Speaker 1: R and B Money.
Speaker 2: Say, take voluntie.
Speaker 3: We are the authority.
Speaker 1: R and Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: I'm Jay Valentine and this is the R and B
Speaker 3: Money Podcast, And today get your notebooks out.
Speaker 1: We're about to do some developing. You know.
Speaker 3: It's it's just a lot of artists out here that
Speaker 3: they may be a little uncooked. I need to go
Speaker 3: back into that oven. And I brought the perfect person
Speaker 3: today that's gonna get you right. I'm you know, I'll
Speaker 3: you'll find out.
Speaker 1: You'll find out. I'm not. The intro is gonna be shorter. Today.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna introduce you to somebody you have to know
Speaker 3: in this music business, the legend.
Speaker 1: The architect, Divine Stevens.
Speaker 3: What's good, my brother, man, I'm excellent, man, Man, I'm
Speaker 3: glappy to be here. Man, Man, you know I've been
Speaker 3: chasing you down. Bro oh man, you definitely had an app.
Speaker 2: Out on me.
Speaker 1: Listen. I'm not ashamed to say it.
Speaker 2: I did get a few phone calls. Yeah, when my
Speaker 2: man Q Parker hit me up, I said, Man, tell
Speaker 2: J Man, I'm down.
Speaker 1: I'm down.
Speaker 2: And then when I was answering that call, I said, oh,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, Q, Let me click over.
Speaker 1: Then there was a little running, so I was like, oh, Man,
Speaker 1: so you know, just shout out man.
Speaker 2: To you man for providing this platform man for people
Speaker 2: to receive information about the industry. And I mean, I
Speaker 2: know this is you know, it's a passion job. But
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I just want to
Speaker 2: commend you and Tank for shed light on R and B.
Speaker 3: That's the intention, man, is to have people like yourself
Speaker 3: on here, man, that you know that don't do a
Speaker 3: lot of interviews but are very instrumental in this thing
Speaker 3: we call music and entertainment. I want to say music
Speaker 3: because yeah, and we're gonna get to that right right.
Speaker 1: You know you do you do it all.
Speaker 3: You've done it all man, and and and in our opinion,
Speaker 3: you need to be celebrated.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. Man. Let's let's let's let's start.
Speaker 1: Let's start that hold on how much time we got, man, Come.
Speaker 3: I'm here with you, I'm here, we were hanging out. Okay, awesome,
Speaker 3: let's start in Atlanta, man. And and you know, young divine, wow,
Speaker 3: young divine man, Like, what did this thing all start
Speaker 3: for you? And who who who had the eye for
Speaker 3: the talent of divine Stevens?
Speaker 1: Who caught that first?
Speaker 2: I want to say, man, at the age of five,
Speaker 2: w A O K the radio station, I enter into
Speaker 2: a contest and you.
Speaker 1: Enter a contest at five at five years old?
Speaker 2: Okay, all yeah, and I was doing James Brown. Of
Speaker 2: course you were black, and I'm proud. And you know,
Speaker 2: some people say, well, how do you remember at five?
Speaker 2: You know, because my mom always kept the trophy and
Speaker 2: she had photos from back in the do you want oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: absolutely one, absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: So it started then, you know, being from Atlanta, I'm
Speaker 2: a Grady baby for those who don't know, that's like
Speaker 2: the Premiere Hospital right in the heart of Atlanta. Grew
Speaker 2: up in projects, started out in Carver Homes, and from
Speaker 2: Carver Homes, we kind of bounced around. I'm kind of
Speaker 2: from all the projects. So I'm really like a project baby.
Speaker 2: So when your grandmam would live in the projection and
Speaker 2: then your dad, h yeah, so you get dropped off
Speaker 2: to all those places. So from Carver Home, the Kimberley Court,
Speaker 2: the Hollywood Court, to high Point to Mchannisville. So I'm
Speaker 2: from all those places.
Speaker 1: You got homies everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, homes everywhere. So father lived in Capitol homes. So
Speaker 2: that's really where it all started. So I was able
Speaker 2: to pull all these little different information and seeing creative
Speaker 2: things in all these places, and at the age of
Speaker 2: five growing up performing in all these places. So I
Speaker 2: would put street performer first.
Speaker 1: I mean I was as well brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me it was it was Beijmon's Wharf in
Speaker 3: San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was, you know, kind of doing the
Speaker 2: breakdance era. So grew up doing all the popping and
Speaker 2: locking and rapping, and then you know how fast forward
Speaker 2: the story in high school from the beating on the
Speaker 2: table to rapping and the whole night and winning all
Speaker 2: the talent shows. I heard you Parker talk about talent shows.
Speaker 2: That's in a different era, but doing my yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: doing my era. I paint a picture for you. The
Speaker 2: MC of that show would be Chris Tucker, so that
Speaker 2: would be Chris Chucking. And then I give you the
Speaker 2: R and B part of that show Talent Show, And
Speaker 2: this was Columbus, your high school. So I'm just a
Speaker 2: paint that picture for you. And Silk will be on
Speaker 2: that show and then that would be this one group
Speaker 2: that needs no introduction, okay, and that would be FDC,
Speaker 2: the group that I was a part of. And the
Speaker 2: f d C stands for Fresh Dance Crew, and you know,
Speaker 2: if you're from Atlanta, you already know the FDC stands
Speaker 2: for Female Draws Collectors because we collected everything from them,
Speaker 2: throwing them.
Speaker 3: Yeah hey man, yeah man, panties, yeah, okay, all right,
Speaker 3: yeah yeah, So back there, okay, yeah, okay, back then, yeah,
Speaker 3: Emale Draws collect.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So were y'all singing and rapping tour? Just dancing?
Speaker 2: Well, it started off dancing, then we moved it into
Speaker 2: the singing era and then the rap era, so it's
Speaker 2: kind of like transition.
Speaker 3: What made y'all transition, was it, Okay, we need to
Speaker 3: add more to this thing.
Speaker 2: I think what added to it just was the fact
Speaker 2: that we had won all the talent shows, so purely dancing.
Speaker 2: At first, it's completely dancing. So a lot of schools
Speaker 2: wouldn't allow us to enter the talent shows, so they
Speaker 2: started making us special guests. So then we were trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to you know, kind of add
Speaker 2: different things to it, and so that kind of went
Speaker 2: on to lip syncing. So we started doing lip syn
Speaker 2: that that was really huge back in the day. And
Speaker 2: so when we started lip syncing, then that turned into
Speaker 2: the singing and the rapping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and really developing it out.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Okay, so now you're in high school. You got all
Speaker 3: the draws, you collected all the draws.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you how my high school looks.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you.
Speaker 2: I have to tell you what high school looked. Likes
Speaker 2: me so and the Talent Show era. So I went
Speaker 2: to a high school where I met Dallas Austin. And
Speaker 2: this is right around ninth grade, tenth grade, and men
Speaker 2: Dallas used to hang out in the bathroom, Like we'd
Speaker 2: go to the bathroom. I'll see him in there here
Speaker 2: and there picking his hair. He had the hot Top
Speaker 2: fade and I had finger waves. This is this is
Speaker 2: like we like thirteen, fourteen years old. So in school,
Speaker 2: I got finger waves. He got this hot top kid
Speaker 2: and play fade and he rolling around with a keyboard
Speaker 2: at school at school, right, and we and kids don't
Speaker 2: do this, but we really wasn't going to class. Were
Speaker 2: kind of at this age already kind of know what
Speaker 2: we want to do and what we want to be okay,
Speaker 2: all right, So that's one part. So the finger waves
Speaker 2: part of it. I used to model for Bronner Brothers Switch.
Speaker 3: Most people don't know, huge huge hair convention shows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there. So it went on to performing at
Speaker 2: the Branner brother show. So I used to There was
Speaker 2: a hairstyle that the name was Carol. She owned a
Speaker 2: beauty salon called Escape, and Escape is a place where
Speaker 2: it was like a hub, a melting potway the glamour,
Speaker 2: things about the imaging and things that I learned happened
Speaker 2: in that space. So that's where Brown Brothers. They brought
Speaker 2: that element to the table. So I was able to
Speaker 2: be around that energy take a little bit of that.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna show you how I was able to
Speaker 2: take all these different pieces. I took the hunger from
Speaker 2: the projects. I took the imaging for Browner Brothers, the
Speaker 2: styling from Carol, and then from that part of it,
Speaker 2: I was able to take that and know what an
Speaker 2: artist should look like from actually listening to R and
Speaker 2: B records over and over again back in the day.
Speaker 2: I think I may have Guy on repeat, new Addition
Speaker 2: on repeat, Tony Tony Tony on repeat and singing all
Speaker 2: of those songs. To singing those songs over and over
Speaker 2: again kind of helped me understand how to cultivate and
Speaker 2: develop talent.
Speaker 3: In your mind, are you doing this with the mindset
Speaker 3: of developing other people's talent? Are you doing this like
Speaker 3: I'm developing my own?
Speaker 1: Like this is none of No.
Speaker 2: I was developing the group that I was in, so
Speaker 2: I would we would learn something. And how I became,
Speaker 2: you know, and every group got the lead or this
Speaker 2: person that person. So I was the understudy of a
Speaker 2: god by the name Aunt Francis, and I watched him
Speaker 2: put it all together, and then from him putting it
Speaker 2: together and then from me being able to tap into
Speaker 2: all these other sources, is how I developed the love
Speaker 2: and the passion to develop the presentation. Yes, and that's
Speaker 2: what we became king and known for, was the presentation.
Speaker 3: Okay, how long do you guys have FDC before you
Speaker 3: decided you're gonna go do your thing?
Speaker 2: FDC last probably about a good five six years before
Speaker 2: the group broke up. And the group broke up just
Speaker 2: because of you know, we was kind of managing ourselves.
Speaker 2: We didn't have managers, and it was just so many women.
Speaker 2: Man it was just I mean so many girls back then,
Speaker 2: it was just unreal. So you saw the older guys
Speaker 2: start dating more and it just start slowly pulling everybody apart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we used to have just went toward that more. So, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they were growing up different.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of guys went off to college and
Speaker 2: then you know, other ones that start having kids and
Speaker 2: just it just kind of separated life start having yeah
Speaker 2: life for real.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So for you though, you were, like you said, from
Speaker 3: thirteen years old, you already had really five But yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, once, like you said, once you and Dallas
Speaker 3: was hanging out, you found a kindred spirit of somebody.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, well, this guy's walking around with a
Speaker 1: keyboard every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's gonna probably end up doing something in music
Speaker 3: and staying to this Was it something for you once
Speaker 3: you got into high school, regardless of the group, where
Speaker 3: you just like, this is this is about to be
Speaker 3: what I do in my life.
Speaker 2: Nah, I didn't think, you know, at one point in
Speaker 2: high school, I thought I was going to be football player.
Speaker 2: So I played football, Yeah, played football, played basketball, So
Speaker 2: I thought maybe I had a shot, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean at playing sports. So this became natural. The
Speaker 2: entertainment side was natural, so I didn't take it like
Speaker 2: if it was a challenge because it just became natural.
Speaker 2: But every time I had an issue or something didn't
Speaker 2: go right in my life or things seemed uncertain, I
Speaker 2: would always run to this, so it became more of
Speaker 2: an escape. Yes, I'm at peace when I'm developing. I'm
Speaker 2: at peace when I'm creating, and that's when the passion
Speaker 2: comes alive and in my darkest moments.
Speaker 3: So the group breaks up, and now you're a solo artist,
Speaker 3: but you've been developing. Like you said, you went from
Speaker 3: all right, purely danced to now rapping, singing, and now
Speaker 3: are you do you go do?
Speaker 1: Do you go make a demo?
Speaker 2: Did I go make a demo as a songo? Yeah,
Speaker 2: as a solo artist, I made a demo. It was
Speaker 2: funny because actually Dallas Austin made the demo. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: so it was funny. It was because I took the
Speaker 2: beats from Dallas and I used to work with a
Speaker 2: rapper by the name of Raheem the Dream. So actually
Speaker 2: I used to put Raheem shows together and Raheem actually
Speaker 2: wrote the raps. So that's how I started, and I
Speaker 2: took those raps and put it to the beat, and
Speaker 2: then I went and performed at Fat Tuesday Frozen Paradise
Speaker 2: on Old National Highway and met a young lady by
Speaker 2: the name of Kimberly Stewart who was related to Pebbles,
Speaker 2: and she saw me perform there and then took me
Speaker 2: to a Parents A Parents signed me up to a
Speaker 2: production deal Platinum, and then from there took us to Pebbles.
Speaker 2: So we had to perform in front of Pebbles. If
Speaker 2: Pebbles approved, then you get a chance to meet La
Speaker 2: and Babyface. So right at that moment boom, Pebbles approved.
Speaker 2: We flew to LA and we performed, and it was
Speaker 2: weird because when they came in, you know, you got
Speaker 2: to think, I'm listening to Babyface records all day in
Speaker 2: order to the Love of Adams on repeat. And they
Speaker 2: walked in, didn't speak, They had on shades like this, right,
Speaker 2: and they sat down. Pebbles is talking and press play.
Speaker 2: I mean, we went in you're talking about hunger at
Speaker 2: a at a level where we felt like if we
Speaker 2: can impress these guys, our whole life change, right, So
Speaker 2: lead us to say they signed us on the spot
Speaker 2: and so that makes me the first artist signed to
Speaker 2: let Face Records.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So because I thought Damien Dame. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Damien Dame.
Speaker 2: They was a part.
Speaker 1: They were.
Speaker 2: I think Dial was doing background vocals. She was there
Speaker 2: before I got there. But I think they didn't sign them.
Speaker 2: They moved them to Atlanta. Okay, they're from Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: so I think they came in. But the first thing
Speaker 2: on the ground in Atlanta was US.
Speaker 1: So you said us, So you weren't a solo artist.
Speaker 2: No, no, So it was Divine feature in Night in
Speaker 2: Miles Power. So yeah, so it was me and then
Speaker 2: I had a couple of other eyes that dance for me. Okay,
Speaker 2: that was a part of the dance group prior that
Speaker 2: came from fd CA. Okay, got you, got you?
Speaker 1: So what were you rapping and singing?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it was both. It was kind of both
Speaker 2: because I give you a story about a couple of songs.
Speaker 2: So they had some songs that was almost demoed out.
Speaker 2: So I went in with Darryl Simmons to record, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the ultimate silent partner with Daryl. So I went it
Speaker 2: with him and uh, I cut baby Baby Baby TLC
Speaker 2: song and I cut this song something you want to know,
Speaker 2: before TLC was even discovered. Yeah, yeah, and even on
Speaker 2: the songs that Dallas and then I went back in
Speaker 2: the studio with Dallas and I had voiced the men
Speaker 2: singing yes, bro.
Speaker 1: Time out, yeah, man, time out Yeah, Man.
Speaker 3: You sing baby baby baby before before TLC the first
Speaker 3: artist's sign to the yes and now you got boys
Speaker 3: to men just randomly singing on the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dallas had put them on a song just before
Speaker 2: they came out. Dallas would make some songs and then
Speaker 2: he would bring them to my house.
Speaker 1: Okay, so are they signed at this point? Are they? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're signing Michael Bimans at this point. Huh.
Speaker 2: And but they didn't have any identity at this point.
Speaker 2: At this point, you know, he was figuring out the music,
Speaker 2: and while he was figuring out the music, he would
Speaker 2: bring them to me for me to work on the
Speaker 2: development part.
Speaker 1: This is before or after you signed to the face.
Speaker 2: Right around all of the time. This all happened in
Speaker 2: like nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: So this whole time you're being an artist. Yes, you're
Speaker 3: steal in your development bag. You're like, all right, yeah,
Speaker 3: people know you for that? Well, are your people know you?
Speaker 3: For that my people.
Speaker 2: So Dallas grew up watching me from high school to
Speaker 2: being at the skating rink and the talent shows, so
Speaker 2: they know me from that. So even one part that
Speaker 2: I missed, like even with the hair, it was I
Speaker 2: went to school with in high school was Ta Bars
Speaker 2: and Rico wade Man and and who used to make
Speaker 2: the show tapes for the dance group I was in
Speaker 2: was Jamaine.
Speaker 3: As soon as you did this, yeah, you about to
Speaker 3: say your man who was years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the trade off used to work kind
Speaker 2: of vibe with JD back then while he was on
Speaker 2: the Fresh Festival Houdini.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So all y'all young Atlanta kids.
Speaker 2: And that's the nucleus, yeah, the music scene. So that's
Speaker 2: why I feel like, you know, and it's not about
Speaker 2: the flowers. It's more so about the understanding how things operate.
Speaker 2: Is when La and Babyface tapped into me, they tapped
Speaker 2: into Atlanta, Atlanta the source. Yeah, because I just gave
Speaker 2: it to him on a silver platter.
Speaker 3: Well, you're gonna get flowers here. You are to be
Speaker 3: celebrated because that's man amongst us as peers and comrades
Speaker 3: in this thing we have to do that for each other.
Speaker 1: Man, we have to celebrate each other.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, And what you've been a
Speaker 3: part of and what you've done is man.
Speaker 2: And all those guys used to show up and watch
Speaker 2: me perform because and it's so interesting because I think
Speaker 2: now a lot of times people are like, oh, you
Speaker 2: got to choose something very early, right, right, even if
Speaker 2: you look at sports now, I look at it with
Speaker 2: you know, with my son, he didn't play it.
Speaker 3: He just wants to hoop, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: you can run track if you want to. You know
Speaker 3: you can play football, and you know you can rap
Speaker 3: or saying it right. But I think now people are
Speaker 3: so focused on just doing one thing instead of like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm mostly talented. I can do as many things as
Speaker 3: I want to, because like you said, you're you're an artist,
Speaker 3: you're signed, but you're still lending your hand absolutely and
Speaker 3: you're not being selfish with your talent and saying no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I can't go.
Speaker 1: I can't gonna give them some of the sauce.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, I'll lend a little bit a
Speaker 2: bit of that confidence to pebbles in La because even
Speaker 2: in the midst of doing that being an artist. They
Speaker 2: asked me could I work with Pebbles on her presentation,
Speaker 2: So it was like not a you know, not a problem.
Speaker 2: Then I got a chance to put Pebbles a senior
Speaker 2: hall performance together, and then Pebbles actually let me wrap
Speaker 2: on a sen of your hall doing her performance. So
Speaker 2: she was providing a platform for me the whole time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and she got it. She was like one of the early.
Speaker 1: Yeah Pebbles man, so she's to me.
Speaker 2: She set Atlanta off by believing, you know, and the
Speaker 2: younger talent because I think when I got there, I
Speaker 2: think La and Babyface all in Jermaine, Jamaine Jackson and
Speaker 2: a couple of other older guys that they legacy that
Speaker 2: they was probably trying to, you know, do businesses.
Speaker 3: When you got a new company too, you're you're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out how to connect names to it correct.
Speaker 3: It's tougher to say, oh, I'm just going to kick
Speaker 3: this off with new artists and just find new talent.
Speaker 3: Everybody wants to do that, but that's really expensive too.
Speaker 2: Well, Pebbles have the talent for that. So she was
Speaker 2: able to touch down on the ground and may always
Speaker 2: cause us Susander pass like.
Speaker 1: If you know sure she was that for the Atlanta scene.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, no, it's so many people that I've spoken to.
Speaker 3: Obviously we in Atlanta now, but just within our episodes
Speaker 3: that are just like pebbles.
Speaker 2: Absolutely you have to because she jumped this off. Wow,
Speaker 2: she saw the youth in Atlanta and and start putting
Speaker 2: it in place. So so I end up doing television shows,
Speaker 2: a videos. So that gave me the confidence to say, okay,
Speaker 2: well I can I can do other artists too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's when they started saying, well, let him do this,
Speaker 2: you know, bring him this, bring him that.
Speaker 1: So oh wow, you're supposed to be making your own
Speaker 1: album though.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But here's here's one of the early early artists
Speaker 2: that I developed that a lot of people don't know
Speaker 2: that he was even an artist. I developed Kevin Wells.
Speaker 2: He used to sing, so he was in a singing group.
Speaker 2: And I don't typically would dance behind an artist or
Speaker 2: do anything. I actually believed in Kevin enough to actually
Speaker 2: work with him and dance behind him because we just
Speaker 2: knew that, you know, we was in any talent show
Speaker 2: or any contest, we was gonna win, right, And you
Speaker 2: know that's how Kevin. This is before one twelve, This
Speaker 2: before any of the artists. ABC is me and him
Speaker 2: rock and I was spending time with him making sure
Speaker 2: he was up the park.
Speaker 3: Yeah okay, So you got to tell me, though, are
Speaker 3: you focusing on your album at all while you're doing
Speaker 3: all because it seems like you're being pulled.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I'm in the company.
Speaker 2: No no. I was being creative, So then it really
Speaker 2: didn't matter. It all came with it. That's how I
Speaker 2: grew up. So it wasn't one particular thing. It wasn't
Speaker 2: just a record or a video or a live performance.
Speaker 2: I was always in this creative space. So I've been
Speaker 2: multitasking like this for my whole life. So that's even
Speaker 2: when you fast forward the story, how I was able
Speaker 2: to even go from zero to one hundred when I
Speaker 2: started my own production company and start putting my own
Speaker 2: artists out because I knew all the ins and outs.
Speaker 3: Okay, and we're gonna get there, Okay. I know how
Speaker 3: talented you are, and you've always been a star, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean, Like it's just in my opinion,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, Like that's I'm like divine,
Speaker 3: seems a star like flat out. You know, I think,
Speaker 3: especially when you when you're in this business long enough,
Speaker 3: you're able to identify things respect no matter what position
Speaker 3: they're in. Right, It's like, you know, our brother, God
Speaker 3: rest his soul. Shaki Stewart, Yeah, my gosh, star. Yes
Speaker 3: he was on the business side. Shake was a star,
Speaker 3: absolutely out.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a great story about Shake.
Speaker 3: I'm sure too, and I do too, but some of
Speaker 3: them I ain't gonna telling me, right, But I say
Speaker 3: that to say, like seeing that in you and now
Speaker 3: having more of an understanding, like, Okay, he had this
Speaker 3: record deal and this whole thing, and in my mind,
Speaker 3: the first thing I think is he wanted to give
Speaker 3: his talents to other people more than he really wanted
Speaker 3: to focus on himself.
Speaker 1: That's what That's what it feels like to me.
Speaker 2: It turned into that, okay, because you know it didn't
Speaker 2: work out at La Face. I got discovered again by
Speaker 2: a guy by the name Sincere, and Sincere took me
Speaker 2: to Rick Brown, and Rick Brown took me to Sylvia Room.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I ended up doing it another deal.
Speaker 2: Another deal, and with you, Me and ninety Miles Prower
Speaker 2: broke up doing a little bit. And that story is
Speaker 2: just you know, how you took childhood friends and and
Speaker 2: and was separated. It was almost like having siblings and
Speaker 2: they separated at birth. That's what that moment felt like,
Speaker 2: being separated from them. But it was also a growing moment.
Speaker 2: I learned the business.
Speaker 1: Now you getting a little bit of money by this time,
Speaker 1: like is.
Speaker 2: He well, you know back then I was making money,
Speaker 2: But how I really started making money was based from
Speaker 2: boys to men. Came to me when and when I
Speaker 2: got dropped from the face. He said, yo, divine man.
Speaker 2: He said, you know what you're doing for us, you
Speaker 2: can do that for other artists, and you know they
Speaker 2: paying And I was like, oh really He was like yeah,
Speaker 2: He's like we're paying Brooke paying a lot of money.
Speaker 2: And I was like okay. So I didn't know what
Speaker 2: the pricing fee was. I didn't know what the charge
Speaker 2: because I was doing this because it was just a
Speaker 2: part of that community in the circle. If Dallas had something,
Speaker 2: you know, like even me developing Monica at twelve, he's
Speaker 2: gonna drop it off to me. I'm gonna give it
Speaker 2: back to him. And when I give it back, I
Speaker 2: give it to him back with direction or how to
Speaker 2: market it on how does it fit in the marketplace.
Speaker 2: It's not just working on an eight count or it's
Speaker 2: working on a whole lifestyle and developing a human. So
Speaker 2: same case in point with JD JD have something, He'll
Speaker 2: send me escape, send me Jagged Edge, send me the
Speaker 2: things that he had Recoway, same thing, send me out
Speaker 2: casts and me.
Speaker 3: So we just went so for you. It also didn't
Speaker 3: matter was genre of music now you were just it
Speaker 3: was purely about artists. It was not like okay, yeah
Speaker 3: you got an R and B group or you got
Speaker 3: an RB singer.
Speaker 2: It's like when you first start playing ball, you didn't
Speaker 2: really realize how much money you can make playing ball.
Speaker 2: You know, you're just doing it because you got a
Speaker 2: passion for it, right, And then we all in the
Speaker 2: sandbox together and we want to see each other win.
Speaker 2: So it was more like, yeah, I got you, I
Speaker 2: got you sending me I got I'm a knock it
Speaker 2: out and send it back to you. So even tricky
Speaker 2: when I directed Sam Salts video, I did so let
Speaker 2: you know, it's just a melting pot of young talent
Speaker 2: and I was to go to for the artist development.
Speaker 3: So you mentioned boys to men, So you were working
Speaker 3: with boys men super early then.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When they first when one year, father didn't even
Speaker 2: want to be in the group, told me you need
Speaker 2: to go to school yea, yeah, yeah. And I used
Speaker 2: to have to do one on one sessions with one yeah,
Speaker 2: because he can only come on certain days.
Speaker 1: He was the youngest one.
Speaker 2: He was the youngest one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: And then this around this time even and I got
Speaker 2: the call from Michael Bivens and when they put me
Speaker 2: on the phone with him, I think Vita Sparks was
Speaker 2: with them at the time and put me on the
Speaker 2: phone said, Mike, want to hollot you. So even at
Speaker 2: that moment, he was uncertain about what he wanted to
Speaker 2: look like because it was more like should they be
Speaker 2: like commissioned? Should they be like just a quartet for
Speaker 2: a guys standing there singing what can you do with this?
Speaker 2: And when I gave it back to him thirty years later,
Speaker 2: I just saw Motown Philly the same way it was
Speaker 2: when I did it in my garage.
Speaker 1: Wa wait, you did the choreography for Motown Philly?
Speaker 2: Yes, man, I did everything on the first album, and
Speaker 2: then after that point then it went over to Brook
Speaker 2: Brooke took over from there. But the thing about even
Speaker 2: Brook and big shout out to Brook because Brooke came
Speaker 2: back later. Brooke came back later and introduced me to
Speaker 2: a lady named Mary Joe Moa that worked at Motown,
Speaker 2: and then they gave me the whole roster. I had
Speaker 2: everything at Motown.
Speaker 1: Just developing all the artists there.
Speaker 2: Everything everything at the time that was on the roster.
Speaker 2: And then she left there and came to Atlanta and
Speaker 2: had UH and took on a job at Caper Records
Speaker 2: with Joe Katz and Don Perry, and that venture was
Speaker 2: through RCA, and then I started working on everything that
Speaker 2: she had there that was Black Girls, that was the Chronic, Chronic,
Speaker 2: Little Zane, a couple of other artists that was signed.
Speaker 2: So I had that whole roster. I had probably about
Speaker 2: five six rooms going at one time. So let's say,
Speaker 2: let's go back, say Darryl Simmons. While I was working
Speaker 2: with Darryl, Darrell had a deal at Electra. He had
Speaker 2: signed a girl group called the Dolls. You know them
Speaker 2: today as Destiny Child.
Speaker 1: We know them, not just I mean.
Speaker 2: We know them, that's Destiny Child. So yes, so that's
Speaker 2: how it kind of went. You know, it's like everybody
Speaker 2: had something, even when Babyface went off to Epic and
Speaker 2: Tracy started her thing. Yeah, yeah, I end up getting
Speaker 2: asked yet and the things that was actually on that
Speaker 2: label as well. So it's been a family.
Speaker 3: So how how did the you know, from a from
Speaker 3: an artist development space, how did the finances work? You
Speaker 3: know what I mean, because most people don't know that, right,
Speaker 3: And it's kind of a I hate to say it,
Speaker 3: but a lost art in the music business.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, it's it's definitely a lost art, but which
Speaker 2: it's very much needed. So here's the thing. As an artist,
Speaker 2: I go back. The reason I kind of stopped being
Speaker 2: a recording artist is because I was making so much money.
Speaker 3: Okay, and you know the show is called Yeah I'm
Speaker 3: trying to find Yeah, I had.
Speaker 2: Became a millionaire so quick, man, it was it would
Speaker 2: have made your head spind that once based from Boys
Speaker 2: to Men told me that they paid for it. And
Speaker 2: I met a I was working with Arrest Development and
Speaker 2: I met a lady. Her name was Jula Andrews, and
Speaker 2: she began to teach me the business. Okay, and my
Speaker 2: first lesson was she asked me how much did you
Speaker 2: charge an hour? And at the time, I was like, uh, say,
Speaker 2: I was just going to say forty an hour, right,
Speaker 2: and she was like, okay, okay, all right, forty an hour.
Speaker 1: So then she said, well I need an invoice, probably
Speaker 1: right right now, we've all been there.
Speaker 2: In an invoice. I said, oh, okay. So I went
Speaker 2: to office Max right, yeah, got an invoice book, filled
Speaker 2: out the information that was on there. Yeah, put the
Speaker 2: number on there, added my numbers up, how many hours?
Speaker 2: I hit the number at the bottom, put it in
Speaker 2: the envelope, slid in an invoice. She looked at it
Speaker 2: and she said, okay, I don't see no tax ID,
Speaker 2: I don't see no social Security number. I don't see
Speaker 2: a former address. And then what's this number right here?
Speaker 2: I said, no, this is my beeper. You could just
Speaker 2: beat me because I was still in the street. She
Speaker 2: said like yeah, she said, I said yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And then and so I handed to her and she said, well, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: I can't give you the check until this is filled
Speaker 2: out correctly. Now, mind, I just tore a page out
Speaker 2: of the in voice book.
Speaker 1: I'm following you something.
Speaker 2: So now I got to go back. Yeah, yeah, do
Speaker 2: it again. Hand it to her and I did it.
Speaker 2: I put the number on their She's seen it. She
Speaker 2: looked at it, and she wrote a check for more
Speaker 2: than what it was. She said, your service was incredible.
Speaker 2: She said, you're timing. You was never late. You was
Speaker 2: always on time. She said, I just want to commend
Speaker 2: you and you did a great job. Thank you.
Speaker 1: How old are you at this time?
Speaker 3: Round about had to be probably like nineteen wow your baby, yeah,
Speaker 3: about nineteen.
Speaker 2: So from that moment, I asked her whih to take
Speaker 2: a meeting with me? And she said sure. So we met.
Speaker 2: She started to teach me the business. She started doing
Speaker 2: the invoicing. She said, well, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take five percent. I said, sure, go right ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So next thing, you know, probably in the course of
Speaker 2: six months, out of all these rooms going, I'm going,
Speaker 2: I'm going. I was up probably about five hundred thousand
Speaker 2: in six months. In six months, I took a meeting.
Speaker 2: This is crazy. I took a meeting with La and
Speaker 2: LA was like, yo, I think it's time you need
Speaker 2: to come inside. And I was like, okay, cool. So
Speaker 2: he said what's your number? I said five hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: I got about five.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So in my mind, I'm thinking, like, you know, business like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know, just just give me five hundred. You know,
Speaker 2: he's trying to pay me five hundred for a year
Speaker 2: and to be and to be exclusive. I'm only gonna
Speaker 2: be working full of face. So he said he couldn't
Speaker 2: get five hundred from corporate and none of his employees
Speaker 2: was making five hundred, right.
Speaker 1: They couldn't make it make sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't understand that, and I said, so I
Speaker 2: declined the offer, okay, right, And then at that moment,
Speaker 2: I think he might have felt a little slighter.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it felt a little slight because because because I
Speaker 2: think it felt like he put me in play, but
Speaker 2: I was already I was in play. I think I
Speaker 2: put him in play. So it was it was a
Speaker 2: you know, it was that back and forth thing, you know, disrespect.
Speaker 2: But I just felt like you just tapped in. I'm
Speaker 2: creating the sauce, you're making the record, but we're making
Speaker 2: it work.
Speaker 1: It goes hand in hand.
Speaker 2: So watch this. So business slows down at the face,
Speaker 2: but that picks up everywhere else.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 2: And now down tea boss, like, hold on, I can't
Speaker 2: even I can't do nothing without divine. Then Monica stood up,
Speaker 2: I need the vine. So they you know, they start
Speaker 2: standing up for me, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: then I said, okay. So then Tea bos said, why
Speaker 2: don't you just come over here. We got you. They
Speaker 2: gonna pay you. This is what we're looking for. So
Speaker 2: then I was able to still keep the Little Faced
Speaker 2: things going while I start working on other things. And
Speaker 2: right around this same time, Puffy is growing in New
Speaker 2: York and starting to and then loses his job and
Speaker 2: he started going back and forth with La and he
Speaker 2: started making trips to Atlanta. So he wanted to see
Speaker 2: what was going on in the soil. Right. So that
Speaker 2: same night we que or whatever was talking about there
Speaker 2: was an altercation in the club. And I'm upstairs kind
Speaker 2: of like doing the choreography, but I'm in the streets
Speaker 2: because when I lost the deal with a Little Face
Speaker 2: and I just started, I went back to the streets, right,
Speaker 2: So in the streets, I'm hanging back out with the fellas, goons, whatever.
Speaker 2: So I'm upstairs at Club one twelve and Kay Wells
Speaker 2: come upstairs, said, yo, man. He said, y'all, I got
Speaker 2: a problem downstairs. I said, oh, what's up? He said, man,
Speaker 2: my man from New York about to get into it
Speaker 2: with these people. So I come downstairs all with all
Speaker 2: my guys. We walked downstairs. The only thing you heard
Speaker 2: was bottles cracking and they getting ready to go at
Speaker 2: the guy that's talking in front of this other little
Speaker 2: dark skinned guy that I have never met. But Kate
Speaker 2: was like, that's my man, and I'm like, okay, so
Speaker 2: then we're going at this guy over here. Before we
Speaker 2: even got up to the guy, he.
Speaker 1: Said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold up, hold up,
Speaker 1: hold on, wait wait wait, don't care, yo, who is this?
Speaker 2: Hoo these guys and Kev's like no, no, no, my people
Speaker 2: and my people, you got a problem, will straighten it.
Speaker 2: And this was puff Puff was telling them, dude like no,
Speaker 2: I don't want none of these problems. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: I got this. I got this. So even when I
Speaker 2: approached the situation, even the club security came with me
Speaker 2: because you know, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm
Speaker 2: here all the time. So Papa's like, yo, who is
Speaker 2: that in case? Say no to my people's man. He's
Speaker 2: And then later on they got to talk and he said,
Speaker 2: you know that's the guy that through tlc Usher and
Speaker 2: he said, are you serious? He said, yeah, yeah, So
Speaker 2: when can I meet him? So they made one, twelve
Speaker 2: and the whole nine whatever, So fast forward to start.
Speaker 2: He's like, y'all, I want to meet him. So he
Speaker 2: met me, and at that moment he was looking at
Speaker 2: me like, yo, he wanted it, like he wanted in
Speaker 2: on this Atlanta. He wanted in on what La Reed
Speaker 2: was tapping into. He wanted in on it too. So
Speaker 2: it was like so he came and got in and
Speaker 2: from that moment we I stopped rapping and put my
Speaker 2: whole thing on him, uh everything. That's when the development
Speaker 2: started for him. And this was right after Supercat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is after the him starting to figure if
Speaker 3: he's going to start being an artist too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, got you, And he started being artists when he
Speaker 2: started right at that moment, right up the Third Eye,
Speaker 2: when he got the confidence. After he rapped on that song,
Speaker 2: we went into the next one. Biggie was still here,
Speaker 2: Craig Mac was still here, and.
Speaker 3: But you guys are developing and leading to him becoming
Speaker 3: an artist as well.
Speaker 2: And I just kind of met the same energy and
Speaker 2: the type of zone I was on, a type of
Speaker 2: artist where I felt like I can get it off
Speaker 2: and make sure because he understood, he understood the art
Speaker 2: of the development and all the components. So it was
Speaker 2: like it was an easy fix.
Speaker 1: You and k Wells take on twelve there too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so K takes twelve there, and then I end
Speaker 2: up doing the only you videos. I started doing all
Speaker 2: the videos okay, and then from there even you know,
Speaker 2: even Biggie that turned into him. I'm even there to
Speaker 2: vibe night when Biggie dies. Are you fully I'm there
Speaker 2: the whole time part of the team. I'm there, I'm
Speaker 2: working on him, I'm developing him the whole time.
Speaker 1: Are you working on Biggie's project too?
Speaker 2: Working on that and working on puff Man?
Speaker 1: When you think you know some shit? Because I definitely
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: I had known that you would work with puff I
Speaker 3: knew that you were, you know, developing artists with him
Speaker 3: and working with his label.
Speaker 1: But never like okay, because you don't think.
Speaker 3: Right, somebody's doing the rappers and you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: especially an artists like Biggie, He's like, okay, he's not
Speaker 3: your rapper.
Speaker 2: Guys. You see all the things Biggie was flashy We Yeah,
Speaker 2: Puff changed the whole direction of that absolutely. If you
Speaker 2: go back, like you know, the beginning juicy.
Speaker 1: On it was like car heart type stuff too.
Speaker 3: Now it's besides you now it's yeah, yeah that is
Speaker 3: wold bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So that's why you know, when you say the
Speaker 2: artistry part, I just put it on whole.
Speaker 3: Is your mindset starting to get onto the executive side too?
Speaker 1: Yet?
Speaker 3: Are you really just focusing on the development still, because
Speaker 3: it just it seems like right now from the story
Speaker 3: you're telling me, it feels like higher gun.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You're a mercenary right now.
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, who do we need to get this
Speaker 3: artist to the next level?
Speaker 1: Right, divine Yes.
Speaker 2: So I'm in that. I'm in that space. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, my lady Lady drew the business partner.
Speaker 2: She's grooming me in business. Okay, So I'm learning as
Speaker 2: I'm going on the business side. So then I had
Speaker 2: the luxury of working with Teddy Riley early already my
Speaker 2: group of friends, right Eric Sermon, all of these people,
Speaker 2: all the producers. I'm on the inside, on the outside,
Speaker 2: And what Puff was doing. I started learning the business
Speaker 2: by sweeping floors, so to speak. While I'm developing, I'm learning.
Speaker 2: Even though he's paying me, I'm still learning, paying attention.
Speaker 2: So you think I graduated from the l M and
Speaker 2: Babyface to bad Boy, and then I worked my way
Speaker 2: all the way up to Arista. So then I got
Speaker 2: Clive's roster, Whitney, Houston, Colos, Sudan, Tanna, everything that was
Speaker 2: on his roster I got a chance to touch in developing.
Speaker 1: Are there certain key elements that you take and use
Speaker 1: with every artist? All right?
Speaker 3: No, it's every artist. You're fine tuning in a different way.
Speaker 3: Everybody's different.
Speaker 2: Everybody's you know, there's a certain thing that fits in
Speaker 2: the marketplace, but everybody's different. And what I try to
Speaker 2: do is, like Taylor, make your suit to fit you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: That's why I'm able to do an Escape and do
Speaker 2: a TLC and still turn around and do a Destiny Child,
Speaker 2: and none of it look alike, right, because each individual
Speaker 2: possessed a certain gift that I got to pull out
Speaker 2: and highlight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you told me before we even you know,
Speaker 3: we were just just just in conversation.
Speaker 2: You're like, Jay, it took six years to develop us here. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it took six years you gotta think the first album
Speaker 2: with Puff with Puffy didn't work, did one with Dallas
Speaker 2: Austin that didn't work. Then he went off trying to
Speaker 2: do one on his own that didn't work. Then he
Speaker 2: finally met JD. So in the course of that time,
Speaker 2: that's money's being spent, things happening, and.
Speaker 1: You're working with him.
Speaker 2: I'm working with him when it was money, when I
Speaker 2: know money he was around me. I'm giving him money
Speaker 2: to go to the movies with him his girlfriend because
Speaker 2: I got ten sessions going on. And he was used
Speaker 2: to feel slighted. He used to be like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: you know, like a big brother type thing, like spending
Speaker 2: time with him. I don't have time for him, and
Speaker 2: I'm working on these artists. And so he felt some
Speaker 2: type of way when he was growing up that I
Speaker 2: wasn't with him as much as he liked. So even
Speaker 2: when you make me want to jumped off of him.
Speaker 2: With Jamaine, he had already did six years of structured
Speaker 2: discipline training understanding the business. In the same time his
Speaker 2: voice was changing, so he knew what hardship felt like,
Speaker 2: and he knew what it was like to be in
Speaker 2: a light and get accepted and rejected at the same time,
Speaker 2: and then he had a support team that supported him,
Speaker 2: like his mom and certain things that he could go
Speaker 2: to like Keith, people that was around him, that was
Speaker 2: consistent in his life, that held him up and helped
Speaker 2: him up to his truth. You know. So everything was
Speaker 2: a challenge. You know, it wasn't an easy for him.
Speaker 2: So even when you see him today, it's like he
Speaker 2: understands every song starts with a thought and an idea
Speaker 2: that he has to execute and he has to go
Speaker 2: to the same steps all over and over again to
Speaker 2: bring that art to life.
Speaker 3: I've heard so many people, especially on our show, mentioned
Speaker 3: him about his passion, about his focus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know how he locks in.
Speaker 2: He's like one of the best understudies, one of the
Speaker 2: best students of the game.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 2: And I would say, on the flip side, the hardest
Speaker 2: working person that understood the business and the game and
Speaker 2: put the work in double time would be puffed.
Speaker 3: Okay, So when you see an artist, would you rather
Speaker 3: have the most talented or.
Speaker 1: The hardest working, hardest working?
Speaker 2: The hardest working, Yeah, talent is diamond, doesn't I mean
Speaker 2: you could be you can be American Idol top vocalist
Speaker 2: critically acclaimed. Yeah, and still can't sell records. Right, I've
Speaker 2: seen it. You can be number one on the Voice,
Speaker 2: you could be number one on American Idol, and you
Speaker 2: can skip the artist development and the an R process
Speaker 2: and you'll go absolutely nowhere. He'll just be famous.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: My dad always used to say practice makes perfect, right,
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson, Joe Jackson.
Speaker 1: It's a certain mindset of it.
Speaker 3: Do you think there is like a minimum that these
Speaker 3: artists should be doing? Like if you're if you're a
Speaker 3: new artist and you're talking to a new artist, a
Speaker 3: new artists talking to you, what would you tell them
Speaker 3: as as what it takes to perfect their craft?
Speaker 1: Like, like what is the.
Speaker 3: Minimum in your mind that like you got to practice
Speaker 3: this much every week or this What would be your
Speaker 3: advice to them?
Speaker 2: Well, it's not even free games, it's not even a
Speaker 2: matter of hours. It is a thing of where it
Speaker 2: becomes a lifestyle because it's nothing you can put on
Speaker 2: and take off. Yeah, it's something you have to wear
Speaker 2: all the time. And if you consistent with the work,
Speaker 2: then it becomes natural to you, and it becomes natural
Speaker 2: to you. Then when other people see it, it seems
Speaker 2: like it's obtainable. So that's when you connect. It's like
Speaker 2: step Curry, you know, like how can you come in
Speaker 2: and change the NBA without having a regiment right right,
Speaker 2: and then putting in the work. See what he did
Speaker 2: was with outwork everybody and people say was it's a secret.
Speaker 2: Well how did he get to this level of success?
Speaker 2: He outworked you who don't have the talent. They don't
Speaker 2: matter if you had the talent. He just outworked you.
Speaker 2: So he can exploit your talent. He can go right here.
Speaker 2: You can create a record, creat a beat. You're gonna
Speaker 2: sit on that record. You're gonna listen to that record
Speaker 2: one hundred times. The beauty that he had, you can
Speaker 2: have the whole hit man. Everybody here making records, all
Speaker 2: these companies offering them production deals, everybody got side deals
Speaker 2: and everything. The only thing y'all don't have is the
Speaker 2: hustle that he has. He gonna take that record and
Speaker 2: it's on Hot nine seven the next day while you're
Speaker 2: still listening to it. He's put it in motion. He
Speaker 2: done took that record and played it for twenty other
Speaker 2: people while you still sleep. He put it in motion.
Speaker 2: And that's what the game needs.
Speaker 1: And missing the hustle.
Speaker 2: Well, everything that you know they want to take away
Speaker 2: from our culture is the black exec Yeah, the lifestyle,
Speaker 2: the lifestyle, the culture. So I heard an interview when
Speaker 2: La was talking about there's no more us in the buildings. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: a lot of us didn't start in a building. So
Speaker 2: we just got to get back to the art and
Speaker 2: the discipline of.
Speaker 1: What it takes to take over the building.
Speaker 2: To take over the building, we are the building.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I didn't operate from a building. I didn't take a job.
Speaker 2: I became a multi making there without a job in
Speaker 2: a building. Yeah, just through the hustle and the creator. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's it.
Speaker 1: Wow, Now that it's amazing.
Speaker 3: And the way you broke it down is it's perfect
Speaker 3: in my eyes, of giving somebody the playbook of do
Speaker 3: the work, get to it.
Speaker 2: It's no quick way and it's no easy it's no
Speaker 2: cheat code. People think that, oh, well she cheated because
Speaker 2: she's sampled. Oh this person, she didn't know. They still
Speaker 2: put in the work, right, does a matter They went
Speaker 2: to work and if they still here today, they understood
Speaker 2: that that takes a certain kind of work ethic to
Speaker 2: stay in this game. And right now, the problem I
Speaker 2: have with the new kids today. I mean, true talent
Speaker 2: will always rise, but at the same time, quick fame
Speaker 2: mm hmm. I've seen that happen in this business where
Speaker 2: you inquire all these things from quick fame and crash
Speaker 2: and burn. That's why so many suicides, so much mental
Speaker 2: a lot of mental health, because people are watching other
Speaker 2: people's success. It's not really putting in the work, and
Speaker 2: they're actually you can strike, you can get a spike
Speaker 2: off social media, and you can think that that's where
Speaker 2: you should be. That you'll see like, let me give
Speaker 2: you an example of something. So you'll see an artist go,
Speaker 2: they like this post.
Speaker 1: I know you're going, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But you don't know why they like that post. Okay,
Speaker 2: well you just made an ass of yourself. They love it.
Speaker 2: On this side of it, here you grinding and you
Speaker 2: didn't make an ass of yourself, and you got the talent,
Speaker 2: but you're not getting many likes long right, so you
Speaker 2: thinking this is not working.
Speaker 1: You got to make an ass of myself.
Speaker 2: I got to make an ass out of myself. So
Speaker 2: then you turn around make an ass out of yourself
Speaker 2: and they like it, and then I turn around and go,
Speaker 2: why do you feel better ass and then you'll look
Speaker 2: at me like, what are you talking about? I know
Speaker 2: they like this post, let me do more of these,
Speaker 2: and I go and this is no disrespect. I seen
Speaker 2: one of the artists do one of the biggest songs
Speaker 2: and it came out and when it as soon as
Speaker 2: it hit, I said, oh, that's the wrong song for him.
Speaker 2: And that was the thong song.
Speaker 1: For Cisco incredibly talented artists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Verry, And I said, that's off brand. Yeah, hmm hmm.
Speaker 2: That's off and it's going and it's going and it's
Speaker 2: going and it's going. And I said, damn, Now he's
Speaker 2: suspended mid air. Do you got another thong song in him?
Speaker 2: Is there another record in that space in that atmosphere?
Speaker 2: It didn't have one because he's very soulful kid, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: up there, you suspend the mid air. It's no soul
Speaker 2: up there, So now how do you go from there
Speaker 2: back to this base? Could never find his way from
Speaker 2: the thumb song. I'm not saying he ain't. He's one
Speaker 2: of the greatest performers, yeah, but he couldn't find his
Speaker 2: way back. The song took him out, And for me,
Speaker 2: I would have said, that's a great song, but they don't.
Speaker 1: Fit you, and it's not many people that do that.
Speaker 2: I would have said the same thing too, and there's
Speaker 2: no disrespect here. I would have said the same thing
Speaker 2: to Ralph Tresvant. I love sensitivity, but I don't think
Speaker 2: no woman want to say that out loud, that they
Speaker 2: want a man with sensitivity. They won't. Bobby Brown, I
Speaker 2: don't give.
Speaker 1: A fuck, right, it's my progative.
Speaker 2: It's my parrogative. Wanted a bad boy boom takes off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know Ralph is the voice and the energy of
Speaker 2: no addition, But I still think.
Speaker 1: That particular record from a solo standpoint.
Speaker 2: Slowed down the solo process because even Michael Jackson, I'm bad,
Speaker 2: Even Michael Jackson, Billy Jeanie, that ain't mine, right, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So, you know, sometimes you got
Speaker 2: to know how to navigate through the space. Sometimes it's
Speaker 2: just not a good song. Sometimes it's your brand. Sometimes
Speaker 2: that's certain things of off brand, and it's just the
Speaker 2: way I kind of put it together in the way
Speaker 2: I think about it.
Speaker 3: There's a certain bravado from male artists that the public wants, Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: I've seen it with female artists too. And I've seen
Speaker 2: where some people when they come in and they tie
Speaker 2: relationships in and you know, they expose, you know, they
Speaker 2: want to show you who they are, and then the
Speaker 2: consumer don't buy into it. We still live in a
Speaker 2: very magical.
Speaker 1: Space, yes, and what we do is magic, right.
Speaker 2: People still love magic and you got to know how
Speaker 2: to create it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay, So in creating it and now learning the business, yes,
Speaker 3: as you've been doing. At this point of your journey,
Speaker 3: when do you say to yourself it's time for upfront,
Speaker 3: It's time, it's time to start this.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I think when I work, I think, I think when
Speaker 2: I worked my way all the way up to Clive
Speaker 2: Davis and big shout out to Melinda Dancer and Monica
Speaker 2: for setting that meeting up. And I get there with
Speaker 2: Clive and this was like, this was the eye opener
Speaker 2: I'm playing in my music now. I made my music
Speaker 2: in my basement studio on a basement. This is my
Speaker 2: upfront moment.
Speaker 3: But this is also Atlanta, so I'm sure that basement
Speaker 3: is expansive and it's I mean, I'm.
Speaker 2: In I'm in a million dollars, I'm in a million
Speaker 2: dollar crib in the Fourth War So I'm standing in
Speaker 2: the unclayed and it's and it's and it's like it's fly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's in the middle of it's in the middle
Speaker 1: of the hood. It's at the regular basement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Boulevard and in the middle of the
Speaker 2: hood with a million dollar house and and I'm making music, right,
Speaker 2: So I take this music and I play it for
Speaker 2: Clive and then this batch of music, you know, it's
Speaker 2: very artists and Cloud listened and then he turned around
Speaker 2: and asked me, and then he wanted to play me
Speaker 2: some music. And then he started playing me all the
Speaker 2: music that he.
Speaker 1: Had and I'm listening and the quality of it.
Speaker 2: This was made at the Hit Factory, so sonically, he
Speaker 2: just out beat me in the meeting. And I'm sitting
Speaker 2: there like, wow, this is incredible. And at this moment,
Speaker 2: I'm thinking he's about to give me a production deal. Right.
Speaker 2: I come from the face, I come from bad boy,
Speaker 2: I come from rowdy Boom, I'm next.
Speaker 3: Up baby, Yeah, yeah, for sure, he shot me down. Okay, Boom,
Speaker 3: did you give one of those letters? Not those letters though,
Speaker 3: because you know, have you heard about those?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I get the letter?
Speaker 3: Yea letter when he would turn down songs back in
Speaker 3: the day, like probably before our time, even because then
Speaker 3: O G showed me one he would he would handwrite
Speaker 3: a letter to you.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I didn't get not wanting to. I
Speaker 1: didn't even get by you. I didn't even get you.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that.
Speaker 2: What he said was he asked me, do I mind
Speaker 2: helping him with his talent? So then I end up
Speaker 2: picking up work, but as a production company, No, he said.
Speaker 2: I didn't have anything better than what he was playing.
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, great, all right, cool, So boom.
Speaker 1: Are you discouraged?
Speaker 2: Oh I'm in pieces. I'm shocking. So it's like a
Speaker 2: Spike Lee movie for me. I'm moving like this now
Speaker 2: in the streets.
Speaker 1: Of New York, the buildings, the movement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm floating. So I'm like, man, how do I
Speaker 2: go back home and tell all the artists that's in
Speaker 2: the basement.
Speaker 1: Ah, now in.
Speaker 2: The basement is akon in the basement ship it's future
Speaker 2: in the basement. I have countless of artists that's depending
Speaker 2: on me. Yeah, and producers and writers to go back
Speaker 2: and say it didn't work. Yeah, And I never really
Speaker 2: said it didn't work. I said, guys, let's switch this up.
Speaker 2: Give me this, give me this, give me this. Because
Speaker 2: now I've been in all these rooms, I know what
Speaker 2: it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, So I went and tuned it, fine tuning I want.
Speaker 2: I fixed it. Never discouraging the artists, I just start
Speaker 2: asking for different things, and over a course of time,
Speaker 2: I start getting it. And then I realized I was
Speaker 2: ready to play. So then I went. Then I went
Speaker 2: to other companies and I got rejected. Probably. I mean,
Speaker 2: I went to a lot of record execs, man.
Speaker 3: And everybody's turning your deal down. Everybody wants to give
Speaker 3: you a production label deal, anything of the sort now.
Speaker 1: But they're still hiring you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they still hired me to do their talent, but
Speaker 2: they're not giving me a production deal.
Speaker 3: Okay, so are you questioning like in for transparency? Are
Speaker 3: each question like maybe I don't. I started thinking that
Speaker 3: I don't know about what I got. No, not that
Speaker 3: I didn't have it. I felt like outside of timing,
Speaker 3: they didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I wasn't really discouraged. And you know, I felt like
Speaker 2: if it was easy and if what I was doing
Speaker 2: was common, everybody would be doing it correct. I felt
Speaker 2: like it was different and at the time when I
Speaker 2: came through with the music, even shopping Acon, it wasn't
Speaker 2: your norm. People didn't understand what it was. If I
Speaker 2: showed you a photo of what he looked like and
Speaker 2: then I played the music, you didn' quite didn't understand
Speaker 2: the tone, didn't understand the look. I say, he's African.
Speaker 2: That wasn't even a thing, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: just like the first African African American to break in
Speaker 2: the US. So I'm doing something totally left from what
Speaker 2: they're accustomed to doing, and I felt like it was unique.
Speaker 2: But one thing about it, I said to myself, I said,
Speaker 2: once this pop, it's gonna go. It's gonna go all
Speaker 2: the way. It's gonna be international. And that kept me
Speaker 2: going more so than the nose. There was more so
Speaker 2: my belief. And then plus I have done so many
Speaker 2: artists that I kind of had the hot head in
Speaker 2: terms of, oh what I'm doing gonna work. You just
Speaker 2: don't get it. Give me a second, I'll be back.
Speaker 2: So then I went on my own, pressing up cdsake
Speaker 2: the Independence I mean records. Yeah, I did the whole
Speaker 2: I did the whole Independent, I mean, I bought a
Speaker 2: conversion van.
Speaker 1: I've been there wrapped the van.
Speaker 2: Yeah, street teams up and down the highway, taking a
Speaker 2: com music at a different places. It was funny story
Speaker 2: because I was actually doing Mary's tour and I used
Speaker 2: to go to the after parties and I would have
Speaker 2: them play Acon's music at Mary and say, hey, man,
Speaker 2: can you play this? Yeah, So even at all the clubs,
Speaker 2: so everywhere I went, I was working on another artist.
Speaker 2: I was asking to utilizing your network right to play
Speaker 2: to play the music. While I'm doing that, I got
Speaker 2: to kind of frustrated why people ain't really get it right.
Speaker 2: I was kind of like, man, this is crazy. So
Speaker 2: I called the friend up. I called Bernard Alexander. Ah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: my god. I called Bernard. I said, oh, Bernard, check
Speaker 2: this out. I need you to come to the house.
Speaker 2: So Bernard came to the house, Men Bernard. Before we
Speaker 2: even got all the way into it, we went to church.
Speaker 2: So men Bernard went to church uh with my mom
Speaker 2: and spent the night. And then I played him what
Speaker 2: I had. I played him Acons music and then I
Speaker 2: played in this song called Lonely and he said stop, stop, stop, stop,
Speaker 2: stop right there and stop right there. He said, give
Speaker 2: me that give me, give it to me, and he said,
Speaker 2: give me, give me a few days. I'm gonna come back.
Speaker 2: I got you, I got you. He said, we get
Speaker 2: to this song right here. It's out of here. In
Speaker 2: my mind, I was like, all right, bet if you
Speaker 2: got something, let me know. But in the midst of that,
Speaker 2: let me go back. Because I did get a production deal.
Speaker 2: I missed this one piece that I cannot miss. I
Speaker 2: had one guy to believe in me early on, before
Speaker 2: the records even popped, before I even did that, and
Speaker 2: it was Hiram Hicks shout out. So I had I
Speaker 2: was working on Kelly Price, Drew Hill, Mona Li some
Speaker 2: other things that he have signed, and he was at
Speaker 2: Island Death time and he gave me a three act situation.
Speaker 2: But he gave it to me right on the end
Speaker 2: of what it was, making a shift. I think at
Speaker 2: this time, Kevin Lyles and le Or was coming. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so at that moment he stepped down. They came in
Speaker 2: and if I can recall taking a meeting.
Speaker 1: With Kevin, it was it was just it was crazy.
Speaker 2: Uh, it was crazy. It was crazy. Tina and Tina
Speaker 2: Davis was sitting there, you know, she was having a meeting,
Speaker 2: and she she was talking to me. I was playing
Speaker 2: the music. Kevin was on the phone. It's the meeting
Speaker 2: with Kevin. So Kevin is talking on the phone. Every
Speaker 2: time the phone and he goes Tina looking at me
Speaker 2: like this. She said, one second, divine. One second. She's
Speaker 2: trying to be nice. She said, one second, divine. So
Speaker 2: I'm probably on the third or fourth song. Kevin's on
Speaker 2: the phone, and the meeting is for Kevin. But I
Speaker 2: came in the door with hire them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So by the time it got to and I'm playing Acon,
Speaker 2: I'm playing Acon, I'm playing a couple of artist artists
Speaker 2: I have signed Cha Cha, I'm playing this music and
Speaker 2: I stopped it myself. I said ten, excuse me, I
Speaker 2: stopped it. I got the CD, grabbed my bag. He
Speaker 2: on the phone, and I'm getting ready to walk out,
Speaker 2: and Tina was like, divine, just wait a second. I said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's not a problem. It's not a problem. I said,
Speaker 2: this is cool. She said no, no, no, no, just
Speaker 2: wait a second. He'll be off in a second.
Speaker 1: I said, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: I call you. Got up when I'm and when I
Speaker 2: got to the door, he looked up and he's like, yo, yo, yo.
Speaker 2: He said, divine you ever you ever you ever thought
Speaker 2: about working inside? I said, no, sir, nah, I never
Speaker 2: thought about it. All right, all right, I said no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's not It's cool. We'll talk. We'll talk in a minute,
Speaker 2: we'll talk. Thank you, thank you for your time, sir,
Speaker 2: and I walked out, and then fast forward back at
Speaker 2: home creating. Then that's when Bernard came. Bernard took the
Speaker 2: music to Barry Hankinson. Okay, so Barry wanted to do
Speaker 2: the deal. And then he said, I got this other play.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how it happened. I know him
Speaker 2: and Kenny Burns go back and forth about who who
Speaker 2: took it to Steve Rifkin, but I know Bernard had it.
Speaker 2: And Bernard went into Rifkin's office played in the music,
Speaker 2: and Rifkin wanted to meet Akon wanted to do the deal.
Speaker 2: But when he came to Atlanta, came to my house,
Speaker 2: the million dollar house in the hood, and he saw
Speaker 2: Usher there, he saw Eric Sermon there, he saw Candy
Speaker 2: and tiny downstairs writing met Acon.
Speaker 1: So he's like, yo, what is this factory going on?
Speaker 2: Like what is this and then then I said, no, no, man,
Speaker 2: let's go we're talking business. I said, let's go play basketball.
Speaker 2: So I walked him through the hood and fourth Ward
Speaker 2: basketball court. Everybody takes off running because they thought I
Speaker 2: came to the hood with white boys. Thought they were
Speaker 2: the Feds. I thought they were the police. You got
Speaker 2: Steve Rifkin with you. I got Rifkin with me. We
Speaker 2: got to I'm taking and go play ball. We're going
Speaker 2: down here to talk. So we do that, and then
Speaker 2: I still wasn't all the way sold on doing a
Speaker 2: deal with Rifkin. I had to go make one stop.
Speaker 2: I had to go back to hire them, and I
Speaker 2: took Rifkin up to hire them and then hire them
Speaker 2: green lighted it. And then that's what made me take
Speaker 2: the deal because Hiram is the one who gave me
Speaker 2: the money to bail a coon out of jail the
Speaker 2: second time. Yeah, I paid for the first one and
Speaker 2: the second. Yeah, they gave me the money for the
Speaker 2: second one.
Speaker 3: So, connecting of episodes, DJ More Milly, DJ Okay Jimmy's nephew.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. So he says he had Polo he got yeah,
Speaker 3: and Polo wanted to do the deal.
Speaker 1: Also so I just go.
Speaker 2: I discovered Polo and it was sixteen been around me
Speaker 2: since then.
Speaker 1: So because I guess was singing hook hooks.
Speaker 2: So how we even was working. There was Billy I
Speaker 2: forget Billy last name, and he'll kill me for this.
Speaker 2: I gave Billy a CD with nothing but hooks on
Speaker 2: it with Acon because we were trying to figure out
Speaker 2: how to get these songs out, and then we was like,
Speaker 2: if we give it to some rappers, give it to
Speaker 2: certain people that just thought the verse on it, and
Speaker 2: give it back or put it out. So that's how
Speaker 2: we began to use other marketing strategies to get Acon's
Speaker 2: boys out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's how you end up on the rich
Speaker 1: boys stuff. Right. But but in.
Speaker 2: That group of people's Polo still producing. Yes, right, So
Speaker 2: Polo had the CD and was shopping it too, right,
Speaker 2: and wasn't getting a bite, so he didn't come back
Speaker 2: to me with anything. So I was like, okay, boo.
Speaker 2: The only person came back was.
Speaker 1: Riff because he brought Rifkin. He brought Rifkin. Was it
Speaker 1: immediate for Rifkin? Was he like I get it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean he came down right away, you know. Bernard
Speaker 2: called and he was like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And how long had you been working with KHN before this?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, it's probably about ten years prior to that.
Speaker 1: He waited ten years. Yeah. I moved him in my
Speaker 1: home and he kept going to jail. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, so what happened is we kept going to jail
Speaker 2: when he wasn't in my home.
Speaker 1: Okay, right, so.
Speaker 2: What made me move in my home? I think I
Speaker 2: was at a tribe called Quest concert and I came
Speaker 2: outside and my security was like, akon, want to holler
Speaker 2: at you now. The whole time, I'm thinking he's still
Speaker 2: in jail because the third time I left him in there,
Speaker 2: I didn't even go back. Mother, everybody pissed off. I
Speaker 2: didn't even I just like, he gonna have to set
Speaker 2: that out right. So I'm walking outside the concert and
Speaker 2: security said some you know the kid, Hey, come on
Speaker 2: to hollt you. I'm like, yo, where is that. He's
Speaker 2: across the street. I look across the street. He's like
Speaker 2: yo yo D yo D and I'm like so he
Speaker 2: walks over.
Speaker 1: He said, yo, man, I just want to tell you man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I apologize, you know. He apologized and everything. I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's all good, man, I said, I tell you what, Man,
Speaker 2: you got my number right, just just call me. Because
Speaker 2: you got to think how I met him. I met
Speaker 2: him through Little Zane, so I didn't discover him. What
Speaker 2: you met a khan through lil Zane, Through little Zaye.
Speaker 2: Litle Zane brought him to me. Okay, So at this
Speaker 2: at my rehearsal at my studio rehearsal hall. In order
Speaker 2: for me to hear him, they got crafty and rented
Speaker 2: the space out so I can hear it. And you know,
Speaker 2: for a minute, I was just walking past the rooms.
Speaker 2: I never went in the room, and what he saw
Speaker 2: was pink coming out of the studio. He's seen all
Speaker 2: these artists coming, so he was like, I want to
Speaker 2: be in there. So Zaye was like, yo, you got
Speaker 2: to just meet my man.
Speaker 1: So he brought him.
Speaker 2: I heard it, and the only thing I thought about
Speaker 2: when I first heard it, when I heard the tone
Speaker 2: the pitch of his voice, I said, that's it. That's
Speaker 2: it right there, Yeah, that's it. And then but I
Speaker 2: still in budge on it, so they come would keep
Speaker 2: coming back. But then he started asking me business questions
Speaker 2: and he had did a deal with famous music publishing
Speaker 2: and did I yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So he had did a deal and he asked me
Speaker 1: about the deal and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he told me how
Speaker 2: much money it was. And back then, you know, he
Speaker 2: was really on this car thing heavy, right. So he
Speaker 2: had a car think it might have been a Corolla,
Speaker 2: and he had flags on it, rim on it, like you,
Speaker 2: I mean a Corona, Corolla, Corolla something like that.
Speaker 1: With flags and rims on it, flags.
Speaker 2: Rims, the whole none. I'm like, yo, what is this money?
Speaker 2: So he ended up and I said, yo, man, check
Speaker 2: us out. Don't spend all your money. Don't spend all
Speaker 2: your money on this man investing yourself. And I said,
Speaker 2: you're a producer, you're a writer, you know, a singer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And at the time he wasn't really he was trying
Speaker 2: to sing. He had just got dropped from Electra and
Speaker 2: being him both was there at the same time. So
Speaker 2: I said to him, I said, listen, I'm just giving
Speaker 2: him game, giving him game about the business. And he
Speaker 2: just kept coming back, kept coming back, and then I said,
Speaker 2: you know what, man, I'll tell you what. Let's lock
Speaker 2: in and let's do this. I got you, and then
Speaker 2: we locked in and just giving him game, but the
Speaker 2: music wasn't quite there. He was part of the refugee
Speaker 2: camp with wy Cleft. Okay, so he used to run
Speaker 2: back and forth, you know, in the Book of Basement.
Speaker 2: So Fuji comes out boom, and I'm thinking, like, man,
Speaker 2: that sounded like what we're doing. Takes off. He's like, nah, man,
Speaker 2: why Clefts gonna do this? Why Clef's gonna do that?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, it
Speaker 2: never happened, you know what I'm saying. So one day
Speaker 2: we at the Source Awards. We're sitting there. He's like, man,
Speaker 2: why Clef gonna pull me up on stage? Watch this?
Speaker 2: Watch this. We're sitting there and I'm with shake, I'm
Speaker 2: with secure and uh man shake, we tripping. Little John
Speaker 2: eats all of you know they have in a moment.
Speaker 2: And I was the creative director of a Source that year,
Speaker 2: so I'm standing on the side and why Cleft do
Speaker 2: this big number? Then call him up? He destroyed. I
Speaker 2: was like, man, I'm looked at him. I said, man,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. Nobody wanted to take a picture,
Speaker 2: you know, no interviews, no nothing, I said, Man, don't
Speaker 2: worry about the next year. Man, you're going you'll be
Speaker 2: up there. You're gonna kill it. He looked at me,
Speaker 2: he said for real. I said, yeah, next year, you'll
Speaker 2: be up there and little and behold, next year he
Speaker 2: was up there. But very next year, the very next year,
Speaker 2: I'll show your clip of him performing at the Source
Speaker 2: Awards Standing Ovation. And from those moments going into that
Speaker 2: doing a deal with Rifkin. Still they promised me up
Speaker 2: front megatainment situation, but they only gave me a deal
Speaker 2: for Acon. Now in this deal, you still I got
Speaker 2: another group called FA and Future is in that group, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said he was.
Speaker 3: He was in the basement, okright in the deal. Yes,
Speaker 3: so amazing that it's just in this deal as well. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you get a deal for them too.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So then I had an outside studios called RETZ one
Speaker 2: where all the dudes in the hood. I just let
Speaker 2: her run through that studio. So that's why the street
Speaker 2: dudes being over there and at Red Swan. But how
Speaker 2: it flipped was more so when Akon came out. It
Speaker 2: came out with belly Dancer, right, and the whole time
Speaker 2: I'm like, yo, what's this man? You know you know,
Speaker 2: we we shot the video, did every you know whatever,
Speaker 2: and I kept saying they wanted to recoup whatever money
Speaker 2: they gave us, and just so you know, the album.
Speaker 2: What they gave me for an album was two twenty.
Speaker 1: Five to make the first album.
Speaker 2: First album, and it was fourteen points. That's what we.
Speaker 1: Started with split amongst Yeah, that was the.
Speaker 2: Production company, the artists, and I probably was already one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand in out of my my pocket. So doing
Speaker 2: that deal turned around. I'm trying to find a fast
Speaker 2: forward and slow it down at the same time. So
Speaker 2: doing that deal at the time wasn't an idea. Deals
Speaker 2: more about the opportunity on what I really believed in,
Speaker 2: because I could have easily went with Barry. Barry had
Speaker 2: more money, and and I could have also waited because
Speaker 2: I wasn't really stressed for money. I just really wanted
Speaker 2: to get going. I wanted to get it going, but
Speaker 2: I only wanted to get it going because of what
Speaker 2: was promised.
Speaker 1: Ah got you, got you, got.
Speaker 2: You, Okay, So belly Dancers come out. I look at
Speaker 2: the CD, I look at everything, Boom boom boom, snow
Speaker 2: upfront on anything, everything set src.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna tell you my first RAMDMA when I
Speaker 2: learned the business the hard way, right at this moment,
Speaker 2: that moment that I was waiting on now, mind you,
Speaker 2: prior to all this, I pressed up final I pressed
Speaker 2: up CDs. So in my house, I have all of
Speaker 2: this with upfront on it front. It okay, but they
Speaker 2: have the machine. So it's start seeing everything. Man, I'm
Speaker 2: like going places, I'm looking, I'm listening. Man, my name
Speaker 2: ain't nowhere like man. Then they start blocking it where
Speaker 2: they say it ain't no budget where we couldn't travel
Speaker 2: together because it ain't no budget, so I would have
Speaker 2: to pay for my own flights if I want to
Speaker 2: be there. So you start seeing the separation. And I
Speaker 2: told him, I said, look, man, I've been doing this
Speaker 2: for ten years. Man, I'll tell you what you go ahead,
Speaker 2: you go ahead and fly. I got this. I hold
Speaker 2: this down while you do that. He said, I bet.
Speaker 2: I said, I don't need to hold your hand, nigga.
Speaker 2: If you've been with me for last ten years ago,
Speaker 2: you're like nah, yeah. So he kind of reluctant about
Speaker 2: going and not me not being there, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, wasn't going to pay for me
Speaker 2: to be there, so and I was sudden there saying
Speaker 2: I ain't need to sit with you to do this,
Speaker 2: and plus there was a lot of disrespect in terms
Speaker 2: of not including me. So I said to myself, while
Speaker 2: they do this, I'm going to press up this record.
Speaker 2: So I press up locked up. I knew because I
Speaker 2: realized they was going in the wrong direction anyway, I
Speaker 2: said the belly Dance record. They were saying they just
Speaker 2: trying to get their money back. I said, it's too
Speaker 2: soon for the record. But at this point they're not listening.
Speaker 2: So I got the version that styles P is not
Speaker 2: even on that I'm working in the street.
Speaker 1: And that's okay. So that's it's just this record is
Speaker 1: just con just con version.
Speaker 2: On this version. That's the same record I'm playing in
Speaker 2: the clubs when I'm on tour with me. So as
Speaker 2: I'm playing the records, I'm doing my part. Then I
Speaker 2: see them doing their part. And then the an R
Speaker 2: is like, yo, let's put somebody on the record. So
Speaker 2: the n R guy, his name is nobody, he went
Speaker 2: and got styles P. Put styles P on the record.
Speaker 2: They reshipped the record. Still not on the record.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, right.
Speaker 2: The record goes out boom record catch.
Speaker 1: But no upfront on the record at all.
Speaker 2: No upfront nowhere now and what they not understanding creatively
Speaker 2: how the record was even created, which could have caused
Speaker 2: a pause if I wanted to cause the pause. So
Speaker 2: out of that group of guys that I tell you
Speaker 2: was how a whole bunch of guys and making records
Speaker 2: or whatever they come was in the studio at that time,
Speaker 2: may have had about twenty other guys in the studio, writers, producers, rappers.
Speaker 2: So that song was inspired by another group that I had,
Speaker 2: and they had a song called Lockdown in the Pin,
Speaker 2: how Let Your Boy? So that's how it was a
Speaker 2: jail song, okay, right, And the song went, now I'm
Speaker 2: locked down in the pin, nigga, how let your boy?
Speaker 2: How let your boy? Y'all on the outside looking in, nigga,
Speaker 2: I'll let your boy. So it was a whole jail thing.
Speaker 2: And I was like, hey, can you need to hop
Speaker 2: on us? So Akon took it and flipped it. I said,
Speaker 2: they're trying to find no more whatever. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh now, So then that whole campaign around it. So technically,
Speaker 2: while they're making that move doing that, I already know what,
Speaker 2: the records inspired by I could have stopped the record,
Speaker 2: could have stopped your whole motion. These kids could have
Speaker 2: even soothed if they wanted to, because we just took
Speaker 2: the idea you got it. But because they with me
Speaker 2: and they believe in that, I got this upfront situation
Speaker 2: that they next lo and behold. Whole time. Bernard is
Speaker 2: still in my ear. He said, if you can just
Speaker 2: get to that Lonely record, he'll be fine, because that's what.
Speaker 1: He's been telling you from the beginning. You got it.
Speaker 2: You got to get to Lonely. That's what you just
Speaker 2: get the Lonely. So they put out Ghetto did okay. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: while they're doing that, that CD is circulating with acon
Speaker 2: hooks on them. So and in the batch of that
Speaker 2: CD is I want to Love you the rich Boy.
Speaker 2: Like it's a whole lot of hooks flying right. So
Speaker 2: Lonely comes. I pop back on the scene finally for singers, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm in a video the whole night, like I pop
Speaker 2: back up like he yeah, I pay for everyone to
Speaker 2: get there or whatever. But gonna his was going to
Speaker 2: blow you away. So why while that's happening and the
Speaker 2: Lonely record is coming. I'm telling Acon, like, yo, man,
Speaker 2: how these people just gonna disrespect the situation? They already
Speaker 2: knew what it was.
Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, man, but don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: When you get the Lonely, I'll tell you what, because
Speaker 2: we had this plan when you get the Lonely, When
Speaker 2: you get the Lonely, you just come in. Man. I
Speaker 2: was like, I bet now he told me I can
Speaker 2: come in, But now he's telling me just get the
Speaker 2: way to this record. And then and then I really discovered.
Speaker 2: I called the attorney and I say, look, man, they
Speaker 2: keep leaving me out of everything. I'm not on this,
Speaker 2: I'm not on that. Why is it a problem. And
Speaker 2: then I realized that the attorney was Rifkin's attorney attorney.
Speaker 2: It's Kenny Mersalis. Oh oh shit. Kenny was like, yo, Rifkin,
Speaker 2: why don't you fix whatever? Whatever? Okay, Boom deluxe, whatever came. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they put it on there, but they put it in
Speaker 2: they put it in a little civil font where you
Speaker 2: could barely see it, but it's on there. Oh yeah, fixed,
Speaker 2: we fixed it. So now I'm realizing I got the
Speaker 2: same attorney. So in terms of my renegotiation and negotiation.
Speaker 2: I had to make a switch, but Kenny set me
Speaker 2: up right. I left from there, still waiting on this
Speaker 2: lonely thing. Lonely came, Wow, I need to go in
Speaker 2: and have a talk. I took a meeting with Melo,
Speaker 2: went to Smellow, went to Doug Marris running point at Universal.
Speaker 2: Melo went to didn't even know I existed. He didn't
Speaker 2: even know acme was scientist production coming right direct. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's too low talking about and it wasn't introduced properly,
Speaker 2: so it was all that.
Speaker 1: It was all rifkin. So I said, cool to meet you.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, they didn't promised ak on everything, like did you
Speaker 2: own studio? We're gonna set you up like everything that
Speaker 2: I had. A coon wanted it, all the artists and
Speaker 2: the studio to set up. So this is how he
Speaker 2: was groomed. So he want what he saw. You know,
Speaker 2: if you got them, you know, we get them ja's,
Speaker 2: He want them ja's. You know, it's like he want
Speaker 2: what he saw. So I wasn't mad at that they
Speaker 2: offered him that. So then he came to me and
Speaker 2: asked me could I co sign for him to do this?
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, once they give me what they promised.
Speaker 2: And then I realized another business part of it that
Speaker 2: Akon couldn't sign that agreement without my signature because technically
Speaker 2: he was because he was signed to a production company
Speaker 2: and they said exclusive. So boom, he's asking me to
Speaker 2: sign this. I said, Man, I'm not sign than that.
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not signing. They gotta figure this out, man,
Speaker 2: they got to make this right. He's screaming. So now
Speaker 2: he starts to we start to see the divide and
Speaker 2: conquer happen. Like he's screaming top of his lungs. Did
Speaker 2: I go back have a conversation with my godfather and
Speaker 2: I said, look, man, this is what's going on. He said, okay,
Speaker 2: well let's have a meeting and that's what we're going
Speaker 2: to do. So that's what I shift is shift. Hey,
Speaker 2: cong what if I tell you I got a better
Speaker 2: situation for you that believes in producers and songwriters because
Speaker 2: you're a producer and a songwriter, you more than just
Speaker 2: you make hits. Yes, he says, oh d man, I
Speaker 2: mean I mean whatever, do whatever you think said?
Speaker 1: You did tell me I can come in. So since
Speaker 1: you're telling me to come in, this.
Speaker 2: The move I got how about if I just take
Speaker 2: you across the street. I don't think Doug would be mad.
Speaker 2: We're just gonna We're gonna switch Wardens. He says, okay,
Speaker 2: take you to Jimmy Ivan. He looked at me, says,
Speaker 2: no way. You don't know Jimmy. You can't get to Jimmy.
Speaker 2: I said, are you cool, I'll make the play. He said, yeah,
Speaker 2: run the play. I said, now only that, let's look
Speaker 2: at Universal ROSSIP. At the time they had Nelly Lil
Speaker 2: Wayne was bubbling a little bit, trying to figure out
Speaker 2: what the next move. The Hot Boys broke up, you know,
Speaker 2: they was trying to figure out what was next. Want
Speaker 2: nothing really major at Universal at the time, so a
Speaker 2: Kon had leverage. So I move it to Endoscope and
Speaker 2: Jimmy welcome them with open arms. At the same time
Speaker 2: they're ushering in Tubby. So Tubby became the an R
Speaker 2: for the company. So I switched it from Convict Music
Speaker 2: because it had people that have tied him and I'm
Speaker 2: not to con Live distribution, and that's who did the
Speaker 2: deal with Jimmy with me as the manager running point
Speaker 2: on the business.
Speaker 3: So now it's no longer a production deal. You've moved
Speaker 3: over to the management side.
Speaker 2: Yep, I moved over to management. Production is still at Universal. Hey,
Speaker 2: gotcha con deals now as a label head?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: Andoscope?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So now ripkin heat it pissed.
Speaker 2: Ah, I'm building and I did this. I spent my
Speaker 2: and how are you gonna take Crushret? Well, we're in
Speaker 2: the same boat. I spent more money than you. I
Speaker 2: spent way more money before we even got to this point,
Speaker 2: before even I met you. I've spent money. These relationships
Speaker 2: are already done. So it wasn't honorable. So I said, not
Speaker 2: a problem. Got to Jimmy. Doug ain't gonna be mad
Speaker 2: because we're getting ready. We're gonna make Dugs some money too.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're gonna keep making duck. We get to
Speaker 2: Jimmy and I tell Conn. I said, here's what we
Speaker 2: gotta do to crack the code in this building. We're
Speaker 2: gonna look at the roster of everything that Jimmy has
Speaker 2: that he's in debt with, and we're gonna furnish them.
Speaker 2: So we took on brick and lace. Nobody know who
Speaker 2: it was. They have put Ron Ferns in place. So
Speaker 2: we went to Ron checked out his roster, tapped into
Speaker 2: that where he was struggling. Swiss Beasts had a deal
Speaker 2: there he was struggling. He had signed Bone Thugs and Harmony.
Speaker 2: I think the last hit they had is the one
Speaker 2: I gave them that we gave them Swiss Bone Thugs
Speaker 2: and Harmony was signed the Swiss. Pharrell was working on
Speaker 2: gwen Stefani. We came in and gave Gwynn Sweet Escape.
Speaker 2: Moved over. We said, okay, Jimmy struggling with the pussy
Speaker 2: Cat Dolls. Hmmm, let's give Jimmy something with the pussy
Speaker 2: Cat Dolls. But before that, we gotta make our rounds
Speaker 2: because I'm still working on a CON's album. Right. We
Speaker 2: want Eminem, but we got to make a play. Let's
Speaker 2: go do Obie Trice. Yeah, So I'm gonna show you
Speaker 2: the strategy. There's a mind behind a business strategy behind
Speaker 2: the talent that people don't honor, and these business moves
Speaker 2: what set the talent up wasn't just the talent. So
Speaker 2: we knock got Obi trace the whole time. Now Eminem
Speaker 2: goes in and give a con smack that. Now, how
Speaker 2: are we going to get this cleared? We got to
Speaker 2: go get doctor Dre. So then we do cush with
Speaker 2: Doctor Dre. Then we turn around and do he had
Speaker 2: a rap artist by the name of Hayes. We do
Speaker 2: Hayes had a couple more things that he had, So
Speaker 2: then we furnished.
Speaker 1: Doctor Dre and buildship.
Speaker 2: Right now we're presenting our own talent. Now that we
Speaker 2: covered the bases on. We came here to work together.
Speaker 1: Right right right right, we're an asset.
Speaker 2: We step up to bat with Kobe o'donna's.
Speaker 1: Shout out to cove Man. Because I have.
Speaker 2: A indie background of how to work a record from
Speaker 2: the ground up. We started Kobe's record.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: We did Ray Lavender first. Oh yeah, girl got a girlfriend,
Speaker 2: Ye dope record. Yeah, So then we worked that record
Speaker 2: from the street. So then we came with Kobe and
Speaker 2: then we came with Cardonell Official. Right so now we're
Speaker 2: just kind of working our way and then we signed
Speaker 2: rock City.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So now we have.
Speaker 2: A roster about eight artists. Acon can't even believe it,
Speaker 2: Like what is like hot?
Speaker 1: Did no? No?
Speaker 2: No? The only thing I need you to do.
Speaker 1: Let's keep working, be great. You can stay in the studio,
Speaker 1: stay creative.
Speaker 2: We got this. Things are moving. Everything that's in Jimmy Building. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm taking it and putting it on Acon's album.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, now you get all your features. Now you get.
Speaker 2: Features, the whole nine. And I'm collaborating with the other artists,
Speaker 2: so they're coming.
Speaker 1: Out right, So it's not one sided. Right.
Speaker 2: So while all this is happening, there's a business model happening.
Speaker 2: And we keep putting out these records and putting out
Speaker 2: these urban records, and we'll catch the first one, second
Speaker 2: one of flop, go to the next one. Catch the
Speaker 2: first one. We'll work the first one independent, the second
Speaker 2: one flop. We'll catch Cardinal Dangerous, then the second one flop.
Speaker 2: Kobe had dunnas just dance is his right? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so Ray, even Ray Lavender, even when we got the
Speaker 2: Tank records stay, it didn't go as far as we
Speaker 2: wanted it to go. So but I'm working and working
Speaker 2: like damn, something's off, and at the same time, but
Speaker 2: this is going on, I'm getting extorted. So the extortion
Speaker 2: was coming from Yeah, it was coming. It was heavy,
Speaker 2: it was thick, it was coming from so many different areas.
Speaker 2: So I said to myself, hmmm, we got switched this up,
Speaker 2: because now I ran up a bill. They ran me
Speaker 2: up a six million dollar tab and scu I seen
Speaker 2: the play. I seen it clear as day, and I said,
Speaker 2: what's going to happen? And we're going to get a
Speaker 2: call from ran Hoffman and he's just gonna say no more.
Speaker 1: This is it.
Speaker 2: So I said, before we get to that point, let's
Speaker 2: switch this up. Everybody go pop because I realized we
Speaker 2: had a problem with the Urban staff. So from the
Speaker 2: Gwen stuff Funny Escape record, a kind of goes on
Speaker 2: tour with Gwen, we come in and and at that moment,
Speaker 2: that's that was happened for real because for executive producer
Speaker 2: of that project, and that's the only record popped off
Speaker 2: that project. So we had all the bases covered. And
Speaker 2: then we went in to work on the Pussycat Dolls
Speaker 2: and we zoned in on a producer by the name
Speaker 2: of Red One, right, so it was getting the business
Speaker 2: with a Red One go in the studio to work
Speaker 2: on the Pussycat Dolls. We needed somebody to demo the songs, right,
Speaker 2: so read new artist that was on Death Jam, but
Speaker 2: I think she had just got dropped from Death Jam
Speaker 2: and was working on a new deal and moved her
Speaker 2: over to Eno scope. But she was in the studio
Speaker 2: and I walked in Record Plant while at working on
Speaker 2: the Pussycat Dolls, and I hear the songs. I go, yo,
Speaker 2: who is singing that? And a concess girl right there,
Speaker 2: she's sitting she's sitting down on the floor. She kind
Speaker 2: of lives, had fishnet stockings with holes in them, with
Speaker 2: Doc Martin's hair of mess. And he said she's singing it.
Speaker 2: I said wow. And immediately when I looked at her,
Speaker 2: I said, she's a star. It's Lady Gaga. And I said,
Speaker 2: ain't no way in the hell we're giving these songs
Speaker 2: to the pussy Cat Dogs.
Speaker 1: Nowhere.
Speaker 2: Now, it's impossible. So call set up a meeting. We
Speaker 2: march Red One in Jimmy's office and we played the songs.
Speaker 2: We introduced Red One to Jimmy played the song. Jimmy like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: this is great, and the whole time he think the
Speaker 2: pusgether dogs and Nicole is out of here. You know
Speaker 2: that's what you're thinking. As soon as it stopped, I said, Jimmy,
Speaker 2: it so only one problem, man, So only one problem.
Speaker 2: He said, who is this singing it? I said, already
Speaker 2: by the name of Lady Gaga. I said, but you know,
Speaker 2: she signed here. She's here with Vincent Herbert and he
Speaker 2: was like yeah, I said, Jimmy, is just one problem though.
Speaker 2: We would like to keep these songs on her. Mm
Speaker 2: hm oh really, Jimmy, she's a star. You need to
Speaker 2: meet her.
Speaker 1: She signed there, she is there already. He has not
Speaker 1: met her.
Speaker 2: He don't really know it like that, okay, all right?
Speaker 2: He annoy it because she was doing cabaret music, jazz music,
Speaker 2: music game. It wasn't there yet. So first thing I thought, Oh,
Speaker 2: this is the next share, this is next Madonna.
Speaker 1: We got it.
Speaker 2: We got it. And at the time, Vincent is on
Speaker 2: the on the bench, Troy Carter on his way out.
Speaker 2: I think he had just got fired from EVE and
Speaker 2: he was on his way moving to Atlanta, and I
Speaker 2: was helping him look for a house, and we said,
Speaker 2: hold on a second. Jimmy says, y'all believe in it
Speaker 2: that much? All right, let's do a deal. So we
Speaker 2: did a three album deal with Jimmy. We partner with
Speaker 2: him to do Lady God Got And they're like, what
Speaker 2: about Vince, Oh, I don't worry about Vince. Will you
Speaker 2: worried about Visceda? We're not worry about this. We will
Speaker 2: make Vince Gonna. I'm so, I said, okay, back boom paperwork. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Rifking heated there's a artist that they working on that
Speaker 2: Doug Marris signed. Her name was Tammy Chen.
Speaker 1: I'm pay for me.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Tammy Chen going back and forth with Sylvia
Speaker 2: and Riffkin. You know, I think Sylvia had it first,
Speaker 2: and then Doug thinks Riffing got a hot handle because
Speaker 2: of Akon, So maybe Akon can do some record, so
Speaker 2: switch it over to Rifkin. But the whole time, Doug
Speaker 2: not Doug don't even know me. He not knowing that
Speaker 2: it ain't a Riffking play. It ain't a Sylvia play.
Speaker 2: It's if you talk to me, I'm going to deliver it.
Speaker 2: I never got the call. So a Kon John On
Speaker 2: Just Dance got Go's first single, and so that wasn't
Speaker 2: Kobe's first single. No, No, that's Kobe. That's Kobe singing
Speaker 2: a cons verse.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, because I know Kobe's on the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you singing a cons verse. We just told Kobe because.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't clear, because the wouldn't clear.
Speaker 2: How you're not gonna clear a kN on his on
Speaker 2: his own artists. Yeah right, So somehow they tell Vincent
Speaker 2: that I wouldn't clear it, so to create this thing
Speaker 2: between me and Vince, and now Vince is thinking, oh
Speaker 2: the vinest no hate, so no I hate, man, How
Speaker 2: are we gonna clear all these I'm a clear Obie Trice,
Speaker 2: how I'm a clear song on own Thugs and Harmony.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna clear all these songs.
Speaker 1: I had a vested interest in got it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: we get this.
Speaker 2: We've got three albums with this. Why wouldn't I clear this?
Speaker 2: So needless to say, we had the herb and throw
Speaker 2: Kobe on the record because so then we went to
Speaker 2: twenty markets promoting go Go.
Speaker 1: To just Dance record and then it popped here and
Speaker 1: now we're in the big box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they never talk about those parts. They just
Speaker 2: talk about They don't talk about if it wasn't for
Speaker 2: the sound sonically.
Speaker 1: No A.
Speaker 3: Kon Akon was one of the hottest producers in the
Speaker 3: game at that point.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely between him and T Pain, and the ultimate
Speaker 2: goal was.
Speaker 1: In T Pain. Yeah, same family for y'all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, See, the ultimate goal was to cover the hip
Speaker 2: hop R and B sector. Then to cover the international
Speaker 2: sector and then cover the global sector. And we had
Speaker 2: that within the big three. So my big three was Ga, Ga,
Speaker 2: Acon and T Pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and before I can wrap that and give it
Speaker 2: a hug, they can't, man and just dismantled it and
Speaker 2: pushed me out of the way.
Speaker 1: And why do you think that was?
Speaker 2: I call it a kid because they do it to
Speaker 2: all of us. Just hit me with the kid. That's all.
Speaker 2: Anybody's having that much success, everybody want.
Speaker 3: In right, how do you maintain it all? If you
Speaker 3: look back at it now and you're giving that advice
Speaker 3: to a young executive who wants to be a Barry
Speaker 3: Gordy wants to be a divine Stevens wants to be
Speaker 3: a baby and slim, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: How do you keep it under one roof?
Speaker 2: It's all about the team. It's all about the team,
Speaker 2: and it's all about the development. It goes back to that.
Speaker 2: It goes back to your level of understanding about the game,
Speaker 2: you know, and it goes back to educating artists about
Speaker 2: the business because they can't get to a certain point
Speaker 2: where they is surprised about business and they think and
Speaker 2: they just want a lottery So what that means is
Speaker 2: if I educate about how the game goes, when you
Speaker 2: finally touch some money, you'll know how to utilize your
Speaker 2: bunds it. And then once you get to that point,
Speaker 2: do you know how to make better business decisions? You
Speaker 2: don't have to tear down a mansion to build a
Speaker 2: hood home. And they kind of put us in that
Speaker 2: same circle. Yeah, you know, as production companies. And that's
Speaker 2: the reason why the black exec and the creator and
Speaker 2: the an R is extinct. So I don't take it
Speaker 2: like I was targeted. I just feel like this is
Speaker 2: it comes with the industry. But also we don't own
Speaker 2: the platforms, we don't own the infrastructure, so we're playing
Speaker 2: somebody else's game on they turf. Yeah, and anything can
Speaker 2: happen when you know, it's also.
Speaker 3: Shifting now right with you know, with more distribution companies
Speaker 3: popping up, with you know, more funded upstarts, and obviously
Speaker 3: the access is different because now it's a click away, right,
Speaker 3: So if you put the and if they're you know
Speaker 3: the right people, the right business minded people who are
Speaker 3: tenured in this thing and understand how to develop and
Speaker 3: create the way that you have and you know, people
Speaker 3: of the same cloth have over the years. I think
Speaker 3: now we don't have the same system as far as
Speaker 3: distributing things to the public.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but but it's not also just the distributing, it's
Speaker 2: the mentality of the people and how business. So let
Speaker 2: me give you an example. The contract that we may
Speaker 2: sign to enter into the institution, those laws and everything
Speaker 2: that's there hasn't changed. It's the same contract James Brown did.
Speaker 1: So do you have to say sign that contract?
Speaker 2: Well, if you want distribution, let's say if it's fifteen
Speaker 2: let's say if it's only fifteen percent. Those laws hasn't changed.
Speaker 2: And we're not taught. We don't understand politics, we don't
Speaker 2: understand laws, and certain things, you still sign that distribution fee.
Speaker 2: Even to use your AT and T phone, there's fees,
Speaker 2: there's certain things, there's certain things that they got access
Speaker 2: to if you use an Apple phone. So my point
Speaker 2: is it's that platform, it's they tools that we use,
Speaker 2: and we'll still govern and control by a certain thing.
Speaker 2: And if you take the mentality of a person that
Speaker 2: never had anything and you give them money, that's the
Speaker 2: problem with the game. Now you look at that right now,
Speaker 2: last Big Records was Drake and Kendrick Lamar. But here's
Speaker 2: the thing. Give us a whole lot of money and
Speaker 2: then watch us be disrespectful for the clicks that likes
Speaker 2: to views the whole nine. That's disrespect But even if
Speaker 2: you're going against the people that gave you the money,
Speaker 2: even if you're trying to teach the next generation how
Speaker 2: to do it, there's still ways you have to govern
Speaker 2: the information. And it's still by law. So if you
Speaker 2: don't know the law, like you just said, you're teaching
Speaker 2: people about perpetuity, they're not reading that in the contract.
Speaker 2: But why is that.
Speaker 1: Clause even in there?
Speaker 2: But you can't change the law by saying you bringing
Speaker 2: awareness to it for us to remove it. How do
Speaker 2: we get to change that law? That's got to go
Speaker 2: through Congress's got to go You see the steps. Now
Speaker 2: we are here campaigning. Now we're standing on the front
Speaker 2: line when naturally the only thing you want to do
Speaker 2: is feed your family. How much enagey you got for
Speaker 2: it to prove to somebody else that we need to
Speaker 2: change this and do something about it. Which the first
Speaker 2: thing was you brought awareness to it. Cool, Now it
Speaker 2: steps to getting what we observe as we move through
Speaker 2: this maze. But as they continue to make us extinct,
Speaker 2: you and I both know only thing we do is
Speaker 2: get more creative, right, So that's why you'll see boom.
Speaker 2: While they destroy one thing, something else can pop. That's
Speaker 2: why there's a Tyler Perry. You see, he's not using
Speaker 2: the same infrastructure. It's a whole different infrastructure. Boom you got.
Speaker 2: You see little things. And right now in Atlanta, like
Speaker 2: they said, it used to be a DTP, a CTE.
Speaker 2: I can and I can just name all these subsidiaries,
Speaker 2: all these companies. They just moved them all to artists base.
Speaker 2: So they take advantage of artists of not knowing how
Speaker 2: to do business.
Speaker 1: So they moved, they moved, they removed it executives.
Speaker 2: Same thing. You don't you know who did Rihanna? Them
Speaker 2: guys came in, delivered something and was wiped out before
Speaker 2: they even got across the water. And it happens time
Speaker 2: and time and time again, and people not interested and
Speaker 2: the cure of why that's happening. They just want to
Speaker 2: make fun, make jokes.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: You know, they came on the island by itself. Do
Speaker 2: y'all think that's cool when you ain't had a hit
Speaker 2: in ten fifteen years. How you go from the hottest
Speaker 2: thing on the block to you're not hot?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: More like, how you get that amount of money and
Speaker 2: then say, oh, well you make this amount of money?
Speaker 2: He distracted? No, he's not distracted. It's a system. How
Speaker 2: are we not hot? How all of a sudden what
Speaker 2: he comes up with? He knows more about what's going
Speaker 2: on in the streets and what's happening out here then
Speaker 2: somebody pushing buttons at Apple. Absolutely okay, but why that's
Speaker 2: not surfacing. It's way deeper than the creatives. It's the platforms.
Speaker 2: It's the tools that we're using. So we are going
Speaker 2: to have to some point get together and create new tools,
Speaker 2: new platforms that and new ownership because right now everybody's
Speaker 2: talking about own this on that, which is the worst
Speaker 2: thing ever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you don't know how to, for lack
Speaker 3: of a better term, exploit it.
Speaker 1: Well, if you don't know how to, well, some people
Speaker 1: don't possess these other things.
Speaker 2: I'm not a good administrative person, so I have to
Speaker 2: hire somebody that does administration. I don't know too many
Speaker 2: artists that I work with throughout the years to understand.
Speaker 3: Admin So how are you going to own something you
Speaker 3: don't know right, how you gonna My grandma said to
Speaker 3: me one time, She.
Speaker 2: Said, back, baby, could you? Could you? You know, she
Speaker 2: worked at a dry cleaner for over thirty something years,
Speaker 2: but she worked on the pressing machine, and she says,
Speaker 2: can I invest in a dry cleaner for it? I said, sure,
Speaker 2: I could do that. I said I need a business
Speaker 2: plan and a P and L. She thought at that
Speaker 2: moment I was being disrespectful. I just insulted her. Oh no, baby,
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for I said, yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: you've been doing it for thirty plus years, bab. I
Speaker 2: do know that, and I'm willing to invest, but I
Speaker 2: don't know anything about it right. So only way I
Speaker 2: need to look at the numbers. I need to look
Speaker 2: at the business plan. I need to see how these
Speaker 2: people ran this dry cleaner for years. And she didn't
Speaker 2: get that. Artists don't get that. So you saying you
Speaker 2: own something, but you don't know anything about the business.
Speaker 1: Or how to run it.
Speaker 2: Oh you're own your masters? Oh one hundred percent of zero,
Speaker 2: that is phenomenal. I became a multi millionaire of fourteen cent.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh no, jay Z, say on your masters, that's not
Speaker 2: what jay Z did at the beginning. And if jay
Speaker 2: Z had the opportunity to go do a deal with
Speaker 2: Live Nation in the beginning, I guarantee jay Z would
Speaker 2: have done that deal differently. The jay Z now would
Speaker 2: do a totally different deal when he took that two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty million dollars. But only thing he did
Speaker 2: when he took that he wanted out of his situation. Now,
Speaker 2: how you give a bundled deal. So let's say you
Speaker 2: rent their venue, you go, you're play in their venue,
Speaker 2: and I guarantee you if they got AT and T,
Speaker 2: Coca Cola, whatever mobile carrier, whatever sponsors that they had
Speaker 2: at that moment when he did that deal, guarantee you
Speaker 2: here and get.
Speaker 1: A back end because you got to recoup that deal.
Speaker 2: I guess, I guarantee it. I bet you're bundled in
Speaker 2: the two fifty Let him go do a deal now,
Speaker 2: it's not going to be the same.
Speaker 1: That's the point I'm making. Yeah, he learned the game.
Speaker 2: He learned the game right, And what I'm saying to
Speaker 2: you is, so it's not fair for us to say
Speaker 2: you should be an owner and own everything you do without.
Speaker 1: Having the information because you don't know.
Speaker 3: Right, and without having the capital and having the finances,
Speaker 3: because in any business, if someone puts up the finances,
Speaker 3: the deal is more advantageous to them. You go to
Speaker 3: a bank and now you got a loan and that's
Speaker 3: what that two fifty was, and you're paying that off first, right,
Speaker 3: And that's why you saw the packaging. Packaging with your
Speaker 3: things got slow.
Speaker 2: Shit, let's package it with justin timberlake, whatever we got
Speaker 2: to do the packages. Get this money down so I
Speaker 2: can get out of debt to get to this next space. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: but let me just go with my wife. So you're
Speaker 2: not seeing it behind the scenes. You're just seeing what
Speaker 2: they're putting in front of you. And my point is
Speaker 2: the person that knows the business behind not just having
Speaker 2: resource but being sourceful. You gotta have both, yeah, and
Speaker 2: that's what these kids are really lacking. So right now
Speaker 2: today they'll tell you we're gonna throw this out, we're
Speaker 2: gonna do this, We're gonna do this, and then you'll
Speaker 2: spike a little success and then it goes away. So
Speaker 2: are you working with newer artists now? Yeah, I work
Speaker 2: with new artists. I consult I consult with companies, I
Speaker 2: work with new artists. I'm more like the quiet Storm
Speaker 2: because it's you.
Speaker 1: Know, artists, silent giant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I learned differently, you know the days of
Speaker 2: you know, the way it used to be done. I
Speaker 2: just do it a little different today. Yeah, you have
Speaker 2: to just but yeah I still.
Speaker 3: Do That's great, bro, because a lot of times you
Speaker 3: find that, you know, the pillars of our community and
Speaker 3: people who have literally built this thing get to a
Speaker 3: point where you're just like, I'm cool, right, and you know,
Speaker 3: it's a different business.
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to be a
Speaker 1: part of that. No.
Speaker 2: No, I think for a moment, what it did was
Speaker 2: it robbed me up my energy because you know, doing
Speaker 2: so much, plugging into so many different vibes and people,
Speaker 2: and sometimes when you to go to it gets it
Speaker 2: gets a little tough.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And then when you need something that you know are plugging,
Speaker 2: it's not there.
Speaker 1: It's not there.
Speaker 2: So sometimes that's tough. And then when you start seeing
Speaker 2: all this chaos and and people dying over this and
Speaker 2: people going to jail, it starts to get put you
Speaker 2: in a dark place because the only thing you want
Speaker 2: to do is be creative. And this was your go
Speaker 2: to you know what I mean, if you go and
Speaker 2: this is what this if this is what you was
Speaker 2: escaping too, right, and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 2: start seeing.
Speaker 1: That it's putting you there. Yeah, what's coming.
Speaker 2: Out of it? You know? These you seeing childhood friends
Speaker 2: being divided, you seeing people getting shot up, people going
Speaker 2: to jail. You know, it's it's it's so much energy
Speaker 2: in a negative space to be in the space that
Speaker 2: it took a minute before I said, you know what,
Speaker 2: let me let me tap into this again, because I
Speaker 2: realized my purpose was to serve and help people, whether
Speaker 2: it came back or not. So I literally just kind
Speaker 2: of pushed back. Started a private school, went from K
Speaker 2: through twelve. It's now yeah, so it's it's education and
Speaker 2: the arts.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So and I'm also in the process working on a
Speaker 2: larger facility.
Speaker 1: Is how many students do you have as it how
Speaker 1: many students do you.
Speaker 2: Have currently three hundred? So now just working on bigger facility,
Speaker 2: more partners. I kind of incubated behind a head master
Speaker 2: that she's been doing education for eighteen years. Private school,
Speaker 2: So learning the space, learning the politics, kind of just
Speaker 2: taking the energy, moving a different direction, yeah, but still developing.
Speaker 2: So still in my craft, but I catching it early,
Speaker 2: you know, So I got this whole thing that's still
Speaker 2: playing in my head. I'm still chasing Disneyland, Walt Disney,
Speaker 2: you know. And that's how throughout the years, the facilities
Speaker 2: and the properties from Dreamland to Starland to Victory Land,
Speaker 2: these are all properties where entertainers I developed talent.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So now I'm working on something a little bit mostrositytrosity, Yeah,
Speaker 2: something special for this generation and the next generation. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm in a great space creatively. And the beauty about
Speaker 2: all of it is that even in my darkest moments
Speaker 2: in this business is when I saw the most light,
Speaker 2: I was able to create better. Yeah, And that's the
Speaker 2: part that kind of hunts me. It's almost like going
Speaker 2: to being a football player. But you got to go
Speaker 2: to mini camp, then you got to go to training camp,
Speaker 2: then you got to go to summer camp, then you
Speaker 2: got to go to preseason.
Speaker 1: To get to it every year, yeah, every year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I put myself in the same program. So
Speaker 2: if you don't see me right away, just know probably
Speaker 2: in mini camp. But that don't mean I ain't coming. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm coming.
Speaker 1: Nah. I love that.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Man, your story is amazing, your path is amazing. And honestly, bro,
Speaker 3: we need you. I think the game needs you and
Speaker 3: the game appreciates you. And I don't think that is
Speaker 3: always you know, that's not always said. You know, maybe
Speaker 3: monetarily at times, you know, you get you know, you
Speaker 3: get your just due, you get your you know, you
Speaker 3: get your bag. But as far as like you know,
Speaker 3: just from but even that community speaking to you, and.
Speaker 2: Just so I want to say this to young generation.
Speaker 2: You know, I know we live in a money, money
Speaker 2: grab environment and you you need money to live, to live.
Speaker 2: But one thing I can really tell you that the money,
Speaker 2: it's not gonna you can't buy happiness like I have
Speaker 2: tempted to buy the surroundings of it. And I remember
Speaker 2: one day I was in a club and I was
Speaker 2: sitting there and I don't drink. I don't drink alcohol,
Speaker 2: I don't smoke, I don't pop pills, I don't do
Speaker 2: any stuff. And I'm sitting there and because the promoter
Speaker 2: and the owner, you know, they know me, They're bringing
Speaker 2: all these bottles because I got a bunch of people
Speaker 2: with me, and I'm sitting there and I don't really
Speaker 2: know these girls, and the security guy got with me.
Speaker 2: I probably hired them for the night. And if a
Speaker 2: fight breakout, I don't know if this stick is gonna run, Oh,
Speaker 2: you're gonna help. I know he's paid. And I had
Speaker 2: a couple other people with me and I'm sitting there
Speaker 2: and I got to say, it had to be one
Speaker 2: of the most loneliest feelings I ever had. I mean,
Speaker 2: they was trying to talk to me in one ear,
Speaker 2: this person's saying this, ask me. They pawing, and the
Speaker 2: girls taking ass everywhere, and I'm like, a shift happened
Speaker 2: that I no longer want to be in the space.
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's just something came over me. I
Speaker 2: felt lonely and I felt unprotected. And then I stopped
Speaker 2: going out, and then certain other things start happening, and
Speaker 2: then I started going into and then I ran into
Speaker 2: issue with the IRS. And the way I ran into
Speaker 2: the issue was it was deep. It was deep, and
Speaker 2: it was strategic from a side that placed me into
Speaker 2: the situation. And as things start layering back and I
Speaker 2: started learning more, learning more like, Okay, how I'm gonna
Speaker 2: teach my artists about the IRS? If I don't really
Speaker 2: know it, how I'm going to teach them about financing
Speaker 2: if I don't know it how much.
Speaker 1: So now God has.
Speaker 2: Taken me through all these little things, removing me from
Speaker 2: the things I once knew into unfamiliar territory. So I
Speaker 2: got very lonely. I'm talking about extremely lonely, where I
Speaker 2: felt like, God, what's going on? Why, what's what's happening?
Speaker 2: And then he realized that I was winning too. I
Speaker 2: literally went into god witness protection program and it was
Speaker 2: the most amazing thing because all these years I carried
Speaker 2: all these people and then there was nobody I sense
Speaker 2: when I say crickets. I didn't know what peace was,
Speaker 2: and I ain't even I didn't even know what it
Speaker 2: felt like. And then a shift happened and he kept
Speaker 2: talking to me. He kept talking to me, and then
Speaker 2: he showed me. He showed me everything and every person
Speaker 2: that was in my life and why they was in
Speaker 2: my life and the reason for being there. And at
Speaker 2: that moment, I said, Okay, I got this. I got this.
Speaker 2: I fell in love all over again with myself because
Speaker 2: I ain't seen that kid since he was five. I
Speaker 2: plugged into everything that I thought I could possibly plug into.
Speaker 2: So he just unplugged it off. I'm talking about unplugged everything.
Speaker 2: The cars, the houses, the women, all the clothes, like
Speaker 2: they said, all the shoes, but couldn't take a step
Speaker 2: in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Anything you could think of.
Speaker 2: I got access to and would let anybody use it.
Speaker 2: Man take the car, Hey, yeah, you can have a house,
Speaker 2: you know, beautiful thing. Even Jamie came and got the
Speaker 2: house for the whole week while he was shooting Baby
Speaker 2: Driver here, like, you take the house, you could take
Speaker 2: the house over there. I got so detached to material
Speaker 2: things because none of it made me happy. None of it.
Speaker 2: I didn't even like what was coming with it. I
Speaker 2: pull up to the stoplight, women hanging out like, oh man,
Speaker 2: they blowing. I got the top down. They loving the car,
Speaker 2: they love in the rims. I'm moving. I go pick
Speaker 2: up the raggedy pickup truck. I come back same light.
Speaker 2: Seen some girls coming that I saw when I went
Speaker 2: to park the car and came back in the regular
Speaker 2: truck to go move something. I say, bump. They sped
Speaker 2: past me. I said, this is beautiful. You start seeing things,
Speaker 2: start finding purpose. So I say to the young people,
Speaker 2: enjoy yourself. Enjoy your life, put something back, save as
Speaker 2: much as you can. We are in a recession. You
Speaker 2: don't know the law, you don't understand things and things
Speaker 2: that they put in front of you. It's not necessarily
Speaker 2: to try truth. So we got to do more of this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: gotta do more of coming together, more unifying. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying in large groups, but in small groups to
Speaker 2: be effective. And I know I just went on the
Speaker 2: whole thing, but I just want to tell you, thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you, bro. Yeah, because I was getting ready to
Speaker 2: take that somewhere and I stopped because it was it's
Speaker 2: all good. Yeah, Okay, it was about to go into somebody.
Speaker 1: No, it's all good. Well this is about you, bro. Now.
Speaker 1: Now I want to get into the mind of you musically.
Speaker 3: Musically, Yeah, so I got something we'reben play something for
Speaker 3: him man.
Speaker 1: Fin Yeah, your top five, man five, your R and
Speaker 1: B songs.
Speaker 2: We got to know before you go there, WRO on
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 1: Your body want to know. Yes, it's tak crazy. So
Speaker 1: we want to know.
Speaker 3: The top five R and B singers and R and
Speaker 3: B songs. Let's start with the singers. Who are your
Speaker 3: top five R and B singers?
Speaker 2: Okay, I would say this guy because he went R
Speaker 2: and B and turnpop. Michael Jackson, Prince, Prince, Whitney Houston. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, Prince R Kelly, Yes, And I'm gonna say
Speaker 2: this one because they like to leave him out of
Speaker 2: conversations sometimes. Teddy Riley Top five R and B singers, Well,
Speaker 2: it's not Teddy as guy, it's it was just that
Speaker 2: whole time period. Yeah, yeah, I would say that. I
Speaker 2: would say, yeah, usher.
Speaker 1: So eight, can I go back and do it?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, you got it. It's yours. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: yours absolutely, Okay, Top five R and B Songs.
Speaker 2: Here we go, Adore by Prince, Yes, Michael Jackson, out
Speaker 2: of my life, She's out of my life, baby Face
Speaker 2: one love saw it Ah, Yes, okay, okay, R Kelly
Speaker 2: when a woman's.
Speaker 3: Fed up amazing, Okay, that's that's right. Yeah, one more more,
Speaker 3: what's going on? Perfect song for the Times All timer. Okay,
Speaker 3: So that showed your top five songs.
Speaker 1: Got another segment. It's called the Voltron. Okay, where you build,
Speaker 1: which is is what you dow?
Speaker 3: You build the ultimate R and B superstar superhero. You
Speaker 3: take four elements, the voice, the stage performance, the styling
Speaker 3: and the passion.
Speaker 2: Okay, and build one artist. And build one artist that's
Speaker 2: Chris Brown. Chris Brown, Chris Brown, and Chris Brown.
Speaker 1: I take the voice and style of the choreography and
Speaker 1: change before.
Speaker 2: It's all Chris Brown.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say it, but I know, so
Speaker 1: who's going to develop this artist? Who would you choose?
Speaker 2: I would say me and a team, Okay, because I
Speaker 2: I still think, even to this day, I could still
Speaker 2: take Chris to another level that he hasn't reached yet.
Speaker 3: Huh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, all right, all right, all right,
Speaker 3: we got we got one more, we got one more.
Speaker 1: We got one more thing for you man before I
Speaker 1: let you go.
Speaker 3: Okay, A saying no nigga, saying no names, saying no names,
Speaker 3: saying no names. Who you was, what you did?
Speaker 2: Don't say?
Speaker 3: She said? Very important part of the show. Okay, Will
Speaker 3: you tell us a story funny or fucked up? Are
Speaker 3: funny and fucked up? The only rule to the game
Speaker 3: is you can't say no names.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I need one. Okay, So I give you
Speaker 2: a story about I think I might have been.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was working on an artists and at the record
Speaker 2: company has spent probably about two million dollars on the artist,
Speaker 2: and they was kind of chasing this sound, chasing this vibe,
Speaker 2: and I kept saying.
Speaker 1: Nah, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: And this artist was actually in a group, so I
Speaker 2: kept saying, man, I kept saying, like, why y'all can't
Speaker 2: get this right. She's a superstar. And I know she's
Speaker 2: you know, maybe standing next to a superstar, but she's
Speaker 2: a superstar. And then when I listened to the music,
Speaker 2: I kept saying, man, why y'all not making no real
Speaker 2: chocolate music because she's chocolate, But you can't make no
Speaker 2: chocolate music on her. You keep chasing this big thing.
Speaker 2: This big thing. Can't chase the past, got to chase
Speaker 2: the future. Gotta go. So I managed for probably about
Speaker 2: a good six I had that contract, and when I
Speaker 2: got it or whatever they signed it, I just put
Speaker 2: the contract on the desk. I never signed it. So
Speaker 2: one of the producers take an executive meeting and we
Speaker 2: walk in there and they upset because I start changing
Speaker 2: the direction of the artists. And I brought the artists
Speaker 2: to Atlanta, set them up up in one of my
Speaker 2: homes and started working and changing it. And then I
Speaker 2: take it back and the producer who who brought her in,
Speaker 2: and the executive. They upset. They're like, oh man, and
Speaker 2: they want me to play this music. So I played
Speaker 2: them a couple of songs. Can't tell you who did
Speaker 2: the songs, all right, So so I'm playing the songs
Speaker 2: and then they get upset. You know, it's the ubsess
Speaker 2: a heated argument. I'm in there arguing back and forth
Speaker 2: with this guy with the executive sitting here. We having
Speaker 2: a heated conversation. Now I know the guy and known
Speaker 2: him on his come up. Yeah right, he gets so
Speaker 2: upset with me, takes off, go back to his city
Speaker 2: and turns around, write a song. They send the song
Speaker 2: to the exact and then they send it to me.
Speaker 2: It sits on the exact desk for about a month.
Speaker 2: I got the record. When I got it, I listened,
Speaker 2: I leaked the record, put the record out, put the record.
Speaker 2: We're going record goes top five. I get a call
Speaker 2: from the attorney that I've been released. I got fired,
Speaker 2: But yeah, I got fired the record.
Speaker 1: You got fired for putting out a hit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then never got the credit for the hit.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: You know what I might need to take the simple
Speaker 2: to steal gin Man, and then I realized I couldn't even.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do anything I was. I wasn't even. I
Speaker 2: went back and I looked. I said, oh, I didn't
Speaker 2: even sign a contract whatever. I just tore it up
Speaker 2: and moved on. And the artists haven't had a hit
Speaker 2: record since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what man, Like I said, Bro, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming here.
Speaker 3: This has been a great time. I'm glad you shared
Speaker 3: your story. I'm glad you shared your knowledge. Respect, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. With with our audience, with the world.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, because they need to hear you.
Speaker 3: And like I said, once again, Bro, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you, saying I'm Jay Valentine Yah the
Speaker 3: RV Money Podcast and this is the legend himself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, mistake, there are who you a