell mixtapes.

[Interviewer]

So the importance of music then is kind of twofold. Right. It's like an artistic, a passion, a sense of purpose, something to create, something to spend your time doing that is healthy. That is Positive. But it was also a way for you to take care of yourself without having to sell drugs, without having to do things in prison, because you didn't have outside support monetarily, particularly like someone that could put money in your books to help you inside.

[Suave]

It goes a little deeper than that. I didn't want my voice to die in prison. And I used to always think that if I record or write, no matter what happened, that's my legacy. I always believe that if you write, sing, record, somewhere down the line, somebody gonna stumble up on that literature, and they probably gonna rediscover. My mom was the biggest fan. She used to blast that in her house. I was like, mommy, you sure you wanna blast that? She's like, yeah, that's my son rapping. You couldn't tell I wasn't Daddy Yankee back then.

[Interviewer]

Obviously, I've never met Sato, but I always think about her as, like, the epitome of someone who really like, loved and supported her children. I think what you said is really important, right? Like, there is great value in being able to express yourself, mark your place in the world. And I think it. It elevates so much when you are locked away, when you are in a prison, and when your access to the outside world is so limited in terms of, like, suave. The podcast is your story. It tells your story, but in a sense, it's still told by someone else. Right? Like, I'm narrating your story. So I want to talk about Mr. Pulitzer, the song that you created with your friend intern Joey Deville. It's a song that we play a little bit of in this season of the podcast, but I think it deserves, like, a little bit more of a conversation. So can you introduce Mr. Pulitzer to us and tell us a little bit about that song and how it came about?

[Suave]

It's by Joey Deville, a student, one of the guys that I mentor. And I came across Joey's music when I was speaking in Alabama, and somebody sent me a tape talking about, yo, you heard this guy, he's from your city. And I was like, I don't want to hear another Latino rapper. He can't rap better than me. And I was like, let me hear him. Let me check him out. So I checked his music out, and as soon as I flew back to the city, I contacted him, like, 12 midnight. Like, who does that, right? Like 12:03. He contacted me back, like, yo, what's up? And I'm like, yo, I need you to come down. Community college. That was the relationship, how it started And I used to tell him, bro, you need to rap in Spanish. And he was like, oh, but nobody want to hear that. So then I told him, yo, hear this. I let him hear my tape. He was like, oh, my God, this is dope. Oh, I gotta do something. We gotta do something. And the plan was to re release the whole album, but with updated beats. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that. It would kill it. So when he heard the podcast, he went home and said, I want to do something for you. And I was like, what? I said, joey, we got to do a song together. And the name of the song was going to be Mr. Pulitzer. But then he went and recorded his part, and that's what you hear in the song, Mr. Pulitzer. And I was like, nah, I'm not going to mess this up. This is the song right here. This is the song. And it's my story from Joey deville perspective. But I think he was just such on point. And believe me, I never told him my story. Everything he got was from hearing the podcast and hearing me speak. So it's the same song that you going to get for free. When you buy the book, open the first page. QR Code is the song, Mr. Pulitzer. And I'm so excited, man, that we doing this, man, because Joey is a good dude. Joey is a student. He is an individual that suffered a whole lot of trauma in life and yet never, never done time in the penal system. On the right track, ready to graduate, taking nursing school now. And he would tell you like you did that. I tell him, nah, I ain't do that. You did that. I just provided an opportunity for him, right? And to me, I see myself in his music because if I was 25 again, that's what I'll be rapping about. So, ladies and gentlemen, right now, we're gonna debut this song. It was tailored, made by Joey Deville. My story is called Mr. Pulitzer. Check it out, y'. All.

[Interviewer]

I will never forget the day that we heard it for the first time. I knew that the song existed.

[Suave]

I hadn't heard it yet what it is.

[Interviewer]

But you hadn't told Maria. And we were in Puerto Rico. I was driving, Maria was sitting in the back seat. You were in the passenger, and you were like, I have something to show you.

[Joey Deville]

Barely a child and making decisions. 31 years I was locked in that prison. Nobody thought I was walking out, living. It was a pull of surprise I was given. What are the odds that I'm winning the lottery? I come from poverty.

[Interviewer]

Oh, My God. How did you feel?

[Suave]

I. I was a little nervous because it was like the first time I ever let somebody hear that song.

[Interviewer]

I personally will never forget that moment. Like, we were in the car. We had a really good sound system in that rental, and we were just banging in that car. It was really beautiful.

[Suave]

I feel good having my mentor listen to it, and I wanted to see her reaction. Like, he's rapping about you. Because really, the whole song is you and me.

[Joey Deville]

I promise my mama I'm never gonna.

[Interviewer]

Stop.

[Joey Deville]

But I'm like a warrior inside.

[Suave]

It's like the podcast in two minutes.

[Interviewer]

That's such a perfect way to describe it. It really is.

[Suave]

The.

[Interviewer]

The 30 years that of your life that we tell in the podcast, condensed to. I think it's two verses and a hook.

[Suave]

Yes.

[Interviewer]

Beautiful production. The production, the sound, the design. Joey is someone who has had his own challenges in life, and because of that, he was able to step into your shoes and rap this really beautiful song that tells your story.

[Suave]

And I always tell Maria that I recorded the podcast because I wanted to save other young people from ending up in prison. We doing that with Joey. This is what we supposed to be doing, you know, opening doors for other people. We said it from the very beginning when we dropped season one people, that if we could save one person from ending up in prison, we'd done our job. And if we could save one person from getting murdered, we done our job. If we could save a mother from having to bury her child, we done our job. And I think we done pretty good. Every time I walk down the street and I see some of these young people that tell me, bro, your podcast saved my life. We done our job to put Joy under the wing and see him graduate college. He only got two classes left. As a matter of fact, he's working at the children's hospital now.

[Interviewer]

Oh, wow. Congrats to Joey.

[Suave]

Yeah, that to me is like, the job is done. Yeah, the job is done. And then to be talking about his music because I always tell him, joey, I'll bust your ass if it comes to a rap battle in Spanish.

[Interviewer]

Oh, I'm still waiting for. For that. There was a moment that when we were first coming up with season two, and we were trying to figure out, like, what the season would be that suave. I connected you to Butch Vega, who's actually our post production producer. Shout out to him. Dan Riveros, incredible artist, but also our post production producer this season, and we had a conversation about maybe doing some original music for the podcast or Releasing an album. It didn't happen. But what we are gonna give you instead is we're gonna give you a playlist where we're gonna feature some of Suave and my favorite music. And the people that we mentioned in this episode, we'll pull them in before we leave. Give me like two songs that you know for sure that you're going to put on that playlist.

[Suave]

Joey Deville, Mr. Pulitzer, Bush Vega. Got to put him. I like all his music. I don't care what it is, especially his Spanish music. I love it. La Wrestle, KRS one, Eric, Beacon Rakan, Public Enemy.

[Interviewer]

We gotta put some Nas in there, eh?

[Suave]

I'll put some Nas. I'll put some Nas.

[Interviewer]

This is where our disagreements come.

[Suave]

I'll put some Nas in there, but I'm keeping it 1980s. In the 80s. I'm keeping it my. When I was 17 and I know Butch is a little younger, but his music got some soul.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, There's a song called Imagine, and I spent a lot of time listening to that song as I was writing this season.

[Suave]

Imagine.

[Joey Deville]

I never even wrote a rap message on red. Never wrote I'm back Imma let the accolade speak for me Dotting on my eyes cross teeth fatigue still got a.

[Suave]

Whole lot left for me Me and.

[Joey Deville]

My dog got a recipe I'm at the edge of my destiny Let me just wait no, I' ma just jump.

[Suave]

Hey, head first home Got a lot.

[Interviewer]

On my plate so whenever I think of you, I always think about that song in particular, because I think it's about having this dream that you don't give up on that maybe other people don't see yet. But, like, you're so sure and you're so confident and that's you. You can listen to Mr. Pulitzer and all the songs that we discussed today and some other ones by clicking the Spotify link on the show Notes. I just want to say thank you. Suave. I'm so excited that we got to have this conversation. Thank you for being honest for talking about music with me, for, like, educating us on the process of making music in prison and how it was in the 90s. And yeah, thank you to our audience for tuning in all our futuristas who took the step, who subscribed, who are supporting us and allowing us to keep making work that we're really passionate about.

[Suave]

Futurista, thank you.

[Interviewer]

We will be back with more bonus content.

[Suave]

Peace.

[Joey Deville]

I am a legend Una leyenda I keep it real Never been a potent I come from the bottom of the silent where the people forgotten me Animosity it bothered me to live in anomaly no equality a bunch of cops robbed with hypocrisy locking me inside a box Constantly mocking me I'm the prophec see it gotta be a God that been watching me Even possibly a little bit of faith that'll follow me no apologies I'm taking everything that I'm about to be but ferocity it's not a problem ever Caswall they wanna hold me back I'm climbing this mountain right up to the top they wanna hold me back I promise my mama I'm never gonna stop they wanna hold me back they thought they killed me and left me for dead they wanna hold me back But I'm like a warrior inside of my head they wanna hold me back I'm climbing this mountain right down to the top they want to hold me back I promise my mama I'm never gonna stop they wanna hold me back they thought they killed me and left me for dead they wanna hold me back But I'm like a warrior inside of my head.

[Interviewer]

Futura plus.