# World Wide Fresh

An episode of [R&B Money](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1623212249), 9 Sep 2026, 2 h 00 min.

Audio: https://pdrl.fm/78a38e/podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/ffd06750-9c13-4998-b266-ae90010bb2af/8b6669f7-dd42-436d-909b-b4c0016d7b65/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=240a7ed2-a685-4bc6-91de-ae90010c6176

Producer and songwriter WorldWideFresh joins the R&B Money Podcast to break down the journey, craft, and stories behind records he's helped create for some of the biggest names in music. Fresh takes us inside the studio and talks about developing his sound, building relationships with artists, and what it takes to turn an idea into a record that connects. He breaks down his work across R&B, hip-hop, and pop—including records with Beyoncé, Coi Leray, Doechii, Yung Miami, French Montana, and Max B. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:17] Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jay Valentine and this is the
[0:22] Speaker 1: R & B Money Podcast and today it's going to
[0:26] Speaker 1: be a black parade.
[0:27] Speaker 2: Huh?
[0:28] Speaker 3: It's going to get bigger.
[0:30] Speaker 2: We're going to spin that.
[0:33] Speaker 1: And it's going to be worth it. I got my
[0:35] Speaker 1: brother all the way from Brooklyn in the house, Mr.
[0:38] Speaker 1: Worldwide Fresh.
[0:40] Speaker 3: Let's go, dog. Come on, Jay.
[0:42] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[0:43] Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
[0:44] Speaker 2: Hey, man.
[0:45] Speaker 3: I feel like I made it.
[0:46] Speaker 2: Listen, man. It's getting a little controversial for you these days, man.
[0:52] Speaker 3: It is.
[0:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. How's that feeling?
[0:55] Speaker 3: It feel good.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[0:57] Speaker 3: It feel like what I was raised on. Okay. Okay.
[0:59] Speaker 3: Music used to be controversial. It was exciting conversation. And
[1:03] Speaker 3: I felt like we lost that. I felt like that's
[1:06] Speaker 3: what hip hop was. That's what R & B was.
[1:08] Speaker 3: And I feel like it's okay to be a little
[1:10] Speaker 3: controversial to stir up some conversations that maybe is not
[1:13] Speaker 3: being had. Yeah.
[1:14] Speaker 2: Well, we're going to get to those conversations. Let's go.
[1:16] Speaker 2: But first, we're going to start off in Brooklyn.
[1:18] Speaker 3: Let's go.
[1:19] Speaker 2: Come on, man. Let's go back to New York. Young, fresh.
[1:22] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:23] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:24] Speaker 1: Where did it all start for you and who recognized
[1:27] Speaker 1: that you had a gift in music?
[1:29] Speaker 3: When I dial it back and I trace it back
[1:31] Speaker 3: to the beginning of it, Jay, I want to give
[1:35] Speaker 3: the credit to my mama.
[1:36] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:38] Speaker 3: It first started on East 21st Street and Beverly Road
[1:43] Speaker 3: in Flatbush. And it started on Saturday mornings cleaning up
[1:48] Speaker 3: the house and her playing music and me not understanding
[1:53] Speaker 3: the power, but just performing for her.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Oh, you was.
[1:57] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[1:58] Speaker 2: He's putting on the show.
[1:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, we danced, we sang. And she didn't know where
[2:02] Speaker 3: it came from. She would just be like, I just
[2:04] Speaker 3: remember vividly her calling my grandmoms and being like, well,
[2:09] Speaker 3: he can sing and dance.
[2:11] Speaker 2: So nobody else in the family sang and danced? Nobody.
[2:14] Speaker 3: It was just like a me thing.
[2:15] Speaker 2: Okay. Because where's your mom originally from?
[2:18] Speaker 3: My mom is originally from New York, the South.
[2:21] Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
[2:22] Speaker 3: And she would just be in the house. We'd be cleaning.
[2:25] Speaker 3: And next thing you know, it'd be Anita Baker filling in.
[2:27] Speaker 3: It'd be Luther Vandross.
[2:28] Speaker 2: We'd go Stevie.
[2:30] Speaker 3: But my mom was so well-rounded with music. It might
[2:34] Speaker 3: go to Michael McDonald, and then it would go to
[2:36] Speaker 3: like Careless Whisperer just coming through the house. But I
[2:40] Speaker 3: would be learning these songs and singing them to my mama.
[2:42] Speaker 3: But it was also, you know, those times when she
[2:45] Speaker 3: tried to protect me, but she was going through tough
[2:48] Speaker 3: times too. And I would notice she tried to hide
[2:50] Speaker 3: her tears from me. But in the interim of it all,
[2:55] Speaker 3: Once that music came on, four or five minutes of
[2:57] Speaker 3: a song and that vinyl hit, she'd stop crying and
[3:01] Speaker 3: she'd just get happy. So in my mind, I'm like, well, damn,
[3:05] Speaker 3: if I could perform and sing for her, if I
[3:08] Speaker 3: could find out that thing that's filling the air and
[3:11] Speaker 3: be able to just bottle that up and give that
[3:14] Speaker 3: to her and to other people, I wanted to know
[3:17] Speaker 3: what that magic was. And that magic just so happened
[3:19] Speaker 3: to be music. So she'd take me to my grandmom's.
[3:22] Speaker 3: My grandma, she'd have these card games, these pity games
[3:25] Speaker 3: and these poker games.
[3:26] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[3:27] Speaker 3: And, man, she'd have nurses, doctors, trained conductors, everybody be
[3:31] Speaker 3: at the house. Grandma's cooking and then they're going to
[3:33] Speaker 3: play this game. Somebody's going to go home crying because
[3:36] Speaker 3: there's going to be some money lost.
[3:37] Speaker 2: Right, right, right, right, right.
[3:38] Speaker 3: But in the interim, she'd have like, almost like a
[3:42] Speaker 3: little show and I'd come out.
[3:45] Speaker 1: So you used to like the halftime show?
[3:48] Speaker 3: 100%. 100%. And my grandma used to say, you know,
[3:50] Speaker 3: he done. And I'd, I turn it on because what
[3:54] Speaker 3: people didn't understand in the underbelly is that whatever happened
[3:57] Speaker 3: in the house stayed in the house. So nobody knew
[3:58] Speaker 3: what my mom was going through because she put it,
[4:00] Speaker 3: put it on that face to smile as we do.
[4:02] Speaker 3: Of course.
[4:03] Speaker 2: Of course.
[4:03] Speaker 3: But man, I get to perform it for my grandma's friends.
[4:07] Speaker 3: And these ladies would drop five here, 10 here, 20 here.
[4:11] Speaker 3: And I'd give that to my mom to help us
[4:12] Speaker 3: with groceries and things like that.
[4:14] Speaker 4: Wow.
[4:15] Speaker 3: So that was just like, for me, I have to
[4:17] Speaker 3: give it to mom. I'm, I'm just touching seven. Life is...
[4:22] Speaker 3: I'm a baby, bro. I'm walking into close to eight,
[4:27] Speaker 3: but I'm seven. My baby brother is five years younger
[4:30] Speaker 3: than me, so he's two. And it's just me, him,
[4:33] Speaker 3: and my mama and I. And we figuring it out.
[4:35] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? But back then, if I
[4:38] Speaker 3: brought home $ 100, $ 150, boy, that went a long way.
[4:41] Speaker 3: I did good. Mama stopped crying for at least a week.
[4:44] Speaker 2: And we was on.
[4:45] Speaker 3: And again... That music, that world, that space, really fast
[4:52] Speaker 3: forward in time, I can't believe it started there with her.
[4:55] Speaker 3: So I got to give her the credit.
[4:56] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[4:57] Speaker 3: I do.
[4:58] Speaker 2: That's dope, bro. That's dope.
[5:00] Speaker 1: So you performing at the halftime of the gambling shack
[5:05] Speaker 1: is pretty much what I've gathered.
[5:07] Speaker 3: That's what it was. That's what it is.
[5:09] Speaker 1: How long did it take for you to start? Did
[5:11] Speaker 1: you jump in talent shows? Did you go to, like,
[5:15] Speaker 1: School of the Arts, any of those type of things
[5:17] Speaker 1: after that? Or, like, what was the process from there?
[5:20] Speaker 3: You know what? Like, my life is probably outside of music,
[5:24] Speaker 3: one of the realest spaces. And I know people say that.
[5:27] Speaker 3: But I think people meet fresh today, they don't know
[5:31] Speaker 3: the young person of yesterday, right? The struggle, the neighborhood. Because,
[5:37] Speaker 3: you know, before we go there, Jay, I don't want
[5:39] Speaker 3: to skip steps and make it. Like, I want us
[5:41] Speaker 3: to have a real thing like we do. This is
[5:42] Speaker 3: what we do. Like, you a brother to me. I
[5:44] Speaker 3: feel like at that time, my mom wasn't really divulging
[5:49] Speaker 3: her life and certain things she was going through just
[5:51] Speaker 3: to protect her children. But my mom ended up strung
[5:54] Speaker 3: out when I was seven. So right around that time,
[5:56] Speaker 3: I transitioned to my grandmother's house. So the house I
[5:59] Speaker 3: would be performing in, I'm now living in. And to
[6:02] Speaker 3: be honest, music became the last thing I wanted to
[6:06] Speaker 3: touch because it was so connected to my mom. I
[6:10] Speaker 3: didn't want to do the things that couldn't bring her
[6:12] Speaker 3: happiness because I felt like I let her down. So
[6:15] Speaker 3: I didn't want to touch music. I didn't want to sing.
[6:18] Speaker 3: You couldn't get me to do nothing in music. I
[6:21] Speaker 3: just started going into sports, football, basketball, boxing. That's all
[6:24] Speaker 3: I wanted to do. And then it became, you know
[6:27] Speaker 3: how it is, man. I end up in the house
[6:31] Speaker 3: and here come my Uncle Raymond, who was my uncle,
[6:34] Speaker 3: but He fairly close to me. So we like brothers
[6:37] Speaker 3: in the house.
[6:37] Speaker 4: Right.
[6:38] Speaker 3: I'm trying to take his space. I don't like him
[6:40] Speaker 3: because he fly. He's hip hop. He's everything. And he's cool.
[6:45] Speaker 3: And I'm like, man, I don't care. You know, I
[6:48] Speaker 3: probably that's probably my first and last hate. I was
[6:50] Speaker 3: a hater. Right.
[6:52] Speaker 2: Hang on.
[6:52] Speaker 3: I couldn't stand him because he was everything of what.
[6:58] Speaker 3: we look up to.
[6:59] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[6:59] Speaker 2: He was already cracking.
[7:01] Speaker 3: Oh, dope boy. DJ had the girls. He was that person.
[7:04] Speaker 2: Shout out to uncle Ray.
[7:05] Speaker 3: Shout out to my uncle Raymond, man. It's my favorite uncle.
[7:08] Speaker 3: He introduced me to hip hop.
[7:09] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[7:10] Speaker 3: So I go from one world while I'm doing R
[7:12] Speaker 3: and B pop music. Right. I'll put that down. I got,
[7:15] Speaker 3: I don't want to sing no more. And he like,
[7:18] Speaker 3: Hey man, you don't know nothing about no. What's up
[7:20] Speaker 3: with NWA?
[7:21] Speaker 2: What's up with this? And I'm just like, who are
[7:22] Speaker 2: these people?
[7:23] Speaker 3: And he's like, rap, rap. And he's like, it's rap music.
[7:25] Speaker 3: And he's, Got these turntables. I'll never forget Jay. He
[7:28] Speaker 3: had Technique 1200s. Is he living with y'all too?
[7:31] Speaker 4: Yes.
[7:31] Speaker 3: It's my grandma's baby boy. This is my mama's. This
[7:34] Speaker 3: is my real uncle.
[7:35] Speaker 2: This is your mama's brother.
[7:35] Speaker 3: This is my mom's baby brother.
[7:37] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[7:38] Speaker 3: And he the only boy out of all the girls.
[7:39] Speaker 2: And y'all around the same age.
[7:40] Speaker 3: And he a little older than me. And I'm ready.
[7:42] Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm trying to take over. I'm the young lion.
[7:45] Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I could only be one lion in
[7:47] Speaker 3: this jungle. And man, he leave the house. And here
[7:51] Speaker 3: I go touching his vinyl. Breaking every needle he had
[7:54] Speaker 3: in the house. I'm trying to DJ. I'm trying to rap,
[7:57] Speaker 3: but I'm realizing, and it all, all this music is
[8:02] Speaker 3: becoming me. I'm studying rhythms. And at that time, we didn't, like,
[8:07] Speaker 3: I was so happy my grandmas took us in and
[8:09] Speaker 3: I didn't end up in foster care. I started teaching
[8:11] Speaker 3: myself how to create music over loops on the vinyl.
[8:16] Speaker 3: I'd sing, I'd rap over these vinyls. And I would
[8:20] Speaker 3: kind of almost try to make my own beats through
[8:22] Speaker 3: these records. Yeah. So I understood tempo. I understood pocket.
[8:26] Speaker 3: I would constantly play his music. He'd come back, record
[8:29] Speaker 3: scratched up. Who did that, man? I think that was Lamar,
[8:32] Speaker 3: my little brother. Man, I really think he was in
[8:35] Speaker 3: there playing, man, when I went to the park and
[8:37] Speaker 3: messed up your needles. Because I didn't want him to
[8:39] Speaker 3: know this bug had jumped on me.
[8:42] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[8:42] Speaker 3: And here I am becoming what he is. Because he
[8:46] Speaker 3: was old school. Gazelles, Kangol.
[8:48] Speaker 2: He was fly.
[8:49] Speaker 3: So I was like, damn, okay, this music thing is
[8:51] Speaker 3: becoming me. Mm-hmm. Even when I'm running from it, I'm
[8:54] Speaker 3: running to it. Yeah. Basically.
[8:56] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[8:56] Speaker 1: But instead of, like you said, instead of popping R & B,
[8:59] Speaker 1: now you diving into hip hop because it don't seem
[9:02] Speaker 1: like it's the same thing.
[9:03] Speaker 3: It don't feel the same. It's rebellious.
[9:06] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[9:06] Speaker 3: Remember, I'm watching my mom who's, you know, now she's
[9:10] Speaker 3: full on. She's gone. She's outside. So the anger and
[9:14] Speaker 3: the hurt.
[9:14] Speaker 1: In that little boy, I was able to- Channel that.
[9:18] Speaker 3: In the hip hop.
[9:18] Speaker 2: In the hip hop.
[9:19] Speaker 3: It became my rebellious story.
[9:20] Speaker 2: Got you.
[9:22] Speaker 3: And that's just, you know, Nas, Hov, Biggie.
[9:24] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[9:25] Speaker 3: Oh, they speak in my language.
[9:26] Speaker 1: So now you're full on. You full out rapping by
[9:28] Speaker 1: this time? You're like teenage years.
[9:29] Speaker 3: I'm going into 10 to 12. I'm writing raps. But
[9:33] Speaker 3: I'm still studying songs, right? I'm in Brownsville. In Brownsville, Jay,
[9:38] Speaker 3: let me take you back, right? You from the Bay.
[9:39] Speaker 3: You know how I really get. You couldn't tell people
[9:42] Speaker 3: you were singing at that age. No.
[9:44] Speaker 1: It's so funny, though, because my situation was different because
[9:48] Speaker 1: my father was such a a wild dude. And it
[9:52] Speaker 1: was just, he was, he was pushing the line so hard.
[9:55] Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, my baby.
[9:56] Speaker 3: Sin you know what I'm saying.
[9:58] Speaker 1: So it was our existence was different but when I
[10:02] Speaker 1: did move back after my brother passed it was and
[10:07] Speaker 1: maybe the way I looked at it was that I
[10:09] Speaker 1: was just on TV six months before that so this
[10:12] Speaker 1: is probably why they are reacting to it a little
[10:14] Speaker 1: different but when I think about it It's definitely the.
[10:19] Speaker 2: Nigga you singing in the hood. So I just didn't sing.
[10:21] Speaker 3: 100%.
[10:22] Speaker 2: I didn't sing. So I get it.
[10:24] Speaker 3: And I was quiet.
[10:25] Speaker 2: Nobody knew.
[10:26] Speaker 3: My brother knew.
[10:27] Speaker 2: My cousin, Rahsaan.
[10:29] Speaker 3: Yo, you ever heard of him? And I just be like,
[10:31] Speaker 3: but when I go outside, I'm putting on this mask.
[10:35] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[10:35] Speaker 3: But it attributes to... I don't want my uncle to
[10:38] Speaker 3: get the props for being a tough guy in the neighborhood.
[10:40] Speaker 3: I want to build my own name in my neighborhood.
[10:44] Speaker 3: So I have to put this softness aside because I'm
[10:47] Speaker 3: in the jungle now. So outside, I don't have no
[10:50] Speaker 3: room for any chinks in my armor. I can't be.
[10:53] Speaker 2: That's real.
[10:54] Speaker 3: Oh, he's saying he's soft. It was attached at that time. Right.
[10:58] Speaker 3: And then we fast forward and things started to change.
[11:01] Speaker 2: About when did it start changing for you?
[11:06] Speaker 3: Now I got my stripes. I am fresh. I'm outside.
[11:10] Speaker 3: So it's more like, yeah, singing, I'll beat you up too. Like,
[11:13] Speaker 3: what are we doing? Because I'm at a point now
[11:16] Speaker 3: where I don't really care anymore what you think. I
[11:19] Speaker 3: already got this thing, this chip on my shoulder. My grandparents,
[11:23] Speaker 3: I don't want to go in the house and tell
[11:25] Speaker 3: them too much. And it became this thing where this
[11:30] Speaker 3: house wouldn't be the house that my brother and my
[11:32] Speaker 3: cousin couldn't wear their coats to school. So once I
[11:36] Speaker 3: became that and I knew that whatever I put in
[11:38] Speaker 3: the work outside, they were going to be okay.
[11:40] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[11:41] Speaker 3: My confidence raised because I understood what the wolves were
[11:45] Speaker 3: like and I was one of them.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[11:47] Speaker 3: So I wasn't afraid to.
[11:49] Speaker 1: By this point, you have fully jumped off the porch.
[11:51] Speaker 1: Like you all the way in the streets. Off the
[11:54] Speaker 1: porch at 12, 11.
[11:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[11:55] Speaker 3: At 11, 12 years old in Brownsville at this time,
[12:01] Speaker 3: like bullets is flying.
[12:03] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[12:04] Speaker 3: I'm going from video games in the house with grandmoms
[12:07] Speaker 3: and baby bro to me and my man walk to
[12:09] Speaker 3: the store and it's all. It's like, wait, I thought
[12:12] Speaker 3: that was the video game. It's a whole new world.
[12:14] Speaker 3: And I got to figure it out. Because my brother,
[12:18] Speaker 3: I got to make sure he can wear his clothes
[12:20] Speaker 3: to school and come home in peace and that people
[12:22] Speaker 3: knew he was my brother.
[12:24] Speaker 4: Right.
[12:24] Speaker 3: And my cousin Rahsaan and so forth. And I never
[12:27] Speaker 3: wanted to go get my uncle. I just hated the
[12:29] Speaker 3: thought of that. which I should have did a long
[12:31] Speaker 3: time ago. I should have saved myself the trouble, but
[12:34] Speaker 3: I didn't. I was outside. I wanted to be a part.
[12:37] Speaker 3: I had my own team. My neighborhood was just what
[12:40] Speaker 3: it was. And we accepted what it is. And it
[12:43] Speaker 3: wasn't going to change like the life expectancy growing up
[12:46] Speaker 3: in Brownsville at my age was 17 years old.
[12:49] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[12:50] Speaker 3: So, I mean, we would throw parties at 17. Like, nigga,
[12:54] Speaker 3: you made it. And I'll be like, oh, I'm good.
[12:56] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[12:57] Speaker 3: We didn't think, Like, when I look back, that's why
[13:00] Speaker 3: I thank God every day I'm above the ground because
[13:01] Speaker 3: I can't believe all that I lost or those that
[13:04] Speaker 3: either went to jail for life.
[13:06] Speaker 2: Right.
[13:07] Speaker 3: Like, my partner's 16 was catching, you know, he got 25.
[13:11] Speaker 3: It didn't feel real until you look up and you,
[13:14] Speaker 3: what you mean he got 25 years? You understand? Yeah.
[13:17] Speaker 3: Then I started slowing down a little bit because I
[13:21] Speaker 3: also never wanted to put the pressure on my grandparents.
[13:23] Speaker 3: I was so grateful for them doing what they doing that,
[13:27] Speaker 3: I got tired of my grandma's coming up to school. Man,
[13:29] Speaker 3: he fighting again. He doing this. He doing that. And
[13:32] Speaker 3: I just didn't want her to feel that I didn't
[13:36] Speaker 3: appreciate all that they had did for me and my brother.
[13:39] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? But in this interim, again, music, man.
[13:43] Speaker 3: Rap battles outside. And then lo and behold, one of
[13:47] Speaker 3: my homies caught me singing when I was younger. And
[13:50] Speaker 3: he was like, and I start freestyling these things. Again,
[13:54] Speaker 3: I'm learning these things. But I'm not realizing it's a gift.
[13:57] Speaker 3: I'm just doing it. I'm rapping and I'm singing and
[14:01] Speaker 3: I'm coming up with these songs. And he's like, yo,
[14:03] Speaker 3: what's that, a remix? And I'm like, nah, you know
[14:05] Speaker 3: he made that up. And that became the thing.
[14:09] Speaker 5: Right?
[14:09] Speaker 2: That's crazy.
[14:10] Speaker 3: That's just how it became. Which is crazy today because
[14:14] Speaker 3: most of the time, you know how I am. It's
[14:17] Speaker 3: hard for me to write on the phone.
[14:19] Speaker 4: Yeah. Nah.
[14:20] Speaker 2: You get in the booth.
[14:21] Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure it out.
[14:22] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[14:22] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[14:23] Speaker 3: Unless I'm co-writing with somebody that I absolutely respect and appreciate.
[14:27] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Other than that, most of the time, God going to
[14:30] Speaker 3: give it to me all in my head.
[14:31] Speaker 2: So you didn't even realize you were preparing for these moments, though?
[14:33] Speaker 3: Not at all. If you would have told me, if
[14:36] Speaker 3: I look back on a younger me, there's no way
[14:40] Speaker 3: in the world you'd tell me that I would come
[14:42] Speaker 3: back to doing this and at this level. Yeah. No way.
[14:47] Speaker 1: Bro, just already this story and getting you to the
[14:50] Speaker 1: point of now even wanting to do music seriously.
[14:54] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[14:54] Speaker 1: Because like you said, you really outside hustling. And you
[14:57] Speaker 1: kind of, this is probably just passing time.
[14:58] Speaker 2: You're on the streets. I'm outside. You're outside.
[15:00] Speaker 3: So it's like, all right.
[15:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, nigga, we have a battle, but you go right
[15:04] Speaker 2: back to what you're doing.
[15:05] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[15:05] Speaker 2: When did you decide this can be a career for me?
[15:09] Speaker 3: I started, well, I was hooping, and it was really growing. Like,
[15:13] Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
[15:14] Speaker 2: I'm hooping, hooping.
[15:15] Speaker 3: And my grandma's got me out the neighborhood. We finally
[15:19] Speaker 3: got a house. We was out to projects. We all
[15:22] Speaker 3: put our money together. We went and got a house
[15:24] Speaker 3: on the borderline of, East New York and Queens. I'll
[15:27] Speaker 3: never forget it. Highland park. Shout out to everybody. Highland park.
[15:31] Speaker 3: And I started building friends through basketball.
[15:34] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[15:35] Speaker 3: And then I, I connected with this cat and man,
[15:41] Speaker 3: he would, he'd be driving. And I'm like, man, nigga,
[15:44] Speaker 3: driving in 17, 18, this is crazy. Okay, this is wild.
[15:46] Speaker 2: And especially in New York.
[15:48] Speaker 3: That ain't, it's not, you know, we on the train.
[15:49] Speaker 2: We gonna walk it out. Yeah, to have a car
[15:52] Speaker 2: is a serious luxury.
[15:53] Speaker 3: Oh, you balling.
[15:54] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[15:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, especially under 21. Yeah. And I remember, you know,
[15:59] Speaker 3: these cats that fell in love, like, damn, dog, like,
[16:01] Speaker 3: you playing ball. You know what basketball bring? It bring
[16:04] Speaker 3: you a level of popularity.
[16:05] Speaker 2: For sure.
[16:06] Speaker 3: You like a hood celebrity.
[16:07] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[16:08] Speaker 3: And man, I get in the car with him, man.
[16:09] Speaker 3: We kick it. We dogs at this time. And he
[16:12] Speaker 3: drive me to his auntie house. Well, his auntie just
[16:16] Speaker 3: so happened to be Miss Marshawn, who is Anger Marshawn
[16:21] Speaker 3: or to the world, Foxy Brown. And I remember having
[16:25] Speaker 3: my ball. I'm in the car with him. He's driving
[16:29] Speaker 3: us to see his aunt, which is Foxy's mother is
[16:33] Speaker 3: his father's sister. And I will not ever forget that
[16:38] Speaker 3: because they were good to me. Gavin, everybody was just, yo,
[16:42] Speaker 3: how's your group? Amazing people, man. Amazing. And also showed
[16:48] Speaker 3: me what growth looked like because they had a brownstone
[16:50] Speaker 3: before it became cool. I'm talking about like really in
[16:54] Speaker 3: a space where we considered it at that time. Oh,
[16:57] Speaker 3: you was like the Cosby family. You was doing the
[17:01] Speaker 3: big one because you couldn't live over there broke. This
[17:03] Speaker 3: was like black excellence at a whole new level. But
[17:06] Speaker 3: this lady was just so smart and you could see
[17:08] Speaker 3: why her children grew and did the things that he did.
[17:11] Speaker 2: So was Foxy already out?
[17:14] Speaker 3: No, Foxy, we were, it's so crazy because as we
[17:17] Speaker 3: were going, she was in the interim of getting her
[17:22] Speaker 3: deal and doing these things. And I'm a young boy
[17:25] Speaker 3: and I'm seeing, man, I'll pull up sometime with him
[17:27] Speaker 3: on a random. And yeah, We leave my game or
[17:31] Speaker 3: we leave from hooping or something. And I'll pull up, bro,
[17:34] Speaker 3: and AZ and Nas be on the porch. And I'll
[17:36] Speaker 3: just be like.
[17:37] Speaker 2: That's crazy.
[17:38] Speaker 3: Because you got to understand, when I look at music,
[17:40] Speaker 3: at this time, the dope boy is the rapper to me.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Of course.
[17:44] Speaker 3: The rapper is broke. At the time, I don't know
[17:46] Speaker 3: nothing about music. I don't know people can make money
[17:49] Speaker 3: off this thing.
[17:49] Speaker 2: We know AZ and Nas ain't.
[17:51] Speaker 3: But I'm saying, yeah, and they fly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[17:54] Speaker 3: Waves to the side, and they talking like, it felt
[17:56] Speaker 3: like I was in a belly movie, but I wasn't, right?
[17:58] Speaker 3: And I'm like, and for me, if you know me,
[18:00] Speaker 3: Nas is ultimately one of my favorite rappers. So I'm just,
[18:03] Speaker 3: I'm still cool. I'm doing fresh, but I'm like, wait, man,
[18:07] Speaker 3: that's Nas. And then one day, hey, man, it might
[18:10] Speaker 3: be Russell Simmons pulling. It just became this thing where,
[18:15] Speaker 3: and I'll never forget, man, like I'm in high school
[18:18] Speaker 3: and out of nowhere, I start hearing Foxy on the radio.
[18:23] Speaker 3: And then she's telling him, yo, pull up. And we
[18:25] Speaker 3: pulling up together. He's bringing me everywhere. And I would,
[18:29] Speaker 3: I remember that bug hit me like that. It smashed
[18:33] Speaker 3: me because I started seeing.
[18:35] Speaker 2: It became real.
[18:36] Speaker 3: Oh, it's tangible too.
[18:37] Speaker 2: Right, right. Somebody I know.
[18:39] Speaker 3: Man, it was looking at it like college music. I
[18:42] Speaker 3: don't know. This is looking amazing. And then all of
[18:46] Speaker 3: a sudden it's like every single thing throughout my journey
[18:51] Speaker 3: in terms of my gift started to come back. I
[18:53] Speaker 3: started to understand the power of this, but I knew
[18:57] Speaker 3: it was going to take time. And right then and there,
[18:59] Speaker 3: I'll never forget, man, me and my brother, We went
[19:03] Speaker 3: to Sam & Ash. We were coming to some car
[19:04] Speaker 3: accident money. You know what I mean? Got into a
[19:07] Speaker 3: car accident. We put our money together. We was like, yo,
[19:08] Speaker 3: we going to Sam & Ash. We going to buy
[19:10] Speaker 3: some equipment. I brought a Triton keyboard. We brought the
[19:13] Speaker 3: Triton keyboard.
[19:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[19:14] Speaker 3: Some monitors.
[19:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[19:16] Speaker 3: The pop filter was like a washcloth, grandma's washcloth. And
[19:19] Speaker 3: we turned the closet to a booth. And what a
[19:21] Speaker 3: lot of people don't know when they ask, well, how
[19:23] Speaker 3: do you know so much about record making? Because I
[19:26] Speaker 3: started off as a person that would produce music and
[19:29] Speaker 3: then do the reference to my own music. Mm-hmm. And
[19:32] Speaker 3: we would do this. And you couldn't tell me right
[19:34] Speaker 3: then and there. I wrote a board and I said, yeah,
[19:36] Speaker 3: and it's crazy. I'm going to say this. Manifestation is
[19:39] Speaker 3: real for me. I'd write down all of the artists, bro.
[19:43] Speaker 3: Like write it down on my board. And I'd be like, yeah,
[19:45] Speaker 3: they're going to take this record. They're going to do
[19:47] Speaker 3: this beat. I was confident. Records were horrible. Horrible.com.
[19:53] Speaker 1: Do you feel like the song, the top line was
[19:56] Speaker 1: bad or the tracks were bad or both?
[19:59] Speaker 3: I think they had something about them, which as we know,
[20:03] Speaker 3: something about them don't get us to did spaces. It
[20:05] Speaker 3: does not. But I look at it like this. And
[20:09] Speaker 3: this is for every creative out there that who doesn't
[20:13] Speaker 3: understand the power. Treat it like a faucet. If a
[20:16] Speaker 3: faucet sits for a long time and you turn it on,
[20:20] Speaker 3: the water's going to get rusty.
[20:21] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[20:22] Speaker 3: You're going to get frustrated with the rusty water because
[20:24] Speaker 3: you want everything immediately. So you're waiting for the clear water.
[20:27] Speaker 3: So the way that I treated music was, of course,
[20:30] Speaker 3: the early parts would have show signs that I got potential.
[20:34] Speaker 3: But the water was dirty. But the more I kept
[20:38] Speaker 3: that faucet going.
[20:39] Speaker 2: Start to clean.
[20:39] Speaker 3: And then the next thing you know, I'm fresh outside
[20:42] Speaker 3: doing hooks with dope boys, and I'm figuring it out.
[20:53] Speaker 1: So it starts, as far as your professional career, it
[20:56] Speaker 1: starts with you just doing hood hooks.
[20:58] Speaker 3: I'm running around trying to do hooks.
[21:00] Speaker 2: How much you charge?
[21:02] Speaker 3: Hey, man, at that time, $ 100 would go a long way,
[21:04] Speaker 3: you know what I mean?
[21:05] Speaker 2: $ 200?
[21:05] Speaker 3: I didn't care.
[21:06] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[21:07] Speaker 2: Because.
[21:09] Speaker 3: I just wanted to learn. Like it was never about
[21:13] Speaker 3: the bread.
[21:13] Speaker 1: Did any of those hood records catch?
[21:17] Speaker 3: Oh, they started catching as I started. I'm going to
[21:19] Speaker 3: tell you why, because again, I'm outside, I'm getting connected
[21:25] Speaker 3: and I start working at the hospital. But in the hospital,
[21:28] Speaker 3: I meet everybody from Queens, like really started meeting the
[21:32] Speaker 3: homies and we build a bond. And if anybody knows
[21:35] Speaker 3: anything about Queens, man, this is where Like you're going
[21:39] Speaker 3: to meet some made men. Like, if you look at
[21:41] Speaker 3: the music industry.
[21:42] Speaker 2: But you meet them at the hospital.
[21:44] Speaker 3: Yes, because some of them got jobs. They're not in
[21:46] Speaker 3: the music industry, but they connected to people in the
[21:49] Speaker 3: music industry.
[21:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[21:50] Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
[21:51] Speaker 2: So they got the job and they hustling.
[21:53] Speaker 3: All of it.
[21:53] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[21:54] Speaker 3: And they fresh pull up.
[21:55] Speaker 2: So the Queens get the money thing. Oh, it's completely real.
[21:59] Speaker 3: And they pulling up on me, Audi TTs, new 5 Series,
[22:02] Speaker 3: live raw.
[22:03] Speaker 2: And working at the hospital. Oh, for sure. Oh, I
[22:07] Speaker 2: love it.
[22:07] Speaker 3: But hustling now, they doing... Queens get the money is
[22:11] Speaker 3: a real thing. It's a well-rounded thing. And he embraced
[22:13] Speaker 3: me like a brother. It was almost like, though I'm
[22:16] Speaker 3: coming from where I'm coming from, they don't, they not
[22:18] Speaker 3: believe in it. Man, you ain't front no brown. Look
[22:20] Speaker 3: at you, man. But I'm just like, nah, I just
[22:23] Speaker 3: know how to put it together. I know what this takes.
[22:26] Speaker 3: And man, they take me around. At this time, DJ
[22:29] Speaker 3: Clue cracking. But Clue is close with my brother, whom
[22:33] Speaker 3: I love, G.O. And he just, you know Fresh Make Beats, right?
[22:38] Speaker 3: It ain't, it's all love.
[22:40] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[22:40] Speaker 3: Man, I'm playing these, and I'll never forget my guy
[22:43] Speaker 3: to this day, Skane Dollar. Man, I waited outside for
[22:46] Speaker 3: a long time. And this one, they cracking. Clue, Skane, Duro,
[22:50] Speaker 3: they did Fab. They had Joe. It was going on.
[22:53] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[22:53] Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm seeing Range Rovers come through. I'm like,
[22:56] Speaker 3: I done been here before. I'm going to figure it out.
[22:58] Speaker 3: I got to get into that.
[22:59] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[22:59] Speaker 3: And man, out of nowhere, dude, I played on my
[23:02] Speaker 3: Harboo CDs. And I'll never forget Gio be like, man,
[23:06] Speaker 3: listen to his music. And they'd take up from me, Marv, E, everybody, Rob, everybody.
[23:11] Speaker 3: And it just was like, man, my dog Fresh do music, dog.
[23:15] Speaker 3: And I'm still outside. I'm still not no cookie. I'm outside.
[23:18] Speaker 3: But it's still like, all right, if you do music,
[23:20] Speaker 3: I don't got nothing to do with this. Play me
[23:21] Speaker 3: the music. Man, this game was like, yeah, I don't
[23:25] Speaker 3: like none of these beats. You know what I'm saying?
[23:29] Speaker 3: I was like, but guess what? Most would have gotten mad.
[23:34] Speaker 3: I didn't, bro. I actually was so grateful because let
[23:37] Speaker 3: me tell you how that works. And obviously, I don't
[23:40] Speaker 3: want to speed too much, but fast forward the time
[23:43] Speaker 3: when it started really going up for me. Gio was like, yo,
[23:48] Speaker 3: you remember Fresh? Because I'm family still. Boy out here
[23:52] Speaker 3: going crazy. And Skane picked that phone up and was like, yo,
[23:55] Speaker 3: I'm proud of you. And we're brothers and friends to
[23:57] Speaker 3: this day. So to me, I needed that.
[24:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, because here's the other part, and I tell people
[24:02] Speaker 1: all the time. People want me to listen to stuff.
[24:05] Speaker 1: I say, listen, if I'm going to listen, I'm going
[24:06] Speaker 1: to give you my real opinion.
[24:07] Speaker 3: 100%.
[24:08] Speaker 1: Because what happens when somebody gives you the bullshit, oh, yeah,
[24:12] Speaker 1: that's cool, and then never call you back, I didn't
[24:15] Speaker 1: help at all.
[24:16] Speaker 3: Not at all.
[24:17] Speaker 1: But if I told you I didn't like it, and
[24:19] Speaker 1: you listened, and I can tell you why I don't
[24:22] Speaker 1: like it.
[24:22] Speaker 3: 100%.
[24:23] Speaker 1: And you can apply that to hopefully get into a
[24:25] Speaker 1: space where executives will like it.
[24:28] Speaker 2: I feel like I've helped you.
[24:29] Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
[24:30] Speaker 1: Now, if you just play me something great, cool. But 99%
[24:34] Speaker 1: of the time, you're not.
[24:35] Speaker 3: No.
[24:36] Speaker 1: 99% of the people who play you records are going
[24:40] Speaker 1: to play you a bad record.
[24:41] Speaker 3: Yeah. A thousand percent.
[24:42] Speaker 1: But you got to me, once you get into a
[24:45] Speaker 1: certain position or any position of all, even if it's
[24:47] Speaker 1: just your homies and you don't do music.
[24:49] Speaker 2: Hey man, keep it real with your friends. Hey dawg,
[24:52] Speaker 2: I don't know about this one.
[24:55] Speaker 3: You know what it is? People get afraid too, right?
[24:56] Speaker 3: Because everybody's afraid of the exact thing they need. Constructive criticism.
[25:03] Speaker 3: So you're telling me to take my time. You say
[25:06] Speaker 3: that you appreciate my ear, but you only want me
[25:10] Speaker 3: to tell you the exact thing that you really want
[25:14] Speaker 3: to hear because you don't really want my real opinion.
[25:16] Speaker 3: So it becomes, I see why sometimes, like you and
[25:19] Speaker 3: me different, right? But it's like, Everybody also in confrontation, UJ.
[25:24] Speaker 3: You know, we come from a background where it's like
[25:26] Speaker 3: confrontation is normal coming outside. I just tell them, like,
[25:30] Speaker 3: even artists I love to this day, please don't call
[25:34] Speaker 3: my phone. Because y'all say y'all want to be fresh friends,
[25:39] Speaker 3: and they'll tell you your favorites. I'm going to tell
[25:41] Speaker 3: you the truth. But if it's good, guess what? I'm
[25:44] Speaker 3: going to tell you it's good.
[25:45] Speaker 1: I had a conversation with an artist friend of mine
[25:47] Speaker 1: this morning. And the conversation went exactly like this. Hey,
[25:52] Speaker 1: you know, I get it. You're saying it didn't work
[25:55] Speaker 1: because of this, this, that, and the other. I think
[25:58] Speaker 1: it didn't work because you didn't have a hit record.
[26:01] Speaker 3: Oh, a bar. That's a big one.
[26:05] Speaker 2: That is the only one.
[26:06] Speaker 3: I mean.
[26:07] Speaker 1: People can blame whatever they want to in this business
[26:09] Speaker 1: on whatever they want to. Oh, this person got fired. Oh,
[26:13] Speaker 1: I had a bad manager. Oh, the A & R
[26:16] Speaker 1: was trying to sleep with me. Whatever, whatever, whatever.
[26:20] Speaker 2: Hit records change everything. Everything. Everything. And everything connected to everything.
[26:28] Speaker 3: A thousand percent.
[26:30] Speaker 2: Go get you a hit.
[26:31] Speaker 3: And you'll If you love it that much, the reason
[26:36] Speaker 3: why I say hate it is because once you get
[26:37] Speaker 3: that dopamine, that fix.
[26:39] Speaker 2: You chasing it.
[26:40] Speaker 3: You don't want nothing but that feeling again.
[26:42] Speaker 2: You chasing it.
[26:43] Speaker 3: And to me, anybody that doesn't want to get that
[26:49] Speaker 3: high off of something they did that magical, we probably
[26:52] Speaker 3: don't belong in the same room.
[26:53] Speaker 2: Right.
[26:54] Speaker 3: Because I love that feeling.
[26:56] Speaker 1: So speaking of that feeling and those hits, when did
[27:00] Speaker 1: you feel like you got Your first hit. Not even
[27:03] Speaker 1: saying it actually was a hit. When you got that first...
[27:06] Speaker 1: What's your first placement?
[27:08] Speaker 2: Do you remember?
[27:09] Speaker 3: Man, it probably was... My man from Canada, his name
[27:13] Speaker 3: was Jordan. And it wasn't this big to-do thing, but
[27:16] Speaker 3: it was the first time I got flewed out.
[27:19] Speaker 2: Okay. All right. All right. All right.
[27:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[27:21] Speaker 3: They asked if you had this. I felt important.
[27:24] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[27:24] Speaker 2: What airline you want? You know? Was it that? Or no,
[27:27] Speaker 2: they just sent you the ticket?
[27:28] Speaker 4: No.
[27:29] Speaker 3: They told me to get there.
[27:30] Speaker 4: All right.
[27:30] Speaker 2: Okay.
[27:31] Speaker 3: They didn't ask for the airline. It was like, hey, Fresh,
[27:34] Speaker 3: we got a ticket for you. I think I was
[27:35] Speaker 3: in 32B by the bathroom. Did you at least have
[27:37] Speaker 3: a frequent flyer number yet or nothing?
[27:39] Speaker 2: No.
[27:39] Speaker 3: Okay. All right. In fact, I was scared of planes.
[27:42] Speaker 2: Oh, shit.
[27:42] Speaker 3: The first time I got flewed out, I was like, Oh,
[27:44] Speaker 3: this is getting crazy up here.
[27:46] Speaker 2: They flew you to Toronto?
[27:46] Speaker 3: Flew me to Toronto in the cold. And he was
[27:50] Speaker 3: cracking at the time. And this was early Canada. And
[27:54] Speaker 3: I was in Toronto. And I went out there and
[27:57] Speaker 3: I made these records. And I started to understand right
[28:01] Speaker 3: then and there that this is a real thing for me.
[28:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:05] Speaker 3: Because people were finding value in what I did and
[28:09] Speaker 3: were spending money for me to be a part of
[28:12] Speaker 3: something to help their situation.
[28:13] Speaker 2: And how long has you been writing songs for at
[28:15] Speaker 2: this point?
[28:16] Speaker 3: Oh man, now.
[28:17] Speaker 2: As a professional.
[28:18] Speaker 1: That you felt like you were a professional where you're
[28:20] Speaker 1: literally writing songs to get placements. How long did it
[28:23] Speaker 1: take for you to get your first one?
[28:26] Speaker 3: Years. I'm writing thousands of songs.
[28:29] Speaker 2: Before you placed one.
[28:30] Speaker 3: Before I placed one song. I'm talking thousands.
[28:33] Speaker 2: Keep going.
[28:34] Speaker 3: Like they say 10,000 hours. Fresh probably did that 10,000 times.
[28:37] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:38] Speaker 3: Like the hours, like, At this point, I'm operating off
[28:40] Speaker 3: muscle memory. I understand because I done made so many
[28:44] Speaker 3: mistakes and took so many L's.
[28:46] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[28:46] Speaker 3: But is it a loss if you learn from it?
[28:48] Speaker 3: I don't think so. Because when I get now go
[28:50] Speaker 3: to join, but that's my first thing.
[28:52] Speaker 2: Right.
[28:53] Speaker 3: But now you got to understand something, too. I'm really
[28:57] Speaker 3: a product of artist development.
[28:58] Speaker 2: Right.
[28:58] Speaker 3: Because if we skip and pass. As Queens is falling
[29:02] Speaker 3: in love with me.
[29:03] Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
[29:03] Speaker 3: Now I'm spending more time in Queens. So my barbers
[29:07] Speaker 3: are from Queens. Shout out to Ted 360. This is
[29:10] Speaker 3: my family. But they're working in the shop owned by,
[29:13] Speaker 3: and I want to give him his flowers, Corey Rooney.
[29:16] Speaker 2: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. The legend himself.
[29:18] Speaker 3: Super legend. Queens legend. Music legend of New York. Yes.
[29:24] Speaker 3: But again, I'm the cool, right? I'm outside. I'm running
[29:27] Speaker 3: with all the guys.
[29:29] Speaker 2: They all rock with you. Just music ain't there yet.
[29:31] Speaker 3: But the music is coming. Yeah. But now it's starting
[29:35] Speaker 3: to pick up, Jay. So now the barbershop is like, yo,
[29:38] Speaker 3: this boy is fired. so now he gets wind of
[29:41] Speaker 3: it and we we start trying to figure things out
[29:45] Speaker 3: but at the same token i still don't feel like
[29:48] Speaker 3: is it worth me not doing other things for the
[29:51] Speaker 3: music can i really make money off this Right?
[29:55] Speaker 2: It's not enough to get you out the streets yet.
[29:57] Speaker 3: Or just from work, do whatever it took to do it.
[30:01] Speaker 3: And then I will never forget, man, I was dating
[30:03] Speaker 3: this girl, Akiva, wonderful human. And we both working at
[30:09] Speaker 3: the hospital. She a nurse. She getting it. I'm, at
[30:12] Speaker 3: the time, I'm an operating technician.
[30:14] Speaker 2: I'm working.
[30:15] Speaker 3: I got a good job. But, you know, after work
[30:16] Speaker 3: is after work. And, man, I'm about to sign up because,
[30:21] Speaker 3: and this is my real life story. I was like, man,
[30:23] Speaker 3: I'm about to become an anesthetics nurse. Like, I'm going
[30:25] Speaker 3: into anesthesiology. I'm about to make some money because I saw.
[30:27] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real bread being made.
[30:29] Speaker 3: Oh, and I'm in there. I know all the surgeons, everybody, like,
[30:31] Speaker 3: we hanging out. And they're like, yo, go there. This
[30:34] Speaker 3: is what it looks like. So, you know, you show
[30:35] Speaker 3: me the way.
[30:36] Speaker 2: I'm going.
[30:37] Speaker 3: I never forget, we go down to the bursar office.
[30:38] Speaker 3: Her mom had worked at LIU. She drives me.
[30:41] Speaker 2: She believed in me, too.
[30:42] Speaker 3: I can't lie. She believed in me. Man, she drove
[30:45] Speaker 3: me down there. And as we get to the bursar office, somehow,
[30:48] Speaker 3: Corey got next to somebody and they got my number.
[30:52] Speaker 3: So first time he called, you're like, yo, wait a minute.
[30:54] Speaker 3: I don't even think it's him I bang on. Bow. Boy, please.
[30:56] Speaker 3: I'm going to go over here. Because now music done
[30:59] Speaker 3: broke my heart too many times. I don't want to
[31:01] Speaker 3: hear about no music. The trauma.
[31:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[31:05] Speaker 3: I know I can make some money doing this, right?
[31:07] Speaker 3: But again, I'm working at the hospital. I'm doing melodies
[31:10] Speaker 3: in the locker room. I'm dealing with patients. I'm singing
[31:12] Speaker 3: to them. Oh, you got a wonderful voice. And Corey
[31:16] Speaker 3: hit me back. And he said, yo, I said, yo,
[31:19] Speaker 3: I'm not quitting my job. because I'm making decent money
[31:21] Speaker 3: at this hospital. And he said, all right, cool. We'll
[31:26] Speaker 3: work around your schedule. I said, I worked seven to three.
[31:29] Speaker 3: At the time, he had the stupid crib in Old Brookville.
[31:31] Speaker 3: This is like real money. This is when I started
[31:33] Speaker 3: seeing like, oh, no, I got to commit. This is like,
[31:37] Speaker 3: you can change your life off this. And that's why
[31:41] Speaker 3: I can never leave anybody out of my story, because
[31:43] Speaker 3: every part of it helped me to become who I
[31:45] Speaker 3: am today.
[31:46] Speaker 4: Right.
[31:47] Speaker 3: And I remember going to his house after work. From
[31:51] Speaker 3: 3 to 11. And the things that I saw him do.
[31:58] Speaker 3: That's why it's hard for me to. Oh songwriting or
[32:00] Speaker 3: producing or whatever it is. No he taught me how
[32:02] Speaker 3: to record make. He helped me get the tools. And
[32:05] Speaker 3: he knew what I had. And he always told me
[32:07] Speaker 3: though early. You're going to be him. Like you got it.
[32:11] Speaker 3: You just got to stay at it. And stay at it.
[32:12] Speaker 3: And stay at it. And he would eventually. Connect me
[32:17] Speaker 3: to two people. Which is crazy. Walter Jones. And Omar Grant. Yeah, yeah.
[32:22] Speaker 3: And they were both interns for him as he was
[32:25] Speaker 3: right next to Tommy Mottola and running the show. And
[32:28] Speaker 3: we work on projects. He teach me how to make records.
[32:33] Speaker 3: He's the first person I seen. Melodon, remember, you got
[32:35] Speaker 3: J-Lo coming through there. I mean, it's legends. And he's
[32:39] Speaker 3: like right in that pool house. And I'll never forget,
[32:42] Speaker 3: that's the first time I ever met Bruno Mars because
[32:44] Speaker 3: he was working with him first.
[32:45] Speaker 2: Oh, shit.
[32:46] Speaker 3: Oh, no, my story is nuts. So... My barber, same barber,
[32:51] Speaker 3: used to cut Bruno's hair and my hair. So he's like.
[32:54] Speaker 2: Y'all don't have the same hair. Oh, no. It's different.
[32:56] Speaker 2: This barber's great.
[32:58] Speaker 3: Oh, he's amazing. Oh, yeah.
[33:01] Speaker 1: You went from one side of the earth to the other, man. Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
[33:04] Speaker 2: Because you know everybody can't cut every kind of hair.
[33:06] Speaker 3: Oh, no. 360. Sadie, please get it right. Shout out
[33:09] Speaker 3: to him, too. Amazing. Kept me laced. So... He takes
[33:15] Speaker 3: me there and I'm meeting these people and I'm working
[33:17] Speaker 3: with him and I'm building. And then I, lo and behold,
[33:21] Speaker 3: me and O built a relationship, me and Omar and Walter.
[33:23] Speaker 3: Walter always had respect for me, but me and O
[33:25] Speaker 3: would hang out. We would just have more in common.
[33:27] Speaker 3: At that time, I don't know if he was quite
[33:29] Speaker 3: the role manager, but he was running around with Destiny's Child.
[33:33] Speaker 3: Because remember, Corey had did one of their biggest records.
[33:37] Speaker 3: It was just, it was starting to come together is
[33:40] Speaker 3: what I'm saying. This story.
[33:41] Speaker 2: You're right there.
[33:42] Speaker 3: I'm in the eye of it.
[33:43] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[33:43] Speaker 3: And I'm saying, My faith is strong, right? I'm like, okay, God,
[33:49] Speaker 3: you're doing your big one. I'm just going to step
[33:50] Speaker 3: out the way. I'm going to trust it.
[33:52] Speaker 2: So are you signed to Corey?
[33:54] Speaker 3: No, I just come through. I don't know nothing about signing.
[33:57] Speaker 3: I don't know nothing about that.
[33:58] Speaker 2: So he didn't even do the whole like, yeah, yeah,
[33:59] Speaker 2: I'm going to sign you and you under me.
[34:01] Speaker 3: No, I was like his hit man. Me, Rel, and
[34:04] Speaker 3: a young cat at the time named Cito. But me
[34:07] Speaker 3: and Rel, we spent the most time with him.
[34:09] Speaker 2: Okay.
[34:10] Speaker 3: And shout out to Rel, Basley. And I can't lie
[34:13] Speaker 3: to you. He kind of outgrew, went on my way, right?
[34:19] Speaker 3: And me and O hung, hanging out. This was when
[34:22] Speaker 3: Roc Nation was, it was about a rock. It wasn't
[34:25] Speaker 3: even its thing yet. It was forming, but it wasn't there.
[34:29] Speaker 3: And Omar Grant told me, and he probably don't remember this,
[34:34] Speaker 3: but I remember it vividly because all of these points
[34:36] Speaker 3: got me to being right here. And he said, listen, Fresh,
[34:41] Speaker 3: you pretty much got it. The hood on Smash. You
[34:43] Speaker 3: can do the R & B. You can do the rap.
[34:45] Speaker 3: You can do all of it. Like the city rocking
[34:48] Speaker 3: with you.
[34:48] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[34:49] Speaker 3: But you got to go to the next level. He said, yo,
[34:51] Speaker 3: I can't manage you, but I want to connect you
[34:53] Speaker 3: with somebody.
[34:54] Speaker 2: Right?
[34:54] Speaker 3: Very important piece. He said, have you ever heard of
[34:59] Speaker 3: Claude Kelly? See, I understand. I'm in the neighborhood. I
[35:03] Speaker 3: don't know nothing about these guys.
[35:04] Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
[35:05] Speaker 3: I'm only looking at, at this time, respectfully, I'm studying R. Kelly.
[35:10] Speaker 3: I'm studying Babyface. I'm studying L.A. Reid. I'm studying Jimmy Jam.
[35:13] Speaker 2: Front-facing.
[35:14] Speaker 3: Front-facing. I don't know... Like, I only knew about the
[35:18] Speaker 3: star songwriters that were the stars.
[35:20] Speaker 2: So you're not reading liner notes. You're not reading albums and.
[35:23] Speaker 3: No, because at that time, he was doing so... No,
[35:26] Speaker 3: I would read those, but at the time, his records
[35:29] Speaker 3: were so big, but they were also out of my circumference.
[35:31] Speaker 2: Gotcha.
[35:32] Speaker 3: I'm in R & B and hip-hop.
[35:33] Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
[35:34] Speaker 3: Now, this brother's doing Hot 100 No. 1. Massive. But
[35:37] Speaker 3: check me out.
[35:37] Speaker 2: Massive, yeah.
[35:38] Speaker 3: So he called... a gentleman by the name of Make.
[35:42] Speaker 3: Make was managing Claude. Together they had a studio at
[35:45] Speaker 3: the Brill Building on 49th and Broadway. This is the
[35:48] Speaker 3: heart of Times Square. Sends me up there, have a meeting.
[35:54] Speaker 3: Lo and behold, I'm like, you know what? If I
[35:56] Speaker 3: want to give, if I want what I want from
[35:58] Speaker 3: this music, I'm going to have to let a lot go.
[36:01] Speaker 3: So I just started committing to going there every day.
[36:03] Speaker 3: Because now I got the bug on me. And they
[36:08] Speaker 3: were forming... a publishing company at the time. And they
[36:12] Speaker 3: wanted like new writers, new producers, everybody. And then together
[36:16] Speaker 3: it was three cats. It was me, Fresh. It was
[36:19] Speaker 3: a gentleman from Philly named Germ and a talented, another
[36:22] Speaker 3: talented brother from Delaware named KO. Together we formed a
[36:25] Speaker 3: group called JFK. Germ, Fresh, and KO. JFK representing New York,
[36:30] Speaker 3: the airport. Man, we get to working and I'll never
[36:35] Speaker 3: forget this day because I want him to also have
[36:37] Speaker 3: his flowers, right? I didn't want to go home. I
[36:43] Speaker 3: saw what it was like. So I was like, if
[36:46] Speaker 3: I got sleep here, I will. Cause I, I want
[36:48] Speaker 3: it that bad. I'll be the first to show up
[36:49] Speaker 3: last to leave. And then one day I'll never forget
[36:52] Speaker 3: one of my homies caught 10 years. And I was
[36:54] Speaker 3: just like, damn, I can't afford that because that, that,
[37:01] Speaker 3: that could hurt a lot of people. And I would
[37:02] Speaker 3: just be repeating poor decision-making, which, you know, I would,
[37:07] Speaker 3: you know, at, at that time I would, blame my
[37:09] Speaker 3: mom because I felt like better decisions would have had
[37:11] Speaker 3: a better life for me.
[37:13] Speaker 5: Right?
[37:13] Speaker 3: I'm over that, but I'm just telling you what went
[37:15] Speaker 3: through my head. So I'm like, okay, that was the sign.
[37:18] Speaker 3: It's time to make a real shift. And man, I called,
[37:22] Speaker 3: I called make one day and I said, y'all want to,
[37:24] Speaker 3: I want to highlight Claude. Can I rap with y'all?
[37:26] Speaker 3: And I asked Claude, I said, yo, would you allow
[37:31] Speaker 3: me to come here on days I'm not working and
[37:33] Speaker 3: just be a fly on the wall? And this is
[37:35] Speaker 3: important for people to hear. I said, I don't want
[37:37] Speaker 3: any publishing. I don't want no melodies, no lyrics, no nothing.
[37:41] Speaker 3: I just want to learn what you do to make
[37:42] Speaker 3: these songs this big. Because I knew if I had
[37:45] Speaker 3: added that to what I do, I just saw where
[37:50] Speaker 3: I would be today.
[37:51] Speaker 2: Right.
[37:51] Speaker 3: The irony of it, right?
[37:52] Speaker 4: Right.
[37:53] Speaker 3: And Claude doesn't understand, but he deserves his flowers because
[37:57] Speaker 3: he was bigger than life.
[37:59] Speaker 2: Right?
[38:00] Speaker 3: You got people, you got R & B number ones,
[38:02] Speaker 3: you got hip hop number ones. No, we're talking hot
[38:05] Speaker 3: 100 number ones.
[38:06] Speaker 2: There's a difference.
[38:07] Speaker 3: And he would let me join him. And I'll never
[38:10] Speaker 3: forget this cat. This is in the middle of the storm.
[38:14] Speaker 3: He's doing Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA. He's doing
[38:18] Speaker 3: Price Tag by Jessie J. He's doing Jason Derulo, What
[38:22] Speaker 3: You Say. And then, oh, Bruno Mars' Grenade. And I'm
[38:27] Speaker 3: talking about top of the charts.
[38:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, rocket ships.
[38:30] Speaker 3: And I'm learning how he lay the verse, spacing in
[38:34] Speaker 3: the verse, the pre-hook. how he stacked the vocals.
[38:39] Speaker 2: Masterclass.
[38:40] Speaker 3: But this is why you called him the studio beast.
[38:43] Speaker 3: And then I would see him do hooks. And here
[38:45] Speaker 3: we are writing, you know, you do this single vocal
[38:48] Speaker 3: and you just think it's it. And you're like, damn,
[38:50] Speaker 3: why that record sound so big? He got a five
[38:53] Speaker 3: stack on the hook. Right. It's two on the left,
[38:55] Speaker 3: two on the right, and it's one up the middle.
[38:57] Speaker 3: But that joint's so big when every time he played
[38:59] Speaker 3: his record, J.I. go in the room and just throw
[39:01] Speaker 3: my records in the garbage.
[39:02] Speaker 2: Hit you in the chest.
[39:03] Speaker 3: Because it was big. And I said, Oh, I want
[39:06] Speaker 3: to get like that. And he allowed me to learn.
[39:09] Speaker 3: And then not only did he allow me to learn,
[39:11] Speaker 3: as he was in the A room, rightfully so, he'd
[39:14] Speaker 3: have us in the B room. And whatever artists he
[39:16] Speaker 3: brought in, he'd say, yo, you got to go in
[39:18] Speaker 3: there with my guys. And there holds where Fresh really became, oh,
[39:23] Speaker 3: it's about to go down. And this was the time
[39:28] Speaker 3: where now... I'm becoming a record maker. I'm learning how
[39:34] Speaker 3: to craft records. Not the song, a record. And there's
[39:38] Speaker 3: a difference.
[39:39] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[39:40] Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And I want to give him, man. Claude,
[39:42] Speaker 3: if you're out there, I want to tell you thank you.
[39:44] Speaker 3: Because personally, we spend so much time feeding into the
[39:48] Speaker 3: energy of people who do us wrong, but we never
[39:51] Speaker 3: give the flowers to people who do us right. And
[39:53] Speaker 3: I want to tell you, you helped change my life.
[39:56] Speaker 3: And I'm forever grateful because the hits that I make today,
[39:59] Speaker 3: I can attribute to being a part of your school
[40:01] Speaker 3: and learning. So God bless you, Chuck Harmony and everything
[40:04] Speaker 3: that y'all got going on. But thank you because y'all
[40:07] Speaker 3: helped me become a better record maker. My bad, Jay.
[40:10] Speaker 2: Nah, man, listen, this is why you're here, bro.
[40:12] Speaker 1: I wanted you to come here because I wanted you
[40:15] Speaker 1: to be able to give what that real experience is
[40:19] Speaker 1: and the process and the journey from a writer's perspective.
[40:24] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[40:24] Speaker 1: And someone who has now seen the top of the mountain.
[40:29] Speaker 3: A thousand pounds.
[40:30] Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying?
[40:32] Speaker 1: And be able to give the story of it just
[40:36] Speaker 1: doesn't happen overnight.
[40:37] Speaker 3: Hell no.
[40:38] Speaker 1: There are a lot of people that were a part
[40:40] Speaker 1: of that story. this is the place to talk about
[40:43] Speaker 1: those people as well.
[40:44] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[40:45] Speaker 1: Like, you already know, like, our podcast is not about,
[40:48] Speaker 1: you know, throwing people under the bus and doing that
[40:50] Speaker 1: whole thing.
[40:50] Speaker 2: It's like, it's a celebration. Yep.
[40:52] Speaker 1: So I want people to get their flowers even when
[40:55] Speaker 1: they're not sitting here.
[40:56] Speaker 2: 100%. You know what I mean?
[40:57] Speaker 1: So I appreciate you coming here and saying, hey, Jay,
[41:00] Speaker 1: I want to take time to say this person, that person,
[41:04] Speaker 1: this person, that person that were a part of this process.
[41:06] Speaker 2: That helped me get to where I am.
[41:08] Speaker 3: 100%.
[41:08] Speaker 2: You know what I mean? And because... None of us
[41:12] Speaker 2: have done this by ourselves.
[41:13] Speaker 3: No, though we lie to ourselves and say we do.
[41:15] Speaker 2: It's just not how it goes.
[41:18] Speaker 3: No.
[41:18] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[41:19] Speaker 4: No.
[41:20] Speaker 1: And I'm glad to have a platform that we've created
[41:24] Speaker 1: to be able to give somebody the space.
[41:27] Speaker 2: To celebrate others as well.
[41:29] Speaker 3: 100%. You know what I mean? 100%.
[41:40] Speaker 2: Okay, so you've been flewed out.
[41:42] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[41:42] Speaker 1: You've been under the school of Corey Rooney and Claude Kelly. Yeah,
[41:46] Speaker 1: they're incredible. So I already know what you're around and
[41:50] Speaker 1: what you're breathing in.
[41:52] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[41:52] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[41:53] Speaker 1: Because they're helping create what you're going to be.
[41:56] Speaker 3: Rare air.
[41:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
[41:59] Speaker 1: What's the record, though, where it's like, okay, this is
[42:04] Speaker 1: different now? What's the first one you caught?
[42:07] Speaker 3: I'll never forget. Shout out to Reef, Brooklyn, and my dog, White, right?
[42:13] Speaker 3: I was working with them in Jersey a lot. And Reef,
[42:16] Speaker 3: he had many runs, but now he's partners with White
[42:19] Speaker 3: at the time. And he's like, yo, fresh, I want
[42:23] Speaker 3: to lock in with you. And we locked in. And
[42:26] Speaker 3: our very first placement was an Empire soundtrack, the TV show,
[42:33] Speaker 3: the first season.
[42:34] Speaker 2: Okay.
[42:35] Speaker 3: My sister, to this day, Estelle. And we did Conqueror
[42:40] Speaker 3: featuring Justin Smollett. Yeah. And we were Grammy nominated. We
[42:44] Speaker 3: won an NAACP award. And I think that's when I
[42:48] Speaker 3: felt like I made it a little bit. The money
[42:51] Speaker 3: wasn't there, but the record was. Because my grandmoms watched
[42:57] Speaker 3: that on TV. And out of everything I was doing
[43:01] Speaker 3: that I thought was lit, quiet. Oh, you on TV.
[43:05] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[43:05] Speaker 3: You doing your big one. Yeah. And I'll never forget.
[43:08] Speaker 3: you know, us crafting that record with Estelle, her having
[43:13] Speaker 3: these outlets, because, you know, one thing about my sister, man,
[43:16] Speaker 3: she just knows how to go make things happen. She's
[43:19] Speaker 3: amazing as a human. She always saw me.
[43:22] Speaker 1: And everybody rocked with her. I've never met a person
[43:24] Speaker 1: that's just like, ah, people are like, no.
[43:26] Speaker 2: I love Estelle.
[43:26] Speaker 3: You got to be a hater if you don't mess
[43:28] Speaker 3: with Estelle. She walks with love. That's who she is.
[43:31] Speaker 3: And shout out to Walter, you know, her business partner
[43:34] Speaker 3: and manager to this day, and the love that they
[43:36] Speaker 3: poured into Fresh. And I'll never forget it aired on
[43:40] Speaker 3: Channel 5. And man, it was a minute running, which
[43:44] Speaker 3: is a long sink.
[43:45] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[43:45] Speaker 3: So now you're hearing.
[43:46] Speaker 2: I was about to say, you said it wasn't no money.
[43:48] Speaker 3: No, it was decent, but again... I.
[43:50] Speaker 1: Mean, you know, you got Hot 100, so yeah.
[43:53] Speaker 3: Right?
[43:54] Speaker 2: Money to you is different.
[43:55] Speaker 3: Now I see the difference, right?
[43:57] Speaker 2: All right, all right.
[43:58] Speaker 3: So I'm sitting there, and man, this joint comes on TV, bro.
[44:02] Speaker 3: And I said, I got it. And then after that, man,
[44:10] Speaker 3: God bless his soul. I get another call from White
[44:12] Speaker 3: and Reef. Orlando goes to their studio. He has a
[44:16] Speaker 3: kid from Philly. And he says, yo, he's a hybrid.
[44:21] Speaker 3: He's doing like R & B, hip hop, but his
[44:23] Speaker 3: melodies is crazy. He's got this voice. Yo, who can
[44:27] Speaker 3: help us, man? Trying to break him. God bless him.
[44:34] Speaker 3: The dead, but he's still alive and living because he
[44:36] Speaker 3: was special and that was PNB Rock.
[44:38] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[44:39] Speaker 3: And again, I'm showing you how I'm early to these things.
[44:42] Speaker 3: I go in, Rock ain't got no jury. He's just
[44:47] Speaker 3: really coming up out the system, but he's gifted and
[44:50] Speaker 3: he's with Orlando and they trying to figure it out.
[44:52] Speaker 3: Bring him and Reeves say, yo, call fresh. And he
[44:56] Speaker 3: sent the car for me. The car comes all the
[44:59] Speaker 3: way to where I'm at, brings me to Jersey and
[45:01] Speaker 3: we get to Rocking. And we hit it off like this, bro.
[45:05] Speaker 3: You know, it's like me and you. It's like, oh,
[45:07] Speaker 3: it's easy.
[45:08] Speaker 2: And we do music?
[45:09] Speaker 3: Cool. And I'll never forget, man, his record plus his
[45:15] Speaker 3: other record was Hanging Up My Jersey. That's the record
[45:17] Speaker 3: I did featuring Ty Dolla $ ign, right? But the funny
[45:21] Speaker 3: part is, I'd say that record and Selfish helped make
[45:24] Speaker 3: PNB Rock the superstar that he is to this day.
[45:28] Speaker 3: And I'll never forget, the story was inspired because one
[45:31] Speaker 3: of my right-hand mans was like, Yeah, man, I think
[45:34] Speaker 3: I'm about to get married. You know, we talk basketball.
[45:36] Speaker 3: I'm like, so you finna hang up your jersey? You
[45:39] Speaker 3: ain't playing no more? He was like, word. Lo and behold,
[45:43] Speaker 3: two days later, I get that call. And I walk
[45:45] Speaker 3: in with that idea. And we flip this record. And
[45:48] Speaker 3: me and Rock just going crazy on this PNB Rock
[45:51] Speaker 3: record with Reef. And that record, man, they started inviting
[45:56] Speaker 3: me to the shows and seeing people sing these melodies.
[46:00] Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I really do this. This ain't the...
[46:03] Speaker 3: hood nigga fresh no more I'm making records I'm making
[46:06] Speaker 3: credible records and then man it just it trickled down
[46:10] Speaker 3: from there the next person to walk into the Brill
[46:13] Speaker 3: building was Tiana Taylor she had been with Pharrell she
[46:17] Speaker 3: was just signed to Good Music and she was trying
[46:20] Speaker 3: to put out a project that she kept getting told
[46:23] Speaker 3: no it wasn't good enough and if you know Tiana man.
[46:27] Speaker 2: She ain't gonna listen to that she gonna keep Tiana.
[46:29] Speaker 3: Don't wanna hear you my boy what you mean but
[46:32] Speaker 3: guess what That's why she is who she is today.
[46:34] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[46:35] Speaker 3: And we built a real bond. And it didn't start
[46:39] Speaker 3: off that way, though.
[46:41] Speaker 2: Right?
[46:42] Speaker 3: T walked in. I'll never forget. God bless his soul
[46:45] Speaker 3: as well, Derrick Folk. He walks in. He was a
[46:48] Speaker 3: manager at the time. And he was like, yeah, man,
[46:51] Speaker 3: I think T said her album done. Man, I love
[46:55] Speaker 3: that story because, you know, I hear that a lot now, right?
[46:58] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[46:59] Speaker 3: Until they get the fresh, right?
[47:01] Speaker 2: So, man.
[47:02] Speaker 3: Humbly speaking. And then she walks in, she plays the joints.
[47:05] Speaker 3: But she ain't gone for two days, bro. She don't
[47:07] Speaker 3: want to hear nobody. My album's done. I just came
[47:10] Speaker 3: over here to do some backing vocals. Yeah. I'm from
[47:13] Speaker 3: New York. She's from New York. So we get that.
[47:14] Speaker 3: We get at it. You know what I mean? We
[47:16] Speaker 3: bite it, we bite it, whatever. And we just get
[47:18] Speaker 3: to talking. And she's like, well, I kind of like him.
[47:19] Speaker 3: You know what I mean? And I said, T, just
[47:23] Speaker 3: give us a chance. And at the time, you had
[47:26] Speaker 3: another production group called The Order. And The Order had
[47:29] Speaker 3: just did Drunken Love. They were now being managed. So
[47:34] Speaker 3: we started to work a lot alike together. I mean,
[47:38] Speaker 3: and I'll never forget. She was like, all right, you
[47:40] Speaker 3: know what? Since you popping all that shit tomorrow, I'm
[47:43] Speaker 3: coming in there. Let me see what you got in
[47:45] Speaker 3: the order. We start crafting music together, same process. And
[47:51] Speaker 3: I'll never forget dog. I'm like, Oh, these are the
[47:56] Speaker 3: four beats. These are the four records that I think,
[48:00] Speaker 3: It's going to help us with Tiana and give her
[48:02] Speaker 3: that push. Jay, when she came in the next day,
[48:06] Speaker 3: I played them joints and she was like, oh, no,
[48:10] Speaker 3: I'm rocking with this. In my mind, I'm like, oh,
[48:14] Speaker 3: you said the album done? I felt like Michael Jordan.
[48:17] Speaker 3: I took that personal. And we recorded a record called Maybe.
[48:24] Speaker 3: We ended up doing Maybe twice. And later on, we
[48:26] Speaker 3: put Pusha T and Yo Gotti on the record. And
[48:29] Speaker 3: it's just all me and her. We crafted. The next
[48:32] Speaker 3: record was Do Not Disturb featuring Chris Brown. Before I
[48:36] Speaker 3: ended up, I had six songs on that project that
[48:38] Speaker 3: was done.
[48:39] Speaker 2: Every single.
[48:41] Speaker 3: And I'll never forget. And I got to give her
[48:43] Speaker 3: props because I think the world doesn't understand that the
[48:46] Speaker 3: Tiana you've seen today. was just the same person. She just,
[48:50] Speaker 3: I don't think they took time to understand how gifted
[48:52] Speaker 3: she was.
[48:53] Speaker 2: She was a triple threat. Yeah, yeah.
[48:54] Speaker 3: Man, we started, I saw her drawing maybe the whole joint. Yo,
[48:59] Speaker 3: you like this fresh? Like, damn, you just drew that? She,
[49:02] Speaker 3: I mean, mastermind. Master creative directing. We took maybe up.
[49:08] Speaker 3: We didn't go to Che. We didn't go to Ye.
[49:10] Speaker 2: We went to Ebo.
[49:12] Speaker 3: Played the record on the radio. Early in the morning, me, her,
[49:15] Speaker 3: and Ma. I call her Mother Ma. And Bo, shout
[49:18] Speaker 3: out to them. We walked that record to the radio.
[49:21] Speaker 3: And Ebro played that record. Thank God for the DJs
[49:25] Speaker 3: and the people that helped. Because without them, we're nothing.
[49:28] Speaker 3: When he played that record, it went up.
[49:30] Speaker 2: Crazy.
[49:31] Speaker 3: People started calling because, again, nobody had heard Tiana do
[49:35] Speaker 3: music like this. Mm-hmm. Remember, she was with some juggernauts
[49:39] Speaker 3: and at the time they didn't have it figured out.
[49:41] Speaker 3: When that maybe hit, the phone started ringing. Yo, what's this?
[49:46] Speaker 2: Why you ain't?
[49:47] Speaker 3: And that was her first single, bro. And to me,
[49:51] Speaker 3: I'm not going to say that I broke her because
[49:53] Speaker 3: that's not fair. I'd say together, collectively as a unit,
[49:59] Speaker 3: we helped the world to see Tiana as an R &
[50:02] Speaker 3: B superstar. Seven is one of her most credible records
[50:09] Speaker 3: because it's the first record that introduced people to her
[50:12] Speaker 3: to remember she is the music she says she was
[50:16] Speaker 3: and then she went off from there and that made
[50:19] Speaker 3: me happy because there it is where again i'm next
[50:23] Speaker 3: to something that most people don't see and who knew
[50:26] Speaker 3: that that would become the fabric of my career right
[50:29] Speaker 3: early to the party last to be celebrated.
[50:31] Speaker 1: Yeah so now that you've You're placing records. Now you're
[50:36] Speaker 1: a part of this thing.
[50:37] Speaker 2: You're part of it.
[50:37] Speaker 1: Have you done any of your deals yet? Have you
[50:40] Speaker 1: done a publishing deal? Are you still moving around?
[50:45] Speaker 2: I was in an aggressive. By this point, somebody has you.
[50:48] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Seven song MDRC. It was jail. Shit. Seven songs.
[50:52] Speaker 3: That's 700%, ladies and gentlemen.
[50:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, mine was 10.
[50:55] Speaker 3: Oh, a thousand. Crazy. Just when I thought I had
[51:00] Speaker 3: it bad. It's when I thought I had it bad, Jay.
[51:05] Speaker 2: Hey, man, listen.
[51:06] Speaker 1: If you've been in this thing long enough, you're going
[51:08] Speaker 1: to have been through some things. You're going to have
[51:10] Speaker 1: been through some shit, man.
[51:11] Speaker 3: 100%.
[51:11] Speaker 2: You had to work your way out. Put your head down, nigga.
[51:14] Speaker 1: Stand in that studio, nigga, till there's light outside.
[51:17] Speaker 2: And there's light outside when you get there and light
[51:19] Speaker 2: outside when.
[51:20] Speaker 3: You go home. So you're like, hold on. I missed
[51:24] Speaker 3: the whole night. I'm going to be honest. When they
[51:28] Speaker 3: said seven songs, I just thought seven records.
[51:30] Speaker 2: I know you did.
[51:31] Speaker 3: Nobody told me no 700%.
[51:32] Speaker 1: Because you went straight to what the advance was.
[51:37] Speaker 3: What's that?
[51:38] Speaker 1: That's the biggest mistake. You go to page seven or
[51:41] Speaker 1: eight or whatever that is. You bypass everything you're supposed
[51:45] Speaker 1: to read.
[51:46] Speaker 3: Let's get a sign.
[51:47] Speaker 1: That says, oh, so on this option, I get this.
[51:51] Speaker 1: And after I do those 700,000 songs, I get what?
[51:55] Speaker 3: Let me tell you, sign on a dotted line, boy.
[51:58] Speaker 2: Whatever's going to take me from.
[52:00] Speaker 3: The struggle of not doing certain things.
[52:03] Speaker 2: Listen, bro. I've been there. I know how it goes.
[52:07] Speaker 3: It was tough.
[52:08] Speaker 2: Nigga, I'm going to sell dope. And I don't want
[52:12] Speaker 2: to no more.
[52:15] Speaker 3: 100%. It's that simple, bro.
[52:17] Speaker 2: 100%. Because the other part is like, yes, niggas be
[52:19] Speaker 2: complaining about these bad deals.
[52:21] Speaker 3: Hey, man.
[52:24] Speaker 1: I pray that you signed the best deal. But if
[52:27] Speaker 1: you just so happen to sign a bad one, That
[52:30] Speaker 1: helps you not go to the penitentiary?
[52:32] Speaker 3: Do it.
[52:33] Speaker 1: Do it.
[52:34] Speaker 3: And do it 10 times.
[52:35] Speaker 1: Because if I don't sign that first bad deal, I'm
[52:39] Speaker 1: back in the bay putting myself in jeopardy.
[52:43] Speaker 3: Every time.
[52:44] Speaker 2: Of going to the penitentiary.
[52:46] Speaker 3: And there's no deals in there. There's a what? Different
[52:50] Speaker 3: type of deal.
[52:51] Speaker 2: Now I'm calling, nigga. Play this song for Chris Brown.
[52:55] Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
[52:56] Speaker 1: Tell him your cousin got the heat.
[53:00] Speaker 3: A hundred percent.
[53:01] Speaker 2: I'll call you right back.
[53:03] Speaker 1: This call is from nigga depressed five.
[53:07] Speaker 3: Horrible.
[53:07] Speaker 2: Like, no, nigga, I don't want to be a part
[53:09] Speaker 2: of none of that.
[53:10] Speaker 3: No, I'm not doing it.
[53:10] Speaker 2: I'm going to sign this bad deal.
[53:12] Speaker 3: Yep.
[53:13] Speaker 2: That's going to get me out of a situation. Yep.
[53:16] Speaker 1: Because the other part too, right? Especially for songwriters. For
[53:23] Speaker 1: a songwriter, it takes a lot longer to make money.
[53:27] Speaker 4: Yeah. Right?
[53:27] Speaker 1: You just can't go get a record deal and then
[53:30] Speaker 1: once you get a record deal, you can get some shows.
[53:32] Speaker 1: If a song comes out, as a writer, you're waiting
[53:35] Speaker 1: on so many things have to happen.
[53:37] Speaker 2: For you to actually make a dollar.
[53:38] Speaker 3: 100%.
[53:40] Speaker 1: You got to place the song. Then the song got
[53:42] Speaker 1: to come out. Then the song has to be successful.
[53:44] Speaker 1: And then you have to wait months until the royalties come.
[53:49] Speaker 3: 9 to 12 to be exact.
[53:51] Speaker 4: Right?
[53:51] Speaker 3: A whole baby.
[53:52] Speaker 4: So.
[53:54] Speaker 2: And you hope you have a big baby. And you
[53:55] Speaker 2: need a big baby.
[53:56] Speaker 3: You don't want the little baby. You want the big baby.
[53:57] Speaker 3: You want an eight pounder. Right? Shit, you want a 10.
[53:59] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[54:02] Speaker 4: 100%.
[54:02] Speaker 2: So, getting.
[54:06] Speaker 1: A publishing deal, co-publishing deal, or administrative deal, whatever it is,
[54:12] Speaker 1: that gets you a little bit of money to get
[54:15] Speaker 1: you to these next spaces so that you can live
[54:18] Speaker 1: in a studio.
[54:19] Speaker 3: That's all you need.
[54:19] Speaker 1: Because it's very hard for a songwriter to have a job.
[54:24] Speaker 2: It's harder for a songwriter to have a job, man.
[54:26] Speaker 3: And today it might be worse.
[54:29] Speaker 4: Yes.
[54:30] Speaker 3: It might be worse because streaming? Oh, crazy.
[54:32] Speaker 1: Because the other thing is like, because songwriters also have
[54:35] Speaker 1: to be available. What if that certain artist wants to
[54:39] Speaker 1: work with you and you got a clock in?
[54:41] Speaker 2: It's tough, bro.
[54:43] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[54:44] Speaker 1: It's really tough if said artist, whoever it is, big
[54:48] Speaker 1: or small artist, With this opportunity says I need young
[54:53] Speaker 1: Jay Valentine, young.
[54:54] Speaker 2: Fresh to pull up to the studio at 3 a.m.
[54:56] Speaker 3: And you better be there.
[54:57] Speaker 2: And I got to be to work at five, though. Yep.
[55:00] Speaker 2: Or six.
[55:01] Speaker 3: Yep.
[55:02] Speaker 1: Or I've been working all day and I slept through
[55:04] Speaker 1: that call or that tech.
[55:06] Speaker 2: It's just, bro, it's tough.
[55:09] Speaker 1: So, you know, when those deals are put in front
[55:12] Speaker 1: of you or somebody wants to invest in you.
[55:13] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[55:14] Speaker 2: Because this is my other part. Somebody wanting to invest
[55:20] Speaker 2: in you is never a bad thing.
[55:23] Speaker 3: Hell no.
[55:24] Speaker 2: It's just what the terms are.
[55:26] Speaker 3: Yes.
[55:26] Speaker 2: You have to be able to live with whatever those
[55:29] Speaker 2: terms are.
[55:30] Speaker 4: Yes.
[55:31] Speaker 1: And that's why even I talk about the deal. The
[55:33] Speaker 1: money they gave me for them 10 souls, boy. Bought
[55:41] Speaker 1: my condo. Bought that red Escalade y'all seen in that
[55:44] Speaker 1: Keisha Cole video.
[55:47] Speaker 3: I forgot about that video.
[55:48] Speaker 2: Man, and that's my car. 100%.
[55:50] Speaker 3: And I paid for it with that bad publishing deal. Man,
[55:56] Speaker 3: let me tell you something. Man, listen.
[55:59] Speaker 2: It's part of it. And you just got to just
[56:02] Speaker 2: believe in your greatness.
[56:03] Speaker 3: Every time, though. Every time. And understand that you're going
[56:17] Speaker 3: to go through the bad to get to the good
[56:18] Speaker 3: because I climbed out to seven and was able to
[56:22] Speaker 3: pivot to a BMG deal that was three and a
[56:25] Speaker 3: half or four songs. So it was a little bit better.
[56:27] Speaker 2: Okay.
[56:29] Speaker 3: But I don't get to BMG without the next part
[56:32] Speaker 3: of the story, which is, again, I told you about
[56:36] Speaker 3: the order in Tiana. When it was a lady, at
[56:39] Speaker 3: this time, they on fire. They did Drunk In Love.
[56:42] Speaker 3: They going crazy. Dre Rasul. Oh, they going nuts. And
[56:47] Speaker 3: the lady comes, but I had just left the studio, right?
[56:51] Speaker 3: She's like, yo, I want to shake things up. I
[56:54] Speaker 3: want to do a camp in Texas. Who's hot outside? Again,
[56:59] Speaker 3: we just did Tiana. And they were like, you got
[57:03] Speaker 3: to get with Fresh. She was like, can you get
[57:05] Speaker 3: with him? He's like, hey, man, he outside right now.
[57:08] Speaker 3: He'll come back tomorrow or maybe make him call him.
[57:11] Speaker 3: And I'll never forget. And it was like, yo, lady
[57:18] Speaker 3: wants you to fly to Texas. Hey, it's 2012, Texas.
[57:26] Speaker 3: I'm as New York as you make it. You understand?
[57:28] Speaker 3: Like this LA transition was tough.
[57:29] Speaker 2: The only place you've been to is Toronto at this point.
[57:32] Speaker 3: It may be like South Carolina. I've been places, but
[57:35] Speaker 3: like Texas was like, I'm not going to Texas.
[57:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[57:39] Speaker 3: He was like, yo. But he's not unpacking what it
[57:43] Speaker 3: really is.
[57:43] Speaker 2: What it is.
[57:44] Speaker 3: So then me, Dre, Dre Moon, shout out to Dre Moon.
[57:47] Speaker 3: He like, bro, we got to go to this. So
[57:50] Speaker 3: I'm like, if y'all going, I'm going. At least I
[57:52] Speaker 3: ain't going to be the only black brother there.
[57:53] Speaker 4: Right?
[57:55] Speaker 3: We land in Texas. Like, it flew out again, Jay.
[58:00] Speaker 3: The car takes us an hour plus to Gransbury.
[58:04] Speaker 2: I don't know where that is. Watch this. I've never
[58:06] Speaker 2: been there.
[58:07] Speaker 3: So, All it is is a little beautiful white woman
[58:10] Speaker 3: with this silver streak in her hair. I don't know
[58:11] Speaker 3: who she is. She's having this writer's camp at her
[58:16] Speaker 3: bed and breakfast. It's about 10 bedrooms, bathrooms. I'm talking
[58:20] Speaker 3: about real bathrooms. And I'm like, look, in my mind,
[58:24] Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, God, you're doing it again. My thing
[58:30] Speaker 3: to me, just stay present. And we get to working. Ken,
[58:35] Speaker 3: I don't know who this lady is, man. This lady's
[58:37] Speaker 3: showing up, cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She's a made woman.
[58:43] Speaker 3: I don't know that yet. You know what I would do, though?
[58:47] Speaker 3: Because one thing I do love to do is learn.
[58:49] Speaker 3: So I said, I got to figure this lady out.
[58:52] Speaker 3: Who is she? What does she do? We work around
[58:55] Speaker 3: the clock. Some hours that I don't have to do
[58:57] Speaker 3: no more. And every morning, that lady would creep in
[59:01] Speaker 3: around 6. And if you know me, I'm up every day.
[59:03] Speaker 3: That time is my time. I'd sit with her and
[59:05] Speaker 3: talk with her for hours before everybody woke up. And
[59:08] Speaker 3: she'd give me game, the A & R. She's not
[59:10] Speaker 3: saying who she work with though. Me and her built
[59:14] Speaker 3: the bond and I attribute her to being another person
[59:17] Speaker 3: in my life that deserves flowers. She said, why aren't
[59:22] Speaker 3: you in LA? This is when it's cracking. 12, 13, 12, probably.
[59:26] Speaker 3: Maybe 11, 12. I was like, I hate L.A. I
[59:31] Speaker 3: went out there in 2010. They ain't got no bodegas.
[59:34] Speaker 3: I'm New Yorked out. I'm like, you know what I'm saying?
[59:37] Speaker 3: I'm like, ain't got no Jamaican spots. It's not my vibe.
[59:41] Speaker 3: I got to walk mad blocks. Y'all got 7-Eleven. We
[59:43] Speaker 3: ain't doing no 7-Elevens. Right, right. She was like, Fresh,
[59:47] Speaker 3: get out your way. She said, you didn't like it
[59:51] Speaker 3: because it wasn't presented to you right. If you stay
[59:54] Speaker 3: in New York, your music career is going to die.
[59:56] Speaker 3: And you're too gifted. You have to open up that gift.
[59:59] Speaker 3: and go play in the big leagues. The big leagues
[1:00:01] Speaker 3: is L.A. She said, I'll tell you what I'm going
[1:00:03] Speaker 3: to do. I want you to trust me. I'm going
[1:00:08] Speaker 3: to fly you to L.A. after you get to New
[1:00:09] Speaker 3: York and get settled. I'm going to go out there.
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: I'm supposed to be putting together another camp. This is
[1:00:14] Speaker 3: Thomas like you, Jay. I'm one of these people when
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: you know that. Don't tell me something wrong. Tell me
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: what I can do to make my wrong right. Or
[1:00:23] Speaker 3: at least better. She's always explaining the process. I land,
[1:00:28] Speaker 3: I get flewed out to L.A. Driver, car put me
[1:00:32] Speaker 3: up at the Oakwood. I made it. I got a pool.
[1:00:34] Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm doing my thing now. I
[1:00:36] Speaker 3: think I'm a big dog.
[1:00:37] Speaker 2: Little pup.
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: And then we get to Westlake. My favorite studio, by
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: the way. Shout out to Westlake because we make a
[1:00:43] Speaker 3: lot of hits in Westlake. The home that Michael Jackson
[1:00:47] Speaker 3: and Quincy built. And I see my name on the wall. Jay,
[1:00:49] Speaker 3: you got to understand, I know everybody too cool.
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: You got the freshest face.
[1:00:53] Speaker 3: I was like, oh, yeah, I did my big one.
[1:00:56] Speaker 3: And this camp. At the time, it's in Westlake Every Room.
[1:01:00] Speaker 3: And it's hosted by what will become my publisher, BMG.
[1:01:03] Speaker 3: It's ran by Zach Katz, Shanee, shout out to Shanee, Jeremiah,
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: and it's going. But Teresa makes the statement, and I
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: know she did it because she explained to me the
[1:01:15] Speaker 3: whole process. She said, it's nothing to be nervous about.
[1:01:18] Speaker 3: It's my camp. They asked me to host the camp.
[1:01:22] Speaker 3: And out of nowhere, she's like, I'll host the camp
[1:01:25] Speaker 3: if I can bring in two writers. It was me
[1:01:27] Speaker 3: and Jerm. from JFK. She said, but she was like,
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: I want these cats to come out there with me.
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: They are really, really, really good. That was a different
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: type of co-sign. Man, I get out the car, you
[1:01:39] Speaker 3: want to talk about nervous? Because now, all that shit
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: you popping, let me see what you about.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:01:44] Speaker 3: Because now, I'm in LA and one of my favorite
[1:01:48] Speaker 3: people of all time who believed in me, another one,
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: Prince Charles.
[1:01:52] Speaker 2: Incredible.
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: Oh, one of the best.
[1:01:54] Speaker 2: Incredible. Prince Charles is incredible.
[1:01:57] Speaker 3: I'm going to stand on it In 2014, Prince Charles
[1:02:02] Speaker 3: told me I would be where I'm at today.
[1:02:04] Speaker 4: Wow.
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: One of the first. Slid my DMs. Because the group
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: goes through a breakup. We'll get to that. And he said,
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: you're going to be the one. You want it that bad.
[1:02:15] Speaker 3: You practice that hard. You're that good. Just keep working.
[1:02:19] Speaker 3: Don't even focus on what you did yesterday. Never forget
[1:02:22] Speaker 3: he told me that. Man, I'm in there, you know,
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: Unpopular demand. You got detail. It's hitters in here. These
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: guys got hits. You getting the rumors. Yo, you know
[1:02:34] Speaker 3: Prince Charles and Beyonce hang out. I'm like, why am
[1:02:36] Speaker 3: I even here? And the first room I walked in,
[1:02:40] Speaker 3: this is when you know you in alignment. Dima, Chloe,
[1:02:45] Speaker 3: and Haley. First time ever working at Westlake. No, pardon me.
[1:02:51] Speaker 3: Excuse me. That's the second. Excuse me. First time I'm
[1:02:54] Speaker 3: skipping steps. It gets blurry. You got Detail in one room.
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: You got Prince Charles. You got Rook. You got all
[1:03:01] Speaker 3: the legends. But my guys now, it's me, Rio, Middy,
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: and Jerm in one room and they put us in
[1:03:07] Speaker 3: the booth. The live room. We didn't even have our
[1:03:10] Speaker 3: own room. You had to get it where you fit in.
[1:03:12] Speaker 3: Brought the speakers in. We did a record. We did
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: a record called Cold Blooded and that record became the
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: best record in the camp. Then it was explained to
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: me that Teresa LaBarbera-Whites, for those who didn't know the name,
[1:03:24] Speaker 3: an absolute legend and someone who, just do your research
[1:03:30] Speaker 3: on her. She came in and Zach was like, yo,
[1:03:33] Speaker 3: have you heard that record they did? And she was like,
[1:03:35] Speaker 3: I told you. She was like, Fresh, you did Cold Bloody, right?
[1:03:38] Speaker 3: And I was like, yeah, we just did it. She
[1:03:40] Speaker 3: was like, I knew. And that record shook up the
[1:03:43] Speaker 3: camp and BMG wanted to sign me. And he was
[1:03:46] Speaker 3: able to pull me out of the Cobalt deal.
[1:03:48] Speaker 1: So you weren't even out the Cobalt deal?
[1:03:51] Speaker 3: No, I was just transitioning. Okay. But it was, I
[1:03:53] Speaker 3: was signing a third party. So he was able to
[1:03:55] Speaker 3: move his deal over. And we went to BMG and
[1:03:58] Speaker 3: the rest became history, man. It became like me working
[1:04:03] Speaker 3: on that leads to rumors of me possibly cutting it.
[1:04:09] Speaker 3: Nobody ever knew. But I knew that was on a
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: list of thousands of songs. This is one that.
[1:04:16] Speaker 2: It's going to get played for.
[1:04:18] Speaker 3: No, she's rocking with it. That's the word.
[1:04:20] Speaker 2: You knew it.
[1:04:20] Speaker 3: That's what came down the pipeline. whatever, but you never know.
[1:04:24] Speaker 3: That's a closed camp and I love that they moved
[1:04:26] Speaker 3: that way, right? Well, I'm thinking, if B cut my record,
[1:04:33] Speaker 3: I'm really out of here. I'm out of here. And
[1:04:36] Speaker 3: then the elevator happened. And what was deemed to be
[1:04:40] Speaker 3: the camp for the Carters turned, I mean, a quick
[1:04:45] Speaker 3: turn to she's not doing the Carters no more because
[1:04:49] Speaker 3: at that moment it's shaky out of space, right? I'm
[1:04:52] Speaker 3: just being honest. And I'm like, I get upset with God.
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: I'm like, man, I'm doing the right thing. I'm staying from,
[1:04:59] Speaker 3: I'm focused like of all the time. What we don't
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: realize when we going through it, when we young and
[1:05:06] Speaker 3: we want it, when we want it is his time
[1:05:08] Speaker 3: is the best time. That sent me back to New York.
[1:05:14] Speaker 3: I'll never forget. I'm with my nephew, Naeem, me and
[1:05:17] Speaker 3: Rob go to a basketball game. I'm loud. I get
[1:05:20] Speaker 3: phone calls. Teresa, I run outside. She's like, hey, she's
[1:05:26] Speaker 3: not doing that, but we're getting ready to work on
[1:05:27] Speaker 3: the project. It's not over. I want you to work.
[1:05:30] Speaker 3: So I'm like, okay, Teresa, whatever you need me to do.
[1:05:36] Speaker 3: That pivot turned into lemonade. And I'll never forget her.
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: That woman gave me so many shots. And I'll never
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: forget She sent me this thing and she said, I
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: want you to complete it. And I'm like, I send
[1:05:57] Speaker 3: it back and it ain't right. And I'm like, she's like, straightforward.
[1:06:04] Speaker 3: We feel like you're not approaching it from the perspective
[1:06:08] Speaker 3: that it needs to. I need you to go back in.
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: And lo and behold, brother, like, I want to say
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: something woke me up. I believe it was God. Three
[1:06:18] Speaker 3: in the morning. Melodies, everything started coming to me. At
[1:06:22] Speaker 3: this time, there's no iPhone. You got like the addictive phone.
[1:06:25] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[1:06:26] Speaker 3: Don't touch my addictive phone. And I shot it off
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: and I said, yo, can I, I said, Teresa, I
[1:06:31] Speaker 3: need a studio. And I went in there the next day,
[1:06:34] Speaker 3: me and Jerm. I said, yo, I got this part. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.
[1:06:37] Speaker 3: Sent it back. B did what B does. And she
[1:06:44] Speaker 3: just took it to the level. She had already had
[1:06:47] Speaker 3: parts that she had did that was already in love.
[1:06:49] Speaker 3: She just needed the completion of it. And that song
[1:06:53] Speaker 3: turned into All Night on Lemonade.
[1:06:54] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:06:55] Speaker 3: And it was, that was a moment. You're talking about scary? 2014,
[1:07:03] Speaker 3: whenever the album dropped, right? We're in the 10 years,
[1:07:06] Speaker 3: so maybe a little bit, whatever. I can't remember the timeline.
[1:07:09] Speaker 3: I'll tell you what was scary. And it was the
[1:07:12] Speaker 3: best lesson I ever learned. Don't celebrate too soon. Most
[1:07:18] Speaker 3: of the people on that project aren't around no more.
[1:07:23] Speaker 3: They spent too many years talking about Lemonade. And I
[1:07:28] Speaker 3: learned then, yesterday's buzzer beater don't win today's game. That
[1:07:33] Speaker 3: turned me to an animal. Because in that, during the
[1:07:37] Speaker 3: time I'm doing this, I'm being fluid out, I'm doing this,
[1:07:40] Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden JFK goes away. So
[1:07:42] Speaker 3: now I'm scared. Because I'm thinking we the ultimate group.
[1:07:45] Speaker 3: We a boy band. I'm like, we can't lose. Boy,
[1:07:48] Speaker 3: I remember, I'll never forget, Michael Bivens said, if you
[1:07:52] Speaker 3: the group, then go Bobby Brown. I mean, I put
[1:07:54] Speaker 3: that on my mirror. Go Bobby Brown. And I was
[1:07:58] Speaker 3: solo in LA, figuring it out. Jeremiah says, we're going
[1:08:03] Speaker 3: to take you to Sweden. We're going to do a
[1:08:05] Speaker 3: writer's camp out there.
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: You get flewed all around.
[1:08:08] Speaker 3: The world, man.
[1:08:09] Speaker 2: Oh, no.
[1:08:09] Speaker 3: I'm turning it fresh. Worldwide freshness growing.
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: Like the stripper shit? You have that one in the
[1:08:16] Speaker 2: air for you? You still got the duffel. Oh, no, no.
[1:08:18] Speaker 3: It's the duffel and the target suitcase. I'm trying to
[1:08:21] Speaker 3: figure it out. Yeah, you're not prepared, man.
[1:08:22] Speaker 2: You got the road through, man.
[1:08:24] Speaker 3: Nobody put me on game. I was learning as I'm
[1:08:26] Speaker 3: going along. And I tell you, man, we went to Sweden.
[1:08:32] Speaker 3: And I met some amazing people, amazing creatives. We did
[1:08:36] Speaker 3: some amazing records, dog. And that's when I knew, like,
[1:08:40] Speaker 3: I went to sleep in L.A. and woke up in
[1:08:42] Speaker 3: Sweden all from music.
[1:08:44] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:08:45] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:08:45] Speaker 2: That's special in itself. Just that.
[1:08:48] Speaker 4: Powerful.
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: And we never really sit to think and ponder on that.
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: Like, music took me here.
[1:08:56] Speaker 3: Music took me here. And I woke up, and I'ma
[1:08:59] Speaker 3: tell you man in that camp I met my dog
[1:09:04] Speaker 3: my brother and my business partner from Money Well Spent
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: Ver Simmons love that guy and we just hit it
[1:09:10] Speaker 3: we just vibed yeah I don't even think we worked
[1:09:13] Speaker 3: in the same room we just what you want after
[1:09:15] Speaker 3: your session you trying to go we in clubs you
[1:09:18] Speaker 3: know verse He don't like to go to bed. And
[1:09:21] Speaker 3: we formed this friendship that would later on become 10
[1:09:26] Speaker 3: plus years of a brotherhood.
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: That's dope.
[1:09:29] Speaker 3: And as the group is breaking up versus Ver Simmons,
[1:09:33] Speaker 3: I'm rebelling. I'm like, man, I don't want to deal
[1:09:35] Speaker 3: with nobody, no partners, no groups. I can't take that
[1:09:38] Speaker 3: no more. I got to make sure I'm okay. Yeah. Man,
[1:09:42] Speaker 3: he wasn't even trying to hear that. Yo, pull up
[1:09:43] Speaker 3: on me with Jason Derulo. He'll pull up on me
[1:09:45] Speaker 3: with ink. He'll pull up on me with this. Yo,
[1:09:47] Speaker 3: I'm in here with Ty and I'm just with him
[1:09:50] Speaker 3: figuring it out. And one day he had the realest convo.
[1:09:54] Speaker 3: He was like, yo, you're going hard, but you're not
[1:09:57] Speaker 3: going hard enough. And stop doing these one of days.
[1:10:02] Speaker 3: It's not enough. You got it in you. Go. Three
[1:10:08] Speaker 3: days after that. 12 to 4, 4 to 8, 8
[1:10:10] Speaker 3: to 12.
[1:10:10] Speaker 2: I'm going.
[1:10:15] Speaker 3: And I'm doing this four times a week. I'm cracking it.
[1:10:18] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:10:19] Speaker 3: Because I'm learning and it's turning me into this alter
[1:10:22] Speaker 3: ego I created called Jason Bourne, where I know I
[1:10:28] Speaker 3: need a headshot and I got to do it with precision.
[1:10:30] Speaker 3: It's got to be in time and I got to
[1:10:31] Speaker 3: really get in this room and figure it out. And, oh,
[1:10:34] Speaker 3: you need a hook here. You need this. And I, man,
[1:10:37] Speaker 3: Jay just started going. And I'm at this time, it's
[1:10:41] Speaker 3: like the dog is loose. I want to be not good.
[1:10:47] Speaker 3: I want to be great.
[1:10:48] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:10:49] Speaker 3: And I'm putting the time. And then he'd leave. He
[1:10:51] Speaker 3: was in Atlanta at the time. He'd come back. He'd
[1:10:53] Speaker 3: be like, man, boy, you did this. And then slowly
[1:10:56] Speaker 3: but surely, years later, you know how this music industry is.
[1:11:01] Speaker 3: The tables would turn and Versa was trying to figure
[1:11:04] Speaker 3: out his space. But now Fresh is fresh. Hey, man,
[1:11:08] Speaker 3: it's your turn. Pull up on me now. I got
[1:11:11] Speaker 3: this over here. Yeah, I'm bringing my dog in. And
[1:11:16] Speaker 3: in the interim, man, it just shows that you could
[1:11:19] Speaker 3: choose to be a funny style person in this music industry,
[1:11:23] Speaker 3: but integrity doesn't come with a choice.
[1:11:25] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:11:25] Speaker 3: It's either in you or not.
[1:11:27] Speaker 2: No, for sure. And I think we speak a lot, right?
[1:11:29] Speaker 2: We always tell people to pay it forward.
[1:11:31] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:11:31] Speaker 2: You should pay it back too.
[1:11:33] Speaker 3: A thousand percent.
[1:11:34] Speaker 2: And a lot of people forget that part.
[1:11:36] Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, they selfish.
[1:11:38] Speaker 2: Well, you know. Yeah.
[1:11:40] Speaker 3: No, it's the truth.
[1:11:42] Speaker 1: But these things have to be spoken upon because sometimes people-
[1:11:45] Speaker 1: Sometimes people are just forgetful as well.
[1:11:49] Speaker 2: And it gets busy.
[1:11:50] Speaker 1: It gets very busy. People are forgetful. And sometimes you
[1:11:54] Speaker 1: just need.
[1:11:56] Speaker 2: Reminders.
[1:11:57] Speaker 4: True.
[1:11:58] Speaker 2: And not aggressive reminders. No. Because aggressive reminders make people rebel.
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:12:03] Speaker 2: Other than being like, hey, man, you should pay back too.
[1:12:08] Speaker 2: Have you talked to such and such?
[1:12:09] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: Because sometimes it's just a conversation.
[1:12:12] Speaker 3: A thousand percent.
[1:12:13] Speaker 2: And you'd be like, damn. Maybe I do got something
[1:12:16] Speaker 2: we could do together. 100%. You know?
[1:12:19] Speaker 1: But the way that the story is playing out, man,
[1:12:24] Speaker 1: is beautiful, bro.
[1:12:25] Speaker 3: Thank you, bro. Thank you.
[1:12:27] Speaker 1: Because I've been in this business so long, and I've
[1:12:31] Speaker 1: seen so many creatives come and go.
[1:12:35] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:12:35] Speaker 1: But to be able to sustain... Hardest thing in the
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: world to do. in this thing is extremely hard to do.
[1:12:43] Speaker 1: And to also... Remember.
[1:12:47] Speaker 2: Oh, sure. Remember the people. For sure. You know what
[1:12:50] Speaker 2: I mean?
[1:12:50] Speaker 1: Because if you remember the people, then you're more adept
[1:12:52] Speaker 1: to say, hey, I can look out when I can.
[1:12:55] Speaker 1: We can't look out for everybody. It's just how it goes.
[1:12:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[1:12:58] Speaker 2: But sometimes things just fall in place.
[1:13:01] Speaker 1: But if you forget things and forget people, you're not
[1:13:04] Speaker 1: even thinking that at all.
[1:13:06] Speaker 3: No.
[1:13:06] Speaker 2: To put people in those positions. No. So to hear, like,
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: there was a point where Verse was like, yo, come
[1:13:12] Speaker 2: with me. And then now you're.
[1:13:14] Speaker 4: Like, Verse.
[1:13:15] Speaker 2: Now you come with me.
[1:13:16] Speaker 3: 100%.
[1:13:17] Speaker 2: That's what brotherhood is.
[1:13:19] Speaker 3: Never turn my back on him because I still believe,
[1:13:22] Speaker 3: especially now, you know, it's a little different outside for verse. Yeah.
[1:13:26] Speaker 3: I like to call him verse 2.0. I rebranded him.
[1:13:29] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:13:30] Speaker 3: And he's still arguably one of the best to do it.
[1:13:33] Speaker 2: No, he's cold. He's cold-blooded.
[1:13:35] Speaker 3: And you're not just going to play with greatness like that.
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:13:39] Speaker 3: And I call him my brother not because of what
[1:13:43] Speaker 3: we do in the room. Call him my brother because
[1:13:45] Speaker 3: we can have tough conversations. And if you've been in
[1:13:46] Speaker 3: a room with us.
[1:13:47] Speaker 2: I have.
[1:13:48] Speaker 3: It can get spicy.
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
[1:13:51] Speaker 3: But he's never been a sucker. He's never not had
[1:13:55] Speaker 3: a hard conversation. And when we have a hard conversation,
[1:13:58] Speaker 3: it's like if I grew up in a neighborhood.
[1:14:00] Speaker 2: I don't like you.
[1:14:00] Speaker 3: I don't like you. Let's go in the back of
[1:14:01] Speaker 3: the building and fight it out. Are you trying to
[1:14:03] Speaker 3: go get a drink? You trying to go get a juice?
[1:14:05] Speaker 3: It's the same thing with verse, bro. We argue, but
[1:14:08] Speaker 3: we argue for the greatness. But one thing we're going
[1:14:10] Speaker 3: to do is let's go eat.
[1:14:11] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:14:12] Speaker 3: Never gets brought up.
[1:14:13] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:14:13] Speaker 3: There's no, that habitual line of disrespect, we don't cross that.
[1:14:17] Speaker 2: Feel me?
[1:14:18] Speaker 3: I could be upset. I could be this. But at
[1:14:20] Speaker 3: the end of the day, I know he got my back.
[1:14:22] Speaker 3: And there's not many on earth that you can say,
[1:14:24] Speaker 3: especially in this music industry. I don't just love you, dog.
[1:14:29] Speaker 3: I love all parts of you. And I understand you
[1:14:31] Speaker 3: because I know you mean well. Because a lot of time,
[1:14:34] Speaker 3: if you around me, you don't know me, my passion
[1:14:37] Speaker 3: can be taken as aggression. Or maybe that's just your
[1:14:40] Speaker 3: lackluster and your passion. Because I care that much about
[1:14:44] Speaker 3: what I do. And I don't always get the soft route.
[1:14:49] Speaker 3: And I always attribute that to my mom having that
[1:14:53] Speaker 3: conversation of, I can't take care of you no more.
[1:14:58] Speaker 3: And my grandmother said, everybody wants to have a conversation
[1:15:03] Speaker 3: except the one they should have, the tough conversation. Once
[1:15:06] Speaker 3: she did that, I never avoided the hard conversation. Let's
[1:15:11] Speaker 3: get on the phone and talk about it. Because whatever
[1:15:14] Speaker 3: it is.
[1:15:15] Speaker 2: We can figure it out.
[1:15:15] Speaker 3: Let's figure it out. And that's that brotherhood built. So
[1:15:21] Speaker 3: you book fresh. If he's around, hey, get on the plane, man.
[1:15:26] Speaker 3: It's worth the investment.
[1:15:27] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:15:28] Speaker 3: If I can get you flewed out, it's cool. But
[1:15:29] Speaker 3: let's not push it too much. They calling me. I'm
[1:15:33] Speaker 3: going to go get it done. But it's time to activate. Yeah.
[1:15:36] Speaker 3: Brother going to get on the plane. You're going to
[1:15:38] Speaker 3: rent it out. And we're going to go crazy. Going
[1:15:41] Speaker 3: to get back on the plane. And we just kept
[1:15:42] Speaker 3: doing it. And again, he's had enormous success without me.
[1:15:48] Speaker 3: I've had enormous success without him. But together, we've also
[1:15:51] Speaker 3: had success. And that's the beauty in this. It's like
[1:15:57] Speaker 3: the levels that it takes because everybody thinks this is
[1:15:59] Speaker 3: a singular sport. No, I want to tell creatives this.
[1:16:03] Speaker 3: Single people put up numbers and you get MVPs. You
[1:16:06] Speaker 3: don't go to Hall of Fame for doing it by yourself.
[1:16:09] Speaker 3: Teams win chips. Units, brotherhood, sisterhood. You know, like you
[1:16:15] Speaker 3: see me, him and Jay White or Blush. You can't
[1:16:20] Speaker 3: be regular in that room. It's going to get uncomfortable
[1:16:23] Speaker 3: for you because you're not willing to be challenged. And
[1:16:26] Speaker 3: what we got to stop this narrative where everybody talented, bro.
[1:16:31] Speaker 3: This is the NBA of music.
[1:16:32] Speaker 2: We in the music.
[1:16:33] Speaker 3: This is the pros. Somebody over there give you 40
[1:16:36] Speaker 3: real quick.
[1:16:36] Speaker 2: For sure.
[1:16:37] Speaker 3: But. Talent is the toy. Skill set and work ethic,
[1:16:46] Speaker 3: those batteries aren't included. You got to show up and
[1:16:49] Speaker 3: build skill set. Can you go in that room and
[1:16:52] Speaker 3: get it every time? Can you figure out how to
[1:16:54] Speaker 3: make it something out of nothing? That's skill set. See,
[1:16:59] Speaker 3: we get caught up in our talent and then we
[1:17:01] Speaker 3: stun our growth because we just stay in one place.
[1:17:04] Speaker 3: But when you meet somebody with skill set, he's applied
[1:17:07] Speaker 3: feeling and theory and science and understanding. These are the fundamentals, regardless.
[1:17:13] Speaker 3: Because if I'm in there and I don't like the
[1:17:15] Speaker 3: way the drums is going, load.
[1:17:17] Speaker 2: Up the guitar.
[1:17:18] Speaker 5: Right.
[1:17:19] Speaker 3: Let's get on this piano. Yeah. Because I can't make
[1:17:22] Speaker 3: a bad song on that.
[1:17:23] Speaker 2: Where's the call out?
[1:17:25] Speaker 3: What's going on? Yeah. And I'm the one in the
[1:17:27] Speaker 3: room to tell you, no songs off, no bars off,
[1:17:30] Speaker 3: no melodies off, no lyrics off, no weak beats, no
[1:17:33] Speaker 3: weak drums. And if you don't like it, that's on you, bruh.
[1:17:36] Speaker 3: Because when this record leave this room, my name is
[1:17:39] Speaker 3: attached to it. That's something Claude taught me. And wherever
[1:17:42] Speaker 3: it goes, when it's whack, I got whack juice everywhere.
[1:17:46] Speaker 3: But when it's a record.
[1:17:47] Speaker 2: No doubt.
[1:17:47] Speaker 3: You know what's the greatest feeling?
[1:17:49] Speaker 2: This is how to create.
[1:17:50] Speaker 3: This is how you know when you got one of
[1:17:51] Speaker 3: them ones. The creative won't give you props. This is
[1:17:54] Speaker 3: their language of giving you props. Yo, who you did
[1:17:56] Speaker 3: that with? Oh yeah, I got you. I love that.
[1:18:00] Speaker 3: I love that for us. Because I know the love
[1:18:03] Speaker 3: that's poured in. I know the care, right? And you
[1:18:09] Speaker 3: can't get to hit records without having that much love
[1:18:11] Speaker 3: in this world.
[1:18:12] Speaker 1: Something I noticed about you and being around you and
[1:18:14] Speaker 1: being in the studio with you is that you don't
[1:18:17] Speaker 1: do the B-side records.
[1:18:21] Speaker 3: Can't tell you.
[1:18:22] Speaker 2: Right?
[1:18:22] Speaker 1: You don't do the, oh, this artist isn't of the
[1:18:28] Speaker 1: level in my eyes, so I'm going to give them
[1:18:31] Speaker 1: some bullshit records.
[1:18:33] Speaker 3: Hell no.
[1:18:33] Speaker 1: Or I'm going to save this for such and such.
[1:18:35] Speaker 1: You're just like, yo, this is what I got. Are
[1:18:37] Speaker 1: we going to cook something up? And if I cook
[1:18:39] Speaker 1: it up, it's for you. No matter how great it is.
[1:18:43] Speaker 3: Run it.
[1:18:43] Speaker 2: Run it.
[1:18:44] Speaker 3: Run it.
[1:18:45] Speaker 1: And I think it, you know, just like I said,
[1:18:47] Speaker 1: I've been in this business a long time and I
[1:18:48] Speaker 1: remember the days. of being in the studio with certain
[1:18:53] Speaker 1: producers and a new artist or artist that wasn't you
[1:18:56] Speaker 1: know that that in their mind was just a quick
[1:18:58] Speaker 1: check they would play them the bullshits oh and I'm
[1:19:02] Speaker 1: like why would you even want your name on these
[1:19:05] Speaker 1: because no one cares But I also watched a lot
[1:19:08] Speaker 1: of those people come and go.
[1:19:09] Speaker 3: Thousand percent.
[1:19:10] Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Those same producers, writers, whatever,
[1:19:13] Speaker 2: that had their moment. They were hot. And then they
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: just start giving out bullshit. Can't.
[1:19:18] Speaker 3: No.
[1:19:19] Speaker 1: They don't realize they're attached to that.
[1:19:22] Speaker 3: Grandpa told me, yo, if you're not going to do
[1:19:25] Speaker 3: it in excellence, don't do it at all.
[1:19:26] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:19:27] Speaker 3: So for me, you know how it is, Jay. The
[1:19:31] Speaker 3: biggest artists... The newest artists. I look at it like this.
[1:19:34] Speaker 3: The big artist is the rocket that's already in the air.
[1:19:36] Speaker 3: No matter what you get them, you couldn't get them
[1:19:39] Speaker 3: no extra fuel because they're already flying.
[1:19:40] Speaker 1: No, you got to give them smashes. Everybody got to
[1:19:42] Speaker 1: get a smash.
[1:19:43] Speaker 3: But when you get that new rocket, it's on the ground.
[1:19:45] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:19:45] Speaker 3: Could you imagine giving it the fuel to become the
[1:19:48] Speaker 3: big boy and go up in the air? Yeah. It's
[1:19:50] Speaker 3: the best feeling in the world, breaking something new.
[1:20:01] Speaker 2: So, breaking something.
[1:20:07] Speaker 1: Tell me, give me the process of Dolce's What It Is.
[1:20:14] Speaker 1: Because that record, the first time I heard it, I
[1:20:16] Speaker 1: was like, oh, they figured it out.
[1:20:21] Speaker 2: This shit is cracking. Yeah.
[1:20:24] Speaker 3: That one was a little bit different. Please understand that
[1:20:30] Speaker 3: I want to preference this because hit records come in
[1:20:32] Speaker 3: different ways.
[1:20:33] Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
[1:20:34] Speaker 3: And I don't think we speak to it enough, right?
[1:20:37] Speaker 3: You can give the hit record and Rihanna could take
[1:20:39] Speaker 3: the whole record and it's gone.
[1:20:41] Speaker 4: Right.
[1:20:42] Speaker 3: Or you can craft the hit record and Rihanna could
[1:20:44] Speaker 3: cut it and it's still gone. Both ways end up
[1:20:48] Speaker 3: with a hit record. Mm-hmm. With that particular record, and
[1:20:51] Speaker 3: I want to be respectful because Dolce is immensely talented.
[1:20:55] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[1:20:57] Speaker 3: That record was done for a whole different artist. During COVID.
[1:21:03] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:21:06] Speaker 3: I'm talking about, they didn't even have COVID figured out.
[1:21:08] Speaker 3: You had the long Q-tips and we was in Childish Studios. Me,
[1:21:11] Speaker 3: Jay White, Verse, and Blush. We coming out the house,
[1:21:16] Speaker 3: six feet and all this. We scared, but we, hey man,
[1:21:19] Speaker 3: the music. If we're going to catch COVID, I'm going
[1:21:20] Speaker 3: to catch it for this. And we do this record.
[1:21:24] Speaker 3: And at the time, I'll never forget, man. The artist
[1:21:27] Speaker 3: was like, I don't think it's a hit. I want WAP.
[1:21:30] Speaker 3: And then WAP was out. And I said, you want
[1:21:34] Speaker 3: a WAP?
[1:21:35] Speaker 4: What?
[1:21:36] Speaker 2: You ain't gonna tell me who this artist is. No. Okay,
[1:21:39] Speaker 2: it's fine. It's fine.
[1:21:41] Speaker 3: You know, I'm trying not to be messy, but we
[1:21:43] Speaker 3: can speak facts because I still love her and I
[1:21:45] Speaker 3: respect her. And it just, I also look at it
[1:21:47] Speaker 3: like that record wasn't a part of her calling.
[1:21:50] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:21:50] Speaker 3: I've grown.
[1:21:51] Speaker 2: That's fair.
[1:21:51] Speaker 3: I used to be mad. Now I'm realizing that helped.
[1:21:54] Speaker 1: Yeah, because you want the artist to take the record.
[1:21:56] Speaker 1: It would have never been with Dolce Made It.
[1:21:58] Speaker 3: Right. It was Dolce's calling for that record.
[1:22:01] Speaker 2: Gotcha.
[1:22:01] Speaker 3: That's the blessing. Rejection. Protection.
[1:22:05] Speaker 2: Blessing. Simple.
[1:22:08] Speaker 3: Normani didn't want the record. And at the time, her
[1:22:11] Speaker 3: manager was a dear friend. We love him. They didn't
[1:22:15] Speaker 3: really believe in the record, bro. That record went, was
[1:22:20] Speaker 3: cut by a few people. And if you know Fresh,
[1:22:24] Speaker 3: I'll let you cut it. I can't wait to tell
[1:22:27] Speaker 3: you you can't have it. I can't.
[1:22:29] Speaker 2: Oh, so you told some people they couldn't have that song, too.
[1:22:31] Speaker 3: Oh, I took that back three or four times.
[1:22:33] Speaker 2: Shit.
[1:22:34] Speaker 3: Snatched that back, right back. You're not doing that to
[1:22:36] Speaker 3: my record. Not on my watch. It's not going down.
[1:22:40] Speaker 3: Lost some friends.
[1:22:41] Speaker 2: Every record doesn't fit every artist.
[1:22:43] Speaker 3: Hey, man, I have had executives that I love stop
[1:22:46] Speaker 3: speaking to me for a couple years over that record.
[1:22:49] Speaker 3: And then I get a call. I'll never forget it.
[1:22:54] Speaker 3: At this time, I'm locking in with Koi. And everything
[1:22:58] Speaker 3: under the sun that, that I'm working, but I'm spending
[1:23:01] Speaker 3: a lot of time with Koi.
[1:23:03] Speaker 2: And you had already done players? No, it was, you
[1:23:06] Speaker 2: hadn't done players yet?
[1:23:07] Speaker 3: Not yet.
[1:23:07] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:23:08] Speaker 3: We were getting to the place of, we were, we
[1:23:10] Speaker 3: were starting to craft Koi's project and work every day.
[1:23:14] Speaker 3: We were locked in.
[1:23:14] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:23:16] Speaker 3: And we getting right to that space though. And then J.Y. like, yo,
[1:23:22] Speaker 3: top tapped in. You want us to go to Dallas
[1:23:26] Speaker 3: and do Dolce? And I'm like, I said, damn, I
[1:23:32] Speaker 3: don't know if I could do both because I'm in
[1:23:34] Speaker 3: this Koi thing and I can't. Like, I'm in it
[1:23:36] Speaker 3: and I don't like to zoom out of it when
[1:23:38] Speaker 3: I gave so much to it because me and Koi's
[1:23:40] Speaker 3: chemistry is insane. And this is the beautiful part about brotherhood. Hey, Verse,
[1:23:48] Speaker 3: I need you to get on a plane and go
[1:23:49] Speaker 3: hold it down with Jay White. And he went out
[1:23:52] Speaker 3: there and he started crafting some things and then Versus FaceTime,
[1:23:58] Speaker 3: and he was like, yo, you know, we doing some shit,
[1:24:00] Speaker 3: but you think I should play? I said, yeah, you
[1:24:03] Speaker 3: got to play. Like, yeah, play what it is. But
[1:24:07] Speaker 3: we don't know at the time, because remember, she's like rapper.
[1:24:10] Speaker 3: We don't know she has this voice, but at this point,
[1:24:12] Speaker 3: we don't know. It could be the hook.
[1:24:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, but y'all know it's a hit.
[1:24:15] Speaker 3: Smash.
[1:24:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I got to hear it.
[1:24:17] Speaker 3: Man, Jay White and Versus played that record for top.
[1:24:20] Speaker 3: One thing, Top, I'm going to tell you.
[1:24:22] Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[1:24:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[1:24:23] Speaker 2: You're not letting no hit.
[1:24:24] Speaker 5: Yeah, nephew.
[1:24:24] Speaker 2: You're not letting no hit leave the room.
[1:24:26] Speaker 3: That's a smash. Yeah. In my mind, Jay White, I
[1:24:29] Speaker 3: think he said, ooh, we got to run this. We
[1:24:32] Speaker 3: got to talk to Fresh, man. And I don't know
[1:24:35] Speaker 3: Dolce has this voice. You understand? She's insanely gifted in
[1:24:39] Speaker 3: rap and these things. And it's like, so you're telling
[1:24:43] Speaker 3: me she can sing this? Because Blush sung that. Anybody
[1:24:46] Speaker 3: know Blush don't do that.
[1:24:47] Speaker 2: Blush.
[1:24:48] Speaker 3: You're going to get embarrassed. She's too good. Man, when
[1:24:53] Speaker 3: Dolce sung that record, bro, and added her flavor and
[1:24:57] Speaker 3: made it hers, the moment I heard it, and that's
[1:25:02] Speaker 3: why I thank God for these ears, the moment I
[1:25:04] Speaker 3: heard it, I said, oh, he gone. It's gone. And
[1:25:10] Speaker 3: one thing I love, and he could call me any day, bro,
[1:25:12] Speaker 3: and I stand on this on camera. Top Dog is
[1:25:15] Speaker 3: a man of his word.
[1:25:16] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[1:25:18] Speaker 3: And any time he called me, I'm coming. You know why?
[1:25:22] Speaker 3: Because he doesn't do things to waste your time. And
[1:25:27] Speaker 3: if he's trying to figure it out, he's trying to
[1:25:29] Speaker 3: figure it out. And he stands on that integrity that
[1:25:32] Speaker 3: we speak about again, right? He said, yeah, I'm going
[1:25:35] Speaker 3: all the way with this one. And boy, did we
[1:25:39] Speaker 3: go all the way.
[1:25:39] Speaker 2: All the way.
[1:25:40] Speaker 3: But now, before that joint jumps out, players jumps off.
[1:25:45] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:25:46] Speaker 3: So it's starting. This is a whole new.
[1:25:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, the windfall.
[1:25:49] Speaker 3: Right? Again, we might have skipped some steps, but that's fine.
[1:25:52] Speaker 3: We've been in it for a minute, but you're talking
[1:25:54] Speaker 3: about nominated with Beyonce for Grammys on Grammys and other things, Collide.
[1:26:01] Speaker 3: Now I'm picking up these things, but.
[1:26:02] Speaker 1: Collide's one of my favorite records, too.
[1:26:05] Speaker 3: Thank you, man. Queen of Slut.
[1:26:06] Speaker 2: I remember they performed it at the... I think it
[1:26:10] Speaker 2: was the Soul Train Awards.
[1:26:11] Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
[1:26:12] Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, this record. And at the time,
[1:26:15] Speaker 2: I was consulting at Motown.
[1:26:17] Speaker 3: Wow.
[1:26:17] Speaker 2: I was consulting at Motown during that time. Crazy. And
[1:26:19] Speaker 2: when it had come across the desk, I was just like,
[1:26:21] Speaker 2: this is special.
[1:26:24] Speaker 3: Shout out to our friend E.
[1:26:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
[1:26:26] Speaker 3: And shout out to everybody, Johnny Venus, Tiana Major 9,
[1:26:28] Speaker 3: my sister, whom I love with all of me, Stacey Ball.
[1:26:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my girl.
[1:26:32] Speaker 3: Because she was like, you're the group leader. Pull up.
[1:26:34] Speaker 2: That's my girl.
[1:26:35] Speaker 3: And we did collide.
[1:26:36] Speaker 1: And Stacey, if you don't start and do this cooking
[1:26:39] Speaker 1: show that I've been telling you to do, you are
[1:26:41] Speaker 1: one of.
[1:26:42] Speaker 2: The best chefs.
[1:26:43] Speaker 3: Ever in life.
[1:26:44] Speaker 2: In the music business, for sure, but in life, too.
[1:26:46] Speaker 5: In life.
[1:26:47] Speaker 2: You and your mama as a tag team cook.
[1:26:50] Speaker 3: Chef. A thousand percent.
[1:26:52] Speaker 2: It's something different.
[1:26:54] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, I think she's
[1:26:55] Speaker 3: in town. I need to go get me a meal.
[1:26:56] Speaker 2: Man, incredible. A hundred percent. And just the most... Oh, man.
[1:27:02] Speaker 2: Just her heart.
[1:27:05] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:27:06] Speaker 2: Her heart. Just who she is as a person, bro,
[1:27:09] Speaker 2: is really special. Yes. But most creatives are.
[1:27:12] Speaker 3: 100%.
[1:27:13] Speaker 2: Most creatives are. You know what I'm saying? But that record, bro.
[1:27:16] Speaker 3: Out of here.
[1:27:17] Speaker 2: I love that song. I really, really love that song.
[1:27:19] Speaker 2: Thank you, man. I like the movie. I love the song.
[1:27:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%.
[1:27:22] Speaker 2: To me, that was the best part of the movie
[1:27:24] Speaker 2: was that song.
[1:27:25] Speaker 3: To me.
[1:27:25] Speaker 2: Come on now. You know what I mean? Just saying that.
[1:27:28] Speaker 3: Beauty and the Beast, it came at a time where
[1:27:29] Speaker 3: they thought R & B was dead.
[1:27:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, man. And it went on to be nominated. Man,
[1:27:33] Speaker 2: it kicked in the door.
[1:27:34] Speaker 1: 100%. Okay, so now you got all these records, they
[1:27:37] Speaker 1: going and they spinning. Are you more so focused now
[1:27:42] Speaker 1: that a lot of these R & B records are
[1:27:45] Speaker 1: catching for you? Are you really focused in that space?
[1:27:48] Speaker 1: Are you like, I got to get to my hip
[1:27:50] Speaker 1: hop shit too? Or is it just all happening simultaneously?
[1:27:52] Speaker 3: I'm trying to get it on every level.
[1:27:55] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:27:56] Speaker 3: Remember, I'm coming from all of this library in my head.
[1:28:02] Speaker 3: And I'm also moving into a music industry that's changing rapidly.
[1:28:06] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:28:07] Speaker 2: And I'm sure your deals are too.
[1:28:08] Speaker 3: Oh, the deals.
[1:28:09] Speaker 2: They're getting sexy. Yeah.
[1:28:11] Speaker 3: You're getting sexy now.
[1:28:12] Speaker 2: And I'm sure you got a frequent flyer number now.
[1:28:14] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, Delta. Diamond Medallion, by the way. Oh, yeah,
[1:28:17] Speaker 3: we fly. I'm flewed out a lot. In fact, I
[1:28:20] Speaker 3: think I live on a plane more than my spot.
[1:28:22] Speaker 2: You do, bro. Every time I talk to you, you're like, oh,
[1:28:24] Speaker 2: I just landed in such and such. Good life, bro. 100%.
[1:28:28] Speaker 2: It's a good life.
[1:28:29] Speaker 1: So you go from these records, you go from doing, like,
[1:28:32] Speaker 1: you know, Black Parade and Bigger for Beyonce, and then
[1:28:37] Speaker 1: you do, I went deaf on a bitch.
[1:28:42] Speaker 2: You know what, sir? Ever since you left me.
[1:28:44] Speaker 3: I went deaf on a bitch.
[1:28:45] Speaker 2: And then y'all won a championship.
[1:28:47] Speaker 3: And it was the best. Shout out to the Knicks.
[1:28:49] Speaker 2: And it becomes the anthem.
[1:28:51] Speaker 3: 100%. 100%. I want to.
[1:28:55] Speaker 1: It's no way you thought that was going to be
[1:28:56] Speaker 1: the anthem for the Knicks. It's no way when you
[1:28:58] Speaker 1: wrote that song, you're like, this is the anthem for
[1:29:00] Speaker 1: the Knicks. I went deaf on the bitch.
[1:29:02] Speaker 3: Oh, no, it didn't even tie together. When French hit me,
[1:29:05] Speaker 3: I was like, okay, make it make sense. But he's
[1:29:08] Speaker 3: shaking up the city.
[1:29:09] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[1:29:10] Speaker 3: And if you ain't go to New York, you want
[1:29:13] Speaker 3: to be there now. The energy is expensive.
[1:29:16] Speaker 2: It's up.
[1:29:16] Speaker 3: It's beautiful. The next winning. Jalen Brunson.
[1:29:19] Speaker 2: Him and Max B, bro.
[1:29:20] Speaker 3: And you got French and Max running the city. French
[1:29:23] Speaker 3: is the king of rap in New York right now.
[1:29:26] Speaker 3: Hands down.
[1:29:27] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[1:29:27] Speaker 2: They really the blues brothers out there.
[1:29:29] Speaker 3: But I'll tell you the beauty of it. Quick story.
[1:29:33] Speaker 3: I got players. David Guetta, Anne-Marie, Koi Larray. Baby, don't
[1:29:39] Speaker 3: hurt me. I'm doing TXT. That's K-pop. Dolce, what it is.
[1:29:43] Speaker 3: I got records cracking. I'm cracking every platform. 2023, I
[1:29:48] Speaker 3: get a call. Yo, where you at, Dottie?
[1:29:52] Speaker 2: That's French.
[1:29:54] Speaker 3: Him and my brother, Rick. Yo, I'm over here with Johnny. Now,
[1:29:59] Speaker 3: me and Johnny Goldstein had did Players and Everything. We
[1:30:02] Speaker 3: ended up what we've become ever since you left me.
[1:30:06] Speaker 3: That record started off a whole different way. It was me, Johnny,
[1:30:10] Speaker 3: and Liana for.
[1:30:11] Speaker 2: For somebody else too?
[1:30:12] Speaker 3: Oh, it was for... No, no, but no, it wasn't
[1:30:15] Speaker 3: the same record.
[1:30:16] Speaker 2: Okay, all right.
[1:30:16] Speaker 3: In fact, we had created this record for, it was
[1:30:19] Speaker 3: supposed to be a duet for two big female rappers. Okay.
[1:30:23] Speaker 3: And he was like, yo, man, I'm in it. I
[1:30:27] Speaker 3: need a hit.
[1:30:27] Speaker 2: Pull up.
[1:30:27] Speaker 3: Hit play. Let's see what's going on. Let's shake. That's French.
[1:30:32] Speaker 3: I leave Johnny. It's 2023. I want to be clear
[1:30:35] Speaker 3: on this.
[1:30:36] Speaker 2: March.
[1:30:37] Speaker 3: Still got the Dropbox lane. You know I keep the receipts.
[1:30:40] Speaker 3: And I drive to French Crib. He's got the Crib
[1:30:42] Speaker 3: in Calabasas at the time. French got the beautiful studio.
[1:30:45] Speaker 3: It's me, him, and my brother Rick. And I get
[1:30:49] Speaker 3: to hit and play. And when I got to that joint,
[1:30:56] Speaker 3: I said, look, French, this one right here. He was like, yo,
[1:31:02] Speaker 3: I love the energy. Can we take it and make
[1:31:05] Speaker 3: it me? I said, French? You're going to have to
[1:31:09] Speaker 3: do right by this record because Johnny don't care. Johnny
[1:31:14] Speaker 3: wants to hit. And that's my brother. He has no
[1:31:17] Speaker 3: relationship to French at the time. And me and him
[1:31:21] Speaker 3: sat down, man, and broke the original record. I mean,
[1:31:25] Speaker 3: it ain't even the same no more. And by the
[1:31:29] Speaker 3: time we walked out that crib, Ever Since You Left
[1:31:32] Speaker 3: Me was born. It was actually originally called Went Death.
[1:31:37] Speaker 3: And I'll tell you one thing, man. We had that
[1:31:41] Speaker 3: record for three years now.
[1:31:43] Speaker 2: Shit.
[1:31:43] Speaker 3: In the vault. Yeah. And one thing, at that point,
[1:31:49] Speaker 3: French calling me, we got a version with Todd Dollar.
[1:31:53] Speaker 3: We got versions.
[1:31:55] Speaker 2: Trying to figure it out. Trying to get it right.
[1:31:57] Speaker 3: But guess what? I knew it was a smash and
[1:32:00] Speaker 3: he knew it was a smash and Rick and everybody.
[1:32:04] Speaker 3: But it was taking time. And you got to understand that.
[1:32:06] Speaker 3: That beat alone. I'm holding Johnny like, please, Johnny. Not
[1:32:11] Speaker 3: this one. I'm telling you. And Johnny trusted me. We
[1:32:13] Speaker 3: trusted each other. That's my real life brother in music.
[1:32:17] Speaker 3: And when I tell you, Jay, French was like, yo,
[1:32:23] Speaker 3: we should put it on this tape. No, French, you're
[1:32:26] Speaker 3: not hot yet. But I know he got a smash.
[1:32:30] Speaker 3: This is the beauty. This is why you got to
[1:32:31] Speaker 3: be careful. And this is going to tie in real
[1:32:34] Speaker 3: well at the end, right? I'll tell you why. The
[1:32:37] Speaker 3: music industry will go cold on the hit maker like
[1:32:39] Speaker 3: it ain't no tomorrow.
[1:32:40] Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
[1:32:41] Speaker 3: And I said, this man just did Unforgettable. Right. They
[1:32:46] Speaker 3: didn't care. Yo, you over there. Fresh, what you doing?
[1:32:50] Speaker 3: You weren't supposed to be. I said, yo, he did
[1:32:53] Speaker 3: it once. He could do it again.
[1:32:54] Speaker 2: He did it more than once.
[1:32:56] Speaker 3: But guess what? I've become synonymous. When everybody runs from
[1:33:02] Speaker 3: the fire in the building, I run to the building.
[1:33:04] Speaker 3: It's like the real fireman. Yeah. Went in there, held
[1:33:08] Speaker 3: it off, French, we not out. He hit me with
[1:33:11] Speaker 3: a text one day. Hey, yo, Mac's coming home. You
[1:33:13] Speaker 3: from New York, hey, Mac's coming home. I was like,
[1:33:15] Speaker 3: come on, dog. The man got out. Then he get
[1:33:17] Speaker 3: like 80 years or something. He's not coming home. French
[1:33:20] Speaker 3: is like, I'm telling you, he's coming home. I said, yo, okay.
[1:33:26] Speaker 3: Man FaceTimed me, Mac's in the studio. You want to
[1:33:31] Speaker 3: talk about loyalty to your brother? You want to talk
[1:33:34] Speaker 3: about a master plan for that record?
[1:33:35] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:33:37] Speaker 3: French should be studied in history for what he just did.
[1:33:40] Speaker 3: Ever since you left me, we probably had 20 to
[1:33:42] Speaker 3: 25 sinks alone on this record.
[1:33:45] Speaker 2: Oh, I can only imagine.
[1:33:46] Speaker 3: Number one at Rhythmic three weeks. Number one at Urban
[1:33:50] Speaker 3: two weeks. We just went pop radio. We number 24
[1:33:52] Speaker 3: at Top 40 Radio.
[1:33:54] Speaker 2: A rap record.
[1:33:55] Speaker 4: Right?
[1:33:57] Speaker 2: Endless.
[1:33:57] Speaker 3: He just got nominated today for the VMAs. Best Collaboration.
[1:34:04] Speaker 3: You want to talk about what's so sexy about it?
[1:34:05] Speaker 3: It's been in the incubator three years. It's all about timing.
[1:34:10] Speaker 2: Wow.
[1:34:11] Speaker 3: When Max got on that record and he put this
[1:34:16] Speaker 3: master plan together, shout out to Sal and Cole and
[1:34:19] Speaker 3: Zoe and everybody. Man, you want to talk about a rocket?
[1:34:25] Speaker 3: And I know that we got this record and I'm
[1:34:27] Speaker 3: watching these people top of January, belt ass. I went
[1:34:37] Speaker 3: deaf on it a bit. And nobody even knew. And
[1:34:41] Speaker 3: all of a sudden, it's like me and Johnny laughing like,
[1:34:44] Speaker 3: oh yeah, we back at it again. Cracking them. We
[1:34:48] Speaker 3: in August. Wreck is still having its way.
[1:34:51] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[1:34:52] Speaker 3: Having its way. You know what's the beauty? Not only
[1:34:55] Speaker 3: does French get right back to where he belongs, Max
[1:34:59] Speaker 3: did 18 years, comes home to a number one rhythmic record.
[1:35:03] Speaker 2: I don't know if that's ever been done.
[1:35:05] Speaker 3: Never.
[1:35:05] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:35:07] Speaker 3: And look at how they're having their way.
[1:35:10] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:35:10] Speaker 3: And we got more coming.
[1:35:11] Speaker 2: I'm sure.
[1:35:13] Speaker 3: But this is the beauty, man. This is what I want.
[1:35:16] Speaker 3: I want creatives to stop chasing what they say. Sometime,
[1:35:24] Speaker 3: take a gamble on a new artist. Take a gamble
[1:35:27] Speaker 3: on that legendary artist and.
[1:35:30] Speaker 3: You just never know where it's going to come from today.
[1:35:33] Speaker 3: And anybody that tell you that don't know nothing about music.
[1:35:36] Speaker 3: You don't know nothing about music because things can go
[1:35:40] Speaker 3: viral or things can be really expensive and go Michael.
[1:35:44] Speaker 3: And when you catch one of those things, you're going
[1:35:47] Speaker 3: to know the difference.
[1:35:47] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you've had some things go viral and Michael. Man.
[1:35:55] Speaker 2: We're here now. We got to talk about it.
[1:35:57] Speaker 3: I feel like I know where this is headed.
[1:35:58] Speaker 2: You know where it's going.
[1:36:01] Speaker 1: Because it's probably the most viral thing of 2026 musically.
[1:36:07] Speaker 2: Spin that.
[1:36:08] Speaker 3: Biggest record in the world.
[1:36:09] Speaker 2: Wildfire.
[1:36:10] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:36:11] Speaker 5: Miami.
[1:36:14] Speaker 2: Karisha herself.
[1:36:15] Speaker 3: Big Risha, by the way.
[1:36:16] Speaker 2: Is all the way back in the building.
[1:36:19] Speaker 3: Come on now.
[1:36:21] Speaker 2: And it has caused a frenzy.
[1:36:24] Speaker 3: As it should.
[1:36:25] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:36:25] Speaker 1: And, and, From this other thing with your music, right?
[1:36:31] Speaker 1: And it's funny because I had a conversation with Jay
[1:36:33] Speaker 1: White also about his music. You guys, it's so vast.
[1:36:39] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:36:39] Speaker 1: It's so many different levels of the type of records
[1:36:43] Speaker 1: that you guys have done that have been hits for you.
[1:36:45] Speaker 2: You've been smashes.
[1:36:46] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:36:46] Speaker 1: But to get a record like this where it's causing
[1:36:49] Speaker 1: so much commotion.
[1:36:51] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:36:51] Speaker 1: I don't think you've been in this space where you
[1:36:54] Speaker 1: had a record that was where people were upset.
[1:36:57] Speaker 4: No.
[1:36:59] Speaker 3: I never had a hit be this controversial.
[1:37:02] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:37:03] Speaker 3: I would have thought When Death on a Bitch was
[1:37:04] Speaker 3: going to be controversial.
[1:37:05] Speaker 2: Right, right, right.
[1:37:07] Speaker 3: Single men celebrated it everywhere, and even women. Yeah. But
[1:37:10] Speaker 3: with this one, I love it. I embraced it. You
[1:37:19] Speaker 3: know why? We've gotten boring in music. We've gotten complacent
[1:37:25] Speaker 3: in hip-hop. We started to care too much about what
[1:37:29] Speaker 3: everybody else thinks. And that's not the hip hop my
[1:37:32] Speaker 3: uncle raised me on. It was about your individuality. It
[1:37:36] Speaker 3: was about authenticity. And it was about your story. I
[1:37:40] Speaker 3: think before you pick up the stone and you throw
[1:37:44] Speaker 3: it at Miami and towards this record called Spindad, did
[1:37:50] Speaker 3: you ever pick up your car keys and drive to
[1:37:52] Speaker 3: the neighborhoods that she's speaking from? Did you ever go
[1:37:56] Speaker 3: into these spaces and understand her real story? Are you
[1:38:01] Speaker 3: not paying attention to where the economy is?
[1:38:03] Speaker 4: Right.
[1:38:04] Speaker 3: And are you not paying attention to the price points
[1:38:06] Speaker 3: that's happening right now? You think people want to pay 100%
[1:38:09] Speaker 3: of something when they can get it for 50%? I'm
[1:38:11] Speaker 3: not encouraging stealing. I'm not encouraging scamming or boosting. What
[1:38:16] Speaker 3: I'm saying is you're forcing the have-nots to figure it out. Yeah.
[1:38:20] Speaker 3: And if you zoom out a bit from our privileged
[1:38:25] Speaker 3: spaces because it's so beautiful when people have options to
[1:38:28] Speaker 3: tell a survivor how to live. Right. It's so beautiful.
[1:38:31] Speaker 3: It's like, that's like me. Oh, Brownsville. Imagine me snoozing
[1:38:35] Speaker 3: on what I come from.
[1:38:37] Speaker 5: Right.
[1:38:37] Speaker 3: That's what it feels like. Because I pose this question
[1:38:42] Speaker 3: to the world. Are you mad about the record or
[1:38:46] Speaker 3: are you mad that Miami has the record? Because would
[1:38:51] Speaker 3: you be mad if one of my favorite rappers, Drake, Future, Kendrick,
[1:38:55] Speaker 3: all of them, if they had spin that, it'd be
[1:38:57] Speaker 3: a smash and it would be no conversation because niggas
[1:39:01] Speaker 3: could kind of say what they want. But the fact
[1:39:04] Speaker 3: that it's coming from her.
[1:39:06] Speaker 2: But let's go back.
[1:39:08] Speaker 3: You stoned her when she puts out records you don't like.
[1:39:12] Speaker 3: You stone her about anybody she choose to date. You
[1:39:16] Speaker 3: stone her when she speak up. You don't think about
[1:39:18] Speaker 3: the fact that this woman has kids. She's hustling. She's
[1:39:20] Speaker 3: figuring it out. She got babies to feed. She's doing
[1:39:23] Speaker 3: what she needs to do out here. You don't figure
[1:39:24] Speaker 3: out the fact that she comes from a real small
[1:39:27] Speaker 3: place in Florida that's about that life. That her daddy
[1:39:31] Speaker 3: was a dope boy and her mama used to do
[1:39:33] Speaker 3: these things. This is her story. This is her real life.
[1:39:37] Speaker 3: That's why, you know, and I, listen, man, I get
[1:39:40] Speaker 3: the briefs. Everybody want to spend that, but the record's
[1:39:43] Speaker 3: the most controversial, but every artist is asking for a
[1:39:45] Speaker 3: spend that.
[1:39:46] Speaker 2: Makes sense? Oh, for sure.
[1:39:47] Speaker 3: Why would you want something that you guys don't like?
[1:39:51] Speaker 3: It'd be capped, Jay. You can have your opinion, but
[1:39:55] Speaker 3: I pose this question. Look at it like this, or
[1:39:59] Speaker 3: this thought. All Young Miami is is a news reporter
[1:40:04] Speaker 3: reporting from what's happening in the underprivileged neighborhoods, preferably Her neighborhood, Miami, Florida.
[1:40:12] Speaker 3: Hey man, it's raining. It's stormy over here. There's a
[1:40:15] Speaker 3: tornado happening. Yeah. You in New York City or LA?
[1:40:20] Speaker 3: It's sunny. You got the clouds and the beach. You
[1:40:25] Speaker 3: mad because she's telling you there's a storm over there?
[1:40:29] Speaker 2: I don't think that people in that sense, right? I
[1:40:34] Speaker 2: won't speak for others.
[1:40:35] Speaker 3: Okay.
[1:40:35] Speaker 1: I think The part that, because I look at everything
[1:40:38] Speaker 1: on all sides. Come on.
[1:40:40] Speaker 2: You know that about me.
[1:40:41] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:40:41] Speaker 2: And I take it back to what we talk about
[1:40:43] Speaker 2: when you're writing hit records.
[1:40:44] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:40:46] Speaker 2: I think it's the call out that bothers people.
[1:40:50] Speaker 4: Right?
[1:40:50] Speaker 2: From the conversations I've had.
[1:40:52] Speaker 4: Right?
[1:40:54] Speaker 2: You guys literally say, where are my.
[1:40:57] Speaker 3: Scamming ass people.
[1:40:58] Speaker 1: So it feels like it's celebration. Instead of it being about...
[1:41:04] Speaker 1: just reporting. You get what I'm saying? Okay, now, I
[1:41:08] Speaker 1: love this.
[1:41:09] Speaker 3: Let's stay there. Let's unpack. The melody is celebration.
[1:41:13] Speaker 2: I mean, you can't get away from melody.
[1:41:14] Speaker 3: The lyric is just reporting. I'm upset that they all
[1:41:19] Speaker 3: went together and it just worked.
[1:41:20] Speaker 4: It worked.
[1:41:21] Speaker 1: But I think that's part of Like I said, that's
[1:41:25] Speaker 1: me stepping outside of all of it.
[1:41:26] Speaker 3: No, I love the perspective.
[1:41:27] Speaker 1: And seeing when I have the conversation with people who
[1:41:30] Speaker 1: are just like, oh, this and that.
[1:41:31] Speaker 2: Because I just love music.
[1:41:32] Speaker 3: Come on now.
[1:41:33] Speaker 2: I just love music.
[1:41:34] Speaker 1: So I don't, you know, for me, if something makes
[1:41:37] Speaker 1: me sing it twice, that means it's good.
[1:41:39] Speaker 2: Because I hear so many songs. Come on now.
[1:41:41] Speaker 1: That things are just passable. But when something sticks, it sticks, right?
[1:41:46] Speaker 1: But I understand when I have these conversations with certain
[1:41:49] Speaker 1: people and they're.
[1:41:49] Speaker 3: Like, but this and that.
[1:41:51] Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I get it. I get it.
[1:41:53] Speaker 1: But when we're constructing and we're trying to make the
[1:41:57] Speaker 1: best record that we possibly can, we're going to sprinkle
[1:42:01] Speaker 1: those things.
[1:42:02] Speaker 3: Some of that ghetto on there. Because you got to
[1:42:07] Speaker 3: understand something, man. You know how crazy it is that
[1:42:14] Speaker 3: this record is so big, but it's really like one
[1:42:18] Speaker 3: of the few that's out there that's this big. See,
[1:42:20] Speaker 3: this is not even a hit. To me, I think
[1:42:22] Speaker 3: this is a cultural phenomenon. Here's why. Every age group.
[1:42:28] Speaker 2: Right? And I think that's another, that's another, that's another
[1:42:31] Speaker 2: one fresh.
[1:42:31] Speaker 3: I know. It hurts.
[1:42:33] Speaker 2: Right?
[1:42:34] Speaker 4: It hurts. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:42:36] Speaker 3: But I'm being honest with you. My first experiences were
[1:42:40] Speaker 3: too short. My first experiences with Lil' Kim was the difference.
[1:42:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:42:47] Speaker 3: Did we not hear what Lil' Kim said?
[1:42:49] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:42:50] Speaker 3: Like, why is it the world against Miami.
[1:42:55] Speaker 1: Well, I don't even know if it's the world against her.
[1:42:57] Speaker 1: I just think we are also living in a more
[1:43:00] Speaker 1: sensitive time.
[1:43:01] Speaker 3: That's the problem, Jay.
[1:43:02] Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not saying that's the best thing.
[1:43:05] Speaker 3: Tighten up and toughen up. Because you're looking at what
[1:43:14] Speaker 3: she really lived.
[1:43:16] Speaker 2: Right.
[1:43:16] Speaker 4: Right.
[1:43:17] Speaker 3: It's different if she.
[1:43:18] Speaker 2: If she.
[1:43:18] Speaker 3: No. That's what... Miami is in their... with her story,
[1:43:24] Speaker 3: her record, crafting a record, bro.
[1:43:26] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:43:28] Speaker 3: We just made it the biggest of her story.
[1:43:30] Speaker 2: That's all.
[1:43:32] Speaker 3: God bless it. It's what it was. Right.
[1:43:36] Speaker 2: No, no, I get it. I get it.
[1:43:37] Speaker 1: But that's why I wanted to have the conversation with you.
[1:43:40] Speaker 1: I wanted to have the conversation with Jay White. Obviously,
[1:43:43] Speaker 1: I'll have the conversation with Verse.
[1:43:45] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:43:45] Speaker 1: If Carisha want to pull up, I would love to have,
[1:43:47] Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Because this is, she ain't
[1:43:49] Speaker 1: ducking no face.
[1:43:49] Speaker 2: This has been A cultural phenomenon. Like people, this record is,
[1:43:55] Speaker 2: everybody knows the record. Like it or not. Come on now.
[1:43:58] Speaker 1: And that in itself, in the music business, is what
[1:44:01] Speaker 1: we're all shooting for. We're looking for a record that
[1:44:05] Speaker 1: everybody knows.
[1:44:06] Speaker 3: Let me ask you a question. Arguably to me personally, artists,
[1:44:10] Speaker 3: one of my favorite rappers. Can you curse on here?
[1:44:14] Speaker 3: Of course. I just want to make sure, man. Got
[1:44:16] Speaker 3: to be respectful. My kids might watch this. I just
[1:44:18] Speaker 3: fuck your bitch. And some Gucci flip flops. I just
[1:44:22] Speaker 3: took an onion and I made them lit. What's the difference?
[1:44:26] Speaker 3: I'm saying that, boy. I'm saying that. Turn it off
[1:44:30] Speaker 3: if you don't want to hear it. Because the melody
[1:44:33] Speaker 3: in your record speaks to me and I don't always
[1:44:35] Speaker 3: want food with no seasoning, Jay.
[1:44:38] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:44:39] Speaker 3: Sometimes everything ain't for everyone. That's fine. Turn it off.
[1:44:44] Speaker 3: You can't. Once you hear the melody. Remember when she
[1:44:47] Speaker 3: first posted? That first day, it was kicking her back in.
[1:44:52] Speaker 3: First two days, you know what Miami did? Same thing
[1:44:55] Speaker 3: she does right now. Staying on business. She stood through
[1:44:57] Speaker 3: the storm. Third day, viral. Yo, is it me or
[1:45:01] Speaker 3: is this melody in my head?
[1:45:02] Speaker 2: Fourth day, gone. Seasoning. I'm going to be honest.
[1:45:08] Speaker 3: And I'm saying this respectfully in terms of what Miami
[1:45:12] Speaker 3: is doing. This is her year. Pack it up. Folded
[1:45:18] Speaker 3: was last year. I wouldn't care what you dropped. It's
[1:45:23] Speaker 3: folded over everything. Headlock the radio. When you make that
[1:45:28] Speaker 3: special of a record, it's beyond us. You know the
[1:45:34] Speaker 3: beauty of it is? Wait till you hear the next one,
[1:45:36] Speaker 3: Miami guy. I love this, folks. Because you know why
[1:45:41] Speaker 3: I really want her to win? You know why? She
[1:45:44] Speaker 3: is who you think she is. It's very rare. I
[1:45:47] Speaker 3: grew up with that. I understand that. I don't just
[1:45:50] Speaker 3: go to the studio looking like some artist that I'm
[1:45:52] Speaker 3: pulling up. I really rock with her. We stay late
[1:45:55] Speaker 3: just rocking and kicking it. Because she's so authentic, dog.
[1:45:58] Speaker 3: And she got a good heart. You know what I mean?
[1:46:01] Speaker 3: Her heart posture is real. And she deserves everything she got.
[1:46:05] Speaker 3: Because the whole world turning back on that girl. And
[1:46:09] Speaker 3: here she is. Chin up, chest out. Figuring it out.
[1:46:12] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:46:14] Speaker 3: I'm not going to go with the masses. Because sometimes
[1:46:17] Speaker 3: it's easy for us to opinionate and hate on what
[1:46:19] Speaker 3: we don't understand. Have a conversation with her.
[1:46:21] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:46:22] Speaker 2: No, absolutely.
[1:46:23] Speaker 1: Like I said, bro, I'm glad you pulled up. I'm
[1:46:26] Speaker 1: glad you were able to, you know, to have the
[1:46:28] Speaker 1: conversation from your side, from being one of the creators
[1:46:32] Speaker 1: of it with her.
[1:46:33] Speaker 2: And I think that that's a big part. Just the
[1:46:35] Speaker 2: conversation in itself.
[1:46:36] Speaker 1: Because if nobody speaks about it and nobody speaks to
[1:46:39] Speaker 1: y'all about it, then people don't really know, you know,
[1:46:43] Speaker 1: how it was created, why it was created and who's
[1:46:46] Speaker 1: the creators of it.
[1:46:47] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:46:48] Speaker 1: So to me, that's important. And like I said, I
[1:46:51] Speaker 1: appreciate you pulling up, but you know, this is the
[1:46:53] Speaker 1: R & B money podcast.
[1:46:56] Speaker 2: So, and we talked about some great rap and some
[1:46:59] Speaker 2: great R & B.
[1:46:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, we did.
[1:47:01] Speaker 1: Now it's time to get into the mind of the
[1:47:05] Speaker 1: man who's creating all these things.
[1:47:06] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[1:47:07] Speaker 1: And, you know, as Tank and I like to say,
[1:47:09] Speaker 1: it all come from the R & B. I mean, obviously,
[1:47:12] Speaker 1: it come from church. It start there. But, you know,
[1:47:14] Speaker 1: the R & B has went around the world at
[1:47:17] Speaker 1: this point.
[1:47:17] Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
[1:47:27] Speaker 1: So, our brother Tank has sent in something for us, man,
[1:47:31] Speaker 1: that's going to lead us to these tops.
[1:47:34] Speaker 2: These top of the tops.
[1:47:35] Speaker 3: Let's go. Your top five. Come on.
[1:47:45] Speaker 2: It's not like Yacht Rock.
[1:47:47] Speaker 4: Top five.
[1:47:51] Speaker 2: Your top four R.
[1:47:55] Speaker 4: & B singers R & B songs We've got to
[1:48:01] Speaker 4: know Before you go Here on this show Everybody wanna know.
[1:48:08] Speaker 5: Your top four Yes Ronald Top four Yes, we're all
[1:48:15] Speaker 5: on top for you.
[1:48:23] Speaker 2: You're top for you.
[1:48:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[1:48:37] Speaker 2: He was definitely channeling it. Okay, because it's there.
[1:48:40] Speaker 1: For sure, for sure. So we're here now, right? We're
[1:48:43] Speaker 1: going to get into it. You know, we're going to
[1:48:45] Speaker 1: get your top five R & B singers.
[1:48:47] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:48:48] Speaker 1: And then your top R & B songs.
[1:48:49] Speaker 2: Top five R & B songs. Okay. So what's your
[1:48:51] Speaker 2: top five R & B singers? Who are they?
[1:48:53] Speaker 3: Top five R & B singers, man. In no order,
[1:48:58] Speaker 3: just my favorite R & B. I'm going to go
[1:49:03] Speaker 3: with Michael Jackson.
[1:49:05] Speaker 2: Come on. Come on. Come on, MJ.
[1:49:06] Speaker 3: I'm going to go with Chris Brown, man.
[1:49:11] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I see where you're going with this. I
[1:49:14] Speaker 2: see the space you're in. You like to dance.
[1:49:16] Speaker 3: Yeah. I want that.
[1:49:18] Speaker 2: Sing and dance.
[1:49:21] Speaker 3: I'm going to go with Jodeci.
[1:49:24] Speaker 2: As a group. As a whole.
[1:49:26] Speaker 3: Because you can. It's unmatched. You still haven't recreated that.
[1:49:29] Speaker 2: No, it never will be.
[1:49:32] Speaker 3: I'm going to go with the queen, the greatest artist
[1:49:35] Speaker 3: walking this earth today, to me, Beyonce.
[1:49:38] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:49:39] Speaker 3: And the last one is going to be a little controversial, but, man,
[1:49:42] Speaker 3: you know me, spend that. R. Kelly. La-da-da-da-da-da.
[1:49:46] Speaker 2: I knew where we was going.
[1:49:48] Speaker 3: La-da-da-da-da-da. I knew where we was going. I knew it. Right?
[1:49:54] Speaker 4: Okay.
[1:49:55] Speaker 2: All right.
[1:49:55] Speaker 3: I'm just telling you what I'm on, man.
[1:49:57] Speaker 2: All right. So now we get into your top five
[1:49:59] Speaker 2: R & B songs.
[1:50:01] Speaker 3: Ooh. I'd go with.
[1:50:17] Speaker 3: I would go to Negan Baker. Yeah. I got to
[1:50:19] Speaker 3: do that. That's my mama's song.
[1:50:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, take you back. I already know.
[1:50:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going to go there. I'm going to go with.
[1:50:30] Speaker 3: Michael Jackson, Human Nature. Changed my life. Yep.
[1:50:34] Speaker 2: As it did most of us.
[1:50:35] Speaker 4: Right?
[1:50:36] Speaker 2: It's funny.
[1:50:36] Speaker 3: I'm going to call it Hail Mary. Well, first, Luther Vandross.
[1:50:41] Speaker 2: Which one?
[1:50:43] Speaker 3: Here and Now. Something about that intro. Five minutes, I think,
[1:50:49] Speaker 3: on the intro. The string was going crazy. The song
[1:50:51] Speaker 3: wouldn't drop for four minutes. It was nuts. But that
[1:50:54] Speaker 3: was another one that, man, me and my mama would
[1:50:57] Speaker 3: sing that. We run that back. Back to back to back.
[1:50:59] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:51:04] Speaker 3: Jodeci. Come and talk to me.
[1:51:08] Speaker 2: The remix or the original?
[1:51:09] Speaker 3: I'm going to go remix.
[1:51:11] Speaker 2: Okay. All right. You're a New York nigga. That's why
[1:51:13] Speaker 2: I had to ask. You know what I mean?
[1:51:16] Speaker 3: And then, man, I got to give it up to
[1:51:22] Speaker 3: Stevie Wonder over Joy.
[1:51:24] Speaker 2: Of course.
[1:51:25] Speaker 3: It was incredible hearing the craftsmanship that he applied to
[1:51:29] Speaker 3: that record.
[1:51:30] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:51:31] Speaker 3: And Five is tight because there's so many amazing ones,
[1:51:33] Speaker 3: but every one of those songs spoke to Childhood and present.
[1:51:40] Speaker 3: It's still, I can go back and it can bring
[1:51:42] Speaker 3: me right back to the space of when I first
[1:51:43] Speaker 3: heard it.
[1:51:44] Speaker 2: And that's when the records are special.
[1:51:45] Speaker 3: 100%. Yeah, yeah.
[1:51:46] Speaker 2: All right, so we got something else for you. Now
[1:51:49] Speaker 2: you got to build your Voltron.
[1:51:51] Speaker 3: Sheesh.
[1:51:52] Speaker 2: You got to build your ultimate R & B singer.
[1:51:55] Speaker 4: Ooh.
[1:51:55] Speaker 2: It could be man, woman, mixed in there.
[1:51:59] Speaker 4: Okay.
[1:52:00] Speaker 1: Because you're making the greatest R & B artist you
[1:52:03] Speaker 1: can think of in your mind.
[1:52:04] Speaker 4: 100%.
[1:52:05] Speaker 1: So we're going to go from the vocals- The performance,
[1:52:10] Speaker 1: the styling, the fly shit, and the passion.
[1:52:16] Speaker 2: Okay.
[1:52:16] Speaker 1: And since you are one of my favorite songwriters, I
[1:52:19] Speaker 1: want to know who's going to write the songs for
[1:52:21] Speaker 1: this artist, too. R.
[1:52:23] Speaker 3: Kelly.
[1:52:24] Speaker 2: Okay, so you're going to start with the writer.
[1:52:26] Speaker 3: All right.
[1:52:27] Speaker 2: Well, who's going to sing the damn song, Fresh? Who
[1:52:32] Speaker 2: the lead singer, man? Who the solo artist?
[1:52:37] Speaker 3: Chris Brown.
[1:52:38] Speaker 2: Chris Brown can sing anything. Okay. So Chris Brown is singing.
[1:52:42] Speaker 2: Performance style.
[1:52:43] Speaker 3: Michael Jackson. Yes.
[1:52:45] Speaker 2: Come on. Come on, man. You know, they're going to
[1:52:46] Speaker 2: scream for five minutes, fall out. Somebody might die. You
[1:52:49] Speaker 2: know what I mean? It's going to be some stretchers
[1:52:51] Speaker 2: in that motherfucking show.
[1:52:53] Speaker 3: Okay.
[1:52:53] Speaker 2: Who can put that fly shit on the styling?
[1:52:55] Speaker 3: Kanye. Yay.
[1:52:57] Speaker 2: What yay? What's yay though? For this artist. Which Ye?
[1:53:01] Speaker 2: Because it's different Ye's.
[1:53:02] Speaker 3: Nah, we're going to dial it back about seven to
[1:53:06] Speaker 3: eight years. Not the new stuff. We're going to go
[1:53:09] Speaker 3: with Chase Maker Ye.
[1:53:11] Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay.
[1:53:12] Speaker 3: Louis Vuitton Don.
[1:53:13] Speaker 2: Louis Vuitton Don. Okay. And who got the most passion?
[1:53:16] Speaker 3: Beyonce.
[1:53:19] Speaker 2: She said she was eating air for Beychella.
[1:53:23] Speaker 3: Amen.
[1:53:23] Speaker 4: Amen.
[1:53:24] Speaker 3: Was it Beychella?
[1:53:25] Speaker 2: Beychella? What you want to watch?
[1:53:27] Speaker 3: It was Beychella.
[1:53:28] Speaker 2: It was Beychella? You know what I mean? They might
[1:53:30] Speaker 2: be after both of us. I think it's Beychella.
[1:53:33] Speaker 4: Well, hey.
[1:53:34] Speaker 3: Hey, I'm sorry.
[1:53:36] Speaker 2: The Beehive is going to be on both of our asses. Yeah,
[1:53:38] Speaker 2: it's definitely coming. All right, and R. Kelly is writing
[1:53:41] Speaker 2: the songs.
[1:53:42] Speaker 3: Thousand percent. Yeah. Okay. Thousand percent.
[1:53:46] Speaker 1: Because we're going to get the best of both worlds.
[1:53:49] Speaker 1: You know what? I see what you did there, man.
[1:53:53] Speaker 1: I see what you did there. All right, we got
[1:53:55] Speaker 1: one more segment, man.
[1:53:56] Speaker 2: Come on, Ruben. What else we got, man? One more time, Ruben.
[1:53:58] Speaker 2: Give us something else, Ruben. Yeah. I ain't saying no names.
[1:54:04] Speaker 2: I ain't saying no names.
[1:54:06] Speaker 4: I ain't saying no names.
[1:54:08] Speaker 2: I ain't saying no names. We was.
[1:54:10] Speaker 4: We was.
[1:54:11] Speaker 3: What you did.
[1:54:14] Speaker 4: Don't say shit. I ain't saying no name.
[1:54:21] Speaker 3: The chain go hard.
[1:54:25] Speaker 2: Damn fool, man.
[1:54:26] Speaker 3: He go hard.
[1:54:26] Speaker 2: Shout out to Jay. So we at that very important
[1:54:29] Speaker 2: part of the show. Okay. Will you tell us a story?
[1:54:33] Speaker 2: Story time. Funny or fucked up? Or funny and fucked up?
[1:54:39] Speaker 1: The only rule to the game is that the worldwide fresh.
[1:54:44] Speaker 2: Can't say no name.
[1:54:48] Speaker 3: All right, this is a funny one. It's not so
[1:54:51] Speaker 3: fucked up, but it's funny. Okay, yeah.
[1:54:54] Speaker 2: We like funny.
[1:54:55] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:54:55] Speaker 3: So I get a call. It's one of my favorite groups, right? Legends.
[1:55:04] Speaker 3: And getting ready to start working with them. But then
[1:55:09] Speaker 3: one of the members is doing a solo project. And
[1:55:14] Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, let's lock in. We go in the studio.
[1:55:21] Speaker 3: You talking about somebody that can sing a whole record down.
[1:55:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, which is very rare.
[1:55:26] Speaker 3: I just want you to know the.
[1:55:27] Speaker 2: Level of leisure that was going on. Yeah, yeah, this
[1:55:29] Speaker 2: new day.
[1:55:30] Speaker 3: And the man just came off the tour because they
[1:55:36] Speaker 3: booming on the tours. And I'm excited.
[1:55:40] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
[1:55:41] Speaker 3: I'm like, wait a minute. Yeah, yeah. I've been waiting
[1:55:43] Speaker 3: for these moments. Okay. And, you know, I'm a dog
[1:55:47] Speaker 3: in a studio, so I'm pushing a bit. Must have
[1:55:52] Speaker 3: hit a nerve. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. So he was like, man,
[1:55:58] Speaker 3: I don't. I done toured more cities than you fucking
[1:56:02] Speaker 3: can count. He started going in. I said, I love this.
[1:56:05] Speaker 3: He thought it was going to fold me. Nah, we're
[1:56:08] Speaker 3: going to get right to it. I want to see
[1:56:09] Speaker 3: what you got. I'm putting a fire under it. So
[1:56:12] Speaker 3: then he like, told you I need my Hennessy. So
[1:56:15] Speaker 3: I said, hey, man, it's coming. The people just went
[1:56:18] Speaker 3: and got the Hennessy, man. We here for the music.
[1:56:20] Speaker 3: I told you I don't know fucking music. I was
[1:56:22] Speaker 3: making music before you was born. Fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh.
[1:56:25] Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? Oh, this nigga's crazy, but
[1:56:28] Speaker 3: I love it. You remind me of my drunk uncle.
[1:56:31] Speaker 3: I love this. Boy, I said, listen, man. Please, man.
[1:56:37] Speaker 2: Come on, man.
[1:56:38] Speaker 3: Let's just make this record. I've been waiting for this
[1:56:39] Speaker 3: time for my whole life. Don't tell me about your
[1:56:41] Speaker 3: whole life shit. He in his bag. Everything I say
[1:56:44] Speaker 3: going wrong. I say, you know what? I'm not going
[1:56:45] Speaker 3: to say nothing else. I'm just going to sit here
[1:56:47] Speaker 3: and let him talk. He just want to curse right now.
[1:56:48] Speaker 2: He mad.
[1:56:50] Speaker 3: I come to find out he got a text. He
[1:56:52] Speaker 3: want to go catch a vibe. He didn't want to
[1:56:55] Speaker 3: cut the record, so I would have told his manager,
[1:56:57] Speaker 3: you know what I mean? He got mad. This nigga
[1:56:59] Speaker 3: done snitched on me. Hey, man, if I let you leave,
[1:57:03] Speaker 3: it's going to be on fresh.
[1:57:04] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[1:57:06] Speaker 3: Jay, I'm thinking he's going to get a pint of Henny, right?
[1:57:10] Speaker 2: I'm like, all right. At this time, this bag.
[1:57:12] Speaker 3: I'm saying, so you ain't even going to go do something.
[1:57:15] Speaker 3: You're going full on Henny. This is what you're doing.
[1:57:18] Speaker 3: You're really from that.
[1:57:20] Speaker 2: If you're going to do it, you got to do
[1:57:21] Speaker 2: it well.
[1:57:22] Speaker 3: The bottle shows up. It's a gallon. So now, man,
[1:57:27] Speaker 3: I'm on his head top. I'm saying, yo, what you
[1:57:30] Speaker 3: going to do with all that? Here you go, minding
[1:57:33] Speaker 3: my motherfucking business again. Let me and my Henny dance
[1:57:36] Speaker 3: the way we dance, right? I like this. Give me
[1:57:39] Speaker 3: a cup. Now I'm on top. He like, I fuck
[1:57:41] Speaker 3: with you, man. You feisty as a motherfucker. I said, man,
[1:57:43] Speaker 3: thank you, man. He said, you're going to be good
[1:57:46] Speaker 3: one day. That man drunk a cup of Henny. Went
[1:57:51] Speaker 3: in that booth. He sung that song top to bottom twice.
[1:57:57] Speaker 2: Didn't miss nothing.
[1:57:58] Speaker 3: Not a lick. And here I go, Jay. Now, I ain't,
[1:58:02] Speaker 3: I done heard these stories I never experienced. Right. Ain't
[1:58:07] Speaker 3: no vocal producer.
[1:58:08] Speaker 2: Right.
[1:58:08] Speaker 3: Oh, this is what it's supposed to be.
[1:58:11] Speaker 2: I'll see you later.
[1:58:11] Speaker 3: Here's an artist that sings.
[1:58:13] Speaker 2: Yes.
[1:58:14] Speaker 3: I start messing with him. I purposely, I told the engineer,
[1:58:17] Speaker 3: don't let him out. I say, hey, hold on, man.
[1:58:21] Speaker 3: What you need from me, man, are to give you
[1:58:22] Speaker 3: two walk downs, man. You can't get nobody else to
[1:58:24] Speaker 3: walk it down like this.
[1:58:25] Speaker 2: Two walk downs.
[1:58:26] Speaker 3: Two walk downs, he called. I said, I love this.
[1:58:29] Speaker 3: I said, but hold on, let me make sure the
[1:58:30] Speaker 3: tune right. You better not put no motherfucking auto-tune on
[1:58:33] Speaker 3: my voice. I said, oh, I love this boss.
[1:58:37] Speaker 2: They don't want to be disrespected.
[1:58:38] Speaker 3: Don't disrespect it.
[1:58:39] Speaker 1: Don't disrespect the natural vocal.
[1:58:41] Speaker 3: Every note.
[1:58:42] Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
[1:58:43] Speaker 3: Pitch perfect. I love it. I said, hey, man, you
[1:58:48] Speaker 3: could come out. You could come out. That's how he talks.
[1:58:52] Speaker 2: You could come out.
[1:58:53] Speaker 3: I said, come on, man. You still going. We got
[1:58:55] Speaker 3: the record. Go have some fun now.
[1:58:58] Speaker 2: Oh, now you my father.
[1:59:00] Speaker 3: He said, I'll see you tomorrow, friend. But it was
[1:59:05] Speaker 3: one of my best musical moments. It was just fucked
[1:59:08] Speaker 3: up because I'm like, I wanted to be in a
[1:59:10] Speaker 3: studio with him. Right. I didn't realize where I'm at today.
[1:59:13] Speaker 2: He wanted to walk shit down.
[1:59:14] Speaker 3: It's 7 o'clock. I'm getting up out of here.
[1:59:15] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:59:16] Speaker 3: And that's where he was.
[1:59:17] Speaker 2: Oh, that's incredible, bro.
[1:59:18] Speaker 4: Yeah, man.
[1:59:19] Speaker 2: Hey, listen, man. Thank you, bro.
[1:59:21] Speaker 3: No, thank you, bro.
[1:59:22] Speaker 2: This has been great.
[1:59:23] Speaker 3: Thank you, bro.
[1:59:23] Speaker 2: This has been great, man. Appreciate you, man.
[1:59:25] Speaker 1: I love to be able to give this opportunity For
[1:59:28] Speaker 1: somebody who stays in the background.
[1:59:30] Speaker 3: 100%.
[1:59:31] Speaker 2: To get that light put on them, man, because you
[1:59:33] Speaker 2: deserve it. Thank you, bro.
[1:59:34] Speaker 1: The work that you've put in, how you've stayed the course,
[1:59:37] Speaker 1: and how you stay solid throughout it, man.
[1:59:39] Speaker 3: Thank you, bro.
[1:59:40] Speaker 2: It's to be celebrated, man. I really appreciate you, bro.
[1:59:43] Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. Shout out to you and Tank.
[1:59:45] Speaker 3: Y'all having this platform. I can't tell you how much
[1:59:49] Speaker 3: this means, right? Because I don't do this.
[1:59:51] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:59:52] Speaker 3: And my homies would be like, man, you're being too quiet.
[1:59:55] Speaker 3: Pop your shit.
[1:59:56] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[1:59:57] Speaker 3: I'd rather just turn on your radio. I'm popping shit.
[1:59:59] Speaker 2: Nah, but sometimes they got to hear you talk.
[2:00:01] Speaker 3: They got to hear you talk.
[2:00:02] Speaker 4: 100%.
[2:00:02] Speaker 2: And I appreciate you trusting me and coming and sitting.
[2:00:05] Speaker 3: And talking with me, man. Thank you for having me, brother.
[2:00:07] Speaker 2: Absolutely, man. I'm Jay Valentine. That's my guy Fresh.
[2:00:11] Speaker 3: Let's go.
[2:00:11] Speaker 2: And this is the R & B Money Podcast.
[2:00:13] Speaker 3: One time.
[2:00:14] Speaker 2: I'll see y'all next week.
[2:00:15] Speaker 3: Yes, sir.

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