David Banner is a big man. 6' 2" big. Nine years ago I was a huge fan of "Def Jam: Fight for NY." We'd been playing it in the studio for months when David Banner came to Spokane for a concert. On the day of the concert I'm the DJ with the turn tables. Everything is going smooth and then David Banner comes out and wants to perform his hit song, "Play."

Back in 2004 all I had was vinyl -- no digital recordings -- just vinyl on turn tables. And the only version of "Play" his record label sent me was the clean radio-edit version and the "instrumental" version. Before the show I was told he wanted lyrics, so I spun the clean version.

He realized it quickly. He stopped the entire concert, stopped it dead. He turned around and yelled at me:

"Why the f*** are you playing the clean version of my f***ing song?

I had 3,000 people staring at me and a big, angry David Banner staring at me.

I imagined Def Jam happening right there on stage! He looked like he was going to beat my ass. I had visions of him sitting on my back pounding my neck into the ground like in the video game!

So I yell, "Banner, come over here." I showed him the vinyl. "This is what your label sent me. This is all I have. What do you want me to do?" He said to just keep going, and he only did five or six songs and then called it quits. But I got out of there alive.

Getty Images, Erik S. Lesser
Getty Images, Erik S. Lesser
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