January 3, 2025 • 37 mins
Sitting down with hip hop legend Sway Calloway, I was eager to dive into his origin story and the pivotal moments that led him to become the iconic radio and TV broadcaster he is today. Sway takes me back to his early days hustling as an aspiring rapper alongside his high school friend and producer King Tech in Oakland. They faced obstacle after obstacle trying to get their music out there - but Sway was determined, resourceful and brimming with belief in his talents.
He talks about the hustler spirit instilled in him, pressing up their own tapes and vinyl to sell just to be heard. I'm inspired when he shares the creative ways they pushed forward independently, before later getting a sobering glimpse of the major label machine. Sway saw gaps in the industry and rather than feel deterred, he found ways to educate himself and forge his own path.
The conversation shifts as Sway traces his transition from aspiring rapper to pioneering host of the nationally-syndicated Wake Up Show on radio and later TV. He understood the power of delivering authentic information through a mainstream platform. Ultimately it's Sway's connection with people that propelled him into legend status.
Though much of his fascinating story remains untold, Sway leaves me with some hard-earned wisdom about longevity in this industry. He embodies the resilience, vision and creativity that it takes to succeed on your own terms. His journey is a testament that persistence and authenticity ultimately win. I'm grateful to call him friend, role model and consequence of the hustler spirit.
Host: Daymond John
Producers: Beau Dozier & Shanelle Collins; Ted Kingsbery, Chauncey Bell, & Taryn Loftus
For more info on how to take your life and business to the next level, check out DaymondJohn.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So when we would talk to folks, I would ask us, so,
what's your next move?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's your next plan?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You know, understanding it's a business and the moment that
the numbers go down, the metrics go down, Uh, they'll
remind you that it's a business, business, a business.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
What if I told you there was more to the
story behind game changing events? Get ready for my new podcast,
That Moment with Damon John will jump into the personal
stories of some of the most influential people on the planet,
from business mobiles and celebrities to athletes and artists.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
So I'm sitting here today with a very special friend
and buddy that I respect, Sway Callaway and you whether
thank you, Damon, thank you brother for being here. Of course, Sway,
as you may or may not know, is amazing broadcaster
and you may have seen him everything from MTV to
I heard him of course on Cyrus Exam and things
(00:58):
of that nature. But my team and I only had
a good idea. Why don't I actually interview Sway?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Ah? No, who told you that was a good idea though? Uh? Millennials,
one of.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
The millennials around myself with a bunch of malimium models. Okay,
have you been interviewed before, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, I've been asked a lot of questions before, but
not I've been an interview But you know, it's it's
see what you will?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You do this? Well? Living is.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Kind of control the narrative, right, you know when someone
is interviewing you. So I very seldom let my hair down,
so to speak, you know, in the interview, as I
would with you if you asked.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Me a question. Definitely definitely appreciate that. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions
that I think that maybe I've been curious about. So
a lot of people may or may not know your history.
Can you tell me just a little bit about where
you started and.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You know, before becoming a that's a broadcast. Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Don't speak a lot about the history. In high school,
I met my partner, DJ king Tech who and he
and I both were just fans of music.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I grew up playing instruments. I played the saxophone and
played the clarinet. I played the bass clarinet. He just
grew up a music lover and got into the boy
coaching and used to break dance in the Oakland Bay area.
I'm from Oakland. He was from Hayward. We had a
mutual friend who introduced us. Friend I grew up running
track with and he grew up dancing with. And that
(02:31):
friend took a different path after he introduced us. He
went more of a street path, you know, he went
into the streets basically, you know, which left two strangers
who had a single idea of becoming a rap group.
And like anyone else who was in high school, you know,
ll was somebody we idolized, and you know, you know
(02:52):
whom d and all these guys. But we were from
the Bay and we started making music. The way we
did it is we saved up money and bought equipment.
One of the first keyboards we bought was from shot
G from Digital Underground. One of the first drum sequences
we bought Digital Underground and had money be Tupac Shakur
(03:12):
for Fear DJ fues in it, and we started making
this music. I didn't sound like a guy from Oakland,
you know, at that time you had too shortened others
coming from Oakland. I was more of a guy who
was trying to flip syllables, you know, Big Daddy Kane
with somebody I liked, and so it took us a
long time to really kind of find a home at home.
(03:34):
And we had a lot of doors slammed on our faces.
We were shopping record deals, and when we came to
New York where the most of the business was, I
was from Oakland. I didn't sound like a New York
MC and we were told you'll never make it.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You'll never make it, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And so we came home and tried to figure out
what how can we get our music out if nobody's
going to give.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Us a chance.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And San Francisco State, you know, when we were in
the high school, off of these extra extended curriculum courses
on the law aspects of the music business. And it
was taught by a guy by the name of Ralph
Tajan who was an attorney, active attorney in the music business.
And all you had to do was pay a little
bit of money you could take these courses. So I
(04:19):
didn't know where it would lead me, but I went
and took this course, and in the process, this attorney
started breaking down, well, this is how distribution works, all right,
this is how marketing works. This is our promo system.
He broke down the system and he created. He showed
us the infrastructure on how record labels do their business,
and my partner Tech and I were like, man, well,
(04:40):
look if we can't get anybody else to do it
for us. He was working at Domino's. I was working
at place called quick Ways, a burger joint exclusive to Oakland.
Let's save up our money and do it ourselves. And
we saved up money, and we worked out of his studio,
sixteen track studio and called Artevire's his guy name, and
(05:01):
he Earnest. He was the engineer, and he ended up
allowing us to come to utilize the studio. We didn't
have enough money to pay them, so we worked in
this studio and with the time, he compensated us with
time instead of in money. And from there we were
(05:21):
able to make our first demo tape and then create
our first lacquer that we were able to burn vinyl with.
With this company called Rainbow Records, which is independent, we
made cassette tapes. We made a minimum amount of cassette tapes,
We made a minimum amount of vinyl.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And we wanted CDs.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Was still kind of like a veath technology back there,
you know, so we were put those things out to
see what would happen, and people would respond.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
What year was that.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
This was eighty nine, eighty nine, about eighty eight, Yeah,
And we put it out to see how people will react.
And immediately we start doing these things. Well I didn't
know what a assignment deal was, you know. And we
would go to these stores and say, yeah, man, just
leave it here, come back in thirty days.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And we'll pay you will we seld Really that's how
it works.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So we'll leave fifty cassettes there in thirty days, you know,
thirty of them will sell and they would pay us
partial payments. It's like, well, but you're not going to
pay for the whole thirty Well if you if you
reshow for us with more product, then we'll pay you
for the first back. And then and there I started
learning about the inner workings of the music business.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Really.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, if you keep feeding the system, the system will
keep feeding you, right, okay. And so we went back
and pressed up a bunch of the same product, but
we pressed up a lot more, but it didn't sell.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Like the little bit did you know.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So it was like one inventory in the market had.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
More inventory in the market. But it was and moving
and we were like, how do we get it to move?
And we'll go back to the retailers and they'll say, well,
you didn't sell as much.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Do you have anything new?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
All right, man, we got another group we could, you know,
bring you that. And so we just got into this
circle of finance, you know, meet demand, product, you know,
product finance, this whole circle. And but it was a
learning process that we took from it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
We eventually, because of that move we made started creating
a buzz in northern California. The same person who taught
that class at San Francisco State. We went back to
his now, Ralph Tajohn. He's in the book The Hit Men,
an industry music industry book that because A it's a
it's a legendary. But that's a legendary. And somebody's in music.
They don't know that book. They got a bigger problem.
(07:51):
They should know that book.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Ralph is one of the key characters in that book.
And he took it to he took our product with
the track record or a proof of concept if you will,
all right, you know, to a guy by the name
of Irving Azoff who had just kicked off this new
label called Giant Warner Brothers and Irving Azoff. I don't
(08:16):
know if he knew the music or cared about the music,
but they saw the numbers, you know, what we were
doing independently in the bay. He was like, wow, well
these guys are doing this on their own, what will
they do with us. Different experience though, when we signed
with the major label, because there was so many moving
variables that we didn't know about, and budgets were being
thrown around the place and we had no control over
the budgets, and people were hired on our budget that
(08:40):
we never even heard of and paid on our budget
that we had we would have to pay back in
our recruitment.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
But taught us another level about the business.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Well well let me let me let me ask you something.
You know, many people would have said, man, I don't
have any money the against studio equipment.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So you did that.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Then you go to New York and everybody tells, you know,
it can't happen, And they would say, well, listen, we
just went to the home hip hop, right and all right,
I guess we're done.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
All right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Then somebody would said, well, you know, we want to
do our own stuff, but we don't have enough hours
to you know, money to buy hours in the studio.
So you go and leverage your time and you find
that and then somebody would say, well, the still is
not going to buy it from us, Well who are?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We'll stop.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
So what was in it for the studio owner was?
I guess he gets some really uh inexpensive labor because
I'm sure, yeah, you got you got hours putting in.
You know, we're not quantifiable in a sense. The store
owner is, I have to pay for this. I had
to pay for this. I had to pay for this.
That's an expenditure. But if this is in my store already,
(09:54):
I don't have to pay for it. Everything I make
I can keep and I don't don't have to pay it.
By don't you use it? So it's an advantage to me.
What gave you that mentality to understand how to leverage
what's in it for the person you're leveraging you with?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That's a great question.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You know you mentioned something earlier about education and teachers
being our greatest natural resource in this country. And if
it's a kid who's being taught about history and Christopher
Columbus Shore, we should all know our history, they'll be
excited about that. But if it's someone over here on
the other side making you a business offer your innate
(10:33):
response or impults, we all kind.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Of gravitate towards that.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I was gravitating towards the opportunity to learn how this
business works. And I was willing to take the loss
of two steps to gain that information that can help
me grow five steps.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And so it was that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And then the second thing was this intangible feeling that
I know New York is the mecca.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But they really don't know what they have in front
of them.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
They don't know who we are.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They don't and I bet if we could show people
who we are, the regional boundaries and all of that
stuff won't make a difference. We believed in ourselves so
much that when people told us no, we didn't think
we would whack. We just thought, damn, they don't get it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Well.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
But you also went ahead and took a course that
was available for you. And the course wasn't on how
to play instruments, was it? Or was it wasn't on
how to operate this keyboard. It was on the business
of music.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
So you know, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Generally rare when somebody is a creative and they're an
artist and they want to go out and create art.
It's almost like a painter going to take the business
of selling artwork. Was it because your desire was to
participate in this world of hip hop in whatever form?
(12:04):
Was it I don't want to get screwed when I
get to this level.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Or was it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Something else? It was both of It was all of
those things.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
It was the desire to be in this world by
any means, you know, it was what appealed to me.
I loved what what the culture stands for, what it
provided for us, a voice representation when we had a
lack thereof.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was exciting.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I didn't see myself going your typical path of going
to college and graduating and taking some job and uh
some you know that.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I didn't really want to be in.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Number one number two being from Oakland. So in Oakland
we grow up with a hustler's mentality, and we know
that preparation is the best protection. Information to me is
(13:19):
the most valuable thing you have at your disposal when
you don't have money, and so I wanted to obtain
that information because the business wasn't letting me in. So
I wanted to learn about the business that wasn't letting
me in. Find a door I go open for myself,
get in anyway, and in the process, you're always gonna
(13:41):
get jerked, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In the music business, sure, but it's you're always gonna
get fucked.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But I didn't want to get gang banged, so, you know,
So that information helped us get there. But to your point,
it did stifle to create a process from your you know.
And I understood too that I needed to adjust myself
in this process in order to stare asset in it.
(14:10):
This was before we got to radio and we were
still artists. But the more I learned about the business,
the more I wanted to kind of protect the art,
you know what I mean, and be that person to
put the art out.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I mean, I think that's one thing that a lot
of people don't realize. So whether it's whether it's selling
music or there it's real estate, people don't realize that
no matter what, in every transaction, somebody makes money. Yeah,
no matter what people think, Well that the building I
(14:45):
bought it, it wasn't no good. So well so then
the bankruptcy attorney made of the auctionneer made the money
or whatever the case is, or somebody got it for
cheap costs and flipped it. But no matter what, every transaction,
somebody makes money. And a lot of times in let's say, in.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The mu using business.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
You know, if you get to know the business and
whatever business people are they're listening to us, they need
to understand that there are forces moving in certain ways
that will profit all of success, mediocre, theft or just failure.
And as you get to know those aspects of the business,
people think they only need to know one aspect of business,
(15:23):
and business is something that I'm still learning, right, So
you're learning now this business. You go to you know,
Warner and you start to find out a lot of
people getting checks that should or shouldn't. A lot of
things happened. What's going on with your success as a
as an artist?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
As an artist? It was interesting, it was you know,
when we signed the Warner Brothers, we we had a
song that started doing really well in Northern California called
follow for Now and and this is at the tell
end of us be an artist belongs to us at
(16:01):
that time, you know, you know, the song was doing well,
was circulating all over Northern California's gravitating towards the Midwest,
and but the album wasn't doing well, you know what
I mean. And back then, you know, you didn't get
(16:21):
no second chances. And one of the things we did,
you know, we traveled. I remember coming to Philadelphia on
the tour and we were had a performance right under
the stairs where Rocky Balboa ran up the well side along.
We were at the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Some radio station that played that supported our song, and
we're like, in Philadelphia, people know us in Philadelphia. The
ain't no sway of tech arm Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So I'm performing, We're doing the song and we were
really great with showmanship. And afterwards we were going to
leave and a.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Bunch of a group of kids hung out and was like, hey.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Man, can we get your autoground?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And we were like, wow, you even know who we are,
That's why we're here, man.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
They play a song on the radio. Yeah man, cool man,
Yeah man.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And I'm signing autographs, yeah man, and Philly man, you
know we got you know, we got the cheese steaks
and you know we'll off from the West side. Well
over here we got this that and I'm learning about
as people are talking I'm asking about the city. Hum, okay,
great man, thank you man. I stayed out there an
extra hour. All those people just man, we love you man. Congratulations.
(17:28):
Could you know, wish you the best? Every city we
did that in. At the end of the show, I
start doing that same thing. So I'm learning about these
cities and I don't know how it benefits. Fast forward,
my partner can check into the DJ contest. I enter
a rap battle because he wanted to get more music
played on the radio, and the winner of the DJ
(17:50):
contest got forty minutes to mix. The winner of the
rap battle got a song played on the station in
the local station. We both won each contest, so they
played our song on the station, so it gave us
more exposure. The forty minute mix he did ended up
kind of revolutionizing how Bay Area program radio, which eventually
(18:15):
revolutionized what we know today as rap on mainstream radio.
You had the legends here in New York that were
doing a lot of night shows and had rap programs,
whether it was Rap Attack or whatever it was, but
general consensus and mainstream radio P one stations programmers were
(18:35):
not playing rap in regular day parts in the afternoon drive,
in midday and that mix we did was at night time,
but it got so popular that they never had to
kind of call out response that they received from somebody
doing a forty minute mix. And we approached the program
director and say, instead of us doing this forty minute mix,
give us a two hour show. And in this show,
(18:58):
we'll call it the wake Up Shows double untonso to
be at nighttime, but we want to wake people up
to information about culture, lifestyle, politics, everything that Source magazine
became in the beginning with what this show was it
and it got it got really popular, you know, and
(19:19):
at that point I was making my transition from being
an artists in front of the mic rapping to being
a broadcaster in front of the mike talking.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
But what made you want to do that? You know,
many of us know the book Who Moved My Cheese?
And you know this Hyman Hall, the ones who keep saying, no,
the cheese is going to come back, the cheese is
going to come back, And artists, many of them say,
you know, the cheese is gonna come back. One more hit,
one more hit, and they actually me say, I'm not
going to be the guy interviewing people.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I should be interviewed.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I I My mama told me, I can say, right,
what was the need to say? I can do that,
and maybe I'm not as good or the rapper or
managers don't want to be involved on that side of
the business. What gave you that, either guts or fear
or whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Well, all these things were happening, but you know, at
any given two weeks, everything could have felt apart. So
it was a sense of survival in this. I learned
that what I enjoyed most about being on stage rapping
is communicating with people and generating a response from folks.
(20:35):
And I didn't think as a rapper that I could
see myself excelling any further, you know, unless I put
everything else down and put all my energy into that.
And by that time we started producing other groups and
putting them out independently, and I really enjoyed overseeing projects
and being a part of the creative process in that way,
(20:57):
and I started to enjoy it as much as I
did being in front of the mic. And then I
started to enjoy it more because it was a sense
of pride in knowing that we were autonomous and how
we were releasing all these independent artists. And even though
we weren't selling as much as major artists may have been.
It was ours. And when that opportunity came to get
(21:18):
on the mic and do this mix show and do
this radio show, I realized that, man, now the reach
is even broader, you know, And I'm still really doing
the same thing, but I'm doing it in the form
of a broadcaster. I didn't study journalism or anything like that,
but I was able to adjust. But what happened was
the same thing. Thirst I had to learn about, Well,
(21:40):
how does distribution and all this stiff stuff work. I
wanted to learn about radio. So how does radio work? Like,
how do songs get played? How do radio personalities get big?
Who are the biggest radio personalities at that time? Was
a guy named John London who did our morning show.
Howard Stern had broadcast in the Bay. There's a guy
(22:02):
named Rick Chase, a woman name were Now. And one
of the things that they all had in common was
they had empathy on the mic for for the audience,
you know, or at least they portrayed it right right,
you know what I mean, like they faked it well
enough or you thought, man, this to man, these are
(22:22):
they really get where we are? Where we're coming from, right,
I didn't have to fake it all right, So I
didn't have proper training. So when we spoke, we spoke
directly to our audience. We didn't speak broadcasters back then.
Was hey, welcome to the soul and you know, it
was like, okay, what's up?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All right?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So man hawja, we go to man, this is what happened,
this is what took place in my day. You could
relate to that man, call us up, and this is
what we're going to do.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
And as we go through this, and I know you
have a limit of time, and I'm not gonna take
up too much more of your time because there's a
lot of people that watch information like this and they said, well,
how does that apply to me? But if you look
at the fund and mentals of business, it's nobody ever
has to buy anything from your meaning they don't have
to listen to your radio station, they don't have to
like your YouTube channel, follow you on whatever, buy your
(23:09):
shirt of lotion. But that every day person, what you're
doing for your customer, no matter how you perceive them,
is you take You're curing a pain that they have.
And when you look at empathy, people are feeling like
the world is so negative. And whether it's how a
Stern or one of the people that you were talking about,
(23:32):
they're there to yell at their subjects, but they have
empathy for their audience, right, And it's still going to
be the fundamentals of business, no matter what are you
doing for those individuals out there, and the empathy, whether
you're selling them a shirt. They may say I don't
feel good unless I'm wearing a brand, right, Or they
may say I don't feel warm or whatever case is,
(23:52):
you know what, Or I feel bad when I spend
eighty dollars and it's only worth three, so cells me
for three because I can throw it away. Whatever it is,
the fundamentals are you you're so a pain or something
that hurts them. And now you have a show going
and it's a it's a local show, right.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Just in San Francisco at that time.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, Then all of a sudden, I start to see you,
yeah on MTV other places. How did that come on?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
What a local show?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The reason why I told you about when I went
on tour, I started really communicating with the audience. When
I got on radio. I remembered that, you know, and
I remember you know, things that were personal. Connecting with
things that were personal with people, while we delivered information
(24:47):
that people weren't privy to. Information is a great product,
you know. There's we seek information every single day on
our phones, so we love consuming information. At that time,
we didn't have these devices.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So I honed in.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
On that, like, well, let me feed folks.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I got this power.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
We're on this mic, and that's all we ever wanted
to do always, but it's important that I feed myself
to learn about how I could take those next affordable
steps and what we're.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Trying to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And what I saw was a void in many cities
around the country, maybe not New York. New York is
its own special place, but people didn't have shows like this,
you know. And so we approached clear Channel, which was
the corporation that owned it before I think that now
iHeart if I'm not mistaken, and said, hey man, we
(25:43):
want to syndicate this show, and we got a sister
station in La ninety two point three to Beat at
that time was the biggest station coming from the West coast,
so we want to be in San Francisco in ninety
two point three to Beat, and we also got a
sister station in Philadelphia, which was Power ninety nine at
(26:04):
that time, and we have a following in Philadelphia, so
how can we syndicate this show here?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And initially we didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Get a response from the company, and eventually I had
to approach another broadcast company, And eventually I had to
(26:40):
approach another broadcast company who was the competition in the
main market LA and said, listen, all these things we're
doing in northern California, everything at Jock's in southern California
are kind of emulating, comes from the source. We want
to expand, and we created a bid and war, you know,
and eventually the company kept us. From there, we start
(27:03):
picking up more and more stations, and eventually we became
syndicated on four different continents and twenty nine different stations
around the country and in other places. Seeing the power
of that reach gave us a lot of power in
the music business, because if you want to break a record,
got to go to you. We gotta come to sway
(27:24):
in Tech. And when you guys first began Foobu, you know,
and y'all would coming to the West coast, and he
was coming on the radio station promoting y'all had t
shirts and were we actually were doing giveaways, you know,
in LA.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
For that reason.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But I saw the power in that and still with
the idea we want to protect the art. We focused
on a lot of artists who didn't have mainstream appeal
and didn't have a big machine behind them and gave
them a lot of exposure. Artists like at that time,
you know, the Fouji's or nis or you know, before
they beat these household names, and we would do concerts.
(28:05):
We would create that experience. You were talking about how
millennials today would prefer to pay for an experience than
a product, and we would create an experience in these
concerts that we would do, and the experience would incorporate
all the elements of hip hop. All of these things
were taking place in the nineties. You know, we even
dabbled the merchandise and lost a lot, got it.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
But I mean, that's some of the good points that
I want to also touch on. You know, as you
tell your story, and I often we're too close to it,
and whether it's people who are watching us in this
room or watching us on these cameras, everybody has at
a certain point during that because it sounded like that
may have expanded ten years, right or whatever, But how
are you paying yourself? And how many times did you say, man,
(28:48):
I need to go get a regular job again, or
this is never going to go anywhere, or there's one
hundred different hosts in different markets and they're gonna get syndicated,
and you start second see yourself and maybe the love
of your life is second guessing you, and your mother
and father and parents, even though they may support you.
How many times did you want to give up or
(29:09):
did you just say it doesn't matter, I'm not going
to give up.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I was never going to give up, but I was
scared that I was scared I was never going to
get in. At one point, you know, it was we
were trying a whole lot of things that weren't working.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I'm telling you the things that, of course, and that's
I think that's a lot.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Because all of a sudden, we you know, we then
start to see your MTV and where you are today,
and I have maybe like one or two other questions
gonna find as fast that we could talk for hours
on this. After you've gotten to that point in life,
you then started to interview everybody in the world, and
there's reasons and fundamentals of why people make it, and
(29:54):
the same in the other area why people don't make it.
You'll see stars, athletes, politicians. Can you tell me one
of the or two or three of the four reasons
why the people that have come through your door have
not made it after they came through your door? Can
you tell me some of the mistakes you see people
(30:18):
make that are detrimental to them, and they didn't realize
they're doing it at the time they do it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What I found what people who who only thought about
today and didn't think about tomorrow, or they didn't have
a plan, so they were living in a hype of
the day, and in the process, it didn't feel like
they were paying attention to the things that got them
(30:44):
there in the first place. You know, they were forgetting
the fundamentally, they were forgetting the fundamentals forget.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
They weren't advancing and expecting change.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
They were so happy what was happening now that some
of them, especially in the nineties, thought, man, they didn't
think that this does last, This might not last forever,
this might not even last for a few months or
half a year. And so when we would talk to folks,
I would ask us so what's your next move, what's
your next plan?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
What you mean.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Is that because they didn't have like minded people around them?
Is it because you know, they just weren't intelligent enough
to do that, you think, or maybe they were discovered
overnight and they never had the foundation. I mean, I'm
curious because artists can really experience hyper growth, not necessarily
(31:34):
due to our work. Usually it is or talent, but
when you have an entire machine that picks up a
record goals I like this, I could sell it all
around the world. Then sometimes you never went through that course.
You never took affordable step and step back. You went
from here to there, so you knowing everything. I think
it's well the nuances of the music business. A lot
of dudes egos got inflated and probably didn't feel like
(31:57):
a lot of them thought it would never end, like
I'm never gonna stink, I'm never gonna be whack. Secondly,
to your point, a lot of folks will coddled in.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Through the music business.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So you know, it's the gift and the curse, just
you know, when you know, we work our whole lives
to get signed to these major record companies, and then
you get signed to them, and then they start handling
everything for you, you know, and and and you know
understanding it's a business. It's like you think it's just
going to be this ongoing relations business, show business. And
(32:30):
the moment that the numbers go down, the metrics go down, uh,
they'll remind you that it's a business. And then you're
kind of out on your out, out on your butt,
you know what I mean, You're out of luck and
you haven't taken the proper steps to plan for what's next.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
And I agree going through the system because even as
you equate that to artists who they had a whole
machine behind them, or like we talk about in the book,
as athletes may they've been they practiced being the best
physical specimen from ten years old to twenty two years old.
They have a very specific skill set. Now all of
a sudden, they have one hundred million dollars, but they
(33:07):
try to utilize that tool, but they don't have a
skill set in how money or business works. And then
over sixty five percent of them a bankrupt three years
outside of the league, or a lot of winners when
you do that, and that's why I think that, and
that's why I wanted to get to because you're a
hustle to grind, rise and grind. The purpose of that
process is to make sure you learn it also when you.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Do have it where you again and I learned early
on I had to adjust, you know, because the MC
thing was great and I had it for a moment.
But I want to work in the business and sustain
have a sustainable livelihood through this culture, and so I
constantly adjust it as the times adjust it. But I
(33:52):
followed my same rules in that process. So becoming a
radio broadcaster, I put the same energy into that as
I did trying to be an as I did trying
to learn the business and everything else.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
So all of those.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Things built this brand equity for me and keeen Tech
throughout the nineties. So MTV approached me three times to
come work for them, and I was like, what do
I need to work for MTV for? We had the
biggest show in the country at that time, was the
first one syndicated of its kind that large. That's how
(34:26):
you and I actually met. We had concert tours going.
We felt at merchandise. We tried to do some clothes
and everything. Yeah, we got we got beat up in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can't try to, all right, and we continue to
move product, you know, music, and we always deal well
with that. By the time MTV came, our main flagshipt
(34:50):
station at that time was ninety two point three to beat.
It just got bought out by another radio conglomerate. The
program director at that time wanted us to change our
formula and how we programmed the show and play only
mainstream artists. We explained to him that that would compromise
the integrity of the show and what's made it so
successful throughout the years. They gave us oldtimatum, either you
(35:14):
do this or you have to leave this company. If
you left that station, then you would lose your syndication,
and it was important to us, and we left the
station and we start slowly losing the syndication. So by
the fourth time MTV call William, Yeah, man, it sounds
like a plan. I'll come out there and we'll get tried.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And we all know how it ended up with the
fact that you and I here and we've been through
a lot, and it's very hard to be a broadcast.
I had one last question, even very gracious with your time,
I gotta ask you a question. If somebody was talking
to the younger Sway when you were fifteen or eighteen
or even ten, and they laid out every single thing
you had to do to get to this position where
(35:57):
you are in life, and they later it all out.
Would you say, yes, I wanted to do that, or
would you say that's too much.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I'll be honest with she's damn the youngest Sway it
was probably a lot braver and more courageous than the
one you're looking at today. And the young Sway believed
that I always had to believe. We grew up our
welfare man and my mother and my family put installed
in us to believe that even though you're walking to
(36:32):
school on your socket is hanging out in the rain,
and your brother's wearing the same shirt he's been wearing
three days straight. And you know, we didn't wash the
clothes because we can't afford to wash clothes. And your
sister we got to dress her nice because she's a girl.
But y'all, you know, if the free lunch don't come
on time, y'all not gonna eat at school. With all
these things that was happening in Oakland at that time,
(36:54):
in the seventies and in our lives. I always felt
like I had an advantage on anybody I came up against,
anybody who.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Was in my class role. It was the confidence. It
was confidence and that was.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Stilled by your parents, by your family.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Family parents in Oakland.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Well, thank you, man, I pretty really value.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Thank you man. I was fun talking about me for
good job man, trying to take my job.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I'm good.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I'll make a third Okay, all right? That moment with
Damon John is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite show and don't forget to subscribe to and
(37:44):
rate the show. And of course you can all connect
with me on any of my social media platforms. At
the Shark, Damon spelled like Raymond, but what a d
So when we would talk to folks, I would ask us, so,
what's your next move?
Speaker 2 (00:03):
What's your next plan?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You know, understanding it's a business and the moment that
the numbers go down, the metrics go down, Uh, they'll
remind you that it's a business, business, a business.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
What if I told you there was more to the
story behind game changing events? Get ready for my new podcast,
That Moment with Damon John will jump into the personal
stories of some of the most influential people on the planet,
from business mobiles and celebrities to athletes and artists.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
So I'm sitting here today with a very special friend
and buddy that I respect, Sway Callaway and you whether
thank you, Damon, thank you brother for being here. Of course, Sway,
as you may or may not know, is amazing broadcaster
and you may have seen him everything from MTV to
I heard him of course on Cyrus Exam and things
(00:58):
of that nature. But my team and I only had
a good idea. Why don't I actually interview Sway?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Ah? No, who told you that was a good idea though? Uh? Millennials,
one of.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
The millennials around myself with a bunch of malimium models. Okay,
have you been interviewed before, I'm sure.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yeah, I've been asked a lot of questions before, but
not I've been an interview But you know, it's it's
see what you will?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
You do this? Well? Living is.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Kind of control the narrative, right, you know when someone
is interviewing you. So I very seldom let my hair down,
so to speak, you know, in the interview, as I
would with you if you asked.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Me a question. Definitely definitely appreciate that. Yeah, so good.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions
that I think that maybe I've been curious about. So
a lot of people may or may not know your history.
Can you tell me just a little bit about where
you started and.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You know, before becoming a that's a broadcast. Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Don't speak a lot about the history. In high school,
I met my partner, DJ king Tech who and he
and I both were just fans of music.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I grew up playing instruments. I played the saxophone and
played the clarinet. I played the bass clarinet. He just
grew up a music lover and got into the boy
coaching and used to break dance in the Oakland Bay area.
I'm from Oakland. He was from Hayward. We had a
mutual friend who introduced us. Friend I grew up running
track with and he grew up dancing with. And that
(02:31):
friend took a different path after he introduced us. He
went more of a street path, you know, he went
into the streets basically, you know, which left two strangers
who had a single idea of becoming a rap group.
And like anyone else who was in high school, you know,
ll was somebody we idolized, and you know, you know
(02:52):
whom d and all these guys. But we were from
the Bay and we started making music. The way we
did it is we saved up money and bought equipment.
One of the first keyboards we bought was from shot
G from Digital Underground. One of the first drum sequences
we bought Digital Underground and had money be Tupac Shakur
(03:12):
for Fear DJ fues in it, and we started making
this music. I didn't sound like a guy from Oakland,
you know, at that time you had too shortened others
coming from Oakland. I was more of a guy who
was trying to flip syllables, you know, Big Daddy Kane
with somebody I liked, and so it took us a
long time to really kind of find a home at home.
(03:34):
And we had a lot of doors slammed on our faces.
We were shopping record deals, and when we came to
New York where the most of the business was, I
was from Oakland. I didn't sound like a New York
MC and we were told you'll never make it.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
You'll never make it, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
And so we came home and tried to figure out
what how can we get our music out if nobody's
going to give.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Us a chance.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And San Francisco State, you know, when we were in
the high school, off of these extra extended curriculum courses
on the law aspects of the music business. And it
was taught by a guy by the name of Ralph
Tajan who was an attorney, active attorney in the music business.
And all you had to do was pay a little
bit of money you could take these courses. So I
(04:19):
didn't know where it would lead me, but I went
and took this course, and in the process, this attorney
started breaking down, well, this is how distribution works, all right,
this is how marketing works. This is our promo system.
He broke down the system and he created. He showed
us the infrastructure on how record labels do their business,
and my partner Tech and I were like, man, well,
(04:40):
look if we can't get anybody else to do it
for us. He was working at Domino's. I was working
at place called quick Ways, a burger joint exclusive to Oakland.
Let's save up our money and do it ourselves. And
we saved up money, and we worked out of his studio,
sixteen track studio and called Artevire's his guy name, and
(05:01):
he Earnest. He was the engineer, and he ended up
allowing us to come to utilize the studio. We didn't
have enough money to pay them, so we worked in
this studio and with the time, he compensated us with
time instead of in money. And from there we were
(05:21):
able to make our first demo tape and then create
our first lacquer that we were able to burn vinyl with.
With this company called Rainbow Records, which is independent, we
made cassette tapes. We made a minimum amount of cassette tapes,
We made a minimum amount of vinyl.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
And we wanted CDs.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Was still kind of like a veath technology back there,
you know, so we were put those things out to
see what would happen, and people would respond.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
What year was that.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
This was eighty nine, eighty nine, about eighty eight, Yeah,
And we put it out to see how people will react.
And immediately we start doing these things. Well I didn't
know what a assignment deal was, you know. And we
would go to these stores and say, yeah, man, just
leave it here, come back in thirty days.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
And we'll pay you will we seld Really that's how
it works.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So we'll leave fifty cassettes there in thirty days, you know,
thirty of them will sell and they would pay us
partial payments. It's like, well, but you're not going to
pay for the whole thirty Well if you if you
reshow for us with more product, then we'll pay you
for the first back. And then and there I started
learning about the inner workings of the music business.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Really.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, if you keep feeding the system, the system will
keep feeding you, right, okay. And so we went back
and pressed up a bunch of the same product, but
we pressed up a lot more, but it didn't sell.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Like the little bit did you know.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So it was like one inventory in the market had.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
More inventory in the market. But it was and moving
and we were like, how do we get it to move?
And we'll go back to the retailers and they'll say, well,
you didn't sell as much.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Do you have anything new?
Speaker 1 (07:09):
All right, man, we got another group we could, you know,
bring you that. And so we just got into this
circle of finance, you know, meet demand, product, you know,
product finance, this whole circle. And but it was a
learning process that we took from it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
We eventually, because of that move we made started creating
a buzz in northern California. The same person who taught
that class at San Francisco State. We went back to
his now, Ralph Tajohn. He's in the book The Hit Men,
an industry music industry book that because A it's a
it's a legendary. But that's a legendary. And somebody's in music.
They don't know that book. They got a bigger problem.
(07:51):
They should know that book.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Ralph is one of the key characters in that book.
And he took it to he took our product with
the track record or a proof of concept if you will,
all right, you know, to a guy by the name
of Irving Azoff who had just kicked off this new
label called Giant Warner Brothers and Irving Azoff. I don't
(08:16):
know if he knew the music or cared about the music,
but they saw the numbers, you know, what we were
doing independently in the bay. He was like, wow, well
these guys are doing this on their own, what will
they do with us. Different experience though, when we signed
with the major label, because there was so many moving
variables that we didn't know about, and budgets were being
thrown around the place and we had no control over
the budgets, and people were hired on our budget that
(08:40):
we never even heard of and paid on our budget
that we had we would have to pay back in
our recruitment.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
But taught us another level about the business.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Well well let me let me let me ask you something.
You know, many people would have said, man, I don't
have any money the against studio equipment.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So you did that.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Then you go to New York and everybody tells, you know,
it can't happen, And they would say, well, listen, we
just went to the home hip hop, right and all right,
I guess we're done.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
All right.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Then somebody would said, well, you know, we want to
do our own stuff, but we don't have enough hours
to you know, money to buy hours in the studio.
So you go and leverage your time and you find
that and then somebody would say, well, the still is
not going to buy it from us, Well who are?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
We'll stop.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
So what was in it for the studio owner was?
I guess he gets some really uh inexpensive labor because
I'm sure, yeah, you got you got hours putting in.
You know, we're not quantifiable in a sense. The store
owner is, I have to pay for this. I had
to pay for this. I had to pay for this.
That's an expenditure. But if this is in my store already,
(09:54):
I don't have to pay for it. Everything I make
I can keep and I don't don't have to pay it.
By don't you use it? So it's an advantage to me.
What gave you that mentality to understand how to leverage
what's in it for the person you're leveraging you with?
Speaker 2 (10:11):
That's a great question.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You know you mentioned something earlier about education and teachers
being our greatest natural resource in this country. And if
it's a kid who's being taught about history and Christopher
Columbus Shore, we should all know our history, they'll be
excited about that. But if it's someone over here on
the other side making you a business offer your innate
(10:33):
response or impults, we all kind.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Of gravitate towards that.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I was gravitating towards the opportunity to learn how this
business works. And I was willing to take the loss
of two steps to gain that information that can help
me grow five steps.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And so it was that.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
And then the second thing was this intangible feeling that
I know New York is the mecca.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
But they really don't know what they have in front
of them.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
They don't know who we are.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They don't and I bet if we could show people
who we are, the regional boundaries and all of that
stuff won't make a difference. We believed in ourselves so
much that when people told us no, we didn't think
we would whack. We just thought, damn, they don't get it.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Well.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
But you also went ahead and took a course that
was available for you. And the course wasn't on how
to play instruments, was it? Or was it wasn't on
how to operate this keyboard. It was on the business
of music.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
So you know, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Generally rare when somebody is a creative and they're an
artist and they want to go out and create art.
It's almost like a painter going to take the business
of selling artwork. Was it because your desire was to
participate in this world of hip hop in whatever form?
(12:04):
Was it I don't want to get screwed when I
get to this level.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Or was it.
Speaker 4 (12:11):
Something else? It was both of It was all of
those things.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
It was the desire to be in this world by
any means, you know, it was what appealed to me.
I loved what what the culture stands for, what it
provided for us, a voice representation when we had a
lack thereof.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
It was exciting.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
I didn't see myself going your typical path of going
to college and graduating and taking some job and uh
some you know that.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I didn't really want to be in.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Number one number two being from Oakland. So in Oakland
we grow up with a hustler's mentality, and we know
that preparation is the best protection. Information to me is
(13:19):
the most valuable thing you have at your disposal when
you don't have money, and so I wanted to obtain
that information because the business wasn't letting me in. So
I wanted to learn about the business that wasn't letting
me in. Find a door I go open for myself,
get in anyway, and in the process, you're always gonna
(13:41):
get jerked, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
In the music business, sure, but it's you're always gonna
get fucked.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
But I didn't want to get gang banged, so, you know,
So that information helped us get there. But to your point,
it did stifle to create a process from your you know.
And I understood too that I needed to adjust myself
in this process in order to stare asset in it.
(14:10):
This was before we got to radio and we were
still artists. But the more I learned about the business,
the more I wanted to kind of protect the art,
you know what I mean, and be that person to
put the art out.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I mean, I think that's one thing that a lot
of people don't realize. So whether it's whether it's selling
music or there it's real estate, people don't realize that
no matter what, in every transaction, somebody makes money. Yeah,
no matter what people think, Well that the building I
(14:45):
bought it, it wasn't no good. So well so then
the bankruptcy attorney made of the auctionneer made the money
or whatever the case is, or somebody got it for
cheap costs and flipped it. But no matter what, every transaction,
somebody makes money. And a lot of times in let's say, in.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The mu using business.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
You know, if you get to know the business and
whatever business people are they're listening to us, they need
to understand that there are forces moving in certain ways
that will profit all of success, mediocre, theft or just failure.
And as you get to know those aspects of the business,
people think they only need to know one aspect of business,
(15:23):
and business is something that I'm still learning, right, So
you're learning now this business. You go to you know,
Warner and you start to find out a lot of
people getting checks that should or shouldn't. A lot of
things happened. What's going on with your success as a
as an artist?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
As an artist? It was interesting, it was you know,
when we signed the Warner Brothers, we we had a
song that started doing really well in Northern California called
follow for Now and and this is at the tell
end of us be an artist belongs to us at
(16:01):
that time, you know, you know, the song was doing well,
was circulating all over Northern California's gravitating towards the Midwest,
and but the album wasn't doing well, you know what
I mean. And back then, you know, you didn't get
(16:21):
no second chances. And one of the things we did,
you know, we traveled. I remember coming to Philadelphia on
the tour and we were had a performance right under
the stairs where Rocky Balboa ran up the well side along.
We were at the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Well.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Some radio station that played that supported our song, and
we're like, in Philadelphia, people know us in Philadelphia. The
ain't no sway of tech arm Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
So I'm performing, We're doing the song and we were
really great with showmanship. And afterwards we were going to
leave and a.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
Bunch of a group of kids hung out and was like, hey.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Man, can we get your autoground?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And we were like, wow, you even know who we are,
That's why we're here, man.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
They play a song on the radio. Yeah man, cool man,
Yeah man.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
And I'm signing autographs, yeah man, and Philly man, you
know we got you know, we got the cheese steaks
and you know we'll off from the West side. Well
over here we got this that and I'm learning about
as people are talking I'm asking about the city. Hum, okay,
great man, thank you man. I stayed out there an
extra hour. All those people just man, we love you man. Congratulations.
(17:28):
Could you know, wish you the best? Every city we
did that in. At the end of the show, I
start doing that same thing. So I'm learning about these
cities and I don't know how it benefits. Fast forward,
my partner can check into the DJ contest. I enter
a rap battle because he wanted to get more music
played on the radio, and the winner of the DJ
(17:50):
contest got forty minutes to mix. The winner of the
rap battle got a song played on the station in
the local station. We both won each contest, so they
played our song on the station, so it gave us
more exposure. The forty minute mix he did ended up
kind of revolutionizing how Bay Area program radio, which eventually
(18:15):
revolutionized what we know today as rap on mainstream radio.
You had the legends here in New York that were
doing a lot of night shows and had rap programs,
whether it was Rap Attack or whatever it was, but
general consensus and mainstream radio P one stations programmers were
(18:35):
not playing rap in regular day parts in the afternoon drive,
in midday and that mix we did was at night time,
but it got so popular that they never had to
kind of call out response that they received from somebody
doing a forty minute mix. And we approached the program
director and say, instead of us doing this forty minute mix,
give us a two hour show. And in this show,
(18:58):
we'll call it the wake Up Shows double untonso to
be at nighttime, but we want to wake people up
to information about culture, lifestyle, politics, everything that Source magazine
became in the beginning with what this show was it
and it got it got really popular, you know, and
(19:19):
at that point I was making my transition from being
an artists in front of the mic rapping to being
a broadcaster in front of the mike talking.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
But what made you want to do that? You know,
many of us know the book Who Moved My Cheese?
And you know this Hyman Hall, the ones who keep saying, no,
the cheese is going to come back, the cheese is
going to come back, And artists, many of them say,
you know, the cheese is gonna come back. One more hit,
one more hit, and they actually me say, I'm not
going to be the guy interviewing people.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I should be interviewed.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
I I My mama told me, I can say, right,
what was the need to say? I can do that,
and maybe I'm not as good or the rapper or
managers don't want to be involved on that side of
the business. What gave you that, either guts or fear
or whatever it was.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Well, all these things were happening, but you know, at
any given two weeks, everything could have felt apart. So
it was a sense of survival in this. I learned
that what I enjoyed most about being on stage rapping
is communicating with people and generating a response from folks.
(20:35):
And I didn't think as a rapper that I could
see myself excelling any further, you know, unless I put
everything else down and put all my energy into that.
And by that time we started producing other groups and
putting them out independently, and I really enjoyed overseeing projects
and being a part of the creative process in that way,
(20:57):
and I started to enjoy it as much as I
did being in front of the mic. And then I
started to enjoy it more because it was a sense
of pride in knowing that we were autonomous and how
we were releasing all these independent artists. And even though
we weren't selling as much as major artists may have been.
It was ours. And when that opportunity came to get
(21:18):
on the mic and do this mix show and do
this radio show, I realized that, man, now the reach
is even broader, you know, And I'm still really doing
the same thing, but I'm doing it in the form
of a broadcaster. I didn't study journalism or anything like that,
but I was able to adjust. But what happened was
the same thing. Thirst I had to learn about, Well,
(21:40):
how does distribution and all this stiff stuff work. I
wanted to learn about radio. So how does radio work? Like,
how do songs get played? How do radio personalities get big?
Who are the biggest radio personalities at that time? Was
a guy named John London who did our morning show.
Howard Stern had broadcast in the Bay. There's a guy
(22:02):
named Rick Chase, a woman name were Now. And one
of the things that they all had in common was
they had empathy on the mic for for the audience,
you know, or at least they portrayed it right right,
you know what I mean, like they faked it well
enough or you thought, man, this to man, these are
(22:22):
they really get where we are? Where we're coming from, right,
I didn't have to fake it all right, So I
didn't have proper training. So when we spoke, we spoke
directly to our audience. We didn't speak broadcasters back then.
Was hey, welcome to the soul and you know, it
was like, okay, what's up?
Speaker 2 (22:40):
All right?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
So man hawja, we go to man, this is what happened,
this is what took place in my day. You could
relate to that man, call us up, and this is
what we're going to do.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
And as we go through this, and I know you
have a limit of time, and I'm not gonna take
up too much more of your time because there's a
lot of people that watch information like this and they said, well,
how does that apply to me? But if you look
at the fund and mentals of business, it's nobody ever
has to buy anything from your meaning they don't have
to listen to your radio station, they don't have to
like your YouTube channel, follow you on whatever, buy your
(23:09):
shirt of lotion. But that every day person, what you're
doing for your customer, no matter how you perceive them,
is you take You're curing a pain that they have.
And when you look at empathy, people are feeling like
the world is so negative. And whether it's how a
Stern or one of the people that you were talking about,
(23:32):
they're there to yell at their subjects, but they have
empathy for their audience, right, And it's still going to
be the fundamentals of business, no matter what are you
doing for those individuals out there, and the empathy, whether
you're selling them a shirt. They may say I don't
feel good unless I'm wearing a brand, right, Or they
may say I don't feel warm or whatever case is,
(23:52):
you know what, Or I feel bad when I spend
eighty dollars and it's only worth three, so cells me
for three because I can throw it away. Whatever it is,
the fundamentals are you you're so a pain or something
that hurts them. And now you have a show going
and it's a it's a local show, right.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Just in San Francisco at that time.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, Then all of a sudden, I start to see you,
yeah on MTV other places. How did that come on?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
What a local show?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
The reason why I told you about when I went
on tour, I started really communicating with the audience. When
I got on radio. I remembered that, you know, and
I remember you know, things that were personal. Connecting with
things that were personal with people, while we delivered information
(24:47):
that people weren't privy to. Information is a great product,
you know. There's we seek information every single day on
our phones, so we love consuming information. At that time,
we didn't have these devices.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So I honed in.
Speaker 4 (25:04):
On that, like, well, let me feed folks.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
I got this power.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
We're on this mic, and that's all we ever wanted
to do always, but it's important that I feed myself
to learn about how I could take those next affordable
steps and what we're.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Trying to do.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
And what I saw was a void in many cities
around the country, maybe not New York. New York is
its own special place, but people didn't have shows like this,
you know. And so we approached clear Channel, which was
the corporation that owned it before I think that now
iHeart if I'm not mistaken, and said, hey man, we
(25:43):
want to syndicate this show, and we got a sister
station in La ninety two point three to Beat at
that time was the biggest station coming from the West coast,
so we want to be in San Francisco in ninety
two point three to Beat, and we also got a
sister station in Philadelphia, which was Power ninety nine at
(26:04):
that time, and we have a following in Philadelphia, so
how can we syndicate this show here?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
And initially we didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Get a response from the company, and eventually I had
to approach another broadcast company, And eventually I had to
(26:40):
approach another broadcast company who was the competition in the
main market LA and said, listen, all these things we're
doing in northern California, everything at Jock's in southern California
are kind of emulating, comes from the source. We want
to expand, and we created a bid and war, you know,
and eventually the company kept us. From there, we start
(27:03):
picking up more and more stations, and eventually we became
syndicated on four different continents and twenty nine different stations
around the country and in other places. Seeing the power
of that reach gave us a lot of power in
the music business, because if you want to break a record,
got to go to you. We gotta come to sway
(27:24):
in Tech. And when you guys first began Foobu, you know,
and y'all would coming to the West coast, and he
was coming on the radio station promoting y'all had t
shirts and were we actually were doing giveaways, you know,
in LA.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
For that reason.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But I saw the power in that and still with
the idea we want to protect the art. We focused
on a lot of artists who didn't have mainstream appeal
and didn't have a big machine behind them and gave
them a lot of exposure. Artists like at that time,
you know, the Fouji's or nis or you know, before
they beat these household names, and we would do concerts.
(28:05):
We would create that experience. You were talking about how
millennials today would prefer to pay for an experience than
a product, and we would create an experience in these
concerts that we would do, and the experience would incorporate
all the elements of hip hop. All of these things
were taking place in the nineties. You know, we even
dabbled the merchandise and lost a lot, got it.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
But I mean, that's some of the good points that
I want to also touch on. You know, as you
tell your story, and I often we're too close to it,
and whether it's people who are watching us in this
room or watching us on these cameras, everybody has at
a certain point during that because it sounded like that
may have expanded ten years, right or whatever, But how
are you paying yourself? And how many times did you say, man,
(28:48):
I need to go get a regular job again, or
this is never going to go anywhere, or there's one
hundred different hosts in different markets and they're gonna get syndicated,
and you start second see yourself and maybe the love
of your life is second guessing you, and your mother
and father and parents, even though they may support you.
How many times did you want to give up or
(29:09):
did you just say it doesn't matter, I'm not going
to give up.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I was never going to give up, but I was
scared that I was scared I was never going to
get in. At one point, you know, it was we
were trying a whole lot of things that weren't working.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I'm telling you the things that, of course, and that's
I think that's a lot.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Because all of a sudden, we you know, we then
start to see your MTV and where you are today,
and I have maybe like one or two other questions
gonna find as fast that we could talk for hours
on this. After you've gotten to that point in life,
you then started to interview everybody in the world, and
there's reasons and fundamentals of why people make it, and
(29:54):
the same in the other area why people don't make it.
You'll see stars, athletes, politicians. Can you tell me one
of the or two or three of the four reasons
why the people that have come through your door have
not made it after they came through your door? Can
you tell me some of the mistakes you see people
(30:18):
make that are detrimental to them, and they didn't realize
they're doing it at the time they do it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What I found what people who who only thought about
today and didn't think about tomorrow, or they didn't have
a plan, so they were living in a hype of
the day, and in the process, it didn't feel like
they were paying attention to the things that got them
(30:44):
there in the first place. You know, they were forgetting
the fundamentally, they were forgetting the fundamentals forget.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
They weren't advancing and expecting change.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
They were so happy what was happening now that some
of them, especially in the nineties, thought, man, they didn't
think that this does last, This might not last forever,
this might not even last for a few months or
half a year. And so when we would talk to folks,
I would ask us so what's your next move, what's
your next plan?
Speaker 2 (31:11):
What you mean.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Is that because they didn't have like minded people around them?
Is it because you know, they just weren't intelligent enough
to do that, you think, or maybe they were discovered
overnight and they never had the foundation. I mean, I'm
curious because artists can really experience hyper growth, not necessarily
(31:34):
due to our work. Usually it is or talent, but
when you have an entire machine that picks up a
record goals I like this, I could sell it all
around the world. Then sometimes you never went through that course.
You never took affordable step and step back. You went
from here to there, so you knowing everything. I think
it's well the nuances of the music business. A lot
of dudes egos got inflated and probably didn't feel like
(31:57):
a lot of them thought it would never end, like
I'm never gonna stink, I'm never gonna be whack. Secondly,
to your point, a lot of folks will coddled in.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Through the music business.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
So you know, it's the gift and the curse, just
you know, when you know, we work our whole lives
to get signed to these major record companies, and then
you get signed to them, and then they start handling
everything for you, you know, and and and you know
understanding it's a business. It's like you think it's just
going to be this ongoing relations business, show business. And
(32:30):
the moment that the numbers go down, the metrics go down, uh,
they'll remind you that it's a business. And then you're
kind of out on your out, out on your butt,
you know what I mean, You're out of luck and
you haven't taken the proper steps to plan for what's next.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
And I agree going through the system because even as
you equate that to artists who they had a whole
machine behind them, or like we talk about in the book,
as athletes may they've been they practiced being the best
physical specimen from ten years old to twenty two years old.
They have a very specific skill set. Now all of
a sudden, they have one hundred million dollars, but they
(33:07):
try to utilize that tool, but they don't have a
skill set in how money or business works. And then
over sixty five percent of them a bankrupt three years
outside of the league, or a lot of winners when
you do that, and that's why I think that, and
that's why I wanted to get to because you're a
hustle to grind, rise and grind. The purpose of that
process is to make sure you learn it also when you.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Do have it where you again and I learned early
on I had to adjust, you know, because the MC
thing was great and I had it for a moment.
But I want to work in the business and sustain
have a sustainable livelihood through this culture, and so I
constantly adjust it as the times adjust it. But I
(33:52):
followed my same rules in that process. So becoming a
radio broadcaster, I put the same energy into that as
I did trying to be an as I did trying
to learn the business and everything else.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
So all of those.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Things built this brand equity for me and keeen Tech
throughout the nineties. So MTV approached me three times to
come work for them, and I was like, what do
I need to work for MTV for? We had the
biggest show in the country at that time, was the
first one syndicated of its kind that large. That's how
(34:26):
you and I actually met. We had concert tours going.
We felt at merchandise. We tried to do some clothes
and everything. Yeah, we got we got beat up in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can't try to, all right, and we continue to
move product, you know, music, and we always deal well
with that. By the time MTV came, our main flagshipt
(34:50):
station at that time was ninety two point three to beat.
It just got bought out by another radio conglomerate. The
program director at that time wanted us to change our
formula and how we programmed the show and play only
mainstream artists. We explained to him that that would compromise
the integrity of the show and what's made it so
successful throughout the years. They gave us oldtimatum, either you
(35:14):
do this or you have to leave this company. If
you left that station, then you would lose your syndication,
and it was important to us, and we left the
station and we start slowly losing the syndication. So by
the fourth time MTV call William, Yeah, man, it sounds
like a plan. I'll come out there and we'll get tried.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And we all know how it ended up with the
fact that you and I here and we've been through
a lot, and it's very hard to be a broadcast.
I had one last question, even very gracious with your time,
I gotta ask you a question. If somebody was talking
to the younger Sway when you were fifteen or eighteen
or even ten, and they laid out every single thing
you had to do to get to this position where
(35:57):
you are in life, and they later it all out.
Would you say, yes, I wanted to do that, or
would you say that's too much.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
I'll be honest with she's damn the youngest Sway it
was probably a lot braver and more courageous than the
one you're looking at today. And the young Sway believed
that I always had to believe. We grew up our
welfare man and my mother and my family put installed
in us to believe that even though you're walking to
(36:32):
school on your socket is hanging out in the rain,
and your brother's wearing the same shirt he's been wearing
three days straight. And you know, we didn't wash the
clothes because we can't afford to wash clothes. And your
sister we got to dress her nice because she's a girl.
But y'all, you know, if the free lunch don't come
on time, y'all not gonna eat at school. With all
these things that was happening in Oakland at that time,
(36:54):
in the seventies and in our lives. I always felt
like I had an advantage on anybody I came up against,
anybody who.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Was in my class role. It was the confidence. It
was confidence and that was.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Stilled by your parents, by your family.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Family parents in Oakland.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Well, thank you, man, I pretty really value.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Thank you man. I was fun talking about me for
good job man, trying to take my job.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
I'm good.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I'll make a third Okay, all right? That moment with
Damon John is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite show and don't forget to subscribe to and
(37:44):
rate the show. And of course you can all connect
with me on any of my social media platforms. At
the Shark, Damon spelled like Raymond, but what a d
Host
Daymond John
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