Speaker 1: Pushkin. Harvey Mason Jr. Grew up steeped in music. His father,
Speaker 1: Harvey Mason Senior, is one of the greatest drummers ever,
Speaker 1: having made a half of Herbie Hancock's Headhunter's Rhythm Section
Speaker 1: and played on countless sessions through the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: and after a quick but memorable detour through college hoops,
Speaker 1: Harvey Mason Jr. Has continued to build a fascinating life
Speaker 1: in music, starting where many great careers begin writing jingles.
Speaker 1: From those humble origins, he built an incredible production and
Speaker 1: songwriting resume, penning and producing songs for Retha Franklin, Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: Justin Bieber, Beyonce, and many more, and his film work
Speaker 1: expands soundtracks for Dreamgirls, Straight out of Compton, Pitch Perfect
Speaker 1: in the latest Michael Jackson biopic. But in January twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: things took an unexpected turn. The Recording Academy, the organization
Speaker 1: behind the Grammy Awards, installed him as the interim and
Speaker 1: eventually full time CEO. He stepped into the role at
Speaker 1: a moment of profound institutional crisis in stet about remaking
Speaker 1: it from the inside, expanding membership, eliminating secret voting committees,
Speaker 1: and pushing the organization to become more diverse, transparent, and
Speaker 1: reflective of the full breath of modern music. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: to sit down with Harvey Mason Junior to trace the
Speaker 1: full arc of the journey from ASU Steve Kerr to
Speaker 1: writing jingles in his dorm room, to the studio where
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson made Invincible, and then to one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful administrative chairs in the music industry. This is
Speaker 1: broken record, real musicians, real conversations. Here's my conversation with
Speaker 1: Harvey Mason Jr. This is incredible underappreciated fact about you
Speaker 1: that you went to the Final four with Arizona nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight.
Speaker 2: Don't say the date That just kills me.
Speaker 3: I mean no, like this is this old guy you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, we did go to the Phonal four and
Speaker 2: eighty eight playing with Steve Kerr. Yeah yeah, with Loud Olsen.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, with a you know, like a
Speaker 1: legendary coach. I mean that's it's wild.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Hall of Fame coach. He was such an important
Speaker 3: person in my life, no question, one of my mentors,
Speaker 3: difference makers. He set the standard for a lot of
Speaker 3: things in my life, a lot of elements of what
Speaker 3: I try and accomplish. Now, I'm still looking back to
Speaker 3: things that I learned from coach Olsen or in some instances, Steve,
Speaker 3: or my other teammates, you know, Sean Elliott and Kenny
Speaker 3: Loft and all these great athletes and great young men
Speaker 3: were my teammates, and we still stay in close touch,
Speaker 3: and so we share our successes, our challenges, We talk
Speaker 3: family and life and careers.
Speaker 2: So, wow, good group.
Speaker 1: It must have been well, not shockings wrong word, but
Speaker 1: it must have been fun to see the success Steve
Speaker 1: Kerrat and basketball over the years.
Speaker 3: Right, it was fun and it was exciting, but it
Speaker 3: was not anywhere close to shocking, because at every step
Speaker 3: you knew Steve was going to be amazing, whether it
Speaker 3: was as a basketball player, which he was truly amazing college.
Speaker 3: You would have never thought he would play in the pros.
Speaker 3: He went in the pros, was amazing, finished playing there,
Speaker 3: winning a ton of championships, and then he went into
Speaker 3: you know, the business of basketball, and he was a
Speaker 3: GM for Phoenix, and I was like, how are you
Speaker 3: going to be a GM. You've never been an assistant GM,
Speaker 3: You've never been like in the front office. He just
Speaker 3: went from playing to being the GM. Then he went
Speaker 3: to broadcasting. Never broadcast the game in his life. But
Speaker 3: then he was partner with Marv Albert and the whole
Speaker 3: thing in the A team for it was a great
Speaker 3: It was a great team, yeah, and very successful there.
Speaker 3: And then he said I'm going to go into coaching
Speaker 3: and then very successful there. So he was a special
Speaker 3: guy and we all recognized it at a very early
Speaker 3: stage in our careers together. You know, you're eighteen. I
Speaker 3: was eighteen when I got Arizona and Steve was there,
Speaker 3: and I learned so many lessons from him, and as
Speaker 3: I said, the other guys on the team as well.
Speaker 3: We all lifted each other, but Steve was special.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what was what was your role on the team.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious.
Speaker 3: My role changed from the time I got there. I
Speaker 3: was a highly recruited scorer, you know, I led the
Speaker 3: state of California and scoring for two years in a row.
Speaker 3: And I had a ton of offers and opportunities, and
Speaker 3: I chose Arizona because, well, first my mom loved Ludolfs
Speaker 3: and he thought he had great Hairy came in the
Speaker 3: living room and convinced my family, but I went to
Speaker 3: Arizona as a highly touted scorer. When I got to Arizona,
Speaker 3: I quickly realized I wasn't as good as I thought
Speaker 3: I was, And I learned some of those lessons from
Speaker 3: guys like Steve or Sean or Kenny, and I realized
Speaker 3: I had to work hard. So my role was kind
Speaker 3: of the up and comer. I would come in off
Speaker 3: the bench. I started my sophomore year. I started a
Speaker 3: couple of years there, but I was never a big score.
Speaker 3: So I became a defender. I became a very vocal
Speaker 3: and passionate team advocate or leader, and then ultimately it
Speaker 3: was you know, athlete, defensive stopper. I was very quick,
Speaker 3: I played a little bit of the point guard, a
Speaker 3: little bit of the two guard, and I was a
Speaker 3: pretty decent shooter.
Speaker 2: But for a great score in college.
Speaker 1: Wow, was it tough to adjust your mindset?
Speaker 3: It was, and being eighteen, my mindset wasn't very adjustable. Maybe,
Speaker 3: and it was a time where you come in thinking
Speaker 3: that you're the best, and you realize quite quickly that
Speaker 3: there's a difference between where.
Speaker 2: I was and the best.
Speaker 3: And I've told the story, but I remember the first
Speaker 3: night of being on campus, we had to go down
Speaker 3: to study table. And when you go to study table,
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the arena, you walk by the
Speaker 3: basketball courts and study table start I think at seven,
Speaker 3: and I looked out on the arena floor and I
Speaker 3: saw Steve shooting from like ten feet out, just like
Speaker 3: warming up, and I went into study table's mandatory for refreshmens.
Speaker 3: We did two and a half hours or two hours
Speaker 3: of studying. So now it's nine or nine thirty and
Speaker 3: I'm leaving and I look out in the court when
Speaker 3: I'm walking out, and he's still out there shooting, and
Speaker 3: now he's in the three point line. I watch him
Speaker 3: for about ten fifteen minutes, and he didn't miss wow
Speaker 3: for like maybe fifteen minutes, and so I quickly realized that.
Speaker 2: There was work that needed to be done.
Speaker 3: I started to do some of that work, and I
Speaker 3: definitely focused a lot, and as a team, we all
Speaker 3: were very conscientious and we wanted to win and we
Speaker 3: wanted to be better. We had a real tight bond
Speaker 3: in a brotherhood. But there were certain things that I
Speaker 3: probably would have done differently looking back now, but absolutely
Speaker 3: no regret. It's an amazing career. I learned so much.
Speaker 3: I spent so much memorable time with great guys, great
Speaker 3: coaching staff. You know, my my first wife had my kids,
Speaker 3: so a lot of things came as a result of
Speaker 3: playing basketball there.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. Man, let's reset to music. You have. Your
Speaker 1: pedigree in music is also, I mean incredible. Your dad
Speaker 1: is one of the great drummers in my mind ever.
Speaker 1: In my mind too, him and Paul Jackson together bar
Speaker 1: Nune have to be top one of the one of
Speaker 1: the best rhythm sections of the time.
Speaker 3: It's very nice, easy to say, I kind of agree
Speaker 3: with you, but I'm biased.
Speaker 1: You're biased, but it's it's hard not to. I mean
Speaker 1: when you talk, I mean they're like the definition of pocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there were some records that they played
Speaker 3: on together that was pretty spectacular.
Speaker 2: And yeah, they had a good lock.
Speaker 1: Ye. What was around your house when you're growing up musically?
Speaker 1: Tell me about the musical upbringing you.
Speaker 3: Man, it was the best way to come up because
Speaker 3: there's instruments all over the places. We had pianos and
Speaker 3: basses and drums. We had a drum set in my house,
Speaker 3: which is like, probably not good for the neighbors, was
Speaker 3: great for me really good sound system because my dad
Speaker 3: was making records at this time, and so he was
Speaker 3: listening to references and things. We had nice speakers and
Speaker 3: of course the turntable with all the records because my
Speaker 3: dad was a session musician also, so when he would
Speaker 3: play on a record, we would get a copy of it.
Speaker 3: So he's built up a pretty good collection of thousands
Speaker 3: of records and collection crazy all different types of genres,
Speaker 3: different types of artists. And so I grew up in
Speaker 3: a household with a lot of music. My mom little
Speaker 3: known fact about my mom, she was also a musician.
Speaker 3: She was a trombone player and she was the first
Speaker 3: female in the brass section at the Berkeley School of Music.
Speaker 3: And so I grew up with two musical parents, parents
Speaker 3: that were working professionally in the music business. So I
Speaker 3: would go to work with my dad. Not only was
Speaker 3: music at my house, everywhere I went with my dad
Speaker 3: was around great music.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Being a female horn player at that time too, was
Speaker 1: never happened. Yeah, it's pretty that's a tough gig, yeah.
Speaker 3: And then just the racial dynamic at the time was
Speaker 3: also a tough gig for my mom to meet and
Speaker 3: marry a black guy. In Boston at the time, was
Speaker 3: probably not Probably was definitely slightly controversial. In fact, it
Speaker 3: was federally illegal for them to have interracial sex at
Speaker 3: that time in nineteen sixty seven. It wasn't until sixty
Speaker 3: eight that that was even allowed, and I was conceived
Speaker 3: in sixty seven, So when you think about that, it
Speaker 3: was a tough time for both my folks, but especially
Speaker 3: the racial issues and then my mom being the only
Speaker 3: female in the brass department.
Speaker 2: But she killed it. She was great musician, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so she would they were they the type
Speaker 1: of parents who would talk you through what you were
Speaker 1: listening to and explain things to you or.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if I asked, and I was pretty curious, but
Speaker 3: a lot of it was just me reading the credits,
Speaker 3: listening to the records, and I would ask my dad
Speaker 3: a lot of questions about how it was made and
Speaker 3: how the session went. And then I would go with
Speaker 3: my dad to a lot of sessions. Yeah, I would
Speaker 3: go to the studio when I was seven, eight nine
Speaker 3: years old, I'm spending summer vacations going with my dad,
Speaker 3: sleeping under the console, you know, getting under the pianos
Speaker 3: and you know, just seeing what was going on. So
Speaker 3: I had a very fortunate I'm very very lucky and
Speaker 3: thankful that i had that kind of upbringing.
Speaker 1: Which sessions were you able to go?
Speaker 2: Do? All of them?
Speaker 3: And if I had to name them, I don't think
Speaker 3: I could, but a lot of the Quincy Jones stuff
Speaker 3: because my dad worked a lot with Quincy and the
Speaker 3: brothers Johnson and Patty Austin and Michael Jackson and all
Speaker 3: those things.
Speaker 2: A lot of you.
Speaker 3: Know, my dad works a lot with David Foster and
Speaker 3: Seawind Horns and all the rhythm section guys that you
Speaker 3: were talking a lot about. Those were just the people
Speaker 3: that were hanging out of my house all the time
Speaker 3: as a kid. Yeah, getting a chance to meet the
Speaker 3: people in the creas it was weird for me because
Speaker 3: I just I didn't fan out on them because they
Speaker 3: were just all the people that were around, and I
Speaker 3: just thought everybody's dad was making music and everyone's dad
Speaker 3: was recording themselves and putting stuff out. And it didn't
Speaker 3: really lock in until I aspired to do what they
Speaker 3: did and I realized how hard it was and how
Speaker 3: special it was, and how uniquely talented you have to
Speaker 3: be to accomplish the level of success that my dad
Speaker 3: was able to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had your own cool career music had obviously
Speaker 1: a love of music, love of basketball. You have success
Speaker 1: in college with basketball, But when for you did a
Speaker 1: career music start to feel like that's what you wanted.
Speaker 3: Well, while I was in college at Arizona, I had
Speaker 3: a system in my dorm room, a little keyboard and
Speaker 3: made a keyboard a computer. I was programming always because
Speaker 3: I grew up playing piano, and I actually wrote one
Speaker 3: of my first songs when I was I think nine
Speaker 3: or ten years old.
Speaker 1: I wrote for Washington song. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the song that I wrote I groverheard, obviously because
Speaker 3: my dad probably played it for him and put on
Speaker 3: a good, good sales pitch. But I'd always played music,
Speaker 3: written songs, but I was more doing it as something
Speaker 3: that I enjoyed. Basketball was always my day to day passion.
Speaker 3: So near the end of my college basketball career, again
Speaker 3: knowing that I had a setup in my dormom, I
Speaker 3: tore my ACL. So that was the end of my
Speaker 3: basketball days. And in that time, this is in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: ACL repair surgery is very hard to come back from
Speaker 3: it. It would take you like maybe eighteen months to do,
Speaker 3: and I didn't have any more eligibility left. So I
Speaker 3: was done playing basketball and I started making music really
Speaker 3: as therapy. I had this keyboard and I was writing.
Speaker 3: I was super depressed. I've been playing basketball since I
Speaker 3: was about eleven twelve years old, practicing every day, dreaming
Speaker 3: about playing in the NBA, working with my father on
Speaker 3: my game. And it was over literally in one day.
Speaker 3: And so there was a year of me just really
Speaker 3: being in my head and not knowing what my life
Speaker 3: was meant for and what was I going to do,
Speaker 3: and had I used my time wisely? And I started
Speaker 3: making music as an outlet. And so at that point
Speaker 3: it wasn't hey, this is my next chapter, this is
Speaker 3: a career for me. It was just trying to survive
Speaker 3: and trying to get through the days and stay off
Speaker 3: the couch from watching soap operas.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go make music.
Speaker 3: So a couple months into that process, actually about eight
Speaker 3: months into that kind of down period, someone asked me
Speaker 3: to make a jingle for a local business in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 3: and they said, well, we'll give you seven hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty bucks. And I was like, oh, this is easy
Speaker 3: because I'm making music in my room anyways. So I
Speaker 3: made a little jingle they paid me, and that was
Speaker 3: really the first taste beyond writing that song way back
Speaker 3: when I was young, where I said, you know, this
Speaker 3: could be something else that I could do that I
Speaker 3: love to do. I feel like I have a little
Speaker 3: bit of a talent for it. So I started writing
Speaker 3: jingles and they were paying me money. Every time I
Speaker 3: write jingle for a burger store or a break shop
Speaker 3: or a fitness gym, they would pay me some money.
Speaker 3: And I said, Okay, this is great, but I don't
Speaker 3: want to just write jingles. I want to make records
Speaker 3: like my family, like my dad, like all the great
Speaker 3: people I grew around grew up listening to. So I
Speaker 3: took all the money that I made doing jingles and
Speaker 3: I bought equipment. I bought keyboards, I brought drum machines,
Speaker 3: tape recorders, and I had built this little studio in
Speaker 3: my one bedroom apartment at the time, And that's when
Speaker 3: I really started getting motivated to enter the music business properly.
Speaker 1: How do you move from jingle writer to I'm going
Speaker 1: to actually make records of the caliber of the records
Speaker 1: I'm used to growing up around having You know.
Speaker 3: As I said, I was very fortunate because I grew
Speaker 3: up around a level of excellence that was just imbued
Speaker 3: into my musical DNA, and I had an understanding of
Speaker 3: what it took to become a professional or excellent musician.
Speaker 3: But I also had the training that I got from sports,
Speaker 3: And if I hadn't had that sports training, I don't
Speaker 3: know if I would have accomplished what I was able
Speaker 3: to accomplish, because there's that competitiveness. And also coach Olsen
Speaker 3: had a way of making sure you expected more than
Speaker 3: you thought you could give. I had a certain set
Speaker 3: of expectations for myself as an athlete, and Coach Olsen
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, you're here, but I think you should
Speaker 3: be here, and I'm like, there, I can't get there,
Speaker 3: that's impossible. And somehow he would instill that in you.
Speaker 3: And so musically I had the same thing. When I
Speaker 3: was doing jingles, I was always thinking about how can
Speaker 3: I make them better? How can I start to graduate
Speaker 3: towards the next version of excellence, And that ultimately translated
Speaker 3: to songwriting and record making, And you say, how did
Speaker 3: I get there? I knew I didn't want to write
Speaker 3: thirty second songs. I wanted to write full songs. I
Speaker 3: wanted to express what I was thinking or what I
Speaker 3: was feeling, And so the idea became, I'll do these
Speaker 3: jingles to make money, but I really want to develop
Speaker 3: into a songwriter and a producer, and that became my goal.
Speaker 1: And about that time, what was out musically that you
Speaker 1: were really drawn to, Well.
Speaker 3: It would have been you know, it was later in
Speaker 3: the Michael Jackson time, but Michael and Prince were my
Speaker 3: two favorite artists early. But then there was Jimmy jam
Speaker 3: and Terry Lewis and La and Babyface and jo Toicy
Speaker 3: and DeVante Swing and Teddy Riley and even into some
Speaker 3: Christopher Krawl and Air Supply and Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald.
Speaker 3: So all these different artists kind of were smashed together
Speaker 3: along with the stuff I grew up on, which was
Speaker 3: all the Quincy records and you know the dude, I
Speaker 3: don't know if you remember that record, And as a
Speaker 3: producer and a songwriter, he was one of my first
Speaker 3: inspirations and mentors. And I was very fortunate. Again I
Speaker 3: hate to keep saying it, but I was lucky. I
Speaker 3: grew up in an environment I have to admit that
Speaker 3: gave me access to people that I learned from that
Speaker 3: I was able to absorb information. But Quincy was somebody
Speaker 3: that would always say, maybe not explicitly, but he would
Speaker 3: imply that if you're a great producer, you have to
Speaker 3: rely on the talents of others, and you have to
Speaker 3: use your judgment and your discernment and your taste and
Speaker 3: your style to put the right people together and then
Speaker 3: let them create and with them build and then be selective.
Speaker 3: And he did that through his career. There's all these
Speaker 3: different sounds, and it's the future of music because you're
Speaker 3: hearing things blended together, You're hearing things that maybe you
Speaker 3: hadn't heard before, You're being exposed to different types of music.
Speaker 3: So that was one of Quincy's I think, most valuable legacies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really was a blended like you know in
Speaker 1: ways that kind of prime you to you know, hear
Speaker 1: like a Timbaland beat twenty years on from the Dude
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know what I mean, Like all those
Speaker 1: cool like Middle Eastern and Indian samples like Timbland and them
Speaker 1: were doing.
Speaker 2: Matt he called it what did Quincy Caully call it?
Speaker 2: The Global gumbo.
Speaker 1: Is that what he called it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would mix.
Speaker 3: Up things from different parts of the world and make
Speaker 3: a global gumbo out of it.
Speaker 2: And you hear that a lot.
Speaker 3: To your point, people grabbing things from different genres or
Speaker 3: different parts.
Speaker 2: Of the world and using it in their art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you also mentioned a succession of guys that
Speaker 1: from your era that were incredible, Davante Swing and all
Speaker 1: these guys, so you kind of knew that was that's
Speaker 1: what you were up against in terms if you were
Speaker 1: going to break into music. Yeah, do you try to
Speaker 1: compete with them, being a competitor or how.
Speaker 2: It's exactly it.
Speaker 3: I took everything I learned in sports and I put
Speaker 3: it to play in music, which is not normal. I
Speaker 3: don't think most creative people thinking I got to beat
Speaker 3: this guy, kind of beat that guy, you know the thing,
Speaker 3: and he let me create something I'm feeling in the mood.
Speaker 3: But I was very competitive. I took that training and
Speaker 3: I brought it with me into the music business. And
Speaker 3: maybe that's the wrong way to do it, that's the
Speaker 3: wrong thing to be doing when you're making art, but
Speaker 3: it served me because I would be in the studio
Speaker 3: every day working just like I was shooting baskets, just
Speaker 3: like Steve Kerr was shooting threes. I was in the
Speaker 3: studio morning, noon, night, trying to get better, and I
Speaker 3: had a really fortunate experience.
Speaker 2: I had an A and R person, you know.
Speaker 3: I used to run around LA throwing my cassettes into
Speaker 3: people's mailboxes. I'd follow people with convertibles that I knew
Speaker 3: worked at labels and throw the stuff in the back seat.
Speaker 3: I had one guy that I'd been badgering for so long.
Speaker 3: He invited me to his office. His name is Guy Abrahams,
Speaker 3: and I'll never forget him. And he said, you've been
Speaker 3: chasing me for months. Come to my office. And so
Speaker 3: I played him a song and he said, okay, it's
Speaker 3: pretty good, but listen to this, and he put in
Speaker 3: another another cassette and I listened to it, and he said,
Speaker 3: now listen to yours, and he listened to mine. He said,
Speaker 3: do you hear the difference? He said, yeah, there's a difference.
Speaker 3: But I don't have a studio like that. I don't
Speaker 3: have an engineer, I don't have all the He says, well,
Speaker 3: and tell you your music sounds as good as that music.
Speaker 3: Don't bother me anymore. And so that was a real moment.
Speaker 3: That was a tipping point moment for me because I
Speaker 3: went back to two sound cause commuting back and forth,
Speaker 3: I'll drive out to La stay with a friend, sleep
Speaker 3: on a couch, stay with my dad. And then when
Speaker 3: he gave me that input, I went back to Arizona
Speaker 3: and I stayed there for three months and I just
Speaker 3: worked and programmed and wrote and did more songs than
Speaker 3: I took a couple more months of like comparing myself
Speaker 3: to other things. And then when I came back to La,
Speaker 3: I played the same gentleman my new music. It's probably
Speaker 3: been maybe six months had passed, and he says, you
Speaker 3: did it, You're ready, and he gave me a job
Speaker 3: producing an artist on Motown Records. And so that was
Speaker 3: really the impetus or the beginning of my career, was
Speaker 3: that guy telling me that the music wasn't.
Speaker 1: Up to par wow, And what was that record you did?
Speaker 3: The group was called Impromptu, and it was an artist
Speaker 3: that was back on Motown probably would have been ninety four,
Speaker 3: ninety three, somewhere in there. It was a trumpet player
Speaker 3: and a rap artist. So they came together and the
Speaker 3: group was called Impromptu. They were really cool in the time,
Speaker 3: and so I got to remix one of their songs.
Speaker 3: They'd ended up producing a song on their record.
Speaker 1: And I guess not too long after that you connect
Speaker 1: with Dark Child Ronnie Jurgen's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was probably in ninety eight, so about three
Speaker 3: or four four years after that, and I'd been writing
Speaker 3: songs since that first record and had some nice placements.
Speaker 3: I can't remember all the artists, but ultimately I wrote
Speaker 3: a song and Brandy heard the song, and song was
Speaker 3: called Truthfully. I'd written it with a guy named Mark
Speaker 3: Nelson and turned out that Rodney was executive producing the
Speaker 3: Brandy album, and so Rodney called me and said, I
Speaker 3: heard the song Truthfully, I want it for Brandy's record.
Speaker 2: You cool for us to record it, And.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a gamble or I
Speaker 3: just was feeling extra brave.
Speaker 2: I said, I mean, you can record it, but I
Speaker 2: got to produce.
Speaker 3: And if I was probably a little smarter or less naive,
Speaker 3: I would have said, yes, thank you, please take the song,
Speaker 3: record it, but I really wanted to stay involved, and
Speaker 3: I also realized it was an opportunity to learn and
Speaker 3: get into another door. So yeah, I said, yeah, you
Speaker 3: can cut it, but I want to produce, and Rodney said, well,
Speaker 3: how would we co produce it? I was like cool,
Speaker 3: and so that's how I started with Dark Child.
Speaker 1: Wow. So what was that experience?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Like co producing with Dark Child?
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 3: I wasn't like freaked out by it because at that point,
Speaker 3: I've been making records for what probably eight years, seven years,
Speaker 3: and I felt pretty confident I'd done the hours, I'd
Speaker 3: spent the time, and again, I'd been working with other
Speaker 3: artists and then growing up with artists my whole life.
Speaker 3: I wasn't like, oh my god, it's Brandy or it's
Speaker 3: Rodney Jerkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was respectful always because I think artists are the
Speaker 3: most special and spectacular people. But I was able to
Speaker 3: interact and collaborate with Rodney, I think in a productive
Speaker 3: in a very cool way, because that was the first
Speaker 3: record we did together, and I ended up working with
Speaker 3: him for two years and from that day, I don't
Speaker 3: know if we spent more than a couple of days
Speaker 3: apart from each other for a couple of years.
Speaker 1: And what were the songs you guys ended up doing
Speaker 1: together in that run?
Speaker 3: Was in ninety eight to two thousand, and that run
Speaker 3: was everything. That was all that Tony Brax and he
Speaker 3: wasn't mad enough for me. It was Destiny's Child, Say
Speaker 3: my Name. I can't even remember all the songs we did.
Speaker 3: We did so many artists and then every week was
Speaker 3: another artist. And then we also started the Michael Jackson
Speaker 3: record Invincible in ninety eight, and we ended up working
Speaker 3: on that record for eighteen months, which was Michael's last record,
Speaker 3: So we did a couple hundred songs. I'm sure through
Speaker 3: that period.
Speaker 1: Were you around Michael?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, for eighteen months.
Speaker 1: Wow. And I imagine you hadn't met him when you
Speaker 1: were younger, right.
Speaker 3: I had met him when I was younger because my
Speaker 3: father played on I don't remember one of the records
Speaker 3: or a project that he was doing, so and through
Speaker 3: Quincy i'd made him, but we were not friendly. He
Speaker 3: didn't know me from Adam, but I'd been around him.
Speaker 1: Wow. But now to work with him on a project crazy,
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 3: It was one of the best experiences of my life
Speaker 3: because it perpetuated the idea and the culture that I
Speaker 3: had been trying to build around how I made music,
Speaker 3: which was there's no detail too small, there's no level
Speaker 3: of expectation that's too high, and Michael lived at In
Speaker 3: everything that he did, he would never settle. He was
Speaker 3: always pushing the boundaries. He would always he would go
Speaker 3: back and do anything a hundred times. And being around
Speaker 3: that was right in line with my belief system and
Speaker 3: the way I wanted to make music. So it was
Speaker 3: a very natural I won't say partnership because I was
Speaker 3: clearly not his partner, but it was a very natural
Speaker 3: working relationship. And again I was fortunate. I had been
Speaker 3: around big artists. I'd been in the studio my whole life,
Speaker 3: so unlike a lot of people that would come into
Speaker 3: those sessions, I wasn't nervous and freaking out, like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, what am I going to do? I can't
Speaker 3: look at Michael Jackson. I was able to just be
Speaker 3: creative and collaborate. And also I was there in some
Speaker 3: degree to support Rodney. Rodney was the main producer. I
Speaker 3: worked for him, so I was able to bring some
Speaker 3: value I like to think and had an incredible experience,
Speaker 3: and I learned so much from both Rodney and Michael.
Speaker 3: But again, it just continued the tradition of that was
Speaker 3: set by Quincy, that was set by coach Liutolsen. That
Speaker 3: was then set by other people that I've been around,
Speaker 3: which is you don't just do something.
Speaker 2: To do it.
Speaker 3: You do it to be excellent at it, and you
Speaker 3: have intention, and you improve and you iterate and you
Speaker 3: try and make something special. And I never wanted to
Speaker 3: be a guy that just cranked out a bunch of songs.
Speaker 3: I wanted to make things that were special.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Where was Michael's head at at that point?
Speaker 3: He had come off the biggest records in the world
Speaker 3: and he wanted to make the next.
Speaker 2: Biggest record in the world.
Speaker 3: You know, he had done Dangerous, he'd done those records,
Speaker 3: and I think there was one after that.
Speaker 1: History, which is also jam and Lewis did a lot
Speaker 1: on the Yep.
Speaker 3: Yeah and Teddy did the Dangerous record. So this was
Speaker 3: a point where he'd had a gap between records. But
Speaker 3: I'll never forget he kept saying, we have to be
Speaker 3: the biggest selling record of all time. And that was
Speaker 3: how we walked into the studio every day and we
Speaker 3: would play a song for him and he said, I've
Speaker 3: heard a song like that before, and we would have
Speaker 3: a drum program playing any like those sounds don't sound
Speaker 3: like something I've never heard before. Make sounds that I've
Speaker 3: never heard before. I don't want something that I've heard before.
Speaker 3: So that was another lesson. You're not following your leading.
Speaker 1: That's insane. And were you with the project the whole, like,
Speaker 1: from beginning to end or.
Speaker 2: Not to the end?
Speaker 3: I was from the beginning. When Rodney first started, it
Speaker 3: was in nineteen ninety eight, and we ended in two
Speaker 3: thousand and the project continued after I left Dark Child
Speaker 3: for about I don't know, probably four or five months
Speaker 3: to complete the record, but we did I think forty
Speaker 3: songs forty five songs with Michael. A bunch of them
Speaker 3: are still in the can, which is interesting to see
Speaker 3: if they'll ever come out. And then when I left
Speaker 3: Dark Child, Rodney went on to finish that record. I
Speaker 3: think it took a couple more months. Wow, there was
Speaker 3: a lot of controversy around that record at that time
Speaker 3: in two thousand, Tommy Mottola was running Sony Records. We
Speaker 3: had spent a ton of money. I can't even imagine
Speaker 3: the millions of dollars we had spent on that Michael record.
Speaker 3: We were running three four studios at a time at
Speaker 3: Sony Records or Hit Factory, New York, and at that
Speaker 3: time we're using Sony digital digital tape machines thirty three
Speaker 3: forty eight they were called, and we had two of
Speaker 3: them in each room, and they were twenty five hundred
Speaker 3: bucks a day, and we were renting them for you know,
Speaker 3: there's six of them sitting there, and sometimes we wouldn't
Speaker 3: get records done in a day, or Michael might not
Speaker 3: feel in good voice and may not want to sing
Speaker 3: for a couple of days, and just running through money.
Speaker 3: So Tommy, really I will say, shut the project down,
Speaker 3: but he definitely was getting anxious and wanted us to
Speaker 3: turn into record. So there was some contentious times in
Speaker 3: that project that I left just near the end of
Speaker 3: that and then obviously rodden. You got it back on
Speaker 3: track and the record came out.
Speaker 1: Were you feeling nervous at all?
Speaker 3: I mean, Millions of All is always very nervous, mostly
Speaker 3: nervous about Tommy Mattola and you know, the Sony of
Speaker 3: it all never from Michael, and Michael was always very
Speaker 3: confident and he was very generous and reassuring. He's like,
Speaker 3: we're making something special. We can't rush that. There's no
Speaker 3: price tag on that. Yeah, Michael was very upset. I
Speaker 3: don't want maybe I'm spilling dirty laundry here, but Michael
Speaker 3: was upset that Tommy was trying to restrict you know,
Speaker 3: what he was putting out. And obviously they figured it out,
Speaker 3: but that was over my pay grade. And however that happened,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure when the record came out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 1: It's it's insane, man, that's insane.
Speaker 3: But also it was a different time in music, you know,
Speaker 3: and Tommy was dominant. Think of all the artists he
Speaker 3: had at Sony and all the records he was they
Speaker 3: were massive hits and he and Michael had I think,
Speaker 3: some great success together.
Speaker 1: So and it's funny because Michael was also the blueprint
Speaker 1: for everything that was hitting at that time, but also
Speaker 1: was maybe you know, viewed as past his prime a bit,
Speaker 1: even though he just had you know whatever, that screen
Speaker 1: record with Janet.
Speaker 3: And Yeah, I could sense some of that from him,
Speaker 3: where he felt like he was there was a pressure
Speaker 3: on him to perform the way he did before, and
Speaker 3: he was maybe a little bit nervous if he was
Speaker 3: going to be able to but covering that nervousness with
Speaker 3: confidence and excitement and drive and pushing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's wild, man.
Speaker 2: That was a great experience.
Speaker 1: That's wild. Then you go on and you start your
Speaker 1: own thing, right like you're the Underdogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just on the heels of Dark Child. I started
Speaker 3: a production company and linked up with a guy who
Speaker 3: actually had thought about joining Dark Child and wrote a
Speaker 3: couple of songs with us while we were at dark Child,
Speaker 3: but it ended up not working out. And his name
Speaker 3: was Damon Thomas, and Rodney always thought he's very talented,
Speaker 3: but I don't think he's part of dark Child. So
Speaker 3: after I left and I'd split from dark Child, Damon
Speaker 3: and I connected and wrote a song together and people
Speaker 3: liked it, and so that's how we started the Underdogs.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. We'll be right back with more from Harvard
Speaker 1: Mason Junior after the break. So how do you go
Speaker 1: from you know, it's already a pretty incredible trajectory, but
Speaker 1: then to do that and then in around the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and two thousand and one, and then to
Speaker 1: roughly a couple of decades later being the head of
Speaker 1: the recording Academy, that's another it's a little ways in,
Speaker 1: but that's another wild left turn in your trajectory.
Speaker 3: Definitely not an expected or planned journey, but I do
Speaker 3: Maybe this is too philosophical, but I just kind of
Speaker 3: appreciate the moment and I don't try and predetermine every step.
Speaker 3: And I also believe, and I talk to my kids
Speaker 3: a lot about this, there's no wrong moves as long
Speaker 3: as you're not doing anything illegal or hurting yourself or
Speaker 3: somebody else. Like, if something comes in it feels like
Speaker 3: a challenge or interesting to you, then I encourage people
Speaker 3: to try that. Especially when you're coming through the early
Speaker 3: stages of your life, you can afford to try things
Speaker 3: and you can experiment. So once we were doing The Underdogs,
Speaker 3: we had had some success there, and a woman asked
Speaker 3: me if I would be interested in getting involved with
Speaker 3: the Recording Academy. We'd had success and made some little
Speaker 3: money and built a reputation. I thought the Academy was
Speaker 3: really cool because, well, honestly, first I thought it was
Speaker 3: cool because I could vote for myself to win a Grammy.
Speaker 3: So that's why I first joined.
Speaker 1: The reason I joined, yeah, I mean that was the
Speaker 1: reason value.
Speaker 2: Oh, I can vote a Producer of the Year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to join.
Speaker 3: But I quickly realized that it's a really great organization
Speaker 3: that is entirely built and exists only to serve music people.
Speaker 3: And I was my whole life. You know from our talk,
Speaker 3: you know I'm a music person from the time I
Speaker 3: was nine years old, and my family were music people.
Speaker 3: So being a part of the Recording Academy was instantly
Speaker 3: exciting and appealing, just as a board member, just first
Speaker 3: as a member, then an elected board member, then a
Speaker 3: national officer, and then they elected me to be the
Speaker 3: chair of the Board of the Recording Academy, and I
Speaker 3: was honored and thrilled because I knew I could serve
Speaker 3: our community in that role. And then there came a
Speaker 3: time where they asked me if I would be the CEO,
Speaker 3: and that changes from a volunteer position to a real
Speaker 3: job and coming in the building and.
Speaker 2: Working directly with the staff.
Speaker 3: And so that was a decision that was again not planned,
Speaker 3: is not something I was aspiring to do or looking
Speaker 3: forward to, but I saw it as an opportunity to
Speaker 3: give back and to serve and to make a difference
Speaker 3: in music people's lives, and that's what excited me at
Speaker 3: that point in my life.
Speaker 1: Also was a bit of a precarious time to come
Speaker 1: in like it might have felt like I it could
Speaker 1: have felt also, I mean not that you seemed to
Speaker 1: be a person who takes into account what could go wrong,
Speaker 1: which is based on all the moves you make in life.
Speaker 2: But like you know, there was I've been accused of that.
Speaker 1: But it also was like they didn't come in at
Speaker 1: a very easy time to be CEO of the According Academy.
Speaker 1: I'll say, I'll say it that way.
Speaker 3: It was a really tough time. But you remember, as
Speaker 3: the chair, I had seen what had happened and why
Speaker 3: it had gotten to where it was, and I also
Speaker 3: saw the good stuff. I saw how important impactfully the
Speaker 3: organization was. So for me it was actually a really
Speaker 3: good time because we were depleted, we were looked down
Speaker 3: on at that point to some degree, and we had
Speaker 3: room to go. And as you said, I'm definitely the
Speaker 3: eternal optimist, and I saw exactly what needed to be
Speaker 3: done and what could be done, and so I just
Speaker 3: jumped in and I'd say, we've come a long way
Speaker 3: in the last six years.
Speaker 1: So when you did join, can you explain that dichotomy
Speaker 1: you just mentioned where it's sort of the recording Academy
Speaker 1: is sort of colored this way, but you're also seeing
Speaker 1: all the great that it's done over you know, the
Speaker 1: decade decad and a half that you've been working with them.
Speaker 1: How did it end up sort of bifurcated that way
Speaker 1: where it's like, there's some things that need to be
Speaker 1: cleaned up, and then there's also all this great stuff
Speaker 1: that you.
Speaker 3: Know, some of it was the lack of storytelling and
Speaker 3: awareness of what the Recording Academy actually did. Everybody really
Speaker 3: knew us for the show and the Grammy Awards and
Speaker 3: the nominations and the winds and the snubs and who
Speaker 3: lost and who didn't get what they got and who
Speaker 3: wasn't represented accurately or equitably, and then there's all the
Speaker 3: other work that was being done. So one of the
Speaker 3: first things I realized is this is an amazing organization.
Speaker 2: They've been around.
Speaker 3: Sixty two years when I got there, and hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of dollars into the community. And the way of
Speaker 3: age is philanthropy or people who needed help, pain and
Speaker 3: rent or bills, medical bills, education, advocacy. All the things
Speaker 3: that were happening every year, whether or not somebody wanted
Speaker 3: Grammy or not these things were going on. So the
Speaker 3: first order was for us to figure out how to
Speaker 3: tell that story inside our own industry, inside our own community,
Speaker 3: because everybody was so focused on who was winning and
Speaker 3: who was losing, and they were losing focus on why
Speaker 3: the organization existed, has to lift up music and to
Speaker 3: the benefit of music people. So because I was from
Speaker 3: the industry and I had relationships with artists, I produced
Speaker 3: most of the artists that were angry and some of
Speaker 3: the artists that were happy. I spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time my first couple of years just talking to people
Speaker 3: and explaining why the organizations, why I'm here, because they
Speaker 3: would say, heart of you're crazy, get out of there,
Speaker 3: and I said, no, this is important, this is important.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one who thought it would be a yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be a strange move to make.
Speaker 3: And it was a strange move, but I knew how
Speaker 3: important it was. And I'm not trying to overinflate my
Speaker 3: own contribution to that or even the importance of the
Speaker 3: Grammy Organization in the world. There's a lot of things
Speaker 3: going on in the world that are very problematic and challenging,
Speaker 3: but when it comes to the music community and doing
Speaker 3: right by music people. I'm very proud of what the
Speaker 3: organization has done and over the last six years, has
Speaker 3: evolved into doing. And I think that's important. I think
Speaker 3: it's important. Based on all the other discrepancies or challenges
Speaker 3: or politics, or inequities or struggles that we have in society,
Speaker 3: music matters and the magic of a musician or a
Speaker 3: creator is all powerful to me. And maybe I'm overinflating that,
Speaker 3: but I truly believe it. And that's why the organization
Speaker 3: and serving music people and making sure there's space and
Speaker 3: a healthy ecosystem in a way for them to make
Speaker 3: a living and protections, that's important and that's why I'm
Speaker 3: passionate about it.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're overstated in it at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you think about music has been such a
Speaker 1: driver of culture, American culture for you know, eighties, eight
Speaker 1: seventy and.
Speaker 2: It says the phonograph Really yeah, you think about.
Speaker 1: It many decades, you know. I'm concerned about, like, how
Speaker 1: do we make music fun again in a way both
Speaker 1: for like the artist and for the consumer or the fan.
Speaker 1: You know, so much of the discussion is AI and
Speaker 1: streaming and sales numbers, and we kind of lose tracks,
Speaker 1: sometimes of yeah, just that music's fun.
Speaker 3: I would imagine the young people listening to music think
Speaker 3: music is really fun. I think we might be looking
Speaker 3: at it through our lens of it used to be
Speaker 3: like this. Yeah, And that's the one thing as a creator,
Speaker 3: as a business lead. And I'm sure you've experienced this,
Speaker 3: and I know you've probably subscribed to the same philosophy.
Speaker 3: As soon as you get caught up in looking at
Speaker 3: it through the lens of how it used to be.
Speaker 3: I think it's dangerous. I think it's a little bit risky.
Speaker 3: There's always the nostalgic and that's okay, and that's healthy.
Speaker 3: But I think music's incredibly fun. And I'm sure a
Speaker 3: lot of music people who are making it now are
Speaker 3: loving it the same way I loved it when.
Speaker 2: I first started.
Speaker 3: They're excited, they wake up dreaming about it, they can't
Speaker 3: wait to get in what used to be the studio
Speaker 3: now is probably their laptop to make a new song.
Speaker 3: And regardless of what the technology is or the delivery
Speaker 3: mechanism or how it's consumed, music has the same power.
Speaker 3: Music has the same effect on people. You still see
Speaker 3: them dancing to it at their weddings. You see them
Speaker 3: crying to it in their car after a breakup. This
Speaker 3: music is incredible, So I think what you're saying is
Speaker 3: is definitely different. How it's made is different. And the
Speaker 3: challenge that we have, you and I as lovers of
Speaker 3: music and people who grew up listening to incredible artists
Speaker 3: and artistry late on a record or on a cassettra CD,
Speaker 3: is is the music being made now? Do they have
Speaker 3: the same care behind it? Do they have the same intention,
Speaker 3: the same talent behind it? And I don't think that's
Speaker 3: what's as important. I think it's more important to say
Speaker 3: what is being made, what is being created. Of course
Speaker 3: there's issues around AI, and I'm not dismissing those concerns.
Speaker 3: But I remember when I was a young kid, like
Speaker 3: hip hop music that wasn't even looked at like music, Like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's not music, it's just temper as a fad, that's
Speaker 3: not you don't have to have any talent. They're not
Speaker 3: even singing, they're not even playing instruments, they're just spinning records.
Speaker 3: And when I was in that era, I was like, man,
Speaker 3: that's an incredible talent. These hip hop artists are amazing
Speaker 3: I would listen to them like how do they do that?
Speaker 3: But the people before me didn't even think that was
Speaker 3: a talent. So I think that's the challenge we have
Speaker 3: is to look at how music is being made now
Speaker 3: and make sure we recognize that it is a true
Speaker 3: talent to be able to create things that move people today.
Speaker 1: So I guess how you know, with the new technology
Speaker 1: now and some of like what we're starting to see
Speaker 1: as like a lot of souno and I mean we're
Speaker 1: beyond not just not going to the studio anymore making
Speaker 1: this stuff at home. How are you guys thinking about
Speaker 1: that in terms of the organization.
Speaker 3: Yeah, We're always going to champion and support and celebrate
Speaker 3: human creativity end of statement.
Speaker 2: How humans use tools is.
Speaker 3: Something that's going to change, and we're going to continue
Speaker 3: to look at every year. You know, we're fortunate we
Speaker 3: have a board of trustees and a chair and membership
Speaker 3: groups and awards and nominations committees that all look at
Speaker 3: this stuff every day and they're in the weeds saying, Okay,
Speaker 3: are we doing it right?
Speaker 2: Are we getting it right?
Speaker 3: And so as an organization, we'll always try and stay
Speaker 3: ahead of what's happening, especially where we are now with
Speaker 3: the bias for action and really making sure we're paying
Speaker 3: attention and seeing around corners. But we are going to
Speaker 3: celebrate human creativity. But we understand AI is a tool
Speaker 3: that's going to be used, yeah fact, And if we
Speaker 3: try and pretend like it's not or and ban it
Speaker 3: and say we can't have AI in our industry, I
Speaker 3: think we will have missed the plot and we will
Speaker 3: have missed the opportunity to acknowledge how people are making music.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a choice. I'm not saying everybody's
Speaker 3: going to be using new technologies. There's going to be
Speaker 3: some people that don't want to use it, and I'm
Speaker 3: really good with that. As you can imagine, there's also
Speaker 3: going to be people that see it as an opportunity
Speaker 3: to come into the business in a time when maybe
Speaker 3: they otherwise would not be able to do so, which
Speaker 3: is very analogous to when I started, I was making
Speaker 3: records on tape, but then when pro tools came out,
Speaker 3: a whole group of people were able to now sing
Speaker 3: because they could do unlimited takes and they could put
Speaker 3: auto tune on their voice. They could chop things together,
Speaker 3: whereas before they couldn't and that created a whole new,
Speaker 3: exciting influx of talented people. So where we are again
Speaker 3: is celebrate human creativity. We're not going to allow AI
Speaker 3: to overrun our members, our human creators, our human singers,
Speaker 3: our human songwriters. But for now, we see it as
Speaker 3: a viable tool towards creation, and there's a line that
Speaker 3: we have to decide where that is how much can
Speaker 3: be used?
Speaker 1: Do you know where that line is? Right now?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 3: It's you know, we feel like we have an understanding
Speaker 3: of where the line is. It's a majority of human creativity,
Speaker 3: and that can be interpreted a couple of different ways,
Speaker 3: And for now we're going to leave it a little
Speaker 3: bit not ambiguous, but flexible because technology is changing so quickly,
Speaker 3: and while the Copyright Office still also doesn't know what
Speaker 3: the threshold is for a human creativity and a copyrightable moment.
Speaker 3: Is it two prompts? Is it five prompts? Is it
Speaker 3: a prompt and a temple change and a key change?
Speaker 3: There's so many uncertainties. What I want to make sure
Speaker 3: we do as an organization, what I think our board
Speaker 3: and our elected leadership want to do as an organization,
Speaker 3: and make sure we're honoring music in the way that
Speaker 3: it's being made and created while still maintaining the ultimate
Speaker 3: respect to the human creativity, because that's important. And now
Speaker 3: I've said it so many times. A computer is not
Speaker 3: going to replace what's in here. A computer is not
Speaker 3: going to have that interpersonal sperience that we have and
Speaker 3: be able to regurgitate that just because they've ingested a
Speaker 3: bunch of songs. What computers can do is make some cool,
Speaker 3: algorithmic sounding music that I think will hopefully amplify or
Speaker 3: enhance what we as humans can make and inspire us
Speaker 3: to do something new and different. What's going to be
Speaker 3: really differentiating us from generative music is going to be
Speaker 3: something that the computer hasn't ever been able to figure out,
Speaker 3: They've probably never heard before. And so I think there's
Speaker 3: a great opportunity for us as a creative community to
Speaker 3: take this challenge, take this moment, and really push the
Speaker 3: boundaries of how we're creating and what we're creating.
Speaker 1: Do you worry at all? That? And then interim and
Speaker 1: this time where we're sort of figuring out where the
Speaker 1: line is and exactly where our house is all going
Speaker 1: to shake out legally, culturally, within the academy. I could
Speaker 1: see easily us getting in a place where people just
Speaker 1: assume things are being made, you know, like where people
Speaker 1: assume that more ais maybe being used and is or
Speaker 1: maybe it is and maybe like or maybe we get
Speaker 1: to a point where there is a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote AI slop making it into playlists or whatever
Speaker 1: or even onto records that might end up becoming nominated
Speaker 1: Grammy nominated.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So do you worry in the interim as we're figuring
Speaker 1: it all this out the quality control of in the
Speaker 1: perception for fans, we worry.
Speaker 3: We don't worry about the quality control because that's really
Speaker 3: not our job. We worry about making sure that there's
Speaker 3: guardrails in place because my version of quality might not
Speaker 3: be your version of quality. I don't think we should
Speaker 3: be regulating that. But what we do want to make
Speaker 3: sure is that there are rules in place that protect
Speaker 3: human creativity. And yes, we worry about it every day,
Speaker 3: and it's something that we talk about around our awards
Speaker 3: about submissions. You know, how do we categorize music? How
Speaker 3: do we talk about as their language that we can
Speaker 3: attach to certain things? Are the thresholds that people need
Speaker 3: to declare before they enter. So all those things are
Speaker 3: talked about on a daily, weekly basis. And as I said,
Speaker 3: it's moving so quickly. We have to be diligent and
Speaker 3: we have to stay on top of it. And I
Speaker 3: can tell you we absolutely are.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, we're getting into like a like a trust
Speaker 1: but verify trust, but verify stage of things.
Speaker 3: It's just weird, it is, and it's going to continue
Speaker 3: to be weird. There's you know, detection tools that we're
Speaker 3: experimenting with, and I know other people are as well.
Speaker 3: There's requests that we're making on the advocacy level federally,
Speaker 3: you know, legislation that we'd like to see put in place.
Speaker 3: There's labeling things that we're asking from streamers or other
Speaker 3: places people get their music. So all those things are
Speaker 3: things we talk about and think about to make sure
Speaker 3: that the consumers aware because that's a big part of it.
Speaker 3: We want to make sure there's not deception. If you're
Speaker 3: using AI, you think that's part of your process and
Speaker 3: you want to do it, I think that's okay if
Speaker 3: you can tell the consumers how it's being used, as
Speaker 3: long as you're not infringing on somebody else's copyright, using
Speaker 3: somebody else's music, and ingesting training on that we're outputting
Speaker 3: it and not can considering where you were learned, where
Speaker 3: you learn from. Also making sure if you're using an
Speaker 3: artist's voice or likeness is there, an approval is there,
Speaker 3: remuneration is there the right credit. So those are all
Speaker 3: things that we think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, after the break the rest of my conversation with
Speaker 1: Harvey Mason Jr. We're an interesting time where I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of the traditional gatekeepers of music, and
Speaker 1: again I don't want to I don't not using gatekeeper
Speaker 1: in a bad way. I'm talking about people like Clive
Speaker 1: Davis who we just lost, or Pancy Jones we've talked about,
Speaker 1: or Mo Austin who just like people who were kind
Speaker 1: of in their their taste sort of dictated what got
Speaker 1: down to the consumer level and had a lot of
Speaker 1: success with that. And certainly we're in a more decentralized
Speaker 1: era now. So do you do you view the recording
Speaker 1: academy as being needing to move in a more decentralized
Speaker 1: sort of way, or do do you sort of view
Speaker 1: it as being an arbiter for what is good in music?
Speaker 1: How do you think about that?
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I mean that's tough.
Speaker 3: What I view it as is a unique award given
Speaker 3: by your peers for excellence in any different field of
Speaker 3: recording arts and sciences. And we don't claim to say
Speaker 3: what is better than something else, or try and say
Speaker 3: this is the only way you do it, and this
Speaker 3: is how you make a successful record or song. We
Speaker 3: have roughly sixteen thousand voters, and those voters are all
Speaker 3: music professionals, so it's subjective and sometimes what they like
Speaker 3: might not be what the general public likes. And that's
Speaker 3: when we get into some of these times when people think, oh, well,
Speaker 3: the Academy snubbed something. Well, the Academy is made up
Speaker 3: of professional music people and those people are going to
Speaker 3: have opinions and tastes. And the reason that the voting
Speaker 3: membership is important is it's got to be diverse. It's
Speaker 3: got to spread across different genres of music. It has
Speaker 3: to have different people because, as I said, the two
Speaker 3: of us might not align on what is excellent.
Speaker 2: But if you get a big enough group, and you
Speaker 2: get a group of.
Speaker 3: People that have different likes and different experiences and different expertise,
Speaker 3: then you get I think a generally a good feel
Speaker 3: for a subjective outcome of what's excellent for that year.
Speaker 3: And so I don't think we need to change that drastically,
Speaker 3: because that's what makes us different is it's not a
Speaker 3: popularity contest. It's not about how many streams you had,
Speaker 3: how many journalists review your thing five stars, about the
Speaker 3: people who make music every day, writers, producers, engineers, singers,
Speaker 3: people who work in our business. They listen to the
Speaker 3: music and they decide what they like in any given year.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, when you took over, you got rid of
Speaker 1: quote unquotes like sort of secret nominating or how would you.
Speaker 2: The nominations committees. Yeah, they called them the secret committees.
Speaker 1: The secret committee was that like, internally we.
Speaker 3: Didn't call it that people did and they were trying
Speaker 3: to demonize those committees, and those committees were really important,
Speaker 3: they sort to purpose for a time. And the reason
Speaker 3: they thought they were secret was because we never disclosed
Speaker 3: who was on those committees, because we were afraid of
Speaker 3: those people getting lobbied or getting squeezed to make sure
Speaker 3: they're giving people nominations. But those committees were made up
Speaker 3: of music professionals, and so we would have a nominating
Speaker 3: committee for pop one for rock, one for jazz, and
Speaker 3: on that committee would be the leading jazz creators or
Speaker 3: leading pop creators, and they would not decide who got
Speaker 3: the nomination, but ultimately narrow down the field to some degree.
Speaker 3: And it was a step that was put in place
Speaker 3: in a time when maybe the membership wasn't as diverse,
Speaker 3: and it wasn't as experienced across different genres of music.
Speaker 3: And at that time, when I first got here, you
Speaker 3: could vote anywhere on the ballot.
Speaker 2: You could.
Speaker 3: You might have had a song in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 3: and you're still voting for best Hip Hop Artists, and
Speaker 3: you might not even know that genre, but you recognize
Speaker 3: a name, and so the nomination review committees would try
Speaker 3: to prevent that from happening. But once we started, as
Speaker 3: you were touching, you know, and I got in the role,
Speaker 3: we quickly realized that the nomination review committees were no
Speaker 3: longer necessary, provided that we could upgrade our membership and
Speaker 3: evolve our membership make sure that they were all requalified.
Speaker 3: So we requalified. Ninety nine percent of all of our
Speaker 3: members have been requalified, and I think the last percentage
Speaker 3: has probably done now as well, which means you have
Speaker 3: to be relevant, you have to have music in the
Speaker 3: last five years, you have to have the right amount
Speaker 3: of credits, and your application has to be re reviewed.
Speaker 3: So all of our members got that. And then what
Speaker 3: we also changed is you can't just graze across the
Speaker 3: ballot and see who you like. Oh I know that person,
Speaker 3: I'm going to vote for them, because that's not what.
Speaker 2: This is about.
Speaker 3: It's about do you know the music, listen to the music,
Speaker 3: and again subjectively, try and decide which one do you
Speaker 3: think is the best for the year. So we changed
Speaker 3: the membership, we changed the way we voted, and not
Speaker 3: allowed us to eliminate the noms committees.
Speaker 1: And do you feel like it's gotten to a place
Speaker 1: where's more the results are more pure now, or the
Speaker 1: winners or the like. It's where it's kind of really.
Speaker 3: I don't know if pure is the right word, And
Speaker 3: you and the listeners could probably tell me if you
Speaker 3: think we've gotten better.
Speaker 2: I think we've.
Speaker 3: Had more consistency and probably more realistic outcomes based around
Speaker 3: what's going on in the industry today, less like at
Speaker 3: a left field shock surprise, like how in the heck
Speaker 3: did that person even get nominated or let alone win,
Speaker 3: there's less of those. But also, you know, some of
Speaker 3: what's cool about the Grammys is a discovery and you
Speaker 3: get to see something that maybe you weren't aware of,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, there's a light shine on
Speaker 3: something new and you're like, oh, that's really cool. I
Speaker 3: love that. But I do think because of the membership's
Speaker 3: evolution and because of some of the rules that are
Speaker 3: in place, we are doing better. I want to continue
Speaker 3: to improve, and we're always looking at our membership, and
Speaker 3: the membership has to change, by the way, when new
Speaker 3: genres come in, we have to make sure we have
Speaker 3: the voters that correspond to those genres so they can
Speaker 3: evaluate it accurately.
Speaker 2: Because if we have.
Speaker 3: All one type of voter and then all of a
Speaker 3: sudden this type of music comes in, we're slipping back
Speaker 3: into how we used to be, where people didn't have
Speaker 3: the ears for that music. So we'll continue to watch
Speaker 3: that and try and evolve.
Speaker 1: In certainly the last decade or so, I mean just
Speaker 1: with so much, so much with sort of these regional
Speaker 1: world scenes, yeah, becoming you know, K pop or afro
Speaker 1: beats or eat psych.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we just introduced the Asian Pop Performance category and
Speaker 3: I think three years ago we did African performance category.
Speaker 3: So if you're going to have those categories, you really
Speaker 3: got to make sure you have the right voters, Otherwise
Speaker 3: you're doing them a disservice. And the reason we put
Speaker 3: those categories in is so that we can honor the
Speaker 3: music and so we can show respect to that music
Speaker 3: because it's happening, it's poppin, and we want to make
Speaker 3: sure it's part of what we're doing. But if we
Speaker 3: don't have the right outcomes and those genres, because we
Speaker 3: don't have the right membership, since we're messing.
Speaker 1: Up amazing over the next decade or so. What are
Speaker 1: you excited about in music and what are you most
Speaker 1: concerned about.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited about people having access to creating music
Speaker 3: and listening to music and discovery music. There's more music
Speaker 3: being listened to now than ever. I think that's a
Speaker 3: cool stat because I love music and I make music.
Speaker 3: I still am in the studio making music. So the
Speaker 3: fact that more people are enjoying it, that it's affecting
Speaker 3: more people, that's exciting. The idea that my niece calls
Speaker 3: me from Dallas and says, Uncle Harvey, I just made
Speaker 3: a song check it out and she sends it to me,
Speaker 3: and we can debate around whether or not you think
Speaker 3: that's healthy or okay, or should even be called music making,
Speaker 3: But the fact that she's coming into the world of
Speaker 3: creating and expressing herself through music, I think that's cool. Again,
Speaker 3: making sure that we take care of the legality and.
Speaker 1: Are you are you running the same test on your niece.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, make sure you're signing the right things, they're
Speaker 3: giving credit. So I'm excited about those things. And some
Speaker 3: of that is also what makes me nervous. Does music
Speaker 3: become commoditized? Does it become too easy to create? Does
Speaker 3: it come too easy and disposable? Does it become something
Speaker 3: that is overlooked and just in the background. And I
Speaker 3: have faith that that's not going to be the case,
Speaker 3: because I think music is too powerful and too important
Speaker 3: and people who make music are, in my mind, the
Speaker 3: most special and so I worry less about that. But
Speaker 3: that is something that we all have to think about.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned the AI slop and what does that
Speaker 3: mean for listeners and what does that mean for our
Speaker 3: community of people who make music and have spent the
Speaker 3: ten thousand or in some other cases the forty thousand
Speaker 3: hours that it takes to really refine your craft and
Speaker 3: perfect your craft. And I still think there's huge value
Speaker 3: in that, and I would hate to see that lost.
Speaker 3: But we have to acknowledge things are going to change.
Speaker 3: They always have. Our industry has seen it time and
Speaker 3: time again. The way the music is made has changed,
Speaker 3: the way music is consumed has changed. And that is
Speaker 3: not stagnant and it's not binary. It's not either this
Speaker 3: or that. It's going to evolve, it's going to flow,
Speaker 3: it's going to grow, and as long as we can
Speaker 3: be respectful to the creative process and the people that
Speaker 3: are making music. I'm looking forward to what comes next
Speaker 3: and what the new sounds are. What's the new genre
Speaker 3: of music, what's the new way that we're going to
Speaker 3: listen to music and celebrate music. There's so many new possibilities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I hope you're right, man, I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: I think you're right.
Speaker 3: You know you know I'm right because music people are resilient.
Speaker 3: What do you think music people are going to stop
Speaker 3: making music?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: No, you know all the great records you've grown up
Speaker 3: listening to, those are the people. Those people are still
Speaker 3: out here. Making music, and we are being threatened and
Speaker 3: we're being challenged as creators, and I believe our people
Speaker 3: will rise that challenge. And I know throughout history of music.
Speaker 3: I mean when I came up, as I told you,
Speaker 3: people said your music's not good enough, it's not going
Speaker 3: to work. You're not good, got to be better. That
Speaker 3: is how all music people came up. I think you
Speaker 3: can talk to pretty much any artists and they've been
Speaker 3: they've been kicked into the dirt a time or two
Speaker 3: early in their career, and this is not the dissimilar
Speaker 3: to that. So I think there's some comparisons that can
Speaker 3: be made to this. Not saying that everybody should go
Speaker 3: run out and use AI, please don't. That's not what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. What I'm saying is there's a disruption in
Speaker 3: technology that changes how people make what they make, and
Speaker 3: for us, it's jarring and it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: this is unacceptable. They said that about player pianos. Player
Speaker 3: pianos came out, Oh, it's going to ruin the industry
Speaker 3: because piano players aren't going to be able to play well.
Speaker 3: We still got all the piano players. Said that about
Speaker 3: synthesizers and samplers. They said that about DJs, they said
Speaker 3: that about hip hop, they said it about people programming
Speaker 3: on computers. I sat next to a guy on a
Speaker 3: plane the other day. He made a whole record on
Speaker 3: his laptop. Didn't even have a keyboard with black and
Speaker 3: white keys. He was doing it on his laptop. And
Speaker 3: so is this the next evolution of how people are
Speaker 3: going to make music, provided that we can get the
Speaker 3: guardrails in place, I would say it probably is. And
Speaker 3: there's going to be people who like to do it
Speaker 3: the traditional way, there can be people that like to
Speaker 3: blend them together, and there's going to be some that
Speaker 3: just are in the new mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just to move away from AI for a second, I
Speaker 1: do want to ask, is there anything that Recording Academy
Speaker 1: is not doing now that you like to see it
Speaker 1: doing or do better?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm the person that's very rarely, if ever, satisfied,
Speaker 3: and I'm always thinking what can we do better and
Speaker 3: how can we evolve? And at this point in my
Speaker 3: life and in the career of the Recording Academy, the
Speaker 3: goal is service, and so I do think that role
Speaker 3: is going to change over time based on needs of
Speaker 3: the community. You're seeing a need right now around AI.
Speaker 3: I know you were saying we're leaving AI, but could
Speaker 3: stay that. There's going to be other things that happen
Speaker 3: like that to our people, to our industry. And I
Speaker 3: don't pretend to think we're like the most powerful.
Speaker 2: Thing in the world.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's such a massive business behind us with
Speaker 3: labels imposing. But the role that we play as the
Speaker 3: Recording Academy Organization and the Grammy Organization, I do think
Speaker 3: it's going to be important that we keep our ears
Speaker 3: open and we're listening to our community. And that's why
Speaker 3: I'm thanking for our board and for other members that
Speaker 3: are our elected leadership, because they point us in the
Speaker 3: right director say, you know, Grammy Organization, you got to
Speaker 3: pay attention to this. This is happening to us, and
Speaker 3: that's where we jump into action. And that could be advocacy,
Speaker 3: that could be as you said, music care is give back, philanthropy,
Speaker 3: that could be education. But what I'm pleased and proud
Speaker 3: of is that we are the organization that is going
Speaker 3: to be paying really close attention and we're going to
Speaker 3: be listening to the music community to guide us towards
Speaker 3: the things that we need to pay more attention to cool.
Speaker 1: Well definitely feels like it's been better the last half
Speaker 1: of years since you've gotten there, So thank you.
Speaker 3: More to do, still more to do and more to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Awesome, man, can't wait to see what happens.
Speaker 2: Thanks, appreciate you, man. Yeah, good to see you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having meson, Junior for coming on and talking
Speaker 1: about his incredible career and it's time remaking the Grammys.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
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Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
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Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond,