Speaker 1: R and B Money.
Speaker 2: We are.
Speaker 1: Thank take Valoti. We are the authority on R and
Speaker 1: B ladies and gentleman. My name is Tank Valentine and
Speaker 1: this is the R and B Money Podcast, the authority
Speaker 1: on all things R and B. H You ever been
Speaker 1: to the trout?
Speaker 3: I know I have. I know a lot.
Speaker 1: Of people say they've been. A lot of people say
Speaker 1: they know. But this one man orchestrated the soundtrack around
Speaker 1: the whole damn thing. Yeah, we're gonna keep this short,
Speaker 1: sweet and get right to this. Make some noise from.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, I.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? I gotta I gotta start I
Speaker 1: gotta start off the pot like this. What you I
Speaker 1: gotta start off like this. Jay said, you need to
Speaker 1: get you need to get a while you're in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, let me get what say you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Let me pick his brain on some
Speaker 1: of this stuff I'm doing. Because I'm tapping into the trap,
Speaker 1: I'm tapping into it. I want to know one of
Speaker 1: them know if I'm tapping correctly. You know, because there
Speaker 1: is a tap, it's a specific tap that they have
Speaker 1: to be tapping in order to be tapped in. Here's
Speaker 1: to the studio and I'm sitting and I'm sitting with
Speaker 1: a and I'm like, I want to play you a
Speaker 1: song that I had that I just think is fire
Speaker 1: Cray Shy out of the band who did the track
Speaker 1: on that. I said, I think this is fire vibe.
Speaker 1: I think I tell them and them in a good
Speaker 1: place with this. And I played it for him. You know,
Speaker 1: they they don't get you know, don't I don't get
Speaker 1: too excited. You don't jump out the window, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Even if you like it, he's just yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah that go there go the go right there. I said,
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to play you.
Speaker 4: Another version, a version of another version of it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: what's my guy?
Speaker 1: Uh? With rich Homie? My god, I said, I want
Speaker 1: to play you the rich Homie verse. I said, it's
Speaker 1: it's a little different. I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: he I don't know if he interrupted the vibe or
Speaker 1: messed up what was going on. You know, I'm pitching
Speaker 1: my hate. Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm pretty selling. I'm
Speaker 1: pre selling my hate to just make sure he's on
Speaker 1: my Yeah. Yeah. And I start playing it. And as
Speaker 1: soon as I start playing it, uh, because Rich home
Speaker 1: is an intro.
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is a boss as.
Speaker 1: You know, like this. He gave me a look. I
Speaker 1: got to my verse. Rich Homer came in. He said,
Speaker 1: stop stopping right there, stop right there. That's it, right there,
Speaker 1: that's it. What's the problem, I said, you don't think
Speaker 1: they know nothing. See, that's your problem. You're thinking, you
Speaker 1: think you using your talented man. I said, what am
Speaker 1: I using? You using your talented man? These niggas are
Speaker 1: here just doing it.
Speaker 3: You gotta feel good.
Speaker 1: They just they just doing it. They just they just
Speaker 1: putting it out there. You overthinking it. That's it. I said,
Speaker 1: that's it, and I had to go home, go back
Speaker 1: to the hotel and think about how much I still
Speaker 1: didn't know about this ship.
Speaker 4: And the main thing he said to you, you're being
Speaker 4: too talented and too talented, too talented, relaxed.
Speaker 1: Brother. There, you're trying to sell this music to people
Speaker 1: who aren't musical. They don't play piano.
Speaker 4: Or sing the scale.
Speaker 1: They don't know, they don't know none of that.
Speaker 4: Good.
Speaker 1: They know it feeling good.
Speaker 4: That's all that matters. Stop overthinking the feeling. I'll never
Speaker 4: overthink now.
Speaker 1: Ever, since you said that, I have not been overthinking
Speaker 1: anything he's supposed to. I barely do backgrounds.
Speaker 2: Already talented, you're already too good. So what you're FeelA
Speaker 2: overthink it?
Speaker 1: Some over we are we are. I'm making twelve songs
Speaker 1: in one.
Speaker 4: There you go. That was me my problem, just trying
Speaker 4: to make it perfect.
Speaker 1: Trying to outdo me, looking in the mirror, singing to myself.
Speaker 4: We call it chasing ghosts.
Speaker 3: Chasing, chasing, ghost chasing.
Speaker 4: I like that what it is, That's what it is.
Speaker 1: So brother, first of all, family member, you know, fellow music,
Speaker 1: fellow church musicians. Yes, sir, thank you for coming here
Speaker 1: hanging out on man.
Speaker 3: You know I had to come real family.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you're you're You're a guy. Your time is money.
Speaker 4: We uh we know you appreciate you appreciate that for sure.
Speaker 1: But you know, as I spoke to the church musician
Speaker 1: in you, I want to go back to the beginnings.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to where somebody identified that
Speaker 1: you had a gift and you had talent. What day
Speaker 1: was that, what age was that? What church was that?
Speaker 2: So when I first started playing, and I don't think
Speaker 2: nobody identified I had a gift. I was just in
Speaker 2: church so much in Mississippi that you don't really got
Speaker 2: a choice but to find something to do while you
Speaker 2: If you at church four days a week, it's like
Speaker 2: bro And as a kid, I got to find something
Speaker 2: to do. I'm outside wrestling and doing whatever. But you
Speaker 2: know what other time you in church. So naturally, if
Speaker 2: you in church and you're trying to play some music,
Speaker 2: you're gonna start off with the drums. I started, I
Speaker 2: want to play the drum, but me and seven other
Speaker 2: little kids want to play the drum, So now we
Speaker 2: got to take turn playing song.
Speaker 3: Now, like ro don't want to wait around and play.
Speaker 2: One song, So I started go hanging out with the
Speaker 2: guy that's playing the organ. First guy was named Sheldon Harrington.
Speaker 2: Steal my peoples to this day, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And matter of fact, he the guy that really showed
Speaker 2: me how to play, but he gave me some bad habits.
Speaker 2: We laugh about it all the time. He had a
Speaker 2: transposed organ.
Speaker 4: I know where you're going, boy.
Speaker 2: Everything we play is either gonna be in c is
Speaker 2: gonna be in gen. We can't playing no black keys,
Speaker 2: no matter what. Yeah, no matter what.
Speaker 1: Because you just with with the keys.
Speaker 3: It's fingering.
Speaker 1: Once you're prolific yeah in a key and the yeah.
Speaker 3: You stayed there, you stayed nowhere, You're uncomfortable everywhere.
Speaker 1: I had a guy. I had a guy. His name
Speaker 1: is Chuky. He was He was hell of five musician, drums, guitar, keys,
Speaker 1: every he do it all sing. But something about him
Speaker 1: and B flat was extra terrestion.
Speaker 4: You can't do nothing with him and be flat.
Speaker 1: Can't do nothing with him and be flatting. So I was.
Speaker 1: I was the music director for for the choir he
Speaker 1: was playing for, and I literally like when we were
Speaker 1: doing transitions and stuf, I would have to wait for
Speaker 1: him to transpose his keyboardark so he.
Speaker 4: Could get to the yep, what every song we're.
Speaker 1: In to be?
Speaker 4: But when I say he gott.
Speaker 3: Wearing the church out, that's a musician for you right there.
Speaker 1: But we'll wait ahead.
Speaker 2: Nah. So so you know, I learned a lot of
Speaker 2: now so cold and see, I don't even it was
Speaker 2: so crazy. I don't know if anybody watched me make
Speaker 2: beats on YouTube or and every time I make a beat,
Speaker 2: I'm always in C.
Speaker 3: I'm always in C minor.
Speaker 2: Now now you know, I can play in all the
Speaker 2: other keys, but every time for some reason every time
Speaker 2: I make a beat, I want to transpose it to C.
Speaker 2: Even if I'm doing an E or F whatever, I
Speaker 2: transposed it to where I'm in C because that's just like,
Speaker 2: I guess that's my sound. That's my comfort zone.
Speaker 1: Is it really in the or you just transformed from
Speaker 1: the so that you can play.
Speaker 2: Play and see so I can play And so you
Speaker 2: know that if anybody that's any musicians that watched, I know,
Speaker 2: they be like, man, why he always is always in
Speaker 2: sea when he you know, when he's playing, But that's
Speaker 2: when making beats. I just that's you know, that's.
Speaker 4: What I do.
Speaker 1: You got to go to your go to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a go to and it's like a it's
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those producers that has a pacific sound,
Speaker 2: so and I think that's what makes that sound.
Speaker 3: It's just you know, yeah, you know, you get what
Speaker 3: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: It's like that.
Speaker 1: So if it ain't broke, you can't how many years
Speaker 1: you've been doing this?
Speaker 2: For man so Ice it was two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: so about twenty years in, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So still still listen.
Speaker 4: Not broken now.
Speaker 3: When I had to go to the next church, they
Speaker 3: ain't got no trup.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: You know how lady give the single solo and they
Speaker 2: and see sharp or something. It's like, why I drown
Speaker 2: them out? I turn that thing up so loud and
Speaker 2: press see so loud. You're gonna you gonna go down'nna listen.
Speaker 2: Even made me look bad. Yeah, get down here now
Speaker 2: something now. Some of them singers, you know, they they
Speaker 2: strong willed, so they like, no, you gotta come up
Speaker 2: to see shark.
Speaker 3: I turn that organ off and had like something wrong.
Speaker 3: You know you're looking around.
Speaker 4: What's going on? Organ?
Speaker 3: Roll in organ? But listen now when they're done, I'm
Speaker 3: coming back and see I knew how to play it.
Speaker 4: I ain't know what I was doing back cooking.
Speaker 3: Now, don't like I ain't know how to play it.
Speaker 4: You pick up.
Speaker 3: That's turn that's come on man, that's that's real life, right.
Speaker 1: I hate I hate it.
Speaker 3: I ain't never like A. I ain't never like B
Speaker 3: or E. Them three keys on.
Speaker 1: I don't like A. I'll give you I don't like
Speaker 1: I don't like E. I can, but I don't like either. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Those are the two keys that just got but all
Speaker 1: the black keys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all this that's my favorite now see sharp is
Speaker 2: my favorite now, but see sharp a flat or B
Speaker 2: flat too.
Speaker 3: But before we ain't nothing but all white kids. You
Speaker 3: can't go wrong.
Speaker 1: You know what? Sharp became my favorite?
Speaker 5: M h yeah, oh yeah killing.
Speaker 1: That's when, yeah, sharp became my favorite.
Speaker 3: And he used to use that same pattern all the time.
Speaker 1: And I said, what is that we would be in
Speaker 1: church during offering, m.
Speaker 3: In church of offering time, man, playing down the people
Speaker 3: that know.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Don't keep the Lord on
Speaker 1: the down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, you did it right, You did it right,
Speaker 2: praising my pot, you did it right.
Speaker 4: So you playing? So you're playing out of Mississippi. How
Speaker 4: long were y'all in Mississippi?
Speaker 2: So I went to elementary school in Mississippi. Then I
Speaker 2: went to middle school half of like my first year
Speaker 2: of middle school in Mississippi too. So we went from Grenada,
Speaker 2: Mississippi to Jackson, Mississippi, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 2: my dad was in the military, so I'm moving all
Speaker 2: my life. I was born in Germany.
Speaker 1: Branch Army.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was. I was born in Frankfurt, Germany,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I was just moving all my every three years
Speaker 2: I'm you know, I'm going Yeah, So you know, like
Speaker 2: you was talking about earlier, like when people ask where
Speaker 2: I'm from, I say the Bay Area because after I
Speaker 2: moved from Mississippi, we moved to San Diego, stayed there
Speaker 2: for a little while, went you know, went to middle school,
Speaker 2: first year of high school.
Speaker 3: Then I moved to San Francisco.
Speaker 2: But you know, you don't really start becoming who you
Speaker 2: are to your real high school years.
Speaker 3: So that's why I was kind of formulating, you know,
Speaker 3: who I was.
Speaker 2: So when people asked me where I'm from, always say
Speaker 2: to Bay That's where you know, that's where I got
Speaker 2: my name in a game from.
Speaker 4: So I was born in Frankfurt, frank for Germany. So
Speaker 4: you do, citizen, Yeah, ship's great. Do you go back.
Speaker 2: I've been back once, but it was you know, it
Speaker 2: was a short trip. Me and my dad went out there,
Speaker 2: but I ain't really just explored Germany like I need to.
Speaker 4: He's a real live German out here, German Man, German.
Speaker 2: That's what.
Speaker 3: That's why, that's why my name is zatoven.
Speaker 4: I did not all the years, I know, I didn't
Speaker 4: know why.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest, I didn't know either. I didn't
Speaker 2: know to some years back, like dangn you know what
Speaker 2: Beethoven is from Germany?
Speaker 3: From Germany? So you know, I ain't put that together
Speaker 3: until later on, to be honest with.
Speaker 1: You, Sooven is your real.
Speaker 2: Name, Nove my produced name, but I didn't really put
Speaker 2: it together.
Speaker 1: You gave yourself the name Zaytoven, not even consciously.
Speaker 3: Not even thinking about Beethoven and where he's from.
Speaker 1: He's from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great, that's great. They caught up years later.
Speaker 1: That's but that's like design.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like right, So when you touch down
Speaker 4: in the Bay, is it a culture shock for you
Speaker 4: because you at this point you in high school the
Speaker 4: first second year of high school, and obviously I'm from there,
Speaker 4: but I understand. I understood early on that this place
Speaker 4: is very different from anywhere else anywhere. It's literally an island,
Speaker 4: you know, our islands, you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 4: it it's water that separates each city, and it really
Speaker 4: becomes whatever is going on on that island ain't really
Speaker 4: going on nowhere else. We are very insulated. Yeah, it's
Speaker 4: his own thing, it's his own thing. So when you
Speaker 4: get there fourteen fifteen years old. You already well versed
Speaker 4: in music. You've been playing since you was know very young. Fella,
Speaker 4: are y'all immersed in the church scene up in the
Speaker 4: Bay when y'all first get there.
Speaker 2: So we was forced to move to the to the band,
Speaker 2: and my dad had to move too, Yeah, Presidio. So now,
Speaker 2: the biggest shock for me was I was in San Diego.
Speaker 2: San Diego probably was the prettiest city I ever lived in. Beautiful, man,
Speaker 2: it was just the schools I went to. Everything was
Speaker 2: just so high end and nice. I come to the Bay, Bro,
Speaker 2: I'm on Prosidio. It's like three four houses. These are
Speaker 2: you know, it's having these houses abandoned out here. Band,
Speaker 2: It's like it's shut down out here. It's ugly, it's cold.
Speaker 2: Then the school I go to is Galileo or high School,
Speaker 2: and it's like a prison.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, like COOLi hot.
Speaker 2: My mama wouldn't let me go there. Really, it's my
Speaker 2: neighborhood high school. It's literally the high school in my neighborhood.
Speaker 2: He was the same high school as O. J.
Speaker 4: Simps Yoh J.
Speaker 3: Simpsons. I go to school.
Speaker 2: They walking around with radios and everything like that kind
Speaker 2: of school. What I did, it came to I'm used
Speaker 2: to some high end nice man. They even brought me
Speaker 2: to the hood, like the g House, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So that was the biggest shot for me.
Speaker 2: But naturally, like anything else, man, once you get there,
Speaker 2: you start making friends and start getting adapted to what's
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 3: Now, I couldn't leave it.
Speaker 2: Like I turned ghetto from San Francisco and I'm ghetto now.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm like I'm when I say I'm ghetto,
Speaker 2: it's like I like hood. Like if I go to
Speaker 2: the clubs, it's the hole in the wall, like it's
Speaker 2: it's hood. If you listen to the music I make,
Speaker 2: it's like I like hood music, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: street music. I'm a church musician to this day, but
Speaker 2: that's you know, when it comes to you know, rap
Speaker 2: music or whatever, it's like secondar music. I like hardcore
Speaker 2: hood music, you know what I mean. So, and that
Speaker 2: comes from San Francisco. San Francisco turned me out.
Speaker 4: But that's the part that that also isn't talked about
Speaker 4: a lot about the city. And I mean, Tank knows
Speaker 4: because he's been there with me so many times and
Speaker 4: he's like, I didn't even know this existed in a
Speaker 4: city like San Francisco. But the black community is so
Speaker 4: small that we just have these pockets. And when you
Speaker 4: get in that pocket, it's fully street. It's full, you know,
Speaker 4: it's with everything you with, whatever you want is here
Speaker 4: right there. So for you to go there and be
Speaker 4: pushed into that, I get it. I get it because
Speaker 4: there's there's no and people get it confused, like, wait,
Speaker 4: but it's San Francisco, man, they show your bridge, I said,
Speaker 4: they're showing you that so you'll come there for tourism.
Speaker 4: They're pushing everything else under the rug. All a little
Speaker 4: seven percent. At the time when we was there, our
Speaker 4: seven percent community that's now probably three or four percent,
Speaker 4: was so active, you know what I mean. You could
Speaker 4: not get away from it. You couldn't get away from
Speaker 4: it if you lived there, if you live there. I
Speaker 4: fell in love with the base.
Speaker 1: But that's also divine. It's more of what it was supposed.
Speaker 3: To be, supposed to be like that in order for
Speaker 3: you to.
Speaker 4: Be who you are. And it's very musical. Yeah, and
Speaker 4: it's very musical, you know, you know, especially in the field.
Speaker 4: More it's you know, it was known back in the
Speaker 4: days as the Harlem of the West, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, the neighborhood that we're from. It's like so
Speaker 4: it jazz music was the blood of jazz music. The
Speaker 4: spirit of jazz music is still in San Francisco to
Speaker 4: this day. You know, yo, she's you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: and in those type of places literally in our neighborhood.
Speaker 4: So the music is there too, but by the time
Speaker 4: you got there, the music is totally different. It's mob music.
Speaker 4: Mob music.
Speaker 1: What is mob music?
Speaker 2: It's just its own it's but it's got its own sound,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. And you got to be
Speaker 2: in the city to even know what that is or
Speaker 2: even like the music. I don't think everywhere outside probably
Speaker 2: like man, I don't like that.
Speaker 4: Don't even get it.
Speaker 3: They don't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the mob song that that would know that?
Speaker 4: You would? You would have to you would have to
Speaker 4: be there.
Speaker 3: It's underground music.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean you was. You was at my
Speaker 4: birthday party when you was getting my birthday party. Just
Speaker 4: felt with saying Quinn on stage find out the.
Speaker 2: Hard way, dum don't don't don't that's my music, okay,
Speaker 2: because it's it's like deep based heavy, like it's haunting.
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: On stage, I said, I don't know what right, I'm
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 3: I'm with it.
Speaker 1: What are we doing?
Speaker 3: What is the dad show? What that is? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's like it's it's it's original. Because
Speaker 1: I come from a regional thing. That's why I get it.
Speaker 1: I come from go go music. Yes, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's just that tribal thing. You got to
Speaker 1: be in the d m V to.
Speaker 4: Really understand standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got understand understanding.
Speaker 1: Did you start making my music?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I had you ain't got no choice.
Speaker 1: Okay, so go back. When is the first time you say,
Speaker 1: okay a musical. I got all of these cool things happening.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should start making beats.
Speaker 3: Man, I started making beats.
Speaker 2: So, first of all, the way I started making beasts
Speaker 2: is my buddy JT. The bigger figure from the Bay.
Speaker 2: He was like one of the biggest bosses you know
Speaker 2: in San Francisco at the time. He's seen me playing
Speaker 2: the keyboard at the football game and came to me like, hey, bro,
Speaker 2: I need to get you in the studio. The man
Speaker 2: took me to his mama house. What the studio was
Speaker 2: that this is how you make the drum machine work
Speaker 2: with the keyboard, This is how you add sounds. All right, cool,
Speaker 2: you got it. I bet I'll be back. And I'm
Speaker 2: just at his house every day, just making beats. Put
Speaker 2: it on cassette tape. Now, first, you know, I played,
Speaker 2: I played the piano in church, so all my beats
Speaker 2: sounded like bro, they too happy.
Speaker 3: What kind of beats is this? You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like, you know what I mean? They they piano driven,
Speaker 2: They just happy, like you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: didn't really know to do. But you know, the more
Speaker 2: I started making beats, and I remember him starting to
Speaker 2: rap on one, then the other little guys from neighborhood
Speaker 2: started rapping on a couple of beats.
Speaker 3: So I'm feeling good, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Then when san Quinn wrapped on the beat first time,
Speaker 2: wrapping on one of my beats, I was like, BRO made.
Speaker 3: It because san Quinn was like little heroes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. So you know
Speaker 2: that's what got me. And all this stuff is, like
Speaker 2: you say, is regional music. And I feel I still
Speaker 2: feel like my music is like regional even though it's
Speaker 2: like more South driven. Now it's still more underground, like
Speaker 2: regional time come to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I think. That's what it is.
Speaker 4: Never you've never changed who you are, and this whole thing.
Speaker 3: It's the same.
Speaker 1: Create that sound that is your sound in his in
Speaker 1: his studio or was that something that just kind of evolved.
Speaker 2: Evolved evolved into that, you know, because I went from
Speaker 2: the baiting I came to Atlanta, So now.
Speaker 4: You come here fresh after high school.
Speaker 2: No, my parents moved, like my dairy tired and they
Speaker 2: moved to Atlanta, like we're going to live somewhere that's
Speaker 2: cheaper than San Francisco. I was so stuck on the Bay.
Speaker 2: I stayed. You know, I started making a little bees.
Speaker 2: I'm selling bees for two hundred dollars. I'm playing at
Speaker 2: the church where I've been at for the last couple
Speaker 2: of years, all my friends here.
Speaker 3: I don't want to leave, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It wasn't until I start laying away studio equipment, laying
Speaker 2: away a drum machine, laying away a keyboard.
Speaker 4: I got it.
Speaker 2: I want to set up my own studio, but I
Speaker 2: ain't got nowhere to set it up. I'm staying at
Speaker 2: the passage house. I can't set up no studio over there.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: You finished that guy at this point, I finished that guy.
Speaker 3: I went to Marine College. I started going to.
Speaker 2: Marion, you know, playing basketball. So I was like, I
Speaker 2: was that's the other part. Yeah, I was playing basket
Speaker 2: point guard. Yeah, come on, yeah, yeah, who can't hoop
Speaker 2: that dow music?
Speaker 3: Who company.
Speaker 1: To me?
Speaker 3: It's it's like that.
Speaker 2: But if you ain't doing if you ain't hooping it
Speaker 2: and you ain't doing music, then.
Speaker 3: You know what you're doing.
Speaker 4: You called in some other ship.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: But yeah, man, I went to Marine only for a
Speaker 2: little while because I didn't realize, like, you know, we
Speaker 2: want state championship that year Gal was nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: and of course I'm going to play basketball after this
Speaker 2: and Marin not knowing that when I go to Marine,
Speaker 2: like bro okay, everybody's six foot three, and whoever they
Speaker 2: point guard is, he just as fast and as you
Speaker 2: know as I am. So I'm like third I'm third stream.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: It's like, man, I don't want to I don't want
Speaker 2: to do this. Yeah, I'm making music. And I just
Speaker 2: started realizing like the basketball stuff, like man, that come
Speaker 2: on that's too far fit. So I just started, you know,
Speaker 2: doing the music, start getting my own studio equipment.
Speaker 4: And for you though too, though this was a little
Speaker 4: different for you. Like, so I'll give Tanks some context,
Speaker 4: Like I went to the very basketball driven high school
Speaker 4: at that at that point, ball Boy was we were
Speaker 4: a powerhouse, but nobody went to school out of it,
Speaker 4: Like nobody got scholarships. You know, niggas just kicking it in.
Speaker 4: Who yeah, right. His school though, was at that at
Speaker 4: that point was it was like they were like the
Speaker 4: younger version of us. I was the baby on my
Speaker 4: team because I played varsity as a freshman, so I
Speaker 4: was playing the whole time. But they were my age
Speaker 4: at that time. So when they by the time they
Speaker 4: got to their senior year, these niggas was called whoop niggas.
Speaker 4: And the one thing they had, though was kids that
Speaker 4: were going to go to school. So he was he
Speaker 4: got to see that. He got to see like the
Speaker 4: Walls twins, you met Kenny and Lindy, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. One went to the NFL. One played very
Speaker 4: high level at Boston College, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: And he got to see that up closer. You For me,
Speaker 4: it was kind of like weld on, none of us
Speaker 4: go to college. You know what I'm saying, I don't
Speaker 4: care who recruited me for something happens. So that pushed me.
Speaker 4: Even though I had done music as a kid, it
Speaker 4: pushed me away from basketball because I'm just like, man,
Speaker 4: out of this high school.
Speaker 3: Ain't popping. It ain't nothing popping.
Speaker 1: And I didn't.
Speaker 4: And I used to call it the thirteenth grade junior college.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I ain't going to the thirteenth grade, right.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, the thirteenth grade.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. I'm like, I'm cool.
Speaker 1: I'm cool.
Speaker 4: So for you, I could see you being like, all right,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go here and hoop.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just that's that's what guys, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like my same teammates, I just wanted to stay with
Speaker 4: They going these big schools to play football, play basketball.
Speaker 3: So I get it, Yeah, I get it, But I
Speaker 3: didn't really want to go like that.
Speaker 2: I was just going to like this, like the hoop,
Speaker 2: just that you know, when you know, when you younger
Speaker 2: and your parents are like, okay, what you're gonna do?
Speaker 2: What you need to do you gotta pick something you're
Speaker 2: gonna do. You gotta give them some. So that's what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do.
Speaker 3: And they are already gone. They're already gone.
Speaker 2: So I'm living in San Francisco by my you know,
Speaker 2: not with none of my family.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So even then, though, even.
Speaker 2: Though I was doing music and I started working with
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, barrier artists, I didn't look
Speaker 2: at it as in, I'm gonna be a big time
Speaker 2: producer or this this is how I'm gonna pay my
Speaker 2: bills or none of that. I was just doing it
Speaker 2: because I enjoyed doing it. I can hustle and make
Speaker 2: a few dollars doing it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Your eyes are not set on music at all, not
Speaker 4: at all in that league.
Speaker 3: I ain't thinking nothing like that.
Speaker 4: That's crazy, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: So what prompts you to move to Atlanta? Of course
Speaker 1: your parents are here, But.
Speaker 2: Well, my parents has a basement in their house. And
Speaker 2: I didn't lay the wear all the studio equipment. I
Speaker 2: got this, all the studio equipment. I got my computer, keyboard,
Speaker 2: drum machine, but I ain't got nowhere to set it up.
Speaker 2: I can't afford to go live by myself nowhere in
Speaker 2: San Francisco. So they were like, when you come, you know,
Speaker 2: come on home, come down here. So I shipped all
Speaker 2: my equipment down there and set up my studio in
Speaker 2: my parents' basement.
Speaker 3: But I'm still doing it for fun.
Speaker 2: It ain't like I'm like, Okay, I'm trying to make
Speaker 2: it in music. No, I'm just doing it because my
Speaker 2: little brother can rap, my cousin can rap, Buddy up
Speaker 2: the street can rap. It's gonna be fun to do it.
Speaker 2: I enjoy making beats and recording songs. I was rapping,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So it's like we having
Speaker 2: a ball doing this. But then I start going to
Speaker 2: you also cut hair, so yeah, so I feel he's I.
Speaker 3: Was known for cutting hair, you know, all the whole
Speaker 3: basketball team, all the people at school.
Speaker 2: I'm cutting hair. So and so I came to Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Hustling. That's all it is.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm a church musician. Okay, I make I
Speaker 2: make four hundred on the week doing this. I can
Speaker 2: cut some hair, I can sell a few beats.
Speaker 3: Broke, I wasn't going to be broken, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, Because I'm a hustler. So that's how I
Speaker 3: looked at it.
Speaker 2: So I came down here, got my license while I
Speaker 2: was in Atlantic, you know, and then I started cutting
Speaker 2: at the shop, got my barber license, cutting at the shop.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I gotta keep I gotta do something, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So got the license. But then people start
Speaker 2: knowing me for cutting hair. But then they know that
Speaker 2: they got the studio of the Mama House too, you know,
Speaker 2: so people start coming around.
Speaker 3: That's what Gucci come out of. It comes from that.
Speaker 3: It just comes from they.
Speaker 2: Got the studio or he rapped, he rapped. Oh I
Speaker 2: know this dude, he want to come over. And Gucci
Speaker 2: was one of those guys that came over.
Speaker 1: Is that how it kicked off.
Speaker 4: Somebody just brought Gucci.
Speaker 2: A dude named Dray Malik rest in peace. He had
Speaker 2: passed not too long ago, but he the one brought
Speaker 2: Gucci over. And it's just because I'm a new kid
Speaker 2: in the city and I got a studio. You know,
Speaker 2: you gotta everybody come on, everybody, everybody want to come
Speaker 2: to the studio.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so good.
Speaker 1: Everybody had their own studio.
Speaker 2: No, ain't nobody had. Everybody had their own studio. Matter
Speaker 2: of fact, I don't know nobody else. They had their
Speaker 2: own studio in the house at that time. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: I man, my house flooded with people coming over, you know,
Speaker 2: and we just recording having a ball.
Speaker 4: What are your parents saying?
Speaker 2: I told you my dad was in the military, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember Pops coming downstairs like, hey, bro, I don't
Speaker 2: know what you think this he is. But I take
Speaker 2: all this equipment and throw it on the ground outside
Speaker 2: like this ain't no studio.
Speaker 3: And you got to think, nigga come to my house,
Speaker 3: meaning like we.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my folks looking like you lost your mind what
Speaker 2: you got going on?
Speaker 3: But it's like this.
Speaker 2: But but you know, moms and dads are different. My
Speaker 2: mom always had that thing where it's like she trying
Speaker 2: to push me to do something, you know, Like I
Speaker 2: used to play for her when she's singing at church.
Speaker 2: She was a choair director. So it's like she always,
Speaker 2: you know, pushed me to do something. She don't want
Speaker 2: to push me to go to college. You think you
Speaker 2: want to play basketball, go try it, go do it.
Speaker 2: So when I got people come to the studio, she
Speaker 2: kind of just to you know, kind of close the
Speaker 2: dose on. My pops can't really hear, he don't know
Speaker 2: I got you know, she was kind of helping me
Speaker 2: out in that in that sense, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So I will say that, like, you know, she kind
Speaker 2: of helped me in that area.
Speaker 1: So Gucci comes over.
Speaker 3: Gucci coming, Yeah, and what happened?
Speaker 2: So Gucci comes like you know, here a street guy,
Speaker 2: and he got his little nephew.
Speaker 3: Gucci wrote a song for him.
Speaker 2: His name was Little Buddy, and he wrote a song
Speaker 2: for him called little Buddy, like I need you to
Speaker 2: make a beef for this, Like you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: pay you to make a beef for my little nephew.
Speaker 3: And I'm so I made the beat.
Speaker 2: Gucci go in there rapping him, trying to teach his
Speaker 2: little nephew how to do it. I'm like, dang, like
Speaker 2: he sound hard. You sound like bro, you sound dope,
Speaker 2: like you need to do that artist. Yeah, you sound
Speaker 2: like an artist.
Speaker 1: He wasn't an artist, ship man.
Speaker 3: This is a strip.
Speaker 2: I can't even get into who Gucci was back then. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So, but it turned into
Speaker 2: for real zay all right, he come over the next day,
Speaker 2: he do a song for itself. Before you know it,
Speaker 2: every day say it's something about seven thirty morning, say,
Speaker 2: I'm una brush my teeth. I'm finna come over all right.
Speaker 2: Bet So, we just making songs every day. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I love making beats. And it's like, well, we just
Speaker 2: recording every day for.
Speaker 3: You know it.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm gonna go perform on our songs at the
Speaker 2: club tonight. We used to go to this club called
Speaker 2: the Libra on Moorland Avenue for you know it. It's
Speaker 2: like Gucci already got a name. He got a name
Speaker 2: but for doing other stuff. But he got a real
Speaker 2: name in the streets. So you know, people kind of
Speaker 2: resonated to the music a little different. So he just
Speaker 2: started coming like a hood hero with the music and
Speaker 2: I'm making the beats. And what may one thing I
Speaker 2: can't pay Guccie for is the promotion that he gave
Speaker 2: me your name. Man, This man talk about me like
Speaker 2: I'm the best thing since sliced bread.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it.
Speaker 2: Used to be embarrassing because we'll go to the I'm
Speaker 2: talking We go to the studio with a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of street guys. His first introduction and this is my
Speaker 2: produce a too. He don't drink, he don't smoke, He
Speaker 2: don't because he played organ at church.
Speaker 3: It's like, bro, why you got to say all that?
Speaker 3: Why are you saying all that? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean. I'm talking about were around.
Speaker 1: Like it's a it's a safety introduction. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a that's a good guy, guy. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good guy.
Speaker 4: He was looking out, but he was no.
Speaker 1: Fool with him and he with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he bragging.
Speaker 2: But you know how you done been, you know how
Speaker 2: you know how you you know you'd be like, man,
Speaker 2: I thank god, I ain't not happened to me. I've
Speaker 2: been in a lot of places like Bro, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: even been where I was at. You know, I was
Speaker 2: in a lot of places where it's like I'm not
Speaker 2: even knowing what I'm into, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: innocently in places where I was like, Bronie, I shouldn't
Speaker 2: even been over there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody, including a guy who don't do nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't know. I'm just here because you
Speaker 3: know we're doing I'm here yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah that is, but muchI.
Speaker 3: But me and Gucci start getting like this.
Speaker 2: So now it's when it comes to music, I'm we
Speaker 2: on each other hip everywhere we go, every studio, every man,
Speaker 2: you can be in the studio with Guji and Timmelin
Speaker 2: come by and bring some beats for Gucci.
Speaker 1: So you started being that thing he.
Speaker 2: Started getting, you know, Gucci started getting like everybody want
Speaker 2: to work with Gucci, Gucci being there. Listen, he can
Speaker 2: be in there. Listen to the Neptune beats. Theyre in
Speaker 2: there playing with some beats. If I walk in the studio,
Speaker 2: all right, yea, I don't want y'all be here now.
Speaker 2: So they pulled some beats up like that's how loyal,
Speaker 2: and that's how he was with you know, us doing music,
Speaker 2: and it was a sound. I guess he just he
Speaker 2: loved one thing about me and she is We never
Speaker 2: told each other that song whack. Even if if I
Speaker 2: thought the song was whack, I ain't gonna tell him
Speaker 2: what I feel.
Speaker 3: No, it's not going crazy.
Speaker 4: That's hard.
Speaker 2: Telling me the same thing. It's almost like I noticed beat,
Speaker 2: ain't that hard? I'm going to kill this And it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, but I learned a lot in that because
Speaker 2: some of those same songs that I felt like, bro,
Speaker 2: that ain't it? When he go do a show, these
Speaker 2: some of his biggest songs that he performed. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: it's like you can't say that, ain't it. So that's
Speaker 2: why I started learning everything is everything.
Speaker 1: I learned that from many fresh man.
Speaker 3: Everything is it?
Speaker 1: Many fresh is just like I mean, I got a
Speaker 1: thousand beats, just put on it, Yo, that's it. I said,
Speaker 1: I need, I need, I need a smash.
Speaker 4: Smash smash it.
Speaker 3: Bro, what you talking about?
Speaker 1: What you're gonna say on it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I need to get to fighting somebody in the studio.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about I need to hit I ain't get
Speaker 2: out my studio.
Speaker 4: That what you need to hit you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I stopped doing that, bro, his don't come like that.
Speaker 1: So what's your first Like, what's your first like moment
Speaker 1: of success, like where it's like.
Speaker 2: So so icy was my first song that hit the
Speaker 2: radio and in the clubs and everything?
Speaker 4: Oh so what do you say when he says my
Speaker 4: chain hang down to my dick? He just went off
Speaker 4: at the end, though, Man, it was like, what's playboy
Speaker 4: name that sings on the song?
Speaker 3: Little Will lou Will like LII yeah, little Will going crazy?
Speaker 1: I like Little Will nigga.
Speaker 4: But he said that at the end. I said, Oh
Speaker 4: my god, yeah, yeah, you got you got say what
Speaker 4: year is that?
Speaker 3: It's two thousand and four, Yeah, I know. I look,
Speaker 3: I'm like twenty two years old. That two thousand.
Speaker 1: I remember playing in a celebrity game, celebrity basketball game
Speaker 1: with Gucci, Gucci, Gucci, Roy Jones and a bunch of.
Speaker 4: Uh not Alabama somewhere you know.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I'll be I'll.
Speaker 3: Be one of them.
Speaker 1: And that was my first time meeting him and like
Speaker 1: going up and down the court with him.
Speaker 4: I was like, this nigga right here is funny the money.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really know what.
Speaker 4: I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew the song, yeah, but I really wasn't up
Speaker 1: on what this nigga is, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And he just seemed like a nice, funny dude, just
Speaker 1: cracking and getting up and down the court. You don't
Speaker 1: really hooking around. Turn Out he's really dangerous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so how did y'all kick so icy off?
Speaker 2: I cult here at the barbershop. Gucci called me, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, Jesus want to do a song with us, Like,
Speaker 2: we need to go to the studio. He got the
Speaker 2: studio time set up for this. I leave the barbershop,
Speaker 2: go to my mama house. Meet Gucci over there. Make
Speaker 2: the beat five minutes, you know, five ten minutes, because
Speaker 2: we're trying to hurt him. Get to the studio because
Speaker 2: Yong Jesus is the biggest thing going every time. But
Speaker 2: he wanted to do a song with Yeah, So we
Speaker 2: sitting there, you know, we get down to the studio
Speaker 2: and we just waiting in the lobby till his time
Speaker 2: to go in there to do, you know, to do
Speaker 2: the song with him.
Speaker 3: And you can tell when we came in there.
Speaker 2: First of all, Gucci started bragging on me again so
Speaker 2: much like he do he this and that, he all that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, bro, please stop doing that because I feel
Speaker 2: like when you play the beats now, they're gonna be listening, like, bro,
Speaker 2: he ain't all that the greatest thing I ever heard
Speaker 2: one thing about my music Back then. I never felt
Speaker 2: confident in my beats that much because I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to mix, idn't know how to master. My stuff
Speaker 2: just sounded just rough or it didn't sound you know
Speaker 2: how you go to the studio somebody else music sound
Speaker 2: like that, don't sound like like it sposed.
Speaker 1: To be like a radio radio, right right?
Speaker 3: My music sound like it ain't turned Can y'all turn
Speaker 3: it up a little bit? Or I can't hear? Like
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? Is that what it sounded like?
Speaker 3: So I'm like doing all that bragging, bron make me
Speaker 3: look bad and strong enough. When he pulled up the
Speaker 3: beat so icy, I just made it. Geezu was like, yeah, that's.
Speaker 2: Cool if y'all want to do that, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. You ain't got nothing else really feeling it,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? So it's like, but Gucci
Speaker 2: likeable pull.
Speaker 3: Something else up this and that.
Speaker 2: But I almost kind of got offended because I didn't
Speaker 2: really know who jez was and what he meant. You know,
Speaker 2: I know he was popping, but it's like, bro, I
Speaker 2: felt like, hold on, I thought he said he want
Speaker 2: to do a song with us, with us, how you
Speaker 2: gonna tell us what we want to do? So, long
Speaker 2: story short, we were going back. We went back to
Speaker 2: the so icy beat because I'm like, man, let's just
Speaker 2: do the song we came to do. I didn't pull
Speaker 2: that back up, and.
Speaker 4: Then Jesu, I bet that's what y'all want to do
Speaker 4: with Everything is already.
Speaker 2: On it, no nothing on it, nothing, It's just but
Speaker 2: but Gucci sanging the idea to him. Now, Gucci can't sing,
Speaker 2: but he's saying, all these girls excited. Now you gotta
Speaker 2: think at the time, Jezu they it's BMF. They super street,
Speaker 2: everything is super street. This sounded like ky and candidate
Speaker 2: to him. Right now, Bro, what y'all you talking about?
Speaker 2: All these girls excited and all that. But you gotta think,
Speaker 2: Gucci in the mind frame of you seeing BMF, you're
Speaker 2: seeing all this jury, all this money icy is like, Bro,
Speaker 2: that we're trying to, you know, make almost like a
Speaker 2: club type record. So he sang the hook, but then
Speaker 2: little will happen to be in the studio. So he
Speaker 2: sung the hook for us. So now once he sing it,
Speaker 2: now it sounds like we might have got something. You
Speaker 2: got a singer, and then he got a singer in there,
Speaker 2: so now you got back then, won't nobody using auto tune.
Speaker 2: It was the first time somebody used We used auto
Speaker 2: tune on this very little bit. Now t Pain Sprung
Speaker 2: came out around the same time where he used a
Speaker 2: lot of auto tune, but we had used auto tune before.
Speaker 4: He even used it.
Speaker 2: You know, just a fun fact, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: We put auto tune on it, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: now the hook on it. It where you see fifteen
Speaker 2: people in the studio with they know pad out like, bro,
Speaker 2: I'm finna put.
Speaker 3: A verse on this.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get a verse on this, Okay.
Speaker 2: After JZ put his verse on it first, Yeah, Gucci
Speaker 2: was about to go in there and say a verse
Speaker 2: he already had and I'm like, no, bro, you gotta
Speaker 2: come brand new. So we went in the other room
Speaker 2: while he writing his verse, but everybody in the studio.
Speaker 2: Booth from Cash Money was there. That's how he got
Speaker 2: on the song. He was there as well, but it's,
Speaker 2: you know, just mislating people. Everybody got their pin out like, oh.
Speaker 3: I'm finna get on it.
Speaker 2: Coach K was there, and Coach K was the first
Speaker 2: one saying like, hey, bro, y'all got to hit this
Speaker 2: a hit right off the rip? Off the rip, You're like, bro,
Speaker 2: y'all got to hit and before you know it, Bro,
Speaker 2: It's like Jez was so popping, but he didn't have
Speaker 2: an identify like a hit song. He had a whole
Speaker 2: lot of hard music, but he didn't have no song
Speaker 2: that sounded like that. So now that the song is
Speaker 2: out on mixtape and started to circle circulating the street.
Speaker 2: Every time GZ do a show, it's almost like, do
Speaker 2: so icy what one is? They want to hear that song?
Speaker 2: I remember what JZ and P Diddy was. I forgot
Speaker 2: the name of the club at the time, but they
Speaker 2: was on the on the bar and Jesus was performing
Speaker 2: and they were doing all the songs that everybody know.
Speaker 2: But you can tell everybody like man, me and Gucci
Speaker 2: sitting in the crowd, you know what I mean. Gucci like,
Speaker 2: and they was like, but they want to hear so icy.
Speaker 2: So they were like, man, call Gucci up here. Gucci like,
Speaker 2: they give me your chain because he got the chain already,
Speaker 2: so we both just got our necklace. Give me your
Speaker 2: change so I can look extra icy. It wasn't really
Speaker 2: all that icy, but you know back then and he
Speaker 2: got on stage and rocked it. That's when we know
Speaker 2: its like that's the song. That's when everybody like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we want that song.
Speaker 4: We need that song. So as you say that, I
Speaker 4: get a phone call that has nothing to do with me.
Speaker 4: One of my big homies from the Bag, Guy arrest
Speaker 4: his soul.
Speaker 1: She kiss Stuart.
Speaker 4: He calls me he said, Playboy, I need a favor.
Speaker 4: What's up? Yeah, he like, and when he would get
Speaker 4: me those calls, I knew. I knew it was like
Speaker 4: it was something Yeah, it was something big and he
Speaker 4: was he the biggest executive in the industry at this point.
Speaker 1: He cracking.
Speaker 4: He in my opinion, Shaki was the first superstar and
Speaker 4: on her like he really he was an artist.
Speaker 1: He was that guy.
Speaker 4: And you know, he had did the j Z deal
Speaker 4: and he said, it's this record. He said, most niggas
Speaker 4: don't know that this kid is from the Bay. I
Speaker 4: just found out this kid is from the Bay. He
Speaker 4: out in Atlanta's When he said that, I said, oh,
Speaker 4: he talking about Za and the crazy shit is you
Speaker 4: hadn't had no hit records yet. But I just knew
Speaker 4: that because I'm like, only nigga he could possibly be
Speaker 4: talking about, like he didn't did his research and now
Speaker 4: he didn't figure it out. Oh Ja from San Francisco,
Speaker 4: Jayson Philmo. I just heard. He told it's actually from
Speaker 4: out there calling Jay. So I'm like, what you need, like,
Speaker 4: nigg he got this record. It's so icy, I said,
Speaker 4: I just heard that. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, they cracking.
Speaker 4: It's like they cracking. I'm like, all right, what what's
Speaker 4: the What's he said, I need it? I said, what
Speaker 4: Jeez on the record? Like no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I need it. But that's they record from my understanding.
Speaker 4: He's like, yeah, but we need that as as Jeez's
Speaker 4: first single. We're trying to launch it off of that record.
Speaker 4: He said, you know, can you get in contact with A?
Speaker 4: I said, I can call him. I said, I don't
Speaker 4: give out nobody phone number. Anybody that know me. I
Speaker 4: don't give out nobody phone number. I or I got
Speaker 4: to call you first and be like yo, such such
Speaker 4: looking for whatever it is. I don't care who it is,
Speaker 4: not giving out nobody's phone number. So I called A.
Speaker 4: I'm like, bruh, they looking for you. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 4: they're looking for you. Like, yeah, nah, you're talking about
Speaker 4: the record. I said, yeah, Bro, I said, My message
Speaker 4: was say your number and whatever that number is, they
Speaker 4: got it for you a sap. He said, hey, Bro,
Speaker 4: tell them that ain't they record?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I ain't about to play with that man song.
Speaker 3: My hand was tired right now what I'm supposed to do?
Speaker 3: But I was I was hoping in praying that it
Speaker 3: can go on geez O man, they.
Speaker 2: Can figure it out. Which that does happen at times.
Speaker 2: It does happen at times. But I think Gucci was
Speaker 2: kind of looking at it as in jez was so
Speaker 2: big at the time. If this goes on his project,
Speaker 2: it's gonna I ain't got no place in it. I
Speaker 2: ain't got no place no more. It's like I'm just
Speaker 2: somebody on the song and then my time is over it.
Speaker 2: So now we need this to be this Gucci man song.
Speaker 3: And which was right?
Speaker 2: He needed that, you know what I mean? So, and
Speaker 2: I was with it like it wasn't no number. I
Speaker 2: wasn't even I didn't care about the money like that
Speaker 2: back then, you know, you know what I mean. It
Speaker 2: wasn't no number that I can say that this is
Speaker 2: gonna make me do. That wasn't no So and Gucci
Speaker 2: is my guy, Like I say, he called me seven
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning. Every day we go to the club,
Speaker 2: yeah exactly, We go to the clinging with our clothes,
Speaker 2: We go to the fleet market and spray get our
Speaker 2: clothes spray painted with the songs that he feel have performed.
Speaker 2: And that night, that's how close we know were so
Speaker 2: if I'm gonna give music, come.
Speaker 4: On, man, because then it's your song too.
Speaker 2: It goes they went to me, but you know, if
Speaker 2: it's going to Jesus, gonna be bigger because he got
Speaker 2: the bigger budget. He got everything going on right now.
Speaker 2: But that don't mean that much to me matter. If
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you, I was. I was
Speaker 2: so locked in with Guccia, I didn't care if I
Speaker 2: produce for anybody else, you know what I mean. If
Speaker 2: I didn't get no bigger than that. At the time,
Speaker 2: I felt like, I'm straight. As long as I'm doing
Speaker 2: his music, then I'm straight. I don't care no about
Speaker 2: nobody else music.
Speaker 3: That's how you know.
Speaker 2: That's how it really was, because didn't nobody else get
Speaker 2: my music anyway? To him, But it's the hardest music
Speaker 2: in the world. Somebody else, they hear, like, bro, what's
Speaker 2: that what I'm I supposed to do with that? So
Speaker 2: all right, I'm not appreciated here. Let me go back
Speaker 2: over here where he loved the music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it was like that for a long time.
Speaker 2: You know how hard it is for me to produce
Speaker 2: for somebody else because I'm known as Gucci Man producer
Speaker 2: it's like, ok can you make that time?
Speaker 3: That's the thing.
Speaker 2: Don't nobody, don't nobody rock with me, cause it's like,
Speaker 2: oh you, Gucci Man is like the outlaw, you know,
Speaker 2: far as the industry is like, oh you with Gucci,
Speaker 2: you over there, everybody else over here, But okay, you
Speaker 2: and Gucci, y'all do y'all.
Speaker 3: You know whoever with Gucci, y'all.
Speaker 2: Do y'all stuff over there, and hopefully hopefully y'all make
Speaker 2: it big, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: But I was okay with that.
Speaker 1: So once all the smoke clears and it's Gucci Man's
Speaker 1: record and it hits the radio, do you do you
Speaker 1: feel a shift and a change because now you got
Speaker 1: to hit record on the radio.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't you know what I felt like. I
Speaker 2: felt like, I want to say, I got lucky almost.
Speaker 2: I felt like this ain't gonna happen again. So let
Speaker 2: me cherish the moment, moment, the money I make off of.
Speaker 2: Let me kind of tuck it, put it away, you know.
Speaker 4: Being nothing crazy to do.
Speaker 3: I spent all the money, but.
Speaker 2: You know how my thought pattern was I about the studio.
Speaker 2: I spent all my money on studio equipment. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: I saw my house looking like patchwork down Once you
Speaker 2: got all this stuff down like a real studio.
Speaker 3: Now you're excited.
Speaker 4: Now your sound sounds different.
Speaker 2: But I was excited about just still just doing music
Speaker 2: at the house. I wouldn't right now, I want to
Speaker 2: make another big record. I don't even think about none
Speaker 2: of that, you know what I mean. And you know
Speaker 2: how this music stuff, you can be a one hit wonder.
Speaker 2: Your time could come and go just like that. So
Speaker 2: watching my mom and daddy get up and go to
Speaker 2: work every day, I didn't put all my eggs in
Speaker 2: or I hadn't made it in music. This ain't enough
Speaker 2: money to make it in music, really, like you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. You know, maybe when it's all saying done,
Speaker 2: about a hundred grand or something like that. Now that's
Speaker 2: more than what our parents ever seen, what I ever seen.
Speaker 2: But this ain't enough to say.
Speaker 3: I can't live and die with this. So I'm at
Speaker 3: the barbershop. I'm still cutting here at the bar shop
Speaker 3: every day, sun up to sun down.
Speaker 4: So Icey's burning the streets.
Speaker 2: It's the big number one song on the radio. But
Speaker 2: it's like I'm still at the barbershop. I'm at the barbershop,
Speaker 2: matter of fact, with the radio on, like ooh, I'm
Speaker 2: my song number one today?
Speaker 3: You know, we number one on the radio, right, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And I'm happy about that, and I'm happy about cutting here,
Speaker 2: and I'm happy about playing at church, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Happy about still selling beers. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: That's it, you know, I feel good. I'm straight.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So if it don't go no further than this, I
Speaker 2: was happy. I had that moment, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Now Gucci get the murder case, he go to jail.
Speaker 2: We don't know how long he even be gone. Now
Speaker 2: don't got Gucci man no more. All I had is
Speaker 2: the songs that we didn't been recording this and that
Speaker 2: I don't got another artist that's you know, that's as
Speaker 2: big as him, and that's locked in.
Speaker 3: That's locked in.
Speaker 2: So I did his second album called Hard to Kill.
Speaker 2: So it was all zayto all the music I had recorded,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: That was a hard album right there.
Speaker 1: It's hard, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean, That's what the song pilled I
Speaker 2: might be all that, you know, freaky girl. All this
Speaker 2: stuff come off with that album and it's like so
Speaker 2: it's like you know, but still I'm still looking at
Speaker 2: it in like, Okay, that's dope. I ain't make no
Speaker 2: crazy money and nothing like that.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell you something else fun. I had another
Speaker 4: phone call to you, and I don't even know if
Speaker 4: you know this. You know, I'm the first R and
Speaker 4: B singer that Gucci did a record with.
Speaker 3: See, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I call you.
Speaker 4: You're like, you want Gucci on the record. Yeah, because
Speaker 4: he had put out Freaky Girl, and I had a
Speaker 4: song called Freaky Freak Freak Freaky And you're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm gonn connect you with dam called dare. I paid
Speaker 4: Gucci man five thousand. Imagine that a Gucci man Verse
Speaker 4: for five five nigga, that's a hundred years. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I called you exact I need him. Yeah, I got you.
Speaker 4: Send the record. He shouts you out on the record.
Speaker 2: That's what everything off beat, that's what that's that's Gucci,
Speaker 2: the whole versus off beat.
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, and this is back when I
Speaker 4: was in my I'm on my engineer days and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I gotta shift this.
Speaker 1: We shift.
Speaker 4: We shifted, Nigga, and to this day, it's still people
Speaker 4: that be like that record you and Gucci Nigga back
Speaker 4: the people.
Speaker 3: That Manuc is so funny when it comes to that. No,
Speaker 3: he I know that, but just my own beat. I
Speaker 3: just I know that Gucci right there.
Speaker 4: I'm like, come on, I got the first Gucci man
Speaker 4: R B F.
Speaker 1: What are we doing?
Speaker 4: He had never been a R record for that. It's
Speaker 4: just like, yeah, he's just building records for his for.
Speaker 1: To talk about it.
Speaker 4: I've never had a chance to say, but thank you.
Speaker 4: I'm right with it.
Speaker 2: Don't matter who if they made the phone call shot out,
Speaker 2: it's everything they It's like, bro, you ain't really got
Speaker 2: to shot me out on it, but okay.
Speaker 4: You put this album out?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 4: How did y'all do it? Did he put it out?
Speaker 3: Even know I put it out? He was in jail,
Speaker 3: so he was with Big Cat Records at the time.
Speaker 2: So they coming to me like say, we need I
Speaker 2: need your executive produce album cause we ain't got no
Speaker 2: music on Gucci.
Speaker 3: He do everything at your house, so we need some
Speaker 3: songs to put out.
Speaker 2: So I got all the songs and put it out
Speaker 2: and that's when I start thinking about, Okay, I gotta
Speaker 2: start building a zay Tooven name because I don't know
Speaker 2: if Gucci, you know, what's what's gonna happen. So now
Speaker 2: I put it hard to Kill. After that, I put
Speaker 2: a mixtape out called Ier Tech. I said, put my
Speaker 2: face on there, put Gucci face, you know, because now
Speaker 2: I'm starting to try to brand myself just in case,
Speaker 2: you know, Gucci is not gonna be around or.
Speaker 3: Whatever, this and that.
Speaker 2: So that's when I start. That's when the name start,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of getting hot in the streets, real tough.
Speaker 2: Now every dope nigga in the world, I need to
Speaker 2: go see ze Toe. And it's because Gucci saying, say
Speaker 2: is this? They say they That's all he's saying.
Speaker 3: So he to the world.
Speaker 2: Now he just off somebody and everybody know about it,
Speaker 2: so his credibility goes through the roof.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jesez the hottest thing smoking.
Speaker 2: But Guji just he on TV for you know, for
Speaker 2: Poppins Onbody like so you know, you know how music streets.
Speaker 1: It's like it looked like it looked like and and
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were artists before Gucci, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying that were actually who they were, Yeah, who
Speaker 1: they were just niggas. He's living.
Speaker 3: He's living, and you he's he's actually living it.
Speaker 1: And he's on powers rotation on the on the radio,
Speaker 1: and so to to every to every dope boy who's
Speaker 1: ever had being on the radio ambitions, you're the soundtrack.
Speaker 3: That's exactly where it was, where it was.
Speaker 4: This don't happen. No, I don't, especially not us being
Speaker 4: able to get in this room together and talk about
Speaker 4: this and really be like, man, you did that, Oh
Speaker 4: you did that? You know what I'm saying, Like, it
Speaker 4: don't happen. Bro, Man, listen, you don't tell people all
Speaker 4: the time.
Speaker 3: It's that's that's really like, that's God's favor.
Speaker 2: I feel like on me because I didn't, like I said,
Speaker 2: I didn't get into this to get where I'm at,
Speaker 2: And a lot of things that came to me, I
Speaker 2: don't know where they came from.
Speaker 3: It's like, Bro, I didn't I didn't expect that. I
Speaker 3: didn't know that was coming.
Speaker 2: I don't know where they came from, but it land
Speaker 2: right in my left. All these artists were talking about
Speaker 2: that was not even big artists. They end up coming
Speaker 2: into the zatoven world and then they blow up, so
Speaker 2: they just kept me going for so long, and I
Speaker 2: remember a propheted saying this to me in church. She
Speaker 2: passed a few years ago. Laate the name by the
Speaker 2: name of Diane Palmer. You know you in church, so
Speaker 2: you know somebody call you up and prophesied to you
Speaker 2: many times. She was. She said to me, your sound
Speaker 2: is going to be across the nations. And I thought, she,
Speaker 2: you know I'm playing organ at church. I'm thinking she,
Speaker 2: I'm like, bro, I ain't even that good playing I'm okay,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not. You know how, it's musicians out here
Speaker 2: that are playing up on the table like man. It's like, man,
Speaker 2: I ain't nowhere near good as him. And I tell
Speaker 2: people that even with producing, I'm not as good as
Speaker 2: a lot of people. I feel like I got some
Speaker 2: unique but I don't. I'm not as good as people
Speaker 2: playing the keyboard and I think I'm super great, but
Speaker 2: I'm not all that good playing like that. And I
Speaker 2: ain't all that good making beats. But the combination is
Speaker 2: what makes you know. Yeah, So she was telling me, like,
Speaker 2: your sound is going to be great over the nations.
Speaker 2: I didn't know she was talking about trap music. You
Speaker 2: get what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I didn't know all these years this music been going on.
Speaker 2: It's almost stemmed from the trap music I was making
Speaker 2: in my mama's basement.
Speaker 3: So that's what she was talking about. So you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, that's always look at it like that.
Speaker 2: Bro, Like God just bring different situations and put people
Speaker 2: in my life to make me continue to keep going
Speaker 2: and keep getting bigger.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he said favorite, that's a real thing. That's
Speaker 1: straight up watsch My guy, Keith Battle pass the Keith Battle.
Speaker 1: He did my wedding. But I've been knowing him since
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I was just watching. I
Speaker 1: was scrolling past the videos and he said, see favor,
Speaker 1: and I was just kept scrolling. I said, let me
Speaker 1: go back to that, and he just started talking about
Speaker 1: favor and how favor. You know. One thing about favor
Speaker 1: is that it's always very particular. It's not all y'all,
Speaker 1: it's just you. Yeah, yeah, Favor is you, and favor
Speaker 1: has has a public demeanor. You know, even even if
Speaker 1: the favor is given to you in private, it's going.
Speaker 4: To have a public felt mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: Or for the most part, it's just it's in public
Speaker 1: and you can see the favor on somebody You're like,
Speaker 1: You're like, how yeh like you as you talk about this,
Speaker 1: as you continue to break artists and just breaks, it's like,
Speaker 1: how how are you? How you doing that different?
Speaker 3: So that's what it is.
Speaker 2: That that's you know, and that's where the cretit go,
Speaker 2: brocause you know, it ain't none of them super specially.
Speaker 2: It ain't that I work extra harder than somebody else
Speaker 2: or none of that.
Speaker 4: So that's what it is. I got a question too, though,
Speaker 4: as a producer. As a you might not look at
Speaker 4: it this way, but as a super producer, absolutely, who
Speaker 4: would you do a versus against a versus.
Speaker 2: M that you respect that you like, you know what,
Speaker 2: me and this producer will go crazy going back and
Speaker 2: forth with these records. That's hard for me to say
Speaker 2: because like I got so many producer buddies, and all
Speaker 2: of them is I didn't watch producers come from They'll
Speaker 2: come and hang out at my mama basement. Now they's
Speaker 2: some of the biggest producers in the world right now.
Speaker 2: But I think because of my time stretches, you know,
Speaker 2: So it's kind of it's hard because like when I
Speaker 2: came in the game, it was shoddy.
Speaker 3: Red nitty drama boy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was like those like my guys, I'm kind of
Speaker 2: balancing against a little bit, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But then later on became like Mike will Sonny Digital
Speaker 2: and you know, guys like that. Then came Metro, London
Speaker 2: Ato a Mafia, you know what I mean. So I
Speaker 2: kind of been there before. Like I remember, I sit
Speaker 2: on the couch and you know with say Metro and
Speaker 2: he be like, man, I got in it because Zay
Speaker 2: got you know, I started making beats watching Zay Or
Speaker 2: or Mike Willer say, man, they used to let me
Speaker 2: come to the house, and so it's like I was
Speaker 2: kind of before them, you know what I mean. Now
Speaker 2: these guys are the biggest in the in the world now,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's like I don't know another producer.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's on the same time stretch that
Speaker 2: I'm on twenty years. So it's different, you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I respect that, not to say that my
Speaker 2: music is better than theirs.
Speaker 3: I got bigger, but it's just it's, yeah, so much
Speaker 3: time and it's a lot of time.
Speaker 1: Who has that much time in music?
Speaker 4: So I mean, and at the end of the day too.
Speaker 4: I just appreciate the guys that you said too though,
Speaker 4: just the biggest to respect. You just paid to them,
Speaker 4: the biggest.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, I get it. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell what I love about them. They always have reached
Speaker 2: back and say, Zay, don't working on this project.
Speaker 3: You know, I need you to do something. I want
Speaker 3: you to do something on this with me, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 2: So now these guys I used to let come to
Speaker 2: my mama house, to my mama basement. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: not knowing this is gonna be a super mega producer.
Speaker 2: I didn't know these guys are gonna be big as
Speaker 2: they are. So you know, it's a blessing to see that.
Speaker 6: All.
Speaker 3: Let's connect, bro.
Speaker 2: Man, if you knew how many people came out of
Speaker 2: my mama's basement, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: Fain That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what it is. Okay, all right, all right?
Speaker 1: He going to the piano.
Speaker 4: I mean because we you know, we got the piano
Speaker 4: man here, huh.
Speaker 3: You know we ought to be doing you know, we
Speaker 3: gotta do for the podcast.
Speaker 1: We gotta.
Speaker 3: We gotta do it.
Speaker 2: Behind the scenes of us creating a song from scratch.
Speaker 2: Let's do it some special edition, some special.
Speaker 4: Come on, man, you family, whenever you want to pull
Speaker 4: up to the podcast, that's up to you.
Speaker 1: So you you've heard a lot of music in your time.
Speaker 1: You've made a lot of music in your time.
Speaker 2: Some of it.
Speaker 1: It's your favorite. We want to know your.
Speaker 3: Top f your top five, Yeah, talk five, your.
Speaker 5: Top five on be single.
Speaker 4: Already be so.
Speaker 1: We wanna know Saint sat Tony.
Speaker 2: Drop me up.
Speaker 1: Top Crazy.
Speaker 2: That's the guest singer that come from the other church.
Speaker 2: You know, she coming and trying to show out. That's
Speaker 2: that's exactly what daddy.
Speaker 3: Come on, you know you're going to do a solo.
Speaker 3: You're doing Wade?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the church looking at you like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know that's how I go too. You can't tell
Speaker 2: him nothing.
Speaker 1: Your top R and B singers, top five, you get
Speaker 1: five of them, let's go five.
Speaker 3: I gotta go with Ara Kelly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that hurt nobody.
Speaker 1: You know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't care the R N, R and B.
Speaker 3: You gotta go.
Speaker 2: I gotta go R for sure. I gotta go Usher.
Speaker 2: I'm a Joe to see guy. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with Joe. Yeah, yeah, favorites Joe, that boy,
Speaker 2: come for my favorite cold. I'm throwing tanking now, not
Speaker 2: for sure, and I'm gonna tell you why, Bro, I
Speaker 2: wasn't even up on your music or none of that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: My wife came and said and I forgot who she
Speaker 2: said that turned her onto it. But she came and
Speaker 2: played me, Now you already had I think I deserve.
Speaker 2: I probably had slowly already, which I didn't really pay
Speaker 2: that much attention to.
Speaker 3: I went back to it after I heard I'm so
Speaker 3: close on what album that was?
Speaker 1: Number that was one man.
Speaker 3: I was like, hold on this, nigga, he is going crazy,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: All the sounds in that song are from the triton.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's what maybe probably what drew me to it, all.
Speaker 1: Drums everything for real. That I was like, they brought
Speaker 1: a triton into the to the studio and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't even use no trying, and I just started
Speaker 1: going through the sound that's might that might be what
Speaker 1: it was. And I had my I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just grab the sounds out of here and
Speaker 1: just and just work with it. That's the man that costs.
Speaker 2: That song caught my ear and then I started listening
Speaker 2: to that project and then, uh, I'm the reason.
Speaker 3: Why I started sticking out to it.
Speaker 2: And it's like then I started listening like, hold on, bro,
Speaker 2: my wife got me listening to you, and it's like,
Speaker 2: now to turn into a tank fan.
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: Your top five R and B song.
Speaker 4: Tricky, that's tricky. You make songs, brother, make so songs.
Speaker 3: So I like by cut close. I don't know if
Speaker 3: y'all remember that one usher? Can you get with it?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you know, here's.
Speaker 2: Gems almost matter of fact. All these songs might be
Speaker 2: nasty songs are hunching song because like.
Speaker 3: With Joe Church, Yeah, with Joe it's.
Speaker 4: Maybe I can do it right.
Speaker 2: I think it's called I can Do It right. The
Speaker 2: song is everything. Album see, y'all might not know. I
Speaker 2: might be getting you out on know what's going on.
Speaker 2: Y'all might be too young for all.
Speaker 1: Y'all?
Speaker 3: Might you know what I mean? Song?
Speaker 2: What I've noticed though, they like album cuts, album cuts nout.
Speaker 3: But I'm like, if you listen to my music, it's
Speaker 3: I never felt like I made music like you know, classics.
Speaker 3: We ain't trying to make no hit, trying to make
Speaker 3: something that's like forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I go the strip for you
Speaker 2: are Kelly and then Tank I'm so close, Like these
Speaker 2: are songs that when I'm out with my wife and
Speaker 2: we hang it out, these songs automatically gonna play allist
Speaker 2: every time we go out, and it's like, there's so
Speaker 2: many other songs, why you keep playing these songs?
Speaker 1: All right, let's let's get to your vult Tron.
Speaker 4: Brother.
Speaker 1: We're gonna make a Vultron Zaytoven's Vultron, the most powerful
Speaker 1: R and B artist you can make. We want to
Speaker 1: know who you're gonna get the vocal from. For that artist,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get the performance style from. Who You're gonna
Speaker 1: get the the styling from. Who's gonna put the fur on?
Speaker 4: Who?
Speaker 1: Yeah, who's gonna get the heart of the artists from?
Speaker 1: And since you are a super producer, who's going to
Speaker 1: produce style? Let's start with the vocal. Who you getting
Speaker 1: the vocal from?
Speaker 4: I might go Usher, Universal Vocal Universe, do Anything, sing Anything?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I go Usher.
Speaker 1: Who're getting the performance style from?
Speaker 3: Might go Chris Brown? You know he's gonna put on
Speaker 3: the show. Yeah you got every time every might do
Speaker 3: a backflip.
Speaker 4: Might he can do backflip? Okay, styling, I go Trey songs.
Speaker 2: Maybe Trey got a little swag on him, so I go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Braids trailed, the braids, trades
Speaker 2: more more street mode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I go that way.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, yeah, I go that way. Passion of the artist,
Speaker 4: the heart of the artists.
Speaker 3: You gotta go like fantasic and yeah yeah, shoes early early,
Speaker 3: yeah it now right now, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And who's gonna produce for this artist?
Speaker 4: I think I'm gonna go with.
Speaker 3: Think I'm gonna go with yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah. What else? We got Chief? We got Chief.
Speaker 4: That's what's up. Taking the church.
Speaker 1: I ain't saying no, nat saying no.
Speaker 5: What you mean?
Speaker 1: I ain't saying no.
Speaker 7: Yeah. You can't cousin church though, But go ahead, go ahead,
Speaker 7: gotta work on working progress.
Speaker 4: God, I know your heart.
Speaker 3: You know your heart. I know your heart.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 4: So we got we got this game. It's called I
Speaker 4: ain't saying no names. You tell us a story, funny
Speaker 4: er fucked up? Are funny and fucked up? Your travels
Speaker 4: in this thing and throughout the trap, throughout the industry,
Speaker 4: your travels Atoven travels throughout this whole thing. The only
Speaker 4: rule to the game. You can't say no names. Okay.
Speaker 4: I know you're meant to some places and he's seen
Speaker 4: some things. Hell, I just can't say no names.
Speaker 3: I can't say no name.
Speaker 1: Shut on.
Speaker 4: Let me think. Okay, well, why you think I'm gonna
Speaker 4: introduce it to the people, Because this is Atven, Mister
Speaker 4: so Icy himself make the traps say hey, m m hm,
Speaker 4: and he's gonna give you your papers. I like, I
Speaker 4: like that is you rolling?
Speaker 1: Might be a.
Speaker 4: Say Toven, I ain't saying no names. Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: So I had an artist, well known artist, asked me
Speaker 2: to come out do a show with him. And I
Speaker 2: don't even know what part of TEXTA wheel was in somewhere.
Speaker 4: I didn't really know. You know, they want me to
Speaker 4: bring the band.
Speaker 2: So I got me, I got the keys, got a
Speaker 2: got my drummer, and my two guitar tars.
Speaker 3: So we go do the show.
Speaker 4: Damn what he gonna know? I'm talking about him too.
Speaker 2: We go do the show, We go back to the hotel.
Speaker 2: He takes off because he going to another city before
Speaker 2: we get there. Well we at ain't no funk. You
Speaker 2: can't ain't no service, you know, with the hotel we're at.
Speaker 2: So he was supposed to have the transportation set up
Speaker 2: for us to get to the airport, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, everything, so we can fly to the next city. Man,
Speaker 2: the man ain't booked no flights. He ain't booked no
Speaker 2: ooh to come get us. So we stuck out in
Speaker 2: this place in Texas. We don't know, I'm talking about
Speaker 2: talking about the middle of nowhere. Phone ain't got no
Speaker 2: service or nothing. Now I got my people with me.
Speaker 2: They looking at me cause it's like okay, they we followed,
Speaker 2: they came for me, and you can't get the man
Speaker 2: on the phone onto about threefold day.
Speaker 4: You stranded.
Speaker 3: It's like stranded, like what kind of what what's going
Speaker 3: on here?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So, you know, and this was like this is kind
Speaker 2: of kind of early. This was back in the you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day where it's like I don't even
Speaker 2: think I don't even think we was using Uber like
Speaker 2: like you know, like it was now.
Speaker 3: I don't think it was Uber trying to find a cab.
Speaker 3: We were trying to have Yeah, we had either find
Speaker 3: a cab with the car, like a shuttle or something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like a car service.
Speaker 3: But bro, we we ain't had nobody number. We couldn't.
Speaker 3: I mean, he wouldn't ask his phone, so we ain't
Speaker 3: had nobody else to call. So we just stuck out here.
Speaker 2: We stayed out there like three days, you know, and
Speaker 2: then went back to Atlanta. And it's like, bro, what happened?
Speaker 4: Like what happened?
Speaker 3: Like you know when you finally get to it, like, bro, happened?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Bro, you know all this dude dope drugs. They be
Speaker 3: on something else.
Speaker 2: Man, I was tripping, broke my bad, this and that,
Speaker 2: and that made me stop really touring, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, playing being a musician for an artist on
Speaker 2: the on the road because of because.
Speaker 1: Of that, you know what I mean, left you and
Speaker 1: just left y'all.
Speaker 2: Bro, we're talking about Texas where it's like, ain't nothing
Speaker 2: around like the room. I don't know what why, I
Speaker 2: don't know why we was in these rooms because they
Speaker 2: don't stay in the same room we staying in. It's like, okay,
Speaker 2: the band, y'all stay over here. We staying in the
Speaker 2: Royal suite over here, right. But me, now, even though
Speaker 2: I'm Zaytoven, I'm not the type of guy that's gonna say, Okay,
Speaker 2: band members, y'all stay there, I'm gonna go stay with them.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna stay with y'all. Y'all here for me, you
Speaker 3: know what i mean. So and it was just like dang, bro,
Speaker 3: but bro levels here, you know, for for three days.
Speaker 2: And it ain't ain't even reach out, ain't saying answer
Speaker 2: the phone or none of that. So it left a
Speaker 2: bad taste in everybody.
Speaker 4: Maund three four days.
Speaker 2: Was the rooms paid for at least, but it ain't
Speaker 2: nothing paid for. My god, that's what makes it so bad.
Speaker 2: It's like, now, okay, so I'm responsible.
Speaker 1: Huh, how'd y'all get back?
Speaker 3: So that the.
Speaker 2: The guy at the at the front desk, he was like, bro,
Speaker 2: what y'all need? You know, I'm gonna help y'all get
Speaker 2: the way y'all going, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: So we stayed. We stayed that, We stayed for a
Speaker 3: while because we're like, no, they're gonna get us, you know,
Speaker 3: they're gonna get us out of here.
Speaker 2: They just took a few days. And it just for
Speaker 2: me that made me be like, bro, I'm I'm I'm.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say I'm bigger than that, but
Speaker 2: it's like, right, this.
Speaker 3: Ain't worth it.
Speaker 4: Ain't for me, it ain't.
Speaker 3: This ain't worth it, and the money don't be worth
Speaker 3: it when it comes to doing that stuff.
Speaker 4: You know, I.
Speaker 2: Was doing it out of love for it and this
Speaker 2: and that and the guy you know, the musicians now
Speaker 2: they geeked up about it. To them, it's like, bro,
Speaker 2: we all over the world we're doing this and that
Speaker 2: we're playing behind this person, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So because that's some people's passion.
Speaker 2: Man, I don't even know how they do it. I
Speaker 2: got my drumming out at the church find of going
Speaker 2: to it. I'm like, bro, no, how you finna do that?
Speaker 7: Boy?
Speaker 3: Because I show won't do that no more.
Speaker 1: This depends on who you who you're working for them, Huh,
Speaker 1: somebody can the artists can make the experience either really
Speaker 1: great or really fucked up for you.
Speaker 3: I think I think me being.
Speaker 2: Who I am in the game already, that's kind of
Speaker 2: it was like going backwards for me in a way.
Speaker 2: So it's like, bro, I'm not used to this type
Speaker 2: of treatment and I'm not using to this type of money.
Speaker 2: You know, I was doing it because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I love to do it. I want to do on experience.
Speaker 2: But it's like, Bro's that don't make no sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it at least got to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: five star comfortable for you, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But if I but I'm the type of guy if
Speaker 2: it can't be that for who all coming with me,
Speaker 2: then I can't lead him out like that And I
Speaker 2: don't go hang No, I ain't that type of person.
Speaker 3: I'd rather hang with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But if we got to stay, you know, with the
Speaker 3: motel is like.
Speaker 1: Disrespect of the days. Yes they had a motel where
Speaker 1: you outside, Yeah, ain't no hallway.
Speaker 4: That's tricky. That's tricky. Business is tricky, Bro, tricky business.
Speaker 1: I get it.
Speaker 2: Brother, say.
Speaker 1: You are him? Brother man, you are.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm glad I came.
Speaker 7: Bro.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We appreciate having you, man, Thank you, Bro. We uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just outside of being family man, just you know,
Speaker 1: we just appreciate you. Everything you've done, man and the
Speaker 1: way you've done it. You know what I'm saying. Your
Speaker 1: name is your name is great in these streets. That's
Speaker 1: what's up, amazing. I've never heard.
Speaker 4: Nobody couldn't tell me nothing sadeways about you.
Speaker 1: Better what I like.
Speaker 3: I like when somebody else can say everybody gonna say
Speaker 3: the same thing about me.
Speaker 4: So that's good.
Speaker 1: That main solid, That main right there. So we appreciate you, brother.
Speaker 1: I love money and this is there ever your money
Speaker 1: podcast here, throw you on all things already be Yeah,
Speaker 1: this has been mister Frank. All the artists himself still
Speaker 1: left the church. You might get a haircut, yeah, but
Speaker 1: he's a man of the track. R and B Money.
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Speaker 4: and you can connect with us on social media at
Speaker 4: Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode,
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Speaker 4: Money