Latest / Earn Your Leisure / FRENCH MONTANA EXPOSES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY 🤯

Transcript

FRENCH MONTANA EXPOSES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY 🤯 · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: There was a period of time where it brainwashed us,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: where it made you feel like getting an advance from
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: a label was kind of actually all you You hit
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the jackpot because the label gave you the money. Then
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: you come to find out that's the worst mistake you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: ever made.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: What is it different now? As far as you doing
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: the music.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Independent, I'm doing one hundred zero.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I take all the risks and reap all the award.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: You know you're doing it for you. You're not doing
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: it to make somebody else's rich or make somebody else.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Catalog When did you realize that you was getting a
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: short end of the stick.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: One leverage you get is that they take all your shit,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: but they give you exposure. So now I'm stacking. What
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: do you do when you get enough capital? You start backtracking?
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: If they're giving me this, so what they making off
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: my shit?
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: It must have been good with money? So where did
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: that come from?
• 0:38
  Speaker 5: You?
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: Somebody that?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: And you ask somebody for money and they tell you
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: they ain't got it and you don't got it. That
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: should be a situation you never want to go back to.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: With the recouping thing, How do you even know the
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: numbers are real? They could just tell you anything.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: The trick they tell you is after three years, you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: can't order them. How you can't order somebody after three
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: years when the record is selling more now than it's
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sold when I first put it out?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: You lost five million dollars on crypto?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what happened with that? I have my money in FTX.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: One morning I woke up and it was like, Yo,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: nobody to log.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Who's a guy that you're like? I could do that.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I could be him.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Honestly, what made me be an artist is when I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: was selling drugs and I got locked up and there
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: was like if you get locked up again, you're gonna
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: get deported.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: All right, y'all.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Welcome welcome back, welcome back.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: That's what big dog.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: What's going on, man?
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: I'm on the mix my Moroccan brothers.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, French Mantana. What's going on?
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Man?
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: You're doing man, cooler man, one day at a time.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: That's it. That's it, man, Congratulations on everything. You know,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: you got a whole new wave with the music Max.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: It feels like, you know, it's a resurgence of the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: wave for.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Like the next version of music.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we show you out there. You shot the video
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: with with the with the crowd. How is the energy
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: in the city compared to anything you've seen.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I honestly feel like it's gonna be bigger than winning
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the World Cup because New York is such a big city,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and it's like waiting for like fifty years. Like it's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: like you've got this girl you've been dating for fifty
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: years to try to knock off.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: That's how I feel like you've been waiting fifty years.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: You get some box.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: So now you you what is it different now as
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: far as you doing the music independent as opposed to
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: you starting your career and working with majors and having
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: that experience like it, how's the difference now?
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It's almost like you're opening up a restaurant for yourself
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and you're not working at McDonald's. It's like you open
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: up your own restaurant and you got to make sure
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: everything is good, Like you know, you're back there checking
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: with the chef, You're back there doing this you you.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: Know what I mean.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: It's like you being You're wearing many hats, you being
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a CEO wearing many hats, and you control your own destiny.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously all the money come to you, so
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: it's no better. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. You
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: see how everything and when you go to interviews and
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: when you do certain things, you know you're doing it
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: for you. You're not doing it to make somebody else rich
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: or make somebody else catalog. You know what they say,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: if you don't build, if you don't build your business,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: somebody's gonna use you to build this.
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: So I think the independent.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Route, the route you've come through a bunch of errors
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: and music, right mixtapes, see DVDs, right streaming, independent major.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: How's that shaped the perspective now being the boss boss
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: and seeing like making all the decisions and having the
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: money come to you.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It's like you get fucked so many times, so this
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: fuck you, you know, like a little waist.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Like that.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's no and it's good to go to.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, go through all the stages of getting burnt
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: so many times and learning from this, from that, from this,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and watching all the ogs how they did it, then
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: doing your background and saying how J. Princingham did it,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and how E forty and did it, and how certain
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: people just never actually went the other route and they
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: put all the eggs in one basket and bet all
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: their money on theyself and you kind of be like, damn,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I should have did it. But there's a thing with us,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: with artists and all the artists coming up. It's like
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: they there was a period of time where it brainwashed us,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: where they made you feel like an advance from a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: label was kind of actually hit and the lick, you
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, or you you hit the jackpot
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: because the label gave you the money. Then you come
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to find out when you get that money and actually
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: really get in position, you realize that's the worst mistake
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: you ever made.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: I mean obviously.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: The way they do it, because they know all artists
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: coming off the streets, everybody broke, so just like somebody
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a Ramadan, somebody fastening, it's just.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Like a younger being no real Muslim.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: You give them that little play of efficient and grits,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: like around two pm, he gonna hit that corn on
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you stuck for the lot.
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: But you know that's that's what it is.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: It's just like they know arists ain't got no money
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: coming up, so that's how they bambooze you.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: So explain that. So that's actually a loan, yeah, against
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: the record sales. So it's not like they're giving you money.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: They actually you just borrowing money from them.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually alone. But also it's like, like, let's
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: say you do a deal, right, the best deal back then.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I mean when I first came in, I did a
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: twenty percent of royalties, right, So and even if you
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: do eighty twenty with them, or you do a fifty fifty,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: let's say you do fifty to fifty was probably it takes.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: You years to get that.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And if you do get that, you gotta be you
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: got to be somebody that come into the label already,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: which is Shiit moving. So they say you get fifty
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: to fifty, they give you an advance. So now this
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: is a trick that no artists know, right besides the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: ones that actually been in the game long enough. So
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: when they do a fifty fifty deal with you, they
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: automatically start making money over they fifty percent, and now
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: they were coop the whole hundred percent off your fifty,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: so they making a money.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: Untouched.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Then your fifty come and every time they take out
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a fifty day out of recoup the money then plus
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. Then, even if you do have a
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: fifty fifty deal with them, they still have an extra
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: sixteen percent on distribution fees, so it's really not a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: fifty fifty deal.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: It's really like a thirty seventy, you know what I'm saying.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: So in this era, I mean, this is crazy because
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: now obviously you've done major and you have a catalog.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: I wonder what it feels like now when you got a.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: Record like ever since you left me, I own all that,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: all that, and now you're pushing it yourself.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the marketing plan is. You see. The thing with
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: me is I'm doing one hundred zero business.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: That's all money and no money out. I'm doing one
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: hundred zero. I put all, I take all the risks,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and reap all the award.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I'm cool with that. So I do one hundred zero.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: I go. I mean they outsource everything anyway, so I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: outsource everybody. Usually when I go every label I went to,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't like everybody in there anyway. I would like
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the person that handled DSPs, but I won't like the
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: radio person. So I always I was used to spending
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: my own money anyway, Like if you hurt a bunch
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of interviews I did, even with the Unforgettable, I spent
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: my own money even like with certain things, I spend
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: my own money sometimes, like the label don't move how
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you want them to move, you know what I'm saying.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: So I do I do one hundred because like, let's say,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of artists say they're independent, And what I
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: had to learn was this. You see a lot of
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: artists that they're independent, but they actually have a major
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: label structure inside of independent for distribution, for distribution, so
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: inside of an independent infrastructure, you have a major label deal.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So what I mean by is this, you go on
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: an independent label and you acting like you're independent, but
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you actually took out in advance and you still have
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a fifty fifty split with an independent company. So you
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: have an independent company that's trying to be a major.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I'm I don't call no company names, none of that,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: but they trying to be like the majors. So they're
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: giving you a major deal and they're still doing it
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it is with you, and they're telling you where
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: are independent company? Which actually you better off stand at
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: a major label, you know what I'm saying. So me,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like independent is a you not do you know?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You don't need nothing none of that?
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: You go and rid I mean, with the success of
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: the record, obviously the success of your career, are they knocking,
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: like banging down your door, offering you deals if the
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: number was right, is it the possibility to say, all right,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: maybe we'll consider it again.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: No, not really, because because you figure you're making a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: couple of hundred thousand a month, that's gonna be the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: last for the rest of your life.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: That's something you leave. That's what you leave to your kids.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like all all this music
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: that I made before I were independent, that I wasn't
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: making money. It was just like I get a check,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: then they'll tell you you're never recouped. I studied recoop
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: off my first album, and you know how many singles
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I have my first album from pop Dad.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: So I don't worry about nothing.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I have at least like like like ten platinum records
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: on that excuse my friends. Yeah, the first one, you say,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you still haven't recouped. I still haven't recooped now, and
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I only got a million dollar advance for that.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: They gave you a million dollar advance.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: So I just named you just two records that sold
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: five million.
• 9:55
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• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So you haven't made any money from the album after
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the first million, you haven't seen any other haven't seen
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: no money, no residuals, nothing, nothing. Do you own publishing
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: or masters at any point in time?
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: No, the own no MATP.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But that was this is what I'm saying. This was
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a trick as coming in as a new artist. You
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. You take that advance, you take
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the million dollar of advance, you do you do an
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: artist deal.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: So I wasn't. I wasn't smart enough. I did the
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: artist There was like a twenty twenty royalty. You know
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: what I'm saying, So you don't really know.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: So I mean every every artist that came, they came
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in the game around that generation, with ninety percent of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: them all got the same deal.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: When when did you win? Because we interview YG he
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: said his first his first deal was five five albums
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: for one hundred thousand dollars. It was crazy. Yeah, when
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: did you realize that you was getting the short end
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of this stick?
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Pause?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I said, I realized that because I dropped my first
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: album with in this coope. But they had changed everybody around.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So I went to Epic. When I got the Epic,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and I mean I remember I went there. I made
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Lockjaw and made No Shopping. Then I made it Unforgettable
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: right after that, so it's like bang bang I'm I
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: thinking like Lockjaw sold like three million, No Shopping sold
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: like two million. Then Unforgettable just came into one diamond.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Then I was just like I got Yeah, I was
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: like I sart looking at it.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Hold on now because now you come in the game, right,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: so but you know, sometimes you go through what you
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: go through. So you grab the first million, then you
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: grab the first million. Now you're on the road because
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: one thing it's not all bad. One leverage you get
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: is that they take all your shit, but they give
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: you exposure because you become now the cash cow.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: So if you don't have.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Exposure, you can't make them money. But it also worked
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to your benefit if you don't have a three sixty.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: So I was able to grab all the shows. I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: was out me and Drake was on the Paradise tour.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I was out there, I was on festivals. I was
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: getting all my money. So now I'm stacking. So when
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I got to Epic, Epic gave me another couple couple
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: of millions I think gave me like a ten million
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: dollar deal. Then now I'm coming back grab the money.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Now I have enough capital. What do you do when
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: you get enough capital? Start backtracking? Like if they're giving
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: me this, what they making off my ship? Yeah? So
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I started, I started backtracking. I'm like, Okay, this work
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: like this, this work like this, let work like this.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So once I learned how everything works, I'm like, oh ship.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Then I started reading up on everybody that did it before.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Ce jay Z was it was it was. It was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: unfortunate because nobody wants to sign him. So he was
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: he had to go independent, and it worked out for him.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It worked out for him.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I wish that would have happened to me, you know
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So we got we got the deals
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and and and we had to do it the hallway,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: start from ground zero.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: So the second album is unforgettable.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: The second album, Yeah, the second album, what's Jungle Rules
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to bust? All the big songs on the album lot
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: your Oh that's the third holbur third album.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I don't forget it was unforgettable. It was a lie
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: with me in the weekend came after that, it was
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: allowed me in the weekend. There was a bunch of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: them on. There was a bunch of them.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: But did you recoup from that album?
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Nah? So they recool from now?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: That was the same million dollars from the first album,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Like no, yeah, a ten million for that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: I got ten million for the hours.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, but you didn't but no after the ten million,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: you don't. You don't get any more money.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: No, you don't get any more money.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Is a part though, right because outside looking in, Yeah,
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: it's always been like French has always been on. He's
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: always been put together you never looked like he's going
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: through something. So it tells me and even you saying it,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: I spent my own money. I spent my own money. Yeah,
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: you must have been good with money. Yeah, so where
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: did that come from? What did the discipline with I
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: have money, I'm not just blowing it. I'm not just
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: buying ship that I don't need. I'm not being accessive
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: with my spending. Yeah, I'm stacking it because eventually I
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: might need it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that when you go through certain situations
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in your life, when you when you actually ask the provider,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: ask somebody, and and and you see and they look
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: at you like you got three eyes, and and you
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, they look at you crazy, and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: you just realize that if you ever, if you're a
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: hustling and you ever went through that, or if you're
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: somebody that been in that situation and you ask somebody
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: for money and they tell you they ain't got it
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and you don't got it, that should be a situation
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: you never want to go back to. So Ever, since
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that happened to me when I was young and I
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: was the provider, I was like, I'm never going back
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: to that, And ever since I just kept on stacking.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: It was just like a shock. It was like something
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: that hit a nerve. I was like, I'm never going
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: back to that point.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: How much of your own capital you think you've put
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: into your career, because most I don't think most artists
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: would be in a position where I didn't recoup I'm
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: trying to make a record. I'm gonna put my own money.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Most people aren't in that situation. How much capital.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: But you gotta look at situations like even even even
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: when I go through it, I look at situations like
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: how doctor Dre was able to wait to walk away
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: from the whole of death Ro catalog and just give
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: it to him and walk away and look look at
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: what type of catalog that is, and he ended up
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: building even a bigger catalog with them Shady and and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: everybody else. So you look at situations like that and
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you're like, if he could do it, I could do it,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So definitely, I was like,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I'll come back to that. I'll come back to the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: unforgettables and this and that, and and even now I'm
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: even looking in to try to re record some of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: some of the records because after after ten years, you're
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: eligible to make the music over tell the swift play. Yeah,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think nobody's doing it with hip hop, so
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: why not?
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Another thing with the with the with the recouping thing,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: how do you even know the numbers are real? Like
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: because they could just tell you anything, right, Like, No,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: you have to get like a forensic audit to actually
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: look to see like if the numbers actually real.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for somebody that do great orders. If you're
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: out there, then you're watching this camera right here. You're
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: out there, reach out to me. I want to order
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and the cope and I want to order epic. I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: want to make sure that that they got my moment.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: That's a real thing though, right because.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I saw something with Big Sean ordered his label and
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: got six million. I seen a chameleionaire did it. I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: haven't done it because the trick they tell you is
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: which I don't know if it's true or not. After
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: three years you can't order them.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: Now? How you go?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: How you can't order somebody after three years when the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: record is selling more now than it's sold when I
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: first put.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: It out, and I r s can do up to
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: seven years.
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: It don't make no sense. We've seen that. We see
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: that in this space, the podcast is space, we see it.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's so many spaces where you don't know
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: the numbers. They're just being told to you.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: You just got to go with it.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: But even is a playoff of It's like you get
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: somebody who's not knowledgeable about something, a situation where they
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: have money, and then by the time that money runs out,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: which will probably be three years, and then they look back,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: you make it so they can't actually like you.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Know, yeah, I mean, I mean, because this is how
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: they figured. They figure after after after that. That's why
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the five album thing is a real thing, because they
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: know nobody nobody want to hear what you what you
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: got to say after five albums, only a certain artist
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: relevant stay irrelevant, you know what I'm saying.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: So they're like, Okay, this is this is the sweet spot.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: So let us do that the re record thing, because
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: now I'm thinking of it that when Tels Swift did it,
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: it was obviously school had brought the school, Brown have
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: brought the catalog and now he had control of it.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: Her business move was I'll re record my albums, which
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: he's done and it's been labeled that way. I think
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: a chanty did it as well. So for you, it
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: would be recording the entire catalog or is it the singles?
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: To now go out as an independent? How would it
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: work for you?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I just want to do the singles and do the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: best of just like how all the rock stars does it,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: all the pop stars does it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: They just drop the best of And I got enough
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: hits for that.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Sure, I drop the best of And that's the ship
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: that when you tell somebody, Okay, did you ever hear
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: French Montana? What they're gonna go to another album? Like,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: all right, let's go to the best of essentials. Yeah,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that's how That's what we used to go to with us.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: When you go to ball money, that's in the ball
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of money. You go to the one that got all
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the best hits. You don't go to the albums.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: So Rick Ross, you kind of remind me of Rick
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Ross in a way because we've done a bunch of
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: stuff with him, but he never really sold the most records. Yeah,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: there's always a mystery of how much how he gets
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: so much money? Yeah, Like I had the wing stops,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: but like he got like a fifty million dollar house,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: he got the private plane. You've obviously had a lot
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: of success, but from the outside looking in, it looks
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: like you have a lot of money, right, So people
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: are saying, like, it's not like the biggest musician ever. Yeah,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Like is that a fair set? Like where the money from.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Work?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Man? Hustling, just hustling, man, I feel like I feel
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like just hustling, taking advantage and just and like, you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: keep it real with you. I barely I barely go
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: out there and spurs and do crazy things, you know
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And I would just put my money
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: in the right places, whether it's scripto or whether it's
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: real estate. I've been in real estate heavy, whether it's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you know, just just stacking it. So it wasn't like
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: anyone behind the scene movie just not like Rose when
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: he got the big My ship was just straight straight real.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Estate, realistic. I've seen you got a place in Vegas
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: on a strip. Yeah, talk about your real estate journey.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But the real estate journey was always always like we'll
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: buy cribs what I want to stay at, Like let's
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: say Calabasas, like Malleble like yeah, yeah, yeah, like golden
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: beads and stuff like that, or just you know, I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: just I'll get a crib, but I want to stay
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: at and just end up turning into.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all work is money.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: N security all night.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: One of the things that you're grateful, and I think
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: it gets underrated is the ability to keep relationships. I
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: don't think that there's never been a time in hip
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: hop with this, Like somebody doesn't like French and you
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: see I see you with so many different people. I'm like, Yo,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: that's his man, that's his man. Now that's the man
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: you have to you know, obviously the Ross.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: And then I'm not like Rose. I always been telling
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: the Rose.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I will never show like you know what
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, I go to have Like, yo, bro, when
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: you can talk about New York, I'm definitely top three,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: top three, top three will make the most out of
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this out.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Of every including excluding nobody.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Oh that's a different conversation. Now to New York period.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Money on the money on the money chart.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Jaesu saying that freestyle wrong charge, champion the right chart.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: But that's a lot. That's that's a big statement. That's
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a big statement, all right, you know what, you know
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: what I like to say, always, this is a marathon,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: give it time. Yes, everything will always come out at
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the end. They're saying, no competition, there's enough. We all
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we all here playing the game. We're gonna see when
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: all the cars come out of that. Obviously been doing
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: it for sixteens or twenty years, still looking young, still
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: out here with the biggest records independently, And what's the.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: How of thing rolled out that?
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: I believe it because that's what I was going to
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: get to, is the myn relationship that you're able to
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: force to keep and so people always want to work
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: with you or do things, Which, yeah, was that something
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: that you went into this game very intentional about? Was
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: that just naturally who French is?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: When you go through enough drama in your life, when
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: you go through enough enough crucial situations in your life
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and you still want to keep going through that, they
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: could just go to tell me you ain't really go
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: through that, you know what I'm saying. It just goes
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to tell me that you really were just acting like
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: you was going through that to get into this to
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: go back to do that, because it just doesn't make
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: sense because we went through it, We went through times
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: that we lost chains. We went through times when Max
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: got seventy five years, We went through times in my
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: brother pen house, he got record charges for real situations.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: And it's just like you go through trauma your whole thing.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: We got people getting deported, we got It's like, it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of trauma. When you get in the game,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you're just kind of like you want to do it
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: for them.
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: You want to stay out of it because it actually
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: stops all the money.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: True, Yeah, I feel like your jacket has been clean
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: in this industry.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Not always, but but but but but when you get
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to the real money, it changes.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Because everybody come from Africa. Bro, you go out there,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you go out there, you be like, man, I'm never
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: turning down ten dollars.
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: If I got to do a walk through.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: When you see the people out there, you'll be like, hey, bro,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: we got man, we're taking this for granted, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: but but honestly we are.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: We are.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: When you when when when you're able, when you're able
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to get your passport and travel the world, you'll understand
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: when you come back here that you're taking a lot
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: of things for granted, and and and when you make
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: it to certain places in life. It's almost like you're
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: smacking your luck in the face, and you're smacking a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: lot in the face and the creative face for him
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: putting you in that situation, and you and you're trying.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: To do things that that that that don't even go
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: with the situation you in. You know what I'm saying.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: So sometimes you just got to get to the bag,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: he says, with the ball, you can save everybody.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: You speak French, petty per okay, a Moroccan, Yeah.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: The Moroccan version, Yeah, okay, it's like French mix in there.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like French mix, but it's called Deadisia. So it's
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: not like, you know, like I speak Arabic, but like
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you speak to them, they don't understand.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: That building a house right now, my contract is Palestinian.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: So if we just had this conversation about Moroccan, he said,
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the Moroccan one is actually the hardest one to actually
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: and he's like he doesn't even understand sometimes he speaks Arabic, obviously,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: he's like when he speaks to people from Morocco, they
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: had to slow down how they talk because sometimes he
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: can't fully understand what they're saying, or they might not
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: even fully understand what he's saying. Yeah, But the reason
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: why I asked you that is like as an international artist, right,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you think obviously coming from the continent, that's helpful understanding cultures,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: understanding things. But just like from a language, there's a
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: lot of language barriers when it comes to things. You
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: feel like that's helped you become because you are a
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: big international star. You feel like your international exposure, learning
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: different knowing different languages, living in Africa, and your childhood
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: that's helped you become a bigger international star.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I just took it with them and helped me and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: made it and made it helped me, you know what
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. I felt like, because you can't really attach
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: yourself to you ain't living nowhere long enough to attach
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: yourself somewhere.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: So I was. I lived.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: I lived in Africa, in Morocco til I was thirteen.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Then I came to New York and I was there
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: to you know, in the Bronx for for a long
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: time and just been moving all around the world after that.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I got I got famous, So it was
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I got the best of both worlds.
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: But I think that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I gained the opportunity of listening to music before I
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: ever understood the language. So I know what a young
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: African kid looking for in music, or what somebody live
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: in a different country look for in music.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: You came in this country ninety six. Yeah, so when
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: you came to this country ninety six, you didn't speak English. Nah,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: you listening to it was written what came out in
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: ninety six?
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: It was written all Eyes on, All on Me.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: Uh mcavelly came out in ninety six. The school came
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: out in ninety six. I was heavy into all Eyes
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: on Me.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: So you listening to this music? First, get to America.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: That's what you're just listening to. Yeah, you don't know.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: You don't say, I don't understand that English. You don't
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: understand obviously that there's nuances of that they talking about you.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: You'll know nothing, No.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: In the bronx.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: But how how quickly did you How quickly did you
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: catch it? How quickly did you catch up? How long
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: did it take you to catch up? To be fully,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: because obviously you caught up. How couch?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I just hated the feeling of seeing people talk about
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: me and I don't know what they're saying, and nobody
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: did explained to me because obviously we came with my
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: family know English, so I had nobody that explained to me,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: and I had and my family didn't know nothing. It
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: was just us leaving Africa looking for opportunity. Then even
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: at this age, sometimes I'd be watching people documentaries. I'd
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: be looking at like Beyonce, like Drake, and I'll be
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: looking at like certain people and I can actually see
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: like their parents was artists, and you just see like
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: little videos of them when they're like six years old
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: with the mic, like you see Travis Cott playing the drum,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: like at six years old, I'm in an Africa with
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: fucking with cows and all type of shit.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: At six years old, I don't even know if the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: fuck is going. I'm in the middle of the country somewhere,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: you know, baby goats.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Now, it really is one of the most astonishing stories,
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: like the moropping part for sure, and then coming to
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: the Bronze.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Not just like that mecca of the hip house at
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: the Golden era.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That's the best year.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm learning and bro mind you like Big pun
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: used to come and play me Capital Punishment, like playing
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: for us, like like right there in the street like
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you would hear stories about you know, just slick Rick.
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Oh shit, he got caught with a.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Gun right there to go, but he lived somewhere like
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: around gun Hill and here just like you know, Carros
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: want to live right there. That Joe live right here
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: by Cyprus Projects, and we're like five minutes away from
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: each other. So it's like you next to all these
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: all these events and all these legends and you're like, oh, ship,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I'm really in you.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: You immediately, do you know?
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: So is that the first introduction of hip hop is
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: when you come here and you immediately fall of love?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying as a fan? Yeah, my
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: whole life okay in Morocco, Morocco. Yeah, if you if
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you're big enough, Pauls, if you big enough. In the States,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: that was Gangster Paradise Pie. Yeah, like like certain records
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: are there, Okay, Okay, I got you, got you rolling
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Fuji's there.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: You were seeing visuals like you you had an idea
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: of what hip hop culture was.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, got you you hear it? You watch it on
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: MTV boom. You locked in.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Who's the guy that outside the pot? And you got
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: to I mean the neighborhoods pretty crazy. You're like, I
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: could do that. I could I could be him.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: What's up? What was up? Back then?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: It was Pock, it was Big, it was Jay, it
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: was a Foojie's. Honestly, I didn't want to be like
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: none of them.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: I just liked the music.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: What made me be an artist is when I was
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: selling drugs and I got locked up and I had
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: just came with my mother and there was like, if
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: you get locked up again, you're going to get deported.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: And I was just like, let me look.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Into something that's not going to get me in jail
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: because my mother just came in from Africa and she
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: stacked because my pops left. My pops came for like
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: two three years, and he was like, hold on, this
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: ship is not working for me. I lived like a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: king in Africa. With this little change I got.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I'm over here.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not even being respected, you know what I'm saying,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: because they show you the whole skyline. So when you
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: when you get to New York City, they take your
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: ass right to the back of Brooklyn, back of the Brong.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: You know, in the projects. You're on welfare, you on
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: weed checks, you and shit.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: Get real.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: You're going into business with a couple of cats and
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: they tell you, okay, look give me this. Everybody put
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: in and then they all sneak each other. That happened
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: in my pops like three times. He almost killed one
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of me. Like you know what, let me go back
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to Africa.
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: He went back.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: He told my mother, He's like, look, leave, leave the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: two young ones. Because I got two little brothers. He
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: was like, let's let's take them with us and leave him.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: She's like, I'm not leaving my son. So that's when
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: they split up.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: He went back. She stayed here. So she stayed here.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Like there's a whole documentary that came out what I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: called it for Cadiza. It's on Paramount Plus. When you
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: get a chance, watch that about Morocco. Is about the
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: whole thing. So she stayed and and and you know
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: when I saw her, she she she got like like
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: like a job or two. She was like in like
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a chicken spot. So I just walked in on her
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: one day. She was prying, making salades, she was crying,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, got I gotta make a difference.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: And you know, not having no papers, you kind of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: like can't get a job. You kind of like alienated.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: You're kind of locked up. Without being locked up, you
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: can't go to school because you don't got no scholarships,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you can't. That's why for any immigrant that make it,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I got so much respect for them, because people think
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: just because you hear in America that you have the
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: same opportunities that everybody got. You actually don't. You have
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: no opportunities. You're kind of like studying your country. But
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you just here, you know what I'm saying, Hopefully you
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: meet somebody that help you elevate, like isolated. Yeah, so
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that's what happened to me. So when I was isolated,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I just I met I met one of my cousins. Here.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: You already had an empire. I started start dealing with dope.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Then after that got locked up, then got locked up again.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: There was like, look, man about to get deported. And
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: that was it. That was a turning point. I went
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: to my man crib. He had a little studio in
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: the living room. I did a freestyle. I had a
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: and the head phones. I came back to my block.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: I let everybody hear it. I was like, we funk
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: with this.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: You sound good.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And that was that somebody signed me for my hood
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and it was just like, okay, that's how it started,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and that's this happened when I was like twenty already.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: And then and then the DVD part of it, Where
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: does that come in to play?
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: You can't how you're gonna make it? So it was
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: to promote you don't how many people rapping the Bronx.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: So you started it to promote you as an artist
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: because you wasn't you know, you wasn't.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: You know how many people rapping the Bronx.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Bro, It's like how many people play basketball?
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, probably about the same, no more.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: More more because everybody can't play basketball. Everybody can everybody
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: could rap or attempt to rap. Everybody can attempt to rap,
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: especially in the Bronx.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I was especially in New York. So both born in
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: the Bronx. I taught in the Bronx. I lived in
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: the bro. Yeah, but we know.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: But even remember back then in the Bronx, you you
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: just didn't have the rap. You had to go and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: battle everybody. That's different.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: Was just like.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now it's like okay, you rapped, just make a song,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: put it up in the know. Back then they need
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to come see what they need to come see you.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: You gotta go around for a round. Like they didn't
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: even like, Okay, son nice over there. Oh he nice
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: over there. Okay, they're nice over there. You had to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: earn your name.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: It's not like that.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: You lost five million dollars on crypto.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: What happened with that was that was ft X.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Ft X explained that story.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: So I have my money in FTX, and I was
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: interested in this and that, and certain people that was
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: paying me, I was they was paying me in crypto,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and I didn't want to put it in the bank,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: so I kept it in crypto and and I had
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: it in ft X. One morning, I woke up and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: there was like, yo, nobody logging.
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: No, it's not a company about tears, Yo, bank, we
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: look at you. Tears from heaven clapped it in the flesh.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm telling you, brother, there's no feeling when you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: wake up and you try to log into something that
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: you got five million dollars in and then the camera
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I'm telling him here with me. I'm like, yo, bro,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: go we at the airport. I'm like, cancel the flight.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: We're outside of the airport and the truck with the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: laptop open. I'm like, get in this ship now.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Bro.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: I was sick to my stomach.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I couldn't eat for like two three days, Bro, I
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: was I still I booked another flight and I stayed
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: in the room for like ten days. Damn.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Did you try to call? Like there ain't nothing?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's nothing you can do it. It's like
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: do you try to get a lawyer to sued it?
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Trying to see if you get some money legally?
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: All this is part of what they had a class action?
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: So there was were you able to recoup any of it?
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: Because I think some some people got huh damn, all right?
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: What you learned from what?
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: What?
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: What did?
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: What did you learn from that experience? Cause that's that's painful?
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: But what you learned from that going forward?
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Actually you can't learn nothing from it because you know
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: what you're dealing with when you get into it. You
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, And just like you know, it's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: a gamble. You know, Look how young the kid is.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Look look like you know what I mean? Just like
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you just got yous guy? Put your money in things
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: that's more sturdier than that.
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: Does it make you? Because yeah, he is young? But
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: I can understand why people did it right, Like it
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: feels legit. I mean Miami was about to name the
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: arena after his company.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, so you just look at look at the
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: look it was about to happen with Elon Musk.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: It was. It's like, it's like the same thing with
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the space X doc. That's that's how FTX was. You
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: go to f one, you see you see it on
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the fay the brand recognition.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, this was that's He's gonna be a little different.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: I wonder doesn't make how does it make you feel
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: about But it was a trend like that a trend. Yes,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: it was marketed and promoted the same way it was
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: a trend putting your money here.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: It was quite flip.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: Crypto is a different space. This is a publicly traded company.
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: He turned it the trillion into that.
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: Man, tell.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Tell the people that was putting their money. And you
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: know how much money it was an ft Yeah no,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: it's up to thirty two billion. That what I'm saying
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: very doesn't make you.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Trying to get a party, you see that, Yeah, trying
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: to get a.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: Part of do you does it make you speculative about
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: investing outside of crypto? But like in the publicly traded market,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: like the stock market. Things like that makes your experience.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: It's just a risk you take, you know what I'm saying,
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: That's a risk you take.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mind doing it, but it just
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: felt like the the more I tried to cut corners,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: the more the more I'll be realizing that if I
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: just kept doing what I was doing.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I'd be further than that.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, slow and steady, Yeah, I think I'm into the
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: slow and study part of my life now because.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: I don't need it. That's the lesson learn. Yeah, yeah,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: definitely definitely.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Do you feel like you're not fully appreciated or you
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: get overlooked? Cause I saw you in the Complex thing
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: as far as the top rappers, then you said today
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: that you're actually top three when it comes to money
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: out of New York. So do you feel like We
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: just talked to Jo Roll yesterday. He felt like he
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: was over He's overlooked. You feel like you overlook not
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: just from a rap standpoint, but from a business standpoint,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: from a brand building standpoint, from a like mogul standpoint.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: You feel like people overlook you.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I'm a firm believer of that. Nobody get their
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: flowers until you're not here. Nobody, Nobody get their flowers.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: There's nobody. Look at what they're doing. The jay Z
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: like what they did the dre Look who Jackson just
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: had the biggest bio pick right, the biggest bio pick
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: a billion dollars.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: What they do.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: They put uh they put them a whole movie about
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: him and the kids of Netflix. Netflix not dead Man
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: can't even get no peace, you know what I'm saying.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: So it's everybody, bro, everybody name one name one is
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: getting their flowers hip hop and if and if you
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: name one person getting their flowers, I name a thousand.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: That's not not true. Yeah, that's true. You know what
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: I'm saying. I just feel like nobody get their flowers.
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: I feel like nobody get their flowers.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: But even Bob Malay, they shot his ass up when
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: he was trying to do the Revolutionary concert.
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: Right or wrong?
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Fact that fact, and it was peaceable music, you know
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So at the end of the day,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I don't fight for that. I fight on building my
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: uh uh uh my wealth, being well respected I had
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: doing no goofy shit. Not I hear on those stands
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: not out here doing none of that, living a life
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and and got in the kids the right way. You
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Making sure my brothers are good,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: making sure I'm wealthy again.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, there's the best advice
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: I give any young artists out there, Man, get your money,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Save your money so your money can save you accolades
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and positioning and transfer from today tomorrow tomorrow number one
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: day after they're gonna be number thirty, day after they're
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: gonna be number on hundred.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: You're gona bounce back to number one.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But if your bank account doesn't master your transition, and
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: you're gonna stay in that ground zero because look at
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the legends, they contributed so much to the game because
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: there was no money to be made in hip hop
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: back in the days, you know what I'm saying. But
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: now with the consumer today and with the audience, they
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: look at you like you're only big because you have
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: a billion you have this. You know what I'm saying, Well,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: what's your first week sales?
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: Exactly? All they care, bro, exactly. They don't even care
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: about the album. These dudes are listen analyzed first week
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: sales more than they analyzed the album.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm trying to tell you. When it's all
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: it's all farms and they made nothing off of their opinion.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: But it's like, can you what's the first week sales
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: for Ellmatic? What's the first week sale?
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Like that? It's not even a Platu mountain.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: But exactly what I'm trying to say is that if
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: it's an art, it turned from being an art to
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: studying analytics. Nobody cares about the quality of music. Nobody
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: cares about the storytelling.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: They care about That's why they all be shocked when
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: certain people win a Grammy, like when Keller Mike won
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: a Grammy and when Nas won a Grammar is like
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: they shot, but they're like, why y'all shot?
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: Nobody cared about what y'all care about? Like, nobody care
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: about the first week sales.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know certain people, they got to have, certain
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: people that the labels put all their money on.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: They gotta have tricks for them.
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: I live about this, this this mantra of stay low,
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: keep firing as you're talking. I feel like that's kind
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: of what you've done, is like stay low, just going
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: get your money. Yeah, keep making hiss.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: In terms of the whole rock. In terms of the money,
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: we don't get to that stuff. Just about seven flags,
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: but we'll get to that at least. But it's the
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: same pattern of make the money keeping. But I'm just saying,
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: if you do that, how does the next generation follow
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: those footsteps? So do you even feel like a responsibility?
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: When when I was first coming out, you were seeing
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: me on Smack DVD, I will go in my pocket,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: I pull out one hundred thousand, I thought on the
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: floor every video you seen your own money, even even
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I haven't touched cash and so long.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: But when you around certain people, Bro, you gotta just
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: let that brief. I haven't touched cashing so long.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you when you're around, when you around
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: certain people, bro, that I've been around.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: You.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: Look at whatever you say saved in your account? Why
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: are you in the meeting with them? You're like, I'm
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: might just throw this ship against the wall. I'm about
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: to go somewhere and just burn this ship and just
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: say a prayer because you were And you can't tell, Bro,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you can't tell they low key, they don't have no problems,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: they don't have none of that you know what I'm saying.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I was able to be around the shicks of the
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: shiks of of of the world.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Some people that control the world, like really control the world.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. I know artists sitting there
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: telling me I went double platinum and like like they
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: can have you coming just you know what I'm saying,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: singing for them in the empty pool.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, What they can. But look,
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: I was able.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I was I had to have the privilege to be
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: around some ship. So that's why I started like, Okay,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: this is the way to move.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: This is the way to move. That's the way to move.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: And and and when you start reading I started reading
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: the Koran. It's just like you know, the Creator, when
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: you humble yourself, he gives you more. So it's just
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: certain things you learn as you get older. When you
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: were younger, you don't know it, you don't get punished
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: for it. But when you get the knowledge of it
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and you still keep doing stupid shit, then you know, whatever.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: Whatever you get, you deserve.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: The people who control the world deserve to be bro Yeah,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: before we leave, talk about Africa, Like as far as
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: what's your are you investing in the continent, Like, what's
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: your thoughts? Obviously you played a major part in the
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: whole Afro Beats movement. But like from a global standpoint,
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention is on the continent of Africa
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: right now, the youngest continent. I think they're going to
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: have twenty five percent of the world's population in the
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: next twenty years. Obviously everybody knows it's the most rich
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: continent when it comes to like the minerals and resources
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff. What's your outlook on the future
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: of Africa.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, we did a lot in Africa.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Shot to Mama Hope, shot the Global citizens, shot the
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Pencils of Promise, raised one hundreds of millions over there,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: opened up a hospital over there, opened up schools of Morocco.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Like we always every time there any type of success,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: that always went back to Africa and helped in Africa.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of things, a lot of things
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: we put out there in the Internet, a lot of
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: things we don't you know. But yeah, for sure, always
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: always Africa's is. But as far as making money, there's
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: one thing I learned, You're gonna get scammed.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Look, you know, something positive, definitely a different way.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's just a thing of who can outscam scam outscammers.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: That's one thing that you're never gonna get over look.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was born there.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: I love out of it, like as not scammers. No,
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: it's not you.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: If you're not a scammer, it's not you. But there's
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: some real scammers there that you don't even see it coming.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you, I'm telling you, and.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: I gave nobody, Nobody gave back more to more than
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: what we did. Besides you know, diplomats and things of
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: that nature. But as far as artists, I go ahead
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: to head with anybody. You know, that was a reception
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: when in Morocco. I feel like the face of the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: country is like I think you and Hakimi and.
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: Then oh shout to Haikimi. Man.
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: After that, it's like when you're there on the ground,
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: what's the reception when you.
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: Man, Morocco is just so culturally like rich.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: It's just they just satisfy what they got and they
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: just like it's so spiritual over there. And when I
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: get there, it's just I go see the fam and
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I chill out, you know, and I just be chilling.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: I'll be catching up with everybody, because remember when I
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: came here when I was thirteen, my whole family was
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: left over there, so it was kind of like just
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: like snatched away from the tree. So when I came here,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: like I was forced just to grow up. So when
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I go back I see them, it's kind of be
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: like like, you know, like sad, i ain't see them
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: in so long, but I'm catching up and it's just
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: like so it be Yeah, it'd be a whole lot
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Well, French, my brother is a pleasure man. Any last words,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: you want to plug anything. Just you're telling people what's.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Going how to single out, man, go listen to it.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Ever since you left me, I went deaf with the
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: Knicks
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Week