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Rodney Jerkins: Strive For Perfection And Be Beyond Prepared | E54 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my incredible conversation with music legend, Rodney Jerkins, who has worked with some of the greatest and most successful artists of all time, including Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and many more, and whose albums have sold more than 2 billion copies, and whose songs have been streamed more than 50 billion times.
• 0:27
  Randall Kaplan: So you had a great mentor and internship and Teddy Riley. And he said to you in one of your sessions that he wants you to be Michael Jackson. And Michael Jackson was the guy you were listening to at a mall in Canton, Ohio, that lit you on fire. And here you are. Less than 10 years later, you've got a king in the music business telling you you want to He wants you to meet Michael Jackson.
• 0:55
  Randall Kaplan: Fan, you get a call to come over to Carole Bayer Sager, who was married to Bob Bailey, I think at the time the chairman of Warner Brothers, and to come on over Michaels here and he wants to meet you. Walk us through what on earth you're thinking when someone says I want to introduce you to Michael Jackson. And what are you thinking when you meet him and you're pulling up to Carol's house, knowing he's there to meet you and possibly work with you? The biggest superstar in the world, perhaps ever at that point in time?
• 1:30
  Rodney Jerkins: Okay, so it starts like this. Teddy Riley says, I'm going to take you to me Michael Jackson someday. He said that to myself. And my father, I want to take you to be Michael Jackson someday. And of course, you know, when you're in it, you don't really believe that's real, right? You don't just okay, this guy's saying that because I'm you know, here and I'm working with him. And he knows I love Michael just as much as he does. But then reality kicks in. And all I know is one day Teddy says, Everybody pack up. We have to go to New York. And it was three quest vans outside the studio. I didn't know what was going on to be completely honest. We never went anywhere before. And all I know is Teddy said, I want you to be in a van with me. So I was in the van with him and his driver. And then his brothers and other people were in other vans. And we're going to New York, and the whole time from Virginia Beach to New York. All Teddy played was Michael Jackson. I'm in the backseat.
• 2:34
  Rodney Jerkins: And I'm starting to think, oh, wow, we're born in New York, because of Michael Jackson, because I had been around Teddy so much as an intern. And I knew that whenever he was going to work on a project, he studied the person music right before it was time to work with them. And so he was listening and it really intense ears the whole way in the middle of night going to going to New York. When we got to New York, we checked into the hotel. I went to my room, it was like two o'clock in the morning. And next thing you know, the phone rings in the room. And Teddy says, because we little bro, little bro, come down to the lobby. Some like I'm tired, I want to go sleep, come down and lobbying. And he goes, we gotta go to the studio. And we go down the street to the Hit Factory. And next thing, you know, walked into the studio and there was Michael Jackson. And Ted, he introduced me to Michael Jackson, who said, you're going to work with this kid someday.
• 3:40
  Rodney Jerkins: And Michael kind of giggled, like, you know, his little soft laugh. And I was like, Yeah, I'm going to work with you someday, Michael, I'm gonna work with you someday. And I was in awe. Like, it was just a crazy moment. And that was it. And that was in I went back to the hotel. And we stayed in New York for like two weeks. And Teddy was working with Michael. And I was in another room working on other projects for Teddy. And that was it. So Michael one time and that was it. Fast forward a few years later, I met my parents home the home that I bought them. I fell asleep on my mother's couch. And I had this dream that I was pulling up to a studio. And it was all glass. In in the glass was this guy with the red shirt on and a derby hat. And it was Michael Jackson. I woke up and I told my mother and father this dream I said I just had this dream that Michael Jackson was in the glass in the window of the studio and I was pulling up to work with him. And it was so vivid and so real. Not much after that not much longer the phone rings in this lady Carole Bayer Sager is on the phone. And she's calling me because at that time I had the biggest song out.
• 5:06
  Rodney Jerkins: It was saying my name my destiny shop. And she says, Is this Rodney? Jerkins? I say, Yeah, I didn't even know she was to be completely honest. Like I heard her name, but I didn't know the song she wrote with Burt Bacharach and reach out and touch someone's hand, you know, you know, all these great songs, classic songs. And we started talking, and she says, I want you to come to my house and work with me and Michael Jackson. And I'm like, I'm choked up. I'm like, what, I just had this dream. This is this can't be real, but it is real. As I said, when when and she goes, I don't know yet. But, um, once I talked to Michael, I'll let you know.
• 5:48
  Rodney Jerkins: And Randall, I jumped on a plane immediately. I checked myself into a hotel. And I just stayed in a hotel, patiently waiting for her to call me and let me know when we were going to work.
• 6:00
  Rodney Jerkins: And a few days later, she called me and she goes, Do you think you can work come out here fly out here tomorrow? And I said, I'm already here. I might, she said, I said, I'm already here.
• 6:09
  Rodney Jerkins: And she said, Okay, well, tomorrow, we're going to have a session that come to my house at noon. And so she gave her address. And as I'm going to Prodrive way, she has this guest house to the left, which is a studio, and through the glass, I see a red shirt. Just like the dream I had four days before that. It was Michael Jackson.
• 6:30
  Rodney Jerkins: And I went in their house. And I met Michael again, I told him that I had seen God, I met him with Teddy rally, I started playing the piano form. And we started creating. So that day, that was in February of 1999.
• 6:51
  Randall Kaplan: You have a lot of stories about Michael, and I want to focus on just a couple of them. And I want to talk about let's start with the importance of work ethic in our career and the importance of it to our success. He tell us about what kind of stuff he was doing in the studio, and the outfit changes he would make and getting called his hotel room in the middle of the night to start rehearsing with him. And there was a whole team of people there. Three in the morning.
• 7:17
  Rodney Jerkins: Yeah, I mean, you know, the whole process of working with Mike was much different from any other artists that I worked with. Much way different. The intent, the intention, the of the, of working with him was on a, just to a different level, is that he's a perfectionist. He gets lost and exhausted in the music and the rhythms. You know, there will be he would, he would literally have to I would have to order I would have to order several Hanes T shirts for every session, because he would dance so intensely in the booth that he was sweat out the shirt.
• 7:54
  Rodney Jerkins: Literally sweat out the shirt, and I would have to have other shirts ready for him. So he would literally change it to another shirt. Keep recording sweat out that shirt. That's how intense is ethic his work ethic was, you know, not just him being at the hotel three o'clock in the morning for rehearsals, but him calling me at four o'clock in the morning. Asking to hear what I worked on during the day. I mean, it was like nonstop three, four o'clock in the morning, play what you worked on today. And I'm like, Really, Michael? Really? Can you really hear this all over the phone? He said play it. And I'm playing it over the phone and he would tell me to turn a hi hat down to DBS. Turn the snare at one dB over the phone. He's telling me this. It blew my mind. I never. And he was always right. That was the other part about working with him. He was always right. Like it wasn't like he was just saying it. He actually really felt like the hi hat should come down to DBS and the snares to come up. And it was always right. He was like right on point. It was just a magical experience for me like to work with him. In those years, we worked together for a good two and a half to three years straight. And it was beautiful. Like I spent a lot of time with him and flew flew with him and worked at several studios got a chance to hang out at Neverland and hang out with his family and just just just a great it's one of the greatest, greatest moments of my life.
• 9:26
  Rodney Jerkins: Greatest greatest memories I've ever made in my life. I was working with Michael for sure.
• 9:33
  Rodney Jerkins: Sure
• 9:34
  Randall Kaplan: you guys were extremely close. Can you share with us a Michael Jackson's story that nobody else has ever heard or knows about?
• 9:43
  Rodney Jerkins: Yeah, I think I don't know if people have I don't know if people have heard this story. But I I saved his life once. And I was just telling my son this story the other day, because we were at Neverland. In Michael Oh, he said he wanted to go out for wheeling one day. So me my my brother, one of my writers, the Shawn Daniels and Michael, We all got on four wheelers and we started writing these four wheelers and Neverland I don't know if you know, but Neverland is up in the mountains, and it's miles and miles of property. And we're riding in it starting to get late. And we're way up in the mountains. And I said to Michael, I said, I think we should turn around. Michael really didn't keep track of time. And I said, I think we should turn around like I could tell it's getting late. And we're far away on the I don't even know where we are, to be honest, this trail. And so as we went to go turn around, Michael's will on his phone will call Iraq, like a rock. And literally, in one second, his four wheeler was leaning over this cliff. And I got I got off of my my foot wall, and I grabbed him. And my brother grabbed the full his four wheeler. And we're all looking down. And all we saw was a cliff down. And Michael said, Oh, Rod, you said you saved my life, you saved my life. It's true. If if he would have just moved one inch hit the wall literally would have been off over that hole out that that cliff, he literally went over that cliff.
• 11:29
  Rodney Jerkins: And so that was a craziest, one of the craziest moments that I've ever experienced. But also, he built some type of bar between him and I because after that I felt like a relationship with to a completely different level, the trust factor and just the loyalty factor of our relationship went to a just an incredible level after that moment,
• 11:54
  Randall Kaplan: how difficult was it for you to watch Michael be accused of molesting young children? What if you're comfortable sharing what kind of conversations were you having during that period of time,
• 12:07
  Rodney Jerkins: it was super uncomfortable. Because I was around him so much. And I was I was actually around him with his children around around him at the time when there was pupil that he knew other other other families that had children that would go to Neverland just to watch movies and or kids that were sick, that had illnesses that he built, he built a certain type of room in his theater, just for those types of children that couldn't actually be around other kids. Like almost like a hospital room, but in the theater to watch their favorite movie. So I was around him and I saw the heart that he had for people and how giving he was and would have conversations, you know, when when things will pop up on the news, I would actually see him cry. And he would actually say, look how look how look at the monster they're trying to portray me as the COO they want me to become that's not who I am. And they know it and I know it and and I will sit back and I knew it too. And I'll be like, Wow, this is crazy. Like the picture they were trying to paint to everyone and I was there the whole time with them.
• 13:24
  Rodney Jerkins: And learning so much from this guy and seeing the kind of person he was guy would literally give literally would give the shoes and shirt off give the shirt off his back shoes off his feet to anybody. I mean the most giving probably be given purse most given person I've ever met. never wanted to hurt anybody never wanted to hurt a child ever was just a kind person that really cared about humanity as a whole. And in a time where people wrote songs about dancing, and people wrote songs about love. If you really love Michael was writing songs about humanity. He was writing songs like man in the mirror, look at yourself. He's writing songs about heal the world. He's writing songs like Earth Song, he was writing songs like the last children and writing songs called spaceless writing songs called um, we are the world like this guy was writing songs that no one else was writing. He was writing songs about humanity because I really believe he sincerely wanted the earth to be a better place. And he believed that, you know, it started with, you know, children, and, and us being you know, having the heart, the heart of children, the innocent heart of children. So it hurt me when he was going through all of those allegations. In fact, in 2003, Michael called myself and my father and Acts where we were, and we just so happened to be in a studio in Los Altos.
• 15:00
  Rodney Jerkins: This Chris Tucker, who was a friend of mine just happened to be there. And Michael said that he wanted prayer because he was on trial. And he drove all the way from Neverland all the way down in Los Angeles, which was like a two hour plus drive, just just for us to pray for him. And you know, and my dad, and I and Chris Sacca, we prayed for him, and we just prayed, prayed and prayed and prayed that God would give him the strength and give him peace through those, whatever, you know, he was going through at that time. It was wearing, he was wearing him out wearing them down, but we, you know, we believe that God would give him strength in. And so yeah, I'm so very uncomfortable.
• 15:43
  Rodney Jerkins: But I always knew in my heart of hearts that he was, you know, innocent and, and I stand by that statement. And, you know, I believe that
• 15:51
  Randall Kaplan: the first concert I went to I was five years old, and it was the Jackson Five. And Michael Jackson, I believe, at the time was five years old. And that was the first show I ever saw in my life. It was kind of the Python music theater in Detroit. I don't know if you've been there or not. But it was, it was a great show. I still remember it.
• 16:12
  Randall Kaplan: You always remember. Your first concert was my first stadium. It was an outdoor amphitheater. And I thought, gosh, like that whole band. But that little kid is amazing. He's my age, what he's doing. We've talked about Michael's work ethic. And I don't think a lot of people would know that at three in the morning, he's got his whole dance team in his hotel suite, working out songs and choreographing at three in the morning. One thing that has led to some of my success is something I call the extreme preparation is preparing more than everybody else in the room being the most prepared person in the room where someone spends five hours for something, I may spend 40 hours for something.
• 16:52
  Randall Kaplan: Can you tell us some examples of extreme preparation in your career? And how are you preparing everybody else and maybe give some specifics on that. And then I also want to talk about your thoughts on Beyonce, and Lady Gaga.
• 17:10
  Rodney Jerkins: Rana would just like I'm an I am, just like you in regards of extreme preparation. I've been doing it since as a teenager all the way to now. I take I take every project serious, the same as if you know, whether it's Michael Jackson or a new artist, I prepare like you would not believe. In fact, I told my son who plays golf, I say never get ready, be ready. When I have time to get ready anymore, you gotta be ready. You never know when that when that call is going to happen. When I was working with Michael, I think that's why he liked working with me so much because I was beyond prepared for him. When I got that call officially after I met him at Carroll bears, and he said, I want you to come work with me. In LA, he said, What do you need? And I told him and my aim, why should we talk about this to this day, I will spend days months just on sound design alone, just on sound design, preparing for whatever, you know, whatever I think the next quarter or the next year, looks like in my eyes and music, I will spend so much time and all my all my protegees notice about me, I will spend just just getting the right sounds together for projects. I believe I believe in being overly prepared for whatever you want to work, whatever artists you want to work for. Because to me, it's the way my job is to.
• 18:51
  Rodney Jerkins: Whoever I work without my job is to take them to the next level.
• 18:55
  Rodney Jerkins: If they're already at a huge level, they need to go further.
• 18:58
  Rodney Jerkins: If they're new artists, we need to get them out and become stars and superstars. So in order for that to happen, first I need to study I need to study and I need to know who it is that I'm creating for. I want to know everything about them. Not just their singing ability or their performance ability. But I want to know everything about them their life and what's going on in their life. And then I want to and then I want to be able to prepare for when that time comes and be ready to just walk in and deliver what I know is the best version of me for them. So I agree I'm with you. 200% I'm always overly prepared for for whatever it is whatever presents a presentation that I have to make. In fact, I'm sometimes too prepared. Because you know I You know, I played 60 tracks for Michael, when I met with him. He said, No one has ever walked in a room and played that many tracks for me, I was beyond prepared for to work with Michael.
• 20:12
  Randall Kaplan: I don't think there's any such thing as being too prepared the fact that Michael Jackson, who could work with anybody he wants to and did work with whoever he wanted to, told you that you're the most prepared person and prepare more songs than anybody is a statement within a statement.
• 20:31
  Randall Kaplan: And I think I do a lot of coaching and mentoring Rodney, I tell people all the time, be the most prepared person ever to walk in that room, show people that you're prepared. And whether you achieve a successful outcome at that specific moment or not, the probability you do is going to be substantially higher if you do but that person, it may not happen that exact moment, that person is going to remember you for the rest of their life. And you're going to get another app at some point, either because they're going to proactively reach out to you or you're going to come back and have another bite of that apple. And I've been coaching this and preaching this. And it usually falls on deaf errors. But it has 100% success rate long term, you can easily be the most prepared person that someone has ever met. That's right, you could just stop the 30 songs, right, you could have stopped at 40.
• 21:21
  Randall Kaplan: What is the average person do?
• 21:21
  Randall Kaplan: And in that situation? You're going to meet with someone who's great. It could be Michael or Rihanna or someone who's not frankly. But how many songs are people preparing when they go in for a meeting like that? On average?
• 21:38
  Rodney Jerkins: 555 to seven easily. Yeah, five to seven easily if they got 10, then maybe 10? Yeah, that's the average.
• 21:48
  Randall Kaplan: Alright, so your seven to 10x. And it's it's was the investment. So how many extra? How much extra time was at in terms of hours? Is that another 100 hours? 200 hours of work?
• 22:03
  Rodney Jerkins: For me, for for
• 22:05
  Randall Kaplan: when you prepared 60 songs? How long did that take you?
• 22:10
  Rodney Jerkins: Yeah, probably a couple of 100 hours.
• 22:13
  Randall Kaplan: Right? Yeah. And I'm gonna guess that was one of the best investments you ever made in your life return on investment?
• 23:13
  Rodney Jerkins: Of course. I mean, we're talking about Michael Jackson, you're talking about? You're talking to me working with Michael Jackson. So yeah, for sure.
• 23:23
  Randall Kaplan: So, talk about Beyonce, and her work ethic and Lady Gaga, I think you said one's a little higher than the other. And then you've also said Beyonce is one of the most beautiful people you've ever met in your life. I'm sure people would love to know more about Beyonce.
• 23:42
  Rodney Jerkins: I think Beyonce was probably the closest, closest, closest person with the same type of drive to Michael Jackson that I work with, very similar in perfection, and reaching and striving for perfection. And knowing exactly what she wanted, very in control of what her performance and everything must look like. I remember working with her on the song called deja vu that I did with her and Jay Z. And I remember her talking to the directors, and they were coming to the studio and her explaining her vision and to these people, and what kind of clothes she wanted to wear and everything like she just was really hands on, about how it's how it had to look how the visuals had to be.
• 24:33
  Rodney Jerkins: I just think that you know, every once in a generation, an artist comes around and has a different type of passion to want to be so much greater than even the artists that they looked up to. Right. It's not just about making it any more.
• 24:55
  Rodney Jerkins: It's not just about getting a record deal. But it's actually achieving something so much greater. So it's if it's, if it's, if it's Michael Jackson saying I looked up to James Brown, and I need to be better than James Brown. Right? If it's Beyonce sin, I looked up to Aretha Franklin, I don't know, whoever her person was, I need to be better than that. And I need to reach these goals. So I saw a lot of similarities between Beyonce and Michael saw a lot, a lot of similarities.
• 25:33
  Rodney Jerkins: And it was just amazing. She was amazing. She's amazing artists to work with just amazing like because the one thing you know, when you work with someone like Michael Jackson or Beyonce, you know that they would deliver the performance of the song, right?
• 25:48
  Rodney Jerkins: You're not just doing a song In the performance is going to fall flat, you can always bet the house on it, that their performance. If they perform it live on the Grammys, or visual or whatever it was going to be incredible. It's going to be a movie, a video wouldn't just be a normal video, it would be like a movie, the performance would be like, Whoa, mind boggling performance. You just know that you just know that with those with those type of artists.
• 26:16
  Randall Kaplan: What does Beyonce do different than someone else does? What's the difference?
• 26:20
  Rodney Jerkins: It's preparation that goes back to what you said, you know, I had a chance to talk to Kobe Bryant before he passed away. And Kobe Bryant told me a story about Michael Jackson. And he's told me a story about when he when he first came into the league as a rookie. And everybody's was saying he had the Michael Jordan type tendencies. He said Michael Jackson called them and he asked them, Do you want to be the best? A Kobe say, Yeah, I want to be the best he goes, What time do you go to gym to practice every morning. He said, I used to get there like 630.
• 26:53
  Rodney Jerkins: And I'll stay there till like 830. And Michael said, you should be getting every now 330 And staying to 930. He said you can't become best just practicing two hours. You need to practice you need to be the first one to get there. And the last one to leave. You need to be overly prepared for battle.
• 27:11
  Rodney Jerkins: And Kobe said when he when he heard that from Michael, he he got to the gym at three the next morning. And he stayed to nine o'clock. And he said that, you know, he was he would prepare Michael told them to do the one move that he wanted to master for six hours straight. Don't worry about doing a bunch of different moves. He said I practiced the moonwalk for six hours straight until I mastered it. Whatever shot you want to shoot that you want to take mastery. Beyonce was the same way. Same exact way. Were her hustles you know, the first one, they're less elite type of ad the attitude, the same mentality. I call it the killer instinct, right? The ability to just outwork anybody, when you when you when you're ready and you're willing to outwork anyone on your, your own team, on your own team, not just to competitors, but the ones on your own team. Right if you're out working them and you know, you know, even with the success, she was still out working everybody. She was still spending hours and hours and hours and hours in the studio, and hours and hours and hours and hours at the rehearsal studio. I mean, she was preparing food she is now every since she was a little girl her father had preparing as a young girl for these moments that we are now seeing now.
• 28:41
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• 29:40
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• 29:51
  Randall Kaplan: Get your next amazing gift and order a copy of bliss speeches by clicking the link in our show notes. You mentioned something called first in last out I've been calling this Philo for the last 20 years. And it is a very simple concept that if anybody does it is going to lead to great success in their career.
• 30:16
  Randall Kaplan: You're the first person and you're the last person to leave and you're putting in the hours.
• 30:18
  Randall Kaplan: Great things are going to happen to I think your your career so fascinating. I mean, I'm sitting back. I love music. I thought kind of love to hang out with Michael, I'd love to hang out with Beyonce and Lady Gaga. I'd love to meet them someday I'd love to just go have a beer with them or have dinner with them. I mean for you. It's no problem right there. Whitney Houston was Whitney Houston was coming to church with you and your family and you're hanging out with all these cool people. But I want I love Lady Gaga. What's Lady Gaga really like?
• 30:50
  Rodney Jerkins: She's awesome.
• 30:50
  Rodney Jerkins: She really Truly, Lady Gaga, I still think about Lady Gaga all the time because she gave my son, when my son was born, she came to my home and bought a teddy bear for him. So always think about that moment. And you know, pre pre Lady Gaga pre being, you know, this, this, this, this big artists to the world, she was just at a studio, we were writing for other people actually, Jimmy iving wanted us to write for the Pussycat Dolls and different artists. So her and I was just working, and it was just something special about Gaga would be in there. And I remember telling Jimmy, I'm like, Jimmy, I know, we're working on his other artists.
• 31:29
  Rodney Jerkins: But Gaga is special. She just was so special. And I used to tell her all the time, say Gaga, you're going to be a superstar.
• 31:38
  Rodney Jerkins: And she says, I know, I know, I know, I will have nothing less for myself, I will have nothing less for myself, she really believed that she was going to be like, the biggest pop star in the world, she really believed it like always was, she would literally say it all the time.
• 31:52
  Rodney Jerkins: And, um, and I gotta tell you, it was just an honor and privilege to work with, with her, because I got to know her as a person as well. And she was really a sweet, a really a sweet person, really sweet.
• 32:07
  Randall Kaplan: You have amazing relationships, your reputation in the music business, as you're one of the nicest guys in the business. You're also known to be a man of faith. And you're working in an industry sometimes where there's a lot of conflict, sometimes there's a lot of violence, there's a lot of bad words, a lot of your friends are putting some bad words in songs that I don't listen to. And I know they're the number one or top top 10. Top most popular songs on the planet. How do you deal with that conflict? And then can you between your faith, and some of the bad things that happen and some of these just terrible lyrics? And that can you talk to you're also known as someone to give advice to people going through hard times, you advise Chris Brown when he was dealing with assault issues with Rihanna, and you talk to Justin Bieber as well, when he was going through some things as a young kid and doing some immature shit. So talk to us about both those things.
• 33:12
  Rodney Jerkins: Oh, one, you know, I'm proud of all my songs.
• 33:16
  Rodney Jerkins: I'm proud that you can take Rodney Jerkins up in Spotify or Apple Music and you know, however many songs that pop up, you won't find too many songs with derogatory language or, or just, you know, songs that, that don't reflect who I am around morality wise, I'm proud of that. Number one, I hate some of the music that's out here today and what it's been what it's saying and what it's teaching our youth I hate it with a passion and I will do everything in my power to combat it with the music that I'm making a feature number three, you know, people are humans, right? And I was taught that you can't be forgiven unless you know how to forgive. And I And when I think about you know, some of the pressure that allowed these artists you know, you want to be artists you want to make it big but when you as soon as you make a big now you got to the spotlight is on you. Right and everything that you do your everybody's watching everything you do. And I just think a lot of artists, Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Britney Spears, so many artists that I work with, that have went through some some horrible troubling times where they've been hurt, or they've hurt or they've hurt others. But they're human. They are. And I've always wanted to take the big brother role, and speak life into people and not speak death into people or speak life and help people to understand, you know, that, you know, we all go through things. But there is you know, there is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. What, with God's help. So, I've always just, you know, I've made myself available in our industry, I've made myself available to be there for people and I think, you know, I've built a reputation where managers in a&r is different people call me when they need when they need their artists to when they need someone to talk to they'll reach out to me and ask me Can I can I make a trip I went on tour Bieber, just to just to kind of help life coach him. And I just made myself you know, I flew down to Orlando. When Chris Brown thing happened and spend time with him. I just stopped what I'm doing and stop producing for a second Because what is producing if you're not producing good life, you know, in pouring? Pouring great fertilizer on on seeds, right?
• 36:05
  Rodney Jerkins: Because that's what they are these, these artists, sometimes they're just young seeds that need to grow. And you know, they don't have they haven't been there long enough to have the wisdom. So they make a mistake, they childish mistakes, because they're still young and they're still learning. So you know, I'm happy to be in a position I'm in that I can be trusted to help people out.
• 36:26
  Randall Kaplan: So now you're a legend. In the music business?
• 36:29
  Randall Kaplan: No, you may not think of yourself that way. But you are, collectively. The records you produced have sold over a billion copies. I'm not even sure what the number is. Do you happen to know what the number is?
• 36:44
  Rodney Jerkins: I don't know. I just know I got like, this is this app, and they tell you how many streams you're at. And, and I thought it was off. They told me I was over 25 billion streams now. And I was like, That's not That's, I gotta be closer. I gotta be close to 50. Like, I didn't want to, but I don't believe I told me gotta go. I told him go check the data again. And, you know, I think we're well past that number.
• 37:04
  Randall Kaplan: 50 billion streams of songs that you have,
• 37:07
  Rodney Jerkins: at least, at least, at
• 37:09
  Randall Kaplan: least, okay. LA.
• 37:09
  Randall Kaplan: So 10 years old here, Michael Jackson. Now you're a legend in the music business as you've worked with everyone and everyone wants to work with you.
• 37:23
  Randall Kaplan: What are you gonna do to the kid who tracks you down and gives you there aren't cassette tapes anymore? But gives you a USB stick with his music on it? Are you going to let that kid stop you is your security guy gonna let that kid through? 100% go listen to that music.
• 37:39
  Rodney Jerkins: Always listen, that's the beautiful thing about like how I find talent and nurture talent. You know, it's not always about yourself. It's about paying it forward. You know, this, there's so many producers that you may not know of that are that are like blown up right now that are produced for Bruno Mars, that a producer Ariana Grande, and they all come from under my tutelage the same way I came from under 20 rallys tutelage. So always believe in paying it forward. Always listen to the content that sent Him that sent that sent my way.
• 38:12
  Rodney Jerkins: Because you just never know where that die. That next diamond is right? You never know. So and I like to stay connected to talent and young talent. So yeah, I'm always looking and I'm always listening.
• 38:23
  Randall Kaplan: So let's go back here a little. You're on a talent show at school and your dad's not letting you listen to any rap music. And you dress up as Big Daddy Kane. And you performed a rap music. And years later, the doorbell rings and who's at your front door? What was that moment like?
• 38:42
  Rodney Jerkins: Yeah, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Big Daddy Kane. He had a song called Smooth operator. And I performed it in our in our middle school talent show with my best friend.
• 38:54
  Rodney Jerkins: Buzz and they all knew that I love Big Daddy Kane, I used to want to dress like him. In fact, my, my my sister Shareen, her boyfriend had this MCM outfit.
• 39:05
  Rodney Jerkins: And it was the same outfit that Big Daddy Kane wore and I begged him for that outfit. And he it was way big. I couldn't even wear it. But he gave it to me and I wore that to talent show.
• 39:14
  Rodney Jerkins: And yeah, I just I was really a big fan of Big Daddy Kane, and not too long ago. He showed up at my house. And I met him for the first time and and I've recited some of his rhymes from back in the day for him and it was just a met. It was an amazing moment to know that you know, someone else that I looked up to so much, you know, that I had a chance to meet him in person and share some some moments with him.
• 39:46
  Randall Kaplan: Why is how deep is your love your favorite song?
• 39:51
  Randall Kaplan: For those people who don't know I'm talking about the big song how deep is your love, which is a tremendous song. I love that I when I read that about you're surprised to hear that given everyone you've you've worked with. So my question is, and I should do a better job rephrasing that you've worked with the most famous musicians in the world. And I'm curious why the Beegees who I absolutely love certainly if you're one of the best soundtracks of all time, why is that song your favorite song?
• 40:21
  Rodney Jerkins: I just think it's just a well put as a well put together song from from the beginning to end melodically the way it's structured. The chord progressions that I play all the time those chords is the way to harmonies are are crafted in a song. It's just It's probably one of the most easy listening songs I've ever heard in my life. And it's a song that you know, you can never get tired of. I've listened to the song for 30 plus years. is now and I've still not tired of it. In fact, I go to it often, when there's a certain mood that I'm trying to be in creatively, if I'm trying to be in somewhat of a more of a mellow, smooth creation mood, I'll go and listen to that song. It's just one of the greatest songs. It really is for me, for me, and there's a lot of great songs.
• 41:15
  Rodney Jerkins: Don't get me wrong, a lot of great songs that I love. But for me, that's my favorite song to listen to my favorite.
• 41:21
  Randall Kaplan: I want to talk about money for a second, we talked about it. At the beginning, you made a lot of money. At a very young age, I mean, to have a $1.8 million deal when you're 17 years old is insane. You're not seeing athlete. I mean, today you're seeing athletes doing that, but But I mean, you're in the 1% of 1% of one percenters. I know you've made a lot of money throughout the years. And I also know a lot of wannabe musicians, they want to be famous. And of course, there's a flipside of being famous, right? You can't go to the grocery store anymore.
• 41:50
  Randall Kaplan: So that's a whole nother thing.
• 41:53
  Randall Kaplan: But a lot of people are very motivated by money. So in the music business, and I know a lot of people in the music business, you know, way more than me, but people spend a lot of money in the music business. A lot of people are very flashy. They're drawn by the money, they're addicted to the money, they spend a lot of money. Where should money rate is a factor in terms of what we're doing in our life in our careers.
• 42:18
  Rodney Jerkins: I don't think ever, ever chasing money, I think I think I think you know, the hip hop culture specifically has made money too much of a an idol. And has made it where it has made it where if you're not flashy, then you didn't make it.
• 42:38
  Rodney Jerkins: Right. I never forget, I'll tell you a little quick story. I never forget riding an elevator with Diddy with P Diddy one time. Back when he was puffy, and he was trying to sign me and I was 18 years old. And he asked me what kind of car that I have.
• 42:52
  Rodney Jerkins: Now mind you, I'm 18 years old.
• 42:52
  Rodney Jerkins: I have a Lexus GS 300. That's a pretty good car, I would think right? It's a nice car, right?
• 43:00
  Rodney Jerkins: He says to me, Well, you're not doing it unless you have a bense. He had put in my mindset that unless you have a Benz, or Bentley, and you're not even successful. And I think you know, it's sad that the hip hop culture makes you feel that unless you are flashy, and have all these certain amount of diamonds and certain amount of expensive cars with things that you put on the cars that don't aren't worth a dime, once right after you take it off the lot.
• 43:36
  Rodney Jerkins: If you put all these extra extra things on your car, you're losing, you're losing the value of the actual car that you took off the lot. But they don't teach you that. I think you said I think you know, more importantly, more important and then the money as you should be building your brand. Because if you build your brand correctly, the money will come. The money will the money will come you don't have to chase it. If you make great material, and your music is great or whatever craft you're in doesn't have to be music. If whatever you do is great. The money will come the money will chase you. But get away from me when you get away from me here. It will literally chase you because if you're grading your craft, I really believe that if you're great at what you do, and then then they'll then money and other things will come.
• 44:30
  Randall Kaplan: Before we finish today want to go ahead and ask some more open ended questions.
• 44:33
  Randall Kaplan: I call this part of my podcast.
• 44:36
  Randall Kaplan: Fill in the blank to excellent so you're ready to play? Sure.
• 44:41
  Randall Kaplan: The biggest lesson I learned in my life is trust God always. My number one professional goal is
• 44:50
  Rodney Jerkins: to own the number one publishing company.
• 44:55
  Randall Kaplan: My number one personal goal is to make it to heaven. My biggest regret is
• 45:02
  Rodney Jerkins: not married my wife when I first met her. I waited four years too late.
• 45:06
  Randall Kaplan: I love that answer. The one thing I've dreamed of doing for a long time but haven't done is make a movie. But you're going to make a movie, right?
• 45:17
  Rodney Jerkins: Yes. So very soon. If you could go back
• 45:20
  Randall Kaplan: in time, the one piece of advice I'd give my 21 year old
• 45:24
  Rodney Jerkins: self is don't stop believing in you. If you
• 45:28
  Randall Kaplan: could be one person in the world, who would it be?
• 45:31
  Rodney Jerkins: my eight year old son Royal. He's the coolest.
• 45:34
  Rodney Jerkins: Yeah.
• 45:36
  Randall Kaplan: If you could work with one artist who you have not worked with before, who would it be? Adele? The one question you wish I had asked you is what are you currently working on? What are you currently working on?
• 45:51
  Rodney Jerkins: I have the number one One album out with Sousa for 10 weeks straight now.
• 45:56
  Randall Kaplan: Congrats what's coming after Sousa?
• 45:58
  Rodney Jerkins: I'm working on my own documentary. I can't say it's coming right after that because I'm still working on it.
• 46:06
  Rodney Jerkins: So I think it's going to be at least a year year out.
• 46:11
  Randall Kaplan: Is this gonna be a documentary about your life?
• 46:14
  Rodney Jerkins: Yes. Yes.
• 46:14
  Rodney Jerkins: That's,
• 46:17
  Randall Kaplan: that's gonna be awesome. Friday I want to thank you for taking the time today for being a guest on Search of Excellence. I've been a huge fan for a long time. I was super stoked when Miguel Solano shout out to him. Said, Hey, Rodney Jerkins on your show, and I said, I'd love to have Rodney on my show. You're a legend. I love your music. I heard you're an amazing person, which you are.
• 46:36
  Randall Kaplan: And I want to thank you deeply for being a guest.
• 46:41
  Rodney Jerkins: Thank you, Ron, I appreciate you so much. Thank you