Speaker 1: Well, take Valachi. We are the authority on all things
Speaker 1: R and Hey, what's going on? I am Tank J.
Speaker 1: Valentine and this is the R and B Money podcast
Speaker 1: authority on all things all things in the building. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's here. He's here, not just on live, not just
Speaker 1: on live, just a live where he is a super Yeah,
Speaker 1: numbers are through the rule. Yeah. With his help, all
Speaker 1: numbers will go through the room. Yeah, it's a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. This is this is our brother, I mean,
Speaker 1: super producer, super DJ, an extreme gentleman artists, artists. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Mr, I'm giving you, Mr. I'll take
Speaker 1: take that. That's sad. Yeah, when I'm sitting down on
Speaker 1: my throne. First of all, a toast to you, my brother,
Speaker 1: Thank you man man, Major, toast Major. It's been a
Speaker 1: crazy three years man. Yeah, this is good, smooth and
Speaker 1: for my last trick in what have you done? What
Speaker 1: have you done? Nice? Mr d Knix has a mystique,
Speaker 1: he has an essence, has a style. He's a logo.
Speaker 1: Here's a logoy. Too many ain't too many people I know,
Speaker 1: J westgo Michael Jordan's I really do have a logo.
Speaker 1: Man in the logo. Yeah, in the logo, Yeah, in
Speaker 1: honor of my brother d Nice and his logo. First
Speaker 1: of all, I'm gonna look like uncle Ice Flood once
Speaker 1: uncle Ice I smell with money. Yeah great, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to my bag ye yeah and give some
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah you get y'all looking like Jim and
Speaker 1: Jim and Terry. I'm loving this. Yeah yeah, yeah. Nice
Speaker 1: is here happy. I didn't want him to hold up?
Speaker 1: Did Juice? Emberries Man? This is Emberries man? This is
Speaker 1: this thing. How are you feeling, my brother? I feel
Speaker 1: so blessed, broh. You know thirty this is what like
Speaker 1: thirty six years in the music business. Thirty six Yeah, nineteen.
Speaker 1: First record, South Bronx came out in uh, nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: Thirty six years in the music business. How old were
Speaker 1: you when I was turning sixteen? You were turned earning
Speaker 1: sixteen when your first record drop? Yes, it's fifteen two
Speaker 1: and sixteen South South South. Yeah, it's crazy, man, I've
Speaker 1: been here a long time. Bro. It's like I want
Speaker 1: to like, we can we can start there though, we can.
Speaker 1: What what was that feeling like or what was that
Speaker 1: process like even getting to where you're fifteen? Years old,
Speaker 1: getting ready to drop a record. So back then it
Speaker 1: was different because the music, Um, you know, hip hop
Speaker 1: was still in this infancy. You didn't have like many
Speaker 1: major labels, you know, vying for like hip hop artists,
Speaker 1: you know, so we had to record everything. Um. The
Speaker 1: guy who started my group, DJ Scott l Rock and Careres.
Speaker 1: They Scott worked in the men Shelter and Caress was
Speaker 1: homeless and he lived there and um, so that's how
Speaker 1: they met up, you know. And Uh, I was only
Speaker 1: at the shelter because my cousin was a security guard
Speaker 1: at the shelters, So that I literally walked into the
Speaker 1: music business like it wasn't. I was trying to write
Speaker 1: R and B songs. I love like new Dishing growing up,
Speaker 1: and I knew that I couldn't sing, and I was
Speaker 1: just obsessed with like reading the credits, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to be a writer, you know.
Speaker 1: And my cousin started working at the men shelter and
Speaker 1: brought me I brought some food over to him, and uh,
Speaker 1: and it's funny about that story. I literally I shared
Speaker 1: this story with our buddy Dave Chappelle. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: he was like how did you get into the business.
Speaker 1: I was like, ye'all. Took my cousin some food. He
Speaker 1: worked at the men shelter. Then he introduced me to
Speaker 1: Scott and Careress and he was like, do you hear that?
Speaker 1: He said you walked, because I walked to get over there.
Speaker 1: It was like three miles and he said, you walked
Speaker 1: three miles with food to feed your future. And I
Speaker 1: was like, damn, like and that's that's really what happened, man,
Speaker 1: Like I walked right there. I walked with this food
Speaker 1: to feed my future. And like, you know, that's why
Speaker 1: I never take this business for granted. You know, like,
Speaker 1: even through ups and downs, I know that I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be in this business. You know. It wasn't
Speaker 1: about money. It was about influence and you know, bringing
Speaker 1: generations together. You know, when you think about it, my
Speaker 1: fans are like literally from eight years old to eighty.
Speaker 1: You know, not too many people can say that that
Speaker 1: they've been in the in the business this long and
Speaker 1: and that you know we've had like this that kind
Speaker 1: of success. You know. Um. I tried never to share
Speaker 1: that part of the story because because that's that's my
Speaker 1: book is dealing with that three mile Walk. But now
Speaker 1: I love that I'm sharing it here. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: B Yeah, Like I was like, I had to tell
Speaker 1: that story because I know you know this, but that's
Speaker 1: probably I think I had heard I had heard before
Speaker 1: about the about um like literally living in the sheltering.
Speaker 1: It's crazy story. The whole thing is crazy, man, Like
Speaker 1: you know, um yeah, yeah, yeah, the whole story is
Speaker 1: just you know, it's as as crazy as it sounds.
Speaker 1: You know, back then it was beautiful to just not
Speaker 1: worry about record companies or worry about what your fans
Speaker 1: are gonna think. It was just purely just making records
Speaker 1: for the love of music. And so where y'all making
Speaker 1: it just for the hood though, like just for your neighborhood,
Speaker 1: because obviously with a record like South Bronx, right, you
Speaker 1: know that it's regional, yes, but are you are y'all
Speaker 1: even thinking anything of it other than we're about to
Speaker 1: turn the hood up. So it was always most most
Speaker 1: hip hop in New York was always regional, you know,
Speaker 1: ever being rock him, it was all regional regional music,
Speaker 1: you know, especially Bis you know, God bless you know,
Speaker 1: in rest in peace to business markets. This was one
Speaker 1: of the people that reminded me even in terms of
Speaker 1: like the way that our DJ, you know, Bis said like, hey,
Speaker 1: when you go into these different cities, respect their music.
Speaker 1: He was like, remember, we used to just be regional
Speaker 1: South Bronx, Nobody, Beat Beats, the Bills, Those records were
Speaker 1: really just New York records. You know. It took a
Speaker 1: while for it to kind of like you know, kind
Speaker 1: of reach other markets. But that was because back then
Speaker 1: you had to be patient. Like right now, people aren't patient.
Speaker 1: If that record ain't popping in like two months, it's over.
Speaker 1: Everybody's onto the next. Then you can put a single
Speaker 1: out and that and rode that joint for like a
Speaker 1: year and it may not pop off. And mean, look
Speaker 1: at the Wobble record. That record flopped when they dropped it.
Speaker 1: But it was something that I saw not long ago.
Speaker 1: We're Tyler Creator, Tyler the Creator. I don't know the
Speaker 1: exact thing that he said, but you know our paraphrase.
Speaker 1: He was pretty much just like, why would I only
Speaker 1: promote something that I put my pretty much my blossed
Speaker 1: sweat and tears into for a week or two weeks.
Speaker 1: I've been promoting this last thing for a year, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what it separated him, even in this
Speaker 1: new industry um from the rest of the the younger
Speaker 1: generation and the artist. He has a fan base that's
Speaker 1: insane that just rise it out with him. But it's
Speaker 1: because he's showing them how passionate he is about his music.
Speaker 1: And just you said, you can't like now if they're
Speaker 1: not on it in whatever the first couple of weeks
Speaker 1: or a couple of whatever it is, then it's just
Speaker 1: out the next thing or that didn't work. No, it's
Speaker 1: a big world out here. It's a big world, and
Speaker 1: there's someone out there that didn't hear that record that
Speaker 1: if they heard it, they may just love it. And
Speaker 1: that's what used to be. That's what it was, discovery,
Speaker 1: the discovery of something. Man, we used to work like
Speaker 1: even when I when I dropped my first single as
Speaker 1: a solo act. After doing you know, I had a
Speaker 1: couple of albums with b DP and mind you, we
Speaker 1: weren't really making money back then and there were no
Speaker 1: real budgets. You know. When I signed the Drive Records,
Speaker 1: you know, they signed me for grand I had to
Speaker 1: make a whole album with dollars, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But but as hip hop artists. We knew how to
Speaker 1: do that, you know, Like we didn't go into I
Speaker 1: mean I did go into like some of the biggest
Speaker 1: studios that were around the power plays and did a
Speaker 1: couple of things a hit factory, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: I program everything at home. It's funny like back then,
Speaker 1: all of the rock stars used to be in all
Speaker 1: the big studios, and then the hip hop dudes used
Speaker 1: to be in like these little small joints, and then
Speaker 1: at some point it flipped. The rock sudes were likehy am,
Speaker 1: I spending this budget, then hip hop dudes because of
Speaker 1: our egos and like wanting to feel like we made it.
Speaker 1: When he had giving this budget back to the record
Speaker 1: company who owns the studio, You're like, it's three six
Speaker 1: all over again, you know what I mean. So you know,
Speaker 1: like so I kind of miss hip hop back then
Speaker 1: for me, which is why even now, like R and
Speaker 1: B is just it truly is like the love of
Speaker 1: my life in terms of music genres, like R and
Speaker 1: B is just everything. You know, Like when just growing up,
Speaker 1: the records that I chose to sample or to to
Speaker 1: have an interpretation of it was always like some R
Speaker 1: and B stuff that just felt good, like felt sexy
Speaker 1: and fun, and that's what made me happy. And I
Speaker 1: was very different than Caress. And for you guys though,
Speaker 1: at that time, y'all was sampling crazy. It was like
Speaker 1: the West Trust, They're was no charge. Yet that was them,
Speaker 1: that wasn't us, because by the time I started sampling,
Speaker 1: all of my records were cleared. Like no one will
Speaker 1: ever go back and see me, like, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it was the Turtles, that's where I got the baseline
Speaker 1: for called me d nice. I met those dudes, you know,
Speaker 1: like they were happy. We split the publishing, like I
Speaker 1: saw them in Minneapolis. Oh so by time, by time
Speaker 1: your records came out, yeah, we were clear. We're already
Speaker 1: having the clears yeah. Um, and yeah we were they
Speaker 1: were fair, you know, like they were fair. Um. You
Speaker 1: know sometimes things that I produced that I didn't get
Speaker 1: credit for because I just didn't have the knowledge of
Speaker 1: the music business, you know, like I worked on a
Speaker 1: lot of the music for b DP, whether it's something
Speaker 1: still number one, and you know my philosophy all these records.
Speaker 1: You may not know, but these were like big records
Speaker 1: back then, and you know, I have no publishing on it,
Speaker 1: you know, no producer royalty. But I don't care, like
Speaker 1: at this point in my life where I am. It
Speaker 1: took that entire journey to get here, you know, and
Speaker 1: I happen to like where I am right now. You know,
Speaker 1: I could be you know, still in the studio trying
Speaker 1: to shop and you know, wrap demo and I'm not there.
Speaker 1: I'm like having the time of my life doing exactly
Speaker 1: what it is that I love and it's music, you know.
Speaker 1: And um So that process back then, right when when
Speaker 1: you were fifteen sixteen years old, was it you didn't
Speaker 1: even know what to ask? Are like, can you can
Speaker 1: you kind of give insight on that because we try
Speaker 1: to we try to make this podcast as if as
Speaker 1: informative as we possibly can. We want, you know, the
Speaker 1: new generation to see these things. Obviously they got a
Speaker 1: lot more information now because you kind of look up
Speaker 1: whatever you want to if you want to now. But
Speaker 1: back then, right where you guys are in the studio
Speaker 1: and you produce a record, does it even cross your
Speaker 1: mind to say, do I get anything else for it?
Speaker 1: You know? So, because I'm sure you probably know what
Speaker 1: publishing was, and that time, no, I definitely didn't know
Speaker 1: what publishing was. I didn't know what those splits and
Speaker 1: know anything about mechanicals. I didn't know anything about this stuff.
Speaker 1: All I knew was, Hey, I'm in the studio doing
Speaker 1: what I love, you know, and the finished product, Um,
Speaker 1: that's what you looked at almost as if that that
Speaker 1: was the master. So even like in terms of photography,
Speaker 1: like I've always been in the photography and I took
Speaker 1: a lot of pictures missed that you missed that on
Speaker 1: you Yeah that part digital, digital, creator digital, that that
Speaker 1: could be included. But but even like back then, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, like as a photographer, I thought the
Speaker 1: value of the image was the actual print. M So
Speaker 1: all the pictures that I shot on tours, I can't
Speaker 1: even tell you that we have the digital cameras. Then,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying that I don't even know
Speaker 1: what those negatives are. So it's like that's the way
Speaker 1: that was the way people thought back in the day.
Speaker 1: Like in terms of like artistry, like yo, we just
Speaker 1: when the studio made these records, like we didn't know
Speaker 1: that hip hop was really gonna have longevity like this,
Speaker 1: like because you know, I'm from that golden era, so
Speaker 1: that era is right, I'm from the Bronx and then
Speaker 1: that that era is right after the explosion of hip
Speaker 1: hop with like the run DMCs in LLL and you know,
Speaker 1: you never I didn't know what you know those guys
Speaker 1: were making, you know what I mean, Like, you know
Speaker 1: back then, I would I have you know, gold album.
Speaker 1: I wasn't makingtllars a night to perform, you know, like
Speaker 1: because people didn't want to ensure hip hop concerts. There's
Speaker 1: a lot you know, like when your song is that
Speaker 1: when they call me when they was getting like five
Speaker 1: grand a night, that song was massive. It was massive,
Speaker 1: massive number one song Billboard, like there making five grand
Speaker 1: a night because that the opportunity to do shows weren't there,
Speaker 1: you know, the hard pac venues too. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: but then you gotta think, like then people were like
Speaker 1: killing each other hip hop concerts. You know, it was different.
Speaker 1: You know, it was really the wild wild West, which
Speaker 1: is why I like the song I produced when I
Speaker 1: was like eighteen, self Destruction. That record was birth self Destruction,
Speaker 1: She Headed for self Destruction. Yeah, I was eighteen man
Speaker 1: when I produced that record, and um, you know that
Speaker 1: song was birth out of an incident that happened at
Speaker 1: one of our concerts we're touring. It was called the
Speaker 1: Dope Jam Tour and it was headlined by Um Eric
Speaker 1: being rock Cam, Dougie Fresh, Kumo Dietos were the three
Speaker 1: headliners and then we had Bis Markee Iced Tea was
Speaker 1: the opener and we went on second MICROUPDP like it
Speaker 1: was the Dope Past Tour though it was a dope tour.
Speaker 1: But someone you know at the concert with this girl,
Speaker 1: you know, they robbed his gold chain and killed him.
Speaker 1: So then you know, people were coming down on hip
Speaker 1: hop and you know it's very violent. West Coast was
Speaker 1: you had in way like it was just it was different, bro.
Speaker 1: Like as much as people hate on on Puff, you know,
Speaker 1: like oh he changed it to the to the shiny
Speaker 1: suit yo. To be honest with you, it was kind
Speaker 1: of necessary at that point to yeah, to to bring
Speaker 1: some love and and it gets to the next level.
Speaker 1: To get to the next level, man. You know. Um
Speaker 1: but that record Self Destruction, Yeah, that was birth out
Speaker 1: of you know, that kind of incident. So you know,
Speaker 1: that's so nearly a million copies. You know, I did
Speaker 1: get mechanicals off of that, but we actually don't. We
Speaker 1: donated all the money to the National Urban league. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like everybody, we just donated all of it. You know,
Speaker 1: you still get your mechanicals and and you know, still
Speaker 1: get publishing off of it, but royalties, we don't neated
Speaker 1: like a million dollars close to a million dollars, which
Speaker 1: was a lot back then right now, Yeah, but now
Speaker 1: it's it's it's funny how how it all works though, bro,
Speaker 1: because it as much as I love hip hop and
Speaker 1: that I was a part of hip hop culture, hip
Speaker 1: hop was and always good to me, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like making the records. And then by the
Speaker 1: time I was like twenty three years old, you know,
Speaker 1: I was considered old school because I've been in the
Speaker 1: business for so long and and you know, like what
Speaker 1: do you do when people stopped clapping for you and
Speaker 1: no one wants to give you a shot? So that's
Speaker 1: why I said, this journey is so special, bro, because
Speaker 1: when people stopped rocking with me when I was like
Speaker 1: twenty three, I don't want to say everyone, but like
Speaker 1: no record company wanted to give me a deal. You
Speaker 1: would think that I had, like, you know, like this
Speaker 1: whole negative background, and I had none of that. But
Speaker 1: it was just the fact that even though I was Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I was everyone wanted the new toys, the pretty
Speaker 1: girl that walked into the room, you know, like and
Speaker 1: because I was but I was still young, but it
Speaker 1: was I was old school twenty three, so it was Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a tough time, you know, like you got
Speaker 1: that's I think you know, that's a pivotal moment, moment
Speaker 1: for most artists deciding what to do in that dark
Speaker 1: place because the lights are not always on, like you said,
Speaker 1: there not always screaming for you, and in that place,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta make a hard decision. Am I
Speaker 1: gonna go home? You know what I'm saying? Am I
Speaker 1: just gonna be the musician at my family's church? And
Speaker 1: it is what it was? I tried? Or am I
Speaker 1: going to figure out the way? Did you take in this?
Speaker 1: Did you take like like what's the crazy is event?
Speaker 1: You may have taken in your opinion in that moment,
Speaker 1: like because you're DJ, you'r DJ, so you can always DJ.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a DJ, so you weren't a DJ from
Speaker 1: the roof. I was a DJ for Careress. I was
Speaker 1: a show DJ before I put out my solo records.
Speaker 1: I was a show DJ and producer, meaning I only
Speaker 1: had to play the songs that we were performing at
Speaker 1: the show. You would never spending at the clubs. I
Speaker 1: had never played in the club. I had never ever
Speaker 1: played in the club until I became this guy, like
Speaker 1: I was never in Yo, I'm gonna do a show
Speaker 1: and then do an after party somewhere like no, I
Speaker 1: was producer caresses DJ young playing those records that had
Speaker 1: that was it because I think me seeing you as
Speaker 1: I'm a young young kid and your song comes out,
Speaker 1: my name is z nice. I knew you as the
Speaker 1: B d P DJ, so I'm like, he's a DJ
Speaker 1: who just happens to have a song. That's how I
Speaker 1: looked at I don't know if that was promoted that
Speaker 1: way through the label. I'm not sure that's all people
Speaker 1: knew it. Yeah, it looked like, okay, he was on
Speaker 1: this because you would be calid or you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, like a drama now stepping out onto the
Speaker 1: artist side. But I just looked at you as a DJ.
Speaker 1: Ye I was a jack of all trades, you know.
Speaker 1: Before Scott passed his home, you know, I used to
Speaker 1: be a little upset, like yo, when you're gonna let
Speaker 1: me rap on? Because I never really rapped on b
Speaker 1: DP songs man, you know, like it's like, yeah, when
Speaker 1: you're gonna let me rapping. Scott was like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: your job is like if something would happened to Caress
Speaker 1: and you would be the rappers, something happened to me,
Speaker 1: you'll be the DJ. Literally, that's what he said to me.
Speaker 1: And you know, unfortunately lost his life and then I
Speaker 1: became the DJJ. But I wasn't you know, compensated, like
Speaker 1: I was compensated like yo, I worked for BDB, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't not that man. You know, I was.
Speaker 1: I was young, you know, seventeen eighteen years old, touring,
Speaker 1: got to experience the world and then it made me
Speaker 1: want to do my own thing and you know, doing
Speaker 1: you know, doing shows back then as a as a
Speaker 1: rap artist. I was just happy, you know, like I
Speaker 1: was able to tour with you know, without cares, you know,
Speaker 1: no disrespect, you know, but to stand on my own,
Speaker 1: you know, my tour with you know, I did a
Speaker 1: seventy five city tour with Ice Cube and Too Short.
Speaker 1: It's like me Cube, too short, poor righteous teachers, yo.
Speaker 1: Yo was the opener um like yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so I've seen all of that. This is
Speaker 1: all before. Yeah, but then, you know, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of money being made, you know, because I said
Speaker 1: I was doing those shows for like five grand. You know,
Speaker 1: there were no corporate shows there. You know, you could
Speaker 1: charge ten times out of mount you know, once your
Speaker 1: shows were over, that was it, you know. And when
Speaker 1: I was considered old school, you know, I had you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't own a home or anything at that point.
Speaker 1: I was renting, so I was able to like save
Speaker 1: some money. And then I bet on myself, which is
Speaker 1: which is another important moment in my career. You know,
Speaker 1: I had no health insurance and had none of that,
Speaker 1: and I just had this money saved, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna try to put out my own
Speaker 1: record since no one wants to do. And I put
Speaker 1: out this record. I put out this record and it
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, the joint was on radio stations everywhere.
Speaker 1: I had no promo. They were just playing it based
Speaker 1: on nice. Back then, you didn't have MP three, so
Speaker 1: you literally have to do deals. You have to get
Speaker 1: your records printed, press it up, go through a distributor,
Speaker 1: and then they would shipping them to the record stores.
Speaker 1: I had a hundred thousand units printed ship and they
Speaker 1: sold through all of them, but I never got the
Speaker 1: check because back then, back then, you know, distribution with
Speaker 1: some gangster ship, the straight gangster ship. So if you
Speaker 1: don't have something else coming through the pipeline, ain't trying
Speaker 1: to pay you, you know what I mean. And I
Speaker 1: didn't have another record coming back. The money that I
Speaker 1: was generating from that was what I was gonna use
Speaker 1: to to to record that next thing. But because I
Speaker 1: didn't have that that other record coming it was like
Speaker 1: they didn't answer the phones, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like the distribution company didn't answer it. Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 1: And that that's when I went into the depression because
Speaker 1: I I really banked on started my own thing. You know,
Speaker 1: like back back in the in the in the eighties
Speaker 1: and early nineties, you had like Dick Griffy and like
Speaker 1: all of these R and B duos doing solo records,
Speaker 1: and you had Clarence Avant, but we all know that
Speaker 1: it started from somewhere, but like they definitely had a
Speaker 1: little bit more kind of muscle and background, you know,
Speaker 1: than I had my own, you know, and that that
Speaker 1: actually that kind of put me in like this real
Speaker 1: funk of like you know, I was depressed for like
Speaker 1: about seven years really, yeah, yeah, it's about six and
Speaker 1: a half year seven close to seven years, Yeah I was.
Speaker 1: I was in deep depression, not actually five and a
Speaker 1: half years because then I jumped into web development. So
Speaker 1: you're doing any music during that time? Yeah? Man, Like
Speaker 1: I had lost everything, bro, Like I was literally like
Speaker 1: just with my ex and you know, living. I had
Speaker 1: lost my crib, lost my car, like everything, And so
Speaker 1: you're not so you're not Djane either. No, So it's
Speaker 1: not like you're trying to go grab That's why I
Speaker 1: remember I asked him, like, were there anything any like
Speaker 1: random no bar mits for is that somebody can pull
Speaker 1: up and be like d nice? None? No, nothing. All
Speaker 1: I lived off of was that quarterly published in Check
Speaker 1: that you know, slowly slowly got smaller and smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller, you know what I mean. Where Like yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was a rough time. But
Speaker 1: like I said, man, I have no regrets, bro, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not here without all of that, you know, like
Speaker 1: without those lessons because no one, no one believed that
Speaker 1: this was gonna happen for me or or the web
Speaker 1: development which saved my life, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: guess when I met you when I know, this was
Speaker 1: two thousand. At that point, I was already doing websites
Speaker 1: for for for Blackground, so like were you was? This
Speaker 1: was just your climb back up or like climb back up.
Speaker 1: So what happened with that was around my best friend
Speaker 1: who was managing me. Well he was a partner. I've
Speaker 1: always been like self managed, but back then we were
Speaker 1: partners in the management company. And yeah he was when
Speaker 1: we stopped doing music together, you know. Years later he
Speaker 1: formed a company called trend Setters with like four guys
Speaker 1: out of Toronto, which is very important. You have no
Speaker 1: idea how important you in your in the whole Blackground
Speaker 1: was to me, Like that moment was, um, you know
Speaker 1: he Tony is his name, still one of my best friends. Um,
Speaker 1: he called me up and he was like, hey involved him,
Speaker 1: Well have development you know, I know, you probably need
Speaker 1: to make some money, which was probably his way of
Speaker 1: like kind of repaying me for you know, we had
Speaker 1: some great times. You know, so now it is his
Speaker 1: it was his time to like look out, like yo,
Speaker 1: I got an opportunity, you know, maybe with your connections.
Speaker 1: You can go and make some introductions and then we'll
Speaker 1: give you a piece of it. And I was like
Speaker 1: all right, cool, you know, and you know, I started
Speaker 1: making some calls. It was weird at first, you know,
Speaker 1: like people thought that I was calling to sell a
Speaker 1: demo or something, and I was really on something like yo,
Speaker 1: like no, I'm a part of this organization. This is
Speaker 1: what we're doing. The one person that gave me the
Speaker 1: shot shot was Joe Moo Joe More Hankerson, which was
Speaker 1: Barry's son to all of you that don't know Barry
Speaker 1: Hankerson's son. He we were competing at that point. I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about programming, but we were competing um
Speaker 1: this trend setter company which we renamed it Boom Digital
Speaker 1: versus an old company I mean they no longer exists
Speaker 1: called Razor Fish, which was like the top top. You know,
Speaker 1: they were killing everything, and you're talking. Those deals were
Speaker 1: like multimillion dollars web deals like now you've got like squarespace,
Speaker 1: you can just put up a website. Then you literally
Speaker 1: had to program. So, you know, Joe Mo told me
Speaker 1: he was like yo, you know, after meeting with him
Speaker 1: over and over again, he was like, you know why
Speaker 1: I'm going with you. He's like, I know you don't
Speaker 1: know how to build a website. He was like, but
Speaker 1: I know you will make sure that your guys give
Speaker 1: me what I need. And I'm not gonna go with
Speaker 1: Razor Fish. I'm gonna go with you guys. That change everything.
Speaker 1: That conversation changed everything for me because it is an
Speaker 1: R and B company, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: this straight arm, legendary R and B. But those words
Speaker 1: someone betting on me, you know. And and you know,
Speaker 1: when you are when you've had like failure in the
Speaker 1: music industry, you felt like people turned their backs on you.
Speaker 1: To have a conversation like that when they were on fire,
Speaker 1: you know. Obviously I think at the time he was
Speaker 1: they were still managing R Kelly Um and they had
Speaker 1: a Leah and they had you your stuff wasn't out yet,
Speaker 1: Missy or no Timberland januine like they were so like
Speaker 1: to have the company. Oh what was the rap group? Though?
Speaker 1: Who was in that joint was? Was? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it was like I remember the picture in the water,
Speaker 1: the rap group the White Boys. No, it was some
Speaker 1: black dudes. I don't know if two Chains was down
Speaker 1: with it. It was a rap group. Two chains might
Speaker 1: have been in the group. You know, it was a
Speaker 1: wrap group from back then. Oh my god, I'm black.
Speaker 1: Then of this conversation, I'm gonna look it was it
Speaker 1: was Statics. Uh it was Statics group, status group, you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely they was there was out of Louisville. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: ye was they called I can't remember what it was
Speaker 1: called to James wasn't in that, but it was. It was.
Speaker 1: It was Statics like conglomerate. They were like a coalition,
Speaker 1: like coalition like it was hard. It was like it
Speaker 1: was hard, and they had these pictures they were under
Speaker 1: the water, like coming out of the water like it
Speaker 1: was crazy. But anyway, so like, you know, that gave
Speaker 1: me my own confidence and I was like, man, he
Speaker 1: really believed like that. You know. So I went from
Speaker 1: like making like seven hundred and fifty dollars a month
Speaker 1: when when I was just like helping the guys out,
Speaker 1: and then I started making like twelve fifty a month.
Speaker 1: You know, like now I got a little bit of
Speaker 1: money to you know, I was still stay. I was
Speaker 1: moved back in with my family, but to take care
Speaker 1: of my kid, you know what I mean. Like I
Speaker 1: saw what was happening. I was like, because you had
Speaker 1: your daughter by this, my daughter was there, you know,
Speaker 1: my my daughters were in the ninety six and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, luckily for me man like I didn't have
Speaker 1: you know, my ex wasn't she wasn't on me about
Speaker 1: child support. You know, like she understood what I was doing.
Speaker 1: She was like, yo, you know, whatever you made and
Speaker 1: whatever you can give, you know, That's why I like,
Speaker 1: when I started making money, I gave. I gave it all, Like, no,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make sure our kids graduates and we're gonna
Speaker 1: do all of that. Because without that kind of like support,
Speaker 1: even though we didn't make it, but still without that
Speaker 1: kind of support, your mind isn't clear. Yea, she could
Speaker 1: have helped keep she helped ultimately get you out of
Speaker 1: the space, but she could have assisted keeping you in
Speaker 1: that space. About absolutely shout out to her the family,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And the other thing that was important
Speaker 1: during that time was because Joe Moo said what he
Speaker 1: did about I know, you'll make sure that we get
Speaker 1: what we need. I used to sit in the office
Speaker 1: and watch the Guy's program and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: so that's how you write cold. Oh, and then they
Speaker 1: didn't know like I was going Yeah, I was going
Speaker 1: out and buying books on htmail, you know, PHP flash
Speaker 1: was new at the time. You know, I was downloading
Speaker 1: source files. You know. They used to have these websites
Speaker 1: where somebody would write a code and just post it
Speaker 1: for free and then you can just pull it and
Speaker 1: like you know, kind of like make changes and do
Speaker 1: whatever you want to do. So I learned all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, you know, So within like one year, I
Speaker 1: knew how to write HTML and I just knew like
Speaker 1: just from learning. So then that gave me leverage, like
Speaker 1: with my within my own crew, because most of the
Speaker 1: deals that they were getting were deals that were and
Speaker 1: you know, and by the way, my my buddy Tony
Speaker 1: was always on my side, like, no, we gotta make
Speaker 1: sure we take care of you. The other guys are
Speaker 1: not so much because they that's what they did for
Speaker 1: a living. And then but here's my guy. He was like, no,
Speaker 1: we gotta make sure that he's a full partner. And
Speaker 1: those dudes didn't want to make me a full partner.
Speaker 1: And then I left and started my own and I
Speaker 1: both know about guys that you know, make your full
Speaker 1: partner sharing in the in the well, yeah you know
Speaker 1: we we've we've all been there. Yeah. I left and
Speaker 1: then I started. I started my own company called United Camps,
Speaker 1: and I never I didn't go to your clients and say, hey,
Speaker 1: don't work with them. I was like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do my own thing, you know. And I went to Motown.
Speaker 1: My first the first project that I did from Motown,
Speaker 1: this was under United Camps with what we did for
Speaker 1: you guys was Boom Digital, but under my joint. The
Speaker 1: first artist was I didn't even have a computer. This
Speaker 1: is how like my life is. Just I didn't have
Speaker 1: a computer. I was using their computers to learn. But
Speaker 1: when I started my own thing, I didn't have any money.
Speaker 1: All I had was this good credit, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like Dell computers. First I went to Motown
Speaker 1: and I was this woman that used to work over
Speaker 1: the named Kelly. She was like Eddies assistant. I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: on the pop side, they're doing like these these flash
Speaker 1: e vites to promote artists where artists can you can
Speaker 1: use that these flash cards and like you can have
Speaker 1: your album one there like snippers of it, and you know,
Speaker 1: people can preview it in the emails, but they weren't
Speaker 1: doing that for hip hop and R and B, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, you know, this is it right now,
Speaker 1: this is how you're gonna market things, you know, like
Speaker 1: you should you know, let me do it, and should
Speaker 1: give me a deal with like five grand for me
Speaker 1: to make in the first artist was Rashida the rapper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was like the first project that I worked on
Speaker 1: the on the United Camps and man, I did that
Speaker 1: and then Motown gave me their account. So then I
Speaker 1: started doing like Queen Pen and like a couple of
Speaker 1: movie projects with them, and then I picked up J
Speaker 1: Records and I did Alicia Keys site Diary of Alicia
Speaker 1: Keys and Boys the Men and Luther and any Lennox
Speaker 1: And now now I'm making money because those sites used
Speaker 1: to cost money then it was like minimum six figures,
Speaker 1: you know. And it was all because of a conversation
Speaker 1: I have with Joe Moo, you know, like, yo, I
Speaker 1: know you'll make sure it'll be right, you know. Wow. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many phases to my career, man, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So what moved you into for le d James? Well,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what movie into photography because ye yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah I skip a step. I did sip a step.
Speaker 1: Photography happened while I was It was a client. There
Speaker 1: was a men's underwear client. They were called down under gear. Damn,
Speaker 1: I remember that. That's crazy because this is about no.
Speaker 1: It was some black dudes out of Queen's. They just
Speaker 1: wanted they just wanted to call that thing and it
Speaker 1: was undergear, to call it doug and it was just
Speaker 1: like men's men's underwear. And then when they sent over
Speaker 1: the assets for me to use to build the website,
Speaker 1: I thought the pictures were just corny. So I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: just pad the budget with like a thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: I went and bought a camera, and then I hired
Speaker 1: a model like this black model, this dude that, this
Speaker 1: African guy. You know, he was handsome dude. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: he looks like one of these like underwear models. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But I don't have Calvin Clein money,
Speaker 1: so he's gonna take this dog dollar. Just yeah, we
Speaker 1: went to Central Park. I'm photographed to dude, the Central
Speaker 1: Park with like it is underwear and bathroom. It was
Speaker 1: just straight up. I mean, looking back on it was
Speaker 1: so gorilla style. But all we needed was like a
Speaker 1: couple of pictures come out of that that was full
Speaker 1: of photo shoot. The lighting was all off, like I
Speaker 1: didn't have lighting, no assistance. I'm just out there like
Speaker 1: taking these pictures. But to me, the secret was to
Speaker 1: just turn everything in the black and white like then
Speaker 1: then those the lighting like you know, because yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more interesting the shadows. Like. So because of that, because
Speaker 1: of that experience, now I own the camera. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, I kind of like this photography thing. So
Speaker 1: I went to school for photography while I was building websites.
Speaker 1: I went to this place in New York called i
Speaker 1: c P International Center of Photography, and I went there
Speaker 1: for like a year and you know, learn how to
Speaker 1: process film, learn composition and all of that. Like it
Speaker 1: was just great, Like that's what I would do at nights,
Speaker 1: like like I was a college student, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But it was just are you moving under
Speaker 1: the needle as you're doing this? Are you running into hey?
Speaker 1: Are you? No? No one No one knew I was,
Speaker 1: you know. They It was a while in the front.
Speaker 1: The transition from from from that part of my life
Speaker 1: into DJ and is when it when it hit me
Speaker 1: into that Yeah yeah you didn't know that, I know
Speaker 1: you web yeah, but um the photography which is which
Speaker 1: again my my buddy, God blessed dad, my man Chris
Speaker 1: Lydy he um, he was getting married in my in
Speaker 1: Miami at this museum and he invited me because at
Speaker 1: that point I was already like building websites. I was
Speaker 1: building the Violator website and Chris was like, you know,
Speaker 1: we had known each other. He was one of my
Speaker 1: one of my closest friends. You know, when I was married,
Speaker 1: he was my best man. Like the dude was like yo, yo,
Speaker 1: he took me an invitation to his wedding, so I
Speaker 1: didn't have you know, all your R and B and
Speaker 1: music industry dudes. Was making so much money. He was
Speaker 1: registered at like this crazy place ABC Furniture in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: Like everything on the registry was like five thousand. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've got five thousands of VODs man a wedding gift,
Speaker 1: Like this is crazy. So I was just at the wedding,
Speaker 1: just taking pictures like no one even knew. I mean
Speaker 1: a couple of people saw me taking pictures because I
Speaker 1: would ask him to pose. But like Chris didn't really,
Speaker 1: he wasn't paying attention. Then my gift to him was
Speaker 1: just this photo album and I was like, yo, here's
Speaker 1: here's yo, here's a gift. Man like then he called
Speaker 1: me and was like, I guess he was watching it,
Speaker 1: you know, with with this with his wife, and he
Speaker 1: was like, yo, I paid all these people mad money
Speaker 1: and they caught none of these images. You should actually
Speaker 1: be shooting professionally. And I was like, no, I'm good.
Speaker 1: I don't want. I didn't want to be a photographer.
Speaker 1: He's like, man, take the bag. And my first photo
Speaker 1: shoot for him was one of fifties rebot campaigns, you know,
Speaker 1: so even on the photographer way, I was doing like
Speaker 1: that then and then um then Tyra hit me up
Speaker 1: and you know she she yeah, I saw what she did. Know.
Speaker 1: I started shooting out the covers. Do you feel that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But because you got a handle, I don't, so yeah
Speaker 1: I might. I might get to Michael Jackson dropped her
Speaker 1: in a minute from the Champagne that's followed on my head.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, you just Tyra. Yeah, what was was
Speaker 1: was the motto Tyson Beckford that you shot in the
Speaker 1: Central Park Man. No, he wasn't Tyson didn't look like
Speaker 1: you didn't have Tyson's money, man, but he took the
Speaker 1: Doug dollar. Yeah, he definitely took the Doug dollar. But yeah, Tyra.
Speaker 1: Tyra was awesome though, you know, she asked me to
Speaker 1: follow her around, you know from you know, she was like,
Speaker 1: I want you to come over to my house and
Speaker 1: just photographed me, you know, from like a full day
Speaker 1: in the life of Tyra. And I did that and
Speaker 1: she loved the images and she was like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: want you to can you shoot for my talk show?
Speaker 1: Then I went on. I photographed fifty for a talk show,
Speaker 1: on photographed Hallie for a talk show, and then tires like, hey,
Speaker 1: can you do America's Next Top Model? So I ended
Speaker 1: up being um cycle for me as a sore spot
Speaker 1: for why were you on there? No? But you're good? Good?
Speaker 1: Did you not win? But I didn't win. Tyra actually
Speaker 1: asked me to do the theme song. Oh wow, you
Speaker 1: have an opportunity. I never tells you that. Wait what happened? Why? So? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out to my brother she Cares Stewart and my
Speaker 1: brother Kenya Barriss, who at the time he was working
Speaker 1: with Tyra and we used to all, you know, we
Speaker 1: should be kicking it, and she cared put me on
Speaker 1: you know, connecting me with them, and we brought you know,
Speaker 1: Tyra was like she wanted to sing. She wanted to
Speaker 1: sing at that time, and she came to the studio
Speaker 1: a few times. We worked. We worked a little bit
Speaker 1: and she was like, yeah, you know, I'm I'm doing
Speaker 1: this this this TV show and I'm like, okay. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's spout like models and this whole thing. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself TV show models, like well, who's going
Speaker 1: to sing the theme song? And she was like, she's
Speaker 1: going to sing the theme song. I was like, um,
Speaker 1: you saying even though he had been already doing songs
Speaker 1: like you know, because I'm thinking it's you know, for
Speaker 1: fun and it's a whole thing, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't know about just doing it because obviously on up
Speaker 1: you watch these shows and you watch different TV and
Speaker 1: you think to yourself, these songs aren't really songs, they're
Speaker 1: just kind of like and I think at the time,
Speaker 1: I probably have been watching the Jamie Fox Show. Remember
Speaker 1: he had he was he was making jingles, but it
Speaker 1: didn't seem cool, right, the jingle thing didn't seem cool,
Speaker 1: and I was writing real records for real artists. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, I don't write jingles, so I didn't
Speaker 1: write the damn jingle. And I end up running into
Speaker 1: Tyra a few years ago. Um, of all places that
Speaker 1: Jimmy Iveen's like Christmas party or something, I don't know
Speaker 1: what it was, and she was like, yeah, you remember
Speaker 1: the whole you know, we're like season twenties seven thousand,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, you definitely one. Yeah, yeah, so American type model.
Speaker 1: You know, that's just you know, it happens. It happens.
Speaker 1: I think I don't know if it happens. It doesn't
Speaker 1: always know. Okay, okay, he's a fumbler. Fumbled two man ship.
Speaker 1: What what did you fumble? Know? His fumbles are way
Speaker 1: crazier than mine. Give me one of yours. Um. I
Speaker 1: fumbled an audition. I fumbled two auditions. Probably the worst
Speaker 1: fumble was the stumped yard audition. W wait what, hold on,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, hold on. If I tell the story,
Speaker 1: let me let me get a drink, because you stumped
Speaker 1: the yard. First of all, this is already very tricky.
Speaker 1: At the time it was, I was thinking, of course,
Speaker 1: I had the must say you above, okay, buff dance
Speaker 1: and go ahead, go ahead? Um, so I literally shout
Speaker 1: a twinkie. Um. I literally I had the part. I
Speaker 1: was playing the part of Darren Hinton. Okay, okay, I
Speaker 1: can see that. Yeah. That knocked all the all the
Speaker 1: um all the audition down. Knock it down. He's like,
Speaker 1: oh you're in. You're the guy, You're the guy, You're in. Okay,
Speaker 1: so um last thing, We're gonna do this dance audition
Speaker 1: and then and you'll be good. I was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I can I can knock that out. I got a rhythm,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Um, I had rhythm, but
Speaker 1: I don't want a freestyle. Okay. So in my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, this is a dance movie. I can step,
Speaker 1: but I gotta be able to really, you know, deliver it.
Speaker 1: So you know I saw I called Christie and Dave Scott. Listen,
Speaker 1: I need an eight count. I need a real eight
Speaker 1: count so I can dazzle him. He wants to dazzle
Speaker 1: niggas for stump the yard, but go ahead, I mean yeah,
Speaker 1: he wanted to, and so I go in. We get rehearsals.
Speaker 1: Rehearsal a couple of days, no rehearsal to day before
Speaker 1: day up. I learned the routine and I learned the account.
Speaker 1: I'm killing it in rehearsal, killing it right, But I'm
Speaker 1: very like I'm O c D in a lot of ways, right,
Speaker 1: And so go ahead, and I have severe O c D. Right.
Speaker 1: And so you know with the choreography, once you teach
Speaker 1: it to me in a certain space, it has to
Speaker 1: be in that space. It has to be in that space.
Speaker 1: It has to start exactly where that one is, exactly
Speaker 1: at that measure where the music does whatever it died
Speaker 1: I have, it has to be there or or a malfunction.
Speaker 1: And so they said, all right, let's go. And when
Speaker 1: they started the music, it was okay, No, give you
Speaker 1: some backstory. This will really help you with the fumble. Okay,
Speaker 1: E League game on Sunday. Okay, I'm going crazy. The
Speaker 1: guy checking me. You don't want this body, get off,
Speaker 1: but you can't hold me. Huh, you know you're dealing
Speaker 1: with Yeah, maya business win game? Go home? Right? Next day,
Speaker 1: dance audition, Guess who's the director? M who got the buck?
Speaker 1: Who got the black? Oh? And he's giving me this
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you're in my house now. Yeah, I say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: hey brother, Hey, how do you mean of that? Was
Speaker 1: that Tim Tim story? Director? We're gonna find out. We're
Speaker 1: gonna google Yeah, he's a director. And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, right, I didn't know. So they're starting the
Speaker 1: music and they start the music low. I'm turned to
Speaker 1: turn up, turn up. By the time they turn up
Speaker 1: the music, I've missed the one, missed the one, the
Speaker 1: one that I need to start on in order to
Speaker 1: be dazzling. I was like, I said, oh, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: we got we can start off. No, it's fine, just
Speaker 1: to start where you are and said, no, I really
Speaker 1: need to start up. Just start where where we are.
Speaker 1: I'm like ha ha ah ha ah, and everybody, everybody's
Speaker 1: going and they turned the music off. They turned the
Speaker 1: music off, and I just I just looked at everybody.
Speaker 1: I said, thank you. I just walked the fuck you
Speaker 1: wanted them to believe that that was your freestyle And
Speaker 1: they never called me again. I love it. There's some
Speaker 1: there's somewhere just take was gonna come out and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be bad. I hope they've been directed. They see
Speaker 1: this and be like the country might know she was there.
Speaker 1: And she was like she called Christie and and damon,
Speaker 1: she said, what the fuck happened? I was so great
Speaker 1: in rehearsal. I said, I missed the one. I can't
Speaker 1: do it. I can't do it from any other place.
Speaker 1: I need the one, And I fumbled stumped the yard.
Speaker 1: I would have been dancer, I mean, but Darren Hinson
Speaker 1: is a dancer. So dar is a dancer. Of course
Speaker 1: he got you know what I'm saying that he killed it,
Speaker 1: but yeah, so I guess I'm kind of a fumbler,
Speaker 1: not as much as him. Though. It's a great phone story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great final story. Your residuals wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: the same as his. His phone was crazy. Gonna keep
Speaker 1: this money. I didn't know, nibe, you didn't know what
Speaker 1: post you was was teen. You gotta keep bringing up
Speaker 1: bringing that story up that was back then, Stop bringing
Speaker 1: up motion. So you become the amazing photographer, extraordinary for
Speaker 1: many great things that we won't even continue to mention. Um, so,
Speaker 1: how how long is that spending time for you? I mean,
Speaker 1: because I was you still you still shoot, you still
Speaker 1: do your thing. But were you were purely focusing on photography.
Speaker 1: It was a short, short period, always collected, like you
Speaker 1: always had a camera. It's always a camera today. I
Speaker 1: totally forgot to bring the camera because I was doing
Speaker 1: an interview. I was like, yeah, I gotta get a shot.
Speaker 1: These stud dues really left my camera like in the house,
Speaker 1: and I was like, we're not that important. Go ahead, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I know, I'll see you guys again and go back
Speaker 1: and get that day. We're gonna still be here. So
Speaker 1: that wasn't like a long period where you were know,
Speaker 1: that was like three years, a good three year run
Speaker 1: of like because then DJ started. So how did that
Speaker 1: kick off? So DJ and started? Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: started promoting parties. Um. When I returned to the scene
Speaker 1: as a web developer of photography, I started to get
Speaker 1: the music itch again, not as a performer, but just like,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to do something with music
Speaker 1: because it's just everybody I couldn't get into parties even
Speaker 1: though I was making money. They weren't letting you in. Now,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't let me in. That's why I started DJ.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why I started throwing parties because the party,
Speaker 1: the party scene in New York was very like and
Speaker 1: by the way, this is not I'm not even being funny.
Speaker 1: He was like mainly like like black promoters, like one
Speaker 1: of the biggest promoters back then. I won't mention his name,
Speaker 1: but like yeah, he was like, oh, I know who
Speaker 1: you aren't, but you can't come in. And I was
Speaker 1: like those are his words, those were I brought it
Speaker 1: up to him like maybe about four or five years ago,
Speaker 1: like remember that and um, and then I thanked him
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't have had that desire, you know, to
Speaker 1: to do this. But they used to like make people
Speaker 1: come in with like if you're a dude, dude, you
Speaker 1: have to bring two women with you. And you know,
Speaker 1: I never really traveled with anybody. I'm always by myself.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm the same way, you know. You know.
Speaker 1: He was like, yo, you gotta get to the back
Speaker 1: line and YouTube two girls, and I'm like wow. Then
Speaker 1: I left, and then I went over to like a
Speaker 1: q Tip party. Q Tip invited me to it, like
Speaker 1: his birthday party, and that's when I started to see
Speaker 1: what DJ and like really was like in terms of
Speaker 1: that style of djan. So I started throwing parties because
Speaker 1: no one. No one wanted me to DJ, didn't, I
Speaker 1: mean rightfully, so they had never heard me DJ. I
Speaker 1: just had this desire like yo, I want to spend
Speaker 1: and you know, I ended up becoming a party promoter.
Speaker 1: The thing that I hated about the New York party
Speaker 1: scene was every party that people did that you know,
Speaker 1: like that was like the cool parties. They were always
Speaker 1: named after like a candy bar, some ship. It's like
Speaker 1: juicy fruit Tuesdays and good and plenty of Sundays. I'm
Speaker 1: not making this up Tuesdays, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like it was always like that, and I was like,
Speaker 1: man I joined in on one of them, the juicy
Speaker 1: Fruit Tuesdays. But I just wanted to. I just wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, And then uh, that is rich juicy frud Tuesdays,
Speaker 1: did you know? And then um I went from that.
Speaker 1: I was like, after about six or seven months, I
Speaker 1: was like, man, I just wanted I want a djell.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get any parties out Here's where this is.
Speaker 1: Everything for me was overlapping. So you know, web development
Speaker 1: and photography overlapped, and then those two things overlapped with
Speaker 1: me becoming a party promoter slash DJ, so I started
Speaker 1: phasing the web stuff out because I was having a
Speaker 1: good time, like on this party scene. I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, and and what what prompted the move was
Speaker 1: this meeting. I had this meeting and I was building
Speaker 1: the website for UM for Vitamin Water for fifty. I
Speaker 1: was shooting part of that campaign and UM and I
Speaker 1: had to meet with Reebok so I'm in this. I
Speaker 1: was in this meeting with UM, Chris Lady, Steve Stout,
Speaker 1: Paul Fireman, who was the CEO founder reebok Um Q Gasson,
Speaker 1: who was like Allen Allen Iverson's liaison between Reeboking and
Speaker 1: and Alan Um. And then this one guy walks in
Speaker 1: and he walked around the table. He said what's up
Speaker 1: to everyone? And then he stood in front of me.
Speaker 1: This white dude sit in front of me, and he
Speaker 1: he just stood there. He didn't say anything, and I
Speaker 1: stood up and I was like, hey, I'm Derek Jones.
Speaker 1: And then everybody started laughing because they were all in
Speaker 1: on the joke. And he said, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: went to I think he may have gone to like Boston,
Speaker 1: you whatever, But he was like, I wrote my thesis
Speaker 1: on the song from your first album called A Few
Speaker 1: Hours More. It was like on my first solo album
Speaker 1: and um, and then that that was the moment for
Speaker 1: me when I was like, holy shit, like the people
Speaker 1: I was running from the music industry, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be d Nice. You know, when I
Speaker 1: was building a website, I didn't introduce myself to his
Speaker 1: D Nice. I was like, yo, I'm Derek Like but
Speaker 1: in that moment that what he said to me resonated.
Speaker 1: It was like, man, you spend all this time running
Speaker 1: from who you are, and why not just embrace it?
Speaker 1: You know, like be maybe not be that same person
Speaker 1: like you know, shopping demos or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: like be who you are. And because of that conversation,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what I'm gonna do. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start. I'm gonna go find a club because I
Speaker 1: remember I was promote promoting a juice fruit Tuesdays and
Speaker 1: ship like that. I was trying to I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to forget to choose. I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go find a club that would give me a
Speaker 1: shot to throw my own party. But then I went
Speaker 1: to DJ's and you know, your cats wanted like back then,
Speaker 1: they wanted five hundred dollars and I was like five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for DJ like that crazy, I know, right,
Speaker 1: I'm bugging. You can't even come to me with that.
Speaker 1: Like I was over here like five hundred dollars J part.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'll do this myself. And then
Speaker 1: the club. I will never forget this. The club was,
Speaker 1: you know that in New York City as a hotel
Speaker 1: called the Chelsea Street legendary hotel where where Donnie Hathaway
Speaker 1: Um not too far No, actually no, Donny, Donnie didn't
Speaker 1: die here. Donnie died on like fifty seventh Street, I
Speaker 1: believe where you know, committed suicide. But like something crazy
Speaker 1: happened at the Chelsea I can't remember right now, but
Speaker 1: iconic hotel. They had this lounge downstairs, downstairs called Serena,
Speaker 1: and they hired me. They paid me a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars to drink tickets and that's a DJ for
Speaker 1: six hours six But I didn't care because I had
Speaker 1: my daytime web money. That's why. Okay, okay, it all
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, So I used to DJ for like
Speaker 1: six hours for a hundred and fifty dollars. Nobody was
Speaker 1: in there. Another another buddy of mine, actually, right before that,
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine gave me his club in New
Speaker 1: York was on twenty thirt three as well, called cull True,
Speaker 1: and I would I would throw parties there and I
Speaker 1: would occasionally DJ with my cousin. But the first time
Speaker 1: that I actually was a DJ was that Serena's and
Speaker 1: the guy that managed Mark Ronson at the time, um
Speaker 1: Damon the Graft, still a great friend, you know, owns
Speaker 1: a company called d G I and they managed a
Speaker 1: lot of big DJs. He brought me over to this
Speaker 1: club with Q Tip and Mark Ronson with DJ and
Speaker 1: called Table fifty. And I used to watch them and
Speaker 1: I was like I would standing in place was small
Speaker 1: help like seventy five people. Their drink was on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Their joint was packed. My joint on Wednesday was empty.
Speaker 1: It was like ten people. But it didn't matter. I
Speaker 1: was like, yo, I'm playing music having And then one
Speaker 1: day Tipp and Ronson didn't want a DJ. So Damon
Speaker 1: was like yo, you know, Tips said you should do
Speaker 1: Table fifty on their night and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's dope. And I went and I tried the DJ.
Speaker 1: Like Tip has a very unique style of DJ, and
Speaker 1: so it does Mark. You know, Mark plays a lot
Speaker 1: of like pop stuff now, but then Mark was a
Speaker 1: straight up hip hop dude. It was like brand Nubians
Speaker 1: and you know, then he was mixing the eighties and
Speaker 1: and Q Tip was strictly sold James Brown and all
Speaker 1: that vibe. So when I went, I tried the DJ
Speaker 1: like them and then and Um and Damon was like
Speaker 1: a man, just be yourself. Do what you do as Serena,
Speaker 1: but do it here. I would only play R and
Speaker 1: B like eighties R and be Tina, Marie, Rick James
Speaker 1: when nobody was really rocking all of that, you know.
Speaker 1: So I started playing like that in the crowd was
Speaker 1: like crazy. I was like, Oh, this is this is
Speaker 1: what it's supposed to feel like, you know. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then I went from that, and then I started I
Speaker 1: had UM had a night and and UM like a
Speaker 1: legendary night in New York City at a club called
Speaker 1: Kane on Street, and that became like my residency. I
Speaker 1: did that for like three years, and then I started
Speaker 1: to build my name, you know as a private event DJ.
Speaker 1: With the first private event I did was UM it
Speaker 1: was Puff. I went to Puff. I was like, bro,
Speaker 1: I got a vibe on the streets right now, Like
Speaker 1: he's like, think, I've never heard of DJ day by Life.
Speaker 1: He was like, you're not DJ, and my white part
Speaker 1: of you crazy, Like come on, bro, He's like naughty,
Speaker 1: I'm good. He was just like that. Never saw him again,
Speaker 1: but I was always friends with his assistants because I
Speaker 1: was always trying to get in there. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna figure this out, Like I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: white man. I ended up with like a night planning
Speaker 1: a night at this legendary club in New York called Lotus.
Speaker 1: Lotus had a Sunday night party with the drummer and
Speaker 1: all that vib That's why I use the drummer now
Speaker 1: because it reminds me of that night and like the
Speaker 1: party was crazy on Sundays. So I was the guest
Speaker 1: DJ and I got a text from the girls that
Speaker 1: worked for Puff and they said, Puff just asked us
Speaker 1: where held where should he go tonight? We sent him
Speaker 1: there you gotta put on the show. And they sat
Speaker 1: Puff right at the table right in front of like
Speaker 1: this is the DJ booth. There was one table right here.
Speaker 1: Puff is on it. He's at the table. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: most people, most DJs that were hot midnight, you're playing
Speaker 1: whatever the new records are. Me, I'm totally reversed, Like
Speaker 1: I'm putting Stevie one that midnight when his pack and
Speaker 1: I know everybody's dancing, Do I Do is coming on?
Speaker 1: And then that drummer Puff was then on the table.
Speaker 1: He was like, oh my gosh, that's the year he
Speaker 1: was hosting the VMAs. In my mean, he was like, yo,
Speaker 1: you're doing all my parties and he kept his word
Speaker 1: I d I didn't headline them, but he had other
Speaker 1: DJs had flex yet, you know, a couple of DJs.
Speaker 1: But I was on those parties. And then that was
Speaker 1: like my first time like like really seeing what it
Speaker 1: was like to be at the private events. And then
Speaker 1: I just went private event heavy, you know, super Bowl
Speaker 1: stuff and and yeah, and slowly phased out the web
Speaker 1: stuff because it's not that I wasn't interested in it.
Speaker 1: What I realized about the web stuff was, um, it
Speaker 1: was just a means to an end for me. It
Speaker 1: was something that made me happy because music wasn't being
Speaker 1: kind to me, and I didn't want to lean on
Speaker 1: music and I wanted people to accept me for who
Speaker 1: I am, so I taught myself that, But that wasn't
Speaker 1: my passion. My passion has always been music and to
Speaker 1: to have an opportunity to DJ these events that I played,
Speaker 1: and I played R and B. Man, you know, I
Speaker 1: played hip hop, but like manly my sense of like
Speaker 1: R and B or pope, you know I'm playing, I'm
Speaker 1: getting in there. You know you can play the police
Speaker 1: that I'm getting that in there. But like that, that
Speaker 1: all happened because you know, the hip hop dudes wren't
Speaker 1: really let me in. They won't let me in the clubs,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't let me open. Yeah, I have to find
Speaker 1: my only and now I play my own lane. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: that your story, bro. It's nuts, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's a testament to not giving up one but also
Speaker 1: breaking through that glass ceiling of people saying, oh, this
Speaker 1: is what you do. No no, no, no, no no no,
Speaker 1: I do what I want right that, And that's for us, clearly,
Speaker 1: it's what's been our savior, is doing what we want
Speaker 1: to do and in taking on whatever comes along with that.
Speaker 1: But know the earlier, you know, when we before we
Speaker 1: start feeling you were like, man, y'all think it's crazy
Speaker 1: after I played you this song, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: my manager, you're like, but to a certain degree, yes
Speaker 1: we are crazy. But on the flip side of that
Speaker 1: is we're just enjoying the process and we're enjoying the
Speaker 1: journey and this music thing that we get to do
Speaker 1: for a living. There's you can't just say that, oh,
Speaker 1: I can only play one position in this game. I
Speaker 1: can do what I want to because music, for me,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you guys feel about it, but
Speaker 1: music is the last thing that you can purely be
Speaker 1: completely free in. You get fresh out of jail, do music,
Speaker 1: you come off Wall Street, do music. Like there's no
Speaker 1: You don't need any formal education, which sometimes hurts us,
Speaker 1: but you don't need anything other than your gift, a
Speaker 1: little luck to for sure, some hard work. Your gift.
Speaker 1: Your gift will get you through the music business. If
Speaker 1: you let your gift get you through the music there,
Speaker 1: you let your gift get you through the music business
Speaker 1: in so many other ways, in so many other ways.
Speaker 1: Because everything that you spoke about it's still creative, that's
Speaker 1: all I mean. You were just being you were being creative.
Speaker 1: The entire time. But other guys would have just been like, ah, man,
Speaker 1: I just gotta go. I don't know about this, and
Speaker 1: I'm getting away from that. And and like you said,
Speaker 1: you had your dark moments in it, but the light
Speaker 1: of it was that you let your gift guide you. Look.
Speaker 1: I had my dark moment in this just before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: you know, like just being very honest, like supposed to
Speaker 1: be my last year of DJ. I didn't want a
Speaker 1: DJ anymore. I was tired. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I kept feeling like you look at certain DJs and
Speaker 1: they were not judging them, but it's like, yo, why
Speaker 1: is that person playing there and I'm not on that
Speaker 1: same stage. I'm a big DJ with my mind, I
Speaker 1: felt that I was. I played great music, Like why
Speaker 1: am I not giving these opportunities? And I realized that
Speaker 1: a lot of it had to do with like ages
Speaker 1: and you know, like that's some real ship man, whether
Speaker 1: it was being black and trying to play in like
Speaker 1: this kind of mainstream world because I never just saw
Speaker 1: myself playing just urban events. I was like, no, because
Speaker 1: if you go to a non urban event, they're playing
Speaker 1: the same exact song. So why am I not playing there,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, I remember going to some of
Speaker 1: these big clubs and like these dudes with like literally
Speaker 1: give me half the budget or maybe a third of
Speaker 1: the budget that they were giving DJs that didn't look
Speaker 1: like me, and I was I was okay with it though.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I just want to be
Speaker 1: in the room, because my goal was never to just
Speaker 1: be a resident as someone's club. It was like, no,
Speaker 1: I want to be seen as the person that's playing
Speaker 1: in places that you don't typically see black DJ's, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, like playing a night that you
Speaker 1: don't typically see an old school black DJ. You know.
Speaker 1: Like but then after a while, you know, I just
Speaker 1: became exhausted, bro of like the constant battle, you know,
Speaker 1: constantly fighting, you know, even with with our own with
Speaker 1: our own promoters, you know, like the people that would
Speaker 1: promote more R and B. It was still a constant
Speaker 1: like oh we don't have that budget and you still
Speaker 1: do the same job. And then like after fighting and fighting,
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm over these clubs. I remember
Speaker 1: calling Live Nation and I never worked with a company
Speaker 1: like Live Nation. I had done like Jill Scott's Picnic,
Speaker 1: which was that was a pivotal moment for me. That
Speaker 1: was like, you know, maybe like seven months before the
Speaker 1: pandemic and I played the Jill Scott picnic. It was me, well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't headlined, but it was Jill Scott, Jasmine Sullivan, Music,
Speaker 1: Soul Child, Mace and I was the opening act. And
Speaker 1: we're in Philly, Mace Smith his flight. So now they're
Speaker 1: scrambling trying to figure out what to do to keep
Speaker 1: people happy. And then the president of Live Nation Urban
Speaker 1: came to me and said, hey, we're gonna switch. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna open music, so was gonna open, You're gonna
Speaker 1: go on after him? And I was like, are you
Speaker 1: fighting crazy? Like this man's town he's singing. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was like, no, trust me on this one. You're gonna
Speaker 1: change the whole thing. We can't we that's that's the
Speaker 1: way you want to do it. And I thought he
Speaker 1: was out of his mind. And music went on and
Speaker 1: he killed it, and when I got on for my set,
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous. It was like by that time, it
Speaker 1: was packed, the energy was crazy. And then I went
Speaker 1: into it because you know, Jasmine was gonna sing slow
Speaker 1: RM and B songs and Jills, you know, she got
Speaker 1: something not really up tempos, but yeah, she's on Jill.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be very vibe, vibe, sitting down vibe like
Speaker 1: some instnse and like you know. But from my set,
Speaker 1: it was like, he's gonna go up for a minute,
Speaker 1: if nuts for like an hour. And I was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this is what I need to be doing. I don't
Speaker 1: need clubs. And then I hit them up like towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year, like in November, and I
Speaker 1: was like, look, man, I just I don't want to
Speaker 1: do clubs anymore. If you guys have an opportunity for
Speaker 1: someone like me to just be an opening act for
Speaker 1: someone like, yeah, I would. I would prefer to do
Speaker 1: that now because I was I was. I was tired, bro.
Speaker 1: And then they gave me Jill Scott's tour. They gave
Speaker 1: me ten dates on Jill's twenty anniversary tour, but we
Speaker 1: only did one did Radio City Music Hall. And it's
Speaker 1: funny how how this whole thing works. And this is
Speaker 1: no knock to anyone. This is really about how how
Speaker 1: life works. I was the opening act. I was the
Speaker 1: warm up act, so my DJ booth was in front
Speaker 1: of the curtains. Yeah, that was the front. No, you cannot,
Speaker 1: that's left. But the stage looks like I don't knock it,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. But I did that one
Speaker 1: show and then did a couple of more shows and
Speaker 1: then you know obviously like super Bowl and everything, and
Speaker 1: then and then pandemic hit. So before that though, before that,
Speaker 1: because this is this is this is something that was
Speaker 1: very near and dear to me and watching what y'all
Speaker 1: were doing, you and our brother Kenny Burns Nice the
Speaker 1: nice and Burns right, because that was something that kicked
Speaker 1: off before the pandemic. And that was when I say,
Speaker 1: y'all was burning ship down. Yeall was like on some
Speaker 1: real fly, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna look good,
Speaker 1: the music gonna sound good, and we're gonna turn this
Speaker 1: thing up right. So that so is this is that
Speaker 1: before you start doing the opener stuff. No, No, it
Speaker 1: was always Kenny and I've been doing this since like
Speaker 1: around two thousand and ten. Okay, we started doing it
Speaker 1: with the party in Atlantic Soul Fusion, and then we
Speaker 1: would do it every every like quarterly in Detroit. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like the way we do quarterly. Inded Troy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because we had a buddy out in Detroit by the
Speaker 1: name of Dennis Archer, and Dennis would throw a party
Speaker 1: out in Birmingham, Michigan, and he was just you know,
Speaker 1: he's an attorney. His wife at the times to judge
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, yeah they had it. Yeah, they had gone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So but he was like he was the dude. He
Speaker 1: was like he was on the scene, like yeah, he
Speaker 1: would do these Flis parties and he was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I need you and Kenny, It's gonna be flot And
Speaker 1: Kenny and I are like, all right, cool, Kenny's going host.
Speaker 1: This is when we really started doing it together. But
Speaker 1: the thing about Kenny and I, which was dope, we
Speaker 1: both had our own We're both unique, we had our
Speaker 1: own background, our own stories. So we didn't do every
Speaker 1: show together. We just found like a few, like the
Speaker 1: wedding and a few things like that that we would
Speaker 1: do together. But yes, but whatever we did, whenever we
Speaker 1: did something, it was special, you know, and we would
Speaker 1: kind of reserve that for like Essence Fest or something
Speaker 1: like that to do like the parties, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that stuff, you know, Rocke McKenny is is the
Speaker 1: easiest thing, man, because we know each other's sensibilities and
Speaker 1: music sensibilities, like I know when to switch that up.
Speaker 1: I know when to change it up because I know
Speaker 1: if I echo something now, Kenny's gonna say the right thing,
Speaker 1: and then I could just bring something totally different than
Speaker 1: that would just excite everyone. So we never talked about music.
Speaker 1: We never talked about what he's gonna say. It's strictly
Speaker 1: based on here, based on this feeling that we trust
Speaker 1: each other. And you know, sometimes he'll come over and
Speaker 1: be like, yo, trust me, this is the one right here,
Speaker 1: you know, like and then I'll play a swag surfing
Speaker 1: like I was never really in this wag surfing, you know,
Speaker 1: like because that wasn't my scene. He's going he's going
Speaker 1: to surfer. Yeah, but like yeah, but you know, our
Speaker 1: vibe was always dope man, and you know we were
Speaker 1: we were continuing to build it even more. But then
Speaker 1: that pandemic hid and then it's like we were separated.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, because of what happened, it just
Speaker 1: to my career to like some crazy, crazy heights man.
Speaker 1: And so when the so when the pandemic hits, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. Let's talk about the initial right,
Speaker 1: because there's the conversation that a lot of us don't
Speaker 1: talk about of the full shutdown, Like it was so
Speaker 1: different for a lot of other other industries, but for
Speaker 1: the music business, where we had to literally get out
Speaker 1: and touch the people, it went quiet. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: radio silence. So when that first hits, right, because y'are
Speaker 1: doing nice and burn show, you're doing your own shows, y'all,
Speaker 1: y'all like y'all really cooking. You're cooking, y'all cooking, y'all
Speaker 1: moving around. This money seems like it's never ending because
Speaker 1: it's just it's like a continuous hit record. You can
Speaker 1: always go get a bag, and then they say the
Speaker 1: story is closed. The store is closed. The store was closed, bro.
Speaker 1: It wasn't closed for me for long, but it did
Speaker 1: feel that way because that's when the you know. So
Speaker 1: the reason why I went on and played it wasn't
Speaker 1: that I was trying to find like I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to find hobbies, you know, Like I was really just frustrated, bro,
Speaker 1: because I you know, I'm self managed. I've always been
Speaker 1: self managed. I got a team, but like it's me,
Speaker 1: I handled the deals, you know, like I talked to
Speaker 1: everyone because you know, for someone like myself. You know,
Speaker 1: I just always a new win to make the right deals.
Speaker 1: Like A knew when to say no, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to charge that person that amount of money because I
Speaker 1: see what this deal is gonna do. Who's gonna be
Speaker 1: in that room. They may not have this budget. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when you have representation, they just people just want
Speaker 1: to take, take and take. And I never really operated
Speaker 1: that way. I was always like nahnu, yeah for you,
Speaker 1: what makes sense for me? You know. And then you know,
Speaker 1: and when when the pandemic hit, you know, when I
Speaker 1: was home by myself. Look, you guys traveled a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I know who you are and what
Speaker 1: you both accomplished in your careers. We're never home, you know,
Speaker 1: but you were also in relationship, you know, married at
Speaker 1: the time. I don't know what your status is, but
Speaker 1: like there was always someone home making sure that home
Speaker 1: was great. I was another at home, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like I had moved to l A a
Speaker 1: year before, so a pandemic, I wasn't home until the
Speaker 1: day before the shutdown, so I had no food. Everybody
Speaker 1: had broken into the stores, you know, So I was
Speaker 1: in the stories and I'm you know, at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I had a little bit of paper, it
Speaker 1: didn't matter. I had to buy a line of beans,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and protein bars, you know,
Speaker 1: and and you know, just things that I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, whatever it is that I
Speaker 1: could get for for this two weeks because everything was
Speaker 1: shutting down. And you know, when I was sitting at
Speaker 1: home and I was looking around, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I didn't like where I lived because I had moved
Speaker 1: to l A a year before, but I was never
Speaker 1: home to take time to, like, you don't know where
Speaker 1: you lived, like decorate. I had like four pictures on
Speaker 1: the wall when you walked through the door. That's literally it.
Speaker 1: No art, nothing. I didn't personalize anything, you know. The
Speaker 1: sofa that I had in there was was the sofa
Speaker 1: that I had in my New York apartment, which was
Speaker 1: much smaller. Now I'm in the spacious kind of loft.
Speaker 1: So when I was looking around, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta sitting here for like for weeks
Speaker 1: by myself. This is what I did. And I was frustrated,
Speaker 1: you know, Like so when I got up that morning
Speaker 1: and um and I went live for the first time
Speaker 1: on Instagram um, because I never used Instagram Live. I
Speaker 1: used Facebook Live, you know, um for the Essence Fest.
Speaker 1: But I never did all of the lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: And what was the other one periscope? Ever did any
Speaker 1: of that? I'm like, who wants to look at me?
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Like I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: see what what it what it could have become, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I was just on some wants to sit there
Speaker 1: and like spying someone's life, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't my vibe and hill. I sat there
Speaker 1: at that counter and I was like, man, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna play some music and tell some stories. And over
Speaker 1: my laptop up selected a song and I started, I
Speaker 1: know what the first song was. I was just about
Speaker 1: to ask you. Yeah, it was a song called Rising
Speaker 1: to the Top Kenny Burke, And that was my first song.
Speaker 1: And I started my I g queue that up, and
Speaker 1: I started telling stories about being a kid, like yo.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, there was two hundred
Speaker 1: people in here. This is kind of cool, like yo, yo.
Speaker 1: And then I would see like my friends in there,
Speaker 1: Chuck Bone, and this is when I was like we're
Speaker 1: all in there Blue Williams, and like I was like, oh, yo, no,
Speaker 1: you know, no, DJ gives just my laptop with the
Speaker 1: phone sitting and I'm looking at it reading like yo,
Speaker 1: this is crazy, Like yeah, I'm gonna play this song
Speaker 1: from like when I used to walk into clubs in
Speaker 1: like nine six when I first came on the scene
Speaker 1: and Bruce b was playing this and this is this
Speaker 1: was like the anthem. This was the Queen's anthem and
Speaker 1: this was what they were playing Hallom with Bruce b
Speaker 1: B was jan at the roof top and I play
Speaker 1: a song and then people were like commenting like yo,
Speaker 1: this is dope. Yeah, and I was like yo, And
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even play the full song because I knew
Speaker 1: you could you you couldn't play music on Instagram. I
Speaker 1: would just play a little bit of it. Then I
Speaker 1: would switch it up, like yo, remember you know this
Speaker 1: Dennis Edward joint was just rocking, and I would play
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. That's literally how it started.
Speaker 1: And I did that for like hours, like three hours
Speaker 1: in the first day, and it was like two people.
Speaker 1: And then I knew John Legend had started doing his
Speaker 1: thing too, So the next day I hit Hassan Smith up.
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, I just noticed that you can
Speaker 1: go live with someone. You think John would go live
Speaker 1: with me? And he was like, yeah, I'll call just
Speaker 1: your man, I'll call him. So he called John and
Speaker 1: then I started calling all my old school hip hop friends,
Speaker 1: like YO called Deggie Fresh. I was like, Doug, Yo,
Speaker 1: go live to me and say hi to the people
Speaker 1: like I've never done a lot yet people. I was
Speaker 1: just trying to make the ship fly. Yo, just come
Speaker 1: in and Doug was like, I don't even know how
Speaker 1: he tried. He didn't know how to join the conversation.
Speaker 1: It's way more people didn't Doug. That did Junk try
Speaker 1: to get on there, you know, Duncan figured out. Then
Speaker 1: the first person that I went live with was I
Speaker 1: believe I'll be sure. It was I'll be Sure that
Speaker 1: went live with me first, and he was, you know,
Speaker 1: he was all on his outbeat. Then Kane went live
Speaker 1: with me. Dave Chappelle went live with me, but not
Speaker 1: he didn't have Instagram, so it went from his wife's account,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So they was just watching
Speaker 1: TV and they were they had the music going on
Speaker 1: in the background. Me on the background when they was
Speaker 1: his partying. But Dave went live and talked to the people,
Speaker 1: and then um the one that I noticed because I
Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention to how it works. Now I remember
Speaker 1: I'm a programmer. When I went live with John Legend
Speaker 1: and he had his daughter Lula on his shoulders and
Speaker 1: we were just he was just saying how to the people.
Speaker 1: I looked at the numbers, and my numbers went from
Speaker 1: like that. It was like at that time floating around
Speaker 1: three hundred. That joints the six thousand, and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what the fund just happened? And then usually like when
Speaker 1: I'm done, I just analyzed everything and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's telling people. It's notifying that other
Speaker 1: person's like whoever they're on with telling their people, because
Speaker 1: that joint went to six thousand, and then when he
Speaker 1: left it went down to one thousand. Like now I
Speaker 1: got a thousand people in there, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, Like no one knew all of that. This
Speaker 1: was early. No one was using I g Live like that.
Speaker 1: There didn't no one like in that week it increased
Speaker 1: because of what I was doing, like no bullshit, So
Speaker 1: no one knew what was going on? Like, and I
Speaker 1: saw that and I was like, oh my gosh, this
Speaker 1: is crazy. And I was indeed and this was now
Speaker 1: I'm just having like conversation and playing songs and then
Speaker 1: back to the and then I decided to call it
Speaker 1: a party because I called I called Clark kent up
Speaker 1: and I was like, yo, bro, like this actually feels real,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, I don't know, like I'm
Speaker 1: happy and here my speakers allowed, so it felt like
Speaker 1: I was in the club. It was like at this point, too,
Speaker 1: you're in an apartment. I was in an apartment. Neighbors,
Speaker 1: how did you? How did you deal with that? I mean,
Speaker 1: I couldn't kick you out of the pandemic, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they could give me out, but they were
Speaker 1: banging on the walls and it was like, yeah, very annoying.
Speaker 1: It felt uncomfortable because I'm not I don't like confrontation
Speaker 1: and I also like respecting people's space. But they didn't
Speaker 1: see what I was seeing. But I was seeing what
Speaker 1: they did. They know that, yeah, but they don't even
Speaker 1: they didn't even know who d Knights was because I
Speaker 1: ended up meeting the neighbors. They had no idea who
Speaker 1: I was, which is a funny story too. But like
Speaker 1: when I called Clark, I was like, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: I'm gonna name this a party because before that people
Speaker 1: started reaching out to me. Now like you know, you
Speaker 1: know chicken spots, you know, I got the call from
Speaker 1: like someone from wingstop. That was like I knew, I
Speaker 1: knew it was cracking. When a girl asked me, she
Speaker 1: was like, and she knows you too, but she was like,
Speaker 1: do you know where? Do you know where? Do you
Speaker 1: know where there lives? No? Listen, listen, listen, it's crazy,
Speaker 1: but I don't. She's like, would you would you mind like,
Speaker 1: you know, just calling him and getting his address because
Speaker 1: I want to. I just want to take him something,
Speaker 1: so I just want to deliver it. I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at the door. I just you know, he's just
Speaker 1: over there by himself. I'm like, oh, he's craggy, jaty
Speaker 1: get him jaety, oh ship. We just want to drop
Speaker 1: off the food. Yeah. Then I started getting food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty I'm pretty listen. We won't say, but I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure I called you got your address? Ye sitting
Speaker 1: they were sitting food. They would have the chefs make
Speaker 1: like yo. It was that first week was like things
Speaker 1: flipped quickly, like and it was really because I never
Speaker 1: I didn't ask anybody for anything. Like I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna play some music because this feels good,
Speaker 1: like I was. Then I became addicted to it. Then
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I'm gonna When Clark said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna go and get some gear
Speaker 1: because I didn't have DJ gear at home. And I
Speaker 1: made it to like guitar Stan I like thirty minutes
Speaker 1: before they closed. If I didn't make it there, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't none of this happens, you know. But I made
Speaker 1: it there. You had no gears. No, I didn't believe
Speaker 1: in having like gear at home, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Like I lived in an apartment. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: walk in my living room and see like like turn tables.
Speaker 1: That just wasn't sexy to me, you know. Um So
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything. But like now I'm stuck in
Speaker 1: the house, I need something, and um man, I bought
Speaker 1: that controller. And then that's when I posted home school,
Speaker 1: and this dude right here was like call it home school.
Speaker 1: That's terrible. Man. I was like it's homeschool. Because by
Speaker 1: that guy, I thought I was you know, I thought
Speaker 1: I was warting something. I was like, this home school,
Speaker 1: I'm teaching these cats about music. You know what I'm saying, like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I'm educating you on the classics right now. He's always
Speaker 1: gonna call you with it. That ain't their chick. Yo.
Speaker 1: He definitely said that, and he was like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean, I'm hot. He was like, no, it's not
Speaker 1: in like homeschool. Like that's cool. You should call it
Speaker 1: club quarantine. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I owe you on that one. Brother.
Speaker 1: He was like, you should call it club quarantine. People
Speaker 1: thought I sold the name club quarantine from other people,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yo, I really just got it from this.
Speaker 1: Maybe he did, but I didn't listen. No disclaimer, no,
Speaker 1: no disclaimer, no disclaimer, no. I just for me, that's
Speaker 1: what it was. It was club quarnine. It was you
Speaker 1: literally brought the club to the quarantine. It was. Now
Speaker 1: if someone else was saying that, I don't know either
Speaker 1: because I but I wasn't watching anybody else since so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even know. People were definitely like I had
Speaker 1: club quarantine and I didn't know if you did if
Speaker 1: you started a Yeah, your first day we was on
Speaker 1: and we was telling everybody body, y'all, make sure you
Speaker 1: know who was he who was a heavy promoter for you.
Speaker 1: Tyrese Gibson was really And that's crazy because you probably
Speaker 1: just didn't even know, but Tyrese was promoting Club Quarantine
Speaker 1: as if he was because he was just so excited
Speaker 1: and he loved what you were doing that much. I
Speaker 1: just I remember that. I remember that, and and that's something,
Speaker 1: like I said, that's something you should know because as brothers,
Speaker 1: a lot of times we don't understand sometimes the people
Speaker 1: that are pulling for us, and we think we're doing
Speaker 1: you know, we think we're out here by ourselves, right,
Speaker 1: we think that, man, I'm just I have somebody, and
Speaker 1: there are people that are literally pushing you forward without
Speaker 1: even you know, without absolutely I mean that's how we
Speaker 1: got excuse me, so many people in there, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people like that, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: were literally sending sending to each other, sending d ms
Speaker 1: like oh d nights on, getting like reminding each other everything.
Speaker 1: But like it was really the conversation started. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a community. Then it took on a whole another.
Speaker 1: It became a whole of the monster were like you
Speaker 1: were actually talking to people and telling people what you
Speaker 1: was drinking and what you're about to order from the bar,
Speaker 1: and like like I'm doing the running Man right now,
Speaker 1: what you do. Like it became that the commentary was
Speaker 1: the better, the commentary the best. You see real different
Speaker 1: people tap in, you see them blue checks and people
Speaker 1: like it was going up. It was it was going up.
Speaker 1: And I think aside from your gift, which obviously drove it,
Speaker 1: it was the fact that people were genuinely they were
Speaker 1: genuinely happy for you because all of us that had
Speaker 1: encountered you in real life, I knew the guy you were,
Speaker 1: and we were really happy about something good happening to
Speaker 1: a good person, And I think that was something that
Speaker 1: pushed us to promote, to talk about it, to tap
Speaker 1: in to you know what I mean, like like just
Speaker 1: like you said you just like man, I just be random.
Speaker 1: I've randomly called j about different things, but just even that,
Speaker 1: it was like, no, this is my friend, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he cracking, And we've all had friends who get cracking.
Speaker 1: But it was different, I think for everybody associated with you,
Speaker 1: because we were just like he deserved this because everybody
Speaker 1: hadn't experience the d nice party either, because you became
Speaker 1: very corporate for a minute, were you was you was
Speaker 1: getting your corporate back. You just weren't you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, You wasn't at every single club. They couldn't
Speaker 1: experience you like that. So now everybody and every Middle
Speaker 1: America and and you put R and B in a
Speaker 1: different heaven, heavy heavy, heavy, R and B. You put
Speaker 1: R and B and out. I love the record you
Speaker 1: and Neo did. Yeah, like you was really tapping in.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, you did so much with with that one thing,
Speaker 1: like you. I mean, it's monumental. So to see how
Speaker 1: it grew into like going to the Hollywood ball a man,
Speaker 1: Yeah that was crazy, bro, the Hollywood Bowl rocking like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy going back next year too, Yeah that was crazy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's to me, that is where that's what CQ represents
Speaker 1: because that was like the entire pen the entire early
Speaker 1: part of the pandemic all I imagine. I couldn't think
Speaker 1: of any other place that that felt like I was like, man,
Speaker 1: when the world opens up, I just want to play
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Bowl because the Hollywood Bowl was the reason
Speaker 1: why I moved to l A. I had gone to
Speaker 1: a concert there, like a Lauren Hill concert, and I
Speaker 1: was it was Lauren Hill and like Dave Chappelle, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, you mean you can party outside, but
Speaker 1: I've never been there, Like wait, you can sit here
Speaker 1: and party and drink wine in your own box in
Speaker 1: order food. Yo, they had blankets. I was like, my
Speaker 1: part with blankets. You know, got blankets and listen, you
Speaker 1: got some offering. And he was. He was the full
Speaker 1: kicker of club Quarantine, the prettiest women in the entire world. No, no,
Speaker 1: I definitely have some beautiful phones. Oh my god. Like
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like Tank one night one night, because
Speaker 1: because one night, you know, I used to be I
Speaker 1: just be fooling around and I'm in there playing music.
Speaker 1: I always get kicked off for playing songs so way
Speaker 1: too long, playing songs in a way too nasty. And
Speaker 1: one night d Nice literally brought his people. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: go there, we're gonna go. Let's flood his page. I
Speaker 1: turned all the way up. What I was like, Oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: y'all didn't know I could get this. I didn't know
Speaker 1: he was a nasty I'm like, yeah, I'm just happy
Speaker 1: that you know some of the corporate people maybe they
Speaker 1: were there, maybe you know now. But you know what's
Speaker 1: so funny though, there's I Menna leave her name out,
Speaker 1: but she's a huge, huge She's huge at one of
Speaker 1: the film companies, like huge, like CEO type huge like.
Speaker 1: And I had a chance to speak with her and
Speaker 1: like about a week ago, and she was with a buddy.
Speaker 1: She was like, you know, she knew that we knew
Speaker 1: each other, and he put her on the phone and man,
Speaker 1: this woman, she was like, you have no idea. I
Speaker 1: love you like I listened to you in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. So that means she was listening to
Speaker 1: the slow songs that I was playing, was extra nasty,
Speaker 1: Like she was like, yeah, I would wake up, I
Speaker 1: would shower them. You were on. Like it really became
Speaker 1: u it became a thing, and it was something that
Speaker 1: people really look forward to, you know. And that's and
Speaker 1: to me, that's what made like the Hollywood Bowl and
Speaker 1: these gigs that I have so special. That when you
Speaker 1: look into that audience, you see a little bit of everyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you see a little bit of everyone different
Speaker 1: backgrounds and coaches and because that's what it represented, man like,
Speaker 1: you know, And the thing that made it easy was
Speaker 1: the music that I played represented love. You know. I
Speaker 1: didn't really thug it out. I think I went in
Speaker 1: your comments and tried to get you to drag it
Speaker 1: out a couple of times. You up, because in my mind,
Speaker 1: what I saw on the other end of the phone
Speaker 1: was people listening with their families, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be respectful of that. You know, I haven't you know,
Speaker 1: at the time, she was eight. You know, I haven't
Speaker 1: eight year old. You know, I don't want to hear
Speaker 1: like crazy with the kids. Sure we danced with kids,
Speaker 1: you know. Like so that was that that that was
Speaker 1: on my mind. And I remember, like, um, a few
Speaker 1: months ago, like one of my friends was in town
Speaker 1: and she came over and she just stopped by. She
Speaker 1: was like, do you mind if I stopped by for
Speaker 1: a minute. I want you to meet this kid. And
Speaker 1: she pulled up. Her friend was driving. They pulled up
Speaker 1: and I went outside the hat on. I'm thinking, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna meet like a kid like, you know, eight or nine,
Speaker 1: roll down the back window on his kid turned around
Speaker 1: and his eyes lit up, and she said, who is
Speaker 1: that baby? This little kid was two years old and
Speaker 1: he was like, it's d nice, and I thought about it.
Speaker 1: I was like Elmo to this kid because I was
Speaker 1: always probably on his mother's screens or on that you
Speaker 1: know in the kitchen. You know, like that's all he
Speaker 1: saw for like two years. So like it too, even
Speaker 1: to the kids, it means something, Yeah, yeah, that's wild, bro,
Speaker 1: it's wild, and it's it's I don't want to say
Speaker 1: why in the negative way, it's just it's just beautiful. Man,
Speaker 1: Like to know your music, your music, you know, Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 1: David Bowie, you know, Level forty two, Like all of
Speaker 1: this music kept people dancing. You're dancing your kitchen and
Speaker 1: ship that you probably didn't even know, but it just
Speaker 1: felt good and your kids were dancing. You're just having
Speaker 1: a good time and you know you probably were in
Speaker 1: there kick in the kitchen cooking and the vibes felt good.
Speaker 1: And the next thing, you know, like now you know
Speaker 1: that song, like not too many people was playing Melbourne more.
Speaker 1: You know right now, shout out to Melbourne more like
Speaker 1: Melbourne because now I now interact with Melbourne more because
Speaker 1: of Club Quarantine. Stephanie Mills and Legends she was in
Speaker 1: there every day. Now rogers forget about it. Now, I
Speaker 1: was in there everything like yo. And then now it's
Speaker 1: like when they see me out, they're like yo. You know,
Speaker 1: like Melbourne. Melbourne just she's getting her star in Hollywood
Speaker 1: Walk of Fame and when she posted about it, she
Speaker 1: was like yo. Oh. A lot of this to d
Speaker 1: nice because he reminded people who I am, you know,
Speaker 1: like you see an icon leave comments like that. It's
Speaker 1: like wow, like you know, I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it light, you know that. I was just playing music,
Speaker 1: but I selected those songs to play when the world
Speaker 1: was listening because I wanted to remind people of what
Speaker 1: what love felt like musically, Like sonically this this feels
Speaker 1: like love, you know, even if you didn't know what
Speaker 1: they were singing, that rhythm something. How could you not
Speaker 1: How could you put on David Boy's fame and not
Speaker 1: feel like you want to lean your hat to the
Speaker 1: side or something like the drums and that guitar like
Speaker 1: or you just want a head not you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Like, how could you not play like you know, um,
Speaker 1: Marvin Gaye Distant Lover and I feel like you want
Speaker 1: to pour a glass of wine in front of the world, like, Yo,
Speaker 1: this is what we're listening to right now. Let's this
Speaker 1: is it right now? We used to slow dance. Let's
Speaker 1: slow dance together all over the world in your living rooms. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I couldn't have like a Hollywood Bowl without having
Speaker 1: Tank you know what I mean? Because I was playing
Speaker 1: those records in the middle of the night, like everyone
Speaker 1: knew what Tank record I was playing. I was playing
Speaker 1: dirty like crazy, yo, dirty record. I was like, I
Speaker 1: played one that I was like, God, damn ye. This
Speaker 1: ship is nasty, but it's sexy. All types of what
Speaker 1: I'm doing with this pillow and a pregnancy music. I
Speaker 1: put your face to the pillow, so listen, so listen
Speaker 1: on that note, on that note. Nice, You're a superstar,
Speaker 1: right and you've you've had success before, You've been known before,
Speaker 1: but now you are, you're an international star. How does
Speaker 1: that feel? Because it's it's it's different and managing that
Speaker 1: it's different. It's different, you know, like before before the
Speaker 1: world opened up and when this thing was like blowing
Speaker 1: up crazy, I was on the zoom call with like
Speaker 1: it was like puff Jay. Then he asked it was
Speaker 1: Lenny asked his birthday and we're all in this and
Speaker 1: I was I was still on c Q DJ and
Speaker 1: but I would play a song and run back to
Speaker 1: the laptop, like and I'm in this whole conversation with
Speaker 1: everyone and like and then Jay kept going, Yo, how
Speaker 1: does it feel? And I'm like, you're talking about bro.
Speaker 1: He's like, how does it feel? He's like not not really,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be an asshole, like how does
Speaker 1: it feel? It's like, yo, bro, I had success before.
Speaker 1: He was like, no, you had success, and you had
Speaker 1: a couple of hit records, but this is different. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what he meant because I was still at
Speaker 1: Z asking Jay Z like yo. I was still at home,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I don't know if this dude is
Speaker 1: talking about your new fan. Yeah at this point, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, Line was like, yo, Jay,
Speaker 1: chill man Shi Like he was like, no, I really
Speaker 1: want to know because this is different. I didn't know
Speaker 1: until until we put that Hollywood Bowl on sale. Give
Speaker 1: the people how fast that thing? So that thing sold
Speaker 1: out in like four days? Man, Like the Hollywood Bowl.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like in like four or four or five days,
Speaker 1: sold out, sold out, and then they were reserving some
Speaker 1: tickets because it was selling so quickly that they held
Speaker 1: a bunch of tickets because they were like, yo, we
Speaker 1: gotta make sure like artists got tickets or whatever. But
Speaker 1: then when they released the artist tickets, those drinks sold,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, it was like, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: you know, and like the one thing that mattered the
Speaker 1: most to me, well, one of the things that mattered
Speaker 1: the most, not even the one thing, but it goes
Speaker 1: back to the days of like opening for Jill and
Speaker 1: remembering where they had me, not jail per se. I
Speaker 1: just never want to say it's about the artist, but
Speaker 1: like you know, when they set up everything, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's just the DJ, and having that DJ booth in
Speaker 1: that corner, I was like, my joint is going to
Speaker 1: be front and center the castle at L E. D One,
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, I'm gonna have every top on top.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted to make sure that every artist
Speaker 1: felt love when they came out, that it switched from
Speaker 1: my logo to big gas tank on you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and every time someone walked out because it
Speaker 1: was that's what I personally feel like I represented inclusion
Speaker 1: and love and like you know, we're all doing this together,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know, I just remember sitting in
Speaker 1: that dressing room and take to sit there. He was like,
Speaker 1: you're DJ, You're sold out the Hollywood Like what the hell,
Speaker 1: I've never played the Hollywood Bowl. Hollywood. He's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: you got the Hollywood Bowl. Like this is wild and
Speaker 1: that's that's why I'm playing, Like, you know, like when
Speaker 1: you know I'm playing Carnegie Hall next week, man, and
Speaker 1: that you know that that feels crazy too, where I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I got my own night at Carnegie Hall. Like I
Speaker 1: went specifically to Carnegie Hall to see, you know how
Speaker 1: they have like the little billboard posters on the side
Speaker 1: of the on the side of the building. And as
Speaker 1: I walked up, and it's funny. As I walked up, Um,
Speaker 1: one of the guys from New Kids on the Block
Speaker 1: was walking up at the same time, and he's just
Speaker 1: like yo. D turned around him and I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find my poster. He was like, I'll
Speaker 1: go with you. And then we walked over and just
Speaker 1: stood there together and we were both sitting there like
Speaker 1: because they had never played Carnkie all either. And I
Speaker 1: think he's working on something right now for Carnegie. But
Speaker 1: like we just stood there and we just looked at
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, this is wild. This is
Speaker 1: some wild ship. Man. Like, so not only did it
Speaker 1: it makes me or you know, kind of put the
Speaker 1: spotlight on me with fans and like I was able
Speaker 1: to just play all of the music. But I've also
Speaker 1: met a lot of artists that I just personally adore,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, you know, like you
Speaker 1: and I, all three of us, we've always been cool.
Speaker 1: But like I think the pandemic slowed everything down, and
Speaker 1: like seeing your names popping all the time, it was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: these are my brothers, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: you could have just been doing your own thing, but
Speaker 1: you chose to come and you chose to be Like, yo,
Speaker 1: you should call it quarantine or whatever. You know. The
Speaker 1: first person I hear about, you know, doing the bowl.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't know how to ask artists. I didn't know, like,
Speaker 1: ye know, I want I want to see if some
Speaker 1: artists will come out. I didn't know how to ask.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I didn't know I had your number,
Speaker 1: But I was like I can't call this man, Like
Speaker 1: I don't I want him to say no. So I
Speaker 1: called him. He's like, take to that, man, I think
Speaker 1: it to it and you did. You did most of them, bro,
Speaker 1: And you know, like I got somebody didn't want to
Speaker 1: be not on anything like Jay. So when what's what's
Speaker 1: what's the schedules, what's the schedule. I'm pulling up. I'm
Speaker 1: pulling it up. I'm pulling up. He's like, don't even
Speaker 1: worry about it, you know, like I just want to
Speaker 1: be there and that come on, man, Like now, but
Speaker 1: we're we're really about brotherhood, man like seriously, Like we don't.
Speaker 1: We don't say that as just some you know, slogan
Speaker 1: or something little, you know, tagline, Like we really mean it.
Speaker 1: Like when we fool with you, we fool with you.
Speaker 1: I mean obviously you've seen that with us, and I
Speaker 1: think we've been we've been in this industry long enough
Speaker 1: to see the other side of it, the foolishness, the
Speaker 1: dark side, you know, the crabbing, the barrel of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. And instead of complaining about that, we're just like,
Speaker 1: we'll just operate different. What operate friend, and the people
Speaker 1: that we choose to deal with will operate different with
Speaker 1: them so that they know Oh, these guys moving a
Speaker 1: different space and hopefully, you know, as corny as it
Speaker 1: may sound, hopefully somebody will experience that with us and
Speaker 1: then pass it and move it and pay it forward.
Speaker 1: That's not corny at all, bro, Like that's the way
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be. Pay it forward, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: and that's that's the vibe. I'm one man, Like I
Speaker 1: just want to share it with people, you know, like
Speaker 1: even even the artists that I select, you know, like
Speaker 1: a lot of artists, you know, when you talk about
Speaker 1: like a Hollywood Bowl or talk about the Carnegie, you
Speaker 1: know what that many like hip hop artists and most
Speaker 1: black artists that played the stage weren't really are be
Speaker 1: they were doing like jazz or or you definitely want rap,
Speaker 1: definitely right, and you're incorporating all of that. So I'm
Speaker 1: incorporating that, you know, like you know, I got I
Speaker 1: got Kane, and I got Jada Kiss. He's gonna do
Speaker 1: We're gonna make it Carnegie with the orchestra what yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like I'm on that mission.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how do we how do we like started
Speaker 1: corporating real music and not just the drummer like because normally,
Speaker 1: if dudes aren't on tour with a string section at
Speaker 1: all and a horn section, that's all synthesizer, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like in Stems and No. Bro, I'm like,
Speaker 1: we're still gonna have the elements of that record because
Speaker 1: I'm still DJ, and but I you know, I created
Speaker 1: a whole set list for like the artists in the
Speaker 1: way it's gonna flow so they can write charts to
Speaker 1: it so they understand like I want this, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's like a DJ experience, but with these live elements
Speaker 1: that so you're still gonna hear. Yeah, it's bro that part, Like, man,
Speaker 1: I wake up every day thinking about that. Man, Like, man,
Speaker 1: this is going to be like the whole thing. You know,
Speaker 1: see how smooth do when they reminisce over you with
Speaker 1: real horns out of here with the strings on top
Speaker 1: of it. I'm excited, Bro, we gotta pick your brain.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's do it a couple of seconds. You
Speaker 1: know you play a lot R and B, Yes, a
Speaker 1: lot plethora. Okay, I want you to give me your
Speaker 1: top five R and B artists, My top five R
Speaker 1: and B artists that I love to play. Um Stevie
Speaker 1: Wonder Prince. I love playing Michael Jackson, I love playing
Speaker 1: um Marmon Gaye, and I love shot Com. That's a
Speaker 1: cold list. Yeah, that is a cold list. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what that's what I love playing. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: they're gonna be some Beyonce in terms of like what
Speaker 1: I love from my spirit and I play that as
Speaker 1: a DJ. Hold on, let's get into that. Let's get
Speaker 1: into that top five R and B songs or albums.
Speaker 1: You can mix it in or you can just go
Speaker 1: songs from from a DJ S perspective, song not through songs. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a Prince song that I I don't it's it's
Speaker 1: something about these core progressions that I just love. It's
Speaker 1: a song called dirty Minds. Like you probably don't know
Speaker 1: that song. Do you know that I love you dirty Minds?
Speaker 1: I love Prince. Oh yeah, dirty Minds. You know there's
Speaker 1: just something about that record that when I play that,
Speaker 1: you know, Tank gre Up in the church, so he
Speaker 1: didn't get you here. My mama's favorite artist and the
Speaker 1: only light skin man she was ever in love with.
Speaker 1: My mama, you know, she high yellow. She she only
Speaker 1: loved dark skiing man. But Prince, he was the one
Speaker 1: Light Skin so yes, I record. I grew up listening
Speaker 1: to Prince. That record moves me, Um, Alexander O'Neill, Charelle
Speaker 1: stay love that moves me like that? You know? Uh me?
Speaker 1: Think of another old Stevie Wonders. Do I do? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That that moves it? I mean, am I the only
Speaker 1: one that here? Is Ja Rue? Every time that comes
Speaker 1: on now though I don't hear Joe, Okay, I find
Speaker 1: it fine. Um that's three. That's three, um man, and
Speaker 1: there's a shocker in there. I'm just trying to decide
Speaker 1: which Shaka I know you, I live you. Do you
Speaker 1: know that song? I don't know that record. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: Shaka Khan, I know you, I live you. You play it?
Speaker 1: I know it? Yeah, I know your settlers, you play it.
Speaker 1: I know. I just can't and I can't sing because
Speaker 1: I would I would be singing right now. Sure you
Speaker 1: don't want to try. I don't want to try to
Speaker 1: just do like I did with y'r route No. No.
Speaker 1: Number five, number five, number five songs that I enjoyed
Speaker 1: playing all about the Benjamin's I can't even like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take that every time I play that every where
Speaker 1: you are. I know we said R and B, but no, no,
Speaker 1: not come on, Puff needs to be in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean, because he's not only a rap legend. You
Speaker 1: gotta really go and figure out Puff Daddy and what
Speaker 1: he's done in a shout out to love, Let's make
Speaker 1: an R and B votron. Who are you gonna take
Speaker 1: the vocals from? Who are you going to take the
Speaker 1: artistry from in terms of style and and the visual?
Speaker 1: And who are you going to take the performance from?
Speaker 1: Those three pieces? Let's start with the vocals. Who you
Speaker 1: can get the vocals from? Prince? For the vocals, Prince
Speaker 1: could do anything with vocally. He was anything you know, Um, style,
Speaker 1: do you want your artists to look like you want
Speaker 1: to put on any crack it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Lenny, Lenny,
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. I see what you're doing now with
Speaker 1: the whole Prince vocal No, no, didn't see what you
Speaker 1: ask Yeah. Performance performer, performance, Um damn, that's that's a
Speaker 1: that's a tough one for me. Michael was a dope performer,
Speaker 1: but like it wouldn't go with that style like old Michael,
Speaker 1: like young Michael when he was a kid. That Lenny
Speaker 1: Kravitz looked was his style and used to stuff like
Speaker 1: I used to like I was never really into like
Speaker 1: big stadium, Michael Jackson, young kid Mike with the hat
Speaker 1: to the side like he was, yeah and man like
Speaker 1: with a child's heart. Yes, exactly, I knew exactly what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. So like that, that style of performance,
Speaker 1: but but not with the Prince vocals. And then Lenny Look,
Speaker 1: so who would that be Jeesus transfer, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: Teddy Pendergrass when he was like when he was because
Speaker 1: he made he made women. Yeah, with the open silk shirt,
Speaker 1: with the open silk shirt, might be three po chains,
Speaker 1: might see taco me little husky voice, and it was aggressive.
Speaker 1: He was aggressive, Yo, you got you got just thing
Speaker 1: about the way he's sang turn them off the scream
Speaker 1: he's about to play that in the car headed back home.
Speaker 1: But he was a performan. I don't turn him goddamn
Speaker 1: like it was a performan like I don't even think
Speaker 1: you could do what he did back then, throwing all
Speaker 1: women concert. You can't, you can't, you can't, can't, you can't,
Speaker 1: you can't the man listen, it's it's it's coming back. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's coming back. Yeah, it's coming. It's going back. We
Speaker 1: were We've gone through it. We're gone through this stage
Speaker 1: of trying to be cool for each other instead of
Speaker 1: being cool for who we need to be cool for
Speaker 1: the woman that's who we really need to be cool
Speaker 1: for because everything revolves around man and we've been in
Speaker 1: this space. But it's it's coming back. I got put
Speaker 1: on suits in front of Instagram Live for you I hope.
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, this was one of my friends
Speaker 1: called me and she said this was probably like the
Speaker 1: first after the first weekend of like really blowing up.
Speaker 1: And she said, I'm gonna say exactly what she said,
Speaker 1: so excuse the language, ladies. She was like. She called me,
Speaker 1: she said, Yo, you're gonna have these bitches falling in
Speaker 1: love with you. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: She was like, d your whole audience nothing but women.
Speaker 1: And at that point nobody was connecting it to their TVs.
Speaker 1: You were literally holding it on your phone. And she
Speaker 1: was like, these women are just looking at you, like
Speaker 1: for hours, that's all I'm looking at this you. This
Speaker 1: is crazy, and you're playing the music that they love.
Speaker 1: They're gonna think you'll sing these songs and I was
Speaker 1: like the essence or word. They definitely did. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: women used to find where I lived and show up
Speaker 1: downstairs with the kids waiting, like what did you say
Speaker 1: with the kids? Yo? With the kids, like these are
Speaker 1: our kids now? I like how he said, but he's
Speaker 1: about to say something that you had to tell one
Speaker 1: what I had to tell one woman? Because I went downstairs,
Speaker 1: I thought, um it was I thought it was like
Speaker 1: l L was kind enough to like have a chef
Speaker 1: make food for me, you know what I mean, because
Speaker 1: at one time gift like yo. So then I ended
Speaker 1: up and don't even chef sugar for She's always on
Speaker 1: I g but like, oh yeah, she gets busy. But
Speaker 1: you know when when I was expecting this delivery from her,
Speaker 1: So when concierge's called and was like, hey, there's someone
Speaker 1: here for you, if that person was coming at the
Speaker 1: same exact time, so I was like, oh, let me
Speaker 1: go down and get food. So I was hungry, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't had a real home cooked meal like that.
Speaker 1: So and I'm looking for a woman with food and
Speaker 1: all I saw I was like this woman with like
Speaker 1: two kids. And then I went over and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you here from me. She was like, yes, it's me.
Speaker 1: Like during the pandemic, a lot of people are lonely,
Speaker 1: and dudes used to pray on women, so they would
Speaker 1: create like a fake d Nice account and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is my private this is d Nice, this is
Speaker 1: my private account. You know, I'm gonna talk to you
Speaker 1: from here. So it made them think that they were
Speaker 1: talking to me, and I was like and then she
Speaker 1: had a kids, and I was like, man, you weren't
Speaker 1: talking to me, you know, like unfortunately, you know, plus,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't bring your girls out to just meet someone
Speaker 1: like that, you know, like it doesn't really you know,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be good for them. You know, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's very dangerous out here. But it used to be
Speaker 1: a lot of things like that. You know. Like one woman, man,
Speaker 1: she moved from Chicago, she left her husband. I'm not
Speaker 1: making this up. I had never spoken to this woman ever,
Speaker 1: not wanting not one conversation, and she moved to l A.
Speaker 1: So I made the mistake. This is why I moved
Speaker 1: into my house because when I first moved to l A,
Speaker 1: I only had like a hundred and fifty thousand Instagram followers.
Speaker 1: So you know wherever I took pictures didn't matter. You know.
Speaker 1: I remember sitting on my sofa and I lived across
Speaker 1: the street from the Stable Center, and I took this
Speaker 1: lit picture. But if you had gone back through my Instagram,
Speaker 1: you knew exactly where I was there. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I wasn't expecting what happened to happen,
Speaker 1: you know, to like pandemic kids. And then millions of
Speaker 1: followers now like I would have never done that, um
Speaker 1: but this, you know, women, there were so many crazy
Speaker 1: stories man, like you know, one of my favorite ones was,
Speaker 1: you know, this woman sent me a video because I
Speaker 1: used to when I would do like my c Q
Speaker 1: after dark and I was playing tain dirty and I
Speaker 1: dimmed the lights. I'm licking my lips and ship you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. People, I hold, I'm breathing back,
Speaker 1: I'm playing with the buttons. They started calling me spirit
Speaker 1: fingers and I'm like, I'm doing this and I'm talking yo.
Speaker 1: I'm over here, like yo, I'm gonna play with it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let this breathe. I'm gonna play with it.
Speaker 1: Then I slow it down and stop the record. Boom boom.
Speaker 1: Now pressing the past boom boom boom, two fingers faby
Speaker 1: two figures like that was I was out of control,
Speaker 1: bro I was entertaining myself ro a couple of beverages.
Speaker 1: In definitely need beverages. You know. This woman sent me
Speaker 1: a video. She was naked, she had the iPad, she
Speaker 1: was holding the iPad up with her with her knees.
Speaker 1: She had her phone, and then she was masterbating with
Speaker 1: me in the background when I'm like yo, and you
Speaker 1: can hear me saying, yo, let me play with it.
Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, play with the baby, and she's
Speaker 1: like master me And I was like, Yo, this is wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is wild. I'm so excited for I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I gotta chier with this man DJ for presidents. I
Speaker 1: gotta chill every he said the R and B life
Speaker 1: is crazy, man. Thank god. I couldn't sing, and then
Speaker 1: I would probably be out of control. Listen you you
Speaker 1: you are fine the way you are. Yeah, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1: You pay to play the red car. Let's say we
Speaker 1: had another segment for you. But no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no no, yeah, he's not getting out of outright. Wait,
Speaker 1: what's the segment so we have a segment. It's called
Speaker 1: iin't saying no names because there's some names that he
Speaker 1: cannot say, yeah, but there's some stories he can tell. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the name of it, like I said, this is
Speaker 1: the segment is called I no names, and the story
Speaker 1: can either be funny or fucked up or both. The
Speaker 1: only rule you don't saying no names. I can't say
Speaker 1: no names. I ain't saying no names. Damn. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I have one of those stories. Yes you do, Yes,
Speaker 1: you do. I ain't saying no stories. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I have Damn. No. I really don't even have
Speaker 1: to be from you don't gotta be from Club Quarantine. No, no,
Speaker 1: because you know what I mean, You've lived five different lives,
Speaker 1: my brother a lot of lives. Yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: retain the information though. That's the problem. Though I'm being serious, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't keep it. It's like, I mean, there's somebody
Speaker 1: who I'm still trying to figure out if I slept
Speaker 1: with her back of the day because I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: did I I don't know because the way she showed
Speaker 1: me so much love and like sometimes you just gotta ask,
Speaker 1: just gotta ask him, Like I sometimes you just gotta
Speaker 1: just left it alone. I was like, I'm gonna assume
Speaker 1: that we did. But you know, I want to know
Speaker 1: what I'm like, you know, yeah, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't know, man, I don't
Speaker 1: know if my stories. You know, I've always been in relationships,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? No, but no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no. The other thing, it's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be those type of stories. They can literally
Speaker 1: it could be a business story. It could be you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like even telling them earlier. Obviously
Speaker 1: it was earlier things and we'll we'll cut this part out.
Speaker 1: But like even like when you talked about records you
Speaker 1: produced or what those situations might have actually like the
Speaker 1: full stories in a sense of how those situations might
Speaker 1: have went down with somebody stealing, you're publishing somebody, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, I really don't have any
Speaker 1: those stories, bro, Are you serious? I'm dead as serious.
Speaker 1: I would tell you if I had one, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I have one that that happened recently, but I can't
Speaker 1: say that because it's too recent, Like and there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of issue with that one. But other than
Speaker 1: you can't be the only person to come on here
Speaker 1: and not tell us a story, though you know you
Speaker 1: would be the only person who ever come on here
Speaker 1: and didn't say I ain't saying no names. I'm the
Speaker 1: only one that you know. I don't start the ship,
Speaker 1: which I wish I could, like, I mean, honestly can't
Speaker 1: even think I'm like having like a fucking brain for it.
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, like I don't know a story
Speaker 1: like you know, publishing wise, I only worked with cares,
Speaker 1: So I'm just using that as a but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: um man, you know I really don't have one, bro,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, I've had a good life though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking you in your eyes and I'm trying. Really,
Speaker 1: I really don't have one. I don't have anything that's
Speaker 1: like I think that's why people rock with me. Man
Speaker 1: dead as serious. So yeah, there's no no creeping stories.
Speaker 1: No I got over in some on, no business deals,
Speaker 1: none of that ship man, So I can't say any names.
Speaker 1: And d Nice is just our first ale Nice and
Speaker 1: throw some tomatoes at n He gave all the good stories.
Speaker 1: He was another one where he just did see no
Speaker 1: man you know what. Listen, I know it's somebody crazy,
Speaker 1: that's Lily your DM. Man. You don't want to say that.
Speaker 1: It's fine, it's us, you know, give us no no information.
Speaker 1: We'll walk away on top. It's fine. Uh. You know, listen,
Speaker 1: flowers to you, my brother, nothing but flowers, nothing but
Speaker 1: admiration man, and in salutes. And you know I I personally, um,
Speaker 1: thank you. You know you played my wedding and you
Speaker 1: know the circumstance going into that. You were actually a
Speaker 1: savior in that space for me. So um from me
Speaker 1: and my wife like like thank you, Like that was
Speaker 1: I never expected you to do that. I never expected
Speaker 1: to say I'll do it what I'll do it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when he told me. I was like wait, wait,
Speaker 1: he said he's gonna do if you renewed your vials,
Speaker 1: do it then too. The nicest gonna be my DJ. BRO,
Speaker 1: I said, I don't. I didn't even know what to say.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know how to thank you. I know
Speaker 1: how to pay I didn't know what to do. But
Speaker 1: you know just know that, um that that meant. That
Speaker 1: meant everything to me, Bro and everything. So I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that and continue man, continue to keep um,
Speaker 1: continue to keep love first, because um, you're in a
Speaker 1: you're in a very awesome space to where you're able
Speaker 1: to spread that all over the world. And if if
Speaker 1: anything is going to change the world or the dynamic,
Speaker 1: the negative dynamic that seems to be plaguing everything social
Speaker 1: and everything of all things, it's gonna be love to change.
Speaker 1: And it's more it's more likely going to be a
Speaker 1: song and you're probably gonna play I like that And
Speaker 1: before before we say goodbye, UM, I do have a
Speaker 1: story that I'll tell because this is actually an important story.
Speaker 1: So and I and I won't say any names. When
Speaker 1: I when I was on the scene, like really just
Speaker 1: starting to bubble hard in New York, a person that
Speaker 1: I know was playing like a huge, huge event for
Speaker 1: the Oscars, like huge and you know, and uh, and
Speaker 1: he was extremely arrogant, but we were cool. But when
Speaker 1: he got that gig, he was like, I was like, man,
Speaker 1: you're gonna play that? And I say, yo, one day,
Speaker 1: I want to play that. And he said You'll never
Speaker 1: laid hmm, like literally said that. And then you fast
Speaker 1: forward and I'm not gonna tell you which Oscar party,
Speaker 1: but it was one of the I played four of them.
Speaker 1: This last oscars, I played the Oscars. I played the
Speaker 1: Governor's Paul, and played Vanity Fair and I played the
Speaker 1: guy Siri Madonna party. And that guy was my opening
Speaker 1: act at the very party. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like people, Yeah, you gotta be nice to people. You
Speaker 1: gotta be nice to people, you know, like and I
Speaker 1: did get a kick out of that, like of now,
Speaker 1: you guys have to honor my ride of request, even
Speaker 1: though I could have, you know, removed a couple of things.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, no, no, no, because I
Speaker 1: remember that conversation like a decade ago and then here
Speaker 1: we are and I was like, oh, I made it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I won't say any names. So that's my story.
Speaker 1: So you didn't take the l you didn't take the
Speaker 1: Eloh folk pockets full and that's what a little baby,
Speaker 1: because that's what all of the pockets, yeah, is full,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. Um man I the brother man just
Speaker 1: just an amazing brother, beautiful brother man um brother we've
Speaker 1: all been rooting for and you're getting who all deserved. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get I am taking. I'm Jay Valentine and this
Speaker 1: is Mr Mr d nice and this has been the
Speaker 1: Army Money pockets. Y R Money, R and B Money
Speaker 1: is a production of the Black Effect podcast Network. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the ir Heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show, and
Speaker 1: you can connect with us on social media via at
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Speaker 1: j Valentine