The Questlove Show - Questlove Supreme: Shawn Gee

Episode Date: November 11, 2020

Okay we know we've said this before, but this is TRULY a Special episode of Questlove Supreme. Shawn Gee, the man who would introduce 2 college student MC's, now known as Malik B and Black Thought, to each other is a true architect of The Roots legendary career. But that's not all folks, almost 30 years later those beginnings ushered him to President of Live Nation Urban and Creator/Manager of some of your favorite festivals and tours. How? Take a listen to The Roots History 101....... Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange, modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person.

Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clifford Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show.

This is a place for raw, unfilled conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. On the Look Back at it podcast.

From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84's big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors.

Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Questlove Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. All right. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is a special episode of Quest Love Supreme as all episodes are special episodes of Quest Love Supreme.

No, seriously, for a longtime fan of the show, you already know how nerdy and informative we are, or at least that we strive to be at least in putting you on game. This is probably why our guest today is the perfect example

and know how having one foot being a well effective suit in the business while equally having his other foot deeply rooted in creativity.

It's really rare to meet someone on the other side of the camera that's as much of a creative as artists are, but still in the mode of being a suit. He is the president of Live Nation Urban. And as a business manager for the last 20 years, he's literally guided the careers of a bejillion acts from Joe Scott, Scott Storch, Little Wayne, Jay Cole. Nikki Minaj. Nikki Minaj, even a certain unnamed presidential candidate slash nuisance, not to mention Philadelphia's finest, the legendary Roots crew. Hello, hello. But, you know, pretty much, if you've been head scratching for the last 10 or 15 years, wondering how in the hell does Questo, how can Questo match a triple plastic? platinum artists going buffer buck with only a single going gold inside.

This man is really fully responsible. He can answer that question because Lord knows, I've been in the game since 1992. And there's not many of us left here still swimming and thriving, if you will. And we owe that to our guest. I promise no inside baseball talk. this is super manager Sean G to course love Supri

yes sir oh thank you brother thank you I'm waiting for my Suprema yo yo yo you're gonna do that I'm practicing this last night

I have something oh shit breaking down we can't do it on Zoom no more we can't do it on Zoom no it's all this is COVID-19 but if we get a feature

about it I forget Sean's rap name I'm like if we can get a feature then you know break it down his rap name was Sean G I think that's what it was Your rap name, Sean G? No, he was an emcee.

I don't know if you tell this. Please. You can start there. Tell the story. All right. Yeah, no. Sean Z's rap name was MC2 Cool Mellow. Uh-uh.

Cool, Mellow G. Cool Melo G. Cool Melo G. That's a lot of words. Yeah, Sean is really responsible. I guess, you know, I mean, it's no secret. Sean and Tareka Cousins.

And I guess... Actually, a lot of people don't know that. Right. Okay. Again, no inside baseball from Questlet. Treating you like a regular-ass guest. Absolutely. Yeah, and so I guess the legend is that the sibling rivalry nature of their childhood,

you know, Sean was like the star of the family because he had a 12-inch single that was popping in Philly. And, you know, that really lit a fire into Tariq. like, you know, wait a league, get a load of meat, like that, that sort of thing. And that's, you know, so Sean is responsible for really putting the fire under Tarik. Hold on. I see what's about to happen here. Go ahead. Okay, I'm about to say.

So, Sean G. Remix. So, Tarik and I are cousins. Black Thought is my cousin. We were sort of raised more like brothers because his mother was my first cousin. So he was my second cousin. But we were obviously around the same. age range. And, you know, his mom, you know, he used to always stay at the crib.

Like, my mom was the aunt, was the South Philly aunt who moved to Mount Airy, where all of the entire South Philly family would come up and hang and drop their kids off. And Rieke was always at the crib, always at the crib. And from the time we were four or five, six years old, we were super competitive in everything, right? whether it was riding our bikes, whether it was drawing. Like, Tariq is a super dope visual artist. And, you know, I'm an older cousin.

I'm two years older than them. So I, especially in those at that time, when you're younger, two years, is a big difference. I was able to muscle him. I was able to, you know, verbally muscle them, physically muscle them. Like, yo, so, you know, we would have drawing contests.

You know what I mean? And we judge each other's picture. And, you know, his picture is looking super dope. and mine's looking like stick figures, but I'd be like, I won, I won! You know, so, you know, I used to always be able to frustrate them in different ways. And music was another passion of us. Like, we, you know, grew up, you know, I got my first record that I bought was, you know, the fat boys, but stick them, you know, from Sound to Market, you know,

brought it up to the crib. Rieke was at the crib. You know, we're playing a record. So, you know, a lot of the experiences that I had being the older cousin, I would come back and explain or talk to him about it. And he would sort of live vicariously through me. And then, yeah, it got to a certain point where, you know, I started rapping and I started to get a rep in Philadelphia

and used to travel around the city and got a record deal, quote unquote, and put out a single. And at the same time, you know, Rick was always an artist, you know, whether it was a visual artist, there was a poet, a writer, a rapper, you know, a singer, he could do it all. And I got to a point where, you know, I also played basketball in high school. And I had a record out. I was shooting guard.

I had a record out and I was on the basketball team. Yeah, I was about to say, you say, play basketball then. No, no, not at all, not at all. But basketball took me away from hip-hop. Like basketball took me away from it because it was like I started getting college scholarship offers and things like that. So I stopped. Wait, you were that good? Yeah, I got, I got scholarship Division II.

I mean, I wasn't. I didn't know that you were that. I wasn't seen nowhere. But, you know, I got a college scholarship. I got the ball. Like, yo, Google me, though. Like, I got power this is going to be dope because Amir, meet Sean. No, this is not.

I'll send you some clippins. I don't know as part of a 12-grade-year. So I'm 11th grade year. I put numbers in. So wait, Sean, you fast-forwarded. Can we take it back? Like, take it back to, like, the kind of house that you grew up in, like what your parents did and go with it.

Yeah. We can start there. We can start there. So my entire family on my mother's side, I was really close, you know, my mother and father was in my life. but my mother raised this. You know what I mean? It was a household where, you know,

my father was in and out. You know, he was in my life. I'm not the one that's got in that with my father. He was in my life, but my mother raised this. She was the visionary. She was everything. And my mother grew up in the projects in South Florida.

Fifth Street projects. My, I have three siblings. 13, 14, and 15 years older than me. So they're much older than me. Oh, wow. They were born in the projects in South Florida. My mom, she dropped out of high school in 10th grade. She was pregnant with my sister when she was in 10th grade.

So she dropped out of high school in 10th grade. Her and my dad got married. They had two more kids living in the projects. My entire mother's side of her family is from South Philly. Fifth Street projects are 7th Street. You know South Philly is 5th Street to 7th Street. And, you know, that was the sort of pre-shorn existence was all South Philly. my mom was a hustler

she worked two three jobs she saved up she bought real estate and her dream was to get her children out of South Philadelphia and she did that she bought a house in Mount Airy and my closest sibling was 12 years old

and they moved to Mount Airy and I was born in Mount Air so I was born on Sharpneck Street in Mount Air with my entire family living in South Philly. For the first six years of my life, because my mom was working a couple of jobs, my dad was working, you know, and my brothers and sisters in school when we was ground, and they couldn't keep me. So my first six years of my life, I lived in South Philly with

Tariq's grandma. So until I was able to become school age, I stayed during the week in South Philly with Tariq's grandmom and my other aunt who lived like two doors from each other, many of my Aunt Blanche, until I turned six when I was able to go to. school, that's when I moved to Mount Airy with my mom and my family for the entire, you know, all week. So that was sort of my, my early existence was jumping between South Philly and Mount Airy during the week and then, you know, sort of staying with my parents and my family on the weekend. Which at the time was like the hood and the burbs, right? It was the hood and the burbs. It was absolutely 1,000%. This was, this was Mount Airy at the time where there were white people.

You know what I mean? It was, it was predominantly. It was, it was, it was predominantly. It was predominantly white when my mom moved there. I mean, now, you know, that doesn't exist, but that's, that's the amount of area that we moved to when it's predominantly white. But again, my existence until I became six or six and, until I became school age, we're still in South Philly because my mom and dad didn't have, you know, didn't have no health care or, you know, kid, money to put me in some sort of, some sort of, you know, care. Wait, so I have a question. And Therick is going on record to tell the story. But were you there in South Philly during the infamous fire episode?

So the fire episode, all right. So I moved, when my mom moved from South Philly, she moved to a house on Shark Next to the Mount Air. That was the house she saved up. You know, she saved two jobs. She bought that house. Again, my mom was a hustle. Let me tell you one more thing about my mom. My mom was deaf.

So she lost her hearing at 16. So she dropped out of high school. 15, lost her hearing at 16 and had three kids by the age of 20. But she was a hustler and super smart and understood how to make moves and had a vision for her family. So she got us out of Southville. We moved to a house on Sharpneck Street. We were there for about, I think, four or five years. Then she saved up and bought another house on Horder Street, which was the street around the corner, and kept the Sharpneck Street. as a rental property.

Right? So we moved around the corner, kept the Sharp Next Street as a rental property. One of the first tenants in that Shartneck Street property was Tariq and his mother. So the infamous house burned down story was the house that my mother owned.

Oh. And it was in Mount Airy, not in South Philly. So the story is Tariq lived in this house. Tariq and his mom and his brother lived in his house. I was over there. I was there.

We were hanging. We were playing. We were being cousins and whatever. And then I bounced. And we were playing. I don't know if y'all remember these little green army men. Yeah, the little, yeah. That was our thing.

That was our thing. We used to set them up all around the crib. And you know what I mean? And again, I'm the older cousin. I'm like, bow, wow, wow, I killed you. I killed you. You know, I won. But we, you know, we got into it the game.

And I bounced and he continued playing. And, you know, evidently the story is he found a lighter. and, you know, the Armyman was, we're stuck in one particular position. You know, that's the position you born a man, whether they're on their knee shooting or on the ground shooting. To read, you know,

being the intelligent kid that he was, he said, I think I can, if I burn this Army man, I can change his position because it's going to be, you know, it'll turn to wax. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, he clicked the light,

old school lighter, you know what I mean, clicked the lighter, was burning the Army man. Of course, the lighter got hot, He flipped the lighter down. And before you know it, you turned around and the curtains is on fire. And he runs downstairs and tells his mom. And then the hole upstairs is on fire.

And then the house is on fire. So, yeah, that's the ultimate story. But yeah, Amir, the house that the house that caught on fire was actually my mom's rental property. Oh, okay. How does lady handle that? I thought you were in that house. Okay. Is that out two weeks?

I was in it earlier in a day. Well, Toree tells the story that he just ran downstairs like, like, yo, you smell something burning? No, not at all. That's what it happens. So when you're, the question I had just about your mom when she lost the hearing, did you learn how to sign to that? Like, how did you all communicate?

That's the, the crazy shit is. So here, so let's, you know, again, unpacking it a little bit. So my mom lost their hearing at 16. her sister, Tarek's grandma, it was hard of hearing from the time I knew her. I mean, she could hear when you like yell. Our aunt, Dot, was deaf. Dot had two kids that were both deaf.

And my middle brother was deaf. You know, so we had all of that in the family. And I just don't understand why. I don't know sign language. You know why? You know why? because my mom didn't learn sign language. My mom read lips.

Wow. My mom never learned sign language. And what I did, I was her communicator. So my early business days was while she was doing and building her real estate business, you know, I was this eight-year-old on the phone translating with the electric company

or translating with the contractor. Like, mom, he said it's going to cost, you know, $600 to put this hot water heater in. And she'd be like, show, get the fuck out of here. It don't cost more than $400. And I'd be like, sir, and she'd be like, I heard her. But tell her we could do $450.

And I'm like, Mom, he said $450. She's like, no, $400 and that's it. You know, okay, so I learned my first sort of negotiating and just handling business and understanding the rhythm of those conversations. That's where it comes from. I was about to say, yeah. That's a change. You've been translating from day one.

Eight nine seven years old with my mom handling buying houses, buying houses, buying property, negotiate with contractors. I was the one doing it because she couldn't hear. So she never really learned sign language, but she obviously knew how to communicate. So I think because of that, I never learned sign language. What was the height of her number of properties at, like, her height? I think we had, I mean, she used to buy and sell,

so it was never like a buy and hold, like, oh, my mom had 50 properties all over the city. It was a buy and sell thing. But, I mean, I think she probably, you know, across my, through my high school years, it's probably like 10, 15, you know, properties around the city that she's either bought, held, sold, whatever.

Are you still in that business, or have you just let them all go? No, I know, I still have, I still got some property and so, you know, I'm still collecting some rents. I'm still collecting some rents. Oh, great, because that'll come in handy in case some shit having to meet.

Are your parents, are they still alive? Are your parents, are they still alive? My mom passed away. Young, she was 64 when she passed away 15 years ago. My father still alive, yes. Oh, okay, gotcha. So you also attended Millersville, correct?

Absolutely. All right. Are you the one that introduced Malik and Tarique to each other? Yes, it was. I love that you're asking this question. I'm sorry. So it was me. It goes back to me and Tarik Van

competitive, right? So like I was saying, basketball took me away from hip-off. You know, you weren't making no money back in the day. You know, I was doing shows at the Y out 52nd Street. You know, that was my travel. That was the House of Luce. The Y circuit. I did the Y on Christmas down South Philly.

The Y out 52nd Street. You know what I mean? I always wanted to be Jazzy Jep C. Like, that was my goal in life, right? Who was that record deal with, Sean? It was with a company called Pay Hill Records. With the label was the label was a joint venture between

MC Breeze and Bilali B. Again. Where is, all right, so for those that don't know, like, Balawi B is, like, mid-hiphop period, like between 85 to about 91, Balaue B was, like, a legendary Philadelphia label CEO. Like, what was, I always heard his name,

but was he like our puppy? That was an artist. So it's funny, because, The label was, you know, this, so his dude name was Jim Hill. He was like your traditional, you know, corporate guy, non-musician, non, you know,

probably what, what y'all thought I was when you first met. You know what I mean? Like corporate suit, flat shoe, no creative, no creativity. So it was his label. He did a deal with MC Breeze, who was an artist, discombobulator, boobulator, and, you know, all of that in Philly. Right. did a sub-deal with Bilali B, who also was an artist.

So my label was run by two artists. It seems like a production deal or a production deal. Exactly. Exactly. I'm like, where's my royalties, dog? I'm about to hit you off for that. But, yeah, so, so, you know, I had that. Then I started playing ball.

Colleges start calling. I'm thinking about life. I'm like, let me take this college scholarship. You know, I stopped rapping. And I start playing ball. So I go up to millers. But I'm still, you know, you're still rapping. You still freestyle.

You still in the car beat come on. You still, you never stop fucking rapping when you rap. And, you know, I come home Thanksgiving of my sophomore year. And, you know, Rieke's over to family. We have our Thanksgiving dinner. You know, we're in the basement or whatever. And me and Rieke always battle. We always battle.

Always used to battle. And when I was younger, you know what I mean? I would kill him. I mean, yeah, I would kill him. He was younger. I would muscle him, right? Like, yeah, even when I lost, I won. But he just started getting fucking bad.

It was like right around the time he met you. And we were like, he just started getting better and better and better. And when I came home from college, we was in the basement, he was like, yo, you want to battle? And I was like, you go first. And he was like, all right. And whatever he said, I was like, oh, no, I don't rap anymore. That's just the suckers.

You know what I mean? Like I had dreams rap there. I said, but listen, but I said, look, you might be good. You might be better than me, but I'm playing ball now. I said, there's this dude up Millersville named Malik. Like, yo, you can't fuck with Malik B. You can't. He was like, who?

I was like, yo, he's from Philly. He's from Wessel Wayne. You cannot touch Malik B. And, you know, that was it. That was it. That was Thanksgiving dinner. I said that to him, and that was it. Fast forward, he's a senior in high school at this time.

Fast forward, him and a couple of his homies from high school end up going to Millisville. They ended up, you know, applying and getting accepted to Millisville. They go into the summer program. I'm up there working in the summer. The first weekend that they're up there, I go to the off-campus party or whatever, and they're like, yo, I just met your cousin.

Your cousin go here. I don't know you had a cousin here. I just met your cousin. I'm like, yeah, yeah, it's all good. He's like, he's in the kitchen. I'm like, he's like, he's in the kitchen. And I'm like, all right, cool. So I walk in the kitchen.

And it's Tariq and Malik, battle. And Malik says to me, like, yo, your cousin came in a party. asked who I was. So Tarek in his mind, you know, from the time when I said, yo, you this kid Malik in Millersville, you're not better than him. It was like a missile. He was like, let me find this kid Malik, Mishon talking about. And from that, they literally battled the entire, it was like a two and a half hour battle, just back and forth.

From that point, they were bonded, you know, from a hip-hop, from a rap perspective. That's when the, you know, that portion of the roots were formed in that kitchen, that summer in Melisville University. Wait, there's the question. You'll be the perfect person to answer because normally our guests, our New York-based guests, and they always have a Latin quarter experience.

However, the Philly Latin Quarter was a spot called After Midnight. And I've never had a guest on the show that can really explain why the After Midnight was so important. Even though I'm of age, I was not allowed to go to After Midnight.

What was it like in there? Now, I know After Midnight's building as the Spaghetti Warehouse because it shut down, but like, what was the after midnight the Pinnacle or the top place where you could see hip-hop shows at that time? Was that our House of Blues?

Was that our... Or was it the 15th? 22nd Street, why? Like, where was Philly, besides block parties, where was Philly in terms of seeing a show that wasn't at the spectrum? Right. So there was sort of two levels to it.

You know, you had your sort of, I'll call it the local regional level, but for certain shows, you still had some national acts, but that local regional level, which means you can, on any given Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you can go to a party, right? You had the YMCA's, you had the wind out in Winfield, you had Circus City.

You know, there was just circuit of clubs that rocked every week. But you got to understand that Philly back then, the stars wasn't the rappers. The stars were the DJs. Right. You know what I mean? So when you got the flyers, you weren't going to see, you know, Prince Will Rock. That was Fresh Prince's name

before Fresh Prince. Prince Will Rock. You were going to see DJ Jazzy Jeff. You were going to see DJ Cash Money. You were going to see Lightning Rich. You were going to see DJ Spenbad. Those were the names on the flyers. And at all of these clubs,

those are the people who sort of made those rounds. And as young teenagers, we were like, we got to go see the DJ. It was almost like who cared who was actually rapping for them. like Jazzy Jeff said earlier I always wanted to be Jazzy. Like Jazzy Jeff is a god to me.

Like it's amazing that I can call him a friend now because when I was a kid, you know, I was like following Jazzy Jeff like, you know what I mean? Like he was an icon. And during the time he had Rockwell, he had icy, he had all these random MCs, but it really didn't matter.

So, you know, you had your DJ circuit in Philly around all of these clubs that all of the DJs were the stars. Victor DuPlay also being one of them, right? What's that? Well, Grandmaster Vic, Vic, Victor DuPlay. Yeah, Master Vick.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Master Vic and the Super MCs, you know, I mean. Like, he was a, he was a star. You know, and Vic actually went to my high school. So I would go see him at parties on Saturday, him and his two MCs. And then I come back and he'd be walking through the halls in high school. And I'm like, oh, shit, that's Master Mick.

You know what I? But, yeah, so it was just sort of energy. in Philly around the DJs, and that was the club circuit. What after midnight brought was this sort of national look from a national recording artist's perspective. All of the New York people

came down to play after midnight. You know, you got to figure, even on the club DJ circuit, it was still neighborhood-y, right? When you went to the 52nd Street Y, 90% of the people was from West Philly. You know what I mean? When you went to, you know what I mean?

The Christian Street Y'all, 90% of the people were in South Philly. When you went to the after midnight, it was people from all over the city. And you had performers that you were listening to on Lady B's hip hop show and Mimi's hip hop show in DAS. So it was like, that was like our house of blues. That was where the national acts would come and play. And you would see all of the people in the audience from all over the city, that one place where we would all congregate. Would your life be in danger, like the Latin Quarter?

Yeah, you life in danger at all of these. places. Oh, okay. That's just part of the culture. You know what I mean? Girls would get the earring snatch. Girls would get the earring snatch and, you know, guys would get their, you know, their six-ish jackets taken and, you know, I mean,

their name belts and all that shit. But yeah, I mean, that's, you know, that's, that's, that goes along with, with the culture. You don't want to, if you don't want to experience that, stay home. Oh, okay. I did. Anyway. Wait, why weren't you allowed to go? I don't understand that.

Yeah, come on, dog I did it. The first route show of Prince's Lounge, I wore Birkenstocks. Oh, oh. Nothing's changed since. There were no black. Now you got crocs.

Anyway, yeah, so, okay. Now, how you enter my life was you started my first ever bank account. Like, at what point Are you realizing that basketball might not be your future? And when does finance enter? And when you were entering finance, were you thinking of entertainment finance

or were you just thinking, like, I'll be a professional and make low six figures a year, get a BMW, nice job, and, you know, wife and two kids in Mount Airy life? Like, where was this paradigm shift in your life where it's like, okay, money might be in my future? Well, basketball. What are you doing?

I was looking and laughing in my mind. Sean was just about to say Darren, but I'm going to let him. That's exactly what I'm about to say. Basketball stopped becoming important. My freshman year when my girlfriend at the time and at Millersville told me she was pregnant. And at that point, I had to grow to fuck up. So it was.

That'll change the thing. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I, November of my sophomore year, my oldest son was born. I was 19 years old, a father. I was a quote-unquote statistic, a teenage father who wasn't supposed to make it. And, you know, you're supposed to drop out of school. And, you know, all of your dreams are over and just support your kid. But again, back to my mom. And actually, her mother, her mother and father, they both looked at both of us and said, all right, cool. You know, y'all got this. But we. We're going to take care of this for the next couple years. We're going to take care of this care for the next couple years. Y'all both going to graduate. That's one thing that's not going to happen. Y'all not going to drop out of school.

So that support a lot. But also, my mom said, but you going to get, you know, I was always a worker anyway. He's like, but, you know, you're going to take care of them too. Like, this isn't all on us. So make sure you get your ass a job or two. If you need it, you know, you got to take care of it. So at that point, I stopped playing ball. Crazy.

Stop playing ball. I literally worked two jobs from my sophomore year to my senior year. One was at a bank in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. One was at Kellogg's facility up there on the weekends. They would shut down the cereal, whatever that is, not treadmill. What do they call? Those mills? The assembly line?

The assembly line. Shut down the cereal assembly line on the weekends. and they bring people in and all we do is clean. We clean from 10 at night to 10 in the morning, 12 hours, two days a weekend and get paid doing it. So I had two jobs up at school and graduated in four years. I was an accounting major. So, you know, I didn't know what the fuck I wanted to do.

Like, it wasn't like I was like, I want to do finance. You know, I was an accounting major. So I, you know, it was like, all right, you know, let me, I guess numbers are where I need to be. I started working for the phone company. It was Bell Atlantic at the time. But it's Verizon now. And, you know, it just was like going through life, not knowing where I wanted to be. It was eliminating things that I didn't want to do.

That makes sense. So worked in the finance department with the phone company. I was like, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be. Once I got in there, I was like, no, this shit ain't for me. You know what I mean? after the finance department and the phone company was like, oh, people are going to

get their MBA. Like, you know, I can get another degree and that's going to help me make more money. Let me go get my MBA. You know, so I went to move to Washington, D.C. I went to George Washington University full-time. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So your parents are still like,

okay, so you want to get your MBA. Sorry, Sean. Go ahead and move to D.C. I moved to D.C. but by that time, I had graduated college. She had graduated college. Darren was living with her and her parents, but he was with me every weekend.

Wow. So I was traveling to get him, even when I lived in D.C., you know what I mean? I would drive up to Lancaster, pick him up, bring him in D.C. He'd be with me on the weekends. I'd take him back, drive back to D.C.

So he was with me pretty much every, if not every other weekend. But, yeah, she was living with her, she was living with her parents at the time. So, you know, went, got my degree, MBA and finance and investments. You know, okay, what are you supposed to do with that? You either go consulting or you go Wall Street. All right, let me try this Wall Street thing.

You know, went up, started, got a job at Citibank, moved to New York. I was a private banker at Citibank, you know, working with high net worth individuals. I had an office in New York. I had an office in Zurich, Switzerland. I was spending probably two weeks out of every month in Europe, two weeks out of every month in New York, living the dream, right? This I didn't know.

But I quickly realized I wasn't living my dream. You know, again, eliminating shit that I didn't want to do. That was my, that point of my life, that was four or five years. It was less about finding my direction. It was more about eliminating things that I didn't want to do. Again, I was spending two weeks in Europe and I had a son in Philadelphia. Like, I'm like, you know, I'm trying to be. be with my kid. Like, this ain't the life that I want to be, that I want to have.

What year was this? This was 97 into 98. So you were in the time when we were grinding? I was in Zurich. Yes, I was in Switzerland. Damn. Okay. I was in Switzerland. Wait. Did you see us when we were over there? Two weeks out of every month. No, we never, it never, you know, sort of, we never connected. Are you, at this time, are you talking to Tari? Y'all, like, talking about your lives and the-

Yeah, I mean, I mean, an American attest to this, like, during this point in the roots career, like, I was the cousin that would come around and hang in the dressing room and drink up their liquor and eat their food and hang. But then I was male decodecote, the original male decode. Wow. But I would bounce because I had the work in the morning. You know what I mean? Or I had school in the morning. But, you know, yeah, I was definitely, you know, still communicating and down. I always say I was because of that, because of me and Tariq, because of the Tariq Malik introduction, you know what I mean, all of that, I was, I'm part. I'm a root. I'm a root. You know what I mean? I was a root at that point. I just was a root in grad school and a route on Wall Street. Well, I think we met, I think the first, oh, distortion. I forgot. You're the eye in distortion and static.

Yes, are you not. Yes, I am. That's your eye, right. I was the star. I was the star of the first two roots. Yeah. I, you know, I forgot about distortion. I know you were. and proceed, but I forgot that Sean's eye is the eye that if you just Google of the YouTube distortion is that, yeah, get our number of makeup right, so that's Sean's eye.

I totally forgot that, John. So, okay, so at the time when me and Tarique are sort of elevating this thing past just being a high school rap group and name only and trying to

to get joins at the gallery. Yeah. Making, like, the early organic shit. Are you taking that seriously? Like, when Tarek's playing you, like, past the popcorn and, like, early organic things, is there anything sparking in your head, like, all right, he's doing something? Or did you just think, like, are they corny? No, absolutely taking it seriously.

You know, absolutely taking it seriously. When Tarek told me he was going to drop out of school and come back to Philly with you and concentrate on this group, and he's taking Malik. I was like, yo, go. You know what I mean? Because again, for me, a part of me wanted to be that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you remember in high school, I was rafing.

But it was at a time where nobody wasn't making money. It wasn't traveling. It was just like, you know, a professional hobby for lack of a better term. So for me to see y'all at that point, you know, focusing, committing, you know what I mean? I was the one on the phone fucking calling. Kobe at Power 909, like, why don't you play the roots? Why don't you play the roots? Why, you know, even before I work with you.

Before decades. I work with y'all. You know what I mean? So it was, I was absolutely taking it seriously and I was absolutely sort of believing in, you know, the future, the vision. You know what I mean? Of what y'all were forming at that time? Okay. So what did you have to do?

Because I'm trying to get into how you got into the profession that you are right now. So I know that, am I correct? Are we your first client? Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, I'll give you two words. How messy were we at the time when you came aboard? Two words. Two words as to how I got into this business.

The words are Richard Nichols. Okay. So while I'm being the cousin that's smoking up your weed and drinking your liquor. I used to smoke weed. You know what I mean? Me and Rich on the side were forming a relationship because I'm also the cousin that's in grad school and, you know what I mean, handling his business. You know what I mean? So rich as all of you who know rich, as a, you know, he was a visionary and he could see things before you could see him,

right? So I think during those times where I'm building, I'm just in the back and we just talking and arguing about shit and he's schooling me about life and, you know, why, you know, MBAs don't mean shit in the real world and, you know, all of Rich's philosophies, you know, he's really, he's really testing me. You know what I mean? He's really testing me. And I remember it was 1998. I was at the bank and he called me. He was like, yo,

where you at? And I was like, I'm at the bank. I'm at my job. He was like, yo, come by the studio after. He was at, remember Sony Studios was on 54th Street. My bank was on 53rd. And Lex. So I walked up there, walked in the studio. It was him and I think it might have been like Axel or somebody back in the day. One of the

engineers. Our engineer, absolutely. honest. Yeah. And, um, Puffy's been got. He had, you know, two bottles of red wine, you know what I mean?

We sat there, drank a little bit, smoked a little bit, and nobody else was in there. I think he was, he was, he was mixing like a jazz frat nasty song

or something like that. And, uh, he was like, yo, I hate this shit. And I was like, okay, what do you,

what do you hate? And he was like, this fucking management shit. Like, I hate it. And I'm looking at him, like, what is he talking about?

Um, and he was like, like, you know, just dealing with the agents, dealing with these dudes and their money, you know, dealing with the record label and budgets and all of that shit. He was like, I fucking hate it. Like, that's the part of my job that I hate. And anyone that knows Rich, you know,

he's the ultimate visionary, the ultimate creative, you know, the fifth beetle to, you know, to really the, you know, the third and fourth beetle to Tariq's first and second. From a creative perspective and a visionary perspective. And what he was saying to me was, this part of my job is weighing me down. So I just was like, how can I help?

He's like, all right, this is what we're going to do? He gave me Carol Lewis's number. I remember he gave me Carol Lewis's number. He gave me somebody's number at the label. And he gave me Mioshi's number. And he was like, yo, call these three. I'm going to tell him you calling them. And then you can take this shit over.

And I was like, but Rich, I got a dog. I got a job. Like, I got a real fucking job down the street. You know what I mean? He was like, don't worry about you, going to figure it out. You're going to figure it out. I literally left the studio as, you know, Rich's partner that night.

And, you know, I didn't know shit about the music business, but, you know, I knew finance, right? And I knew business. And I knew the rhythm of back to my mom, right? I knew the rhythm of a negotiation and the rhythm of a conversation. And I work at the bank. And I know how to deal with these white folks. You know what I mean?

So there's no different than, you know, someone I'm dealing with the bank and someone I'm dealing with the label. So I sort of fell back on the experience that I had my entire life. And Rich gave me the opportunity to figure it out. And it was months of me figuring it out, right? And at a certain point, it went from me doing two hours of Roos work and 10 hours of bank work.

And then at a certain point, I'd be in my office to 10 at night and realize, like, yeah, I haven't done shit for my bank. Like, I just wanted a phone, negotiating tour deals. and figuring out, you know, mileage from London to, you know, whatever, you know, what's the mileage and what's the gas caught? You know, I've been doing that. So I got to a point where I was like, yo, I, again, going back to my earlier point, I found what I'm supposed to. I've eliminated all of these things that I wasn't, I wasn't interested in, and I finally found my passion. Or I should say my passion found me.

And I had to make a decision. You know, I was making six figures at the man. I was 20, this was 97. I was 25 years old, 26, 25 years old, making six figures at the bank, you know. And but I went and talked to my mom again, you know, my rock. And I said, mom, I'm going to work with, I'm going to work for Tariq and his group. You know what I mean?

My mom was like, oh, really? And she's like, yeah. He's like, what are you going to do? I said, I don't know. Like, you know, I'm going to be rich as partner and we're going to figure this out. And, you know, my mom being an entrepreneur that she is, she was like, look, as long as you can take care of that boy, talking about Darren.

As long as you can take care of that boy, you pay your rent, go ahead, do you. You know, so I said a prayer and jumped out on faith. And I remember my first year,

I was making six figures in the bank, and my first year with the roots, I made $27,000. And, you know, took a huge fake cut, but I always said, the poverty,

the last day that I worked, the last day that I worked in my life, the last time I worked a job was that last day at the bank. You know what I mean? Like that's the last job I've ever had. The last day I woke up and said, I have to go to work,

was that day in April of 1998 when I left the bank. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience

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Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know.

I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The thing is, is that, all right, can you explain to our listeners what does it entail? Now, I'll give the pre-story, at least with us. the way that we were living very hand to mouth. You would do a show, nine times out of ten, we get paid in cash. Even though our system was a little bit different, it was more of a socialist system.

Like, you get to ripi, you get to ripi, you get to, you know, that sort of thing and had like a little allowance. But, you know, the first time I got my advance, you know, you would have killed me. Like I spent that shit in, three weeks. My band's going to get. What did you get?

About, let's see, $7,000 worth of records. Yeah. A bunch of Pumas. You know, I was Billy Jean. I was, I was throwing. You say he was giving booms money. I was throwing.

I was like a hundred bucks. Trying to watch it. Joins like glow in the dark. Like, yeah, I was just, you know, Sean hates this story. But that. Look, he's pissed. He's already mad. Sean looked at this.

It's the truth. That's what, like 30 years later. 30 years later, right. You just, you don't think about, like, I wasn't thinking about, like, am I, like, back in 1993, like, 1999 seemed like the future. Like, oh, we won't be here. That sort of thing. You know, even coming back from the proceed video, my dad was still like, you got to get a real job. Like, I didn't see this as.

a sustainable future. I'm so curious how he tuned it up. Yes, I'm sorry. Can you explain how an organization with at least 13 people because we rolled like, you know, there's a ban, there's, you know, staff and all those things. Can you just basically, because a lot of people

do want to know how the route's been able to be a thing. With stand. Yeah, thrive and be a thing when on paper, we technically shouldn't have. Yeah, like, what was those first changes that you made, Sean? Like, you came in, you was like, oh, no, we got to do this. We got to. I mean, no, no more Puma.

Well, Sean also would threaten to fire me if I ever fucked up. I don't know if we'll go into his clients that have, no, if you, I mean, Sean has me shell shock. Like, if I spend anything over, like, my 1999 budget, I'm still like, hey, can I buy this bicycle or, you know? It's an interesting thing. It's an interesting thing. Because, again, coming into this business, I didn't grow up in this business. So I didn't know the norms and the roles and the titles and the things, right? So when I started working with rich, you know, I remember we had a conversation.

We were in the studio one day and I asked them. I said, you know, what's my title? and he was like, I don't know. He's like, what's my title? You know what I mean? And I was like, true. I was like facts. And we sort of settled on these titles of creative manager and business manager, right?

But it extent, my role extended beyond what a traditional business manager did. Like a business manager in the business is pretty much your accountant, you know, or your financial advisor, that person builds your financial team. It's the hub of your financial team. So that person is the one who interacts with your tax accountant and interacts with your investment team and interacts with your insurance team and your bank and all of the financial activity around your business. He's your CFO. For me, that was an easy sort of title because that is similar to the role that I played at the bank as a private banker. That's what I was doing for high net worth individuals. was the hub of all of their financial activity and using specialists in the bank and bringing them in.

So I was like, cool. But my role with the roots was more. You know, I was also the person that was responsible for touring, you know, tour strategy, tour budgets, tour execution, you know, every aspect of a tour. You know, Ritz sort of handed that to me. And again, that's not your traditional business manager. You know what I mean? It's sort of part of the management job. So where, where me and Rich sort of had our delineation was all of the business aspects of management, dealing with the label. Like most business managers don't deal with the label, but I was dealing with managing recording budgets and that types of thing,

while Rich was dealing with making the records. The maker, yeah, he was in the studio. You know, so those first couple years was a period of adjustment for both of us because I came in on my flat shoe ignorant to the business shit. And Rich, although he was the, you know, upon first sight, or if you get in an argument with him, you know what I mean? You think he's the roughest, toughest, you know, dude in the room. Rich was a softy. Like, Rich was like, Dr. Yes.

Like, anybody can get anything out of Rich. You know what I mean? So for me, it was like, I was like, duh, why do we have all of these people around? Like, he's like, oh, because we're developing this and this and that and this and that. We literally argue back and forth about the usefulness of individuals or why are we paying this out of the roots tour money. Like, why is this person getting their rent paid out of the roots tour money? Like, are they not self-sufficient?

Like, is this, do we have a deal with these people? So I came in and sort of instituted traditional business structure and a non-traditional business, or at least tried to institute traditional business structure and a non-traditional business. And it was the yin and yang of Rich's creative vision as well as socialist mentality mixed with my more capitalist mentality and hardcore vision that sort of formed this nice sort of pocket that we ended up in, right? We ended up with the Roots crew, but I also made sure that the roots were cool. You know what I mean? If we just would have went with the Roots crew, the roots probably wouldn't be here by now.

So I made sure like, yes, we got the Roots crew, you know what I mean? Which is, you know, planting seeds for a lot of other people. But I'm going to make sure that the roots are cool as well because that is the bus that we're all riding. And it was that sort of that back and forth up front, which was a lot of back and forth that allowed us to build the foundation, I'd say, by like 2002, 2002, three, when we start sort of rolling, post things fall apart, post-Grami, that sort of allowed us to take this, you know, this, this beautiful journey that we've been on for the last couple decades. Did you know you be the bad cop to Rich's Good Cop? I'm sorry, Amir. I mean, at times I was, most of the times I was the more, I was the financial bad cop to Rich's Good Cop.

But I also was the creative and business good cop sometimes to Rich's Bad Cop. Like we played Ying and Yonge. Yang really well, especially with, you know, the label side or promoters or, you know, creatives, you know what I mean? We played our good cop back cop really well. But definitely because of my background, you know, I played the financial bad cop and Rich played the, you know, good cop just because he was Dr. Yes a lot of times. But, but we, we balanced each other well. And I think, you know, at the end, we, at the end, we, you know, we were both managers. You know what I mean? Like I just said business manager without knowing that business manager was actually a role in the

music business. I just like, okay, I handled the business you handled a creative. So I ran with that, but I think that's the reason why we were able to lay the foundation for the roots. And I said this before in other interviews. We were also realistic, yo. Like, at the

end of the day, our goal was can these guys make enough money so that they don't have to go get a day job, you know, and make money and live off of their art. You know what I mean? That was our goal. It wasn't like, let's, let's make sure that Amir can drop around in the Maybach and Tarreek can have 25 cribs around the country. It was like, yo, can they pay their rent? Can they give their mom some money when

she needed for a light bill? Can they take a lady out on a date? You know what I mean? And, and then can we go and do it all again? So it was like having realistic goals, understanding what a blue collar musician is. Because again, Rich came from, rich came from, that jazz world where it was, you know, blue-collar musicians. You know what I mean? So understanding that, you know, a blue-collar musician is, you know, living off of his or her art. And they're enjoying that versus going and having a substitute teach

and, you know, playing a jazz clubs at night when they can. You know what I mean? So it was that sort of mentality that we always had. And obviously, those goals increased over the, as we got more successful, you know, those, but we've always, even to this day, you know, I'll, you know, it's funny, I'll be in these rooms and they be like, I love the roots. I really do love the roots. And I'm like, name fucking three root songs, though. You love the concept of the roots. You know what I mean?

The idea, right. Name three root songs. You know what I mean? But again, for us, that's always been our goal was how can we take these virtuoso, you know, performers, you know, Tarika and Amir, how can we make sure that, you know, they can, they can create a living off of their talent because they're super fucking talented and there's nobody out there better than them. They may never create a hit record ever in life, but that shouldn't define, you know, their future and their ability to earn a living off of their life. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So you mentioned the socialist system versus the capitalist system of which, you know, I think people think I'm, super exaggerated when I said, like, we, we really didn't start, as far as me and Tariq, like really put ourselves on payroll until, like, later, later, later in life.

Whereas. Absolutely. Before it was very socialist, like, okay, again, your rank gets paid and your car bill gets paid, and that's how. And you kind of came in and cleaned up shop, like, okay, well, why we've, so do you, in hindsight, do you feel as though that I think the socialist position sort of kept us pure

but did you agree with it? Because the thing is that... I agree with aspects of it. You know what I mean? I agree with aspects of it, but I think the way that things were set up, people were taking advantage of it and people were taking advantage of rich.

And I think he realized that too. I think that's why I got that call that night from the bank. But I agree with the aspects of it. I agreed with the sort of creative community that was being built. And for any community, the one thing that in any creative community, any sort of musical movement, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know, the one thing that's needed in order to breathe life into it is infrastructure. Otherwise, it's just some one-off musicians and artists fucking, you know,

y'all just doing shit. Yeah, he's just fucking doing shit, right? It's not a community or a movement without any infrastructure. And what Rich had was the vision to say, okay, we're going to provide that infrastructure, right? And without that creative infrastructure, without that infrastructure, the community slash movement, slash everything that was happening, that beautiful times that we all had from, you know, 97 to 2004, where all of this shit, you know, really sort of took. took off, it wouldn't have existed without Richard Nichols, you know, creating that infrastructure.

However, the problem when you have, you know, infrastructure without structure is that infrastructure would have eaten itself alive because there would have been too many people eating at that same apple. You know what I mean? At some point, you've got to be like, I'm cutting this apple in half. Tarika and the mirror, this is your half. Everybody else, this is your half. If y'all can't survive off of this, oh, so be it. You know what I mean?

So that's where, you know, the balance of being rich, at least in that time, was that I provided the structure for the infrastructure. But if it were just my way, it probably wouldn't have survived either because I was too hardcore, you know, this is about Tariq and the mirror. And I think that without the community, I think y'all thrived off of the community as well. Think about that. There would have been no black lily. And think about all the people that came from there. That's right. Okay, player.

Yeah, OK player, Black Lily. Yeah. Even the, you know, the, the, the host, you know, Taliban Qaili, kind of, like, all of that, not that they were core, but they were part of the orbit that everybody sort of, you know, revolved around. So I think, you know, to your point of me, I think this, I agree with a portion of, you know, the socialist, you know, ideas. And I think they were part of the reason why we've been able to survive. But, you know, if we just would have stuck with that, I don't think we'd be where we are today. Okay. Can you talk about the growing, I guess the first two ventures that we really put our eggs into, those baskets, was OK Player and Black Lily.

Now, I remember the beginning, I think I had to really sell you and Rich that this was going to to be the future. Like, I don't think Rich really saw, you know, what the hell me and Anne's was doing, you know, in the bedroom trying to build the thing. Which was the easier sell, Amir? Which was the easier sell between and two? It was weird, because, you know, I was done, before it was Black Lily was the Jam sessions. Right.

And so, you know, the second, third week, you know what I'm saying? like really I'm not exaggerating like Beanie, Siegel is putting out blunt ashes on the floor like everyone in the room is a bona fide celebrity you know what I'm saying? Music really was the pizza guy

you know what I'm saying? But just at the time there were regular people using my living room as their hub and I got to live on the block of neighbors looking at me like I'm crazy like why I'll jam until two and the more that sort of thing so I

you know I went along with the gym Amir checked out. He checked out of the Jam sessions. Yeah, I called the police on us. I was Karen. All about the easy, Karen, the Karen in your own? Yes. So, my heart was with OK player simply because, like,

I just envision a future where there was a virtual playground that I could contact. Okay, Amir. And so, but it was a hard sell for Rich and Sean. And there have been many times where, like, they were just like, dog, let this go, like, let it die. And so at what point did you get that this might be something futuristic? So we're talking okay player? We're talking Black Lidler, which one are you going to talk first?

Either or, because I feel like that's intramed to your story. Yeah, so for, let's talk Black Lillies first. So Black Lilley, Amir told the story a thousand percent correct. Like Black Lilley started off as the JAN, the Roots Jam session. The Roots Jam sessions are epic, you know, have been done. for years, you know, in various places, started in Amir's living room and, you know, sort of grew from there.

When the Roots Jam session started happening in clubs, I forget the club that Malik Yoba used to have in New York. Remember we did that club? Damn. On the second street. You know, we went from there. Then we went down to the wetlands. But the problem was it became a all fucking male rappers. You know what I mean? It was like

a line at the side of the stage of you know, dudes trying to get up and spit. And you know, in the community that the roots had formed, you know, there were female artists. Most notably, the Jazzy Fantaski's. And they would either never get an opportunity to get

on stage or they'll get on and, you know, sing, you know, four bars of a hook while some random rappers, you know, Ratt of 86 bars. Or they'd get on at the end of the night after four hours of energy gone and people were leaving, right?

So Rich and Mercedes and Tracy came up with the idea of doing their own jam session. And, you know, Black Lily, I remember it was, you know, sort of a play on Lilifair. Because Lilifere was that thing back then. It was sort of a play on Lilifera

that came up with the name. and the Jazzy Fat Nasty was also signed to the Roots label, Motive Records. And rather than, you know, and it wasn't a huge, like, marketing budget that they were given at that time. So, you know, they came up with the idea of saying, you know, rather than randomly spend our money on, you know, radio promotion, which who knows what that actually gets you, especially when you're an emerging artist, how about we pool this money and, again, back to the C word, create this community? you know, let's build this brand, let's build this event, this weekly event that started off in New York, this weekly event. So, you know, called Black Lily, which builds from the energy and style and aura of the Roots Jam sessions, right? So Black Lily was built off of that. It was, you know, here is the next iteration of the Roots Jam session. And it was funded by, initially by the Jazzy Fanasky's marketing budget. I remember that first event we had was at the wetlands, and it was probably like 15 people there.

You know what I mean? But it was dope. It was dope. You know, and we just continued on the weekly basis, and the crowd started coming and people heard about it. It was free. That was the other part of it.

Early on, it was free. You know what I mean? We just had the pre-social media. It's like market, you know, to get people there, but it was free. And that free event just started growing. And then it eventually moved from New York to Philly to the Five Spot, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it grew to become, you know, what people know is Black Lily.

It still was never more than $10. It still never was more than $10. And it became, you know, at a certain point. So post-Jazzy Fat Nasty's budget funding it, you know, Richard Nichols' commissions were funding it. Because, again, you got to realize this is post-Shon G coming into the fold. Right. So it wasn't like, we are using his roots money to fund this Black Lowy thing. You know what I mean? You know, we got enough, we got enough things that the Roots money is funding over here.

So, you know, Rich, you know, mainly Rich, quite honestly, was using the commissions that he was making off of the roots to fund that five-spot version of the Black Lilley. And to your point, like, yeah, we would, you know, we charged at the door $10, but that was barely, you know, covering backline. You know what I mean? So we lost a lot of money But you know A lot of big musical movements If you look at them in history You know, they didn't make money

You know what I mean? They created They created culture But it wasn't it wasn't a profit center Yeah, it's like we got Jasmine Sullivan And flow into yeah Yeah absolutely Absolutely so that's the history

Of sort of black people Kindred the family soul Absolutely They held us down Like Kind of the family soul we went on the okay play. So Black Lily was popping.

Then we built an okay player tour. And we took all of the Black Lily artists on the okay player tour. So then what happens to Black Lily when they're all out on the road for two, three months? Kendra the family soul, but teen in Asia,

and their band, which at the time, again, they ain't had no money at the time. So they just picked musicians that were passionate about their vision. You know what I mean? And Toy Story Story. And, and, and, and, At the beginning, you know, I remember me and Rich would look at them like, they sloppy as shit.

Like not for Tina Angel, but they're bad. It was just sloppiness. But after four, five, six, seven, ten weeks, you know what I mean? Everybody comes back off the road. They owned Black Lily. They defined Black Lily. They were the reason to come, yes. The roots would come and perform at Black Lily.

And people would be like, ah, that's cool. That's cool. Where's Kenzie? You know what I mean? Where is Penn? You know what I mean? Yeah. And they still, I mean, again,

shout out to both of them because they still, one of my favorite groups. Like, I love them. But yeah, so that's the Black Willie story. I mean, okay, player, you're right. You and Ann had division. I stepped in early on because I just wanted to make sure there was some business structure there.

Again, I didn't want this to be, okay, Amir starting this business in his bedroom, and, you know, he's going to eat into our roots profits and we won't be able to pay for our tour bus on the next tour because, you know, he's buying everybody computers. You know what I mean? Not like you.

But what y'all built was immediately special. Again, the community that formed around OK players. Oh, my God. The lesson. The little brother, the foreign exchange. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the relationships and the music and the artists

and, you know, I think Will I am was like, yo, y'all would, y'all would have first Facebook. You know what I mean? Like, he said something like that, y'all were the first Facebook because it was a, it was all about the community. It was less about, you know, artist's websites. Like, that's how we went into it, right?

It was like, let's build this website. Let's build that website. But, you know, you and, you and, you and ang, your participation in Angie's, you know, sort of vision and craziness, you know what I mean? We're able to attract this sort of community that, you know, has continued to grow and build. So how did, what were the first steps into you really building, coming outside of just keeping us, you know, keeping the lights on for us.

And then you, like, what's next level? There's two phases of your empire. at least as far as tour managing other artists. What was your first role in tour managing artists that weren't roots based? So, so. Or business managing.

Again, I don't, and this is a study in my life. Like the title, you know, my title, I don't know what it is. Like, I call myself a manager. You know, that's what I say, a manager, because people kind of understand that. but I do more, you know, it's not your traditional memory. Anyhow, my second client was a young lady out of Philadelphia that I've known since high school by the name of Jill Scott.

Jill and I went to brother-sister high schools. I went to Central. She went to Girls High. I knew her in high school. We went on a, we went on a, we went on a prom together. Yes, okay, because she's already told this story. We need to sound the same. Y'all went to the prom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You went to the prom. She went on a prom. prom with a guy. I went on a prom with a young lady after the, you know how after the prom you go to Great Adventures. So we were all

at the prom together. Then the next day it was like four couples that were supposed to go to Great Adventure together. It was the three couples and me. My date didn't go with me. So it was, you know, I was the third wheel or whatever you want to call it. So, you know, we

hung out then and you know, I sort of lost touch with Jill after high school. Like, you know what I mean? She was the girl's high joan. And I remember having a cassette, Tariq giving me a cassette with the original You Got Me beat and Hook. And on the cassette was written The Jill Song. I don't know if you remember this, Amir. We used to be called The Jil song.

Yeah, the Jil song, right. Yeah, it was. And, you know, I just ignored it. I was like, oh, the Jill song. I was like, yo, that Jil song banging. Like, yo, that Jil song, you got to do that Jil song. Anyhow, at a certain point, we were on tour. and we were at whatever that venue

that is across the street from Fenway Park in Boston. You know that little club, Fonte, that's right across the street from Fenway Park? I forget that name. It's not the Middle East. It's not the Middle East. I don't know what it.

It's right across the Fenway Park, but I remember we were in sound chat. We were in SoundShatch, and I heard this voice from the stage, and it was Jill singing, You got me hooked. And I walked out and I'm looking at her. She's looking at me.

And I'm like, Jill, Scott, like, you are the Jill song? And she was like, Sean G. You know what I mean? And that was like the first time we connected was at Soundcheck when she came out, you know, doing some shows with the roots. And, you know, her husband or ex-husband now was managing her at the time. And she had her and her lawyer had to negotiate with me the deal terms to get on that tour. And, you know, I think she had, you know, a lawyer that was like, you know, she was a lawyer, but she wasn't an entertainment lawyer. It might have been her girlfriend or something.

You know what I mean? That happened to be a lawyer. And she was asking for all kinds of shit. Like, I was like, yo, sweetheart. Like, do you understand what this is? Like, I'm going to give you this amount of money and this is how we try. Like, you know what I mean? She's like, well, she needs to fly between each.

I'm like, yeah, we play in House of Blues. Like, what are you talking about? But because Jill was my friend, because she was my friend or, you know, I had known her. I called her and Lisell and said, yo, I'm just going to give you a piece of advice. Like, this lawyer, she has no idea what she's talking about. And she may ruin relationships. Yeah, she's going to fuck you off y'all. If it wasn't me, I would be like, fuck this girl.

Let's just, you know, we'll figure out how we do this. This girl is crazy, right? So I think her and Aiselle appreciated that. And, you know, a few months, you know, then, you know, Jill became, you know, she started putting her record together and touch a jazz and, you know, all of that. And her record came out July of 2000, July of 2000. to die of 2000. And I think later in the fall,

like she was, you know, everything, she was grinding or whatever. And they called me and was like, yo, can you come be a part of our team? And I was like, what do you want me to do? Again, it's almost like a Richard Nichols call. I was like, what do you want me to do? And they were like, you know, we don't know.

We don't know what we're doing. You know, you work with the roots. You know, you know what you're doing. And we trust you. That was the basic premise of our relationship. The call and the start of our relationship. So again, I came in leveraging what I knew, finance. So, you know, I stepped in and looked at the money and tried to make sure everything was

structured, right, business-wise. I came in and immediately took over all the touring because I was the Roots guy. We were doing 200 shows a year. Like, this is how you organize your touring, et cetera, et cetera. And I just came in playing my role. Again, I never had a title with Jill. We always called ourselves business partners because, you know, she went through a couple managers and then she's like this manager shit ain't working for me.

You know, me and Sean, we just rock together. We're business partners. But people call me her business manager early. People to this day call me her manager, but we're just business partners. We just build, right? We build together. So Jill was my second client. And, you know, thankfully both the roots in my first two clients, I always say,

will be my last two clients. You know what I mean? We've been together, you know, multiple decades. My third client, though, is the one who sort of set my trajectory to where, you know, the next phase of my business was. And that was, you know, me getting a call from Don to West in 2004 when Kanye had college dropout and wanted to do a tour. You know, he wanted to do a tour. He wanted to do a college tour. And nobody on his team had ever worked with a touring artist. You know, his managers at the

time, G. Roberson, who's my partner for. It was a hip-hop. Al Branch, hip-hop. At that point, all they managed was producers. They had Just Blaze. They had Yay. Remember, Yeh was a superstar producer before he became an artist. So they were like the managers of all the superstar producers.

So they ain't no shit about Tori. The business manager that he had, Kellogg and Ambelson, I believe, was the company in L.A., they were filming TV. You know, they didn't have any music poke. So they didn't know much about Toll. And his agent was a lady named Kara Luke's. And Kara told them, you need to talk to this guy. Sean G. Because he

can organize, strategize, he'll have your shit right. So they flew me out to L.A. interview like three people and they hired me on the spot. Can I ask? Because you mentioned that we did 200 shows a year. Was that common knowledge?

Like, was that common knowledge in the business of like how the roots keep like able to, you know, is that normal for a music act to do that many shows? Like, what a normal act do in terms

like what is it what does a gang star do in that time period? So so you gotta think about the time period that we're in in the time period that we're in touring wasn't sexy. You know what I mean? Touring wasn't a thing especially in black culture. You know

in the in the all rock world which is you know alt rock slash jam baron world which you know Amir is was our model. That's the model that me you rich and Tarek sort of built around was like, you know, the alt rock or jam band model. Yeah.

Doing 50, 250 shows a year was normal with that world. Because number one, these bands grew up as fans of bands. You know what I mean? So it was part of their culture. Their favorite bands when they were growing up

and playing that guitar in their garage or wherever the fuck they learn their music, their favorite bands they experienced live. So live was part of their culture. Our culture, you know, as consumers of black music, you know, especially hip hop, live wasn't a thing. So we were a huge anomaly within hip hop by doing all those shows. You know, hip-hop tour was, you know, a bad boy versus, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? If you're not in a big arena with pyro and all of that, you're not really touring. You know what I mean?

You're going after. It was like French Fest or whatever. Yeah, you're going after your big publishing checks. Are you going after your Adidas deal? Or you going to get another advance from a label. That's how you made your money. Like, you weren't making money on the road. Who did that? So for us, we were an anomaly in hip-hop.

We were an anomaly in black music by doing all of that. So from an overall artist's perspective and fan perspective, they probably didn't recognize it. But the business people in the music industry recognized it. The label heads, the label execs. the agents, you know what I mean? They all realize like, oh shit, the roots. You know what I mean?

They're doing their thing and they're a live bang. So that's how I was recognized through Kara Lewis to be recommended to Kanye because of the business that we built by doing 200 shows a year and making sure it's organized, making sure we're, you know, again, simple shit. We're on time. You know what I mean? We perform. You know, we collect our money.

We pay our bills. and we wake up and do it another day. You know what I mean? That's sort of back to the blue collar, that blue collar musician, you know, strategy. Let me ask one more question inside of this question. Yeah. Again, like, if you look at marketplaces,

and maybe this is more of an agent question, maybe this is the Carol Lewis episode. I don't know, but if, as far as I know, there's really around the world, where would you say that there's maybe at the most, those 23 markets for us. For the roots? Use us as an example.

Like, how many markets are there? And how are we able to pass? Like, is it normal for an artist? Because that's the thing I want to convey to people. Is it normal for an artist to play New York City seven times a year and still sell out? Like, how are you? I just had

this conversation with, I had this conversation with an agent. Because, again, you got to think about the time frame that we were in versus the time frame now. Like right now, you know, a lot of, because, you know, I'm sure we'll get to the lot of my life, but because I'm working with artists from a different perspective, you know, it is short-term gratification. It is, yo, I played the House of Blues last tour. Why aren't I playing, you know, Hammerstein Ballroom this tour?

And I want to be in Madison Square Garden by my next album. You know what I mean? and I'm like, yo, y'all fucking tripping. It's in 2020. That does not happen. Yeah, we, from a root's perspective, we played the House of Blues for 15 years. And we're happy about it. And how we increased our financial was, instead of trying to reach too far on venue size,

we would just increase the ticket price every time we came back. You know what I mean? So that's how we went from $10,000 a show to $12, 5. You better save it at New Year's Eve show. So that part of it, I mean, you know, we don't, you know, we, there are probably, you know, a good 30 to 35 cities. If you're a popular hip-hop artist in the U.S. that you can play. If you're, if you're Drake, you know, you can go into Des Moines, Iowa,

and Eugene Oregon and, you know, I mean, Tallahassee, Florida. And, you know, you can hit those 40 and 50, you know, tertiary or whatever is beyond tertiary markets. But for most successful artists, you're between 25 and 30 markets in the U.S. In Europe, you know, you have multiple markets in the U.K., you know, depending on, again, how big you are from a pop culture perspective, from a pop culture perspective, depending on how big you are. You have multiple marks in the UK. And then you have a handful in continental Europe, you know, in the continent. Like, it's not like you're going too deep. You know, you're basically

one city per country. You know what I mean? You're doing Amsterdam. You're doing, you know, Paris. You might do, yeah, you know, you might hit, like, Helsinki. Like, you might be, like, Helsinki. You know what I mean? Yeah. Germany, you can hit two or three cities, you know what I mean? Berlin and you got motherfucking, like Berlin and maybe, dozed off. Yeah. Duce a door. kind of went up last time I went, but like, yeah, you got, Berlin can go. Berlin to go. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, you know, there's, there isn't a ton.

Now, what's, what's open the market is festivals. Because you have festivals in these secondary cities in Europe now, where you can go to Leon or whatever to now. You can go to, um, to, to Portugal, you know, where you can't go do a hard ticket date there. You can go. So that's opened up the amount of markets is the sort of festival economy over the last decade. But, you know, there is a limited amount of markets.

And for us, what we did is we continue to just go back and play markets because you build that audience one show, one fan at a time. You know what I mean? And when it's time to grow, you'll know when it's time to grow. And it should be noted by this time, by the time you get to Kanye, you're not a one-man band, right? Like, there's like an office, maybe you've got some help or are you still? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right around Jill, right around Jill, when I picked up Jill, I started, you know, I hired two people.

You know what I mean? I was like, okay, now I got a company. you know, when it was the roots, it was just me. I was just trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. When I got Jill, I was like, oh, I got a business. I got two clients, you know, by the time I got the Kanye, you know, I never really stacked up to, you know, a thousand people in 16 offices. It's always been a pretty small operation.

But, yeah, yeah, yeah. So by the time I got the Kanye, you know, I had some folks with it. Okay, so in building your clientele, which, you know, Drake is, Well, I mean, more than that, name all your clients because I know Latifah, and again, I know you don't have a title, but as far as I know, if money

is coming down the pike to you, you are in some, you're under that management umbrella. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, it was, so that's what I say so with Kanye, I had this weird role of, I wasn't his manager, I wasn't his business manager, I wasn't his agent,

I wasn't his, you know, all of that. I was just a consultant touring. So I, you know, I work with them. We, we, we worked on that very first college tour, which was the school spirit tour from college dropout. And, you know, and when I say worked, I mean, I felt it was more tour strategy. Like, I hired the tour manager. I hired the production manager. I hired the whole team. And I worked with the agent and worked with Yeh on the overall strategy. And, you know, I started with him on colleges. And I think the last tour I did with him was Watch the Throne, you know, with him and Jay.

And, you know, I sort of took that trajectory, went from, with him, I went from clubs to theaters to amphitheaters to arenas, the stadiums, you know, and I learned the big business of touring through my experience with Kanye West. As I started building that reputation, other, and building my relationships, other artists started coming to me for that work. So G. Roberson, his next client after Kanye in 2007 was Louis Wayne. And again, this is 2007, 2008, Louis Wayne. You know, he releases Carter III.

Carter III, the biggest record in the world, a million of first week. So he's no longer some hood-ass hip-hop artist. He's a driving pop culture. But his touring was on some hood shit. Like, he was still getting brown paper bags from the strip clubs. You know what I mean? So G was like, yo, my guy just did. the glow and a dark tour with Kanye,

we need to bring them over here. So G. and Cortez hired me again. I wasn't Wayne's business manager. I wasn't Wayne's manager. I was just this guy who came in and built his touring business. And we went from, you know, strip clubs and brown paper bags to, you know,

I Am Music Tour, which is the first tour. And we did I Am Still music tour after he got out of jail and we've done America's Most Wanted and, you know, built that up. On that first tour with Wayne, you know, he had a bunch of art. that he was developing on this random tour bus. And on that bus was Drake, a young gentleman by the name of Drake and a young lady by the

name of Nicky Minaj, amongst others. So, you know, I started working with G. and Cortez and I started working with Drake early on and built the sort of infrastructure for him. And for me, my role was touring. You know what I mean? And I helped, you know, with his agent, Rob Gidd's helped build his early touring career. I think the last tour I did with Drake was Club Paradise. when I had, you know, just how the puzzle works.

On the first European tour that I did with Drake, Drake chose an opener by the name of Jay Cole. You know, Jay Cole and his management team, I knew his management team. They knew my wife, through the business. And, you know, on that Europe tour, we built. And they called me in London. They called me in their dressing room.

It was like, Sean, I need you to help us. You know, what you're doing with Drake, what you did with Wayne, I need you to help us. So I worked with Cole from the Friday night light. period on up through his first arena tour. I mean, a lot of the roles that I play with artists, because I'm building their touring, I'm also educating their team.

So I sort of work myself out of a job at certain points in times. You know what I mean? Like, you know, when Drake's contract was up with Cortez and G, the management company, you know what I mean? And his management team who came on as bright-eyed, you know, you know, sort of naive Toronto kids, but super smart, you know what I mean? They

come, ask me questions, they see how the shit run. Like, it's not rocket science. It's like if you're smart and you pay attention to detail, you can do this, right? So at a certain point, they're like, all right, cool, Sean, I'm good, you know what I mean? Jay Cole, same same thing. Jay Cole's crew, I love them. You know what I mean? I love them because they were

super smart. They thought out of the box. They were always individuals. Never really followed a pattern. Eve and Adam. We would always talk about touring and vision and Rob Gibbs again, their agent. And at a certain point, they were like, oh, you know, your resources are my resources now, right? I know I know a rigor, what a rigor does. And I know I can call the rigor, you know, who hung my life's last tour.

So I don't need, you know, but I don't mind that because I think that's part of, you know, I'll use the L word, but that's part of sort of my legacy in the business is I am teaching. I am teaching these young, you know, super smart future executives. the touring game. So I went from Cole to Nikki, Wayne, Cole, Nikki, Drake, you know, and a few others. But that was sort of the trajectory.

And also I think, you're teaching them how to do it for themselves, not by themselves, but, you know, teaching them like, yo, you can do this for yourself, you know what I'm saying,

the resources that are available to you. Absolutely. Now, without it being all got you journalism, isk, no no no no no this what can you talk about managing expectations you can actually use me as an example i mean i would like to think that you know you've only had maybe two or three of those 4 a m mirror phone calls of what the fuck all right one time i misread a price on a very on a particular or on a simple item,

a mattress. On that W mattress? Well, I, okay, I graduated from the W mattress. Oh, shit, okay. No, Rich put me on to Haston. Rich. Rich put me on a Haston's mattresses,

and they're extremely pricey. Google. The thing was, they saw me walking in the door. They must have thought it was a football player played with a Giants or whatever. I don't know. and, you know, I came in,

like, I will be the first to tell you that. Shut up, Laya. Sorry, you got a king, because I'm just looking at a queen and I'm like, goddamn. Right, so they take, what kind of, what kind of, what kind of matches is this? Really expensive ones. When you go into Hastings, they have oomots.

They, they, they, they, they, they, okay, that's all you need to know. They're supposed to, they're supposed to, you try one bed, and I still feel like they lie, I feel like they lie to you and make that, initial cheap bed, so uber comfortable, then your mind's like, hey, let me try that one over there. What's that over there?

And you're like, oh, that's just, you know, maybe 200 more. And you're getting that one. And then they got you. Then they're like, all right, let's go to next one. Let's go to the next one. These motherfuckers actually just brought me to the top of the line, John.

I didn't look at the price. Because, again, Rich is like, yo, I think, I think you'll, you know, you have better circulation for your legs. Dada-da-da-da-da. If you get this Hasten's bed. So I got in the bed, fell asleep. Like, you lay down for 10 minutes and then I say, yeah, I fell asleep.

Okay, great. I'll take it. And here's my office number. And thanks. And I never looked at the price because, you know, at that time, getting a W-hotel bed was a big deal because W-hotel bed was a big deal. Because W-hotel beds were like $1,700, again, which was expensive for. W hotel bed.

I didn't realize that I just purchased a six-figure bed. It's like $100,000. I didn't look at the price. This is the whole night. This is bed, like, framed, everything.

It's just a match. Hays and size two dots over the egg. That's all you do to know. It's a headboard. You get to like over the A. Shut up, Bill. You get to visit every Monday. Right.

Again, um, babe, Bill. The Hastings has two dots over the A. Two dots. There's two dots. Like Jay-Z, like Jay had in the beginning. That's all you need to know. If you already go,

you're going to get charged out of the A. Thank you, Bill. It's like a white person dots. There's like shit. Like, whoa. Anyway, so cut to 8 o'clock in the morning the next day. Yo, you would have thought

I ran everybody's mom over with the car. They're like, really, it's come to this now? Like, we give you an inch and this is what it is. Did you get the what the fuck calling me? Like, come on a man. No, they were, it was he. The thing was is that Sean's had some other clients that he's not naming right now that have done that shit.

Like, you get your check and you want to ball the fuck out. And 15 minutes into this curse out, I realized that, oh, shit, I just brought a $100,000 of bed, my bad. And of course, I got the price I can't afford or that they told me where my budget was. But the whole point was, how do you manage expectations? Because you are managing acts and dealing with their money. Post-2000, you know, it's way past that baller stage. How are you having conversations with them at the top of your business?

business relationship, will you tell them, like, if you color within these lines and live, you know, da, da, da, da, da, or is it just like you just get the advance money from, you know, Cincinnati, Ohio, and that's it. I'll see you later. Like, how do you manage? I mean, managing expectations is one of the key things to being a manager, a successful manager in music, I'm sure it's in filming TV or, or in any sort of creative. genre, right? You know, because when you're dealing with creatives, and again, I didn't come in knowing

this shit. Like, I've just learned it, you know, on the backs of my clients, like dealing with you and dealing with Tariq and dealing with Jill, you know, just understanding the motivational aspects, the inspirational aspects that each of you have, what inspires you, what motivates you, what buttons can be pushed. It's psychology, right? It's all psychology. That's the most important part of being a manager. That's the most important part of being in any relationship, right?

It's understanding the give and take of psychology. So that's whether we're talking about a mattress or, you know, we're talking about, you know, damn, I wish Amir ended the show with this song versus that song. Like, how can I have this conversation with him knowing that this is his world and his baby? But I know I'm in the crowd. And you know what I mean? So it's psychology. It's understanding the give and take.

It's compromise. Like one lesson that I learned in Kanye taught me. And I've taken this throughout my career. So again, this is 2006, I think, seven, whenever that year, whenever we started the glow in the dark tour. And again, I'm four years in with Kanye at this point. We've done three or four tours together. You know what I mean?

We have a level of trust. He knows me, you know, meaning how I think. So we're going on this this big tour Biggest tour of his career Biggest tour of my career You know what I mean? And I go out and specifically go And hire the sort of logistics team

I put an all-star team together of people He has all his creation I ain't touched none of his creatorship But he allowed me As did Wayne and others So like give me the team That's going to properly execute this So I go out, I hire Curtis Battles, who number one is black, and number two is what's Eminem's tour manager.

And at that time, 2006, 2007, Eminem's on fire. He's going stadiums and shit. So I'm like, I got the top black production manager. I bring in the tour manager. I bring in all of the tech teams. I'm hiring all of the logistics. He's dealing with the creator. At a certain point, I start calling people.

I'm putting it together. my budgets, going back and forth with the agent, you know, doing venue deals, calling the venues, arguing with them over, you know, our point. And everybody went dark on me. Like literally, nobody would return my call. Curtis didn't return my call. Yay didn't return my call. Like, nobody fucking returned my call. And I'm like, what is going on? And it was like a two-week period. I'm in the middle of planning. I can't get any information. I'm calling, you know, Ms. West, his mom, she's like, hey, Sean, I don't know. Everything seemed cool to me. You want me to ask around. I'm like, no, I'm not going to get you into it. Let me figure it out. After a two

week period, Kanye calls me. He's like, yo, can you come to L.A. tomorrow? I'm like, yeah. You know, I fly to L.A. I go to his crib, sit in the living room. He's on his computer, and he turns the computer around. And I'm like, what's this? And he's like, the tour. This is the creative. What do you think? And he walks me through it. And I'm like, yo, this shit is crazy. And I'm like, yo, but what the fuck? Like, I must have this calls. Like, I haven't talked to nobody like, and he was like, yo, I called everybody and said, if you talk to Sean G, you're fired. And I was like, I was like, why? I was like, why did you do that? And he said, because I know if I wasn't able to get my full creative vision, I would have

talked to you along the way, you know, I would have made a left turn and I would not have been able to get my full creative vision out because you would have been, you know, asking me how much things costs and how are we going to move this and not a la-da-a-a-a. I got my full creative vision out now. Now tell me what you think about it and let's make the justice. And it taught me like that was a really deep lesson on how to work and deal with creatives. Because at the end of the day, y'all are the motherfucker, you know, Amir Fonte, Tariq, you know, whoever it is, y'all are the ones that's driving this car. You know what I mean? I just got a thing. We don't want to be. We don't I just got to live with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I just got to make sure that it got gas in it, it got oil in it, and it's going to get to where it need to get to, and it ain't going to break down, and when you get there, you got some money in your pocket, right? Because if the show is whack, they're not going to hollet, Sean G. Exactly. Exactly.

Or even if the show is good, and you weren't able to do what you wanted to do creatively, you're going to be unfulfilled. And who you're going to blame for being unfulfilled? You're going to blame Sean G. You know what I mean? You didn't. let it out. So that lesson that I did with Kanye, that lesson that Kanye taught me, I've taken

throughout my career and working with creatives. It is managing expectations, but it's also a balance in making sure that, look, I mean, that, not that matches, but we could tell other stories of me here where, you know, there have been things that you needed or you wanted, and, you know, we talked about it. And I'm like, you know what? This is what this motherfucker worked this ass off for. This is why he's up 23 hours a day to be able to do what I think is dumb shit, but it's aspirational shit for you. So I can't give, you know, I can't overlay

my thoughts on, you know, your creative vision and what, you know, I just got to put the barriers up, both creatively, business-wise, money, whatever it is, I got to put the barriers up so you don't fall off the highway, you know what I mean? But you're driving the car, you know what I mean?

Hey, Sean, can you tell us a time, like, when it comes to the roots and Jill, what was the deal that you've made, that really made you take a step back and, like, pass yourself on the shoulder or really go fuck yes. Like I'm finally doing what I feel like is fulfilling them and like we've done this shit. Nobody else has done

this shit. Like this is fucking phenomenal. I don't think there's, you know, I don't think there's one deal. You know what I mean? Like I don't think there's, there's not like one big branding deal or one big, even the

tonight show deal. Like I don't think it's one deal. Would I you know, smile about? picnic, I thought. I mean, even the Roos Picnic, we're not there. Like, the thing about the roots is, the thing that keeps us going is we never fucking arrives.

Like, you know what I mean? Right, right. We've never, like, arrived to whatever that mythical place is that you think you need to get to. We're always motivated to either do more or diversify, you know,

when I say do more. But there still had to be a moment where you went, they didn't think we do this and we did that shit. Oh, okay, okay, got you. For the roots, it was the Roots Picnic in New York. Okay. It was when we did, when we did Brian Park, I literally stood at the back of

the park. We were on with Wu-Tang and, you know, I looked up in the sky and I talked to Rich and I was like, yeah, look at what the fuck we did. You know what? Because again, for me... I remember that night, man. We talked that night. You know, we, I think I don't think Wu was on, but it was, uh, somebody was on, but we was talking and you was

kind of giving me inside, he was like, yeah, man, like this shit was work. Like, NYPB was on, like, you was, you was giving up, he was like now. So I remember that being a big moment for y'all. Yeah, Ruth, Picnic, New York was probably that, that moment, you know, again, it wasn't a deal, but it was that moment where it was like, all right, you know what I mean? Like, okay, you know, we, we're there. But again, I think, you know, overall, it's the constant, it's the constant growth. It's the what's the tortoise versus the hair mentality that we have,

that I'm happy when, I'm happy when Alicia Keys 20 years into her career makes a fucking song called Jill Scott. You know what I mean? That makes me happy because that shows all of the work that Jill put in and I was able to assist, you know, it's being recognized. I'm happy when, you know, Quest Love is D.Z. the Jay-Z and Beyonce Oscar party and killing it. You know what I mean?

And everybody there is like, oh, my God, I'm 25, 30 years in. Like, it's just a constant ascension of people that, you know, over the years, everybody always turned there, you know, who are these guys? What's up with her? The girl from Philly, you know. But, you know, at the end of the day, as long as we constantly ascend creatively,

as long as we diversify business-wise, and we can make sure that we follow our own dreams. And every time we achieve a goal, reset and go for more goals, you know, it's going to work out. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more.

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A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Clivert Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

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or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking.

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So I guess for you and me personally, you know, 2014 was definitely a turning point once Richard died of leukemia. Yep. And, you know, I definitely was going out my mind during that time period. And, you know, I realized that it was going to be a shift for all of us. You know, I was like, well, damn, like now, you know, any creative musical create, like, usually I always have Rich to bounce off of. And there's always that 8 a.m. phone call that you have with Rich, which is weird,

because Rich had 8 a.m. phone calls with everyone. So I'm trying to figure out. I had an ATM phone call every day with Rich. I don't know how he did that shit. Right, exactly. Like, in my mind, it's like, Rich wakes you up at like 8, 17, and then you're off at 11, but everyone has the same and so what in my mind, I was just like, well, shit, like, Sean's the suit to Rich's creative.

Now Sean's going to have to be a creative, and I'm going to have to do things that I hate doing, like, vocal takes and, like, sitting there patiently, like, putting stuff. together. So talk about the shift that because I guess that's the period in which you made the decision to, I mean, at that point, you were, you were developing sports entertainment, front or S-E-F-F-T. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, you had, you know, basketball players. You had, you were managing, business managing all these people. Can you talk about the transition from sort of, you know, emalgimating your company into Maverick,

which then goes into Live Nation? Like, how does that? Yep, yep, yep, yep. But before doing that, I want to talk about 2014, because you're right. You know,

at that moment, when we all realized that Rich was on his way out, the first thing is Rich being rich, you know, he was prepping me for it. You know,

rich was prepping me for it. for years. Just, you know, thinking back on it, just the conversations we were having and, you know, shit that we were talking about and responsibilities that were normally his and the creative side that he would be like asking my opinion. And I'm like, you really want, you want my opinion?

You know what I mean? You know, he would always say I was wrong when I gave my opinion, but he was just asking my opinion and things that, you know, which photo looked good. I'm like, you want my opinion on that? You know, but he was prepping me for, 2014. And I don't know if you remember, I had a conversation with you and Tarique. You know, I said, look, I'm going to step up and do a lot of shit. You know what I mean?

But I am not going to step into the shoes of Richard Nichols, you know, from a creative perspective. I can do a lot. Lina, I can build this and, you know, tours and festivals and ideas and hire people to come build your dreams. I can't make records. I can't do vocal takes. I can't. admit that's just not who I am. You know what I mean? And you guys are going to have to step up as well. It's not just me stepping up. So you're going to have to step up because this is a big ass void that we both got to fill. And I think it is that sort of combination of my growth in the two of you individually growing that is the reason why, you know, six, seven, eight, hopefully 10, 15, 20 years after Rich, you know, we're still sort of building, growing and thriving. But,

But as far as where I was business-wise, I mean, it's funny because 2014, 2015 was the year that I sold a portion of my quote-unquote management business into Live Nation, into Maverick. And Live Nation was building this mega management company called Maverick. And Gio Siri was the head of, the guy, El-Syri, the manager of U2 and Madonna. He brought in Clarence Foulding, who was the manager of Jason Aldeen and Rascal Flats and Shania Twain. They brought in Adam and Larry Rudolph, who managed at the time, Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears. So you had all the black folks. Yeah. And yeah, so at a certain point, at a certain point, these were all the deals that were done.

And I guess someone within Live Nation said, you got a whole bunch of white men. You know what I mean? We got white acts. So they went after my partner, G. Roberson, remember G. Roberson from Kanye? I walked in. I met him with Kanye. They went after him and said, okay, you manage Kanye West and you manage, you manage little Wayne, like, you know, let's do a deal.

A little bit of a sidebar. All of these tour deals that I was doing, you know, Kanye, Wayne, Drake, Nicky, I was on the other side of the table from a company called Live Nation. So I was doing these deals with Live Nation. So they knew me as the manager, the black dude that did all of the big Black tours.

The guy who I was negotiating with on the other side was a gentleman by the name of Alhaman. Halhaman is the most successful black concert promoter in the history of the game, bar of none.

And he's since right now, manages Floyd Mayweather and he's the most successful boxing promoter in the history of the game. Bigger than Don King and Bob Aram and all of it right now. To this day. Al Al-Hamon, was he the one behind the Bow-Wise Superfest? Wow. Patty LaBelle, Rick James, Michael Jackson.

Wait, how old is Al-Hamon-up through Mary J. Blige? I mean, he's the guy. Sean, can you help us get him on the show? Sorry. So I'm negotiating these big deals with Al. Al's on the other side of the table like, okay, this little motherfucker knows what he's talking about. You know what I mean? Because, you know, he's like, I never dealt with a young black man who knows touring like you do.

So back to the Maverick thing, when Live Nation slash Maverick goes and tries to buy G. Roberson's company, Al Heyman tells Live Nation, well, G. Roberson is great. But this guy's Sean G over here, he's the operator. You know what I mean? So if you're going to, because at this time, me, G, and Cortez had similar clients, but we had three different companies. She had hip-hop in 178. I had SEMG, Cortez had Bryant management.

So, you know, in order to sort of complete that purchase, they said, okay, we're going to buy G. Robeson's company. We're going to buy Cortez Bryant. We're going to buy Sean G. Because that is the machine that makes all of this work. And we're going to merge. them together and then put them on the Maverick. So that was that deal in 2015

where I brought, yeah, they bought into my car. I sold half of my company to Live Nation. Aren't these interesting bedfellow, Sean? I'm sorry, I was just thinking, I was like, so you got management mixed in with live shows and production.

I'm just thinking like Live Nation was really dip dip in. I, you mean, from a Live Nation perspective? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, shit, Michael Rapino is one of the smartest executives in the business. You know what I mean? For him, he calls it a flywheel.

And for him, it is, you know, when he started, when he took over Live Nation, Live Nation was a bunch of individual regional promoters. Okay. You know what I mean? You had your guy in New York. You know what I mean? And he had his company. You had Electric Factory concerts in Philly.

You had Cellar Door concerts. And these were just independent individual companies. What Rapino was able to do was merge all of the, business. It was actually Clear Channel prior to Rapino, but you know, what came out of the Clear Channel divestager was this merged entity of all of these individual regional promoters that created this one mega promoter business. But what a lot of people don't understand on a promoter side from the live show, you don't make no money. You know what I'm from a margin perspective? Because the artist makes all the money. Right, right. You know what I mean? If I have Fonte come and

performing, you know what I mean, and I do a deal with him. Ultimately, in success, he's going to walk out with 85, 90% of the money. You know what I mean? The promoter margins are 5% to 10%. So what Rapino did, which was intelligent, super, super genius was he said, okay, I'm going to build a flywheel around the shows. I'm going to have shows, which are the volume business, low margin, but volume, thousands upon thousands of shows, but I'm going to have venues. And when you pay for parking and peanuts and popcorn, you know, at the shows, you know,

I'm going to make money off that. I'm going to have media and sponsorship that sells sponsorship at the venues. I mean, so he's built a flywheel of business. It sounds almost like McDonald's, like, you know, with the famous McDonald's called, he's like, I'm not in a hamburger business. I'm in the real estate business.

I'm in a real estate business, you know what I mean? Yeah. But the hamburgers is what bringing you in, right? the shoulders that bring you in. Yeah. So to your point, like, you know, it's, your hand is in different areas, but it's all sort of a flywheel that works together.

And, you know, that, but again, I came in under the auspices of G. Roberson's partner. And that was that was Maverick management. It's funny because I, you know, I kid guy about this, but you know, when I came in with the Roots

and Joe Scott, we were like, the folks that didn't belong. You know what I mean? Every artist was an arena artist. Every single artist in Maverick was an arena artist except the roots in Joe Scott. But over time,

you know, they start just like, you know, just like I said earlier, like over time, you know, the manager started to respect, you know, oh shit, the roots. Yeah. Oh shit. Joe Scott. And, you know, they start calling like, hey, can I conquest love coming, help produce this or, you know,

I think the key, the pinnacle of that sort of disrespect at the beginning but ultimately led to respect was when U2 called and asked if the roots can open for them or no, if the roots can guess on their set at Madison Square Garden and, you know,

they came out right in the middle of Madison Square Garden and U2 set. Of course you did. Yeah, so, but yeah, so I mean that was, that's how I got into Live Nation. It was through you know, hey, y'all need some black managers and these are the three that you got to buy. Time out, though.

Jill sells out Madison Square Garden, does she not? I mean, that's one of the... We have sold out Madison Square Garden, yes. But, you know... What I'm saying from that, Neal sold class of 2000? Jill... Jill, Erica, and Maxwell and Mary are probably the three... And believe it or not, you know, Kim are probably the four...

You know, if tickets are not. You know? They're the strongest touring eggs. But even then, you know, if tickets are going on sale, not for nothing to look, Erica is, you know, I've been down from day one, but Erica isn't going to sell out Madison Square Garden by herself. Or maybe she will. I mean, we've never sold out by ourselves.

It's all about strategic packaging. We sold it out with Maxwell. You know what I mean? Jill and Maxwell, we did two nights at Madison Square Garden together. All right. You know, Maxwell and Mary sold out Madison Square. So it's about, you know, part of the, part of the strategy in touring is strategic package. Yeah, we sold out amphitheaters with sugar water with Jill, Erica, and Latifah.

You know, Erica sold out Barclays last year was Erica, Anthony Hamilton, and I forget who else it was. You know, again, strategic, the beauty about that world is you can strategically package in one plus one. can equal three or four. And that's where you get to 15, 16, 17,000. On their own, they're all probably like 5,000, but when you put them together, it becomes an event. Didn't that line of thought kind of lead to why there needs to be a Live Nation urban? Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, you know, once I was in Live Nation, officially, you know, with the venture on management, I just, I just earbeat them. You know, I mean, I was like, yo, you know y'all not really fucking with black culture. You know, like at the end of the day, Live Nation at that point did big really well, meaning, you know, Drake blows up. He goes to arenas. No one does big better than Live Nation. You know, Jay-Z, Beyonce doing stadiums, they do big very well. But incubating culture, building partnerships, building festivals that are curated

for specific audience, i.e. black audience, they didn't do that at all. So after about a year of me, Airbeaten, you know, the CEO and the Chief Strategy Officer, at the time, they, you know, gave me an opportunity and said, okay, cool, you want to do this? You know, you think there's an opportunity. You're an entrepreneur. We respect you. We already have a deal with you. Go build it.

And that was that was the impetus. Besides the Roots Picnic, what did you build? The first three deals that I did. The first deal was I flew to Dallas. I sat with a gentleman by the name of Kirk Franklin. And I said, Kurt, you are. the JZ of gospel music. Why don't you have your own event?

Why don't you have your own festival? Why don't you have your own series? He said, because no one's ever asked me. So we that year launched the Kirk Franklin Exodus Music and Arts Festival, which is the biggest, most successful gospel music festival in the country. And I say gospel music festival, because, I mean, Bishop Jakes has the essence of gospel,

but it's bigger than music. You know what I mean? It's everything. So his is much bigger. But, you know, we've had every, you know, we've had, you know, all of the who's who of gospel has performed on it. And next year, this year we were supposed to, but next year we're going to expand it to, it's in Dallas now, but we're going to expand it to multiple markets. So that was deal number one. Deal number two is I called a fellow Philadelphia by the name of Troy Carter who was running Spotify at the time.

Spotify had this playlist called. rap caviar, which was driving culture. At that point, rap caviar was what mixed show DJs were to us back in the day where it's like, this is how rap artists get broke. You know, you got to get on the rap caviar list. They had, Troy

was running the company and Tuma Basa, good friend of mine, was, he was rap cabier. He was a curator. So I went to them and said, you know, you are the new radio. And really, the only self-sustaining, profitable model in the radio space is radio shows.

You know what I mean? The summer jams and the powerhouses. So let's build a live iteration of your playlist called Rap Caviar Live. So we built that 50-50 venture between me, Live Nation Urban and Rap Cavie and Spotify. And we built that music series. And the third deal that I did is I identified

these two young brothers in D.C. That, you know, had their finger on the falsa culture. I had like this many sort of smallish festival that they did, did like 7, 8,000 people. and it was called Broccoli City Festival. And, you know, they came on my radar because as I was, as I booked the Roots Picnic every year, of course, I'm on my own shit.

I'm like, I'm the best curator, you know what I mean? In the space, you know what I mean? And agents and artists started saying, well, I play the Roos Picnic, as long as I can play Broccoli City. So I went on a mission like, what the hell is Brockley City? And I went and met with the two brothers, Marcus and Brandon, two really smart young brothers.

And from North Carolina, both from from California. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brand, brand of greensboro. That's the homie. Yep. And I invested in them.

You know what I mean? I didn't try to take over. I didn't try to make a Glide Nation Urban Festival. I said, look, you guys got a vision. You got a finger on the pulse of culture. You know your audience. What I want to do is invest, invest and build the infrastructure for you so that you can grow and scale. And we went from 7,000, people to 35,000 people.

I moved into RFK Stadium. Yes. And built and grew. and this year if we didn't go down, we probably would have 50,000. It's the largest gathering of black millennials in the world. Because I'm the oldest person there by far.

It's 18 to 30. 18 to 30. You know what I mean? Facts. Period. And so that was the third thing. I mean, since then I've partnered with her, Gabby, with the artist, her.

We built a festival called Lights on Festival in the Bay Area. You know, I've taken, I start producing the Miami Jazz and the Gardens Festival in D.C. I do some smaller emerging artist platforms, audio Mac and others.

Those are the first three deals that I did were those three. Can you explain how you build a festival from the ground up? One of the times where I dread the most as a Philadelphian is usually around March. because that's when everyone starts hitting me up like,

yo, can I get on the Roots Picnic? Can I get on? And I'm like, dog, we start building the Roots Picnic two months after the Roots Picnic, like August. So can you just explain what goes into building a festival? Like the cause you have to make the, like, this is done ahead of time? Is it like how do you, how hands-on is it for you?

I mean, it never stops. It's 12 months a year. You know what I mean? You know, if you talk about the Roos Picnic and you talk about Broccoli City, if you talk about some of the events that we have, that I have, there's a process to it where it goes from, like you said, ideation. You know, let's say a festival starts in the fall. I mean, a festival plays in the summer.

Usually, you know, late summer is, you know, ideation. Sometimes actually ideation takes two or three years. You know what I mean? Like for the Roots Picnic, most headliners, we've talked about two years prior. Like we talked about Farrell two years prior, and it took us two years to lock in the deal. You know what I mean?

Same thing with Usher. You know what I'm? We talked about it. So, you know, that ideation process never stops. But, you know, it starts soon as the previous year ends. Then you go into the booking process, because as the festival economy and market has gotten bigger, there's more competition in the space.

When we first started at a picnic, we were the only ones that were looking for sort of alternative, urban, black, R&B, hip-hop, like nobody else's, there was no other options. So we could, you know, call and be like, what's up? You want to play it? But now, you know, between the sort of regular mega,

all things to all-people festivals like the Bonneros and the Los Angeles that are now being. being tinted black. Between those and then the other, you know, sort of culture-facing festivals, now it's a lot of competition. So you start that booking process, you know, nine, ten, eleven months in advance.

And you need to have, you know, I got a team of young people that have their finger on the pulse of culture. As you know, Amir, I send out a group text to our entire team, who y'all listening to, who y'all want. Tarik, tell me who you want. Amir, tell me who you want.

You know, Dawn, you know, anyone that's like, you know, out there, like, talk to me. Send me names. Send me videos. Send me clips because you almost have to be a predictor of what's going to be hot at two periods. A, when your tickets go on sale and B, when you play. And those are two different periods.

You know what I mean? Probably your funny story was napping, what's his name? Maclemore. Maclemore. Yeah, we got Maclemore right in the nick of time. of like, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of stories like we got Kid Cuddy, like, you know what I mean? Super early.

Weekend, no, Markley. The weekend. Yeah. I mean, but again, that's a team-based effort. It's not just Sean G or Amir Thompson sitting in our rooms, you know, saying this is hot. It's a team-based effort of both official people, but then also, you know, the last three years, my son has booked four or five of these acts, you know, my 15-year-old. I'm like, Sean, who popping?

And they're like, oh, you got to get young boy. You got to get this person. You got to get that person. You know what I mean? Because it's a balance. Now, speaking of sons, can you just a quick call back? Because we talked about your first son, but can you just tell people what your first son is doing now? Darren?

Yeah. Darren's a sports agent in the Seattle. There you go. Living your dream. I'm just moved to L.A. Wow. From a baby to having babies. But yeah, it's a non-stop process in there.

It's just, you know, it never stopped. Because once you book, then there's the marketing. You know what I mean? And you got to put the marketing plan together. You got to understand what the marketplace is saying. You got to understand how you hit your audience. You got to understand how to break through the clutter. You got to understand when other festivals are announcing.

And then, you know, once you get out of the marketing phase, hopefully you sell tickets quickly. And then it's execution. You know what I mean? You're transforming empty fields into concert venues, into experiences. So it's more than just the stage. It's the creative concept that goes along with, how do you want these people to interact with all aspects of your site?

Like, it's not just who you put on stage. It's who are your vendors? Where are you going to place your vendors? What are your prices? Who are your marketing partner? Your brand partners? What are your activation? So, Sean, does all that go out the window now?

For 2020, I mean, hell yeah, for 2020, but no, 2021, we'll be back. Okay, well, all right. So it's April, No, it's May of 2020. Like, how much gray hair are you getting

during this period? Dog. I mean, and you know with the Ruse picnic how much work we put into that second day. Like, we had the first day which we booked the shit out of.

Because part of the strategy for us and Amir has been driving this for years, is how do we get the roots out of the headlining slot? Because if we ever want this to be Lollapalooza, we need the roots to ultimately play the role of Jane's addiction, you know, Perry, Perry, you know what I mean? Like, how do we get the roots out of it? So we finally figured a way to get the roots out of the headlining slot

while still keeping them in the festival. We were selling tickets like hotcakes on our one-day festival. And we, Tariq, Amir, myself, we spent six months negotiating with Mrs. Michelle Obama to come and headline our day two. We were about to shock the world with that. So we finally had it, deal done, putting together the creative and COVID hits.

You know what I mean? And so it wasn't just the Roots picnic. I had Brockley City Festival sold out. It was sold out two months in advance. I had Miami Jasmine Gardens that weekend in March when everything shut down headlined by Mary J. Blige, Jill Scott, Anthony Hamilton, Charlie Wilson,

the roots. No, the roots into live crew. Yeah, we were better than essence. We were better than essence that, you know, but again, we had to stop. So I had a ton of festivals that got shut down and, you know, shit, I was depressed, dog. Like, I was fucked up.

You know what I mean? Because I spent the first four to six weeks of COVID undoing my last 10 months of work. It's like building a house and you get to the front door. All you got to do is put the front door in and then the bulldozer comes and knocking it down. He's like, fuck. You know what I mean? I just spent eight, 10 months building this shit.

So it was super, super, you know, sort of depressing. I was depressed. I was upset. You know what I mean? I was hurt. You know what I mean? It was all types of emotions. When did that change?

When did that change? when your spirits get lifted. I'll be real. When we dove in with the root, we dove in on our YouTube page. You know, we sort of rolled up our sleeves and got creative and started coming up to contact did that for you.

Quest Love Supreme Live, Quest Love, D.J, you know, everything that, you know, Tarek's, you know, Strings and Thought interviews, you know, our emerging artist platform. Like, we got the creative is the thing that sort of was like, oh shit, okay, this isn't

at a time to be depressed. This is the time to roll up our sleeves and become entrepreneurs again. Like, I talk to Tariq, Amir, Jill more during that period. Because you've got to realize, like, it was like a well-wheel machine with my management

client. It was like, okay, we got tonight show. I'm going to stay six months ahead of the guys. You know what I mean? I got an execution team, Keith McPhee, Affairs, Manir, I got a team that handles the day to day. My job is to stay six months ahead so that when we get there, it's something there.

So it was sort of like a well-oiled machine. What this did for us was it forced us to become entrepreneurial and creative again. And it's just been fun as a motherfucker. I'll be real with you. All right. So what does that future look like now? And I know people talk about

man, well, we get back to normal. But it's like... It's still going to be different. So when, so, all right, so when, when the line finally gets flattened in the United States, and there's, we're COVID free, am I still going to blah, blah, blah, club to DJ, yada, yada, yada, you know, what do I do with the 30,000, you know, audience? members that I've gotten on these six platforms, virtual DJing. Yep. Like, is that a monetary future? Absolutely.

I think, I think, do you go back or do you stay the course? We will never, in the live music space, in the live entertainment space, we will never return to February of 2020. Okay. That won't happen. That won't ever happen again. What does that mean? What that means is, like, the way that the Roots Picnic

look when we last did it for the Things Fall Apart 20th, what would be different? I mean, I think live will return. For Wood's Picnic, 2022. Live will return and Live will return at scale. I think that part of it is going to be driven by science and governance, you know, mainly science, meaning, you know, whether it's testing, vaccine, whatever that ends up being, you know, you can't replicate the emotional connection of being in an audience and watching your favorite artists. And I think that will return. But I think the difference is, you know, COVID was the symptom. But what the live music industry is actually going through, it's not COVID. It's a technological disruption. We're going through, this is the first true disruption of technology for live music. Recorded music went through it from line wire to Napster to that ended up, you know, that sort of six to eight year process.

of disruption ended up with Spotify, Apple Music, title, where we are now, right? And if you guys remember, that was a really fucking uncomfortable time when Napster was in and live. People were like, the industry's gone. Record labels are never going to happen again. Why are we doing this?

These consumers will never buy anything because they can trade files for free. All of that. But what ended up happening was the industry embraced technology at the end of it. And the business is big, than ever right now. And that's the same thing

that's going to happen in live. What we're seeing with these live streaming platforms, what we're seeing with the consumer engagement, if you think about the level of digital engagement from music consumers, when, Fonte, if I told you,

you were going to be sitting on your fucking couch for two hours watching Patty LaBelle and Gladys Knight play music and enjoy it. If I would have told you that in February, you'd have been like, what? Nigel, my moment for that was versus, was the Primo and, uh, and Rizza. That was the moment where I was like, yo, the world has changed forever.

Like, but these, for me to be in my house, watching two dudes play records in the house. And that's the most important thing in the world right now. And enjoying it and looking forward to it. So that level of consumer engagement, which probably would have taken a decade for us to get there, happened in six months. That's going to transition out of COVID. And you're going to see cottage industries that become major, cottage companies that become major companies that are building companies around that digital distribution and digital engagement. That's not going to take live away. It's going to add on to the live economy. And you're going to now see a bigger industry.

The pie is going to get bigger because now you have brick and mortar lives. Remember, blockbuster and internet, I mean, what's Tower record? You'll have, you'll still have brick and mortar line. And now you've got virtual live too. Virtual line. And together you're going to, in 2025,

the live music industry is going to be two, three times the size that it is now, just like recorded music is bigger than it was, you know, during the line wire. Is what Eric did in the future? But it's going to be a point, it's going to be a point of uncomfortable. That's what I'm going to say.

Two or three years where you're going to going to see big major players like Tower. You're going to see big major players that were the shit in 2019, in early 2020 in the live music industry. If they don't adapt, they're going to be gone.

So, Sean, is what Erica did recently during the COVID? Is that the future? The whole subscription live show thing, you think? The beauty about it is I don't know the future. Right. And that's what I say is fun. I say it's fun and shit. That's the fun part. The fun part is, we are

the wild, wild west with live shit. Erica came out and said fuck all of y'all platforms. I'm going to build my own platform. Now is that's, is that going to be is Erica going to end up being Spotify or is she going to end up being Limewire? I don't know.

You know what I mean? Like Twitch, Twitch is a huge gaming platform now has a music strategy. Are they going to end up being Spotify or are they going to end up being Napster? I don't know. But that's the great part. And again, depending on how I came up in this,

I always, you know, in the mirror, I'm not just saying this because you're on the phone. I say it in meetings with CEOs and presidents. I'm a route. You know what I mean? I came in this game of route, and we figured out how to make this shit work. We figured out how to make a 20 plus year, 30 plus year career off of one and a half hit songs. When it's time, when it's time to roll up

the sleeves. The niggas scratch the show. The commercial right there. You know, when it's time to roll You're going to the sleeves and figure some shit out in a period of time where it's discord and everybody's confused. You know, some people are going to fall off the wayside. I'm having fun. I'm coming up with ideas, creativity. Let's figure this shit. Amirala, why don't you DJ and, you know, from your barn in New York, you know, to re, why don't you?

This is the part, Aia, that is fun because I don't, you don't know what the future is, but you do know it's not going to be where we were on February 2020. Sure. And you get to create it. We're essentially creating the future now. Absolutely. And the winner might be some kid that's sitting in, you know, his bedroom homeschooling right now.

Like he might be the next Steve Jobs or the next, you know what I mean? It ain't going to be somebody that's the CEO or somebody that's a president right now. There's going to be some kid that's sitting there on doing virtual school right now and it's going to come up with the answer. All right, man. I just hope he a Roots fan. Whoever he is, I just hope he a fan of the Roots. So did I, well, wait, I forgot.

There's one thing that we forgot to mention. What? You also going to a foray of developing with 215 entertainment. You know, actually, like, what is, I find myself trying to step away from platforms and get less and less jobs. But now that I'm listening to this story, you're actually. actually Questlow. Like, just between Lodd Nation, 215 entertainment,

us developing these, these movies, these plays, these television shows. I mean, at what point are you going to Shep Gordon the thing and just be like, all right,

Alice Cooper, let's just right off into the sunset and, you know, do you have a master plan written out in which you just like, all right, I'm cool?

Or you let your son take over, or for me is he on that level yet where it's like which which on the music side you know

yeah like it's my it's shown it's my 15 year old like he's he's built for this and he's going to yes

he's telling me about you know this person doing this bundle and you know how it's super creative because everybody's bundling with their t-shirts but he bundled

with this and that and you know we look at the numbers look at the streams that he's he's not and not a proactive thing for me teaching him. He's just, I see it. I smell it.

Like, Darren, I smell sports. Like, Darren wasn't into music in this, my business. He took what he learned from me, what he saw. He took my hustle and my grind and applied it to his passion. You know what I mean? Sean is absolutely built for this music game. Like, that's, that, you know, I see it. I'm like, all right, dude, I'm going to be working for you soon.

you know what I mean but yeah I don't I don't I don't have a I don't you know I don't have an exit plan meaning exit plan from a you know I'm going go get my house in Hawaii and be chilling like for me it's about passion like if you all the things I'm involved in

is because I'm passionate about it like there are clients that have fired me you know like I said earlier because I sort of work myself out of a job their clients that I fired like if I don't fucking wake up and inspired by you or you know every day isn't going to be inspiration Some days I wake up and be like, man, what the fuck?

I'm near, come on, dog. All right, so when's the first phone call start? Like, when's the first, like, when does your phone start ringing? Obviously, you have a rule in the house that no more phone calls after blah, blah, blah, count because I could be in prison somewhere and I know you ain't going to pick up the phone. But that's part of hiring a team. Like, if you call Munir, he's going to pick it up. But 15 years ago, I was that dude that.

picked up their phone. You know? Right. Damn right. You know, I was the one riding up when somebody got locked up. But now, you know, that's part of growth. It's like, all right, y'all do that. But it's funny. My phone calls, you know, now that I live in L.A., I usually start my phone calls around seven.

But when I'm being creative and my team, you know, always jokes to me. Sometimes that last email comes from me at three or four in the morning. Like my mind, as I've grown in this business, my mind has started to work more like the artist unless like a suit. Like I know y'all always used to say like, you know, creativity don't start until I have to midnight. And I'd be like, what's y'all talking about? Like, you got to sleep. But as I've gotten older, that's when my creative ideas come.

Because during the day, you know, I'm doing phone calls and zooms and shit like that. So I'm able to think at night. You gotta wait to everybody else's asleep so you can really hear yourself. Exactly. Exactly. But yeah, my day usually starts at 7. You know, 7.7.30 with calls. And, you know, especially during COVID, I'm able to work from home. So I, you know, between calls and my kids.

it's, you know, the balance is good. I see. All right. Well, I'll be hitting you about adding more acres to my property. Oh, shit. And you got to battle, Jeff. More acres, more acres. Oh, no, no. I'm about to son Jeff in the second.

Oh, shit. Anyway. No, man, I think, you know, some, I had to learn some shit. And, you know, we've been, we've been. we've been business partners for what 20 plus years already yeah are we should definitely name this episode the lesson like there's there's some lessons in here absolutely yeah all right well you know Sean G thank you I'll be bugging you later tonight all good well make sure y'all send me to edit because you know I ain't signed that so I can

Dave Chappelle y'all any time thank you for mentioning that Sean let us never forget about the fuckery of Dave Chappelle yes You go. Anyway. All right. And I just say, and I'm so, Voge, Sean, I've told you this before. I've told both you in a mirror this,

but it really is inspiration just to watch and see what your brothers have built over these decades, man. And, you know, and I just thank you for the opportunity, you know, for bringing me into this. And, you know, you hit me and it was just like, hey, man, Amir's doing this thing. You on in? And I was like, all right.

I mean, you know what the fuck this shit was going to be. But, you know, But, you know, I just, you know, admire the work ethic and the hustle. And, you know, I know how hard it is to build something on your own. So I was going to just, you know, salute you, man, just give you flowers and just say that, you know. Hell yet, Sean. I mean, that's for nothing. Definitely appreciate it.

We all have our own Sean G stories. I wouldn't have got my own radio show back in Philly like 15 years ago if Kobe Cold wouldn't ask Sean G. Who is the host for this show? Wait, what? Yes, that's how I got Sunday morning soul because Kobe was on the phone with Sean. He was like, I want to do this specialty show about Soul. And Sean, he was like, who'd be a good house, right? Isn't that how it happened, Sean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's it. I didn't know that, Laia, I thought, you know. Oh, me and Sean had many a morning conversations on the way to work and stuff like that. Like, it was a bill for us too. He very difficult. Yes, and he finally told me when I was able to have my allowance

to buy my weed, which was also very excited. I remember the day when he said, Laia, you can now put some money aside weekly for weed. Thank you, Sean. And your Hastings bet. Oh, God. I regret telling you. telling story because now you want to let me

with it down. I'm not going to stop talking about your head is back. Exactly. So we're clear. I would have love for you to say I took it back, but that's fine. With the two dots. No, I did take it back.

Okay, good. All right. Dude, this has been a more informative episode. I already learned from Alan Leeds that managers aren't going to do the tell-all shit on the fuckery. So, you know,

I feel that this show was effective enough without talking about, you know, artist fuckery that is going down. Yes. It wouldn't serve the episode. You had a great way to build our roots. I never say this enough to know. You definitely take on the gray hair that I've successfully avoided right now.

Yeah. And I have a lot of it. I have a lot of it. Yeah, I'm going to say, anytime I see my barometer for how my life is going is based on how much gray hair short G. Yes. right now. Absolutely. I'm like, all right. All right. It's a good month. I'm going to make it good month. All right. Well, on behalf of the team, Sugar Steve, we still are Phelot Kustin right now.

Ublatt, baby, umlax. Yes, yes. I see you. I see you. I'm Fayville. And Farnthea, and Lai here. Thank you, Sean G. This is a question of signing off. We will see you next week on the next turnaround on Questlop Supreme. Thank you. Yo, what's up? This is Fonte. Make sure you. you keep up with us on Instagram at QLS and let us know what you think and who should be next to sit down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. All right. Peace. Much Love Supreme is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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