Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / Grammy-Winner Dallas Austin on Creating Hits, Ownership & Lessons Learned

Transcript

Grammy-Winner Dallas Austin on Creating Hits, Ownership & Lessons Learned · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, hey, everybody.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: It's John Hope Bryant, and this is the Money and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Wealth Podcast Series on iHeartRadio and Black Effect Network. And
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I want to thank you once again for making this
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: podcast top 75 in the world for entrepreneurship, top 200
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to 50 in the world for business. And as you know,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I normally talk to you straight, but when I bring
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: on a guest, they are, my interpretation, iconic, best in class,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in their space. And school is in session today. I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: am honored to bring to you somebody you think you
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: already know, Dallas Austin. Let me break down the Dallas
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Austin I know. Talent becoming intellectual property. Intellectual property becoming ownership.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Ownership becoming wealth. This is the Dallas Austin that I
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: want you to understand today. He's a grabby winning songwriter, producer, musician, entrepreneur,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: record label founder, and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee. You
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: probably know most of that. He's also an Atlanta guy.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So I've been honored to know him here, along with
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the other crew, Tip, DI, et cetera. The Recording Academy
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: lists him with nine Grammy nominations and one win for
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: TLC's Fan Mail and Best R & B Album. His
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: songwriting production resume is extraordinary. The Songwriters Hall of Fame
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: credits him with more than 50 hit singles, including 17
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: that spent time in the Billboard Top 10. His collaborators
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: span generations and genres. Let me sit back with a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: glass of wine for this one. TLC, Boyz II Men, Madonna,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: hold on, Michael Jackson, Brandi, Monica, Pink, Gwen Stefani, Janet Jackson,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Aretha Franklin, Santana, Lionel Richie, Shakira, Duran Duran, Usher, and
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: so many more. The Recognizable Records alone could make an episode,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and we don't have time for this, but let me
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: just help. TLC's Creep, Ain't Too Proud to Be, Unpretty,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Boyz II Men's Motown Philly, Madonna's Secret, Monica's early breakthrough
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: records like Blue, Cantrell, Hit Em Up. I just love
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: this ceaseless energy of creativity and genius. And then there's
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: the entrepreneurial story. He built DARP Studios in Atlanta, created
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Rowdy Records and other labels, and expanded into film. Drumline
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: was based in part on Austin's own experience is a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: high school marching band drummer. And he co-produced the film
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and executive produced its soundtracks, which means he understands ownership.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: What did Quincy Jones tell me? If you think you're
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: in the music business and you don't own music rights,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: publishing rights, or licensee rights, or some kind of intellectual property,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: you're not in the music business. You're a temporary performer.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Drop the mic. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of Fame 2019. The class included Missy Elliott, And I'm like,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you're getting it, right? You're getting this. And then he's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: got the Dallas Austin Music Foundation as if he wasn't
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: busy enough. He's trying to give back. And today, we're
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: going to go from a beat to a billion-dollar culture.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Who really owns the music? And how is that music
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: owned and curated? The business behind the business. How does
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: a creative kid with an idea terminate that into... income, ownership,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and generational wealth. In order to tell the positive story,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: we got to get underneath the not so pleasant one,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the not so pretty one, the one that maybe everybody
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: does not know. Tell us about, first of all, welcome
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Dallas Austin.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, man. That was the best introduction
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: I could have, especially from somebody like you. Thank you.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that, man.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Well, but the biggest introduction you got is that hat
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you got on that says dad.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, yes, yes. That's the thing. I'm first and
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: then that's my distribution company, you know.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I also met one of your children. I also met
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: one of your children. Very impressive.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: It takes all of us to do that. It takes
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: all of us to raise these kids, you know, especially
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: these days.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Amen so let's let's look you specialize in cool you're
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: sitting there right now looking like a million dollars let's
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: unpack this let's talk about tell the audience about your
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: childhood good brother let's unpack where you came from the
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: good news and the bad news.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Well what this interest is i'm from columbus georgia and
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: uh back in the i was born 1970 so back
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: in the late 60s my my father and my mom
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: they ran the uh the part of town that all
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: the Black people could come to because it was segregated, right?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: So you had the Fort Benning Army Base there, and
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: then you had Columbus, Georgia, and then you had this
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: little section of downtown where the politicians, the pimps, the prostitutes,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the teachers, anybody that was Black, you hung out in
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: this part of town. That's where the soul food restaurants was.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: That's where the Black funeral homes were. That's where the nightclubs,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: per se, was, the dance clubs. And my dad ran
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that part of the city. Along with the city, he
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: ran that town. So, and a lot of the times,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: like I said, it was, they were young politicians, young, everybody, athletes,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: anybody that was black, you had to be in that,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: in that part of town to hang out. When I
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: was born, they named me after Dr. Dallas Moore, which
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: is a spiritual doctor down in Donaldsonville, Georgia, that they
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: used to go see all the time when, when they
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: had issues, you know, they called him a hoodoo doctor,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: but they would, and he would give them numbers, you know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: like you go down and there's peacocks and pigs and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: stuff and you tell them your problems and he'll, tell
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: you what to do, kind of need to give you
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: the numbers to go play, you know? So when I
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: was born, I was actually named after Dr. Dallas Moore,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: where everybody's like, oh, are you Dallas Thompson? You from Texas? No, it's,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: it's owed to Dr. Dallas Moore down in Donaldsonville, Georgia, this,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: this voodoo doctor. As I started to come up in Columbus, Georgia,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: when I was born, then right at about two years old,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: my dad got shot at the, at the club, in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: front of the nightclub. And And then it was a
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff going on cause he was tied into
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: the city. And, you know, back then in the seventies,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: it was always something happening in those, those, those kinds
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: of things. And so they kind of set them up.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: And then my mom ended up taking over the, uh,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the nightclub and the restaurant. And so, you know, you
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: had blue shack carpet and you had white wall tires
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and cool baby and rainwater and all of them was
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: outside and they became my mom's like friends. And in
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: the daytime, I would see the Curtis Atkinsons and the
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Calvin Smyers and, uh, um, Bob writes and all these
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: great Sanford bishops, all these great guys that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. Back up, back up. I thought you
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: said blue water. I thought you're talking about drinking water.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: You don't mind. That was a dude's name. Yeah.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: That was a, that was a pimp's name.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Rainwater. Yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I never forget.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I thought you're my carpet and water. No, man.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: You know what? You seen the Mac, right? As a kid,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: but all the, you know, when you looked outside my
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: mom's restaurant, it was all these Cadillacs and they all
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: have white wall tires and they all have like the,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: The birds on the front, you know, and then there's
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: all pimps and people getting out of the cars. It
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was cool, baby. Rain, water, hamburger, big runny. And so
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: that's what I would see at night at the club.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: But then, you know, I had to go home and
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: go to school. When I would come in the daytime,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: the 70s bands would be left with their equipment set up, right?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: So I'd be playing on their clavinets and playing on
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: their drums while my mom was doing inventory. And at
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: the same time, in the daytime, the restaurant was open,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: so all the politicians would come down and eat soul food.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: So that's why I met the Calvin Smires and Bob
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Wrights and Sanford Bishop. And I was a child. Calvin
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Smires would bring me to Six Flags when I was
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: six years old just to take me out of Columbus.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Wow. He's a great guy.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Calvin, he's an amazing guy. And then as I'm little
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: and I'm starting to come up, Columbus is hard for us.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: My brothers were, after my dad passed and my brothers
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: were in jail all the time. just doing stupid stuff,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: just stealing, robbing, taking little things. But Columbus, Georgia is
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: like that. There's nothing else for you to do down there.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: And that's what kind of happens. And then I would
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: see my mom basically crying. And the restaurant, now, this
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: was what's crazy. When I came up, because I lived
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: in the suburbs at first, which we thought was suburbs,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: we thought we were rich in a sense, in a
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: $ 30, 000 maybe home. So I thought we were rich and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: everybody else did too because we didn't live downtown. And
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: once my dad passed, we had to move downtown to
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: where the restaurant was. So now, here I am living
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: in a house connected to a soul food restaurant. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: my room is crooked. It's a makeshift shack room in
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: the back. And I got rats running across the floor.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: And my mom's cooking chitlins and stuff downstairs. Now, at
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: this restaurant, every band would stop by there to play.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, to eat before they would go play the auditorium.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So if it was Lionel Richie, if it was George Clinton,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: If it was Zapp and Roger, I would see all
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: them and be like, wow, I'm going to be them
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: one day. And then go to the concerts. I get
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: free tickets to the concerts. I saw the Mothership land
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: when I was like seven. I was like, I was
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: just that guy. That's what kept me saying again because
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: my mom knew that me moving downtown was just a
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: lot on me. And so I asked my mom, I said, look,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: give me a keyboard. And every year I keep it,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: give me a bigger one. Because she's like, you're going
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: to be like your brothers. They play drums and stuff.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: You're going to get in the girls. When you get
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: in junior high, you're going to find. So I said,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, give me a calculator. Give me
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: a calculator. keyboards, the Casio from Service Merchandise. I said,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: so every Christmas I keep this one, get me a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: bigger one. Because the bigger I get with this keyboard,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: the more I can have the power to get us
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: out of here. Because I can play in bigger bands
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: at that point. So long story short, hard life. Brother's
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: always in jail. Mom's always crying. The prison is across,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: the jail is across the street from a restaurant. So
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: we have to go by and wave at them and just,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: just horrible. And it was very dark, Columbus was for us.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of like, just like a lot
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: of black rural country families. You got a lot of
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: abuse going on. You got a lot of fighting going on.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: You got a lot of woman beating going on. You
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: got a lot of, it was just dark. And so
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I finally worked my way up to getting this, this, uh,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: JX3P keyboard. It was $ 1, 200. My brother had to finance
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: it for five years from Tom Foods. Um, but it
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: was my saving grace. It was like, okay, now that
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I got here, I'm not sad no more. these rats
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: running across my floor. Like this was my magic wand
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: to get me out of here.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I knew that. So this was your escape.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: This was my escape. I knew that the one day
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that the key was crazy about it is John. I
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: can always say that I can bounce for this part.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: God gives everybody a gift. And when you're young, everybody's
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: born with it, right? It's the thing they love to
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: do the most. I would draw these keyboards on my notebooks.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: I would draw them everywhere. I would draw just keyboards
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: as a kid before I even got to them. All
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: my things were bands on my notebooks and drum sets
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: and all of this. And, you know, And the one
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: thing I have to say, like I said, that's what
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: makes the world go round is God gives everybody that gift.
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: It depends on if it's nurtured or if it's thrown
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: away or your parents say that ain't for you, right?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: So as I kept going on with this keyboard, I
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: was in the Prince and the Time and I kept
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: playing Get It Up over and over again. And I
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: told my brother when I played this song, man, I
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: tune everybody out. Don't talk to me when I'm playing
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: this keyboard. So he comes in the room, he's drunk
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: on his Budweiser. Man, mom said clean up the room.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Mom said, clean up the room. So all he could
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: hear in his head is, I'm ignoring you when I'm playing.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: So he takes that keyboard, throws it across the room,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: and it breaks into pieces, right?
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: No.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, and I'm, like, devastated at that point. So
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I run down to my mom's restaurant, which is a
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: step down two steps, and I'm in the kitchen where
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: she's cooking chitlins. And I grabbed the biggest knife I
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: could find and ran back upstairs crying, right? And so
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: my mom was like, what are you doing? I was
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: so little. They was like, okay, this boy is crazy
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: when he gets these knives. And I'm glad she stopped
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: me because I would have killed my brother. I would
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: have stabbed him. So she kept crying. He broke my keyboard.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: He broke my keyboard. I can't be a big producer.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I can't. And so she's going, how could you do
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: that to him?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: And I was like, that's it. I threw the keyboard down.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: And it was only two keys broke off. It was
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: only two keys broke off the end of it. The
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: rest of it was fine. But it was just.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: But he disrespected your dream. He disrespected. That was like your.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: He disrespected my dream.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: That was your castle that you stepped into. He forgot
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: about everything else. Yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I was already dealing with it. I've never
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: seen rats and roaches run across the floor before because
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I was at the suburban house. But now I had
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: to move down there, and it's my mom's way of
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: making it feel better for me. So I left, man.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I was locked out of there mad as I don't
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: know what and went around to the Greyhound bus station,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: which is like two buildings over from my mom's house.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I said, that's it.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I'm out of here.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to Atlanta. So my mom comes over. There's
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: no buses running because it's after 9 or whatever. I'm
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: just sitting in the Greyhound bus station crying. And she
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: comes and says, what are you doing? I said, He
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: broke my keyboard. I can't be a big record producer.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I'm going to Atlanta to steal my auntie Clara. She's like,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: what do you mean? You're 12 years old. What do
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: you think you're going to Atlanta? And I was like, mom,
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: I can't be a big record producer. He broke my keyboard.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: So I can't do it no more. That's all I
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: could see. And so then she said, look, I know
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: you're mad. I know you're stubborn. Because me and my
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: mom has always been tight. And so she goes, look,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: come back home. Let's think about it.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And let's get up tomorrow. And I know you're mad,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: but let's just think about it. I said, all right, cool.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: So I got back home. I had a waterbed at
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: the time. There's the other saving grace. Oh, my God,
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: a waterbed. And I had my keyboard, and I was
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: sleeping with the keyboard.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Rocking. I loved it. Rocking.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: And so I went in my waterbed with my little
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: keyboard broke with the Bluetooth keys on it, crying, looking
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: at those two keys like it's the most devastating thing
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: that ever happened in my life. And then I got
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: up the next day, and I went down to a restaurant,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: and I went into the cash register, and I took
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: like $ 20, $ 30 out. And I went back to Greyhound
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: bus station, but now I got some money, so I'm
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: out of here. And she sees me going, so she's
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: following me around there. She goes, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: what are you doing? What are you doing? I'm going
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to Atlanta. I'll tell you, I can't be a bad
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: record producer. He broke my keyboard. So she goes, I'll
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: tell you what. She's like, look, let's get it fixed. Like,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: let's see if we can get it fixed, all right?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: But it's just like, and I know you're mad and
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: you're stubborn, but if you're going to Atlanta and you're
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: that mad, you're not leaving me. Give me some time
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: to sell the restaurant and I'm going with you.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: What?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Yep. So she said, give me six months.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's a mother's love, man.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And she said, I'm going with you. That's what you
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: dream of? I'm going with you. So I said, OK.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Now during that time, they got my keyboard. They took
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it to a place on a stretcher like it was
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: going to the hospital. This still pees me. And then
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: when they got the keys fixed, but now a little
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: part is still broken. I'm still so mad about it
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: that now I'm on a train to Atlanta, I can't
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: get off of it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: That was my pushing point. So we end up moving
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: to Atlanta. And we thought College Park was Atlanta, right?
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: So that's the first, Old National was the first thing
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: we saw. So she got a job at Poe Folk's Restaurant,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: or Old National. And we moved into Charlestown. I started
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: going to Lakeshore High School here.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So keep in mind, Dallas, this is a global audience,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a national audience. They may not understand these different places.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So College Park is a part of Atlanta, right? It's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: not all of Atlanta. And actually, what might even be
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: qualified back then, it's the black part, the prominent, maybe
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: a working middle class or middle class black part of Atlanta.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Yes. And it's like about 17 miles from actual Atlanta
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: when you get there. But she got the job there.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Atlanta adjacent.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. She's making $ 12, 000 a year as a manager at
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Poe Folks. And I don't know how, as I look
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: at it today, I don't know how she's paying our
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: rent and stuff, but she's figuring it out. And I
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: would see her every day. go off to work and
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: with a flower on her face. And I got this
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: keyboard in the room and I'm making sounds and I'm
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: going to let people know in the school that this
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: is what I do. So the words started to get
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: around that this 13 year old, 14 year old kid
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: is bad. He played these keyboards.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And so I was going around the school. I didn't talk, man.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I was super quiet. I didn't talk to nobody. It
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: was me and my keyboard. I was super shy. I
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: was like super introverted.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: As I started to get the word out, people started
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: to say, man, that kid is bad. That kid is bad. And,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: and so I, I met Joyce Fanderella Irby from the
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: group Climax. She had moved to Atlanta. And Climax was
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: a group from the 80s that was big. They had
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: the Men All Paws.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I Miss You.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Men All Paws.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So she comes into Atlanta. And that's like the
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: big fishes in town because we had nobody here except
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: for like Peebo Bryson, Cameo, and maybe SOS Band. But,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't any way to get a hold
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: to them. And so she came in. I ended up
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: signing with her when I was like 15 years old,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: 14 years old.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: And it was my first journey into kind of understanding, well,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: not business, but like coming into the music business. Because
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: assigned to her, through her, I met Gerald Busby.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: He was the president of Motown. He was just coming
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: from MCA going to Motown.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I love Gerald Busby.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: He was one of the greatest men to ever do it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: And he was the one that actually set this off
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: because I was working under her. I did her records,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Hey Mr. DJ, a couple of songs under her with
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Doug E. Fresh. I was probably 17. 15 or so
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: at the time, I started coming up. They used to
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: have to pick me up because I couldn't drive to
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: take me to the studio. But I was like this
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: badass kid that could make this music that could sound
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: like Babyface. He could sound like Prince. He could sound
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: like Jimmy and Terry. Because as a kid, you just
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: want to soak up your idols and stuff that you
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: do to sound just like them. So word got out.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: I signed her. How old were you? I signed her
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: at 15 because I had to have my mom sign
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: with me. And I didn't know I was signing work
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: for hire contracts. So this is where I would get started.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: So work for hire contract is when someone hires you
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: to own everything that you do. So as a writer, producer,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: you usually get copyrights and royalties later. But if I
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: hire you to do that and I pay you $ 1, 500,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: I own everything you do.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: So everybody listening to this, if you want to think
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: about what he's saying, think about a 1099 agreement, a contract,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: or employment. You're not an employee. You're being paid a fee.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You don't get benefits as an employee, but you're basically
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: an independent contractor. And there are no contingent ownership obligations.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Benefits from what you're working on. You're 1099 to give
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you a form every year. You pay your own taxes
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and you basically you live on what you eat, but
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: you don't own what you produce unless you have a side.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: So that's just what I clarify what he's saying is
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: very important to work for higher contract.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Really important.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: By the way, Whitney Houston did a work for higher
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: contract essentially until her death. She she had a hundred
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: million dollar contract and and end up dying. I think
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: it was 40 million dollars in debt. because she didn't
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: own any of her music, didn't produce. It was all just,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: she just sang the songs. And when she got an advance,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that was a loan against Future. And so when she
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: didn't want to work, now you're just, your outflows see
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: your inflows, so your overheads are downfall. She actually became
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: wealthy after her passing. She paid off her contract after
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: she passed. Back to you. That's right. That's right.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: No, that's 100% right. That was the first time I
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: ever heard work for hire and I thought it was
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: fine then until you fast forward. Gerald Busby calls one
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: day and says, man, I got this group and I
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: want Dallas to do it by himself. I don't think
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: that you're the right influence all the way on him.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: He's a kid. He should be free to make his
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: drums loud or whatever he wants to do, right? So
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: he called boys to men. And so he said, I
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: want him to go to Philadelphia and work with these guys.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: So she got a little mad that Gerald wanted me
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to go by myself. And so she started to kind
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: of push on the work for hire thing and the
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: control thing. Well, you can't go until you do this
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: and until you do that. And I'm thinking, well, damn,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: she owns everything I do. She should be happy that
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: I'm going. I didn't understand the ego that comes with
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: policing times and things. So I go to make a,
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: I send them Motown Philly as a track. I send
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: them another record, Simpin, that's on their album. And then
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Gerald goes, oh my God, you got to go record
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: these songs. And so, but I want you to go
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: by yourself. So now she again is mad because that's
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: her relationship. And why is he going by himself? He's
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a kid. Gerald goes, those guys are kids too. And
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think they need a 30, 40 year old
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: woman in the room with kids. Let them do their thing. So,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: all right, well, you can go under this condition, but
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: you can't do this. You can't do that. So, all right.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: So I get to Philadelphia. I do Motown, Philly.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Let me back up one second. I need to clarify something.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: First of all, to be clear, Whitney Houston is a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: genius and she didn't know what she didn't know on
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the contract, but she was a genius and had good
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: representation and want to clarify that. I also want to
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: clarify that as Dallas is explaining this to you, he's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: not blaming anybody on the other side. You get what
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you negotiate. So he was pleased to be invited into
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the industry and What was offered to him was a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: work for hire contract. And let me say this, even
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: though Gerald Busby is a great guy or a great
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: human and everybody's a great human, it's not Gerald Busby's
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: job in that example to give him some rich, overly
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: generous contract. Just the opposite of negotiating table in capitalism
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: is where one's a producer, one's a consumer. The producer's
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: job is to offer as little as possible in a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: product while paying as little, this is a producer, while
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: paying as little in price, in call. The consumer's job,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the employee's job, in this example, the contractor's job is
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to extract as much as possible of rights and opportunities
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: while getting the most they can in compensation for that activity.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Everybody's doing their job. The capitalist is extracting as much
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: in benefits to them, paying the least, While giving the
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: least in value, the other person's job is to get
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: as much revenue as possible while getting as much of
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the value of that product as they can. And every
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: negotiation is where everybody leaves slightly annoyed because no one
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: got everything they wanted. When you're financially illiterate or you
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: don't know what you don't know, you have one person
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: with all the power and all the knowledge. And you
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: don't have anything other than passion and you're emotional. Every
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: time you make an emotional decision, it's a bad one.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And so it's entirely likely one person is going to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: get vested in that negotiation. It's not personal. It's just
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: business unless somebody is being malicious. Okay, I'm going to
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: shut up now. Back to you.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: And right to your point, I would have taken it anyway.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: I would have taken it anyway because I want to
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: get into business. So that wasn't my issue yet. And
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: you know what? You're taking the risk on me. So
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: to prove myself.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And risk costs money. A person taking a risk can
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: lose everything.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Risk rewards.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: You paid me.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: You have given me money. You have given me. Because
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: I wasn't there yet. So I go to do Boyz
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: II Men. And Gerald's been great the whole time. Gerald
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: was an issue. It was most of her being mad
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: that Gerald was her relationship. And why do I get
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: to go by myself? So I go do the two songs.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: And I call her back. I convince Boyz II Men, John,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I say, look, let me do your whole album. They said, well,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: you know how to do slow songs too? I said, yeah, man,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I did Troop, I Will Always Love You. I can
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: do the whole album, not just these two songs. So
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: they said, you know what, Dallas? All right, let's try it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Let's give it a shot.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: How'd you convince the man to let his kid produce
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the whole thing on the album? Okay, we don't time.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: For all this. Because they were kids, too. Everybody was 18, 19.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Everybody was like, you know, we were all kids. We
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: were all just coming out of high school and stuff.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: But I was the one, the music one, and I
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: was the writing one. So I said, I'll tell you what,
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: let me try two more, and if I do those,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: let me do the rest of the album. I go
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: back to my hotel that night, and I listen to Babyface.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: tend to love an album and I listened to everything
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: on it. Where is the cowbell? Where's the piano going?
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: Where's this? Where's that? I studied it. And then I
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: went back the next day and I made them, please
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: don't go. And then it was like, Oh my God.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: From that point, I did a long part. Uh, uh,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: I did the whole album. So hard to say goodbye.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I did the whole thing. So I called back to Joyce, right?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Who owns all this stuff now, not just to, she
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: owns everything at that point, but she doesn't know I
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: did it. I called back and said, guess what? I'm
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: doing a whole album. She goes, really? I go, yeah.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: She goes, I'm suing everybody. I go, what?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: So that's when the other thing started to me. Like
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: I was confused as a kid going, why would she
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: say that? All I'm trying to do is do records
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: and put our dreams out. So I didn't understand the
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: thing about it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: So that went into now Busby, who's Busby. She's only
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: a production company that's got me there. Busby's still Motown.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: He's still the one that's calling the shots.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: So Busby goes, Dallas is incredible.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: He's going to keep working. So we'll sort everything out.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: So now I got Boyz II Men. Now I got ABC,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: another bad creation, who fell right under the same thing, right?
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So I got Motown Philly. I got Aisha, right? Then
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I got, now I got TLC, right?
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: That's got Ain't Too Proud to Beg. I got all
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: these hits happening. Millions of records sold. My mom was
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: at This Isn't Barbecue, right? Working on Washington.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Road, right?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: And I don't understand what's happening because I got all
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: this stuff going on and I can't really move. And
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Gerald Busby is going Dallas. Okay, now this is getting
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: serious because all these records are selling. You need to
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: talk to Clarence Avon.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love Clarence. Oh, my God.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: He goes, this is a guy you got to talk
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: to now because this is getting serious. And Clarence, now
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: we're talking money, money. We're selling records that's millions now.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: So now Gerald's making a lot of money at Motown
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: because he came in with Boyz II Men because they
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: had sold. to Boston Ventures before that. Remember, like, Barry
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: Gordy sold it for maybe like $ 30 million or $ 60
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: or something like that, which is lowball compared to when
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Gerald came in and then added Boyz II Men to
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: the equation and then re-kicked it off. Now we're selling
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: tons of records and he's looking at the producer now like,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: I need this kid and y'all got him tied up. So, Clarence,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: can you step in and solve this? So, Clarence Avon
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: was the first time I met Clarence who's the, in
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: case anybody doesn't know who he is, go check out
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: the movie The Black Godfather.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Black Godfather.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: I read the book. Class is the glue of the
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: music industry still to this day, even with him being
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: resting in peace. But he called me one day on
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: the phone.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: And his children, Nicole Avant and Alex Avant are killing it.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Alex Avant is amazing. Nicole, both of them are great.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: They're great friends of my Alex's. And so he said, man, look.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get you out of this stuff. This
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: makes no sense. I don't understand why black people keep
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: doing each other this way. You're a kid. They shouldn't
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: have you tied up in this. There's enough money for
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: everybody to work this out. I don't get it. I
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: don't get it. So the thing kept going on and on.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: My mom was still working at the This Is It Barbecue.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Now I got more record sellers and more record sellers.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: So now the industry is starting to fork me off going,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: you know what? We're just going to keep you working.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Even though you can't get the money per se, you
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: can still get the work and you can still collect
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: the money. You can still get your music out there.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: We don't care what she said. We're going to let
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: her sue us. Because now we're in a big game
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: business because you're making us money, right? So the whole
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: time I kept wondering is why this person that started
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: me off in this stuff that I want to, from
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: my standpoint, I'm like, man, I want her to make money.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: This is the one who started me. This is the
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: lady who I got to look out for because if
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even know you. I've
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: always been this way. So I just couldn't get in
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: touch with her. We couldn't make deals for a couple
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: of years. Whatever happened, years passed by. We couldn't get
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: to her. And finally I had to go see Doc.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Say doctor needs some help.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Doc means Clarence Avon.
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: No. This goes back to the beginning of the story. Oh.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: When I was born, I was born and named after Dr.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Dallas Moore.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: Down in Dunn, Seville, Georgia, where you had to go
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: and just stand there and cars would be parked from
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: down the street. I'll send you a book on this, John,
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: so you can see there's a book about him. Cars
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: would be parked from around the world to see this man.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: You can't see him until he walks out and say, you,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: and then he tells you to come in. There's no
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: way to call, no way to You go into the
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: shack where there was a little small shack church with
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: peacocks and pigs and stuff running around everywhere. And he
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: knows you're joining. So I never went to see him
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: on my own. My mom and him always go see him.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So when I do go, he goes, man, you're down
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: here buying them contracts, ain't you? I said, yeah. He said, okay.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And we talked for a while. He goes, no, what
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: you do is you read the scripture every day that
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: basically says, God, please forgive them for trying to take
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: my gifts. They don't know about it. Now, you know
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: how hard that is to read when your mom is
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: working a dissonant barbecue coming home with flour on her
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: face and you got millions of records sold and you
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: wish you could just like choke that person out that's
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: doing this to you. Because she's still getting up at
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: seven and fried chicken and all this. And I got
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: millions of records sold and I got $ 2 million sitting there,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: which is more money than an 18, 19-year-old kid ever
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: could even imagine in his life. It's more torture The
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: good thing about it is your records are playing. That
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: meant more to me than anything. I wouldn't do nothing
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: with the money anyway, but give it to my mom.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I'm not old enough to even care about it.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: By the way, what he told you to repeat every
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: day is a version of what Jesus said when he
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: was being crucified and his last breath out of his
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: mouth was, forgive them, Lord, they know not what they did.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: That's right. Just to say this to anybody, Whenever you're
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: going through something to fight fire with fire, you got
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: to switch and say, forgive them. Because that's the only
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: way the magic works. So that magic worked for me.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: She ended up showing up and we ended up making
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: a deal. And after that deal, that's when the money
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: came in. So when I got the money, now I'm
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a kid sitting with $ 2 million. What do I do
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: with this at that age? So first thing is I said, well,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: I need a factory. I need my studio because that's
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: what I do. So let me go back and invest
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: in myself. And instead of recording in my friend's basement,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: I need my own recording studio. So I got DARP,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: built up four recording room studios. And then what's crazy
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: is in Atlanta, nobody would finance it because they have
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: never seen a young black kid with that kind of money.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: And so they were confused, right? So they were like,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: hold on, hold on, hold on. How does this work out?
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: This is like 1992, 94, right? How does this work?
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: So So I had to finance my consoles. The console
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: was a million dollars itself. You had to finance that
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: out of LA and finance the studio stuff out of
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: where they knew how to deal it. It was from California.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: People don't realize the console that was a million dollars
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: is now basically your MacBook.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Now it's your MacBook.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: But that used to cost a million dollars, that mixing board, right?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was expensive. So nobody would finance it. So
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: I finally got my studio set up, right? Got everything going.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: I did a publishing deal with EMI for my first
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: million dollars there. I was 19, 20 years old. And
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: so now I got this money and I was like, okay,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: so now I got to start thinking. It's not just music.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: I have to think about what to do with this money.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: I'm accumulating here in my business. So I started my
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: own production company. And when Mike Bivens in LA would
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: be like, come sign with us. I'd just be like, no, no, no, no.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: I've done that already. I'm going to sign it myself.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: Because it takes me one time to walk through a fire.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: I don't mind if I get that little burn so
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I can get the experience off of it and then
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I do it again and can maybe share it with
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: somebody else. But I'm not walking in there again. It's hot.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: That's right. If I screw up once, I blame it
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: on you. You screw me once, I blame it on you.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: You screw me twice, I blame it on me.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: It's me. It's me.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: And wisdom for everybody. Wisdom is going through something. Education
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and intelligence is learning something. But wisdom gets going through something.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: If you went in military school and got a military
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: officer's medallion in your shoulder and you go in battle
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and the first time a bullet whizzes over your head,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you pee on your pants, you're not prepared for battle.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: And the stripes are worth the covering of the wound.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: So you have to have stripes and you have to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: have wisdom. And that's what he's talking about. You want
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to have legitimate suffering, not illegitimate suffering. So he learned
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the lesson and kept it moving.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Kept it moving. And then what's interesting is, you know
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: the saying, along with money comes problems. And back in
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: our time, it was nobody to teach us. It was
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: nobody telling us at all. So our fire was waiting
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: on us to walk through it. Here you got this money.
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Let's go, right? So the first thing you're going to
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: do is what? You're going to get your car. You're
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: going to get your house. I bought my mama a car,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: my mama a house. Got her straight. Then I'm doing
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: it straight. Now I got my studio. But then you
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: learn this lesson where When you want to be in business,
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: what does that mean as a creative? Because you have
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: to maintain creative because that's really your business. But now
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: that it's generating money that you've seen getting taken from
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: you before, you want to make sure that it doesn't
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: go away again, right? So now you got to do both.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: And either you're going to sell it out to somebody
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: else again, or you're going to say, okay, well, I
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: learned that lesson. I'm going to have to take the
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: time myself to know my business that I'm going to
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: have somebody else dealing with because I didn't know that
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: at first. So I had a business manager. So here
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I go now. with this business manager that came to
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: town and he represents a lot of big clients he
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: had us and tlc and the face and so it
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: was like you you could think you're doing right right
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: but knowing you're doing right or wrong it's two different
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: stories i learned this one the hard hard way right
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: so i got this thing the money's coming in everybody's
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: doing great and so one day i get a call
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: from la actually and he goes man dallas i know
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: we got the same accountants and stuff and uh I
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: think you should look at your stuff because I looked
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: at mine and I don't know what I have or not.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: And so I want you to do the same thing
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: because I introduced you to this person. I said, okay.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: So I was smart enough to, you know, at this
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: time say that's a red flag. How do I get
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: in there to see everything without this guy knowing I'm
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: seeing everything because he's just going to fix it right
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: before I see it.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: So I go back to the business manager and I say, look, man,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: why don't we do big deals? The stuff like my
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: light bills, my gas bill, my telephone bill. Let this
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: other guy handle that stuff. I'm going to send him
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: in to look through that stuff and collect that. And
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: me and you, we're going to do the big Arista deals.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Man, that's so brilliant. That's so brilliant.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: $ 10 deals for that. Because I knew if he seen
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: me coming, if I'm already in a situation I don't
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: know about, he's the type of person that's going to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: try to cover it up. So I sent these guys in.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: These guys are total white guys who didn't know anything
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: about the music business whatsoever. I didn't want that. I
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: want just numbers. I don't want no creativity. Just tell
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: me straight hardcore stuff. So they come out. We'll meet
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: a little while later. He said, Dallas, we got a problem. Now,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: you have a million dollar tax debt that you owe, right? Now,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: the problem is this. You have $ 500, 000 that came in
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: a little while ago and went out, but we can't
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: tell where it went to. Then he goes, and the
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: other problem is this problem, the penalties and interest is
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: what's got you in this thing because this has been
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: here for a minute. I'm saying, but how? I pay
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: my taxes. I would go to the business management office
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: and sign those things every time. You would always call.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Come up and sign for the taxes. I've done this
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: plenty of times. What are you saying? I'm saying to
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: you that you owe the IRS a million dollars. We
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: can see $ 5, 000 in the bank. We know you got
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: $ 500, 000 somewhere else. We don't know where that is. But
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: we got to go deal with this issue because actually
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: it's going on so long now that they're about to
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: start calling you and taking your stuff.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: How? How?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: How? I've been going to the business manager's office, signing
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: the papers. I don't get it. So the IRS wants
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: to see you. Let's make a meeting. Don't forget this
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: one either. I sit in there.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I go in there. You never played with the IRS.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: Don't even think about it. So I go in there
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: and they go, yeah, man. So I said, look, this guy,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I signed the papers. I went to the offices. I
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: don't understand. He should be liable for this. He said, yeah, yeah,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: he should. He said, but let me tell you this.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: He said, Dallas, so, and now, again, this is the
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: start of the money coming into Atlanta. They ain't seen
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: this yet. I'm one of the first, me and Jermaine
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: was one of the first young, black, 20-year-old millionaires around here.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: That don't happen in the South at that point back then,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: at all. You didn't even have that many white millionaires
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: at that point. Then you had the Ted Turners and
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: people like that, but we was doing stuff, like a
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: flag went off, basically. And so, the IRS guy was like,
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: you know what? Yeah, y'all got these business managers and stuff,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: you know, but Let me tell you something. He said,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: if I operated on your arm right now, as a doctor,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: you can't sue me because I am not under the
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: doctor law. Your business manager is not a certified public accountant.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: That's all you need is a CPA. A business manager
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't fall under any FDIC laws. That's a dude saying
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: he can manage your stuff. He has no responsibility to
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the law, no responsibility to us, nothing. That's a good
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: idea that he came up with one day. to say,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: I can manage businesses. So all of the music people,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: even in New York, and here, we always say we
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: had to have business managers because that's what came out
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: in the fold because we had businesses, right? So he goes,
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: so now you're a business manager. You would have came
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: out better going down the street and seeing that little
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: white house on the corner that says accountant, FDIC, dealing
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: with him because then we could go after him. But
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you're a guy. We can't go after him because, like
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: I said to you before, If I operated on you,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: you can't sue me on the doctor law because I'm
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: not a doctor.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: I tell people you want boring businesses and you want
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: boring advisors. You don't want them coming to the club
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: with you. You don't want them partying with you. You
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: don't want them hanging out. You don't even want them cool.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: You want people who are dorky because they spend all
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: their time in books and becoming the best at what
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: they do. They are the NBA player of that space
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: and you want the best of the best irrespective of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: anything else.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: That dude looked at me and he said, so he
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: goes like this, John.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: He goes, oh, wait.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: And by the way, you know those commercials that's like,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: you know, pay your taxes and, you know, we spend
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of money on those commercials.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: He said, yeah, that's right. It's your fault, not his.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Pay me all my money.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: It's the IRS guy.
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: That's how he did me. It's your fault, not his.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Pay me all my money. So I said, oh, wow. Okay,
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: so hold on. I said, all right. So I'll tell
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: you what. It took me a year to get into this.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: You give me a year to get out of it now.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: You got to stop the penalties and interest or I
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: can go bankrupt. If I go bankrupt, they ain't doing
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: nothing for neither one of us because I don't want
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: to do that. I'm a man. I want to work
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: myself out of this. I didn't know I was in
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: this issue. I got myself into it. I'm sure I
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: get myself out of it. But you got to give
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: me the same time that it took to get out
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: He says, okay. I said, I'm not going to pay
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: you $ 50, 000 a month. I'm not going to put myself
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: under a gun or something that makes it where I
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: can't deliver. What I know I got to do is
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: by the end of this year, give you that money.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: All right?
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: He said, okay, deal. And I said, so now. Now,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: this is the interesting part that I don't think people know.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: If you owe the IRS a million dollars, you got
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: to make $ 2 million to be broke. Because they have
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: to tax the money you're making right now. Right? So
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: if I'm going to make a dollar and I owe
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: you a dollar, then you got to tax that dollar
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: you just made. Mm-hmm.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: So to pay off an IRS debt of $ 1 million,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: you got to make $ 2 million so you can be broke.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Come back at zero again.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Right? Yep.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: So I was me and babyface. who was probably having
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: similar things at the same time because we were all
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: dealing with the same guy. Girl, you know what, Dallas?
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: He said, what we're going to do is we're going
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: to write ourselves out of it. Now, when I met
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: with the guy, John, check this out. I meet with
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: the business manager guy, and I say to him, bro,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: how can you have me in this situation and us
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: in this situation? We're Black people out here. You come from,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: you know Clarence and them too. Y'all come from Black
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: music before I did. I'm a kid. You know Jerry.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: You know all these people. How are you doing this
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: to us down here? Because there's so much money in
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Atlanta that nobody knew what to do with it. These
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: kids are new. This ain't like L.A. where everybody already
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: knew what was happening because they already had the managers
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: and accountants. This is new territory. This is Atlanta sprouting
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: up oil with these kids with all this money. They
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: don't know what to do with it. So instead of
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: coming down there to help situate it, you're going to
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: come rip us off? He goes, oh, man, you know.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: I ain't really scared of that kind of thing. You know,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: it's just like, you know, man, I just, you know,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's business. You guys are the songwriters, man. You
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: a face of songwriters. Y'all can do this, you know.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: We're the business guys. And so right at that moment.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: That's not business.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: That's not business.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: That's a scam artist. Go ahead.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: That's a scam artist. So I said, you know what?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Instead of, your street self at that point want to
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: go street crazy on somebody like that because they got
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: you in this stuff and you've been sitting here being connived,
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: going to sign the papers. doing all that. And there's
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: nothing worse than the feeling of being misled. Okay, if
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I messed up on my own, then fine. But if
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking I'm doing the right thing and trusting in
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: you and then you mislead me too, I feel double
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: stupid at that point because I should have double checked, right?
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: So me and Face met. We said we're going to
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: write ourselves out of it. So we did the Crazy
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Sexy Cool album. We did Madonna together when I did
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Secret and he did Take a Bow. We did the
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Boyz II Men album with Thank You on it in
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: a row. So we just tagged team projects. And I'll
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: tell you one thing. But I got to, my birthday
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: is December 29th. By the time I got to December 29th,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: the year after that, I had another check short for $ 500, 000, right?
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: And I sent that last one to the IRS and
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: that was it. And I was broke. I was zero.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: I was so happy to be broke. But you were broke,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: but you weren't poor. To be broke is economic. To
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: be poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: condition of your spirit. You must vow never to be
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: poor again. You had your name back. You had your
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: agency back. You had your brilliance back. You had your
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: freedoms back. You had your creativity back. You weren't thinking
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: about the IRS on your back. You had the ability
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: now to create unhinged. So you might have not had
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: any money, but you had everything else.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: I wasn't worried about that part because me and you said,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: I was reading your book, we said the same thing. Money, man,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: money really never been in my bank account like that.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: The more money I ever had has been up here
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: and in here. It didn't really, it only, it existed here.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: So when I was broke and I was at zero,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: I was happy to be broke because I knew what
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: I could do to get it. I knew I could
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: get my hustle back on. I knew I already invested
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: in myself because my name had got out there. What
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to do was go bankrupt. I just
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: didn't want to. I felt like there was a cop
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: out on me. I felt like, at least try.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Don't do what they expect you to do. Don't let
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: them take all your stuff. Go try it. Go do
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: what you do and what you've been given the gift
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: to do it, right? So I get through all of that.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: I'm happy to be broke. And then I start over again.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: And I go off and we do the fan mail albums.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I do 10 million albums on those. 30 million albums
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: on Shakira. 20 million albums on Gwen Stefani. 10 million
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: albums on this. 20 million albums on that. And then
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: along that way, I said, okay, now what I'm not
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: going to do again is that. So I put my
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: office next door. I put my counter in the office.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: My Harvard CDA guy in the office. I put everything
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: next door that I needed so that what I could
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: do is this. Get up in the morning. Go over
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: to the office. Check on the checks I got assigned.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: See what's coming in. See what's going out. Do that
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: so it won't mess up my creativity. By the time
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: that 4 or 5 o'clock come, take a little break.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: Go to the studio at night. And then I will
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: work at the night times. And then I would get
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: up and do that cycle again every day in the daytime,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: the night, get into the studio because the studio is
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: still our bread and butter. I got it. That's my creative.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: But I can't let it leave me again. I can't
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: let these people take it from me again. So now
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: I've got to be smarter about those things. You're not
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: going to be the smartest at everything, but at least
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: when you start knocking off things on the belt, not
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: just like this, that won't happen again or maybe that
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: won't happen again. You might have other problems, but not
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: that stuff. And then as I got through all of that,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: along this whole way, I would mentor everybody the same way.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: Anything I went through, I would call Jermaine. I would
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: call Tricky Stewart.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: You mean Jermaine Dupree?
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: And I would call Jermaine Dupree. I would call Tricky Stewart.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I would call Rico Wade. Any of my peers, because
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: we built a community. And our community is what built
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: this city of music.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: It was not one of us. It was all of us.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: And when we sprouted, when we sprouted that it was
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: possible in our community, when we showed the You know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: when they saw with Little John and with Monica, when Ludacris,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: when all of them saw me and Jermaine do it,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: they said, oh, we can do that too, right? And
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: it's not a person in the city since we started
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: that we haven't been connected to or got through here
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: or worked for us. Or at 23 years old, I had,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: you know, 23 staff members that I didn't even want
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: because I didn't even know what to do with it.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I had insurances, health insurances to pay on people.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: And I started to understand that when these people come
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: to work every day, I'm treating their families. When that
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: person's sick, he has health care. You know, when I
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: see people now that go, Dallas, I'm living off of
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: retirement because of you. I'm retired now and I'm living
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: off my retirement from working for.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: You all those years.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: That makes me feel great because, you know, starting from
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: just somebody, you know, like I started from and then
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: started to be able to be embedded, not in just
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: the culture here, but then I started being embedded in
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the actual infrastructure because I built the city, right? So
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: if I started to see, if I'm bringing Madonna and
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: all these people in town that's increasing the value of
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: the restaurants, like Mick Jagger is going to eat at
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Chop's with me. Then it's in the newspaper that Mick
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Jagger went to Chop's. If we go buy Range Rovers
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: at Hennessy and buy Rolls Royces, then it's in the
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: newspaper that we started doing it. So I started recognizing
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: our impact on what we was doing. I started not
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: just looking at the music. I started going, hmm. Now, actually,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta, we've positioned ourselves to make a billion-dollar industry
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: per year. So that means that we rank as something
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: that's important as a trade. It's not just Coca-Cola. It's
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: not just CNN. It's not just tech. Now it's us
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: with music, which is crazy because it was the one
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: thing that, if you look at T.I., Jeezy, all the
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: street dudes that started really in the streets, they had
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: two choices at the end of the day. You're going
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: to be in jail or you're going to be dead.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: That's just it.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: Rap music came in the middle. And when the rap
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: music came in the middle, they started saying, we can
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: rap about this and not be dead or in jail
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: and go legal because this is all we know. There
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: was no outlets for it before. So now we got
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: an outlet for it. Let's go for that. Then you
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: start seeing- A legal outlet for it. No, a legal outlet.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: When they started seeing, because I was there with the
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: guys that used to be in the streets because they're
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: the ones that had the money. We didn't have the
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: money to do Jeezy and all them. It was the
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: street guys that could say, we're going to spend 20,000
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: snowman t-shirts that we're going to put into the hood.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: That all came from street money that they hadn't figured
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: out could turn legit yet, and they put it into
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: rap music. That started the whole trap rap hustle and
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: turned into now lucrative careers for people who would have never-
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: had that incorporated, never had that any other way. We
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: made a path that said, okay, we will carve this
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: music thing out in Atlanta. And it just kept getting
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: bigger and bigger and bigger. And the bigger it got,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: then we started to say, now how are we part
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: of this infrastructure? Why is the Rotary Club calling me
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: to come speak? Oh, because now they see that we're
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: a valuable, valuable commodity too. You remember when you used
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: to have to buy a car and change your stereo
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: system in it? Oh, God, yeah. Now it's all hyped up.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Now the rims got bigger. They chased everyone. We've had
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: such impact with urban culture across everything possible in society that,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: you know, the kid didn't want to be his dad
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: no more. He wanted to be Ludacris or he wanted
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: to be Kobe, you know, and so the moms in
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: LA started driving around in Escalades with rims on them.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: And you pull up to the Escalade, they bumping music
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: and it's all white kids in the car with their mom,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: you know, because our culture had become so influential that
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: nobody wanted not, you know, he wasn't cool if he
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: wasn't a part of it. So I started to say, well,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: how are we, Now, infrastructure-wise, especially us from this city
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: where you see Killer Mike, T.I., and myself, a lot
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: of us that's embedded in, you know, I passed the
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: film bill. The reason everybody's filming here is because I
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: passed the film bill trying to shoot Drumline and ATL.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: And that's then opened up a whole floodgate, stuff like,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: let's go film in Atlanta and start the whole film
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: industry here. You still have Tyler. I also want.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: To give Tyler Perry credit, who's a friend of ours. Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Brilliant guy. Before you, we got to run out of
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: time here for this episode. I'm going to bring you back.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: But I want you to tell that story about Drumline
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: and how you chat for legislation here. And there's another
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: big story after that, that, that you told me that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I want the, there's a real teaching lesson for the audience.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Before we get to that, I want to say something
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: about you walk right past it about financing coming from
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the hood. I need people to understand. I need black
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: people to understand. I need white wealth of people to
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: understand listening to this podcast. Nobody wakes up in the
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: morning and says, Hey, Ooh, let me be illegal, unethical,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and be a scourge on society. No, they're doing the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: best they can. Unless they have a character defect, they're
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: doing the best they can. So if you grew up
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: in the hood... and you have this talent, and you're
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: trying to do a movie or trying to do a
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: song or trying to do a video back in the
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: day in hip-hop, and you don't know anybody at the bank.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: You don't even know if you qualify at the bank.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: The bank doesn't let you in the lobby back in
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: those days. So folks giving you capital are people from
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the community who respect what you do, and they're looking
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: for a way out, but they're illegal. Let me just
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: call it what it is. They're illegal gains through drugs
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: or gangbanging or whatever it is, whatever their deal is,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: They're trying to wash their money. They're trying to get
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: out of the hood and become respectable. So they invest
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: in these artists. And so now all this stuff is intertwined.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: And as the artist gets bigger, he forgets to disconnect
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: from this situation. And a lot of the problems that
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: happen with big artists ending up in gang situations is
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: that never disconnected. It just grew and entangled. And what
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: you have a choice to do now is that what
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I've said to banks is this is an emerging market.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Forget that it's black or brown. The color is green.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: These people are producing serious revenue and you want their
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: lines of credit. You want their bank loans. You want
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: their mortgages. You want the studio loan. You want to
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: invest in them. I'm trying to get legitimate capital to
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: invest in our community. So that we can go from
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: big to better to best and grow our platforms. So
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I just wanted you to, I want to just, you
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: provide a beautiful bridge there. I want to explain how
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: bad things can happen to good people. Okay. Back to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: you and Drumline.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: So, yeah. So what's crazy is for Drumline, Drumline is
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: a story of me in high school in Columbus, Georgia.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: And when I went to pitch it, I pitched it
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: at a Fox when they were looking for musicals. And
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: so we can't just do singing in the rain. You
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: need a good excuse, like a marching band. And they said, well,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: what's interesting about that? Because they'd never seen the Southern
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Marching Bands before. So I came and filmed the Battle
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: of the Bands, took it back out there. They said,
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: this is incredible. What's the story? I said, well, the
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: kid can't read music. I just came up with my
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: story in the meeting. My story is I couldn't read music.
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: I was in the marching band, and I was just good.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I was really good at it, but couldn't read. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: so they're like, this is brilliant. This is like Good
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Will Hunting. This is like Top Gun. Better on the team,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: knowing our people. So we started to put it into play. Well, then...
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: Every day for 10 years, I worked on getting that
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: movie made. For 10 years? It took me 10 years straight.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Every day, every day, just trying to figure it out.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Because then it went into turnaround. So when Hollywood will
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: buy a movie from you, they'll own the story. But
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: then they'll try it. And then it's like, maybe it
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: didn't work, but they'll keep it. Because they don't want
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: anybody else to have it. Maybe the times will come around,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: they'll make it later. So when it gets in turnaround,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: you can't do anything about it. So they put in
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: a turnaround after like five years. And so we tried.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: We tried to make it a comedy, whatever. So I
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: go to Quincy, Quincy Jones. Quincy Jones was like my
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: godfather at the time, God bless his soul, because I've
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: learned so much from him.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Me too. Me also.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: And I was fortunate enough to go to have him
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: as somebody I could access. So he said, Dallas, look.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, when I did The Color Purple,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: who directed it?
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I said, huh.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: I didn't think about it like that. He put in
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: a tape and he showed me him, Oprah and Danny Glover.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: And it's a VHS guy holding the camera. He says,
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: who do you think holding this camera, man? I said,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: you are. He said, no, that's my friend Steven Spielberg.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: He said, that's who directed Color Purple. He said, you
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: know why? He said, because you're really dealing with a
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: Jewish film industry that didn't understand black culture as much yet.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: So what they're going to think of is how they
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: have a narrow minded perspective on what the money makes
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: or not, because that's just how it is. So I
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: needed $ 13 million instead of seven for this train scene.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: So at first they wouldn't give it to me for
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: Color Purple. When I walked back in and said, Steven
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: Spielberg is director, they said, you can have whatever you want.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: I said, man, I always wondered how he directed the
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Color Purple. I don't know what it is. So he said,
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: so you got to get some people on your team
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: that's from the industry like that. So I went and
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: called Jody Gerson from EMI. She's the chairman of Universal
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Publishing right now. So Jody, Quincy said, I got to
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: get somebody that's involved in the industry and that's probably,
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: you know, at least have some kind of Connection to
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: the Jewish people that work in here, that works in film.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: And I don't know anything about that. I'm from Atlanta.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: So she goes, you know, I don't worry about it.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Can I make it with you? This is a great movie.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: I said, yeah. She said, can my friend Wendy Fineman
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: come on? She did Forrest Gump and Castaway. I said, yeah.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: As soon as I walked in and told them I
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: had her, they said, you can do whatever you want.
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: So we was able to get Drumline made. And it
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: was the first movie that really from a black marching
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: band culture standpoint, it's still the only movie like it.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: It's like one of those things you got to leave
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: it alone. Because every year, another kid goes in and
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: out of their band. And this meant so much to
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: the discipline, your mental state, and everything else. Because being
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: a part of something like that, you don't know all
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: the stuff it takes to be in the band. So
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: it ends up being a phenomenon. We did $ 70 million
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: in the first weekend before it ever really got out anywhere.
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: And every year now, I just continue to be in
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: that movie. And then I want to do ATL.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Well, hold on before he finishes that. I need you
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: to understand the audience. He took him 10 years to
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: get that done. He finally gets in the play. It
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: gets in motion with it. And people are taking a piece,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: want to take a piece of his creation. He didn't
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: sit there and navel gaze and paralysis analysis paralysis talking
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: about how unfair this is. And this is not personal.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Don't let the perfect become the death of the good.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: He's like, he's like, I'm trying to get the, yes,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get the film done. It's better to
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: have 10% of something than a hundred percent of nothing.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: My man said, yeah, got it done. Okay. Now next item.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, when you get into these film budgets,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: it's a whole nother story. It's millions and millions of dollars.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: So then I had ATL coming, which is the story
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: of me in the skating rinks and T.I. plays my
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: character in there. Big shout out to my dude. I
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: love T.I. It's the first entrance in putting him in
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: his first movie. He was supposed to be in Drumline,
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: but the character was a little too rough for him.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: So I said, I'll put you in the next one.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Because I was determined to have my, I called it
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: my black pack, you know, instead of the Brad pack,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: I was going to have my black pack with the
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: same actors, Evan Ross, T.I., Jackson Ross. So then when
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I did, so when I got to do ATL, they said, well, look,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: you got to go to New Orleans to do this
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: because this movie is too high. It's 18 million and
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: they got a thing there. So Warner Brothers wanted me
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: to shoot in New Orleans. So I can't do this
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: as a Georgia story. And all we're selling to Georgia
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: is Georgia stories when we make records. So why can't
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: I make this Georgia story about me going to the
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Cascade Skating Rink or Jelly Bean Skating Rink? Why got
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: to make that in New Orleans? They said, well, it's
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: cheaper for you to bring all your friends to New
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Orleans and make that movie. We're not doing it in Atlanta.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, man, So here I go now, standing now,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: going to, how do I get this film bill out
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: of New Orleans to Atlanta? Which sounds impossibly crazy, right?
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: You think you'll take the other route and just go
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: to New Orleans and do the film. But I'm like,
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: how do I get that film bill? I found out
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: of a friend of mine is who created it. And
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I took his bill and took it to the governor
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: here and said, look at this bill. We create jobs
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: with this. If you, the more films that come in here,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: the more jobs we create for people. So, and if
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: you got a budget that the film company is paying for,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: why don't you let them come and shoot here and
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: create jobs? They need carpenters, need electricians. You need all
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: this stuff to make the film sets, right? So long
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: story short, they said, well, Dallas, can you convince, you
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: got to convince Sonny Perdue of this. And you got to,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: you know, get this through legislation to be able to
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: be a bill. That's going to be kind of impossible.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I said, well, let's go. Let's try it. So go
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: before the state of Georgia.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: I'm like 24 or five years old.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: State of Georgia.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: I want to pass this film bill. Georgia has so
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: many places you can shoot at. It could be the
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Swiss Alps. It could be beaches. It could be all this.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: They said, man, we got sewage problems. Get out of
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: here with that mess. Who is this kid? So they
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: shot it all down. And then Sonny Perdue started getting
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: hate mail from entertainers and gaffers and workers. You don't
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: care about the industry. You don't care about entertainment. You
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: don't care about us. You don't care about us. So
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: then I got the call from his office like, Sonny,
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: if we do want to talk to you. Yeah, tell
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: him to come by the house.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: This is the governor back then, by the way, everybody.
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: This is the governor, governor back then. And we happen
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: to do live in the same neighborhood. But I was
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: just kind of talking smack because I'm really on the
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: side of the people. You know, I'm on the side
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: of the people who's trying to get this done. And
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: in all fairness to Sonny, he came. We had a
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: great conversation. He said, Dallas, I don't know how to
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: do this. But if you do, you can take the
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: lead on this. And I was like, oh, well, that's
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: the first step. Thank you. So I started getting lobbyists,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: started getting people. And then I got to end up
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: at the G8 Summit. to speak. And I think I
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: told you this story before. I thought it was the
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: G4 summit. So I thought it was going to be,
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: I thought I was getting on a plane, going to
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: do an entertainment game and summit and all this stuff, man.
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I'm going to, yeah, give me another drink. And I
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: land and I see all these tanks around.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: So just so you know, he's talking about the meeting
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: of the world leaders that happened in, the only time
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: it happened in Georgia ever. And there's a room that's
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: there now that has the seats just like it was
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: for all the leaders in the world. This is like
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: a huge deal. He thought he was going to a
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: meeting of private jets.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: You remember the G3? They had a station on cable
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: called G3 Network, and it was all games and entertainment
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: and who's doing new Call of Duty and all this.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: So I just associated that it was entertainment, and that's
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: where I was going. And I'm looking at these. I
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: was landing in Sea Island, looking out the window at
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: tanks and Hummers and stuff.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Sea Island, Georgia.
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: I said, where are we going, man? He said, you're
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: going to the G8 Summit, by the way, and it's
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: going to be. you and Tony Blair and George Bush
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: and other world leaders, Dallas. I was like, oh my God,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: what are you doing? Let's get some coffee. Let's get
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: some clothes ready. I got to get up here. And
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: then I made a mistake and didn't read my speech
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: because I got so worried about where I was going.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: And then here I am at the podium, all flat.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: You had to go buy new clothes, didn't you, when
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: you landed?
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: I had to go. Yeah, man. You know me, I
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: always wear T-shirts and hoodies. But I'm like, I thought
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: I was going to a gaming summit.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: So I had to sit with my man and say, yo, yo,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: you got to find me a blazer or a shirt
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: or something. I normally look makeshift, but it'd be better
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: than what I got on. So I show up in
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: there and I'm like, and my jacket is khaki. Everybody
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: else's is blue. So I stand out anyway. And I'm like, man.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: I opened the letter to read the speech, and it's
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: got so many big words on it that I haven't seen.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: On behalf of the congressional state of Georgia, I just
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: bought it. I said, look, I'm trying to shoot a
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: movie here. We need to keep our economy in Georgia.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Why do we keep letting our economy leave here? I'm
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: telling Georgia stories. We have the Alps in the mountains.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: We have the beaches. I did the whole spiel. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: I was like, and beyond that, why do we let
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: our stories and our economy leave to go to L.A.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: and New York when we should be keeping it here?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: We need to pass this bill. And everybody behind me said,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: I got to stand in ovation. And everybody behind me goes,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: like Dallas said. Because as soon as you say it again, John,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: there's one thing I want to say. It's not about
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: the black or white. It's about the green. It's always
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: been about the green.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: It's not black or white or red or blue. It's green.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: It's always been green.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: It's always green. And the people that understood that, whether
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: you're black or white or not, that's when you're in
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: the club. It's not when you understand the color. You
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: understand this part of it. When I finished that speech,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: we got through there. Me and Sonny went and cut
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: the ribbon.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: And there's the.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: There's the Georgia film bill that everybody's been filming off
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: of this whole time.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Wow. That's unbelievable. And when you showed up to give
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: your remarks and you forgot your speech or you were
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: reading it upside down or whatever, I mean, what, what
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: hits you in that moment? Because I often say that
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: courage is nothing more than your faith reaching through your fear,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: displaying itself as action. In your life. So was it,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: you were, my guess is you were trembling inside of you,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: you were fearful, you were nervous, but you found a
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: deeper voice, a deeper me. What was that feeling like
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: for the audience?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think that felt better for them
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: because of the fact that I did do it that way.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Because really, if I reach down in there, I've been
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: working on this for a year. I've been trying to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: get this done for the longest. I've been lobbying with
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: these people, meeting with these people, doing all this because
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: that's what my passion is. It's not a one meeting
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: you have and they decide yes or no. It's a
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: whole lot to do for you to even get to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: that point. And so I needed them to feel where
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: I was coming from there. And I think that when that,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: when that, I remember the light was bright in my
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: face too. And I just like, it's one of those
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: moments like on TV, you're just like, okay, this is
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: what's happening.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: And I'm from here and I live here and economy,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: economy and our stories, they belong to us. These are
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: Georgia stories. They're ours. They're ours. So, you know, I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: think the heartfeltness of it, was it defied that. And
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I think in that moment, whenever you feel like you
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: have two choices, whether you want to fight or flight,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: you got two choices. You can jet or you can
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: hit it.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: And I really feel like when you're passionate about something
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: and you're true about it, just hit it. You know,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: if you get close about it.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: The heads of state probably also, they go into the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: motions a lot of them. They go to nothing but meetings, events,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: press conferences, people reading boring speeches. I think, you know,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I tell people all the time when I go get speeches,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: be hot or be cold. If you're lukewarm, The Bible says,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: be hot or be cold, even lukewarm, I'll spat you out. Translation,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: even God is not like mediocrity. I think they felt
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: your passion, man. They felt your authenticity. They were like,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: we're with what this guy is doing. We want somebody,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: what he's drinking.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: It was interesting. I was meeting with, and I meet
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: with a lot of people now. I was meeting with
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: some other officials I've met today. And as soon as
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: you say this, hey man, so Sonny produced me very
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: highly of you, man. He said, you guys did this
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: and that. That's good enough for me. That was 30, whatever,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: how many years ago, 20 years ago, And if that
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: stain is my stain and when they say my name
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: and that's our story, it's a great one. I take it.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: That's right. So, look, it's amazing how fast an hour goes.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: We're at the end, but I want two things. One,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: I want the audience to understand what you're doing now
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: because you're more than just an icon and a global brand.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're living legacy. You're a living legend. And
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: you're doing things now, really important stuff. Tell the audience
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: real briefly about that. And then, of course, will you
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: come back? And we have a little surprise coming from
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Operation Hope about your involvement with us joining some of
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: the other leaders as a Hope Goodwill Ambassador, TI, Killer Mike,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: Roger Goodell, and others. So honored by that. And you'll
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: be at the Hope Global Forum in December with a
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: special announcement. So honored. Will you come back to the podcast?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Of course, man.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Anytime.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: We're brothers, bro. Anytime you need me, I'm right here.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Give the audience a little bit of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: what you're doing now and then some inspiration for the
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: young strivers or mid-age strivers who are trying to pursue
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: their dreams right now. What do you have to say
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: to them?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, right now I have a distribution company
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: called DAD, Dream All Day, which is what I would
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: tell you to do also when you're dreamers. Don't stop
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: dreaming all day and then you activate your dreams. My
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: motto is always like, you know, you don't have You're
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: finding things to do every day until you die, because
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: we know that that's going to happen with all of us,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: no matter if it's Oprah, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, whoever.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: So those things, I try to make them great, try
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: to make them feel good, try to make them feel
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: like inspirational and help other people. Because Oprah's a phaser,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: by the way. And, you know, we distribute music now
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: to over 200 platforms. So I'm in the distribution business,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: still writing songs, still producing, still running publishing companies. And
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: now my conglomerate has turned into my own little version
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: of its empire. And that's what, you know, After going
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: through all these steps of just being from a production
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: company to a record company, now I'm a distributor, which
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: is where I wanted to end up at this part
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: of my life. I always said, in that part of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: my life, I want to sit back and make sure
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I turn into a company that could really sell at
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: some point, that I have enough impact to still have
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: a difference in music. And I would say to everybody
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: out there, if you're not doing it because you can't
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: help it and you're doing something like 24 hours a day,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: I don't care if you're making donuts, if you obsess
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: with it, the obsession... is what's going to get you there.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: Like the 10,000 hour rule, like 10,000 hours will pass
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: so fast if you just love what you do so much.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: And if you don't love what you're doing, if you're
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: doing something.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: That- It's Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers, 10,000 hours. Outliers, right, yeah.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: Become an expert in whatever else, yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: You find yourself doing something because somebody else is doing
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: it or you like that and you think that's cool
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: because a lot of times in colleges when I go
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: to schools and I say to these kids, hey, what
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: do you want to do, man? They say, I want
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: to be A & R with you.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I want to do it.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: What are you in school for? Oh, I'm in here
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: for computer science. Okay, you must be good at computer science.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: So figure out how that works for you in doing that.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: So whatever you're great at, don't disown that. Run into
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: it because I see a lot of kids have the
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: ability and the talents that's so good at one thing
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: but want to do something else and want to ignore
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: that one. But find a way that those coincide because
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: your gift is your gift from God. He only gave
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: it to you. And that's the thing you wanted to
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: do since the day you were born. The first thing,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: if your first word was ball, ball, ball, ball, you're
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: probably just going to be someone who's somewhat of an athlete.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: So just follow your heart. Stay true to what it is.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: Look inside yourself and make sure that that's what you
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: really should be doing because if that's the case, it'll
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: be really easy for you to do it and it'll
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: feel really good.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Yes. My God. If this is not the very definition
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: of you're going to fall, fall forward. It's not the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: great definition of never give up, never give up. It's
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: a Tony Ressler quote. If you don't quit, you can't fail.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: And it's just so, there's so much elegance in how
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you move. There's so much sophistication. You just, you step
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: over mess and not in it. That's what I love.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: You step over mess and not in it. And I'm
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: going to say this in closing. This episode has gone
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: longer than I'd like, but it was exactly right on time.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: Exactly the right amount of time. And thank you for
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: your time. I'm going to say this. Here's my philosophy
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: for life. And Dallas has brought this out to me
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: to share this with you today. Talk without being offensive.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Listen without being defensive. And always, and I mean always,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: leave even your adversary with their dignity. Because if you don't,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: They'll spend the rest of their life working to make
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: you miserable. It becomes personal. Step over mess and not
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: in it. And believe in yourself enough that you'll punch
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: right through the pain and right through to your promise.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: And the sun will come out in the morning and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: shine uniquely on you. That is Dallas Austin.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: That's right. Thank you so much for having me, Daniel.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: I really, really appreciate this, John.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: This has been beautiful. And I'll see you back here
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: again because there's so much more to share. Ladies and gentlemen,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: this has been Money and Wealth on the Black Effect
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: Network on iHeartRadio Season 3. This has been the great,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: the legendary, the amazing Dallas Austin in studio. Thank you.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: Thank you, brother.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: See you soon. Let's go. Money and Wealth with John
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.