As we progress towards the opening of The Hip Hop Museum, we have been introducing you to many of the team members putting in an incredible amount of work to make The Hip Hop Museum the home to celebrate and learn about the past, present, and future of Hip Hop.

This month, we highlight one of our incredible Associate Board Members.

Terrence “Klepto” Harding is an original member of Junior M.A.F.I.A., the group founded by The Notorious B.I.G. known for hit records like “Player’s Anthem” and “Get Money.” A close friend of Biggie’s, Klepto  left the music business to pursue what has become a successful real estate career in New York City.

I caught up with Klepto to discuss the early days of putting together Junior M.A.F.I.A., Biggie’s close friendship with 2Pac, why he got tired of the music business, and how he got into real estate.

Adam Aziz: I wanted to start with you meeting Biggie at The Tunnel nightclub in 1994. How did that evolve to you being part of Junior M.A.F.I.A.?

Klepto: Luckily, I was in the right place at the right time when I met Big. When I met him, he was just at the ground level of formulating Junior M.A.F.I.A. and getting it together. And he had the idea. And when I met him at The Tunnel and rapped to him, he gravitated to my style. And he just liked what I was rapping about. I was into a lot of clothing. Before I came on the scene it was all about Karl Kani and fatigues. Because I was from the streets, I was wearing a lot of Polo and Versace, so that’s what I rapped about to Big. He liked my style. He was now coming up about to become an icon, and I was in the streets. I had a Q45, a lot of money, and jewelry. He saw what I had and saw the combo of what we could do. I tell people this humbly but we were mutual mentors to each other. He helped me hone my Rap skills and then the whole style, Versace and all that; everybody knows if you look at the “Big Poppa” video, that’s when Versace first came into play. The yin and yang came together, and the rest is history.

AA: Were you taking Rap seriously at the time? Or was this just a case of you rapping for Big, and he is like, “Come to the studio?”

K: Great question. I was in the streets doing my thing, but I really wanted to get on and Rap. I went to The Tunnel with aspirations of getting on that night. When I met Big and rapped to him, he said, “I love your stuff,” and he said, “Take my beeper number.” We gelled and became great friends.

I was pretty reputable in Brooklyn at the time. Big and I became this dynamic duo, going all over the city because I had the Q45. We would drive around and go pick up Nas all the way in Queensbridge. This is when Nas was coming up. I tell this story frequently, and Nas can confirm it, but we went and picked up Nas in the Q45 in Queensbridge, and he got in the back of the car. And he looked like he was like, whoa, he looked around like, yo, yo, this is your car, man. I was like, yeah, he’s like, man, this shit is dope. To this day, when he sees me, he remembers like, yo, this was the dude that I met with Big.

I remember when Big first went on tour, he wanted me to come on tour with him. But I was doing so much elsewhere. I couldn’t leave that alone. I remember when he came back, he was like, man, I wish you were on tour. Y’all missed it, bro. He wanted us to get an apartment together. Right when ‘Ready To Die’ was coming out. That’s when, during those times, we started working at Daddy O’s house, and we were doing the Junior M.A.F.I.A. album. The whole situation still enamored me because I wasn’t a guy that was in the industry.

Back then, they had digital cameras, and we went to see Tupac. We went to pick up Tupac at what was then the Parker Meridien in my Q45. When we’re going to pick up Tupac, Big’s like, yo, don’t bring your camera, man. Because he has so much respect for ‘Pac, he didn’t want me to look like a fan guy. To this day, I’m mad I listened to him because I wish I had that camera and took pics with him and ‘Pac.

AA: Were Big and ‘Pac true friends?

K: Brothers, man. They were brothers. Those dudes, they had respect for each other, a lot of respect for each other. They enjoyed the situation, meaning they’re both in the music business. I remember hearing “Runnin'” and the different songs they did together; that was all part of the stuff that wasn’t being released, but Big was playing it around that time. They recorded a bunch of stuff together. They had songs with Method Man, real rugged stuff. Bad Boy would constantly water it down and try to commercialize it.

AA: What was the reason that there was only one album as a whole group?

K: We were all young, and Big put everybody together. Then, I distanced myself from the situation before Biggie’s passing because I felt like I couldn’t see eye to eye with the direction they were going with my stuff. And mainly because I knew it was a bullshit contract. When they gave us the contract, I was like, this contract is garbage. I’m not signing it. I held up the album for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks cause I wasn’t signing it. It got to the point where the rest of the group started saying, Klep, you’re messing us up. They started whining that I was messing stuff up. So me not being as knowledgeable about the industry, I was like, you know what, fuck it. I’ll sign it. I’m just going to go in and Rap my ass off. I signed it, and then Lance “Un” Rivera and them started shafting me because I had made an issue about signing it.

I remember Nino saying in an interview, “We should have listened to Klep.” But the experience made me who I am today.

AA: What are some of your favorite tracks on the ‘Conspiracy’ album?

K: I really like “Murder Onze.” I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite. I love that beat of “Murder Onze.” And that song has so much history because Special Ed’s DJ Action produced it. People don’t know that Special Ed and Action were instrumental to the Junior M.A.F.I.A. album because I was one of the few writing his own rhymes. Like Larceny and Trife, they wrote all their own stuff, too. And Chico.

Before I met Big, I was doing demos. I was doing my own demos. I had plans to get on in the Rap business. I was at Special Ed’s studio, Dollar Cab Lab. He had a studio in Brooklyn called Dollar Cab Lab. I would do demos in there. When I met Big, I was like, I’ll be working out in the studio. So I started bringing Big over there and other Junior M.A.F.I.A. members.

When I met Big, he was with Chico and Lil’ Cease and Chico wasn’t rapping. I remember coming into the crew and being like, damn, how come you’re not rapping? I remember I brought Chico to the studio, and Action played the beat for “Murder Onez,” and it just was so hypnotic, and it just put me in a trance, the beat. I was like, yo, this beat is crazy. And I told Chico, yo, just try to write to it. Just try to write something to it, man. You gotta get on this album. So lo and behold, he wrote a verse to “Murder Onez.” That was his first verse rapping. So, we recorded my verse and Chico’s verse. When we went back to Big’s house and played it for the rest of the group, and they heard the beat, and they heard me and Chico rapping, they were like, oh, nah, we wanna get on that. We wanna get on that. We all went back to Dollar Cab Lab, and then we recorded the other verses. And Kim was mad we didn’t have her on it, too.

AA: What do you remember about the night Biggie died?

K: I was really, really devastated by it. I had put myself at a distance from the whole scenario because I didn’t like the way; it was not his fault, but the way he was moving. I had security that I wanted around him. Back in those times, me and Big, right before all of that transpired, probably like a year before or two, around after the first album, we used to hang out so much that Un used to get mad at him and be like, yo, why are you only hanging out with Klep? After a while, we went our separate ways. I just stayed doing what I was doing. They doing what they doing. I was in a hotel with a girl, and I remember exactly what happened. I got the call, and somebody said, yo, Biggie got killed.

I just was like, damn. I felt like he had the wrong people around him. He should have had better security.

AA: How did you make the transition from music to real estate?

K: Real estate is similar to the music business. I got into a profession where you control your destiny. Your big sales, your big five million, whatever, 10 million, three and four, whatever million dollar sales, those are your hit records. Your fans are your clients. They tell their friends like it’s all the same thing. Then you get a load of money. So you go out and have fun and celebrate. And then you got, you got agents, female agents, they look like, oh yeah, you’re the man like it’s all the same shit.

I’ve been heavily involved in the Web3 space since early 2020. Wow. Okay. We have a digital collectible NFT company called Winning Hands—all basketball-related. My son is a hooper. It’s all about the history of basketball with digital collectibles.

AA: As an Associate Board Member of The Hip Hop Museum, what will it mean to you when the space opens and there is an actual physical space to celebrate the past, present, and future of Hip Hop culture?

K: It’s phenomenal because even though I wasn’t as visible in Hip Hop, I’ve always been in the background. I remember trying to meet  Mervyn Jordan from Sleeping Bag Records. I’m talking about back then, Dr. Beat, Funky Slice Studios, Downtown Brooklyn, where they had, you had to record stuff on a floppy disk and create your home in Downtown Beat Street. You go downtown to Beat Street and buy the record, and then you go to go take that to the studio, and they loop the breakbeat, and it wasn’t any machines and people making beats. You have to rap over the breakbeat in the song. So I go back through, so it’s interesting to see that whole era from then to now, and I’ve always been in tune with a lot; I’m not saying I knew everything, but I’ve always been properly in tune with it all.

Read more interviews on The Hip Hop Museum!