Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #190: Bun B on The Music Business, J Prince, & Power of Reinvention

Transcript

EYL #190: Bun B on The Music Business, J Prince, & Power of Reinvention · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Behind every wise man is a trail of pain. So
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the reason I have all the right answers because I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: tried all the wrong ways. I didn't get this far
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: by thinking I knew everything. I got this far because
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I was willing to admit I didn't know everything. It's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: very hard for people to get in front of people
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: they look up to and admire or want to work
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: with and collaborate with and tell them you don't know everything.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Fake it till you make it. Don't let them that's
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a lie.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Don't follow that motto, because you're gonna end up on
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the work site or in the workplace having said you
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: could do some shit and then you can't perform, but
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: you can't come through, and now that's your reputation. So
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: if you don't know, tell somebody you don't know. If
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you want to know, ask somebody.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: My graduates from my school being forced.
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: Bad drop drop drop, bad drop drop.
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: All right, So I need everybody get on their feet,
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: and I need I need you to be extremely quiet,
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: because it's very rare that you have an opportunity to
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: hear from a legend. So we have to we have
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: to show all of our legends the respect that they deserve,
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: very important, especially being in the state of Texas, very important.
• 1:18
  Speaker 5: So but be somebody that you know, we're from New York,
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: but we heard the music, and especially when Big Pimper
• 1:28
  Speaker 5: came out, obviously that changed everything for us. But you know,
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: only I don only respect his musical side, but just
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: a very intelligent, articulate person. And every time I hear
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: him speak, it's just very impressive. So we're honored that
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: he's taking time out of his day to have a
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: conversation with us, and he's actually gonna have a performance
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: later on.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: So anything you want to say before we bring him up.
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: I mean, this is the trillist of the trill right, inventa,
• 1:50
  Speaker 6: the inventor of trill Man.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So it's an honor.
• 1:52
  Speaker 6: I know he's a Texas legend, he's a Houston legend,
• 1:55
  Speaker 6: but he's put off the Texas. But you know, we
• 1:58
  Speaker 6: we we the triangle, you know, we know we know
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: a few things about this Texas thing. But yeah, man,
• 2:03
  Speaker 6: any time we get to talk to legends, it's always
• 2:05
  Speaker 6: an honor.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Man. So let's do it. Let's get us going.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: Let's do it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 7: But were ready, bro, the legendary trillog But be himself. Y'all,
• 2:18
  Speaker 7: Thank you brothers, Thank you brothers for having me.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to be How you doing, everybody.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: This is the first time I've.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Been to in a long time where it ain't like
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: ninety degrees, but instead it's like fifty degrees.
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah, they heard that there was some New York dudes
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: coming down. They said, let's adjust the time.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: So you brought that. All right, that's what's up. That's
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: what's up now.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: First and foremore. Thank you for brother appreciate it.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: I'm blessed man happy to have this opportunity to speak
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: with y'all, to speak to these beautiful people here and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: give up some game.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Let's do it. So let's jump right into it.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: Obviously, this is south By Southwest Music Week, so we're
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: gonna be talking about a lot of things, but I
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: want to start with the musicse I noticed some entertainers
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: and some artists in here. How have you seen a
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: music game, especially in the South transition when you start?
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: I think you guys came out in nineteen eighty seven,
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: so that's crazy, that's like thirty five years.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: Most artists don't last two years.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: So how have you seen it transition over the course
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: of almost four decades.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Of hip hop, it's really been about how open you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: are to change. The world is going to change, Life
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: is going to evolve, and most people try to hold
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: on to what's comfortable and what's common and what's normal
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to them. But the reality is is at some point,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: no matter what it is you love to do and
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: whatever it is that you want to be a part of,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: there's going to be changes. Life is cyclic, and everything
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: inside of life is cyclic. So where you enter into
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: something is not necessarily where you're going to always be.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: The company is going to evolve, the industry is going
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: to evolve. If you're a musician, the genre is going
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to evolve and expand, and you have to be ready
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: to expand with it. I saw music go from literally
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: when I came in, it was cassette tapes in vinyl,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: then it went to CDs, and then it went to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: MP three's right. So there were many people in the
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: generation before me that weren't ready to evolve when I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: came in the game.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: There was also when social media and the Internet came in.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: There were people from my generation who did not want
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: to evolve and change with the game, and now they're
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: behind at a point where I'm not sure if they're
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: going to be able to catch back up.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Even myself, I was a little late to getting into
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: social media and the Internet and really exploring those opportunities.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: But I'm still way ahead of a lot of my contemporaries.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, I have young people in my house,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: I have young people in my circumference, and I listened
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: to them, I talk to them, and I find out, like,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: you know, what is the new ways that y'all are
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: engaging in things?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 1: Like, maybe I don't make the music that you listen to,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: but how are y'all communicating with each other? What do
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: I have to dance to go viral on TikTok like?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And the reality as things change, you will not be
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a complete and perfect fit in everything, But I do
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: believe you can always find a place in the culture.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: A perfect example that I always use is my brother
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: k Slay case Lay came in as a graffiti artist,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: moved into trying to be an MC, became a DJ,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: and that's where he found his true calling.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: And now he's been.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Able to build a substantial a group of followers, a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: substantial business and consistent revenue stream by not being afraid
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to go with the changes and being willing to make
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: changes and adapt in the moment. And for young people
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: like yourselves, because you got to be young. Because I'm
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the oldest person here, so everybody here is young. Look,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: take full advantage of everything you see. You have a
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  Speaker 1: lot of platforms available to you as an artist.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Exploit all of them.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: There has never been a better time for a content
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: creator than now. Never before has more power been available
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: to the artists than now. I advise everybody to take
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: advantage of it. I had an uber driver the other
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: day and he was like, Yo, I'm glad you're in
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the car. Would love to play you some music because
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about putting it out. I'm like, you
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: can play it for me, but it don't matter. I
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: can tell you I put it out. Whatever you got
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: in their phone, whatever it is you thinking, put all
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that shit out because I may not like it, but
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: what they've got to do with that don't mean shit.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I've been wrong several times in life, especially with music.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what everybody's going to like. I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: know what I like, I know what the people that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: have been supporting me up to this point, Like I
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: know what the changes we've been all living through, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I try to put that into the music. But as
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: far as what's next, I have no idea what's next.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: What's next is probably sitting in his room or standing upstairs,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So don't let the people
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that you look up to, that you think have good
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: musical tastes, don't let them stop you. If they don't
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: like what you're doing, they probably just got lucky in
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the motherfucker, you know what I saying. Everybody that's here
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: did not get here by hard work and talent.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: Some people got here because they was in the right
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: place at the right time. Some people got here because
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: of who they knew, you know what I'm saying. But
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the reality is is that you have no idea whether
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: or not you're gonna get there. So throw all that
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: shit up against the wall, Throw everything you got up
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: against the wall, put everything you got out there for
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the world to see, and then go home and make
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: some more. Put that shit out, you know what I'm saying,
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  Speaker 1: Because even if you don't make it, at least you
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: can say you tried, and you should be able to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: live with yourself, you know.
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: I mean when you're talking, I hear the humility, I
• 7:33
  Speaker 6: hear the modesty, and I hear the ability adapt. One
• 7:37
  Speaker 6: of the things that I've heard in a bunch of
• 7:38
  Speaker 6: interviews is your willingness to learn and surrounding people that
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: have more knowledge to you. Is that something that you've
• 7:45
  Speaker 6: always known that was the key to some of your successes.
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: Did you have to go through some experience and say,
• 7:51
  Speaker 6: all right, I learned the hall way enough, I gotta
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  Speaker 6: choose this route.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a little bit of both, you know
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Behind every wise, man, is a trail
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: of pain, you know what I'm saying. So for me
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to be able to talk to somebody and they be like, well,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: this is what I think I want to do, and
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I give them some advice, man, you know so much,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, because I did that and I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: fucked up and.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It didn't work.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So the reason I have all the right answers because
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I tried all the wrong ways, you know what I'm saying.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: So things that seem profound is really just based off
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of me dropping the ball completely.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: You know what, I'm saying a couple of years ago
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: or what have you.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: But the reality is is that I've been able to persevere.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I've learned a lot of things, and it's important to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: pass that information on. You know what I'm saying by token,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: It's also important for me to still learn things right.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't get this far by thinking I knew everything.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: I got this far because I was willing to admit
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't know everything. It's very hard for people to
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: get in front of people they look up to and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: admire or want to work with and collaborate with, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: tell them you don't know everything. You always want to
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: seem in a moment like you got all your shit
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: together right, fake it till you make it.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Don't let them that's a lie.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Don't follow that model, because you're going to end up
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: on the work site or in the workplace having said
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you could do some shit and then you can't perform
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and you can't come through, and now that's your reputation.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So if you don't know,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: tell somebody you don't know. If you want to know,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: ask somebody. You would be surprised how many people would
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: love to pass this game on, but it probably a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: lot of times people come up to them acting like
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: they know every goddamn thing right. When people someone comes
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: up to me as an artist and says, hey, man,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: I want to play this song for you. Tell me
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: what you think. They don't really want me to tell
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: them what I think. They want me to reinforce what
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: they already believe. People ask for criticism all the time
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: and almost seldom really available to receive it, and that's
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: where it comes from. You got to be humble enough
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: to ask for criticism and then even more humble to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: accept the criticism. So if you want to walk in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the room and act you know everything, that's cool, But
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: most people can spy the opposer a mile away. If
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you get in the room and you're around people ask questions.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: When people come up and try to act yeah, you know,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: not doing my thing whatever, you cocky?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, well you know everything? Good?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Well I don't need to tell you nothing. But the
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: people come up, hey man, I'm trying to do this,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and man, I never thought i'd see you in this place.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And if you could just give me some game or
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: some direction or something, I'll do my best to try
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: to do something for that person. I can't give everybody
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: my phone number, I can't give everybody my email. But
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: in that interaction, just the fact that you're showing me
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that you're passionate about learning and advancing your craft. If
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I can't help you in the moment, my assistant manager,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Eric is always with me. We always try to make
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: some kind of connection with people so we can at
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: least guide them in the right direction. You just got
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to be willing to ask. Close mouth will never get fed.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: So that's clap it up for that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: So let me ask you this because I feel like Troy,
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: we grew up on rap. Well we can't rap, but yeah,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: what we did do was use a lot of things
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: that we saw and rap and use it to business
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: principles that we actually apply to this day, like even
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: no other platform. Was like going around doing networking. We
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: did like networking events all over the country. That was
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: like an in store signing. That's what I saw from it,
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Like I saw a rockaway, I saw all of those
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: clothing lines. So that's like when we started our clothing,
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: Like you know, it's a good way to brand a
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: lot of different things that we did.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: We modeled after music.
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: I say that to say you was on one of
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: the most legendary record labels of all time, one of
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: the most legendary CEOs of all time, Jay Prince, How.
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: Was that experience? What did you learn from J Prince?
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: And like, you know, you at the forefront of the
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: Texas movement, So like, how is that learning it from
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: the business side from one of the best business people
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: that ever did it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: It was for me just really sitting back and trying
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to everything that Jay Prince was doing
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: because it's Leo is so diversified right as far as
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: just normal real estate investments, stock market. I mean, I'm
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: wearing a hat now Prince Beef because I have a
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: new burger venture at tril Burger. So I went out
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: to the ranch yesterday like they had me over to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: go look at the cows.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So for one from a brand and marketing aspect, Bunby
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: and Jay Prince getting together to you know, using bum
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Bee making his burgers from J Prince Beef, that sounds good,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. That's encouraging and inspiring the people.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: These are two people I look up to. They're working
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: together breaking bread that's a good thing. But then like
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: on the other side, like going out to a ranch
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on an estate, like Jay Prince got creaks, he got ponds,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: and he got a lake like I ain't never knew
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: nobody had their own lake.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Like it's really it's his lake.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Like you could drive for like five minutes and still
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: be on J Prince's property, you know what I'm saying.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And at first I looked at it like, Yo, this
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: is dope to have this house with all this land,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: and that's nice from a real estate aspect. But then
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the fact that he's able to also utilize the land,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Like I remember at one point J. Prince was making
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: like over seven hundred thousand dollars a year on Hey.
• 13:12
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• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Y'all right, which is just a byproduct that you really
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: come up with just from having ranch land and farmland.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: So you know, I always looked at getting in the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: music industry as not the end game, but as the beginning,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: because everybody I knew in the music industry that was
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: wealthy was did not become wealthy by making music. They
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: use their fame and their notoriety and the resources relationships
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: they built in the music industry to create strong business
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: relationships through sponsorship or what have you.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And then looking into.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Like we all start off with sponsorships, want money, Like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: somebody wants to promote your product money.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's cool.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: But as we get older and smarter, we learned about,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you know, equities, like I don't want the cash now,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I need the long cash. Like I'm not really hurting
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: for money, So why would I try to nickel and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Domini's people out of some cash if I can put
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: myself in a position to do long term business with them.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And so that's the kind of thing that I'm looking
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: at with Jay Prince, like having you know, distribution relationships
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: for twenty five thirty years, you know, through music, having
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: distribution through his cattle and his ranch and his beef
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: for over fifteen years, being a rancher, they're raising horses, cattle, steers,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: they're breeding all of these different things that they're doing.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he's also an absolute legend in the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: music business. So for me, there is no limit. Whatever
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: business accuate, man, I learned in the music industry can
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: almost certainly be transformed, transferred, excuse me, into other industries.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: You just got to find the right entry point that
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: makes sense and the shit that you already know that'll
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: work in this shit you're trying to do. And so
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that's when I look at j Prince, I was like,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: what did he learn about the music industry that showed
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: him he could get into boxing? What did he learn
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: about boxing that showed him he could get into beef?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And now he has a wine company, there's Loyalty Wines
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: that just seems like the hustle never ends. And I'm
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: still hungry, you know what I'm saying. And I'm twenty
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: years behind him. So if he's still hungry, I should
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: not get comfortable at all. I should be constantly looking
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: for new ways to diversify myself in my portfolio, no
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: matter what that looks like.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, what you're.
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: Talking about is it's very rare, right, Like you have
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: somebody who's the CEO of a label and you're an
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: artist on a label, but there's more than just that
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: CEO artist's relationship. It feels like there's a a mentorship
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: or brotherhood. Is that something that you've applied I know
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: you had to a Trill Entertainment.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Is that something that you said, you know what?
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: I need to replicate that going forward because somebody paid
• 17:09
  Speaker 6: that to me already.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily look at myself as going into the
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: music business based off of seeing j Prince and what
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: he had done. But once I made a decision to
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: go into the music business. And when I say the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: music business, I'm not talking about making music putting music outside.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about taking control of the business that I'm
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: in right, finding ways to take the music industry and
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: the companies out of my equation. How much of this
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: can we honestly do on our own? How much of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: this record label do we really need? How much of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: their promotion department do we need? How much of their
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: college radio.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: Do we need?
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: How many of these things can we sufficiently and consistently
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: execute ourselves at a high level? And that's time when
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Bobby realized we could do it all, you know what
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, And at that point, the only reason you're
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: signed to a record company is really for cap you know,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: just to say that you signed a deal with somebody
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: and try to show out.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: But that don't really mean you making no money. You
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I can almost guarantee you it's designed for you to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: not make money, right, So I used the early years
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: where the music industry tried to take advantage of me.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I learned my lessons, I learned from my mistakes, and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I found a way to eventually buy myself back out
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of that industry. Right basically, just you know, take care
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of all the deals I had, all the contracts, fulfilled
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: every obligation that I had, and now it's all on me.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: So whatever money that they may have beat me for
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in the past, it's all on me now. So I'm
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to be able to go and get that money back,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: if not more.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: See the music industry.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Entertainment in general is designed to find you at your prime,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: at your best moment, but also your most ignorant moment.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Right It's where you have the most passion and the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: less education to bring you into that industry use up
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: all of the talent that you have inside of you,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: so that by the time you figure out exactly how
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the industry works, you're no longer a valid commodity. Basically,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: by the time you figure out how to make some bread,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: ain't no bread. Look, nobody really fucking we're not rocking
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: with you like that no more. You know what I'm saying.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So I urge all of you to really educate yourself,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: not just about the music industry, but the music business.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of very subtle nuances that exist in
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: that paperwork. You will typically get a paperwork that a
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: contract that will be about let's say, fifty two pages long.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: You'll see five tabs, five yellow tabs on the side. Yeah,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and they'll say, you ask for this amount of money.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: This is where you give you that, We give you
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that money initial here, this is where you ask for
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: this many videos.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Initial here, you.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Ask for this, this, and that right, but they never
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: show you what they get. So it's up to you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: as an artist to know what is all on the table,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because it's not just really what you want because you
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: don't really know what it fully consists of. So until
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you know exactly what's fully available for you as a business,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: because you're not just an artist, you're a business too,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So you have to know not just what it takes
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to produce a record and write a round and engineer
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and get it mixed and mastered and all of that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: That's two percent. That's the easy word. Half of that
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: shit comes with the computer you buy. It's not really
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: difficult to do. You don't even have to be good
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: to make successful.
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: Me erness, what's up? You ever walk into a small
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  Speaker 1: Using But you do have to be smart to build
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  Speaker 1: a successful business before you do the art, know the business.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Clap it up for that. A lot of Jimsey thing
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: you're saying is just point.
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: We're going pretty far in this without saying rest in
• 23:04
  Speaker 6: peace to PIMC. So this one time, this resting peace.
• 23:07
  Speaker 6: That's like, that's like why I understood rest and pressing
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: piece to the pip.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Already. That's what's up.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: That's up.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: So what you're saying, it's so crazy because United Masters,
• 23:22
  Speaker 5: our partners in the shots, United Masters independent.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: That's the whole thing is to give artists independent.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: And you know, you always see artists becoming independent, like
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: you said, like that at the end of their career,
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: but like you never see like an artist who was
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: like the hottest artist in the game at.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: The peak of their career doing that.
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: And but one thing is like with the South, it
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: was always a certain level of independence like from master
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: p to rap a lot to cash money like slim Thug,
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: all those stuff, slipping slide, the whole, the whole thing.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: So what was that vibe in the South in Texas?
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: Because Texas has its own culture to kind of go
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: against the grain and have that level of independence early
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: before it was trendy.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we didn't really have an option, right,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: we had to build a DIY platform for ourselves because
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: we were losing based on proximity. Most of the major
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: media outlets exist in California and New York. So let's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: say let's say you're an r at Sony. Right, you
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: got three demos that come across your desk, Right, So
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: one is a guy, one is a guy from Brooklyn,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: one is a guy from la and one is a
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: guy from Houston.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: So first, obviously, if you're from New York, you're gonna
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: have more proximity and more understanding about the Brooklyn artists.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna be more prone to sign that record
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: because you understand that artists and have a pretty good
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: idea of how that record's gonna be worked. Secondly, you're
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: gonna look at LA. Well, I don't really know a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: lot about LA. But Sony has an LA office, right,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: so we can get some.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: People on that.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: In any media outlet that we have here, there's an
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: LA office as well.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: So what I don't understand.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: I can call my LA counterparts within my corporation and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: get the information I need to try to get this
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: artist out there so I can keep my job. Here's
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: where it comes in the problem with Houston. I don't
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: know shit about Houston. I don't know nobody in Houston,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't know where to start. They say this
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: record's got a lot of buzz. The dude seems like
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: a good guy, But I don't know what the fuck
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: to do with this, and I ain't trying to lose
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: my job trying to help some nigga from Houston get on.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: What is he going to do?
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Nine times out of ten, he's gonna sign the Brooklyn
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: artists because it's the easiest job for them to do.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: People are not in the business of helping you. They're
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in the business of doing the easiest fucking job they
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: can to keep their job. Soleast the less you look
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: like and come off as everything else that's happening, the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: harder your journey is gonna be. That's basically what we
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: were dealing with in Houston. We realize that no one
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: at these companies really knew anything about our culture, about
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: us as an artist, about our local music scene anything.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: They were only calling us because we were out selling
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: everybody locally and it had to you know, they had
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: to figure out what is all this shit that's going on.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: The problem is when you end up signing an artists
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and you don't really understand it, you're going to drop
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the ball. Your company's gonna look bad and your artist's
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: going to look bad. Now, all they got to do
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: is really come down to Houston and do like they
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: do in New York. Find out who's got the air
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: to the street sign them as an an R. That's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: how people like Sycamore become huge, you know, executives in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the music industry. But they just didn't do that. So
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: what were we left to do? Because we had a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: dollar a dream and we weren't giving up. We start
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: educating ourselves, like what does a record what does a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: major record company do when they're ready to sell the album? Well,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: they got to sell it to a wholesaler, a distributor
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: or one stop. What shit where they at? You know
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying, They got any of them here? Yeah,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. We went and all the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: local artists went to the local wholesaler distribution house. That
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: we built personal relationships. We walked our product in personally.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. These guys had our personal
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: phone number. Whatever store ordered a certain number, we would
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: go by. We'd leave pictures, take pay door in store,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: all of that type of stuff. We ended up learning
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the music business without the music industry's help. Once you
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: learn the music business and you find a way to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: build a revenue stream outside of the system, why sign
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: with them?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: What's the purpose? What's the point?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So in the initial instance of this, we were consistently undervalue, right,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So the price you put on us was very low.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So now if you want to do business with us,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: we already got bred. You gotta overvalue this thing. You
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: gotta pay just for the right to do business, much
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: less to profit. We ain't even talking about you profiting.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: You get to look like a competent corporation because you're
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: doing business with me.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: The new wonder Kid in the game that figured.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: It out, and so we realized that as long as
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: we valued ourselves, we could build a brand, we can
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: make a connection with people, and we could eventually get
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to a place that we were comfortable with. Once you
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: realize you don't need a million people to make a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: million dollars, you'll be a lot better off as an
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: artist because numbers in that sense, a cap like how
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: many records you sell is cap how much money did
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you make off the records you sold.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: That's what this shit is about.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So you can walk around with a platinum plaque and
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: hold your head up high because that is a major accomplishment,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: but you can't eat off that motherfucker. There's no check
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that comes with a platinum plaque if you don't do
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: your business right. So you got to decide if you
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: want to be famous or if you want to be rich,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: because in the music industry and entertainment that is on
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: most levels, two totally different things. You don't know the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: richest people in entertainment, but what you don't what you
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: simply don't you think you know because you've seen people
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: on TV.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: They're nowhere near the richest people and entertainment.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: Puffy Hole Russell maybe, but there's there's eight other people.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: Like they never heard the clarience, they vonuntil they put
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the movie on Netflix. Right, that man was here instrumental
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes for forty plus years. Like you don't
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: know the richest powerful people in entertainment, You don't.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: You just don't. Who TV tells you is important.
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: And that's true.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: That's true across every business and even in our space
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: as far as social media. Social media influencers are like
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: the new artists where they getting taken advantage of they're
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: not making money, but they got huge followers. They got millions,
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: five million, ten million TikTok followers. They haven't figured out
• 29:43
  Speaker 5: how to monetize their platform, so the people with the
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: influence can't monetize the people that have the money, they
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: don't have the influence.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: So they work with each other.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: So the corporation will pay an influencer a couple of
• 29:59
  Speaker 5: pennies and the influence is just happy to get a check.
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: But very few people have influence and money. Now, when
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: you have to influence and money, now that changes because
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: now you don't necessarily need the money. So it's like
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: if you're building your platform. Understand that there's a big
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: difference between making money and growing your followers. They can
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: be related or they cannot be related. If you don't
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: have a strategy in place that actually monetize that, you're
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: just going to be a million followers and no money
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: in your pocket. That's not a good feeling because now
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: they're going to see you, and they're going to see
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: you on the train like, yo, bro, you're just going.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: Viral whatever what happened?
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, just to add to your point too,
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: is like when you don't need it as leverage, right,
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: so you don't have to take the decision as an artist,
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: you don't have to sign the contract right now, I
• 30:42
  Speaker 6: don't need you, right, I'm making money on my own.
• 30:45
  Speaker 6: But I want to talk because you talked about growing
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: and working records, right, and so I want to talk
• 30:50
  Speaker 6: about two records. And probably the first one that I
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: guess we kind of got introduced to was Pocket Full
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: of Stones, right, So that's the first. But I think
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: the biggest record, especially in New York was Big Pimping,
• 31:01
  Speaker 6: And so can you talk about that experience between.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Those two timelines.
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: I'm guessing like maybe ninety four to almost ninety nine
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: where it's like you went from like, hey, we worked
• 31:09
  Speaker 6: this record and now world everybody in the world knows
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: of who we are.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, pocket full of Stones that was like a
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: labor of love.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Like we were really really passionate about breaking into the
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: music industry, and so we did everything we could just
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: to be seen and be heard in this space. And
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: so Pocket Full of Stones for us is our first
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: time realizing how to connect with the people that we're
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: trying to reach. Like, we made a song, we said
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: exactly what we wanted to say. We were trying to
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: reach a specific group of people with it, and they
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: we reached those people, they received it well, right, that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: was it. We just wanted to put a record out
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: and see it. Motherfuckers that we wanted to like it
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: liked it, right, that was it. We never really thought
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: about making money, publishing royalties, none of that show. We
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: just put a record out. We just wanted to see
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: if we were any good. You know, we got older,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: started signing deals and learning more about the music industry,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: we realized we had no idea what we walked into.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: So walking into a situation the way we did in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: ninety two where Pocket Full of Stones is as green
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: as you could possibly enter entertainment. Luckily, we had, you
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: know a lot of good friends like Jay Prince, people
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: like E forty, you know, people who were, you know,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: very strong independent owners, you know, give us a lot
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: of game about how to survive on a day to
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: day basis in the music industry, such as producing other
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: records for people, doing features, staying on the road consistently,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: all that type of stuff. Right, So we were novices,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and we were really lucky that you know, one that
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: we just kind of skated by for the most part
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: on natural talent. But then two our record company ended
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: up putting that song, the remix of Pocket Full of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Stones on the Minister Society soundtrack, which forever changed how
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: movies sound tracks had done. Most people don't realize before
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: the era of Minister Society and Above the Realm and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: all that type of stuff, most movie soundtracks were done
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: by one person. You know, one person would do the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: entire movie soundtrack, d the whole album. Minister Society was
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: one of the first instances where a label took the charge.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Like the contract wasn't given to an artist for the soundtrack.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: The contract was given to a label. So the label
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: used it as a marketing tool and promotional tool and
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: basically just put all their artists on that motherfucker.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: But at the core of the movie, the message that
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: we were sending out and the world that we spoke
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to was exactly the world that the movie took place in.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: So our song, more than most songs on the soundtrack,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: actually made sense with the movie as opposed to everything
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: else that was just put there so the record could
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: exploit the opportunity. Fast forward to Big Pimp, and now
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: we're older, now we're educated, we're more savvy, we're more nuance.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: We have the biggest opportunity possible presented to us. We're
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: in a perfect position to take full advantage of the opportunity. Right,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: make the highest more money we've ever made on a song,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: put ourselves in front of more people than ever, ride
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: the energy momentum, one of the hottest artists in the world.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: So not only not only are we presented with the opportunity, right,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: we're able to accept the opportunity and capitalize off the opportunity. So,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: once we were connected with such a huge hit record,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: immediately shows your shows that your bookings go up, The
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: price for the bookings go up.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, The places you get booked
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: go up.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: You go from playing regular nightclubs and maybe two three
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: thousand seedars to get and put on arena tours. Now
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: you're playing basketball stadiums things like that. Now, okay, now
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: we're playing with merch. Right, let's start trying to take
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: advantage of this merch because we're in front of more
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: and more people. The more prepared you are for the
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: opportunities in front of you, the more you can take
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: advantage of these oppts tunities. And you never know when
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: they're going to be in front of you, so you
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: got to stay ready at all times. But as the
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: saying goals, if you stay ready, you ain't got to
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: get ready.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: That's the fact that reminds me of when Death Road
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: did Above the Rim soundtrack.
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I would saying a couple of soundtracks even
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: like the the Waiting extil where the Face Records had
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: everybody on it.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: It became the practice, and it became an outlet for
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: labels to show Kate talent on the grand.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: So I gotta give y'all credit to right, because I
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: remember watching the making of the video for Big Pimpin.
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: And ever since I saw that, I'm like, I have
• 35:34
  Speaker 6: to go to Carnival, so like shout out because that
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: was epic.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: That was that was different as a boyfrom Texas going
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: to the Caribbean to Carnival was an eye opening. It
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: was I could have messed. It was Marty Graw but
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: with way less clothing. Let me ask you this before
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: we wrap.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: You're professor at Rice University taught an interesting class hip
• 35:58
  Speaker 5: hop and religion.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Who that Yeah, without going too deep into it because
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: we'd be here for a whole other hour. Throughout the
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: course of black history in America, from you know, post
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: slavery to modern times, music and religion has always been
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: the way that people of color have communed, gathered shared information,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and engage with each other. Once black people were no
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: longer enslaved, they still weren't dealing with Jim Crow and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: they couldn't they couldn't be educated. There were so many things,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: So if you were black and you wanted to know things,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: you had to go to church. The pastor was often
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the most well read, had the deepest library, and was
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: privy to the most information. So for black people if
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: you wanted to know what was going on with black people,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: you went to church and got your information. Well, in
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: present day times, for many people in black society, they
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: still go to church for information, and even if they
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: don't get there a CNN level of information, they still
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: get what they feel they need in order to get
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: through life. So Grandma go to church every day, not
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on in the Ukraine, but
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you know, to reinforce the idea
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: that you worships the true and live in God, and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: that if I obey the rules of God, and these
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: blessings will hand and will go down through my family
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: and it will all kind of peter down. But the
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: reality is is that it's not a perfect world that
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: we live in, you know what I'm saying, And sooner
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: or later we're gonna have to put everything that we
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: want on the line to get where we're trying to go.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: And the entertainment industry is going to try its best
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: to get you to bear your soul for profit, but
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: then also to manipulate you. As soon as they find
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: out what you love, they're going to try to saturate
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you with that and make sure you have an abundance
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: of it, so that you're always sedated and numb to
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: everything else that's going on. I encourage every young person
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: in here to buck the fucking system. The only way
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: this gets better for any of you is collectively through
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: all of you. The only way we've gotten this far
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and entertainment and as a culture is because we stayed
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: unified and we kept a strong message. Hip hop like
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: religions where many of our young people go to and
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: get their information, it's the space in which they commune
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and gather and learn and live with each other. And
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: for some people who have grown up in households or
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: environments and where they've had compromises in the worship process,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: maybe they start a preacher somewhere messing with a boy
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: or a girl somewhere, but he's not supposed to are
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: driving around in a car that's really too nice for him,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: with a ring that's really too shiny for them, And
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: maybe they just don't get what they need from organized
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: religious practices.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: So for some people, hip hop does that for them.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: The people they meet, the places they go, the things
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: they see, the activities they participate in through hip hop
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: culture helps them to actually contribute to society and be
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: a better person. And so we talk about the parallels
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: about what religion gives us, what hip hop gives us,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: where religion guides us, where hip hop guides us. And
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the notion is that religion is really supposed to help
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: you answer the big questions in life. Who are we?
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: Why we hear? You know what I'm saying? Does this
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: life even make sense? And for some people, if they're Catholic,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they just they don't trust the church, right, you know.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: And if they're Baptists, they see the prosperity preachers, they
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: don't trust the church, right, you know what I'm saying.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: But you'd be surprised how much faith people give to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: their DJ.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Like when you go to a hip hop concert for
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know, just throw a name out there, say
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: a little Baby right when we're all.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: In that space.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: If we don't know nothing else about each other, we
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: know we all love little Baby, right, so we can
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: build on that. You'll be next to somebody at a
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: concert and you know it'd be like, Yo, this is
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: my shit right here, word that's my shit, And then
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: y'all both turn up right there and and maybe one
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: person pulls out some weed and pass around, you know
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And next thing, you know, you got
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: a friend. Y're all finna go to the bar. Y'all
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: want something, you know what I'm saying. That kind of
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: a thing hip hop did that. Hip hop brought you
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to that space. Hip Hop encourage you to be open
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: to other people, to recognize like minded individuals and not
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: be afraid to communicate. That's helping you be a better person.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: That's contributed to society. And for some people, religion never
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: did and could never do that in their eyes. And
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: so that's what we just talk about as the parallels
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: between the two, how they walk, how they walk together,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: how they walk in SINC, and how they walk even
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: when not together or in SINC in the same time
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: direction towards the same goals.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Man, I wish we would have had that class, right,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, having this kind of don't they feel
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: like church? Right? Don't this conversation feel like church? Y'all
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: are in the pews right now, somebody passed the plate. Shit, That's.
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: That's the type of class were not missing at all.
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: That I mean extremely profound. One of the things that
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: you've said recently and I thought this was like one
• 41:22
  Speaker 6: of the most profound things I've ever heard, is that
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: it's tough to enjoy money when people know you have it.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And I was like, Oh, that's a fuck. Can you
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: expand on that? Yeah, it's about being low key. Right.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: If somebody know you got five dollars and they need
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: five dollars, they're gonna ask you for five dollars. Most
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of us have been in the room with multi millionaires
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and had no idea because they didn't have the signs
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of what money looks like. We didn't see the belt,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: we didn't see the shoes, we didn't see the chain
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: or the necklace, right, So we just assumed they were
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: just average nine to five us.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: But you're never gonna see.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Bill Gates with a Gucci bel you never gonna see
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: Warren Buffett with a piece of chain on, right, because
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: they're not about showing money. They're about making money. The
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: more money you make when you have a really good
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: system of making money and bringing money in, unless you're
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: just a show off, you are going out of your
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: way to keep as much of that money as possible.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: If you got a good thing, the only way to
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: keep a good thing is to be quiet about a
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: good thing. If you keep telling everybody you got a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: bad woman and she's all this and all that, they're
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: going to go after your woman. If you tell your
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: friends you got a fine man, they got a good job,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: and take care of you, and take care they are
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: going to go after your man.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: Celebrate in silence.
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: There you have it made the church say amen, give
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: it up for the legend. Bud bete, ladies and gentlemen.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: Incredible, incredible, My graduate from my school being forced bad
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: drop bag drop my drop, bad drop drop.
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