transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] Hey, y'all, it's Lauren LaRosa with the Latest with Lauren LaRosa on Black Effect. And I cannot wait to see you guys at the 4th Annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. We are coming back to Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, April 25th at Pullman Yards. And it's hosted by me alongside DJ Envy and Charlamagne tha God. We got Drake Chance with Noriega and DJ EFN. We got Keep It Positive, Sweetie with my girl, Crystal Renee Hayslett. We got Reality with the King with my guy, then my brother, Carlos King. And y'all know he does reality commentary like nobody can. Now we also have Don't Call Me White Girl, the podcast. I love Mona and Club 520 Podcast, along with the Grits and Eggs Podcast. So this lineup, stacked baby. You're also going to want to check out the panels that we have lined up too, featuring Kev on stage, Tika Sumter and John Hope Bryant, just to name a few. Of course, it's way bigger than the podcast. We're bringing the Black Effect Marketplace with Black-owned businesses, plus the food truck court to keep you fed while you visit us. Okay? Listen, you don't want to miss this. Tap in and grab your ticket now at blackeffect.com/podcastfestival.

Speaker 2:
[01:26] Ladies and gentlemen, I'm J. Valentine, and this is the R&B Money Podcast. And today, I got one of my good brothers, somebody that really gave me a lot of game, and I just want to put it out there. He's the reason I'm a video ho. The man trying to get himself. He's been making y'all high for a long time, and hopefully, he tells me some really cool shit today. My brother, Bryce Wilson.

Speaker 3:
[02:01] My guy.

Speaker 2:
[02:03] Hey, man.

Speaker 3:
[02:04] Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:
[02:05] I've been waiting for you to pull up on me, dog.

Speaker 3:
[02:07] Yeah, man. I've been waiting to come on here, man.

Speaker 2:
[02:09] You know, because I know you don't talk to everybody.

Speaker 3:
[02:11] I do not.

Speaker 2:
[02:12] I know, man. And that's when I first hit you. I was like, I could feel it. It's hesitant. It's hesitant. I'm his brother, so he gon know that I ain't on no bullshit.

Speaker 3:
[02:21] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[02:22] Hey, man, we gon kick this off. We can start off. Before we tell the story, your story. So, Bryce Wilson, I meet and we just had, we were kindred spirits from the beginning, right? It was like, all right, the quote unquote pretty boy niggas who from a dark place.

Speaker 1:
[02:41] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[02:43] That's the best way I could put it.

Speaker 3:
[02:44] Exactly. And I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[02:47] Me, you, me.

Speaker 2:
[02:48] Exactly. And it's funny, bro, because when we first met, I would just pull up on your sessions. I would just come pull up on you, man.

Speaker 3:
[02:57] Come hang out.

Speaker 2:
[02:58] Just hang out. People that know me know that I don't do that.

Speaker 3:
[03:01] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:02] Yeah. I gotta really fuck with you if I'm just pulling up and it ain't about nothing else.

Speaker 3:
[03:07] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[03:08] And one night, I'm like, big bro, wildest request came my way, man. And I think you would understand this.

Speaker 3:
[03:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[03:19] I'm like, man, my home girl, new artist, I don't know if you heard about her, Kishiko. She asked me to be her video hoe. Yep. And I said, I'm asking you because you've been one.

Speaker 3:
[03:31] I've been one. Exactly. It's an elite club.

Speaker 2:
[03:37] And that's what you said to me too. And I'm like, bro, I'm about to say no. I don't think I want to be in no videos, man. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[03:45] I was like, nah, you got to. Got to do it.

Speaker 2:
[03:48] Got to do it. And I trusted your opinion of it so much. And I'm like, okay, that's what I needed. I needed my dog to tell me like, nah, bro, you should do it because you could have told me too, like, listen, I did that video, bro, and it just, it some shit up or. It wasn't right for me and.

Speaker 3:
[04:05] Does surprisingly well for you.

Speaker 2:
[04:07] It did, it won't go away. No, it'll never go away, especially now with the internet.

Speaker 3:
[04:12] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[04:13] The internet, I am a meme.

Speaker 3:
[04:15] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[04:16] I am, you know, somebody wouldn't be like, I seen something, I seen one, somebody posted it and it was like, this how, if he look like this, he gon cheat on you.

Speaker 3:
[04:25] I'm like, what did the bro like? Like, I was just in the video, that's it.

Speaker 2:
[04:29] I got a do-rag on, and every with a do-rag cheats.

Speaker 3:
[04:32] Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[04:33] You know what I mean? But yeah, bro, you're the reason why I ultimately said yeah to doing that video.

Speaker 3:
[04:38] Yeah, those are, you know. It's like, that's not really our personality type, but, you know, when it's done, it represents a moment in history.

Speaker 2:
[04:49] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[04:49] You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2:
[04:50] I'm forever stamped in that video. And I mean, Kanye produced the record, John Legend's in the video. Like, it's random things that are happening in that video, man. And, you know, obviously, Keisha went on to become a legend. And I'm forever etched in that part of our history. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, bro, I had to get that out there.

Speaker 3:
[05:12] He's still available for more.

Speaker 2:
[05:13] No!

Speaker 3:
[05:14] You youngins go check on him.

Speaker 2:
[05:15] No, I don't want to be in nobody else's video. I haven't been asked. And I've said, no, I don't think I got paid for that video either. So I'm still waiting on Manny Haley.

Speaker 3:
[05:27] Yeah, Manny, let's get that paper out.

Speaker 2:
[05:30] Come on, Manny, you Brooklyn niggas, man.

Speaker 3:
[05:34] I got Manny in that gig, too. Oh, shit. Yeah, I hung out with Keisha and she was like, yo, you should manage me. And something was going on with the management company me and Jimmy had. We just had a lot going on. And she was like, this guy, Manny. I was like, Manny from Brooklyn? It's all right. So I took out to eat, called Manny, put him together. It was like, he gonna be a manager.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[05:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:01] Didn't know that.

Speaker 3:
[06:01] Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[06:03] Look how it all. So, okay, you were planning there to tell me to do the video. See, now it's making more sense. Oh, this whole time, I got set up.

Speaker 3:
[06:12] I just knew your mindset. I knew your mindset because, you know, I've been there and that, you know, I do videos I ain't wanna do and then it ends up having that cultural currency where it's like, okay, this ain't, you know, this ain't so bad.

Speaker 2:
[06:26] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[06:26] You know, it works out.

Speaker 2:
[06:28] All right. So, okay, let's get to it now, man. Young Bryce, New York City. Give me a little bit of how this whole thing kicked off, bro.

Speaker 3:
[06:37] Whole thing for me kicked off. I grew up between three boroughs, right? I grew up between Brooklyn, Jamaica, Queens, and Washington Heights, which is the top of Manhattan.

Speaker 2:
[06:46] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[06:47] And, man, I heard, it was like, I'm dating myself, but it was like when hip hop was just starting to, you know, like become a thing, right? The rest of the country didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 2:
[07:00] It was a New York thing.

Speaker 3:
[07:01] Super New York thing. And it was right before the crack era came. And, man, I heard a record for Run DMC, and it was just over. And I just kept evolving, like, into what I wanted to do. I wanted to be, Rozelle, from The Roots. He was, I think Rozelle, he's from Harlem or the Bronx, but he moved to the corner of my block.

Speaker 2:
[07:22] Oh, shit.

Speaker 3:
[07:23] So I had literally the best beatbox on the planet, living up the street, right? So, he's beatboxing, he's older than me, and I'm just like, you know, it's like we got a celebrity on the block. And I ended up going to the school I wanted to, the high school I wanted to go to, they had an aviation program and they didn't take me. So there was a-

Speaker 2:
[07:42] So you wanted to be a pilot? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[07:45] Just, just all of, just like last minute. I know what I want to do, but I was like, let me do that. They didn't accept me. And it was a high school near my aunt's house in Jamaica, Queens, that it just looked beautiful. And from a child, being in the backseat of that car with them in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, wherever, that was just one of those iconic pictures, just beautiful school. So my mother last minute was like, you want to go there? I was like, hi, let me do that.

Speaker 2:
[08:13] So how old are you at this point?

Speaker 3:
[08:14] 14.

Speaker 2:
[08:15] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[08:15] So using my aunt's address, I go, and this shit ended up being gladiator school. Like literally, out of all five boroughs, we were number four in crime rate. So my school was the testing ground for every measure of security. Picture IDs, task force were like six, five, six, nine, security, they were basically bounces, right? Hopping out of vans on you. First school in New York City had metal detectors. Like this shit was crazy.

Speaker 2:
[08:41] What the?

Speaker 3:
[08:42] Yeah. So I went there.

Speaker 2:
[08:44] This is the school from Juice? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[08:46] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:46] Pretty much.

Speaker 3:
[08:46] Yeah, like I look at lean on me, it's a joke. It's like this school was really like, this school was, it was gladiator school. So I go there, not knowing what it was, and it's like you gotta figure it out. Like you go be a victim or you go be on the other side.

Speaker 2:
[09:01] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:02] And I went there and I was a victim for the first month. And then by the second, going to the third month, I started turning up. I started, it wasn't in my neighborhood. I was kind of foreign and I met a good friend of mine, Jeff Shira, and he was from the hood. So he took me out there, introduced me to everybody, and I just turned into a whole other person, like a complete lost soul. And by month six, they were doing a lot of things to try to fix it. They changed the name of the school 15 times. It just never worked. But the principal basically, they put together a task force, they put together a list and I made that list. And when you're on that list, they did a sweep and you out.

Speaker 2:
[09:48] And this is within six months? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[09:50] So I was out by January. I was out, right? The problem is, so my mother takes me shopping, right? And this is January. We go shopping in September for the school and that's it. This is January, she takes me shopping. I'm like, okay, this is cool. So I'm looking like this is like all my friends from the hood, where, cause they always fly. Hood always fly, right? They ain't doing nothing in school, but their parents make sure they fly. So I'm like, ah, she gets it now.

Speaker 2:
[10:22] She gets it.

Speaker 3:
[10:23] Yeah, like she gets it cool. So, you know, I'm feeling good. Next morning, she comes to me and she's like, see, you know, you good, you okay?

Speaker 2:
[10:31] You like your clothes?

Speaker 3:
[10:32] I'm like, yeah, yeah, I love it. She said, cool, cool. Cause you gotta go. I can't do this. You gotta go.

Speaker 2:
[10:39] I was like, what?

Speaker 3:
[10:41] So at the same time she does this, the next week I get swept, right? So now I'm kicked out of school. I don't know what the fuck to do. And then I find out that once you get kicked out of Andrew Jackson, no school in New York City takes you.

Speaker 2:
[10:54] Cause it's the worst of the worst. So they're just like, you got kicked out of there. We're not taking you.

Speaker 3:
[10:58] You can't get into any school, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, nowhere. Stating out, you're deadlocked out of the school system.

Speaker 2:
[11:05] And you got kicked out of the house.

Speaker 3:
[11:07] And kicked out of the house, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[11:08] So, so, shit.

Speaker 3:
[11:10] Yeah, so, and this is the weird thing. I met, I was in eighth grade, LL Cool J was in 11th grade. We had went to the same school, right? So, while I'm in the school, I'm, me and him rolling to every school, we cutting school every day, he's rapping, I'm beatboxing. And I'm like, I'm about to, I'm making it.

Speaker 2:
[11:33] You're LL Cool J's beatboxer.

Speaker 3:
[11:35] I'm his beatboxer.

Speaker 2:
[11:37] Man. All right.

Speaker 3:
[11:39] Like literally, I'll just do his beatbox, right? So, it was just this really exciting time, cause you're watching this culture explode, this subculture explode, and in the middle of it, I was just like, I was just stuck. I had to get out the house, all of that. So at the same time, my grandparents, I thought my grandparents were from St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, because I was going there since I was two months old, right? And then once I hit like six, seven, me and my sisters would go there for the summer. So I thought they were from there. I didn't know that my grandparents retired and then moved out there, right? So during this year, the September, before the January got kicked out, they moved back to the States and moved to Atlanta. So that was the only place I can go.

Speaker 2:
[12:24] So you go to Atlanta?

Speaker 3:
[12:26] I go to Atlanta.

Speaker 2:
[12:27] At what, 14, 15 at this point?

Speaker 3:
[12:29] 14 years old. And it was like, to my culture shock.

Speaker 2:
[12:33] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[12:34] Like this, this is the, at that time, it was the fastest city in the world. And I'm in, you know, my motion is like, I'm in it. And then now I'm in Atlanta. My two grandparents who were the most solid humans I've ever met, like they went to college in their sixties. They were just sharp, you know, sharp athletes, like really on it. And their mission was like, we gonna, we gonna fix him. We gonna tighten him up and get him straight. So I went to Atlanta and I'm in Atlanta. This hip hop thing didn't happen. There's like little remnants of it. And I had to, I had to thug it out for about two and a half years. But it was good because I changed my life. I went from, in New York, if you get a 55, you fail. If you cut school, you get a 40. I got five, sevens and twelves. Like they had a vendetta out on me. Like I had the worst grades anyways. And I didn't pass any classes. So I went from failing every class to now passing every class because of my grandparents. So it's like every movie I see where you just got to go through that fire and you hate this person that's actually saving you until you get through the fire and then you love that person, you know, when you understand. So I did that and slowly but surely Atlanta was starting to get a little bit of the whole hip hop movement. The Fresh Fest had started. I remember I went to Jermaine Dupree's 14th birthday party and his dude had the turntables, the literal opposite of my life where my life was like, my family was like, you throwing your life away. His family was like, no, no, no. He's taking 1200, yeah, this is your life, right? So there were little remnants of that. You know, I went to a popular school where, you know, Ludacris, a lot of, you know, there were like three high schools. I went to one of the high schools where a lot of music from Atlanta came from. And my grandparents, they say, hey, we built the house about 50 minutes out.

Speaker 2:
[14:23] 50?

Speaker 3:
[14:24] Yeah, 50.

Speaker 2:
[14:25] That's not close.

Speaker 3:
[14:25] Yeah, this ain't in Atlanta.

Speaker 2:
[14:28] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[14:28] Like this is outside of Atlanta. So I go there. Well, my grandparents say, they say, well, when you graduate, I'm in 11th grade now, they say, when you graduate, we'll move out to the house at the country club. All right, cool. And I'm just sitting in this new house. I see cows on the way to school. I go, what the fuck is going on? I literally see cows on the way to school. My teacher tried to paddle me. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:53] In high school?

Speaker 3:
[14:54] Yeah. Teacher pulled out, pulled the drawer out and pulled the paddle out.

Speaker 2:
[14:58] Okay, all right.

Speaker 3:
[14:59] Yeah. Worst cursing he ever got in his life. And I just sat there and I just kept thinking about, you know, cause I go home for the summer, you know? So I'm just thinking about everything I'm missing.

Speaker 2:
[15:10] In New York.

Speaker 3:
[15:10] Yeah, I'm like, yo, you ain't never gonna make a record. And I thought about it and I called my mother and I said, yo, just listen to me. She's like, don't start, like, just listen to me. I'm gonna kill myself. And if you think I'm playing, you will get a call from people. I'm telling you, I got to come home. And my mother was like, you know what? Just fucking come home. And I came home.

Speaker 2:
[15:33] And this is your 11th, 12th grade year?

Speaker 3:
[15:35] 11th, middle of my 11th year. Yeah. Middle of my 11th year.

Speaker 2:
[15:39] And she was like, all right, you can come back.

Speaker 3:
[15:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:41] So do they let you back in school now, though? Because now you didn't fix your grades, you got everything together.

Speaker 3:
[15:46] Yup.

Speaker 2:
[15:47] You're a new guy.

Speaker 3:
[15:48] I'm a new guy. I'm a new guy.

Speaker 2:
[15:50] And all this is to get to the music.

Speaker 3:
[15:52] All of this to get to the music. All of it.

Speaker 2:
[15:55] So when you get back to New York, what's your plan of attack?

Speaker 3:
[15:59] So I met in Atlanta, I met Andre Harrell, a guy named Casual Cal, who became the ringmaster for Soul Circus later on. He had like the video show down there. And I met them and I met a guy from Sleeping Bag Records. And I got the guy from Sleeping Bag Records number. So when I came up to New York, that was the first call I made. I go up there, he gives me, he worked in promotion, gave me a bunch of records. I'm excited, like it's gonna happen. And it just didn't happen.

Speaker 2:
[16:31] It never happened. It didn't used to happen like that. Now it's a little different. But yeah.

Speaker 3:
[16:36] So I went up to the label one time and I rapped for the owners. And there was a head producer there at Medtronic. And he heard me. And he was like, yo, I want him. And I was like, for real? He was like, yeah, he wants to replace the rapper he's got with you.

Speaker 2:
[16:51] And I was like, cool.

Speaker 3:
[16:53] So the guy's sleeping bag was kind of hating on it. Bro, you can manage me with whatever.

Speaker 2:
[16:57] While he was trying to sign you directly.

Speaker 3:
[16:59] Yeah, but he, I don't know what he was, he was just on some weird shit. And I was just like, bro, what are you doing? So I ended up just giving up on it.

Speaker 2:
[17:07] Was like, fucking.

Speaker 3:
[17:08] Now I'm in my senior year and I'm back into being an idiot. But I'm on course to graduate though.

Speaker 2:
[17:16] You're still handling your business, but you're into some shit.

Speaker 3:
[17:18] Yeah, and I get a call and it's like, Bryce, I'm like, yeah, he's like, this is Steven Shapiro, you know who I am? I'm like, nah. He's like, I'm a lawyer for Curtis Medtronic. I'm like, okay, how's he doing? He's like, I just signed him to Million Dollar Dealer Capital.

Speaker 2:
[17:34] I was like, okay.

Speaker 3:
[17:36] He said, so you want a deal? And everything changed from there. Got my first record deal in the 12th grade before I even graduated.

Speaker 2:
[17:43] Shit.

Speaker 3:
[17:44] Yeah, before I graduated. Yeah. Their phone call changed everything.

Speaker 2:
[17:48] Do you remember what you signed for?

Speaker 3:
[17:50] Like the advance?

Speaker 2:
[17:51] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[17:52] The advance was 50 grand.

Speaker 2:
[17:54] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[17:54] And I think it was 50 grand.

Speaker 2:
[17:56] For a 17-year-old? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[17:58] And I only got 10 of it. I got a limo from my graduation from high school.

Speaker 2:
[18:05] Wait, wait. You're talking about this is what you spent your 10 on?

Speaker 3:
[18:08] No, this is what I spent the 40 on.

Speaker 2:
[18:10] Oh.

Speaker 3:
[18:11] I didn't understand none of this shit.

Speaker 2:
[18:13] Okay. So you did actually get the 50?

Speaker 3:
[18:15] No, I got the 10.

Speaker 2:
[18:16] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[18:17] My first check was 10.

Speaker 2:
[18:18] All right.

Speaker 3:
[18:19] And it was just like, it was, yeah, you want a limo for your graduation?

Speaker 2:
[18:21] Yeah, give me my cousin. They start billing you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get your limo.

Speaker 3:
[18:26] Yeah. We did a trip to Europe.

Speaker 2:
[18:30] Wait, wait, wait, what?

Speaker 3:
[18:32] Yeah, we did a trip to Europe.

Speaker 2:
[18:33] Bryce, time out, bro.

Speaker 3:
[18:34] Business, though, on Manchonics business, right? Like promo shit. We stopped in a suit store. I get a suit for $12,000. But I'm thinking, because Curtis is rich, so I'm thinking this is on him or it's on somebody, right?

Speaker 2:
[18:50] $12,000 suit at 17.

Speaker 3:
[18:54] Yeah. I have no idea that this shit's coming out of my pocket before it even reaches my pocket.

Speaker 2:
[18:59] You thought you had a blank check.

Speaker 3:
[19:00] Yeah. I thought this is what that life's about. Like, oh, free shit, I'll do it.

Speaker 2:
[19:05] Yeah, I'll take two of those.

Speaker 3:
[19:06] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, I had to deal before I finished high school. By the time I graduated, I was in probably hit Europe like three times at 17.

Speaker 2:
[19:17] Wow. Yeah. So did you and obviously at that point, your mom probably had to sign the deal for you.

Speaker 3:
[19:23] She did. Yeah. Had to go to the courts and all that. Yep. Surrogate court, do all of that stuff. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[19:29] That's crazy.

Speaker 3:
[19:31] Yeah. So 17.

Speaker 2:
[19:33] And as this is happening, you also, your homie, you see him become the biggest star in the world, LL Cool Jack. Like people don't understand how massive.

Speaker 3:
[19:45] How massive that dude was.

Speaker 2:
[19:46] It's the best way to put it, it's massive.

Speaker 3:
[19:48] Massive. Like he was an event.

Speaker 2:
[19:50] Everybody wanted a Kango.

Speaker 3:
[19:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:53] start doing pushups.

Speaker 3:
[19:55] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[19:55] It's like, LL bro.

Speaker 3:
[19:58] Yeah. Yeah, he was next level.

Speaker 2:
[19:59] Walking around with the radio.

Speaker 3:
[20:01] Yeah, yeah. He was next level. And he just had the whole, like he had the whole, the hustler gear, you know what I'm saying? Like he had, you know.

Speaker 2:
[20:10] So at that time though, you go back to Atlanta, he blowing up, are you still in contact with him or it's like you just see him?

Speaker 3:
[20:17] Nah, I'm watching him. So what I did was in the school I had, they had a pay phone in the hallway. I spent every dime I had calling this dude's house. I spoke to his mother probably three to four times a week.

Speaker 2:
[20:35] Todd home. But he's out on the road.

Speaker 3:
[20:37] Yeah, he on the road. He on the road. And then I spoke to him one day he was at home, like literally after like eight months. When I, this is, you know, back then, I'm putting in $2 worth of quarters, you know what I'm saying, like every day. So his mom's pick up, it's over. It's over them $2.

Speaker 2:
[20:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:53] You know what I'm saying? It's over them $2.

Speaker 2:
[20:56] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[20:56] It was, it was a, it was a financial struggle getting in touch with that dude. And then I got in touch with him and he just kind of broke my heart. Like, nah, you can't come on the road with me.

Speaker 2:
[21:04] I was like, oh, you asked to come out.

Speaker 3:
[21:05] Yeah. I was like, rescue me. Like, bro, I'm in the country. Like you gotta get me out of it. Yo, they was calling me Crush Groove, all kinds of wild shit. You know, you come from New York, you mad arrogant too. So it was, it was a culture.

Speaker 2:
[21:23] And I'm sure they didn't believe that that was your homeboy.

Speaker 3:
[21:25] No.

Speaker 2:
[21:26] They're like, you don't fucking know the old crew, J.

Speaker 3:
[21:28] They didn't believe that. They didn't like my attitude. I didn't like what was going on down there. It was, it took me, took me two years to like be comfortable around the Atlanta scene and be, and be cool with people. You know, I had a dude, I had like a team of like 30, 40 New York dudes that I rocked with. And we would just, you know, we, you know, we get into it with the dudes in the land and all that. I learned quick.

Speaker 2:
[21:51] It was like prison in a sense. Like, oh, you from here, okay, you gotta, you sit at that table.

Speaker 3:
[21:56] Yeah, it was, yeah, it was, it was a lot. Atlanta was rough until I had to give in to it, you know. But when you straight from New York, you're not giving in to nothing at first. Let's go take, yeah, let's go take them.

Speaker 2:
[22:08] No, I mean, listen, I, we have a shared experience in that. I didn't go to Atlanta, but I went to five or six other cities because obviously my father was hustling.

Speaker 3:
[22:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:17] And it would be a new school.

Speaker 3:
[22:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:18] You gotta have that first fight. Yup. All right. He know how to use his hands. We're gonna leave him alone.

Speaker 3:
[22:23] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] You know what I mean? You have to, it's just certain shit that happens when you go to these new schools and these new places where you don't know anybody. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[22:31] Yeah. And if you're dressing a little different, you talk a little different, it ain't easy. It ain't easy at all, you know? I learned them dudes in the South may talk slower, but they think fast.

Speaker 2:
[22:41] Hell yeah.

Speaker 3:
[22:41] They think fast.

Speaker 2:
[22:43] And it's a hood everywhere.

Speaker 3:
[22:44] Everywhere.

Speaker 2:
[22:45] And it's street niggas everywhere.

Speaker 3:
[22:47] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[22:47] that can fight everywhere. So you gon, thinking you walking into these places, thinking you gon do something, it's like, I gotta figure out how to survive where I'm at.

Speaker 3:
[22:55] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[22:56] And I gotta have respect.

Speaker 3:
[22:58] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[22:59] For where I'm at.

Speaker 3:
[23:00] You have to.

Speaker 2:
[23:00] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[23:01] Yeah. Yeah. I remember I came down there, I was just on this old, yo, Jamaica, Queens, Brooklyn and all that, and I remember the two terrors in Atlanta was named Chip and Dip. Chip and Dip. Chip and Dip.

Speaker 2:
[23:14] They was homies.

Speaker 3:
[23:15] They was homies. And when I say these dudes would walk up to the school and would go running.

Speaker 2:
[23:21] Chip and Dip is here.

Speaker 3:
[23:22] These dudes had eyeliner.

Speaker 2:
[23:23] Nah, man, come on, bro. Yeah. You taking it too far.

Speaker 3:
[23:26] They had eyeliner. And it was just weird, like, I'm looking like, why are y'all like what? But they were terrors though. These dudes were actual terrors, but I just had to-

Speaker 2:
[23:35] They was the literal world-class record group.

Speaker 3:
[23:37] Exactly. It was just in a different form than, you know, from what was in New York, you know? So yeah, yeah, I had to take Atlanta serious. It wasn't a place to play with. I found that out.

Speaker 2:
[23:56] All right, you're on the road. You didn't been to Europe. Well, how many times? Three times? You haven't even turned 18 years old.

Speaker 3:
[24:03] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[24:04] Y'all get y'all first hit record, though. How does that feel?

Speaker 3:
[24:07] It was weird because our first hit record was R&B. Yeah, yeah, it was R&B, and it was top, I think top five or top 10 in America. It was number one in every country on the planet. You look at Billboard, it was literally number one in every country except for America. So we weren't really hot in America, but I would go to London. After a while, we go to London every month. Go to London, there being...

Speaker 2:
[24:37] And that's easier coming from the East Coast.

Speaker 3:
[24:39] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there'd be a Jaguar limo and a Range Rover out 24 hours at a disposal with drivers sitting in it 24 hours. So this is like, this dude, Curtis, is...

Speaker 2:
[24:51] You're living it up.

Speaker 3:
[24:52] Yeah, he's Elvis over there. Now, he's a literal, he's Elvis over there.

Speaker 2:
[24:57] And you got a song called, Got to Have Your Love. I can only imagine the good times.

Speaker 3:
[25:02] Yeah, he was like, and he was a giant, and I was just this young, stupid kid.

Speaker 2:
[25:10] So was he, he was the producer.

Speaker 3:
[25:11] He was the producer, yeah. So conceptually, this is his thing. He was a big producer that was able to do rap and R&B, and he was one of the first guys that conversed both.

Speaker 2:
[25:24] Yeah, who sang that record? Who was the singer?

Speaker 3:
[25:26] A lady named Wandris.

Speaker 2:
[25:27] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[25:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[25:28] But she wasn't in the group?

Speaker 3:
[25:30] No, no, it was just me and him, but then we'd feature singers. So this way, it was a rap group, but this way he can really.

Speaker 2:
[25:37] And y'all would have different singers come on the road and sing that part?

Speaker 3:
[25:40] Yeah, like for that, she sung our first two hits. So for that, she would go on the road, and then the second album that I did with him, we had another girl named J. Trini, and then she came on the road.

Speaker 2:
[25:49] Bro, this is wild that you're still a kid, literally.

Speaker 3:
[25:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[25:53] While all this is happening. Yeah. How are you embracing it? Were you, did you get caught up in it, at being that young with a hit record and being out around the world?

Speaker 3:
[26:02] I fought it. I had a really interesting journey that I'm really proud of. My girlfriend at the time, her family, you know, we're all Caribbean, her family was Jamaican, and there was a book in the window sill, and I picked it up and I looked at it, and I said, is this good? She said, you never read that? So she gave it to me. It was Malcolm X, the autobiography of Malcolm X, right? So my journey was, I would go to Europe, and I was really resentful and hateful, because I'm reading this book.

Speaker 2:
[26:35] It's making you militant.

Speaker 3:
[26:36] Yeah, it's super, super militant. I'm looking at structures like, stole that shit from us. That was the mission, right? But it was interesting how the book just takes you on this roller coaster, and then he becomes this humanist, and then all of a sudden, Europe and everything, different races and colors just became something different.

Speaker 2:
[26:56] It opens your mind.

Speaker 3:
[26:56] Yeah. So for me, coming from where I come from, I had such a different perspective on life because now I'm not the racist at the beginning of the book. You know what I mean? Now I'm meeting white people, Spanish people, Swedish people, people from all over the world that are actually really good people. You know what I mean? And that I'm still in touch with to this day, you know, like really quality people. So it was a really interesting journey that I had going on the road and reading that book, you know, and it just ended well because I just, I started to really understand like, wow, this is what the world is like instead of this bubble that I come from, you know? That changed my life.

Speaker 2:
[27:39] Now that's incredible that you even had a chance to have that type of experience. And to make some money, you know what I mean? Yeah, some cool shit to happen. At this point, you're really just focused on being a rapper. Yeah. When did you start playing keys?

Speaker 3:
[27:55] So when I was in ManTronics, I was kind of upset the whole time because this is the Big Daddy Kane era, this LL, Cool J, I wanted to be that. The rock camera, I wanted to be that. Yeah. I wanted to be the hood thing. And I resented this international rap R&B. I resented that. And after a while, when I started opening up to the world, I was like, okay, this isn't that bad. So I would go to Curtis' house all the time, you know, we'd be making music. He had a duplex in the village. And upstairs in the bedroom, I would just sit on the floor against the wall and he'd sit by this $16,000 emulator keyboard that he had. And I would listen to him and I would, I didn't know exactly what was going on but I'd watch the slide and I would hear him hitting the sample and that was like truncating but I didn't know the word or how to do it at the time. But I would watch how he would fit samples into beats and stuff like that. And then I woke up one day and was like, I don't wanna do this rap shit no more. I wanna be him.

Speaker 2:
[28:59] Yeah, and this is why you're in the group though?

Speaker 3:
[29:01] Yeah, so I quit the group and I called him and I said, yo, what should I buy? He was like, what do you wanna do? I was like, I wanna make beats. And he was like, okay, go buy this computer, this, this, this, this, this, this was $10,000. It's probably like $120,000 now. And I bought this stuff and the learning curve was just crazy, but I didn't care. So this is like the era of New Jack Swing now, right? I come from this man, Johnnie's group that's left of center, but mainstream radio is all New Jack Swing. So I sat in, I got a townhouse. Now I'm 18, 19 years old. I got a townhouse for like $2,000 a month, four stories, just crazy. And I'm sitting in my bedroom with this keyboard and this computer and I sat there for a year until I figured out.

Speaker 2:
[29:51] How to produce?

Speaker 3:
[29:52] How to produce. Every record Teddy Riley did, I did my best to imitate it. Yeah. Which was hell.

Speaker 2:
[29:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[30:00] There's a kick or snare I want, there's a fucking bass note on top of it. I'm like, okay, I hated it, but I did it and then when I learned how to, when I figured out New Jack Swing, I was like, I want to do a complete departure from this because the other thing that was how was Tribe Called Quest.

Speaker 2:
[30:19] Right.

Speaker 3:
[30:19] So that New Jack Swing, which Teddy is the evil genius of all music, he's amazing. You got Tribe Called Quest, which is left, and then you got Mantronix in the middle, which is my teacher. So I was like, I'm gonna do this over. And then I just came up with Groove Theory. I just basically did it over.

Speaker 2:
[30:36] But before you get to Groove Theory and you're learning, are you trying to go the space of placing records or no? That's not even your thing.

Speaker 3:
[30:46] No.

Speaker 2:
[30:47] And you're-

Speaker 3:
[30:48] I don't even understand that word.

Speaker 2:
[30:49] So at this point, and you're just living off the money that you made in the Mantronix.

Speaker 3:
[30:52] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:54] You're not actually working.

Speaker 3:
[30:56] No. I had a publishing deal for, I met a lady named Karen Durant, and publishing deals were $20,000. I sat down with her, and she kept wanting to do this deal with me. I was like, this is odd. So I threw out a number, $90,000. And she said, okay. And she got it. So I had $22,500 coming every four months, and then I had $60,000 from New York cash. So I had money to live. I just didn't spend much. $60,000 I wasn't touching. But I lived off of that publishing deal, and I just sat in this room. And then Karen's assistant was a male. Yeah. Yeah. So it was plug and play. Karen's assistant was a male. Me and a male were cool. And I would give them tracks. And it was starting to get ugly. And it was like, we don't know what this is. And we about to drop your ass. And Karen was like, yo, you know, male could sing. I was like, really? Brought a male to my house. Had a really dope track. She went in the bathroom with a mic, sung it, and that was it. Everything she did made what I was doing make sense.

Speaker 2:
[32:07] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[32:08] So I saved my publishing deal, everything.

Speaker 2:
[32:10] No shit.

Speaker 3:
[32:11] Yeah. Yeah. And I never got to the placing tracks. I never, I never understood that. Yeah, I never understood it.

Speaker 2:
[32:17] And obviously, okay, so when you do, when you and a male get together and y'all make the demo, how long does it take for you to get an actual deal?

Speaker 3:
[32:28] A little over a year. A little over a year it took. Because at the same time I met Jimmy, Jimmy and Peter Thomas had a company together from Real Housewives. They had a company together. And they had an English band called Rhythm and Bass. We gave them Tell Me.

Speaker 2:
[32:47] Wait, you gave it away at first?

Speaker 3:
[32:48] Yeah, yeah, gave it away.

Speaker 2:
[32:50] So when you said this in the beginning too, I'm gonna go back a little bit. When she went to the bathroom to record, it was Tell Me?

Speaker 3:
[32:57] No, it was another song.

Speaker 2:
[32:58] It was another song? I was about to say, shit.

Speaker 3:
[33:00] No, it was another song. But Tell Me was like the second or third song.

Speaker 2:
[33:03] It was really early.

Speaker 3:
[33:03] Yeah, really, really early. And we gave it to Jimmy's group. And then at this time, me and Jimmy are getting to know each other. And when my money started getting short, then Jimmy started coming in, infusing cash. So I was funding the whole operation now, Jimmy's helping. And I met a guy named Paris Davis, who lived, my house in Brooklyn was on St. Mark's. He lived two blocks away, on Sterling. His father knew my father. We didn't know, right? But his father knew my father. How did it work? Right, yeah, from when they were younger in Brooklyn. And he was like, yo, I'm getting this job at Epic. And I was like, for real? Yeah, I'm getting this job at Epic. I got this townhouse. I said, yo, take that top floor. He took the top floor. I'm literally in my bedroom every day working on music. And I met the entire industry coming up my steps, going up to the top. Cause they're going to see him. Literally every day, he's bringing somebody out. Yo, what's up? How are you? Okay, cool. I go back to my thing and he goes upstairs. They go upstairs, they drink, smoke, do whatever.

Speaker 2:
[34:05] Yeah. Are you using the Bryce from the Mantronix? Are you using that at all? Or it's not even a conversation at this point?

Speaker 3:
[34:14] It ain't even important. It ain't even important.

Speaker 2:
[34:16] Cause you know how this business is. And you know whatever the pitch is when somebody introduces you. So you literally like, nah, nah, it's just a homie Bryce.

Speaker 3:
[34:22] Yeah. For the people that knew about Mantronix, about, oh, remember that song, stuff like that. But we, it wasn't, we didn't make that much of an impact.

Speaker 2:
[34:30] Right. And you guys were bigger around the world.

Speaker 3:
[34:33] Way bigger around the world. Yeah. Yeah. So I was just his homeboy. I was just his little bro. And I just meet people and they go upstairs, hang out. And I just closed my door and I just work on music every day.

Speaker 2:
[34:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[34:45] And then he brought a friend named Jeff Burrows by-

Speaker 2:
[34:48] Jeff.

Speaker 3:
[34:49] And yeah. And Jeff was at Howard, I think.

Speaker 2:
[34:52] Oh, he's still in school at the time. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[34:54] Howard or Syracuse. I think they met at Syracuse at the time.

Speaker 2:
[34:56] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[34:57] And Jeff heard it. He liked it. And Paris is now epic. But epic is moving slow, so Jeff flies us out to Warner Brothers. Benny Medina heard it. So I'm like, okay. We sit down with Benny. He's singing every word to every lyric. Like he knew the demo.

Speaker 2:
[35:15] Oh, he's studying it.

Speaker 3:
[35:15] He studied it.

Speaker 2:
[35:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[35:16] Right. So I was impressed because this was like Fresh Prince just come, you know, Benny. Yeah, he's a guy. So he did that. And then Paris had to step it up. So me and Jimmy was like, bro, you gotta do something. If not, we over here at Warner Brothers. And got back to New York, set up a meeting with Tonya Matola. And Tonya was like, what do you want? I was like, a publishing deal for her. What else? I don't know, like $600,000, $500,000. Yeah, there's a girl coming to y'all, Mel Aruge, get her a publishing deal. Anything else? No, we could.

Speaker 2:
[35:51] You didn't have it for another $12,000 suit? No.

Speaker 3:
[35:57] It was different by then.

Speaker 2:
[35:58] Right, right, right.

Speaker 3:
[35:59] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[35:59] So where did you come up with that number?

Speaker 3:
[36:01] The numbers were usually $253,000.

Speaker 2:
[36:03] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[36:04] So I didn't want to ask, I didn't want to ask for something that was a deal breaker, but I wanted to, I wanted something that was reasonable, but yeah, but, but substantial, you know, substantial where they knew, all right, we do this for $500, $600,000, we got to work this group.

Speaker 2:
[36:18] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[36:18] You know, that was really the, the magic number that, that, me and Jimmy in Paris talked about.

Speaker 2:
[36:23] Yeah. And there was also a publishing deal being done for her too though.

Speaker 3:
[36:26] Yeah. And then she got a publishing deal.

Speaker 2:
[36:27] And were you still in your deal?

Speaker 3:
[36:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:29] So you were, so you couldn't do a new deal. I couldn't do a new deal.

Speaker 3:
[36:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:32] But for the group.

Speaker 3:
[36:33] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:34] So it's something I paid attention to. You said, when you left Mantrana, you said, I want to be him.

Speaker 3:
[36:39] Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:
[36:41] And now when I look at Groove Theory, that's who you became.

Speaker 3:
[36:45] Became him, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:46] Because I may be wrong, but do you rap on the Groove Theory album at all? Mm-mm. I was about to say, I don't remember hearing you rap on that album.

Speaker 3:
[36:54] I never touched that rap shit ever again.

Speaker 2:
[36:56] And then on Tell Me, a lot of people thought that that was you singing and it was Trey Lawrence.

Speaker 3:
[37:01] Yeah. We gave it to him too. Trey demoed Tell Me as well.

Speaker 2:
[37:05] So you just kept his vocal from the demo?

Speaker 3:
[37:06] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:07] Oh, this is great.

Speaker 3:
[37:08] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[37:09] So this is not like, oh yeah, we got this song, it's knocked out. Hey yo, Trey Lawrence, I need you to sing this part.

Speaker 3:
[37:13] No, we gave it to Trey after Rhythm and Bass.

Speaker 2:
[37:16] Oh shit.

Speaker 3:
[37:17] Right, because they just had a deal on Epic London. So we gave it to him. He was on Epic as well. He was on fire. He handed it to the label. It was like the same pop enough. Like, you're going pop. So it was like, cool. So we finished the whole Groove Theory album. And we're sitting in there with the engineer Angela Piver and Amel and my guy Daryl Brown, who was a great musician, played on a bunch of stuff I did. And we're sitting there and then we learned about their closed composition clause at that time. And they're like, you need another song. I was like, that's just where you do fucking Tell Me. You know, the anthem in New York was Rising to the Top. So I was like, I got a whole new vibe we gonna do it on. And we sat down, did that. She did it as literally the last record. Not as a Hail Mary, not as a Hail Mary, not none of that, just like we got to fill the quota. Like just let's fuck it, let's just do Tell Me. And we did that.

Speaker 2:
[38:14] It wasn't going to be on the project.

Speaker 3:
[38:16] Not at all. That was the last record. That was the last record.

Speaker 2:
[38:20] And ultimately, it was someone else's record at first, right? It wasn't even like, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[38:23] Yeah. So when she got to that part, we just punched him in.

Speaker 2:
[38:28] That was it.

Speaker 3:
[38:32] We punched Trey in and that was it. And then the world thought it was me. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[38:38] Cause obviously I didn't know you at that time. And I'm like, oh, well that's the, yeah. Yeah. It's him.

Speaker 3:
[38:43] Yeah. They both sang in. I guess. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:44] Like, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[38:46] Yeah. That was Trey.

Speaker 2:
[38:47] That's crazy, bro.

Speaker 3:
[38:49] Yeah. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[38:50] Was it ever, obviously he's always been in the credits, but it was never like featuring Trey Lorenzo. You kind of like, if you knew, you knew. Yeah. Does he perform that record?

Speaker 3:
[39:03] No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[39:03] No? Man, I'm getting that off. I'm Trey, I'm performing. Yeah, guess what? And for my next trick, I'm going to sing Tell Me. I guess you didn't know that I was on that record.

Speaker 3:
[39:14] Yeah. He's in an interview with somebody. He was like, soon as the guy brought him, he said, wait, did Bryce say he sung that? He was like, no, he didn't say. He's like, oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, that's his voice on there.

Speaker 2:
[39:27] Now you guys, are you specifically, you got another hit record. You're in it again, but now you're in it in a different way.

Speaker 3:
[39:35] Different way. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[39:36] What's the focus for you now? Cause that's the other thing I feel like we're kindred spirits in is the pivot, right? I've done them different things in this business. You've done different things in this business. What are you locked in on now when you're in it and Tell Me takes off? Smash record.

Speaker 3:
[39:57] When it took off, the fight was for me to be seen. That was the first fight.

Speaker 2:
[40:03] What do you mean?

Speaker 3:
[40:04] The fight. If you look on the album cover, I'm blotted out.

Speaker 2:
[40:06] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[40:08] I never thought about that part.

Speaker 2:
[40:10] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[40:10] So it was done and it's time to do the visuals and the video and all that. I'm like, yeah, let it go through a thing. And they're like, you got to do it too. I'm like, no, I don't. You have to. So everything was forcing me to be in the video. You know, they put me in the video. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? I'm like, okay, let me stand by this board. Look, Steve, okay, let me. I don't even know what I played on this, but turn the volume down. Let me, you know, do that. Let me do a little two step and that was it. So that was the next struggle for me was like.

Speaker 2:
[40:38] You're fighting with the label.

Speaker 3:
[40:40] Yeah, with the label.

Speaker 2:
[40:41] As all these artists are trying to figure out how to be in the front, you're like, nah.

Speaker 3:
[40:45] Yeah, yeah. So album cover, I was like, I'll do the shoot, but I got to be in the back and I got to be blurred out.

Speaker 2:
[41:00] Why didn't you, I mean, other than I get the group you had come from, but why didn't you just sign her as a solo artist? If it was going to be her project, as far as the artist.

Speaker 3:
[41:13] I didn't have those thoughts. Every thought I had as a producer was what I learned from Curtis, everything. So all I really, I had no departure from that concept group, whether it's Solo Soul, CNC Music Factory, or Mantronix, that was all I had in my purview, that was it.

Speaker 2:
[41:31] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[41:31] So that's all I knew, that's what I went for.

Speaker 2:
[41:34] Okay, now the business of it. How does that break down when ultimately, and I can't speak for her, but if she's looking at it like, well, I'm singing, so now we gotta go perform these things live. How does that work? When it's like, okay, well, okay, whatever the fee is, y'all getting paid to show, y'all getting 20,000, 10,000, are y'all like, okay, it's a group, so if you want Groove Theory, we split this.

Speaker 3:
[42:03] Yeah, we were 50-50, so at first, Amell was gonna sign to me.

Speaker 2:
[42:08] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[42:09] Right, and me and Jimmy got her a new place, and I dropped her off, and she said, my lawyer wants to talk to you. I was like, about what? I don't know. Okay. Next day, I get a call, I go to the lawyer's office, and the lawyer's like, yeah, we're not doing this.

Speaker 2:
[42:23] Not doing what?

Speaker 3:
[42:24] We're not doing this. This, her signing you. Like, what do you mean?

Speaker 2:
[42:28] This is while Groove Theory is out or no?

Speaker 3:
[42:30] No, this is before.

Speaker 2:
[42:31] This is before y'all get the deal or?

Speaker 3:
[42:32] Yeah, this is when the deal is sent to the lawyers.

Speaker 2:
[42:35] Oh, shit. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[42:35] Yeah. So, she's supposed to sign to me, and then, you know, I go to the deal.

Speaker 2:
[42:40] So, you were gonna be the furnishing company?

Speaker 3:
[42:41] Yeah. So, last minute, he's like, no, we're not doing that. Y'all could be 50-50. And I'm thinking to myself, like, I paid for everything, and I put her in this, like, what are you talking about? So, me and him had it out, and, you know, he's like, groups don't do this. I said, what about CNC Music Factory? What about Soul to Soul? Well, yeah, they did. What about Manitron? Yeah, but they did. Well, I come from Manitron. I said, what the fuck are you talking to? I just go off. You blacked out on her. Yeah, blacked out on her. So, my lawyer's on the phone, on speakerphone. He's like, let's take a recess. This is getting too hot. So, I go in the conference room, and he's like, so, I find out what's happening. Benny Medina called her lawyer.

Speaker 2:
[43:19] So, I'm like, oh, shit, hey, hey, kids, this is the music business. If you're tuned in, and you're watching this right now, this is how the music business really works.

Speaker 3:
[43:31] This is how you learn to play chess.

Speaker 2:
[43:32] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[43:33] You know, so, you know, I love, Benny's a really good friend of mine. I love Benny to death. But he had to do what he had to do. Yeah, I told him no.

Speaker 2:
[43:42] So he was like, I'm gonna get a piece.

Speaker 3:
[43:43] Yeah, I'll get Hutton. So when that happened, it was, I was just stuck. There was nothing I could do. So I go in there and I'm like, all right, we'll do 50-50. We do the 50-50 deal. I don't have any producer points, none of that. It's just produced by me, but everything's 50-50. So I'm basically an artist, an artist.

Speaker 2:
[44:02] You're not getting no extra producer points on top, nothing.

Speaker 3:
[44:05] Nope, just 50-50, right? And that worked out. It was fine.

Speaker 2:
[44:07] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[44:08] It was fine. And then later on down the line, it kind of came back to bite me because I was in the background so much. So we had a show, they say, okay, we got a clothing budget. I give it to them. I'll go to Barney, spend 1200 on the show. I already had money. It wasn't nothing. So I would just, yo, just give that to them out. And then it just started to seep into everything where it became like a weird power struggle and I was losing it because now you're hearing little murmurs from the label like, well, she's the talented one.

Speaker 2:
[44:43] She's the talented, she's the face.

Speaker 3:
[44:44] So we go ahead and take her. So I was like, wow, okay, that's interesting. So then I did the smart move. My biggest crush at the time was Tony Braxton, right?

Speaker 2:
[44:57] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[44:57] I've known Billy Woodruff since I was a teenager, right? I met him in New York at like an album release party, some shit when I was like, me and a bunch of dudes from my hood, we just at this party. And Billy got me an autographed picture of Tony saying to my future husband, see you at the Grammys, right? This picture every day, and he might come to my house, I'm like, yo, read this, read this.

Speaker 2:
[45:22] Read this.

Speaker 3:
[45:22] All right, so, now the Groove Theory is out.

Speaker 2:
[45:24] You've never met her at this point though. Never met her. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[45:26] Now the Groove Theory is out, I get all these phone calls. Yo, guess what? Tony wants to meet you.

Speaker 2:
[45:34] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[45:36] I go meet her, and the same day I meet her, I meet Ellie Reed and Kenny, babyface. LA is in the studio, and he's like, you brought some heat? I'm like, yeah. He's just sitting in there just loving every fucking track. That means Tony start hanging out, and then that leads to the record with her. So now the power dynamic.

Speaker 2:
[46:00] Because you produced. Co-producing, co-wrote.

Speaker 3:
[46:04] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[46:04] You're making me hot.

Speaker 3:
[46:05] Yeah. So now I'm with, you know, now I got this number one pop and R&B single, and I'm on the road with Groove Theory.

Speaker 2:
[46:13] Yeah. And you're in the video.

Speaker 3:
[46:14] Yeah. And then I did the video, which was, yeah. That, you know.

Speaker 2:
[46:19] Turns into a sex symbol, brother.

Speaker 3:
[46:22] Yeah, it did. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:23] It did.

Speaker 3:
[46:23] Yeah, it did.

Speaker 2:
[46:24] They was loving you out here in these streets, dog.

Speaker 3:
[46:27] Bill Bellamy said to me, he was at MTV, he said, brother, BET is good, but MTV will change your life. And Groove Theory was definitely BET. And Tony was absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[46:37] MTV.

Speaker 3:
[46:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[46:38] MTV. Megastar.

Speaker 3:
[46:39] Yeah. So that happened. And then I was in the Atlanta family. You know, it was me, KP, Dallas, LA., like, you know, I was like, forget it. Cause in New York, you had to either come through Andre Harrell, Russell Simmons or Puff. Yeah. And I circumvented all of them by just going to Atlanta and messing with the big boys. And when that happened, then everything changed. Everything changed. And I was young, I was an asshole, you know, because y'all been playing me this whole time. So yeah, now I'm on fire.

Speaker 2:
[47:11] But y'all on the road, you said.

Speaker 3:
[47:13] We on the road. I got off the road. I said Mel can take half my money and go do the shows. It just wasn't worth it anymore. I make it $40,000, $6,000 a song. I can stay at home and do two songs a week. I'm 120 in. I was like, I could plane crash. I'm not doing that. I'll just stay home. So that changed the trajectory of everything. And then Epic is calling me in to pick the first singles. Everybody's off on a joint venture. But I was more, that was my ego trip. Yeah. My ego trip was, I was a nobody, y'all. And y'all was picking her. And now I'm selling 270,000 units a week, literally. Now that record's 21 million. So I'm on fucking fire. So I'm like, it was just such a difference, from the Groove Theory world to the pop world, y'know? And that changed. And that's when they became the placement king, y'know, of Everybody Wants. Y'know, A&R guy walks in the room, and I look at my engineer like, when I say, hit it, hit it.

Speaker 2:
[48:19] Right.

Speaker 3:
[48:20] Play something. Who's that for? That's Michael Jackson there. Yeah, Mike Wonstadt.

Speaker 2:
[48:25] Mike Wonstadt!

Speaker 3:
[48:27] Yeah, Mike Wonstadt.

Speaker 2:
[48:28] Was you cabin, or was you telling the truth? I was cabin. Oh, you were cabin?

Speaker 3:
[48:32] Oh yeah. I made up a different artist every single time they came in that room. I made up a gigantic artist, like, yeah, that's for them. When you just gonna do that, she said, she's just here.

Speaker 2:
[48:40] Yeah. You missed her.

Speaker 3:
[48:41] Yeah. And you're like, for real, for real? I'm like, yeah. I mean, unless you get the check tomorrow, I see what I can do, but you know, turn that up some, turn it up, get them hooked.

Speaker 2:
[48:49] Play it on the bigs.

Speaker 3:
[48:50] Yep, exactly. Get them hooked. It was just all funny games after that. Yeah, you already know.

Speaker 2:
[48:57] Have you left Groove Theory at this point? Like, officially?

Speaker 3:
[49:01] No, I didn't leave, but we got our deal for the next album, and then things just went left, because now, things are changing. The mail is like, I want 60% of every record.

Speaker 1:
[49:14] I'm like, how?

Speaker 3:
[49:17] Like, yeah, you need to take 40, I need to take 60. I'm not doing that. Then the label's like, we're gonna front y'all check for 100 grand to get started. No, you're not. This is two million dollars for the next album. You're not giving us 100,000 dollars. 100,000 dollars comes because everybody like, come on, you know, you gotta take this money. Then it's like, well, Bryce is making so much money, why? Give me 60 of that. And I do it. But by that time, it's just broken. Yeah. You know, part of the label's like, a mail come over here, and I'm tired. And I always wanted Groove Theory to be a different featured singer on each project. Yeah. So mentally, I was on to another sound that, in my head, was way, way, way more dynamic than what Groove Theory was. Groove Theory was cool. It was mellow, jazzy, it was hip-hop, but I want some fire shit just jumping out the speakers. So my mind was there, and the mail's mind was on like, I just need to go do my own thing. And then the power struggle between me and the label, I was just like, it was vengeance time for them. I ain't going to lie, it was vengeance time. It was like...

Speaker 2:
[50:23] They were not going to let you be more successful there with them.

Speaker 3:
[50:26] Well, they wanted to, but I was like, no, no. Like Paris Davis, they fired him. And I sat down with the president of Epic. He said, I know you got Paris a new job at Atlantic. Yeah. What'd you do? Did the change of faces video. It's like, what?

Speaker 2:
[50:42] You had these damn videos, bro.

Speaker 3:
[50:43] Exactly. Like to have that much power where you do a video for somebody and you can get another human being a job, an executive job.

Speaker 2:
[50:51] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[50:52] Yeah. So after that, it was just like, it was just my playground. And Groove Theory was just, at that point, it was, I don't want to say it was too small, but it was, it just wasn't worth the headache.

Speaker 2:
[51:03] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[51:03] You know, wasn't worth the headache. Y'all played me and it's like, you know, now there's no one in front of me. There's no one that can say no and stop my motion. You know, because I'm the motion. You know, people want me to do their music, you know, or their video, whatever, but that-

Speaker 2:
[51:20] Yeah, don't leave that out.

Speaker 3:
[51:21] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:22] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[51:25] Yeah, so that was, that just, that was the pivot. That was the new life.

Speaker 2:
[51:28] And the main focus was now you are a mercenary, in a sense. You are a higher gun to go get these records.

Speaker 3:
[51:35] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[51:36] And at that stage of the music business, it was a lot of money to be made.

Speaker 3:
[51:42] And it was a super producer era.

Speaker 2:
[51:44] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[51:44] So only like five of us.

Speaker 2:
[51:46] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[51:46] So once you get that super producer under your name, it's like, nah, was getting paid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a different one.

Speaker 2:
[51:54] Did you, did you have in your mind, though, that you were going to do another group or do another artist project? Was that a part of your focus then, too?

Speaker 3:
[52:02] Yep. That was part of my focus. I actually ended up doing one. I did another album with a girl named Makeda Davis that was from Devante's camp. Because remember Missy, Timbaland, Genuine, all of them were from Devante.

Speaker 2:
[52:15] Yeah. The basement.

Speaker 3:
[52:17] Yeah, exactly. Barry came and took all of them, put them over in Black Ground. And I found this young girl that was from that camp, that was just insanely talented. And I did a project with her that was just an extremely undeniable, crazy album. And I did this album, and we got into politics with it. She wrote Best of Me, the remix of My&J. She wrote that. And we were having problems with Epic. And I text Paul from Steve Stout. And I said, Makeda's free, free agent. Good luck, niggas. I got a call in two minutes from Tone from Trackmasters. He was like, Steve wants it in the scope. All right. Did the album over there. Then Steve left.

Speaker 2:
[53:04] But this is not a group, though.

Speaker 3:
[53:06] No, this is a Groove Theory album.

Speaker 2:
[53:07] Oh, this is a Groove Theory. Okay, okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[53:09] I had the second album at Epic. Epic was acting weird about black music. Got off of there and then got to deal with Steve Stout in the scope. Did that album, Steve left, and started going into the marketing world. I'm there with this album. Did I take that album off? I got both labels and took my masters. It was not in my deal. I just took it because nobody stopped me.

Speaker 2:
[53:33] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[53:33] So I took all the masters, and then, you know Chill from Chicago? Yes. Chill, Lupe's guy.

Speaker 2:
[53:42] Lupe's guy.

Speaker 3:
[53:42] Yes. Chill was best friends with Jay at the time, and he calls me up. He's like, yo, you trust me? I'm like, yeah, this is five years later. I'm like, yeah, what's up? He's like, coming to New York. Jay's there, Beyoncé's there. We played an album, and he's just sitting there like, yo, what the fuck is this? I don't know. Jay's like, bro, you wasting yourself. You stop? I'm like, yeah. I stopped making music. I just got turned off from all of the personal demands of giving everybody money, all that. And he said, yo, we'll be back. He took the CD. They called back two hours later, said we want six records.

Speaker 2:
[54:21] I was like, real? And this stuff is five years old at this point, you said?

Speaker 3:
[54:26] Five years old. Five years old. It took six records. Jay calls the next week. He says, yo, we at the Rose Bowl. I played this record for Janet. Janet wants this Sorry record. Could we get that? Sorry record, huh? Four foot Beyonce?

Speaker 2:
[54:41] Yeah. All right, let's do it.

Speaker 3:
[54:43] And Janet got a record. All like all of these records were just, and they're all five years old from the Mercator Project.

Speaker 2:
[54:50] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[54:51] Yeah. So Trackmasters loved it. We did the first single that we had, they did a remix cause they had that R. Kelly moment.

Speaker 2:
[54:58] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[54:58] The best of both worlds and all that. So they did a remix with Maya and Jagged Edge on it. Like everybody wanted a piece of this record. So I basically just sold, I basically just sold the record out.

Speaker 2:
[55:08] Just pieced them out.

Speaker 3:
[55:09] Yep. A Marie Beyonce, a bunch of people. Beyonce ended up only taking two because her father had already paid Scott Storch. But yeah, between Chill, me and Jay, we just gave them records to everybody.

Speaker 2:
[55:20] Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[55:22] It was a crazy, crazy album though. Crazy album. Like that, yeah. Mercator was exactly what I was looking for. It was way more dynamic. It was like, you know, we did a showcase and she's singing a natural born killer. Jay and Ice Cube.

Speaker 2:
[55:36] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[55:36] Like she was a rock star. She was different. Super hood, super rock stars, everything.

Speaker 2:
[55:42] Yeah. Then you turned into an actor.

Speaker 3:
[55:45] Yeah. Then I wanted to be that guy.

Speaker 2:
[55:47] Yeah. What made you say that to yourself? Like, all right, you know what? I'm going to try this acting thing.

Speaker 3:
[55:53] I got tired.

Speaker 2:
[55:54] Was it because of the videos?

Speaker 3:
[55:55] No, it was because of the Groove Theory situation. I didn't like being held hostage by an artist. I didn't like that. So I said to myself, if I can get used to the camera, I could probably do this acting shit. In the midst of this, Tracy Edmonds had called me to do Soul Food when they were doing the series. Yeah. And she was like, Bryce, you just gotta trust me. I flew out here. The dumbest audition you could ever see was done by me. I'm literally like this, and he said he's going to the store. I'll be right back. Shit was so bad, it was unbelievably terrible. It was just really bad. So I did that, and then that killed. I was like, I don't want to do this acting shit. And then there was an opportunity for Vibe magazine was doing a TV show, called Weekend Vibe. And I got on a plane to LA, and my lawyer at the time said, yeah, they're doing this thing. And I was like, if I host this show, then I could get used to the camera and then I could act. So I land in LA, and they're like, auditions are tomorrow in New York. I'm like, all right, well, I'm in LA, so I'm cool. And I sit with myself and I'm like, don't be a little bitch, just don't. I literally turn around, fly back to New York, and I'm like, you just go be who you are. Geto, whatever it is, that's what you're going to do. I saw a bunch of people in audition, and they're like, oh, hey, and I was like, I'm cool, let them. And I'm hearing these people go, and they just sounded just so classic and, yeah, scripted and corny. I just go in there and I'm like, I read it, and they're sitting there, and they're like, whoa, introduce this, it was like some artist. So I just freestyled. This artist comes from, I'm in the music business, this artist comes from so-and-so, she was discovered by so-and-so, do I lie, and they're like, you got the job. So I did that job.

Speaker 2:
[58:01] On the spot.

Speaker 3:
[58:01] Yeah, I did that, and then I went on into acting from that. Yeah, I couldn't just jump into acting.

Speaker 2:
[58:08] Right, right, right, right.

Speaker 3:
[58:08] That first attempt was, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[58:10] But you were preparing yourself.

Speaker 3:
[58:13] Yeah, I was preparing myself, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[58:24] You got a legendary scene. That legendary scene. You know, me and you ain't talked about this, but I'm gonna bring it up in Beauty Shop. A legendary scene where I wanna say, you might be the first brother to introduce the man bag. That is now very popular in our community. I absolutely was.

Speaker 3:
[58:47] I absolutely was.

Speaker 2:
[58:48] Now I think it's like, yeah, I keep a hundred thousand in here. I might got a million dollars in this bag.

Speaker 3:
[58:52] I might have a pistol in here.

Speaker 2:
[58:53] But you, you was in the shop with a man bag. It wasn't very acceptable at that time.

Speaker 3:
[59:00] It was not. I felt crazy.

Speaker 2:
[59:03] Can you take me back to that scene, please, and how that was introduced to you? Like, okay, so this scene, you're going to walk in.

Speaker 3:
[59:10] Yeah, it was just weird. They were like, yo, your character's not gay, but they don't know. I was like, they don't know? But am I? No, no, no, you're not. But they don't know. Okay. And they just started popping shit out on the set. And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, I'm in wardrobe, like, all right, cool. I'm ready to go. I got on baggy pants. I got on Tims.

Speaker 2:
[59:29] Yeah, cornrows.

Speaker 3:
[59:30] Yeah, cornrows. And like, oh yeah, one other thing. And they put it around me. I'm like, you can't be serious. They're like, it's the bro. Like, yeah, this is what you got. So yeah, I had to do it.

Speaker 2:
[59:40] So this wasn't in the script that you had read, though, that, okay, this is what, you know, this is you introducing.

Speaker 3:
[59:45] No, because I didn't read, there was a part where they talked about it and I didn't read that part yet. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[59:51] I didn't read that part yet.

Speaker 3:
[59:52] I didn't read that part yet until, yeah, till like the day before and I didn't even notice it, I didn't notice anything until they put it on me. And I just felt crazy with Tim's on and a curse. Yeah, it was crazy.

Speaker 2:
[60:04] Cause going back to, obviously, like going back to, you know, ManTronics days, you had been around the world. Had you seen that already? Because obviously that's something that came from overseas. That's not like an American thing.

Speaker 3:
[60:17] I saw Haitian Jack was the first person. He used to carry a little thing in a little bag. It wasn't a strap bag, but he used to always carry that. And I used to always look at that like, that's interesting.

Speaker 2:
[60:31] Always had a man bag.

Speaker 3:
[60:31] Yeah, but it's Jack. You ain't go questioning.

Speaker 2:
[60:33] Right, right, right.

Speaker 3:
[60:34] You know, he's definitely not questioning nothing. It's gangster. Yeah, it's gangster. And you know, he ain't holding the wallet in there. So that was the first time that I saw it. But yeah, I never saw the shit with the strap on it.

Speaker 2:
[60:46] That was just... Yeah, cross body.

Speaker 3:
[60:48] Yeah, cross body.

Speaker 2:
[60:49] Yeah. No, bro, you're the first. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[60:54] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[60:57] You're in early in the history, bro. Like, you're the first one. That scene is very legendary, bro. How was that movie for you?

Speaker 3:
[61:05] It was good.

Speaker 2:
[61:06] Did you know a lot of the cast already or... Nope.

Speaker 3:
[61:11] I only knew Latifah and Billy. Me and Billy got a history, the same thing with the Tony video. I ain't want to do it. And he was like, well, you got to do it. And I was like, nah, I don't. Jay and DMX were getting hot. I was like, yo, this is dude Jay, my man, Brooklyn. And so I'll do DMX. Tony was like, I don't care about that. So Billy was like, you got to do it. I did it. And then it worked out. So Beauty Shop happened. I had did another movie called Hair Show with Monique. And he called me and I was like, bro, I did this other thing. And he was like, bro. And I was like, you want me to just shut the fuck up and trust you again? He said, can you just do that? Can you just shut up and just show up? I just went to audition and got it.

Speaker 2:
[61:50] Wow. And he was the director of it. So he was like, do good enough and I'll figure it out for you.

Speaker 3:
[61:55] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[61:57] Wow, bro.

Speaker 3:
[61:59] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[62:00] And then you became a real actor.

Speaker 3:
[62:03] A real actor after that.

Speaker 2:
[62:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:05] And then I quit that. I didn't have a next guy to be like, I want to be him. I just was like, I don't have, I think I was like 32. I was like, I don't have the stomach to get 10 years of no before they tell me yes. I did the 100 auditions where I only booked three out of 100. You did.

Speaker 2:
[62:25] You did the whole round.

Speaker 3:
[62:26] I did that. I went to film school. I did all of that. But that's when the music mind came in. Because in music, it could be me, you, an engineer, and it could change our life. Film, you need 30 people crew, 60 people crew.

Speaker 2:
[62:40] It's no making a movie without all of those things.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] Without all the moving parts.

Speaker 2:
[62:46] So you're like, all right, come out.

Speaker 3:
[62:48] I had the heart for this in music. I don't have the heart for this for acting. I just didn't. In my 30s, I was like, I don't have the heart for this.

Speaker 2:
[62:55] You walk away from acting. You don't want to deal with the back and forth of the rejection and people don't realize that. You audition all those times to maybe get one role. Yeah. You go out. What's something? Okay, before you do that though, what's a role that you audition for that maybe became something like really dope and you're like, fuck, I could have been.

Speaker 3:
[63:20] I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[63:21] Was there any big movies or anything that you audition for?

Speaker 3:
[63:23] American Gangster audition for, which I definitely wanted a role in that.

Speaker 2:
[63:29] You was going to be Denzelny?

Speaker 3:
[63:30] No, no, no. I wish.

Speaker 2:
[63:33] You Frank Lucas?

Speaker 3:
[63:34] But I think I was supposed to be like his nephew or one of the brothers or something. And it was the hype around it before they shot it.

Speaker 2:
[63:42] The hype around American Gangster was very high.

Speaker 3:
[63:45] Yeah, the buzz around Hollywood for that was really high. So that was a role that I really wanted. It's just a lot of ups and downs. I remember I got so cocky, I went to this audition. I was like, I'm gonna go kill it. And I flopped so bad, the cast agent was like, where did you come from again? Because she heard so much hype about me. I was like, yeah, I know. She was like, yeah, okay, get out of here.

Speaker 2:
[64:10] Hit you with the, where did you come from again?

Speaker 3:
[64:11] Yeah, yeah, because she heard a whole bunch of hype. And he just got this role, this role. Yeah, and I went in there and I literally was on the plane and I was like, I'm gonna go murder this. Who else is going for this? I'm killing all of them.

Speaker 2:
[64:25] So what happened? You just forgot the shit once you got in there?

Speaker 3:
[64:27] I just flopped. I don't know what happened, but I flopped bad. I was just like, door, all right, cool.

Speaker 2:
[64:34] Because you know when you fucked up.

Speaker 3:
[64:35] Oh yeah. Yeah, you know when you fucked up.

Speaker 2:
[64:37] Yeah. All right, acting's now in the rear view. Yep. Do you go back to producing? Do you, like, what's the?

Speaker 3:
[64:43] No, I just chilled out. I bought a seven-bedroom in Hollywood Hills. I was just chilling.

Speaker 2:
[64:49] Why did you buy a seven-bedroom? Why did you need seven-bedrooms, Bryce?

Speaker 3:
[64:55] The house was a good deal. Seriously, seriously, the house was a good deal.

Speaker 2:
[64:59] We always tell ourselves.

Speaker 3:
[65:00] It was a good deal.

Speaker 2:
[65:01] Something wow.

Speaker 3:
[65:03] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:04] I bought this one car and I remember it had this button on the side that made all my doors open. I was like, wait, so it's how much more? So it's 30,000 more for the doors, for the touch door? Yeah. Stupid as hell, man.

Speaker 3:
[65:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[65:19] At least you're going to the house. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[65:21] Bought that house. I was chilling in LA. Then I bought a condo in Miami and I had another place in New York. And I just went every two weeks from East Place to East Place. And I was in real estate at the time. Because I'm invested in two hotel restaurant groups. So my plan after all of this, I was like, I'll just like do clubs and hotel stuff like that. And I had all this property everywhere. And the market started shifting. And then it was education time.

Speaker 2:
[65:54] That crash that happened.

Speaker 3:
[65:58] So everything, like every dime I had was in real estate. So I went from having four cribs to an LA, Miami, New York, to ending up in Atlanta.

Speaker 2:
[66:11] Back to Atlanta.

Speaker 3:
[66:12] Wondering if I could pay the rent.

Speaker 2:
[66:13] Shit.

Speaker 3:
[66:14] Yeah, like I felt so hard. The thing, it wasn't really, the fall was obviously bad, but it wasn't really the fall. It was the fact that I had no options. I had really good friends in this business, LA., Sylvia, Craig Kalman, but the people under them, I was an asshole to them, because they were assholes.

Speaker 2:
[66:34] I didn't like record people.

Speaker 3:
[66:35] I didn't like that whole, he's hot now, so give me a record that sounds like that. I just didn't respect any of that. So when I went broke, there was no coming back to my old job. There was no, because at this point now, the executives.

Speaker 2:
[66:50] You didn't have those relationships.

Speaker 3:
[66:51] Yeah, and they're the star now. You know what I mean? They want to be the star. You know, everybody now wanted to be like Puff, you know. So it wasn't about the music anymore after that. It was about, give me something that sounds like what's number one on the chart now, you know. So I just sat in Atlanta like, damn, I'm really broke. Like, should I get a job? Like, where does this go? You know, I just really didn't know. And my royalties never came for any of my songs.

Speaker 2:
[67:20] Why?

Speaker 3:
[67:21] It just never came. 50 million records, to me, I made about $540 million for the labels, never got my cut. Like, when you got money, you'd just be sitting like, I guess it's coming.

Speaker 2:
[67:30] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[67:31] Right? Never came. So I sat there in Atlanta and this whole culture was shifting and this new culture was emerging with indie bands and EDM DJs. So that was my pivot. After that, I started, I met a guy named Junior Sanchez, one of my really good friends and Junior's a house DJ, one of the best producers I've ever met and just has great relationships everywhere. And the huge audience, like people, he's a legend in that world. Okay. And I used to make these pitch decks and I would call Sylvia in LA and I'd say, this EDM thing is like, we need to get in on this shit because this ain't our culture. This is, they took our house music and made it into something else. And I wasn't really getting anywhere with it. And it was weird, I would put Sweetest House Mafia in my pitch decks, right? Because they were the case study on the genre, right? And I called LA and LA was like, I don't know nothing about this stuff, but I know it's huge. I wanna do the meeting. I was hooking up a meeting between LA Reid and Steve Angelo, who Junior introduced me to, who Steve Angelo is one of the members of Sweetest House Mafia. And LA was doing their TV show at the time, American Idol or one of them. And they kept pushing it back. So by the fourth time they pushed it back, I said, listen, tell LA we're not gonna do the meeting, but just let them know. When he brought my man Jay in that building, Jay sold out the garden in 24 hours. These guys sold out in four minutes. They were like, for real? I was like, yeah. Sweetest House Marvie sold out in four minutes. So I left it alone. And it was an interesting thing. So Sweetest House Marvie became the biggest band in the world at one time, right? And then they just woke up one day and was like, what are we doing? Let's just stop this shit. Then he announced one last tour. Sweetest House Marvie is over doing one last tour. So in one last tour, I went to the last show in Miami. Me, Junior, Maxwell was there. I met Steve Angelo and then I moved on with Steve. Worked for his company, ran a management company, and then I became his co-manager. So now I'm in the EDM world and the private jets and the.

Speaker 2:
[69:52] Yeah, they live a whole different life.

Speaker 3:
[69:55] It was such a different game, yeah. And it's a game that you have to respect because they never needed radio for it. You know, these guys, $40 million, $70 million a year, and you never need a radio. So all the things we rely on, they didn't rely on, they just needed the Internet. And that was it.

Speaker 2:
[70:12] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[70:12] You know, $1 million a show, $2 million. These guys are playing for two hours. Make it $200,000, a million.

Speaker 2:
[70:19] Like it was nothing.

Speaker 3:
[70:20] Yeah. Yeah, it was. So that was where I pivoted to. I pivoted into that world because it was, I just couldn't get no hate from there. You know, nobody can shoot at you in the dark.

Speaker 2:
[70:33] Yeah. And you're a new guy in that space.

Speaker 3:
[70:36] I'm a new guy in there. Nobody knew.

Speaker 2:
[70:37] But who's also tenured, right? Exactly. You're new to the space, but when they run your resume, they're like, oh, and he did and he did and he, oh, yes, he's supposed to be here.

Speaker 3:
[70:45] And I had friends in Sweden that these guys grew up under. That were my friends from Medtronic.

Speaker 2:
[70:50] Medtronic.

Speaker 3:
[70:51] You know what I mean? So it was all like a full circle moment. I was the black tea guy every day. That was my uniform. Black tea for these guys. You know, if you came to a show, if you were a barber, a banker, whatever you were, you go wear black tea to that show. Like you had to dress like the Swedes. And I was already dressing like the Swedes. So this was perfect, you know? And it taught me, I did it because I wanted to really understand how the business of that world works. You know, how you can become such a big success without the machines that we rely on. You know, and they, you know.

Speaker 2:
[71:26] What label were they on?

Speaker 3:
[71:28] They were on EMI.

Speaker 2:
[71:30] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[71:30] They were on EMI. Now they're on Def Jam. But Steve, when they disbanded, Steve was on no label. He was on his own label. But it was interesting. Steve had, I ran a management company. We had a creative agency, like a full on creative agency. And we literally were a full 360 within this building. Like he just got this gigantic office and we were full 360. So when he had an album coming, an album release or a single release, the amount of creativity and intelligence that went into it was just like mind blowing. Mind blowing.

Speaker 2:
[72:07] And was this technically your first job in a sense?

Speaker 3:
[72:11] As an adult, yeah. As an adult, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:14] Yep.

Speaker 3:
[72:15] My first job. It was six grand a month. Number one, at that time, I was like, I'll take this, yeah. And number two, I was just getting a front row seat to something that was just exploding all over the world. That was completely different than the world we came from, but bigger in a sense.

Speaker 2:
[72:33] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[72:34] Much bigger in a sense. Yeah, it was a great education.

Speaker 2:
[72:38] Did you stay in that world as far as taking on other artists in that space?

Speaker 3:
[72:43] No, I stayed in that world for a while, and what happened was Steve's best friend and business partner, they had a bit of a falling out, and then me and him got cool, and then we started being business partners, and then we just went into all different kinds of businesses after that. Yeah. But that was a moment. That whole EDM thing was definitely... That was, to me, that's... Being an artist, I think is cool. Being a producer is cool. I think that's the coolest job on the planet.

Speaker 2:
[73:13] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:14] I mean, you make your music, and these people pay for you to come and play your music.

Speaker 2:
[73:18] And play your music. It's that simple. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:20] You get on a private jet, you do a couple of edits on the laptop, and you walk in, literally, with a USB, and plug that into the damn CDJs.

Speaker 2:
[73:27] And it runs for two hours.

Speaker 3:
[73:29] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[73:29] And they got some little things to be going off.

Speaker 3:
[73:32] Yeah, the pyro, tire techs, all that.

Speaker 2:
[73:34] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:35] Yeah. Yeah, it's huge. It's a different world. It's definitely a different world. And as producers, one thing I did get out of it on the music side, on the creative side, was I retaught myself how to produce. So I produced like them. Because technically we cannot touch, DJs are the best producers on the planet.

Speaker 2:
[73:56] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[73:57] By far.

Speaker 2:
[73:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[73:58] By far.

Speaker 2:
[73:59] Chico.

Speaker 3:
[74:00] Yeah. By far. Because they're doing all of this in a box. Right. Vocals, engineering, they're mixing as they're making the music. It's just such a completely different skill set. You know, I've sat with producers and played them records and said, how would you recreate it? And they think they can, until they actually try. And they just don't understand how intricate it is.

Speaker 2:
[74:23] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[74:24] It's a serious game as far as production.

Speaker 2:
[74:27] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[74:27] So that gave me a new spark as far as a producer. Yeah. Where whenever I do decide to go into studio, my angle and my entrance into it is completely different than the old me. Yeah. Way, way, way different.

Speaker 2:
[74:45] So what's next?

Speaker 3:
[74:46] Content.

Speaker 2:
[74:48] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[74:48] Content. The one thing I did when my money was messed up was, I just sat in a house doing nothing for so long that I said, I need some kind of structure in order to get back into the world. And when I was younger, I had boxed twice in my life. I did karate when I was really young. My karate teacher then actually lived on my block as well. And he was one of the other people, Petro Molino, he was one of the other people that, I have a couple of people that saved my life, right? He was one of them. So I was always into fighting. And there was this, from a teenage, I was watching UFC from UFC One. And this whole Brazilian Jiu Jitsu movement came. And it got to the point where I was like, number one, I want structure in my life. I need to start something with structure because I'm just feeling worthless. And number two, I'm okay with my hands, but if I ever come across somebody that knows this, I don't want to be in that kind of deep water. It's different getting knocked out than someone slowly breaking your arm or your knee or choking you. That's a completely different... It's like death. You're looking death in the eye, you know what I mean? So I really, that was my motivation. I was like, let me just do this. I started like 44, 45 years old, which was crazy. Like I'd be in there and they'd be like, we'd talk on the mass like, he's like, 45. Bro, bro, he's 45, you know he's 45? Bro, he's fucking old, bro. 45 years old as a white belt is traumatizing, it's exciting, but it takes a lot of heart. And you get your ass beat every single day. It takes you six to eight months for your mind to reconfigure, to understand what's going on. And for those six to eight months, you're getting murdered. Like you're getting literally murdered.

Speaker 2:
[76:53] Right, you can't beat up nobody in the gym.

Speaker 3:
[76:55] Yeah, you can't beat up anybody at all. You know, this guy's got knock knees and pigeon toe, and you're like, he can't, and he's killing you. And it's just a discovery. You know, it's just a discovery of a different level of information, you know? So I did that, I did that for five days a week for eight years straight. Eight years straight, I did that.

Speaker 2:
[77:16] Five days a week.

Speaker 3:
[77:17] Five days a week. I just shut my mouth up. Me and my partner had something going on. I'd make it to the meetings and everything, but everybody knew 12, 15, 2 o'clock he's gonna be training. Did that for eight years. I'm on my 11th, 12th year now. And about a year ago, a light bulb went off because I'm like, I'm like, I'm like a cultural snob. I think you are too, like, as like the level of music we did, like we're elitist, you know what I'm saying? But it's not like we're haters. We just want to show the world our version. You know what I mean? So about two years ago, I had this idea and I was talking to, I was talking to this girl, I was actually my partner in the podcast. And she said, well, you want to address theatrical and performative masculinity. And I was like, that's what the fuck I want to address. Yes, that. So I wanted, I'm doing a bunch of content stuff that are introducing combat culture, combat sports culture into our culture. And also just confronting a lot of the crap in our culture. A lot of the tough guy shit do we do and all of that. I really want to address a lot of that full on because I just think that we're so lopsided in that sense that it's just dumb. We were here when the culture was not about that. So I want to kind of add a counter conversation and a counter balance to it. Besides the fact it's the fastest growing sport in the world.

Speaker 2:
[78:46] Now people are crazy about it.

Speaker 3:
[78:47] Yeah, they're crazy about it.

Speaker 2:
[78:49] I mean it's the last gladiator sport honestly. This goes back into the olden days.

Speaker 3:
[78:55] Exactly and it changes lives. For me at that point when I had no money, no hope, no nothing, that was the thing that came through for me. That's what my camaraderie went through. And I mean, and I've shared the mat with like real gangsters, like Navy Seals, like Delta Force, like real, like people that really get up and do gangsta shit every day, whether they want to or not, because the president said go do this. You know what I mean? So that alone, just that world, I think that we are behind it. You know, there's a couple of things that technology, stuff like that, that we're behind in.

Speaker 2:
[79:31] Yeah, within our culture.

Speaker 3:
[79:32] Yeah, that we need to, we need certain beacons to kind of catch us up on that stuff, you know. And I think that white people are doing MMA like black people did basketball.

Speaker 2:
[79:42] Right.

Speaker 3:
[79:43] Like it's serious out there.

Speaker 2:
[79:44] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[79:44] You know, it's really, really serious. So that's, yeah, that's the new mission, just to really do that. I got one more belt left. And I might stop after that, I don't even know, but you know, it's something that you could do till, you know, till you die. You know, I see people at 78 years old doing it. You know, so that's where my passion is now. I'm slowly going back into the studio. I just did this song with Stormzy and Tyla. Yeah, yeah. That was interesting, but I just did that. I'm doing Lupe Fiasco, doing some stuff. We want to kind of bring him back to the radio spot now. So yeah, so it's cool. I like now, I like doing music now that I don't need it to survive. You know, it just feels better.

Speaker 2:
[80:27] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[80:28] You know, to not have to.

Speaker 2:
[80:29] Now that rat race is different.

Speaker 3:
[80:30] Yeah, it's way different.

Speaker 2:
[80:32] Yeah, it's a completely different.

Speaker 3:
[80:33] And it's a young man sport. To me it is. You know, it's a young man sport to do, you know, the placements and all that stuff. I don't got the energy for that.

Speaker 2:
[80:50] Did you ever think of being on the label side or doing anything in that capacity?

Speaker 3:
[80:54] No. I mean, I've thought about it at times, but I don't think I would ever get that position. But I don't know how long I would last in that. Because I don't, like for me, I only want to be involved with something that pushes the culture forward. I can't just sit still and just keep repeating what's been done.

Speaker 2:
[81:14] Right, you're not an analytics.

Speaker 3:
[81:15] Yeah, I don't think that's a fun job. You know, like when we came into this, it was all about everybody having an identity and everybody adding something. You know, and that, whatever that addition was, pushed the shit forward.

Speaker 2:
[81:28] Right.

Speaker 3:
[81:29] And now I don't really see that desire with, you know, within the labels or any of that stuff. I just think we're in a weird spot. So yeah, I think with the combat sports, that's something that my heart is in. And I think that that's something that we're falling so far behind in. I don't mind trying to help that.

Speaker 2:
[81:49] Right.

Speaker 3:
[81:49] Push that to the floor.

Speaker 2:
[81:50] Yeah, no, bro, that's dope. And I, you know, I'm always very supportive and happy when I speak to my peers and my people I consider family. And they're like, yo, I found something else that I really enjoy, right? It doesn't have to be the norm of what, you know, everyone is doing or everyone is chasing. You find what you like to do. And, you know what I mean, even for me, you know, it's funny, like, people are like, I didn't know the podcast could sing.

Speaker 3:
[82:24] Yeah, it's interesting, right?

Speaker 2:
[82:26] I'm like, yeah, actually, I kind of came from that.

Speaker 3:
[82:30] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[82:30] And I'm known for this now. But I'm appreciative of it because I really enjoy this space. I really enjoy the multimedia space and the content space and giving something different for me personally.

Speaker 3:
[82:42] Elliott, you've been a star your whole life. So, a star is a star. If you was on Fries, you're still a star, you know what I'm saying? You're just like, the on Fries is. Yeah, exactly. He's a star, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[82:52] Put a little salt on that thing, man. You can send him out there.

Speaker 3:
[82:55] A star is a star. You've always been a star, you know. It's funny with you because you've always been a star, but you've always been a gangster.

Speaker 2:
[83:04] I'm a family of that.

Speaker 3:
[83:07] Nobody knows that, though, but.

Speaker 2:
[83:08] They started it. It's getting out more, man.

Speaker 3:
[83:12] I got to interview you because he got a history, history, history. The pretty boy thing is an afterthought. That's what God gave him. That is what it is, but you just always been a solid dude. Man, always.

Speaker 2:
[83:25] I've always been intentional about that, man. I always want to show up for my people. I want my word to be my word. I feel like it's sustained me through this business that isn't always, as people would say, isn't always real.

Speaker 3:
[83:45] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[83:46] I found the real spaces in it for me, and I found the people who I consider real, and I try to stay as locked in with them as I can. We may not talk for whatever amount of time, but when we do, it's always the same type of love and respect.

Speaker 3:
[84:03] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[84:03] And I don't care what quote unquote business I'm supposed to be in. I'm going to operate that way.

Speaker 3:
[84:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[84:11] I don't get into people's business.

Speaker 3:
[84:13] That's why it's working for you. Your relationships are from when you were young, and it's just paying off now. You know what I'm saying? But this is the vibration you set as a very young man, and you're just walking into your own vibration that you set. That's all it is.

Speaker 2:
[84:29] Yeah, man.

Speaker 3:
[84:30] You know what I'm saying? And it's great.

Speaker 2:
[84:33] Now, I'm enjoying myself, bro. I really am, and I want to put this light on people that I know, not even that I think, that I know deserve to have this light. And it's been a hell of a ride for me, man, and the experience that I'm super thankful for. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm super thankful to the people who tune in and are interested in who I think and we think should sit down and have these conversations. You know what I mean? Because, bro, so many of us that have been a part of this thing that sometimes don't always get the opportunity to have that light shined on them. And for me, man, that's something I want to be a part of.

Speaker 3:
[85:18] No, absolutely, and having a place where people that you've known for a long time that really, really message you, to have them tell their stories, it's like, that's gold.

Speaker 2:
[85:27] Yeah. That's gold. Yeah, yeah, now, this is really, a lot of these are me catching up with my friends, and that's really it, man. We talked about this before we start filming it, you know. 90, probably 90 to 95% of the guests on this show are really my personal friends.

Speaker 3:
[85:42] Yep, exactly.

Speaker 2:
[85:43] Up until this point, you know? And some people who've come after we met through this have become my friends, you know what I mean? The people that I really, really enjoy and have great relationships with now from this show. Yeah. So, now, bro, this is a really cool thing, man. And man, I'm happy that you pulled up on me, bro.

Speaker 3:
[86:05] I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 2:
[86:07] This is super cool, man. But let's get into some of this music thing, man. Let's get into this music that Tank sent over, man. Come on, let's go play you something real quick. We got to see your thoughts on some stuff.

Speaker 1:
[86:23] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[87:16] There ain't no joke. Oh wow, okay.

Speaker 2:
[87:24] I ain't got no sense, man.

Speaker 3:
[87:25] No sense at all.

Speaker 2:
[87:26] You're crazy as hell, man.

Speaker 3:
[87:28] No sense at all.

Speaker 2:
[87:29] No, before we get into this, though, did you produce the record that he was in the video for, for Charissa?

Speaker 3:
[87:38] No, man, I forgot about that. I forgot about that. Cause I thought y'all had that-

Speaker 2:
[87:45] No, I didn't produce that.

Speaker 3:
[87:45] Yeah. Where I played the dud and he played the stud. Yes, I forgot all about that.

Speaker 2:
[87:52] Tanker video hoe too, bro.

Speaker 3:
[87:53] That damn Jimmy, I'll tell you, boy. That was another one I stepped into. I ain't quite know what the hell was going on. Until I got in there, I was like, oh, I'm the dud? I'm the one knocking on the door and she don't answer. And she in there with Tank with the muscles.

Speaker 1:
[88:08] He said, bullshit.

Speaker 2:
[88:10] Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, I just thought I'd bring that up. Yeah, you know, we all together, bro, we all. Yeah, we all been there, we all been there, man. So yeah, let's get into the music, man. Top five R&B singers.

Speaker 3:
[88:24] Male and female?

Speaker 2:
[88:25] Whatever you, top five for you.

Speaker 3:
[88:28] R. Kelly. KC. Dead or Alive? Old or Young?

Speaker 2:
[88:36] Whatever come to your mind, brother.

Speaker 3:
[88:38] Donny Hathaway for sure. I got to go a little left. Bob.

Speaker 2:
[88:44] Bob Marley.

Speaker 3:
[88:45] Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[88:47] I love Bob Marley, bro.

Speaker 3:
[88:48] Yeah. The world is still catching up to his message.

Speaker 2:
[88:50] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[88:51] So gotta be him. I'm trying to go with people that were like really like, like slap me in the face artists. I gotta say KC.

Speaker 2:
[89:01] Man, you said KC?

Speaker 3:
[89:01] Yeah. I did?

Speaker 2:
[89:02] Yeah, yeah, you said KC cause you said Kels first and then you said KC.

Speaker 3:
[89:05] Okay, Kels, KC, Bob.

Speaker 2:
[89:07] Donny Hathaway.

Speaker 3:
[89:08] Donny Hathaway. Bob Marley.

Speaker 2:
[89:11] What you got?

Speaker 3:
[89:12] Sananda Maitreya. Know what that is?

Speaker 2:
[89:16] I don't.

Speaker 3:
[89:17] That's Terrence Trent Darby.

Speaker 2:
[89:20] Is that his?

Speaker 3:
[89:21] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[89:24] Wait, wait, wait, wait. That's the name he changed or that's his real name?

Speaker 3:
[89:27] That's the new name he's got. He's had, what, 20 years, 15, 20 years? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[89:34] Oh, man!

Speaker 3:
[89:35] That dude there?

Speaker 2:
[89:37] It's incredible.

Speaker 3:
[89:39] James Brown, he's everybody.

Speaker 2:
[89:41] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[89:41] Yeah, I would say him. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[89:45] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[89:45] He's nice. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[89:46] Okay. Yeah. Top five R&B songs.

Speaker 3:
[89:49] Anything off of Diary of a Mad Band.

Speaker 2:
[89:53] Okay. All right. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[89:55] What was that Tony record? Love Should Have Brought You Home.

Speaker 2:
[89:59] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[89:59] Love that.

Speaker 2:
[90:00] That's a great song.

Speaker 3:
[90:01] Yeah. Anything by Guy.

Speaker 2:
[90:05] I mean, you were studying it for it. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:08] Anything. That Teddy Riley is just, he had a goodbye record by Guy. That one. I Don't Want to Leave You. Yeah. Yeah. That one there, For All We Know, Donny Hathaway.

Speaker 2:
[90:25] The most patient record. It's very hard to recreate that art, to even sing it with him because of the timing and the pocket that he has on that song.

Speaker 3:
[90:37] Yeah. Is insane.

Speaker 2:
[90:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:41] Definitely For All We Know. And Sonanda Maitreya, he's got a song called If You Go Before Me. I like death songs for some reason.

Speaker 2:
[90:49] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:49] I mean, think about when we was younger, those were the songs. I'll Die For You.

Speaker 2:
[90:53] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:54] I like them kind of songs. I like the I Will Die For You songs.

Speaker 2:
[90:57] That's real emotion.

Speaker 3:
[90:58] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[90:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[90:59] Yeah. I like Take It To The Grave songs. So, yeah. If you go before me, Sonanda Maitreya, that one.

Speaker 2:
[91:07] Yeah. I like Take It To The Grave. Yeah. We gon throw prints, I Will Die For You, in there? Like, is it?

Speaker 3:
[91:14] That's one.

Speaker 2:
[91:15] Yeah. That's one. All right.

Speaker 1:
[91:17] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[91:18] Yeah. I like them joints.

Speaker 2:
[91:19] All of them. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:20] Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[91:21] All right. Okay. So now we're going to build the ultimate R&B singer. We have a thing called the Voltron, and it's the vocals, stage performance, styling, the drip. We'll put the fly shit on, and the passion of the artist. We'll start with the vocals. Who's vocal are you taking for the superhero ultimate R&B singer? Who's going to sing those songs?

Speaker 3:
[91:50] You know what? I'm going to say Babyface. I'm going to say Babyface.

Speaker 2:
[91:54] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[91:55] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[91:56] Well, people who watch the show know that Babyface is like top of the top for me. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[92:01] I'm going to say Babyface.

Speaker 2:
[92:02] Okay. So Babyface is the singer. Performance. Performance style. Who's going to kill the stage?

Speaker 3:
[92:09] Kelly.

Speaker 2:
[92:11] Man, listen.

Speaker 3:
[92:12] Kelly. Kelly had a mean show.

Speaker 2:
[92:15] His live show.

Speaker 3:
[92:17] So crazy.

Speaker 2:
[92:18] Crazy. So crazy. And theatrical.

Speaker 3:
[92:21] Yes. Yes.

Speaker 2:
[92:23] All of it. And obviously, you know, just hits after hits after hits, too. Like, it makes no sense.

Speaker 3:
[92:28] He's got a presence. And the way they used to put the shows together with the costume and everything.

Speaker 2:
[92:35] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[92:35] That was, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[92:36] No, I feel like stage plays.

Speaker 3:
[92:37] Yeah. Exactly. Yep.

Speaker 2:
[92:38] Okay. Styling. Who's gonna put the fly shit on? Who's a fly artist to you?

Speaker 3:
[92:44] Dammit. I left him out in the old list, Joe. But I'm not gonna say him for style.

Speaker 2:
[92:50] Okay. But he's on, he's your vocalist.

Speaker 3:
[92:53] Vocalist. Hell yeah.

Speaker 2:
[92:53] Top five R&B singers. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 3:
[92:55] For sure.

Speaker 2:
[92:56] No argument.

Speaker 3:
[92:57] Style. I'll go with R. Kelly.

Speaker 2:
[92:59] Which version though, like you talk about, like with the little mask on R. Kelly?

Speaker 3:
[93:04] No, no, no, no, no. Hell no. No, no, no. Like cool. Not the baggy suit R. Kelly. Like the black leather blazer. Cool R. Kelly.

Speaker 2:
[93:14] What about the mink though? When he had the mink on on the cover?

Speaker 3:
[93:17] The mink. If it fits that song, yeah. If it fits that song, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[93:22] Okay. So, so, so, so Kale's get, he gonna get the...

Speaker 3:
[93:24] He get two.

Speaker 2:
[93:25] The performance style and the style.

Speaker 3:
[93:27] And yeah, and the look.

Speaker 2:
[93:27] Okay, but, but not the mask.

Speaker 3:
[93:29] Absolutely not.

Speaker 2:
[93:30] Okay, cool.

Speaker 3:
[93:31] Not the mask or the seat seats. None of them.

Speaker 2:
[93:35] And who, who has the passion? Like, who gonna make you feel it? Who you, who you think would die for this shit?

Speaker 3:
[93:45] Huh, who would die for it? I'm gonna get home and be pissed because the real ass is gonna come. But I, but I.

Speaker 2:
[93:53] Oh, that's how it goes. You know, you, you were supposed to prepare. You didn't, but it's okay. You're my brother.

Speaker 3:
[93:57] No, I tried. I did try. I did try. That's the one I skipped. I did, but I did try.

Speaker 2:
[94:01] It's like that audition you fucked up on.

Speaker 3:
[94:03] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[94:05] Because that was overwhelming.

Speaker 3:
[94:06] The Voltron, like that's, that's overwhelming. Passion. You know what? I'm gonna go super left with passion. I'm gonna go so left like this one. I'm gonna go super left. You gonna look at me crazy.

Speaker 2:
[94:18] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[94:19] Gerald LaVert.

Speaker 2:
[94:20] No, I'm not.

Speaker 3:
[94:21] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[94:22] No, I'm not. He's the roll on the floor.

Speaker 3:
[94:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[94:25] Come on, bro. This is me, dawg.

Speaker 3:
[94:27] He lived it, lived it, lived it, lived it. Legend of legends. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[94:33] Come from it.

Speaker 3:
[94:33] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[94:34] That's Eddie's son.

Speaker 3:
[94:35] Yes, that's Eddie's son.

Speaker 2:
[94:37] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[94:37] He'll lose five pounds on that stage. Gerald was not playing.

Speaker 2:
[94:40] Not playing.

Speaker 3:
[94:41] Yeah. And as big as he got in his career, he still had the same passion.

Speaker 2:
[94:46] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[94:47] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[94:47] If you talk to Tank, Tank will tell you that it was Gerald LaVert who told him.

Speaker 3:
[94:51] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[94:52] No, no, no, no. Young fella, you got to give your all.

Speaker 3:
[94:57] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[94:58] Give it all your all.

Speaker 3:
[94:59] Yeah. Yeah. He checked me a couple of times. Called me Hollywood. I was like, I don't ever call me Hollywood, Hollywood? But I said, I was like, is he right? Yeah, he ain't no joke.

Speaker 2:
[95:09] You got Hollywood on Gerald a couple of times? No. No.

Speaker 3:
[95:12] I didn't get Hollywood on him, but I felt it though. You know what I'm saying? I felt it though. Gerald had the presence that he was 20 years older than you when he wasn't. So he just had that father presence, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[95:24] Yeah. All right. And then for you, who's going to produce this artist?

Speaker 3:
[95:30] I got that.

Speaker 2:
[95:31] Are you producing it?

Speaker 3:
[95:31] No. Absolutely not. I got it. I got it. And it's not Kells. Who does Babyface look up to?

Speaker 2:
[95:41] Jimmy Jam or J. Lewis?

Speaker 3:
[95:43] No. El DeBarge.

Speaker 2:
[95:45] Oh, yeah. So you're going to have El produce it?

Speaker 3:
[95:48] Absolutely. Nobody knows what to do with them but El. El DeBarge, 1000%.

Speaker 2:
[95:54] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[95:55] That is the genius right there.

Speaker 2:
[95:57] El DeBarge is Eldridge? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[96:00] Creatively, spiritually, and just gift-wise.

Speaker 2:
[96:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[96:05] Gift-wise, he's, he's, yeah, he's different.

Speaker 2:
[96:07] No, to this day.

Speaker 3:
[96:08] To this day, he's so different. Yeah, he's different.

Speaker 2:
[96:11] I watched, El, we had him and Tank did a show together in Vegas a few years back and they had some family members there with us and we watched in awe. In awe. I want to say it might have been for, it might have been for something that D-Nice had. It might have been, it might have been one of the club quarantine shows or something. And we were just like this.

Speaker 3:
[96:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[96:44] Nah, he ain't, nah.

Speaker 3:
[96:47] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[96:49] He this cold still, to this day?

Speaker 3:
[96:51] Effortless, just cold, like he's no joke.

Speaker 2:
[96:53] It's easy and you know he got on the piano. Yeah. You know he played. He's like, come on, bro, you are the cheat code. You know, his bop is this way, too, though. Everything is here.

Speaker 3:
[97:04] Exactly.

Speaker 2:
[97:04] Everything is here.

Speaker 3:
[97:05] He got the timeless bop.

Speaker 2:
[97:06] Yeah, it's like.

Speaker 3:
[97:07] He got a timeless bop for real.

Speaker 2:
[97:09] Yeah, it feels good to me.

Speaker 3:
[97:10] Yeah. And in conversation, he'll drop something spiritual on you that'll just like fuck your whole life up.

Speaker 2:
[97:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[97:16] Like he'll just like, he's deep.

Speaker 2:
[97:20] I'm still trying to get L to pull up. L, you told me.

Speaker 3:
[97:23] Yeah, he needs to.

Speaker 2:
[97:24] You were going to pull up. L randomly will text me.

Speaker 3:
[97:29] Oh, really?

Speaker 2:
[97:30] At one in the morning. When we setting up for the interview.

Speaker 3:
[97:34] Really?

Speaker 2:
[97:35] Whenever you want to. I don't hit it back, I ain't got one to text in a minute, but I be like, bro, whenever you want to pull up.

Speaker 3:
[97:42] You got to get him on here. You have to.

Speaker 2:
[97:44] Whenever you want to pull up, OG, I got you. Yeah, L.

Speaker 3:
[97:51] What episode are you on?

Speaker 2:
[97:52] Man, I don't know. 170,000 something.

Speaker 3:
[97:55] Yeah, make him your 200th episode. Please, I would love to. Yeah, that dude right there, he's an alien.

Speaker 2:
[98:05] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[98:05] Yeah, he's something else.

Speaker 2:
[98:07] Nah, it's a cold Voltron, bro.

Speaker 3:
[98:08] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[98:09] All right, we got something else for you, man, before you get out of here. Yeah. So we didn't come to a very important part of the show, brother. Okay. Will you tell us a story, funny or fucked up, or funny and fucked up? Okay. The only rule to the game, Mr. Bryce Wilson can't say no name.

Speaker 3:
[98:51] I got one.

Speaker 2:
[98:51] Oh, quick. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3:
[98:53] I got one.

Speaker 2:
[98:53] All right. Okay.

Speaker 3:
[98:55] So I'm in New York and I drop off at, forgot the name of it, but AIM Studio back there.

Speaker 2:
[99:06] You're saying names, brother. This, that's four names already.

Speaker 3:
[99:08] Oh, okay. I dropped off at the studio, okay.

Speaker 2:
[99:10] Oh shit. I dropped my friends off at my other homie's studio. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 3:
[99:15] I dropped my two homies off at the other homie's studio, right? They say, you coming up? I'm like, no. In the car, have an artist with me. And it's kind of like, we're at Energy. So I'm just leaning on my window, outside, listening to music, Music Soul child I'm listening to. A neo soul singer I'm listening to, right? And I'm like, you know, I just bop my head in my own world, and I'm getting tired of the Energy. So I'm like, yo, let me take you to your hotel. The artist says, yeah, yeah, that's good. Okay. I don't know who did the attitude change. I don't know, right? I just ain't got time for it right now. It's drizzling. New York City is dark outside. Strangest thing happens. I get to the block. I make a left turn, and I hear, I hear a car. Real light. Now look, and my door's cracked, and my car is empty. I don't know. I don't know. But Batman was in my car. Can't say no names, but when I turned that corner, I heard the wind.

Speaker 2:
[100:36] This person just hopped out.

Speaker 3:
[100:38] Hopped out.

Speaker 2:
[100:39] In the rain. A drizzle.

Speaker 3:
[100:41] While I was moving.

Speaker 2:
[100:43] You hadn't stopped.

Speaker 3:
[100:44] I didn't stop.

Speaker 2:
[100:46] So stop dropping robes.

Speaker 3:
[100:47] I don't know. They tucked and rolled. If there was a cable. I have no idea what happened. If there was a cable. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[100:53] He was driving the bus thing.

Speaker 3:
[100:54] But I heard the wind. What? I made the turn. I heard the wind. I looked, and I passed the seat. It was empty, and my door was cracked. And I leaned out, and I closed the door, and I went around like five blocks about five times.

Speaker 2:
[101:11] Because you're trying to find them.

Speaker 3:
[101:12] Yeah. I looked on this side of the street, went around, and looked on this side of the street, and then I gave up. But that was a feat. That was a feat. That to this day, I have no idea how that happened. But yeah, just like.

Speaker 2:
[101:25] Did you ever speak to said artists again?

Speaker 3:
[101:28] Yeah, but never, never talked.

Speaker 2:
[101:30] But they were okay.

Speaker 3:
[101:31] Oh, they were fine. Yeah, they were fine. They were fine. They made it to their hotel and everything. It was, yeah, it was just weird.

Speaker 2:
[101:37] It felt a little first 48ish, man.

Speaker 3:
[101:38] Yeah, yeah, it was weird. Huh.

Speaker 2:
[101:41] Yeah. And so you've never talked to this artist about that?

Speaker 3:
[101:44] Never. It was too strange. I don't even know how to like, it's just weird. So you can fly.

Speaker 2:
[101:50] That's the next time you see it. So, you know, that time you flew out my car.

Speaker 3:
[101:54] Yeah, it was, it was a Batman move. I just heard a little bit of wind. By the time I looked at it.

Speaker 2:
[101:59] I heard a little bit of wind.

Speaker 3:
[102:01] The car was empty, yep. And my two homeboys that had dropped off did not believe me. And I'm like, I'm telling you, I made a turn. That's all I did and gone.

Speaker 2:
[102:12] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[102:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[102:15] Huh, okay. Cause we gon bleep the names you said. But this is, that's a wild story.

Speaker 3:
[102:25] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[102:26] That's a what the fuck.

Speaker 3:
[102:27] Yeah, that was a what the fuck was that.

Speaker 2:
[102:30] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[102:30] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea how they exited the vehicle. I didn't even hear the feet hit the ground. That's what was great. Like I didn't hear the feet hit the ground. I heard nothing at all.

Speaker 2:
[102:42] I just heard wind.

Speaker 3:
[102:42] I just heard wind. That was it.

Speaker 2:
[102:44] And they were gone by that time.

Speaker 3:
[102:46] Gone.

Speaker 2:
[102:47] Yeah, that's wild, bro. Yeah. That's wild.

Speaker 3:
[102:49] I don't know what part of the turn the escape was. I have no idea. The escape. Yeah. I have no idea.

Speaker 2:
[102:56] They didn't want to ride with you no more, bro.

Speaker 3:
[102:58] No, they didn't.

Speaker 2:
[102:59] They didn't.

Speaker 3:
[102:59] I was ending. I was dropping them off. It was like, you know.

Speaker 1:
[103:03] Yeah, it was like, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[103:04] Nah.

Speaker 2:
[103:04] Sick of this shit.

Speaker 3:
[103:05] Yeah, he was like, I'm good. Okay. Good move.

Speaker 2:
[103:08] Wow, bro.

Speaker 3:
[103:09] Well played. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[103:11] Amen. Thank you again, bro.

Speaker 3:
[103:13] Thanks for having me, brother.

Speaker 2:
[103:14] This has been incredible for me, man.

Speaker 3:
[103:16] Me too, brother.

Speaker 2:
[103:17] My brother for real, man. Definitely, man.

Speaker 3:
[103:19] Definitely.

Speaker 2:
[103:19] I'm J. Valentine. This is Bryce Wilson. And this is the R&B Money Podcast. I'll see y'all next week.