Latest / Earn Your Leisure / How Lecrae Built His Music Empire: Secrets to Independent Success & Balancing Faith with Music

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How Lecrae Built His Music Empire: Secrets to Independent Success & Balancing Faith with Music · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 2: All right, guys, welcome back, Eyl.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Yes see, are in the studio back off of invest
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: fst with one of the highlights of invest Fest. If
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: you didn't catch his interview with big Facts, then you
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: definitely missed a great one. Hopefully they might put that out.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know, but Lookray, I mean, you know, we
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: look at the music industry, somebody that's changed the game
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: as far as the content is important. We'll talk about
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: the categoration of the content. But in a time where
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: you know, people have complained about a lot of negative
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: influences and music and how it influences people, especially young people.
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  Speaker 3: I think that it's positive to have a balance. So
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  Speaker 3: he's been able to do it and also an entrepreneur
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  Speaker 3: running the record label twenty We just talked about twenty
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: seven awards from Grammys.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: To people say to everything and just been.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: You know, a very interesting story. So thank you for
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: joining us. Yeah. Absolutely, I'm excited to be here.
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  Speaker 1: Boy, appreciate We saw each other in passing. I was like, oh, brother,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I appreciate.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: You so much. Man. I had a blast.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: It was a phenomenal time, man, phenomenal.
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  Speaker 3: So for the people that may have heard about you
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  Speaker 3: but not totally familiar with your story, yep. So all
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: right you I want to make sure I say this correctly. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: you are a hip hop artist first and foremost, but
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  Speaker 3: just content usually leaned towards Christian raph Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's so many ways to spend that. This is
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  Speaker 4: what I always try to tell people. I am authentically Christian,
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  Speaker 4: but I am authentically hip hop. I'm kind of like
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: if outcasts in the.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Books of Moses came together, you know what I'm saying.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: So it's kind of like sometimes it's a category for
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: people but that's the essence of hip hop for a
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: lot of folks. It's always been this outlier that people
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: didn't quite understand. And then it was like, okay, hip
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: hop is now mainstream. But then it was like Southern rappers,
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: what is that? And then it's like now you got
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: outcasts and it's mainstream. Now the South is like on
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: the forefront of it. And I look at it the
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: same way. You know what I'm saying. It's like Wu
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Tangle spitting five percent gyms, and it's like, Okay, that's
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: the perspective they're coming from. This is the perspective I'm
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: coming from. But at the end of the day, it's
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  Speaker 4: hip hop, you know what I mean.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, honestly, I never
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: really thought about it like that. Yeah, I never heard
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: like rock Kim be classified as a five percent.
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  Speaker 2: Rapper exactly exactly.
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  Speaker 1: It's hip hop music. It just has faith based that's right.
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  Speaker 3: But that's any anything that you do is going to
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  Speaker 3: influence your life that you're living exactly, Like you know
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  Speaker 3: what I'm saying, Like, that's just that's just common sense.
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  Speaker 3: Like you rap about the things that you do on
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: a daily basis, So all right, So how did how
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: did this come about for you? As far as you're
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: from Houston originally, then you moved to the West coast,
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  Speaker 3: so I'm assuming you grew up in the church.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't. That's crazy, that's the part.
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  Speaker 4: So my mom, my mom grew up in church and
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: she had a really negative experience.
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  Speaker 2: So it's like very believe the church. The church.
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so she had this real kind of rigorous like
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: she couldn't wear pants, makeup, and she this is in Houston,
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: Third War Houston, so it was really tough for her.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: And at the same time, she's also the Black Panthers
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: is feeding her free breakfast and teaching her these lessons.
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  Speaker 4: So she getting both of these worlds and she like,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: wait a minute. So she like, I don't want my
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: kid to have religion forced on them. So she raised
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: me to be a free thinker. So as a kid,
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: I'm reading Eldris Cleaver, I'm reading autobiograpy Malcolm X, I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: reading WB the Boy. She's like, nah, we're not doing
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  Speaker 4: this religious stuff. You know, she's a hippie.
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  Speaker 2: You know, she got her little weed room and all
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  Speaker 2: of that.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 4: So that was kind of the world, and she let
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  Speaker 4: me explore, and so I just.
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  Speaker 2: Hip hop raised me, you know what I'm saying.
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  Speaker 4: So that's just you know, And it wasn't until I
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  Speaker 4: was a young adult going to a college Bible study
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  Speaker 4: that you know, I had a four Rodgers University of
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: North Texas.
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  Speaker 2: Girl invioted me to a Bible study.
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  Speaker 4: I went never heard any of this stuff before, and
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  Speaker 4: that's when the transition started to happen. And I always rapped,
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: but now I had a different lens, so I didn't
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  Speaker 4: know gospel music nothing. The first gospel album I ever
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  Speaker 4: listened to, as far as I'm concerned, was The Miseducation
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  Speaker 4: Lauryn Hill. So that's what I thought you do when
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: you meet God.
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  Speaker 2: I thought you rapped like that, So that's what I
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  Speaker 2: started trying to do.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: So this is late nineties, right, because I feel like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: we're from the same generation thousand, So you didn't obviously
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you didn't grow up listening to gospel music, but the
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: hip hop era of that time, so miseducational law. That's interesting.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I've never thought of it in that sense. Who else
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: at this time is influencing you? Because I know you're
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: big on Jay for a a few reasons outcasts, but
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: who like what was it about the lyrics that said,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you know what?
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I love what they're doing.
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  Speaker 1: Because at this time people are talking about the negative
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: impact that hip hot has had. Kangs to music has
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: just been introduced in the early nineties. Now we're getting
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the bling error going. How do you say, all right,
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  Speaker 1: I like this, I'm listening to it. It's influencing me.
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  Speaker 1: Let me different.
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  Speaker 2: Script two.
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  Speaker 4: I was probably my He was like my dad, you
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  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. So he was so transparent and vulnerable.
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  Speaker 4: That vulnerability I wanted to communicate in my music, you
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  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, like just the pain. He had
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: a song called popa song where he talked about his
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: relationship with his dad. My dad ran out on the family,
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  Speaker 4: you know, he was doing his dirt, had his run
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: ins with the law. He was, you know, running with
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: the crips and Compton and I never saw him after
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  Speaker 4: I was four years old.
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  Speaker 2: He was gone. Nah.
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  Speaker 4: I just saw him again for the first time in
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  Speaker 4: twenty twenty and we sat down and had a discussion
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: for the first time. I filmed it and everything so
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: out in Cali. So hip hop was like my dad
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  Speaker 4: I was these were the men who were raising me.
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  Speaker 4: I'm listening to these stories, and I was like, I
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: want to impact people the way pak Is impacted me.
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  Speaker 4: After I met God and had my spiritual transformation, it
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: was like, I'm still like this to this day. But
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: it was like Righteous and Ratchet. So it's like I
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: still listened to the Hood the Ratchet stuff, but I
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: was trying to like, yo, I need to listen to Common. Now,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: I need to listen to to Live, I need to
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: listen to Most. I need to listen to some village,
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  Speaker 4: Like I need some positive, like different type of focus
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  Speaker 4: in my music. And so that's kind of you know,
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  Speaker 4: how I develop some of my craftsman shit. But even
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: just talking about things that matter to me without feeling
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  Speaker 4: like I'm just trying to punch people in the face
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  Speaker 4: with it, but just like it's just who I am.
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  Speaker 1: It's crazy that you reference those albums, but at the
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: same time I'm listening to those albums. So like Common
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: puts out b but you being obviously Houston having some roots.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: I wonder how much Scarface played it because at this
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: time the Fix is coming out. In that whole album
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  Speaker 1: classic album, he's talking about faith. He's talking about God.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 4: My drummer to this day said Scarface is his gospel music.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: He from Houston as well, So Houston. So the funny
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: thing is Houston the rap scene. When you from something
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: and you around something, it doesn't have the same kind
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: of influence on you as people would think. So it
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: was like the rap scene was everywhere, but hip hop
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  Speaker 4: to me was so global.
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to know what was happening with.
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  Speaker 4: The West coast, the East coast, you know. I wanted
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: to know all about that. Because Houston, I could walk
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: out the house and that's right there. Well, Houston taught
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: me more than anything, and to this day, Caamelionaire are
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: still one of my dudes. What it taught me more
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  Speaker 4: than anything is the hustle is the entrepreneurship because everybody
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: was selling their music out the trump. That's why I
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: have an independent label to this day is because that's
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: what I saw. You know, I went to school in Texas.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: My partners was from Houston, and you just saw how
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: it worked. You saw entrepreneurship. So even with my first CD,
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: I went to the major label, they said it too,
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: it's too Christian. Take it to the gospel label. I
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: went to the gospel label. They said it's too edgy.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: Take it to the mainstream label. So I said, oh,
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: neither one of them want me. Let me create my
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: own lane because that's what Houston had to do. So
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: it was like, all right, we're coming out the trunk
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: with it, you know what I mean. And it's a
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: crazy story. How it popped off from me was I
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: made the CD. I'm on my campus. I got a
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: group of folks who rocking with me. I take it
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: to the store trying to sell a box of CDs
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: on consignment. They say we'll take one. I give them one,
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: and then I said, they say, yeah, if somebody buys it,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: then we'll, you know, maybe we'll buy some more. If
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: they give them one, I send four people up there.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: They go buy that one. They say it will take five.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I give them five.
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  Speaker 4: Within two hours, all five are gone. They don't realize
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  Speaker 4: I got.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Four hundred people. You're sending people.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I got four hundred people ready to come.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Where's the four hundred people from from my cop from
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: my campus. People?
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, from my campus who rocking with me and supporting me.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Because I was putting in the work on the yard,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: on the campus, you know what I'm saying, and just school.
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: I'm at North Texas University of North Texas. I tried
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: to walk on the basketball team, but it was too much,
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: it was too much of a grind. You know what, Scott,
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: I got full scholarship and performing arts, performing arts.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: So yeah, okay, So as far as the independent side
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: of it, right, what what what's the steps that you
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: took to actually have a label? Because it's one thing
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: to press up CDs and sell them, right that that's
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: a hustle. Yeah, but if you have a label, that's
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: a business, right, So how do you just start a label?
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  Speaker 4: So obviously you need to see capital to really begin
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: to do the work. My partner Ben, you know, he
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: had another friend of ours, a friend of his, who
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: was like, I got like five grand from my pops
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: that we can invest into this. So with that five thousand,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: it was like, that's the lawyer drawing up getting a trademark, LLC,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: all of those particular things, the logo, all of.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: That, building it out. What we already had was a
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: market base.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: So we already had a fan base, We had a
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: market We had good music because no one had ever
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: heard anything like this before. Because I was blending the
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: traditional sounds of hip hop with my faith, and it
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: was like, what is this?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: So we knew we had something. We had a focused
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: group with the campus, you know what I'm saying. So
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: the test market. The issue now was creating a business.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: And so after the business was created, you know, we
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: still didn't really understand. No one went to business school,
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: so we still didn't understand how it works. So I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: reading books, you know, the information is free. I'm reading
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Russell Simmons books. I'm reading everybody's books trying to understand
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: what this looks like. And from there it was like, oh,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: we got to put the UPC. We first we were
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: selling CDs without the UPC code. It's just like on
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: the back of the CD. Just you know the bar
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: code people, kids, exactly. You just learning that and you
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: just learned pieces of the game. I highly recommend, like
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: if you got to do it yourself, you'll learn the
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: whole game. A lot of times artists would give their
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: artistry to someone else and say you figure it out,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: but you don't learn the game that way. So for us,
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: it was doing it everything. I mean literally, I'm mailing
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: every CD. I'm mailing CDs to Australia and paying the
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: fees on it and learning like, oh, I got to figured
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: out a different way to do this, and so you know,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: it was just a step by step process. It was
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: a slow burn, but it was you know, slow grind,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: but a show grin. And that was that was two
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: thousand and three, two thousand and four.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that's before iTunes.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, what's the transit from the physical CDs to actually iTunes?
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Espah?
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: So that was the dope part is we were young,
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: so our audience is young, you know, because generally your
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: audience is like five to ten years younger than you, right,
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: So our audience is young. So transitioning to digital wasn't
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: a hard thing because we had a young audience. Older
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: audiences tend to struggle with like change. So for us,
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: it was like what social media is today back then
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: was YouTube. So we just was on YouTube. We're making
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: content content. Here go a ePK, here go the story
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: of how this song was made, and our audience is
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: eating it up, and then we're saying go to iTunes
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: and go get this, you know what I mean. And
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: that's how mainstream started to pay attention because we didn't
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: categorize ourselves in the christ category.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: We put ourselves in a hip hop category.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: So our fan base was it was a ground swell
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: and then it just jumped up and all of a sudden,
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: people are like, yo, who what is the La Crede?
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: Why is Lucreze beating Nicki Minaj? I had the barbs
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: coming at me crazy, like would you be on the
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: charts on the iTunes charts?
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard your name before I ever knew who
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: you were. Yeah, because I just kept saying I was,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I was. I mean, I go to church. So I
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was going to church every Sunday and I kept hearing it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I got a few questions though, because it's interesting you
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: said mainstream, and I'm thinking to myself, people that go
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to church, Uh, the population is getting older and older.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I don't see as many young people going, so that's interesting.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So who's the how are you being received by church? Going?
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: The traditional gospel art.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That Fred hammons, the Hezekai Walkers who they're looking at, like,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that's the music we listened to when we go to church.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Whereas your approach is like you might that's what I'm
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: gonna listen to this almost feels like this is secular
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: music exactly what it was. How was that reception early on?
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: But see it was like n w A.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: It was like it's like the more you say we
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: are wrong, the more the young folks wanted, you know,
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: so we was getting.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: They hated us.
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: They was like, this is the devil rap in God.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: Don't go together and look at they clothes and the
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: tattoos and you know, but the older pastors and churches,
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So even one dude went
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: on and made a series about us and how we
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: was people should not be listening to our music and
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: steamrolling it. And but that was fuel because it just
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: made younger folks say, oh, I gotta.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Check this out. What is this? You know what I'm
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: saying exactly what happened?
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: And that's what that's what what what what ended up
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: happening for us, But we faced a lot of backlash. Oftentimes,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: what would happen It would be like a youth pastor
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: or somebody like that who was like, yo, my kids
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: rock with it. We're gonna bring you out to do something.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: Or it would be like some hood outreach, you know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: whereas was connected to a church. It would just be
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: like somebody who is like just trying to impact the neighborhood,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: and they would bring us out and then that's how
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: it was spreading. But also there was a sports camp
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: in branch And Missouri and Missouri called Kids Across America.
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: And this camp was for like inner city youth and
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: they was kids off the block. But they come into
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: this camp to get this new experience, and our music
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: is pumping through the speakers. So these kids are like, yo,
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: what is this. This is crazy and they're loving it.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: So of course they're leaders, and you know, guidance counselors
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: are like, I gotta get this music back to them
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: because it's connecting with them. And it just was like
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: a tumbleweed effect. Man, it just kept building.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So that that's exactly how I got introduced my pastor.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: He came from music, say the music background. He's a
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: little bit younger, he comes from he's from Queens. So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: he sent the hip hop and I was like, that's
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the first time I heard that when I was in church.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: The other part of that question is a lot of
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: times in hip hop, you know, people are rapping about
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the environments that they're in. Yeh, as you being faith based,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I wonder what the environment around you was like, because
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like I grew up and like as an adult, I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: was going to church, but none of my friends were
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: going yeah, and it was like, yeah, I can't do
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: nothing on Sunday. Sunday I go to church. So how
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: much did that was that pressure or was it like
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: do people start conforming around you to say, look, he's
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: doing something, we should probably join him, or were people
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: kind of like reluctant to be a part of this.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: So this was the crazy part the.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Because the black community oftentimes, you know, the white community
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: has been around the monopoly board more times than we have, right,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: So because we don't get as many chances around the
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: monopoly board, we're not as apt to change.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: We're a little tighter on things.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: We're like, wait a minute, I don't know because I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: first generation money, I can't be giving it away or
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: you know, things along those lines. So the white Christian
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: community was like the first to really give me a chance,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: to let me rock.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: The black community was like, I don't know, this don't
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: feel right. White Christian community was like, dude, yes, do
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: something different, bro, Like yeah, get a rapper. They had
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: already done the Christian rock thing, so they bringing me
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: out to these rock festivals and they got it's I mean,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: it's sixty thousand people out there, you know what I'm saying,
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Billy Graham speaking in all this type of stuff. So
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm out there and I'm like, the first
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: encounter they've ever had was something like this, and they're
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: just they've been around them, and I'll be brought a
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: few more times. They got the extra money to invest
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: in it, They'll take a risk a chance.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: So they was giving me a chance to rock.
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: And I did the same thing that Jay did with
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Lincoln Park or the same thing that run DMC did
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: with Aerosmith, and I started blending in some of the
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: sounds with my song and I would make a remix
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: just for that event.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: And then it was like Gangbusters. So now I.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Had this community rocking with me, tough and little by
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: little black community was like, oh okay.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: We okay, if it works, then we'll take it, you
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: know what I mean.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: And it's understandable because you know, we're a little more
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: like wait a minute, reserved with what we got.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: So Okay, As far as like being an independent artist,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: We've seen a lot of independent artists like Russ, even
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: the Russell shots him where they've been able to make money,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: especially like Russ, Like, you've been able to make a
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: lot of money, But I've never heard a Russ.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: Song played like on a radio or something like that
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: in life.
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: Right, But he's he's been able to cultivate a cult following.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: Do shows, so merch whatever? Right, So a lot of
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: people don't. They don't understand that. They're like, how can
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: you how can you be a successful artist? If I
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: don't I've never seen this person.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Right. So you as an independent artist.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Right that has had a lot of success, what's your
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: blueprint as far is you know, maintaining your your following. Yeah,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: you know, making revenue while facing the challenges of not
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: being like a quote unquote mainstream artist.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you know, they say niches get riches,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: So you know, are you taking care of your niche?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: You're taking care of your your space.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: I never believed that I was in any other business
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: other than the people business. You're always in the people business.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: If you take care of people, they'll take care of you.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: So if you just look at this as a transactional situation.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: If you don't look at it as how can I
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: benefit the person on the other side, the consumer from
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: this B two C. How do I take care of them?
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Because then they gonna take care of me. So, man,
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: we super serve our fans, you know what I'm saying,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: Like every T shirt, we just look something small, throw
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: some jolly ranchers in the package.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: When you send it to them, they're like, Yo, they
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: sent me some candy.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: It's just it's small, but it's like they feel considered,
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: you know, doing Q and A's. I was meeting greets
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: with everybody when I first got started, you know, just
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: to like super serve the people that was coming to
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: support me. And you got to realize, if your experience
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: is something, there's other people who are having a similar experience.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: So there's all you're not alone, So how do you
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: connect with the people who are dealing with or wrestling with,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: or experiencing the stuff you're experiencing. And that was how,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: you know, we did it, And that was the craziest,
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: like just like what you're saying, Like with Russ and everything,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I had the number one album in the country beat
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Maroon five, and everyone's.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Like, how who is this?
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Who's this person? I don't know a single song. I
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: didn't have no record on the radio. So everyone's scratching
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: their head like why. It's because, man, I'm super serving
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: my niche, you know what I'm saying.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm at everywhere they are. I'm there. I'm
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: doing the shows.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: I'm doing the meet and greets, I'm connecting with them,
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: I'm sending out the packages, I'm having conversations. And I
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: think a lot of times artists don't want to put
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: in that work and do that hand to hand transaction
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: to understand the market. That's another thing I come from.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: So when I first got out of school, I couldn't
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: find a job. So I went to the cable guy.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I was a cable guy. You know, I'm an.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: Addicts fighting off rats, you know what I'm saying, installing
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: cable and I hated it so much that one day
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: the vice president came to like give us this little
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: motivational speech like, hey, you know, the vice president of
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: the cable company, you guys are are superstars. And I
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: went up to her and I was like, Yo, you
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: know I got a background in marketing.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: You know I went to school.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: Is it anyway, you know, because my day's off for
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: Thursdays and Tuesdays and Thursdays, Is it anyway I can
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: come and intern for free, you know, whatever y'all need
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: me to do.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And she was like, oh okay.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: So I went up into that building and I just
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: was soaking up game, just soaking up game, soaking up
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: to the point where they was like, oh you, we
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: got to hire you.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: You're not a capable buy no more.
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: So now I'm working in the marketing department at the
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: cable company, you know, and soaking up more games, soaking
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: up more games, so everything I'm soaking up focused groups,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: test markets, how to talk to people, you know, running
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: a board, meeting. This is all game I'm soaking up.
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: So by the time I start my own company, I
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: have a prototype from a very successful cable company on
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: certain little things. And I think it's just access to
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: that information helps you to understand how to connect to
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: a marketplace.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I would reach some of those things that you learned.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: So one of the things which we do now is,
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: you know, do you have proof of concept?
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: So a lot of times, especially artists will say, yo,
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: my music, do listen to music.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: How do you know it is? Though?
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: You got proof of concept, like you made it your product,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: whatever you created, you do, you have proof of concept
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: that is that people want this, that it works. So
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: you know, proof of concept is we tested it and
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: we got a good result.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: So what what they tasked me with.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: They couldn't figure out why Hispanic people weren't watching this
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: this network. And it was like, and they're not buying
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: our package for you know, the Latin community is not
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: buying it. So I'm in Texas and I said, and
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: so I said, well, let me do a focus group,
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: you know, because I've seen him do focus groups for
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: other things. So I just said, you know, let me
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: get it, you know, get a bunch of the Latin
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: community out here.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Let me ask them some questions.
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: And they and I'm like, why don't y'all watch this?
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: And they was like, it's Cuban, it's Puerto Rican, it's
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: we're Mexican. And he was like, oh, y'all speaking to
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: the wrong people, you.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Know what I'm saying.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: So it was like, all right, no proof of concept,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: that's why this package ain't working.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Redo it.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: They redid it and made more networking for the Mexican
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: American community took off like Gangbusters. So same concept for
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: me now is I'll take my artist, Limo Blaze. He's
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: an afrobeat artist, a producer. Made this remix of a
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: of a very popular song. It went I roll on
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: his ig. I said, they like this remix of this song.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: That's the sound. That's proof of concept that this sound
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: base works. You need to rap over this. He wraps
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: over it jumps up to top forty afrobeat charts. You
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying. And it was just like we
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: already saw it worked. The market already said it worked,
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: so so do that. And that's one of the things
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: I learned.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Work the focus group. Yeah for music, Yeah, we do
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: focus groups all the time. Yeah, so this is reaching people. Yeah,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: So we'll do a test market. We'll have like fans.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: See that's another way to super serve them as well,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: because now they're getting exclusive.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Let them here first exactly.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: So we'll get a group of fans.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: We'll say HEO, here's six songs, rank them, you know
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: what I mean, and they'll be like, this one is this,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: this one's that, this was this, And you got two
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: thousand fans and they like these are my top fives
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: and this is why and this is why. So now
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: you got feedback, you got proof of concept. Yeah, you
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: and an office thought this was the joint that ain't it.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that for a sec right because it
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: sounds like you're big on analytics.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Just hear it the way you're talking. So what happens
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: when you do the focus group right? Because sometimes it works,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: but sometimes you'll hear and like you said, this ain't working.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: What are the lessons that you learned from that? When
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: it's like, all right, yeah, this one didn't chart. What
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: are we learning from this?
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So one of the things you gotta learn.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: One of the things I've learned is that the market
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: is always changing and what and even like the audiences
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: are always changing, so you can't always bank on it.
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: A case in point was, you know, I had a
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: record with Metro booming called hammer Time, and at that
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: point in time, everything on rap Caviar that was doing
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: well had Metros tag at the beginning.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: So it's like the top ten songs got if your
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: Metro don't trust you or something like, you know, you're
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: a Metro on a check. So it's like, all right,
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: we're gonna, We're gonna, We're gonna run this song because
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: everything with Metro in it is taken off.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: We make the record put it on.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Rap Caviar didn't work because what's starting to happen was
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: ear fatigue. It wasn't the same thing. It didn't didn't
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: work in the same way. It didn't move the needle
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: like it did. The audience had kind of already moved on,
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: but we didn't realize that, you know what I'm saying.
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: So it's like you got to understand, like where are people?
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: And that's why I keep younger people around me who
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: are who are tapped in and a tune to what's
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: going on, because you are looking at things from your
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: vantish point and where you are in life. But meanwhile,
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: the cultures move in a completely different way. So it's
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: always just like, you know, who has their ear to
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: what's going on and where is culture going? And how
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: can I be tapped into the culture and if And
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: that's that's sociology, that's.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Just understanding where people are.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: You know, all the all good marketers are sociologists and
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: understand where the culture is.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So you you got the metro booming feature. Yeah, but
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: I wonder, as you're doing Reach Records and you're obviously
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: creating music, who's the first person from your background of
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: influencing music that is acceptive to it, that's accepted, accepting
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: to it and saying like this is a guy we
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: need to rock on. Who's the first feature that's like
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: this is now about my life about to.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Change for me? Yeah.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: The person that that that tapped in early Don Cannon, Uh,
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: Don Cannon DJ. You know, the gangster Grills mixtapes and
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: all that type of stuff was popping. So I would
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: say this kind of too, it's my God Street Symphony.
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: So Street and I went to school together. Street went
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: to work for a Luda disturbing the piece. He's, you know,
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: doing all this type of work. Street starts, you know,
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: he's like, man, God is showing up my life. I
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: want to transition and do some do some different things.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: Craig Let's work together. He already was plugged with Don Cannon.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: He links me with Don Cannon.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: And we get the idea, like, yo, we need to
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: do a mixtape. You know what I'm saying. What we're
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: gonna call it?
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Church Close while we call it church clothes because everyone
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: expects us to wear a suit and tie, but we
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: out here in jeans and tattoos and fitteds, and we
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: these are our church clothes, you know what I'm saying.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: So no one was putting it was a first time
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: anybody put like a Christian rap mixtape on like that Pith.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: And all them type of sites. Right, So Don Cannon
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: is like, I'm with it.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: We we you know, I get beats from ninth Wonder
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: I get you know, I had met Kendrick a couple
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: of years prior me and Kendrick built a dope relationship.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Kendrick does a little intro on my video for the song,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: and it crashes the mixtape website. You know what I'm saying.
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: It was they the downloads were so crazy. One was
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: our fans. Two was the intrigue, cause it's like, is
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: this gonna be dope? What is this gonna be? So
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: it's like people just intrigued wanting to listen.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: To it, and.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: You know that for us was like confirmation. It was like, Yo,
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: Don Cannon did the mixtape you get you hear him
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: in the background. It's the mixtape era too, So it's
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: like you hear him in the background and people like,
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: what is this ninth Wonder beats?
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: And it's like, Yo, this is crazy. We never heard
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: nothing like this before.
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: And I think that's when people really like tapped in.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: And then the second thing I would say was the
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: catalyzer that pushed.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: Me over again.
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: I'm doing the work on the front end, so you
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of artists don't have what Malcolm glad Wells
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: says they ten thousand hours. You know what I'm saying,
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: ten thousand hours is gonna make you an expert or something.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: I had my ten thousand hours in so by the
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: time I got to this moment, this watershed moment, I
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: was ready for it.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: And that watershed moment.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: Was my My publicist at the time, Tasha Stout, got
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: me on the BT cipher for the Hip Hop Awards.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: They didn't know what category to put me in, so
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: they put me in a foreigners category. So I'm in
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: there with French dudes estelle, you know, from London. But
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: I'm ready. You know, I've been groomed for this moment.
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: That's my watershed moment, and they never heard nothing like it.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: I'm getting hit up Royster five and all these rappers
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: like what is this? And that was when it was
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: like we.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Own you know what I mean.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: So as far as.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Like you mentioned rap crack caviar, Yeah, how important is
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: that for a artist's career? They kind of get on
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: those type of playlists and how do you even get
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: on that?
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, playlisting is that's another thing, is like there's errors.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: I'm not gonna say it's not important, but what I
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: will say is it's not as important as it once was.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: So it's like radio radio was once it like if
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: it's not radio, it's nothing. It's not moving the needle.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: After radio, it was playlisting. Playlisting was it. If it
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: wasn't playlisted, then it wasn't moving the needle. Now it's
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: social media, it's TikTok, it's reels, you know what I mean?
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: If that's moving the needle.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: And so if you are not connected, like I wouldn't
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: even sign a artist who doesn't have a social media
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: following a platform, you know, because if they're not engaged
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: on social media, what they're telling me is they're not willing.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: To do the work.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: So it's like, nah, you want somebody to do to
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: work for you, I'm not.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Gonna do the work for you. You're gonna have to
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: work yourself.
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: So now I would say social media, and you got
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: the beautiful thing. And where we are now is intry.
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Is the floodgates are wide open. There's everyone has equal
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: opportunity access make your music. Your test market is social media.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: They gonna let you know if it's dope. The only
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: downside is that do you have the ten thousand hours
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: to recreate what you did? And a lot of artists
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: don't have that, you know what I'm saying. It's like
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Fifth just said it on a recent interview that he
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: was gonna sign Designer, but Designer only had that one song,
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: and he was like, you you don't have another one.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I don't have any confidence you can even make another one.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: And so I tend to look for artists who have
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: they made it once, they made it twice. There's a consistency,
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: there's a pattern of consistency. So if if one of
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: them pops off, I know they can do it again.
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: They didn't put in the manpower in the hours.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: The artists that you're looking for, are they all faith based?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Faith based? Absolutely, so they have to be faith based.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: The other part is that. It's a challenge, right, Social
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: media is a challenge because, like you said, it's ever
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: evolving algorithm change. How do you keep it authentic? What
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: out making it corny? Right? When people hear church, they're like,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: I ain't come here for this. How do y'all manage
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: to make it something that people wanted to into?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: It's category? It's categories.
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: So you know, I would say, you know, you got
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: different iterations and different types of artists. So I got
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: some artists who lean into it heavy, like this song
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: is like a worship rap record, you know what I'm saying,
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: And they lean into it, and there's an audience for
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: that and that, and and we want them.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: To do exactly that.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: I got other artists who they have more of a
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: mainstream presence, you know what I'm saying, and they are
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: more creative, you know, they they blended up and if
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: you listen, you might not know that's a Christian record.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: So like my buddy that we signed years ago, Andy Minno,
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: the song that we had that took off his number
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: one record was one of the most streamed and it
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: was viral on social media. Was coming in hot, coming
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: in hot, you know what I mean. Everybody, here's a song, right,
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: But Andy's the type of artist It's like, you're not
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: gonna know he's this faith based artist just on first.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: You gotta like get.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Into his ecosystem to really kind of know where he's
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: at with it. Right, So it's still it is clean,
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: it's not negative, and it may not have a message
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: right away, but it's something that still resonates with the
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: with the broader culture. Then I got artists in the
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: middle where they can go over here or they can
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: go over here. Like my artist one k Few he's
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: he got he's from Atlanta. He got records with Zetoven,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: with Hancho, but then he also got records with like
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: a gospel artist, and so he can go in both spaces.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: And so you just I let them be the authentic
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: seales because otherwise it will come off.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Corny to the artist. It's like a Hanscho for example. Yeah,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: when y'all do the record, is it like YO with
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: you know it's his faith based or like yo be yourself?
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And what the censor?
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: How do you?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: How do you approach that?
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: So the crazy part is I think people kind of
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: cater to.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Where they think you are.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: Sometimes they overdo it, you know what I mean, Like
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: they in they mind, they got to come in there
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: saying like hallelujah.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean. It's like yo, yeah, yo,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: chill chill.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: It's like chill, chill, chill chaill Yo, yo, yo, fall back,
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: you're going too crazy, just like you know, like chill.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: A lot of times we'll have a conversation and we'll
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: just talk about it, talk it through. But it's rarely
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: an issue. It's mostly we try to create the songs
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: that's neutral territory. So it's like, yo, let's talk about
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: you got kids, I got kids.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Le's talk about being a.
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: Father, being a present father, how we didn't have that.
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: Let's let's do a song about that. Like, let's not
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: put you in a lane that's weird for you and
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: it's gonna make it awkward. And I learned that the
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: hard way because I did a record with Big krit
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: years ago called may Day Fire Record. But in the record,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: you know, he's talking about his struggle with faith and
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: wrestling with God and so on and so forth, and
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: it kind of put him. He's talking to this audience
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: that is not expecting to hear this coming from him, right,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: So they this hyper religious people got Adam and was
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: mad at him and like, don't talk about this and
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: why would you do this? And you know, kind of
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: was off putting to him. So it's like, I'm not
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: trying to put you in an awkward space either. I
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: want you to talk about what you feel comfortable talking about.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: And then you got artists like Ti dollar Sign. I
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: did a record with Ty, and Ty was like, bruh,
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: I love gospel music. I was raised on it. I
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: want to do this song. I gotta I'm gonna write
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: a verse for it. I said, we just wanted you
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: a Hooknah, I got a verse and for him, he wanted.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: To do that. So it was like, all right, bet So.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: What about like booking shows and touring, because I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: that's the major part as far as you do that
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: independent or you work with like a lot of nation, how's.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: That work done? Both?
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: I prefer independent just because when you have a niche audience,
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: nobody knows them like you do, and if you can
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: understand your audience and your market, you can serve them better.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: So I've done both, but I like it better doing
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: it myself. That's another thing, is like I'm big on touring,
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: because that's what I was fortunate to see, like some
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: of these big crossover rock groups, you know, like you know,
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: a lot of people don't realize a lot of these
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: big rock groups like Evanescence of Paramore, they started off
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: on the Christian side, you know what I mean. Create, Yeah,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: they started on Christian side, and so I was fortunate
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: to see how they move and how they do it
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: because I was over there with them. So it was like, oh,
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: you got a tour, and a lot of our artists
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: don't understand touring.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: So for.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: Mainstream hip hop, well we take that soft money. We
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: go to the club, right, Yeah, they gonna give you
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: forty bands, but they not really coming for you. They
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: trying to go to the club because it's lit and
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: you happen to be there. So it's like great, as
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: long as your song is popping, you can get a
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: club date. But you're not building a fan base. Our
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: club is the church. So if you're doing these church
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: events all the time, you not building an audience. Right,
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: They they come into church anyway, you know what I'm saying.
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: They coming to the club anyway. So you not building
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: an audience, You just capitalizing off of what is already
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: there that built in audience, and it looks good until
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: you don't have a hit and nobody wants to book
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: you for that event. So what we learned was to
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: build our own audience and our own touring. So we
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: started doing our own tours. And you know, Tech nine
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: another good friend. You know, I sat with Tech nine
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: and saw how he built his empire, been to his studio,
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: bend in his warehouse and saw what they did and
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: how they did touring, and just kind of soaked up
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: some game and made sure my artists were touring artists.
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: You gotta be a hard ticket artists. That's how you're
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: gonna have longevity. I've been doing this twenty years because
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: I build a fan base.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: A lot of people don't build.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: Hard ticket artists hard ticket fans. So because of that,
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: you know, they don't know how to do it. And
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: that's what happens to hip hop a lot. So I've
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: had big, major, major artists come to me say, Yo,
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: how you do tour?
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: What do we need to do?
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: Like, can we We'll get you on the radio if
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: you can get us touring, teach us the game, let's
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: trade secrets, and you know it's just something that rock
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: band's been doing. That's why they toured forever.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: So what is the secret to that?
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: The secret is you you can't be afraid. You can't
• 39:35
  Speaker 4: be afraid to start small.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And that's what we be afraid of. We don't want
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: to look lame.
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: We're like, nah bro, one hundred people, Nah Bro, I
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: ain't going out there.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I ain't doing that, Travis Scott. That's what he did.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: You know, what is it financially beneficial to Because when
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: you're go on tour, you're gonna have to bring a DJ.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: At the very least you have to bring a DJ.
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: You gonna have to bring it's at least five people
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: that probably kind of to.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Come with you, right.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So if you're doing shows for a hundred for
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: one hundred people, let's say you charge your twenty forty. Yeah,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: from the artists standpoint, they look at it probably like
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: I'm losing money.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: What's the point of doing it? Yes, it's two things.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: One is you're telling the story, so it's branding, right,
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: So part of that is your story building. You're telling
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: the story, so sometimes you're gonna have to do that.
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: You're gonna have to tell a story that makes people
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: want to come and pay for the next one, so
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: you you know, it's the cost benefit analysis. It's like
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: this is gonna cost me this, but what's the benefit,
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: And it's the benefit gonna outweigh the initial cost.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: And then two, if.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: You can do enough shows, you can break even or
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: make a little bit of money, right, if you do
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: enough of them. Yeah, if you do two shows, five shows,
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: you probably you're gonna lose money. But if you can,
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: let's say you do twenty, it's like, oh, you might
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: break even doing one hundred people. But if you do
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: one hundred and you know you put on a good show.
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: You got to invest in your show. A lot of
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: rappers get up there with the DJ walking back and
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: forth on the stage like investing your show. Make it
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: something people want to see. And then you just keep
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: building it and building it and building. It's like flipping houses.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: It's like you got to buy a cheap house first,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: put a little bread into it. After you put some
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: bread into it, then you flip it. Then you sell
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: it for more. Then you take that bread, you reinvest
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: in another one a little bit more, a little bit more,
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: a little bit more, a little bit more. And it's
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: the same concept with touring.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: As you're doing this from an entrepreneurial journey, you're learning
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and growing, but I want it from the spiritual side, right,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Like that also is an evolving process for sure. How
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: do y'all And as a leader and the founder of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: a company and having artists under you, how do y'all
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: tap into that? Are y'all doing retreats or is it
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: like because I watched my brother go through seminary school, wow,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and I was like, bro, he's a passer. Now study theology.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: What is that like for you as a leader of
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: your company?
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: You know, I take it back to we was talking
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: about fifty earlier. The reason why we bought into fifth
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: is because of the authenticity you really got shot. It
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: was really in the streets. What you rap about, you
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: really live. I think that is a paramount importance for
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: what I'm doing and what I'm building.
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: Is this your real life? Right?
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: And how do we make sure this is your real life?
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: How are we investing in the youth so that you
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: are spiritually grounded so when you do get up there
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: and you talking it, this is not just talk. This
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: is your life. So you know, part of that includes
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: mentor shit.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm big on that. I'm big on.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: Just like yo, I'll get into trenches with my artists
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: and like, let's wrestle through things. Here's some books. I
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: give them book recommendations. You know, we read through books together,
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: we do studies together, We've done retreats, you know, all
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: of those sticular things. And I've just been very privileged
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: man living in Atlanta and seeing the inner workings of
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: organizations I see then. You know, me and Andrew Cathy,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: who the son of Dan Cathy, who owns Chick fil A.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: You know, we've sat numerous times. I get to see
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: the inner workings of Chick fil A. You know, my
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: homegirl is at Delta. I get to see the inner
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: workings of Delta. And one of the books that I
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: highly recommend that that has helped us and I tell
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: other people is for d X.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: And for d X is a book that teaches you
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: how to structure your business, how to create you know,
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: an infrastructure, and teaches you, like sometimes you're so busy
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: working in the business, you don't work on the business.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: And so if I'm constantly working in it, I'm not
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: working on it. You know, what does my staff need?
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: You know, what does my artists need? What's the needs
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: right now? Because if I'm constantly just cracking a whip
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: and I'm not taking the inventory or what they need,
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: you know, we'll do reviews and we'll do stop start continues.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: I say, well, what do you need to stop doing.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: Here's what you need to start doing, here's you need
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: to continue doing. This is what you're doing well. And
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: so always constant evaluation is always constantly working on ourselves.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: Like you said, the spiritual retreats, the prayer times, the groups,
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: we do devotionals, you know, I see Chick fil A,
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: they do the devotionals. They do all kinds of stuff
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: like that. So we're just incorporating them things.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: So like the Russell and a couple of other artists,
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: and we interviewed somebody had a platform where a lot
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: of artists now independent there they're like having.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: A pay what you want strategy.
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah that, Nah, we don't do that. I'm not I
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: understand it. I do think I do think I get that.
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: I think at the stage that like the Russell's at,
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: he's in a disruptive stage, which that's dope and our
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: salute him for that. You know, I want to work
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: with him. You know, we we've talked about doing some stuff.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: I'm not in a disruptor stage in the state of
• 45:02
  Speaker 4: my career. So at this stage of my career, you know,
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: I got you know, an office full of employees and
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: multiple artists, Like I have to think about maximization. You know,
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: I'm not like the lean startup. You know, I'm not
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: at that stage. If you're in the lean startup stage,
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: obviously do some disruptive things, you know what I mean,
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: because you lean and you can move lean. I got
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: four to one kse. We can't play no games. So
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: for us, it's like we think we have to think
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: a little bit bigger. Now, maybe there's one artist that
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: we can do that experiment on, but as a whole,
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: we can't be that disruptive. We have to move in
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: the flow of business in some senses, you know what
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: I'm saying, Like, where is the business culture going?
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: And you go with the flow.
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: If you're a disruptor, you're going against the flow of
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: where business is to create something different. And I've been
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: there and it's effective. But this is what I tell people,
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: it's like when you start off your business to your company,
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: you playing golf, right, And when you're playing golf, everybody
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: uses the same tool. Everybody gets to hit the ball,
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: everybody puts it in the hole. It's all hands on deck.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: You can be a disruptor playing golf.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: It's fine.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: You get a little bigger as basketball, right, everybody touches
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: the ball, everybody shoots, Some shoot more than others, some
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: pass more than others.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: But we got different roles.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: But when you get big enough, which is like you know,
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: it gets very intense.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: You got multiple employees.
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: You playing football, and when you're playing football, everybody can't
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: be the kicker. Everybody can't be the quarterback. Yeah, your homeboys,
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: that's your man. You grew up with him.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Y'all's playing golf. It was all good. He can't catch.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: You gotta have a specialized person who knows how to
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: do that role. And that's when you know it can
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: get sticky and tricky. But you have to kind of
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: put that hat on and go in the flow of
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: business and say, man, if we're gonna do this right,
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: we need the right person for this particular thing. Like Yo,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: Shorty was dope grinding underground but we need somebody who's
• 47:16
  Speaker 4: skilled in marketing because the budget is higher, what's on
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: the line is more crucial.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. The business culture of hip
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: hop really Yeah, when you started early two thousands, you
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: said there was balance. Yeah, right, What people talk about
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: now is that the absence or the lack of balance.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: So for every I don't know, little Dirt, who is
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the next person?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: There is no comment right now, right right? There is
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: for every Ice Spice, who is the Lauryn Hill?
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: How difficult is it to now crack through in a
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: space where there's no balance.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: It's a good thing and a bad thing to me.
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: I think it's a good thing in a sense that
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: it doesn't exist as much as it did, so people
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: are thirsty for it. So when they get a taste
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: of it, they're like, what is this? This is amazing?
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: So there's room for it. But at the same time,
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: I think as a culture, you know, hip hop as
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: a culture is getting like so frivolous and careless that
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: it could put itself in a very bad situation. So
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: similar to rock and roll, Right, rock and roll just
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: got so crazy, like so off the hinges. It became nonexistent.
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: It's like you used, you drugged yourself to death. You
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: prostituted yourself out to death, and now no one is interested.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Right, It's like.
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: There's nothing, there's no texture to it.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: It's gone.
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: And I feel like hip hop is runs the risk
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: of following the same pattern as rock and roll. Like
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: once upon a time, rock and roll was everything.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: Now it's like who's that? What's rock and roll?
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: So hip hop runs the risk of being like yo,
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: you prostituting yourself to death, You drugging yourself to death.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Eventually there's gonna be no.
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: Substance to hold on to to like even it's just
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: gonna be a bunch of chaos and you turn into
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: what my man Tehran calls like y'all remember the little
• 49:25
  Speaker 4: hands that you that were sticky, and you see, you
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, You just pick up stuff with it.
• 49:30
  Speaker 4: You turn into that to where it's like you just
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: like the blob, knowing you don't have no distinction anymore.
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: It's like you part of country, you part of pop,
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: you part of every You not your own thing anymore.
• 49:41
  Speaker 4: Like what is hip hop culture in twenty twenty four?
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying like, once upon a time
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: it was distinct.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: Now it's like it's what do you think about artists that.
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: You know a lot of artists when they become more spiritual,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: it's backlash. Even talking about Little Dirk right now, he's
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: in an interesting space right now. Everybody knows how he
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: started as a drill rapper, yeah, and he's taking a
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: very spiritual turn in his life, not necessarily his music,
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: but in his life life. And I'm watching him and
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: he's trying to walk both sides. He's trying to say
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: I'm a different person, but I'm still gonna make the
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: same music, which is kind of difficult.
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: And now people are criticizing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: Him like, well, how you're going to be a devout
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: Muslim and you're talking about killing people right, And it's
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: a weird space, and like some rappers like me, they
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: just left like he's like as opposed to try to
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: walk that line. It's like, I'm out right, So what's
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: your thoughts on that? Because it's like it's one thing
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: if you start how you started, yea, there's another thing
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: if you start very secular and then you make a
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: one to eighty turn and now peoples like disappointed they say,
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: and it's not real. They overly judging you for everything
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: now because the expectations are so that's a very difficult
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: space to be in.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Totally agree.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I'm a big fan of taking people with you, right, Like,
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: don't do a hard left on folks. Take them on
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: a journey with you, because if you bust out hard left,
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: it's like a bait and switch.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: It's like, I'm different now. And I tell this to
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: a lot of my younger Christian artists. It's a young
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: lady out here. I was just.
• 51:22
  Speaker 4: Talking with her, her producer last night. She's like a
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: New York drill artist, right, she meets God, she wants
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: to change. I started listening to her songs and it's
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: like I'm killing the devil with my Bible, you know
• 51:34
  Speaker 4: what I mean. And I'm like, slow down, because all
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: you're really doing is trading in your old ops for
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: the devil. And it's weird to somebody, like what is
• 51:44
  Speaker 4: happening right now?
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: This is strange.
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: So I was like, yo, take your people with you.
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Talk about the story of when you left the club
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: and you was feeling empty and you was like I
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: need something different, Like take us on that journey. So
• 51:58
  Speaker 4: we can understand this process that's happening, and we can
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: walk with you down that pathway and say that's what's up.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: Like the song Dirk and Cold, it is like that's
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: that's a piece, that's like, that's we on the journey exactly.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: We had that conversation, great song. Will they go with him?
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. That was like the conversation will
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: they go with them?
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying. You can't just you can't do it,
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: just abruptly, you can't.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about somebody who did do it though,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: another guy from Chicago. All right, yeah, Jesus walks, Yeah,
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Jesus is king. Yeah, everything in between. And after I
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: went to that show by myself, thank you.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: No. I just think that was abruptly, know.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: What I'm saying. So you're taking taking them with you, but.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: He's saying he's disappointed you didn't go with him.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: That's what you want to know what really happened. I
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: bought four tickets. I was like, yo, we were at
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: a complex con Yeah, and it was kind of like
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: there was a I know that was gonna happen, and
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: like the concert was going to happen and I was like,
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna called the uber. I gotta I have to
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: see this, Like I don't really want to see this.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: And the uber came and I was like in it
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: and I looked at them and they're like, I'm not coming.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I closed the door. I went by myself.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: And I almost appreciated that I went by myself because did.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: You see the show that Jesus King. Nah, I didn't
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: see that one.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: It was emotional like because it infused hip hop. It
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: was like the soul, the soul, but it was like
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: sold out, like has like all that together. And I
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: was like, this is what it should feel like when
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: you come. And then obviously we didn't see anything follow up.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about that that taking them with you, but
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: you what happens after.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: But I'll say this about this because Kanye probably I'm
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: broby the biggest Kanye fan in the world.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Well, you didn't come to that Kanye fan, the biggest
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Kanye fan.
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: Look, okay, so hey, I think Kanye was always on
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: that type of time.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: He did Jesus Walk record, But so.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think that that's not really people wasn't really shocked.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is my thing.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Tim only because that comes right after Life After Problem. No.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: No, but I'm saying it's not a completely shocked You're
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: not shocked at Kanye. Like Kanye is not against the rapper. No, no, no,
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: not a trail rapper like you know what I'm saying.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: He always was talking about something. Yeah, so it's not
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: a complete part of it.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: My thing with the Kanye thing is that I feel
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: like the like when he was throwing the Sunday Services,
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: like that was dope, you know what I mean? Yeah,
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: And I listened to the album just because I'm a
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: Kanye fan.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: And the album.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: You listen to.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: Of course, the album did not meet expectations. Did you.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: I'm just being honest with you. Did you like that coloring?
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Did not like Chance the Rapper Coloring Book? You could say,
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: that's like a Christian rap album. To me, in my opinion,
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: that's a dope classic. I think that's a classic album.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: There's good records on it. Jesus King, Jesus Jesus King
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: of production one of my favorites.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I love the production. I didn't feel like Kanye was
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: at his best. He's not.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's because are we going to go with him.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: I just it was tough, was authentic?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Was that's the problem. That's what I'm saying. I don't
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: think that's what I'm saying. So like Jesus Walks felt
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: super authentic. It was like this is different life at
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: the problem. I'm like, this is yay.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: And then Sunday Service started happening. He had taken us
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: a battle and it was like, oh, Sunday Service, He's okay,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I get it. And then Jesus King is like, oh,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: this is what he's on now. But it really wasn't
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: what he was in the moment he was on.
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: That right, That's what I I think that's for anybody
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: who first learned something, it's like they want to just
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: they busting everybody over the head with whether they just
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, It's like, it's like you
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: gotta take time to let that sit in and let
• 55:57
  Speaker 4: it soak and let it process how to manifesting your
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: day to day life, you know what I'm saying. Like
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: when I first had my spiritual transition, I was coming
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: home with my mom like yo, Ma, Ma, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: She was like, Yo, do you talk about anything else?
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: And then my pastor at the time was like, stop
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: talking to her about that and live it. I said,
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: what you mean? He said, cut the grass, wash the dishes,
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: like just live out the new joy you have and
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: love for her. And I was like, oh, so then
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: I just started serving her, loving her, being a good son.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: She's like, Yo, what happened to you? Y know what's
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: going on with you?
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: And it was that transition that she got to see
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: versus me just and I feel like that's what I
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: heard on Jesus King. It was just like, like, you know,
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: this dogmatic, which we love Kanye for being dogmatic, right,
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: but it was like, this, don't feel like you don't
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: really you ain't steeped in this yet. It's like you
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: just learning it and throwing it at us. And I
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: would prefer to hear you talk about how your life
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: looks in that time period, you know what I'm saying.
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: Like Eminem, a lot of people don't know is a Christian,
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. But when he did the
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: God the Joint on Callage album, you heard it, but
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: he his content just kind of shifts a little bit.
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: You know, he doesn't talk about the same, like I'm
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: not killing people and stabbing eyeballs and drinking my mom's
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: urine and all kinds.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Of crazy stuff. You know what I'm saying.
• 57:32
  Speaker 4: You could just hear like you maturing, you know what
• 57:35
  Speaker 4: I'm saying. So I'm a fan of that.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts about Hove when you talk about
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: growth and journeys? Four four four is a grown man's
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: album bro written testimony as well.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: No, yeah, yes, you know what I'm saying, Like.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: We need that as that's the other thing about hip hop,
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: hip hop, don't be letting us grow up, you know
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: It's like it just like for everyone's to keep us
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: as kids.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: And and I'm like, I think we need a new
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: category or something we need.
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: Like I think Nas has done a great job. He
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: has a phenomenal job. I think Jay has done a
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: great job. Yeah killing Mike, Yeah you know.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think even like a little Wayne, like
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: you know you I don't know if the content of
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: his music has changed, but you see he's changed, Like
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: he's doing sports shows.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: Now and he's with his kids. It's like he's still.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: Little Wayne, but he's not the same little Wayne. In
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: two thousand and two than he is twenty.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: The double cups have been put down.
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, hopefully, hopefully that's what I'm saying. We'll
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: drink ourselves to death out here if we don't, which
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: is true.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was just when you were saying that,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about what may have killed rock and roll right,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: and like if you think you're from that era, So
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: like when Kirk Cobain takes his life, yeah, that's a
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: pivotal moment. Yeah, they lost us. This was the group,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: this was the star. But the hip hop we're losing
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: those stars, like daily, every day we're losing them. The
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: difference in rock and roll is that you're right, they age,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: and as they age, they're appreciated, they get the tour.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: We're starting to see that now in hip hop a
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: little bit with like I know what e El's doing.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: I know he just put out music, but he's rocked
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: the bells and it. But where's that next generation of
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: people who are gonna.
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: Be able to do it, to do that it's doing
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: it now?
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: No, No, the next generation.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: That's doing it now. Ja Cole gonna be here for
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: a long time. Drake's gonna be here for long.
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: So those guys are thirty nine to forty.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: You what I'm saying, that's the next generation after after
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: j Cole Kendrick.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it's gonna be.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: That's the hard part is that's the little dirt conse
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: of the world.
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: And that's the hard part is I don't I don't
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: know when it pertains to them because labels keep signing
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: these jokers right off the block and the gun is
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: still hot, you know what I'm saying. So they it's
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: like there's no development, there's no isolation, there's no time
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: to get away from the chaos.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: It's like your song is it hit?
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: Like Bobby Murder. It's like, Yo, you hot, and now
• 59:59
  Speaker 4: you're in prison. You know what I'm saying.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Chef g you hot, Now you locked up? You know
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: what I mean.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: It's just bang bang bang bang bang pop smoke you hot?
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: Now now you're gone.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 4: And it's like, man, we just we need to insulate
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: them a little bit, give him some game, like it's
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: something different gotta happen, because they don't even get a
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 4: chance to. They Frontal Low ain't even closed, you know
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying. They not even getting a chance to
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: mature and to grow in the process.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: Well, speaking about that, because you know a lot of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: that has to do with the home structure. Sure, and
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: you said earlier in the show, like you didn't see
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: it there for thirty years.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so how is that? What was that?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: Like, you know, reconnecting with him after a thirty year turnframe.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: I was fortunate to have been through therapy. So Jay
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: actually got me Jay jay Z jay Z you know Jay,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 4: I met him once. He didn't get me to go
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: by him tell.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: Them, oh, you listened to the listeners and whys Yeah,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: But David Banner also so told me to go to
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: therapy and so so therapy put me in a place
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 4: where I was able to meet my dad and say,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: it's not about what you did, It's about what happened
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: to you.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: What happened to him?
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, what happened to you to make you this way?
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: Cause this ain't just you just being a terrible human being.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: Something made you like this. Did you find him or
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: he found you?
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: I found him. I found him and me and my
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: sister went to go meet him.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: My sisters.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: You know, I sit there and I ask him, I say, yo,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: how you feeling what's going on? And you know, he
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: telling me some crazy stories. And then my sister's like,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: are you proud of him? Are you proud of your son?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: Like he's done all these things, like do you feel
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: sorry that you wasn't in part.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: Of his life? Even following your journey? He hears about it,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: So he taps in and when she asks him, are
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: you sorry about it? He says, I never say sorry.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: That's a sorry word in the dictionary.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: My sister's pissed.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: I'm like, something made him this way, you know what
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: I'm saying. So I just pry a little more. He
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: starts telling me stories about his pops and you know,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: his pops passed aways, like when my pops went to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: Vietnam he came back.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't ask him how you feeling emotionally?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: And I got out the way and I was like, okay,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: this is what's shaping you as a human and why
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: you engaging us in this way? And he was like,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: you know, God got y'all. I knew God was gonna
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: take care of y'all. And it's like got you. I
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: could be mad at you for this, but something made
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 4: you this way, and I don't. You don't have the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: mental categories of the mental health to even process this information,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 4: right I do. So for me, it's like, oh, I
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: don't need you to be my mentor in this season
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: of my life. I just need to put my eyes on,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: you know, a little bit more about myself and maybe
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: we can connect from time to time. But it's not
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: gonna be healthy until you get some growth and maturity
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: for you to be a part of all.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: So it wasn't like a Kumbaya no no, no. He's
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: still firm on why he left.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, yeah, man, y'all was gonna be straight,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Yeah?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: God got you? Yeah, God got you.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: Have you stayed in touch? Yeah, we stay in touch.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: I'll hit him from time to time. You know, he's
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: a very intelligent dude, reads a lot of books. But
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: at the same time, it's like he hasn't done the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: work on himself.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: But how how did that affect you growing up? It's terrible.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: It was horrible.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: I didn't even realize how bad it messed me up,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Like.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: It it made me insecure, It made me, you know,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: always run to the affections of a different woman to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: try to feel something, you know what I mean. And
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: then worst of all, I'm looking for a male figure
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: to be like that leader for me. And the only
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: men who were invested in me were my uncles who
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 4: were gang members, you know what I mean. So it's
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: like I'm just out here, like I'm not a.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Man unless I join the gang. And you never wanted
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: to join, so yes I did, but probably I wonder
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: what y'all.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 4: I don't know y'all personal stories, but probably similar to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: y'all y'all probably are growing up around things, but you know, internally,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: like I'm a little different, that's not you.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I call myself a hangbanger, you know, not a
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: gang banger. Like I'm hanging around the bangers. But I'm
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: like all from hood and understand the streets, man, you
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: know what I mean.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm like the same really, so when they
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 4: start recruiting, that's when it got real for me. When
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: when when I'm standing on the street corner and some
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: of the ogs are like, hey, the rivals.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: Keep coming through here shooting up. This is y'all's gun.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: Y'all share it. Some pop off y'all start shooting back.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: Now, what we didn't know was we're thirteen, Like this
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: is them trying to, you know, let the people who
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: not gonna do prison time do the shooting. You know
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: what I'm saying, Like this is a little manipulative, but
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: we feeling like, oh, they like this is you know,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: like right of passage.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: And that moment for me was like, y'all don't see
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: what's happening. Like I could see it. I could peep it.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: And I was like, I ain't even mad at these
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: other dudes that much to take their life. And that's
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: when I was like, I just know I got a future.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 4: I feel like I got more of a future than this.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: So honestly, for the second half of my life, I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: felt embarrassed and less of a man because I didn't
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: do the prison time.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't, you know, join the.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 4: Set and I go back to the Hood and they're like,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: what's up, og, And I'm like.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: Talking to me and they're like, yeah, you put the
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: Hood on the map, bro, you did it.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: Dah da dah And I'm like that's crazy because I
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 4: thought I had to do it that way and I
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: did it a different way. And man, it's just a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: you know, that's some of the trauma that we deal
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 4: with as black men.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: But yeah, in that story, as a young man, the
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: story you meet your dad, I hear faith being tested,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: for sure, over and over again. Sure, talk about the
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: response to that, because a lot of times we don't
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: know how to handle it when we're being tested. We're
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: not even aware of it till after. Yeah, for sure,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: talk about that.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: The beauty of my relationship with God and my faith,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: man is that I know to whom much is given,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: much is required, and to whom much is forgiven, much
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: is required. So I know the dirt that I have done,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: I know the chaos that I've caused, and I know
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: I've been forgiven. So for me to meet my dad,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 4: it was like, Man, I don't been forgiven.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: For so much, you know what I'm saying.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 4: And and God, if God can forgive me, how can
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: I not forgive this man. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean we connected,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: What it means is I'm not.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: Harboring ill will towards you. I don't want nothing negative
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: for you. I'm not holding no bitterness. It doesn't mean we're.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: About to hang out in kumba Ya.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: It just means, you know what, I could be mad
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 4: and carry this bitterness pill, but I want to get better,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: not bitter.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: I want to not that's not gonna help me. So
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: let me love you from afar, you know what I'm saying,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 4: and forgive you and move on with my life. And that's,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: you know, just a part of the journey.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: It's anohing man, trying to get to heaven.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: You feel me like, yeah, man, facts, it's like, yeah, he.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: He doing what he can or what he got.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: And you know what I'm saying, hopefully you know what
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: I'm saying that that that helps him to see like, yo,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: my son didn't even come at me crazy like he
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: didn't he came at me carrying. I'm not trying to
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: be an enabler either, though. I'm not trying to be like,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: hey man, well you know, let's just get to get
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: like cause I got cousins who've been in and out
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: of the prison system and on and off drugs, and
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 4: it's like I'd have been through that where I'm like,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: I'm not putting on more money in books, bro, because
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: now I'm enabling you. You know what I'm saying. You're
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: not trying to get better, you know what I'm saying.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: But if you're trying to do right, get better, I'm
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: with it.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: So what's next? What's next? As far as the label?
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, any big initiatives that you're working on, like what's
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: what's what's the plans? Man?
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: Just for me? You know, it's legacy.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 4: You know, legacy is more than inheritance, what you leave
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 4: two people. Legacy is what you leave in people. So
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: it's like, man, just trying to leave legacy and folks,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: but also inheritance. I love creating opportunities for other people. Man,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: I want to be my ceiling, be someone else's floor.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: So obviously the label, you know, signing. We got a
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 4: few new artists we signed. I'm putting out new music.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 4: Of course, for me, I still put out music. I
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: still enjoy it. Funny that the next single that I'm
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: dropping is a song that was written the hook and
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: the production was for Kanye because they thought he was
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: on that page, but he switched. So there's like, we
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 4: ain't got you know, you want these records? I was
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: like absolutely, So the records are crazy.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: The next one you know is on the way.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: And then man, just you know, the reason why I
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: was excited to connect with you was because.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: I'm big into investing. I'm big into you know, diversifying stocks.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: You know VC.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 4: I'm part of Collab Capital, which is a fund in Atlanta.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: You know, we raised fifty mail for black entrepreneurs in
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: the city, black founders, and for me. I want artists
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: to know, you're like an athlete, you only have a
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: certain window of earning opportunity. So you've got to diversify
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: when you're at the peak of your earning, you know capacity.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: And so there was one point in time I'm still
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: doing great as an artist, but there was one point
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 4: in time I had a number one album in the country.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 4: If I was if I would have just lived like
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: that for the remainder of my career, I wouldn't, you know.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: So I just learning how to invest. Educating folks. That's
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: a big piece of what I'm what I'm about now.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 4: So I'm always even you know, Flex, I'm always telling him, like,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 4: you don't work for me, I'm your client.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. I want all my artists,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: I want all my employees to see me as a client.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: You're an entrepreneur.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: This is your your thing. I'm your client. You're building something,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: you know, use what I have to build whatever it
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: is that that you feel like you need to do.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, more of those types of things. Man,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 4: that's really what my where my headspace is.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: Well, how can the people stay in touch as far
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: as you know, website, Instagram, make sure.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: You tap in with me.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, at LA Craze, l E
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: c r AE, social media, follow me, I'll take you somewhere.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 4: Catch me probably at every investments in the future.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: Too, you know what I'm saying.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, so just stay tacked in.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: Have you done anything with like you talked about like church,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: Have you done anything like as the collapse, like any
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: like the mega churches?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: Not not necessarily, you know what I'm saying. Like I've
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 4: done like interactions and certain things like that where we'll
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 4: partner on on a few things. I partner would experience
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: to do some financial literacy programs and you know, obviously
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 4: we we targeted some churches for that.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: My pastor, he was.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: Actually a financial advisor, so he's on Instagram as a
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: stewardship coach, and you know, we we got some talks
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: about doing some stuff cause he's pretty big church in
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: Atlanta as well, and that's why I knew about that
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: series seven and a whole. But but yeah, man, just
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 4: you know, I just want people to be educated, especially
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: our people. And if and if if a if a
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: portion of our people are in the churches, how do
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 4: we disciminate that information to them?
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: You are the probably the I mean easily the most
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: well known faith based hip hop artists. Who do you
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: see out there right now? That's like, I like what
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: they're doing that signed to you and not signed to
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: you like the're the next one coming up.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: I mean, I think everybody has different iterations and different
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: like aspects of what I do or what I see
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 4: that I love, you know what I'm saying. So I think,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 4: you know, like I said, I got one k few
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 4: the streets love them, you know what I mean. He's
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: able to connect with the streets and the culture and
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 4: the church in a way that I felt like I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 4: was able to do, you know, my guy hovies. The
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: artistic capabilities and blending that all that together is incredible.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: But the person that I see like is like, oh,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: this dude gets it.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: Is my guy KB and you know he was signed
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: to me, but you know he gets it so much.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: He's like, nah, I'm gonna do my own thing now.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 4: You know, started his own clothing.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: Supply company.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 4: So he like does fulfillment for other artists, you know,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: because he learned that game and he just he gets it,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, you get it.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, thank you for joining us.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: Brother, absolutely man man, I appreciate you.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: Thank You's rock onners. We see you next week. Peace.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 5: An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child
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