DJ Mormile

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hey, y'all.

00:00:01
Speaker 2: Is Laurena Rosa with the latest with Laurena Rosa on Black Effects and I cannot wait to see you guys at the fourth Annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. Okay, we're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, April twenty fifth at Palman Yard and it's hosted by me alongside DJ MV and charlottagnea God. We got Drink Chance of Noriega and Djafing. We got to Keep a Positive Sweetie with My Girl Christopher A.

00:00:26
Speaker 3: Haslin.

00:00:27
Speaker 2: We got Reality with the King with My Guide, then my brother Carlos King, and y'all know he does reality commentary like nobody can.

00:00:35
Speaker 3: Now.

00:00:35
Speaker 1: We also have Don't.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Call Me White Girl, the podcast, I Love Mona and Club five to twenty podcasts, along with the Grits and Eggs podcast.

00:00:42
Speaker 4: So this lineup sack Baby, turn Up.

00:00:46
Speaker 2: You're also gonna want to check out the panels that we have lined up too, Feature and Cab on Stage, Tika Sumpster, and John Hope Bryant just to name a few. Of course, it's way bigger than podcast. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with black owned businesses, bus the food truck court to keep you fed while you visit us.

00:01:02
Speaker 1: Okay, listen, you.

00:01:04
Speaker 2: Don't want to miss this. Tap in and grab your ticket down at Black Effect dot Com.

00:01:09
Speaker 3: Slash Podcast Yesterday, R and.

00:01:12
Speaker 5: Beans Money, Thanks take out agib. We are theories on all things R and B.

00:01:27
Speaker 6: I'm Jay Valentine and this is the R and B Money Podcast, And today we about this business.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: We about to get into some real business.

00:01:36
Speaker 6: You know, y'all be asking me, you know, bring some executives on, Bring some people who really do this thing, really understand it, can really tell you how it go.

00:01:45
Speaker 4: As seriously as we about to be. It's about to be some fake work going on too, man.

00:01:50
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, it's a lot of here records, the it's a lot of cool shits. It's billion dollar business. I got my brother on here, DJ more Millie.

00:02:02
Speaker 3: Man, it's a pleasure. What's going on, bro, It's incredible. I can't believe we're finally doing this. I'm excited.

00:02:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, this is this is a long time coming for y'all that's tuned in. This is a long time coming, man. This is a long a lot of years of us being friends and brothers in this music business.

00:02:19
Speaker 3: Man it's true. It's a couple of Yeah, it's a couple of decades. Yeah, which sure, a couple decades. For sure, it's twenty plus years, which is wild. Twenty plus years bro of friendship in business.

00:02:30
Speaker 6: Yeah, and man, and I'm really I'm really happy to have you here today. Bro, what you've done in the music business is your own path. That's the best way that I can put it.

00:02:41
Speaker 3: That's fair. That's the best way. That's the best way. That the only way I know how to do it.

00:02:44
Speaker 6: But yeah, yeah, fair and man, let's let's let's start. Let's start from the beginning of this for you. You're a kid from New York, yes, sir.

00:02:52
Speaker 4: And you know the elephant in the room. Let's get it out.

00:02:56
Speaker 3: You're Jimmy, I mean's nephew that I am. That I am. He's my mom's little brother. So yeah, that's from day one, you know, like that's how I grew up. Like I grew up. You know, I grew up in New York, and Jimmy was in LA already by the time like I was, you know, when I was born, but like he was already in l Jimmy was ready in Okay, Okay, but but still all the holidays he would come back East and he was together. He was a very big part of my life early. So I was around, you know him and hearing about him and you know, people being around, like he was dating Stevin Nicks when I was younger, and like, so she was around, Like my first concert was like bringing her roses backstage when I was like two or something. That's like one of the first pictures I have, and like just you know, like it was like that was always like around, and but it wasn't like my regular life, like because I wasn't that close to him. I was three thousand miles away, but it was still obviously a very big part. My mom and him are insanely close. It's just the two of them. My mom's seven years older than him, so they're like it's like so she was like big sister for real, and they were like, you know, very very close. So Jimmy was always very very close. Now. I remember having a conversation with your dad.

00:04:03
Speaker 6: We went to breakfast one day and he was telling me the story of pretty much how they raised him.

00:04:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, how they raised Jimmy. Yeah, because my father and my mother have been together since they were like fifteen years old, so sixty five years you know what I mean. So it's crazy to think about. But yeah, so it's like, you know, shit, it's lifers. Like both of my parents, Like my dad's known Jimmy since he's seven. Yeah, so like that's like and he's been a constant in his life since he's seven. So it's you know, it's as close as it gets. And he's my godfather at the same time, he's your uncle and your god Michael and my godfather.

00:04:38
Speaker 6: Yes, all right, all right, it's very Italian, Yes, very Italian, very Italian, Harry. So as you're seeing this as a kid, is this peaking your interest in music at all?

00:04:51
Speaker 3: Honestly? No, no, like not in not piquing my interest. But it didn't feel like a path for me at the time, Like it looked it was crazy to me. I was like these guys are nuts, like everybody like it was so off the wall. Everything was so like always like on high alert, like we got it like kind of always, something's always happening every day, like there's no constant that like the way my brain worked. I was a math major and I was like a math kid from such a young age. That my analytical brain did not process that. I was like very like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna end up doing something in math. I'm gonna end up like as I grew older, like I'm gonna do something in stock market. Like my brain was very like business school. I went to business school, Boston College, Like that's that's where I was going, right. So, Like, even though like it was interesting because I was like, Wow, that's that's as cool as like a job could be. Probably like oh shit, that's like a real job, it didn't feel like a path for me. I wasn't a musician. I wasn't like a but like I was really more of a sports kid than I was a music kid.

00:05:50
Speaker 6: And that's so that's where a sports junkie kicks ining. Yeah, and you loving to bet.

00:05:55
Speaker 3: And now if I was an ut numbers okay, all right, gambling bookying, baseball card selling.

00:06:01
Speaker 4: He was doing this as a teenage.

00:06:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, from like fourteen, you were fourteen, I was like running numbers for God and share. I'm an Talian kid from Staten Island. I mean at the end of the day, yeah, I mean so yeah, Like it was kind of like, you know, whatever it is. It was that I was hanging out with the local card shop, hanging out at the local pizza aria, hanging out. That's really what I did. When I'm watching the Met game with my grandmother, who taught me how to gamble, Jimmy's mom when I was five, Like literally, like I was playing, Like my parents would go out to dinner, I would be playing poker with my grandmother for pennies at five, six, seven years old. Like that's talent. So like literally, that's that's how I was raised.

00:06:32
Speaker 6: So so back in your neighborhood, was it like a known thing that Jimmy was already moving into music business where it's just like we're proud of him for doing Oh.

00:06:42
Speaker 3: I mean because you gotta think he's massive that. Like Jimmy like before the Interscope stuff, was like an enormous record producer. He's producing everything from YouTube to you know, Patty Smith to that. Like he was like so he was obviously he made it out and he was lived in la and like living that life and he was you know, so yeah, it was very much that. But you mean the neighborhood that the neighborhood was more Brooklyn in the family than like us moving out to Staten Island. But like but like my friends, like you gotta think, I'm like twelve at this time, so my friends knew that, like you know, obviously I had obviously uncle, like I had like pictures with me and like you know, Johnny Buonjovi or Eddie van Halen in my basement and stuff, which was ridiculous and crazy for you know, like just like a bunch of kids from Staten Island who were out playing football in the backyard. But like it wasn't like it didn't really translate yet at that point until like once I like started to get into college is when it kind of became well, I guess freshman sophomore year of high school when like like the death row thing really started. So like Jimmy had.

00:07:42
Speaker 4: Because now because now it's is more connected to the youth.

00:07:45
Speaker 3: Yes, right, and now we're old enough to like care about music enough, right, and it's like, you know, like shit, being a fourteen year old white kid from Staten Island.

00:07:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, and my uncle owns a label and that's.

00:07:56
Speaker 3: And and as that and at the same time when all of us were crazy because you know, Wu Tang's rapping at the mall, like they're coming up going crazy like Met the Man's my favorite artist, and the like I'm like, this is like, okay, now I'm getting into it. Were you getting so so?

00:08:11
Speaker 6: I only take this in my mind goes here because of my nieces and nephews.

00:08:15
Speaker 4: Were you blowing up his phone for tickets?

00:08:18
Speaker 3: It wasn't really nag, It was no, It didn't get to that level. It was more like getting the swag, like I still remember getting like the very first record Interscope ever put out was my boy Gerardo Rico Swab, So I got like the robe, like showed up at the house and like the craziest stuff. And then the second record, at least the second record I remember. I think it was the second record overall was Good Vibrations Marking Mark Wohlberg, Marky Mark. So like those records were like and they were like both real big records, like they were novelty but like big records and so like it was like that kind of stuff, and I was like, oh, because I didn't really understand what a record label was, Like I knew Jimmy was already like when I was younger, he worked on like the very special Christmas Album of all those guys were around like he did, like the record run DMC, all those records like the Christmas record. So I was starting to like kind of learn what everything was. But I still didn't really know what he did. I just knew he was in music and he did records with right a lot of famous pity and he was successful, you know what I mean. Like I'm thinking to think of how young like like to like now, there's so much more on the Internet. You could process and see things so much, but back then it was like.

00:09:24
Speaker 6: What's the early moment for you teenager? Interscope, death Row, do you have any moments of like you coming to LA, because I mean death Row was like a very aggressive yeah you know what I'm saying, like borderline scary label people. Right, So you coming you probably would fourteen fifteen years.

00:09:47
Speaker 3: Old at this point, I'm fourteen when the Crownic comes out. So the first the first release.

00:09:52
Speaker 4: And that's being released on your uncle's leg.

00:09:54
Speaker 3: Yes, so I'm fourteen.

00:09:55
Speaker 6: What's your experience coming to LA? Do you come to LA and get to hang out.

00:09:59
Speaker 3: A little bit? Honestly, the first like the first time, to be fair, my brother who's three years younger than me actually was. He was more into music, so he came out first. And James. I have these pictures of him going with Jimmy to the Let Me Ride video which are absolutely incredible. Twelve. Yeah he was one eighty one, so yeah he's eleven. It's like it's incredible him like in the like it's like and I remember like getting into it. But James really loved music earlier than I was a sports kid. James really looked like he was in music guy like he was. And but my first real experience was them was probably the Christmas of ninety four, I think so it was it was Doggie Saw was already out and they were like whatever they were redoing bill Wise or whatever. Yeah, and I went to Aspen for Christmas. Okay, so it's Jimmy and like our family and Shulg joined us. It was incredible, Like it was like my first experience, like and you should have seen, like have you been dasping? No? Okay, so we're couldn't be lost on you a little nineteen ninety four walking down that main strip. I remember walking down the street with sug By myself like we were just like everybody was there, but we were like looking for like a triple extra large red snowsuit in Aspen. It was legitimately like it was insane, Like it was like like well, like everybody just looking at me, like I don't know, like you gotta say, like think about nineteen ninety four, like what it is like. I don't know if everybody thought I was kidnapped. I have no idea, but it was like we were we were like it was and it was just but he was just I didn't know him. He was just Sug, Like I mean, I knew him from like all the story.

00:11:44
Speaker 6: At that TV, but like flip side two though, if you know Sug, you know Sug is.

00:11:50
Speaker 4: Just a guice dude.

00:11:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I'm saying. If you know him, like, he was fun as hell, Like I remember playing pool with him. We had one first we went to the ski slope. He he didn't want to He didn't want to go to the he didn't want to do the bunny slope look even though he never skied, but he wanted to go straight to the top. So he ended up on the like lift with my mom and they went up together. And then so as they're coming down, he fell, my mom trying to help him up, like legitimately, like stuff that is like so insane to think about, Like, but and then we went and played randomly, jim they rented an ice hockey rink because like Brian Turner was out there who ran Priority and he had like h and he was friends with all I think he's Canadian, but he was friends with all these hockey guys. It was like Jeff Courtnall and Sergei Federov, like one of the greatest hockey players.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: I want time that I want to say that like that was his thing.

00:12:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, definitely was his thing because they were They're playing hockey and we all go to play with them. So it's like Jimmy's kids me, I've never been on skates in my whole life, and those hockey guys and Shook came. So he's trying to and like so I'm just picturing this thing of him trying to skit and like the hockey players going I and the Jimmy's kids are I mean super young. Jamie's like five and he's the oldest six at this point, so like they're like just like it was like, I mean, the trip was I mean it was incredible. I remember playing I remember playing pool and I I actually won one of the games against Sugar, and I remember seeing him like years later, and he just came up behind me and we're at a restaurant and like and like people were looking at he was behind me, so like I didn't know he was the end of the people we were eating with were like looking like and He's like, you owe me rematch, and like walked away and it was like one of those moments for me that made me look so like they were like what the hell? I was like, how do you know? If I tried to tell that story, I mean, we're gonna be into breakfast by the end of it.

00:13:37
Speaker 6: But it was do you did you realize though, that that wasn't normal?

00:13:42
Speaker 3: Did I realize it wasn't normal?

00:13:44
Speaker 4: Like all the people you just named, all of you know what I'm saying, Like.

00:13:48
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, like I was sixteen years old at this point. I was based in somewhat reality, Like I lived in reality, Like this wasn't my like three hundred and sixty days a year, you know. I went to public school in Staten Island, New York, and I like, obviously I had this relationship with my uncle, but it wasn't the life I grew up in. So I realized how crazy it was to come back and like, you know, you come back from Christmas break and they're like, oh, I went to the thing. I went to go see the ice campage, or I went and played.

00:14:11
Speaker 4: That's the thing.

00:14:12
Speaker 6: And that's why I was wanting to ask you, because my son went through this early on because he didn't live in He didn't live with me full time his earlier years. But when he started to live with me full time, it shifted. But I remember, you know, he would come to LA for summers and all of the all of the breaks and the whole thing with me, and then I would mostly go up there.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: I will go up back to San Francisco.

00:14:36
Speaker 6: I had another place out there, and I would spend time there, but then he would come here til those times. And I remember having a conversation with him one day when school had started back, and he was like he was he was maybe like nine, and he's like, nobody believes me.

00:14:52
Speaker 3: I said, nobody believes you? What what are you talking about?

00:14:55
Speaker 6: At this point, he doesn't have a phone yet, right, doesn't have a phone yet because I didn't let him have a phone yet, and obviously we weren't just going and taking pictures, right, But he was like, nobody believes me. They don't believe you're my dad, right, Well that's yeah, yeah, which is funny to me because I'm like, I'm, well, I'm not even famous, and and but then he's like, they don't believe I was at Jamie fox House. They don't believe I was on stage with Chris Brown. They don't believe that. He just started going, like just running down stuff. And I'm like, wow, Like he lives two different lives at that time, he lives, he lives. He lives two different lives, And it's really a different thing for a kid who's adjacent at the time to whatever this life is.

00:15:43
Speaker 3: It's it's kind of part of I really I value that a lot, honestly, like what that did for me because it kind of helped me learn at an earlier age. I think the most like to know like people's real intentions and to like to have that kind of like it's a little crazy to not know if people like like you for you that young, yeah, okay, when you haven't actually done anything yourself. So it has like nothing, and it's not like and it's not your parent, so it's not like you're going home to that house and people want to come to that house because like whatever. Like it was like adjacent enough that it was like but it was always like it started to happen in high school where you could tell like people were trying to stand next to you, trying to be around and trying to be like, oh you go into that, like the way they would ask questions and like as it got to like but I just wasn't that into it to be like, I wasn't forefronting it and being like, oh, I'm going here and going I didn't really take advantage of it. I didn't really do any of it. So that's kind of what kept me kind of a little more grounded, I think than if I was like super excited, Like if my brother was fourteen or fifteen before me and he loved it so much, it might have been different because he probably would have been actively out everywhere. Yeah, and so it would have been like these guys are all kind of these girls are coming with me like that kind of shit.

00:16:59
Speaker 4: We're gonna go to let me ride idiot?

00:17:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you want to fly out like you want to fly out out my fourth grade girlfriend like doing like I mean, like like what I mean like so like that, like it's funny to think, but that but it did help, like it helped, you know, mold kind of my I mean, very early on kind. So yeah, let's let's let's get into that.

00:17:18
Speaker 6: Because the story I've heard, and I mean, I'm sure listen, you're here so you can tell me the real So what I heard and it's actually funny enough before I even met you, was that Jimmy told you we're not doing this Boston college. You're gonna be a mathematician thing. You're getting into the music business.

00:17:38
Speaker 4: Is that true?

00:17:39
Speaker 3: No, Okay, it's not not true. But it was like, this is how I saw it from my from my perspective. I I was on a path. I was gonna work on the I was going to work in on the stock market. That was my path and my brain. I was gonna go make a shitload of money on the stock market. And I was going to buy the Nicks by the time I was twenty five because I had to fix them because I couldn't stand watching them anymore. That was like the whole thing I couldn't take it. I hated them. They made me hate basketball overall.

00:18:04
Speaker 4: You hate my Nicks more than the Mets, I mean because I know your team.

00:18:08
Speaker 3: So first sporting event I ever went to in my whole life was the Mets winning the World Series in nineteen eighty six, Game seven. So at least I saw that one time. So like, even though they even my dad's a Yankee fan, so he kind of screwed me and made me a Met fan, so I thought they like when I saw a strawberry good and the Mets winning eighty six, this is the greatest thing ever. Of course they never won again forty years later, but like so it's a lifetime of misery when I even though the Yankees haven't won as much lately, being a Yankee fan actually would have been a lot more pleasant for the last forty years. Yeah, But like the Knicks, just that whole run in the nineties when we just couldn't get past the bulls. That's my high school run. So like I was very every every year, every year was so painful, Like it was so painful, and like so you were going to buy him and fish and I was going to buy him and fix them that was my plan. But like so then as i'm I went, I worked for one of my dad's really my best friends, was a big eye at Pinwber, so I got an internship. I was on the floor of the American Stock Exchange when I was a freshman, and I was after my freshman year college, and I was convinced that like I was gonna like I had worked it out with the local restaurants like I was already will I knew I went to Peter, I knew how to go to the restaurants and make sure they delivered us the best food on Fridays, like I was going to be the things I cared about. I figured out how to get the radio in the perfect spots so we could hear the games during the day while we were on the floor. I knew how to get the steakhouses to get us. I wanted the best food to come to us, not the other boots. So like this, how I knew how to wire shit. Things I cared about which I still care about to this day, sports and food. So like it's kind of still what my life is. But like after that sophomore year, as I'm as, I'm like preparing to go back for my second year. At my internship after my sophomore year, I talked to Jimmy and he goes, you should come visit LA. You should experience it. And I was like, I mean, I'm not against it, Like I mean, obviously you like lap a luxury. I'm sure it would be fun. But in my head I had a path. And he was like, you should you know more about this stuff than you think you do just from being around it. You're a smart kid. You absorb stuff. I think you would. You should least explore the opportunity. And I said to him, I was like, I don't know anything about music. I don't ask you to be a stockbroker, Like I don't know why you're asking me to work it. Like you're great at what you do. I'm trying to be great at what I do. That sounds insane to me. Like I literally at that point, like I thought it was cool and I listened to music, but like if I was in a car with my dad's like sometimes we'd have music on, but it was usually sports talk radio. It was usually like I wasn't like in a ficionado in any way, shape or form, but I was like all right, I'm gonna give you three weeks. I'll come out for three weeks. No, no, in my head I said, I'm yeah, I'm gonna give it three weeks. I'll come out and I'll and if it doesn't feel like a like, if it feels like how I expect it to feel, I'll just go home and I'll have had a great time. Like I'm still a sophomore in college going to stay at my uncle's house in Malibu, who like runs innerscope records, like there are worse hardships in the world to do over the yeah summer. So I go out and it was a I mean, it was exactly what I expected. I'm there, everybody's like, you know, in my head, like what is this kid doing there? He's like Jimmy's nephew. Is he taking a spot from somebody else? Like what does he do in Like? But I was like me, I'm like a fun love and like I'm like, I'm not trying to get in anybody's way. I'm not hating on anybody. I'm the same goofy guy. I am not like I was except I had hair. But besides that, like the rest of it is pretty much the same, but I was like, and he put me in the A and R department and he's like, oh, intern in the an R department. I'm like, I don't even know what that means, forget about like and then he explains it to me and was like, listen to demo tapes and I was like, I don't, like, I'm gonna find an artist, like I don't know any but like it's really funny as we're going through this process. I found one like in the first few days that I liked, and one of the guys in Jimmy's office liked it, and I took a liking to it. So I would drive into the office with Jimmy every day. I would put it in this cassette deck every day cassettes back then, put it in his tape deck every day and would play and he'd be like every day he'd like give me shit about it. And like a day, two days before I was leaving to go home, it just so happens that that artist got offered a huge deal by poll Anthony at EPIC, I think where she wasn't And then so Jimmy decides to take a meeting, like you know, all this is going on the back and he's like, I better meet with these guys because if something doesn't, if something works, it would be the craziest thing ever. He ends up meeting with them. They ends up signing with Jimmy on the spot basically, and then the lead, the guy comes in to meet me because Jimmy tells him the story. Yeah, the guy ends up being will I Am. The group is the Black Eyed be will I Am comes in and I'm just sitting there. I'm las Alsa was still across the street. Interscope was still on Wilshire and Willshire and Westwood, so it was still in that in the ten nine hundred building. So I'm sitting it just it's sitting in. My boy Scott I goes office, who was working for Jimmy at the time, and I'm just in here. Look up and I'm like, oh, I know you. You're from there, and we just started talking and we became friends, and I now that moment just kind of my whole life just changed. I'm also very competitive. I mean I was, you know, I was an athlete as much as you could be an athlete. For somebody who hates sweating, I was as good an athletes as you could be for somebody who refuses to run. But like like but like I was that and I was like very competitive. So now knowing that I'm somewhere where nobody like I don't want to say nobody wants me to be, but it felt like nobody thought I could succeed, and I was like, you know, a NEPO baby, I was given the opportunity. Now I'm like, okay, now in my head, now I want to be great at this because now I want to prove in my head like kind of I can do it, and like I had this in so I wasn't all the way but like I was like okay, and I became one of the black eyed peas and or guys from my dorm room in Boston College my junior year. So now will I am is like call, like so now we're making this their first album from my dorm. Like he's sending me like maybe you do go home?

00:23:44
Speaker 5: I go.

00:23:45
Speaker 3: I like, I went to school for two more years. I graduated, so I did not finish. I So I go home my junior year and I'm legitimately like you know, I got a landline. I'm an R and he's calling me like, and he's like sending me, Like, I mean, this is how crazy it was to begin He's sending me. He sent me the first song was Fallen Up, like the song before the single from the first album. He sent it to me, but it was eight versions. So I mean, I'm so naive and so green that I thought he sent me a broken tape that it was the same thing. I was like, it's the same song you sent me eight times. He goes nah, man, like it's like this the mix, this is up, this is down. I was like, they all sound exactly the fucking same.

00:24:20
Speaker 1: For me.

00:24:20
Speaker 3: I was like, it sounds like it's twenty five minute song. I think you should make it shorter. He's like, no, it's not. I remember the and I could picture his brain exploding, going I can't believe this is the guy, Like like part of it was like funny, and part of it was like but we grew together and it was like this friendship that kind of was like, Okay, this is like a real guy, because I was always convinced that like all these artists and nobody, they weren't really like it was all like you know, superstar TV stuff, And I was like, Okay, now I know a guy and it's a real guy. So I'm like, okay, so now that's my junior year. Now I go, okay, this is it junior summer. I'm going back, and I'm gonna decide this summer whether give it the full summer and decide whether I'm gonna do music or I'm I'm going to go back because I'm still a marketing and finance major of Boston College. I'm still I'm still living that dual life, like in my head, like I was giving it a shot, but it was still ninety percent of my time was still school and like my life, and I was helping Will with whatever I was doing, but there were other R and R guys in LA like really doing the groundwork. So that summer Jimmy's literally looks at me and goes, Okay, You're not going to get that lucky again. So what you need to do is, I mean that's a fluke like so like what you need to do is you need to go through all the artists that are already signed to Interscope and attach yourself to one or two or however many that you feel you can help that haven't already. Like see if you work the work well with the A and R guys, if you have a good relationship, and see if you can insert yourself and help now that you've see in how Will and the peas have done what they've done, if you have any knowledge or anything that can help that. So okay, So I listened. I have few friends at the company. I go around. I'm listening to all the acts. Like I'm working closely with Tom Wally. He played golf. I like to play golf. So Tom was the president at the time I was around there. Evan Bogart was interning. Who now is like you know, Evan Bogart was interning and consulting A and R there, and my boy Dean Geislinger, who was in the mailroom is now assisting Jimmy. He had he had moved up to become Jimmy's assistant. I come out and so I'm dealing with talking all these guys, and you know, there was an artist that they really loved that I attached myself to. And I'm just around. I'm just around, bringing them to the studio, bringing going with Dean's here, going to you know, going to Sway in tex House, going doing just all the stuff, and so I'm working with this. I go back to school. Now I'm really in it. I got two artists that I'm at least somewhat involved in. That Christmas we shoot the video for My Name Is. Two months later, my Name Is comes out, Yeah it's Emin, and Eminem becomes like, I mean, obviously it's you know I was around and I was a part of it. I didn't, but it's.

00:26:55
Speaker 6: Like those two stories that are part of your your your legend that you may not even know about, are actually merged together. I always thought, even in our friendship of all these years, I always thought it was Jimmy's punk nephew who found the tape of emmaim No.

00:27:14
Speaker 3: So you like and everybody it's the mix.

00:27:16
Speaker 6: So it's the tape was black Eyed Peas and the artists that you want to go help with was imminent, which is actually a greater story.

00:27:24
Speaker 3: And so I got to meet like you know, like I'm like still in college now senior year, and like am and Paul Rosenberg, who's you know, one of my dearest friends at this point, like coming up to Boston doing shows at the Middle East that like and like just around and like my like I have like like photo somewhere of like em and Paul in the back of my Cherokee with me and my roommate Freddy Cardon like at the front, like driving my my jeep Cherokee to the shows and stuff like crazy stuff like.

00:27:49
Speaker 4: Your first two artists, first.

00:27:51
Speaker 3: To artists I ever was around in my whole life. So it's like, I just love DJ.

00:27:58
Speaker 4: You got slow down because you talk fast.

00:28:00
Speaker 3: It's because it's insane.

00:28:01
Speaker 6: This is insane, bro, It's insane your first two shots because like I said, it was and you mentioned people looking at it the nepo baby thing, you know what.

00:28:13
Speaker 3: It is, the punk nephew.

00:28:15
Speaker 6: Like I said, like, people are just saying things like ah, and this is before I ever beat you. It's like, yeah, you know, Jimmy, I ain't got this nephew, and he he did, but he did find eminem right, this is what people are saying. So when I meet you, I'm like, this motherfuck is hilarious. And in my mind, I'm like it works because he's an outsider. That's this is this is my train of thought. I'm like, oh, all his shit works and these things have lined up for him because he don't have none of this quote unquote music guy thing that tells him that Eminem will never work. Or the black eyed Peas with the Filipinos and the black guy and the girl singing, which at the time ain't fergy yet, right, you know what I mean. Years before they had another young lady that was in the group, you know what I mean, like in the band, you know what I mean.

00:29:10
Speaker 3: So it's three of them officially, but yeah.

00:29:12
Speaker 4: All of these things.

00:29:13
Speaker 6: I think for the average music person who comes up in music and understands the quote unquote aesthetics and what this is supposed to be, will probably be like, no, So it took for you to be from another world.

00:29:25
Speaker 3: In a sense to say I just think it's cool.

00:29:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm like this person, Yep, that's basically I don't want to help.

00:29:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's basically the whole thing. Like I didn't understand like anytime they would start talking, I was like that all just sounds like noise and everybody talking just to feel like like I mean, most of them, like no disrespect with most of the music industry is people just talking to make sure they still have a job. Like it's like they feel like they need to like and I'm from the very first meeting I ever sat in until the very last one I sat in as as a record executive, it felt like seventy five percent of it was people talking because they felt like they get in trouble if they didn't right, like and like you know, like and we had the conference room book from nine to fives. People didn't want it to end up on.

00:30:06
Speaker 6: Most people sit on the fence because they don't want to be on either side of right or wrong right, and if they were on the fence, they can kind of be like yeah, no, I did say yep, oh yeah, instead of standing on it and it being like yo, you the one said that bullshit was going to work, and it didn't work. Nobody nobody. People are too scared to be in that position.

00:30:27
Speaker 3: And you know, I also understand it because being wrong is a lot scarier than being right is rewarding in a lot of ways when you're not, especially when you're not on the A and R. So like you know, like you have a job, like so most of the label is like you know, they're they're functioning and they can run with the I'm just working the record you give me, so like I'm doing my job. I'm doing my job, whether you delivered a hit record or not.

00:30:51
Speaker 6: But tell me this too in your mind is it? But my uncle owns the company, It's.

00:30:56
Speaker 3: Part of that in a way that I like, not in a yeah this is the way, Like it wasn't based on that, Like that wasn't my thought. But as I grew it was a lot more like the music industry, and just like any industry is based on growth, based on advancing, based on like credit that you need getting credit for the things you do because you want to advance or you want to get a new job, or you want to get a better job. That wasn't my experience. I'm like, I'm never like from the Sopranos, Like I'm Chris from the Sopranos, Like for real, Like that story worked way better until you know, I don't want to spoil the Sopranos if somebody still hasn't watched it. But Tony ends up killing Chris at the end of Sobranos. So like me saying that Jimmy's Tony and I'm Chris worked a lot better before that episode air. Yeah, but conceptually it.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: Was like.

00:31:44
Speaker 3: I was a lifer. I was only in the music industry because it was family, and because that's what I knew, I didn't want another job at another record company. So like I was a safe space and I was somebody who could take chances, could believe in what I believed in, and I could advocate and fight for other people at the company because I wasn't worried about, for obvious reasons, people stealing the credit for me, people not people thinking I'm trying to I didn't want that because I already had the thing of people probably thinking I was going to go run and tell my uncle anything that happened anyway, which was actually the opposite of what was the truth, because the last thing I wanted was that I wanted that stigma of like, oh, Jimmy's going to find out anything you say to DJ, right, So like that was actually the opposite. And I kind of became like the I feel like I became like the therapist at Innerscope, Like I was the person who could like kind of thread the line and like be able to help things move forward because I was able to help. I was able, I was in a good enough position, in a good enough place. As I grew that I was able to help people get their ideas and get their artists across the finish line without feeling like I needed to boguart it and be like this shit is mine now now.

00:32:49
Speaker 4: For lack of a better term, you rode in the car.

00:32:52
Speaker 6: Yeah, like you said, like you were able to put that cassette in there, and nobody else would have been in that car.

00:32:57
Speaker 3: It's not family, all right, you know what I mean.

00:32:59
Speaker 6: So it was advantageous for somebody to, especially if you took the position of not just wanting to in a sense be a rat right and be.

00:33:09
Speaker 4: Like yeah, da da da they fucking of it.

00:33:11
Speaker 6: If you're an advocate for people, like I said, it was advantaged for somebody to be like, yo, DJ you fuck with this?

00:33:18
Speaker 3: Yeah no, I was. I was the exact opposite. I took every bullet. I was like, yo, it's me Like it was like cause it was like I believed, I mean, this is obviously we're skipping years, like not when I'm twenty two, because I didn't have enough like equity and success to be able to say that. But as like the years go on, that position of like being somebody who had his opinion and was willing to at the end of the day. I never stopped being a gambler, Like I would put like, if I believe in something, My whole career is based on believing in artists and songs and writers and producers and arguing with them till like I'm out of breath. But the second we leave that room, we are united front and then I kill and I would spend every last dollar to execute that vision. And that's more important, Like, that's more important than any analytic could ever tell me. So like, and that is how we had our That's how I had my success, and that's how I was able to like, like, obviously, the early stuff, I mean, shit, the piece took six years. I mean, Will ended up moving into my house. Will like we ended up being roommates. We ended up like really building. And then Jimmy relationship with Will really built. And obviously then Ron Fair comes into the picture, Fergie comes into the picture, and they start making these records, and I mean obviously, I mean they become the biggest there was. There were years where they were the biggest group in the world.

00:34:43
Speaker 4: Like sixty maybe a hundred million records.

00:34:46
Speaker 3: You could argue that Black Eyed Peace were the biggest group in the world like they were that big, like worldwide massive, like you know, like.

00:34:53
Speaker 7: Like I got a feel from where's the lung him sampling his crowd Yeah on ushers, Oh like come on, bro, Like you can't do that if you're not hundreds of thousands of people.

00:35:07
Speaker 3: Will's a genius and he's one of my dearest friends to this day. Obviously, Yeah, you're at my wedding, so like obviously he's very much like a like family, so like and that's how kind of everybody say, like my whole career is kind of based on that, Like did you have a moment during the eminem phase did you go blonde? Did you go did you do it? I don't know if I've ever seen a picture of it, but I just gotta ask. This is gonna be this is the most ridiculous thing ever. Shit, but I had blonde hair first I live, I mean to be fair eyed his hair because of you. I will never say that ever, because I looked horrible, Like it was ridiculous how bad it was. But legitimately, when we're running around to like do like Swaying Tech Show and that kind of stuff, like I have like there's like photos where like I have blonde hair and Eminem still has dark hair. So it's like kind of funny. It's like ridiculus. I mean it's and then like six months later that my name is video and obviously I mean it's absurd. I mean, if you watch it, just don't give up a video Eminem's first video, he doesn't have blonde.

00:36:05
Speaker 6: We're gonna we're gonna stamp it on here and say that Eminem died his hair blinde.

00:36:11
Speaker 3: I hope he used to make fun of how terrible I look, so I can't. I'm like, I can't imagine that's really where it came from. But that is a funny narrative. But yes, I definitely did have blonde hair. I blame my aunt VICKI for that. She talked me into going to the to this hair salon in l A. I was like, this is insane. I'm gonna like blonde. It's crazy, Like I looked insane, But like, I'll send you a picture. Could you get at it if you want? I look insane? How terrible?

00:36:33
Speaker 6: So after you do, or after you're part of Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, what's the next for you?

00:36:41
Speaker 3: Well? I went to go work, like so now when I'm graduating, right, you still haven't graduated. I know. I'm like Eminem's album comes out like three months before I graduated college when I but like, as I'm graduating, like it's like the natural thing, moved to LA become an A and R guy. I didn't know anything, So I was like, I don't want to do that, Like I don't want to jump into something. I need the groundwork, I need the I still need some there there in like what I'm doing. So like I decided to stay in New York initially, and I went to go work for Steve Stout, who is now running urban music at Interscope. So I became Steve's one of Steve's assistants. And I was still co and R of both The Black Eyed Peas and Eminem with Dean, but I was an assistant. A yes, so now this is legitimately, I would argue, probably the greatest floor that I went to go work on, like in hip hop history, Like I don't know what it would be. Got to think nineteen ninety nine Universal building, like the Interscope, Like obviously Interscope said LA office, so like it's a very small satellite office, but it's me Steve Stout, Ashley Fox who was big marked exacutive, Chris Chambers who's now a massive publicist. Yeah, Anton Marshawn, Foxy's brother who an a OUR guy.

00:38:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:38:01
Speaker 3: DJ Clue was an A and R guy. So that's our that's our little squad. My boy dolph A was stoutsy and said, that's our little squad. Then my office was the last an R office we ended, Rockefeller began, So g Roberson is the next office. So I'm Interscope now g Roberson Hip hop Al Branch. Dames up there all the time, Like you got like and then you got like that whole squad. Then in the same building running in and out you got Murder Inc. Is starting, Bloodline with DMX is starting. Yeah, everyone is in that like every day is like in every day every day Like that's like, so I'm fresh out like three hours like I went home and Monday I started Like it was like so I graduated four days ago, and I'll walk in and that's like.

00:38:50
Speaker 4: Are you in? Are you living in the city? Are you still living now?

00:38:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm living in my parent I would probably still live in my parents' house in Staten Island now if it was up to me, but like, but no, so I still like like, but but no. I lived in Staten Island and I drove into the city every day because I don't do public transportation at all, so that doesn't really work in New York. But like you're driving every every day. I probably would have swam home first if I was given the options, but before before getting on like the train or the anything else. But but uh, yeah, so I'm driving in and out, so it's taken me forever. But I mean the night it wasn't that bad because I stayed late. So if I'm leaving at eight thirty nine o'clock, it wasn't that bad. But getting in if I was trying to get into a reasonable time was insane. Yeah, but yeah, and that but like so that's where like all that initial like and all these crazy like you know, get like, so I had that early relationship with g and would hop and would and they kind of like took me in as well. So I was spending time with the studio with Jay and I was doing this and Stout was Stout, so he's like so outspoken, So like DJ go do this, and it would be like some crazy task of the day, and it would be like, you know, I'm going to Jacob the jeweler for this, or I'm going to do this. But it was like real gro work and real assistant work. And really the reason I love Steve is that he was the I knew he was the only person who would treat me like I was anybody else as opposed to treating me like Jimmy's Nefinven trying to gain points by me being happy Christy and he and he like he his brain was the opposite, like I'm gonna I'm gonna make this guy like I get it, Like he understood me. He knew how crazy I was. He had then been. I had already been to Aspen with him at that point. We had had funny exchanges and we'd like arguing back and forth about things. I was right about a couple of them, he was right about it. So we had that banter already, so it was like very like give and take. He knew I wasn't just I wasn't intimidated either, so it was like a very unique Most people were like you know him running that show, were very like and I was not. I was very like right back at him anything, So it was like that kind of relationship. I ended up not staying there very long because Jimmy started another company called farm Club dot Com. Oh yeah, and it was like and it was like Jimmy and Doug Morris's take on the Internet when they didn't know. I remember buying him Internet for Dummies for Christmas that year because they had and it was like, I have this picture of him holding the book and his finger to his hat. We like. And I ended up in November of ninety nine, I came out for I was supposed to come out for three days, okay, and I'm still here, so like I was like, I didn't I thought I was going back home on Sunday, and like I never won. It was like twenty seven years later this time. Yeah, And I just kind of and I ended up going to farm Club. That lasted a couple of years. Was I learned a lot that doing that, And then when I came back to Interscope, I kind of transitioned into like I ended up overseeing like all the from the Interscope side, all the shady aftermath stuff along with because you had already been because I was working with him and obviously I knew dre from like just I'm Jimmy's nephew, so for being a kid like Dre was like day yeah, and just like so like he's Drey, he's always with Jimmy. He's one of his best friends. So like I was Jimmy sixteen year old nephew is seventeen eight. Now I'm working there. Now I'm working like I'm around so like I was like growing into it.

00:41:56
Speaker 6: That's why you and I are both dressed like doctor dreda the yes. Yeah, I don't know if he with noticed we both we I did it purposely. If I ever get Doctor Dre to come out here, I'm gonna dress it this way is where because this is the doctor Dre outfit you wear all black and white Air Force.

00:42:12
Speaker 3: No. I've definitely gone to places where like I can't get my shirt or something because he already bought them all or something like it's really that black shirt. Yeah, like they were like and I'd be like I remember, I don't remember. It was James Park someplace where I was like, I'm gonna call him and let you give me a few of like he would really had everyone on hold, and I was like this is insane, Like but like so that happened at one point in my life, but like, yeah, I guess we dressed kind of similar.

00:42:34
Speaker 1: But not kind of but just like yeah.

00:42:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was kind of my transition that came back to Interscope as an R guy, and I was really like now I had like a few years of really like tough love, hard learning. The Farm Club thing was crazy because it was like a company that really didn't like it was like a great idea, but it was very all over them and the ground. Ye, I'd never really liked the show and the parties with the TV show were like great, but like the label like it kind of like the business model didn't was they weren't up to speed yet. It was years ahead of its time.

00:43:13
Speaker 6: So now you're doing Shady Aftermath, Yes, and that's Roland.

00:43:17
Speaker 3: Obvious, that's it's yeah, it's like I mean, it's eminem, it's eminem and it and right into fifty into fifty yeah, who is Like So now I'm like, you know, running around with them finishing.

00:43:28
Speaker 6: That album and it's something that's connected to the East Coast where you from.

00:43:33
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's funny because from before that, like I actually have because fifty was signed to track Masters, which Steve set at Sony before that, so I was actually helping him. So you Knewanny, we had met like once. We didn't really know each other, but I was helping like master the album before everything happened when he got shot and everything, and then like the he ended up leaving Sony and then coming to Interscope years but like so like I had already kind of had a little taste of the like that world before before that, and then when em and Paul and fifty showed up at the studio in La I mean it was lightning in a bottle.

00:44:14
Speaker 6: Like it was like, what is the experience like with an artist like fifty Cent coming on to the roster and you know he's hot, his fish grease, but then you get to hear what get Richard Dye try and sounds.

00:44:28
Speaker 3: Like what it's growing into right in front of your eyes. Yeah, I mean it was. I've been blessed to be a part of more shit diamond albums, like more than anybody deserves to have to be a part of fifty Cent and his arrival on the scene and the and the momentum and the release of Get Richard Die Trian is the most insane thing I've ever been a part of. I've never like the energy around it, the groundswell, the feeling of just inevitability and like the creation of this superstar like that, even though it couldn't have been any less overnight, felt like it was overnight, and just being and how smart he was, besides how hot he was, and how everything like being around him, and like I remember mastering the album and it was literally just me and him and big bass at Jernie Grudman, Okay, And I remember because I was so pissed because we were trying to figure out what the last songs were going to be, and it was the I'll never forget it because this is before phones and you had sports on your phone and whatever. And it was that Miami, Ohio State championship game that like they I think they screwed Miami out of the championship when they called the past interference. And I had a lot of money on that game and we couldn't get the album done and I was I was like, nobody else is sitting here because this is like you know, obviously, like this is around New Year's and we're putting the album out in February, so we had to get the album in that night, and they're arguing back and forth about the final songs and fifth then like fifty hadn't been to bed in two days. I hadn't been to bed in two days, like, you know, like Dre as a perfectionist. They are mismixed and mastered every song six hundred and twelve times, you know, but like I can't argue with it because shit, fucking doctor Dre at the end comes out sounding like that album sounds like, but like like he just sitting there in that room that night and him talking to me, and I just thought he was delirious. But he's like, yam it, DJ, it's gonna be crazy, like man, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna have clothing lines, I'm gonna do energy drinks, I'm gonna build this, I'm gonna do this. Like he had like so many steps, and I was like, dude, could we just finish the fucking out, like amazing, I can't wait.

00:46:35
Speaker 4: So you like, you don't you don't see any of those things that he's talking.

00:46:41
Speaker 3: I mean I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face at that point. Like we hadn't slept in days, but he was so just sandsome, thinking yeah, oh yeah, no about like I didn't say you couldn't see because it sounded brilliant, but I definitely wasn't thinking like that. I'm still you gotta think how young I am. I'm still twenty four or just twenty five? I think it was, was it two or three? I was, But it was like so it was like so like I'm just like this thing is about to be massive, Like this shit is crazy, Like Eminem had just done a bajillion records. We had just done eight mile, like Whane stuff happened like all thinking musically and he's yeah, he's thinking worldly age, he's thinking like business. I mean, he knew because of how he was that even though he was on top of the world, he wasn't gonna have a twenty year run like I think really has no but I mean, but he knew like he was gonna be white hot for so long and like and like I'm gonna take advantage of every single opportunity. And I see it and I'm gonna build now and I'm gonna start breaking my artist now. I'm not waiting until the next home I'm not like, I'm not doing the normal. I mean, you've heard him talk about it, but I'm not doing the normal. Two albums before this, like he was talking about all that ship on the fly, We're gonna do this, We're gonna do this, We're gonna and like it was like and I don't know, I think I was like the first sounding board because I was the guy who's around all the time. I'm sure other people maybe was talking to pall anybody. I only knew me because a lot of times I was around, it was just us, but or we were in a studio and everybody else was doing something else and we would when we would talk. But He's like, that was an incredible experience that I value, and I value that friendship with him to this day. He's the funniest guy in the whole universe, the great He's legitimately the greatest. Nobody gets like I mean, like I like, like, that's that's my guy forever.

00:48:19
Speaker 4: But now you're at fully at the label.

00:48:22
Speaker 6: Yes, fully an R. Yes, you understand what you're doing as an an R. Yes, you no longer in its assistant? Yeah, in your mind? Are you on the okay? I want to help with the things that are here. I want to start breaking new artists.

00:48:40
Speaker 3: I enjoyed the relationships with the artists and the producers and the helping them achieve what they wanted to achieve more than the corporate bullshit that was involved with record labels. But I knew that how valuable it was for them for me to continue to rise in the company because of how I viewed them, how I viewed producers and songwriters more so than even artists, and helping them get off their their business ventures, their dreams, and helping them build their businesses.

00:49:17
Speaker 6: So I think what you guys have built and what has been a staple or what was a staple at Interscope was investing in the talent you already have, yes, investing in the producers and I mean starting with Doctor Dre Yes.

00:49:33
Speaker 3: I think that model.

00:49:34
Speaker 6: I've seen other labels try it and it's and it's been successful for them. But I think it's just just really a staple thing at Interscope. I remember hearing other producers speak about it, like, YEO, when you get a deal as a producer, when you get hot, you go do a deal with Interscope.

00:49:49
Speaker 3: You know, Jimmy always valued that, and he valued the producer as like the best an R, best version of an A and R right, because he's key can create too. So like I did it with Dre and then like you know we like I mean, I mean Will Will talking about it. It's funny, but yes with Will, with Tim Yea Farrell, Polo, Yeah, like he did it like all the way, let's get it to Polo. Well that's you know, the run that y'all had together. It's legendary. I think it is. I think it's like probably the greatest story I never told.

00:50:20
Speaker 4: We was gonna tell some of them today. Okay, how did that connection happen?

00:50:25
Speaker 3: So that connection happened because Bubba Sparks. Bubba Sparks who I Love? Who's ship one of the forefathers of what really popular music is today with this country rap or like I mean the album him and Timbland we made Deliverance is like.

00:50:44
Speaker 4: I remember the first time I saw a video, I was like, oh shit.

00:50:46
Speaker 3: Yeah he like Bubba definitely crawl, so all these guys could walk for sure. But like so Bubba like like we were, we were cool, and like he's like, yo, you got I got this group. You got to meet and it was Jim Crow the rap group Jim Crow out of Atlanta, which was Polo to Don Missed the Mo and Cuddy Cattel rest in Peace, who was a phenomenal voice. But those three guys were insane and I remember going down to Atlanta to sign them, met them at the Palm at the now Weston which was the Swiss Hotel, which is in my career been crazy because I ended up meeting a bunch of artists there. But and we signed them as rapper as a rap group, and we thought they were next up. Like it was like they were at a crew. It was like outcast and it was Goodie Mob and then it was going to be Jim Crow and Jim Crow like they were like the more pop leaning like but like Polo was like you know pole like and he like we really we connected right off the bat of me and Polo, Polo and like, and we like became super close and they put out a couple of records, but it didn't really connect like we thought it was going to. And at that same time, fifty signed Standards Scope. So the whole company becomes like it becomes like as much as it was already eminem or whatever fifty cent had become. Because for a minute there, Jim Crow like it was a big deal. We were competing with other labels like they were like they were next up. That was gonna be the first thing that I really signed that went crazy, right, And it didn't because Black Eyed Peas hadn't gone crazy yet, so it was going to be like and it didn't happen for real. And I remember telling him. I remember it was Thanksgiving break and I had to call him and tell him were going to drop the group. And it was like sickening. I had never had to do that before. And I but in there, I had seen him in the studio with Jazzy Fay and all them when Jazzy Fay was produce Jazzy Fay was producing those records. I was like, man, Polo, you could be a producer, Like I see how you see things like you think and you move like you could do this. And we get on the phone and we talked for like two hours and I'm like, you really should be a producer. He goes, I don't produce. I'm not a producer. And he goes, all right, well you manage me. And I was like well, I'm not a manager. I don't even know what the first thing about being a manager is. I was like, but shit, we'll figure it out together. And that's literally how it started. It started as me that next Monday calling everybody, called up my boy Tubby, who was working for Big John at the time. Yall, I got the hottest new producer in the game. He's about to be the biggest thing in the world. Polo Polo to don. He's never made a beat. I mean he might have, but I never heard it. So like we're like, like we are now walking into meetings. He had this one beat and it was crazy, and we're walking in playing this beat and being like we're I'm playing, y'all, nothing else. This is it? Like this how good? He is only playing one beat? There was only one beat poker yeah, And it was like like it was crazy. We were walking around to every single room like you don't understand pull Don. This is the greatest of all time. Like I named him Polo Do Don. By the way, the name was Polo Freege or something, and I was like, what the hell is not even mean? I can't say it, I can't spell it, Like that's a terrible name, and I was like, and on one of those jim Pro songs, he goes, y'all know who it is, Polo to Don And I was like, that's your name, that's it. I'm not asking, like that's what it is. And he stuck with it and he ran because I was like Polo Freeze. I was like, cause I'm French. I was like what what now? What does that even mean? Because I'm French? I was like what. But so like Polo to Don is born and now we decided that and it's Jimmy's just blind belief because I told him, I said, I promise you, I'm going to make this work. He gave us a song deal. Wasn't a big one, but it was just enough for us to get moving. So he had an eight song deal at Innoscope. Yeah, and now we're like starting to figure it out. He's making this. I tell him, yo, I need a beat CD. So you got to figure it out. He made a beat CD. It took him like forever, and I was on him every day, but he made a beat CD like he was making the chronic Like this first beat out CD is like insane, like insane, like I mean, bone Crusher did the intro like it was like a beat CD. Like I mean, like I'm talking about the beats for songs that became like London Bridge and Runaway Love and like like and this is the first beat CD ever. I'm trying to think there was like a bunch of them, the Pimple all over the world, like all these records and like this beat CD. But like we're walking in and then our good friend, your good friend and his good friend from childhood Ethiopia, Yeah, realizes what we're doing and she takes the gamble of her life and stamps us as like no, these guys are the shit. Polo is the next guy for no reason other than we said we were the next people. Like there was no it was based on nothing but belief nothing Like it was like we was selling like you know, we knew we could sell ketchup to somebody wearing white gloves, Like it was that kind of thing. We we had it figured out. We were we were going to make it work, and it was what's the first hit? First hit was Pimped all over the world. Polo did a bunch of resh shaka. We drove him crazy and like he sold a bunch of beats to Chaka. One of them was one of my favorites, was called all of My Hoses Ridiculous, and it was Polo singing all of My Hoses Ridiculous. I mean, that was the whole song. And then you don't get it. That's still the greatest song of all tom nobody got like you know, it was still like that kind of like but Polo was originally singing pimpot all over the world, and it's like uh and uh, yeah that was. And then when Ludacris did that record and he I mean he put it on the album, everything he put on the album, and all of a sudden, it was like, wait a minute, like this is real. Yeah, like we like we tricked the world like it actually happened. Look like I didn't trick, no, I mean, get it in and then we delivered. I'm saying, but it worked, is what I mean. Like yeah, and then and it worked, and that and the snowball that came from his mind, Like the two of us together, we were so because he's a gambler too, we were so in. Yes, we were so in tune in, Like if I have fifty fifty thousand dollars, I'll bet fifty one thousand dollars on what I believe, like because I'll drop, I'll lose it all on rather than not take the chance on something that I believe can happen that I see now as attainable, right, So like and now we're talking like I.

00:56:58
Speaker 6: Mean within that three years, it was in two years, three years.

00:57:03
Speaker 3: I mean he was hot within a year. But within three years he had like the number one record on rap, pop and R and B at the same time, the three different records. Like it was like it became like, no.

00:57:14
Speaker 4: I remember Polo dum forgetting my deal.

00:57:19
Speaker 6: I did my DLJA records, and I just wanted to work with all my friends. It was like my way of I don't know, I guess that's how I've always been. I'm like, if I fuck with you, if I ever come buy some money and we can figure out something to do together, I want to call you.

00:57:34
Speaker 3: And Polo was one of those calls.

00:57:37
Speaker 6: You were one of those calls right for me to work with Polo And I remember him playing me London Bridge and I was like, what the fuck? This is a great record all time, Valentine, that's time. I'm telling you this ship right here so take over the world and I'm like, I can't argue with you. It was I can't argue this fucking record. I think we were at Childless when he played for me. It was just like this is special. It was explosive, like this shit is what the fuck.

00:58:06
Speaker 3: He's one of those guys that just I'm gonna do what you say can't be done right, that's just his I'm gonna show you I'm one of the greatest, Like yeah, but that's why I'm the ship and why you don't get it, like, and he just goes into the like I'm gonna show you, I'm gonna show you, and like and then it's just like and then it's just like and that record. I mean, God, this insanity he put me through with that record, because if you know anything about Polo to Don, he'll give the same record to seventy five people and tell them all like man until they paid for until like yeah ro yeah, I mean and his favorite line to me, ever, you a manager managed the situation. That's why that's what he would say to me again, yeah ro. Like in the craziest like he wouldn't tell artists till the day before they were mastering their album and give them my home phone number and they would call me and I wouldn't even know and would be like, like'd be like, oh yeah, I'm trying to clear this record, and I'd be like, okay, cool and playing for me, and I'd.

00:59:00
Speaker 4: Be like that says says as right.

00:59:02
Speaker 3: That's ludacris as single, that's Fergy single, that's this I'm like, what the hell? And I'm like they're like, what do you mean. We already mastered and we already put this guy on it. We are ready. It's like because these are nuclear records cold like like Polo, I don't think he doesn't have the catalog most people. Polo doesn't have that many album cuts. Polo makes like these, Like a lot of guys have these catalogs that are like a zillion songs. Polo made the most like punch You in the Face single, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna get this guy with this guy make this record cut and it's like all right, man, go make that, and then he'd make it happen. You'd be like, fuck, okay, now we got it, like and like and that's just kind of how we were. Like everything there was like like a reel run there. Like that was like between what was happening at Interscope with m and Paul and Fifth and all those guys and then the Black Eyed Peas and then what started to happen with because with Polo on my business because like that was my first management client, right and like like so my company which like so fake work was born, and with Polo was hilarious. Yes, it was.

01:00:09
Speaker 6: You call here, you call her company? Fake work was the funniest shit to me. I mean because I knew you personally. I know you personally, but I knew you personally, and I'm like, this is his fuck you to people. Yeah, this is his fuck you to people. It's like, yo, listen, I get it. I'm Nepo baby. Look at these fucking numbers. Look what I've done. Yeah, it kind of draws with you.

01:00:30
Speaker 3: I want it. Call it fake work. It was a little of both. It was a little of that and a little of Okay, I don't want to get complacent.

01:00:38
Speaker 5: M M.

01:00:39
Speaker 3: I'm competitive now. If I name my company this and I feil I not only embarrassed me, I embarrassed Jimmy, I embarrass everybody. So I have to win if I do this, and I just fucking loved it. It was a great license plate. Like I mean, the shit is crazy, like still my license plates to this day if you walk outside, well like like it like it just kind of was. It just fit like to me. Like the other choice for my company name was no Buttons because I didn't have any buttons in my closet. I just were and I thought that was funny, but no, it's not fake work. It was like that's where like my brain went with everything, and I was like, but fake work just kind of cut through and I could tell just from the reaction it either got to laugh or I gotta like it got like a oh man, now I got to defend you again for something else, Like I remem my brother Chris Clancy, like for who you know, manages, but he was my right like I was the A and R guy and he was the marketing guy. So we did everything together, every shady, every after, every everything. It was like him and me. And when I named like, he was like, bro, like seriously, like I already defend you to fucking everybody all the time because you're in nuts and you say the craziest shit all the time and you're just like, you know, marched to the beat of your own drum and do. But now I got to defend. He hated it, but he probably still hates it, but he they don't have to deal with me anymore, so he puts up with it. But like I, it was a lot of both those reactions. But it worked for me because I knew, like I needed that just extra just to try to be to really take it all the way, because at the end of the day, I'm really a family guy who loves being with my family, who loves being at home, who loves doing that more than I really like love being out, love being a studio. I'm competitive and I like doing it, but I needed that extra push to be, like, I gotta be like a one at this at all times, because otherwise I'll make a fool of myself.

01:02:36
Speaker 6: Clearly follows the first management client, Yes, right, and now you guys have the song deals all of that, and now it's the label time. Yes, and publishing in the world of Zone fo break work, Yeah, Ester Dean, Yes.

01:02:55
Speaker 3: Ester Dean comes in. I mean That'ster Dean comes in like five years later. But she got she I mean, Polo saw something I mean, she had already been in Atlanta. She had a deal with she had like a pub deal with like a tricky and Mark in them. Yeah and shoot. But like I remember Polo call him in and be like, man, I got it, I got it, I got the one, I got the one, and I was and he brought I remember him bringing her out to Interscope and introducing her to Jimmy and it just became like one of those like moments. Even though most of Dean's hits ended up not on Interscope like they ended up because if you think about it, if you think about it, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Nicki Minaj, none of those records are Interscope.

01:03:41
Speaker 6: No, no, no, but she that grounds of people that don't know, as we said, the artists. But let's talk about the records though, so people that are just watching that her novels are novices toward you know, somebody in inner workings and who are the people behind these records?

01:03:55
Speaker 4: Of course, say the records though yes, so esther.

01:03:58
Speaker 3: Dean wrote Rude Boy for Rihanna, and that was like really like the first one that really exploded, like and then because she did it with Stargate and then that partnership became like her and Polo did records that were like, you know, like throughout the years, like uh Hot Toddy and like Little Freak and like, uh, trying to think of all the records. They had a record that was on the Pussycat Dolls. That's invading me at the moment. They had a bunch of they had a bunch of They did the I Think I Love Her for Gucci, which is one of my favorite records ever. Completely different, yeah, completely different, But like that run she had with Stargate was did they do Fireworks? Boy? They did Firework? They did S and m They did what's my Name?

01:04:43
Speaker 5: Do?

01:04:43
Speaker 3: Super Base? Who did? Because she wrote she wrote super Base? Yeah that's like her. And she wrote another.

01:04:49
Speaker 4: Huge Rihanna record too, What's Name said?

01:04:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's my Name? S and m Ude Boy, and then Insane where have you Been? I mean she I mean, she had but like the I mean, Dean just had this sound ye and she just had I mean, And then she had her own record that Drop It Low, which was another one of those moments. I was at that video shoot, so was I. We were together, but it was another one of those moments because that was at a time for Chris after like where in Dean and Dean put I mean Polo put Chris on that record. It was adamant, like we're not putting it out, we're not doing anything, yes, yeah, and we're not really and he's like nope, he's saying on this record and it's a smash drop it low was what it was called. And it was like the first single from the Lebron James documentary more than a game documentary, and it was a like Dean just was like a like there are just moments where you with somebody where like every single thing she did sounded like a hit and it was her voice, but sometimes it was like every artist like I can't say it anywhere near as good as her, Like then we just put it out with her and say it's me like it was credit like that Kelly Clark song was huge, mister know it all was Dean Like she just had an didn't she end up doing like the Rio song? Yeah, oh no? And then she transitioned in then she transitioned to pitch Perfect. She was in all the Pitch Perfect movies. She did the theme for she like literally Dean was like, DJ, I want to go. I want to be in movies. I want to do voices. So my boy, Tony Siler, who ran TV in film and asgo the Coorse guys guy, He's like, I'll set you up a meeting at Universal. We went to one meeting. She left with a job, like like she left with like an acting role, a voiceover roll, and.

01:06:35
Speaker 4: Then managing Dean at the time.

01:06:37
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I managed Dean through that whole thing till the tail end of that run. But like she had and she was she was her own. She was a piece of work herself. But she was awesome, such an awesome, such an awesome person, so fun.

01:06:50
Speaker 4: And then y'all also had hit Boy in Chase.

01:06:53
Speaker 3: Yes, hip Boy was the first signee to the publishing company. Yeah, like so it was like hit Boy the publishing company. And then the label was like because we didn't have a label yet, but like so now I'm backtracking a couple of years, but the label was we wanted to sign artists, right, and we had two artists that we wanted to sign, like, you gotta let us sign. Ron Gillier were still running urban music at the time at Interscope. You gotta let us sign these two artists. We had rich Boy, Rich Boy and this other artist who was singing the hooks on two of the songs on Rich Boy's demo. We wanted to sign both, but we were told you only can sign one, and you guys should sign the rapper because you guys work more in rap music your rapper, Like that's more what you are. The guy singing the hooks on those songs was Acon.

01:07:35
Speaker 4: Man, So wait, wait, wait, he was singing the hooks on Rich White songs.

01:07:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I want to know kill, I still kill. I gotta find that demo tape somewhere. But it was like yeah, and Acon ended up being somewhat successful.

01:07:50
Speaker 6: What like at the end, back around and doing a deal with y'all from the label side right.

01:07:56
Speaker 3: After he ended up. So, Steve Rifkin, I love so I'm happy Steve, all the money you made made because they had a kon ended up on SRC. But uh, like he literally was like, because you know, they're always like I tell stories, and I always like kind of like I don't want to say out people, but I just tell the truth. So and like back in the day, people were wrong a lot because it wasn't like it is today where but I mean, but a lot more of signings and things are done based on numbers. You're signing something that's already taking off somewhere and you're acquiring it and you're hoping they're good, and then you try to figure it out after and like, hope they are willing to develop artists wise like there, but sometimes you're just acquiring and praying for rain. Back then, it was a lot more like you know, you had to like you had Yeah, I was galling. Yeah, it was like with everything. So I tell a lot of stories.

01:08:46
Speaker 6: So were you Okay, let's ask then our ass Were you trying to do the Akond deal?

01:08:50
Speaker 3: You were trying to do that? Oh? Of course we wanted both. We wanted both, but I understood why would they give us a chance for both? We hadn't done anything at that point, so like, why would they let usign two artists? It was there was cocky and greedy, but fuck it, we thought they were both great, like and it was like and I mean, I still believe Which Boy is one of the most underrated albums that like that I've been a part of. I think it's an incredible debut album, and then it kind of everything kind of went left after that. But like Acon was and then what I was saying was I tell those stories and like it might sound like like I'm talking calling people out when they're wrong or whatever, but I do it to myself too, Like I've been wrong a lot, but like it's because I believe in things, and I take chances on the things I believe in. But like on the Acon one, missing out on that one really double hurt us because a year or two later or whatever, there was this artist that we desperately wanted to sign that my boy, actually my boy stat Quo ended up on the remix to the song that ended up launching this guy at least a version that played in LA and that's how I even heard it to begin with. But that artist ended up being T Pain that we were desperately to sign, and who did he ended up signing to, but Acon, who obviously if he was with us, would have been like so like if you think about the how much that one not happening turned into Yeah, like think about Zone four at the beginning with Acon and t Pain like is like insane. Yeah, Like it's like it's like and who knows how it would have played out if Acon was with us, if you but you never know because things change when they when relationships change. But if you just do it like on the odds, like we ended up losing the other artists we really wanted to the artists we didn't sign because he took it to jive, you know, cause Acon took pain to drive or did a deal there like his con whatever that was with Divine and whatever they would do. But yeah, so like that was like so like. But so we had rich Boy on the artist's side and then Kerry Hillson. Those were the two artists that we started. Kerry was a joint with Timbaland, and then we had the publishing side. Polo had these guys he heard on I don't want to misspeak, but I think MySpace. They hit him up on MySpace something like that, and it was these two young like, uh, well, hip Boy was from the Eye, but I think Chase was staying Attitude's from Borland. But like and we met them like right around when we put out London Bridge. So it's like right, all that was like happening at the same time in six So Hip Boy was nineteen, Chase was around the same age and might be exactly the same age actually, and but like so they've been with us, and they were with us from that moment as well. So Polo really like together we had something special. And Polo really I don't think he gets credit for how good of a talent finder he really is. Yeah, well across the board, so producers to songwriters, to artists and the visionary and what.

01:11:34
Speaker 6: He sees to question a question for that, Yeah, right, because there was this whole thing about hip Boy being in a publishing deal for fifteen thirty years. Yeah, and you being the publisher with that. Yeah, what is the story today?

01:11:52
Speaker 3: I mean, the real story is hip Boy's the first person we ever signed. Okay, we had a joint venture with Universal shit the I mean very simply the amount of money we were given to sign our first artist. Being able to give them each fifty grand sounded like the greatest thing in the whole universe, like they had never done anything. And like even when I talked to Hit at that time, he was telling us that his other offers were like five grand, ten grand. So to us, we were like, okay, we have this, let's five exit. Forget about giving him twenty twenty five, let's give him fifty and like and start this process. And back then those deals were like like the same deal Polo signed. Polo's deal was for more money, but it was still eight hundred percent MDRC and the records have to come out and they have to be licensed and they have to be this like it was like the craziest process of all time just to get a song to count that even was out. Forget about having all those songs even come out. They even once they came out, Oh, the splits aren't settled. This isn't settled. Like that process was crazy. But when we did that deal, we thought we were doing something like we weren't, like we didn't think we got over on anybody. We were like shit, like we like they gave us, like they're giving us a little chance at they given us one hundred grand. Fuck it, we're giving it to these two guys, all of it. We're betting on them. Like so to us, it was like that was the most we We couldn't have given them sixty grand. We couldn't have gotten cleared.

01:13:08
Speaker 6: So that was it, like we maxed so like it was never that from my understanding, right, I'm on it on the outside looking in.

01:13:15
Speaker 4: It was never about the actual money that was given.

01:13:18
Speaker 3: Was no, were so about No, I wasn't done with That was the start of the Yeah, and then as the years go on, then like what happened was it took them a few years to have success, like hit like their first big records were like that, Uh the song with Eminem and Lil Wayne dropped the world. Oh yeah, and then obviously hip Boy did Paris for Kanye and Jay and like. But at that point, Polo and I had stopped working together, so like I was still managing hit Boy, but like it was so I was still working with hit Boy and Chase, but Polo and I had gone our separate ways. Everything was fine, but it was just we were doing separate businesses and right as all the as he was starting to actually make money. So now like it's now twenty twelve. That deal was in two thousand and six, so now he's finally starting to like have motion whatever. And then hit Boy decides he wants to do the artist thing. We do his label deal at Innerscope. He's doing the artist thing, the production thing, gets a great deal over there as well. Hit Boy had a deal there as well. I stopped working with hip Boy as well. So now hit Boy by the time hit Boy and we were trying to fix they were trying to fix that deal. None of the people that were working with him and it originally are still a part of it. So now he's trying to and I was no longer a part of the company, like Polo and I had gone our separate way. As Polo maintained the company, I maintained my management company. We decided we wanted to be clean and befriends and like that was what it was going to be. So as that happened, like hit Boy got caught up, I think and like he went to Rock Nation. They were trying to say they could get him out, they were going to do this. I don't think Polo was aggressively Like again, I'm speaking for Polo enough for myself, but I don't feel like he was ever aggressively like no, we're not letting him out here, like all right, figure it out, like universal, you figure it out like whatever. Like because he had options and he had deals, and then he took another advance and then it was like OK, and like and then it just became that snowball, and it just like became this long drawn out process because he was still in this crazy deal. I can't speak to the business side of it because if you look at it now, in twenty twenty six, twenty years ago, he signed an insane publishing if you looked at it today, like options and how many songs you got to deliver each time? And but that's what it was back then. It wasn't like we like we literally thought we were doing something for two guys that like hadn't didn't have a placement of any kind yet. Right, we were just betting on him. And as we everything grew, he moved Hippoy and Chase down to Atlanta. They were all in like Zach's when we rented just goed, rented the whole studio out. We had a whole world down there, like we were putting everything every dollar. The label was never profitable because we were trying to make it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, because we were like, no, let's reinvest, let's get make them rent the studio thre hundred sixty five days a year, Let's have everybody come down here. Let's pay for everybody.

01:16:02
Speaker 1: To live here.

01:16:03
Speaker 3: Let's bet like it was like just groundswell of that and so it's it's really unfortunate. Like me and Hit connected over the years a few times and like like we're cool and now like hip hooy just did verses against Mike Cups, obviously my business partner, and like so like so I was cool, cool moment he said something really nice about me on stage. That was awesome, But like it's a shame that that happened the way it did. And it wasn't And it was like frustrations boiling over and something that I think I believe if I was still involved, would have been handled very easily, Like it would have just been like, let's figure out a way to prose, we'll give him his own deal, we'll fix this, we'll do this, we'll still partner you in this way. It's not it wasn't. I don't believe it was that hard. It was just like a lot of not no, not even miscommunication, A lot of no communication is what it felt very important. Yeah, no communication is very and like and once I wasn't involved, me stepping in, I was like almost like I don't want to say the bad guy, but I was almost like the bad guy in every situation. There was no there was no winning for me. I just wanted everybody to be happy and help. But like I wasn't in any part of the business. So my opinion was like, yeah, that's cool, but like, what's your skinning it? What do you lose if this happens? Nothing, So like that's like, we appreciate your input and advice, but like I wasn't working with hippoy or or Polo at that time, so like, and I didn't work at Universal Publishing ever, and I didn't even like and at that point I didn't even work at Universal anymore. Jimmy and I had left, so like I wasn't even like in the building to go down the street to like be like, yo, come on, Like it wasn't like me and eatth the OPI and all that stuff we had done that wasn't the because we could have fixed that.

01:17:29
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I asked that because a lot of people don't they see headline of course, and they don't. They don't they don't know the inner workings of business and why these things are drug are dragged out, Yeah, the way they are sometimes and the unfortunate side of all the other intricate parts that people don't know about. If it's a renegotiation, if it's you know this MDRC, if it's you know, these certain deal points weren't met. Yeah, because that's the thing. Like, publishing is a very tricky business. It's a very tricky business, a penny business. And the whole process behind publishing is for the these publishing companies, these major companies, to hold you in it as long as they can.

01:18:15
Speaker 3: Yes, So it's like, oh yeah, that don't count. Yeah, but it's gotten better. But back then, I mean the mdr C, Like you're literally talking about eight songs, and you know, you tell them eight songs, people think that means eight songs. Like if you have ten percent of songs, that's eighty songs, that's thirty two you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, And like so you're and they had to be released on majors, and it had to be albums, not EPs and sometimes soundtracks.

01:18:40
Speaker 4: And sometimes they don't found them on one album.

01:18:43
Speaker 3: We'll capture capped out at six songs are like one hundred percent on an album and your capped out like so like there were so many ways to keep you in the JEP literally One of my proudest moments, which is kind of comes from publishing, is Polo was at the end of his deal. Polo's at the end of no, not his deal. He was at the end of one of his periods of his deal, and we were like fifty percent away from being them having to exercise the next option. Polo is white hot at this point, white hot, like he the hot at his peak. Privately, I think he was the number two writer in Universal at the time or something like that. He was like it was puloded on at his peak. He had done two songs on the Field Mob album that would have qualified him for the uh so it would have once they uh yeah, once they counted, it would have done. So my boy worked it in his scope and he helped and they I sent it in and I called and I said, when these two songs license were good And of course they weren't rushing to license it because Polo's next option was it wasn't even that big. It was crazy. His option was like two hundred grand up front, but they owed him like a million five in royalty, so it didn't even matter. If they would have given him two hundred they just would have paid him one point three two months later, but like, so having this conversation, so it was just and this is what I mean by just people getting in their own way, just stupid. So like I go, okay, fine, you don't want to pay him yet they were just pushing it on. I don't know if it was the next quarter whatever, dumb thing. So I got the two songs licensed, but I didn't say anything about it. I just got him licensed, got them official dated licensed, and then I Doug Davis and I was sent in the option notice but said nothing. Just sent in the option notice and like thirty days later, they didn't respond. Polo was out of his publishing deal. Oh shit, the hottest producer in the game was out of his publishing deal because they didn't respond. Yeah, and they they did next second thirty days exercize your option. No response, and it's like, well they responsive, Well you didn't like the songs aren't licensed. So I said no, look, and it was like thirty eight days ago. I waited a few extra days to say and in the system it said like whatever day and it was like six weeks and it was like they're out, oh shit, Like there was no yeah, and so let's just say we re signed with Universal for a tad more than two hundred thousand dollars.

01:21:13
Speaker 6: I'm sure, and probably more than at one point three down on top of.

01:21:17
Speaker 3: That, so much more like it was like I remember Colling Polo going like we did it, like it happened, like oh my god, like oh my god, like it was like and it worked. And it was like, which was a little crazy because I worked at Universal Atis, so it was like I have this like crazy thing because I worked for Jimmy. But at the same time, like I was like loyal. I mean, I'm I'm I'm a team sports player. I'm loyal guy. But at the same time, I care more about my clients and my business than I do about like if people are like when they jerked me around and didn't want to we needed the two hundred gand for something I think we wanted to put it into. If I remember what year it was, I don't know. If it was like there was a record we wanted to like put money behind on our own and pull the man, just go get that money, tell me you want this right now, and like pay us right and I'll put it in this And they said no, and it was like, oh fuck, I like, dude, you always like literally, you're gonna give it to us in two months. He's your hottest writer, he's working with everybody you want. You don't want to just advance us twelve percent of what you owe us already, Like it's the stupidest thing ever just to say what just like to make him happy? No, okay, fine, And I just never mentioned it again. I was like, I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm just gonna go and like it was like one of those moments where it was like, oh yeah, I can do anything. Like it was like like like I like, attention to detail is not not especially in the two thousands, So the nineties two thousand was not like expertise up in most of those places. It was like very like running a million miles an hour trying to keep up with Jimmy or whatever idea he had, and like all the staff meetings were like us keeping up with him really and being prepared and allays being a week behind his next idea and playing like running after it like it was. But it was, I mean that time at Inniscope Records was I mean, it seems compared to like when you go to record labels today and nothing against it, but it's very like sterile and very own kind company, your company, f so you know I mean, but I mean yes, but I'm talking about like the amount of artists walking through there, the energy unfair in the studio building, the studio across the street. Ron's working on the fourth floor, Artists running running into my office, going up to Jimmy's office for the meeting, then coming back and parking themselves in my office the rest of the day arguing about songs. I had, like the sports ticker running around. I had like gambling people playing cards at my desk, records playing like three sports batt Yeah, everybody just like there's gambling going on, there's records. It's like Sewan, Garrett and Polo arguing about a record over there, like fucking like Drake showed up a few times like before well before he signed anywhere, because he was close with it boy and Chase yeah with a hollow backt slack when they were running around at the beginning, like it was like all these different and just different artists and just coming to sh that time at Jasper just showed up there randomly because he came up with I think Dallas or somebody and showed up my office wearing a highlighter yellow outfit and just sat there for ten minutes, and I was like, this is the greatest guy of all time and he's still one of my dearest friends of the day, like all these things, and it was like that energy was like that's like the most special time, Like just there was those years that were just like and you couldn't miss, Like it was really like we were making records, like a gold record was a disaster, right, platinum record was like all right, fine, you can show your face kind of thing.

01:24:18
Speaker 6: Like it was like but it was not because you know, it was happening at such a high level.

01:24:22
Speaker 4: It was happening.

01:24:23
Speaker 3: It was like everything that could happen. And then y'all.

01:24:26
Speaker 6: Also another thing that I feel like Polo deserves more credit for is being a producer to break artists right, because every producer can't do that right. Every producer can, every producer tries, but actually accomplishing that, like especially out the Gate with Rich Boy, and then now y'all move into this R and B space and y'all got Kerry Hilson because.

01:24:53
Speaker 3: Esther Dean was a little more. She was hip hop R and B.

01:24:55
Speaker 6: She was she was a hip hop R and B artist, even even though she's a really great singer. To me, she skewed from her artistry. It still felt hip hop. Am I wrong in saying that?

01:25:06
Speaker 3: No? It was also it was also later, But.

01:25:08
Speaker 6: I'm just saying I'm talking about that. I'm just talking about the artist that he's working on. Yes, I feel like Carrie was the straight ahead R and B artist for you guys, and and when she came it was like, Okay, can he pull this off?

01:25:22
Speaker 4: To me?

01:25:23
Speaker 6: When I when I saw it, because I had also known Carrie. I known Carrie from when she was in the group with Anthony Dent from The Hitman and the group had performed for me and me and Carrie is funny. When she came on the podcast, we talked about it and I was like, Oh, she's dope, and me and her got cool after that roundabout through Ethiopia and we're writing songs together. So when she did the deal with Polo and then y'all brought in Timberland or she brought.

01:25:53
Speaker 3: Into the deal was done with them. It was a joint with the two of them. It was just like, Okay, how does this work.

01:26:00
Speaker 4: You got these two super producers at the time.

01:26:03
Speaker 6: You got Polo who's been more so concentrated on being like a hip hop producer and having these big beats to this whole thing, and then now you got straight Ahead R and b artists. Y'all pulled that shit off.

01:26:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a it was a it was a long time coming. Yeah, and it was a very unique situation because now we're getting into a lot of different things on how that all came together. But like Polo and Timberland already had to deal it. Timberland had a deal it in Polo didn't technically have a deal. He was just at Interscope all the time because he was with me. So when we did the deal for Carrie, it was like, Okay, they're gonna split it.

01:26:38
Speaker 6: But wait, so y'all didn't. He didn't have a deal at Interscope. For Ridgeboy, he had like a one off.

01:26:43
Speaker 3: But like Zone four, it wasn't a label label because if it was a label, we would have signed an we would have signed them like so like it was like they gave us a chance, and they gave us a chance. With Rich Boy, it was like a one or like a production deal, but like a treated like a like a JV. And then Carrie we got that second ants because it was basically Timberland's deal where because he had the label and we gave Polo half like it was Polo's deal, but I mean that's how it worked and Timberland. So now that whole thing happens, We sign Carrie and now there's like this low we're trying to figure out what it's going to be, and Timberland had this. Timbland ends up losing his deal at Intersculle, like Timberland and Jimmy kind of like split ways. And now we're we're trying to figure out care Polo, we're trying figure out to him. We're still working on the music. But like the because Timberland's original company was called beat Club, and the Beat Club was was Bubba and Miss Jade and a bunch of the artists. Yeah, Cary Hilson was like on the tail end of that, and I don't remember if she had technically signed to Beat Club, but she was Timbaland and and poland Polo. And then what happened was Timbland, Like I remember, like Timblands now out of the Interscull building but was still working on Carry Hilson and Polo callsby one and he goes, man, DJ, you gotta come to Miami. I'm like, I don't want to come to Miami. It's far, it's far. You gotta come to Miami. Man, I'm telling you, you got to come see Timbaland I'm like, all right. He goes, No, you don't get it. You don't get it. You got to come see Timbling. So I came down there and I hear the beginning of what is this next run, which is danger Hands, Timberling, Carrie, all those guys. So that beginning of that energy and that whole thing. And then I called Jimmy from there and I go, Jimmy, we got to give Timbland another label deal and he goes part. He goes, you're out of your fucking mind. I remember the other thid. I go, I'm telling you you have to do it. Polo was hitting him on the side to like, you got, Jimmy, you gotta beat with Tim. I go just take the meeting, Please take the meeting. Timbland comes to La and he plays a few demos. Carry was on them like whatever, right right, Jimmy looked. I remember him looking at me like yesterday, like he just looks and I saw the face and I was like, oh, this deal is getting done. In the next twelve hours. I was like I knew it and he knew it, and that turned into this magical I mean shit, Timberland took over. Like if you think of that run Timberland had from two thousand and six to two thousand and eleven, yeah or whatever, that was, Like, I mean, I don't because that's the is that the Nelly. Nelly thought, well, that's where that whole thing came from. That whole thing came from. So now once Jimmy does that deal, they send me the Nelly Fortato album and they're like, oh, they had a record together back in the day, get Timberland to do a song. We listened to the album and no disrespect, we were like, oh, hell no, we're not putting Timberland's new sound on this. We'll do it if you put it on a label and we get to redo the whole album that was finished, or at least not it was presented to me it's finished. It was like Polly and my guy Tom Panuncio and but Jimmy was exciting. I listen. I remember calling Jimmy and being like, this is what it's got to be if you believe in it, because we will deliver. Like Tim's excited about it. And I remember hitting me every day like what's gonna happen? Is it gonnappen? I'm torturing Jimmy, and He's like, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. And we got it done, and we went in and we went to the hit factory. I spent so many days at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami, like I can't even count, like because they would only work in the middle of the night, so I'm just sitting there every day. But like, and we made that album, and that album turned into Obviously, then he continues to go work with Justin. Then he made Shock Value and then and like that run it was a way to kick off Carrie and it was a way to and it was like in the meantime, we were like figuring out like if those records were gonna stick with Cary because then by the time, if you think about it, by the time Carrie came out, even though she was a part of that sound, she was like at the tail end of it, you know what I mean, Like she even though she was such a major part in the creation of it, it almost felt like she was like the aph artist to do it now because those records hadn't come out with her on it, so like Nelly had done it, justin had done it. The Pussycat Dolls had a song that was originally a carry song wait a minute on the album, Like those songs like I ended up becoming like, oh shit, I'm a writer to while we're figuring it all out, like what is the then? But then like and then it was like, okay, now we have this Timblan's hot, Polo's hot, but what's the record? What's the record? And that was that moment when like Polo played Turning Me.

01:31:21
Speaker 6: On on was like, oh shit, I still remember and I'm sure I said it on the on the on the show before. I still remember Ethiopia playing me that record and where I was like, you know, that's when to me, that's when things are special.

01:31:35
Speaker 3: Imber where I was the first time I heard.

01:31:37
Speaker 6: Grinding by the Clips, And I remember where I was the first time I heard Turning Me On. It was at the valet of the Westwood w right by where I lived at the time, and Ethiopia was like, you got to hear this record.

01:31:54
Speaker 3: I just need to need to know what you think because.

01:31:56
Speaker 4: It was so different.

01:31:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, so people could act like it was oh yeah, no, no, no, really different. I was like, what the fuck is that? And why is that not the first record? Yea, oh you know the record is it's different than that. And I'm like, because I went to the first video was Energy. It was Energy, She's boxing the host. I was at the video set and I'm like, this ain't turning.

01:32:19
Speaker 3: Me on this. I think it was just because you weren't in the video.

01:32:22
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I had nothing to do with it.

01:32:26
Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with it.

01:32:26
Speaker 4: It just wasn't turning me on.

01:32:29
Speaker 3: Brother. I was like, no, yo, you're right. Who song.

01:32:33
Speaker 4: It's a rocket ship? There are the shot guy in your pocket.

01:32:36
Speaker 3: To break an artist and really try to cut through in the lane she was trying to cut through, and you had to have something that made people say what the fuck is that? And it's just kind of like what like the bridge was for Fergie Hell and like cause it was like, cause you think about London Bridge for Fergie, it was like a lot of like when we were making that album, Fergie's album, Like they were great songs, but like some of them sounded like Black Eyedeace songs. The Black Eyed Peas just weren't off right Likeeople Master at that time. Like it was like like, you know, like those other songs sounded like like beep and a couple of the other ones sounded like people supposed to get thos no. But the what was the second record from I'm Trying to Fur Delicious was like sounded like a like it was an incredible record, but it sounded like a continuation of the incredible hits, the black ib ribbing over and over it with diamond Diamond, Diamond, diamond diamond. But it just like but to have ferd you have a project that stood out, I was like we needed like something that was like who the fuck is that? Like you play and you don't know who the fuck it is? Right Like Turned Me On was kind of like that. Like it was like like Wayne was as white hot as anybody could be, and we got him on Paula, I Told you, I Got you and then him calling it coining miscarry baby, like it was like the whole like her Mane and him saying it was just like you know yeah, because he was like, you know carry.

01:33:55
Speaker 6: And now he has at this point, he has two solidified breakout artists.

01:34:01
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. It made like hit songs, made.

01:34:04
Speaker 6: Hit songs from them. Nobody had heard these artists publicly before this. And to me, like I said, I don't, I don't think as a producer, Polo gets the credit for that. And obviously, you know he ended up he was the first one to bring back this black cowboy thing.

01:34:19
Speaker 3: I mean with with.

01:34:20
Speaker 6: Kane Brown or another conversation I remember having with him with I don't change the word again.

01:34:25
Speaker 4: You know he's black.

01:34:26
Speaker 6: You're like, I'm like, ba, I could tell he's black. No, no, no, you don't back he black. I'm like, I know he's black, Polo up right, But.

01:34:33
Speaker 3: You don't get it.

01:34:34
Speaker 8: You don't get it.

01:34:35
Speaker 3: We're gonna be great.

01:34:36
Speaker 6: You always say that if you don't agree fast enough, you don't get it. If you knew better, you do, which is another part where I remember telling him. I said, bro, you're so important to the music business because you're willing to stand on the table yep, literally willing to stand on the table where most people will just sit in the corner. And when you're trying to break new artists, you're trying to break writers, trying to tell people that this is the next thing.

01:35:02
Speaker 4: You can't just be like, yay, this is cool when I got this.

01:35:05
Speaker 6: It has to be you don't understand this is the greatest, because I'm the greatest, and I know what the greatest sound like.

01:35:10
Speaker 4: And you got to don King this thing, right.

01:35:14
Speaker 6: And I've always had so much respect for him and just that confidence to do that and to be one of those people in our business, because when people don't agree and maybe it doesn't work, it's even more magnified, right because just like you said, if you're wrong on some things, they love to Oh.

01:35:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing better than that. Like I know for a fact that like even though it was our company or whatever, there were people rooting against our record, sure because just because we had such a stranglehold obviously Jimie obviously like we had such like a in and like if it started working, it was just you know, our world, and no. Polo really is a very very unique talent because of his ability to live in both his real ability to put artists together that other people wouldn't do, to try things that other people wouldn't do, and be a recommend and be a recommend and be able to walk in those rooms and sell it and like really like yeah, like we yin and Yang me and him, like when we like wanted something, we very rarely didn't get it, so like it was like it was a very and like, you know, we weren't right all the time, but we had a really good batting and we like that's part of the business, you know, and like but like but like we really complimented each other well, and it was a really really good run that you know, I regret ended, like because but it's it's life. It's you know, it's part of that and I and I and it's business. And to be fair, I was blessed with working with somebody else for the last fifteen years.

01:36:48
Speaker 6: My segue now of then you go and you connect with Mike will and y'all go on another massive, massive run.

01:37:01
Speaker 3: And credit god of money making that got him out. Matt big Neil was trying to sign Mike to publishing, Okay to Ethiopia. Paulo and I weren't working together anymore. Ethiopia calls me and says, you have to go to Atlanta. You have to go meet Mike will And I was like, I was aware of who he was. He had records moving like a no Lie was just moving like a two Chains and Drake, and but I'd heard like I think two Pac Back was out already, there were and all those Gucci Man mixtapes, Like I was a Gucci Man fan, so I knew who he was. I go cool, but like, I don't really have like an artist in mind right then that I wanted. I was like thinking like like I don't know, like maybe Soldier Boy maybe like who could like who could I like wrap that I was in like that I could like try to like re resurre whatever, like if it's something that makes sense. And then she goes, no, no, no, no, he you need to manage him. And I was like he doesn't have a manager. I was like, he's like on fire, what do you mean no? And I was like yeah, She's like because he don't. I was like, wait, doesn't have a publishing deal. I was like all right. I was like okay. So I got on a plane and I go sit down there and I go meet Mike and I walk in the room and I just listened to him. It was at the what's that place called the with that only his the one studio in Atlanta Silent Sound, Okay, silent Sound. We're showing Garrett work and stuff. And so we're in that room and I'm just sitting there looking at him, and he's playing these records and he's talking and it's like and he's showed me all the business and he already has like Pnasty and Mars and plus and this like crew of ear drummers, and like he's explaining to me the business and how like he doesn't want to do anything until they're taking care of too, because it's family. And the way he's talking, it just sounds exactly like everything my business was built up. And we're just talking like and we're just like firing through it. And I'm like, this shit is crazy. And I leave and like he's at the end, he's like, Yo, we're going to the strip club. Like I was like, I'm going to waffle house. I'm not going to strip club. You want to come a waffle house? And he's like, noah, bro, he goes. Nobody's ever said no before. And I was like that's just not me, man, But I love what I'm hearing, and like, if you really want to rock, like I see it, and I like, I know it's only one meeting. And that's the opposite of me. I usually get to know somebody, like I've never worked with anyone on purpose in my business that I didn't know very well. Like I already knew Polo obviously for a long time. Then hit Boy they did the publishing deal with, but I started managing him after we built a relationship. Boy Wanda after we built Dean, after I got to really know her, Like obviously Kerry, I worked with Ethiopia after we already had for a while. Like everything was like a derivative of something in my company. Like I never like had had done that before, but like and I was like, let's just start talking and see what happens. And within a week two weeks, it was like, oh, yeah, we're gonna try this, and then we just built out this business. But Mike Will has just the ability to pull things out of people that they didn't even know they could do, and to have a vision for things. And when you talk about breaking artists and like making like that step with the person. Yeah, if you think of the amount of times he's done that, he doesn't get five percent of the credit he should get. Yeah, he literally had the record that broke two chains, m future, all those early records that like put like all that stuff they did. He brought like bands will make a dance juicy Jay, like that solo thing like he did obviously, Ray shrummered out of like group. Remember Platinum Records out of the first album.

01:40:29
Speaker 6: I think I was there the first day they came to Interscope. I want to say I was there. I want to I want to say that I was actually.

01:40:36
Speaker 4: Up there when they walked them in, I believe it. I was like, who are these two little guys?

01:40:40
Speaker 3: Yeah? They had not like they had just seen like trees for the first time in Mississippi from Atlanta, Like they were looking at the trees like they didn't know what the hell was happening, like that only existed on TV. No, but they I mean, think about what he did with Miley, like okay, like basically killed Annah Montana and both Miley Cyrus and like like that. Like twenty three. I remember Mike calling me and being like playing me that record because he had done it with the tron in Rock City and and he's putting people on it. I go, who you canna put on? And he said Miley. I go who? He said, Miley Cyrus. I said, okay, no for real and he goes, no, no, she's I was like, you're out of your mind. I mean, I love you to death. But and I remember leaving and I come back. They recorded that in the basement. What's the studio basement, the hotel basement. Oh yeah, night Bird at the by the bottom of the market. Yeah. And I walk in and that verse is laid and she's standing and she's going crazy and he's going and I was like I walked in. I was like, all right. I was like, I mean I officially know nothing because I was like I would have lost every dollar I had, Like that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but okay, sure, Like I was like, I mean I love Miley Cyrus. I was like, I liked her as a person. I was like, but I was like, this is and we had already. It all came from we can't stop, like they wanted to cut we can't stop. And I was like, okay, I like that direction, but like she's gonna rap rap like you're gonna rap, Like it's gonna be her Juicy j and Whisky Leva, like they're gonna wrap them. I was like, you're out of your mind, and like the record is what six times platin like a smash a video. It was a billion plays like I mean, it was like one of those moments and like I was like, all right, I'm not going to doubt, Like I mean, he got like future singing on Turn on the Lights, like all those kind of things that he like brings out of people that like, and he has a vision. He wants to help people like grow as an artist. He doesn't just want placements just to make placements. I mean, don't get me wrong. He can make humble and formation and like have to smash him on smash across the board, like his run was like at the time he had like ten records on the radio at the same time or whatever he had like that mic like you saw it on verses like people forgot and then he went verses and it was like, I mean enough people like it was like ah because if you looked in the comments, there was enough people before it going like I don't know Mike, what like and then you watch it, you're like he opened with humble, he was like, I don't know, I'm playing this far like I'm like, okay, cool, because then we're gonna go here here, here, here, here here like and it just like and there's ten records he didn't play that are massive.

01:42:51
Speaker 6: There's a moment that's been kind of floating. It's about the unforgivable record unforgettable. I forget it, yeah, unforgettable. And I'm hearing what that is, right, But as I'm also paying attention to it, I'm seeing it from a different angle personally, right, I see it from the it was absolutely bad business, then I don't I think that's clear. But from an artist's standpoint, he was a genius French Montana in saying I.

01:43:23
Speaker 3: Need this, oh absolutely right.

01:43:25
Speaker 6: And I think that is the part that's being overlooked in the whole conversation of never maybe not your conversation, just period of like you gotta understand when you gotta be a part of something. Right now, how it played out maybe could have been handled differently. Well, but if it was handled differently, maybe he's not even a part Oh never, right, Never.

01:43:47
Speaker 3: I'm saying so like, if you're talking about and from an act of I'm French Montana, yeah, and I want this song that was the only life changer, like, but I was the only like I mean like, there are people like, oh, maybe he could have got it if like and like and hindsight, anything is possible, but no, you gotta think Race Shrummered has the maneqan challenge. Black Beatles song sevent Weeks in a Row in the Hot one hundred goes right into Swang, which is the next single which is five times platinum. Either we would have we had Unforgettable. Either we would have a figured out how to put Jimmy on it and stripped it on deluxed it or b that would have been sway Lee's first single. Now calling the spade a spade, I'm not. I'll be the first one to tell you I'm not a French Montana fan. So I was not happy about any of it. Like, I was like, I don't think he brings anything to the record. I don't like. I was like, this is crazy. The only reason that record cleared is because of people that were involved on that side. I was then working at Columbia, so I was in the Sony building, so they had a little more access to me to try to get me to do it. Tubby was working with both companies, so Sean was on me like, yo, bro come on, he's sitting at the office next to me. Would butter me up talking about baseball bets or something and then throw in that he needs me to clear the French Montana record. But like it was him, and it was Jenny Drake and it was Zoe and all the people at Sony that were on me every day. And once the record was out and it had momentum and it was like we were like trying like take it, that will make it this, but it was like okay, like we don't have Like we know we would have used it. We know it would have been a hit, and we're fucking pissed. But at the same time, we don't know exactly where it would have gone. We don't know exactly when we would have put it out. We don't know how it will be now if we like take it down, wait a year and then try to put it back out, like we don't like that other version will always still semi exist. Like so like do we try to do the best business deal possible and deal with it, or do we just say, which is what I wanted to do honestly, was just say now, fuck it, We're just not doing it, because like I don't just don't believe in getting down like that now do I even know that? I mean shit, the French version may be because of how hard they went, maybe bigger than Sway's version would have been, even though like I don't really think that French added that much to the record really, but like he pushed it and he really like went crazy with it, like so went crazy, and they bet because they paid everybody involved a whole bunch of money to be allowed to use it. Everybody. So now it's like, all right, well, this is what we're gonna do. And I still don't think we did. We did a good deal on it, but we didn't do as good of it. Like like like I think if we did the deal now, we probably like would have held onto the record and let them use it in some way like as we're like learning how to like build out our business. But but at at the end of the day, absolutely if you're a part of French Montana, like I don't really do business like that, But if I put my French Montana hat on, and my whole life was based on breaking French Montana. That's probably the only thing he could have done, which was steal the record, which wasn't even like, I mean, he shouldn't. Ever, the fact that another artist gave him the record to record on in the studio was crazy, Like it didn't come from Sway. Sway didn't give it to him so like, and then once he had it, like like he just I Like, I can't say I don't blame him because I've been a part of things like poll. I've seen people leak records, so I know, and I've seen it work incredibly well. So I understands.

01:46:58
Speaker 6: It's funny because I looked at the situation and I put myself in that in that position. Right if I was thinking like an artist and I had a shot to do that, Uh.

01:47:12
Speaker 3: Yep, I was gonna say you I had it.

01:47:14
Speaker 6: No, No, I literally had a shot to do that, and I was only thinking of helping their record.

01:47:23
Speaker 3: Right, you're a person.

01:47:25
Speaker 6: But yes, if I'm wearing an artist hat and I look at it and I'm thinking of what it could have done for my career and their publishing and their ownership and the record I think a record that is I think is probably double platinum. Now I think I would have had a diamond record because that record is diamond in the streets. The up R and B remix is absolutely diamond in the streets. It's ah And there was a moment where I had a conversation with label people who said to me, you need to just buy this record, and I'm like, no, that's their record, that's their thing. I get it, but I want to help them, And for me, I just look at it like that was just how I do business. But like I said on the flip side, if I'm an artistan, all I'm thinking about is as an artist and I'm in French Montana's position, I'm like, shit, he actually made.

01:48:20
Speaker 3: It's a slightly great this move he could have made. It's a slightly different situation because he was also capitalizing off of sway Lee being having an on one record in the world. Also on the like there like that was like their one shot everything line I'm saying, but like, like the record you're talking about, that was their one shot, So you would have been taking their like they're as opposed to them already being at the top and you taking one of their you trying to you could use the thing. Oh you didn't even put it on your album. Like that's that was the argument. It was like, you guys just put out an album. You didn't put Unforgettable on it. So you're not putting out like your album like was out like two months, so you're not you don't have an album coming anytime soon, So where is it coming? Like what's the like? So they that was the that was that was salad and like so like, let's be real, like it's not on the album like so like they had like some like as opposed to which again you still could have, but it was more like that was that guy's shot that he was focused on a million percent that ye have been taking as opposed to something on the like.

01:49:13
Speaker 6: No, because multiple people were trying to take that record.

01:49:17
Speaker 4: Of course they were trying to take up of course, you know what I'm saying.

01:49:19
Speaker 6: And with me coming in, I helped calm that of like, hey, now we're gonna listen rants my till we're gonna.

01:49:28
Speaker 3: Go do this deal for y'all.

01:49:29
Speaker 6: Remember, So yeah, yeah, I started managing I remember, and I'm like no, no, no, we're going to utilize the R and B remix to push it up more. But this, you guys doing this deal, will now have it where you got the power to fight all of these remixes.

01:49:46
Speaker 3: I remember thinking it was your record. I remember thinking it should be your record or whatever. I remember the same concept, but I remember I also remember you were saying all I mad. I was like, Okay, it's your business. Whatever you're doing. You had an idea. Whatever you were doing, it was a part of an idea. It was.

01:49:58
Speaker 6: But it was funny though, because it made me think of, you know, when the whole conversation happened with Unforgettable, it made me think of like that situation and if I would have done business that way. And I'm just like still when I look at him, like, no, they were just parties. We're just so crazy.

01:50:14
Speaker 3: I'm like, I like getting the phone call about the I mean, I say it on my own show, but like said, the phone call about the publishing when he said he literally they literally said that he wanted more publishing on the song. I'm like, and I literally said, I know the answer is no, but why don't you add more parts? And then at least I could play it for people and if you're on more of the song. And their response was, well, we don't think he sounds more good on more of the song, so we don't want to put so we don't want to put him on more of the song. But because we stole your song and we like your song better, but we want more writing on the song you wrote that we took.

01:50:45
Speaker 6: I don't know if y'all spoke abyss or not, but I want to know did y'all still have a part of the master or no.

01:50:50
Speaker 3: We know we have a really strong royalty on the record, but it's put y'all on the mask, not our master. No, wow right, which would be you know, but which we learned. Yeah, okay, we do on some flop mm which post put out. That song's pretty big too. But I mean like it was about like just nothing. No, I'm just saying, but as part of the business, it was like I think we did a very strong deal. We did very well and we still do quite well off that song. But it was also like it was La Reid was involved, he was cutting monster checks to everybody, like it was like very like it was very flu it was very fluid, like the record was already out, So it wasn't like a thought out like Jimmy was already out, like if Jimmy was around never like you know what I mean. Like so it was like kind of like like Jimmy wasn't Jimmy was an apple, so like he wasn't Like so.

01:51:37
Speaker 4: Let's talk about that too.

01:51:38
Speaker 6: What was it like for you when you realize that Jimmy was leaving Interscope or selling Innoscope or yet pretty much because I'm sure and you can tell me if I'm wrong or not. You always looked at Interscope as like your family's company, business, family business.

01:51:51
Speaker 4: What were your thoughts as that's happening.

01:51:55
Speaker 3: I mean, it was such a unique thing because of how the Eat thing happened, Like like he like I remember him just talking one day, just like being like rawn on one of his rants. We're just sitting in the backyard and he's, oh, you know, he got it, and he's like complaining about the music industry is like it doesn't matter. You could have the biggest hit in the world, but what are you gonna do tomorrow? You have to do something new every day, as opposed to like the guy who made Ketchup made it one time, right, and they've been selling it for his and every you know, once every ten years. They make it green on Christmas or something, and yeah, and like like but like otherwise it's like it's like if that's a business, I need a hardware, I need a like I want that kind of like something that like is tangible, like as a product. And they ended up working on Beats and that became that overwhelmed all of us. Like I remember we'd be sitting and I'd be trying to finish records, and he put a new pair of headphones that to try to get me to pay attention, he paint the he had like New York Giants version. I have like the original version of the Beats headphone with giant logos on the side of it. I still have it somewhere. I have a Mets version, you know what I mean. Like it was like, how do I get you to pay attend? I'm gonna paint something you'd like on it. Maybe you'll care, but like and I'd be like, man, we got to get turned this record in tomorrow. You're playing my headphones on my head But like he was so dedicated the way they built that out. I remember being tortured at so many different video shoots, like you better not come back unless the uh, you know, the Soldier Boy video has beats in it, you know, interjection and we'll get back to it.

01:53:22
Speaker 6: I'm sitting in your office and Jimmy calls you are maybe you guys were already for one or the other, and I think he was having He think he was going into surgery for something.

01:53:32
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know what it was.

01:53:35
Speaker 6: Okay, And when you guys hang up, we're joking about y'all conversation. You're like Jimmy said, if I die, make sure that the beats are in all videos. And I'm like, oh shit, you do you remember what I'm saying the conversation.

01:53:51
Speaker 3: I mean he said that enough to me, Yeah, because I would say can we talk about something else? And he would say basically a version of that all the time. I don't know what, no doubt, but it was like something like that was like the end of every conversation was like is it inocent in that? Did you get the picture? Did you do this? And I was like this is crazy, Like I'm trying to get like a record done, I'm trying to get this like we have a day to turn it in. So that's the shift and the shift that and then when that started happening, I because I always felt like, you know, my life was incredible. I was like, and I had this blessed life and like it was like, you know, there were some issues with being his nephew and know the things I had to deal with and the things I had to Like, I wasn't able to be as forward as I was because I think Jimmy didn't want to feel like I was like getting played favorite too. I was never like I never did any press. I never did anything my whole career, Like until I started my own podcast six months ago, I don't think I never show the of the podcast. The podcast to the podcast is called the third Verse. It's fun. It's me my guy stack Quo, who is the craziest person in the whole world and an incredible hip hop journalist, justin haunt tous brains of the operation and deals with us two idiots. But like, yeah, no, it's that's a blast. But I mean until I did that, I had never spoken. Yeah, like I had like I had like if you think about the amount of records I was a part of the way all these A and rs and all these people take credit for things just because their name is on them. Like, if if that's how it works, then I don't know how many records I saw the billion, I'm not like a hundred if you put because my name's on every M and M record, every fifty record, every Black Eyed Fe's record, Like if you like, if that's how it works, I mean, okay, okay, then I'm a music g No.

01:55:23
Speaker 4: But I'm saying, like, you know who you are, you McDonald's.

01:55:25
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, so it's like but but I never like said it so but outside of that, like, my life was incredible based on the opportunity I was given, and I get to like do all this amazing stuff for all the people I love. I'm able to give everybody an opportunity, Like if you think of all the like basically every assistant I ever had is now a big shot somewhere, like I like, and that's I take as much pride in that as I did like either either either assistant or in turn at the neighboring neighboring. But in our world, I mean between like yeah, I mean it's crazy. Eric is doing great Erica Coulter I mean Chess, he's doing great, Like Tungi's TUNGI like Manny is Manny, Archie is Archie. Like these guys are all like you you got, They're all I mean, they've all built insane businesses. Himself, I could work for any one of those people at this point, Like so that's insane and like, but so now I have this. But then when Jimmy, I could see him starting to transition out, like I kind of was like I was happy for him at the end of the day because I like, I was never like married to being a record executive, like at a record label, Like I don't mind doing it, and I like doing it because of the opportunities it gives my clients, But I never, like I never loved it for that, Like I like, I don't like, I'm fine I do it. If an amazing opportunity came up again, I might just do it again. But like as far as like it wasn't, like I was like, man, that's I can't believe he's like leaving, Like I mean, like I felt like it was time for him, he was ready and it was such an incredible opportunity, an incredible ride. What he did build that into a multi billion dollar business, and I technically left first. So I once I knew that was happening, I kind of transitioned myself out of it and stayed on as a consultant, started building my own ship and like really started building the stuff with Mike.

01:57:10
Speaker 4: And so it was you own some of beats? No, So wait, you weren't even in the first round.

01:57:14
Speaker 3: Do I own beats? I'm not, it would be amazing, But I'm saying, did you did you get flight up of two of these? So three is hilarious? Sure, but I'm sure.

01:57:22
Speaker 4: I'm saying, like you weren't in like the first round of investment or nothing.

01:57:26
Speaker 3: I was not in the first round of investment. So lebron more beats?

01:57:29
Speaker 4: You know, yeah, what the we could have got out there?

01:57:33
Speaker 1: I know?

01:57:34
Speaker 3: Is that crazy? I mean you're not in the head No kind of no.

01:57:38
Speaker 6: Kind of fucking not bro kind of I mean, damn dog, you didn't get No, you didn't get No, I got a headphones, some stock.

01:57:46
Speaker 4: It's about stock.

01:57:46
Speaker 3: No, I got some stock. I got some applestock. Like I mean, like, I'm I'm like, I mean, I'm smart enough to make sure I had that. But I'm like, all right, as far as like, because you.

01:57:54
Speaker 4: Did put it in all the videos.

01:57:55
Speaker 3: I did put it in a lot of videos, Jimmy, a lot of videos. If you get if that's how you paid that, like, definitely got the short end of the stick. If it's abody putting it in videos, yeah I should be.

01:58:04
Speaker 8: I know.

01:58:05
Speaker 3: It's funny.

01:58:05
Speaker 6: I remember I'm at I don't know if I'm at the office or we were at Larry's house for no we were at Larry's house for something it was, and Jimmy goes Jay right, just random, he's back there, and he.

01:58:20
Speaker 4: Said, Jay, isn't your friend one of those baseball guys? And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, He's like, this.

01:58:25
Speaker 3: Is one dating me on it? Right, I'm like he is. Should he wear beats? Not as simple as it was? And I'm like he should.

01:58:36
Speaker 6: I'm gonna call him, call his agent man, And next thing I know, Matt Kemp is in the middle of Times Square with BT phones on on the big ass building. It was so interesting how Jimmy operated. It was so interesting how he operated.

01:58:50
Speaker 3: Literally, it was like, yeah, he was walking around handing it. He was literally walking around putting it on people's hats and taking pictures.

01:58:55
Speaker 6: That was the conversation. It was crazy, your friend is the baseball guy, like you said.

01:58:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I remember just showing up at the house one day and I'm eating dinner with his kids and we're just talking. He shows up and he had like polaroids and it was like not polaroids, but like actual photos and it was like Dwight Howard and then like this person and that I'd be like, what did you do? Just like walk around and just.

01:59:12
Speaker 4: Put it like what listen.

01:59:14
Speaker 6: The very long, the funniest experience and the worst super Bowl experience for me was watching a Super Bowl at his house and all he cared about was the halftime show so that they could talk about or I think it was I don't know if it was the launch of Apple Music or it was something, but like I'm like, Jimmy was a football game going on?

01:59:33
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he was. No. The football game was the atmosphere for the beach commercial. For the commercial was the one with the black eyed peas when he had to be yes like they really he really worked it into the stage. I mean, will I am? I mean, let's.

01:59:45
Speaker 6: Jimmy gave two ships about the football game. Oh, of course, I'm trying to watch the football game. He's like, right where Like he's like this halftime show.

01:59:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like, the twenty two guys are in the way of what we're trying to do here. Yeah, no, one hundred.

01:59:57
Speaker 6: But not even a halftime show, the halftime commercial. Yeah no, it was like the whole Like he I want to say, he was rewinding the commercial as the game had started back on. I'm like, hey, Larry, I'm out here. Jimmy just wants to watch commercials. But he wasn't want.

02:00:14
Speaker 3: To watch commercials.

02:00:15
Speaker 6: Exactly, but he was so for lack of a better time. He was so hell bent on on.

02:00:22
Speaker 3: Once he smelled it, it was like it was like there was it was relentless him like you know, dre like he like it was I mean, Chip, it's the blueprint.

02:00:39
Speaker 6: Another funny moment, Okay, as we're at breakfast with your dad and you and this I think this might have been my first time meeting your dad and you go, hey, dad, guess who Jay's friend is. I don't know if you remember this ship. I'm eating my breakfast and you go, that's how And your dad stops and he goes you're talking about the guy who almost fucked up.

02:01:10
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh shit, I was like it was right after to kill me, right after all that shit happened after.

02:01:19
Speaker 4: Now sing the deal when nobody.

02:01:21
Speaker 6: Knows that, I'm like, oh, ship, that ship was pos about to get me knocked off, man, because I know Tyrese.

02:01:28
Speaker 3: Oh that was funny. I remember that. I do remember that because that was like right after it had all calmed down, Like it was like right after like the deal got done, obviously had the new number whatever, but it got done, and it was like it was like, okay, everybody can breathe. But I that day, Oh my god, I remember seeing it and being like like I I bust Jimmy's balls over, like we used to get out each other like about anything. Like I didn't that day. I didn't even Like there was no like I did. There was no work. I don't. I couldn't even imagine because I know him so well and I know like I've been around him in some crazy moments, like I can't even imagine what he what like that what went through his mind at that moment. But all things worked out and it worked. Everything is okay.

02:02:09
Speaker 7: But like, yeah, that was crazy versus is still and.

02:02:13
Speaker 4: They let him in the Apple building.

02:02:15
Speaker 6: They let him him in Apple building, let him in the verses I think him and Dre I mean, I mean.

02:02:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they probably carried him into the building.

02:02:25
Speaker 6: No, we have your three hundred million dollar carre.

02:02:33
Speaker 3: Well, I was like, that's the wrong side of that.

02:02:37
Speaker 6: So yeah, your management, Yes, yeah, you went full R and B. Yeah, you went full R and B. After all your years and labels, all all of hip hop, all the ship, You're like, Okay, I'm a man's Kishko.

02:02:55
Speaker 3: Keisha Cole has been one of my dearest friends for twenty years. Yeah, so probably about as long as I know you in that same ballpark, so I got to watch her grow. She was originally signed to Damon Elliott and my girlfriend at the time was Damon's assistant, so she was always like getting driven around and whatever. So I met her very early on and then obviously watch vadn't have a license with Yeah. I mean, so many people I work with don't have drug I don't understand.

02:03:21
Speaker 6: Them, but yeah, but yeah, I wanted with Keisha to buy her first car, I believe it, and she didn't have a license and she was mad at Ron fair because they wouldn't let her buy the car that he had given her more migive whatever, the advanced, whatever it is to get the car and told her she was going to get it. And she's like, Ron, they won't give me the car. And I'm like, Kesha, you don't. You don't have a license, and I don't think they're going to sell it to.

02:03:45
Speaker 3: The whole process involved.

02:03:46
Speaker 4: You gotta have a driver, balls and stuff. Pissed.

02:03:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds about right. But so, I mean, you know, I've been around for all of it, and I've watched all her you know, her growth or ups, her downs, everything that she's been through.

02:03:59
Speaker 4: And well, you weren't at the first video.

02:04:02
Speaker 3: I was not.

02:04:02
Speaker 4: You weren't there.

02:04:03
Speaker 3: And then you're still the like arguably the greatest video vixen of all.

02:04:07
Speaker 6: Time, and you weren't there. Bro, I didn't. I didn't know until ask the fact I would have to sign an autograph.

02:04:14
Speaker 3: It was tough.

02:04:15
Speaker 6: I still talk about it. If you was there, I might have got paid because I didn't get paid for that video either.

02:04:21
Speaker 3: You're incredible, It's fine, were incredible, but yes, so you know, you being in the video made her a star and then after that, no, but then I'm just saying after that, like, so now I'm you know, I've been able to watch her whole career as a friend and be around obviously I'm ron fair incredible with the party, like got to be like a fly on the wall for a lot of that. Just supportive and just we were very close forever and we just remained friends after I left Innerscope, after she left Inner Scope or an m but part of Interscope. Yeah, And like I believe she is one of the greats. I just truly believe that. And I believe she is greater than she is even given credit for considerably great and she was given credit for so I always told her that I was always on like I believe you're like one of those ones, like you are every bit in that goat conversation. That's just how I feel about you, and I'll never change that. And when she would always tell me you should work with me, you should do this. But I always had like jobs and like managing producers and songwriters and things like that is like and especially somebody I don't want to say, I don't care about all artists, but somebody that I care that deeply about and that has been my friend for that long, and that I've been campaigning for her to be the biggest thing on earth to her for so long. I knew what that would take to do that. So when I left def JAM, when I left finally three years ago, literally my first call was to her and I was like hey. I was like, because she had talked to me like a little while before, like hey, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm figuring out stuff. I'm trying to figure out like where I am. And she came to visit me at how years every once in a while she would come to eat and we were still friends, but like we and I was like, well, if that's really what you're talking about, I'm not big on taking or poaching or doing any of that stuff, but if that's what you're going to do, like the timing would be now because I have and I see a path. There's like like you were business. You got to take the business more seriously to me, Like you should be doing so much bigger shows. The next album you make should be incredible ode to everything you've done, and like a resurgence, like all these things that if I want, like if we do this. I don't want to jump in just to be like somebody who gets a piece of what you're already doing that you don't like that. Anybody can do that. I'll just be a friend. I don't need to do that. If you want to really swing and you want to try to build this thing out the way I think we can build it out, let's do it. And I know and you know, and like we've started. It's taken a couple of years, but we've really I think built the live business to a place where she did her real first two headline arena tours, including a twenty year anniversary arena AE BE great tour that you know, she had a great run on, and like, I'm proud of that. I'm proud of how she's built and how hard she's worked and how she's built her and really reasserted herself in the conversation. And now it's the fun part to me. Now, it's when we go, I think, make that album that makes everybody yeah, you know remember, And that's where I think, and that's where we're at now. We're about red at that.

02:07:23
Speaker 6: And you're full in R and B world now, bro, And that's you know, when most people can watch this and be like, why you know we get that ship.

02:07:30
Speaker 3: He don't do R and B.

02:07:31
Speaker 6: Well, yes, he does do R and B and he's been a part of R and B shit and great things. But this is also a show of business. But the fact also that you were working with you know, a dear friend of mine who I love, and you are a dear friend of mine and who is a legend in the R and B space, right, And I love what you're doing business wise, what you guys are doing together, because I've been watching I've been watching the resurgence. I've been watching the moves of, like you said, the touring business and figuring out how to put her in a space that she deserves to be in. And that's not easy, and most people just think like, oh, it's such and such. So no, there are things that have to happen, There are conversations that have to happen, and there are moves that need to be made to put you in that space. And man, I'm glad y'all working together. Me too, Like I can't wait to hear the album.

02:08:24
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it's like trying to think of the right words, but like I'm very excited for what the next year. Like it's a challenge and it's going to be a challenge, but it's it's.

02:08:32
Speaker 4: So y'all working on it. It's ya ya emotion.

02:08:35
Speaker 3: Were we're in the we're in the stage of really like locking in on what it's going to be. But it's like we're there and we're to the point where now we've built the business. We've built the life businessupright, We've built it up to a point that we could do this and not like and that won't slow the momentum of having done the tours and not being like, well we kind of we kind of like planted the seeds, but then we stepped away and then so now it's like, okay, now it's like time to make.

02:09:00
Speaker 6: So the other question that that my audience wants to know when the funck is she coming on the R and B Money Podcast.

02:09:06
Speaker 3: You're the manager, manage the situation. Situation. It all comes back to follow.

02:09:13
Speaker 4: Everything comes back too.

02:09:14
Speaker 3: Comes back to follow the dawn. We gotta I mean, that conversation would be too epic. We have to make it happen. The two of you guys together. Is that fun? Is it like as fun as I know how the two of us talking are in the two ocation and I talking like we like, we gotta we gotta figure coming on this podcast. We gotta figure it out. Do you guys have a you guys have a Southeast edition? We gotta you want me to go where she's at. We gotta figure it out, saying I'll go where she's at. That's what I'm saying. All Right, we gotta figure it out.

02:09:42
Speaker 6: Now, don't give me this figure this ship out? Is she coming on the podcast?

02:09:47
Speaker 3: You want me to say? Yes? Okay, yes, she's coming on the Yeah, we're gonna my real friend in real life.

02:09:53
Speaker 6: I'm not about to do this ship with you talk about what you will, but yeah, say yes, ship.

02:10:00
Speaker 3: Love it is coming on the podcast.

02:10:02
Speaker 6: You heard DJH that's the manager. He's going to manage the situation and we're gonna make it happen. So, DJ, what's next for you? I mean, especially in its R and B space. Well, I think that's a very unique thing. Actually, Mike just dropped his album like we just dropped Reset. It's a long time between albums and I think it's really and I think it's a really special project. He really touched on a bunch of certain things, a couple of songs that are really impressive.

02:10:28
Speaker 3: One of them is it's the song AAA and it's with Sig for Ram is a spectacular carnatic singer from well from the Bay and India back and forth. But he's I mean, he's a legend. And and they have they have started working together and but if you listen to that record, you could hear the beginnings of it. But some of the music I've heard with the two of them, I think is the most groundbreaking ship I've heard in a long time. And it's really special, and like Mike is a genius, and like when he sets his mind to something, especially as parts of breaking somebody and entering somebody into and this is on a level that I think it's going to be very very special, and uh, we'll see how it all turns out. But I've heard a couple of the other records and like and like it's it's magic and like, so to hear that, like, you know, I've been blessed to work on a lot of incredible things, So for me to feel that way, I feel like it's something like that excites me. And it's somebody I met a couple of years ago, and then I was working with and then I was like my dream for him to meet Mike, and then they did and then obviously it just like it come together. It felt it's like better than I hoped, so like it's and then like you can hear it off this song, it's really catching, like let's check out AA on Mike's album Reset. But like the it's it's magic and I'm excited for everybody to hear it. What's the artist name again? Sid? Sid Sid S R I R A M. And from I mean from up like remand up India, So back and forth, back and forth, and it's.

02:12:03
Speaker 4: Like like you know, it's Freemont India.

02:12:06
Speaker 3: Freemont India. Yes, okay, yes, freem On India is exactly where he's from. No, but it is from the Bay but no, he's from the bed like I mean, like it's it's yeah, well we got over here, man, let's get talented fu. Yeah, your top fun. Come on, we want to know you fun. I love this so tough.

02:12:32
Speaker 5: Beasings are and songs we got to know before you go they're wrong this shore.

02:12:45
Speaker 3: They want to know, Yes.

02:12:54
Speaker 8: To you, that's incredible.

02:13:11
Speaker 3: We want to know that's incredible. I feel like Tank is here.

02:13:16
Speaker 4: He would have been singing it louder.

02:13:17
Speaker 3: He would have been singing it loud. He would have been doing his I know, I know what I feel it.

02:13:21
Speaker 6: Yeah, no matter how loud Ruben turns it up, I feel I turned it down.

02:13:24
Speaker 3: I feel that's my guy. By the way, I appreciate. I may not let he. I have just real quick for the top five. I have a great Literally, I was by my house and he literally we must have been walking out of me and walked right in front of my car and I like hit the jam on the brakes and I was like, bro, and he goes, hey, how you doing? And I was like, Mike, you're gonna look up? Well that what you do? Like yeah, it was right? And I was like, it was like incredible. He's like something like I don't remember. It was like a dentist. So I forgot, but he's I forgot what he said because I was terrified that like like like like I was like I almost ran over R and B Royalty. I was like insane, but it was a man love Tank and like that song is amazing. That's definitely. Can I put that in my top five if he wants anybody ever put that song in the top five.

02:14:11
Speaker 4: They haven't, I don't think so, but you can.

02:14:14
Speaker 3: If you want to. I mean that could be that could be five A.

02:14:17
Speaker 4: It's a jam.

02:14:19
Speaker 6: So okay, So we got we're doing songs first, or want to do top five R and B singers first.

02:14:25
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go more things like because I feel like just setting for my list, I'm going to go more people like that affected me and like my lifetime as opposed to like obviously the Stevie's and the Michaels and all those guys who are incredible. I'm going to do the things that like Kim in my life, like what my life and what I listened to them. So first off, which is what got me into the genre at all, would be Jodasy, who was like the first like I remember being a kid and like you.

02:14:50
Speaker 4: Taking, You're taking.

02:14:51
Speaker 3: The whole group is one like that, like that moment. Like I'm thinking of like projects, albums like that's what got two. I mean for everything the Goat. As far as I'm concerned r Kelly, there's no like as far as songs, as far as like what he is what what those records were, and just like what the fuck like over and over in one hundred percenters and everything.

02:15:15
Speaker 4: Yeah.

02:15:15
Speaker 3: R Kelly is absolutely king of R and B, the king of R and B. Third Usher who has maintained for such an incredible long time and is like recreated himself and what he's done just across decades is remarkable. And then the greatest reclamation story of all time. Chris Brown, who I think is the like, shit, it's hard to like just what he's done, dealt with, come back from and just the person, the performer, the artist he is is second and none, second to absolutely none. Yeah, and then fifth is no way. I'm doing a list with Alkisha Kole, so Keisha call is five. That's my favorite R and B female singer of all time. Yeah, are other incredible ones obviously, but if you talk about my artist, that's what it is. Yes, very soon and I love that.

02:16:03
Speaker 6: Top five all right now, we're gonna go Top five R and B songs.

02:16:08
Speaker 3: Okay again, Five songs that very much influenced my life in different places. Okay. The first one is The Great Pretender by the Platters h legitimately my father. I remember driving to baseball games, and my father is a Platters fanatic, so he would play that Greatest Hits album. Yeah, and it was Great Pretender Twilight Time only you trying to remember like off the top of my head, but like every day Frett and the Great Pretender to this day is like it reminds me of such an incredible time.

02:16:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what it's supposed to do.

02:16:45
Speaker 3: That like it it like it just to me. That's like when I think of it, I'm like, like, it makes me so happy and I'll remember it like for the rest of my life. And they bring me back to being in that car and driving to Shaye Stadium whatever, and like those records playing in the car. Second is probably my favorite song. Interscope Records is Ever put out Okay, which is no Diggity by Blackstreet, fucking jam so Blackstreet, and I remember they made that record. Like the very first thing I did, the very first day I ever was visited Jimmy. The first summer that we did is I picked up Teddy and Chauncey from the airport so like and brought him to and brought him to your life that's crazy. And I brought him to Gary Shandling's house to watch a movie with Warren Baty so like so that that was the first hour I was in Los Angeles. So but that song is one of my legit favorite songs ever, like Dre coming in remember the Girl Queen Penn on the end the Teddy. But I that song was just I can remember the video, everything about it just made me happy.

02:17:54
Speaker 6: It's crazy you mentioned Warren Baty. I meet Warren Baty randomly. When I go to meet Jimmy my first time, when I'm eighteen years old. Bo I go to me and me and Damon Thomas go to Jimmy's house because at the time, everybody was trying to sign me as an artist. When I first got to LA and we got invited to like one of his parties, I think he was at the Malleible House. Still, I think it was Malleable Maybe I'm not sure. If I'm eighteen, this.

02:18:24
Speaker 3: Is he moved to ninety nine.

02:18:25
Speaker 4: Yep, this is ninety eight, ninety seven, ninety eight or somebody.

02:18:29
Speaker 3: Working on board. Yeah, that's what it was. Well, that's what it was. So that's what the movie was. Nine. You're lying undred.

02:18:33
Speaker 6: Percent and we're walking in and Warren Baty has the biggest head I think I've ever seen on a human.

02:18:42
Speaker 4: I don't know why, and I haven't seen him since. I haven't seen him since.

02:18:46
Speaker 6: But maybe I'm just a kid and I'm still I'm eighteen, But I'm like, yo, his head is fucking big as this is what movie.

02:18:51
Speaker 3: Stars look like.

02:18:52
Speaker 6: This is what I'm figuring in Hollywood, and Hollywood have got big as heads, you know what I'm saying. Like me and Ty reached the same height, but he looks taller than me because he's had is bigger mind. I'm like, you gotta have a big head to be a Hollywood superstar. But Warren Baty has the biggest head I ever seen in my life on a human. And I'm like, no, baby, and he's walking out like.

02:19:13
Speaker 3: A nice to meet she. I'm like, yep, okay, this shit is different. No, yeah, it was a very uh yeah.

02:19:20
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's my I met Warren Baty's story.

02:19:23
Speaker 3: But Black Street was I always a big Black Street fan. I love Teddy and yeah and that yeah, that's all that one third. I mean another probab. Maybe my favorite song is R Kelly remixed to Ignition, which is like and it was a song that the kitchen like that I could picture like was jimmy'savorite song for so long, and it would be like playing somewhere and like it was like the remix to Ignition will come on at the party and it would be like what damn Like it was like so Remix to Ignition brings back incredible memories for me, and I absolutely love, you know, love that record. Fourth probably my favorite real like not that No Diggity isn't a real arm B song, but or like R and B R and B song I should Have Cheated, which is my favorite Cole record, which is like when I heard that, I was like, just the and just the and I was like that's when I knew, Like that's when I knew Keisha, Like that's when I was like, okay, she could be like that one ron and from twelve twelve yep, like and it's like he's an incredible writer in her own right that song like is I was like, I shouldn't she just still my face? Like I fight for it to be in every set, every time we do anything. I'm like it has to be. I'm like, I like it's my and then we already talked about it, so I kind of already like already discussed why this song is so important to me. But my fifth song, which is the only time like in my like I we cracked the code and released a record that was so infectious is Turning Me turning Me on carry Hillson a little Wayne, And that was so impactful to my life because we figured it out and we cracked we broke broken artists. Yeah, and then that went into Knock You Down and went into all of that. But like that song was and then and like honorable mention to promise because that was such a special moment with us with Polo slowed it down when everybody wanted to speed it up and him and Jasper made that record. That was a really cool moment and all that stuff. But yeah, topicks, those are my top five, top five and top five, Oh and tanks top five well yeah, top seven really tanks top five really really deserves to be Like it doesn't get enough credit.

02:21:35
Speaker 6: I don't now listen he just like on verses he made up the turtle neck, so like he made up to have We talked about segments and we needed segments.

02:21:45
Speaker 4: He made up that song on the spot.

02:21:46
Speaker 3: He's like I got one, Like what the fuck roast, but I believe he made that up on the spot. For shoot, each version is sounds like a song I would make up, like pick up a word.

02:21:59
Speaker 6: Probaby version of it. Know it's different. Yeah No, he's I mean he is the remix to Ignition.

02:22:04
Speaker 3: I mean, but it's I mean, Tank is funny as he's like he's he's one on one as well.

02:22:13
Speaker 6: All right, so now let's get into your voltron vultron thing where you build this super R and B artists from top to bottom, the vocals, the stage performance, the styling, and the passion behind the artists or the passion of the artists. So first, if you're building your perfect R and B singer megatron votron, who's the vocals, who's singing the songs?

02:22:46
Speaker 3: I feel like it's impossible for it, like I mean, not to be Whitney Houston as much as like I want, I want to, like, it's just not like so it's kind of hard not not to be.

02:22:58
Speaker 6: I guess Whitney Us is my singer who stays performance, Like who is going to kill the show as a performer.

02:23:06
Speaker 3: Making you some making you choose between Chris and Usher is unfair. But I guess you want to do this. No, I mean like I mean, like literally like Chris Raymond Usher Brown. I mean that's I mean, that's what it is. I mean, Jesus, like two absolutely incredible, But are you choosing one over the other. I mean, I hear you. I'm like, you're doing you should I should have done it beforehand, but I didn't. So I'm really thinking on the fly.

02:23:32
Speaker 4: If you can't decide to do Usher Brown.

02:23:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, Usher Brown slash it for all right, muches, I like competitive and being that who's gonna put the fly sh it on Olia Fly some great ones. Yeah, Aliah was Flyna's great, Maya is great.

02:23:47
Speaker 6: But yeah it was fly who got the passion who makes you feel it just you just see him just like ah, they just they live in this ship.

02:23:55
Speaker 3: Tisha j BLI I mean, but it's but it's but it's I mean, I love Mary Jame. I mean but like because I mean, and I mean and honored to Chris because like what he's been through for sure, just that passion just to be here is insane. But like you know, I'm riding with Keisha till the wheels fall off. So that's what I mean. Like the that's okay. And I'm gonna give you this one. Who's the record executive that gets to have this artist. Who's the executive.

02:24:21
Speaker 6: Who's the executive that you know is gonna make sure this artist sells a trillion records?

02:24:26
Speaker 3: Red, come on record, man, I saw how he got unforgettable for me, like you gotta like like respect it, like you gotta respect it. Don't get me wrong, Jimmy's a monster in so many ways. But on R and B and going here with those kinds of things, La Red l A Red. I mean I've seen it. I've seen the jump on the table, I've seen all of it.

02:24:45
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, you get me to this day. L A not fucking around. No, he's not fucking around. If he believe in something, he gonna fight.

02:24:55
Speaker 5: Now.

02:24:55
Speaker 3: I love that. I love that. No, that was great, bro, I mean it was Yeah, that was great.

02:25:00
Speaker 4: That was great. That's a great vote, Tron. I think so that's a great executive to bring it all home.

02:25:06
Speaker 3: Yep, I think so.

02:25:07
Speaker 4: All right.

02:25:08
Speaker 3: I thought you were gonna ask me like producer, it's not prepared.

02:25:11
Speaker 4: I know you wasn't.

02:25:12
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh wow, I'm telling you curve balls, bro, because You're not a producer.

02:25:15
Speaker 3: You're an executive, So I'm not I'm not.

02:25:16
Speaker 4: No, you're an executive.

02:25:18
Speaker 6: So that's why you got to You gotta tell us who your top when for that artist? Who that is? And that's l a read. We got one more section, man, we got one more section. But what we got?

02:25:28
Speaker 4: What we got before we let you go? Ruben got something else for.

02:25:31
Speaker 3: You real quick?

02:25:35
Speaker 4: Hey yeah, yeah, DJ, come on, but what.

02:25:48
Speaker 3: Huh? Very important part of this show? Will you tell us a story? Funny?

02:25:58
Speaker 6: Are fucked up? Are funny and fucked up? The only rude to the game. DJ can't tell us no name.

02:26:05
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever told the story without saying name. So it's gonna be fun. But I got I got two like what you got. So very first year I'm in I come to visit m hm. I go to lunch with one of my boys who's meeting another guy who works in the industry, and they start talking and I'm just there. I'm just a fly on the wall. I wasn't really whatever. I'm just there and they start talking and they are talking about how to make it in the industry and trying to come up as young a and RS and all this stuff, and all of a sudden they start talking about how, well, I guess I can't say any names. Someone's nephew now works records and he's gonna try to take somebody's job, and and man, that you with why we all got to stick together now mineus saying. I'm sitting at the table, So I'm jumping into this conversation being like, yeah, man, that shit is crazy, Like you got to like make sure like this doesn't happen, and you got to make sure like people like nepotism is crazy. It's like I can't believe they let that happen because like he didn't earn it. Now I'm just like diving into this because I think it's hysterical. Like at this point, I have no interest in working in the music anstrua. I'm literally just visiting and I'm I'm like, this is the funniest shit in the whole universe. So I literally took place in this absolutely this like full shit talking meal about you about well, I don't know who it was it was. I can't say names, so it was somebody's nephew and it was literally absolutely incredible. Like so that is like and still to this day, it's like absolutely hysterical, but like, yeah, that was legitimately amazing.

02:27:51
Speaker 6: And then so you can say your name. Yeah, they were clearly talking about you.

02:27:56
Speaker 3: We know that.

02:27:57
Speaker 6: So my question though is that the did you ever at any point did you ever be like, yeah, I remember when I was talking about.

02:28:04
Speaker 3: Years later, Yeah, it's amazing, amazing honestly they realized it. Well, I don't like that, like you know, it's kind of like a I don't remember, but like it was like, but whatever, it is what it is amazing. Second, so for a long time, have made obviously restaurants my home, like where I like ever since I stopped working at Interscope, I've kind of like moved around. I've been all the places, but I kind of like I liked that energy. So the only way I could rebuild that was by moving into restaurants. And that's kind of how like to make it like kind of like my own world as opposed to like sitting in a satellite office it kind of feels like a library. But I started doing that early on. And this is when I'm still at Interscope. I had a client and the client was doing really well, but they were they were approaching the end of their deal with me, and I honestly don't even believe in deal. I'm very much a handshake person when it comes to management. So this was like a weird situation, but it just happened that way. But like a conversation come up with another executive who reached out to me about possibly partnering about this artist, about this client, and I explained to them why it couldn't happen, and then not that I didn't like the idea, but I was already in a situation so it couldn't happen. We go back and forth, and I'm like, listen, I'm a very straight shooter. I'm like, listen, like my situation, like I don't know what this artist is thinking. But if they I'm hoping we work together because we're doing really well. But if it doesn't work out, like I understand, business is business like shit happens, like like if it's something like I don't control people, like I'm a businessman, so I understand I don't. I won't feel any type of way whatever person says, there's zero chance now that you've told me what it is, that I would ever do that. Like the relationship isn't worth it. It's just not worth it. You're like my guy and your guy's relationship is too big. This is too big. Everything is too big. There is no reason and there's nothing about it that's worth it. And I go, okay, but I was like, you don't got to do all that? But all right, fine whatever he goes, No, for sure, beat it to death. Okay, cool. Needless to say, a couple months later, contract runs out the person we don't continue, it goes and the person ends up working with the other person. I reach out like, hey, what's up. No response, no response, no response, and literally the text that I'll never forget is I gotta feed my kids. And that was it. And it just kind of like I was like, but I said, it was fun Like what, like why go through all that extra? But and the reason I brought up the restaurant is that the like the meeting actually happened to Jerry's Deli in Westwood to where I made where I started making people come to visit me at times because I was like, this is funny making all these hot shots come to a deli you need a turkey sandwich with mestead of going sit at their cool guy fancy places, but like which was also in Westwood, right by the name right by that Jerry's. But there were a lot of Jerry's. But yeah, so that was like, so the first one was really funny and it's kind of fucked up. The second one was just really fucked up and just shows like how I mean, at the end of the day, it was what it was. It was the deal that was. Nothing was taken, the deal was up, and it was it was just like the the mindset like I have to lie even though you're giving me the opportunity to not lie, Like I just have to say the opposite of what would make it easy for no reason, now you know what the DJ I gotta feed my kids, ye.

02:31:34
Speaker 6: Like like fuck, yeah, this is the business that we're in.

02:31:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, not even that the business that we're in.

02:31:43
Speaker 6: It's business it is, you know, and everybody handles their business the way they do.

02:31:49
Speaker 3: I just didn't believe, Yeah, that went that far out of their way to say this, to just say the exact opposite of what the world when it didn't matter. It wasn't like they were trying to take somebody who years up and like it was like Okay, I mean, no matter what, I'm not a real contract guy. But when you sign a contract, the reason is because when it's up, you get to make another decision. That's basically the concept. Like, so there's no like, I'm like a very logical person. Obviously there's a motion involved in everything. You work hard on things. But still it was like and I was like, this is wild. But I was like, I was like, all right, I was like, I that's cool.

02:32:22
Speaker 6: A man, you've had a you've had an amazing career and you're having an amazing career.

02:32:28
Speaker 3: Bro, this has been cool. It's been a blast. I've I mean, watching you grow to what you guys have built this thing to is incredible than you like knowing you a long time and watching you and seeing how good you are at it. I mean, honestly, you're to be fair, you're, if not the person one of the two or three people that convinced me to do it myself. So like and like, but like, what you guys have done is incredible and it's a blast, and I love watching it and I love getting a chance to be a point.

02:32:57
Speaker 6: No, man, thank you, and before you, before before we get out of here, man, I want to say too, I had a blast at your wedding.

02:33:04
Speaker 3: The fact that you did the.

02:33:06
Speaker 6: Crank that Soldier Boy with Soldier Boy at your wedding and also had the Yin Yang twins.

02:33:14
Speaker 3: That was the fact that I was able to have incredible the fact that I was able to get people to stay like and everybody assumed because I said, you know, the greatest rap group of all time is closing the wedding, and like obviously like Paul and everybody that I'm from Staten Island, They're like the Wu Tang clan is coming. Who is like my But I love the y They're in a better party in the world. So I mean, no, I mean, Soldier Boy was incredible. Will what he did was amazing. Timberland was I mean, I mean the fact that everybody showed up and really showed out for me, it was an absolute blast. I mean my wife, like everything she put into that was insane. But uh, it was. It was an incredible night and I appreciate you for being there, but it was absolutely I wouldn't missed it. It was a it was a it was a blast, you know, I feel about you and your wife. Man, Yeah, my peoples, bro was it was a blast.

02:33:57
Speaker 6: No, so thank you for pulling up on me. Bro, this is gonna be great. We dressed tolike and you don't have I don't have favy socks. Oh I don't.

02:34:06
Speaker 3: My daughter, he's a real girl.

02:34:08
Speaker 1: Dad.

02:34:08
Speaker 3: Every time I got like thirty different pairents of these socks with different pictures of herself a single day.

02:34:13
Speaker 6: I wish we still had the fake work run so you could hoop in those.

02:34:16
Speaker 3: Bro. DJ can shoot the ball, just so y'all know this.

02:34:19
Speaker 4: He don't. He don't do much sweating and running, but still if he catches.

02:34:23
Speaker 3: A standstill Olympics I'm a Michaels type athlete, his catch and shoot is deadly. The condition if there's air conditioning, somebody brings me an iced t I could do almost things. That's basically the whole thing.

02:34:35
Speaker 6: And listen, I'm J Valentine. This is the RB Buddy Podcast, and this is my brother DJ mar Milly.

02:34:42
Speaker 3: Let's see y'all next week.