Sam Hook

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
R and B Money. We are.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Thank take about the child. We are the authorities on
ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
My name is Tank Valentine and this is the R
and B Money Podcast, the authority.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
On all things R and B. No, no, look, you
have started.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
We got song right.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
That it's the highest level. I'm not gonna do along
that you today. I want to get bright to the ship.
Give it up for Sam Hook n the building.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
You got a songwriter name, a songwriter name?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Did you name yourself? Sam Hook?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
And we're starting off.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I'm starting there.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, let's get to it. So I was doing I
was in a singing group. We was like fifteen, sixteen
years old. He was in New York in South was
on park doing rap rap hooks for these like gangster niggas.
A nigganame facing a nigga named grim Face and Grim
so Grim was scarier to me.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
It sounds like young.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I went in the booth because I'm sure that's Grim
Grim Reap. Yeah, I'm sure, sure. Yeah. I went in
the booth, came out and some was like, y'all Sam
cooked this nigga, Sam Hook. I looked at him. I
was like, I'm keeping that name and I'm blocking him
on everything, like thank God, like he gave himself, like
he's a he turned his life around. Today he's the

(01:35):
big homie still. But I always thought I would have
owed him some type of paper.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
So him on some like on some comedy on some
comedy type. Ship was like, man, I knows he ain't
no Sam Cook, niggas Sam Hook.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, facts, he was like I heard it.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I was like, this is every name he gave you,
a cold name. Shout out to Grim.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Do you ever give out that?

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Just just for check some not my credits read Samuel
sam Hook, Jehane.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Because it got expensive again.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
I read that more than anything.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I was about to say, I leave with that. Hey ladies, Hey,
it's always that, Hey ladies, Samuel Jean, bitch, Samuel John.
Can I help you with anything that we got?

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Like the fourth member of the fojis.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Here, Sam, Let's go back to New York man, let's
go back there.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
We're going.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Let's go back to the beginning, before before the gangsters
held you hostage, before Grim held you hostage for hooks.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
How did you.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
Even get to a point where that was something that
you knew you could do or where you started My
older brother.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
He wanted to sing, and to me still to this day,
it's my idol.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Legit. I see him in the mirror singing, practicing, how
he looks singing in church, and I wanted I wanted
he singing in high school. He's doing everything and he's
getting the girls for it. And to me, his snigger
was Michael Jordan. It's like he couldn't do no wrong.
So I wanted to be like him. I would go
to school and like sing to girls or you know,
stuff like that. And it started unfolding to where it

(03:36):
was like, I want to do this for myself.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
But when did you know you had a voice? Did he?
Did he tell you.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
I practiced on girls. I could sing to a girl,
and that was.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
That if she if she gave you a certain reaction,
that mirror the reaction that your brother was getting, then
you knew you had a little bit.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
It was quiet. Yeah, So it started young, started writing
poetry and if I needed a song and sing right
one and then you'd write one. Yeah, I didn't even
look at it like a songwright. Now I needed a
song to sing?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
And what what grade is this that you're just writing?

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Fifth grade?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So you needed a.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Song that I was with a crew, So we all
practiced together in fifth grade, Yeah, fifth, sixth seventh, y'all
was moving with an intention way too early. Yeah, no,
it's not way too early.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
But you got to grade.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
You have to find your advantages. Fifth grade, you have
to find your advantage.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
I was fast, that was my advent. That was sure, girl,
how fast you want to race?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't know how that works for you. I think
you had to get in your talent show first to
really get to it. In fact, it's hard not to
ask y'all when y'all started. But this is my interview, right.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Yeah, this is well, I've always been doing this in
some form of fashion. I was in church achoired as
a baby, so that's that's what mine started.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
So yeah, we are you know for me church as well?

Speaker 3 (05:03):
Yeah yeah, But I think my question is, like in
fifth grade, right when you're saying, hey, we have a crew,
let's write these songs and all of these things, what
are the things or who are the people that you're
looking at to make you even desire to do that,
The things that are inspiring you to go in that direction.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
It's whatever my brother liked, I liked if he loved
Brian McKnight, I love Roan McKnight. If he loved boy Man,
I love boys Man. That was a great artist too.
I don't think I ever found the passion for music
because it wasn't right, and that was my passion. It
was wanting to be like my brother. So I don't
think I ever found the passion for it until like later.

(05:44):
It was my way in. It was my language that
I could speak other than doing dumb shit that that
people respected.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
What about high school do you do? You do you
find something.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
That that that gives you a little bit more confidence
in terms of standing outside of your brother and believing
it's more you than high school.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I was a knucklehead, so it wasn't music. We would
practice it. So I was born in Brooklyn, raised in
Long Island. So my team we had it was four
of us. Team was called Gemini three Geminis, but we
lied into it. All four of us was and those
are my brothers still to this day. After school we
would go practice, go right. But then it was like

(06:29):
a whole other side of me just doing dumb shit.
So high school was mostly doing the dumb shit, practicing
in my group and then going out to Brooklyn and
doing like talent shows and shit like that.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Did you win any those sound shows?

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Yeah, yep, we was like one twelve.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Is that money involved?

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Short shit? Like yeah, three five hundred dollars type thing?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
And what are your what are your parents thinking at
this time?

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Are they are they seeing you and being like, oh,
this is special or are they just like, Okay, this
is just kind of his brother did it, He's gonna
do it. And I'm just asking because did your brother
ever do anything professionally?

Speaker 1 (07:08):
He definitely started to okay okay, and then had a
baby and you know, turned into a farther money into business.
But my parents support wise, they didn't think it was
real until I moved out. So I moved out sixteen
years old and it was like I remember, oh, so
shout out to my nigga los So, a person I
grew up in church with in Brooklyn changed my life.

(07:31):
So he was one of the first people to believe
in me with his own pocket. That's your first investor,
first investor, first like promoter, first manager. That's my brother.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
I owe him like crazy. So he lived in Jersey,
but we'd always travel to Brooklyn. We in Brooklyn all
the time for church, and so he started bringing me
out to Jersey. That's where I would meet like people
related to why cleft and I'm fifteen years old, sixteen
years old meeting everybody he knows in Jersey. He had

(08:03):
attended high school with jay Z's nephew colleague, who ended
up passing away, and colleague was starting a group called
G and B Getting Money Boys. Right, College's best Friends
was back in Brooklyn and the star Korean study Los
introduced me to Korean Star in study. So now I'm
in New York and I got a team in New

(08:23):
York and I don't got to travel out to Jersey
so much. I'm part of GMB sixteen years old. The
group was over by the end, and they have me
going to tom Square singing for girls, you know, sing
on the train like they would put me through practice
to be a singing artist development. And so I'd always
be in Brooklyn mccooran study, always being Brooklyn mccorean study

(08:44):
and college. Before he passed away, he got his girlfriend,
I'm not gonna say a name. He's got his girlfriend pregnant, right,
so while she was pregnant, Korean study who was like
god going to be the godfather. They'd always be with her,
taking care of her. So I show up and we
all became crew and it was like GMB. One day

(09:05):
we at Danielle's crab and a lady walks in and
I think I was sitting too close to Danieller. So
Danielle was full blown pregnant, so she ain't know what
Tommy was. She never seen me before, so she's like, yo,
who's this. I'm like, I'm saying, who are you right?
And she was like, I'm Annie on Annie to you,
So I didn't know what was going on. Who that was.

(09:26):
She had bags in the hand, she walked to the
back of the house. Cory Study is like, yo, bro,
that's that's that's whole sister. So that day we all
end up eating hot dogs I'm way too young, drinking
Heinnekens with chilling making jokes. I'll sing for Annie, and
we all like chilling right, Corey and Studied made me
sing for anybody that walked in. It could be somebody, grandmother,

(09:48):
they could be you know whoever. If they knew that person,
then I had the talent. They showed it. So at
the end of the night, Annie was like, yo, Dan yell,
I love him, invite him to the baby shop, and
so that baby shower. A few months later, I went
to the baby shower my parents. I got my parents
and get me like a family bible, you know, in
scripted with her name on it as a gift. I

(10:10):
went to the baby shower, and that's when I meet
everybody that initially keeps like like changing my life. So
it's all the It's Jay's nephews, mel Ro, It's uh
Tata's son, Spanky nephews, Ravel, like the whole squad like
and then they had my niggas JD. I wrote to me, Uh,

(10:30):
everybody was in the basement and so uh Korean study
like they always do. They was like Yo Sam sing
and I had three songs on no beats, right. I
had a song about weed, a song about shoes, and
a song for girls. Right this shit you like, Yeah,
the song about shoes. The main lyrics like I like them,
like I like my shoes clean, but never tats. And

(10:52):
so when I was seeing that ship, they.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Went crazy, Yeah I.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Like them like I like my shoes clean, but never
tied to loose. Right, So it was it was and
then the weeds so and they went crazy over I
started selling we like twelve years old, so everything that
I was singing about was really yeah. So they all
took a liking to me. We all chilling, we all
laugh and we in the basement. All the grown ups

(11:16):
is upstairs. It's like, yo, you want to be down
with NBH. I look at Core and study like we
GMB the niggas like Nigga say yes, And so I
said yes. And that was the last time I went
home to live with my parents. So it was eleventh
grade and I stayed in Jersey. I was already always
going out to Jersey the lowest crib and sleeping over

(11:38):
his mom, calling my mom like Yo, what's Sami doing
over here? Or just so you know Sammy's okay, you say,
if he's over here. But that time was that's the
last of it. And so I was sneak into mel
and Ral. They would sneak me into their crib and
have me inside the crib because I had nowhere to go,
Nigga out here homeless with like anouncer and a half

(11:58):
selling dubs. You see I'm saying, so I would just
make sense every time anybody see me, I'm helping I'm working,
I'm helping. I'm working. Los is helping me out. And
if I need to close, Los got me. If I
need the money, Lows got me. Loos would go to
work to support my dream. Yeah, that's my brother. And
so it took like two three months for on Mickey

(12:20):
now Uh Meli's mother uh to come downstairs. And I
wasn't making no sense. Now I'm lagging mad comfortable.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Now you up.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
She looked look at in my face. She's like, Sam,
where do you live? I looked at her in her
crib and said here, So everybody starts dying laughing, and
she was like, nigga, how old are you? And I
told her my age. I'm like, I'm might be seventeen block.
It was like, you understand what we can get in
trouble black And then they found me, you're not going

(12:51):
to school at this point either. Now I'm waking going.
I'm waking up four and five am, taking the New
Jersey Transit to the Path Train to the UH or
the Path Train to UH Penn station in Manhattan, or
Jay Train all the way to Jamaica Q four or
the Dollar in to my neighborhood and going to school
and night school because I was left back in everything.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
You're a hustle right now at sixteen.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, it's crazy. They found me a room to rent
at that age, and my man Boge, it was our barber,
his mother rented me a room for five point fifty
So sixteen years old, twenty years ago. This is when
my bills started. And uh saying he at the street
money that and lower. I'll never take him out the store. Yeah,

(13:40):
because I fucked my reup up, I'm good for that.
At that end, we've all yeah, I just had really
really forgiving big home. But man, this man makes sure
I can Yeah, I mean I could get back. Oh yeah,
looking it off.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
That was it.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
It was selling bud and relying on lootse and then
relying on the squad. Everybody took me in like yo,
they needed to because I'm the only one there without
so their mom say you had to go after that
day immediately, But that same day they that same day
somebody was like, I think Bow's mom is renting the
room and that was it, and I moved in over there.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
How far was she from where you were already standing blocks?
Oh okay, got it, gotta got it.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Blocks for kids right, whole neighborhoods for us today, Like
I would never walk that today, but I was trooping.
I ain't learn how to drop since until I was
twenty four out here, but they made sure that you
stay close because yeah, I was true, I was true.
He's in the sky to make sure he's me and
rote to me. And there was a female artist who
after I got evicted from Boscript for not paying the rent,

(14:49):
her and the family, Alexis Kiki Ak. She and her
mom took me into their crib for like eight months.
My man Monty had my clothes on his porch the
whole eight months. Like I was getting taken care of
by my crew. That's incredible. And we would be in
the studio, we rinding, Oh everybody's kids though, yeah, everybody

(15:10):
is two thousand and six, eighteen years old. So I
turned seventeen there, turned eighteen there, and then mid eighteen
or before that. So like my first meeting in life
is the whole crew is like, yo, we're going up
to the whole script. We're gonna perform.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Fans.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
They gave us like a day's notice. We all pulled
up before that. Hol's nephews would my space was lit
for us because whole nephews would get the rocker feller change.
We all be able to my Space picture it up
or do a performance with rock chains all. You couldn't
tell me I didn't have a contract nigga, especially in
my neighborhood niggas I was out. I was that nigga
and so. But the truth that was really happening is

(15:48):
we barred in these changs and were stunted. Yeah, but
first meeting was at whole script. So me wrote Timmy
Jay Dot, I don't want to leave nobody out, the
whole crew. We all we all went up there, We
all formed our songs. I only had one song recorded
that we played for him that day. And then I said,
they want me to sing a cappella. I sang now
a coppella and whole tap my ma and Manti like

(16:09):
he got it. And so that day was like inspirational,
but it was like Yo, at the end of the meeting,
it's not like we got signed. Hope said, y'all don't
do nobody no favors. He was like, so, don't think
you about to get a favorite. Let you name reach mine.
I throw your boone exact verbata and so I remember
being in there like one, I'm looking around like this

(16:31):
is what could happen if you really really grind. And
then two, I'm like, yo, where did this nigga? There
was a secret door that somebody who worked for him
came out of with pizza. It's like, we in this
room right now, and you didn't see a door some
way somebody came outside with pizza. And so I remember
just looking at it like, you know, being inspired, but
also saying being hungry, like yo, he said, let our

(16:53):
name reach his, you're gonna throw some bomb. And so
grind time for us. It was like, yo, it's time
for us to turn up. One, I'm outside like I'm
living in somebody's basement. It's not easy for me and
my parents. I love my parents to death because they
don't play that one spoil uh you know, one spoiled?

(17:14):
What do they say? One rotten apple and a bunch.
So at the time I would be against them. I
was like my dad's arch nemesis and everything you don't
want for a son if you're a pastor, you know,
or especially if you're past pastor. Today is my best friend.
But back then I was just arch nemesis, like I
was not the one, and so I wasn't going back there.

(17:36):
So it was like, yo, it's either up or or
like I I got nothing else to do college. I
never even thought about that shit. So we kept on grinding,
kept on grinding. The group started to like grow up
and grow out of being a group. So I moved
to Lower East Side, Manhattan, sixth Street and Avenue D.

(17:57):
We was renting a we were subletting, the cribbing the
projects right and my man, my brother's older my brother's
man's had me paying the whole rent, but he was
telling me that I was paying half. I'm not eighteen
years old. So when I found out, I was heeded.
So I take a Greathound out to Georgia and that's
my first time, second time going to Georgia to visit

(18:20):
my older brother. He was out in Augusta, Georgia. And
while I'm out there visiting my man, fifth a trive
who from high school moved to Atlanta. He was two
hours away in Atlanta from Augusta. He calls me, He's like, yo,
you gotta see Atlanta. And I've never been in atl before.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
What year is this?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Two thousand and seven? Yeah, yeah, right, So into two
thousand and seven or something like that, he drives two
hours to pick me up. Me and this nigga is
like third grade sandbox and he had already found ways
to like he was today, he's killing it. He got
a company called Millie Murchers. All over Atlanta. He's doing

(18:57):
his thing. He was already en route to be in
one of the the illest hustlers like back then, you
know a g he had he was he'll hand out
all AG's fly. He had all accounts for all the
club's a g O H Jacob Yorick he was. So
he had a way already out there. So he's like,
I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show you the A.

(19:18):
I'm competitive and ship. So when we two hours away
from Atlanta, I'm like, I think I want to show
him something too, Like I don't want him just to
stun on me. So I called at the time, you know,
Vaughn Vaughan Smith. I called Vaughan and he was my manager,
and I'm like, Yo, you know anybody in uh in
the A. He's like yo, gino, he's he's he's running.

(19:39):
He's uh the engineer for Neil go up there. I
had already been around Neil because you know, being around everybody.
I was around up Top and around those days is
when Neo got signed. So I called Gino. Gino already
knew him from from Brooklyn. He had a studio on
J Street. So I called Geno. I'm like, Yo, what
you doing? I'm about it being the A. So he

(20:00):
he tells me come up to Neo's studio. Everything travels
about to show me. It was like, nah, nigga, I
just beat you. I'm going to Neo shit right right.
So we go to Neo shit and and Gino's like,
Gino's like, Sam, you need to stay here. Second he
said it, I said, I am staying. I was already

(20:20):
getting double charged for the projacks up top. I don't
speak Spanish, and everybody in that neighborhood it's like I'm
trying to order eggs. Don't even know how to say nothing.
So it was like, your fucking I'm just stay out
there now. I know that I learned the hallway. I
tell you off camera, okay, so we get out there, Uh,

(20:41):
we tell you to stay yeah, And I said, fucking
I'm staying. So now when we leave there we seen
the plaques like it was only a year or two
later since Neil came out, and it was already a
hallway full of plaqus.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Oh yeah, Neil got cracking.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, if my man is in there, if you don't notice,
like every time somebody had something, I was ready to leave.
Know he's ready, no mad, Yeah, wherever I'm going, whatever
the opportunity is, because it's not like I got a
fullback plan. My fullback plan and my idea as to
how to ever get fed was pick up a pack
and so imagine what I would have been without this

(21:17):
talent guy game.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
So I'm sitting down at Travs crib the first night
and he's renting a room in this big ass house.
I'm like, yo, TRAYV, you're doing it and this is
back when you could craiglist a roommate type thing. And
his roommate calls him out, the person he's renting from
Colls Mount and said, yo, I ain't tell you you
could have niggas up in the crib and the walls
paper things. So he probably thought because the doors closed,
I didn't hear it. So I heard it, and I

(21:40):
didn't want my nigga to be in any type of
pickle or just be slowing them up. I probably knew
a girl or two in that land. I call a
girl same night, she can't pick me up. The way
Travis tell the story is the next time he saw me,
it was a few days later. I already had an apartment.
The way it really happened, I called my dad, said,
your dad, I found an apartment for seven hundred and
ten dollars on seventeen p Street Street, Midtown. Mindre, I

(22:02):
didn't know what goes on at nighttime on them blocks
in Midtown. It gets crazy, so but fuck, it was
the cheapest thing I could find and moved in. The
only friend I had out there was my man Drave.
I had my man theon that left since high school.
He lived in like Beuford, far a little far away
as far that. I had a rocker where Snorkel that

(22:27):
my man Mail gave me and the inside they had
first I was sleeping at So I'm living in the
studio apartment. I don't have nothing but the eight hundred
dollars my dad gave me. I spent seventeen on moving in,
so I got ninety dollars.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
You see what I'm saying, I do.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
So the only thing I could think to do is
like look around, find a pack. So I'm back then.
You know, apartment buildings had what do they call it,
like business centers? Yeah, yeah, and if you lived there,
you could just so I'll be on my Space and
make sure that anybody, especially girls like they could see

(23:02):
that my MySpace picture had the Rockefeller chain, So I'll
just leave my shoulder over so they could always see.
And then so I've seen this one dude. I won't
say his name, but he was getting money in the
building and I keep seeing him. He ended up being
my plug. He put me on, and then he also
taught me how to do things beyond just the weed
that I was used to doing, like selling wise, and

(23:25):
he got me into a world. Now it's like I'm
getting chicken and I'm going to see Geno at the
studio and you know, and that went super sour. So
my main them that I brought up earlier. We sold
candy in like fourth grade. My man, my man's old
little sister, Tracy. She she dated the security guard at Walgreens.

(23:47):
We give him twenty dollars, he'll let us go. Still
old candy. We got to wake up early though he
was the night time.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
To wake up earlier.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Fourth grade, we sold candy. We would go bag up
the candy into fifteen dollars bags, divvy it up, give
people bag, telling him to send us back, you know,
twelve dollars or ten dollars, you know. And so my
man Theon, his cousin out in London. He had an
og cousin out in London. So his cousin out London
got HI my cell phone back then when we was kids.

(24:16):
And the first day that Theon got to sell, his
cousin wanted to talk to me. He was like, Yo, bro,
I love how you're working with my little cousin. Yo,
you got him. You got him really out here like
getting money. Like I love what you're doing with him,
you know. And so I felt I knew he was
a gangst in London. I'm like infatuated with thugs at

(24:36):
this age. It was like my parents are super like
I was super sheltered. So in church, I loved the thugs.
In school, I loved this like my boy, yeah exactly exactly.
So I brought that up to say that we always
stayed in touch with him until the I moved to Atlanta.
So now that thea's I'm back in Georgia. Deanna took
a couch out of his mom's uh garage that she

(24:58):
wasn't using. That was my best. He brought me a
little TV, a little CD player and then I played
my BCDs on that and I was in the spot,
trapping my way out, just trying to stack right.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Period. And so my first trip to London is because
when I got when he put me back on with
you put me back on the phone because his cousin
was like, yo, how you how you even getting around?

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Like yo?

Speaker 1 (25:22):
I was mad proud to tell him I'm a road
star now trapping blah, really proud to tell him that.
He gets scared for me, and he's like saying, if
you're gonna do that, come out to London, right and
I'll teach you how to do it the right way
when I get out there, top boy. And I was

(25:43):
working out in London for three four weeks learning how
to be a top boy in London. And when he
sent me back, I got really nice with it in
Atlanta and so all this happens lo and behold my
plug and the robbing home of the finests. So now
you robbing me, I get better out of him than him.
He violates, and so now I got no plug, got

(26:05):
no money, and I'm shook because I'm not built for
no wild shit that I was going through. And you
were how old at this point, nineteen eighteen nineteen, and
so Gino keeps calling me to the studio. He keeps
calling me to the studio. My man, mister Tango's son
became like my brother, and so he starts bringing me

(26:27):
to the studio. One day they set up the meeting
because I'm fucking homeless at this time. I'm living in
I got evicted in Atlanta. Everything went shot, goes bad.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
And so.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Mister and Gino set me up a meeting with Tango,
ne Yo's manager. When I just got there, you know,
a skier, a skier found he was playing some producers
that he had from Amsterdam. Tango looked him dead in
the eyes, thatt them niggas suck. And I'm sitting here
one I need to make it today because I'm I'm

(26:59):
sleeping in a vacant crib and the bluff with for
my boys. We turned the lights on, but it's vacant.
So I need to make it. I didn't know what
making it looks like and how fast it takes to
get it back. So and I'm scared because the way
Tango just spoke to this nigga, I never seen somebody
get violated like that. And so now my hands is

(27:21):
shaking and it's time to sing. He's like, Yo, you
got music. I didn't have nothing to play. So he's like, YO,
sing something I didn't realize. I never learned someone else's
song in my life. I could have sang you every
Day Struggle by fifth or by Biggie, but I couldn't
sing a whole song from anybody in music because you
were writing your own song. Yeah since fifth grade. Yeah,

(27:43):
so I said I got my own songs. I thought
I played the same way I'd always played it, sing
my own song and win. Not for a person who
manages the best songwriter in the world at that time.
My songs was and shit to what Neo was coming
out with. So I sing my voice shaking, I sound nuts.
Tango looks at me like this nigga sucks too, right,

(28:06):
and I know Tango, so I see, Yeah, it's exactly
how it is how you're gonna get it and and
I love him for no fluff facts. His son is
the exact same way you ain't. You ain't And you
could get react a certain type of way to it

(28:27):
until you realize that you rather find out the truth
now than let somebody watch the take time bombing, so
to save my ass, Geno, Right, Geno's like, but he
could write though. Tango's response, he looks a skinned like Yo.

(28:49):
Them producers suck, he sucks. Put them in the studio
if they exact words. Bro, I'm talking About'm getting like
I'm already broke, homeless nigga. And on top of that,
it's like I just heard that I sucked, and I
know I sucked. My voice was shaken even on this podcast.
I'm nervous. So I was finding out that the Spotlight's
not for me, okay, you know, but not knowing that's

(29:11):
what I was finding out. I was just always trying
to because you were you were being you were being
pushed pushed as an artist. Yeah, yeah, like that was
the only thing. Yeah, right, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, okay, yeah,
he completely just tore that down. It was quite for
that forever, right. Geno's like, nah, but he writes though,
which was to me a lie because it's I didn't

(29:33):
write for anybody else ever in my life. So he
said it in a way that implies that you were
right for someone else, period, and so that wasn't the fact.
But I looked at him like, yeah, double down like anything.
I don't care if it was mopped the studio, Yeah
that he mops. Yeah, I would did it. I needed
to stay right.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
And so.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
A Skier was already getting shit done. He was already scared.
But it's just those producers Tango wasn't fucking with or
Skier who's so hungry and taught me. He taught me
one of the dopest things. He was like saying, you
got to learn the kit. I was like, what's the kid?
He said, keep in touch. That's the kit for every
relationship that you find value in. When you when you're
saying by, think of the next time you're gonna follow up,

(30:16):
think of the intention for the next phone called you know,
or even state if it's a really important, state, this
is when we're gonna speak again. And that's helped me
a lot, even if I don't tell you when I'm
gonna reach out to you again. I can write it
down and keep my promise. So he comes up to
me hungry, like yo, and he fucked with his producers heavy.
He comes up to me, He's like, yo, if I

(30:37):
put you in the studio, how long would you stay?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Right?

Speaker 1 (30:40):
I said, Yo, seventy two hours or something like that. Right,
this is grind. This is a different error when niggas
really grind. He calls an engineer and tells money to
seventy two hour session. Sit Mike track Guru Johnson. He's
today Chuck Harmony's partner and he was the engineer for Chuck.
He calls uh, track Guru Gruz, agrees to do it.

(31:02):
It's either forty eight hours or seventy two hours. Agrees
to do this session on the first call. So now
he drives me up how Old Military's studio and I'm
in his studio right, and me and track Guru in there.
He leaves us there with the BTCD from his guys.
And I remember in that session, me and Guru, I
was trying. I was trying to make phone calls and

(31:24):
see how far he was from a customer. I didn't
know how to drive, so I would I think I
asked him to bring me somewhere so I could sell
a fifty or something. I needed the money, and he
was like, yo, bro, you got this opportunity. You don't
need to be doing that. And he shit on me,
made me feel real small, and I was super New York,
super proud, super hard headed, and nobody could tell me nothing.

(31:44):
We bicker and I had to listen to him because
it's like, without you, I can't get a ride. So
you said, no, I got I'm gonna stay in the studio.
Shut up. And the way he was was like a
big brother for those two three days that was in
the studio. In my first songwriting session for writing for
other people, three songs of which one of them is
my first placement. So my first session, my first placement,

(32:06):
I was writing like my life depended on it, right,
So yeah, it's not like I got like a major
hit out of it, but that's the life changing thing.
So it's J. J. Holliday his second album, I land
a ballot on there called Forever Ain't Enough, Right, and
I wrote it about like my high school, like the
girl that I loved right after high school.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
And so.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Legit, now it's like, yo, we got something to bring
up to tango. Tango was the way out. It's like
if I knew a way, it was the way in
front of me. Is like he was there. That's the
way a skier places the record. So I'm saying it backwards,
a Skia places the record on Jay Holiday. Now that
I got a placement, this is something tangos you want
to find. This is all happening super fast. Though it

(32:52):
sounds super fast, it probably took a month or two.
I mean, listen, there are people in this I was
having this conversation the other day. There are people that
still don't have a place, that have been writing songs
for years and years and years. So that's what I'm saying.
Oh yeah, my first session, Yeah, first session. A month
goes by, you get your first placement, Like that's that's God. Yes.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
I was raised in the most God fearing family and
I did everything to go against what I taught at home.
And bro, when I tell you, every bullet that flew
since eighty eight never hit me, and we've been in
situations where it could have. At that time, I didn't
know how to respect God or love him correctly. I
would call him when I needed them. I was like

(33:40):
a bad kid with good credit. You know, he just
keep getting running up the credit line.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
And so.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Tango ends up offering me a a management in a
publishing deal. I signed that shit blindfolded, like I'm off
the first record. The day I signed my deal, I'm
sitting at Tango's office. He's right across from I signed
that ship because this is something your signature you think
like this is you think you got background music or

(34:08):
some shit like that, Like, Yo, this is the day
you about to pursue the happiness. Clap up the street, listen.
I signed the deal. He looks at me, said, what
you think Balloon's gonna come out?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
This s guy?

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Get to work, nigga, and thank God for that. Got
to work. I got to work. Yeah, I got to work,
and I was sleep in the studio. Mister would let
me crash wherever he crashed, wherever I had to sleep.
I thought that I'd get a crib after that, but
it's like, yo, get to work, go earn. It's not
You're not coming in here to just take put something in.

(34:39):
And I got to see Neo Yo a few times.
When I was down Neo with I could call Neil
like bro I ain't eat yesterday. You think you hold
me down, Neil will be like, be right there, come
to the studio thinking about to give me two three
hundred drop five racks on me. Wow, shit, neo. Nobody
could say nothing to me about that guy, and a
few people about you guys, but legit a few times,

(35:03):
making sure you were straight. And then when I'd be like, yo,
how am I gonna pay you back? And when I'm
a god I got you one day back, he'd be like, Yo, bro,
be great. I didn't give you that as a debt.
I see it in you be great. So that's my brother.
So going through all these things, it's part knucklehead legit,
ungrateful for the family that I came from, and just

(35:24):
going against all these greens. I start grinding it out,
grinding it out for some reason or another. By two
thousand and eight, we get the whole team flies out
to New York to LA for the first time. So
I land in LA with meeting people. This is all
the traveling you've done at this point. You've only been

(35:44):
from New York to Georgia, New York, Jersey or Manhattan,
Georgia and now LA for the first trip. First trip,
so we're moving around, were moving around. We end up
staying there for like a month or two. And on
the last day of the first trip, I won't say
their names, but my two homies they both had a
crush on this this one girl, right, and they said,

(36:08):
you're about to call it to the studio. She had
an internship at Depth Jair and you know, you know
back then, you meet an intern in Depth Jay and
she in the building, you think it's lit. So she
comes to the studio. We work in a record plant
and she pulls up to the studio when I tell
you my competition, and then I just wasn't that nigga.
I was. I wasn't the best friend you could have
because I knew two of my niggas like the girl.

(36:30):
When I saw I said, okay, I got it. Yeah, facts,
So I've seen her and I caught her in the
whole way, you know, the bat the long hall way
to the back. I caught her in the whole way.
I smiled at it, and I just grabbed her phone,
put my number in it and said, text me. She
texted me, So now I'll go back in the room,
act like nothing ever happened. Super Snake vibes snake right.

(36:55):
So I'm texting, I'm like, yo, I leave tomorrow. Tomorrow's
like tonight's my last day. I need to speak to you.
Something in me wanted to notice girl that night, and
it wasn't about hitting or nothing like that. So I
was like, Yo, this was back then. I didn't know
how to drive. I said, this is what you're gonna do.
You said, hug. Everybody say if you leaving, I'm gonna
act like I know you're leaving too. In fifteen minutes,

(37:17):
I'm gonna meet you around the block right or Santa
Monic or whatever block that is by a record plan
and we gonna dip off and I just want to
talk to you. I didn't know her from scratch, but
something in me wanted her. So exactly what we did.
I duck off, acting like I had something to do. Yeah,
And she drove us to Luca Lake to it drove
me to to Luca Lake where I was staying. She

(37:40):
had so much respect for herself she wouldn't go up
to the spot, so I'm like, it's definitely not a
hit mission. We sat in front of the spot, in
front of her car and fell in love all night,
just talking. Now I'm pissed. I get back to Atlanta. Atlanta.
You know Neo's crew niggas. All you're getting is tough
truth all day. The niggas is treated you like yo.

(38:01):
You know, like yo, Sam, you know, get the shit
done or That'shit's not it. And then I got this
girl in LA that I'm caring about more than the music,
and the people give me an opportunity. I get back
to La Atlanta and I miss her like crazy. So
it spends eight months texting this girl, calling this girl,
texting this girl, calling this girl. I write a song
called Hustler for Kerry Hillshare and that gets me a

(38:25):
flight out to LA again. So to me, it was
just a way back to her.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Everything was all you see what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
So they had me in hotels for a minute. Manny
and DJ. Those was the people who like Manny DJ Ethiopia.
Those were the people when I first landed as a
writer in off of like somebody else's time, like as
a writer on my own strength in LA. They took
me in bro and treated me like family. And so
they'd have me in hotels for like two three months

(38:53):
for the first time. So she would be with me
in all the hotels, and so it was like, Nigga,
we can't. There's not another budget we could put you over.
I'm gonna rap niggas budgets for some reason, like on
the hotel. So it's like, we can't do this, and
so Chuck Comedy let me sleep on the couch at
the studio for three weeks. I remember having forty two

(39:15):
dollars in my pocket, and it's like he knew I
was broke, but didn't treat me that way every time
he ate I ate dog. I had sixteen dollars left
after three weeks, and I came in there with forty
two dollars. So that's how much he took care of you.
So shout out to Chuck. That's smart. Like I got
so many people.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
To think that, no, you have angels, brother.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Bro.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
So me and her finally get an apartment, and you
don't go back home. You don't go back to stay Bro.
I stayed.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
I should be the name of your book. I stayed.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Just go through all the progression of where you never left.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
This shit is great.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Whatever it's said on the move, you're on the move,
and I don't lose love from where I left either, right,
So everybody that.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
You don't burn those bridges.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Even though we were learning these keywords in the wind,
like love, loyalty, respect, honor, we learned them the wrong way.
We learned them in the wind. When I switched my
life over start taking God seriously, those same still you
can learn them rooted now. I still love them, still
honored them. Made some people I may not be able
to see no more because our lifestyles are different, and

(40:33):
I've noticed things in myself that I can't risk being again.
But those words still stay in the same when when
I'm when I'm rooted. Yeah, so now you're in la
la something. Yeah, two or three probably have. I had
one with Neo on his album Okay Okay, and that's

(40:56):
you know, a lot of placements ago, but I land
here with that one song. Ethiopia shows Me Love, Carrie
shows Me Love, DJ and more Milly Manny. They showed
me love and they taking care of me as best
as they can. Now I'm back being a dickhead, like Yo,

(41:17):
money's low, what can I flip? My girlfriend won't deal
with somebody who traps. So we're arguing because in order
for me to stay with it. I'm looking at her
like I'm forgetting that.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yo.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
You could go get a job, you could go take
a class, you could go you know, you could go
bea You're reverting. I'm mad at her because she's not
letting me do yeah. Yeah, So we start arguing. I
land my first check in LA instead of saying yo,
me and her finally got it. The people who slept
on the couch together. I would go cheat on her

(41:49):
with girls who thought that little check would never run
out right, end up getting caught. Uh, we break up.
That's the short of it. And now I'm out here
dolely more connections whatever, and I gotta figure shit out myself.
So me and my old assistant we moved together right
in North Hollywood for a year. It's gotta be two

(42:11):
thousand and ten to eleven. And during that year, mars
from fifteen hundred to nothing, and I would work with
fifteen hundred en nothing in Englewood when it before the
studio was the building, before the building was the school,
like they were still the type of people they are today.
It's never switched. Big brothers and advisors and just good

(42:33):
hearted like people and talented so Mars calls me up.
I mean people that would literally give you the plug.
Mars calls me up and says, yo, pull up to
the studio. I'm working with Chuck. I didn't know who
Chuck was. I'm from the East, so if you say
chucks me, I have no idea who that is. Pull
up to the studio. My assistant drove me to the studio.
I get there, I'm wearing like a Mets jersey, the

(42:55):
blue joint and the Mets hat. And I walk in
there it's bloods everywhere. And mind you, I'm from New York.
I'm not a gangster, and I don't really like all
I knew about La was what I heard. So I'm like,
I'm out of pocket right now, you know. So Mars
introduces me to the game. Who is Chuck? And while

(43:18):
we're in the studio the first day, the way game
is very similar to like tango. So I was used
to the language where it's like cut and dry. Showed
me what you got, prove it kind of energy, and
by that time it's like I was already in sessions.
Mike Karen had me in so many sessions. He saw
something in me would put me in the studio like crazy,

(43:38):
forever grateful for it. And so by that time I
already been sparring for so long that I knew that
I could facts, especially in front of who dude. I
can't be on stage and do it, but that studio,
I know I could be in there and impress whoever's
in the room. So we start working. Chuck takes a

(43:59):
life making to me. Mars is always looking out making
sure that he calls me for this. I ended up
going to the studio niggas every single day for like
three four months. The niggas that I was so scared
of when I got there. I'm talking about niggas with
like tattoos on their forehead. I ain't understand the language.
It was like, Yo, these niggas is geez. After a while,
I'm sitting down with my man, uh, watching fucking SpongeBob

(44:22):
and laughing. Gangster is the same everywhere, And I'm the
little homie that always got big homie love. I think
God always positioned me to have really, really, really graceful
and uh like great teachers in my ogs. So meeting
the crew, they become my crew. I'm with them every day.

(44:43):
Thanks to Mars. I'm with them every day and Chuck
inviting me in like a little bro that he just
has to look out for for some reason. I'm on
all his mixtapes since we met. And then I get
comfortable like I always get, and I'm working with Mike
Caaren a lot. And back then it was like those
four line paramour kind of hooks where it's like or

(45:05):
like the could you believe that playing like those types
of hooks, them full line big Bruno type hooks was popping,
And so I had one that I was trying to
get on like Loope at Atlantic, but it wasn't placing.
And so Chuck was working on him the record and
everything was super gangster and I loved it, but it
was like, yo, but you know that these full line

(45:25):
hooks working right now? Yeah, So because I kind of
said it to him in the room, you know, I
should have probably pulled them aside, because I said, he
was like, nigga, what you talking about? So you got
one of those? And god, I had one. I pressed
play on pot of Golds for him and mind you
just like him And in the scope, they wasn't going
to release the record until they found the records released

(45:47):
and so that record I played in that song and
he wanted to go against it because he tested me
in front of everybody. He was like a couple of niggas,
like niggad ass hard. I was like Jeesus. So that
record within two or three days, he did his versus
two three days, he plays it for Jimmy Ivien. Jimmy

(46:09):
Ivien unlocks his budget, and then after that they had
Chris Brown on it a few days later. A month
later it was out. And the reason I love him
a lot of people work with a writer and you
kind of never hear them say thank you in public
or even in person. He would find cool ways to
pay me back, Like he'll go on his Twitter and

(46:31):
say yo shots to Sam Hooks. It's the hardest writer
and lo and behold. You know, I may not be
what I was doing before, but brown papers still look
good to me. So a whole bunch of people from
other countries will reach out, Can I get a hook?
Can I get it? I'm out here, Wilin Hooks left
and right. It really became what happens when a person

(46:55):
of you, guys like Stature, even what you're doing right now,
there's gonna be people who see this. They they believe
in the story, or they believe in my work at
their go my talent and they're gonna reach out. This
is love, bro, But it doesn't happen with mad people.
I've sold independently in major, put together three hundred fifty songs, bro, shit,
three fifty songs, yeah, independent in major. You know how

(47:18):
many niggas shot me out? Less than one percent of
that about one percent, it's like three or four niggas. Yeah,
that's crazy. That's crazy because you've worked with a lot
of people. Facts. It's not their fault. I'm not tight.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
I don't see what they gotta go through. They gotta
it's too many people to remember. But when somebody has
it in them to do it, that's the part.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Writers don't get thank God for tan't go again. I
always got an upfront fee for record, unless it's my
brother asking for it. It's my first record. I got
a upfront fee. Yeah, so I knew how to ask
for it the way they they would ask for it.
I learned from these niggas how that make sure you
get your bag up front, and so I enjoyed getting

(48:04):
the indie bag because it paid. Now yeah, and guys
like Game Game put me in this video. That's that
that makes where I'm from be grateful for Game makes
where I'm from be proud of me. And these things
help when people are speaking about you when you're not there.
If you know me, you know, I'm not taking a
picture of myself and I don't know how to promote myself.

(48:26):
These ways is the only ways people can find out
about me good works and and love and respect. So
I'm always grateful to Chuck for that Pot of Gold
came out. It did well on that same album. I
think it's that same album Me and you Just See
No Evil with Kendrick and the next album. Yeah, yeah,

(48:51):
so is that I knew you before that though? Yeah,
I would probably be too scared around you, bro. When
I'm around greatness and like people that are up, like
looking up to and listening to, I go right back
to feeling like I'm a whole scrib is just mad scared.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
You know what? I remember?

Speaker 3 (49:07):
You know what I think because you did the demo right,
did you? Okay, so I didn't believe that was your voice.
Oh yeah, because the nigga don't sing like you talk. No, no,
not at all, not at all and I was like,
who's who's Michael Lesk voice?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
I remember that.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Yeah, he has a higher pitch.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
It's something it's up there.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Especially back then.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah, that that was my first time, only time ever
working with Kendrick is with you. Me and you work
twice so far, now is it twice?

Speaker 3 (49:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (49:46):
When we remix that's right. Yeah, yeah, I know you
know when I worked with you.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
I remember.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Me and Jay Valentine maybe two thousand and nine to ten,
and we did it for you. Yes, yeah, it's for you.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
What's for you? This is for you?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Uh, it's the it's the video where actually trying to
which I don't shoot videos ali enough. It's a black
and white video, which is crazy because the second black
and white video I did turned out to be thank
me for that at his spot? Remember.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, so yo, it's an honor. I'm a proud little
homie to have no Listen, bro, you've you've always answered
the call, You've always answered my call, and for us,
it's it's one of those things like like you were
saying even about with the podcast, this is my favorite
pot thank you bro, period. This is this is why
we we've done the podcast, right, because we want to
celebrate the real ones and the people whose stories don't

(50:45):
always get a spotlight on them. Yeah, you know what
I mean, Like it's and I think it's it's been
cool for us because we don't look at our podcast
as oh, we have to have such and such every week,
because that's not what's the most important thing to us.
Our thing is for people to learn the stories and learn,
you know, the journeys and the different ways that people

(51:06):
have gone about getting to their success, and just even
your story, Like I know a lot of it because
we really really friends in real life and we've said
and talked and you know what I mean, I know
your whole mindset of this shit. Like every time you
say and I had to get back to the pack,
I know that about you, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
So, but the.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Casual fan, our listener or viewer doesn't understand that, you know,
there are people who've had to because at this point
you have three or four songs out placements, the whole shit,
you're still looking for the pack at that point. Facts,
because this business there's just snow guarantees in it. It's

(51:49):
snow guarantees of when that next placement is coming. But
the one thing that I've noticed with you all the time,
and you kind of mentioned that you tapped on it
was like you said it, I got three hundred and
fifty records so independent and on majors. You figured out
how to get to the independent bag, which is very

(52:11):
very important, which a lot of major yeah, and a
lot of major label writers and producers they kind of, yeah,
I don't really do that because you know, my fee
is this, and you're like, no, no, no, no, no no,
this is my new pack.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
And I respect that because it also kept your ass
from going to jail in fact, you know what I'm saying, like,
which a lot of guys they take a lot of
different chances getting back into the streets or getting too
the streets that they've never been a part of, don't
understand the streets, and now they fucked up instead of saying,
you know what, this can be my hustle. And like

(52:51):
I said, but I respect that. When I finally quit
doing like anything wrong for the bag, I realized how
hard it must be songwriters to get paper yeah. Because
it was mixed. So it felt really good for a
long period of time where it's like I know, we
could go to the bowling alley, rent thirty lanes, we
could do this, we could do that. But the one

(53:14):
thing that I'll say to anybody who's young and listening,
I don't glorify that shit at all. A life that
you can't put on a calendar, you're plugg don't have
a calendar or a schedule or structure. You know, you
on his time, so you could never be on your
own time. You're waiting here, you're waiting there. The things
that are most important in your life that on your calendar,

(53:37):
they shouldn't only be obligation. It's just fucking bills or
when to ride to work or doctor's appointments. You could
turn your life into a menu that you picked out
if you do things that are allowed onto your calendar.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
And so.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I realized this. So all this time that I was
doing all that stuff and having all these friends and
having all that fun, one I'm definitely shunning because you
ever you ever smashed the wrong short, you wake up
the next day you feel like you can't pray. You
see what I'm saying. So and then two I'm like,

(54:16):
that's a married man, bro, Wow.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Night, forgive me yo.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
My dad I never it was mad and titled, like
I never built a relationship with my family because they
could never know about my real day. So it's surface.
It's like how you doing good? How you doing good?
And so when I when I uh Lee and Roussell
when they passed away twenty eighteen. The things that when

(54:47):
you live a life that usually I'm never going to
say I was two feet in when you want foot
in one foot out. There's things that your big homie
could tell you when you was eleven years old and say, yo,
life no regrets. You'll live with no regrets. So you
go home and you practice that. What do you pick
up instead? Justification for all your bullshit? So everybody's memories
in your lifetime is just you justifying your bullshit. You

(55:11):
don't have no idea how they feel because you think
you're right all the time. And yo, things that caught
the short end of the stick in my lifetime from
zero to thirty years old was yo, I never had
a real relationship that I can be honest with my dad,
like whenever you like, if I can't tell you about
my whole day, I'm not being honest with you. So

(55:33):
when Lee and Rasseau passed away. Let me tell you something,
I probably never admitted it in person or to anybody
or in public when they passed away. Leah was my artist,
Rasu was business partner in with us for Leah. So
and mind you, that's my sister, that's my brother, that's
I love them. They had my house all week long.

(55:56):
You know, we're together bowling, we're together, karaoke together, drink
and we're got eating at my house all the time.
So when they passed away, I remember the text threat, right,
So I'm so quick to go public and say harpe
and I love you and I'm feeling it. But I
didn't know what I was feeling when I looked at
the text threat. It's me curving every time they asked

(56:19):
me for the last two three weeks or months, when
they would ask me to do something productive. Instead, I'm
looking at my text message that I made up to
make them say okay, so I can go chill with
a joint or chill with my niggas and do the
wrong thing. Right, I'm looking at how I was avoiding
them and giving them and thinking that I'm always going
to be able to round back and make it right.

(56:41):
You see what I'm saying, and I don't think I
ever felt true guilt until I realized how fake of
a nigga I was to them. It's like, if you
ever think, like right now, you can believe the person
I hand myself into you as but the surveillance is different.
Surveillance sees me weary and sees me scared. Surveillance sees

(57:02):
me panicked. That's spirit and adequate, you know, all the
things that people don't show when they want their perception
to be the true story. But so it's like I
started really feeling guilt, Like, what did God see this
whole time? He saw the way there, they saw me there,
you see what I'm saying, But how do you look
when no one's looking? I hated the answer. I hated

(57:23):
started really just doing mass self work. And once you
put that one string of guilt, you never felt it before.
I look at it like tabs, like all the open tabs,
thirty years of open tabs. It took a thousand days
to close. I spent twenty nineteen twenty twenty one by myself,
my engineer, and my assistant. Only two people I saw.
I was so buried in guilt and grudges. And grief.

(57:45):
I didn't know what how to handle, and I had
to do like a remorse. We'll do it called men's tour,
you know, and apology tour, like reaching out to people
and saying, oh, I finally realized what effects I could
have had on you. It's people that I'm like, yo,
let's go do a stick up. You see what I'm saying.

(58:07):
And we're fifteen, sixteen years old, we're doing stick ups.
We think it's funny, but one of them go get
locked up. It's not funny no more. And if he
learned from me and my guys, you got a whole
future that's different because of us, so different things that

(58:30):
was happening. It's like, ya, I saw that this. I'm
on the same story that Jesus Christ exists on, Michael
Jordan exists on, Michael Jackson exists on, Barack Obama, Will Smith,
all the people that I love and look up to,
And I got a character in the same story that
they're in. It never the story of history don't start over.
So I got a character, and this is what I

(58:50):
chose to do with it. I hated it, and so
I spent mad time doing like unlearning the conversation we
had at the crypt unlearning things, and I got I
fell in love with time. Like tank, if I ask
you how many hours there in the day, what you
wanna say? I don't know how many hours? If I
told you there was more than twenty four hours in
the day, would you believe me? Exactly? I believe that too.

(59:13):
I started unlocking that right now. If me and you
and Jay's on a Tuesday together, there's at least seventy
two hours on a Tuesday. And it's if this's seven
point nine billion people are counted for on planet Earth,
that's seven point nine billion time twenty four hours happening Tuesday.

(59:36):
And I'm like, yo, we've been all focused on self,
all focused on self. We can't even plan correctly. But
how do big companies plan? They planning man hours? How
do they break it down and how do they make sure?
Like and then I was so depressed going through so much,
I'm like, yo, if I felt like I was in
a jail selling God said, yo, what matters to you?
And my answer, if God is your CEO, You're gonna

(59:57):
be like you do you matter? And then I said
my family matters? And then I said my gift and
the effects it has on history. And so it's like
guys like, all right, cool, I'll let you out if
you prove that to be your routine, your calendar, your
checkoff system daily in chronological order. So you said I

(01:00:20):
come first, boom, I need to see me come first
from surveillance. So I need to see you pray on
your knees, pray out loud, read your Bible, write the
notes that you just learned, write the laws you found
in it, and promise me something that you're going to
do today from what you just read. I need to
see you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Yo.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
You don't got no relationship with your family. You think
you do because they love you and it's endless and
it's un you know, unconditional, But what does yours look like?
Have you ever gave them on conditional? Look? Do you
even know how? So I put my dad first. I
create a specially bro I put my dad first. On
the specialet. Put my first. It was God, what time

(01:00:56):
did you get here? Then it's pray. Then it's read
your Bible. Then it's what is your takeaway? Then it's
reach out to dad, reach out to mom, reach out
to my older brother Danny, my older sister, and that
my little brother Timmy my little brother Paul, nieces and nephews.
It says Wednesdays because I ain't got every day for
the youngest, but my siblings, my parents. You know, for

(01:01:16):
a thousand days I reached out to my father every
single day. Today, he's my best friend. I popped up
on this calendar. Five am for me is eight am
for him. So if you got to be at his
job and shout out to my pops. He's the first
Haitian funeral business owner in New York State history. But like,
if I call him before he gets there, first few days,
this is somebody who is used to expecting the worst

(01:01:38):
in me. But I realized, like yo, dust settles, it
turned into cement. So if you humble enough, you young enough,
you grab the chisel. You don't give up until it's
in the form you wanted in. You see what I'm saying.
So I chiseled away at my relationship with my pops.
I did not give up on him for a few days.
It was discouraging because I'm like, how you doing. He's like, well,
I sent me, like what you need?

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
What do you want?

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Yeah, Pops is stern, but he's mad understanding, but I
also realized things like this, like how was your day
is a beautiful question to ask intentionally, a sucky question
to ask unintentionally. So how's your day? Good? Sucks? How
was your day? Not?

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
For real?

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Tell me about your day? What was your favorite thing
you learned? What's the worst thing when you? I started
requiring him to speak to me? I made him talk
to me. Bro discouraged a few times and wanting to
drop it, but I'm like, Nah, something that in me says,
don't give up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Keep doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
I call my pops every single day, by the day
nine hundred. So what happens to you when you look
through your days, find out what information is worth carrying,
what information is worth dropping? You're clearing your cash all
them open tabs. Like if nobody asked you how your
day was for thirty days, you might not even ask yourself.
So now you got thirty days open tabs, and your
buffer can just start tricking off. You see what I'm saying.

(01:02:55):
I was requiring my pops, we lived seventy years at
this point, to look through his days, and the first
time in his life somebody's requiring him to say this
is my favorite part.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
This is what I could do better.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
He got so used to doing it. One day, my
sister texts the family chat. She's like, Yo, something's wrong
with Poppy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
I'm like, what happened? I'm three thousand miles away. What happened?
She's like, Nah, nothing like that. But this guy just
asked me how my day was. Yeah, yo, but yo,
little things like Yo, what are your assets? Bro? Like
everybody want to talk paper or talk purchases. My biggest
asset is my relationship with God, my relationship with my family.

(01:03:34):
These two things I build on like their business I
check off. You've seen it. I showed it to you.
I checked these things off, like that's the start of
my day is business. I make sure that I could
check off that. I and then the days that I
slack and don't reach out to on this spreadsheet, I
could see, Yo, Sammy, you haven't checked on them for
three days. You're not watering your flowers. So these things,

(01:03:55):
to me is kind of became more important. And I
could tell that even having that type of structure, that
type of routine, changed my life and it leaked into
my business. Now I have because of how depressed I
was to get out of it. I leanked on god
lengthd on family, created routines, created structures, and I'm starting
to realize all things need structure. The reason the first

(01:04:17):
few times I invest in artists it don't work. One
I'm bad leader. Two I have no structure. Three I'm
trying to carry anything on my memory. I'm gonna shut down.
I'm gonna lose. You can't You're not a canvas for
success in that type of thing. And so I've been
in like these last I have every single day written out,
so my journal runs all my revenue streams today, and

(01:04:39):
I have one middle journal piece what we call central
information or new information log where every information that came
in from any direction, I put every log there and
two people share it. Right had operations and assystem So
when this is shared to that middle link, if it

(01:05:00):
took me ten hours to go through something, but I
got a team of five and it takes fifteen minutes
to explain you see what I'm saying. I'm not spending
fifteen thirty forty five you feel me, it's sixty on
telling nobody else. I could tell it to the middle
and they have a checkoff system for the company that
checks the middle moves every lock to the department, set department,

(01:05:22):
and I started just learning, like yo, this structural shit
really works. It gives us a lot of time. In
the day, I used to God gave me a big
crew with but I had no direction, no good leadership,
and I wasted time. So if my crew was ten
people willing to give eight hours, there was a few
days I could live in one day on a plan.

(01:05:43):
But I didn't see it like that. And now with
less people, you know, the people I'm blessed to have
with today, I take care of the time because with
like as an old to like lean Rossue, as an
old to the old partners that I wasn't a good
partner to, you know, as an old to the artist
that I over promising, then to deliver it to like today,

(01:06:03):
it's like everything is on the calendar, and if you're
talking to me and the wind, I'm gonna write down
what you just said to you at the it said
to me at the end of the conversation if there
was any importance in it, and texted to you so
there's a thread that I could copy and paste into
my system so my team can see what's going on.
Full transparency. I studied eight hundred numbers, and I'm like,

(01:06:24):
I call all eight hundred numbers in my phone and
I'm just studying, like asking why do they have their
people that work for them answer questions like this? And
the person who picks up the phone is like, how
can I help you? When you finish helping me, you
ask is there anything else I can do? Your business
is asking for more work at all fucking times, and me,
I get a bag. I don't need another bag now

(01:06:45):
I need to go stunt. Nah. Business has to be
up and running. There's somebody got to be at the
door asking for business, and so learning all these things,
and I could say I spent the last five six
years just unlocking coldes, writing protocols. Because you can't leave
your talents to your children. You can't leave your swag,
you can't leave your personality, but your protocol. You could

(01:07:08):
leave it completely short and give them a protocol to
anything we learned that hasn't been written here, aid it
in will be a college in fifty years. If not,
we'll be it will be a college. Nobody knows. All
of our children have access to protocol how tos whatnot?
And then teach them how to refine it, because as
time passes by, you can make it better. But I

(01:07:32):
felt like yo, I in order to take my l's
and turn them into things that I could be grateful for.
The biggest things I'm grateful for is learning how to
spend time with my family bro and how to to
to see the wrong and doing the wrong thing, and
how to be accountable and how to structure my day
to where the things that matter happened and all the

(01:07:54):
things I can't control don't bother me. And it helps
with your stress. It helps with the things that we
go through by making sure it's written out of you
and shared to a team that you trust. Like kings
and queens have a hand, they have a historian, they
got to somebody in every department. We're kind of thrown
into the world without even identifying the departments.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
No structure.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
Yeah, like you said, that's what it just comes down to.
And then moving into a business like music is probably
the least amount of structure you can possibly have in
any actual business. And that is why most of the
creatives get the you know, the bad end of the stick.
Facts they have. It's like they'll go against it and

(01:08:37):
their brain to explode, right if they got a caught
that it affects your creative right. And that's why to me,
you are also so important to this podcast and important
for you to come here to talk about the business
that you've set up while still being creative. Got you,
you know what I mean, because we try to. We

(01:08:57):
try to explain it at times too, just from what
we've done ourselves of becoming our own business and our
brand and building it out and still being creative, you
know what I mean. But I think a lot of
times it's kind of passable with Tank and I because
they're like, oh, well, you know, y'all just go saying

(01:09:19):
are you just going this? Or you could just go
and you just and it's just, you know what I mean,
it kind of gets written off to me. Maybe maybe
not to other people, but to me it does. It's like,
I don't think they fully understand the scope of what
we've had to do to literally be able to really
survive this thing and create a brand like R and
B money. This is not just off of talent. This

(01:09:42):
is you know, this is real you know, meetings of
the minds, you know what I mean. And you know
we haven't implemented a structure like you. But I'm paying
attention because that ship. Now we're going to ship. Those
things that you've done are really really important to you know,

(01:10:03):
to a business that holds no true structure. For real crier,
it's the biggest way to love is if I we're
all smart enough in this room, and some people outside
the room may not be. But if we're smart enough
to say, yo, oh, snap yo. I got five people
giving me eight hours a day, I'm doing more than
twenty four hours to towards the planet day. You know,

(01:10:25):
So say JP Morgan got three hundred thousand people giving
him roughly ten hours right a day for work inside
of his structure protocol places that he can find. That's
three million hours that he can find, a glitch on
where to reprimand a space on where to hire, or
a place to like something's done well. Time saved to

(01:10:45):
him and his structure to where to promote three million
hours eighty two hundred years a day he's living, but
three hundred thousand people have a place to stay, food
to eat, families, take people that didn't know what to
do with their time necessarily yet can like I want

(01:11:07):
to be one thousand hours by the time of forty.
I want to be ten thousand hours by the time
about fifty.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
Let's talk about these songs, gotcha, Let's talk about these songs.
We talked about the business side of it. So how
do you get to this space now? Because you're in LA,
you're writing these records and you know you got album
placements and you get your first single with Pottigo. Yeah,
that's your first single?

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Correct?

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
How does that lead to Trays? No, there's probably a
few songs in between, but Trays nine Steel O'Brien from
Ridiculousness for listeners. My brother, one of the first friends
I made in La Legit like just would wanted to

(01:11:59):
bring me up to people, bring me the drama, bring
me to Rob, bring me to just to introduce me
and like, yo, keep like they like. He's like, yo,
keep saying I had a song called Smartphones that I
have writ and then it was circulating trying to get
placed and Steel logos and plays it for Trey. Doesn't
I didn't know he did. I get a d M

(01:12:21):
from Trey on Twitter. He's like, Yo, bro stel O
just played me the Smartphones record, Yo, I need to
cut this, y'all right, and so I called my older brother.
My older brother was in time for that. I think
we got him the stems immediately, and we went up
to his crib in the hills. And first thing Trey

(01:12:45):
does before we thought we was gonna go cut it
with him, he's like, Yo, pull up, I'm abowt to
cut it. When we get there, this shit's cut and
it's perfect, and I'm like, yes, thank you Jesus. He
plays it for me and my older brother, which is
a dope moment because that friend ship turned out to
be that, that relationship turned out to be a brotherhood
of a friendship that I never ever ever stopped being

(01:13:07):
grateful for. He the first person to give me eight
or nine songs on the album.

Speaker 2 (01:13:11):
Hm. Shit, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
We hung out, We played two K we played basketball,
We chilled with girls. We chilled with the boys like
with my with the homies pause, we chilled with the
homies like but we was legit like always together his
crew and mind you, up until this point, I was
like lone wolf unless album chilling with all shorty and so,
or unless I'm with my crew that we do the

(01:13:34):
other thing with so to have a crew again because
Neo's team never stopped being family, but they was in
a you know. And so to have another crew again
of young niggas just like myself, knuckleheads just like myself,
it was like it was a blessing. So legit, we
start off with smartphones, the label loves ith. Trey cuts himself,

(01:13:58):
so it makes it easy. He could just pull up
to his crib studio. You could cut the whole album.
Were playing two K, listening to the beats, writing songs.
We did cake, we did you Ain't Shit, Yes, no,
maybe late night shit, mister still your girl, all playing
two K, my nigga, Yeah, I'm kyrie.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
So the non record, Trey hits me. He's like, yo,
I got Musta coming to the studio. But we had
already known that we was going to go to the
jay Z show, right, So when we all get there,
Mustard was signed to Rock Nation, me and Trey was
already going, and so all of us had in mind
and like, yo, damn, we got this session today, but

(01:14:42):
we want to go see the whole show. Yeah, right,
So forty five minutes it took to write that song.
It was It wasn't ever a throwaway. We heard the
beat and it's just media. I think I went outside.
I used to smoke a lot, went outside, smoke, came
back in the studio and I was just joking around
when I heard the beating, like oh, Nona right, And
we just kept on playing around and tell the shit

(01:15:04):
like we had to get something done and wrote the
record and literally like twenty minutes, cut it in twenty minutes.
Final vocals is still from the first day and popped
out to the whole tour.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
So what y'all?

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
Pretty much the demo turned into the record.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Trade is really good at cutting quick and cutting his
own vocals. I think the only thing we did later
was a bridge.

Speaker 2 (01:15:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
I remember the text Thrad It was like yo yo,
I think I still have it said. He's like, yo, bro,
it's just a single. He tagged me and Mustard in
the text. Start were just like yo, let let's go.
I didn't know. I'm still I was still mad that
the smartphones wasn't taken off like I thought it was,
because that was the true story of my life, like
me getting caught got caught up.

Speaker 4 (01:15:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
So, but one thing you could say is like one
you tell gods your plans. You're gonna laugh. But the
two like y'all, you gotta uh sit in the car,
know who's driving, and don't join the weather. You could
drive through fire, drive through lightning, you could drive through rain,
you could drive through a sunny day. You're sitting while
he's driving. And so today I can look backwards and

(01:16:08):
appreciate that time way more than I did during it.
That time I was probably more focused on chicks, girls, women,
And it's kind of been kind of in your life.
It's always you know, it's an excuse to chill with
my day ones or an excuse to chill with girls.
Major distractions and for most of us, ration and motivation

(01:16:34):
to keep doing this stay. Yeah, they ones aren't distraction,
but the reason for it. So let's say, let's what
what causes our mistakes. You go down to yourself at
four years old. I don't know if you have anything
like me, but I didn't have. Jordan's right, I'm with you.
So I go to school with the thousands, some payless

(01:16:55):
or there was a store in Brooklyn called Bobby, So
I'm you don't want to bout it. You see that
Bobby's back, come in. You can start crying.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
It was today. I'm really grateful for my parents for
not giving into their kids, telling them that you should
purchase this because everybody thinks it's cool. They gave us
what we needed. But back then, I'm like, what are
those You see what I'm saying. So you come home,
you go to school, church and family don't give you
emotions like desperation and adequacy, heartbreak, you know, or doubt.

(01:17:30):
They build you up. The church is reminded of a kingdom.
Of school's like a jail. So you go to the jail.
And now you go to jail and you're sitting in there.
There's thirty kids in the class. One baddy right, and
you look down like there's no way I'm not the
one who bags. So you got to walk home with
this desperation thing, you know, and it hurts a kid,

(01:17:54):
bro it does. You walk home with feeling less than
and you never thought you was less than until that day.
And your parents keep telling you like, you'll be happy
what you have. They try to make sure you remember
the facts, but you're not hearing it. When you got
to sit in that classroom that's just like general population
and you looking weak out there and so legit like

(01:18:16):
I could look back and then the reason I could
forgive myself and forgive all these all my guys, and
we're all good no matter what where we ended up,
you know, with children picking up emotions, and we're making
room friends in the in a in a room that
sponsors by a wrong emotion, friendships in a room that's

(01:18:36):
sponsored by a wrong emotions. So we if we all
have desperation in common, nobody gonna find desperation wrong. How's
it gonna feel when you got to take it out
of you? You might not agree with the people you
saw your whole life, so like it goes the same way,
so some of the me being distracted. It leads back
to just simple emotions that you walk home from school

(01:18:57):
with that shouldn't ever be your few. You can use
them like your fuel, like even impulse. You know a
lot of niggas get pats on the back of impulse,
but it got you here. They fuck with you, But
this impulse keep you here. No, So at some point
you got to take out the thing that once fueled
you and be fueled by something you can keep sustain. Yeah, yeah,

(01:19:20):
I agree and disagree with that, I think because the fuel,
whatever that is. It's different for each person, right, And
whatever that fuel is, you have to you gotta keep
that light, you gotta keep that gas going. That's the profit.
But are you getting away from feeling life? Do you

(01:19:41):
want if pain makes you write the best songs and
when you're happy you write trash? Do I want you
to be painful so we can make some chicken? Or
am I happy you can feel better?

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
Well? I think that in looking at it that way,
you can say it that way, but I think that
I think that what happens is this, and I love
that that you brought that line, is that it's not
necessarily that you write your best songs when you were
in pain. It was just there was just an overwhelming

(01:20:12):
connection to the pain that you were going through that connected.
It's just a difference in time. Right, So I'm writing
these sad songs. I'm a great I'm a great sad songwriter, right, great,
But I was like that sign no more. You know
what I'm saying, you can tap in. I'm not said,

(01:20:34):
but guess what I connected so great at that to
where when I wasn't going through it anymore, you almost
feel like you're not doing good work because sometimes the
response isn't the same. But that's that's based on the
demand that people have gotten used to. But I said, listen,

(01:20:58):
I'm going to keep this happy in this sex music
in your face until you understand that this is what
I'm on. That was work, But my best work is
all of my fucking works. It always is, and and
and so whether whether it's motivated, whether I'm being motivated

(01:21:20):
in the trench trying to survive, or whether I'm thriving
and I just feel like cooking up a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
Tune, motivation, that's a good thing. Desperation. You could be
down today, I could be below down. Desperation ain't gonna
hit my system.

Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
But what I'm saying is that you've been able to
figure out your way in desperation. We all come from desperation.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
I think it's is not repeatable, but I think I
think that fact of course, if we if we take
it into because art, Yeah, that's something that becomes a
blessing for creatives. The fact that you can write out
your pain therapy, the therapy for sure, and then the

(01:22:13):
ability to turn it into finances, to literally turn your
desperation into finance. Not desperate, but yeah, just your pain
into making some money. You know what I'm saying, You
think about I mean for me, I think about, you know,
being a writer on a record like how could you for?
Mario literally wrote that about young relationships I was in.

(01:22:36):
Did I exaggerate some shiit? Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
But did I feel a way?

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Hell yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:22:41):
And now I'm going to write a song about it
and feed my family for the rest of my life
off some dirty shit. I'm not angrateful, in no way
being ungrateful.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
I just I just think, like within what we do
bro like that is just it's a it's a well
last thing to be able, like I said, to make
some money off of some pain that we've been through
and to.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
Make it way and make a way.

Speaker 1 (01:23:09):
I think it's relatable when I'm talking about this. It's
not about we get a yo. It's like that having
one foot in and one foot out of doing we
get to pull from that room full of people who
don't have the same talent and ways to make that
emotion turn into what we're able to make any emotion
turn into. And it's a sad thing to see. It's

(01:23:30):
like I don't want for my guys who don't do
music and don't have a place to express themselves that
could profit them to be feeled by these things. Yeah,
that's the only thing I was saying. It's like those
don't it's not it's not for us. We're supposed to have,
like faith, we're supposed to have like you know what
I'm saying, Happiness, peace, like the coolest things to feel.

(01:23:50):
Be your life's story. Like when you look backwards, you
can say I remember feeling peace throughout all of that.
It gets crazy no matter what, but I could look
back and say I felt this last five six years.
I felt happiness, you know, I felt still, I felt
I felt faithful ship that is worth it. I felt
inspired or inspiring.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
I felt like that was that is that is? That
is your your path? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Right, and and and aligning I guess to what your
purpose has always been, which is why you feel the
way you feel. You've always been missing or looking for something,
and so that piece that you feel now is in
a sense finding it straight.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Up right, you travel the whole world to find it's
your family you love the most.

Speaker 3 (01:24:37):
But then you got the flip side of it where
you got you know what I'm saying, You got the
niggas and pay the fools like, yeah, I feel.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
You, but I love this ship, my brother, right before
I got it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
I gotta do this ship.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
They still they're still gonna love you completely throwing that ship.

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
But your purpose was different, your path was different, you
know what I mean? What your what what ended up
ultimately being your sustaining fuel.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
Just different.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
We we are.

Speaker 3 (01:25:16):
We are different, no matter how much, no matter how
much streak we've encountered. Hm, we always find our way
back to this in some way shape.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
That's a fact.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
And this room turns into a hallway to where outside
of being legends in one field, there's other rooms in
the whole way. Now y'all got the best not even
R and B the best podcast out, you know what
I'm saying. And then there's more things and more things
and more things. The whole way turned into a fucking
mall and receive them all.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:25:54):
Airport straight up. I see it that way. I think
planning ourselves. My boy changed my life. He said, make
sure the next thing you do is planted, not buried.
And when he said that, I was like, man, I've
made mad buried decisions and it didn't grow. You gotta
think it's next, yo, yo, does this sound like something
I should be doing.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
As a creative, as an artist?

Speaker 5 (01:26:16):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:26:17):
As an artist? What would you say? Is I want
to your proudest moments? I say your proudest moment? I say,
what's one of your proudest moments?

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Naked by Element.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
We was in.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Encore and my younger brother was living out with me,
helping me build out and plan out this family business thing.
And he came to the studios, me him engineer Element,
and the whole day was just like it was a
dope thing. So in twenty fifteen, I set up something

(01:26:55):
called an FB opportunity list. When most people were starting
like at my level with a started creating like a
publishing company. Instead of doing a publishing company, I created
a process called a family business opportunity list. This is
where instead of owning, buying and owning a percentage of
your future, I would share an opportunity with you real time.
If I landed for you, I got you agreed saying

(01:27:16):
that if I share an opportunity landed on your behalf,
I get set percentage of up front and back end
of publishing. So I had by this time, I probably
had fifty sixty people on this list that I could
reach out to anytime I get an opportunity. So even
if I knew what producer would be there, I'd still
reach out to the people on that list, saying, Yo,
I'm going to work with this artist. Send it just
in case I'll leave her with it or whatever. So

(01:27:39):
in that day, I go up there with a bunch
of guitars because she signed to my boy must that
I would never be disrespectful and bring a beat to
a Mustard session, So I brought guitars, knowing that yo,
he could add around it if we ever choose to
do this. The guitars were from a young sixteen year
old producer named Omer Fetti, who, by two I was twenty,

(01:28:00):
was the biggest producer in the world at that time.
He was my little bro. He was in tenth grade
at Calabasas High School, and I brought his beat. So
she I think she had already written to all the
beats that were on the pack. Mustar's in London working
for Rihanna, So I text Monster like, YO, I didn't
want to violate that's my man, that's your program. I'm

(01:28:22):
gonna call you and ask you, YO, do you think
I could I got some guitars. We kind of stuck.
She already wrote everything there. He was busy. He's like, yo, yeah,
you could pull up the guitar joints. So I go
back in there. I have a conversation with Ella. I say, yo,
if all of your exes were in a room together,
what would they all agree that they don't like about you?

(01:28:43):
And she gave me a list. I started writing down
the list of all her answers. The song comes out.
Take away the big shirts, the tattoos, the sweatpants, the vans. Okay,
I don't wear no makeup, no person in my hands.
These are all her answers. My rest and bitch face
is mistaken for the mean girl. But what if I
told you there's nothing I want more in this world
and somebody who loves me naked? And I wrote the
whole song about in front of my little brother, so
he got to see me kind of maneuver. It wasn't

(01:29:05):
my first time working with Ella at that point. I
worked on every ep she had. But it was dope
to have my little baby brother moved out when he
was eight. You see what I'm saying. It was dope
to have my brother poorly with me and him in
the rooms, just witnessing it and sharing that time with me,
and she cuts it. She kills it for Christmas that year, right,

(01:29:26):
I didn't buy nobody know, my siblings no gifts.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:29:30):
The reason it's my favorite placement is I gave them
a percentage of since I had my percentage of with
the producer that I brought in had and my my
percentage for writing the whole record, I have more than
enough to say to my siblings, Hey, his this percentage
to split. Uh. Now, if you go look at the credits,

(01:29:51):
all of my every one of my parents' kids got
a double platinum song that they're the right or yeah
that's that's I can't beat that one.

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
Yeah, mister Sam Hook, not to be confused, Sam Cook,
he could be in your time, your top five R
and B singers.

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
I made a list Brian McKnight anytime, anytime, Lauren.

Speaker 5 (01:30:23):
Hell Yeah, yeah yeahs I'm on, Robert Beyonce, Yeah yeah,
come on, part of high Chris Brown, I mean, why not,
come on?

Speaker 1 (01:30:33):
Come on?

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
Then I did another list called the Lightning Round.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Got Lightning introducing podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
Lightning Round, Sam Cook, Marvin Stevie Wonder Boys to man
Kim Berrell, it's impossible to do five ship.

Speaker 2 (01:30:54):
You do what you want people do that. This is
how you distribute that publishing. I know what you're doing.
What you're doing. That was great. Top five R and
B songs.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
Stevie Wonder if It's magic m Brian McKnight six, eight twelve. Yeah,
that one got me. Uh Lauren Hill's Education. I think
that's track thirteen on there. Chris Brown crawl Wow, and
obviously eliminate naked.

Speaker 3 (01:31:28):
Great song fucking writing. Geez, you know, g you gotta
you got a lightning round for this.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
Honestly, I know how you do your version of I
Can't Make You Love Me. It's a great sound, my brother.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Yeah, we have to other through that one. What long, long,
night long.

Speaker 1 (01:31:52):
That's the work everybody know and they know the delivery.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
Yeah, my brother. Let's make a voltron. Let's make a
super R and B artists heard you, all right? Who
you gonna get the vocal from the performance style, from
the styling, the heart of the artists? And for you,
who's gonna write for this artist? Number one? Where you're
gonna get the vocal from one.

Speaker 1 (01:32:11):
Vocal female male I'm gonna go Kells and Brandy put together.

Speaker 3 (01:32:17):
Jesus Christ, that'd be crazy. That'd be nuts, Kells and
Brandy together nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
I like it. Oh, performance style.

Speaker 1 (01:32:38):
Female male Beyonce Chris Brown put together. You said votron.
That's a votre?

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Crazy?

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
Like what you like?

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
What are you doing? Styling the drip?

Speaker 1 (01:32:58):
Rihanna Farrell, he got happy for real, R and B
and yeah, yeah you bang with.

Speaker 2 (01:33:10):
That, right, you're cooking.

Speaker 1 (01:33:16):
Passion of the artists, Marvin Gay Whitney, Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:33:28):
It might be the best.

Speaker 1 (01:33:31):
Actually created my own little push call. Who's gonna write it?

Speaker 2 (01:33:36):
That's what that's the last one you do that for?

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
For you?

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Yes, I bet who's writing for the artists?

Speaker 1 (01:33:42):
Myself? Neo poo Be, James farn Lroy Money Long, baby Face,
all in the same yoke. He's gonna do it. A
little honey in that room writing. Be happy to see it.
Oh you named monster? Also, who produce it?

Speaker 2 (01:34:02):
Who produces?

Speaker 1 (01:34:02):
Right? Mike Will made it? DJ Mustard, Oma Fetti d N,
DJ Camper. Yeah, go the album, take the artist.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
That's a run, I'd say run, Yeah, Yeah, that's a
that's a Dionne Warwick twenty years of hit records run.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
No, that's a that's a deity that you created. It's
a god.

Speaker 1 (01:34:36):
I had a lot of time to practice. I watch
every episode, man like every time I'm watching my structure. Structure,
that structure.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
I've said that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
That what I was about to tell you about the
best you had, the best structure.

Speaker 3 (01:34:54):
You too much for you, You created structure. You're also ready.
You're ready for every motherfucking thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
That's what true.

Speaker 1 (01:35:01):
Nah No, but I'm faithful for everything. It might look ready,
but I'm not scared.

Speaker 2 (01:35:08):
There's there's the difference.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
Right now, we have the very important part of the show.
It's called I Ain't saying no names. We tell us
a story funny or fucked up? Are funny and fucked up?
In the times and the journeys Sam Hook? Maybe when
he was going to you know, collect the pack. No, Nope,

(01:35:30):
maybe when you was selling the track, selling the track.
The only rule to the game, you can't say no names.

Speaker 2 (01:35:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
This story ties into kind of what we was talking
about today, Not distractions, but things. Yeah, my distractions wanting
to impress people, wanting certain people to see me, and
wanting to chill with girls. This story has all of
that in it, mixed with.

Speaker 2 (01:35:52):
How stupid I was.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
So I fly to New York with at the time
of very popular video fiction, right, and I'm more hyped
to show her to my niggas than I am to
even hang with her.

Speaker 2 (01:36:05):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:06):
So we laying I put on I g that that
I'm out there. So one of the biggest producers in
the last fifteen years reaches out to me when he
sees I'm in New York. He's also in New York.
He's like, yo, pull up to the studio. I said, nah, bro,
I can't. I got so and so in town. And
I try to stumn on him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:23):
He's like what I was like?

Speaker 1 (01:36:24):
Yeah, I was like, I'm about to go to this
part of time and show off. This is corny of me,
just so you know, I think this is corny today,
but this is how.

Speaker 2 (01:36:32):
This is how it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
So I do that day one. Day two, I'm like, nah,
but you know, I got my niggas in Jersey. He
calls me again day two to pull up to the studio.
I'm like, but you know, I got my Jersey niggas.
I got to bring it there too. So day two
he the day three. I wake up and I'm like, hey,
so and so, Bro's gonna kill me if I don't
show up to the studio today. It's day three. I'm

(01:36:56):
not even gonna let him call me first. I'm gonna
call him tell him I'm on the way. So I
go up to the studio, the studio. Can I say
names of the studios?

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
So the studio was quiet in Manhattan. And when I
get off the elevator, so I go by myself. When
I get off the elevator, I see a bodyguard that
I'm sure I've seen in met or seen in tabloids
or scene. I know him from somewhere, but I'm not
putting one in one together. I'm more what's more in
my mind is feeling bad for the last two days

(01:37:25):
and not showing up for my dog, the producer. So
I go to the back room. All of his production
team is there. I'm like, yo, where's Bro. It's like
now he's in the main room. And so I go
in the main room. Mind you. Nobody tells me shit.
Walk in the room, I'm like, what's up there? Before
I put a g on the gull.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
Right, I see.

Speaker 1 (01:37:45):
Top two biggest artists of all time, just sitting on
the couch at least top two or top three, and
then the gug came out like good.

Speaker 3 (01:38:01):
I was like.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Working on the last and then salt to the wound.
My man, the producer, he says, hey, yo, so and
so this is who I've been telling you about for
the last two days. I'm just like damn. Right next
to her was sitting was actually, uh the chairman of

(01:38:25):
the publishing company that I was at that you're signed to.
And he's just sitting there like dick right, and I
sit down. Just small, bro, I'm small, like I just
I fucking shrunk. And my man. So she gets in
the booth and she finishes the final vocals that they

(01:38:47):
had written in the last two days for a record
that probably lasted as long as fuck number one on
Billboard and then the next year it was on Super Bowl.
And so that's my my I ain't saying no names.
Uh story.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
One, don't be a cornball and try to show off
girls see your niggas. Two when opportunity, cause you can't
let it be the truth about you, uh, that you
ignored the ship for a distraction, for something that meant nothing,
for something he wasn't even intentional about That's what I
take from it. But it's hilarious when I tell you who.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
Was there and what happened. Oh man, yeah, fuck.

Speaker 1 (01:39:31):
That's funny and fucked up, right, Man, it ain't that
funny us on some funny shit. God, that same person,
that same producer called me in on another mega artist,
and that time I fucking listened and I ended up

(01:39:51):
on too on the album that's probably like seven million
sold right now?

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):
Yeah, good good?

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
But I could have been on both, if that makes
it feel better, can't I was a dick, straight Sam.
I hope there worth.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
I hope you can still tap in with that.

Speaker 1 (01:40:13):
From think I'm just outside. I retired that.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
I'm not talking about you. She owed you that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:27):
People keept you away from that, my God saying man,
you you you are a brother that goes without saying.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
But your talent, your hustle speaks for yourself. Appreciate and
I think you know.

Speaker 3 (01:40:45):
The beauty in this conversation man, and people getting to
know and understand more about your makeup. You know those
things you said at the end, you know, really finding
the value in that relationship with God and your family
like that, that that is a foundational That is a

(01:41:10):
foundational tool that if you don't if you don't have
something like that to hold on to, especially in this
place that we're in, you'll find yourself flailing in so
many different directions.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:41:24):
And you know, as we talk to the people who
are listening and the people who are aspiring and inspired
by you, I pray they really heard that, because that
was that was That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible that that
that grid and that checklist and that being intentional about
your purpose.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
Man. Can't beat that. Man, I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:41:47):
You can't beat that. So I appreciate that more than
anything about you. I know you're talented. I know you
can you can write, you can write a hit in
twelve minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
And I got all that. I got that.

Speaker 3 (01:41:57):
But the intentionality, uh, in terms of your relationship with
the creator and your relationship with your family.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Man, that's the goal.

Speaker 1 (01:42:05):
That's my biggest assets right there.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
That's that's the biggest asset.

Speaker 3 (01:42:11):
My name is Tank Man, I'm Valentine, and thank you,
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
About to be some brown paper bags coming in.

Speaker 3 (01:42:21):
I want some of them too. I'll take up back
we'll be on that opportunity. Sam My name is and
this is the Harmy Money Podcast, the authority on all

(01:42:41):
things R and B. And this has not only been
a lesson in music, this has been a lesson in life.

Speaker 2 (01:42:47):
Man with our brother. This is Sam.

Speaker 1 (01:42:49):
I appreciate you. Appreciate

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Episode Transcript

Hosts And Creators

Tank

J. Valentine

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