Speaker 1: Questlof Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up?
Speaker 2: This is Sugar Steve from questloff Supreme. Anybody who knows
Speaker 2: this podcast is well aware that our interviews can last
Speaker 2: for hours, so often we split them into two parts.
Speaker 2: It also gives listeners a suspenseful reason to come back
Speaker 2: next week or check their podcast feed for more episodes.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty twenty two, we sat down with La
Speaker 2: Reid for what became a rare three part interview. The
Speaker 2: third and final part of La Read's epic QLs interview
Speaker 2: covers the founding of La Face Records and some rarely
Speaker 2: discussed history surrounding outcasts and TLC. Please rate, like, and
Speaker 2: subscribe to this on your podcast feeds, check back for
Speaker 2: new episodes, and follow our new YouTube page at QLs.
Speaker 3: At the time in eighty eight eighty nine, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: have thought, Hey, Atlanta is a great place to build
Speaker 3: my empire. What did you see in Atlanta that we
Speaker 3: didn't see? Because at the time, the only artist I
Speaker 3: knew that lived in Atlanta was People Bryson.
Speaker 4: And then you changed everything. You changed the whole culture
Speaker 4: of a city.
Speaker 3: So why did you choose Atlanta and how did you
Speaker 3: choose Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Why and how?
Speaker 5: It was a combination. It was myself, Babyface and Pebbles.
Speaker 5: All three of us were in the studio on Kwanga Boulevard,
Speaker 5: in a studio called Ilumba, and we collectively decided that
Speaker 5: we wanted to leave. We wanted to move out of
Speaker 5: LA for various reasons.
Speaker 1: Okay, why.
Speaker 4: One was we're concerned.
Speaker 5: About earthquakes seriously, and that sounds kind of crazy, it's real.
Speaker 5: We were concerned about cost of living and we had
Speaker 5: just started to make some money and we wanted to
Speaker 5: know how to stretch that right. And so the idea was,
Speaker 5: let's and we just come off tour, like we just
Speaker 5: finished that last tour and we've been all over the country,
Speaker 5: and we didn't think La was like the only place
Speaker 5: on Earth. So we had a conversation about moving. So
Speaker 5: we put a map on the wall. We had a
Speaker 5: very serious conversation about.
Speaker 1: Boo, yeah, that's what to say. You put a map out.
Speaker 4: Very serious conversation.
Speaker 5: We put a map on the wall, a map of
Speaker 5: the United States, and first we looked at everyone's hometown.
Speaker 4: Where should we go? Should we go to the Bay
Speaker 4: Area where Pebbles is from she was from Atlanta, She's
Speaker 4: from the Bay.
Speaker 5: We were like, nah, wow, the Indianapolis where babyfaces from
Speaker 5: Cincinnati where I'm from.
Speaker 4: Nah. Then we were like New York and then Kenny.
Speaker 5: We thought about our experiences being in New York and writing,
Speaker 5: and we were like, we don't write that well in
Speaker 5: New York.
Speaker 4: Now we got it.
Speaker 5: Dallas, big homes, big great lifestyle. One of us, and
Speaker 5: I don't remember who said Atlanta, and all I remember
Speaker 5: all of us saying yes, because Atlanta. If you're on tour,
Speaker 5: when you go through Atlanta, it's like the Mecca.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Everything was like upscale. It was like everything from the
Speaker 5: pre Olympics. Oh yeah, this is eighty eight eighty eight Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean Olympic they didn't have skyscrapers.
Speaker 3: I mean you guys and Bobby Brown, I'll never understand,
Speaker 3: Like we all like, why would y'all do that?
Speaker 5: We picked Atlanta because we knew we could live. Well,
Speaker 5: I'm being honest, right, we just knew we could live.
Speaker 5: We went down looked at some houses and the house prices,
Speaker 5: the real estate prices, like, we were like.
Speaker 4: We can live, we can live well down here.
Speaker 5: This place is dope, So we I called Irving Azof
Speaker 5: who was running MCA at the time, who we thought
Speaker 5: we were going to make the La Face deal with.
Speaker 4: And I said, Irving, I have an idea. That what's
Speaker 4: the idea?
Speaker 5: I said, how's the South motown up the South the
Speaker 5: Face Records Atlanta, Georgia, And he said, where do I sign?
Speaker 5: And that's how it started. And he gave us the
Speaker 5: seed money to move, booked the planes, booked.
Speaker 4: The hotels, found us a lawyer, found us a real.
Speaker 5: Estate agent, and we went down and we literally stayed
Speaker 5: there until we found homes.
Speaker 1: And where did Clive Davis come in the picture?
Speaker 4: Irv Irving's quit working at MCA. Oh, he left the company? Right?
Speaker 5: So enter Clarence Avon, Yes, godfather, So Clarence Avon who
Speaker 5: had always been there, right. Clarence says, well, if you're
Speaker 5: not doing it with Irving, then I'm going to introduce
Speaker 5: you to Jerry Moss, David Geffen and all of the
Speaker 5: various players. And we met everybody, and everybody was interested.
Speaker 5: Moe Austin, I met everybody.
Speaker 1: How did you get out the contract though you signed
Speaker 1: on the dotted line.
Speaker 4: No, no, we didn't sign anything.
Speaker 5: We just got producer advances because we made all of
Speaker 5: our hits at MCA, so we had a lot of
Speaker 5: money in the pipeline. So he just basically gave us
Speaker 5: the money that we were Oh.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to recoup it back or repay back or.
Speaker 5: We never signed one thing. No, wow, No, we didn't
Speaker 5: sign anything. We just and it was a lot of money,
Speaker 5: you know, especially at that time, I can imagine, yeah,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: So Clams introduced us to everybody.
Speaker 5: And when I was eighteen years old, I read this
Speaker 5: book by this great record executive, Clive Davis, the Yellow Book,
Speaker 5: and I don't even know why. I don't even know why,
Speaker 5: eighteen nineteen years old, why am I reading about a
Speaker 5: record executive. I didn't even know why. But there was
Speaker 5: a photo of him sitting at the Beverly Hills Hotel
Speaker 5: pool slide in the family with sliced stone, and I
Speaker 5: was like.
Speaker 4: I want to be that guy right, not sly, I
Speaker 4: want to be the guy sitting next. This is a lot, right, So.
Speaker 5: This is my big opportunity to meet the great Clive Davis.
Speaker 4: And Clarence set it up.
Speaker 5: We walked into the bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel,
Speaker 5: to meet Clive Davis, and my mind was already made up.
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm doing this with Clive, but I
Speaker 5: couldn't say that. I couldn't play, I couldn't show the hand,
Speaker 5: and I didn't actually know how Face felt about it
Speaker 5: at the time. You know, a New Face really wanted
Speaker 5: to work on Whitney, so it just all felt right.
Speaker 5: We thought we were going to do it with David Geffen,
Speaker 5: who said yes to our deal, and then he came
Speaker 5: back and said, actually, no, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 5: And his reasoning was, I'm not committed to the genre.
Speaker 5: It wasn't bad at all. It was very honest. He
Speaker 5: was like, I'm a rock any waste that time. He's like,
Speaker 5: that's right.
Speaker 1: He wasn't.
Speaker 6: That's what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh wow. Now I'm just thinking like, wow,
Speaker 3: I could have signed to the label. I could have
Speaker 3: signed a Little Face in nineteen ninety three Wendy Goldstein.
Speaker 3: It just went to like, now I magine the alternate
Speaker 3: lifetime where outcast needs help and the roots are the
Speaker 3: world my god, and the roots are the one that's hot.
Speaker 4: That's actually really hot, that's home.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 1: I have a while.
Speaker 7: We all have a very specific Outcast question.
Speaker 8: So I want you to talk about the differences in
Speaker 8: working with between Dre and Big Boy.
Speaker 7: I really study. Big Boy is somebody that I really look.
Speaker 8: At, and I look at a lot of the moves
Speaker 8: in his career and they seem to be a direct
Speaker 8: reflection of you know, you know, his relationship with you.
Speaker 8: So I wanted to know he talks, He's always spoken
Speaker 8: very highly him and stuff much, you know what I mean? Yeah, So, like,
Speaker 8: how have you how's that relationship between those two guys
Speaker 8: over the years, how's that developed?
Speaker 4: It's always been really good.
Speaker 5: And the truth is, I think it might have been
Speaker 5: one of my better relationships because I didn't know their
Speaker 5: music as well, Like like I couldn't.
Speaker 4: Tamper, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like if usc makes a record, I have a very
Speaker 5: strong opinion about it, or anybody you know usher makes
Speaker 5: a record, I have a very strong opinion about it.
Speaker 5: But with Outcast, there were such originals that if they
Speaker 5: felt passionately about it, my job was to be a
Speaker 5: servant leader instead of being instead of meddling.
Speaker 3: I have a question, Okay, am I the only one
Speaker 3: that thinks this fonte as much as I love Elevators. Okay,
Speaker 3: dude in nineteen ninety six, to make your first single
Speaker 3: a very slow temple song that's like eighty eight bpms,
Speaker 3: not not conducive to what I believe dance culture was in.
Speaker 7: But that was in the South Atlanta.
Speaker 1: That yeah, that was such a song South.
Speaker 7: For us, man, that was nah with shit, it wasn't
Speaker 7: missed for us. We ran the fuck out of Elevators,
Speaker 7: like immediately.
Speaker 3: Because when I got that, like by that point, I
Speaker 3: was like getting serviced by DJs and whatnot. And yes,
Speaker 3: as a as a as a Northeasterner like I was,
Speaker 3: I was in the groove of where hip hop was
Speaker 3: in that period between like ninety two bpms and one
Speaker 3: hundred bpms, like very fast pitt And when I put
Speaker 3: Elevators on, I just stared at the record, like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is so slow and space.
Speaker 1: And how am I gonna wake make this work in
Speaker 1: my DJ sets?
Speaker 3: And yet y'all went with it like there was no
Speaker 3: fear whatsoever.
Speaker 5: I actually didn't know one way or another, like to
Speaker 5: be honest with you, right, Andre and Big Boy Enrico Way,
Speaker 5: they came to the.
Speaker 4: Office and they were like, this is it? This is it?
Speaker 4: This is it? And I knew Andre.
Speaker 5: What I did know is that that Andre verse was
Speaker 5: we all knew that. I mean that was like seriously, like, damn,
Speaker 5: he's good. He's really good. But as a song I
Speaker 5: probably had the same opinion you did. I was like,
Speaker 5: this is a little slow. It's not that clear either,
Speaker 5: you know, like it wasn't it wasn't. It wasn't sparkling.
Speaker 5: It was dark, right, And so I had the same
Speaker 5: could But I really believed in I really believed in
Speaker 5: Rico way like Rico Waite was the leader, and he
Speaker 5: was he was my ears, my eyes and my ears
Speaker 5: to everything that we were doing in that world of outcast,
Speaker 5: the goodie mob and even you know, parental advisory is yes, right,
Speaker 5: they were in the crew as well. So I just
Speaker 5: listened to Rico and it worked. And after it worked,
Speaker 5: my relationship with them was you guys, make your own decisions.
Speaker 5: If you want my opinion, I'll give you my opinion,
Speaker 5: but I'm not giving you my opinion unless you ask me.
Speaker 8: Yeah, is that still your relationship would be? Boy, y'all
Speaker 8: still to this day do what he says.
Speaker 3: Okay, So, without Rico's presence on speaker box. How do
Speaker 3: you trust your instincts? I mean, by this point, they're
Speaker 3: they're now a marquee act, they're you're a listers and
Speaker 3: without the muscle of organized noise sort of under them.
Speaker 3: I mean, even though they're there somewhat, How shaky was
Speaker 3: it to navigate a double album of clearly two different
Speaker 3: sides right, and not only make it work, but make
Speaker 3: it one of their most and to take them on stage.
Speaker 3: I was there that night. I couldn't believe that shit.
Speaker 3: How hard not hard, or how worrisome were you to
Speaker 3: like go with your gut being the I'm assuming that
Speaker 3: you're now manning the ship for at least that album,
Speaker 3: that you didn't have to go there to guide you.
Speaker 5: So things that kind of changed. They really grew intoday.
Speaker 5: They really had grown into it. I mean this was
Speaker 5: after Stink On YOUA, right, and which was a massive
Speaker 5: success for them, And I mean the real story was
Speaker 5: it was big boys solo album, right, and it was
Speaker 5: complete and it was done and I heard I like
Speaker 5: the way you moved, so I felt confident that we
Speaker 5: had like a big single. And Andre called because they
Speaker 5: weren't working together. I mean, this is fairly common knowledge.
Speaker 5: I think they weren't working together. And Andre called the office,
Speaker 5: read when you're dropping Big Boys album.
Speaker 4: I gave him the date.
Speaker 5: He's like, so, if I want to drop an album
Speaker 5: with that.
Speaker 4: How much time do I have? And I think I
Speaker 4: told him, you got three weeks.
Speaker 7: He was like three weeks.
Speaker 4: Okay, what wait?
Speaker 1: So we don't know.
Speaker 5: I didn't know what he had recorded because he wasn't
Speaker 5: really talking about it at all. He wasn't talking about
Speaker 5: making a record. Big Boy was gone solo. We've already
Speaker 5: done a photo shoot, we've picked a single, we've put
Speaker 5: the date on the calendar.
Speaker 4: We're moving forward.
Speaker 5: And then I get that call from Andre and he says,
Speaker 5: you know, how much time do I have? And that
Speaker 5: was the first time I had an indication that he
Speaker 5: wanted to make an album. We not talked about it
Speaker 5: at all. And I told him three weeks and I
Speaker 5: just remember him saying okay, and he hung up.
Speaker 1: He was probably done already.
Speaker 5: All I remember is that on the night that we
Speaker 5: had to like turn the album in for parts so
Speaker 5: we can manufacture. Andre has studios going everywhere, He had
Speaker 5: mastering going on, He had a couple of mixed rooms
Speaker 5: going on, he had, He had an ensemble of studios
Speaker 5: going to make the deadline.
Speaker 4: He was working his ass off.
Speaker 5: I went to the studio to visit and heard some
Speaker 5: of the material, but uh, he finished it and sat
Speaker 5: down and played it for me, and I was I
Speaker 5: could not believe what I was hearing man, and and
Speaker 5: he played me hey, y'all, and I was like, oh
Speaker 5: my god. And I didn't try to say well, I
Speaker 5: didn't try to go into the like okay, yeah, this
Speaker 5: is a smash that. That wasn't how I reacted. I
Speaker 5: was more blown away that you actually did this in
Speaker 5: three weeks. And I felt like you did, like you
Speaker 5: must have had this. There's no way to do this
Speaker 5: in three weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Has a theory though.
Speaker 3: When Pete Rock was telling the story of how he
Speaker 3: made public, Getnay shut him down in ten minutes, and
Speaker 3: one of y'all said, like because of the pressure, Like
Speaker 3: he didn't have time to overthink it.
Speaker 7: You're not thinking it, You're just doing Yeah. That's also Quincy.
Speaker 8: He talks about the alpha state, like he talks about
Speaker 8: that just recording.
Speaker 1: Rolysis through analysis.
Speaker 7: Yea, yeah, just going you're not thinking about it, you're
Speaker 7: just creating.
Speaker 3: Right, you will presented with the scenario twice, and I
Speaker 3: always wanted to know how far did TLC get And
Speaker 3: going with that initial thing where I believe Lisa suggested
Speaker 3: all three of us should make solo records and.
Speaker 4: Oh, not very far.
Speaker 5: Okay, honestly, not very far at all, because Tea Boys
Speaker 5: have made a couple of solo songs that for a soundtrack,
Speaker 5: I could have. Remember, the soundtrack is to Touch Myself record,
Speaker 5: I Touched.
Speaker 4: Myself, That's the song. I remember that.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the that rug wrecks thing, but no,
Speaker 1: that was that.
Speaker 4: Would have been after.
Speaker 5: But so she did it, and it was pretty clear
Speaker 5: to me that it was the ensemble that was the magic.
Speaker 4: Right. And I love t bos like I mean, I
Speaker 4: loved all of them.
Speaker 5: But I had a particular love for her style, that
Speaker 5: raspy voice, her kind of her. She kind of approached
Speaker 5: it like a guy. She was the only girl I've
Speaker 5: seen approach it like a guy. But but and I
Speaker 5: just I thought she was so dope. But it was
Speaker 5: the ensemble that was the real winner there. And then
Speaker 5: Lisa made a solo album before she passed away, made
Speaker 5: she rest in peace. I miss her so much, she
Speaker 5: made a solo album, and I I wasn't blown away
Speaker 5: by it. I didn't think it was incredible at all,
Speaker 5: you know, and it was and it was. It was
Speaker 5: the kind of music I should I should have loved
Speaker 5: it if it were good. It wasn't like side of
Speaker 5: my thing, the way I sort of described Goodie Mob
Speaker 5: as outside of my thing. So I got to defer
Speaker 5: to them. This wasn't outside of my sweet spot. But
Speaker 5: I just didn't think it was great. And Chili never
Speaker 5: actually tried to make a solo record that I can
Speaker 5: remember until many many years later, So that one didn't
Speaker 5: get that one didn't go very far.
Speaker 8: How did you balance, you know, a record like crazy
Speaker 8: Sexy Cool, where it's on your label but you're also
Speaker 8: writing and producing.
Speaker 7: I didn't write, you know, you didn't do baby Face together.
Speaker 5: That was when that was the last time that I
Speaker 5: was a writer producer was seven whole Days, Tony Braxton.
Speaker 4: It was the last time.
Speaker 5: And after and I did and then I did a
Speaker 5: song that never made never started, Light of a day
Speaker 5: with Elton John that Elton called and asked me to produce, right,
Speaker 5: and it was for a a Curtis Mayfield tribute record.
Speaker 5: Wasn't commercial at all.
Speaker 6: Was spending time in Atlanta. For a minute, I was like,
Speaker 6: were you the reason time a lot?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: But I stopped.
Speaker 5: I stopped, and Kenny and I stopped working together, and
Speaker 5: I started spending too much time on the phone. I
Speaker 5: was transitioning into being an executive.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 5: I was learning how to how independent promotion worked. I
Speaker 5: was learning how marketing worked. And I was so intrigued
Speaker 5: with the stuff I didn't know. And people were coming
Speaker 5: in and telling me about like Janet Jackson's marketing plan.
Speaker 5: I was like, what's a marketing plan? So I became
Speaker 5: curious about everything, and and I was hearing words like
Speaker 5: they shipped a hundred thousand?
Speaker 1: What's that mean?
Speaker 7: Shiped a hundred thousand?
Speaker 5: I just became curious about the business. I think I
Speaker 5: sort of fell out of love with producing and writing.
Speaker 5: And I was never a great writer. Kenny was a
Speaker 5: great writer. I was a good producer, but Kenny was
Speaker 5: a great writer. And I was a collaborator, and I
Speaker 5: filled in some blanks and had some concepts here and there,
Speaker 5: but he was a great writer. So it was easy
Speaker 5: to sort of step back because I didn't consider myself
Speaker 5: great at it. In the first place, I felt I
Speaker 5: felt very lucky.
Speaker 8: So if the label were was that primarily you running
Speaker 8: the label and Face just doing the music or was
Speaker 8: he involved on the label side as well?
Speaker 5: Now I think if you ask him he would say
Speaker 5: that He's always said that the label.
Speaker 4: Was kind of my thing.
Speaker 5: Because I liked the idea of signing talent and doing
Speaker 5: all that stuff, you know, and picking songs and you know.
Speaker 8: So for so for a record like a crazy sexy
Speaker 8: cool where you know, Babyface is doing like a digging
Speaker 8: on you or whatever.
Speaker 4: Right, yes, is.
Speaker 7: There no conflict of ventures.
Speaker 5: I actually had all of the producers competing and they
Speaker 5: didn't really know it. Like I had Dallas working on
Speaker 5: it first he was the architect. Then I go play
Speaker 5: it for Jermaine Dupre and be like, I know you
Speaker 5: can beat this, and then I and then you know,
Speaker 5: then Kenny is competitive. You don't have to you don't
Speaker 5: have to put a battery in Kenny's back. He's so competitive.
Speaker 5: So he sent his songs in and then I went
Speaker 5: to Rico way last and said here's what everybody else
Speaker 5: gave me, what you got and he came over with waterfalls.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 4: So according to according to.
Speaker 5: Executives at Arista outside of Outcast, they considered crazy sexy
Speaker 5: cool my first time as an A and R executive.
Speaker 5: That I wasn't the writer, I wasn't the producer. Uh,
Speaker 5: and that was that's and if it was my first
Speaker 5: I didn't see it that way. But if it was,
Speaker 5: I did okay.
Speaker 3: With with no input from Clive at all, Like, hey.
Speaker 5: Clive, not Once it was done, Clive had opinions about
Speaker 5: the singles and uh, and we had you know, Creep
Speaker 5: was the first single. I love Creep by the way,
Speaker 5: man off. So we shot a video for Creep. Wasn't
Speaker 5: very good.
Speaker 4: I'm damn. So we shot a second video for Creep.
Speaker 4: Oh again, wasn't very good. I'm like, fuck, no trouble. Yeah.
Speaker 5: We shot two videos and they weren't good that the
Speaker 5: world never saw them, and so I was embarrassed.
Speaker 4: So I switched singles. I said Creeps no longer.
Speaker 5: The single we're gonna go with this song called kick
Speaker 5: Your Game that your MANE d pre did.
Speaker 1: Clive was likeld hold it, hold on, why are changing?
Speaker 4: What is this?
Speaker 1: What's behind this? You have to.
Speaker 5: Explain, right, And Dallas Austin called like, yo, I know
Speaker 5: you're not like not putting my single out like he
Speaker 5: knew he had a great record, and so I had
Speaker 5: to come clean and say, well, truth be told, like
Speaker 5: I made two horrible videos.
Speaker 4: And I'm just too embarrassed to tell everybody. So Clive says,
Speaker 4: get it right. He said, get it right.
Speaker 5: So I'm with Diddy one day at the at the
Speaker 5: Helmsley Palace hotel in New York.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting with Diddy.
Speaker 5: I play him the TC video that's not good, and
Speaker 5: he looks at me.
Speaker 4: It's like, oh my god, like.
Speaker 5: This is horrible, and he does not make me feel
Speaker 5: any better about it. Right while I'm showing him the
Speaker 5: video on one television because I used to have with
Speaker 5: this road case that I carried around with speakers and
Speaker 5: monitor and every cord like office in a case.
Speaker 4: I was extra. While I'm playing it.
Speaker 5: For him on the television, there's a video with InVogue
Speaker 5: and Salt and pepper Coat.
Speaker 4: What a man?
Speaker 6: What a man?
Speaker 4: And I look at that video. It looks way better
Speaker 4: than our video. I'm like, who directed that is you? Roston? Yeah?
Speaker 5: So I called Matthew Rosston and I asked him to
Speaker 5: do creep and we got it right, the third time.
Speaker 4: But we threw two videos away to get to the
Speaker 4: good one.
Speaker 1: I will do anything to find those original videos.
Speaker 6: In a situation like that, though, when when TLC got
Speaker 6: to repay the money back, do they gotta pay for
Speaker 6: all three of those versions or do they just pay
Speaker 6: for the one that made it.
Speaker 4: Let's look at it like this. You sell ten million albums.
Speaker 6: Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 6: That's all I wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: That's all I got because I know, you know what.
Speaker 4: Went on to make the great record. Trying to make
Speaker 4: the great video. I'm spending people's money and not.
Speaker 3: Real I'm even with anger because to sit in the
Speaker 3: geff and offices and be told your videos are one
Speaker 3: and done, like there is no going back. I can't
Speaker 3: believe that. I'm hearing stories.
Speaker 1: Of we didn't think video. We'll take it back, and.
Speaker 3: Then we'll take it back again, and then we take
Speaker 3: it back. I hear Mariah made four videos for Vision
Speaker 3: of Love, and I'm like.
Speaker 7: That's a very old school thing, though, man, that's our.
Speaker 3: Label convinced us that, like because we hated our videos.
Speaker 4: And literally you couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you were stuck either video or no video, Like,
Speaker 1: oh my god.
Speaker 6: Videos, weren't you memorable?
Speaker 1: That's why I hate making videos.
Speaker 5: That's being mean to you.
Speaker 4: Are not too memorable.
Speaker 1: That's meaning.
Speaker 6: The reason that I am here is because I'm the
Speaker 6: roots largest fan.
Speaker 4: So I can say a couple of truthful things. I'm here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm neither not bothered either way.
Speaker 1: So okay.
Speaker 3: I was always curious the call the night that left
Speaker 3: eye burnt the house down, like, were you worried?
Speaker 1: Not worried about stopping the bag?
Speaker 4: But it was morning. First of all, it was early morning.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, it was early we were We lived in
Speaker 3: the same night time crime, not a day.
Speaker 5: No, we lived in the same subdivision. We both lived
Speaker 5: in Country of the South. My housekeeper at the time
Speaker 5: was taking my son, Aaron. She was taking him to school.
Speaker 5: He was in the kindergarten all right, or maybe preschool.
Speaker 5: But and she called. I want to say, I don't
Speaker 5: know if Pebbles was not home or I don't know.
Speaker 5: For whatever reason, I answered the phone. She said, I
Speaker 5: just drove by Lisa house is on fire. So I
Speaker 5: look outside, I see helicopters from me. I'm like, oh shit,
Speaker 5: So I just start trying to find Lisa. I just
Speaker 5: start trying to find her and I found her right.
Speaker 5: I called every number I had, everybody I knew, and
Speaker 5: I found her and she said she was okay. She
Speaker 5: said she didn't get hurt. She was okay, and she
Speaker 5: told me it wasn't on purpose, it was an accident.
Speaker 5: And I immediately went to protect her. And I have
Speaker 5: friends in the police force there, Like the chief of
Speaker 5: police was a friend, and I just asked him, like,
Speaker 5: can you just help me to protect her, like I
Speaker 5: don't want her to be arrested, I don't want anything
Speaker 5: to happen.
Speaker 4: So he helped me.
Speaker 5: We gave her an entire floor at the Swiss hotel
Speaker 5: and bucket and with police no one could get on
Speaker 5: the floor and she stayed there until she had to
Speaker 5: go to court for it and then you know, but yeah,
Speaker 5: I didn't think about anything except her safety.
Speaker 3: Okay, ninety four ninety five, especially ninety six ninety seven,
Speaker 3: it's probably one of the most tumultuous times.
Speaker 1: In black sec.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know, all right, The thing is is
Speaker 3: that we lived in Europe during this time period, so
Speaker 3: we really were sort of out of the literal crossfire.
Speaker 4: You lived in Europe at that time.
Speaker 3: We we The shortest story is that basically we realized
Speaker 3: Richard Nichols was intuitive enough to the day that God
Speaker 3: Rest his soul, Kurt Kobaine committed suicide. Rich said, the
Speaker 3: label's gonna drop us because by this point Aerosmith that
Speaker 3: went to Sony Guns n' Roses wasn't coming up with
Speaker 3: another album, and now Nirvana's gone, and literally, like those
Speaker 3: three Acts and all the billions that they made enable
Speaker 3: geffen'da have a black department, and we were there first
Speaker 3: acts and rich sort of have the spidy sense that
Speaker 3: everybody's going to get the Acts, so we better just
Speaker 3: grab our publishing money, run to Europe, get a flat
Speaker 3: and then just become like the black version of the commitments,
Speaker 3: like get a tour bus and just tour all over Europe.
Speaker 3: So we just lived there for like three years straight working,
Speaker 3: so we were really we hadn't met none of our peers,
Speaker 3: none of that stuff, like we come back to record
Speaker 3: new albums, see our families. But for the most part
Speaker 3: of like six months touring in Europe and spot dates
Speaker 3: like all over the United States touring. But for the
Speaker 3: most part we had missed a lot of the stories
Speaker 3: that we heard between like what was the trouble brewing
Speaker 3: between like executives and you just knew, you knew how
Speaker 3: toxic that environment was, how frightening was it being a
Speaker 3: black executive?
Speaker 1: And more important, how did you avoid getting.
Speaker 3: Sucked into just the toxic mis of it all where
Speaker 3: beef is now like a regular thing between executives.
Speaker 5: You know, Yeah, that's a great question. And I have
Speaker 5: to tell you, like, I was really concerned. I was
Speaker 5: really concerned about it. And because I was, I was
Speaker 5: very close to Puffy, right, and I helped start Bad Way,
Speaker 5: you know, I helped helped get him the deal for
Speaker 5: Bad Boy, and very proud of that, by the way,
Speaker 5: because I actually wanted him to be an A and
Speaker 5: R guy at LA face And after one meeting, I
Speaker 5: realized that this is this is nobody's employee.
Speaker 4: This guy's this guy special, you know. Uh.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I was concerned about it, man, because I
Speaker 5: felt I felt like Atlanta wasn't the East or the West,
Speaker 5: so we were kind of we weren't viewed as the
Speaker 5: competition for either the East or the West. Right, whatever
Speaker 5: we were doing in Atlanta, even though like we were,
Speaker 5: we were we were having hits.
Speaker 4: But culturally, the impact of the West Coast was.
Speaker 5: Really huge, right with Snoop and Dray and Park and
Speaker 5: all that, and then the Bad Boy on the East Coast.
Speaker 5: Those things were like very front facing, and what we
Speaker 5: did at La Face wasn't as front facing like our
Speaker 5: artists were.
Speaker 4: But Kenny and I weren't like that. We weren't. There
Speaker 4: was no change, No, you know, we weren't like that.
Speaker 4: You know so.
Speaker 3: But I can only imagine that the more success you got,
Speaker 3: the more it puts you out front to become sucked
Speaker 3: into that because I don't think I don't think that
Speaker 3: there would be a bad Boy death row thing if
Speaker 3: Puffy were releasing records produced by me. I mean not
Speaker 3: to be self deprecating, but I'm just saying that obviously
Speaker 3: there's a competition thing on what label's gonna wind up
Speaker 3: on top, and you're actually selling more units than both
Speaker 3: those labels, at least for.
Speaker 4: Their artists alive, right, right, right.
Speaker 1: I mean you could have been an easy target.
Speaker 5: I thought I was avoiding it. Man, It's best I could,
Speaker 5: and I knew everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean, relationships with Sugar and you have relationship with Ruffy.
Speaker 4: And yes, yes, and I didn't know. I did not
Speaker 4: know Biggie and.
Speaker 5: I did not know Tupac, right, I never I can't
Speaker 5: say I knew either of them. I probably had one
Speaker 5: handshake with each person and in a sort of passing,
Speaker 5: but I didn't know them. And yeah, so I have
Speaker 5: I tried hard, and I won't kid you. I am
Speaker 5: nobody's tough guy. I tried desperately to avoid ever being
Speaker 5: in the room.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't even go to.
Speaker 1: Would you go to Jack the Rappers and all those
Speaker 1: things before?
Speaker 4: I would?
Speaker 1: But there was important? Was that important to go to
Speaker 1: or was that just a vanity thing?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 5: It was important because all the DJs were there, like
Speaker 5: all the dj and at that time, DJs could make
Speaker 5: a decision about which records they played right before before
Speaker 5: the conglomerates took over, you know, DJ's had some say
Speaker 5: they had to say and what they played.
Speaker 4: And so we did.
Speaker 5: And all of the labels competitors were there. You got
Speaker 5: a chance to see what the other label had, what
Speaker 5: they had coming, and if you needed to go back
Speaker 5: and do better or find another song or find another act.
Speaker 5: So and it was it was good camaraderie. It was
Speaker 5: really good until it wasn't. When it got bad, it
Speaker 5: got bad, and that's when I stopped going, you know.
Speaker 5: But I just tried to avoid it, man, and just
Speaker 5: stayed to myself as much as I could, and trying
Speaker 5: to sort of diminish my presence. As crazy as that sound, right,
Speaker 5: I didn't want to be you know. We didn't even
Speaker 5: have photo we didn't take pictures of nothing. We just
Speaker 5: stayed in the background as much as we could.
Speaker 3: Was there an act that you kind of purposely passed
Speaker 3: on signing just because like, uh, this might cause smoke
Speaker 3: for the label.
Speaker 4: Or probably like I don't remember a name.
Speaker 5: But I didn't actively look for artists in New York
Speaker 5: and LA.
Speaker 4: I didn't. I really didn't. I didn't. I ain't even
Speaker 4: gonna lie, right, I did not actively look.
Speaker 5: And so I was getting chatt at newgou Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 4: You know you know what I mean, des Moines, Iowa.
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 3: Speaking of chattan New good Tennessee. Can we finally settle
Speaker 3: this once and for all?
Speaker 1: Can you please tell us.
Speaker 5: No I saw I saw, I saw what I saw
Speaker 5: What Tevin said I never had to say in that
Speaker 5: because Kenny wrote that song and he produced it on
Speaker 5: Tevin Campbell and that was it. Like there was never
Speaker 5: like a conversation like should we give it the Usher
Speaker 5: or should I.
Speaker 4: There was never a conversation.
Speaker 5: Ken and I were not working as writer producer partners
Speaker 5: at that moment. That that he did completely on his
Speaker 5: own and gave it to Tevin, Tevin saying the hell
Speaker 5: out of it, uh, and it worked.
Speaker 4: So there there was never any back and forth.
Speaker 3: So you never had a sick, griffy moment where like
Speaker 3: The Face gave a song to someone that you know
Speaker 3: you could have used that song for your artist, and
Speaker 3: it's like, yo, come on dog, like I could have
Speaker 3: used that. I asked you last week if you had
Speaker 3: something for TLC and you said.
Speaker 4: No, no, No. It wasn't really like that. And I
Speaker 4: was also very.
Speaker 5: Clear about Kenny's ambitions as a writer, right Kenny wanted
Speaker 5: the greatest artists possible to sing his songs.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't about for him.
Speaker 5: It was never about whether it was on the Face
Speaker 5: or whether it was on Arista or Epic or He
Speaker 5: never thought about it that way. He thought about it
Speaker 5: as like the song girlfriend that Pebbles got, the reason
Speaker 5: she got it is because he thought her voice was
Speaker 5: the right voice for the song. It was originally for
Speaker 5: Vanessa Williams right, and he thought, he said, it's not
Speaker 5: right for Vanessa because he listened to as a as
Speaker 5: a musician, as an artist, as a writer, producer, he
Speaker 5: listened to the voices and he made his decisions based
Speaker 5: on the voices.
Speaker 4: And how do you argue with that?
Speaker 3: There's definitely a big difference between the pink that signed
Speaker 3: to Lea Face first few records and the artists that
Speaker 3: she morphed into. So how what what's the what's the
Speaker 3: conversation and the metamorphoses where.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a beginning.
Speaker 3: And then there's definitely a separation from what she was
Speaker 3: and you were You're part of that process, So like, yes,
Speaker 3: at what point do you realize maybe I should loosen
Speaker 3: the strings somewhat and see where they go with it?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: So first album, she did that album as a member
Speaker 5: of the group Choice, and then they disbanded and we
Speaker 5: continued the process, and some of the songs that were
Speaker 5: made for Choice she kept them. But we struggled in
Speaker 5: the beginning. We really struggled because she was still growing,
Speaker 5: she was very young, and she was still finding herself,
Speaker 5: finding her style, and so we the first album we
Speaker 5: did the best we could do right. It was called
Speaker 5: Can't Take Me Home. Loved her concepts, loved her how
Speaker 5: she thought about it, and I loved her voice and
Speaker 5: her energy. She was incredible musically. It was a little
Speaker 5: bit undefined and all over the place when it got
Speaker 5: so but we had We had a hit with with
Speaker 5: there You Go and Uh, and she had a second
Speaker 5: hit called most Girls, not as big a hit, but
Speaker 5: it did really well. So when it came to her
Speaker 5: second album, she hooked up with Dallas Austin, her and
Speaker 5: KP basically oversaw it, and then she hooked up with
Speaker 5: Linda Perry. And when she first brought it to me,
Speaker 5: I was like, wait a minute, you're abandoning like the
Speaker 5: urban thing that you started on your first album. Be
Speaker 5: sure about that. And she was like, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 5: trying to repeat that. I'm onto something really special. And
Speaker 5: I was like, okay, I don't know. I was like,
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what. If you feel passionately about it,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna step back do your thing right.
Speaker 4: And my exact words to her was because I was
Speaker 4: I got.
Speaker 5: This from Dick Griffy. I said, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 5: an opportunity to fail.
Speaker 1: Yourself.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, I said that, and I ain't really know
Speaker 5: what it meant, but I said it because Dick Griffy
Speaker 5: said it anyway.
Speaker 4: And so she did it.
Speaker 5: She came back and she played me get the Party started,
Speaker 5: eighteen Wheeler, and she played me all those songs, and
Speaker 5: I was like, oh my.
Speaker 4: God, this girl's made up.
Speaker 5: She made a real album and we went to work
Speaker 5: her throw up with Dave Myers. They made a great
Speaker 5: video and she was off to the races after that.
Speaker 5: When it came to her third album, I wasn't involved
Speaker 5: at all. I was involved at all. She got a
Speaker 5: new manager, Roger Davis, very famous manager who also mat
Speaker 5: just TEENA Turner. Yeah, Roger Davis, Roger Davies. So her
Speaker 5: and Roger kind of they did it all and just
Speaker 5: turned it in like. I wasn't involved at all. And
Speaker 5: when it was done, I didn't think it was particularly good, honestly,
Speaker 5: and I left the company right as it was time
Speaker 5: to release it. So and it didn't do that great.
Speaker 3: I don't understand when La Face just amalgamates into Arista,
Speaker 3: but do I recall when you actually went back to school.
Speaker 1: I did because Swizz did the same thing, Like what
Speaker 1: is this?
Speaker 5: So what happened is I got contacted by the Birtlesman,
Speaker 5: the company that owned the aristag BMG. They had a BMG,
Speaker 5: visited me, came to Atlanta, visited me. This was early too, man,
Speaker 5: This was like probably ninety four, and that early on
Speaker 5: they said we would like to We want you to
Speaker 5: prep yourself because at some point we want you to take.
Speaker 4: Over aris to records.
Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, right, that's what I thought
Speaker 5: to my I don't even believe it.
Speaker 4: Ninety four Okay.
Speaker 5: So a couple of years ago by and they call again,
Speaker 5: and instead this time they don't say aris that. They said,
Speaker 5: we would like for you to go back to school.
Speaker 5: We would like you to go to school. We can
Speaker 5: get you enrolled in a program at Harvard. You'll have
Speaker 5: to go and stay on campus. You got to stay
Speaker 5: for ten weeks. You cannot run the company. You can't
Speaker 5: talk to your artists, you can't talk to your executives.
Speaker 5: You can talk to your family, but we need you
Speaker 5: on the campus and we need you to put in
Speaker 5: fifty to sixty hours a week doing case studies and
Speaker 5: living on the campus and really studying international business.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like a jail sentence.
Speaker 5: I liked the idea of it because I didn't go
Speaker 5: to college, and I regretted not going to college because
Speaker 5: I opted to be a musician. I opted to go
Speaker 5: on the road that was college to me. So I
Speaker 5: liked this idea. So I went and I stayed there
Speaker 5: for my ten weeks and it was really hard, because
Speaker 5: it was really really hard. So I got kids on
Speaker 5: the campus to tutor me and helped me get through it.
Speaker 5: And I made friends with other people in that were
Speaker 5: in my in my dorm, so it was like the
Speaker 5: students were teaching each other.
Speaker 3: So you really had to go to Harvard and stay
Speaker 3: at Harvard. And do you had to do that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I lived on campus and I'm a and at
Speaker 5: this point, like i'm a.
Speaker 4: I live in Atlanta, I'm I'm I'm a.
Speaker 5: Musician's half musician, half executive. You know, I'm a hybrid.
Speaker 5: I'm a very weird hybrid. I don't know how to dress,
Speaker 5: I don't know how to walk, I don't know how
Speaker 5: to talk.
Speaker 4: I don't know which handshake do you. I'm like completely confused.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna fish out of water in the greatest institution
Speaker 5: in the world apparently, right.
Speaker 4: Uh So it was very intimidating. Everybody seemed so smart.
Speaker 5: I mean the accents you know when you hear when
Speaker 5: you hear when you hear guys with Indian accent talking
Speaker 5: about ebitda, it sounds smarter. You know, guys from the UK,
Speaker 5: they always sound smarter than we do, right, right, So
Speaker 5: it's just all very intimidating.
Speaker 4: And then I found my group.
Speaker 5: Right around halfway point, I started to find my groove
Speaker 5: and and and figured it out. And at the end
Speaker 5: of it, I graduated, And I didn't know if I
Speaker 5: would What were.
Speaker 7: Some of the things you learned from that program? Like
Speaker 7: how did that?
Speaker 4: We really studied businesses.
Speaker 5: We studied things like things that you would love, like
Speaker 5: we studied decisions that Phil.
Speaker 4: Nightmaye to make Nike a success.
Speaker 5: We discovered you know, things like that, like and we
Speaker 5: would take it in steps, like they would present us
Speaker 5: a case.
Speaker 4: They would show us the dilemma or.
Speaker 5: Where the company could go one way or another, and
Speaker 5: then they would test us basically basically like what decision
Speaker 5: would you make here? And then we would go to
Speaker 5: the next sort of chapter of the story. And it
Speaker 5: was just basically case studies, studying each person's case not
Speaker 5: only in entertainment but or or in apparel, but everything
Speaker 5: from public utilities to you know, hospital to grocery stores
Speaker 5: to automotive, Toyota to Disney. We'd study we studied businesses.
Speaker 3: There's of course a famous book out now called the
Speaker 3: Harvard Report where they first did a case study of
Speaker 3: Clive Davis, Yes, embracing black music. Were they still using
Speaker 3: that book as.
Speaker 4: A No, we never got there.
Speaker 5: But they have so many like they collect case They
Speaker 5: collect case studies from all over the world, and each
Speaker 5: professor would let the cases that he wants to use
Speaker 5: in UH, in his classrooms. But there's no there's no
Speaker 5: set stories. I knew about the Clive. They actually did
Speaker 5: one with me about UH. It was like the study
Speaker 5: of black music, right, and.
Speaker 4: They did. I know a lot of people that they've
Speaker 4: actually done the reports.
Speaker 5: They don't publish them all, they don't actually use them all,
Speaker 5: but they just basically collect information and and and they
Speaker 5: teach it and and it's good. The way we went
Speaker 5: about it, it was intimidating at first, UH, until I
Speaker 5: got my groove and realized that there were things I
Speaker 5: knew that some of the people in that they didn't know.
Speaker 4: Once I got that confidence, I was like, okay.
Speaker 7: Because they studying business that you've been running on.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, I have one confession's question.
Speaker 3: I kind of consider Confessions the end of the parentheses
Speaker 3: of whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: I really can't tell, Like what the first mega album
Speaker 3: maybe Carol King's Tapestry. It was like one of the
Speaker 3: first mega selling records, but you know us there's Confessions
Speaker 3: comes at a time when streaming culture is about to
Speaker 3: confuse the whole entire industry.
Speaker 1: Where buying a tangible record is a vote. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of a part one and part two thing.
Speaker 3: When when Confessions was said and done, did you realize
Speaker 3: then that there will never be another mega selling album
Speaker 3: of this nature again in the music business.
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 4: No, I ain't thinking that's incredible that you should say that.
Speaker 1: But no, Confessions is the like after that.
Speaker 4: Then that's the last. That's the last, like diamond album.
Speaker 3: Yes, literally, because after that streaming comes in ruins it.
Speaker 3: But I was asking that only because of his Atlanta roots.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to ask a CEO at least what
Speaker 3: their feelings of what streaming was threatening to be, and
Speaker 3: of course you know there there's the napster situation that
Speaker 3: sort of confused people and have them in their feelings
Speaker 3: and then accepting iTunes and whatnot, even down to DJ
Speaker 3: Drama's arrest, Like, could you talk about what the what
Speaker 3: the at least the scary environment for what music was
Speaker 3: about to become?
Speaker 1: Now somehow you managed.
Speaker 5: To There was a piece in the between that which
Speaker 5: was downloads, and downloads, while they weren't physical, were still
Speaker 5: a la carte. There was still like sales. So the
Speaker 5: next the next chapter of successes were measured through downloads, right,
Speaker 5: some physical not that much, you know, but CDs were
Speaker 5: dwindling badly, Vinyl was completely out of out of the count, uh,
Speaker 5: and downloads with a thing, so we still had.
Speaker 3: But as president, did you feel the pressure that I
Speaker 3: got to figure out something quick? Like all my record
Speaker 3: all my label, like my artists went from ten million
Speaker 3: to now to sell three million is an.
Speaker 1: Achievement, although it's not your fault per se, just right, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, how are you dealing with that as a CEO
Speaker 3: like and as an executive?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the idea was just to not bottom out the
Speaker 5: idea was, yes, the sales are dwindling, and it's across
Speaker 5: the board. It's not one company that's dwind it's not
Speaker 5: one artist that's that sales are dwindling. The entire industry
Speaker 5: is going down the tube. Napster's introduced the download, so
Speaker 5: we're fighting piracy and at a rate that we've never
Speaker 5: had to fight piracy, at least that we know of.
Speaker 5: So with that being the reality, it was just get
Speaker 5: the best artists and the best records you can and
Speaker 5: do the best you can. And I never really measured
Speaker 5: it against Like. I didn't even know that fact.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that Confessions Like was maybe the last diamond.
Speaker 3: I didn't even know that Confessions and speaker Box were
Speaker 3: the last of the movie.
Speaker 5: I didn't even realize that, So I didn't I didn't,
Speaker 5: in my mind, compete with it.
Speaker 4: I didn't think of it that way.
Speaker 5: I thought of it more as meaningful bodies of work,
Speaker 5: which I felt Kanye made as an example right, And
Speaker 5: I was really proud of everything for the time I
Speaker 5: was around him. I was proud of those records and
Speaker 5: I felt that they were I felt they measured up
Speaker 5: to whatever we did at with Outcasts, whatever we did
Speaker 5: with Usher, And I also had like Mariah Carey's Emancipation
Speaker 5: of Me Me Right, and.
Speaker 4: That felt like the for me, that felt.
Speaker 5: Like the follow up to Confessions Right, some of the
Speaker 5: same kind of sounding records.
Speaker 4: That's how I looked at it.
Speaker 5: But I didn't look at the sales, and I didn't
Speaker 5: look at the challenge that we had as an industry
Speaker 5: as a threat.
Speaker 4: I looked at it more as, yes, we need to
Speaker 4: figure this out.
Speaker 3: And once you come to death Jam, like you kind
Speaker 3: of have to start all over again, Like what is
Speaker 3: it to meet your especially coming from where they came
Speaker 3: from as far as like the the era of Julie
Speaker 3: and and le or yeah, like to come in there
Speaker 3: and to be the new guy, like was.
Speaker 1: It crazy eyes?
Speaker 4: And oh my god, man, it was crazy? It was.
Speaker 4: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was nice to you.
Speaker 4: Crazy.
Speaker 5: Wasn't there when I got there? Okay, she came once
Speaker 5: once Jay was president, right, but man, it was it
Speaker 5: was scary because it was a real. First of all,
Speaker 5: I didn't realize. Here's the thing about Death Jam, Like,
Speaker 5: if you're part of that culture, you realize how important
Speaker 5: that culture is. If you're not a part of it,
Speaker 5: you don't really know. So it's crazy as this sound.
Speaker 5: I didn't know that it was what it was like.
Speaker 5: It wasn't that to us in Atlanta. I mean, it
Speaker 5: was a successful company. It was big. We respected. We
Speaker 5: knew Russell, we knew Rick Rubin, we knew le Ric Cohen,
Speaker 5: we knew Chris Leidy, we knew cool j.
Speaker 7: We knew it.
Speaker 5: But we didn't think of it as the institution that
Speaker 5: it was.
Speaker 4: We didn't see it that way.
Speaker 5: So when I walked in, I was shocked by I
Speaker 5: was shocked by it all.
Speaker 4: I was shocked by.
Speaker 5: The voice of the community and their opinions about anything
Speaker 5: that happened. I didn't realize that theft jam belonged to
Speaker 5: the streets. It belonged to the people, like you know
Speaker 5: it funk Master Flex had to say, and every I
Speaker 5: mean just making up named anybody right, everybody had a
Speaker 5: say in it. So when I came in as a
Speaker 5: new chairman of the company, coming from my background, I
Speaker 5: was immediately made to feel uncomfortable. Right executives were taking
Speaker 5: out articles in the newspaper and magazine talking about how
Speaker 5: I wasn't fit for it and how you know, how
Speaker 5: would I know how to go talk to DMX like
Speaker 5: you know it was and I felt it. I really did.
Speaker 5: I felt it. And I didn't feel welcome at all.
Speaker 5: And I loved Julie. I think she's one of the
Speaker 5: most remarkable executives in the world. I love Kevin. I
Speaker 5: think he's one of the most remarkable executives in the world.
Speaker 5: Nither of them made me feel welcome. And and oh wait.
Speaker 3: So they Kevin and Julie were still there when you came.
Speaker 3: Oh I kind of thought they all left together.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they they were there when I got there, only
Speaker 5: le Or had left. And I didn't feel very welcome, right,
Speaker 5: And I didn't feel welcome.
Speaker 4: By the artist either. The artists at that time.
Speaker 5: You know, I loved them, right method Man, Redman, ghost Face, Ello,
Speaker 5: cool J the only one, and jay Z was like
Speaker 5: on semi Retireronment Rockefeller. And the artist that embraced me
Speaker 5: was Kanye West. Wow, that was the one that embraced me.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 1: That helps.
Speaker 4: That helped a lot.
Speaker 5: And this is early Kanye before he released his first
Speaker 5: album right, although it was already done and slated to
Speaker 5: be released when I came to the company. But I
Speaker 5: met him and he said to me, because you understand outcasts,
Speaker 5: you'll probably understand me. And that's how that was the
Speaker 5: first conversation we ever had.
Speaker 4: And I locked in with him.
Speaker 5: And then Mariah called, and because her and I wanted
Speaker 5: to work together for years, I tried to sign her
Speaker 5: at Ariston when she first left Sony and so I
Speaker 5: had Mariah embracing me, but no one else. So Mariah says,
Speaker 5: I'm on the phone with Mariah. This is really good,
Speaker 5: and she says, you know how you can put the
Speaker 5: fire out? I was like, how she said, make Jay.
Speaker 4: Z the president? Oh man, No, that's Mariah. You don't
Speaker 4: like that idea?
Speaker 6: No, Well, are you asking the wrong person?
Speaker 1: I'm kind of overprotective.
Speaker 6: I mean I was.
Speaker 4: I was way overprotective of the ruse.
Speaker 6: I had a whole conversation with Jay on the radio
Speaker 6: about the way he was handling his presidency and the
Speaker 6: way he was handling all the Philadelphia acts at the time.
Speaker 1: So no, as a.
Speaker 6: Radio person and for the Philadelphia person, I was not
Speaker 6: feeling that. But the artist, he's.
Speaker 5: Great, Oh yeah, okay, anyway, But but you know what
Speaker 5: when I when I so Mariah put the idea in
Speaker 5: my head, I presented it to Jay didn't get an
Speaker 5: answer right away. Eventually we were able to come to
Speaker 5: terms and he became the president of Death Jam and
Speaker 5: at that point that made the peace and everybody left me.
Speaker 6: Alone and Method but Method, man, I wasn't happy those face.
Speaker 3: Wasn't that's that's something I did not know.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And a lot of the artists, like I met
Speaker 5: a few artists that that have said to me that
Speaker 5: they because it's two way street. When you become you're
Speaker 5: the head of a label and you come in to
Speaker 5: an established company, you're auditioning for them. It's not the
Speaker 5: other way around. It's not the artists need to prove
Speaker 5: to you. You need to prove to the artists, right.
Speaker 5: And many of the artists were like, we're not even
Speaker 5: gonna give you a chance because A we think you
Speaker 5: might be r and b B we think you pop
Speaker 5: either way, we don't think you're hip hop, so I
Speaker 5: might be coming to your office, right. So so that
Speaker 5: was a very difficult thing.
Speaker 4: And I was like, yo, okay, I hear y'all.
Speaker 5: I still have the biggest selling hip hop album of
Speaker 5: all time.
Speaker 4: Do I get a do I get do I get
Speaker 4: a meeting?
Speaker 5: Because you ain't beat to speaker box a lot below yet,
Speaker 5: so can I at least get a meeting.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe that you would have to beg
Speaker 1: for a meeting.
Speaker 4: I was not embraced.
Speaker 5: It's okay though, Like I'm not saying that, Like I
Speaker 5: I was cool.
Speaker 4: Uh, And I just embraced those that embraced me. We
Speaker 4: and we ended up.
Speaker 5: We created a different kind of label as Chris Light
Speaker 5: he made he rest in peace.
Speaker 4: I loved him. He said, this is a face jam.
Speaker 4: This is not deaf jam.
Speaker 3: One very unusual deaf jam signee at the time that
Speaker 3: I considered, can you talk about what it took to
Speaker 3: market and break Justin Bieber?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yes, So I love that. That was a that was
Speaker 5: that was a gift from Usher.
Speaker 4: Right. Usher came in, he said, I have a gift
Speaker 4: for you. He came in. I thought he was gonna
Speaker 4: bring me cigars or something. I love the story. I
Speaker 4: love the story. Yes, I love it. That was a gift.
Speaker 5: Yes, And he walks in with fourteen year old Justin Bieber.
Speaker 5: Justin cames in, comes in, and he's beating on the table, right,
Speaker 5: and he's playing the piano, he's playing the guitar, and
Speaker 5: he's singing, he's jumping around, he's talking, he's a mile
Speaker 5: a minute, and I'm just staring at him like this star,
Speaker 5: Like I mean, I got my star hat on. I'm like,
Speaker 5: this is a this dude, this is star. I'm telling
Speaker 5: you guys. I thought I I ain't gonna lie. I
Speaker 5: thought I met Elvis.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: I seriously, I was like this dude right here. Because
Speaker 5: the girls all talked about how pretty his face was.
Speaker 5: Not not pretty like in a negative way, but in
Speaker 5: a way that they loved him right. All the girls
Speaker 5: loved him. And then artists that not all artists, but
Speaker 5: many artists like kind of liked him. And so we
Speaker 5: went about making the record, and the first record with strategy.
Speaker 5: You want to do strategically. I have this theory that
Speaker 5: Blue Eyed Soul is the music that has the greatest
Speaker 5: opportunity for global success. That's that's my opinion. So we
Speaker 5: put him on black radio first thing out, put him
Speaker 5: on V one o three and it was wow. That's
Speaker 5: where it started. He had a song called one Time
Speaker 5: Before Baby, we put we put it on V one
Speaker 5: o three and and we that's what we did, man.
Speaker 5: We we went black first mm hmm. And then we
Speaker 5: put it on read them and then we crossed it over.
Speaker 5: But we wanted to we wanted to give him, uh
Speaker 5: some black foundation. And he had he had the check,
Speaker 5: the endorsement because of Usher and Me, so he had
Speaker 5: real and and and Dreaming Tricky were making his records,
Speaker 5: so he had he was covered.
Speaker 6: Well, he could have went the other way because wasn't
Speaker 6: it a battle between Usher and was it justin because
Speaker 6: they both.
Speaker 5: Wanted him and and then and after that, uh, then
Speaker 5: Kanye embraced him, you know, and it.
Speaker 4: Just everyone felt like everybody else, Yeah.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm gonna slowly wind this down, okay, and
Speaker 3: we I can't believe that at this point.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's like the old school here.
Speaker 7: We're not gonna fe.
Speaker 1: This might this might be three episodes.
Speaker 4: My sisters just smiled when you say we're gonna wind
Speaker 4: this down.
Speaker 1: I've seen her.
Speaker 6: Walk past about three four times, like I'm not I'm
Speaker 6: just saying, I ain't saying.
Speaker 3: I mean, at this rate, where you've worked at labels
Speaker 3: and whatnot, do you believe in the theory that I
Speaker 3: hear people say all the time, like it's going to
Speaker 3: be the end of labels, no more labels if it
Speaker 3: is going to be the end of labels, what will
Speaker 3: happen to music next? Because I do feel like something
Speaker 3: is going to eventually give. Like I feel like this
Speaker 3: this decade that we're in the twenties, everything is giving.
Speaker 3: So should music follow suit? Are you I don't, Are
Speaker 3: you prepare to aid in the next step of it?
Speaker 3: Or is it sort of like, all right, I've done
Speaker 3: my bit, I'm gonna sit out.
Speaker 4: I'm definitely not done. First of all, I ain't said nothing. Man,
Speaker 4: they got to they gotta.
Speaker 5: You know, they try to take my head off. I
Speaker 5: still got my head, so sorry. So I don't believe
Speaker 5: in that. I think that labels have historically not been
Speaker 5: well loved, well liked, and for for for the right
Speaker 5: reasons probably, but throughout time people have not record labels
Speaker 5: do not have a great public perception, no matter what
Speaker 5: it is, no matter you know, culturally maybe so like
Speaker 5: people like Deaf Jam or people like bad Boy or
Speaker 5: a Motown or whatever, right, but culturally it may have
Speaker 5: a lot of impact, But the public perception are that
Speaker 5: record companies are generally.
Speaker 4: Brooks, not upstanding people. Uh So, people have always wanted
Speaker 4: to see the demise of record labels.
Speaker 5: I think that, And so now we live in an
Speaker 5: era of independence, right where, And that's good in that,
Speaker 5: and there's bad in that, right The bad in that
Speaker 5: is that there is no barrier to entry, there's no filter.
Speaker 5: So every thing is out, Everything is on Spotify, everything
Speaker 5: is on Apple, everything is on SoundCloud, everything everything like,
Speaker 5: there's no filter for it, right, And so now we're
Speaker 5: leaving it to the editorial people or the music editors
Speaker 5: to make the decisions about which songs are good enough
Speaker 5: to be on the world's biggest playlist.
Speaker 4: But they're picking from sixty thousand a day.
Speaker 6: I like it.
Speaker 5: So I don't see that as I don't see that
Speaker 5: as great right at all, because I like the idea
Speaker 5: that taste makers, curators of music, passionate music people make decisions.
Speaker 4: About what they love based on their.
Speaker 5: Experiences, and those things get a shot, not that the
Speaker 5: other things shouldn't get a shot. But I don't like
Speaker 5: the idea that it's a free for all, And there's
Speaker 5: a fallacy there that you can be chance the rapper,
Speaker 5: and you can be independent and make it all the
Speaker 5: way to the top. But as I understand it, he's
Speaker 5: probably got fifty like employees and a lot of money
Speaker 5: and all kinds of stuff. That's not exactly the same
Speaker 5: thing as being just a starving kid in Columbus, Ohio
Speaker 5: who wants to be independent, right, That's not the.
Speaker 1: Same as he has money.
Speaker 5: So if you're a kid, if you're a fifteen year
Speaker 5: old kid in Columbus, Ohio, and you don't have a
Speaker 5: record label and you're told to do it on.
Speaker 4: Your own, man, you don't know what to do.
Speaker 5: You do not know what to do, right, So that
Speaker 5: means that you're gonna put your music out. It might
Speaker 5: get wasted, You're gonna waste a lot of time, You're
Speaker 5: gonna get discouraged, and we might actually not see the
Speaker 5: next star because you've been discouraged before you get an
Speaker 5: opportunity to come out of the gate. Whereas if someone
Speaker 5: embraces you and put their arm around you and says,
Speaker 5: you know, I believe in you, and oh, by the way,
Speaker 5: I'm leaving out something very important.
Speaker 1: You're you're a.
Speaker 5: Highly trained, wildly successful, massively talented musician, and you respect
Speaker 5: people who put the time in that you put in,
Speaker 5: whether you like their music or not like their music.
Speaker 5: You respect the fact that all of you guys are
Speaker 5: seasoned executives and seasoned professionals, and you respect people who do.
Speaker 4: There's something to be said for the people who are
Speaker 4: just doing it as a hobby, who aren't serious, who
Speaker 4: are as serious as you are, who are as talented
Speaker 4: as you are, who are who haven't been challenged the
Speaker 4: way you have, who have never been on stage. Right,
Speaker 4: there's something to be said for the fact that we
Speaker 4: need the music infrastructure as a training ground.
Speaker 5: Right, somebody needs to know what it's like. I mean,
Speaker 5: that's so anyway, my feelings about it are. I'm very passionate.
Speaker 5: It's not it's not actually gone. Record labels make more
Speaker 5: money than.
Speaker 4: They ever made?
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Record labels make more money than they ever made? Are
Speaker 3: truly we thought that record labels were kind of on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, record labels are killing it.
Speaker 5: Universal Music is worth over fifty billion dollars bro a
Speaker 5: music company. I'm not talking about film or TV or tech.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about music content that you created.
Speaker 6: Right, But Universal at this point owned so many properties
Speaker 6: in that way, right, Like not it's not as many individuals.
Speaker 4: I mean, they've been they've been gobbling up labels for years.
Speaker 5: But the point is that they are making the record
Speaker 5: labels are making an absolute fortune, Okay, an absolute fortune,
Speaker 5: and I don't begrudge it.
Speaker 4: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I wish I was right there getting bonuses right now,
Speaker 5: and I'm not mad at it. But the point of
Speaker 5: it is that the infrastructure hasn't died. It takes a
Speaker 5: record label to say, okay, hey, little Naz that's an example,
Speaker 5: Little Naz X. He comes out with his old Town Road,
Speaker 5: it becomes some kind of a phenomenon independently by the
Speaker 5: way it gets picked up by a major label. This
Speaker 5: is an artist like him or not. This is an
Speaker 5: artist that has a massive creative vision right and it
Speaker 5: needs to have the kind of financial support that he
Speaker 5: can he can get that off. He can't do that independently.
Speaker 5: Those ideas are too big, honestly, those I just those
Speaker 5: ideas are very expensive. Otherwise we get a we get
Speaker 5: a fraction of who this artist could be if he
Speaker 5: wasn't signed to Columbia Records. I'm saying that he would
Speaker 5: be a success, but he'd be a fraction of the
Speaker 5: artist that he could be because now he has the infrastructure.
Speaker 4: To really get it off.
Speaker 7: He's an artist that fits in that mold.
Speaker 8: I mean for me, when I talk young artists coming up,
Speaker 8: my thing is just if you're gonna sign to a label,
Speaker 8: if you're gonna do that, my advice is, if you're
Speaker 8: gonna do it, you might as well play big.
Speaker 7: You might as well swing for the fences. Like that's
Speaker 7: the only reason to do it.
Speaker 8: That's the only reason if you just want to, if
Speaker 8: you're just truly an independent person, not just as a label,
Speaker 8: but just as a creator, you know what I mean,
Speaker 8: if you just want to look, I just want to
Speaker 8: do ship when I feel like it, put it out
Speaker 8: when I feel like it.
Speaker 7: It's great. But a major label is not for you, Like,
Speaker 7: that's not what that is.
Speaker 4: It's not for everybody. But to me, the game is
Speaker 4: not for everybody.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm trying to say, is that it's not
Speaker 5: for everybody, and it shouldn't be so easy to get in.
Speaker 4: It's hard.
Speaker 5: It takes it's harder to You can't just get in
Speaker 5: the NBA because you like basketball, it's right.
Speaker 6: Can there be some gray in between what you're saying
Speaker 6: and what's going on right now? Is there more gray
Speaker 6: than your mate?
Speaker 4: Possibly? I'm open minded, that's quite possible.
Speaker 5: But what I'm but but what i'm what I am,
Speaker 5: what I am a strong advocate of, is are you
Speaker 5: serious about the game?
Speaker 4: Are you serious about this?
Speaker 5: Because ship I don't like the idea like this is
Speaker 5: not this is not for hobbyists.
Speaker 4: Serious don't mean what it used to mean. Serious I know,
Speaker 4: and that bothers me.
Speaker 6: Serious don't mean trade, reading your trades and reading all
Speaker 6: your books that don't.
Speaker 3: But are you the last of the Mohicans? Like I
Speaker 3: know there's you, I know there's Sylvia. I don't know
Speaker 3: if Doug Marris is still in the game or not,
Speaker 3: but you know, like someone else is running that. I
Speaker 3: don't know who's running Death Jam now, but someone that.
Speaker 5: Yes, And he's really talented and and I'm happy, I'm proud.
Speaker 5: I will support and promote and and do anything. He
Speaker 5: is really talented. And he's about that music. He's about culture.
Speaker 5: He's bringing African culture into the country. He's looking forward,
Speaker 5: and he's doing it based on talent. He's doing it
Speaker 5: based on qualification. And he's not just looking at at
Speaker 5: data and saying I should sign this because extremely he's
Speaker 5: looking at and he's listening to the me.
Speaker 8: It was very much it very much reminded me his
Speaker 8: trajectory was very much like you in the sense that
Speaker 8: he cool was like his face.
Speaker 7: So yeah, you know, I mean, and then you know
Speaker 7: he came and they brought him in run. Yeah.
Speaker 5: By the way, like I don't know what the roots
Speaker 5: are exactly up to recording artists wise, if it was
Speaker 5: me as a music curator, now, deaf jam is the
Speaker 5: perfect place, man.
Speaker 1: Well guess what.
Speaker 3: We you know, you know the thing where like I
Speaker 3: don't know the movie or the the sitcom example of
Speaker 3: like when you think you're you're like that's your last
Speaker 3: statement and you like burn the house down, or like
Speaker 3: you're the father, like and I'm leaving the family and
Speaker 3: you leave and then you come back because you forgot
Speaker 3: your keys.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: We just got reminded by deaf Jam. Oh by the way,
Speaker 3: I remember what we said, but you guys actually do.
Speaker 3: Oh it's one more record.
Speaker 4: So it's like, I think this.
Speaker 5: Is a great thing because because I think that I
Speaker 5: I know that he loves you. I know that he
Speaker 5: loves the roots and understands it. And it's also possible
Speaker 5: that he might make a suggestion or two that you
Speaker 5: might like write about try this to try that, right,
Speaker 5: I think it's that to.
Speaker 3: Me, literally all the signings I feel like are the
Speaker 3: Rooge's grandchildren.
Speaker 1: So yes, all right, oh they are.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm trying to say. That's exactly what I'm
Speaker 5: trying to say. Right, that one to me, you know,
Speaker 5: as someone you didn't ask, right, that's.
Speaker 1: That works. I got no man, I know you.
Speaker 8: I just want to say this, man, you played a
Speaker 8: very and I'm so happy we're having a chance to
Speaker 8: had this conversation. Uh, you played a part in my
Speaker 8: career that I'm sure you have no idea he did it.
Speaker 7: But this is back in like two thousand and seven.
Speaker 8: You had a group on your on def Jam Player
Speaker 8: Circle that they were through DTP.
Speaker 7: And so my man did not poor. He hit me
Speaker 7: to do some records.
Speaker 8: He was like, yo, man, I'm burnout. I need just
Speaker 8: some look ideas whatever. And I was like, all right, cool, whatever.
Speaker 8: So I just referenced a couple who got this for
Speaker 8: him and send them off. And I ain't think that
Speaker 8: knows of it. And so the song that I did
Speaker 8: it was a song called paper Chaser, and I just
Speaker 8: sang it as a reference and so the.
Speaker 7: Joint ended up.
Speaker 8: I didn't find out until like later that the song
Speaker 8: actually made the record, and so I ran into Titty
Speaker 8: and Dollar. We was at BT boards and O seven
Speaker 8: and uh Me and Dalla was talking.
Speaker 7: He was like, oh my god. I was like, gonna
Speaker 7: find tape.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 7: He was like, oh yo, what's up? And I'm like,
Speaker 7: what the hell? And he said, man, the thing with
Speaker 7: that record?
Speaker 8: He said, we sent it in and he said we
Speaker 8: was thinking about like getting ACN on it because Akon
Speaker 8: was going up at that time.
Speaker 7: He was like, we was thinking about getting like a
Speaker 7: kN or somebody went on it, he said.
Speaker 1: But l A.
Speaker 8: Reid was like, Yo, who's the dude the singing on it?
Speaker 8: I like him just it sounds good like that. Just
Speaker 8: keep it, you know what I'm saying. And I just
Speaker 8: want to.
Speaker 7: Say thank you.
Speaker 8: Really that really put uh you really gave me just
Speaker 8: a lot of confidence and believe I'm like, yo, this dude.
Speaker 7: I was like, Yo, that's just thank you. Thank you
Speaker 7: so much for that.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 7: That really meant a lot.
Speaker 4: Thank you. That's great. I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker 4: We thank you, guys, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 8: I appreciate this on behalf of every quick Thank you
Speaker 8: for putting out splack of belly by pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: By the way, mir you are like you like you're
Speaker 5: the dopest dude in this business. Man like just that's
Speaker 5: I just I really love and appreciate you. Man like you.
Speaker 5: You just Yeah, you make me proud to be a
Speaker 5: part of this thing.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: I think represent us well. And I appreciate you for
Speaker 3: not not dropping me on my birthday.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget, I think.
Speaker 5: By the way, I don't think that's the truth, but
Speaker 5: I'm gonna let you have it.
Speaker 6: I was trying to get him a finished that.
Speaker 1: What that was.
Speaker 4: I don't even know how you do that.
Speaker 1: I called you on my birthday.
Speaker 4: I remember that.
Speaker 1: I remember that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, half of Bill and Sugar, Steve, sorry, Steve
Speaker 3: Week once again hogged all your questions.
Speaker 2: I've been reading my a recent episode of Black Beat
Speaker 2: Magazine the whole time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you tap, you tapped out on your show, Sugar,
Speaker 5: you tapped out on me.
Speaker 4: But it's all good, all right.
Speaker 3: On the Apple Light, Ya and fant Ticcolo in the
Speaker 3: Great La Reed. This iss Love Supreme and We'll see
Speaker 3: you on the next go round.
Speaker 1: West.
Speaker 3: Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts,
Speaker 3: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
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