January 28, 2022 • 26 mins
Angela Yee brings that much-needed female energy to Power 105’s nationally syndicated morning show “The Breakfast Club” alongside DJ Envy and Charlamagne Tha God. She is on the Board of Governors of the “We Are Family Foundation,” a board member of the “American Foundation for the University of the West Indies,” and an Ambassador for The New York Public Library. In addition, Angela is the creator and host of the popular podcast “Lip Service,” proprietor of “Juices For Life BK,” which she partnered with Jadakiss & Styles P of rap group, The Lox. Furthermore, she’s the owner of “Private Label,” a hair extension shop in Detroit. Her most recent venture: entering the coffee business with Cup Cafe in Brooklyn.
Angela sits in to discuss how she became a multi-faceted businesswoman. She takes us back to memory lane from her internships to the start of her businesses. Additionally, she shares her essential advice to becoming a thriving entrepreneur and the hurdles of starting a business.
Make sure to give this woman her much-needed flowers on all her businesses.
Host IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @angelayee
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Welcome Money Moves family
to the Money Moves Podcast powered by Greenwood. Once again,
(00:23):
it's that time for us to be joined by our
celebrity guests of the week. She brings that much needed
female divine energy to the power one oh five nationally
syndicated morning show The Breakfast Club, alongside DJ Envy and
Charlemagne the God. She is on the board of Governors
for We Are Family Foundation and a board member of
the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies,
(00:45):
as well as an ambassador for the New York Public Library.
And y'all know how much I love to read. But
there is still more. She is the creator and host
of the popular podcast lip Service, the proprietor of Juices
for Life b K, which she partnered with j A.
Kiss and Styles p of Wrap Group The Locks. And
she's the owner of Private Label, a hair extension shop
(01:06):
in Detroit. And soon she's entering into the coffee business
by opening up Cup Cafe and b K Brooklyn. Needless
to say, this woman has been making her money move
for her in all sorts of arenas money movers. Let's
welcome the one, the Only angela yea podcast. Hey Tanye,
how are you? I love your hair, by the way,
(01:27):
thank you, thank you, thank you. I love your curls.
I feel like I go back and forth between a
braid style and my ponytail all the time. That's been
my life. Is a bun, or is some braids, or
I have it curly for like one day, I got banks,
but I'm already sick of theom oh. I know, I
did the curly bang thing. I did the curly bank thing.
I'm so glad to have you on our podcast today.
(01:49):
You know, most of our audience knows you from the
Breakfast Club. You've had a whole life and career before that,
and so I want to be able to properly introduce
angela Ye to the Money Moves audience, UM as well
as Greenwood. So can we go way way back and
start off how your career in the music industry, UM,
and tell us a little bit about those early days.
(02:10):
I was just talking about how important part internships are,
so I would say I started for real in college
doing internships. I interned at a label called TVT Records.
They're the ones that did like a lot of the
cartoon music for television shows. But that's also where some
artists were signed, like Mike Geronimo jar Rule actually had
a deal there at one point, and so that was
(02:30):
TVT Records, And then I did an internship at MTV
interned at Wootang at their management company in Staten Island,
So that was kind of early on before I even
graduated from school. And then when I graduated from college,
my first job was assistant to the CEO of Woutang Corporation.
So Woutang had their hands and a lot of different businesses, music, publishing,
(02:51):
a production company, they were signed to multiple labels, they
had a management company, so they did so many different things.
I was able to see that multitasking super early on,
and each of them had like their own different corporation
and so those are some interesting things for me to
witness and also see how they were doing deals. You know,
my bus Um Divine, he wasn't in the office a lot.
(03:12):
And it's so funny by the way, watching the Wu
Tang Hulu show because I'm like, oh my god, that's
so him. But he wasn't in the office a lot,
so it gave me an opportunity to really see how
things work, Like as far as finances, I was in
charge of payroll and I didn't know anything about that first.
And so when I ended up working in radio, my
first job was as Serious. That's before they merged with
(03:35):
XM Radio. So I worked at Serious for six years
and that's where I first started doing any type of investing.
We had a financial expert that used to come on
the show. He was like a investor, um, you know,
he was a financial planner, but he was also a rapper.
His name was Billy Shakes, and he came on and
he was like, you don't have an IRA, you don't
have a roth Ira, you don't do this, you don't
(03:56):
do that. And I was like no, because sometimes we're
just living checked to check and we don't think we
have any extra money to spend. So that's what first
got me started, Like, Okay, I gotta start investing. And
how old were you at this point, because I feel like,
you know, sometimes we we think we need to be
forty and fifty before we're like really thinking about investing
in I RAS, But you seem to have learned this
(04:16):
lesson pretty early. I was about twenty nine years old,
and so I felt like I learned it late, truthfully,
because you know, the earlier you start to invest, the
more money that you'll end up making. So you could
put in way less to make more. And so I
just wish that from when I was twenty one years old,
i'd have been putting in even fifty dollars a month.
We would have made such a huge difference. And so
(04:39):
for people who have kids, there's so many apps right
now where you can get them started on investing. There
there's no reason not too and people get more comfortable
with money. They've done studies that your kids who have
a bank account end up being way better with money
later on in life. And I love that. And that's
really what we're trying to do here with Money Moves
and Bankering Wood is to have these conversations UM be
a natural narror ative in our black and brown communities
(05:01):
right from an early stage. So we're teaching our kids
the financial literacy, and you know, we're kind of breaking
these erroneous myths that we've had that have been really
pervasive in our community. So I love to hear that
you started early. Um. I also want to touch on
the fact that you talked about like the importance of internships,
because I think oftentimes people think, you know, you've got
(05:21):
to go into this high profile job, really, you know,
really early, and like this is too low for me.
But you know a lot of the successful people we
have on here are like I started literally at the bottom.
That is not just an expression. And I wasn't getting
paid either, and that was tough for me because I
was in school. I was working at the supermarket on campus,
(05:42):
you know, making like six fifty an hour and working
really hard to make that a little bit of money.
And then I was also doing these free internships, and
so it really is an investment into your future. I
had to look at it like this is taking a
course and also developing those relationships, because definitely once I,
as you ated it, I had a lot of opportunities
and people that already had worked with me. Even when
(06:04):
I went to go work for Wutang. The reason they
hired me, it wasn't even an interview or anything. It
was just, yo, we were looking for you. We you know,
we remember you from the internship and we were like, yeah,
we want her to come work here and it was
that easy. And you know, again and again like this
idea of like creating your network is the people around you.
It's not the people above you that you can say, hey,
(06:25):
you know, can you ment to me? It's the people
around you that you grow up with over the years.
They were like, remember you putting in the time there
and they came looking for you. That's pretty amazing. And
I always talk about how college is important, not just
for the education you get, you know, and I'm not
saying that you have to go to college, but if
you do go that network of people that you went
to school with. I've made so much money and gotten
(06:46):
so many opportunities just from the people I went to
college with. Even now, I'm still involved with things as
an alumni and West Wesleyan University that's where lyn Manuel
Miranda went to and um he wrote Hamilton's and so
they had this whole Hamilton's Scholarship Fund and I'm on
the committee where we actually end up giving away four
year scholarships completely free to Yeah, some of these contestants
(07:11):
that are submitting uh their artistic works and then we
judge them. And I think that's amazing because we all
know how pricey college is. It's a huge issue right now,
which I wish it would have been when I was younger,
because I'm like, I could have used some student loan
forgiveness myself. I mean, it's just we just did a
segment on that and how hard it is to be
saddled with those like exponential student loans and how yeah,
(07:35):
it's it's it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.
So fast forward. Now you're on the Breakfast Club, which
is one of the I guess nation's most popular UM
syndicated radio shows. How did you want to Did you
dream of being on radio or so you just sort
of transitioned into this. I ended up in radio by
accident because I would. I have a background at marketing,
(07:59):
and so that's really what I had been doing, just
working in marketing, doing UM in house for I worked
at a marketing company and then I freelance and I
had a few different clients at once, and then I
went back in house to a clothing line working in
their marketing and product placement department, and then I started
freelancing again, and so that was what my background was.
I was really trying to get a job and serious
(08:20):
in their marketing department. When I had the opportunity from
Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg to actually audition for the morning
show as a co host side pick it. I mean,
that's a great voice, and I love you know, the
thought that you put into your work on the Breakfast Club,
and you just add such a great dynamic. But now
you've sort of started to diversify and you're making all
(08:43):
these entrepreneurial moves and pursuits. How did that sort of
evolve as part of your process. The first thing that
I really did was my podcast, and that is definitely
something I mean aside from the fact that I have
my own company set up and that's for my outside
appearances and for any anything like endorsements and other things
that I do outside of work. But then I also
(09:05):
started my podcast, so that gave me an opportunity to
kind of just put something together myself and deal with
the business behind the scenes. And then after that, I
decided I wanted to open this Juice bar, and I
had seen what Styles Peace was doing, and I've seen
what Jada Kiss was doing in The Bronx and the Yonkers,
and so we ended up going to a Styles piece
video shoot and just approaching him about doing one in
(09:27):
Brooklyn because I live in Brooklyn. I love getting juices.
Is what helps me every single morning be able to
function and think clearly. And I do worry about my
health all the time, so I want to make sure
that I'm getting my fruits and vegetables every day. And
I wanted something that was beneficial to the community because
I felt like I needed it. A lot of times
people get juices and they'll go to someplace and it's
(09:49):
like pureade. If you see them like taking out some
frozen puade fruits and scooping stuff out and using orange juice,
that's not what you really need. You want real fresh
hole fruits and vegetables. So if you go to like
a deli or something and you want to juice, always
say what whole fruits and vegetables do you have that
You're not getting those peerade added sugar, uh, you know
(10:10):
types of drinks. And so I just wanted something like that,
and I loved with Styles and Jada Kiss we're doing
for the community. So I approached him and managed to
open one in Brooklyn. Wow, Okay, so that's a huge
I mean, that's a huge accomplishment. You know, you have
to find a location, you needed to get the proper
you know, machinery to make this cold Pruss juice. Talk about, um,
you know what went into that and how you even
(10:32):
started to allocate funds for the investment, because like this
is bossy lady like to hear about it. So people
will tell you different things about how to open the
business and whose money you should use. Some people will
tell you, don't use your own money, use other people's money.
Some people will tell you invest in yourself. And I
believe accompanation of both this good. We were fortunate in
(10:54):
doing this business that we split it three ways and
so we were able to use our own fund to
be able to put into the space to open it.
And I also believe that partnering with somebody who's already
opened several juice bars helped us and put us at
a great advantage because they knew where to order all
the equipment from, they knew exactly what we needed, they
knew where we're going to get our fruits and produced from,
(11:15):
and so that really took away a lot of the
trial and error that I would have had to go
through if I hadn't teamed up with them, and so
for myself, if I was doing a business and this
was my soul focused, I could see being a sole owner.
But because I know I have a million other things
to do, I also understand the value and having partners
that can step up when you're not available to do things,
(11:35):
and then you're able to step up when they can't,
and you also bring different things to the table. And
so that's what really helped me a lot as far
as opening this juice bar. Yeah, I mean, entrepreneurship is
really intensive and so being you understand your limited you know,
especially for someone like yourself who wears many many hats, um,
you know, picking the right partner, I mean, which it's
(11:56):
essentially like a marriage, but it's crucial, it's key, and
I think you've done well. Okay, So what's tell us
where the juice bar is located and tell us your
favorite juice alright, So it is in bed side to
seventies seven Malcolm X Boulevard and my favorite juice berries.
But people know me from the G five and we've
actually called it the YE five once I started working
there because I was always getting it. But it is
(12:18):
um ginger, it's chale, spinach, bananas and green apples. Who
I add the ginger actually doesn't have but I add
the ginger to it, and so, um, that's what it is.
And I add ginger to everything. To be honest, ginger
is so good for you. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Um,
I even need it raw sometimes. But I'm also I
love juices. I also love hair. So you've also opened
(12:41):
a hair shop and tell me about that. Yes, and
that was another great partnership private label Detroit. So my
partner is Mikey Morin, and he already had a location
in Atlanta. He opened one in um, North Carolina as well,
and so I met him because we were working on
some things together through I Heart. And then I told him,
(13:01):
I said, look, if you ever want to open a
store in Detroit, let me know I would be open
to do that during the pandemic. He Detroit, New York. Well,
I also I actually have properties in Detroit also. Side. Now, okay,
so you want to I mean this will be forever girl. Um,
all right, You've got hair in Detroit and I'm fascinated
(13:23):
with the hair industry. Um, and so I love that
this was this was important to you how much did
you have to how much research did you have to
go into doing, you know, opening a hairshop. So I
actually went to Mikey store in Atlanta, and it's huge,
and he also has his warehouse facility there and so
when I went there, I did training. Just like we
(13:44):
m hired in a manager, so she came and did
training there for two weeks. I came there as well,
and so that's how I really learned a lot of
what I had to learn, and it it is also
like a process. As you continue you learn more and
more and more about the quality of hair. But he
gets it here directly from the distributor in China, and
so as soon as we're able to go to China,
I'll be able to go there and see the whole
(14:04):
process and how it works. But I also felt like
access was important just because we're the ones that are
buying all this hair and all of these products, but
we're also not involved as much in ownership as we
should be. And so for myself doing this, it was
a way for me to learn it, but to also say, okay,
now I've learned this information, so when other people are
ready to open THEIRS, I'll be able to be like, Okay,
I can help you with that, and I've already actually
(14:26):
helped some people open hair lines through us, and so
after that, I just want to encourage people because there's
space for everyone. Space. Oh my gosh, thank you for saying.
I feel like there is so much space for everyone.
There was so many Saint Fits table. There's so many
more tables that we can make. Um okay, So back
to this hair thing. So like, for real, when someone
has like of weed, that's like, I just can't understand.
(14:49):
Is there not much hair in the world, you know what?
So that's what I actually had on a fifty five
into You part wig when we did our grand opening, Yes,
and it was amazing, and something like that would probably
cost you like five thousand dollars, you know, to get made.
Just the quality of hair that it is, like it
is in great condition and to even get here that
(15:10):
long is pretty much unheard of. So that's what I
love about private labels. They have that access. And so
you should see some of the bundles that we have
a private label that you can't get anywhere else. And
every time I key posts them, everybody's in the comments like, yeah,
I need to get that hair. But you know it's
not a game. Not a game. Oh my god, we
(15:34):
like I send you the picture so you can see it.
But it wasn't amazing When I tell you, there's people
that have never commented. Like on my pictures before, everybody
was like, okay, girl, get a girl, because it does.
And I think sometimes there's also this misconception that oh,
we're trying to get this hair because we're not happy
with who we are without blackness and all of those things.
(15:55):
But here is an accessory and we've we've always switched
our hair up. We have all difference textures of hair,
and we can do what we want. We can diet,
we can do anything that we want to do to
our hair because guess what, we can cut it up.
It can grow back and we can take a wig off,
we could take a weave out, we can put braids in.
And that's what I love about us. I love that
and I love the versatility. It's it's just about self expression,
(16:18):
like I love it. So I love that we're sort
of throwing away that narrative that we're trying to do something.
It's not that, it's just how we choose to express
ourselves on Monday, Tuesday might be different than Thursday. So
I love that. And some guys will be like, I
don't like weaves until you put one in, and they're like, okay, exactly, Okay.
So my other favorite thing is coffee. I can about it.
(16:39):
And so now you've taken the fora and you're opening
a coffee cafe in Brooklyn as well. Yes, that's coffee
uplifts people. So we're doing us soft opening right now.
And let me tell you that's been you know, it's
it's dressful opening up business. It's dressful. All you can
do is try to be as prepared as you can
(16:59):
financially for anything that might come up, because something always
comes up. It never costs what you think is gonna cause.
So where's the captain? So that's awesome in Brooklyn and
best guy and that's gonna be on the corner of
Gates and Bedford and it's a beautiful coffee shop. And
we were very intentional on everybody that worked on this
coffee shop is a person of color. So even from
(17:22):
you know, our designer and architect lad In his firm
is a black firm, from the electrician to like everybody
that we have that's working on it. And so that
was something that we did because you know, we just
feel like there's so much great talent and people will
tell you, oh, it's hard to find a black designer.
It really wasn't. As a matter of fact, we had
to narrow it down to like our top seven, and
then it was so hard to choose because everybody's submissions
(17:45):
were so great we could have went with any single
one of them. Okay, I love that. I love that.
That is like literally us normalizing black excellence because there's
so many great service providers and just were intentional about
how we choose to let our dollars in our community.
It's actually easy. Yeah, it was honestly like we had
(18:05):
too many people, too many great qualified people to choose from,
and it was important because this is gonna be a
cultural hub. That's how we're looking at it too, and
so we wanted to make sure that whoever we have
building out the space with us also got it. When
I first moved to Brooklyn, i lived at Class and
E Gates and there was not around there for a while.
(18:26):
That's why. But the police station, right and exactly, Okay,
I love that. Okay, So I also like how you're
very candidate about the fact that opening a business is
not easy. Talk about some of the unseen hurdles that
you've stumbled the process. But it's particularly with the coffee business,
because I think there's a lot of people who are
trying to open brick and mortar stores in the hospitality industry. Um,
(18:50):
what are some of the big stumbling blocks that you've
encountered along the way? Well, whatever date did you have
to open, push it back, just do that now because
build out, getting permits, getting approvals, changing plans and then
resubmitting them. All of those things take time and everything
is so backed up right now, and so that's one
(19:10):
hurdle that we've had to definitely overcome. UM. Also, employees,
I think that's a huge one. Finding the right people
to come and work, and that's like an ongoing process
because you can't control other people and how they're gonna
act and how responsible they'll be. So that's an ongoing
hurdle in every single business that I have. And I'm
like a nice um you know, bus slash manager, and
(19:34):
so it is really hard for me when I know
people like because I also like to feel like I'm
accessible and some people will tell you that's not a
good thing. Like I know people who run businesses and
you know, they have a manager and then you talk
to the manager and the manager relays everything to you.
I try to be more hands on, but that's just
how I am. But sometimes I do think that there's
(19:54):
a lot of negatives to that. So you do have
to have boundaries and there's a balance of that. And
also know that people are gonna come here and work forever,
so you always have to be prepared to know who's
gonna be next. If this manager leaves, if this assistant manager.
You know, at least people call out sick all the time,
they show up late. You also have to make sure
(20:15):
that you're involved because people will get away with what
you let them get away with and then watch the money. Absolutely,
and that's just I mean, that's just business. That's we're
you know, having employees, etcetera. And things break all the
time too, so you have to have some good people
on hand when it's time to fix the juicer, when
the blender blades you know, go out, when the refrigerator breaks,
(20:35):
when something's wrong with the electrical when you know so
many different things, and then right now during the pandemic
as a shortage on cups and lids and all kinds
of equipment and things that we need for the store,
and then we're produced. The prices vary all the time.
They go up and down depending on seasons, so there's
just so many different variables. And I love this though,
(20:55):
because even just casually talking about it really shows that,
you know, for any entrepreneur, you have to know business.
It's not just oh, this lovely day, you're gonna wake
up and make people juice, but like down to the
minutia of like how much does a strawberry cost? What
is the commodities market looking? Like, you know, can I
continue selling this smoothie at this price if you know,
we can't get strawberries? And there are three times as
(21:17):
much like those are the details that make a successful business, right.
And we had a break in, you know a few
months ago, so that was tough too to have to
deal with. And then I had to leave work in
the middle of like doing the show, like I gotta
go to the store right now, and then I'm doing
a police report. Then I have to get somebody to
come and fix the glass. But I needed it fixed
right away, and so it's just so many different things.
(21:38):
You have to just be prepared to know that you
might be on vacation and have an emergency. So it's
important to always have really great management. Yeah, it's funny
because I think also two people think, Okay, you've got
a celebrity face to a business that you're not as involved.
But you know, I think for success to happen, you
have to know every single facet of your business. So
it's like you can be on vacation and people be like, oh,
(21:59):
she's just king money, and but you are still working
and you're still investing too, and just people have to
understand too, it's not like you'll make money right away.
A lot of times you're just trying to keep the
business afloat so you're not still bleeding out money, and
you're trying trying to get to this space where okay,
the businesses you know, maintaining itself. Then you can start
paying yourself back from the investment that you've made. But
(22:21):
you're also always willing to reinvest into your business. And
so if you think that I'm going to open this
business and next month I'm gonna be rich, just understand
it could take years before you even break even, right right,
Thank you so much for your time. You know, what's
really beautiful about all the work that you're doing is
that you're so intentional about giving back to the community.
You're building businesses, creating jobs in your own within our
(22:42):
own communities in Brooklyn and bed Sty, and also providing
like entertainment and a voice of reason on every morning
on your Radium show. So thank you so much. We
appreciate you, and you are a guest, but thank you.
I hope we do a part too soon because I
feel like we've got a lot more to talk about. Actually,
I mean, for there are other stuff that other endeavors
(23:03):
and stuff that you want me to cover. Um. I
just have the Press Juice Company also during Fresh Juice,
so that's in supermarkets. Oh okay, let's talk about that.
So did not come before or after the juice store.
So with the juice bar, I actually started the Press
Juice Company as an offshoot of that, just because a
lot of people would come in and say how can
(23:25):
I get this? Where I'm from, people would be online
like we need one of those in our town, and
so I was like, all right, I'm gonna do a
Press Juice that's available in stores, and we just launched that, yes,
a couple of months ago, and it's been really amazing.
Like Rouses was the first place that picked us up
in Louisiana and they put us, Yeah, they put us
in the Rouses store, So that was exciting as well
(23:45):
as the coffee. The coffee is actually in Hope Foods
and Stoff and Chop in the New York City area
starting this week, so that's really exciting for us. Also
as we're about to open the shop, you know that
would be available in stores and so we were just
hoping to expand from there. Get not distribution like that,
especially on a cold pressed juice because it's hard, like
you have to maintain this quality of product, Like that's
(24:06):
really incredible. Yeah, it's all organic nin GMO. Obviously, it's
all vegan, and we did a whole de tax with
the juices too, with the de tax now that people
love and so that's something I encouraged too because I
just did my first detox like three years ago and
it really is life changing. Really, wait, how long is
the detox? Because I've tried a couple one to three days.
(24:28):
I haven't gone longer than that it's hard, but I
definitely felt the benefits. But this one is a weak
But I feel like you could do it because the
juices tastes really good. You won't be hungry. I did
a fast for two weeks, where to eat anything at all,
so this was a breeze. I still went to work
and we're you're cheerful yourself. I was, but I would
say people were definitely turning into like food in front
(24:50):
of me. I'll talk to you, you'll turn into a
slice of pizza. And like my my sense of smell
was heightened. Every time I walked past the restaurant. I
was like a s everything. Oh my gosh, two weeks,
that's insane. I completely commend you, Angela. You are such
a good example of how your money should move to
reflect the things you've championed for. Please tell our listeners
(25:11):
where they can find you and where they can find
all your businesses. But thank you, Taniel. I appreciate it,
and I had such a great time with you today
and I can't wait till we do this in person
one day soon. But you can find me at Angela Yee.
I'm also on Facebook, so make sure you follow me
there too, as well and on Twitter is at Angela
g and then Coffee Uplifts people. That's the Instagram name,
(25:31):
Drink Fresh, Juice and Juice is for Life b K.
Those are all the Instagram pages. I love it, I
love it, I love it. You seriously are doing it all.
Thank you so much Angela for being on the show
and hope to hear you see you again sometime soon.
Thank you. I don't know about your money Movers, but
I am inspired. It was so great to have Angela
here to pare her journey, her winds, and she's all
(25:53):
about things that I know. We all love coffee, hair, juice. UM.
But that's all we have today for you in this episode.
Make sure you join us again next time on the
Money Moves Podcast powered by Greenwood. Thank you so much
for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more
or a recap of this episode, please go to the
bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves
podcast blog. Money Moves is an I Heart Radio podcast
(26:20):
powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For
more podcast on I heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
from
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Welcome Money Moves family
to the Money Moves Podcast powered by Greenwood. Once again,
(00:23):
it's that time for us to be joined by our
celebrity guests of the week. She brings that much needed
female divine energy to the power one oh five nationally
syndicated morning show The Breakfast Club, alongside DJ Envy and
Charlemagne the God. She is on the board of Governors
for We Are Family Foundation and a board member of
the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies,
(00:45):
as well as an ambassador for the New York Public Library.
And y'all know how much I love to read. But
there is still more. She is the creator and host
of the popular podcast lip Service, the proprietor of Juices
for Life b K, which she partnered with j A.
Kiss and Styles p of Wrap Group The Locks. And
she's the owner of Private Label, a hair extension shop
(01:06):
in Detroit. And soon she's entering into the coffee business
by opening up Cup Cafe and b K Brooklyn. Needless
to say, this woman has been making her money move
for her in all sorts of arenas money movers. Let's
welcome the one, the Only angela yea podcast. Hey Tanye,
how are you? I love your hair, by the way,
(01:27):
thank you, thank you, thank you. I love your curls.
I feel like I go back and forth between a
braid style and my ponytail all the time. That's been
my life. Is a bun, or is some braids, or
I have it curly for like one day, I got banks,
but I'm already sick of theom oh. I know, I
did the curly bang thing. I did the curly bank thing.
I'm so glad to have you on our podcast today.
(01:49):
You know, most of our audience knows you from the
Breakfast Club. You've had a whole life and career before that,
and so I want to be able to properly introduce
angela Ye to the Money Moves audience, UM as well
as Greenwood. So can we go way way back and
start off how your career in the music industry, UM,
and tell us a little bit about those early days.
(02:10):
I was just talking about how important part internships are,
so I would say I started for real in college
doing internships. I interned at a label called TVT Records.
They're the ones that did like a lot of the
cartoon music for television shows. But that's also where some
artists were signed, like Mike Geronimo jar Rule actually had
a deal there at one point, and so that was
(02:30):
TVT Records, And then I did an internship at MTV
interned at Wootang at their management company in Staten Island,
So that was kind of early on before I even
graduated from school. And then when I graduated from college,
my first job was assistant to the CEO of Woutang Corporation.
So Woutang had their hands and a lot of different businesses, music, publishing,
(02:51):
a production company, they were signed to multiple labels, they
had a management company, so they did so many different things.
I was able to see that multitasking super early on,
and each of them had like their own different corporation
and so those are some interesting things for me to
witness and also see how they were doing deals. You know,
my bus Um Divine, he wasn't in the office a lot.
(03:12):
And it's so funny by the way, watching the Wu
Tang Hulu show because I'm like, oh my god, that's
so him. But he wasn't in the office a lot,
so it gave me an opportunity to really see how
things work, Like as far as finances, I was in
charge of payroll and I didn't know anything about that first.
And so when I ended up working in radio, my
first job was as Serious. That's before they merged with
(03:35):
XM Radio. So I worked at Serious for six years
and that's where I first started doing any type of investing.
We had a financial expert that used to come on
the show. He was like a investor, um, you know,
he was a financial planner, but he was also a rapper.
His name was Billy Shakes, and he came on and
he was like, you don't have an IRA, you don't
have a roth Ira, you don't do this, you don't
(03:56):
do that. And I was like no, because sometimes we're
just living checked to check and we don't think we
have any extra money to spend. So that's what first
got me started, Like, Okay, I gotta start investing. And
how old were you at this point, because I feel like,
you know, sometimes we we think we need to be
forty and fifty before we're like really thinking about investing
in I RAS, But you seem to have learned this
(04:16):
lesson pretty early. I was about twenty nine years old,
and so I felt like I learned it late, truthfully,
because you know, the earlier you start to invest, the
more money that you'll end up making. So you could
put in way less to make more. And so I
just wish that from when I was twenty one years old,
i'd have been putting in even fifty dollars a month.
We would have made such a huge difference. And so
(04:39):
for people who have kids, there's so many apps right
now where you can get them started on investing. There
there's no reason not too and people get more comfortable
with money. They've done studies that your kids who have
a bank account end up being way better with money
later on in life. And I love that. And that's
really what we're trying to do here with Money Moves
and Bankering Wood is to have these conversations UM be
a natural narror ative in our black and brown communities
(05:01):
right from an early stage. So we're teaching our kids
the financial literacy, and you know, we're kind of breaking
these erroneous myths that we've had that have been really
pervasive in our community. So I love to hear that
you started early. Um. I also want to touch on
the fact that you talked about like the importance of internships,
because I think oftentimes people think, you know, you've got
(05:21):
to go into this high profile job, really, you know,
really early, and like this is too low for me.
But you know a lot of the successful people we
have on here are like I started literally at the bottom.
That is not just an expression. And I wasn't getting
paid either, and that was tough for me because I
was in school. I was working at the supermarket on campus,
(05:42):
you know, making like six fifty an hour and working
really hard to make that a little bit of money.
And then I was also doing these free internships, and
so it really is an investment into your future. I
had to look at it like this is taking a
course and also developing those relationships, because definitely once I,
as you ated it, I had a lot of opportunities
and people that already had worked with me. Even when
(06:04):
I went to go work for Wutang. The reason they
hired me, it wasn't even an interview or anything. It
was just, yo, we were looking for you. We you know,
we remember you from the internship and we were like, yeah,
we want her to come work here and it was
that easy. And you know, again and again like this
idea of like creating your network is the people around you.
It's not the people above you that you can say, hey,
(06:25):
you know, can you ment to me? It's the people
around you that you grow up with over the years.
They were like, remember you putting in the time there
and they came looking for you. That's pretty amazing. And
I always talk about how college is important, not just
for the education you get, you know, and I'm not
saying that you have to go to college, but if
you do go that network of people that you went
to school with. I've made so much money and gotten
(06:46):
so many opportunities just from the people I went to
college with. Even now, I'm still involved with things as
an alumni and West Wesleyan University that's where lyn Manuel
Miranda went to and um he wrote Hamilton's and so
they had this whole Hamilton's Scholarship Fund and I'm on
the committee where we actually end up giving away four
year scholarships completely free to Yeah, some of these contestants
(07:11):
that are submitting uh their artistic works and then we
judge them. And I think that's amazing because we all
know how pricey college is. It's a huge issue right now,
which I wish it would have been when I was younger,
because I'm like, I could have used some student loan
forgiveness myself. I mean, it's just we just did a
segment on that and how hard it is to be
saddled with those like exponential student loans and how yeah,
(07:35):
it's it's it's a whole thing. It's a whole thing.
So fast forward. Now you're on the Breakfast Club, which
is one of the I guess nation's most popular UM
syndicated radio shows. How did you want to Did you
dream of being on radio or so you just sort
of transitioned into this. I ended up in radio by
accident because I would. I have a background at marketing,
(07:59):
and so that's really what I had been doing, just
working in marketing, doing UM in house for I worked
at a marketing company and then I freelance and I
had a few different clients at once, and then I
went back in house to a clothing line working in
their marketing and product placement department, and then I started
freelancing again, and so that was what my background was.
I was really trying to get a job and serious
(08:20):
in their marketing department. When I had the opportunity from
Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg to actually audition for the morning
show as a co host side pick it. I mean,
that's a great voice, and I love you know, the
thought that you put into your work on the Breakfast Club,
and you just add such a great dynamic. But now
you've sort of started to diversify and you're making all
(08:43):
these entrepreneurial moves and pursuits. How did that sort of
evolve as part of your process. The first thing that
I really did was my podcast, and that is definitely
something I mean aside from the fact that I have
my own company set up and that's for my outside
appearances and for any anything like endorsements and other things
that I do outside of work. But then I also
(09:05):
started my podcast, so that gave me an opportunity to
kind of just put something together myself and deal with
the business behind the scenes. And then after that, I
decided I wanted to open this Juice bar, and I
had seen what Styles Peace was doing, and I've seen
what Jada Kiss was doing in The Bronx and the Yonkers,
and so we ended up going to a Styles piece
video shoot and just approaching him about doing one in
(09:27):
Brooklyn because I live in Brooklyn. I love getting juices.
Is what helps me every single morning be able to
function and think clearly. And I do worry about my
health all the time, so I want to make sure
that I'm getting my fruits and vegetables every day. And
I wanted something that was beneficial to the community because
I felt like I needed it. A lot of times
people get juices and they'll go to someplace and it's
(09:49):
like pureade. If you see them like taking out some
frozen puade fruits and scooping stuff out and using orange juice,
that's not what you really need. You want real fresh
hole fruits and vegetables. So if you go to like
a deli or something and you want to juice, always
say what whole fruits and vegetables do you have that
You're not getting those peerade added sugar, uh, you know
(10:10):
types of drinks. And so I just wanted something like that,
and I loved with Styles and Jada Kiss we're doing
for the community. So I approached him and managed to
open one in Brooklyn. Wow, Okay, so that's a huge
I mean, that's a huge accomplishment. You know, you have
to find a location, you needed to get the proper
you know, machinery to make this cold Pruss juice. Talk about, um,
you know what went into that and how you even
(10:32):
started to allocate funds for the investment, because like this
is bossy lady like to hear about it. So people
will tell you different things about how to open the
business and whose money you should use. Some people will
tell you, don't use your own money, use other people's money.
Some people will tell you invest in yourself. And I
believe accompanation of both this good. We were fortunate in
(10:54):
doing this business that we split it three ways and
so we were able to use our own fund to
be able to put into the space to open it.
And I also believe that partnering with somebody who's already
opened several juice bars helped us and put us at
a great advantage because they knew where to order all
the equipment from, they knew exactly what we needed, they
knew where we're going to get our fruits and produced from,
(11:15):
and so that really took away a lot of the
trial and error that I would have had to go
through if I hadn't teamed up with them, and so
for myself, if I was doing a business and this
was my soul focused, I could see being a sole owner.
But because I know I have a million other things
to do, I also understand the value and having partners
that can step up when you're not available to do things,
(11:35):
and then you're able to step up when they can't,
and you also bring different things to the table. And
so that's what really helped me a lot as far
as opening this juice bar. Yeah, I mean, entrepreneurship is
really intensive and so being you understand your limited you know,
especially for someone like yourself who wears many many hats, um,
you know, picking the right partner, I mean, which it's
(11:56):
essentially like a marriage, but it's crucial, it's key, and
I think you've done well. Okay, So what's tell us
where the juice bar is located and tell us your
favorite juice alright, So it is in bed side to
seventies seven Malcolm X Boulevard and my favorite juice berries.
But people know me from the G five and we've
actually called it the YE five once I started working
there because I was always getting it. But it is
(12:18):
um ginger, it's chale, spinach, bananas and green apples. Who
I add the ginger actually doesn't have but I add
the ginger to it, and so, um, that's what it is.
And I add ginger to everything. To be honest, ginger
is so good for you. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Um,
I even need it raw sometimes. But I'm also I
love juices. I also love hair. So you've also opened
(12:41):
a hair shop and tell me about that. Yes, and
that was another great partnership private label Detroit. So my
partner is Mikey Morin, and he already had a location
in Atlanta. He opened one in um, North Carolina as well,
and so I met him because we were working on
some things together through I Heart. And then I told him,
(13:01):
I said, look, if you ever want to open a
store in Detroit, let me know I would be open
to do that during the pandemic. He Detroit, New York. Well,
I also I actually have properties in Detroit also. Side. Now, okay,
so you want to I mean this will be forever girl. Um,
all right, You've got hair in Detroit and I'm fascinated
(13:23):
with the hair industry. Um, and so I love that
this was this was important to you how much did
you have to how much research did you have to
go into doing, you know, opening a hairshop. So I
actually went to Mikey store in Atlanta, and it's huge,
and he also has his warehouse facility there and so
when I went there, I did training. Just like we
(13:44):
m hired in a manager, so she came and did
training there for two weeks. I came there as well,
and so that's how I really learned a lot of
what I had to learn, and it it is also
like a process. As you continue you learn more and
more and more about the quality of hair. But he
gets it here directly from the distributor in China, and
so as soon as we're able to go to China,
I'll be able to go there and see the whole
(14:04):
process and how it works. But I also felt like
access was important just because we're the ones that are
buying all this hair and all of these products, but
we're also not involved as much in ownership as we
should be. And so for myself doing this, it was
a way for me to learn it, but to also say, okay,
now I've learned this information, so when other people are
ready to open THEIRS, I'll be able to be like, Okay,
I can help you with that, and I've already actually
(14:26):
helped some people open hair lines through us, and so
after that, I just want to encourage people because there's
space for everyone. Space. Oh my gosh, thank you for saying.
I feel like there is so much space for everyone.
There was so many Saint Fits table. There's so many
more tables that we can make. Um okay, So back
to this hair thing. So like, for real, when someone
has like of weed, that's like, I just can't understand.
(14:49):
Is there not much hair in the world, you know what?
So that's what I actually had on a fifty five
into You part wig when we did our grand opening, Yes,
and it was amazing, and something like that would probably
cost you like five thousand dollars, you know, to get made.
Just the quality of hair that it is, like it
is in great condition and to even get here that
(15:10):
long is pretty much unheard of. So that's what I
love about private labels. They have that access. And so
you should see some of the bundles that we have
a private label that you can't get anywhere else. And
every time I key posts them, everybody's in the comments like, yeah,
I need to get that hair. But you know it's
not a game. Not a game. Oh my god, we
(15:34):
like I send you the picture so you can see it.
But it wasn't amazing When I tell you, there's people
that have never commented. Like on my pictures before, everybody
was like, okay, girl, get a girl, because it does.
And I think sometimes there's also this misconception that oh,
we're trying to get this hair because we're not happy
with who we are without blackness and all of those things.
(15:55):
But here is an accessory and we've we've always switched
our hair up. We have all difference textures of hair,
and we can do what we want. We can diet,
we can do anything that we want to do to
our hair because guess what, we can cut it up.
It can grow back and we can take a wig off,
we could take a weave out, we can put braids in.
And that's what I love about us. I love that
and I love the versatility. It's it's just about self expression,
(16:18):
like I love it. So I love that we're sort
of throwing away that narrative that we're trying to do something.
It's not that, it's just how we choose to express
ourselves on Monday, Tuesday might be different than Thursday. So
I love that. And some guys will be like, I
don't like weaves until you put one in, and they're like, okay, exactly, Okay.
So my other favorite thing is coffee. I can about it.
(16:39):
And so now you've taken the fora and you're opening
a coffee cafe in Brooklyn as well. Yes, that's coffee
uplifts people. So we're doing us soft opening right now.
And let me tell you that's been you know, it's
it's dressful opening up business. It's dressful. All you can
do is try to be as prepared as you can
(16:59):
financially for anything that might come up, because something always
comes up. It never costs what you think is gonna cause.
So where's the captain? So that's awesome in Brooklyn and
best guy and that's gonna be on the corner of
Gates and Bedford and it's a beautiful coffee shop. And
we were very intentional on everybody that worked on this
coffee shop is a person of color. So even from
(17:22):
you know, our designer and architect lad In his firm
is a black firm, from the electrician to like everybody
that we have that's working on it. And so that
was something that we did because you know, we just
feel like there's so much great talent and people will
tell you, oh, it's hard to find a black designer.
It really wasn't. As a matter of fact, we had
to narrow it down to like our top seven, and
then it was so hard to choose because everybody's submissions
(17:45):
were so great we could have went with any single
one of them. Okay, I love that. I love that.
That is like literally us normalizing black excellence because there's
so many great service providers and just were intentional about
how we choose to let our dollars in our community.
It's actually easy. Yeah, it was honestly like we had
(18:05):
too many people, too many great qualified people to choose from,
and it was important because this is gonna be a
cultural hub. That's how we're looking at it too, and
so we wanted to make sure that whoever we have
building out the space with us also got it. When
I first moved to Brooklyn, i lived at Class and
E Gates and there was not around there for a while.
(18:26):
That's why. But the police station, right and exactly, Okay,
I love that. Okay, So I also like how you're
very candidate about the fact that opening a business is
not easy. Talk about some of the unseen hurdles that
you've stumbled the process. But it's particularly with the coffee business,
because I think there's a lot of people who are
trying to open brick and mortar stores in the hospitality industry. Um,
(18:50):
what are some of the big stumbling blocks that you've
encountered along the way? Well, whatever date did you have
to open, push it back, just do that now because
build out, getting permits, getting approvals, changing plans and then
resubmitting them. All of those things take time and everything
is so backed up right now, and so that's one
(19:10):
hurdle that we've had to definitely overcome. UM. Also, employees,
I think that's a huge one. Finding the right people
to come and work, and that's like an ongoing process
because you can't control other people and how they're gonna
act and how responsible they'll be. So that's an ongoing
hurdle in every single business that I have. And I'm
like a nice um you know, bus slash manager, and
(19:34):
so it is really hard for me when I know
people like because I also like to feel like I'm
accessible and some people will tell you that's not a
good thing. Like I know people who run businesses and
you know, they have a manager and then you talk
to the manager and the manager relays everything to you.
I try to be more hands on, but that's just
how I am. But sometimes I do think that there's
(19:54):
a lot of negatives to that. So you do have
to have boundaries and there's a balance of that. And
also know that people are gonna come here and work forever,
so you always have to be prepared to know who's
gonna be next. If this manager leaves, if this assistant manager.
You know, at least people call out sick all the time,
they show up late. You also have to make sure
(20:15):
that you're involved because people will get away with what
you let them get away with and then watch the money. Absolutely,
and that's just I mean, that's just business. That's we're
you know, having employees, etcetera. And things break all the
time too, so you have to have some good people
on hand when it's time to fix the juicer, when
the blender blades you know, go out, when the refrigerator breaks,
(20:35):
when something's wrong with the electrical when you know so
many different things, and then right now during the pandemic
as a shortage on cups and lids and all kinds
of equipment and things that we need for the store,
and then we're produced. The prices vary all the time.
They go up and down depending on seasons, so there's
just so many different variables. And I love this though,
(20:55):
because even just casually talking about it really shows that,
you know, for any entrepreneur, you have to know business.
It's not just oh, this lovely day, you're gonna wake
up and make people juice, but like down to the
minutia of like how much does a strawberry cost? What
is the commodities market looking? Like, you know, can I
continue selling this smoothie at this price if you know,
we can't get strawberries? And there are three times as
(21:17):
much like those are the details that make a successful business, right.
And we had a break in, you know a few
months ago, so that was tough too to have to
deal with. And then I had to leave work in
the middle of like doing the show, like I gotta
go to the store right now, and then I'm doing
a police report. Then I have to get somebody to
come and fix the glass. But I needed it fixed
right away, and so it's just so many different things.
(21:38):
You have to just be prepared to know that you
might be on vacation and have an emergency. So it's
important to always have really great management. Yeah, it's funny
because I think also two people think, Okay, you've got
a celebrity face to a business that you're not as involved.
But you know, I think for success to happen, you
have to know every single facet of your business. So
it's like you can be on vacation and people be like, oh,
(21:59):
she's just king money, and but you are still working
and you're still investing too, and just people have to
understand too, it's not like you'll make money right away.
A lot of times you're just trying to keep the
business afloat so you're not still bleeding out money, and
you're trying trying to get to this space where okay,
the businesses you know, maintaining itself. Then you can start
paying yourself back from the investment that you've made. But
(22:21):
you're also always willing to reinvest into your business. And
so if you think that I'm going to open this
business and next month I'm gonna be rich, just understand
it could take years before you even break even, right right,
Thank you so much for your time. You know, what's
really beautiful about all the work that you're doing is
that you're so intentional about giving back to the community.
You're building businesses, creating jobs in your own within our
(22:42):
own communities in Brooklyn and bed Sty, and also providing
like entertainment and a voice of reason on every morning
on your Radium show. So thank you so much. We
appreciate you, and you are a guest, but thank you.
I hope we do a part too soon because I
feel like we've got a lot more to talk about. Actually,
I mean, for there are other stuff that other endeavors
(23:03):
and stuff that you want me to cover. Um. I
just have the Press Juice Company also during Fresh Juice,
so that's in supermarkets. Oh okay, let's talk about that.
So did not come before or after the juice store.
So with the juice bar, I actually started the Press
Juice Company as an offshoot of that, just because a
lot of people would come in and say how can
(23:25):
I get this? Where I'm from, people would be online
like we need one of those in our town, and
so I was like, all right, I'm gonna do a
Press Juice that's available in stores, and we just launched that, yes,
a couple of months ago, and it's been really amazing.
Like Rouses was the first place that picked us up
in Louisiana and they put us, Yeah, they put us
in the Rouses store, So that was exciting as well
(23:45):
as the coffee. The coffee is actually in Hope Foods
and Stoff and Chop in the New York City area
starting this week, so that's really exciting for us. Also
as we're about to open the shop, you know that
would be available in stores and so we were just
hoping to expand from there. Get not distribution like that,
especially on a cold pressed juice because it's hard, like
you have to maintain this quality of product, Like that's
(24:06):
really incredible. Yeah, it's all organic nin GMO. Obviously, it's
all vegan, and we did a whole de tax with
the juices too, with the de tax now that people
love and so that's something I encouraged too because I
just did my first detox like three years ago and
it really is life changing. Really, wait, how long is
the detox? Because I've tried a couple one to three days.
(24:28):
I haven't gone longer than that it's hard, but I
definitely felt the benefits. But this one is a weak
But I feel like you could do it because the
juices tastes really good. You won't be hungry. I did
a fast for two weeks, where to eat anything at all,
so this was a breeze. I still went to work
and we're you're cheerful yourself. I was, but I would
say people were definitely turning into like food in front
(24:50):
of me. I'll talk to you, you'll turn into a
slice of pizza. And like my my sense of smell
was heightened. Every time I walked past the restaurant. I
was like a s everything. Oh my gosh, two weeks,
that's insane. I completely commend you, Angela. You are such
a good example of how your money should move to
reflect the things you've championed for. Please tell our listeners
(25:11):
where they can find you and where they can find
all your businesses. But thank you, Taniel. I appreciate it,
and I had such a great time with you today
and I can't wait till we do this in person
one day soon. But you can find me at Angela Yee.
I'm also on Facebook, so make sure you follow me
there too, as well and on Twitter is at Angela
g and then Coffee Uplifts people. That's the Instagram name,
(25:31):
Drink Fresh, Juice and Juice is for Life b K.
Those are all the Instagram pages. I love it, I
love it, I love it. You seriously are doing it all.
Thank you so much Angela for being on the show
and hope to hear you see you again sometime soon.
Thank you. I don't know about your money Movers, but
I am inspired. It was so great to have Angela
here to pare her journey, her winds, and she's all
(25:53):
about things that I know. We all love coffee, hair, juice. UM.
But that's all we have today for you in this episode.
Make sure you join us again next time on the
Money Moves Podcast powered by Greenwood. Thank you so much
for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you want more
or a recap of this episode, please go to the
bank Greenwood dot com and check out the Money Moves
podcast blog. Money Moves is an I Heart Radio podcast
(26:20):
powered by Greenwood Executive produced by Sunwise Media, Inc. For
more podcast on I heart Radio, visit the I heart
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