Latest / The Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast / 07 Rene McLean: The Business of Music vs The Music Business

Transcript

07 Rene McLean: The Business of Music vs The Music Business · The Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: This is Americ Studios Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: On this week's show.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_05: No, it was in the mornings at the time.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: It was a morning show.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_05: But around this time, he started moving to five.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_05: And when he got to five o'clock, it was over.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_05: Out of hit.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_05: You know why?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: Because any heat that I had, he had it first.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_05: Jugging my nigga.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_05: No voice versus there was there was only a Cameron and a Jewel Santana verse on there.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, yo, E, play that.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like me and E broke a lot of music and hurt a lot of people's feelings.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: And three, two, one.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm DJ Enough.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: I'm DJ Camillo.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm DJ Cast One.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Lem Book, aka L Book.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, everyone worldwide, this is the Heavy Hitler DJs Podcast.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_03: We're back at it once again.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_03: The Heavy Hitter DJs podcast.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: Crowd Mover Lem Books, L Books, however you want to call it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's your man, Big Spanish DJ Enough.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Party Rocket Heavy to DJ Camillo.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cast one, aka Ju.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: Juancho.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: We want to welcome everybody.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_05: Hold on, hold on.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_05: I'm the original heavy hitter.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, okay.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_05: Excuse me, sir.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_05: Excuse me.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_05: E sat in the office with me.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_05: I say, oh, E, you need to put the squad together.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_05: Stop fucking playing.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: So let's welcome.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Stop playing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Matter of fact, let me introduce you to Threat.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Let's welcome to the podcast properly.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Renee McLean, aka R P M.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the podcast.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the podcast.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir, my brother.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: The guy, Renee McLean, to me, always looked up to him.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: The hustle is incredible.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: The way he's been able to always uh uh re remake himself and whatever he's doing, but taking that hustle and that energy that he's always had from the jump to an all-new platform each and every time, and we don't even gotta say how many doors Renee has knocked down with his hands, his fists, and all that at the same time.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: So um, but but besides all that, besides the resume, that there's a real unity, there's a real brotherhood between DJ Nuff and Renee McLean that throughout time we keep finding out new things about it, you know what I'm saying?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: And he'll be like, yo, you know what?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: I did that with Renee.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yo, that reminds me of when Renee.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, and to yo, Renee, and to this day, we two days ago, I'm still saying, oh shit, for real?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: Like, yo, the stories you guys have, but but I'll let either of you uh take take the uh the wheel and introduce us to the relationship between Renee McLean, DJ Nuff, and then the heavy hitters all you know together.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Enough guy.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: All right, so alright, this is I I'm going back to high school now because this is how I re-met my brother Renee McLean.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_04: City as high school, right?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_04: City as high school was across the street from Hot 97 at the time.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I had two homegirls.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_04: There was no Hot 97 at that time, just to be clear.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_04: I had two homegirls who were my best friends, a girl named Bali and a girl named Tatiana.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_04: And I went to school with them.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_04: We were in high school, and I spent a lot of time in Leroy Park playing handball.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: We spent a lot of time in that handball court.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_04: So one day Tatiana comes to me and says, Hey, you know, I'd like to introduce you to my boyfriend.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_04: I think you'd like him.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: Well, like, I'm in high school, y'all.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, boyfriend?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Keep it a buck.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: No one wanted to be nobody's boyfriend.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_04: Nobody wants to be a boyfriend.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like, oh my god.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, I'm being polite, and I gotta respect this.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_04: Like, all right, cool, whatever, whatever.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: So one day I end up meeting him, and I actually like to do it.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_04: He was very kind, nice.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_04: Found out he was a promoter.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: So I was like, dude, you know, I'm gonna I'm trying to be a DJ and trying to do my thing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_04: So I've I was like, damn, this is the perfect fit.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_04: This guy could put me in rooms that I never even imagined being in, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_04: So I forgot when we actually met up, but I went to his dad's house.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_04: His dad had an apartment at Manhattan Plaza, I believe, on 43rd and 9th or something like that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's the building.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_04: This is the crazy part.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: I go to his dad's house to meet him.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: He's getting ready, and I we're gonna go out somewhere or something like that.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm looking around and I find a photo of Renee McLean.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_04: I guess it's just like his second birthday party or something like that.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: Crazy.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_04: I'm looking at the photo, and I'm like, yo, Renee! He's like, What?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, come here, bro.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: He's like, what?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_04: Had urgency in my voice because I'm so excited.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_04: I'm in the photo.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_04: Yo, they've been friends, bro.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yo, I'm in the photo.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_04: So peak this.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: Oh shit.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yo, you pulled that out?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_05: Look at that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_05: Look at that.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_05: I'm wearing a crown that lets you know how I get down from the beginning.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'm in the bottom with the brown shirt and the overalls.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's crazy.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_04: I told EVE and Tom, I said, yo, I'm surprised our parents didn't feed us weed brownies back then.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's like a 360.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's crazy.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you guys hadn't seen each other in years, and you just happened to be in his house.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_05: Probably like that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_05: I think that was like my fourth birthday, I think.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys at this point didn't even know that you knew each other from back then.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_05: My girlfriend walked from this dude.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_05: This like, you know, Christopher William Williams looking ass dude.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, I look like the other person of Christopher Williams.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_05: We were really in style back then.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_05: Those light-skinned dudes with the flat, like the little but uh yeah, it was about 14 years later, which was kind of nuts.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_05: That's really crazy.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_05: That's crazy, bro.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: When he told me that story, I was like, no way, no way.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_04: So anyway, in the picture, I'm like, yo, is your mom such and such, the nurse from Nina?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_04: Now, Nina is like a health clinic in the Low East Side, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: And it's for us kids, people don't have no money like that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_04: So we went to the clinic to get health, you know, whatever.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: And his mom worked in the clinic.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_04: She was, I don't know, she was a nurse or something, Pop.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_05: No, she rat she like she was like an executive at the top level.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_04: She started as a nurse but got to the top.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I remember when she was young because she used to she used to stick that thing in my mouth.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_04: What's that?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the thermometer?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_04: Well, whatever.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: She all that she did everything.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_04: I always had a crush on your mom because I thought she was beautiful.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, oh my god, this woman's beautiful.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_04: It's getting weird.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's getting weird.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's getting weird.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_05: But this is the crazy part.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_05: You trying to call her mom and else, bro?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, no, it's getting weird.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yo, you know Ephraim had a crush on you.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_04: But in quite in retrospect, look, I had a stroke a few years ago, right?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: And then who came to the hospital to take care of me?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_04: Is mom.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, I love that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_04: Pal.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: Beautiful.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: We're doing a spinal tap on my back, and she was there, like pressing me, praying for me, like, you know, doing the mama thing.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_04: So I have doing the Buddhist thing.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_04: She's a Buddhist now.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, whatever.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: It was just pure love.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, Jesus.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: Pure love, man.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_04: Pure love.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: So after this revelation, like, yo, we we've been around each other.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_05: It just I kicked my girlfriend to the side, and we did me and he just hit the streets running.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_05: Like, yo.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_05: This is meant to be.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: This is the crazy part.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_04: Me and Renee got so close.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_04: He was living with his girlfriend in his apartment uptown.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_04: He ends up, I don't know, they split up or whatever it was.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we split up.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: I ended up moving in.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_04: And then me and him became the hip-hop odd couple.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: I can see that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_04: The hip-hop odd couple.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_04: I'd wash the dishes and he makes a fucking mess.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_05: I was the real wild, wild boy back then, bro.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: Had 40 ounces of beer bottles lined up in our kitchen, like just one after another, like one after another.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_04: And then Renee would get on my turntables and and try to cut up public enemies.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to the Terradome.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like, wow.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_04: That was our relationship.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, and but Renee's responsible for putting me in the game.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_04: So what I mean by that is like how Cass and L Books, you guys had your internships with me.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_04: I had my internship with Renee McLean.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_05: I want to I need to correct you on that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: We put each other actually in the game because um Y'all started together.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_05: We started together without E.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_05: Teal.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_05: I wouldn't be able to do what I was doing.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_05: I was really doing all the I I I mean, it got very clear to me I wasn't talented enough to be a DJ or a producer or any of that.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't have the discipline, but Ephraim definitely did.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_05: And um we just started kind of like plotting a map of like what we wanted to do to be in the music business in hip hop.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_05: Because you gotta remember the shit wasn't established then.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_05: Because we were like, like I was a club I wanted to be a club promoter.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I made my attempts at doing that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we had a couple of spots, what was the spot we had?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_05: Nappy Dugout?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, Nappy Dugout was a Let's call it Nappy Dugout.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_05: It was on Jane Street at the Jane Street, which is crazy because my office is right down the block from there now.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_07: Crazy.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah, so we, you know, I think we gave um opportunity to both, and then I started interning at a record label.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_05: Virgin Records.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_05: Like, like I literally, I think I met E while I was 18, and that year I was going to college.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_05: And whatnot.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_05: Or was it like 17, something like that?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_05: That year I was going to college.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_05: And um, so I went and did it, I w I went to New York City Tech, and then I started an internship at Virgin Records.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: I was getting paid like 30 bucks a week.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_05: All my boys was like, yo, bro, what you having?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_05: What you doing, B?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_05: What you doing?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: I wounded up dropping out of college within four months and interning full time.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: And then um, for a woman by the name of Kathy Moore, Shallot Kathy, and then she was leaving to go to Arista, and actually, no, nah, let me tell you the story, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: I was interning there, and a guy named Troy Terrain.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: Oh shit, Troy was over there too, and he was dealing with all like the rock, white shit, sales.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_05: For those of you who don't know Troy Terrain, is that's star, star above wild.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_07: Wow.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_05: So he wound up getting a gig at Virgin for the you know, rap department and whatnot.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_05: And that was when they were building these rap departments.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_05: So he I went and became his assistant.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I went from intern to assistant within eight months.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: And then after that, the women I interned for left to Aristotle.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_05: She recommended me for her job.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_05: And I got her job.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_05: So about the time I was like 21, I was like regional promotion director, dealing with all the program directors.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like 21 dealing with these audio program directors of Vinny Brown's and, you know, all those.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_03: Looking at you crazy, probably.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_05: Looking at me like, and I just straight didn't give a fuck.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_05: Because I was slinging RB after seven.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_05: The closest thing I had to hip hop was Redhead Kingpin.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_05: Chick plus La Rassa.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my lord.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_05: So but anyway, the plan was to get E on the radio.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_05: So as an intern and as a promotional rapper, I built a very strong relationship with Red Alert.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_05: And not only that, like me and E had been really running the streets and in the clubs.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_05: So E was already starting to build a reputation as a DJ because I remember it was like Big Cap, Flex, Riz, a whole bunch of dudes that went on to the next level.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_05: You know what I'm saying?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_05: Because remember, High Name 7 hadn't flipped yet.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, it was it was early.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_05: It was straight.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_05: Kiss FM was the closest thing you had to hip hop at 7 o'clock.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: After 7, they started playing hip-hop, then Red came on and Chuck Chill Out.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_05: Long story short, he came to interim with me at Virgin.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when I that's when we started really game planning like our next moves.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_05: And then from that relationship with Red that I built with, that I built with and put enough in position and the work we were doing on the streets, because at that point in time we were spinning at like a lot of the clubs.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: I forgot what they were called.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_05: The one back then?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the one New York Live.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, I forgot about it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_05: The New York Live.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_05: Street Party was my first time.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_05: No, New York Live.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_05: New York Live came after.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_05: New York Live came when I got fired.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_04: I got fired.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_04: That was my first uh industry uh event.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_04: Everything up everything before that was just clubs.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but that was really important because we were at the building, the world, like Mars, like we were doing the we were doing the real work in the streets.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: So when we went into the industry, we were really those street hip hop guys.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_05: And we had the reputation on the street.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_05: I used to be there at Mars every Friday hitting Clark Kent just to get in.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_05: Like Clark Kent, like Clark was big back then, Capri was big back then, and we were like the young boys.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: We were just trying to get on.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_05: I was trying to get on in the business, and he was trying to get in on, you know, as a DJ on the radio, and there weren't just like radio slots, you know.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you guys know how covered that those slots were.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: So long story short.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_05: But Renee, were you like a manager for enough?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was his manager, but I was just more his boy than his manager.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: Both.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_05: You know, but I was managing him.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we were managing.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_05: I was managed.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_05: I would say, yeah, I'm his manager.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: I was managing him, yes, to answer that question.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_05: I don't know how much of a good manager I was, but that was anything I did, he was involved in.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_05: He made no money with me, but he did a labor of love.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was Cass's manager for like eight years.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: I get it.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_05: He still owes you money.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_05: You better collect your money, bro.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: Cass was like a lot of money.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_05: I was managing Ian being a club promoter and just trying to do it all at the same time.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_05: So the opportunity broke where I got in the business on the record side of things, and then I brought I as an intern, and then um we just came with our game plan.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_05: Then next thing you know, Red's hitting us, and he's like, yo, I want E to come on on um Kiss FM.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_05: Kiss FM, and then we then after that he fired me.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_05: Oh shit.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he not fired me.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_05: He just he wrote with Jessica.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_05: I love you.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yo, is that a habit of the big thing?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yo, that one really hurt my soul.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, when he told you the truth, that was the best thing.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_05: Because he wanted to do it, did his own, he started doing his own thing, and then he had to deal with the bullshit with that, and I was dealing with the other bullshit on my side.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_05: And then we kind of had two different like track trajectories, track records going, trajectories going at the same time.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_05: But we was always still fucking with each other.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_05: You know what I'm saying?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_05: But he had his agenda, I had my agenda, which is totally fine because it worked out perfectly for us.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_05: And the brotherhood was there.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_05: The brotherhood was more there than that.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I wasn't like I really wasn't in a position to empower him.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like I would say, like, I can understand why he he rot he went rot with them because they had access to all the clubs.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_05: I haven't become been I didn't level up to that level as a car promoter.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: But on the record side of things, I was moving.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_05: You know?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_05: So then he went through whatever he went through.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_05: And then when I landed up at Electra, and I think this is where Camelo, you come in the picture.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's why I remember Electra.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_05: So I came in Electra and I came because I I went from actually I went from um shit.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_05: I went from Virgin getting fired because I just fucked off and I hated that job.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_05: RB RB program directors, I really hated that job.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_05: I was so hip hop.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_05: So I got fired, you know.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: But I started this thing called New York Live, and then that's where Eduff had his residency, and we launched a lot of um acts from there.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like we did Puff with when Puff was launching Mary J, we launched her there with Diddy.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: We did gossip.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: We did a whole bunch of acts, you know?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then I got lucky and I got this record called King Just, Warriors Drum, which all you guys played.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_05: You guys all played.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_05: And it was perfect timing because I was unemployed.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: I picked up that record from the street, and then Hot 97 flipped to hip hop all day.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: And then um I walked that record in to Tracy, and we all know how Tracy is.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_05: But Tracy knew me because she kept seeing me in the streets every year, everywhere.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_05: So my credibility was really high at the station.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: For people who don't know, real quick, I'm sorry, people who don't know, Tracy used to be the program director at High 97.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_05: She was like the But she started as the music director that became the program director.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_05: And she was actually living in the streets.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I would say she was like, She was about that life.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_05: She was about that life.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_05: She was like Jessica had the clubs, but Tracy had radio.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_05: But Tracy also I mean, how ninety seven had palladium every Friday, which was Wow.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_05: I didn't know that.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they flipped the dial and they took over the palladium.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_05: And that became such a home for a lot of people.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, that's kind of like this is 92-ish, right?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: 1992, 93, ain't that right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Nah, not the palladium is ninety.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_05: New York Live.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_05: 92 is New York Live, 93 is New York Live.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_05: Warriors drum is 95.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_05: All right.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_05: So you walked 94.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: You walked that into the station.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you walked that into the station.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: You got to go to the street.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_05: Walked that into the station, they put that shit on.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_05: Shit went crazy because all they was playing was Wu Tang, and that was like Wu Tang's cousin.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_05: And that really put me on a map.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_05: I got a call, yo, from Kathy, who I interference like, yo, Michael Haley's now the VP over at RCA.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_05: He wants you to come take the rap job.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when I got my official rap title over there.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then while I was at RCA, Lau was there too.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_05: So that's when I got to work with the guys at Loud.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_05: So I was instrumental helping break in Mob D.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_05: You know, Raekwon was Raekwon.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_05: And after I did that, I got a call from Electra.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_05: From from uh I got a call from Richard Nash, who was the um the vice president now over there too.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_05: And the crazy thing is where Virgin, when I was at Virgin and where I interned, all the promotion, regional promotion reps were all there.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_05: And all these people I had met, because there's just like a line of officers.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_05: You had Worst Landy, who went on to be the vice president of Atlantic Records.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_05: You had Jody Williams, another VP.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_05: You had Richard Natchez there, you had, you know, it was lined up.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_05: So they all knew me from an intern.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_05: They all knew I was a street guy, hip hop kid.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_05: So they all went on, and like Richard called me and was like, look, I got this job open at Electra.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when I went to Lectra and I got with Sylvia and I did busted rhymes.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_05: We broke Missy, broke a lot of records over there, and that's when, you know.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_05: And all along, I was bringing E with me.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_05: Facts.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_05: Like, yo, E, we gotta get our shit going.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's that Violator run, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that whole Violet phase.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_05: That was that whole, like, nah, Violet would yeah, Violet was there.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_05: Chris Lighty, the funny thing is like I had shit, like Lighty would come into these buildings and just like be blasting niggas.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_05: He couldn't do that with me because I had shit so hard on the streets.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_05: Like, like it was kind of crazy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_05: A shout out to Chris Lighty, he's a great guy.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um, rest in peace.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_05: So it was like um, I had E with me the whole time.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, at that point in time, I think E, that's when you were kind of splitting up with Jessica and all like you felt like things weren't going the right direction.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, E, come over.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because at that point in time, I had launched RPM.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_05: Which started off as Dream Team with my cousin Chris.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_05: What does RPM stand for?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_05: Renee Prophet McLean.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, hold on.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_05: Or my other one is Renee's promotional money.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_05: There we go.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_05: I like that.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_05: No, wait, so you launched RPM while you were still at Electra?
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because I told Sylvia, I was like, yo, she's just like Sylvia's a Sylvia was a great person that really stood behind me and support me.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I was on the contract.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_05: She was like, she was like, baby, just keep make sure that we're hot in the streets, because that's why.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I broke busting, I broke missing.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_05: We were killing you.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: And I actually, you know, we did a couple other things, we did several other things there too.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_05: But like, I mean, I had it on fire with the axe.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: And then I did the van thing.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_05: And then I started rapping vans, and nobody had raped Vans.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_05: So you were the first to rap Vans?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and that nigga's face was on it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: Him, stretching off strong on one side and fucking Ted the Dillinger.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_05: Ted the Dillinger.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_05: Ooh, I seen that one.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, I remember that.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_05: And then, and then, but that was like a later versus the first one was with Rampage, where we did Wild for the Night.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_05: I forgot who was on the other side.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: But anyway, we killed it because we had the post.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: I was getting$100,000 fines from the city, post awards.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_05: And they were like, yo, Renee, just keep going.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_05: We were selling millions and millions of records.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_05: That was like a slap on the wrist.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_05: So that that money, that money was very different back then, right?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not sure.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_05: Bro, a failure was a million records sold.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_05: A failure.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_04: I agree.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_04: And we'll be right back.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: And now, back to the show.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_05: And it was also based on billing.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_05: So as long as you did those billables with the returns and exchanges, that was all that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_05: That was that time period.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_05: But um yeah, so we did the vans and everything else.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: And then that's when I got the vans, and we were doing that shit.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_05: And then I started a mixture power summit at the same time.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I was I was like, I made sure my I made sure I was different.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Explain to the people what mixed show power summit is because a lot of people do that.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_05: So which were the DJing us, the F Master Flexes, the Kid Capri's, all the most the actual influencers of back then.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: From across the country.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I had everybody, I had I'd fly in 500 DJs for a showcase and some incredible parties.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_05: And the first one.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_05: And we can't talk about on this air.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 23:35
  unknown: No.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_05: We had to relax.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_05: But it'll be in the documentary.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_05: Uh-oh.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_05: When was the first mixed show power summon and where?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_05: First mixed show power summit was in '99 at the National Hotel in Miami.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_07: Okay.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_07: All right.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_05: And that first year we had Puff and J-Lo there.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_05: We had Outcast, um, cash money even pulled up.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was early days.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_05: And that started probably like with 50 to 60 DJs.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_05: And then it just grew exponentially, and we did it for a decade.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: And don't be humble about it, man, because like you said, that guesses was the top DJ, the top axe, the top.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_03: And like, I need people to understand.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_05: Like when powerful.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_05: The labels were paying me a grip of money, and they were paying a grip of money to get their talent.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_05: Oh my God.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yo, when Power Summit would take over your town, like you ate Power Summit, you drank Power Summit, like the club.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yo, one of the dopest things that were.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: The one I remember, put it in perspective.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_05: Put it in perspective.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_05: We had Power Summit Week on MTV proper.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_05: Sick, bro.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_05: That's crazy.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_05: I had Stephen Hill call me from BET one day, like, yo, Renee, I need in.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_05: Da-da-da-da-da.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, Steve, they they sponsored me.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, they cut me a check.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_05: Like, they like I can't let you in.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I'm coming anyway.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_05: Like, people don't understand.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_05: That's probably the politics.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like the impact that Power Summit had.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Even like years after the Power Summit was finished, remember on Jay-Z and Kanye's joint album, he mentioned it on that album.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, party with the DJs, Puerto Rico for three days.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is what he's talking about.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, people don't know that this is what he's talking about.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because the average person doesn't know about the Make Show Power Summit.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was such an industry thing, such a big thing throughout music.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: But anybody that was in music at the time or after the time knows what it is and knows the law of the Make Show Power Same.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: When that thing landed in Puerto Rico, it was it was such a monster.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: Was that the biggest one?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_05: That had to be the biggest one.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_05: Nah, the big the Puerto Rico one, was that the biggest one?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_05: I think that was the biggest one because that's the one where you took over a whole boat room and built out Scarface.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um that was the year also to the Eminem came down and did a mile.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_05: And then that was a showcase where Alicia Keys and Nas is on stage.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: That was a showcase when Buster was there.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: Remember that?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: That was crazy.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_05: T.I.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_05: T.I.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_05: was there too.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was, I mean, that was wild, man.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I remember going to the club being a bra.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, little job.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_05: Puerto Ricans took over.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_05: Like it was crazy.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_05: It was like you want this bra.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_05: Danny C called Danny C.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: Come is like, yo, Renee, they're gonna fire me.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, calm down.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_05: We're calling a boss.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_05: Shout out to Danny C.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_05: I just actually did a I actually he's a he's a professor.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_05: I just went and did a class with his students.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_05: So shout out to Danny C.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_05: So I mean, yeah, it was crazy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: But let's get back to the story with E.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_05: So all this stuff was happening at the same time, right?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: So my my weight was really heavy.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, E, what we doing here, bro?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_05: You don't need to be with those guys over there.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: You need to do your own thing.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_05: Matter of fact.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: And shout out to Eric Paula, because that is that was like my like my general back then.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_05: He's like still such a close friend.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_05: And he was like, yo, he brought this kid named Thracht to the office.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_05: And this kid had man action energy, and he was a DJ.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, yo, E, I need for you to meet this kid, bro.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_05: This kid is nice.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_05: Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_05: So Thrat started driving my vans.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_05: Like, he literally would drive my vans everywhere.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_05: He lived him off island.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_05: Take him four hours to get home.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: Change, come back and be at the nightclub.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, he lived in this motherfucker.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, yo, E, you gotta start some shit.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_05: Be like, this do you the heavy hitter of sound?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_05: Because that was his name.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, we got like the third was like, yo, let's be the heavy.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, heavy hitters, let's open up shop right here at the office at election.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_05: Because I I had a whole side of the office that was just mine.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_05: My whole side.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_05: Like I ran the shit.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_05: And he came in, and then that's kind of like where heavy hitters started.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_05: And then I was like, yo, you gotta start building a squad.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: Then we sat down.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, yo, what about DJ Sweaty Belly?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yo, someone someone had to stand at Camelo.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_05: Because Camelo used to come up to the office and get records and you know.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_05: Him and Jay Grant, we used to ship records out of there.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we used to ship other records out of there.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_05: Like Sean Packers sent out deja vu, cards, out to elect your records.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: To get it out to the DJs to come to the record.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the DJs out there understand.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the DJs out there understand, listen to like we used to go out Thursday, Fridays to labels just to get records.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: This was a hustle.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: This was the way, like with downloading MP3s.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, that didn't exist.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: You used to go hit, and that used to be a part of the hustle.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You used to pull up and luckily, hopefully, leave with a stash of records, hopefully exclusives, hopefully promo joints, hopefully try to get them free because them shit's so expensive.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: All that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was part of the hustle to all them DJs out there.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, you used to go see Renee.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Renee back then, it you were doing a party.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Weird enough.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a violator party in Miami.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the that that that that time where you guys are you guys were on fire.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, for oh, I forgot to tell you too, that during that time period, that's why I met Lilette.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_05: And me and Lilette teamed up.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_05: And she was a club promoter.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_05: So we wind up doing parties in New York, and that just made it even worse.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_05: Worse.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_05: And it was worse to the point that it was it was bad that other people really intimidated and pissed off.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we're trying to shut us down.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was a thing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was a real thing to the point that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_05: But the thing that I had was that all the promo dudes were my dudes.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_05: So I was gonna get the act first.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_05: It didn't matter who it was, because we all rode with each other.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_05: I don't care who it was.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_05: Garnet, Reed, this one, that one.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_05: We all knew what the time was.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like, look, we're gonna eat together, and we're gonna, you know, and we, you know, we just we just we had the biggest Friday night, three or four thousand people every Friday.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_05: The vans popping, the power summit, streets on fire.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_05: We actually brought uptown Dominican Dykeman, downtown to mix with the black crowd and the downtown crowd.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_05: And like, I think I was a time period.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_05: There was no bottle service.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_05: We started introducing the bottle service back then.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna tell you how you guys won and killed.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_04: I never seen this in my life.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_04: We had we had Carbon Night Club, which is now Terminal 5.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_04: On the Friday night party there, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_04: Renee and Let decide to bring in sand from outside, from I don't know fucking where.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: It was a beach party.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_05: That's why we put beach, we put the sand in the club.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: Beach scares.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: It was nuts.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: It was under the under under at the bottom of the DJ on the floor.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_03: I remember wearing white.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: At this moment, also enough on the radio.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_05: Enough got actually enough got on the radio.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_05: He went from Kiss FM to High 97.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_05: And he was on at you on at five, right?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_05: Well, in the beginning it was no, it was in the mornings at the time.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_05: It was a morning show.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_05: But around this time, he started moving to five.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_05: And when he got to five o'clock, it was over.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: You know why?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: Because any heat that I had, he had it first.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: Jugging my nigga, oh boy, with no verses from Cameron.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, with no voice, no voice versus there was there was only Cameron and a Jewel Santana verse on there, I think.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, yo, E, play that.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_05: That shit, like me and E broke a lot of music and hurt a lot of people's feelings.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And at this time, at this time is when threat was on the sidelines.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, and I always say he was Enough's battery packed.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bom.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because when y'all started that heavy hitter talk and started that whole, yo, do your own shit, my brother, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Enough and threat, you know, that's what that's where it all started, right there, right?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all have the right, you know what I'm saying?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then RPM, the office, right?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: All happened in the off the office.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: It all happened in there.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_03: I got to the office.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_05: No, they they moved into the office on 38th Street and right down the block was Fight Club.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now, this office, this is where me and L Bugs come in.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, around this time, we're starting to come around Enough, right?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Enough is like, I I don't know where Enough goes to me.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, um, we're gonna go set up a studio in the office.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Renee's like, telling me, like, I don't know who Renee is.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, are you sure?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, yeah, yeah.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we get there, and to honestly, he never, Enough never actually told us who you were or what anything was.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: We just knew we were in the office that was your office, but he had a slot in the office.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we walk in there, we're like, Y'all were soldiers, bro.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_05: You're soldiers.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: We were soldiers, but we were also shook because we were like, yo, we don't know who these people are.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we'd see you and Lilette in that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so him and Lilette had a had a uh office that was a joint office.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And anything that was everything was coming in and out of that office, right?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just sitting there like, we don't know what to do.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're sitting there like, yo, what's happening here?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea what's happening.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_05: All types of artists walking through, exactly.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_05: And let me tell you something.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_05: Hold up.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yo, let me tell you something about Lilette.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, also too.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: We had the magazine too then, you know.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: We make your magazine, right?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, so now you gotta understand what's happening here, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a the office is it's a it's a it's an apartment, bro.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a tiny apartment.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a two tomb apartment.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Renee and Lilette had an office.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a closet, which was the heavy hitter office, was literally a closet where we had all of enough studio equipment, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: That we also had the record pool.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if Lane's.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what Lenny's pulling up there.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can't really see it.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I got notes.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: Someone found E Make Show and they send it to me.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: So now, out of this office, from what I remember, what's happening about this time, mind you, I'm a new person.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a kid off the street, I don't know what's what.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's happening is here, there's a magazine brand printed every month, right?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: The magazine, you can see it.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: A full magazine that goes out with two vinyls of random records like that should not be together, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking at this.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's like six or eight songs on every record that should not be together, not from the same label, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Then we have Mick Show Power Summit happening over there.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: Renee Lilette having meetings with the biggest promoter.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know they were promoters because I'm a DJ.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know who the I'm like, yo, I'm the dude that does this party.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And they walking in and out of uh Renee Lilette's office getting sunned.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you hear is Renee sunning people in the office.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, yo, what is happening here, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then you got he drew that?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember, bro.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you did.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Then, hold on, this is all happening.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Then in the corner over here, you have Jim Jones and the whole dipset.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Before they were dipset putting together mixtapes.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_05: That they actually put the we put the dipset mixtape together together.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what I mean is like literally taking the jewel case, the CD, putting it in, putting the paper.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like they was in there doing it.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: All this is happening in a two-room apartment, right?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Shop shop, bro.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was a shop shop.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then we'd be there, like the regular people that, so then they're regular people that actually put together a magazine.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's like publishers and art people, and they're there till like 6 p.m.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have the promotions area where you had like Radio Raheem and all these dudes making promotional reports in radio station.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Then you got Renee, then you got uh Lilette over here and Renee running point on everything.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Then you got them promoting parties, promoting exit, promoting, which was the biggest nightclub at the time, right?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: You got me in a little studio with rappers coming through.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody that was anybody at that time came through the office.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking like Kanye, Joe Burton, like you name it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: They was all in and out of that office recording freestyles for the head hitters, right?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Bugs is running a record pool.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a little, there's literally thousands of records being and DJs coming every Friday to pick up this all happening.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is all happening at one time at the same time in the same place, organized chaos, bro.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yo, but it was just let yourself.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: She was aggressive.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yo, she's intimidating then.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: She was just worse than a dude.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like she was the worst thing you can hear that back then the worst of my wife.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: The worst thing you can hear back then was Lilette wants to talk to you.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: That was the worst thing you can hear, bro.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be like, oh God, what did I do?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: She she she she gotta probably be built like that because to deal with the industry, you gotta be hard.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like right, you know, women in that industry is it's that's another conversation, but it's tough.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not easy.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I will I will say, I will say that the way Lilette was running everything and treating people, I would be, I'd be like, nope, I'm good, baby.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: She liked me, son.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: Nah, I'm good.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then you're but I was still so sure.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_03: She definitely would.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_03: But you know what I mean?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_05: But you know the funny thing is, people know that if they couldn't get to me or get to do what they wanted me to do for them, they would always try to like she was always a soft buffer, too.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I always felt like even now looking back to back at it, how that whole system, that whole RPM heavy-headed system, was like the greatest incubator of just talent, right?
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's people that that went on to do their own thing, people that went on to be have uh uh uh uh you know great positions at recollect, people that went on and learned so much out of that chaos that is kind of something that's missing nowadays, but it was just like Renee, Renee and Lillette, and they fostered this environment where it was like, all right, if you want to work, you could come here.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else, we'll figure it out later, right?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else will get figured out.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: You might not get paid.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: We gotta figure it out.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: I got a question.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, bro, after you come work for us, everybody's gonna want to hire you.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Watch.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got a question.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I got a question.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know, you know, in that time, it was a different time.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Money was different.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know, Britney, what was the biggest high and paid gig you got enough?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: It would probably be like, I'm just curious, like, you know, back then this is like 90.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe 10 racks?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, 15 racks?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: The better question is actually I don't I don't I don't remember.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Nah.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: The better question, Camillos, because I've seen it.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I got the better question is how much money would you walk out of that club if at the end of the night?
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_05: That bad story.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_05: You can multiply that probably by 10 times.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_07: That was crazy.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_05: Bro, I stole everyone.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_05: On the real when we we start, remember, we we started doing the parties in Miami.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: We started the parties in Miami.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: I remember that.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: I was there.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_05: That was before people were going to Miami.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_05: We started those parties.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was there, I was there like a fan.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was there.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yo, bro, like I remember the freaking door one night at those parties rang like uh over a hundred thousand, and then the bar rang like over a hundred thousand.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, those are realistic numbers.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: Those are the real things.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: That was a crazy time period, and then it started getting real crazy after that.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_05: And then at that time.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: And then me and Lilette were like, just becoming too dangerous.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go get this.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_05: Let's go get this easier money.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: And speaking of the easier money, you guys have pivoted left, right, et cetera.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: But now you've been in this pocket with these uh with the masters, et cetera.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you're still out there, bro.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like, Jesus Christ, man.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: And like when I see you post all that stuff, I'm like, I don't think we have any idea the fucking bumps, you know what I'm saying, on the road.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: And fuck that, and the great hustles that have come out of the RPM system, bro.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like for instance, for instance, we can't like can we talk about the Pepsi thing?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that was a big Yeah, the all the Pepsi and DJ.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't right about that same time, towards the end of the day.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_05: So when we have the magazine, like Tell them what you did, tell them what you did.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_05: Like, so I mean, when we had the conference, all the all the brands wanted to start fucking with us.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_05: And, you know, shout out to Frank Cooper, who plays a major role later in my career.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's right.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_05: Frank came in and was like, he was ahead of Pepsi.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, yo, Renee, he just had the problem with Ludacris with, you know, Fox and all that.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, yo, I gotta do an urban program.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_05: What can we do?
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, look, let's put let's put to put together a DJ program.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_05: It's never been done.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I put the Pepsi DJ division together with all the top DJs from top markets, which was like Enough, Drama, Khalid, um King James, King James, Eric Kobichi, Spark, CJ Rowe.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_05: Like, so we had all these markets and we created um uh a campaign around them.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_05: Basically, print campaign, media campaigns had never been done before.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I think that's that's a seed you planted, my brother.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: Oh no, I know it is because the next thing you know, you know, Puff started doing the Ciroc DJs.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_05: Correct.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_05: Everybody had a DJ program, but I was, you know, you take you take that as flattery.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and I was like, cool, you know, we are we we all you know, like we we're moving on to the next, you know, like hit it and quit it, you know?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, you know, I became a Ciroc boy, enough was a Ciroc boy, and you know, so many.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_05: I'm glad I'm of service to the culture and the music and to what I love, even to the point of what I'm doing right now.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_05: That's kind of like always been like my driving force.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_05: Um my thing is like if you love what you do and you're really good at it, you're gonna make money doing it.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_05: You're gonna be the best at it.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_05: Or try to be the best.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: So speaking about what you're doing right now, let's speak, let's speak more to that.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because what you're doing with United Masters and that all that, that like the whole vibe of um of people's catalogs, it needs to be highlighted.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think that journey started when like Lilette and I had the agency.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_05: Like, I remember we we we kind of like you said, I went from working for the labels to not working for the labels, having my own my agency, and then, you know, I I'm wind up, you know, I managed police, I managed Cameron, and then for a short period of time, then I did LMFAO, you know, did that.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_05: So I went through that phase.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_05: And then like we had the agency, and we saw the agency business kind of going away, and the music business, you know, was where it wasn't in a great state, but we were like, so we, you know, I I try to sell the conference.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_05: I met a banker and he introduced me to another banker, and we wanted to basically learn how to raise capital and do all that stuff, so that let myself said at one point in time we were like, look, if we're gonna get back into the music business, we know we really have to be able to um control the money and not have to go to these major labels and ask them for whatever it is or whatever it is.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_05: So we got with a with with we helped create a thesis to do an entertainment fund.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_05: It was supposed to be filming TV first, and then you know, filming T Z TV business wasn't in a good place at that point in time, and then I always kept my own indie label, you know, RPM, and I had signed like the Underachievers, who was down with Joey Badass, Flatbook Zombies, put about five or six five or six albums out, did pretty well.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_05: No radio hits, they never wanted to go out in '97.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_05: It was our time period where, you know, that generation really wasn't buying into the older generation of what they're listening to and what they're doing.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I wound up doing that.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_05: I had this kid named Out of Sight that I managed, and I signed, and then, you know, I basically learned how to raise, you know, Len and I learned how to raise this capital.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_05: And that's when we went to BlackRock, and um, you raise uh, we actually got a a uh a bridge loan for like$50 million.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um and we had to go buy catalogs and exit and sell them all within a year.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_05: And we did that successfully, and then we went back out to raise more capital.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: And then, like I said, that's where Frank Cooper comes in.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_05: Frank was at BlackRock, and um he was a CMO BlackRock, and he we had been in talking to him about what we were doing, and then when we were selling those first three catalogs we bought to an investor, um we we we ran into uh a gentleman at at a pension fund, he really liked us, but he didn't we didn't close the deal on him, but he said, When you guys are finished with that, come see me.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_05: And we came to see him, and it happened to be that that specific pension, BlackRock handled their money.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_05: So he mentioned RNA to BlackRock, and then you had Frank there.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_05: And that's kind of how that whole kind of connection with BlackRock happened, and you know, it was like um crash course of like learning finance, you know, and kind of like um kind of just it's kind of like where my career's taking me to that.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_05: So and you know, it didn't happen overnight.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_05: We started that like in 2017, 18 and weren't successful until 2020, you know?
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So so right now when you guys so basically you guys take these these funds and invest them in artist catalogs?
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so basically, I mean our whole premise was that if we're gonna get back into the business, we gotta be really about like a nuance of being in the music uh music business and then there's being in the business of music.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_05: You know what I'm saying?
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: So we needed to be in the business of music to really be in the music business.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: There it is, y'all.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: Renee McLean on the Heavy Hitted DJ podcast.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: Renee, just keep doing that thing, my brother, and thank you for joining us today.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_04: All right, we love you, bro.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: We love you, bro.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Go ahead and make sure you subscribe to the Heavy Hitted DJ podcast, break the show, and share it with someone who cares about the roots of what moves us.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm the crowd mover out book.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the big Spanish guy DJ and Up.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm DJ Camelo, and I'm DJ Cast one.