Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - DJ Paul of Three 6 Mafia

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

This week on Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by DJ Paul, a founding member of hip-hop luminaries Three 6 Mafia. The Memphis collective broke ground when they released their debut album, Mystic Stylez, in 1995. That LP became a landmark, particularly for the underground, with its foreboding cover and love for the occult. After following it up with two more dark records, 1996’s Da End and 1997’s Chapter 2: World Domination, it became clear that Three 6 Mafia were creating a remarkable legacy. Fast-forward two decades and DJ Paul has become involved in other endeavors, from his record label Scale-A-Ton Entertainment to the fashion line Dangerus / Skandulus. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up everybody? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'm talking with Academy Award-winning, hip-hop legend, multi-platinum artist and producer from 36 Mafia. DJ Paul. Let's go. You look healthy, and I always kind of know at our age, because we're in our 40s. Yeah.

Like when someone looks healthy. You and your photos. you're you're 34 I stopped aging a long time ago man I don't even know what age I am but like I can always tell when someone takes care of themselves because at our age I think like you start to see people age faster and faster and faster

and usually it has everything to do with like drinking and food and all the all the stuff and then I also think music keeps us young maybe yeah it doesn't And 40's the new 30 anyways. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is. And 50's the new 40s.

That's right. You remember back in the day, we thought 50 was old. And it's not. It's not at all. And when somebody died in their 50s on social media, people have a heart attack. Like, oh, my God, he was so young. I'm like, really? I'm like, he was a half, a hundred years old.

When I was a kid, that was old. Yeah. But actually even, like, 70s is younger than it used to. Like, 70 must be the new 60. Yeah, it is. My father-in-law is like 73, and he's got more energy than me. He tours, like, he must do like a hundred some. I mean, he does more shows definitely than I do.

I'm glad you brought that up, too. I want to talk to you about that. Please. We brothers, right? Yes. Family. Yeah. So why haven't I met my father-in-law, man?

I want to party all night long, man. Friday night. Yeah. He's playing at the forum. Forum, really? Yeah. Damn, I ain't going to be here. You going?

Oh yeah, I'm going for sure. We're going. It's Pop-op, man. Pop-Pop plays we all go. Oh, okay. Well, the next time I'm going with Pop-Pah and y'all. That's what we call him. We call him Pop-Pop.

Yeah. I went and saw him in Vegas. Probably about two years ago. You saw the Vegas show? Yeah, it's good. I saw that, yeah. I saw that too. It's great.

Yeah, no one does it like Lionel does it. Yeah, I was the youngest person in there. And I'm not even young. You're pretty young, man. Yeah, but I was the youngest person in that. I felt like a kid. It's pretty crazy how good. he is. Yeah, he's the best.

Legend. Legend, man. Well, come for Thanksgiving then. Now you're talking. Yeah. Now you're talking. I'm now. Are you, are, do you ever spend things?

I mean, do you go to Memphis sometimes? No, no, no, no, no. I don't really have no family in Memphis like that no more. Okay. Yeah, I tell my Thanksgiving is out here. I actually got some family friends from Memphis, uh, that, uh, that live out here. I do, I do Thanksgiving at their house a lot. Well, if you want to come to my house.

No, no, I'm coming. I would love. that. I'm serious. I'm coming. Serious. I'm seriously coming. Okay. I'm bringing all my Commodore's records. I'm a Lion and Richard. No, I'm joking. Bring them all. Actually. You're coming and fanned out, even though I will be. But actually, Lionel would actually be down with that, and he's likely a fan of yours, too. So you guys would have a good...

Yeah, just tell him I won an Oscar. I usually break the ice. We're both... You guys are both Oscar holders. Oh, he won an Oscar, too? Yeah, he won an Oscar. He got nominated. He got nominated. I think he got nominated twice or three times. I'm sure he been nominated. Two or three times and he won once.

You know what it was for? I don't remember. I don't want to, I don't think it was endless love. I think it was another song. God, he's got so many classic songs. That's dope. He got it out at the house? He's got, you know, he's super classy.

So he has this, like, library and his, his awards are in there on the shelves. I mean, it's pretty magnificent. because he's got so many awards. I mean, Grammys, Oscars, all kinds of achievement awards. He was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, all that stuff. So he's got tons of awards.

I love that room. He's super humble about it. I love to go in that room. Do he got his plaques up? He does not have his plaques up. I know there's a lot of people don't have their plaques up. He does have his plaques up in his studio.

In his studio? In his studio. He has a studio at the house, an insane, beautiful recording studio. Yeah, I can imagine. And there's plaques in the hallways when you go to the studio. It's pretty cool. It's pretty special.

I used to have my plaques up. For the long as I didn't have my plaques up. And I did this show called Celebrity Wife Swap. And they was like- How is that? It was funny. That's cool. Yeah, I turned it down for like three years until they told me how much they were going to give me. Right.

And then I was like, what the hell? I'll swap my wife. Yeah, I swat. So I wouldn't even marry. I just, it was a girlfriend. But, you know, we just, we said, we lied to say we was engaged. I mean, but for hundreds of thousands, man. Why not?

Yeah. So I did celebrity wife swap and they was like, Paul, why you don't have any of your plaques on the wall? And I was like, well, I always live by this old saying that says that if you don't see your achievements, you'll keep trying to achieve them. Yeah. You know, so that's how I used to look at things. But now I got them up in the living room.

There you go. Well, I think that you, I think there is something to that. I don't have my plaques up at my house. Probably, though, because my wife grew up in a house full of plaques, and she was like, I don't want to see these plaques anymore. Yeah, I'll see those. But now we have them up here at the office in the studio. Yeah, you got to have somewhere. Yeah, I still get to see them.

But I also think that we have to celebrate our achievements in a way, some kind of way. night you know i think i don't think the thing about musicians is i don't think we walk in the room with all of our achievements like our resumes can be pretty impressive if there were a degree to give you would be the highest level of doctor or lawyer you would have the highest business degree if there was if there was degrees being given out for your experience in this business there's no one more experience than you the highs the lows how does it work from the inception of a project or a group or an album or a song to the execution of it and then bringing it out to the world. Think about the decades of experience you have and the success you have.

It's not like it's been written down into a resume or you've been given a doctorate for it, but you have one. And so sometimes those plaques remind us of what we know so that we don't forget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. because every now and then some new expert in the music business that's had a current hit or they've been a part of a group of people because ultimately this entire business was built on the backs of great artists with good teams of people who are smart and hardworking right it all works together but sometimes artists can be talked out of instinct and experience yeah yeah and it can be wrong yeah for sure so those plaques kind of remind you like who you really are and what you've achieved is You can't undo that. Now, my Oscar, that's a different store. Now, I don't have that out.

It's tucked away in a safe in a crown royal bag. I love that. You mean the crown royal bag? Yeah, of course, the purple crown royal bag. Yeah, we kept everything in those as a kid. Yeah. The money. That was the save.

That was the piggy bank. Any good packaging that came with anything, you would keep a good shoebox. Yeah. Yeah, you kept them. Yeah. Yeah, so, yeah, the Oscar is in a crown royal bag. Why do you think we always keep stuff? My wife always asked me, like, why do you keep all the bags and all the packaging?

Like, when it's nice, I keep it. Yeah, me too. I love the package. If you buy a pair of, like, Prada shoes or something, the shoe bags, I keep them. I keep all of them. Yeah, but they start to get cheap. They used to give you two shoe bags. Now they're starting to give you one.

And I ain't just talking about Pratt. I'm talking about Louis Vuitton and all these motherfuckers. One bag, man. Pay $1,000 of shoes. And you give me one bag that throw them in me. there together to get scuffed up through TSA? No. It's margins. It's all about their margins.

Yeah. If we can get away slowly with replacing two bags with one, save, maybe we make the one bag a little bigger. They made it a little big. Yeah. And then we save, you know, a couple bucks across the entire. Man, they save a lot of money. They probably save hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Margins. If I need two bags, look how big these shoes in, man. Like yachts. I can't put these shoes in one bag. I couldn't put these shoes in one grocery bag. They look expensive for those shoes. They were.

I got them in London. Never even seen them in America. Wow. And I was just walking through London. I was like, oh, wow, some ugly shoes I've never seen in America. I'll take them two grand. Whoa. Why not?

Why not, man? In London. It's nice, though, every now and then to spend some money. Yeah. Yeah, remind you. Yeah. I always struggled with spending money until I didn't. Yeah.

But, you know, growing up with not having money, I think I had to learn how to find the balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear that a lot. I hear that a lot. I didn't grow up super, super poor. We didn't grow up in a nice, nice neighborhood, but we grew up in like a mill. First, we was in the hood hood. Right.

And then my daddy worked for another company. And then he took the knowledge from that company. He worked for Terminacs. He took the knowledge from that company and opened up his own pest control company. Oh, wow. And then we moved into a mill class neighborhood. So he was a hardworking guy. Yeah, he was super hard work.

Yeah. My dad owned companies. He owned homes. That's why now I own a lot of properties. Because I saw my daddy doing that growing up. You know, he owned a lot of properties. He would buy homes and rent them out for extra residual income. So that's what I do now.

I figured you were up to something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Man, I love homes. I love decorating homes. I love working on homes. I'm working on one right now. And I love it.

You just buy them and renovate them? Buy them, renovate them if they need it. Flip them or rent them out? I never flip them. I always rent them out. That's smart. When you flip it, you got to pay the capital gains and all that. It's within two years.

And short term, it really doesn't make sense. Long term, you could sit on a property for 10, 12, 15, 20 years. Yeah, if you want to do that, yeah, they can make some serious money. But if you're going to buy it and they turn around and flip it, then you got to pay all these taxes and the capital gains and all that, it just don't make no sense to me. out here, you know, out here because the property values go up so much. Yeah. Just to get in the market out here and stay is the smartest thing you can do. Yeah.

It's because it gets harder and harder for people to get in the market out here. Yeah, yeah. And I made some mistakes. I made some mistakes. So did I. Sold stuff too early. Yeah. Wasn't really thinking.

Don't ever, if you don't want to kill yourself, don't ever go on Zillow and look at old homes you sold in California. Yeah. You'll kill yourself. Yeah. I saw what some people just made a million. off a house I hated Tarzanah. I say, what?

And Tarzanah? Like, damn it. There's also something about a portfolio of real estate that is, to me, like a real pride of ownership. Yeah. Over the years, because the years go by, and then you go, you get 10 years behind you, 15 years behind you. And if you keep just buying one thing at a time that you can afford, rent it out, forget about it.

Let someone else pay. Yeah. Yeah. Don't even think about it. Before you turn around, you have this portfolio. And I think that's probably, I don't know, I think that's probably one of the best things you can do with money. Man, it is the best thing you could do with money.

Because, you know, like the same goes is God's not, you know, making no more land. Yeah. So if you could buy some more land, I mean, if you could buy some land. Because the guy told me to us a long time ago, a business manager that I had an Indian guy named Horish back in, like, 2001. And, you know, he was just breaking it down to me on like the percentage that banks pay you on your money. So, seven, instances, you got some money in the bank, and the bank is paying you 2% on your money. Yep.

This and that. But if you can put it in a property and you can make more than that, I would rather have mine than a property than in a bank. And in a physical brick and mortar property because, you know, like, it gains in so many ways. Your money is actually gaining by being in it. The property is gaining value. You rent it out. You let somebody else pay for. And it's just so many ways you can make money with that.

And then the biggest key to it is like when we die, we can't leave our talents to our kids. They might get some of it. They might don't. My son know how to make beats and singing all that shit. He don't want to do none of that shit. How old is he? He's 27. Okay.

Yeah, he's grown man. He don't want to do music though. Right. But these properties you can leave. to your kids. That's right. Yeah. And they can live the rest of their life not, not even having to work if they don't want to. Hopefully they still will. Yeah. But you can leave property. So it's so many values into owning properties versus your money just sitting in the bank and letting them use your money to bat other people property and charge them again of the same money. I feel the same way.

I know some people are like, you know, I want my kids to earn everything that they have. I want my kids to earn too. I want them to work and build their own lives. But I also want to give them whatever I can. Yeah, of course. And hopefully we have a relationship where they respect, I hope I'm close enough with my kids where they respect all the hard work that I did while I could do it. It's more than just the value of the thing I give them or leave them. It's the idea of it. It's the legacy of it. And it's less about, it's less of a money thing, more of an emotional appreciation. for like what my dad did. It feels like you, you love your dad.

It feels like you guys, feels like you looked up to him. Yeah, of course. Work-wise, it feels like you mirrored, model, how he worked. I did. Because 3-6 Mafia, you guys worked your ass off. Yeah, still do, to his day.

And still do. Still do. Still do, man. And it's interesting because it's almost like if I wasn't doing this, I would be, I would have a paint business or I would have some kind of business where I worked just as hard. This just happened to be my trade. Yeah.

Music. Yeah, exactly. But I always approached it like it was a business. Yeah, yeah. I was just, I was working as hard as I, you know, my dad worked really hard. I always had two jobs. It didn't reach the levels of success. I think that where he, you know, it sounds to me like your dad really figured it out

and he continued to build momentum and gain. But the only way you do that is getting up every single day, whether you want to or not, punching in and going to work and putting in 8, 10, 12 hours, whatever, however many hours the day called for you to get the work done. That's what I saw my dad do. And that's how I always approached my career and still do to this day. Yeah. You have to because, you know, like, people always think that the music business is so easy,

especially rap, especially rap. Like singing, that's a different thing. because everybody can't sing, just like everybody can't rap, but everybody can attempt to rap because it's just putting words together, you know what I'm saying? And shit, there's a bunch of apps to do that for you these days. But people think rap is so easy, you know, they look and they see the cars and the girls and the videos,

not knowing that the label paper, that shit renting or whatnot. But on the outside, looking in, it just looks so easy. And you just be like, man, I can do that. You know what I'm saying? But it's really, it's a lot of hard work, especially the way that we did it, you know, with three six, my people, because our sound was so different, didn't nobody want to give us a record deal.

You know, it was talking about doing cocaine and beating up people and robbing and all this crazy shit. And people didn't want to get us a record deal, so we had to work extra harder to put our own money behind it and, you know, find our own photographers and do our own, you know, clothes and everything ourselves and put it out and walk up and down. I'd never forget men's juice was walking up and down.

Bourbon Street and Canal driving all of it in New Orleans back in like 1994, passing out flowers that we had made at Kinko's. And man, it was so high. We had these black and red three six market shirts on. They were sticking to our backs. People were throwing this shit down. I'm like, hey man, we got an album coming. I was like, what?

They were throwing that shit down. And that's before social media, before you could promote things and distribute things digital. And the push of a button. You had to go out and find the crowds of people. Yeah. You had to find, you had to find somebody to press about this shit.

Man, it was a lot of work. So, you know, like a lot of people think it's easy, but it's not easy at all. I mean, I think great artists,

talented people, charismatic people, can make it look easy. Yeah. Therefore, it can be misinterpreted. Also, I think music,

as an industry, and as a resource gets dismissed as not hard, not important. But culturally, if you think about in hip hop, which we just celebrated 50 years, right? Yeah. Culturally, the most important music of the last 50 years, right? Yeah. If you look at the influence on pop culture, on brand, on marketing and all the industries that have come out of and have relied on hip hop, it's easily going to.

got to be a trillion dollars worth of value in relationship to that culture. And so that being said, really talented people, gifted people make very complicated and hard things look easy. A great ballplayer makes it look easy. So when we watch, it looks easy. therefore we can sit on the couch and criticize because it looks like, oh, that's just how it should. But no one can do it at that level. You guys are a perfect example of doing something at a high level, but making it look easy, making it look fun. It's not fun.

Most of the time when you're in the hard work part, it's not as fun as people think, but when you're good at it, it makes it, you make it look kind of easy and fun. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of interesting. That's what it's about because you've got to treat it. You can't treat it as a job. Yeah. Yeah.

We got the best job, one of the best jobs in the world. I would say we got the best job in the world. I think so. You know, even over actors. Yeah, I think so. Actors have to sit up, you know, and wait on somebody to give them a role and cast them and something and write it and this and that. We can sit in this room for a record right now, grab that guitar and take these mics

and record some shit and put it out in the same day. Generate all kinds of, and that's the interesting thing, is it's a generative industry. like we we can make a song put it out the next day and then there are suddenly there's value where there wasn't yeah suddenly there's money where there wasn't yeah suddenly there's jobs where there wasn't yeah and every day somewhere in the world the kid is picking up up up an instrument or getting on their computer and making a beat you can't stop the creators from finding the way to create yeah and then they're gonna put it out and then suddenly something is is valuable and And that's the interesting thing too, is with that comes a great kind of complicated problem

is the non-creators who tend to be people who are very talented at other things. When it's the right person, it's a brilliant thing. When it's the wrong person, it can be a really tragic experience for the artist. Oh, my God, yes. You know what I mean? Yeah, I'm heads up. That's such a weird set of variables in the music business for who has what kind of experience It's based on like the characters that they come in contact with.

Yeah, and one thing that I learned in the music business is that it's like you was just saying, it's certain people that's good at certain things. And it's about finding what you are good at because everybody shouldn't be the rapper. Everybody shouldn't be the beatmaker. Yeah. Like somebody should be the marketing guy or whatever, whatever. But one thing that I found in my years is some of the people that I've found to be the best person to help out an artist, like, say, for instance, manage artists. It's a person that was a terrible artist.

Yeah. A terrible artist. I know a lot of guys like that that was terrible artists, but they had the drive and they knew where to go get the head shots made and where to do this and where to get this pressed and where to get. where they get a pair of panties with your logo on it, anything you can name. They know how to do all that. And they had all that shit, just sitting up in their house that they didn't sell none of it

because they had terrible music. But they will find somebody that don't have the means, don't have no money, but got all of the talent, and they can get behind that person, and them two together can build an empire. And I've saw it happen. I'm not going to throw the names out there.

We all know some of these people. And I saw it with my own eyes, and I was like, wow. I think sports is a great metaphor for, like, players who were okay, but then they were great coaches. They became great coaches. And some, when you look at a lot of coaches that were decent players or maybe some of them are even great players, I think there's like a metaphor for that.

I do think that like that guy you're talking about, that character that tried to make it as an artist, didn't quite get there. Maybe he got a record deal. He got enough experience to understand the business. but then also I think the pain of failure. I think we all have some artistic streaking us, and a lot of these music industry people who tried to make it as artists and didn't,

they still understand, like, they do end up sometimes being the best because they understand, like, the artist's struggle. And, like, because we're, we fail more than we win. Like, more of our songs are not hits than our hits. Yeah, of course. Right? Like, you make an album with 10 songs on you,

you got two hot singles or one. You got nine losers on there. Yeah, but if we look at the metrics, yeah. And for sure, we're like, we have those songs we love that didn't make it like the other songs. And so, like, we all have the failure experience all the time. I think when you've been in it long enough, you get used to it and it's not looked at as a failure.

It's just, you know, you can't control the results. But, like, I think you have to. understand that the suffering of artists to, I think, be able to help them figure their shit out. And it works, man. You know, like, yeah, shout out to all those managers out there that couldn't make it as artists, man. You had a point, you had a purpose in life. You did have a purpose.

And some of them great managers out there, you know, and it is a certain type of person in the music business that found their way in, you know, and made a career out of them. it you guys have a there's something about you guys that has always been different and i've i've been around plenty enough people um and there there is kind of a generosity you guys have you've always been nice you're serious guys but you've always been inviting nice cool and it feels to me like as long as i've been a fan before i knew you i was a fan and then we and then we met i forget when we met, but we met, how long ago? We met a long time ago.

Well, when you was coming over our house, that was 2006. Yes. That was 2006. Dude, that's a long time ago. That's like 16 years ago, really? Long time ago. And I was a fan before that, so I was excited, obviously. And then to come and get to meet you guys was, as a fan was cool.

As an artist, it was cool because we got to collaborate. But there's a through line, I think, with how you guys carry your, over the span of your entire career, it's to this day. Yeah. There's something about it that lets us all participate. There's something about, like, the approachability that I think, like, as a fan, I think there's just something. And I wonder if it's like, if it's just like a value system or if it's, or if it's just

you guys, you're just cool dudes. We used to teach just to our artists, you know, because we had some artists with us that wasn't approachable. Right. And, you know, they didn't, and I used to always tell them, I'd be like, look, you know, like these fans that you don't want to take a picture with or you don't want to sign an autograph for all the people that's paying our bills. You know, you got to treat the fans good, you know, because at the end of the day,

you're nothing without them. Yeah. You know, so, like, that's one. I can't, you know, I can't speak for juicy. Obviously, he's a cool dude. But one thing about me is just like my mama just always, you know, taught me how, you know, how to treat people, how to treat women. and how to treat, you know, men, this and that, and just people in general.

And, you know, and then coming from the South, there has a lot to do with it, too. Yeah. Especially, you know, the Mid-South where we're from, so the hospitality. So, like at Memphis, there's a lot of people like that there's, like, really, you know, really tough, really gangster, you know what I'm saying? But still, you know, give you the shirt out of their back and really nice. You know, there's a lot of people like that where we're from. And that's sit up and crack jokes. Like, a lot of people don't even understand.

us from Memphis a lot because they, you know, they'll be like, we seem like assholes because we'll crack jokes and this and that, but we don't mean it's nothing offensive by. We just crack jokes. That's how Memphis do. We love to check. We'll be like, like, oh, no, like small shirt ed, nink. Like, we just always crack jokes on each other, but it's nothing offensive. We just, you walk in the soon as you walk in the room, all your homeboy is going to start

check you, they're going to look you up and down. They'll be like, dirty shoes at nink. Get out of here, nink, nink, you know, we just joke like that. You know what I'm saying? So people for the long ones didn't know how to approach us. It's still artists out here today be telling my age. I'm like, I want to do a feature with Paul, man, but he seems mean and he seems this. But then once people get into the moment, they'd be like, he's not a mean dude. Just frowning on a picture or whatever, this and that. But like, you know, in reality, I'm a cool layback dude, man. Just super laid back.

I was lucky I got to have that experience as a fan and then we got to make music together. And that's like, that's the kind of experience you want to have. You know, because we started our band in 96. We really got on in 2000, 2001. So we were like, those first five, six, seven years, we were just like fans, like all the music we grew up on. We grew up on a lot of hip hop. I don't think that's like the model we used in a lot of building our businesses was our favorite artists. We're just following them.

That's the same thing I did. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Master P was one of my biggest heroes. Yeah, I was too. I remember reading articles in those first, in those early no limit days of how he did it. And it was such a revolutionary idea to me. We were in Maryland.

And before the, before you had access to social media, the internet, you would just read magazines or read interviews. Yeah, so say, say, say, yeah. Yeah. And before I started understanding how other people, did it, music was just a big mystery to me. Like, how do you become an artist? Yeah. How do you get signed?

But I remember reading these articles, and I remember Master P and No Limit, and I just thought, I would love to do that one day. I'd love to be able to, but also just kind of the hustle you have to have, the work ethic you have to have, the belief in yourself, the confidence. Because I didn't have a ton of that, and I gained it over time. And it was partly, I think, the experience I got to have meeting other artists who fucked with my music.

And over time, I think gave us all the confidence to do all the things we're doing now. There's no way we would be where we're at today if we hadn't gone through our artist's career and met so many other cool artists that encouraged us. Yeah. We was out at the same time as Master P. He was bigger than us, obviously. But we all came out around the same time, early 90s. And I used to look at Master Peas, you know, the way he was doing his releases and his

horrible work that thinking. And man, a lot of people don't know this. But Master Pete is easily the most powerful rapper of all times. Now, it don't seem like that because, you know, he didn't have a lot of big songs on. He had big songs on a radio. Don't get me wrong. Yeah. But he didn't have like big, big songs on the radio like, you know, like a week.

Bill Smith or something like that or whatever. But, man, he was the most powerful dude in hip hop history. And I'm going to tell you why. I saw all this with my own ass. Master P is the only, I would actually say he's probably the most, you know, was in his days, was the most powerful musician ever in history. Because Master P did something that nobody ever did. Master P, it was so funny, man.

We used to sit up and watch this shit in the magazines. So, for instance, like, you know, he was bringing out music like every month or whatever. Master P would find somebody and turn them into the artist. And turn them into a star. A star. He'll put that little no-limit chain on them, a Rolex watch, a suit, and wrote the book. Album, gold, platinum, this and that. But this is how he killed it.

This is what made him so powerful. Seth for instance, if some other rapper, you know, just Joe Blow or whatever, put a source ad in there, which we used to do source ad in there. We used to do source ad. Those ass was $6,000 a page. Yep. So somebody would put it in there, and if you did the double one,

you know, it's $12,000. They had the full spread. Somebody put it in their release. Joe Blow, new album, May 15th. Master P. await to like May 1st or the end of fucking April and be like new so-and-so-so-so-so-and-so-so-al

album, May 15th. Then next thing you know, Joe Blow would be like, new album, June 15th. People were actually changed, they release dates because they didn't want to come out the same day as a no-limin artist did. Nobody never did that. Nobody else in history made people do that.

I mean, you know, you still don't know about it want to come out with a Jay-Z, the day of Jay-Z or Eminem coming out. There's always exceptions to everything. I do think he is one of those pioneers that built models that ended up staying for a long time and models that lots of people followed. Yeah. And I was one of them. Yeah. It was definitely one of them.

I was a fan as a kid. And then it informed a lot of my, you know, like my version of it was different, but definitely it informed a lot. My education, I think, was artists that I was reading articles about and how they did it. And that's how I formed my whole. I think that's how we made all of our plans. Yeah. And thank God.

With us, we couldn't even, you know, like I said, we came out. We started in the early 90s. So it wasn't even really, I didn't even really read magazines to, you know, to see other guys' plans. I just watched it. So, like, I would watch, like, EZE and, you know, with Ruthless Records. And I would watch little Jay, Jay Prince with, you know, rap-a-lot records. Yep. And I would see how they was doing everything.

And then I just made our label hypnotized masks do basically the same. What a great... They always had the Rufus Records Presents. Yep. A Rapelot Records Presents. So I would put hypnotized minds present by Jake Pat, blah, blah, blah, whatever, you know, three smog, whatever. Crazy. Yeah.

It still works today. It's crazy. It's crazy for me, though, to think about what you guys, you were there. You guys were there for all of it. You got to see that, that, that southern hip-hop movement. Yeah. You were there. You were right there.

Yeah. And right when it was heating up. I mean, you guys were a part of it. You guys were it. Yeah. All the things you guys got to just witness and be a part of and be in the middle of, it's crazy to me. Because I was literally just a fan.

I wasn't there. I wasn't in the middle of it. I was listening to it. Yeah. But that's crazy to think about. Yeah, where y'all was from, like, I used to look at sound scan, back in the day when they had sound sound so cool. Yeah.

And I used to see that we saw. sold, we were selling a lot of records in the D.C., Maryland, DMV area. Yes, big time. Yeah, big time. And I was like, damn. I was like, I wonder who's listening to us over there. We were. It was you.

Yeah. DMV is cool, man. Yeah, I still do shows there all the time. It's good people. You know, we have all these little pockets. Yeah. And it's different in other places. You go, Baltimore is totally different from D.C.

Yeah, I just left Baltimore. Literally last week. I was there for Fourth of July. That was the last time I was there. Yeah, I was there last, like a couple weeks ago, and then I was there, like, not, like a week ago. And then I was there in December last year, November December, December. But yeah, I probably try to go to Baltimore twice a year because they love us out there. Yeah.

And then they were gangsters hell. Yeah. Yeah, gangsters hell. It's a funny place, man. I mean, it's kind of southern in some ways, but not. Yeah, because y'all right on the borderline of the north and the south. Yeah. Like Virginia, like, you don't know if they're from the north or they're from the south.

Yeah. And that's how I think Timberland Sound was so unique. It was like the tempos of ours in the south, but it had, like, you know, like hints of up north in it. It kind of goes from like Virginia Beach all the way. It stretches to, like, Baltimore. That whole Maryland, Virginia, and then Virginia Beach is kind of like this little pocket off further south, you know. But there's so much talent, too, and artists that come out of all those places. Yeah, Chris Brown, Tray songs, Genuine, right?

Yeah, Genuine was from PG, Brandy, Mario. Was it Maya from older? Maya. Man, Maya's still hot. Yeah. Still beautiful. Looks the same. She didn't even age.

She doesn't age. Yeah. Yeah, she is. And it's an interesting place. I guess it's probably the same in Memphis when you meet someone from Memphis. You take a lot of pride. And I'm always happy when I see an artist come out of any Virginia, Maryland, D.C. I'm always supportive.

Yeah, me too, man. Memphis got a lot of hot ones now, man. When you guys started, what was Memphis like music-wise? It was Memphis, music-wise, now, I ain't going to talk about rap. It was hot that's rap then, but music-wise, Memphis was always hot. As, you know, we had Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Isaac Hayes, man, barcage.

You could go staple singers. You could go for days. Yep. Like a lot of stuff you hear on the radio now is, It's from Memphis. Yeah. You know, like speaking of Virginia, Missy Elliott, that I can't stand the rain. Yep.

That's Memphis. Yeah. It came from Memphis. And it's a hot song on the rail right now. It got their walk-on-bye. It got that looped all the way through it. It's a female artist. It's on fire right now.

That's Isaac Hayes. That's Memphis. You know, so Memphis has been killing it, you know. musically forever because you know it's like they kind of consider it the home of it is the home of blues yeah kind of considered the home of rock and roll it's not you know not really i think there's like ohio or something right Cleveland or something kind of rock and roll yeah i would yeah i don't know i mean that's what the the the rock and roll hall of fame i think it's in no it is it's in ohio ohio but for me it feels like the the history of music when i think of it i think of

Memphis, Nashville. I think of where it was born is down south with the guitar, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so when I think of Memphis, I do think of all that old music, but when did hip-hop? Hip-hop style popping in late 80s, but it got hot, hot early 90s. Right. Early 90s, like 1990, it was on fire. And then it haven't stopped since.

That's when it really stopped blowing up. And that's when we came out. But it was even guys before us. Like, my guy Spanis Fly. I talked to him all the time. We got the same birthday. But he was like the pioneer of Memphis hip-hop Memphis rap. So, yeah, late 80s was on fire.

But 1990, it started getting crazy. Yeah. Then it started going from there. And we met through J.E. Yeah. Yeah. I just thought of that. St. Louis.

Yeah. There was also just another. Is he still out here? Did he move back? He moved back. Yeah. I remember him moved back because he sent me a picture of him on the lake and a boat. Yeah.

Yeah. One of the, I think, one of the most talented producers. That dude was hard. Man. That guy was good. He did all that Nelly. All the Nelly stuff, man. Just timeless classic.

You know, J.E. He's just one of those one of a kind, special talents. Yeah. Too talented for his own good, probably. Yeah, that was my guy, man. Yeah. We had some good times. Yeah.

I'm going to have to look him up when I get home. I talked to him on Twitter like 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. He's in St. Louis. Your solo stuff's doing really good. Yeah. It is, man.

Thank God. You have millions of Spotify listeners already. I feel like it's, you're just. you're just starting, I feel like you're just getting started and you already have millions of... Yeah, it is just getting started because I really just started focusing on it. Like I always did, you know, like a tape here, tape there.

Right. But when I was starting to get, when I was starting to get hot, you know, some, you know, like the, like I brought out an album in 2009 called Skeleton that did really, really good. And then the mixtape scene kicked in in 2010, 2009, 2010-ish. It started going crazy with the mixtapes. And then I just stopped.

You know, I just stopped. I was like, I didn't really understand giving away free music. Yeah. You know, I didn't really understand that. The funny part about it is I spent Christmas over Quincy Jones house once. Quincy Jones, like the uncle. Legendary. Yeah, legendary.

Yeah, legendary. I love him. I was over Quincy Jones' house for Christmas. I think it was 2006, 2007. And Quincy Jones was like, he was like, He was like, here's soon. We're going to be giving away music. I'm like, really?

Yeah. He always knows what's coming. He called it. He called it. So, man, fucking come 2000, like a year or two later, 2008, 2009, the mixtape scene ain't got hot. And I was just like, I couldn't do it. You know, a lot of people did it. And they blew him up, like walker, flaka, you know, a lot of guys did it.

I couldn't do it. I think at the time it was an avenue not only for releasing music and getting around a lot of the red tape. Getting around all the red tape. Yeah. I was putting it nicely. Nice about it. Yeah. So I don't have to pay anybody.

I don't have to worry about splits. I don't have to. Now it would never work because in order to upload those songs to the platforms, you have to enter in all that information. It's got to be sorted out. If not, it won't last long. Yeah. be pulled down and whatever. So it was a wild time.

It was like a wild west. Man, it was a wild west, man. People was just using. No one was getting paid. No, man, nobody was getting paid, not even the person that was doing it. And I was like, man, I'm not going to sit up here and bring out all these free songs, four and five makes tapes a year with 30 songs. I'm like, no, I couldn't do it.

But you also, I think you're a producer. I think there's something about you that you understand those guys that are making, those tracks and writing those songs. And look, we can't go back and change any of it, but we know what that means to these producers. A lot of times it's studio sessions and it's a song that wasn't good enough to go to an album or whatever. So they're like, let's put a mixtape together and we'll just use all this stuff.

And like we understand as cool as that can be to the fans and it ups the artist. And some of the producers can make a name just being on the mixtape. So that's an opportunity. but we also know what that means when they're not getting really get get and some of the artists probably took care of the producers i'm not saying that it was all of them but we but yes the mixtape era was messy and lots of people didn't get recognition or or pay it was crazy yeah so i couldn't do that so i agree with you on that yeah and by this time you know we was we was super super successful yeah we won the the oscar of 2006 so

you know, I'm sitting in this big house, you know, I got all these paid for properties. I got tons of money. I'm like, man, I just sit up here and chill to this shit blow over. Smart. Yeah, and that's what I did. Wisdom. Yeah, that's what I did. I brought out like two mixtapes there.

And I even still put those out for sale. Right. Yeah, I made my own beast on them and shit. So, you know, I put them out for sale. So then once all of that came out, that started to die out. Then I started getting calls to produce other people. So I produced a record for Drake and Jay-Z, me and my artist Tiwai, for Drake and Jay-Z, and then, you know, we went Trippy Red and, you know, Little Baby and all these guys,

and that lasted for years. Still doing that. But then, you know, what then like the- You're a good producer. Yeah. But then with like the last couple of years, you know, my fan style, they was like, oh, yeah, we like this that you made for that person, but we want to hear you do some more stuff. We want to hear you bring out another out of it.

So I started, you know, I started, you know, I started, focusing on me as a solo artist. And overnight, you know, within like two years, a year and a half or whatever, overnight, I went from like on my solo stuff, not including Three Seas My Field Project Patti internet. On my solo stuff, I went from like 150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify to three million.

Yep. Yeah, overnight. And I was like, man, you know, this is what I'm talking about. So now, you know, I just try to keep it around there, 2.6, you know, 2.8 somewhere around there. And then I'm just doing all this independent myself, you know, like I don't even really put a lot of money behind. I sent a few tweets out, a few Instagram posts. And then I look at major artists and there'll be some major artists out here with 500,000 monthly lists.

Yeah. Or a million or 900 or like a really, really good one might have like three, three, four million. And I'm like, damn, I'm beating or keeping up with major artists with no money behind me. There's a ton of value in just being you. so where someone else would have to spend money to get where you're at, you've earned that because you did spend money back there. Yeah, right? It's like real estate.

It's like it grows. The value of us grows over time if we stay in the market. What artists do all the time out of fear is they change directions and they stop investing in that thing. Yeah, yeah. And I'll guarantee you you'll be a $5 million before you know it if you keep releasing. Yeah, I am. Because you do a certain quality of music and your brand is good.

So if your brand was whack or damaged or, you know, there's something about our, I think anyways, about our brand if we don't fuck it up and cheapen it and give it away to people because we're scared or they convince us they can make it better than we can. No one can make our brand better than we can. Yeah, of course. And that's what we have to be is just ourselves. Yeah. And I think that's where we go off track sometimes is when we get spun around in this crazy business. And then we stop listening to our inner guidance system and our gut and make decisions that aren't right for our brand. Yeah.

And we've all probably had those little moments. Yeah, yeah. They weren't big enough to damage the brand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We caught ourselves quick enough to go, no, I'm not doing that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a one-off. Yeah, boy, we had those.

Yeah, because Project Pat, man, he got on us one time. Like, Thracian Maupi was always known for this bass that I, like, handmade myself, this long bass. Like, do... Yep. You could hear it. It would hold forever. Yeah. And when Cash Money started getting hot, we was, you know, we was out before Cash Money,

but we did songs together, like 97, 96, whatever. Yeah. And Cashmoney was doing, you know, Man and Fresh would get on that SV12 and set the knobs. You can sit the knobs on the SV12. He'd go like, do, do, do, do, do. And he was doing all that crazy shit with the 808s. And I was like, man, I'm going to do this. And then we started, we made like a whole album like that.

Thank God the album was jamming. Yeah. It's called Teddy Club of Thuds. It was jamming. And it did good, you know, so, me as a coppers. But Project Pat pulled me to the side. He's like, look, man, you got to stop using all these 808s. You gotta start you, like,

then ain't Charles Sound, like you gotta go back to that long base for all that long base, you know. Who's your other, you know, your favorite producers over the years, like a guy like Manny Fresh or a guy,

are the producers you've either worked with or just that you love that you think it inspired you at least a little? Who would you say like some of your favorite guys are? Man, most of my favorite guys are, oh, all the older guys.

Right. You know, like Dr. Dre and Yeller. Yep. and Hank Shockley and all those guys and the guys that are rap a lot of head,

Red, Red, and all those dudes. I really grew up on the old school dudes. Yeah. Because of that mistake with Man and Frisch. Yeah. Listen to Manifresh, you know? Yeah. I just made myself never focus on listening

to other producers no more. Right. Right. Because if you do that, you can lose track of your own sound. Yeah. So I didn't listen to the old dudes, you know. I mean, the new dudes. You know, I, I, I listen here and there just stay updated.

Right. See what's going on? You got to stay update. You don't want to stand like you're still in the 80s. I got my kids for that. They're teenagers, so they play everything for me. Yeah, yeah, it's good to have. Yeah.

So I listen here and now, you know, when I'm riding, I play some stuff, you know what I'm saying? But other than that, I don't listen too hard. I don't listen too hard. I might hear like, oh, that's a cool choppy deer right there. That's a cool edit. But I don't focus too much more on that. Yeah, because of that. That's smart.

And I just, you know, just stick to my own sound. And, like, what you were just saying about artists that get out track and, you know, and mess up their brand or whatever, when Three Sixth Mafia Sound went away, like in 2010-ish when people was on to, like, more gimmicky rap, and it wasn't about the crunk rapping all that. Yep. You know, I still stuck to our same sound, the dark rap, this and that. You know what I'm saying?

And I would put out stuff. some of it would sell, some of it wouldn't. You know, but I still just stuck to the sound because you always got to, you know, think about your core fans. You're nothing without the core fans. These new fans, you get a new sound and you get the new fans because of their new sound, these fuckers will leave you in a heartbeat.

You know what I'm saying? So you stick to your core sound. You can have some album cuts on there with the new sound or a little blends of it and what you're doing, even in a single, but stick to the core sound. And I stuck to that. And all that shit that I brought out, that didn't sell is getting resampled and going up in sales now.

It's the value of the legacy and the brand. It only shows itself over time. But you have to see it all the way through. So you can't measure the success of your brand by every single song's success. It's got to be the catalog. Yeah. And a great career is moments over decades, but it's, Number one is don't fuck the brand up.

It's to me, even with Good Charlotte, right, we're different, but we got together we were in high school. We look at that as this like classic car that we don't let anyone fuck with.

And when we take it out, everybody goes, that's a fucking cool car. And maybe it's only two shows or maybe it's 20 shows, whatever it is. We control who can be around it because we don't want anyone scratching it.

We don't want letting anyone else drive it. and we feel like we're protecting the legacy versus trying to keep up with any band of the moment. By the way, we want that band to have their success. We don't want to have their success. We want to have our legacy, and it's going to be whatever it's going to be. Only time will tell what the legacy is going to be.

But I think if we protect it, it'll be positive versus watering it down and making it negative. Yeah, yeah, don't do that. And when you think about like hypnotized minds, the legacy and that brand and you think Three Six Mafia, the brand still stands today. Yeah. As a giant iconic brand. And if you could at any time you want, you could put something out and it will be respected

because the brand has lasted and stood the test of time. You never, yeah, to me, from as a fan. You never watered it down. You guys always stayed yourself. Yeah. I guess it's like, I guess it comes down to just being ourselves. Yeah.

And I think having some class. Yeah. You know, having good manners. Yeah. And staying true to yourself. Yeah. Because the fans, man,

the fans are smarter than people realize, man. Yeah. And they getting super. They getting smarter now. Yeah. With, you know, social media and that technology, These fuckers are look at what you post. They'll look dead in your eyes and tell if you bullshit and not.

Yeah, like they know. Like, they'll tell you. They'll come in on there too and be like, man, come on, man. Stop doing this, man. You get shut down. Yeah. Yeah. And now you live in a world where everybody's afraid of that too.

Yeah. And sometimes you can kind of like live through that initial moment and something can, but there's whole brands running their whole marketing. on some kid in the middle of nowhere could post something that's funny, shitting on that brand, and then it picks up steam, and the whole campaign's dead

because some kid on the internet said some funny shit. Yeah, so funny, man. It's crazy how powerful that is. And you have to find the balance of how much you listen to it, but it's a real thing. Yeah, it is. It's crazy.

You're playing with Jelly Roll. Yeah, I'm looking forward to that, man. I love Jelly Roll. Yeah, it's a man. He's cool dude. I don't know him personally. Yeah. I'm just a fan of his.

Yeah, we basically discovered Jelly Row. Well, our artist, Little White, discovered Jelly Row back in like 2009. Yeah. And brought Jelly Row to us, and we brought out a project with Jelly Row, Little White, and another guy named B-P, the rest of the piece. It was called Snow, S-N-O. And, man, Jelly Row, man, he was writing so many hard hooks on there and killing it. He's talented.

man, this dude is hard, man. Yeah. Me and him end up getting really close, and we've been close ever since then, you know. He seems like a cool dude like that. Yeah, he's really cool. Yeah. He really cool. And now he brought us on this tour.

There's going to be our first country tour, man. I'm looking forward to it. I never performed in front of a country audience outside of, you know, people that I know that's country from South, but. I think his audience is that new country audience. Yeah, it is. You know? Yeah, because he come from hip-hop.

Yeah, and I think that the real country audience listens to hip hop. They listen to country. They want different things at the shows. It's not to say I know the old country audience. I don't really know the old country audience. I know, I mean, I like country music, so I definitely have, I know some country artists. I'm friends with Luke Combs. I love Luke.

Luke's a cool dude. And I've been to a bunch of his shows. To me, it's this new country audience. They want to hear everything. Yeah, yeah, they do. And so I think it's a good, I think it's a good look. I think it's cool. No, it's super good look, man.

I think it's going to be, I think it's going to be great. It's going to be fun, you know, like, because I hang out with a lot of country artists, too. Like, I'm really good friends and Hardy. Yeah. And Morgan Wallen. We're not good friends, but we, like, we're really cool. Yeah. I saw Morgan Wallen one day.

I was in Cali on vacation. I was hanging at this spot that I like to go to. And a secret spot? Secret spot. Okay, I like that. I'm talking it's so secret that when I was walking to the beach, I saw two Cadillac trucks on rims, like 24s or something. I'm like, I might not be no fucking rappers here.

Not a secret anymore. Yeah, so I see two SUVs parked directly behind each other. So I knew they were there together. They looked exactly like, and I was like, man, don't let me walk in here. There's some fucking rappers in this motherfucker. Like, I love rappers, but just like the place that I want to hang with rappers at. Right. You know what I'm saying?

This is a family spot. I want to hang with anybody here. I don't want to hang nobody. Yeah. So I walk in there, I look around, I don't see no rappers. And then next thing I know, I see one tall black dude who I knew, and like four white guys walk in with him. And I look, and one of them was Morgan Wallet. Yeah.

And he was like, and it was my first time meeting. I'm like, Morgan? And he's like, yeah. And then my guy, the tall guy who I knew he used to work with Justin Tim. Like, the tall guy who I knew, he's like, Morgan, tell him what you're listening to in the car right now. And he's like, three seats are my opinion? Oh, really? And it was so cool.

Yeah, when he went out to the truck, that's what he was playing. It was him in those two trucks. Yeah. They pulled up like rappers. Crazy. Yeah. That's it. Yeah.

That's a new. country. It's a new country, man. They have a, they're rolling deep too. Yeah, baseball, calves, necklaces. Yeah, chains. Chains. Chains. All that's shit. But that just, to me, it just goes back to the, especially in the South, but all over the world, the impact that you guys had. Yeah. And that hip-hop has had. Yeah. It's all of us. Yeah. It's fun hanging out with rappers, though. As long as you don't hang around with the wrong one, you get you step in trouble. Yeah. I've done that with the jail. Yeah, I think it's people in general, man.

I think when you get success and you have a lot, I experienced it myself. A lot of people come around. Yeah, oh my God, yes. And that's part of the experience of, it's part of the cautionary tales we always hear about, hear about drugs, you got to watch out for that. you hear about the darker side of the business if you if you're dealing with the wrong people

you got to watch out for that and then you got to watch out for all these people that don't have their own goals their own dreams uh or maybe they do have a a delusion that they could be what you are and that you're going to somehow make them that and i think that all artists have to watch out for that uh it could come in the form of other artists or want to be artists it could come in the form of People from the past, right? Like, you have to know when someone's got to go. They can't be around because they're a liability. Yeah.

Because they aren't holding what you work so hard for with as much care and protection as you are. Yeah. Because it can all go away. Yeah, in a second. With one bad night. Yeah, exactly. One bad decision. And it could be from someone that is just there.

Yeah. And they shouldn't have never been in the room. Most of the time is like. Most of the time. Yeah. Because there's, it's, it's. The entourage. Yeah.

It's dark. Yeah. That's why when I be, when I go do my shows, like the promoter asking, how many people traveling? And I tell them, you're like, really? That's it. I'm like, yeah. Keep it tight.

Yeah. I'm just having, I'm having, the mistake that a lot of artists make is they have, and I mean, I used to do. We all used to do. We've all done it. We've all done it. You got to do, you got to go through it. Yeah.

to know you don't need to do it. Yeah. Having the people around that don't mean shit. Do you ever see a new artist that has that? And you go, man, I wish someone was telling me he doesn't need to do that. Yeah, yeah. Well, I got a friend of man that's an artist. I wish I could tell him that.

I just don't know how to tell it. It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. Because when they're in the middle of that hurricane, that tornado, they think they need more than they do. Because they're having trouble, I think, processing that level of success. when you get there, especially those, it's really like those first few years when the fame or the money comes in and a wave and then it just keeps hitting you. I think what no one tells people is like,

you can continue to keep that up, but there are moments where the waves aren't as big. It's ebbs and flows, right? You have a hot record, a great few years. You go here and then you've got to kind to build back up to here. And on that first wave, I think people think it's never going to stop coming. And I need all this stuff around me. Maybe to feel safe. Maybe feel protected. Maybe.

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website on your on your website, in the your website. And it's Yeah, a lot of them do it to feel safe. It actually makes them less safe.

Yeah, it does. Yeah, it makes them less safe. Like, I've seen some artists that have guys with them that's, you know, the artists would be cool, but then the guys are, be, you know, like, you know, like talking crap to girls and all that. Flyability.

Yeah, that's a super loud bit. Like, oh, bitch, you don't want to give me your nothing? Get out here. I'm like, man, you cannot be talking to these girls like that, bro. You would get all of you motherfuckers in some trouble. Like, you can't have people like that around you. If you have somebody in your crew that's doing that, that's the first one you get rid of. Yep.

That's the first one you get rid of. But, you know, with me, like, I don't have those issues because if you're not physically, doing something, I learned just from traveling and touring a lot with insane clown posse. When that bus stopped, everybody knew what to go do. This person went and got the makeup together. This person washed the outfits. This person started taking barrels to the stage. This person started doing that.

And like everybody had with insane clown posse, everybody had a few jobs. Right. Like the same people that was doing like, you know, like whatever the hell doing something else on the show. I mean, you know, preparing the show, they also will go backstage and throw on a clown mask and an outfit right quick and run out on stage and be a part of the show. Right. Help spray the Fago and then go right back to the other job. The tour manager was also the production manager.

Yeah. The sound guy was also, you know, everybody had like two or three jobs. Yeah, a few hats, man. And I keep people with me that everybody got a job. I keep a minimum, you know, like the road manager, the camera guy, the body guard. That's it. You know, like I have friends that have come like, oh yeah, you're in Virginia. I'm going to pull up, come there, this or that, but no, they're not traveling with me.

I ain't having nobody travel with me just to be there, man. Hell no. I want to talk about the next like two, three years for you. What does that look like? Man, just bringing out. So I've been on the road here lately. I've been sticking to my schedule where this tour that I just came off of. I've just been gone for like a month.

Which tour was that? It was a solo tour I did called Mafia League. It was a solo tour. But up to that, I was bringing out a new song every three weeks. Yeah. And I've been keeping it up here. I always wanted to set their schedule. But here lately, this whole year I've been doing it,

probably about a year I've been doing it, maybe a little less than a year. And I got thrown off when I went on this tour. But as soon as I got home, this past Monday, I knocked two songs out immediately to get back on. their schedule. So I want to just keep focusing more on my solo career and obviously, you know, other things, you know, people I produce and whatnot, but just more on, on my, on my solo career and some other stuff, you know, we opened up a restaurant and, yeah, just focusing on all the new stuff, you know, just Paul, man, just focusing on Paul. How did you meet Quincy?

Quincy Jones? Yeah. I mean, we had the same late, man, rest in peace, Nancy. Nancy Stern She just passed away She, she, she administrated Quincy's publishing

all the way up to the day she died Quincy's publishing and she introduced she used to do ours until we went to a bug and then went to BMG but she,

I met Quincy to him What an amazing guy Yeah man, it's bad You ever been this house? Yes Jesus Christ Unbelievable Unbelievable

He showed you the video of how he built it No He usually showed it everybody when you come over his house. I did not see that video. And he literally set a camera in the dirt. And they got it like sped up.

Yeah. So you see all these bugs running about it. It's like five years of snow, all kind of crazy shit going on and just see this big old huge $90 million house going up. So they did like a time lapse. Yeah. That's insane.

Insane for years. I've never met anyone like, I'll say Quincy and Lionel. Yeah. Two guys I've never met anyone in my life. I've never met anyone like them. Just so legendary. You can't even comprehend the achievement that they have and the influence that those, what they've created in the world.

We couldn't even quantify like how influential the artistic work is. Yeah. But then to be able to experience them as a human. how generous they are, how nice they are, how humble. I don't know, Quincy will share, he'll just tell stories. And I really, really admire him. And I'm always in awe whenever I've gotten to be around him. Quincy still send me Christmas gifts every year.

That sounds like that. It sounds like it. Yeah, man. He's that guy. He's cool. Yeah, he's so cool, man. But y'all going to tell you a funny story about Quincy, just on the way over here when I was exiting off the highway,

coming down here. I was listening to the Sinatra channel on X-M. And he was playing a song, and I heard them say in the back, they said Quincy Jones' name, like orchestrated by Quincy Jones' song. I'm like, what?

Oh, yeah. I knew he came from jazz. Like, a lot of people don't know that he was doing jazz before he was doing Michael Jackson. He was Sinatra's guy. I did not know that. Oh, my God. You've got to have you,

You've got to watch the documentary. I haven't watched it. I need to watch it. Rashida, I think Rashida and Kadada, like, put it together. They did an incredible job. It's one of the best documentaries I've seen. And it really does, like, capture the scope of his life and his work. I'm watching that tonight.

Also, the side of him as a man and watching what he's gone through in his life. It's incredible, man. It blew my mind. It's one of a kind. He's one of one. I mean, it's just crazy. Yeah, he was telling me how he told me this over his house when he was showing me all his plaques.

He told me how much money he got paid up front for like the thriller album. It was like a small amount, like 25 grand or something. Turned it to like, I don't know, $250 million or more. But he was like, he was like, you know, they didn't trust me at first because I was a jazz producer. They didn't trust me to make an album like this. One of the best, one of the, one of the greatest memories I have

and moments in my life that it's very hard to explain, but my wedding, I got married. We had our wedding at my father, at Lionel's house, and it wasn't that big. It was like 150 people.

Oh, yeah, I know one person that wasn't there. I keep going. And the end of the night, everything shut down. So it didn't go all night long? It did. It was like 3 a.m., right? That's pretty all night long.

Yeah. They're cleaning up. They're taking, Everyone's left. They're taking everything apart. I'm sitting between Lionel and Quincy. We were the last three men standing. Wow, you took a picture that I hope.

No. No, you didn't. We never take pictures. Photographer was gone. But it was one of the most kind of, Lionel's an amazing father-in-law. There couldn't be a better dad. I can imagine.

But that moment was crazy. I was sitting there with, we were the last three guys. And I was like, of course it's Lionel and Quincy. They shut this down with me. It was incredible. Of course, I remember a lot of things about my wedding, but that in particular was pretty crazy and surreal and special. Yeah, that's a moment.

A real, like, man's moment. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, that's cool. Also, Revron married us, so I thought that was cool. I did. That's really cool. Yeah.

Oh, wow. We need a preacher. Let's get a cool one. Revereux a man. Yeah, he was cool. Yeah, he's really cool. He's still doing it. Yeah.

Vegas residency. Yep. I ain't brought out of albums. It's probably 83. Does he need to? Don't need to. Classic. Just play the hits. Play classics. Don't have to. When you got those. But that's the thing, too. When you look at your catalog, you go, I'm going to make more music. And you're likely going to continue to make hits, participate in helping other artists make hits. But the catalog, it stands the test of time. You don't have to. That's all icing. Yeah. It was all the hard work over the decade.

of what you did that allow you, I think the legacy is, it's so hard to achieve. It's what I think every artist. You could talk to artists with big hits right now and they want what you have, which is, and that only comes with time and stick into it and stick into your guns and protecting the brand, protecting the legacy. And all the hits you're going to have, icing. It's the legacy. It's the great songs.

It's what got you the Oscar. It's what made 3-6 Mafia what it is today. It's all those years at work. All the work people didn't see, all passing out the flyers, putting in the hours. And, you know, every artist hopes for that. But it can't have it if you don't last through the decades and stay out of all the shit. Yeah, there was a struggle, man. I remember days and tons of days with me and Drew slept in the same bed.

Yeah. Don't take that the wrong way. No. But we would do a concert. They would be like, you, oh, man, we won our first big concert. No, our first big concert outside of Memphis, outside of Tennessee period, was in Atlanta. And they was like, look, we're going to give you all one room. That's it.

And it was like a crew of us, you know, back in those days, you were old deep. It was like 14 of them. They said, we give you one. One room and this much money, $500 or whatever it was. We drove down there 100 cars of us. We were so happy. The whole hood came, everybody came. And I was like, look, dude, we got one room.

We had a rule. Like, whoever slept in the bed, which is, you know, me and juicing the lead guys to get the bed, obviously. But whoever slept in the bed couldn't have the blankets or the sheets. Everybody on the floor. Everybody on the floor had to have blankets and sheets. We did the same thing. Man, those motherfuckers in the tub sleeping.

Because no, no. That's the misconception. though is that is that you have all this money when you're starting out you don't have anything and you're trying to get it and when you're going on your first tours you don't get paid and so we were in motels sharing people were on the floor shit was disgusting yeah but we were we were so excited to be there opening for so and so or doing whatever we would sleep wherever we'd sleep in the van we get one or two motel rooms for 10 guys the second show in Atlanta they gave us two hotel rooms Yeah.

And then when you said, disgusted, oh, my God, my boy, Gid Hat Chris, man. You know, we were just celebrating. We were celebrating on the way down there. We was in, it was different cars, but the main, main of us was in a six-passenger van. And Get-Had Chris was sleeping in the back on one of my other boy's shoulders. Let me just, dude. Threw up down it.

I think it was getting how Chris did down. He got threw up on somebody just threw up on somebody else's shoulder. We was packed in this on the fuck. Disgusting. Man, we pulled over, man. It was all kind of, we pulled over to the car wash. Those little, thank I was, like, driving through, like, Alabama, they had those little, yeah, those outdoor pulling car washes.

Man, that sure was a nightmare. Oh, my God. But, you know, no more that. Now we go to places we don't want anyone else to know about. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, those same dudes I'm hiding from them when I see them. Yeah. Used to sneak in the club, now I sneak out.

Yeah, that's how we do. Yeah, that's it. Thanks for coming, dude. Man, thanks for having me, man. Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving, my house. All right. Serious.

Serious. All right, dude. I'm going to be there. I might be there the night before. Count on it. Bring pie. All right, brother. Appreciate it.

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