Camp Gagnon - Music Exec Shares Secret Meetings w/ Kanye, Jay-Z, Eminem & MORE

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

What’s good people, today were talking to Noah Callahan-Bever, former editor In Chief of Complex, executive at DefJam, and creator of Idea Generation. He had rap stories for days, and today we talk about what it was like being with Jay-Z and Kanye as they made Watch The Throne, getting trapped in an elevator with Eminem, and getting Kim Kardashian on her first cover shoot. This convo was awesome and inspiring, I’m excited for y’all to peep it.Thanks to Morgan & Morgan for sponsoring today...

I get a call. He's like, yo, you want to come to Hawaii? And I'm like, to do what? He's like, just for the vibes, man. It's so ill, it's so peaceful. Just come and hang for a week. Like, all right, I don't know what's going to come of it, but I have to do this. I go to Hawaii and I witness the process for a week. During the like, whatever, five nights that I was there, the dude never slept in his own bed once. Kanye would like literally work until he fell asleep in the chair sitting up. And I remember there's one night, it's now like 4, 4.30 in the morning. Like, everyone has cleared out. But me and Stephen were with Kanye.

He's completely like, snoring. I'm like, yo, you think we should get a cab? He's like, yo, we got to be quiet, though. Close the laptop. And I'm like, the sofa creaks. And Kanye's like, well, yo, what are you doing? Y'all are leaving, right? I'm still working.

And we're like, oh, no, I was just going to the bathroom. This is Noah Callahan Beck. He was the editor-in-chief of Complex for over 12 years and helped create shows like hot ones, sneaker shopping, and everyday struggle. He now has his own show, Idea Generation, which is amazing. He's been in the music industry his entire life and has some of the most amazing hip-hop stories I've ever heard. Today, he tells me what it's like being in the room while Kanye and Jay-Z made Watch the Throne, the time him and Eminem ran around L.A. before he was famous,

and how he gave Kim Kardashian the first big break. This is a long one, people, but an amazing conversation nonetheless, so without further ado, enjoy Noah. Welcome to camp. I'm actually curious. This is something no one has brought up. I listen to a bunch of interviews with you. This is natural. Yes. Bro. Yeah, when I was like 15, I was wearing a hat backwards and, you know, with the open joint, a friend of mine was like, yo, you have white hair, B. And I was like, no, I don't. That's crazy. I look at the mirror and I was like, holy shit, I have white hair. Yeah. I have to say I'm very grateful to whoever has placed it there. Yeah. Could be in a worse spot on my head. Bro, I mean, you're like a super villain. It's like insane. Like this is like some Batman shit.

You're not the first person to call me a supervillain. Bro, you're trying to like destroy Gotham or something. Like that is crazy. You got just like the one perfect swoop. Like that's a, that's legendary. And you play into it too. You know what I'm saying? I see you with like the slick back.

I mean, how would you not? Yeah, exactly, dude, that's sick. That's what I actually really like about your stories. It seems like you were always going to make it.

You know what I'm saying? Like at least from the outside. Like it's easy for me to say like retroactively looking at your timeline. Like you were just hustling. I think you have all the guys I met from New York because you grew up in like lower Manhattan. Yeah. All the guys I knew that grew up in New York that have like a combination of like intellect, but also like New York hustle are always going to figure it out. You know what I mean?

Like there's very much a culture here where it's just like, yeah, I'm not going to like settle for sort of like this B plus life. Like I'm going to go get it. And I don't know. Just from the way your story kind of pans out. I mean, I think the thing is like you grow up in New York and like you have access and you know, you see this in like the conversations that people have about representation and whatnot now. It's like when you're growing up in lower Manhattan, you see everything. You see people making millions of dollars on Wall Street. You see rappers walking through the streets, you know, in Soho.

Like my whole story was I got an internship. I called Nervous Records when I was 16. I just loved Black Moon and Smith & Wesson. And I saw that they, you know, I looked them up in the phone book. I saw that they had an office on 42nd Street. I called random, just the, you know, whatever the main number was. And I got an internship. and I was cutting stickers and like calling like retail and just getting like information to give

to the different promo and you know marketing people and you know again I like run into Buckshot Shorty and Drewha when they get into like a huge argument with the owner of nervous records yeah this is funny actually so they get into this huge argument with the owner of nervous and my boss Chris Thomas kind of like excuses me and it's like you know might get a little hectic in here I think you should bounce. So I'm like, okay, cool. So I bounce out to the elevator bank. And it's like one of these old school New York buildings where there's like two elevators and there's like 60 floors. Yeah, of course. It takes hell long for it to go up and down. So I hit the button and I'm just waiting for like eight minutes. And you know, I'm just listening to my walking and not thinking anything.

And I rate Buckshot Shorty and Drewha come storming out of the office and now we're standing awkwardly next to each other waiting for the elevator together. And Buckshot's like, yo, you're an internet in there? And I'm like, yeah, I am. He's like, you fuck a Black Moon? And I'm like, yeah, it's like one of my favorite. That's why I'm there. And he gives me a boot camp click shirt. And I was like, holy shit. This is like a prize possession. You know, this is not something you can buy in the store. This is a promo item. They had just done their deal of priority. That summer, I'm walking down the street wearing my boot camp click shirt on 18th street between 6th and 7th Avenue. And a dude named James Azor is walking by getting his lunch. And he's

like, yeah, where'd you get that shirt? And I'm like, oh, I ran into Buckshot in the elevator at nervous. After a big blowout. I was an intern there. And he's like, yo, do you want an intern at priority? Our office is like right here. And I'm like, sure. So then he has me up there, again, calling retail, going to the plodium handing out flyers. And I'm watching. Boot Camp ran their whole operation. Duckdown was like out of that office. And, you know, I'm trying to think who else, like, RASCAS came by the office, organized confusion came by the office. And, you know, and again, so like seeing all of this happening at 16, 17 years old, you're like, yeah, this, okay, I think there's space here. Yeah, it's possible.

Yeah, that was like my biggest downside, like growing up in Florida. Okay. I grew up in Orlando. I didn't know anyone that made any money doing anything creative. Literally. Like, anyone that made money was like, oh, I'm like a real estate tycoon. Or like, I, you know, I like have a nice car. shop or something. Like it was no one was doing anything like I don't want to say like these are

people that were like making it based off of what they could do and people were doing well. But no one was like, oh, I'm going to like be an artist or a producer or an R and make money in like entertainment. It just was, it couldn't even, I couldn't fathom that. So I kind of went a similar route as you were like from a young age. I was like, I'm just going to intern everywhere. And I'm curious your mom is like Wall Street busy, serious like, you know, hard working lady. Yes. Your dad is working in video games. Yeah.

Was he more creative? Yeah. So my dad, you know, they both were history PhDs. But my dad was sort of like didn't really want to get into academia. He was really big at like in the 60s and 70s on board games. Loved like, you know, sort of like not risk, but like. Seller's a catan. Yeah, whatever like the next level of risk was.

So, you know, when the 80s happened, he starts, there was like a wave of historical simulators. And he was like, well, I have the depth of history knowledge and I love sort of like game mechanics. So let me see if I can take what I loved about playing these games in the 70s and turn this into a computer game. Oh, that's cool. So he made a game about Vietnam called Conflict of Vietnam. He made one where you're sort of like, where you're running the allies in World War II. And I also had to play all the games to like playtest them for bugs and all that kind of stuff. So you were gaming as a kid just like, test have this Vietnam thing. Yes.

And you're just like in the trenches, just like in a jungle. So I found this the other day. My first professional credit, which somehow has managed to be immortalized on the internet, is playtesting for a game called Airborne Ranger in 1987. Wow. Yes. Dude, that's sick.

Did you like the game? Yeah, it was okay. I mean, that and that was just like 87s. I'm in like first grade. I remember this pretty clearly. Like I go down to Baltimore to spend, spring break with him. And of course,

you know, at the time, game developers are not high earning people. So there wasn't like a lot of child care situation going on. Yeah.

And so he just brings me to work for the two weeks. And of course, it's like, what am I going to do with you? All right, cool. I'm going to park you by this

station here and just like put in all the new games that we're working on and just play them and try to find bugs. I mean, it's like a dream.

Yes. I mean, right? Play video games for eight hours straight. Yeah, as a kid. like you're getting paid for, you're getting credits for it?

Yeah, I didn't even know that I was going to get credits. I think he thought that that was like a funny thing to put me in like the booklets and stuff because then when I did see them, I was like, holy shit, that's crazy. Oh, that's sick. And were you guys playing board games a lot as good? Oh, yeah. And my dad was notorious for knowing the rules way better than me or my stepmom. And so he would do the thing where he would like always pull out the weird random rule

that nobody else knew in the moment, in the last moment and then like would beat us both. Yeah, Corey, you're like, dad, that's not true. And he's like, well, I invented the game. So actually it is. And you're like, God, damn it. dude he got us again but yeah that was uh yeah we we did a lot of those that's cool there's something like romantic about that though like i feel like kids kind of lose now it's just like yo game like disconnecting even like not even video game but just like yo like let's just

sit around and like we're playing monopoly like my family would do it all time we'd like play monopoly or like clue or shit like that no yeah i mean me and the kids we play uno damn near every night maybe the all-time greatest game ever invented it is it's it's so simple because like that my well she's five now but when she was four my four-year-old could beat me and my wife at Uno on a random night and like feel total satisfaction out of it but it's like a nice mix of like strategy but also random luck.

Exactly. No, it's like perfect. But I always keep the collect four wild card in my pocket. If I ever play with my little nieces and nephews, no way you're going to beat me. Because I got that little wild card in here before the game starts. Oh, you have that like tough.

Yeah, I'm a cheater. And so we'll play, only if my little nephew's gonna beat me. He's seven years old. You can't, that can't stand. Yeah, no. Like, what is that going to do to his perception of me as a man, right? Like, we're in the middle of it. He's about to drop a green reverse card on me and win.

Mm-mm. Skir. Flipped under the table, collect four. Gotcha. If you're playing a two-person game with the plus two, can you double up on the plus two? Yeah, yeah, I stack them. Okay. I stack them.

Are you guys not stacking at the, at the Beaver household? My eight-year-old is adamant that that is a legal rule. I have seen, according to the Luno-Twitter, that that is not a legal rule. Rule. Stacking is not legal? Not legal. Oh my gosh. They had a viral tweet about this like a year and a half ago.

I got to return all my trophies. Yeah, man. You've been choosing the whole time. Yeah, I know. I was like, no, you double it up. You got to, now it's you now. Oh, damn. What about, you can do double reverse though.

That's fine. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You read reverse on me, I can green reverse back to you. Yeah, yeah, totally. Okay. You're about to blow my mind here. We've got to get your dad in here and be like settle all the rules. Let me tell you about Santa Claus.

I feel like I was late when I figured that out on my own, My parents never told me. Really? Yeah, I figured out Santa Claus. Because my dad would always dress up with Santa Claus. And I'd be like, oh, Santa and my dad have the same glasses. And my dad would always have like giant red frames. Like he like worked in France a little bit.

So like we'd always have like gaudy glasses. And I'd be like, bro. Santa doesn't have the Hugo Boss red frames. I feel like my eight-year-old is onto it. But she actually is kind of leaning into the mythology and doesn't want to burst her own bubble. So she's like kind of like, because also my wife keeps it real vague. She'll be like, you know, oh, Santa's as real as you think he is or something like, should like hit her with a riddle when she asks like, hey, kids in school were saying Santa's not real.

And she's like, well, that's a very esoteric answer. Yes. Your kids are just like on mushrooms basically now. They're like, what? Nothing is real. Everything is real. What's going on? We're all connected?

Who am I? That's wild. Okay. So now that was the other thing I was curious about. Your parents split and that's why your name's hyphenated? Yeah. Well, no. My name's hyphenated because my mother was a liberated woman in the 70s.

Oh, fire. Also, my dad was her third husband, so she probably had a good idea that that might not be the end of the line. Got to keep the Callahan. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. And so I'm curious, do you hyphenate with your kids? No, this was a whole... I don't want to bring...

I don't want to ruin your marriage right now. No, no, no. You know, we... She was like, well, how about this? I would be comfortable being a Callahan because Callahan and Maloney are like kind of essentially interchangeable. Oh. And I was like, well, I don't know how my dad's going to feel about that. but I feel like he opened Pandora's box when he allowed the you know yeah when

that dash got in there yeah so it's like you know once you do that hey everything's on the table yeah yeah so the kids are Callahan's okay got you and I feel like now I'm kind of understanding like the soup of you where it's like okay we got you're growing up in this extremely multicultural place maybe the most multicultural diverse place on the planet like certainly among them yeah like Manhattan in like this is like 90s and so you're getting influenced by all these different cultures. You have a very like a focused, hardworking analytical mom, kind of like a creative, fun dad that's like kind of doing a passion project. And then you're around people that are like chasing their dreams and you're like,

okay, this is cool. And then where did the interest in like the hook for music come from? Like, why are you even reaching out to Ego Trip? I mean, it was just one of those things like my dad was always a big music guy. Um, Allman brothers are his, that's like his number one. Yeah. And, but you know, so music was always around the house. I can remember him like introducing me to the Beatles. When I'm seven, I get chicken pox. We like watch all the Beatles movies. That was like how we occupied ourselves for the eight days. Yeah, yeah. And so music was always like super important. And also interesting. So he was on that wave. And my mom being in New York was like much more trying to stay relevant in her 30s. So it was a lot of like tears for fears and like even had the

Beastie Boys and like whatever was popping. Depeche mode and shit. Yes. In 85. 85, 86. Like, she was still doing that. My dad will always concede that I think sports by Huey Lewis. That was his last album that he bought that was like a contemporary buy. Yeah. And he kind of was like, I'm 33. Isn't that funny?

You're just like hit an age and you're like, well, this is what I like. Yeah. Anything else doesn't matter. Like bigies dropping bangers and he's just like, nah. I don't need to know about it. Although I will say I did give him some digible planets and some tribe in the early 90s and he definitely got very into those. Tribe seems like a good, like, missing link.

Yeah, I mean, between like that old gen and the new gen. I think, yeah, he started to see, like, the connections of, like, how sampling work because those samples were, like, close enough to loops that he could get it. Yeah, it's great beats that he knows. He's like, oh, I remember this. Exactly. And then, yeah, and then he really liked the second digible plaintiff's album. He was, like, they, like, got radicalized and, like, on their black nationalist shit,

and he just found that to be, like, way more compelling than the first one, which is, like, beat poetry. Right. Yeah, yeah, the passion. Yes. Yeah, they're fighting for something. And everyone can get on board with that. Yeah, all right, cool.

That's sick. And then, so now you're... Yeah, so then that was kind of like, you know, music was always like omnipresent in the household. And then, so my first, like, rap experience was my friend Kenny Birch, his older sister, was probably like six or seven years older than us. She gave us a tape that had a license to ill on one side and criminal-minded on the other side because this is 87 and these were the most popping albums. She's in high school and we're in second grade or whatever. Nice. And I actually didn't even understand at that point that these were two separate groups.

So I thought, like, I grew up and then I heard like KRS samples like years later and was like, wait, that's a different. Oh. And then I got criminal minded probably when I was like 12. And it was like, oh, okay. Now I get this. That's hilarious. I remember doing that like getting like burn CDs and it would just be like 12 random tracks. And it would just be like a bunch of dudes.

I'm like, yo, this guy's amazing. Like it was like, literally like 50 cent M&M like Jay-Z all on one CD and I was like, this guy's good. Like he sounds very different in every track, but he's talented. I mean, because when you're a kid, you don't even like you don't process guest features or like I was recently, you know, with the passing of True Boy from De La Sol like revisiting their catalog now that it's all streaming again and like realizing like, oh like it's a easy was like a true boy solo song. Like, oh, as a 16-year-old, I didn't even, like, it was just a De La Sol song. Like, yeah. I knew who the members of the group were.

I knew they had different voices, but, like, I wasn't thinking, like, oh, this is the solo work. Yeah. And so you're in New York when, like, New York rap is, like, really getting a foothold. I mean, like, obviously, like, it starts here, but then you have, like, West Coast and, like, Bay Area guys that are, like, popping off. But, like, you're in the time when, like, mob deep and Biggie are all of a sudden, like, blowing up. Was that weird for you?

Was it weird for you? It was cool to, like, be that close to it. It was crazy. I mean, like, stuff like I remember in 94, a kid I went to high school with who was a graph writer that I went out a couple nights with, got a throw up in the background of the Grave Diggers, Nowhere to Run video. And like, again, just being like, holy shit, bit, there he is, like in a rap video. It's so close. Yeah. So then you go to NYU.

Yes. Drop out. Yes. That's crazy, knowing your background. You're like a smart dude and a local guy. I'm sure you're probably a good student, like coming up, right? I was, I was good. I was like the student who was like working towards efficiency, not necessarily grades.

It was like, what's the best grade I can get with the least amount of work? Ah, got you. And I was always like, I'm fine with the B plus. That works for me if I don't have to do any homework. Yeah, like zero work for B plus. That's pretty good rather than like five hours for an A. It's like, I don't have, just don't have that ambition. Yeah.

So if you're not going to school, what are you doing like in the meantime, like growing up in high school and shit? Are you like playing ball? No, I'm just hanging out with my friends, you know, being a fake graffiti writer, listen to a shitload of rap music, watching my friends DJ in my bedroom, you know. And so coming back to you dropping out. Okay. What was the impetus for that? So I'm going to NYU.

The summer between freshman and sophomore year, I get a vibe launches a hip-hop magazine called Blaze. I'm an editorial assistant for the first issue, which we get out right around Labor Day. they put me on a sort of retainer as a writer at large. So I'm getting paid, you know, $1,000 a month to, like, write a thousand words. And then during the fall of 99, a gentleman named Dante Ross reaches out to me out of the blue. And Dante, you have to understand, is a bit of a legend. Even saying a bit of a legend is an understatement. You know, he A&R, the first De La Sol album.

He A&R Queen Latifah album. He a in art. He signed Leaders of the New School, KMD, you know, God level shit. Yeah. And also some of the most iconic and important record for me, regardless of whether or not, you know, for me and my friends, that was like the shit we listened to, religiously. And he calls me out of the blue and is like, yo, I've been hearing about you from a bunch of different people. you know people are telling me that you're like a young me I need an a and R at my label called Stimulated that I have through lab records we just we just started you know putting out

independent 12 inches do you want to be an A&R that's amazing it was like 20 years old at the time I'm yes 20 I mean that's and can you explain like the role of the A&R at that time like I think a lot of kids nowadays are just like what even is well yeah I mean you know this is like this is totally like pre-data. So it's really just like, are you plugged enough that you're on the like relative bleeding edge of what's going on in music? And are you, you know, are you nine to 14 months in front of what's being made commercially available? I remember I saw most deaf perform with de la soul in May of 96 at Tramps and was like, holy shit, I don't know who that dude but like he is going to be a fucking superstar.

He's amazing. So, you know, I was like at that point living to be like, you know, a music discovery guy. And also that became my role at a vibe and, you know, at a Blaze. Like, I actually got the Blaze job because during the summer of 97, I used to go to Fat Beats every Saturday. What is Fat Beats? It was like the independent record, like hip hop record store. It was over on 8th Street. and my friend Alina was like worked the register there and so I would meet her on Saturday mornings

we would go have lunch together and I would just kick it in the store, hang out and listen to records and talk to people and whatever. I got the Lord Tarreek and Peter Guns song, you know, the Uptown baby. It was a like independent 12 inch with a red sticker that just said deja vu on it and I heard it and I was like yo this shit is crazy like and I knew the sample um instantly because my dad is a Steely Dan fan and I brought it to Blaze that summer and gave it to Jesse Washington

who was the managing editor who I knew was kind of like an amateur DJ on the side and I was like yo this this shit is crazy you need this and he listened to it and was like yo and so of course that ends up becoming a huge smash the whole summer later but he taps

me and it's like I always remember you're the one that gave me that poetry and Peter Guns record like a year before became a hit. So you're accidentally becoming an A&R before you're an A&R. Like, you're just so tapped in with what's happening. And you have a great intuition, it seems like. I mean, that will learn later. Like, I mean, I would like to think so. I mean, I feel like you got a pretty good track record to be like, yo, like we're going to put this guy on the first cover, this guy on the first cover. Like you've, I don't want to say found, but like you have like discovered these guys

raid as they're about to blow. I mean, I, you know, I think I have like a good sense of knowing both like my own taste and like the taste of people broadly and being able to like both discern the difference between the two and also know where the overlap lies. And I think like with complex it was about mining that overlap because all these editors are like in their late 20s, early 30s, you know, they love music and they're like way better writers than I am. But it's happening fast. But it's happening fast and like they're not they're you know, they're inundated with like free advances and free promo items and all the shit, you know, the things that happen when you are part of the industry, and I'm still chasing it.

Right. And that cloud's your judgment when people are just like delivering stuff to you. Because now you're not on the bleeding edge, you're on like the kind of fabricated version of what's happening. And you're getting pitches, right? It's not what you're organically, like, I'm going to fat beats and I'm like, what are all the records that are coming out? Bring them over to Max Glazer the DJ. Can you play them all for me? I want to like, okay, this one I'm going to buy this one I'm not gonna buy this I'm gonna buy right and you were just obsessed yeah I just I you weren't doing this for money you weren't doing this because you're like oh I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna get here I'm gonna get here like you were just like I fucking love this no I mean

that that's you know I think it's part of it is the culture of hip hop is about leaning forward and so like me and my friends from being like 11 years old it was like who's the one that gets the tape first you know that puts everybody else up on far side who's the one that gets the you know oh I got the outcast tape oh you don't even know about that shit. These guys are from Atlanta. They're ill. Yo, but they sound like they're from native tongues, but they're from Atlanta.

And my friends are being like, you know. And so the A&R is basically bringing hot shit into the label. And then I guess the magazine, like if you're an editor-in-chief, you're not bringing the hot shit to the people. Is that like a fair? Like that's the connection between the two? Yeah, pretty much. Like in a very simple version. Yeah.

I mean, you're sort of a curator. Right. So the connection between A&R and like editor-in-chief is like pretty close. Yeah. I mean, yeah, because you're sort of overseeing a creative product. And honestly, so that was the thing for me. So, you know, I had this sort of like microcareer in media for three years or whatever. Then I go work with Dante for a year and a half or so.

And for me, it was like a revelation that I was like, oh, I don't like this because I'm not a musician. So I don't feel like I'm in a position of authority to dictate to an artist what they should or shouldn't. do. Whereas with making magazines, I can take a piece of copy or I can look at a layout and like, you know, like when I was an ego trip, I was like both writing and

doing assistant stuff for the editors but also assisting Brent Rollins, the art director and like doing all the scanning, cleaning up the images, turning them into like bitmaps and all this kind of stuff. And like, then he eventually had me like laying out the record review sections and stuff. So like I know how to use Quark Express and like...

Right. So your lack of of musical expertise kind of made you insecure to be like, yo, change this shit. But you have copyrighting expertise. And that's much more in your wheelhouse. Yeah, I can just, I can make the perfect copy and the perfect article. But I can't necessarily tell you how to mix the song to make it better. That's the thing. Yeah.

So it was like I can coach a young writer or I can look at a layout and see what's wrong aesthetically. I can look at a cover and be like, the logo's got to be in this color. You know, no, shift the crop. Let's just pull in on it or no, change the image entirely. the typefaces need to go in this direction. And this goes back to your aesthetic thing. Like you have a good design aesthetic. And so you're able to use that and pull from that little, you know, back in the soup

and then bring it into this. And all of a sudden you're like, yeah. Yeah. And you make a cool thing. And I love magazines too. Like I also just- Can you explain like the importance of magazines at that time? There was so little national television coverage of hip-hop.

Like, I mean, I grew up in an era where like me and my friends had a like two-hour VHS tape that we used to record every time hip hop was on TV. Oh, like two live crews making the news. You're like, we got to get it. Because there's no media coverage of this in that way. So then the source comes along. And the source is like, oh, this is written by real rap aficionados, people that know way more about the shit than I do.

And so that became like the Bible. You know, this is like I lived in New York when High 97 was a dance station, right? Like it didn't become a hip hop station until like maybe 93. Yeah, that's wild. So like other than Funkmaster Flex having like, I don't know, like the Saturday night mix show, like you didn't have even consistent rap on the radio. So there was no way to gauge like what is popular. It's hard for me to fathom because I was born in 96.

So it's hard for me to fathom that rap and hip hop was not the forefront of American culture. Like I never really existed in a time when it wasn't. Like when I was like, I don't know, eight, 10, I would turn on the radio and be like, what's hot? Lowell Wayne. It's also just crazy to think that like there were artists who were going gold and going platinum without any of that infrastructure. Like NWA, think about the phenomena that they were in 88. Like, how did I find out about an NW? I don't know.

But like I knew that this was like the edgiest shit. And it like, I knew it was fucked up. But I also knew it was like totally magnetic. And like I had to listen to it. Yeah. You know, in 1988, and this is with records that never got played on the radio, you know, eventually. It was just getting passed through, like, record shops kind of thing. And then, you know, someone's older brother, you know, older sister tells you this is the shit.

And you're like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, literally just played. And it's just like, fuck the police. We're coming straight from the underground. You're like, these guys are crazy. Yeah. These guys got attitude. I don't want my parents to hear this, but goddamn, this is the only thing I want to listen to.

Oh, wild. Yeah, it's just insane that that was able to permeate culture so much, even without mainstream radio. play, that it was getting to the fabric of even like a kid from New York in such an intimate way. And so then basically you go from A&R shit back to like now editing with magazines. Yeah, well, I took a little pit stop. I went and worked at MTV for a year or two and I wrote a show called Direct Effect that was like, basically they, it is funny because they realized that hip hop, you know, they had killed YOMTV raps, I think, in like 96 and five.

That was just like another popular show. I mean, that was the defining national like forum for hip hop in that period. And I don't really know why they got rid of it. But it ended. And then there was this vacuum for years on MTV where they didn't really have any dedicated programming to rap music. They're still a music station at this point. Like it's still like. Yeah, they still have like, you know, and then they have like MTV James, which is sort of like R&B and hip hop together.

And in 2000, TRL, because. comes this, you know, or really it was like 98 to 2000 becomes like this phenomenon. Can you explain to R.L? Okay, total request live. Carson Daily is the host. It was a live daily show at 3 p.m. or 3.30 every day where they would count down the 10 biggest songs in and kids would call in to basically like vote for their favorite songs

and this was like basically they broke the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Insink, all that kind of music which there had been like a, I don't know, I want to say like six year pause. on pop music as being like a cool thing. Like you had new kids on the block in like 89, 90 and like Paul Abdul and all that stuff. And then alt rock was like the dominant thing. This is like Nirvana comes in around that time. Smashing pumpkins, red hot chili covers.

Yeah, all that shit. And then that simultaneously with Pondogs in Harmony, Tupac, you know, all the death row stuff, and then eventually bad boy. And so for the whole middle of the 90s, Those are the two sort of like dominant forms of music. And then Lou Perlman and the Jive Records guys hit a lick. And I don't really know if it was a chicken or the egg,

but TRL becomes a platform for these pop groups. And they just captivate like a generation of 13 year old girls for the most part. And for two years or, yeah, two years, that's just, I mean, they're crushing it. Is there an analog to that now, like to contextualize this like if you have the number one track on TikTok or some shit? I mean, yes, that's basically what it's like to be. Yeah, turning on TikTok. You are the number one song in America on TikTok today. It's basically like the TRL.

And it was like, and it was a battle. And the fans became super engaged. And so there's like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kids calling in every day to like vote their favorite shit up and down or whatever. Yeah, but TRL is not on MTV. It was. Oh, it was. Yes. This is on MTV.

And so MTV then in 2000 decides that they need to like figure out how to get into the hip hop space. Because they've realized that this is like, you know, they've sort of. of abandoned this. And so they, from seven to eight, they decided they're going to have a live daily hip hop show that's shot in the same studio as TRL and their hope is to like create the same sort of momentum where people stand outside or whatever. They end up tapping me to write the show. And, you know, and then I become sort of like the hip hop guy that can sort of explain to the more senior executives who are dudes like in their 40s. I'm like, hip hop isn't about being a fan. about being in the VIP.

So like that's why there's nobody standing outside, like waving signs. Because like this is a different culture. Yeah. Like you don't, that's not cool to be on the outside looking in. Whereas for pop music, that's like the way. That's the nature of it. It's like, there's this star and I'm a 15 year old girl

and I'm trying to touch the star and I'm okay being on the outside. Yes. Hip hop is the exact opposite. Yes. So I go there and I do that. Is that when you met Sway? Uh, yeah. It's funny.

Sway and I started the first same day. So, you know, we had a, very like instant connection in bond. For anyone that doesn't know sway is, you know, sway in the morning, legendary radio host, a. A.k.a. Yes. From the infamous Connie interview.

What was he like back in the day? Was he, uh, same as he is now. Just like super thoughtful, very, like, kind, caring dude. Like, he's, everything that he portrays on camera is exactly. Really authentic. Yes. That's cool. And you guys immediately just like kind of click up.

Yeah. We're like, oh, okay, cool. Like two authentic rap guys in the same building, like dealing with all this crazy corporate shit like neither of us have ever been around you know this is MTV in 2000 is like at its apex this is like the fall that jackass comes out like this is the biggest that that station has ever been will ever be so this would be crazy exciting for you at the time you're like oh it was amazing I mean you know you're just like there's a rotating door of stars and meeting everybody um I just wrote a little anecdote about this the other day and on Instagram but like

you know, I'm at my desk one afternoon and Fred Jordan, rest in peace, who was the sort of urban talent, head of urban talent, who, you know, sort of was the liaison with all the talent and the labels. So one day he comes down and he's like, you know, you want to hear the new Jay-Z album? And I'm like, yes I do, of course. He's like, come up to 27. So we'd like, walk up the stairs to 27 to his office, he opens the door and Jay-Z is sitting in his office. And then Jay's He's like, okay, I got the album. It's on a DAT. And it's a digital audio tape.

Fred is like, oh, shit, okay, I know we have a DAT player in the building. Let me go find it. Noah, entertain Jay. And I'm just like, okay. You know, and as socially awkward as I am today, you can only imagine what I was like when I was 21. Around JZ, I mean, at this point, he'd already drop Blueprint. This is pre-blueprint, but he's about to play us the Dynasty album.

Okay. So he, but he's already done hard knock life. He's the biggest rapper in the world. We have a very funny, awkward exchange. What's the combo? Well, he's just like, so Fred tells me you're the rap guy, huh? And then he does like his weird, like, hove laugh where you're like, yeah, like, I don't know if you're making fun of me or, okay. I'm like, uh, you know, I work on direct effect on the writer.

And he's like, so, you know, what's your number one rock him verse and what's your number one big daddy cane verse? and I'm like well Kane is obviously raw Rakim is a little tougher but I don't go with the first verse of juice and he's like you're correct on Kane you are wrong on

on Rakim and I'm like I thought I thought this was like a subjective thing and then he's like no no no no it's my melody it's the 7MC theory and he performs the 7MC line from Rakim to me

and And I'm just like, well, okay, you make a compelling case. Fred is still not coming back. So he's like, pauses for a second. And it's like, all right, top five albums. And he's like, you don't have to put reasonable data in there. But you don't have to not put reasonable doubt in there just because I'm here. And I'm like, well, full confession, I wasn't going to.

But it's good. It's like, you know, it's like right there. But it's for me, top five. And I list my top five. And then we compare notes. And we were, I would say we were aligned on like, three. three out of the five. I think mine was like,

the first Slick Rick album, Nation of Millions, low-in theory, chronic, and Illmatic. And he was Biggie, chronic, reasonable doubt,

purple tape, and then maybe Slick Rick also. There's something amazing about him putting reasonable doubt third. Like, you know what I mean? Yes, he was, you know,

he's a confident. Yeah, But there's also something beautiful about it. Like most, like, I feel like you'd ask rappers now and they'd be like, no, my shit's the best. Like I'm the hottest in the game, whatever. But he was like, no, I respect where I'm at at this moment. He was, yeah. I mean, I think he knew that his best work was still ahead of him also, frankly.

And I think Blueprint is clearly that. Right. There's a beautiful confidence in that. Like, where you don't have to inflate your own work to, like, impress someone by the same time. Like, you're confident enough to put it in the top five. That's really cool. Yeah. So then thank God. Fred finally came back. Meanwhile, you're just so sweaty. Just like covered in sweat.

I'm just covered in sweat. You're playing Who Wants to be a millionaire? You're like, oh, God. I'm just like, what am I going to say next? We've almost run out of topics. So then he comes back and then you're just like, probably just hung out with Jay Z. That's crazy. Yeah, and then he plays us the Dynasty album, which is like fucking awesome. What is the right reaction when you're listening? Jay is still in the room when you're playing it? Oh, yeah. Which is there is no more.

awkward thing than that. And what's weird especially is coming at it from being a journalist and a critic, like, you don't want to like fanboy out. But, you know, you want to have authentic reactions to it. And also you want to respect, like, this is an artist who's made this body of work. And like, they've put innumerable hours into, like, creating this thing. And so you also don't want to sort of like stoneface them, you know, in an effort to, like, try to be unbiased because you're like,

I just respect you as a human being and like, you put a lot of effort into this. And so like, let me try to just absorb it. And, you know, and it's also tough because like, and I'm sure you've experienced this with albums, but like, sometimes you listen to something the first time and you're like, oh, it's cool. And then like four months later,

in the right context, you throw it on and you're just like, oh, this is fucking amazing. Yes, that's like almost, I don't want to say every, but like most Drake albums for me, the first run through, I'm like, it's good. and then all of a sudden like the third I'm like bro this is how did he do this is insane and like

yeah that's kind of the thing I want to ask you is like critiquing art like that and a lot of these guys some of them put you know some of them were just kind of like drunk in the studio just like saying whatever but other guys are like pouring their life and their energy and all their creative efforts into creating this album

for critics just to be like nah this one sucked this song about his dead friend trash this song about his mom awful like how do you balance being an authentic critic while also still respecting that someone poured their life into something. I mean, that, I think I am really grateful for that opportunity to work under Dante and like spend that time mixing records and like seeing how deliberated every creative decision was, like, particularly, you know, being in the studio with him and Everlast while they're making that record.

Like, they're sweating every kick drum. You know, I could see him and Gamble there. John Gamble, rest in peace, was Dante's partner in production, and he was really like the technical one. And like, I watched Gamble EQ a snare for like two hours, just like tap, tap, tap, tap. You get to understand that there's such a minutia to what ultimately you as a consumer experience. You know, if you go back and like read my writing, like everything I wrote from 97 to like 99, I was kind of like a little prick. And then from 2000 on,

I was much more deliberate and thoughtful about what I was saying because I really was like, no, like every consumer has their opinion and that is valid because you are creating a product that the world is going to either enjoy or not enjoy

and that is their authentic lived experience with it. However, as a music critic, my job is not to be flip or try to score points with like funny little digs or you know what I mean yeah like my job is to contextualize this and try to frame it within both the artists catalog and also sort of the larger landscape that they're creating in I can have a qualitative opinion about the music but again like this I'm not the 16 year old dickhead that I was that's like, you know, because me and my friends, like, we had like a very, we didn't,

we didn't have money to buy every album, right? So there was like a very, like, hard and fast sort of hierarchy where, like, one person buys the tape and then dubs the tape for the three other friends. And then if the dub, if the album is really good and obviously in the process is something that happened in a bygone era before you were alive but each dub would degrade the quality so then you would have to decide I just you know reasonable doubt my one friend bought the tape and was like yo this Jay Z album you have to remember Jay Z did not come out with like a huge amount of he wasn't like the anointed one like Nas it was like a damn near independent record that they got picked up by

priority actually the summer of 96 while I was working there and even working in the priority office it was like an afterthought for the people that I was working for. Interesting. And my one friend Justin buys the tape and like a month later is like, yo, you should, you should really listen to the tape. I'll let you borrow it. You know, I was like, it's cool. Just make me a dub, whatever.

Makes me a dub. I live with it. I'm like, this is cool, but like I now need to own the like liner notes and like I have to like know who produced everything. So then I would go buy the tape. Get the legit thing. Yes. So like and there, then this was.

like further complicated by the fact that we had Walkmans, right? And so we had tapes with Walkmans. So you had battery life. And so anytime you had to skip a song, you were wasting battery. Crazy. And batteries are expensive, especially when you're 16 and you work at a comic store one day a week. You know, I got to think about the 16 year old that has $8, you know, $7.99, and there's four tapes that are dropping this week and he's got to pick one. So, but again, there's a way to be able to convey that information without being an absolute shithead about it. Yeah. So that's what you would say is

the justification of the critic. Yeah. Like you have an obligation to the consumer to say, hey, you have a couple bucks in your pocket, you're a kid, you're going to buy something, what are you going to buy? Yeah. Which I think, and again, like, that's like all radically changed during my career because now everything's

on streaming, so there's no cost really to checking out an album or checking out a track. Like, what is your thought on the current state of music criticism, like the fantanos and needle drops, things like that. I mean, I think that they serve a purpose. But again, like the purpose becomes not necessarily to tell you like, good, bad, but more to be like, how does this fit into the larger context of this artist's work? What are they, what are the sort of things that they are playing with, you know, in terms of

like thematically or intellectually? And then also, how does this fit into the language? landscape of, you know, sort of like their peers and their competitive set. Yeah. And, you know, and then I think there's just like there are a subset of people like myself who like enjoy good criticism. Like, you know, me think about like the New Yorker back in the day. They were right like 10,000 word book reviews.

You know, it's damn near a book in and of itself about the book. Right. And that adds a lot of value in context. And they're, you know, were a subset of people who would like live and died for those like New Yorker reviews. Artists create art and that can be interpreted in so many different ways

and some of which the artist is cognizant of and creating with a sense of purpose some of which are sort of like projected onto the work by the audience and so like a good cultural critic can like sort of parse all of that. Yeah exactly.

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Like the creative and as a creative, I'm like, yeah, I understand what the value is to the marketplace. I understand the value of the curator. It's like, look, I'm going to collect all the best creatives and put them on to the people and like amplify them. It does a service of the people and to the creative. and the critic is the part that I don't associate with the most, where I sometimes give people like passes or like, I try to see the best in what they're doing,

where I'm like, oh, you know, like they're trying to go for this and maybe they didn't hit it exactly right, but like they still poured themselves into it. And so long as like I, and again, I'm not a critic, but like so long as I see the effort and the intention in the daringness in the work,

I'll kind of look over even like the quality because I'm like, you tried something. Like, and I really respect that. Like even like Drake's new dance album. Yeah. Honestly, never mind.

I was like, a lot of people were like trashing it, but I was like, he's trying a new thing. And he's like trying to push the form and like some tracks hit and some didn't. But I don't know. I sometimes feel bad just like trashing what someone does. I don't know.

So people are going to like what they're going to like. And so like as a critic, my job is not to tell people what they're going to like. It's more to just kind of like try to put context. around the body of work and you know that will hopefully enliven the discourse and the conversation around the work

and like make people think about it a little differently and yeah you know like this became sort of like my default setting when people would like just try to dispute my taste on Twitter and it's just like I'm really happy that this album makes you happy full stop

yeah like that's great that's the beautiful part about music yeah that makes sense and I think it's a good approach to criticism I mean, I guess on like a micro scale, we do that just all the time. Like you have a great rap education and you came up in like this time where like you really are qualified to speak on music. And if I listen to an album, like art is supposed to curate conversation and emotion and feeling. So it makes, it follows to reason that something comes out and all of a sudden I'm going to call

it my buddy that I know is like a huge, you know, hip hop head and be like, yeah, what did you think of this? And we'll discuss it. And I think that's the nature. Like movies we do that with, we do that with like meals. We do with every type of creative endeavor, like, hey, conversation, and that's the purpose of it. So I guess if you can wrap the idea of, like, a critic is just having that conversation with a big audience. Yeah, well, I mean, you're just trying to, like, keep the dialogue interesting and, like, you know, try to add on to the discourse and, like, create a conversation around, you know, either an album or an artist or a movement.

But a bad critic is someone that's just, like, good, bad. When we were writing about music in the 90s and early 2000s, it's like, in the 90s, it would be like, Elliot, the music editor of the source hits me on a Thursday night and is like, hey, here's the new whatever album. I need a review by Monday morning. And so like, I have 48 hours to live with a record. Yeah, that someone put their life into.

Yes, there's someone put two years of their life. Yeah. You know, and it's like, okay, I have 48 hours. Or even worse than in the late 90s and early 2000, when stuff starts getting bootlegged, you don't even get advances. It's like, come to Columbia and sit and listen to the ghost face killer album

in a fucking shitty conference room by yourself. One listen through. What do you think? One listen. And then it's like... That's not fair to anyone. And then you have to turn around this review very, very quickly off one listen.

And then you have to do all the writing without the music present. And that's the shitty part of like the commercialized corporate critique landscape is that it's like, hey, we need this out by this time. it's going to print this day, we need to have your feedback within this timeline. And I feel like that probably even happens on like the internet now where some guys like the

album dropped, I got to have a reaction. The first one with the reaction might get the most clicks and most views. No, I mean, they also might be doing the worst service to the work. I lived through that, you know, towards the tail end of my complex time where it was like, yeah, it was like, all right, this album's coming out. Like David, Ernest, Rob, whoever, like it drops at midnight. Like I hope you don't have any plans. you know, please listen to it immediately and like, let's get something up by noon.

Mm-hmm. You know? And yeah, so then it's like they basically can listen to it one or two times, go to sleep, wake up at eight in the morning, and then hammer out some copy in five hours and then we get something up. Yeah, of course. So as like a creative, like I haven't put out a ton of stand-up. Like I'm both, I mean, stand-up is kind of a different thing than music where like if it

really requires lived experience, like, there's no really like prodigious writers or comedians because it requires a life in order to talk about and perspective and time and the reps and all that shit. Whereas like music is a little different like you could be you can one live you're able to talk about your lived experience I think a little earlier with music and on top of that music I think is a much more like natural human experience that like someone could just have insane flow when they're 16. I look like Kodak Black and I'm like yeah it's just awesome music when he's 15 years old like that's insane. Comedy doesn't really function that way. So I am kind of slow to put out material just because one I wanted to be good.

good for the audience and like service like the people that the fuck with me but at the same time like there is a fear of criticism and i do have sort of a an anxiety of like yo it's some comedy critic or whatever the fuck is going to be like this guy sucks you know shultz's opener shultz's boy like it's trash and it kind of plays in my head a little and like makes me anxious so i'm curious like from your perspective eventually i'm going to put out a special and it's going to get reviewed and it's going to be critiqued and there's going to be online discourse but also like professional discourse What is the best advice for me in terms of like channeling and interpreting that criticism? Ignore as much of it as possible.

Really? Yeah. I mean, I think that the professional critiques are probably the most valuable because they're going to come from a place of someone that has done what you're doing. And so their notes are not going to be like, I found this funny. I didn't find this funny. Which again, is like a subjective thing. and, you know, I mean, with comedy, you know, live music, this is the case. Albums, it's a little less, a little different, but like, you can say the same joke,

the same way in two different rooms, and sometimes it lands and sometimes it doesn't. And so, yeah, I feel like, but someone, you know, Andrew or Charlemagne or whoever, they've been through all of that before. And they also know the sort of, like, nuances that are the difference between, you know, success and failure, living next door kind of thing. Like, there's like very, very small things that can happen that can change how something is received. Yeah, I mean, whether or not people like it, I don't know, I would just let the numbers

dictate that. And that's the other thing is that it's like, you know, particularly as the editor-in-chief, I can look at the like metrics of engagement and I can tell if people liked it enough to like read it, how much time they spent reading it, did they share it? You know, a sort of like vocal minority that are like outraged about whatever list we did. Right. Talk about it. So you would suggest just block out the, like block out like the, I don't want to say random,

but just like the comments and shit like that. Yeah. Maybe pay a little bit of attention like 40% of my energy to like professional criticism. Yeah. I mean also just because it's like, yo, you'll drive yourself nuts. We talked about like the people that you were able to meet and have like, chemistry with but also like be able to see their greatness before other people which is like so much of your role both as a critic but just as an a and r and just everything you've done in your career

and I heard a story that was cool like the first time I think you were with blaze and you met Eminem what is that experience like so tell me that story okay yeah so um I like as I mentioned earlier I used to go to fat beats every Saturday religiously bagels with Alina one Saturday afternoon A very tall gentleman, I believe in a business suit, comes in and starts talking to the DJ Max Glazer. And I see him and thinking like, there are not a lot of people with suits that come in here. This is weird. And then I hear my name is play over the loudspeakers. And at the time Eminem had a 12-inch single.

Well, he had an EP that had not been released in New York. He had a 12-inch that was released on a total independent single. Is that the slim, shady? This was, just don't give a fuck, backed with low down dirty and just the two of us. Okay. And so I had that 12 inch. That probably came out in like March. And then this is now mid-May.

And I hear him, but it's like, his voice is much higher. And his beat is like really bright and the drums are really loud. It doesn't not sound like what the single, the single was very muddy and like underground hip-hop. and like underground Midwest hip hop, which is like a whole different thing from underground New York hip hop. And I immediately walk over to Max and this gentleman and I'm like, yo, is this Eminem?

And the dude's like, oh, yeah, this is. And I'm like, oh, my name's Noah. I work at Blaze Magazine. He says, hi, my name's Paul Rosenberg. I'm actually Eminem's attorney. And I become, you know, me, him and Max have this conversation. Yeah, we just signed this record deal with Dr. Dre.

He signed after. Aftermath, he made these two songs, and he plays that, and he plays guilty conscience. And I'm like, holy shit. Also, you have to remember, in 1998, Dre was walking off, like, the first misstep of his career. He had put out a compilation album when he left Death Row called After, Aftermath Presents. That was, like, very derided, both critically and commercially. It was really, like, his first miss. And then he made the firm album, which was like kind of like lukewarm reception.

And I'm like, yo, these beats are fucking crazy. And like this dude is wrapping his ass off. And then, you know, guilty conscious is this crazy concept song. And it's, yeah, that's him and Dre talking about like the girl they have like locked up or some shit. They're like the devil and the angel on these three different guys. Like it's three different stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And M is playing like the devil on his shoulder.

And Dre is like the angel. Don't do it. Yeah, I remember that. And then there's like the joke about D. Barnes and like, just like, holy shit. Like, yo, this dude, you know, he definitely was on his, I don't give a fuck shit on the 12 inch, but this is like ratcheted up to a whole other level. So me and Paul exchange information. I set up a meeting.

I run back to Blaze and I'm like, we're working on the first issue. And I'm like, yo, this kid's, this Dr. Dre is back. Like this, we have to. it we have to cover him he's got it you know we had like a up-and-coming section with like one-page story about a bunch of different artists I'm like Eminem has to be one of them I get Paul to come by the office he plays the records and also you have to remember this is a time where like we're living in like a post vanilla ice era so like being a white rapper is not like everyone in the staff is like all right dude come on a white rapper is like really good and I'm like look trust me no one

it wants to be championing a white rapper less than me at the 19 year old white guy on staff. Yeah, don't trust me either. Trust Trey. I'm like, but this is really special. I swear. So they bring the record up,

they play it. Jesse, the editor-in-chief was like, no, that shit is hard. All right, Noah, you're going to Burbank. Let's go do a story. Now, this is, what's crazy is that this is like, I had a one-page story that was 300 words long, and they sent me to L.A. for four nights.

And so I'm like staying at the Holiday Inn in Burbank. courtesy of the company yes on blaze magazine i'm 19 i've never been flown anywhere and and actually my dad was like i know i've been kind of like muted in my support of your pursuit of this career but like you're 19 and someone is flying you across the country to do a story like this is real and you should take it seriously and know that like follow your gut like if this is the thing for you then this is the thing for you that's cool so yeah so i go and i spend a week hanging out with eminem and royce while they're mixing the Slim Shady LP, you know, and like it was a totally fucking surreal experience. I mean, you know, that summer, he would come to New York once or twice, and so it would be like,

okay, Marshall's in town, like, all right, I'm going to go meet up with those guys, and like, this is how we end up getting stuck in the elevator, the Double Tree Hotel. Yeah, what happens with that? So this is like, so that's in like the beginning of June in July, M gets booked on the Lyracist Lounge tour. Leris Lounge was like a popular underground open mic thing that happened in New York. They did an album on Rockets Records and then they did a tour with like artists who were on the compilation, but also just like whoever was popping in the underground.

M is on that. Paul was just like, hey man, like I've been on the road with this dude for like three weeks. Like I need to go spend a couple days with my lady friend and like reconnect. can you like entertain and you know just hanging out with these guys and I'm like all right yeah of course man like you know no doubt and um so I end up like running around New York City with Emin Royce you know they performed at what was it the tunnel and performed at the cooler for us audience of probably like 27 people how are those performances amazing like the thing is with Eminem is like I don't

There's a certain charisma that some famous people have that is just extraordinary. And it's like, Method Man has it. I'm sure Jimmy Hendricks had it. Like a person walks in the room and everyone can't not look at them. And Eminem was like that from the first moment I met him. It was just like there's a weird energy around this dude that is not. And, you know, for me, at that point probably only interviewed. five or six underground rappers, you know, who were all like normal guys that I could have gone to high school with.

And this was like, no, there's something totally unique and special about this person. And I can't even really articulate what it is. But he's fucking hilarious. And he just commands every room that he walks into and people are drawn to him like magnetically. And this is before the bleached hair or like any of the things that you would think of the, or the earrings or that were like his hallmark sort of like brand identity. It was just him. And it was just, you know, he, I think it was,

I'm sure that it wasn't always like that, but like once he found his groove artistically and he started to sort of create on that level, I think the confidence just started to build. So even when you were running around L.A., like you could sense it. Like, oh, there's something unique here. Yeah, I mean, because he just would like engage with,

you know we go to taco bell and he would like put on a show for like all of the people that were you know what I mean like the people that worked like he just like start trying to like kick his like the girl behind the register and it would be and he would like start rapping and you know and then all of a sudden like everyone that works at Taco Bell is like huddled around

like him and Royce and me um you know or like he goes into the fucking 7-11 and like pretends to faint and like falls down in the middle of the aisle until like everyone that's thing is like checking him and then he like does like a whole fucking routine um you know uh eventually he would like go on this like rampant crank calling uh spree that was like i think it was on like

the slim shady LP um sampler tape they had they like had these freestysiles and then him doing like a bunch of crank calls which again was just like him entertaining himself but it was like he's like moving in and out of all these different voices and characters and whatever yeah um extremely animated, but still kind at the same time. Yes. No, and yeah, and super, like, thoughtful and just like a nice dude. But also interesting, like, he is obsessive about his art, but he doesn't talk about it in the way that, like, music critics, like, or music nerds talk about music.

He talks about it like an artist, so it's in this sort of obtuse and oblique way, but he's obsessed with every, like, where his words fall relative to the snare, like, on every, like, micro scale, you know, he just, like, has an attention to the detail. Like, at the time, he would rap and he would always do this. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm counting 16th notes. And I was like, oh, okay. He's like, that's how I stay on beat, you know? Like 16th. And so anyway, so. Sorry, I got derailed there, but he comes to the city in like July and he is, he does the show. Him and Royce and I are walking around Times Square because they're staying at the double tree on 47th Street.

And I think we were going, maybe to Quad or one of those studios that's like right around on 49th Street. And they're doing the bad meets evil 12 inch, which at the time was basically just like, I had introed Paul to John Check. who owned game records and was also one of the founders of the source magazine, who I become friends with as just like a young, obsessed hip-up kid. The ego trip dudes introduced me to Schechter, and so I introduced Paul Schecter. They do a deal. M is at the point of his career where, like, you know, $5,000 is like a shitload of money and, like, makes a big difference.

And a couple funny things happen. One, Eminem got beat for $200 by a three-card Molly dude. Even though I told him specifically, this is a scam. It's like you're not going to win. And he got beat. And then we chased the dude like five blocks. And eventually they got away. The other funny thing was we're talking to the card thing?

Yeah. Like he said that I was like, oh, I got it. And this is where like they'll have a ringer where like it's like some dumb white chick that's like, oh, it's under that one. And she wins once and then. And then loses two. And then they're like, you want to try? Yes. And then they hustle.

Yes. He got hustle for 300 bucks. 200. That's a lot of money. Especially at that time is a up-chal rap. He was like, you know, it's not my last $200, so fuck it. It's not the end of the world. Which I, you know, I was glad that it didn't ruin the whole day.

But, and then we like got heckled by some black Israelites who were like, started like saying crazy shit to Royce about how, you know, their whole shit is like white people are like the offspring of like pigs and dogs or something like that. Yeah, yeah. And so they start like heckling Royce about like walking with these two devils and Royce just grabs like. like a lot of cash out of his pocket and just starts throwing money at them and being like, this is what you want, right? This is what you want. Why don't you shut the fuck up? What did they do? They were just like, they couldn't, you know, they weren't ready for that Detroit energy. Yeah. That's fire. And yeah, no, that was mad funny. I was just like, holy shit. Because, you know, growing up in New York, when you hear people saying crazy shit, you just kind of like zone out.

Keep walking. Yeah, keep walking. So I wasn't expecting that, but Roy's just like, I don't know, the D came out and he just snapped. Oh, that's so funny. One night we go out to get dinner at McDonald's. We go get food and we're coming back up in the elevator. Me and Scam, me and Scam walk in. And Scam is an illustrator and rapper who was also from New York and was kind of like a friend of Eminem in that early period. He did the illustrations in the Slim Shady LP,

like the zombie dude with being chased by the pills and all that stuff. And I'm walking with my back to M. And all I hear is like, y'all play corners in New York. And then I feel like someone's elbow and forearm, like, jam me into the corner of the elevator. And the whole elevator rocks back and forward and then stops. And we are stuck for like two hours at like, it's like 11 p.m. to like 1 a.m. on a Saturday night. And it's you and scam?

Yes. All because they shoved you into the corner of the. elevator. So now you guys are stuck. We're just stuck and then like what was Evan's first what's his first reaction? He's like yo I played corners like a million times and this shit never happened how fuck I'm like I don't know man so you know we're hitting all the buttons and stuff and then eventually like we hit like the call button and like we talked to someone and they're like okay yeah we need to like get the service dude to come but it's like Saturday night at you know 11 p.m. or 11.30, it's probably going to be a minute. And we're like, okay, well, at least we got the food,

so that's good. And then we just sit there. But then we're like, we also have the drinks and we're like, nobody drinks anything because you got to pee. That's going to be a serious situation. Yeah, so we eat and just sit there and wait for them to finally come up. And it's hilarious too because we like start having a conversation and like, I don't know, like, somehow we're talking about like some girls that we know and like you know whatever it's three dudes having guy talk yeah elevator talk yeah it's like locker room talk it's like locker room talk and then the woman from the double tree like is like hey guys just so you know I can hear you we're like me a coppa sorry so everyone I was in there he's like yo this girl will suck of my dick I was

like uh guys would you mind cleaning it up in the elevator wasn't quite that Randy but you know it was definitely two hours of talking you're like bro we've been wired the whole whole time. Yeah. So we're just in there just bullshitting. Yeah, I mean and then, you know, and of course, like anything, you have to go from like, okay, first we're just talking about how funny this situation is to then like,

all right, we have to like gamify this and then it's like best albums of this year. What about, you know, who was the best rapper at that time or you know, whatever, like just to like pass the time. Did he have any music takes that like annoyed you? Not that annoy me. Like that dude is just a like encyclopedia of rap that like I don't think people necessarily understand or appreciate

like I have watched him rap along to the entire 19-naughty-3 album by Noddy by Nature like 20 years after its release like word for word knows every single word like he is a student of the game. Hmm And so you guys were just going back and forth Bar for Bar So yeah So we're just like talking You know

You know Was Grand Poebauer Ever the best rapper alive You know like all that kind of You know just like Yo but I don't know Dres was like really nice For like six months

In 1991 You know those types of conversations So that's how you guys connected Like Yeah I mean we're Pretty much Yeah Literally just like

Passion for rap and hip hop Like let's get into it Yeah So two hours in the elevator It's just like Greatest rapper Hotest chicks And that's the game

Yeah, and then, you know, and then just, you know, M talking about his career and like where, you know, the things he wants to do and like... Was it prophetic? Yeah, I mean, he, it was, I'll say this, that was a really interesting and precarious time. And it's interesting to see, like, how, you know, the discourse around him is now 20 years after he's been like the biggest rapper for, you know, forever. or you know, he's whatever, people, him and Jay-Z are, you know, basically the top, right? But in that moment, it was all very precarious and like it all could have gone sideways

at any moment, you know, there was no, like, it wasn't a foregone conclusion, like I said, like when I pitched him at blaze and vibe, everyone still was like, you know, had PTSD from Vanilla Ice and there was this real feeling of like, no, like, this is not, we can't even entertain this. And, you know, and so he was like, I just want to go gold.

If I can just go gold, I will be so happy. I can provide for my daughter and I can have like a career in this for a few years. That's the goal. Interesting. So when he was talking, his ambitions at the time weren't like, I'm going to be the biggest ever. I'm going to be the greatest. No, not even remotely. It was like, I want to be respected by my.

my peers and I want to be, you know, commercially successful enough that this is a viable full-time job for me. Wow. You know, he's still coming from like having just worked as like a busboy at like a fast food restaurant and like, you know. Yeah, and a trailer park in Detroit. Like, yeah. I mean, it's interesting.

I even see, I don't know if you would agree, but like similarities in what you were saying about Jay-Z. Like there is a confidence but still a humility about where they're at early in their career. Definitely. Do you find that there's a similar mindset amongst the greats that you've met early on in their career where you go, oh, he has the right aptitude. He has the skill, but there's a lot of people with skill. But like the right aptitude and work ethic and mindset that will take them far.

Definitely. I mean, they all have to have a relentless ambition. Like it takes, and to your point, a work ethic to just put the creative process over absolutely everything else. in the world. And yeah, like M in that moment, like, was, this was like a make or break thing that was, you know, going to be a life-changing, potentially life-changing event. And I think also the other thing with both him and Jay-Z,

what they have in common is that they both put out their first records in their mid-20s, you know, and if you compare that with like someone like Nas, who was like 18, 19 years old, like, it's different when you're, you know, like Jay-Z put out his first 12-inch in 1986 you know as a group part of a group called a high potency

and like he doesn't put out reasonable doubt till 96. So there's a 10 year span where he's like sort of trying to rap getting features on songs

but then also living a life in the street and like he's still on the dope game and shit. Yeah having like this whole other experience but again it's not like this did not come easy to him This was not like, oh, you made your first record, you know. Whereas like, say, Nas, you know, did a one, you know, verse feature on the main source album, and everyone was like, holy shit, he's the new rock him.

And, you know. That's what you mean by, like, anointed one. Yes. Like, and then it was like, you are the darling. You are the chosen one. He does that. And, you know, within two years, he has a album on Columbia with, you know, every one of the best producers at that moment, you know, and he delivers on it with a level of introspection and thoughtfulness. that he's like predi-natural when you think about him being an 18-year-old and like

having these observations about truly prolific yeah humanity and and you know the sort of like human experience um but yeah but i think you know and then i'm the same thing where it's like you know you can go on the internet and you can find like tapes where he's rapping like naughty by nature in like 1991 you know part of a group trying to figure it out it's like dirty dozen time before all that oh wow he was in some other i can't remember what their name was but like, you know, they made some songs locally. I don't even know if they ever got pressed up. Then he makes the Infinite album, you know, in 1996,

which is, again, was like a local release that there's like 12-inch and I think probably like maybe a thousand CDs that exist in the world where he's rapping like Nas and A-Z and it's all very like upbeat and like, I just had a daughter and I'm happy to be here. And like, and then, you know, he hits that point of frustration. of like I've been doing this for a while now. I'm doing this really for like seven, eight years. Seriously. And I'm not making any headway and I'm not seeing any progression.

And that's when the Slim Shady persona is born. And he just is like, fuck everything. I'm like upset. I'm going to say everything that I, like my entire, My entire internal monologue that I've been like selectively picking from, I'm just put it all out there. And how old is he roughly? Do you remember? 25.

Wow. You know, yeah. I think he was like, yeah, 25 when he put out the first time, maybe 26 somewhere in there. Wow. Which I guess in my perspective now, like is kind of old for rappers. Like so many rappers now are like 18, 19, 20 when they're popping on SoundCloud. Oh, I mean, dude. Well, the same thing.

And if you think about the early 90s, like, you know, Q-Tip was probably like. like 19 when they put out the like first tribe album you know gnaz was 19 when they put out when he put out ofomatic brain new being guys were probably like 20 or 21 and poohbo was a little older maybe like 23 24 like everyone in rap you were washed by the time you were 27 and you were definitely washed when you hit 30 um I always think about this is the one that bugs me out is like special ed um who you may or may not have heard of but had it in a massive hit in 1989 called I Got It Made, which is highly recommend if you have four minutes to spare. It's a fucking perfect record.

Huge hit for rap in that time. It puts out a gold record. He's 16 or 17. By the time I'm in high school in 1994, he's launching his comeback on the Crooklyn Dodgers song. And it's like, oh shit. He had like put out that album that was huge. And then he put out another album that kind of bricked. And then he was like lost.

He like lost his deal and whatever. And at the time, I'm 16. So like him being 24 or whatever, it was 23, seemed like, okay, he's like a grown up. Very mature. At 43, I'm like, I can't imagine the psychological trauma of having been like one of the most popular rappers in 1989 and five years later. Having fallen off.

Like having to come back. back at 23 and that's like how the press is framing it that is how everyone like you know that's yeah it sucks there's a there's a trauma that goes along with like getting seen early especially like I mean you can't really be ready for it when you're 17 like even if you are musically talented you make an album that slaps like you still are an immature human being and you still have life experiences and mistakes to make and so now you're getting judged at 20 when you're still fresh like you probably I don't know I'm curious do you think it's is prudent for artists to kind of like hold off and hone their craft?

No, I mean, I think you got to like strike while the iron is hot and like if it's flowing, it's flowing. But I think the larger thing would not even be like to hold back, but more to understand that like things are going to connect at different times. And like, yeah, you might be like teenage phenom. or you might need 10 years, you know what I mean? Like, Jay-Z was probably fucking really psyched in 1986 when he got that first 12-inch back from the press

and was like, yo, I'm rapping, this is fucking amazing. Like, it's going to happen for me. And then... A decade goes by. A decade goes by. And, you know, he had like... And multiple eras music, rap music changed like six times in that 10 years.

And then finally in 96, like, he happens to be at that perfect place where he is now like one step in front of the zeitgeist and he drops reasonable doubt and all of a sudden it's like yeah and and also he had 10 years of his life in the street to draw from where you know some of his contemporaries were like kind of making up you know mob stories and like pretending because they're spending their time in studios and whatever they got like a little advanced money so they were able to get out of the hood and now of a sudden they're not living the life that no and he can talk about like you know trafficking dope from new york to you know down south and like holding up in a hotel room and like all of these

like weird details that you know resonated with other hustlers that were his contemporaries who certified him and like broadcast to the audience that this was credible and this was real but also there's just a richness of storytelling that you can't fake that like that's that's a great lesson you know like I'm 26 and I feel like I'm falling behind you know what I mean like I feel like I'm like I'm not doing enough like and I think that's really prominent especially amongst my generation even the generation younger than me like especially with you know the internet and the idea of personal branding and stuff it's like if you don't have your brand figured out by 22 if you don't have you know views by the time you're like 18 like there's no hope for you and I don't know it's

kind of a good lesson. Like, stop trying to rush life experience. Like, I talk with comics about this all the time where they're so focused on like grinding and like they had like a good look when they were young and they don't live a life worth talking about. And as a result, like their material becomes like derivative or it becomes like too meta because they're spending all their time in comedy clubs and not observing the world and actually being present. And I don't know, I feel like even with J&M, it's like, yeah, they got to live a life and they, you know, Eminem had a kid, Jay-Z was in the streets, and they were, they had source material. Well, I mean, yeah, and that's the thing is that you think about the arcs of their career.

Like, what was it about M that made him so successful? Like, yes, he is incredibly dexterous and his wordplay is amazing. And he had Dr. Dre producing him, who is probably the greatest producer of a generation. All those things helped, right? But the thing that had made people like tattoo him on their chest is his personal narrative. And, you know, the fact that like he reached rock bottom and hit a point where he was like, I'm going to say the like weird uncomfortable shit that like people don't say out loud. Like I fucking hate my mom.

And like that candor resonates with people. And I think, you know, in a sort of. different way you look at like reasonable doubt and and jZ's catalog and it's like he talks about like the the like gross parts of the dope game like you listen to de evils and it's like he talks about falling out with his best friend and like tying up like the daughter and like there's like weird kidnapping shit going on you know or like regrets where he's talking about you know just like all of the ugliness that's involved in that world or you know you must love me you know shooting his brother or like selling you know I

think in that song he talks about selling dope to his mother which I don't think was actually a real story I think it was but it was a family member um and like that kind of humanity like it takes not like first of all it takes real intelligence to be able to like hone in on these moments and be like, this is the fucked up thing that is like making me not sleep at night and like this is the thing, you know, and these are guys that weren't going to see therapists at this time. This is the thing that is like making me a crazy person. This is why I'm paranoid. This is why I sleep with a gun underneath my pillow.

And then being like, I'm going to put the darkest parts of what's inside my head into the world and let the rest of the rest of the of the world consume this. Yeah. And that is like a brave, ballsy thing to do, but that's why they connect with the audience in that way where people, you know, they have like weird stalkers and I mean,

I remember the whole fucking song about it. Yeah, literally. Another banger. Yes. But it's one of those things where it's like, you can't just jump to that, I don't think. Like that required 10 years of putting out a happy track, I'm happy to be here, putting out a fun thing,

a party song to then be like, all right, I've done, all the shit, fuck everyone, I'm going to do what I'm going to do and have my own voice. And yeah, I think that happens with some, like any great artist. I think, like you can't have WD40 without all the other WDs. You know what I mean? And you can't just jump

to it. You can't just be like, oh yeah, I will make the right product. It's like, no, I have to make all the iterations before it in order to get to the thing. And for me at least, I need to take perspective and be like, you know, the shit that I'm writing now or the shit I'm doing on stage is fine, it's good, but it's not my best shit.

but I need to do this and it's essential that I do this in order to get to my best shit. Because I can't just go there. That's not how this game works. You have to iterate and build. I don't know that much about stand-up comedy, but I would imagine also that it's, you know, you have to learn every single time you're on stage about the audience and about the sort of like micro parts of your performance. Yes, it is.

I've heard people say like the first time you go on stage, there's a brick wall in front of you. and every time you go up, you take down a brick. And only when the brick wall is gone, are you truly authentic on stage? And that's when the audience really connects with you. And that's when you're able to connect with the audience. But when you first start, and I think it's like music,

you're just doing what you think you're supposed to do. And then you get pretty good at like the fundamentals. It's almost like playing sports before puberty. You know what I mean? Like you understand the mechanics of it, like how to shoot a basketball. But then you go through puberty, you get muscle.

And the muscle is the life experience. And that's when you're actually able to ball. Because then you're like, I know how to move my body. I know how to use the fundamentals, but also use the athleticism. And you can learn how to flow and how to rap, but unless you have a life we're talking about, and you can learn how to write jokes. But unless you have shit to say, it's not going to resonate. That's what I'm saying.

Like, you listen to the stuff Jay-Z was putting out in 1994. He was, like, rapping for the sake of rapping. And he's clearly very talented. But you don't walk away from any of those records being like, oh, I know anything about him, except that like he can jokele syllables really, really well. Exactly. And you say that with comedians where it's like, oh, they have great jokes. But who are they?

Yes. What are you getting from them? They got great one-liners. They have this like silly observation, but it's like, who are you? And you can do it through observational stuff, I think. Like, I think you know who like Seinfeld is by watching him. But if you're just doing like silly misdirects or like knock-knock joke type shit, it might be funny and you might get the audience laughing,

but they're not going to walk home and be like, who was that guy? I got to know about him. I'm drawn to him. because you're not opening yourself up. You're not putting yourself out. That brick wall is still in front of you, even if you're getting laughs. And I think music is the same way.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, yeah, the comedy thing, and I also think comedy, so much of it is in the performance. Like, you know, you watch, like, Chris Rock's most recent special, and it's like he has certain, like, ticks and, like, uses of repetition and things that, you know, having watched all of his specials, I'm like, oh yeah, but he continues to lean into the particularities of his sort of performance stick.

Yeah, the essence of what makes him funny. Yes. And that's why he'll get laughs on shit that aren't even jokes. Well, I was going to say, yeah. And he's able to like crank up things that are like, you know, some of his jokes are absolutely hilarious. And some of them are like, okay. But the way he says it, you can't not laugh at it because it's just like. There's nothing funny about saying, you motherfuckers.

But if you go, you motherfuckers, it's like, you're going to. It's like just funny, his essence is funny. And that you can't write down. That's not something you can just like have. I mean, some people have it, but you have to hone it on stage in order to connect. And that is when you're in my opinion, I like the apex of your game, when it is just like, you and the material are working together to create a performance is ultimately performance art that is just like locked in with the audience.

And sometimes it doesn't even come through on like recording or TV. I think probably, I'm curious if you think rap is the same way. Like are there some musicians where you're you? see them live and you go, wow, there is an energy when you're in the room with this human being that doesn't come through on the record. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, they're like, these aren't people who I would like discredit their recorded material, but like Buster Rhymes is a phenom on stage. He's a great rapper. Yeah. With a really great body of work, but he can like, upstage almost anyone with his presence and his energy.

In his, you know, Keras 1 is an example of like someone who like, even today, you know, having not been like a really active rapper and, you know, quite some time, like his voice booms on a mic in a way that is like unfucking real. Like I went to the memorial for Fife Dog when he passed. And, you know, they had, it was one of the. more, I mean, it was obviously a very somber moment in many ways, but also one of the more incredible hip-hop moments that I've ever experienced. And like, they all had the same mic, and everyone else sounds normal, like, okay, cool, they're like loud in the mix, but, you know,

you hear the music. KRA gets on the mic, and it's like, the music, like, you can't even hear it. Like, he's just so, he can project his voice and command the room in it, in this way that is like, oh, this is, he's just been sharing the stage with, like, a litany of icons and this is like some whole other shit. There's a level to his essence where you're like, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. I think Chappelle's the same way.

Like you watch him live and you're like just in the room. Like there's so much tension that's built in through like interpersonal contact where like you're just listening to him. Have you seen Chappelle live? No, I don't think I have. Oh, you got to him. It's a cool experience because you're listening to him. You're like, wow, there is a energy in here where everyone just like, what's going to happen? What's he going to say?

and then he breaks the tension and all of a sudden it's just like eruption and then brings it back in. It's like masterful. And he knew it from a young age where like he would smoke cigarettes and a cigarette, I mean he probably likes cigs

but like he's doing it. No, that's part of the fact. Yeah, the Washington DC Comedy Central special where he's smoking on steroids. Literally. It's a, it's a, I was actually, I think I was talking to Neil Brennan who co-rochapel show him

but he was like at a young age he was telling me like in his 20s like yeah, the cigarette is for building tension. It's like set up, set up, set up. little tag laugh tension tension punchline but like it's all built into the rhythm

of what he's doing and that is where the experience comes in where it's like yeah you can write all the words you want you can write all the funny jokes you want but it's like that type of rhythm and performance where greatness separates from goodness no and I mean look even just the gentleman that we were talking about both M&M and J it's like

they both started off with very very very, you know, extraordinary pieces of work. But like, you look at the way Eminem would grow both as a writer and as a performer from some JD LP to the Marshall Mathers LP to the Eminem show to 8 Mile. You know, like, it is hard to believe that the guy that wrote my name is also wrote, lose yourself, right? Yeah. Like, they are totally different songs in almost everywhere.

you know yeah but that's the range yeah and that and that and that and that and that and that was the part of like the obsessive investment in his craft and not and being like no I can do it better like I heard a story about Eminem that he would like treat it like a job like when he would go in he would like be up at like nine nine 30 in the studio recording and then around five he'd be like all right I'm gonna go home that is definitely my you know he obviously sort of like operates in his own world at this point but like my My impression is that, yeah, for the last, like, 10 or 12 years, you know, once he sort of, like, downshifted and then also, like, became sober, and, like, decided, like, I'm not good. I don't want to, like, do world tours, like, every quarter and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that he just was like, I'm going to, like, get up, take the girls to school, go to the studio, write rap songs all day. At the end of the day, I'm going to go pick up the girls from their after school thing. come home do dinner watch TV with them go sleep like yeah and just like and it's I mean that's amazing work ethic and I yeah I don't say as a job is like a slight I say it's like he found like I think so many people think rap and maybe some rappers will get in there just kind of like you know I'm going to get drunk at high and just like freestyle some shit and like kind of come in when I'm feeling inspired but he's like no every day I'm working on it sharpening the sword no he I mean I literally do not I can't even fathom the

number of records that he has in the vault because he writes every single he's writing and recording every single day yeah and we get an album you know sometimes they're back-to-back years and sometimes it's a four-year spell and but that's also like the level of sort of precision and self-scrutiny that he puts onto the work is like when it's a four-year drought it's not because he hasn't made 700 songs. It's that he hasn't felt like he's found the thing he wants to say or the sound he wants to go for or he's like, you know, obsessing about making sure that like the kick sounds exactly like how the kick sounds and, you know. That's so impressive just to be like, yo, this is not meeting my threshold of what's good. And it's not, I'm not going to let it tarnish my legacy to put out

some shit, even though the shit he's thrown away is 90% of musicians best shit. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, the very little that I have had, you know, the opportunity to listen to is like, this is, yes, this would be on many people's best work. Yeah, yeah, track one on most people's albums. But, but, you know, but he takes that kind of, you know, he takes his craft, like, that serious this far into his career, every deed. detail of everything.

And I think, you know, and he applies it across the board to every part of his business and his brand and his performance. Did you see him much after the elevator incident? Yeah. So then, you know, I'm trying to think. After that, I saw him at the, they had a platinum party for Marshall Mathers LP the week that it came out because it sold like a million records first week. at one of the like big clubs on the west side. We chat it for a second. And then the next time that I saw him was I wrote a cover story for XXL with him,

with him, Dr. Dre, and 50 Cent. And so I interviewed the three of them on the set. They were shooting simultaneously in the club. sing for the moment. It was crazy. They had like this giant like lazy Susan where half of it was the club scene from in the club

and on the other half was the backdrop the like black backdrop for sing for the moment. They were filming on the same set. At the same, not like at the same time time but like basically it was like okay we have to switch stuff out for the in the club oh wow.

And it's your time to like. That's crazy. Yeah. And so I interviewed him there And then I'm trying to think. Then I interviewed him again for complex in like 06. And then again, right in between the relapse and recovery albums in 2009. That must be cool to catch up, especially over time.

Like you've seen all the iterations of him. Yeah. And then because of, you know, when I was working at Def Jam, I worked for Paul Rosenberg. he was the chairman. I got the opportunity to catch up with him when he headlined Coachella and that was also awesome.

And again, at this point it is just like, you know, it's funny, he calls me Noel from Blaze still. And like, but it is this kind of like surreal thing of like I was like 19 and you were like 24, 25 and now we're like grown ass men and you're- Yeah, Titans of Our Own industry and shit. Well, yeah, I don't know if I would compare my career to, but Eminem's in any meaningful way.

But yes, like, we're still in this and we're still active. Yeah. But, I mean, I can remember interviewing him, like, in that, okay, so in that first, in 1998, one of the time, he then came back to New York in October, and he played, or either October or end of, it must have been end of September, and he played me, um, forgot about Dre, and Kim, the really fucking intense song, about killing Kim.

And that was, I mean, first time you hear Kim, like, what the fuck is happening? Yeah, it was literally like, I don't even know what chamber you've taken this to, but this is like, almost like opera level. Yeah, but like, but more visceral than that. It's not. Yeah, it's raw.

I mean, you know, everyone in the room, It's like it ends. And he like looks around and like everyone's just quiet. And it's just like, he's like, yeah, so I made that. I was really upset. You might have been able to tell. I don't remember what. They had some, you know, their sort of ongoing beef.

Something had happened and it inspired him. And then I was like, oh, I got the advance of the new JZ album. And this was volume two. And so I played him Jigawut, Jigahoo, the Timberlin record where he wraps on the bounce beat. Yeah. And it was like, yo, that's so crazy. Like, Jay-Z just did a bounce record. And I just did forgot about Dre where I'm rapping on a bounce beat.

Like, you know, there's something in the air. That's so cool. Damn, that's wild. And now I'm also curious, like, so Eminem, Jay-Z, and then you spent a decent amount of time with Kanye. Yes. I'm really curious about that, which obviously I know. I'm actually curious your perspective. I don't want to, like, put, insert my feeling about, like, what's happening with him now.

But I'm curious if you. you have like deeper insight as too. I mean, I, you know, I'll say this. Like, I,

I don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about Kanye right now just because he was at one point, someone who I really would call a friend. And like, you know, we've like, we went our separate ways,

not in any sort of like beef thing. Just like, you know, people like, have kids and get married and life gets busy. Yeah, exactly. And like,

also, you know, and if you're not a person, with like a predilection to like chase celebrities like they have very busy lives with lots of people in their orbit and whatever and I'm yeah not one to be like hey man like what's up are you thinking about me yeah um so like I don't know I the most recent situations I kind of feel like I'd reserve that conversation to have privately with him yeah um but yeah I mean I did I met him in 2002 Like, basically, I was working at MTV and a young woman named Yasmin, who I was very good friends with at MTV News.

We were like just commiserating about how great the beats on the Blueprint album were. And she's like, oh, my friend Kanye did a couple of them. And I was like, oh, you know that dude? I'm like, my roommate's from Chicago. He told me he's like a Chicago dude that's from like the late 90s was putting out indie stuff. And she's like, yeah, you know, when he moved to New York, we became friends. I actually just pitched a you heard it first on him to like, you know, the bosses at MTV News, I think they're going to let me do it. Whatever, she connects me with him.

I end up writing a story about him for what was my first issue of mass appeal as editor-in-chief, mass appeal number 18. And this is, funnily, this is like gets documented to some degree in the genius documentary on Netflix. They show like the photo shoot because I guess he had a videographer on set for the photo shoot. Yeah. And then they have him in LA like at like some fast food restaurant and like his friend comes like, yo, I got the mass appeal. He flips through and he's like, yo look at that shit. Oh, that's cool.

Which was like a yeah, really like cool moment to see, you know, I had no perspective on that. But what was crazy was we have the whole, we do the whole interview. And you know, he was like, you can tell for you. that documentary. Everything that he is, he was that in that moment. He was like incredibly ambitious, incredibly inspired, incredibly self-confident, a contrarian, not like, again, it was kind of like the M&M thing where I was like, you know, I sort of went in, because there's like a certain set of like rappers or producers who like talk about music in the,

the way that music critics talk about music. And then there are artists who are just artists. And they like don't, they don't process it in an analytical way. They just feel it, right? And like, Kanye was definitely that where it was like, I'm like, oh, so like you grew up, you must have grown up loving like, tribal quest and like De La Sol and he was like, you know,

Tribe was dope, but, you know, De La, like, I like them, but like, you know, I like to MC Hammer better. Yeah. Can play. And I was like, it's not what I was bringing up but yeah I'm like what he's like yo the way Hammer stage show was and like

yo the costuming and did it and I was like you make like underground rap bro like I'm confused but like again because I went into it with my own sort of like predisposition of like yeah thinking that the height of his ambition was to make tribe music

right not knowing that his like he wanted to be Michael Jackson yeah and so to him like MC Hammer was pushing rap in that direction. Yeah, was making like the biggest rap records of all time. Yeah.

And had this enormous entourage this enormous stage show with all these dancers. And like it was like a whole production. Yeah, and a cartoon and all this kind of stuff. But you're looking at this producer with his mouth wired shut

and you're like, what do you talk about that? So this is before, that was the other crazy thing. So I interview him, write the article. And then Yasmin calls me and it's like, yo, yeah, he just got into a car accident. You know, he's going to be okay.

but like he's in the hospital, his jaws wired shut. And I was like, yeah, I was like, you know, should I call him? She's like, she's like, well, no, I just got called by, like, someone on his team is literally, his jaws wired,

and he can't even really talk right now. So, you know, it's like, okay, cool, let him know, you know, hope he's feeling better or whatever. And then I think that was kind of also why in the documentary when he gets the mass appeal in his hand,

it feels like such an achievement because it's like, I'm like overcoming adversity and now I've got this thing. Yeah, that's the most impressive part to me about him and his career. And the documentary on Netflix really showed this. Like he is growing up in like, you know, not a super wealthy family in Chicago and like with his mom. And then is making great money producing for Rockefeller and like making beats for these artists. And could do that for the rest of his life.

He could have a check to like, potentially generational wealth and like changing the trajectory of him and his family's life if he just sticks in his lane and just keeps on making beats and is an amazing producer objectively and that could just be it and he chose to risk everything and be like nah fuck that i'm not the best producer i'm the best rapper it's an insane leap to go especially in that time i don't know if people really even realize like because now i think a lot of people are like rapping and producing it's a little bit more common yeah but for him at that time to make that leap and to go, no, I'm not satisfied with this amazing life that is like tenfold what I grew up with.

I need more. And going for it and then really doing it. I look at that and I'm like, wow, like that ambition and that drive and that vision for himself is like really aspirational. Yeah. I mean, no, he like he had, he knew what he wanted to be in a crystal clear way from the very outset of his career. I mean, I remember at some point I did a story for Vibe about him and I spoke to No ID, who's a very accomplished producer, who got his start working with Common. So he was kind of the man in Chicago. And he remember like No ID's mom and Kanye's mom were like friends or something like that. So, you know, as a teenager, Kanye gets to like sort of like come hang out with No ID and like see how he makes beats or whatever. And No ID told me the story about like, you know, comments popping,

He's like the guy behind the boards for Common as you know, common becomes like, okay, he's getting a real swing. He's like, so, you know, we get a meeting. I get a meeting at Sony with Donnie Einer, who was kind of like the number two under Tommy Motola. And they fly me and Kanye out. A limo picks us up at JFK or at LaGuardia takes us to, you know, 550 Madison.

We go up in the top of 550 Madison. We're in the conference. room and like within like five minutes of the meeting starting like Kanye and this is pre-blueprint rockfeller all this other shit like this is like 1998 maybe maybe 99 is moonwalking on the conference room table telling Donnie Einer no you don't understand I'm the next Michael Jackson and no idea was like remember how I told you how we got this limo to take us to the LaGuardia, he was like, suffice to say, we didn't have a hotel booked and we ended up having to pay for our own cab back to LaGuardia that night to fly back to Chicago because, you know,

your man is your man. Yeah. That's he, but he saw it and like the rest of the world was not ready and that's kind of the thing we talked about with him and like, Jay, it's like he could see it, but frankly, you know, he, the music wasn't even there yet. Like he, you look, I've heard a lot of the underground stuff he was making in Chicago, you know, in 96, 97, 98. And like, it's cool. But he was still growing.

Growing. Growing and figuring out his voice and like learning the physicality of rap. Like that dude went from being like, again, when, you know, those first demos, he's a, you can see the promise of how he's rapping. But you cut from that to like, dark twisted fantasy. and he's like legit among the best people rapping in 2010. Maybe one of the best albums of the decade, like insane. Yeah. And but that,

but again, that was like, that was 10 years of being committed to becoming the best rapper and like honing his craft like a fucking maniac. And you know, that's the like, you know, he puts people like Steve Jobs and Walt Disney on this pedestal

but like that's the way that he moves. And that's the way that he, you know, he applies that pressure to himself and he applies that pressure to everyone that he works with. Yeah. Can you tell me about my beautiful dark twist of fantasy and your involvement with the records? So, you know, he and I,

after having like a little bit of a contentious relationship at the beginning of his career. Why was it contentious? because like I wrote so like a lot of the press that had been written about him up until that point was very like just like a fuse of praise because what he was doing was amazing and I spent time with the dude and basically my analysis was like this guy makes incredibly bold and incredibly daring music and also it can sometimes be really grating to be around him because he is a lot and he is very self-confident. Or on egotistical? Yeah, that would be one way to phrase it.

And I was, you know, but I also like rationalize it at like, look, like you have to have like an incredibly outsized, you know, personal confidence to make, to like, in an era where everyone is making like Swiss beats on and keyboard beats to be like, no, I'm going to take the knock from Swiss and Dre, but I'm going to use samples like Q-tip and beat rock. Yeah, let me take an Edda James track and fucking speed it up. And like, yeah, and like do things that like people like Rizza and Mugs were doing successfully in the early 90s, but by the late 90s, that was not a popular wave. If you listen to the first whatever four JZ albums,

it's like, you know, I mean, or excuse me, outside of reasonable doubt, two, three, four, he's going a different direction. Yeah, and so was all of rap. Yeah, he was leading the way. Totally. And yeah, people wanted like Rough Rider Anthem and like, you know, that Triton sound was like what was dominating. And like Kanye had this vision for like, no, I'm going to like take the things that I loved

about this early 90s hip hop, but I'm going to just give it that bottom so that it in a car so that it moves on a club you know a dance floor so it still fits in but it's new and old at the same time and it has that soul and it has that musical richness and I don't think people realize how hard it is a sample at that time like nowadays you sample you've ripped some shit off YouTube throw it into Ableton your crate digging yes this is yeah pre-lime wire like you are going around the country finding records in weird record stores someone passed you a vinyl and you're like listening to it on a shitty fucking record play and you're like that part well that little drum

break. The other thing that's crazy about Kanye, too, is just that, like, he, a lot of the stuff that happened in the early 90s was, like, very much, like, loops. Like, okay, take a two-bar loop and then throw some cool drums behind it and maybe, like, an 808, and now you have a song. Kanye is, like, chopping up shit and taking, you know, Dilla was on the same thing, where it's, like, you're going to take little bits of something and totally recontextualize it. So, sounds almost unrecognizable from what the original source material was like Billy Holiday is a classic example like I'm taking this track and if you listen to it obviously you can hear it but like it's just random parts of her vocal that's chopped up he's

marrying it with like the horns from the C murder song and then that da da dun da da da da da like there's like all kinds of shit going on in in so many of the records that he was making and yeah some of them were like a little bit more obvious and like you know heart of the city is heart of the city but some of them you're like you're like you're like, yo, that's crazy. I didn't, like, I wouldn't have recognized that sample if I didn't, like, A, B them next to each other. Yeah.

But, yeah, so my, that was kind of my, like, thesis on him, which, you know, no one likes to be called a dick. Like, so he took exception to that. We had some heated conversations, but, you know, he's also, like, a fucking thoughtful, rational person and like we would argue and eventually it was like I like you I'm not happy with what you said or like or I'm not happy with what you said maybe because some of it rang true I don't you know do you think he respected your honesty I mean a lot of people around him might be telling him who he wants to hear he's never said that to me um he has conceded that the writing was good

um people do that with jokes sometimes after a show they'll be pissed off and they're like I mean the Jokes were good, but like what you were saying was fucked up. I didn't like it or whatever. But like they'll always concede like a little part. That was literally, yeah. Like we got into this heated phone conversation. That was basically to that effect where he was like, you know, yeah, the writing was really good, but like, you know, that was fucked up that you said that.

And I was like, look, man, like this is my job. And like, I'm not trying to take personal shots at you, but like. That's what it is. Like I'm writing what I feel. And I honestly do feel like you couldn't do what you do if you weren't exactly how you are. and so like you shouldn't be embarrassed or ashamed or like that and you know Steve Jobs was a maniac but also a genius yes and he needs both in order to be Steve Jobs yes he's not Steve Jobs if he's not like you know working 18 hours a day and screaming at people and perfect yeah and so that we went through that period and then I when I got to complex by that point we had sort of like ironed out our differences and we became pretty you know I would say like friends you know, and we talked frequently and, you know, about music but also about life and just

kind of like shoot the shit kind of thing. And so I did a few stories on him in that like he like guest edited the magazine in 2007. And again, like that was a very hands-on. That guy does not, it's not like, oh, like, here I'll throw some ideas at you and then like sign my name. It's like, I'm going to be up in the office like. Five or six times. Typing away. Yeah, send me all the PDFs. No, no, no.

Change the layouts, whatever. So we went through that. It's like Eminem with his fucking every beat, every snare. Like, same thing. Yeah. And that was the thing was that even back then Kanye was like, I'm much more than just a rapper or a musician. Like, I have a vision for the world.

And it like includes stage shows and it includes magazines. And it includes fashion and sneakers and everything. And so I did that then another interview probably in 2009 anyway or no in 2008 around 808 and heart breaks and then on New Year's day at like 8 in the morning in 2009 he calls me and I like wake up obviously having been out quite late and a little hungover He's like, yo, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm laying in bed. I'm like, he's like, yo, I'm in Hawaii.

And, you know, this is, we had sort of, not to get into it too much of a tangent, but like during the, or no, I guess it was, yeah, during the fall of, I guess 2008. I'm sorry, I'm trying to remember the years here. Fall 2009, this is like we're talking pretty frequently. He has the Taylor Swift moment. We talk about that afterwards. And then... What was his perspective on that? Did he feel kind of regretful or like he got misinterpreted?

I think he, like, every time I've talked to him about it, he's in a different place. Like, I think there's parts of him that feel, felt remorseful. There's parts of him that were like, yeah, it was a fucking entertaining moment. I made that bitch. Yeah, like, you know, I think there's like the parts of him that don't, doesn't think it's that big of a deal. Parts of him that just think it was like a fucking funny thing that a drunk guy did that was stopped the world for a second. And in that moment, you know, I like obviously, again, like not an. ambulance chaser so I like didn't immediately call him like wait like three or four days

hey man you good like just being a friend checking it yeah because like also because to me it wasn't that big of a deal like I just thought it was like a crazy funny yeah but it's TV like people are making moments and like that's what it is yeah I you know I mean he's not the first person to do something crazy at the at an award show particularly the MTV awards this is not like and you also know him personally so you're like that's con it yeah like yo he was like having fun and acting crazy. Yeah. And then he, so right around the same time, oh, this is the other reason that I didn't call him, was I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, like, right around Labor Day of 2009.

That's wild. Yeah, so this was crazy. Go to the eye doctor thinking I need to get new contacts because my left eye is a little blurry. Three hours later, I'm being told I either have multiple sclerosis or pituitary. an an aneuritory adenoma. Bro. Yeah. Which was a little, you know,

at the end of the day, ended up being like a strangely not that big of a deal. It was benign? Well, it was benign. And yeah, they just like, I had surgery and I was in the ICU and I missed four weeks of work. But like...

It got removed? They removed it. That's what you got that white patch, bro. That's what that is. It's the tumor just fucking bleaching you out. That's crazy, man. But yeah, so then we have this conversation. he's like telling me about all of his shit and then he's like yeah man so like what's up with you everything okay and I'm like well

Funny you should ask This is what I'm dealing with and he's like oh fuck man like yo, I'm so sorry like that I'm like it's cool like I got surgery and like Whatever three weeks They you know at this point they've ruled out Multiple sclerosis so they're telling me that this is a like Tumor that is like 95% of the time benign and so they just got to like go excise it and I don't know the surgeon tells me

he does like 50 of these a year so like don't stress it yeah which I'm like it's easy for you to say yeah you're gonna be alive eating pringles while I'm getting my head split open like are you crazy also 50's a lot but also not a lot in terms of brain surgeries

if he was like a thousand you're like all right I can live with that 50 fuck man so I sort of like you know he's kind of going through it getting dragged through the media at this point in time, I'm obviously preoccupied with my own sort of personal dramas. Of course. And then in November, he calls me kind of just to check in.

Like, hey, man, like, yo, I know you had the surgery recently. Like, is everything okay? I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm like, back at work. I recovered, you know, shit's good. I'm like, yeah, what's up with you, man? Like, where are you? He's like, well, I'm in a limo in Italy. me and Virgil are interning at Fendi right now

like fuck this rap shit like I'm not trying to make music anymore like I'm just I want to go fully into fashion like this music shit like I just the way this whole Taylor thing has gone down like I'm not fucking with it whatever whatever we talk and we talk and I'm you know

hearing him out and I'm like hey man for it's worth like still one of my favorite artists like I you know yeah you're pretty good of this music though I don't know that I don't think you should like fully put it down. And then, you know, and then he's like, oh yeah. But, you know, again, like, Kanye's like an artist.

Like he has to move by his own impulse. And so, like, in any given moment, he, like many artists that I've dealt with, like, we'll tell you something is, he's doing something or something is happening with 100% conviction. And we'll, like, wake up the next morning. and not even remember ever having said that that's the case. So, like, even through this conversation where he's, like, gone for 45 minutes about how he's completely over this.

He's moving out of the country. He doesn't want to be involved in celebrity pop culture anymore, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then by the end of the conversation, he's like, yeah, so I made this one song, though, with Hove and Jack White, and I, like, try to make, like, drums, like, havoc on, you know, hell on earth. Like, and he starts, like, playing it over, like,

the, you know, the, like, stereo system of this. And I'm like, Jesus Christ, this is fucking hard as fuck. This is great. And he's like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. I'm like, again, hey man, I understand if you guys take a break,

but like, just as a fan, I just want you to know you'll be missed. Like, and your contribution to music is really important to a lot of people. He's like, no, no, no, I feel you. I just, you know, I got to do this fashion shit right now. He starts talking about red leather and gold and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah, blah. Anyway, then I don't hear from him for about two,

maybe like six weeks, eight weeks. And I get a call at the crack of dawn, relative, for me. On New Year's Day, crack at dawn, eight. And he's like, what's up, man? And I'm like, I'm good, you know, just been out and chilling. Like, what's going on with you? And he's like, oh, I'm in Hawaii.

I'm working on the next record. And I'm like, how's it going? And he's like, it's good, man. I'm like, I'm really dialed in. I'm just like, I'm surrounding myself with like all the like hip hop energy so that like I just, I know what this record has to be. And I'm just like, you know, I'm bringing Pete Rock out here. I'm bring Q-Tip out here.

I'm going to bring, you know, DJ Premier out here. I'm going to bring Riz out here. And, you know, I'm just like, I'm really. trying to get back to the sort of core of what I do and just have space to work with no distraction. Like I tried to work in L.A. during the fall. I came back from and it was like there was just too much shit going on and like too many motherfuckers like coming to the studio and I just couldn't focus. Like L.A., I can't work in L.A. I was like, okay. I mean, 808s and heartbreaks was a product of Hawaii and like whatever. It was clicking for you. I get it.

and he's like I'm flying in New York in like next week to shoot a single cover for one of the songs come by the come by the shoot in the tang and so like a week later I go by he's shooting like a naked centaur woman I don't know nothing that the world ever saw and he takes me into the like his escalator. Oh, sidebar. He's in New York for 12 hours. So he flew 12 hours from Honolulu to New York to shoot from, like he did the overnight. You leave at like 3 p.m. Honolulu time you get here at like 6 in the morning.

Yeah. He's shooting and then he's getting on the late flight to fly directly back to Honolulu that night. One day. Literally is 12 hours. 12 hours. I'm like, dude, I don't know how you do this. He's like, it's all good, man. You know, I, I sleep best on flights, honestly, at this point.

So he's like, you know, that tour life just, like, makes it like that. I'm like, okay. I guess, you know, and this is also back in the day when, like, you didn't have Wi-Fi on flights. Right, you were locked in. You were just, like, really, like, and so I think for someone whose mind is moving, like, a million miles an hour, it's like he could just. And he plays me, like, a mumble track of power.

a song that ended up on Rick Ross's album Live Fast Die Young Um What was the other Um The song from Twist of Fantasy that has Rayquan on it eventually Did not have Rick Juan at the time

Um And maybe like two other songs And It's like yeah this is like This is where I'm going And I'm like You know these records are really good Like really really good

And like also Having just come off of like a singing album which I was like I like you're you're not doing the thing that I like I'm here for the rapping yeah I you have an incredible gift for melody and like you're some of these songs are really awesome it's just not my personal thing um and it's funny because you know again this is where the criticism thing is it's like that's probably the most influential album on the direction of popular rap music like of the aughts like NBA Young boy Drake like none of that shit happens kid cutty without 808's and heartbreak yeah um and

he's like okay cool he's like yo do you want to come to Hawaii and I'm like to do what he's like just for the vibes man just like yo we're just like it's it's so ill it's so peaceful and I like yeah just come and hang for a week I'm like you sure he's like yeah yeah he's like all right so I like go to complex I'm like look I'm gonna go to Hawaii a week with Kanye, like, I don't know what's going to come of it or whatever, but I'm just, I have to do this. So I go to Hawaii and I just, you know, I witnessed the process for a week and it was like, again, you talk about that Steve Jobs shit. It wasn't, every single day was basically exactly the same. So we would meet at 10 in the morning at his house. He had a professional

chef there who would make breakfast. And so like, I'm eating breakfast with like push a tea, the risa consequence, Q-tip, you know, Stephen Victor, my friend would go on to become a very successful record executive, you know, Virgil and Donsey. Like, this is the table. And we're all just talking rap, talking about the stakes of this album, talking about what he has to accomplish. And, you know he is like a an executive in so much as like nothing happens that he nothing creative happens that he's not a hundred percent behind but he also likes to sort of build consensus and like sort of mind the room for ideas and some it's funny because like people always talk about like oh he has ghost treasure and stuff and I'm like more

than anything, he makes other people throw out ideas so as to like illustrate what he doesn't like. It's almost like he's filling in like the negative space. So like people are tossing ideas out and he's like, that's horrible. No, I hate that. It's like a sculpture. He's taking away the bad parts. Yes. To find the David. And like as that happens, his vision is like sort of coming into focus. And so anyway, we'd have amazing banana pancakes. Then everyone would go back to their hotel room change into gym gear meet up at the gym everyone who plays basketball not I would play ball for an hour and a half me and the Rizzo would go like work out on like lift weights and run on the treadmill and shit um everyone go home and shower meet back at the studio at three

and basically work from 3 p.m until Kanye falls asleep in the chair and like nobody is leaving until Kanye is like knocked. Wow. And like, and mind you also, he's got three studios running at the same time. So there's like, he's got Q-Tip upstairs working on the drums on Lost in a World. He's got, you know, consequence and Rhymefest in this studio writing to this beat. And then he's got him and the Rizza are working on, you know, dark fantasy in the A-room. and he's just moving with his own inspiration,

like checking in on everybody, like seeing where it's at. And literally like, you know, and I'm just kind of like either shadowing him or just floating and like going and hanging out with YouTube, which is like the fucking most amazing experience of life and getting to pick the brain of the guy that like, you know, made the records that made me want to do all of this. And yeah, and then,

Kanye would like literally work until he fell asleep in the chair sitting up and I remember there's one night where like you know like Pusha observe more like traditional like he's he's like we're talking about M&M like pusha is like a get to the studio work do the work and leave kind of guy like he's not trying to like hang for the vibe in the conversation or whatever and I think even knowing him like in his real life It's like, write the song at home in the leisure, like, in the comfort of my own crib, go to the studio to do the work, finish the song, and leave immediately out. Clinical.

Yes. And like, where's Kanye, it's like more of this sort of like omnipresent volley of ideas and thoughts. And we're watching, you know, weird art movies on the giant screen while the music plays at, like, deafening levels and like, you know, you. he's talking, you know, he's writing power and he's like going around the room being like, what does power mean to you?

What does power mean to you? Like, and like people aren't like saying lines. They're just like ideas that he might grab onto to then like formulate something. And this one night like it's now like four, four 30 in the morning like everyone has cleared out. But me and Steven were in the A room, with Kanye and like he's completely like knocked out like cold asleep like snoring and this is like

instant message your days so I'm like I message Stephen who we're staying at the same hotel I'm like yo you think we should get a cab and he's like I think he's asleep and I'm like okay cool he's like you we got to be quiet though like okay so I like close the laptop and like and like the the sofa creaks. And kind of is like, yo, oh shit, no, what are y'all doing?

Y'all are leaving, right? I'm still working. And we're like, oh no, I was just going to the bathroom. You got your backpack on? You're like, oh, yeah, it was cold in here.

He was just trying to, you know, warm up. Take it off. And yeah, and we end up, and we end up sitting there with him for like another hour while he'd like, and that was like his thing was like, he would like fall asleep at like four or five,

sleep for a couple hours in the studio, either like literally in the chair or like on a sofa. And then we probably wake up at like a work for another hour or two and then meet us at his crib for breakfast at 10 or 11. And during the like whatever five nights that I was there, the dude never slept in his own bed once. Like he was, that was where he slept. Wow.

And yeah, I mean, it's just that Steve Jobs like, level of like, you know, drivenness and ambition and like relentlessness. Like, this has to be exactly how I want it to be at all costs. It's insane. That level of focus and dedication. It really is Steve Jobs level. Like, I'm sleeping here. I'm not, I can't leave until it's done.

And so you were there. You did that pretty much every day for what, seven days? Maybe five, I think. And did he stay longer? He was, yeah. That was kind of like the, I think probably like the middle end of it

this is probably March he probably wrapped things up in a like end of April in general like my relationship with him during that period was like he would call me like he would

there would be a moment where the album would come into focus for him and then I would get the call like come through and And the irony was that often it was still like four months of like laborious work from actually being done or six months. Yeah, but he knew where he wanted it to go.

But it was like, okay, I now have the songs that I want. Okay, I can see this. Wow. And so yeah, at that point, like he had kind of, you know, the bones of the record, a lot of songs where it was just a beat or it was a beat with a chorus or, you know, like a skeleton of what was. we would actually eventually hear. And then he came back to New York over the summer, dropped power, and then finished the record at Electric Ladyland

during his whole like Rosewood movement where he wore a suit to the studio every day and like made the engineers wear suits. It was felt bad for Mike Dean and Noah, his engineer. Because he really had those dudes like in a suit at the mixing board for like 12 hour. Like necktie the whole deal.

Couldn't take the jacket off. And what was the rationale behind it? Do you remember? Yo, this is just what we're on. We're on some suit and tie shit. Yo, this is the Rosewood movement. Like, this is the thing. And it was just like, all right.

And yeah. Do you have a different relationship with the record now that you hear it and you got to hear it in its genesis and as it was forming? And like you can feel Virgil's fingerprints. You can feel push his fingerprints. Like, how does it resonate for you? I mean, that was one where, yeah,

I mean, it's just like, it is one of my favorite albums ever. And I think empirically, it is that great, but also just like to have spent, you know, because then when he was in Electric Ladyland, I probably dropped by, I don't know, half a dozen times during that just because it was like, you know, come over after work and like hang out for a little bit. And so like I watched him like record the, and like write the power remix verse with like, while he's getting a haircut with like, you know, me and a consequence, or what's his name, Sa'i Ha the Prince, like sitting there throwing lines out at us. Like, so, you know, there's like,

when you get to see art made like that, there's definitely like a level of personal investment that. And yeah, and like I can't listen to that record and not be taken back to those moments. And like, yeah. The smell is the feeling, like everything. Imagine 16 year old Noah is sitting at a breakfast table with Q-tip and the Rizzo. and Kanye and Virgil, Don Cee, and Puscia. Yeah, the kid from ego trip.

Yeah, just like, hey, and we're all just talking about rap. Yeah, it's insane. Do you ever listen to it and notice, like, your contributions? Like, obviously, he's asking you what you think about power, and you're giving him your answer, like...

I mean, no, because the thing is, is, like, I always try to... Like, there were times that we would... He would ask opinions and stuff, and my thing to him, him was always like, you're the artist and your natural instinct is what makes the art as great as it is. And like, again, I can tell you what I like or what I don't like.

But, like, when it comes to these creative decisions, like, I don't, I almost don't want to be involved because I don't want to sully. like your genius at work. Does that make sense? It kind of goes back to the A&R thing where you're like, you know, I don't have this like musical genius. I just kind of have taste in what I like

and what I don't like. So I can't, I don't want to contribute like, oh, fix the snare here, fix this 808 because that's not my back. No, I mean, like a perfect example is like all of the lights when he was playing it in Hawaii, it had like all those like crazy horns and crazy drums.

they were all like off of like a synthesizer so it's like these crazy loud like hornstabs like yeah and it and it was like super abrasive and like noisy and I was you know like yo I don't know about this one and I feel like I don't remember who one of the dudes in his sort of like inner circle like I had a like moment where I was like I don't know about that one they were like yeah it's a lot there's a lot going on there and And but then, like, Kanye has the vision, right? Like, all I'm hearing is just this, like, really loud, like, triton, cheesy keyboard horn stabs and this, like, really fucking abrasive drums that it's, like, drowning out his vocals. And then cut to, like, four months later, and he's got, like, a symphony playing the horns section.

And it's soft. And it's like... And he's got Rihanna and Fergie and Cuddy and, like, all these other people. like layering vocals and like, you know, and you're like, holy shit. Like this went from being like almost unlistenable to like one of the strongest songs on the album and one of his biggest hits ever. And it's like that's a perfect example of like, this is why I don't give feedback. Because like.

But you did give feedback. Yeah. Like you were like, but it was the exact feedback that you give, which is like, I don't know about that. But to him, I did not say anything. To him it was just like, you know, I just, also you know artists are sensitive. So like, I just lead with what I like and sort of like, don't address the rest, right? Like, yo, but I really love what you did with, you know, that shit, what you replaced the Pete rock thing with, yo, that was crazy or, you know, you know, that loop, the Curtis Mayfield shit that Pete did was crazy.

And like, oh, or this line is amazing or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. because I just feel like someone that is operating on that level is like playing like fucking 4D chess with themselves and like I don't yeah I'm here to aid that pursuit and not try to inject myself into it yeah because I don't like I know him and again like he he turns the corner and then he knows what it's supposed to be like he can hear it it's sort of like

you know and I feel this like somewhat as a visual artist right, where like, I'll have an idea for a drawing. Like, I did a single illustration for this artist, Errol Holden. And, like, I, like, send Errol like this, like, super quick, like, two-minute, like, sketch of what I want to do. And Errol's like, I don't know, man. Okay. I guess, like, see it through.

But I'm, like, in my head, I'm like, I know what. It's supposed to be. And I hope you can get on my wave and see where it's going. And then it becomes what it finally was, but there was still 75 hours of drawing that had to go between this quick little marker rendering and like what is now in Spotify. Exactly.

And like the same thing with Yeh, where it's like, yeah, he knew, like, no, but I'm going to get real horn players to replay these horns and like I'm going to go get Rihanna to sing that melody that like it's me doing a high-pitched voice, which is, you know what I mean? Like, imagine him. Like, these, yeah, like, it's him doing all the parts and like.

Turn out the lights in here. It's just his voice. It's his voice. Wow. Like, not autotuned. Like, you know, and he's like singing is not what he does, right? I mean, he can, he uses machines to like get him to where he needs to be. But like.

But he knows where he needs to go. Yeah. He just, he could hear all of that stuff in advance. Before anyone. Yes. Wow. Yeah. I mean, yeah, like, you know,

not to digress, but my other, I'm going to give you all the great stories here. Please. Like, a year later, he hits me up, and it was funny because I, like, just flown back from being at a conference in Australia. And, again, he calls me, like, first thing in the morning, like 7 a.m., and it's like, yo, what are you doing tonight? And I'm like, yo, I literally just got off a flight from Australia. like I'm probably going to sleep a couple hours and go into the office.

What's up? Me and Jay are here and we're finishing, Wash the Throne. I got it. I got the album. I know we put out ham and all that shit and like it's not that. That's not what the record is, but I got it.

Yo, come by tonight. We're at the Tribeca Grant. So I'm like, okay, sure, you know, whatever. I go sleep for a few hours, go to the office, do my thing. And it's like 7 p.m. And I've like kind of like memory hold this conversation because I'm just so like spun upside down by the jet lag and whatever. And I'm walking to the train to go home.

And then I have this like fleeting thought of like, I did say tell Kanye I would go to the studio and I'm just like thinking about the like being up until like midnight or something. And I'm just like, oh fuck, all right. You know, I mean not that I'm I'm not so jaded that I'm not excited that I'm not excited about the idea of... It was a long day. But it was just a long day.

And then my phone lights up. And he's like, yo, are you done work? And I'm like, yeah, I'm like literally standing at the mouth of the, you know, F train on 23rd Street ready to go back to Brooklyn. And he's like, cool. Yeah, I'm going to head over to the studio right now. So like, just meet me there. And... Fuck it.

You know what? I'm like, I can't say, no. to this. Like, this is like the two of my favorite rappers ever working on a collaborative project together and he's invited me to the studio. So like, yes, okay, I'm going to go. And I go and first of all, I get there and it's just Jay Z and Mike Dean. And Jay's like, you know, again, I don't, he certainly didn't remember me from MTV, but I think he kind of like knew of me as the complex guy because at this point I've been editor-in-chief for like four years or five years. So he's like, oh, what's up?

Oh, you're-yei-year-ye's boy from Complex. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, what's up? And so we like chit-chat, and it's like a very, you know, awkward, quiet thing. Then Kid Cuddy comes through and a cutty, I know, so that kind of like breaks the ice and starts moving. And then eventually Kanye shows up maybe like a half hour later. But what was crazy was that night. So I'm there from probably 7 p.m. until about 4 in the morning. They record, well, Kanye records his verse for Paris.

They finish recording the song about having kids, the record. Then at some point, like at 10 o'clock at night, Swiss beats comes by and plays beat. and then Jay hears welcome to the jungle. Actually, no, it had to be earlier than that. It had to be more like 839. Because I remember he's playing all these records. And Swiss is like an amazing salesman. Like he like plays it and like gets everybody.

You know, and I don't mean salesman like he's anything cheesy. It's like. His vibes though. Yeah, he's not, he's just not gonna let it be a flat vibe. He's like, I've seen Timberlin do that where like he'll play the track and like him and Dre are like going crazy. And it's like, him and Jay Z are going crazy. And it's like, oh yeah, he's like showing you what it can be. Yes.

And so he's like doing the like, welcome to the jungle. And like, and then like Jay is like, yeah, I like that one. And then Swiss is like, all right, but I'm not going to leave until you guys put vocals on it. Because I have to go to my cousin's birthday party. And but like if y'all don't put vocals on it, I'm taking this beat with me. And so kind of like, all right. like, all right, just like give us a sec, whatever. And like, Jay is watching, it's the NBA playoffs.

The Bulls are playing in like the second round. And he's just like sitting there quietly, just like head nodding. And just like zoning out to this. And then like after like 30 minutes just gets up and is like, all right, give me the mic. And in one take, he does the like. blocks the nose that does it the block of hove like like just

beginning to end entire verse like the whole like yeah I don't write things that like that is it was like magic wow and no two takes no

over like just and he's done then Kanye you know who's like a little bit he has like a totally different process he like does kind of like usually does like sort of mumble tracks and then kind of like fills in the words as he go. The chili pepper shit.

Like let me get the flow and then. Exactly. Like he finds like his own sort of rhythm in the track. And, um, and so he does that. Swizz leaves. What did he say? Like after Jay just one took like, I mean, you know, they're all used to it. They're just like, oh, that like this dude's a savant.

Like that's what he does. Bro. And I'm just like, yo, you were just watching the game. like I wouldn't even know that you were paying attention to the music in the background I mean you know he was like lightly nodding his head watching the third quarter just like yeah locking in an insane verse and then does it then he does then oh then they're like oh feral came by yesterday and he brought four beats and they skipped through and they get to the got a half it beat and I'm like yo that one's crazy with the James brown shit and they're like yeah

that's the one we like too and then the two of them you know that's the one where they go back and forth like the you know i just got off the PJ and prevae Puerto Rico three day and you know ain't that just like de waite whatever and they like are just literally like whispering in each other's ears back and forth for like a half an hour and then they have one mic and they just sit there and record the two verses just like basically passing it back and forth like in real time yeah like with a table like this like two chairs also mind you we're in a room in the Tribeca grand that is half the size of this room like it's like they've taken the bed out it's part of a suite they've taken the bed out

and so Mike Dean is at the end with the mixing board they got like a little table like this with like a mic on it there's no vocal booth or any shit like that and then and then like there's like me Aziz Ansari Beyonce and like I can't even remember like two or three other

like random very famous people that are like just in the room hanging out and they're just like yo we just knocked out that song great

okay cool yeah pull up that that that Paris record and then like there's like a whole debate about whether or not the Will Ferrell part should stay

oh really like is it too self-indulgent or is it really funny kind of thing. And what is the debate? Like I just think, you know, and I don't even remember, it wasn't like a him versus J thing or anything like that. It was more just like a like, is this awesome or is it like kind of corny kind of like over the top. Yeah, yeah. And everyone's like, it was, I mean, it's fucking memorable man. And like, what was your take? Do you remember in the moment? Oh yeah. I mean, I just thought I mean, I, I love that part of Kanye's personality. The

like, the part of him that loves goofy comedies is like that's, that's one of the, that's one of things where we are like you know very aligned and yeah and it was just like they settle on that and then like jay's verse was had been recorded the night before and that was done so Kanye goes in and he had like done maybe half of the verse and then he finished like the you know i would have merry kate and ashley and all that stuff that night then i think they They work on. Oh, and then the last bit was the RZA record. And I think, again, Jay's verse was done,

but Kanye was not quite there. And then Kanye finished his verse for that. And then it's like four in the morning. And I'm like, yo, I've watched these dudes create, not four songs from scratch, but two songs completely from scratch. And two other songs that were like halfway done, got finished. and all of them are like fucking classics wow and what's everyone else doing like what's like what's his ease doing like what like just i mean everyone's just viking and like listening and you know

people like having some adult beverages but nothing crazy no one's going you know it's like not a like party scene it's like right but their contributions are kind of like oh that's fire like oh man y'all killed that like it's just like energy yeah it's just positive energy and like again different perspectives everyone you know everyone has different ideas about you know, oh yeah, that, I really love that part or wouldn't it be cool if, you know, that kind of thing. And do you have that same intuition like back in the day when you're at the record store and you hear my name is or whatever? And you're like, oh, that's heat? Is it the same thing when it's happening in the room?

Definitely. Is it more tangible? Well, what was funny to me was this was, and this was a moment again where like I had a feel, like, so if you remember that, the way that record rolled out, they had put out a, called Ham on the blogs in like February and it was met with really mixed reactions because it was like a bounce tempo Lex Luka beat and I think coming off a twisted fantasy and like the him and Jay rapping on the Pete Rock record on the Good Fridays like the audience wanted like some like soulful hip hop shit and then they came with this kind of like down south bounce tempo and you know it's funny in retrospect I think him is a fucking great record um

But whatever. It just, you know, you tell a joke and it lands funny sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also a weird time where it's like still fairly early Twitter internet days where like, you know, like people aren't, they don't even have the time to like go listen to it in the club. Like, you know, you think about how many records you heard.

I mean, I remember hearing over by Drake, it was the first single off of his first album and hearing it like on MacBook speakers and being like, I don't know about this. And then literally that night I go to like an industry function and like the DJ plays at like 11 o'clock and I've had like two drinks and I'm like, oh, yes. Oh, this is, yeah, this is going to work.

This sounds fucking great in this context on these speakers and this environment. And so yeah, they threw this thing out and like, you know, and again, we talk about like, imagine spending the amount of time, energy and conscientiousness that they put into, to making this record for a bunch of people to listen to it on MacBook speakers

and then make a flip, you know, snap judgment and jump in the comments on not right. And so I think there was a lot of concern that maybe it was the fact that it was like, it was the bounce thing and that like people wanted something that was like a little more like roots hip hop and soulful. And so I'm like, yo, you got like that's the one. That record is crazy.

and they still they ended up continuing to work and then they made Otis which ultimately was the first record that they led with because I think they felt like Kanye felt like that has the soul that's got that soul and that energy it's undenny like it's uptempo you could play it in a club but the nerdiest most cynical rap nerd cannot deny this song it's undeniable

elite level rapping with a chopped Otis Redding sample you know it's got everything yeah it's perfect and that ended up being

the first single and then they went into Paris as the second single yeah and again because I think there was you know also there was just a tremendous

stakes for them artistically commercially like Connie's coming off of you know the most acclaimed album of his career you know

Jay-Z has been number one for ever. Yeah. Ten years at this point or whatever. And it's like, oh no,

this is not a throwaway record. This can't be just like something we like throw together and toss out there. Like it has to live up to both of our legacies. Yeah. In my time at least,

I consider them the greatest rap duo of all time. I mean. In terms of like producer, rapper, production flow. Singles, album, like even going back to like blueprint shit. Yeah.

It's the greatest, I think they're the greatest two creative forces in rap and hip hop ever. When you put them together, the magic is just undeniable and they, they make each other better. Yeah. You know? And like, I don't know if it's like a competitive thing. I don't know if it's, you know, Kanye is sort of like the little brother like pushing himself to want to like equal or please j or whatever that i don't you know the sort of interpersonal dynamic is but it's like it's just perfect whenever they work together um but yeah so that was

fucking amazing but also it was a testament like watching the two of them work also was just interesting because they have such wildly different processes yeah like it's cool to see like it's it's easy i think to see someone do something in one way and then you go oh that's the way should be done. But when you have two of the greats doing it simultaneously, you go, oh, there's a lot of ways. And there's ways that fit your personality and can cater to what you do. Like, Jay

just has ultimate confidence. He just giving the thing, I'm going to think about it, and then I'm going to do the thing, and I know that you know, my virtuosity is a musician, this is going to be phenomenal.

And he just does it. Kanye will, you know, he sat with power for three months before it was done, you know, thinking about every word choice and the phrasing and like, you know,

and it also ends up being phenomenal. Like he just has, it's just a different approach to things. Yeah, I get overly analytical where I'll look at things and I'll like dissect a lot and overthink and think again. and months will go by on like a joke or on a thing I'm working on. And it makes me feel good because sometimes I'll be like,

oh, fuck, I should be more in the moment. I should just feel it. I should just kind of stop thinking and just go and flow. And there's times where that happens, but it makes you feel good to know that there's a lot of ways up the mountain. No, I mean, me and my friend Ben, as contemporary mine, as a, you know, hip-hop journalist, we would always talk about our processes.

And like, he, like, every sentence that he puts down into Microsoft Word is like the sentence that will appear in the magazine. you know, pending edits or whatever. Sure. Like, it doesn't, like, leave his brain until it's, like, perfect. Whereas I have to, like, erupt. Word vomit.

And write 30,000 words. And then get to, like, the last paragraph and be like, oh, I found my lead. This is my thing. And then, like, all this gets deleted. And now I have my story and let me work it that way. Yeah. Yeah.

What other lessons have you, I mean, you've been around so much greatness. And this is just a couple examples. like Cuddy, fucking everyone. But you've been around a lot of greatness. What lessons do you apply? Obviously, you're not rapping, but like to your creative process.

I mean, you know, Kanye, I credit because that sort of like relentless pursuit of perfection, both from himself and from his collaborators. Like, I think like he has that. that Steve Jobs thing where it's like at the end of the day the consumer doesn't care. They don't care about whether or not you burnt out your art director or, you know, your head of UX hates you or whatever the thing is. Like they care if the iPhone is fucking perfect. And, you know, I sort of like, I'm definitely not that level and like he and I would have arguments you know, where he would like critique like the art direction of the magazine.

And I'd be like, dude, I hear you, but like, I have to make a product and it has to come out on a regular cadence. And also like, so I have to keep people employed. Yep. Because this is like a cyclical process. And like if I, every employee that I run through, I then have to like go interview six other people. And retrain and exactly. Get the vibe. And like, so like I have to manage these relationships.

like I appreciate that you will like drive a relationship into the ground in the pursuit of perfection and then just move on to find some other collaborator, you know, or maybe, and you know, to Kanye's credit, he often will circle back with those people after everybody's like gotten over the sort of rawness of whatever. Experience was.

Yeah, and but like, but I will say that like, seeing that is inspiring, And it does make you just go like, no, I have to demand excellence. Because like, you know, if you set the bar here with the expectation that the person is probably going to like under deliver by a little bit, if this is actually what I want, then I have to actually set the bar here. Yep. You know, and like, you know, people will, like, people respond to these, this. kind of stimuli, you know, from leadership. And like, so I definitely like would say that from him, I've gleaned a lot of that.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's so many people that are working, you know, I mean, Paul Rosenberg is like an inspiration in so much as he just like, he knows what M's brand is and he will never ever compromise it under any circumstances for any reason because he knows that that brand is the most valuable thing and like when I went to work for him at Def Jam it was funny like I ended up like having a somehow I ended up overseeing the brand partnerships team there and that meant like organizing the Grammy party and like selling it to a sponsors and then like I don't do events right um but this got dropped in my lap like one week

week after starting the job. You know, you get a job and then they're like... Hop to it. Yeah, oh yeah. Well, we told you that it was going to be all this stuff, but we also actually need you to do this stuff too. And so we put together an event. And for the flyer, I get,

there's this famous picture that Jeanette Beckman took of Slick Rick, where he's grabbing his nuts with a bottle of champagne and a fendi bag at his feet. And it's one of my favorite hip-hop photos of all time. It's just like everything. that's great about rap in like one image and in fact my wife got me a poster-sized print of it from Jeanette for my 36th birthday and it hangs in a very ornate frame in our home. Oh, that's dope.

That's a good wife. Yes. And so I put that on the flyer and one of the advertisers box and is like, this is too crude, like we don't want our brand associated with this. And so I'm like coming from, you know, 10 years of working at complex, and I'm like, coming from, you know, 10 years of working at Complex where like the sales team really their goals were very, very aggressive to be fair to them. So there's a lot of bending over backwards to please the client.

And so I go into Paul's office like with being like, yo, client says that we need to change out this art and like, you know, it's $75,000 and you know, it's like half the money from the party. should I swap it out? And he's like, no, fuck him. I love that. Like, this is the most Def Jam image possible. If you don't want to stand next to this image, like you don't want to be in business with Def Jam.

Like, that's it. And I go to the client and I say, look, like, the chairman feels very strongly about this image. And, you know, we don't think it's particularly racy. And we think it's like pretty iconic. and core to what we do here at Def Jam. And the client was like, well, just take our name off the flyer. And we still got the $75,000.

Wow. And it was like, to me, such an instructive moment where it was like, Paul understood the leverage that the brand had and was not going to compromise the brand for this like, relatively small amount of money on the grand scale. Yeah. But so clearly saw. what it was and saw what it needed to be.

Yeah. And if you don't want this, you don't want us so like you can walk. No. And I think you look at like all of the choices that they've made with the M&M brand. And it reflects that. It's like, no, this is Marshall's vision. It has to be exactly that. Like there's no room for negotiation. We're not talking about it. No, you're not going to throw your ideas. Yeah. What if we can get him to do this little jingle? No, fuck that. No, it's like this is this is how you can, you know, I mean, it's the like, you know, Cause is going to make 10 paintings this year. If you'd like to have one,

you can get on the list and you can be lucky enough to pay him some very large sum of money to get one of them. There's not going to be any commissions. There's not going to be any feedback. It's what it is because this is the brand. Because this is the brand

and this is what he does. And, you know, so I definitely, from that experience and working with Paul was like, oh, like, okay. Do you see that with artists now where like you'll see him make a move like not anyone you're closer but just like someone randomly

and they'll make a move and you're like damn like you're devaluing your brand like you are affecting your perception to people because you sold out for 100k when your brand is worth multi-million? No you see it all the time and you know I mean it's weird because sometimes I think the audience is like growing up in the like 80s and 90s like there was such a premium put on like selling out

and like you know like even just like advertisements versus editorial content were like clearly delineated in any magazine flipped through it said like this is an advertisement like in big letters and now we live in a world of like branded content where like everything is it's all blended and so like on some levels I think the audience is very forgiving and like there are definitely brand integrations and partnerships that I've seen artists do that I'm like yish but and you know sometimes They step in it, and sometimes it just slides by the audience and goes and noticed, and they get some huge check from some random.

Yeah. I don't even see audiences sometimes with like a rapper will do something that seems out of character, but people be like, get your Mountain Dew bag, get your Doritos bag, and they understand more of like the artist economy because now rap is an institution. I think people kind of see it that way. Whereas back in the day, it's like, no, we are the underground and you're associating with these corporate suits and fucking up your brand. So fuck you.

Yeah. And I think also, I mean, even, you know, the stuff that I deal with idea generation, it's like if we're giving you free content and, you know, to put together a four camera shoot and have an editor cut it to music and like, this is not a cheap endeavor. Right. Someone has to put the bill for you to be able to enjoy this content, you know, on Bloomberg or on YouTube or wherever you consume it. so there might be a branded moment that happens up in the thing and like I do think in general that the audience is like if this doesn't feel inorganic or like totally distracting from the product that I'm making

or the product that I'm enjoying that well that's the value proposition yeah I got it for free so I have to receive some messaging along the way yeah I think your approach to just media and general was like so sharp like I was watching the combo with you like 12 years ago and you're like the way you consume shit on mobile is different than how you consume it in print and it's different than how you consume it on computers and you were like intuiting that like a decade ago like even more and that is to me I always talk about that with like comedy and shit like people are watching stuff

on their phones like make it for the phone and if you make a recut for like TV or Netflix like that's a different consumption habit and I'm curious like with your stuff now do you consider how things are being consumed and what the medium is and totally I mean yeah and I look at it you know both in sort of the value proposition to the consumer and also when I'm talking to to the sponsors it's like it's gonna be a total number of impressions because I'm gonna do this long form thing that is gonna be really elevated and you know very sort of wrought and thoughtful and that can live on television on Bloomberg it can live on YouTube as like sort of a long form

thing and then we're going to do these cutdowns that have virality on social and you know the video might get two or 300,000 views on YouTube and it might get you know I don't even know how some hundreds of thousands on on Bloomberg but then it might get like a million views across four social clips on that's that content funnel yeah like short form is going to get the most and then mid form will get less and long form will be at the bottom yeah and but with each one of them you're reaching like a different level of engagement with the audience. So like the people who sit through a 40 minute interview with Alchemist like are the most highly engaged and like also frankly the most grateful to the brand when this comes to conclusion. They're like I'm really happy to Shopify, you know, made this possible.

Yeah. And that's the core and they get it. Yeah. And I mean, and I've been very fortunate in the sponsors that we've worked with that they are incredible. light touch and like hands off about these things. Yeah, that's cool. Does the TikTok vacation of content and music specifically, does it bug you?

No, I mean, look, like the future always wins. Technology is technology and like, you know, people are going to like consume where they want to consume. I think the key is to like, T, you know, what you were saying earlier is like, like optimize the content for the platform and to sort of like understand try to understand what's driving the consumption um you know and understand like why do people like this and what it you know what's driving this sort of interest and animating them to utilize this platform um

and so i think like you know it's there's been like this like renaissance in like uh the interview format because of these like short form clips and I'm sure you know as a podcaster you know the Schultz show like you've seen it where it's like you guys have these moments that go viral you know I saw you with Whitney Cummings yesterday yeah yeah cracking jokes yeah with an Aussie accent and like yeah you know but I didn't watch the full episode but it was like that was a totally enjoyable exactly 75 second moment out of my day right um so I I just think it's like yeah I mean it's you know, it's sort of a natural progression. I will say, like, there are things that I do observe as, like, a cultural critic that are

interesting and some of which I can get with and some of which are less my palate. But, like, if you've noticed, but, like, rap songs are not longer than two minutes now. And, like, it's interesting. They've, like, excised everything except for, like, the most hooky elements of the them. And it's like chorus, one verse. I mean like, Louisville, I want to rock.

Phenomenal record. But the first time I heard it, I was like, oh man, something like he, someone leaked this amazing demo. Interesting. And then I, you know, and I'm like, but then it's like, you see the kid's reaction to it. And you're like, they don't care that this is like,

you know, whatever it is, 90 seconds or, you know, it's like two minutes. And it's like, But, you know, that's sort of the thing like we're talking about. It's like there's no specific reason. Like, do you ever read the David Byrne book about music? Okay, so like he, his whole thing in this book is that he talks about like the context of music. And that basically music is, he's like, we put this incredible premium on sort of the genius of individuality.

and that like these sort of like human oracles like go off into the woods and they come back with these masterpiece songs and he's like I think that's horseshit music is the product of its of its context and he's like for example like you know native african music centers around the drum why because a lot of it happened outside you don't have walls you need percussion to like make the music carry okay cut to in the same period why is the music in like sort of like traditional

Catholic church music all of these slow chord progression organ songs because the organ was the loudest instrument that they could find and they're playing off of stone walls and so if you play an organ really fast with stone walls the way that it reverberates you can't hear anything

you know cut to Mozart and the harpsichord they're playing in small rooms with low ceilings. You know, so that's what the harpsichord works perfect. Tight, tight rooms, low ceilings. You know, even going to jazz, there isn't an interesting, this is a moment where like recorded music starts to take hold.

And like, he's like, people in New York are recording jazz in live clubs. And the recording process is obviously very crude at this point because it's like, you know, the 20s or 30s. and they're pressing up vinyl, you know, or lackers of these at the time, 78s, and jazz musicians in St. Louis are getting these recordings. And then they've never seen New York jazz players play live. They're now playing to sound like this facsimile of a recording. It's literally telephone.

Yes, and like, and he's like, you know, back then, like they would put the drummer sometimes in like a separate room in the back of the house because if the drums were too close to the microphones, they would... Wash it out. Yes. Take over. And so he's like...

You know, he's like... So then you have this whole wave of like St. Louis jazz that's like trying to sound like what recorded New York jazz sounds like which is now a totally trippy other thing. And then you get to sort of like the invention of radio. And so like, why are songs three minutes? Is it because that's like the natural... length of like a perfect record?

No, it's because pop radio stations wanted to play three songs between commercial breaks. So if you were three minutes and you have three choruses, two verses and a bridge, you're perfect. And so that becomes, you know, and the same thing hip hop starts because, you know, DJs are spinning break beats. They've noticed that people on the dance floor are dancing to the drums. So they start looping the drums. and then the guy who is chiding the crowd to keep moving starts talking rhythmically over the drum section

and now you have rap. Wow. So all of these things are not because like... Some genius went away and had this epiphany. Yes, they're just in a context creating, you know, to the most efficient manner to communicate to their audience. 100%.

I mean, I think the same way with comedy and I even think rap in a certain way where like East Coast and West Coast is so different, even in stand-up. Yep. And I think the nature of the rooms actually dictate the style of comedy. Like in New York, you're in basements. Yep. It's a little room. There's 60 people. And it's just like, joke, joke, joke, joke. The laughs are hitting the back of the room and coming back to you. And then you go out west and you're in these big rooms. You're in like a brewery or some shit. And it's like tall

ceilings. And you got to perform big. And the people in the back got to see you. So you got to do a crazy face and an act out and do a silly thing. And the nature of the two styles of comedy are completely different. And you'll have a guy that like is known for like big actouts or whatever. And if he does the same act in a basement in New York, the 25 people in there are like, geez, bro, chill, what the fuck? Why are you screaming? And then the same guy, the tight one-liners that goes out to this big room out west, and they're like, what is he saying? I can't even hear. Like, he's so monotone and just zinging you with jokes. Like, what is even going on? And the nature of the rooms themselves change the art. And I wonder if it's the same thing with rap. Oh, yeah.

I mean, look. Rap music in New York is like so quick. Dude, we, will you listen to like, you know, gnaws or mob deep? That makes sense when you're riding, you know, the end train, elevated through Queens, you know, in February on headphones, right? But like, and I learned this, like, I remember around like maybe a year after I did the Eminem story, I went back out to Cali and I interviewed Exhibit and like spent a day with him and we drove around and like some crazy car. Of course. You know, like low rider type shit.

And like the immersive sound was like, oh, like, yeah. we're like driving through his neighborhood and he's banged the shit super loud and the car is fucking bouncing and shit and I'm like oh this I understand why dr. dr. Dre and DJ Quick like made the records that they made and then why they were so different from that's what you want when you're cruising around your car you want to be sipping on gin and juice like and you want a certain BPM yeah you want a certain bounce to it you want like you know like a fullness a richness you know New York music is like very aggy and aggressive and like you know hoodie on walking through the street bumping into people like it is and it's funny even like from a style perspective like I remember when I got to ego trip two of the dudes from ego trip um uh Gabe and Brent were from L.A and they were like talking about how they had observed they're like look like this is you know in 1997 so this is long before like sneakerhead culture has like a thing but he's like yo the way you guys care about your sneakers like we no one in L.A.

gives a fuck about what they're wearing. That's why when you see Mac 10 and all these guys, they're wearing like standard jeans on a long white t-shirt and like, who even knows what sneakers they're wearing. Scuffed up kids or some shit. Because they're going to get in their car. And their car is the showpiece.

And he's like, for you guys, it's about the Tim's, it's about the Air Force Ones, it's about the Air Max 95s, because that is how you are communicating what you're about to the world. That's your car. Yes. Literally.

And like, you know, so you have these sort of like, I think, you know, context. does breed culture in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating. And I think it's important to, like, contextualize it. And maybe that's the hope for the critic. It's like, yo, if you're trashing this shit right now, listen to it in your car.

I mean, and that's the whole thing with critics. And I think, you know, the challenge. And you look at like there have been times where hip-hop media has sort of been out of step with the consuming audience, right? Where, like, you know, when all the magazines were based out of New York, and then like the West Coast is on the rise and like

there's like this tension of like is this really dope like you know what I mean like the chronic got a four and a half mics from the source like if that's not a perfect album you know but again

you can't judge those guys like Shaq and Reggie Dennis and them it's like they're listening to it probably you know in a fucking literally like 150 feet from here in some little loft in, you know, Soho, and they're like, yeah, shit is cool. Like, you know.

Yeah, but it's not bars, though. Yeah, exactly. You know, he said, I drop bombs like Vietnam. This is, what a cliche. You know, like, and that's sort of the, and so there's been that tension. And I saw it, you know, at Blaze, like, as the South Rose, where there was, like, definitely this sort of, like, still, like, coastal bias. And, you know, we were fortunate, like, and, you know,

to his credit, Jesse Washington, the editor-in-chief, like, had staffed up. There was a woman, Sheree Nicole, who was from the South and, like, a few other staff members. I think Mark Mood was from the Midwest, who, like, had, like, different ears and were like, no, no, no, this cash money shit. Or like, DJ screw, Paul Wall, like Mike Jones. There's something going on here. Yeah, that's its own thing. Yeah, I mean, yo, I, so there's another really random rap story, but like, in 1999, I get invited on a press trip to Orlando.

Let's go, 407. For the 69 boys for like whatever their second album, the one that didn't blow up. But we spend the day in Orlando. We go to like a car show that's like their video shoot with all these crazy cars, whatever. And they're playing like DJ screw music and stuff. And I'm whatever, 19 at the time.

I've never seen anything like this. Then they take us to a club that's like the craziest shit I've ever been to in my life. where they have like a giant smokehouse barbecue in the back. I love that. And like I for like an hour and a half they play like record, straight records I've never heard. And I'm at that point like rap nerd of all rap nerds. Yeah.

And then they get to juvenile back that ass up. And they played back that ass up for 45 minutes straight. Like they did. It was just over and over and over and over again. And just. As soon as it would end, it's running back. Right back. And the audience, like, the kids that were in there went fucking apeship for it.

And again, this was like a moment for me where I was like, I remember getting the advance for this juvenile thing. And then everyone would be like, oh, yeah, this guy, Dino from Universal just gave these guys like this huge, like, I don't know, they had some like $10 million label deal, which at the time was like a fucking huge check. Even now it's insane. Yeah. In my opinion. It is.

It is. Record labels throw a lot of money around these days. But at the time, it was like, that was a huge deal. And all of us were kind of like, okay, like, yes, you know, some of this music's cool. Like, I don't know if it's going to be that big, though. And then I watched that and was like, oh, I totally get it. Like, yeah. And that was the first time you heard of win.

Yeah, that was, I mean, yeah, that, because that was, they played that and they might, I don't know if they played bling bling yet. But like, yeah, I mean, that was like the beginning of that whole movement. And then you put them on the cover of a complex, right? Oh yeah, Wayne. That was, yeah, my first cover. Yeah, that's a wild one. That one sold like fucking crazy. It was like the first time that a complex sold like over 50% on newsstand.

It was just like total kismet. Yeah, but that's quick thinking on your part though. Like that story is crazy. Yeah, well, it was, you know, again, like making magazines, it's like you're always trying to just make lemonade. And like that, I forget, I basically, I basically, I, I had like lined up, it was supposed to be a men of next year cover, and I had, um, my initial idea, I think was like Timberlake, um, Ari from Entourage and Nas because they all had like Entourage was coming back. Timberlake was, I think either he'd just done, oh, he'd just

done Sexy Back, but he had that movie, um, what's called, his first like movie movie, movie. Oh, about L.A. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. They killed the kid and whatever. Um, and then Ari and Timberlake fallout. I end up getting Travis Barker and I was thinking like trying to get the third person. And I get the call from, I'm like flying to L.A. to shoot Nas and Travis together. And I'm at JFK and I get a call from Nas's publicist being like, yo. So I got bad news.

I'm like, what's up, man? He's like, uh, Elliot. just called me from xxel and like somehow he got wind of this and he's offered naz a split cover with gz and like he said he's going to pull the cover and he's like i need naz to get an xxl cover and i also can't have gz get the solo because they're both signed a deaf jam because then this dude's going to look at me like crazy like how did you drop the ball that now he's not going to accept that Elliot pulled the cover, whatever. And I'm like, Gabe, what the fuck, man?

I'm like at the gate about to get on this flight. And he's like, ah, I don't know what to do, man. Sorry. So I'm just like, shit. So I get on the flight anyway. This is like the broke days of complex. We have a layover in Dallas. And I'm flying and I'm listening to dedication to.

And I have an advance of like father, like son, the Birdman Wayne album. Yeah. And I'm just like, yo, all right, if I'm 16, Nas is old. Who is my favorite rapper if I'm 16? And then I'm just like, it's a motherfucker little weight. What am I doing? Like, I'm literally listening to the guy.

I'm listening to dedication to, like, this guy is having a renaissance moment right now. He's fucking wrapping his ass off. And he has all the momentum in the world. I land. I call this woman, Wendy Washington, who's the universal publicist. I happened to catch her right before she's left the office.

I'm like, I'm shooting Travis tomorrow. Wayne to a, she's like, yeah, Wayne loves Blink 182 and he fucks with Travis. That's actually cool. I didn't even realize that link up. They had like, I don't know, they had met in passing. And somehow she knew that just like in general. And shoot Travis and then shoot Wayne. And then Wayne is very cranky in the morning.

We shoot, it's like a 10 a.m. shoot. and he has not smoked any weed yet, and so he's very cranky, and the day before that, he had dropped the Drought 3 mixtape where he wraps over, or no, no, not the drought three, Louisiana mixtape,

where he wraps over, show me what you got, and he kind of takes shots at Jay-Z. And so I tell the writer Toshi, you have to ask him about this, and you also have to ask him, you know, because he's been like, There's been this back and forth between him and the clips dudes ever since they did that record together with Birdman.

You know, and you know, with that kind of thing, like you never know if sometimes people just shut it down or they just like play it off like, I don't know what you're talking about or whatever. Dude was feeling a little aggravated at the world in that moment and just fucking went off and was like, I'm the best rapper alive and like, yo, I'm tired of these old men talking about how like rap is dead. isn't dead. I'm making the best rap music right now and like I'm sorry if it feels like, you know, there's no place for you in this fucking house, but I can't remember the exact quote,

but it's basically like, I'm in your house and like my feet are up on the couch kind of thing. I think it was a little crassier than that. And we drop it and it just fucking goes crazy. And yeah, it sold like incredibly well. And like it ended up being like this real pivotal moment for Wayne and for complex and for complex yeah I mean certainly for complex and for you for me I went from like you know you have to imagine this whole flight

I'm thinking like this is my first cover and it's falling apart like I'm 26 years old I somehow guest publisher Rich was very smart very nice guy but I've like sold him on my ability to run this magazine and he put

all his eggs in a 26 six-year-old's basket, which is, you know, now again, in retrospect, it's props to rich because that was crazy. But also the right move. It worked out great for both of us. Yeah. But he, you know, and I'm like, this is fucking falling apart. And like, what am I going to do?

I'm going to lose my job if I don't pull this together. And we do that. And it works. And, yeah, and then, you know, and then, me and Elliot actually had lunch like last week and we're talking about this whole story. And then Elliot, basically, I alli upped it to him because he then came back with Wayne on the cover the next month, responding to the review, like, following up on the interview that we had done. So it's a double up. So he, yeah, so he won with it too.

Oh, that's wild. But that's like you're through the wire. That's like, yeah, my mouth is wired show. What am I going to do? Make a banger. I got very fortunate in that instance. And the other, my next cover, I had Rosario Dawson booked for the three. Tarantino movie that she was in.

I think what was it? Deathproof. Yes, death proof, exactly. And I'm, it's like May, I mean, it's like December 7th or something. Just shortly before this, I had had this serendipitous moment where Nick Cannon was in the office with Mark Echo. Mark has just given him a sort of a tour of the office. Mark also created a complex, right? Yes, Mark is the, you know, the founder and the, you know,

yeah, he also, you know, this is part of his clothing empire, started sort of like, you know, an ambitious vanity project and turned into like a real business. And Mark brings him by, is like, oh, hey, this is my guy Noah, he's that her in chief here, chit-chat. And sort of like in the like weeks leading up to this, me and some of the senior staff, you know, we're like paying attention to the Us Weekly's and all this kind of stuff because like, you know, like one. One, we have to book the thing with Complex.

We always had a guy cover and a girl cover. So it was always a split. So, you know, I have to pay attention to, like, celebrity culture and, like, what's going on with actors and actresses and all this, you know, beyond just rap. And my dude, Donnie, who's still at Complex, he and I were having a conversation. He's like, you ever noticed there's like this super beautiful woman

who's, like, always in the pictures with Paris Hilton. I saw one where they identified her. I think she's Robert Kardashian's daughter. Hilarious. And then we do a little more research and we realized like, oh, like she was dating Nick Cannon, whatever. So this is just sort of like something in the back of my head. So he introduced me to Nick.

And we chit chat for like five minutes. And then I'm like, hey, Nick, before you go, I have a weird question. I hope this is not like out of pocket. there's a young woman you used to date who I really would love to put in a magazine. Is there any way, like, do you have a contact or put me in touch with someone who could put me in touch with Kim Kardashian? And he's like, oh, Kim?

Oh, man, don't worry about it. No, she's the best. Like, you know, yeah, we don't date, but like, I love Kim to death. Absolutely gives me her AOL address. And Donnie, I pass it on to Donnie. Donnie cold emails her. and she writes us back and is like, yeah, I've never done a professional photo shoot, but I'd love to. So I shoot her probably like, I don't know, December 10th or something like that.

And then in like the 11th hour on like December 17th, Rosario's publicist calls me. And we've been like going back and forth on dates and like I have to ship the magazine on January 7th. Like that's full stop. full stop and I'm like trying to work I'm like trying to work with the art team to be like okay like what if we shoot on like January 2nd can we like flip it in five days like is it possible you know they're like it's gonna suck and then the public says calls me and it's like so I hate to say it but Rosario's extended her her Christmas vacation so we're just going to have to pass on the cover and I'm like fuck

shit, all right. And this is really, really frustrating. And so, you know, I'm just like one of these, like, in the face of that kind of adversity, my go-to is just like, all right, I'm just going to, like, work my way through this. So the Christmas comes, and I'm, like, still going to the office

because I'm just like, I have to solve this problem. I don't know what I'm going to do. And mind you, I had gone to L.A., we'd done the Kim shoot. She was one of the most beautiful people I'd ever, like, witnessed in real life. She was absolutely lovely and, like, sweet to everybody and just, like, great vibes on set and super cool. And also had that thing that I was talking about Eminem having, where you're just like... Magnetism.

There's everyone in this room is staring at this woman. And, like, of course, she's a beautiful woman. But there's something, you know, we shoot a lot of beautiful models for this magazine. and like they walk by and like every you know the crew's just kind of like whatever there's something about her that is just so magnetic and charismatic and so winsome and just like she also was just so nice like the type type of person who like says goodbye to like the grips like every single person on set like hey thank you so much for this this is great um and we've gotten the pictures back and they are very compelling um and uh

I'm like I go into the office on the 26th of December because I'm just like I have to pull like I against all odds I pulled the rabbit out of my hat last time I don't know how I'm going to do it this time like and I go on to like egotastic or like one of those celebrity blogs that was popping at the time Perez Hilton or whatever and they have like a headline

that's like some woman you've never heard of has a sex tape with Brandy's little brother and I'm like oh shit and I'm like ding all right I got a cover wow that's crazy so we call her and we're like hey

so we want to bump you up to a cover but we're gonna have to ask you about this you know are you comfortable with that and like she was like yeah look it is what it is like we're dealing with it but

yeah you know I think it's the time she denied that it like whatever that either that it happened i don't know if she denied that it that it was real or whatever but she just like you know did her PR thing and we ran with sex lies and videotape as the cover line and you know it was a moment for both her and for us and you know by the end of that was that came out in february of 2007 and by like the fall of 2007 keeping up where the Kardashians is on E. Explodes.

So was that her first cover? Yeah. Wow. It was her first professional photo shoot. Yeah. She had never done a professional photo. She's like, oh yeah, sure. I'll try it out.

That is insane. Yeah, like she still had like her clothing boutique. She was like styling Paris or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Like, you know. That is so insane. And I mean, that's just like, that's the intuition though. That's what I'm saying.

You got to tell these motherfuckers what you've done, bro. This shit is crazy. I didn't even know all this shit. That's wild. It was, I mean, dude. I, know, but I don't know, but it's, you know, serendipity, it's like, whatever, you, but it can't be serendipity a hundred times in a row.

No, but you have this intuitive, like this intuitive gifts where you can see things as they're happening and see what the trend is. And like you said at the very beginning, like, I know what I like, and I know what the people like, and I'm able to see the Venn diagram and then I execute. And you did it over and over. I mean, you did, like, you turned complex and built it to this little magazine that like, I'd never heard of to all of a sudden, like this media company that is like popping all over the internet with shows and like and it all stems from like that that gift like

that gut of being like yo what is popping i mean it's insane do you still have it like can you listen to like ice spice you heard munch and you're like oh that's a hit definitely i mean i you know i mean when i was a deaf jam pops smoke came up and you know dudes came in my office we're like yo this is this kid from brooklyn yo he's like a young 50 you know they show they play me um um PTSD and welcome to the party. And then they show me, you ever seen the video of him knocking the dude out? I don't think I have.

This is amazing. There's a video early in his career. So I guess when he was like 13, some local dudes had jumped him. And so, or 13 or 15. Maybe when he's 15, he gets jumped when he's still like a little kid. Yeah. And when he's 18,

he is like becoming like a sort of like you know local pop and rapper and somehow he ends up seeing the dudes that jumped him in the corner store and he's like gets his voice obviously to like you'll grab your camera phone and the dude is like paying at the register and he just fucking one time like co-cocks him and the dude is laid out gets his get back and yeah exactly just and like I'm listening to PTSD, which has like all of the things that I love about 50, like the melody, the aggression, the sort of introspection. And then I'm watching this video. I'm like, you know, this dude does not fuck around.

Like, that's... Yeah, he's hard. Yeah, he's hard. He's the real deal. And then he comes to the office and we sit there and he's talking, you know, to a group of like senior executives where I'm probably, like me or Stephen, is probably the youngest, youngest person there, and we're 40. And I just remember the dude sits back on his chair

and puts his feet up on Paul's table. And is our like, so why should I fuck with y'all? Whoa, makes you sell to him. Yes. And I'm just like, yo, this dude's 19. I fucking love this. This is amazing. Wow.

Like this is it. That magnetism. Yeah, I mean, it's just like a. You can't help but look. It's like, no, there's like a specialness, you know, some, I don't know. It's like a magpie or whatever, but like, yeah, sometimes you just see the shiny shit and you're just like, that's the thing. And do you ever feel that need now? Like obviously you're not in that direct business as much anymore, but like you see someone like kind of bubbling on TikTok or you hear a SoundCloud track.

Someone sends you. And you're like, I mean, I got to hit this guy up and just like tell him like, do you ever connect people? Yeah. Well, so like last season, I did an episode with a young man named La Russell. and I had seen the Russell it was just one of these things and again like it's just the sort of like I saw him

freestyle I think on like the LA leakers and it kind of you know it was like a clip that went through my feed and I was like oh you know this kick a rap really good and then and then he was up at the breakfast club and he did another freestyle that was like really good and I'm like okay that's interesting

and then like two weeks later oh and then I'm on like a group text with my friend dart and my friend amiel and emil sends a clip and emil's a producer he produced runaway for Kanye or with Kanye um and he's like yo y'all fuck with this kid like this shit's crazy and I'm like oh yeah yeah I saw him freestyle on one of these morning shows and dart's like yeah like no he's he's the real deal he's been on my radar for a few months too. And then like a week later, I'm watching Dwayne Wade's stories and Dwayne is like through my wife a friend of ours

and friend of mine. And I don't, you know, Dwayne loves music but he's not like a like lean forward. Like that's not his thing, like music discovery or whatever. Sure. And he's like rapping along to this freestyle in his car. And again, it was just sort of like,

Like, my gut told me I liked this. My two friends who work in music, whose opinions I respect are both on it. And now my other friend who I know has an ear for just like, you know, Dwayne has great taste in music. And like even though he's not chasing like the next shit, if it's landed on his radar and he has the confidence knowing that he's got 30 million followers that he's going to like put this on his stories, there's like a mass there's something bigger here than just like

oh yeah like some kid they can wrap wow and so I then this is the crazy part I go to DM La Russell oh no you know what it is I comment on Dwayne's post like it wasn't stories it was on a post and I comment like La Russell's out of here with like

Rocket Ship emojis and then I get a DM like four hours later from the Russell that's like you know what's up man I love idea generation when we're gonna do an episode and what's even crazier is I then look and I see

in January of 2018 he's like hey man I know you just left Complex to go to Def Jam I'm a young artist out of Vallejo here's my first album check it out when you get a chance

you know respect your ear would love your feedback and so I hit him back like first of all mea coppa i never even saw this dm from four years ago however you're fucking murdering it i love what you're doing i think you have a great story i would love to do it episode like let's figure it out and he's like hey you tell me come to the pergola we'll shoot out and palajo i'm ready wow and you know his he at the time he might have had like 70,000 followers he now has like

750,000 followers. Unreal. I love that. I love that, bro, I'm telling you every guy, I mean, you probably know this, but like every guy that's popping, there is an unread DM in some guys, some executive, some curator in their Instagram

that they never saw, but they were like hustling and they were like, yo, I'm going to get it. And I'm sure people, you're getting unsolicited message all the time, but like, though, like, that's what it takes. And I love hearing stories like that where it's like, yeah, they're going to get on.

Like I love that where it's like, yo, I hit this guy up every single day. And it reminds me of your story. Like, you, I'm calling these labels trying to intern. I'll call you 100 times until you let me in. When I got my internship at Ego Trip, I called them every day from basically like January 15th to February 7th. Yeah.

Every day I left a message on their voicemail because it just went straight to voicemail. And eventually this woman Vicky who was like selling ads for them was like, guys, this dude will not go away, just take the meeting with them. And their thing was that I wasn't going through, all their interns went through city out of school. Yeah. So there was kind of like a. There's a funnel or something.

Yeah. And like, you know, you had to be somewhat reliable if you were, this was that you were getting school credit for or whatever. So they had, you know, there's checks and balances. Yeah, but you're 16. Yeah. And I'm just like some random kid that's just like, no, I really want to do this. And so finally she says to me, I remember I go on Valentine's Day, 19,

1997 they interview me and they're like all right cool like and I'm like you know I think I had spring break the next week and I'm like I can start you know in like two weeks and I'm like okay cool it's you the Russell that's what I'm saying you're always you're always gonna make it like I would do that we're like bro I would go so like when I was in high school I wanted like intern somewhere like I said I didn't know anyone that did anything in entertainment or like even creative or anything so I was like maybe marketing could be my lane so I learned in Orlando they do a bunch of conventions there yeah so that is like the epicenter of like all these conventions Like you're a big marketing company.

So there was the biggest marketing conference in the whole world, basically, that they did it in Orlando. So I was like, okay, cool, cool. I'm gonna go. I'm not gonna put my name in like this little, you know, submit your resume like portal because like that shall get lost forever. I'm not that exceptional on paper, but if I can get in front of you, I think we can make something work.

So I found a guy that posted a picture of himself at the convention through the convention's hashtag. And it's him with the lanyard on his neck. And the lanyard says his name and it has the logo, and then it has the date, and it's just like a regular lanyard. So I go in Photoshop, make my own lanyard with my own name and a fake company at the bottom, and the company is analysis technologies. Oh, nice.

And for short, very clever. A anal tech. So I literally just have anal tech on my lanyard, and I pulled up to this marketing conference wearing like this gaudy, like red suit, like some like crazy bullshit. And I'm just like walking around. And like these marketing conferences have crazy budgets. So I'm sitting there and all of a sudden they're like, ladies and gentlemen, please report to the banquet hall for whatever, whatever.

There's thousands of people. We all go in the banquet hall. all of a sudden, Seal is performing. I'm like sitting front row and I'm like watching Seal, like this private event. I'm like, this is amazing. He just kissed from a rose. I'm like, fuck yeah. And then he leaves.

It's like an open bar. I like steal a little drink. And then I'm hanging out. And all of a sudden I'm like talking to some guy. And he's like, where did you get this suit from? And like, we're just like talking about the suit. And he's like the CMO of McDonald's.

And then I talk to this other guy. He's the CMO of Coke. And like, I'm just like talking with all these guys. And then I tell them the ruse. I'm like, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm 17 years old. I have a fake lanyard. This is a bunch of bullshit.

And they were like, that's awesome. So literally that night I left with a stack of cards of people being like, yo, hit me up for an internship. And I hit all of them up the next day. I was like, hey, the title was just Red suit guy. And then there's a whole message being like, I would love to intern. Here's my resume.

I'll fly out like the summer. I'll be there like May 1st, whatever you need. And a bunch of one got back to me and then I ended up doing one of the internships. And it just bounced. And it was like that same thing was like, I got to figure out a way because I'm not going to do this portal thing. I'm not going to like stand in the line. Because I realize there is no line.

It's just a crowd. If you can kind of like get your way to the front of the crowd, you can make something that happen. Yeah, no. But so like I'm working on this podcast and like it's like, yeah, I get up at 4.30 in the morning and I'm just like I want to re-record the VOs to make them better. Like I didn't hit them right last night. You're on your Kanye's shit.

Yeah. And like I just go in there, like sneak out of bed. My wife doesn't notice. And I'm like set up in our like battle station home office. And I'm like hitting the VOs. from like 4.30 until like 6.30, just redoing them. And then like me and my guy, John, who's my producer and, you know, who's editing the pod or doing the production end of the editing of the pod,

like us sitting into script editing the shit until fucking midnight. And it's like neither one of us wants to tap out because we don't want to be, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I'm like, in it with someone that wants it as bad as you. Yeah. And it's literally team shit. It's like you're playing ball.

It's like, all right, fourth quarter. Like, who's got more? Let's fucking, let's go. And it's just like, and, you know, and I respect every, like, the sort of, like, interest in work-life balance and all that. You know, whatever. I have family and kids. Yeah.

How old were you had your first kid? 36. Okay, cool. And, you know, yeah, I would say that I, from 17 to 36 did not have any sort of work-life balance. Like, I just worked. And I was like, and especially at complex during, as we grew the digital business, because It was like, you know, it was, it was like the internet is a game. Or like, or like, the internet is like a team sport and every day is a new game.

It's like the MLB, there's 365 games a year. Not going to win them all. Yeah. But the team wants to win. Let's try to win today. Yeah, we're going to try to win today. And I would, you know, check site meter the first thing in the morning to see what was moving on the site. And I would like get into bed.

my laptop and look at Google Analytics and like you like the data yeah I always love that part of me too just like seeing why what moves bro that's my favorite shit I was telling we had mr. beast on the show on flagrant okay and uh I don't know if you're familiar with him yeah I'm sure your kids your kids probably got you on him hi he is like Steve jobs level early one was like Bezos where it's like the way he approaches content but me and him were geeking just on like my favorite shit to do is like drop an episode I worked hell long with thumbnail to try to get like the click through rate to go crazy Yep. And then I'm looking at like the intro to make sure the retention is good, to tease people

for the end to kind of keep people engage and show the best parts of the convo, that way they want to stick around. And my favorite thing is at 10 a.m., the episode drops, I go to the gym at like 10 15. And then I do like pre-workout, so I got like caffeine going. I'm like feeling jazzed. And I'm like working out. I'm getting endorphins from working out. And then I'm checking YouTube analytics. And every like 10 minutes I'm checking.

And all of a sudden it's like one out of 10. The episode's killing. And all of a sudden it's our biggest episode. And it's like going crazy. And I'm just like getting this rough. from like seeing the data working out getting the endorphins and it's like my favorite thing ever and then going home and just like checking it throughout the night oh we got a hit when it hit europe overnight and while i was sleeping all of a sudden it got another bump and like changing the title because it wasn't actually that good and like trying to tune and tweak things a little it was like an obsession nonstop first thing i did when i woke up it wasn't facebook it wasn't instagram ticotococic it was google youtube analytics what is poppin yeah no i mean i mean that's how we me and particularly uh my partner Joe luma um he's So you did the rap radar interview with, right? Yeah.

Okay. We were like obsessed with the numbers. And like, and not about running it up, but it was like about making the best product and then optimizing it. And I always used to say this to like the complex team, but I'm like, look, like any, anything you guys make, there's like three stages where either it goes right or it goes wrong. And it's like either you have your idea, you have your execution, and you have your marketing. And like if it worked, all three of those things were aligned and then it'll go. And if it doesn't work, you just, then it's like doing a post-mortem and trying to figure out, like, where do we drop the ball? Was it a bad idea?

Was the execution of the idea bad? Or to your point about like, did we title it wrong? Was the thumbnail bad? Like, the autopsy is almost more interesting. Yeah, was the, you know, was the tweet bad? Like, what do we do that it didn't connect? Yeah. And it's a balance of like, I've found myself in the situation where like the numbers will kind of obfuscate the goal of like what the product is.

And so I think it's really important for people to look at the numbers, but balance that with the creative vision. And yo, we might get more numbers if we do this title, but like is this title really genuine to what we're doing? Is this thumbnail a little too egregious? Like can you still make it true and still hit the metrics that you're trying to personally hit? Like how did you balance trying to top out numbers and beat yourself every time, but also like, yeah, let's say true to the vision. I mean, you know, for me, it was always just sort of that yin yang of like gut. You know, like I said, in so many ways, complex was an expression of my personality. And so I'm just making the things that I want to see in the world.

I'm ranking the lists based on my taste. maybe a little bit of like, you know, trolling, tuning, like knowing, okay, maybe we would take this person that was at 30, 47 and we put them at 50 because we know that's going to like... Can I get a combo going? Yeah, make things a little spicy or whatever, move this person up or whatever. But, you know, for the most part, it's like, this is like my genuine thing that I want to exist in the world, you know. Like, and most of the things that we did that really, really worked were true to that. And we're like, all right, like, you know, our sort of corner of the universe is driving popular culture. And like that was, you know, that's the thing like, and why I try not to take that much credit for sort of the overall success of complexes.

It was like a confluence of things, right? Like Mark had a vision that was sort of about this convergence culture where like people of from, from, different parts of the world, you know, physically and also mentally converging around certain interest points and finding that commonality. And then that sort of like, you know, being perfectly aligned with what guys like particularly Kanye were about to do, where they're going to like take deaf punk and re contextualize it into hip hop and then take it onto the pop charts. And, you know, And also Kanye's whole aesthetic was like a little bit from Japan and a little, you know, a little bit from the hood and like all all these different influences.

You know, he's listening to like, you know, indie rock out of Brooklyn in 2008. And you know what I mean? And like pulling all the, you know. A Will Ferrell sample. Yes. What are we talking about? And so like there's sort of this, you know, we happen to be the right idea at this moment with all of these things sort of lining up with us.

And then, you know, Rich, who was the publisher, you know, was incredible at packaging and selling the thing and also had just like a vision for the landscape. And like he could see when it was time for us to pivot to digital and when it was time for us to pivot to video. And he and I had the relationship where he had the trust in me to know like, if I tell Noah what the goal is I can let him figure out how to get this brand there

in an authentic and organic way and I trusted that he knew what the goal was and then you know and then we had Maksha who was the head of sales who was just fucking unrelenting beast that just pounded the pavement you know a thousand hours

a week and like the confluence of all of those things together really led to the success. And yeah, you know, and when we got to the the internet age, it was sort of like, I just loved it because it was like, now I have data that I can help inform. I'm not just taking shots in the dark.

Yeah, dealing with these covers and you're just like, are they going to buy it because a cool person's on it or not? It just seems like so, like, I don't know. I know it was the time and you didn't have another choice, but it just seemed so frustrating. No, I mean, it was super tough. And also like at that point, point, you know, to what you said earlier, like, we were in fourth place. So, like, I wasn't getting

premier bookings. I'm, like, making lemonade out of Little Wayne or Kim Kardashian. And, like, I'm catching these incredible lucky bounces. You know, I did Seth Rogan and Rizza for, I saw knocked up at a preview screening. And I was like, this, this movie is going to fucking go. Yeah. And Rich was like, wait, the dude from fucking four year old virgin had like six lines, you're going to put him on the cover. Freaks and Geeks. And I'm like, yo, Rich, you know, me and Justin were in the theater

fucking laughing till we were crying. He was like, all, man, I trust you. Like, you know. That's the gut. Yeah, you did it twice. Go for it. I'm like, get him with Rizza, so it'll like still make sense to,

because he had just done an interview with some like, Art House magazine where he was like wax poetic about how he loved Rizza. But again, to your point, like all of these were, you know, not,

you never know how they're going to land. Yeah. And once we get to the sort of like complex.com internet, it's like, oh, no. Like, first of all, I can experience the rush in real time of watching something connect authentically with an audience and see people arguing about it on, you know, the internet, on Twitter. You can see them hating us, loving us, calling us idiots, whatever it is, but they're engaging

with the content, you know. And that was also where we like started leaning into the list thing. And this was sort of, again, came from, this is where I said like it's all sort of builds, right? Like, you know, I work at EgoTrip. EgoTrip writes the big book of rap lists. Right at the same time, you know, the next year after that. And I was kind of like just there at the very nascent stages of that I wasn't really there when they put the thing together. But like, you know, I loved it.

And lists were, you know, something that were sort of part of the magazine while I was working. there. The next year after that I go work in MTV. Once direct effect falls apart, they send me up to news and now I'm writing countdown shows, hip-hop's blingiest videos. And I'm like talking to these people and it's like, oh, I'm talking to like the executives and they're like, yeah, look, if we do a half-hour block of just music videos, it will do a point four every single time. if we recontextualize that half hour block into a countdown of a top 10 list, it'll do a 0.7 every time. Yeah.

And like all you have to do is write interstitials that like tech money or whoever will like read and like helps pick out the right videos and organize them. And then boom. Yeah. And I'm like, oh. And I'm like, yes, I get it. People love lists because there isn't a more gratifying experience than having your taste confirmed or disputed.

Yeah. Because either you walk away being like, I should. be able to work there because I fucking know that too or you're like these people are fucking idiots they're professionals and they're getting paid and I know better than that. Yeah literally. I mean this is TRL's whole thing, right? Yes. It's like, yeah, the top 10 tracks.

What's popping? And then you're able to dispute it and then you get the personal validation and you have to see what happens at the end. You can't log off. No. You got to see what is number one. What is it going to be? It's a very compelling proposition, you know, in terms of content.

And also like there's just, you know, as the internet grows, there is more and more. and more culture happening and more and more music being released and more movies being released on more different streaming platforms or whatever. And like, we'd have to organize this. Normal people don't have time to listen to like 17 albums that come out on a Thursday night. So like... The more that's out there, the more there needs to be curation. Yes. So let's, let's curate this. And then, you know, and that the list like became complex as bread and butter for years. Yeah. And then what is that like that transition phase? for you, like that departure, going to Def Jam, like settling into family life, maybe a little

bit more? Like, what does that phase like? Well, I mean, so, okay, we sold the company in 2016 to Verizon and Hearst. And, you know, it was a tremendous life-changing opportunity for all the partners in the business. But it also was very challenging because we're sort of like part of this joint venture with two companies that have very misaligned objectives. Verizon is this like behemoth publicly traded company that if you're not putting a billion dollars up annually, you don't, you're not even worthy of getting mentioned on the call. And so you really are a rounding error. And you know, you see what like they spent whatever, or $1.6 billion on like go 90

and folded it in 18 months and just like kept it moving. Just like insane. So from them, the challenges grow. Like we need you to scale this business. It's cute that you're doing $100 million in revenue or whatever we're doing. I'm like, bro, we've been growing as fast as we can.

But they're like, yeah, they want you to grow. And then Hearst is privately owned by the Hurst family. And so they want dividends for the ownership. So they're like coming around at the end of the month with their handout, like, what's up? Where's the profits? So it becomes very challenging to navigate that

because you're like, well, dad is telling me that I got to scale the business and mom is telling me I got to be more profitable, but I can't scale the business without reinvesting the profits in the product. Which is it? So yeah, so what are we doing? And, you know, in that, you know, sort of the confluence of that, plus, you know, whatever, I walked out my earn out.

And I just got to a point where it was like, you know, I don't know. And I also like being totally candid, like, I'd watched two or three generations of editor-in-chiefs at magazines across the spectrum of genre getting dragged out, you know, with their fingernails in the carpet. it and I was like I don't I don't want to do that like I want to be the old guy like I yanked I want to I want to leave on my own terms like and and ideally I want to leave at the top of my game you know like I know if I would like frame my exit as like game six Jordan but like that was always like okay this is if I have my preferred and that would be what I would like yeah And, you know, we had a tremendously successful 2017. We, like, birthed everyday struggle with Joe Budden and DJ academics.

Of course, love academics. He's great. I mean, both of them were incredible talents. You know, sneaker shopping was cooking. Hot ones had just crossed over and become, like. Oh, yeah, that was a first we feast. Yeah. Owned by Complex.

Part of our, yeah. Which is an insane show. I mean, Sean and Chris are incredible. And, like, yeah, I mean, that, you know, was an idea that like I remember Chris grabbed me in the hallway and being like, yo, I want to do a show where I would make celebrities eat hot wings and maybe like, I love the idea. I don't know how you're going to be able to book it, but you definitely have my blessing

if you can get it done. And it kind of goes into like the countdown list format, sort of. Yes. Like, yeah, we're going to build. No, it has a narrative element. Yeah. It was a perfect format. It's such a good show.

It was perfect. And then on a random, whatever, like Thursday, Tony Ayo stops by the office. and my music team for whatever reason was not interested in interviewing him. I don't know, you know, it was a sort of late era G unit or whatever. And the booking people are like, we got Yale here, like, does anyone want to do anything?

And like, Sean and Chris are like, yo, will he eat hot wings? And as I recall, I feel like he actually may have insisted that Sean eat the wings with him. Oh, because originally he wasn't? I need to ask those guys, you know, memory is fuzzy about 2015 or whatever. But I feel like originally he was just going to ask questions while the celebrities ate the wings. And then Yale was like, I'm not doing it by myself.

Oh, that's fire. And then that. And makes it so much better that he also does it. Oh, it's perfect. And embodies that shit. Yeah. Like, I love the episode where they're like, nah, let me taste what you're tasting. And they're like, whoop, that's it.

Like, honestly, have no idea how Sean does it every week. It's fucking crazy. I thought he was picked because he knew how to do it. like he has an insane palette or something. No, the sort of lead up to it was, okay, so Sean had started as a sports aggregator for us, writing a little like 200-word reviews or, you know, news pieces about sports. And I feel like we needed like a correspondent for some branded content thing that was going to be sort of like local to him in the Midwest.

He lived in Chicago at the time. And one of the guys that worked for me, Jack, was like, oh, Sean Evans, you know, I think he would be good on camera, like, you know, whatever. I'm like, I have some branded content thing, sure. So he goes and does that. You know, we all end up watching it. It's like, oh, cool, yeah, he was a good host. And so right around that same time, we decided to launch Complex News.

And so I had met Jinks through, he was like a editorial assistant at Mass Appeal or something like that. And we had met a couple times in passing. And I love Jinks's energy. and I was like, okay, I feel like Jinks could actually, he could be the like sort of the curt loader of this. And then my friend James that worked from throwing fits, he was the style editor at the time. He was like, yo, there's this Canadian woman I know who has like this Tumblr.

I'm like, cool, like tell her to send a video. She sends like a little quick time videos, Emily Oberg. Wow. And then there was a gentleman named Hanuman who was our video game editor who now he's been like the face of alternative rock on Apple Music for like I don't know eight years now so many people came out of complex that's great I didn't realize how big it was and then and then I was like all right so we have our alt rock dude we've got our curt loader we have our style correspondent in in Emily we need someone that can handle sports and jack was like yo I think

Sean would be great for this so we fly Sean in Sean initially doesn't want the job. I think whatever he was doing in Chicago, he was like, I'm good, Jack ends up taking him out for a drink on his way to LaGuardia and is like, I'm just telling you like really, really think about this, you know, I just think this is like a perfect fit, whatever. Sean thinks about it, comes back and it's like, all right, you know what, I'll move to New York, like I'll do this.

And so for, you know, maybe, yeah, it was probably about 18 months. Once, they're just doing the stand-ups, you know, do camera, getting better and better each time. And then one day I'm coming to work and I see on Twitter the Rock, someone has posted the Rock's diet and it's like he has to eat like five pounds of cod in a day or something. And so I get into the editorial meeting and I'm like, Sean, very much. with me but here's what I want you to do I want you tomorrow to do the rock diet like get up at four in the morning he's like bro I hate cod I hate cod I'm like I really think this could be funny he's like no no I'm with it like I get it I see I see I see your vision so we shoot that

and it's like becomes like I don't know three or four minute piece goes viral the rock retweets it um and I don't know, like, all of us kind of like saw like a new side of Sean beyond just the hosting, yeah, the hosting the stand-ups. Now he's a personality. Yeah, we're like, yo, he's really, he was really funny and he really carried this. And then him and Chris and, you know, so first week feast like operate, you know, like Chris's brother Nick worked for me at Complex when we wanted to start a food site.

He's like, my brother would be the perfect person. I meet Chris. I loved him. We bring him on. He starts first week's feast. But it's all working out of the same office. There's no, like, walls between any of this stuff. And I guess him and Sean become friendly.

And so Nick and Chris have been talking about this, like, Hot Wings idea for, like, I don't know, at least a year. And somehow Sean gets involved. And then there's this moment of just, like, things coming together. Yeah, we're going to do it. And, you know, don't worry, it's not going to cost anything because we're just going to have a black background and, like, just like, like minimal props. And I'm like, cool. Like, you know, if I don't have to like go in and argue for budget, like,

if you think it's going to be cool, like, give a shot, let's do it. And they do it. And it's funny. And we're all like, oh, this is pretty good. And they do probably like six more. And, but it's still getting like 10,000, 20,000 views. Like, nothing crazy. But we're all like watching it.

And everyone, you know, we're like, yeah, this is good. Like, and then they, they. do they link with the PR woman from Comedy Central and Key and Peel are promoting that cat movie oh yeah it was it Keanu yeah Keanu yeah Keanu and he gets Keen Peel there and like Jordan Peel has like the fucking meltdown in the middle of the episode where he's like start sweating and he like zones out and they become and like I just remember it was like they launched on like a Thursday and like by like Friday when I leave work it had like 80,000 views or 100,000

and something that I was like, whoa, that's pretty crazy. Moving the needle. And then I'm watching site meter and Google Analytics over the weekend or whatever, the YouTube Analytics. And all of a sudden, it's like at like a million by Monday morning. Somehow it got on Reddit and like over that weekend, it just went crazy.

Went crazy. And then the combination of like this Reddit audience discovering it and then going back and watching the previous like, Because all the talent before that, you know, it was like a baseball player who's name I can't remember, Machine Gun Kelly, maybe like Jaru, like it was really just like who they could convince to eat hot wings.

And that combined with then all of a sudden like this Comedy Central PR person and then a couple other comedy PR people being like, oh, this is the perfect vehicle for, for funny people to like do an interview, but to like really gee off. Yeah. And all of a sudden the friction starts coming out of the booking.

They start getting more and bigger names. Yeah, Shaquille O'Neal. I mean, that's the best one. Oh, I mean, yeah. And then once we get a few comedians, like the Bobby Lees of the world, and again, now they're starting. Pressure came on.

Yes. Yeah. And also, and I would give credit to Sean and Chris, because the two of them fucking understood YouTube and so like any week where they didn't have like a like really solid celebrity booking

they would go find a like a level YouTube person often who I'd be like yo who you what? Yeah a Minecraft kid and he they just be like you trust me they've got like two million followers

on YouTube and then of course that person shares it on their community feed and now all of a sudden the show every episode is getting 300,000, 500,000, and then a few of them are going to the millions. Wow.

And it was like, and then all of a sudden it becomes, you know. Synonymous with culture. And then they get, yeah, Shaq and Kevin Hart, and Kevin Hart does like four million in a week. Yeah. And it's like, holy shit, like, and that was kind of, yeah, the levy broke.

Wow. I mean, it's just so insane to see it all happening. Like, and to be, I mean, you've just been at the front of so many, moments like that I mean even that show is just like a great format but like I mean look I have to give all credit to those dudes like yeah of course but even just being there like you get to see the process like you've seen the sausage get made time and time again like I mean it's just like you know you find super smart talented people you put them in a position to win and like they're

going to figure it out yeah and back to fuck up and let them do what they're doing and like get out of the way yeah I mean that's unbelievable so you're at complex and all of a sudden it gets acquired and now there's conflicting corporate needs. Yeah, and you're like, oh, let me bow out. It just was like, yeah, it was like, this is not that fun anymore. And like, you know, and also, and it just was like, I really did feel like in a lot of ways, like, we're at this apex, like, Hot One is crushing, Hot Ones is crushing it. Joe Lepuma is sneaker shopping is crushing it.

He's doing multi-millions every week with that show, you know, everyday struggle. is, you know, at that point, to me, had it was on the trajectory that it was going to sort of supplant UMTV raps as probably like the most important hip-hop show, you know, full stop in history. And, you know, and it just felt like this is all, this is all so fucking great and I love doing it still, but I don't know if it's going to like if I can continue to like one up from here and you know and it's also just yeah like the corporate pressures and all that stuff we're just like not that fun and then one of my good friends Paul Rosenberg becomes the chairman of Def Jam and is like yo let's go do Def Jam together it's him and Stephen Victor who I've been friends with since 2005 or 2004 and it was like great this is like a new opportunity something to wrap my head around um you know it's an like an opportunity for growth and change and it's a way to sort of like exit while this thing feels like it's like really at its pinnacle of you know this like 12 or 13 year journey that I've been on with yeah

and that you've grown with like I mean there's just so many wins along the way what like do you have any standout like fuckups or like formats that you're like oh this is going to go or like those times where your intuition was wrong um i mean there's like a million of them uh that we got wrong i mean you know a lot of it i think it was like a process of iteration and like like like for example like we did a show called no debate um in 2014 um and it was like again like all right I have this idea that we need to figure out how to sort of like do what ESPN does but for hip hop and like but I didn't really understand casting and like so like it just was like too many people that got on camera and they all agreed with each other and so like you need a steven A and a skate

basis like you need that first take energy to make a dynamic show and that was the thing was like yeah and like you know you knew with button and academics like button has extremely strong opinions and they're like well thought out and he states them with absolute authority and we'll never back down and then but also he's like an older dude so his perspective is coming from you know at that point probably someone in his late 30s and meanwhile academics is like 22 crushing it on YouTube and like you know super arrogant and like you know very like full of you know know piss and vinegar with a lot of opinions coming at it from a young person perspective and also not going to back down and it's like this is the right

chemistry so was that not doing what the what ESPN was doing well so no debate was the first version which was just like a bunch of guys in the office and it just like we did did like three of them. I don't even know if we posted them online, but they just like... And I was like, yeah, Drake's pretty good. Yeah, it's just sort of like, you know, like, people would have dissenting opinions, but then they would like argue each other and they'd be like, you know, people would like be won over by the argument. And like, it ended up much more like the McLaughlin group than it was like first take, you know, or... Yeah, they didn't have the fire, like you need the fire. Yes. Yeah. And, you know, same thing. We, we had a great sneaker show

So, like, we, you know, two of our things, which I, like, were qualitatively great, but, like, arguably ahead of their time. In, like, 2012, we did the Combat Jack show as sort of like a late night talk show. And, you know, it's the kind of thing that, like, probably in 2016 would have absolutely crushed and like when you look at like the stuff that like Math Hoffa is doing and like, oh, you know, it's like it was the right idea. Our production value was too high. You know, because it was like a four camera setup and we had a studio out in Williamsburg that we rented for like a month to tape all the episodes. And, you know, this and the sales machine

wasn't like, we weren't at a place where we were ready to like sell sponsorship around something that's going to cost, I don't know, whatever it was. but like $25,000 an episode or something. And that did one season. And like, you know, Jack was great. You know, premium Pete. Like, it was the right product. It was just like two and a half years, too early in a variety of ways.

Same thing we did a sneaker show called Quick Strike with Russ Bankston and Clark Kent. And like two of the most credible authorities on sneakers. ever. But again, they didn't, they don't have a contentious energy. They're like two guys who are pretty aligned in their sentiment, and they've also been navigating the sneaker world for years. And so they, like, have relationships.

And like, again, they have enormous historical insights and perspective to offer, but it wasn't, there was no like, you need the fire, bro. Yeah. And, but it was like, but that was the process. Like, we do these. things they didn't work you know I get reamed out for spending too much money and but then we you know we got to this place where it was like okay Sean Sean and Chris got

this to stick hot ones is is going yeah you know everyday struggle boom like sneaker shopping is fucking just and decimating yeah and that was one you know props to Joe like that was probably the first one that actually that really stuck for us but that like that goes back to the WD 40 thing we were saying like you know you were just on WD 30 Yeah. But that is such a great way to even look at it. Like I was talking to do this.

Like it's only failure if you quit. You can't fail if you don't quit. If you keep iterating and trying to build or trying to tweak the idea and, you know, maybe recast or change with the format or have everyone eat hot wings, like then that's where you get the thing that works. But it's impossible to fail unless you quit. I would say. And then the sort of counterpoint to that is also that like if it's not broke, don't fix it. Like sneaker shopping was born because we did a Jim Jones cover.

and at the time I was getting tremendous pressure from the sales side that we need to have video products. So I like part of the deal with Jim was like, okay cool, we're going to do this cover. We'll do the interview and a story, but I also need a video product. And Joe was like, yo, why don't I go to a flight club with him

and buy some sneakers? And I was like, okay, cool, that sounds like, you know, I'm sure it'll be interesting. Like Jim Jones probably has some like interesting sneaker stories to tell or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And we do it and it's like such a simple, format but it's just like consistent and reliable and it provides the audience with this like you know very sort of like like an experience that they they know what they're going to get and it feels good

every time yeah and it's a light lift for talent so the bookings are you know relatively on the easier side because it's like, hey, we're going to shoot this in about 30 minutes, come to the sneaker store, Joe's super pro, he's going to ask you questions. You know, you watch a few episodes, you get the gist. Yeah. And they're like, bro, I'm going to do that anyway. Like, I'm in the city. Like I was going to go pick up Air Force Ones or whatever. Like, and Joe also, to his credit, like Sean and Chris, I think has like this sort of genius sense for understanding the booking of the show. And he is like, you know, maniacal about it. But like, he knows how to like, okay, do Young Hot Rapper X, then do the big show, then do Billy

Elish, then do Young Hat Rapper X, then do, you know, sports legend, and he just has a feel for his audience and what they're going to respond to, and knows how to keep the cadence so that it keeps working. Yeah. And like, yeah, I mean, and again, it's, and that's one where it's like, don't overthink it like let it cook yeah Joe does deep research about the person talks to them about important sneakers from their childhood this always brings up great anecdotes that wouldn't come up in a Conan interview yeah like some arduar shit yeah exactly and then and then

they you get to see their taste because they get to pick a bunch of sneakers and then you know and then also the guests eventually started like sort of like trying to like blow bigger and bigger bags to like make a thing out of it yeah yeah yeah how much this person spend double it Yeah, and then they do, you know, and then some of them are like, do Philadelphia, oh, I'm going to buy like $20,000 worth of sneakers, but then I'm going to give them away to the kids. That's cool. You know.

Yeah, I mean, it's a great format. And now that you're independent, you've taken all the lessons from the complex days, even probably from like Def Jam, and then applied it to your own thing. Well, that's, and that was the thing. So I go to Def Jam and, you know, creatively it wasn't like what I was looking to do.

But what was amazing was I did oversee this brand partnership thing. So for the first time in my life, I'm overseeing like selling and I'm like going into meetings with clients and pitching them ideas and then overseeing the papering of the deals negotiating with the clients, you know, delivering the deliverables, like making sure we hit the KPIs, whatever it is that they wanted. And I was like, oh, it's like totally demystified this whole part of the business that, you know, not to say, that like the complex sales team had like hidden from me or anything but I just not in it yeah and I just was like oh like yeah this isn't like what I live for but like I feel like if I go into a room with a really strong idea I can like sell it with some conviction and get somebody to you know believe in my dream yeah and so when I left Def Jam it was like you know I had hosted the blueprint at the end of my time at Complex,

which was sort of like me interviewing sort of, I don't know, Titans of Creative Industry. And that just had like a weird resonance. Like it touched a nerve with people where for two years I'm at Def Jam and like, whether I'm like the valet in Nobu and Malibu or like the dude at Starbucks in the city across from UMG, they're like, oh, yo, to like, oh, a random dude,

I'm driving to state college, Pennsylvania to see my little sister graduate from grad school and I pull over at a random strip mall so my wife can go to the bathroom and I'm standing by the car just stretching my legs. Some dude in cargo shorts is like, hey, you're Bobby Hundreds' interview. I watch that like every week

because that just like puts a battery in my back. And like I kept having these moments where I'm like, I've been a journalist for 20 years and like outside of maybe the Kanye twisted fantasy story that people, you know, send the link around every year on the anniversary. I've never done anything that had this kind of like resonance with people. And I was sort of like, what if instead of just Titans of Creative Industry,

we made this about entrepreneurship and about creative entrepreneurs. Because, you know, there's this sort of like whole spectrum of, you know, entrepreneurial content that exists from like the financial literacy stuff on this side to kind of like, you know, stuff like Gary V does on the side. with like NFTs or whatever. And I feel like somewhere in there, there's a bunch of people that want to make things, creative products,

and they want to be compensated and run their own business while they do it. And I feel like I could make a product that could speak to that. And like, what if it wasn't just a show? What if it was more of like a 360 thing? And we created a slate of programming. And it all sort of like hinged off of this idea

of taking ideas out of your head and putting them into real life and commercializing them. And my right hand at Def Jam, Helena, was like, yo, I love that idea. If that's what you're going to do after you leave, like, let me know. And we put together a deck,

went to my wife's very good friend, Tricia Clark Stone, who is like a fucking marketing genius. She used to have a marketing company called Narrative that she sold to Will Packer. So I hit her and I'm like, hey, I have this deck. Do you mind taking a look at it?

Me and Helena meet up with her at a hotel room. I mean at a hotel bar and she like goes through the whole deck and it's like, okay, like I would tweak this and tweak that. And if I were a buyer, this is what I'd be interested. And I'm like, fuck, Trisha is like, it's mad smart. She knows a lot of shit that I don't know about like dealing with brands and, you know. And basically proposition the two of them like, hey, I want to start this business.

I would like you guys to be my partner is in it. They were both interested and we started. And of course, this is all happening in January of 2020. Yeah. So we shoot a pilot with Futura in middle of February, having conversations with brands. I'm having conversations with strategic partners. Everything is like, go, go, go, go, go.

It's great. and I'm like, yeah, we're really fucking good. We're going to make this work. And then Friday 13th, 2020 happens. And I end up, you know, like everybody else, going into quarantine. Yeah. And sitting on the bench for the next six months. Damn.

With the family out in Long Island. And just kind of like, you know, and talking to them and being like, all right, look, you know. We can control what we can control, which is the product that we're making. So let's just take advantage of this time. Let's, you know, Helena, you and I, let's just like work on this pilot and make it as great as possible. Let's work, you know, with the art guys that we're, you know, working with Maxime and his team, get the marks and everything to be super dialed exactly how we want it. Trisha, you and I let's build on like, you know, growth strategies, like once the world.

world starts spinning again. And we start mapping this out and this goes on. And, you know, basically January 2021, we hit the ground running and we're just like full throttle pushing forward. And of course, the rest of the world is not ready to be back. I'm really ready. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. I've been working since I'm 17. I really enjoyed having, you know, 10 months to be like a super present dad. Yeah, yeah. For the first time in my life, this is great. I'm you know but I'm also like excited to get into this and we get to like March and you know we've taken a lot of meetings there's been some like lukewarm interest nothing's really moving and I have a conversation with a coworker um the ex-co worker from Complex and he mentions to me um he's like well

you don't remember when we were at complex, like the video shit really didn't start rocking until we stopped being like go-no-go based on advertising. Like once you guys just got dedicated monies to make shit, that's when stuff really started sticking. And I was like, that's a really good point, Scott. Let's, that, yes, that makes a lot of sense. So that night, like 8, 9 p.m., I call Elena and I'm like, look, let's just go to L.A.

in April. It feels like this pandemic shit is starting to abate a little bit. I see people are doing production. This is like 21? This is 21, yeah. Let's shoot five more episodes. I can line up out of my network

five episodes in one week and I'll just fund it out of my pocket and like I would rather spend the money and like leave it all on the floor and know that we fucking tried to do this then, you know, have this like pilot that we're like showing to people. Yeah, fuck that. No.

And she's like, okay, cool. Like tomorrow morning I'll like start looking, you know, finding a production company, looking at arrangements, whatever, whatever. Just like let me know as you book the talent. And the next day my friend Nathan Brown calls me who had been the GM of Complex Video years earlier. And he and I had sort of commiserated during the, pandemic because he was sort of between gigs and I'd sent him the pilot and he was like yo this is really dope man I like this he subsequently gets a job as the head of Ellen digital

you know Ellen's like the heads up and all this shit yeah of course and he calls me out of the blue and it's like yo um I just met with Harley from Shopify and like you know we were talking Ellen stuff and then but like he's really trying to position them as like the company of entrepreneurship full stop um would you be comfortable if I shared with him that pilot that you sent me because like I just think it'd be up his alley and I'm like please Nathan like send it five minutes ago and he's like great because I actually send it to him already and we have a meeting on Monday wow what a legend um and we end up meeting with Shopify and they were like incredibly supportive and saw the vision and were like like all of the things

that had been gating they were like that's awesome like oh you you have a YouTube channel with zero subs fucking awesome perfect build it from scratch with us and show what we can do we want to see you know we want to champion real entrepreneurs like and we want it to be done by real entrepreneurs like we would rather do this spend with you than with some big media company because you're doing it the scrappy way. And, you know, those guys like, were like, we want, I mean, I've never had in 25 years of media had a client hit me and be like, you can be more light touch on like the attribution.

Like, don't worry about us. Thank you. I was like, yo, that makes me want to like give you more props. Because like, you were in the Shopify shirt and the hat every episode. Yo, I was just like, dude, this is, you guys are fucking great. Yeah. And yeah, and then so they sponsored the first season and that got the ball rolling. They sponsored the second season and, you know, did some podcast deals that are yet to be announced, but coming out in June.

Yeah. And have some live events that we're going to do this year. Oh, bro. Season three, we're halfway through. That's so cool. How good does it feel just to be like independent? I'm in charge of all of it and I can delegate as I need, but I can also pull back control. Like I'm dealing with the companies that fuck with me.

that I can work with that are free. Like, I feel lucky that I was sort of like mentored and ushered into a, into a realm of content that is like very free. And it's so seductive. It's, no, I mean, it's unbelievably gratifying because, yeah, I mean, it's like every, you know, to be fair, as an entrepreneur, it's like a fucking roller coaster. And like, you got kids and shit too. I can feel invincible at 9 a.m.

And, like, this guy is falling at 3 p.m. and then invincible again at five, depending on like the cadence of emails that I receive. Of course. But yeah, it's, but also it's like, it's all on my own terms. And, you know, I have selected the partners that I want to work with that I believe in,

that I think augment my skill set in different ways. There's no fucking weird toxic people. There's no managing. Because you're in control of it. It's what you want it to be. It's not like, there's no sleight of hand. you know, where like, you know, me and Rich are like, trying to figure out, like, well, we have to deal with the board and what they want.

So, like, we have to like. Freedom. Yeah. It's, you know, it's like, let's just make the best product and sell it as aggressively as possible and hope that, you know, people believe in quality. And, like, you know, and I still am like a psycho in the ways that you are in terms of, like, looking at all the analytics and trying to figure out the data and trying to book according to, you know, what my gut says and what I like and the stories I want to tell,

but also what I think is going to rate and what's going to resonate with the audience. But, yeah, it's all authentic and it's all like, you know, there's no sort of like wasted, you're working a corporation. There's so much time spent politicking and meetings. There should be emails and emails that shouldn't happen and like bullshit. No. It's just insane. And also, frankly, as a creative person, it's fucking really nice to be in a place where it's like,

I'm driving stick again. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I drive a fixed gear, like I ride a fixed gear bike. Like, I like being incredibly close to the product. Like, you know, as gratifying as sort of having some slight hand in helping to empower, you know, Chris and Sean to make hot ones. Like, that's their show. Yeah.

And I can never Yeah You know Or watch the throne get made Like that's their thing And you're a part of it But it's their thing I have yeah

I was lucky enough To be a fly on the wall In that moment You know And even complex Like I'm very proud of What I contributed

And what I draw But you know That was the confluence of You know Mark's vision You know Rich's intuition And hard work on

The business side And Mach's just being like A ruthless Salesman that just crushes it. And, you know, and then me having a sense of how to do culture. And like, yeah, we all made it work.

Sometimes it was tons of fun. Sometimes it was contentious. But, you know, that's sort of the nature of the beast. But to be in a place where I'm, like, really touching the product in, you know, like I said, like sitting with my man John for 12 hours editing a podcast into script. re-listening to a 10-second clip. Should we move those two sentences a little close? I feel like they need to be a little, like,

no, now they're stepping on each other. Okay, put them back how they were. That's fucking, like, that's a dream. And then to be able to do it and get paid, you know. There's nothing better. And in my opinion, at least, I don't know. I haven't been at the heights you've been at, but like, I feel like it's worth less money.

Yes. The simplicity and the freedom is worth less. Like, I look at it where I'm like, I mean, this show, for what it's worth, has not made any money. You know what I'm saying? But I do it for this. Like this is the this is the money to me like being able to connect and like democratize combos and help people and shed light on stories and like be entertaining like that is the that's what it's worth. I mean I feel the same way with idea generation like you know and that's honestly like what drove me to want to do blueprint

and what drove me to want to do idea generation was like you know in my youth I was really interested in like getting artists talk about how they made their art and that was like fascinating to me and then you know thankfully you know guys like rich like mentored me both like you know on sort of the management side of running an operation but also showing me the business sitting with me with the P&L and being like okay like here it's zero sum let's make these decisions together. I'm not going to do this. And me being like, okay, well, if I take

$10,000 out of this thing, okay, you know what I mean? If I put $10,000 here, it's got to come out of somewhere else and like, all right, and I'm seeing, you know, he's not making arbitrary decisions. He's trying to calculate the best tradeoff that will put us in the position to win.

And like, yeah, to sort of like, so then, And for me, as I got older, my fascination became like, how do these really successful creatives manage that? Because I know that some of them are like all up in the P&L, you know, Scooter Braun certainly has, you know, a head for numbers. And but he also has a vision. He also has like charisma and ability to network and an ambition.

and like I want to pull that apart that's interesting to me you know one of the interviews I did for Blueprint was Todd McFarland the comic artist and like Todd has gone to be like a fucking multi-millionaire

and like he famously bought the Barry Bonds ball for $3 million and many people derided him as a fucking lunatic for doing this and so I'm interviewing him and he's like I'm like you spent $3 million for a piece of baseball

memorabilia like are you really that into baseball? He's like well First of all, yes, I am that into baseball. But second of all, you have to understand. In 1996, I started a toy company, McFarland Toys. I go to every major league company, and I try to pitch them to let me get a license to make figures for their leagues.

I can't even get meetings. Nobody will fuck with me at all. I'm making the best superhero toys on the market by a mile. They're selling like crazy. The business is exploding, but I cannot get to the most lucrative part of the toy figure industry. He's like, you know what happens when you spend

$3 million on a baseball? You get a meeting with the fucking commissioner of the MLB. Wow. And he's like, and that happened three weeks after I bought that ball. I had a meeting with the commissioner and I went in and I showed him toys that I made for Spong, toys that I made for whatever like horror franchises I had bought.

And I left there with a contract to do all the MLB toys. Once I did that, I got NBA and I got NHL. Wow. six months apart. And he's like, so yeah, I spent $3 million on a ball, and then I made $9 million in toy sales

in the next 18 months. So was it an insane thing for me to do? And I was like, yo, that's fucking genius, man. Crazy equals genius, bro. Yeah, like, that makes total sense. And again, and so for me, it was like, so you're not only the illest comic book artist, maybe ever, but you're also crazy like a five,

and like you could see these chess moves on how to grow this other you know yes you're gonna make the best toys ever like that was it was like I told my my designer is like you know you know how to make these things great make them look like the fucking photos that's how to make them great yeah don't make them these weird wax figure no make them look like the realistic and so it's like all right so you've got that part of the Steve Jobs but then you also have this canny about you that you know how to like navigate your way into the right room to get the deal done

social businessman creative yep and then they all are right yeah and that's kind of like to me the most fascinating i mean russ yep like great rapper great songwriter for sure but he's like independent hustle and the strategy behind it is like the part that is the most you know interesting for me to interrogate. Yeah, it's insane. And he's making more money than these other rappers that are signed

these labels or whatever because he owns all his shit. He's got his masters. He's independent. Yep. Yeah. And those are, and for me, it's like,

all of these are like, you know, each one of these interviews is another like infinity stone. It's like, because you're like, oh, okay, I can see this

and I can apply this to my own business. Yeah. You know? So I go in with like a genuine curiosity because I, I'm an entrepreneur with a small business

and I'm trying to get it to crack and like I see how you guys are thinking about all these disparate things and like let me ask the questions that I'm authentically curious about as an entrepreneur and small business owner. It puts you in the perfect spot. I mean this really is the collection of your entire life

all the contacts you made, the people you've befriended, the industries you've been in, your interests, learning brand partnerships, putting it all together and then literally with that well-finding of knowledge asking questions to the grates of the industry and of different industries like what can I do to improve and those are the questions of the audience is ultimately wondering totally because you know hopefully most of the audience are like aspiring entrepreneurs and like yeah they they clean the same jewels that I do from it yeah yeah I mean it's insane and all the

episodes are great and I say that having not watched all of them but uh what are I might love the the Mario Carbone one I thought that was fire the rust one's insane the just blaze one despite the pants rustling still great thank you what are the other ones that you love that people check out. Well, I was going to say Mario Carbone is probably my favorite. The thing that he says about building a box that every restaurant lives within, again, it's like one of those like Kanye Steve Jobs moments where you're just like, yes, like you're doing storytelling, you are committing to a specific aesthetic that is like, you know, it's world building. You've built a rulebook for this restaurant and now everyone that works there from the busboys to the waiters and waitresses to the

hostesses to the line chefs all have to adhere to this rule book what is the constitution of your little country yes yeah and like i don't maybe i'm naive but i never considered in the context of a restaurant that kind of thought process no one does but then they go inside and they go everything works it all yeah it transport you know you go into the grill and you're like I feel like I'm in Madman. Yeah. Like I'm about to have dinner with Don Draper. This is crazy.

And restaurants are so great for that because the brand language communicates through everything. And not only is it outside you, it's inside you. Literally, like it is the most direct way to communicate a brand language. I mean, that's what I love about Apple. Like Steve Jobs comes out with this idea for a store and everyone's like, just a store, just to sell your computers? Like, it's insane. And he's like, it's not just about the store selling computers.

It's about letting people communicate with the brand in a four-dimensional space where they're able to understand what we're about through the people they talk to, through trying out products, through the smell, through the sites and all this minimalist Japanese-inspired architecture. It's more than just a store. It's an experience to communicate who we are as a brand. Okay, so what, not to take, to, I'm going to get back to your other question about episodes that are my favorite, but, so at UMG, I had the good fortune to work. What's UMG? That's the parent company that owns Def Jam.

Gotcha. Oh, United Music Group, got you. Universal Music Group. That's what I meant to say. I got to meet with Lucian Grange, the CEO, on a handful of occasions. And like, I just remember at one point sitting with Lucian and he's sitting with like a bunch of the senior Def Jam executives. And he's like, what's a brand? And like, I don't know, one exec's like, you know, it's like a company's identity, you know,

You know, and someone else throws out like, you know, it's like, you know, you're the look and feel of a company or whatever. And he's like, no, you're all wrong. A brand is a trust that exists between a consumer and a corporation. If you have a brand, you have everything. But it's incredibly fragile. And you have to respect the brand. Def Jam has a brand. That's the most important thing.

And that's the thing that you have to think about. It is a trust. This is like you're right. relationship with your wife or your husband or your partner this is it's about them trusting that you will deliver a consistent and reliable experience to them across any and all mediums whether it's your merch your albums your videos whatever experience they are going to meet your your corporate identity in it's going to deliver the same feeling to them every fucking time and like I was like god damn this guy's fucking smart I understand

why he's the CEO. Yeah. But I talk about that with Schultz sometimes. We're like, we talk about McDonald's and not to compare McDonald's to Carbone or enter the restaurant, but like you go to McDonald's in Japan, Texas, New York. It all tastes and feels pretty much the same. And that is insane. Most restaurants can't get every burger to taste the same.

And they make every burger in the world taste. It's like, I met a brewmaster for Budweiser. One time, you know, when I was a complex, like, you know, the liquor industry, they would like come over and do like, test and whatever. One time, I can't remember what they were pushing Bud Select or something like that, they brought this brewmaster and he like broke down, he's like, you have to understand we have like six like plants across America. Some of them have aluminum barrels that are, you know, 26 tons. Some of them have, you know, oak barrels that are 22 tons. Like every day I sit

in St. Louis and I taste beers from these different breweries to make sure that the acidity is not too high or that this one is not too hoppy or whatever. And then not only that, but then I have to coach

the people on the ground in Maine or How to tweak. Yeah, how to tweak it to make it more consistent because a Budweiser has to taste the same in Maine as in Augusta as in, you know, New Mexico or Seattle.

And that guy probably gets paid crazy money just for taste and beer and making it consistent. But I say that to say like it really like for me was like a hot moment of just like holy shit like that is, you know, and you talk about McDonald's, but like being able to deliver that kind of consistency at that scale is unbelievable. Yeah. And yeah, something to aspire towards really like, you know, and whatever. We were doing a complex. I definitely aspired towards that.

But yeah, that was, anyway, it was a long tangent. But you can edit this part. Oh, but getting back to the original, like episodes that I really enjoyed, and this is not to plug my most recent episode because that's what I'm about to do. But I interviewed Tay Keith, who is a hip-hop producer from Memphis. Of course. And, you know, I went into it because, like, I like his music and I'd seen some interviews online. He seemed like a good dude.

But I didn't really have, like, too much expectation as to, like, you know, what was going to come out of it. It was just sort of like, yeah, I feel like this is going to be a good booking. And, like, he, you know, I'd seen some interviews where he seemed like a smart dude. But I'd never really seen him open up. and he really like just impressed the shit out of me and like we talked and it was like there's like a moment where he's like talking about how he stopped being it he started as a rapper then he became a producer um he starts like selling beats on like Google basically on YouTube getting Google Adsense money um just putting like tight beats up yeah yeah and I'm like

you know, why did you stop being an artist to become a producer? And he was like, well, because at that point, it was like the dat piff era. So like if you're an artist, you just put up mixtapes and people download them for free. There's no way to monetize them. But if you're a producer, you could make typebeats and put them in and use the YouTube algorithm to make Google AdSense. And so I'm 14 years old, 15 years old living in Memphis, you know, a $100 check or a $200 check from Google AdSense would change my month. And I was like, that's pretty ill.

I'm like, so you're like, so you were really strategizing how to optimize these things like algorithmically. And he's like, absolutely. Like that was all of it, that was intentional. Well. Then we talk about he goes to college. And at this point, he's like a local producer. He's got some placements with like Blackboard J.B.

and a bunch of local Memphis artists. You know, he becomes a college DJ, he starts throwing parties. And I'm like, yo, did being a DJ change how you think about producing? And he's like, oh, 1,000%. Because instantly you see the crowd react.

And so I saw the BPMs where all the records that went off were at and I was like, my beats are too slow. I'm making great street records. Yeah. But they're all like 68 to 72 beats per minute. I need to be more in that like, 80 beats per minute.

And so I adjusted my shit, all of a sudden I started selling more and more beats. There's no accidents, bro. All these motherfuckers that are there, there's a reason. No, it's all very thoughtful. And then he starts talking about personal shit and was like insanely forthcoming. And just like, and, you know,

I had known that he had dealt with some difficult family stuff that he sort of alluded to in some other interviews. But while we were like waiting for them to get the camera, set up. We're just chit-chatting. All of a sudden, like, the conversation of years left, and he talks about at 18, his mother being diagnosed with schizophrenia. And having to have her committed, having to, like, figure out how to, you know, take control of her affairs, create a conservatorship. And I'm like, you know, we get to that and they're like, okay, we're ready to rule. I'm like, hey, man.

this is obviously very personal stuff. Are you comfortable talking about this in the interview? If you're not, that's okay. Like, we can talk about business and you as a beatmaker, whatever. And he was like, no. Actually, I never talked about it, but I feel like mental health is like, there's stigmas attached to it. And it's like real shit that people go through.

And I want to do this for other people. Like, and it is hard to talk about. But, and he was incredibly candid about just, you know, And so imagine he's in college, building his career, getting more and more placements, going through all these, like, jumping through legal hoops, having to have his mother committed, having to take control of all for financial affairs, and, you know, battling with the state over this because none of it's easy. And she's not in a place to just give him power of attorney or anything. and then like in 2018 he has his breakout year where he has

Look Alive by Blockboard J.B. and Drake. He has Sickle Mode by Travis and Drake and then he has Not Alike by Eminem and Royce on the Kamakazi album and then he has Beyonce the Mays thing and then he finds out that his mother has terminal cancer. Fuck. Yeah.

And I'm just like, that would be a lot to navigate at any point in your life, like, both the good and the bad. But to be dealing with that at 20 years old. Simultaneously. And simultaneously. Like, your life is the best it's ever been, but you've essentially had to say goodbye to your mother because she's stopped being the person you knew who raised you. And then she's beset by, you know, stage four cancer. And you only find that out because she's, you've committed her to medical care. Fuck.

And it's like, you know, and it's whatever. It's the adage, you know, you never know what the fuck is going on with people. But like, you talk about, like, triumph in the face of adversity and, like, to try to build your career while you're shouldering that weight. As a kid. Yeah, and as a really young person, I got, you know, at 43, if I did deal with that with my mom, it would take my head out of the game completely. Yeah. I can't possibly imagine. And, you know, and he dealt with it, and his mother passed in 2021.

And, you know, he's dealing with grief and processing. But he also had another explosive view. in 2022 and guy's career back on track and did like three records on the you know he did the jimmy cook's record for drake and then he did like uh maybe three on the 21's average drake record and had a bunch of other placements and it's like that's insane yeah man like and that's all the episode yeah it's a great it's a great watch because you know the dude is 26 years old and like he's been through it and you know again both his insights on the business side are brilliant and thoughtful,

but also just like the candor that he can talk about, like really painful shit is like. That's amazing. Yeah, and just like you walk away being like, this is a good human being. Like we are all fortunate that he is walking to earth. Yeah, and it's, you never see that side though. Like you're a Drake fan, whatever.

All of a said, you just hear the tag, take Keith. But you don't see the guy behind it that's like has all these influences from his mom, playing records in the house that he's inserting into the music that he's dealing with emotionally losing her twice yep i mean the the complexity of it is insane no it's great it's yeah so anyway that that was one again where i just i say that's like i went into it being like i thought this was going to be good and it was like damn i'm getting fucking for clumped like sitting in the seat like shit man i don't want to fucking cry on camera yeah this is real damn i'm going to check it out so

anyway yeah those those are some of my favorites uh I'm trying to think what else. The Jason Bolden episode was amazing. He's also just a fantastic thinker. Scooter, it was nice because I interviewed him in 2017, so we got to sort of do round two. Oh, cool. And that was cool because, like, both of us have, like,

grown and gone through, you know, wins and losses and ups and downs. And, like, so to sort of be able to commiserate on that was really dope. And then also I would just say, like the Dwayne Wade episode, you know, Dwayne is someone that like I met again, my wife is friends with Gab Union and I met Dwayne 2014 like when we were dating. And, you know, again, like I've always had a very sort of outside of like Kanye

distant relationship from quote unquote famous people. And like we've developed a real relationship and friendship that's like really meaningful for me. And so to be able to then sit down with him in a more formal setting and be like, okay, I've been talking to this dude for like seven years in like casual conversation. And like some of it deep, some of it really like, you know, not not surface at all. But like I'm going to ask all of the like questions that would be like kind of strange and formal to like. Yeah. Talk to, you know.

Just over lunch. Yeah, exactly. and like again just someone who like thinks about brand and about business and like a really thoughtful compelling way and also is like an inspiration in terms of like how much he has grown

and changed through his journey and like you know even just seeing the sort of tail end of it from you know because he was still like 2014 the heat were still yeah that was like the end of the he was as high he was the king of Miami yeah insanity I mean they named the street after him outside the stadium like it's crazy and then like

his relationship with his wife is is amazing he seems like an amazing dad too like incredible dad yeah and you know and and to watch him like you know go through the transition from like I've been playing basketball since I was 13 years old and then like now I'm not going to play basketball like that's like your identity's gone yeah that's like a challenging thing to like to do it with so much grace and also to like do it in such a way where you like are still able to find new things to engage with with that passion and that ambition is like fucking inspiring because it's like yeah man like you know it's it it would be you know as with like complex it was like it would be easy to do this till the wheels fall off but like you got a known to bow up yeah and like you know he ended his career like

fucking still playing a tremendous game on his own terms, you know. Yeah, he's a legend. Yeah. Well, that's amazing, bro. I'm going to check out all the rest of them. Thank you so much for fucking doing this, bro. This is like, this is the game that you gave me and just like the gems are like insane and just spending the time to connect, bro.

I really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. And yeah, thank you for being, you know, interested enough to ask those questions. And like, always. I'll be honest, bro. I could go another three hours, but I'm worried about this camera of turning into dust. But bro, seriously, thank you so much. This is so great.

Appreciate you, brother. Absolutely.