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Joe Coscarelli · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is New York Times reporter Joe Coscarelli.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: You've got a great new book, Rack Capital in Atlanta Story. Joe,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Why the book? What inspired you? You know, Bob, this
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: book really came out of my reporting at the Times. Right.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm the music reporter here in the culture section.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I started in late you know, the sort of dawn
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: really of the streaming era, right. And and one of
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the stories I kept coming back to, uh, you know
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: in my time as the beat reporter was rapp in Atlanta. Right.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I did an early story on artist by the name
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of Little Yachti. UM that was actually a men's style
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: cover because he was, you know, sort of moving through
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the fashion and influencer world at the beginning. Even more
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: southern music. UM. I did an early story, UM when
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: me Goos hit number one with Bad Embugie UM their
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: album Culture. I profiled them on that album. I around
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the same time, you know, I did a story on
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: this label Quality Control U down there that was you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: both Yaddi and and me Goos came from that label
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: and they were sort of the homegrown talent incubators of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the moment in Atlanta. And you know, just over and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: over again, you would see as streaming sort of you know,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: knocked down these walls, Uh, the for what kind of
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: music people really wanted to hear write. Billboard charts were
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: changing as a result of of YouTube and and Spotify
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: and Apple Music. Uh, and always bubbling to the top
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: where these sort of you know, very raw Southern rap
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: albums and songs. And this is something I grew up
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: on as well. This is the kind of music I
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: listened to when I was younger, growing up in the South. Um.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And so the combination of that with my Times reporting,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I was just coming into contact with all of these characters, uh,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: these labels, these sounds, and and it was just over
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and over again. And you know, I had a I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: had an agent and and a book editor. Uh we
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: can get into that. He published Gucci Main's autobiography. Um.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: The the editor who ended up acquiring this book. And
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you know, they kept asking me what kind of book
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I wanted to write. Rap music was something that was
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: obviously in the conversation, but I never really found the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: right story. And after a handful of these Atlanta stories,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: you know, they both came to me and they said this, like,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: this is this is the book. Okay, So actually they
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: were looking unlike the usual story where an author is
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: pushing the book, you already had a relationship, and it
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: was their idea that they should be the book. Yeah.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's right. You know, I I have been thinking,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: you know, is a book the next step in my career? Uh?
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I, like I said, I started at the Times.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So now it's been almost eight years. Uh, this was
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle of this book was a really
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: long reporting process us. Um. But you know they they
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: saw a book in me before I saw a book
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: in me, I think, um. And it took some convincing honestly,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Like I wasn't sure what the story was, and I
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: didn't want to just retread the reporting I had already done. Um.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And I didn't want to just write a music book, right.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't just want to write an unauthorized biography of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of an artist, which I think, you know, there's a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: place for those, but that's you know, the music bookshelves
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: in in in any store are sort of overrun with
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: that sort of run of the mill like cradle to
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: grave story and so you know, I I wanted to
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: do something different. Um. I wanted to do a lot
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: of reporting, That's what I what I really like to do. UM.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to track a story in real time.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So I think, uh, you know, a lot of a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: lot of what ended up becoming the book was because
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I wanted to to take what I had done in
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: the Times and then sort of spin it into something
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: that I could be along for, right. I wanted to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: be along for the ride. And and I think that's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a through line that runs, uh through a lot of
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the reporting I do at the Times. I like to
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: find people at the beginning of their career and and
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: see where it goes, whether it's you know, to the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: top of the charts, or it's sort of founders like
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I think both can be equally interesting. Now there's a
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: lot of reporting on the hip hop scene. And when
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you wrote your first articles about Luyahti and quality control,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: was there so much information in the pipeline that you
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: were up to speed or did this require reporting and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: deep reporting by yourself? You know, there's a lot of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: really good background, right like the Wrap reporting throughout the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: nineties and early two thousand's. Uh, it is invaluable. Um,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: you know, thinking of the Village Voice, thinking of double
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: XL later on the Fader. Uh. You know, ton of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: ton of websites really covering regional scenes. But there's something
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: about hip hop media. I think that's a has been
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: very ephemeral um And and this goes for the music
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: as well, Right, there are hundreds thousands of mixtapes that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: are sort of lost to time because they exist in
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this liminal space between legality and illegality. Um. And I
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: think a lot of hip hop media has has followed
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: that path. You know, given how popular as music is, um,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: how important these artists are, how interesting their their biographies
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and their stories are, there's a sort of a real
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: dearth of serious reporting on these subjects. So you could
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: piece stuff together here and there, you know, YouTube and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: invaluable resource, I think when it comes to comes to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: rap music, um and so you know, you could you
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: could sort of piece things together, um, but there wasn't
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a ton of extremely in depth, extremely rigorous journalism on
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: these subjects. Um. You know, they're a handful of books
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: as I started the research process. Um. But a lot
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: of these guys also become famous really quickly. Right, So
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: when I'm profiling Little Yati and sixteen whatever it was. Uh,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: you know he he had been just a normal college
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: kid right like a few months prior, so, you know,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: he had he had done a few quick hits here
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and there. But the ability to spend a lot of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: time with these people and put a lot of resources
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: into these stories and not just do a fifteen minute
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: phoner or you know, a twenty minute radio station interview
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: like that. That's the benefit that comes I think with
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: being somewhere like the New York Times where we're gonna,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna put serious resources, serious time and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: energy into these stories that you know, I think, especially
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: as in the culture section, in the music section, are
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: just as important as anything else the paper covers um
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: and we're going to bring that level of of rigor
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to it. I hope, Okay. I found out about Little
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Yati and Quality Control and Coach K from Steve Barnett,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: who ran Capital Records until recently. I was completely out
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of a loop. How Little Yadi start to fly on
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: your radar? When was it a story? And how did
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: you report the story? So Yadi was a Yeah, he's
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a funny one because he's a sort of anomaly even
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: within the label. Right. Yadi grew up in the suburbs
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of Atlanta. His dad, Shannon, was a famous hip hop
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: photographer in the scene, you know, photographed outcast, photographed pastor Troy. Uh,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot, a lot of these sort of
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: early nineties figures. Ja made Duprie. He was in the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: mix um and and was was known among some of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: these people, including Coach K which is a story I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: tell in the in the book and in the piece. Uh.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Coach k knew Yaddi's father, but didn't know that Yaddi
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: was his son. So Yadi came up independently on SoundCloud. Right,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: this was really the beginning of of artists bubbling up
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: on SoundCloud low fi music. Uh, totally self recorded, self released. Um,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: you know, he was he was, he was in college.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: He didn't like it. He he liked dressing colorfully. He liked,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you know, being in the mix fashion wise. He knew
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: some Instagram influencers, but he didn't really consider himself a musician.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: But he started making these these you know, sort of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: silly People were referring to them at the time as
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: bubblegum trap. Right. They sounded a bit like nursery rhymes.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of auto tune. You know, they're pretty
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the jokes and the lyrics can be a little juvenile. Um.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And he was calling himself the King of the teens, right,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So this was really bubbling up on SoundCloud, on vine.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You know. He one of his one of his songs,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: uh I believe called one Night soundtrack like an early
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: viral video around this time, and and and it was
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: still pretty novel, right for artists to take off this way.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: You know, we'd seen it. Uh Soldier Boy was many
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: years prior to that. You know, they're they're there are
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a ton of examples in between of dance crazes or
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or viral artists and whatnot. Um. But but then being
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: signed to major label and turning into big stars like
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that was pretty new, right. So and and then it's
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: funny when a kid like that who's totally of the
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: new generation links up with somebody like Coach K, right
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: who Coach K has these deep, deep deep roots in
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the Atlanta rap scene, in the Atlanta music industry. He
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: managed Pastor Troy, he managed Gucci Man, he managed Young Jeezy.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: You know, he's he's as responsible as anyone for the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: sort of explosion of trap music and mixtapes in the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: early to mid two thousand's. Um So, you have a
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: guy like that who's sort of keeping his ear to
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the streets and finds out about this weird kid with
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the you know, red braids and the and the beads
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and calling himself the King of the teens. Coach told
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: me this story when I first met him, that he
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: was you know, he he would have he would have
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: people over right, he would he would host a dinner
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: party where he would invite young people from sort of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: all walks of life around Atlanta, DJs, you know, street kids, kids,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: kids doing illegal business in the street, A and R. So,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you know, he he would just bring together this sort
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: of network and they would play each other music. And
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, he heard he heard these little
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Yadi songs and he was like his interest was peaked.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: But then he saw a picture of him right, and
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: he had such a unique style, and he was like that, like,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I need to meet that kid. Um So he started
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: he started pursuing him, and it turned out not only
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: did he go way back with Yadi's father, but he
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: also went to school at a small HBCU with his mother. Um.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And not only that, but he had a message in
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: his I think maybe his facebok, his Facebook inbox UM
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: from literal Yadi himself, who said, you know I'm going
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: to blow up. I just need your help. Um. So
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: it's these sort of like small world coincidences and overlaps
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in networks and stuff that I think make Atlanta such
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: an interance of interesting story and that I wanted to
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: tease out in the book. And I had just started
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: sort of picking them up along the way as I
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: was doing these one off newspaper stories, and then I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: realized how interconnected everything was through the years, through the generations,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: through the different sounds, there's always somebody who was involved
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: in the previous thing, um. And so I wanted to
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: really tell that story. Okay, when you talk about a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: little Yadi in the book and he ultimately has success
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: in the traditional record chart, you whip out this amazing
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: statistic of double digit millions that he made within a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: year eighteen months now, and you said it was not
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: primarily recordings, So could you talk about how much money
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that was and how he made that money for those
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: who were out of the loop. Yeah, so Yadi, I'd
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: have to look up the exact, the exact the figure,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: you might have it in front of you. Um. But
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: one of the things that was amazing about him was
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that Coach right away I think saw him as a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: as a brand. Right. They wanted him to be Will Smith.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: They wanted him to be, uh, you know, the fresh
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Prince of bel Air. I think I have it here.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: They said he made thirteen million dollars in sixteen months. Right.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: And even from the first time I met Yaddi, we
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: didn't interview at like a little Caribbean restaurant in Brooklyn
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: after going shopping. Um. You know, Coach's friend owned it,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and they shut down the place so we could sit quietly.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And you know, he was like a surly teenager. He
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: didn't really want to be talking to me at that point, um.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: But he knew that he wanted to be famous, right,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: He wanted to go viral. He didn't even know he
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: wanted to make music. That that part was a sort
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: of side journey for him. Um. But he also realized
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the importance of being a brand, right he was. He
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: was very young at that time. He didn't drink, he
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: didn't smoke, he was he was very adamant that. You know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: he wanted his career to last as long as possible.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: And and this was something Coach instilled in him, right.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I think he had that instinct already as a child
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: of the Internet. But then, you know, Coach told him
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: brands last longer than songs. He said, you know, I
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: tell every artist we signed him, I'm real with them.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: He said, you have an expiration date on you as
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: an artist. Let's turn you into a brand. Right. And
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: so even when Yaddie's debut album on Capitol sort of
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: you know, didn't have a huge first week, didn't have
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: a smash single, he had a lot of success, as
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: you know, as a guest star. He had a lot
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of success, uh in in bits and pieces, uh musically,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: But what he really got good at was he was
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in a Target commercial. He was in a Sprite commercial.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: He you know, partnered with this brand, that brand. You
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: can go to the grocery store now and find a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: little Yaddi frozen pizza. You know, he had a he
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: had a serial, he had a nail polished line. And
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: this was all happening super quickly. He's in a you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: he's in a made for made for TV movie. Uh,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: sequel of you know, famous famous hip hop film How High.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: You know, they just immediately saw that what brands wanted
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and what corporations wanted is access to cool, right, and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: what's cooler than rap music? Uh? And Yadi was a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: particularly colorful figure. Um and and they all saw this
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: vision very clearly, um and and it just took off.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And still you know, you you probably see more Yadi
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: commercials than you hear Yaddi songs. But that was all
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: by design. Okay. So if we talked about today, you know,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: insiders would think that little Yadi has faded, but there's
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: mind share in the public and there's also monetary uh
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: considerations as a student of the game, where where's little
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Yadi at? And what is his future as a career? Now?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You know, Yadi has had such an unpredictable career. He
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: did this very amazing thing, which is, you know, when
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: people were sick of his music and they, you know,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: would make fun of his album for flopping or say
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: he couldn't wrap or whatever. You know, oh he's only
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: in commercials, he really buckled down and he got really
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: good at rapping. And not only that, but he sort
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: of located what the next big rap scene was going
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: to be. Um, he found these guys in Michigan, you know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in Flint, in Detroit, that we're really doing a style
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that comes a little bit from the Bay Area, a
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: little bit from the Midwest. Um, you know, rapping really quickly,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: really comedically, really sharp, really funny guys. Um wrapping. You know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: people call it scam wrap. You know, they're they're rapping
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: off in about about you know, clothes and material games,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: but specifically through you know, fraud and financial crime and
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: and and you know it's just this this extremely witty
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: new sound and subject matter. And he really embedded with
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: these guys. He like, you know, he he would spend
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a ton of time there. He made he made an
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: album called, uh, you know, uh Michigan boat Boy, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: was you know, which was him sort of using his
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: celebrity to put on all of these regional artists from
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: a totally different place. Um. And along the way, like
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: he got really good at wrapping, and he just kept going,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, he put out some mixtapes that sort
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of re establish his credibility. He you know, he found
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: other artists and other regional scenes, uh you know, some
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles trappers. He fell in with um some New
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: York guys. He he just has proven himself to be
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: like a real chameleon um and just a really savvy operator.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: And I think like people like hanging around him and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: they like, uh seeing him sort of stretch his talents
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in new ways. Um. And I think he's had a
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: lot more longevity because of that than anybody ever imagined.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Not to mention, you know, as Discuss made a lot
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of money along the way on the corporate side of things.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So I think because he was making money from brand deals,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: he could sort of do whatever he wanted musically. Um.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: And I think that's benefited him in the long run. Okay,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: you said you're from the South. Where are you from? So?
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I grew up all around Florida. Um. I went to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: high school in Orlando, Florida, but I lived all over
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the state. My family moved around a lot. And when
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I moved to New York at eighteen, my family moved
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to Atlanta, Georgia. So my sister went to high school there.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time there as my as
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: as as my little sister was going through school and
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: as I was as I was doing college. Um, so
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I was back and forth between the North and the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: South for the last fifteen years. But the my sort
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of you know, my core adolescence was in central Florida. Okay,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So you and the publisher have this idea, how do
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you then approach the players and what do you say?
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And do they embrace you or do they are they
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: you know, weary at first? You know, I think I
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: had proven myself, um at the New York Times and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: in the stories that I was doing along the way.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, when when people see themselves reflected
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: accurately in a platform like The New York Times, especially
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: in genres that you don't think of as traditionally at
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: home in a prestige media place, you know, I was,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I was taking real care to say, this is the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: most important music in the world. You know, I am
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a relatively young person for this building at this time
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: and in this beat. Um, and I want to accurately
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: cover you know, what's going on among the youth, which
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: tend to drive you know, music and culture trends for
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: all of time. UM. So I think, you know, there
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: comes some credibility with that. Um And Yeah, I had
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: done I had done the work, and I had you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: built the built the source relationships with a lot of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: these people. Um. You know Little Baby, who's another big
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: character in the book. Uh, you know, I've I've followed
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: him on this, on this journey, and I knew that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I wanted him to be a character in the book because,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: as I said, I sort of found him at the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: right moment, right I did one of his first big
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: major interviews as part of this larger quality control feature
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I did. Uh you know, he was the sort of
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: artistic centerpiece of that, in addition to the executives who
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: were guiding his career, Coach K and P from Quality Control. UM.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And I think people remember, right when you're there at
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the beginning. UM. So every time I would see him
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: along the way, you know, I would say, I want
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to keep doing this, I want to keep seeing where
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: you're going. And I remember pretty distinctly, you know, when
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: when the book was was being floated, and you know,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I had an offer to write it. I went and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I met Coach K and P and Little Baby at
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the Spotify office where they were playing whatever his new
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: project was. Maybe. You know, he was putting on music
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: so quick at that point that I don't even remember
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: which one it was, but I think it was the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: mixtape after the one I wrote about UH, and he
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: was there playing it for them, you know, trying to
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: get promo and and I sat in with them on
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: their meeting. And then you know, after I sat down
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: UH with Coach and I said, you know, I want
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to I want to make this book. I want you
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: guys to be a big part of it. There's no
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: way to do this book if it's going to be
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: based on the present day without you. You know, not
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: only are you guys the ones breaking all the artists,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: but but you're the you know, you open the doors
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in this town, right, They're the they're the they're the biggest,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the biggest names in town at that moment and beyond
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: UM and you know, you just said let's do it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So along then I followed, you know, various artists both
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: connected to them and not along the way. Not everything
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: in the book is about quality control. There's a ton
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of tangential characters. Um. But like I said, because there
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: it is such a small town, because it is a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: music scene, right, I think that that gets overlooked a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: lot um when you're thinking about this this rap music
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that goes internationally. But it's a music scene, just like
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Seattle grunge was in the nineties, or just like you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: know Athens indie rock was, or you know Laurel Canyon
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: or any any music scene like these are overlapping groups
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of friends, collaborators, enemies, family, you know, and all of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the same creative stuff is coming out of there. So
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: one person would lead to the next, even if it
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't within the same label or within the same exact
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: music orbit. So the book really has two sides. It's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: got the music side and it's got the raw cultural side.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: So many people would say, because you depict a scene
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: where almost everybody involved has been to jail, there's a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: lot of crime, what was it like being a middle
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: class white ball boy in these situations? And did they
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: accept you? Uh? I think they did accept me. Um.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think the proof is in
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: the reporting. I think, you know, I got myself into
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: rooms by being trustworthy and being open and straightforward with
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: people about what I was doing. I said very clearly,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you know, this is culture, right, this is what's moving markets,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: what's what's moving records, this is this is what people want, right.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: What you guys are doing is important. Um, and I
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: want to preserve that for history, right. I want to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: show people where this music comes from, and the reality
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in the music, in the videos and behind the scenes
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: is that a lot of this music comes from poverty, right,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It comes from necessity, It comes from bad neighborhoods. And
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you know, there's a character by the name of Marlowe
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in the book, and you know he he came up
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: with a little baby. He did not make it to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the same heights that little baby did, but he was
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: open about where he came from and how he'd grown up.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And to me, that was as important as the music side,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: because he was the real deal, you know. He he
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: was rapping about things you hear on the radio, even
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: though they may be maybe extreme, but he was also
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: living it right. And and by being there every step
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of the way for his career, I think he saw
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that I really wanted to see his life and where
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: he came from and how he lived on a daily basis,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and and he was keen to show it to me.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: You know, we would every time I would go to Atlanta,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I would try to get in touch with him. He
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: would pick me up and we would just right around
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: all day. Right. He would just take me to to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: whatever he was doing, right, whether that was you know,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: getting a haircut at the barbershop or going to a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: block party or going to the recording studio. Um. And
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you know, we just we we built a rapport um
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and and we built a relationship of trust. And I
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: think he got it, you know what I mean, he
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: knew that it was worth it for people to pull
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: back the curtain and sort of see a layer of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: things that you don't always see. Right, even even in
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: rap music, if it comes from struggle, and it comes
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: from poverty, then it very quickly becomes about you know,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the the material gains or you know, the success or
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: what I made it out from. UM. But you know,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I think whether talking about Marlow or you're talking about
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Pe or you're talking about Little Riek, another artist in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the book, that I spent a lot of time with
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: her in his neighborhood. Uh. You know, they were they
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: were I think excited that somebody was engaged. Uh. And
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I wanted to learn right. I wanted to like be
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: able to use whatever platform I had to shine a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: light on the reality of the situation in a city
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: like Okay. You depict dangerous neighborhoods. Did you ever experience
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: danger personally? I don't. I don't think so. Um. You know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I it was very clear that I was there as
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a music reporter, right I was. I was hanging around
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: with musicians. Uh they are used to you know, this
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: is where they grew up. It's it's not dangerous to
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: them on a on a day to day basis. Uh.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes I would be in cars going really fast.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Uh you know, like young kids in fast cars like
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to test the engine. Um. You know. Sometimes I was
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: like gripping, you know, my my arm rest a little hard. Um.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think it's it was it was fun,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: you know, it was it was mostly uh lighthearted. Like
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: even if if these are neighborhoods where you know there
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: there there can be higher rates of crime or whatever.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Like people are just living their lives, right, they wake up,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: they go to work, they hang out with their friends.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: On some level, that's true, but you depict mostly single
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: parent households. You depict a lot of these people end
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: up raising themselves. A lot of people are involved in
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: street crime, a lot of people involved in drugs, and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: those illegal things usually come with violence, death, etcetera. So
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: let's talk about little baby, and you talk about someone
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: ultimately segues out of the family unit and finds their
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: own way, mostly in illegal ways to get ahead. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: then you also depicted in the book a lot of
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: people are doing so well on the street, they don't
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: want to focus on music. So what is really going
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: on in the street, in the neighborhoods that these people
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you talk to live in. I mean, that's the reality
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of the situation, right, Like these are places that of
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: America and state government, city government has forgotten. Right. These
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: are places with school systems that are decimated, with police
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: forces that are you know, antagonistic or or decimated. Uh
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you know. There there's their food deserts. You know, there's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: very limited economic opportunity, uh you know, and and and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: everybody is doing their best right to to to get by.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: And and the thing about my my subjects and the
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: people I spoke to, you know, they were honest, right,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they were They were saying, I'm trying to better my life,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: trying to better my family's life. I'm not always doing
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the right thing. Uh you know. They someone like Marlow,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: like you know, he he was very clear about when
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: he was doing wrong. Um, but you know I didn't.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I wasn't embedded with them on a twenty
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: four hour a day basis. Right. A lot of this
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: stuff was described to me. You know, there are a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: ton of footnotes in the book. You know, there are
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: documentaries about this stuff, other articles, books, whatever, you know.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm cobbling together a sort of portrait of these things. Uh.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: But look, this is this is the reality of of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: of life in America. Right. This is the guns, their
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: guns everywhere, right, there are guns and white neighborhoods. There
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: are guns and black neighborhoods. Uh. Drug dealing, you know
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: what what the drug the money that comes out of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the illegal drug market, like comes from somewhere, you know, somebody,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: somebody's benefiting. Uh. This is just this is just everyday life.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And I think that's part of the reason this music
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: is so popular. Right. Uh. At one point, you know
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: p P one of the quality control executives who also
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: comes from from this world. You know, he said to me,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: there's more people in the street than anything. Right. The
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: reason so many people want to listen to this music
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: is because most people are struggling. Right, And and even
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: if it's a overblown version of this and artistic version, right, uh,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: composite of all the good and the bad that come
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: out come from places like this. Like it's it's true,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: and it rings true to people, and it rings true
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: to their struggles, and it rings true about their their
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: aspirations and their ambitions. Um. And you know, I think
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I think I don't. I don't think the book is
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: heavy handed in terms of you know, whether this is uh,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: whether this works every time? Right, their rap is salvation,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: whether you know you can everybody's gonna become famous on
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: on some talent. Uh. You know, I think I think
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: it tries to paint an honest portrait of that. Right.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Some people make it, some people don't. Like you said,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: there's there are people who make more money illicitly than
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: they do legally. Uh and and that's a hurdle, right.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And there are characters in the book again who are
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: open about that, um, just like there are people in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the real world who are open about that. Um. So
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I I just wanted to I just want
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to pay an accurate portrait of the people I met
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: in the way they described their lives. Okay. I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's little peace Mother, a little baby's mother who grows
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: up in a very strict household, enters the military, ends
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: up having a child, seems pretty intelligent, ends up working manually,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: extremely intelligent, extremely intelligent, and yet still yeah, making minimum wage,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you know, cleaning the courthouse, working at the post office.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: You know. She she's a single mother. Uh, as you said,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a veteran, uh you know, a marine veteran, extremely bright woman,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: well traveled, spent time in Japan, you know, just an
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: inspirational figure all around, and like you said, yeah, still,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: you know, raising three children by herself on a minimum
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: wage salary. Like that's that's America for you, Okay. And
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: then there's another line from one of the people in
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: the book. They're talking about education, and the person says,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I can point all these people in the hood who
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: have a college education and work in minimum wage jobs.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Why is this the case? Man? That's that's that's above
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: my pay grade. I We'll have to ask my my
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: economics colleagues about that. But yeah, you're referring, you're referring
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to offset who uh you know, was was part of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the megas that the rap trio, one of the you know,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the first major act for quality control, one of the biggest,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest rap so the last decade. Um.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: And yeah, he said that to me, you know, in
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the basement of his mansion and the Atlanta suburbs. You know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: he was like, he had his first child when he
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: was a teenager. He was very open. He took to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: crime to try to provide for his child. And he said,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I could have I could have been on
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the straight and narrow, But who's to say that that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: would have worked for me? Right? And look, this is
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: this is racism. This is uh, you know, a lack
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of economic opportunity. You know, you can trace this back
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: through through redlining and you know, mortgages and you know,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: hiring practices of of people of color. Like again, this
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: is this is a bit beyond my purview. Um, but
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I think the idea that you know, not everybody is
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: starting from the from the same place, and not everybody
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: has the same opportunities, um, based on where they grew up,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: where they went to school, what color their skin is. Like.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I think reasonable people can disagree, but you know,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I think that that that this is not exactly a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: controversial I yeah, right, Uh, income inequality in America, Uh,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: you know, last time I checked, is uh it's out
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: of control? Okay, just drilling down one more time. Is
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it the people you talked to that to pick a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: dangerous lifestyle with drugs, shootings, gangs, etcetera. Or is everybody
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: affected in these neighborhoods, you know, a certain neighborhoods you
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: have to not in Atlanta maybe, but you have to
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: choose side. You have to be in a gang to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: be protected. Are there people just living normal lives I'm
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: talking about? Of course? Of course, of course this is
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: not monolithic, right, This is this is a small subset
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of people who felt like they had no choice right
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and got involved in some sort of a dangerous lifestyle.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: You know. Uh, Marlowe grew up in Bowing Holmes. Right,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: this is a this was an infamous project in Atlanta
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: that was that was since has since been knocked down.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: You know, his father grew up in a project in
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. There's you know, quotes from him in this book. Uh.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: He was, you know, living between households, father in and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: out of jail. You know, Uh, mother having her own issues,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: living with family members, living with friends. Uh, in a
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: dangerous place. Right, And this was the example he saw.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: You know, there's there's some there's a scene in the book. Uh.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: You can find this on YouTube. Actually a little Baby
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: did a panel right about uh, reintegrating from incarceration right
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: with alongside other businessmen, you know, guys who got out
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: of jail and became truck drivers, open their own business,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And he says, you know, if
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: if if you're around drug dealers, odds are you're going
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to think that that's what you do? You become a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: drug dealer. He didn't know any doctors, he didn't know
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: any lawyers. You know, he didn't he didn't see that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: example or stand. Um, are there people who grow up
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: in these neighborhoods and become you know, uh, doctors, lawyers,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: philosophers of course, engineers of course. Uh you know, but
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: but it's not easy. Um. And so much of this
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: rap music, I think that's the point, right, Like the
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: rap music that is coming out of Atlanta on the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: largest scale, is is about these things, right, It's about
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: this struggle. Uh. And so it is created by people
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: who have seen it up close, right, or people who
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: have been through it themselves. Um. And so of course
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a self selecting group. But what I
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: wanted to tease out was why this music. Right, trap
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, is the sort of
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: umbrella genre of it within within hip hop. Just those
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: who don't know defined trap please, So trap comes out
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: of what are referred to as trap houses. Right. Trap
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: houses are places for you know, the making and the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: selling of drugs, usually abandoned houses. Uh in in four neighborhoods. Um,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: this you know came from Gucci man, this came from
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Young Jesus, came from t I. These are people who
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: became you know, mega stars in the early two thousand's. Uh.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: You know there's early mentions of of trapped in uh
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Dungeon family songs, you know, Outcast, that sort of thing. Um.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And you know Big Boy of Outcast says like that.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: You know that's why they call it the trap because
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: you're trapped, right uh. And and this music is about
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: that lifestyle, right that that that world, and it's dramatized
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: of course, it's art, of course, um, but it's also
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: in places, and especially with certain artists, autobiographical. Um. So
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: this is this is like an extremely niche, extremely local
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: culture that became popular culture. Right. This became the biggest
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: music in the world over the last ten fift twenty years. Uh.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: And it comes from a small group of people. And
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: that's that's what the book is, okay. But almost to
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a person, not a little yahni, but almost to a person.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: All of the people in the book have been to jail.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: So not not not quite true. I would I wouldn't
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: say that true. I mean, I mean the you know,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: the book is about lawyers. The book is about people's friends,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: The book is about people's mothers. Um. You know little
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Rieck Marlowe who you know it was a self proclaimed
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: you know, drug dealer and career criminal. He never went
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: to jail. He didn't have a felony on his record
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: at all. Um. But you know, I think I don't
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: have to tell tell you the rates of incarceration of
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: black men in this country are completely disproportional to the population. Um.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: So again that's a The prison industrial complex is the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: subject of many other better, uh, more in depth books
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: than mine, which focuses more on the music. Um. But
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I would, but I wouldn't say that that everyone here
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: has been to jail. Well, let me put it a
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: different way. Many people, especially those not interested in hip
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: hop believe that these judge these rappers in a negative way.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Where to use the same word we just talked about
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: when you read one your book, they literally seem trapped,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and that you also talk about the cops in one
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: town out to get the rappers were being up one
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: being a parole going back. So you end up with
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: a sympathetic portrait. You have these people who are reasonable
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: sort of caught in their lifestyle as opposed to just
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: who are just gangsters from minute one, Yeah, look, these
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: are not these are these are not you know, as
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: as far as I can tell by on sociopaths, these
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: are people who grew up in tough circumstances with very
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: few opportunities, who then found their way out and then
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: you have a target on your back in a totally
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: different way. Right, And that's like, you know, Drew Finling
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: is a character in this book. He's a he's a
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: defense attorney in Atlanta, currently in the news, uh, you know,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: helping to defend Donald Trump in the in the Georgia
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: election probe, which is a whole other story. Um, but
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: but Drew, Drew has become very close with a lot
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: of these guys, right. He found himself becoming a lawyer
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: for Hip Hop Royalty basically through early representation of various figures,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: including including Gucci Man. And you know, he he said
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: this to me over and over again. He said, like,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I can't believe the target that's on the backs of
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: these guys, right, Like, these are guys who who made
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: their way out of what would have been a dangerous
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: criminal lifestyle, and yet they're still being harassed by police
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: for opposite right, for having fancy cars or or jewelry
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: or you know, smoking weed, which if you've walked down
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: the street in New York City or where you are
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: in l A, you know everyone's smoking weed. Uh. And
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: yet you know this is often often the pretense to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: to to lock people up. Um. So yeah, I think
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the the the weight of American oppression and
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: in all in all senses um sort of bears down
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: on these guys. And and that's why they're you know,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: they're they're resilient. Uh. And I think that's why the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: art is often so so vibrant and so visceral and
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: people can't get enough of it, right, Like that's that's
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the other thing. Like I was talking before about peace,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: saying people want to listen to this music because it
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: reflects their reality. But it's not only them, right, Like,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: rich white kids in college also want to listen to
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: this music because it's cool, because it's dangerous, because sexy. Right.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: The same thing that that uh, you know, popular music,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and especially black popular music has always been um and
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: so so there's the voyeuristic component of it just as
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: much as uh, there's the sort of autobiographical uh you
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: know component of people seeing themselves in the music. There's
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: there's people who just want a glimpse, right, people who
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: want to try on blackness or or or get a
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: taste of it or what they assume to be, you know,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a certain certain type of blackness. Um. So you know
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: that that cross generational, transracial, you know appeal the hip
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: hop has has been shown to have over the last
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: almost fifty years now is like it's it's fascinating, right,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and there should be countless books about about this. It's
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: not only it's not only Atlanta, it's not only trapped music, um.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: But but this is you know, this is the story
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of popular music going back to you know, I don't
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: know if you saw the Basil Erman's Elvis movie, Um,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: but but it's it's it's the same thing I see
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: shaking your head, you know, which this is off point,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: But Basil Rman Elvis movie, like his other movies, figure
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: has got to be more Basi Lerman than I'm I'm
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm mostly joking. But but you know what I mean, right,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: But um, the other thing that is fascinating in the book,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you know, people know a lot about the inner workings
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of the music world at this point in time, and
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: you hear these people at age five, they start making music,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: their parents are spreading the demos. In this particular case,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: you have a couple of examples where from reading the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: book it sounds like they were drug dealers, and quality
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Control seems to say, well, you have such experiences, you'd
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: make a good rapper. Is that how it went down?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: That's the story of a couple of these guys. I mean,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: you know, if you think back to to to young Jeezy,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: who you know in early discovery of of Coach K,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: he was a hustler, as as he described it, and
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: he was trying to fund other rappers and Coach met
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: him in a recording studio and said, no, no, you're
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the rapper Like you have the star power, you have
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the voice, you have the clothes, you have the cars,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: like you're you're the guy. Uh. And then he recreated
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: that right with little Baby. Little Baby was known as
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: a gambler. Right, Little Baby was selling weed and gambling.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: He would come by the studio, hang out with me,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: goes take their money after they came back from from touring,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: right with a little bit of cash in their pocket.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: And and he he would shoot dice with them, right
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and and he had such star power right like this
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: is this is a timeless story, right to go back
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to to to Elvis or one one story I tell
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: in the book, Uh was Jermaine Duprie discovering Criss Cross.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: These were not drug dealers, these were kids in the mall.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And Jermaine dupre said, they have it right, star power
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: like whatever. That ineffable quality is star power, And in
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: raps specifically, it often comes with authenticity or the appearance
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: of authenticity. Right. So when Coach k would see someone
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: like little Baby, he would say, you know, other people
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: are out here wrapping your story. You should do it right.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: You have a look, you have some money in your pocket,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: you have you know, the carriage like the swag for
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: lack of a better term, like you know, just just
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: give it a shot, right, and Baby would say no,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: like that's not for me, that's not for me. Baby.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: You know, he told me straight up, and his friends
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: told me to Like we didn't we didn't look up
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: to rappers. We thought they were corny and we thought
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: they were faking. You know, we didn't know. We didn't
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: know rappers like we knew whatever other hustlers were on
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: our block. Uh, people were more immediate to us. Um
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: and and for Baby, you know, it took it took
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: going to prison for for him to say, you know,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try this, Like there
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: there's a safer way, there's a there's a better way.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Um and ah do people try it and they're not
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: only good at it, right, But this is someone like
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: him put in the work, had enough of the sort
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: of natural skill, the natural charisma, stories to tell, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: then put in the work to get good enough that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: people wanted to hear his music. Uh. And you know
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: this is again this is like a fraction of a
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: percentage of people who can pull this off. But it's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: not no one and and every day, the barrier false right,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: like the bar of of what it takes to be
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: able to put out music. Right. I think, you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: maybe we'll get to this. But the distribution channels that
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: it used to It used to be expensive to record, right,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: It used to be expensive to print a c d
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: uh and have it put in best buys around the country.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Right now, record on your laptop, put it on YouTube
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: for free, and all of a sudden you have a
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: million dollar deal. You know, we see the story over
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and over again in rap and and outside of wrap. Um.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: But I think as these technological hurdles have fallen, uh,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: you know, there's there's more and more or opportunity for
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: somebody with a you know, a local following, a story
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: to tell and and a little bit of drive and
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: star power to be able to make it. There are
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: frequently depictions in the book of large amounts of cash.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: One person, I think it's a little baby, it's gonna
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: shoot his first video in the studio shows up with
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: thirty thousand dollars cash, so I think it might have
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: even been three hundred. Whatever it was, it was a
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: staggering stump thing. Then also there's another one where the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: money goes out the window, never recovered. How much is that?
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I think that was? That was sorry. Someone told me
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: about Shardie Low who rest in piece of Shardi Low.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: He was He was a rapper from the mid two
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: thousands again you know, big reputation as as a drug
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: dealer and a hustler. And one of his one of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: his right hand men, told me a story, yeah about
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: being on a car, you know, being in a police
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: chase and CHARTI love throwing you know, fifty grand out
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: of the window to just not be caught with the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: proceeds from whatever it is they were doing. So, I mean,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, to shoot a video in the studio,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: it's almost hard to spend three hundred thousand dollars, and
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: so I should I should cut in here and say
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: this was not a music video. This was just a
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: video for Instagram of showing people that he was rapping,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: right saying, this guy who you might follow or no,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: from the neighborhood, like we're going to start rapping. It's
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: just an in studio video. It wasn't. It wasn't a
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: music video. It was just you know, here I am
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: pressing pressing record on my phone to show you what
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: my friend is up to. Okay, then what's the three
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: hundred k about? He just had that in his pocket? Yeah,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: it's too it's to show off with. It's a you know,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: it's a trophy. You're saying he just wanted to show it.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: Did he show the three hundred k on screen? Yeah?
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yes, But did he really have the three k?
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And you know, etcetera. Look who who this cash belongs
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: to at any given moment? Uh, it's impossible to say. Um,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I think you know, part of this fast money lifestyle
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that that's depicted in the book, and that these guys
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: you know, live and rap about. You know, there's a
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: quote in the book, you know that's how Atlanta goes.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: You're up, you're down, you're up, you're down, you're up,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: you're down. Uh. And and that's a you know, that's
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: that's an endemic I think to to being in the
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: street in this way. Um. And look it's a problem, right,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: it's a problem. It's the same as a car, a necklace. Um.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: You know, there's an Instagram trend these days of rappers, uh,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: you know, bringing trying to bring a million dollars to
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: the hood, right, to bring a million dollars to where
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: they grew up with as a way to say, you know,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: this world told me I wasn't never going to be anything.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: And and look at me now, And not only look
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: at me now in Beverly Hills or you know, in
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: a midtown skyscraper, but look at me now where I
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: came from, right where where the police were throwing me
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: against the wall, and you know, telling me I'd never
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: be anything. And my teachers, you know, didn't care about me,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and you know, told me I'd grew up to be
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: in jail. And and and it's a you know, it's
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a it's a talisman, it's a trophy,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a statement to say, you know, look
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: what I became. Okay, stories are legion of all musicians
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: people the music world being ripped off. It's even worse
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: for black people. You depict the successful people having a
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: great amount of money, Is it more transparent, more equal
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: in it land in the world that you investigated, or
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: in reality a lot of money as much money as
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: they have, a lot of it's going somewhere else. Look,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: what is a record label if not somebody reaching into
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: your pocket to have a piece of of what you're
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: what your talent rot you know, I think the music
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: business is unfair, right, like these contracts. Look, maybe it's
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: not unfair. Maybe the labels put in the research and development,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: maybe they do the marketing and they take on all
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: the risk, like, uh, whatever it is. But traditionally we
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: have seen, you know, the people who have been brave
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: enough to talk about what their contracts are, like, what
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: their royalty rates are, what their advances. You know, I
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: talk about for people who don't know. I think anybody
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: listening to your podcast knows this. But but advances are
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: are not free money, right, They're they're they're recupable, right.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't see another dollar until you earn
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: back that money that they advanced to you. It's credit. Um.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: So look, I think that that's happening in this world
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: as much, if not more than it's happening everywhere else.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: These not only not only are these artists young, but
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: they're really you know, these are they're rappers being signed
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: for millions of dollars that are fifteen years old. You know.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: There's a chapter about about A and R people in
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Atlanta in the book where you know, uh Ray Daniels.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: This this This executive in Atlanta says, I just got
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: back from you know, giving giving a fifteen year old
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: a million dollars Like that's and he's like, that's crazy, right,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: like on its face, like that's a it's a crazy proposition. Um.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: But but that artists are earned back that money, right,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: And there's managers to pay, there's lawyers to pay, there's
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: early investors, right. I talk about the sort of the
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: culture of you know, uh, street guys putting money behind
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: an emerging artist, whether it's to record a video or
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: get the money or excuse me, to get the song
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: played at the strip club or whatever it is. You know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: everybody wants their piece. Um. And and that's the same
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: I think across genres. Um. This just happens to be
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the most lucrative and the most popular genre right now,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: so the amounts are higher. Um. You know, we saw
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: this sort of gold rush of of deals around the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: streaming era as the record companies you know, rebounded after
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the dark times of of the post napster years. Um.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: So you know, this is not primarily a book about
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: recording contracts, So I didn't get two into the nitty
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: gritty there um, and I think a lot of these
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: guys are doing well, but just as many of them are,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: you know, signing bad deal, signing horrible deals. Have have
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: have no experience, no guidance. Uh. And and when a
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: label comes to you and says, you know, here's grand
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: for the rights to your smash viral single on TikTok,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and you know your mom needs to pay the rent
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and you know you have no career prospects at the moment,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: like if you're going to sign you know, so that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: that's where the that's where the uh, the exploitation, I
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: think really comes in here. Now they talk about income.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: We talked about little Yahdi, but he had his own
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: look using my air Quotes brand. But in the traditional
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: mainstream music business, which is now becoming you know, this
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: is the mainstream business. What I'm trying to say is
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: you have the record contract, if you have an endorsement deal,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: it's publicized sponsorship product. Your grosses are in poll star.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: You talk about these guys going on the road, maybe
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: dropping in multiple gigs a night, just making a two
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: track appearance, like it's a whole another subculture that's not reported.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: So what can you tell us about that? Look, I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: can't speak to how this stuff is reported on taxes, right,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: and how this income is is logged. Um. Again, that's
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: beyond my pay grade. I'm not an accountant. Um. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: but look, yeah, this is there's a cash business here, right,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: whether it's like you said features right, a rapper pay
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is another rapper ten grand, twenty grand, fifty grand, a
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: hundred grand to to get on the track with them
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: for extra attention. You know, you make a club appearance.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: You know you you hear a lot of rappers these days. Um.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: You know, getting getting a little wonky with economics talking
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: about the back end, right, So you get a get
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: a certain a certain amount of the of the payment
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to show up and wrap two songs at a club
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: in the V I P. Section. Uh, you know up
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: front when you sign and then you go, and then
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: as you're walking out they hand you the rest in
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: cash and that's the back end, right. Um. So yeah,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: I think just like this culture comes from mix tapes, right,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: this this this world this is and I think this
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: is why. One of the reasons why rap music was
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: so quick to adapt to streaming, right is it was
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: you too moving quickly. It was used to being a
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: volume business. It was used to being about market share, right,
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: And these were homemade recordings, tapes, c d s uh
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: sold out of the trunks of cars, so that flea markets,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: at barber shops, you know, covers printed on a ink jet.
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: You know, beats taken from online and not cleared, um
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: cash changing hands like this is ah, these these are
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: these are underground economists uh and and there's a ton
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: of them that overlap I think uh in in in
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: wraps specifically. So yeah, you know, whole star is one thing,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: but you know, good luck to good luck to them
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and and the Forbes list to really get to the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: bottom of how a Southern rapper makes money on the
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: club circuit. Okay, another thing you talk about is how
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: really it's not gag oriented. And then a game comes,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: I believe from Detroit and really permeates Atlanta and Florida
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: until it's ultimately busted. And you're talking about today the
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: flourishing of strip clubs. To what degree is at a
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: side show? To what degree does that have an effect
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: on the flourishing of rap in Atlanta? So you're you're
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: referring to be a meth black mafia family. This is
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: you know, this is a a well known story. At
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: this point, I don't I don't spend too much time
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: on it. Um. You know, there's a there's a great
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: book about BMF, there's television series about BMF. Countless documentary
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: is Amelian YouTube videos. Um, but this is yeah, this
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: is street lore right of a big meache coming down
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: to Atlanta after building his his cocaine syndicate uh out
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: of Detroit with his brother. The two brothers run run
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: the business together. One of them moves to Atlanta and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: he decides he wants to get into wrap right. And
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: they they have an artist Blue Da Vinci, who never
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: comes in anything. But they also have a sort of
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: off paper alliance with young Jeezy who really really makes
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the most out of out of this association, um and
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: becomes a big star even though he wasn't technically signed
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: to their label. But you know, they have a they
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: have a magazine. As you said, like you know, according
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: to everybody, the clubs were flushed with money. The nightlife
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: was crazy. Uh you know this this was It's the
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: same thing you saw in Miami, right, cocaine cowboys. You
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: know you even going back to prohibition, right, this is
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: what Boardock Empire is about, which is you know, money
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: trickles down right from from illegal enterprise when it hits
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: a certain level and and everybody wins, right the restaurants,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the clubs, the recording studios, the you know, uh, the
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: luxury stores at the mall. Um. So yeah, when you're
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: talking about what you're talking about Atlanta. You know, the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the first wave that I that I talked about in
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the book. You know, that's that's Jermaine
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: dupri that's Outcasts, that's the Face Records ELI read baby Face,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: you know TLC not really not really street wrap uh
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: as as as we know it now. Um. But but
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: when when trap takes over right in the in the
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: late nineties, early two thousand's, a lot of that comes
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: from B m F and the lifestyle that they were,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: you know, propagating around the clubs, around the venues um
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: and people were either affiliated, uh you know, tangential. They
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: wanted to keep up, they wanted to be in the mix.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: You know. I think so that that I think is
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: is extremely influential, um, both economically, but also culturally and
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and stylistically. This idea of of you know, glits and
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: flash and Glamour. Um. You know people wrap about it
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: to this day, right, Big meatch having tigers at his
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: birthday party. Um. And I spoke for the book to
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: to this party planner, Hannah Kang, who's still the biggest
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: best you know, black celebrity party planner. And she she's
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: she's a Korean woman. But but she she says in
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: the book, you know, I've never worked for a white
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: person in my whole career in Atlanta, which I which
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: I just which I loved, and I think really gives you,
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: you know, a portrait of this place as as Black Mecca,
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: black Hollywood, whatever you want to call it. Um. But
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: but yeah, you know, the BMF legend just sort of
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: looms really large to this day. You know everybody I
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: talked to her like, oh, it'll never it'll never be
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: like that again. Um. And and you know, whether that's
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: whether whether that's completely accurate or not, Like, that's that's
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: how that's that's how myths build and and and carry on. Right. Okay,
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: you depict the strip clubs, you say, when the the
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: the Mafia family ultimately gets taken down, strip clubs get
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: taken down, but still you know they're cutting track they'll
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: go to the strip club to demo it. Then you
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: have another guy at the strip club talking about the
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: right way to make it rain to this day, what
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: is the status of strip clubs and how much influence
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: do they have visa VI the music and the culture.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: So this is again something that that's been written about
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: many times over the years. I didn't want to linger
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: on it too much in the book because I felt
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: like it's pretty well established. My my close friend and
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: colleague John Carmonica did a great story about Atlantic strip
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: clubs as a as a proving gun for records. Another
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: one of my colleagues, Richard Fossett, did one uh when
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: when when he was at the l A times I believe, Um,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: but but this has happened for decades at this point,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: which is uh, you know, this is like I said,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: this is a proving ground, right, This is this is
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: party music often right, This is music for dancing to.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: This is music for that you know, makes people want
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: to spend money. Um, and it's its own economy, Like
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the illicit economies. You know. You
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: you go, you slip the DJ a little money, he
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: plays your track. If the dancers like it, they dance
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: better to the track. That then makes customers spend more
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: money on them. Right, and then they want to hear
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: your song again, so they requested again. Uh. And and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: you know it's it's this whole it's a whole economy.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: I I spent a night um at a club called Follies,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: which no longer exists, uh, with with this guy DJ John. Uh.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: And this didn't make the book. This could be its
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: own book. Honestly. DJ John Uh, amazing guy, big white guy,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: started djaying and strip clubs. You know when they were
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: not allowed to play rap music, right, he said. When
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: he started at Folly's, it was it was a rock bar. Right,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: it was like a bon Jovi motley crew, you know,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: the you know, airport workers would go there and and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: rap was banned. Right. DJ John worked in Follies every
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: week for more than twenty years. Right. I wanted to
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: call him the cal Ripken Jr. Of Atlanta strip clubs
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: because and and he guts to see the whole thing change. Right.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: By the time I spent a night with him at Folly's,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: he was managing a rapper himself. He had no interest
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: in in rap music when he started there, but he
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: would he would take money to play whatever songs people
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: wanted to hear. Usually that means their own song, but
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: it could just be a request, right if if Bob,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: if you rolled in and and you wanted to hear
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: uh you know, uh shake your tail feather by Nelly,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: you could you could send John uh money on PayPal
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and he'll play it right then and there. Um. So
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: people do it as a as a promotional tactic because
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: I think you know, one of the things that makes
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Atlanta so special, uh is that there really is a
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: local scene and things break on the ground before they
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: break nationally. Right. And that's something that's like an age
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: old tale in the music industry, but has has been upended.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Right now. You can be from Singapore and you can
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: drop a song it sounds like Atlanta rap on YouTube
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: and maybe you get big before anybody even knows who
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you are, right, your song goes viral on TikTok or
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: whatever you know. Uh. And yet these artists and these
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: labels in Atlanta, like they still see the value in
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: building an audience, right, building a groundswell of people, because
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: because that's how you build careers, right instead of one
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: off hits, uh, you you you you get a loyal
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: fan base. And and this happens in nightlife, right and
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: so whether it's whether it's a strip club or a
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: club club or somewhere in between. You know, they want
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: their music to work there first because they feel like
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: once they have the neighborhood behind them and then they
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: have the city behind them, that that's going to serve
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: them well when they break nationally. Okay, on the other
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: side of the fens from the artists, you talk about
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: quality control, talk about Coach K and you talk about
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: p and you talk about where they came from. What
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: is so special about them that they can engender success.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think they're really really, really really bright
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: business minds right first and foremost, I think they also
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: make a great pair, a really complementary pair, right Um.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Coach you know, Coach grew up in in Indianapolis. Uh.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: He he came to Atlanta, you know, as a young man,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: drawn in by Freaknik, which is the sort of big
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: black college spring break thing that really you know, put
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: put put Atlanta nightlife on the map. Uh in the
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: early nineties. Uh. And he spent a lot of time,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: as I've mentioned, sort of you know, working artists after
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: artists after artist as a manager, building these relationships with radio,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: with their labels, with other artists, with producers, you know,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: just years, decades right of groundwork, and you know, grew
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: into a godfather of of the scene. Right. Everybody knows him.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Everybody respects him, They respects a year, they respect the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: way he does business. Um, and and piece of pieas different. Right,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: he didn't start as a musician. He started in the
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: streets like he'll he'll, he'll tell you that, you know.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: And and he's one of these guys who saw music
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: as a way out right. He wanted to invest the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: money he'd made. He had some real estate, he bought
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: a studio. He tried to make it work. He wasn't
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: sure what to do. I wasn't finding success. Realized you
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: know that as as much money as you can make
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: in music and rap music, you can lose it just
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: as quickly. Right, total gamble um. But when he partnered
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: with Coach and they discovered megas, they just both bring
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: something different at the table, right. Coach coaches plugged, coaches
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: plugged in in the boardrooms and the radio stations. And
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and he's a talent scout, right, He knows. He knows
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: what's going on in in these neighborhoods. He he he
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: meets young kids, artists, people who you know, show him
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: what's happening. And he's a motivator. Right. I saw him
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: do it over and over again. I saw him do
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it with a little baby firsthand. I saw him do
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: it with Marlowe firsthand. He's the one who can say
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: I've been where you've been, right, I've seen what you've seen.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: I've gone through these things, and I promise you you
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: listen to me and you follow what I tell you.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: Not only are we going to make a lot of money,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: not only are you going to be able to help
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: your family, but you're going to be safer. Right. And
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: he's he's really taking it upon himself, I think too.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: You know uh mentor these artists right, and what they
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: talk about is is artist development, Right, This is something
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: that is nearly extinct in the record business. And why
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: we see you know, one hit wonder uh every day
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: right on TikTok or you know a half a hit wonder,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: like sometimes they're not even making the billboard chart. Um.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: And and one funny story, I think it didn't didn't
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: make the book might be in a Times article. Um,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: but they had to they have to stop themselves right
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: from going after some of these viral things. There was
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: a moment when I first started reporting on these guys
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: when I think he said, you know, uh, there was
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: the girl known as the catch me outside girl, right,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: she became she became bad baby. She went viral on
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: a Dr Phil clip, and they were like, maybe you know,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: she started rapping, because you know, what do you what
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: do you what do you do after you have a
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: viral moment, Maybe maybe you start you start rapping. And
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I think I think it was p one
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: of them was like, maybe we should go after her,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: like maybe we should do this and and and coach
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: said like no, like that's not what we do. Like,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: let's keep our eye on the ball, right. What we
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: do is we build artists, we build careers, we build brands. Um.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: And yeah, they're with these guys. They're with these guys
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: every day right there, constantly sending new music back and forth,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: constantly pushing them do more shows, record more, another mixtape,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: another video. And yeah, it's just a it's a it's
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a unit a yang duo um that you know everybody
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: on the label responds to either. You know, they may
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: be closer with one, they may be closer with the other,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: but they respect both of them. And I think, you know,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: at this point, they've turned out so many artists who
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: again don't have a hit song, but have real careers. Uh,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: you know, I put them up there with you know,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: uh no limit or cash money or a G unit whatever,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever. These rap crews and labels over the
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: last twenty years who have been able to make more
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: than one star, like to do it once as a miracle,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: right to do it five times. It's like it's a
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a system. Now. Another thing you depict
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: in the book that is different from traditional conception of
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the music business is the recording. Now, traditional music business,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you'll have pre production to work on
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: the song, and I said, well, we have ten songs
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: when we record them, you know. But here people are
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: running around with hard drives and you know, depict one thing,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: Oh there's a famous studio in New York. Well let's
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we got an hour free, let's go record.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: So you know, they're constantly recording, and a great percentage
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: of the stuff never even comes out right so yeah,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: it's how much do these people alter. Let's say you're wanting,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: you know, one of these guys in quality control, how
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: much will you record before they release something? Dozens, hundreds,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: thousands of songs, probably on hard drives. Right, This is
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a volume business. It's you know, they're
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: putting out a ton of music. Right if you look
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: at look at Little Babies discography, the first whatever, it's
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: been five years of his career, right, stack that up
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: against you know, of course they're there are rock bands
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: that that put out a ton of music whatever I
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: guided by voices or you know, some something like that. Sure,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: but traditionally a major label chart topping artists, right, what
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: they're going to put out twelve to fifteen songs every
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: eighteen months? Will Baby put out five mixtapes in ten months? Right,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: each of them probably between fifteen and twenty tracks. Um,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: this is what the audience wants, right, they're responding to
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: they're responding to the audience. They're there, they're churning at
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: this rate. And and it's an artistic choice as well, right,
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Like the guys that they are emulating, the guys who
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: who started this, uh, this practice of recording in this
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: way improvisationally, uh, putting a ton of music out. This
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: is this Gucci Man, this is Little Wayne, Uh, this
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: is young Thug. These guys are all We're putting out many,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: many mixtapes a year. Guci Man was putting out three
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: mix tapes on the same day at one point, at
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: the peak of his career. Um. And there's just there's
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: a lack of preciousness um about the art. Um. But
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: I think the important thing to realize is, like that
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily make it worse, you know what I mean? Like,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: I think the the the the audience, like the it
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: showed like people people care about this music as much
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: as you might care about a Beatles song, right that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: they spent six months working on, Right, we see it
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and like they get back music video. But but that
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: doesn't that's not like a one isn't necessarily better than
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: the other, right, And I think that that's you know,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: there's a there's this idea that it's that it's disposable, um.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: But it's only as disposable as as as the audience
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: wants it to be. Right, Like I I think I
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: think we'll be playing bad em bougie at weddings in
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: in fifty years, right, Um, and maybe you know it
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: was made in one take in offset spacemen, but uh,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's it's incredible to watch also,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: just the the way they sort of start and stop
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: without writing anything down, uh, and sort of creating these
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: these melodies, these flows, these rhymes, uh, these jokes, these
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: stories in real time. So I feel truly, truly blessed
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: to have been able to to to see it in
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: person as much as I have. Okay, so you have
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: all these rappers, where's all the where all the beats
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: or of the music coming from? You know, That's something
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: I wish I got into more in the book. Right,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: there's a whole other book to be written about Atlanta producers. Um.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: But they're working at a similar pace, right. You have
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: you know, guys like Metro booming, Um, guys like Murder Beats,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: Guys like Zethoven. You know, a classically trained pianists who
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: who played in church with his parents. He's you know,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: instrumental to the careers of future Gucci Man, Negosh and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: and and they're working similarly, right, They're making hundreds and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: hundreds of beats, dozens of beats maybe you know, thousands
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: of beats over the course of their career, and and
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: they're spreading them around their network right there. File sharing
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: so easy, drop box, you know. I remember being in
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: the studio with Marlowe who's trying to find something that
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: inspired him. He just pulled up a Gmail, right. I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: guess you know you post looking for beats posted Gmail
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: address on your Instagram story. Dozens of kids will hit
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: you, you you know, with with a beat within five ten minutes,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: just clicking around attachments, trying to find something that inspires him,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: trying to find something that that catches the year. Um.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: There are guys who make very bespoke versions of this right, Um,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: people who will work months on the same beat, you know,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: get getting the high hat just right, getting the base
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: just right. And then there are people who will just
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, make three beats in an hour. Uh, and
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: there's no telling which one is gonna become the basis
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: for a hit song. Right, So it's like it's a
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: grab bag. Yeah. Like I said, you know, the producers
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: were not as big of a role in this book.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: I spoke, I spoke to a lot of them, and
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot of them work. Um, but they
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: just didn't fit as much with the narrative. But you know,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: i'd gladly, gladly read that book to you know, I
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: I get into some of this um in the video
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: series I do for The Times Diary of Song, which
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: is about about the making of tracks, and you know
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: how how stuff is created and then it's made marketed
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: and it goes viral sort of uh in this era. Um.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: But you know you think of something like Old Town Road,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: which funnily enough was know was recorded in an Atlanta
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: studio um by Little nos X, but the beat came
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: from a Dutch teenager who he never met before, who
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: sampled the nine Inch Nails song that he'd never heard
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: before that he pulled off YouTube you know, um so
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and and then sold or least even for what like
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: fifty seventy five bucks. Um. You know, they are endless
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: sites for free beats, for cheap beats, for you know,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: beats you can lease for a month, see if it
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: takes off six months. Um. And you know, the business
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: of the stuff gets gets super naughty when it comes
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: to to clearing and samples and rights holders and publishing
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: and all of that. Like I don't know, you know,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I don't envy the people behind the scenes who have
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: to clear all this music. Um, but it's a it's
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: an extremely fascinating and fast paced way to to create. Now,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: you make the point you referenced earlier that these guys
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta a great degree are recording differently from people
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: previous in rap in that they're literally doing it. Not
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: sometimes we're by we're but usually phrase by phrase. They're
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: not starting up with a whole thing. Can you amplify
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: that a little bit? Yeah? Correct? So so, I mean
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: jay Z famously, you know, says he never writes his
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: lyrics down, right. But but the amazing thing about jay Z,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: according to you know, people have seen it. I've never
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: I've never watched jay Z record other than in you know,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: The Fades of Black documentary and in various YouTube videos.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: But he's wrapping whole verses at a time, right, things
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: that he comes up with in his head and remembers.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: Um And and I think little Wayne uh Is is
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: the same way. Um. He another one I think, having
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: learned from jay Z, you know, it's a point of pride,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: right that he never wrote down his lyrics. But you
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: think of you know, some people might think of rap
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: as you know, a guy with a with a black
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: and white journal pad right scribbling down stands as like
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: they're a poem, and then wrapping them into a microphone.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: But the Atlanta style, especially over the last ten years,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: um following the footsteps of those guys that I named,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: is extremely improvisational, and it happens directly into the microphone, right.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you know, some little baby said. You know, every
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: now and then I'll get hired to do a feature
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: for a song or whatever. I'll have an idea, I'll
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: write something down, but almost always they're just playing the
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: beat on loop and wrapping their ideas directly into the mic, right.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: So they'll they'll often start with like a gibberish sort
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: of thing, which I've seen pop top liners do as well, uh,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: sort of syllabic melodic uh, you know, get a rhythm
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: down with just a just a nonsense phrase, and then
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: they start to fill in words, and then they start
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: to fill in phrases, and they start to fill in lines,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: and they'll just go sort of like you know, piece
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: by piece by piece, um. And you know I described
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: I described me goes doing this in the book and
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: their their relationship with their engineer, right, has to be
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: like basically basically telepathic. Right, the engineer knows when they
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: want to go back, uh and do something, over keep something,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: you know, move on to the next thing, um and it.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: And it's the sort of this lego block process, whether
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: they're just building and building and building um and then
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have sixteen bars and and
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: and you move on to the next one. Now, historically
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: popular music has not been about the lyrics. The lyrics
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: are secondary and the success of these songs, how much
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: of it is the beat? How much of it is
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: the lyrics in terms of the appeal? I think it
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: really depends. I think you know, Southern rap gets a
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: reputation for being non lyrical. You know, there's the term
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: mumble rap that was in vogue a few years ago,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: talking about people like Yaddi and future um and me
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: goes um. You know, I think that's sort of in
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: line with biases against Southern people, and especially southern black
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: people throughout history, right, this idea that you know, they
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: have a country accent, therefore they're not as bright as
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: you know, someone like Naz or whatever, who's a you know,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: northern storyteller. Um. But I mean to me, like, most
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: of these guys are lyrical geniuses, right, and that's you know,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: from Gucci Man Too Young Thug to two Little Baby.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Like I think if you you see the way they
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: play with language, you see the way they they they
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: describe an image, right, there's often economy in the writing. Um,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: you know, the way they're putting phrases together, the way
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: they're birthing new slang. You know, someone like Future I
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: think is like completely unparalleled when it comes to like
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: lingo and just the way he's inserting new idioms into
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: popular culture, right, Like this is a skill. This is
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: not like, this is not anything to be sneered at. Um.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: And I think you know, people get turned off by
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the auto tune, but if you listen to even someone
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: like Little Baby, I think it's just a really sneakily lyrical,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: intricate rapper. Um. You know, his his his phrasing, his timing.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: He's so wordy. You know, you go see him in
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: concert and in the and the breath control is amazing.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: He's just you know, these these sort of run on versus.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: Even even the choruses are often extremely wordy. Um. And yeah,
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: there's just there's so many different flavors of this um,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: even within Atlanta, even within guys who might sound the
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: same uh at at first at first glance. But you know,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: of course the beat is important, right, This is a
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: this is like a music that is made to be
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: felt often. You know, you you feel that you feel
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: the baseline, you know, the melody, the high hats, um,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: the cadences, the patterns. Like you know, I think it
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be as popular internationally uh as it is without
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff. Um. You know they people
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: in other markets might not even be following the slang
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: in the lyrics. UM. But I think you you get
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: out of it what you put into it. Like I
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: think if you invest in these guys, you see sort
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: of how they're how they're building uh stories, characters, narratives,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: not only within a song, but sort of over time
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: on mix tapes, uh, you know, on albums, on guest
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: versus you piecing together um, a story, a mythology and
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: narrative sort of you know, internal um world right there.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: You know characters that recur um. You know, street names, geography,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: it's a you know, it's it's like a it's a
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: folk tradition. Um. I think in a lot of ways.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Now you recite essentially thirty years worth of history in
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the book, and from those who are not deep in
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: the scene, it appears that a lot of these acts
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: had a commercial and social peak and then it's past.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: Now the music business, to a great degree, that's the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: way it's run, but since to a degree it's an
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: underground economy, some of it's not monetized. Are these people
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: peak peeking and disappearing or are they being kept alive
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: in this subculture and able to continue to monetize their
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: quote again, Brands, I think you're seeing a lot more
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: longevity these days, right, I think music industry in general,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: um but in in raps specifically, there wasn't often the
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: super long tale for these things, right you think of
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: you think of the the the early New York rappers, Right,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: they didn't rap into their forties or even into their thirdies.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: You know, they were not celebrities in the same way
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: that that you see Now you have guys who you know,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: put out their their best album twenty years ago who
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: are still on the blogs and in the clubs and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: on TV every day. Um So, I think there is
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: a there's a longer shelf life for these people, for
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: these artists, especially as celebrities. UM. But I think rap
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: music is still very much a young man's game, right.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: There's always somebody fresher, There's always somebody doing something slightly different,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: something new. There's always somebody you know, SEXI or more dangerous,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: more experimental. Um and and these cycles go really quickly, right,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: I think even you know, you look at quality controls
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: existed since uh you know when when when Mega started
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: to blow up, and and and then you look at
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: someone like Little Baby who's now in the A list himself,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: and they have many many rappers that have come after
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: that that are you know, on their way up, like
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the churn, even within one label, uh, and you can
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: see sort of you know who who's peaking at any
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: given moment or or or who's coming from behind. Um.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: You know, I think the audiences are always in search
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: of the next thing. Um But I think the idea,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: right is that at a at a label like this,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: and if if if you put out enough good work,
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: even if it's in a quick period of time, and
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: you sort of build your quote unquote brand, and you
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: establish your relationships and your fan base, you can continue
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: to tour. You can continue to get endorsements, you can
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: continue to you know, be on television and show up
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: at a word shows. You know. Luckily, I think for
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of these rappers, the sort of mainstream mono
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: culture uh in American popular culture is still pretty slow. Right,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: So even if you're considered a little bit uh passe
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: a or you know, no longer the hot new thing
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: and wrap, you're still going to be on network television. Okay,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: So music in general in this sort of grows out
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: of what you're saying is overwhelming. You know, the hits
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: and the Spotify top fifty never meant less used to
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: have a hit in the old days, everybody knew it
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: something you mean number one people haven't even heard of
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: the act. So if one has not been following this
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: music and an uneducated it just looks overwhelming. First their SoundCloud.
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: There are mixed tapes continuing to come out, never mind
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: the history. There's a lot of people in the game.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: Does one follow it without making it a full time job?
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: I think this goes for any culture, right that you can.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: You can say the same thing about TV. Right, I
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: might be watching a show that I think is is
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: the best thing in the world on one streaming service
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: and you don't even have a log in for that one, right,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: and you have no idea what I'm talking about. We
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: think of, you know, I think you've written about this
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: in the newsletter. You think of something like the bear, right,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: The bear in my world was a huge hit right
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: among people in the media in you know, relatively young
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: something like industry or the bear is like, that's what
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: people are watching, that's what people are talking about. If
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: I go home and see my parents, they don't know
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: what the bear is, you know, or or maybe they
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: clicked on it on Hulu and they accidentally found it.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: They didn't know it was trendy. Right, Um, Look, I
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: think the monoculture that I just referenced, like it barely
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: exists anymore. Right with you? On that, I would say
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: it doesn't exist at all. But okay, Yeah, Like, you know,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: they're a handful of things that breakthrough, right, Rihanna is
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: going to play the super Bowl, Like that's a monoculture event,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: right Arguably, you know, maybe the Beatles documentary that Peter
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: Jackson Beatles tument. I feel like that that broke through
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: as much as I'd seen anything breakthrough in years right. Um,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: going back to two me goes, I think that Embouge
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: was a number one song in the world. Did my
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: grandparents know it? Probably not. I think it had a
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: huge amount of permeation into into the mainstream. Um. And yet,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: like you're saying, and was that was five years ago,
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: it's only gotten worse. Um. I think people choose their spots, right,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: they know what they're interested in, they know what Spotify
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: serves them. They either listen to the radio or they don't.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: You know. I think look radio, like some of this
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: music trickles up onto the radio usually after finding success
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: on streaming. UM, sticks around for a long time, right.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: We see like the charts are pretty stagnant, especially the
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: airplay charts. UM. But someone like Little Baby, He's found
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: a ton of success on you know, what's referred to
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: as urban radio, like many, many, many number one songs there,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: which means, you know, people driving home from work, they
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: know the sound of his voice, even if they don't
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: know his biography. UM. But I think that there remains
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: this question of like superstars, right, is there a next
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: generation of superstar? Who is who is the next superstar?
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm looking at a little Baby's career.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Now he has an album coming out right ahead of
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: this book, and in mid October, he's you know, he's
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: the he's in the theme song for the World Cup.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: Is he's he has a Budweiser sponsorship, right, It doesn't.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: It doesn't get much bigger than that. And yet if
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: you ask you the average person on the street, depending
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: on their age and where they're from in Times Square,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: I still don't know if they if if they know
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: who he is? Right Like, it's a it's a dice
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: roll um. But I think, you know, if you want
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: to pay attention, you can just pick a city, pick
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: a YouTube account, pick a pick one artist, listen to
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: the artist featured on their song. You know, I think
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: there's there's a million different paths to follow, um, and
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: you can get a decent picture of of where hip
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: hop is at, where regional rap is at. But I
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: agree in terms of you know, the what what what we?
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: What I grew up on and certainly what you grew
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: up on. That idea of like a discreete a list
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: of artists, Uh, that doesn't exist anymore. You know, I've
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: I've I've written about someone like NBA Young Boy who
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest trappers in the world. You know,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: more YouTube streams than Taylor Swift, you know, and yet
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: no radio play, zero television appearances. Nobody under the age
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: of thirty knows who he is, and certainly not white people.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: Um So, you know, I think, I think it's a
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: different world, but I think that applies across all media. Okay,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: but let's go back to your TV analogy. You're talking
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: about hipster's media people knowing the bear. I hear from
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of people regularly, and there are not many
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: students of the game of streaming television. So they'll have
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: watched the same shows even though got horrific reviews. They'll
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: watched the offer, They'll watched ted Lasso, etcetera. You start
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: talking about Borgan, even one of the legendary and foreign shows,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: they have no idea what you're talking about. Sororitive organ obsessive. Right,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: that's another that's another podcast. But staying with the concept
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: of music, theoretically you could pay attention to the Spotify
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: top fifty. That could be your thing. And even narrower
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: than that is terrestrial radio. At the other end of it.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: In the book, there's multiple people creating a plethora of
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: product outside it looks like a lot of people are
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: in that deep is the truth that there are a
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: lot of people and this is just their passion or
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: really there's a limited number of people who are very
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: passionate about it. That's a great question, you know, I
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: think because this is a local scene, right that that
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: I'm writing about, Like there's a way to be famous
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta specifically, where you're only famous in your city,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: right I can. And there are there a handful of
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: artists at any given moment who if you went to
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: the mall there down on the West End, like that's
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: a celebrity, you know what I mean, that's a that's
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: a that's a hero that's getting played out of cars
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: in the parking lot. And yet there's no even in
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: the Spotify era, even in the YouTube ere, there's no
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: sort of permeation outward. Uh. And I think I think
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: that exists in in most American cities. I think like
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: there are still subcultures there, especially in music. There are
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: still local scenes. There are you know, hometown heroes. Um.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that draws me so
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: much to to wrap. I don't know, you know, if
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: the same thing happens in rock, right, I don't know
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: really definitely there. I I agree with you. I think
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: you know, as much as we used to say, like
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: you could find a punk scene, you know, in any
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: any metropolitan area or even a small town. I think
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: they're fewer and further between now. But I think rap
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: works in that local and I think you do a
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: very good job of depicting that. Let's talk about you specifically.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: This year you were beat. You wrote a book about Atlanta.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: But Atlanta is not the only epicenter of hip hop,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: if it might be the most prominent at this point,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: To what degree do you listen to the mix tapes
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: of hip hop artists in New York l A never mind? Before?
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: Do you keep up on all these people or go on?
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: I keep up less than I used to write. I'm
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: I'm getting I'm getting old, right, this was I'm I
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: grew up file sharing, right. I grew up on the Internet.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I was downloading music on Napster when I was you know,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: ten eleven years old. I'm the problem, you know. But
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: I also was an obsessive fan. I was discovering music
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: on message boards. I was, you know, on every social
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: network that that that that was growing. Um And and
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: I prided myself on keeping up right on knowing what
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: was hot, on knowing what was going to be big
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: before it was big. And that's you know, part of
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: the reason I end up getting the job that I
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: did is because I was honing those skills as a
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: as a fan first, um and then you know, you
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: learned about the industry, you read, you you develop an
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: ear um and that's really helped me on my beat.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: But look, I mean I had a book to write,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: you know, I I have I have a dog, I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: have a life like I'm not spending as much time
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: sort of um trawling the internet for obscure regional artists
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: as I used to. But I think I keep up
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: more than people. Okay, let me ask the question a
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: different way. Prior to the Internet, anybody in the music
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: business knew every record on the chart. We may not
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: have literally heard it, but they know about it. Whatever
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: anybody today says, they especially the album start. Anybody who
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: says they know every album, they're just lying. Nobody does.
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: There's always stuff there you don't know. John Parrellis knows. Well,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: we'll leave it to that, but not only don't debate
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: this issue right now, I continue. So when I look
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: at hip hop, is it the same thing that really
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: they're different people in different things. Or is there a cadre,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: whether small or large, who literally have their finger on
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: the pulse in the nation about hip hop? Oh yeah, man,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: I listen to all the mixtapes. Does that even exist? Look?
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: There are a few people you know that I could
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: point to online who are younger and better than me,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: who I read, who I feel like, you know, they
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: they really really really, you know, have their eye on things. Um.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: You know Alphonse, that Pitchfork you know, writes a weekly
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: rap column. I'm continually continually blown away by his ability
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: to keep up right, his ability to to find these
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: these scenes, whether it's you know, Jersey Club or you
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: know these Flint guys or you know San Jose and
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: go down that rabbit hole. You know, there's wrap websites,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: you know, something like Passion of the Weiss where you
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: know there's a new young, first time freelancer every week
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: who's uncovering, Uh, you know a scene I've never heard of. Um,
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: But I think even those people have to pick their
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: spots right. You know what you like? You follow, you
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: follow a rabbit hole, uh in in a direction it
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: leads you, you know to maybe various scenes that are
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: in dialogue with with the one you're into. Um. But
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think there are completest. I think there's just
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: too much music, right. And there's the thing that's interesting
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: about rap is that in some of these these streaming sites,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: some like SoundCloud, like it's affecting the aesthetic right there
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: there artists that flocked to specific places that have a
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: specific sound, right, and that sound is only growing in
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: this one ecosystem. Um. And and you know that's that's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: now regenerated. A couple of times we had what was
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: referred to as SoundCloud rap in is not the same
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: thing we we we talk about now when when you
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: say SoundCloud rap um. But but you know, the idea
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: of a completest, it's it's it's just not I just
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: it's just not possible right with the with the amount
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: of stuff coming out, Okay for the uninitiated to find
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: the difference in status between Atlanta and New York and
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: l a rap or any other scene that I might
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: have overlooked. So New York right has come back around.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: Actually New York is the birthplace of hip hop, you
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: know very much the initial arbiter of you know, authenticity,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: of lyricism, of of beat making. Uh, you know, the
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: the legacy is here. Um and and then for the past,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: you know, two and a half three decades, it's been
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: what happened to New York rap? Who's the next savior
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: of New York rap? Right? You you had a moment,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: you know you you you had a moment with pop
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: smoke um and the and the Brooklyn drill stuff. And actually,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: you know, the drill rap coming out of New York
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: now is very much at the center of things. Right,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: Even even kids in the deepest undergrounds in Atlanta are
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: now making songs that sound like New York drill. But
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: of course New York drill comes from Chicago, comes from London. Right,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: This is a sound that traveled all around the world
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: before New York sort of took it back and put
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: their own spin on it. Um l A obviously vibrant
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: through all time, h through through the history of hip
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: hop New York versus l A. The sort of you know,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: the traditional rivalry of of nineties rap, you know, or
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: you do you like Biggie, do like tupac Um you know,
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: a huge renaissance UM in in recent years. You think
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: of someone like Kendrick Lamar, one of you know, one
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: of the biggest stars of our era, UM and and
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: a ton of people under him. You know, someone someone
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: like Draco the Ruler really was putting l A on
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: the map again before before he was killed a couple
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: of years ago. UM. The thing that's amazing now is
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: that it's not just Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Detroit, the
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: Bay Area, right, Memphis, the sort of traditional hip hop
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: strongholds like you have scenes in tiny towns in Florida.
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: You have you know, scenes in North Carolina place it
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: was notoriously uh barren with of of stars. Um. You know, Arkansas,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: you can find a hip hop see like the proliferation
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: of regional hip hop right now and places doing original, amazing,
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: extremely distinct things. Milwaukee, you know, places that have never
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: traditionally been in the conversation are now as vibrant as
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: anywhere else. I think the reason you continue to hear
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: about New York, l A, Atlanta, to a lesser extent, Chicago,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: maybe you know, New Orleans, Memphis is that there's an
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: infrastructure there, right, and that's that's The other thing that
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: you know, the book really tries to. The argument I
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: tried to make in the book is that the explosion
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: of Atlanta and the streaming era was really prepared for
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: in the nineties, right when places when labels like l
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: A La Face Ela reads l face maybe face so
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: so Deaf Germaine dupre outcasts and the Dungeon family, you know,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: when they were opening studios, they were bringing the record
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: business to them, and that lays the groundwork right for
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: for there to be places for these kids to go
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: to to record music and and make videos and meet executives.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: And it's still not in New York or l A,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: where the where the majors are based. But compared to
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of these smaller regional scenes which you know
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: don't end up breaking through on a national level unless
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: you're really paying attention. A lot of that is because
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: because of the physical infrastructure, right, whether it's venues, studios, clubs,
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: strip clubs. As we discussed. Um, So I think there's
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: music coming out of all out of all of these
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: all of these towns, all these these little crevices, um,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: but not all of it is reaching the radio. Okay,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: used to Peo, we have a new scene prior to
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: the Internet every three to five years. So have we
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: run even though everyone's making music. Ah, we're running out
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: of the highway on hip hop and something else will
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: come in? Or is there really so much innovation there's
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: mills to go. I think people have been you know,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: uh predicting the end of hip hop's reign for twenty
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: five years now, right, but it's always almost about to end. Um.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think we've seen the slow, sad
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: death of rock, right, Like I don't I don't know
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: about you, but like it's just so hard for me
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: to imagine us like guys capturing chart topping rock band
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: that's for white guys playing analog instruments. Uh, you know.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: So look, it had a good run. I think I
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: bop has proven to be more adaptable, um, at least
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: in recent years. Uh. You know. I think when you
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: think of people who are succeeding in pop or or
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: rock or whatever, they're often drawing from a rap tool
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: kit right there. They're borrowing, whether it's uh, you know,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: trap high hats and drums or the release schedule. Right,
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: the sort of more is more than Morgan Wallans of
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: the World putting out thirty track deluxe albums that that
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: comes from rap music, you know what I mean? Uh,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: not to mention his his his sound in places, um So,
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: I think you know it's been it's been picked over
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: for parts. Um. But it's extremely, extremely resilient. Um. And
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of that is is about where
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: it comes from, right, Like it comes from people who
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: are struggling. Right. The basis of hip hop is is
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: in economic despair, right Uh. And and it comes from
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: necessity and in a lot of places and and in
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases. Um So I think like you
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: can never you can never count it out because it's
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: always it's always regenerating because people need it. So how
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: did you get your job at the New York Times?
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I started out writing about music when I
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: was a teenager because it was the thing I knew about, right. So,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people default to music writing
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: when they when they first start because it's the thing
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: that they're into the most. Um. You feel like you
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: have some ownership and expertise um over it. But I
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: very quickly realized I didn't want to be a critic
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: um and that you know, I grew up in the
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: sort of blog Era and P three blogs, Pitchfork, you know,
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: the proliferation of music criticism online. And I was like, WHOA,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: Like this seems unforgiving, right, Like all these people are
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: writing so many words all the time with you know,
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: very little return. Um. All the magazines that I grew
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: up with were dying um as as they still are UM.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: And I very quickly decided, you know, I should learn
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to write, I should learn how to
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: report um. I should learn a practical skill within this.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not a critic um, even though I have a
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: lot of a opinions. Uh So I stopped writing about music.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: Basically I learned how to report um. I was a blogger.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: I was a news blogger for many years. I worked
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: at the Village Voice. I worked in York. It was
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit slower. You left Florida, you went to
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: college where sure, I moved to New York. I went
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: to n Y U to what to greeted in while you,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: uh push you forward in your career, it was four
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: years you would just go to college? Oh no, I
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: mean I always tell people like I would not have
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: the job that I have, especially when I got it.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: You know, was still in my twenties. I would not
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: have that opportunity without having got the head start of
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: living in New York beginning when I was eighteen. You know,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: I A lot of people moved to New York to
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: try to make it in whatever field after college, and
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: I was here first. So for me, n y U
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: was a very very very expensive path to living in
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: the city and having internships. And you know, I took
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: on a lot of student loans and you know, fortunate
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: enough that my my parents could help me out. UM.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: But I was. I was working from right when I
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: got here, right, I was writing for free magazines around
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: the city, UM, websites earlier. Some of the earliest music
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: reporting I did was for an Australian website that doesn't
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: exist anymore. UM or for tiny mixtapes for free. You know,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: I was. I had a blog spot, UM, I had
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: a tumbler. I was just trying to practice basically, UM.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: And and as I was finishing school is when I decided,
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: you know, music writing seems like a very very very
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: unforgiving space. And that's when I branched out. Did you
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: study journalism at n y U? I did. I studied
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: journalism undergrad although I did like a media criticism track.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: So I was more reading a door now than I
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: was out on the street like beat reporting. Okay, and
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: it was at the end of your education or did
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: you get a master's or anything. No, that was the
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: end of my education. I was, you know, as I said,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: I was working throughout all of undergrad as much as
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: I could. I was starting to get paid here and
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: there for freelancing online mostly um. And you know, if
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: I've figured I would learn more and not rack up
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: any more student debt just doing it as opposed to
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: go into grad school. So you graduate from n hyle
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: U in the next step is graduated into her session. Uh.
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: You know, was not a great time to to try
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: to be in journalism. Uh. You know, this was this
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: was the dark days, especially for for print media US.
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: The Internet was taking over and they hadn't really figured
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: out what to do yet. But I was really good
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: at being online. I could, you know, write fast, I
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: could spot trends. I knew what was you know, going
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: to go whatever proto viral um I And I really
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: marketed myself as a sort of ex generation uh internet journalists.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I could get on Facebook and find somebody
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: you know, both quicker than you know a reporter who
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: was not native to those spaces. Um and so you
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: I tried to really use that right. And it was
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: also a real time of like democratization among writers, right
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: like Twitter was starting. I was on Twitter very early,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: um tumbler, like I said, blog spot, this is a
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: way for me to like interface with writers who I admired,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: uh in a in a pretty direct way, right Like
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: you could reblog them, you could retweet them, you could
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: add commentary, you could chime in, you know. So I
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: was I was annoying. I was like I was in
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: the face of people who I think, you know, I
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: looked up to or whose careers I wanted um and
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: and yeah it was it was. It was like a
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: much more innocent time I think online Um, the pool
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: felt smaller. UM. So I made some headway that way. UM.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: And then, like I said, I became a blogger. Right
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: people needed content for their websites. So I was writing
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: eight ten posts a day um for the Village Voice,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: first on the weekends while I had a day job. UM.
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: Then then as a full time news blogger, um, you know,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: offering metro stories. What was your day job. I worked
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: at Life dot com. So Life dot Com was a
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: partnership with Getty Images. It was what remained of Life magazine.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: And I ran the homepage photo carousel. So I would,
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: you know, with the help of an editor, pick seven
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: to ten photos that represented the news of the day,
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: something from the archives for an anniversary, something from a war,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: tragedy abroad, something more lighthearted, and then I would write
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: a you know, two word caption for it. Um. So
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: I was running the homepage of Life dot com, which
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody an I don't know if
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: anybody was visiting Life dot com. But we were updating
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: the homepage every day, um and then and then on
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: the weekends, I was Saturday and Sunday. I had control
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: of the Village Voice website for whatever reason, because they
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: needed content, you know, they needed traffic. So um, that's
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: when I started. You know, I wrote a little bit
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: about media. I wrote about politics, I wrote about crime,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: metro stories, um, pop culture. Sometimes they would give me
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: the keys to the music blog as well. UM, so
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: I would keep up with that a little bit. Um
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I was just writing a lot. I was
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: learning how to how to write quickly, how to write cleanly,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: how to pick up the phone sometimes, how to make
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: a little joke, you know. You know, uh, aggregation was
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: less dry back then. It was about sort of like
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: adding voice. Um. So I was trying to develop developed
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: that way. Um and I just got a lot of
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: reps in. You know. I was just I was meeting people,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: I was making waves when I could. I was making
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: fun of the New York Times for not printing curse
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: words from the Village Voice website. You know, just just
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: just being pesky, um and working my way up from there. Um.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: So after the Voice, I did this a similar thing
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: in New York Magazine. I worked for their Daily Intelligence
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: or blog, uh as a news blogger. You know, school shootings, terrorists, attacks,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: covered Benghazi, you know, covered media, covered the New York Times,
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: covered Conde nas covered internet culture, just a real grab
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: bag of stuff. And I wasn't doing a ton of
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: culture reporting. But I always had my eye on that.
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: And when I first started contributing here and there for
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: the magazine, Um, I would you know, I did a
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: piece about Angie Martinez, a New York radio figure. You know,
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: I had I still had sort of one eye on
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: music and culture because I knew that was my main interest,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: even though I was on the news side of things. UM.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: But I think that ultimately being functional in both worlds
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: is what allowed me to get my job at the Times. Right,
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: because when when The Times is looking for a music reporter,
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: they're looking for a reporter first and foremost. Right. Anybody
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: has can have an opinion about music. Um. We have
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: no shortage of music critics online, amateur and professional. UM.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: But I think the fact that I knew how to
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: do a public record search. I knew how to pick
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: up the phone. I knew how to like get on
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: the street and and and interview someone, how to track
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: someone down, um, how to how to cover breaking news.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: All of that really came into play. So a lot
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: of your working career was not actually music focused. You've
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: done this, You've written this book. There are people like
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: John Perellis who've continue to do with their whole lives
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: and at the Times, what do you see going forward
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: and what would you dream would go forward. I've gone
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: back on fourth on this a lot because I feel like,
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: you know, December will be eight years for me on
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: the music beat at the Times. On one hand, I
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: saw the book as potentially like a capstone to my
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: time on the beat. You know, I think I could
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: cover other things. I could write about other other stuff.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many more Grammy Awards I have
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: in me. I don't know how many more rock star
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: obituaries or Beyonce album cycles. You know, there's something about
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: the music world that you know, as you well know,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: it's very cyclical, uh, covering the same thing every every
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: every year, every few years. Um So part of me
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: saw the book as like a capstone project um to
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: my time on the beat, and at the same time,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: like I feel like I'm I know the music world
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: better than I have. You know, the thing about about
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: being a beat reporter is you you accrue knowledge. You
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: you gain sources, You get how things work, you can
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: see things before they happen, you know the patterns. Um. So,
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's all up in the air. Um.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: I love the team that I work with, U Karen
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: Gans the music editor John Perellis who we've mentioned chief
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: pop critic John Karamonica, you know, uh, the other pop
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: critic has been a huge mentor friends, champion of me
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: since I was very young, helped to bring me in
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: here at the Times Ben's serio covers the music business
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: for us came it came over from the business section
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: works with us in arts. Now. UM, we have a
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: very very very tight and I think, you know, pretty
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: thorough team for for how few of us there are. UM.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: And I love working with them on a day to
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: day basis. UM. But the short answer is, I don't
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think you know. Times likes for
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: their reporters to move around, but they also like for
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: you to have expertise. So I've I've gained some expertise
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: on this beat. Uh. And I don't know how much
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: longer I'm going to use it, but hopefully hopefully a
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: little while longer at least. Okay, the New York Times itself, Hey,
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: you have the vilification denigration from the right of the
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: New York Times become a pejorative. Ironically, they use the
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: New York Times for all their factual news. Okay. You know,
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: if you can tune in, Fox are always saying getting
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: all the new they don't do any reporting. They get
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: it from the New York Times. So at one level,
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: the New York Times it's fact. You know, New York
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: Times sets the agenda for America. Brings up the issues.
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: But there's the issue of the right wing backlash, and
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: there's also concommitantly a smaller footprint. Used to be if
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: The New York Times weighed in on something like hip
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: hop music, everybody interested in that would read that article.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: And it's not only the New York Times. You know,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles it's even worse. It was in the
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: l A Times everybody. So now people in l A.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: Most people don't see it. So what is your experience
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: working for The New York Times said it opens doors
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta is generally a good thing or a bad thing.
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: And how do you feel writing articles in terms of
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: their impact? You feel like you have a big footprint.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: You wish you had a larger footprint. What's going on
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: all there? I still think the platform is unparalleled, right,
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: it's still the New York Times. Even people who don't
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: read The New York Times know what the New York
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: Times is. They respect it. You know, there are people
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta who only know me as the New York Times.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: You know it's New York Times this year, you know. Uh.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: I think as far as a brand name, like it's
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: just in the news business, like it doesn't you know,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: there's there's there's a few other places at this level. Um,
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: you know, do I wish more people saw some of
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: my stories, especially my more obscure culture stories, my non
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: Beyonce Taylor Swift coverage. Sure, but I think we can
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: still move the needle. And I think, you know, one
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: thing I really love about our team is that we
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: don't just cover the big stuff. Really do follow stories, news, passions, subculture.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: We break artists. We often do first interviews that people
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: have ever done. You know. Uh, I wrote a big
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: feature about a you know, a young woman named Ethel Caine.
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: Recently she you know, was living in small town Alabama
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: putting out her first album. You know, people came up
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: to me at the show and said, I learned about
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: this from the New York Times. You know. Like that,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: I think I think we can still have that impact.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: We just have to pick our spots because we have
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: such a small staff. Um, you know, especially in music,
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: there's so much happening at all times. We can't cover everything.
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, and and this goes for the
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: paper in general. But I think like we often make
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: as much of a point in what we don't cover
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: as as in what we do. Um, you know, it's
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's an expert driven section, you know, very critic heavy,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: the art section, movie critics, art critics, classical critics, pop
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: critics like I think, you know, we're still hopefully top
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: of the heap, uh in a lot of ways, and
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: and can set the agenda. You know, you think of
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: something like Broadway. Obviously not not a lot of people
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: setting that agenda more than the Times. Um. You know,
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: I think I think our our our culture covers coverage
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: is strong across the board. Um. But look, of course,
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: like the fragmentation of of media has has affected us all.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you you put into Google any
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: topic of the day that you're going to find dozens
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: and dozens and dozens of seo garbage. UM, but I
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: think you'll probably still most of the time find the
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: best or the definitive or even the first story uh
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: from us. Okay, we've been talking to where I've been
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: talking to Joe Coscarelli has a new book, Rap Capital
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: and at Lanta story. Even if you think you're not
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: interested in hip hop or don't know anything, it is
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: very insightful in terms of what is the genesis of
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: this music? The people were making it, the people who
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: are marketing it. So thanks for taking the time to
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: talk to me in my audience here, Joe. It's been great.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: I really really really appreciate it. Uh. You know, you
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: gave the book such a close read and and in
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways, you're my ideal reader. I didn't
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: want this to be a book for rapp aficionados, for
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: super fans, you know. I wanted I wanted to explain
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: this culture in a human way, uh in in a
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: way that sort of transcended people who would think they
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: would read a book about rapping. Six So, thank you
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: so much for for your time. Well you certainly succeeded.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob left Sex