Speaker 1: Of Course, Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: What If the Office Zu paid bill for this week's
Speaker 2: classic We're revisiting September fifth, twenty eighteens QLs with Steve Stout.
Speaker 2: Steve talks about managing NAS's career to superstardom, growing up
Speaker 2: around hip hop and Will Smith's comeback episode of one
Speaker 2: hundred with the Commissioner Enjoy.
Speaker 3: Supremo Sun Sun Subpremo, roll call SUPREMEA.
Speaker 4: Suck Suck Supremo roll call.
Speaker 3: Suprema suck Suck Subpremo roll call Suprema Suck Suck Subpremo
Speaker 3: ro quest Love.
Speaker 1: Got nineteen jobs man, Yeah, I'm on a hot streak. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if you don't work, Yeah, you can't eat.
Speaker 3: Roll call Supremo Suck Suck Supremo roll call Suprema Sucking
Speaker 3: Suprema role called.
Speaker 1: My name is Sponse Yeah, and I ain't dising you
Speaker 1: yea quest Love Supreme Yeah, with the commissioner, Sir, su
Speaker 1: I forgot I remember a roll.
Speaker 3: Called Suprema Suck Suck Supreme roll call.
Speaker 5: I'm Sugar Steve. Yeah, but there ain't no doubt. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the greatest Steve. Yeah is Arkle.
Speaker 3: Suprema something something Suprema role called Supreme Supreme roll call.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the one that only Steve Stout. Yeah, I'm here
Speaker 4: for the money advice. Yeah, I don't know what you're
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 3: Roll call Suprema Sun Sun supremea role called Suprema Suck.
Speaker 5: Suck Suprema roll call. My name is Steve, Yeah, and
Speaker 5: you know what I'm about. Yeah, they call me Stout. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you got sup Supremo roll call sup Preme. That was
Speaker 5: my Jordan's six seconds pre.
Speaker 3: Suprema Son Sun Subprema roll call Supprevo Son Sun sub
Speaker 3: Freeo roll call Sugar.
Speaker 5: Steve. Let it be known that that's how you insisted.
Speaker 5: Again you do it.
Speaker 1: You saw the ball, Timmate, It's like three seconds, like
Speaker 1: it was hanging on the rim. Yeah, there it goes. There,
Speaker 1: it goes Thompson because he's still mentioned that. By the way,
Speaker 1: Now on long story, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Quest Love Supreme only on Pandora.
Speaker 5: I'm your host Quest Love. We're here with Team Supreme.
Speaker 5: What's up? Hello? What up? What up? What up? Hello?
Speaker 4: I'm good, mister Love.
Speaker 5: How are you. I love you. I love you. See
Speaker 5: this is gonna be. We're not in a minute and
Speaker 5: we shots passive aggressive bench j stand up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But see that's why I'm glad we we we have
Speaker 1: a a man of business, someone that can play a
Speaker 1: bridge between us.
Speaker 4: Interesting, Yes, this will be.
Speaker 5: You're actually here, Steve Stout too to doctor Phield.
Speaker 1: Referre to doctor Field exactly as a therapy session, exactly,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Most of our episodes we sort of
Speaker 1: speak on the conflict that is art and commerce, and
Speaker 1: often the theme of it is it truly possible for
Speaker 1: both sides of that world to exist in art and commerce?
Speaker 1: And for most hip hop purists usually the latter is
Speaker 1: seen as a seven on commerce is actually eight letters,
Speaker 1: so an eight letter word. But I believe that our
Speaker 1: guest today can shed light for us that one can
Speaker 1: be a creative and in business without compromising either side.
Speaker 1: He has been artist manager for most of the nineties
Speaker 1: like you were four years old, Yeah, okay, so he
Speaker 1: soon rolls up in the ranks as a record executive
Speaker 1: sonian Interscope, and soon after that used his promotional talents
Speaker 1: for the boardroom by establishing the marketing firm Translation, which
Speaker 1: served as a i'll say, a crucial bridge for companies
Speaker 1: to figure out ways to hit key demographics and market
Speaker 1: other than the tried and true face of Middle America
Speaker 1: and brings some much needed color and diversity to the game.
Speaker 5: Yep, and he's not done.
Speaker 1: Hopefully, Hopefully he will establish the dawning of a new
Speaker 1: era of how music gets distributed by launching United Masters.
Speaker 1: There's so much to do. I can go off his
Speaker 1: whole resume, but that'd be twelve hours. Ldies and John,
Speaker 1: please welcome author, speaker, marketing, director of CEO Philanthropists, executive
Speaker 1: and still the commissioner Steve Stout.
Speaker 5: The question, Yeah, so thank you for having me quest.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I shouldn't know we've we've been talking about
Speaker 5: this for a while and I'm glad it worked out.
Speaker 5: I'm very honored to be a part of what you're doing.
Speaker 5: And you know this is let's let's go there, let's
Speaker 5: go ask me.
Speaker 1: I'll say the very the very first time I met
Speaker 1: Steve Stout, I was I was half asleep on a
Speaker 1: couch at the HIT factory and I think I think
Speaker 1: this was during the we were working I was working
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack to Space Jams with di'angelo. We were
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what player there's like the beginnings
Speaker 1: of player player back when it was on Space Jams,
Speaker 1: and he was in the break room and this is
Speaker 1: like right when it was written.
Speaker 5: It was like maybe a month or two old.
Speaker 1: And you know, back then when your opinionated twenty twenty
Speaker 1: year old hip hop head, you know, you're unfiltered whatever.
Speaker 5: And his first words to me, he was like, wait,
Speaker 5: you hate Little Black Girl Loss. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I was obvious, right, and he
Speaker 1: was like no, Like I had no idea who Steve
Speaker 1: was or his tiges to nods of the track masters.
Speaker 5: But it was just like that was my introduction that
Speaker 5: like i'd see, just ask you that without even having
Speaker 5: a warm up. I just want it just because yeah,
Speaker 5: like you would you would do that. That's the reason
Speaker 5: I'm just it's crazy hearing shit that I did back then.
Speaker 5: I was like twenty six. But the thing was, but
Speaker 5: what I did was I went back that night because
Speaker 5: he he.
Speaker 1: I know that he's a great busines man because his
Speaker 1: debate points were on on point and to the point
Speaker 1: where I don't know if he's stock on him syndrome
Speaker 1: me into liking it eventually, but all the points he
Speaker 1: gave then I went home that like I actually gave
Speaker 1: an hour to that song, Like, okay, what do I remember?
Speaker 5: I remember everything around that time because he was supposed
Speaker 5: to do it well. The whole thing was super sensitive
Speaker 5: making that it was written album. Essentially, you know, everyone
Speaker 5: loved Nas and obviously Illmatic is one of the greatest
Speaker 5: albums ever made. And I come in and I'm making
Speaker 5: it was written and everyone wants Nas to be the
Speaker 5: guy on Illmatic. Nobody wants him to. It just feels
Speaker 5: like nobody wants him to grow. They just wanted him
Speaker 5: stuck in that spot. They want him to be a
Speaker 5: cougie rap guy, right, And I'm sitting there going, I'm
Speaker 5: not doing that. This is guy. This guy could wrap
Speaker 5: his ass off. Good looking dude, like he can move
Speaker 5: and like the art form is growing, like why can't
Speaker 5: he be a part of it. So when I was
Speaker 5: making the album, the first person that really put me
Speaker 5: in a corner because a lot I didn't use a
Speaker 5: lot of producers that was on the first albums, right,
Speaker 5: was was Q Tip and I mean Tips my man,
Speaker 5: but like kid Tip was like hated I ruled the world,
Speaker 5: like thought it was blasphemous that I would have this
Speaker 5: man do that song. And I'm sitting there thinking, well,
Speaker 5: it's friends the beat rather than his friends. We got
Speaker 5: Lauryn Hill. It's Curtis, but we got Lauren Hill singing
Speaker 5: the hook. The fuck are you talking about? Like why
Speaker 5: are you holding him to this standard that he can't
Speaker 5: do that? And I made sure I mixed the record
Speaker 5: maybe fifteen times, man, just to make sure the drums
Speaker 5: was hitting the herd, so that nobody could say it
Speaker 5: wasn't bagging or whatever and it wasn't him. And then
Speaker 5: obviously the song work. But anytime I had met anyone,
Speaker 5: anyone that understood music and was a purist, I always
Speaker 5: wanted to have that conversation with them. And when I
Speaker 5: look at the album twenty years later, twenty five years later,
Speaker 5: whatever it is now people love that album, like people
Speaker 5: talk about that album as like people call it a classic.
Speaker 5: I don't think it was a classic at all. I
Speaker 5: think it was a great transition piece for nas where
Speaker 5: music was going, and I'm very very proud of it.
Speaker 5: So not a classic, but like I think it's I
Speaker 5: think it's.
Speaker 1: Served its purpose, and it was I don't think everything
Speaker 1: like I feel like the pressure of Bill Madic was that,
Speaker 1: like metaphorically speaking as an artist, like everything had to
Speaker 1: be a rem Brandt or a Picasso, Yeah, which I
Speaker 1: mean wasn't necessary. I don't think anything will ever reach
Speaker 1: the heights of Illmatic was a moment in a time
Speaker 1: more than anything.
Speaker 5: And that's like trying to capture lightning in a bottle.
Speaker 1: Were you with the damn? I hate starting. No, No,
Speaker 1: normally I started at the beginning, and.
Speaker 5: This is we just show, all right?
Speaker 1: So were you with him the night of the Source Awards,
Speaker 1: sitting right next to him? Okay, I need a first person.
Speaker 1: I can tell you everything about that night.
Speaker 5: Wait wait, wait, wait wait, I gotta tell you when
Speaker 5: I first heard about you before we get to that night.
Speaker 5: Now I'm almost I remember hearing about the group, and
Speaker 5: I forgot was that who was the A and R
Speaker 5: was a woman Wendy Wendy Goldstein talking about signing you guys,
Speaker 5: and it was way ahead of its time, live music
Speaker 5: and all that. But I remember Wendy Goldstein talking about
Speaker 5: the group and like it was this live band guys
Speaker 5: from Philly, And I'm like really wow that she because
Speaker 5: Faith Newman had signed NAS so there was like they
Speaker 5: were women, white women in in in the record business
Speaker 5: that was putting rappers on and putting hip hop on.
Speaker 5: So I looked at Faith and I looked at at
Speaker 5: Wendy and and actually Wendy was Wendy was cool. She
Speaker 5: had really broad taste and like, so that's when I
Speaker 5: first heard about That's when I first heard about the Roots, right,
Speaker 5: So that.
Speaker 1: Was when you guys get signed in ninety ninety three, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: ninety three. She signed us December of ninety three. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: like that year, like it was like eight labels and
Speaker 1: then on a fluke, we were supposed to sign to
Speaker 1: Mercury PolyGram with.
Speaker 5: Lisa.
Speaker 1: Lisa was all right, she was mad as shit, basically
Speaker 1: on on a lucky fluke, which prevented us from signing
Speaker 1: the contract for that particularly day, Like the contract was
Speaker 1: messed up. We you know, ripped it up. They were
Speaker 1: going to send a new contract on Monday. But in
Speaker 1: that weekend, Wendy Goldstein just swooped in and offered the
Speaker 1: world And what label was she at, uh, no, Geffen
Speaker 1: Geffin right, And at the time we were like geffin.
Speaker 1: They haven't got nobody like whatever, like we're not going
Speaker 1: to do but we did it because that whole year
Speaker 1: was about them courting us. And you know when you're
Speaker 1: like courting an artists, you take them to the best
Speaker 1: restaurants and all that stuff. Like we came from nothing
Speaker 1: like like an addicts, like an executive has orange juice
Speaker 1: in their office. That was like she has a refrigerator,
Speaker 1: don't let her have a bathroom forget.
Speaker 5: It right, Like we've never seen shit like that.
Speaker 1: So all that year we just basically said all right,
Speaker 1: well we'll do it for the steak in the and
Speaker 1: the lobster, like we're least going to get a good
Speaker 1: dinner out of this, and just messing with her. We
Speaker 1: just gave her this laundry list of ship we wanted
Speaker 1: and she called her bluff the next day and it
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I'll give it to you. And
Speaker 1: then we were like, oh man, we gotta tell Ed
Speaker 1: X time and we're not going to sign and breaking
Speaker 1: and go there. But wait, I gotta ask you something.
Speaker 1: That night the Source Awards, I'm sitting and.
Speaker 5: You must you knew Ed's father when you grew up
Speaker 5: in his music so you yeah, I know I'm gonna
Speaker 5: sign that I wanted to. Yeah, So I'm sitting four
Speaker 5: rows behind Nas. All I remember was.
Speaker 1: I remember I didn't know it was Nas because I
Speaker 1: remember he had a very specific Tommy Hill figure shirt on,
Speaker 1: and all.
Speaker 5: I knew Nas was my.
Speaker 1: Nas was my uh barometer for how that night was going,
Speaker 1: because when he first.
Speaker 5: Arrived, we were in. If you notice they had us
Speaker 5: all separate, like the underground heads were on the floor, right.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: They set it up like that Midwest cruise and they
Speaker 5: moved Southern rappers over here. The whole thing was set
Speaker 5: up like so the.
Speaker 1: New York underground rap side was our side, and you know,
Speaker 1: Wu tang, everyone's big up Nas and everything like he
Speaker 1: came in, you know, and then as each award that
Speaker 1: biggie won, I just watched NAS's body language like we'll
Speaker 1: like just just get smaller and smaller.
Speaker 5: Do you remember the crowd getting upset? Yeah, we was mad.
Speaker 5: As the crowd was upset that Nas didn't win the
Speaker 5: Lyricists of the Year or something like that. Everybody was like,
Speaker 5: what the fix is on?
Speaker 1: So I told Tuik we were looking at him the
Speaker 1: whole time, And I told Treike. I said he's never
Speaker 1: going to be the same after this night. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is but to watch and I never
Speaker 1: like read a person's body language, but he came in
Speaker 1: like like like.
Speaker 5: Came in like a king.
Speaker 1: And when I watched his body wilt as each award
Speaker 1: was was won by Biggie, I was just like, Yo, this.
Speaker 5: Something, something's about to happen to him that I want
Speaker 5: to tell you. I want you to tell me, you
Speaker 5: know what it is. Well, it was my whole thing
Speaker 5: with Nas the entire time was I'm not gonna be
Speaker 5: surprised about any of this stuff because we have to
Speaker 5: fuck these guys, fuck all these guys, like we're gonna
Speaker 5: build our own shit and not let the industry sort
Speaker 5: of dictate the rules. So going there and let and
Speaker 5: watching that happen, it was like, yeah, his body language
Speaker 5: was fucked up, but he he was in bad spirits
Speaker 5: that day because the record company like didn't they like
Speaker 5: he wanted money to go like get fresh for the thing,
Speaker 5: to get fresh for the show, and like the record
Speaker 5: company didn't want to give him any money, didn't want
Speaker 5: to give him like anything to help him. There was
Speaker 5: no like artist development thing like he's gonna go. He
Speaker 5: may win awards. He had to go on stage like
Speaker 5: there's not a stylus involved. It's not like any They
Speaker 5: didn't give a shit about the Source Awards or really
Speaker 5: about him at that time to put money behind him.
Speaker 5: Who was at the helm Jermaine. Jermaine's dad was yeah,
Speaker 5: I forget that part, so so Donne and it was
Speaker 5: Donnie and I we didn't know, but like remember that
Speaker 5: during that time it was all about like Mariah Carey,
Speaker 5: Michael Bolton and all that that stuff. Then it's saying
Speaker 5: like that's what it was about. Those things were selling
Speaker 5: a lot of records and Ill Madick hadn't gone gold
Speaker 5: at that time. It was it wasn't It wasn't a
Speaker 5: big money maker, so they weren't really about putting money
Speaker 5: into him and all that. So that was one reason
Speaker 5: that you know, he was walking in and people were
Speaker 5: dapping him up, but he wasn't feeling good because he
Speaker 5: wanted a whole nother look, being very really intricate here.
Speaker 5: And then when the whole thing happened with Big and
Speaker 5: him not winning the award, I was just charged up, like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're gonna go. We're gonna make records. Bro, We're gonna
Speaker 5: we're gonna do this thing big Like, I got it,
Speaker 5: they're doing that. What was the conversation that left the
Speaker 5: conversation when we left, Well, the conversation we left we
Speaker 5: went to the tunnel. After that, we we did someone
Speaker 5: was gonna die. I mean we we You gotta remember
Speaker 5: when Sugar went up on stage, right, Yeah, the only
Speaker 5: thing that mattered at that point was not awards anymore.
Speaker 5: So let's let's say our first thing was then you
Speaker 5: can't you believe Biggie One. I think carris One got
Speaker 5: jerked that night too. Yeah, best Live Yeah, best Live
Speaker 5: performance one that Biggie One that like, yeah, well we
Speaker 5: were there too, because that was our nomination. But I
Speaker 5: was like even I was like, oh karros One got
Speaker 5: that one. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: But Biggie actually said, yo, man, like he big up
Speaker 1: everyone else. He's like, I don't even deserve this, Like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so carros One, that's a good recall. So carros
Speaker 5: One got jerked. So it was the whole thing. Once
Speaker 5: that happened, everybody was like, oh, the this is not
Speaker 5: a real thing. It's like with the how you when
Speaker 5: you look at the Grammys and you're like, this ain't
Speaker 5: the real thing. That's how we felt about the Source
Speaker 5: Awards when they gave lycists to the Year whatever, like
Speaker 5: live performance. I mean, Kris One has been ripping down
Speaker 5: every stage, so anyhow, but by the time she got
Speaker 5: on stage, it didn't matter anymore because it was the conversation.
Speaker 5: What we were holding on to was now, like, yo,
Speaker 5: somebody's gonna get shot, somebody's gonna die, and Na's had
Speaker 5: you know, Queensbridge was out, was ready, and you know,
Speaker 5: Wu Tang was ready, and like the whole thing was.
Speaker 5: Of course Dre and those guys obviously they didn't come
Speaker 5: out to New York unprepared, and it was remember that
Speaker 5: night the production like they had better production at the
Speaker 5: like Biggie and like uh Puffy performed and it was
Speaker 5: like cool. But when they came out, I think they
Speaker 5: had like it opened up and they had jail they
Speaker 5: came it was like, man, these guys got money and
Speaker 5: production and this is fantastic. And then after that they
Speaker 5: talking ship. Yeah, but the truth of the matter that nobody.
Speaker 1: Would I ran out after Dre when Snoop did that
Speaker 1: whole diatribe a belt.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but Snoop I ran out the door. I tell
Speaker 5: you one thing, Snoop actually saved that night from going
Speaker 5: crazy because he pushed it, but he didn't go so far.
Speaker 5: Like New York ain't got loved for Snoop Dogg and
Speaker 5: Doctor Dre and like everybody was kind of giving it up,
Speaker 5: but like it was dominated with the industry people, so
Speaker 5: they weren't going to give it up. But some of
Speaker 5: the fans started to give it up a bit, and
Speaker 5: like he could have said when fuck y'all, that's what
Speaker 5: it felt like he was gonna do. We know, Yeah,
Speaker 5: So it was so when he didn't do that, he
Speaker 5: kind of calmed it back down, which was which is
Speaker 5: the only reason why it wasn't like people got trampled
Speaker 5: and shots went off and all that. It could have
Speaker 5: been that it was by the way, it was the
Speaker 5: most dangerous thing room I've been in. I consider that
Speaker 5: hip hop's funeral. No, no, no, room. No, you don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't understand how I felt. I've said, that's hip
Speaker 5: hop's funeral, Like, no, no, you don't understand what that
Speaker 5: from a dangerous ding, Like you're sitting in the room
Speaker 5: and all you know, there's guns and there's bad intentions
Speaker 5: and and everything looks like it's about to happen. And
Speaker 5: when he went up on stage once he shit it
Speaker 5: on Puff and then Snoop started talking like that it
Speaker 5: was it was about to happen, like it was, and
Speaker 5: it felt like in fact, the fact that it didn't
Speaker 5: happen is amazing cool.
Speaker 1: Iran metd' angelo at that got the Brown Sugar cassette
Speaker 1: and that was it. Iran like, as soon as that
Speaker 1: should happened, right.
Speaker 4: The cruise don't go through metal detectives.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I ran so Steve, I want to know where
Speaker 5: were you born? I was born in New York, in
Speaker 5: New York, New York, what part.
Speaker 6: No no no?
Speaker 5: I was born in Manhattan, but my whole life and
Speaker 5: I was born in Manhattan, but I spent my my
Speaker 5: life in Queens, in Queens Village right off of Jamaica
Speaker 5: and Jamaica Queens. And my parents are from Trinidad. Oh okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5: So your early your earliest hip hop experience, Oh it
Speaker 5: was great. My my I had. I have an older brother.
Speaker 5: He passed away, but he got hit by a car
Speaker 5: going to the there's so much about this story. So
Speaker 5: my brother got hit by a car and he was
Speaker 5: going to a show, the Superfest at It was at
Speaker 5: Belmont Race Track, which we could walk to from our house.
Speaker 5: So he's on his way there and like the Pointer
Speaker 5: Sisters and Luther Vandros. It was that, you know, that
Speaker 5: kind of kind of early eighties, early eighties show, and
Speaker 5: he's on his way there, he gets hit by a
Speaker 5: car to hit and run. A year later, he just
Speaker 5: gets of age and he gets the check, the insurance check,
Speaker 5: like thirty grand or something like that. It felt like
Speaker 5: thirty it felt like that. And he takes the money
Speaker 5: and he buys all of this equipment and this is
Speaker 5: eighty two coughing techniques, all kind of reverbs, everything, like
Speaker 5: a DJ set, right, so he could roll up, do
Speaker 5: block parties, whatever. And it was that. It was when
Speaker 5: he did that is when I first got into really
Speaker 5: into the music, because guys would come over in DJ.
Speaker 5: He was alright, but his friends would come over in DJ,
Speaker 5: but it was like, oh, Mickey, you're so fine, You're
Speaker 5: so fine. You it was like that. It was don't
Speaker 5: stop the music. It was like every breakbeat, it was
Speaker 5: all of that kind of stuff. And that's when I
Speaker 5: first got interested in the art form, and I started
Speaker 5: to love it. So I grew up from from twelve
Speaker 5: years old, from nineteen eighty two, I've been in hip
Speaker 5: hop music. Did you ever have rap aspirations of? Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: I thought I was a rapper. I thought I was
Speaker 5: Steve Ski. I had Steve Ski I was. I was
Speaker 5: doing the whole thing. Yeah, out of course, what else
Speaker 5: name was there? Rock? Yeah? With Steve Ski, I already
Speaker 5: had where I was going to tag. I used to
Speaker 5: write my little graffiti, write my name, practice how I
Speaker 5: was going to do it. I was spitting rhymes everything.
Speaker 1: So was management your first foray into the business or like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, my first roady?
Speaker 5: First? Were you carrying records? Were you yeah? I was
Speaker 5: a ROADI I was a roadie, then a road manager,
Speaker 5: and then a manager. Who were your first clients? My
Speaker 5: first class was kid and play? Oh okay, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: we kidd and play early on. But I had the
Speaker 5: truth of the matter is I was selling real estate,
Speaker 5: so I had money, Like I already had money, like
Speaker 5: more money than than than than I needed. So by
Speaker 5: the time I was a roadie, it was really me
Speaker 5: learning the business. I wasn't doing it for money, but
Speaker 5: the first thing I did I during that process, I
Speaker 5: found this guy. His name is Steve Kitt, and he's
Speaker 5: a Jehovah's witness and he was producing for Herbie. Herbie
Speaker 5: azof Herbie loved her yeah right, And Herbie was doing
Speaker 5: the typical thing like taking credit for everything, buying guys out.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, please don't tell me that. Yeah, Herbie wasn't
Speaker 1: doing He was sort of the figurehead for he may.
Speaker 5: Have produced some records. He was a conceptual guy, right, Like,
Speaker 5: he definitely was a concept guy. He was the puff
Speaker 5: like so he was man no, no, no, no. He
Speaker 5: knew like what salt and pepper should look like, and
Speaker 5: he knew like what kidden play should be like. He
Speaker 5: had that kind of But it was a bunch of
Speaker 5: guys making the records. I think they had a name.
Speaker 5: It was like the Hitman type of dudes that they
Speaker 5: had a name. Oh Herbie, Yeah, you're right, the right man, right,
Speaker 5: we're good. Right, So he had the dudes. So guys
Speaker 5: wanted to be down with the Invincibles and a lot,
Speaker 5: but they wasn't, you know, they weren't getting their credit
Speaker 5: and all that other kind of stuff for getting jerked
Speaker 5: up and there was a guy named Steve kitt. He
Speaker 5: was a Jehovah witnesses. As I said, so he didn't
Speaker 5: mind not getting the credit because he didn't even want
Speaker 5: to like his name out there, and they associated with
Speaker 5: curse words and all that. But the first thing I
Speaker 5: did was I got him and we were on. I
Speaker 5: was doing roady work. Martin Lawrence used to open up
Speaker 5: the kid and play and when so I got to
Speaker 5: know Martin, and then then Martin got his TV show.
Speaker 5: Martin gave me the opportunity to make the theme song.
Speaker 5: So the first work I've ever published or been a
Speaker 5: part of doing, was the theme song to the Martin
Speaker 5: Lawrence Show. Yeah, we took that from Caprie. No, that's
Speaker 5: the second one. Yeah, they changed it up on us,
Speaker 5: Like I don't do the second one. The first one
Speaker 5: was way better. Martin took the second one because somebody
Speaker 5: in this camp must have said, you know, you can
Speaker 5: make money off of this, So all of a sudden
Speaker 5: we probably had a four or five year run. That's
Speaker 5: the one. The other one was stupid.
Speaker 4: Wait, so you said, and you always credit Whiz with
Speaker 4: a lot of like your beginnings, your trajectory, MBM.
Speaker 5: Where's is the one who DJ. Where's Mark Eastman was
Speaker 5: the one who put me on?
Speaker 4: He seemed a little a little for anyway, because I remember,
Speaker 4: like I feel like it was a decade ago. He
Speaker 4: was the first one that started doing the video DJ
Speaker 4: and and whatnot. Was he always that dude?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I were so you you helped helm him
Speaker 1: to Yeah we signed a kid, by the way, we did.
Speaker 5: I got the kid, But the first dude I got
Speaker 5: a record deal for was the kid from Philly, Shadacious.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna put my wait time out, Yeah, time out.
Speaker 5: That's right, it's Whi's artist.
Speaker 1: All right, here's the how is that r c A
Speaker 1: so in ninety two, ninety three, it's such a Philly title.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna put my thing down like it was. It
Speaker 5: was making a lot of little record he was making noise. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I remember, all right.
Speaker 1: See here's the funny ship, which leads back to the
Speaker 1: Wendy Goldstein situation, which is.
Speaker 5: Me not knowing the business. Like when word got.
Speaker 1: Out yo shat Dasius signed RCA Records Peeping for a
Speaker 1: fourteen album deal. Me thinking like yo, he's gonna make
Speaker 1: records until two thousand and seven, Like this Is back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, I didn't know about the whole
Speaker 1: option deal with they can drop you, but you can't leave,
Speaker 1: like that sort of thing. So in my mind there
Speaker 1: were two artists that were always referenced to and Roots
Speaker 1: Camp until my manager and lawyer were like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not the right president to set. It was Shat Dasious,
Speaker 1: and then it was Helmet, the Seattle grunge band, because
Speaker 1: they got signed for.
Speaker 5: A million dollars, so we're like, yo, helmet.
Speaker 1: We pulled a helmet on Wendy Goldstein by saying we
Speaker 1: want two land cruises, an apartment, a studio, da da
Speaker 1: da da, and and she was like okay. But back
Speaker 1: then it was just like yo, man, I just want
Speaker 1: a shot Dacius, I want a fourteen fourteen.
Speaker 5: I don't know about it. I don't know where you
Speaker 5: guys get the fourteen album from.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, people always fabricating this story because they
Speaker 1: make it sound He probably was putting it out there
Speaker 1: to make it seem like he was getting more money.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, and because money yeah, but it wasn't Yeah,
Speaker 5: it wasn't that. And then like I'm not saying it
Speaker 5: was a great deal, we signed the r c A,
Speaker 5: the Standard probably seven.
Speaker 1: That was a big deal for Philadelphia. Oh yeah, where
Speaker 1: is shot if you happen to know, I don't know, but.
Speaker 5: I have no idea. But the video Boyce to Man
Speaker 5: was in the video. Yeah, I think Randall Cunningham may
Speaker 5: have been in the video.
Speaker 1: He was Philly's hope is gonna put Philly on the map?
Speaker 1: Boy damn shot Dacious.
Speaker 4: Record high School.
Speaker 5: So this is like, this is neck and neck with
Speaker 5: the organics. Okay, Like he was like the street. The
Speaker 5: thing was like he would go on we do these
Speaker 5: shows with Shad Dash's and he had a creel dudes
Speaker 5: around him that was rapping. Yes, they were like the
Speaker 5: street Wu Tang element.
Speaker 1: They were on that ship and then he coming with
Speaker 1: our birken Stocks and the Oscars were arrested development. But
Speaker 1: the thing on was is like we they underestimated us
Speaker 1: so much that then, like when you underestimate somebody and
Speaker 1: then may rise to the casion, it's like.
Speaker 5: Oh shit, they dope.
Speaker 1: So it kind of helped open for sadasis anyway. All right,
Speaker 1: So back to Where's Entertainment?
Speaker 5: So that's how and you were managing him at the time,
Speaker 5: managing that's how you got him. No no, no, no,
Speaker 5: no no no, I was well he managed didn't playing
Speaker 5: with I. No, no. In fact, Wiz had his thing, Wizentertainment,
Speaker 5: and I did. Me and Kid had a thing called
Speaker 5: Kid Entertainment. Actually okay, yeah, so you had different entities. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we like and it was me and Kid partner. And
Speaker 5: then I had gotten a a production deal with our CA. Okay,
Speaker 5: so Whiz had the guy already signed Chadasius and the
Speaker 5: record was bubbling, so we signed the record. We signed
Speaker 5: him to our deal that we had at r C A,
Speaker 5: and I became an an r guy at r C
Speaker 5: A shortly after that. Wow. Okay. So this is also
Speaker 5: during the time when the other Steve Yes with Loud.
Speaker 1: So Riff was I was what was the difference between
Speaker 1: like r C A proper like I know, s w
Speaker 1: V and all they didn't have They didn't have no
Speaker 1: rappers on this show.
Speaker 5: You could talk about all of this type of stuff
Speaker 5: and like you don't care, like it don't have to
Speaker 5: be like the audience is into all of us. We
Speaker 5: we are the the the black NPR n PR, We're
Speaker 5: the Black n BR. Yes we have.
Speaker 4: Could we got some ships some bucks, and you know,
Speaker 4: I wasn't even.
Speaker 5: It wasn't even the courage, just like the subject. That's
Speaker 5: that's what the audience gets off on the nerves. So yeah,
Speaker 5: I was at R C A the time and the
Speaker 5: kid after we put the Shatass record out, it didn't
Speaker 5: work like we thought it was gonna work, and we
Speaker 5: picked up the record. He was about to go and
Speaker 5: then for some strange reason it converted and I became
Speaker 5: an A and R guy, And as an A and
Speaker 5: R guy, I was there and Clue was my assistant,
Speaker 5: and I knew him because I grew up in Queen's
Speaker 5: where I grew up at the area. Now they went
Speaker 5: from like two Shadyville's they call the area okay, And like,
Speaker 5: Clue's out there making those mixtapes. His shit was going.
Speaker 5: And then I broke Clue, and I'm like, if he's
Speaker 5: making mixtapes, he's probably a good A and R guy.
Speaker 5: So I made him my assistant whatever. So we started whatever,
Speaker 5: we started, you know, finding music, and my younger brother
Speaker 5: was his manager, was clues manager. So I signed Clue,
Speaker 5: I mean, he was my assistant and a guy named
Speaker 5: the Big Dude. At the time, it was this Guy Nam,
Speaker 5: Kenny Art Kenny signed s w V and like all
Speaker 5: Star used to come around, and that's when I first
Speaker 5: met Farrell. Uh, Farrell came around. Farrell did work on
Speaker 5: s w V, has been around. Yeah, so Farrell came around.
Speaker 5: I met him, and I also met Dave Matthews. They
Speaker 5: were He was super cool, like very very very cool,
Speaker 5: but like I knew that back then as an A
Speaker 5: and R guy, and then I was got. I got.
Speaker 5: I was really close with all the dudes from Wu
Speaker 5: Tang because they got signed and I was there in
Speaker 5: the office, and they would come around and walk around
Speaker 5: the building. In fact, they shot cream in the r
Speaker 5: C A building they seen when they were at a
Speaker 5: compensation the conference. And I was cool with Power Ray
Speaker 5: ghost Rizza, like you know, and I had known, I
Speaker 5: didn't know. I knew that he was on Tommy Boy
Speaker 5: when he had the others when he put out the
Speaker 5: solo joint and then like so i'd like I knew
Speaker 5: those guys.
Speaker 1: As an an R and most of an rs that
Speaker 1: we get on the show, they give us their three
Speaker 1: like ones that almost got away, who were your three?
Speaker 1: Could have had him, could have signed, could have had
Speaker 1: him and missed, oh easy.
Speaker 5: Alicia Keys for sure, and I always have the caveat
Speaker 5: because she didn't play the piano. And then when she
Speaker 5: did get signed, when they signed it to Sony, and
Speaker 5: then they obviously they dropped her at Sony. But when
Speaker 5: they signed her, they didn't drop Hurts on it. They
Speaker 5: didn't want to deal with her manager, and they just
Speaker 5: discarded the situation. Nobody questioned her unbelievable talent. But when
Speaker 5: they signed her, initially she had played the piano. When
Speaker 5: I had gotten to see her, we had just started.
Speaker 5: It was ninety six ninety seven, had an office of
Speaker 5: four people, and that same manager brought it in and
Speaker 5: she sang and she could sing. But like, I didn't
Speaker 5: see the piano thing, and the truth of the matter,
Speaker 5: I didn't see I didn't see the potential. And the
Speaker 5: truth of the matter is I wasn't the hip hop
Speaker 5: shit at the time. I probably was too short sighted.
Speaker 5: I definitely was too short sighted to even think like,
Speaker 5: maybe they could be a piano involved and what that
Speaker 5: would what that would be? So I would say that
Speaker 5: who got away? I signed fifty cent? Originally I signed
Speaker 5: fifty cent. Yeah, that I did all that, But I
Speaker 5: could have re signed him again at in a scope,
Speaker 5: and in fact I should have resigned him again in
Speaker 5: the scope. And a lot of the reasons why like
Speaker 5: him and I have had this not good relationship is
Speaker 5: because I told him I would sign him at in
Speaker 5: a scope and I thought I could get him signed.
Speaker 5: Even to this day. Oh yes, I've known the guy
Speaker 5: I bought him. He wasn't a deal with jam Master J.
Speaker 5: I bought him at the deal with jams GM to
Speaker 5: sign him. He was with the Onyx and all that
Speaker 5: I signed him Boom, he was with current NAS. We
Speaker 5: went up to Bearsville, up to Woodstock and did all
Speaker 5: those joints made power to Dollar. I put him with
Speaker 5: Shy Money. Shaw Money was another kid in my neighborhood,
Speaker 5: so it was clue shaw Money. I started putting these
Speaker 5: guys on. They grew up in my neighborhood, my younger
Speaker 5: they were friends with my younger brother. They were talented, obviously,
Speaker 5: and I should have resigned him. And and I'm like, okay.
Speaker 5: I went to Timberland, I went to the Rough Riders.
Speaker 5: I went to everybody like okay, this guy sign them.
Speaker 5: But at Inner School we were signing everybody under labels.
Speaker 5: We were basically giving producers had labels and everybody would
Speaker 5: sign it to that. So I asked everyone would they
Speaker 5: did they want them? And when they didn't want them,
Speaker 5: for whatever the reasons were, I couldn't deliver on my work.
Speaker 5: I said I was gonna sign them. And even with
Speaker 5: the heat, with all the mixtapes that he was wings
Speaker 5: that had just started bubbling, Nah, they didn't you know
Speaker 5: what it was. It was like it was obviously got
Speaker 5: shot at. So there was problems, right, So it was
Speaker 5: a bit. It was a bit of do we want
Speaker 5: to deal with these problems? Do we want to get
Speaker 5: in the middle of all this shit? But the only
Speaker 5: person obviously that wasn't aware and didn't give a fuck
Speaker 5: was Drey.
Speaker 4: I was about to ask you Eminem and ed different.
Speaker 5: They didn't. They didn't get I mean, you're talking about
Speaker 5: everybody else. Yeah, that's they were dealing with the music.
Speaker 5: Everybody else was dealing with the super knife and for
Speaker 5: that he's you know, I didn't do so that got away.
Speaker 5: But I tell you, probably those two things. There's some
Speaker 5: songs that got away, some songs I wanted, Butterfly. I
Speaker 5: went for a group of that song Butterfly before they
Speaker 5: gave it to Michael Jackson. I had the song seven
Speaker 5: or two where my girls had I had that for
Speaker 5: a group and then ship uh from Missy and Mona
Speaker 5: gave it to somebody else. But like the thing that
Speaker 5: got away from me that I signed and the guys
Speaker 5: around them sucked it up badly. It was blah yo.
Speaker 5: For half a second, I was like, wait, I know
Speaker 5: that name, break that down.
Speaker 4: They signed him bad awful singles except for maybe.
Speaker 5: Fast fast Lane was not the no no awful singles.
Speaker 4: Well, I say fast Lane, which is not the single.
Speaker 4: As a radio person at the time, on the radio, it.
Speaker 5: Was okay, it was the first song was the video
Speaker 5: was dope like it was. That was crazy. And remember
Speaker 5: he had these guys around them. I can't remember it
Speaker 5: was yeah, and they was so not wanting to hear
Speaker 5: anything that I would say you want alone. They would
Speaker 5: not even listen at all. And then they and then
Speaker 5: they did the dumb ship, which is go around me,
Speaker 5: thinking they were gonna go to Jimmy and like they
Speaker 5: were gonna get a different outcome, and no, that didn't
Speaker 5: work and it was fucked up because that guy. I mean,
Speaker 5: it was so crazy, Like I had signed him, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, man, hmm, this guy is gonna go. Prince
Speaker 5: came to his show to see him because they were like,
Speaker 5: this is the next guy, the next prodigy of music
Speaker 5: and I and I was ready for that moment for him.
Speaker 5: And then like after all this shit ended, I remember
Speaker 5: like I gave Maxwell fortunate, I got the r Kelly song,
Speaker 5: and then like what the the m two ma guy
Speaker 5: what's his name? Was like, why didn't you give Bellalassan?
Speaker 5: I'm like, y'all don't even listen, You'll have records.
Speaker 4: It's funny because at the time I was on Radio BLACKBNW.
Speaker 4: I said, call a mirror all the time and be like,
Speaker 4: but sometimes it's just so sometimes I don't understand.
Speaker 5: It's easy nine minutes song.
Speaker 4: It was, but it was it was a way to
Speaker 4: edit and it was a way to make it.
Speaker 5: You can. Time is great right now? What fast Lane
Speaker 5: was dre and Jada.
Speaker 4: Kiss Ontrength alone. It wasn't we're.
Speaker 5: Trying to do something, but look, it was one of
Speaker 5: those things that I That's why I said almost because
Speaker 5: that guy should have been a contender, way more than
Speaker 5: a contender.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wouldn't been curious to hear how you would
Speaker 7: have it was written Bloald, like, what would have it
Speaker 7: was written?
Speaker 5: I wanted to do that? Yeah, I would have. I
Speaker 5: would have Like you knew what di'angelo was doing, so
Speaker 5: that was super clear, and he like he definitely wanted
Speaker 5: to do like jazz. He wanted to feel jazz around it.
Speaker 5: But I think that there was a way that you
Speaker 5: could have found the guy, the other kid that came
Speaker 5: out of Philly music music like there was a way
Speaker 5: to split the gap where he could have ran and
Speaker 5: that was the available and I mean Ericabad when she
Speaker 5: first came out, like that was there and he was
Speaker 5: the better singer out of everybody by far, performer, good
Speaker 5: looking kid like it was that was the thing. But
Speaker 5: we couldn't even experiment with all that because they already
Speaker 5: had some producers in their back pocket. They just wanted
Speaker 5: the money to take the money. Let them come back
Speaker 5: and say is this it now? But why don't we
Speaker 5: try this? Nope? Aren't you shut the fuck up? And
Speaker 5: then let us go back to the lord ship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In an atmosphere like Interscope, which had easily fifteen to
Speaker 1: sixteen multi platinum, arn't is like, how are you able
Speaker 1: to get a seat at the table to get Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially with everyone else that's yeah fighting for it, Like,
Speaker 1: how are you able to unless it's a clear cut winner,
Speaker 1: Like how are you able to develop something from like
Speaker 1: you did?
Speaker 5: You were part of the City High helming correct. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 5: I didn't sign City I made the record that I
Speaker 5: think we made. Oh oh the remix remix put on.
Speaker 1: Record that went crazy. That was my second goal record.
Speaker 1: You record they sampled. It was based on a root song.
Speaker 1: The original Caramel was based on our song Silent Treatment.
Speaker 1: So I have a history of collecting golden platinum records
Speaker 1: that weren't mine.
Speaker 5: Youn't until five years into my career. So they're like
Speaker 5: hear me. I was like, oh it's that Oh great? Yeah,
Speaker 5: so still hanging up there. Yeah. So I A and
Speaker 5: R the the the City High. I was the president.
Speaker 5: I was running all the black music in the scope.
Speaker 5: And then I I was Jimmy's right hand So all
Speaker 5: the music that I was dealing with had a had
Speaker 5: a seat at the table. To be honest with you,
Speaker 5: And as it relates to Belal, Jimmy looked at Belaal
Speaker 5: like a rock star. Jimmy thought that Belaw was gonna
Speaker 5: go like like all the way like he Jimmy didn't
Speaker 5: like that type of music, but he thought that kid
Speaker 5: had something to be. Like I don't want to say
Speaker 5: anybody's name because if I say, like if you if
Speaker 5: you connect them to anybody who's great and people don't
Speaker 5: even know who Blal is or may not know, it
Speaker 5: just sounds crazy. But Jimmy thought that Blal could have
Speaker 5: been one of the great artists of the time. Forget
Speaker 5: hip hop, R and B whatever, That kid could be anything.
Speaker 5: He's special and that obviously didn't happen as a recording
Speaker 5: artist on Interscope, But so it was easy to get
Speaker 5: a seat at the table for him with like Maya
Speaker 5: and City High and all the other things. I think
Speaker 5: Jimmy was like, Steve, go do your thing, you know,
Speaker 5: And so I was over there doing my thing. But
Speaker 5: is there really a black music department an Interscope, because
Speaker 5: to me, Interscope is like a label. Was like you're
Speaker 5: either winning or you didn't get there. Yeah, it wasn't.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a black department. The first member early they
Speaker 5: signed Akinelly. That was the guy who got the big deal.
Speaker 5: Akinella got four hundred thousand dollars in like Ninember one night.
Speaker 5: It was like fucking huge. Wow. Acanelli's first album was
Speaker 5: signed to Coming Off Alive at the Barbecue. He got
Speaker 5: paid and went to Interscope. They signed him, They signed
Speaker 5: Marky Mark and the Funky Butt You had good Vibrations.
Speaker 5: They signed Gerrado, so they were they were signing. It
Speaker 5: didn't make a different, Like there was no black music department.
Speaker 5: You're right at Innoscope. Jimmy was just trying to really
Speaker 5: what did he felt madd at culturally and like we
Speaker 5: should be in business with those people. Wow, were you okay?
Speaker 5: Were you there for the hot Crawl period? It was
Speaker 5: hot call? Okay? Maybe not? What's damn okay? So damn?
Speaker 5: And I gotta look up his name. I can't remember
Speaker 5: his real name, Dolan. Don't give me lying. He was
Speaker 5: basically he was a white rapper. He signed the Terscope
Speaker 5: around oh oh one something like that. No, I wasn't involved.
Speaker 5: I didn't, I don't. I don't know about that two.
Speaker 1: Thousand and one. Uh yeah, I mean he was like
Speaker 1: could have been a contender. And he has a book
Speaker 1: out now called.
Speaker 5: Inger carp what's his name Carp. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Gener Carp is now the showrunner of Dropped the Mic,
Speaker 1: and he occasionally writes for My wife showtime. Who's America, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he writes for Who's America as well. But he
Speaker 1: was a battle rapper that was on the Baker Boys
Speaker 1: show that he had like a two year streak and
Speaker 1: Jimmy signed him for a million.
Speaker 5: And in his book.
Speaker 1: His book is entitled Kanye West Owes Me three hundred Dollars,
Speaker 1: and it's a memoir of his life between ninety five
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, like this senior period. But
Speaker 1: it's he awesome to write that book. No, it's it's
Speaker 1: one of the most I couldn't put it down. I
Speaker 1: finished it in like two days. But he insinuated without
Speaker 1: being specific. My guess is that, uh, Paul Rosenberg really
Speaker 1: wasn't keen on Jimmy, you know, promoting both.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well the truth of him, I was gonna say,
Speaker 5: knowing Jimmy, like it sounds like eminem but just like
Speaker 5: an like Battle Wrapper Baker Boys, That's exactly how Jimmy
Speaker 5: found it wasn't Baker Boys.
Speaker 1: It was the same but the same same structure. Well,
Speaker 1: initially in the book he was saying that. You know,
Speaker 1: Jimmy was like, look, I have different rock acts, Like
Speaker 1: why can't I have the same you know, hip hop X.
Speaker 1: But then something happened and then like so I was
Speaker 1: there at that time, but it it went away so fast. Wow,
Speaker 1: because I didn't even I didn't recalls the flip.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Everything at Interscope was such a highlight that how does
Speaker 1: one even navigate?
Speaker 5: Usually a label is lucky enough to have like two.
Speaker 4: Or three lulls and a lull at all.
Speaker 5: He's saying, it is a minute, not for a minute.
Speaker 5: There were lows and not long lulls. I mean, because
Speaker 5: you had an M and M album that you could
Speaker 5: put out and it was just clean everything up, and
Speaker 5: it was always a moment and then like Drake came
Speaker 5: and then like there was a moment and then so
Speaker 5: there was always moments, but like there was a moment between.
Speaker 5: This is how I came over there when Death Row
Speaker 5: was essentially leaving and Aftermath Records started. That's the reason
Speaker 5: why the firm was on Aftermath. That was the that
Speaker 5: was Dre's first thing he did when he when he left.
Speaker 5: Understand I'm saying, so that was a law because because
Speaker 5: Teddy Riley. Basically they had Teddy staying and he had
Speaker 5: Queen Pin and but and then I kind of thing
Speaker 5: stopped and then it was like it was that and
Speaker 5: then death Row and and those are the production deals
Speaker 5: he had. So then we when I came, it was
Speaker 5: always like finding new things. I was finding new things
Speaker 5: or getting new uh new opportunities for us, And it
Speaker 5: was like, okay, so I signed, I signed, Yeah, well,
Speaker 5: I signed the rough Riders, and then we did r
Speaker 5: Kelly's deal, uh, Rockland Sparkle right. Then we had Robin Thick,
Speaker 5: We did Pharrell's deal, and we did Timberland's beat Club,
Speaker 5: Beat Club. We had Bubba spoks Man. That was great.
Speaker 5: That was Deliverate album. Let me tell you something. You
Speaker 5: got to read a book because says a book too well. Basically,
Speaker 5: I can't stop calling him hot Jensen's.
Speaker 1: Jensen basically states like him and Bubba's book at a
Speaker 1: lot about the situation.
Speaker 4: I'm like, wait a minute, each other's shoulder.
Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much like they cried on each other. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, Paul Waller, I don't know what y'all talking about.
Speaker 5: He was on Asylum to Go. I want to go
Speaker 5: to something there, Bubba's Sparks, because we're gonna skip over
Speaker 5: this because I learned something and it helped me write
Speaker 5: The Tank of America. So I go down to Atlanta
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna go meet Timbland wants to sign this
Speaker 5: artist Bubba's box, and I want to go meet him.
Speaker 5: Like what is Timbland signing? So I go on there
Speaker 5: and usually go to Atlanta. Used to you know, I
Speaker 5: went to Atlanta. I'd stay in Atlanta. I had to
Speaker 5: drive fifteen minutes out from Atlanta. Fifteen minutes out from Atlanta.
Speaker 5: Bro Yes, you are in fucking trailer parking Beverly Hills.
Speaker 5: Billy Dukeson has it.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 5: I just realized the other day that Dukeson has it
Speaker 5: on the side of that car. I just realized this
Speaker 5: is crazy. Didn't even know what was going on. So anyhow,
Speaker 5: go out there and they're obviously poor, and uh, it's poor.
Speaker 5: And this guy tells me it's like, who's your favorite artist? Man?
Speaker 5: I love Andre three thousand and I love Golf Brooks. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 8: I was like, oh, ship, this is a real, real thing.
Speaker 8: The time it was a real thing, and and then.
Speaker 5: There was a then there was a Fader cover or
Speaker 5: whatever magazine was not Complex. I forget what it was. No,
Speaker 5: it wasn't beccon, No, it was ludicrous and Dale Earnhardt
Speaker 5: on a cover and I remember thinking, I know what
Speaker 5: this is, but nobody would believe me.
Speaker 4: So I'd go speak to Complex. You found it, y,
Speaker 4: it's a Complex cover.
Speaker 5: Wow? Oh yeah, oh yeah. And I remember telling everybody
Speaker 5: that's where the world is going, and nobody I wanted to.
Speaker 5: I was telling it to advertising companies, anybody that can
Speaker 5: find like this is crazy. And this guy just told
Speaker 5: me like Dale Earnhardt Jr. And fucking go, I mean
Speaker 5: goth books in one hundred three thousand. Then when we
Speaker 5: shoot the video, if you remember the video, Timberland and
Speaker 5: Missy are racing and tracking trailers and there and they
Speaker 5: do a fight, a mud fight in a But this
Speaker 5: is not even them making this up. This is like
Speaker 5: if like we get money, and like black guys will
Speaker 5: getting money at the time, it's like, by the car,
Speaker 5: you want to shoot the video, make it look like
Speaker 5: more of what you already are, more of what they
Speaker 5: were of. What he already was was fucking mud wrestling fun.
Speaker 5: The guy who he fought in It was like starting
Speaker 5: offensive lineman for the Denver Broncos he was into it. Wow.
Speaker 4: But that's why we with Bubba Sparks because he seemed
Speaker 4: like he was.
Speaker 5: Being he was being his authentic self and that was
Speaker 5: some new ship.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 5: Like when I seen that, Bubba Sparks taught me so
Speaker 5: much about where the world was.
Speaker 7: Going time I listened to him, that that record to him,
Speaker 7: that regulars he was way ahead of his time.
Speaker 4: Where is what Didjensen say? Where do you say?
Speaker 5: Where he is?
Speaker 1: I don't know where Bubba is right now, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he definitely had he fell to depression.
Speaker 7: Like when the second album was and that was the
Speaker 7: one that was the third album, It's called the Charm.
Speaker 7: That was the miss New Booty record. Deliverance was the
Speaker 7: second one where.
Speaker 4: Like which to me, which is funny because most was
Speaker 4: also on Interscope, Like it was a period were right,
Speaker 4: it was.
Speaker 5: Signed. It was funny for all mc A. Raucus was
Speaker 5: on us. They were signing Raucous. It's funny Raucous. The
Speaker 5: lead investor in Raucus it was James Murdoch. Yeah, son, yeah, yikes,
Speaker 5: Yeah you know that? How I forgot that? Yeah? Maybe
Speaker 5: you wanted to forget that right.
Speaker 1: Story, but you know what, wait before because you mentioned
Speaker 1: something critical, Uh, the the Firm album, yeah, which should
Speaker 1: have on paper, on paper it was, but it should
Speaker 1: have been easy as a field goal kicked on the
Speaker 1: twenty yard line.
Speaker 5: Why why didn't it work? Why was the ball dropped
Speaker 5: on that? Or was the ball dropped on Yeah it
Speaker 5: will Yeah, I'm here. So what happened was you just
Speaker 5: said it earlier, like when you when people when they expectations,
Speaker 5: they don't expect much from you, and then you when
Speaker 5: you're underestimate something. And what we were trying to do
Speaker 5: it was doctor dre producing half track masters doing half.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 5: Who was in the firm? Was it Cormega or Nature
Speaker 5: and this and that and egos egos with the artists
Speaker 5: M and just like I wish I could take that
Speaker 5: one back because outside of phone on tap, that was
Speaker 5: it and we could have we could have we could
Speaker 5: have over delivered it. I mean, it's obviously some good
Speaker 5: rhymes on it, but it's not that's all it was
Speaker 5: was like good rhymes. And I'm proud of it because
Speaker 5: for me to get nas on Sony and as on
Speaker 5: E M I and Foxy on Deaf Jam to record
Speaker 5: an album for Inniscope. Wait, how did you pull that off?
Speaker 5: Was having that? That's why they called me the commissioner,
Speaker 5: bro I'm not even joking around. I feel you. That's
Speaker 5: that's what I do. I feel you could tell me
Speaker 5: the Brooklyn Bridge right now. That's what I do.
Speaker 4: Did the moniker come from that? Move though? The commissioner monitors.
Speaker 5: Call me the commissioners on the street dreams read? Because
Speaker 5: I went to the r Kelly that was a whole
Speaker 5: other thing. I got the r Kelly thing done, like
Speaker 5: and my whole thing was, we're gonna get the r
Speaker 5: Kelly thing done before Biggie puts out his R Kelly right,
Speaker 5: fuck you tonight. Yeah, I want to get this one
Speaker 5: out first. So I went in and got the remix done.
Speaker 5: We went like I was just always on it like
Speaker 5: that because at that time, back then, everybody was like,
Speaker 5: who can get the R and B singer first? Like
Speaker 5: you didn't want to be second, right, So we had
Speaker 5: Lauren Hill first. You know what, Biggie was gonna get
Speaker 5: r Kelly first. It was like, nah, forget that, but
Speaker 5: we can't wait for our next album because Biggie's album
Speaker 5: will be Oh we're gonna do it a remix and
Speaker 5: it was like, oh shit, okay, yes it was that
Speaker 5: type of energy. Hoyhow how or good? That's how I
Speaker 5: got to So it was that and plus all of
Speaker 5: the things I was doing where the Monica came from,
Speaker 5: and then obviously doing the Firm ab and all that
Speaker 5: stuff was on.
Speaker 1: An average Yeah, your daily life, how many fires do
Speaker 1: you have to put out before three pm? Like to
Speaker 1: you as a good day where it's just like I
Speaker 1: don't got to worry about and I know your life
Speaker 1: is different now back then. I'm talking about back then
Speaker 1: and when you were knee deeper than music, like the
Speaker 1: idea of like oh shit, Big and Kells about to
Speaker 1: do some of it together, we got to do it
Speaker 1: first before they do it.
Speaker 5: It was always well, I was looking for fires and
Speaker 5: probably creating some fires too. We want all to smoke, right.
Speaker 5: So it wasn't My job was to make Nas the
Speaker 5: biggest rap star in the world. So I didn't give
Speaker 5: a fuck about like Biggie or jay Z or Tupac
Speaker 5: or this like. I was just going very single minded
Speaker 5: focused on that thing. And that's what it was. And
Speaker 5: the track Mass is I was like, we have to
Speaker 5: have a number one record like once a month, like
Speaker 5: because that's what we need to do. And like fuck
Speaker 5: the Hitman and all those guys. We're making We're making joints.
Speaker 5: And it wasn't just toning poke, it was just it
Speaker 5: was ton It was like a live musicians Spanah Door, Yeah,
Speaker 5: who was playing like on Fiesta Spanah Door from Yeah, wait,
Speaker 5: how do you know it? How did you know that?
Speaker 5: I read it in something. I'm not the nerd he
Speaker 5: is for real, Yes, Spaniah Door. So Spaniah was crazy,
Speaker 5: you know. Spaniah Dog was playing Lisa Lisa Coaches yep,
Speaker 5: and he was on like that's when and you could
Speaker 5: listen to uh the City High remix here that's Spaniah Door.
Speaker 5: I thought that was.
Speaker 4: That's funny, that's funny.
Speaker 1: Ship. I was about to say, they're the ones that
Speaker 1: brought yeah, yeah, they brought yeah tracks for the tricky
Speaker 1: Chicken Grease scenario.
Speaker 5: Spanish.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm a official track master. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: better playing yesterday.
Speaker 5: When did you.
Speaker 1: Make the decision or when did you finally realize that
Speaker 1: the music executive platform was uh not as sturdy as
Speaker 1: a platform as it should be and that you should
Speaker 1: sort of finagle your way into the business room.
Speaker 5: In the boardroom, when did you have enough of music?
Speaker 5: Like well, no, I say this a lot, but I was.
Speaker 5: I did this soundtrack for Men in Black and Will
Speaker 5: Smith just the backstory on the nerd ship had gotten
Speaker 5: dropped from John Jive, right. And I had known Will
Speaker 5: Smith from the kid in play days because they were
Speaker 5: the light skin rappids, you know so and they were
Speaker 5: always doing uh they were they were to safe rappers
Speaker 5: and they would mostly do things together or they'd be
Speaker 5: either one like house party. Could have gone to Will
Speaker 5: Spells like it's all that kind of stuff. Right, So
Speaker 5: I had known Will and James Lassiter and Charlie Mack
Speaker 5: and I had gone to so they brought I was
Speaker 5: at Sony at the time, Columbia Boom, we get the soundtrack.
Speaker 5: The ship does what it's supposed to do. Will walked
Speaker 5: in with that sample. It wasn't like that. It was
Speaker 5: like they had they had a thing going. It's kidding.
Speaker 5: I think Omar. I think Omar was involved. Uh No, No,
Speaker 5: willis Omar, his former dancer that later became an Overbrook. Yeah,
Speaker 5: had Omar's coolest ship and like they had they had
Speaker 5: the skeleton of it, and of course that's right up
Speaker 5: track masters alley. So we did that and this is
Speaker 5: this is the Men in Black and yeah, so we
Speaker 5: signed the soundtrack Boom woke walks in with that joint
Speaker 5: track masters Boom we get s w V. Will Smith
Speaker 5: is so cold at the time that s w V
Speaker 5: don't even want to be in the video. They sang
Speaker 5: the song and didn't even want to be in the video.
Speaker 1: So that's s WV singing the hook on minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Coca iays wondering why are they not? I thought, you
Speaker 1: guys are like, no kidding me. We as if we
Speaker 1: wanted him in the video, they didn't want to.
Speaker 6: Do it.
Speaker 5: A blockbuster Moca. I just he just got dropped. They
Speaker 5: thought like, oh it was it was it was the
Speaker 5: Wu Tang Biggie Nas nobody. It wasn't that time. And
Speaker 5: Will Smith changed the music. Uh definitely Will Smith the
Speaker 5: whole ship and like boom ten million hours later, But
Speaker 5: the glasses were selling like crazy, and the company that
Speaker 5: did the product placement to get those ray bands on
Speaker 5: in the movie and on Will I'm like how they
Speaker 5: go making all this money and like we have nothing
Speaker 5: to do with but we're the ones driving in the sales.
Speaker 5: And literally I left Sony, I went to Interscope, and
Speaker 5: I decided it was a lot of dumb shit in
Speaker 5: the music business at that time. It was street shit,
Speaker 5: and the business didn't know the difference between good and great.
Speaker 5: And when an industry doesn't know the difference between good
Speaker 5: and great, that industry is in trouble. And I could
Speaker 5: show you many examples of that. When an industry can't
Speaker 5: tell the difference between good and great, when you don't know,
Speaker 5: you don't know why it's working or why it's not working,
Speaker 5: but it's just working for reasons that no one understands.
Speaker 5: That industry is in trouble. Because that is not a
Speaker 5: real metric for success. You're supposed to understand it. It
Speaker 5: was just like it's wrap it's selling. It's wrapped, it's selling,
Speaker 5: and no one really understood what and they would hire
Speaker 5: these guys, but dude, artists really know the science behind
Speaker 5: you're talking about the executives that were getting jobs, Oh
Speaker 5: there you go. There they were bums getting jobs and
Speaker 5: making seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year because
Speaker 5: they were because no one knew they were bums because
Speaker 5: it was like, Oh, it's rap, it's selling, give him
Speaker 5: high up. No, it wasn't even nepotism they were hiring.
Speaker 5: It would be executive at a company finding some guy
Speaker 5: who was standing next to a hot group, a manager,
Speaker 5: some guy who didn't know to run a record company
Speaker 5: or run a division, but he would get a job
Speaker 5: and get paid seven hundred and fifty million dollars. And
Speaker 5: the I literally wasn't talented at all. He was just
Speaker 5: a guy who was around something that was hot, and
Speaker 5: he'd get this job and then he'd be responsible for
Speaker 5: a bunch of shit. And I'm sitting there saying, that's
Speaker 5: my peer. Be fucking crazy, you know. It's that kind
Speaker 5: of thing. It's hard. I was speaking to jay Z
Speaker 5: about this recently, about how hard it must have been
Speaker 5: for him to go through a period of time writing
Speaker 5: those rhymes and doing all that work, and like Ludacris
Speaker 5: and Nelly and all these guys are selling three times
Speaker 5: more records than him and getting much more accolades in him,
Speaker 5: and yet you still got to keep doing that every
Speaker 5: single day. That's a hard thing to do. And as
Speaker 5: a true artist, that's your north star. The art. But
Speaker 5: if you're in the business and the business doesn't realize
Speaker 5: how to appreciate your art, I'm sure it's difficult.
Speaker 4: It's like the Root story, right, Yeah, very similar.
Speaker 5: That's that. That's why they liked that story. That's why question.
Speaker 5: That's why question Jane. All the real guys know who
Speaker 5: the real guys are because they went through that story,
Speaker 5: my favorite, and they went through that period of time.
Speaker 5: I forgot what we were just saying. What made me
Speaker 5: go to that? But it's so I was like, I'm
Speaker 5: not doing this anymore. In fact, if I know that
Speaker 5: the music business can actually drive sales of things around
Speaker 5: the music business like more efficiently, then I'll actually be
Speaker 5: down with the glasses.
Speaker 1: So you figuring out that ray band made a grip
Speaker 1: of money off of something that you created a platform for,
Speaker 1: you wanted to know how to get involved in that
Speaker 1: and that.
Speaker 5: And I actually went to that Advoca business school or like, no,
Speaker 5: so how did you? I knew that I met the company,
Speaker 5: the guy who did the who did the product placement,
Speaker 5: because I was that close to the to the movie,
Speaker 5: to the soundtra right, and then that's the only person
Speaker 5: I knew in advertising. I ended up leaving to go
Speaker 5: be a partner in that company, Like it was the
Speaker 5: only company I knew, and I became a partner in
Speaker 5: that company, and then I did it. It was the
Speaker 5: first thing I did, jay z reebox perfect, that was you. Yeah,
Speaker 5: all every sneak, all of this rap sneaker ship. I've
Speaker 5: seen that ship. I started that ship. Period.
Speaker 4: So what was the difference in the s dot deal
Speaker 4: versus what was going well ship? I guess you want
Speaker 4: to say it?
Speaker 5: What no deal? There was no deal? Did you get
Speaker 5: fifty his deal or did you yes? So for re
Speaker 5: uh yes? Ice creams? Okay, it had diamonds on I remember,
Speaker 5: I just forgot like represented ms Nikas brought China. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the ice creams. Then we did fifty G units and
Speaker 5: then we had s Carter's You remember that commercial with
Speaker 5: jay z Yeah I did. I was that was me.
Speaker 5: I was doing all that. That's why you're here to
Speaker 5: tell us that. Yeah, I was. So I was trying
Speaker 5: to figure out and that connects to why United Masses
Speaker 5: and why I'm back any music business. So it's just like, okay,
Speaker 5: the s Carters with my version of the Will Smith glasses,
Speaker 5: the G units was the Will Smith glasses. I just
Speaker 5: kept on trying to make glasses. Again. You were not
Speaker 5: involved in the Funk Flex lugs, were you? No? Those
Speaker 5: are all said that. No, Lukes, this love for me
Speaker 5: path because you know, I was gonna say the Funk
Speaker 5: the Funk Flex lugs actually sold. They did. They did.
Speaker 5: And then by the way, you got the bird the
Speaker 5: bird Man. The bird Man came right after that. The
Speaker 5: Birdman came right behind that. Then there was a couple
Speaker 5: of other stupid ship that just this was terrible. But
Speaker 5: like you know, it's a me too business, so where
Speaker 5: people copy what they've seen before the original to yeah. Yeah, so,
Speaker 5: but I was always I was thinking we launched it
Speaker 5: the card. I put the Rebox Star on South Street. Dude, I.
Speaker 1: Copped about eight. They were a comfortable, like I know,
Speaker 1: fashionable or whatever. Those are some price West.
Speaker 5: They were the original easy, Yes they were. They were
Speaker 5: a little narrow. If you got wide feet, they're a
Speaker 5: little narrow. But I mean we gotpied the Gucci shoe
Speaker 5: from back and I mean we should have been locked up. Yeah,
Speaker 5: but it's comfortable. I missed that sneaker I got, like
Speaker 5: I'm waiting for like the turnaround to half but Gucci
Speaker 5: put Gucci put them there, Gucci put their copy the
Speaker 5: starters out. I know, it's just like it's like a
Speaker 5: meta meta.
Speaker 4: So fast forward to your your relationship with Gucci then, right,
Speaker 4: because you're the deal is done with Dan right right?
Speaker 4: So how did that relationship grow? Did it start at
Speaker 4: that moment with.
Speaker 5: Steve?
Speaker 8: We just got to see.
Speaker 1: Just literally, I know, I feel so disgusted when you
Speaker 1: ask questions because I needed this platform to find out
Speaker 1: who's behind you and real business people, Real business people
Speaker 1: like people that that yell from the rafters and with
Speaker 1: their megaphones. Like the loudest person is always the lowest tote.
Speaker 1: It's the quiet people that make moves.
Speaker 4: And Steve ain't quiet though, but you've.
Speaker 7: Never been out there, but like you, I mean a
Speaker 7: lot of the stuff. I mean, I'm just found out
Speaker 7: you were the guy behind I mean, I was aware
Speaker 7: of all of it, but I'm listening. I know that
Speaker 7: you're everywhere, and you're and everywhere I see you.
Speaker 5: You know what it is. I don't know how to
Speaker 5: comfortably do my job and then stand there loudly and
Speaker 5: take credit for it. Like I get like, like this
Speaker 5: is the forum that have that conversation. But what else
Speaker 5: to do stand in front of Dapper Dan and say
Speaker 5: it's me, it's sucking Dapper Dan. Bro it's jay Z,
Speaker 5: It's for row.
Speaker 4: But Dapper Dan knows no anyway.
Speaker 1: Can you just give me let me a launch your
Speaker 1: list of deals that you broke her that I might
Speaker 1: have known the belt I.
Speaker 5: Know about, dude. Stop, that's what we got. We got
Speaker 5: thrown off. So my brother get hit. My brother gets
Speaker 5: hit by the car. You're not listening, Okay, I'm listening.
Speaker 5: And he was going where super And that's where I
Speaker 5: copied Made in America from because I and all I
Speaker 5: kept on remember hearing was it that's an Al Hayman
Speaker 5: production that deserves a siren good. And I was like, yo, Jay,
Speaker 5: remember the Budweiser made in America, the super Fest ship.
Speaker 5: He's just like us, he remembers the whole ship. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 5: I just want Budweiser. I'm gonna go pitch them. We're
Speaker 5: gonna do that today. And made in America was a
Speaker 5: that's a whole nother time. He even got to the
Speaker 5: made in America thing. But it was like they had
Speaker 5: they owned the trademark made in America bud Wise. Oh
Speaker 5: so it was just like, oh, this is perfect made
Speaker 5: in America. Boom, that's a superfest. We're gonna do it, remember,
Speaker 5: and then we're gonna put all these acts on the
Speaker 5: same way Al Hayman did when we grew up.
Speaker 4: It never even hit me right now, America, did you
Speaker 4: shed a little gangster tear? Because you It was like
Speaker 4: it was awful circle between the wat.
Speaker 5: You know what it is. I haven't taken the time,
Speaker 5: and I don't take enough time, and the people who
Speaker 5: are close to me and and and love and care
Speaker 5: about me want me to reflect more on that kind
Speaker 5: of stuff. I want to do it. Yeah, I don't sell.
Speaker 5: I was there, I looked at it. I was like,
Speaker 5: this is the biggest ship. This is important. Got Ron
Speaker 5: Howard to do the documentary.
Speaker 4: Yes, I remember he was around that year.
Speaker 5: You know, jay All the stuff that Jaye and I
Speaker 5: have done together specifically has been easy to do because, like,
Speaker 5: once we say we're gonna do it, there's a very
Speaker 5: shared vision and it gets executed really well. He has
Speaker 5: a great team around him. I've great team around me.
Speaker 5: It gets executed well. But from day one, we had
Speaker 5: the we we we we wanted to be two steps ahead,
Speaker 5: and we were in front of everybody, including jay Z Blue,
Speaker 5: which was like if hot that would That was the
Speaker 5: most brilliant thing that I've ever had thought. What was
Speaker 5: jay Z Blue? Jay Z Blue was like we wanted
Speaker 5: to authenticate things, but not have him in it all
Speaker 5: the time. Like, so what you do to get somebody
Speaker 5: to go, oh, that's cool is you stand next to
Speaker 5: it and through some proximity you say it's cool, right,
Speaker 5: and then because jay Z said so whatever whatever, But
Speaker 5: how could you do it? Like the Good Housekeeping seal?
Speaker 5: You know, the Good Housekeeping seal. He used to do
Speaker 5: that in the fifties so that moms knew to buy
Speaker 5: stuff for their kids that was child proof. If you
Speaker 5: were to copy that idea, how do you make something
Speaker 5: so that everybody knows it has so if we if
Speaker 5: we made a color, and if it only if things
Speaker 5: that came in that color. So I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 5: gave this color. I gave the idea to this guy
Speaker 5: who used to take like Motorola two way pages and
Speaker 5: shit like that and like could make special versions of
Speaker 5: them by painting them or whatever. But he was really
Speaker 5: like a mixologist with paint and I said, make a
Speaker 5: unique blue, paralyze it. And I kept on showing jay
Speaker 5: Z different versions of this that was coming back, and
Speaker 5: we finally found the color. Then I went and found
Speaker 5: the Pantone family who makes all the paint chips, the
Speaker 5: Pantone charts. They're like the Encyclopedia of color, and got
Speaker 5: it so that they were going to put it and
Speaker 5: run it as a as a color option. So now
Speaker 5: we're basically inside the encyclopedia.
Speaker 8: So you can own hues?
Speaker 4: Yes, what the fuck the stout?
Speaker 1: I did not know you can own a huge? Nobody
Speaker 1: knew this. I'm googling right now. This is an actual hue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm looking at jay Z blue.
Speaker 5: See this explains, all right, the favorite huge jay Z blue.
Speaker 5: But so now, all right, then we went and I
Speaker 5: sold that two GM.
Speaker 8: Yes he did.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. I just saw the picture of the truck
Speaker 4: in jay Z blue.
Speaker 5: The fucking around man or not? This is all right?
Speaker 5: Time out this money. This this explains all right now
Speaker 5: that you explain that, all right, real quick? I did it.
Speaker 1: I did a coke commercial like two thousand and the
Speaker 1: one where he was in the booth with the with
Speaker 1: the window that was or even before this, and I
Speaker 1: met a woman on set and her job was strictly
Speaker 1: to see what color the coke.
Speaker 5: Was in the light.
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's a weird job. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't get it. See we own brown number nineteen
Speaker 1: to brown forty seven, but Pepsi owns Wow, brown forty
Speaker 1: seven to brown Da da da da day. And if
Speaker 1: someone's at home watching and guarantee they will, they'll they'll
Speaker 1: compare hughes then they consue us for And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not like I buy the can of coke and
Speaker 1: then look inside and see like this is Pepsi's color.
Speaker 1: So literally, I thought it was the silliest shit I
Speaker 1: ever heard of people fighting over hue colors and didn't
Speaker 1: realize that this is a multi million dollar business.
Speaker 5: That's fucking crazy.
Speaker 9: How I have a question, Yes, for the people listening
Speaker 9: on the show, you keep mentioning throughout the show that
Speaker 9: you did a deal with this person, you got the
Speaker 9: deal done with that person. Deals, deals, deals, deals, deal,
Speaker 9: but then you don't mention all the work that goes
Speaker 9: into negotiating those deals. So just to me, that's the
Speaker 9: that seems like the tricky part I mean I could
Speaker 9: cut deals all day longwork you know for you know,
Speaker 9: because I mean we all want to cut more deals,
Speaker 9: don't we? So how is like, you know, do you
Speaker 9: just come up with the concept cut the deal, uh,
Speaker 9: you know, in in with a handshake, and then leave
Speaker 9: all the other things to to lawyers and things like that.
Speaker 5: To actually get get a deal done, usually you gotta
Speaker 5: know sort of what what your intentions are. What do
Speaker 5: you want out the deal?
Speaker 8: What?
Speaker 5: What not money? What do you want out the deal? What?
Speaker 5: Like if this deal start backwards, if this deal is successful,
Speaker 5: this is what it looks like to me, right, And
Speaker 5: if you if you start thinking about it that way,
Speaker 5: then you'll know sort of the general architecture of what
Speaker 5: you want the deal to get to look like, and
Speaker 5: then you give that to the lawyer. Right, That's the
Speaker 5: way I do it. I would basically out the bullet
Speaker 5: points of what I know needs to be done, and
Speaker 5: then let the lawyers deal with it. But then manage it.
Speaker 5: But make sure these things are non negotiable, like whether
Speaker 5: it's equity or the amount of money or whatever it is.
Speaker 5: You sort of lay out the non negotiable things because
Speaker 5: those are the only reasons why you're doing it? Okay,
Speaker 5: thank you? It does. Yes.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you, since we mentioned made in America,
Speaker 4: we gotta I gotta ask you the moment that Mary
Speaker 4: Kenny made that announcement. Of course, by now everything has
Speaker 4: been cleared Made in America will stay in Philadelphia. But
Speaker 4: the moment that that dropped, what was the process of
Speaker 4: from your your thoughts to jay Z's response in the paper, like,
Speaker 4: what was the I don't even want to say emotional,
Speaker 4: because I know y'all are business man, so y'all don't
Speaker 4: get emotional. But how did the thought change?
Speaker 5: By the way, I do get emotional and that's probably
Speaker 5: what I shouldn't do. Yeah, I yeah, Well I don't
Speaker 5: know if it's wise. I don't it worked. It'll take
Speaker 5: me as far as it'll take me.
Speaker 6: Okay, So then did you get emotional when well, no,
Speaker 6: And in fact J and and and the team at
Speaker 6: Rock Nation they handle it.
Speaker 5: I had nothing to do with Yeah. I set the
Speaker 5: whole thing up and they run the show. The other
Speaker 5: mayor may Nutter, he was the one who did it
Speaker 5: originally and he was a big fan of bringing that
Speaker 5: show to Philly, and I figure a new mayor came
Speaker 5: in and between noise complaints and he didn't invent the idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the latter. I was going to say, we
Speaker 1: we have that same problem with him. We do two
Speaker 1: festivals in Philly, and his first thing to his staff
Speaker 1: was like, well, you know that's Nutter's area era, Like
Speaker 1: I want to start my own era, so.
Speaker 4: Well, you need to get rid of the bicycles and
Speaker 4: everything else.
Speaker 5: Good and up.
Speaker 1: He's just he's petty, like it's almost like Trump, like
Speaker 1: he wants to race the entire plan to build his
Speaker 1: own thing instead of just moving forward what was already
Speaker 1: established and working and lucrative.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So well, I'm glad you guys.
Speaker 7: Selled that ship, because how did you deal at the
Speaker 7: time When I think the first time I've ever met you,
Speaker 7: it was like super quick. It was in Baseline and
Speaker 7: this was I mean, this was like back in oh five,
Speaker 7: I want to say, when Little Brother we were mixing
Speaker 7: the Mental Show with Guru and uh no, no, no.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was before that.
Speaker 7: This was when Ninth had got threat on h on
Speaker 7: Black album and uh we Ninth it came he brought
Speaker 7: us the Baseline. He was like, yo, y'all gonna meet
Speaker 7: Jay whatever, and like we set up, but you were
Speaker 7: in there and I was like, oh shit, Steve's in here.
Speaker 5: So we tapped each other real quick. That's about the fault.
Speaker 7: But how how were you how did you position yourself
Speaker 7: and what were your thoughts at the time when Jay
Speaker 7: and Knives were going through the ship cause you were friends,
Speaker 7: they have relationships with both.
Speaker 5: Shit. I never thought they ask that question, how did you?
Speaker 5: How did you do that? How did you prollay that?
Speaker 5: I knew that there was the underlying way I dealt
Speaker 5: with it that I always kept there was that I
Speaker 5: know the amount of mutual respect they have for each
Speaker 5: other because of me being close with both of them.
Speaker 5: They have ultimate admiration for each other. And it was
Speaker 5: never they would never have let it turn into anything else.
Speaker 5: Reat shit, So I knew those two things like a
Speaker 5: there's mutual admiration and then I gonna let this thing
Speaker 5: get out of hand. So you never felt you had
Speaker 5: to pick aside. No, I always felt like I had
Speaker 5: to try to fix it and I could never fix it.
Speaker 5: But I could be a voice of reason, and I
Speaker 5: tried to be and I believe I was a voice
Speaker 5: of reason for many years with both of them, and
Speaker 5: it was I think it was stupid but necessary at
Speaker 5: the time. I mean there was a lot of things
Speaker 5: that were stupid and necessary at the time. East Coast
Speaker 5: versus West Coast and this versus that, and the competition,
Speaker 5: and nobody knew how big the whole thing was going
Speaker 5: to be, so everybody was fighting for what they thought
Speaker 5: the pie really was, right, no one knew how big.
Speaker 5: Like the truth of the matter is that Nas and
Speaker 5: jay Z's conflict, the East Coast West Coast conflict or
Speaker 5: whatever it was, everybody was fighting to be the best
Speaker 5: and this thing that was small when real everyone could
Speaker 5: have won outside of that because the no one saw
Speaker 5: a bigger picture. But I do believe that these stories
Speaker 5: actually help create or part of creating the bigger picture.
Speaker 5: The interest in it, the global interest in it, the
Speaker 5: narratives of it all are the things that anywhere you
Speaker 5: go around the world there's interest in you know, and
Speaker 5: it's fucked up. It's like the unintended effect of something
Speaker 5: like you know, Biggie in Tupac's thing. There's a lot
Speaker 5: of people who've made a lot of money and built
Speaker 5: careers benefiting because of that. And you see it when
Speaker 5: you go around the world. It's like you go around
Speaker 5: the world, you see graffiti everywhere, right, why and that's
Speaker 5: a bronx thing? Like what it's just you know, it's
Speaker 5: like conflict and all of the stories that we went through,
Speaker 5: the art form has gone through, has helped grow the
Speaker 5: art form worldwide and created these opportunities. It's not like
Speaker 5: you think you want that to be the case, but
Speaker 5: those are the unintended effects of what took place as
Speaker 5: a result of that taking place.
Speaker 7: What was the story Jim Jones the flower What was
Speaker 7: the flower pot stories that involved it was something you
Speaker 7: got hit with a Jim Jones. It was I'm I
Speaker 7: don't want to make sure I'm not mixing something. Were
Speaker 7: you you were hit with you that got hit with a.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so over to hate me now video I got jumped.
Speaker 5: Puffy came in my office with three other guys and
Speaker 5: I got jumped and because it was Puffy and they
Speaker 5: was just became I got hit in the head with
Speaker 5: a champagne bottle. But I mean that's not the You
Speaker 5: don't get hitt it like i'd have. I wouldn't have
Speaker 5: a ball at if you get cut up and all
Speaker 5: that ship No, that wasn't the case. I did get jumped.
Speaker 5: That was the case. That was fucked up. That was
Speaker 5: the case. It was hard to deal with. What was that?
Speaker 5: What was the what was the beef? There was a
Speaker 5: scene in the video where they were on crosses and
Speaker 5: you know, Puffy shot it and didn't want his his
Speaker 5: his passer decided like two three days before he didn't
Speaker 5: want to him on the cross It was the video
Speaker 5: was a million dollars, and you know, the record company,
Speaker 5: Donnie Einer and those guys was like, when I taking
Speaker 5: those scenes out, that's the reason why we paid a
Speaker 5: million dollars.
Speaker 4: And you know, but they ain't jump Donnie.
Speaker 5: Though, which I never understood that.
Speaker 4: Yes you did, Yes you did. That's like, you know,
Speaker 4: come one anyway, No, no, no, no.
Speaker 5: The reason why, but the reason why I'm saying I
Speaker 5: don't understand is because if the video is a million dollars,
Speaker 5: you know it's not You're the only.
Speaker 4: One that they could touch and not getting real. Yeah,
Speaker 4: fast forward, Now y'all are Friendsly, y'all must have made
Speaker 4: a lot of money together to you know.
Speaker 5: No, I think that I hope that we all grow
Speaker 5: over time. It was believe me, it was embarrassing, it
Speaker 5: was fucked up. The first thing I asked him to
Speaker 5: do was speak to my mom because my mother was
Speaker 5: very like her son's out there in the wild wild
Speaker 5: west of the music business and ship. And that's it
Speaker 5: was hard for like three or four years, but it
Speaker 5: certainly made me know I was not going to be
Speaker 5: known as the guy that I got jumped or got
Speaker 5: hit in the head with a champagne bottle. I can
Speaker 5: tell you that for sure. That's the one thing that
Speaker 5: kept on thinking, like, oh, I'm gonna run so far.
Speaker 5: I remember I used to look at the beginning of
Speaker 5: Google and see how far where it was because I
Speaker 5: was just, oh yeah, because I was just I was
Speaker 5: just gonna do all kinds of crazy shit. Like you
Speaker 5: guys are hearing now, I'm only giving you pieces of it.
Speaker 5: Like there's so much things that I've I've done to
Speaker 5: contribute to hip hop and contribute to culture to moving forward.
Speaker 5: But like I was always saying, fuck this shit, it
Speaker 5: ain't gonna be that. It's gonna be all of this
Speaker 5: great work that I've done. And that's so it was.
Speaker 5: It was certainly something to motivate me to do great
Speaker 5: ship because I didn't want to be known as that.
Speaker 5: Can I ask you something speaking of no, no, no nigga,
Speaker 5: Like you ever had like a Philly cheese steak in
Speaker 5: your hand and somebody just slapped that ship on the floor.
Speaker 5: Never because you don't be going by the time they
Speaker 5: start back. I just would you call it? Okay, we
Speaker 5: call it Philly because New York. I just did that
Speaker 5: to somebody the other day. It was hilarious. Slap a
Speaker 5: sandwich was never as funny as hell that it still
Speaker 5: works cruel hands. I want to know, uh, with the
Speaker 5: the the.
Speaker 1: The uh this arrival of Nas as a businessman, Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: what are your opinions of he's now becoming like to me,
Speaker 1: the definition of I never knew that lightning could could
Speaker 1: strike four times in a row like his. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know the team he rolls with now, but every
Speaker 1: month one and a half I'm hearing you know, Na's
Speaker 1: broke a sixty and this pharmaceutical company there, Like, what
Speaker 1: are you what are your opinions on that?
Speaker 5: Are you surprised? Well, a couple of things. So Nas
Speaker 5: and I are really really close, and I hope that
Speaker 5: you know all the years he's seen me push him
Speaker 5: and watch my career grow even outside of him, that
Speaker 5: that was part of that. Prior his thoughts, NAS hired
Speaker 5: a manager kid, Anthony Selei. Anthony's really smart young guy.
Speaker 5: I work closely with him, and but like, I have
Speaker 5: nothing to do with Nas doing those deals. I'm just
Speaker 5: saying we're very close as far as what we talk about,
Speaker 5: the relationships that we've built, and Nas is a great person.
Speaker 5: Like at the end of the day, he really is
Speaker 5: a great person. He always means well, and he may
Speaker 5: take his time to do what he got to do,
Speaker 5: and we all have our now stories of waiting for shit.
Speaker 5: But he's a great artist with a beautiful soul and
Speaker 5: great intentions. And the fact now that he's using that
Speaker 5: energy and applying it to business in a very bespoke way.
Speaker 5: He's not running around, let's get a deal, Let's get
Speaker 5: a deal. He's not doing that type of shit. He's
Speaker 5: picking and choosing his spots. He put a good team
Speaker 5: around him and it's working all right. Before we close,
Speaker 5: I do want to talk about United Masters. United Masters.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it so well, he explained to our
Speaker 1: listeners what United Masters is.
Speaker 5: Yes, So, how I got to the idea was, I'm like,
Speaker 5: we need to be able to build a distribution service
Speaker 5: for artists so that they can not only distribute their
Speaker 5: music and circumvent a record company. But if you build
Speaker 5: a really smart distribution system, then because music is all
Speaker 5: digital now, you'd be able to find who are the
Speaker 5: people who are listening to your songs. So if you're
Speaker 5: an artist and like you put your music up and
Speaker 5: it's on Spotify and this, that and the third, you'd
Speaker 5: like to know who's the person who's listening to it
Speaker 5: the most, so you can target that person to sell
Speaker 5: them tickets. Suck because they're because they're a fan of you.
Speaker 5: But like the way these services work, and there's no
Speaker 5: algorithm with Spotify or any of the no Spotify, there's
Speaker 5: a spot there's an algorithm for a lot you're distributing.
Speaker 5: The distribution service is the person who feeds the music
Speaker 5: to Pandora, Spotify, right. But if you built a smart aggregator,
Speaker 5: a smart district that was able to take the feedback
Speaker 5: that came back from those platforms and then turn that
Speaker 5: information into a way that the artists can find their
Speaker 5: own fans, then now the artists are empowered to build
Speaker 5: businesses on their own. So whether you have five million
Speaker 5: fans or one hundred thousand fans, the fact of the
Speaker 5: matter is that you can build a business because you
Speaker 5: know who those people are. You can direct and you
Speaker 5: can sell directly to them. And that's the record companies
Speaker 5: never wanted the artists to know who their fans were,
Speaker 5: because if the artists knew who their fans were, they
Speaker 5: wouldn't need a record company. So I wanted to build
Speaker 5: my intention, and what we are building with United Masters
Speaker 5: is a way so that artists can get their music
Speaker 5: and all these streaming services and then in turn, not
Speaker 5: only do they get paid and they own their rights,
Speaker 5: but in the background, we're building a data capturing engineering
Speaker 5: a team a team of engineers that's getting that data
Speaker 5: and then turning it into CRM systems. And CRM systems
Speaker 5: is basically customer relationship management, but it's knowing who the
Speaker 5: people are that are listening or engage with your content
Speaker 5: the way they use it now, it's like when you
Speaker 5: go on Amazon and you buy, you go, you go,
Speaker 5: you listen to q tip and it's just people who
Speaker 5: like q tip also like Pharoh. That's not what q
Speaker 5: tip wants. Q tip wants people who like q tip
Speaker 5: also wants to buy trib tickets, also wants to buy
Speaker 5: tried shirts. Here's a want. But they're using the data
Speaker 5: in service of veable, but no one's using the data
Speaker 5: in service of the artists. And none of the are artists,
Speaker 5: managers or anybody has the money or spent the time
Speaker 5: to build an engineer and infrastructure to be able to
Speaker 5: do that on their own. That makes sense. It makes sense.
Speaker 1: So how do you in your opinion, when do you
Speaker 1: think the old system of the labels will be done with? Well,
Speaker 1: I think done with three sixty deals and done with I.
Speaker 5: Think yeah, I think the labels look farrel said it
Speaker 5: to me a while ago, like you got to be
Speaker 5: rights protectors, not rights holders. So don't sign artists and
Speaker 5: take their rights. You should partner with artists and protect
Speaker 5: their rights. So United Masters is about rights protection, not
Speaker 5: rights holding, and I think artists are now you're seeing
Speaker 5: it every day. The value of a major label is
Speaker 5: diminishing quickly. There was a report that came out a
Speaker 5: time back City Bank put out this report basically that
Speaker 5: twelve percent of the there's forty three billion dollars created
Speaker 5: in music in twenty seventeen and the artist received twelve
Speaker 5: percent of thatized. I mean, this is this is a problem.
Speaker 5: So you're you're creating the work but not getting paid
Speaker 5: for it. And all of the work that the record
Speaker 5: companies used to do historically, print it, ship it, set
Speaker 5: it up. They're not going to do that no more.
Speaker 5: But yet the economics are not shifting back. And I thought,
Speaker 5: that's what that's what technology is supposed to do. Redistribute value,
Speaker 5: the value chain to who provides the most value, and
Speaker 5: the consumer gets the best price. The consumer is getting
Speaker 5: the best price, but the value chain is still on
Speaker 5: the record company side, and that's that's what's solving that.
Speaker 5: And United is it dangerous for you to dangerous?
Speaker 1: Like how I mean you're kind of doing the Samson
Speaker 1: seeing the pillars and destroying well the building.
Speaker 5: Charlie Chapman, that's where United. He did that with United Artists.
Speaker 5: United Artists was that. Yeah, it's just the same idea.
Speaker 5: The movie studios locked all the talent up to seven
Speaker 5: picture deals and you had to go through if you
Speaker 5: assigned the paramount, you did seven movies with paramount, and
Speaker 5: your movies only were distributed in paramount theaters. And that
Speaker 5: hole got broken up. But Charlie Chapman was the driver
Speaker 5: of that by creating a studio in which the artists
Speaker 5: made movies that they wanted and they were not beholden
Speaker 5: to these major studios. And the United Masters is basically
Speaker 5: a derivative of that idea, all those values of like, man,
Speaker 5: you should be independent, you made it, you should own it.
Speaker 5: We should get paid a small fee to be your distributor.
Speaker 5: If you want other services, those are things that we
Speaker 5: can barter and engage on, but like, you don't need
Speaker 5: us to distribute your music, And like the way it
Speaker 5: works today, Instagram is MTV and radio it is, right,
Speaker 5: and Pandora, Spotify title those are the record stores, right, Okay,
Speaker 5: Like that's where the commerce takes place. And Instagram is
Speaker 5: the where radio discovery and MTV that's where that takes place.
Speaker 5: You don't need a record company for those two things.
Speaker 5: But if there's a distribution service in the middle that's
Speaker 5: really smart, that's intelligent, that's gonna give you not just data.
Speaker 5: People throw that word around all the time, data data.
Speaker 5: So they give you a fucking dashboard that says fifty
Speaker 5: four hey quest hey goes a big idea. Sixty two
Speaker 5: percent of your fans are in Philadelphia. Who fucking cares?
Speaker 5: I see? I want to know who are the people
Speaker 5: that are listening to my album my songs the most,
Speaker 5: because those are the people that are super fans of me,
Speaker 5: and I can then if I can find them, I
Speaker 5: can actually do business and conduct business with them, because
Speaker 5: with Instagram and all that stuff does just like it's
Speaker 5: even along with it, like saying like it's not that
Speaker 5: doesn't mean you're a fan. Like Nicki Minaj has ninety
Speaker 5: million people following her. That has nothing to do with
Speaker 5: how many people are gonna.
Speaker 4: Buy her, which is pushing back, Yeah, pushing back.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not talking about that. Who's figured it out
Speaker 5: is the video game business. Yes, you play video games.
Speaker 5: They know exactly who you are, and you know what
Speaker 5: they're doing. They upsell you right there, the virtual jacket,
Speaker 5: the virtual of this. It's the same place fortnit.
Speaker 7: And he's getting the game, ain't even he's still I
Speaker 7: think he's playing like the demo of the game.
Speaker 5: But it's all the end game, end game purchases. But
Speaker 5: and the in game purchases are bespoke to your son,
Speaker 5: not in game certain in game purchases are based off
Speaker 5: his playing behavior, it'd be like in the middle of
Speaker 5: it'd be like in the middle of big pimping. If
Speaker 5: the song plays and right before the hook comes, it
Speaker 5: stops and goes, Yo, I'm gonna be touring in your
Speaker 5: city sometime soon. You want to buy a ticket right
Speaker 5: now and then like yes or no? Big pimp They
Speaker 5: you can't do that in music, but they do that
Speaker 5: in video games. They get you right at the hot state,
Speaker 5: and they upsell you in music. If Kanye West knows
Speaker 5: who listen, If if you listen specifically Steve to Father
Speaker 5: stretch my hands seventy times, that didn't that's a great quote, right,
Speaker 5: but yeah, right, he could then sell you the Easies
Speaker 5: directly because he knows how highly engaged you are, and
Speaker 5: him as an artist at least you're a whether or
Speaker 5: not you want to buy the Easies or not. He's
Speaker 5: no fishing in the right water. But the way it
Speaker 5: is right now, it's random as fuck. Guys don't know
Speaker 5: where to tour. They're waiting for a promoter to call,
Speaker 5: they don't know who their fans are. They're running around
Speaker 5: looking for them. Like that's not the way the business
Speaker 5: should be that's supposed to be the pros of digital.
Speaker 5: You make less money, transparent, but there's but there's much
Speaker 5: more efficiency in your marketing. That's why that's what Amazon does.
Speaker 5: They know you're gonna buy tiede as soon as you
Speaker 5: get on the ship that's tied there. You're an artist,
Speaker 5: you put out a record, you put out music. You're
Speaker 5: supposed to know who the people are you're making the
Speaker 5: music for you. It can't.
Speaker 7: And when you say know the people, so united masters
Speaker 7: you say know the people mean you know them first
Speaker 7: and last name, or you just know, well you know, yeah,
Speaker 7: because yeah, I'm big enough data like that sounds kind
Speaker 7: of scary.
Speaker 5: Now, how person you well, how much of the person
Speaker 5: do you know? I mean, it's as personal as you
Speaker 5: can get without violating the law. Yeah, I mean yeah,
Speaker 5: personal enough to know this is the device that's been
Speaker 5: streaming it. Ah. Okay, okay, gotcha, Okay, okay, well now
Speaker 5: we know we gotta wrap up the show. I had
Speaker 5: a good time with you guys. Look, I'm super sorry
Speaker 5: you're cut off. That's like slapping.
Speaker 4: From earlier. Remember when we was outside, did you'll have
Speaker 4: a finish that we didn't finish?
Speaker 5: Me?
Speaker 1: And Steve were having a little brother conversation and he
Speaker 1: was like, yo, man's man, niggas jack your ship.
Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, like these niggas your ship.
Speaker 5: Well listen, we all know Drake. We said it. I mean,
Speaker 5: and this is Drake admitted it. They know that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: all these guys.
Speaker 1: That's why for me, it's never no because all these
Speaker 1: dudes told me so Drake uh Cole shit walle.
Speaker 5: I mean when I say told me, they were like, like, yo,
Speaker 5: we came up acknowledgement.
Speaker 7: Like kend Lamar he opened for us like like twenty
Speaker 7: ten like him, j Rock and all of them, Like,
Speaker 7: I mean, this is he was, you know, just coming up.
Speaker 5: But yeah, yeah, all those dudes man, all of them cats,
Speaker 5: Like I got love for all of them. The production,
Speaker 5: the album's tight. I was always like a New York
Speaker 5: hardcore hip hop fan, right, it's the stuff I listened
Speaker 5: to and then I was never a big day Lost
Speaker 5: Soul fan for instance, Like I just didn't I respected
Speaker 5: what they were doing. I just wasn't a fan of it.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't listen to it. Were you try fan low
Speaker 5: end theory that was it. I wasn't a fan like
Speaker 5: I wasn't like every time a Trybe album came out,
Speaker 5: I was on it like that. But like jay Z Nas, Gee,
Speaker 5: it's so funny.
Speaker 7: I was cute, Yo, now that you're saying this, it's
Speaker 7: so funny that you say you want a Daylight Soul fan.
Speaker 7: Because me and my homies always we specifically mark the
Speaker 7: day that it was written.
Speaker 5: And Stakes is High dropped on the same day that
Speaker 5: literally that was the Beatles. Beatles, Yeah, that was straight
Speaker 5: like hip hop apartheid. That was when. I mean it
Speaker 5: was like that was the start of it, like because
Speaker 5: it was written.
Speaker 7: And I agree with you, I personally didn't like the
Speaker 7: record when it dropped, but I to think it grew
Speaker 7: on me and too.
Speaker 5: I understand that Nas would not be where he is
Speaker 5: now if not for that record.
Speaker 7: He if he would have there's no way he could
Speaker 7: have out undergrounded illmatic. So him trying to do that
Speaker 7: record again, I mean, he just would have been it
Speaker 7: would have been over.
Speaker 5: I didn't I didn't even realize how big the art
Speaker 5: talking about how big the art form was, that there
Speaker 5: was all these different artists that had different experiences, so
Speaker 5: their opinions and the way they made music was different.
Speaker 5: I just thought they couldn't make what rock. He was like,
Speaker 5: you can't rap like rock, Kim, So you did that,
Speaker 5: you can't rap like so you do. And then I
Speaker 5: realized that's just another way of expressing your urban your
Speaker 5: you know, the urban, the urban experience as told through
Speaker 5: as told through New Orleans. Yeah. I didn't even I
Speaker 5: wasn't thinking about it like that at the time. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So it's funny you said, because for me, both those
Speaker 7: records dropping on the same day, and I remember listening
Speaker 7: to and I was like, I liked I liked the message.
Speaker 7: I like shootouts, like I like, I like like the
Speaker 7: street ship, but Steaks Is High was the one where
Speaker 7: I was like, Okay, this is where I want to
Speaker 7: be and that just kind of that led me in
Speaker 7: the dealer and all that ship. So it's odd that
Speaker 7: you say you weren't a fan because that was that
Speaker 7: literally day and did not know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean yeah, but I.
Speaker 7: Want to ask you, man yo about the stash. Trying
Speaker 7: to go, man, we're about to stashed real quick.
Speaker 5: What's going on? My buddy? Uh kazine He was over
Speaker 5: there for a while and he yeah, it's his it
Speaker 5: was his company. Uh.
Speaker 7: We did an interview me, Primo and Royce. We did
Speaker 7: an interview over there magazine for the mag and and
Speaker 7: and becauzine. He he orchestrated it and we were sitting
Speaker 7: there and he was, this was before or you know,
Speaker 7: this is a couple of years ago. And I said, man,
Speaker 7: so Steve, I said, I've never had a lot of
Speaker 7: dealings with him. I said, but he just lets you
Speaker 7: just do this.
Speaker 5: He was like, yo, man.
Speaker 7: He came to me and was like, yo, if I
Speaker 7: don't give a fuck with the interviews, is twenty minutes.
Speaker 7: If the shit is dope, we'll throw it up. I
Speaker 7: was like, word and so, so what happened, Yeah it
Speaker 7: was dope, But thank you.
Speaker 5: I wanted because he Kazem had the idea, he had
Speaker 5: a small team, We're gonna build some a magazine, a website,
Speaker 5: you know, uh, and just tell great stories. And after
Speaker 5: some time he left to go take a job at
Speaker 5: like someplace bleacher Report or whatever, and I think the
Speaker 5: team got kind of mismanaged and he left or whatever.
Speaker 5: I always like the name, and I'm like, if I was,
Speaker 5: if if the content thing was to keep going, what
Speaker 5: would I do as an extension of it. I'm like, man,
Speaker 5: you can build a great retail store. And so I
Speaker 5: just felt like my entire company with translation in United
Speaker 5: Masses is the convergence of technology, culture, and storytelling. And
Speaker 5: I believe that those three things coming together is what's
Speaker 5: going to disrupt the incumbents, all the companies that are
Speaker 5: sitting there now that are slow. That if you can
Speaker 5: build nimble companies that have those three elements baked inside
Speaker 5: of each person, you have to have two or three
Speaker 5: of those things inside of you. You have to be
Speaker 5: a storyteller and a person in culture. You have to
Speaker 5: be a technologist that understands culture or story like you
Speaker 5: need two or three of those things to work at
Speaker 5: my company. And So in San Francisco, where where all
Speaker 5: the engineers are who are doing all the data shit
Speaker 5: for United Masters, I put it was an art gallery
Speaker 5: in the space, and I said, I'm gonna put the
Speaker 5: sneakert store stash right there. So while the engineers are coding,
Speaker 5: is a line of two hundred kids trying to buy easies.
Speaker 5: So like that, I stand outside the place and I
Speaker 5: look at it, and there's guys up there headphones on
Speaker 5: building some dope ship, love culture, and they are engineers
Speaker 5: some of the best engineers in technology, guys from Dropbox, Facebook, uh, Pandora,
Speaker 5: like great talented engineers. And there's these two hundred kids
Speaker 5: down there lined up to buy off White Human made Yeezy's,
Speaker 5: Nikes whatever. And to me, that's where the industry is going.
Speaker 5: When you can put culture and technology together in the
Speaker 5: same proximity. So I thought that name Stash was working.
Speaker 5: Put that together. That's where it is. Thank you so
Speaker 5: much for having me, sir, Thanks for.
Speaker 7: Saving me on the don't need to talk about the
Speaker 7: tenet of America. We don't even get to the book.
Speaker 1: We got a lots not leaving earth. We can do
Speaker 1: another Internet.
Speaker 5: We gotta make we gotta make that. Yes his the
Speaker 5: these style.
Speaker 7: Yes has to be a light for now as be
Speaker 7: a bit got this gotta be a sound bite when
Speaker 7: they will take it. Yes, like it's just the look
Speaker 7: of discuss when niggas ask you about it. Yes I did, Yes,
Speaker 7: that's just funny.
Speaker 1: Thank you man. All right, we have a team Supreme. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is Court Love. Thank you Steve Stout once again,
Speaker 1: and we will see you on the next go round,
Speaker 1: of course, Love.
Speaker 5: Supreme see you. Court Love.
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production on my heart Radio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Endora. For more
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