In Search Of Excellence - Rodney Jerkins: Dream The Impossible Dream | E53

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Rodney Jerkins is one of the most successful music producers of all time – he has worked with some of the greatest artists of our time, including Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and many more.He has been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won 2 – for the Record of the Year and Best R&B song. He is also an incredible songwriter and musician. His journey to excellence is incredible so tune in to hear more!(00:00) Rodney’s backgroundBorn in Pomona, New Jersey (Dad was a pastor, mom a housekeeper)Rodney is the fourth childHis mom was very sick while pregnant with himMom worked for wealthy familiesListening to rap music in secretAt 10, he decided to be a producerAt 13, started making and selling songs to local artistsDad became his managerRodney was forced to play the piano(10:52) Never stop dreaming, never stop believingAt 11, he started working and saving for Akai MPC 60Went with his dad to a sellerRodney copied the manual and read it every day (Rodney's dad realized his talent and broke his insurance policy to and bought him a machine)The visit to Toledo, Ohio that changed Rodney's life foreverRodney was blown away and inspiredNever stop dreaming, never stop believingAs a child, Rodney wanted to work with Michael JacksonDream the impossible dream40-day family road trip(27:20) From washing dishes to working with James JonesSaving to buy the equipmentAt 10, he asked for a job at local dinner (washing dishes)Went to a mall and asked for a job at Foot Locker (Dug Smith let him stock the shelves)At 15, went to ManhattanJames Jones from Uptown records (Rodney sent him a tape with a letter – James LOVED the music)James Jones calls him to come to New York and work with himAt 16, dropped out of school and went to New York (Rodney's dad allowed him to go after his dreams) (38:42) The biggest deal is not always the best dealAt 17, offered a 1.8 million dollars contract from EMIAt the same time, a 2.2 million dollar offer from SonyClosed the deal with Brian Jackson (bigger money doesn’t mean a better deal)Rodney bought his mother a car and a house for his parents at 17 years oldWanted to be a blessing to themThe story about Randall’s grandmother(50:04) Strike while the iron is hotDoing local demos in South JerseyA group hired him to make a demo for the Impact music convention (playing music for Teddy Riley)Drove 6 hours to Future Recording Studios in Virginia BeachInvitation to come and learn during the summerThe internship is very important for successHaving interns and giving them a chanceThe right mentor is essentialRandall’s experience with internsAdvice to internsSponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

Here's the part of the story that most people don't even know. A fax comes through from Sony Music signed by Tommy Mottola offering $2.2 million, $400,000 more than EMI. And I remember having a conversation with my attorney, everybody was excited. And I said, no, I want to sign with EMI. And they were like, what? You just got offered $400,000. Let's at least go back to EMI and tell them that we got a bigger offer from Sony. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I just want to sign a deal that was offered to me by EMI. And I like Brian Jackson. I love the fact that he has a passion for what I do and he spent time with me and I want to get this deal done today. And I closed that deal that next day and I never forget getting a call from Tommy Mottola cursing me out about not doing this deal with him. Literally cursed me out. I'm literally 17 years old and he cursed me out. I've always believed that it's not always the biggest deal, that's the best deal. Welcome to In Search of Excellence, which is about our quest for greatness and our desire

to be the very best we could be, to learn, educate, and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential. It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication, and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face on our way there. Achieving excellence is our goal, and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities, and surroundings, and we all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. My guest today is Rodney Jerkins.

Rodney is one of the most successful music producers of all time. He has worked with some of the greatest artists of all time, including Michael Jackson, Rihanna, Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys, Sam Smith, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, and Mary J. Blige, just to name a few. Collectively, the records he has produced have sold over a billion albums. He's been nominated for 18 Grammy Awards and has won two for Record of the Year and Best R&B Song, and he's also an incredible songwriter and musician in his own right. Rodney, thanks for being here. Welcome to In Search of Excellence.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. I always start my podcast with our family because from the moment we're born, our family helps shape our personality, our values, and the preparation for our future. You were born and grew up in Pomona, New Jersey, a small town 15 minutes away from Atlantic City in New Jersey. Your dad was a pastor at a church and your mom was a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Southern New Jersey. Can you tell us about the relationship you had with your parents, your mom's serious illness when she was pregnant with you, Mr. Tamberelli, and your dad's house rule? Yeah, you know, growing up in a small town,

Pomona, New Jersey, very small town. My mother, when she was pregnant with me, I'm the fourth child, the last child. And when she was pregnant, she was just super ill. She was super sick. And there was a moment when she went to see the doctor. His name was Dr. Kwan. And Dr. Kwan basically told her that he didn't believe that I would make it. And my mom, who's a woman of faith, said, you know, the time came where she had me and, um believing I would be here. So he said, you have a special gift. You are gifted. You are blessed. You're a blessed boy. So he used to tell me all the time. So I don't take life for granted, especially now with myself And when I think back, you know, of my mom, when she when she worked at she worked for a wealthy family, several wealthy families. So not just one house. This is this was a journey for years for her. And I would go there to her to one of the family's homes to visit. Sometimes she would take me and they would allow me to swim in their pool

with the other kids. But this one particular family, they always had the piano. There was always piano lessons being taught to their kids. And my mom, when they, you know, had the courage to ask the piano teacher, his name was Carl Tamberelli, if he'd be willing to give me piano lessons. And at first, you know, kind of caught him off guard because she was the housekeeper. And, you know, so I'm sure he probably thought she wouldn't be able to afford the lessons, but she was relentless in asking him,

you know, we grew up in a very gospel house. He was a classical piano teacher. She wanted me to learn classical piano. So he said yes. Eventually he said yes. And he gave me my first piano lesson. And I stuck with him for about eight years. I started piano lessons with him at five years old. And was learning a lot of classical music.

Up until the time where he couldn't teach me anymore. He said that I had went too far, that I was kind of just progressing in my own world of creating my own songs. So he felt he couldn't teach me anything anymore. And that was pretty much it. Tell me about the house rule that your dad had. Well, my dad's a pastor. Right now, my dad's about to turn 80 years old and he's been a pastor probably, I don't know, maybe he started preaching when he was 21 years old. So that's a good 59 years right there as a preacher. So he had this house rule that we were not allowed to listen to rock and roll music is what he called it. What he meant was secular music. We weren't allowed to listen to pop, R&B, rap, anything he called it rock and

roll. It all came under that umbrella. So around the house, all we heard was gospel music. We had gospel and classical, and that was it. That's all I heard as a kid coming up. But of course, most kids at some point are rebellious. So me being rebellious, I would sneak and listen to a lot of music, whether it was, you know, Michael Jackson or whether it was like, you know, Doug Fresh, Slick Rick, you know, hip-hop on the hip-hop rap side. I just listened to a lot of R&B, New Jack Swing, pop. I would sneak it and I would actually try to figure out how to play the chords that I was hearing on the piano. I got in trouble a lot of times. My mom and dad would find cassette

tapes around the house of artists like Guy and Michael Jackson and Prince and just a lot of different artists that I was sneaking. And it was a house rule. It was just, you know, different, just a lot of different artists that I was sneaking. And it was a house rule. It was just, you can't listen to this type of music, you know. It's the devil's music. The devil's music is what they were referred to as. And the funny thing about this whole story was when I turned probably 10 years old is when I really started wanting to become a producer. And I just had a natural knack for creating tracks in that pop, hip hop, R&B space. And so eventually by the

time I'm 13, I was actually making songs, local records for local artists in South Jersey. And I was getting paid to do their demos. And eventually my dad, who initiated that rule, he became my manager. So he had to kind of go back on his own word and his own teaching. And now he had to manage my career. That's awesome. Let's go back because you're five years old and you didn't want to take piano lessons, but your parents made you do that. I know so many parents

who force their kids to take piano or music. I know you force your kids to take piano and they all play different instruments as well. Should we be forcing our kids? Yes. And in your case, if your dad didn't force you, would you be a massive global producer superstar if they hadn't forced you? Would you have found it anyway? Yeah, they definitely forced it. And I definitely, I'll thank them to this day for forcing it on me because I wouldn't have been a producer for sure. I definitely wouldn't have pursued production at all if it didn't start with me on the piano. I wouldn't have been a songwriter

if it didn't start with me on the piano. You know, when I think about our kids, you know, my kids are very musically inclined. My oldest son, you know, he's more into golf and that's really his thing. So, you know, piano, sometimes he doesn't really want to play piano as often as the other kids do. But my wife and I, our thoughts on that is, you know, we just want you to be able to exercise different parts of your brain. You know, it's not a thing where, you know, you know, you have to play the piano just because you're living under this roof. But we would like for you to play the piano because we believe that it definitely exercises another part of your brain.

And to me, I think there's nothing more beautiful than, you know, if you want to play golf and you're 25, 30 years old, you're playing golf. And at the end of the day, you invite people over to your home and you start playing the piano beautifully for someone. I think it's just a, it's an extra bonus to be able to have that under your belt. So I stand by it. I really encourage, I encourage most parents and friends like, yeah, you should get your, your kids piano lessons. It's very, it's, it's, it's a great instrument to learn. It's a, it's a great instrument that will help you work your brain in a different way and open up your creative juices and creative thoughts. You mentioned your dad finally came around. He knew that you had a talent.

He eventually became your manager. We're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But so many parents I know make awesome sacrifices for their kids. I know a lot of single moms, people who come from low socioeconomic means. They don't have funds. They can't take the private piano lessons. Your dad did something really amazing. He broke his life insurance policy to buy you a $1,200 drum machine. Can you talk about that and put your head back in the exact timeframe when he did that? How much did that influence you and spark you to have your parents say, I believe in you at such a young age? Yeah, it was such a special moment for me because I was 12 years old.

I'll never forget it because at this time, I already at 11 years old, I got my first job. I was working at a local footlocker in the Hamilton Mall. Guy by the name of Doug Smith gave me my first job. And I had saved up a little bit of that money to buy this little small drum machine that was like one hundred and ten dollars at the time. But I used to read all these magazines back then. It was like, um, these, these, uh, word up magazines and Blackbeat and these hip hop magazines. And it always has these, uh, these articles about producers and the, the, the, the actual, uh, hardware that they used to use. So I would read like they would use, you know, the Yamaha SY-77, the SB-1200,

and all the producers that I liked, they used what was called the Akai MPC-60. And I just thought that if they use that and they're super successful, that if I got that, then I would become super successful. And so I got that, then I would become super successful. And so I found what it was a magazine out of Pennsylvania called. It was called Trading Times. It was a little newspaper called Trading Times. And I would read it and I would go to the for sale section of music in the music category. And there just happened to be an MPCc 60 for sale for 1200 and i showed my father

and he took and he knew how bad i wanted this machine um he said all right let's take a ride so we went to pennsylvania one day and pennsylvania was you know it was a good hour and 40 minute drive from where we were and we took this drive and the guy was selling this MPC 60. And my dad tried to talk him down and he said, no, sir, I've already brought it down from $1,400 to $1,200. So that's the price. So my dad said, can I put it on layaway? And the guy said, I'll tell you what, I can't put it on layaway per se because I'm not a

store, but I'll take it off of the market for one week. If you really want it, you got to be back here in one week to get this. And so I asked the guy, could I make copies of the manual? It was a manual, owner's manual. And he said, yeah. And we went to like the local Kinko's down the street and literally Xerox 80 pages of this manual. I took this manual back home and I kid you not, I read every single day. I was reading every day this manual on how this machine operates with no belief that I was getting this machine, by the way. But with belief one day I would have that machine and I would know it. So to my surprise, a week later, like literally one week goes by and my dad bought the machine and he said, I believe in you. I believe in you so much that I borrowed the money. I borrowed the $1,200 off of my life insurance to get you this machine. And I turned that machine on and, and I'm telling you, Randall, I was programming

in literally the first five minutes. I knew the machine. I had read so much in one week that I literally knew how to operate the machine. I probably could operate it to this day with my eyes closed. And, and, uh, I just appreciate my dad so much for taking that leap of faith. He did make me sign a one-page contract that said I would pay him the $1,200 back. I'm sure I paid him like $1.2 million back over time. But yeah, I mean, he taught me that it was a transaction. But it was just a blessing to know that relationship between a father and son, that a father had that type of belief in his son at such an early age. I said this before on my show so many times.

I think four of the most important words in the human language are, I believe in you. And it's something I say to my kids all the time. Yeah, I agree. I agree. I do the same with my kids. We all are born with something. We all are. We all have a gift. We all have something special inside. And sometimes we just need to hear a voice or someone tell us that we're special and tell us that they believe in order for us to believe in ourselves even that much more. You knew what you wanted to do when you were 10 years old, which I think is very unusual. Could you tell us about visiting your family in Toledo, Ohio and being at a shopping mall with your cousin, Sonia, when Michael Jackson's Human Nature started playing on the sound

system, which was a song from his Thriller album, which had just been released, and how that changed your life forever? Oh, absolutely. I'll never forget that moment, you know, going to Toledo, Ohio, to visit my family, my aunt Ann and my cousin Sonia and my cousin Bushy and just, you know, being out there and going to this local mall. And it just so happened the timing of us being there was the timing of Michael Jackson's Thriller album coming out. And I was walking through the mall and human nature was playing over the speakers. And when I heard that song and heard the quality

and the production of that song, it just, and of course, Michael's vocal ability, it just sparked this moment of, that's what I want to do. I want to make music and I want to work with Michael Jackson someday. Like I would literally tell everyone that I'm going to work with him someday. And I couldn't wait to like just get going, you know, at such a young age, get going and figure out what that looked records and what kind of sounds. I would listen to songs and I would try to decide what that sound was that I was hearing without anyone telling me. So I would hear the bells and say, okay, I need to find a sound that sounds like a bell. I would hear, if it wasn't a piano, it was a rose. Okay, I need to find a sound that sounds like a rose. Strings. Well, I need to find a sound that sounds like a rose.

Strings. Well, I can't afford a live orchestra, but I can try to manipulate my string sounds to sound as close to an orchestra. So I would do it in its parts, the cello first, and then I would do the violins and just creating what I was hearing, recreating what I was hearing pretty much. But that moment just, it really changed my life because hearing the production of Quincy Jones, you know, bar none, one of the greatest producers, if not the greatest producer of all time, it just inspired me to want to go to a level that I knew was conceivable. Like, I never had a doubt. That's the thing about me. And even at 19 years old, I knew what I wanted to do.

And there was no doubt I was going to do it. No one could tell me differently. I just knew it. I just like, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to produce these artists. And I'm going to change the world through my music. And I've always been goal driven from day one. And I set it out.

I set the goals out and I just go after it. You've mentioned before in prior podcasts, talking with some of your friends that that specific moment blew you away. My question to you is when we're choosing careers, is that the signal and the criteria we should all be looking for that we should all be blown away? And I think at 10 years old, it's pretty rare. So what's your advice to us if we don't have it at 10 years old? And what's your advice to us if we don't have it at 30 years old? Well, I mean, I can't tell you everybody's going to get it at 10 years old. I can't tell you everybody's going to get it at 20 years old or 30 years old. But my belief is that there is always something, there's always something there for us to go after, for us to achieve in life. We don't always see it right away.

And I'm noticing that even as I grow in my craft and become better in my craft, there's still other things that I want to accomplish. There's still other things that I want to do. Right. So you never stop dreaming. You never stop believing in what your abilities are. You know, I believe TV and film is something that I want to do next. You know, so in fact, I will do it because it's just I won't I would never tell myself that I can't. You know, I believe that with God, all things are possible.

So I'm going to go after whatever goal that I set out for myself. And I encourage other people to do the same. I believe if there's something that, I think life speaks to you in that kind of way. It kind of tells you what you're supposed to do, right? It's just something, a feeling that we all get, right? That I should be doing this podcast right now. I'm sure you had, when you were contemplating, what do you want to do? There's a feeling that just takes off. I should do a podcast. I want to interview. And that's what everybody, everybody gets a feeling. Not everybody goes after the feeling and that's the problem, right? You have

to go after what you feel. You said that you knew at age 10 and you knew you're going to want to do no matter what, and you went after it. So you're looking, you're from South New Jersey, and we'll go through all of the stepping stones of your career, which are just fascinating, but you're in a small town in Southern New Jersey. There's no music scene growing up. You want to work with Michael Jackson. You did achieve your dream, and I can't wait to talk about that. But if you just think about it, most people would say, hey, Rodney, that's never going to happen. It's too far. It's a dream. Sure, everyone wants to work with Michael Jackson. So what's your advice to everybody out there who's saying, I want to win a Grammy, an Oscar. I'm going to go be the next Michael

Jackson or have these dreams that most people would think are impossible to achieve. It's funny you referenced Michael Jackson because when I worked with Michael, I had a chance to visit the home that his parents had in Encino. They called it the Havenhurst home. And I went to this home and I would see all of these pictures and writings on the wall, all around the house that would say, dream the impossible dream, or you can reach the unreachable star. I would see all of this. And then I've been to Neverland and I would see the same type of things. And I will say, if you instill that in someone's mindset at a young age, I feel like it will kind of settle in that the world that looks so big is not so big after all, right? And so what may seem not reachable, it could actually be reached because it could be one phone call

or one second or one mile or one handshake or one relationship away. So I'm not going to tell you everybody is going to, maybe the person watching may not, they may want to work with Adele, right? And their dream is to work with Adele. And if that doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that you can't work with the next Adele or the next person who's just as great or will be just as great. But if you don't have any type of goals, then you're not living life. If you're not putting goals in front of you, then you're just swinging through life. And that can't be the mentality. The mentality has to, you have to set goals for yourself and you have to tell yourself, I will. I can and I will accomplish these certain milestones, these things that need to be reached in life. You know, I'm not a driver. I can't tell you I like to drive, right?

I'm not a person who, you know, maybe I got spoiled early on in my career by car services and those different things and buses and limos and all that stuff, right? So I can't tell. I don't like to drive. But my wife said one day, she goes, I want us to do a family road trip. And I was like, what does that mean? Like, am I going to hire a driver and we're going to go across the country? She says, I want us to do a 40-day road trip, but I want you to drive. And when I started looking at the map and I started writing the notes down of how the distance was from one state to another,

it looked very scary to me, to be honest, because I can't tell you that I like to drive and it looks scary. But then one day I woke up and I said, for my wife and my kids, I'll drive to the ends of this earth. And I made it a goal to accomplish that 40-day road trip. And I've done it twice now in the last couple of years and got another one coming again this earth. And I made it a goal to accomplish that 40 day road trip. And I've done it twice now in the last couple of years and got another one coming again this year. So I just believe if you set out what you want to do in life, you can accomplish it. I really believe that. This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by Sandy.com. S-A-N-D-E-E.com. We are a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by cataloging more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world. More than 100,000 beaches in 212 countries. Sandy.com provides beach goers around the world with detailed, comprehensive, and easy-to-use information

to help them plan their perfect beach getaway at home and abroad and to make sure you're never disappointed by a beach visit again. Plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting Sandy.com. That's www.sandee.com. The link is in our show notes. Stay sandy, my friends. Are you looking for your next great gift to surprise a friend, colleague, or loved one? Bliss Beaches makes the perfect gift.

This best-selling bright and beautiful coffee table book by Randall Kaplan features stunning drone photography from exotic beach locations around the world. It's the perfect housewarming gift, a great addition to any home or office, and a fun and creative alternative to bringing a bottle of wine to somebody's house for dinner. Bliss Beaches is available for purchase on Amazon, where it has glowing reviews and a five-star rating. Get your next amazing gift and order a copy of Bliss Beaches by clicking the link on our show notes. So you're 10 years old, you're making demos for people in the neighborhood, and you said, okay, I've got a gift. Not only did you know you had a gift, people in the neighborhood knew you had a gift. So walk us through what happened from 10 to 12. And then each year you've had just milestone after milestone, but I want to take it slow. You're 10 years old. You're getting $35, I think, per demo tape. I think you're working as a dishwasher somewhere to have some extra money to go to New Jersey.

Maybe you can just tell us about all that, which is just a phenomenal, fascinating story in itself. Yeah, I mean, for me, I just wanted to be able to buy my own equipment, really. This is kind of like pre-NPC60, my dad. And I just wanted to get some things to create. So there was a local diner right around the corner from my home called the Pomona Diner. And we would go to this diner for soup and things. And one day I just got bold enough to ask for a job. And they gave me a dishwasher job in the back. They knew who I was because we came. It wasn't a lot of money and it was very dirty back there, filthy washing those dishes. But I wanted to buy my own equipment so bad that I was willing to take that step.

One day I was bold enough to walk into the mall in 1988. I was 11 years old and I walked in the mall and I walked in the footlocker and I ran it out. The guy who was the manager of the, of the chain of footlocker, the chain, the regional chain, his name was Doug Smith. And I walked in and I asked Doug Smith for a job. And at first he was like, you're too young. You can't have a job.

Are you talking to us against the law? It's against the law to have a job. And at first he was like, you're too young. You can't have a job. Are you talking to us against the law? It's against the law to have a job. And I said, please, sir, I just want to be able to buy some equipment for myself. And I make music. He said, really? He goes, I tell you what, you can work in the back stocking boxes and I'll pay you myself. And so I stock boxes and he would pay me out of his, he would pay me pretty much under the table. And believe it or not, Doug Smith is a really good friend of mine now. And I hadn't seen him since I was 11 years old and I bumped into him last year. He runs the golf clinics that my son actually play in, which is crazy. And we cried together when we saw each other and talked about these stories. But I say that to say, it's just a matter of having the thought process to succeed. And, you know, I don't know why, I don't know why at that age,

at such a young age, I wanted it so bad, but I didn't want to be a burden to my parents. I didn't want to be, I knew they didn't have. And so I figured if I could have a little bit of drive to just go out and try to, I don't care if it was to, I used to watch my brother, by the way, I used to watch my brother who was seven years older than me. I would have watched him sell M&Ms, right? So I would see like, oh, wow, he bought this box of M&Ms for, you know, 10 cents a pack of M&Ms and he sells them for a dollar. That's a 90 cent profit. And I watch him do it over and over again. And I was like, okay, I want to make music. And I know it could be profitable at some point for myself if I put my heart into it and put my all into it. And if not,

I'm still winning because I just love to make music. And my music can make you smile, can make you cry, can make you dance. It can make you have a good time. And I love to make music. And my music can make you smile, can make you cry, can make you dance. It can make you have a good time. And I love what I do. And that's just what I wanted to do with my life. In school, I was known for that. Like in seventh and eighth grade, middle school, I was known as the kid who brought a beat machine to school and made beats at lunch cafeteria time and would get on the podium on the microphone and start rapping. I was known in school for that. Everyone knew me for trying to make people have a good time. So you're socially mature at this age because you're dealing with people

older than you. You're making music for people. i'm sure you had a lot of confidence yourself but walk us through you're going to new york city on a bus and i want you to talk about standing outside of polygram records and mercury records and handing cassette tapes to people as they're walking out who look like they're in the music business now you hear about this happening all the time. You hear about Scooter Braun and Usher in the studio where you're living now, Atlanta, just going up and kind of waiting to go up to people. And you hear about people sending tapes to people or giving them tapes, and no one wants to hear it. They take it. Thank you. They throw it away. You had a lot of guts going up and doing that at a young age. Can you tell us about that and what the thought process was? And I want to also ask about how important cold calling skills are to our success.

Yeah, I think, you know, that was a little bit later, probably around 15 years old is when I started like having the courage, 15, 16 years old, having the courage to get on the New Jersey transit bus, you know, and take that two and a half hour bus ride, go to Manhattan, go to 49th, go from Port Authority, which was on like 42nd Street and go to 49th and 8th Street, which was where the Polygram building was, where Mercury Records was, and across the street, I'll never forget, was the Days Inn Hotel. And I would go outside and I would wait around lunch hour or after hour, after work time was over. And I would go and I would have cassette tapes of, let's say, Rodney Jerkins demos. And I would wait to see anyone who looked like an executive that had a, a button up shirt and suit on or whatever. And I would ask them, you know, where they are and are, and I would give my tape and I would watch certain people walk around a corner and throw the tape in the garbage can. I literally saw that with my own eyes. And it made me...

It wasn't anything wrong with that because by the way, you're not supposed to solicit music to people. That's how lawsuits are created, right? So I didn't learn that till later on. I just think, whoa, these people are really mean-spirited people to throw my music away. They don't even know what they're missing right now. That's how I would think. But eventually, I tell you, what's really crazy is one day I'm home, and this is how when everything just was really interesting. I sent a cassette tape to an A&R director at Uptown Records by the name of James Jones. And I had read his name on the back of a Mary G. Blige album. And I sent this cassette

tape with this cheesy letter attached that said, hi, James, I'm a music producer, da, da, da, da, da. Anyway, his assistant at the time, a guy by the name of Federico, he would take any tapes that they get and he'd throw them in a box because it would not take solicited material. And James said it was something about this particular envelope that made him open it up. And he opened up this envelope and he listened to my cassette tape. And next thing you know, my father and I are on our way to New York in 24 hours to meet with James Jones at Uptown Records because he loved the music so much. In fact, he loved the music so much that I ended up moving to Hackensack, New Jersey at 16 years old to stay with James Jones and work on music for

all the artists that he was working on. So the cold calling worked, but he also told you, hey, I want you to drop out of school. So what was the decision like with your parents and your dad? Number one, you're living with a man you barely know in Hackensack, New Jersey. So he's letting you do that. And two, you're dropping out of school. And I'm curious what the out of school. And I'm curious what the conversation there was. And I also want to ask you, would you ever let your own kids drop out of school to do something like this? And how important is education to our future success? Yeah. So the conversation between myself and my father went a little like this. Dad, this is an opportunity for me to live out my dream, at least start

my dream. I know what I want to do with my life. I want to be a producer, whether I finish school or whether I go to college. This is something that I foresee myself doing for the rest of my life. And my dad was a little apprehensive at first, but he knew where my heart was and what I believed in. And he allowed me to go after that. I would not do the same thing with my kids. I would not do. I would not. I'm sorry. I would not.

I love my dad for doing it, but I would not do the same thing. I believe education is so important. I believe that I want all my kids to do everything that I didn't do, by the way. So I would love for them to graduate high school and go to college, get their degrees. You know, they're way smarter than me anyway already. They already have a great head start because they're super smart and intelligent kids. And I would tell that to anybody. Education is super important. I never really believed in a plan B for myself. It was always plan A. Music was what it was going to be. But I just think that education is you need education as part of music.

You know, so a lot of the, a lot of, a lot of things I learned throughout the years was because I did the research after the fact that you need math, you need math to be a great producer and engineer. You need math. You need history to learn about what came before you and why does it matter now? Right. And so a lot of a lot of times I go look back and I'm like, man, if I would have just stayed that extra year, you know what I mean? It would have been super beneficial to me even more. So I believe in my success. I really believe that, but it is what it is. You can't go back and I can't go back and correct that, but I do know through my kids, I can correct it. So I will encourage my kids to, to go as far as they can go in education. We're going to come and talk about Teddy Riley in a minute, but before we do, now you're 16, you're having success. People love your stuff. You actually had tried to get another band to listen to their music, I think Tommy Tunes or something.

We'll get into the Teddy Riley story in a minute, but I want to talk about people are pursuing you now to sign in record deals. EMI, there's a guy named Brian Jackson, A&R guy who's spending a lot of time with you, and you're 17 years old, about to turn 18 years old, and the guy wants to give you a million dollar deal. And then you got Tommy Mottola, who at that point was one of the gods, if not the god of the music business along with clive davis and a few other people who said no man i want you to sign with us and i guess there's a little bit of a bidding war going on and tommy mottola is a is a big deal he's

a huge deal i don't know if he was married to mariah carey at the time or if that came later who would you know she at that point was a superstar, maybe the number one superstar in the world. But you got Tommy pursuing you, and then you have EMI pursuing you. You signed with EMI, and the reason you signed with them is because Brian Jackson took the time to spend time with you that Tommy didn't. So can you tell us, first of all, I have a multi-part question here. How crazy is it that you're 17 years old and you're going to sign a million dollar deal as a music producer and you've got two people bidding on you. And can you tell us also, why is it sometimes the best option not to go with the highest option and the most money? Yeah. So yeah, when I was 17, so actually it was a $1.8 million deal. It all added up to $1.8 and the guy from EMI, the guy from EMI,

his name was Brian Jackson and Brian, how I met Brian was through my attorney at the time. His name was Brad Rubens and Brad, you know, he was the one that said he felt that it was time for us

to seek a publishing deal, you know, and so he had a relationship with Brian Jackson and he introduced me to Brian and Brian would catch the train to Atlantic city two, three times a week. He would come in my basement of my, my parents' home with wires hanging all over the place and crates and all types of, you know, keyboards on crates. And it was just crazy, just crazy room. And he would sit there and watch me for hours, create for hours and hours and talk to me about

how good he thought I was and talking to me about how I could become better and talk to me about so many different things, music related. And so I decided I'm going to do a deal with EMI. Then I met his team, Marty Bandier and Evan Lamberg and Jody Gerson and everybody at EMI. And I ended up going to New York and meeting everyone. The day before closing the deal, I get a call from my attorney saying that Sony has now can't come to the plate. Like what? What are you talking about? Sony coming. Tommy Mottola himself has interest in you and wants to get you on the phone about you coming to Sony. Here's the part of the story that most people don't even know. We had a fax machine in the house and a fax comes through from Sony Music signed by Tommy Mottola offering $2.2 million, $400,000 more than EMI. And I remember having a conversation with my attorney, everybody was

excited. And I said, no, I want to sign with EMI. And they were like, what? You just got offered $400,000. Let's at least go back to EMI and tell them that we got a bigger offer from Sony. I said, no, no, no, no, no. I just want to sign a deal that was offered to me by EMI. And I like Brian Jackson. I love the fact that he has a passion for what I do and he spent time with me and I want to get this deal done today. And I closed that deal that next day. And I never forget getting a call from Tommy Mottola cursing me out about not doing this deal with him. Literally cursed me out. I'm literally 17 years old and he cursed me out about not doing this deal with him. But I went with my gut and I had no regrets because, you know, just because it's bigger money doesn't always mean it's the right deal, right? You know, just because it's bigger money doesn't always mean it's the right deal.

Right. You know, just because there's 400 that, you know, there's the you got to pay attention to the details of the small print. You know, it could be bigger had a champion like, you know, Brian, who was with me in so many sessions when I wrote The Boy's Mind and when I worked on Don't Only Be a Player for Joe, when I worked on I Can Love You for Mary G. Blige, so many sessions, this guy was right here on the side, just how he was with me in, you know, in the basement. He was the guy that took me to meet Clive Davis. I wouldn't have met Clive Davis and worked with Whitney Houston if it wasn't for Brian Jackson personally taking me to meet Clive Davis at 17 years old. So, you know, I went with my gut and I've always went with my gut.

I've always believed that, you know that it's not always the biggest deal, that's the best deal. I know a lot of successful people who make money and they buy their parents a house when they get older and they can afford it. And it's a crowning achievement, a great moment in people's lives. I think the highlight of the child's life and it's the highlight of the parent's life. Oh, I'm so proud of my daughter or my son being able to do this and so generous. It's just one of the most beautiful things that you read about. You did it and you bought your parents a house when you were 17 years old what was that like and what were you thinking at the time and looking back what are your thoughts about it now trying to put your

your self back 17 years ago looking back oh it was just it was something i was going to do regardless it was something that i you know when i I was probably five, six, seven years old, I can't remember, but I wrote a poem to my mother. And in that poem, I told her I was going to buy her a house. And when I was 16 years old, 15, 16 years old, there was a new neighborhood. And my dad and mom would take, they would take us and ride us around that neighborhood. And one day I was like, they're going to live in this neighborhood. We're going to live in this neighborhood. And when I got my publishing deal, the first thing I did was bought my mother a car.

I told her also when I was five years old, I was going to, she used to drive this little putt-putt Chevrolet. We call it the putt-putt car because it always putts. It was just putt, putt, putt, putt, putt all down the street. And I told her one day she's going to ride a Mercedes Benz. And so when I got my deal, I wasn't even thinking about myself, to be honest. The first thing I did was take my mom to the dealership and get her the Mercedes that she liked. And then I took them both to the neighborhood that we used to go to. And I said, all right, guys, now it's time for us to move here. And we moved into that house, same house my mom and dad still have to this day. So yeah, that was just, you know, it's just something

that I wanted to be a blessing to them because they were such a blessing to me and their beliefs in me as a young kid. So I just wanted to do something special. Incredibly special. When I made money, my grandmother was raised in foster care. And when I, our company had gone public, I said to my grandmother, I said, I want to buy you whatever car you want. So go to the dealership, call me from the dealership, and I'll take care of the money from there. I'll send a wire, just put me on the phone with the manager. So I get a call a few weeks later. Randy, I got my car. Super excited.

Where are you? I said, I'm at the Toyota dealership on 8 Mile in Detroit. I said, because I'm from Detroit and we all grew up in Detroit. And I said, oh, okay, Nana. What kind of Toyota are you getting? She said a Camry. And I said, Camry is an amazing car, Nana, but I told you you could buy whatever car you wanted. And if you want to go to the Mercedes dealership,

you go to the Mercedes dealership and you can call me from there. Randy, this is the car I want. This is the dream car. And that's what she bought Rodney. And I ended up buying her five Camrys over the next 25 years. And she loved that car. And I'll tell you something, I'll tell you something funny. That first car, I went to visit, I came home for the summer. I remember it was a Detroit muggy day, 90 degrees. You could hardly breathe outside. It was so muggy. So we get in the car, it's bright red. We get in there. The car is 110 degrees inside. So turns on the car, and I'm looking for the power windows to go down because I want to get some air before the air conditioning kicked into the car. I said, Dana, where's the power windows?

I looked at the door, and there were no power windows. They were the rolling windows where you rolled the manual. I said, Dana, what's up with this? This car doesn't have power windows. I said, should I know? And I asked, why not? And she said, because it was $700 more. And I said, all right, Nana. I said, I appreciate the cost conscious. And she grew up with a very hard life. Her parents abandoned her when she was six years old, no money on the streets of Detroit and said, sorry, I'm leaving. And there she was, she was wandering around, but she definitely didn't splurge on the car, but I did get her

the car that she wanted and she was super happy about the car. It feels good to be able to do things, especially if you're a family, when you have the financial means to make a big difference in people's lives. It is. It's a blessing. To be a blessing in someone else's life, it's always better to give. That's why we try to instill in our children. It's always better to give. Let's go back. I still want to stay on the childhood subject in history for now. And I want to talk about Teddy Riley. We're going to talk about Michael Jackson in a minute. But before we do, Q, tell us about the call from the pay phone, the conversation you had with your dad, leaving your house at 2 a.m. for a six-hour road trip to future recording

in Virginia Beach and waiting in an empty parking lot for five hours until a blue 500 SL Mercedes rolled in. And in search of excellence, how important is it to strike while the iron is hot? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm doing all these local demos in South Jersey. And I think I was building a name at like, you know, 14 years old as this young kid who was making music locally. So I was doing really well, actually. I was charging like $35 a demo. Some people, you know, get the three song package for $100 even. But I was doing, you know, I was having fun learning my craft and working with others and helping them with their craft. And I worked with this group. They were called Triple Threat. And they were preparing because back then it was a big convention called the Impact Convention, big music convention, comes to Atlantic City every year. And they were preparing for that

convention. And so they wanted to have their demo done and they hired me to do the demo. And so their manager, Kevin Crump, played the demo for Teddy Riley because Teddy Riley was at this convention. And Teddy Riley told the manager that, and by the way, I'm the biggest Teddy Riley fan. There was no one better and more brilliant in my eyes than Teddy Riley at that time. No one. Not even Quincy at that time. Quincy made me fall in love with wanting to be a producer, but Teddy Riley, he was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I studied him day and night. And so Kevin Crump met Teddy Riley, and he played these songs of Triple Threat for him. And Teddy Riley's response was, I think the group is just okay, but whoever did the music, tell him he's really got it. He's really special. Kevin Crump runs to a pay phone, calls my house, and tells me what Teddy Riley says. I then go and tell my dad, we have to go and meet Teddy Riley. He's in Atlantic City. We got to go meet Teddy Riley.

My dad talks to Kevin Crump, and Kevin Crump says, Teddy Riley's gone. He left. I go to the back of one of the albums, and it says, all the songs were recorded and mixed at Future Recording Studios in Virginia Beach. I knew that his

production company name was Future. So I told my dad, I said, dad, we got to go to Virginia. We got to go to Virginia. Virginia Beach. Look, it says Virginia Beach, the studio. He goes, you don't know if Teddy Riley is at the studio. I said, look, dad, Bobby Brown recorded there. Everybody's SWV, everybody that Teddy Riley works with works at this studio. It must be his studio. So my dad goes, son, that's a six hour drive. I said, dad, you've always said we got to strike when the iron is hot. It couldn't be any hotter right now. This guy just said that my music was great. We got to go meet him. My dad in the middle of the night said, pack up your bags. And we got in the car, the van, the church van, actually got in the church van. And we

went to Virginia beach. And by the time we got there in the morning, early in the morning, there was no cars in the parking lot. We sat in a parking lot for over an hour. No cars. We left. We went to Denny's. Came back. No cars. We left.

We went and checked in a hotel. And my dad is telling me the whole time, he's not here. We drove all this way. He's probably in Los Angeles in Hollywood somewhere or New York somewhere. And I said, dad, just, just, just, let's go one more time. So after we checked in a hotel, we put it, we went there, took, took a little nap or whatever, came back in the afternoon, late afternoon, sat in the parking lot. And next thing you know, like 15 cars rolled up at one time. And one of the cars that rolled up was this blue, this dark blue convertible SL500. And I seen the top was off and I seen this

bald-headed guy in the car, and it was Teddy Riley. And as he pulled into the studio, I got excited. I said, that's him, that's him, that's him. I'm so excited. And I told, I go to get out the car, and his security guard actually kind of rushes me. Like, they didn't know who we are. And I told him I was this kid producer. And then this other guy came over by the name of Earl Thomas.

He was Teddy Raleigh's chef. He was his cook at the studio. He was a Jamaican accent. Hey, star, what's up, man? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on, man? And I said, hey, I'm a producer.

Yeah, let me take you to meet Teddy. And he took me to meet Teddy. And Teddy took me in his studio. And he said, play me what you got. I couldn't believe it. He literally took me in his studio and said, play me what you got. And I played him his cassette tape with these nine tracks on it. And he listened to all of them. And as he was listening, he was loving the music and he was calling other people from outside the hallways into the studio to listen.

So now it was his artists and different people were filling up the room and he was listening. And next thing you know, Teddy was like, listen, I think you're incredible. I think you got it. If you want to come here during summer after school and hang out and help out and watch, the door is open for you. He gave me an open invitation and I took it. I took that invitation. I was back there every summer watching a master at work, studying, studying, studying, studying. That's all I did was study. I would watch him and I wouldn't say a word. I would just watch and study and study over and over again. We have a summer intern program. We hire 35 kids every summer from all across the country.

It's an amazing program. I spend 60 to 90 minutes a day with the interns and it's become a thing now. We have about a thousand applications. It's one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things for me to do because you have the ability to change people's lives you give them life lessons we talk about tangible lessons and we focus a lot about the intangibles which often are more important than the tangibles but i think internships are are critical and can be very helpful in instrumental in people's success. Can you explain how important interning for Teddy was? And what's your view on internships in general? And how important are mentors to our success in our future?

Oh, super important. Super important. First of all, an intern, for you to be a great intern, you have to have a servant's heart. And I don't believe you could become a king without being a servant first. to please someone else, to make sure that their things are running smoothly, that everything that's happening for them is running smooth. And I will put myself out there to make that happen. If they need me, if, if they need me to wash their car, I'll wash their car. If they need to go pick up the food, I'll go pick up the food. If I'm not even a cook and they need me to make the food, I'll make the food. If they need me to go pick up someone, it's just, you're pretty much saying I will do it all. I'll do

whatever it takes, right? Because I want to prove that I'm ready to go to the next level. And how I prove that is by serving others, being a servant to others. And in that moment, while I'm serving, I'm getting the opportunity, the opportunity to learn, right? Cause I'm watching a master at their craft. I'm watching others that are masters at their craft and I'm enjoying the process because I'm able to learn and anything you need me to do while I'm here, I will do it. It's a very, you have to be very humble for something like that. Right. And it was so rewarding to me. It taught me so much, but then it also taught me in the future when I became successful, how much interns meant for me, right? And I've literally, I've had interns become my head mixers, mixed the biggest songs in my career that were,

they were interns in a studio picking up food orders for us. And I'm like, what do you want to do? What do you want to do with your life? I want to be a mix engineer. Cool. I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you that shot because I see how willing and how able you are to respond to the needs that I have. So I know there's something deep down. I know you can actually go to the next level and I want to help you get there. So internship is so, so important. And it's so important not only to be an intern, but to have the right mentor, right? And having a person who's willing to pour

life lessons into you during those times of internship. It's really important. I think also when you have a large group of interns, people show up, you have 35 people in the room. And what I tell everyone every summer is, I'm going to judge your performance this summer and we'll have a review at the end of the summer. And what they're really striving for is my mentorship because I'm still in touch with some of my interns from 15 years ago. Some of them are running huge companies now. One's a centimillionaire and nothing makes me happier than to see their success. But what I tell everybody is the

performance, it's not a competitive. We're not competing against ourselves. I want to tell you at the end of the summer where you were relative to the rest of the interns, just so you know where you are. But it's not you perform yourself. I want to judge you based on what you do and your skill set and your work ethic and all the other things that we talk about. And it's a bell curve. We have the bottom third who just want to have my investment firm on their resume. We have, and they're really checking in and out. They do what they're told and they don't have the, they just don't have it. And if they have it, they're not showing it. Then you got the middle third and they do a fine job. I'd grade it a 3.3 to a 3.6 or 7. But then we have a third who's the top third. And that top third earns my lifetime respect and loyalty, frankly.

They are superstars. A third of them go into investment banking at Goldman Sachs they're they they kill it and what the interns don't understand is that the internship is a tryout and if you want to take advantage of it and maximize it you should really maximize your summer we have interns sometimes who are staying till 12 1 in the morning not because I tell them to because that's just their DNA and I'll pick the phone. I've called the CEO of Goldman Sachs before. I've broken a tie when they're in a competitive situation. And it's really something that a lot of interns don't understand, that you really shouldn't just phone it in. You should just work your best. What's your advice to people coming in just saying,

I'm going to put my name on a resume this summer? Should they kill it no matter what, even though they want to have fun, hang out in New York City this summer with all their buds? Yeah, I mean, definitely. I mean, they definitely should give their all. I mean, you can't, listen, the one thing you sometimes you't make get back is you can't get you can't get yesterday back. Right. You can't get yesterday once this one yesterday is gone. It's gone. So you got to live in the moment. You got to make sure that every moment counts. Every moment has to has to has to count. And I love I love that. You know, it's interesting, right, Because I never forget being in New York,

right? I was at the Hit Factory in New York. And my mix engineer, a guy by the name of Dexter Simmons, he was an intern at one of the first studios I worked at in New York. And I saw this passion in his eyes. And I said, what do you want to be? What do you want to do? He said, I want to mix. And when I was working at the studio, I would literally leave the studio every night around eight o'clock at night. And I said to him, I said, hey, man, I got this song. If you want to try and mix it, be my guest. And his eyes lit up, really, really? And do you know he came to my hotel at like two o'clock in the morning

with the cassette of the mix that night that I told him that. And from there, I never looked back. I started letting him mix everything and work with me on everything. He mixed the boy's mind by Brandon and Monica. He mixed Angel and my, my,. He mixed Tony Braxton, He Wasn't Man Enough. So many, Jennifer Lopez, If You Have My Love, so many classic records he's mixed for me. But one thing I just want to share was, we had a session in New York one day and we were working at the Hit Factory and it was this big room. Like look through the glass, the booth. And literally, the booth was so big. This is where Mariah Carey actually, that video that she had with Boyz II Men, it was that studio.

And it's this big booth. And I'll never forget, we were in the booth, and there was a guy. He was an intern. So it was me and my engineer, former intern, and this guy, his name was Buzz or something like that. And he was to the left, Bud or something. And he was to the left of me. And the engineer, my engineer said, I need the mic to go, whatever. He just said something.

All I know is he ran so fast. He didn't walk. He ran out the door to the booth, adjusted'm with, I'm with Jimmy Iovine and I'm in his office about to go into a Beats by Dre headphone meeting. And you know who was the head marketing for Beats by Dre? That same guy that ran through that booth. I bumped into him 10 years. I said, I know you from somewhere. He goes, yeah, I was the intern in the studio. And I said, you would have got it ran really fast. That was me. And now what are you doing?

I'm running marketing for Jimmy for Beats by Dre. If you have it, you have it. And if you have the passion, you'll make it. And you have to show the people that you're willing to go no matter what it, whatever you have, whatever it is, you go all in, all in, all out in that moment. Cause you can't get that moment back. It's gone. Once it, once it leaves, it's gone. So you have to prove yourself in the moment that I want, I'm here because I want to make it. I'm not here just to have fun. Yeah. I can have fun anytime. I'm not here just to have fun. I want to prove that I can be the best that I can be. That's it.