Latest / Earn Your Leisure / EYL #256 How To Negotiate Contracts, Trademarks, Copyrights, & Legal Protection For Your Business

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EYL #256 How To Negotiate Contracts, Trademarks, Copyrights, & Legal Protection For Your Business · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 4: It's been a minute.
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  Speaker 5: Sure is going to be a very educational episode.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Back to the original roots.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: We kind of like dive into professions and really, you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: learn about the people that's in the profession, but even
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: more importantly, learn about the end and outs and the
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: inner workings of said craft. So this is extremely important,
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: especially when you look at, you know, the space that
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: we're in.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: You got to have a lawyer, so more points lawyer piece.
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: You heard Jay, I gotta have it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: So Amy or Rafo is our entertainment lawyer. We have
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: a few different lawyers for you know, different things, but
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: the entertainment lawyer would usually negotiate contracts or at least
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: read over a contract see if anything is wrong, if
• 2:43
  Speaker 5: something needs to be added.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: They be careful today because they play a lot. Yeah,
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: that's why it's important.
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  Speaker 5: So, I mean, even if you look at the you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: a lot of musical artist, different things in natu date
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: say the thing, you know, they weren't happy about the
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: deal that they got. It felt like they got short changed. Uh.
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  Speaker 5: That falls on the attorney's behalf. Because it's the attorney's
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: job to advocate for the client. Even if they're not
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  Speaker 5: one hundred percent educated themselves on what to ask for,
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: they have to enlighten them like, well, I think this
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: is a good idea. Ultimately is the client's decision to
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: do what they want to do, but at least educate
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: them on like, you know, what is best practices, what's advisable,
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  Speaker 5: what is you know, industry standard, different things of that nature.
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  Speaker 5: So Amy has been our lawyer for a few years
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  Speaker 5: and worked with us, you know in a variety of
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: different things that we have and dealing with corporate dealing
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: with different you know, sponsorships, dealing with different brand partnerships,
• 3:38
  Speaker 5: different things of that nature. So it'll be a through
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: conversation to have about your your career path, but also
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: about just the industry period as far as you know,
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: entertainment law and law and contracts and you know, now
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  Speaker 5: we're in the age of AI and different things of
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: that nature. So you know, it's a lot, a lot
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  Speaker 5: to talk about. So first and foremost, thank you for
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: joining us.
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  Speaker 7: Thank you all for having me. What a blessing to
• 4:00
  Speaker 7: be with my guys, as I effectively call you all.
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  Speaker 4: Y'all know that for sure. Thank you and thank you all.
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  Speaker 5: Right, so let's get into this. How do you start
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: as entertainment like, what's your journey to actually becoming an
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: entertainment lawyer?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, So first I gotta start by saying this because
• 4:18
  Speaker 7: origin stories are massive to me. I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina.
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: You may say, what does that have to do with it.
• 4:24
  Speaker 7: I came up in the arts. I was a trained dancer,
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  Speaker 7: which many of my clients, like you all, may not
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  Speaker 7: know that.
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  Speaker 4: You know, so I was an artist.
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  Speaker 7: So I was an artist. So I did that for
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  Speaker 7: sixteen years of my life, and I wanted if I
• 4:39
  Speaker 7: had it my way, I would have danced for a lee.
• 4:41
  Speaker 7: Like I had this planned out. You all, it's going
• 4:43
  Speaker 7: to be a dance major, going to do that for
• 4:45
  Speaker 7: X amount of years. Your body gives you a good
• 4:47
  Speaker 7: maybe five seven years to do that, and then nobody.
• 4:50
  Speaker 7: I have no lawyers in my family, so I was like, oh,
• 4:53
  Speaker 7: this long thing I heard. You know, I'm the youngest
• 4:54
  Speaker 7: of five kids. They said I was argumentative, a little bossy,
• 4:57
  Speaker 7: so hey, lawyer, okay, keep at the back of my mind.
• 5:00
  Speaker 7: So I tried it out in college for dance programs,
• 5:02
  Speaker 7: did not get in. So I was like, okay, God,
• 5:05
  Speaker 7: I'm eighteen. There's other goals here, But how can I
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: get myself close to my creatives as I call it,
• 5:10
  Speaker 7: because if I'm not doing it, I need to be
• 5:12
  Speaker 7: around it. It's my lifeline. So that was my start
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  Speaker 7: of deciding, like, Okay, I don't know how I'm going
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  Speaker 7: to get there, but I need to do entertainment law okay.
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  Speaker 5: So and then you always because you have your own
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  Speaker 5: pricortes independent, you're always independent, or you worked for a
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  Speaker 5: major firm at one point.
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  Speaker 7: So I came out of law school, I worked in
• 5:30
  Speaker 7: house where a tech coming school. Oh, I went to
• 5:32
  Speaker 7: UNC Chapel Hill, I'm atar Hill Carolina, I'm undergrad, and
• 5:36
  Speaker 7: then North Carolina Central for law school. And I love
• 5:39
  Speaker 7: the juxtaposition of the two because I went to predominantly
• 5:41
  Speaker 7: white university and historically black college. So I just think,
• 5:44
  Speaker 7: you know, the way God has always aligned things for me.
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  Speaker 7: It's never been linear, and it's allowed me to have
• 5:48
  Speaker 7: different experiences so I can be in different rooms and
• 5:50
  Speaker 7: how to relate to different people. So that's first. I
• 5:53
  Speaker 7: did all my school in North Carolina because sorry, I
• 5:56
  Speaker 7: got a brag on my state. We have really dope universities,
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: so there was no reason for me to leave went
• 6:01
  Speaker 7: to law school. After my first year, I worked in
• 6:04
  Speaker 7: house council at a tech company. It was at the
• 6:07
  Speaker 7: times called Sas Institute. It was the world's largest privately
• 6:11
  Speaker 7: held tech company. Nowhere closer to entertainment. But then the
• 6:15
  Speaker 7: recession happened. I graduated from law school during the recession.
• 6:18
  Speaker 7: It's very important to say because it was a pivot
• 6:20
  Speaker 7: for a lot of people. There's some of my colleagues
• 6:22
  Speaker 7: who graduate from law school didn't get a legal drop
• 6:24
  Speaker 7: for three years. So I went was in house, never
• 6:27
  Speaker 7: a perfect time to take a risk, and I said,
• 6:29
  Speaker 7: I'm going to move to Atlanta. New York. New York
• 6:31
  Speaker 7: was on the top of my mind. I interned in
• 6:34
  Speaker 7: New York. You all, so all these interns and these
• 6:36
  Speaker 7: people that got these stories, y'all don't understand because I
• 6:40
  Speaker 7: had to commute from Hillside, New Jersey, to catch a
• 6:43
  Speaker 7: bus to catch the path to go to World Trade Center,
• 6:47
  Speaker 7: to walk to Fulton Street for my internship in South
• 6:50
  Speaker 7: Street Seaport fifteen years ago. So I started out with
• 6:53
  Speaker 7: the entertainment law firm. It was like, I gotta do
• 6:55
  Speaker 7: this again. It's important for me to say I'm from Raleigh,
• 6:57
  Speaker 7: North Carolina, because a lot of those opportunities on come
• 7:00
  Speaker 7: that way. You gotta go find it, you gotta go
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  Speaker 7: seek it. And so I went back to Durham, North
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  Speaker 7: Carolina to go to law school, having this in my
• 7:06
  Speaker 7: mind like I can't do anything else, and then just
• 7:08
  Speaker 7: building relationships. It doesn't start when you get out, It
• 7:11
  Speaker 7: starts when you're in school.
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  Speaker 4: Does that relationship building start as an intern because a
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: lot of us in orders to intern to doing some professions.
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  Speaker 4: You hear about it. You hear about it in music.
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  Speaker 4: I work my way up at the latter. What was
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: the life of an intern, like inside of a law field.
• 7:28
  Speaker 7: Was everything you hear about in the labels and everything
• 7:30
  Speaker 7: else you're doing the grunt work. I was faxing, grabbing coffee,
• 7:34
  Speaker 7: doing whatever you might become in law Schonna Maake careds
• 7:36
  Speaker 7: about it, like you know you're doing you're going there.
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  Speaker 7: But what it exposed me to is I got to
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  Speaker 7: go inside of Sony. I got to go and spend
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  Speaker 7: a day there like I'm in New York in the
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  Speaker 7: thick of things. I got to meet with A and
• 7:51
  Speaker 7: R and record execs. I got to tour Warners building.
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  Speaker 7: So it allows you to see what the inner workings are.
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: And like they say, out of sausage is made right
• 8:00
  Speaker 7: in there and you take that. And for me, it
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  Speaker 7: helps me protect the people I'm supposed to protect. Everybody's
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  Speaker 7: creative process is different, but a lot of times with
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  Speaker 7: somebody like me, it was a true creative and I
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  Speaker 7: hope it even shows up. And what I do with
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  Speaker 7: you all, Yes, I have four corners of the document.
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  Speaker 7: We figure out different ways to get to the finish line.
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  Speaker 7: That's where the creativity comes. So it's just bringing that
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  Speaker 7: And I always you all know, I use this word
• 8:20
  Speaker 7: a lot of context, So I'm always like, what context, guys,
• 8:24
  Speaker 7: because it helps me. I want, like you said, ultimately
• 8:26
  Speaker 7: it's your decision, but I want us to get to
• 8:28
  Speaker 7: the finish line and the way that feels the best
• 8:30
  Speaker 7: for you. Now we know sometimes we know the nature compromise.
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: We're going to compromise, but we're going to get there
• 8:34
  Speaker 7: as happy as possible. So that's what it really teaches
• 8:38
  Speaker 7: you watch people. You have to do the grunt work
• 8:40
  Speaker 7: to appreciate the deals that come later down the line,
• 8:43
  Speaker 7: because I did it all, like I had to go
• 8:44
  Speaker 7: fetch things for people and do this and sit and
• 8:47
  Speaker 7: then one day in agreements put in front of you, Hey,
• 8:49
  Speaker 7: you need to mark that up in redlining, and it's
• 8:51
  Speaker 7: a producer agreement with somebody who needs to make real money.
• 8:54
  Speaker 7: And have you been paying attention?
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: I asked that question because we want to speak back
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: to our program that we were started in And there
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: was a young lady who was at a law firm
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: and she was like, it's so boring they have me
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: filing papers and I'm like, it's the experience, experience, so
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: to hear you go through college, go to grad school,
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: law school, and to still have these things. It's like, yeah,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: you're getting this at fourteen. You actually went to college
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: and go through it. Talk about the relationship part though,
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: As you're going in these rooms, you're not just you're
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: not just observing, right, You're building connections there.
• 9:26
  Speaker 7: You're adding value. I always tell people's like add value
• 9:29
  Speaker 7: wherever you are, Like what does that mean? Shut up,
• 9:33
  Speaker 7: get the coffee. I mean sorry, I'm give you a
• 9:35
  Speaker 7: little transparent.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Here, like flashback.
• 9:37
  Speaker 7: They know me. So y'all know, like it's just put
• 9:41
  Speaker 7: your head down to do the work. We came from
• 9:43
  Speaker 7: that school of thought. We came from that generation like
• 9:45
  Speaker 7: do the work, the other stuff will come. So it's
• 9:48
  Speaker 7: not having a sense of entitlement. You know, Like it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 7: important for me to say my culture. I'm first generation
• 9:54
  Speaker 7: in America. I'm Nigerian, So I was very much raised
• 9:56
  Speaker 7: with a level of sort of reverence, meekness. But you know,
• 9:59
  Speaker 7: you got older, you got to be a little bit
• 10:00
  Speaker 7: like but everything was yes ma'am, no, ma'am, yes sir,
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: but do that be respectful, but still build your own
• 10:06
  Speaker 7: sort of boldness. So that's what that work ethic was
• 10:09
  Speaker 7: in me is like, okay, something to ask if you
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: do it one hundred and fifty percent, not one hundred.
• 10:14
  Speaker 7: So if I'm going to fact those papers, I'm gonna
• 10:16
  Speaker 7: run and get your lunch. I'm gonna do whatever. I'm
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: going to have it back on time. Or if there's
• 10:20
  Speaker 7: a miscommunication, I'm going to communicate that to you. All
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: of that so then you'll give in the bigger responsibilities,
• 10:25
  Speaker 7: which is what happened to me one day and I
• 10:27
  Speaker 7: was given a producer agreement. They were like, oh, have
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: you been listening on calls? Mark this up? There you
• 10:31
  Speaker 7: go and that's how shows up.
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: So all right, so what does the entertainment attorney actually do?
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: I said it a little bit, but give the full rundown.
• 10:40
  Speaker 7: He did a great job of saying. So basically, entertainment
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: attorney is you have to have a couple of skill sets.
• 10:45
  Speaker 7: At the core. You're a business attorney. You should be
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: like a strategist. You but we need to be problem
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: solvers fixers because at one time I may be touching.
• 10:54
  Speaker 7: What I do, I'll talk about what I do is
• 10:56
  Speaker 7: negotiating the deals. As you mentioned with shot like strategy
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: and advocating but you are making sure the brand is protected, copyrights, trademarks.
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: It could be you know, if somebody's coming to your
• 11:09
  Speaker 7: clients with investment. If I don't do it, it's find
• 11:10
  Speaker 7: it a network of corporate attorneys who may do that.
• 11:13
  Speaker 7: So I'll call it a doc connector. You're really a
• 11:15
  Speaker 7: dot connector. You handle your piece of the pie, which
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: in my case is negotiating, reviewing agreements, redline and marking up,
• 11:22
  Speaker 7: and then you know, making sure the client's covered on
• 11:26
  Speaker 7: all of the facets. If you don't do if somebody
• 11:27
  Speaker 7: in your network needs to do.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: Is it different from like music, film, television, Yes.
• 11:31
  Speaker 7: So they're different silos. So I started as a music lawyer,
• 11:33
  Speaker 7: so I know everything about very random fact about me.
• 11:37
  Speaker 7: I used to co own a music publishing company, so
• 11:39
  Speaker 7: I know a lot about music publishing. So it starts
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: for me. I cut my teeth in music. My internship
• 11:44
  Speaker 7: was a music law So yeah, it's music, fashion, film,
• 11:49
  Speaker 7: and TV visual arts. So there are various you know,
• 11:53
  Speaker 7: silos in different between oh, the nuance and sort of
• 11:58
  Speaker 7: the deals, the deal terms and asks that you're going
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: to ask because what I'm going to ask for music
• 12:02
  Speaker 7: has nothing to do in film and television. So when
• 12:05
  Speaker 7: somebody's saying and snow dissed the other people, they're saying,
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: entertainment is exactly what you say, which sort of leg
• 12:09
  Speaker 7: or arm like you'll grow with your clients like I've
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: been able to grow with you on a massive ways
• 12:13
  Speaker 7: and it takes you into other silos. But at the core,
• 12:16
  Speaker 7: it's always good for an entertainment attorney to start in
• 12:19
  Speaker 7: like one. As I keep on calling them silos, because
• 12:22
  Speaker 7: you have to know that back and forth. You have
• 12:24
  Speaker 7: to know like music, I need I'll know certain triggers
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: in terms of somebody's saying, what does a producer need
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: to get? Okay, you need to get your front end
• 12:30
  Speaker 7: back in. You need your producer fee, right, so that's
• 12:33
  Speaker 7: one percentage of revenue. Then you need your producer advance
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: or upfront fee. You need your producer royalty rate, you
• 12:39
  Speaker 7: need your back in on publishing, you need your sound exchange.
• 12:42
  Speaker 7: I just miss your four revenue streams.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 7: If somebody doesn't know that you're missing out, you leaving
• 12:46
  Speaker 7: money on the table for your client.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I always like when you get the red line.
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I want to talk about that because whenever a contract
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: comes to you, there's a red line version that comes back.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: I always wanted at the time that goes into doing that,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: And what are the key things that you're looking at?
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Like I know, like when we talk all the time,
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: it's like the first thing we're looking for is perpetuity.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: If it's in there, So are there other terms that
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: you know before? Like if I see that in there,
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: we have to have a conversation.
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: Oh absolutely, it's perpetuity, like you said, Troy, Yeah, we
• 13:15
  Speaker 7: don't like that word. It's like a cursory to us.
• 13:17
  Speaker 7: And again, let me give the caveat the only time
• 13:20
  Speaker 7: perpetuity is fine is if the price point could match
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: in a line and it's something that we feel like
• 13:26
  Speaker 7: is negotiable. So I want to give that disclaimer in
• 13:29
  Speaker 7: rare cases for people, and it may be something it
• 13:32
  Speaker 7: Let me give you an example. If it's a SoundBite
• 13:34
  Speaker 7: of a song somebody wants to use for thirty seconds,
• 13:36
  Speaker 7: they want it a perpetuity, they pay an applicable price
• 13:39
  Speaker 7: to use it, and we narrow down the territory. Maybe
• 13:42
  Speaker 7: that works for one client, but it won't work for
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: the next. So that's why I always I'm hands on
• 13:46
  Speaker 7: with you all to be like, what do you want
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: out of this. But I know in our case, for
• 13:49
  Speaker 7: my guys, we don't like that word. So because of that,
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: I look for that. I look for the term. So again,
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: I like to say something. My job is to get
• 13:59
  Speaker 7: you the most amount of money for the least amount
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: of commitment. So that's how I treat it. What does
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: that mean? If it's a term? Can we decrease it?
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: Can we keep it as short as possible and we
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: get you properly compensated in that window time? If it's five,
• 14:12
  Speaker 7: can we get it in three years? Like, so we're negotiating.
• 14:14
  Speaker 7: Terms are very important. Payment terms when you're getting paid,
• 14:17
  Speaker 7: how much you're getting paid, and when you're getting paid
• 14:19
  Speaker 7: are very important because we know that could be held up.
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: Companies mean well, but they have their net ninety, they
• 14:25
  Speaker 7: have net forty five, you know, so when you get
• 14:30
  Speaker 7: paid is very important. Services requirements duties required of the person.
• 14:35
  Speaker 7: So you may be like, they may be asking for
• 14:37
  Speaker 7: too much or I'm cool with that, but just knowing
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: up front what is expected of you is important. I'm
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: trying to think. Of course, everything's important you all again, disclaimer,
• 14:46
  Speaker 7: but the major terms, those are things just initially so
• 14:50
  Speaker 7: that when I have calls with you all as busy
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: as you are, I have to say, here's what we're
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: going to streamline, here are the focal points, and then
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: we attack some.
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: Of those intellectual property significant as of entertainment law. So
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: can you talk about intellectual property and can you provide
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: some examples where you've helped your clients protect the intellectual
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: property rights?
• 15:10
  Speaker 7: Yes, like you said, intellectual property or if you hear people,
• 15:14
  Speaker 7: you hear them say IP a lot. That is incredibly important.
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: It's important for everyone, but specifically, I'm very passionate about
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: our community as a black community knowing that because that's
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: often the first thing that's taken away from us. So
• 15:25
  Speaker 7: it's a matter of what you create. And I just
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: want to also say something. When you create something in
• 15:31
  Speaker 7: the United States, copyright law and trademark law. The minute
• 15:34
  Speaker 7: you create, you write a poem, you write song, lyrics,
• 15:37
  Speaker 7: there's a copyright. What you want to do is go
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: and take an added layer to it protection and you
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: go to the US Copyright Office. So www dot copyright
• 15:47
  Speaker 7: dot GUV. I tell people go learn that skill set
• 15:49
  Speaker 7: by yourself, because I get it. When you're coming up,
• 15:52
  Speaker 7: there may not be budgets and fees for lawyers. Go
• 15:55
  Speaker 7: learn how to do some things by yourself. So go there,
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: learn how to follow copyright. So not the most exciting
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: thing to learn. The process was once you get it,
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: you'll do it. Then you want to see, Okay, do
• 16:05
  Speaker 7: I have it what's called a source identify or brand
• 16:07
  Speaker 7: name that's a trademark. Do I have something that people
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: are starting to know me by right? Trademark that and
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: I can use you all for you. I don't mind
• 16:16
  Speaker 7: using you all as example. It's clients, sure, earn your leisure.
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: We are sitting here because this is a federally protected trademark.
• 16:24
  Speaker 7: That is what you do before things get big. You
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: protect your assets, assets and reliabilities. Is a trademark that's protected,
• 16:32
  Speaker 7: Sashad and Troy. The best example of you in here
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: is you all of the company that you all have
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: and companies. I'm sorry, it's protected. That's the best way
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: to do it. So whether you get the trademark attorney
• 16:45
  Speaker 7: to do it, whether you do it on your own,
• 16:47
  Speaker 7: just make sure it's protected before you walk into these
• 16:49
  Speaker 7: business stills you all, because I've seen it where somebody
• 16:52
  Speaker 7: has to then either go buy that back or negotiate
• 16:58
  Speaker 7: how to get it back, and of course the price
• 17:00
  Speaker 7: is much higher than it would have been before the
• 17:01
  Speaker 7: star started a rise.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: So as your great relationships, these are all great things
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: that we're talking about now, is what's the first big
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: client that you get to say, all right, I'm establishing
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: a relationship here and that's going to lead I mean
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: obviously led to others and we'll get to how we
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: our origin story, but like, who's that first person or
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: is there a group of people that you were like,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: I'm targeting this client. I got them, now let's.
• 17:27
  Speaker 7: Build it actually came through, which is a bitter our
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: origin story, which I know we'll talk about through eighty
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: five South. I would say those were the biggest one
• 17:35
  Speaker 7: I'd been you know, going with people different levels and growing.
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: But as far as sort of the trajectory of growth
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: and how it started happening, I have to shot shout
• 17:44
  Speaker 7: my guys out, that's how it really started, because we've
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: been on this journey for several years together and that
• 17:49
  Speaker 7: was really when there started to be a shift in
• 17:52
  Speaker 7: the atmosphere. Because I'm going to be very transparent for
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: I feel like a lot of people need to hear this,
• 17:56
  Speaker 7: they think, and I know, you guys, y'all get this
• 17:58
  Speaker 7: a lot. People think they know where to go and
• 18:00
  Speaker 7: to doing whatever you do right, And there's so many
• 18:03
  Speaker 7: stories to it. I always tell God, if you give
• 18:05
  Speaker 7: any bit of a platform, I'll say it. It's like
• 18:07
  Speaker 7: when I moved to Atlanta, like I left you know, Raleigh,
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: North Carolina. I left a job there. I came here.
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: I had to start from nothing. I packed what was
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: in my car, moved with my sister, stayed there for
• 18:22
  Speaker 7: two years, and started building a practice. So when people,
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: you know, think they see whatever they thing, you have
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: to bet on yourself. Like even when you look crazy,
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: people are like, you're a lawyer, go work for a
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: large firm. Going back to I never I never worked
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: for a large firm. It just wasn't my desire. I
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: partnered with them for different things, but I've never gone
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: into work because you're sort of told you go in
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: to be a transactional attorney.
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: Like me.
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: You go in, you go to a large firm, you
• 18:44
  Speaker 7: become a partner. That was never my vision. In fact,
• 18:47
  Speaker 7: it made me stick to my stomach if we're being honest,
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: because I never really wanted that path. Because at the core,
• 18:52
  Speaker 7: it's important for me to say, in Nigeria and specifically
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: I'm from the Ebo tribe, we are very entrepreneur So
• 18:58
  Speaker 7: that feels like prison to me. But if that's your journey,
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: it's journey. But for me it wasn't. And you're told
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: that in law school. It's a machine, right, You're told
• 19:06
  Speaker 7: go here, do this. This is what people do. We produce,
• 19:09
  Speaker 7: We spit this out. But what if you have a
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: handful of people were like, I don't want to do
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: it that way. So I just was going against the
• 19:14
  Speaker 7: beating path. And then it takes some years to do that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: Like I didn't have steady clients. It was you know,
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: referral based, and that takes time before people could trust you.
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: And then so when you ask that question, Troy, it
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: was really when the journey started going on the up
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: and up things were going, but as far as it
• 19:30
  Speaker 7: was growing with it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: So it is the firm in a sense, not a safety,
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: but it's like a secure thing, right. You work for
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: the firm, you bring in deal flows, the whole firm
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: makes money and you get a percentage, where as if
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: you do it on your own, it's like this is
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: the risk. But this is part of being an entrepreneur,
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: it's like one hundred percent of responsibility as you and
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: I'm centered the deal flow for you. Yeah, and it's
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: nothing that share, yep.
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: But actually Troy, like with firms, every firm structure is different.
• 19:52
  Speaker 7: But when you're a junior attorney or associate, they're not
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: necessarily expecting you to bring in what they call a
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: book of business or a lot of clients. If you
• 19:59
  Speaker 7: do cool, that helps you go to the partnership track
• 20:02
  Speaker 7: a little faster or faster in some instances. But yes,
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: then there's an expectation of bringing clients. But at first
• 20:08
  Speaker 7: you're giving work. You're giving the work, you do it,
• 20:10
  Speaker 7: do you knock it out? Is your work product good
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: so that other partners will continue to give you more work.
• 20:14
  Speaker 7: That's how you make the money. And then you're expected
• 20:16
  Speaker 7: to start making money for them, which is bringing in clients,
• 20:19
  Speaker 7: and you still split that revenue to your point, and
• 20:22
  Speaker 7: then you keep doing that until you get to a
• 20:23
  Speaker 7: partnership track, which every firm has their different splits and
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: how they do revenue. But that is basically the gist
• 20:29
  Speaker 7: of the law firm model, cut up in different ways.
• 20:32
  Speaker 7: But yes, you are still very much sharing the labors
• 20:35
  Speaker 7: of all of the efforts and things you put into
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: and splitting it with the overall firm and some capacity.
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: So it's about contract disputes. Yeah, that's something that we
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: see on TV a lot and different things that they ship,
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: but talk about like the inner workings of a contract dispute.
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: And you can't even give an example, we don't have
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: the name name, but if you were involved in a
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: contract dispute as far as mitigating that process, can you
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: talk about that?
• 21:01
  Speaker 7: Yeah, of course. And I'm gonna stay and start and
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: stay in the music space because that's where you could see,
• 21:07
  Speaker 7: to be honest with you, some of the nasties disputes
• 21:10
  Speaker 7: they can go out. For the one that I am
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: referencing is I think we were in it for about
• 21:17
  Speaker 7: eighteen months for a contract dispute. So what happened was
• 21:21
  Speaker 7: the artist who I was representing was, you know, you
• 21:24
  Speaker 7: put on an EP, and an EP you alls like,
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: you know, a limited project maybe five to seven songs
• 21:29
  Speaker 7: versus the album which is usually longer. And he was
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: signed to a major label, but a smaller label had
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: taken him to that major label, and that's called a
• 21:38
  Speaker 7: production agreement usually, so they're saying, hey, I took you here.
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: I get whatever percentage of the proceeds that you do,
• 21:44
  Speaker 7: whether it's a fifty to fifty split or whatever the case.
• 21:47
  Speaker 7: The relationship didn't work out. Meanwhile, as you're doing anything, recording,
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: your traveling, you have to recoup. They're tabbing like every
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: bit of what you spend, every penny. So he ended
• 21:59
  Speaker 7: up owing six figures. We're talking three four hundred thousand
• 22:03
  Speaker 7: dollars and to the record label. And this was you
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: all in a nine month span. Maybe not not any
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: more than not a year, I'm sure of. So you
• 22:12
  Speaker 7: wrack that up between you get this producer, pay them
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: twenty thousand, you pay this one fifty, you do whatever,
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: get a feature, you do whatever. So the label, because
• 22:21
  Speaker 7: we have to understand, record labels are funded by other
• 22:24
  Speaker 7: larger companies, you know, multi billion dollar companies, so writing
• 22:30
  Speaker 7: three hundred four hundred thousand off to them is in.
• 22:33
  Speaker 7: So they were willing to walk away. The smaller company
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: that walked into the label said now we need that.
• 22:38
  Speaker 7: So we sat for eighteen months and we went back
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: and forth about negotiating post term agreements so we can
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: get painful for shod and joy whatever. He ended up
• 22:50
  Speaker 7: having to give maybe three to four years of basically
• 22:53
  Speaker 7: a three sixty post term. In three sixty means collecting
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: revenue streams for anything you do like an appear, pearance, merchandise,
• 23:03
  Speaker 7: a song, a video, any any kind of thing where
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: somebody's making any revenue split for three to four years.
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: You would think the major label would fight in and
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: say we just they literally excused four hundred thousand dollars
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: in debt that other company wanted to attach themselves. And
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: sometimes that could be out of spite for being very honest.
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: There was no reason they didn't need the money. So
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: that was done and at this point he's out of
• 23:29
  Speaker 7: the contract because this was several years ago. But it
• 23:31
  Speaker 7: took that long because they wanted they were using perpetuity,
• 23:35
  Speaker 7: they were using fifteen year terms, they were using things
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: like that. We're like, we're not doing that forever. Yeah,
• 23:41
  Speaker 7: So that's how reckless it can get.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: Sometimes that's unfortunate, Yeah, until they recoup the money. So
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: this is this is one of those things, right when
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: you're looking at that contract, how do we distinguish the
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: line between having a personal relationship with the client and
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: having a professional relationship, Because you could look at it
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: and say, like, in your mind, they should not do this,
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: This doesn't this does not make sense, and then you
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: have to present it to them as a professional and
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: they may say, I still want to do this, So
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: how do you deal with that?
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: I deal with that by I'm off to say it
• 24:17
  Speaker 7: is my opinion, your choice. I like they even think
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: about language. My opinion, your choice. But I give that,
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: and I hope everybody sees that I'll work with. I'm
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: very truthful, I'm transparent, and I like to often put
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: myself in it what I entered it. Still that's the
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: first thing I do before I touch anything. And if not,
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: let's try to get to a place where I will.
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: That's a human being. We're not again, and that's always
• 24:38
  Speaker 7: managing expectations. We may not get everything, but if we
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: get a good chunk of it and we're happy, let's go,
• 24:44
  Speaker 7: that's a winning. But there are some times where I've
• 24:47
  Speaker 7: actually said I don't think this is good. And that's
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: difficult because you know, I care about everybody I work with,
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: and it's but if you want to make it as
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: a professional, I have to advise you, and I can't
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: force anybody to do it. Nor do I want you
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: because I don't want you to resent me, you know.
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: So it's that has happened, has happened on not a
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: lot of occasions, but enough for me to remember. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 7: in that instance, I gave you all. That was one
• 25:12
  Speaker 7: of the contracts I told the personation I enter and
• 25:15
  Speaker 7: it turned out to be five years that you know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: he went through what he went through in total with
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: being signed and then the post term. But I, you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 7: and I did everything I could do for him until
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: we just sort of had to part ways because at
• 25:28
  Speaker 7: that point they basically sheltered him and he was not
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: releasing any music, so there's nothing for anybody to represent,
• 25:34
  Speaker 7: you know, like a manager can't represent your a lawyer
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: can't represent you. So you just have to finish out
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: that term with people. But you never say I told
• 25:41
  Speaker 7: you so, because that's life he learned. I bet you
• 25:43
  Speaker 7: he learned a music business, right, You got to learn
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: certain lessons, so that that happened sometimes, But just letting
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: people know, Okay, I'm here, and then if you have
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: to clean up a mess on the back end, then
• 25:53
  Speaker 7: that there to help and bring the right people there
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: about I tell people it's always better to be proactive
• 25:57
  Speaker 7: and reactive. It's very expensive to be reacting.
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: So how has the advent of digital platforms and streaming
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: services all to the legal landscape when it comes to
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: entertainment industry? And this is for music side or the
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: content side with Netflix different things.
• 26:16
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so a lot of it. I'll start in music side.
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: For several years, it took the labels a little while
• 26:22
  Speaker 7: to want to catch up because it's just the system
• 26:25
  Speaker 7: had worked. If we're talking labels, we're doing sort of splits.
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: You may have like an eighty twenty split and eighty
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: percent is in the favorite of the label. That's why
• 26:33
  Speaker 7: you have people that gave pushback that you know when
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: you hear of the masters being signed over because the
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: trade off is, hey, let me get your masters. I'll
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: give you. I'm just gonna throw a number out two
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars for in advance to get this for
• 26:46
  Speaker 7: two albums out of you or whatever the case is.
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: You do that, but you don't own your song when
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: it's gone out and its final. That's what our masters
• 26:54
  Speaker 7: is in its final sound recording. But some people are like, nah,
• 26:57
  Speaker 7: I need to keep that because that's here until actual property.
• 27:01
  Speaker 7: So they keep that and then they are what's called
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: independent artists and they do that. So streaming offered another
• 27:05
  Speaker 7: revenue revenue stream but streamers do not pay much at
• 27:11
  Speaker 7: all for being honest for musicians. And as far as
• 27:15
  Speaker 7: TV and film and Netflix, various deals are different. But
• 27:17
  Speaker 7: I know they're in different markets because I have clients
• 27:20
  Speaker 7: both in the US and and Nigeria, and their paydays
• 27:22
  Speaker 7: are very different, as you can imagine, depending on the
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: market and how that's leverage and how the market is viewed.
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: So it's it all depends. But in music with streaming,
• 27:34
  Speaker 7: you have a lot of artists that push back because
• 27:36
  Speaker 7: a lot of these digital service providers and streamers should
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: be paying a lot more than they pay per Like
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: you know, they're paying pennies on the dollar per per streaming.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: So being on the side of that and understanding that
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: the way you do, is that why you decided to
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: create a publishing company. Yes, because I'm thinking, like, oh
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: that makes sense now, Yeah.
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: Because when you're able, it gives me an interest intage point,
• 28:00
  Speaker 7: Like you said, Troy, being a lawyer being in these deals,
• 28:03
  Speaker 7: I know what it's supposed to look like. Now. Again
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: not saying I've seen everything, but I've seen a lot.
• 28:07
  Speaker 7: I've seen enough to know that ooh, you all could
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: be monetizing this a lot better. And I specifically started
• 28:13
  Speaker 7: the publishing company in Nigeria. So my foray, I talk
• 28:17
  Speaker 7: to you all about this privately, like I've been doing
• 28:18
  Speaker 7: business in Nigeria for eight years, way before people cared.
• 28:21
  Speaker 7: In fact, I remember telling people in Atlanta, where I'm based, like, y'
• 28:25
  Speaker 7: y'all should really check this out. I'm telling you. I
• 28:27
  Speaker 7: would tell you about whiz Kid, I will tell you
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: about all these folks, and nobody listened, and nobody listened,
• 28:32
  Speaker 7: and I was like, this is not going anywhere, and
• 28:34
  Speaker 7: I would tell people, so I started a company there.
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: With the important part, when you're doing business local, you
• 28:40
  Speaker 7: have to find people. Especially let me give people a tip.
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: You're doing anything on the continent, find people on the
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: ground who actually do that or who have good relationships
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: to connect you. Because just because I'm Nigeria doesn't mean
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: I know how to do business in Nigeria. I was
• 28:53
  Speaker 7: born and raised in America, so it took me a
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: couple of years to get the rhythm to go back
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: and forth to learn all that. And that's how I
• 28:59
  Speaker 7: learned with the music publishing company, and I learned a
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: lot of lessons. You learn good lessons, you learned bad lessons.
• 29:05
  Speaker 7: You learn, you learn how people maneuver, and that's business
• 29:10
  Speaker 7: and you you know, dust yourself off, pick yourself up.
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: But in that I got a lot of relationships. So
• 29:15
  Speaker 7: I got to build with a lot of music artists
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: in Nigeria. Who's some dear friends of mine right now,
• 29:21
  Speaker 7: because I'm common in the name of let's build infrastructure,
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: let's help you create generational wealth. Everybody else came in
• 29:26
  Speaker 7: the name of let's take from you, let's exploit, let's
• 29:29
  Speaker 7: build nothing, and let's continue to take from you. So
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: it was a little different, and I think it helped
• 29:33
  Speaker 7: too because I'm one of them, even though I'm born
• 29:35
  Speaker 7: abroad and they have like a nickname for us that
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: are born abroad than the Nigerian or from elsewhere in
• 29:41
  Speaker 7: the diaspora. But but I came when they watch you,
• 29:44
  Speaker 7: it's about trust. They were like, no, she's really here,
• 29:47
  Speaker 7: and you alway, you help people make some money they
• 29:49
  Speaker 7: listen to. So that came through publishing. It's slow people
• 29:53
  Speaker 7: now for a company that was started a few years
• 29:56
  Speaker 7: ago are just starting to get their music publishing, that's
• 29:59
  Speaker 7: how long it can take, could take three or four years.
• 30:01
  Speaker 7: But when you get passive revenue, I was trying to
• 30:04
  Speaker 7: introduce them to a new income revenue stream. They were
• 30:07
  Speaker 7: getting show money, they were getting tours, they're writing songs,
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: they're giving up to bigger artists and work for hiring
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: you all work for hiring means hey, if somebody gives
• 30:15
  Speaker 7: you twenty five hundred dollars, you're signing away all your
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: intellectual property rights. If they make a million from it,
• 30:20
  Speaker 7: your twenty five hundred dollars is your payment. People will
• 30:22
  Speaker 7: walk away from that and then their song would go
• 30:25
  Speaker 7: and sell and make a million dollars or sell a
• 30:29
  Speaker 7: million units and you get nothing. So publishing allows you
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: every time you're sitting some where, even in places you
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: don't know in the world, you're collecting a revenue stream.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: How do you I mean, that's a lot, that's a
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: lot to do. So how do you track that? How
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: do you or how do you build a team that
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: has the infrastructure to track that being on the content
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: or is that something that could be American based that
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: you're just tracking internationally.
• 30:51
  Speaker 7: So I would do a lot of things like you
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: some of the relationships I have in America. So we
• 30:55
  Speaker 7: have performance rights organizations here, BMI, CSACK as CAP, so
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: there the ones throughout the world, but I'm just speaking
• 31:01
  Speaker 7: to the US based ones. I would take some of
• 31:04
  Speaker 7: these songwriters and the key was we didn't sign a
• 31:06
  Speaker 7: lot of people because it's a lot to deal with.
• 31:08
  Speaker 7: You would bring them back here and assign them to
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: those people and say, hey, we just need somebody who
• 31:14
  Speaker 7: They have the analytics, They have the technology to go say,
• 31:17
  Speaker 7: if your song is playing in this concert all in Japan,
• 31:20
  Speaker 7: because I can as a human being, how am I
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: supposed to know that's happening. But they have the technology
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: to do that, and they'll go collect the revenue streams,
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: take their cut as a service fee, and then you
• 31:28
  Speaker 7: get paid quarterly. You get that revenue stream. So imagine
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: your song is out and yes, you recorded it, you
• 31:34
  Speaker 7: did it, you put it out there, and you almost
• 31:36
  Speaker 7: forget about it, and you get a royalty check. That's
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: the power of music publishing.
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: So some unique challenges. What unique challenges does the music
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: industry present from a legal standpoint, particularly around issues like
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: copyright infringement and royalty districts.
• 31:52
  Speaker 7: It's some of what I was mentioned. Copyright infringement is
• 31:56
  Speaker 7: people like, they'll put their songs out and then it's
• 31:59
  Speaker 7: about he said, she said, who put it out first.
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: But the real way to get to the finish line
• 32:06
  Speaker 7: is file your copyright to you all when you create songs.
• 32:09
  Speaker 7: Specifically because I tend to see it most in the
• 32:12
  Speaker 7: music industry, it's file your copyright when you are doing
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: the lyrics. The two parts are a song, the sound recording,
• 32:18
  Speaker 7: the finished product, and then what's called your composition, the
• 32:21
  Speaker 7: physical lyrics. File the copyright for both sides because it
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: becomes that he said, she said who created a first?
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: Then you're arguing about who created a song, and it's
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: important to say with royalties, it's something called a split sheet.
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: If a split sheet does not create equal to one
• 32:36
  Speaker 7: hundred percent, nobody will touch it. It's like the plague.
• 32:40
  Speaker 7: A company can't touch it because they're liable. They don't
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: know when this check comes in who to pay. So
• 32:45
  Speaker 7: if YouTube or any of these platforms are like, hey,
• 32:49
  Speaker 7: we need to know your splits, they're always talking about, okay,
• 32:52
  Speaker 7: if the three of us created a song, or we
• 32:53
  Speaker 7: thirty three and a third, or are we like, how
• 32:56
  Speaker 7: do we do that? Those numbers have to be clear
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: because they can get sued if you pay anybody a
• 33:02
  Speaker 7: dollar more than you're supposed to pay them. So that's
• 33:04
  Speaker 7: why that's important to dispute. That's how use your rears
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: his head. Nobody cares until something starts popping, right. Then
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: everybody wants to get paid. They have selective amnesia. Then
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: they're like, no, I actually did fifty percent of the song,
• 33:13
  Speaker 7: and then you start fighting, and then what they would
• 33:16
  Speaker 7: do is actually hold the money in something called a
• 33:18
  Speaker 7: black box. That's what it's called in the music industry.
• 33:20
  Speaker 7: It's called a black box because if nobody can figure
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: it out, nobody's getting paid and then your money's held up.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: So when you I mean in the space of AI
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: now and we're seeing artists' voice being used crazy, I mean,
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: how do you wrap your mind around this? Like from
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: a litigation standpoint, right, because how do you who do
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: you sue Sky?
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: I think everybody's trying to if they'll be honest, everybody's
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: trying to figure that out. It's so new because I
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: just I was having a conversation the other day. I
• 33:47
  Speaker 7: think that AI and I don't know if I'm giving
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: ideas here, but I think inevitably it's going to happen.
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: When the technology is coming out, they're going to start
• 33:55
  Speaker 7: seeing how people are monetizing from that. And I feel
• 33:57
  Speaker 7: like people they're gonna want their cut because it's just
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: as a smart business owner. Someoney's gonna be like, if
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: my technology helped this person create this, why am I not?
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: Why am I not participating in that revenue stream. I
• 34:11
  Speaker 7: just think that's one of the many ways of weird.
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: It's head, but I think it's people are like AI
• 34:15
  Speaker 7: is going to take over a human job. Now, there's
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: certain things that people still want humans to do, no
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: matter how great technology is, Like, you still want a
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: human being to Like, we're going to figure out what
• 34:25
  Speaker 7: some of that is. But are people going to lose jobs? Unfortunately? Yeah,
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: But is everybody gonna lose their job?
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: No?
• 34:32
  Speaker 7: What do you think I'm interested with you?
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was listening to this Beyonce song and
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: I was like, well, this is pretty crazy. Then I
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: heard the Drake song. I'm like, this is pretty crazy.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: Like these are songs I'm not sure, Like I think
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: the Recording Academy was saying that they might start accepting
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: some of these songs in plays right, because if it charged,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: if three million people listening to it in a week,
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: that's going to chart. So if the artist really didn't
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: have anything to do with the creation of it other
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: than an algorithm putting together their likeness, well I guess
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: that would be them. Yeah, how do you monetize off it?
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: And is it copyright? And fressimon right, that's.
• 35:07
  Speaker 7: The tricky part because that's what I'm saying. It's like
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: you're using at the core, you're using Beyonce's voice, Like
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: that's infringement to me. I'm just giving my opinion. But
• 35:18
  Speaker 7: somehow they're loopholes for them to get around it, because
• 35:20
  Speaker 7: nobody well if people are suing people, we haven't heard
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: of a case of precedence, which they call it when
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: it's first of its kind. We haven't heard of one yet,
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: and maybe it may be coming out, but that it's like, oh,
• 35:31
  Speaker 7: this person is saying you can't use it right now.
• 35:34
  Speaker 7: It's it's open for people to use it. It's falling
• 35:37
  Speaker 7: under what they call the exception of copyright. You have parody,
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: you have like education, purpose purposes, you have what they're
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: called you know, like news, like if it's newsworthy, you
• 35:47
  Speaker 7: have some of these, So it's.
• 35:51
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• 37:41
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from El Salvador
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Donald J.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I'm Christy Noman, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, Attempted illegal border crossings are at the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: lowest levels ever recorded, and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Have been arrested.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: you will never return. But if you register using our
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: CBP home app and leave now, you could be allowed
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: to return legally.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.
• 38:42
  Speaker 7: It seems to be falling in. I'm pausing because it's
• 38:45
  Speaker 7: going to backfire some capacity. These artists are not going
• 38:48
  Speaker 7: to be okay with like because people recognize the song,
• 38:51
  Speaker 7: because they recognize the Melanie, the voice of the original artist.
• 38:54
  Speaker 7: So who's going to tell somebody that that's not copyright
• 38:56
  Speaker 7: infringement after all? But nobody yet has been suit or
• 39:01
  Speaker 7: you know, held guilty. I will see, We'll see.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: So let me all right, So what's your thoughts on
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: and how has the landscape changed legally when it comes
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: to contracts. For We're in the creator's economy right now,
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: so like when you're looking at independent creators and influencers,
• 39:18
  Speaker 5: what this is a new realm of entertainment. Previously the
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: entertainment was just musicians, actors, different things of that nature, athletes,
• 39:27
  Speaker 5: But now you're you're dealing with the influencers, people that
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: are YouTubers, social media people, people on TikTok. That's making
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: a million at all. So what's different now with this
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: new age of digital creation.
• 39:44
  Speaker 7: It's that it's fair game for pretty much anybody in
• 39:48
  Speaker 7: a respectful way. But eventually the week was separate itself
• 39:52
  Speaker 7: from the chef like and I'm not saying that in
• 39:54
  Speaker 7: a condescending way. I'm just saying some people are in
• 39:57
  Speaker 7: it for the quick, Like, hey, you know TikToker, I
• 40:00
  Speaker 7: made this. I didn't think it's will happen, go collect
• 40:02
  Speaker 7: when they collect, and go sell off to the sunset.
• 40:05
  Speaker 7: But if you want to make a career out of it,
• 40:07
  Speaker 7: there's no way to cheat consistency in any capacity, right.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Contract As far as the contracts is it the same
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: legal Jock Genren, It's the same legal process that a
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: musician goes through or actor goes through that a social
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: media person will go through when they when they're doing
• 40:24
  Speaker 5: their contract.
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: That's different types there. What those contracts for influencers and
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: like brand ambassadors, they're more pressed about, like how many eyeballs? Right,
• 40:32
  Speaker 7: So like are you if you have one hundred thousand
• 40:38
  Speaker 7: followers on Instagram for example, or whatever the platform is,
• 40:42
  Speaker 7: what is how is that translating or translating itself into
• 40:45
  Speaker 7: like what impressions? Who is looking there? Who's fault? That's
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: very important to them.
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: So like in the contract that would be you have
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: to do three social media posts. Absolutely, the social media
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: thing is being pretty standard in contracts these days.
• 40:59
  Speaker 7: Absolutely, it's very standard. But for an influencer, they might
• 41:01
  Speaker 7: up the ante because that's their whole thing, right, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 7: music you're going to You may see a request like
• 41:06
  Speaker 7: that in music and if we strike through it, they're
• 41:09
  Speaker 7: not going to press about it as much as they
• 41:11
  Speaker 7: would for an influencer or a brand inveastad because that's
• 41:13
  Speaker 7: their whole premise of like, hey, we're partnering with you
• 41:16
  Speaker 7: because where we were normally spend this money on our
• 41:18
  Speaker 7: market and budget elsewhere in a different way, you are
• 41:21
  Speaker 7: now our marketing budget a big chunk of it. So
• 41:23
  Speaker 7: we need nobody can guarantee anything, but we need you
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: to do this to get these deliverables. So that's very important.
• 41:30
  Speaker 7: So that there's some pushback there more than it would
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: be in a maybe a TV or music contract or.
• 41:35
  Speaker 7: But yeah, when you're dealing with influencers, you're dealing with
• 41:38
  Speaker 7: brand ambassadors. That's usually very important. The number of posts
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: when it's posted, a consistency of post all of that.
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: Was that a strategic brand shift for you? Or were
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: you looking at the landscape saying, guess music is doing great,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: but there are some some setbacks in music. I'm looking
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: at the landscape. Where is the next place where people
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: are going to need representation? Where you're looking at that
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: saying yes? And floors social media talent? Uh? Was that
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: the next thing on the landscape for you? Looking at like,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: these are the terms of clients I'm going to be
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: looking for in the future.
• 42:10
  Speaker 7: It actually, I think this is a perfect time to
• 42:12
  Speaker 7: bring in the origin story. It came with the story
• 42:14
  Speaker 7: I'm about to tell. So it was I was, you know,
• 42:18
  Speaker 7: chugging a log and music and enjoying that continue to grow,
• 42:22
  Speaker 7: and then I met a gentleman named Chad. I met
• 42:26
  Speaker 7: Chad Ubrey. Shout out to Chad, Chad and I met him.
• 42:33
  Speaker 7: We were connected. I've spoken on a panel and was
• 42:36
  Speaker 7: connected to him, and I remember him talking about you know,
• 42:40
  Speaker 7: a podcasts that the guys had. And one thing about
• 42:43
  Speaker 7: me is I like put my head down and do
• 42:44
  Speaker 7: the work, so I know what's going on. But I
• 42:47
  Speaker 7: just focused on what I was doing. So of course
• 42:48
  Speaker 7: I heard of the guys. I heard about DC Young Fly,
• 42:52
  Speaker 7: Carlos Miller, Chico Bean and the podcast was eighty five
• 42:57
  Speaker 7: selves and they had, you know, they had some buzz,
• 42:59
  Speaker 7: of course. But we had a talk and he's like, Okay,
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: we're looking for a lawyer. And it was before things
• 43:05
  Speaker 7: really started popping off, and we just hit it off.
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: And to know Chad, but y'all, we all know Chad
• 43:10
  Speaker 7: very well. To know Chad is to know we were
• 43:12
  Speaker 7: supposed to have a thirty minute conversation. Two and a
• 43:15
  Speaker 7: half hours later, we were still talking and you all,
• 43:19
  Speaker 7: I want to pat myself on the back because that
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: may not be the easiest thing always. So Chad is
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: amazing and we hit it off, to say the least,
• 43:28
  Speaker 7: and I've just been able to grow with them, and
• 43:31
  Speaker 7: that's really how I got into the world of podcast
• 43:35
  Speaker 7: and influencers and world whole new world, and we were
• 43:39
  Speaker 7: learning and growing together and literally, do y'all want to
• 43:43
  Speaker 7: take the alley from here? About how we met.
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, so we want to do it? I
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: forgot what deal? Maybe I heart, but we were starting
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: to do different deals. So I asked him who his
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: lawyer wasn't it was just that Amy make introduction, and
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: that was that. It was relatively using relationships. I always people,
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: that's like the biggest thing. That's most of the time
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: you're going to ask somebody that you trust who they use.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: But it's a dentist or a barber and man whatever. Yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: you know, just you just rely on on their judgment.
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: Of course, you do your own, you know, research and
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: feel it out for yourself. But yeah, that was pretty
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: very straight thing. We flew to Atlanta and we had
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: dinner and it was like, all right, I like her.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but it was your level of enthusiasm, your your
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: willingness to say, like, you guys are gonna be Yeah,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: you guys are going to be major. The work you're
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: doing is incredible and it's always been that with you.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: So I mean, I guess, let's let's flip the let's
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: flip the maror a little bit. Looking at us and
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: before you knew what we were doing, how were you
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: deciding what are the key factors of these are the
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: clients I want to work with.
• 44:53
  Speaker 7: Oh, you all spirits. I'm very like, I'm a woman
• 44:56
  Speaker 7: of faith, so I aligned with like like, it's it's
• 44:59
  Speaker 7: spirits for me, like you all are. I literally say,
• 45:02
  Speaker 7: I tell you all the time. Y'all probably be like, oh,
• 45:04
  Speaker 7: but it's a blessing to work with y'all. And people
• 45:06
  Speaker 7: who inspire me. That's a big thing for me. I
• 45:08
  Speaker 7: work off passion. Again, I'm a creative at the core, like,
• 45:12
  Speaker 7: so I feed off certain things. I get the work
• 45:15
  Speaker 7: done because you know, got to take things to the
• 45:17
  Speaker 7: finish line. But I feel like I show up at
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: the highest level, the highest frequency when I'm inspired. So
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: it's the human soul, the people they inspire me, and
• 45:27
  Speaker 7: then the work it's impactful, Like it's really authentic for me.
• 45:32
  Speaker 7: And then you know, when we lock in, I want
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: to make sure we choose each other because we're going
• 45:36
  Speaker 7: to go on some very amazing journeys together and then
• 45:39
  Speaker 7: just with you all. Like it was when I locked in,
• 45:42
  Speaker 7: I was just like, Oh, they're so dope and you
• 45:43
  Speaker 7: feel it. I can't explain it to people. I was like,
• 45:45
  Speaker 7: they're just amazing, Like I just and God's been so
• 45:49
  Speaker 7: good and bat in a thousand, you know, like it's
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: it's important. I got the same feeling with you all
• 45:55
  Speaker 7: with eighty five like and the blessing, and I hope
• 45:58
  Speaker 7: you all see this and we have much love between
• 46:01
  Speaker 7: each other. It's I got there before, so I don't
• 46:04
  Speaker 7: feel like y'all question any bit of you know, it's
• 46:07
  Speaker 7: easy for people to come around when things are popping
• 46:09
  Speaker 7: and things are great, but like when you see and
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: I just was impressed by all the work y'all done before,
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: and then you know, that just makes the journey sweeter.
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: So let me ask you this. As far as international law,
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: you do work in America and on the continent, So
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: what's the complexities to that, and even in dealing with
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: like artists or people trying to protect their intellectual property? Like,
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: what's you know, everything is becoming global now, so how
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: is it you know, working across borders and doing business
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: not only in Africa, but also you know, advising clients
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: on international affairs and different things in nation.
• 46:49
  Speaker 7: Absolutely, it's knowing a lot of times people are like,
• 46:51
  Speaker 7: how can you practice in America? There? Because I'm a
• 46:54
  Speaker 7: transactional attorney, it's very important to say like I can
• 46:56
  Speaker 7: practice here and new deals are based in the United States,
• 46:59
  Speaker 7: and when your life and what they call barred and
• 47:01
  Speaker 7: your transactional attorney, I'm not going to court. I don't
• 47:04
  Speaker 7: litigate at all. We refer that out to other people
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: who do that. I would have to find local council
• 47:09
  Speaker 7: so I can represent somebody there. If it's out of
• 47:12
  Speaker 7: my jurisdiction, I just find people, like if it's a
• 47:14
  Speaker 7: UK based contract, I will find an applicab attorney there
• 47:17
  Speaker 7: and all that. So that's important to note because people
• 47:19
  Speaker 7: are like, how did they scratch your head? How does
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: that work? And then a lot of it's relationships. It's
• 47:24
  Speaker 7: building and growing with these artists, but then advising them. Okay,
• 47:27
  Speaker 7: if you have intellectual property filed in Nigerian you're starting
• 47:30
  Speaker 7: to do more shows and things in America. We got
• 47:32
  Speaker 7: to get that done now. It's just sort of being
• 47:34
  Speaker 7: proactive and thinking ahead, saying you're showing up, you're recording
• 47:38
  Speaker 7: more projects, you are doing a tour, you consistently asked
• 47:41
  Speaker 7: to come here. Okay. Then that's a whole process. There's
• 47:44
  Speaker 7: a visa process attached to it. There is the intellectual
• 47:49
  Speaker 7: property side, there's a deal making because I'm just going
• 47:52
  Speaker 7: to be forthcoming. When some artists are coming into an
• 47:54
  Speaker 7: American market, we know this is the most competitive entertainment
• 47:57
  Speaker 7: market period. Nobody will argue about that. Then artists are shortchanged,
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: specifically from the continent. And we'll be honest. You need
• 48:05
  Speaker 7: somebody who knows how this looks to know that. It
• 48:07
  Speaker 7: was like, raise your hand in the room. I know
• 48:09
  Speaker 7: y'all can do better, and I hope my clients feel
• 48:12
  Speaker 7: like I show up like that for them. I feel
• 48:13
  Speaker 7: like I go in like full throttle because I know
• 48:16
  Speaker 7: what it looks like and I get it. And with them,
• 48:19
  Speaker 7: we might not be able to pay these margins. We do,
• 48:21
  Speaker 7: but we'll figure it out. And each time when you
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: push a little bit, you get what you need because
• 48:25
  Speaker 7: you know these companies are trying to put keep more
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: money in their pocket. The job is to advocate for
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: the artists. I'm always clear on the side. I'm on
• 48:30
  Speaker 7: the content creator and the artist's side. So that's what
• 48:33
  Speaker 7: it looks like. It's just you know, getting in front
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: of it. These deals are their ultimately is their decision
• 48:37
  Speaker 7: if they want to go in, but we know that
• 48:39
  Speaker 7: we like if there's money on the table, we need
• 48:41
  Speaker 7: to go get it, and that's what it looks like.
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: Gotta go get it. Is there any times when deals
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: will be brought to you to be brought to a
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: client rather than saying the client says, we have a
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: deal and you look at it. How does that work?
• 48:52
  Speaker 7: It depends because there's a lot of requests, especially the bigger,
• 48:55
  Speaker 7: bigger clients get. People want to pitch certain things. So
• 48:58
  Speaker 7: I'm very sensitive to that. I like to protect you all.
• 49:03
  Speaker 7: I'm very protective. So it's because there's a lot that
• 49:07
  Speaker 7: goes on. A lot of people try to get so
• 49:09
  Speaker 7: that can happen. But when I feel like if and
• 49:11
  Speaker 7: when it aligns and it's something because what people need
• 49:13
  Speaker 7: to appreciate. No one person I work with. You all
• 49:16
  Speaker 7: are amazing, nobody thinks they're more special than the next.
• 49:19
  Speaker 7: But what people have to understand about when you leave
• 49:22
  Speaker 7: an impact. You have a global name and you have
• 49:24
  Speaker 7: notoriety that a lot of people want your attention, and
• 49:28
  Speaker 7: it's you have to feel through the noise. And sometimes
• 49:32
  Speaker 7: that's brought but some of it is not worth tapping
• 49:37
  Speaker 7: the clients to say this might be a good opportunity
• 49:39
  Speaker 7: because people need to put in some work. What some
• 49:41
  Speaker 7: people want A lot of times is hey, I got
• 49:43
  Speaker 7: an idea, can you flesh it out? People don't have
• 49:44
  Speaker 7: time for that as much as they want to, Like
• 49:46
  Speaker 7: you don't have time when somebody's in demand exactly. So
• 49:50
  Speaker 7: sometimes I would get those and I'm a line of
• 49:52
  Speaker 7: you know, protection of armors. Sometimes it needs to be
• 49:54
  Speaker 7: brought to the lawyer or the manager or whoever agent,
• 49:57
  Speaker 7: whoever it is, because we're here to protect them buff
• 50:00
  Speaker 7: for because a lot of pitches and a lot of
• 50:02
  Speaker 7: ideas get thrown. So that happens. But by the time
• 50:05
  Speaker 7: I will come to any of you, all would be like, oh,
• 50:06
  Speaker 7: this is something I'm like yo, like you know, it's
• 50:09
  Speaker 7: something that I think else should hear this. It has
• 50:11
  Speaker 7: to be that strong in my opinion, because I know
• 50:13
  Speaker 7: how much comes to clients in your way, So how.
• 50:16
  Speaker 5: Well how far can you push before you before you
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: push too hard? Like what you're dealing with a corporate
• 50:21
  Speaker 5: and you're trying to negotiate and trying to go back
• 50:24
  Speaker 5: and forth. It's like sometimes you can try to, you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: push somebody too hard, then it just blows the deal
• 50:30
  Speaker 5: up and then it's.
• 50:31
  Speaker 7: A great question.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: Nobody wins.
• 50:33
  Speaker 7: I would say this. It's as far as my clients
• 50:35
  Speaker 7: want us to go. Because we always strategize. I know this,
• 50:38
  Speaker 7: like if you were if you want to pull it up,
• 50:40
  Speaker 7: if you want to take it off the table, we'll
• 50:41
  Speaker 7: take it off table. We're going on this ride together.
• 50:43
  Speaker 7: So my answer is as far as we like, we
• 50:45
  Speaker 7: decide we wanted to go, and if because we're pushing
• 50:49
  Speaker 7: and advocated for something we really stand on as your
• 50:51
  Speaker 7: vision and your brand stand on. If they don't want it,
• 50:53
  Speaker 7: I promise you somebody else will promise. Seen it enough.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: You said transactional attorney, right, so like what's the pace?
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: How does a transactional attorney actually make a living? Right?
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: Is it through the contracts? It as a retainer? Because
• 51:10
  Speaker 4: some people have no idea. Yes, oh you're a lawyer.
• 51:13
  Speaker 4: My mom told me to be.
• 51:14
  Speaker 7: One, but yeah, and they have no idea how do
• 51:17
  Speaker 7: you make money? Absolutely, so it could be a hybrid effect.
• 51:20
  Speaker 7: It could be hourly rates, but attorneys, depending on where
• 51:24
  Speaker 7: you go, they do less of hourly rates. It could
• 51:25
  Speaker 7: be flat rates low. Okay, if I review this contract
• 51:28
  Speaker 7: that costs X amount, But as clients are growing, then
• 51:31
  Speaker 7: you're going to have a hybrid or retainer and then
• 51:34
  Speaker 7: for transactional deals when you all hear and deals in
• 51:36
  Speaker 7: the entertainment, usually an attorney when the deal is brought
• 51:39
  Speaker 7: and we'll do something called paper like then they want
• 51:42
  Speaker 7: you to paper it's you know, the ideas and everything
• 51:45
  Speaker 7: have been discussed and they want you to make sure
• 51:46
  Speaker 7: you're going over with a fine tooth comb, the legal
• 51:49
  Speaker 7: leads and all of that. You get five percent of
• 51:51
  Speaker 7: the deal. Of this standard pretty much in any side
• 51:54
  Speaker 7: of the industry music, film, television, anything. And then there
• 51:58
  Speaker 7: are other ways for the entrepreneurial people that are attorneys
• 52:01
  Speaker 7: to say, if you bring something of value to your client,
• 52:04
  Speaker 7: then you all collaborate on whatever you know, that percentage
• 52:07
  Speaker 7: would be there. But generally speaking, if you're on the
• 52:09
  Speaker 7: entertainment side, an attorney will get paid five percent of
• 52:12
  Speaker 7: the deal that's papered that they are like reviewing and
• 52:15
  Speaker 7: going through.
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: Can we talk about relationships again, because and I'm glad
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: you use the word silos, because entertainment is your silo.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: But there's been times when there things have been brought.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: It might be trademarketing, it might be cryptocurrency, where that
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: might not be your silo. Talk about how that works
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: were collaborating with another attorney who who specialty is that?
• 52:34
  Speaker 7: Absolutely a lot of it is big on. I just
• 52:37
  Speaker 7: love that my clients trust me. I'm like, okay, it's
• 52:39
  Speaker 7: not what I do, and trust I want the best
• 52:41
  Speaker 7: because I always want the best rid of it. I
• 52:43
  Speaker 7: don't want to sit here in Guinea pig what anybody's
• 52:46
  Speaker 7: going through. Like I like to stay on my lane.
• 52:49
  Speaker 7: I like to say I can do what's in my
• 52:51
  Speaker 7: lane when my eyes closed, because I have a passion
• 52:53
  Speaker 7: for and a fervor for it. But when it's something
• 52:55
  Speaker 7: outside and I know there's a lot that could be lost,
• 52:57
  Speaker 7: I'm going to bring in somebody that does the same
• 52:59
  Speaker 7: thing i'd do in their space. So that's what I do.
• 53:02
  Speaker 7: It's just always knowing you can never ever know too
• 53:04
  Speaker 7: many people. So if I don't know somebody in space, oh,
• 53:08
  Speaker 7: I got to find them because I needed to look
• 53:10
  Speaker 7: like magic to you all. That's why I almost need
• 53:12
  Speaker 7: to like, oh this person appeared, but you might not
• 53:14
  Speaker 7: see in the back end. It's like okay, figuring out
• 53:16
  Speaker 7: all this, but like it just has to be because
• 53:18
  Speaker 7: your worlds are moving so fast. So it's my job.
• 53:21
  Speaker 7: I take that very personally to like find the right person. Again,
• 53:24
  Speaker 7: my default is always, am I going to enter this contract?
• 53:28
  Speaker 7: Am I going to handle like it's mine? I take
• 53:30
  Speaker 7: it that personally, Like, so we got to find people
• 53:32
  Speaker 7: who'll get it done.
• 53:34
  Speaker 5: So you know, I have a theory that there's no
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: such thing as a bad contract, right because I feel
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: like unless your lawyer just completely lied to you and
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: you were you weren't aware of what you actually signed,
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: take that out of it. But like, if you're aware
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: of what you signed, because you know a lot of
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: musicians they come back and they have arguments with their
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: former head of their label every things, then you're like,
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: you know you took advantage of me, or I signed
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: away my masters and you know I got a I
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: got a ruin deal. I feel like it wasn't a
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: bad deal when you signed it, because if you if
• 54:06
  Speaker 5: it was a bad deal, you wouldn't have signed it.
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: It's like it's a bad deal six months or a
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: year later, when you're a different person and you got
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: a lot more leverage. It's like you didn't want to wait,
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: you didn't want to do the independent route, you didn't
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: want to build leverage, which I'm not even knocking it,
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: but that's why your deal with structured the way it is.
• 54:26
  Speaker 5: So I said that before, got some backlash for it,
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: but I just felt like it's everything is always looked
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: at in the reverse. But it's like, what if it
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: didn't work out and I paid you money and I
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: gave you all of this and I didn't make anything
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: from it?
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: So yeah, that's my that's my philosophy on life, that
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: there's no such thing as a bad deal unless you
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: were missed informed.
• 54:47
  Speaker 7: Absolutely. Let me ask you this question, though, what about
• 54:51
  Speaker 7: which is a scenario which we want to break? This
• 54:54
  Speaker 7: which is what y'all are doing a lot of people
• 54:56
  Speaker 7: in our community, in the black community, they do it
• 54:59
  Speaker 7: out of day inspiration. They really need one hundred thousand.
• 55:03
  Speaker 7: I'm not condoning. I'm just throwing it out in the
• 55:05
  Speaker 7: scenarios they really need that money. It's not coming from
• 55:08
  Speaker 7: anywhere else. No, it's not life changing because we know
• 55:11
  Speaker 7: have to What I always want to remind people, you
• 55:12
  Speaker 7: start out one hundred thousand, You pay the government, got
• 55:15
  Speaker 7: to pay your lawyer, got to pay your manager. So
• 55:17
  Speaker 7: you are probably walking away with fifty to sixty percent
• 55:20
  Speaker 7: of that money, right, But they don't factor that in.
• 55:22
  Speaker 7: But they need it, So I want to ask. I mean,
• 55:24
  Speaker 7: I know, because I know you, I know your answer
• 55:26
  Speaker 7: probably give me to say, but like, what do you
• 55:27
  Speaker 7: think about that? Because, Shad, that's probably seventy five percent
• 55:32
  Speaker 7: the reason we'll enter this.
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: If you if you're under the premise of I'm signing
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: my masters away for one hundred thousand dollars, right, and
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: you're informed this is what you're doing to me, that's
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: not a bad deal. It's a bad deal if they say,
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: all right, one hundred thousand dollars, you're still going to
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: own your masters. But in the contract somewhere you kind
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: of like got swindled. And then it's like, then I
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: didn't know what I was doing, but you you willingly
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: gave it away, thought about it. It's a good deal
• 56:02
  Speaker 5: because it's in that moment one hundred thousand dollars could
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: change your life. Yeah right, It's like, if it was
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: a bad deal, you wouldn't sign it. So when people say,
• 56:10
  Speaker 5: like you did it out of desperation, that's a good
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: deal because at that point in time, I made a
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: rational decision that one hundred thousand dollars is more valuable
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: than my master's.
• 56:21
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, that is a fair assessment. Roy, what are
• 56:24
  Speaker 7: your thoughts?
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: I agree, yeah, and that's why I think the education
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: part is so important. But I think having a good
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: attorney in this situation that is important as well, because
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: a lot of times in those situations, somebody's been appointed
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: to it, yep, absolutely, and they may not have their
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: best interest. I think that's one of the things that
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: you say to us every time we have a meaning.
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: It's like, y'all know, I got your best interest in mind,
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: And I feel like that's the truth, right, because we've
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: had plenty of dealings, but a lot of times that
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: is not the case. So on top of it not
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, it's desperation, but who's advising you.
• 56:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah, to say like yes or no, no, it's crazy.
• 57:01
  Speaker 7: But a lot of these people, back to what poth
• 57:03
  Speaker 7: y'all are saying. It's what breaks my heart because I'm
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: still like one of those people. I know, I've been
• 57:09
  Speaker 7: in this business long enough to know what's out there
• 57:10
  Speaker 7: and I'm tough enough to deal with it, but I
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: still have the heart to be like oh every time
• 57:17
  Speaker 7: I hear one of those stories, because it's it's the
• 57:20
  Speaker 7: same mold which I'm getting with y'all. Saying by now
• 57:23
  Speaker 7: people should get it. They should get it, but it
• 57:26
  Speaker 7: doesn't make it any less painful because until we break
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: some of these cycles where we have enough income to
• 57:31
  Speaker 7: not be in these what some call oppressive deals, right
• 57:35
  Speaker 7: then it's unfortunately going to keep happening. But the way
• 57:39
  Speaker 7: around it, it's not happening as much, you all, because
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: there are a lot more independent artists. But this was happening.
• 57:44
  Speaker 7: It was rampant, you know, ten years ago. But now
• 57:46
  Speaker 7: in the age of I'm doing more independent deals on
• 57:49
  Speaker 7: the music side than anything you all. Just to give context,
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: I haven't done a major deal with the particular clients
• 57:54
  Speaker 7: I'm working with in almost two years.
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: So what does an independent deal look like.
• 57:59
  Speaker 7: An independent day, It looks like an artist owning their
• 58:02
  Speaker 7: master still, but what they're doing is licensing the term
• 58:05
  Speaker 7: of where it could be used. Now these licenses are
• 58:07
  Speaker 7: getting a little longer there used to be, so they're say, hey,
• 58:09
  Speaker 7: you could take my copyright exclusively for my catalog of
• 58:13
  Speaker 7: fifty songs. You could take that for five years, still
• 58:17
  Speaker 7: own the copyright, but now there would be a split,
• 58:19
  Speaker 7: which is a smaller revenue split. You could see in
• 58:21
  Speaker 7: ninety ten, eighty twenty maybe seventy thirty. I'm sorry, favorite
• 58:25
  Speaker 7: of the artists, but you are still owning your copyright.
• 58:29
  Speaker 7: There's something called the licensing period than a retention period,
• 58:31
  Speaker 7: which again that's another way for them to sort of
• 58:33
  Speaker 7: extend the time they can collect. But all in you
• 58:35
  Speaker 7: are still owning your copyright. That's very important. But that's
• 58:40
  Speaker 7: happened a lot. So when I'm saying I haven't done
• 58:41
  Speaker 7: a major deal in almost two years in that capacity
• 58:44
  Speaker 7: with an artist, it's because we've been going to those
• 58:47
  Speaker 7: kinds of structures.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: What about in law, like you didn't take the traditional route,
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: you're independent. Are you seeing more professionals specifically African American
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: profession knows gold the independent.
• 59:01
  Speaker 7: Realm, absolutely specifically, and you know what it's powerful like,
• 59:05
  Speaker 7: not that people can't become what you don't see, but
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: it's more often that you become what you see. When
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: I moved to Atlanta at the time, and I still
• 59:13
  Speaker 7: think this is the case, they had the highest population
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: of African American female business owners. So that's inspirational when
• 59:19
  Speaker 7: I'm going everywhere and I'm like, oh, black women own
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: this and black women own that. So I was like, oh, shitt,
• 59:23
  Speaker 7: I can do it too like you know, like it
• 59:25
  Speaker 7: just feel because if you think about it too much,
• 59:27
  Speaker 7: then you're scared yourself out of it. And I never
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: had a desire to own my own law firm. I
• 59:32
  Speaker 7: had a desire to own other businesses, but I never
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: wanted to run a law firm. Because what people need
• 59:37
  Speaker 7: to understand is I'm wearing two very different hats. You
• 59:40
  Speaker 7: all more than get that you have your skill set,
• 59:42
  Speaker 7: but then you're running a business that has nothing to
• 59:44
  Speaker 7: do with each other, like when you're doing your CEO stuff,
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: like when you're out there if you're doing branding or
• 59:50
  Speaker 7: you're doing a logo or doing okay, when I'm being
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: a lawyer, what does that you know that doesn't have
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: anything to do with me and thinking about how my
• 59:58
  Speaker 7: business is going to grow in scale. So I want
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 7: anybody it's possible, but just to know that you are
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 7: making a lot of choices and you're wearing several hats.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 7: Especially when you start out your own, you're doing everything.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 7: You're your own secretary, your own accountant, your own lawyer,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 7: your own financial plant, your everything. And then obviously you
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 7: grow in scale, you get team members there, so do it,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 7: but like proceed with caution and know that it's gonna
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 7: be worth every bit of it. But it's a journey.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 7: I think some people into I can do this, and
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 7: they get here and after year they're like, oh, shoot, different.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: What about like negotiating out of a contract or renegotiating
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: in terms of a contract while a contract is still
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: in place, Like, how does somebody do that? Because that
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 5: happens a lot too. People renegotiate contracts during the actual
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: contract itself.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 7: It is it's leverage. I'm gonna be honest with y'all.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 7: It's leverage because it's not that easy when people don't
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: feel like you add value. I'm just gonna be very
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 7: friend with people, like, but this has been done. It's
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 7: because they solve value in you. Because I have definitely
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 7: been on the other side of contracts in my earlier years,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: and stuff like that gives you to fire your need.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: I literally had one of my counterparts say, hey, take
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 7: it or leave it, because they feel like there's a
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: level of disrespect they can have because it's like, you
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 7: shouldn't even be happy to be in the room. Your
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 7: clients should be happy. So when you come from that
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 7: to situations of leverage, you all I don't care what
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: anybody says. It's a very different room. It's so leverage
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: to answer your question. That's when they're willing to because
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: usually what they're going to go god forbid, something goes
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 7: to court. They can say, didn't you sign this? Was
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: there any duress? Was there any mental compassibility? And nope,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 7: got to honor the contract. But are people open to it, Yes,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 7: when there's leverage, when they feel like, Okay, let's make
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: this person happy, let's make these people happy, We'll figure
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 7: something out. But generally speak it, it's hard for me
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 7: to see outside of that you can get out of
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: something you agree to, you brought.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: Up something, being all those roles inside the business. And
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: this is something that we see amongst entrepreneurs across the board,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: the leverage. I guess, the balance between working on the
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: business and working in the business. Right every time I
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: speak to you, there's something you've got going on. So
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: like when you're talking about scaling the business, how do you,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, what does that look like for you?
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 7: I love it. It has to look at the way
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 7: everybody wants. I'm very hands on with my people, So
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 7: for me on the legal side, I never really envisioned
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 7: having a fifty person law firm. I didn't. I want
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 7: to be the type of lawyer who's entrepreneur, work with
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 7: my people that I love, who Again, I told you
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 7: my criteria, who I'm inspired by, who I'm motivated by,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: who trusts me and what I'm doing and will grow together.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 7: I don't know what that number looks like, joy, but
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 7: I know I never want to drop the ball on
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 7: my people. So if it stays in this boutique, it's feel,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: which is how I even brand myself boutique like. I
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 7: can't answer the exact number we'll scale, but I just
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 7: know that I didn't envision because I know that's a
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 7: different monster. I've dealt with attorneys who have two hundred attorneys,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 7: and you're not practicing data day anymore. I hope you
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 7: all feel it like when I do deals, I love
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 7: it like I love it like it's nobody's forcing me
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 7: to do There's an art in a dance that goes
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 7: to it. So I still want to do that with
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 7: the people I want to do it with for however
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 7: long we'll do it together and then. But everybody is different,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 7: so I want to touch that. But yeah, I may
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: have other things that other attorneys under me do. But
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: I don't know I can tell you what I feel like.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: I don't want it to be never say never, but
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: I think I get a handful of attorneys on something
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 7: I still keep. I always still want to touch and
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: fill my clients. So I think once you start getting
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 7: super large, you're gonna there's no way around it. You're
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 7: not gonna be able to touch people in that capacity
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 7: and know the inner workings and you get close with people,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 7: you know, families. I want to keep that feel, so
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 7: I want to keep that boutique feel. But what I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 7: do is I like other revenue streams, and I've learned
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 7: that for you all, Like I've learned that just when
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 7: people around me. So like I have land in Nigeria,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 7: I have a place because I go so much. You know,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 7: I was doing airbnbs. Yes, I'm writing it off. It
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 7: is business. I have clients there, but I just got
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 7: a place out there. So like I invest in you know,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: very got some equity out there. I'm in the place already.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: So those are things I do. I have an investment
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 7: property in Atlanta as well. So again you can't you
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 7: can't be around it and not like listen. So it's
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: about just listening to people, like being inspired. So that's
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 7: just other ways that I'm always keeping my ears to
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 7: the ground. I'm always learning. There's a lot I still
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 7: need to learn in the financial literacy space, but I
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 7: know that I have to plant my seeds in various
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 7: places and I've done that, and I think that's just
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 7: one thing a lot of lawyers don't do. I can't
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: speak for any of the professional of mine. They sort
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 7: of stay in there. Lane is great. You may make
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: good money, but then they fall into the golden handcuffs.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 7: You go there, you work for firm. It's great, but
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: you get the shiny lifestyle and you get the certain
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: car and everybody should enjoy and we work hard. But
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 7: then you're like, I leave this. Then I can't do this.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 7: I never want to be there. And because I work
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 7: for myself and we get to choose each other, and
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 7: I get to choose on what, I don't have to
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 7: make those decisions. So it allows me to be flexible
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 7: and be like, Okay, if this what I love. I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 7: got to say is disclaim with you all what I
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 7: love about working with the people that like God has
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 7: for you is y'all want me to shine. Half the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: time you're about be like where are you on earth?
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 7: But it doesn't matter because you know I'm gonna get
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 7: it done right. So I want to tell everybody work
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 7: with people that want you to grow. That's a big
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 7: part I need to. I feel like I need to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 7: say that because some people I have run into cases,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: which obviously is not you all. Where as you're growing,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 7: people are sort of like, uh, I don't know what
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 7: this feels like, but why should it be a problem. Now?
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: If it's slipping on my work product, I get it,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: But if the person's not, why is it a problem?
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: But I want to celebrate you all because it's always
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 7: like okay, so and sometimes you may not even know
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 7: I'm out of the country, because it should feel that way.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 7: It should feel like you don't even know.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: I only ask me out the country because I want
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 4: to know how many hours it had you.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 7: Up exactly out of respect. You see this when you
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 7: work with your people that care about you.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: I'm in Nigeria, I'm like, oh, it's three in the morning.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: I'll call you them.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 7: All because I care, And then you've all been there.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 7: So I just feel like I have to say that
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 7: because a lot of people think it's something it's not.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 7: It's like, you know, you all because your work so closely,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 7: it's like you feel like, hey, nobody. Some people think
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 7: because they pay you, they own you. I think it's
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 7: very important. I'm very transparent. Y'all know that I need
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 7: to say that. And it's like, in a healthy relationship
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 7: and whatever it is business a professional, it should not
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: be that way. And I totally feel that with you all.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: Y'all want me to grow and thrive. And I tell
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 7: people get around people like that that want that for
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: you in every aspect of your life, because I feel it.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: This is all coming together now, Amy as you're speaking.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 4: I remember we were at the Grammys and you were like, Troy,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: why didn't you tell me you're that? You know, I'm
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: on the board and now I'm putting the publishing thing together.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: I'm putting the how did that even come about?
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: Again?
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: We keep on, you know, we can't talk about relationships enough.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: I remember being an Essence about eight years ago, and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 7: ironically I haven't been back since, but I met the then
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 7: executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Recording Academy,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 7: Kelly Purcell, shout out to Kelly. I love you.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: She.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 7: I met her when I was with they call a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: baby attorney, they call us that. Your first few years
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 7: of practicing, just pounding the pavement broke, just going in rooms,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 7: not having no money really, but like if I could fly,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 7: I and figured this out and do all that. And
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: I met her this panel and she was like, I
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 7: like you, so I let's stay in touch. And I've
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 7: been doing a little work with musicians, but nothing that
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: called anybody's attention. And she's like, I want to nominate
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 7: you for the Grammys, and I've done some work. I'd
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 7: like to say this you all. I think it was
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: the first time. I'm mistaken. I don't think I got
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: in the first time because they really dig deep to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 7: be like who are you working with and all that.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 7: So was the second time came back, I think a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 7: few months later to ask people to apply, and I
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 7: did and I got on as a member. I've been
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 7: a member for almost nine years now. And then they
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 7: watched that kind of stuff. So one of my peers
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 7: in Atlanta saw me and nominated me to you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 7: I like to mind my business, y'all know that, And
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 7: he was like, you're this type of person that needs
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 7: to speak about like what the music industry should look like.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 7: And everybody knows I'm vocal. I've always been like, hey
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 7: what about the continent? In any room, I'm in imagine
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 7: saying this for eight years, Hey what about the music there?
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 7: So thank god, a lot of conversations people were had.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 7: I don't know if you all have heard there's a
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 7: new category.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: For you know recently.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 7: These are years of conversations, you know, So it's years
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 7: those kinds of things. You just are being a voice
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 7: in the room for we all have things that are
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 7: important to us. For me, everybody, if they hear my name,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 7: they know synonymous, We're like, oh, she's going to talk
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 7: about the continent. So that's how I think I got
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 7: on some people's radar. And then just I've been able
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 7: to meet some really really cool people through that.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: There's our ticket to the Grammy. Yah, you go, there's
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: a pleasure.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 5: What do you want to make the people aware of
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: or how can they contact you and anything that you
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 5: want to leave the audience with.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 7: Oh, I would like say, if you want to contact
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 7: me my on ig I'm at amy O said so,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 7: so that's a m y O Sai d s O.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 7: That's if you want to see what's going on. I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 7: like to give little tips about you know, it's intellectual property,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 7: different things for just newer artists. And then thank you.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 7: I'm just grateful for you all continuing to bet on
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 7: me and going We're going on such a phenomenal ride together.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 7: And I think it's important to say, like, do what
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 7: you love, because I feel like it shows up and
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 7: I'm doing what I'm loving and I'm blessed that is
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 7: literally taking me all over this world. So people, a
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: lot of people have told me I can't do something,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 7: I can't show up, like everything from intentionally looking the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 7: way I do right wearing corn rolls and as a
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 7: black woman, because I remember being in the room and
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 7: feeling like I had to sort of, you know, compromise
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 7: a look, but like show up the way you need
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 7: to do the work you need to so you can
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 7: do the things you know you want to do later.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 7: I just feel like that's important, specifically for black women
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 7: because we feel like, you know, like who sees us
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 7: in the room. So thank you all for betting on
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 7: a black woman. Absolutely, thank you for being on this.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 4: So this is the last thing for me. It was
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 4: when I do reach out a lot of times. You
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: are on the continent and you said that the publicis
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: companies there just some real estate and there are other
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 4: things that you're looking at that makes you spend so
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: much time there.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 7: It's it's peace. I'll be honest with you. There there
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 7: is a level and you all been to the continent,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 7: so you feel there's a level of creativity and clarity.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 7: I tell people that I get on the continent, I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 7: don't get anywhere else on Earth. So just tapping into that, Troy,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 7: to be honest with you're like just tapping into like
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 7: what is making you happy and what is showing that's
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: the season I am in my life. It's doing that
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 7: and knowing that, you know, COVID really showed us you
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 7: can really work from anywhere on earth, Like thank God
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 7: we survived that. So it's just I'm honoring that. And
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 7: I didn't get to grow up in Nigeria, so now
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 7: that I'm older, I feel that, like my soul is
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 7: like yearning to be there more. So like that's I'm
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 7: just I'm just honoring that.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 4: The prophecy, you Phil, you missed the story and when
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 4: we were trueing her albums and this she was gonna
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: put Victory Lab. I said, why Victory Lab? You want
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: to tell?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 7: Yes? Because literally six weeks before Nip was killed, I
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 7: had the pleasure having a lovely conversation I'll never forget
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 7: with Nippy Hustle. It was at the Peppermint Club and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 7: my childhood friend who's also from North Carolina. DJ Jones
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 7: shout out to Daniel. He's co styled Nip with Groovy
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 7: lou So the world. You say, your world's come together.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 7: So again, I like to say I'm from Raleigh, North Caroline.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: People like what like? And then who's to tell you
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 7: can be anywhere? Like I was told a lot of times,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: like you're from a smaller town, Like you're not going
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 7: to do that. So that kind of story has had
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 7: me in rooms like that. Jay was in a room.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: It was different.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: How oh.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 7: One of my favorite experiences in my life period two minutes,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 7: I'll never forget. I was toln Toy. He's a gentle
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: giant and he I just remember him being so happy
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 7: about like he'd always been dope, but he was. That
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 7: was a year he was nominated for his GRAMMYCE and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 7: he was just excited about it. And then he went
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 7: and performed did a private show on everybody unfortunately knows
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 7: what happened. Literally that was in February and he was
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 7: killed March thirty. First, I remember exactly where it was
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 7: I happened, so it was, yeah, that was. That was literally,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 7: bar none, one of my favorite moments in entertainment. So
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 7: like to see what they're doing with the brand and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 7: how they're keeping it alive. God bless them. But like
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 7: that man left his mark. He was he's done great
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 7: things in depth, but he was bound to like y'all know,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 7: y'all know what he's done. So that is, even if
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 7: I'm thinking about it, one of my favorite memories.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 5: Like yeah, sure that's in peace and yeah doctor piny, Yes,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: all right guys, thank you guys, rocking on us. We'll
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: see you next week.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Peace, Peace, Peace.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: accused of murdering a Texas. Man of Venezuelan charged with
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Donald J.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: Trump's leadership. I'm Christino, the.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: United States Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: illegal border crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded,
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: and over one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: If you are here illegally, your next you will be
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: fine nearly one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: You will never return.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: But if you register using our CBP home app and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: leave now, you could be allowed to return legally.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: Do what's right. Leave now.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Under President Trump, America's laws, border and families will be protected.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,