Speaker 1: R and B Money, Honey, we are.
Speaker 2: Take volotized.
Speaker 3: We are the authority.
Speaker 4: And blades and gentleman.
Speaker 5: My name is Tank and this is the arm and
Speaker 5: by Money podcast, the authority on all things.
Speaker 4: R and B.
Speaker 2: Can't be humble today though we we are not. We're
Speaker 2: gonna talk that ship today in.
Speaker 5: A space where we can sit down and be humble.
Speaker 5: Although I am seated. How you sound, too, is everything.
Speaker 5: How you come across the airwaves to people's ears. The
Speaker 5: sonic boom that happens when something is.
Speaker 4: Mixed correctly.
Speaker 1: Yes, uh up, it's gotta be.
Speaker 4: In your DNA. Are my good brother?
Speaker 5: There's a masterine component to being able to mix in
Speaker 5: the box that takes things to another level, the Grammy
Speaker 5: Award winning level.
Speaker 6: Yes, this interest long, but this man designs it. He's
Speaker 6: in updative records on records on records, the top artists.
Speaker 4: In the universe. Great.
Speaker 5: If you want to mixed, it's gotta be mixed by
Speaker 5: Ali Derek, mixed by Ali.
Speaker 4: Man. Come on, I love that.
Speaker 5: It's going on my boys ship energy. I love it.
Speaker 5: It's gotta sound right, my pet, Peeve, let me tell you.
Speaker 5: We're gonna tell you a driver driving me because I
Speaker 5: like to drive myself, so you know, when you're out
Speaker 5: of town doing gigs and stuff like that, a driver
Speaker 5: that doesn't know where he's going and an engineer that
Speaker 5: doesn't know what he's doing, it's worse. I'm the nicest
Speaker 5: guy you'll ever meet until I don't know. Those two
Speaker 5: things burn my soul because in order for me to
Speaker 5: be great, I have to get there. Also, in order
Speaker 5: for me to be great, the first thing people do
Speaker 5: is hear me. It's the first thing that happened, the
Speaker 5: first impression. That's the first impressions.
Speaker 4: Like when you meet somebody and you look at their
Speaker 4: teeth for their nails first. You know, they told whatever
Speaker 4: the case is, you know, we deal in sonic. Yeah
Speaker 4: it is. I get it. I get the styling part
Speaker 4: of it. I get the branding side of it. I
Speaker 4: get all of these things. But it starts right here
Speaker 4: when somebody says, what's that? Then they say, who's that?
Speaker 4: Mm hmm. It's frequencies. You know, people don't realize how
Speaker 4: much it connects people.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and and the importance of what you do an engineer,
Speaker 5: like you know, we're gonna we're gonna get into the
Speaker 5: beginnings and you know, really dive into how you have
Speaker 5: created who you are, right. But at one point we
Speaker 5: were having a conversation about where engineers some engineers are like,
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's worth some publishing. I think
Speaker 5: that's worth some creative shares. I can tell you for
Speaker 5: a fact absolutely, I don't know where I would be
Speaker 5: without a few of the engineers that I've worked with
Speaker 5: and the ones that I currently work with.
Speaker 4: I mean, I said, all the time, you know a
Speaker 4: good mix of a make or break a record? You know,
Speaker 4: you know how many records I've gotten from other engineers
Speaker 4: that are putting versions on them, right, and how they
Speaker 4: sounded compared to the final product. You know, it's it's
Speaker 4: one of the most important parts. I always say, it's
Speaker 4: just trifecta of music creation. Right. You have the artist
Speaker 4: sitting up top right, but to the bottom left is
Speaker 4: the producer, the bottom right is the engineer.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: And once that that trifecta is locked in to irreplaceable formula,
Speaker 4: you don't want to disturb it. You don't want to
Speaker 4: touch it.
Speaker 5: I got O C D bad. So anytime there's like
Speaker 5: a transition, you know, of engineering, I'm shaking. You know
Speaker 5: what I mean, I'm breaking out in hives. You can
Speaker 5: hear the little imperfection that's disturbing the formula. You know,
Speaker 5: eventually we figure it out and get it rolling. But
Speaker 5: the the and here's what it was, LA's crazy. I
Speaker 5: want you to speak to this real quick before we
Speaker 5: before we dive all the way in kids now that
Speaker 5: are producing, Like I'm just talking about getting a pack
Speaker 5: from producers, whether it be like a cardiac or a
Speaker 5: business spoiler or whatever. These guys these packs sound race
Speaker 5: like they've been listening to what you guys are doing
Speaker 5: and applying it at the house before they even send
Speaker 5: you a track. And I'm like, why does your track
Speaker 5: sound like this? Like that information? Like, how do you
Speaker 5: feel as as someone who like this is your this
Speaker 5: is your this is your business, this is your well
Speaker 5: not your bread and butter, because we're going to get
Speaker 5: into that you do so many other things. But the
Speaker 5: importance of sharing that information because back in the day,
Speaker 5: you weren't getting that information. Yeah, you weren't getting that
Speaker 5: drum pack from an engine that you have to know
Speaker 5: somebody that you kind of think I can get those
Speaker 5: mixed drums from you.
Speaker 4: Like it's different. I think it's time. You know, I
Speaker 4: think during those times, right, you know, the Internet, social media, right,
Speaker 4: these these platforms weren't readily available or accessible, you know.
Speaker 4: So I think I think with the times and the
Speaker 4: fact that a lot of these creators just don't have
Speaker 4: access to those resources to go to the music schools
Speaker 4: or to have all the money to get all the
Speaker 4: equipment right their online figuring it out, right, these kids
Speaker 4: are pulling things, they're re sampling their you know, learning
Speaker 4: how to mix master and produce right, because you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's out of necessity, right, and and ultimately that
Speaker 4: that's what makes these young kids masters early on, they've
Speaker 4: gotten their ten thousand hours before they even hit mainstream, right,
Speaker 4: And that's you know, it's what's interesting to kind of
Speaker 4: watch is you know, all these you know, quote unquote
Speaker 4: bedroom producers or creators that are getting you know, individuals
Speaker 4: that I hire like myself, right, getting reinspired by looking
Speaker 4: at how they're doing things right, because it's it's that's
Speaker 4: the future, right, It's it's it's it's a it's a
Speaker 4: means to stay relevant as well for someone like myself, right.
Speaker 4: So it's it's it's incredible aspiring to watch man and
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, as I'm watching Billie Eilish and her brother,
Speaker 4: there's innovative ways to create a room. There is no boundary, right,
Speaker 4: there is no for there is no right or wrong
Speaker 4: to creating music, you know, you know, and I think
Speaker 4: now more than ever, you know, the genre lines are
Speaker 4: being blurred with what sounds like what? And I think
Speaker 4: that's just introducing more creativity. You know. You got albums
Speaker 4: like this Tyler project that just came out, you know,
Speaker 4: and all these incredible artists that are just you know,
Speaker 4: again creating sonic masterpieces. It's a product of just eliminating
Speaker 4: those borders.
Speaker 2: Right, And like you said earlier, from necessity not a necessity.
Speaker 1: Like I knew. I knew that the business was changing.
Speaker 2: When I first heard sold Boy, yeah Frank that and
Speaker 2: found out that he produced the record, And did you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, Like this whole viral on socials
Speaker 2: with the youth following. Yeah, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's about to be a full shift because this same
Speaker 2: record is the same record that's here, the same record
Speaker 2: he started with, is the same record that's at the
Speaker 2: top of the charts weeks. He's got the dance and
Speaker 2: got the whole thing going on, and he did it.
Speaker 4: As you said in his room. Yeah, and it's more
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 4: It's like over the years since Soldier Boy, right, it's
Speaker 4: countless artists that have taken off you know, the whole
Speaker 4: quote unquote SoundCloud era.
Speaker 1: Right, Soldier Boy first. Yeah, we know you did it first.
Speaker 1: Fact first.
Speaker 4: That's just a testament to just man, just evolving times,
Speaker 4: evolving times of technology, music, you know, creativity again, just
Speaker 4: these boundaries being eliminated now that these tools and platforms
Speaker 4: are now available. So it's it's like it's like it's
Speaker 4: going to continue to expand even faster, right as we
Speaker 4: as we as we as we you know, go forward
Speaker 4: in the music journey, you know, I must. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: start off asking you a question I asked my good
Speaker 4: brother Jason Joshua. Yes, yeah, because I've been knowing Jason
Speaker 4: Joshua since he was you know, way back then, absolutely
Speaker 4: not an engineer, nothing close. And I said, when.
Speaker 5: Did your ears tell you I hear this thing just
Speaker 5: a little differently from everybody else.
Speaker 4: When was that for you? Man? I think honestly it
Speaker 4: was the kendrickmar the Section eighty project. We're gonna start there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that that's just just because again, if you
Speaker 4: think about it, right, I'm a kid that has no
Speaker 4: formal training in audio engineering, right, and I don't even
Speaker 4: know what the fuck pro tools is at the time. Right,
Speaker 4: I'm putting, I'm clicking buttons, I'm throwing plugins here, seeing
Speaker 4: what works, right. But you know, I think at that point, throughout,
Speaker 4: you know, working on that project, right and and developing
Speaker 4: the sound with Kindred that kind of had this. If
Speaker 4: you listen to anything that came out during that time,
Speaker 4: there was nothing that sonically matched that, right. And it
Speaker 4: was when I realized that you could do that right,
Speaker 4: the ADHD in me was like, yo, like you can
Speaker 4: take sounds and make them sound like this, or make
Speaker 4: them do this, and make them fly behind your ear
Speaker 4: and make them sound like two or three different people
Speaker 4: are talking and people are gonna like that. And it
Speaker 4: was like, oh, there's no rules to the ship, like,
Speaker 4: you know. That's I think what pulled me in most
Speaker 4: was the fact that I could do what I wanted
Speaker 4: sonically right as long as you can experience the mix.
Speaker 4: That's what really dragged me into it, you know.
Speaker 5: And and when you say you had no formal training, like,
Speaker 5: how do you like what is what is point a?
Speaker 4: Like? What's the starting man? The hustle man, you know
Speaker 4: from Guardian in California, you know all through high school
Speaker 4: played football, but always, you know, always, you know, having
Speaker 4: a few dollars so I can get a fresh white
Speaker 4: tea every morning, you know. And my hustle then was ringtones,
Speaker 4: you know, before the old I tell the story often,
Speaker 4: but it's before those. You know, you could really buy
Speaker 4: ring tones online, right, you know when people you know,
Speaker 4: the Soldier boy days just so fine, uh my boy
Speaker 4: did it first again? So yeah, man, how I got started?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 4: It was you know what just kind of had me
Speaker 4: fall into love of the arts of recording. I started
Speaker 4: making ringtones, so you know, and how.
Speaker 5: Did you how did you like, give me, give me equipment,
Speaker 5: give me like how you did this?
Speaker 4: Man? The equipment was just a cracked version of cool
Speaker 4: Edit Pro. I don't know if anybody remembers the old
Speaker 4: school dog cool Edit pro, you know, a headphone microphone
Speaker 4: And I was it, man. I you know, I've been
Speaker 4: computer literate, and you know I had laptops as a kid.
Speaker 4: My uncle you know, give me them for you know,
Speaker 4: the Chris Us whatever but I found software that allowed
Speaker 4: me to crack the old next telephones and put ring
Speaker 4: tones on there without those beeping ringtones. So back then,
Speaker 4: when there was just those mono beeping you know, ringtones,
Speaker 4: I would have friends come over and we would record
Speaker 4: these thirty second snippets that I would turn into their ringtone.
Speaker 4: Will be the only ones in the school that had them, right,
Speaker 4: And you know, I was making hundreds a week. It
Speaker 4: was lit like it was twenty bucks rington but they
Speaker 4: came up. I lived right across the streets in my school.
Speaker 4: Twenty dollars a ringtone, right, But there was the whole experience.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, You come record. Nah, you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, You come through My Grandma will
Speaker 4: serve you with some you know sweets like come on,
Speaker 4: like no better experience. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You already had this studio.
Speaker 4: It was the concierge, you know, saying, yeah, make sure
Speaker 4: I'm a people pleaser. Yeah you know, so yeah, you
Speaker 4: just you know, getting dated. I would have to makeshift
Speaker 4: curtains up in my closet. Again, I had the headphone
Speaker 4: microphone and you know cliche, you know, don't ask this
Speaker 4: girl's phone, you know, just right, the shit niggas woul
Speaker 4: do when they sixteen seventeen years old, you know, Miles
Speaker 4: call and pick up the phone like whatever it was.
Speaker 4: And you know, uh, you know as like just you know,
Speaker 4: I'm playing football during this time as well, but you
Speaker 4: know I'm making some you know for kid in high school.
Speaker 4: I'm making some dollars. Yeah, And at that point I realized, yes,
Speaker 4: this could you know, this could be a business. You
Speaker 4: know earlier, you know, I've always just been fascinated with
Speaker 4: just you know, building things myself, whether it's computers, remotecial cars, businesses,
Speaker 4: you know, figure out ways to start something and watch
Speaker 4: it kind of grow. And I realized, hey, you know
Speaker 4: this this thing is cool, right, And I started researching
Speaker 4: more about like what am I doing right now? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And again didn't know about the LA recording schools or
Speaker 4: didn't know about the essays, and when I found out
Speaker 4: about them, I couldn't afford the shit, you know, one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty grand you know, to go learn how
Speaker 4: to you know, record, and you know, I was like,
Speaker 4: you know, I can't do that. Ship. So naturally went
Speaker 4: up to you know, some blogs, you know, future producers
Speaker 4: dot com and gear sluts and these other places, and
Speaker 4: you know, I would you know, kind of learn from there,
Speaker 4: learn through other people's you know, failures or questions that
Speaker 4: they have. If I would reverse engineer the question to
Speaker 4: kind of see what they did, and you know, go
Speaker 4: back and try myself. So again from the Ringtones got
Speaker 4: better equipment. You know, actually I was you know, I
Speaker 4: was robbing off Craigslist so I can get the interfaces. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I didn't have you know,
Speaker 4: I have nothing. And then you know, finally when I
Speaker 4: had this setup, you know, I you know, I had
Speaker 4: pro tools. Now you know, I got a proper microphone,
Speaker 4: a proper interface, and you know that's when I wanted
Speaker 4: to say, this is something I loved. It was a passion.
Speaker 4: It was something that can sit me down for ten
Speaker 4: hours a day. Yeah. You know your kid with ADHD, Right,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm off the walls and I'm sitting here
Speaker 4: shaping a snare, right, trying to chop up vocals for
Speaker 4: ten hours. Right, This is incredible. Yeah, yeah, And that
Speaker 4: essentially was the journey.
Speaker 1: So were you more so toward music production at this side? Though?
Speaker 2: Because that's because like you said, you're making the ring
Speaker 2: tone right, and you're doing that with your guys, but
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't know. I'm asking were you even
Speaker 2: thinking about the mix and how it the sonics of it?
Speaker 1: Are you just like no, this just feels good.
Speaker 4: No good. I would find instrumentals like on LimeWire. You know,
Speaker 4: people will come freestyle, right, the homies will come after
Speaker 4: football practice freestyle. You know, I would add the reverb
Speaker 4: on there in the room went crazy like you know,
Speaker 4: you know, but yeah, man, that you know, And from
Speaker 4: there it's always just on this quest for more right
Speaker 4: and more information, more knowledge. Uh. You know. I reached
Speaker 4: out to Punch, you know, TD Punch and Dave Free.
Speaker 4: I reached out to both of them on on my Space.
Speaker 4: You know, Dave went to my high school. He went
Speaker 4: to Guardian and High with me. And then you know,
Speaker 4: I always knew about TD and you know what, you know,
Speaker 4: the guys are doing Jay Rock and everybody and I
Speaker 4: hate Punch was like, yo, like you know, I'm not
Speaker 4: looking for anything but just information knowledge, Like how can
Speaker 4: I like work with you guys, how can I you know, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, just add value to you know, what's going on,
Speaker 4: you know, I want to be an audio engineer, and
Speaker 4: you know, Punch told me to come by, you know,
Speaker 4: and from there I kind of just you know, just stay.
Speaker 4: That was like the step child that you know, that
Speaker 4: never that that that you know, just came and never left.
Speaker 4: And that was what two thousand and six, two thousand
Speaker 4: and seven, And you come in as an engineer. I
Speaker 4: come and as honestly somebody who wanted to do anything.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't even understand the role of an engineer
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 1: You know, I know, you're still in high school.
Speaker 4: I'm still I got kicked on my grandma's house. I'm
Speaker 4: still I'm like graduating. It's like towards the end of
Speaker 4: the year two thousand and seven, and you know, I've
Speaker 4: met the guys, and you know, I met Top and
Speaker 4: everybody early on, but you know, around two thousand and seven,
Speaker 4: once I graduated, that's when you know, I moved in
Speaker 4: the tops crib. You know, we're all like sleeping on
Speaker 4: the floor head to toe, you know, just recording all day.
Speaker 4: And that's you know when I'm like, okay, like I
Speaker 4: guess a group of guys right that, you know, are
Speaker 4: trying to become the best, and we weren't even really
Speaker 4: focused on trying to be the best, right, it was
Speaker 4: just something to do that was keeping us out the streets,
Speaker 4: you know, just having a place, you know, at the studio,
Speaker 4: to be able to get away from all the problems
Speaker 4: that we might deal with on a daily basis, to
Speaker 4: just create right, without boundaries and without instruction right. And
Speaker 4: ultimately what that did was, you know, everyone is now
Speaker 4: sharpening this wars. You know, you got absolutely, you got
Speaker 4: j Rock, you got Kadot. At the time, it's Kadot
Speaker 4: and and me. Now right, you know, at the time
Speaker 4: Punch was recording. But now when I came in, he
Speaker 4: put me in that seat and punineer. Punch was the
Speaker 4: full time engineer at the time in early days. He
Speaker 4: was yeah, yeah, you know, now it's like the engineer here,
Speaker 4: you know, another piece of the puzzle that now I
Speaker 4: can step off and focus on, you know, on the
Speaker 4: overarching goals. And that just gave me an opportunity to
Speaker 4: now just sharpen usquare. Now I got three incredible artists
Speaker 4: that you know, I'm sitting with for hours and days
Speaker 4: and hours and days and nights, and you know, we
Speaker 4: got our ten thousand hours.
Speaker 5: It's it's then, what was that transition like? Because it's like,
Speaker 5: you know, if Punch is like at that time, the
Speaker 5: full time engineer, there are you know, there are nuanced
Speaker 5: things that.
Speaker 1: They're used to him, they're used to engineering.
Speaker 5: Now, what what was that transition that that you know, Okay,
Speaker 5: now you're in this seat, these are the things that
Speaker 5: need to happen. Or were you always sitting in and
Speaker 5: taking those notes so that by the time you got
Speaker 5: to that chair you were you were more than ready.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Now, I've always been the observer type where you know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna look be the fly on the wall, see
Speaker 4: where I could fit in? Right? What hole can I feel?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: And you know, Punch already had a formula for how
Speaker 4: they were tracking and recording, but I don't even think
Speaker 4: it was that far along to where the signings even
Speaker 4: were like a main you know, focal point right as
Speaker 4: long as we can hear the vocals were over, the
Speaker 4: two track beat were fantastic, right, you know, But it
Speaker 4: was just watching how to really again. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: still very very very early on pro tools, and you know,
Speaker 4: topping them had the old tool bar, the old tool
Speaker 4: console had monitors, like in my eyes, had a real
Speaker 4: professional setup, you know, and you know, so they walked
Speaker 4: me through just what it was, what was the process,
Speaker 4: what was the flow. And I think over time and
Speaker 4: hours and hours and days of working with all the
Speaker 4: artists individually, you you kind of understand everyone's individual flow.
Speaker 4: You know, how everyone's recording speed is right, Like you said,
Speaker 4: work with engineers, they got to be on it right
Speaker 4: and if not a function your energy off. You know,
Speaker 4: you got to imagine, you know, working with three different artists.
Speaker 4: This is before school Boy Q came in, you know,
Speaker 4: working with these three artists. Everyone you know, came in
Speaker 4: at different times, at different styles, you know, obviously different
Speaker 4: vocal tones where you have to on the fly like
Speaker 4: make sure everything was coming in. So yeah, man, it's
Speaker 4: just just.
Speaker 2: Yeah and y'all recording all day and all night. Especially
Speaker 2: for you being the one engineer.
Speaker 4: It's like what else we're gonna do, Like we're all,
Speaker 4: like you fresh out of high school, like you know,
Speaker 4: it's you know, besides the turn ups on the weekends
Speaker 4: or whatever, like you know, but even that, it's like
Speaker 4: everyone's meeting point and focal point was to get back
Speaker 4: to the studio. You know when you young tho, that's
Speaker 4: I've been there, you know what I'm saying, and you
Speaker 4: in it.
Speaker 5: What what else are we gonna do?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. Like it's and I think
Speaker 4: that's also a luxury of it, right, just again having
Speaker 4: the space and having time. I don't think people areized
Speaker 4: just you know, a big part of the formula, just
Speaker 4: having that time that you could the kids of your craft,
Speaker 4: you know, and you know, gratefully, you know, we were
Speaker 4: in a place you know, might not have been the
Speaker 4: best place, you know, but we were in a place
Speaker 4: where you know, we had the time. You know, we're
Speaker 4: all young, you know. You know, I don't think anyone
Speaker 4: of the kids at that point. And it was just focused,
Speaker 4: right and once start getting things start getting serious, right
Speaker 4: uh you know, Jay Rock was at Warner Brothers, you know, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, and things just start to build up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we heard y'all when y'all left and left with I.
Speaker 5: Mean meeting you now, Oh they got it, got it.
Speaker 5: They had some real muscle with it.
Speaker 4: It was just it was a useful resource, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. It was a very useful resource.
Speaker 1: You know, don't make Ali do it give up the.
Speaker 4: Van man, I remember that. Man, it was a good
Speaker 4: warning brother days shout out to name, yeah my guy.
Speaker 4: But yeah, man, it was just again just as time progressed, man,
Speaker 4: it was you know, I think everyone individually started really
Speaker 4: falling into you know, uh you know. And again it's
Speaker 4: I go back to this ten thousand hour right, Malcolm
Speaker 4: glad Well, Right, you have to you know, to be
Speaker 4: great at any one thing, one must acquire at a
Speaker 4: minimum of ten thousand hours. Right. And I go back
Speaker 4: and look in just the style of like app souls evolution,
Speaker 4: of j Rocks evolution, of Kendrick's evolution, you know, and
Speaker 4: school Boy Q's evolution. Right, It's like that wouldn't be
Speaker 4: possible if the space wasn't there to be able to
Speaker 4: have you know that that that that that free time
Speaker 4: to create, right, So I look at all it's just
Speaker 4: divine timing, man, Like you know everything you know it was,
Speaker 4: it was already written, right, we were just catching up
Speaker 4: the time. So as we're talking about engineering there the
Speaker 4: you know, the next step is is the mixing part
Speaker 4: of it? Right? Right?
Speaker 5: I want to do it in steps on stages, so
Speaker 5: to say. And so when is it when does it
Speaker 5: occur to everyone that, man, this these these rough mixes
Speaker 5: that you're doing is facious, is hard like this this
Speaker 5: this could be the mix man.
Speaker 4: Really trying to think what project that was. I think
Speaker 4: when we started doing I think it was the Kindrick
Speaker 4: mar Ep I'm like the first project from going from
Speaker 4: Ketos Kendrick you know, that was super just that's one
Speaker 4: person that you know, it's super meticulous about how every
Speaker 4: one piece, what imperfection of a sava sound like it's
Speaker 4: supposed to be there, right, You hear like a breath
Speaker 4: of a drum loop, right, it's I go and try
Speaker 4: to clip it out like it's supposed to be there. Right.
Speaker 4: So just going through the journey with with with Bro
Speaker 4: in those early days, you know, doing this Kings and yep,
Speaker 4: you know that's I think one of the first projects
Speaker 4: that I was working with Stems sound Way produced majority,
Speaker 4: if not all of it with some co production by
Speaker 4: Dave et cetera. And now you know, instead of just
Speaker 4: having kick drums based to break down everything separate, everything
Speaker 4: separate and everything before they were mind you, I'm working
Speaker 4: with two tracks with two tracks, you know, so I'm
Speaker 4: chopping up the two tracks I'm you know, reversing. I'm
Speaker 4: trying to do what I can with with with what
Speaker 4: I have, right, you know, and it worked to a
Speaker 4: certain level, had its selling sonically, you know. So once
Speaker 4: we start working with multi tracks, which was that first project,
Speaker 4: I started realizing the freedom now that I have to
Speaker 4: create these sonic landscapes, right dropouts, you know, delay throws,
Speaker 4: using the whole sound spectrum of left and right, you know,
Speaker 4: et cetera. That's when I was like, Okay, now we're
Speaker 4: now we're playing the game for real.
Speaker 1: You're painting.
Speaker 4: Now, now you're painting like you know, this is my canvas,
Speaker 4: and these instruments are all the colors. And that's where
Speaker 4: the whole concept of seeing sounds from the place, you know,
Speaker 4: just you know, I feel like when I mixed or
Speaker 4: you know, you get this feeling a tunnel vision where
Speaker 4: you're you know, you're able to kind of have you know,
Speaker 4: a four bar loop on repeat and you're just like again,
Speaker 4: just imagine Minority Report, you know, and you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. Once you're locked in, you're locked in, man,
Speaker 4: and yeah, so I think during that time, that's when
Speaker 4: you know, again just personally, you know, as an audio engineer.
Speaker 4: I felt that the defining moment, you know, my own
Speaker 4: personal career with just the understanding of of of mixing
Speaker 4: in real time, you know, with all the elements included,
Speaker 4: you know, does does it? Does it become a conversation
Speaker 4: where it's like where it's like, oh, this is this
Speaker 4: is our sound a TD conversation like this is what
Speaker 4: you're doing, this is what we're supposed to sound like,
Speaker 4: you know, across the board? Does it does that become
Speaker 4: a conversation? I think naturally it just became law over time,
Speaker 4: you know, uh, you know, there was never no just
Speaker 4: creative you know, restrictions or direction. You know. I think
Speaker 4: that's also what made me who I am was the
Speaker 4: freedom that all the artists who were including Top and
Speaker 4: Punch and Dave has you know, given me to be
Speaker 4: able to just do just throw things against the wall, right.
Speaker 4: The worst thing they're going to say is that let's
Speaker 4: just do it over or let's let's bring it back right.
Speaker 4: And Section eighty was a product of that, right, the distortions,
Speaker 4: the delays, the different tones, the doubles and stacks, and
Speaker 4: the texture, the essence, the sonic essence of that project,
Speaker 4: you know, essentially was a product of again just you know,
Speaker 4: having that creative freedom and time right because I couldn't
Speaker 4: afford that studio time anywhere else to be able to
Speaker 4: trial and error plugins, you know, so you know again
Speaker 4: it was it was just you know, it's just you know,
Speaker 4: an effect of you know, just taking taking time and
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, did you say freedom. I remember.
Speaker 5: We did a song on my is It now? I
Speaker 5: Never album? Keep it one hundred? This song, keep it
Speaker 5: one hundred and of course you know Seet Jason, Joshua everything,
Speaker 5: and this is this is my first time.
Speaker 1: That's not now that, that's not now, that's not now.
Speaker 1: Never is it? It's not never?
Speaker 4: No never?
Speaker 5: Okay, this is my intro to an engineer also being
Speaker 5: a producer.
Speaker 4: Oh, I know you hated that.
Speaker 5: I didn't know. I didn't know, so it wasn't a hate.
Speaker 5: I didn't know what was going on. So the song
Speaker 5: comes on and I'm looking at him. I'm like, what
Speaker 5: the fuck is because it starts off with this guitar
Speaker 5: thing and it's on and you know, me and Jason
Speaker 5: that we have we have like this, you know this
Speaker 5: this this little kid, we're like little kids be cussing
Speaker 5: at each other, and he said, shut the fuck up
Speaker 5: and just listen, right, So started over and I'm listening
Speaker 5: to it and I'm like, and it just grows into
Speaker 5: this thing, and then it comes up and said you're nice, right,
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh ship, He's like, bro, just
Speaker 5: let me do my fucking thing.
Speaker 4: Man, just let me. I said never.
Speaker 5: I will never. I will never stifle you. I will
Speaker 5: never have demo itis ever again. Do whatever it is
Speaker 5: that you do. And if you sorry for cutting you off.
Speaker 4: That's important, man, because and I tell young artists that
Speaker 4: I work with or you know, young artists that come
Speaker 4: across and inspire by and have conversations with based on
Speaker 4: just my experience, I'm like, man, it's important if you
Speaker 4: have somebody there that gives the funk enough to do. Man,
Speaker 4: lean into that, y lean into that, right, because the worst,
Speaker 4: at the at the bare minimum of what was what
Speaker 4: you could say is hey, go back to the last version.
Speaker 4: But lat give somebody that freedom to be able to experiment, right,
Speaker 4: because you might find something that you can now take
Speaker 4: and add to your toolbox that you know sign you know,
Speaker 4: so I can imagine that feeling man, you know, and
Speaker 4: knowing Jason, right, you know it's a legend. It's something
Speaker 4: wrong with him. Yeah, it's something wrong.
Speaker 5: And it's that freedom that that that takes the creativity
Speaker 5: to another place because we're all if we all can
Speaker 5: creatively contribute, we're all invested in it.
Speaker 4: We're all.
Speaker 5: It just does like imagine the guy who first was like,
Speaker 5: who was first dialing up Travis Scott, right, imagine that
Speaker 5: or if it's him, it's like, there's no the ad
Speaker 5: to put that on there and then put that on there.
Speaker 4: That's me that ended up. It sounds that's you know,
Speaker 4: that's exactly right now we're.
Speaker 5: Chasing that as opposed to him saying nah, nah, don't
Speaker 5: don't do all that, you're doing too much.
Speaker 4: Our tell individual all the time. Man, it's like, man,
Speaker 4: when you like and especially nowadays, it's a different time
Speaker 4: where you know these young creators right, very ambitiously right.
Speaker 4: I love it about them, right, you know, go out
Speaker 4: and you know, build brands behind themselves and you don't
Speaker 4: want to charge the five ten thousands of mix, but
Speaker 4: not just there. You fall in love with the music first, right,
Speaker 4: become an irreplaceable asset first, right, and then you can
Speaker 4: setch your rate. Here it is right. You know, it's
Speaker 4: you have to love it enough to do it for
Speaker 4: you know, as many fucking months as you can endure
Speaker 4: for free because you love it so much. Right, And
Speaker 4: you know that's when you know you have those engineers
Speaker 4: and artists combinations, right that we've seen, like we stand,
Speaker 4: you know, just generations of music. I don't want to.
Speaker 5: Leave the mix yet, who from a mix from a
Speaker 5: mixed standpoint where we're guys that you listened to Doctor
Speaker 5: d s.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry it's one that's the one on your minds.
Speaker 2: So because because that's how I was going to ask
Speaker 2: you to I'm glad because early on you were blessed
Speaker 2: to be connected to him. Because obviously y'all ended up
Speaker 2: doing y'all deal the aftermath? How does that go? Because
Speaker 2: my other question, it's kind of a two part question,
Speaker 2: where did you have issues in the beginning when y'all
Speaker 2: first did y'all major deals with the labels being like,
Speaker 2: oh well, maybe y'all should take these records to such
Speaker 2: and such to let them mix. Did y'all ever even
Speaker 2: have those conversations.
Speaker 4: Are not like to what going for one? But outside
Speaker 4: of that, man, you know, just just Kendrick, right, just
Speaker 4: in control of them. You know, we've developed the sound
Speaker 4: and experience. We've developed this from you know, years before,
Speaker 4: you know, the Good Kid Mess City project where you know,
Speaker 4: Kendrick is the one that was boldfully like you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, I was fucking Dre's an idol to me,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm so, I'm just I'm nervous to meet
Speaker 4: the fucking guy, you know. Yeah, and Dre, you know,
Speaker 4: died is like, Yo, I want a lad in the
Speaker 4: mixing room with you, you know, as as we're doing this
Speaker 4: because we developed sounds and I don't want to lose
Speaker 4: that essence, right you know, So you know Dre being
Speaker 4: you know, it's open armed, it, you know, open armed
Speaker 4: in a sense where that album was almost a training
Speaker 4: route because going from mixing in the box and the
Speaker 4: you know everything prior to that, right you know, using
Speaker 4: cracked plugins, you know, stolen in boxes, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: no multi tracks, really chopping up the two track and
Speaker 4: reversing ship right now, you know, Dre's teaching me the
Speaker 4: console and how to mix on the assel. Right so
Speaker 4: I'm taking all the the the digital tricks that I've
Speaker 4: acquired right throughout my own personal journey of trial and
Speaker 4: error and now I can apply it right on the
Speaker 4: analog console with that sound, right, and that esse actually
Speaker 4: is another you know milestone of my career that you
Speaker 4: know made me who I am and kind of you
Speaker 4: know merged my you know, you know, highly affected sound
Speaker 4: with the clarity and depth of analog, right and.
Speaker 2: You Yeah, So, how how long were y'all in as
Speaker 2: far as just you you you and Dre just you know,
Speaker 2: just he's different chopping away son.
Speaker 4: There was this old studio and Santa Monica, no excuses,
Speaker 4: it was the one across finished, you know, and and
Speaker 4: Dre had that one really locked down when we started
Speaker 4: mixing the album because obviously months before that, as died
Speaker 4: was finalizing the album, you know, uh, you know, DoD
Speaker 4: had sessions with Dre. You know, it was just you know,
Speaker 4: pulling up the studio playing songs, like getting feedback, recording
Speaker 4: there with him at times, et cetera. But when it
Speaker 4: got towards the time to actually mixing, you know, Dre
Speaker 4: actually gave me one of the rooms in the back
Speaker 4: and uh he was in the front mixing. So we
Speaker 4: kind of took on that album as a pair right
Speaker 4: where he would get a bachel of songs and I
Speaker 4: would be in the back working on the batchel's songs.
Speaker 4: Funny enough, the board that I mixed that album on
Speaker 4: and no excuses I bought and we're going to we're
Speaker 4: going to that story. But you know, so again it's
Speaker 4: the first album that I mixed on on the console,
Speaker 4: dreising the front working on a batchel of records. I'm
Speaker 4: in the back, uh, you know again, working on the
Speaker 4: other on the other, on the other batches. And he
Speaker 4: would have come in and that critique me. Like he
Speaker 4: would come in and like put thumbs up, thumbs down,
Speaker 4: or tell me what he would do different, or I
Speaker 4: will go into his room where he would kind of
Speaker 4: walk me through and show me, you know, why he
Speaker 4: would be doing things, or you know, if the board
Speaker 4: is clipping right, it's a good type of clip where
Speaker 4: you know, only on drums or percussion, where you get
Speaker 4: this kind of peak that you know, that's why drums
Speaker 4: Dre's drums always snapping the way that they do right,
Speaker 4: because of how he manipulates that console and pushes it
Speaker 4: to his literal limit. You know. So it was again
Speaker 4: when I say milestone right, you know, you know again
Speaker 4: you know, I'm learning techniques that you know, somebody has
Speaker 4: you know, learned over time span of his career. Right,
Speaker 4: and you know, you know it's and again it was
Speaker 4: just as welcoming as he was to have me in
Speaker 4: these rooms and and and you know, and and and
Speaker 4: support it the way that he did, right. You know, again,
Speaker 4: it's just something that to his dad still can't process.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like it's unfair. Like Dre is like hearing a
Speaker 5: Dre mix in a Dre room. It's like, yeah, nobody
Speaker 5: can do this. Nobody's gonna nobody and it's not gonna
Speaker 5: sound like this anywhere else. You're in this room. The
Speaker 5: room is crazy, right. And like because we back in
Speaker 5: the day, it used to be two people. For me,
Speaker 5: it was Teddy Riley and it was doctor Dre. I
Speaker 5: was like, don't know how they're doing this. Timberland had
Speaker 5: his own mixed style, him and him and Jimmy, they
Speaker 5: had their own that was just separate. That's a separate universe, right, nobody.
Speaker 5: I can't figure that out. But Doctor Dre and Teddy
Speaker 5: Riley had this thing where it was like we have
Speaker 5: to we have we're chasing this clarity.
Speaker 4: Man, it's it's it's it's rhythm also, right, just even
Speaker 4: with with with Teddy with you know, the percussion being
Speaker 4: the lead, the high hatch being the lead. You know,
Speaker 4: it's all those like high midfield sounds bro that like
Speaker 4: really catch her hair and all the rhythm makers of
Speaker 4: these records, you know.
Speaker 5: But it's also too like a thing where mixing, like
Speaker 5: like track sonics and all these things, mixing evolves, right,
Speaker 5: and I feel like you know, in in in the
Speaker 5: in the heavy Teddy days, kind of mid mid heavy,
Speaker 5: kind of low mid and maybe like like that high
Speaker 5: mid frequency like that was heavy back then because it
Speaker 5: wasn't super.
Speaker 4: Eight the wait.
Speaker 5: Look, the percussion with the dry percussion was the was
Speaker 5: the driver. And then it was like as we just started.
Speaker 4: It's like away from here, and then when you go
Speaker 4: further west now it's like start sucking in other drums.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: When you start migrating into the two thousands, now, ass
Speaker 5: is a thing. It is dragon like like I think
Speaker 5: with a testament to that is when the Beats headphones
Speaker 5: first came out and you hear.
Speaker 4: Buy me a drink.
Speaker 5: Was a tester for the Beats headphones and I was like,
Speaker 5: do you hear the ass.
Speaker 4: In here? You can close your eyes and see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Man, I'm telling you that's real.
Speaker 5: I don't want no other headphones that don't put the
Speaker 5: ass on my ears.
Speaker 4: It's funny. I forgot what documented. I think it was
Speaker 4: to the Fine Ones that Jimmy and Dre dark, but
Speaker 4: it was it was either that or some clip that
Speaker 4: I was saying. And you know, one of the inspirations,
Speaker 4: and please don't quote me on it, but I have
Speaker 4: very vividly remember this. Jimmy was like, Yo, Dre's mixing
Speaker 4: these songs on fucking million dollar boards and these big
Speaker 4: studios for them to not sound good when you hear them. One,
Speaker 4: you're right, And I was one of the inspirations behind it,
Speaker 4: So give them. You know, now you're hearing the ass.
Speaker 4: Are you're supposed to hear ass? You know, supposed to? Yeah?
Speaker 5: I was like, it was revolutionary. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: Let's go to Let's go to because I want to
Speaker 5: get into the projects, right. I just want you to
Speaker 5: you know, at some point we're going to start running
Speaker 5: off projects and names. Let's go to the next level,
Speaker 5: which is master, because it's that's a completely different science.
Speaker 5: There are there are great mixed engineers who don't necessarily
Speaker 5: graduate or even want to roll into to the mastering space.
Speaker 5: And over the last ship five years, five seven years,
Speaker 5: I've seen so many engineers that are like, no, I
Speaker 5: master it to the do it all?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they do it all. What is what? What does
Speaker 4: it take to take that next step? So it's a
Speaker 4: good thing, as you said, over the past five years quote, right,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, just as of late, yeah, we've
Speaker 4: been seeing more engineers. And I want to go back
Speaker 4: to when when we talked about from the Teddy Riley
Speaker 4: going up to you know, early two thousands, right, the
Speaker 4: style of mixing has evolved, right, that's now another evolution
Speaker 4: right where it's now at a weight and base driven right. Right,
Speaker 4: All these young kids, these these early albums, all they
Speaker 4: want is at eight to eight to just flutter. They
Speaker 4: want that to be the driving record. Even the kicks
Speaker 4: are taking the bottom line to the eight away, right,
Speaker 4: you know, where the ataweight are really just taking over
Speaker 4: the whole mix, right, And these engineers are the ones
Speaker 4: doing that right where. You know, me personally, my era
Speaker 4: of music, the twenty tens, twenty twenties, you know obviously
Speaker 4: you know still you know, heavy in the game now,
Speaker 4: but you know, venturing over the business. My whole thing
Speaker 4: was clarity, depth, right, my whole, my whole you know,
Speaker 4: uh uh mixing process was you know, making an artist
Speaker 4: sound like they're standing in front of the speaker like
Speaker 4: it's not over you know, over processed, distorted, et cetera.
Speaker 4: But that was the music for that time, right. I
Speaker 4: feel like now where everything is that everything had you know,
Speaker 4: the low end driving, low end distorted, the Travis Travis
Speaker 4: Scott type of sound. Right, And these engineers that are
Speaker 4: you know because again me, I outsourced engine I'm mastering
Speaker 4: enginees for all my mixes. I go to either Mike
Speaker 4: Bosey or I go to Nicholas Deparcel A million dollars
Speaker 4: in there, because I want somebody else to now take on,
Speaker 4: you know, a part of the project, right, you know,
Speaker 4: sonically mixing, I go up to a certain level. I
Speaker 4: want mastering and kind of normalize it. But these kids
Speaker 4: now with the mastering is again they're able to take
Speaker 4: the whole flow from recording, mixing mastering because it is
Speaker 4: now like part of like the sound, like the distortedness
Speaker 4: the vocals to the front, base to the front, everything
Speaker 4: else played back burner. It's like a style that I
Speaker 4: could say that it's really has been cultivated and created
Speaker 4: by these engineers over the past five six years. But
Speaker 4: saying all to say this is, you know, I admire
Speaker 4: those that you know, take on, you know, the full
Speaker 4: creative process. You know, I know Jason does it now
Speaker 4: as well too, right, he does the masters on mixes,
Speaker 4: and before he was outsourcing exactly right, But that's even
Speaker 4: he was analog, and I know he's in the box now,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So it's all in evolution
Speaker 4: with the times you know of music. And I think
Speaker 4: you know, you can only push a record so far
Speaker 4: on a console, right compared to mixing in the box, right,
Speaker 4: you can get more loudness in the box, et cetera.
Speaker 4: So again, long winded answer, but saying ought to say
Speaker 4: is the engineers that are now doing the recorded mixing
Speaker 4: and mastering, doing everything in the box the way they're
Speaker 4: doing it, they're but it really you know, push these
Speaker 4: records and just have more control over the final product.
Speaker 4: At the end of the day.
Speaker 5: You you you alluded to buying the board, you you
Speaker 5: mixed on what what what board would that be? And
Speaker 5: for what purpose did you buy said board? So you know,
Speaker 5: we talk about the engineers that are mixing. I'm still
Speaker 5: very much analogue, you know.
Speaker 4: That's you know one, you know, I love the sonics,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, studio rat in every essence of
Speaker 4: the word. But also it's like it's what keeps me
Speaker 4: like loving it, like I am the mouse, right, you know.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, like I'm literally inside the computer when I'm
Speaker 4: you know, adjusting these mixes and you know, not looking
Speaker 4: at the computer at all, you know, But that's me, right,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm at a point in my career to where,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm only working on things that I want
Speaker 4: to work on, right, So I'm not in the in
Speaker 4: the space of you know, trying to do ten mixes
Speaker 4: a month, I'm sorry, ten mixes a day a week, whatever,
Speaker 4: you know. So, you know, the acquiring the console, and
Speaker 4: for one, it's it's a part of you know, just
Speaker 4: it's a through line in the story, you know, you know,
Speaker 4: coming up how it came up dre bill mentor acquiring
Speaker 4: the old you know, you know, the old death Row
Speaker 4: can Am Studios and now the console that I was
Speaker 4: taught on. You know, it's more of a memorabilia piece
Speaker 4: for myself, you know, something passed down to my kids.
Speaker 4: Really real board is it's SSL four thousand and j
Speaker 4: G plus, one of the last ones ever in production.
Speaker 4: He's my favorite. Yeah, it's those are the ones you
Speaker 4: can clip, right, you could just smash the percussionist the
Speaker 4: high hats. But again, it was you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I think at the time No Excuses was shutting down,
Speaker 4: and Ed the studio manager, had called me like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know the concert I spent years and No Excuses
Speaker 4: sleeping on those fucking couches, and surprising I was the
Speaker 4: first one they called like, hey, this this board is available.
Speaker 4: Uh and timing, you know, again, it lined up where
Speaker 4: I was just moving into the studio and I was like, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, just just all came together like water.
Speaker 2: Because that's what people have to understand too. You have
Speaker 2: to have somewhere to put these yeah right, it's start
Speaker 2: there at all, right, but just you know, because we'd
Speaker 2: be like oh yeah, yeah, and then I got the
Speaker 2: where you're gonna put it. You don't have a facility.
Speaker 2: These are not bores that you just put in your
Speaker 2: living room.
Speaker 4: So it was the original one if you remember ad Noaks.
Speaker 4: It was an eighty channel G plus that we cut
Speaker 4: down to forty eight so it could fit the room
Speaker 4: for one. And uh, you know, if you just know
Speaker 4: the logistics of getting these parts to these consoles, it's impossible.
Speaker 4: So we just wanted spare parts that we can kind
Speaker 4: of use. But you know, it's yeah, you need a facility.
Speaker 4: And the computers are as big as as fucking the
Speaker 4: speaker a mount is. Uh, they're older from the eighties.
Speaker 4: It's like buying an old Chevy like this. Something's always broke.
Speaker 4: My motherfucker likes a class. It's a classic, you know.
Speaker 4: So we have a G plus in the front room
Speaker 4: and I got a J eighty channel J in the
Speaker 4: back room. Yeah, so we have.
Speaker 1: And you did a whole overhaul full overall the building.
Speaker 4: So we acquired the studio two thousand, like the peak pandemic.
Speaker 4: And during this time, I was I was man, I
Speaker 4: had on core American Parents, I had all these rooms
Speaker 4: booked out, just working on multiple albums, and I'm just
Speaker 4: I realized that I'm giving these studios too much fucking money, man, right,
Speaker 4: I think when I when I when I went through
Speaker 4: and went through statements and I was just, you know,
Speaker 4: just doing my my annual. What the fuck I think?
Speaker 4: I was given like three hundred and fifty k a
Speaker 4: month in studio in studio studio bookings between all the
Speaker 4: different rooms that I have, you had that many bookings.
Speaker 4: I had four rooms going on one time, four rooms
Speaker 4: going away. Lord, cooking and cooking. Boy, I'm talking about cooking, cooking.
Speaker 4: But it's like I had a formula, I had an
Speaker 4: incredible team, like you know. But boy, I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know me looking around, I'm like, it's is tight,
Speaker 4: but like it's it's a leaky bucket somewhere like you know,
Speaker 4: And I'm like, okay, it's his studio. Like it's an
Speaker 4: opportunity where you know, you on top of an incredible
Speaker 4: mixed fee, right you know, it's you know, I can
Speaker 4: also get the other side from the studio, which at
Speaker 4: time studio might get paid more than the mixture.
Speaker 5: Is somebody telling you this or are you observing? And
Speaker 5: just as a hustler, like.
Speaker 4: I'm looking it don't make sense, it don't make it.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at it because I'm the one that's connecting
Speaker 4: the I'm the one that client books me. I'm the
Speaker 4: one connecting the client with the studio. I'm in the
Speaker 4: email seeing it. I'm like, I'm just why. I just
Speaker 4: imagine sitting in traffic. All these buses are just driving
Speaker 4: by you, and I'm just trying to catch each one,
Speaker 4: and I'm you know, I'm like, Okay, something's got a change,
Speaker 4: you know, and it's you know, uh, They're probably one
Speaker 4: of the smartest decisions I ever made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you know, it's crazy. We had a
Speaker 2: room there. Yeah, we had a roommate. Can we had
Speaker 2: a whole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had we had the off side.
Speaker 4: It was we had the right side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know it's.
Speaker 4: The main build the two there's too, so there's there's
Speaker 4: two sides. There's the front side in the backside. Uh,
Speaker 4: and then we have the backside. We actually did yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 4: The history goes back, I think, because I would say
Speaker 4: going back to the seventies to the eighties. When I open,
Speaker 4: you got everything from guns and guns and Roses, Aerosmith,
Speaker 4: Pink Floyd. Yeah. Right then you got the Michael Jackson's,
Speaker 4: you got Whitney Houston's, you got the Mary J. Blige,
Speaker 4: you got Maria carey you got Janet right, and then
Speaker 4: it just continues right, you know, so you know it's
Speaker 4: it's the energy is real.
Speaker 1: Did you keep the name? Canm are you?
Speaker 4: No? We changing No Name Studios, No Name Studios. Uh,
Speaker 4: you know, you know I have, I have, you know,
Speaker 4: a conglomerate of of companies under the No Name group umbrella.
Speaker 4: You know, No Name Recordings is a label that you know,
Speaker 4: we also found it during the pandemic where you know,
Speaker 4: the whole idea of it is just you know, ecosystem,
Speaker 4: just develop an ecosystem, watching you know, the top dogs,
Speaker 4: watching the day freeze, watching how everyone operates, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 4: the formula is ecosystem, right, the formula is fully vertical integrated.
Speaker 4: And that's what spawned that final piece of the puzzle,
Speaker 4: which is the platform, right, providing a technical solution to
Speaker 4: allow you know, this creativity to you know, be multiplied
Speaker 4: right and scaled up globally. How many artists do you have?
Speaker 4: So at the moment, the label there's no artists. You know,
Speaker 4: we look at that as as so the way we
Speaker 4: look at the label is creating. Uh, you know, my
Speaker 4: whole thing I've had the artist thing, you know I've
Speaker 4: done that, and you know, I was excited to have
Speaker 4: and it was a fucking headache. I'm gonna keep it
Speaker 4: real with you. Havn't having you know, it was it
Speaker 4: was just my experience, you know what I'm saying, experience.
Speaker 4: Now they're on the same page, but you know, the
Speaker 4: fucking journey was. You know, it's I'm never gonna work
Speaker 4: harder than somebody you know on their own ship. You know,
Speaker 4: that's one of the main things, one of the main
Speaker 4: asks that I have with anybody that you know wants
Speaker 4: to know participate in what we have going on. And
Speaker 4: then you know, it's it's it's accountability. It's a big
Speaker 4: thing for me, you know. And you can't expect the
Speaker 4: world if you know, you don't want to get at
Speaker 4: a bed, you know, So you saying ought to say this.
Speaker 4: You know, with every other business that you know that
Speaker 4: I have, I can control the product, you know, And
Speaker 4: it's you know when it comes to you know, working
Speaker 4: with the artists at the product of that song, right
Speaker 4: and and I'm trying to create a safe place for
Speaker 4: this for this artist to create and develop their their sound,
Speaker 4: and there's nothing being created to control, right, It's a
Speaker 4: net negative in my opinion. Right, So with the label,
Speaker 4: you know, we're doing more of compilation projects you know,
Speaker 4: where you know, we do these jam sessions on a
Speaker 4: weekly basis. You know, we have musicians, artists, producers come
Speaker 4: by where you know, we open up the space. We
Speaker 4: create these all again friends of ours, you know, incredible producers, artists, songwriters,
Speaker 4: et cetera. I mean with that, you know, we we
Speaker 4: take those songs and you know, we send them out
Speaker 4: to other artists that are working on projects for placements,
Speaker 4: you know. And another part of is we're doing a
Speaker 4: compilation project where we take those compilation projects, we upstream
Speaker 4: them to the Engineer's platform because we just launched a
Speaker 4: director consumer offering for artists to sell their music director
Speaker 4: to super fans. And it's going to end with a
Speaker 4: concert series that we can rinse and repeat every quarter.
Speaker 1: And said, and that's under Engineers.
Speaker 4: That's under no Name recording, under no Name recording.
Speaker 1: So what is engineers?
Speaker 4: So engineers, you know, so essentially, you know, as an
Speaker 4: audio engineer, you know, growing my business, you know, didn't
Speaker 4: have any formal training on the business side of the ship,
Speaker 4: the admin side of you know, maintaining relationships, payments, invoices.
Speaker 4: You know, I realized as time you know, went on
Speaker 4: in my career that you know, it's becoming a headache
Speaker 4: trying to deal with it though. Right I'm losing money
Speaker 4: on the table because I'm not invoicing, or I'm not
Speaker 4: catching up to these invoices that are ninety days behind,
Speaker 4: or it's hard to manage and maintain clientele as I'm
Speaker 4: working on one album, but I got fifteen people emailing
Speaker 4: me to book a project. Right, So you know, we
Speaker 4: decided to build a platform called Engineers that you know
Speaker 4: provided those like streamlined business solutions, so you know, think
Speaker 4: LinkedIn for the music industry. Right, I create a profile,
Speaker 4: you know, I can host, I can upload all my credits,
Speaker 4: my credentials. How many Grammys, how many you know, ri
Speaker 4: A certifications do I have? I could put bios photos.
Speaker 1: You'll be doing that all day, brother.
Speaker 4: You know, we cap it at a certain numb but
Speaker 4: we also allow Engineering myself to host and solicit services.
Speaker 4: So we have you know, the ability for me to
Speaker 4: host a mixing package or Adobe atmost mixing package. We're
Speaker 4: an external client, an artist that wants to work with
Speaker 4: me when they DM me, Hey, Ali, I want to
Speaker 4: work with you on X, Y and Z. I could
Speaker 4: just send them my u ur L to my link
Speaker 4: has all the information on you know, the packages that
Speaker 4: I'm offering, the mixing, mastering or Adobe atmast packages. They
Speaker 4: could book me instantly and the platform walks them through
Speaker 4: a workflow that go between the artists and engineer up
Speaker 4: until completion, so we ensure engineers and studios get paid
Speaker 4: on time. The file transfer, the transparency on communications between
Speaker 4: your client as well as credits.
Speaker 1: And that's incredible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So through that we raised about ten million dollars
Speaker 4: to day with that platform. Y yeah, man, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then we also but it's been a journey, man.
Speaker 4: We just launched a director consumer you know, offerings for artists,
Speaker 4: so you know, and the artists can come, you know,
Speaker 4: book a studio like Airbnb. Right, we have over fifty
Speaker 4: thousand profiles globally. They can go through their flow. Once
Speaker 4: the studio sessions are done, they want to get their
Speaker 4: songs mixed the master. They can use the platform to
Speaker 4: facilitator and manage those projects. And then once they're done
Speaker 4: with their projects, they can one click distribute to any
Speaker 4: DSP or sell direct to a sob're fan on.
Speaker 1: Their profiles and what's and what's that website.
Speaker 4: Or app engineers dot com engineers dot com dot com?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know, we have so many subscribers and people that
Speaker 2: watch our show that are trying to find their way
Speaker 2: within this industry, you know what I mean. And that's
Speaker 2: that's been so important for us to be a a
Speaker 2: safe place not only for our guests but for our audience.
Speaker 1: We don't bring bullshit is on here, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: We bring people who are really seeing the future in
Speaker 2: this music business and trying to help.
Speaker 4: It's how we look at it because again, the fear
Speaker 4: of like going from like you know, you know, one
Speaker 4: of the top engineers in the world to now shifting
Speaker 4: into like music tech or just technology. I didn't know
Speaker 4: what the fuck I was doing to start, you know,
Speaker 4: and that fear was real because I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 4: I'm at the top of my game and I'm about
Speaker 4: to start over, right, you know. But then it goes
Speaker 4: back to something I said earlier, is like being uncomfortable.
Speaker 4: You know. It's like like I thrive on being uncomfortable
Speaker 4: because you know, you're growing at that point, you know,
Speaker 4: and you know, it's again one of the best decisions
Speaker 4: I made because now my legacy now lives through millions
Speaker 4: of other creators using the platform that we build based
Speaker 4: on my journey and experience. You know. So it's doing,
Speaker 4: it's doing fantastic right now. You know again, we got
Speaker 4: you know users all of the world, you know, partnerships
Speaker 4: with the Universal Music Group where we're expraditing payments right,
Speaker 4: no more unimportant, yeah, okay. And then even for the
Speaker 4: studio bookings you know, uh, you know again offering solutions
Speaker 4: similar to Airbnb where you could book hourly session time.
Speaker 4: And we're excited about these new offerings again that are
Speaker 4: coming for artists to allow them to you know, distribute
Speaker 4: their music to any DSP with favorable payouts compared to
Speaker 4: other independent distributors, as well as direct to consumer offerings
Speaker 4: sub merchandise, digital downloads, vinyls, et cetera. So you know,
Speaker 4: the goal for us at scale is, uh, we want
Speaker 4: to build the operating system of the music industry.
Speaker 1: The future, the future.
Speaker 5: You just you just you leveraged you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: you just leveraged the greatness and you took a step,
Speaker 5: like a big step in betting on yourself and the
Speaker 5: big thing, big.
Speaker 4: Thing betting on yourself. I think, excuse me, I think
Speaker 4: you know a lot of people, you know, fear change
Speaker 4: or fear betting on themselves because they can't come a
Speaker 4: change for this negative a positive. But like everything is
Speaker 4: a test man, you're going to be hit with, you know,
Speaker 4: all type of shit. It's like how you're going to
Speaker 4: react when it comes, you know. And you know again,
Speaker 4: I speak on this often because I'm no different from
Speaker 4: any other kid that is in the hood or anywhere
Speaker 4: just thinking that they can't you know, do specific things.
Speaker 4: It's just do it, you know, start somewhere. And you
Speaker 4: said leveraging everything that I've You're right, Like I didn't
Speaker 4: start a restaurant. I didn't go you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I wanted to do something that I'm great at based
Speaker 4: on you know, how I got here. It worked, right,
Speaker 4: and now that's let's automate that. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 4: And it just showed that it's another one of us
Speaker 4: that look like us doing it, not somebody in Silicon
Speaker 4: Valley in a fifty story building, you know, telling us
Speaker 4: that you know the cost of music creation is nothing,
Speaker 4: you know, but it's still it's still also maximizing, right,
Speaker 4: you know, with within the space, you know, the leverage,
Speaker 4: the taking it to the quote unquote Silicon Valley aspect
Speaker 4: of it. But it's still very much in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 4: And it's like, how do I how do I ten
Speaker 4: x twenty x what I already know? Like, there's gotta
Speaker 4: be framework that takes it outside of this, that takes
Speaker 4: it outside of me, right, And you know what that was,
Speaker 4: And I'm sorry I couldn't know, you good. What that
Speaker 4: was was realizing that I'm not the only one dealing
Speaker 4: with not getting paid on time, realizing that I'm not
Speaker 4: the only one getting ten emails sent to me for
Speaker 4: a mix to mix one song, and I'm spending more
Speaker 4: time deconstructing these files rather than you know, spending more
Speaker 4: time on the creativity or not getting credited or you know,
Speaker 4: not getting fucking again going back to the payment side
Speaker 4: of things. So, you know, and we learned that through workshops.
Speaker 4: So before we had a platform, before we even had
Speaker 4: a platform, I did workshops. I reached this in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 4: I reached this brick wall where I was uninspired, like
Speaker 4: you know, I was out partying heavy, you know, and
Speaker 4: I was at this point that yeah, that's always you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying out. But it was like during
Speaker 4: this time, man, it was like I just and you know,
Speaker 4: I gracefully say that I didn't understand like why the
Speaker 4: funk will have all the success? Right? It was like
Speaker 4: it was a weird moment for me, you know, because
Speaker 4: it came so fast, and it wasn't until I started
Speaker 4: educating and teaching and doing these workshops that kind of
Speaker 4: gave me more like inspiration to kind of continue because
Speaker 4: I'm like, yo, this, I see a lot of me
Speaker 4: and all these people I come across. So before we
Speaker 4: had the Engineer's platform, I launched this series called Seeing
Speaker 4: Sounds Workshops where that yeaeah, so we you know, I
Speaker 4: went to the ICMS, I went to William Morris, I said, hey,
Speaker 4: I got an idea to go on tour as an
Speaker 4: engineer and do these fucking workshops. The nah, I don't
Speaker 4: see the value. I'm like, all right, bet So I
Speaker 4: did pre sell tickets and sold out. I think we
Speaker 4: did like a half a million in like six weeks
Speaker 4: in pre sell tickets. We used that to go, We
Speaker 4: used that to go and rent the venues like We
Speaker 4: did everything to ourselves. We ran the venues across the globe.
Speaker 4: We did fucking Tokyo, we did Korea.
Speaker 1: Had you even been to these places before this?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: I mean I've been there as a DJ DJ for
Speaker 4: Kendrick through all this ship too. Okay, So I went out.
Speaker 4: But you know, when you're on tour, you don't get
Speaker 4: to see nothing, right, You're in the bus or the
Speaker 4: hotel and you're off to the next Well, I.
Speaker 1: Go walk around, take us. He's always like, Jay, did
Speaker 1: you walk in the city?
Speaker 4: Got?
Speaker 1: I just walked around. I just want to see.
Speaker 4: Right, man. That was I was so tired, man as Man,
Speaker 4: I'm on the phone my girl, like you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. I'm like, I gotta, you know, I gotta.
Speaker 4: But uh yes, we.
Speaker 2: Did the workshops and you so did you have Did
Speaker 2: you have connections in these places?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: From that tour or from tours or no?
Speaker 4: No, no. So I literally went on like like their
Speaker 4: versions of like a pier space. I found venues, warehouses. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And by this time, like you know, we had you know,
Speaker 4: twenty thirty thousand on Instagram, like you know, as you know, following,
Speaker 4: and we just did pre cell tickets. You know, we
Speaker 4: did them at a premium, right, it was just a
Speaker 4: thousand dollars a seat.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: It was a full day experience, right, you know, with
Speaker 4: again thousands of dollars a giveaways small of our sponsors,
Speaker 4: but doing these workshops on the world, right, you know,
Speaker 4: we did we left questionnaires for all of our attendees
Speaker 4: asking like, he has a small business, like what are
Speaker 4: some of the issues you deal with in real time?
Speaker 4: And again after that the pandemic hit and we were
Speaker 4: forced to look at the information that we gather and
Speaker 4: it's like, fuck, it's not just the inspiration and the
Speaker 4: education that we're providing, you know with this workshop, it's
Speaker 4: the business to us and that's what promted us to
Speaker 4: go and build the platform, you know, and continue that way.
Speaker 2: So you know, the cool part for me, Bro, honestly
Speaker 2: is you created a solution. Because everybody has an opinion,
Speaker 2: and everybody can tell you what's wrong, This is wrong,
Speaker 2: and that's wrong. Okay, so what the fuck are you?
Speaker 2: We are not just you? We going to do about it?
Speaker 2: What is the solution to these problems that we're having
Speaker 2: that make our business just run so much smoother? Because
Speaker 2: I think the other part, too, is people get caught
Speaker 2: up in I say this a lot, man, there's just
Speaker 2: certain people who would rather complain.
Speaker 1: Then actually do something else.
Speaker 4: I think they want things to be wrong to.
Speaker 2: Complain, yeah, because honestly they're scared a lot of times
Speaker 2: they're scared. And and and then the other side of
Speaker 2: that is people feeling like, well, it's just wolves anyway,
Speaker 2: and it's just fucked up people and the devils and this,
Speaker 2: that and the other. More so than saying, hey, I
Speaker 2: actually didn't turn my shit in. That's why you didn't
Speaker 2: get paid or credited. Are now you want to try
Speaker 2: to sue somebody? How about they might not even known
Speaker 2: your ass was on the song.
Speaker 4: And that's trying to figure that out first.
Speaker 5: And I'm not even signed up with a cap I'm
Speaker 5: not signed up with it. I don't know about all
Speaker 5: of the creators that don't know that, right. Like we're
Speaker 5: all small businesses, right, all of us, right, But there's
Speaker 5: never been a tool right that show us what the
Speaker 5: fuck needs to be done?
Speaker 4: Right. You're expected to learn all these things right, right,
Speaker 4: and you go back to the solution, right, you're one
Speaker 4: hundred percent right, right? And you know, yes, we started
Speaker 4: with audio engineers, right, the people that you know historically
Speaker 4: have never been given a flag to fucking wave right.
Speaker 4: And you know, this is why we're seeing early on
Speaker 4: this mass adoption of engineers on our platform signing up
Speaker 4: and becoming members, right, because they're finally seeing that solution
Speaker 4: to the problem. Right. But that's also enabling us to
Speaker 4: now scale up the vertical of creation audio engineers, recording studios,
Speaker 4: music distribution, and director consumer sales. Right because the audio
Speaker 4: engineers historically, or the conduit to the me we hold
Speaker 4: the relationships with the producers, with the artists themselves, with
Speaker 4: the managers, with the labels, with everybody, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying. So it's you know, why isn't that there is?
Speaker 4: Why is it that our tech stack is having to
Speaker 4: use Dropbox, cash, app, Venmo, quick books, invoices, Gmail, text message,
Speaker 4: you know, et cetera, et cetera. So if we build
Speaker 4: a tool where all engineers don't want to work nowhere
Speaker 4: us but our platform, naturally they're going to tell all
Speaker 4: of their artists, hey, I only want to work here,
Speaker 4: and they're going to bring on their artists, Hey, book
Speaker 4: me using this one here.
Speaker 1: Me here, because that makes it easier for them to right.
Speaker 4: So now that we've seen that, now, what's the next
Speaker 4: step providing these you know, distributions. Now that we're having
Speaker 4: artists naturally organically coming onto the platform, signing up, utilizing
Speaker 4: these tools, that's all for them what they're naturally doing
Speaker 4: once the project is done, which is download and go
Speaker 4: upload to another SoundCloud or you know, other distribts. So
Speaker 4: why don't we just do a one click distribution straight
Speaker 4: from their profiles? Right? So it's it's it's it's really
Speaker 4: you know, verticalizing creation as it should be, right, but
Speaker 4: starting with the artistic intention of music creation and then
Speaker 4: going into all the other admin tools. Right. So it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's.
Speaker 1: I can tell you've been speaking to brother.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, the world to you.
Speaker 4: It's it's you. You know what it is, ma, It's
Speaker 4: it's it's care like you know, it's absolutely passionate. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying is it's you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I get these blackout moments to where like I could
Speaker 4: just go on these tangents like forever about what I built,
Speaker 4: but it's think about you know, it comes from nothing, bro,
Speaker 4: Like you know what I'm saying. And now you know,
Speaker 4: you know, we have our thirty employees you know where
Speaker 4: we're doing things in music tech just in general right
Speaker 4: that you know, people my age don't really accomplish like
Speaker 4: a large period of time, right, And I look at this,
Speaker 4: it's like inspiration to show other people like, man, if
Speaker 4: you got an idea, run with it, right. If you're
Speaker 4: if you're passionate about something, go for it, right because
Speaker 4: it's like you said, when you bet on your fucking self, right,
Speaker 4: that's when you reap all the benefits putting the time,
Speaker 4: putting the time.
Speaker 2: Because that's the other part, you know, especially in this
Speaker 2: in this generation, right especially because.
Speaker 1: They can there are they are one click away from.
Speaker 4: You kidding you know me ten year olds are killing
Speaker 4: it right now, just being you know, like you know
Speaker 4: Philly and all these crypto ship Absolutely, it's you know,
Speaker 4: it's it's it's you know, yeah man, but it's it.
Speaker 2: But it's the research. It's the research, and it's it's
Speaker 2: the understanding because you can get there, but you may
Speaker 2: not stay there.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, man,
Speaker 4: staying there that's the hardest part. You know.
Speaker 2: It's easy to make a million dollars. Right, let's talk
Speaker 2: about your stay in power. Let's talk about the record, right,
Speaker 2: Let's talk about what gets you, you know, because you
Speaker 2: to where you are now, right, because that is not
Speaker 2: an overnight thing. That is absolutely not an overnight thing.
Speaker 2: Like you said, you and we both can attest to this.
Speaker 2: We both slept on the floor. We both we've both
Speaker 2: been in those trenches trying to figure out this whole
Speaker 2: music business thing. When y'all get good Kid Mass City
Speaker 2: and it's the massive success that it becomes, and you
Speaker 2: want to grammy off of that as well?
Speaker 4: Right man? Now that was the year, you know, blessed
Speaker 4: somebody Maclamore one that year?
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, somebody else won that year. But so from
Speaker 2: no song at all? Did you when I want to
Speaker 2: grammy off for that album?
Speaker 4: Off of Yeah? Yeah, I think I the that was
Speaker 4: for the Pimpbofly. I think that that album.
Speaker 1: Any Grammys that as a song or nothing?
Speaker 4: I think like songwriter. I think like those individual like
Speaker 4: like feature Gund I think you might have won like
Speaker 4: one or two if I'm not mistaken. Okay, I think
Speaker 4: it was one of those like those widespread.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, somebody else gotta come yeah for that album
Speaker 2: right right, So but as you reaching this this very
Speaker 2: high level of success, Like what's going through your mind?
Speaker 1: Bro?
Speaker 2: Like from being in Carson on the floor twenty four
Speaker 2: hours a day, seven days a week to now it's
Speaker 2: like it's universally recognized, is praised.
Speaker 1: How does that feel for you?
Speaker 4: I mean at that moment, right, it didn't hit right
Speaker 4: because you know, first obviously you know personally, like you know,
Speaker 4: like bread wasn't coming in, like you know what I'm saying, your.
Speaker 1: First like getting to the bridge.
Speaker 4: Yet we were touring heavy because we were touring from
Speaker 4: Section eighty right, and I know the money from the
Speaker 4: tour was way better than you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 4: because you need time for the albums to bubble, right,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Like, you know, so you
Speaker 4: know we're still like we're back to work, right, and
Speaker 4: I think we're heavy on the tour. Kendrick is a
Speaker 4: touring artist, you know, from uh you know, going again,
Speaker 4: going back to you know the section Eddy, We toured
Speaker 4: the world and at.
Speaker 1: This point you're purely DJ.
Speaker 4: An engineer. But I'm I'm I'm purely just with with
Speaker 4: with Kendrick and t D. And everybody because we're all
Speaker 4: just traveling as a group. So yeah, i'mdjing because I
Speaker 4: knew the music and uh yeah, while we're on the road,
Speaker 4: the hotel setups like we did a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: butterfly like and hotel rooms.
Speaker 1: So you a DJ DJ? Are you a Jamie.
Speaker 4: Started promise? You remember the old school incidant replaced That's
Speaker 4: what that was. That was that right? But then over time,
Speaker 4: uh because again being on stage like we did a
Speaker 4: Coachella early, like, it's like you know you it's insane, right,
Speaker 4: it's crazy experience. But during that time, I had to
Speaker 4: learn that, you know what I'm saying, I had to
Speaker 4: learn at it and it was I think about an
Speaker 4: engineer stuck in the studio all day long. Now I
Speaker 4: got I can scream as loud as I fucking want to.
Speaker 4: You know. You know what I'm saying and what I'm drunk.
Speaker 4: You know, I have a little you know, I have
Speaker 4: a little drink too. I'm up there crazy, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. The spirit is within me. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: it was you know, over time, like I started doing
Speaker 4: separate little after party DJ Gigsah, let me get I'm
Speaker 4: bombing it. Though I'll tell you a story. We're Australia, Bro,
Speaker 4: cammensity till we go to Australia. You know, I get
Speaker 4: booked for an after party, right a bag, one of
Speaker 4: the biggest bags that I made to DJ. I didn't
Speaker 4: know what the fuck I was doing. I'm talking. I
Speaker 4: went to the club. I gotta send you guys the
Speaker 4: flyer and I think I still have the video. It
Speaker 4: was so bad. I cleared the whole stage, the whole floor.
Speaker 4: I got on like a nine thirty to like a
Speaker 4: like a nine thirty to like eleven thirty slot. Bro.
Speaker 4: By the time eleven thirty came, Bros, And nobody left
Speaker 4: in the club. And at that point, but Nigga, my
Speaker 4: blends was ass like you know what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 4: up there trying ship like I'm high five and the
Speaker 4: hommies in the back that time, figuring that we up
Speaker 4: like you know what I'm saying, Like you know, they
Speaker 4: tell you know, it was so bad. And I think
Speaker 4: that was a turning point where I was like, I
Speaker 4: gotta figure because I want to keep getting this check
Speaker 4: right here, you know, I gotta figure this from now.
Speaker 4: And you in a different countries, so that was the
Speaker 4: best part out here. I didn't have to worry about
Speaker 4: no one like, you know, putting me on Facebook. You
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. It was like a little test
Speaker 4: I'm in the whole. I'm at the bottom of the map.
Speaker 4: Uh you know, I'm let me figure this out. But
Speaker 4: you know we did, man. You know. I got connected
Speaker 4: while I was in Australia, got connected with Siado. They're
Speaker 4: from Auckland, New Jersey. I'm in New Jersey, AuCl In,
Speaker 4: New Zealand, Zealand. They got me one of those the
Speaker 4: control of the controllers, you know, and I was on
Speaker 4: my way from there, you know. But again that gives
Speaker 4: a testament to like just always needed. If there's a
Speaker 4: part that needs to be played, I'll do it. I
Speaker 4: didn't know what I was doing DJ and I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know what, I'll do it. I know the music
Speaker 4: right And I feel.
Speaker 2: Like that's a big part of the TV six that
Speaker 2: story is everyone just playing service multiple part.
Speaker 4: Everybody.
Speaker 1: Everybody was a Swiss Army Knight.
Speaker 4: And that's what and that's what it needs to I
Speaker 4: think nowadays, man, it's too much what entitlement You would say, right, well,
Speaker 4: if there's a hole right there. Right, someone's just not
Speaker 4: going it's not my hole to feel like I'm gonna
Speaker 4: just keep It's like you need to be able to
Speaker 4: flow like water, right there is I remember tip you
Speaker 4: used to say, Man, there is no roles. Run this
Speaker 4: motherfucker like you know, I'm me personally, I'll go onto it.
Speaker 4: I'll be the DJ, I'll do security, right, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, I'll do the tour. I picked the
Speaker 4: bag up like whatever, whatever it was, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, And that that formula, I feel like is
Speaker 4: the recipe. Right. It's like when you got a group
Speaker 4: of individuals that the mission is all aligned, right, you know,
Speaker 4: at that point, bro, there's no there's no losing because
Speaker 4: all the energy is focused on that success. You know.
Speaker 4: So it's you know, I'm myself with everything I'm doing,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to multiply that, you know, myself. I'm trying
Speaker 4: to take what I've learned and apply that formula, you know,
Speaker 4: because I seen it work. I want to watch it
Speaker 4: work in real time, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what do you what do you actually in
Speaker 5: your in your in your in your in your seminars,
Speaker 5: it talks it heads what is your first piece of
Speaker 5: advice that you give to someone who wants to follow
Speaker 5: in your footsteps.
Speaker 4: Stop overthinking, right, you know, going back to me working,
Speaker 4: you know, with two tracks and stolen you know, equipment.
Speaker 4: I didn't know what I was doing. I even asked
Speaker 4: when I first met him, how do I get my
Speaker 4: shirt to sound like yours?
Speaker 1: On equipment are stolen? Plugging all? I think the statute,
Speaker 1: you know I heard Craig earlier.
Speaker 4: I felt like it. But the thing was when I asked,
Speaker 4: I was like, yo, like and he and he said
Speaker 4: something that's still stuck with me. It's like, it's not
Speaker 4: it's not it's it's it's not what you're working on,
Speaker 4: it's who's pressing the buttons, right, And And that stuck
Speaker 4: with me because I didn't know what I was doing
Speaker 4: with the equipment that I had access to, the equipment
Speaker 4: that I had in my possession, right, But it's it's
Speaker 4: just diving in and and and and and and figuring
Speaker 4: it out. Man. Just don't be afraid of of failure,
Speaker 4: because that's your biggest blessing.
Speaker 5: Like your style, the purposeful style, the purposeful style, Brother Ali,
Speaker 5: This particular sonic was not mixed by you, but I'm
Speaker 5: gonna do my best brother to make it sound as
Speaker 5: your journey as an instant replay DJ all over the world.
Speaker 4: I know you've heard some music.
Speaker 5: Of the R and B kind, the sonics that have
Speaker 5: inspired you to be the sonical genius you are.
Speaker 4: At this moment. We want to know what those songs
Speaker 4: are all leave. We called the shore.
Speaker 3: Top five.
Speaker 1: Your top five.
Speaker 3: Top five, your top five ry singers, Alay songs. We've
Speaker 3: got to know before you go there are they you?
Speaker 4: Then the whole world? Nor top yes, top.
Speaker 1: You, top fur.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: M hm.
Speaker 5: I love it, mixed by Ali Your top five R
Speaker 5: and B singers.
Speaker 4: Uh again. When I came in, I was I was like,
Speaker 4: there's so many right, you know, been inspired by so
Speaker 4: many different artists, so many different generations. And I actually
Speaker 4: wrote a list, you know, because it was like it
Speaker 4: was it was you know, so I'll say top five
Speaker 4: R and B singers. And this goes back to like
Speaker 4: high school days when like I sit back and what
Speaker 4: most inspired me, what most like just has if I
Speaker 4: think about the song, I can pinpoint a moment in life.
Speaker 4: And this is the list I came with. It's jagged
Speaker 4: eggs pretty Ricky, Yeah, Beyonce, Yeah, yeah, you gotta you
Speaker 4: gotta throw the Queen obviously, Scissor you know, love me
Speaker 4: some and the last one was really hard, you know.
Speaker 4: Uh So, as of late as I've been like on this,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I keep going into these conversations. So I
Speaker 4: went into this this just journey of like reinspirational, just different.
Speaker 4: And I found this playlist right and Shallamar was on it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and yeah, how are you I'm saying, yeah, you know
Speaker 4: one of my favorite that I know. It's gonna be
Speaker 4: played at my wedding. This is for the love and
Speaker 4: come on, you know what I'm saying. Uh so that
Speaker 4: I would say top five R and B artists even though,
Speaker 4: but yeah, you have three groups that right exactly.
Speaker 2: I want to point something out too, though, and I'm
Speaker 2: happy you said it because you've been a part of it.
Speaker 2: I had a I had a debate with someone about
Speaker 2: Sissy being an R and B artist and I'm like,
Speaker 2: what do you what do you mean? Oh, you know
Speaker 2: she was going for this with this, So that's an
Speaker 2: R and B singer at the core of.
Speaker 4: Her absolutely right. I mean you go back listen to
Speaker 4: love Galory. Yeah, you go back. You know you listen
Speaker 4: to all of them. Yeah, it's just nice, are you
Speaker 4: kidding me?
Speaker 2: Just a nice win And and that's just my belief.
Speaker 2: And even when she does records like a kill, Bill
Speaker 2: still an R and B.
Speaker 4: Artist, singer, R and B singer. You can't say one
Speaker 4: or two records and three four records and and not.
Speaker 4: You should be.
Speaker 5: Able to you should be able to sonically dance whatever
Speaker 5: the fuck you want to dance. Doesn't change the essence
Speaker 5: of who you are. Okay, your top five R and
Speaker 5: B songs?
Speaker 4: Again, Man, so many, so many, so many, And it's
Speaker 4: hard enough to be biased, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So you know I left you on the list on purpose,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. All right, So look back
Speaker 4: to Jamie Fox The Unpredictable Album. Uh, you know, do
Speaker 4: what to Do Jamie Fox Project exactly. I know you're
Speaker 4: like that. I got frank Ocehan thinking about you, going back,
Speaker 4: Shallamar This is for the love venue luth never too much?
Speaker 4: Why not? Yeah? Why not? I'm saying it's a nice blend.
Speaker 4: And I'm telling like the reason why the old with
Speaker 4: the oh it's for one, they don't make records like them.
Speaker 4: The more you know and just played this I'm share
Speaker 4: with you. I'm talking like it's like my morning is
Speaker 4: what I take my daughter to school with, and like
Speaker 4: it's one of those it's just like the soul, the texture,
Speaker 4: the the different breaks, like it's just the structure of
Speaker 4: those of those records from like back in the you
Speaker 4: don't hear that no more if you don't hear those bills,
Speaker 4: those climaxes, right, you know. Yeah, And that's that's what
Speaker 4: I've been right into a lot of just three this
Speaker 4: is that's that's for more R and B songs. It
Speaker 4: was one more R and B sound, damn uh try
Speaker 4: the more Luther Frank Sizzl I Sizl Love Galore, Oh
Speaker 4: Lauren Hill do Op Hi?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Is that considered R and B to me? You'll take it.
Speaker 4: I'm I own every singer. We own them. They are
Speaker 4: a are you kidding?
Speaker 5: Especially R and B hours I mean hip hopkin they
Speaker 5: just did both may be trying to snatch people, but
Speaker 5: she's one of ours.
Speaker 4: She's you know what I'm saying, Let's go back to
Speaker 4: sister act. Huh tell you man, it was like it's
Speaker 4: again even with like like that's what I'm looking forward to,
Speaker 4: like in the next in the next gene of music
Speaker 4: is like it's going back to those going back to
Speaker 4: the production where there's actually like am B side breakdowns,
Speaker 4: there's like all these climax and build ups, there's live instruments.
Speaker 4: Like I think there's a big space for you know,
Speaker 4: those R and B acts that you know, just dive
Speaker 4: into like love making once again. Like you know, it's
Speaker 4: everything's too slutty nowadays, Like you know it needs to
Speaker 4: slow a little bit, you know now in a good way,
Speaker 4: in a good way, in a good way. But it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's like those those you know, you just need.
Speaker 2: Your mix, you just need to make it because yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like sexual healing was considered right slutty day.
Speaker 4: So I'm saying as far as like the the like
Speaker 4: the rap, like the slightly rap another level, that's that's
Speaker 4: you know, it's I'm turning that off, you know at
Speaker 4: the kid pick up, you know what I'm saying. But yeah, man,
Speaker 4: there there's there's there's a wide space for for for
Speaker 4: for R and B. Man, And I'm definitely anxious if
Speaker 4: the artists are out there, man, please reach out. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm in my d ms, you know, constantly looking for
Speaker 4: new talent to you know, collaborate with.
Speaker 5: You know, Okay, let's make a vultron. You're super R
Speaker 5: and B artists. We're gonna find an artist to get
Speaker 5: the vocal from the performance style, the styling of the artist,
Speaker 5: the passion of that artist, and who's gonna mix that
Speaker 5: artist project. Yeah, we got a new wrinkle to that
Speaker 5: one vocal to make your super R and B artist.
Speaker 1: Mary, you want to pass it, Mary? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, more trauma this artist, Right, Mary, I'll go.
Speaker 4: I'll go, Marry not gonna shed a tear.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 4: That's a good one. Performance style Rihanna, mm hmm. Super
Speaker 4: bowl Rihanna, super.
Speaker 5: Full vibe with a baby that's one of the most fierce.
Speaker 5: It's very it's a very animal at I see what
Speaker 5: you did there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, the styling like like like like physical, I'd
Speaker 4: have to go Rihan as well, just you know what
Speaker 4: I'm saying, just very upscale casual. And I'm not a
Speaker 4: fashion guy, you know what I'm saying. So if I
Speaker 4: offend you Rihanna for saying upscale casual, but very she's
Speaker 4: very fashionate about that. As I was just flying ain't right,
Speaker 4: He's right, got it? The passion of the artists, damn
Speaker 4: passion because Mary has passion, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But it feels to be Beyonce, you.
Speaker 1: Know, you know, very passion.
Speaker 5: That c beyon Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you ain't saying
Speaker 5: nothing wrong.
Speaker 4: And who mixing this ship? I mean, come on, man,
Speaker 4: I gotta with your boy. Thanks by having sick of
Speaker 4: this ship, get right to it.
Speaker 2: We got we gotta get him, get it together again.
Speaker 1: And would you would you mix his pianoform?
Speaker 4: But absolutely with this? You can do something with this?
Speaker 1: Could you do something with this?
Speaker 3: I ain't saying no nick, I ain't saying no names,
Speaker 3: saying no things.
Speaker 4: I ain't saying no names?
Speaker 3: Was what you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: There, It is so very important part of the show,
Speaker 2: so important. Will you tell us a story funny and
Speaker 2: fucked up? Are funny and fucked up? But the only
Speaker 2: rulee to the game is you can't say no name?
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, I could leave hintstore right yeah, all right?
Speaker 4: So you know being that this is you know the
Speaker 4: R and B podcast. You know I was working on
Speaker 4: the R and B album did very well. Actually, I
Speaker 4: think you've all heard of it, but during this time,
Speaker 4: it's just funny and fucked up. It's funny, it's funny
Speaker 4: and like a like I like dark humor a little bit,
Speaker 4: but it's fucked up because it's up. So I was
Speaker 4: mixing this album. I was going through like one of
Speaker 4: the worst times in my life, like mentally, like you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, very very fucked up, and I
Speaker 4: was tasked with mixing this album and during that time, uh,
Speaker 4: what I was going through did not fucking matter, right,
Speaker 4: because his album was on its way and I was
Speaker 4: already just fucking just mentally, just beat down, and you know,
Speaker 4: completed this album and the artist comes in, uh, and
Speaker 4: this person says, I'm gonna quote the other person's name,
Speaker 4: not the person said it, but this person said, Hey,
Speaker 4: Rick Ruben hates the way the mixer sound. Mhm, right,
Speaker 4: I'm talking. I wanted to bang my head through a
Speaker 4: fucking wall, right, And I think that was one of
Speaker 4: the most like trying times in life because already mentally
Speaker 4: at one of like the most like trying places in life,
Speaker 4: and then having somebody who does not know what you're
Speaker 4: going through continue to beat you down right now, album
Speaker 4: did fantastic how it sounded right, you know what I'm
Speaker 4: saying talking one of the biggest albums I think that,
Speaker 4: you know, was like a funnier fuck that I'm all
Speaker 4: because now and look back at it. I almost went
Speaker 4: back and remixed it, just out of ego. I'm glad
Speaker 4: I didn't, right, because I don't think it would have
Speaker 4: you know, the effect, you know, it wouldn't have that
Speaker 4: same Yeah, so funny fuck them up, you know, so
Speaker 4: you kept it and touch it. I actually went home
Speaker 4: and I was like, I was able fucking you know,
Speaker 4: and ended up coming out and it was, you know,
Speaker 4: it was great funny if it was that too dark.
Speaker 1: Because it's very real.
Speaker 4: It was, Yeah, twenty seventeen, it was twenty sixteen possible.
Speaker 4: The best person came and knocked on the door and
Speaker 4: said Rick Robins hates these mixes and walked out, and
Speaker 4: I was like, fucking into the house. Oh good luck.
Speaker 1: At the time, and then it became a huge success.
Speaker 4: Incredible. Man. Sometimes you just gotta do you brother.
Speaker 1: You gotta trust your injury. Yeah yeah, you gotta choush
Speaker 1: you gotta chosh your engine.
Speaker 2: I love that that name.
Speaker 5: I just bro, I love everything you've done, Like as
Speaker 5: a creative. I mean absolutely, you're one of the best.
Speaker 4: Come on, and and you've and you've.
Speaker 5: You've mastermind ways to maximize that to where it's not
Speaker 5: a solo mission anymore, to where now you are united
Speaker 5: with like minded, like artistic beings that that share your
Speaker 5: energy and sharing that information and creating these platforms that
Speaker 5: make it cool and make it easy. It's just, bro,
Speaker 5: it's just it's just really.
Speaker 4: Really cool to thank you for that, thank you for
Speaker 4: that giving me a platform. Like I said, you know,
Speaker 4: these stories I think are meant to be heard because
Speaker 4: it's and I hope this one inspires at a minimum
Speaker 4: of one other person. Yeah yeah, And if done that,
Speaker 4: then I think, you know, my mission has been you
Speaker 4: know successful here for the day. You know, I'm big
Speaker 4: on giving back. I'm big on each one, teach one hm,
Speaker 4: you know, and you know, thank you guys for letting
Speaker 4: me into your home and allowing me to tell my
Speaker 4: story here. Man.
Speaker 1: Absolutely no, we want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2: Man, We want to be a part of We want
Speaker 2: to we want to funnel people through.
Speaker 4: And like I said, you guys mentioned you have a
Speaker 4: lot of artists like you know, like I said, we
Speaker 4: have well over fifty thousand creative studios across the globe.
Speaker 4: I would love to give you guys like platform credits
Speaker 4: to any any followers you guys have if they're looking
Speaker 4: at book a studio time or getting songs mixed or mastered.
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, they can do that.
Speaker 1: To give that to our people. Man, for sure you
Speaker 1: heard them.
Speaker 4: Get over there.
Speaker 1: We got a couple of hours for you.
Speaker 4: Make sure we get you asking that. So yeah, valuable.
Speaker 4: You can get them to great great ship. We support you, brother,
Speaker 4: any any anything ever we can do to help. Man,
Speaker 4: this is home for you. Yeah, we gotta definitely come out.
Speaker 1: I got to see what it looks like that.
Speaker 4: Man, it's not it's not too far from.
Speaker 5: I remember, you know what with my fondest memory of
Speaker 5: that studio when when I ate that edible.
Speaker 1: Oh that is where you thought you was gonna die.
Speaker 4: And ended up in the hospital. Don't be the funniest ones, bro.
Speaker 4: I'm on tour, bro on tour. Apps So had got
Speaker 4: like a box like a brownie from like a fan
Speaker 4: and it was a weed edible and I told him
Speaker 4: not to do it, but I guess like the dosage
Speaker 4: was wrong or whatever. He's in his bunk, crawling at
Speaker 4: the bunk like it's a coughin like I'm talking like
Speaker 4: the worst trip ever.
Speaker 1: No, Bro, he was cul It.
Speaker 4: Was his guy though, that brought it. I've never taken edible.
Speaker 4: It was He's your guy.
Speaker 5: Holistic, holistic, holistic, holistic is now man, I.
Speaker 4: Don't want to find that pump motherfucker.
Speaker 5: This guy he gave me that bad batch.
Speaker 4: I thought I was dying on the mission. I need
Speaker 4: to find his dude that was in the.
Speaker 7: Hospital, who got the got the homie, that biggest And
Speaker 7: I'm not even like, I'm not even that guy, just
Speaker 7: like you know, you's sitting in the cover and I'm like,
Speaker 7: for four days I was at Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 4: Like staying in your blushream. That's why I can't that man. No, no,
Speaker 4: a good blunt like I left the Twist. It's like
Speaker 4: ghetto organ. I love to sit down, you know, cut
Speaker 4: up the wood, you know what it is. I just
Speaker 4: need to stay in my lane.
Speaker 1: He thought it was dessert.
Speaker 3: Bro.
Speaker 4: I hated it up in the market. Heat it up.
Speaker 4: It needed to be needed to be. He never took
Speaker 4: you nowhere.
Speaker 1: Now stop blaming me, Bro, I just knew the guy.
Speaker 4: I connect the.
Speaker 5: Tank with the guy. So yeah, I can't wait to
Speaker 5: return to the scene of the crime. Oh yeah, this
Speaker 5: guy got me good times over there. I can't wait
Speaker 5: to see what you've done. Man, I think you guys
Speaker 5: will love it. My name is Tank Valentine and this
Speaker 5: is absolutely the R and B Money podcast, the authority
Speaker 5: on all things y R and B. First impressions are everything.
Speaker 5: How you sound is important.
Speaker 1: Get your sound right and this has been mixed by all.
Speaker 2: R and B Money is a production of the Black
Speaker 2: Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows. Don't forget to subscribe to and rate our show,
Speaker 2: and you can connect with us on social media at
Speaker 2: Jay Valentine and at the Real Tank. For the extended episode,
Speaker 2: subscribe to YouTube dot com, forward Slash, R and B
Speaker 2: Money