Speaker 1: He is Drink Chants Mother Bucky Podcast Make He's a
Speaker 1: legends Eary Queen's rapper. He's agreed that your boy in
Speaker 1: O R E.
Speaker 2: He's a Miami hip hop Lionere put up his DJ
Speaker 2: E f N.
Speaker 1: Together they drink it up with some.
Speaker 3: Of the biggest players, you know what I mean. And
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Speaker 1: Drink chans mother das do ye see that's it's time.
Speaker 3: For drink Champions.
Speaker 1: Drink up mother, Mother? Would it gonna be hoping? It
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Speaker 1: What up his DJ E f N?
Speaker 4: And this is drink Champs japri All make Toys guest
Speaker 4: Today's Guests. I literally think it's the smartest person probably.
Speaker 1: Ever had on drink chest. The fact that I've heard it.
Speaker 4: He went to Harvard at fifteen years old, graduated at nineteen,
Speaker 4: had his own has his own platform. I thought I
Speaker 4: thought the record label was just going to try to
Speaker 4: kill him. At one point he was the director to consumer. First,
Speaker 4: he was giving out his phone number. He's doing concert,
Speaker 4: He's selling the tickets. It's this man is a mogul.
Speaker 4: This man is a legend, writer, producer, everything. I've been
Speaker 4: trying to give this man his flowers, and today we're
Speaker 4: gonna give him his flowers. In case you don't know
Speaker 4: who the fuck we talking about, We're talking about.
Speaker 1: The one only impeccable. Now. Now, I thrive in dumb rooms.
Speaker 1: I played that. I played that role.
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 1: That role?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 4: Are you uncomfortable around other scholars or other like you know,
Speaker 4: what is that Ivy League school?
Speaker 1: Or who do you? What do you IQs?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 3: I feel like I can. I can move in really
Speaker 3: any type of room. Yeah, And to be honest, like
Speaker 3: when I first got on Harvard's campus, it was a
Speaker 3: little you know, it took some getting used to just
Speaker 3: a being of color and you don't row no. And
Speaker 3: then also being as young as I was, you.
Speaker 1: Know, fifteen for real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you learned very early on to just sort
Speaker 3: of move in any type of room. But I really
Speaker 3: got to give it to my father man, when I
Speaker 3: was coming up. You know, my my parents are from
Speaker 3: the Caribbean Islands, and they worked their whole lives in
Speaker 3: the Salvation Army, and so they knew that they weren't
Speaker 3: going to have really you know, all kinds of wealth
Speaker 3: stacked up because they sacrifice wealth in the service of others.
Speaker 3: I mean still to this day, my mother's you know,
Speaker 3: going to build hospitals in India, try to retire her
Speaker 3: and that's what she wants to do. So my father
Speaker 3: very early on decided, hey, we immigrated to the United States,
Speaker 3: I want my kids to be set up, and I
Speaker 3: know the way to get there are the only way
Speaker 3: he never was yeah, yeah, and the only way to
Speaker 3: really get there, in his opinion, was through education. So
Speaker 3: he didn't want me going to just any old schools.
Speaker 3: Anytime we got to a new city, he said, look,
Speaker 3: let's go find the top tier private school. And then
Speaker 3: he would go in and he would advocate, hey, I'm
Speaker 3: a servant of the community. Can you take care of
Speaker 3: my and my kids in yeah, doing We're not doing
Speaker 3: the tuition, but we do service in the community. Can y'all,
Speaker 3: you know, make an accommodation for our kids. But he
Speaker 3: also said, look, we ain't just doing the private school
Speaker 3: because he was still running the boys and girls club
Speaker 3: as well, So I had to move in both circles.
Speaker 3: Would we would go to private school and then go
Speaker 3: get my tail beat on the basketball court at the
Speaker 3: Boys and Girls Club in Richmond, Virginia, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So I think I think the other piece
Speaker 3: of it though, as well, is in terms of service
Speaker 3: to others. You never realize the stories and the backstories
Speaker 3: of folks who are in those homeless shelters, who are
Speaker 3: in those places, they didn't just you know, they weren't
Speaker 3: homeless their whole lives. So they have backstories as well,
Speaker 3: and you have you have to sort of learn how
Speaker 3: to be empathetic in any room. And it really doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Like I just I think on a human level, everyone
Speaker 3: is going through something, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 3: if you could connect on a human level, whether you're
Speaker 3: with venture capitalists in Silicon Valley or artists, you know,
Speaker 3: you talk about a heartbreak and they you know, they
Speaker 3: going automatically tell you know what I'm saying, somebody that
Speaker 3: did them wrong across them, et cetera. And there's there's always,
Speaker 3: I think there's always a line of communication that you
Speaker 3: can that you can connect with somebody on on a
Speaker 3: human level.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a bad day? Have I had
Speaker 1: a bad day? See your music, I'll just be happy,
Speaker 1: Like you get up out of the bed with silk
Speaker 1: robe on. That's just man.
Speaker 4: You really do put in a happy movie. Give your
Speaker 4: sad songs are happy. Like you ever like had a
Speaker 4: bad day, of course you did.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I think we all do. I
Speaker 3: think it's all I think. You know, when you talk
Speaker 3: about those rooms though, if you're ever in a room
Speaker 3: with somebody, that's that's worth let's say three hundred five
Speaker 3: hundred MS or a billion dollars. Wow, whatever your bad
Speaker 3: day is, Yeah, it turns good. They really You say, oh,
Speaker 3: I have a fifty thousand dollars problem or eighty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars problem or one hundred thousand dollars medical issue, and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, that's that's small. So it puts things
Speaker 3: in perspective. And I'll say this, Actually, when I first
Speaker 3: got to New York City and was just producing, I
Speaker 3: was running around, you know, just running around producing, doing clubs, dating,
Speaker 3: and I did I think at one point there was
Speaker 3: like a record that I was waiting to come out,
Speaker 3: and I was, you know, I think we was on
Speaker 3: a chopper doing a photo shoot or something, and I
Speaker 3: told my girl, I said, hey, you know, I'm not
Speaker 3: I'm not. I feel like i'm not having a good day,
Speaker 3: and she said, is your family all right? I say, yeah,
Speaker 3: they're fine. Are you healthy? Yeah, I'm fine. She says,
Speaker 3: so what's a bad day are you talking about? And actually,
Speaker 3: you know, it brings me to that quote. Somebody with
Speaker 3: zero dollars, right, and they feel like they have a
Speaker 3: million problems. But someone with all the money in the
Speaker 3: world and they don't have their health, they only got
Speaker 3: one problem. Right. So for me, I'm healthy, I'm still
Speaker 3: of you know, in great health and strength. I still
Speaker 3: have you know, great relationships, and so there's not really
Speaker 3: any reason to ever have a complaint.
Speaker 1: You have a very interesting story.
Speaker 4: First off, you, like you said, we went to Harvard,
Speaker 4: and most people go to Harvard and they get away
Speaker 4: from the music industry. You went to Harvard and you
Speaker 4: went towards the movie it was the industry.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you was moving backwards at one point?
Speaker 3: I mean everyone that I initially told my plan to
Speaker 3: thought I was moving backwards. They said, well what are
Speaker 3: you doing here? And I think maybe the biggest, the
Speaker 3: biggest challenge to overcome initially was my own family, right,
Speaker 3: because when I was on the road to Harvard, as
Speaker 3: you said, parents were like, okay, how are we going
Speaker 3: to afford this?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: So my dad said, hey, look, you know I'm in
Speaker 3: the Rotary Club. They have these speech competitions, So you're
Speaker 3: going to write a great speech and you'll go and
Speaker 3: speak to all the Rotary Club members and they'll put
Speaker 3: up a couple of dollars to put in the kids,
Speaker 3: so you can, you know, have some money to move around.
Speaker 3: And so I wrote a speech about how I wanted
Speaker 3: to be a neurosurgeon. So that very was very inspirational.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad was so proud of it. I
Speaker 3: was pre med my first year at Harvard, and I realized,
Speaker 3: you know, the kids that were in my chemistry class,
Speaker 3: bi biology class, et cetera, they had a passion for science,
Speaker 3: a passion for medicine, a passion for what they were studying,
Speaker 3: the problem sets. And I found that my passion was
Speaker 3: just music. And I said, look, you know, if if
Speaker 3: this is what's keeping them up at night, I need
Speaker 3: to do what keeps me up at night. And I
Speaker 3: went maxed off my credit card. I didn't even I
Speaker 3: had I think everybody does that when they go to college.
Speaker 3: You get a credit card. And I went straight.
Speaker 1: I was in jail, so maybe noted out to you.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: So you know, when you get on when you get
Speaker 3: on campus, every bank got the table out go sign
Speaker 3: up like a credit.
Speaker 1: Card lending board, of course. And so that's exactly what
Speaker 1: I wanted.
Speaker 3: So I was cutting hair on campus, and I wanted
Speaker 3: my little dorm room to feel like the barbershop. So
Speaker 3: I had to have you know, five this CD changer
Speaker 3: and you know, the receiver and everything, and made everybody
Speaker 3: listen to my records because you know, we had there
Speaker 3: wasn't many. There wasn't really a black barber on Harvor's campus.
Speaker 3: You had to go to you know, you had to
Speaker 3: go to Central Square or whatever if you wanted to
Speaker 3: get your haircut. So I said, hey, I'm open for business,
Speaker 3: and anybody that came into and we called the barbershop
Speaker 3: Shady A's because shady because you can't. You're not supposed
Speaker 3: to run a business at Harvard, right, which is why
Speaker 3: like Zuck and Bill Gates, they just dropped out. They
Speaker 3: were running their businesses so shady and then eights because
Speaker 3: we charged eight dollars of haircuts, so Shady A's barbershop.
Speaker 3: And then I used to have a line of folks.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's like when I came in today,
Speaker 3: if you got a barber, they're about their craft.
Speaker 2: You got to sit there and wait, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. So I would have my missed have found
Speaker 2: out you got a line on side.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We had everybody just sitting on the couch or whatever,
Speaker 3: and you know, we cut everybody's hair, but we actually
Speaker 3: for me, I would have my records and people would
Speaker 3: have to listen, you know, while they were waiting. And
Speaker 3: that's how that was my initial sort of focus group.
Speaker 1: And folks.
Speaker 3: Folks were saying, yo, you nice. So I said, hey,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna go for it.
Speaker 1: You was like the uber driver, you see the Uber drivers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everybody is going on. So you're still paying off people
Speaker 1: student loans. Howard you pay it off a couple of
Speaker 1: student loans.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean I think really right now sort
Speaker 3: of what's been super important for me. I think everybody
Speaker 3: has if they're extremely fortunate, that they have a number
Speaker 3: of acts in their lives.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So maybe my first act was a starving artist. Then
Speaker 3: I became a producer, then I was able to be
Speaker 3: an artist. Then I've build a technology company, and now
Speaker 3: I'm really at a place where you know, once you
Speaker 3: reach a certain level, it's about how many how many
Speaker 3: people can you send the elevator down for to bring
Speaker 3: them up? And so, you know, I started to realize that,
Speaker 3: especially in the United States in music, there is so
Speaker 3: much talk about money, cars, jewelry, the lifestyle, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And it's very aspirational. Get the hosts right right right,
Speaker 3: show right for show, it's very aspirational. But as I
Speaker 3: started to kind of, you know, have that one on
Speaker 3: one direct relationship with the people who are supporting me,
Speaker 3: you realize that America and actually many countries around the
Speaker 3: world is actually engineered for folks that only make forty
Speaker 3: fifty sixty thousand dollars a year, right, And so to
Speaker 3: be able to educate folks, you know, sometimes you could
Speaker 3: you give them a check. Well, give them a check.
Speaker 3: It's totally different than teaching them how to fish, how
Speaker 3: to navigate finances, how to navigate the financial markets. How
Speaker 3: somebody who's a postal worker can retire a multimillionaire if
Speaker 3: they know how to put their money, you know, and
Speaker 3: put it to work the right way. So I would
Speaker 3: say that's the act that I'm in now is you know,
Speaker 3: when you start thinking about legacy, it's about how many families,
Speaker 3: how many people can you touch. And what happened is,
Speaker 3: as I was because you're right, I gave my phone
Speaker 3: number out to everybody, and as I was talking to folks,
Speaker 3: folks were saying, Yo, Ray, you know, we love the music.
Speaker 3: We love what you're talking about, whether it's you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, happy song, sad songs, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: you got a couple of records where you're talking that
Speaker 3: talk money wise, and is there something that you can
Speaker 3: share with us, because we'd be willing to, you know,
Speaker 3: support you even more if you can show us the way.
Speaker 3: And so we built the club and you know, we've
Speaker 3: we've basically been mint minting every day millionaires through the
Speaker 3: Wealth Planning Club. And then also what I realize is
Speaker 3: that a lot of artists they don't actually have a
Speaker 3: backup plan or and they don't actually have what they
Speaker 3: consider or what they what they you know, what could
Speaker 3: be their plan B or play see or their second
Speaker 3: act or third act. Not everybody's going to be able
Speaker 3: to just do a podcast. Not everybody's going to be
Speaker 3: able to do a fashion right.
Speaker 2: If you do, they don't have retirement plans or anything.
Speaker 2: Oh man, they'll spend it all when they get it
Speaker 2: and not think of what comes after me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I always say that.
Speaker 4: I always say the music industry and boxing is the
Speaker 4: only place that don't have.
Speaker 1: Like a what is it a union union? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like yeah, and then look up the music industry show you.
Speaker 3: And so I think, now, what's what's been awesome is
Speaker 3: to be able to say, hey, look everybody, if you've
Speaker 3: ever seen my Twitter, Instagram, et cetera, you can reach
Speaker 3: me directly. And if you're looking for that type of guidance,
Speaker 3: if you're looking for an infrastructure, I got a hold team,
Speaker 3: I got a whole staff, and we provide that kind
Speaker 3: of like business infrastructure. So give you a case in point.
Speaker 3: Somebody came to me and had just gotten in advance.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was a seventy somewhere between seventy to one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars use music advance, right, And
Speaker 3: basically the first thing, especially young artists want to do
Speaker 3: is when they get that money, they say, hey, I
Speaker 3: want to put my mom on payroll, right, And that's great,
Speaker 3: you should, you know what I'm saying. But you don't
Speaker 3: have to actually pay that money. You can actually put
Speaker 3: that money in a vehicle. So the money pays your
Speaker 3: mom a salary the interest of that money. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So let's just say, for example, right, you get a
Speaker 3: Let's just say, for example, you get one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: dollars advance.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Currently, there are vehicles, and we help artists structure those
Speaker 3: vehicles where you can earn four percent per month. It's
Speaker 3: not a crazy amount. But if you were going to
Speaker 3: put your mom on payroll at four thousand dollars a month, yo, Mom,
Speaker 3: here's a debit car, here's a credit car. You got
Speaker 3: a four thousand dollars bounds every single month, that one
Speaker 3: hundred earning four percent per month is going to pay
Speaker 3: her for the rest of her life. And that one
Speaker 3: hundred never walks down, right, So the one hundred never
Speaker 3: walks down. The hundred is just sitting there. It is
Speaker 3: throwing off the forest, throwing off the forest, throwing off
Speaker 3: the four Mom is set for the rest of her life.
Speaker 3: And you actually did something smart with your money, as
Speaker 3: opposed to saying, hey, I'm going to put my mom
Speaker 3: on payroll and pay the four because if you pay
Speaker 3: the four in twelve months now you only got fifty
Speaker 3: thousand left. Then you pay the four again in two
Speaker 3: years now you got zero. Where if you put it
Speaker 3: in the right type of instrument, then the instrument will
Speaker 3: pay her. And then what's dope about it is once
Speaker 3: we start unlocking that for artists, right, they have an
Speaker 3: incentive because now they understand where the money. When the
Speaker 3: money comes in, they want to put it in these
Speaker 3: kinds of vehicles, right, what's the vehicle like that for example.
Speaker 1: Like high yielding?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm not financially if I'm
Speaker 3: not going to call out stuff cause because people have
Speaker 3: to really do their own. But there are there are vehicles,
Speaker 3: and that's what we work on now, you know, because
Speaker 3: like I said, I could you know, I always think
Speaker 3: of my life in terms of how can I be
Speaker 3: most of service. So when I first came in the game,
Speaker 3: you know, somebody had to sit me down because when
Speaker 3: I first came in the game, obviously at twenty when
Speaker 3: I first moved in New York twenty two, twenty three,
Speaker 3: I want to be the star. I want to be dance.
Speaker 3: I'm in the offices, dancing around. We were actually shopping
Speaker 3: an artist, but I'm the one, you know, dancing around
Speaker 3: in the office and everything, and somebody had to really
Speaker 3: pull me to the side and say, yo, right, listen,
Speaker 3: if you really want to be of service and you
Speaker 3: want to be valuable, yeah, of course you need to
Speaker 3: put the creativity and energy that you have in these offices,
Speaker 3: but put them put that energy towards the projects that
Speaker 3: folks already have invested money in. So the first one
Speaker 3: of the first records that I actually placed was New
Speaker 3: Edition hot Tonight. So there's a record called hot Tonight
Speaker 3: on New Edition, and so that was a record that
Speaker 3: I had actually written. I say, yo, this is going
Speaker 3: to be my songs, will be my single. But when
Speaker 3: I came to New York and played it, New Edition
Speaker 3: had just gotten signed and they say, yo, this is
Speaker 3: going to be the first single for New Edition. So
Speaker 3: it's about being of service. So making that sacrifice sometimes
Speaker 3: will open the window, open the door to relationships, to opportunities,
Speaker 3: because people know, hey, look, this is somebody I can
Speaker 3: go to who's a if we need that single, we
Speaker 3: can go get it, get one, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And then what happened? Is that open the door? Then
Speaker 3: fab need a single yo, you'd be killing them, Red
Speaker 3: Cafe need a single fly together, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And then basically now I realized, Okay, now there's plenty
Speaker 3: of other producers, right. And I also feel like if
Speaker 3: you go on YouTube now, every producer that is look
Speaker 3: looking to illustrate their skills, they followed the blueprint that
Speaker 3: was originated when I was trying to show my skills, right,
Speaker 3: so I would just be on YouTube, have a camera, Yo,
Speaker 3: is how I make it be et cetera. If not
Speaker 3: the first early early on YouTube, early on MySpace. Right,
Speaker 3: So I realized, once you pass the baton and the
Speaker 3: mantle and the gauntlets passed to the next generation, where
Speaker 3: is the way that I can be of service? And
Speaker 3: then I start realizing when I'm having conversations, even just
Speaker 3: in this conversation, hold on, there's a financial instrument that
Speaker 3: does that, right. And it's not that we're we haven't
Speaker 3: been around money. And for me, I didn't learn this
Speaker 3: in college, but I did have a mentor that actually say, yo, right, listen,
Speaker 3: when you get your check in the music industry, make
Speaker 3: sure you put a little bit aside, here, here, here,
Speaker 3: and here, and then give me a shout three years,
Speaker 3: five years, eight years, twelve years later and tell me
Speaker 3: how much it double triple, quadruple, and man, I still
Speaker 3: have those conversations, and so I realize now there's a
Speaker 3: responsibility that I have if somebody is an artist, if
Speaker 3: somebody is a manager, because you know, COVID hit people
Speaker 3: super hard, right, especially managers. Right, managers were making money
Speaker 3: based on their artists being able to tour. Once the
Speaker 3: artists can't tour anymore, where's there, where's there? Where's their
Speaker 3: income coming from? Right? But if they had a little
Speaker 3: bit saved, they called Ryan Yo, right, listen, you know
Speaker 3: we locked in, we shut out, We can't tour right now.
Speaker 3: I got a little bit of bread. It need to
Speaker 3: last me the whole year, or you know, until we
Speaker 3: get to the other side. And there's also no guarantee
Speaker 3: that on the other side of whatever the season is,
Speaker 3: that your artist is going to be hot again. Right,
Speaker 3: And so that's why initially it was it was about
Speaker 3: and actually I'm headed. I'm headed tomorrow. Shout out to
Speaker 3: Jazzy Jeff. He runs a playlist retreat and he asked
Speaker 3: me to come speak at the Playlist Retreat because I
Speaker 3: think what was interesting or has been interesting about my
Speaker 3: story is I didn't need a million fans to be engaged.
Speaker 3: I only needed ten or fifteen thousand fans. And if
Speaker 3: you really think about that, that's you know, old the
Speaker 3: money's going to you, it's all coming to me. And
Speaker 3: back then when I was doing in twenty thirteen, you know,
Speaker 3: and we'll probably talk about this, my laptop had gotten stolen.
Speaker 3: Everybody laptop got stolen, and so at that time, you know,
Speaker 3: when the laptop actually got stolen, I lost the judgment
Speaker 3: right because I was running around, say, you know, I
Speaker 3: got a million.
Speaker 1: Dollars, I had to actually go to court. I thought,
Speaker 1: I thought you said because second right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like some of your publishing or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just just for a short amount of time until
Speaker 3: it was taken care of. But the blow that was
Speaker 3: dealt is and that story is crazy because it was right.
Speaker 3: It was literally right in federal court down down in
Speaker 3: New York City. So you know, I'm living down Wall
Speaker 3: Street area. I like to be around findings. Living down
Speaker 3: Wall Street, there's a bodega. They still had a bodega.
Speaker 3: Somewhere at Wall Street, right. So I went to the bodega.
Speaker 3: I've been going to this modega, you know, getting my breakfast.
Speaker 3: But this day I walked in and the guy behind
Speaker 3: the counters like, yo, can I take a picture with you?
Speaker 3: I said, Yo, I've been coming here. Why today is
Speaker 3: the day for the picture? He said, well, you want
Speaker 3: to cover in the New York Post today, So I'm
Speaker 3: looking to cover the New York Posts and it has
Speaker 3: a headline, you know, rap weasel, you know, must pay
Speaker 3: for whatever laptop or because that was the day that
Speaker 3: the judgment came back. But the crazy part about that
Speaker 3: story is not just that he wanted to take the picture,
Speaker 3: but it was actually because when I went to actually
Speaker 3: pay for my breakfast, it was declined, and I was like, yo,
Speaker 3: how's this possible? And what I realized is that when
Speaker 3: you actually have a judgment, that the federal or state
Speaker 3: government can come in and seize your bank account.
Speaker 1: So literally I going to you know, I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I went to sleep and woke up the next morning
Speaker 3: there was a two million dollar hole froze frozen, so
Speaker 3: I couldn't even get literally a breakfast sandwich. And he
Speaker 3: was like, yo, if you take a picture with me,
Speaker 3: we all good, I said, you know, but that was
Speaker 3: right around like twenty thirteen whatever, And so I wanted
Speaker 3: to make sure that, you know, in a centralized banking system,
Speaker 3: that's what's possible. The government can come in and just
Speaker 3: seize your assets. So it wasn't necessarily because a lot
Speaker 3: of folks say, well, Ryan, you were early on bitcoin
Speaker 3: and you were early on crypto. Necessity is the mother
Speaker 3: of innovation. So in order for me to feel like
Speaker 3: I could actually still have control of my finances, I
Speaker 3: moved everything to decentralize. So all of my tour advances,
Speaker 3: all of my merch all of my digital sales. I
Speaker 3: had taken it off of Spotify, but you got to
Speaker 3: pay me in bitcoin. So twenty thirteen we got earth
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of payments and transactions and bitcoin at
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty five dollars a coin. Last time
Speaker 3: you check, where's a bitcoin at. Now. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: this for any other reason, because it wasn't that. It
Speaker 3: was just a genius move. It's almost like you and
Speaker 3: I think, if you put good energy out in the world,
Speaker 3: even if you get a curveball, and even if something
Speaker 3: happens where someone else will be like, man, I just
Speaker 3: got hit for a million dollar lawsuit, but they charged
Speaker 3: an interest in my accounts of frozen for two million.
Speaker 3: If you sit down and you have gratefulness for just
Speaker 3: your ability to still have curiosity and ingenuity, then you're
Speaker 3: going to have these ideas and opportunities and as long
Speaker 3: as your lines of communication are open as well. That's
Speaker 3: one thing I've always wanted to make sure is, Look,
Speaker 3: anybody wants to reach me, text Ryan dot com. You
Speaker 3: can go leave your number in that website and I
Speaker 3: will text you back. Now, I got one hundred thousand
Speaker 3: plus people in my phone, but that's why I had
Speaker 3: to build a software so that I could manage all
Speaker 3: of it. But in those times, yeah, superphone, But in
Speaker 3: those times where people actually, you know, they they feel
Speaker 3: like they want to be of service or of help,
Speaker 3: you're not unreachable, you know. And I find a lot
Speaker 3: of times when people going through something that's that's that's tough,
Speaker 3: they want to sort of retract from their their friends
Speaker 3: or fan base, et cetera, not realizing that that. I
Speaker 3: think the the default human impulse is to be helpful.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, the default human impulse is
Speaker 3: to be helpful. So when I actually, you know, was
Speaker 3: going through that, somebody was like, yo, man, you know,
Speaker 3: why don't you look at this bitcoin thing? You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, And that way made a serious way,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And so I think that's
Speaker 3: really what my real crusade and purpose is now. And
Speaker 3: I'm setting up different infrastructures so that I can actually
Speaker 3: handle all the inbound because I think, you know, we're
Speaker 3: in Miami, but I think, you know, Miami money is
Speaker 3: a major issue. So anyone that's interested, you know, and
Speaker 3: I know for sure I can actually understand from the
Speaker 3: concept of that feast or famine season that happens in music,
Speaker 3: right There's gonna be times where you're super hot, everybody
Speaker 3: wants you for a club appearance, everybody wants to book
Speaker 3: you for tour. Then you're in between albums and you're like, mm,
Speaker 3: where you know what we got going on? You know, saying,
Speaker 3: So the ability to actually set up a financial infrastructure
Speaker 3: so it's smoothed out. And if you have a couple,
Speaker 3: you know, you have a couple of dollars put away,
Speaker 3: they're gonna work for you and they're gonna work for
Speaker 3: you in a really powerful way. So that's that's really,
Speaker 3: you know, that's really what I've been working on now.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you, right, Because when Twitter first
Speaker 4: came out, I'm the boso. I thought that this was
Speaker 4: just between me and the fans. I had no idea
Speaker 4: that other people could see the same conversation.
Speaker 1: Public I knew it was. I thought if you, I
Speaker 1: didn't know, if you wasn't following me, you can.
Speaker 4: Still see my messages, like you can go on my thing.
Speaker 4: I thought this was just for my fans, and I
Speaker 4: had to learn the hard way the buckers just being nosy.
Speaker 4: Most of these motherfuckers wasn't fans, they were just being nosy.
Speaker 4: How did you make your super phone?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Did you know that through Twitter and my Space? Did
Speaker 1: you learn that? Yes, I got caught.
Speaker 4: I was giving out my phone number and I didn't
Speaker 4: want to, like you know what I'm saying. It was
Speaker 4: like it was bad, but it was bad for me.
Speaker 3: But I think I think where that really was born
Speaker 3: from is you know when we first and I say weird,
Speaker 3: was really just me and one of my brothers, Rashid Richmond.
Speaker 1: Started the company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and basically, you know, he was actually and he's
Speaker 3: always been super early. So he he had actually built
Speaker 3: a social network and was exchanging emails with Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3: Like that's how early he was on building social networks, right,
Speaker 3: and he's still you know, send me the screenshots, et cetera.
Speaker 3: So he basically was like, look, right, if you if
Speaker 3: you check out the the MySpace music charts, I want
Speaker 3: you to check out who's number one today, and then tomorrow,
Speaker 3: I want you to call me and check out who's
Speaker 3: number one tomorrow. And he had a way that he
Speaker 3: could actually manipulate, yes, early, and he could make anybody
Speaker 3: number one on MySpace music. Now this wasn't a Billboard
Speaker 3: music chart, but he was that early in the game
Speaker 3: to understand that.
Speaker 1: Social financial repe I don't remember what, I don't ever
Speaker 1: making money up for my space no.
Speaker 3: Deals, Yes, yes, Zach right, And that's exactly how it
Speaker 3: worked for me. So I already was doing records inside
Speaker 3: of you know, the record label ecosystem. But one of
Speaker 3: my biggest challenges or gripes was that I would do
Speaker 3: records and then I have to wait. I gotta wait
Speaker 3: until the album's done. I gotta wait until this time
Speaker 3: for you know, such and such to be mixed. I
Speaker 3: gotta wait until you know whatever release states, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Sometimes my records wouldn't even come out. You know, you
Speaker 3: feel like you have some great on an album and
Speaker 3: then all they've decided to move a whole different way,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying creatively, So I decided that
Speaker 3: I wanted to actually sign an artists do the whole album,
Speaker 3: top to bottom. I didn't have the whole thing, the
Speaker 3: whole yeah, well produced the whole thing, right, the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I didn't have no big studio, you know. I was
Speaker 3: in a one bedroom apartment in Harlem. But we made
Speaker 3: that whole Cassie album. And I called my boy Rashid.
Speaker 3: I said, yo, listen, I don't know what these MySpace
Speaker 3: music charts really mean, but can you get my project now?
Speaker 1: This thing that?
Speaker 3: Can you get my project that I'm working on number
Speaker 3: one on the chart? He said, yeah, what do it
Speaker 3: looked like? I said, okay, let's just send you a
Speaker 3: pa oh. He said, yo, this is out of here, right,
Speaker 3: so just a picture and then we had me and
Speaker 3: you the record. That thing went crazy on MySpace. It's
Speaker 3: still actually kind of going crazy now. I mean that
Speaker 3: record still that we're talking about, you know, almost twenty
Speaker 3: years later, it still has a life of its own.
Speaker 3: But that's really how it all started. And so we
Speaker 3: had built for Cassie like a quarter million an audience
Speaker 3: on MySpace in terms of friends, right, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden it became a graveyard. Everyone moved to
Speaker 3: Twitter or they moved to something else. And I say, yo,
Speaker 3: all those people, we don't have access to all those
Speaker 3: people no more. And I said, look, that's a I
Speaker 3: feel like I'm I was just renting the audience from
Speaker 3: that platform. I should own the relationship. I felt like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, what is what really is our oldest social handle.
Speaker 3: I feel like Instagram has done a great job now
Speaker 3: dms you actually, you know, you can kind of get
Speaker 3: a sense of you know, messaging you, and you know,
Speaker 3: when they send you a message, you get a chance
Speaker 3: to kind of see what they've been up to you Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just saw you. But even before that, I feel
Speaker 3: like the cell phone number is the oldest social handle
Speaker 3: because it allows you to actually, you know, have a
Speaker 3: personal line of communication, which is like you said, is
Speaker 3: private right. And so basically I said, look if I
Speaker 3: really want to have a real relationship with someone. And actually,
Speaker 3: I'll still challenge anybody today if we went across this
Speaker 3: room and say, yo, go in your phone, scroll all
Speaker 3: the way down. How many contexts do you have in
Speaker 3: your phone? Over the course of your life, You've collected
Speaker 3: thousands of contexts. The reality is you're probably only in
Speaker 3: touch with three percent maximum. Sure, so if you got
Speaker 3: a thousand people in your phone, maybe it's thirty that
Speaker 3: you maybe if that that you're talking to all the time,
Speaker 3: right unless you unless you's your job, you're a salesman
Speaker 3: or a manager or something like that. So my concept
Speaker 3: was I would prefer to actually have a direct cell
Speaker 3: phone on everyone because if people feel as though I'm
Speaker 3: someone of influence in their life because of the music,
Speaker 3: then I'm gonna have a high rank if they feel like, Yo,
Speaker 3: I got Ryan Leslie's cell phone, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I got Ryan's number and more personal and it changed.
Speaker 1: But it got to be a headache too. You know,
Speaker 1: you got to have that one fan that hits you all.
Speaker 4: The time for sure, because he's ten dollars one time
Speaker 4: you think you just want to be there, I gotta
Speaker 4: be annoying people's annoying story.
Speaker 3: No, actually, I think you'd be surprised. Man, I think
Speaker 3: I think, And let's be real, let's be real. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's just say, all right, you know you actually meet
Speaker 3: someone that you truly respect. Right, let's say you you
Speaker 3: you went somewhere, you even met Barack Obama and he
Speaker 3: gave you his cell phone number. Are you really going
Speaker 3: to abuse that? Probably not? Probably not.
Speaker 1: Now, you're right, some fans, there's a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Some people don't got class exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: But we built the software in such a way that
Speaker 3: you know, we we have safeguards in place, right, because
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: What's funny, To this day, I have a friend that
Speaker 1: I met through my Space because he he jacked me
Speaker 1: on my stake.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he jacked he actually ran my profile and like yeah,
Speaker 4: and I was like, you know.
Speaker 1: He hacked me. Yeah, And I'm friends with him to
Speaker 1: this day because he was good. He's not working there
Speaker 1: anymore because he can get he's not working in the more.
Speaker 4: But when we used to take I'm sorry, IM sorry,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna sidetracked, but.
Speaker 1: I mean we just we like if someone made a
Speaker 1: disc record against me, I would take their whole page.
Speaker 3: Back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he worked there, so he was.
Speaker 4: He was a super Norwy fan and we became friends.
Speaker 4: So you are absolutely right. He could have easily, but
Speaker 4: I didn't respond. He could easily turned into like one
Speaker 4: of those super fans because like he was telling me,
Speaker 4: you recons I forgot about doing.
Speaker 1: It, and to this day we're friends, so you are.
Speaker 1: And I think he did that because he thought somebody
Speaker 1: was impersonating you.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's why the person Ye. Yeah, So I mean
Speaker 3: I haven't really had any crazy. Well actually I'm I'm.
Speaker 1: Let's get let's go there.
Speaker 3: Okay, I do have a crazy. I do have a
Speaker 3: crazy And you know what, I honestly believed that that
Speaker 3: this person is mentally ill. So I don't want to
Speaker 3: know or whatever, but this person's mentally ill. And they
Speaker 3: would literally find me on every channel, Twitter, Instagram, Discord,
Speaker 3: cell phone, everything and was like, oh you know. And
Speaker 3: actually I've had stories where people felt like they Someone
Speaker 3: actually pulled up at h at at at the at
Speaker 3: our spot in Financial District and was like, yo, you
Speaker 3: know we're married, right, I say, what you talking about?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: We married? I got the whole certificate and everything, and
Speaker 3: I sent you money and this and that, and I'm like, Yo,
Speaker 3: this type of stuff is actually happening out here, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. But I said, look, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, miss, but like we're not married. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. It is wild.
Speaker 1: It is wild. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh man, So hold on, okay, this is one Kuck
Speaker 4: Thomas Slime. Well, first off, before we do with Qrick
Speaker 4: Thomas Slime, we want you to know our show is about,
Speaker 4: you know, giving people they flowers while they're alive. We
Speaker 4: wanted to give you your flowers. You are one of
Speaker 4: the most remarkable people in this world.
Speaker 1: We wanted to let you go there, Chris, because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest with.
Speaker 4: You, the first and the fifth person to ever do
Speaker 4: something is always that risk taker.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: Most of the time the reward is worth it. But
Speaker 4: the fact is that you three sixty to yourself.
Speaker 1: Think about it. You can throw your own merchan you control.
Speaker 4: When I found out that you were selling the tickets direct, yeah,
Speaker 4: shows it's smart, but that's a lot of work.
Speaker 1: So yeah, are you physically doing that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the way that we've had to do it,
Speaker 3: like let's just say we're going to do a venue
Speaker 3: in New York. We ad the venues have deals with
Speaker 3: Ticketmaster or whatever the vendors are, so we buy out
Speaker 3: all the tickets and then we are the we are
Speaker 3: we are our own resellers. So when people come and
Speaker 3: get the tickets we said, we could say, Yo, the
Speaker 3: whole venue sold out already. But that's because I can
Speaker 3: just go. If it's an eight hundred seater, I'm still doing,
Speaker 3: you know, theater. So I see the eight hundred seater. Bang,
Speaker 3: we get all the tickets and then people text in
Speaker 3: and we just send them.
Speaker 2: What you're doing is you're buying them from Ticketmaster, Yes,
Speaker 2: at a wholesale rate or regular Well.
Speaker 3: We bught we buy up because we want to We
Speaker 3: want the stats that we've sold out.
Speaker 2: So you're also buying the stats by buying all the tickets. Yes,
Speaker 2: all the books sold out already, and then you could
Speaker 2: do whatever you want with yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: The Actually, how about like states like Miami, Like states
Speaker 4: like Miami became like a New New York. What I
Speaker 4: mean is they're not impressed by nothing, right and right,
Speaker 4: y'all know this, yea know how foul y'all all out here.
Speaker 1: They all know this, right, So but this is this
Speaker 1: is a this is like a market.
Speaker 4: Like they come out if they want to what happens
Speaker 4: if you you buy out and then only fifty percent?
Speaker 1: Do you lose money? Nah?
Speaker 3: We always have Okay, you know our process. Our process
Speaker 3: is a reservation.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So we'll say, hey, look, we're going to do one
Speaker 3: night only Miami for example, right and we'll say, hey, look,
Speaker 3: if you're interested, reserve and tell me how many tickets
Speaker 3: you want to reserve.
Speaker 1: Extent I keep forgetting.
Speaker 3: So they come in, they fill out a little form,
Speaker 3: they say, Yo, I want five tickets, I want two
Speaker 3: VIPs et cetera. We already know before before we go
Speaker 3: to the venue, and we might actually say, yo, we
Speaker 3: need a bigger venue. You we are our reservations. It's
Speaker 3: crazy right now, you know what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 3: think that's really it's nuanced. At the same time, though,
Speaker 3: it's a very simple, let's call it. It's just a
Speaker 3: very simple sort of transition to the information age. If
Speaker 3: we're in the information age, we should be making decisions
Speaker 3: based on information, right, based on information and data. So
Speaker 3: if you have a means to collect that information and data,
Speaker 3: then your decisions are just going to be better business wise.
Speaker 3: You're never going to be holding a bag on anything, right,
Speaker 3: And so that's the reason why even if you think
Speaker 3: about brand new artists that are coming out trying to
Speaker 3: do merch now, they have just on demand printing, so
Speaker 3: you don't have to go buy seventy ninety one hundred
Speaker 3: T shirts. You just say, hey, look, this is the
Speaker 3: logo that I want, this is what it looks like,
Speaker 3: and then through your e commerce store, they will only
Speaker 3: print and ship what has been ordered. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. And so we're getting better and better and
Speaker 3: better are and more efficient at being able to allow
Speaker 3: creative minds to build enterprise around themselves. And I think,
Speaker 3: you know, there's there's I think there's no better time
Speaker 3: to actually be an entrepreneur than twenty twenty four and beyond.
Speaker 2: I think I think a lot of people have an
Speaker 2: issue processing the analytics of things to understand it the
Speaker 2: way you might understand. Not everybody has that knowledge to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what these analytics mean, and this is how
Speaker 2: I equal it to.
Speaker 1: This marketing plan. Yeah, execute it this way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I would say this, You're you're only as
Speaker 3: good as your crew, right, and if you're the creative
Speaker 3: in the crew bring in, then you can't you can't
Speaker 3: say like, yo, I'm going to be the three sixty everything.
Speaker 3: In some cases maybe you know you you're just like, oh,
Speaker 3: you have extra hours in the day and you can
Speaker 3: do four hours of music and four hours of data analytics.
Speaker 3: But you have to think this industry, the creative industry,
Speaker 3: whether it's film, whether it's podcast, whether it's YouTube, whether
Speaker 3: it's influencing, whether it's music. You have so many people
Speaker 3: that are magnetically attracted to this industry. They want to
Speaker 3: be around it, but they're not creative. They are the analytic.
Speaker 3: They are the analytical person, they are the management person,
Speaker 3: they are the operations person. And it's just once again,
Speaker 3: I think it's just about putting the bat signal out
Speaker 3: and saying, look, I want the greatest of the great
Speaker 3: to be around If you think what I'm doing is great,
Speaker 3: I want the greatest of the grade around me. And
Speaker 3: you build that team.
Speaker 4: Now, when you open up the site, did you take
Speaker 4: your music off of Spotify? And I'm iteling yes, And
Speaker 4: now you do you think now that same usic you
Speaker 4: put back on your platform, do you think that helps
Speaker 4: will hurt you.
Speaker 3: I think it helps. And the reason for it is
Speaker 3: because when you really you know, at the very beginning,
Speaker 3: it was more about doing the experiment because we needed
Speaker 3: to do the experiment, make sure it works. And you know,
Speaker 3: these are the type of conversations I was having with Nip.
Speaker 3: Nip did is proud to pay?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Zach, how you guys?
Speaker 2: You guys?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And really that's that's
Speaker 3: that's got to be through through through my guy Nathan McCartney.
Speaker 3: If you haven't even been noticing what Nate has been doing,
Speaker 3: he has an Instagram profile called the Bag. It's crazy
Speaker 3: data analytics about the music business and everything. If you
Speaker 3: check the followers of that page, it's like somebody Who's who?
Speaker 3: And I'm talking about music, film, investment, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: he's always wanted been one of these guys that's had
Speaker 3: his ears to the ground and was one of the
Speaker 3: first guys that that that worked with me on superphone
Speaker 3: as well. But he actually was the one that put
Speaker 3: me with it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, actually, I don't know. We're bouncing around, yeah,
Speaker 4: but we're going to cover all grounds. He comes to
Speaker 4: you and says, I want to sell a take for
Speaker 4: one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And basically you didn't think he was out of
Speaker 3: his mind, nah, because he had already he had already done.
Speaker 2: That's right, you know what I'm saying. That's the one
Speaker 2: that they bought a thousand of them? Yeah, yeah, what
Speaker 2: a thousand of the Now he bought a hundred. So
Speaker 2: that was the screenshot the ten bands. One hundred albums
Speaker 2: out one hundred dollars, ten bands, right, So he had
Speaker 2: already done that. But he said, yo, right, listen, you
Speaker 2: know I've been looking at what you were doing.
Speaker 3: Like we just sat down and compared notes, and I say, hey, look,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be honest with you. If you allow folks
Speaker 3: to actually give you what they believe is worth to them,
Speaker 3: and you don't put the price on it, then there
Speaker 3: will be some folks that will come through and say, hey,
Speaker 3: I think your music has changed my life. It got
Speaker 3: me through whatever I've had. Folks come to me, and
Speaker 3: actually this is for any artists.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 3: Your song got me through a breakup, your song got
Speaker 3: me through cancer, your song got me through whatever it was,
Speaker 3: and to them it's priceless. So if they have it,
Speaker 3: they'll give it and if you don't put a cap
Speaker 3: on what you think it's worth. Hey, it's worth twelve dollars.
Speaker 3: Then I was showing him in my superphone. Hey, I
Speaker 3: got folks that have spent twenty five five grand, you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen twenty five with me. He's like, yo, off a
Speaker 3: twelve dollars album, and I say yeah, because once you
Speaker 3: build a relationship, they'll tell you what they want in
Speaker 3: terms of what's premium. And so when he was putting
Speaker 3: the whole package together, it wasn't just Yo, here's the
Speaker 3: CD four thousand. You got to go to a show
Speaker 3: or you know some I got a phone call, whatever
Speaker 3: it was, and I say, yo, man, let's do it.
Speaker 3: And you have the app, and you got all the data,
Speaker 3: and you know every single person where they live, in
Speaker 3: their zip code, and then you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: and you can actually show them your appreciation for their support.
Speaker 1: It's all the stuff that you did.
Speaker 2: And then even what you're describing here pre Patreon, because
Speaker 2: it sounds like the Patreon model.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was pre Patreon's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, let's say it in your intro.
Speaker 4: It's like your real threat to the industry because if
Speaker 4: they have more of view.
Speaker 1: What are they needed for listen nervous.
Speaker 3: I never worry about that for the simple reason that
Speaker 3: when it's your time, it's just your time, and you
Speaker 3: have to do the most that you can with the
Speaker 3: decades that you have. And we really only get three
Speaker 3: four if we talk about decades, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 3: And we're lucky if we get three or four of them,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So you have to do
Speaker 3: the most that you can with the decades that you have.
Speaker 3: And if I really think about it, some of the
Speaker 3: artists that we still revere to this day, there's this
Speaker 3: concept of like the artist's age of reckoning, where like
Speaker 3: some of our greatest were all gone by like twenty
Speaker 3: eight Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying, and so
Speaker 3: they did what they had to do with the time
Speaker 3: that they had.
Speaker 2: So for me, I'm like, yo, I've had plenty of decades,
Speaker 2: you know, And so if what I'm able to do
Speaker 2: is plant the seeds, whether it's plant the seeds for
Speaker 2: like you said, a Patreon or you know, any of
Speaker 2: the superphone competitors that have come out right and clones
Speaker 2: that have come out, or plant the seeds for the
Speaker 2: next artists to be able to know what to do
Speaker 2: with their money, how to do it with their money
Speaker 2: the right way.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, there is a possibility to actually
Speaker 3: have a like a real creative middle class, right because
Speaker 3: you know, for me, and going back to the beginning
Speaker 3: of the conversation, for me going to Harvard and then
Speaker 3: saying I want to be in music, everyone just assumed
Speaker 3: I was going to be broken. Just assume they just say, Yo,
Speaker 3: you want to be creative, you want to be in
Speaker 3: the arts. You're going to be starving for a long time.
Speaker 3: You may you might might just get that break where
Speaker 3: you you're the one percent that actually gets on. But
Speaker 3: I think as you're talking about, if you understand how
Speaker 3: the data works, as Nip was talking about, you understand
Speaker 3: how to connect with that core group. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: even if it's just a product that's not music, even
Speaker 3: if it's just a you know, you're you're starting a
Speaker 3: coffee brand, you're starting to liquor brand. Whatever. You find
Speaker 3: that core group and you can appeal to them, they
Speaker 3: will be loyal. And I think it allows for there
Speaker 3: to be an actual creative middle class where you can
Speaker 3: actually and it's tough though, because that's almost like a
Speaker 3: that's almost like an oxymoron. And I'm gonna tell you why,
Speaker 3: because most folks, when they think creative, they don't want
Speaker 3: to be middle class. You know. It's like it's like
Speaker 3: when when you say, you know what you take, I
Speaker 3: rapped for the drive. That's not what you're doing it for.
Speaker 3: But the bottom line is that if you're doing what
Speaker 3: you love to do, and what if you can, yeah,
Speaker 3: if you can earn a living doing what you love
Speaker 3: to do, how valuable is that you made it? How
Speaker 3: valuable is that you know what I'm saying? And so really,
Speaker 3: for me, I think, really that's that's the crusade that
Speaker 3: I'm also I'm not worried about, you know, if it's
Speaker 3: my time or you know, all the greats, the greatest
Speaker 3: of the great their their impact was even more exponentially
Speaker 3: increase by the fact that, you know, maybe folks felt
Speaker 3: that they were going too soon. Where you talk about Martin,
Speaker 3: you talk about X, you talk about Nipsey, you talk
Speaker 3: about Bob Marley, you talk about Pack because Jimmy Hendrick,
Speaker 3: the body of work that they have, that's all you got.
Speaker 3: And then you start realizing, man to be that age
Speaker 3: and be talking like that, playing like that, thinking like that,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, and it sets the bar
Speaker 3: for us that are actually still here. We're still here,
Speaker 3: so we better be continuing to push. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Am I hearing you? Correct?
Speaker 2: And when you say that, you're happy enough with just
Speaker 2: planning the seed almost like you believe in what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Open source is an open source.
Speaker 2: So everybody could go do this, yes, because I would
Speaker 2: hate for corporations won't name any companies to take.
Speaker 1: Your idea and then run with it and then monopolize
Speaker 1: that what you at. Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was one of the first investors in Super
Speaker 3: Cool record label.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better term, they are participating, so
Speaker 1: I think make the stallion at something Yes too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Cardi Bad Bunny zaying from one direction, Miley Cyrus.
Speaker 1: The record label. They're doing this through you direct.
Speaker 3: It depends sometimes their management company, sometimes just to the label.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, I mean, I would think in
Speaker 1: order for artists to reap the same benefits of you,
Speaker 1: the only how they can do that is they do
Speaker 1: the direct to you.
Speaker 3: And I think that goes I think that goes to
Speaker 3: your question. Once the knowledge is open source, then it
Speaker 3: allows for folks to build on it and and iterate,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And I think that's just
Speaker 3: the human cycle. We got it. We have to enhance
Speaker 3: and iterate, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better terms, you are like the
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs of this. So you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: let me take that of it. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So it's like, it's like, that's what I's that's that's
Speaker 4: That's the one thing I want to commend our community
Speaker 4: is that if we know, if we have the information,
Speaker 4: we'll go support the information. A lot of people don't
Speaker 4: have the information, and a lot of people are probably saying.
Speaker 1: Well, this guy is super smart. He went to Harvard.
Speaker 1: He's the only one who can do it.
Speaker 4: But just saying it's it's it's I went to Harvard
Speaker 4: and I am swerper smart, but I'm not the only
Speaker 4: one that can do it. And you'll get down like
Speaker 4: for me search and I love the fact that I
Speaker 4: see Megan has something in your black home. I love
Speaker 4: the fact that I found out nut that to you.
Speaker 4: You think that's going to be more popular, like more
Speaker 4: artists gonna come. Do you think Jay Z would drop
Speaker 4: an album on your platform?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think honestly, I think it's I
Speaker 3: think it's all possible. I think it's all possible. And
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, for me, it's just about,
Speaker 3: like I said, being of service. So if this is
Speaker 3: a way I could be of service, then great. If
Speaker 3: it's more on the money tip and people want to
Speaker 3: figure out, hey, I just got my advance. I don't
Speaker 3: want to mess it up, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I can do it that way as well. But I'm
Speaker 3: in a great place. I'm in. Uh, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: super blessed, and so you know, as much as I
Speaker 3: can give what I found is the more that I give.
Speaker 3: You know, my parents are religious, so they say, look,
Speaker 3: the more you give, the more your cup will be filled,
Speaker 3: so that you can give more, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I'm good where I'm good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You ever thought the music business would come down
Speaker 1: to this, like, because it's like it's so much disposable
Speaker 1: music out there in the nineties, in the two thousand
Speaker 1: and I don't want to sound like that old guy.
Speaker 4: Oh in my day, right, But I'm just gonna just
Speaker 4: just to deal with the facts. It felt like music
Speaker 4: when it was when it was analog. He had to
Speaker 4: be in the studio together. It felt like the music
Speaker 4: was better. Doesn't that I feel like that. I'm super
Speaker 4: I'm in that world too. I listened to.
Speaker 3: Thriller, right, and I listened to those records I listened to,
Speaker 3: you know, and actually one of the folks that really
Speaker 3: put me onto this was Tommy Mottola. So my first
Speaker 3: my first record was with Casablanca. So I had records
Speaker 3: and I came in and played it for Tommy and
Speaker 3: he said, yo, right, these are good. But I got
Speaker 3: my guy t bone Walk, and he's just gonna come
Speaker 3: in and just play play the records for him and
Speaker 3: just see what he come up with. Man, this guy
Speaker 3: came in and put baseline lines and Tommy Mattola was
Speaker 3: playing guitar because he because Sony's music studios are still
Speaker 3: open at that time. He come in And so I
Speaker 3: think there is a there is a there's a certain
Speaker 3: magic of that time in that era, which is probably
Speaker 3: nostalgic for me, you know what I'm saying. But I mean, listen,
Speaker 3: you know, each generation has their own you know what,
Speaker 3: what what matters to them? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I think for me, I'm just an old I'm old
Speaker 3: school like that. You know what I'm saying, It matters
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 4: I love analog. Yeah, where were you at when you
Speaker 4: heard that? Kanye kind of like challenge.
Speaker 1: A whole court. He did it on here, but he
Speaker 1: kept going.
Speaker 4: It just happened here, But like that was like, now,
Speaker 4: I'm smarter, right now, I see that he Actually I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was living in them. I was
Speaker 1: living in history.
Speaker 4: Now that it's history, it's like, damn, it's the first
Speaker 4: time you've seen a person.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to say a black person.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say a person period company and
Speaker 4: then kind of like prove it like not the racist part.
Speaker 1: But the fact is that they kind of kept selling
Speaker 1: the sneakers. They kind of like like and was where
Speaker 1: was you when you found out this? How you've got
Speaker 1: a relationship with you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I really I kind of live in my own bubble,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So I'll see little things
Speaker 3: that are happening, but I mostly invest my energy, time
Speaker 3: and resources where I can make a difference, and so
Speaker 3: in that struggle, that's his struggle, maybe a phone call
Speaker 3: of support is the most that I could offer. When
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the artists that come to me and
Speaker 3: they you know, they're not taking on a corporation head on,
Speaker 3: but they want to take care of their mom or
Speaker 3: they want to do whatever. I know that my time,
Speaker 3: energy and resources is well spent, and I can see
Speaker 3: the impact and the result of the investment that I'm making.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think I might have just been,
Speaker 3: you know, just wherever I was when I saw it,
Speaker 3: and say, hey, look, you know, more power to those
Speaker 3: who are fighting those fights. And I know where my
Speaker 3: actual strengths are. I know where my muscle per se
Speaker 3: can actually add value, because I.
Speaker 1: Would think that him and Todd Dallas signs of poaches,
Speaker 1: but a.
Speaker 4: Loongs on your platform, Hey, let's make it happen. Not
Speaker 4: because you have to think about it, all the things
Speaker 4: that YE just talking about and been through. Then you
Speaker 4: come to find out that Voltures was on Atlantic and
Speaker 4: you're like, what that didn't.
Speaker 1: Make sense to me. I remember it was your monopoly
Speaker 1: or some of it a tweet and it's like this
Speaker 1: whole time I thought this is what you was fighting
Speaker 1: for to be independent and then come to find out
Speaker 1: you got a secret deal with Atlantic. It does does
Speaker 1: not make me mad.
Speaker 4: It just makes me disappointed because I'm just like, Wow,
Speaker 4: I thought we were fighting for independency.
Speaker 3: Hey, and I'm willing to be in the trenches and
Speaker 3: fight for it with whoever wants to actually fight that fight.
Speaker 3: Some folks they don't want to fight to fight. They
Speaker 3: actually they actually just want to be creative. They don't
Speaker 3: want the actual added weight of actually having all of
Speaker 3: their customer data. They want to just you know, And
Speaker 3: it depends on where you are in life. What is
Speaker 3: it that matters to you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But if you want to run your creative business and
Speaker 3: enterprise at a data driven level, which is how every
Speaker 3: great multi trillion dollar business runs their enterprise, Amazon knows
Speaker 3: everything you've ever done on their platform, everything you've looked at,
Speaker 3: they know. Instagram knows everything you've done on their platform,
Speaker 3: everything you've looked at, they know every conversation you've had,
Speaker 3: whether you give them permission to or not, it's on
Speaker 3: their servers. Right. So if you decide that you want
Speaker 3: to actually shoot for multi trillion dollar status, which now
Speaker 3: there are several companies that have reached multi trillion dollar status.
Speaker 3: We saw in video get to multi trillion dollar status
Speaker 3: just this year. You have to run it and assume
Speaker 3: the responsibility of managing, navigating, and analyzing that data and so.
Speaker 1: And there's the AI tools to help you get out.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course, of course, but you have to
Speaker 3: have a desire to do it. So it's almost like
Speaker 3: people will say, well, why so and so selling their publishing, Well,
Speaker 3: it's because they would like to actually have bring forward
Speaker 3: the actual revenue to today and let somebody else wait
Speaker 3: for the revenue payoffs, right, And somebody will say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, that's your annuity, that's your retirement plan. But
Speaker 3: if you get two hundred million dollars up front, that's
Speaker 3: tw hundred million dollars of front. You could do with
Speaker 3: that what you want to do now, at the health
Speaker 3: and strength that you have now, then waiting fourteen fifteen
Speaker 3: years for that two hundred million to trickle in, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. So, I think everybody has their
Speaker 3: different motivations and desires for how they want to run
Speaker 3: their business, and more power to them for those that
Speaker 3: want to run it at that level to have that
Speaker 3: infrastructure technologically, analytically, then that's what we're here to help
Speaker 3: out with.
Speaker 4: Now, what life would have been like if you never
Speaker 4: lost that laptop and you made Watch the Dome album.
Speaker 3: Wow, Well, I mean, actually we can look at the trajectory.
Speaker 3: I'll probably be hit boy, there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: It's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 3: It's nothing wrong.
Speaker 4: Okay, because I think it's imparis I'm trying to yeah, Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. Okay, And there's nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with that. And I think he's had a he's had
Speaker 3: an incredible run. Yeah classic, yeah to me, we know,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. But I think I think
Speaker 3: the world in the universe and God shows you where
Speaker 3: your light can really shine, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And that's how I really feel like. There are folks
Speaker 3: that come to me yo, man yo, your studio videos, yo.
Speaker 3: You know, like we just did a tiny desk, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. And the bottom line is, I
Speaker 3: feel like the gauntlet has been passed. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. We passed the mantle on now I'm doing
Speaker 3: what the producer could actually do they can't do that.
Speaker 4: Because I like, I don't when people say everything is
Speaker 4: meant to be. Sometimes I think life makes a mistake
Speaker 4: too sometimes because I just think I don't think like
Speaker 4: would that record would have sound like what you hold?
Speaker 1: And yeah, man, we got at that moment.
Speaker 4: At that moment, I'm trying to figure out what because
Speaker 4: you went hard for the laptop when that happens, so yeah,
Speaker 4: and then I yeah, I kind of find out that
Speaker 4: was one of the reasons wives because you had watched
Speaker 4: the Throne.
Speaker 1: Yes, so they never came out, never came out, you
Speaker 1: got That's why it's in the laptop.
Speaker 3: Right, you ain't got it never came out.
Speaker 1: I want to hear how that record style, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean as a fan, as a fan, I
Speaker 1: want to hear that copies of that anywhere now.
Speaker 3: I mean maybe maybe they have because we were recording
Speaker 3: out in Bath, England. So whoever that engineer is, he
Speaker 3: has he got Yeah, he has a big He.
Speaker 5: Gonna tell that somebody he goes nobody he got him.
Speaker 4: Now let me ask you, being the fact that you
Speaker 4: have this direct relationship to your fanst We'll take a
Speaker 4: couple of years.
Speaker 1: Back to the album yes, and the album was just
Speaker 1: for one of one. One of one is one is
Speaker 1: that something you've ever been offered to do? And two
Speaker 1: would you do it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I don't me personally, I truly believe that music
Speaker 3: is forever to be distributed. Right. It is a strange
Speaker 3: business model, right, I think it's an extremely strange business
Speaker 3: model because literally I've seen art and it's hard to
Speaker 3: wrap your brain around, especially down here are bossles down here.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you go into these galleries and you literally see
Speaker 3: it's a canvas and it's all red, and that's that's
Speaker 3: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Garbage on the floor or whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's literally someone paid twelve million or twenty two
Speaker 3: million dollars or a hundred million for it, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. So that doesn't exist in music, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm saying. I think Wu Tang was at least shooting
Speaker 3: for that. But I think the difference with music is
Speaker 3: that it's it's created so that many can enjoy it,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You're right about that. I go to art be every year.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen the paint and I like yet.
Speaker 1: I have not seen ones we like her on the
Speaker 1: walls outside you know what it is.
Speaker 4: It's not meant for me, this is not this is
Speaker 4: not for me. I'm here for the advance. I'm here
Speaker 4: to talk and kissing babies.
Speaker 2: But but there's some scamming it too, that's not Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's an incredible viehic for.
Speaker 1: People. There's people using exactly absolutely absolutely, So we want
Speaker 1: to do quick time s line. Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker 2: One thing when we talk about the number thing we
Speaker 2: can't forget. We got shout up Mike Jones. He was
Speaker 2: doing the yeah, yeah, you know Texas. He was on something.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was.
Speaker 4: I always thought ya, I wasn't giving out your real numbers.
Speaker 4: This is your real number?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, we're doing here, right guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you want to get a designated drinker? Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you ain't drinking. Look before we go on, before
Speaker 2: we go on. This is a certain thing that I
Speaker 2: love about having this job.
Speaker 4: One is to see if the guest is drinking and
Speaker 4: what they are drinking, right, and we always bet, well
Speaker 4: if they're gonna be on time or not.
Speaker 1: Okay, I lost to you to say you came at
Speaker 1: four four. I was like, he's going to be here early.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing that was was was very impressible.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I bet on you lost whatever about it. We
Speaker 1: had the circle of block. Okay, okay, okay, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you got to be in there better. But I thought
Speaker 1: when we did this that she was going to have,
Speaker 1: like it's always someone say this is off the table
Speaker 1: and you can't ask that. I thought you was going to.
Speaker 4: I almost bet that she was going to say this
Speaker 4: is off the table, this is that. And when I
Speaker 4: found out that you did not say none of that,
Speaker 4: I was like, Wow, this guy is about that life.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's that's all. Yeah, you'll be surprised or ship.
Speaker 4: We go through and people two minutes.
Speaker 2: Before, as many of y'all know, drink Chance wants to
Speaker 2: give flowers, but people are here to receive them, giving
Speaker 2: flowers and celebrating our legends while they can still smell us.
Speaker 2: We have partnered with What the Flowers to create this
Speaker 2: movement where everyone can give flowers to the legends in
Speaker 2: their lives. You can now order a custom flower box
Speaker 2: for to someone you want to show appreciation to you
Speaker 2: by visiting w w W dot w T flowers dot com.
Speaker 3: Orders.
Speaker 1: You're gonna go first. We want to get them a
Speaker 1: designated rive. I explained, Can you explain.
Speaker 2: We're gonna give you two names, two places to things,
Speaker 2: and this is really just to bring up people, places
Speaker 2: and things stories like anybody, you pick one and nobody drinks.
Speaker 2: If you pick one, okay, nobody drinks. But if you
Speaker 2: say both or neither of them, like you don't really
Speaker 2: want to answer it, then we all drink the table drinks.
Speaker 2: If you have a designated drinkers at Oh, Michael, yeah,
Speaker 2: I a lot.
Speaker 1: He look like you got drunk a lot of vacuum.
Speaker 3: That changes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So please, any stories come up with anybody.
Speaker 2: We're not trying to diss anybody. It's all love for
Speaker 2: everybody we mentioned.
Speaker 4: He could be right there, Yeah, be on the side
Speaker 4: of him. Okay, bet he said that's your Barbara, Mike fall.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm about to say that it's kind of weird
Speaker 1: that Barbara are gonna drink cool my bad. Are you ready? Yes,
Speaker 1: Kanye farrouh. We have a quativity one.
Speaker 3: You said story. I gotta tell a story. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: The game is you pick one or you pick one
Speaker 1: or none?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I picked one or none.
Speaker 1: You can say both, No, you pick and if you pick,
Speaker 1: we don't drink, right, if you pick one, we don't.
Speaker 3: If I want everybody to drink, I say both.
Speaker 1: Smart.
Speaker 2: But we're saying if you've got stories with anything, this
Speaker 2: is really just to bring up names and places and
Speaker 2: people you're working for.
Speaker 1: Both Okay, Okay, he got a shot? Yeah, slo s
Speaker 1: better not and baby shots because is okay? Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: get to kill the Matt Delly. That was funny. That
Speaker 1: was funny.
Speaker 4: Okay, let him get his drink. Okay, yeah, okay, that's funny.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 4: Okay, Chris Brown or Usher, you gotta take one shot
Speaker 4: off top to catch up Chris Brown Usher both? Damn
Speaker 4: you both in all of this. Fabri kiss, I.
Speaker 3: Know what you're gonna say, Fab's that's that's my guy.
Speaker 1: I make great music together. How did you guys connect?
Speaker 3: Man my the the late Gray Edwards? You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So I had a I had a record
Speaker 3: call used to be and he said, Yo, we're gonna
Speaker 3: get you need a feature on this, and he went
Speaker 3: and got fab and you know what, I was so
Speaker 3: naive early in the game.
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: And so we got in the studio and I tried
Speaker 3: to tell Fab I didn't like one of his lines
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Looking at me, He's like looking at me. I was
Speaker 1: brand new, I had, I had.
Speaker 3: It was it was my song. And was like, yo,
Speaker 3: I got you know, I got surprised for you go
Speaker 3: in the studio, Fab, you know, and and he said
Speaker 3: something like it could be how it used to be,
Speaker 3: uh because it used to be the charm. I'm early
Speaker 3: like a rooster on a farm with a Jacob exclusive
Speaker 3: on the arm. And I said, I said rooster like
Speaker 3: that's not a good He was like looking at me, like,
Speaker 3: you know, but from there we you know. He said,
Speaker 3: look right, he said, look, this is what I'm known for, right,
Speaker 3: Like you know these type of lines and punch lines.
Speaker 3: That's that's what I'm knowing. So I said, okay, place right.
Speaker 1: I say, doctor Dre does that all the time. But
Speaker 1: he was new, he was great new, Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: brand okay, all right. Swiss and Timberland mm hmm, Swizz,
Speaker 1: you worked more of a Swiss, right.
Speaker 3: I've actually never I never met Timbo. Never met really
Speaker 3: I mean talk about a super huge student, but never
Speaker 3: met Timbo.
Speaker 1: Hopefully that changes up to you. Yeah, for sure, Premo
Speaker 1: or p Rock neither. We don't drink. We do drink neither, Okay,
Speaker 1: any reason why neither? Just no, no influence there.
Speaker 3: Well, no, I just don't have any.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't have any. You say that I don't have
Speaker 3: a story, right, No, No, it's.
Speaker 1: Not about.
Speaker 2: Any any criteria to if you picked somebody, it could
Speaker 2: be anything. It doesn't have to be a story. We
Speaker 2: just say if you have a story, he's just so smart.
Speaker 1: Just over. But sure, okay, So if we go back,
Speaker 1: like damn you don't like pretty much? You got it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Johnny Gill or Ralph Tresvan both. I think you're gonna say,
Speaker 1: Ralph tres Both, I mean I did that. I did
Speaker 1: the New Adition record. That's right, both, New Addition, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know who're gonna go with this, Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: or Prince. And if you got a story with Elip,
Speaker 1: please chair.
Speaker 3: We gotta go both?
Speaker 1: You give neither?
Speaker 3: Look like both on that.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. Good gonna the table any story with m
Speaker 1: J Prince?
Speaker 3: Well, I actually the closest I ever got to having
Speaker 3: a Michael Jackson story was just being around these producers
Speaker 3: from Philly vidaland Dre and they had done they've been
Speaker 3: working with Floyd Tree and I remember being in the
Speaker 3: studio session and they were playing the Butterflies record that
Speaker 3: Marcia had written for Mike, and I was just like yo,
Speaker 3: and I think they had his vocals and it was
Speaker 3: that's the closest to an actual store. And then I
Speaker 3: think the VMA's one year, I actually was able to
Speaker 3: ask Quincy Jones. He was backstage at the VMA, so
Speaker 3: I was able to ask him a question, you know,
Speaker 3: just about that. But that's the closest I've ever been.
Speaker 3: But in terms of just Prince in general, that's a
Speaker 3: whole nother level. In terms of musicianship and independence, he was.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also when you think about it, the legend is
Speaker 3: that he was sixteen years old and he went in
Speaker 3: the studio and he didn't have a demo. He just
Speaker 3: went in the studio and just made it in front
Speaker 3: of everybody's and so that really was what inspired That's
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, at like sixteen or seven, team, he
Speaker 3: didn't have the demo, They just say yo, they put
Speaker 3: the tape. And this is back when they were running
Speaker 3: the tapes, you know, what I'm saying. He laid all
Speaker 3: the drums, then he said, you're running back, laid the
Speaker 3: guitar running back, and laid the bass running back, laid
Speaker 3: the vocals, et cetera. So that's really what the blueprint
Speaker 3: was for all of the studio videos that I was making,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Speaking of Prince, non source the story on this show
Speaker 4: he's We asked him if anybody ever denied him, and
Speaker 4: he said Prince denied him because he didn't own his
Speaker 4: own Master's. Prince was on but You was loud show.
Speaker 4: He was telling people you own your own ship. So
Speaker 4: imagine that coach IV got the mike Liz for Ralph
Speaker 4: sent him a bunch of beats.
Speaker 1: This story is amazing. And Michael called him and said, no,
Speaker 1: I want with I want? He was like, if you.
Speaker 3: Fact?
Speaker 1: I always what your mike listening to me like gatest it.
Speaker 4: Out like something else says like in the back he's
Speaker 4: listening like literally here for rel sweat and like He's like, yo,
Speaker 4: you don't believe it's called And I'm like.
Speaker 1: What He's like. I took got a form with Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson's people and they said, if nor gang I wanna beat,
Speaker 1: don't send us to beat. Wow, always bike in the car,
Speaker 1: put a band on. So I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I had a flashback Di Angelo or Anthony Hamilton, the Angelo.
Speaker 2: I heard he's coming up with a new project too.
Speaker 3: Man, even if this man never came out with another project. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the Voodoo album was yeah, absolutely Wu Tang or n
Speaker 3: w a Wu tang.
Speaker 1: Teddy Riley or Raphael sad m.
Speaker 3: Teddy Riley.
Speaker 1: It was because of proximity of Virginia. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that well, I mean Virginia. Well, I mean and Teddy.
Speaker 3: First of all, just right, so Black Street guy. And
Speaker 3: then if you talk about Pharrell Timbo, they came out
Speaker 3: of there, yeah, I mean and Davante and Jojessy. Literally
Speaker 3: I was studying everything those guys, did you know so?
Speaker 3: And they all said Teddy was the he was the
Speaker 3: godfather basically.
Speaker 4: Now, this is what I don't know where you're gonna
Speaker 4: go with This could go either way. I could beat
Speaker 4: on your answer, but I'm gonna think I'm gonna lose
Speaker 4: because you've been shocking me all day. And give us
Speaker 4: the story if you got one Quincty Jones or doctor dre.
Speaker 1: The R and B is pulling you one way and
Speaker 1: then Pop is pulling you the other.
Speaker 3: Dre Wow did not know.
Speaker 1: I did not expect that.
Speaker 3: No, And the only reason is the in the club
Speaker 3: beat was the beat that that that I basically I
Speaker 3: felt like I modeled my entire career off of just
Speaker 3: the beat itself, because basically, like even right now, I
Speaker 3: could go and basically the simplicity of that and the
Speaker 3: ability even without the lyrics, for me to just actually
Speaker 3: be able to beat box that beat, and how simple
Speaker 3: it was and how it not unbelievable. So when you
Speaker 3: think about the biggest record I ever had, I can
Speaker 3: sing that bing bing bing bing bing bing bink and
Speaker 3: and and if you think about that, how sparse that
Speaker 3: is sonically? I mean, so I mean and also to
Speaker 3: be honest, Quincy just seems like worlds apart, even for
Speaker 3: me musically, in terms of what.
Speaker 1: As a producer, like planet or just historically, how are
Speaker 1: you seeing worlds apart?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm saying like if somebody came to me and say, Yo,
Speaker 3: here's a forty piece big band orchestra and arrange something
Speaker 3: for Frank Sinatra, Quincy Jones closed his eyes and conducted,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. So I don't even put
Speaker 3: my like, you know, Steve Prince, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: even put myself in that, you know. But when we
Speaker 3: when I think about the reason why I say Dre is,
Speaker 3: I feel like, Okay, I'm not. I wasn't necessarily musically trained.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Dre was musically trained, but he
Speaker 3: had there was something first. So that's to be able
Speaker 3: to recognize and be that sort of sonic architect, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, the next three Mary J. Blise
Speaker 1: or Eric a bad both, thank you? Yeah, light work both,
Speaker 1: booth booth both either hit make up or hit boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't look at me neither. I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't. No stories are either one no no stories,
Speaker 3: and remember what the story we're gonna go on this
Speaker 3: forse with stories. That's that.
Speaker 1: Just make that clear.
Speaker 3: That's your no stories analog or did you.
Speaker 1: You took your shop? Bro Oh, I've been took the shop. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got another one analog analog and me too.
Speaker 4: I'm with you on that, and then you can go
Speaker 4: to go to the next ones thriller or bad thrillers.
Speaker 1: Tell you it was the thriller, type of dude thriller
Speaker 1: that I don't know. I just feel like he had
Speaker 1: the jacket at one point, gloves or coming boss like that,
Speaker 1: like in a good way. A lot of us had
Speaker 1: that Michael Jackson glove stop righting, yeah, looking around people,
Speaker 1: not even gonna make eye contact right now. They had
Speaker 1: had the jacket too, had all right, Whitney, Okay, you go,
Speaker 1: you start Whitney or ritha Whitney, d J Quicker the Riza,
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Neither.
Speaker 1: You're neither. Yeah, I'm not used to it. The tupocket
Speaker 1: d m X.
Speaker 3: POC.
Speaker 2: You got a story, then this is your criteria. Yes, okay,
Speaker 2: but I obviously he was going before way. But but
Speaker 2: my like I said, we started the whole.
Speaker 3: Cassie project and Rashid literally it was like, yo, I
Speaker 3: don't care who you're listening to, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: It's all Pac all the way. And also uh poc
Speaker 3: because there was when I I actually was one of
Speaker 3: those kids that went to a band camp and I
Speaker 3: you know, I had camp. I went to a band camp,
Speaker 3: so so you know, I had one of those you know,
Speaker 3: one of those super early adolescent you know crushes, and
Speaker 3: she she basically, you know, I wanted to make records,
Speaker 3: you know, write songs. And she was like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm doing this song for Mother's Day and
Speaker 3: she she had the Dear Mama song from from back then. Yeah,
Speaker 3: exactly right.
Speaker 4: Cool Isaac Hayes or Curtis Mayfield, mhm, neither. Okay, she
Speaker 4: knows you better go down. Okay, I know where you're
Speaker 4: gonna pick on this one. At least let me take
Speaker 4: the shot.
Speaker 1: I say he's picking the second he's been saying. I
Speaker 1: been saying like James James Brown, James Brown.
Speaker 4: Or Jimmy Hendrix Sun like Jimmy Hendrick and Bob Marley
Speaker 4: is like your your thing, but James Brown both both
Speaker 4: both because you're a fan of Jimmy Hendrick and mar Yeah,
Speaker 4: like that's that's yeah, but but for different yeah different
Speaker 4: and James Brown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, James Brown, James Brown.
Speaker 1: He came up to me and said, keep saying playing
Speaker 1: my ship ship Okay.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I look at the Dodging Girl video,
Speaker 3: that's that's a that's a James Brown. That's actually a
Speaker 3: James Brown reference. You know where, because in that video
Speaker 3: I'm wearing the tuxedo. I come down to join. We
Speaker 3: got the band playing. That's that's the actual James Brown reference.
Speaker 1: Everybody took this shot. Oh I took my shot already,
Speaker 1: this one. Thank you. So I'm gonna ask you this,
Speaker 1: but then I'm I'm gonna ask you in exceparately a
Speaker 1: different way. Major or independent?
Speaker 3: Major independent? Independent?
Speaker 4: Okay, your first two albums was on Motown. Correct, Yes,
Speaker 4: this is this is This is me being a straight
Speaker 4: spoiled It was hard for me to go from a
Speaker 4: major to independent because I like the four Seasons. I like,
Speaker 4: you know, sether sist And when I went from major independent,
Speaker 4: I had to down grade. I don't know if that's
Speaker 4: the right world, but.
Speaker 1: It is. Damn yeah, but I had to down grade.
Speaker 3: It was yeah, yeah, like it was. I had to
Speaker 3: go back to the sheriff team. But it was completely
Speaker 3: different from me I had. Like I wasn't a multi
Speaker 3: platinum like I had. There was a lot of respect
Speaker 3: for the musicianship, but it wasn't like our multi platinum
Speaker 3: Billboard number one hits and you know, records and clubs
Speaker 3: and the hottest et cetera, et cetera. But it looked
Speaker 3: like that to us at least it maybe maybe maybe
Speaker 3: maybe it looked like that. But I mean, to be frank,
Speaker 3: we sold one hundred and eighty thousand records the first
Speaker 3: town and sixty thousand on the second. Now, the second
Speaker 3: one we got nominated for a Grammy. But I mean
Speaker 3: that's a total of I mean that's we didn't we
Speaker 3: didn't even you know, and still the era where you
Speaker 3: had to sold like crazy amount of records.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Literally, I heard you say this before, but you literally
Speaker 4: made more money for your independent albums than you did now.
Speaker 3: Is that entirety? How about the tours? Yeah, but that's
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. I didn't even tour off of those albums.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying and what you're saying.
Speaker 3: So like once we went independent, then I understood, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this is how we're going to really get to the money,
Speaker 3: because that's I think. What's so it's very opaque when
Speaker 3: you're a major label. You're at the major label, things
Speaker 3: are paid for, studios paid for, advance is paid for,
Speaker 3: travel is paid for, et cetera. But then once the
Speaker 3: sales come in, unless you reach a certain amount, you
Speaker 3: gotta wait till your next album budget opens up before
Speaker 3: you get paid again.
Speaker 1: It's a bank yeah, age first deal or something like
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm saying. It's just like you know,
Speaker 3: for me, I don't like that opacity. I want to
Speaker 3: have full trans that again, yes I want yeah, so
Speaker 3: old paid. That means contret you know you want. I
Speaker 3: want full transparency, right, And so that was quote unquote
Speaker 3: none of my business. You know how much did they make?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And so that's why I really wanted to go independent
Speaker 3: because I was like, Yo, if we sold one hundred
Speaker 3: eighty thousand records the first time, how did I only
Speaker 3: sell We're in the information age, how do I only
Speaker 3: sell sixty thousand the second time? We should just email
Speaker 3: everybody the first.
Speaker 4: US sales because they could have did that. And like
Speaker 4: you said, they didn't give you the information. So maybe
Speaker 4: you sold because we were saying the records everywhere, so
Speaker 4: we had maybe.
Speaker 3: I truly believe, man, I think that the records were
Speaker 3: favorites amongst artists. So if artists were sending round, yo,
Speaker 3: you heard Ryan's join, et cetera, they were favorites. But
Speaker 3: when I went to Germany, I was not on the radio.
Speaker 3: In Germany, everything was on little mixtapes. People were spending
Speaker 3: it in clubs, et cetera. But there was that real
Speaker 3: ground swell of people that's like, yo, I like this music.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I remember me asking for like account and things like that,
Speaker 1: and they're telling me that. The recordats saying, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we spent five hundred grand in Japan and we spent
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand of Germany and we've been
Speaker 1: we spent this in only in duself my favorite player.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have Burg Frankfoot, all that, you know, Berlin
Speaker 1: and all that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been right some time. But what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: say is when they did that to me, I couldn't
Speaker 1: like it was I don't know. I don't want to
Speaker 1: say it wasn't ordered in back then. I just didn't
Speaker 1: know about it. There was no way for me to
Speaker 1: There was no Instagram, so they said they had a
Speaker 1: poster of me in Japan. I had to just tell you,
Speaker 1: you know now that they were scamming everybody that way
Speaker 1: for real. Yes, the marketing budgets they were, they were
Speaker 1: ciphoning money like I got cal This is why, this
Speaker 1: is why, this is why.
Speaker 2: You love the majors because the era that you were
Speaker 2: in was when the record labels were flushed with cats,
Speaker 2: so they didn't make you pay back.
Speaker 1: They would be like, cool, they will let you off.
Speaker 3: Your cousin's so flush with cash.
Speaker 1: Still, let's not It was crazier back then. That's the
Speaker 1: record of off of CDs. I love Mark back there.
Speaker 1: I love this isn't argue all the time because he's
Speaker 1: a super independent guy, which I just think that independent.
Speaker 2: If you want to go to major, be independent first
Speaker 2: so you can leverage and have a better deal.
Speaker 1: Oh no, with the machine, I.
Speaker 4: Feel the opposite, And you can tell me. I feel
Speaker 4: like you should be go major first.
Speaker 1: Let them spend that budget on you, yescause they can't
Speaker 1: never take back your friends. It's not like that now.
Speaker 1: In his era was now they're accounting for every penny.
Speaker 1: I'm not a dinosaur man. Yeah, yeah, ago, in the
Speaker 1: terms of the record business, it was. Yeah.
Speaker 3: What I'm saying though, is I agree if somebody else
Speaker 3: is going to spend the money to make you famous,
Speaker 3: and then you can actually leverage that and make sure
Speaker 3: you do it the right way and you can.
Speaker 2: Come out whole. But now a lot of these artists
Speaker 2: aren't coming out whole. They're stuck in that now. And
Speaker 2: these deals, you mean there was so they kissed the money.
Speaker 2: They haven't recouped. Someone who stuck with the record then
Speaker 2: you could not recoup. And they were doing well. The
Speaker 2: labels they.
Speaker 1: Could have had liked you as an artist, We're like cool, yeah,
Speaker 1: no problem, and we'll let you out your deal. Let
Speaker 1: this person buy you out your like they were making
Speaker 1: deals left and right.
Speaker 4: I don't think as Norrie, I never recouped. I did
Speaker 4: as Norri, I spent so much money. I mean, like
Speaker 4: I wanted to Norri signs.
Speaker 2: Today he's signing a three sixty deal where the name
Speaker 2: Noriego or Norri is violent label.
Speaker 1: And when you don't recoup, you can't use that name.
Speaker 2: You better go on as Sir Francis Junior ncut there,
Speaker 2: make a little buddy time. They got spooky are crumbling
Speaker 2: as we see them right now. I think the tech
Speaker 2: companies are the new record labels.
Speaker 1: They're his.
Speaker 4: I think your Idea period is a new record label
Speaker 4: for those two.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the bad guys. When I say imagine,
Speaker 1: now imagine, we take you your concept concept right and
Speaker 1: now you showing people you listen, because even when you
Speaker 1: was dropping independent, it looked like you was apasior.
Speaker 3: Oh because we I mean we were, we were moving
Speaker 3: that way. You know what I'm saying, which is but
Speaker 3: that's the other piece of it is it requires also
Speaker 3: the financial infrastructure because otherwise, like if you can make
Speaker 3: one hundred grand, pay four thousand dollars a month forever,
Speaker 3: then that means you can make a million dollars, pay
Speaker 3: forty thousand dollars a month whatever. Right, So that's really
Speaker 3: Once you have both the business infrastructure and the financial infrastructure,
Speaker 3: then it becomes an infinite loop. And that infinite loop
Speaker 3: is really what that's really what an artist needs to
Speaker 3: be able to say, like, you know what, I want
Speaker 3: to go record my next album and in France somewhere
Speaker 3: you know, like the Rolling Stones City.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, so you know what I think?
Speaker 4: I think you being as smart as you are, right,
Speaker 4: you having this early idea that's fucking genius.
Speaker 1: We all know. We all know it's genius, and we all.
Speaker 4: Know if it works, when it works, how artist the
Speaker 4: artist can benefit off of this? Right now, radio is
Speaker 4: still important, right, I told this the fact Joe the
Speaker 4: other day, I was like, Yo, if I was to
Speaker 4: ever drop a record again.
Speaker 1: You're gonna work by radio like him, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to hire somebody there.
Speaker 4: You you know, you know every PD he's put in
Speaker 4: twenty seven to more years he's been in that work.
Speaker 1: But Joe has to fight. He did it. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's the future, Like when the concept that you
Speaker 1: have for artists working for other artists and artists are
Speaker 1: saying I always love Violator for that Violator was like
Speaker 1: artists managing artist. Chris Lighty was like an artist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's why I think this is going.
Speaker 4: Like I know it's sounding so minute, but I feel
Speaker 4: like fat Joe will be running ahead of a radio apartment.
Speaker 4: See how he just dropped the record just now, and
Speaker 4: it's just everywhere everywhere, not because he's my friend, she
Speaker 4: was just everywhere, and I'm like, he knows what he's doing. Eventually,
Speaker 4: we're going to hire ourselves to do.
Speaker 1: To do, to work on your platform. You think it's
Speaker 1: gonna go that way, let me speak to his.
Speaker 3: I would like to see that. We don't. What I
Speaker 3: will say though, is just as you said, there will
Speaker 3: be other iterations of platforms for folks to actually communicate
Speaker 3: with their fans. I think the money piece is more
Speaker 3: of an issue because the money piece is what people,
Speaker 3: even like you said when we started this conversation, said,
Speaker 3: I didn't know there was something that could do that, right,
Speaker 3: And so I feel as though for me, even moving
Speaker 3: from music to technology is because I felt like I
Speaker 3: could serve a wider transh of the population.
Speaker 2: Just go right.
Speaker 3: So I think the spread, I think now you're right,
Speaker 3: But the ability for money management from the concept of
Speaker 3: what artists really like, because we, like you said, we
Speaker 3: like the four Seasons, we like the you know, if
Speaker 3: we can if we give fly charter, we like the
Speaker 3: fly charter. If we could go vacation, we could go
Speaker 3: on a destination recording. We'd rather do that than the
Speaker 3: bedroom recording. Right, So it's about how do you work
Speaker 3: the finances to be able to deliver that. And that's
Speaker 3: why I think, like you said, when we when we
Speaker 3: were doing independent albums, we still.
Speaker 4: I thought you were still on the major I'm saying,
Speaker 4: like me and him always arguing, and it's like, yo,
Speaker 4: you know what, it's taking the best of both worlds
Speaker 4: and mix it together.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what this is like for us
Speaker 1: to make.
Speaker 4: Independent money, yes, but to look like a major, look
Speaker 4: like a major is back in it, because then you
Speaker 4: lose nothing.
Speaker 1: You actually gain everything. And I believe that this is
Speaker 1: a and to be I believe you struck.
Speaker 2: You struck, to stand struck, to stand on your own
Speaker 2: independently and strike strategic partnerships with whatever major entities. That's
Speaker 2: that's really the goal, because that's where a lot of
Speaker 2: them you can get a lot of financing from.
Speaker 1: Why it started to cut you off.
Speaker 4: Think about it when you're doing it on your own,
Speaker 4: and if you don't show up to the radio station,
Speaker 4: it all gets on you. But now if you have
Speaker 4: somebody who's professional in that position, it's like you don't
Speaker 4: you're still independent, but you got somebody else helping us, saying,
Speaker 4: you know, listen, we got to make it the cosmic
Speaker 4: cab at five pm, he's going to pull our record if.
Speaker 3: We don't do it.
Speaker 4: If you have somebody who has that experience, I think,
Speaker 4: why wouldn't you do that? I think that's the only
Speaker 4: thing that's missing from this beautiful idea. It's like, you
Speaker 4: know what it might be really us running us. When
Speaker 4: I say us, don't mean you raise, I mean the people.
Speaker 4: That's a part of the culture. What I'm saying, it's
Speaker 4: it's important, it's important.
Speaker 1: I think we should make a noise to that. Okay,
Speaker 1: had the moment ahead. Where are we at here? Okay?
Speaker 1: Are they over there snitching on you saying you ain't
Speaker 1: take the shot? Ellmatic or ready to die.
Speaker 3: Both?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer.
Speaker 4: You need to know this.
Speaker 5: I bet you didn't think he was. He was gonna
Speaker 5: come again with your kid drinker, but now you drinking
Speaker 5: to a drink sa I got.
Speaker 2: On the time Diana Ross or Donna Summers, Diana Ross
Speaker 2: from lew that.
Speaker 1: Missy or Eve? Missy? That was any stories? You're not
Speaker 1: telling us any stories?
Speaker 3: Diana Ross. That's a favorite of my mother's, you know.
Speaker 3: And uh, Missy Elliott, I mean just sort of set
Speaker 3: the standard. And I think I think, really, did.
Speaker 1: You say Diana Ross and Missy No, Diana Ross or.
Speaker 3: Donna Summer and you said Missy or or Eve?
Speaker 1: And so he asked the two questions at one time.
Speaker 3: Right now, Missy? Really, you know, I think the signing
Speaker 3: of Missy out of that camp as well, right at first, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, that whole camp. Honestly was just super ultra
Speaker 3: incredibly ill because that was it was Timbo, it was
Speaker 3: Missy was genuine, it was play.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's like for us to something in
Speaker 1: the water over there. Yeah, you know going on? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. I got next one, all right, Stevie Wonder
Speaker 1: and Marvin Gaye Stevie Wonder. Did I hear that Stevie
Speaker 1: Walker walked to the stage one time?
Speaker 3: Yes, he's confirmed.
Speaker 1: You can see we always get told us we have
Speaker 1: so many stories. I'm seeing a lot of ship. Did
Speaker 1: I hear that story that ye walk to the stage
Speaker 1: together something like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I forget where I was performing and it
Speaker 3: was something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he didn't have a walking stick, let's be real.
Speaker 1: He walked up, was like, what's up?
Speaker 6: Like, like, yeah, I respect that motive or phantom motif
Speaker 6: playing guys you got this arm?
Speaker 1: Yeah right? Or ghosts the race, Well he's he's thinking
Speaker 1: he went cars he put it together.
Speaker 4: That's not what it was, right, you know, I said, right?
Speaker 4: Or ghost Space Ray Kuan or go Space talking about
Speaker 4: I'm glad I think you you saved me for.
Speaker 1: This one one because he actually did a record with me. Wow, Wow,
Speaker 1: Moriah or Lisa Keys both man's so much more life
Speaker 1: music industry or the tech industry. We're both okay, And
Speaker 1: I knew he was gonna say that, Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's not even in there. That's not in there. I
Speaker 1: just made that up and I new it's not.
Speaker 2: In it real quick, okay, because before when I said
Speaker 2: about the tech industry is taking over the music industry,
Speaker 2: what is your take on that, Like how everybody's kind
Speaker 2: of vilifying the Spotify's and all the DSPs.
Speaker 1: Like, what do you think it's necessary? I think they
Speaker 1: necessary evil.
Speaker 3: I believe that there's a symbiotic relationship between the creativity
Speaker 3: and the technology. Is necessary and it will take several
Speaker 3: iterations until it will be perceived as fair. But I believe,
Speaker 3: like you know that there there was no other way
Speaker 3: to go than a Netflix or a Spotify, right. But
Speaker 3: do you like it's all the entire library of all
Speaker 3: recorded music is in my device right now? Well, the
Speaker 3: lever of humanity is yeah, but that but that's what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. So it's it's inevitable, and it's almost like
Speaker 3: how people are they might want to vilify AI, but
Speaker 3: it's inevitable, and so you were just we were just
Speaker 3: talking about motif versus you know, phantom. But when you
Speaker 3: think or STEVIEE Wonder, the guy Ray Kurzweil who made
Speaker 3: the cursewhile synthesizer, he's a you know, a super forward
Speaker 3: thinker on what's called technological singularity where you won't be
Speaker 3: able to tell the difference between a human and a
Speaker 3: and a robot at some point. He believes that at
Speaker 3: some point it's going to converge. And so that's why
Speaker 3: you have a neural link from Eli Musk or whatever
Speaker 3: that he will put a chip and it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: you either assimilate or do you you know, at some
Speaker 3: point there are folks that are going to say, hey,
Speaker 3: I don't want the chip in my child. But then
Speaker 3: does that mean that your child is not going to
Speaker 3: be behind all the other kids that have a chip. Right,
Speaker 3: So at some point there is going to have to
Speaker 3: be some sort of of you know, convergence, and it's
Speaker 3: about us as as a as a race, as a
Speaker 3: species understanding how we do that in the safest way possible.
Speaker 2: But putting your financial cap on, don't you think that
Speaker 2: the conversation should be have because these we're seeing it
Speaker 2: in real time.
Speaker 1: The DSPs are making an incredible amount of money. Spotify
Speaker 1: has got three hundred and sixty five million billions and
Speaker 1: they're making billions.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, yeah, off of you know, because obviously
Speaker 2: the model is that now anybody could be an artist
Speaker 2: and feed that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, and and it generates income.
Speaker 3: But that's exactly what I'm saying. At some point, through
Speaker 3: different iterations, we will get to a relationship that is
Speaker 3: fair and equitable. But in the early stages, he who
Speaker 3: controls the cash flow controls how the actual pie is divided,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. And right now, as as.
Speaker 1: You're optimistic that it will pan out.
Speaker 3: It's inevitable. In my opinion, Like.
Speaker 4: Snoop Dogg, I believe he's the first one that said
Speaker 4: it's unfair these music splits are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the one at that status, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been saying that, Yeah, yeah, I believe
Speaker 1: he's the first one I saw, like yeah, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 1: definitely at that status that was willing to step up.
Speaker 3: All right, producing or singing, singing, performing. I mean there's
Speaker 3: really just no Yes, being a producer is awesome, but
Speaker 3: I mean there is no, there is. There is no
Speaker 3: substitute for being on stage in front of I mean
Speaker 3: talk about it. You could be in it, you could
Speaker 3: be in the lab and imagine it as a producer. Yo,
Speaker 3: this is going to be crazy at such and such,
Speaker 3: but when you do that festival stadium you got people
Speaker 3: jumping and singing every word back is no, there is
Speaker 3: no substitute for that.
Speaker 4: I always say an artist that's a producer is the
Speaker 4: most unselfish person on the planet because in order for
Speaker 4: you to make a hit, especially after you know where
Speaker 4: I hit it feels right, that must be feeling like
Speaker 4: giving a like a the way.
Speaker 1: Have you ever given away of record?
Speaker 3: It was like, well that was that first record, that
Speaker 3: was hot Tonight.
Speaker 1: Okay, that was that first d You want to get that?
Speaker 3: No, but you had it? Yeah, we let it go,
Speaker 3: let it wow?
Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
Speaker 2: Lionel Richie or Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie, you got a
Speaker 2: story with him.
Speaker 3: Well, in my family, they're very religious family, So there
Speaker 3: were only two non religious A tracks in our house,
Speaker 3: and one was Linel Richie and the other one was
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Everything else was easy like Sunday morning.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it was no, No, it was the
Speaker 3: one with All Night Long on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay out Cast gk.
Speaker 3: Our Casts.
Speaker 1: It's a twenty fifth anniversary of Outcast the first Yeah,
Speaker 1: I probally like the second album.
Speaker 3: Rick Ross or Meek mill Rose clips or marb deep
Speaker 3: Oh clips just because push your tears on something that
Speaker 3: I like.
Speaker 1: Very happy.
Speaker 2: He just he's just right right now. That's that's his
Speaker 2: fan clips over here. Laurence Hill or Queen Latifa, Lauren Hill.
Speaker 2: I was going to say Lauryn Hill no matter who
Speaker 2: you said.
Speaker 3: Second, and the reason for that is just you know,
Speaker 3: uh two parts of that once again grew up very
Speaker 3: almost sheltered. But yeah, that's all my mother could talk about,
Speaker 3: My mother and father could talk about. No was her
Speaker 3: performance in Sister Yeah, yeah kid, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you realize she only has one album?
Speaker 3: That's all you need? That's crazy, that's all you need
Speaker 3: that album?
Speaker 2: When you have that, that's all you need. I mean
Speaker 2: you got to count the Fuji's. Yeah, that is her album.
Speaker 2: We didn't say, but that's.
Speaker 1: Another it's all.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, that's as close but almost as close
Speaker 3: to a perfect album as you can possibly get in
Speaker 3: terms of what in terms of what I like.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of everybody would agree with you.
Speaker 3: The world, the production, the songs, the emotion. I was
Speaker 3: actually this crazy. I was just watching. I think it
Speaker 3: must must have been like an MTV unplugged or something
Speaker 3: like that. And then she actually because one of my
Speaker 3: favorite records is the X Factor record. But then there's
Speaker 3: a clip on YouTube where she actually is freestyling at
Speaker 3: the end of it and it's all live and it's
Speaker 3: just that whole vibe is just and.
Speaker 1: The fact how Son is out here, Yes, a part
Speaker 1: of the mally extended that that is great. That is greatness.
Speaker 1: Her album is such a positive album too. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's the last one for quick time of sliming.
Speaker 4: We get back into the interview. Loyalty or respect?
Speaker 3: Loyalty?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 3: Loyalty? Well, I mean, listen, you can be respected by many,
Speaker 3: even by those who don't know you. But to have
Speaker 3: loyalty or to have true betrayal, someone really has to
Speaker 3: know you.
Speaker 1: M that was hard. He's got a flight sing. Okay,
Speaker 1: what times it's flight? Mister Lee? Yoh we got you
Speaker 1: drunk man? Yeah yeah, yeah, don't take my last shot
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, let's talk about the wealth Plan before we
Speaker 4: get about it at what exactly is the wealth Plan?
Speaker 1: They'll be touched on it a little bit earlier, but.
Speaker 3: I feel I feel like we've we've covered it because
Speaker 3: it's it's more of a concept than an actual, you know,
Speaker 3: the wealth Plan. So it's just more of the fact
Speaker 3: that we have a service that we provide, whether it's
Speaker 3: to artists, musicians, but anybody. I have folks that have
Speaker 3: been longtime fans of mine but work at Facebook, work
Speaker 3: at Google, and they're like, Hey, I mean, I'm the
Speaker 3: first person in my family making tech money, and I
Speaker 3: don't want I want to be that different differentiator in
Speaker 3: my family for how our money is going to grow,
Speaker 3: you know. And that's the crazy piece about it is
Speaker 3: you could be really smart in technology, you could be
Speaker 3: really smart in college, you could be really smart in music,
Speaker 3: you can be really smart in business, but you don't
Speaker 3: know anything about investing and how to make the money
Speaker 3: work for you and last forever, and how to actually
Speaker 3: do it in the right ways with tax laws and
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff that allows you to really
Speaker 3: live how you want to live. And for what we
Speaker 3: do at Wealth Planned, it's kind of twofold one is
Speaker 3: just how to teach people how to invest. But number two,
Speaker 3: what is money unless you can enjoy it with the
Speaker 3: people you love when you're in the best years of
Speaker 3: your life. Because a lot of folks put a huge
Speaker 3: they put a huge emphasis of retirement, etc. And yes,
Speaker 3: you should have a great life in your golden years,
Speaker 3: but you should you should have a great life now
Speaker 3: with the people you love, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And so if you know how to take a small
Speaker 3: amount of money and make it work for you so
Speaker 3: that you don't feel like I said, and we gave
Speaker 3: that example, if you want to hire your mom that
Speaker 3: in many cases it seems like it would seem like
Speaker 3: a massive financial commitment. But if the money is doing
Speaker 3: it for you, then you can do it and actually
Speaker 3: feel great about it, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 3: that's really that's that's really what the wealth plan actually
Speaker 3: is all about.
Speaker 1: That's something I mind about you throughout all this thing
Speaker 1: that everything's going on. It's like, you stay positive, gotta
Speaker 1: be It's not it's not easy. That's not easy, not always.
Speaker 1: I mean, even though you're making it seem like it's easy,
Speaker 1: like and you like I said, do you have music?
Speaker 4: Like like, God bless me for using this term, but
Speaker 4: you you remind me like a male shot day, Like
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, Like I can't get a massage,
Speaker 4: listen to your ship?
Speaker 2: Be cool?
Speaker 1: Still be cool? Crazy right now saying like it's music
Speaker 1: that made me feel good, Like I'm not gonna listen
Speaker 1: to I'm listening to some smooth ships. But how do
Speaker 1: you maintain that positivity? Like this ship is? It's crazy
Speaker 1: right now? You can say crazy things.
Speaker 4: About whatever you want to say online and yeah, and
Speaker 4: you're maintaining you're not jumping out there, not commentated.
Speaker 3: On, you know, whatever's happening. And the reason for it
Speaker 3: is because there actually is no better feeling than being
Speaker 3: helpful to someone. And I'm telling you just something as
Speaker 3: simple as you know, if just imagine how you would
Speaker 3: feel if you know, you in line in a Starbucks
Speaker 3: or somebody and somebody says, you know what, I actually
Speaker 3: what do you order?
Speaker 1: And I got you.
Speaker 3: It's something as simple as that. But on the flip side,
Speaker 3: if you're the person who's able to do that, that
Speaker 3: gives you that kind of that kind of positivity that
Speaker 3: you're able to do something for someone. And so I
Speaker 3: think really there's two parts of it. Number one, take
Speaker 3: care of yourself so that you're in a position to
Speaker 3: be helpful enough service to folks. So obviously, if you're
Speaker 3: taking care of yourself, you're gonna feel great.
Speaker 1: Right, It's like the plane mask, right, put on yourself
Speaker 1: first you can help kids.
Speaker 3: And then number two, actually be in that spirit of service,
Speaker 3: because there is no greater reward than knowing that something
Speaker 3: that you've done is actually helpful to someone else. And
Speaker 3: that's that that and and so that's why that's why
Speaker 3: I have the optimism about music and technology. That's why
Speaker 3: I have the optimism with you know, if people are
Speaker 3: not making that much money in music or that much
Speaker 3: money period. I have seen literally, I have seen folks
Speaker 3: who have taken you know, mail carrier, commercial truck driver
Speaker 3: salaries and turned it to millions of dollars. And it's
Speaker 3: because they just need to know. It's middle school math.
Speaker 3: But somebody just got to show thee. Yeah, and they
Speaker 3: have somebody, They got somebody that's going to show them,
Speaker 3: you know. And for me, I had someone to show me.
Speaker 3: So that's really what it's about for me. Now, It's
Speaker 3: that legacy of actually saying and whoever wants to talk
Speaker 3: to me about it text Ryan dot com. Still to
Speaker 3: this day, you leave your number there and it's my
Speaker 3: direct number. And obviously I've got technology to you know,
Speaker 3: make sure that we weed out the bad actors and
Speaker 3: we have you know, safeguards in there. You know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But the bottom line is that there is
Speaker 3: no I couldn't be at a better place because I
Speaker 3: see every single day the impact that I'm having, and
Speaker 3: it's it's it's a real commitment to the furtherance of community,
Speaker 3: the furtherance of our culture, the furtherance of just humanity
Speaker 3: in general. I know it sounds either lofty, but that's.
Speaker 2: In the Golden rule, like do want to others that
Speaker 2: you would like to be Yes, exactly, that's a basic thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, everybody should implement. Yes, you know for sure, we
Speaker 1: know you got to go.
Speaker 4: But on this day, Monday, September twenty third, at six
Speaker 4: twenty three, Yeah, do you think that we would be.
Speaker 1: Talking here and Didy being And yeah, no, I did.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely not, absolutely not. And I think really for
Speaker 3: me is because when I first got into the music game,
Speaker 3: we talked about Tommy Montola. It was Tommy and Puff,
Speaker 3: those were my mentors. Puff was on the management side.
Speaker 3: Tommy saw me as an artist. On the publishing side,
Speaker 3: Puff and Gwen Niles they managed me. But I've always
Speaker 3: been in my own insulated. I didn't see any of
Speaker 3: this going on. I literally did not see any of it.
Speaker 3: So all I saw was someone who gave me an opportunity,
Speaker 3: somebody who put me in the room with all the
Speaker 3: biggest artists. My first placement ever was on Beyonce because
Speaker 3: of this connection Britney Spears, you know, doing Danny Kane
Speaker 3: singles for Loon, singles for New Edition. But that's because
Speaker 3: I basically was in my little Ivory tower making stuff,
Speaker 3: sending it and literally, you know, incredible connections and and
Speaker 3: uh and and opportunities were being created from the music.
Speaker 3: So all I needed to do was be in the music.
Speaker 3: But even today, I mean y'all can see, like from
Speaker 3: from even me being in Harvard that young I just
Speaker 3: I never acquired a taste for alcohol, for drugs, for partying,
Speaker 3: and not to say when I got to New York,
Speaker 3: I was And that's actually how I met Cassie, because
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, I'm I'm I'm a big producer.
Speaker 3: Now I'm going to the club whatever, you know what
Speaker 3: I'm saying. But like I just I have never really
Speaker 3: had that as advice. I think I have obsessiveness in
Speaker 3: other pursuits, so I would have never literally never. And also,
Speaker 3: you know, folks have always talked to me and say, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, they've asked me, you know, hey, how do
Speaker 3: you feel you were you heartbroken? You know, puff took
Speaker 3: your girl whatever it was. And like I understand when
Speaker 3: a story or a narrative is not for me, and
Speaker 3: once it was no longer for me, then there were
Speaker 3: other narratives and stories for me to invest my time,
Speaker 3: energy and resources into. So even for all of this
Speaker 3: to yeah, of course you heard, but I never. I
Speaker 3: was just in in my ivory tower the whole time,
Speaker 3: so I would have never.
Speaker 1: I admire your attitude, for sure. I admire your maturity.
Speaker 4: I admire you're holding it down for sure, because you know,
Speaker 4: there could have been a lot of things you could
Speaker 4: have answered that, and you answered that like a grown man.
Speaker 4: You answered like a person that is not petty. And
Speaker 4: I'm very petty, so I could recognize when a person
Speaker 4: is not to take going down that same block that
Speaker 4: I stay on.
Speaker 1: But I respect that, man, I respect that.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. I know you got to
Speaker 1: catch a flight, take a couple of pictures.
Speaker 4: To get a drop and yeah, yo, man, we really
Speaker 4: wanted to get your flowers. May deserve it, man, you
Speaker 4: deserve it because you leading the way for every artist,
Speaker 4: not just independent artists, major artists. Is who find out
Speaker 4: you know, how much that, how much have they given
Speaker 4: one hundred percent fit for and receiving so little and
Speaker 4: when you know, I had to take me years to
Speaker 4: find out, but you leading the way and me seeing
Speaker 4: you do it in in real time. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm seeing I get to witness you do this in
Speaker 4: real time. I get to witness you, you know, your
Speaker 4: shows in real time, say your merch in real time
Speaker 4: and sit back and say, damn man, that's something that
Speaker 4: eventually want to do with Drink Champs. You know, we
Speaker 4: want to drop a compilation album and I just feel
Speaker 4: like everyone should should pay attention to your story.
Speaker 1: Let's go and we got your back.
Speaker 2: Drink Champs is a Drink Champs LLC production hosts and
Speaker 2: executive producers n O r E and DJ E f
Speaker 2: N listen to drink Champs on Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, Spotify,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us
Speaker 2: for another episode of Drink Champs, hosted by Yours truly,
Speaker 2: dj e FN and n O r E. Please make
Speaker 2: sure to follow us on all our socials That's at
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Speaker 2: stay up to date with the latest releases, news and
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