Speaker 1: The only person, in my opinion that could have achieved
Speaker 1: just as great as a legacy as Mike to me,
Speaker 1: would have been Chris Brown. I just believed that Chris
Speaker 1: Brown wasn't surrounded by the circle of creative people that
Speaker 1: Mike was surrounded by Wow, because Chris got the talent. Wow.
Speaker 1: He just needed the direction all my life then grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, sacrifice hustle back Price, Want a slice?
Speaker 1: Got the Browner dice to swad all my life. I've
Speaker 1: been grinding all my life, all my life, been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life and up sacrifice, hustle back Price, Want
Speaker 1: a slice? Got the brona dice to swath all my life?
Speaker 1: I've been grinding all my life. Hello, Welcome to another
Speaker 1: additional Club Shashay. I am your host, also the proprietor
Speaker 1: of Club Shasha and the guy that's stopping by for
Speaker 1: a drinking conversation today. If a Diamond and platinum selling
Speaker 1: UH singer, songwriter, producer, Grammy nominated recording label, owner, entrepreneur
Speaker 1: and philanthropy acn R. Baby, how are you doing from
Speaker 1: the creole all the way from the eight How you
Speaker 1: doing amazing? Man? Cook? Let me get this pronounce your
Speaker 1: full name for me Ellen dum a good time, put
Speaker 1: the nuck a little, but I need to slow that.
Speaker 1: The only thing, the only thing I heard was a
Speaker 1: can that y'all read together? Okay, everything else running together
Speaker 1: for sure? Okay, So how you say the first part
Speaker 1: a loom duha time boodoo naka lu lulu. Also also
Speaker 1: what they wrote on my card all that's not you
Speaker 1: got more names than that, You got like seven eight names.
Speaker 1: So let met your question. Who actually called you your
Speaker 1: government name? What? They just call you a car? Yeah,
Speaker 1: my family's called me Ali. Then you just called you Ali.
Speaker 1: So if if somebody were like, if you're walking down
Speaker 1: the street and they would have say Ali, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: assume they face I would. I would have see the
Speaker 1: family or somebody that knew me since I was a kid. Okay,
Speaker 1: you got new music coming out. What made you just
Speaker 1: what made you decide to get back into the music
Speaker 1: game at this point? Well, actually, you know it's like
Speaker 1: after you don't achieved everything, Yeah, you kind of go
Speaker 1: back to what you love, to go back to the
Speaker 1: root of what makes you happy, right, and music was
Speaker 1: just that thing. Because I realized that my first go
Speaker 1: around in the music business. Everything was so based around
Speaker 1: the business, right. Everything was like, okay, cool, I need
Speaker 1: to make money, I need to get rich, I need
Speaker 1: to invest. I need to make sure that my family,
Speaker 1: my kids and their kids are straight. Right. So once
Speaker 1: you got your investments all in the order, then my
Speaker 1: legacy was built out. Philanthropy was really you know, was
Speaker 1: based in balanced in Africa. I was like, man, I
Speaker 1: want to I didn't. I wasn't enjoying myself after a while.
Speaker 1: I wanted to just go back to having fun again.
Speaker 1: So you wanted to go back and make music that
Speaker 1: you like, not so much that it might not have
Speaker 1: the commercial appeal because you've already satisfied that side. Now
Speaker 1: let me do what I like. Right, But but you
Speaker 1: want to commercial appeal steal but no, but this is thing.
Speaker 1: Even when I was doing music, I only did what
Speaker 1: I liked anyway, That's the only part of it that
Speaker 1: I enjoyed. But it's the everything that's attached to music,
Speaker 1: all the opportunities that you can actually run into that
Speaker 1: you know that the business side came from what music attracted, right,
Speaker 1: So the music opened the doors and know that normal
Speaker 1: doors wouldn't open for me. What is it that you
Speaker 1: don't like about the music business. I don't like the
Speaker 1: politics about it. When you say politics, I think the
Speaker 1: politics about it is what really drove me away from it.
Speaker 1: And then it's also the uh, the aspect of just
Speaker 1: the originality of it. Like I felt like if one
Speaker 1: thing worked, the whole industry would ride towards that one
Speaker 1: thing that work, and everybody would try to duplicate that.
Speaker 1: It became more of a copy and paste industry. Right,
Speaker 1: originality didn't matter anymore. And then if you was in it,
Speaker 1: if you will try to be original, you got shunned
Speaker 1: or blocked because it wasn't nothing close to what everybody
Speaker 1: else was doing. Yeah. I couldn't get with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you you I mean when you talked about Locked Up,
Speaker 1: But I'm looking at your career before Locked Up took off,
Speaker 1: you were going around to prisons and actually performing, right,
Speaker 1: that's how we broke the record. Yeah, it was interesting
Speaker 1: Why I heard a small gymnasium YMCAs and really hairy
Speaker 1: people kicking it off at the prison system. So, so
Speaker 1: what made you decide to go that route? Well, it
Speaker 1: was it was about being creative. Like, they got a
Speaker 1: whole lot of money to pay for top price for
Speaker 1: tickets at all. It was free actually exactly actually pay
Speaker 1: to get it done exactly. Na. But when it was
Speaker 1: when we first did Locked Up, it was it was
Speaker 1: it was tough to get it played on the video,
Speaker 1: tough to get it marketed, to promote it, and my
Speaker 1: whole concept about it. I was like, wait, this is
Speaker 1: a street record, right, obviously street to the core. The
Speaker 1: best place for this record to actually get any kind
Speaker 1: of marketing promotion is the place and where the concept
Speaker 1: came from, which was in jail. Right. So I ran
Speaker 1: into this warden over at Rocket's Island at the time, Okay,
Speaker 1: that had his new program that they was exercising, and
Speaker 1: he reached out to Steve Rifkin when up you know,
Speaker 1: at the time it was as the CEO of SRC Records,
Speaker 1: who I was assigned to, and he said, Yo, listen, man,
Speaker 1: we got this concept where we want to be able
Speaker 1: to bring artists to come perform for inmates, you know,
Speaker 1: and just kind of get these kids, you know, thinking
Speaker 1: more about along. Yeah. Positive. So I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I listen, I do it. Let's go Locked Up. It's
Speaker 1: the perfect record, right. So we went in and did it.
Speaker 1: The program was so successful he invited us to all
Speaker 1: his other areas that he controlled, and we end up
Speaker 1: doing a penitentiary tour and then how the record popped
Speaker 1: off was that the inmates would call their parents and
Speaker 1: have their parents called the radio station on three Way
Speaker 1: to request the record, and that's how the record broke
Speaker 1: on the radio. Wow. Yeah, did you think at the
Speaker 1: time that you was making this record that it was
Speaker 1: gonna do what it did? No? I had no idea
Speaker 1: at the time. It was just it was a passion
Speaker 1: product project. I was just going through the process and
Speaker 1: wrote about it because I had a habit of writing
Speaker 1: things that I went through, so when I got locked up,
Speaker 1: that haven't followed me in jail and ultimately just became
Speaker 1: what it was, so that would be so locked up
Speaker 1: is real life for you? Yeah? Yeah, real experiences. Speaking
Speaker 1: of that, we see now in Atlanta. What's going on
Speaker 1: to Atlanta. We see Gunner, we see I think young
Speaker 1: Thug the YSL and they're using their actual lyrics right
Speaker 1: in the statue right you wrote this is real life
Speaker 1: to me? How much should they be allowed? Because the
Speaker 1: California governor users are now we're not going to use
Speaker 1: lyrics against people right. And you know what, I agree
Speaker 1: with not using lyrics against people because a lot of
Speaker 1: times most of the stuff that a lot of rappers
Speaker 1: are talking about ain't true. Right, It's this fantasy world
Speaker 1: of being a gangster, the fancy world of being the
Speaker 1: studio gangster, studio gangs. Right. So, which is cool because
Speaker 1: movies do the same thing exact real life. Right, you
Speaker 1: kill somebody in the movie, don't mean they can go
Speaker 1: and say, oh, you kill somebody, I'm trying you for murder. Right.
Speaker 1: But the difference in a lot of these cases that
Speaker 1: this a lot of information that's being released on these songs,
Speaker 1: our information that's never been put to the public in
Speaker 1: the investigation. Right, So how do you justify lyrics an
Speaker 1: investigation that match a case almost to the tea that
Speaker 1: it's information that's never been released to the public. It's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to fight that. So to kind of
Speaker 1: confess your own crimes or the records at a little ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. I mean, look, I love your stuff. I
Speaker 1: mean you from the crib. So I got a special
Speaker 1: liking to artist that's in Atlanta, like Tip and Louder Yourself,
Speaker 1: Goodie Mob outcast, those guys. So I'm I'm biased. I
Speaker 1: love Locked Up, but my favorite song You're on the
Speaker 1: hook with the soul Survivor. Yeah, so how did how
Speaker 1: did that project come about? Yeah? That's actually one of
Speaker 1: my favorite records as well too. At the time, BMF
Speaker 1: was a group out of Atlanta that was just like
Speaker 1: they was. They would be they killing in every aspect.
Speaker 1: And Mitch was a really really good friend of mine. Okay,
Speaker 1: and he said, listen, con I got this artist, man,
Speaker 1: I need your help on it. I promise you, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look out for you. Hobby me, I got you,
Speaker 1: I said, man, just bring him to He brought him
Speaker 1: by the studio and Jeez at the time was so raw.
Speaker 1: I was like, Bro, this kid, I don't know where
Speaker 1: you found him, but he's out of here right, Like
Speaker 1: he's out of here right. So Jez played me his
Speaker 1: mixtape at that time and I said, okay, cool. So
Speaker 1: when I left the studio, I reached back to meach
Speaker 1: I said, I got him, trust me. So I did
Speaker 1: the record, which was so survival, send it to Jeez.
Speaker 1: As soon as he heard it, He's like, oh, bro,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is it? Yeah, this is it.
Speaker 1: He did he knew like he knew. I mean literally
Speaker 1: hour didn't pass. He sent me back the song always
Speaker 1: with his lyrics already owned it. I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a monster record. But it was. It was
Speaker 1: as simple as meat connected us, right? Yeah? Is that?
Speaker 1: How is as simple as that somebody brings your art?
Speaker 1: I mean because it happens all the time, people passing
Speaker 1: you mixtapes on the street. He come from, Hey, I
Speaker 1: got that heat on me, Bro, I need you to
Speaker 1: take a listen. What what made you so sure that
Speaker 1: Jez was it? I just knew, Like I think that's
Speaker 1: always been a gift of mine, that God just gave
Speaker 1: me that puss to know a star when I see it,
Speaker 1: like I just knew it, like I just automatic knew it.
Speaker 1: But me, a lot of my collaborations come from me
Speaker 1: just passionately liking it personally, right, Like if I like
Speaker 1: it personally, I'm a due regardless of what, because I
Speaker 1: just I just like it right, and I see it's
Speaker 1: gonna go somewhere. But oftentimes it was never politics involved
Speaker 1: in my decisions when it came to music. You got
Speaker 1: to get us were a record number one selling artists
Speaker 1: at Ring Tone, right, how did that happen? Well, at
Speaker 1: the time, like music was always like a vehicle to
Speaker 1: me to get to the money. Okay, Like imagine a
Speaker 1: hustler seeing an opportunity to where you can be famous
Speaker 1: and use that to open up doors for other opportunities
Speaker 1: to money, right, Right, So when I was doing records,
Speaker 1: I looked at the concept and the stats of how
Speaker 1: people were rushing and beating themselves up to sell singles,
Speaker 1: which was like four minutes long, right, and for a
Speaker 1: dollar ninety nine. Right. And then you had ring tones,
Speaker 1: which was just knew in the market, you know, a
Speaker 1: digital you know concept where the ring tone was like
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds long. It was four ninety nine. I said, well,
Speaker 1: hell up, I think I'm on the wrong side of it.
Speaker 1: We need to be selling ring tones, right if all
Speaker 1: I need is fifteen seconds eleven for five dollars. It
Speaker 1: was that simple, and that's when I started creating my
Speaker 1: whole revenue model around selling ring tone. So every single
Speaker 1: was based on the ring tone. Obviously, the Atlanta scene,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows everybody. You know Killer Mike, you
Speaker 1: know Gunna, you know Young Thug, you know Tip, you
Speaker 1: know Loota. So what makes the Atlanta scene so special. Ooh.
Speaker 1: I think that what made Atlanta so special was the
Speaker 1: fact that it was something brand new to hip hop
Speaker 1: at the time. You know, they had a different perspective
Speaker 1: when it came to rap music because we used to
Speaker 1: be R and B. We had we had baby Face.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we had Laid, we had TLC. I think
Speaker 1: the Face, Yeah, don't get enough credit for they started.
Speaker 1: They started it all man, Yeah, La Reid and baby Face.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for them, that wouldn't be no Atlanta.
Speaker 1: See right, Like they took it to to the South
Speaker 1: where they saw the the I mean it was just
Speaker 1: brewing talent that nobody was actually cooking, right, Like how
Speaker 1: do you like? Oh Day's like, man, we need to
Speaker 1: set up shop right here, right And sure enough, when
Speaker 1: the when the Olympics came and the world came to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: it also created this international vibe as well too, So
Speaker 1: you got a lot of like myself, I came because
Speaker 1: of their Olympics. So but when you created that and
Speaker 1: then people asked me was able to hear the sounds
Speaker 1: of the South and feel the energy of it, I
Speaker 1: think it really transformed the business because everybody was so
Speaker 1: inspired that even people from New York was trying to
Speaker 1: sell that dude from South right and they just changed
Speaker 1: the game. You mentioned we were talking about the wire
Speaker 1: selling their situation and and and and bml Black Moufia Family.
Speaker 1: How how did that? Because it seems like the BMMLF
Speaker 1: and what they had, they glamorized it. They had a
Speaker 1: doc had a thing on I think it was Netflix,
Speaker 1: and they showed the rise and the fall of the
Speaker 1: BMF and they showed the big lavish cars, and they
Speaker 1: showed the strip loves and all that stuff. Is that
Speaker 1: Captain Atlanta is more than that? No, Atlanta's definitely more
Speaker 1: than that. I mean, you gotta think New York had
Speaker 1: it too in Brooklyn, like yeah, right, you can go
Speaker 1: in pretty much any city, right, you know, La had
Speaker 1: it with Rick Ross, Like anywhere you go, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have that. Rap music was based around the lifestyle of
Speaker 1: the struggle, like the rags to richest story. It's rap music, right,
Speaker 1: So when you in any major you know, challenge neighborhood
Speaker 1: or hood, you can kind of say, okay, there's always
Speaker 1: been that one person that everybody looked up to, which
Speaker 1: was the neighborhood drug dealer, right, he made the money fast,
Speaker 1: he looked amazing. All the girls wanted them. He's right,
Speaker 1: he's the guy that all the kids want to be. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but see coming up, the ogs would tell you, nah,
Speaker 1: bro ain't touching that go to school right today it
Speaker 1: ain't the same. They ain't no oldgs. Oh jeez that
Speaker 1: they gotta give you that game. All ogs that gave
Speaker 1: us the game all jet a locked up. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: and so now it is social media. It's called social media.
Speaker 1: Every everything on social media. Everybody doing well because the
Speaker 1: social media got met. I'm poor, but they got rolled.
Speaker 1: What what am I doing wrong? What are you start?
Speaker 1: I mean? But the social media is just like a
Speaker 1: rap song. Now, okay, you can become whoever you want
Speaker 1: to become. Right, So the rap song we idolize those
Speaker 1: that group. And that's the we're telling their stories. Right
Speaker 1: Like when you look at rappers, they tell them to
Speaker 1: be and map stories. They telling no story like that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't them living it, but they living through them.
Speaker 1: But through the music, you can become that, right, So
Speaker 1: social media is no different. The only differences. Now, now
Speaker 1: you can curate your background, you know, produce your whole environment.
Speaker 1: And make it look like you're this billionaire you know.
Speaker 1: And then right when you jump off that private jet
Speaker 1: that you just took a picture next to that you
Speaker 1: didn't even rent, you go back to the front of
Speaker 1: the you know, the signature places and ask for and
Speaker 1: call you uber. Right, so it's like, you know, but
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, when you look at
Speaker 1: the the I mean, your man, your feet look like
Speaker 1: oh man, this boy, yes, yes, you know, do you
Speaker 1: has social media skewed reality because social media took reality
Speaker 1: but well, well artificial reality to the next level, right,
Speaker 1: so before everyone believable what you saw on television, like
Speaker 1: TV was the truth because you can visit visially like
Speaker 1: vis Now social media has become and took the place
Speaker 1: of television because now television, everyone can curate their own programs, right,
Speaker 1: like they can create what they want the world to
Speaker 1: see or envision when it comes to them, Like you
Speaker 1: can create your own personality through just you just gotta
Speaker 1: be good at tech, you know, be very creative. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, do you I mean these
Speaker 1: charges that Atlanta on Young Thug and the wire self,
Speaker 1: they seem very serious. No, they're very serious, and they
Speaker 1: won't get bonded. They've been They've tried to get bonding.
Speaker 1: They've been to Night I think three or four times,
Speaker 1: Thug and Gunnam. You think they go, you think they're
Speaker 1: going away for a while. Man. I pray that they
Speaker 1: never have to deal with that kind of experience. But
Speaker 1: the worst part of me is saying that they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna utilize them and use them as an example. That's
Speaker 1: what scares me, because I'm sure they probably did. I mean,
Speaker 1: ain't nobody angels. Everybody's gonna go through what they go through.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of the issues that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with are more issues that might have stemmed from
Speaker 1: their past. Right, that's being presentized. Right. And of course,
Speaker 1: when you come from a past environment of that kind
Speaker 1: of life, as you get more successful, if you're smart,
Speaker 1: you will kind of drive yourself from from it. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: these kids kind of try to keep that environment close
Speaker 1: to them to justify and make real what they're saying
Speaker 1: on records, Like everything is about okay, is he real? Okay?
Speaker 1: What's the question and what's the like, what is the
Speaker 1: definition of real? Right? Is it that okay? What you're
Speaker 1: saying you're on your record is something that you're actually
Speaker 1: doing in a real life or who you co signed
Speaker 1: or co signed by on record, it's actually around you
Speaker 1: when you've seen in public right now, when you got
Speaker 1: these credible street guys that's out there standing next to
Speaker 1: somebody like a young thug or a gunner, and these
Speaker 1: guys are still active. And you know, obviously if you're
Speaker 1: active in the streets, that mean you're still out there
Speaker 1: committing crimes. But yet you're you know, you're with someone
Speaker 1: who might have been attached or involved in a life
Speaker 1: in the past, but they're still currently with you. You
Speaker 1: can easily be caught up in any kind of conspiracy
Speaker 1: because you know that person. If it's a case on
Speaker 1: that person and they pull up a rico, just you
Speaker 1: knowing the person you you tied in because conspiracy. So
Speaker 1: you gotta be a lot smarter than you know the
Speaker 1: average person and understand how much you have to lose
Speaker 1: by being attached to that environment. You gotta be able
Speaker 1: to let that go. What happened to you? Like man
Speaker 1: laying in bed at night in the situation, not because
Speaker 1: I come from a very improper situation, but when I
Speaker 1: laid in my bed at night, I was like God,
Speaker 1: just give me an opportunity to get away from this. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I can tell you about my story, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to. I didn't want to relive it. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you're trying to get out of these streets, why do
Speaker 1: you care to go back once you made it, to
Speaker 1: try to relive that and try to impress people. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm still good. Well, the problem is most of them
Speaker 1: never was. Okay, but when you got money, you can
Speaker 1: become what you never was. You can become what you
Speaker 1: always wanted to be. Yeah, because it ain't no real
Speaker 1: believe me, you know, because our generation was different. We
Speaker 1: did it to get the hell up out of that,
Speaker 1: for sure. I ain't looked back since, no plan to it.
Speaker 1: Non't get right, He followed, Yeah, I mean, Peter tell
Speaker 1: me all the time, Oh you had this, you had
Speaker 1: money all your life. No, I don't. I ain't finished.
Speaker 1: Limit that. You proved that you I I'm not finished,
Speaker 1: limmit again, proved to you that I tore him up,
Speaker 1: came back help you. I mean people trying. You're right,
Speaker 1: People try to relive, try to relive a situation, to
Speaker 1: try to prove to someone else. No, I really came
Speaker 1: from the streets. I really sold drugs. I really did this,
Speaker 1: Like why, like, why would you even want to put
Speaker 1: that on your back? And yeah, you actually proud, ain't
Speaker 1: something to be You didn't know any better. You're trying
Speaker 1: to make ends and you're trying to get out of
Speaker 1: a situation and things happen. But once you know better
Speaker 1: and you made it, it shouldn't be a situation where
Speaker 1: you try to impress somebody to go back to that
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you when you were when you got
Speaker 1: locked up? What was going when you were when you
Speaker 1: were in there, the actual inside the facility. They said,
Speaker 1: there's one thing between your physical body being in prison
Speaker 1: and your mind being in prison. He said, that's when
Speaker 1: you're lost, is when your mind is there. Your body
Speaker 1: was there, clearly your mind wasn't there because you were
Speaker 1: thinking about something else. Yeah, how did you pass the time?
Speaker 1: How did you get past that moment in your life?
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how I was gonna over, like
Speaker 1: what I'm planning on doing when I get out. And
Speaker 1: it was in jail that I made my ten year plan.
Speaker 1: I literally had a ten year planner where I want
Speaker 1: to be in the next ten years. Okay, and at
Speaker 1: the top of my plan was I want to be
Speaker 1: at the work with Michael Jackson. That was the top
Speaker 1: of my plan, and that wasn't the plan that you
Speaker 1: were positting to. I would work with my right listen,
Speaker 1: I said. If I weren't Mike, I didn't made it.
Speaker 1: I'm good God and blessing. And for sure enough, within
Speaker 1: five years of that plan, I had already reached it.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what drove me to philanthropy quicker
Speaker 1: because once I reached that goal in five years, I
Speaker 1: was like, Man, God gave me everything I ever wanted
Speaker 1: to do right, Like what do I do now? I
Speaker 1: don't want to just be known for singing a dance
Speaker 1: and I want to be able to be an impact.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to you know when when
Speaker 1: when I when I rub or attached to anybody, their
Speaker 1: name or their their situation is upgraded better. Like I
Speaker 1: want to be able to make lives better. Just God
Speaker 1: give me the position to be in a position to
Speaker 1: help other people. You know what made you decide to
Speaker 1: move to Atlanta? What's what I mean? You got there
Speaker 1: and then you lived there. That's home now, I mean
Speaker 1: we saw each other. Couple's funny how you meet somebody
Speaker 1: were flying flying back from Atlanta, Bastion, We've been born
Speaker 1: for a long time. Why did you move to Atlanta
Speaker 1: or did you move with family or you moved on
Speaker 1: your own? And what's Atlanta what's the Atlanta Atlanta experience
Speaker 1: been like for you? Well, in the beginning, my dad
Speaker 1: actually was a you know, he was a jazz musician. Okay,
Speaker 1: but he's also was a professor, okay, because he chold.
Speaker 1: You know, he he taught a lot of he did
Speaker 1: a lot of culture exchange programs with universities. Okay, he
Speaker 1: did it with Miami, he did it Atlanta, Clark Okay.
Speaker 1: So he moved to Atlanta early. Okay. At the time,
Speaker 1: I was hustling in New Jersey, right, So Pops decided
Speaker 1: to move to Atlanta. I decided to stay in Jersey
Speaker 1: for reasons only I knew. Right then, Pops was like, listen,
Speaker 1: you gotta come to Atlanta. Atlanta is a beautiful place
Speaker 1: as fresh and I'm like, wow, that's a new territory
Speaker 1: for me. Then when I heard then I heard the
Speaker 1: Olympics is coming there, I said, oh yeah, I'm gone, right,
Speaker 1: So I moved to Atlanta. But when I got to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I was. I was honestly surprised of how amazing it
Speaker 1: was there. Yes, I never turned back and went back
Speaker 1: to Jersey. I like i'ven have until this day. I
Speaker 1: left my furniture, everything in that apartment. Never came back
Speaker 1: for it, you know. But then when I realized the
Speaker 1: opportunities in Jersey and I mean Atlanta, and then the
Speaker 1: people and how nice they was, the food and the
Speaker 1: beautiful women, and it was just it was like it
Speaker 1: was a no brainer. It was a no brainer. So
Speaker 1: you came in where ninety five. I came in ninety
Speaker 1: four ninety four. Oh so you came to Freak Nigga
Speaker 1: last day. This would never happen to New Jersey. I
Speaker 1: don't care. I mean, we had Freak nigg We had
Speaker 1: Jack to wrap up, right, we had everything anything. Freak
Speaker 1: Nick is wood stock man, steroids, WoT I mean? And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everybody goes to Coachella, But Freak
Speaker 1: Nick ain't. Nothing like Freaknick and nothing like it. You
Speaker 1: had a student before blowing up. You went to you
Speaker 1: went to jail for arm robbery, stealing cars. Bro I
Speaker 1: know you know that's stealing cars, Davis because the owner
Speaker 1: run out there up own you and then what But
Speaker 1: that's the thing. In Jersey, we kind of perfected the
Speaker 1: art of stealing cars. I know, sounds crazy, I know,
Speaker 1: but that's what we was knowing for Jersey, Like, this
Speaker 1: is what we do. So when I came in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: because they didn't know anything about you ahead of your time,
Speaker 1: nothing about it, so it was like the perfect It
Speaker 1: was so perfect. You had a studio. Who's some of
Speaker 1: the famous artists that came through your studio? Man, everybody worked,
Speaker 1: I mean practically almost everybody from Atlanta if you name,
Speaker 1: they didn't work through our studio, like literally everybody. You're
Speaker 1: still getting usher TLC. I mean, I mean even everybody, everybody, everybody,
Speaker 1: So everybody came through us studio. You're sitting You're sitting
Speaker 1: on your cot and you says, I want to worked
Speaker 1: with Michael Jackson. Did you always know what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do? From that moment on, You're like, you know what, Lord,
Speaker 1: if you get me out of this situation, I promise
Speaker 1: you I will never ever come back. I will never
Speaker 1: ever ask you to do me another favorite Again, those
Speaker 1: are my exact words, too, Lord. I won't steal a
Speaker 1: piece of Bubba guy. It's getting me out in the situation.
Speaker 1: And I promise you and I kept my worry that
Speaker 1: my life has been amazing ever since. When we see
Speaker 1: we see what happened with P and B Robb and
Speaker 1: we see what we see what a pop smoke, what's
Speaker 1: going on? It goes back to this generation again trying
Speaker 1: to prove to people. Right. So you get to the
Speaker 1: position where, Okay, it's one thing to acknowledge the fact
Speaker 1: that there's people out there starving, yes, struggling, yes, But
Speaker 1: it's another thing to know it and flash it in
Speaker 1: their face and make them feel as if they're less
Speaker 1: than what they're what they should be. Right. So, if
Speaker 1: you're utilizing someone else's environment to profit, the people that's
Speaker 1: being profited from is gonna feel some kind of way, right,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna feel like, not only did you owe
Speaker 1: them something, but it's disrespectful, that's just being poor and
Speaker 1: knowing this. Right. So when you get to a situation
Speaker 1: like that, you gotta also respect the idea of knowing
Speaker 1: that the environment and what you came from that you
Speaker 1: don't plan to go back or if you did, or
Speaker 1: if you haven't done anything for those people that feel
Speaker 1: that you should. There's gonna be some repercussions and you
Speaker 1: opening up the treasure trunk of yours blessing because unfortunately,
Speaker 1: our people, as black people, we just believe we're owe something.
Speaker 1: Made it from you made it from here. You gotta
Speaker 1: break it back. But even you, Nipsey meysically wouldn't give
Speaker 1: it back. The community give me back, and it still
Speaker 1: happens because that jealousy. Man, we have this. That's why
Speaker 1: the community is like that. It's not like that in
Speaker 1: other communities. It really they not feel like they're old something.
Speaker 1: I mean because now I gotta man, I gotta drive
Speaker 1: a beat up truck, or I gotta dress down because
Speaker 1: I'm afraid somebody gonna see something and be mad at
Speaker 1: me because I bust my ass to make it out.
Speaker 1: And now you jealous because I got on some design
Speaker 1: or I got a little a little chain, or I
Speaker 1: drive a nice car. You're like, bro, you owe me,
Speaker 1: break me off. Nah, get up and go to work.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that everybody. Everybody's not gonna be gonna
Speaker 1: make millions of dogs, right, but you can, you can
Speaker 1: do something you should. You shouldn't feel like, well, you
Speaker 1: got I'm gonna take it from you. It's it's just
Speaker 1: unfortunate because we've created this, this this scenario that we
Speaker 1: have to value ourselves with material things, right, and that's
Speaker 1: how we measure ourselves, right, that's how we measure ourselves.
Speaker 1: So when somebody's coming up, the first thing they do
Speaker 1: is buy a car, by house, buy some jewelry. Right, So,
Speaker 1: and then this is saying, Okay, you gotta look like
Speaker 1: money to make money. Half the time were faking until
Speaker 1: we make it. And that's just being real. Now I
Speaker 1: ain't going in debt. I make it. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: as a culture, as a culture, we take it till
Speaker 1: we make it. It is right because me and I
Speaker 1: and it's it's like a radar. Because if I walk
Speaker 1: into a business meeting and somebody's allrin trinking it up
Speaker 1: with all these ornaments on them, I already know he
Speaker 1: ain't got no money. I already know you broke. You
Speaker 1: ain't fooling me broke. That used to be me off top,
Speaker 1: I'm now now I'm tuned out already, because like, why
Speaker 1: do you have to do all that? Right? If you're successful,
Speaker 1: just come show me to you know, present what you
Speaker 1: got to present and sell it. Yeah, but all actually
Speaker 1: is to try. You said you you like you believe
Speaker 1: labels are making money off rappers dying one, Oh yeah
Speaker 1: for sure. I mean because, believe me, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of things that can be put
Speaker 1: in place to prevent it. Believe it. You know. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we can't always blame
Speaker 1: the establishment for mistakes that we make it right right,
Speaker 1: because it ain't like we don't know better either. Like
Speaker 1: it goes back to people used to always get on
Speaker 1: Jay on why he don't go back to Marcy projects.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why should he? Yeah, and do what because
Speaker 1: somebody jealous and do what? But what? But why? Why?
Speaker 1: Why are we like that? I mean you look at
Speaker 1: uh Justin Timber ain't trying to beat up Robin Thick.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, so why is it the rap culture?
Speaker 1: Why is it us that feel that even if it's
Speaker 1: nothing there, we will create a situation. And it's about,
Speaker 1: you know, all of a sudden, now you got to
Speaker 1: be disrespectful about somebody's girl. You gotta be disrespectful about
Speaker 1: you know how I snack your chain and you snack
Speaker 1: there or I ran up on your boy. What what what? What? What?
Speaker 1: What's what's so big about that? What? What? What? What's? Honestly,
Speaker 1: God can never understand that. It's till this day, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to answer a question like that. It's
Speaker 1: just mentality has been so twisted and the story and
Speaker 1: this history of just being manipulated by each other, and
Speaker 1: then we don't have trust amongst each other. So it's
Speaker 1: hard for us to come together and create anything great
Speaker 1: because it's always gonna be this, Uh, you know, he
Speaker 1: got more than I dead, or why should he be
Speaker 1: in that position when I created? Or you know, it's
Speaker 1: established this it's never say let's look, let's just put
Speaker 1: all that aside and out how we can come together,
Speaker 1: put our sorts together and create something great right without
Speaker 1: and actually wanting it for each other then to be
Speaker 1: jealous of each other, right, It's just I mean, it's tough.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can always blame it on history because
Speaker 1: we we always been separated according to classes. We've always
Speaker 1: been you know, but at the end of day, there
Speaker 1: has to be a time in life where we could say,
Speaker 1: you know what, yes it happened, but we can do
Speaker 1: something about it. Right, But when do you get tired
Speaker 1: enough to say, let's just stop talking and protesting and
Speaker 1: just have and let actions actually allow us to come
Speaker 1: together and create something great, it said. Fat Joe says
Speaker 1: he believed rappers are an in dangered species. You believe that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a new rapper die every week. It's
Speaker 1: the most dangerous ocupation in the world. Right now, Did
Speaker 1: this start with the biggest in Tupac B Because I
Speaker 1: don't remember. Look, I remember when L and Kumo D
Speaker 1: hadn't n I used that. I used that as an
Speaker 1: example all the time. It was L was trying to
Speaker 1: roll up on Mod Kumo D wasn't trying to rolled
Speaker 1: up on him, right, and we just ain't. It was
Speaker 1: just you know, live far at it's fine, it's rap.
Speaker 1: And then that was built on battling, and then somehow
Speaker 1: Tupac and bigger and it escalated to that level and
Speaker 1: we hadn't looked back since. Yeah, it's unfortunate because a
Speaker 1: lot of the gangsters are very emotional. They're the most
Speaker 1: emotional people on the planet. And most of 'em was
Speaker 1: raised by their mother or their grandmothers. Their father figures
Speaker 1: wouldn't a part of their lives, so the man side
Speaker 1: of them that would take a joke ain't there because
Speaker 1: the father wasn't there to show. Okay, as a man,
Speaker 1: your skin should be as tough as leather. Little words
Speaker 1: should never affect you. Right to the point now, I
Speaker 1: mean because of me being raised more from my African
Speaker 1: side of my family. It's like, okay, you get it,
Speaker 1: because it's just a different level of a responsibility that
Speaker 1: the man like owns today. The man of the house
Speaker 1: will easily tell you, well, that ain't my responsibility. That's
Speaker 1: all a matter of fact. He's not a role model.
Speaker 1: You got famous people that says I'm not a role model.
Speaker 1: That ain't my That's not my responsibility, right, Okay, then
Speaker 1: whose responsibility is it? If the kids are looking up
Speaker 1: to you, right, it's not a choice. This comes with
Speaker 1: the territory. Once you become successful and you're in a
Speaker 1: position where you actually influence people, that's your role towards
Speaker 1: God to say, man, he put me in this position
Speaker 1: for a reason. It ain't just for me to focus
Speaker 1: on myself and tell everybody else, show everybody how hot
Speaker 1: I am. I gotta actually be some kind of used
Speaker 1: to the environment and to population to say okay, cool.
Speaker 1: I have to lead by example because what I do,
Speaker 1: kids are watching this and gonna want to do the
Speaker 1: same thing, and you gotta keep that in mind. Right,
Speaker 1: Kanye West, You've defended Kanye West in the past, and
Speaker 1: I believe in freedom of speech, but I believe you
Speaker 1: can take it too far also, Right, What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on Kanye right now? Well, yeah, y'are always I'm
Speaker 1: always defending the people that nobody wants to defend. I'm
Speaker 1: always defending Kanye West because I always believe in life,
Speaker 1: an opinion is just an opinion. If you say something
Speaker 1: that I don't agree with, I just don't agree with it, right,
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna jumping all over mad and letting
Speaker 1: it affect my energy. But he's a person of influence.
Speaker 1: It goes, it goes right back to that right now,
Speaker 1: the last comments he made in these last days, I
Speaker 1: definitely don't agree, right, because it's there was a reason
Speaker 1: why the phrase black Lives Matter was even created. Right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a concept for marketing againmicking right. It
Speaker 1: was a history of behavior and hurt and pain that
Speaker 1: led to that, to the point where the world was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, something our lives got the matter too.
Speaker 1: It has to right, right, So I see what maybe
Speaker 1: what he was trying to say or what he was
Speaker 1: trying to do. Clearly, everybody, we all believe that all
Speaker 1: lives matter, correct, we do, right, I mean it has
Speaker 1: to matter for us to survive. Yeah, it spoke to me,
Speaker 1: all lives matters. But we've seen all lives don't matter.
Speaker 1: It hasn't mattered. All lives hadn't matter. Right, So you
Speaker 1: can't use your emphasis or that phrase into a situation
Speaker 1: like this, right because it don't fit here. Right, this
Speaker 1: has to be resolved first before that happens, right, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. In order for all lives to matter,
Speaker 1: this this, these lives have to matter, correct, because we're
Speaker 1: the lives that's driving economy, sports, entertainment, fashion. I mean,
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar corporations are benefiting from our sweat, tears, work,
Speaker 1: influence everything. So if our lives don't matter, nothing really
Speaker 1: actually matters in America. He said about you know, he's
Speaker 1: gonna go deafcom one two three says something about the
Speaker 1: Jewish communities. He was supposed to be on the shop,
Speaker 1: his interview on the shop. They canceled that Candice Owen
Speaker 1: showed something from JP Morgan Chase where they said we're
Speaker 1: ending our relationship. When a bank says I'm gonna end
Speaker 1: my relationship with an individual and that individual is worth billions, right,
Speaker 1: I think that speaks volume. That says a lot. That
Speaker 1: says because one thing we know about banks, they like money.
Speaker 1: What they like more than money is your money. They
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of absolutely, But that I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean someone like Kanye. I think sometimes in certain
Speaker 1: areas he honestly forgets that his opinion doesn't always matter, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. He thinks his opinion is low though he
Speaker 1: thinks his opinion always matters. His opinion is just his opinion.
Speaker 1: But as us as us listening to it, we got
Speaker 1: to also know that too. But then to your point,
Speaker 1: there's kids that don't know the difference between how powerful
Speaker 1: this opinion is right when they're themselves are trying to
Speaker 1: find themselves. But you know what, sometimes Kanye forget that
Speaker 1: he you and our color, and then they got to
Speaker 1: do things to remind him. No, they got to remind him.
Speaker 1: They have to remind And honestly, I think he knows, No,
Speaker 1: he don't know. He forgets I think no, I think
Speaker 1: I think Kanye is smarter than y'all. Thing. This the
Speaker 1: brilliant side of him. What is what is his next
Speaker 1: plan to run for office? Right? I'm just saying yea,
Speaker 1: from our knowledge, his next plan is to run for office? Right?
Speaker 1: Who is his main endorsment? Trump? Okay? Now, in order
Speaker 1: for Kanye even have a shot, he needs a piece
Speaker 1: of that that base. Yes, this is how he's getting
Speaker 1: it right. He knows this. Yes, he knows this's gonna Okay,
Speaker 1: he gonna He's gonna make a lot of black people angry.
Speaker 1: But guess what we're forgiving people. He knows that too.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. You ain't saying something fucked up,
Speaker 1: but guess what. Tomorrow you're gonna do something great. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be like, you know what, that nigga crazy? But
Speaker 1: he yeah, he make good music. Yeah, he's kind of
Speaker 1: playing to see saw. But he gotta be careful because
Speaker 1: if it's too much weight on one side or not
Speaker 1: enough weight on the other side, he's gonna go down.
Speaker 1: You're originally from Saint Louis. Yeah, man, me know, me
Speaker 1: and Nellie like brothers, Like we went to the same
Speaker 1: middle school. Okay, that's like my heart right there. So
Speaker 1: did you want to did did you want to do
Speaker 1: music when you were when you were little? When did
Speaker 1: you want what did you want to do when you
Speaker 1: were growing up? When you were like in middle school,
Speaker 1: say you're like nine, ten eleven, What did they can
Speaker 1: want to be? I wanted to be a brain surgeon.
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to be an FBI agent. I
Speaker 1: know it's crazy, right music. And then the music part
Speaker 1: came when I was locked up, when I realized, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: when I get out of here, I need to find
Speaker 1: something that's gonna keep me out of here, something that's
Speaker 1: gonna also a lot me to be wealthy. And then
Speaker 1: all this time music has always been there as a hobby.
Speaker 1: So in music always had always had the love for music, right,
Speaker 1: you had a love for music. But it wasn't nothing
Speaker 1: that I ever wanted to pursue as well thought that
Speaker 1: I would be pursuing as a career. Okay, it was
Speaker 1: always a hobby. And then you get locked up and
Speaker 1: you said, okay, I gotta find something I can do.
Speaker 1: This's gonna keep me not to get locked up again.
Speaker 1: And then so when you got out, so so how
Speaker 1: did you How did you find this? You had this
Speaker 1: gift for music. Well, the gift for music came from
Speaker 1: my father. My father was a jazz musician, right, and
Speaker 1: he always was. Well, he was a jazz musician before
Speaker 1: you got locked up. He just didn't realize he was
Speaker 1: a magician when you there. No, I knew that. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, you didn't play the instruments. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: played all instruments as well, But he used to listen.
Speaker 1: I used to go to all his shows and everything,
Speaker 1: but it was jazz. And I was a kid. No
Speaker 1: kid loves jazz. So that's what threw me up. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be listening to this all man
Speaker 1: like to hit the horn and the sacks, the trump
Speaker 1: and the trump. Yeah, but when you playing with groups
Speaker 1: like the World Saxophone Quartet, where every player that's playing
Speaker 1: brass plays their own thing all years. But like you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm talking a stuff that just all over
Speaker 1: the place. I couldn't get a sense of just a
Speaker 1: real melody with real rhythm, like it was always the
Speaker 1: jazz was always so diverse, and everyone everywhere I went
Speaker 1: it was a different type of jazz. I I used
Speaker 1: to like the real soft jazz with the you know,
Speaker 1: the high hat, with the you know like me, you know,
Speaker 1: soft listening to me. That's the kind of jazz I
Speaker 1: used to like, but I never really heard that much.
Speaker 1: So as I got older and I was into the streets,
Speaker 1: I couldn't really talk to people about situations I was
Speaker 1: going through, so I wouldn't write songs about them. Right,
Speaker 1: That was my way of kind of venting. And then
Speaker 1: when I started making money and I had to justify
Speaker 1: where the money was coming from, that's when I started
Speaker 1: investing it into recording studios. Okay, and at that time
Speaker 1: cash recording Street was a cash business, So I would
Speaker 1: allow any and everybody to use my studios for free,
Speaker 1: just to keep it busy, to justify where the money
Speaker 1: was from. But whenever there was time of that, that
Speaker 1: is what they call it. I know that ain't what
Speaker 1: I thought he was. I never knew that wouldn't even exist.
Speaker 1: You would watch him. So that's what that happened to me,
Speaker 1: just writing about my experiences. So when I got locked up,
Speaker 1: that habit followed me in jail and I got about
Speaker 1: being locked up. Wow, yeah, you know, it just happened naturally.
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. You know Nelly did. Nell is a hell
Speaker 1: of an athlete. I am surprised me. I mean, he could,
Speaker 1: he could run, he could catch, you can shoot the basketball.
Speaker 1: He was he was unbelievable football skills and baseball baseball.
Speaker 1: He was a monster. Yes, I was surprised. Honestly, I'm
Speaker 1: surprised that Nelly ain't go pro like he really had
Speaker 1: to potentially go pro. Do you think Nellie would be
Speaker 1: on the side that you are? Did you think? I
Speaker 1: mean you thought he was gonna go pro in baseball
Speaker 1: and here he turns out to be one of the biggest,
Speaker 1: you know, rappers and from the Midwest. Are you surprised
Speaker 1: that he went that route? Honestly, I'm I'm not because
Speaker 1: Nelly was always is the cool kid right at school,
Speaker 1: I mean in middle school and high school, right because
Speaker 1: he was a great athlete, niggas handsome. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was gonna be somebody, right, But I didn't. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I I honest didn't. Rap was the
Speaker 1: last thing on my mind. Right. Yeah, you mentioned your
Speaker 1: your your African background, your heritage, your roots wasn't a
Speaker 1: culture shop coming from Africa and being here and the
Speaker 1: way you did things over there, op poster. No complete complete.
Speaker 1: It was like, I don't know how to explain. Imagine Okay,
Speaker 1: imagine being this kid living in the jungle, okay, or
Speaker 1: with a rural Africa, right, No, it was it was.
Speaker 1: It was a little better than Tarzan. Tarzan. So imagine
Speaker 1: no electricity, right, no running water right. And I was
Speaker 1: like I just picked. I was the the barefoot, the
Speaker 1: kid playing soccer in the sand. Okay. There was no
Speaker 1: cars in the area of Africa where I was at,
Speaker 1: Like you had to go all the way in through
Speaker 1: the city. And we never went through the city. So
Speaker 1: we was there where where the horses where you had
Speaker 1: to jump on the back of the horse bag. So
Speaker 1: I went from that to getting on the airplane. Now,
Speaker 1: looking in the sky, I always to always think those
Speaker 1: are birds. I never knew they were actual air I
Speaker 1: never knew what they was. Right when I get to
Speaker 1: the airport, I see this big old bird, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is a bird. So now we're going inside.
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I'm like, we're going inside the bird. I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: what it's going I go inside and there's seats and
Speaker 1: chairs and stuff, and I'm like, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm looking at. But then i'm I want to sit
Speaker 1: by the window because I want to so now as
Speaker 1: the plane is taken off, I'm crying, thinking that's going
Speaker 1: to fall through the ground. I'm booo tears. Then I
Speaker 1: fall asleep, wake up into New York City. Wow. As
Speaker 1: we're waking up, we're flying over New York City. I
Speaker 1: see these high rise buildings right, a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: yellow bugs going down the street. I'm not knowing their
Speaker 1: cabs at the time. Right when I finally getting the
Speaker 1: you know, in the city, I'm looking around. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like this in my life. Buildings, the tallest, heaven, cars,
Speaker 1: faster than speed of light. It was like the jetsus
Speaker 1: for me. Right then, my mom brings us to this
Speaker 1: apartment that's so beautiful, so luxurious. I look at it
Speaker 1: there like a normal apartment, but for me, it was
Speaker 1: the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my had
Speaker 1: no running water, no electricity, and you had dirt floors,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden it might have been a
Speaker 1: small apartment with running water. You had heat. Man, Listen,
Speaker 1: I turned a knop and clean drinking water comes out.
Speaker 1: Then I hit a switch and lights everywhere, and then
Speaker 1: she fed me corn flakes. The most delicious shit I've
Speaker 1: ever tasted. Is terrible. But the tiger out the frosted,
Speaker 1: and I could relate to the tiger because I just
Speaker 1: came from the jungle, right, So can you imagine my experience?
Speaker 1: This culture shock was on a different level. Obviously, kids,
Speaker 1: they you you talk different, you sound different, you look different.
Speaker 1: You you know, we got some dark skinned brothers in Jersey, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you know theyin't seen you know, right, they
Speaker 1: ain't seen nobody like me, and that you came in
Speaker 1: the first place when school, So what was it? What
Speaker 1: was it like for you? How was it? You know,
Speaker 1: did they pick on you? We call it picking, but
Speaker 1: they call it bullying or breaking for whatever they want
Speaker 1: to call it. At the time, I think bullying is
Speaker 1: a little too strong of a word for it, because well,
Speaker 1: for us, our culture that we just joined in each other's.
Speaker 1: But that's what that's that's what helped give you that right, right.
Speaker 1: So when I first came, I was super nappy headed. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean black is tall, right, and black was not
Speaker 1: a style, no, you know, No, the light skinned, curly
Speaker 1: hair kids got all the girls. It was light was
Speaker 1: the style there. We took Wesley Knife and Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: for us to get the number one, right, honestly, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think the it shifted when Tyson Beck forgot him
Speaker 1: the supermodel. Yeah, then every girl wanted a dark yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that changed the game all of us. Yeah. Then Tyres
Speaker 1: came with that smile in the co cold on commercial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: then we started and I was like, okay, okay, yea,
Speaker 1: then it started. Then when I came, it was more like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's really black, right, but why then he's like, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, he's he's African. Right. But because me,
Speaker 1: I was coming up in a different environment, I did
Speaker 1: any and everything, you know, to to impressed the girls. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of money in the clubs in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Why you know what you're coming it like that. Man,
Speaker 1: I had to overdo it because I was dark. But
Speaker 1: I also had to you know, and I was African,
Speaker 1: so being black and African money at one like that,
Speaker 1: no magic, Like I was at the City Gentleman's Club,
Speaker 1: like I was there. Man, he's coming out of the realm,
Speaker 1: come out, man, what so now? So now you're like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I kind of I kind of like being on the side.
Speaker 1: So this is what you became. Once you got out,
Speaker 1: you started making a little you got some money, and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, I kind of I kind of like this, Okay,
Speaker 1: this this can work. I'm on a straight and narrow
Speaker 1: and you haven't looked back, never looked back so ever since.
Speaker 1: I mean, but when you arrived in the stage, could
Speaker 1: you speak English? No? I speak not a liqually English.
Speaker 1: And then when I start learning, I started speaking with
Speaker 1: this heavy African accent, which made them laugh even harder,
Speaker 1: right right, So then I vowed to myself that I'm listen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn English. But once I know how to speak,
Speaker 1: unless I tell you I'm African, you would never know.
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to learn with no accents. So I
Speaker 1: would literally pay so attention to how they spoke, the cadence,
Speaker 1: the way they said it. How how did you learn?
Speaker 1: I mean, I hear a lot of people say, well,
Speaker 1: I watch TV. I watch American TV shows. I listened
Speaker 1: to them, and so that's how I learned. Because now,
Speaker 1: I mean most people now, if you want to learn
Speaker 1: a second language, you take classes you get book to rules,
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be, and you and you learned
Speaker 1: that way. But just looking at American television people, a
Speaker 1: lot of people that says, well, I learned how watching
Speaker 1: I love Lucy, I watch learning watching American TV show. Right,
Speaker 1: it actually, I mean it actually works. But I think
Speaker 1: it's all of the above because me, I learned majority
Speaker 1: just by hanging with friends. Okay, you know, just hanging
Speaker 1: on my friends and being outside all the time. Man,
Speaker 1: how you get rid of it? I mean just being
Speaker 1: around them. And I was around people that I've been
Speaker 1: speaking in all my life, and I still talk with
Speaker 1: the clue your dialect. But yeah, but yours is more
Speaker 1: yea and draw. That was about to say, it's more southern. Southern.
Speaker 1: It's hard to take off even in Atlanta. Even Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I kind of try to find a way, like kind
Speaker 1: of talked a lot there, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like real shot, you know what I mean? Like I
Speaker 1: can go there too, So I had to master the
Speaker 1: art of accent blending, like for real shot, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Real Shot, I mean obviously the food
Speaker 1: he's up from Jersey. Yeah, yeah, the whole family. Man,
Speaker 1: Cleff Lauren Price Spider, like all those guys kind of
Speaker 1: brought me into the music world. They introduced me into
Speaker 1: the music side of it. Okay, because when Cleff uh
Speaker 1: met me, I actually met him because he sat in
Speaker 1: my chair. I was cutting his hair as a barber. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a barber. I don't even want to say
Speaker 1: that because they y'all do a lot of jobs. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to go there. I didn't want to go there.
Speaker 1: I would leave that alone. You're gonna eat. So you know,
Speaker 1: I was cutting his hair. And it's funny because Cleff knew,
Speaker 1: like I'm I'm literally cutting his hair. But then when
Speaker 1: he saw it was parked outside, he was like, like
Speaker 1: he knew. So he's like, yo, listen. You know I
Speaker 1: got a studio. I had my uncle and provide for us.
Speaker 1: You should come out there. You in the music. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I love to, So you had me
Speaker 1: come to the studio. We used to write there and
Speaker 1: produced there, come with records of songs. And that's how
Speaker 1: I became a part of the refugee camp. And then
Speaker 1: before you know it, they just introduced me to a
Speaker 1: whole nother opportunity of what the world could be if
Speaker 1: I embraced music. Man. I'm looking at some of the
Speaker 1: artists that you worked with, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna,
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones, Line of Rich and Snoop Dog, Doctor Dre.
Speaker 1: You you remixed, uh want to be starting something with
Speaker 1: Michael for the twenty fifth anniversary with the thriller right
Speaker 1: when you? I mean when you talked to producers, it
Speaker 1: doesn't get any better than Quincy Jones and Doctor Man.
Speaker 1: I mean you do. That's the goals too. I was
Speaker 1: talking about I was talking about I think I was
Speaker 1: talking to Snoop and that was like, Snoop, if it
Speaker 1: was a versus battle, who would you put against Doctor Dre?
Speaker 1: He's like, hell, the only person you could put it
Speaker 1: with Quincy Jones, right, I mean he can't nobody. First
Speaker 1: of all, I don't believe anybody could be Quincy, not
Speaker 1: with all this he is because he chased too many,
Speaker 1: too many and every yeah yeah, TV shows every genre,
Speaker 1: so he's unbeatable. Annivers's battle, He's un like, you can't
Speaker 1: even compare what what's what's it? What was Michael like? Man, Mike,
Speaker 1: It hurts me every day to think about it, because
Speaker 1: he was the coolest dude you probably would ever met.
Speaker 1: And he was like the biggest misconception was Mike was
Speaker 1: just this Hollywood character, right, But he wasn't. He was
Speaker 1: the simplest guy and he can He knew when to
Speaker 1: turn it on obviously because his generation, he knew what
Speaker 1: a superstars supposed to look and feel like in public, right,
Speaker 1: so when come public or he turned it on right,
Speaker 1: like he knew like Mike was g like he hit
Speaker 1: it right. But behind closed doors as a person man,
Speaker 1: he used to have me crying like so funny, super cool,
Speaker 1: just a great great heart man, pure her soul man.
Speaker 1: So you do you remix? I want to be starting something.
Speaker 1: How did that project come about? Actually, the project came
Speaker 1: about because I received a call one day. Me and
Speaker 1: Mike actually had the same attorney, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: at the time that he shared attorneys. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: my attorney called me. He was like, Mike wants you
Speaker 1: to come on board and you know, and and produce
Speaker 1: on his new rerelease for the thriller. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: stop playing Michael Jackson. He said, yes, Michael Jackson. So
Speaker 1: but he started laughing after he said it, So I
Speaker 1: thought he was joking and at that time, like mine
Speaker 1: got time for this. So I hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: He calls me a back. He calls me back with
Speaker 1: Mike on the phone on three way. He said, Mom,
Speaker 1: what I told you? Mike is on the phone. Hi.
Speaker 1: Mike talked to Con and he's like, hey, Con, how
Speaker 1: are you with the voice? Right? That's all it's a bullshit.
Speaker 1: So he calls back, right. He calls back. He said, no,
Speaker 1: it's me, Seriously, it's me. I said, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: He said, yes, it's me. He started telling me everything
Speaker 1: about myself that I forgot about. It was so interesting
Speaker 1: because when I flew out to Vegas to meet him,
Speaker 1: I didn't understand. It made me realize how and why
Speaker 1: he was so big. First of all, he was a
Speaker 1: he was a music guy, like he was a fan
Speaker 1: of the art and the people involved in it. Because
Speaker 1: even how he explained and kind of narrated his story
Speaker 1: about me from his point of view, he made me
Speaker 1: look at myself different. But then, more than anything, I
Speaker 1: started to realize how even how easy it was to
Speaker 1: work with him, because out of every artist I ever
Speaker 1: worked with, Mike was probably the easiest person to work with.
Speaker 1: If I would have asked him to bark on the record.
Speaker 1: He would have barked on the record only because he
Speaker 1: believed in what I did and he wanted me to
Speaker 1: be able to be to coach him to do so
Speaker 1: if the collaboration felt like a real collaboration, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it was just amazing. He had
Speaker 1: no ego about nothing. He was willing to try any
Speaker 1: and everything to make the best product he could it.
Speaker 1: You were the last, I mean Michael Jackson last song
Speaker 1: hold my Hand. Yeah, you worked with him with it,
Speaker 1: like I never left. You worked. I was the last
Speaker 1: to work on her as well too before she passed,
Speaker 1: Which is crazy when you look and look, I understand
Speaker 1: that because look, you worked with a lot of guys
Speaker 1: from GEZ and all these guys. But you understand what
Speaker 1: and it represents. You understand what Mike represents. You're talking
Speaker 1: about the upper, upper, upper, there's levels to this music thing.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about Michael. He's he's at the top
Speaker 1: of the food chain. You're talking about Witness, She's at
Speaker 1: the top of the food chain. And the last to work.
Speaker 1: You were the last to work with them. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the only one that I that I was right
Speaker 1: in motion of working with before he left was Prince.
Speaker 1: He's the only one I missed that would have that
Speaker 1: would have sealed my legacy for that I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: I think he had a concert in Atlanta, and the
Speaker 1: way he did his concerts, you could only buy you
Speaker 1: can only get two tickets, but you had to show
Speaker 1: up at the box office with the credit card in hand. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to wait no line. And the
Speaker 1: tickets that were like one hundred bucks, people were selling
Speaker 1: them for like two thousand and three thousand dollars, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, hell nah. It was really the last
Speaker 1: concert he ever did. Get it at the Fox, And
Speaker 1: he's one of the only guys that I didn't get
Speaker 1: an opportunity to see. And he's one of my favorite artists,
Speaker 1: and so I understand, you know, obviously I wasn't gona
Speaker 1: get a butt to just hear him, right right. You
Speaker 1: get an opportunity to work with Michael, work with some
Speaker 1: of the people, work with a witness, and to say
Speaker 1: I worked with Prince because now again talk about the
Speaker 1: Prince was a little bit different and a little the
Speaker 1: reason why I was harder to lock block it get
Speaker 1: into him. Was because he himself was a writer and
Speaker 1: a producer. Correct, he created his own music, right, That's
Speaker 1: why I was such would have been such an honor
Speaker 1: for him to go outside that space of himself and
Speaker 1: experiment with someone else. Yes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So it was it was a matter of just getting
Speaker 1: close enough to him, but just let him here. Here's
Speaker 1: some of the things that you promise you. If he
Speaker 1: would have heard it, he'd have been in. He'd have
Speaker 1: been locked. Right. But you could one thing about Prince,
Speaker 1: he always had that mistake that like, that's that's what
Speaker 1: I just one thing that I actually admired about that
Speaker 1: generation superstars wasn't easy to get to him, and they
Speaker 1: made it hard. So if you body did get to him,
Speaker 1: you had to make it count. Right. Today, you go
Speaker 1: to the mall, you see it everybody. You go to
Speaker 1: the club, you see it everybody. Everybody that's somebody. The
Speaker 1: access to these guys now is a lot different than
Speaker 1: what it was. What it was. You're probably you weren't.
Speaker 1: Probably you weren't bumping into Michael at the club unless
Speaker 1: it was Studio fifty four. You weren't bumping into friends.
Speaker 1: You weren't bumping into those guys unless it was a
Speaker 1: very very special occasion. Absolutely. Now, oh yeah, you go
Speaker 1: out and probably you bumping all of them. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: bumping all of them. I'm looking at. What was it
Speaker 1: like to work with Mike in the studio? Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's the best experience ever. Like Mike, Mike. Mike was
Speaker 1: the first artist that I worked with of at that
Speaker 1: time that didn't need no auto tune. He didn't need
Speaker 1: no auto tune. But I had to do it because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see auto tune on him. I
Speaker 1: guess a little bit. But so so when you hear
Speaker 1: people say, well, uh, I don't know how to recall.
Speaker 1: I hear people say talent and singing. Okay, if you
Speaker 1: want to say talent, I think Prince is obviously because
Speaker 1: he can play no talent, has down, has down. He
Speaker 1: does everything right, his eyes closed. But when they would
Speaker 1: the people miss when they talk about Chris Brown and
Speaker 1: Michael Right. See, now y'all got to miss. No, I
Speaker 1: don't even want to talk y'all no more. I ain't
Speaker 1: got nothing to say no this. Let me let me
Speaker 1: let me give you another perspective on that. In this
Speaker 1: day and age, the only person, in my opinion, that
Speaker 1: could have achieved just as great as a legacy as
Speaker 1: Mike to me, would have been Chris Brown. I just
Speaker 1: believe that Chris Brown wasn't surrounded by the circle of
Speaker 1: creative people that Mike was surrounded by. Wow, because Chris
Speaker 1: got the talent. Wow, he just needed the direction right, right.
Speaker 1: So imagine if Chris had Mike's team, right, just imagine
Speaker 1: that it would it would be something different. And that's big.
Speaker 1: But Chris is like he got he got bloods around him,
Speaker 1: he got little gang bangers around right. He don't have
Speaker 1: the guidance, right, He's smart, but he's smart according to
Speaker 1: what this generation, smart attracts. Right. Okay, for me to
Speaker 1: survive in this error, I gotta keep certain things around me,
Speaker 1: certain people around me, just so I can keep getting
Speaker 1: the going right. But if he was able to delete
Speaker 1: all that to say, look, I'm gonna focus on being
Speaker 1: the greatest entertainer ever, Chris has the opportunity. It's too
Speaker 1: late now, yeah, yeah, yeah, But I think that's why
Speaker 1: everybody loved you know, because y' what are you so
Speaker 1: ain't Ain't nobody said I know how a Minion albums?
Speaker 1: But but but but you know, you got to streaming,
Speaker 1: so not. I don't know really how streaming work. Do
Speaker 1: you get a quarter, you get fifty cent, you get
Speaker 1: a dying for how many streams you get out? You
Speaker 1: know how that works. But I mean, he seems to
Speaker 1: be doing unbelievable in that. Oh yeah, he's killing it.
Speaker 1: He's killing it. I'm also you signed Lady Gaga Tea
Speaker 1: Pain Rinch Montana were as kids. You mentioned the auto
Speaker 1: tunes because auto tunes ruined the industry. Nah, it helped,
Speaker 1: it honestly helped because a lot of these saying tunes
Speaker 1: sound like I would rather you get on auto tune please.
Speaker 1: You know the most amazing part about working with the
Speaker 1: older generation artists like the Michael Jackson's and the Whitney
Speaker 1: Houses and the line of riches they need, they didn't
Speaker 1: need it. I never used any of the grass and
Speaker 1: all over back I mean everybody basically eight everybody from
Speaker 1: like from the nineties moving back towards the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: I mean eighties and seventies, they didn't use any of
Speaker 1: that impeccable and and guess what those recordings that you
Speaker 1: heard that you heard those are one takes because every
Speaker 1: time they messed up, they had to start again from
Speaker 1: the top, whereas us, if we mess up, we can
Speaker 1: just all right start from where I messed up at
Speaker 1: and repunch it. So it was a different It was
Speaker 1: a different time that they don't use no auto tunes
Speaker 1: now heard have mercy. That's what boys or hers? You signed,
Speaker 1: Lady gargar tea paying French Montana. Where as the kid,
Speaker 1: how did you meet these artists? Oh man, just in
Speaker 1: the Travelers is moving around with pain. My little brother
Speaker 1: Boo brought me pain. Okay, I get Boo the credit
Speaker 1: for finding discovering pain. I was just a platform that
Speaker 1: we can toss him one to give him get him
Speaker 1: to where he needed to, right ga ga. She was
Speaker 1: actually already on Interscope when I signed my label deal
Speaker 1: there and I saw her and I was like, yo, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: I need that for my label. And Jimmy tossed me
Speaker 1: that ball, gave me that like latest gifts he's ever
Speaker 1: get really sing? I mean people, I think I think
Speaker 1: sometimes people look at the makeup and see how the outfits.
Speaker 1: She's not human, bro, she is amazing, like creatively mentally
Speaker 1: like she's I mean, she she she thinks beyond the
Speaker 1: average artist, like just to come up with the things
Speaker 1: that you guys seen, we had the dumb certain things
Speaker 1: down just to get it across so people can understand it.
Speaker 1: But she's she's she's on a different level. What is
Speaker 1: what is your artist development process? How do you like? Okay,
Speaker 1: I got this person, this is where I think they
Speaker 1: can go right, here's the process that I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: in order to get them him or hurt there. How
Speaker 1: do you go about that? Like all the artists that
Speaker 1: I take full responsibility for it, they all go through
Speaker 1: the same system. They start with me. We figure out
Speaker 1: what they want to do, how they want to see
Speaker 1: their years in ten years. Okay, where you want your
Speaker 1: life to be in ten years. Then we have a
Speaker 1: real conversation about the industry, learn the business. Once they
Speaker 1: got that part right, then we take them straight to
Speaker 1: artist development. Take them right there to marvelous studios in Atlanta. Okay,
Speaker 1: the best that ever did it. All the artists that
Speaker 1: we ever love, from New Addition to Boys and Men
Speaker 1: to selc, you name it. He's shaped them up into superstars.
Speaker 1: They all go through that process. Okay. Then they come
Speaker 1: out of that we're go into the studio. Okay, we
Speaker 1: make the biggest hit record according to our conversations, your
Speaker 1: passion and what you want to be. Now we got
Speaker 1: a body of work. You've been through all his development,
Speaker 1: so you can speak well, you can perform well. You're
Speaker 1: prepared for what you're about to get. Then we're going
Speaker 1: through the right distribution partner. Who do we decide is
Speaker 1: a perfect partner for distribution for this record, depending on
Speaker 1: the side and where in territories that we want to go.
Speaker 1: Then we picked the labels that we want to partner.
Speaker 1: Once we got them, come and release dates, come, release,
Speaker 1: once we release. They're like, it's almost like raising a
Speaker 1: chick into a chicken and just letting the letting it go,
Speaker 1: put an oven and it's a great meal. I let
Speaker 1: it go. Ain't what you know. I ain't what you
Speaker 1: did about putting the other and now, but you willing
Speaker 1: to let your artists out of contracts, you don't believe
Speaker 1: contract We see what Meg the Stallion is going through
Speaker 1: so many even Mike ended up having a problem with
Speaker 1: his with his label Prints had a problem with his label.
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, y'all, you're not happy. You want to
Speaker 1: leave okay, right, I mean, all my contracts are built
Speaker 1: to create superstars, entrepreneurs and give them the freedom to
Speaker 1: give that opportunity to somebody else, right, So I never
Speaker 1: hold him to the fullest extent of the contract. Ever,
Speaker 1: at the moment they feel like, okay, they've grown that
Speaker 1: they want to go on their own, and I felt
Speaker 1: like we didn't gave them everything they need to do that, right,
Speaker 1: then we we just let them up. We don't ask
Speaker 1: for no recouption, we don't ask for anything. We just
Speaker 1: allowed them to be who they are. Te Pain originally
Speaker 1: wrote I'm Strung for You, but you didn't like it? No,
Speaker 1: it was a hit, But I believe the record would
Speaker 1: be bigger on him because that was a hit record.
Speaker 1: I could have took it and he right. The reason
Speaker 1: why I didn't want it because I wanted it for him,
Speaker 1: right because I knew that record was gonna make somebody's career.
Speaker 1: My career was already made. Right. He didn't see how
Speaker 1: big that record was, but I knew. I knew how
Speaker 1: big that record was, and I knew that record would
Speaker 1: make him the biggest urban artist that can line up
Speaker 1: with what I need going on to take him to
Speaker 1: the next level. Right, So I refused to take the
Speaker 1: record because I believe that that record was supposed to
Speaker 1: be for him. If there any other songs you've turned
Speaker 1: down you wish you hadn't. I really don't wish you
Speaker 1: would turned that down. There are songs that you turned
Speaker 1: down and you're like, damn, I should have took that one.
Speaker 1: One record that I I have A way that I felt,
Speaker 1: damn I should have kept was so surviving I needed
Speaker 1: for myself. Right. What happened with the fan, the fan
Speaker 1: that you threw back in the fan in the crowd? Oh? Man?
Speaker 1: That that was an interesting time because that was around
Speaker 1: the time when I had just got out. I was fresh,
Speaker 1: a lot of money, super arrogant and confident, right, But
Speaker 1: I had the same, you know, the street mentality. I'm
Speaker 1: I can't I would never be disrespected, especially for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Right. So I'm on stage and I'm performing,
Speaker 1: and the next thing you notice, I see something coming
Speaker 1: at me. At first, I thought I was seeing something,
Speaker 1: but then when it got really close, I was like, oh, whoa,
Speaker 1: that almost like hit me in the face. And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, who threw that? So the crowd everybody
Speaker 1: is pointing it you. Now at that point, it's like, okay, shoot,
Speaker 1: what do I do? Now? I can't be out here
Speaker 1: and I can't. I can't just be like, okay, bron
Speaker 1: do that no more. I couldn't let it slide because,
Speaker 1: especially in the end shot we was in around that time,
Speaker 1: if one person tries you, everybody feel like you can try, right.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like you had to set an example,
Speaker 1: which is wrong analogy. So at the point when all
Speaker 1: the fingers was in, I said, I'll come on up here,
Speaker 1: bring bring him up. So now the crowd is bringing
Speaker 1: him to me. As he's coming, I'm decided what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do to show this dude and the audience
Speaker 1: that I'm not to be played with? Right? I said, Man,
Speaker 1: should I just hit him with one boom? Just knock
Speaker 1: him out? I said, nah, that'd be too much. And
Speaker 1: then I said, you know what, don't worry about when
Speaker 1: it comes. I just played a boy ear And as
Speaker 1: soon as he came on stage, he just came to
Speaker 1: hug me. And at that moment I felt bad. I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, I can't do nothing to him. He
Speaker 1: actually this is probably probably trying to get my attention, right,
Speaker 1: So I said, nah, okay, I gotta figure something out.
Speaker 1: Then it hit me, I said, cool, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: throw him in the crowd in a soft spot, right,
Speaker 1: So as he come to hug me, I just picked
Speaker 1: him up, found a soft spot and threw him right.
Speaker 1: But then of course it got it got thrown out
Speaker 1: of purport. But at the same time, it did give
Speaker 1: me the respect that I needed to move forward. But
Speaker 1: at the same time I felt so bad because I said,
Speaker 1: I could you know what, I could have handled that
Speaker 1: a little bit better. Hey, look, you provided electricity for
Speaker 1: over sixteen countries in Africa. You have a utility company
Speaker 1: to work with a Biden administration because you grew up
Speaker 1: with no electricity? Is that was? Was that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons you wanted to give back in that way
Speaker 1: to your like me, knowing the impact of just growing
Speaker 1: up without electricity made me say, okay, the moment I'm
Speaker 1: make it and I'm in position to do that, I
Speaker 1: want to be able to provide electricity, right. But that
Speaker 1: didn't have absolutely well. I see China gave you six bill,
Speaker 1: gave you a billion dollars. I loaned your billion dollars.
Speaker 1: I said, you have watered a six billion dollars contract
Speaker 1: to build a city. Yes, the Acon City and Senegal.
Speaker 1: I'm super excited. I can't wait to host l when
Speaker 1: I have how how how close is that upon completion? Uh?
Speaker 1: I mean how much? How much of the build out
Speaker 1: have you completed? Wow? So I learned so much dealing
Speaker 1: with this project. Right. I realized that it was so
Speaker 1: much prep leading into even construction. Right, So for the
Speaker 1: last two years we've been doing environmental studies, We've been
Speaker 1: doing soil studies, all the studies leading up into it,
Speaker 1: then getting all the licenses and everything else. So now
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, in January, we actually start to construction
Speaker 1: process and the first phase is gonna take three years,
Speaker 1: but then after that phase, it's gonna be done in
Speaker 1: three three years, three phases and three years per phase.
Speaker 1: But after the first phase we could start inviting people in. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I read it. You try to start a diamond business
Speaker 1: in Africa, but it said it's worse than the drug game. No,
Speaker 1: I actually had. I had purchase a diamond mine and realized, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was way worse than the drug game. So I
Speaker 1: sold it. Man, I had it for five years I said, boy,
Speaker 1: you getting it was no? Oh, yeah it was. It
Speaker 1: was a great profit of business around the time when
Speaker 1: I was in the music business, I was actually supplying
Speaker 1: a lot of the jewelers in the Diamond district in
Speaker 1: my diamonds. Wow, and you and you gave it up.
Speaker 1: I had to it was it was, it was then,
Speaker 1: it was amount of the time. We also had the
Speaker 1: Blood Diamond conflict. Yeah, it was other minds. It was
Speaker 1: a lot going on, and I didn't want my name
Speaker 1: getting tired into that stuff because I know how the
Speaker 1: media work sometimes. I got to get you out here
Speaker 1: on this one. You're big sports fan. Who's your favorite
Speaker 1: team Basketball? The Lakers? Laker? Who your favorite player? Lebron? Honestly,
Speaker 1: wherever team Lebron went, that was my favorite team before
Speaker 1: Lebron was shocked. Right, you had I'm reading that you
Speaker 1: almost got a scholarship when you have a scholarship to
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech. But you messed me up. Yeah, you had?
Speaker 1: Who's like that? I could play? I could play now.
Speaker 1: One thing about Saint Louis sports was the thing that
Speaker 1: was our way out. Somebody had. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: weren't gonna make it through music, you gonna never make
Speaker 1: it through this spright, my man. I appreciate that, Broun,
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time to day. I really now I
Speaker 1: had a good time all my life, and grinding all
Speaker 1: my life, sac of fice, hustle back price on a slice,
Speaker 1: got the bron swath all my life. I've been grinding
Speaker 1: all my life, all my life, and grinding all my life,
Speaker 1: and sacrifice hustle bay the price one slice that the
Speaker 1: browling dice to swap all my life. I've been running
Speaker 1: all my life,