No Jumper - The Steve Rifkind Interview: DMX, Dead Prez, Akon & Why He Doesn't Need Labels Anymore

Episode Date: July 10, 2021

Steve Rifkind, founder of Loud Records, first home of the legendary Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep, M.O.P., Big Pun, and more, tells classic hip hop stories and presents his new label Spring Sound. Steve was also DMX last manager until his untimely passing, and shares sweet stories about Dark Man X. https://www.instagram.com/steverifkind/ https://www.instagram.com/springsound/ https://spring-sound.com/ ----- NO JUMPER PATREON http://www.patreon.com/nojumper CHECK OUT OUR NEW SPOTIFY PLAYLIST https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tesvmDS8h50LkjnSAWMOs?si=j6sJD6DkR4mk5NZZWnlK7g FOLLOW US ON SNAPCHAT FOR THE LATEST NEWS & UPDATES https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 CHECK OUT OUR ONLINE STORE!!! http://www.nojumper.com/ SUBSCRIBE for new interviews (and more) weekly: http://bit.ly/nastymondayz Follow us on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/nojumper iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/no-jumper/id1001659715?mt=2 Follow us on Social Media: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/No_Jumper/4874336901 http://www.twitter.com/nojumper http://www.instagram.com/nojumper https://www.facebook.com/NOJUMPEROFFICIAL http://www.reddit.com/r/nojumper JOIN THE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Q3XPfBm Follow Adam22: https://www.tiktok.com/@adam22 http://www.twitter.com/adam22 http://www.instagram.com/adam22 adam22hoe on Snapchat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Jumper. Coolest podcast in the world. And today we're in here with Steve Rifkin. How are you doing, Steve? I'm good, man. How are you? Excellent. Excellent indeed.

Staying cool in this nice, you know. I mean, you know it's hot out because, like, we have the AC cranking, but we're still kind of hot. Well, you're on, I was going to wear a sweatshirt too earlier, but it's, you know, but it's definitely like 104 degrees out. It's easier to style when you have some sort of larger garment, you know, t-shirt and shorts. It's kind of hard to make it look good. Exactly. Especially being older white guys. It's not easy.

But have you completely given up on the fashion side of your life? Did that happen at some point? I was never, I was always a sweatpants guy. So I, when I was younger, I would love to go into meetings like with CEOs and chairmen and just wear a sweat outfit for a shock value. Yeah, people are always kind of shocked that I can get away with it and that I choose to. Sly interruption there. Yeah, what? Did you consider that?

Because now I feel like it's so hip-hop to get dressed up a lot. Whereas, like, you know, I can see that side of things, too, where it feels like you go into a label meeting and you just got sweatpants on. That's pretty badass today. No, so it was definitely label, but I had another company, which was a marketing company. And we were dealing with Fortune 500 companies,

and I would still, you know, I'd have a meeting with the CEO of General Motors. and if it's during the summer, I'm wearing this. Right. You know, one time, you know, we had a meeting with Ralph Laurent. Ralph Laurent. The guy. The guy.

Not the brand. And I went in with a bathrobe just to even out the playing field. And how do you think that went over? It went well. We got the account. That's beautiful. You know, okay, when you mentioned the street, team. There was this observation that I heard somebody make at some point, maybe I'll just claim it as my own, but they said that Master P

conceptualized what the internet was going to be like before he had access to that technology in the sense of dropping constant projects and like really blanketing his area with this content that, you know, like it, would make a lot more sense if he had been doing that on the internet, but he sort of figured it out before that was readily available. When I read about you and the street team and stuff, it kind of stands out to me as like, you almost figured out digital marketing before digital marketing

was available. I appreciate that. Maybe. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it. I'm still trying to figure out digital marketing now. But, you know, the thing with Pete, I don't know. I mean, that concept was incredible. But to me, the reason why he did it, and me and him never even had a conversation

about it was the only way to get paid. Right? So he was going through priority even though they were they were indie but they were with a major So thing was to get as much product as you possibly can and just keep on coming so you know that you'll get paid Because if you're gonna put out a record once every few months The distributors in those days wouldn't pay you right that makes sense Where you when you look back at or when you look at you know marketing a record now? Does that era of the street team being like your your main way of Heating an artist up?

Does that seem kind of quaint? Do you like miss that era? I miss because that I really understood it. You know, I'm in business now with my nephew. I don't know where he went. And my son, you know, and they're all about digital marketing. And I just want to pull my, I have no hat. But it's just like, like, no, we got to own the streets first still.

And then all this digital shit come with that afterwards. Okay. And they look at me like I have four eyes. Really? Yeah. So you still think that putting up posters? I'm not talking about putting up posters. Because even in those days, I didn't think putting up posters.

Like, what is that really going to do? Right. Because you're walking by so fast or you're driving by so fast. To me, it was always putting the record in the right hands of the right people. And to me, that's what street marketing was about. Not going to top the Empire State Building and vinyl wrap the fucking antenna. the empire. I mean, who's going to look up a hundred flaws? You know, so to me, but it was like, you know what, if the doorman and give him a box of stickers or poses and everybody that's

walking through, that's something else. But just to put up a poster that, I didn't believe in that. Really? So that wasn't a big part of what you were doing street to me? I mean, it was, it was a part because people, what we did were pun. You know, we took, you know, Joseph, let's just blanket the whole west side highway. Right. And, We, you know, so it was like one big mural from like 180th Street to 54th Street. Right. Right. So if you go in South and you looked right, all you saw was a big pun.

And would you really feel like the temperature change in terms of artists after campaigns like that? Like, because, you know, New York City is such a bubble that you can imagine that having everybody driving down the West Side Highway one day seeing this shit, that that could really actually like make something change in terms of that artist's trajectory? I mean, I think, sorry for coming here. I think people were saying, like, who the fuck? is he and what is that right but again you know with the poses and the stickers you know when they started covering stop signs you know it was just like and the fines came and this that so on and so on um you know to me i was like not let's you know i want the record in the right hands with the guys

and it had nothing to necessarily be a radio DJ could be a club DJ it could be a mobile DJ just somebody that has an audience and somebody that knows how to attack their audience. And that's really what, to me, the grassroots promotion was supposed to be. Yeah, definitely. So when you are, you know, working an artist, do you stick your head into dealing with the, you know, getting girls to dance to the record on TikTok? Is that something that you? That's my nephew and my son are doing.

No, I'm not doing it. I'm saying, all right, we've got to find the brand. And we're going to just blanket. if you're from, we have an artist called Bird Bennett. Okay. And he's from Portland. I want to own the Northwest. Okay.

So let's own the Northwest. And then all that digital shit could come after the fact. But, you know, so that's my argument with my nephew and my son all day. So if you were to sign a New York City rapper right now, you would go in trying to make him pop in New York City specifically to start and then branch out from there? You still think that that's an important step? I think you have to own the streets. If you're going to be in the hip-hop game, you still have to own the street.

So if you look really what quality control is doing, right? They still own the streets. And whatever digital stuff they're doing with it is just to me, that's the gravy. But, you know, the Migos wouldn't be who they were if they didn't have a real street presence. Especially down sap. Does it occur to you at times, though, that it seems way easier to make a street artist pop off? There's just like an inherent desire to see what these guys are talking about when you're talking about like a pooh-shistee or somebody along those lines. Yeah, it's one press of a button.

But I don't know if you're getting a real audience. So that's what I'm fighting with. Is how to, you don't have as much faith in that audience that sort of comes along with that? No, I'm not saying I don't have faith. I'm just saying, how real is it? Is this guy going to be able to make records 20 years from now? Is he going to have a loyal follow? Right.

So that, you know, so that's what I mean by owning where you come from or your foundation or your base. Right. Do you still feel like you gravitate more towards that sort of like hardcore street type stuff or like stuff that is in that real, real rap category? or do you feel comfortable working in other fields at this point? Or is it still feel kind of foreign? No, no. It doesn't feel foreign.

It's a great question. So when I left Loud, right, I sold to Sony. I had to work with a company that I started. Okay. And what year are we talking again? I sold Loud in 99 and then I had a three-year deal. I had to go work for Sony for three years. Which is weird because to a lot of the young kids,

loud as a brand name might not mean as much to that. But in that time period, this was omnipresent. Yeah. So, I mean, it was. really, you know, there were three labels, really. It was us, bad boy. Def Jam was a major by that time.

Right. And um, in death row. Brockafel was just starting. Right. So, when, um, but I worked for the company and right, so I had, woo, mob,

pun, MOP, dead press, exhibit licks, three, six mafia, all street-orientated artists. When I left, I went over to Universal, started SRC Records. That was supposed to be called, and that stood for Street Records Corporation.

And I thought it was going to be, like, loud 2.0 on steroids. But what did I come with? I came with Acon. I came with Asher Roth. I came with a woman by the name with Melanie Fiona. I came with another one by name of Shantella

with two top five pop records. David Banner. You know, so... And Universal was radio driven. So I had to change my philosophy. I still wanted to own the streets, but I had to change my philosophy about what type of records I was going to put out.

Right. Did that feel like you were compromising your vision? Or did it feel like this is just survival in terms of... It wasn't about compromising my vision. I mean, my vision, to me, was about survival if I wanted to have success. You know, I'm going to have to play. played by that way. Right.

And we went on a run. That was just his biggest laugh. I mean, Acon was the biggest artist in the world. Yeah, I mean, it's important, too. Like, you know, even with the Asher Roth thing, obviously he didn't really become what I think a lot of people probably thought that he could have at a certain point. But, I mean, with Acon, with Asher Roth,

I mean, that's kind of indicative of the changing face of hip-hop that in the lead-up to that, that probably didn't seem terribly obvious that there was going to be so many different types of rap stars. since, you know, throughout the 90s, it was pretty consistent, like one type of rapper over and over. Yep. Yeah, and then, you know, the Internet was coming. Ringtones was coming.

iTunes just came in, right? I think iTunes came in like 2000, 2001. Right. So long before it became standard. Yeah. So we started SRC in 2002. And, you know, I remember getting a phone call from somebody who had never even heard of at Universal. And he says, you have the number one ringtone record.

And I'm like, what the fuck does that even mean? And what is a ringtone? Right. But you know what? We made a lot of money with those ringtones. Definitely. And it's just, that's what's so interesting about the music business is that there will be this income stream for a period of time. And then it just sort of withers away.

And then there's another flow that it goes into. But when you think back to, you know, like when did it really feel like the music industry might be totally fucked? was there a period there where you were like wow maybe nobody's gonna be making any more money from so when we came with um acon's second album right if that was in the 90s that album would have done 30 million records right album sold scan cross the board everything else like that i think in 2000 i think we ended i think we peaked at 8 million uh-huh and um and that felt like a let down as big as those records were I mean, it was I mean, it was crazy.

As big as those singles were, if this was 95, 96, 30 million, 30 million would be one of the biggest albums of all time. No questions asked. Right. But instead, what do you blame? Like the piracy, the copyright or the online sales

and probably a little bit of everything? I don't know what I blame, to be honest with you. I think retail was going down, and I think people were missing going to retail too. But I really don't know. And it was becoming a single driven business. So the ringtones, like $8 million, I mean, shit, that was still $80 million in billing alone, you know, just like that. So, but with the ringtones, you know, but if we did, say we did $15 million, not $30 million.

You're talking about $150 million in billing. Right. Right. So maybe we topped out at 90 with all the ringtones and everything like that. So it's, and it was a single, and it started turning back into a single driven business. In the 90s, it was all about albums. Right. How do you feel about albums now?

There's no more. I mean, the deals I'm doing with everybody now is just all about delivering me 20 singles. Really? Interesting. I had a Hobson on here the other day. You know, he kills it on YouTube with his singles. He does a YouTube video, he'll go 10 million views, whatever. last time I interviewed him three, four years ago,

he said he wasn't sure if he was ever going to put an album out again. I just interviewed him again. Still no album since 2017. He just doesn't even see any reason for him to do it anymore. No, he's probably making a fortune too. Yeah. But does that, okay, so when you say 20 single deal. So you got to deliver 20 masses.

That are all going to be singles, and then we'll pick what we just want to put out. Okay. So you're comfortable, because that feels kind of contradiction what you said about like when you get an artist that you're concerned about where their career is going to be at in 20 years. But the nature of the business now is that there's tons of artists who have like

a six month career. And there's probably plenty of money for you to make off of those artists, right? But I mean the roster that we're picking, I just, I can't my gut and my soul won't let me do just a one hit one type of thing. Right. I'll never pick up a novelty

record in my life. Really? Is it just a matter of pride? No, it has nothing to do with pride. It will be you know, at the end of the day, you're going to be spending the same amount of money. So might as well spend the money on somebody that's going to have a follow-up. Right. Interesting. But, I mean, there's viral records that just make shitloads of money, right?

There are, but that's something that I'll just let it go right over me. But that kind of all comes back to, like, why you're doing this in the first place, right? Do you feel like you're doing this for money? Do you feel like you're, you know, I'm sure you're far past the point of, like, really needing another mill, right? I'm doing it to be in business with my nephew and my son. Really? I mean, I don't have to work anymore. Right.

Why were you doing it when you started? My family was in the music business. Right. So I was major... A lot of kids reject what their dad does. I didn't have a choice, really. Really? I was majorly dyslexic.

I didn't know how to read her right until I was 14 years old. Right. So I was getting in a lot of trouble. And my grandfather, call me down to um florida will all jews go when they retire so i hear i heard that in sinfeld yeah they tell me about that um and my grandfather said you're gonna end up dead or in jail you got you got to get your shit together right and um he goes why don't you go work for your father i said my father's not going to want anything to do with me right he goes i'll call him so they sent

me on the road now i'm 18 this is 1980 right spring of 1980 and um they decided to get a send me on the road for two weeks. And two weeks ended up being three and a half years. Where I just zigzag across the country, visiting radio stations. Then I would find myself back at colleges. And that's how I ended up putting the street team together. Right. To a lot of people that would sound like a not fun way of life,

just being on the road 24-7 and did you just fall in line with it right away did it seem like a compromise in any way? Or were you just excited to be? No, I wasn't excited. I enjoyed of not looking over my shoulder. Like, the cops could have come, you know, this, that, you know, whatever. But, yeah, I mean, I enjoyed to end up going back to the colleges and just, you know, talking music, talking sports, and, you know, whatever current events was really going on.

Right. But I zigzagged this country four different times. Right. And at that time, there was no GPS, there was no cell phones, I would be in the car with $20 worth of quarters.

What was your ambition at that time? My ambition was to live. Did you think that you could do very well for yourself at that time from this work? I wasn't even thinking about that. I wasn't even thinking about that. It's easy, yeah, because once you've made it,

people start assuming that you had a plan all along. I mean, I was 18, so I mean, I grew up okay. It's not like, you know, when I was getting in trouble, I wasn't doing it because I needed to. I was doing it just to get attention. Definitely. Did your dad, like, what was his viewpoint on you dealing with all these rappers? My dad put out the first rap record of all the time.

Okay. My dad gave Russell Simmons his first record deal. Right. But did he see it as, you know, non-musical to a certain extent? Or did he respect it? We never had the conversation. Really? Knowing my dad, he probably respected it because it was some form of art, and he was all about the art.

My dad was one of the guys to discover James Brown. Right. But I'm saying, like, if I was intrinsically involved in James Brown's career and then hip hop comes along, I mean, I wouldn't blame somebody for not really being able to make the switch. You want to blame somebody? I wouldn't be able to blame somebody for maybe, like, you know, if you grew up on James Brown and you don't really get hip hop, you know, I would do that. I understand. The era has changed. So, but I think he just looked at his art.

Right. That's all it was. Definitely. When, so when did you start to realize you really had aptitude for what you were doing and that you, you had a special talent for it? I never considered myself an A&R guy. I always just consider myself a promotion and marketing guy. I mean, I feel I had the best A&R staff in the business. But I never said to myself, oh, wow, you know, this is what it is.

to me was just like, where's the record? How are we going to get this record to, you know, and cross that finish line? Hmm. That's all I give a fuck about. It's interesting because, like, now it feels like, you know, people who get into working the music or are, they tend to make it out as if this was their passion.

This was like the only thing that they could do because it speaks to their soul. It's funny hearing you talk about it, like it was this sort of, like it was a trade at that time where it was just, you found yourself doing it and you adapted well to it. And, but. Was there something about it where it was just so obvious to you that this was something that you loved above everything else that you could possibly be working in? No, I mean, I realized I wasn't become a professional basketball player. So, I mean, no, I mean, I just, I was cool.

Like, let's, you know, I enjoyed being on the road. I enjoyed that freedom. Had a lot of soul searching, you know, six-hour drives by yourself, you know, with no cell phone. It's a crazy era to look back on. Yeah. We don't really ever get that anymore. It used to be like the flight was the time when you weren't on your phone, which is kind of sad because you're like probably on a flight every couple weeks or so for the, you know,

even if you're flying a lot. But yeah, that, uh, I don't know. So, so I'm trying to get to, you, when is there a moment where you sort of realize, like, oh, I'm going to be able to make like a massive life-changing amount of money from this. So this is going to fundamentally, you know, it's funny that you. When I sold the first 50% of my company. Right. November 3rd, 1996,

and maybe had close to $100,000 in the bank. A lot of money. Right. You're young, too. November 7th, 1996, I had north of 10. Wow. Right?

And I woke up on November 8th. November 7th, we signed the deal on November 6th. And it was a Friday. And I went to my wife at the time. I was like, I don't know. feel different. Right. And, you know, she kicked me in the ass and said, get back to get to the office and get to work.

But, you know, like I said, to me, you know, I've never had a problem with any of my artists regarding money. Really? I won't fight over money. Because I heard you're talking about letting artists go quite frequently when they're just not happy anymore. Like, you just don't hold onto their contract and hang it over their head. I never let an artist go, though. Nobody ever wanted to leave.

Twista. Yeah, we didn't have great success. So it's like, and Wu started blowing and it was just, you know, yeah, I guess he did. That's just the one that I remember from an interview. You're saying that he kind of moved along and you just let him go, which is not normally how record execs talk. Yeah, so, but I mean, to this day, me and Twister are still cool. Like, there was never a fight about it.

If you had made it, you know, a multi-year hellish process for him, you probably wouldn't be cool now. Yeah, but then, I mean, I wouldn't be able to live with myself that way. I mean, so because my thing was I would get in BMG's ass. Like, you guys got to pay me. But when it came to the artist, the artist, you know, and this is what I would always try and tell BMG. I mean, I got arrested for throwing a chair at an executive

because they wouldn't give Wu-Tang an extra $20,000 on Raqan's first album. And the point is, if you don't have artists and you don't have happy artists, you don't have a business if you're going to put out music. So that's, you know, you need to do right by the artist.

So they could do right by you and then you could do whatever you have to do with your company. And if you're going to be in the music business and have a record company, you need them to deliver records. Right. When you find an artist nowadays,

that you're looking at and you're excited about them. How, you know, there has to have been artists over the years that you found where you felt like 100% sure they were going to be a superstar. And then there's got to be times where you got an artist where you were like, there's a smaller chance, 10, 20, 30% chance that I think this person could be huge. Like, how would you describe your confidence when you're looking at an artist? And how much of it is what you believe you can do for them versus just who they are? At loud, whatever we signed, I was confident.

I mean, I signed pun without hearing one ounce of music. Joe could tell you the story. My head of ANR, who would never be in the office, showed up in the office for the meeting. I'm like, what are you doing here? And Maddie was like, I'm here for the meeting for pun. The second they walked in, I'm like, who's your lawyer? And the deal literally got done within 24 hours.

And Maddie's like, how do we get a sign without hearing music? I'm like, that's your job to do now. you're here for this meeting. Right. So my thinking from my Deluxee is probably a little bit off. And I don't think most people would have done that. You don't think that you hearing a couple of songs would have been additional information? I mean, no, because I trusted you so much.

Right. For you to be here for this meeting, this guy's a superstar. Because you're the most stuck up, like, hip-hop person you'll ever meet in your life. Right. I mean, he started the unsigned hype at the Swiss Magazine. Yeah, which was the biggest thing of the world for a while. That is funny because there will be artists sometimes where, you know, a certain person will tell me to interview them. And it's like, I feel the same way.

I was like, okay. Like, if you said it, then I know it's, and, you know, certain people are very vested in their self-interest and other people aren't. But, you know, when somebody tells, sometimes it's like, I guess I don't have to hear it. I'll hear it, but it's like, I don't have to hear it immediately because if you said it were worth interviewing and they're probably worth interviewing. Yeah, I mean, that's where you have a staff, right? So, and that's why you have friends and, you know, it's, you can read the tea leaves. Yeah. You know, sometimes you don't need to hear the song.

But, okay, to this day, though, one of your staff members comes and tells you there's an artist they want to sign. Like, how good of an ear? Like, there's a lot of talk of the ear in the music industry. Do you have massive confidence in your ear? Not anymore, really. I mean, I rely on people that I trust. Uh-huh. I mean, I'm close to 60.

I mean, you wouldn't want me to have a good year right to second. If I play 20 Brooklyn rappers, you don't think you could tell me the best one? I could tell you to what I like the best. Right. You got 20 on you? I could probably scrounge up 20. They're probably going to suck for the most part. The good ones are probably already signed these days.

But that's interesting. Because I feel like I could usually pick out the... I mean, if you're going to come with some New York shit, right? Right. To me, it's all about to drum then and the kick. Like, and the record has to be aggressive. I don't want to hear any of that laid back. This, you know, I want to hear any up.

I want to hear hip-hop. I want to hear protect your neck. I want to hear shook ones. Right. Yeah, same here, but people are always trying to convince me I should like some soft shit. And I'm just, sometimes it's hard to explain. I just, I don't think I can judge that. I mean, you could like whatever the fuck you want to like.

And then if you have to sign something, you know, you got to trust your staff. If you play me 20 R&B rappers or R&B, or R&B singers, I feel like I would probably make the wrong decision with the superstars because it's just not really. So you wouldn't go by the voice,

you would go by the song? I would probably go by someone on my staff. I'm probably going to want to ask somebody else before I made that decision myself, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we had a girl by the name of Melanie Fiona at SRC.

Okay. Voice was incredible, and she had a ballad called, it kills me. And I was really impressed, by her manager and her manager was just dope like had a plan had everything but I was like you know I just signed four girls like I'm gonna sign another woman you know and um but I was just I loved the record and I was just really so impressed with Carmen on how she handled her business and the plan so I was like you know I was I didn't know what to do but you know then one of my A&R people who was a female like she's giving me a look like if you don't sign it I'm going to stab you

and um and then I you know I often mentioned I was like you know what I had 20 rappers at one time so if I have five females I have five female and you know I thank God I did sign it you know the record ends up being number one and you know we didn't hit gold but we were close to goal hmm interesting

have there been a lot of times where are there artists that you look back on that you sign where you can identify a critical moment where things just started to not work out. I guess I'm more intrigued by the artist that you had a lot of faith in that didn't work out. You have so many success stories. That's kind of like the easy thing. So dead press. There was a moment where I felt like that was going to be the next public enemy, huh?

Yeah, I mean, they could have been. If they trust is a really strong word, but if they understood, I'm not even going to say trust, right? if they understood where we were coming from as a label, they would have been PE. It's hard to. And they were young. Now we're like this. Right.

Like M1 comes to L.A. You know, every other month and he's at the house and we're just kicking it. If we had that relationship, then as we do now, they might have been the biggest group at loud. They saw you as kind of, they wanted to have an adversarial relationship.

I think they were just young, you know, and it was like, and I was white. Right. And, you know, they were so, you know, set in their ways and everything and just, but, you know, we all, you know, they grew up. I didn't take it as personal. That's why you only want to sign capitalist rappers.

No. Once they have a little anarchist streak in them, I don't know. No. I mean, I just want, you know, I just want to sign rappers that are going to make good music and they're going to be here 10 to 20 years from now. Right. That one dead press song that everybody knows? Hip-hop?

Yeah. It's probably my favorite record of all time. Were you massively involved in, like, marketing that? And was that, like, the moment where it seemed like everything was going well? I'll tell you where I heard the record. We just moved for the first time. We just moved into our brand-new office. We had a whole floor.

I had my own private bathroom, and I'm in the bathroom. You know, setting it up. We just moved, and my A&R guys. So if you look at it like it was a U-shaped, you know, but we had the whole floor. I was in the corner, so I had my marketing team to my right and promotion team

and my A&R team to my left. And I was cleaning, putting stuff, and I never had my own private bathroom before, you know, and Sean C started playing the record. I guess his office was right next to whoever the bathroom was.

And I remember just running, I'm like, what the fuck is this? And he goes, it's dead press. And I was like, what are we, you know, and it was just like, and it took a minute for us to put out the record. But if we dropped the record when I wanted it, dropped the record, which was if I heard the record at 12 o'clock,

I wanted that record out that night. Right. But it took another like four or five months. And I think the office lost momentum, as great as that record was, everything else like that, and just timing is everything. I mean, I was ready to go to Hot 97, I didn't give it to flex that night.

Right. But that song was huge. But the momentum got screwed up a little? I think inside the office. Right. I think, you know, people were getting, you know, not fed up with them, but it was just like, oh, here they go with, you know, whatever they, you know, they were saying. Right.

I guess it was probably, like, huge on more of, like, an indie type level, right? It wasn't like. No, that record should have been, like, as big as that record was, that record should have been five times bigger than it was six times bigger than it was interesting um okay so going back to like why you feel like well actually that moment when you said that you went from half a million to 10 million in the course of a couple days you know did that cause you to sort of you know reflect back on why you were doing this in the first place or they're like you're saying that your wife told you just get back to work I mean that that's interesting because I mean

I mean, I feel like a lot of wives would be kind of like, we made it. Let's get in the yacht. Nah. She said get back to work. Right. But you never considered sort of that your life maybe should change from all of a sudden getting that amount of money. You know, like I think we all kind of think about that from time to time. If you were to get that life changing amount of money, how much would your life change, really?

I don't know what my life changed. You know what I did when I woke up? It was raining. I called up my lawyer who was my cousin. one of my lawyers I said come on I'm going to buy you a cell phone not everybody had cell phones in those days right and I spent

$200 on a cell phone and I was like what the fuck am I doing you didn't you didn't try to like become the giant ice-dout chain guy for a little while or anything just never really seemed appealing I tried it once and I returned to everything that I bought

really yeah I mean it was I bought a grill no I didn't have a grill you can't return that Um, the only thing I kept was a dog tag, a diamond dog tag with my kid's names in the back. Right. So you don't have any expensive habits going or you just haven't managed to pick any up yet? No, I mean, back in the day, I had real expensive. I mean, I had planes, I had cars.

I had, you know, right. I had everything. But most of that's falling by the wayside? I just, you get older. Right. And smarter. Yeah, but if you really have money, like, you know, you see. people take it to a logical extreme where all of a sudden

you're Jay Leno and you got a fucking warehouse full of cars or whatever. I was them into cars though so that was the whole thing. To me it was really about the plane. The private plane. Yeah. But was that really more of a convenience thing? No, that was an ego thing. Right. That was just

a straight ego thing. But at what point did you decide to get rid of that? When I got the boss? Okay. Probably a lot of things a lot of things made sense of that point. I hear you. Okay. So when you talk about, you know, working on this kind of stuff with your kids and everything, like, like, what is your thought process on that now? Is it, do you feel

lucky to just even be in the position to be able to maintain? A lot of people, you know, they can't even think I have a relationship with their kids into their 20s or 30s, right? This is the thing. I feel lucky that I'm alive, right? I had a massive heart attack seven years ago. I died three times. So I'm just happy. I'm here. Wow, I didn't know that. And I have, besides Coup was my nephew and my son, you know, my youngest son is signed to us. And my daughter, even though she's still in school, she's helping Coup a lot on the marketing side of things. It's interesting because it feels like that's the kind of stuff that's probably not that hard to convince your kids to be into. No, I mean, I just offered her a million dollars to go to law school.

And she said no. Really? Yeah. you didn't want her to stay in this business? No, I want her to go to law school. She said, I want to be rich and I don't want to rely on my husband. I said, go to law school. She says, I'm not going to law school.

I said, I'll give you a million dollars. She said, no. And she wants to work for you. Yeah. What is it about law school that you think would just give her a better life? I don't know if it would give her a better life. I think she would just learn, I mean, just what her DNA is. She's really structured.

And not necessarily to be a lawyer. She'll learn about contracts. to learn about negotiations, so learn about dealing with people. She'd probably be more useful to you as a lawyer than as a music industry person, right? If she was a lawyer, I think she would probably have the biggest practice in the business.

Really? Yeah. Well, I think about that sometimes, like, how the hell am I going to convince my kid to go to school and try to become a doctor or a lawyer or whatever? Yeah, and I didn't go to school. And you're right. I didn't go to school.

So they look at me like, before rise. If they have a, like, you know, how to spell Apple. I'm just, you know what I'm saying? They're not going to call me. They're going to call their mom. Right. Yeah, because, like, you live your life where you take all these wrists. And then you look at your kid and you're like, I want you to have this nice, steady, safe life that I didn't really have in me.

So, no, I would love them not to have a safe. I mean, I want them to be safe. But, like, I would like to, you know, let there be some bumps in the role for them so that they can learn. Right. And learn from their mistakes. I mean, I'm not going to let them drown. I'm not going to let anybody drown that's around me. Right.

But, you know, it's interesting because you think that like a lot of people, a lot of people build a business and then it just becomes, I think, you've seen succession? Yeah. Where your kids are just not capable of running this business and it ends up being a massive, you know, problem to put your kids in charge of this business because just because they're related to you, there's no reason to believe that they would be good at this

particular job, but your kids just sort of flock to it? Nah, so we could start with Kup who's my nephew, who's right there. I don't know if you guys see him. He was always just an artist, you know, just an artist and just always into music and always entrepreneur, had his own cleaning service in school, so on and so on. Alex, my oldest son, was a college basketball player. So he's pretty disciplined. Right.

Like, you know, and just training, you know, just, you know, however he got to that level. My daughter, I don't know where she came from. I mean, like, I mean, she's, she doesn't play. She's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I guess, you know, so I'm hoping it's the best of her mom and the best of me, like in one. And then her twin brother who signed to the label is me. Right. Has my temper, has my emotions, has my passion.

and he just figures shit out on his own and without telling anybody and he just does it. And it works. Is that weird to be around him given that he reminds you of yourself so much? Yeah, so we go at it because the mistakes that I made, I try and, you know, have those conversations with him, but that's me.

He didn't, you know. Youth is wasted on the young. But again, he's doing. things now. He is a record that's starting to pop now and he's doing it all on his own, even though he's signed to us. That's how it is these days often. Does that freak you out a little when you see how big records can become without the label or any help these days? Well, I think that's why we're going to win because I've never needed a label. Even though I was a label, I never needed the major to take me to the Promise Land. Right. It's like when I played a Macon for the first time,

They laughed in my face. I said, this would be the biggest artist in my career. Really? And they all laughed, and I pretty much said, fuck you, I'll see you in a year and a half. And my head of promotion, I said, his wife was pregnant. I said, you do the East Coast, I'll do the West Coast.

And if she gets pregnant, you have five days to take care of whatever you need. I mean, when she gives birth, you have a five-day break period. And it's funny. You know, he took Khan, and I took A-Conn's brother. And don't forget, there was no videos. We didn't make a video at that time.

Nobody knew what Acon looked like. Right. So out in Utah, Acon's brother was Acon. Uh-huh. You were really pulling this off. Oh, yeah. Well, on the radio. On the radio shows, like, you would have him doing shows.

Yeah, and I mean, he would be lip-sing, and then just we did what we had to do. That's incredible. I've thought about that before. They're like, you know, especially the rappers who were mass. I'm like, you could totally have a couple of these guys on the road at once. Well, nobody knew what Acon looked like at the time, but we didn't have a video. Yeah. Wow.

So when you say, like, I'll take the West Coast for the artist, it's like, there's basically like two ways of doing what you guys do, right, where you could have you just dedicating every second of your day to bringing this artist to different labels, bringing them to, you know, promotional opportunities, radio stations, et cetera. And then there's the thing that you have now where you have an actual company and you try to actually take these roles and put them in various people's hands so that. that they can help grow this thing. With the A-Con thing that you're talking about, though,

where you, was it just full court press mode of you just bringing him everywhere you could and doing everything you could? Again, somebody said to me, they laughed in my face. I don't, like, I don't take Noel and I don't like to lose. So I was like, all right, motherfuckers, I'll show you. Who in this room has sold more records than me anyway, including the chairman? So I was like, all right, fuck you. And we literally, and they gave us office to that.

I said, nobody even go in there anymore. until this fucking record breaks. And so how satisfactory was that when it actually happened? Ego-wise, I mean, it was amazing. Right. But, you know, we still had a lot of work to do. Right. Well, there's always a lot of work to do in this business, huh?

Damn. That's crazy. Do you miss that period of having to do so much stuff in real life? I've been thinking about this a lot because, like, post-COVID, it's like, oh, now we get to all be around each other a lot more. I had really gotten used to not being around anybody. I'm not going to get my mind back in that place. That's a great question.

I don't know how I feel right right at a second. I'm not rushing to get in office. I'm not rushing to get in an office yet. You know, what I did learn during the whole COVID thing is I'd rather be slow and smart than fast and stupid. Do you feel like you were doing too much before? Yeah. I mean, I was just like, you know, what I realize is the pace that I keep,

The pace that I go at, not the many people who keep up at that pace anyway. Right. So that's how I'm looking at it. When you say that pace, do you think of it more of like just the amount of hours of work that you're putting in every day? Or are you kind of putting work on employees

who maybe aren't able to fully like exercise, take care of it the way that you want them to? I'm talking about executing what needs to be executed. Right. It's all about execution, right? So you can have the best idea in a world, but if you don't execute it, what do you have? Right. Nothing.

Do you, um, like, do you pay a lot of attention to balance in your life at this point? Are you a person who's kind of at risk of overworking themselves and just going too hard to the point where it's kind of ridiculous? I mean, we had the BET Awards. We had this weekend. So, you know, I was managing X when he passed. So this weekend was a lot, it was a lot of rehearsals and we closed the show. so like I didn't drive here

like I was good at drive here and I was like you know what I had a meeting at a lunch I was like you know I'm going to Uber and I'm going to take a 30 minute nap on my way from the house to here right and work to perfection that's your idea of balance is a 30 minute nap on the Uber I kind of says a lot I put you know listen to some music didn't pick up a call

right turned one text and that was it Is your phone just exploding at all times? Not 24-7, but there's hours of the day that I just want to throw the phone in the pool. Right. And let me come back a few hours after that and just. Yeah. I feel like I've set a really good precedent by just, like, kind of not picking up the phone. And sometimes I see my friends who pick up the phone to anyone who wants to talk to him.

And I'm like, you're never going to be able to get anything done if you live like this. Yeah. So that that's my issue. It's like I got to pick up every call that I see. Yeah, a lot of the most successful people I know are like that. They just really are that attentive to every relationship. It's all about the relationships. No matter what business you're in.

It is. But you have to stay on top of them. That's the thing I have a real hard time with. I can like spark the relationship off, but then the maintenance required is... That's not really a relationship. You're just trying to get it back. Or do a podcast.

Yeah, some truth to that. So you're in the office at what... What time you wake up and what time you're in the office? I wake up at 5. Okay. And you're in the office by... Well, I don't have an office anymore. Oh, okay.

You're working from home strictly right now? Yeah. So I wake up at 5. I start my meditation at 515 to 535. Okay. I read the papers. The literal newspaper or you read on your phone? No, I read it on my iPad, but the papers.

Got it. Um, that goes around 615. And then I walk the dogs for 45 minutes. Come back. I do another meditation for 20 minutes. You're answering emails and texting while you're walking the dogs or is that? Nope. I don't even bring my phone with me.

Okay. It's just me talking to the dogs. And then, um, get back around 7.45. Um, and I'll just, I don't know what I'll do. You know, um, um, I'll look at some emails, but I won't return emails yet. I'll just look at them. Maybe start writing some notes.

And I won't stop my day until really 9, 9.30. I won't pick up the phone before that. Okay. And do you feel like you have lost much by not having the office physically together? Or do you feel like that was kind of overrated and you can only see that now? I can only see that now. So before COVID, I would be in the office at 7.7.30. before almost everybody else I'm assuming

I would be there yeah way before everybody else and then I'd go to around I'd go 7 to 7 and then um but now it's just you think you're happier now that's a good question

I don't know if I'm happier now but I'm more at peace I think not spending 12 hours in the office is probably good for your mental health but I'm still spending 12 hours working. Well, I'm not spending 12 hours working anymore, which I really won't start my day now until night. Right. So to me, I used to make a call sheet. I still make

a call sheet, but if I didn't have 150 calls that I made that day, I thought I was doing something wrong. So those are like important elements of the business. I didn't even know if they were important. Like, you talk about maintaining a relationship, right? Right. So say, we met. All of a sudden if you're on my call sheet, I'm calling you every day now. Like, you know, and I don't talk on the phone long. I can't talk on the phone

long. Right. Right. So it's like, check in you good yet hang up and i would cross it off interesting call sheet i never even thought about that like these are the people that you're going to actually go out of your way to stay in touch with interesting no if you make 10 calls a day just 10 that 10 is going to turn to 20 and things are going to start happening interesting um how important you think it is to go out clubs album releases events shit like that how much

for me now? Yeah. Zero. Close to none or none? None. I mean, but if you, but, you know, if Kup and my son are not going, then that's a problem. So you think that it's very much necessary

for people in their, they need to be seen. Not necessarily to, you know, you know, there's a saying that my father, it's not who you, it's not what you know, it's who you know. So, them meeting people and them getting, you never know where that person's going to end. up.

That person could be head of Apple music one day. That person could be head of Sony music one day. Or he could be, you know, head of Spotify or just, you know, whatever. You never know where they're going to end up. You never know where you're going to end up either. Right. And what you're going to need. So it's even like, you know, if you're in the A&R department and you pass on somebody,

pass in a nice way because, you know what, that's somebody that you passed on might have a neighbor that could be the next Drake. And even though he's not working with Drake, he says, hey, you guys could go, you should check this out. So you never know where these relationships end up. So that's why I'll return every call and pick up every call that I see.

Definitely. It makes sense. You have a bunch of artists in your head that you wish that you didn't miss early on? I mean, I wish BMG let me sign Rockefeller. Oh, wow. And then with them, you know, he was brought to us first,

but he was an underground rapper, and I think it was just a perfect storm with him and Dre. I don't know. He would have still been Eminem, but I don't know if he would have sold 300 million records at loud. Right.

Just how he was built and how my A&R staff was built. It would have been an amazing relationship, and he could have sold, you know, maybe 10 million records, but not who he was. That Dr. Dre has, association really.

I mean, that was just a perfect marriage. Yeah. I mean, compare that to vanilla ice. Vinyl and I said no cosign. Vanilla's didn't have Dr. Drey. But if Vanilla Ice had had, you know, even not Dr. Dre, but a Dr. Dre, somebody even close to be there figure guiding them into the game, it could have been a lot different.

Because I read this article about how Vanilla Ice was very much respected and appreciated in his local scene before he came out. And then there was this SNL skit that just lampooned him. and that was just to kind of change this whole image after that. And then the movie also heard him. Which was it? I forget the name of it, but he put the, he did a movie pretty much. What was it?

Cool as ice. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, he's still out here doing it. Yeah. Shout out to him. Okay, so in terms of, like, how many artists would you say that you guys are working

on at this point? Well, you got five. Five, that's it. And you don't want more than that? No, we're going to put out a single a week. By a brand new artist every week, 52 artists. Right. Is it, I mean, you put out a single per week, but do you feel like

that's enough these days? Or like, what has to surround each single to make it an event, right? No, we're not even going to make it an event, right? So at the end of the day, some of the biggest artist my career started off as single deals. Wutank started off as a single CEO. Acon's start off as a singles deal. 3-6 start off as a single deal.

So if we put out 52 singles by 52 different artists and forget about music-wise, just 52. Right. Three are going to pop. If I do something, if I don't do anything. Okay. Just on straight numbers. So that's

you know and with taking care of the creative community. For sure. How do you see the media at this point in the business they aren't you know it's like it's changed so much where

I went from you know having a couple of authoritative sources that were sort of you know the must read content for everybody in the game now it's so spread out but there's still you know I guess you could argue that there are like authority of sources at this point there's you know the big ones that everybody's

sort of familiar with and everything but how much do you see you know finesse in the media or having relationships with media like how much does this matter in terms of pushing artists these days? I think it's important. I do think it's important.

You know, your media. Right. Right. So, I mean. It's taken many strange forms. You know, you have a foundation and a base and an audience. Right? So if we sign, you know, just bottle of water and we're trying to crack your audience, we need you.

Right. So, you know, you're pushing an artist for the first time, though. like is it important for you that they get on all these Instagram accounts of all these uh like how much out of your way do you go to sort of you start seeding them into these roles at first i didn't think so and then we had a lunch on this past Friday with some executives and um again this was what you know my son and cooper you know were um they were saying you know we need these instagram accounts we need you you i always knew that we needed youtube um and i was like we need to just attack the street And they said this is the streets and I was just like I can't see Instagram being

streets but I guess I was proven wrong on Friday. Yeah it's not even so much that it's the streets so much is that it's it's just everything to so many people now. Yeah and you know other other social media matters as well but Instagram's really the one you know so but to me it's still you need to focus on what your audience is. You know I'd rather have a smaller audience and knowing that are going to be loyal then, you know, I'd rather have 500 likes than 5,000 likes if the other, you know, 4,500 people are never going to come and see anything. Well, like the essence of having a really big artist is that you have a lot of very

uninvolved participants taking this in. Like, this is one thing you realize over time is that, like, you can have a thousand hardcore fans, but if you're going to get to having a million fans, you know, you're probably not going to have a thousand, a million hardcore fans. You're going to have a whole lot of people who just kind of know about you. But you know what? I'd rather, if you're going to have a million fans, then I need to have at least 60% that are super fans.

Interesting. Okay. So some of the long pauses that you've been doing kind of got me. I'm like, not really sure where exactly to hop in there. You can hop in wherever you want. Okay. Okay. So what are you excited about right now?

And is loud back? I was reading that. And then I'm like, I'm not hearing you mention. that's something like no so i licensed Sony owns the name for loud records okay so there's a loud

music group that I was on the border of and just you know they still can't they could sign whatever they want to sign but anything created for the brand itself but I'm not involved with it whatsoever okay

was that something at one point where you wanted to have that name again would that mean something to you for the family? I mean, I still own loud, you know, loud, I just can't put out records under loud records, but I still own the name loud records. Right.

You know what? It's not fair for the new artist and it's not fair for the old artists. You know, it's like, I could go on Instagram now and say, hey, you know, come, you know, give me 16, right? And it's going to be all New York shit from the 80s and the 90s. like it's not going to be what's going on now.

So I'm at the point where it's just like, you know what? My dad, so the new company that we have is called Spring Sound. My dad's label was called Sprint. And paying homage to him, I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. I called up all my cousins. So is it cool that I do this?

And they said, yeah. That felt like it was, you know, sort of carrying on the legacy to an extent. I just, you know, it's not even really about the legacy it's it's really about just um paying my dad respect

and my uncle's still alive so but he's just old um but it's really paying them respect and saying you know what if it wasn't for you guys I wouldn't be here it's interesting because I feel like or do you feel like

for a younger newer artist that being associated with anything that feels old school is sometimes not a good thing and that the loud name to a lot of people just reads as like legacy classic label but the thing is their parents knew what loud was right right so and that's kind of

what a lot of kids don't want they don't want to support anything but their parents would know about you know the kid that we signed that of Oregon you know his dad is a huge woo fan so even though it's not called loud I mean bird is just

ecstatic Hmm. So. I mean, at least Loud went away for a while. So that would explain why, like, the younger generation might not know about it. When you think about something like Def Jam, it's like Def Jam's been active all these years and nobody gives a fuck about the brand now. Yeah. I mean, just they put out horrible records.

I mean, it just feels like it's kind of, that's sad. Like, even when I was young and the Def Jam video game was out, it already kind of felt like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like, I guess that is. That's still a pretty significant label. Yeah, that's certainly true. I mean, no, they're a major, but you know what? They still got Kanye, they got Rihanna, they got Justin, you know,

but now they just got to figure out what their team is inside and break some new artists. And they can have all those artists. It's just that the audience doesn't associate any of those artists with the label regardless. Was it not executing what's going on today? Interesting. The DMX, how would you describe where DMX was at in his, life prior to recent events?

He was happy. Really? You were starting to get there? Yeah. I mean, I wasn't around during the Rough Friday days. I was around, but I, you know, I wasn't managing him. But, you know, he was really finding,

you know, the last three years that I was with him, from the first day until right before he passed, I mean, the growth and the peace and the happiness that he was trying to find was incredible he was really on that path he was trying to yeah find that interest i mean i'll tell you like right after verses you know that he did with snoop a few days later i go visit my mom and i come back and he's in my backyard uh taking care of one of my dogs who just had an operation

and he was feeding him his sandwich he goes we got to get his confidence back and um he would show up every day at four o'clock to give the dog a sandwich play with him and just like for an hour like like he was a physical therapist wow that's crazy and he goes you don't mind i'm like you know and like i would just i wouldn't like if i wasn't there and come i would always end up seeing him at the end of it you know or you know there'd be times that i didn't have anything but um yeah i mean i mean if you weren't at peace and trying to find happiness you wouldn't be in my backyard every day giving my dog a turkey sandwich right right and getting his confidence back.

Yeah. I mean, that's crazy that that dog connection that he had extends to all kinds of people's dogs that he didn't even... I mean, I just bought another one. I'm getting it in six weeks. Another dog? Yeah. And I'm naming him D. What's a she?

Oh, okay. But Boomer? Boomer's not really a female name. That's a good point. Oh, man. I just interviewed Corrupt, and he was talking about how he just randomly ran into DMX in the airport, and they had beef for all these years over Foxy Brown, because allegedly DMX was sleeping with her while they were married or whatever, and he runs into him in the airport, and they both miss their flights because they're just hanging out and drinking and just having a great time.

And, yeah, I mean, it feels like a lot of people kind of had that sort of feeling about DMX towards the end of his life, that he was really making that effort to change his life. Method Man told me a story yesterday about he, it's probably one of the best stories I've ever heard of my life. I'm going to try and say it, and I'm sure I'm going to fuck it up somehow, some way. Take it

for granted that Method Man might have a rhetorical style that is missing here. No, so no, so the funny thing is somebody sent me the article, but them being interviewed together. So, I guess

I don't know if they were doing a movie together or if they were shooting some type of commercial or whatever. And, you know, there were cops on the set. And X went to Met and he said, come on, let's take the car. And they jump into the car and they pulled somebody over. And X gets out of the car, asks for a registration and license. And this person gives them the registration and license.

and X told them that you shouldn't be speeding and that, you know, I'm going to give you a pass and just go on your merry way. I mean, I had tears. I'm fucking up the story. But I had tears last night when I heard the story. And then, as manager, it's on my phone. I'll show you, like, set me this text this morning

at the crack at dawn because I guess they took the red eye after the awards. And there's this interview, somebody interviewing MetternX, and they're telling the story. Uh-huh. Wow. And they just took the cop car and the cops didn't care?

I'm sure they did. Maybe the cops didn't know. I thought that the story was going to end totally different. When I heard they took the cops car, I'm like, oh, dear God, what's going to happen? But, okay, that's good. Jesus. Yeah, I mean, rest and peace.

DMX, man. That's crazy. Is there anything left in this game that you feel like? like you want to accomplish and in particular targets, things that you haven't done yet that you want to accomplish? I mean, I pretty much accomplished everything,

but I want this label because we own it 100%. I'm not with a major. I want to be the biggest label I've had. Right. So like every view on YouTube is ours. Every, you know, whatever, you know, so this is us 100%. and we're going 50-50 with every artist that we sign.

So I want this label. I mean, they've all both meant the world to me. But like this is, this is just a different feeling. Like I looked over the weekend, I looked on how many views I've had on YouTube with all my artists. And it's north of five billion views. Right.

So it's like, all right, how much money is that? So that's what I want. Definitely. Because I never saw that money. Right. And I mean, now, you know, the game has changed. But does it feel like that challenge of, like, doing it without the majors? Is that just, is it such an overwhelming challenge?

Like, do you feel like it's going to feel like a completely different thing to reach a level of success without them? It's my money. So it's definitely going to be a different challenge. Before, I was playing with the house with money. but they have would you say that the labels have a lot available to them that you don't have available to you at this point? What do they

have? They have the catalog that if they have a really fucked up year they can live off their catalog. Right. You're not going to tell me they have a better relationship at radio than me. You're not going to tell me they have a better relationship with Leo Kohn than me. You're not going to tell me they have a better relationship with Apple or Spotify

that me. They might be able to bargain more. But when it comes to one-on-one, they can't touch me. impressive Steve Rifkin Thank you appreciate you man That's a good conversation

Appreciate you guys Steve Rifkin No Jumper Coolest podcast and World Check us on YouTube SoundCloud iTunes Like comment and subscribe Nojumber.com

If you want to support And Friday We'll be listening to your music on stream Appreciate y'all All right, thank you