Speaker 1: So he goes, listen, guys, I gotta tell you this company.
Speaker 1: I'm already minus seventeen million for the year. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with these records. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let you go.
Speaker 2: He says.
Speaker 3: I run out of money, and they're closing at the
Speaker 3: end of the year, and we're living off of riches
Speaker 3: credit cards right the second, and I think Rich is
Speaker 3: having an anxiety attack.
Speaker 1: I am ready to jump off a building at that point.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Idea Generations All Angles, a podcast about culture's
Speaker 4: most influential brands and the teams that build them. If
Speaker 4: you're an entrepreneur, creative, or anyone interested in harnessing the
Speaker 4: power of collaboration, join me Noah Callahan Bever each week
Speaker 4: as we dissect the most dynamic companies in culture, because
Speaker 4: the only way to truly understand success is to look
Speaker 4: at it from all angles. Idea Generations All Angles is
Speaker 4: a Will Packer Media podcast. In nineteen ninety one, Steve
Speaker 4: Rifkin founded Loud Records, and in the decade that followed,
Speaker 4: Loud would cultivate one of the most iconic rosters in
Speaker 4: hip hop history, including Wu Tang, Clan, Mob, Deep, Big Pun,
Speaker 4: three six, Mafia, Dead pres and the Alcoholics. But the
Speaker 4: label's success was a product of more than just one
Speaker 4: man's effort. Loud was the confluence of Rifkin's vision and network,
Speaker 4: childhood friend and partner Rich Isaacson's iron fisted governance, and
Speaker 4: the impeccable taste, tone and tireless efforts of an ensemble
Speaker 4: cast of hip hop obsessed young staffers, not to mention
Speaker 4: the timeless art of some of the most talented rappers
Speaker 4: and producers to ever pick up a mic or tap
Speaker 4: on a beat machine. On this week's episode, we talked
Speaker 4: to founders Rifkin and Isaacson, A and R's Mattie C.
Speaker 4: Scott Free and Shaun Sea Radio VP Mojo, as well
Speaker 4: as Havoc from Mob Deep to hear the full story
Speaker 4: of how Loud Records grew from a one room office
Speaker 4: on Melrose ab to one of the most successful record
Speaker 4: labels of the nineties, and how the inspired chaos that
Speaker 4: fueled their rise ultimately also contributed to the legendary labels undoing.
Speaker 4: But long before any of that happened, decades prior to
Speaker 4: Cloud selling a single record, there were just two best
Speaker 4: friends driving home from soccer practice in Merrick Long Island.
Speaker 1: Steve and I grew up together in Merrick Long Island.
Speaker 4: This is Rich Isaacson, co founder of Loud Records.
Speaker 1: It was kind of one of those neighborhoods where everybody
Speaker 1: played out in the street, so we knew each other
Speaker 1: just from being kids in the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2: So Marrick had a north side and a south side.
Speaker 3: The north side was all Irish, the south side was
Speaker 3: mostly Jews and Italians.
Speaker 4: This is Steve Rifkint, founder of Loud Records.
Speaker 3: So there would be fights pretty much every day that
Speaker 3: we went to school.
Speaker 1: Steve and I grew up a couple of blocks away
Speaker 1: from each other, so kind of in each other's lives
Speaker 1: since we were literally little kids. Teenage, then high school,
Speaker 1: and we got really close, I would say in high school.
Speaker 1: He was a senior in high school when I was
Speaker 1: in tenth grade. We were both on the soccer team.
Speaker 1: He was on Varsie and I was on JB and
Speaker 1: you know, we knew each other, but he was like
Speaker 1: the big kid and I was really little at that point.
Speaker 1: So Steve was driving and I didn't drive yet at
Speaker 1: that time, so he would take me home from practice
Speaker 1: or pick me up, and he makes a joke that
Speaker 1: I had to pay him, and he tells that story like, oh,
Speaker 1: Ritchie's to pay just to hang out with me.
Speaker 4: Though Steve was raised in a mundane suburb of Long Island,
Speaker 4: his childhood was anything but ordinary. The Rifkin family was
Speaker 4: a music industry dynasty. Steve's grandfather had run a popular
Speaker 4: nightclub on Queen's Boulevard, and Steve's father and uncle, Jules
Speaker 4: and Roy Rifkin, were hugely successful in radio promotion and
Speaker 4: early champions of R and B and soul music. Jewles
Speaker 4: had been a senior executive at both MGM and Bang Records,
Speaker 4: was a confidant of James Brown, and would eventually launch
Speaker 4: his own label under Polydor Spring Records. So it was
Speaker 4: almost a given that and his younger brother Jonathan would
Speaker 4: add onto the family's legacy and the music biz.
Speaker 3: My house, we could only listen to WBLS. BLS was
Speaker 3: the only black station in the one or seven point five,
Speaker 3: so everybody else was listening to the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Beatles,
Speaker 3: Pink Floyd, you know, whatever the rock and pop stuff was.
Speaker 2: I had no clue what it was.
Speaker 1: His dad was in the music business, and that household
Speaker 1: was really pretty exotic for Merrick, Long Island.
Speaker 3: He had any given time, that could be a lomo
Speaker 3: at the house and it could be James Brown, it
Speaker 3: could be Millie Jackson, it would be somebody from the
Speaker 3: Fat Back Band. It could be Kenny gamble E Leon Huff,
Speaker 3: who was the biggest producers.
Speaker 4: Founded in nineteen sixty seven by Steve's father, Jules brother
Speaker 4: Royd and friend Bill Spittalaski, Spring Records ushered in a
Speaker 4: generation of classic R and B, funk and soul, including
Speaker 4: superstars like Joe Simon and Millie Jackson, and by virtue
Speaker 4: of kicking it in Jewels living room, even Rich got
Speaker 4: front row seats to witness how the music industry really worked.
Speaker 1: The Spring Records had classic, amazing R and B, and
Speaker 1: then later on Steve and his dad put out what
Speaker 1: many considered the first hip hop record of all time,
Speaker 1: which was King Tim the Third by the Fat Back Band.
Speaker 1: Steve wasn't exactly a student that didn't care about seeing
Speaker 1: A student had a learning disability.
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to read a write till I
Speaker 3: was on to fifteen years old. I was majorly dyslexic.
Speaker 3: Nobody knew what that was then, so they sent me
Speaker 3: to Julie. I didn't have to sleep there. The little
Speaker 3: bus would come. They would come into the bus and
Speaker 3: then they would take me to a school. And my
Speaker 3: parents they tried their best with me.
Speaker 2: They even believe me. I really thought.
Speaker 3: Up until my senior year in high school, my dream
Speaker 3: was the NBA. My dad took me to a record
Speaker 3: convention one time and it was a took him that hotel,
Speaker 3: and I was like, all right, this is kind of cool,
Speaker 3: but it really didn't do anything into me.
Speaker 1: I think he went to college for a day or
Speaker 1: a week or something like that, and he's like, this
Speaker 1: isn't for me.
Speaker 4: Seeing Steve drop out of college without any plans prompted
Speaker 4: Jewels and Grandpa Ripken to call a meeting with Steve.
Speaker 4: And the outcome of that conversation, well, it would set
Speaker 4: off his career in the music industry.
Speaker 3: My grandfather called me, he goes, why don't you do
Speaker 3: what your cousin did. I'm like, what did my cousin do?
Speaker 3: He goes, he went to visit radio stations. Two weeks later,
Speaker 3: my grandfather called me, he just pick me up at
Speaker 3: the airport and he goes, we'll haveing lunch with your father.
Speaker 2: We go to lunch.
Speaker 3: They you're gonna go to visit some radio stations. You'll
Speaker 3: fly back to Florida with Grandpa, and then from there.
Speaker 3: They gave me a route of where and there was
Speaker 3: always somebody there. My first off was Florida. I don't
Speaker 3: know how to read a map. I got ten dollars
Speaker 3: worth a quarters and forty grand and gash and my
Speaker 3: father says, if you disappear, you're dead. First stop. I
Speaker 3: went from Fort Lada of Florida to Alabama, and I
Speaker 3: met a guy a name with Dave Clark. Dave Clark
Speaker 3: ran the South from a promotion side of things, and
Speaker 3: he's introducing me to like program directed and I just
Speaker 3: really did a lot of listening and I introduced myself
Speaker 3: and I just kept in touch.
Speaker 2: Day didn't ask me.
Speaker 3: To hang out with them, and I was like, where's
Speaker 3: the local college.
Speaker 4: Being much younger than the pds and radio vets, Steve
Speaker 4: headed to the local colleges, both the work his dad's
Speaker 4: records with the DJs, but also to party with people
Speaker 4: his own age. This routine would continue for the next
Speaker 4: couple of years. Steve would visit college towns, build relationships
Speaker 4: with the local DJs, and get his records played on
Speaker 4: their stations. Ultimately, this network of radio taste makers would
Speaker 4: become the foundation of Steve's career.
Speaker 3: From mobile to making Georgia and then New Orleans and
Speaker 3: I'd go back to the colleges again, and that three
Speaker 3: weeks ended up being three years where I would zig
Speaker 3: zag all across the country.
Speaker 2: So that's how the whole street Team concept came together.
Speaker 4: After a few years on the road, Steve found himself
Speaker 4: back in New York City surfacing records to Frankie Crocker,
Speaker 4: a record breaking icon at WBLS, the number one black
Speaker 4: music station in the Tri State. One Saturday night, Steve
Speaker 4: got an opportunity to roll with Crocker that would both
Speaker 4: open his eyes and transform his business.
Speaker 3: So this is when I'm around twenty twenty one. I'm
Speaker 3: at BLS Radio and then May James, who is the
Speaker 3: music director, said Frankie wants to talk to you. He
Speaker 3: goes hey, does your dad still get the limos My
Speaker 3: dad definanced the limousine company Music Express. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: don't know, let's call him. Frankie goes hey, Julie, do
Speaker 3: you still have the thing? He goes, yeah. He goes,
Speaker 3: I need one for Saturday night. My dad goes, you
Speaker 3: have no problem, but let's Steven go with you. So
Speaker 3: I'm like, where are we going? He goes, We're going
Speaker 3: to the garage.
Speaker 4: The garage wasn't just any nightclub. This was the home
Speaker 4: of DJ legend Larry Levine, who, from a later than
Speaker 4: late night underground club in downtown Manhattan, broke the sounds
Speaker 4: of disco and dance that would define pop music for
Speaker 4: a decade plus.
Speaker 3: It was a club and it opened up at six
Speaker 3: in the morning. Frankie's come to the house around three
Speaker 3: in the morning, go to the house, we go to
Speaker 3: Studio fifty four, We go to another club, Magique, and
Speaker 3: now it's time to go to the garage. He's not
Speaker 3: telling me anything, right, So around like an hour later,
Speaker 3: he disappears. I'm by myself. He's by the DJ booth
Speaker 3: and he's not talking to Larry. He's just literally like
Speaker 3: eyeing the tiger. I'm like, what is he doing? So
Speaker 3: in between eight o'clock in the morning to nine o'clock
Speaker 3: in the morning, whatever Larry played, Frankie was adding to
Speaker 3: the radio station.
Speaker 4: Having seen Frankie's system of music discovery, Steve got an
Speaker 4: idea on how to capitalize on Larry's golden hour picks.
Speaker 3: So I'm calling Atlantic Records or Epic Record. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: I could get your Shannon record. I'm just making up
Speaker 3: a name. I could get your Shannon record. At it
Speaker 3: to BLS tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: See, there's no fucking way. I'm like, I promise you
Speaker 3: who goes if you get it?
Speaker 2: How much you want? Five grand?
Speaker 3: There was a label called Next Plateau. I called that
Speaker 3: was seed Bank One more shot, and I nailed all
Speaker 3: three records, So I made fifteen grand. Nobody knows. I'm
Speaker 3: not telling my dad. I'm not telling anybody. I'm twenty
Speaker 3: two years old. I'm making fifteen grand a week now,
Speaker 3: so I'm making a name for myself. That PolyGram puts
Speaker 3: me on retainer, not for a lot of money, for
Speaker 3: like five hundreds a week, but I'm still getting those records.
Speaker 4: By getting those records, Steve means that he would watch
Speaker 4: the songs that Larry played during the peak hours on
Speaker 4: Sunday morning, knowing that Frankie Crocker would likely add them
Speaker 4: to regular rotation on bls that week, and then first
Speaker 4: thing Monday morning, he would call the labels behind each
Speaker 4: song that Larry played and offer for a fee to
Speaker 4: get those records in rotation, knowing full well that Frankie
Speaker 4: was about to do it. Anyways, Frankie he.
Speaker 3: Had two assistants, Delfina and Beth, and I'm like, just
Speaker 3: tell Frankie every Saturday, I'm gonna go up to the garage.
Speaker 3: I had a good run with that two three months
Speaker 3: until I'm dropping off Popeye's Chicken to Frankie. It's a Thursday,
Speaker 3: and I walk in and there's my father and uncle
Speaker 3: and m and it's like a scene out of the Mafia.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, what's up?
Speaker 3: And my uncle has a temper and he slammed the
Speaker 3: fucking a table and he's like, how long do you
Speaker 3: think you could have done this without telling us? I'm like,
Speaker 3: what do you mean? He goes, we know what you're doing.
Speaker 3: I'm like, all right, I didn't know I had to
Speaker 3: tell you. And so Frankie's laughing and he said the
Speaker 3: same thing, goes, man, you guys really think you're some
Speaker 3: mafia guys.
Speaker 2: Frank He goes, when.
Speaker 3: Did you realize I realized the first week, he goes, well,
Speaker 3: how did you realize? I said, you was just staring
Speaker 3: and listening and you weren't writing notes, but you were
Speaker 3: like giving yourself a mental note and I just watched.
Speaker 3: And then the next week you left me again. At
Speaker 3: the same time, he goes, man, that's pretty brilliant you.
Speaker 3: So my uncle says, well, how much did you make?
Speaker 3: I said I was making around fifteen to twenty grand
Speaker 3: a week, and they said, well, you got to give
Speaker 3: us a piece. And I was like, you're out of
Speaker 3: your fucking mind, like you're not getting a piece. I
Speaker 3: didn't give him a piece, but you know, we definitely
Speaker 3: had words, and I mean after money was going up
Speaker 3: my nose anyway.
Speaker 4: In those days, will Steve played fast and loose, rich
Speaker 4: walked a straight and narrow when it came to his career.
Speaker 1: When I decided to go to law school, it was
Speaker 1: more like, Okay, I need to have a profession, you know,
Speaker 1: I need to have some kind of security in life.
Speaker 1: I was always more of a realist than I was
Speaker 1: a good student, and I figured this is a career
Speaker 1: path for me, and it gives me a bunch of
Speaker 1: opportunities to do different things. I went to an Ivy
Speaker 1: League law school, I had student loans, I had debt.
Speaker 1: Come out of law school, I worked for a big
Speaker 1: corporate law firm. You know, I think I'm at the
Speaker 1: pinnacle of the success that I was trying to achieve
Speaker 1: as a kid. Making one hundred grand at the time,
Speaker 1: which was in the eighties, I thought I was like rich,
Speaker 1: and I think I've made it. And every day it
Speaker 1: was just it was like being a professional student. You
Speaker 1: have a homework assignment every night. You're never done and
Speaker 1: it never stops. And I was working, you know, seventy
Speaker 1: five eighty hours a week, writing briefs, doing research in
Speaker 1: the library on the weekend. It was just awful. I'm
Speaker 1: doing that. I have an apartment on the Upper West Side,
Speaker 1: thinking it's the coolest thing in the world, even though
Speaker 1: I hate my job. And Steve's now in LA.
Speaker 4: Steve wasn't in La by happenstays. He and Fred Hiram
Speaker 4: Hicks had gotten win at Mega R and b act
Speaker 4: New Audition. We're in the market for new management, so
Speaker 4: Steve moved to LA to cement a relationship with Mike, Ronnie, Ricky,
Speaker 4: Johnny and Ralph I.
Speaker 3: Decided I'm going to go out to LA for the
Speaker 3: summer to just get closer to that. They love playing ball.
Speaker 3: I love playing ball, and that's how I ended up
Speaker 3: in La. It's surely because a new addition. My best
Speaker 3: friend was an actor and he was on a show
Speaker 3: called Teditor Class. I moved into Brian's living room for
Speaker 3: the sammer. One of the girls on the show lived
Speaker 3: right above him, and I fall in love for the
Speaker 3: first time, and I said, you know what, I'm moving
Speaker 3: So new audition that last around a year and a half.
Speaker 3: The Stephen Rifkin Company just went into high gear quickly.
Speaker 4: While on the road working records, Steve had built relationships
Speaker 4: with many college radio DJs and stations across the country.
Speaker 4: He'd leveraged those relationships into the launch of SRC, the
Speaker 4: Steve Rifkin Company, his street marketing and radio promotion outfit.
Speaker 4: As hip hop continued to grow, so too did the
Speaker 4: opportunities to market it. And with access to the most
Speaker 4: powerful college radio taste makers, Rifkin was able to break
Speaker 4: records in local markets and charge labels handsomely.
Speaker 1: To do so, he used to come to New York
Speaker 1: to dum up business for his company. Because most of
Speaker 1: the labels were still in New York, and he'd sleep
Speaker 1: on my couch and I'd do my law job, and
Speaker 1: he'd go do what he did. I even really didn't
Speaker 1: know what he was doing. And then at night we'd
Speaker 1: meet up and he'd tell me what's going on, and
Speaker 1: I would just be like, holy shit, what a cool
Speaker 1: job he has. You know, the.
Speaker 4: Coolness of his job was not lost on Steve either.
Speaker 4: In fact, it was so cool that it bred a
Speaker 4: bit of complacency and tempered his ambitions.
Speaker 3: I got a name of Jerry Aid, who owned a
Speaker 3: big talent agency. They were the premiere like urban agency. Goes,
Speaker 3: you need your own label, and I'm like, Jerry, I
Speaker 3: don't want my own label.
Speaker 2: He was, why not? I said, I'm doing good.
Speaker 3: I'm making a few hundred thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: I'm done.
Speaker 3: At four o'clock. I go to the park and played well.
Speaker 3: From five to seven a show. I go back to
Speaker 3: your office. From eight to ten, I go home. I
Speaker 3: really don't have pressure. Goes, will you please meet Paul Marshall.
Speaker 3: I go I know Paul, that's my dad's attorney. He goes,
Speaker 3: Please Stephen, He says, I can get you this crazy deal,
Speaker 3: this that or whatever. I figured I was going to
Speaker 3: just try and do everything myself. I had the money,
Speaker 3: and then the second I walk into Rich's apartment, my
Speaker 3: father calls. He goes, get to the house immediately, and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think to myself, what the fuck did
Speaker 3: I do now? He goes, I heard you just turned
Speaker 3: down a label deal. I said, nobody will ever mean anything.
Speaker 3: Your lawyers said you could get me a label deal.
Speaker 3: I said, I know if I want one, I said,
Speaker 3: I'm doing good. I'm making two three hundred thousand a year.
Speaker 4: But Jules saw the bigger picture and made sure that
Speaker 4: Steve did too.
Speaker 3: He goes, I know you don't listen to me, and
Speaker 3: I know you think you have every answer. What you're
Speaker 3: in is the service business. You're only as good as
Speaker 3: your last contract. If you start a record company, you'll
Speaker 3: be in the asset business and you'll be making money
Speaker 3: when you league. So I spend a night, called up Paul.
Speaker 3: In the morning, I said, I'm ready to get a deal.
Speaker 3: You guys, there are two places where I want to send.
Speaker 4: You.
Speaker 3: Got the name of Irving days Off, who just started
Speaker 3: Giant Records, and I got the name of Lumla. BMG
Speaker 3: just gave me like twenty million dollars to start like
Speaker 3: the third major inside the BMG, I said, Irving is
Speaker 3: my first choice. And I didn't really know Irving, and
Speaker 3: I was nervous, and I went there wearing a shirt
Speaker 3: tie and he said we have a deal, and it
Speaker 3: says next time I see like, I don't want you
Speaker 3: wearing a tie like be you. So I thought we
Speaker 3: were doing this deal with Giant. So I'm like, all right,
Speaker 3: we got to come with a name that goes with Giant.
Speaker 3: Fate said Loud listening to the Urban Dialect.
Speaker 1: The name Loud is an acronym for the listeners of
Speaker 1: an urban dialect, was created by Fabian Duruiney, who was
Speaker 1: Steve's like right hand man at the time.
Speaker 4: Despite the handshake deal with Irving, had a perfect label
Speaker 4: name in Loud. Before the ink could dry. President of
Speaker 4: Giant Records, Charlie Minor, would intervene and derail the negotiations.
Speaker 2: So Charlie I let him rest in peace was the
Speaker 2: president of Giant.
Speaker 3: Charlie didn't really want to be in the hip hop gang,
Speaker 3: so we ended up at Zoo.
Speaker 4: Although it wasn't his first choice. Steve did the label
Speaker 4: deal with Zoo Records and began the process of building loud.
Speaker 3: Rich was miserable being a lawyer. He was like working
Speaker 3: in a closet and he was working from like seven
Speaker 3: in the morning to like midnight, you know, and he
Speaker 3: was miserable. And I said, Rich, why didn't you come
Speaker 3: here and work with me? You know, I need structure.
Speaker 1: He said, dude, I got a label deal. This is happening.
Speaker 1: You're ready to come into business with me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? You know. He goes look
Speaker 1: and he shows me a piece of paper. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like some deal memo. So I'm like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: is this real? You know, it looks like it's real.
Speaker 1: He convinces me to come out to LA for two
Speaker 1: weeks for my vacation from my law job. So I
Speaker 1: went out there. He picks me up in a BMW.
Speaker 1: We go to dinner at some cool place in Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills or whatever. The girls are beautiful places pop and
Speaker 1: then we go to some studio there's some new girl
Speaker 1: group that's doing dance rehearsals. And out of my head
Speaker 1: spinning like this is ridiculous, we go back to his apartment.
Speaker 1: He has a two bedroom duplex. I'm sitting on the
Speaker 1: couch and he goes, how is your first day? I go,
Speaker 1: what do you mean first day? He goes, we just
Speaker 1: worked like the last six hours. They go, that's not work.
Speaker 1: We went for dinner and we checked out a studio. Goes, dude,
Speaker 1: that's work. That's what we did.
Speaker 4: The LAUD was still barely just more than a name.
Speaker 4: SRC was doing independent radio promotion for all the majors
Speaker 4: working records across the industry, including those of One Legend
Speaker 4: in particular. More importantly, though, Steve's marketing company was paying
Speaker 4: the bills to fund LOUD.
Speaker 3: At the time, and Scius to work in rspending with Tupac.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is crazy. I get totally sucked into this,
Speaker 1: you know. And then the next two weeks I would
Speaker 1: just go to meetings with him, hang out, watch what
Speaker 1: was going on, and he's introducing me to people as
Speaker 1: his general manager, and I'm like, okay, Steve. Whatever in
Speaker 1: my eyes were like when I get back home, I
Speaker 1: think it was like January. It's New York, dark, depressing,
Speaker 1: my shitty little apartment facing the alley in my cubicle office,
Speaker 1: and I'm going, why do I live like this? Like
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you? You know, like what kind
Speaker 1: of life is this? I could be there. He's like
Speaker 1: on me. He's like, dude, you got to do this.
Speaker 1: This is happening. So I figured out to like the
Speaker 1: dime how much I needed to pay my student loans
Speaker 1: to pay an apartment in LA. I said, give me
Speaker 1: fifty two thousand dollars and a piece of the company
Speaker 1: and I'll do it. He goes, no problem. So now
Speaker 1: I have to tell my parents. I was really worried
Speaker 1: to tell my dad. Surprisingly, my father, who was like
Speaker 1: a really blue collar guy, he was so thrilled that
Speaker 1: his son was a lawyer. And he goes, you know what,
Speaker 1: if you're not happy, just go for it, you know,
Speaker 1: so I don't worry about you. You'll be fine. So
Speaker 1: that really gave me confidence to just give it a shot,
Speaker 1: because that was the last thing I was expecting him
Speaker 1: to say. So I gave notice at my law firm,
Speaker 1: and I packed up and I went out to LA.
Speaker 4: However, when Rich touched down, he would quickly learn that
Speaker 4: Steve's situation in La wasn't exactly as it seemed.
Speaker 3: So he comes in on a Tuesday and Wednesday and
Speaker 3: we're having meetings. So that weekend Prim is having a
Speaker 3: dinner at this restaurant Clote Gang is Con It's a
Speaker 3: Chinese restaurant in Fairfax. And I had a BMW three
Speaker 3: twenty five and I give the car to the valet.
Speaker 2: His foot must have gotten stuck. The car goes in
Speaker 2: reverse on Fairfax.
Speaker 3: Lucky, how nobody dies, crosses over the divide a, swings
Speaker 3: ran and returned back, going back into a gas station.
Speaker 2: What the fuck? And the car gets totaled. This is
Speaker 2: Rich's first few days.
Speaker 3: I was like, this really can't be a good luck
Speaker 3: And then that Monday, I get the clote from Minutescope
Speaker 3: that they're letting.
Speaker 1: Us go Interscope was paying him a lot of money
Speaker 1: and then they decided they're going to start their own
Speaker 1: wrap division, so they stopped paying him, and he was
Speaker 1: using that money to pay me. So I'm like shit.
Speaker 4: With s RC's income influx, Rich rolled up his sleeves
Speaker 4: and immediately started trying to sort out Steve's businesses.
Speaker 1: The first week, I went to Steve's accountant's office and
Speaker 1: I said, show me the books. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what that meant. It sounded like, you know something you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do when you're in business. They hand me
Speaker 1: this accordion file. Then I open it up and it's
Speaker 1: just a bunch of bills that were unpaid. So I
Speaker 1: take out a legal pad and a pen and I
Speaker 1: start writing down a list of all the bills and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, where's the money coming in? You know
Speaker 1: that much? I knew. Then they showed me this tiny
Speaker 1: little book with a couple of outstanding invoices, and I
Speaker 1: write that down and I look. I go, wait, I
Speaker 1: don't understand something. I go, he owes all these people
Speaker 1: money and he only has this much coming in. And
Speaker 1: the accountant goes, well, what do you mean? What don't
Speaker 1: you understand? And I was like, holy shit, what have
Speaker 1: I gotten myself into?
Speaker 4: Things looked a little bleak. But while Rich was fixing
Speaker 4: the finance, Steve was in the street sourcing talent, and
Speaker 4: through his SRC Street Team network, he would find Loud's
Speaker 4: first act, a fast wrapping MC from Chicago who would
Speaker 4: go on to become a legend.
Speaker 1: Steve had one artist signed, and it was Tongue Twister,
Speaker 1: who later became Twista so Loud Records at that time
Speaker 1: was one twelve inch, wasn't even an album yet. A
Speaker 1: first record was called No Peace Sign. Our deal with
Speaker 1: Zoo at the time was they don't have to spend
Speaker 1: any marketing money until we sell fifty thousand albums. So
Speaker 1: fifty thousand albums, there's a lot of albums just to
Speaker 1: sell on its own, you know. So again, well, probably
Speaker 1: when Steve made the deal, he wasn't thinking about how's
Speaker 1: this going to work? And I didn't make that deal,
Speaker 1: and if I did, I wouldn't have known any better
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 4: Anyway, in order to stay solvent as a business, Loud
Speaker 4: needed to unlock that marketing money, so Steve and Rich
Speaker 4: went all in on breaking tongue Twister, known for his
Speaker 4: lightning fast wraps. The two applied to get Twisted in
Speaker 4: the Guinness Book of World Records as the faster Rapper Alive,
Speaker 4: and believe it or not, they managed to pull off
Speaker 4: the extremely cheap but priceless marketing stunt live on YOUOMTV raps,
Speaker 4: making their sole artist in overnight celebrity.
Speaker 1: We miraculously sell fifty thousand albums without any money. You know.
Speaker 1: We got him on in the Guinness Book of Records.
Speaker 1: He breaks Daddy Freddy's record on Yo MTV raps. We
Speaker 1: got him on Power one oh six. It's pretty miraculous.
Speaker 1: The head buyer for Warehouse Records, which is a big
Speaker 1: music chain on the West Coast, was this woman Violet Brown,
Speaker 1: who is an unsung hero in hip hop. Violet was
Speaker 1: one of the early believers in hip hop music as
Speaker 1: a lasting genre, and she was super powerful because her
Speaker 1: blessing and her buying a record, putting music in the
Speaker 1: stores was the only way to give an artist a chance.
Speaker 1: Violet was based in la and she was tuned into
Speaker 1: what we were doing. So Violet placed a huge order
Speaker 1: for Tongue Twister, and I remember the head of sales
Speaker 1: for Zoo, this woman Jane Simon Rest in Peace, lovely lady.
Speaker 1: She called me up and she's like, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: believe this. Dyla Brown just ordered twenty five thousand. We
Speaker 1: have fifty thousand orders for Tongue Twisted, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, hang up the phone. I go into Steve's
Speaker 1: office like we just won the world series, you know,
Speaker 1: like we've been working on this for a year, and
Speaker 1: we get to this magic fifty thousand unit threshold. Now
Speaker 1: we can go into Lou Malley's office and make some demands,
Speaker 1: you know, like we can get some marketing money and
Speaker 1: really do our thing.
Speaker 2: So we hit the threshold.
Speaker 3: Lou clolls us well, high fiving each other like we're good,
Speaker 3: you know, like we're get to see a few hundred
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in marketing. And he says, guys, I got
Speaker 3: some bad news.
Speaker 1: He goes, listen, guys, I gotta tell you I just
Speaker 1: started this company. I'm already minus seventeen million for the year.
Speaker 1: The Germans are killing me. Because that's what he used
Speaker 1: to call BMG, the Germans. They were the corporate owners.
Speaker 1: He's like, they're killing me. He goes, I don't have
Speaker 1: an urban staff. I don't know what to do with
Speaker 1: these records. I'm just going to let you go.
Speaker 3: He says, I run out of money, and they're closing
Speaker 3: Zoo at the end of the year, and we're living
Speaker 3: off of richest credit cards right the second, and I
Speaker 3: think Rich is having an anxiety attack.
Speaker 1: I am ready to jump off a building at that point.
Speaker 4: While the loss of the deal with Zoo was gutting
Speaker 4: for both Rich and Steve, it also presented a new opportunity.
Speaker 4: They were now free agents with a modest hit record
Speaker 4: under their bill, so they headed to the Jack the
Speaker 4: Rapper convention in Atlanta in search of a new home
Speaker 4: for Loud.
Speaker 1: We go to Atlanta for Jack the Rapper, which is
Speaker 1: a big convention. Back then, this very important lawyer, Joel Katz.
Speaker 1: If we go to meet with him, he's based in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Joel says, you know what's going on? Tell me a story,
Speaker 1: and Steven tells him, you know, we just lost our deal.
Speaker 1: And Joel says, hey, do you know who Ron Urban is?
Speaker 1: Ron is the CEO of RCAA Records. He's working out
Speaker 1: of my office. He's here in town. You guys should meet.
Speaker 1: So Steve goes for drinks with Ron Urban that night.
Speaker 3: He goes, all right, so this is going to be
Speaker 3: the deal. I'm going to give you five ten thousand
Speaker 3: a month, her budgets to seventy five thousand for our albums,
Speaker 3: and then you guys have funds for single deals, and
Speaker 3: then we're going to pay you a fifteen thousand a
Speaker 3: quarter to promote our recond So.
Speaker 1: We went from three thousand dollars a month and overhead
Speaker 1: to five thousand dollars a month, which was holy cow,
Speaker 1: and RCA was going to give us a thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars quarterly marketing fund to do whatever we wanted. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, wow, okay, this is a big stump up.
Speaker 1: You know, we're in the major leagues. It's RCA. We're
Speaker 1: getting one hundred and twenty thousand in marketing, our overhead
Speaker 1: sixty thousand. Now I'm like, okay, we're in business. So
Speaker 1: Steve really pulled a rabbit out of his ass to
Speaker 1: make this happen. So we signed the Alcoholics, and the
Speaker 1: Alcoholics debuted number seventeen on the R and B album chart,
Speaker 1: and RCA hadn't had an R and B album chart
Speaker 1: in years, So we are being celebrated, like who are
Speaker 1: these guys? You know, all of a sudden, we are
Speaker 1: like these two guys walking around the building too. Oh
Speaker 1: I got I gotta have a relationship with Stephen Rich
Speaker 1: because of the Alcoholics.
Speaker 4: The success of the Alcoholics put LOUD on the map
Speaker 4: and Steve and Rich were the new darlings at RCA.
Speaker 4: Not only were they signing artists and charting records, but
Speaker 4: they were also handling radio promotion for their parent company,
Speaker 4: Loud was finally starting to experience a real momentum, and
Speaker 4: this was just the beginning. Meanwhile, in Staten Island, a
Speaker 4: hip hop of Systeen was forging connections that would make
Speaker 4: both him and his network of new friends extremely consequential
Speaker 4: characters in the Loud story.
Speaker 5: I'm from Staaten Island, so from Chatland around that time,
Speaker 5: I was one of the few brothers to get off
Speaker 5: the island and then go away to school.
Speaker 4: This is Scott Free eventual A and R at Loud Records.
Speaker 4: At this point, though, he was just an aspiring rapper
Speaker 4: from Staten Island in a group called the Legion of Doom.
Speaker 4: This would lead him to befriending other local MC's, including
Speaker 4: a buddy star from an adjacent neighborhood named Prince Rakeem
Speaker 4: better known to the world as the Rizza.
Speaker 5: Rizza was one of the one of the cats that
Speaker 5: every now and then we get off the island, you know,
Speaker 5: we take trips to Bronx River, we go to Brooklyn
Speaker 5: and we look for records stuff like that. I think
Speaker 5: he had a crib with ghosts. Him and Ghosts had
Speaker 5: a spot Stapleton. But you know, unlike the rest of us,
Speaker 5: Rizz was pretty much living on his own, you know, hustling,
Speaker 5: but he had he had the equipment, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. I went to University of Maryland, College Parking,
Speaker 5: continue my hip hop education however you want to put
Speaker 5: it down there. But you know, I still stayed in
Speaker 5: touch with my boys from from the Island.
Speaker 4: Well Scott attended University of Maryland. He would make frequent
Speaker 4: trips with his friends to nearby Howard University. One weekend,
Speaker 4: the Rizza, then signed to Tommy Boy Records as Prince
Speaker 4: Rakeem decided to join them.
Speaker 5: Rakeem had come down for the Howard Hip Hop Festival
Speaker 5: and me and the cru since we were down there
Speaker 5: and we scooped them out from the am track that
Speaker 5: someone whatever that was, he had dropped sexicapaides and Ooh
Speaker 5: we love you Rakim, Ooh we love you. Rakim had
Speaker 5: had a video Sessica page was like on the B side.
Speaker 5: I could see what he was trying to do, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. He was trying to peel a
Speaker 5: little bit more outside of the box or whatever. But
Speaker 5: it wasn't really what I was used to hearing from him.
Speaker 5: What he was doing, you know, on a regular and
Speaker 5: you know what I was later on started to hear
Speaker 5: you know from him and his crew.
Speaker 4: While riz ahone did on his sound Howard Homecoming would
Speaker 4: introduce Scott to another main character in the Loud story,
Speaker 4: Maddie C, a young writer at the Source magazine. Maddy
Speaker 4: penned the famed Unsigned Hype column, which would put a
Speaker 4: spotlight on and ignite the careers of artists like Notorious,
Speaker 4: Big Common and Mob Deep.
Speaker 6: So Scott Free at the time was in MC and
Speaker 6: he was bringing me his demo material. We met in
Speaker 6: college through mutual friends, and so he started coming up
Speaker 6: to the Source a lot.
Speaker 4: This is Matti C, future director of A and R
Speaker 4: at Loud.
Speaker 6: First playing me demos by his group the Legion of Doom,
Speaker 6: and then a couple of other things from Staten Island.
Speaker 6: Mainly he knew Rizza and had been to his crib
Speaker 6: as just another Staten Island MC that was coming through
Speaker 6: to possibly record share music. And the first thing that
Speaker 6: Scott let me hear was a song called Rugged and
Speaker 6: Raw when the WU was just Rizza, Jizza and ODB
Speaker 6: and it was just them three on the song.
Speaker 5: This record was phenomenal to this, you know, to this day,
Speaker 5: I still try to sometimes go through my tapes to
Speaker 5: see if that record pops up right.
Speaker 1: You know, it's old dirties.
Speaker 5: It's like it's rugged in roll, it's ruggoed in roll.
Speaker 5: Then he comes in fook a fuck a fuck a
Speaker 5: fuck of Foo from out of the Blue, first number two.
Speaker 5: Theygas won a step to the Wu Tank, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, Dirty had that whole that whole steeze
Speaker 5: down pad at that.
Speaker 6: Point, and then a couple other people started showing up
Speaker 6: at my office talking to me about Wu Tang just
Speaker 6: kind of beat this buzz.
Speaker 5: Wizza had blessed me with the protective next single and
Speaker 5: was like, yo, yo, take this up to your boys
Speaker 5: up there. Let them hear you know what we're working on.
Speaker 5: So I took the joint to Matt. He would do
Speaker 5: a write up on whatever new twelve inches were coming
Speaker 5: out at the time. That became the first, I think
Speaker 5: independent twelve inch to be profiled in the Source.
Speaker 6: The guys started coming up to the office to source
Speaker 6: Rizza a Meth, all of them. Rizza would be the
Speaker 6: main one who would come up as well as Meth
Speaker 6: and just kind of play music, listen to music and
Speaker 6: talk about the planet and we go into the stairway
Speaker 6: smoke weed, and he would talk about his plan to
Speaker 6: get individual deals for each of these artists before I
Speaker 6: think there was an actual plan for the whole group
Speaker 6: per se, you know, in place, and at this time
Speaker 6: was when he was envisioning this all as an independent thing.
Speaker 4: Matty's right up on Protecting Neck in the source of
Speaker 4: shureshot single column, legitimize the record and put the very local,
Speaker 4: very independent group in front of a national audience. With
Speaker 4: Wu Tang gaining serious buzz. It wasn't long until the
Speaker 4: track landed on the radar of Steve and Rich.
Speaker 1: We had a guy that worked for us named Trevor Williams,
Speaker 1: one of our LA based guys who called the college
Speaker 1: radio and he used to talk to this DJ named
Speaker 1: Jason Stateon. He's a college radio DJ, and Jason, just
Speaker 1: as a hip hop fan, sent protect Your Neck and
Speaker 1: he flipped and he sent Trevor the viron. I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: you got to hear this record.
Speaker 3: So trev gives me the record. I just quit smoking
Speaker 3: like a week ago. I'm just like, I'm losing my mind.
Speaker 3: I go, there's no fucking hook to this song. Trevor
Speaker 3: goes is the biggest record in the world.
Speaker 1: Trevor plays it in the office just as you got
Speaker 1: to hear this crazy shit, and everybody's like, WHOA, what
Speaker 1: is that? Steve hears it, he what is that? We
Speaker 1: make some calls, He makes some calls. Everybody's trying to
Speaker 1: find out what the deal is in Wu Tang and
Speaker 1: Steve tracks down Rizza.
Speaker 3: So this is in January. I'm trying to get in
Speaker 3: touch with Rizza. I've spoke to him once, but he
Speaker 3: has no answering machine. I go to New York for
Speaker 3: my thirty first birthday. I'm at RCA. The reception goes
Speaker 3: print trak hemans here. I'm like really, and he comes up.
Speaker 3: He goes, the guys are downstairs, can we come up
Speaker 3: and played the record? They come up, there's eight of them,
Speaker 3: and the officers just picture what a guest office looks like.
Speaker 2: It's a closet, and they stop performing the record. Some
Speaker 2: guy comes.
Speaker 3: Barging in and says, that's that shit, and I never
Speaker 3: seen him again. I signed not because I loved the record,
Speaker 3: I love the energy. Whatever that fucking guy was. And
Speaker 3: Trevor beating the fuck out of me. He's saying that's
Speaker 3: that shit we start negotiating.
Speaker 1: Rizzi was kind of jaded in the music business because
Speaker 1: he had a bad experience with Tommy Boy when he
Speaker 1: put out his own record. So he decided, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do this myself. You know, I guess he liked us,
Speaker 1: felt secure enough to do this deal with us, and
Speaker 1: we said, look, this is all we can offer you.
Speaker 1: You know, we're with the RCA. So we made a deal.
Speaker 1: We get Protection Act at B side and the video
Speaker 1: for Protecting Act for ten thousand dollars and eighteen boys,
Speaker 1: and then if we sell fifty thousand units of the single,
Speaker 1: we have to put out an album. We have to
Speaker 1: give them the money to make an album. That was
Speaker 1: the deal. Rizza said, Okay, I'll do it. One caveat,
Speaker 1: Rizza said, he'll do the deal if he's allowed to
Speaker 1: shop the solo artist. I have to be able to
Speaker 1: take the guys to different labels.
Speaker 4: So the guys had a deal, or so they thought. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: Rizzus one caveat was a much bigger ask that either
Speaker 4: Steve or Rich had anticipated.
Speaker 6: There's this inherent small print in every record deal when
Speaker 6: you sign a group that if any of you guys
Speaker 6: go solo.
Speaker 1: That stays with us.
Speaker 4: So the idea that Rizza saw this guy Steve.
Speaker 6: Rifkin as like, oh, you're gonna give me a deal
Speaker 6: and we can go solo because that's unheard of, And
Speaker 6: so I think Steve didn't really know.
Speaker 1: That that was unheard of. So we go to RCA
Speaker 1: Business Affairs and say this is the terms they want,
Speaker 1: this little caveat that they could sign the artists to
Speaker 1: other labels, and they go no, no, no, no, no, not happening,
Speaker 1: Like what do you mean? You know, there is the
Speaker 1: thing in the music industry that standard called a leaving
Speaker 1: member provision whatever. We could get this band for ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a song selling like not happening. We can't
Speaker 1: change this precedent. This has been going on in the
Speaker 1: music industry forever. So from somebody who wasn't in the
Speaker 1: music business to me, I'm like, this makes no sense.
Speaker 1: Of course, Steve's apoplectic about this as well. How are
Speaker 1: we going to not keep this band? And they kind
Speaker 1: of business affairs at RCAA, who was kind of like
Speaker 1: a rabbi to me, this guy Rogers Skelton, Roger said
Speaker 1: I'll help you out. I'm going to come up with
Speaker 1: a solution. So he goes and talks to his bosses
Speaker 1: and he comes back and he says, Okay, here's what
Speaker 1: we'll agree to do. If they agree that we have
Speaker 1: a matching right to any offer that they get, and
Speaker 1: if we match that offer, they have to stay with
Speaker 1: RCA loud so Rizza says fine, And so that was
Speaker 1: a great solution that had never been done before, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, in the history of the music business.
Speaker 4: Rich got the Wu Tang deal across the finish line,
Speaker 4: but in the process made a costly oversight by giving
Speaker 4: Wu Tang Clan and astounding eighteen points.
Speaker 1: Steve's unbelievably good at relationships, drumming up business marketing himself,
Speaker 1: connecting the right people, finding the right people, but no
Speaker 1: clue as to the business side of things, and that
Speaker 1: was why he brought me in. Little did he know
Speaker 1: that I didn't know anything. For instance, when we signed
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan, you know, I knew what our agreement
Speaker 1: was at the time. I think we got fifteen points
Speaker 1: for a single from RCA and I did the deal.
Speaker 1: You know, at that time, I thought I was learning
Speaker 1: something and we had no money to pay a lawyer
Speaker 1: even so I was like, okay, I'll get a form.
Speaker 1: I'll read the Donald Passman book. And I had a
Speaker 1: couple of friends that were lawyers in the business. At
Speaker 1: that point, I said, can you send me a production
Speaker 1: deal form? So I kind of cut and paste a
Speaker 1: production deal and stupidly, I ended up giving Wu Tang
Speaker 1: eighteen points for each single that they sold, and we
Speaker 1: only were getting fifteen points. It didn't dawn on me
Speaker 1: to look until Wu Tang started selling. I remember I
Speaker 1: looked at the contract that I drafted, and then I
Speaker 1: looked at the contract we had with RCA, and I
Speaker 1: was like, holy shit, what an idiot. We're losing money
Speaker 1: every time we sell a record. And I went to
Speaker 1: the head of business affairs at RCA and I told
Speaker 1: him what I had done, and he's like, don't worry
Speaker 1: about it. You know, we'll fix it. Because they were
Speaker 1: making so much money, it was negligible and he took
Speaker 1: care of made it.
Speaker 4: In fact, the single for Protecting It, backed with method Man,
Speaker 4: was selling so well the group's members started fielding solo
Speaker 4: offers long before Wu Tang's debut album Ever hit shows. Still,
Speaker 4: despite all that buzz, the group couldn't get the attention
Speaker 4: of RCA's top brass.
Speaker 1: By the time we closed our Wu Tang deal, now
Speaker 1: def Jam offered method Man one hundred and eighty grand.
Speaker 1: We go to RCA and said, we're gonna lose nothing, man,
Speaker 1: you got to give us one hundred and eighty grand,
Speaker 1: and they're looking at us like you're crazy. We're not
Speaker 1: giving you one hundred and eighty grand for this unknown
Speaker 1: hip hop gun. We'd sit around the table at RCA
Speaker 1: and all the guys that were running the department's great people,
Speaker 1: great executives, but they all came from Nashville. The president
Speaker 1: of the company was from RCA Nashville. The head of
Speaker 1: marketing was from RCA, Nashville. The head of sales was
Speaker 1: from RCA, Nashville. So they're like guys doing country music
Speaker 1: who are now running a major label in New York
Speaker 1: and we're coming to them with hip hop records by
Speaker 1: the Wu Tang Clan and ghost Face Killer and Jizz.
Speaker 1: So they would laugh. They would literally sit in the
Speaker 1: meetings and laugh when we'd say the names of the
Speaker 1: guys that were in the band. They're like, oh, it
Speaker 1: sounds like Chinese food, and we're like how are we
Speaker 1: going to get these guys to understand what this is.
Speaker 7: I was working at RCA LA and they weren't really helping.
Speaker 4: This is Joseph Mojo Nicosia, a veteran New York City
Speaker 4: club DJ turned radio promotion executive. Mojo worked at Loud's
Speaker 4: parent company RCA and would become Louds inside man. As
Speaker 4: Steven Rich's operation grew, they would eventually bring Mojo on
Speaker 4: board as one of their vps of radio promo.
Speaker 7: Steve and I Matt and he almost got a fight
Speaker 7: with Terry Anzalder, who is my boss on the West Coast.
Speaker 7: He was trying to talk to this guy to go
Speaker 7: to radio with Wu Tang Clan and he just wasn't
Speaker 7: hearing it, and Steve and him almost got in a fight.
Speaker 7: I like got in the middle of it and he left.
Speaker 7: Terry looked at me as he's a piece worker. I've said,
Speaker 7: at least he gives a shit about his artist. We
Speaker 7: should be helping him. And that's when I decided I
Speaker 7: was going to help him.
Speaker 4: So while Steve was ready to physically fight people in
Speaker 4: the office to get the machine behind his artists, and
Speaker 4: he did start to make some allies in the building
Speaker 4: along the way, it wasn't enough to hold on to
Speaker 4: most of the Wu Tang Solo deals.
Speaker 1: So they wouldn't agree to Method Man one hundred and eighty.
Speaker 1: So we lost Old Dirty and we lost Method Man,
Speaker 1: and then you know, we kind of had a wink
Speaker 1: and a nod understanding with Rizza at that point, and
Speaker 1: he said, look, I have a plan. I want to
Speaker 1: have my own label and I'm going to have ghost
Speaker 1: Face signed to me, and if you guys can make
Speaker 1: us a good deal, you guys could keep Ray Kwan.
Speaker 4: With Wu Tang soloists spreading out across the industry, Riza
Speaker 4: wanted to make sure that he was on top of
Speaker 4: everything going on with the group's debut project at Loud,
Speaker 4: so we hit Scott Free and asked him to be
Speaker 4: the group's A and R to ensure that he had
Speaker 4: an inside man working at the label.
Speaker 5: So once that started going down, Rizzarth told me, oh,
Speaker 5: go get in touch with this guy named Steve Ifkin
Speaker 5: go check him out. We need somebody up in the
Speaker 5: office like watching our ass and helping us out with
Speaker 5: this with this shit. I gave Steve a call. He
Speaker 5: got back to me and was like, let's sit down,
Speaker 5: let's talk. He had told Stretch Armstrong that he was
Speaker 5: gonna sit down with me, and Stretch was a good
Speaker 5: good friend of mine, and Stretch definitely gave the co
Speaker 5: sign or something like yo free would be good in
Speaker 5: helping you, you know, with A and R shit. He's
Speaker 5: got good ears and good dude and this and this
Speaker 5: and that. So Stretch kind of gave me like a
Speaker 5: real big co sign with Steve.
Speaker 4: Armed with a co sign from underground radio DJ Stretch
Speaker 4: Armstrong and a personal connection to Rizza. Scott became the
Speaker 4: first official New York employee at Loud Records. With Scott
Speaker 4: in place to help Wu Tang negate the loud system,
Speaker 4: Steven Rich would lean on Mojo to get the RCA
Speaker 4: machine behind the group.
Speaker 7: We went and saw Wu Tang Clan perform, and then
Speaker 7: I went into Butchwa's office and said, Okay, what's my budget.
Speaker 7: He gave me the numbers and I said, I'm going
Speaker 7: to put the whole thing on Wu Tang Clan and
Speaker 7: Loud Records. We had a big argument and I said,
Speaker 7: if it's my department, that's what I want to do,
Speaker 7: and he let.
Speaker 2: Me do it.
Speaker 7: I think it was within four days. I had them
Speaker 7: in vans and we were driving all over the place
Speaker 7: trying to break their record. In the van, they played
Speaker 7: Wu Tang clean all the time, entered the thirty six
Speaker 7: chambers over and over and over and over. So at
Speaker 7: one point it really hit me like how unbelievable it was.
Speaker 1: I became possessed.
Speaker 2: Riza had this style of the way that he got me.
Speaker 7: He would get everyone on the road, he would explain
Speaker 7: what the metaphors in their lyrics were, and I remember
Speaker 7: he said, we're going to spread this like a virus.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what they did.
Speaker 7: Risa was all so he made milestones of where the
Speaker 7: p and ls and sales were going to be, and
Speaker 7: he was pretty much right the whole way. They worked hard,
Speaker 7: They worked really hard. They were out there going for it,
Speaker 7: and that's what really built LOUD was that we were
Speaker 7: just jumping vans and go.
Speaker 4: Just like Riza plan, Wu Tang was spreading like a virus.
Speaker 4: The group and the entire staff at LOUD knew the
Speaker 4: ensemble was special, but none of them had any clue
Speaker 4: how far The group's debut entered. The Wu Tang was
Speaker 4: about to take them all, but on the night of
Speaker 4: the album's release, both partners would be made fully aware.
Speaker 1: The night of the Wu Tang album release party, we
Speaker 1: had dinner with the president of RCA kind of to
Speaker 1: celebrate the success of the alcoholics, Like that was a
Speaker 1: big deal, Like we're getting acknowledged. The President's giving us
Speaker 1: a dinner. We went from that dinner to Webster Hall
Speaker 1: and we were about three blocks away from Webster Hall
Speaker 1: and all the streets are closed off. I'm like, what
Speaker 1: is going on here? We think there's like a police issue.
Speaker 1: So we get out of the cab, so let's just
Speaker 1: walk because we're gonna be late for this party. And
Speaker 1: we'd come around the block and we see the line
Speaker 1: wrapping around the corner and we look at each other
Speaker 1: and we're like, holy shit, this is for our event.
Speaker 1: This was for the Wu Tang album release party. And
Speaker 1: we're just looking at each other in disbelief. Like we
Speaker 1: knew Wu Tang was happening, but we had no idea
Speaker 1: what a big sensation it was gonna be until that night.
Speaker 4: Steve and Rich had witnessed Wu Tang Mania with their
Speaker 4: own eyes, but neither could have expected the global phenomenon
Speaker 4: The group would become. From starting with the Novelty Act
Speaker 4: to signing the greatest group in hip hop history. LAD
Speaker 4: was now on its way to becoming the hottest label
Speaker 4: in wrap. However, as quickly as the company would rise
Speaker 4: to the top, it would soon all come crashing down.
Speaker 4: But to hear the heights of the label's success and
Speaker 4: how it all unraveled, you're gonna have to tune into
Speaker 4: Part two of the Lab record story right here on
Speaker 4: Idea Generations All Angles. This episode was brought to you
Speaker 4: by Will Packer, Executive produced by John Valachick and Helena Ox,
Speaker 4: original music by Valentine Fritz, edit and sound mixed by
Speaker 4: Nonsensible Production, and hosted by me Idea Generation founder Noah
Speaker 4: Callahan beveret. Idea Generation's All Angles is a Will Packer
Speaker 4: Media podcast